The Eye of the Moon (44 page)

‘I’m serious,’ she said in a much quieter voice, almost hissing. ‘They’re both rapists.’

‘Come on,’ said Gaius, defending his choices. ‘They both have their flaws, I admit, but rape aside, they’re both good candidates, wouldn’t you say?’

‘No, I fucking wouldn’t. I’m agreeing to this arranged-marriage thing simply because my last husband betrayed you. I mean, imprisoning you in a tomb as a mummy for several hundred years was a bit off, I admit. But if you’re not going to take this seriously then I’m gonna have to reconsider my position. If you insist on fixing me up with either of those two serial sex offenders, I can assure you I’ll be a widow by the end of the wedding night.’

Gaius sighed. ‘You’re
so
fussy. But fortunately there is a third candidate, and he’s not a rapist.’

‘That’s a start.’

‘In fact,’ her father went on, ‘you and he share a bond of sorts.’ He paused for dramatic effect. ‘A mutual hatred of the Bourbon Kid.’

Jessica, intrigued in spite of herself, raised an eyebrow. ‘Go on, tell me more. But if you say it’s Sanchez the bartender, I’m walking out right now.’

‘What’s wrong with
him,
then? He likes you, doesn’t he?’

‘You’re kidding, right? It’s not Sanchez? Tell me it’s not Sanchez.’

‘No. It’s not Sanchez, my sweet. It’s someone much better suited to your taste. A well-respected individual. Big muscular fellow, too. Wanna see a picture of him?’

‘Sure.’

Gaius pulled a six-by-four colour photo from the inside pocket of his suit jacket and handed it across the table to Jessica. She snatched it away from him and studied it for a moment. Her face betrayed her thoughts. ‘Yeah, I like the look of
this
guy,’ she said, smiling.

‘Good, because I suspect that he’ll be the one who kills the Bourbon Kid for you tonight,’ Gaius replied.

‘How can you be so sure that the Kid will die tonight?’

‘I’ve taken care of it, my dear. The Kid and his accomplice, Dante Vittori, will die tonight, along with that Hubal monk.’

‘So you keep saying, but how can you know?’

‘Because, my dear, while you’ve been busy sleeping for the last few months, I’ve been travelling. I relocated my old book,
The Book of Death.
Their names are now in it. They die tonight. The only question is
how
they die, and, perhaps,
who
kills them.’

Jessica’s jaw dropped open. She looked as if she were about to hug her father, such was her excitement. ‘Can I kill one of them?’ she asked.

Gaius shook his head slowly and smiled. His daughter was such an evil bitch, and he loved her for it. ‘I’ll tell you what. You can go after the monk. If you kill him before anyone else
gets to him, then you can also get my Eye back from him. Do that, and I’ll let you choose your partner yourself. How about it?’

‘Oh, it’s a deal all right, Father.’

‘Good,’ Gaius slipped a finger behind his sunglasses and tapped his green emerald eye. ‘The sooner I can get rid of this filthy green eye and get my real Eye back, the sooner we shall get rid of daylight for ever. Then the undead will rule the world. And I will be all powerful once again.’

Randy Benson arrived at police headquarters fully expecting to find a trail of dead bodies leading down to the basement. What he found was one dead body. Francis Bloem (with most of his head missing) was the only victim he came across. Never liked him anyway. Not a problem.

The blood trail didn’t end with Bloem, however. Streaks of blood intermittently led the way toward the elevators at the far end. He trod carefully on his way over there, alert to any potential ambush. The middle elevator was waiting for him, doors open. He could see inside that the walls of the car were covered in blood, and something that looked distinctly like shit. And smelled like shit. Because it
was
shit. Fresh, too.

Benson felt no need to enter the smelly elevator.
How can I get down to the Grail?
he pondered.
The Bourbon Kid is no fool. He may well have set a trap for me. But he’s the one with the score to settle. He’ll know I’m here. To follow his trail all the way down to the basement would be naive. All I have to do is wait.

Benson’s highly developed instinct for self-preservation had served him well over the years. All the drug busts and gunfights he had been involved in had seen him come out unscathed, thanks to his habit of always holding back, and usually hiding somewhere. The Bourbon Kid would know that he had come to collect the golden chalice, Benson was becoming ever more certain of it. But the Kid wanted him dead, and probably couldn’t wait to kill him, so if he waited long enough, his enemy would come to him.

He was right, too. After a wait of about ten seconds the
doors to the fouled elevator closed. Moments later, Benson was able to see from the indicator that the car had reached the basement. There was some noise from below, and then the elevator machinery churned into action and the car began its ascent back to the ground-floor level where he was waiting. The fear and expectation rushing through him ensured that his vampire fangs grew to their fullest extent, and his skin began to harden as his veins bulged in anticipation of the coming bloodshed. And so he lay in wait, with an automatic pistol pointed right at the doors, ready and itching for them to open.

The elevator came to a stop and the doors slid apart. There, standing before him, was the hooded figure he had expected to see. As always, the cowl covered much of the face, and the figure stood dead centre in the elevator in front of a rather bloodstained mirrored wall behind. A lot of blood had been shed in that elevator already. It mattered not; Benson was ready. He had knelt down, in case the Kid had been ready to fire at him. This was exactly as he had expected.
God, I’m good,
he told himself. Holding his pistol out at arm’s length he fired twice, and then twice again, in quick succession into the elevator.

Four accurate shots flew straight into the target’s chest, dead centre. Blood sprayed out, some of it far enough to land at Benson’s feet. He watched with horrible glee as his hooded foe fell to the floor in a heap, his back slumping against the mirrored wall behind. It was clear that, beneath the cowl, he was gasping for breath.

In his excitement, Benson now found himself unable to control his own breathing. He felt as though he’d just run half a mile at sprinting speed. His heart was pounding and he was undergoing a surging rush of adrenaline. Had he done what so many others had tried to do and failed? Had he really fatally wounded Santa Mondega’s most wanted?

Exhilarated, the corrupt-cop-cum-vampire-boss stepped tentatively towards the open doors of the elevator. The bloodied body of the hooded man lay motionless on the floor.

Only his chest was moving. It was expanding and contracting erratically because he was still breathing. Choking, even. Benson stepped into the car and looked down at his dying victim, aiming his pistol at the face staring up at him from within the cowl.

‘I really thought you’d be more of a challenge,’ he said. His enemy, this Bourbon Kid of whom he had heard so much, was mortal after all. ‘You know, this was too easy. Your screaming retard brother put up more of a fight than this. You’re not so much Bourbon Kid, as Milkshake Kid.’

For a second, Benson thought about what he had just said.
This really was too easy. Something wasn’t right. No time to figure out what’s wrong though. Just shoot the guy in the face and be done with it.

THUD!

Something landed on Benson’s head. Something heavy. From above.
Something hot.
He heard a hissing sound, and then whatever it was that had landed on his head slipped off and plummeted down past him on to the floor. It was a book.

The
book.

The one with no name.

Someone had just dropped it on him through the open service hatch overhead and the effect of it was causing his hair to melt away. He reached up to pat out the small flames consuming his white hair. Then, as he raised his head to see where the book had come from he received a kick full in the face from a black leather boot. Someone dressed in full police uniform followed through, dropping from the service hatch to the floor of the elevator.

Benson was taken completely by surprise. Who the hell was this guy? Before he had a chance to react, much less to find out, the officer kicked him squarely in the crotch, doubling him up in pain. Next thing he knew, the elevator doors had closed and they were moving downwards once more. And his head was still burning up. It felt as though his scalp had been shoved on to a steaming hot iron from which he could not pull
away. The only consolation was that the flames appeared to have gone out.

The hooded guy on the floor was still breathing, although no longer choking. Of far greater concern to Benson was the aggressive stance of the uniformed officer in front of him in the confined space of the elevator. The officer, a young man in his twenties with thick dark hair, was wearing a standard blue police uniform covered in blood and shit. And he looked like he was about to start a run-up for a field goal. What he was actually doing was preparing his right boot for another swing at Benson’s balls. Before Benson could react, a second more powerful kick followed, and he fell back against the side wall of the elevator. This time he lost his footing, and the only thing that stopped his ass from hitting the floor was
The Book With No Name,
on which his ass landed squarely.

‘FUCK! OW!’

Benson’s ass went up in flames and he jumped back up, patting out the small flames on the seat of his pants. His attacker wasn’t finished yet, though. Not by a long way. He was back in the field-goal stance and before Benson could compose himself he received another hard kick in the crotch. The pain this time was even more agonizing, and he felt as though his balls had relocated to somewhere off the south coast of his stomach. Fatally weakened by the book, ready to vomit at any second and with the wind well and truly knocked out of him, the suffering vampire-cum-detective fell forwards at the feet of his attacker.

‘Fuck! Will you stop doin’ that, fer fuck’s sake!’ he retched, trying desperately to prevent the contents of his stomach from reaching his throat.

Then came the moment he feared most. The elevator came to a halt, and the doors opened to reveal another man outside. He was wearing dark combat trousers and a white singlet, and Benson could see he was one fuckin’ angry-looking dude. He had been waiting patiently in the locker room for the detective’s arrival, and he wasted no time in reaching in and dragging the vampire out by what remained of his once
greasy but now scorched white hair. Like an animal carcass in a slaughterhouse, Benson’s body was thrown across the floor of the locker room, sliding over its smooth grey vinyl tiles. The scene was not dissimilar to the recent occasion when the cop and his grinning chums had thrown a terrified young man named Casper around on the same tiles as they prepared to slaughter him. He skidded face first in to the wall five feet away.

CRACK! The impact of Benson with the concrete wall made a sickening sound. He felt a tremor within his gums and then watched in horror as two of his front teeth and a spattering of blood flew out and over his head.
Ouch.
This was painful. Not like having a dentist inflict pain on you. Not unless your dentist refused you anaesthetic, set fire to your hair and ass, then kicked you in the crotch a few times before pulling your teeth out.

Benson mustered enough strength to roll himself over and managed to look up at his attacker. The muscled man in the singlet who had dragged him from the elevator and slung him so forcefully across the floor was the one he feared the most. He looked down at Benson with utter contempt and spoke slowly and purposefully to him.

‘When we were kids,’ he began, ‘people used to say me and my brother looked enough alike that you wouldn’t know we had different fathers. ‘Course, once you spoke to either of us it was obvious who was who. My brother was what you might call simple. A trusting, innocent fool who’d do anything for anyone if he thought it would make them like him. A lot of people took advantage of that, and as a kid I spent a lot of time looking after him every time some scumbag upset him.’