The Tome of Bill Compendium Vol. 1 (Books 1-4) (58 page)

* * *

I bared my fangs and leapt at Bang. One bite, and I could maybe even the odds a little in this battle. Unfortunately, unlike my previous fights, I was up against opponents who knew full well what I was capable of. Nergui reached out while I was in mid-leap, grabbed my foot, and swung me so that I flew across the room.

“We know your tricks, Freewill. They will not work on us.”

Well, isn’t that just dandy...OOF!!
I thought, slamming into a coffee table.

Having taken my fair share of throws in the past several months, I was able to roll with it a bit and get back to my feet in another second.

“I don’t suppose the Khan would like to just, you know, discuss this?” I asked. Bang was back up and standing at Nergui’s side. They both faced me. “I mean, this is really just a big misunderstanding. I wasn’t even supposed to go to China.” Yeah, I was babbling, and yes, I figured it was a long shot. However, it was also a distraction.

Sally was also on her feet again and once more going for Nergui’s blindside. Sadly, you don’t get to become a three-hundred-and-fifty-year-old assassin by being a dumbass. What we were doing was no doubt the oldest trick in their book.

As Sally threw a right cross at him, he turned and casually caught her by the arm. In one quick flick, he brought the dagger up and severed her hand at the wrist.

Before her newly unattached appendage could hit the floor, Nergui flung her toward me.

“SALLY!” I screamed just as she landed at my feet. Oh God, this wasn’t good. I dropped to my knees to help her, although I wasn’t sure what I could do. Her arm was spurting blood all over the place. She made a pained whimper, but appeared to be in too much shock to even cry out.

“It’s okay. I’m here,” I said, but there wasn’t much comfort to give. If vampires could bleed to death (
could they?
), she was doing a good job of it.

“Take it,” she whispered. I didn’t understand. But then she held up her still spouting arm and repeated herself. She was actually offering her life blood to me.

“No...I can’t,” I stammered, feeling tears come to my eyes.

She gave me one of her typical Sally grins, and then whispered something else. I didn’t quite make it out, but it sounded like “dumbass.” Then her eyes rolled up in the back of her head, and she stopped moving.

This couldn’t be happening. Sally and I were supposed to be an unbeatable team. Despite how she usually acted, she was one of the few people on the planet who had ever believed in me. My tears began to flow freely, and then I heard the two assassins in the room begin to advance.

Instantly, my grief extinguished itself, and that dull rage I had felt earlier began to rear its ugly head. This time, I decided to allow it to take me. My humanity be damned; these fuckers were going to pay.

I could feel something nasty inside of me clawing its way up. This thing was far darker than any Dr. Death persona I kept in the back of my head. I didn’t know if demons existed, but if so I was sure one had taken up residence inside of me.

My fangs and claws extended, and I glanced down again to where Sally lay. That was enough to push me over the edge.

The change kept happening, and I could see by the looks on both their faces that they saw it, too. Nergui shouted something I couldn’t understand, and both vampires came after me almost as quickly as thought itself. The only thing I knew was that it wouldn’t be fast enough.

Unfortunately, I had no idea what happened next, as my vision went entirely to red.

There’s nothing like a cool, refreshing breeze on a Fall night. Crisp and carrying just a hint of the winter weather ahead, but pleasant enough to be outside and still enjoy it. True, I’d never been much of an outdoors type. Anyone with eyes could figure that out by my pasty white skin (
even before I was undead
). This time of year was nice, though. No bugs, no sweating; just nice and comfortable. I wouldn’t mind staying out there for a while.

Speaking of which, where the fuck was I anyway?

My head started to clear, and with it my vision. I looked around. It was still night. That was good; otherwise, my enjoyment of the breeze would’ve been quickly cut off by all the burning and screaming. Things like that tended to put a damper on the day trips as of late. Judging by the horizon, it was the wee hours of the morning, maybe an hour or so until daybreak. Still plenty of time to get indoors. Hey, I could actually see the horizon. Come to think of it, the entire view was pretty damn nice.

I tried to stand, wobbled a bit before finally doing so, and then realized why the view was so good. I was standing on top of some building. From what I could tell, I was at least twenty stories up, maybe more. Odd that I didn’t remember stepping out for some pre-dawn stargazing.

There was a slight groan from off to my side. Considering the pitch, I wondered if maybe I hadn’t brought some female companionship along. I walked over, still a little wobbly, and looked down to see Sally.

Aw, she looked like she was asleep...

And covered in blood...

And with her right arm ending in a stump...

Oh shit!

The memories of the past...however long ago that was, started to filter into my mind, snapping me out of my daze.

Oh God, Sally. Please don’t be dead
, I thought as I knelt down beside her. Well, okay, she was already dead, but I meant really dead. I reached down and put my hand on her throat to feel for a pulse. After about ten seconds of that, I mentally slapped myself upside the head. Duh! Vampires don’t have pulses, regardless of their condition.

I needed to think this through. Remember your Boy Scout training, stupid! Oh yeah, I was a boy scout for all of two weeks before I got bored with it. Come on, what does one do when somebody’s hand gets cut off by trained vampire assassins? Okay, pretty sure they don’t have that one listed on WebMD. I got it: a tourniquet!

I started to pull off my belt so as to staunch Sally’s bleeding stump, when I realized it wasn’t doing so any longer. What had been a geyser of blood just a...however long ago, was now nothing, not even a drizzle. That wasn’t good. No blood meant...No! Best not to think of that.

I looked closer. The stump wasn’t bleeding because it had started to scab over. Her arm was at least partially trying to heal itself. Corpses didn’t usually do that. Maybe there was still hope. Besides, didn’t she just groan? Or was that the wind? Only one way to find out...

I thus did the only thing I could think of. If Sally was truly gone, it’s not like it would have made things worse. So I turned her head toward me and gave her a hard slap across the face.

“Sally, wake up!” (
please!
)

Nothing. Okay, maybe I shouldn’t have hit her hard enough to knock her brains out. I tried it again, slightly softer, but still enough to leave a handprint on her face. That time, I got a groan in response. Yes! She was still in there somewhere.

“Come on, Sally! You can do it. Those fuckers can’t take you down that easily!” I said, feeling wetness welling up in my eyes. She started to come around. Her eyes were still closed, but I could see her trying to mouth something. I leaned in closer.

“Say that again. I didn’t hear you.”

A hoarse whisper met my ear, “Hit me again, and I’ll gut you.”

* * *

“Are you all right?” I asked as she started to finally come to...and yes, I realized what a dumb question it was, considering her new southpaw status. I figured it was a safer question than, “So, will you be going with a stainless steel hook or one of those nifty new titanium models?”

“What happened?” she asked while I helped her to a sitting position. She’d need some blood soon, but for now her vampire physiology seemed to be snapping her out of it. Vampires are tough fuckers to keep down if you don’t manage to kill them outright.

“You were...(
God, please give me the strength to not say it
)...disarmed.” (
Thanks for nothing, God
)

Sure it wasn’t the most sporting thing to say, but it definitely brought Sally all the way out of her funk. Her eyes cleared and she gave me the ugliest of glares.

She held up the stump of her arm and stared at it, her eyes unreadable. Finally, she said in a small voice, “Shit...”

“Don’t worry, they can do wonders with prosthetics these...”

“...it’s gonna take weeks for that to grow back,” she finished.

“It grows back?”

“Yeah. It’s going to take a lot longer than usual, though. Fairly sure those assholes were using silver.”

“Hey, as long as it’ll grow back at all,” I replied, my voice serious. “Most people would consider that a lucky thing.”

“I guess so.”

“So don’t worry,” I lightened my tone. “You’ll be back to giving double happy endings at the massage parlor in no time.” Her response was an eye-roll. Yeah, she was going to be fine.

“So where are we?” she asked, looking around.

“No idea. Top of some building, it looks like.”

“Thanks,
Scooby Doo
. Nice to know you’re around to solve all of life’s mysteries,” she quipped. “How did we get here? Did the assassins just decide to leave us alive?”

“I don’t think so,” I said, remembering back to the rage I felt when I thought she had been killed.

“Why?”

I explained what happened, maybe downplaying that it was her ‘death’ that caused me to Hulk out...no need to inflate her ego any more than it was. I told her how I felt that change come over me again and then everything went red.

“Scary. Guess there’s more to this Freewill thing than either of us knows.”

“Not sure I want to know. I’m not big on the whole
Jekyll and Hyde
thing playing itself out in my head.”

“Whatever happened, it looks like you did a job on them, though,” she said, indicating my clothes. I looked down and saw they were absolutely soaked with blood.

“Yours, probably.”

“Some of it yes, but not all. It’s not yours either,” she replied.

“Let me guess, you can smell it?”

“You really need to practice this vampire thing a little more. You’re starting to embarrass me with these stupid questions.”

“Speaking of stupid things, we need to get out of here,” I replied. “Sun’s going to be coming up soon, and if we’re still here yakking away when it does...well, that’s just going to be pathetic.”

“Agreed...” and then she mumbled something I didn’t quite catch.

“What was that?”

She sighed and responded, “I said, ‘Thanks for saving me’.”

“I don’t remember even saving myself.”

“I know, but whatever it was you did, you remembered to take me with you when you did it. That tells me there was still some of
you
in there driving the school bus.”

I hadn’t thought of that. That actually made it a little less scary...not much, mind you, but it was enough for now.

* * *

We managed to get down to street level without being seen. The hatch leading down from the roof had been locked from the inside, leading me to believe I had somehow Spider-Manned my way up there. Locks aren’t much of a deterrent for a pair of determined vampires, though. Fortunately for us, the stairwell was empty. Two blood-soaked intruders, one of whom had a gaping wound where her hand used to be, were bound to attract a little attention.

We were able to get our bearings, realizing we were a good mile downtown from the loft. Fortunately, there was a subway entrance less than a block away. We could use it to get into the tunnels, and thus the sewers, so we could make our way back unseen.

“Do you think it’s safe?” I asked as we hopped the turnstiles (
screw you, New York MTA
) and made our way toward the dark underground.

“I don’t think anywhere is particularly safe after last night. But I have a feeling that you gave the Chinese vamps a bloody nose, at the very least. They’re probably lying low right now. As long as we don’t get supremely unlucky and wander directly into them, we should be fine.”

“Don’t jinx us,” I added.

“Point taken. Still, the smell down here should be enough to clog even the most sensitive vamp’s nostrils,” she said, turning down a maintenance tunnel.

“I can see what you mean,” I said, sniffing the aromatic air. “Nothing like the smell of rancid ass to cover your tracks.”

“Speaking of rancid things, I need to make a little pit stop,” she said, suddenly slowing her pace.

“What are you talking about?”

She gestured toward a little nook close by. Inside of it, huddled under a moldy blanket, was a sleeping homeless man. Judging from the ripe smell, he was taking a nap with his good buddy
Jim Beam
.

In the darkness, I looked confusingly between Sally and the hobo before I realized that her fangs were extended and her eyes were turning black.

“Do you really have to?” I asked.

“Normally, this is a bit beneath my standards. But I’ve had a long day. You can turn around if it makes you uncomfortable.”

I did. Sometimes, I can almost forget the whole undead predator of the night thing. This, however, was not destined to be one of those times.

* * *

When she had finished, she walked past me and started leading the way again.

“Feeling better?” I asked.

“Yes and no. It’s going to take me at least a week to wash the taste of him out of my mouth.”

“Did you really have to kill him?”

“Sorry to offend your bookish sensibilities, but I was almost wiped out,” she replied. “Another few steps, and I’d have dropped again. I needed to fill up the old gas tank.”

“Well, judging by the smell of that guy, you definitely went with the high octane.” Damn, did I really just say that? I was definitely starting to get desensitized to this crap. That alone gave me a not-so-fresh feeling inside.