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

by Rick Gualtieri

  “Hey, as long as it’ll grow back at all,” I replied, my voice serious. “Most people would consider that a lucky thing.”

  “I guess so.”

  “So don’t worry.” I lightened my tone. “You’ll be back to giving double happy endings at the massage parlor in no time.” Her response was an eye-roll. Yeah, she was going to be fine.

  “So where are we?” she asked, looking around.

  “No idea. Top of some building, it looks like.”

  “Thanks, Scooby Doo. Nice to know you’re around to solve all of life’s mysteries. How did we get here? Did the assassins change their minds and decide to leave us alive?”

  “I don’t think so,” I said, remembering back to the rage I felt when I thought she had been killed.

  “Why?”

  I explained what happened, maybe downplaying that it was her “death” that caused me to Hulk out ... no need to inflate her ego any more than it was. I told her how I felt that change come over me again and then everything went red.

  “Scary. Guess there’s more to this Freewill thing than either of us knows.”

  “Not sure I want to know. I’m not big on the whole Jekyll and Hyde thing playing itself out in my head.”

  “Whatever happened, it looks like you did a job on them, though,” she said, indicating my clothes. I looked down and saw they were absolutely soaked with blood.

  “Yours, probably.”

  “Some of it yes, but not all. It’s not yours either,” she replied.

  “Let me guess, you can smell it?”

  “You really need to practice this vampire thing a little more. You’re starting to embarrass me with these stupid questions.”

  “Speaking of stupid things, we need to get out of here. Sun’s going to be coming up soon, and if we’re still here yakking away when it does ... well, that’s going to be pretty pathetic.”

  “Agreed...” and then she mumbled something I didn’t quite catch.

  “What was that?”

  She sighed and responded, “I said, ‘Thanks for saving me.’”

  “I don’t remember even saving myself.”

  “I know, but whatever it was you did, you remembered to take me with you when you did it. That tells me there was still some of you in there driving the school bus.”

  I hadn’t thought of that. That actually made it a little less scary ... not much, mind you, but it was enough for now.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  We managed to get down to street level without being seen. The hatch leading down from the roof had been locked from the inside, leading me to believe I had somehow Spider-Manned my way up there. Locks weren’t much of a deterrent for a pair of determined vampires, though. Fortunately for us, the stairwell was empty. Two blood-soaked intruders, one of whom had a gaping wound where her hand used to be, were bound to attract a little attention.

  We were able to get our bearings, realizing we were a good mile downtown from the Loft. Fortunately, there was a subway entrance less than a block away. We could use it to get into the tunnels, and thus the sewers, so we could make our way back unseen.

  “Do you think it’s safe?” I asked as we hopped the turnstiles (screw you, New York MTA) and made our way toward the dark underground.

  “I don’t think anywhere is particularly safe after last night. But I have a feeling that you gave the Chinese vamps a bloody nose, at the very least. They’re probably lying low right now. As long as we don’t get supremely unlucky and wander directly into them, we should be fine.”

  “Don’t jinx us,” I warned.

  “Point taken. Still, the smell down here should be enough to clog even the most sensitive vamp’s nostrils,” she said, turning down a maintenance tunnel.

  “I can see what you mean.” I took a sniff of the aromatic air. “Nothing like the smell of rancid ass to cover your tracks.”

  “Speaking of rancid things, I need to make a little pit stop,” she said, suddenly slowing her pace.

  “What are you talking about?”

  She gestured toward a little nook close by. Inside it, huddled under a moldy blanket, was a sleeping homeless man. Judging from the ripe smell, he was taking a nap with his good buddy Jim Beam.

  In the darkness, I looked confusingly between Sally and the hobo before I realized that her fangs were extended and her eyes were turning black.

  “Do you really have to?” I asked.

  “Normally, this is a bit beneath my standards. But I’ve had a long day. You can turn around if it makes you uncomfortable.”

  I did. Sometimes, I could almost forget the whole undead predator of the night thing. This, however, was not destined to be one of those times.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  When she had finished, she walked past me and started leading the way again.

  “Feeling better?” I asked.

  “Yes and no. It’s going to take me at least a week to wash the taste of him out of my mouth.”

  “Did you really have to kill him?”

  “Sorry to offend your bookish sensibilities, but I was almost wiped out. Another few steps and I’d have dropped again. I needed to fill up the old gas tank.”

  “Well, judging by the smell of that guy, you definitely went with the high octane.” Damn, did I really just say that? I was definitely starting to get desensitized to this crap. That alone gave me a not-so-fresh feeling inside.

  We continued to walk, Sally leading the way through the dripping tunnels. It seemed she had a purpose in mind.

  “Where are we headed?” I finally asked.

  “The Office.”

  “As in the Office the assassins already know about? The same Office where they left you a gift basket full of severed heads?”

  “The same,” she answered.

  “So you acknowledge you’ve either gone insane, suicidal, or both?”

  “Perhaps a little of the first, but none of the second,” she replied. “I set the security alarms before I left last time. These guys may be good, but I’m willing to bet they’re about as technically adept as cavemen. If they’re waiting for us, we’ll have plenty of warning.”

  “You did clean up those heads before you left, right?”

  “I put them into storage.”

  “Storage?! What for?”

  “Waste not, want not. I’m debating maybe lining the walkway to my office with them. That should keep the complaints down to a minimum.”

  “And yet,” I actually saved your crazy ass back there,” I mused.

  “Exactly. You need someone to live vicariously through.”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  After another half hour of traversing filth-ridden tunnels, things started to look familiar. I didn’t spend too much time in the sewers myself, but I had still thought it prudent to know the emergency exits of all our properties nevertheless. We finally came to a ladder that went up to the basement of our destination. Every few feet, Sally would stop and reach out with her senses. So far, we were alone.

  We got up and used a back stairwell to make it to our floor. Thankfully, it was still early enough so the regular businesses that shared the building weren’t open yet.

  “So why exactly are we here?” I asked.

  “There’s a supply closet and a shower in the back. We can get cleaned up and lay low until sundown.”

  “I couldn’t help but notice the words shower and we in that exchange.”

  “Keep dreaming,” she replied. “I’m gonna need to lose a lot more than one hand to go that loopy.”

  The alarms hadn’t been tripped, so Sally let us in and locked the doors behind us. To quote an overused phrase, the place was quiet as a tomb. Once we had made a thorough casing of the joint and come to the conclusion that we were the only ones there, Sally walked into her office and sat down to relax. I followed her so that we could have a talk.

  “After the sun goes down, I’m dropping you off at the safe house with the rest of the coven. Starlight can look after you,” I said with a tone of finali
ty.

  Of course, with Sally I could have added “pretty please with sugar on top” and it wouldn’t have made a bit of difference. She listened to orders every bit as well as Gan did. Must be a female thing. She shook her head. “No way. I said I was sticking with you, and I meant it.”

  “You’re done. You’ve had more than enough. Next time, you might not get so lucky. I’ll make sure Gan is okay and then try to end this by myself.”

  “No chance.”

  “I’m serious, lefty,” I said, indicating her stump. “You weren’t a match for them before. You definitely aren’t now.”

  “I know,” she said.

  “You do? Then why are you being so obstinate?”

  “For starters, because I can be.” She began rummaging through the desk with her remaining appendage. “Secondly, because I have a little friend to help equalize things.” She pulled out and placed on her desk the biggest handgun I had ever seen. She smiled at me and said, “Desert Eagle, in case you were wondering.”

  “You plan on being attacked by some vampire rhinos?”

  “If I am, this puppy’ll have me covered. This thing will blow pieces of your buddies all the way back to China. Even better...” She pulled a spare clip out of another drawer and tossed it to me. I looked it over. The bullet protruding from the top had a shiny gleam to it.

  “Are these...?”

  “Silver bullets? You bet your ass. Cost me a pretty penny to have those babies made.”

  “You?”

  “Okay, it cost the coven,” she admitted.

  “Yeah, about that ... I thought you said the coven wasn’t supposed to be armed.”

  “The coven isn’t. I am,” she said with a smile. “Don’t tell me you haven’t figured out by now that I have absolutely no issues with double standards.”

  Swords and Sorcerers

  We got ourselves cleaned up and presentable for walking the streets. In an odd bit of vanity, Sally found a pair of gloves and went about stuffing one with newspaper and then fitting it over her stump.

  “That doesn’t even remotely look real,” I pointed out. “Looks like something you’d stick onto a Halloween dummy.”

  “You would know all about dummies, I guess. Besides, it doesn’t need to pass Army inspection. However, there are people around here who see us coming and going all the time. One or two of the nosier ones might notice I had a hand yesterday, don’t have one today – but voila, magically have one again soon enough.”

  I considered myself pretty smart, but Sally, ex-stripper or not, sometimes made me feel a teensy bit inadequate by how she always seemed to be thinking on her feet. Should our relationship ever turn sour, I’d be wise not to underestimate her.

  Oh, who was I kidding? If our relationship ever even looked like it was heading south, I’d be smart to stake her, leave her ashes in the sunlight, and then burn them when I was finished. Some enemies you needed to take a nuke it from orbit attitude ... it was the only way to be sure.

  Still, Sally and I had all of eternity to plot against each other. For now, I was eager to get back to my apartment. Once I was sure she was fine and that the immediate danger was over, the fate of my roommates began to weigh heavily on my thoughts. I just hoped that Decker didn’t have any plans as to taking his revenge out on them. There was also Gan to consider. If she got hungry enough, she wouldn’t hesitate to notice the two walking refreshment stands sauntering around my apartment.

  Once the sun was barely down low enough for us to venture out safely, we made our move. There was no point in sitting around waiting to be picked off. We had taken plenty of time to lick our wounds (sadly, Sally wasn’t too keen on me licking anything of hers, though), and that meant the assassins had probably done so as well. A new night meant the combatants would all be ready for action again.

  We stuck to the underground as much as we could, but this time, we used the subways themselves so as to stay with the crowds. Rush hour turned out to be a blessing for once. Even had we been tracked, there were simply too many people milling about to make a move against us.

  Once we were back in Brooklyn, I had Sally keep an eye out for Nergui and Bang. Her senses weren’t nearly as acute as Gan’s, but they were still better than mine. I wanted as much warning as possible in case we found ourselves walking into a situation.

  It turns out we did, just not one that I had expected.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  We made it to my building, and I let us in. After climbing the stairs, we stopped outside of my door. I could hear voices coming from inside. I turned to Sally. “Smell any vamps?” She shook her head. “Smell any wizards?”

  She shrugged. “I didn’t the first time.”

  Oh well. I guess there are less manly ways to be dispatched than via a twentieth level chain lightning spell, I thought as I unlocked and opened the door.

  “I’m telling you, Glamdring has the better feats,” carried a voice from the living room, Ed’s. What the...?

  “Dude, Narsil is the sword of legend. It fucked up Sauron’s shit,” Tom replied.

  “Yeah, and the piece of crap broke apart doing so,” Ed said as we entered.

  The living room was a bit out of place, as if a mess had been made and then hastily cleaned up. Otherwise, it looked fairly normal. Tom was sitting on the couch, and Ed was lounging in a chair. Neither seemed particularly ... dead.

  “What’s up, Bill?” Tom asked, turning to us. “Sally, always a pleasure,” he said with a wink. She couldn’t help herself and eye-rolled him back – must be instinctive for her. “Maybe you can settle a debate. Ed and I are discussing which sword from Lord of the Rings was the most badass. I’m siding with the correct answer: Narsil.”

  “And you’re a fucking retard for doing so,” Ed replied. “Glamdring was Gandalf’s sword ... you know, the guy that even the Balrog couldn’t snuff. Besides, think of what its name means ... Foe Hammer. Tell me that’s not the most badass thing in the world. Shit, if I ever start a death metal band, that’s what I’m gonna call it: Foe Hammer.”

  “I will admit that could be a pretty good band name, despite your poor judgment of blades. Any thoughts on this, Bill?”

  I was pretty much still stunned by the normalcy (relatively speaking) of it all, but I managed to squeak out, “I always kind of liked Sting.”

  “You are such a fag,” Tom replied in a dry voice before turning back toward Ed.

  “What do you think?” I whispered to Sally.

  “I think I would be less embarrassed for them if we had found them skinned alive.” It was a loaded question, and I should have expected a response like that.

  “Um, guys,” I said, trying to get their attention. Normally, I’d be more than up for a little weapon porn debate, but there was more than one game afoot, and I didn’t want to get caught with my pants down again. “So ... what’s going on?”

  “It’s called a conversation,” Ed replied.

  “No, stupid. I mean, last night, this morning. You know, what happened today?”