The Eye of the Moon (33 page)

Cromwell smiled at her again and then nudged the brown-paper parcel over the desk to her. ‘It’s eighteen years today, isn’t it?’ he said quietly.

Beth stared down at the floor. ‘Yes.’ Her voice was a whisper.

‘Halloween, eighteen years ago. That must have been a terrible night.’

‘Yes. Yes, it was.’

‘So, I’ve bought you this gift,’ said Cromwell, nodding at the package. ‘Open it, please.’

Beth reached tentatively for the package as if expecting him to snatch it away. When it was in her hands she set about unwrapping it. It had been sealed at each end with thick industrial tape. Not exactly girly wrapping, but who was she to complain.

After peeling the tape from the parcel she tore it open and saw within it a soft but very warm-looking blue hooded sweatshirt with a zip-up front. She lifted it out of the packaging and held it up. As she did so something else fell out and clattered on to the desk.

‘Oh, I’m so sorry,’ Beth gasped, fearing she had scratched the wood on the desk.

‘Don’t worry,’ said the Professor, amused, but anxious to reassure her. She really was extraordinarily self-effacing, he thought.

Beth smiled shyly and held up the blue hooded sweatshirt. ‘Thank you so much for this,’ she said. She sounded genuinely pleased.

On the desk in front of her, where it had fallen from the package, lay a silver chain with a large crucifix hanging from it. The crucifix was also silver, but a small blue stone had been set in the centre of it.

‘Is this for me too?’ she asked.

‘Yes. I want you to wear the sweatshirt and the necklace when you go to the pier tonight.’

‘What?’ Beth’s confusion was all too obvious, and she
blushed furiously.

‘You go to the pier every Halloween night, don’t you?’

‘Yes, but how did you …’

‘Let’s just say that I like to know a little bit about the people I employ. You know, the personal details. As I understand it, you go to the pier every Halloween night and freeze half to death, and I can’t have that. I would hate to think of you coming down with a cold, spoiling your three days off. And the crucifix? Well, that’s just in case any evil spirits come your way. It may help to ward them off. The blue stone in the centre is in fact a tiny vial. It contains holy water from the Sistine Chapel in Rome.’

Beth was overcome with gratitude. ‘Thank you so much, Professor Cromwell. I don’t know what to say. These are lovely.’

‘You don’t have to say anything, Beth. I am very glad that you’re pleased. But I am curious about one thing. Why the pier every Halloween? It’s very dangerous down there. Is it because that’s where you were arrested that night eighteen years ago?’

‘Kind of,’ said Beth, fastening the chain around her neck and adjusting the crucifix so that it hung centrally. ‘I was supposed to meet a boy there at one o’clock on the night – well, morning, I guess – I was arrested. I think I missed him because I was late getting there, but a fortune teller who lived by the pier said he would come back. So I wait there from midnight till one every year. I know it sounds silly, but ever since I left prison it’s kind of become a tradition.’

‘A fortune teller, you say? Was that the Mystic Lady?’

‘Yes, Annabel de Frugyn. She was murdered last year.’

‘I remember reading about it. You know, that woman was undoubtedly a little eccentric. She predicted all kinds of strange things. She claimed that puppets could see, and that there would be an earthquake in Santa Mondega on the fourth of March about three years ago. Caused quite a panic at the time, and she was totally wrong, of course. Strange woman. Bit of a con artist, too. Always looking through the obituaries and stuff.’

‘I know, Professor Cromwell, but I just like to pretend to believe it all. You probably think I’m being silly, and I know everyone calls me “Mental Beth”, but I just have to live with those things. Spending an hour at the pier every Halloween is better than Christmas for me. That may sound mad, but it’s true. In spite of all the horrible things that happened on that night eighteen years ago, it was still the best night of my life, and if people think that makes me “mental” then so be it.’

Cromwell got up from his chair. ‘I admire your spirit, my dear,’ he said generously. ‘Take the rest of the day off. Wrap up warm in that sweatshirt, and keep the crucifix on, where it can be seen, and I’ll say a prayer that your young man comes back for you tonight.’

‘Thank you,’ said Beth, standing up and picking up the blue sweatshirt. ‘Thank you for everything, and see you in three days.’

‘I hope so.’

After his brief flirtation with danger brought on by the reappearance of the Bourbon Kid, Sanchez had rushed back to the Tapioca in double-quick time. He burst in through the front door like a man possessed, sweating and panting for breath. The barroom wasn’t exactly how he liked to see it, either. To his dismay there was a clan of six werewolves and a hooker sitting at one of the tables right in the centre of the room. The werewolves were a scruffy bunch, like most of their kind. All unkempt, unshaven and a good deal hairier than the average customer. And the average customer in the Tapioca was usually pretty hairy, but these guys stood out to Sanchez. Apart from the hooker, they were the only drinkers in the bar, most likely because any others would have cleared out at the sight of them.

Sanchez recognized the leader of the clan first – it was MC Pedro, the useless rap-star wolf. A Grade-A idiot (like most werewolves, if truth be told) who was blissfully unaware of just how shit his rapping and lyrical flow was. On this occasion he had come dressed appropriately for a wannabe rapper, wearing an oversized yellow LA Lakers basketball shirt bearing the number 42. The hooker was sitting on his knee, which was not an attractive sight. She looked distinctly rough in a scarlet-coloured dress that left little to the imagination, and her jet-black hair was a mess, suggesting she’d already carried out a few of her services in the men’s room out back. Sanchez was livid at the sight of this loser, his hooker and his loser friends sitting in the bar area.

‘Hey, I thought I told you guys never to come in here!’
he yelled at them, in a manner far braver than even he had expected.

‘Hey, man,’ said Pedro, standing up from the table and causing the hooker to fall off his knee and on to the floor. He approached Sanchez with an arrogant strut that looked particularly stupid because his basketball shirt was hanging down past the knees of his black combat trousers and wasn’t quite wide enough to accommodate the long steps he was trying to take. When he was little more than two feet away, in an attempt to impress his comrades and intimidate Sanchez, he burst into one of his infamous raps.
‘Wassup you bitchass muthafucka? The moon ain’t bustin’ out just yet, so there ain’t no need for you to fret. Let me break it down for ya, we’re legit for one more sip, ’cos for you my homeboy we’re too legit. One more sip is all it takes, and then my brother we’ll all do the shake!
’

Sanchez didn’t like rap at the best of times, but when it was done as poorly as this and made absolutely no sense, it turned his stomach. Had this MC Pedro guy heard any rap music by anyone other than MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice? Probably not.

When, a moment later, the idiot werewolf rapper patted him on the shoulder in a slightly intimidating manner, Sanchez could actually feel himself getting angry. He didn’t have the time or the patience for this shit. Normally, Pedro’s threatening manner would have made the cowardly bartender feel more than a little uncomfortable, but on this occasion it didn’t have the desired effect. Sanchez had bigger things on his plate right now. The Bourbon Kid was heading their way, and all of these pansy-assed werewolves were likely to perish if Santa Mondega’s most feared decided to look in for a quick snort.

‘I gotta go upstairs a minute,’ said Sanchez, pushing past Pedro and heading behind the bar towards the stai rs to the apartment above. ‘I want you lowlifes gone by the time I get back.’

‘Sure.’ Pedro smiled.
‘You’ll just hear one more sound.
An’ it’ll be me orderin’ one last round.
’

Sanchez was appalled, not just by the rapping but by the news that the werewolves planned to order another round of drinks. Unfortunately, he didn’t have time to argue. He needed to get to Jessica before the Kid showed up.

Working behind his bar on this most unpleasant of early evenings was a fairly new employee named Sally. She was an attractive would-be Baywatch babe, only with just a little bit more meat on her bones than a lifeguard should really have. She usually wore low-cut tops to show off her generous cleavage, and today was no exception – a skimpy, tight red top with a plunging neckline was twinned with a tiny pair of black leather hotpants. This outfit was similar to the one that she had worn to her job interview with Sanchez, and which had been the main reason he had employed her. She had no previous experience as a bartender, and she was fairly dumb, but she had it where it counted when it came to the customers, who liked her. A lot. Behind the bar, Sanchez made a quick stop by Sally and quickly whispered some instructions into her right ear as he stared down her cleavage. The instructions were only too familiar to Sally already, although she didn’t relish carrying them out. After making sure she understood exactly what he wanted her to do, he bounded on up the stairs to the room where Jessica was staying.

MC Pedro strutted up to the bar and leaned over the wooden counter to get as far into Sally’s personal space as he could. And to sneak a look at her tits, or as much of them as was on show.

‘Seven whiskeys. Now,’ he growled.

‘Sure thing.’ Sally offered a half-hearted smile. There were two things she didn’t like about her job at the Tapioca. The first was having to serve dangerous bastards like MC Pedro. The second was always having to serve them piss instead of what they actually ordered, because Sanchez insisted on it. So it was with a great deal of reluctance and after an almighty deep breath that she picked up the special bottle from under the bar and poured out seven glasses of the stuff.

There was a stained copper tray on the bar, and she set the glasses down on it one by one, shaking very slightly as she did so, fearing what might follow once the werewolves tasted their drinks.

‘That’ll be twenty-eight dollars, please,’ she smiled nervously at Pedro.

‘Yo bitch. This place is a fuckin’ rip-off! Change the price or I bite your lip off!’
Pedro rapped, even louder and more angrily than usual. Though there was no sign of the full moon due that night his rage was starting a semi-transformation into his werewolf persona. This wasn’t something that would normally have been possible, but Pedro had tasted blood from the Grail. Since then he could turn at will, or just instinctively. Luckily, this was not a full turning. He merely sprouted a little more hair around the face, and a minor ripple ran through his arms as his biceps enlarged a little. His new strength was hard to control when he felt even the slightest rage inside.

‘You know what?’ said Sally nervously. ‘Have these on the house. Just don’t tell Sanchez, okay?’

The beast within Pedro calmed a little and his appearance returned to its more normal state. At that moment another man walked in through the front entrance and joined him at the bar. Pedro recognized him immediately.

‘Hey man, how ya doin’?’ he asked.

‘I’m good,’ was the newcomer’s abrupt response. He was wearing a long dark robe with a large hood hanging down around his shoulders.

‘Yo, barmaid,’ Pedro snapped. ‘Get my buddy here a whiskey too. Stick it on my slate.’

‘Sure.’ Sally picked up the piss bottle once more, but the Tapioca’s new customer quickly stopped her.

‘I’ll have a shot from that bottle over there,’ he said, gesturing to a bottle of bourbon that was gathering dust at the back of the bar. ‘On the rocks.’

‘Yo, wassup? You don’ like the whiskey in here, homeboy?’ Pedro asked his suspiciously.

‘That’s stuff’s piss.’

‘
It may taste like it’s full of piss, but it don’t mean … you can’t touch this!
’ Pedro rapped.

‘It’s piss.’

From the back of the bar where she was pouring bourbon over a couple of ice cubes, Sally was picking up on a distinct touch of gravel in the newcomer’s voice. She hadn’t seen this guy in the Tapioca before, and she already had a feeling she wouldn’t want to see him again.