Holier Than Thou (The Tome of Bill) by Rick Gualtieri Page B

fond of. I placed the tip of my index finger against the metal and almost immediately felt the temperature begin to rise. I pulled back, but a thin wisp of smoke drifted up from it anyway.
    “She can do that?” Sally asked, eyes wide.
    “Beats the fuck out of me. I was hoping you’d know.”
    “I don’t think anyone knows. Icons were lethal to vampires. I doubt any of us ever got close enough to study them for an extended period of time. If they did, they didn’t live long enough to save it to our archives.”
    “Great.”
    “So how come the door itself didn’t burn you?”
    “I don’t know. Maybe it’s a conductive thing...or maybe it has to do with touch. She’d be in physical contact with the doorknob more than the rest of it.”
    “Okay, let’s go with that. Then why...”
    “Who are you people?” a voice called from down the hall. “Do you have any idea what time it is?”
    Vampires have excellent senses. Unfortunately, they don’t work all that well when we aren’t paying the fuck attention.
    * * *
    “Who are you?”
    Sally and I locked gazes and her eyes blackened. Oh shit. I shook my head and turned to face our accuser.
    An old lady stood in the doorway of another apartment. What she lacked in height she made up for in girth. Her white hair was in curlers and she wore a pink nightgown that more closely resembled a muumuu. Considering the color, she looked like some bizarre anthropomorphic pig. I tried to push that thought from my head. If I started to laugh, her next reaction would probably be to call the cops about the drunken assholes in the hallway.
    I needed to make up something before Sally decided to show this lady her own spine. “I’m sorry. I was in the neighborhood and decided to check on my...sister, Sheila.”
    “Sister? You’re her brother?” she asked, her tone dubious.
    “Yeah. My...wife and I were in the area...” Sally let out a heavy sigh behind me. I gritted my teeth. All she had to do was keep her fucking mouth shut, albeit that was a tall order for her - you could cut out her tongue and she’d still somehow find a way to be snarky.
    “A bit late to be visiting,” Sheila’s neighbor pointed out. Outside of her size, she reminded me a lot of Mrs. Caven. She had been my nosy downstairs neighbor...at least until she had been turned into a vampire and subsequently gotten her head blown off. I guess every building has a busybody, but this woman had no idea how close she was to losing the busy part of the equation and just winding up a body.
    “Well, maybe we weren’t quite in the area. I was worried. I haven’t heard from my sister in a while. I mean, we usually talk every week. I was up, couldn’t sleep and figured...y’know.”
    I was babbling, but hoped to come across as a worried relative rather than an undead monster standing in a hallway making up bad lies at three in the morning.
    “I didn’t know she had a brother...” I opened my mouth, but the woman kept talking. “Not that I would have any reason to know. That one mostly keeps to herself. Not the best of neighbors. Here I am, all alone. You’d think she’d come over and offer to help out...”
    Oh Jesus Christ. I couldn’t blame Sheila. Had this annoying witch lived in my building, I’d have learned to rappel out the window rather than meet her in the halls.
    “Well?”
    “Huh?” I had momentarily tuned her out.
    “I asked how you got in. She better not have given you a key. That’s against building rules.”
    Fortunately, Sally jumped in and saved my hide. “We were let in. Someone was coming out and held the door for us.”
    The lady’s eyes narrowed. “Tall fellow, greasy goatee, ratty clothes?”
    “That’s the one,” Sally lied. Whereas I sputtered like a twit, she was cool as a cucumber. Telling a few white lies wasn’t exactly an alien concept to her.
    The old lady made a sound of disgust. “Damn hippy. I think that one is selling drugs. Coming and going at odd hours and always