Willie McCoy is a small-time hood turned vampire. We meet him for the first time in Guilty Pleasures. The first vampire friend of Anita's, he is one of only two or three vampires Anita has known before and after being turned. Willie is dating the vampire Hannah. He manages The Laughing Corpse comedy club for Jean-Claude.
Description[]
Willie is a thin man, a little over 5' 3" with short slick black hair and a series of nervous twitches. His face is thin and triangular. He also has a terrible fashion-sense, with a tendency of bandy coordinated polyester and plaid clothing in loud colors. However, he recently acquired a new gold tie tack. A new vampire, he flashes his fangs a lot, partly deliberately, partly because he has yet to learn how not to. Becoming a vampire also hasn't stopped him from smoking.
He retains much of the nervousness he displayed while living, especially now that he is subservient to the violent tempers of elder vampires, but he also relishes the reaction most humans have to his vampire status, in part for the novelty of it, and in part because he is unused to anyone fearing him. A jerk in life, he gradually shows signs of becoming a better person now that he is undead.
History[]
Before the series[]
Willie McCoy was a street informer and petty criminal before being turned in a vampire. In his previous existence, he sold information and ran errands for criminal gangs. He was on occasion an informant for Anita. How he was turned is not specified, but it seems to have been voluntary. In The Laughing Corpse Anita speculates it may have been because Willie wanted to be a bigger fish, but it only made him an undead small fish. Anita also has strange dreams one night during Guilty Pleasures, one of them involving Willie's funeral, which might indicate that she attended the event.
Guilty Pleasures[]
When Nikolaos wants to hire Anita to investigate vampires being slain by an apparent serial killer, she sends Willie to Animators, Inc., presumably because he already knows her. When Anita refuses, Willie warns her that his bosses will not take no for an answer; Anita takes this as a threat but Willie seemingly means it sincerely as a warning. Nikolaos punishes Willie for failing to hire Anita by imprisoning him in a cross- and chain-bound coffin.
Willie is released from the coffin in time to accompany Nikolaos as a servant to a small family cemetery in the Saint Charles neighborhood where Nikolaos confronts Anita outside the Freak Party two nights later. Willie tries to warn Anita from giving blood to Nikolaos, although a short command from Nikolaos makes him shut up. When commanded Willie also tries to stop Phillip from charging Nikolaos, although lack of fighting skills prevents Willie from being very effective at that even if Phillip is only a human. After Nikolaos is chased away by the Church of Eternal Life, Willie helps Anita take Phillip to Anita's car and asks for a ride, and ends up driving himself while Anita covers their escape with her gun. He's smart enough to attempt to give them some privacy for a personal discussion, even if it's pretty impossible for him not to hear what happens in the same car. Anita thinks that he wouldn't have done it while he was still human.
When Phillip is kidnapped, Willie calls Anita and leaves a warning and plea for help on her answering machine, only to get captured himself and re-imprisoned in the coffin. After Anita slays Nikolaos she opens the coffin and leaves Willie to wake up with the nightfall.
The Laughing Corpse[]
In the second novel we learn that Willie has been made a manager of The Laughing Corpse comedy club two weeks earlier by Jean-Claude, and is enjoying his unlife under a master that isn't nasty -- or not as nasty as the previous one, at least. Anita is surprised of being glad to see Willie despite him being a vampire, but gets creeped out by his vampirism soon after. Willie seems hurt and sad to have her draw away from him, and Anita suspects he regrets his decision to become a vampire. There's an incident during a zombie comedy act that Anita has to help out with, and we learn that Willie is terrified of zombies, but doesn't want Jean-Claude to know, because he would use it to punish Willie.
Bloody Bones[]
Willie is only mentioned very briefly in this novel as not being powerful enough to escort Anita into a meeting with Serephina.
The Killing Dance[]
In this novel Willie, along with Damian and Liv, are raised from their coffins as zombies, when Anita forms a triumvirate of power him Jean-Claude and Richard. At some point Willie started dating the vampire Hannah. In Burnt Offerings Willie becomes possessed by the Traveler, when the Vampire Council members are in town. Anita uses the link she had made with him in TKD to force the Traveler out of Willie's body.
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Powers & Abilities[]
- Immortality - He does not age nor decay.
- Superhuman Strength - He can lift cars with ease.
- Superhuman Speed - He can move quicker than most humans can perceive.
- Heightened Senses - He can hear whispers from some distance away, see in the dark, and smell fear on humans.
- Accelerated Healing - He is extremely difficult to harm. Wounds from most objects, even bullets, heal in seconds without causing him any seeming discomfort.
References[]
- Anita Blake - Guilty Pleasures Handbook.