by AnonYMous
‘Yes, miss. I’ve just put the midgets’ diet book back.’
‘Did you remember to put it on the bottom shelf?’
‘Not as such. No.’
Ulrika’s face screwed up into a contorted snarl, and she got up from her padded plastic chair.
‘I despair,’ she sighed. ‘I really do. I’ll go and move it myself.’ She walked around the desk and came through the reception counter via a hinged wooden flap by the wall. She came over to where Josh was standing.
‘Sorry,’ he shrugged as she barged past him towards the cookery section right at the back of the giant hall of bookshelves. She heard his apology and stopped in her tracks for a moment with her back to him. He could see that the awful blue veins, which ran down her calves beneath the hem of her blue knee-length skirt, were twitching. After a slight pause she turned to face him.
‘Don’t worry about it. You’ll get better at this one day … probably. In fact, you can start by putting that Sesame Street annual back on the shelves. Then go home. I’m sick of the sight of you.’
‘What Sesame Street annual?’
‘There’s one behind the counter somewhere. It’s really not at all hard to recognize. Honestly!’ Ulrika Price was exasperated, and not bothering to hide it.
‘Okay. I’ll do that and be off, then. Thanks. G’night, miss.’
Ulrika didn’t respond and simply strode off towards the cookery section, looking for any young people on her way whom she could berate or accuse of stealing.
Josh leaned over the counter to look for the Sesame Street annual. The only book that caught his eye was a black volume on the lower part of the desk in front of which Ulrika had been sitting when she was on the telephone. He reached over and grabbed it. It was a heavy hardback book and it took all his strength to lift it with the limited leverage he could apply from his position leaning over the counter. Once it was in his hands he took a look at the title. The Book of Death, it read.
Holy shit! he thought to himself. These Sesame Street annuals have changed a bit since I was younger.
Not wanting to upset Ulrika further, he decided to give some thought to where he should put this book. It didn’t seem right to place it in the Children’s section. That wouldn’t be appropriate. So where?
Reference – when in doubt always put a book in the Reference section. It was a rule that had served him well during his time in the library. Why change it now? Not wanting to be around when Ulrika returned from the Cookery section, he hurried on over to Reference. He slipped the book on to one of the shelves, then hightailed it out of the library to get something to eat before heading off to his late-night job.
When Ulrika eventually returned she was alarmed to find that The Book of Death had gone missing, along with Josh. This was serious. That book was not meant for public consumption. It was a special book that she kept locked away in a safe, only ever taking it out when she was instructed to do so. Her master, the great Rameses Gaius, had bestowed upon her the honour of being the keeper of the most powerful book in the history of mankind. And tonight had been one of those nights when he had instructed her to take it out and enter some names into its pages.
If she wanted to carry on as his mistress, and achieve the immortality and everlasting beauty he had promised her in return for her services, she had to find it before it fell into the wrong hands. And if Gaius was to ever find out how careless she had been with it, she feared that her time on earth would come to an abrupt and painful end.
Forty-Five
Hunter turned around. After calling the number for ‘Big Bro’, he had heard a nearby cell phone ring almost immediately. He still held Casper’s phone to his ear. And standing almost directly in front of him was a member of the Shades, holding in one hand a ringing cell phone. It was the gullible one who always did as he was told, Obedience. Hunter swiftly drew his gun back out from its holster over his ribcage on the and aimed it directly at Obedience’s head. The latter held up a finger to gesture to Hunter to wait a moment as he answered his phone.
‘Hello, who’s calling please?’ he asked the caller.
‘Me, you asshole,’ Hunter replied, ending the call.
Obedience, looking confused, also hung up. The whole bar was watching, wondering what was going on.
‘This, my friends, is the Bourbon Kid,’ Hunter announced, pointing at Obedience as he spoke to the onlooking crowd.
Dante, who was standing next to Obedience, spoke up on behalf of everyone. ‘Are you nuts?’
‘No, I’m deadly serious. This phone I’m holding here has the Bourbon Kid’s cell-phone number in it. I just dialled it and this dumb fuck has just answered. He’s the Bourbon Kid. He’s been livin’ in amongst us for some time, plotting to kill us all.’
Fritz stepped forward in defence of his friend, ready to square up to Hunter physically if the need arose. A vampire should always be willing to stick up for any fellow member of his clan, and Fritz was as loyal a friend as any vampire could wish for.
‘BULLSHIT!’ he barked in Hunter’s face, spraying him with only a little saliva.
‘Look, I’m not the Bourbon Kid,’ said Obedience with an impressive degree of calm. ‘And this isn’t my phone. I’m holding it for someone else.’
Hunter cocked his pistol and kept it fixed on Obedience’s forehead, aimed right at the unfortunate ‘CUNT’ tattoo.
‘Don’t fuckin’ lie to me.’
‘I’m not lying.’
‘ZIS IS TRUE!’ Fritz spoke up again for his friend. ‘HIS MOMMY TOLD HIM NEVER TO LIE, UND AS HE ALWAYS DOES VOT HE’S TOLD, TECHNICALLY HE MUST BE TELLING ZE TRUCE!’
‘So who’s fuckin’ phone is it?’ Hunter asked, straightening his arm and inching the gun closer to Obedience’s face.
‘I’m not allowed to say. The owner swore me to secrecy.’
‘You got three seconds to tell me or I’m putting one right through your fuckin’ face!’
‘Y’know,’ Dante interjected. ‘You remind me of that guy from Sesame Street. . .’
‘Shut up, fuckwad,’ Hunter growled, swivelling the gun in Dante’s direction. Dante raised his arms and backed away a step. He quickly reminded himself that Kacy wouldn’t approve of him relating his favourite Sesame Street insult again, and that it wasn’t his life in danger, but Obedience’s. There really wasn’t any need for him to get involved unnecessarily, particularly as Obedience had potentially been about to kill him before Hunter’s intervention. Besides, Fritz and Silence would no doubt stick up for their buddy.
‘VAIT!’ yelled Fritz, as if on cue. ‘IF YOU DO ANYSING TO OBEDIENCE I ASSURE YOU VE SHADES WILL HUNT YOU DOWN UND EXACT OUR REVENGE!’
‘See this?’ said Hunter pointing at his feet. His left shoe was tapping the floor gently. ‘That’s me quakin’ in my fuckin’ boots. Hunt me down all you fuckin’ like, I couldn’t give a shit. I could kill you with both my hands tied behind my back. Yeah, an’ that gives me an idea …’
He pulled a pair of handcuffs from inside his jacket and threw them to Silence, who calmly caught them in his left hand.
‘You, Motormouth. Cuff your buddy Obedience.’
Silence gave Hunter a hard stare for a second, but then did as instructed, cuffing Obedience’s hands in front of him rather than behind his back to give his friend at least a small amount of comfort. Hunter let the hammer on his gun back down and holstered it once more, then grabbed hold of Obedience, spinning him round and then pushing him towards the Nightjar’s front door.
Loyalty was a supreme virtue as far as Fritz was concerned. Seeing that Hunter was now no longer holding his pistol he made his move. The German lunged forward and took a swing at the detective. His right fist swung through the air with blinding speed, aimed at his enemy’s jaw. But Hunter was made of sterner stuff these days, and saw the punch coming before it was even thrown. He moved out of its path with childish ease. His retaliation was swift. For the merest fraction of a second he released his grip on Obedience, then hit Fritz in the stom
ach with a counter-punch of such ferocity that it sent the German flying thirty feet across the bar, his feet a good six feet off the ground. The crowd parted as if a fireball was passing through them, allowing Fritz to journey unimpeded through the air. He moved at such pace he might have ended up halfway across the street, had it not been for the wall on the other side of the barroom by the entrance, into which he crashed. The impact caused him to bounce violently back, and he landed face down on a table with three members of the Punk Ladies clan sitting at it. The table split in half and Fritz fell through it, with the Ladies’ drinks spilling down on top of him.
Silence didn’t wait for an invitation. He burst forward and seized Hunter in a bear hug from behind. The muscles on his arms bulged as he exerted all his strength on tightening his grip around the Filthy Pig’s chest. To no avail. Hunter had far superior strength these days, and easily shrugged him off. He broke free from Silence’s grip, then turned and sneered at him before picking him up by the throat and throwing him in the same direction as he had thrown Fritz. Silence followed the same trajectory as the German, crashing into the wall and then sinking to the floor by the three Punk Ladies’ feet, landing on Fritz as his friend tried to stand upright.
Dante felt distinctly uneasy, for with neither Vanity nor Déjà-Vu present everyone would be looking to him to make the next move. Fortunately for him, Chip appeared behind him, dressed in his usual black wraparound karate outfit. He grabbed Dante’s right arm, which he had been lining up to take a swing at Hunter, and whispered in his ear. ‘Now’s not the time. Be smart.’
Dante recognized the voice this time. He turned and looked closely through the dreadlocks and the painted veil that covered so much of Chip’s face. Just as he’d thought. He liked this guy, and he trusted him – just about – so he had earned the right to tell Dante what to do. At least once, anyway.
So Dante lowered his half-clenched fist and backed away. Even though he was standing down and failing to support his fellow clan members, it was quite unlikely that anyone would berate him for this. Hunter had proved himself to be a real hardass. Right now every vampire in the Nightjar was deeply concerned at the thought of such an unpleasant, bullying character having gained such an increased level of power. It seemed that things in Santa Mondega were about to get ugly, and not just tonight either. Hunter, and whatever he signified, could be a long-term problem.
Everyone watched in silence as Hunter prodded Obedience in the back and followed him to the exit, aggressively eyeballing anyone who looked as though they might make trouble as he went. When they reached the Nightjar’s front door, Jericho unbolted it and let them out, before shutting the door again and securing it behind them. The crowd in the bar heaved a huge collective sigh of relief.
It didn’t take long for the chatter in the place to start up again. Everyone began discussing the events they had just witnessed, debating whether or not Obedience was the Bourbon Kid. They muttered, too, about just how worrying it was that a vicious prick like Hunter had become so incredibly powerful, effortlessly hurling two pretty hard dudes like Fritz and Silence thirty feet across the barroom.
In the general relief that the incident was over, Dante lost sight of Chip. He searched around for him in the crowd, still very aware that, for some unknown reason, the blood-cooling serum hadn’t worked that night. With that in mind he needed to keep out of sight of Fritz and Silence, and indeed any other vampires with twitching fangs. He needed to get out. And soon.
No more than two minutes had passed before the place fell to a hushed silence again. An almighty ruckus had started up outside. There was shouting in the street, and it sounded like another fight had broken out. A few people rushed to the tinted windows and peered out. Something big was going on out there, but no one could quite make out what it was. It was too dark in the street and too bright inside to be able to see clearly what was going on. It was clear, though, that whatever was happening, it was developing fast.
And then there came an almighty bang.
Something, or someone, hit the huge bolted wooden entrance door from the outside, making it shudder violently. The people at the windows stepped back. In fact, even the people not at the windows stepped back.
THUD! – the door took another pounding blow and shook some more. Everyone stepped back another six inches, and well away from the entrance. This door, this solid, thick oak door was in danger of coming off its now creaking hinges. Best not to be in the way. Or even close.
The Psychics, who could never resist playing a tune when there was some action about to go down, attempted to lighten the mood by kicking off a new song, breaking into the old classic by The Animals, ‘We Gotta Get Out Of This Place’.
THUD! – the door creaked loudly as its massive metal hinges began to bend under the strain of the repeated pounding. Something was hitting that door with the force of a battering ram manned by a dozen burly men. Whatever it was outside, it was trying to get in.
By now everyone had scurried as far away from the door as they could. Backs were literally up against walls. That door was coming off its hinges and into the bar at any second.
CRASH! – that second arrived.
At enormous speed, the door flew off its hinges and, still upright, carried on through the barroom. Plastered to the outside of it was Hunter. Something had hit him so hard that he had slammed into the door and knocked it off its hinges, and then flown through the bar with his back pressed hard against the oak. The door’s journey came to an end when the lower half of it hit the bartop and toppled up and over it, catapulting Hunter over the bartop and into the shelves of bottles and glasses on the wall behind. Slowly he crashed down on to the floor, with shelves and broken glass collapsing down on top of him with a sound like an express train hitting a glazier’s truck. The nearest person to him was Dino, who had been lucky enough, or sensible enough, to duck well out of the way in the far corner of the bar.
For a moment all the customers stood and stared open-mouthed at the bar area, watching as the shocked and dazed figure of Hunter slowly clambered to his feet behind the bar, covered in glass and alcohol and various other small pieces of debris. He didn’t look quite so fucking tough now. Then, in unison, like a crowd at a tennis match, everyone turned their heads and looked back to the massive hole where the Nightjar’s front door had been.
A figure appeared in it.
An unsavoury sort of figure, looking extremely disgruntled, and ready to carry on the fight.
Dante’s mouth was as open as anyone’s. Maybe more so. He’d seen this guy wipe out a bar full of people a year earlier during an eclipse. It looked as though it was about to happen again, too. He had that all too familiar feeling.
Déjà-Vu.
The member of the Shades in the doorway was wearing a long dark robe with a hood hanging around his shoulders. Once he had everyone’s attention he pulled the hood up over his head, just to confirm exactly who he was. Just in case anyone was in any doubt.
There was no mistaking it. This was the Bourbon Kid. Dante had never managed to get a good look at his face during the eclipse a year earlier, but now, with the cowl covering much of it, he was all too recognizable. And he was ready to fight.
Hunter, however, still fancied his chances. Moreover, he could not afford to lose face in front of the vampires he intended to rule over in the future. He dusted himself off and stood to his full height, sneering at anyone who dared to make eye contact with him. Then he sprang in to action. In one fluid move he leapt back over the bar and charged at the Kid, who had walked down into the centre of the room.
‘You fuckin’ scum! YOU’RE A DEAD MAN!’ he screamed, lunging at his hooded foe with unprecedented speed and strength, even for a vampire. But he swung and missed. The Kid managed to duck, and then in response threw a punch back with equal speed but far greater precision. Hunter might well have been as fast and as strong as the Bourbon Kid, but in terms of skill and prowess as a fighter he was a mere amateur in a professional bout.
CRACK! – broken nose.
Ignoring the pain, Hunter instinctively swung again. And missed again.
CRACK! – another blow to the ribcage. Hunter now had at least three broken ribs that were pushing deep into his stomach and lungs, closing off his oxygen supply and causing no small amount of internal bleeding.
He swung again, but this time much of the speed and strength of his punch was gone. Once more, the Kid easily ducked out of the way, then stepped menacingly closer to his fading opponent. Whatever his intentions were now, it was clear to everyone present that this fight would have been stopped if there had been a referee present. Unfortunately, for Hunter there was no man in black-and-white stripes at hand to enforce a stoppage, and no second to throw in the towel.
The hooded killer grabbed his wounded victim by the throat and squeezed hard. Then, one-handed, he lifted Hunter off his feet and charged towards the half-demolished bar, holding the by now terrified detective-vampire out in front of him. As they approached the bar at high speed, the Kid leapt up on to the counter, hauling the beaten cop up with him. Holding his captive’s head up, he pushed it towards the huge metal blades of the propeller fan revolving over the far end of the bar. Hunter took a glance up, only too aware of where his scalp was heading. But he had shot his bolt. There was nothing he could do to stop it.
The Kid found a decent foothold on the bartop and, heaving his victim upwards, pushed Hunter’s head into the path of the rapidly spinning blades. The entire bar watched, as though they were witnessing a car crash, all wanting to look away in horror, but all allowing their morbid curiosity to get the better of them.
