The Tome of Bill Series: Books 5-8 (Goddamned Freaky Monsters, Half A Prayer, The Wicked Dead, The Last Coven)

by Rick Gualtieri

  Oh crap. I’d been afraid of this. Well, there was no way I would let him get the drop on me without a fight! I salvaged my pride and rolled over in one fluid motion so as to at least see my attacker.

  What I found instead was a hand offered to me from above.

  Dr. Death stood looking down at me, his devilishly handsome features marred only by the black orbs that stared out at me from behind disturbingly familiar glasses.

  “So sorry about that,” he said, grinning. “Please forgive my excitement. I get so little company these days. Can I offer you a cup of tea? I just put on a fresh pot.”

  The fuck indeed?

  The Call of the Wild

  Apparently, the dickhead was hoping to bamboozle me with some sort of mind fuck.

  Well, this Freewill wasn’t born yesterday. I grabbed hold of his hand, then enjoyed the momentary look of surprise on his face when I yanked him forward, got a foot beneath his body, and catapulted him over me into our – my – living room.

  One of these days, I really needed to thank Sally for her insistence on combat training back when we were at Pandora. Oh well, one didn’t need to offer thanks for something the other party didn’t even remember.

  That thought quickly dissolved ... hmm, how could one think when one was already in one’s mind? Never mind that. I rolled to my feet and turned to face my alter-ego, who was already dusting himself off.

  “So that’s the way it’s gonna be?” he asked with a grin, his fangs looking a lot sharper than they ever did in my mouth. “I figured I’d try to be nice, but deep down, I kind of hoped you’d do something like that.”

  “Be careful what you wish for, asshole, because genies are motherfuckers when it comes to granting them.” I launched myself in his direction, clearing the distance between us in one leap.

  I didn’t bother to wait for a rebuttal, throwing out a hard right that connected with his incredibly manly, yet intelligent-looking, jawline. Outside of my head, the blow would have been enough to turn a two-by-four into toothpicks. Here, though, my fist slowed just before impact, feeling like it was moving through molasses. What the hell?

  “Ain’t that just the problem with dreams? All our inadequacies play out in the damnedest of ways.” He followed up with a backhanded bitch-slap that knocked me over our couch and onto the coffee table, smashing it in the process.

  “Oh yeah?” I slurred, wondering if back in the real world my sleeping self was spitting out teeth. “Well, let’s see what inadequacies you have.”

  He appeared right before me in the time it took for me to blink. A clawed hand shot out and grabbed me by the throat in an iron grip, lifting me from the floor. “That one is easy. I don’t have any.”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  “Oh? I’d call pride a major failing,” a voice said from the doorway. Hmm, I’d been wondering how long Christy was going to stand there letting me get my clock cleaned. Maybe she’d been waiting for an invitation to come in.

  “Aw, what’s this?” my alter ego asked as he continued to crush my windpipe. “You brought me a present, and it isn’t even my birthday.”

  Had she been me, a witty retort would have certainly escaped her lips. Instead, she had to do things the boring way – taking swift and decisive action.

  She murmured and, suddenly, my apartment was gone. It wasn’t even a quick fade. One moment, we were in my living room. The next, we were outside in the middle of the day. Judging from the buildings around us, we were in midtown Manhattan ... oh, and Dr. Death and I were standing smack dab in the middle of the street.

  Three things happened nearly simultaneously. I raised my hands to shield my face from the unforgiving rays of the sun, Dr. Death cocked a bemused eyebrow in Christy’s direction, and then a taxi plowed into him from his blindside.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  I flew free from his grip as the car slammed into my evil alternate self, sending him flying. The sound of screeching tires filled the air as I landed on the pavement, ending up on my back, staring into the bright blue sky.

  Once again, I tried to protect myself as I let out a decisively unmanly screech. Well, this was gonna suck big time.

  “Get up,” Christy called. “It’s not real.”

  Or not. Oh yeah, that whole inside my head thing.

  “I knew that,” I offered lamely, rising and dusting myself off. For a moment, the danger of the situation escaped me and I lifted my chin to the sky – enjoying the warmth of the imaginary sun. “Been awhile since I could do this and not burn to a crisp.”

  “Can we focus here?” she admonished.

  Even had she not been there to keep me from lying down and sunbathing right in the middle of 6th Avenue, the squeal of tearing metal would have almost certainly caught my attention.

  Oh crud.

  Dr. Death was busy extracting himself from the side of the bus he’d been pinned against by the runaway cab. I watched in horror as his nails sank knuckle deep into the hood of the vehicle. With a shove, he pushed it away. Hmm, I sure as shit couldn’t do that, at least not without a bite from a vampire of maybe James’s level.

  “Did you really think that would stop me?” he asked with a malevolent grin.

  Before I could voice the opinion that one could hope, Christy stepped up to spare me the embarrassment. “I can do this all day.”

  “Don’t worry, bitch, you won’t live that long.”

  He’d barely finished the sentence when our surroundings changed again.

  Where there had been the familiar scarred façade of Manhattan, now lush greenery stood. We were in the middle of a dense forest, standing in a clearing maybe thirty feet in diameter. At first, I thought Christy had plucked Canada from my memories – not a place I really wanted to relive – but the vegetation looked different, unfamiliar to...

  “What the fuck is this?” Dr. Death asked. “You become a fucking Eagle Scout while I was asleep?”

  Well, I guess it was unfamiliar to both of us. That must have meant...

  “Sorry, I thought we’d try one of my memories,” Christy said calmly, the black slinky dress gone and in its place a loose-fitting white robe. A breeze blew across the clearing, lifting the edges of it and revealing her bare feet and legs.

  Whoa. I really didn’t want to have to explain to Tom if she decided to start dancing naked in the moonlight.

  Dr. Death smiled, his fangs looking even longer in the deepening shadows of the trees around us. “What are you gonna do? Attack me with squirrels?”

  “This is where I spent many a night meditating.”

  “Oh, so you’re gonna bore me to death.” His legs tensed as he prepared to spring at her.

  “And learning to become one with nature.”

  Dr. Death leapt, but he didn’t get far. No sooner had his feet left the ground than roots shot from the dirt and entangled his feet, stopping him mid-flight. Within the space of a second, he had regained his footing, reaching down to tear himself free. What he didn’t notice was the way the surrounding trees all picked that moment to lean inward. Vines flew from their branches and wrapped around his arms, neck, and torso.

  They pulled tight and my alter-ego found himself suspended in midair, his arms and legs splayed wide.

  He struggled, but the vegetation proved stronger than it looked.

  After a moment, I stepped forward. “And that is why you don’t burn down the trees around Isengard, motherfucker!” I turned to Christy. “Oh yeah! Mother Nature ain’t got nothing on you.”

  I held up a hand for a high five. For a moment, she looked at me, one brow raised. Then she shrugged and slapped my palm. Woo!

  Unfortunately, that was the end of her victory celebration. Her face turned serious once more. “Enough of that. We need to move quickly to...”

  “Aw, c’mon,” Dr. Death said, spitting out a wad of vines he’d managed to chew through. “Aren’t you gonna say it?”

  “Say what?” I asked.

  “
That this was almost too easy, of course,” he replied with an eye-roll.

  Oh no.

  “Because believe me, junior, it was.”

  Deal With the Devil

  The vines around him withered and died almost instantly.

  Christy made an upward gesture with her arms, as if willing more vegetation to rise from the ground, but nothing happened because we were no longer standing upon the ground.

  I looked down to find the familiar floor of my apartment. When I looked back up again, the forest was gone and we were back where we’d started. Only this time, Dr. Death wasn’t offering any refreshments.

  Quick as a flash, he crossed the living room and pinned Christy’s arms to her sides. He stood looking down upon her, seeming to be much taller than the five foot ten inches I commanded.

  “Did you really think that would work, whore? We’re in my fucking mind. I am God here!”

  “You did not just quote The Lawnmower Man, did you?” I asked.

  “Huh?”

  “Because that movie sucked ass. Didn’t have shit to do with the book.” I was stalling, trying desperately to think of something to do.

  He was right, though. We were in his mind. He could do anything he wanted.

  Wait a second.

  He wasn’t the sole occupant. It so happened he had a roommate, however reluctant. And if that were the case, it meant...

  I lifted my hand and pointed it at him. “Set phasers to maximum, Mr. Worf.” A bright orange beam of light shot out of the tips of my fingers and struck him dead on. It didn’t disintegrate him as I’d hoped – fucking Federation. I knew I should’ve imagined me some Klingon weapons! It did, however, throw him free of Christy.

  Fuck yeah!

  I was by her side in an instant, steadying her and making sure she was all right.

  “Stand back,” I said. “This cocksucker is about to see what twenty-five years of pop culture is all about.”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Remembering all the lessons from the first Matrix movie, I forced myself to accept the unreality around me. It wasn’t as hard as you’d think, because it allowed me to reach down to my waist and grab the sword that had appeared there.

  “Thundercats, hoooooo!” I shouted as I raised the gleaming blade, hearing the familiar roar ring out – deafeningly loud in the cramped apartment, but oh so cool.

  Dr. Death wasn’t out of it yet, though. He dodged backward, making me miss with my first swing. Damn, how could he ... and that’s when I realized my living room was much larger than normal. He knew how to play this game too. That was fine by me.

  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 irises. 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 y
ou’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.