The Book of Death (10 page)

‘No, but I’d feel better if I
knocked him out.’

‘But I won’t. I don’t want to
lose you again just because you’ve beaten up this loser and been arrested. Come
on, let’s go.’

JD eyeballed Elijah Simmonds for
a few more seconds before Beth dragged him away. He managed one last comment.
It was almost lost under his breath but it was just loud enough for Simmonds to
pick up on it.

‘This isn’t finished.’

Simmonds’s face broke out into a
huge grin. ‘Yeah, good one,’ he called after them as they left his office
without closing the door behind them. ‘See ya, JD. What’s that stand for
anyway? Juvenile Dick?’

JD didn’t answer. Simmonds got
up and closed the door behind them then sat back at his desk and congratulated
himself on wielding a little more of his newly acquired power. He turned back
to his computer to check on the local news to see if there was any announcement
about his appointment as the Museum’s new manager. The news mentioned the
demise of Bertram Cromwell but had no mention of Simmonds replacing him. As he
scoured through the article he came across some breaking news. It said:

CCTV
footage of the Bourbon Kid found. Click here to see what he looks like.

Simmonds clicked on the link
expecting to see the footage he had provided to Captain Dan Harker. Instead
what he saw was some different footage of the Bourbon Kid walking into the
local police station with two other guys dressed as cops. He recognised one of
the cops as Dante Vittori, a former employee at the museum. But that wasn’t
what really caught his eye. He recognised the face of the Bourbon Kid too. It
was JD, the man who had just left his office with Beth Lansbury.

Twelve

Even though the elevator doors
had closed before Ulrika Price got anywhere near him, Sanchez knew it was only
going to be a brief reprieve. Having pressed the button to take him down to the
basement he was now faced with two options. He could either get out when the
doors opened and make a run for it, or stay in the elevator and press one of
the shit covered buttons to head back up to one of the higher floors. Problem
was, if Ulrika had called the elevator back to the ground floor, the doors
would open when he got there and she’d be upon him. And all he had to defend
himself from any attack was a dirty mop. Time was not on his side, so when the
elevator doors opened he decided to head straight out. He was greeted by the
sight of a disused locker room. The place (much like the elevator) was covered
in blood, mostly on the floor, but there were also specks sprayed across the
walls and doors of the lockers.

As the elevator doors closed
behind him he began retreating down through the rows of lockers, watching the
elevator to see if it went back up. He was backing himself into a corner with
only a damp mop covered in blood, shit and a touch of soapy water as
protection.

After a few seconds he heard the
gears churn and the elevator started moving upwards. He continued edging back
from it, keeping one eye on the door in the wall next to the elevator in case
Ulrika charged through it. He couldn’t see a single decent hiding place either.
His options seemed limited to the lockers or the benches in front of them. And
Sanchez was in no kind of shape to be fitting himself into a locker, or under a
bench for that matter.

Glancing behind him he saw that
he was heading towards a communal shower area. This had potential. Maybe if he
turned on all the showers he could create some steam to hide in? If Ulrika
showed up and followed him in, he could catch her with his mop and make a break
for it. It was lame. Not a plan that even Sanchez was proud of, but what else
did he have? And why was Ulrika taking so long to get down to the basement?
Maybe she was killing Flake?

Damn
, Sanchez had forgotten all
about Flake in his haste to escape from Ulrika. If Flake perished at the hands
of Ulrika, he’d have to find another ride home if he made it out of the station
in one piece. Flake made a pretty damn good breakfast too. Sanchez hated the
thought that he might have to get his early morning fry up from somewhere other
than the Ole Au Lait.

As he pondered every trivial
matter that came to mind, he backed into one of the shower switches. What
followed was a grinding sound from behind. He spun around and saw the wall
behind him sliding to one side. A secret compartment had opened up for him.
What a stroke of luck! A clear sign if one was needed that Sanchez’s infrequent
visits to church had paid off.

The room behind the door was
actually quite a substantial size. And it had a long wooden table in it. No
bloody chairs though. Sanchez was about to congratulate himself on finding the
secret room when he realised he couldn’t see a switch anywhere to close the
wall back up again. No use being in a secret room if everyone can see in. He
looked around frantically for some kind of switch inside the room. There didn’t
seem to be anything remotely resembling a switch. Maybe moving the table would
trigger something off?

He leaned his back against the
table to see if he could shift it. It moved back easily enough. But as it did
the elevator at the other end of the locker room made a pinging noise and its
doors parted slowly. Ulrika Price stormed out. She clocked Sanchez right away.

‘Where’s my book, you thieving
bastard?’ she screamed.

Sanchez pushed back hard against
the table and succeeded in forcing it back against the wall. It achieved
nothing. The secret doorway remained open. He watched in terror as Ulrika
launched herself towards him at great speed. Her feet left the ground and she
flew through the air, her arms outstretched. Sanchez had seen some unpleasant
stuff in his time, but the sight of a crazy librarian bitch flying at him, was
right up there with the worst of them. He grabbed a firm hold of his mop and
lifted his ass up on to the table behind him. Then climbing to his feet, he
stood firm on the table and held the mop out to fend off the onrushing vampire.

Ulrika landed back on her feet
at the entrance to the secret room and sneered at him. ‘That mop won’t save
you!’ she hissed.

‘It’s got shit on the end of
it!’ Sanchez warned. ‘And I’ll shove it in your face! I’m warning you. Stay
back!’

It didn’t deter Ulrika who once
again leapt from the floor and flew up towards Sanchez’s head. Bracing himself
for the impact of her attack, he thrust the mop at her from his position up
high on the table. Being pretty useful with a mop, he successfully caught her
full in the face with the shittiest part of the mop head. It knocked her off balance,
forcing her back. She landed upright on her feet and Sanchez retracted the mop,
ready to go back in with another lunge if needed.

Ulrika’s face was covered in
blood, shit, soap and oddly enough a small piece of sweetcorn. She wiped most
of it away with one swipe of her long bony right hand.

Sanchez warned her again. ‘This
mop has a lifetime supply of filth. Come one step closer and it goes on your
shoes, bitch.’

Ulrika lowered her head and bent
her knees to make herself a smaller target so she could avoid the prods of his
mop as she looked for the best way to attack him. It didn’t take her long to
work it out. She lunged down at the table beneath him and grabbed a hold of one
of the legs on the near side. She yanked it hard. As she pulled at it, Sanchez
swung the mop head at her once more, catching her on the side of the head. But
Ulrika was strong. The strength of her pull on the table moved it swiftly and
violently towards her causing Sanchez to lose his footing. He tumbled forward
off the table. In order to avoid smashing his face on the floor he had to
manoeuvre the mop head so that his face landed on it to cushion the blow. He
heard a horrible squishing noise as the remains of what was left on the mop
splashed over his face. There was no time to lie around whining about it
though. Keeping a tight grip on its handle he clambered to his feet and saw
Ulrika on his right, lunging towards him. He prodded the mop at her feet, just
as he’d threatened to. If he was going down he was taking that bitch’s shoes
with him. The mop connected with her comfy red lesbian shoes and unbalanced her
just enough to buy him the time to turn and run. He knew that Ulrika would most
likely catch up with him before he reached the elevator, but he had to make a
break for it.

He ran down through the rows of
lockers as fast as he could. Unfortunately that wasn’t particularly fast, and
the mop made things particularly awkward. He only made it past three lockers
out of a row of thirty, before he was confronted by Ulrika again. She had
somersaulted over his head and landed in front of him, blocking his only escape
route out of the locker room. Her face looked murderous, and a little shitty.
Her hair was unkempt and her eyes full of spite. This was one riled-up bitch.
Sanchez had no option but to swing his mop again. This time Ulrika was too
quick for him. She grabbed a hold of the mop handle and yanked it out of his
hands. Then she tossed it to the floor and revealed her vampire fangs once
more. She spat out a hiss and then launched herself at him again. Sanchez
cowered down and raised an arm to fend her off, but it was to no avail. Ulrika
pounced on his back and pushed him down to the floor, pinning him there with
her knee pressed into the small of his back. It knocked the wind out of him and
left him powerless to fight back.

He felt her breath on the side
of his face as she leaned down to speak in his ear. ‘I’ve never liked you,
Sanchez. Now tell me what you’ve done with my Book of Death!’

 
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’
he protested.

‘You won’t be able to lie to me
when I rip out your jugular,’ she hissed.

‘Rick from the Ole Au Lait has
it.’

‘Bullshit.’

‘Honest.’

Ulrika grabbed a clump of his
hair and pulled his head up off the floor, almost breaking his neck. ‘I don’t believe
you,’ she said sniffing his neck for a good spot to bite. ‘I can smell a lie
you know.’

‘Are you sure it’s not the shit
from the mop?’

‘You think you’re so funny,
don’t you?’ she hissed. ‘Let’s see how funny you taste, shall we?’

Sanchez closed his eyes and
winced in readiness for whatever pain was about to follow. Ulrika let out
another sickening animalistic hiss right by his ear.

A gentle thud followed.

And then a longer hiss.
A
really loud hiss
. Sanchez suddenly felt like his back was on fire. The
burning feeling lasted little more than two or three seconds as the cowardly
bartender lay eyes closed on the floor waiting for the moment of truth.

There was another gentle thud as
something landed on his back. Then he heard Flake’s voice speak out from behind
him. ‘Are you okay honey?’

‘Huh?’

Sanchez opened his eyes and
peered back. Flake was stood over him. She lifted a thick brown hardback book
off his back and dusted it off.

‘What the hell?’ Sanchez asked
aloud, baffled at the lack of any sign of Ulrika Price. ‘Where’s the psycho
bookworm gone?’

Flake tucked the brown book
under her left arm and held out her right hand to offer him a lift up from the
floor. Sanchez took a hold of her hand and hauled himself up. Flake was
smiling, looking very happy about something.

‘What’s going on?’ Sanchez asked
again.

‘I hit that bitch over the head
with this book,’ said Flake holding out the brown hardback book.

‘So where’d she go?’

‘She burst into flames and then
turned into ash. Look.’ She gestured at a patch of thick black ash, most of
which was settling on the floor, and some of which was no doubt on Sanchez’s
back.

‘What the fuck?’ Sanchez was
still confused.

‘This book kills vampires, I
guess,’ Flake said with a shrug.

‘But how did you know?’

‘I didn’t. My horoscope today
said that I should use a book for something other than reading.’

‘You do everything your
horoscope tells you?’

‘Oh yeah, I live my life by Big
Busty Sally’s horoscope.’

‘God bless Sally. Did she tell
you to come down to the locker room too?’

Flake laughed. ‘No I just
followed Ulrika down here to try and help you. When I got here she was on top
of you. Then I saw this book sticking out of one of the lockers over there and
I thought about what my horoscope had said. So I hit her over the head with it.
As soon as it made contact with her she just spontaneously combusted.’

Sanchez dusted himself off.
‘Wow. You did that because of a horoscope?’ he asked, failing to mask the
surprise in his voice.

‘Well partly,’ said Flake. ‘But you
and me are a team. We’ve got to watch each other’s backs. You led her down here
so that we’d have her cornered, right?’

Sanchez coughed. ‘Well yes.
Obviously. I had to get her away from you, so that you’d be safe. I knew she’d
follow me down here.’

‘You’re so clever Sanchez. I’d
give you a kiss, but it looks like you have poo on your face.’