The Tome of Bill (Book 7): The Wicked Dead (17 page)

Or not! He reached into our kitchen nook, grabbed hold of the nearest thing he could – the coffeemaker – and flung it at me with enough speed to make its cheap plastic shell a deadly weapon.

Fuck that! I might be taken down, but it wouldn’t be at the hands of Mr. Coffee.

*SNIKT* Just like that, a trio of adamantium blades erupted from the wrist of my left hand, skewering the would-be projectile mid-flight.

“I’m the best at what I do,” I said, closing the gap between us. “And what I do isn’t very ... OOF!”

Sadly, a metal skeleton still wasn’t enough to stop my nose from being crushed or me being sent flying backward from the blow. Note to self: save the one-liners for when the battle is over.

I smashed into the TV, thanking whatever gods there might be that I wouldn’t have to worry about replacing the damned thing, and then rolled back to my feet.

Sadly, Dr. Death was nearly upon me ... or would have been had a glowing ball of red death not blasted into him from the side.

Christy was back in the game and through playing. This was a weapon that I’d seen her kind use in the past to blow the shit out of their enemies. The kid gloves were off.

Sadly, my doppelganger was one tough hombre. He again stood, his side seared, but still very much alive.

“You’re gonna need more firepower than that to stop me.”

“Brought it,” I replied in a chipper voice. With that, I snapped my fingers and the whole apartment began to shake. Cracks appeared along the walls, widening by the second until the ceiling of the apartment – hell, the entire fucking roof of the building – tore off and revealed the sky and what occupied it.

The USS Enterprise and Battlestar Galactica both floated above, their weapons at the ready. A squadron of Macross Valkyries flew in formation between them. X-men Sentinels, riders on gleaming black dragons, and even a fake-looking giant robot from some shitty Japanese movie I’d seen back in grade school joined them. Finally, further up in the sky, something gleamed white.

“That’s no moon,” I said as a green pinpoint of light appeared on its distant face. “So, Princess, do you want to hand over the rebel plans or should millions of voices – all yours, mind you – cry out in terror?”

* * *

I was just imagining myself up a portable force field generator for the impending boom when Dr. Death held up his hands in a gesture of surrender.

My response was to lift a hand of my own, but this was no peace offering. My imaginary friends were waiting and dropping it would be their signal to unleash Hell. Still...

“Do it,” Christy said, moving to my side. Her slinky black dress was back, no small distraction in and of itself.

I took a moment to remind myself she was six months pregnant with Tom’s kid. Love him like a brother I might, but I really didn’t want his sloppy seconds ... no matter how unsloppy they currently looked.

The angry glow that enveloped her – red, the color that mages seemed to adopt when they were good and ready to fuck someone’s shit up – also more than helped put me back on track.

“What’s your game?” I asked Dr. Death, not really sure why I hesitated. I was itching to blow this motherfucker back to the Stone Age. Sure, it would all be a figment of my imagination, but then again, so was he.

“No game,” he replied evenly, his voice changing – becoming less a growl and far closer to the cadence I found issuing from my own mouth day in and day out. Dr. Death blinked, and the black around his eyes immediately receded, replaced by brown pupils. He smiled. The fangs were gone too. “You finally did it.”

“Did what?” I glanced to the side and, noticing the ball of energy quickly gathering in front of my friend’s body, put a hand on Christy’s shoulder. “Let him finish.” Dr. Death smiled again. “And he’d better make it good because chances are they’ll be his last words.”

She laid into me with a glare, probably still a wee bit pissed that he’d tried his best to manhandle her, but I held her gaze and gave a single nod. She backed off – a little bit, anyway. That red ball of doom remained, but she reined it in ever so slightly.

That was fine. If dickface over there – by which I meant his face looked
nothing
like a dick, just so we’re clear – so much as twitched the wrong way, I was gonna send his ass to quantum torpedo heaven.

“Exactly that,” he continued, his entire demeanor changing. “I’ve been waiting all this time for your balls to finally drop.” He glanced up. “Offhand, I’d say they came out made of brass.”

“You’ve been waiting for this?” I asked dubiously.

“Yeah.”

“Color me ever-so-slightly skeptical.”

He sighed, then took a slow step toward our couch, where he sat down. “Ask yourself, Bill, who am I?”

“That’s easy. The crazy-ass psycho who lives in my head.”

“In some ways, that might be true. In others, that just reflects poorly upon you.”

“How so?”

“Because I
am
you, stupid.”

* * *

I raised an eyebrow. “Just because you look like me...”

“It goes deeper than looks and I think you know it.”

“Humor me.”

“I’m your reptilian brain, your anger center. I’m the part of you that used to lie awake at night wishing you’d told someone off when you had the chance. The part that used to fantasize about kicking the ass of everyone who’s ever tormented you.”

“Go on.”

“The little piece of you that yearns to be a hero.”

“You have a funny way of showing it.”

“And you’ve had a nasty habit of keeping me fully repressed. All that resentment builds up after a while. That’s why everyone always tells you it’s not healthy to bottle that shit up.”

He was right. Mom used to tell me that all the time when I was growing up. Of course, that was usually right after Dad complained about me being a crying little pussy.

Okay, that wasn’t helping.

I turned to Christy. “What do you think?”

She opened and closed her mouth a few times, seemingly unsure of how to answer. Finally, she replied, “It’s
your
mind.”

“That helps a lot.”

“I’m sorry, but it’s not like I do this every day.”

Letting out a sigh of frustration, I once more faced myself. “Fine, then where have you been all this time? I mean, I don’t recall ever hulking out into a murderous rage-beast back in elementary school.”

“You also weren’t bitten by a vampire until a year and a half ago.”

“Yeah, I noticed that part. I’ve also noticed that most other vamps don’t do that.”

“Fucked if I know,” he replied with a shrug. “Maybe it’s because most of them aren’t Freewills.”

I opened my mouth to reply, but he continued. “All I know is that one moment I was just another part of you, and the next, we were staring at Sheila out on a date with that asshole Decker and, suddenly, it was like I was a whole other person. All those weak parts of you stayed where they were, locked up tight, but I was free ... except I wasn’t. All I could do was stare out at the world from behind your eyes, feeling your frustration grow.”

I kept my eyes on him, partially to avoid Christy’s glare for his mentioning of Harry Decker. What he said sorta made sense, though. That was the first time I ever felt myself start to snap, lose control.

“Then, out of nowhere, I started to take over. One minute, I was impotent.” He held up a hand. “Don’t fucking start.”

“Sorry.”

“The next, I could feel your arms becoming
my
arms, your legs becoming my legs, me taking control.”

“But then I panicked.”

“Yeah, and that bitch didn’t help matters either...” He trailed off for a moment, his eyes momentarily growing dark again. Or maybe it was just my imagination – it happened pretty quickly. When he next spoke, they were back to being just my eyes. “But later on, you let it happen and I was free.”

“Don’t remind me,” I growled, looking up and making sure my armada was still at the ready. The thought of what I could possibly do in that state was enough to make me consider a turbolaser lobotomy right then and there.

“I’ve been fighting for control ever since.”

“Except in Switzerland.”

“As I told you back then, be careful what you wish for.” He stood up and took a step toward me, palms up with no claws to be seen. “But now that’s changed. I said before that I didn’t think sharing control was in the cards. I meant it. As long as you kept running from what you could do, from what you were
meant
to do, that was gonna be true. Now, though, you finally manned up. You came in here, faced me, and ... I am loathe to admit it, actually beat me at my own game.”

“So what does that mean?”

“It means that you won. I’m ready to be a part of you again.”

“Oh, well, then scamper back off into my repressed memories. Maybe we’ll meet again in a dream.”

“Doesn’t work that way. You have to accept me.” He looked me in the eye and slowly said, “Only then will you be able to have what you want.”

Those words resonated with me. What I wanted. Did he mean his power? That was why I was here.

Even so, a part of me wasn’t entirely certain that was the case. There were other things – people – I wanted. I’d just been too big of a pussy to ever go for it, outside of facing certain death, at least.

If what he said was true, then he represented those parts of me that always seemed to be just out of my reach when I needed them – probably because I was simultaneously pushing them away, afraid of what would happen: rejection, scorn, even losing control of my temper.

“And what happens if I accept you?”

“You open yourself up to the possibilities you already seem to be on the verge of accepting, that maybe,
just maybe,
you can be the man you always wanted to be.”

“Not sure that’s ever...”

“It also means,” he continued, ignoring my self-doubt, “we fight side by side. Whatever brings me out, turns me into the ultimate expression of your Freewill powers, that’s controlled by me. By opening your mind to that potential, I’ll once again become you. And if I am you...”

“Then that thing is me too.”

“Exactly. All that power will be at your fingertips. You just need to stop being afraid to wield it.”

“But what if my friends get hurt?”

“Have you looked around?” Dr. Death had moved to a spot directly in front of me. “That’s a possibility no matter where you go in this world. But ask yourself this. What if my power allows you to save them?” He raised a hand and put it on my shoulder. For a moment, I was sure his claws would extend and he’d bisect me, all while laughing merrily away. All he did, though, was grasp my arm. It was oddly comforting ... and kinda weird too.

I looked over at Christy. The glow around her had faded. Indecision reigned on her face for a second or two, but then she smiled and nodded at me. “Accepting your personal demons is never a bad thing.”

A part of me wasn’t sure ... hell, it was practically screaming at me to open fire on this fucker regardless. I pushed it away, though. It was probably just my insecurities acting up as usual. Call it habit. The benefit, though, was too good to pass up. Being able to call upon this power at will – power that seemed to dwarf what I gained from drinking all but the most powerful of vampire blood. It was the prize I’d been seeking.

I had to take the chance. “Deal,” I said, holding out a hand.

As the door to my apartment shut behind us, I turned to Christy. “That went better than expected.”

“I agree. I’m glad I didn’t have to restrain him deep in your subconscious.”

“Or lobotomize me?”

“That too. That first one, though, carried more risk with it.”

“Oh, as opposed to carving your initials into my brainstem?”

“Yes, that would have been unfortunate. However, in the other case, it would have been more worrisome.”

I glanced back and the door was gone. The walls around us started to become unfocused as well. “How so?”

“Well, for starters, one can never tell how permanent of a solution that will be. However, it would have also verified that something wasn’t right inside of you.”

“Hold on for a second.” All at once, Alex’s former bedroom sprang up around us again. I could hear giggling coming from behind me where the bed stood.

Christy placed her hands on her hips. “Really?”

“Sorry, it’s my happy place. Ignore it for the moment. What do you mean something’s not right inside of me? I’d call my aggression splitting off into its own independent state to be pretty screwy.”

“And it is,” she replied, obviously making a conscious effort to not look at the pillow fight happening over my shoulder. “But not as wrong as ... it’s hard to explain. I told you about being in Sally’s head.”

“Tearing down walls.”

“Not just that, but how there was this strange sensation of not being alone. I wasn’t sure if it was just her or maybe a vampire thing in general. If the latter...”

She trailed off, and I didn’t ask her to finish. I had no idea what that might mean, and meaningless speculation wasn’t going to solve any of our issues right at that moment. “Let’s just chalk it up to Sally having some issues,” I said.

“I hope so.”

“So ... I don’t suppose you’d let me hang out here for a while.”

The last thing I saw in my mind was Christy’s smile; amusement and a little pity coloring it. All at once, the dreamscape faded to nothing, and I became aware of the cold concrete upon which I had been lying.

The rest of my senses came flooding back as I wondered when I might get a chance to test out the tag team of the Dr. Death brothers.

My eyes fluttered, and damp air assaulted my nostrils, bringing with it the smell of decay, dirt, cleaning supplies, and people ... lots of people.

“Look, it’s waking up. Get ready, men. It’s powerless against our faith.”

Perhaps I was going to get a chance to test out those new powers sooner than I thought.

* * *

“Uh, Bill...”

Christy’s voice tapered off, the confusion evident. That wasn’t good.

I opened my eyes and sat up.

“Be still, beast!” a deep voice commanded. It sounded like someone who had smoked far too many cigarettes in their lifetime. It was also familiar.