The Book of Death (40 page)

‘That was a mistake!’ Jessica
hissed at the Kid.

The Kid stood up and spoke
calmly. ‘Let her go. This is between you and me. Leave her out of it.’

‘Drop that fucking crossbow
you’ve got up your sleeve!’ Jessica demanded.

‘Fine.’

The Kid lowered his arms. From
the right sleeve of his coat he dropped a miniature silver crossbow to the
floor. It clattered against the hard marble and bounced away from him.

‘Got any other weapons?’ Jessica
asked. ‘Because now’s the time to drop them.’

The Kid opened his coat.
Underneath it he wore a simple black T-shirt and black combat trousers. ‘I have
nothing else. Now let her go.’

‘Take off your coat and get on
your knees,’ said Jessica.

‘You’ll let Beth go?’

‘Get on your knees.’

The Kid took off his coat and
tossed it onto the floor. But instead of dropping to his knees he made a swift
movement with his right arm. He reached back and whipped out a gun that had
been strapped across his back. He pointed it at Jessica’s head, its red laser
sighter aimed at the centre of her face. Jessica was lightning quick though. As
the Kid was about to squeeze the trigger she yanked Beth’s head into the line
of fire. For several seconds the Kid continued to re-aim the gun at Jessica.
Each time he did she moved a part of Beth into the line of the red sighter.

Behind her, Beth heard Razor
groaning. It distracted the Kid momentarily too. He took his eye off Jessica,
pointed his gun at Razor and fired off a shot.

BANG!

Although Beth didn’t see what happened,
she heard the unpleasant sound of blood splattering against the marble floor.
And then the red laser was aimed back at Jessica again and the ritualistic
dance began once more. The Kid tried in vain to line up a clean shot at the
Vampire Queen who was revelling in the challenge.

After numerous failed attempts
to line up a clear shot, he gave up trying. It was obvious that she was too
quick. Firing a shot would be far too risky. He stopped re-aiming the gun and
lowered it to his side.

‘You’ve got no intention of
letting her go, have you?’ he said.

Jessica smiled. ‘I want you to
watch this,’ she said. ‘I’m going to make your darling Beth into a vampire.
She’s going to be my new bitch. And you can be her first victim, unless you
choose to kill her of course. You know, like you did with your mother?’

‘And like I did with Archie
Somers. Shoulda heard him scream. What a bitch.’

Beth felt Jessica’s grip on her
throat tighten. The claws on the end of her fingers were on the verge of
drawing blood. ‘I’m going to enjoy this,’ she hissed.

The Kid seemed unfazed. ‘I knew
it would come to this. Quit stalling and do it now. What are you waiting for?’

‘Very well. As you wish!’

Jessica opened her mouth wide,
revealing a set of huge vampire fangs, thirsty for blood. Beth looked over at
JD, her eyes pleading with him to save her. And that was when it finally hit
her. This was not JD who had come to her rescue. This was the Bourbon Kid, the
man who cared for no one.

As that thought raced
through Beth’s head, Jessica’s fangs ripped through the skin on the lower part
of her neck, plunging deep into her flesh.

Fifty-One

Flake looked into the eyes of
the Bourbon Kid and watched him raise his gun again and aim it at the centre of
her face. ‘Close your eyes,’ he growled.

‘Why?’

‘Because this is gonna sting.’

She did as instructed and closed
her eyes. Maybe he was kidding around?

BANG!

Maybe not
.

He’d fired the gun all right,
just as she had expected he would. But she was still alive. At least, it felt
like she was still alive. Somewhere behind her, near the elevators at the back
of the reception area she heard a body slump to the ground. The Kid had killed
someone, but she had no idea who. Maybe the next bullet would be for her? She
winced, readying herself for what was to follow.

And she waited.

Was the Kid deriving some sick
pleasure from prolonging the agonising wait? After what felt like an eternity
but was most likely about five seconds, she heard another sound. A rattling
noise. It was a familiar sound to Flake. She recognised it immediately. The
rattling lasted three or four seconds then stopped. It was followed by a
hissing sound, coupled with something splashing on to her eyelids and across
the bridge of her nose. What sick twisted shit was this guy pulling? Much of
the upper half of her face from the tip of her nose, up to just above her eyes
felt the impact of the spray. This renowned psychopath, the Bourbon Kid was
spraying her face with the can of black spray paint she had left on her desk.

When the spraying came to an end
and she heard him place the can back down on the desk, she squeaked out a
question from the corner of her mouth. ‘What are you doing?’ she asked.

‘I’m making you look like a
vampire,’ came the reply.

She opened her eyes and blinked
a few times.

‘Keep your eyes shut,’ said the
Kid.

She snapped them shut again,
closing them tightly. The paint had a strong vapour that had stung her eyes
when she opened them.

‘Is this some kind of sick
game?’ she asked.

‘You wanted to help your friend
Sanchez, right?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, if you wanna get into the
Casa de Ville, you’re gonna need to look like a vampire. There’s a clan called
the Pandas. They paint part of their faces black. You can pass off as one of
them.’

Keeping her eyes closed, Flake
grimaced. ‘Surely there’s a better way of doing this than using spray paint?’
she reasoned.

‘It’s short notice,’ said the
Kid. ‘It was either this or I punch you in both eyes.’

‘This is good.’

Flake heard the Kid shuffling
around for a while before she suddenly felt him grab her left arm. He began
rolling up the sleeve on her shirt. Feeling relatively confident that he no
longer planned to kill her, she pulled her arm away. ‘What are you doing?’ she
asked.

‘I’m going to inject you with a
serum. It lowers your blood temperature so you can walk undetected amongst the
undead. You’ll have a free run of the Casa de Ville.’

Flake wasn’t a fan of
injections. ‘Oh,’ she sighed. ‘Is it absolutely necessary? My doctor always
struggles to find a vein when giving me injections and my arms bruise easily.’

‘Open your eyes.’

She opened her eyes slowly,
blinking a few times to make sure it didn’t sting too much. The Kid’s face was
in front of hers. He was holding a long syringe in his right hand and he had a
serious look on his face.

‘This is necessary,’ he said.
‘Otherwise the vampires will spot you for a phoney straight away. And they’ll
eat you alive.’

Flake pulled a face like a sulky
teenager. ‘Seriously, my arms bruise easily. There’s got to be another way to
do this?’ she groaned.

‘There is,’ said the Kid. ‘Pull
your pants down, bend over the desk and I’ll stick it in your ass.’

Flake could see from the
expression on his face that he wasn’t kidding. She rolled the sleeve up a
little further on her left arm. ‘Just below the elbow is probably good,’ she
said.

As the Kid squeezed her arm,
looking for the best spot to inject her with the serum, Flake readied herself
for the inevitable pain and bruising that would follow once he stuck the needle
in. Glancing over her shoulder so that she didn’t have to see the needle as it
penetrated her skin, she saw the dead body of William Clay. He was
spread-eagled on the floor by the elevator behind her, lying in a pool of his
own blood. The blood was seeping out from a gaping head wound. Clay had
obviously walked in at the wrong time. He had been the poor sucker on the
receiving end of the gunshot she had heard while her eyes were closed. In the
grand scheme of things, she now considered two black eyes and a bruised arm
from the Bourbon Kid wasn’t so bad after all. In fact some might say she’d
gotten off lightly.

Fifty-Two

The drive to the Casa de Ville
wasn’t exactly a fun road trip. Flake sat in the passenger seat, thankful that
she was still alive. The Bourbon Kid was in the driver seat of the black Ford
Mustang, which Flake figured was most likely stolen. He kept his dark hood
pulled up over his head, concealing his face all through the journey as he
explained in curt detail exactly why they were going there and what he expected
from her when they arrived. She nodded in agreement mostly, and added the
occasional
“Okay”.
The rest of the journey was filled with uncomfortable
silences during which she regularly checked out her reflection in the mirror on
the back of the sun visor on the passenger side. She sure did look weird with
the black paint across her face.

Eventually the Kid pulled over
at the side of the road not too far from the entrance to the huge Casa de
Ville. He turned off the engine and turned to Flake. ‘You okay?’ he asked.

‘I think so.’

Before she could add anything
else her cell phone rang.

‘Turn that off.’ the Kid
ordered.

Flake fumbled around in her
trouser pocket for the phone. She pulled it out and took a quick look at the
screen. ‘It’s Sanchez calling,’ she said.

‘I don’t care. Turn it off.’

‘But he might…’

‘Turn it off.’

The phone stopped ringing and
the call went to voicemail. Without waiting to listen to the message she turned
the phone off and slipped it back into her pocket.

‘Right,’ said the Kid, tapping
the steering wheel. ‘The key’s in the ignition. Once you see the gates open,
wait for the zombies to swarm in, then drive through the gates and up to the
front entrance.’

‘Where exactly
are
all
these zombies?’

‘They’ll show themselves the
minute the gates open. They’re waiting in the woods on the other side of the
road. When you get to the front of the building, get out of the car and make
sure you’ve got that book in your hands. That’s all you’ve got to fight the vampires
off with.’

‘And how do I get into the
building once I’m there?’

‘Ring the doorbell.’

‘What about you? Where will you
be?’

‘I’ll be where I need to be.’

‘What if you get killed? How
will I know what to do?’

The Kid let out a deep sigh.
‘Me, get killed? Really?
Worry about yourself. When you drive up to the
entrance, don’t stop for anything. If a vampire or a zombie or anything else
gets in your way, mow that fucker down!’

‘I can do that,’ said Flake with
a degree more confidence. Her driving skills were decent and she wasn’t afraid
to put her foot down on the accelerator when necessary.

The Kid opened his car door and
stepped out. ‘Good luck,’ he said. ‘I’ll see you on the other side.’

‘Good luck to you too!’ Flake
called out. He had already slammed the door shut by the time she’d finished
speaking so chances were he hadn’t heard her.

He vanished off into the shadows
and Flake manoeuvred herself over to the driver’s side of the car. The Book
With No Name had been resting by her feet on the passenger side. She leaned
over and picked it up. She laid it down on the seat beside her she considered
her predicament. She was about to drive into a war between several thousand
vampires, werewolves and zombies, and God knows what else, and she was doing it
with nothing more than a book, some face paint and a Ford Mustang.
“I must
be insane,”
she thought to herself.
“But Sanchez is inside there
somewhere.”

Just as the Kid had predicted,
the large iron gates at the front of the estate began to open. A series of lights
then came on within the grounds of the Casa de Ville. The whole place lit up
brightly. And within a second of the lights coming on, she saw the arrival of
the zombies. On the opposite side of the road, which was made up of thick
woodland, they suddenly began swarming out from the trees.

In their thousands.

She checked that all the doors
were locked on the car and watched in disbelief as hordes of the grotesque
creatures lurched past her and through the gates up ahead. Their arrival in the
courtyard caused havoc, just as the Kid had predicted. Screams and howls began
ringing out from within the walls of the estate as the battle commenced.

When eventually most of the
zombies had made their way through the gates, she started up the engine on the
car.

‘Here goes nothin’,’ she
whispered.

She slammed her foot down on the
accelerator and stormed towards the front gates, knocking aside some of the
zombie stragglers on the way. One or two bounced up onto the bonnet of the car
and flew over the top. By the time she’d steered through the gates and started
haring up the driveway, Flake was having the time of her life. Mowing down
pedestrians for fun was the kind of thing most people only ever got to do in
video games. This was the same thing, but with real life victims, only this was
perfectly legal and morally right too.