The Mourning Woods - 03 (2 page)

“Exactly,” he stated. “You pined for her for years and that’s it. I had a more intimate relationship with my grandmother.”

“Thanks for the visual, dude.”

“Do you guys have any questions?” the voice from the speakerphone asked.

“Huh?” Ed and I both replied simultaneously. Oh, yeah, we had forgotten all about Jim. Hopefully, he hadn’t been saying anything important.

Ed quickly un-muted the phone and said, “Nope. I think we’re good.”

“Awesome!” Jim replied. “Then I’ll let you guys get back to work. Keep me updated on your projects.”

“We will,” I answered, having no idea what projects he was talking about. A moment later, the call was cut off from his end. Oh, well, I could always tease the info out of him later with a carefully worded email. Besides, Jim was so far from the top of my priority list right then that he barely even existed.

“Goddammit!” I cried and brought my fist down. The cheap folding table that served as our “conference room” immediately buckled, sending the phone clattering to the floor. Crap. Sometimes I forget that our furnishings aren’t exactly built to withstand vampire-level abuse.

“I can see that you’re having a moment, Bill,” Ed replied nonchalantly, standing up. “Coffee?”

“Sure. Blood and cream, if you don’t mind.”

“No prob. Regular or Baileys?”

“The latter. It’s going to be one of those days.”

He nodded and walked from the room, leaving me alone with my rapidly darkening thoughts.

I tell you, when life decides to kick you in the balls, it sometimes wears metal cleats. It seems like that’s been my existence for almost a year now, one big haymaker to the nuts after another. Oddly enough, that timeframe coincides just about perfectly with when I was turned into a vampire.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not about to get all weepy and angst filled. I’ll leave that shit to Anne Rice. No, the reality of being a vampire isn't about sitting around for millennia, writing shitty poetry while you pine for your lost mortal existence. It’s actually far more like being stuck in high school again, except this time it's for all eternity. This is fine if you happen to be one of the jocks. It’s not nearly as much fun if you’re in the vampire equivalent of the nerd herd. In short, the world of the undead is mostly run by assholes. The main problem is that, instead of growing up, they never mature past this stage and just wind up becoming bigger assholes as the centuries fly by.

They’re not the only ones, either. In the past year, I’ve learned that there's an entire supernatural underworld that exists just outside of plain sight. Magic, monsters, and whatnot are all real...and almost all of them are dicks too. I know people say that absolute power corrupts, but they don’t know the half of it.

It hasn’t been all bad, though. I have good friends and powerful allies. I’m the leader of my own coven of vampires. Heck, I’m even told that amongst the undead I’m special - and not in a short bus kind of way either. Still, it’s been a rough road. Most days, the plusses have been just barely enough to keep me from opening up the curtains and embracing the sunshine. That’s where
she
came in.

Sheila is...err, was...an administrative assistant at my job. I first met her about four years ago, on the very day I first interviewed there. How I actually managed to get hired, I have no idea. I spotted her when I entered the office and it was as if everything else blanked out for me. To this day, I’m surprised that my paychecks are actually made out to William Ryder, as I’m fairly sure whatever I wrote on the job application was an incomprehensible scribble.

Unfortunately, whatever powers dictate the concept of “love at first sight” are likewise also assholes (big surprise, huh?). It was not mutual. Therefore, I spent the next few years of my mortal life barely being able to say “hi” to her. All the while, she barely acknowledged my existence.

Amazingly enough, my rebirth as one of the undead was actually the catalyst that helped propel our “relationship” out of the rut it was in (and probably would have stayed in). No, she doesn’t know I’m a vampire. No bullshit
Twilight
love story for me. Generally speaking, announcing the existence of vampires to humans is considered a no-no, at least if you don’t want to find yourself on the business end of a wooden stake. Sure, my roomies, Tom and Ed, know about it. A few of my other friends do too, but let’s not worry about them for right now. I mean hey, even Bruce Wayne has a few people who know that he’s
Batman
.

Anyway, through a series of events that ended with me getting my ass thoroughly kicked (by a couple of vampire assassins and a douche bag wizard, who also happens to be a VP at my company), I momentarily forgot about my many insecurities and wound up asking Sheila out for coffee. Sure, it wasn’t much, but it was practically earth-shattering progress compared to what I had managed up until then. Imagine my surprise when she actually said “yes.” It was amazing. At my darkest hour, she was there like a beacon of hope.

But now, she was gone, and I couldn’t help but feel that it was my fault.

* * *

Our fourth (and apparently last) non-date had been just a few weeks ago. On a Friday night, we had met at a café in the Village section of New York City. Normally this would be a little out of the way for me. For starters, I live in Brooklyn. Since I’m a vampire, things like working in an office during the day tend to be difficult. It’s generally pretty hard to get any work done when a stray beam of sunlight can turn you into a smoldering pile of ash. Fortunately, thanks to my doctor friend, Dave, I'm able to work from home. He wrote a bullshit medical excuse that allows me to telecommute permanently from my apartment. That being said, my coven is headquartered in SoHo and I’m usually there on the weekends anyway...

Oh, who am I kidding? Fuck the coven! I would walk barefoot across the Sahara to spend five minutes with Sheila. If she had told me to meet her at the top of the Empire State Building at sunrise, I’d have been there in a heartbeat (if I had one).

I had let her lead the conversation, as I usually did. Even though I had gotten past that first hurdle of actually asking her out, I didn’t trust myself to say too many sentences in a row without stammering like a retard. Still, as our coffee encounters continued, I was pleased to find myself becoming more comfortable in her presence.

That night the conversation had turned, as they often do with twenty-something-year-olds, to our hopes and dreams for the future. I sputtered something to the effect of enjoying what I did and hoping that the world didn’t stop needing programmers anytime soon. It was a lie, but it was better than going off on some rant about being surrounded for all eternity by a bunch of immortals that looked and acted like spoiled underwear models.

After I had finished, she stared at me for a moment. Sheila has the most stunning eyes, a soft grey color. I don’t think I could ever get tired of looking into them. After a brief pause, she replied, “I’m glad you’re happy. I don’t think there’re too many things better than earning a living off of something you enjoy (Oh,
I
could think of a few). For me, though...”

“What?”

“Well I think it’s pretty obvious I’m not exactly in a dream job.”

“Has Jim been cracking the whip?”

“No,” she said dismissively. “Don’t get me wrong, I like working for him. I just want...I don’t know...something more.”

“That’s no surprise. Besides, what you do is just a stepping stone to something bigger.”

“Maybe,” she replied. “I just don’t know if I have what it takes for whatever that something might be.”

I laughed at that. She narrowed her eyes at me in response, causing me almost to choke on my latte. I quickly added, “Sorry, I’m not laughing at you. It’s just funny.”

“What’s funny?”

“You do all this stuff for Jim, me, and the rest of the team. You put together the presentations, you handle all the HR crap, and you update all of our project schedules...hell, that’s not even half of it. You keep the department running. Without you, we’d all fall on our faces.”

“I doubt that.”

“Are you kidding?” I asked incredulously. “Remember when you took those sick days last year.”

“It was a bad flu season.”

“That wasn’t the worst. You should have seen
us
. Jim was practically a basket case without you. Ed and I weren’t much better off. Nothing got done that week. I mean it.
Nothing
! So, no offense, but to hear you question yourself is a little silly.”

“Really?”

“Really,” I echoed, meaning every word of it. She threw a smile back at me that made me want to run through the hills singing
The Sound of Music
. I gave my head a quick shake so I wouldn’t get lost in the moment. Nothing more jarring than to be talking about work when suddenly the bozo across from you starts screaming, “GOD, I LOVE YOU!”

Instead, I continued with, “I’ve seen you work. You get things done where the rest of us wouldn’t have Clue One. They couldn’t replace you if they tried.”

“You think so?”

“I
know
so.”

“Thank you, Bill.”

“No thanks necessary. It’s the truth and deep down, I think you know it.”

She looked thoughtful for a moment. In retrospect, I wouldn’t have been surprised if Future Bill picked that exact moment to appear from out of a time machine and beat the ever-living shit out of me. If I had any part in her decision to move on, it’s there that those seeds were sown.

Finally she answered, “Maybe you’re right. I guess I just needed to hear it from somebody else. I have all these ideas, all these things I want to do; however, sometimes it’s hard to believe in myself. When I lie awake at night, I have all these doubts about whether I really can do better.”

“My mother always says,” I continued, pushing her further down the path that was shortly going to lead her out of my life, “sometimes we’re afraid to believe in ourselves until somebody else does it first.” Well, OK, I don’t recall my mom ever saying that. At the time, though, I was trying to sound supportive. Sue me for making up shit on the spot.

I finished by saying, “Just for the record, I believe in you. I believe you can do better.”

“Seriously?” she asked, giving me a dubious eye just in case I was joking.

But, I wasn’t joking. Sure, I might be a little biased. Emotions can do that to a person. Hell, if she ever said, “Bill, your roommates annoy me. Can you please kill them?” I would probably gleefully walk home and go on a massacre.

Still, there was (love struck) sincerity in my voice when I answered, “You know what I see when I look at you? (Besides the most gorgeous creature to ever walk the face of this planet?) I see someone with the talent to do anything she puts her mind to. I have no doubt that you could move mountains if you decided to.”

Again, she looked thoughtful. Her eyes got a far away look for a few moments. Oh, if only she would get that look when she thought about me. For that, I’d gladly suffer an eternity of the minions of darkness using my nuts as croquet balls. Hell, I’d even tolerate Sally, my vampire partner in crime, being the one swinging the mallet. Fortunately, Sheila spoke again before that particular imagery could further solidify.