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

by Rick Gualtieri

  “Pull it out!” I yelled, but Nergui was way ahead of me. He grabbed the blade of the knife and yanked it from Gan’s body. There was a spray of sparks, followed by a spurt of blood and then, just barely audible, the barest of gasps from her mouth. She was still with us.

  It should have been obvious, had we not been morons. When you killed a vampire, you got dust, end of story. Anything less meant the deed wasn’t done. Nergui’s aim hadn’t been quite as good as I had thought. He had somehow just barely missed her heart. Sally’s attack had done its job after all.

  “How do we help her?” I asked, not really knowing much outside of maybe hoping she healed from the wound. Sadly, the silvered blade meant her recovery would be slowed down considerably.

  Again, though, Nergui was more prepared than I. He reached to his side and unclipped what appeared to be a water-skin. He uncorked it and tilted it over Gan’s lips. A familiar red liquid poured forth from it into her mouth. Even unconscious, she instinctively started swallowing gulps of it.

  “This will help,” he said, administering the blood. After a few good swallows from Gan, he pulled the skin away. He reached into a pocket and produced a small glass vial. It looked vaguely familiar. He poured the viscous contents into the water-skin, gave it a shake to mix, and then proceeded to feed more of it to Gan.

  “Hold on. Is that death worm...?”

  Nergui nodded in response. “It will allow her to sleep and heal.”

  “It will also keep her from running off if she starts feeling better,” I pointed out. Nergui gave me a knowing smile and nodded again. He wasn’t stupid. “What now?” I asked, just in case we were getting back to that “trying to kill me” part again. One could never be too paranoid with these things.

  “I will return with the princess, and we will let the Khan know the truth.”

  I was tempted to point out that the fat fuck already knew the truth and that this whole thing was just one gigantic hissy fit from him, but I refrained. That would probably be kicking the hornet’s nest.

  Nergui wasn’t finished yet, though. “I am certain that once the truth is made known to all, the great Khan will show mercy and rescind his order.”

  As I said, Nergui wasn’t stupid. I saw what he was getting at. If the findings of the investigation were made fairly public knowledge, then the Khan would have no choice but to call off the dogs. Nobody would give a damn about him killing a vampire of my age, but they might take some exception to killing the legendary Freewill for shits and giggles.

  “Will Gan be okay?”

  “She is his daughter,” was his answer, and probably the only one he needed to give. Gan was the Khan’s family and, hundreds of years old or not, people tended to tolerate a lot of crap from family.

  “I guess the only thing left to do is clean up here and make sure we both don’t drop dead in the process.”

  He nodded and then winced as he put a hand to his still oozing neck. “Your friend surprised me. She must care a great deal about you to have done this.”

  Oh shit! I almost forgot about Sally in the aftermath of what happened to Gan. I pulled myself weakly to my feet and limped over to check on her. She was still in the same spot. She was curled into a fetal ball and shaking, a few retching noises still escaping from her lips. In short, she didn’t look particularly well. I needed to get her out of there and back to where she could be properly cared for.

  I picked her up in my arms and looked back. Nergui had done the same for Gan. As I started slowly walking toward the stairwell, I heard a low murmur coming from Sally. I was amazed that she was still conscious, if just barely. I bent my head to hers and asked her to repeat herself.

  “Remember,” she said with a wheeze, “when I said that being near you was the safest place to be?”

  “Yes.”

  “Need to rethink that,” she whispered with a slight smile, and then was quiet again.

  I started to chuckle when I remembered how she had gotten her original injuries ... for this evening, at least. I looked around, scanning the rooftop ... nothing.

  “Where’s Decker?” I asked Nergui.

  “Decker?”

  “The wizard,” I clarified.

  “Did the princess not dispatch him?”

  “I thought so...” I trailed off. Then where the hell was he? Did wizards turn to dust like vampires? No, probably not. No convenient buckets of water around, either. What a world!

  That’s when I noticed it. There was a thin trail of blood leading into the stairwell entrance. It appeared to go downward. Son of a bitch! “I don’t believe it. After all that...” but Nergui held up a hand to silence me from saying more.

  “Hush.” He appeared to be listening to something. “We must go now.” He walked past me and started down the stairs.

  His hearing was much more sensitive than mine. For a moment, I didn’t notice anything, and then ... sirens. The cops. How could they have ... Decker! I would have bet anything on it. Not only had the fucker betrayed me, attacked us, and then done his best to trip me up when I was running from Nergui, but now he had run downstairs and called the police on us, too. Goddamn, what a prick!

  The Epic Epilogue

  The battle had ended on a sour note. Fortunately, the vampire community’s contributions to the NYPD would help ensure that things weren’t traced back to us. Decker probably knew that, too, not to mention I’m fairly sure he wanted the wizarding world exposed to the general public about as much as we wanted vampires to show up on the six o’clock news. Still, it had been one last kick in the balls from him before the asshole got away.

  On the upside, at least the battle was over. Sally and Gan had survived the ordeal, albeit barely. As for myself, I was happy to report I’d live to get back into trouble another day. What I didn’t know then was that another day wasn’t as far off on the horizon as I assumed.

  After we escaped from ... well, my job I guess, we quickly made our way underground. I’m sure we looked quite the sight to any onlookers. But between the weirdness of our appearance and the fact that we were all mostly covered in blood and grime, I wasn’t too worried about any positive IDs anytime soon. After traveling a few blocks through the sewer tunnels, we split up. Nergui told me that he wanted to waste no time getting back. He was going to work on making arrangements for himself and Gan to head home to Asia. Can’t say I was all too sorry to see him and his still unconscious bundle of “joy” depart from my life.

  That done, my main concern turned to Sally. Vampire strength or not, I was at the end of my endurance. She was starting to feel pretty heavy by the time I made it back to coven territory. I more or less just barely managed to stumble back to the Loft, but make it back I did, and I only dropped Sally once ... maybe twice, along the way.

  There was plenty of refrigerated blood in the larder underneath the Loft, and I managed to get two pints of it down Sally’s throat. It was touch and go for a few minutes there, but somehow she managed to keep it down without yakking all over me. I mean, yeah I had gotten plenty of gore on me during the previous few hours, but that would have just been nasty.

  At last, I put her in one of the Loft’s two bedrooms and gave a call to the safe house in Brooklyn. The all clear was given, and the remaining members of the coven were soon on their way back. Thank God for that, because I was done.

  I must have finally passed out because when I opened my eyes again, I saw that several members of the coven were milling about the room. I checked on Sally and found Starlight in the bedroom with her. She had taken charge with regards to Sally’s care. Seeing that she was in good hands, I gave my roommates a quick call to let them know I was still amongst the living, or undead, or however you want to put it. I then grabbed the spare bedroom and let blissful unconsciousness take me away again.

  I was out for a good twelve hours. Sally was down for eighteen before she started to stir. Her attitude took another four or so to wake up, but when it did, I knew she was going to be fine. The majority of her wounds,
outside of her missing hand, hadn’t been caused by silver weapons, so her cuts were already closed and her bones were starting to mend. It was still going to be a while before she was doing much more than attempting to sit upright. Regardless, before the night was through she was already barking out orders again and taking charge.

  Right before dawn, Ed showed up. He claimed it was to give me a ride back home, and I wasn’t about to argue with that. Unlike Sally’s, my wounds were taking their sweet time to heal, and I was still pretty banged up. I had no qualms about bypassing an hour-long subway ride.

  Still, I wasn’t a complete idiot. He was partially there for me, but he was also checking in on Sally. Oh well, if he insisted on living dangerously, who was I to argue?

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  The next day passed well enough. At the very least, no assassins, wizards, or love-struck preteen psychos showed up to darken our doorstep. By the late afternoon, I felt more or less myself again. I was probably going to hold off on any duels to the death for a couple days. However, I felt good enough to bundle myself up in layers of day clothes and head back to Manhattan to check on things. I was still coven leader, at least on paper. Considering the events of the past several days, it was probably a good idea to not be a stranger. The coven would need to be rebuilt, and that was a duty I couldn’t shirk, no matter how much I wanted to.

  I arrived at the Loft just as the sun was setting and found a few coven vamps hanging around, but no Sally. They told me she had returned to the Office. I was just thinking it was a good sign for her health when my cell phone rang. Speaking of the devil, it was her.

  “Where the hell have you been?” she barked. “I’ve been trying to reach you for the past hour.” There was still a wheezy quality to her voice, but she sounded a lot stronger than she had the previous night.

  “Good to hear you’re feeling better.”

  “I’m just dandy,” she growled. “Get your ass over here as soon as you can.” With that, she hung up.

  “Love you, too,” I said cheerfully into the now dead line. Yep, good to be back to normal, I thought as I headed to the door.

  The Office wasn’t far. It took me no more than fifteen minutes to get there. The place was still a disaster. Vampires were scurrying back and forth straightening things up. At least I saw that the desks that usually controlled the hotline were unmanned. I had no doubt Sally would have it up and running again in no time, but it was nice to know that the vulnerable of the city could have at least a minor reprieve from being served up as the daily special.

  The only area of the floor that appeared to be back to normal was ... you guessed it ... Sally’s office. What a surprise. Even less of a surprise, Starlight was back to manning the desk outside of it. I sighed as I approached. “Hey, Star. I see Sally drafted you again.”

  “Hi, Bill,” she replied. I noticed that she was showing distinctly less skittishness toward me than she normally did. After the last few days, I was probably the least of the evils she had been dealing with. That was good. I didn’t mind it at all.

  “Do I need to send you on another coffee break?” I asked with an even voice.

  She actually met my gaze to answer, “No. I volunteered this time. Lets me keep an eye on her.” She hooked a thumb toward Sally’s door. I smiled. Having a mother hen looking out for her was probably driving Sally nuts.

  I excused myself and walked into Sally’s office unannounced. Leadership had its perks, after all. Her normal super comfy executive chair was pushed off to the side. Sally sat behind her desk in a wheelchair, an IV of blood attached and flowing into her arm. She did not look amused.

  “Starlight?” I asked, indicating the setup.

  “Who else? She wouldn’t stop badgering me until I let her strap me in to this contraption.”

  “Looks good on you. Matches your eyes.”

  She held up the stump of her right arm toward me. It looked much better than it previously had. I could have sworn I already saw tiny little finger nubs starting to grow from it. “You probably can’t tell,” she said, “but I’m giving you the ghost finger.”

  “Good to see your stunning personality wasn’t amputated.”

  “Quite true, but enough of my sunny disposition,” she said, putting on a serious tone. “We have a problem ... more specifically, you have a problem.”

  “What a surprise,” I commented. “What now?”

  “Got a call from Boston about an hour ago. It was about Gan and Nergui.”

  “Oh, don’t tell me she escaped again.”

  “Worse. They made it back.”

  “Why is that worse?”

  She shook her head. “They made it back to nothing. The Khan’s camp was completely destroyed.”

  “Are they okay?”

  “Yeah. There are plenty of nomadic covens in that region. They hooked up with a few of them.”

  “So what the hell happened?” I demanded

  “No idea. It was all over by the time they got back. Sounds like whatever was fighting them won.”

  Shit! I had completely forgotten about the Alma or whatever they were. I pulled out my cell phone and started typing a message. She saw me and asked, “What are you doing?”

  “I’m texting Ed. You just reminded me of something we were supposed to look into.”

  “Tell him I said ‘Hi.’”

  “Tell him yourself,” I said, putting my phone away again. “So Gan’s fine?”

  “Yep.”

  “That’s good.”

  “For them, yes. For you...” she trailed off.

  “Me what?”

  “The word from Boston is that they’re blaming you for this.”

  “WHAT?!”

  “The Khan sent three of his warriors to retrieve Gan from you.”

  “I’m pretty well aware of that.”

  “So...” she continued in a slow voice, “since they were here and not there, the Khan’s forces were depleted.”

  “Oh,” I replied, comprehension sinking in. “But it was just three guys.”

  “Three of the Khan’s best warriors,” she corrected. “While they were in China doing their duty, everything was hunky-dory. Once they left, not so much. You can do the math.”

  “So what’s the bottom line?” I asked, feeling my good mood instantly evaporate.

  “Just rumblings and rumors so far, from what I can hear.”

  “Let me guess ... more assassins are coming. A lot more.”

  “No. It’s worse.”

  I put my hand up to rub my temples and sighed. “Define ‘worse.’”

  “They’re expecting you to fix things.”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  I got off the subway and walked toward home, the beginnings of a migraine starting to form. Fix things? How the fuck was I supposed to fix things? I didn’t even know what things there were to fix. Sally said she’d keep me posted as more news became available, but I was sorely tempted to toss my cell phone down a sewer and change my home number. I doubted any further news would be very much in my favor.

  I didn’t know the half of it.

  I arrived at my apartment and let myself in, but then immediately froze in the doorway at the scene that greeted me. Tom was sitting on the couch. That in itself wasn’t too shocking. The fact that he had his face glued to the witch, who had just days before kidnapped us all, was the thing that had me a wee bit disconcerted.