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

by Rick Gualtieri

  “How much are we talking about?” Sally asked.

  “What? Are you seriously...”

  “I’m with her, Bill,” Ed said. “Let’s hear him out. He did say it was a six billion dollar industry.”

  “Yeah but...” and then it hit me. Ed was right. I could stand on my principles and try to fight my way out of this mess ... probably losing in the process. Or I could take a big fat paycheck, keep my stupid mouth shut, and walk out of here both wealthy, a hero, and without getting my ass kicked. Don’t get me wrong. I like to think of myself as a pretty ethical guy ... but I’m not a fucking idiot.

  I looked at my companions. They both nodded. Still, I had to consider the consequences of my actions. I’d be a hero, sure, but it would be undeserved. Also, there was a good chance that this asshole would get credit for the peace talks and end up winning the open slot with the Draculas. From what I had heard, they were already a giant cluster of dicks. Did I really want to make it worse by putting this douche on the ruling council, fucking over a friend – James – in the process?

  On the other hand, not dying was definitely appealing. Fulfilling this would also get the Draculas off my back with regards to the debt they felt I owed them. Then there was the money. Not having to work again was a serious perk. I could buy myself a new computer. Hell, I could buy a nice car and new clothes. I could even afford to whisk Sheila away on a romantic weekend for two to someplace exotic like Aruba. But would she respect me if she knew I had done this?

  Fuck it! It’s not as if she would ever know. Should I ever confess my love to her, I doubt it would include a statement about selling out the vampire nation.

  That settled it. Aruba, here we come.

  “I think we can make a deal,” I said. “Like Sally was saying, how much are we talking about?”

  “Ten million at the very least,” François answered with a big grin.

  Whoa! Papa gonna buy himself a very nice brand new bag. “Each or split three ways?” I asked – hey, since we were negotiating.

  “You misunderstand, Freewill,” François said. “There will be no split. The less who know about this, the better. As I said, their deaths are inconsequential.”

  Uh oh.

  I opened my mouth to protest. “Now wait just a...”

  Unfortunately, I was a second too late. One of the barrels went flying over my head, slamming into Turd like a ... syrup filled missile, I guess. The container shattered, drenching both François and him in the goop. Unfortunately, Turd didn’t budge an inch from the force of the impact.

  “Turd no like being sticky.”

  “You’ll regret th...” François didn’t get a chance to finish the threat as another barrel slammed into him. Sally’s aim was impeccable.

  “Move, now!” she ordered, right before opening fire. Before Ed and I could even take a step, both François and Turd had each taken a fifty caliber slug in the leg. No way was it going to stop them, but it would hopefully make all the difference in a foot race – which is exactly what we found ourselves in. Except instead of a gold medal, the prize was our lives.

  French Fried Mountain Oysters

  “Please tell me you’re still packing those silver slugs,” I said, making it back outside.

  “Never leave home without them,” Sally replied with a sly grin. That was good. Silver didn’t mix well with vampire blood. Right about then, François’s leg should be starting to look like a giant Roman candle. Unfortunately, I had no idea if it would have the same effect on Turd.

  “Think it’ll stop them?” Ed asked.

  A bellowing roar answered before I could. Yep, that was about what I expected.

  “Sally, you take Ed and make a run for it. I’ll try to hold them off.”

  “Really?”

  “No, not fucking really! Do I look batshit crazy to you?” I replied, bolting for the tree line.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  “Crippled or not, we can’t outrun them at this pace,” Sally stated. She was right. Our vampiric speed was one thing, but Ed was still human. Though arguably in better shape than I was, he wasn’t exactly a long distance sprinter (I had once heard him say, “People who have time to jog should get a second job”). I wasn’t about to leave him behind and thus had matched his pace. Sally, in a surprising show of humanity, had done likewise.

  “I’m open for suggestions.”

  “You could leave me behind and try to find help,” Ed said.

  “No way, dude.”

  “Good,” he replied with a grin. “Because if you had said yes, I would’ve shot you in the back.”

  “Asshole.”

  “If you two are finished verbally blowing each other,” Sally growled, “we could use a real plan.”

  Another roar followed by a splintering crash told us that the Sasquatch leader was on the move. If we were going to come up with something above and beyond let Turd run us down and tear us limb from limb, it would have to be soon.

  “It sounds like there’s only one of them,” Ed said. That made sense. As I had noticed earlier, the settlement had looked deserted. The other Bigfeet had presumably been sent ahead to prep for the day’s events. Still, I would have expected at least a few guards. Was it possible that Turd was keeping his dealings with François under wraps from his own people?

  Turd obviously kept some of his followers in the loop. That would explain the Squatch that accused us of being defilers. On the other hand, there was Grulg. He was obviously not pleased with his leader’s antics. The big question was whether the majority of his people knew about this. Considering the empty village, I was willing to bet the answer to that was a big fat “no.” I had pretty much dismissed Turd’s technology fetish, but perhaps there was something to it after all. Maybe it was something we could use.

  Another bellow echoed through the woods, this one a lot closer.

  Shit! I wouldn’t be able to use anything against anyone if I got my head pounded into mush.

  “We need to make a stand,” I shouted, before I could consider the idiocy of saying so. Seems the Dr. Death persona deep within my psyche was once again feeling brave. Oh well, it was better than nothing ... barely.

  “We can’t outrun him in the woods, and we can’t hide either. But if we concentrate everything we have, we might be able to stop him.”

  “I can dig that,” Sally said, loading a fresh clip into her comically oversized handgun.

  “No killing,” I warned.

  “Aw, you take all the fun out of my afterlife.”

  “If we do that, we might as well sign the declaration of war ourselves.”

  “Bill’s got a point,” Ed agreed.

  “First time for everything,” Sally replied. “What about François?”

  “Fuck him,” I said. “We light that asshole up like the Fourth of July.”

  “Ooh,” she purred. “Now you’re making me all tingly inside.”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  We got lucky and emerged into a small clearing. At the far side, we stopped and took cover amongst the trees. Sally and Ed aimed their weapons while I readied the cattle prod just in case their guns didn’t stop him.

  As we waited, inspiration hit (sorta). “If he doesn’t go down, stop firing and try to draw him off.”

  “Why?”

  “I’ll jump on his back and bite him.”

  “Will that work?”

  “Beats the fuck out of me.”

  Sally and Ed both exchanged doubtful glances. Gotta love their faith in me. Oh, well, fuck it. It’s not as if they had anything better to offer.

  We hunkered down and waited. The second Turd showed his ugly face, we were going to give him a twenty-one bullet salute.

  Only he didn’t show up. Only seconds earlier, it had sounded like he was right behind us, but now it was quiet – too quiet.

  Oh, fuck! Suddenly I remembered that these guys weren’t just giant, foul-smelling apes. They were giant, foul-smelling forest spirits. Trying to catch Turd in an ambush would be like a
bunch of backwoods rednecks hoping to master the intricacies of the NYC subway system on their first try. A sinking feeling hit my gut. However, that almost immediately paled in comparison to the feeling that hit the back of my head.

  WHAM

  One second, I was thinking how fucked we were going to be, and the next I was sent flying, completely clear on the concept of how fucked we actually were.

  I landed hard, eating dirt (I hoped) as the sound of gunfire erupted behind me.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  I was lifting myself from the ground when a foot planted itself squarely in my back, forcing me down. It was way too small to be Turd’s.

  “You disappoint me, Freewill,” said François. “Such a strategy would have been pathetic for a two-year-old, much less a being of your legendary status.”

  I tried to spit out a witty retort, but my face was pressed down into the dirt.

  “What was that?” he asked, bemused. “Sorry, I didn’t catch you?” The foot lifted off me, but almost immediately impacted into my side. I rolled over onto my back with a gasp of breath. François’s foot came down onto my chest, again pinning me in place and cracking a few ribs for good measure.

  I blinked the debris out of my eyes and looked to find him grinning down at me. “I believe you dropped this,” he said, bringing up a bloodied hand and dropping something from his fingers.

  The bullet plinked off my forehead (ouch). I looked at the leg holding me down. There was a massive gash in it, partially cauterized. Goddamn! The crazy asshole had dug the bullet out with his own fingers. This guy was hardcore.

  The sounds of battle caught my attention from behind François. It was a tree splintering, followed by a cry of pain ... Sally.

  I struggled to sit up, but he pressed down even harder. It was getting difficult to breathe.

  “No no no, Freewill. Let us not interrupt. Turd would be ever so cross if we intervened in his fun. You really should have taken my offer. Your friends are still going to die, and now you’ll be left with nothing.”

  “Nothing?” I spat back. “I can still rat you out.”

  “And who would believe you? You are the aggressor here, after all. You came to Turd’s village to assassinate him. It just so happened that you failed.”

  “Assassinate?”

  “Yes. You obviously got past my guards – probably even killed them – in your mad quest to start a war. We even have the wounds to prove it now.” François’s sneer grew ever more arrogant. “Why, if Turd wasn’t so busy killing your little trollop, I would almost consider thanking her for setting this up so perfectly.”

  As he rambled, I began feeling around with my hands for something I could maybe use as leverage to get him off me. I didn’t stand a chance against him or Turd, but I’d be damned if I was going to let either of these shits kill my friends without trying to do something about it. All I needed was a rock, a branch or a ... my hand closed upon something even better.

  “I’ll tell you this, asshole. Your plan is pretty ballsy.”

  “Isn’t it, though?” he replied.

  “Yeah ... pity that you aren’t.”

  I brought the cattle prod up and slammed it into his smarmy French crotch.

  Round Two

  There was an instant satisfying sizzle followed by a smell that ensured it would be a while before I could enjoy fried salami again, and then François let out a pained yelp. Music to my ears. He actually backed up a step, letting the pressure off me, but sadly, that was it. A shock powerful enough to put a buffalo on its ass was little more than a joy buzzer to a vamp of his age.

  He swung and knocked the weapon from my hand. It was little more than a casual swat for him, but I felt at least two of my fingers break. Goddamn, this guy was tough. If only...

  Jesus Christ, sometimes I could be such a fucking moron. I had this nasty tendency to forget that I had a few tricks up my own sleeve.

  Quickly, before my rational mind could talk me out of it, I tried to sit up. As expected, François aimed a kick at my head. Stupidly for him, he did it with the same leg that had been holding me down ... the leg with a still oozing wound. I let him catch me square on the mouth with it, sinking my teeth into the still raw flesh before I had time to reconsider.

  I wrapped my arms around his leg and held on for dear life as I bit deep into his thigh (damn, if that didn’t sound a bit fruity). The force from the blow would have probably knocked me flat out unconscious had I not managed to get a mouthful of blood at the same time. I swallowed and it hit my gut like a flamethrower. I began to power up almost immediately. Time to go Super Saiyan, motherfucker!

  François screamed as I dug in like a tick. His fist slammed into the side of my head and for a moment, I was pretty sure I had been decapitated. Fortunately, his blood had also kicked my vampiric healing into overdrive. I bit deeper and could feel my cracked skull knitting itself back together – quite the odd sensation. One more crunch and I found what I was looking for. A massive gush of blood washed over me as I chewed through François’s femoral artery (or whatever it’s called ... I left the anatomy shit to Dave). I sucked it down as quickly as I could. I was going to need the extra juice.

  Finally, with one last gulp, I shoved François away before he could try and punt a field goal with my head again. He went flying back, nearly to the edge of the clearing.

  I stood up, feeling his power course through my body. Suddenly a worried thought hit me. I waited for a second. However, no change came over me. A moment later, I realized why. As amped up as I was – and believe me, I felt like I could bench a truck – François’s blood wasn’t as strong as that which had transformed me two days prior. Heck, it wasn’t even in the same ballpark.

  That was a sobering thought. Somewhere out there was a vamp whose power made James and François look like children comparatively.

  I was brought out of my ill-timed reverie by another of Turd’s growls from off in the trees. My friends! Hopefully I wasn’t too late.

  I turned to where François lay. Amazingly, he was getting back to his feet. His leg was still gushing, but even as I watched, I could see the flow beginning to slacken. With the silver bullet out of his leg, his healing was starting to kick back in. Still, he had lost a lot of blood. He was currently no match for me and he knew it.

  “Enjoy your friends’ funeral, assassin.” He turned and ran. Even with his mangled leg, he was gone from my sight within moments. His speed was now mine as well, though. I turned toward where I had heard the sounds of battle. The world seemed to slow as I accelerated far past my normal limits. Maybe there was still time.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Yep, there was still time.

  I heard Sally’s voice from up ahead. “Hurry up and fucking reload! I can’t do this all day.”

  In the space of a heartbeat, I came upon them. Ed was busy jamming shells into his shotgun. Sally, being both faster and more durable, was playing a dangerous game of chicken with Turd – a game she couldn’t win.

  From the look of things, Turd had already bounced her off a few rocks. Her left arm hung at a bad angle, one side of her face was bruised almost beyond recognition, and blood flowed freely from a gash on her scalp. Still, she continued bobbing and weaving, trying to stay just out of his reach.