Tome of Bill (Companion): Shining Fury (2 page)

I screamed out as oblivion once more beckoned me into its crushing embrace only to hear another voice calling to me.

“Jesus Christ, knock that off. You’re freaking blinding me!”

I sat bolt upright, or tried to.

The report of the weapon still rang in my ears, and I could feel Bill’s crushing strength as he held me down – the ground seeming to shudder with its power, the movement violent enough to send a wave of vertigo crashing through me.

“Oh my God, that’s bright!”

“No, really? I hadn’t noticed.”

The dream lingered for a moment more, the lines of reality and fantasy blurring until the former won out over the latter.

I looked down, embarrassed to see that the only thing restraining me was a seatbelt.

The shuddering continued, and I finally realized it wasn’t the ground, but the car itself veering as the driver struggled to keep us from flying off the road.

“Any time you want to shut off the spotlight would be just goddamned peachy.”

“Profane not the Lord’s name lest the Blessed One show thee the error of thine wicked ways.”

Oh no!

The reality of the situation slammed home, and a moment later I reined in the blinding power of faith which emanated from me, restoring the interior of the car to darkness. Meg, the witch in the driver’s seat, managed to guide us over to the side of the road.

As the car eased to a stop on the shoulder, I took several hitched breaths. Though the dream had felt as real as the leather seat beneath me, all it had been was a perversion of the true events from… um. “How long was I asleep?” I asked groggily.

Meg turned to me, her mane of jet black hair framing the annoyed look upon her face. “As soon as my retinas stop melting, I’ll let you know.”

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to do that.”

“You have nothing to apologize to these creatures for,” a husky voice from the back seat admonished, finally dispelling the hold the dream had over me. Sister Bernadette no doubt meant well, but she was beginning to grate upon my nerves nevertheless. A former regional commander for the Templar – an ancient order of knights of the Catholic faith – she’d come out of retirement once the signs of the so-called Apocalypse became too great to ignore. Though I’d briefly considered becoming an initiate to their order, I’d since soured upon their ideals. Now, they were simply a necessary evil, a means to an end – not that I’d ever voice that aloud in her presence.

Meg spun in her seat to face the Templar. “You might be singing a different tune if I’d wrapped us around a tree.”

“Ours is a mission sanctioned by God himself,” Bernadette shot back. “If you had faith in him and not in your dark arts, perhaps the beam in thine eye would be removed and you would see that a higher power is guiding our way.”

“Last I checked, the Lord wasn’t my copilot. If so, I’d have let him drive instead.”

Meg and Bernadette continued to bicker. I noticed headlights pulling in behind us, most likely more of the Templar stopping to check on us. That’s all we needed – for the entire caravan to stop on the side of the road. The way things were going, we’d devolve into a full-on fistfight among ourselves before we’d even reach the halfway point to our destination – Boston.

My nerves were already frayed from earlier and this wasn’t helping. I was just about to turn around and tell Bernadette to cram it – she was easily the more obnoxious of the two – when Kelly, another of the passengers in the backseat, spoke up.

“You thinking what I’m thinking, V?”

“Number 6?” Veronica, a petite girl with shoulder-length auburn hair and the fifth and final member of our carpool, asked.

“You got it.”

Before I could ask what they were talking about, both raised a hand to opposite sides of Bernadette’s head. A yellowish flash of power enveloped the Templar and her body immediately went slack.

What the hell?!

* * *

Once more, the white fire ignited within me, but this time it was purposeful. I’d expected the arguing. It was almost a given considering the contrary belief systems present. What I hadn’t expected was for the witches to break the truce and attack. I’d been told they were friends. Their leader, Christy, assured us they could be trusted. I’d shaken off the Templar dogma and chosen to believe her. Had that been a mistake?

Maybe so, but if it was a fatal one, I’d make sure it wasn’t on my end. My sword was locked away in the trunk, and though my power couldn’t burn them like it did the undead, it could counteract their own, rendering me impervious to any harm they might seek to do. Once on equal terms, I trusted my fists to make up for their numbers advantage.

“Jesus Christ!” Meg cried. “Will you knock it off? My eyes were just clearing up. I’m gonna be seeing spots for days.”

“What did you do?” I demanded of the two witches in the back, ignoring Meg, but ready in case she, too, decided to attack.

Veronica raised her hands and cowered behind them, somehow managing to look even smaller than her already diminutive frame. Not quite what I was expecting.

“Relax, Ms. Marvel,” Kelly said, her tone more one of annoyance. “We just knocked her out.”

“What?”

“It was just a sleep spell. Sorry, but she was really starting to get on my nerves.”

“How do I know you’re...”

“Look at her and see for yourself,” Meg said before turning away to rub her eyes.

I pulled back on my power, leaving enough so that the car was still well lit. As I did so, the soft droning sound of snoring registered in my ears. A quick glance at Bernadette confirmed that it was coming from her, her ample bosom rising and falling regularly. If anything, she looked peaceful – far more so than anytime I’d seen her awake.

I took a look around, taking especial note of the fear on Veronica’s face. It was raw and naked, speaking of actions far beyond the mere flash of power I’d put on display. I knew what was going through her mind. She was wondering if what she’d been told was true after all, that I was destined to be the destroyer of her kind.

All of a sudden, I felt embarrassed. The paranoia of the day was affecting everyone, even me. I was supposed to be sure of myself, fearless, unflappable in my resolve – powerful words, but no more. The reality was even I wasn’t immune from being shaken.

I pulled my power all the way back until the only illumination in the car was coming from the instrument panel and whatever light filtered in from outside. “Sorry.”

“It’s cool,” Kelly replied nonchalantly, adjusting her glasses as if nothing out of the ordinary had just happened.

Glancing at Veronica, I doubted she echoed her friend’s easygoing sentiment. “So how long will she sleep?” I asked, hoping I sounded more conversational than confrontational.

“About six hours, give or take.”

“Unless we wake her up sooner,” Veronica hastily added. She was the youngest of the trio, barely out of her teens, and seemingly the easiest spooked.

“Regardless, she’ll wake up feeling nice and rested,” Kelly continued. “Who knows? Maybe she’ll even chill out a bit.”

“Doubt it,” Meg groused from her place behind the wheel of the SUV.

I found it hard to argue with her.

Before falling asleep, I’d found myself gritting my teeth as every time someone had said something, no matter how innocuous, Bernadette would offer some unhelpful advice as to how damned everyone was. Hell, ten minutes into the drive, Veronica had offered up her iPod in case we wanted something to listen to, only for Bernadette to shoot her and her
devil music
down.

I’d resigned myself to another uncomfortably silent drive, having already suffered through one the previous day when I’d ridden to upstate New York with Bernadette and Bill’s amnesiac friend Sally. The tension had been so thick during it that one could have cut it with a sword.

“So are we cool?” Meg asked, pulling me from my reverie.

I thought about it for a moment, glanced back at Bernadette’s slumbering form, and smiled. “Yeah. I think we are.”

“So no more fireworks?”

“Promise.”

“Good, because the headlights on this thing are shitty enough. I can barely see the road as it is.”

I was about to offer my apologies for lashing out in my sleep when the driver’s side door flew open and a sword was pointed at Meg’s face.

I’d momentarily forgotten about our Templar escorts, but they definitely hadn’t forgotten about us.

“You could have just knocked.”

“Speak not to me, witch,” the Templar, a knight by the name of Vincent, spat.

I struggled to keep myself from rolling my eyes, a nasty habit I seemed to have picked up from a week of rooming with Sally. The Templar were well-trained, devout, and dedicated, but most of them had even less tact than the creatures they claimed to be protecting the world from.

“Are you all right, Blessed One?” He leaned down a bit so as to peer into the car.

“I’m fine, Vincent. You can lower your weapon.”

“We saw flashes of light coming from within. We feared they were bewitching you.”

The “we” caught my attention, and I glanced past him. Sure enough, about half a dozen of the Templar had the car surrounded. A few brandished swords, but just as many pointed guns at us. Though the firearms weren’t meant for me, a small trickle of unease wormed its way into my gut nevertheless. I tried to fool myself into thinking it was worry over my traveling companions – witches to be sure, but ones friendly to our cause. Deep down, I didn’t buy it, though.

My mind briefly raced back to a moment about half a year ago, and I once again found myself staring down the barrel of the monstrous handgun a split second before blinding pain erased all other sensation.

I willed my voice to be steady. “Lower your weapons, all of you.” The Templar misguidedly revered me as a heaven-sent warrior of God. It wasn’t an argument I cared to dispute at that moment, nor one I thought I would win. Besides, it wouldn’t be wise to risk their belief in me considering what lay ahead of us on this road.

Vincent hesitated, and Meg gritted her teeth. We were maybe seconds away from her doing something that almost certainly wouldn’t help our fragile alliance.

“You know I can’t be bewitched,” I said to him, allowing an ease I didn’t feel into my tone. “They’re no threat to me.”

Meg turned my way, her eyes narrowing. I could only hope she understood that I was trying to diffuse the situation, not belittle her or her friends.

“It was my fault,” Kelly said, speaking up from the back.

Huh?
The three of us, Vincent included, turned toward her.

“I’ve never seen an Icon in action before. I was curious, so I asked if she could give us a little demonstration.”

Meg and I locked eyes for a moment. There was no way Vincent was falling for such a lame...

“The Blessed One’s power is not a plaything for your amusement, witch.”

“I know.” Kelly leaned forward, her bare tattooed arms resting on the back of Meg’s seat. “It was stupid, but I was curious.” Her tone took on a playful quality. “C’mon, haven’t you ever been curious about
anything
before?”

Vincent appeared taken aback by the question, or maybe it was the way it had been asked. Rather than answer her, he turned to me. “Does the witch speak true?”

“My name is Kelly, not witch.”

A look of annoyance crossed his face. “Does
Kelly
speak true?”

“Yes. We were just messing around. It wasn’t anything serious. Heck, Sister Bernadette slept through the whole thing.”

Vincent glanced past Meg toward the backseat again. Thankfully, there wasn’t any question of whether Bernadette was catching some shuteye. Her snoring was so loud as to almost make one think the engine was still running.

Finally, after what seemed a near-eternity, he turned and signaled the others. One by one, they stood down and returned to their vehicles. That had been too close, and all because of a stupid nightmare.

“Be wary, Blessed One.”

“What?” I turned back to find Vincent still there.

He lowered his voice to a bare whisper. “They might be testing the limits of your powers.”

“You do realize we can all hear you, right?” Meg blurted irritably.

“It’s quite fine, Vincent,” I quickly said, not wanting us to go right back to where we started. “I’ll be wary. I promise.”

That seemed to mollify him. Thankfully, Meg kept her cool long enough for him to walk back to his vehicle.

“God, what smug assholes,” she finally spat.

“Oh, just start the car and get us back on the road,” Kelly chided from the backseat. “Otherwise they’re just going to come back and give us the Spanish Inquisition routine again.”

“I don’t see how you can be this calm,” Meg replied, obviously still upset. She started the car and put it into drive. “That dickhead pretty much dismissed us like we weren’t even here.”

“It wasn’t that bad. And also, he was kinda cute.”

I spun around in my seat to stare at her as Meg replied, “You did not just say that.”

“What? He was.” She turned to me. “Back me up here.”

“I guess so,” I replied. The truth was, I’d been a bit too preoccupied with the situation to bother noticing.

“I didn’t know you went for the Bible-thumping types,” Meg remarked.

“Shows what you know. I dated a nice Catholic boy once. Sure, they flap their tongues a lot, but that just means they have lots of stamina when you put them to use in better ways.”

As the miles continued to drift by, I found myself increasingly comfortable with my newfound traveling companions. The banter between us was surprisingly light, albeit slightly more on the X-rated side than I was used to. When it came to conversation, Kelly seemed to have more in common with Sally than her mentor Christy. She regaled us with tale after tale of the things she and her ex would do in private ... and sometimes public.

Though I wasn’t about to admit it, I found myself a bit jealous. My last boyfriend, Robert, had been a good man. Hell, he’d taken me in when I’d been aimless, unable to think much further ahead than wondering when next I’d see a vampire hit squad gunning for me. To say that he was a bit ... bland when it came to our love life, though, was being kind. The final few months of our relationship had consisted of him drifting off to sleep with barely an acknowledgment of me by his side. Fortunately, by then I’d acquired my night “job,” sneaking out with my recently returned sword and patrolling the streets of Rochester for things that went bump in the night in an entirely different way.