by AnonYMous
When he was less than a yard behind Gaius he raised The Book With No Name up above his head and smashed it down towards the back of the mummy’s skull. Unfortunately, as he plunged it down, the Lord of the Undead suddenly spun around. There was no time for Sanchez to pull out of the attack and neither was there time for Gaius to duck out of the way. The book crashed down, right into his face, hitting him hard on the bridge of his nose.
Sanchez thought back to the moment Flake had hit Jessica with the book. It had set the Vampire Queen alight almost instantly. The same thing couldn’t be said for Rameses Gaius. For what felt like an awfully long time, Sanchez stood motionless, pressing the book against the face of the mummy. But Gaius didn’t burst into flames. He simply reached up with both hands and grabbed the book. Then he shoved it back into Sanchez’s face. The impact was immense. It sent Sanchez sprawling back onto the floor behind him. His feet bounced up over his head and he rolled back until he eventually came to a sudden halt with his head almost wedged between his own ass cheeks. As he sat back up, he saw Gaius toss The Book With No Name at him. The magical book hadn’t wounded Gaius at all. The mummy had no interest in it either. He nonchalantly tossed it at Sanchez’s head. Sanchez ducked out of the way of it and raised his hands defensively, in readiness for a violent assault from Gaius’s now glowing blue right hand.
And then behind his attacker, he saw a ray of hope. The Bourbon Kid had stepped out of the shadows and was pointing his gun at the back of Gaius’s head. A red laser sighter was aimed precisely at the back of the eye socket that held the Eye of the Moon. As Gaius prepared to fire a laser bolt at Sanchez, the Kid fired off a shot.
BANG!
It was a damn fine shot. Sanchez watched in awe. He saw everything clearly as if it were in slow motion. The back of Gaius’s head spurted out a few spots of blood as the bullet pierced his skull. A clanging sound followed as the bullet hit the back of the Eye of the Moon and then like a dream, the blue stone flew out of his eye socket, spraying blood all around it.
Sanchez’s joy at the sight was short lived.
Rameses Gaius had reflexes every bit as quick as the laser bolts he fired from his fingertips. His left hand snapped into action. He reached up and caught the blue stone as it flew out of the front of his head. The stone had travelled less than half a yard before he had recovered it.
Gaius looked down on the stone with his remaining good eye. For a moment Sanchez almost thought he saw the mummy smile. The moment passed all too quickly and Gaius turned around to face the Bourbon Kid. In the back of Gaius’s head Sanchez saw the hole where the bullet had entered. As he stared at it, the hole closed up quickly, vanishing courtesy of the healing powers in the Eye of the Moon.
“Fuck me,” Sanchez thought. “This guy is fucking invincible.”
Gaius snarled at the Kid. ‘You had your shot. Now it’s my turn!’
He raised his right hand and fired one of his blue laser bolts at the hooded figure in the long dark coat. It hit the Kid in the chest and lifted him off his feet. He flew back twenty feet through the air and crashed into the Egyptian Tomb display behind him.
Holy crap!
Sanchez gawped at the sheer power of Rameses Gaius. This man was a walking army of Iron Man, General Zod and the Incredible Hulk all rolled into one.
Fortunately Gaius seemed to forget all about Sanchez as he took several giant strides towards the Bourbon Kid, ready to finish him off.
If Gaius succeeded in killing the Kid, it wouldn’t be long before he turned his attention back to Sanchez and the semi-naked girl. One of them would be the next to die. At least Sanchez had his pants on, so he’d probably be less likely to catch Gaius’s eye first.
Any hopes they had of surviving rested with the Bourbon Kid and his renowned fighting prowess. Sanchez needed to come up with a way to distract Gaius before he killed the Bourbon Kid. He had to buy the Kid some time because right now the hooded slayer looked dazed and out on his feet on the floor by the tomb.
Sanchez saw the girl pick something up from the floor by a pair of jeans. It was a small dark object and she was preparing herself to throw it. Throwing stuff at Gaius was a relatively lame idea, but it was probably the only option open to any of them right now. Flake had told Sanchez to go be a hero; the only problem was, she wasn’t there to tell him the best way to go about it. So with no decent ideas of his own Sanchez decided to join in with the throwing idea. He reached inside his breast pocket and pulled out his hipflask. With its lid slightly loosened it could at least cover Gaius in piss. That might distract him a bit, or cause him to electrocute himself, perhaps?
As the girl took aim, Sanchez finally got a look at her face. He recognised her as Kacy, Dante’s girlfriend and a former chambermaid at one of the local hotels. He decided it would be best to let her throw first. That way he could see how Gaius reacted. And he really hoped her throwing was as impressive as her ass. As she lined up her throw Sanchez inwardly wished her luck. She drew her arm back, then with all her might threw the small dark object in her hand.
Sanchez had seen girls throw before and had never been particularly impressed. And Kacy’s throwing skills were abysmal. She missed Gaius completely. In fact she ended up throwing the small object at the Bourbon Kid’s head. “Useless,” Sanchez thought.
The Bourbon Kid was climbing to his knees as the object flew at him. He reacted quickly and reached up, catching it in his right hand. It was just a small rectangular shape the size of a playing card. Maybe the Kid could throw it at Gaius with more accuracy and power than Kacy had done—if he had time.
Gaius stopped a few yards away from the Kid and raised his right arm again. His palm glowed bright blue. This was the moment of truth. In one almighty show of force he thrust his arm at the Kid, unleashing a bright blue laser bolt at his fallen enemy.
What followed happened quickly. As the laser bolt shot out from Gaius’s hand and surged towards the Bourbon Kid’s head, the Kid held up the small object Kacy had thrown at him.
And he flipped it over in his hand. Where one side of it had been black, the other was shiny.
It was a small hand mirror.
The blue laser bolt blasted into the mirror and its bright light reflected sharply back on itself. A flash of blinding blue light filled the room and the laser bolt shot back into the face of Rameses Gaius.
The impact caught him completely off guard and the sheer power of his own furious bolts of lightning lifted him off his feet. The Eye of the Moon flew out of his hand and bounced onto the floor as he flew backwards through the air. Sanchez watched on wide-eyed as Gaius’s ass came flying towards him. Fortunately the Dark Lord landed on his back just short of him. The smooth polished floor caused him to slide along on his back until he came to a stop with his head in Sanchez’s lap.
Gaius was clearly dazed. Sanchez could see him blinking furiously with his one good eye. He was seriously disorientated, although that probably wouldn’t last for long. After a few seconds he stopped blinking and seemed to focus his stare up at Sanchez.
“Uh oh,” thought Sanchez. “He’s about to get back up.”
There was nothing else for it. Sanchez’s only weapon was his hipflask. He pulled the lid off and held it up over Gaius’s face. He poured the contents out and tried to direct some into Gaius’s empty eye socket.
However, as the piss came out of his flask Sanchez was surprised to see that it was a green colour. That was unusual. His piss was normally a dark yellow colour, occasionally a bit brown, sometimes even quite clear, but not usually green.
He suddenly remembered he had picked up the Santa’s hipflask after their altercation earlier in the day. This was the green liquid that paralysed folks. He poured it over as much of Gaius’s face as he could, some of it into the eye socket and some of it into his mouth. It trickled onto his tongue and down his throat. It was evident from the look in his good eye that the liquid was having a negative effect on him.
Sanchez watched Gaius’s face slowly numb up, in t
he same way that the Santa’s had done. He recognised the look of fear in his victim’s eye. Gaius managed to cough just once as the liquid trickled down his throat. But that was the last function his body performed. Very quickly his movement stopped altogether. And without the Eye of the Moon in his eye socket, or his hand, he wasn’t going to be healing up any time soon either. Realising that Gaius was now powerless, Sanchez took great pleasure in holding the Dark Lord’s head down with one hand while he waited for some assistance.
Over by the wrecked tomb display the Bourbon Kid climbed to his feet and staggered over to Sanchez and Gaius. He looked in fairly bad shape. That laser blast from Gaius had clearly taken something out of him. He stooped down to pick the Eye of the Moon up from the floor, then turned and tossed it through a few small flickering flames on the floor over to Kacy. She caught it and shouted a quick thanks back at him. Then she crawled over to Dante with it.
The Kid dragged himself over to Sanchez and Gaius. He practically fell down onto Gaius’s chest. Sanchez edged back to allow him room to do whatever horrible things he had planned. The Kid reached down and grabbed the Dark Lord by the face and squeezed his cheeks hard.
‘I saw what you did to the young boy in the library,’ he growled.
‘What did he do?’ Sanchez asked.
‘Bashed a boy’s head in. Had himself some real fun at that kid’s expense.’
Sanchez shook his head in disgust. ‘Well, you know what they say?’ he said.
‘No. What do they say?’
‘It’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye.’
The Kid nodded. ‘That’s true.’ He stopped squeezing Gaius’s face and looked up at Sanchez. He had blood dribbling from his mouth. ‘What was in that flask?’ he asked.
‘Eggnog, I think.’
‘Evil stuff.’
Turning his attentions back to the stricken and now terrified figure of Rameses Gaius, the Kid clenched his right fist and raised it up above his head. He looked Gaius in the eye, making sure he had his full attention. He took a deep breath.
‘This is for the boy in the library.’
Fifty-Eight
Dante felt the touch of Kacy’s hand against his cheek. He opened his eyes. There weren’t many things better in life than waking up and seeing Kacy’s face looking down at him.
‘You okay?’ she asked.
He tried to move his arms only to discover that they were wedged tightly against his sides. In fact he couldn’t move at all from his shoulders down. He was lying on his back on a hard floor. He craned his neck and looked down at the rest of his body. He was wrapped in bandages from his feet right up to his shoulders.
‘What the fuck have you done to me now?’ he asked, frowning.
‘It wasn’t me, silly.’
‘So why the fuck am I dressed as a giant worm?’
Kacy looked confused. ‘When have you ever seen a worm dressed like this?’
‘Cartoon porn.’
‘We’ll talk about that later.’
As his senses came back to him, he caught sight of something out of the corner of his eye. ‘The fucking floor is on fire too! Have you seen that? The fucking floor is on fire!’
‘I know.’
‘What the fuck?’
Kacy seemed remarkably calm considering there were a bunch of three-foot high flames just a stone’s throw away.
‘Here, let me help you up,’ she said, lifting his shoulders up from the floor and getting him into a sitting position.
He looked around. Behind Kacy and to the right of the fire he saw the Bourbon Kid and Sanchez. They were leaning over the body of Rameses Gaius. The Kid was busy slicing Gaius up with a bone handled knife. There were other bodies lying around too.
‘Okay, I can’t remember fuck all. Seriously, what’s happened this time?’ He looked closer at Kacy. ‘And why aren’t you wearing any pants?’
‘They got ripped off. And before you say anything, you should know your clothes are on the floor behind you.’
‘All of my clothes?’
‘Yeah.’
Dante lowered his voice. ‘Were we fucking in here?’
‘No. You got stripped naked by some vampires. They tried to make you a mummy.’
‘They were trying to fuck me?’
‘No, mummify you. You know? That’s what the bandages are for. Hold still while I unwrap you.’
She grabbed some of the white bandages around his shoulders and began unravelling them. He’d been bound up pretty tight. While she got to work, he tried desperately to cast his mind back to how he’d ended up in this current ludicrous predicament. It wasn’t coming back to him no matter how hard he tried to concentrate.
‘Hurry the fuck up!’ he snapped as he caught sight of the fire spreading towards them.
‘Stay still then.’
‘I am still.’
‘Okay, just shut up then.’
As soon as Kacy freed his arms he began ripping off the rest of the bandages himself. He’d unwrapped them down to the knee when Sanchez came rushing over to them. The bartender-cum-cop grabbed at Kacy’s arm.
‘You still got the Eye of the Moon on you?’
‘Umm yeah.’ She reached down to the floor by Dante’s side and picked it up. She held it up to show Sanchez. ‘Here it is. Do you need it?’
Sanchez nodded. ‘Got a dying girl in the car outside.’
Kacy tossed the stone to him. ‘Don’t sniff it,’ she warned. ‘Dante sat on it just now.’
Sanchez took a look at Dante’s naked body and grimaced. ‘Why would I sniff it anyway?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know. You look the sort.’
‘Yeah well, your pants are on fire.’
‘Shit!’
He was right. Over by Beethoven’s piano, Kacy’s jeans had just caught fire. The flames were spreading towards her sneakers too. And it was starting to get pretty fucking hot. She left Dante and dashed over to her grab her sneakers before they went the same way as her jeans.
Sanchez rushed off with the Eye of the Moon, heading for the stairs at the far end of the hall, ducking out of the way of a few flames that seemed to deliberately lunge at him as he ran.
Dante freed his feet from the last of the bandages and grabbed his clothes. He managed to pull on his jeans and shoes and was reaching for his black T-shirt when he spotted the Bourbon Kid. The serial killer had dragged the body of Rameses Gaius across the floor towards the tomb. He dropped the once proud mummy on the floor by Dante’s feet. The self-proclaimed Lord of the Undead now had two empty eye sockets and a huge hole in his face where his nose had once been. The Kid had removed his clothes too. The naked body wasn’t a pretty sight. It was covered in blood and some pretty deep cuts, courtesy of the knife he’d been taken apart with. As Dante was slipping his T-shirt over his head he greeted the Kid with a thumbs up.
‘Hey man, thanks for coming back for us.’
‘Thank your girlfriend. She really came through for us.’
‘Yeah she’s cool like that.’ Dante reached over to Kacy and grabbed her by the back of her head, pulling her towards him. He didn’t need to pull hard. She reached forward and their lips locked for several seconds before Dante pulled away. ‘Love you, Kace,’ he said.
‘Love you too. Now let’s get the fuck outta here.’
The Bourbon Kid grabbed Dante’s arm. ‘Hey, I need help wrapping this muthafucker up in these bandages.’
‘What for?’
‘We need to get him in that fucking tomb.’
‘Isn’t he dead already?’ Dante asked.
‘The guy’s been dead for hundreds of years. He needs to go back in the tomb to be sure he won’t come back.’
‘Even with the fire?’
‘Would you just do as you’re fuckin’ told?’
‘Have we got time for this?’ Kacy asked.
Dante gave her a peck on the cheek. ‘Why don’t you get outta here?’ he said ‘I’ll meet you outside in a minute.’
; ‘Are you kidding?’
‘No. Go on, I’ll be fine.’
Kacy shook her head. ‘No you won’t. The last two times I’ve left you on your own you’ve gotten yourself turned into a vampire and a mummy. If I leave you again I’m worried you’ll turn into a zombie or a werewolf!’
The Bourbon Kid grabbed some of the bandages by Dante’s feet. ‘If you two don’t get a move on, we’ll all be turned into ash. Quit bitchin’ and help me wrap this fucker up.’
Kacy grabbed Gaius’s feet and lifted them off the floor so that Dante and the Kid could start wrapping the bandages around his legs.
By the time they had wrapped every inch of Gaius’s body in bandages the flames in the hall had spread towards the stairs at the other end. The oxygen in the hall was becoming thin, due in no small part to a considerable amount of smoke that was beginning to blow up towards the ceiling.
They hauled Gaius’s body over to the open sarcophagus in the tomb display. He had escaped from that same tomb a year earlier. Now it was time so send him back. The Kid stood Gaius’s mummified body upright and the three of them pushed his body inside the sarcophagus.
‘He’s a perfect fit,’ Dante commented. ‘You’d think it was made for him.’
‘It was,’ said Kacy.
‘Really?’
‘I’ll explain later.’
A loud crash behind them served as a reminder that time wasn’t on their side. The legs on Beethoven’s piano had given way and it had crashed to the floor, engulfed in flames. Other displays all around the hall were rapidly catching fire and breaking apart.
‘Are we done?’ Dante shouted above the din.
The Kid nodded. ‘Get outta here. I’ll stick the lid on this sonofabitch.’
Kacy tugged at Dante’s arm and started heading towards the stairs at the end of the hall. The fire was spreading swiftly enough that their window of opportunity for escape would soon be closed. Dante began to follow, but took one last look back to see how the Kid was coping.