The Tome of Bill Compendium Vol. 1 (Books 1-4) (31 page)

Quickly, I spun toward my roommates and held out a hand. “Batter up,” I whispered to Ed. To his credit, he only hesitated for a second before tossing me the bat he had been holding (
Mrs. Caven appeared to be down for the count, anyway
). Without thinking, I rose and spun at the same time, swinging it in an arc.

*CRACK* Home run! The blow connected solidly with the side of Jeff's head and he went flying. Unfortunately, his flight was cut short as he crashed into Sally's still form. They went down together in a bundle of arms and legs. I was beginning to wonder, if somehow I managed to beat him, whether or not I'd then have to deal with a pissed off Sally wanting to kill me. But, oh, well, I guess I'd cross that bridge when I came to it.

Jeff was down, but he was far from out. Within the space of no more than a few seconds, he was already rising. The side of his head was bloody, but he looked otherwise unhurt. Shit! I had put a lot into that swing. If that didn't faze him, I wasn't sure what would.

I discarded the bat - it had suffered more damage from the impact than Jeff had, anyway. “Any time you guys want to finish playing, I could use some help,” I said to my friends before once again racing toward the relative safety of the crates. I had just enough time to see them both shoot me a withering glare before I was dodging back and forth, trying to lose myself. A horrible thought struck me as I did. What if Jeff was smart enough not to fall for that one twice? He could kill my roommates and then take his time. He'd eventually corner me and that would be it.

I was about to turn around and head back, when I heard the familiar sound of wood being smashed through. I guess I overestimated his intelligence. It was good to know that I hadn't gone to the well once too often, as of yet. Gee, I wonder if he'd be even more ticked at me if he knew he was just fulfilling my stereotype of him as a big dumbass.

I was contemplating my next action when there came a thunderous roar, momentarily blurting out all other sound. What the . . . !? It didn't sound like it had come from Jeff's direction. As the sound faded, though, I distinctly heard Tom's voice. “Teach you to call the cops on me, bitch!” All right, the shotgun. It sounded like Mrs. Caven's days of snooping on our business were over.

She probably deserved a better fate than she had been given. On the other hand, if offered the choice, I might take a short violent career as a vampire over slowly wasting away in some old folks home. Wouldn't you? No? Well, to each their own.

Still, I couldn't resist a little feeling of hope. One vampire down meant my buddies could help me out. “Hear that, Jeffy!?” I screamed. “Sounds like your backup plan is toast!”

“Like I need your mom to win!” he shouted in return. It was closer than I had thought it would be.

“For the last time, she's
not
my mom, you retard!” I yelled back, before realizing my mistake. My first shout had given him a general idea of my whereabouts. My second had let him zero in. Almost as soon as I closed my mouth, the crate next to me exploded, sending splinters of sharp wooden shrapnel flying into my body. However, if that was the opening act, then Jeff's fist was the encore. It came through and caught me square on the chest.

I flew through the air in a daze, crashing through one crate before finally slamming into the metal detector near where we had first entered. As I landed, I could see daylight peeking through under the door from which we had come in. Or at least I thought it was daylight. I might have just been seeing stars. That one had hurt...
more
than a lot. I felt like I was busted up pretty good. I tried to take a breath and the pain almost doubled me over. Then, when I exhaled, I hocked up a gout of blood along with any air. Not good.

I tried and failed to stand as Jeff's form advanced from out of the shadows. “So this is it?” he asked, almost sounding disappointed. I desperately tried to think of something to try. Unfortunately, remembering my name was becoming a chore, much less coming up with a brilliant battle strategy.

“Look at you,” he sighed, reaching down a hand and locking it around my throat. “Pathetic.” He straightened up and dragged me to my feet.

Hey, at least I could die standing. No, I needed to stop thinking like that. C'mon, stupid, concentrate. There had to be a way out of this. *
smack
* Jeff backhanded me across the face with his free hand.

“To think that
this
is the mighty Freewill,” he spat. “A kitten would have put up a better fight.”

Kitten? Think. Kitten...cat...cats have...claws! I did, too. Sally had shown me earlier. Now I just had to concentrate. Block out the pain. *
smack
* Okay, try harder to block out the pain. Come on...extend. Now...*SLASH!*

I brought my right hand up in an arc and raked it across Jeff's eyes. Yeah, take that, fucker!

It was another moment before I realized he wasn't dropping me to scream in pain or clutch at the ruins of his once-chiseled complexion. I refocused on his face and noticed it was still there, completely intact and no worse off except maybe for an expression of confusion on it.

“What the fuck was that?” he asked.

I held up my hand and looked at it. No wicked claws met my gaze, just my stupid fat fingers. Fuck! Guess Sally was right about practicing these things. Great! I had hoped that if I had to die, I would at least go out in a blaze of glory...worst case was probably going out in a way that would at least piss Jeff off. But, noooo. Maybe he was right, and I
was
pathetic.

We locked eyes, triumph in his, defeat in mine, as I prepared for the deathblow. I actually found myself hoping that, if the end had to come, he would just take my head off with one blow...it'd probably hurt less that way. I mentally said my goodbyes to everyone: my friends, my parents, and maybe most of all, to Sheila. We would never get a chance to make a life together, have kids together, grow old together...or ever go on that first date together. I would die alone.

Or maybe not.

What happened instead is that Tom leaped out of the darkness and jumped onto Jeff's back. Heh, I had almost forgotten about him. He yelled, “The power of Prime compels you!” (
Yep, dude had completely lost it
) and slammed his toy against the side of Jeff's face. There was a flash and the douchebag’s head began smoldering.

He screamed and dropped me. I landed in a heap and watched the spectacle, still unable to do much to help. He spun around a few times with my friend still on his back, and flames now starting to appear on his head. Tom was actually making a pretty good go of it. A few more seconds and Jeff was going to have a roman candle for a noggin.

Unfortunately, he didn't get those few extra seconds. Jeff managed to reach a hand around and grab hold of Tom's shirt. He physically tore Tom off his back and, before my roommate could further react, Jeff threw him like a rag doll. He slammed into the wall with a sickening crunch and slid to the floor. Oh, god, no!

I looked at where he had landed, but there was no sign of movement. As much as I wanted to go and check on him, though, I couldn't. Jeff was slowly turning back toward me. Most of his hair was gone, his face was covered in burns of varying degrees, and he had a distinct action figure-shaped scar seared into the side of his head. But even with all that, he was still smiling - the fucker.

This is usually the part in an action movie where the hero sees his buddy go down, screams “Noooooooo!” or something equally articulate, and then gets a second wind so as to get up and take the baddie out. I actually did give it a try, but my attempt to rise to my feet was somewhat less than heroic. It was more of a slow lurch upward, like a baby trying to walk for the first time.

Jeff started to reach down, no doubt to
help
me back to my feet again, but paused, and then looked back in the direction from which Tom had sprung. “You might as well come out. I can hear you breathing,” he said to the shadows.

“Oh,” replied Ed, stepping from the darkness with his gun raised. “Can you hear this?” he pulled back on the pump. There was an audible click as he chambered a round.

“And what are you going to do with
that
?” Jeff sneered. “Do you really think it'll do you any good?”

“Worked pretty well against your pet back there; took most of her head off at this range. I'd say that was pretty good,” Ed replied, leveling the gun at Jeff's face.

“I think you'll find I'm in a slightly different weight class. You so much as twitch your finger and I'll tear your head from your shoulders before you even know what’s happening.”

“Maybe you will, and maybe you won't,” Ed replied. I had to give him credit. He was talking smack pretty well in the face of a threat that he had good reason to believe was anything but idle.

Jeff continued, “I have to admit, you have balls. A lot more than your friend here.” He gestured over his shoulder to me. “But I'm afraid it's just not enough. Now why don't you be a good little boy and
LOWER THE GUN!
”

Oh crap! I could see the battle of wills taking place. Jeff was giving a direct compulsion to Ed, who was trying his best to resist. Unfortunately, after a few seconds, the gun started to shake in his hands and he slowly lowered the barrel. His eyes didn't glaze over the way Sally's had, but I could still see he was losing.

Fortunately for me, Jeff had to concentrate to do this. His full attention was on Ed, which gave me the few seconds I needed to make it back to my feet. I steeled myself - despite feeling more like balsa wood than steel - as best as I could, and lunged at his back.

If you're thinking that what I did was a little on the obvious side, don't worry; Jeff did, too. He reached back and caught me by the throat without so much as glancing in my direction. He turned his head to face me and asked, “Don't you know it's rude to interrupt?” and that was when the gun went off.

* * *

Jeff screamed in pain and again let me go. He bent over to grab his left leg, which was now missing a fair-sized chunk of meat from the thigh.

“Word of advice, asshole,” Ed said, once again raising the barrel of the gun. “Next time, try ‘
put down
the gun’ instead of ‘lower it.’”

He started to chamber another shell, but had underestimated our opponent. Jeff was still very much in the game. Quicker than Ed could react, Jeff grabbed the barrel of the shotgun. He gave it a quick yank to pull Ed off balance and then shoved back on it, causing the stock of the gun to slam straight into my friend’s face with an audible crunch. Ed let go of it and fell back. Jeff flung the weapon off into the shadows and began to advance upon my downed roommate.

It was now or never. I had managed to stay on my feet when Jeff released me. I still didn't have enough in me to launch any type of reasonably impressive counterattack, but I had to do something. He had already likely killed one of my friends. No way was I letting him get another without going through me, first. I leaped...

And landed on him, piggyback style. I wrapped my legs around his midsection and my arms around his neck. “Forget about me, fucker!?” I screamed into his ear.

Jeff went nuts. He started spinning around to try throwing me off, but I was stuck like a tick. He tried prying my arms off, but his leverage wasn't good. I wasn't exactly choking him out, but I definitely had turned his attention away from Ed.

“Enough of this!” he snarled, then backed up and crushed me against the wall. Oof! It hurt, but I still refused to let go. “
SALLY, TO ME! NOW!
” he screamed the compulsion out toward the warehouse. “You forget, fool,” he said, still trying to shake me off, “that I can command her to take action.”

“And
you
forget that I'm the motherfucking Freewill,” I spat right back. “And I can do
this
!” Extending my fangs, I sunk them into his neck (
my internal voice piping up and saying, “’Bout time you remembered you could do that.”
).

Jeff let out a high-pitched scream that quickly turned into a gurgle as I dug in. His blood flowed into my mouth and down my throat and...holy shit! If the blood from that HBC vamp was an electric charge, then Jeff's was a goddamned lightning bolt. It was like I was a car engine that someone had suddenly injected nitrous oxide into. As I drank his blood, it felt like my body was turbocharged in every sense. I felt stronger, swifter, and more alert. Best of all, my wounds appeared to be healing at light speed. Whatever pain I had felt earlier from Jeff's beating was gone. In fact, within a few moments, I couldn't detect any trace of my injuries.

Jeff's struggles started to weaken. This was it. I was the victor. I was
the man
!

I was an idiot.

He’d been playing possum and I had fallen for it. He bent over, twisted his shoulder, and threw me off with a judo toss that would have made Sensei Berkowitz proud. Considering the dozen plus times his students had done that to me during my short tenure as his pupil, I should have seen it coming. But I didn't, and I wound up flat on my back.

Jeff's boot appeared in my field of vision, rushing to stomp in my face. However, I was running on high octane now. I caught his foot and gave him a shove, which sent him flying off balance. We both got to our feet simultaneously, and he charged me. I tensed my legs and jumped.

This
time, there wasn't a low ceiling to slam myself into. I flipped over his head...well, okay, I sorta flipped. What I did was good for me, but it definitely wasn't going to get me an invitation to join the men's Olympic gymnastics team anytime soon. It didn't matter, though, as it got the job done. I landed...mostly on my feet, as Jeff slammed into a pile of debris.