“Hmmm,” Bill said.
“Not kill, so much as confront,” I told Bill, “caught between a vampire and a war. What if we brought the fight back to him?”
“You mean turn around?” Linnick asked. “Bill says that’s a bad idea.”
“Linnick, if you’re going to make shit up for Bill, you should at least wait until he says something.”
“Bill?” she questioned.
“Hmmm, food.”
“See!”
“What?” I asked.
“It amazes me that something as appalling as you can also be that dense. Do they not have natural selection on your home world?”
“Should have left you in your friggin’ hole. Just tell me what you think he said.”
“He asked if you have already forgotten about the Thrime field.”
“Oh shit. Um, maybe I did. Maybe that was one of the memories they took from me.” After that, though, I did shut up about going back. I don’t think I was mentally equipped to deal with another unraveling. “What’s the plan then? Surely he has one.”
“He doesn’t.”
“How far until Gate del Gato?”
“Too far,” she said vaguely. I prodded for more info, but it was not forthcoming.
“I don’t understand, then. What are we supposed to do, just sit here and wait?”
“Bill shrugged.”
I was going to tell her he hadn’t moved, but what was the point?
“Maybe the sneaky fuck is waiting for help but not in the way we’re thinking.”
It was now Linnick’s turn to ask what I meant.
“Maybe he is waiting for the Green Man, or the Green Goddess, or even the Jolly Green Giant.”
“Oh, I’ve heard stories about that one. We’d better hope he doesn’t show.”
“He’s real?”
“You just mentioned him.”
“Yeah, he was an ad mascot for frozen vegetables.”
“Not here. He smashes everything he encounters with a large mace until it is mainly soup and then he slurps it up with a large hollowed out log.”
“I hate this place.”
“Tell me about it. So?”
“Sorry, I was thinking about a giant slurping up body parts through a tree straw.” I shivered. “Okay, so the demons are pushing the Polions right to us, that means the light.”
“Unlight.”
“Sure, unlight goes more unny.”
“Dark.”
“No shit, Linnick. You going to let me finish?”
“Maybe if you used the correct words, you could do so faster.”
“I use words that make sense to me. Plus, you know damn well what I’m talking about–you’re just being difficult.”
She didn’t reply to that which led me to believe I was on the right track with her, but if she were like any other female I knew, this would be when she would dig in for the extended version of the confrontation. She caught me again off guard; it’s not really all that difficult to verbally or mentally trip me up. I’m a Marine, absolute hell in a firefight. After that…well there’s no guarantee I won’t say or do something stupid.
“Hell’s not getting any cooler.”
“Salty little thing, aren’t you? Probably go good on a pizza.” I muttered that under my breath. I don’t think she heard it, but Bill “hurrumed,” which might be construed as a laugh. “Okay. So, when the unlight dies and it goes all-dark and we are surrounded by all manner of horrific demon and monster alike, we will be at our most vulnerable. It would be at that moment that Tommy would strike.”
“Will he not be at the same disadvantage as us? Maybe worse?”
“Not at all my little friend. He’s been slinking in the shadows for ages; he knows exactly how to hide from things. Nope. That’s it. He’s waiting for his opportunity to strike. Now the question is, how do we stop him. Sucks that I know his plan but there isn’t much I can do about it.”
Like a violent storm off in the distance, we watched as the battle lines were continually redrawn, it was not difficult to see that even though there was some ebb and flow to it, that storm was definitely heading our way, and with a quickness. The Polions seemed to be in full retreat, at times stopping to protect their rear echelon, while forward creatures escaped. Could all this be laid on the Green Man’s shoulders? He’d spurred them on and when it suited him he forsook them. If that was the case, his timing was impeccable. Tommy must have a way of communicating with him. In Western movies, cowboys could use a stampede to flush out their enemies. But weren’t we the ones that were supposed to be wearing the white hats? Right now, Tommy had us fucking corralled and on the ropes. I sort of wish I had a Claymore mine to blow him into Kingdom come, and then again, I didn’t. He’d betrayed me and I wanted to make his death an up close and personal statement. And yet again, he was family. Well, as much as he could be. The boy he’d shown me, the slow, big-boned kid that I’d fallen in love with was a far cry from the man he ended up being–a cold, calculating and quick, vampire. But I had adapted that love to encompass this new permutation; maybe I shouldn’t have. Because I’ll tell you, being betrayed by an enemy or a stranger, while it definitely does suck, the pain is tempered by the fact that you knew double dealing was always a distinct possibility; you’d invested nothing of yourself in that enemy. But a family member, someone you love, shoving a pitchfork in your back and tossing you into the baler? That’s a whole other level of fuckery. So, yeah–I wanted him dead, but after I’d had a satisfactory explanation of why he was doing what he was doing. And still, I’m lying to myself. I was holding out hope that there was an explanation that was going to make me say, “Oh! That’s why you did that! I understand, son,” and all would be right with us. It was going to be that naive attitude that was going to get me killed unless this was just some cruel plot twist.
You know the kind. Someone is set-up to be the bad guy the entire film, but at the end, you realize they were undercover or were doing bad things for all the right reasons. It was the handsome, well-spoken gentleman that was the villain the whole time. That kind of thing. If I hesitated for just one moment when, and if, I had the opportunity to kill him, then he would kill me. Obviously, the worse problem was what if I was wrong and I killed him and he was indeed not scheming to get me tortured and killed or using me as bait to get my wife tortured and killed? And, as for Azile, I was just going to let her kill me because if she could pull the wool over my eyes that far, then I damn well deserved it. To think she was so willing to commit to her course of action that she would bear my children just seemed too far-fetched, even for someone who fully believed in some of the more “out there” conspiracy theories. Plus, if she wasn’t out to get me and I told her that I suspected she had been, she’d kill me anyway. Very few trust-issue scenarios with a woman don’t end in a lose-lose scenario.
“Tallboat, you should come back and join us.” It was a very small and scared looking Linnick. At some point, I had wandered away from our strange group and was watching as the war encroached. Hadn’t really been thinking about the death, destruction, and devastation that was swirling around in that horde…in fact, hadn’t really been thinking about much of anything. A feat almost any man can do with hardly any prodding but which a woman cannot for the life of her fathom can truly be accomplished.
“Okay,” I said as I shook away the cobwebs from the underused corners.
“Bill has an idea–says he can protect us from the Polions, but not so much Tommy if he does indeed show up, as you believe.”
Bill’s idea was ingenious. He was basically going to be a…I wanted to say human shield, but well, he’s not really human. He was going to drape himself over us like an umbrella. Sort of. We weren’t going to have much room, kind of like hiding under a canoe. All great and fine until something finds you, then you’re kind of screwed because you can’t really escape with any speed. Used to play this awesome game as a kid, Night Jail. Kind of reverse tag. A team of three or four loaded up with flashli
ghts and walkie-talkies would attempt to find the “escapee.” We had set boundaries and a time limit, so if you evaded capture for say, a half hour, you won. Wow, you know, now that I’m talking about it, it’s no wonder I have trouble with authority, I was learning how to get away from authority figures pre-pubescent, and it was a blast. Holy shit, the revelations that can come when you start to write things down. So not the point. Anyway, in one of the yards within bounds, barely, was a huge weeping willow tree, the branches hung so low they swept the ground. It was dense, too, like a hedgerow, an area that just seemed entirely too difficult to even bother with. Well, this particular night, Paul and Dennis were closing in; I was the escapee. I don’t think they’d seen me yet, but they would soon enough.
I chanced it and wormed my way in and through that impossibly thick forest of branches and leaves. Was like I found a damn Hobbit hole in there. Had my own burrow, could barely even hear Paul and Dennis yelling back and forth at each other if they’d found anything. I’d won that particular round. Then I’d started dipping a little too often into the well. After I’d won a few rounds, the searches got more intense, and once my hiding spot was discovered, it was always checked first from there on out. I hoped as Linnick and I wriggled under Bill this would be one of those times we weren’t found; he was a pretty obvious spot, after all.
“Bill, you going to be alright?” I asked. Thinking that maybe it was a bit late to ask that; what could he do about it now?
“He’s neutral in all of this No one will touch him.”
“Bill is the Switzerland of the underworld? Weird, man. Shit just keeps getting weirder and weirder.”
The cacophony of those being eviscerated was upon us, Bill’s bulk muffled some of the screams but not enough. I had some serious misgivings about our present predicament and maybe more than a little bit of panic worming its way into my head. Always fun to desperately want to run out into the open when you know doing so would result in conceivably one of the most violent deaths ever possible. The hurt zone and all its fallout was swirling around Bill. He seemed immune to all of it, an impartial island in a sea of war. It sounded like the worst of it was passing us on by when the really bad part started. Bill, who wasn’t overly fond of words, expressions, gestures, or anything else that resembled communication began to shriek. It was a halting, loud, blaring sound, like an asthmatic at a kazoo testing facility. Bill was most definitely under attack, someone had decided that Switzerland was theirs for the taking. At first, I thought riding it out underneath was the best bet, but he was getting brutalized out there and I couldn’t just lay here and let it happen. Unfortunately, come to find out I also couldn’t move; Bill had clamped down on our impromptu fortress. I’d gone from the relative comfort of being under a fifteen-foot tiny home to a seven foot kayak. His flesh was pressed up against my nose and descending.
“Tallboat!” Linnick also wasn’t liking our present situation.
There was a wet tearing sound; I wanted to pretend it was anything but what it really was, the sound of Bill’s flesh being cleaved. But the shrill sound that came from him and the shuddering of his body was the only proof I needed that Bill was losing the fight.
“Let us out Bill! We can help!” I shouted.
At first, there was nothing. Possibly the pain was too much that he couldn’t even process the information or maybe he was going to see to our safety right up until the end. Maybe it was a reflexive thing or he’d finally taken all he could, but when we heard another large rip, an opening revealed itself to my left. I didn’t hesitate as I rolled out from under. Seriously though, what was my alternative? Get crushed under his bulk or slowly vaporized? Neither was all that appealing. The unlight was back, the demons and the Polions had pushed past. I was dealing with a whole different monster now. Tommy was in attack mode, his teeth were elongated and the muscles rippled down the lengths of his arms, as he tore into the much larger Bill. Bill, for all his size and strengths was no match for Tommy, who somehow seemed unaffected by Bill’s attacks. Bill was inflicting pain on the boy but was not dissolving him and was not able to keep him held in his clutches.
Hunks the size of briskets were being torn off Bill and wetly discarded to the side. Tommy had been so focused on Bill he had not realized I’d come out from under him. My guess was it was taking everything he had to stay one up on him. This had gone on for long enough. Never one to ponder, I grabbed my axe and attacked. It was possible he had most of his attention on Bill, but he had more than enough to thwart my attempt at cutting his fucking head off. He arm barred my attack hand with enough force to throw me off course. I had some satisfaction when my killing blow missed his head but bit into his shoulder. Not deeply, mind you, but when a razor-sharp blade slices a deli meat sized sample off of you, you’re going to feel it and react.
I’d given Bill the reprieve he’d earned, though now I had the full attention and ire of a large, pissed off vampire. Good times, good times. I’d been bounced away after my hit but had recovered before Tommy could. We were now squaring off; I gave the briefest of glimpses to Bill–there would be no help from that quarter. He was listing heavily to the side and a gel substance was pouring out of him in quantity. There was no question he was dying and by the look on Tommy’s face, I’d be joining him soon.
“You’re no match for me, Mr. T.”
“Fuck you, Tommy, and to you, it’s Mister Talbot. I renounce any familial ties we ever had.” Don’t know if that struck a chord or the slight slippage on his face was due to something else. Whatever my words had affected, anger was part of it. He launched his attack. He moved so fast I never even saw the fist that pounded into my jaw. Felt it though, oh yeah, that wasn’t a problem. I skidded away like a leaf in a gale. He attacked before I could even begin to think about countering. Fists were reigning down upon my face and head. It felt like I was fighting five ninjas because I’d screwed all of their girlfriends. If I was supposed to be delivered dead, he could have made good on that at any time. My brain was swimming in its own concussive juices, my vision was blurred, and I’d been less drunk the time I asked the statue of Paul Revere out on a date. Yeah, I’d even got pissed that it had not responded to my advances–like drunk-idiot me was the catch of the damn day.
Don’t know when I’d dropped the axe, or even when I fell to my knees and onto my back. I do remember the waking up part, the boot to the side forcing the air from my lungs. My face was in the dirt and my hands were tied tightly behind my back. Nope, not tied, manacled; I’d heard the clanging of the metal. I rolled over, the cuffs biting into my back.
“You traitorous, treacherous, fuck. I should have cut your throat when I had the chance.”
“You never did. Have the chance, I mean.” He was staring down at me. “It’s time to go, you’ve already made me late.”
“Yeah, I wouldn’t want you to miss your turncoats anonymous meeting. I heard they were having apple turnovers.”
He roughly grabbed my shoulder and wrenched me up and onto my feet.
“What makes you think I’m going to walk to my own funeral?” I sat back down hard, the jarring impact traveling up my spine. I was going to have to rethink my acts of protest, especially when I couldn’t use my hands.
“You walk or I’ll squish her.” He held up a small bag, there was something in there, could have been a stone for all I knew.
“I see her first.”
“Get up, Mr. T.”
“I’m going to put this as eloquently as the Marine in me can. You should take your own male sexual organ and push it past your anal sphincter with enough thrust that you can taste it in your throat. If that was too haughty for you, I’m basically telling you to go fuck yourself.” The kick to the side of my head was enough to send me spinning and cause me to black out again. Brown out, really. I still sort of had some cognitive functions, enough to see Bill, who had turned a sickly gray color in his death, as I was being dragged past.
“You fuck.” I was finally able to mumble when we were
a few yards past the grisly scene.
“You getting up now?”
“I see that she’s alright or you can keep kicking away. I’m getting used to having my face scraped off.”
“You have no idea how many years I tried to figure out if this idiot persona you portray was a cleverly crafted façade. When I found it was truly who you were, I have to admit I was surprised.”
“Yeah, that’s me,” I grunted as he pulled me up into a sitting position.
He reached into the bag, I was hoping Linnick would bite his finger off. My heart nearly stilled when he pulled out a non-moving form.
“Stop the possum playing. If you don’t move, I’ll rip an arm off,” Tommy told her.
She quickly reacted; there are chances you’ll take and there are ones you won’t. This was definitely a won’t time.
“Hello, Tallboat.” She was scared. So was I.
“Satisfied?”
“I’ll be satisfied with your head on a pike and I’m parading it around Mardi Gras with topless women showering me with beads.”
“The women got beads for showing their breasts, not heads on pikes.”
“My fantasy, I’ll have beads thrown any way I want.”
“Get up and walk or I crush her, kick in your skull, and drag your ass.”
I got up. There was no reason to think this an empty threat. He’d killed Bill, knowing there were repercussions to that act. Who was going to give a shit, other than me, if Linnick got killed? And at this moment there wasn’t much I could do about it to make him pay. I stood up. It was then I noticed I had manacles around my ankles and a chain a couple of feet long, giving me the ability to take a decent stride, but nothing with any speed.
“Where are my eyeballs?” I asked looking for the small bag I’d had tied to my waist.
Tommy didn’t even acknowledge that question, like when a person asks where their hat is while they are wearing it. I didn’t push it, right now. Tim coming back and finding me was low in the queue.
“Are you that afraid?” I asked, looking at all the hardware I was wearing.