FREE WIL-LY
Thud thud
I sat up with a start, finding myself in familiar surroundings. Apparently that awful darkness had led me ... back to my own apartment?
It had all been nothing but a dream – a seriously fucked-up, not even remotely wet, dream, but somehow that made sense.
As if I’d ever agree to go to that godforsaken cavern again.
Thud thud
I turned toward Tom’s room, preparing to yell for him to turn his fucking radio off. There was a hideous bass beat, but beneath it was annoying static – voices barely audible – as if the antenna were broken. The idiot had probably knocked it off the...
But then I remembered that had been part of the dream, too. Tom wasn’t back. That had been nothing more than wish fulfillment by my subconscious. Strange that I’d be dreaming about him now, after so long. But then who the fuck was playing shitty music in his room?
Dave!
Suddenly it all came back to me. No wonder I’d been dreaming about the past. Dave was in town, hawking his shitty moisturizer, and Ed had flown in, too, for a sort of mini reunion. So maybe it wasn’t such a strange thing to dream about after all.
If the past was gonna come back to haunt me, then wouldn’t it make sense to do so when the old gang was back in town?
As for waking up on the couch, I’d probably indulged in a few too many toasts to the not-so-good old days and passed out where I’d lain.
Fuck it, I was due. It had been a while since I’d let myself have some fun. I...
Thud thud
For a moment, the whispering static became louder, sounding like a thousand voices all trying to speak at once. The shit that passed for music these days.
Oh, for Christ’s sake! I picked up the TV remote and chucked it at the door of the bedroom. “Turn it down, asshole! Don’t make me kick your ass.”
Not that I expected him to listen. Dave was probably too busy counting all the Social Security money he was siphoning off old ladies with that crap he was selling. I mean, yeah, it actually wasn’t bad stuff, but that’s only because he’d sent me a free case.
No. Free was too strong a word. The fucker expected me to be his personal Avon lady.
Yeah. With Dave, nothing was free...
Thud thud.
“Will you...” I paused. Heh. Free ... Will. Not really a pun I wanted to wake up to.
There came a knock at the front door in the same moment that static became louder than ever, almost understandable in its babbling.
I ignored it and turned toward the door, confused. Who would be visiting at this hour?
Actually, I had no idea what hour it was. Likewise, I couldn’t recall buzzing anyone in. Of course, I owned the building these days, so it was entirely possible it was simply one of the tenants here to bitch about something I wasn’t qualified to fix.
Thud...
I glanced toward the bedroom again. Maybe they were here to complain about the shitty music my ex dungeon master refused to turn down.
“Hold on, I’m coming!”
I got up, put a hand on the door knob, and then froze. From out of nowhere, a sense of dread filled me, as if every instinct in my body was screaming for me to back away. Staring at the door, I got the strangest feeling that opening it meant never truly closing it ever again.
That feeling persisted for a moment more and then I let out a laugh. Knowing this shithole, that wasn’t entirely out of the question. Even so, it’s not like I couldn’t fix it with a screwdriver and some WD-40.
Thu...
The bass beat ended. Simultaneously, that whispering static fell quiet and silence descended.
I called out, “It’s about fucking time!”
Then, before I could creep myself out with more stupid thoughts, I unlocked the door and opened it.
“I dare say, it is indeed about time,” my visitor replied.
Yeah, I should have heeded those warning bells in my head.
Standing just outside the door, carrying a suitcase of all things, was ... me.
If you think that’s crazy, you’re not the only one. But then I realized it wasn’t actually me. No. If the soulless black eyes staring back from behind my – his – glasses were any indication, it was far worse.
The other me smiled, revealing long, sharp canines.
I should have slammed the door shut, locked it, and then dragged the fucking refrigerator in front of it.
But all I could do was back up in horror at the sight before me, a distant memory yet one terrifyingly familiar.
“Dr. Death?”
♦ ♦ ♦
Before evil alternate me could answer – likely with something pithy and assholish – the world went black, as if I’d forgotten to pay the electric bill.
For a moment, there was nothing but numbness around me, like my body had been encased in a satanic cocoon of nightmare cotton candy.
Long seconds passed and sensation began to return. I felt something pressed up against my backside. Panic flared as I wondered what my evil twin was up to, but then realization hit. I wasn’t standing in my apartment after all. I was lying on the floor.
And the reason I couldn’t see anything was because my eyes were closed. Duh!
I tried to command them open, but they refused to obey.
Oh crap.
An unpleasant memory flashed through my mind. I’d been here before or someplace like it.
No! That can’t be happening. It’s impossible.
Back then the floor beneath me had been soft, a shag carpet I’d landed on after having my throat torn out. Now, whatever was beneath me was hard, rocky. That ... and I couldn’t recall anything bad happening to my throat.
That was odd.
Last time, the memory of my death had clearly gelled in my mind: the party at the loft, Sally and Night Razor, dying, that sort of shit. Now, though, all I could remember was ... being zapped by a couple of assholes. They’d stunned me, nothing more.
I should be waking up and running after them to ... probably get zapped again, but hopefully not before telling them what a pair of treacherous ball-suckers they were.
Instead, my tongue flopped around in my mouth, seemingly of its own will – Freewill – for a moment before it decided to listen to the neurons telling it to get its act together. Finally, I was able to run it across my top teeth and...
Ow!
I had fangs. Fuck me!
Well, it was either that or I’d been sucking on a piece of glass when I’d passed out. But somehow I didn’t think so.
Sensation continued to return. I could feel my arms and legs. I opened and closed my mouth ... fuck ... puncturing my lower lip in the process.
How the hell was this possible? The vampire race was dead, extinct.
Yeah, there were a handful of those neo-vamps running around, but the only guy who could make new ones was Ed and – so far as I was aware – he was thousands of miles away protecting my goddaughter.
Problem was, that was all elementary at the moment. How and why kind of took a back seat to the reality of my situation. I mean, sure, there was the possibility that someone had stuffed plastic fangs in my mouth and I’d wake up surrounded by laughing friends to find a dick drawn on my face. Oh, how nice that would be ... sorta.
Speaking of which, my eyelids fluttered, telling me I was just about in full control of my faculties again. I opened my eyes to find, sadly, no party happening around me this time. I was alone. The ceiling above was the only thing staring down at me, and I seriously doubted it had been drawing dicks on anyone.
Mind you, that didn’t mean I hadn’t been dicked over royally.
The thing was, if I was right, I now had the means to do a little dicking myself ... figuratively speaking, anyway. I pushed myself up, noting that I could see the room around me better than before despite the mages taking the only light source with them. Everything was in almost painfully sharp relief. I’d almost forgotten what a sensory trip being a vamp could b
e.
My body was still a bit shaky, coming out of the deathlike state I’d been in, so I sat there for a moment, acclimating. Just for shits and giggles, I removed my glasses. The sharp lines of everything around me instantly blurred into unrecognizable blobs.
Fuck me! I thought I was past that. Or I had been once, right before we’d shut things down for good ... albeit not as good as we’d all thought.
My stomach rumbled, but I tried to ignore it for the moment ... knowing that was a near impossibility in the long run.
Replacing my glasses, I pushed myself up. That shakiness I felt quickly passed and I was left feeling much lighter on my feet than I could remember feeling in a long time.
That wasn’t such a bad thing, but the tradeoffs ... no. I couldn’t concentrate on that for now. I’d cross that bridge when this was over and done with. For now, I needed to stop those wizards from...
Those thoughts ground to a screeching halt as more memories came back to me. The process of turning took hours. You didn’t just get bitten, then pop up with a whole new outlook on your death. There was a whole metamorphosis involved, one which, I’d learned from Calibra, involved an outside spirit – something from beyond the veil – invading your body and merging with it into a whole new being.
Dr. Death.
Gah, I really needed to focus. That shit could wait. First things first: I had to expose Komak for the asshole he was. Unfortunately, he was likely already long finished doing whatever he’d been scheming to do.
Though it felt like minutes to me, long hours had passed, hours in which I was unable to stop...
A small spark from my chest area caught my eye and I looked down to see the faintest fizzle of power on that charm Christy had given me.
The time spell!
Right before I’d gone under for the third time, the charm had sparked again, meaning maybe the spell had activated one last time before Tom was fully out of range.
It had been designed to protect me from whatever had been happening – which, I now had to assume, was some weird drawn-out death on my part. But maybe this time I’d been too far gone or maybe, with the spell fizzling out, I’d been only partially protected as time slowed to a crawl.
Either way, it was possible that hours had passed for me, but here in the real world...
It seemed a long shot, but it was the only shot I had.
That said, there was little need for the charm now. Whatever it had been protecting me from had won in the end.
I ripped it off then hesitated, my nose catching wind of the dried blood contained within. It was all I could do to keep from popping it in my mouth and chewing it up like a wad of bubble gum.
Gah! Not how I wanted to start things off.
Resisting the urge, I crushed it instead, enjoying the feel of my newly regained vampire strength ... before remembering the charm had been pretty flimsy to begin with. Okay, so maybe I shouldn’t use that as a benchmark of my undead power.
Regardless, I needed to get out of this place and see if my theory held. If so, then there might still be time to stop whatever the fuck needed stopping.
I turned toward the door and smiled.
“Get ready, motherfuckers, because once again, I am the terror that flaps in the night.”
FROM HERO TO ETERNITY
I paused after taking two steps, repeating in my mind what I’d just said.
Ugh, I was already starting off my second death sounding like a dork.
My stomach grumbled again, this time a lot more insistently, but I ignored it. Blood could wait. My friends couldn’t.
Or at least I hoped so.
Stepping to the exit, I took a moment to survey the cavern before me. The Source chamber was still barely aglow from above. That hadn’t changed. However, the darkness no longer meant dick to me.
Looking around, I spied figures in the distance scurrying about. Most were headed toward The Source itself. There were too many tents and other obstacles in the way to see clearly, but if folks were still gathering, then maybe there was time to...
“You dickless losers are going to get my spectral foot up your asses.”
The voice was distant, faint, but unmistakable ... Tom! Thank goodness for vampire hearing! Even better, if I could hear him, that meant...
Turning my head to follow the sound of his voice, I spied two figures in the distance. They were heading parallel to The Source, not toward it. I couldn’t see Tom, but that wasn’t a surprise. He didn’t emit his own light. At this distance he’d be nothing but a shadow at best. But if they were still walking away from me, that meant ... yes!
Mere minutes had passed in the real world while I was busy being dead behind the protection of Christy’s spell. Yeah, maybe protection was a somewhat contentious word there, but whatever. The important thing was I hadn’t missed anything important.
I made it a point to give Christy a big kiss when next I saw her, assuming she wasn’t completely repulsed by me now, but that was a worry for later. Her thinking of me as little more than a monster would suck, but ultimately it would be a small price to pay for us all living through this.
Besides, for all I knew, that sliver she planned to open would have the same effect on me as we’d theorized it would have on Gan and Ed ... minimizing my vampness and effectively allowing me to live a normal life.
Or so I hoped.
For now, though, I turned to the wall nearest me and took a swing at it.
Ow!
Fuck, it was solid! However, even as I bruised the shit out of my knuckles, a chunk of it broke off and shattered.
Super strength. That meant the magical pulse was still in effect, which likewise meant I could catch those two assholes with relative ease.
I crouched into a runner’s stance, or what I assumed to be one since jogging wasn’t really my thing. Then I took off, feeling my body accelerate far past its normal limits.
“WOO!” It was pretty goddamned heady.
It was also unsubtle as fuck, or at least my whoop of joy was. I’d closed enough of the distance between me and the two Hogwarts rejects that one of them turned his head to see what the commotion was all about.
I put on more speed, but it was too late. In my stupidity, I’d tipped my hand before I was in attack range.
The mage who’d looked back, Bob, screamed to his companion, “Run!”
As I continued to close on them, Bob began to glow red. Being that it wasn’t Christmas yet, it was probably safe to assume he wasn’t planning on wishing me holiday cheer.
The second wizard – the one holding my backpack, of course – turned, saw me racing toward them, and took the fuck off without needing to be told twice.
I had a second in which I finally spied Tom, superimposed over the second mage – probably in an attempt to be annoying, since there wasn’t much else he could do. Then a beam of red-hot death came racing my way.
There was a moment, no more, for me to consider what a stupid fucking idea this was, then I leapt with everything I had.
Fortunately, Bob was apparently as rusty at this as I was. It was a sloppy leap for me, but an equally shitty shot on his part. I felt the bottom sole of one of my sneakers melt, and then I cleared the blast.
A hot foot wasn’t such a high price to pay for survival, even if it wasn’t exactly a wonderful sensation.
That was the big problem with being undead – well, aside from needing blood to survive and being deathly allergic to sunlight – our nerve endings worked just fine.
I’d always thought that was weird, but I guess technically my body wasn’t dead. It was just in a sort of weird limbo as a result of the fact that an outside spirit was now sharing it like some sort of fucked-up duplex.
I quickly pushed that thought away, realizing this was a piss poor time to wax philosophical on the nature of life ... or death.
My momentum carried me the rest of the way toward the mage. As I descended upon him, I flexed my hand, preparing to slice and dice this motherfucker w
ith my claws – a small part of me horrified at how quickly I’d accepted that course of action.
It was too late to change tactics, though. I landed before Bob could charge up another spell, swinging my hand with enough force to ... bitch slap the shit out of him?
He went down, his nose spraying a fountain of blood from the force of the blow, but I hadn’t bisected his face as had been my original plan. No wonder, too. I glanced at my hand to see ... goddamn it ... nothing more than my regular fingernails.
Guess I needed to start practicing this shit all over again. Talk about unfair. Christy got her powers back and, within five minutes, she was casting advanced time magic while I couldn’t even get my fucking fingernails to grow.
Nevertheless, this was a win. Bob was down for the count. That was the important thing. Best of all, it meant I’d managed to overcome my initial murderous impulses, sorta.
Now to catch his buddy and see if I could...
I could...
I glanced downward again at the mage, focusing on the blood still pouring out of his broken nose.
The scent of it enticed me like a two for one sale at a gaming convention. My stomach grumbled in response, sounding like a hungry jungle cat.
I remembered that a lot of newly turned vamps woke up feral, the hunger all-consuming for them. Others were lucky in that there was something present to distract them from becoming bloodthirsty beasts. The last time this had happened to me – heh, how many others could make that claim – I’d been dragged to my feet and faced with the choice of fighting my way out or getting staked.
Something like that tended to make lunch a secondary priority. Now, though, I was standing triumphant over the equivalent of a hot lunch. There were still bad things afoot that I needed to stop from happening. Problem was, physically anyway, it wasn’t quite as strong of a motivator as having the shit beat out of me had been.
I could feel my fangs descend, not of my own accord. A sliver of drool collected on the side of my mouth as I made the mistake of breathing in the heavenly scent again.
That pushed me over the edge. Even as a part of my consciousness screamed out that I needed to save Tom, the rest ignored it. And why not? It wasn’t like he could get any deader.
Strange Days (Bill of the Dead Book 1) Page 26
