“Yeah, but this time it's real.”
“If you say so.”
“Found it!” Ed called from his room. I heard his footsteps approaching. As he was just about to pass me, he said, “Sorry Bill, this might sting a bit.” Before I could question what he meant by that, his arm wrapped around my neck and he pressed something cool against my forehead. “BEHOLD! See how the beast burns before the might of our savior!” he cried in a bad southern accent.
“What the fuck, man!” I shoved him off me.
“That's weird. It didn't work,” he said, showing what he’d just assaulted me with – a small iron cross on a necklace.
“A little warning next time,” I growled.
“Sorry. Didn't think you'd go for it if you saw it coming.”
“You're probably right. Where did you get that thing from, anyway?”
“Oh, it was a gift from that emo chick I was telling you about.” He appeared to consider something, then said, “You know, I should find her phone number for you. If she found out you were a real vampire, she'd have your dick in her mouth faster than you can say 'spit shine.'”
I thought about it for a second. “Has potential. But let's table that one for the moment.”
“Eh hem.” Tom cleared his throat. “Are we done with this idiocy?”
“Oh yeah, sorry. Not yet. I have one more idea,” Ed said, turning toward the dish drain. He quickly spun back around, a steak knife in his hand.
Before I could ask what he was planning to do, he plunged it into the table – the same table my uninjured hand just so happened to be resting on, if you catch my drift. The pain was so swift and instantaneous that I couldn't even scream.
“Holy shit, Ed!” Tom exclaimed. “Time to switch to decaf, dude.”
“Wait!” Ed pulled the knife free. “Bill, before you completely shit a brick, hold up your hand.”
I was about to hold it up in the form of a fist to his face when I noticed that he was right. I lifted my hand and we all watched as the small (but fucking painful) wound quickly closed itself.
“I thought that might work,” he said. “Especially after I saw how quickly your hand healed earlier. Speaking of which, take off the towel.”
I pulled off the dishrag as I growled at him, “Thought it might work?” Sure enough, though, he was right about that, too. My twice-burnt hand was once again good as new.
“Okay,” said Tom in a very slow voice. “I'll admit that's maybe a little bit off-kilter from normal.”
“It's about time. Another test or two and one of us,” I glared at Ed, “probably wouldn't survive.”
“Very well, I accept that maybe you're a vampire.”
“Maybe?”
“Yeah, maybe,” he said. “One thing about it still doesn't add up. Since when can vampires touch crosses safely, but old Transformer toys cause them to ignite like rocket fuel? Can you riddle me that, Riddler?”
Unfortunately, on that one, I had absolutely no clue.
And Now for a Kung-Fu Training Montage
Wednesday night found us at a small gym over on Fourth Avenue. It was a rundown dive of a place, but they stayed open late and offered a couple of free trial workouts before charging any membership fees. That was really all we needed to test out a few things.
After the initial weirdness of Monday night had been given a chance to settle, I brought my roommates up to speed on Sally, the party, being turned, and my ninety-day countdown to a more permanent death. After hearing my tale, Tom was initially a little wary about me being around.
“So how do we know the bottled stuff is going to keep you sane?” he’d asked. “Every vampire movie I've ever seen says you'll eventually be overcome by your need for human flesh and become a rampaging animal until your thirst is quenched.”
I patiently explained to him that, so far, the movies weren't exactly sporting an overly impressive record compared to what wound up being total bullshit. However, he wasn't quite satisfied with that explanation, so I told him the story of how I was unable to kill the fat, sweaty dude. Ed, being the ever-helpful fellow, chimed in on my side of things, sorta anyway, with, “A vampire who's too much of a pussy to kill someone? I guess I can live with that.”
“It isn't like that.” I sighed as they just didn't get it. Maybe it's a guy thing, but it annoyed the hell out of me for people to think I was some sort of defanged little girly monster. I'm not a fucking Elmo doll, for Christ’s sake.
“So, how is it then?” he asked in a humoring tone.
“Okay, how do I explain this?” I asked, more to myself than anything. “I’ve got it. You both like hot dogs, right?”
They both muttered in the affirmative.
“Even though you know what they are?”
More nods.
“Okay, so what if I handed you a plate of lips and assholes and told you to dive right in because it tasted just like a hotdog?”
“I might refrain from partaking,” Ed replied after a moment or two. Tom agreed.
“Well, that's how it was for me. No matter how good it tasted, I couldn't get it out of my head that I was giving some naked guy a mega-hickey.” At last, I could see the beginning of understanding in their eyes.
“That which is seen...” Ed said.
“Cannot be unseen,” I finished.
“So, by that logic,” Tom asked, “wouldn't chowing down on a hot swimsuit model be okay?”
I thought about it for a few seconds. “Yeah, I guess so. Hot chicks would definitely be on the menu.”
Ed shook his head. “No. I don’t think so. That would be a waste of some perfectly good ass. They're too rare to kill. You don't hunt endangered species. Killing a hot chick would be like clubbing a baby seal. Not cool.” Damn, he had me there. Score one for logic.
“What if Bill was drunk and it was a fat chick?” Tom asked.
“Your wisdom is sound, my friend. Nobody loses points for an ugly girl if they're hammered at the time,” Ed agreed.
I concurred. “That's cool. A few shots of tequila and I could see myself getting all up in that shit.”
That important issue settled, we bullshitted some more until Ed suggested that taking some time to chart my new powers would probably be a good idea. Damn, why didn't I think of that? Knowing what I was capable of could potentially help me down the line – like, say, a little less than three months down the line. At the very least, it might keep me from doing something stupid, like jumping out another third story window.
Tuesday night was spent testing out some stuff we could do without actually leaving the apartment, including trying to figure out my sudden aversion to Optimus Prime. Unfortunately, despite several retries at grasping the toy, much to my chagrin, we were no closer to solving any mystery more complex than whether or not Febreze would cover up the scent of burning vampire (it worked pretty well, actually).
Tom had suggested we head to the gym for our next round of tests. It would give us some hard numbers to gauge my strength against. Even if it didn’t work, it would still be better than spending another evening charbroiling my hands.
Fortunately, the place was fairly empty. Aside from the counter girl, who couldn't quite suppress a smirk when we came in and told her we were evaluating workout options, there were only a few middle-aged types moving between the treadmills and stationary bikes. That was good. No use calling extra attention to ourselves.
We gravitated toward an old universal machine off in the corner. It'd be more discreet than loading plates much heavier than a person of my stature should be able to lift. I wasn't too worried about being outed as a vampire, but if we started doing weird ass shit that got noticed, we might find someone calling the cops thinking we were on PCP. I was pretty sure meth-heads didn't use their manic drug-induced strength for the purposes of working out, but better safe than sorry.
The machine maxed out at three-hundred and fifty pounds, so that's what Tom set it to as I sat down at the bench press.
“Shouldn't we start
low and work our way up?” I protested.
“Warm-ups are for pussies.”
Okay, I can do this ... maybe. I prepared to lift a lot more than I would have ever even considered trying.
“If something happens...” I started.
“You'll heal fast. We already know that,” Ed finished. I was feeling the love, I tell you.
I needn't have worried, though. I started to push and actually felt the bar begin to rise with the effort. Holy crap! I mean, I knew I was stronger after awakening as a vampire, but it was another thing entirely to know how much I was lifting.
“Goddamn, you're doing it,” Ed whispered.
“Yeah,” Tom said in awe. “How does it feel?”
“Badass!”
“No, stupid, how does the weight feel?”
“Heavy, but I could handle some more.”
Ed took a quick look around, saw that nobody was looking, and hopped up onto the weight stack. He wasn't a big guy, but he pushed the total easily past the five-hundred pound mark. I gave a loud grunt and almost lost it, but managed to keep it up ... barely.
“Thanks,” I wheezed once I had lowered the bar.
“Don't mention it.”
We moved on to other exercises and spent about an hour obtaining similar results. I wasn't going to be casually throwing cars around anytime soon, but the results were definitely impressive.
At last, I’d had enough, and we found ourselves alone in the locker room, cleaning up and getting ready to head home.
“That was fucking wild,” said Tom excitedly. “You're like a freaking super soldier. We're talking Captain America here.”
“At the very least, Bruce Willis from Unbreakable,” countered Ed.
“I guess that's cool,” I said with a sigh.
“What?” Tom asked. “You were hoping for the Hulk?”
“It's not that. It's just that I can lift all that weight. I can take all sorts of physical abuse. Hell, I could probably kick ass in a dozen Olympic events.”
“Developing a high opinion of ourselves, are we?” Ed quipped.
“You know what I mean.” I stood up and started flexing in front of a mirror. It didn’t look any more convincing than it had before I became undead. “I can do all this shit I couldn't do before, and I still look like this. I mean, when the hell is it going to happen?”
“When is what going to happen?”
“You know. When am I going to get all ... sexy?” I asked in a small voice.
My roommates took a second to give each other a glance, and then Tom responded, “Bill, I ask this with all due sincerity ... what the fuck are you talking about?”
“The entire coven,” I said, feeling a rant coming on. “They look like they stepped out of a fashion shoot, each and every one of them. So I figured eventually it might happen to me. You know, like in Interview with the Vampire. Brad Pitt got bitten and suddenly his hair got all done up and he was a lot better looking.”
“Well, for starters,” Ed calmly explained, “it was just a stupid fucking movie, idiot. Secondly, he looked like that to begin with. Being bitten didn't turn him into Brad Pitt.”
“Yeah, but he at least got Fabio hair,” I pointed out.
“You'd look stupid with Fabio hair.”
“Fine, no Brad Pitt,” I conceded. “But what about Antonio Banderas?”
Fully engaged now, Ed took the bait, while Tom sat back to see how this would all play out. “Antonio Banderas? Why the hell would you want to look like him?”
“He was in that movie, too. Also had great hair and seemed to be doing pretty well for himself.”
“Pretty well? He's married to Melanie Griffith. She's definitely seen better days.”
“Well, yeah, now he is,” I agreed. “But back in the day, he nailed Salma Hayak.”
“That was just in Desperado, dipshit.”
“Fuck that. I guarantee he banged her in real life. Even if he didn't, he had a long sex scene with her and was groping her tits throughout the entire thing.”
“I will concede you that point,” he said. “However, your logic has one major flaw. In Interview with the Vampire, he was busy lusting after Brad Pitt. Dude had gone totally homo for him. Shit, pretty much every vampire in that movie did. It was like a giant vampire man-ass festival. If that's what you're going for, you're going to need to rethink that whole sucking-on-naked-dudes-phobia you’ve got going on.”
“Stop right there, because I got you now, motherfucker.” I stepped up and got all in his face. “Not every vampire lusting after Brad Pitt was a guy.”
“I'm pretty sure they were.”
“What about Kirsten 'I banged Spider-Man' Dunst?” I pointed out.
“Dude, she was like twelve.”
“Originally, yeah. But near the end she was more like sixty.”
“She still looked twelve.”
“Gotta agree with Ed on that one, bro,” Tom piped in.
“Shut up!” we both told him.
I wasn't about to lose this one. “It doesn't matter what she looked like. Before she got turned to dust, she was more than old enough for Brad Pitt to pork.”
“That's fucked up,” he said. “So you're saying his character was a pedophile?”
“Read my lips ... SHE WAS SIXTY!”
“That vamp who bit you must have drained all the blood from your brain. She had the body of a kid.”
“And the emotional maturity of an adult,” I countered.
“Her body still looked like a child.”
“So? Some midgets look like kids. Are you saying anyone who nails a midget is a pedo?”
“Not the same thing, asshole. They're physically mature adults.”
“Who just so happen to look like kids. According to your logic, that makes it the same thing.”
He threw up his hands in disgust. “You know, sometimes I just can't talk to you. It's like trying to communicate with a retarded bonobo.”
“In other words,” I said with a grin, “that's point and match, bitch.”
“Fuck you. And you'd still look stupid with Fabio hair.”
Back To the Meat Grinder
Following work Thursday night, we took a field trip, as Tom called it, to a church. There, after seeing that I didn't burst aflame upon entering, we pretended to pray until we were alone. I was starting to tire of how most of these tests seemed to be against how flammable I might or might not be. My roommates, however, were apparently not, as evidenced by them taking turns either splashing me from the holy water basin or touching me with the various altar relics. In all cases, nothing happened except that I ended up both wet and annoyed.
“We probably shouldn't be surprised,” Tom said on the way home. “I think that was a Lutheran church. According to my grandmother, they're already a den of Satanists.”
Assholes, both of them.
Bill The Vampire (The Tome of Bill Book 1) Page 10
