I stood there blinking like an idiot as I absorbed this. “Really?”
“Really.”
“But all of this…”
“All of this is exactly what you needed. I’ve been filling their heads with Freewill crap, but that only goes so far. They needed to see it with their own eyes. And now that they have, I doubt you’ll have to worry about any of them for a while.”
“How did you know it would work out?”
“As I said, I had faith in you. Don’t ask me why, but I had a feeling that if push came to shove, you’d come through.”
“And if I hadn’t?”
At that, Sally unzipped her purse. She reached inside and pulled out the biggest handgun I’d ever seen.
“If you hadn’t then you would have still won. I’d just have needed to do a little extra recruiting for the coven when it was all over.”
I stared hard at her, my mouth agape, trying to sense if there was any deception in what she was telling me. In the end, though, I had to accept a simple truth: I’d underestimated her once again. I’d thought I was the puppet master, when all along she’d been pulling my strings.
She walked up and slipped an arm around mine. “Come on, coven master. I could use a drink. It’s been a long night.”
That was the truth. “Okay. Maybe we’ll make it a double.”
“But first you need to lose the stupid costume.”
“This?” I replied in mock horror. “How dare you profane a hero’s uniform? Besides, doesn’t it turn you on just the slightest?”
“Nope.”
“You could be the Black Canary to my Green Arrow.”
“Don’t push your luck.”
“The Lois Lane to my Superman?”
Sally patted her purse. “Care to see if you’re bulletproof?”
“Maybe some other time.” I laughed as we walked out of the warehouse. Knowing the life I’d found myself thrust into, I had a feeling there was a pretty good chance of that happening sooner rather than later anyway. For tonight, though, it was enough to know I could hang up my cape and enjoy the rest of the evening in peace.
THE END
Bill Ryder will return in:
Scary Dead Things (The Tome of Bill, Part 2)
Can’t wait for more Bill? Follow his ongoing misadventures on Facebook at:
www.facebook.com/BilltheVampire
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Rick Gualtieri lives alone in central New Jersey with only his wife, three kids, and countless pets to both keep him company and constantly plot against him. When he’s not busy monkey-clicking words, he can typically be found jealously guarding his collection of vintage Transformers from all who would seek to defile them.
Defilers beware!
Rick Gualtieri is the author of:
Bill the Vampire (The Tome of Bill - 1)
Night Stalker: A Tome of Bill Series Companion
Scary Dead Things (The Tome of Bill - 2)
The Mourning Woods (The Tome of Bill - 3)
Holier Than Thou (The Tome of Bill - 4)
Sunset Strip: A Tome of Bill Series Companion
Goddamned Freaky Monsters (The Tome of Bill - 5)
Half A Prayer (The Tome of Bill - 6)
The Wicked Dead (The Tome of Bill - 7)
Shining Fury: A Tome of Bill Series Companion
The Last Coven (The Tome of Bill - 8)
The Tome of Bill Series: Volume One
Bigfoot Hunters
The Poptart Manifesto
To contact Rick (with either undying praise or rude comments) please visit:
Rick’s Website:
www.rickgualtieri.com
Facebook Page:
www.facebook.com/RickGualtieriAuthor
Twitter:
www.twitter.com/RickGualtieri
BONUS: A TOME OF BILL CHRISTMAS CAROL
Author’s Note: This story takes place shortly after the events chronicled in The Mourning Woods. It contains spoilers for Bill The Vampire.
With many apologies to Charles Dickens...
Part 1
Home was finally within sight. I so hated racing the sunrise to get back to my apartment. Sometimes the goddamned subway system seemed like it was purposely timed to make one miss their connection. If that N-train hadn’t been an express, I’d have probably been forced to spend all day down in the station – a prospect that was only marginally more pleasant than getting turned into a pile of ash by the sun. I swear, Sally must’ve gotten some perverse amusement keeping me stuck in Manhattan with her until the wee hours of the morning.
Wait. I’d been with her? What for? I skidded to a stop just as I reached the stairs of my building. What the hell was I even out for? That was odd. For some reason I couldn’t remember what I’d been doing last night or why it had made me late. Sure, it was probably some coven-related bullshit. I mean, it seemed there were always forms to fill out, petty arguments to settle, judgement calls on what was cool and what wasn’t when it came to killing people. Sometimes you’d think I was babysitter to a bunch of preteen girls instead of leader of a group of vampires. Oh well, what did it matter anyway? Same shit, different day and all that. I was probably tired that’s all. I figured that maybe a good night’s ... err day’s ... sleep would jog my memory. Whatever urgent business had kept me out could wait. Yeah, a pint of blood and then maybe a couple hours of sleep would do me well.
It couldn’t have been too important anyway, I mused, walking up to the front door. I dug out my key so I could let myself in. From there I’d head up to the top floor apartment I shared with my human roommates, Tom and Ed.
I was just about to put the key in the lock when ... HOLY SHIT! Caught by surprise, I backed up and fell ass over teakettle down the stairs. I landed hard, but thanks to my vampire physiology the only thing really wounded in the fall was my pride.
Either way, I barely felt it as my mind was instantly a million miles away. For a split second there, I’d have sworn I saw a face where the doorknob should have been. Not just any face, mind you, but Jeff’s face. But that was impossible.
Jeff, AKA Night Razor – AKA douchebag – was the vampire who’d turned me, quite against my will I might add, about a year or so back. He was a big muscle-headed dickhead of a vamp, which was bad enough. What made it worse, was that he’d hated my guts from the get go, to the point of wanting to yank them out and play jump rope with them.
He’d come damn close, too. I’d gotten luckier on that front than I had any reason to expect. Not only had we managed to kill him, but I’d ended up taking over his position as master of a coven of vampires located in SoHo of all places.
As I said, he was dead, very dead, as in Dust in The Wind dead. Even if he hadn’t been, why the fuck would he be doing an impersonation of my doorknob?
Whatever mission had gotten me out of my apartment was now the furthest thing from my mind. I got hold of myself best as I could, then raced back up the stairs to find ... well, nothing. The door was there just like it always was. The knob wasn’t Jeff’s face, much like it typically wasn’t. I must’ve been more tired than I thought. I needed to seriously consider adding a couple of shots of Jim Beam to that pint of blood once I got inside.
Speaking of which, I was still reflecting on the benefits of a good stiff drink when I smelled something. Hmm, had a bit of a bacony aroma to it. I was just thinking that someone must be up and cooking breakfast when it started to burn. That’s when I realized I was the bacon. My hallucination had caused me to hesitate just long enough for the first rays of sunshine to peek over the rooftops. Let me just say for the record, having your head spontaneously ignite is not a particularly fun way to start the day.
* * *
The apartment was dark when I got in, smoke still rising off me. I was amazed that the building’s fire alarms hadn’t gone off on my way up. Maybe our landlord being such a cheap fuck wasn’t always a bad thing. Anyway, a quick check of things
– right after dousing my head in the shower – showed that I was alone. I had assumed my roomies might still be sleeping, but they weren’t home. I smiled a bit at that. I didn’t have anything against them. They were my best buds in this world, after all. Even so, Tom’s girlfriend had been sleeping over a lot as of late and that had been starting to irk me.
It was bad enough that he was getting some, while I slept alone just a few yards away in my own bedroom. Still, I could live with that. What really bothered the shit out of me, though, was that he was getting some from a witch who just happened to be from a coven that wanted me dead.
Tom had been dating Christy for several months now. She’d originally been sent to spy on me by an asshole wizard who moonlighted as a VP at the company I worked for. Yeah, definitely a long story.
Suffice it to say, despite her mission, Christy wound up developing real feelings for Tom and the two had been a couple ever since. Unfortunately, her coven hadn’t forgotten their original mission, which meant things could be a little tense when she was around.
But that was neither here nor there. I had the apartment all to myself for the moment. So, I helped myself to a pint of chilled blood from the fridge and allowed myself a moment to enjoy the silence.
*Clink*
Or relative silence anyway.
*Clink* *Clink*
Okay, what the fuck was that? Were the pipes now rattling in this rundown hovel of a shit hole? I wouldn’t have doubted it.
*Clink*
There it was again and this time it sounded like it was in the same room.
I turned, not really sure what to expect. I’d been thinking maybe something had come loose and fallen off the ceiling. Instead, my eyes popped wide open – the forgotten blood pack dropping to the floor, along with my jaw.
Jeff, the dead dickhead of a vampire who’d escorted me from my mortal coil, stood there facing me.
“Hello, meat.”
* * *
I tried to form words, but the English language suddenly seemed beyond my grasp. What I was seeing was impossible – and trust me, over the past year I’ve had to raise the bar considerably on that note. Apparently, I hadn’t raised it far enough.
“Happy to see me again, asshole?” Jeff asked with that same dickhead attitude I remembered, a grin spreading across his pale face – and pale he was, even by vampire standards. It was like he’d been rolled in talcum powder. He was also covered in chains. That was a new look for him, but who was I to judge someone’s BDSM fetish?
“If we’re being honest here, not particularly,” I said, still in shock.
“I can assure you, the feeling is mutual.”
“You’re dead.”
“So are you, Dr. Death,” he replied mockingly, using my old coven nickname. I guess he did have a point there, though.
“I meant really dead. I killed you.”
“You killed me?”
“Fine. Sally helped ... a little.”
“I’m well aware,” he spat. “And believe me, as much as I’d like to rip both your fucking faces off for it, that’s not why I’m here.”
Yeah, right. Back when he’d been in charge of Village Coven, I hadn’t known him to give me the time of day if it didn’t include a punch to the face. “So, this is just a social visit?”
“Not quite. I’m here to tell you that tonight you will be visited by three spirits. They are here to show you...”
I raised an eyebrow. Really? We were going with that old cliche? “Let me guess. You’re going to show me the error of my ways.”
“More like what a fucking little prick you are.”
Okay, that was new.
“Listen, Jeff,” I replied, realizing that I was standing there talking to a vampire ghost. Yep, I must’ve been losing my fucking mind. “I’m tired and...”
“NIGHT RAZOR!”
“Fine, Night Razor. Whatever the fuck. I don’t care. You’re obviously just a figment of my imagination anyway. Maybe I sucked down some expired blood or...”
“Think whatever you want, you cockless dweeb. It doesn’t change what’s coming.” He raised his arms, rattling the chains he wore for effect. “Beware, Freewill!” he howled. “The error of your ways will be laid bare.”
Huh? “Wait, didn’t you just say it had nothing to do with that?”
Before I could finish, Jeff became translucent. A mere moment later he completely faded away, just like, well, a ghost. Pretty fucking freaky, if you ask me. Then again, I’m a vampire. Freaky kind of comes with the territory.
I turned toward my bedroom, briefly considering popping a handful of Xanax and chasing it down with a fifth of tequila. That would be a lethal combo for a human, but all it would probably do to me is knock my ass out for a few hours. If indeed Jeff was right and I was in for a series of visitations – just like in that Bill Murray movie – how fucking hilarious would it be if they couldn’t wake me up?
On the flipside, there was an equal chance that Jeff was as full of shit in death as he’d been in life. That was all assuming he wasn’t just a hallucination to begin with, something I wasn’t quite ready to rule out.
Ah fuck it. What’s the worst that could happen? I had read that book in school and I knew how it went. Even better, I wasn’t some sort of Scrooge. Sure, I might not be the most festive person on the planet come the holiday season, but it’s not like I had my own personal Bob Cratchit to kick around. Hell, if anything, Sally was the one more likely to be the Bah Humbug bitch.
Screw it. I decided it wasn’t worth worrying about either way. At the end of the day, I really was too tired to give a shit. Bed was beckoning and I decided to heed its call.
Part 2
*SMACK*
What the fuck?!
“Wake up, pussy.”
Again I was smacked in the face. I opened my eyes, but – judging by the voice – I already knew who would be there looking down at me.
“You again?”
“Yes, me again,” Jeff replied before backhanding me across the face a third time.
“I’m awake!”
“I know. I just enjoy smacking the shit out of you.”
I sat up and scuttled across the bed away from him. “What the fuck are you doing back here?”
“I am the ghost of Christmas past, Freewill.”
“Whoa there just a fucking second, dude.” I stood and walked up to him, poking a finger into his muscular chest. Hmm, for an incorporeal spirit he sure as shit felt solid enough. That was potentially worrisome. Still, I couldn’t let him know that. “I thought you were supposed to be Jacob Marley here. You ain’t no Patrick Stewart, so how the hell can you also be the ghost of Christmas...”
I didn’t get a chance to finish as Jeff’s response consisted of colliding his fist with my face. Blood exploded from my nose as I staggered back. Yep, he was definitely solid enough.
“I’m whoever the fuck I say I am!” he snapped. “Want to argue the point?”
“No, not particularly,” I mumbled, still holding my smashed face.
“Good, then let’s go. The less time I have to spend babysitting your nerdy ass, the better.”
He grabbed hold of my arm and dragged me forward. I knew the size of my bedroom and we should have impacted with the wall, but didn’t. We just kept walking. Somehow, I wasn’t overly surprised.
“Let me guess, you’re gonna take us back to the day I killed your ass and try to convince me it somehow made me into a bad person,” I said, still trying to stem the flow of blood from my crushed nose. Goddamn, for a ghost, the douchebag hit really hard.
“Sorry, but that didn’t happen at Christmas time. Rules are rules. Oh, but thanks for reminding me about that.” His fist impacted with my stomach, driving the wind out of me.
Ouch.
I fell to my knees gasping. This was getting old real quickly. I balled my fist, ready to spring up and cock-punch the bastard, but that’s when I heard a voice.
“I want a bike!”
It was a whiney, childish voice. It was also familiar, very familiar, namely because it was mine. I opened my eyes and found myself in my parents’ living room, back in Scotch Plains, New Jersey. It was just as I remembered ... from fifteen years ago.
“Santa didn’t bring you a bicycle, William,” my father patiently explained to my younger self. Thinking back on things, it was obvious why. At that age, I had sucked at riding a bike. My first few forays on one, borrowing Tom’s, had resulted in me crashing into a tree, then a bush, and finally the side of my father’s car – scraping the shit out of it in the process. “Why don’t you open the nice board games he brought you?”
One of the ‘board games’ I’d gotten that year had been a Dungeons and Dragons set. In the end, I had gotten a whole lot more use out it than any of my other presents, but that wouldn’t start for at least a few weeks yet. At the time, I’d been too firmly fixated on the bike Santa had gypped me out of.
“But I was a good boy!” the nine year old version of me whined.
“I know, William, but...”
“SANTA SUCKS! I WANT A BIKE!” younger me screamed before bursting into tears.
“Why are you showing me this?” I asked Jeff, making sure to take a step back so as to be out of punching range. “I know how it played out. I bitched for half the day until I got sent to my room. A month later, my parents finally caved and got me the damn bike, which I promptly fell off of and broke my arm. Lesson learned.”
“A shame it wasn’t your neck.”
“Yeah pity that. Then I couldn’t have grown up, been turned into a vampire, and, oh yeah, taken over your coven.”
Jeff turned toward me, burning hatred in his eyes. He looked as if he was about to pounce upon me, but somehow managed to restrain himself. I figured that probably meant we were done here and would be off to another stroll down memory lane. That’s the way the story went. Instead, though, he asked, “Have you fucked any of them?
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