Bill of the Dead (Book 0.5): A Higher Calling Read online

  Table of Contents

  THE UNFORGOTTEN PAST

  CASUAL SACRIFICES

  FIGHTING SPIRIT

  SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST

  THE LIVING DEAD

  A NEW TOMORROW

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  A HIGHER CALLING

  BILL OF THE DEAD

  Book 0.5

  Rick Gualtieri

  Copyright © 2019 Rick Gualtieri

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission of the author. Your support of authors’ rights is greatly appreciated.

  All characters in this novel are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. The use of any real company and/or product names is for literary effect only. All other trademarks and copyrights are the property of their respective owners.

  THE UNFORGOTTEN PAST

  “No one is doubting your daughter’s intelligence, Mr. Khan. Her grades more than speak for themselves.”

  “Then I’m not certain I understand the concern, Mr. Wellington.”

  “Please, call me Joseph.”

  “As I said, Mr. Wellington, I am not entirely certain I understand your concerns.”

  “Her grades are outstanding. Top of her class. You said so yourself.”

  “Yes, Mrs. Khan. That’s true. Gan is one of our finest students...”

  One of? Though I was forced to often hide the true breadth of my knowledge, so as to better fit in with the lesser minds surrounding me, his assertion that I had any rivals in this place, academic or otherwise, drew my thoughts away from the far more important tasks they’d been focused on.

  “Gansetseg,” I interrupted.

  “Excuse me?”

  The so-called guidance counselor I’d been assigned in this place turned my way, as if noticing me for the first time. Typical. Knowing what I knew about the man, I was aware that as a female, not to mention a minor, I was ostensibly less than nothing in his eyes, especially in a meeting such as this. How tiresome. In another life I’d have had him flayed alive for such an insult, implied though it might be. However, in that, too, I was forced to hold myself in check, determined as I was to master the ways of these people. Nevertheless, a small indulgence was called for every now and then.

  “I prefer to be addressed by my given name.”

  Wellington glanced toward my father as if perhaps expecting him to scold me for the outburst. The thought was almost enough to bring a smirk to my face. My true father, the one who’d raised me for over three-hundred years of my long life, had been no one to trifle with. Even I had been mindful of my tongue when in his presence. But alas he was gone, dust for almost six years now.

  “You must excuse my daughter,” my false father replied. “However, it is customary where we come from to honor formality in situations such as this.”

  Wellington glanced down at the folder in his hands. Though I was well aware of its contents, banal as they were, I had noticed his tendency to use it as if it were a shield, betraying the fact that at his core he was spineless, no threat to a person of my station.

  “Ah, yes,” he said, glancing down as if all the answers he needed were there for the taking. “You immigrated four years ago from ... where was it ... Taiwan?”

  “China,” the man pretending to be my father replied, a polite smile on his face. “The Gansu Province to be precise. It’s where I started my shipping business.”

  I moved a strand of hair out of the way and glanced up at him seated beside me, eyes narrowed, barely able to believe his stupidity. Even the most cursory of inquiries would have brought unwanted scrutiny down upon his sad attempt at improvisation. The province in question was correct, however, it lay over six-hundred kilometers from the sea, something any worthy adversary would instantly pounce upon.

  Fortunately, Joseph Wellington was far from what I would’ve considered worthy, much less an adversary.

  “I see,” he said, as if that answered the lie thrown his way. “Regardless, there is still the matter at hand. Here at the Amherst Academy, we believe a well-rounded student will be a successful student. Your daughter, though academically competent, lacks the sort of extracurricular activities we like to see, especially for those hoping to move on to such prestigious institutions such as Harvard or Brown.”

  Ah, the Amherst Academy for the Esoterically Accomplished. Such a pompous name for a ludicrously silly school, but then I would have expected no less from mages ... or former mages anyway. They were all powerless now, reduced to nothing more than mere mortals these past four years. Yet the arrogance of their people remained, at least on the surface. Wellington’s eyes told a different story, however. They spoke of a man who was once sure of his power but was now forced to live in a world where he was no better than anyone else. And that knowledge frightened him.

  Therein lay the difference between us. Though I, too, had been rendered human by the destruction of The Source – the wellspring through which all magic had once flowed to this world – it did not put us on even footing, not in the slightest.

  Where former wizards such as Wellington once defined themselves by the primal forces at their command, I was raised to be a ruler, a conqueror, regardless of my circumstance. Vampire or mortal, rich or poor, able-bodied or weak; none of that mattered compared to who I was inside. I was the daughter of Ögedei Khan, honored son of Temüjin, the greatest warrior king this world had ever known. The fire of destiny burned within me and it would not be quelled no matter my circumstance.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  The meeting ended, fortunately before I lost patience and was forced to consider ending Wellington’s pittance of a life. We walked out of the school, once a secret haven for young Magi, but now simply a place for New England’s social elite to dump their pampered offspring. The irony of my attendance here was that, not too long ago, the grounds of this academy would’ve likely been warded against my kind. Now we were all on equal footing ... in a manner of speaking.

  We stepped forth into the parking lot, looking every bit the idyllic upper-class family. My parents, to all eyes a successful businessman and his trophy wife, led the way while I maintained a respectful distance behind them, dressed in the official uniform of the Amherst Academy – the skirt so ridiculously short as to make it obvious someone on the staff had an unhealthy affectation for Japanese manga.

  It was only once we reached the awaiting limousine, our driver holding the door for us, that I allowed the charade to drop.

  I turned to the man playing the part of my father, in reality a servant of mine by the name of Batu, and locked eyes upon him. “The next time you feel the need to improvise, do not.”

  Though it wouldn’t do for him to prostrate himself before me in public, his eyes opened wide with the appropriate amount of fear. “M-my apologies, Mistress Gansetseg. It will not happen again.”

  “Lash yourself forty times tonight and see that it does not.”

  Satisfied that he understood the depth of my displeasure, I turned to the woman pretending to be my mother to see if she cared to test my patience as well. Though Batu was Asian, his family having immigrated here around the turn of the last century, the woman – Gabrielle – was of Nordic descent. Though I did not appear western myself, I possessed eyes of emerald green, a rarity for one of my ancestry. Through trial and error, I’d found that recruiting parents of mixed race led to fewer questions in that regard.

  To her credit, she offered no challenge, avertin
g her gaze quickly.

  Satisfied that they both knew their place in the grand tapestry of life, I informed them that I wished to be alone on the drive back to the estate which served as my home here.

  They climbed into the front with the driver, offering no protest to the contrary ... as expected.

  Loyalty had been a thing misunderstood within the former vampire hierarchy – it, too, now little more than dust. They’d once used fear and the power of compulsion to keep their underlings in line. They thought it made them strong, but in reality it did nothing but weaken their position. True loyalty was infinitely more powerful, something that not even the loss of magic could break. It was that loyalty, from the cattle that once served me in my former role as Shadow Mistress of Asia, which had allowed me to thrive in this new world where others of my kind had simply become mere shadows of their former selves.

  However, perhaps that was not surprising as they were nothing more than children – all, save myself, still within the first century of their lives. All the rest of advanced age, outside of the normal span of human life, had fallen to dust as their bodies withered to match their true years. It was a fate only I was spared. I still didn’t fully understand why but, as I settled into the expansive confines of the vehicle, I focused upon the one reason I always did: fate. There was only one answer for my survival. Destiny had chosen me to be its herald.

  Some would have spent the entirety of their now-mortal lives wondering what that purpose might be, succumbing to inaction as a result, but such idle speculation was beneath me.

  I truly believed in destiny but, at the same time, was fully convinced that it waited for no one. If one wished to have a hand in shaping the world, then one needed to embrace it through decision and action.

  In truth, my course had been set the moment I awoke to find I’d survived where so many of my brethren had not.

  I was meant to be the herald to start the cycle anew. The old ways were gone now, along with its keepers. As stagnant and corrupt as the vampire race had become, it was a welcome purge. Now there stood the chance to start over fresh, to usher in a new age for those touched by powers beyond the veil. But in order to kindle that fire I needed a spark, and with The Source destroyed such a thing was no small undertaking. But who better to shoulder such a monumental burden than one of my blood?

  With such clarity of purpose, how could I possibly fail?

  I glanced out the window, barely noticing the trees, buildings, and people we passed, and considered this.

  The problem was I’d repeated the mantra of destiny to myself daily for the past four years with little to show for it. My spies told me even the most powerful of the Magi could now summon no more than the occasional spark – barely a parlor trick compared to what they could once do. It was little more than a tease, hinting at the infinite power which was now sealed off to us from behind a seemingly unbreachable gate.

  Though I would never show such weakness in front of those who served me, doubt had begun to creep into my being. In truth, there was only one concept that disturbed me more than a life wasted wondering what one’s fate might be, and that was a life spent in folly, pursuing an unattainable goal.

  When I was immortal, such a concept would have been of no consequence, but now I was forced to consider that my time upon this plane was finite. Physically, I was in my late teens, roughly sixteen by human standards, with perhaps another seven or eight decades in front of me. However, as one who has already experienced multiple lifetimes, I was well aware of how quickly such a span of years could pass. One quick blink and I could very well find myself old and infirm, confined to a bed as my life force ebbed away, knowing I’d wasted my life with nothing to show for it.

  As always, when such rumination threatened to consume me with darkness, I turned my thoughts toward he whom I longed for – the love of my life: William Anderson Ryder, Bill to his friends, Dr. Death to his confidants, and the Freewill to those who remembered such things. He was the only son of Robert and Samantha Ryder and a decisively imperfect specimen of humanity, yet he was utterly flawless in my eyes – a shining jewel amidst a herd of dull-witted cattle. He could bring a smile to my lips like no other, possessing a wry sense of humor that more than made up for his numerous shortcomings.

  Thinking of him, I was once again forced to consider the vow I’d made in those early days, upon discovering I was mortal again and aging normally.

  Six years.

  By then I would be eighteen in body, what his culture deemed to be a physical adult. It was a silly, ironic custom, considering even this country had a history for tolerating so-called child brides. However, it was a custom my beloved seemed to be fixated on and so I, too, had deemed it a worthy goal.

  Such was the limit I’d placed upon myself: to reopen the gates to the beyond in that time frame and recapture my lost immortality. If I could not, then I would accept this frail existence and devote myself wholly toward winning his heart, through whatever means necessary.

  Yet now, with over four of those years gone, I found myself conflicted. A part of me longed to grow old with him by my side, to accept that what I was trying to do was impossible and focus on more attainable pursuits. However, the other part of me, the part growing desperate, insisted nothing was impossible for one of my lineage.

  And in truth I had already accomplished what many might consider unattainable. Though my true goal continued to elude me, I had amassed power and influence beyond what even heads of state might dream of by consolidating the holdings, wealth, and vast knowledge that had once belonged to the First Coven – the ruling body of the vampire nation.

  It was their knowledge which most concerned me as I activated the satellite phone by my side. The archives of the vampire nation stretched back to the dawn of time itself and contained dark knowledge of things far beyond even the scope of my learning.

  Somewhere within lay the answer, the means to reach out across dimensions and make contact with something powerful enough to break through to our world.

  It was in that ancient knowledge that I now, once again, placed all my hope.

  CASUAL SACRIFICES

  “How many?”

  “Six, just as the ritual called for. Three virgins and three who’d led a more ... active lifestyle.”

  “There is little need to mince words, Dr. Yu,” I replied. “You may call them what they were, whores.”

  “Very well, Mistress Gansetseg.”

  As the protocol I’d set demanded, the good doctor then proceeded to recite the specifics of the ritual in detail. I had made it a point to memorize said details in advance of every attempt. Her reciting it back to me was a failsafe against ineptitude. Dr. Yu’s predecessor had been sloppy, skipping proscribed steps he deemed unimportant. As such, I’d been forced to liquidate our working relationship as well as the man himself. Worse, those rituals needed to be conducted again, properly this time, to account for his missteps. All told, it had cost me nearly six months of effort, as well as a great deal of consternation.

  “At the exact moment of the sun’s zenith,” she continued, “they were eviscerated and their entrails set aflame before their dying eyes. The incantation was then read aloud in the originating dialect.”

  “Results?”

  “Negative.”

  I paused to slam a fist onto the leather armrest. Yet another failure in a seemingly endless string of them. The archives of the vampire nation were vast, cataloguing over five thousand years of our history. However, they were more than a simple recounting of the ages. It had been one of the First Coven’s most potent weapons: containing strengths and weaknesses of countless races and subspecies, as well as detailed summoning rituals and appeasement incantations for innumerable entities from beyond the void. In truth, there was more contained within them than a small army of scholars could hope to study in a dozen lifetimes.

  As such, I had teams working across the globe attempting to communicate with the other side. Y
es, the gates were sealed shut, but the ears of the divine were keen and their reach long. In theory, it was possible to make contact even though our world was now cut off from the multiverse ... in theory.

  My people had started with the common pantheons, those the general populace was aware of, even if the vast majority considered them no more than myth and folklore. From there, our efforts had spread to the more esoteric – deities long since forgotten by the realm of man.

  Regrettably, esoteric or not, the results had all been the same.

  “Very well,” I said, forcing calm into my voice. “What entity was this ritual meant to summon?”

  “I believe the archives make mention of the Dweller in the Rot.”

  “Make a note in its file and move on to the next.”

  “Very well. The bodies?”

  “Incinerate them as usual. I need not be bothered with the details.”

  “I should mention that we’re running low on our current pool of recruits.”

  “What’s the next city in our rotation?”

  “Portland, Oregon, I believe.”

  I nodded to myself. “Excellent. I doubt we’ll have to worry about any shortage of derelicts there. Run some ads in Craigslist, offer the standard rates. That should be sufficient.”

  “It will be done, mistress.”

  “See that it is.”

  I disconnected the call and leaned back on the seat, closing my eyelids and focusing on the darkness behind them – the one bit of peace left to me as my failures continued to mount.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Upon our arrival at my estate, I dismissed my parents with the barest wave of my hand and headed deep into the main house toward my private study.

  Situated in the middle of the manor, the room was large and circular, topped off by a dome ceiling. The shape was comforting, reminding me of my father’s massive ger tereg, where I dwelled as a child.

  However, the trappings were also a contradiction in terms, a mix of traditional – including some of the priceless artifacts my father had collected over his long years – and modern, such as a bank of high definition curved panel monitors covering the northernmost wall.