* * *
Sally sat on the couch, patiently sipping on one of my blood packs, while the three of us raced to get cleaned up and dressed. I know Sally wanted to get on the road quickly, but even she had to admit it wasn't a big enough emergency to warrant six hours stuck in a car with three un-showered guys. I was the last one in and, of course, by then, there was no hot water left. Figures. Maybe I should just let Sally chow down on my roommates and be done with it. Tempting...
I came out to find all three of them waiting for me. Tom was hanging back while Ed was attempting to say something clever to Sally. His wit was having about the effect I would have guessed, as she was right in the middle of an eye roll when I walked out. It was still a few minutes shy of sunrise, so she suggested we get a move on.
“Okay, ramblers, let's get rambling,” Tom merrily chimed, but I stopped after a step or two.
“Quick question, exactly how are we getting rambling?” I asked. Of the three of us, only Ed had a car, and to say it was a small piece of shit with barely enough room for just Ed would be to insult small pieces of shit with barely enough room for just Ed. Unless he was planning on strapping us to the roof, not a pleasant prospect during any hours, much less daylight, that wasn't really going to be an option.
“I got it covered,” answered Sally. “I'm parked right outside.”
She sure as hell was good to her word. She definitely had it covered. Sally pointed us toward a huge Cadillac Escalade with double tinted windows on all sides.
Ed whistled and said, “Sweet. We are definitely riding in style.”
Tom quipped, “Yeah. If this truck is a rockin’...”
“It won't be!” Sally cut him off. She tossed Ed the keys and motioned towards my two roommates. “You two, up front. Bill and I will be in the back. The tank’s full, so let's get going.”
Ed opened the front door and got in. As he put on his seatbelt, he asked, “Registration in the glove compartment, just in case?”
“No idea,” Sally casually answered, climbing into the back.
“What do you mean, no idea? Where is it then?” He asked.
“Which part of no idea was hard to understand?” she shot back.
“This is your truck, right?” I asked.
“Nope,” she replied in a chipper tone.
“Then whose car is it?”
“No idea on that one either,” she replied. “Didn't catch his name. In the end, he wasn't very talkative.”
I started to get into the Escalade and noticed the series of stains in the back seat. Dark stains, like... yep you guessed it... dried blood.
Ed noticed them, too. He tried and failed to stifle a gulp, then said, “So, this car...”
“Was conveniently just what I needed for today,” finished Sally. “So, if I were you, I'd drive real carefully. If we wind up getting pulled over, it could get messy... in all sorts of ways.”
Ed just sat there, staring at her for a second, before turning around and starting the engine. He muttered something under his breath, but my acute vampire hearing picked it up. “Hot and scary, just how I like them.” Considering the smirk she now wore on her face, I had little doubt Sally had heard it, too.
* * *
The ride up was slow, thanks to the droves of weekend warriors out on the road, but fairly uneventful. The heavily tinted windows kept the sun at bay and, bloodstains aside, it was a roomy and comfortable ride. I could get used to this. I used to wonder why celebrities drove these things. I had figured it was the more money than sense thing, but now I kind of got it. It was one thing to be out driving, but this was driving in style.
We stopped twice for gas (this thing drank like a thirsty camel), and once for a bucket of fried chicken (Popeye’s... you can keep your KFC, thank you very much). Finally, around mid-afternoon, we arrived at the address Sally had given us for the GPS. It was a car wash. To say it wasn't exactly screaming mountain of power for a coalition of evil entities would be a bit of an understatement. My friends were apparently of the same mindset.
“This is it?” asked Tom.
“Yes, we're here,” Sally replied. “Let me guess, you were expecting maybe a high-rise office building populated by euro-trash goons dressed in black all the way up to their mirrored shades?”
“Actually, yeah,” I commented.
“Don't worry, I said the same thing the first time I came here,” she said to me with a smile. “It actually all depends on the city. In some places, subtlety is more prized than image.”
“Well, this is definitely subtle,” said Ed.
“It's actually perfect. It allows us to enter during daylight hours without requiring us to step outside. Drive up to the attendant in the back. He'll let us in. Sorry,” she said to Ed and Tom, “but you two will need to stay with the car. No junk food allowed in the premises, I'm afraid.”
“It's okay,” Ed replied.
“Yeah,” agreed Tom, “if we get bored, we can always get a hot wax and a chassis bath.”
* * *
Sally flashed her fangs at the attendant and told him we were here to see James. He directed our vehicle into the wash itself. Halfway through, the water stopped flowing and the brushes to our right parted to reveal a ramp downward. We took it and found ourselves in a small subterranean parking garage. Sally directed Ed to park, and he did so.
“You two stay here. Keep the doors locked and don't talk to anyone who isn't us,” she told my friends as she stepped from the Escalade. “Trust me when I say it's for your own protection.”
Ed nodded while Tom reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out Optimus. Upon seeing it, Sally nodded her approval and said, “Good idea. See, Bill? Your buddies aren't as dumb as you said they were.” She grinned at me and started walking away. Tom and Ed, on the other hand, were staring at me with much less amused looks on their faces.
“What?” I held up my hands. “I didn't say anything! Really!” I closed the door and quietly muttered, “Bitch!” before following Sally into the darkness.
* * *
To human eyes, the place might have looked dark and foreboding, but to my vampire powered vision, it looked pretty damn dull. Think of your basic vanilla office with its sea of cubicles surrounded by a few middle management offices. Well, throw in some shitty lighting, and you'd have this place. Here I was hoping for a dark cavern lit by torches and perhaps lined with skulls... maybe culminating in a chamber filled with ominous, robed figures. Instead, I got an office park underneath a car wash. It looked like the greatest danger this place had to offer was the possibility of hanging oneself with bureaucratic red tape. A trip to the DMV was immeasurably scarier than this place.
On initial glance, the only thing that seemed odd were the inhabitants of the various desks. Typing away within the cubes, looking even more lifeless than the denizens of a typical corporate office, were persons in various stages of decay. Holy shit! Zombies! Okay, so they were performing clerical duties as opposed to trying to eat our brains, but zombies nevertheless. Cool!
I couldn't help myself. I put my hands together in the shape of a pistol. As I walked past the cubicles, I started pointing my 'gun' at the inhabitants and whispering, “Pew! Headshot! Pew! Pew! Die, zombie bastards!”
Yeah, subtle I am not.
After a second or two, Sally stopped short to turn toward me and growl, “What exactly is fucking wrong with you?”
“What?”
“Were you dropped on your head repeatedly as a child?”
“No.”
“Maybe fell into the pool and were underwater a little too long?”
“I don't think so...”
“Then why, pray tell,” she hissed, “are you insistent on embarrassing the ever living shit out of me?”
“But they're zombies,” I sheepishly offered.
“Yes!” she continued her tirade. “They are disgusting, putrefying corpses. But you know what? They are keeping their fucking mouths shut and not walking around looking like a goddamned re
tard, unlike you!”
“Can I help you?” a voice from behind Sally suddenly asked. She jumped and whirled around to face it. Standing there was a tall, thin woman, wearing a business suit, her hair done up in a tight bun. She was good looking (of course! I was beginning to think I was the sole vampire on the planet who couldn’t pass as a swimsuit model), but had a severe, no-nonsense attitude about her. Whoever she was, she was good. Neither of us had sensed her approaching.
“Let me repeat myself,” she said when we didn’t answer, “can I help you, or would you prefer to continue disrupting our workplace?”
Before Sally could say a word, I jumped in with my most sincere voice. “We're terribly sorry. No offense was intended. My friend here has a terrible case of Tourette's, and thus can't help the potty mouth.”
Sally glared daggers at me. I had little doubt she was contemplating exactly how far up my ass she could stuff my head once she had ripped it off. After a second or two of mentally killing and dismembering me, she turned to the newcomer and said, “We're from Village Coven in New York. We need to see James.”
“I don't think James is in. Did you call ahead for an appointment?”
Sally seemed to pause at this question. “No,” she finally answered.
“So, you came all the way up from New York, but you didn't think to take two minutes to call first to see if he was around?” asked the woman, raising one eyebrow. Sally actually blushed at this, which one would think was fairly difficult for a dead person to do. I didn’t know who this woman was, but if she could verbally slap Sally down so easily, then I liked her.
“Listen. It's been a stressful week, and you're really not helping,” Sally shot back. “Is Colin around?”
“Maybe.”
“Well, then kindly point us toward him, and I'll stop disrupting your workplace.”
The woman narrowed her lips and appeared to be contemplating some sort of comment, but instead just hooked a thumb and pointed it down the hall. “End of the corridor, through the double doors. And please go quietly. The beings in this building actually work for a living.” She looked Sally up and down for a moment. “Not that I'd expect you to understand.”
I can't stress this enough, it is always fun to watch a battle between alpha bitches.
I followed Sally in the direction our gracious hostess pointed us. I could practically see steam blowing out of her ears. Logic dictated I change the subject, and for perhaps the first time in my life I actually heeded its warning. Maybe I'm mellowing out in my old age.
“Who's Colin?” I asked, as it seemed a neutral enough topic.
“He's James' assistant. We go way back, so let me handle him.”
“Ex boyfriend?” I queried.
“Not quite,” was all the answer I got.
We arrived at a set of double doors and a quick buzzing noise told us they were unlocked. We walked in and, let me tell you, this was more like it. We stepped from the sea of cubicles into some serious style. It was kind of like what I might imagine Kenneth Lay's executive suite in Hell might look like. The floor was made of what looked to be obsidian, and the walls were exquisitely carved grey stone, quite possibly carved from the very earth around us. Dozens of candles illuminated the area. It would have made for a very convincing evil overlord throne room, except for a series of leather chairs set off in a little waiting area and, at the far end of the room, in front of another set of doors, a rich mahogany desk, which was illuminated by the glow of a monitor. Who'd a thunk it... the undead preferred Macs.
Seated behind the desk was a thin male vampire wearing a suit that appeared to be far outside of my price range. He might have looked important with the exception of his slicked back hair, which gave him a bit of a weasely, used car salesman vibe. As we neared his desk, he turned his attention toward us. His beady little eyes looked me up and down with obvious distaste. However, I saw a glimmer of recognition flash as he turned toward Sally.
“Well, well,” he said in a slick voice that sounded as if it were well lubricated from years of ass kissing, “It's been a while since you've been up in our neck of the woods, my dear Lu...”
“How many times do I have to tell you, Colin,” she said, cutting him off, “it's Sally? Coven protocol, and all.”
“Of course,” our oily friend replied. “My apologies, Sally.”
Did he just...? Huh, I had never even bothered to think that Sally wasn't her real name. Now that I thought of it, I guess that was kind of stupid of me, considering all the idiotic pseudonyms running around our coven. I'd have to ask her about that later.
Sally brushed off his greeting and got straight to business, “We're here about James.”
“We?” asked Colin, once again shifting his eyes in my direction.
“Hi,” I said sticking out my hand. “I'm Bill, but everyone in the coven calls me... Dr. Death.” Yeah, you guessed it. It was another one of those cases where something sounded a lot cooler in my head. It probably also didn't help things that my hand was still stuck out there like a doofus. I quickly lowered it when it became apparent that no return shake was incoming.
Instead, Colin frowned and began typing on his keyboard. “Dr. Death?” he said more to himself than either of us. “Oh, well, I guess it's not any dumber sounding than Night Razor.”
“That's what I said!”
He ignored me, however, and was still looking at his screen when his eyes went wide. “You're the Freewill?” he asked with a tone of disbelief.
“What are you looking at?” I asked.
“Your profile.”
“I have a profile?”
“All vampires have a profile,” he sniffed. “God, Sally, don't you people at least give the newcomers an orientation down there?”
“Nope. Not even a flyer for my troubles,” I quipped as I felt Sally's foot hit me in the side of the leg.
Colin gave me the once over yet again, and then said, “I thought you'd be more... well... not you.”
I shrugged, as I answered, “I get that a lot.”
This prompted Sally to interrupt us. “James?” she reminded Colin.
“He's not here,” confirmed Colin.
“Where is he, then?” she demanded.
Colin answered her question with another, “Why do you need to know?”
“I've been trying to call him all week, and haven't been able to get through.”
Colin gave her a smile that was both sympathetic and condescending all at once as he said, “My dear, Sally. James is a busy man. You can't really expect him to answer the calls of every love struck puppy who chases after him.”
“It's not like that!” Sally snapped. “I've been working with him on coven related business. He was supposed to smooth some static between us and another group, but he no-showed. I'm trying to get some answers.”
“When was all this supposed to happen?” Colin asked, starting to type again.
“Beginning of the week.”
“Ah, that makes sense, then,” he answered whilst looking at his monitor. “He was called away on business, unexpectedly, I'm afraid.”
“What kind of business?” Sally again demanded.
“The kind that's none of yours,” was his reply. Damn, he was a snarky little fucker.
“Cut the shit, Colin,” Sally warned.
Colin scoffed, “Or what? You'll sick him on me?”
Sally seemed to consider this for a moment and then said, “Well, he is the Freewill. I'm sure you've heard the rumors.”
“Oh, please, as if I believed half of that garbage.”
“James believes it,” Sally pointed out.
“Sorry, love, but just because I work for him doesn't mean I drink the same Kool-Aid he does.”
I was really hoping the next words out of Sally's mouth weren't going to revolve around ordering me to kick this guy's ass. Regardless of my chances at doing so, we were in a building full of all sorts of god knows what. I really didn't want them to suddenly all descend upon me just bec
ause Sally's panties were in a bunch.
Before she could respond, however, Colin added, “Apparently Jeff doesn't believe it either.”
“Jeff? How do you know that?” Sally asked.
“He called not an hour ago. I haven't heard a peep from you SoHo coveners in months, and suddenly, bam, you're crawling all over me like fire ants. Interesting coincidence, isn't it?”
“What did he want?” Sally asked, sounding perhaps a bit more frantic than she had meant to.
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