“Awesome,” I said and then quickly added, “I nominate Sally as my first choice.”
“WHAT?!” she cried.
“You heard me,” I replied with a sly grin. “You got me into this whole mess. If I’m destined to get corn-holed by Sasquatch, you get to be next on deck, partner.”
Ultimately, that was true on many levels. Sally had gotten me into just about every mess I had found myself in these past several months. She was the one responsible for my becoming a vampire. Through her machinations, I became the leader of Village Coven. Finally, she was the primary reason I had wound up in Asia to begin with. All roads led back to Sally. It was about time I got a chance to “repay” her.
“But what about the coven?” she stammered.
“Starlight can watch over things for a few days. It’ll be good practice for her.”
“James...” Sally said, turning to him.
He, however, just chuckled in response. “I’m sorry, my dear. But, alas, it is his choice. He is officially the coven leader. There is certain protocol to be followed here.”
She glared flaming, poison-tipped daggers at me. Oh, well, when one plays with fire, one does tend to occasionally wind up with burnt fingertips.
“Now, if we’re all finished here,” James said, ignoring the swordfight Sally and I were waging with our expressions, “I have a car waiting. I need to get back to Boston and continue working on things from my end. You’ll be contacted with details soon enough.”
“Thanks, James,” I replied, albeit there wasn’t much gratitude in my voice.
“Just one last question,” Sally said. “Why’d you come all the way down here? I mean, if you were giving Bill a death sentence, that would be one thing (thanks, Sally), but you could have said all of this over the phone.”
“True enough,” he countered, and then added, “But then I wouldn’t have been treated to such a wonderful evening of discourse.”
“In other words, you came for the espresso,” I said.
“Of course. One must have one’s priorities straight.”
♦ ♦ ♦
I departed before Sally could corner me. I had no desire to be chewed a new asshole. Also, it let me leave on a smug note. If we had started talking about things, I probably would have let slip that my desire for her to come along was only half motivated by dickish pettiness. The truth was, when push came to shove, she was one hell of a person to have watching your back. Sure, she practically jumped on every chance to piss me off but, over the past year, she had more than made up for it. I didn’t need to be reminded that she had almost gotten killed defending me against the Khan’s assassins. She had even lost a hand in battle with them. Sure, it had grown back, but it was the thought that counted.
If there was the possibility of shit going down during this peace conference – and let’s face facts: I’ve seen enough episodes of Star Trek to know these never went smoothly – then I wanted her there beside me. I had called Sally my partner as a dig to her, but the truth was, I believed it. The only downside was that I was going to have to listen to her bitch about it all ... and she would, probably to the point where I would start looking forward to whatever horrific death was waiting around the corner.
Speaking of bitching, I returned to my apartment to find my roommates engaged in their typical type of conversation.
“There’s no way the Galactica could take out a Star Destroyer, end of conversation,” came Ed’s voice as I walked in the door.
Right on cue, Tom replied with, “Two counterpoints, dude: nukes and FTL drive. They jump in, blast the shit out of the Empire, and jump out before Darth Vader is even aware that he’s now floating in the cold vacuum of space.”
Before I could add my opinion that the Enterprise E’s quantum torpedoes would fuck up anyone’s shit, they both turned toward me.
“Since you’re here,” Ed asked, “is it safe to assume that the words ‘immediate execution’ didn’t come up?”
“Thankfully, no. In fact, it wasn’t so bad. I thought they were sending some vampire goon squad. Instead, I wound up spending the night sipping espressos with James.”
“Ozymandias?” Tom asked, referring to the pseudonym James used back when my coven was still run by Jeff.
“The one and the same.”
“I thought he was missing in Mongolia,” Ed said.
“Not anymore. He’s back and up for a big promotion, too.”
“Awesome,” Tom replied. “It never hurts to have friends in high places.” If anyone understood that concept, it was him. He worked over in Manhattan’s financial district. As he was fond of telling us, it was a game of kissing ass and gaining favor with the higher-ups. He’d once told me, “You just pucker up, apply some super glue, and latch on.”
“I’m assuming he didn’t drive in just to tell you about his new executive parking spot,” Ed said.
“You assume correctly.”
“Spill, dude,” Tom said.
So I did. I spent the next half-hour telling them about how I was supposed to be the vampire nation’s new peace envoy and how my status as the Freewill of vampire legend afforded me this high honor.
“And if you happen to get snuffed in the process,” Ed surmised, “these Draculas can just sit back and say ‘too bad, so sad.’”
“That’s about the size of it.”
“I think that settles things,” he said. “You’ve been putting it off for too long.”
It took me a second, but then I got his drift. “No way. It’s too dangerous. Who the hell knows what’ll happen?”
“What’ll happen is it’ll save your life if those Sasquatches decide to make you their sacrificial lamb.”
“We don’t even know if it’s controllable,” I protested. “It only happened those two times. For all I know it was just a fluke.”
Ed gave me his most condescending look, the one he reserved for when he thought I was acting like a stupid child, but I held my ground. I wasn’t quite ready for what he was suggesting.
See, being a Freewill came with a few other perks above and beyond what a normal vampire could do. For starters, there’s the ability for which it was named: the power to resist the mind control of another vamp. I was glad for that ability. Nothing worse than some asshole giving you a compulsion and having no choice but to follow it through, no matter how demeaning it might be.
Of somewhat more practical use was the ability to somehow leech another vampire’s strength. Most vampires weren’t able to drink another vamp’s blood. Something about it is incompatible with their systems, violently so. In our tussle with the Khan’s assassins, I had seen Sally take a bite out of one of them. The effort had saved me, but reduced her to a retching basket case for the next several hours.
It’s different with me, though. Not only could I drink vampire blood, but doing so temporarily turbo-charged me with their power. I could go from zero to hero with just a swallow. The more powerful the vampire, the more power I absorbed. The only downside to this was that I had to get in close enough for a bite, something that most weren’t exactly keen on letting me do.
Unfortunately, though, that’s almost the extent of my knowledge. I’m the first of my kind in over half a millennium, so the records weren’t exactly up to date as to what else I could do. There’s more, though, and some of it was frightening as all hell. Twice, during my ordeal from a few months back, I lost control. The first time I recovered quickly. The second time, Sally had been near death. The rage I felt had pushed me over the edge. I don’t know what happened next except that something about me changed and I could suddenly take on two vampires whose power both eclipsed mine by many times over. Take your pick of either Bruce Banner or Dr. Jekyll, but either way I had something similar in me. The only question was what?
Since then, I hadn’t been in any utterly enraging situations, nor had I given in to my friends’ insistence that this was something that needed to be tested. I had nothing against a power boost, but not at the risk of waking
up to find myself ankle deep in the blood of my buddies.
“Not worth the risk,” I stated adamantly.
“But...”
“No! Not going to happen. It’s one thing for you two to continually stab, slice, and set me on fire to chart my powers, but this is just too dangerous. We’ve all seen enough movies to know that the ‘we’ll stick you in a cage while you transform’ scene always ends badly.”
Ed considered this. “I get what you’re saying, Bill. But still, this whole scenario has a bad vibe to it. If things turn to shit, you’re going to need every advantage you can get.”
“That’s why I’m bringing Sally. She’ll be there to watch my backside.”
“But who’s going to watch hers?”
“Us,” Tom chimed in. Ed and I stopped speaking and turned to him questioningly. “We’ll be there watching her ass, amongst other things.”
“Hold on just a sec...”
“Didn’t you just tell us that you were allowed to bring a contingent of supporters?” he asked. “Well, who else is going to support your sorry self better than us?”
“No fucking way...”
“My point exactly,” he stated. “No fucking way are we missing a possible vampire/Bigfoot death match. Not happening. Even if you weren’t my bud, I’d still be sneaking along just to see that shit.”
“He does have a point,” Ed said. “A couple of them, actually, which is probably a new record for him.”
“It’s settled, then!” cried Tom jubilantly.
I tried protesting some more, but I could tell my words were falling on deaf ears. Great! Now, not only do I get to die, I get to do it with my friends cheering me on.
Friends Don’t Let Friends Drink and Dissect
The first half of the weekend was surprisingly pleasant. I went over to the coven, as usual. However, Sally was nowhere to be seen. She was apparently still miffed at me. Oh, well, she’d come around. I knew deep down she would eventually see things my way. We were partners, after all ... perhaps for all of eternity. She’d never admit it of course, but when push came to shove, I had (almost) no doubt she’d be there backing me up.
Still, it was nice to spend some time looking at the eye candy of the coven without her harping in my ear about something or other. Being king is only good so long as you don’t have a bitchy prime minister continually spoiling your fun.
Sunday was game day. No, not that game. I had little interest in whoever was going to be kicking the Giants’ asses on that or any other weekend. I meant my weekly Dungeons & Dragons game. I left the coven while it was still dark to head toward scenic Newark, New Jersey. The game didn’t start until late morning, but heading over while the sun was shining wasn’t a particularly smart move for one such as I. Fortunately, I knew my game master, Dave, would already be up and waiting.
Dave was a third-year medical resident. He was also one of the few humans, outside of my roommates, who knew that I was a vampire. His plan was to go into pure research after he finished with his residency. It wasn’t for any altruistic reason, such as helping mankind. No, it was because he pretty much hated everyone he saw on a day to day basis. Probably a good call. It’s safe to say that most of us preferred to put our lives in the hands of people who didn’t openly despise us.
I had told Dave my secret because I needed his help to become a permanent telecommuter. In return, he had been almost giddy as a schoolgirl. He saw me as his ace in the hole. In return for his help, I agreed to give him tissue samples to use in his research. His plan was to eventually come up with some sort of miracle drug, based off of vampire DNA, that would set him up for life.
We had to keep things on the down low, of course. Letting humans in on the secret of our existence was generally frowned upon. It wasn’t too hard to assume that human experimentation on vampires was probably an even more massive no-no – one that, if discovered, would most likely result in me, Dave, and everyone we knew being wiped off the face of the Earth with extreme prejudice.
That concept in and of itself made me nervous enough. That Dave had begun to exhibit signs of turning into a mad scientist likewise started to worry me. I had little doubt he conducted his research while giggling maniacally to himself. Still, he was my friend, no matter how nutty he was becoming.
Little did I know he was preparing to ratchet up the crazy, although I should have suspected. Let’s face facts: when I stepped into a shit-storm, it rained down upon me with all the fury that Mother Nature had at her disposal.
I knocked on his door just as the first rays of sunlight began to peek over the horizon. As expected, he was waiting for me.
“Come on in. I have a few new tests this morning.”
I just stood there looking back at him expectantly. “Hi, Dave.”
“Sorry. Hi, Bill. How are you this fine morning?”
“I’m fine. How are you?”
“Wonderful. Now get the fuck in here before I kill your character.”
Yep, that’s Dave, straight to the point and not afraid to use threats to get there.
During my short tenure as a vampire, I had been poked, prodded, lanced, and burned so many times, I almost didn’t notice it anymore ... almost being the operative word. That’s a bit of bullshit from Hollywood. You see, in most movies, Dracula will stand there, being pelted by bullets and laughing as his cold, dead flesh absorbs the damage.
Unfortunately, while real vampires may technically be just as dead, there’s nothing wrong with our nerve endings. Somehow, those work the exact same way as they always did. While I could definitely absorb a hail of gunfire, that didn’t mean I wouldn’t wind up huddled in a fetal ball, crying. Apparently when we got turned into vampires, our bodies didn’t get the memo to stop transmitting the ouchies to our brains.
Sadly, when asked if this was something he could look into during his research, Dave responded with, “Suck it up like a man.” Some days it was tempting to find new friends who were more human and less asshole.
I followed him in and shut the door behind me. Fortunately, his place was vampire safe during the day. The guy kept his apartment as dark as a cave. It was perfect for both gaming and not bursting aflame. Being that we still had a few hours before the rest of the party arrived, I followed him to the back room where he kept a makeshift lab.
“How’s the research going?”
“Same as usual,” he said with a bitter sigh. “Until I get some corporate backing, I’m stuck using whatever shit I can purloin from hospital storage.”
I laughed. “You’re like Dr. Evil ... if he shopped at Walmart.”
“Tell me about it. I’ve been working on this stuff for the better part of a year. Figured I’d have some breakthroughs by now.”
“Still nothing?”
“Almost. I mean I’ve isolated some bizarre protein strands in your blood, but I’m fucked if I know what they do. Originally I figured it was some sort of virus in your system...”
“Like in Blade?”
“Yeah, but no such luck.”
“Oh well, you tried,” I said, turning back toward his living room. I can’t say I would be too sorry to see this end. I couldn’t help but feel like a lab rat around Dave as of late.
“Not so fast.” Damn! “It doesn’t mean I’m giving up. I think it’s time to refocus my efforts.”
“Define ‘refocus.’”
“I need to take this back to square one, watch what happens during the vampire turning process.”
The Tome of Bill Series: Books 1-4 (Bill The Vampire, Scary Dead Things, The Mourning Woods, Holier Than Thou) Page 61