'Interesting. Do you like it?'
He gave me a sour look. 'Do you like being a zombie?'
'Good point.'
'Took you long enough to get here,' Vampire Matt said. He looked at Darius. 'I was beginning to think you didn't get my message.'
'I got it,' the Sideways Man said, 'and I did as you asked.'
'For all the good it did,' Zombie Devona muttered. 'Our Bennie is still a Hyde, and you three are in just as much trouble as Matt and I are.'
'Speaking of Hydes,' my Devona said, 'I understand why you haven't changed, but from what we've seen, the Hyde plague affects vampires. Why didn't your Matt change?'
Bennie was a woman again, and she answered before Zombie Devona could. 'Because your Bennie isn't the only one who was able to whip up an antidote to the plague. I gave my Matt a dose – one a good deal stronger than what your guns can deliver – so he'd remain unchanged. He and his Devona tried to stop me, and I wanted them both to witness the results of their failure.'
'Stop you from doing what?' I asked. 'I'm not exactly sure what your master plan is.' I wanted to keep Bennie talking as long as I could. I'd been watching him/her closely, observing the gender change and trying to mark the exact moment when he/she was perfectly poised between male and female. I thought I had a good feel for it, but I needed to be absolutely sure.
Bennie Hyde looked at me as if I'd just asked the stupidest question imaginable. 'Why, having fun, of course! I had a client who asked for a very special potion: one that would split him into two separate beings, one male, one female, so that he – or rather they – could…' Bennie trailed off and grinned. 'I'm sure your imaginations can fill in the rest. No one on my staff had the skill necessary to create such an elixir, so I decided to give it a go. Since I already used a variation of my ancestor's original formula to shift gender, I figured all I'd have to do was tinker with the recipe a bit. Initial tests on lab animals were encouraging, and so I decided to try it on myself.' Bennie – male again – smiled. 'What can I say? I was curious to see what it would be like to truly become two genders instead of simply switching back and forth between them. But instead of splitting me into two separate beings, the formula turned me into a Hyde. But not just any Hyde – a super Hyde who could spread the transformation to others. Inside me, the formula mutated into an extremely contagious airborne virus, and all I had to do in order to make more Hydes was keep breathing. And once a new Hyde was created, it could spread the virus as well. By now every living – or semi-living – creature in my Nekropolis has been transformed. Only the dead are immune, but that's no great loss. The dead aren't much fun anyway. Now the city has become a non-stop party, and I get to have the fun of watching my Hydes run rampant, indulging their every dark whim until none of them are left.'
'What then?' my Devona asked. 'You'll be left to rule over a dead city. That doesn't sound like much fun.'
Bennie shifted from male to female, and this time I was sure I saw the point where he/she hovered precisely between genders. I held my gas gun at my side, and while Bennie's gaze was focused on Devona, I flicked the selector switch on my weapon to its third setting.
'When I've squeezed every last drop of fun out of this city, I'll make Darius take me to another Nekropolis, and I'll start all over again there.' Bennie grinned. 'And when that one's used up, I'll move on to the next. How many different dimensions do you think there are that have Nekropolises? Hundreds? Thousands? I'm going to have so much fun playing with them all!'
Time to draw Bennie's attention back to me. 'That's why your Matt had Darius get Devona and me. He knew that we'd go to our Bennie for help. There's no one else who understands more about your ancestor's formula and how to counter it.'
'A smart move,' Bennie Hyde said, 'except it seems that your Bennie isn't quite the chemist I am. The antidote that Bennie gave you doesn't do more than temporarily change my Hydes back to their normal selves, and they're easily re-infected.' She gestured, but I didn't take my eyes off her. I knew that all the Hydes we'd dosed with antidote gas had changed back to their bestial aspects again. But Bennie began to shift genders again, and I raised my weapon.
'My Bennie's a lot sharper than you think. For instance, Bennie made a special antidote just for you. And Bennie told us that shifting genders always places a strain on your system, weakening it, if only for a few seconds. But that should be long enough for this to do its job.'
I aimed the gun at Bennie's neck and squeezed the trigger. My Bennie had only had time to make enough of the special antidote to fill a single dart, and I had to make this shot count. The dart whistled through the air and struck Bennie Hyde at the base of the throat.
Male again, Bennie Hyde roared with anger and tore the dart out of his neck. He threw the dart aside, rose to his feet, and glared at me. 'I'm going to order my Hydes to tear the three of you into bitesized pieces, and then I'm going to have you for an afternoon snack!'
'Why would they listen to you?' I said. 'You're not one of them anymore.'
Bennie Hyde frowned. 'What are you-' He grimaced, convulsed violently, then slumped down onto the bar and lay on his side. A moment later he sat up shakily, face pale, skin slick with sweat, but fully human once more.
'What… happened?' he said, rubbing his temples as if he had a terrible headache.
'I'll tell you in a minute,' I said. 'But first do me a favor: take a deep breath and let it out.'
Bennie frowned at me. 'What are you talking about?' Then she – for the gender switch had occurred again – noted the lounge full of Hydes surrounding us, all of whom began to snarl and step forward. 'Oh, right.'
A couple exhalations was all it took to begin spreading the Hyde antidote – which like the Hyde plague had become an airborne virus inside Bennie's body – and all around us Hydes began returning to normal, and in turn passed the cure on to any Hydes standing near them.
As waves of transformation rippled through the lounge, Vampire Matt grinned at me. It was more than a little disconcerting to see my mouth stretch into a wide smile and display a pair of very sharplooking fangs.
'Not bad,' he said. 'Almost as good as I could've done.'
' I'm not the one who managed to get himself caught and tied up in bondage rope,' I pointed out.
Zombie Devona looked at both of us. 'Play nice, you two.'
The two Hydes who'd been guarding our counterparts had changed back to themselves – a pair of Bennie's Arcane bartenders – and they quickly began untying their former prisoners. A couple moments later, our others selves were free and had come around from behind the bar to join us.
Everyone on the lounge had been returned to normal by that point. Quite a few people had been wounded during their time as Hydes, and those who weren't wounded saw to their care. A number of the cured headed outside to begin spreading the anti-Hyde virus to the rest of the city. I had no idea how long it would take before this Nekropolis was entirely free of the Hyde plague, but given how rapidly the virus had spread, I figured it wouldn't take more than a day or two.
Bennie climbed down from the bar and joined the five of us – Darius, both Devonas, myself and my vampiric doppelganger.
'Thank Mother Kali that Darius was able to reach you!' Bennie said before giving both Devona and me a hug. 'And when you get home, tell my other self that they're every bit the chemist our ancestor was!'
'We'll do that,' I said. 'And speaking of your other self…' I reached into my jacket pocket, took out a flash drive, and handed it to Bennie. 'This contains the formula for the antidote that my Bennie designed to work on you. Just in case you ever need it again.'
'Thank you.' Bennie took the flash drive and tucked it into his pants pocket. 'But after this, I'll never mess with my ancestor's formula again. It's simply too dangerous.'
Vampire Matt and I exchanged looks. That might be how Bennie felt now, but Bennie was nothing if not an unabashed hedonist, and he/she was all too willing to take a chance if it meant experiencing new realms of pleasure. I took another flash drive out of my pocket and handed it to my other self.
'Again,' I said, 'just in case.'
Bennie scowled at me, but – now female – she didn't protest. Vampire Matt nodded and put it in his inner jacket pocket.
'I'd ask you and your Devona to stay and visit,' he said, 'but I'm afraid our Nekropolis won't be in much shape for sightseeing for a while. We're going to have a lot of cleaning up to do.'
