The Book of Death (34 page)

‘It’s fucking hard to see
anything in those bushes, man,’ he complained. ‘Shouldn’t we have some lights
on down here?’

‘Quit bitchin’. If anyone sneaks
up on us, the guys watching on the cameras will turn on those big fuckin’
spotlights. But if you go wandering off behind a bush out of sight of the
cameras, I’m not following you in.’

Lionel turned back to face him.
‘What if I need a piss?’

‘Piss through the fuckin’
gates!’ He took another drag on his cigarette. ‘You don’t actually need a piss,
do you?’

‘No. I was just askin’, is all.’

Nate leaned his head back and
blew a lungful of smoke up at the sky again. This time he was able to watch the
smoke escape in a snake like shape upwards. The snowfall was slowing. The wind
had eased ever so slightly, but it still made a gentle whistling noise. The
dark clouds up above were beginning to part and a narrow shaft of light from the
moon began to reveal itself. Nate took one last drag of his cigarette and
tossed it down into the snow. As he heard the cigarette hiss and fizzle out, he
looked up again and was pleased to see that the snow had stopped completely. A
few flakes still floated around in the wind, but there was no more blizzard.
“Finally,
thank God for that,”
he thought.

‘Looks like Gaius is bringing
the moon out for the werewolves,’ he called over to Lionel, his voice suddenly
a lot clearer over the calming winds.

Lionel didn’t respond. He was
stood still, just staring back out through the gates.

Nate called over to him again.
‘I said, it looks like Gaius is bringing the moon out for the werewolves.’

Still no response.

Nate could only see him from a
side angle and couldn’t tell if he had heard him or not. ‘Lionel? Are you
listening—’

Before Nate could finish his
sentence, Lionel’s legs buckled at the knee. He crumpled towards the floor in
slow motion. It reminded Nate of the moment Charlton Heston slumped to his
knees in front of the Statue of Liberty at the end of Planet of the Apes. As he
mulled over the insignificance of it, he received a shock.

Lionel’s head drooped forward.
And kept going. It slid clean off his shoulders and landed with a gentle thud,
face down in the snow. The rest of his body remained kneeling upright. A
fountain of thick red blood began gushing out in all directions as if someone
had turned on a garden sprinkler between his shoulders. The snow behind his
decapitated head was sprayed blood red and a dark patch began spreading quickly
towards Nate. The rest of Lionel’s body slumped forward landing just short of
his head. Nate watched the events unfold in stunned bewilderment before
suddenly coming to his senses and reacting.

‘Oh fuck!’ He grabbed his walkie-talkie
and raised it to his mouth. He pressed the button to speak, but before he could
utter a word he felt a razor sharp blade pressed against his Adam’s apple. He
tried his best not to swallow too hard. The last thing he wanted was to feel
that blade cut into his throat as a result of his own actions. A body pressed
up against his back and he felt the warm breath of a man at his right ear. A
hand appeared out of the darkness and grabbed a hold of the walkie-talkie,
removing it from his grip. Then he heard a voice. A gravelly whisper.

‘How many vampires in the
courtyard?’ it asked.

Nate took a short breath before
sensibly replying. ‘Hundreds.’ The blade pressed harder against his throat.
‘Possibly thousands,’ he added.

‘And werewolves?’

‘The same.’

The blade that had remained
pressed to his throat was loosened and pulled away. Nate breathed a gentle sigh
of relief.

‘So what now?’ he asked.

The knifeman did not respond.

Unsure if his attacker was still
behind him or not, Nate tried to reason with him. ‘I won’t say I saw y…’

A horrific ripping sound
interrupted his speech. He felt an agonising pain in his lower back. The pain
rapidly shot through to his stomach. Gasping for breath, he succeeded only in
chasing after some oxygen like a kid trying to bite an apple in a barrel. His
chin dropped forwards suddenly as he found his neck muscles no longer able to
hold his head up. And as he looked down he saw the blade of a sharp knife
protruding through the front of his stomach.

It was covered in blood.

His blood.

His legs buckled in the same way
as Lionel’s had. As he began to fall face first into the snow a hand grabbed
his head to stop its downward trajectory. Blood was rushing up through his
lungs into his mouth. Thick lumps of it began sliding over his tongue and
seeping out through his lips. He could see it dribbling onto the white snow
below.

Then the blade in his stomach
began to move again. His attacker pulled the knife upwards, through his stomach
and up through his rib cage. The blade sliced his undead vampire heart in two,
splitting his chest open. As he exhaled his last breath he saw his guts fall
out onto the snow.

Forty-One

After a particularly stressful
and tiring day, Elijah Simmonds was at last able to relax. The museum was closed
for the evening so he finally had a chance to wander around the displays and
decide on what changes to make. First up, he decided, there were far too many
boring paintings. Definitely more nudes were required. At present there were
far too many paintings by the expressionists. Simmonds couldn’t stand the
expressionist paintings. The only redeeming feature they had was that they were
worth a lot of money, so there was a possibility that he could sell a few of
them off and bring in a few hundred thousand dollars revenue, maybe more.

In fact, he decided, the entire
hall containing the expressionist paintings could probably be replaced by
something far more entertaining, like a mini theatre with a cinema screen. If
the museum showed films about the expressionists rather than stocking their
dull works it could generate some much needed extra revenue. As he strolled
around the halls he began to feel great excitement at the project that lay
before him. Transforming the museum into something much more modern would see
him hailed as a visionary. Most of the locals didn’t visit the museum any more
because it had become so damned dull under the stewardship of the now deceased
Bertram Cromwell. A redesign could bring them back.

On his way through the main hall
on the ground floor, he came across Cromwell’s favourite display, the Tomb of
the Egyptian Mummy. It was a vast display that took up enormous space behind a
large glass wall. A year earlier this monument had been trashed and the mummy
stolen. Cromwell had spent vast sums of the museum’s resources having it
restored, against Simmonds’s better judgement. But now that he was in charge he
had visions of turning it into a kind of House of Horrors attraction, perhaps
set in a giant plastic pyramid. It could even feature a mini fairground ride
with mummies and other creepy creatures.

It was while he was staring at
the tomb that Simmonds’s night took an unexpected turn. He heard footsteps
coming down the main stairs at the far end of the hall on his right. He looked
around and saw James the security guard. He was being followed by a group of
men. One man in particular stood out above the others. He was a broad fellow
with a shaved head. He wore a smart silver suit and a pair of sunglasses. The
other four men who flanked him, two on either side were dressed all in black
with their faces largely concealed behind black headscarves. They looked like
ninjas.

James waved at Simmonds. ‘Mr
Simmonds, I have a gentleman here to see you.’

Simmonds sighed inwardly. It
seemed that the day was not quite over after all. The group of men made their
way up to him and then James introduced the big fellow in the suit.

‘This is Mr Gaius,’ he said.
Then he turned to Gaius and gestured back at Simmonds. ‘This is Elijah
Simmonds.’

Simmonds held out his hand. ‘Hi,
I’m the manager here,’ he said. It felt so good to say it out loud.

Gaius took his hand and shook it
firmly. ‘I’m the new owner,’ he said.

‘Excuse me?’

‘I’m the new owner of this
museum. So good to meet you, Mr Simmonds. I’m a big fan of your work.’

Simmonds couldn’t hide his
shock. ‘How did this… I mean, umm, will I still be manager?’

Gaius placed his right arm
around Simmonds’s shoulders and steered him away from the rest of the group,
walking him away to a corner where there was a large piano with a mannequin
dressed as Ludwig van Beethoven sat behind it on a stool.

‘Ever seen Beethoven play?’
Gaius asked.

‘Um, no.’

Gaius raised his left hand. A
gentle glow seemed to emanate from his fingertips. He waved his fingers gently
in several directions like a puppeteer. It generated a reaction from the wooden
figure seated at the piano in the purple suit and grey wig. Beethoven was
coming to life. The figure of the composer began moving in an awkward, clunky
manner. His head perked up and his fingers began tapping away on the keys of
the piano.

‘Recognise the tune?’ Gaius
asked.

It did sound vaguely familiar to
Simmonds, but he wasn’t entirely sure where he’d heard it. ‘Is it Thank you for
the Music by Abba?’ he asked.

‘No, it’s concerto number five,
you ignorant prick.’

Gaius squeezed Simmonds’s
shoulder tightly as they watched the pianist perform. About thirty seconds into
the performance Simmonds heard the sound of glass cracking behind him. He
twisted his head around to get a look at where the noise had come from. He saw
the four ninja guys were taking turns kicking the glass cover around the tomb,
using their bare feet. The glass was several inches thick and not the sort that
would normally break easily, but as Simmonds watched on, held back by the firm
grip of Gaius’s hand on his shoulder, the four ninjas kicked at it repeatedly
until after four or five seconds the whole thing came crashing down. James
stood by helplessly, looking to Simmonds for advice on what to do.

‘What the hell?’ Simmonds
blurted out. ‘You can’t just do that.’

Gaius twisted him back around
again to watch the wooden figure of Beethoven performing at the piano. He
leaned in and whispered into Simmonds’s ear. ‘Did Bertram Cromwell die easily?’
he asked.

‘What?’

‘When you killed Bertram
Cromwell, how did it make you feel?’

‘What are you talking about?’

Gaius smiled, not a warm smile
by any means, but a smile nonetheless. ‘I know you killed him,’ he said. ‘But
I’m not mad. As it happens you did me a favour. He would never have allowed me
to come down here and mess with his precious tomb, would he? But you, you Mr
Simmonds, have wisdom beyond your years. You don’t mind if my boys here spend a
bit of time rearranging the tomb do you?’

‘Um, well…’

‘I thought not. We’ve got
business here this evening you see. I’m having a couple of kids mummified and
condemned to hell for all eternity. I think you know them, Dante Vittori and
Kacy Fellangi?’

‘I know them,’ said Simmonds,
recalling the brief time that Dante had worked at the museum. ‘That asshole
Dante smashed a vase over my head once.’

‘Good,’ said Gaius, slapping
Simmonds hard across the back. ‘Then you’re in agreement?’

‘Umm, I guess so.’

Gaius wrapped his arm back
around Simmonds’s shoulder and turned him back towards the middle of the hall.
Then he began walking him back through the hall towards the main stairs.

‘So, did you get what you were
after in the end?’ Gaius asked.

‘What’s that?’

‘The combination to Bertram
Cromwell’s safe, of course. That must have been one of the reasons you killed
him. Keeps a lot of cash in there, doesn’t he?’

‘I wouldn’t know about that.’

‘Elijah, my dear friend, if you
want to stay alive and run this museum for me, you’re going to have to start
being a little more honest with me. Cromwell’s job was never guaranteed to be
yours permanently was it? But if you could get your hands on the cash in the
safe, it wouldn’t matter, would it?’

Simmonds smiled. Gaius had
obviously done his homework. ‘That safe is impossible to break into,’ he said.
‘Cromwell took the security combination to the grave with him.’

Gaius laughed heartily. ‘My dear
Elijah, let me show you what I’m capable of. While my friends are down here
preparing the tomb, why don’t you and I go upstairs and I’ll show you how to
crack open a safe?’

Forty-Two

From the control room up in the
East tower of the Casa De Ville, Bull continued to stare out of the long narrow
window down at the courtyard below. The snow had begun to ease up, but the
moisture on the outside of the window was still slightly obscuring his view.
Even though it was difficult to make much out in the dark due to the added
hindrance of the falling snow, he had to admit he was impressed at how well the
vampires and werewolves had concealed themselves in the bushes and trees. These
creatures were like chameleons once they stood up against anything in the dark.
Occasionally he thought he caught sight of one moving, but as he stared at what
he thought was a member of the undead the movement would instantly cease, as if
they could tell he was watching them. But as Bull knew only too well, the
Bourbon Kid could move in and out of the shadows with great skill too. He could
blend into his surroundings as well as any creature of the night.