The Tome of Bill (Book 1.5): Night Stalker

by Rick Gualtieri

  Table of Contents

  JUST ANOTHER DAY AMONG THE DEAD

  WHERE THE WORK NEVER ENDS

  WHEN IN ROME...

  HOME AGAIN, HOME AGAIN

  FEAR NOT, GOOD CITIZEN

  HOLDING OUT FOR A HERO

  ORIGIN STORY

  UP, UP AND AWAY

  THE BIRTH OF A LEGEND

  OUT ON PATROL

  A CALL FROM THE CHIEF

  AWESOME ACTION MONTAGE

  A BREAK BEFORE THE BLOOD SPILLS

  THE THRILL OF THE HUNT

  HOT PURSUIT

  HERO’S WELCOME

  FAIR COMBAT

  BONUS CHAPTER

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  NIGHT STALKER

  A Tale From

  The Tome of Bill

  Rick Gualtieri

  Copyright © 2016 Rick Gualtieri

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission of the author. Your support of author’s rights is greatly appreciated.

  All characters in this novel are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. The use of any real company and/or product names is for literary effect only. All other trademarks and copyrights are the property of their respective owners.

  Edited by Curiosity Quills Press:

  https://curiosityquills.com/

  Cover by Mallory Rock:

  www.malloryrock.com

  Published by Westmarch Publishing

  www.westmarchpub.com

  For all of those who dream of one day donning a mask, a cape, and a pair of tights. May the forces of evil quake in your presence.

  Author’s Note: This story is set roughly halfway between the events of Bill The Vampire and Scary Dead Things. It contains spoilers for Bill The Vampire.

  JUST ANOTHER DAY AMONG THE DEAD

  “We are the masters of the night, the lords of darkness. Who are you to dare tell us that this city is off limits to our appetites?”

  I blinked a few times, trying to process the bullshit I was hearing. “Did you steal that from a movie or something?”

  “What?” the long-haired asshole in front of me asked.

  I kept forgetting what his real name was – the guy just wasn’t worth the cycles required of my frontal lobe – but he went by the ridiculous moniker of Dusk Reaper. Yeah, I know, pretty fucking stupid, but up until a few months ago that was the norm for the coven of vampires I was in charge of. “You heard me. How the fuck can you even say something like that with a straight face?”

  Dusk Reaper glared at me, his fangs protruding ever so slightly from his upper lip. Oh the drama. You’d have thought I’d asked him to pull down his pants and bend over while I retrieved an extra-long mop handle. The reality was, I’d walked in, hoping for a quiet evening of relaxing and maybe ogling the voluptuous females who made up roughly half the coven. Instead, I’d found this fucker along with a dead body he was tearing into like a hyena.

  Ignoring that I’d been trying to rein in the coven’s habit of – well, there was no real way to explain it otherwise – being mass murderers when the mood suited them, this dickhead was taking it a step further by making a mess of things. Jeez! You’d have thought he was a toddler with a big slice of birthday cake. It was sure as shit gonna take a bit more than a few wet wipes to clean this up.

  The situation was made worse because he wasn’t alone. Eliza, a cute brunette vamp, lay on the couch in just her bra and panties, copious amounts of blood dripping from her exposed flesh. It was obvious I’d interrupted them, cock-blocking before they could engage in what would have probably been some truly disturbing sex.

  That last part really ticked me off. I normally couldn’t care less about fetishes, but fuck that shit. I was the goddamned coven master here. All the glory was supposed to be mine, not to mention all the poon ... in theory anyway.

  During my first few weeks as leader, it had seemed that would be the case. However, at some point, I’d apparently made a wrong turn and somehow ended up in, well, maybe not the friend zone, but definitely the no fucking zone. And here was Dusk Reaper – a known asshole – about to score with one of the many hotties of Village Coven, my coven. Talk about life, or the afterlife, being unfair.

  “Listen,” I said, trying to talk sense into this senseless fucktard, “I know you guys have to eat. Believe me, I’m not trying to starve anyone. But this...” I waved my arms to indicate the scene before me. “This is going a little overboard, especially since the larder is full of bagged blood.”

  We were in what was known throughout the coven as the Loft. It occupied the entire third floor of this building and served as a sort of vamp frat house. It also had a special place in my heart being the very spot I had died roughly three months earlier. Okay fine, maybe special wasn’t quite the best word to describe it. Still, if there’s one place that came to mind when I thought about vampires, this was it.

  And what a place, possessing all the comforts of home: blacked out windows, reinforced doors, stain resistant carpet, and access to pretty much every cable channel known to man. Below us was empty space, sound-proofing against any screams that might be overheard – something I was also trying to curb. On the ground floor lay a fairly busy techno club, which the coven occasionally used as a convenient hunting ground. When that wasn’t feasible, though, one needed only to walk down another flight of steps to the basement level. That’s the larder I mentioned, a storage room connected to the sewers, housing several industrial sized refrigerators that I knew damn well were fully stocked.

  Dusk Reaper took a step forward, oddly bold this evening. Maybe he didn’t want to look like a pussy in front of his piece du jour. “You would ask that we sate our hunger with mere bagged blood? Do you think us cattle? We are predators, lions stalking the desert.”

  “The Savannah,” I corrected – dumbass. When he just stood there, staring blankly at me, I continued. “I don’t care if you think you’re a lion, a furry, or My Little fucking Pony, I don’t want...”

  “Have you ever made love in the still steaming blood of a human?” Eliza interrupted, ruining any focus I might’ve had that evening. My earlier plan of popping in to see what was playing on HBO might as well have happened in a whole other lifetime. I glanced away from Dick Raper and toward her, most certainly noticing her idly fingering the flimsy lace that made up her bra.

  “Um ... can’t say that I have,” I replied like some sort of idiot. Goddamn it! If I had one weakness – aside from looking like a dumpy nerd, being a relatively young and weak vampire, and having no real fucking clue as to what I was doing – it was women. To say that my dating life was a wee bit barren as of late was an understatement.

  “Maybe if you tried, you’d rethink your stance.” Her voice was innocence itself, but it carried an undertone that would have made an experienced whore shiver. Within seconds, my pants began to feel two sizes too small.

  Although I doubt he had any intention of helping me, Dusk Reaper’s petty nature saved me from going full retard as I struggled to come up with an answer to her very logical sounding statement. His eyes flashed black and he snarled. “Do not get any ideas, Freewill.”

  He spat that last part as if it were meant to be an insult, but I’d been throwing one-liners with my friends ever since my playground days. I could come up with a better zinger in my sleep. Besides, he was right. I was what they called a Freewill – a vampire variant of a sort; the name implying an ability to resist the compulsions of older vampires. It was an ability I was dam
ned glad to have. Stupid name aside, it was a handy power to have in a hierarchy of beings that were used to lording their might over those weaker than them.

  In some ways it was nice to be special. A smile crossed my lips at the thought. Unfortunately, the douche-canoe in front of me apparently took it as a signal to continue. “She is mine to use as I see fit this night.”

  I locked eyes with him, Eliza’s spell broken, and put a little iron into my tone. “First off, my name is Bill. Second, you two can do whatever the fuck you want, but not this way. Bottom line is I don’t want to see shit like this again. It’s just ... sick.”

  With that, I turned away, my plans for the evening thwarted. Even if I’d told those two to scram, it’s not like I’d be too keen to sit on the couch and channel surf while congealed blood oozed through the seat of my pants. Goddamn it. Vampires could be so fucking gross when they wanted to be.

  I headed downstairs and contemplated the bar on the ground floor for a moment before moving on. All things considered, it was probably not the best place to show my face. The clientele there was young, even younger than my twenty-four years – this being a tragically hip SoHo joint. Being the sort who enjoyed a weekend of gaming around the D&D table, I’d stand out like a sore thumb.

  That in of itself didn’t bother me much, but I also happened to be in charge of the monsters who occasionally prowled down there. All it would take would be one person with a few more brain cells than average to put two and two together and I’d probably end up at One Police Plaza trying to explain that I wasn’t an accomplice to mass murder.

  Okay, maybe that’s less likely than I was letting on. I’d been told that the vampire nation kept the higher-ups of this city well-greased for such situations. Still, why bother taking unnecessary chances?

  Speaking of the one who’d done that telling, though, I decided that rather than head back home, maybe I’d make one other stop while in coven territory. At the very least, Sally was pleasant to look at, if a total bitch to listen to.

  WHERE THE WORK NEVER ENDS

  The Office, as it was unofficially called, was rapidly becoming the center of coven activity in this city. Back during the reign of Night Razor, the previous master, it had been primarily used as storage as well as a nest during daylight hours. Considering its proximity to NYU, this made it a handy spot for vampires to crash after a night of hunting coeds.

  Under my rule, though...

  Oh who was I kidding? I ran Village Coven on paper, sure, but in reality I was a figurehead at best. The real power behind the throne lay with Sally, my so-called silent partner. The problem there was twofold: she wasn’t particularly silent and, as far as our partnership was concerned, she considered herself first among not-so-equals.

  She was a fifty-year old vamp in the body of a twenty-something stripper – and what a body it was. She had a figure to die for – quite literally.

  That in of itself made her dangerous, but what made her truly lethal was her mind. Though she looked as hot, or better, than any of the other glamourous Village Coven babes, she was far from being the vapid fashion model the majority of them aspired toward. She possessed a quick wit, a venomous tongue, and a complete disregard for anything that stood in her way – including pesky things like the law.

  I reminded myself of these things as I rode the elevator up to our main floor. I stepped out and found myself in a dank expanse of a room. The smell was overpowering, even to me. Bodies hung from meat hooks and rats scurried to lap up any of a dozen pools of blood that lay in this accursed place.

  Just kidding!

  Shit like that only exists in the movies. In the real world such things tend to not go unnoticed for long, especially in a city this size. Also, the smarter vamps were just as grossed out by crap like that as any sane person.

  Though I seemed to always just miss getting a peek at our bank books, I was well aware that the coven was flush was cash. One didn’t own several pieces of prime Manhattan real estate only to spend their nights eating out of dumpsters – well, unless one were batshit crazy.

  Sally wasn’t, though. The pristine carpet on the floor, expensive looking paintings lining the wall, and hardwood double doors at the end of the hall all attested to a sense of power and wealth. Hell, this place made the online gaming company where I was still forced to earn a paycheck look like a shithole in comparison. Still, all of this was fairly new too. Sally had wasted little time in switching the coven’s focus from the SoHo loft to this place.

  I approached the door and tried the handle – locked. Okay, that wasn’t too surprising. I mean, it was well after dark and our floors were surrounded by actual legit businesses that kept relatively normal hours. If we left things opened up at all hours of the night, we’d either look like what we were – a coven of bloodthirsty beasts – or an escort service.

  Unfortunately, despite being lord and master of this merry bunch of monsters, I somehow didn’t have a key – forcing me to knock like I was here to deliver a late night pizza. My enhanced strength helped ensure that even the thickest doors didn’t fully muffle my entreaties for entrance. Regardless, I still had to wait several seconds before my acute undead hearing picked up the sound of footsteps approaching.

  The door cracked open and a pretty brown face surrounded by a permed cascade of black hair greeted me. Alice. She was a rarity among vamps – a sweetheart who actually cared. I didn’t really consider that a recipe for longevity amidst a group of psycho assholes, but to each their own.

  Anyway, she’d been somewhat jittery around me the first few weeks I’d been in charge. Sally and I had been forced to put a bit of a scare in her and the others during my first month as a vampire. It had been a case of either earn their respect or end up permanently dead. All of our machinations had been bullshit, of course, and, judging by the unflinching way she stared at me from the half-open door, I suspected she was beginning to understand that.

  “Oh, hi, Bill.” She sounded disappointed as if she’d been expecting someone else. Not quite the welcome wagon one would expect for the head honcho. Oh well, it was still better than the greeting I’d gotten from Dusk Reaper.

  Not being the type to complain about a nonviolent hello from a beautiful woman, I gave her my best ‘please give me a pity fuck’ smile and then stepped in.

  The place was a mess of construction, with various coven members scurrying back and forth on some errand or other. Sally was having the place gutted, but for reasons she didn’t elaborate on other than to tell me it was time to inject this coven with a modicum of professionalism. Considering the dress that Alice was wearing, as well as the attire of some of the other ladies present, a part of me wondered if I was standing in the beginning act of Bordello of Blood. Oddly enough, I wasn’t entirely against that concept. Go figure.

  I opened my mouth to ask where Sally was, when her voice rang out from somewhere further in. “Who’s at the door, Star? That had better not be fucking Brian back so soon. There’s no way that asshole could score some...” She stepped around a corner near the back and stopped when she saw me. “Oh ... it’s you.”

  It wasn’t her words that struck me as strange so much as her tone. Normally, Sally was a hundred pounds of attitude in a size four dress. Her clothes were often sharp, but not nearly as much as her fangs or tongue. Tonight, though, she appeared to falter when she walked into the room. Despite knowing that she had no pulse to speak of, I could have sworn her face turned a shade paler at the sight of me.

  “Freewill,” she said with a reverent nod of her head.

  I couldn’t help but notice all activity in the room had ceased as vamps turned to watch us. Okie-doke then. What a bunch of fucking weirdos.

  “What?” I asked, after a moment of uncomfortable silence. “You expecting the FedEx guy or something?”

  Several eyes hardened in my direction and I saw a few sets of fangs being flashed my way. Jeez, you tell one bad joke...

  “Starlight,” Sally said, addressing Alice by her forme
r coven name – the one she’d discarded when Night Razor’s rule had ended, “I need to talk to our esteemed master. Please wrap up here and then dismiss the team for the evening.”

  Again her tone was strange – no hint of attitude, just pure seriousness. Hell, I almost didn’t recognize her. It wasn’t exactly like her to not at least throw a sarcastic eye-roll my way.

  Alice nodded at Sally’s request, although she didn’t need to do much to let the rest of the place know. Vampires have ridiculously good hearing, so it was a safe bet that every set of ears on the floor had heard them being given the night off. A few moments later, this was confirmed as more coven members – many looking like they’d just stepped out of an Abercrombie and Fitch catalog – came into view. Most of them barely paid me any heed as they headed to the door, although I could have sworn I caught at least some shade from the various gazes that did meet mine. What the fuck?

  I walked toward Sally as the rank and file continued their escape, no doubt wanting to get the fuck out of Dodge lest she change her mind and put their asses back to work.

  As I approached to within ten feet, she trembled and took what appeared to be an involuntary step back. Sally was a petite thing, barely five feet in heels, but she seemed to shrink in on herself becoming even smaller, more vulnerable looking.

  “Is all to your liking, coven master?” she asked timidly.

  “Sure. Just peachy.” I couldn’t help but be worried. What the hell had spooked her so badly? Had someone in the coven rebelled and challenged her ... my ... err ... our authority? Had we been attacked? I knew there was another nearby nest of vampires, the Howard Beach Coven – HBC for short. They had a mad-on for me thanks to a misunderstanding from a few months back. Had that finally escalated into something worse?

  The sound of the front door slamming shut came from behind me, echoing in the now mostly empty space. I glanced back at Sally and saw her spying the door over my shoulder, her head cocked as if listening for something.