The Tome of Bill Compendium Vol. 1 (Books 1-4) (23 page)

“I was, but now I see you have your teddy bear.” She motioned toward the doll...action figure that is, and then back to me, “I swear, Bill, I've been around for over fifty years and I've never seen an apartment so full of women repellant.”

“All right, enough. Can we cut the foreplay short?” I asked, not really believing that I was the one who was acting like an adult here. “You said ‘weird stuff.’ What's been happening?”

She looked me in the eye and replied, “I assume you got my message.” I gritted my teeth and nodded. “Like I said, James needed to prune a few hedges over at that other coven.”

“The Howard Beach Coven?” I spat.

“Yeah. How did you...never mind. You can tell me your part when I'm done. He figured he'd kill two birds with one stone and do you a favor while he was taking care of business.”

“His
favor
almost got me killed,” I complained.

“It's always about you, isn't it?” she sniffed. “Now, if you can stop whining for a moment or two, I can tell you what I know.” She stared at me for a few seconds until I mimed zipping my lip, and then she continued, “So, James dusted some of their unauthorized membership and then took out a few of their senior members, just to make it look good.”

“Tito and Big Mike?” I inquired.

“How should I know? This is just what I heard,” she said. “I don't know if James bothered asking for their autographs before he took them down. However, what I
do
know is that he went there in disguise and then purposely let a few witnesses escape to spread the word that someone was hunting down other vamps just for sport.”

“Let me guess, this someone was a freewill,” I sat down and began massaging my temples before the migraine could start.

“Exactly,” she confirmed.

“How do we know he wasn't just setting Bill up to take a fall?” asked Ed.

She must have thought that an exceptionally stupid question, because that earned him one of her famous eye-rolls (
should I be jealous?
). “Because, if James wanted him dead, Bill would be dead. No need for subterfuge. He'd just do it,” she explained.

I had to admit she had a point. “Agreed. Not much doubt in my mind, there.”

“James has been working behind the scenes to pump up Bill's reputation,” she continued. “And no, I don't know too many specifics as to why. All I know is he has an interest in Bill staying alive.”

“Okay, I pretty much got the gist of all this from your message the other night,” I replied.

She nodded and went on. “Yeah, well things got a little crazy after that. He was supposed to take care of any heat that came down on us because of what you had supposedly done. Obviously, there was no point in giving you credit if it just got you killed.”

“That's only fair,” Ed said

“Except,” Sally pointed out, “he didn't. The HBC's leader, Samuel, went absolutely ape shit. He called us up, screaming and threatening to declare all out war between our covens. Jeff just barely managed to talk him down and agree to mediation on neutral ground.”

“I'm surprised he didn't just sell me out,” I said.

“You don't get it,” she spat, sitting down as if she owned the place. “He was going to. He didn't know of James’ plan, and I wasn't about to tell him. Jeff didn't really want to believe it, but based on what was happening, even he had to admit the possibility that perhaps he'd been underestimating you and that maybe you'd actually done this.”

“Isn't that a good thing?” Tom asked before turning to me. “Bill, didn't you say you were trying to convince this guy you were more of a threat than you are?”

Leave it to Tom always to help inflate my ego. Before I could chime in with a response, though, Sally answered him, “There's more bad than good there. Jeff wasn’t exactly a happy camper that Bill brought this down on his head. You have to understand this is not something that happens often. There's usually an unwritten rule of mutual respect between nearby covens.”

“And Bill fucked that up,” he surmised.

“No, James fucked that up,” I corrected.

Tom shook his head. “Yeah, but he did it in your name. So, as far as anyone else is concerned, it's on your head.”

“Your boyfriend is right, Bill,” Sally replied (
Bitch!
). “As far as anyone knows, this was all you. So, yeah, Jeff was planning on handing you over to them. Maybe not physically, but you can be sure as hell they'd have shown up at your doorstep.”

“Guess we were right to be paranoid,” Ed said, still holding the gun. Tom nodded in agreement.

“Except they didn't show up,” I pointed out. “So what happened?”

Sally raised her eyebrows in response. “No idea. They just backed down.”

“What do you mean ‘backed down’?” I asked.

“Exactly that. Out of nowhere, Samuel cancelled the meeting and told Jeff that they had reconsidered their position. It was abrupt as all hell. Surprised the shit out of all of us.”

“And probably pissed off Jeff even more,” I added

“Bingo! I thought James must have finally acted, but now I don't know. I haven't been able to get in touch with him all week. So I have no idea what transpired.”

“I don't know what he did,” I said, “but I just wish he had done it sooner.”

“You mentioned something happened. What went down with you?” she asked.

“Well, thanks to you forgetting to mention this whole thing to me, I found myself unknowingly passing through their territory this week. I met up with two of their goons who were none too happy to see me.”

Sally gave me a sheepish grin. “Oh. Sorry about that.”

I filled her in on my little altercation, telling her of how they accosted me, and describing how I managed to fight back - then luckily somehow scared them off. I was just about to give her the details of my harrowing trip back home when I noticed she had a troubled look on her face.

“What?” I asked.

She stood up and looked me in the eye. “Let me get this straight, you actually
bit
one of the other vampires?”

“I admit it maybe wasn't the manliest thing to do, but they kind of had me outnumbered.”

“I don't give a shit about that,” she said. “You bit him...on the
neck
?”

“Yeah, I was surprised, too,” cracked Tom. “Normally Bill goes straight for the cock.”

“Put a muzzle on it,” Sally hissed. “This is important.”

“Yes,” I answered, ignoring my roommate’s predictably dickish remark. “I bit him on the neck.”

“And he bled?”

“Yeah. Quite a lot actually. I was freaking soaked in his blood.”

“But did you actually
drink
any of it?” she asked, rather insistently.

“That wasn't initially my plan, but yeah, a decent amount.”

“And?”

“And what?” I asked.

“What happened when you drank it?”

“Oh,” I answered. “It was pretty damn intense. It was like...I don’t know how to describe it. Maybe imagine how it would feel if someone shot you up with caffeine-laced meth.”

Sally sat back with a blank look on face. A few seconds went by and she finally muttered, “You can't do that.”

“Like I said, I know it wasn't sporting, but it's not like I really...”

She cut me off. “No. You don't understand. You
can't
do that, as in physically can't. It's impossible.”

“Didn't really seem all that impossible,” I countered.

“Besides which,” Ed jumped in, “I thought vampires bit each other all the time. I mean have you ever seen an episode of
True
Blood
? They can’t go five minutes without sinking their teeth into each other.”

“Sorry, but this is real life, not softcore porn,” she snipped back. “Things don't work like that.”

“So, what's supposed to happen?” I asked, curious as to where this was going.

“Not all blood is the same,” she explained. “We can only feed upon the living. When a person is turned into a vampire, their blood composition also changes.”

“I'm listening.”

“And it becomes highly incompatible to our needs. End of story. If one of us were to drink more than a few drops of another vampire's blood, we'd start projectile vomiting and then spend the next half a day curled into the fetal position.”

My eyebrows raised in surprise. “Is it really that bad?”

“Yes. I've seen it happen.”

“Weird,” I said. “I mean, I had a slight hangover the next day, but nothing like that. In fact, curling up into a ball was the furthest thing from my mind right after I drank it. I felt like I could have kicked ass and taken names. It was actually pretty cool.”

“Unbelievable,” she whispered and then added in a louder voice, “Jesus Christ. James knew!”

“What do you mean?”

“Remember how I told you I had started spreading those rumors about you, including the one about feeding off of other vampires?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, that came from James. I thought it was all just wild bullshit, but now I'm wondering if he knew more than he was letting on.”

“It would seem so,” agreed Ed.

She then added, “That would probably explain why the other coven backed down from wanting revenge, too.” She poked a well-manicured finger into my shoulder. “James had nothing to do with it. It was all you...as incredible as that sounds. The two who attacked you must have reported back to Samuel. You probably scared the shit out of them.”

Ed added, “The only thing a predator fears is a bigger predator.”

“Exactly; especially when the first predator is used to being at the top of the food chain.”

“So, then where is James in all of this?” I asked.

“I don't know,” she sounded exasperated. “I told you, I haven't been able to get in touch with him. That's part of the reason I'm here right now at this ungodly hour.”

“What do you mean?”

“I was coming to get you, so we could go and look for him. After hearing what you just told me, I'd say our reasons for finding him just easily doubled.”

“I thought he wasn't normally in the city,” I said.

“He's not. He's usually stationed up in Boston.”

“So, if I'm hearing you correctly, that sounds to me like only one thing...”

I looked to my roommates and, after a second, we all simultaneously shouted, “ROAD TRIP!”

“Not so fast,” said Sally. “We're not heading up to tour micro breweries. This is business;
vampire
business.”

“That's a great idea,” Tom piped in. “Once you guys are done with whatever it is you need to do, we can stop at a few microbrews.”

“You're not listening, meatsack,” she replied. “This is business, not pleasure. I just came over to get Bill. You two are staying here.”

“We're already involved in vampire business,” Ed pointed out. “The cat's obviously out of the bag. Bill can't keep a secret for shit. So you might as well bring us along. Besides which, you might need someone to help keep an eye on you...” He paused as she began to glare at him. “...and by ‘you,’ I mean you two, as in plural, as in keep an eye on you
and
Bill ...” She kept glaring. “...But mostly Bill.”

“He does have a point,” I cut in, trying to save Ed from the hole he had just dug.

She shot me a venomous look. “I don't need three sets of eyes glued to my ass.”

“No, I don't mean that,” I said, quickly trying to backpedal. “They could be helpful. It'll be daylight soon. In weekend traffic, it'll take us at least half a day to get up there. They can drive, pump gas, make snack runs...”

“I suppose we could bring them along
as the snacks
,” she mused, causing both of my roommates to turn a shade paler.

“C'mon,” I pleaded. “If you let them come along, I guarantee they won't be too annoying...well okay, I can't guarantee that, but I know they'll try. And they can definitely prove useful to us.”

All three of us beamed hopeful smiles at her and at last, she let out a sigh. “Fine,” she said. “I'm tried of arguing. You can all come, but I want to be on the road before daybreak. So get moving. If I get even a mild sunburn because you guys were busy dicking around, I swear I'll kill all three of you myself.”

* * *

Sally sat on the couch, patiently sipping on one of my blood packs, while the three of us raced to get cleaned up and dressed. I know she wanted to get on the road quickly, but even she had to admit it wasn't a big enough emergency to warrant six hours stuck in a car with three un-showered guys. I was the last one in and, of course, by then, there was no hot water left. Figures. Maybe I should just let her chow down on my roommates and be done with it. Tempting...

I came out to find all three of them waiting for me. Tom was hanging back while Ed was attempting to say something clever to Sally. His wit was having about the effect I would have guessed, as she was right in the middle of an eye-roll when I joined them. It was still a few minutes shy of sunrise, so she suggested we get a move on.

“Okay, ramblers, let's get rambling,” Tom merrily chimed, but I stopped after a step or two.

“Quick question - exactly how are we getting rambling?” Of the three of us, only Ed had a car, and to say it was a small piece of shit with barely enough room for just Ed would be to insult small pieces of shit with barely enough room for just Ed. Unless he was planning on strapping us to the roof, not a pleasant prospect during any hours, much less daylight, that wasn't really going to be an option.

“I’ve got it covered,” Sally answered. “I'm parked right outside.”

She was good to her word, and definitely did have it covered. Stepping out into the early morning air, Sally pointed us toward a huge Cadillac Escalade with double-tinted windows on all sides.

Ed whistled and said, “Sweet. We are definitely riding in style.”

Tom quipped, “Yeah. If this truck is a-rockin’...”

“It won't be,” Sally cut him off. She tossed Ed the keys and pointed her fingers toward my two roommates. “You two, up front. Bill and I will be in the back. The tank’s full, so let's get going.”