The Book of Death

by AnonYMous

  ‘That’s right,’ said Sanchez.

  ‘Uh huh. And these vampires and werewolves are responsible for all the murders in this city.’

  ‘Most of them,’ said Flake. ‘A lot of the kids were killed by Santa Claus.’

  Williams took a deep breath and loosened his tie. ‘Of course. Santa was responsible for all the child killings. And then of course there’s the Bourbon Kid who you say was responsible for saving the city from the undead.’

  ‘He played a part,’ said Sanchez. ‘It was a team effort though.’

  ‘A team effort, huh.’ Williams stopped fiddling with his tie and ran his fingers through his thinning silver hair. This was exasperating. ‘So which one of you guys set fire to the museum?’

  ‘That was the mummy,’ said Sanchez. ‘He did it with laser bolts from his hands.’

  ‘Laser bolts, of course.’ Williams stared hard at Sanchez. The idiot cop in his stupid highway patrol outfit was keeping a straight face throughout the interrogation. ‘I find it interesting that the report also says you set fire to Santa Claus in the street, in front of a group of Sunflower Girls.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Nice work. You sure you didn’t set fire to the museum too?’

  ‘Quite sure, thanks.’

  Williams tried to eyeball Sanchez, but could see nothing through the other man’s dark glasses. ‘Interesting,’ he mused. ‘The Casa de Ville burned down too. No survivors there either. You were there that night too, before you went to the museum, right?’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘Seems like these fires follow you around, Mr Garcia.’

  ‘Yes it does. Better than being followed around by flies though.’

  Williams resisted the urge to lunge over the desk at Sanchez. He wanted these two idiots out of his office and off the police force as soon as possible. He took a moment to calm himself before continuing. ‘You’re also claiming that a book called The Book of Death which you stole from the library was causing the death of everyone whose name was written in it.’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘This book also burned in the fire, along with another book, sorry,’ he paused for dramatic effect, ‘another magic book that you say kills vampires.’

  Flake jumped in. ‘I can vouch for the magic bit. I used it to kill the Vampire Queen. And a librarian.’

  ‘Did you?’ Williams’s voice dripped with sarcasm. He was convinced they were taking the piss, yet the pair of them maintained their straight faces. ‘And yet all of the evidence that could back up anything you’ve said in this report burned in the fires at the museum and the Casa de Ville. Isn’t that convenient?’

  ‘On the contrary,’ said Flake. ‘I think it’s somewhat inconvenient. You clearly don’t believe anything we’ve put in that report. The evidence would have come in handy. Wouldn’t it, Sanchez?’

  ‘Yep.’

  Williams reached forward and closed the report folder on the desk in front of him. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Let me get this straight. You two are proudly claiming to have used a pair of books to defeat an army of vampires.’

  ‘And werewolves,’ Sanchez chipped in.

  ‘And werewolves,’ Williams repeated, wearily.

  ‘Come to think of it,’ Sanchez went on, ‘I hit a zombie over the head with a stick at one point too.’

  Williams ignored the latest boast from Sanchez and carried on. ‘So how many names did you write in The Book of Death, Sanchez?’

  ‘Just the names of the mummy and the Vampire Queen,’ said Sanchez proudly.

  ‘Just the bad guys, huh? What about Elijah Simmonds? Did you write his name in the book?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The museum’s assistant manager. His charred remains along with that of a security guard named James Beam were found in the fire. Autopsy reports say Simmonds blew his own brains out with a Desert Eagle, and Beam was stabbed to death. It’s hard to tell though, because there wasn’t much left of either of them after the fire. Neither of you two have mentioned anything of this in your report. Were Simmonds and Beam vampires too?’

  Sanchez raised an eyebrow. ‘Jim Beam is dead?’

  ‘Yeah. Know anything about it?’

  ‘Nope.’

  Flake gave Sanchez a playful shove. ‘Jim Beam,’ she said with a laugh. ‘I meant to tell you, that bottle of Jack Daniel’s you gave to Rick was full of Jim Beam. I tried some of it last night.’

  Sanchez shrugged. ‘I didn’t have any Jack Daniel’s left, so I took an empty bottle and filled it with Jim Beam. Figured Rick wouldn’t know the difference.’

  Williams slammed his hand down on the desk. ‘Hey, do you two mind? I’m trying to establish what happened in this case.’

  ‘It’s pretty simple,’ said Sanchez. ‘Everyone died. The end.’

  ‘You’re an idiot,’ Williams snapped. ‘I have no idea how they let you wear a uniform.’

  ‘Are we done?’

  ‘Not yet,’ said Williams. ‘One last thing in your report that I want clarification of. What happened to the Bourbon Kid? Your report says he was in the museum when it burned down.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Sanchez.

  ‘Well we’ve got no body for him. All the bodies we pulled out of the fire have been identified. He’s the only one not accounted for.’

  Sanchez and Flake both shrugged. ‘Come on,’ Williams demanded. ‘What happened to him?’

  Sanchez raised a hand tentatively. ‘Maybe he’s still in the museum.’

  Williams frowned. ‘What?’

  ‘I read about a cat once that survived for six months in a house that was burned down. Apparently it survived by eating the ash.’

  Williams had had just about as much as he could take. He wanted out of Santa Mondega as soon as possible. His main priority was simply to resolve this case as discreetly as possible and employ a new police force. These two idiots were the last remaining links to the old regime. He forced a broad smile at them.

  ‘Okay, we’re done,’ he said, breezily. ‘You two are dismissed. Your services on the police force are no longer required.’

  Flake looked surprised. ‘But I haven’t got another job to go to.’

  ‘That’s not my problem. You were only here temporarily anyway. I’ve shipped in thirty new experienced officers from out of town. They’ll be taking over from here. Hand your badges in at reception on your way out. The city would like to thank you and blah blah blah.’

  ‘But that’s not fair!’ Flake complained. ‘I need this job. The Ole Au Lait is closing down. This is all I have.’

  Williams shrugged. ‘That’s too bad. Life’s not fair, honey.’ He picked up the report and waved it at her. ‘Anyway, I think you missed your true calling. Judging by the report you’ve written, I’d say you could get yourself a job writing horoscopes. It’s an easy job. You just make shit up and expect people to believe it.’

  Flake faked a smile. ‘Thanks for nothing.’ She stood up to leave, but took one parting shot at Williams. ‘You shouldn’t joke about horoscopes, you know. I already read mine this morning. It said I should have sex with my boss. But as you’ve just fired me, I guess that won’t be happening now. Looks like you missed out.’

  ‘I’ll get over it.’

  Sanchez perked up in his seat. ‘I could use a new catering manager at the Tapioca.’

  Flake looked down at him. ‘Really?’

  ‘Yeah. With the Ole Au Lait closing down, there’s a gap in the market for a new breakfast place.’

  Her face lit up. ‘I’d love to do that!’

  ‘Good. The job’s yours then. It’ll be nice having you around in the mornings anyway.’

  Williams looked bewildered. ‘Excuse me, but would you two mind getting the fuck out of my office. I just fired you both, remember?’

  Sanchez stood up. ‘Can we keep the uniforms?’

  ‘Sure. Now get the fuck out.’

  Flake slammed the door shut behind them. Williams breathed a sigh of relief. Spend
ing his morning with a pair of tiresome morons had been exasperating. He closed the cardboard folder containing the report and opened the top drawer on his desk. He slipped the report into it and pulled out his copy of the local newspaper, The Santa Mondega Universal Times. He flicked through the first few pages, checking out the reports about the aftermath of the latest massacre. When he reached the page with the horoscopes on it, he smiled to himself. He wasn’t normally one for reading horoscopes, but having just spoken about them with Flake he decided to break with routine and read one for a change. The astrologer writing the horoscopes was named “Big Busty Sally”. “This’ll be funny,” he thought to himself.

  He scoured the page for the Pisces report. It read:

  Uranus will give you the strength to make an important decision. If you want to further your career, take a chance and have sex with your boss. It could be the start of something special.

  Williams’s jaw dropped. Flake hadn’t been kidding when she’d said her horoscope had told her to have sex with her boss. For a few moments he visualised himself fucking her over the desk in his office. She was pretty fit and probably a fun shag too. After a few seconds of thinking about it, he shook his head and laughed to himself. Flake seemed pretty stupid, but even she wouldn’t be dumb enough to follow a horoscope that literally.

  Sixty-Two

  Rae’s Diner was a hive of activity for the first time in a long while, and all of the customers seemed to be in a sociable mood for a change. Everyone was wishing each other a good day, whereas in the past, no one ever spoke to anyone they didn’t recognise. Times had changed in Santa Mondega. The sun was shining outside and the days of the undead lurking in dark corners were a distant memory.

  Kacy picked one of her French fries from her plate and nibbled on the end of it. Dante was sitting opposite her in their booth by the window, wearing one of his indiscreet red Hawaiian shirts. He was shovelling fries into his mouth three and four at a time with one hand. His other hand was sometimes forcing in an occasional bite from his cheeseburger. When it came to eating fast food, Dante had it down to a fine art. As well as shoving in the burger and fries he was drinking a large coke through a straw.

  ‘You enjoying that?’ Kacy asked.

  Dante made an approving noise and nodded. He hadn’t noticed that she was barely touching her food. Even though the burger and fries was far more nutritious than her previous diet of blood, Kacy’s appetite hadn’t really returned since she’d become human again. She was still worrying about things that Dante had long since stopped caring about. Things like what to do with the Eye of the Moon. She finished eating the French fry and began twiddling with the blue stone that hung around her neck on a silver chain. It was visible for everyone to see, resting nicely above her ample cleavage on her low cut white T-shirt.

  ‘I don’t think I want this any more,’ she said.

  Dante shrugged. ‘Shove it over here then. I’ll eat it.’

  ‘Not the food. The Eye of the Moon.’

  Dante stopped cramming food into his mouth and looked up at her, his face showing an unusual degree of concern. ‘What?’ he said, revealing a half chewed burger in his mouth.

  ‘I think we should get rid of it.’

  ‘But it’s worth a fortune.’

  ‘I know, but it’s bad luck. Look at how many people have died because of this thing.’

  Dante wiped his hands together and picked up a napkin from the table next to his plate of food. He used it to wipe some grease from his fingertips. ‘That stone can stop you from ever getting sick. No one can hurt you when you’re wearing it. Why get rid of it?’ he said. He took another suck of coke through his straw before continuing. ‘Neither of us’ll have to worry about getting seriously ill ever again.’

  ‘Maybe not,’ Kacy reasoned. ‘But we’ll always have to watch our backs, because people will kill for this thing. The Mystic Lady told us that, remember?’

  Dante looked deep in thought for a moment. ‘Is that the old woman whose head fell off?’

  ‘It didn’t fall off. Someone beheaded her.’

  ‘Same difference. She was as mad as old cheese.’

  ‘Even so, she was right. A lot of people have been killed because of this stone.’

  Dante picked up a French fry, but for once didn’t stick it straight into his mouth. ‘Well I thought the Bourbon Kid would have come looking for it by now.’

  ‘It’s been over a week. I think he was coming back for it, he’d have done so already.’

  ‘I guess so. So what do you wanna do with it then?’

  Kacy looked out of the window at the street outside. The diner they were eating in was situated on the promenade in the harbour. She nodded at the sea. ‘Thought maybe we could throw it off the end of the pier,’ she said timidly, hoping that Dante wouldn’t react angrily to the suggestion.

  He sat blinking at her for a few moments, as if he was checking to see if she was serious. Eventually he wiped some ketchup from the corner of his mouth. He looked at the red sauce on his fingertip and licked it up. ‘If we throw it away and you get sick one day, are we gonna have to come back here and look for it at the bottom of the sea?’

  Kacy shook her head. ‘No. The healing powers of this thing mess with the forces of nature. I want us to grow old together and take whatever life throws at us.’

  Dante smiled. It was his boyish smile. The one he used whenever he wanted to get her to do something she might not be keen on. ‘Grow old together, huh?’ he said.

  ‘Yeah.’

  Dante called over to the waitress. ‘Check please!’ He turned back to Kacy. ‘Let’s take that stone and throw it the fuck away then. I don’t want anything as much as I want to grow old with you. Let’s get the fuck outta here and go throw it off the end of the pier.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘Fuck yeah.’

  After paying for their food, they left the diner and strolled along the promenade towards the pier. The sun was back out in the sky and all traces of the snow had long since vanished. Dante kept his arm around Kacy’s shoulder the whole time, occasionally squeezing her in tight for no particular reason. It was great to be back together as humans again, and not to be in any danger for a change. There were lots of other love-struck couples and families strolling along the promenade too and everyone looked happy and carefree.

  ‘You know,’ said Kacy tentatively. ‘We never got around to arranging a date for the wedding, did we?’

  Dante stopped walking. ‘What wedding?’ he asked.

  ‘You proposed to me right before we got into all this shit, remember?’

  Dante scratched his head. He looked puzzled. ‘Really?’

  ‘Yeah. When we went to the fortune teller at the fairground.’

  ‘Huh? Where’s your engagement ring then?’

  ‘I haven’t got one.’

  Dante stuck his hand into one of the front pockets on his jeans and pulled something out. He held it up in front of her. ‘Are you sure?’ he said.

  Kacy’s eyes lit up. He was holding a small ring in between his index finger and thumb. It was a slim gold band with a small pink heart-shaped diamond in its centre.

  ‘Oh my God,’ Kacy spluttered, struggling to find words to describe how she was feeling.

  He reached out and grabbed her left hand. He pulled it towards him and slipped the ring on her finger. ‘I’d get down on one knee,’ he said, ‘but I’ll be honest with you, I really can’t be fuckin’ bothered.’

  Kacy barely heard him. She stared at the ring on her finger. It was beautiful, exactly the kind she would have chosen herself. And it fitted too. Feeling herself welling up with joy she threw both arms around him and planted a huge kiss on his lips. He in turn slipped both his hands onto her ass and squeezed hard. After a few seconds she pulled herself away and stared at the ring again.

  ‘How did you know I’d like it?’ she said, failing to mask the surprise in her voice.

  Dante shrugged. ‘It’s pink, gold and expensive. E
ven I could figure that out.’

  ‘I love it,’ she said, still unable to take her eyes off it.

  ‘Nothing’s too good for my woman.’

  They carried on walking along the promenade until they reached the old wooden pier that led out into the sea. As they walked across the rickety wooden panels on the pier, Kacy stopped staring at her engagement ring and looked up. Standing at the end of the pier, looking out at the horizon was a solitary figure she recognised. It was Beth. She was wearing a pair of torn black jeans and a blue hooded cardigan, her hands tucked into its pockets.

  ‘I wonder what she’s doing here?’ said Dante.

  ‘I expect it’s a nice place to come when you want to get away from everything and collect your thoughts,’ Kacy suggested.

  ‘Probably a good place to get mugged, too.’

  Kacy elbowed him in the ribs to remind him to keep his voice down. ‘Don’t be like that,’ she said.

  Beth may have heard them because she turned around as they approached. Kacy could see that she had been crying. As they walked up to her she wiped her eyes on her sleeve.

  ‘Hi, Beth,’ said Kacy with a sympathetic smile.

  Beth smiled back. ‘Hi, what you guys doing here?’

  Kacy held up her hand to show off her new engagement ring. ‘Dante just gave me this!’

  Beth’s eyes lit up. ‘Wow, that’s beautiful,’ she said as she moved in for a closer look.

  ‘Thanks.’

  As the two of them marvelled at the ring, Dante butted in. ‘Beth, we’ve still got the Eye of the Moon. But we got no need for it any more. Do you want it?’

  Beth stopped staring at Kacy’s new ring and shook her head. ‘That thing brings nothing but trouble,’ she said.

  Kacy unclasped the silver chain around her neck and held it out to Beth, the Eye of the Moon rested firmly in the palm of her hand. ‘We were thinking of throwing it off the end of the pier.’