The Mourning Woods - 03 (6 page)

“Oh, no fucking way!” I yelled, standing up. As James and Sally stared up at me, I noticed the eyes of the other patrons in the café likewise turning in my direction. Thinking quickly, I said, “Ten bucks for a cup of coffee? Wow this place is expensive.” Several piteous glances came my way, but soon enough people turned back toward their own business.

“Way to work the crowd, Bill,” Sally commented, sipping her drink.

I sat back down and lowered my voice before continuing, “So let me see if I’m hearing this right. The fucking ape-men consider me to be on par with our leadership, correct? So, being that the Draculas see me as important...yet still oh-so-expendable, I get to go sit down with these monsters and hope they don’t eat my fucking face. Does that sound about right?”

“Said with your usual eloquence, but in a nutshell, yes,” James replied.

“You do realize that growing up I couldn’t even convince my neighbors to keep their dogs from shitting on our lawn. I don’t know what kind of treaty you’re expecting me to negotiate.”

“Believe me, I am all too familiar with your somewhat unique way of communicating,” James said. “You won’t be going in alone. This isn’t a one on one affair. You’ll be there as a figurehead at most.”

“You should be used to that,” Sally said out of the corner of her mouth.

“This will be more of a summit than anything else. There will be negotiators there with you, as well as bodyguards. I wouldn’t be surprised if other factions wished to make themselves present as well. In short, you will be there to preside over our side, but ultimately others will be doing the work.”

“And if I refuse?” I asked, knowing full well that wasn’t really an option.

“If you refuse, then I daresay the Draculas will find some other sort of duty for you. It’s a fair bet that whatever they choose will make this seem like a vacation in paradise, comparatively speaking.”

The check came and suddenly I found two sets of eyes looking at me expectantly.

“What?” I asked.

“Coven hospitality,” James replied, a grin on his face. “It’s tradition.”

I turned toward Sally who gave me her best innocent expression before replying, “Don’t look at me.”

“You handle the coven’s finances,” I protested.

“True, but I left my purse back at the office.”

Grumbling, I pulled out my wallet to cover the tab. Vampires are immortal, arrogant, and powerful...I made a mental note to add
cheap
to that description.

“Some of us still have to work for a living,” I griped.

“Then win the lottery,” Sally cooed. “Oh, wait...you get to work with me, you already did.” Bitch!

Trying desperately to keep myself from stabbing her with a fork, I changed the topic back to business. “So what next?” I asked James.

“For now, just wait,” he replied. “The details are still being hashed out, participants are still being considered, all of that.”

“Do I get any say in all of this?”

“Of course. You are perfectly welcome to bring along your own contingent. They’ll be figureheads much like yourself, but as the honored Freewill you’ll be expected to have your own band of supporters.”

“Awesome,” I said and then quickly added, “I nominate Sally as my first choice.”

“WHAT!?” she screamed.

“You heard me,” I replied with a sly grin. “You got me into this whole mess. If I’m destined to get corn-holed by Sasquatch, you get to be next on deck,
partner
.”

Ultimately, that was true on many levels. Sally had gotten me into just about every mess I had found myself in these past several months. She was the one responsible for my becoming a vampire. Through her machinations, I became the leader of Village Coven. Finally, she was the primary reason I had wound up in Asia to begin with. All roads led back to Sally. It was about time I got a chance to “repay” her.

“But, what about the coven?” she stammered.

“Starlight can watch over things for a few days. It’ll be good practice for her.”

“James...” Sally said, turning to him.

He, however, just chuckled in response. “I’m sorry, my dear. But, alas, it is his choice. He is
officially
the coven leader. There
is
certain protocol to be followed here.”

In response, Sally glared flaming, poison-tipped daggers at me. Oh, well, when one plays with fire one does tend occasionally to wind up with burnt fingertips.

“Now, if we’re all finished here,” James said, ignoring the swordfight Sally and I were waging with our expressions, “I have a car waiting. I need to get back to Boston and continue working on things from my end. You’ll be contacted with details soon enough.”

“Thanks, James,” I replied, albeit there wasn’t much gratitude in my voice.

“Just one last question,” Sally said. “Why’d you come all the way down here? I mean, if you were giving Bill a death sentence, that would be one thing (thanks, Sally), but you could have said all of this over the phone.”

“True enough,” James countered, and then added, “But then I wouldn’t have been treated to such a wonderful evening of discourse.”

“In other words, you came for the espresso,” I said.

“Of course. One must have one’s priorities straight.”

* * *

I departed before Sally could corner me. I had no desire to be chewed a new asshole. Also, it let me leave on a smug note. If we had started talking about things, I probably would have let slip that my desire for her to come along was only half motivated by asshole pettiness. The truth was that, when push came to shove, Sally was one hell of a person to have watching your back. Sure, she practically jumped on every chance to piss me off, but over the past year, she had more than made up for it. I didn’t need to be reminded that she had almost gotten killed defending me against the Khan’s assassins. She had even lost a hand in battle with them. Sure, it had grown back, but it was the thought that counted.

If there was the possibility of shit going down during this peace conference (and let’s face facts: I’ve seen enough episodes of Star Trek to know these never go smoothly), then I wanted her there beside me. I had called Sally my partner as a dig to her, but the truth was I believed it. The only downside was that I was going to have to listen to her bitch about it all...and she would, probably to the point where I would start looking forward to whatever horrific death was waiting around the corner.

Speaking of bitching, I returned to my apartment to find my roommates engaged in their typical type of conversation.

“There’s no way the
Galactica
could take out a
Star Destroyer
, end of conversation,” came Ed’s voice as I walked in the door.

Right on cue, Tom replied with, “Two counterpoints, dude: nukes and FTL drive. They jump in, blast the shit out of the Empire, and jump out before Darth Vader is even aware that he’s now floating in the cold vacuum of space.”

Before I could add my opinion (The Enterprise E’s quantum torpedoes would fuck up anyone’s shit), they both turned toward me.

“Since you’re here,” Ed asked, “is it safe to assume that the words ‘immediate execution’ didn’t come up?”

“Thankfully, no. In fact, it wasn’t so bad. I thought they were sending some vampire goon squad. Instead, I wound up spending the night sipping espressos with James.”

“Ozymandias?” Tom asked, referring to the pseudonym James had used while my coven was still run by Jeff.

“The one and the same.”

“I thought he was missing in Mongolia,” Ed replied.

“Not anymore. He’s back and apparently up for a big promotion too.”

“Awesome,” said Tom. “It never hurts to have friends in high places.” If anyone knew about that concept, it was Tom. He works over in Manhattan’s financial district. As he was fond of telling us, it was a game of kissing ass and gaining favor with the higher-ups. “You just pucker up, apply some super glue, and latch on,” he once said.

Ed continued, “I’m assuming he didn’t drive in just to tell you about his new executive parking spot.”

“You assume correctly.”

“Spill, dude,” Tom said.

So I did. I spent the next half-hour telling them about how I was supposed to be the vampire nation’s new peace envoy and how my status as the Freewill of vampire legend afforded me this high “honor.”

“And if you just happen to get snuffed in the process,” surmised Ed, “these Draculas can just sit back and say ‘too bad, so sad.’”

“That’s about the size of it.”

“I think that settles things,” he stated. “You’ve been putting
it
off for too long.”

It took me a second, but then I got his drift. “No way. It’s too dangerous. Who the hell knows what’ll happen?”

“What’ll happen is it’ll save your life if those Sasquatches decide to make you their sacrificial lamb.”

“We don’t even know if it’s controllable,” I protested. “It only happened those two times. For all I know it was just a fluke.”

Ed gave me his most condescending look, the one he reserved for when he thought I was acting like a stupid child, but I held my ground. I wasn’t quite ready for what he was suggesting.

See, being a Freewill comes with a few other perks above and beyond what a normal vampire can do. For starters, there’s the ability for which it was named: the power to resist the mind control of another vamp. Strong vampires can control weaker vamps and even humans with enough concentration. I was glad for
that
ability. Nothing worse than some asshole giving you a compulsion and having no choice but to follow it through, no matter how demeaning it might be.

Of somewhat more practical use was the ability somehow to leech another vampire’s strength. Most vampires aren’t able to drink another vamp’s blood. Something about it is incompatible with their systems, violently so. In our tussle with the Khan’s assassins, I had seen Sally take a bite out of one of them. The effort had saved me, but reduced her to a retching basket case for the next several hours. It’s different with me, though. Not only can I drink vampire blood, but doing so temporarily turbo-charges me with their power. I can go from zero to hero with just a swallow. The more powerful the vampire, the more power I absorb. The only downside to this is that I have to get in close enough for a bite, something that most aren’t exactly keen on letting me do.

Unfortunately, though, that’s almost the extent of my knowledge. I’m the first of my kind in over half a millennium, so the records aren’t exactly up to date as to what else I can do. There is more, though, and some of it is frightening as all hell. Twice, during my ordeal from a few months back, I lost control. The first time I recovered quickly. The second time, Sally had been near death. The rage I felt had pushed me over the edge. I don’t know what happened next except that something about me changed and I was suddenly able to take on two vampires whose power both eclipsed mine by many times over. Take your pick of either Bruce Banner or Dr. Jekyll, but either way I had something similar in me. The only question was
what
? Since then, I hadn’t been in any utterly enraging situations, nor had I given in to my friends’ insistence that this was something that needed to be tested. I have nothing against a power boost, but not at the risk of waking up to find myself ankle deep in the blood of my buddies.