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

by Rick Gualtieri

  I sighed and said to the Sasquatch, “We humbly apologize. My friend didn’t know what he was doing. It was an accident.”

  “It is insult!” it snarled. “You come to Woods of Mourning, yet not learn of our ways. You spit upon my people." (Well, maybe spit wasn’t the right word.) He bared his teeth and backed up another step. “Turd will hear of this.” He continued backing away. Within a few steps, he practically melted into the forest. Silence returned. It was pretty fucking freaky, like something out of Predator.

  Then Ed had to go and ruin the mood. “So Turd will hear of my crap?”

  I turned back to him. “Not funny, dude. Well okay, it is kinda funny. But not really.”

  “Sorry. I wasn’t trying to cause any trouble. You know that.”

  “Yeah, I know. Where’s Sally, by the way?”

  “How the hell would I know?”

  “I thought she followed you.”

  “For a little while. But like I said, I had to take a dump. It’s not exactly a spectator sport.”

  “I heard the gunfire and thought she was...”

  “Was what?”

  “Well, killing you, I guess.”

  He smiled at that. “But what a way to go.”

  “True enough. Oh, well, we should probably go look for her. Unless, that is, you’d like to take a shit on anyone else’s dead grandfather.”

  “Fuck you, Bill.”

  “Not tonight, I’m tired,” I joked then began to turn back toward where the village was (hopefully). Suddenly a thought struck me. I stopped, looked around to make sure no hairy eyeballs were watching, then plucked a few leaves from the sacred tree.

  “What are you doing?” Ed asked.

  “I’m going to show these to James. Maybe he’ll know why they’re so special.”

  “It’s not. It’s just a maple tree.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure?”

  “I had them all over my yard growing up. Trust me, I raked enough of them to know.”

  “Hmm, so what you’re telling me is...”

  “That these guys are a bunch of fucking retards.”

  “Fair enough, although I could have probably guessed that already. I mean, c’mon, their leader is named after what you just dropped on their ancestors.”

  Keeping One’s Priorities Straight

  “You’ve got to be kidding,” I said, upon entering our “luxury suite.” “You’ve been here all along?”

  Sally looked up from where she was busy painting her toenails and let out a sniff. “Where else would I be?”

  “We just spent the last hour walking through the woods looking for you.”

  “Oh. Well, I was here. I had some important business to take care of.” She wiggled her toes to emphasize her point.

  “I can see that,” I replied snidely. “In the meantime, Ed and I were busy trying not to die.”

  “I see you were successful. Good for you,” she said, going back to her feet.

  “I assume you didn’t hear...” Ed started.

  “The gunshot? Yep, I heard it. Thought it might be you.”

  “And you didn’t come to help, because...?” I snapped.

  “For starters, I’m not the designated babysitter. Secondly, I knew you would go and check it out. But most importantly, because I fucking think these things through before I go off half-cocked.”

  That stopped both of us in our tracks. We shared a glance, then Ed said, “Explain.”

  “It’s simple,” she said, pausing to switch feet. While she did, I began tapping the table with my fingers. “Don’t be impatient. If I rush, I’ll get streaks.” I was just starting to grit my teeth, when she started again. “As I was saying, it’s simple logic. Did you see any other vampires rushing headlong into the woods?”

  “No,” I admitted.

  “Do you know why?”

  “Because they’re assholes?”

  “Well yes, that’s probably true. No offense, Ed, but coming to the rescue of a human isn’t going to be at the top of their priority list.”

  “None taken,” he replied evenly.

  She threw him a quick grin. “But that’s only part of it. Remember, we’re the enemy here. Don’t think that we’re not being watched every second of the day. We go rushing off en masse and the apes are going to notice and respond accordingly.”

  “But Ed was in...”

  “Was he really?” She glanced up to address him. “Were you actually attacked?”

  He thought about it for a second. “Threatened, yes – hence why I fired – but actually attacked, no.”

  “That thing took a swing at me,” I said.

  “Exactly,” she replied, still giving her toes more attention than us. “You’re a vampire. Worse, you’re the semi-official vampire leader here – God help us all – their sworn enemy. Ed, however, is a human. The Feet aren’t particularly big on humanity, but they don’t put them on the same pedestal of hatred as they do us. Whatever he did out there, the fact that they didn’t kill him outright tells me they were only sending a warning.”

  “And when I showed up...”

  “You made it worse. Congratulations, Bill. As usual, the road to Hell is paved with your good intentions.”

  “Oh shit,” I said, sitting down.

  “An apt word, considering the circumstances,” Ed commented.

  “So what do you think will happen?” I asked.

  Just then, as if on cue, Tom came walking in, hand-in-hand with Christy. “What the hell have you been doing, Bill?”

  “You mean besides sitting here listening to Sally’s rapier wit?”

  “He’s not joking,” Christy said. “Word just reached my coven that the Forest Folk are up in arms.”

  “Let me guess,” I replied, rubbing my temples. “The word Freewill was mentioned.”

  “Quite a bit, actually.”

  “What did you do?” Tom asked, a little more gleefully than I would have preferred.

  “Don’t look at me. Ed’s the one who dropped a deuce on their forefathers.”

  “Huh?”

  “Never mind,” I said. “So what does the rumor mill have to say about things?”

  Tom couldn’t help himself. He grinned widely before saying, “Turd is having a shit-fit.”

  Lord help me, but even in the middle of all this, it was still funny.

  “If I were you,” Christy said, ignoring her boyfriend’s idiocy, “I’d be prepared tomorrow. They’re going to call you out on whatever it is you did, and I’m not sure they’re going to accept an apology, being that they hate your kind and all.”

  “What if I apologize and explain things?” Ed asked. “Technically it was my fault, I guess.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “You guess?”

  “It won’t help,” Christy said to him. “You’re here as Bill’s advisor, so they could claim that any insult you caused is automatically...”

  “My fault,” I finished.

  “Something like that.”

  “Just wonderful. Guess the vacation’s over.” I stood, then turned to face Christy. “So where do you stand in all of this?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, I appreciate the warning, but all the same, if Turd shit-stomps me into paste, doesn’t that give you and Decker exactly what you want?”

  “Speaking of which,” Sally interrupted. “Where is that asshole? I didn’t see him in the crowd.”

  “He couldn’t make it. There’s an executive retreat this week,” Christy replied offhandedly before addressing me once again. “A full blown war won’t benefit any of us. Besides which ... oh, never mind.”

  “A retreat?” I asked, “They never invite me to any ... wait a second. Never mind what?”

  Christy didn’t immediately answer. However, that didn’t stop Tom from doing so.

  “You’re starting to grow on her,” he said brightly. “Isn’t that right, honey?”

  She just gave a shrug and averted her eyes. Trying to change the
subject, she said to Sally. “That’s a pretty color.”

  “Crimson sunrise,” Sally replied, pleased. “One of my favorites.”

  “Great, you two can go to a spa together when this is all over,” I snapped. “I appreciate the heads-up, Christy, really I do. I’m just not sure what to do with the rest of what Tom said. I mean, is it still safe to assume that if the Turd hits the fan (sorry, couldn’t help myself), you’re not exactly going to jump to my defense?”

  She answered uncomfortably, “There is the prophecy...”

  I kind of figured that would be the case. That stupid prophecy of Harry Decker’s: the Freewill’s return will give new life to the Icons, who will then proceed to kick the shit out of wizards worldwide blah blah blah. “Fine then...”

  “But I won’t act against you,” she finished, catching me by surprise.

  “Really?”

  “Yes,” she replied with more conviction. “My master’s warnings aside, I can see that you’re trying to do the right thing here. At least until this business is over...” She appeared to struggle with the words for a moment before blurting out, “you have my support.”

  Wow. I was actually touched ... sorta anyway. The implication, that once this was over she’d go back to trying to kill me, did put a damper on any celebrations. But still...

  “Thank you,” I said, meaning it.

  “Isn’t she great?” Tom asked, beaming at her.

  “Wonderful,” replied Sally deadpan. “That still doesn’t help us if Turd decides to go apeshit on Bill tomorrow.”

  Though she had meant it seriously, her comment still caused the rest of us to break up into laughter. Unfortunately for me, she did have a point ... a potentially lethal one.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Even though none of us were in the mood to sleep, everyone was well aware that whatever awaited the next night wouldn’t exactly be helped if we were all dragging our asses. As I lay there waiting for unconsciousness to claim me, I again found myself wishing that Alex had left some of his special incense behind. Never discount the theory of better living through chemistry, I say.

  Speaking of Alex, I wondered where he was. I found myself hoping that he quickly finished up whatever investigation he was on so he could get back to the conference. He would probably have some bit of insight that would let us weasel out of this defilement bullshit. There had to be some loophole he knew. Of course, he also never bothered to mention the whole sacred tree business to me in his briefings. For all I knew, the dude had set me up to fail. But why? I mean, he worked for the Draculas. One didn’t lightly fuck them over.

  On the other hand, depending on how these talks went, François might end up being promoted to their level. Could he have maybe bribed Alex to work for him? After all, if François ascended to fill the Khan’s chair, he would have the clout to keep the others off of Alex’s back. That kind of made sense. Since I was an X-factor in all of this, they could both be working to throw me to the wolves.

  Gah! I hated this espionage shit. It’s the main reason I didn’t read Tom Clancy. All of this crap went right over my head. Why did people have to try so hard to screw each other over? How much better would the world be if we could all mind our own goddamned business?

  Of course, this reminded me of exactly how shaky my moral ground truly was. We kept going along under the fallacy that the vampires were the good guys here. Were we really? Hah! That was an easy one. All of that talk about global war and being a symbiotic race with the humans was pure self-serving bullshit. Even I could see that. We were like farmers trying to keep the foxes out of the henhouse, for no reason other than we wanted to eat the chickens ourselves.

  Not that any of it mattered. I could sit atop as many moral high-horses as I pleased and that still wasn’t going to save my ass. Jesus Christ! I didn’t want any of this. All I wanted out of the world was just one actual, honest-to-god, date with Sheila. How the fuck did I wind up here?

  As I drifted off to sleep, no answers to that question presented themselves. Stupid subconscious.

  A Dumb Plan is Better than No Plan at All

  Sadly, there were no night ... err ... daytime visitations. I had drifted off to sleep in the hope that perhaps Alex would mysteriously appear again and tell me that everything had been taken care of. No such luck. If I had fairy godparents, they sure as hell weren’t reliable.

  After rising, we all sat around the breakfast table – yay, more grubs – preparing. Ed and Sally double-checked their guns and pocketed some extra ammo.

  Feeling a bit of weapon-envy, I said to Tom, “We should ask Nergui if he has anymore spare daggers.”

  “Who’s this ‘we’ you’re talking about?” he replied. “I’m covered.”

  When I asked what the hell he meant, he pulled something out of his shirt. It was a wooden medallion of sorts.

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s an amulet,” he said. “Christy made it for me.”

  “+1 amulet of boners?” I asked with a smirk.

  “I don’t need any help for that. Nope, it’s a protection thing. Christy said it was a faith charm. She told me it channels my deepest beliefs to protect me. Check it out, but don’t touch it. Trust me on this.”

  I looked closer. It was roughly made, but upon closer inspection, I could see that there was a figure crudely carved into the center. It took me a few seconds to make out what it was supposed to be – Christy was obviously not a world-class whittler. Finally, I saw it: the plated face, the two big squares in the chest ... windows. “Is that...”

  “Optimus Prime is back, baby!” he proudly proclaimed. “Sorta. Obviously this one ain’t worth shit on eBay, but Christy said, thanks to her magic, it’ll draw upon the spirit of...”

  “Of your one true love?” Ed surmised. “No offense, dude, but goddamn, that is sad.”

  “But effective.”

  “And yet this girl willingly sleeps with you,” Ed said with a sigh. “Sometimes I have to wonder who’s really the one with the black magic.”

  “Fate smiles upon fools and small children,” I said. “I guess that goes double for a fool with the mind of a small child.”

  “Are you all done jerking off to that Happy Meal toy?” Sally asked, still polishing her massive handgun. “Because we should really discuss what’s happening today.”

  “I’m all ears,” I replied.

  “Not true,” she countered. “You’re dorky glasses and a flabby physique, too.” Bitch. “But that aside, let’s assume that shit is going down. I doubt the glowing moderator of death is going to let things immediately spiral out of hand due to one little slip-up. Still, it’s going to put Turd in a position to demand some reparation.”