The Tome of Bill Series: Books 1-4 (Bill The Vampire, Scary Dead Things, The Mourning Woods, Holier Than Thou)

by Rick Gualtieri

  Unfortunately, that wasn’t what had stopped me dead in my tracks. It was who she was sitting with. She was sharing a drink – and a laugh, too, by the looks of it – with Harry Decker, the fucking VP of marketing from my company. Goddamn it! Goddamn it all to hell!

  Of all the women in my workplace, how dare that smug asshole put the moves on mine? I saw red, literally. The rage I felt at the mall was nothing compared to what suddenly bubbled up inside of me.

  It must have been radiating off me in waves because Sally took a step toward me with actual concern in her eyes. I had never before felt such immediate anger well up inside of me. Within the space of a moment, it had consumed my being. I could feel my fangs and claws (finally got them to work!) extend. My eyes went black, and then it went beyond even that. I could feel myself ... not even sure how to describe it. I suddenly didn’t feel like me anymore.

  I didn’t know what was happening, but Sally’s eyes suddenly widened in surprise. Her concern was no matter, though. The bloodthirsty beast I’d feared might be inside of me, the one that I had been able to control since my first days as a vampire, was finally tearing free of its tethers.

  And then Sheila looked in my general direction.

  Oh shit! I panicked and did the only thing I could think of ... adopt a tried and true movie cliché. I grabbed Sally, spun her around so that my back was to the cafe, and planted a big kiss on her lips.

  She stiffened in surprise, but I didn’t let go. I held on to her and steered us toward a little alley that we had been walking past. Once I was sure we were out of sight of Sheila and her asshole date, I let Sally go. She had a look of utter shock on her face. “Sorry about that. I know you usually charge guys in advance for that sort of thing.”

  That snapped her out of it, and within a moment she was back to being Sally again. She replied, “Great. Now I’m gonna need a rabies shot.” Having gotten out a quip at my expense, reality quickly sank in and she took a step back and eyed me warily. “What was that?”

  “Sorry. I saw someone I know and kind of panicked.”

  “Not that! You. You ... changed,” she said in a small voice.

  Guess I hadn’t imagined it. I looked down at my hands. They were back to normal. Likewise, I could feel that all the other vampiric stuff had receded as well. That was good. I had been starting to feel scary there for a second or two. I turned back toward her and shrugged. “No idea, but looks like whatever it was is over.”

  I slunk over to the edge of the alley and peered around. Sheila and Harry were still seated. She hadn’t seen me after all. That was good. I would never want her to ever see me like that. Sorry for all you fairy-tale love story junkies, but I didn’t believe in bullshit like Beauty and the Beast.

  A few seconds later, I could sense Sally peering over my shoulder. “What are you looking at?” she asked.

  “Never you mind.”

  “Come on. Tell me.”

  “No.”

  “Tell me, or I’ll make a scene,” she insisted. “I brought my rape whistle.”

  I sighed. Yeah, things were back to normal. “I’m looking at Sheila.”

  “What’s a Sheila?”

  I pointed her out to Sally. She stepped from the alley to get a closer look, at which point I immediately grabbed her arm and dragged her back.

  “Do you want her to see you?!” I snapped.

  “So what if she does?” she pointed out. “I don’t know her.” Damn, sometimes I hated logic.

  “Yeah, well I do,” I hissed defensively. A little too defensively as realization dawned in Sally’s eyes.

  She gave me a big, wide grin. “You like this girl.” When I didn’t answer, she added, “No. You really like this girl.”

  “I just ... know her,” I stammered back unconvincingly.

  She took another look around the corner. “She’s kind of cute ... I guess.” There was that female pissiness rearing its ugly head again. Men had the whole band of brothers thing going on. Women ... well, without us around to stop them, I’m pretty sure they’d all happily claw each other’s eyes out. Unfortunately, though, I had too much of my own pissiness going on at the moment to worry about that.

  “She is not kind of cute!” I snapped. “She is absolutely beautiful.” Okay, maybe that wasn’t exactly as subtle as I had meant it to be. I saw the look Sally was giving me back. “Fine. Maybe I do sort of like her a bit.”

  “No shit, Romeo,” she replied, looking again. “Who’s the guy she’s with?”

  “Some asshole VP from my company.”

  “He’s not exactly hard on the eyes,” she purred.

  “You’re not helping.”

  “Good for her, though. Climbing the old corporate ladder.”

  “Really not helping!” I hissed.

  “Sorry,” she said, backing off. “So what are we doing standing here?”

  I peered back around the corner again. “I’m trying to think of what to do.” I looked hard at Decker and could feel that rage starting to build up inside of me again.

  “What do you mean?”

  “About him.”

  “What about him?”

  “I think we need to kill him,” I said flatly.

  “Excuse me?” she asked, a tone of surprise in her voice.

  “You heard me,” I growled, continuing to look. My fangs had extended again, but I somehow didn’t find that surprising. “You have your cell on you?”

  She didn’t answer, so I continued. “Give the coven a call. Get a few of them over here. Actually, call in Dread Stalker and Victor. They love this kind of shit. Those two will tear him apart limb by fucking limb before they let him die. I can dig that.”

  The only response was silence for a moment, followed by a sound behind me, a familiar one. I turned, and there stood Sally about three paces back, giving me a slow clap with her hands.

  “Congratulations,” she said with no emotion.

  “On what?”

  “You’re finally one of us.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “That guy. His only transgression is that he’s dating a girl you like, and you just condemned him to death without a second thought. That’s very vampiric of you.” She said it in that same flat tone and again gave me a slow clap.

  There was a pause, just long enough for a heartbeat, if I still had one, and then her words sank in. Oh God! She was right. All this time I had been looking down my nose at the other vampires, thinking that they were little more than well-coiffed animals. The truth was they were, but I was kidding myself that I was any better than them. I had become the thing that preys on the weak and hides under little kids’ beds at night. I was no better than some rabid dog. I was a monster.

  My knees buckled and I leaned back against the wall. I took several deep breaths to clear my head. When I felt like I was in control of myself again, I looked back around the corner one last time. Sheila and Harry had gotten up and were leaving the bistro together.

  All I ever really wanted was for her to be happy. I had hoped it would be with me. I saw now, though, that whatever future we might have shared had been irrevocably altered on the day I was made into this thing. If Harry was the one who gave her the happiness that I could not, then so be it. I wouldn’t stand between them. I couldn’t live with myself if I did.

  I sighed and turned back toward Sally, my eyes damp. “Let him go,” I said softly.

  She actually walked up to me and put a hand on my shoulder. It was by far the tenderest thing I had ever seen her do. “Keep your humanity for a little while longer, Bill,” she said. “It’s one of your more endearing traits.”

  Our eyes met, and we shared what was probably our first genuine moment.

  And that’s when a voice from above spoke to us. “Yes. It is endearing. That is why I will kill him for you.”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Both our heads immediately shot up toward the voice. There, about twelve feet above us, standing on a fire escape, was Gan.


  “What are you doing here?” I asked, still trying to process this latest development.

  “Following you, my beloved.”

  “You were supposed to stay with Starlight,” Sally said.

  “Ah yes, the simple one. I quickly grew tired of her.”

  “What did you do to Starlight, Gan?” I said, a note of warning in my voice. I was still pretty screwed up in the head and in no mood for this shit.

  “Do not worry, my love. She is unharmed. She wished to play this silly game with me ... what did she call it ... hide and seek. While she stood there counting into her arms for whatever reason, I left.”

  “How did you find us?”

  “I have your scent. I can track you anywhere,” she replied, tugging at the sleeve of her shirt. Before heading to the Loft, I had given Gan one of my old T-shirts and a pair of shorts that no longer fit me. She was absolutely swimming in the outfit, but a little creative cinching had made it passable until we could get her some new clothes. I saw now that it had been a mistake.

  Sally had once alluded to me that vampires could sense other vampires, but it was something I hadn’t given much thought to before now, mainly because I didn’t seem to be able to do it very well. I hadn’t considered that Gan, being several hundred years older than I, might be both a lot more experienced and sensitive to these things than I was. Shit! I so didn’t need this.

  “Gan, you need to go back to the Loft,” Sally said.

  “I need do nothing you tell me,” Gan replied in a haughty tone, as if her actions were a mandate handed down by the heavens.

  “How about if I ask you to do this ... for me?” Ugh! I glanced at Sally and saw a smirk working its way onto her face. Safe to say, our moment was over.

  “No. I heard the things you said. I believe you need for me to do this.”

  “Gan...” I started, but she interrupted me.

  “His life shall be my gift to you. Perhaps then you shall consider kissing me with as much passion as you kissed the whore.”

  Now it was Sally’s turn to start fuming. I could practically feel it coming off her. I turned to say something, but it was a mistake. There was a flash of movement in the periphery of my vision, and I looked up to see that Gan was no longer there. All I saw was a quick flash of T-shirt disappearing over the rooftop of the building. Fuck me, but she was fast.

  “We need to stop her,” I said to Sally.

  “Define we. I’m not entirely sure that the whore is interested in having anything to do with little Ms. Muffett right now.”

  “Come on, Sally. Don’t do this. Didn’t you just give me the whole ‘don’t lose your humanity’ spiel?”

  “Yeah, but that was you. If I get my hands on that little bitch right now, I’m going to do some decisively non-human things to her.” She bent down to pick up her shopping bags and started walking in the direction of the Loft. “Have fun finding your fiancé. If you need to kill her to stop her ... oh well.”

  Bitch ... no, make that two bitches!

  The Scent of a Woman

  I had absolutely no chance of catching Gan. She was too fast. It also wasn’t helping that Sally had conveniently left the game system bag behind for me – and, no, I wasn’t leaving that. My best bet was to try to catch up with Sheila and Harry before Gan did. She wouldn’t hesitate to tear him apart like a paper bag and then bring me his heart as a trophy.

  On second thought, maybe I didn’t need to hurry that much. No! Those were bad thoughts. Needed to keep them out of my head ... no matter how tempting they might be.

  Gan had a huge edge in speed, but the home turf advantage was definitely mine. I set out in the direction that the couple – ugh, that word tasted awful even in my mind – had, in the hopes of tracking them down before Gan did. I used a little bit of my vampiric speed to help me along, but not much. The streets were far too crowded for me to go full out without being noticed, but perhaps that was another advantage in my favor.

  Despite Gan’s insistence on being a little murder monkey on my behalf, she no doubt knew the rules. Hell, I imagine she had it fully ingrained into her head that she couldn’t exactly announce her existence to the world. Her father was a member of the Draculas and, as far as I had been told, one of their edicts was that the general public couldn’t know about us. Yeah, yeah, I know I’d broken that rule all to hell a couple of times already, but then, I didn’t have a father sitting on the vampire board of directors. So give me a break. Considering the rigid world she came from, I had little doubt that Gan couldn’t help but have a bit more respect for these things than I did. My guess was she’d wait for them to be relatively alone before striking ... hopefully.

  The only problem was, where the hell were they? If they had ducked into another establishment, I would never find them. However, I also didn’t see them anywhere on the street. Jeez, they didn’t have that big of a lead on me. This was the city, though. Everyone who walked its streets was more or less a rat in a maze and, considering the size of the maze, it wasn’t too hard to get lost.

  I started ducking down less crowded side streets so as to make better time, but it still didn’t help. It wasn’t like I wouldn’t notice her, even in a crowd. I knew what she looked like, how she walked, how she dressed, what perfume she wore...

  Hmm, now that I thought of it, that kinda sounded a bit creepy, even to me.

  Wait ... perfume! That was it! She always wore the same scent, the same heavenly scent ... err, sorry. Easy to get distracted by thoughts like that. Anyway, if one vampire could track another by smell, then maybe I could use my enhanced senses to find her. Hey, it worked in the comics for Wolverine.

  I moved out of the crowd and closed my eyes. I took a deep breath through my nose and concentrated on the smell of her perfume.

  Nothing.

  I needed to try harder, block out everything else around me. Gah! That was hard. Even on my best days, I’m not exactly known for a Zen-like state of concentration. My entire being was in turmoil. How was I supposed to focus when my main reason for doing so was to save some douchebag I had no interest in helping cross the street, much less rescuing?

  And that was when a thought hit me.

  What was to stop Gan from killing Sheila after she was finished with Harry? Nothing, really. She didn’t have any feelings toward humans. What was one more sheep to the slaughter for her? In fact, if she had really overheard everything I said, she might consider doing it simply to remove the competition.

  Oh shit! That did it. The girl of my dreams in potential danger gave me the focus I needed. I concentrated and imagined her scent. I breathed deep once, twice ... and there it was. Faint, but I got a sense of the direction to go in. Thank you, vampire powers!

  Wasting no time, I immediately bolted from my spot. I raced down a few side streets and then finally turned a corner I sensed she had gone down and ... of course, collided head-on with another fast-moving figure.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  We both went down in a tangle of arms, legs, and shopping bags. Considering the speed I had been moving, if I had collided with a normal person, there would definitely have been the accompanying sound of breaking bones. As there was not, I had to conclude that my personal tackling dummy was probably not human. Great! Just my fucking luck to run into the Khan’s assassins when I was trying to do the right thing.