Bill of the Dead (Book 2): Everyday Horrors

by Gualtieri, Rick

  “Big city, as in...?”

  She chuckled. “You know how I’ve never told you about how I became a vampire?”

  Ooh, her origin story. “I may have noticed, once or twice.”

  “Well, get used to it because I’m not starting now.” Grrr! “Anyway, what I meant is, I know trauma. It’s been a part of my life for so long, I almost don’t know what to do without it. It’s partly why I’ve spent the last five years helping others cope with it. So this,” she gestured at herself, “is just one more log to throw on that fire.”

  “That and,” I replied with a grin, “looking like a stripper again might, just might, classify as a first world problem.”

  “Fuck you.” But then she smiled, too. “Do you honestly think I don’t know that? Trust me, beneath all of that fear, all of that survival instinct, is a small part of me that’s screaming ‘I’m back, motherfuckers.’”

  I couldn’t help but think the same. Before being kidnapped, Sally had pretty much sidelined herself with regards to the magical weirdness, and with good reason. She was done with it, out. Yeah, she might be there to play wise kung fu master and dispense the occasional bit of wisdom – or tell us we were being dipshits – but this was no longer her fight. And I was happy to accept that.

  At the same time, though, as much as I’d grown to enjoy having Christy by my side, a part of me had been dreading the concept of change. Back in the day, Sally had been my partner in crime. As mismatched as we might be, somehow together we were more than the sum of our parts – like a fucked-up Voltron force.

  It was jumping the gun to assume that would all change now that she was sporting her old looks again, but I couldn’t lie and say a small part of me didn’t hope to see her back in the saddle.

  But that would have to be her choice and it would need to be made wisely. Before, she might’ve been five foot nothing in heels, but she had the power of the undead behind her. She’d been strong, fast, durable, and pretty much merciless as fuck. But now, hair and eyes aside, so far she seemed fairly normal, minus maybe that little incident back at Christy’s – and there was no telling if that was just some random one-time quirk, hard to believe as that might be.

  “Just do me a favor,” I said. “Maybe hold off on diving into ... anything really, at least until Christy can do some research and we know you’re okay.”

  Sally rolled her eyes, the look on her face suggesting she wanted to tell me where I could shove my advice, but I think we both knew she was too smart for that.

  “Fine. I’ll be careful. Baby steps, I promise.”

  “Awesome.” I noted the shadows growing long outside her window and glanced down to check the time. “Care to go and meet the new troops?”

  She actually let out a laugh. “No offense, Bill, but if your idea of taking it slow is meeting a pack of vampires, I can’t wait to see what a busy day looks like.”

  KEEPING AN EYE ON THE KID

  “...this is Jessica, and this is Stewart, and, last but not least, this is Leslie.”

  Sally glanced back at me. “I’m surprised you didn’t give them superhero names, for old time’s sake.”

  “Don’t think it didn’t cross my mind.”

  “Wait,” Stewart replied. He was an older guy, mid-forties, about a hundred pounds heavier than me, and seemed to be perpetually covered in a thin sheen of perspiration. “We get superhero names?”

  “Yeah,” Sally said. “You’re Captain Sweatstain. Congratulations.”

  I stepped in front of her before she could piss off more of the new recruits. Sure, they might not look like much at first glance, but they were all undead predators, in theory. Still, it was maybe best to not kick that hornet’s nest too many times.

  “Let me reemphasize, and I cannot stress this enough, Sally owns this building. She is off the menu. If you so much as touch a hair on her bright green head ... hey!”

  “Let’s cut the bullshit,” she said, shoving her way past me. “There’s only one unbreakable rule here. Touch me and I will fucking end you.” Her voice was steel itself and I was suddenly transported back five years, watching her read the riot act to the other Village Coven vamps, some of whom were older and more powerful than her. “You may feel stronger than you’ve ever felt before and, believe me, I know how intoxicating that can be. But you know what? Those feelings lie. You aren’t invincible, especially to someone who knows how to fucking take you down. That person is me. Remember that and you’ll live a lot longer. Are we clear?”

  Amazingly enough, there was nothing but nods from the new crew, which spoke volumes to the fact that a new day had indeed dawned for Village Coven ... or whatever I eventually decided to call it.

  Jessica, a mousy girl with short brown hair, freckles, and thick glasses – thank goodness I wasn’t the only one with shitty eyesight – stepped forward. She kind of had a Velma from Scooby Doo vibe, not helped by her raising her hand before speaking. “Crystal clear,” she said. “And may I just add thank you. The last couple of weeks have been confusing, not to mention terrifying. I went to visit my grandmother, then the next thing I knew I woke up covered in blood and...”

  Sally made a hurry up gesture, the look on her face suggesting she couldn’t have cared less.

  “Um, anyway, I just wanted to thank you for taking us in and giving us a safe, rent-free place to stay while we figure this out.”

  “We’ll reexamine that rent-free part at some point in the near future,” Sally replied, “but for now you’re welcome.”

  “All right,” I said, catching their attention again. “That’s it. Make sure you drink up before heading out for the night. No biting anyone, no getting into fights, no trouble. Am I clear? Oh, and make sure you start heading back by around three AM. Even if you’re over in New Jersey for whatever reason, that should give you plenty of time to get back before sunrise.”

  I dismissed them, then Sally and I turned to head back up to her apartment.

  She raised an eyebrow at me as we hit the stairs. “You gave them a curfew?”

  “Think of it more as a suggestion for their wellbeing.”

  “Guess I shouldn’t be surprised you recruited nothing but nerds.”

  “I’m pretty sure they can all still hear us.”

  “Ask me if I care,” she replied. “The first rule of establishing dominance is never let them see you sweat, something that one guy needs to work on.”

  I nodded. “Yeah, you’d think the undead would be less ... damp.”

  “Can’t say that’s a thought I really needed in my head.”

  I opened my mouth to reply, but then felt a buzz in my pocket. Retrieving my phone, I glanced down at the message on the screen. “Huh.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s from Christy. She managed to make contact with that Falcon guy I was telling you about.”

  “The rich, good looking one?”

  “No,” I replied deadpan. “The other one.”

  “You don’t wear jealousy well.”

  “I’m not jealous, simply cautious. I don’t even know the guy.”

  “But she does.” I glared at her until she finally grinned. “Relax, I’m just fucking with you. What’s the rest say?”

  “He’s working tonight but is willing to meet with us on the job.”

  “A meet and greet with the NYPD? I’m sure that won’t end badly.”

  “I think it’s just with him.” I glanced at the message again. “Yeah, I wouldn’t doubt they have him working on stuff they don’t want the normal cops to see.”

  “Or get eaten by.”

  “That too.”

  “Could end up being a self-correcting problem then.”

  “I won’t lie and say that hadn’t crossed my mind.” We reached her door and my next question just sort of popped out of my mouth of its own accord. “Want to tag along?”

  So much for me suggesting she take it slow.

  She inclined her head. “Tempting, but I think it’s best if I stay in for
now ... unless, that is, you really need me.”

  A part of me desperately wanted to say yes, but the reality was I hadn’t meant to ask her that. It just sort of blurted out. No, what I wanted was for her to ease back into her life, whatever that might be now, and not stupidly throw herself in harm’s way. “We should be fine. I’m more worried about you being here alone.”

  “I’m not too concerned about the nerd herd.”

  “They’re still vampires.”

  “Trust me, well aware. I’ll lock my door and take precautions.”

  I didn’t bother to ask what those precautions were, but it wouldn’t have fazed me in the least had she confessed to having a few extra guns stashed away. At the very least, I was pretty sure the silverware in her kitchen was the real deal. Even so... “If anything happens...”

  “Relax. I’ve got you on speed dial. Anything else, Dad?”

  She probably had a point. Sally was close to twice my age, even if she no longer looked it. She’d survived stuff that would’ve broken me. I needed to trust her. But that didn’t mean I had to be completely serious about it.

  “Yes, be sure to eat your brussels sprouts, young lady, or so help me I’ll take away your stripper pole for a whole month.”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  After double checking to make sure my new vamp recruits were set for the night, and then triple checking my phone to make sure Sally hadn’t called in the meantime, I hopped in my car to head back to Christy’s place. Since she’d told me we’d be meeting Falcon later but hadn’t been specific where, I took it to mean her plan was for us to zap there together. Or at least I hoped it was. Magi teleportation kind of sucked, but it sure as shit beat driving all the way across the city again just to meet with this clown.

  Ugh, Matthias, talk about a name that screamed pretentious douche. And then there was that bullshit from the TV, his “I prefer to be called Mentor” douche-baggery. Goddamn, how many sticks did someone need to have jammed up their ass to be that full of themselves?

  I mean, yeah, in some ways it was no different than Dave wanting to be called doctor, or a lawyer signing their name with esquire. They technically earned the right through school and hard work. But, at the same time, there were plenty of other titles that were little more than pompous bullshit. Hell, in the space of five minutes I could go online and be proclaimed Reverend Bill Ryder. Shit, throw in a donation, and I could get that upgraded to Saint or Pope. Maybe that was a new coven tradition I should start. Down with coven masters, up with coven popes.

  Pope Freewill Bill Ryder did have a ring to it ... assuming I wanted to listen to both Tom and Sally mercilessly rag on me about it.

  I stewed over that idea for far longer than I should’ve on the ride back to Brooklyn, despite having much bigger things to worry about. But, with any luck, talking to Falcon would yield some clues for one of those bigger things – namely finding Ed – thus justifying going out of our way to meet with this smarmy English dick-biscuit.

  Truth be told, I was still mentally ragging on the guy when I reached Christy’s apartment, but it was time to put my game face on. The sun was down, the time for predators was nigh, which meant I should at least try to man up a bit.

  Christy met me at the door. “How’s Sally doing?”

  “Settling in disturbingly well.”

  “Any...”

  “So far all seems normal. No more random blasts of power,” I replied, figuring that’s what she was getting at. “Ready to go?”

  “I can’t, at least not yet.” She stepped aside to let me in. “I don’t have anyone to watch Tina.”

  “What happened to Tom?”

  “He left. Said he had some business to take care of. Wouldn’t tell me what, though.”

  Huh. That wasn’t typically like Tom. Usually he was an unedited open book. Even so, he was an adult, albeit an unemployed one with too much free time on his hands. “Another training session with Vincent maybe?”

  She shook her head. “Kelly said something the other day about him heading out of town. I think he’s trying to mobilize some of his old Templar contacts.”

  “Getting the Bible-belt gang back together again? Wonderful.”

  That was probably unfair. Yeah, the Templar had been first class fuckheads back in the day, but some had chilled out over the years, especially with no supernatural evil left to fight. Vincent, for example, had ended up married to Kelly, Christy’s coven sister. Now, instead of burning her at the wooden stake, he was staking her with his wood.

  “It’s not like we couldn’t use the extra help,” Christy said, dragging me from that somewhat disturbing reverie.

  “True. I’m just hoping that the past doesn’t repeat itself. I don’t like getting automatically lumped in with all the things trying to kick my ass.”

  “Me neither.”

  “Oh, speaking of Vincent, and by that, I mean totally changing the subject to his wife...”

  Christy shook her head. “Still no word. I don’t know. Maybe she went with him.”

  That probably made sense. Sadly, it narrowed down our babysitting choices to roughly no one. After realizing Tina had enough magical potential to level the block, Christy had made the wise decision to preemptively cross most of the local teens off her list. We’d both seen The Incredibles. We knew how shit like that could turn out. And I wasn’t about to suggest bringing Tina along.

  It might be different if we were meeting this Falcon guy for coffee, but he’d graciously offered to slot us in while working a case. I didn’t know what that entailed but had a feeling he wasn’t staking out the local Chuck E Cheese’s. Under other circumstances, I’d have suggested Sally, but now ... well, that seem perhaps an unwise choice, at least for the time being.

  With her out of the running, that probably meant we were shit outta...

  Hold on a second.

  I was just about to suggest that I go alone when a thought hit me.

  “Wait here,” I said, turning around.

  “What for?”

  “I think I know the perfect sitter and, best of all, he’ll work for kibble.”

  YOU SAY POTATO...

  Christy opened the door for me again roughly twenty minutes later.

  “Ready to head out?”

  “I still need to get a... What is that?!”

  Tina, however, was far more open minded when it came to the ... err lovable pet that lurched past me into her apartment. “DOGGIE!”

  She ran across the living room with all the abandon of a child on Christmas morning and threw her arms around Glen’s neck, hard enough to have probably given an actual dog whiplash.

  “Bark,” Glen replied, doing his best to lurch his tail back and forth, which only served to amplify how much he didn’t even remotely resemble a normal healthy dog.

  After a moment, Tina stepped back, her nose wrinkling. “Ewww. The doggie smells funny. Can I give him a bath?”

  “Of course you can, sweetie,” I said. “Right, Glen?”

  “Sure,” he replied. “I mean ... bark!”

  Christy let out a pained sigh. “That is...”

  “Perfect, isn’t it?” I held up my hands. “Listen, I know what you’re going to say, but we’re short on options and Glen’s an adult.” Or at least I assumed he was. “Aren’t you, Glen?”

  He peered up at us with the two mismatched eyeballs currently bugging out of the dead dog he inhabited. “Well, in human terms, I crawled out of the primordial sludge of my home approximately two hundred and seventeen years ago. By my own people’s gauge of maturity, however...”

  “See? He’s over two hundred. If you can’t trust a double centenarian these days, who can you trust?”

  Oddly enough, Christy didn’t look impressed.

  “Besides,” I continued, “Glen has both of our numbers and will call if there’s even the slightest bit of weirdness, right?”

  “Of course, Freewill,” he replied cheerfully. “See?” He opened his mouth wide and a tendril of protoplasmic goo
p came slurping out of it, holding an old Nokia phone. After a moment, he sucked it back in. “I’m all set to help in any way I can.”

  “Be sure to put that somewhere if she gives you a bath, okay?”

  “You got it. And do not worry, Madam Witch. I will keep your spawn as safe as a sixteen-legged strix-roach gestating within its mother’s digestive tract.”

  I blinked several times before turning to face Christy again. “And does it really get any safer than that?”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Despite her misgivings about leaving her child in the care of an eyeball blob wearing a dog corpse, even Christy had to admit it fell into the any port in a storm bucket. There was also no denying Glen had helped us out greatly down in the Source chamber, so we kind of owed him the benefit of the doubt.

  I mean, shit, I probably would’ve sooner trusted Tina in his care than with her own father – not that I would’ve said that out loud in present company.

  Rather than argue, Christy instead read him the riot act and then proceeded to go through her own personal babysitter checklist – full of emergency numbers, bed times, shows that Tina wasn’t allowed to watch, and an incantation to recite which would activate the apartment’s magic dampening wards in case she decided to throw a tantrum.

  That last one might’ve been a recent addition.

  Finally, giving me one last look that said I’d be up shit’s creek without a paddle if Glen screwed this up, we stepped through the doorway ... and into Christy’s bedroom, where she had a small sending circle inlaid into the floor.

  “Be good for Glen,” she called to Tina before closing the door. “We’ll be back a little later.”

  “Okay, Mommy.”

  Then we were alone in her room facing each other inside a cramped circle.

  “Kinda cozy in here,” I joked.

  “Not really in the mood.”

  “Sorry.” I should have left it at that, but for some reason I decided to push my luck. “Speaking of which, have you talked to Tom yet?”