The Tome of Bill Compendium Vol. 1 (Books 1-4) (24 page)

Ed opened the front door and got in. As he put on his seatbelt, he asked, “Registration in the glove compartment, just in case?”

“No idea,” Sally casually answered, climbing into the back.

“What do you mean, ‘no idea’? Where is it then?”

“Which part of
no idea
was hard to understand?” she shot back.

“This is your truck, right?” I asked.

“Nope,” she replied in a chipper tone, making herself comfortable.

“Then whose is it?”

“No idea on that one either,” she said. “Didn't catch his name. In the end, he wasn't very talkative.”

I started to get into the Escalade and noticed a series of stains on the back seat. Dark stains, like...yep, you guessed it...dried blood.

Ed noticed them, too. He tried and failed to stifle a gulp. “So, this car...”

“Was conveniently just what I needed for today,” finished Sally. “So, if I were you, I'd drive
real
carefully. If we wind up getting pulled over, it could get messy...in all sorts of ways.”

Ed just sat there, staring at her for a second, before turning around and starting the engine. He muttered something under his breath, but my acute vampire hearing picked it up. “Hot
and
scary, just how I like them.” Considering the smirk she now wore on her face, I had little doubt she’d heard it, too.

* * *

The ride up was slow, thanks to the droves of weekend warriors out on the road, but fairly uneventful. The heavily tinted windows kept the sun at bay and, bloodstains aside, it was a roomy and comfortable ride. I could get used to something like that. I used to wonder why celebrities drove these things, figuring it was the more money than sense thing, but now I kind of got it. It was one thing to be out driving, but this was driving in
style
.

We stopped twice for gas (
this thing drank like a thirsty camel
), and once for a bucket of fried chicken (
Popeye’s...you can keep your KFC, thank you very much
). Finally, around mid-afternoon, we arrived at the address Sally had given us. It was a car wash. To say it wasn't exactly screaming
mountain of power for a coalition of evil entities
would be a bit of an understatement. My friends were apparently of the same mindset.

“
This
is it?” asked Tom.

“Yes, we're here,” Sally replied. “Let me guess: you were expecting maybe a high-rise office building populated by euro-trash goons dressed in black all the way up to their mirrored shades?”

“Actually, yeah,” I commented.

“Don't worry, I said the same thing the first time I came here,” she replied with a smile. “It actually all depends on the city. In some places, subtlety is more prized than image.”

“Well, this is definitely subtle,” said Ed.

“It's actually perfect. It allows us to enter during daylight hours without requiring us to step outside. Drive up to the attendant in the back. He'll let us in. Sorry,” she said to my friends, “but you two will need to stay with the car. No junk food allowed on the premises, I'm afraid.”

“It's okay,” Ed replied.

“Yeah,” agreed Tom. “If we get bored, we can always get a hot wax and chassis bath.”

* * *

Sally flashed her fangs at the attendant and told him we were here to see James. He directed our vehicle into the wash itself. Halfway through, the water stopped flowing and the brushes to our right parted to reveal a ramp downward. We took it and found ourselves in a small subterranean parking garage. She directed Ed to park, which he did.

“You two stay here. Keep the doors locked and don't talk to anyone who isn't us,” she told my friends as she stepped from the Escalade. “Trust me when I say it's for your own protection.”

Ed nodded as Tom reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out Optimus. Upon seeing it, Sally nodded her approval and said, “Good idea. See, Bill? Your buddies aren't as dumb as you said they were.” She grinned at me and started walking away. My roommates, on the other hand, were staring at me with much less amused looks on their faces.

“What?” I held up my hands. “I didn't say anything. Really!” I closed the door and quietly muttered, “Bitch!” before following Sally into the darkness.

* * *

To human eyes, the place might have looked dark and foreboding, but to my vampire-powered vision, it looked pretty damn dull. Think of your basic vanilla office with its sea of cubicles surrounded by a few middle management offices. Well, throw in some shitty lighting, and you'd have this place. Here I was hoping for a dark cavern lit by torches and perhaps lined with skulls...maybe culminating in a chamber filled with ominous, robed figures. Instead, I got an office park underneath a car wash. It looked like the greatest danger this place had to offer was the possibility of hanging oneself with bureaucratic red tape. A trip to the DMV was immeasurably scarier.

On initial glance, the only thing that seemed odd were the inhabitants of the various desks. Typing away within the cubes, looking even more lifeless than the denizens of a typical corporate office, were persons in various stages of decay. Holy shit, zombies! Okay, so they were performing clerical duties as opposed to trying to eat our brains, but zombies nevertheless. Cool.

I couldn't help myself. I put my hands together in the shape of a pistol. Walking past the various cubicles, I started pointing my “gun” at the inhabitants and whispering, “Pew! Headshot! Pew! Pew! Die, zombie bastards!”

Yeah, subtle I am not.

After a second or two, Sally stopped short. She turned toward me and growled, “What exactly is fucking wrong with you?”

“What?”

“Were you dropped on your head repeatedly as a child?”

“No.”

“Maybe fell into the pool and were underwater a little too long?”

“I don't think so...”

“Then why, pray tell,” she hissed, “are you insistent on embarrassing the ever-living shit out of me?”

“But they're zombies,” I sheepishly offered.

“Yes,” she continued her tirade. “They are disgusting, putrefying corpses. But you know what? They are keeping their fucking mouths shut and not walking around looking like a goddamned retard, unlike you.”

“Can I help you?” a voice from behind her asked. Startled, Sally whirled around to face the newcomer. Standing there was a tall, thin woman wearing a business suit, her hair done up in a tight bun. She was good looking (
of course! I was beginning to think I was the sole vampire on the planet who couldn’t pass as a swimsuit model
), but had a severe, no-nonsense attitude about her. Whoever she was, she was good. Neither of us had sensed her approaching.

“Let me repeat myself,” she said when we didn’t answer. “Can I help you, or would you prefer to continue disrupting our workplace?”

Before Sally could say a word, I jumped in with my most sincere voice. “We're sorry. No offense was intended. My friend here has a terrible case of Tourette's, and thus can't help the potty mouth.”

Sally glared daggers at me in response. I had little doubt she was contemplating exactly how far up my ass she could stuff my head once she had ripped it off. After a second or two of mentally killing and dismembering me, she turned to the newcomer and said, “We're from Village Coven in New York. We need to see James.”

“I don't think James is in. Did you call ahead for an appointment?”

Sally seemed to pause at this question. “No,” she finally answered.

“So, you came all the way up from New York, but you didn't think to take two minutes to call first to see if he was around?” asked the woman, raising one eyebrow. Sally actually blushed at this, which one would think was fairly difficult for a dead person to do. I didn’t know who this woman was, but if she could verbally slap Sally down so easily, then I liked her style.

“Listen. It's been a stressful week, and you're really not helping,” Sally shot back. “Is Colin around instead?”

“Maybe.”

“Well, then kindly point us toward him, and I'll stop disrupting your workplace.”

The woman narrowed her lips and appeared to be contemplating some sort of comment, but instead just hooked a thumb and pointed it down the hall. “End of the corridor, through the double doors. And please go quietly. The beings in this building actually work for a living.” She looked Sally up and down for a moment. “Not that I'd expect you to understand.”

I can't stress this enough; it is
always
fun to watch a battle between alpha bitches.

I followed Sally in the direction in which our gracious hostess pointed us. I could practically see steam blowing out of her ears. Logic dictated I change the subject, and for perhaps the first time in my life, I actually heeded its warning. Maybe I'm mellowing out in my old age.

“Who's Colin?” I asked, as it seemed a neutral enough topic.

“He's James' assistant. We go way back, so let me handle this.”

“Ex boyfriend?” I queried.

“Not quite,” was all the answer I got.

Arriving at a set of double doors, a quick buzzing noise told us they were unlocked. We walked in and, let me tell you, this was more like it. We stepped from the sea of cubicles into some serious style. It was kind of like what I might imagine Kenneth Lay's executive suite in Hell might look like. The floor was made of what looked to be obsidian, and the walls were exquisitely shaped grey stone, quite possibly carved from the very earth around us. Dozens of candles illuminated the area. It would have made for a very convincing evil overlord throne room, except for a series of leather chairs set off in a little waiting area. At the far end of the room, in front of another set of doors, a rich mahogany desk sat, which was illuminated by the glow of a monitor. Who'd a thunk it...the undead preferred Macs.

Seated behind the desk was a thin male vampire wearing a suit that appeared to be far outside of my price range. He looked semi-important, except for his slicked back hair, which gave him a bit of a weasely, used car salesman vibe. As we neared his desk, he turned his attention toward us. His beady little eyes looked me up and down with obvious distaste; however, I saw a glimmer of recognition flash as he turned toward Sally.

“Well, well,” he said in a slick voice that sounded as if it were well lubricated from years of ass kissing. “It's been a while since you've been up in our neck of the woods, my dear Lu...”

“How many times do I have to tell you, Colin?” she said, cutting him off. “It's Sally. Coven protocol, and all.”

“Of course,” her oily friend replied. “My apologies,
Sally
.”

Did he just...? Huh, I had never even bothered to think that Sally wasn't her real name. Now that I thought of it, though, I guess that was kind of stupid of me, considering all the idiotic pseudonyms running around our coven. I'd have to ask her about that later.

She brushed off his greeting and got straight to business. “We're here about James.”

“We?” asked Colin, once again shifting his eyes in my direction.

“Hi,” I said, sticking out my hand. “I'm Bill, but everyone in the coven calls me...Dr. Death.” Yeah, you guessed it. It was another one of those cases where something sounded a lot cooler in my head. It probably also didn't help things that my hand was still stuck out there like a doofus. I quickly lowered it when it became apparent that no return greeting was forthcoming.

Instead, he frowned and began typing on his keyboard. “Dr. Death?” he commented more to himself than either of us. “Oh, well, I guess it's not any stupider sounding than ‘Night Razor.’”

“That's what
I
said.”

He ignored me, though, and was still looking at his screen when his eyes went wide. “
You're
the Freewill?” he asked, his tone one of disbelief.

“What are you looking at?” I asked.

“Your profile.”

“I have a profile?”

“
All
vampires have a profile,” he sniffed. “God, Sally, don't you people at least give the newcomers an orientation down there?”

“Nope. Not even a flyer for my troubles,” I quipped, just before I felt her foot hit me in the side of the leg.

He gave me the once over yet again. “I thought you'd be more...well...not you.”

I shrugged as I answered, “I get that a lot.”

This prompted Sally to interrupt us. “James?” she reminded him.

“He's not here.”

“Where is he, then?”

Colin answered her question with another. “Why do you need to know?”

“I've been trying to call him all week, and haven't been able to get through.”

Giving her a smile that was both sympathetic and condescending all at once, he said, “My dear Sally. James is a busy man. You can't really expect him to answer the calls of every love struck puppy who chases after him.”

“It's not like that,” she snapped. “I've been working with him on coven-related business. He was supposed to smooth some static between us and another group, but he no-showed. I'm trying to get some answers.”

“When was all this supposed to happen?” Colin asked, starting to type again.

“Beginning of the week.”

“Ah, that makes sense, then,” he answered whilst looking at his monitor. “He was called away on business, unexpectedly, I'm afraid.”

“What kind of business?” Sally again demanded.

“The kind that's none of yours,” was his reply. Damn, he was a snarky little fucker.

“Cut the shit, Colin.”

He scoffed, “Or what? You'll sick
him
on me?”

She seemed to consider this for a moment and then said, “Well, he is the Freewill. I'm sure you've heard the rumors.”

“Oh, please, as if I believed half of that garbage.”

“James believes it.”

“Sorry, love, but just because I work for him doesn't mean I drink the same Kool-Aid he does.”