The Tome of Bill (Book 6): Half A Prayer (23 page)

* * *

I was pleased to see my friends had mostly heeded common sense and made a run for it. I was less pleased to see Sally amongst the debris that littered the entrance leading to the long climb outta here.

She was on her knees, rummaging through the backpack she’d managed to salvage.

“Don’t tell me,” I said, catching up to her, “you need to touch up your eye shadow before climbing back up to the sewers.”

“Did you kill Mark?”

“Well...not really.”

“Then here’s an idea: why don’t you shut the fuck up and not bother me?” Frustrated, she emptied the contents onto the ground - bandages, a flashlight, a tube of lipstick - Jesus fucking Christ - and various other items fell out. “Where is it?”

“What?”

“The fucking remote detonator!”

“What detonator?”

“The one I need to detonate these, genius.” She pointed to several bundled items attached to the debris, the wall, and the ceiling.

Holy crap. “I see you and Vlad were busy.”

“Well, we sure as shit didn’t come back here to make out.” She threw the pack to the side in disgust. “They must’ve recognized it.”

“Maybe it just fell out back there.” I hooked a thumb.

“Do you want to go and search?”

“Not really.”

“Well then, how...”

“What’s going on?” a voice called from further down in the tunnel. It was Miranda. She was approaching us with Ed by her side, a flashlight beam illuminating their way.

“Just fucking great,” Sally snarled softly before raising her voice. “I thought you were going to teleport everyone up top.”

“I thought you were going to just be a minute.”

“What’s wrong?” Ed asked as the two joined us.

I was tempted to reply with something appropriately pithy, but I took a quick glance behind me. Numerous angry orange eyes were closing in on us. “Sally rigged this cave to blow, but she can’t find the detonator.”

Insanely enough, Ed didn’t even blink at this revelation. Guess he’d been hanging around with us too much as of late. “Can’t we just shoot the explosives?”

“With what?” Sally’s eyes turned black with frustration. “These fuckers broke all our noise makers.”

“That’s it, then,” I said. “It was a good try, but we need to get moving. Hopefully, we can beat these fuckers back to Pandora’s Box and get some reinforcem...”

“Wait,” Miranda said. “Would enough heat set these off?”

Sally shook her head. “It’s too stable. It needs more than that; an explosion to set off an explosion.”

“I could do that. Fire magic is one of my specialties. Just tell me how far back to stand and...”

“All the way,” Sally said. “We can’t be in the cave when these things go off...”

“Uh, guys,” I said, pointing.

“Even if the entire thing doesn’t collapse, the shockwave will tear apart anyone that’s...”

“Guys!”

They stopped and turned toward me.

“We’re out of time.”

Sure enough, the Jahabich, with Mark in the lead, were converging on us. We had maybe thirty seconds and they’d be all over us like new suits.

If the tunnel had been narrower, it might’ve made a good choke point to fight them off. As it was, though, it was way too wide to give our small group a tactical advantage.

“Fuck!” Sally cried in frustration. I could see why. Mark was now close enough that we could see the predatory grin on his face. He might as well have had a graphic superimposed over him that read, “Game Over.”

“We need to run.” I grabbed hold of Sally’s arm and began to drag her back toward...

“No,” Miranda said, stepping past us. She raised her hands, screamed something incoherent, and a ball of green flame shot out from her. The Jahabich scrambled out of the way in time, but it bought us a few more seconds.

“Thanks,” I said. “Now we really need to...”

“I said no. I’ll hold them off while you run.”

“But...”

“And then I’m going to give these assholes the biggest surprise of their lives. Just be sure to be out of the tunnel by then.”

“Good luck,” Sally said as she turned. Goddamn, what a heartless bitch.

“Wait, we can’t just let her do this.”

“Bill’s right,” Ed said. “We...ugh!”

He was cut off mid-agreement by Sally’s fist. Before he could hit the floor, she’d scooped him up and tossed him over her shoulder. With a nod, she took off into the darkness.

It was a surprisingly effective way to end an argument. Heck, if it worked for Ed, I didn’t see any reason why it wouldn’t work for...

“Don’t even think it, vampire,” Miranda snarled. I turned back to find another orb of green flame dancing on her fingertips. Her stance said she hadn’t quite decided which way to throw it.

“Miranda, this isn’t the way to...”

“Just shut up and listen. The last few nights, I’ve had dreams...dreams of my husband.”

“What?”

She smiled. It was sad, but tinged ever so slightly with hope. “I think it was a vision, a sign. I think he was telling me that it was time for us to be together again.”

“That’s crazy!”

“Is it? I don’t think so. I’m tired of all of this and I miss him. You have no idea how much.”

I momentarily thought of Sheila and when I’d been convinced that she was dead. I had more of an idea than she knew.

Her grin widened. “Besides, I knew this was a one-way trip when I signed up for it. It’s okay. I get to see Carl again and maybe even bring a bunch of these fuckers with me as an entourage.”

A bellow of rage sounded at the mouth of the larger cavern. The Jahabich were here.

“Go!”

There was no time left to argue. Goddamn it all!

“Thank you,” I said softly.

“Oh, and Bill,” she said. “I can tell you’re different from the rest. Don’t ever forget your human friends - your humanity.”

“I won’t.”

Miranda turned away from me and the glow intensified around her. This was definitely not the time for long goodbyes.

I turned and ran, putting every ounce of speed into my stride.

I was going to need it.

* * *

The spongey ground beneath my feet wasn’t made for sprinting, so I found myself long jumping down the tunnel, using the give of the ground to my advantage...and trying my best to not clonk my head against the ceiling. That would’ve been a hell of a way to check out.

I saw the opening up ahead and the wall beyond that signaled the long climb up. There was no way I could leave this one to chance. Reaching around behind me, I grabbed hold of the canteen and unslung it from my shoulder. Ripping the cap off, I raised it to my lips just as the floor began to rumble.

I glanced back as the sound of the explosion reached me - nearly blowing out my overly sensitive eardrums. Green and red flames raced down the tunnel in my direction, their image distorted by the shock wave they rode.

I gulped down a swallow and put everything I had into my legs...only to stumble as the ground rippled in front of me. The ages-old layers of grime and shit began to give way.

It was all I could do to keep my footing. Just a little bit more...

A sinkhole opened before me, the quivering mass of floor collapsing in on itself, perhaps into an even deeper abyss below us.

My hair caught ablaze as the fire overtook me and then I jumped, using every bit of stolen strength at my disposal.

I slammed into the wall, the canteen knocked out of my grip as I desperately sank my claws into the rock and began to climb with everything I had.

And that’s when the full brunt of the explosion overtook me.

Had Sally not shared her brainstorm about mixing up blood cocktails, I have little doubt I would have been a goner. As it was, my body armor was still far more heat resistant than the rest of me.

As the shockwave slammed into me, pretty much crushing me against the wall like a bug, my skin blistered and burned. Within seconds, I turned into a human pyre.

But still I climbed, managing to stifle a cry if only because I didn’t want to open my mouth and experience the wonderful sensation of my tongue melting.

All the while, I kept sinking my claws nearly knuckle deep in the wall as the entire thing shook as if God himself had come down from heaven and decided, “Enough of this shit.”

I was surprised there wasn’t more sound, but then again, I really couldn’t hear much of anything at all. In short, I was in bad shape. I just had to hope the Jahabich were worse off. Miranda had done as she’d promised and then some. If there was any justice in this crazy universe, she’d received her reward for her effort and been reunited with her husband in whatever afterlife awaited mages.

Now, all I needed to do was make sure I didn’t join them.

Finally, the shockwave passed. The air remained superheated and I couldn’t see shit with all the dust, but almost immediately, I began to feel less crispy. The healing power of half a dozen vampires was working its magic inside of me - knitting things back together at a pace I wouldn’t see naturally for several hundred more years, assuming I was lucky enough to make it that far. Fuck it; the way things were going, I considered every new week as cause to celebrate.

Yeah, a party sounded nice right at that moment - one with strippers, good food, and lots to drink - preferably all of it ice cold.

I held that last image in my head as I continued to climb, my skin alternating between peeling off and growing back again. I just hoped my healing kept at it. Now would be a really fucking lousy time for it to up and burn out, like that time Magneto ripped Wolverine’s adamantium skeleton out - not one of my favorite comic arcs, as each subsequent issue seemed to be about him either getting his ass kicked or whining about it.

At last, the heat began to subside. Little by little, my epidermis grew back and stayed that way. The rumbling continued, and I realized I could now hear the sound of rock caving in on itself from far below. Jesus Christ, how many fucking explosives had Sally set down there? Only one thing was certain - she sure as shit wanted to make sure those monsters stayed buried this time.

Sadly, I had a feeling that wasn’t to be. Unless the entire cave network had crumbled, multiple exits led away from that place with the cave painting. There likewise might have been more egresses in the cavern with the orange pool of glowing death. It would have taken a tremendous amount of luck to have brought the entirety of their home down upon their heads. I felt pretty good about making it out, but didn’t dare fool myself into believing the gods of fate smiled upon me in anything even approaching that capacity.

Oh well, their main path to the Vegas sewers was hopefully shut. If they managed to surface again, they’d have to find another coven to haunt.

Hah, the Vegas sewers. I had a moment to consider that and hope we hadn’t collapsed the entire city with our antics. How embarrassing would that be?

I lifted my claws to grasp the next handhold and instead found I’d somehow reached the top.

Thank goodness too. The battle between my healing prowess and the fires of destruction had really taken everything out of me. I practically had to drag myself up over the edge.

I bent over for a moment, my hands on my knees - catching my breath in between trying to cough out any gunk in my lungs. The hard part was seemingly over. Now all I had to do was hope the others were still alive, find them in this rat maze of tunnels, and somehow not get lost down here for all of eternity.

Yeah, sounded easy as pie.

* * *

Holy crap, my head was spinning. Had the explosion taken that much out of me? I mean, normally, when my body healed, it was a done deal, but it seemed that down here, whenever the vampire blood began to wear off...

Oh, crap. Was that the cause? I’d been so psyched at the success of Sally’s little experiment I hadn’t stopped to consider any side effects. What if it was poisoning me somehow? What if I...

Oof!
I tripped and fell over something. The smoke from the explosion had started to thin out, but it was still hard as hell to see anything. Vampire eyes might be awesome for night vision, but they were about as useful as a bag of dicks for seeing through dust and debris.

I felt along the floor and found what I’d fallen over. It was covered in hot ash, but it didn’t take me long to determine the humanoid shape. Oh no.

It wasn’t a vampire; that much was easy to figure out. There was an actual body beneath the dirt and grime. Had it been a vamp, there’d have been nothing but floor under it, but I definitely felt at least an arm and a torso. Dusting it off further, I could feel that it was pretty badly burnt up - no doubt from the explosion. From the size and shape - and by that I mean boobs - I could tell it was female. One of the humans we’d saved, maybe?

But why was she so close to ground zero? Did that mean Sally hadn’t gotten them away in time? Fuck!

I began feeling along the floor, panic rising in me. What if it had all been for nothing? What if we’d escaped only for our desperate gambit to consume everyone but me? “No!”

Aside from whatever had been caused by Miranda’s explosive exit from this mortal coil, there wasn’t any breeze to clear things out. Fortunately, though, that meant stuff started to settle quickly in the still air.

Sadly, it still wasn’t enough yet to give me more than a few inches of visibility. It also didn’t help that I was so dizzy at this point I probably couldn’t even stand back up if I tried. I started feeling blindly along the floor for anyone else. Unfortunately, it rapidly became an exercise in futility as I’d check one section and then realize I was doing so again in the same spot just a second later.

Thinking was becoming a chore and I couldn’t be entirely certain I wasn’t going to puke.

Darkness began to play at the edges of my vision, and it had nothing to do with the debris in the air. Despite a ton of adrenaline coursing through me, all I really wanted to do was take a nice long nap.

And that’s when a hand reached out of the darkness and dragged me to my feet.

Oh shit! Had Mark or some of those other freaks gotten out? If so, there was no way I could...

I reached out to shove my attacker away and felt rough fabric, but beneath it lay firm yet supple mounds of flesh.