The Tome of Bill Series: Books 1-4 (Bill The Vampire, Scary Dead Things, The Mourning Woods, Holier Than Thou)

by Rick Gualtieri

  I waited, but, as expected, didn’t have to wait for long.

  Nergui’s voice floated up to me from just one flight below. “It is over, Freewill. Make your death an honorable one.”

  Honor this, fucker, I thought in return. Okay, time to make or break. “Catch me if you can, assholes!” I screamed with insane glee, bursting through the doorway onto the rooftop at the fastest speed I could manage.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  I didn’t go straight. I’m not that stupid. Instead, upon stepping out and making a target of myself, I did a little razzle-dazzle and jumped to the left, toward some large air conditioning units. The blast came a split second later. I could feel the air displace as it roared across the roof and toward the doorway just as Nergui and Bang stepped through.

  I’ll give credit where credit is due: those vamps were fast motherfuckers ... just not fast enough. They attempted to sidestep the blast and both wound up being only partially successful at it. Nergui was caught fairly full on. He slammed into the right side of the door frame and blasted straight through it. A similar blast a few moments ago had nearly turned Sally into a puddle of vampire-colored paint. However, Nergui had three extra centuries of badassery on his side. I imagined he’d probably tumble down a few flights of stairs and be right up in my shit all over again.

  Bang had caught the periphery of the blast as he tried to leap in my direction. It had sent him spinning out of control, causing him to bounce off the rooftop a couple times before skidding to a halt against an antenna array, bending it in the process. Wonderful. It’s not like cell service didn’t already suck enough in the city as it was. Next time you’re in midtown and you can’t get five bars, I guess you can blame me.

  Still hidden behind the AC unit, I put Sally down on the rooftop. It would provide her some cover and, if not, I hoped that the various combatants would show at least a little chivalry to the downed lady. Unfortunately, if I stayed where I was, standing over her like a protective mother bear guarding its cubs, I’d be easy pickings.

  I peeked around the corner and saw Decker at the far edge of the roof. He was down on one knee, breathing hard. Much like the night before, the expenditure of power had temporarily drained his batteries.

  “I thought you said you weren’t in any condition to fight!” I yelled at him from behind my cover. No use tempting fate in case he had another shot left in him.

  “I lied,” he panted in return – an asshole to the very end. The question was, should I pick him off or try to take out one of the Khan’s lackeys? At the time being, they seemed the far greater of the ... hell, I had lost count of all the evils by that point.

  I stuffed Sally’s gun in the waistband of my pants. No point in shooting wildly, as I was pretty sure I couldn’t hit the sky if I aimed at it. A small part of me was sure it would go off and blow away my balls, along with a good chunk of my lower body, but fate actually surprised me for once and left me intact, or as intact as I was. Fucking silver weapons. If it weren’t for them, I’d have been all healed up by now and ready for round two. Instead, I had a gimpy arm, a bleeding leg, and a chest cavity that felt like a sumo wrestler was sitting on it every time I tried to breathe.

  I hefted the silvered knife. I could probably throw it no better than I could shoot, but in close quarters, I wouldn’t need to. I turned left and charged toward where Bang was just now getting to his feet. He had gotten the wind knocked out of him by Decker’s Power Word: Fuck You spell. He reached his feet, and I almost instinctively skidded to a halt. The guy was seriously messed up and, from the look of things, not by any magic hex. Everything was starting to scar over thanks to his quick healing, but the damage was still quite evident. He was missing his right eye and had a good gouge taken out of that side of his face. There were likewise deep tears and scratches across every part of his torso that I could see. Though apparently functional, one of his arms had an odd cant to it, as if it were missing a sizable chunk from the bicep. In short, Bang was pretty banged up.

  I remembered back to the night before, right before blacking out. Had I caused that damage to him? As Decker and Christy had been long gone by then, it seemed the only logical answer. Unless, that is, Nergui had decided to take out his frustrations at my escape on his friend. Fucked up culture or not, though, that didn’t seem to make much sense. In the movies, the bad guys were always shooting their incompetent lackeys, but in real life, you don’t snuff the hired help, at least not until the job is done.

  Bang saw me coming and attempted to strike a defensive pose, but it was too late. I flung myself at him and slammed into his midsection. He went down with me on top, and we skidded across the roof a good ten feet before coming to a stop.

  “Having a good time in the city?!” I yelled, slamming my left fist into his jaw. “Here’s a little souvenir for you!” I raised the knife and brought it down toward his chest. It was just about then that the rational voices in my head spoke up and reminded me that I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. They always like to do that during times like these. Well, okay, I haven’t exactly had too many times like this. Tussling with a centuries old assassin wasn’t exactly a normal thing, even in my life. Oh well, another thing to add to my resume.

  Bang had other ideas, though. Despite his injuries, he still managed to catch me by the wrist before I could do more than prick his skin with the blade. I put my other hand on top and started bearing down. Vampiric strength was a badass thing. However, it didn’t mean much if the person you’re fighting had it, too, except multiplied by several times. I couldn’t budge him. In fact, the fucker had the nerve to start smiling at me. He said something glib sounding in that gibberish Chinese of his. I didn’t need to understand him to know I had just been burned.

  “Oh yeah? Your boss is James T. Kirk’s bitch!” I lamely spat back. If he had spoken English, and had a working knowledge of the dorkier aspects of American pop culture, it would have been pretty damn insulting, believe me.

  I heard noises behind me. I turned my head and saw that Nergui had once again emerged onto the rooftop. Decker had regained his feet as well and appeared to be steeling himself for another salvo of spells. Good, they were keeping each other occupied for the moment. I was just about to turn back to Bang when movement caught my eye. It was Sally. She was actually trying ... and mostly failing ... to get back to her feet. Fucking crazy bitch.

  “STAY D...” I started to yell, right before doing the opposite. I had stupidly allowed myself to be distracted against a vampire who, unlike me, knew what he was doing. He had gotten his other arm free and, with the added leverage, literally threw me off him. I really needed to enlist in the Army or sign myself up again for self-defense classes. Spending all of eternity on the receiving end of shit like this did not sound like fun to me.

  Oh, and in case you’re wondering, being thrown through the air wasn’t a particularly wonderful thing either. It’s considerably less amusing, though, when it involves a rooftop that happens to be a couple hundred feet above street level. A birds-eye view of what was waiting for you, one short trip at terminal velocity later, would be enough to give anyone a slight case of vertigo. A vampire with a fear of heights would almost be chuckle worthy if I weren’t the one it was happening to.

  I was almost about to count my lucky stars (and believe me, it wouldn’t have been a particularly high count) that Bang’s throw was going to leave me a few feet short of the edge when I realized I had failed to take into account the bounce factor. Ah yes, momentum. Kind of wished I hadn’t blown off so many physics classes back in college. Otherwise, I might have remembered that bodies in motion tended to stay in motion. Not that it would have done me much good. Knowledge of the laws of physics didn’t necessarily mean an ability to break them ... at least outside of The Matrix. And sadly, I didn’t see any leather clad chicks named Trinity racing to my aid.

  I slammed down and tumbled toward the edge. The knife flew from my grip and a barely intelligible, but highly audible, “OH SHIT!” escap
ed from my lips. I didn’t know if a drop from this height would kill me, but it was a fair certainty that it would mess up my day in more ways than one.

  There was only one chance. As my legs slid out over the edge, I slammed my fingers down into the rooftop as hard as my vampire strength would allow and tried to dig in. Some days, I cursed having been turned into a vampire. Just to be clear, right then was not one of those times. I managed to sink them in just enough to stop myself before the bulk of my weight carried me over. I was going to be picking roofing tar out from beneath my fingernails for a month, but considering the alternative, I’d be happy to do it.

  Unfortunately for me, the alternative was very much still a possibility. I had just barely stopped myself from going over when I looked up to see Bang standing above me. That same asshole smile was still on his face as he reared back to punt my head off.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  At the speed of thought, dull anger flooded through me. I had been there before, or at least one of my old Dungeons & Dragons characters had. It had been a difficult campaign, fighting our way through the Accursed Pass of the Blood Mountains. Following a particularly nasty encounter with a pack of Hill Giants, my character was left with a broken leg. In game terms, this meant that the DM saddled me with a bunch of bullshit negative modifiers to all of my scores, including speed.

  Afterwards, while climbing a cliff face toward our final destination, my character’s injuries had slowed the party down enough so that we lost the element of surprise. The others were pissed at me. As a result, when my ranger finally reached the top of the cliff and was pulling himself up, my friend Mike walked his barbarian over to me and said, “Sorry, but you’ve become a burden,” right before kicking me in the face, sending my character plummeting to his death. Bunch of assholes! They all had a good laugh about it and even stopped on the return trip to loot my corpse. It was one of those indignities that one did not so easily forget.

  No fucking way was I letting some shithead named Bang do the same thing to me again. He’d have to find some other sucker to loot a +3 flaming sword from ... or something like that, anyway.

  As his foot came straight at my head, I let go of my precarious grip on the rooftop and grabbed his leg with both hands. His foot still slammed into my face, but my mouth, or more precisely my fangs, was waiting for it.

  I bit into the soft leather of his boot. My teeth had no problem going through the material to the flesh inside. Just for the record, at no point did it taste particularly good. I chomped down on his toes and hung on for dear life. Bang started screaming and tried to pull away. It was enough for me to lift one of my legs over the edge and find purchase to push myself up with.

  Bang lost his balance and fell on his back, but it also freed his other leg to kick out at me. He managed to score a glancing blow, but it was enough to make me let go. Rather than risk a repeat performance, I instead rolled out of his range.

  He howled while cradling his injured foot. It gave me enough time to get back to my feet. We locked eyes as I did so. The smile was gone from his face, but it was spreading on mine. I complemented the gesture by spitting out two of his toes toward him. It’s not like I was planning on swallowing them anyway.

  Sadly, it was mostly a psych-out maneuver. I had gotten a little of his blood from the ordeal, but it was barely enough for a quick recharge to even my normal levels. I was still way out of my league here. On the upside, though, Bang wouldn’t be competing on Dancing with the Stars anytime soon.

  Or maybe not. He did a quick kip-up and was suddenly on his feet again. A few missing toes wasn’t exactly a mortal wound for someone like him. Even worse, he drew one of those silver daggers he and his buddies seemed to favor. Guess he got a lot of bang for his buck out of those (I kill me). The grin was still gone from his face, but the look that was there made me wish that it wasn’t.

  This time, he meant to finish the job.

  What’s a Little Murder Amongst Friends

  I knew the stare down was a ruse. I had seen how fast vampires could move. Any second, Bang would be on me quicker than I could blink my eyes. His power, speed, and experience eclipsed mine by many times over, and he was more than aware of it. However, he still hesitated. I had given him more of a fight than he had expected so far, and apparently gave him a lot more than he bargained for the previous night.

  That was it! I was an X-factor as far as he was concerned. He wasn’t entirely sure what I could do and was playing things a bit more cautiously than he might otherwise. Maybe I could use that.

  I tried my best to keep a grin on my face. Best to let him think I wasn’t afraid of him. I was, though, and he could probably see it in my eyes. So, I put on my vamp face. I extended my fangs and claws, then blackened my eyes. Gotta say, I was starting to get pretty good at this. Bang actually took a small step back. All vampires could do that stuff. It was pretty par for the course. However, something allowed me to take it further. I was the Freewill of vampire legend, after all. Too bad I had absolutely no fucking idea what that meant or how to control it. That moment of extreme anger I’d felt earlier had passed. In its place was weariness from my wounds and a slight desire to piss myself out of the fear of getting my head lopped off. In other words, I had nothing.

  CLANG! Or maybe not. I apparently still had one crazy ass bitch of a guardian angel. A metal grate flew out of nowhere, slamming into the back of Bang’s head. Sally! I turned my head and, sure enough, it had been her. Somehow she was still in the game, although just barely. The effort appeared to be all that she had in her, though. She attempted to give me a thumbs-up with her still disjointed arms, but instead fell down on her ass. Regardless, if she could mount an offense in her fucked-up state, I wasn’t about to let it go to waste.

  I closed in and swung my claws. They sliced a nasty-looking furrow across Bang’s chest. I repeated the action with my other hand, and he let out a grunt of pain. I needed to keep it up. If I tore into him enough, even he would go down ... hopefully. I reared back to do it again, maybe a nice slice out of his throat would give him something to think about.

  But then I just stopped. I didn’t mean to stop, mind you. I had every intention of following through on my attack, but my body stopped responding the way I wanted it to. It was curious, but the spreading heat in my midsection gave me my first clue. I looked down to see Bang’s dagger several inches deep in my stomach. Yeah, that would do it.

  Before I could come up with a suitably clever response to being gutted, Bang backhanded me and I went tumbling away, my blood spraying out in an arch as the knife pulled free. I finally came to a stop face-down on the rooftop. Considering the sizable hole in my stomach, it was not the most comfortable of positions to be in. It was made even less fun due to the butt of the Desert Eagle digging in dangerously close to where some of my insides were trying to make their way out.

  Wait a second ... I still had the gun! I was a suck shot, but it was better than nothing.

  Unfortunately, I shouldn’t have been worrying about my front, my back, or even the shooting lessons I needed to take. I should have been more worried about my head. Rough fingers grabbed a handful of my hair and jerked me upright to my knees. The hand forced my chin up so that I got a pretty good look at the sky. It was partly cloudy, probably low chance of rain. Sadly, there was a high chance of my death. I saw the same dagger that had just been used to fillet me enter into my view. Bang was slowly lowering it to my throat when a shrill shriek pierced the air.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  I had heard a similar scream the night before. It was an almost animalistic battle cry in a high pitch that only a feral cat or a preteen girl could manage. Gan! About time she decided to join this party. Pity it was probably too late to do me any good. Oh well, I had been meaning to lose a few pounds one of these days anyway. This was one way to ensure I stopped procrastinating about it. Besides, throughout my life I had suffered from a poor body image, so maybe I wouldn’t miss it all that much.

  I didn’t feel
the blade biting into me, though. The hand holding the knife was hesitating. I craned my eyes up as far as they would go and could just barely make out Bang’s head. It was turned toward the direction of the scream. He hadn’t been expecting Gan.

  No time to waste! I fumbled with my right hand for the gun, but my grip was slippery with blood. The first time I tried to pull it out, I rammed it straight into my wound instead. FUCK! Talk about a wake-up call! I needed to remember in the future not to bring cold steel into contact with my intestinal tract.