The Book of Death (31 page)

The clown with the
machete pressed against Kacy’s throat seemed to be the leader. The others,
hovering above the pews, holding captive schoolgirls, were clearly waiting for
him to give them the signal to start the carnage. He sneered at Dante.

‘You’ve broken vampire
code by siding with these kids,’ he yelled. ‘And you shouldn’t have brought
them here to the church. Goddamn church won’t save any of you!’

Dante didn’t know how
to answer. But fortunately he didn’t have to. From the shadows behind him, he
heard a familiar gravelly voice speak out in response. ‘Church won’t save any
of
you
either,’ it said.

The clown frowned and
tried his best to peer into the shadows behind Dante to see the owner of the
voice. ‘Who’s that?’ he shouted.

Dante kept his eyes
glued to the machete pressed against Kacy’s throat. A glowing red dot had
appeared on it a second earlier. It began moving slowly up onto the clown’s
neck and then his face. As it travelled up through his chin and nose, the clown
seemed to spot it too. It was a red laser sighter. The moving red dot
eventually came to a stop between the clown’s eyes, almost turning him
cross-eyed as he followed its journey up his face. And then the carnage started.

BANG!

The clown’s head
exploded. A bullet had burst through his forehead and completely obliterated
his skull. Blood and brains sprayed out everywhere. One side of Kacy’s face was
instantly caked in red goo. She ducked down, probably screaming, although it
was hard to tell because it sounded like everyone in the church was screaming.
Those screams were soon drowned out by four further extremely loud gunshots
that rang out in quick succession. After each one, a different clown’s head
exploded and a Sunflower Girl fell to the floor screaming and covered in his
blood and brains.

Dante looked back over
his shoulder and saw the dark figure of the Bourbon Kid step out from the
shadows behind the altar. His face was concealed beneath a dark hood as was so
often the case when he was killing folks. In his right hand was a pretty heavy
duty handgun. He slipped it into a holster inside his long dark robe.

Dante let out a deep
sigh of relief. ‘You showed up in the nick of time. Thanks, man.’

The Kid walked past him
down the aisle. ‘No problem,’ he muttered under his breath.

Dante followed on
behind him. ‘Gaius isn’t at the Casa de Ville any more,’ he said.

‘Where is he?’

‘He’s on his way to the
museum in the middle of town. We’re gonna have to go there if we wanna get the
Eye back.’

The Kid stopped and
turned around. ‘I gotta go to a couple of other places first. Hang here for a
bit. I’ll meet you at the museum later.’

‘I’m not sure we can
wait. Gaius is supposed to be taking the Eye there to have it cleaned, or somethin’.’

Up ahead, Kacy was
orchestrating some kind of group hug with the girl scouts in an attempt to calm
them down and wipe the blood off them. The Kid took a look at her.

‘Your girlfriend isn’t
ready to leave these kids yet. In about an hour the streets will be clear of
vampires. Then you can leave the kids here and head to the museum. I’ll meet
you there when I’ve done a couple of other stops.’

‘Where else you gotta
go apart from the Casa de Ville?’ Dante asked.

‘First up I gotta clear
the streets for you. Then I gotta stop off at the library and the police
station.’

‘What for?’

‘Gotta find me some
books and kill me some cops.’

Kacy scratched her
head. ‘Why kill the cops?’

‘Tradition.’

Without uttering another
word, the Kid walked down the aisle past Kacy and the mortified Sunflower
Girls. They all backed away from him as he strode through them. The clowns had
been scary enough, but this guy was way more dangerous. He walked up to the
front doors, slid the huge metal bolt to one side and opened the door on the
left. As he stepped through it he turned back to survey the carnage behind him.

‘You might wanna secure
this door behind me,’ he said.

Kacy pulled herself
free of the girls and hurried down the aisle towards him. ‘I’ll do it,’ she
said.

The Kid vanished
through the door and out into the snow covered streets outside. He left the
door open for Kacy to pull shut.

In all the chaos, Dante
had forgotten all about Vanity. His vampire buddy reappeared, strolling back
from the West wing of the church. He waved at Dante as he approached. ‘I bolted
a door to the cellar,’ he called out. ‘The place should be secure now.’ He
walked up to Dante and looked around. The church hall looked extremely
different to when he had last seen it. There were smouldering corpses of clowns
lying around and everyone else was covered in blood. Then of course there was
the small matter of the shattered windows above the doors. ‘What the hell
happened here?’ he asked.

Dante shrugged. ‘Clowns
flew in through the windows, grabbed Kacy and a bunch of the girls. Bourbon Kid
showed up, killed ‘em all and fucked off out into the street.’

Vanity looked
surprised. ‘I was only gone a minute,’ he said. ‘Seriously? The Bourbon Kid was
here?’

‘Yeah. I guess he just
got back from the Devil’s Graveyard.’

‘What was he doing
there?’

‘I don’t know, but
whatever it was, it’s made him back into his old self again.’

Vanity frowned. ‘What
do you mean?’

There was no need to
answer his question. In the streets outside, the sound of gunshots and screams
was clearly audible. At the end of the hall, Kacy was pulling the door closed.
Vanity walked down the aisle towards her, with Dante following on behind. Kacy
had left the door slightly ajar and was peering out into the streets outside.
One of the schoolgirls spoke up.

‘Is that man in the
hood killing all the vampires out there?’ she asked.

Kacy looked back at her
and then up at Dante and Vanity. Her face, although still half covered in
blood, showed great concern. She pulled the door shut behind her and looked
back to the Sunflower Girl who had asked the question.

‘Stay in here, honey,’
she said. ‘It’ll be safer.’

Outside, the gunshots
were becoming more frequent and the anguished howls of the Bourbon Kid’s
victims more vociferous. Voices were pleading to be left alone, then silenced
by more gunshots.

Vanity repeated the
girl’s question. ‘Is he killing all the vampires?’

Kacy was trembling as
she slid the metal bolt back into place on the door. ‘No,’ she said, turning
back to face the others. ‘He’s killing
everyone
.’

Thirty-Seven

Beth had regained consciousness
in the late afternoon. She was in a fairly poky little room with a couple of
heavy set
soldiers who introduced themselves as Tex and Razor.
She recognised them from a brief stop she had made at the Tapioca on Halloween.
Her memory of events leading up to how she ended up in a room with them was
extremely hazy. And her head hurt as if she’d been hit with a baseball bat.

They hadn’t given her much
information about why she was being held prisoner, only that it had something
to do with JD or as they liked to call him, the Bourbon Kid. She was being used
as bait in a plot to kill him. She’d tried explaining to them that she and JD
were no longer together but her words fell on deaf ears. The soldiers weren’t
interested and they weren’t particularly clear about what her fate might be
either.

She sat on a sofa watching the
news on a large widescreen television on the opposite wall. Below the television
was a bank of CCTV monitors. Tex, the taller of the two soldiers, was sitting
at a desk in front of the monitors, watching them intently. His hair was cut
almost to the bone at the back and sides and Beth could see an unpleasant
collection of red spots on the back of his neck. The other guy, Razor (who had
a scar on his face twice the length of Beth’s), was sitting uncomfortably close
to her, watching the news with her.

In the early evening, the news
reader caught everyone’s attention with some breaking news. ‘We now go to Sally
Feldman who is with Captain Dan Harker of the Santa Mondega Police Department
for a live update on the Bourbon Kid case.’

The screen switched to a picture
of Dan Harker sitting at a desk in the news studio with Sally Feldman, a middle
aged blonde reporter in a smart red suit. Just before the interview began, a
door in the corner of the room swung open and in walked Bull, the senior member
of the soldiers.

‘What’s up, fellas?’ he asked.

‘Hold on,’ said Tex, pointing up
at the television on the wall. ‘Got some breaking news about the Bourbon Kid on
here.’

On screen, Dan Harker was
answering Sally Feldman’s first question. ‘New evidence has come to light
regarding the Bourbon Kid case,’ he said, staring out through the screen with a
serious look on his face. ‘I believe I have proof that the Kid did not murder
Bertram Cromwell this morning. In fact, it’s entirely possible that he’s not
guilty of most of the murders he is accused of. I suspect that in recent times
the Bourbon Kid has been protecting this city from a group of corrupt police
officials and a large army of what would appear to be vampires.’

Bull stood watching open
mouthed. ‘What the fuck?’

In front of him by the monitors,
Tex snorted a laugh. ‘Whoa, death wish!’

A smirk broke out on Bull’s
face. ‘This idiot’ll be dragged away by the men in white coats before they even
cut to commercials,’ he said.

On the screen, Harker continued
with his outrageous revelations. ‘That’s right, I said it out loud,’ he went
on. ‘There are vampires in this city. It’s not just a rumour. It’s not a joke.
And with the darkness that has engulfed this city in recent days these
creatures have now taken to the streets. Vampires are committing the riots and
street muggings that are currently being reported all over the city. I advise
everyone to lock yourselves insides your homes until further notice. Something
or someone
is the cause of these dark clouds that are hovering over our
homes. And finally I have one last plea. This is for the Bourbon Kid. If you're
watching this, this city needs you. Please come and find me. I am on your side.
Or if you prefer, just go about your business of killing vampires. I will not
send the police force after you. You have our blessing to kill them all.
Please, wherever you are, come back and save our city.’

The news station cut back to the
reporter in the studio who was staring wide-eyed at the screen with his
eyebrows raised.

‘Well, that was interesting,
wasn’t it?’ he remarked.

Beth had listened in stunned
bewilderment the same as everyone else when she heard what Captain Harker had
to say. So, could it be true that the Bourbon Kid was actually a hero
underneath it all? Probably not, but he was killing the vampires. She had
judged JD rather hastily in the heat of the moment when she had seen him kill
Silvinho. Right now it looked like he was the only chance the city of Santa
Mondega had of surviving the wave of vampire attacks. She also now deeply
regretted the moment when she had thrown Casper’s cloth back at him.

Bull looked over at her, as if
reading her thoughts. ‘Don’t believe all that shit,’ he said. ‘Your boyfriend
has killed hundreds of innocent people, not just vampires. That idiot cop
doesn’t have a fucking clue what he’s talking about.’

‘I believe you’re right,’ she
said, nodding at him. ‘But look at
you
. You’re holding me hostage on
behalf of a gang of vampires who intend to kill me once I’ve served my purpose.
That doesn’t exactly make you a hero either, does it?’

Bull looked somewhat taken aback
at the unexpected outburst. He clearly wasn’t used to being spoken to in such a
disrespectful manner. ‘You listen to me, you stupid bitch,’ he snapped. ‘Me and
my guys have been protecting the likes of you for years. We’ve fought wars to
provide the freedom that you take for granted. Stuck our heads above the ground
when there’s bullets flying everywhere. Carried out missions behind enemy
lines. And for what? A country full of people like you who don’t even bother to
thank us. The only reason you’re alive now is because of people like us. Your
boyfriend killed a war hero this morning. Silvinho died in a corridor in a
shitty apartment block. That’s no way for a soldier to die. Not after
everything he did for his country. So when you judge me, and you judge us,’ he
pointed at Tex and Razor, ‘remember this, it’s your boyfriend killing folks for
fun, not us, and not the vampires. The undead aren’t out there killing innocent
people for fun. They kill to survive. They need the blood to live, in the same
way that you and I need food and water. They’re paying us a good wage to fight
for their survival. And they don’t judge us on how we do it. And if you, young
lady,
you
have to be sacrificed for the greater good, then I can live
with that. With you as bait we can kill the Bourbon Kid and I can assure you,
it will save the lives of thousands of people who would otherwise have been
killed by him.’