The Book of Death (48 page)

Williams had had just about as
much as he could take. He wanted out of Santa Mondega as soon as possible. His
main priority was simply to resolve this case as discreetly as possible and
employ a new police force. These two idiots were the last remaining links to
the old regime. He forced a broad smile at them.

‘Okay, we’re done,’ he said,
breezily. ‘You two are dismissed. Your services on the police force are no
longer required.’

Flake looked surprised. ‘But I
haven’t got another job to go to.’

‘That’s not my problem. You were
only here temporarily anyway. I’ve shipped in thirty new experienced officers
from out of town. They’ll be taking over from here. Hand your badges in at
reception on your way out. The city would like to thank you and blah blah
blah.’

‘But that’s not fair!’ Flake
complained. ‘I need this job. The Ole Au Lait is closing down. This is all I
have.’

Williams shrugged. ‘That’s too
bad. Life’s not fair, honey.’ He picked up the report and waved it at her.
‘Anyway, I think you missed your true calling. Judging by the report you’ve
written, I’d say you could get yourself a job writing horoscopes. It’s an easy
job. You just make shit up and expect people to believe it.’

Flake faked a smile. ‘Thanks for
nothing.’ She stood up to leave, but took one parting shot at Williams. ‘You
shouldn’t joke about horoscopes, you know. I already read mine this morning. It
said I should have sex with my boss. But as you’ve just fired me, I guess that
won’t be happening now. Looks like you missed out.’

‘I’ll get over it.’

Sanchez perked up in his seat.
‘I could use a new catering manager at the Tapioca.’

Flake looked down at him.
‘Really?’

‘Yeah. With the Ole Au Lait closing
down, there’s a gap in the market for a new breakfast place.’

Her face lit up. ‘I’d love to do
that!’

‘Good. The job’s yours then.
It’ll be nice having you around in the mornings anyway.’

Williams looked bewildered.
‘Excuse me, but would you two mind getting the fuck out of my office. I just
fired you both, remember?’

Sanchez stood up. ‘Can we keep
the uniforms?’

‘Sure. Now get the fuck out.’

Flake slammed the door shut
behind them. Williams breathed a sigh of relief. Spending his morning with a pair
of tiresome morons had been exasperating. He closed the cardboard folder
containing the report and opened the top drawer on his desk. He slipped the
report into it and pulled out his copy of the local newspaper
,
The Santa
Mondega Universal Times. He flicked through the first few pages, checking out
the reports about the aftermath of the latest massacre. When he reached the
page with the horoscopes on it, he smiled to himself. He wasn’t normally one
for reading horoscopes, but having just spoken about them with Flake he decided
to break with routine and read one for a change. The astrologer writing the
horoscopes was named “Big Busty Sally”.
“This’ll be funny,”
he thought
to himself.

He scoured the page for the
Pisces report. It read:

Uranus
will give you the strength to make an important decision. If you want to
further your career, take a chance and have sex with your boss. It could be the
start of something special.

Williams’s jaw dropped. Flake
hadn’t been kidding when she’d said her horoscope had told her to have sex with
her boss. For a few moments he visualised himself fucking her over the desk in
his office. She was pretty fit and probably a fun shag too. After a few seconds
of thinking about it, he shook his head and laughed to himself. Flake seemed
pretty stupid, but even she wouldn’t be dumb enough to follow a horoscope
that
literally.

Sixty-Two

Rae’s Diner was a hive of activity
for the first time in a long while, and all of the customers seemed to be in a sociable
mood for a change. Everyone was wishing each other a good day, whereas in the
past, no one ever spoke to anyone they didn’t recognise. Times had changed in
Santa Mondega. The sun was shining outside and the days of the undead lurking
in dark corners were a distant memory.

Kacy picked one of her French
fries from her plate and nibbled on the end of it. Dante was sitting opposite
her in their booth by the window, wearing one of his indiscreet red Hawaiian
shirts. He was shovelling fries into his mouth three and four at a time with
one hand. His other hand was sometimes forcing in an occasional bite from his
cheeseburger. When it came to eating fast food, Dante had it down to a fine
art. As well as shoving in the burger and fries he was drinking a large coke
through a straw.

‘You enjoying that?’ Kacy asked.

Dante made an approving noise and
nodded. He hadn’t noticed that she was barely touching her food. Even though
the burger and fries was far more nutritious than her previous diet of blood,
Kacy’s appetite hadn’t really returned since she’d become human again. She was
still worrying about things that Dante had long since stopped caring about.
Things like what to do with the Eye of the Moon. She finished eating the French
fry and began twiddling with the blue stone that hung around her neck on a
silver chain. It was visible for everyone to see, resting nicely above her
ample cleavage on her low cut white T-shirt.

‘I don’t think I want this any
more,’ she said.

Dante shrugged. ‘Shove it over
here then. I’ll eat it.’

‘Not the food. The Eye of the
Moon.’

Dante stopped cramming food into
his mouth and looked up at her, his face showing an unusual degree of concern.
‘What?’ he said, revealing a half chewed burger in his mouth.

‘I think we should get rid of it.’

‘But it’s worth a fortune.’

‘I know, but it’s bad luck. Look
at how many people have died because of this thing.’

Dante wiped his hands together and
picked up a napkin from the table next to his plate of food. He used it to wipe
some grease from his fingertips. ‘That stone can stop you from ever getting
sick. No one can hurt you when you’re wearing it. Why get rid of it?’ he said.
He took another suck of coke through his straw before continuing. ‘Neither of
us’ll have to worry about getting seriously ill ever again.’

‘Maybe not,’ Kacy reasoned. ‘But
we’ll always have to watch our backs, because people will kill for this thing.
The Mystic Lady told us that, remember?’

Dante looked deep in thought for a
moment. ‘Is that the old woman whose head fell off?’

‘It didn’t fall off. Someone
beheaded her.’

‘Same difference. She was as mad
as old cheese.’

‘Even so, she was right. A lot of
people have been killed because of this stone.’

Dante picked up a French fry, but
for once didn’t stick it straight into his mouth. ‘Well I thought the Bourbon
Kid would have come looking for it by now.’

‘It’s been over a week. I think he
was coming back for it, he’d have done so already.’

‘I guess so. So what do you wanna
do with it then?’

Kacy looked out of the window at
the street outside. The diner they were eating in was situated on the promenade
in the harbour. She nodded at the sea. ‘Thought maybe we could throw it off the
end of the pier,’ she said timidly, hoping that Dante wouldn’t react angrily to
the suggestion.

He sat blinking at her for a few
moments, as if he was checking to see if she was serious. Eventually he wiped
some ketchup from the corner of his mouth. He looked at the red sauce on his
fingertip and licked it up. ‘If we throw it away and you get sick one day, are we
gonna have to come back here and look for it at the bottom of the sea?’

Kacy shook her head. ‘No. The
healing powers of this thing mess with the forces of nature. I want us to grow
old together and take whatever life throws at us.’

Dante smiled. It was his boyish
smile. The one he used whenever he wanted to get her to do something she might
not be keen on. ‘Grow old together, huh?’ he said.

‘Yeah.’

Dante called over to the waitress.
‘Check please!’ He turned back to Kacy. ‘Let’s take that stone and throw it the
fuck away then. I don’t want anything as much as I want to grow old with you.
Let’s get the fuck outta here and go throw it off the end of the pier.’

‘You sure?’

‘Fuck yeah.’

After paying for their food, they
left the diner and strolled along the promenade towards the pier. The sun was
back out in the sky and all traces of the snow had long since vanished. Dante
kept his arm around Kacy’s shoulder the whole time, occasionally squeezing her
in tight for no particular reason. It was great to be back together as humans
again, and not to be in any danger for a change. There were lots of other
love-struck couples and families strolling along the promenade too and everyone
looked happy and carefree.

‘You know,’ said Kacy tentatively.
‘We never got around to arranging a date for the wedding, did we?’

Dante stopped walking. ‘What
wedding?’ he asked.

‘You proposed to me right before
we got into all this shit, remember?’

Dante scratched his head. He
looked puzzled. ‘Really?’

‘Yeah. When we went to the fortune
teller at the fairground.’

‘Huh? Where’s your engagement ring
then?’

‘I haven’t got one.’

Dante stuck his hand into one of
the front pockets on his jeans and pulled something out. He held it up in front
of her. ‘Are you sure?’ he said.

Kacy’s eyes lit up. He was holding
a small ring in between his index finger and thumb. It was a slim gold band
with a small pink heart-shaped diamond in its centre.

‘Oh my God,’ Kacy spluttered,
struggling to find words to describe how she was feeling.

He reached out and grabbed her
left hand. He pulled it towards him and slipped the ring on her finger. ‘I’d
get down on one knee,’ he said, ‘but I’ll be honest with you, I really can’t be
fuckin’ bothered.’

Kacy barely heard him. She stared
at the ring on her finger. It was beautiful, exactly the kind she would have
chosen herself. And it fitted too. Feeling herself welling up with joy she
threw both arms around him and planted a huge kiss on his lips. He in turn
slipped both his hands onto her ass and squeezed hard. After a few seconds she
pulled herself away and stared at the ring again.

‘How did you know I’d like it?’
she said, failing to mask the surprise in her voice.

Dante shrugged. ‘It’s pink, gold
and expensive. Even I could figure that out.’

‘I love it,’ she said, still
unable to take her eyes off it.

‘Nothing’s too good for my woman.’

They carried on walking along the
promenade until they reached the old wooden pier that led out into the sea. As
they walked across the rickety wooden panels on the pier, Kacy stopped staring
at her engagement ring and looked up. Standing at the end of the pier, looking
out at the horizon was a solitary figure she recognised. It was Beth. She was
wearing a pair of torn black jeans and a blue hooded cardigan, her hands tucked
into its pockets.

‘I wonder what she’s doing here?’
said Dante.

‘I expect it’s a nice place to
come when you want to get away from everything and collect your thoughts,’ Kacy
suggested.

‘Probably a good place to get
mugged, too.’

Kacy elbowed him in the ribs to
remind him to keep his voice down. ‘Don’t be like that,’ she said.

Beth may have heard them because
she turned around as they approached. Kacy could see that she had been crying.
As they walked up to her she wiped her eyes on her sleeve.

‘Hi, Beth,’ said Kacy with a
sympathetic smile.

Beth smiled back. ‘Hi, what you
guys doing here?’

Kacy held up her hand to show off
her new engagement ring. ‘Dante just gave me this!’

Beth’s eyes lit up. ‘Wow, that’s
beautiful,’ she said as she moved in for a closer look.

‘Thanks.’

As the two of them marvelled at
the ring, Dante butted in. ‘Beth, we’ve still got the Eye of the Moon. But we
got no need for it any more. Do you want it?’

Beth stopped staring at Kacy’s new
ring and shook her head. ‘That thing brings nothing but trouble,’ she said.

Kacy unclasped the silver chain
around her neck and held it out to Beth, the Eye of the Moon rested firmly in
the palm of her hand. ‘We were thinking of throwing it off the end of the
pier.’

‘Do you mind if I do it?’ Beth
asked.

‘It’s all yours.’

Beth took the blue stone from
Kacy. ‘Do you still want the chain?’ she asked.

‘Nah, it’s okay,’ said Kacy. ‘It’s
worthless. Throw the whole thing in the sea if you want.’

‘You sure?’

‘Yeah. Go nuts. Chuck it as far as
you can.’

Beth took a long look at the chain
in her hand. The Eye of the Moon was a beautiful stone, but it had been the
cause of many, many deaths in Santa Mondega. To keep possession of it was
dangerous. She looked back up at Kacy, her eyes close to tears again. ‘You
know, the last time I threw a necklace off the end of this pier, JD came back
to me.’