The Book of Death (30 page)

Clay looked deeply troubled.
This city is fucking insane. ‘If it’s not the Bourbon Kid killing everyone,
it’s fucking vampires. Why would anyone want to live here?’

Harker frowned. ‘Low taxes.
Plenty of jobs. Nice weather, usually
.
’

‘Even so. I’m not sure why I’m
still here.’

‘You’re here because you love
your job and you’re a good guy who takes pride in protecting the citizens of
this city.’

Clay smiled. ‘Are you quoting
the Officers’ Handbook?’

‘I know it off by heart.’

‘That’s not gonna save us
though, is it?’

‘Nope. But I know something that
could. Here take a look at this.’ He pointed at his monitor. Clay walked around
to his side of the desk and peered over his shoulder.

‘What is it?’ he asked.

Harker used his mouse to drag
the CCTV footage on his monitor back to the moment where Somers and the Kid
squared up. The two men watched the monitor in silence as they witnessed the
Kid send Somers to Hell in a ball of flames. When the fight was over, Harker
paused the footage again and looked up at Clay to see his reaction.

‘That’s weird,’ said Clay.

‘Yeah. Freaky, right? The way he
just spontaneously combusts like that.’

Clay looked puzzled. ‘That’s not
what I meant.’

‘Why? What are you looking at?’

‘The Bourbon Kid. That’s not the
same guy that killed Bertram Cromwell.’

Harker looked closer at the man
on screen in the dark robe with the hood pulled up over his head. ‘You sure?
How can you tell?’

‘Get the footage from the museum
up on screen. It’s a different guy.’

Harker sifted through the
database and eventually pulled up the footage of Bertram Cromwell’s murder on to
his screen. He and Clay watched Cromwell being butchered again. The attacker
was a hooded man all right, but the psycho with the machete hacking the
Professor to pieces had a completely different build to the man who had set
fire to Archie Somers. The Professor’s killer was tall and thin, whereas the
Bourbon Kid in the Somers footage was broad of shoulder and not quite as tall.

‘What do you make of that then?’
Clay asked.

Harker mulled over what he’d
seen. These were definitely two different killers. ‘You’re right, he said.
‘We’ve got two Bourbon Kids.’

‘Do you think there were two all
along?’ Clay asked.

‘I don’t know. All I know is
this. One of these guys kills vampires. And he’s fucking good at it. I’m not
sure who the second guy is, the one who killed Cromwell. But the guy who killed
Somers could be a useful ally.’

‘You’re thinking of asking the
Bourbon Kid for help?’

‘Why not? He could be the only
thing standing in the way of the vampires taking over the city. Problem is,
we’ve got to find him.’

Clay didn’t look convinced.
‘He’d kill you before you had the chance to make him an offer.’

‘I’m not so sure. Look at it
like this, Somers was a vampire. The last Police Captain, De La Cruz, was a
vampire and so were his lieutenants. The Bourbon Kid killed them all. I think
he might just be the hero this city needs.’

‘He’s a disease. We need him
like we need a plague of frogs.’

‘Maybe so, but I’m telling you,
the Bourbon Kid could kill every vampire in this city before they even know
they’re dead.’

Clay furrowed his brow. ‘That
doesn’t even make sense.’

‘Maybe not, but it sounded good
in my head.’

‘Look Captain, what you’re
saying is…’

Harker stood up, sharply. ‘Look,
if I can put out an appeal on the local news station, I think I could maybe
bring him on board.’

‘You’re kidding, right?’

Harker grabbed his long brown
raincoat from a clothes hanger by the door and began slipping his arms into the
sleeves.

Clay gestured to him to slow
down. ‘Captain, if you’re thinking of making an appeal to the Bourbon Kid on
the news, you’re gonna make yourself public enemy number one in this city. It’s
a bad political move. He’s killed relatives of everyone in town.’

Harker pulled the collar of the
coat up around his neck. ‘When the people of this city hear that the Bourbon
Kid has actually been protecting them all along, they’ll be right behind me.’

Clay shook his head. ‘It’s not
just the people of this city you’ve got to worry about. It’s the vampires.
They’ll kill you before you finish broadcasting that news piece.’

Harker pulled open the door of
his office. ‘Then I’ll have to hope the Bourbon Kid gets to me first.’
 

As Harker walked out of the
office Clay called after him. ‘In that case, I guess I’ll see you in Hell!’

Thirty-Six

The terrified troop of
Sunflower Girls were racing through the snowy streets of Santa Mondega
screaming for all they were worth. No wonder. Vampire clowns were picking them
off one at a time and dragging them kicking and screaming into darkened side
streets. The girls had set out for the day as a group of thirty but now only
around fifteen remained. After the horror of seeing Santa Claus burned to death
by a fat cop, their day had only got worse. Their troop leader had been one of
the first to be picked off as she fought in vain to protect them.

As the remaining girls
neared the church hoping to find solace there from the undead, one of the
clowns, a particularly vile sort wearing a red and white striped romper suit
and a bright red wig launched himself into the air and swooped down onto the
back of one of the stragglers. The young girl, aged no more than ten, crumpled
to the ground beneath him. Her face was thrust into the snow leaving her
incapable of screaming for help.

The clown sat astride
her as two of his comrades raced past in pursuit of the remaining Sunflower
Girls. Ignoring them, he turned the young girl over to get a good look at her
terrified face. He ran a long bony hand down her cheek, feeling the warmth of
the blood flowing through her.

‘Hello my pretty,’ he
crowed. ‘You have lovely skin.’ He pulled a hairband out from her long blonde
hair and brushed some stray hairs away from her face. ‘This will only hurt for
a minute.’

He opened his mouth
wide, revealing a set of huge vampire fangs. The girl closed her eyes and
screamed.

SMACK!

Dante arrived in the
nick of time. Just as the clown was leaning in to take a bite of the girl’s
neck, he ploughed into the side of him with the speed and power of an express
train. He and the clown rolled through the snow. Dante had the element of
surprise on his side so he was able to gain the upper hand. Behind him he saw
Kacy grab the small blonde girl and pick her up from the ground. Then from out
of nowhere Vanity appeared. He raced past Dante in pursuit of the other clowns
that were chasing the girl scouts up to the front doors of the church.

Dante wriggled on top
of the clown he had knocked down. His enemy’s red wig slipped off, revealing a
short crop of brown hair beneath it. Unfortunately Dante hadn’t thought too far
ahead with his plan to come to the rescue of the Sunflower Girls. He had acted
on a rush of blood as usual. He knew he’d done the right thing; he just wasn’t
entirely sure what to do next. The clown had been taken by surprise and had a
look of fear in his eyes, so Dante raised his right fist above his head and
then ploughed it down into the clown’s face. A loud crack followed and Dante
winced at the sharp pain in his knuckles from the punch.

He heard Kacy’s voice
call out something from up ahead. He looked up and saw her shepherding the girls
in through the front doors of the church. Behind her, Vanity had successfully
knocked two other clowns to the floor and was doing his best to keep them both
down.

The clown who was lying
flat on his back underneath Dante spoke out in an anguished voice. ‘Ow,’ he
groaned. ‘You broke my nose.’

Dante looked back down
at his prisoner and saw that the red plastic nose he had been wearing had
snapped in half, revealing a large warty nose beneath it. There was only one
thing to do in the circumstances and that was to punch the clown in the face
again and break his real nose. But as he was about to throw a second punch, the
clown pulled his right hand out from by his side. He was holding a gun. He
pointed it at Dante’s face.

Dante watched
open-mouthed as the clown squeezed the trigger. It made a gentle clicking sound
and a burst of warm water squirted out into Dante’s his eyes. Typical clown,
carrying a water pistol for comic effect. Not waiting for a second prank, Dante
punched him in the face again, much harder than before. This time there was a
much louder crack as the clown’s real nose broke. Blood sprayed out over his
face and left him looking suitably dazed and possibly concussed too. He was
certainly in no state to fight back. Dante climbed back to his feet and charged
towards Vanity and the two other clowns.

Vanity had bashed one
of them into a state of unconsciousness. The other was clambering to his feet,
looking to fight back. Dante charged over and ploughed into him the same way he
had ploughed into the other clown, knocking him off his feet and back down into
the snow where his head thudded against some ice.

‘Quick,’ yelled Vanity,
grabbing his arm. ‘Let’s get inside. There’s more of them coming!’

As they raced into the
church, Dante glanced back over his shoulder. A gang of vampire clowns had seen
what was going on and were charging towards the church. Some of them were armed
with machetes, others just water pistols. Either way, there was no use in
sticking around to get sliced up by these unfunny fuckers.

Dante and Vanity
slammed shut the large wooden doors of the entrance, just in the nick of time
too. A couple of the quicker clowns crashed head first into the doors as Vanity
slid a large metal bolt across locking them shut from inside.

Dante looked around for
Kacy. She was standing in the middle of the aisle half way down the church. On
a row of pews either side of her, the faces of around fifteen terrified
Sunflower Girls were peering over.

‘How many of them are
out there?’ Kacy asked.

‘About five,’ said
Vanity, brushing past Dante towards Kacy. ‘If they decide they want to get in
here we’re fucked. I’ll check around the back to make sure there’s no other
doors they can get in through.’

Vanity rushed past Kacy
and the girls at lightning speed. When he reached the altar at the other end of
the hall he looked both ways before dashing off out of sight down the West wing
of the church.

Dante could see the
fear in the eyes of the young girls and attempted to reassure them. ‘Don’t
worry about him,’ he said. ‘He won’t hurt you.’

The little blonde girl
who Dante had rescued from the red haired clown spoke up on behalf of the
others, her voice a trembling squeak. ‘Are you vampires too?’ she asked.

Dante looked to Kacy.
‘Can you field that question, while I go help Vanity check for other
entrances?’

‘Sure.’

He hurried down the
aisle, past Kacy and the terrified girls. As he passed them he heard Kacy
attempting to explain. ‘We’re not proper vampires,’ she said. ‘We’re the nice
kind. We protect little girls from the real vampires. The clowns.’

He was admiring her
skill and patience with the kids as he reached the end of the aisle. There was
no sign of Vanity anywhere.

The church was cold and
dark. The only light (or heat for that matter) was provided by a scant few
candles on the walls. As Dante looked around for any sight of Vanity or any
open doors that might look inviting to unwanted intruders, he heard and
almighty crashing sound behind him.

It was the sound of
breaking glass and it set the girls off screaming again. Dante spun around in
time to see five clowns come crashing through the stained glass windows above
the front doors. Shards of shattered glass fell from above and crashed down
onto the stone church floor, shattering into tiny pieces.

Four of the clowns
landed in amongst the pews that were hiding the screaming Sunflower Girls. The
fifth clown landed behind Kacy and grabbed hold of her. He yanked her off her
feet and dragged her back down the aisle with him towards the entrance. The four
others each grabbed a screaming child and dragged them up out of the pews as
the remaining girls ducked down crying and screaming.

Dante’s instinctive
reaction was to charge towards Kacy, but he’d barely taken a step when the
clown who was holding her, a freak with a green wig and an evil smile, pulled a
machete from up his sleeve and pressed it against her throat. He licked the
side of Kacy’s face and spoke into her ear.

‘Why are you helping
these kids?’ he sneered.

‘Because they’re kids,’
Kacy replied nervously.

Dante felt his stomach
tighten. The blade on the machete was pressed tightly against Kacy’s neck. One
bad decision here could see her sliced up. It made him feel powerless. Kacy now
looked every bit as terrified as the children she had been trying so hard to
calm only moments earlier. And where the hell was Vanity?