He was dead. He was dead but he was still alive.
And it was all because of that contract. His contract.
Our contract, The Other purred in his mind. Vlad shivered in the chill, huddling his jacket closer as he pressed into the corner of the empty hotel room he'd snuck into. Outside, lightning cracked through the sky, and rain thundered down from the heavens.
But it was the contract that had started it all. He'd been lying in the hospital morgue, about to undergo (vivisection) autopsy, when he'd cracked. When he'd agreed.
When he'd sold his soul to the devil.
For a long time afterward, it was difficult; sometimes he was speaking, others it was The Other. To everyone else, it often seemed like he was talking to himself, holding conversations that more and more became one-sided as two became one. Vlad had no idea where Masters ended and The Other (I have a name, The other softly chided him, our name, now; why don't you say it, use it) began.
He'd been taken in by the men in white suits that called themselves the Guys in White (an off-branch of the Men in Black, it seemed, as they dealt with supernatural forces of this earth instead of forces extraterrestrial in nature), had been experimented upon relentlessly in the search for answers.
And then he'd escaped. Had picked up a typewriter and started experimenting himself, learning more and more about the true nature of ghosts (and what better method than by self-experimentation?). The information, the insight, he could provide the spectral sciences with was too invaluable to let go to waste. So he'd experimented, had started publishing little things, like the exact nature of how ectobiology worked.
But he was still on the run, moving from place to place, hiding and stealing and hiding again. And for what reason? Because he didn't want to die? Because he was too young, had too much to live for, to move on into the next life?
No, Vlad had been a desperate creature when he'd agreed. And now he regretted the decision. Picking up the copper piping he'd stolen, Vlad stood, walking through the wall and out into the storm. Freezing rain pelted his everything, stinging his skin where it hit and soaking through his clothes (also stolen, as he'd only been wearing medical scrubs and a straightjacket when he'd escaped). Sneakers plodded along the muddy ground, and Vlad was hard-pressed to see more than a few feet in front of him as he squinted through the mid-afternoon sky. High above him, lightning snapped and cracked through the sky, briefly lighting the dark clouds bright like a false sun.
The piping rested on his across his shoulder, passing from the back of his neck to the front with an ease that the unobservant would call magic, but the skilled would know the truth; that his neck became intangible as the piping rolled through it. The freezing cold had quickly sapped away whatever heat there might have been in the copper, and Vlad's fingers started going numb. He stopped walking, closed his eyes, and started breathing.
In. Out. In. Out.
Just breathe. Don't think.
In. Out.
Vlad pulled on the powers of The Other, careful not to disturb its' slumber (I never sleep, human, have you learned nothing of me and mine) as Vlad began to levitate, feeling his blue eyes vanish in a sea of red. The dark gray of the sky became as bright as a sunny day, and the rest of the world looked ethereal, otherworldly.
Lightning arced through the sky, crackling and sizzling the air it passed through. The stink of ozone hung heavy in the air the higher Vlad got. The air crackled with electricity, carried on the wind and felt in the rain, as Vlad held out the copper piping. A lightning rod with which to harbor the device of his own death.
He'd lived past his time, he'd decided. He was supposed to die in that accident, he realized. But he didn't. He'd died, but hadn't. Had been trapped in a dead body, was still trapped in a dead body.
Not anymore.
There was a sizzling boom, and Vlad was screaming (crying laughing) and was faintly aware of the sheer lack of control there was. This was nature, was pure, was raw, something which was now and forevermore uncontrollable. And it had gripped Vlad, not letting go.
Vlad was only faintly aware of the raucous laughter of The Other, of the sudden searing heat of the copper pipe and oh how it burned and made his entire form both spasm in shock and squirm in unimaginable pleasure.
And all too soon (not soon enough, not nearly), it was over. The copper pipe burned red-hot, steam filling the air as the freezing rain touched it, and Vlad tried to let go, only to find that he couldn't move. He was frozen in place, his mouth thrown open in a soundless scream (or was it laughter?) as the rain came down all around him, soaking his entire self to the soul.
And he was still alive. A strangled sob, disturbingly close to laughter, tore from his mouth, even as he burned.
He was still alive.
He was still alive.
Why hadn't he died?
All he wanted, all he'd ever wanted, was death.