The Tome of Bill Compendium Vol. 1 (Books 1-4) (147 page)

I was just about to put the key in the lock when...HOLY SHIT! Panicked, I backed up and then fell ass over teakettle down the stairs. I landed hard, but thanks to my vampire physiology the only thing really wounded in the fall was my pride.

Either way, I barely felt it as my mind was instantly a million miles away. For a split second there, I’d have sworn I saw a face where the doorknob should have been. Not just any face, mind you, but
Jeff’s
face. But that was impossible. Jeff, AKA Night Razor (double AKA douchebag), was the vampire who had originally turned me - quite against my will I might add - about a year or so back. He was a big muscle-headed dickhead of a vamp, which was bad enough. What made it worse, though, was that he’d hated my guts from the get go - to the point of wanting to yank them out and play jump rope with them.

He had come damn close, too. I’d gotten luckier on that one than I had any reason to expect. Not only had I and my friends managed to kill him, but I’d ended up taking over his position as head vampire of a coven of vampires located in SoHo.

As I said, he was dead...very dead - as in dust in the wind dead. Even if he hadn’t been, why the fuck would he be doing an impersonation of my doorknob? Whatever mission had gotten me out of my apartment earlier that night was now the furthest thing from my mind. I got a hold of myself, best as I could, then raced back up the stairs to find...well, nothing. The door was there just like it always was. The knob wasn’t Jeff’s face, much like it typically wasn’t. I must’ve been more tired than I thought. I needed to seriously consider adding a couple of shots of Jim Beam to that pint of blood once I got inside.

Speaking of which, I was still reflecting on the benefits of a good stiff drink when I smelled something. Hmm, it had a bit of a bacony aroma to it. I was just thinking that someone must be up and cooking breakfast when the bacon started to burn, and that’s when I realized:
I
was the bacon. My hallucination had caused me to hesitate just long enough for the first rays of sunshine to start peeking over the rooftops. Let me just say for the record, having your head spontaneously ignite is not a particularly fun way to start the day.

* * *

The apartment was dark when I got in, smoke still rising off me. I was amazed that the building’s fire alarms hadn’t gone off on my way up. Maybe our landlord being such a cheap fuck wasn’t always a bad thing. Anyway, a quick check of things - right after dousing my head in the shower - showed that I was alone. I had assumed my roomies might still been sleeping, but a walk through the place confirmed that they were out. I smiled a bit at that. I didn’t have anything against them. They’re my best buds in this world. Even so, Tom’s girlfriend had been sleeping over a lot as of late and that had been starting to tick me off.

It was bad enough that Tom was getting some, while I slept
alone
just a few yards away in my own bedroom. Still, I could live with that. What really bothered the shit out of me, though, was that he was getting some from a witch who was also a member of a coven that wanted me dead.

Tom had been dating Christy for several months now. She had originally been sent to spy on me by an asshole wizard who happened to also be a VP at the company I worked for. It’s a bit of a long story. Just a year ago, I thought that the closest thing to real vampires were the dipshits who wore glitter to teen movie premieres. Nowadays, though, it seemed I couldn’t take a shit without running into the supernatural. Suffice it to say, despite her mission, Christy wound up developing real feelings for Tom and the two had been a couple ever since. Unfortunately, her coven hadn’t forgotten their original mission which meant that things could be a little tense when she was around.

But that was neither here nor there right then. I had the apartment all to myself. I opened the fridge to help myself to a pint of chilled blood and allowed myself a moment to enjoy the silence.

*Clink*

Or relative silence anyway.

*Clink* *Clink*

Okay, what the fuck was that? Were the pipes now rattling in this rundown hovel of an apartment building? I wouldn’t have doubted it.

*Clink*
It came again and this time sounded like it was in the room with me.

I turned around, not really sure what to expect. I had been thinking maybe something had come loose and fallen off the ceiling. Instead, my eyes popped wide open - the forgotten blood pack dropping to the floor along with my jaw.

Jeff, the asshole vampire who had escorted me from my mortal coil, stood there facing me.

“Hello, meat.”

* * *

I tried to form words, but the English language seemed beyond my grasp. What I was seeing was impossible - and trust me, over the past year I’ve had to raise the bar considerably on what I considered to be impossible. Apparently I hadn’t raised it far enough.

“Happy to see me again, asshole?” Jeff asked with that same dickhead attitude I remembered from before, a grin spreading across his pale face - and
pale
he was, even by vampire standards. It was like he’d been doused with talcum powder. He was also covered in chains. That was a new look for him. What the fuck was up with that?

“If we’re being honest here, not particularly,” I replied, still in shock but able to spit out the insult regardless.

“I can assure you, the feeling is mutual.”

“You’re dead.”

“So are you,
Dr. Death
,” he replied mockingly, using my old coven nickname. I guess he did have a point there, though.

“I meant really dead. I killed you.”

“
You
killed me?”

“Well okay, Sally helped...a little.”

“I’m well aware,” he spat. “And believe me, as much as I’d like to rip both your fucking faces off for it, that’s not why I’m here.”

He could have fooled me. Back when Jeff had been in charge of Village Coven, I hadn’t known him to give me the time of day if it didn’t include some attempt at fucking me up. “So this is just a social visit?” I asked warily.

“Not quite. I’m here to tell you that tonight you will be visited by three spirits. They are here to show you...”

I raised an eyebrow. Really? We were going with
that
old cliche? “Let me guess. You’re going to show me the error of my ways?”

“More like what a fucking little lifeless prick you are.”

Okay, that was new.

“Listen, Jeff,” I replied, realizing that I was standing there talking to a vampire ghost. Yep, I must’ve been losing my fucking mind. “I’m tired and...”

“NIGHT RAZOR!”

“Fine, Night Razor. Whatever the fuck. I don’t care. You’re obviously just a figment of my imagination anyway. Maybe I sucked down some expired blood...”

“Think whatever you want, you cockless dweeb. It doesn’t change what’s coming.” He raised his arms, rattling the chains he wore for effect. “Beware, Freewill!” he shouted. “The error of your ways will be laid bare!”

Huh? “Wait, didn’t you just say it had nothing to do with the error of my...”

Before I could finish, Jeff became translucent. A mere moment later he completely faded away, just like...well, a ghost. Pretty fucking freaky, if you ask me. Then again, I’m a vampire. Freaky kind of comes with the territory.

I turned toward my bedroom, briefly considering popping a handful of Xanax and chasing it down with a fifth of tequila. That would be a lethal combo for a human, but all it would probably do to me is knock my ass out for a few hours. If indeed Jeff was right and I was in for a series of visitations - just like in that Bill Murray movie - how fucking hilarious would it be if they couldn’t wake me up?

On the flipside, there was an equal chance that in death Jeff had been as full of shit as he had been in life. That was all assuming he wasn’t just a hallucination to begin with, something I wasn’t quite ready to rule out.

Ah fuck it. What’s the worst that could happen? I had read that book in school and I knew how it went. Even better, I knew I wasn’t some sort of Scrooge. Sure, I might not be the most festive person on the planet come the holiday season, but it’s not like I had my own personal Bob Cratchit to kick around. Hell, if anything, Sally was the one more likely to be the
Bah Humbug bitch
.

Oh screw it! I decided it wasn’t worth worrying about either way. At the end of the day, I really was too tired to give a shit. Bed was beckoning and I decided to heed its call.

Part 2

*SMACK*

What the fuck?!

“Wake up, you little pussy.”

Again I was smacked in the face. I opened my eyes, but - judging by the voice - I already knew who would be there looking down at me.

“You again?”

“Yes,
me
again,” Jeff spat before backhanding me across the face a third time.

“I’m awake!”

“I know. I just enjoy smacking the shit out of you.”

I sat up and scuttled across the bed away from him. “What the fuck are you doing back here?”

“I am the ghost of Christmas past, Freewill.”

“Whoa there just a fucking second, dude.” I stood and walked up to him, poking a finger into his muscular chest. Hmm, for an incorporeal spirit he sure as shit felt solid enough. That was potentially worrisome. Still, I couldn’t let him know that. “I thought you were supposed to be Jacob Marley here. You ain’t no Patrick Stewart, so how the hell can you also be the ghost of Christmas...”

I didn’t get a chance to finish the question as Jeff’s response consisted of a collision between his fist and my face. Blood exploded out of my nose as I staggered back. Yep, he was definitely solid enough.

“I’m whoever the fuck I say I am!” he snapped at me. “Want to argue the point?”

“No, not particularly,” I mumbled, still holding my smashed face.

“Good, then let’s go. The less time I have to spend babysitting your nerdy ass, the better.”

He grabbed a hold of my arm and dragged me forward. I knew the size of my bedroom and we should have impacted with the wall, but didn’t. We just kept walking. Somehow I wasn’t overly surprised.

“Let me guess, you’re gonna take us to the day I killed your ass and try to convince me it somehow made me into a bad person,” I said, still trying to stem the flow of blood from my crushed nose. Goddamn, for a ghost, the douchebag hit really hard.

“Sorry, but that didn’t happen at Christmas time. Rules are rules. Oh, but thanks for reminding me about that.” His fist impacted with my stomach, driving the wind out of me.

Ouch.

I went down to my knees gasping. This was getting old real quickly. I balled my fist, ready to spring up and cock-punch the bastard, but that’s when I heard a voice.

“I want a bike!”

It was a whiney, childish voice. It was also familiar...very familiar, namely because it was mine. I opened my eyes and found myself in my parents’ living room, back in Scotch Plains, New Jersey. It was just as I remembered...from fifteen years ago.

“Santa didn’t bring you a bicycle, William,” my father patiently explained to my younger self. Thinking back on things, it was obvious why. At that age, I had sucked at riding a bike. My first few forays on one, borrowing Tom’s, had resulted in my crashing into a tree, then a bush, and finally the side of my father’s car - scraping the shit out of it in the process. “Why don’t you open the nice board games he brought you?”

One of the ‘board games’ I’d gotten that year had been a
Dungeons and Dragons
set. In the end, I had gotten a whole lot more use out it than any of my other presents, but that wouldn’t start for at least a few weeks yet. At the time, I’d been too firmly fixated on the bike that Santa had gypped me out of.

“But I was a good boy!” the nine year old version of me whined.

“I know, William, but...”

“SANTA SUCKS! I WANT A BIKE!” the younger me screamed before bursting into tears.

“Why are you showing me this?” I asked Jeff, making sure to take a step back so as to be out of punching range. “I know how it played out. I bitched for half the day until I got sent to my room. A month later, my parents finally caved and got me the damn bike, which I promptly fell off of and broke my arm. Lesson learned.”

“A shame it wasn’t your neck.”

“Yeah pity that. Then I couldn’t have grown up, been turned into a vampire, and - oh yeah - taken over your coven.”

Jeff turned toward me, burning hatred in his eyes. He looked as if he was about to pounce upon me, but somehow managed to restrain himself. I figured that probably meant we were done there and would be off to another stroll down memory lane. That’s the way the story went. Instead, though, he asked, “Have you fucked any of them?

“Huh?” I asked, caught by surprise. “My
parents
?!”

“No, dickless. The coven...the
women
.”

“Oh. Um...no.”

“I did -
all
of them. Hell, sometimes two or three at a time. I used to make Sally scream like the traitorous little whore she is.”

Okay, that kind of stung. I’ll admit, when I took over from Jeff, I had a few fantasies along the lines of all the orgies I’d be having with the insanely hot females of the coven. Sadly for me, that hadn’t happened. One day they were all slutting it up with Jeff, the next you’d have sworn I had taken over a convent instead. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t like Jeff. I believed in treating women with at least a modicum of respect. Regardless, that little detail continued to irk me.

“And your point is?” I asked, trying not to sound annoyed.

“My
point
is that nothing has changed. You were a little pussy back then and you’re an even bigger pussy today.”

“Thanks for the insight, Doctor Freud. So, again, what exactly is this supposed to teach me?”