The Book of Death

by AnonYMous

  Investigating the most recent Bourbon Kid massacre and totaling up the number of victims was going to be one hell of a job. The only good news was that according to a number of eyewitnesses the Bourbon Kid had been gunned down and beheaded in a hotel corridor just after midnight, so by rights the killing should have come to an end.

  Before heading to the station to introduce himself as the new Captain, Harker first had to stop off at the local museum. The mayor had informed him that the security department at the museum had some CCTV footage of the Kid murdering their manager, Professor Bertram Cromwell.

  When Harker arrived at the museum, Elijah Simmonds, the deputy manager, greeted him in the reception area. Harker had only met Simmonds on one previous occasion. It had been at a charity event held by Bertram Cromwell over a year earlier. Simmonds had struck him as being a bit of a dick. He’d worn a cheap ill-fitting suit and he had a horrendous ponytail that really didn’t suit his narrow face.

  Simmonds welcomed him with a warm handshake and a cursory smile, so it wasn’t as if the guy was totally devoid of qualities. Unfortunately though, he still had the ponytail and the poor taste in suits. His face wasn’t quite as narrow as before. In fact he appeared to be in the process of growing a second chin.

  As the two of them walked along a narrow corridor on the way to the security office, Simmonds surprised the new Police Captain with an observation Harker wouldn’t have made himself.

  ‘You and I have a lot in common,’ he said.

  ‘How so?’

  ‘Well, we obviously both like to dress well,’ Simmonds smiled and hesitated a moment waiting for Harker to make an agreeing sound of some kind. He didn’t. Harker’s black three-piece suit was impeccable and fitted snugly, unlike Simmonds’s ill-fitting grey number. ‘And then of course there’s the obvious,’ Simmonds continued.

  ‘What’s that then?’

  They arrived at a door in the left wall of the corridor and Simmonds turned the handle of it, pushing it open before continuing. ‘Both of us have just landed ourselves a promotion, courtesy of the Bourbon Kid’s killing spree yesterday.’

  Harker threw a look of disapproval at Simmonds. The comment was in rather poor taste under the circumstances. Simmonds recognised the look.

  ‘Obviously it’s not how I would have wanted to get my new job. I would much rather Bertram Cromwell was still alive, of course, as I’m sure you wouldn’t have wished death on the previous Police Captain.’

  Simmonds stepped inside the security office and held the door open for Harker to follow him through.

  ‘The last Captain was a Grade A prick and I’m glad he’s dead,’ said Harker, stepping into the room.

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Can you just show me the CCTV tapes please? Then I’ll be on my way. I’ve got a hell of a busy day ahead.’

  ‘Of course.’

  Inside the security office, sitting in a rather knackered looking blue chair was a guard in a grey uniform. He was watching a bank of television monitors on the wall in front of him. He was a big, broad shouldered fellow with blond wavy hair and striking blue eyes. Simmonds strolled over to him and placed a hand on his shoulder.

  ‘James, did you manage to make a copy of the murder footage for the police?’

  The security guard sat upright. ‘Sure did, sir.’ He picked up a CD in a plastic case that was on the desk in front of him. ‘It’s all on there.’

  Simmonds took the CD and held it out for Harker.

  ‘Thanks,’ said Harker, snatching the CD away from him. He peered over the security guard’s shoulder at the bank of monitors he was watching. They showed live footage of the goings on all around the museum.

  ‘Say, James,’ Harker said. ‘Could you get the footage of the murder up on screen for me now? Be useful if I could take a quick look at it before I leave, just in case I spot anything I’d like to ask you guys about. I wouldn’t wanna be two miles away watching it and wishing I could ask you what I’m looking at.’

  ‘Sure thing sir,’ said James. He pressed a few keys on a keyboard on the desk in front of him and then pointed up at a monitor on the right. ‘Should be coming up on this screen here.’

  Harker leaned over James’s shoulder to get a closer look at the footage on the black and white monitor. The image wasn’t especially clear. He was able to make out the figure of Bertram Cromwell sitting in a comfy chair in the museum’s staff room. The professor was watching the news on a television. After about ten seconds, Harker saw a tall figure in a hooded robe enter the room. Cromwell stood up from his chair and a brief exchange of dialogue followed, none of which was available due to the lack of audio provided by the CCTV camera. The dark hooded figure of the Bourbon Kid then pulled a machete out from within his robe. Harker winced as he watched the Kid hack Cromwell to pieces. It was as violent a death as the new Police Captain had ever witnessed, and he had seen a fair bit of violence in his time. It seemed like an extremely unjust way for such a decent man to die. At the end of the slaying, the Kid walked calmly out of the room. James the security guard pressed a button on his keyboard and the image froze on screen showing Cromwell’s dead body lying in a pool of his own blood on the floor.

  ‘It gets worse every time I see it,’ said Simmonds, visibly shuddering.

  ‘Yeah, I’m sure,’ said Harker. Something had caught his eye at the bottom of the screen. He stared closely at it for a moment, recalling something the Mayor had said when they had spoken earlier. ‘Is that clock right?’ he asked, pointing at the time display in the bottom corner of the screen.

  James the security guard nodded. ‘Yep. Two thirty-seven. That’s about right I think. I saw the Professor about twenty minutes before that. I recommended that he go home but he was totally glued to the news, watching all the updates about the murders and stuff.’

  ‘Interesting,’ said Harker, scratching his chin. ‘The Bourbon Kid was reported dead not long after midnight. We got a whole bunch of eyewitnesses to back that up too.’

  Simmonds looked surprised. ‘Really?’

  ‘Yeah. He was gunned down and beheaded by a bunch of military guys in an apartment block. I was under the assumption that Cromwell was one of his last victims before they caught him. This kind of complicates things.’

  ‘So the Bourbon Kid is still alive?’

  Harker nodded. ‘So it would seem. I’ll take this CD and be on my way. If the Bourbon Kid is still at large I’d better make sure the press are aware. The public have a right to know that the streets are still unsafe.’

  ‘You might want to tell those military guys that they beheaded the wrong person too.’

  Harker smiled. ‘I’m hoping they’ll see it on the news before they leave town, if they’re even still around.’

  Six

  Snow was falling from the skies over Santa Mondega for the first time that Dante could remember. He marvelled at it as Vanity drove him and Kacy to the Casa de Ville.

  “Cool car, ain’t it, babe?” Dante heard Vanity say to Kacy. “Ford Ranger. Brand new, too.”

  “Pity it’s blue,” Kacy said in a bored tone as she looked out of the window.

  From his seat in the back Dante smirked. Kacy wasn’t the sort to be impressed by a car that wasn’t stolen. As it happened, he was pleased they were in the Ranger. The roads were more dangerous than usual. Dark clouds were forming over the city too. Big ones.

  What looked like a huge medieval castle rose up in the distance.

  “What the hell is that?” Kacy asked.

  “That’s the Casa de Ville,” Vanity replied.

  “It’s a bit fucking big, isn’t it?’ said Dante.

  “It’s gonna need to be,’ said Vanity. ‘There’s gonna be a helluva lot of vampires in there in a minute.’

  Dante shook his head. The sight of Case de Ville getting larger and larger as they drew closer rendered him speechless for once.

  Vanity parked the Ranger in a large car park around the back of the main building. Dante and Kacy followed him
back around to the front of the building where a vampire wearing some curious black eye makeup let them in through the front door and directed them to the main hall.

  The main hall was magnificent in size. Its ceiling stood fifty metres high and had a balcony running around the walls halfway down. At the far end of the hall stood a large set of very wide marble stairs that led up to the landing and the balcony. It really did feel like a castle. The only major difference Dante had spotted were the obvious CCTV cameras recording every move. The fucking things were everywhere you looked. The hall was already buzzing with noise. Literally hundreds of vampires were standing around chatting amongst themselves.

  ‘Wow, something big is definitely going down,’ said Vanity. ‘Let’s hang at the back. After that whole thing with Déjà Vu being the Bourbon Kid I think a low profile is the way to go.’

  ‘I’m down with that,’ said Dante.

  The crowd of vampires in the hall resembled the audience at a rock concert. There were all kinds of strangely dressed freaks from every vampire clan in the city, all congregated in this one huge room staring up at the marble staircase at the end of the hall. Dante recognised some of the clans, such as the Clowns, of which there were quite a few. There weren’t too many of the Filthy Pigs and Rastafarians from the Dreads clan around this time; of course, there weren’t many of the Shades around either. Apart from Dante, Kacy and Vanity, only Cleavage and Moose had survived the recent massacre. The two female members of the Shades were present in the hall, but they had naively ventured to the front of the crowd to get a good look at what was going on.

  The majority of the audience now seemed to be made up of what Vanity informed them was the Panda clan, a group of vampires like the one who had let them into the building. They all had black face paint across their eyes giving them a look much like a bunch of human pandas, albeit carnivorous fanged bloodsucking pandas. One of the other dominant clans was the Black Plague, a group that usually stayed on the outskirts of the city. They all wore ninja style black outfits complete with black masks that revealed just their eyes and a small amount of dark skin around them. No doubt lethal predators at night, Dante thought.

  After a twenty-minute wait, the huge imposing figure of Rameses Gaius appeared at the top of the staircase. The chatter in the hall beneath him hushed to a silence. Dante recognised Gaius immediately. He shuddered at the memory of Gaius kidnapping him and Kacy a week earlier. He had travelled under the name Mr E at the time and had claimed to be a member of the Secret Service. He had given Dante the mission that involved infiltrating the Shades clan to discover the whereabouts of Peto the monk.

  Dante peered over his sunglasses at Kacy. She peered back over hers. It was obvious that she too recognised Gaius as Mr E.

  Dante nudged Vanity in the arm. ‘Is that really Rameses Gaius?’ he asked.

  Vanity nodded. ‘Yeah. Don’t mess with him. He’ll snap you in half.’

  Gaius wore a shiny silver suit (as he had when Dante had met him before) and a pair of dark sunglasses. His head was bald and his olive skin as smooth as a billiard ball. Both Dante and Kacy lowered their heads in the hope that he wouldn’t spot them at the back of the crowd.

  ‘Hey,’ Vanity nudged Dante back. ‘That’s his daughter Jessica behind him. Total babe. Queen of the vampires.’

  Dante glanced back up and saw that standing behind Gaius on the steps was none other than Jessica the Vampire Queen. The very same woman he had fired a shitload of bullets into at the Tapioca during the eclipse the previous year. The Bourbon Kid had been gunning her down at the time, so Dante had joined in and then they had left her for dead. It wouldn’t do to be spotted by her either.

  Up ahead, Gaius raised his arms to grab everyone’s attention. ‘Thank you all for coming,’ he said. ‘I have big news for you today. After all that happened yesterday, when we lost a number of our brothers and sisters to that scumbag the Bourbon Kid, we now have reason to be cheerful. And very excited.’

  A wave of muttered conversations swept around the hall briefly before Gaius continued.

  ‘At just after midnight last night we captured and beheaded the Bourbon Kid. He is no more!’

  A huge cheer went up from the crowd and Gaius gestured quickly for them to quieten down again.

  ‘With him now out of the way, it is time for us to make our move. Soon we will be able to reveal ourselves to the world. I have set in motion a plan which will enable each and every one of you to hunt by day. No more sneaking around in back alleys and clubs at night. We will soon take over the city of Santa Mondega. This is our time!’ The crowd cheered even more boisterously than before. After hushing them, Gaius continued. ‘The local police force is now crippled, and with the Kid out of the picture I want everyone here to be ready to carry out my instructions to take over the city. You may have noticed that it is snowing outside and that there is a large formation of dark clouds settling over the city. This, my friends, will become permanent very soon.’

  A woman’s voice shouted out from the crowd below. ‘How so?’

  Gaius removed his sunglasses and a huge gasp went up from the crowd, including Dante and Kacy. In his right eye socket was a glowing blue stone: The Eye of the Moon.

  ‘Yes. That’s right,’ said Gaius. ‘I have the Eye of the Moon once again. It is secured back in its rightful place.’ He tapped the eye gently and smiled at his watching audience. ‘With the powers of the Eye I have brought together all of those clouds. At the current time I estimate that ninety percent of the sunlight over Santa Mondega is being blocked out. By the end of the day tomorrow I expect that to be one hundred percent. And it will stay that way. We don’t need an eclipse to block out the sun, my friends. I can do that for you using the power of my Eye. Once the clouds have intensified sufficiently to block out the sun entirely, we shall come out from the shadows and take over the city. The snow will incapacitate our enemies and once we have complete control of Santa Mondega, we will look to expand our empire and increase our numbers. The humans will be harvested and grown for your consumption. Now I know most of you don’t need reminding of this, but do not feed upon the children of this city. We will need them in the future. They will live simply to create more of their kind for our future survival.’ There were more mutterings from the crowd below, mostly voicing their approval. Gaius waved them down and continued. ‘Now, I ask one thing of you. Go out into the streets and hills of Santa Mondega and round up all of your vampire brothers and sisters. I want the werewolves informed too. They will make useful allies in the early days as we seek to conquer. Get the word out to everyone. Tell them to congregate here tomorrow night. This will be the staging point of our war on humanity. Tomorrow night will be the beginning of a new dawn where the undead will rule the world!’

  He shook his fist in the air as he finished his speech. A huge roar went up from the watching crowd. Vampires high-fived each other and slapped one another on the back. There were fanged smiles all round in fact. Except for Dante and Kacy.

  Kacy tugged at Dante’s arm, dragging him back away from the crowd and out of earshot. ‘He’s got the Eye of the Moon in his head,’ she said, her voice largely drowned out by the cheering mob around her.

  ‘I know,’ said Dante. ‘I thought things were really bad before but this is worse than I thought.’

  ‘How much worse?’

  ‘It’s very bad.’

  Kacy frowned. ‘Very bad is worse than really bad?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Really sure.’

  ‘Well, let me know when you’re very sure.’

  Dante peered over his sunglasses at her and raised his eyebrows. ‘I’ll tell you what I am sure of. If we try to get the Eye out of his head, we’ll most likely get killed. But if we don’t get it out of his head, the whole world is gonna end.’

  Kacy looked around at the cheering mob of vampires surrounding them. ‘This is very bad,’ she muttered.

  Seven

  Upon arr
iving at the police station for his first morning as the new captain, Dan Harker was disappointed to find that the place was a horrible mess. The aftermath of the previous day’s massacre was still in evidence. Although there were no dead bodies around, the reception area was still covered in blood. An elevator at the back of reception was covered in blood and faeces.

  He eyed the elevator warily and took the stairs on his way to the Forensics department on the third floor. Most of the forensics guys had survived the previous night’s massacre and one of them, William Clay, had even turned up for work. Harker found Clay at the first desk inside the office.

  Clay was a tall, gangly, socially awkward scientist type with round glasses and a shaved head that neatly disguised a thinning patch on the top of his head. He was sitting behind his desk in the same long white coat he wore every day. As Harker came through the door, he looked up and then immediately closed down a window on his computer monitor.

  Harker greeted him cordially. ‘Hi, Bill,’ he said. ‘Is this a bad time?’

  Clay smiled. ‘Nah, fine. You caught me by surprise. What can I do for you, Lieutenant Dan?’

  ‘It’s Captain Harker from today, thank you.’

  ‘I know, just kidding. Congratulations by the way. You pleased?’

  ‘Ecstatic.’

  ‘I’ll bet. Get a good raise?’

  ‘I did okay.’

  ‘Good, ’cause you know the last two Captains were killed by the Bourbon Kid. Let’s hope he’s not looking for a hat trick.’

  ‘Don’t you watch the news? Bourbon Kid’s dead.’

  Clay peered over the top of his glasses. ‘He’s not though, is he? I can tell just by the look on your face.’

  Harker pushed the door shut behind him and walked over to Clay’s desk. ‘It looks like he somehow faked his death. An hour or so after he was beheaded he showed up at the museum and killed Bertram Cromwell.’

  ‘How do you fake having your head cut off?’