by AnonYMous
‘Oh hi,’ he said looking surprised to see her. ‘You sleep well?’
‘Yeah, great, thanks.’
‘What about Dante?’
‘He’s still asleep. Probably will be for another hour or two yet.’
‘Had a good time though. You both seemed to enjoy yourselves last night.’
‘Yeah, it was a blast. Where did everyone else go?’
Vanity smirked. ‘Well we listened to you two fucking for a while, then the others all went home for the night.’
Kacy felt herself beginning to blush. The lusting brought on by the blood drinking the previous night had made her and Dante somewhat horny. They’d lost their inhibitions and had one almighty loud and energetic fuck in Vanity’s spare bedroom. As she cast her mind back to some of the things she’d screamed out in the throes of passion, she decided a change of subject was required.
On the television screen on the far wall, she spotted a face she recognised. ‘Is that you?’ she asked.
‘Yeah,’ Vanity reached for the remote to turn the television off.
‘Is this your wedding day?’
‘Uh huh.’
‘Oh wow! Do you mind if I watch it with you for a minute?’
Vanity looked surprised and put the remote back down on the coffee table. ‘Sure, if you want. It’s not exciting or anything.’
Kacy looked closely at the bride. She was a beautiful brunette aged about twenty-five. The groom, Vanity, looked similar to how he did now, only he was dressed smarter in a black suit with a white shirt and black bow tie.
‘Your wife is really pretty,’ Kacy said, perching herself on the edge of the sofa.
‘Yeah, she is.’
‘Are you still together?’
He shook his head. ‘Nah. She didn’t want to become a vampire.’ His voice hinted at a deep rooted sadness.
‘Why? What happened?’
Vanity paused the video just as he and his bride were sharing a kiss for the camera. ‘I wasn’t a vampire back then,’ he said. ‘Some fucker bit me on our honeymoon. Emma, my wife, didn’t want to become a vampire too, so I had to get the hell outta there or I’d have bitten her. I promised her that one day when I found a cure and became human again, I’d go back for her.’
‘How long ago was it?’
‘Four years.’
Kacy tried to imagine what four years apart from Dante would be like. Not very nice, she decided. She stared hard at the happy couple on screen for a few seconds before asking Vanity another personal question. ‘And what about Emma? What’s she doing now?’
Vanity stared at the screen in a daze as he spoke. ‘She’s never remarried or anything, but she’s twenty-nine now, the same age as me. In a few months time she’ll be thirty. Me, I’ll always look twenty-nine. Our dream of growing old together died the day I was bitten.’
‘I’m so sorry.’
‘Yeah, me too. Dante’s real lucky to have you, but you’ve made one hell of a sacrifice by becoming one of us.’
‘I know. It was a spur of the moment decision. But I can’t live without Dante. We’ve been together forever.’
‘I can tell,’ said Vanity smiling. ‘When he said he’d just picked you up the other night, I knew he was lying right away. You’re very comfortable with each other.’
Kacy realised she’d been a little too open and honest with Vanity. She couldn’t help herself though. She felt a bond with him. He was the only vampire friend she’d made so far and he understood what she and Dante were going through. Even though he had no doubt killed many people in order to survive as a vampire, Vanity seemed full of remorse, not necessarily for the killings, but for the fact he had no chance to go back to his old life.
Kacy probed a little deeper. ‘If you could go back to being human, would you do it? And go back to your wife?’ she asked intrusively.
‘In a heartbeat. I hate being a vampire. I’d give absolutely anything to be human again.’
Kacy took a deep breath then blurted out what was on her mind. ‘Did you know the Eye of the Moon can make you human again?’
Vanity smiled. ‘Yeah, but Rameses Gaius would never allow any of us to use it for that. Trust me, if I could work out how to get the Eye of the Moon out of his head, I’d do it. Problem is, he’d kill me before I got anywhere near it.’
‘Wouldn’t it be great if we could get hold of the Eye though?’
‘Yeah, but seriously, forget it.’
‘Why?’
‘It’d be suicide.’
‘But if we could get it, you could become human again and go back to your wife.’
Vanity frowned and then looked back over at the television. He stared for a second at the frozen frame picture of him and his wife. Then he picked up the remote and switched the TV off.
‘Would you and Dante be willing to risk it?’ he asked.
Kacy shrugged. ‘If it was possible, I’d want to try. Wouldn’t you?’
Vanity sat staring at the blank screen on the television for a while, deep in thought. Eventually he took a deep breath and turned to Kacy. ‘You know what?’ he said. ‘I think I know a way we can get hold of the Eye. It’s dangerous though.’
Kacy was all ears. ‘Really? How?’
‘I heard that Gaius is going to the museum tonight. He’s planning on having the Eye cleaned by a special diamond polishing machine they’ve got there. If we could somehow be there when he removes the Eye from his head, we could snatch it away. The three of us, you, me and Dante could pull this off, I think. It’ll be the only chance we’ll ever get because he’s not gonna take that Eye out very often.’
Kacy felt very excited. ‘Oh my God. Do you really think we could do it?’
Vanity nodded slowly, almost as if he was convincing himself. ‘Actually, you know what? I really think we could. Without the Eye he’s nothing. Not a threat to us at all. The three of us would be more than a match for him.’
Kacy jumped up from the sofa. ‘Oh my God,’ she squealed. ‘I’ll go and wake Dante and tell him.’
‘Cool.’
She raced back into the bedroom to tell Dante the big news. As soon as she was out of sight, Vanity pulled his cell phone from his pocket. He dialled the number for Rameses Gaius. Gaius answered within one ring. His voice sounded as irritated as ever.
‘What do you want?’ he snapped.
‘It’s done,’ said Vanity. ‘I’ll have them both at the museum tonight. You wouldn’t believe how easy it was.’
Twenty-Seven
Sanchez arrived at the library just after nine o’clock and raced up the steps at the front of the building. He reached the large wooden double doors at the entrance just as they were being opened. Josh, the young lad who worked as assistant to the now deceased Ulrika Price, pulled open the door on the right and was in the process of unbolting the second door as Sanchez barged in. Josh winced as the cold air blew in through the open door. His librarian uniform consisted only of a pair black trousers and a thin white shirt so the fresh air would have raced right through to the bone on the fresh faced teenager. He looked quite surprised to see anyone arriving so early too, particularly someone like Sanchez who was not exactly a regular bookworm.
‘Morning, Sanchez,’ he said, his brown hair blowing up out of his face courtesy of a gust of wind from outside.
‘Good day to you, young man,’ said Sanchez with an air of officialdom in his voice. ‘It’s Detective Garcia to you though. I’m here on official police business.’
Josh looked surprised, but he looked Sanchez up and down, no doubt admiring his uniform. Then he shrugged. ‘Sure thing, Detective. Is this about Ulrika Price?’
‘No. Why would it be?’
‘Well, she’s gone missing. I’m not supposed to even be working here any more because she fired me yesterday morning.’
‘What a bitch.’
‘Yeah. Apparently just a few minutes after firing me she vanished off the face of the planet. I thought if she’d been reported as a missing perso
n I might be on your list of people to question?’
Sanchez pondered what he’d said for a moment before answering. ‘It’s okay. That’s not why I’m here. Although if she has been murdered I would imagine you’ll be the prime suspect in any investigation, so don’t go leaving town any time soon.’
‘Yes sir. So what can I do for you now?’
Sanchez headed to a staircase on the left-hand wall that led to the first floor and the Reference section. ‘I’m fine thanks. Shouldn’t need any help,’ he said. ‘Just got to relieve you of a book to help with an investigation.’
‘What book is it?’
‘Never you mind.’
He walked briskly up the stairs and left Josh behind to stick the OPEN sign up in the front window by the entrance.
The upstairs section of the library looked as daunting as ever. There were countless aisles full of books and plenty of tables and chairs in which students could sit and read for free. On Sanchez’s last visit he had smuggled The Book of Death out by tucking it into the back of his pants so Ulrika Price wouldn’t see it. There would be no need to do that this time. He was now an officer of the law, and Ulrika Price wasn’t on duty.
The Reference section was full of shelves that carried on all the way up to the ceiling, filled with hardback books about all kinds of boring subjects. It was a blessing that the books were sorted alphabetically by author name, well, more or less. He headed straight to the first row of shelves and began scouring the spines of the books written by authors whose surnames began with A. It seemed that the Reference section was the graveyard for all the unclassifiable books that were dumped by Josh when he didn’t know where to put them. Aside from not being in particularly good alphabetical order there were also all kinds of non-referential books in sight. Sanchez flicked through the titles until he came to one by Anonymous. It was called Primary Colors. Scouring along the shelf to the right he saw several more books, some with the name Anonymous along the spine and others with no name at all. It baffled him how anyone could be so stupid as to go to the trouble of writing a book and then forget to put his or her name on it.
There were varying titles, some of which were further reference books in the “Gay Man’s Guide To…” series. During his last visit to the library Sanchez had mistakenly picked up a copy of The Gay Man’s Guide to Anal Sex and ended up borrowing it to prevent Ulrika Price from noticing he was stealing The Book of Death at the same time. The guide wasn’t due back for another week so he had left it back at the Tapioca. In fact he wasn’t sure how he was ever going to get around to returning that book, simply because of the embarrassment of being seen with it in public.
After scouring over a hundred books, he finally spotted the familiar black binding on The Book of Death. The title was written in a white font, which had faded quite badly. He felt his heart race in his chest. This was it, the ticket to fifty thousand dollars in reward money and a place in Jessica’s heart. If this didn’t impress her, nothing would.
He pulled the book out from where it had been wedged in by Rick the day before. Resting it on the edge of one of the shelves he flicked it open at about halfway. It was definitely the right book. It was full of names, just as he remembered. He flicked through the pages until eventually he came to the one where he had written Jessica’s name along with two others. Checking both ways along the aisle to see if anyone was watching, he grabbed a firm hold of the page and tore it out of the book as quietly as he could. He crumpled the paper up and stuck it into one of the front pockets on his pants. Everything seemed to have worked out perfectly. He breathed a sigh of relief and tucked the book under his arm, then he strolled confidently back out of the aisle and out into the open area near the reception desk. Josh was now sitting behind the reception desk. He nodded at Sanchez when he saw him.
‘Find what you were looking for, Detective?’ he asked.
‘Yes I did, thanks.’
‘Can I ask what it is, please?’
Sanchez thought about it. He had nothing to hide this time. He wanted the world to know he had been the one to locate the book. If by some chance anyone else tried to take the credit for discovering it, he would have Josh as a witness. In fact, he decided, it would be worth checking the book out in his own name, just to make things official.
‘It’s The Book of Death, by Anonymous,’ he said. ‘Please log it against my account.’
‘Certainly, sir,’ said Josh reaching down to type on a keyboard in front of a monitor on the desk. Sanchez waited by the desk to make sure he did it properly.
After a few seconds of typing, Josh looked up. ‘It says here you already have one book out,’ he said frowning. ‘The Gay Man’s Guide to Anal Sex?’
‘Police business,’ Sanchez retorted.
Josh raised an eyebrow. ‘Researching the great buggery case from nineteen eighty-four?’
‘Are we done?’ Sanchez asked in a firm voice.
‘Yep. When should I expect both books back?’
‘When I’ve finished my research. Good day.’
With The Book of Death tucked firmly under his arm, Sanchez marched out of the doors and headed down the stairs. The whole process had actually been much easier than he had expected (aside from the unfortunate revelation about the buggery book). As he hurried down the steps he contemplated what he would say to Jessica when he showed up at the Casa de Ville with the book. He was so deep in thought that he barely noticed the large gentleman dressed as Santa Claus coming up the stairs. The two of them bumped into each other. The collision caused Sanchez to drop The Book of Death. It bounced onto the edge of one of the steps behind the Santa and then continued to bounce down the stairs to the bottom. Sanchez looked up at the Santa who stared back at him with a look of surprise on his bright red face. Both men spoke at the same time and uttered the exact same words:
‘Watch where you’re going, ya fat bastard!’
The Santa actually looked pretty fearsome, and Sanchez noticed specks of blood in his dirty grey beard. He also smelled of stale booze, a smell Sanchez knew only too well. It’s how most of his customers at the Tapioca smelled when they arrived for the day. Considering the level of booze, Sanchez was surprised that the Santa was even up so early in the morning. Whatever the reason, it was obvious that the guy wasn’t much of a morning person because he looked about ready to rip Sanchez’s head off. His face contorted with rage at the fat bastard comment from the law enforcement officer. An apology of sorts was required.
‘Er, sorry,’ said Sanchez. ‘Didn’t realise you were a man of God an’ all that.’ He reached inside his jacket and pulled out his silver hip flask. He held it out to the angry Santa. ‘Here, have some Christmas spirit on me,’ he said with a fake smile.
The Santa looked down at the hip flask and eyed Sanchez suspiciously. ‘What’s in it?’ he growled.
‘It’s similar to eggnog, so it’ll probably taste very familiar to the likes of you. And you can keep the flask. Merry Christmas.’
The Santa took the flask. The angry look on his face softened. ‘Merry Christmas to you too, officer,’ he said. Then he carried on his way up the stairs.
Sanchez breathed a sigh of relief and hurried on down to the bottom of the stairs where The Book of Death had landed face down on the ground in a patch of dirt and snow just inside the front doors. The dirt had most likely been brought in on the boots of the fat angry Santa (who by Sanchez’s reckoning would be even angrier once he took a sip from the hip flask). He picked the book up and brushed the snow and dirt off the cover then headed back out into the street.
Up in the library, Josh was busy trying to fathom whether or not Sanchez was really a cop or just a homosexual who liked dressing up as a member of the Village People, when he was confronted by the sight of an angry looking Santa Claus.
‘Can I help you, sir?’ he asked.
The Santa leaned over the desk. He had an unpleasant smell emanating from his breath. ‘I’m looking for the Reference section. Where is it?’ he asked.
‘Over there,’ said Josh pointing over the Santa’s right shoulder. ‘Are you a member here, sir?’
‘No.’
‘In that case I’ll have to get you to fill out a new members form once you’ve chosen a book.’
The Santa curled his top lip up, revealing a fairly sharp set of teeth. He unscrewed the lid on a silver hip flask he was holding and eyeballed Josh. ‘I’m looking for The Book of Death,’ he said in a husky voice unbefitting of a man so universally loved by children the world over. ‘I’m told it’s in the Reference section. You seen it?’
Josh knew where it was all right. Sanchez had just taken it away for official police business. So why did this guy want it? Was he a criminal? And what was the big deal with The Book of Death anyway? As Josh pondered his answer, the Santa took a swig from his hip flask. A second later his eyes bulged open wide and he spat the contents out over Josh’s face and shirt.
Josh reeled back and wiped the spittle from his face. ‘What the fuck?’ he groaned, sniffing the liquid on his hands. It smelled like piss. Normally that would have made him react very angrily but looking at the size of the Santa he decided to show some restraint and just answer his enquiry instead. ‘Sanchez Garcia has the book you’re looking for. He just left. You probably passed him on the stairs. Short fat guy in a gay cop outfit.’
The Santa was still retching from the drink that he had just spat out. ‘What?’ he snarled.
‘Sanchez. He has the book.’
The Santa threw the hip flask at Josh. It hit him hard on the forehead and some more of the contents spilled out over him. A smell of piss filled the air. Sanchez’s legendary finest homebrew had struck again.