“Like clockwork,” I muttered as my phone began to chime.

I’d taken off my vigilante outfit in the stairwell before leaving the building, but this time I replaced my trench coat with a regular jacket. My hope was that my normal appearance cut a far different silhouette than my alter ego, just in case any other Village vamps happened to be lurking close by.

I was several blocks away, pretty much just randomly wandering and hoping to look like any other doofus out on the street this night, when my phone rang. Though I’d originally planned on heading straight home to debrief / brag to my roommates, I decided to give it a little while. If Sally called while I was on the subway, that might give her cause to start dialing my home number. I didn’t want to risk Tom answering and giving some nitwit excuse that could blow the whole thing.

“Hello,” I said innocently into the receiver.

“Guess what just happened?” Sally asked from the other end. Her tone wasn’t quite the panicky pitch I’d been hoping for, but then I remembered who it was I was talking to.

“You decided to start offering two for one specials on lap dances?”

“No, balls for brains. Someone just beat the shit out of Firebird.”

“Oh?” I feigned a modicum of concern. “Is she okay?”

“She was well enough to whine about it.” I couldn’t help but notice the distinct lack of caring in her voice. Hell, if anything, she sounded amused. Guess Firebird wasn’t at the top of Sally’s Facebook friend list.

“What happened?”

“Hard to say for certain. She was at the 20th Street apartment when she says something kicked the door down.”

“Something?” I asked, bemused that reality was already giving way to bullshit.

“Yeah. Whatever it was, it barged in and mercilessly beat the crap out of her. She claims she was lucky to escape with her life.”

“Another vampire? HBC maybe?”

“According to her, it was like nothing she’d ever seen before. She keeps yammering on about something dressed in all black, like a demon out of Hell.”

“Do you believe her?”

“She’s a fucking idiot, what do you think? Personally, I think she got sloppy on a hunt, picked a not-so-easy target, and now she’s trying to get some sympathy rather than just admitting one got away.”

“Oh?”

“But that still isn’t stopping her from telling anyone who’ll listen.” I was about to say something noncommittal, but she continued, “But you know what? Maybe this is a good thing for us. Lord knows I’ve been looking over my shoulder all week. Hopefully this will give them all something else to think about for a while.”

I smiled into the receiver. Hopefully indeed.

“Oh hey, Bill?”

“Yeah?”

“Speaking of the HBC, did you happen to start some shit with those assholes again? I got a call from Colin earlier and he…”

“Sorry, the subway car is entering a tunnel. You’re breaking up. Talk to you soon.” I sputtered some static noises and quickly hung up. Colin, James’s assistant, was the acting vampire in charge of Boston – the hub of undead activity in the Northeast. I’d only met him once, but he’d made a bad impression. The guy was a shit salad with extra asshole dressing. Worse, he seemed to have some history with Sally, a history that apparently gave him cause to enjoy fucking her over ... and me by association. With James out of country, I had little doubt his overly-ambitious underling would take great pleasure in fanning the flames of unrest between the two prominent New York City covens.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

♦ ♦ ♦

“So did he at least thank you for saving his ass?”

“He didn’t seem all that grateful,” I groused, having brought my roommates up to speed on the night’s events.

“Fuck it. The guy was an asshole with a case of the blue balls,” Tom said. “What did you expect?”

“Probably true.”

“That’s okay, though. This was just your test run. Next time, you need to target one of the dudes in the coven. You save some sweet piece of ass from a big bad vampire and it’ll be all the hero pussy you can get.”

Ed let out a pained sigh. “Doesn’t that kind of defeat the purpose of Bill being an anonymous vigilante?”

“Hell no. It makes it even better,” Tom explained. “Remember that scene in Spider-man where he hangs upside down and lets Mary Jane roll up his mask so she can ram her tongue through the back of his skull? Well, do something like that ... except with your dick.”

I got up and walked to the fridge to help myself to one of the blood packs stored there. Tom’s moronic fantasies aside, as far as I was concerned it was Miller time except with a bit more clotting. “I think it’s safe to say that your plan of me becoming a vigilante is probably the only good one we’re getting out of you this year.”

“Hey, if you want to spend eternity protecting your virtue, go right ahead. Me? I’d take every grateful blowjob that came my way.”

“Of that I have no doubt.”

“Me neither,” Ed added. “Probably the more stubble on them, the better he’d like it.”

“Tom does have a point, though.” Before Ed could open his mouth, I quickly added, “Not about the blowjobs. Firebird was an easy mark. I need to crack a few tougher nuts if I’m gonna make any real headway on this. I mean, Sally pretty much laughed her story off as a feeding gone bad. We need some more credibility if we’re really going to scare these motherfuckers.”

“You could target her,” Tom suggested.

“Don’t forget she knows where we live.”

“Ed’s right,” I said. “Sally’s a smart cookie. We make the wrong move around her and she’s gonna figure this shit out in an instant and be kicking down our door.”

Ed nodded. “As much as I wouldn’t mind seeing her again, I’d prefer it be under less murder-inducing circumstances.”

“Agreed. So she’s out. That leaves the guys. Dusk Reaper is an obvious one. I wouldn’t mind knocking that dickface down a few pegs, but maybe we’ll save him for later. Brian is tough, but not too bright. Keith is a troublemaker, but he’s a typical bully. He’d probably run crying home to mama the second he was outclassed. Those are our top choices. The rest, well, a few of them are real killers. Hell, I’m not sure I could win even if I had to put the bite on them.”

“Maybe yes, maybe no,” Ed replied.

“I’m pretty sure someone like Dread Stalker would hand me my ass.”

Ed raised his hands in a shrug and smiled.

“Okay, and you’re smirking why?”

“Because I know something you don’t,” and then to Tom, “and lots of stuff you don’t.”

“Such as?”

“Such as,” he repeated, rising, “I kind of figured we might run into an issue like this. After Tom called me at my old man’s and clued me in, I got to thinking. More importantly, I pulled Pop aside and got his thoughts on it.”

“You didn’t…”

“Relax. He’d think I’d gone soft in the head if I started spouting off about vampires and shit. No, I just wanted to discuss self-defense with him… see what he had to say about it.”

“And?”

“And that’s pretty much his favorite fucking subject in this world.” He walked into his room, continuing to talk as he did. “So in the end I wound up borrowing a bit more than a spare can of deer spray. Figured I’d save this just in case we needed it.”

I glanced at Tom and smiled. “He got me a shotgun too!”

“Are you fucking stupid?” Ed called from inside his room. “Seriously? What are you gonna do with one? Try shooting something like that off in the middle of fucking Manhattan. Subtle it is not. You use that in the Village and you’re gonna get a lot more attention than just a few vamps.”

He had a point there. I could trust that vampires wouldn’t go running to the cops. The people I saved were iffy, but the circumstances around their rescue were bound to be weird enough that most would be afraid of being laughed out of the precinct. Still, if I started blasting a boomstick in the middle of our territory, it was bound to attract unwanted attention. There was also a chance I’d slip and actually blow someone’s head off. Truth be told, there was at best a small handful of Village Coveners I’d miss, but this whole exercise wasn’t about killing them – it was about convincing them to not kill me. That would be difficult to pull off without any witnesses left behind.

No. This was a mission to sow fear, not leave a trail of bodies in my wake. There was also the small problem that I’d never used a firearm before in my life. For all I knew, I’d be just as likely to shoot myself.

Thankfully, Ed proved all of that speculation to be moot when he stepped out of his room.

“Ta da!” he declared in a faux cheery voice. “This, my friends, is the latest in military surplus stun guns. Guaranteed to knock an elephant on its ass or…”

I finished for him, a big grin etched across my face, “Or flash fry some vampire balls.”