The Tome of Bill (Book 1.5): Night Stalker

by Rick Gualtieri

  The HBC vamp hesitated as her shrill cry cut through the night air. Within seconds more voices, angry tenants no doubt, joined in from above.

  “Shut the fuck up!”

  “I have to work in the morning!”

  “That’s it. I’m calling the fucking cops!”

  That last one seemed to get through to my opponent and he took a step back. Uncertainty filled his eyes. He was no doubt debating the odds. Could he take me before the cops got there? If not, could he take me and the cops at the same time? Apparently the answer was no, as he looked down at me, spat, and then took off down the alley – his vampiric speed ensuring he was gone before I had a chance to utter, “And don’t come back.”

  Unfortunately, if the cops were on their way – probably a big if, all things considered – that meant I needed to make my ass scarce too. First things first, though. One doesn’t save a victim and then take off before ensuring said victim is all right. That wouldn’t be cool.

  Picking myself up, I dusted the last of the dead HBC vamp off me – again trying not to think about what I’d just done – and walked over to where the old lady still cowered.

  Her eyes widened as I approached and her little dog, no doubt sensing its master’s fright, began to growl in my direction. I held up my hands to hopefully show I meant no harm.

  “It’s okay. They’re gone.” I bent down and held out a hand for her.

  “Who are you?” she asked, her voice a bare whisper.

  “I’m...” Oh crap. I couldn’t exactly give her my name. The last thing I wanted was for the cops to show up at my doorstep asking for a statement. Drawing attention to myself was a bad thing, especially since I had no alibi as to what the hell I was doing here at this time of night. I needed to make something up, but what? So I said the first thing that popped into my head.

  I opened my mouth into a big friendly smile. “I’m Dr. Death.”

  * * *

  In retrospect I should’ve considered two things: first off, Dr. Death isn’t a particularly reassuring name to be giving old ladies at two AM in the fucking morning and I really need to remember to retract my fangs before grinning at people.

  The combination set her off again and she erupted into screams of terror. Unfortunately, in doing so, she also let go of Mr. Piddles who―much like any good doggie―didn’t waste any time in attacking me.

  The little weasel latched onto one of my sneakers with a death grip, snarling like it was actually a threat to anything bigger than a slice of baloney.

  “Hey, call off your...” And that’s when I heard the whine of sirens in the distance. Shit! Of all the nights for the police to be responsive.

  “Listen, lady...” I slipped and almost lost my footing as her attack rat refocused his teeth onto the cuff of my pants. “Seriously, you need to...” Fuck this shit! I kicked my leg out to dislodge the dog, forgetting for one wee moment that I currently possessed the combined strength of two vampires. The end result was a wet splatter as Mr. Piddles slammed into the side of the building at roughly the same speed as a Major League fastball. Oh crap!

  Yeah, that definitely could have ended better.

  ORIGIN STORY

  Needless to say, granny didn’t take the death of her beloved pet with a great deal of dignity. She began tearing at her hair. All the while, her screams rose in intensity until I was sure my ears would bleed.

  That was it. No fucking way did I have any chance of making this right – at least not before the cops showed up and busted my ass for animal cruelty.

  Unable to think of something more profound to say than, “Sorry,” I took off, quickly accelerating to full speed as I attempted to put this encounter far behind me.

  By that point I no longer had any shits left to give. Pulling my hood tighter around my head on the off chance that any red light cameras happened to catch my speeding form, I kept going until I was only a few blocks from home. Only then did I slow down to a more human pace as I walked the final distance to my building.

  I climbed the stairs to the top floor, let myself into the dark apartment, and made my way to my bedroom where hopefully I’d be able to convince myself that this had all been a bad dream.

  * * *

  Sleep eluded me for the rest of the night. I ended up lying in bed and staring at the ceiling as I tried to make sense of what had happened. Oddly enough, the thing I felt worst about was the old lady’s dog. Sure, I couldn’t stand those little yippy pieces of shit, but that didn’t mean I had meant to pop it like a water balloon. A part of me insisted I should have felt much worse about the vampire. I mean, he’d been a person. Maybe he had a family and ... well, okay, dickface hadn’t exactly seemed the wife and two point five kids sort.

  The problem was I couldn’t quite get over the weirdness of how vampires kicked the bucket. It almost made them seem ... I dunno ... less real. That was stupid of course. I was a vampire and had little doubt that turning to dust was an unpleasant experience. Still, seasons of Buffy and multiple Blade movies had gone a long way toward ruining the emotional impact of ending a vampire life for me. And, in all fairness, it didn’t help the guy’s cause that he’d been a marauding asshole preying on a defenseless old lady. Live by the sword, die by the stake―or knife in this case.

  Finally, morning arrived as evidenced by the light filtering through my closed blinds. Thankfully, another benefit of my physiology was the need for much less sleep than I’d previously required. Regardless, I wasn’t exactly bouncing out of bed. I’d been told vampires have a natural proclivity toward being nocturnal – which made sense since direct sunlight could reduce us to a charred crisp faster than a burrito left in the microwave too long. It meant that no matter how much rest I got, I was always dragging my ass a bit during the day.

  Oh well. Sadly for me, being turned hadn’t meant an instant windfall of riches. I still had to work for a living. Even though my job allowed me to work remotely, that meant most days I needed to be awake during the time when other vamps would be nestled all cozy in their beds or filthy crypts. At least today was Sunday, which meant I could procrastinate getting up. Hell, any port in a storm.

  After a while, I heard noises coming from the living room. Ed was out visiting his stepfather in Pennsylvania this weekend, which meant it had to be Tom. He worked in the Manhattan financial district, so was in the habit of getting up early most days – unless he was piss-faced drunk the night before. If he was up, it meant I hadn’t missed any good parties while I’d been out playing coven stooge. It was a small victory, but I’d take it.

  When I finally got my ass out of bed, I found him seated on our cheap-ass couch behind his laptop. Rather than the spreadsheets one might expect of a minion working his way up the corporate ladder, he was watching a cartoon in which a multi-tentacled demon fucked a wide-eyed anime girl in the ass―as well as pretty much every other hole. From the look of things, she had about forty feet worth of his appendages inside of her. Goddamn, the Japanese were weird.

  I stepped up behind him and cleared my throat.

  Tom glanced over his shoulder and asked, “S’up, Bill?” in between mouthfuls of Cookie Crisp.

  “Really?” I asked. “What is it, like seven AM?”

  “Don’t judge.”

  “Too late.” I glanced again at his screen. “Is that Midnight Girl Oni?”

  “No. It’s the sequel – Midnight Girl Oni Returns.”

  “Don’t think I’ve seen that one. Shoot me the link when you get the chance.”

  “No problem. Oh hey!” He paused the video. “I’ve got a bone to pick with you.”

  “Listen, man, I had a bit of a night and...”

  “That can wait. You put blood in the fucking syrup bottle.”

  “So? Goes good on pancakes that way.”

  “First off, that’s fucking gross. Secondly, I only found out because I tried using it earlier.”

  Oops. I really needed to remember to label my stuff. “Whatever the fuck. It was my syrup. I bought it.�
�

  “It doesn’t work that way. Condiments are communal.”

  “Communal syrup? Since when?”

  “Since always.”

  “If that’s the case, then why did you flip the fuck out when I used your wasabi a few weeks back?”

  “The rule doesn’t apply to imported condiments. Everyone knows that.”

  I walked into the kitchen and got a pot of coffee brewing. “You are so full of shit.”

  “I don’t make the rules, I just follow them.”

  “Can I pour some blood in my coffee, oh mighty one, or is it communal caffeine too?”

  “Coffee is fine. Just don’t put it directly in the pot.”

  “Asshole,” I commented under my breath.

  “So what happened?”

  “Huh?” I asked, turning back toward him.

  “You said you had a rough night.”

  “Oh yeah. You know the drill. I fucked Sally then she kept begging me for more. Bitch couldn’t get enough.”

  Tom stood and walked to our kitchen nook with his empty cereal bowl. He gave it the most cursory of rinses in the sink, then put it back in the cabinet. “I asked what you did last night, not what Bizarro Bill did.”

  “It could happen.” He continued to stare at me until I broke down and grinned. “Okay fine, but I’m serious. One day I’m gonna tap that tight little ass of hers.”

  “And should that happen, I shall raise a toast in your name ... probably posthumously.”

  “Yeah, but it’ll be worth it.”

  * * *

  I told Tom about my adventure from the night before. It took a while because he kept asking me to back up and fill in more details on Eliza. My dating life was pretty pathetic, but his wasn’t any better and it showed. Oh well, at least desperation loved company.

  “So you actually tried to save that old woman?” he asked with a slight hint of admiration to his voice. “That’s pretty fucking cool.”

  I thought back to her dog. “Didn’t quite work out that way.”

  “Fuck that noise, dude. The little fucking rat probably deserved it anyway.”

  I rubbed the bridge of my nose, feeling a stress headache coming on. Tom was my oldest friend, but unburdening my troubles on him was often not the most cathartic of exercises. “I didn’t help her just to punt her dog into oblivion, dipshit. That sort of defeats the point. Fuck! I figured maybe I’d have one good thing come out of last night, but I had to fuck that up too. Now I have most of the goddamned coven looking to kill me, the HBC looking to kill me, and Sally who’ll probably kill me if I don’t find a way to fix this shit.”

  When I looked up again, my roommate was gone. He’d walked back to his laptop while I’d been ranting. “What the hell, man? Am I that fucking boring?”

  “No ... well, normally you are,” he said from over his shoulder, “but in this case it sounds like some real shit went down.”

  “So then what are...?”

  “I’m checking out Google News.”

  “Why?”

  “Did you not just listen to yourself? You went all Dark Knight on those HBC cocksuckers. I want to see if anyone picked up on the story. How fucking cool would that be?”

  “I don’t think Sally would find it all that cool. I’m not exactly supposed to go around shouting from the ramparts that vampires exist.”

  “This wouldn’t be about vampires, stupid,” he said dismissively. “All this happened in the middle of Queens. I bet some intrepid reporter slipped a cop a twenty, got the scoop, and wrote an awesome piece about...” He paused and turned to look at me. “Did you give the old lady a name?”

  “My name?”

  “Not your real name. Did you give her a code name?”

  “Oh. Yeah. I gave her my coven name.”

  “You did not.”

  “It was all I could think of.”

  “Are you a fucking idiot? Nobody is gonna want to be saved by some psycho named Dr. Death. You should have come up with something better like the Shadow Warrior or Dark Justice...”

  “I really didn’t have time to put a great deal of thought into it.”

  “Oh well, fuck it. I’m sure the press will come up with something cool.”

  “For what?”

  “For ... oh ... Houston, I think we have liftoff. Check it out, I think this one is about you.”

  “Really?” I stepped across the room, suddenly curious to see what he was looking at. I had to admit a small part of me didn’t exactly mind the concept of getting a little credit for stopping a potential murder.

  Queens Woman Institutionalized After Claiming Monsters Killed Her Dog.

  I grimaced at what I saw. “Not quite the headline I was hoping for.”

  “Yeah, but it’s pretty cool anyway.”

  “They locked her up in a nut house.”

  “Who cares? Even Batman fucked up his maiden voyage.”

  “Maiden voyage? You’re not suggesting...”

  “Oh, yes I am.” He turned and smiled broadly at me “This city is about to get its very first superhero and that hero is you, my friend.”

  UP, UP AND AWAY

  “Are you a fucking retard? No, don’t say anything. I’m pretty sure I already know the answer.”

  Tom closed his laptop and stood. I could see the same insane glimmer he usually got in his eyes when he’d collected some toy that he was certain was worth a fortune. Most of the time he was full of shit, but that didn’t stop him from becoming obsessive. “Think about it. It’s perfect.”

  “No...”

  “You have actual super powers.”

  “I’m not listening.”

  “The night is a second home to you.”

  “Not happening.”

  “And you already have the motivation.”

  I was about to turn and march back into my bedroom, but I stopped and asked, “Wait, what motivation?”

  “Everyone in the coven wants to kill your ass.”

  “I’m well aware of that, thank you. I’m not sure how saving one little old lady is gonna solve that ... unless you think I should have fed her to them.”

  “Well, that might have helped.”

  I let out a sigh and turned around again, at which point he quickly added, “But that’s not what I’m talking about.”

  “I know what you’re talking about. You want me to dress up in a cape and skulk along the rooftops so you can live out some sick masturbatory superhero fantasy vicariously through me. Well, no dice. I’m not one of your fucking action figures.”

  “No, but technically you do owe me a replacement for Opti...”

  “Can we please stop talking about that?” I gritted my teeth at the memory. That stupid toy, which had somehow gotten infused with magic and become the equivalent of a holy hand grenade. Sure, it had proven helpful against Jeff, but fuck me if my roommate hadn’t whined continually about it ever since.

  “Do you know how much that thing was worth?”

  I rounded on Tom, blackening my eyes in the process. “Yes I do! I looked it up in fact. Not nearly as much as you fucking make it out to be.”

  “Now maybe, but in the future...” One of his eyebrows rose quizzically as he stared at me. “By the way, what are you doing?”

  In an attempt to look intimidating and maybe get him to back off, I’d raised my hands and extended my claws ... or tried to. Glancing at them, I saw that rather than wicked talons, my fingernails had maybe grown a quarter of an inch. “Shit.”

  “Still haven’t figured that out, have you?”

  “There isn’t exactly a manual for these things.”

  “Sally?”

  “She keeps telling me to stop bothering her and just go fucking practice.”

  “I’d say you need more.”

  “No shit, Sherlock.” I blinked a few times. “Are my eyes back to normal?”

  “Looks like it.”

  At least I’d gotten that part down fairly well. If I ever decided to go to a Comic-Con and cosplay as
Riddick from Pitch Black I’d be all set.

  “See?” Tom asked, a smile on his face. “This is exactly why my plan is so perfect.”

  Realizing I wasn’t going to be left alone until he said his piece, I relented. “Okay, fine. Explain why pretending to be some Moon Knight knockoff is gonna help me.”

  “For starters, it’s gonna give you some practice. I think your problem is you’re thinking too hard about it and also you really don’t want to hurt me.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah, I’m far too awesome. But in the heat of battle when some asshole is coming after you, you’re the only hope the orphans and the hot school teacher charged with their protection have, I have no doubt...”

  “Wait, where did the orphans come from?”

  “I’m just illustrating a scenario here. Can you please shut the fuck up and let me finish? Good. Anyway, think about it. You’d be a natural. You heal like Wolverine. You have claws like Sabretooth...”

  “Sabretooth is a bad guy.”

  “Not in Age of Apocalypse.”

  “Point taken.”

  “And you’re as strong as Captain America. That screams hero potential to me. But, here’s the best part. You’re not going to be out there hunting criminals.”

  “I’m not? But you said...”

  “Use your brain for a second, Bill. Think of how fucking boring that would be. You got lucky last night and stumbled upon that shit, but imagine how many hours Batman must spend standing atop some spire somewhere, scratching his ass through his bat-suit, and hoping someone gets mugged. The comics make it look like Spider-man can’t take a shit without Carnage climbing up his ass, but in real life interesting stuff doesn’t happen every day ... unless your quest for justice involves helping the cops sort out fender benders.”

  I was still stuck on Tom’s definition of lucky, but he did have a point about the rest. A real life superhero would probably end up bored out of his fucking mind without a flashing red phone or bat signal to tell him when shit was going down. “Okay, I get what you’re saying, but then what’s the point of all this if I’m not going to hunt...”