The Tome of Bill (Book 6): Half A Prayer (37 page)

“They were holding Bill’s friends hostage.”

“Humans,” he scoffed, looking at me. “Betraying the wishes of the First for an Icon and now humans? What is next, Freewill? Do you care to declare yourself an agent of the Grendel?”

“Fuck no!” I shouted.

Alex smirked ever so slightly at that. Apparently, my insolence amused him to no end - how wonderful. “It was a rhetorical question.”

“Oh, sorry.”

He turned back to Sheila. “You claim this was merely a rescue mission. Yet somehow you, the Freewill, a lone witch, and a few humans decimated an elite strike team and a coven of experienced Magi.”

Sheila glanced toward me, but I was already turning away to scan the crowd for Christy’s accusers. The thing about the battle with Remington was that we’d just barely won, but it hadn’t been alone. Other forces had been present, information that the Draculas were apparently not privy to. I preferred to keep it that way. The fewer who had to suffer for my actions, the better. Considering the way my luck had been going, I fully expected the witch who’d spilled the beans on Christy to do the same regarding that little tidbit.

Or not. Neither the witch, the grand mentor of awesome beardedness, nor any of the other mages from their group were anywhere to be seen. Oh well, maybe they’d said their piece and then hauled ass. That would’ve been a welcome bit of news. It was bad enough two of the women in my life were in danger. I preferred there not be a third, especially since I didn’t want her around making creepy little doe eyes at me. Talk about skin-crawling distractions.

While this was going on, Sheila had replied with some bullshit about Remington not giving us a choice. That was true in of itself, although letting any of them escape hadn’t really been an option either, as everything happening now would have been exposed that much sooner.

Alex smiled grimly at her response. “So you still claim you are an agent of peace, a protector of the weak?”

“I do.”

He lifted his hand and gestured off to one side. A vampire ran up, holding something in his hands. It was a long box, like something one would keep a guitar in. Maybe he was going to entertain us with a kickass solo of “Stairway to Heaven.”

As the guard held it up, Alex unsnapped the locks and opened it. Whatever was inside definitely wasn’t a guitar.

Most musical instruments didn’t glow with a white light.

Sheila’s eyes widened and the white fires of faith erupted around her, causing me to jump back a step as Alex lifted the sword from its protective case.

He hissed as his skin sizzled from merely touching it, but he powered through it, sucking up the obvious pain. Smoke rose from his hand as he held aloft the weapon. “Behold the sword of
Jeanne d'Arc,
Icon
of
Orleans
.
Despite what
the
human
histories
might
claim to the
contrary
,
this weapon was used
to
decimate nearly every coven that existed
in
Northern
France
during her day
.
”

“It’s mine now.”

“And you deny having used it against Remington’s forces?”

Sheila was silent.

“No? How about more recently against the coven formerly of Brighton, New York?” With flames now openly escaping between his fingers, Alex turned the sword blade down and drove it into the floor before his chair - sinking it several inches deep before releasing the hilt. “I thought not.”

He stepped around it and addressed the crowd. “I believe we have heard enough, but it is tradition that the First be just and merciful before casting judgment.”

A snort of laughter escaped my closed lips. I couldn’t help myself - probably the hunger shorting out my common sense. Tom found it amusing, but he seemed to be my lone supporter in that. I half expected to be pummeled into silence, but Alex ignored me, as if expecting no better.

“I hereby suspend the protocols of rank set forth by this body. Any who wish to speak out, either for or against the Icon, may do so now without fear of reprisal.”

He barely waited a beat before opening his mouth again, smugly sure that whatever his declaration, nobody, especially the vampires in the room, were insane enough to say shit against him.

In that he was wrong, for just then, a small voice spoke out from the back of the auditorium.

“You are a fool, Alexander.”

The voice had a disturbingly familiar youthful cadence to it that belied the underlying confidence it carried forth. I only needed a single sentence to place it, but it was enough to make me wish I’d been executed up front.

I couldn’t have spun faster had I been tazed in the ass. Ed was nearly as quick, his first meeting with the voice’s owner having left quite the impression.

Gan stood on her chair at the far end of the auditorium to compensate for her diminutive size. That must have been how I’d missed her in my scans of the audience. When one was concentrating on all the big bad things in the room, it could be a fatal mistake to overlook the small
worse
things lurking about.

She wasn’t alone either. Scattered throughout the crowd, vampires wearing traditional Mongolian assassin attire stood as she did. I didn’t know if she was expecting trouble, but she’d come prepared for it anyway - no matter how badly outnumbered her people might be.

I will give her credit, though. Everything else I’d been feeling - hunger, despair, worry for my friends - it all shriveled up and receded deep inside of me, or maybe that was just my nutsack. Oh, crap. No matter which way you spun it, I couldn’t see any way that her presence here wouldn’t make our situation even worse.

“Looks like your fiancé is here, Bill,” Tom said, stepping up alongside me. Oh, how I could have killed him for that remark alone. “Hey, why isn’t she down here with...”

“Shut up,” I hissed, elbowing him in the ribs - probably harder than warranted.

He had a point, though. Gan had been instrumental in our surviving Remington’s team. Hell, she’d even been the one who’d personally dispatched Harry Decker. She likewise had ordered Christy’s former coven to be hunted down and disposed of - succeeding
nearly
to the last witch.

She’d obviously done a better job of covering her tracks than we had. The only ones who knew of her involvement were us, Sally, and the witch from earlier. Sally was brain-fucked right now, and the witch had conveniently taken an unexpected smoke break. So that left those of us standing around as prisoners, and I sure as shit wasn’t ratting her out. Rationally, that made sense. After all, having a powerful ally on the outside could be helpful. In reality, I just didn’t want her down here, pawing at me like some crazed miniature octopus.

All of this introspection took place within seconds. A good chunk of the crowd seemed to be doing likewise - craning their necks to see who had enough of a death-wish to challenge the First. The funny thing was, they were right to think that. Gan had confided in me her two ultimate ambitions: marrying me and bumping off the Draculas. Considering the first one, I found myself wondering if it was too late to throw myself on the mercy of the court.

“Gansetseg,” Alex began, seemingly unperturbed by her insolence, “Prefect of the Manchurian Steppe and daughter of the Khan, our late lamented brother. You are acknowledged. I believe you were telling the assembled what a fool I was.”

Yeah, this was definitely going to be interesting.

* * *

“Indeed,” Gan replied. “You yourself lowered protocol. If you wish to reinstate it, I shall begin again in a more formal manner.”

“Unnecessary,” Alex countered. “I believe your prefecture recently reported a significant victory in the Altai Mountains over a combined army of the Grendel and the Children of Erlik. Is that not so?”

“So it was. The heads of the alma adorn pikes leading out a full kilometer from my
ger-tereg.”

“My compliments, Prefect. I believe the First would be happy to indulge you in whatever you feel you need to add to these proceedings.”

I had no idea what any of that meant, other than reinforcing that Gan was batshit crazy. Regardless, she apparently had the résumé to back up her words.

“Thank you, Lord Alexander,” she replied in a respectful tone that I was pretty sure wasn’t. “Likewise, my compliments to the glorious First Coven. My father was humbled to be among your number. One day, I hope to honor his memory by ascending to your ranks.”

A loud, derisive sound interrupted from just to the left of where the First sat.

“Did you have something to add, Francois?” I couldn’t help but notice Alex conveniently
forgot
to add his title to the question.

“Sorry, my lord,” Francois replied with barely concealed contempt. “I was just clearing my throat.”

“Then kindly do so quietly. You do not have the floor.” The tone of Alex’s voice implied he probably wouldn’t ever have it either. “Continue, Gansetseg.”

Gan nodded to him, a neutral smile upon her face. It turned to something a lot less neutral for a moment when she looked down and locked eyes with me. Oh shit. I quickly eyed the guards at our periphery - the ones who’d brought Sheila in. With any luck, I could leap onto their drawn weapons and turn to dust before anyone noticed.

A hand fell on my shoulder and I nearly jumped out of my skin.

“Relax,” Sheila said softly, repressing her faith power so as to not fry me. “You look like you’re about to have a heart attack.”

I almost had to laugh. Of all of us, she was in the most danger, yet she was offering
me
some comfort. For just a moment, I looked into her magnificent eyes and it was like the world ceased to exist. Then Gan started talking.

“It saddens me to see how far we have strayed from the path laid down for us by the elder seers,” she said, throwing me a wink. Gah! “Have not their prophecies guided us through the ages?”

“So they have, but their time wanes. The seers, honored though they may be, have brought us this far, but they can see no further. The mists of the future are obscured to them in these regards. The time for strategy and guile is upon us. Considering your ancestry, I would think you would draw the same conclusions.”

Ooh, nice dig by Alexander.

“Nonsense,” Gan replied dismissively. “My grandfather, the great Temüjin, carried his mystics with him through all his journeys. He continually mixed their insight with his own strategic genius. That is why his empire eventually became greater than that of any other conqueror before or since.”

Whoa, even bigger smack in the face by Gan. Not only was that a burn, but she poured salt in the wound too.

“Regardless,” she continued, “the outcome foreseen by the seers may be uncertain, but the steps leading up to it are not. The Shining One shall stand as the cattle’s last shepherd...”

“Cattle?” a voice behind me asked.

“I think she means people,” I whispered back to Sheila.

“...in the final days of the war, my beloved...”

“Will you knock it off already?!” Did I say that out loud? Oh, how I do love losing my shit and then finding dozens of unfriendly eyeballs turning my way.

Tom and Ed tried, unsuccessfully, to repress snickers - pair of cocks. Christy and Sheila at least seemed to offer me some sympathy in their glances.

“Freewill,” Alex said, his voice stern, “know that I will give you even less quarter for interruption than our guests. My offer for input does not extend to you or your cohorts.”

“Um, sorry.”

“It is good to see you too, beloved,” Gan said, completely ignoring what I just screamed. Oh God, she was infuriating.

“Can you please clarify your previous statement for the benefit of the assembled?” Alex asked.

For a moment, Gan looked perplexed. Apparently, in her mind, the word “beloved” had been officially substituted for “Freewill” in the prophecies she was quoting. What a complete nutball. “My apologies. In the final days of the war, the Shining One shall meet the Freewill upon the battlefield. Their actions shall determine the course the world will take.”

“I believe most of us are aware of that. Your point?”

“And yet most chose to foolishly believe the Icon dead when even a simpleton could have predicted her survival. Even the First themselves seemed to put stock in this folly.”

That sent up a murmur of discussion amongst the crowd.

“Know that my indulgence is limited,” Alex replied coldly. “I would urge caution,
child
.”

Gan bristled visibly at the remark, but managed to keep her composure. “It was not my intention to offend, great Alexander. Yet the fact remains it came to pass. For centuries, we have waited. Finally, when Dr. Death was revealed to us, that long wait was justified. Yet now, we casually brush aside that wisdom because of something so base as fear?”

“What would you have us do?”

“My own mystics have been studying the portents. The time of this final confrontation is rapidly approaching, but it is not upon us yet. The Freewill and the Shining One should be allowed to forge their own paths, knowing that whatever roads they take will eventually lead them back to one another.”

This was interesting, although I had a feeling it was a pointless argument. It was like putting someone on trial for murder, having them dead to rights, but then acquitting them based on the word of some psychic. Of course, that was in the normal world. Here, where creatures could burst into flame, fly, or poof out of existence with just a thought, things were a bit different.

Even so, the person in charge - the judge, jury, and probably executioner - was firmly in the camp of believing such things were bullshit. I tended to agree with Alex, knowing that it had been his personal interference, not fate, that had sparked the current war. If anything, Alex was using the prophecies not as a guiding hand, but as a way to further his own agenda.

A small breeze fluttered against my skin. It would have otherwise been unnoticeable except for the still air of the room. As Gan and Alex continued to argue metaphysics versus real world, I glanced over and noticed the blast door opening. Maybe some new dignitaries had arrived, or better yet, maybe it was time to adjourn for the day. Hopefully, it was a dinner break - one in which they actually fed their fucking prisoners some goddamned dinner.