The Book of Death (14 page)

She dashed inside her apartment
and raced through the living room and down the hall to her bedroom. The door
was closed but she burst through it and dived down onto the floor by her bed.
She felt around under the bed until she touched upon the wooden bat. She
grabbed it by the narrow end and pulled it out, hauling herself up from the
floor immediately. She raced out to the living room again, unsure quite what
she would do with the bat once she reached the corridor outside. When she got
there she stopped dead in her tracks. The fight was already as good as over.

Silvinho was sat on the floor
with his back leaned up against the wall opposite her, his face a bloodied
mess. JD stood over him, holding a large bone handled knife with razor sharp
edges pointed at his face.

‘Who the fuck sent you?’ he
growled at his fallen enemy. Beth felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand
on end when she heard his voice. It dripped with venom.

‘I’m not telling you anything,’
Silvinho, spluttered, blood dribbling from his mouth.

The scene reminded Beth of the
time she had been prostrate on the floor with her stepmother standing over her
brandishing a knife, with the intent to kill. It sent shivers down her spine.
Then JD did something she would never forget. He leaned forward and thrust the
knife straight into Silvinho’s throat. Right through his Adam’s apple.

Beth immediately threw up. Her
stomach launched itself up towards her lungs as the vomit spewed from her
mouth. She dropped to her knees and sprayed sick all over the floor in front of
her. The image of the blade entering Silvinho’s throat raced through her mind
over and over. How could JD do such a thing? Was this really the same man she
had spent the last eighteen years longing for? A cold-blooded killer?

Hauling herself back up, she
looked over at him. He was still staring down at the dead body of the man he
had just slain, the blade in his hand, both his hands covered in blood.

‘What have you done?’ she
spluttered, tasting the sick in her mouth as she spoke. ‘You’ve killed him!’

JD turned around slowly. There
was blood on his face as well as his hands. He was taking deep breaths too, his
chest heaving. He looked over at her. ‘We’ve gotta get out of here now,’ he
said in his new gravelly voice. ‘I’ll explain on the way.’

Beth shook her head in disbelief
and stared open mouthed at the dead man in the corridor. ‘You stabbed him,’ she
mumbled. ‘You stabbed him in the throat.’ Her voice rose. ‘Why would you do
that? He was incapable of defending himself.’

‘You stabbed your stepmother didn’t
you?’

Beth swallowed hard, once more
tasting vomit. ‘What?’

‘Well you
did
, didn’t
you?’

‘In self defence!’ She suddenly
felt very angry at JD. This was not the man she thought she knew. How could he
do what he had just done? And not seem to care?

‘I did that for you,’ he said.

‘I didn’t ask you to.’

‘He’d have killed us both.’

‘You don’t know that.’

‘I couldn’t take the chance. He
had to die.’

Beth stared again at the corpse
of Silvinho. ‘You did that without even blinking,’ she said.

JD nodded. ‘Yeah. Used to be, I
coulda killed him with one punch. I made real hard work of that. I’m not a
killer any more. This was just self-defence.’

‘Any
more?
You’ve killed
before?’

‘Yeah. It’s a long story.’

‘Who have you killed before?’

JD leaned down and wiped the blood
off the blade onto Silvinho’s shirt. ‘Vampires mostly,’ he said. ‘Some
werewolves too. A few zombies. And a few people who pissed me off. It’s all in
the past now though. I don’t kill any more.’

Beth was astonished at his blasé
attitude to the killing. And his confession of other murders seemed to be
lacking in any remorse. ‘Why were you killing though? Were you a hitman or
something?’

‘No, nothing like that.’

Beth pointed at Silvinho. ‘So
why did he say your face was on the news?’ As soon as she asked the question,
the answer hit her. ‘Oh my God, you’re…’

‘Not any more.’

‘You’re…’ she couldn’t bring
herself to say it out loud.

JD shrugged. ‘Look, don’t
overreact,’ he said. ‘But, yeah, I was…’

Beth shook her head. ‘No.’

‘Yeah.’

‘No. You can’t be.’

‘It’s no big deal. I’m not like
that any more.’

‘You’re the Bourbon Kid. You
killed Bertram Cromwell!’

‘No, I didn’t.’ JD approached
her, still brandishing the now clean knife.

Beth raised her baseball bat in
self-defence. ‘Where were you this morning? When I woke up and you’d gone out?
You said you went out for some fresh air? Where did you go?’

‘I just went for a walk.’

‘Oh my God, you went out to kill
Cromwell didn’t you? That’s why you want us to leave town isn’t it? Your face
is all over the news. You wanted me to leave with you before I found out who
you really were.’

His voice suddenly returned to
its usual calmer manner. ‘Beth, put the bat down. Come on, we’ve gotta go. If
this guy tracked you down, there’ll be more of them. They’ll find you and kill
you.’

She backed away, holding the bat
up to keep him at a distance. ‘You’re not the man I thought you were.’ She
looked back down at the dead body of Silvinho one last time. ‘I don’t think I
want to be around you any more. What happens when we have an argument? Are you
going to stab me in the throat too?’

‘Come on, don’t be stupid. I
would never do anything to hurt you. I’m done with killing. This guy was a one
off.’

She took a deep breath. ‘But
you
attacked him first. He hadn’t done anything to me. He was just asking me where
you were?’

JD seemed to lose his patience.
‘Oh come on,’ he snapped. ‘Don’t be so naïve. Look at him. You can tell he’s
bad news the minute you lay eyes on him.’

Beth shook her head. ‘Look at
yourself,’ she said. His face was covered in spatterings of blood, his hands
and shirt too. And he was holding a knife in an aggressive stance. He looked
every bit like the mass murderer she had heard about on the news.

Outside, the sound of heavy
sleet and snow was suddenly punctuated by the blaring of a police car siren.

JD held out his hand to Beth.
‘Come on. We gotta get outta here. Cops are coming.’

She recoiled in horror. ‘I’m not
fleeing from a murder scene again. And certainly not with you. How could you do
that?’

He stepped towards her, his hand
still outstretched. She backed inside her apartment door. ‘Get away from me.
I’m not going anywhere with you.’

‘Fucking cops are coming. We
gotta go! Come on!’

Beth shook her head one last
time. ‘You’ve ruined everything.’ She reached into the front pocket on her
jeans and pulled out the cloth patch he had given her earlier. She threw it
onto the floor at his feet. ‘You may as well have that back,’ she said. ‘I
wouldn’t want you thinking you had a reason to come back for me. Goodbye,
Jack.’

As he looked down at the cloth
patch at his feet she stepped back inside her apartment and closed the door in
his face.

A second later he banged on the
door and yelled through it. ‘Beth, take some time to think this through! Half
the cops in this city are vampires and those that aren’t are scumbags. You know
that. And you know
me
.’

‘No I don’t!’

She heard him sigh in
frustration, before speaking through the door once more in a calmer voice than
before. ‘Listen, I’m gonna go pack up some stuff and be back in an hour. Just
like we planned. Take the hour to think things through. My face is all over the
news. I have to leave town, with or without you.’

Beth felt tears running down her
cheeks. All those years waiting for him to return had been for nothing.
Eighteen years had been wasted living in the misguided belief that a guy she
had met one night at a Halloween ball was her soul mate. She had been
infatuated with a man she knew nothing about. A man that had turned out to be
the Bourbon Kid, a renowned serial killer and ruthless murderer of innocent
people.

‘Just go, Jack,’ she said,
sobbing. ‘And don’t bother coming back in an hour. I won’t change my mind. I
don’t want to see you ever again.’

Seventeen

An hour had passed since Flake and
Sanchez had toasted Ulrika Price in the locker room below the station. Flake
had taken the mysterious Book with No Name back up to reception to hide it in
her desk drawer. They had agreed not to tell Dan Harker or anyone else about
what had happened. After all, technically they had just murdered Ulrika Price.
There were no witnesses and fortunately there was no corpse either. Even so,
neither Sanchez nor Flake was willing to have it known around town that they
had killed a vampire and particularly one that was quite possibly of fairly
high significance in the undead community.

Sanchez had stayed down in the
locker room and done his best to mop up all the evidence. If his mopping skills
were as good as he believed then none of the other officers would ever find out
what had happened. He was well aware that vampires had infiltrated the police
force in the past so discretion about the murder of Ulrika was vital. Not that
there were many officers still alive by the sound of it. Those that weren’t out
on the streets demonstrating that there was still a police presence in the city
were up on the higher floors probably filling out paperwork. Mind you, Sanchez
had a suspicion that there were free donuts somewhere upstairs and the rest of
the force were joyfully tucking into them.

Just as he had finished mopping
all the blood and shit out of the elevator, Captain Harker reappeared. He came
down to the locker room via the stairs and threw a black bin liner full of
clothes at Sanchez. It hit him in the chest and landed on the floor just
outside the elevator.

‘That’s your uniform, Sanchez,’
said Harker. ‘You’re an awkward size, so until we get a custom made one for
you, that’ll have to do.’

‘Thanks,’ said Sanchez, dreading
what he might find in the bag.

Harker stepped into the
elevator. ‘You’ve done a great job here,’ he said inspecting the walls for any
evidence of the previous night’s bloodshed. When he was satisfied that
everything was spotless he pushed Sanchez back out into the locker room. ‘Stick
your uniform on and then meet me up at reception,’ he said pressing a button on
the elevator keypad. The elevator doors closed behind him and Sanchez was left
alone in the locker room with a black bin liner containing his new law
enforcement outfit.

 
He opened the bin liner expecting
something completely inferior to what all the other officers had. He was right.
It would be inferior to most people, but not to Sanchez. He couldn’t wait to
get it on and see how it looked.

It was a beige coloured highway
patrol officer’s outfit, complete with a matching Stetson hat and a nightstick.
The pants were a bit tight and in danger of ripping up the ass if he bent over
too quickly, but they still looked cool. The shirt was equally tight and showed
off his man boobs a little more than he would have liked, but with the Highway
Patrol badge on the right breast pocket it looked awesome. The hat fitted
snugly on his head, which was pleasing, but the best part of the outfit was
undoubtedly the pair of mirrored sunglasses. Even though he was indoors and it
was overcast and snowing outside, Sanchez was keeping those beauties on at all
times.

After strutting up and down the
locker room for a few minutes quoting lines from Dirty Harry he called the
elevator down and stepped inside. As the elevator headed back up to the ground
floor he checked out his reflection in its mirrored back wall. He looked the
business all right.

When the elevator doors parted
he saw that he wasn’t the only one with a new uniform. Flake had her back to
him and was bending over the reception desk, reaching for something. She was
now dressed in a standard blue cop uniform. Tight fitting it was too, but in a
good way. It certainly fitted better than the outfit Sanchez was wearing. In
fact with her ass up in the air it suddenly became clear to him that she was in
fact in extremely good shape. Great legs, great ass. In fact, tidy all over.

He strutted out of the elevator
towards her tapping his nightstick against his leg as he walked. It alerted
Flake to his presence and she turned around, kicking shut the bottom drawer on
her desk with the heel of the black boot on her right foot.

‘Look at you!’ she said smiling.
‘You look like Poncharello from that TV show. What’s it called?’

‘CHiPs!’

‘That’s it. You’re a dead ringer
for Erik Estrada!’

Sanchez shrugged. ‘I know. And
you look like Heather Locklear when she was in T.J. Hooker.’

Flake’s face lit up. ‘You
think?’

‘Yeah. That waitress outfit you
wear normally wasn’t doing you justice. You look hot!’