Free Holier Than Thou (The Tome of Bill) by Rick Gualtieri Page B

face.
    “Hey, anyone home?”
    “Huh?”
    “Pay attention, dipshit,” she snapped. “Now’s not the time to zone out.”
    “Oh, sorry.”
    She unmuted the phone while I tried to figure out what I had missed.
    “Assuming that is even true,” James was saying, “how can you know it’s a threat? The creature could be living in a cave in Bangladesh for all you are aware.”
    “Not true. It is close, that much we can tell.”
    “You said it yourself, the Icon’s power somehow counteracts against your own. You have no way of knowing...”
    “DO NOT TELL ME WHAT I KNOW, BEAST!” Decker screamed into the phone as an uncomfortable whine of feedback blared on our end. “The Icon is near, perhaps in this very city. I can feel its presence, much like a reaper breathing down the back of my neck.”
    “Are you sure that’s not just the men in white coats?”
    Decker ignored me and continued on his insane tirade. “I was too late to save my people. My protégé was too soft - weak - to do what needed to be done...”
    He must have been talking about Christy, and what he said was good to hear. She was much more pleasant to be around when she wasn’t actively plotting to kill me, and it was likewise a good thing for Tom. Though he typically didn’t bring it up, it bothered him that his girlfriend and me didn’t always get along...murderously so. Of course, now Christy had a Sheila shaped pendulum of death hanging over her head. That had potential to be a bit awkward in the near future.
    “...but that didn’t mean I couldn’t make you suffer.”
    Huh? Oh yeah, Decker was still yammering. I had been on the receiving end of his insane monologues in the past. It was easiest to just nod as he ranted. That last part, though, sounded like it might be sorta important.
    “What do you mean by that?” I asked, although I had a feeling I knew where this was going.
    “Fool!” he spat venomously - the spittle practically flying through the speaker. “You think we were trying to kill you last night? We purposely struck when we did.”
    Hmm, that sounded kind of like a confession to me.
    “Are you saying you knowingly attacked one of our covens?” James asked.
    “Not one of your covens, Wanderer... his coven, the Freewill’s. All of this started with him: the portents, the prophesy, the coming war.”
    “I must say...” James tried to say, but Harry was still busy frothing at the mouth.
    “Hear me, Freewill. Your existence has brought forth nothing but suffering...”
    “Tell me about it,” Sally muttered. “We have to suffer through listening to this asshole.”
    “Shhh,” I whispered. “I want to hear this.”
    “...and so shall you suffer in return. My days may be numbered, beast, but I shall make sure that I spend every waking moment bringing misery to your existence. Your coven was only the beginning, so as to truly make you appreciate your sense of loss...”
    Uh huh. Sure, I hadn’t wanted to see my coven wind up as fertilizer, but the truth was I didn’t like most of them. My sense of loss ran about as deep as a paper cut.
    “...until at last, right before I myself die, you shall beg me to kill you. Only then shall I perhaps allow your miserable life to...”
    “Perhaps we can work together to solve this problem.”
    “What?!” I knew Colin was a douche-weasel, but did I really just hear him offer help to the crazy wizard who nearly blasted Sally and me to kingdom come?
    “Excuse me?” James broke the momentary silence.
    “I was offering our esteemed guest assistance in solving this mutual dilemma.”
    “You’ll forgive my confusion, Colin, but did not this wizard just admit to an act of war against the vampire nation? That hardly seems...”
    “I mean no disrespect to the First, my lord,” Colin sniveled. It had been a little while since he had slobbered his lips against someone’s rear-end. He was due. “But I do not believe the wizard’s actions were an act of war.”
    “The fuck?!” I