The Mourning Woods (The Tome of Bill Book 3)

by Rick Gualtieri

  “Seriously?” she gave me a dubious eye just in case I was joking.

  But I wasn’t. Sure, I might’ve been a little biased. Emotions can do that to a person. Hell, if she ever said, “Bill, your roommates annoy me. Can you please kill them?” I would probably gleefully walk home and go on a bloodthirsty massacre.

  Still, there was (love struck) sincerity in my voice when I answered, “You know what I see when I look at you?” Besides the most gorgeous creature to ever walk the face of this planet? “I see someone with the talent to do anything she puts her mind to. I have no doubt that you could move mountains if you decided to.”

  Again, she looked thoughtful. Her eyes got a faraway look for a few moments. Oh, if only she would wear that expression when she thought about me. For that, I’d gladly suffer an eternity of the minions of darkness using my nuts as croquet balls. Hell, I’d even tolerate Sally, my vampire partner in crime, being the one to swing the mallet. Fortunately, Sheila spoke again before that particular imagery could further solidify.

  Her eyes regained their focus, and maybe it was just me, but I could have sworn I saw a glimmer of determination in them that wasn’t there before. She nodded her head once and said, “Maybe your mom’s right. Either way, you’ve given me a lot to think about.”

  The rest of our little pseudo-date was spent talking about considerably less heavy topics, or at least I think it was. My brain had given its all just to get those thoughts out. I had no idea what I said or did, other than making puppy dog eyes at her until we went our separate ways. Sadly, I didn’t have a clue as to how separate they were about to become.

  It figured. I’d survived multiple brushes with death in the past several months, most of them at the hands of creatures far more lethal than I. Wouldn’t it figure that at the end of the day I would be my own worst enemy?

  God, I am such an asshole.

  Late For My Own Funeral

  The thing I’ve always loved about programming is that it’s purely logical. While having a passion for the job helps, at times one can shut down their emotions and type away, android-like, to get the job done. Pity I wasn’t very good at doing that. Fortunately for me, though, I had a few spare keyboards in my closet. I needed them.

  The next few hours found me trying to do my job and mostly failing. I’d be typing away when suddenly something like, “FUCK FUCK FUCK!” would come screaming out of my mouth, followed by me turning my keyboard into a mashed pile of plastic. Oh, well, at least they were cheaper than monitors.

  Ed, for the most part, left me to my misery. He realized I needed a little “me time” to cool off. As late afternoon approached, my sharp vampire ears picked up his voice from out in the living room. I couldn’t hear both sides of the conversation, but from what I could tell, he had phoned my other roommate, Tom, to let him know that it was probably not a good time to invite his girlfriend over. Ed doesn’t usually like to show it, but he can be a hell of a good guy when he wants to be.

  Sadly, the truth was, there really wasn’t such a thing as a good time for Tom to ever bring Christy over. See, she’s a witch, a real one. That in itself didn’t bother me. It was the fact that she wanted me dead that put a damper on our relationship. She and her mentor, Harry Decker – the aforementioned VP/wizard from my company – had this loony theory that I was the harbinger of doom for wizard-kind.

  They, along with all the vampires I knew, referred to me as the “Freewill.” Apparently, I’m this rare breed of vampire that can do things the others can’t. As such, there were all sorts of bizarre myths and legends surrounding me. Harry and Christy believed in one in particular that involved my existence somehow heralding the return of these other legendary creatures called Icons. Supposedly, if these Icons showed up, they’d destroy all the magic users ... yadda yadda, and other assorted bullshit.

  Personally, I couldn’t have cared less about any of that. All I knew was that Christy was the fucking Wicked Witch of the East Coast. That girl had some scary mojo about her, and she wasn’t afraid to use it against me. Tom, my oldest and dearest friend, but also a fucking idiot, decided that the best way to handle this was to make her pinky-swear not to kill me in our apartment.

  Needless to say, because of those little details, my relationship with Christy was a bit strained. Pity, because she was kind of cute.

  What? Sharks are deadly, too. Doesn’t mean they’re not fun to look at in the aquarium.

  Speaking of things that were both pretty and deadly, I was interrupted from eavesdropping by the ringing of my own cell phone. I didn’t need to look at the caller ID to know who it was. The specific ringtone, the theme from Halloween, gave it away.

  I answered with a sigh. “Hello, Sally.” It was unusual for her to bother me in the middle of the week. Typically, she was happy to let me live my life – not that I had much of one. While I was gone, she was left in charge of the coven. Hell, even when I was there, it was pretty obvious that she was calling most of the shots. For the most part, she was a competent, if scary, person to leave in charge. However, occasionally her psychotic side got the better of her and she would do something that made me want to shove her out into the sunlight.

  “Aw, what’s the matter, Bill?” she replied with her typical snide tone. “You don’t sound like your normal chipper self.”

  “I’m having a bit of a day,” I said, using my free hand to massage my temples. Talking to Sally had a habit of bringing on the migraines.

  “Well that’s good, because you’re going to have a bit of a night, too.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What I mean is that I think your ‘penance’ is about to be paid.”

  Oh, crap. “How so?”

  “Boston called. They said we should expect company.”

  “Who?”

  “They didn’t elaborate.”

  That wasn’t good. Boston was the center of vampire-related activity on the East Coast. They didn’t often get involved in the day to day operations of the covens under their jurisdiction, but when they did, you could be certain shit was about to hit the fan. In my case, I was pretty sure a pile big enough to smother an elephant hung over my head.

  “Did they say...?”

  “No, they didn’t. Colin sounded pretty agitated over the phone, though. I think you’d best get your dumpy ass over here as soon as sundown hits.”

  Colin was the vampire currently in charge of the Northeast. It was a temporary position. However, since his boss, James, was missing, it was looking more and more likely that his would be a permanent promotion. Pity, as Colin was a little suck-up of a weasel. If he could have, he would have gladly glued his lips to the asses of the elder vamps who made up the First Coven, the vampire ruling body more affectionately known as the Draculas.

  A sheen of perspiration broke out on my forehead. “Oh, shit.”

  “Said with your usual eloquence,” Sally quipped. “So, are you coming?”

  “Do I have a choice?” Silence on the other end. “Sorry, stupid question. Yeah, I guess so. They can only kill me once, after all.”

  “Not really.” As usual, she was doing her best to make me feel worse. “See you in a few.”

  I hung up. This did not bode well for me. Three months ago, some serious shit had gone down. It had all started as a joke. Sally had shipped me to China, supposedly at James’s behest. Notice I didn’t say it was a funny joke. When Gan, a three-hundred-year-old spoiled vampire brat, decided she was in love with me, her father was displeased. Unfortunately for me, her father was the Khan, a member of the Draculas. Even less fortunate, his way of voicing displeasure was to send a trio of his best assassins to cut off my head. Not only had they failed, but the whole mission had turned out to be a fatal mistake on his part.

  Unbeknownst to me at the time, he and his people were attacked while this debacle was going on. His forces depleted, the Khan’s coven was overrun with nary a sign of any survivors.

  The rest of the Draculas subsequently pinned the blam
e on me. Word had come down from them that I was expected to make things right. The only problem was they didn’t specify how. I had thus spent those three months constantly looking over my shoulder.

  At last, it seemed I was finally going to get my answer. Oh, well, at least I would know and, according to GI Joe, that’s half the battle right there. Pity the rest of it would probably be slightly less fun.

  Anticipation is a Killer

  Both of my roommates, bless their still-beating hearts, insisted on coming along after I filled them in on the news. Part of it was their friendship to me, of which I was grateful. As for the rest, well, I wasn’t entirely stupid. I knew morbid curiosity when I saw it.

  While I was in China, James had absentmindedly dropped the name Alma to describe their enemies. An Internet search had revealed that Alma was the Mongolian name for Bigfoot. To say that my friends, Tom especially, were excited about the prospect of a vampire/Sasquatch showdown would’ve been an understatement. Hell, if I weren’t the one in danger of becoming a casualty of this grudge match, the eternal geek in me would have been pretty darn stoked about it, too.

  Still, their willingness to stand by my side was welcome. Unfortunately, as I explained to them, I couldn’t bring them to my meeting with Sally. Normally vampires and humans mix about as well as people and nacho platters. As the leader of Village Coven – a stupid name if ever there was one – I had decreed that my friends were off-limits. Even Sally had to agree with that one, as they had helped us both out on more than one occasion.

  Unfortunately, whoever was coming to see us wasn’t a part of my coven and weren’t beholden to my rules. If they were parched from their journey, then my roommates would make handy refreshments. I couldn’t let that happen. Thus, to all our chagrin, I had to turn them down and take a solo trip on the N-train toward Manhattan.

  Well okay, I wasn’t entirely alone. I had dozens of potentially horrific demises running through my head to keep me company. Lots of fun, I tell you.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  The center of my undead “empire” was a place we simply refer to as the Office. My coven rented out a few floors in a building close to NYU. We had lots of places both in and under SoHo (sewers may stink, but they tended to be free of pesky things like sunlight). However, currently a lot of that space was empty. A while back, roughly half of my coven ended up permanently dead thanks to a combo of the Khan’s assassins and this little spat we had with another coven from Queens. Since then, despite Sally’s constant nagging, I’d been hemming and hawing my way out of replenishing our ranks.

  I’m sorry, but I have a conscience about these things. For starters, I had no desire to refill my coven with the current types that dominated it. When I first “joined” the ranks of the undead, Village Coven was entirely populated by two types: uber-hot, but entirely vacuous, females, and pretty-boy douchebags. Sally was the lone exception. She was as hot as they come but could think circles around the rest. Hell, I’m not exactly an idiot myself and I’d still think twice before going against her in a battle of wits.

  As for recruiting people more like me, that had its own problems. I had little doubt I’d be able to find a small army of comic book geeks who would gladly join the ranks of us night stalkers. But did the city really need a population of dorks suddenly thinking they’re superheroes? Trust me, I’ve been there. Vampire powers or not, it doesn’t work out well.

  I pushed all those thoughts out of my mind as I arrived at the Office. As much fun as it might be to imagine myself as the leader of a group of vampiric X-Men, it wasn’t the time for such distractions.

  As usual, the stairwell was empty, so I was able to run up to our floor at a pace that would have left an Olympic sprinter wheezing. Just for the record, not all parts of being a vampire suck. I might not be much to look at, but being a vampire had its advantages for anyone, regardless of whether they looked like they’re allergic to exercise equipment.

  Also, as was typical, I felt a shudder of revulsion pass through me as I walked in. The desks up front were manned and going full force. Rather than let the coven hunt for prey openly, Sally had instituted a half-assed suicide hotline to lure in victims. It kept the coven’s larders full while ensuring that most of the humans we harvested were those who wouldn’t be missed. Sorry, her words, not mine. Personally, I found the whole thing to be so evil that Satan himself would probably step back and say, “Whoa!”

  At that moment, though, I had other things with which to occupy my mind. I strode past the rows of desks and went straight toward the back corner where Sally had commandeered an over-sized executive suite. She definitely didn’t believe in suffering for the cause.

  Seated at a desk outside of her office was Starlight. She was a strikingly beautiful African-American woman. Though in her forties, she was eternally stuck in the body of a twenty-one-year-old fashion model, but what a body it was. Unfortunately for her, Starlight was a genuine sweetheart, just not an overly bright one. Both of these traits meant she was easy prey for manipulation, and Sally was a grade-A manipulator. She had continually coerced Starlight into acting as her personal secretary ... so much so that I had given up trying to do anything about it. There were far worse fates.

  “Hey, Bill,” she said, seeing me approach. “You can go right in, Sally’s expecting you.”

  I smirked. Technically speaking, I was in charge. I could go wherever and whenever I pleased ... at least as far as the rest of the coven were concerned. To them, I was this fearsome predator, a beast of legend even amongst vampire-kind. They all afforded me respect that far outweighed what I deserved. Sally, however, knew the truth, and though she kept up appearances for the others, I had to tread lightly around her.

  “Thanks, Star.” I walked in, shutting the door behind me.

  I half expected the room to be full of hooded figures hissing at me to kneel while they proceeded to dole out my punishment.

  Instead, I found myself alone with Sally ... and she was naked.

  Well, okay, she was only naked in my mind. But then, she always was. In actuality, she was seated – fully clothed, sadly – behind her desk where she dismissively motioned for me to sit while she continued chatting on the phone.

  “Wednesday? Sorry, mornings don’t work for me,” she said casually into the receiver. “How about the evening? That’ll work. No, it doesn’t have to be here. We can do this over drinks. Great. I can’t wait to see the layout. You, too. Talk to you soon.” Her tone was disturbingly chipper as she hung up.

  She turned to me as I sat there looking at her expectantly. “Sorry about that. The Village Voice is running a story on the hotline and wanted to know if I was available for an interview.”

  “I’m so happy for you,” I replied coldly.

  “I know, isn’t it great?”

  “Oh, yeah, killing off the city’s poor and defenseless ... real great.”

  “You have no head for business, you know that?” she sniffed.

  “I couldn’t care less as long as I get to keep mine.” I looked around. “So what’s going on?”

  “You’re early, I guess. Nobody’s here yet.”

  “Great. I love getting extra time to stew in my juices right before being executed.”

  “They’re not going to execute you ... at least, I don’t think they’re going to.”

  “How reassuring.”

  “Listen.” She leaned over the desk toward me. Her new angle afforded me a generous view of her ample cleavage. Noticing where my eyes were headed, she quickly added, “They don’t talk back ... especially not to you. Eyes up here while you still have them.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Bullshit,” she replied offhandedly. “As I was saying, I doubt execution is on their minds.”