Narrated by: Christopher John Fetherolf
Series: The Tome of Bill, Book 8
Length: 18 hrs and 40 mins

This book is great!
Really long and a pleasure to listen to all the way through, + the series conclusion is decent enough, even if half way through the book you could kind of see it coming.

Story

It starts off with the recent truce with Alex, with Alex going his way, and Bill and his entourage going the other, regrouping to his apartment with his entourage.

Christy works some pretty serious, and hard-core magic to give some sort of life back to her boyfriend Tom, who since the last book had been confined to the body of a plastic action figure.  Gan returns, and reveals that she is a changed woman, one that cannot turn others to vampires, but CAN now walk in the sun.  This due to an experiment the white mother made on her with the help of ‘the abomination’ ie. Bills friend Ed.

Bill and his entourage know that they must break into the underground lair of the white mother and the Jahabish (stone rock creatures) to defeat them, and bring an end to everything once and for all, thus they meet the remaining Alma (Sasquatches) to broker a peace agreement in order to meet Grolg under peaceful terms to understand where the closest entrance is, as the one they used in book 5 was forcibly closed.

They eventually meet Grolg in Boston, and after several fights and several quite interesting things happening [such as Alex taking actions to eliminate anyone that came in contact with the white mother, or the Jahabish, to ensure they’re not actually Jahabish 2.0 (ones that are difficult to recognise as compromised, & ones which retain more of their personality)…these action thus significantly weakening the vampire nations forces + the Templars being turned to vampires by Colin (revealed to be around 300 years old) ]  Bill and his entourage (including Sheila –the Icon) find themselves back in the underground laid, and the White mother decides to explain things so that Bill might join her.

***** series Spoilers *****  Highlight below empty space to read spoilers.  Don’t highlight if you don’t want the spoilers

She reveals that at one point long ago, all kinds of monsters roamed the earth, humans were constantly at the mercy of spirits, weird & evil creatures etc.
She was a mage （magic wielder） at the time battling such monsters.  She stumbled across an underground cavern that had a ‘source pool’   a swirling liquid that seemed to actually be the source of all the things not native to this world; including being the ‘birth place’ of the Alma, of many demons, as well as magic etc., they all seemed to come through this portal that seemed to be a doorway to either a parallel world or many parallel worlds.

She studied this source pool for a long time becoming very powerful due to this pool also being the source of magic users magic, and realised that the fallen enemies could be dipped below the surface of the source, and would come out reborn, alive in the form of rock monsters that would obey her.

She then decided to try and create her own source of power to draw from personally and to try and wipe out the true source pool. (as far as my memory tells me, this is what happened)

She manages to create it, but it is a portal to another dark universe. A spirit strikes out and bonds with her soul, thus making her the 1st  vampire.

The thirst made her lose concentration and she ended up turning on her followers that were there at the time, thus making them like her as well.

She therefore explains that all vampires originated from her.

As she explains it, the spirit of the other world through this portal that she created is first merged with the spirit of a human, which grants them powers over a regular human, yet also disadvantages, such as the whole vampires.. cannot walk in direct sunlight, thirst for blood, etc.

The reason that vampires get stronger over time is that this bond becomes stronger and stronger.

The beings that are the ‘vampiric’ side are thus inferred to be impossibly strong.

And in fact the thing that Bill can turn into, his Doctor Death persona, is because he is a free-will, and so the bond is a very loose one, the dark spirit can thus completely separate from bill at times when the ‘fight or flight instinct’ (his reptile brain) kicks in.

Bill is the only free-will that seems to have this power in the history of free-wills.  The other free-will we know about, Vehyron the destroyer otherwise known as The Sun-strider, his separated power manifests itself in the ability to walk in the sun for as much as an hour at a time.  This is inferred as a bond between the dark spirit and the human side that didn’t stick and his human ability to walk in the sun… shining through. (pun intended)

However, Bill’s manifested power is seen as more in line with the dark spirit. 
In fact, he more or less turns into a more accurate manifestation of the dark spirit to begin with.  (even though what the dark spirits look like is never truly explained).

Thus, Bills Doctor Death transformation is impossibly strong, even rivalling that of the more perfectly bonded dark spirit of Alexander the Great’s who is supposed to be 2,400 years old.

Although it is revealed in book 5 & 7 that Bill’s free-will power allows him to drink the blood of other vampires thus adding the strength to his own.  It is further emphasised in this book, that it is ADDED, and if you were to mix many different sources from many different vampires, the result would be like adding the strength of many hundreds of years old vampires together ensuring that a free-will even one only recently turned such as Bill, can rival that of the oldest vampires power.

During a fight with The White Mother it is hinted that if the source she created, and the source that was naturally on earth is closed or destroyed, all spirits would leave this realm.  Which means all humans that had their souls bonded with that of the dark spirits would, their dark spirits would return through the portal, thus leaving them as they were. 
Considering that many vampires are 300 years old, this would mean they would turn to ash.

Indeed this is exactly what happens, when Toms body (brought together with an energy source which Christie created) is used together with the faith energy of Sheila the Icon, to destroy both sources.

As a result those that are naturally still within a human age range, continue to survive, but all those that should have died, turn to ash. 
The Alma’s spirits get sucked back through the source, and thus disappear. 
All other beings that once came through the source portal, thus have similar effects and fade out or disappear.

*****Spoilers ended*****

Recommendation

Once again the narration was amazing, the characters were great, and the story continued to be amazing all the way to the end.
It was a fitting end to a great series.
And I’m incredibly glad I listened to this series.
I would recommend it to anyone that loves fantasy or sci-fi or just enjoys a good laugh at sarcastic, crass, and often immature comedy.
I’ll write a series review soon.

Get a free trial of audible with 2 free books, listen to books like this for free, & then if you want….just quit before 30 days & you get to keep everything… sounds like a pretty good deal to me.