by AnonYMous
Beth looked back up at the television screen. There was a picture of JD on a monitor behind the news reporter. She stared hard at it for a few seconds before responding to Bull. ‘I’m not afraid of what you might do to me,’ she said.
Bull smiled. ‘Nor should you be, sweetness. When you die, I promise you it’ll be quick,’ he said. ‘You have nothing to be afraid of.’
‘Wish I could say the same for you.’
‘I beg your pardon?’ Bull’s voice took on a more surly tone, suggesting he took offence to the remark. ‘Since when did you get so cocky?’
‘Since I realised my boyfriend is the Bourbon Kid.’
‘That’s hardly a reason to be cocky.’
‘Really? Because the smart money says I’m going to live. My boyfriend has been killing vampires for years and he’s still alive. He’s up there on TV. I don’t see you guys on TV. No one’s talking about how many people you’ve killed, apart from you. You guys need to wake up to one very important fact.’
Bull’s nostrils flared. She was definitely getting under his skin. ‘What’s that then?’ he snarled.
‘You’re all gonna die.’
Bull stared hard at her for a few moments, clearly surprised at her brash display of confidence, and no doubt rattled by it too. He nodded at Razor. Whatever the nod meant, it triggered an instant reaction. With a deft jab from his right fist, Razor blindsided Beth with a sharp blow to the side of the head, knocking her out cold.
Thirty-Eight
‘Flake, you’ve done a wonderful job,’ said Bill Clay, patting her on the shoulder.
The switchboard on the reception desk at the police station had been overwhelmed with calls from panicked residents and Flake had done her best to keep them calm and offer advice. There had been all kinds of strange calls, including one from a girl called Caroline who claimed she’d been chased into a library by a vampire who was then killed by the Bourbon Kid. Flake couldn’t tell the crank calls from the genuine ones, so she was grateful when Clay had come downstairs and dictated an answerphone message to her. They had recorded it and diverted all further incoming calls to the automated message.
‘I sure could use a coffee after all that,’ Flake said.
‘You’ve certainly earned it. If I was you I’d head home.’
Flake peered over to the front doors of the station at the dark streets outside. ‘I think I might stay here, if it’s all the same to you,’ she said.
‘Can’t say I blame you. We’ve got a few comfy sofas on the upper floors, I’ll see if I can find some blankets for you.’
‘What about you? Are you staying too?’
Clay shook his head. ‘Nah. I’m due to meet the Captain later tonight at the museum.’
‘Where’s he now?’
‘Addressing the city on the local news. So he’s probably dead by now. Any word from Sanchez?’
‘No, he never showed up.’
‘That’s too bad. Come on upstairs, I’ll find some blankets for you.’
Flake had a few other things she wanted to attend to. Things she didn’t particularly want to share with Clay. ‘I’ll come on up in a bit. Just got a few things to do first,’ she said.
‘Suit yourself. I’ll see you in a while.’
Clay headed back upstairs via the stinky elevator. Flake grabbed a cup of coffee from a vending machine and settled back in at her desk. It was eerily quiet and made her long for Sanchez to show up. He had promised to drop by before heading off to the Casa de Ville with The Book of Death. She had a horrible feeling that he was about to put himself in danger by making the trip to the Casa De Ville on his own. He seemed to hold Jessica in very high esteem without any good reason. Flake didn’t trust Jessica at all. The woman acted like a total bitch most of the time, yet no matter what she did, Sanchez seemed very forgiving.
Now that she finally had some time to herself Flake pulled open the bottom drawer on her desk and moved a few items aside. At the bottom of the drawer, underneath the clutter was The Book With No Name. She pulled it out and laid it down on the desk. She soon found the page where she had stopped reading the day before. She took a sip from her coffee and began scanning through the pages in the hopes of finding out anything more about vampires and cursed books.
It didn’t take too long to find some more sketchy information about The Book of Death. It was described as a large black hardback book, just like the one she had hit with her car earlier. There was also a mention of the book’s owner, a powerful man known as Rameses Gaius. The name sounded familiar to her but she couldn’t recall where she had heard it before.
She’d been reading the occasional passage in the book and analysing some of the fine pieces of artwork for about half an hour when she finally stumbled on something that set her heart racing. It was a picture of four men and a woman. It was an old picture, but the faces of the four people in it were crystal clear. And the woman was instantly recognisable. It was Jessica. Beneath the picture she saw some lettering. It read:
Dark Lord Xavier and his family, believed to reside in Santa Mondega, a city of the New World.
Dark Lord Xavier had a face she recognised too. She had known him better as Archibald Somers, a cop obsessed with finding the Bourbon Kid for most of his career. The page next to it indicated that the people in the picture had dabbled in the dark arts. Hardly surprising when one of them was the owner of the title Dark Lord. Reading on furtively, Flake began to realise why everyone who read The Book With No Name was found dead afterwards. The book identified a whole bunch of high ranking vampires, one of which was Jessica. Sanchez obviously knew nothing about any of this and he was heading to the Casa De Ville with The Book of Death. Flake had to stop him.
She whipped her cell phone out from her trouser pocket and dialled Sanchez’s number. It rang twice then the call went straight to voicemail and Sanchez’s voice spoke.
“Good day to you. You have reached the voicemail of Detective Sanchez Garcia of the SMPD. I’m probably busy taking down bad guys, so please leave a message after the tone.”
Flake waited for the beep and immediately started babbling a frantic message. ‘Sanchez, it’s Flake. Don’t go to the Casa De Ville. Your friend Jessica is a vampire. It says so in The Book With No Name. I think she’ll kill you as soon as she has The Book of Death. Call me as soon as you get this!’
Hopeful that he would hear her message before it was too late and not dismiss it as nonsense, she slipped her phone back into her pocket and pondered what to do. Her stomach was in knots and her mind was overflowing with different options. What if Sanchez didn’t call back? Or didn’t get the message?
In an attempt to keep her mind occupied she flicked through a few more pages of The Book With No Name. It didn’t help much. All she could think about was how much trouble Sanchez was in. She had to figure out a way to help him. If the shoe was on the other foot, she was sure he would do the same for her.
She closed The Book With No Name. As it slammed shut, she stared at its worn brown cover and cast her mind back to the moment she had killed Ulrika Price. Of course! She had at her disposal a weapon that could kill vampires. The Book With No Name.
All she had to do was get to the Casa De Ville with it and somehow find a way to hit Jessica over the head with it as she had done with Ulrika Price. At the very least it would prove to Sanchez that Jessica was a vampire. But how would she ever get close enough to Jessica to do it?
She muttered her thoughts out loud. ‘Come on Flake, think! What would Sanchez do if he was here, and it was me at the Casa De Ville with the vampires?’
Suddenly an idea came to her. She reached down to the bottom drawer of her desk once more and flicked through the clutter she had brushed aside to get to the book earlier. Sure enough, there was something there that could prove to be useful: a can of black spray paint. She pulled it out and shook it. The noise it made suggested that there was enough spray left in it for what she wanted.
She closed The Book With No Name and fli
cked the lid off the can. With a little trepidation she sprayed a small amount onto the cover of the book. It settled surprisingly well and looked as if it would dry quite quickly. She blew on it and then dabbed at it with her finger. It was still wet, but wouldn’t smear too much. The tip of her finger had turned a little black, but for the most part, the paint seemed to have embedded itself into the book like a tattoo. With a little bit of care, such as covering the edges of the pages so that the black spray didn’t hit them, she could make the nameless book look just like The Book of Death, well, from a distance at least. There was hope for Sanchez yet. Her plan was flawed and reckless, some might even say it was shit, but it was the only plan she had, so it would have to do.
For the next twenty minutes Flake carried out an excellent piece of book camouflage. The once crusty brown cover of the book on her desk was soon a jet-black colour, unrecognisable from what it had been before. When she was satisfied that there was no brown showing through on the cover, she stood the book upright on her desk in front of a dusty old desk fan in the hope it would dry out quickly. As she watched the desk fan blow gently onto the book’s cover she considered the risks of her plan to confront Jessica. It would definitely be easier if she could avoid the confrontation altogether.
She flicked through the menus on her cell phone. She had no missed calls or text messages. She took a deep breath and hoped for the best as she dialled Sanchez’s number again. This time it didn’t even ring. It went straight to a recorded message. A woman’s voice spoke this time.
The number you are calling is either switched off or unavailable. Please try again later.
Flake ended the call before the message repeated itself. ‘Casa De Ville here I come,’ she said aloud, slipping the cell phone back in the front pocket on her pants.
She had been so preoccupied with planning her rescue mission for Sanchez that she hadn’t noticed a new arrival in the station. A man had entered quietly via the front doors. And now his large shadow loomed over her desk. She looked up slowly and saw a figure dressed all in black with a hood pulled up over his head, concealing most of his face. She swallowed hard. She knew who this man was. It was the Bourbon Kid, the man who frequently dropped by the police station and killed all the cops, and usually also the receptionist. The memorial plaques in the staff room for previous receptionists Amy Webster and Francis Bloem were evidence of that.
‘Can I help you?’ she asked nervously.
The Kid responded in a gravelly voice that came straight from the depths of hell. ‘I’m looking for a brown book that was left in the locker room downstairs. You know anything about it?’ he asked.
Flake felt very nervous. The book he was referring to was on the desk right in front of his eyes. Only now it was black instead of brown. As she considered her response, the Kid reached inside his coat and pulled out a sawn off shotgun. He pointed it at her forehead.
‘If you lie to me, I’ll know,’ he said. ‘Choose your words carefully.’
She knew that he would kill her without thinking twice about it. She needed to give him a reason not to kill her before she gave him the answer he wanted.
She took a deep breath. ‘I used the book to kill a vampire in the locker room yesterday morning.’
‘Where is it now?’
‘I was about to take it to…’
‘WHERE IS IT NOW?’
Flake felt her legs go weak. This guy wasn’t going to let her talk her way into his favour before she told him where the book was. She pointed at the black book that was standing upright on her desk.
‘It’s there,’ she mumbled nervously, fearing a gunshot would follow the revelation.
The Bourbon Kid lowered his gun and looked down at the book on the desk. He picked it up with his free hand and laid it open on the table in order to get a look at the pages. He flicked through a few before closing it and staring at its new black cover. He ran his index finger lightly across the newly sprayed cover and then inspected his fingertip. Flake waited for his next move. For a few moments he looked around at the other items on her desk. The desk fan was buzzing gently and next to it was the black spray can. After staring at them for a short time, he looked back at Flake, his shadowed face revealing a look of puzzlement.
‘Why did you spray it black?’ he asked.
‘I was trying to pass it off as The Book of Death. I was going to take it to the Casa De Ville to kill the vampire Jessica.’
‘Why would you do that?’
‘To save my friend Sanchez. He’s gone there now with the real Book of Death. But he doesn’t know that Jessica is a vampire.’
The Kid’s shadowed face revealed nothing. ‘I wouldn’t worry about Sanchez,’ he said. ‘He’s probably dead already.’
‘But he might not be there yet,’ said Flake, desperation creeping into her voice.
The Kid raised his gun again and aimed it at the end of Flake’s nose. ‘Close your eyes,’ he growled.
‘Why?’
‘Because this is gonna sting.’
Flake did as she was told. Maybe he was kidding around?
BANG!
Maybe not.
Thirty-Nine
Jessica stood at the front entrance to the Casa de Ville and looked out into the courtyard. Everything was in place. Vampires and werewolves were concealed behind every bush, tree and statue in sight. If the Bourbon Kid came in through the front gates at the end of the driveway (and she suspected he was pig-headed enough to try it) he wouldn’t make it far before the entire undead army swarmed all over him.
The only two vampires out in the open were Lionel and Nate from the Panda clan. They were standing guard on the front gates to make it look as if the Casa was operating as normal. But behind them was an army of over a thousand, all concealed in the dark.
She stepped back inside the building and closed the large double doors behind her. On the reception desk in the entrance hall was a female member of the Panda clan. Jessica didn’t much care for her, if truth be told. She looked stupid sitting there at the desk wearing a bright red baseball cap with her face covered by the two large black patches around her eyes. Not many females ever joined the Panda clan simply because of the awful eyeliner.
Jessica called over to her. ‘You, Panda Girl.’
‘Yes ma’am.’
‘I’ll be up in my father’s office if you need me.’
‘Yes ma’am.’
Panda Girl watched on as Jessica flew up the staircase on her right, vanishing out of sight within half a second. She didn’t like Jessica much either. Being referred to as Panda Girl had been annoying the first time it had happened, but Jessica had done it so many times that everyone in the Casa de Ville now called her that.
Jessica had only been gone for a minute when the phone on Panda Girl’s desk rang. Rather than pick up the receiver she reached over and pressed a button to take the call on speaker.
‘Reception, who is it?’ she asked.
‘Lionel on the gates. Got a cop here called Sanchez Garcia. Says he’s come to see Jessica.’
‘She’s not seeing any visitors at the moment. Tell him to come back tomorrow.’
‘Hang on.’
Panda Girl waited while Lionel had a muffled conversation with someone else in the background. Eventually, he came back on the line.
‘This Sanchez fella says he’s brought her a book she’s been looking for.’
‘Is it The Book of Death?’
‘He’s not saying.’
‘What’s this guy look like?’
‘A fat version of the guy from the TV show CHiPs, except he’s in a car, not on a bike.’
Panda Girl sighed. ‘Okay, send him on through. Tell him to park up around the back and come to the front doors. I’ll deal with him.’
‘Okay.’
The line went dead and Panda Girl dialled the number for Rameses Gaius’s office. The call went through to his answer phone, so she left a message.
‘Jessica, this is Panda Girl on reception
. Got a Sanchez Garcia on his way up the drive. Lionel on the front gate says he’s brought a book for you. Call me when you get this.’
A couple of minutes passed before there was a knock on the front doors. Panda Girl hauled herself up out of her chair and made her way over to the peephole to see who was outside. She peered through it and saw a chubby fellow in a highway patrol outfit. He had a black satchel over his right shoulder. He fitted the description that Lionel had just given her. She opened the door.
‘You’re Sanchez Garcia?’ she asked.
‘Yes I am, thank you,’ he replied.
‘You’ve got something for me?’
‘No. I’ve got something for Jessica.’
‘What is it?’
‘It’s The Book of Death,’ he said holding up his satchel.
‘In that case, you can leave it with me.’
Sanchez shook his head. ‘I’m a friend of hers. She’ll be pleased to see me. Plus she said there’s a fifty thousand dollar reward for the return of this book.’
Panda Girl sighed. ‘Fine. Come on in.’
‘Thank you, my good man,’ said Sanchez as he brushed past her on his way in.
She closed the door behind him. ‘My name’s Panda Girl!’ she snapped.
‘Of course it is. Where can I find Jessica?’
Panda Girl pointed to a crimson coloured sofa at the back of the foyer next to a door that led into one of the dining rooms. ‘Take a seat there,’ she said. ‘I’ve left a message for Jessica to say you’re here. She’ll call for you when she’s ready.’
‘Fair enough.’
Sanchez wandered over to the sofa, admiring the paintings on the walls all around the foyer. ‘Nice place you’ve got here,’ he remarked.
Panda Girl ignored him and sat back down at her desk with her back to him. The phone rang just as she sat down. She reached over and pressed the speaker button again. ‘Hello, reception.’
‘Panda Girl, it’s Jessica. I just got your message. Did you say Sanchez is here?’