by AnonYMous
Once through the glass doors at the front they found themselves in the lobby. It came as quite a relief to them both to feel some warm air on their bodies at last. The lobby was clean, dry and civilized, as always. The sight of two bedraggled men dressed as police officers dripping water all over the expensive red Egyptian rug in the middle of the floor brought a tut of disapproval from the girl on the reception desk to their left. She was only young, barely out of her teens, but watching Dante and Peto shake themselves like a couple of hounds who’d been rolling in mud drew a distinctly unamused look from her. Not that either of the two men noticed. They were just relieved to be out of the storm.
The general calming ambience inside the lobby lifted their spirits considerably. The soft lighting, the warm red rug and the beige carpet beneath it, and the brown leather sofas dotted around were extremely comforting sights. There was also some light music playing in the background. Peto recognized it as Andrea Bocelli singing ‘Con Te Partiro’. He had taken a distinct liking to classical music and opera in his time away from Hubal, and Bocelli was a particular favourite of his, even when singing pop-opera like Sartori’s hit.
Dante didn’t even notice the music, however. He just wanted to get to Kacy as quickly as possible. ‘She should be on the third floor,’ he said to Peto, the urgency in his voice all too evident. ‘I’ll take the stairs, you catch the elevator. That way we can be sure we don’t miss her if she’s comin’ down.’
‘Sure thing.’
Dante rushed off up the beige-carpeted staircase to the right of the elevator, while Peto pressed the button to call the elevator. He watched his friend disappear around the first corner on the stairs and then stood and waited for a good fifteen seconds before the lift eventually arrived on the ground floor. He was enjoying the music so much, that he would have happily waited longer. Bocelli appeared to be dueting with a woman who had the most beautiful, angelic voice Peto could ever recall hearing.
He looked down at his sodden police shirt and tugged at it to try to keep it from sticking to his body. Then, as the polished steel doors to the elevator opened, he stepped forward. And looked up.
His path in to the carriage was obstructed by a dark shadow. To his shock a figure loomed out of the lift, dressed all in black and thrusting a shiny silver double-edged sword in his direction. Peto’s reactions were quick, but not quick enough for this unexpected assault. The black-clad woman surging out of the elevator was Jessica. With unbelievable speed and accuracy she plunged the sword right into Peto’s chest, through his heart and out through the damp blue shirt on his back. Then, using her extraordinary strength, she used the blade to lift the soaking wet monk off the ground. Grinning horribly and looking deep into his stunned eyes, she angled a swift kick of her boot into his stomach and pulled the sword back out. Blood covered all of what had once been bright steel.
Peto slumped to the floor on his knees, dizzy and stunned, blood filling his lungs and spilling up through his throat and into his mouth. His eyes were wide open with the shock of what had just happened to him. He had the Eye of the Moon around his neck so this normally fatal wound had a chance of healing, but it would take a long time. And time was not on his side. Recovering from a wound like this was no thirty-second job.
The only thing keeping him from screaming out in agony at the sheer pain of the blow was shock, which had completely overcome him. He looked up into Jessica’s leering eyes as she loomed over him. She could see his blood dripping from her sword and, unable to control her thirst, she lifted the blade to her mouth and ran her tongue along it, licking up as much of the blood as possible with one long stroke of her tongue. It served to quench her thirst a little, but then, like a true professional, she quickly refocused her attentions on the stricken monk kneeling before her.
‘So, you’re the one. The last of the Hubal monks,’ she smiled. It was a smug, self-satisfied smile, a smile that couldn’t disguise it’s owner’s evil nature and hatred of the living. ‘Time to say goodbye.’
Then, like a baseball player preparing to take a swing, she lifted her bloodied sword in both hands until it was high above her right shoulder and, almost in the same movement, struck downwards, aiming it at Peto’s neck.
Home run.
Peto’s head came clean off his shoulders. There was no need for a second swing here. The head landed with a thud three or four feet away, much to the horror of the girl on the reception desk who watched aghast and in silence, open-mouthed. Peto’s now headless body slumped forward. The necklace with the Eye of the Moon attached to it fell on to the floor and landed at Jessica’s feet. This was what she had been waiting for. Finally, here it was, the precious blue stone she had long coveted, just lying there on the floor at her feet. Oblivious to everything around her she bent and picked it up, raising it in front of her face. Her eyes lit up like fireworks in the darkest night.
‘At last,’ she hissed.
That, however, was not quite all. When she finally stopped gazing at the Eye of the Moon, she noticed a golden chalice protruding from a pocket in the dead monk’s pants.
Double Jackpot!
From his place behind the bar in the now empty Tapioca, Sanchez finally found the page of The Book of Death that he had been looking for. There were three names that stood out. All three were due to die on 1 November. A glance at his watch confirmed that midnight on Halloween had passed. The first day of November was now under way.
The three names read as follows:
Peto Solomon
Dante Vittori
John Doe
Sixty
Heartbreak Hotel on Santa Mondega’s South Side was not one of the more pleasant guesthouses. It was home to all manner of lowlife scum. The cops stayed clear of the place – hell, if truth be told, even the vampires steered clear of it. And there was one particular apartment that even the other residents steered clear of.
The apartment at the end of the hall on the second floor had always been creepy. Anvil had never even been within six feet of the door, despite living next to it for almost four years. It became noticeably colder once you walked past apartment Number 23. Apartment Number 24 was hidden from the world by a sturdy, sinister-looking black door. The lighting in the hallway came to an end four feet from the door, and served only to add to the creepiness of the place. The air was visibly dusty on the final approach to that door, even in the dark. The specks of dust didn’t seem to want to settle on the ground, and remained always floating in the air, as if recently disturbed. Even if the dust did one day settle on the floor, no chambermaid or janitor in their right mind was going anywhere near door Number 24 with a vacuum cleaner.
Or without one.
Fuck that.
The man who lived there often disappeared for weeks or months at a time. No one ever saw his face, and no one ever tried to see it. He always wore a hood up over his head, be it hot, cold, raining, sunny, or whatever. Everyone in the building knew who he was. No one in the building uttered his name. Not ever. Why would you? This man was not to be talked about. It was him, the man that killed. Killed for a living. Killed for fun. Killed to pass the time. Killed time, too, probably.
Earlier in the year his apartment had been empty for more than six months, a joyous six months too. No one knew where he had been, and no one wanted to know. They just didn’t want him to come back. But come back he had.
Three months ago he had returned unannounced. And it was giving Anvil sleepless nights. Knowing that there was a mass murderer next door was a ticket to the town of Insomnia. How the hell was anyone supposed to sleep when they had a serial killer less than a coffin length away? Well, Anvil now had bags under his eyes big enough to store nuts in for the winter.
It wasn’t just knowing that the psycho was back next door that was keeping him up at night, however. It was also the screaming. Oh God, the screaming. Someone was being tortured by the Man every night. The same dull screaming voice every night. Not quite human sounding, but not quite animal, either. Someon
e had recently remarked to Anvil that it sounded like a wookie, but what it really sounded like was someone without a tongue, screaming as best they could. That would explain why no words were ever shouted out. Just the screams.
And every night it went on for hours at a time. But why was this person or creature screaming? What the hell was being done to them? And why?
The answer lay behind that door. That terrible, horrible door. Somehow, there was never anyone around in the hallway to try to peek past that door on the odd occasion when it was opened. If the hooded man was in the building, everyone was locked inside their apartments.
Until today.
Anvil was one of the braver tenants, as it happened. He was standing at the opposite end of the hallway, at the top of the staircase, ready to run like fuck if anything happened. Anything. As far as he knew, the hooded man had gone out for the day. Grocery shopping, maybe? Do hooded men buy groceries? Of course, they must do, right? It wasn’t something that Anvil had ever thought about before, and now wasn’t the time to fret about it either.
There were four heavily armed men dressed in black standing outside the dreaded door Number 24. Their upper bodies were protected by dark body armour that matched their clothes. And all four of them were aiming automatic weapons at the door. These guys were something special. Green Berets? Anvil thought about it for a moment. Nah, they weren’t wearing green berets, so probably not. These guys would be called Shadow Company or something cool like that. And the massive guy at the back with the flattop military haircut, he was Shadow Company leader.
Considering that Anvil was a halfwit, his assessment was surprisingly accurate. This was Shadow Company. The leader was Bull, and the other three were his blood brothers, Tex, Silvinho and Razor. A fearsome-looking bunch, one of whom stood out due to a large pink mohawk haircut rising from the top of his otherwise shaved head.
There was no mistaking that Bull was the leader of this team of four, and as the leader he was going to do one thing better than the others. Lead. And lead he did. Anvil watched as the three soldiers in front of him stepped aside in unison without even appearing to have been ordered to do so. Then Bull charged forward and kicked door Number 24 clean off its hinges with the sole of the giant black boot on his right foot. The door crashed backwards on to the plain wooden floorboards inside the room, and immediately a foul, rancid, repugnant smell swarmed back out, engulfing the entire floor. Anvil felt himself retching. The soldiers up ahead of him did not react to the smell; they crouched in assault positions, ready to fire on anything making an aggressive move. And there was one thing moving in that apartment. One thing visible through the gap where door Number 24 had been.
Anvil laid eyes on it for less than a second. It was without doubt the most gruesome sight he’d ever seen. A body was hanging upside down from the ceiling. A human body, only with barely any skin on it. Its arms were hanging down, almost touching the floor. Although Anvil didn’t know it yet, this unfortunate creature was a vampire named Kione. He had been kept alive and tortured mercilessly every night for the last eighteen years.
Anvil turned his head away, trying his best not to vomit. Look somewhere else, anywhere else, he whispered to himself. Then he focused his gaze back down the staircase, and did the one thing he’d always been afraid of doing. The one thing he’d always vowed never to do.
He stared deep into the eyes of the hooded man, who was walking up the stairs towards him.
Sixty-One
Kacy was shaking like a leaf. Holding a gun made her nervous at the best of times, and the thought that she might have to fire it made her even more terrified. Where the hell was Dante? He must be close by. Can’t be far, she thought. She was right, too. Whatever predicament they were in was always best dealt with together. On their own they were vulnerable, but his courage and headstrong tenacity paired with her sensible thinking made them a perfect combination to deal with any problems that they might face when they were together. As a unit, they made a formidable team.
She had left Swann behind in a bloodied mess and with his pants round his ankles in the second bedroom of the suite. Now, as she crept along the corridor of Floor Three, she was gripped by paranoia and a terrible feeling of anxiety. Being on her own was freaking her out. Any decisions would have to be made on her own, without running them past anyone, and when the decisions involved simple choices like turning left or right, but had enormous consequences, like life or death, they were decisions she didn’t want to make. Someone was going to jump out of one of the apartment doors, or appear around one of the corners ahead of her or, worse still, behind her. With an irrational logic brought on by the distress and apprehension she felt, she decided not to use the elevator simply because the thought of watching the doors open only to find herself confronted by a vampire or a corrupt cop gave her the shits. The best thing to do would be to head for the stairs that led down to the lobby. Act casual, like nothing’s wrong, she told herself.
Then, between one second and the next, all was right with her world again. Dante appeared at the opposite end of the corridor. He had obviously just bounded up the stairs because he looked a little out of breath, and he was soaked to the skin. Moreover, for reasons unknown to Kacy he was dressed in a police uniform, with a rain-sodden blue shirt that appeared to be heavily stained with blood. It wasn’t something that particularly worried her. It would just signify that he had no doubt managed to get himself into one of his legendary, ridiculous, scrapes which, somehow, he always seemed to come out of unscathed.
A huge smile lit up her face, one she couldn’t control. The mere sight of Dante grinning back at her erased all of her fears in an instant. He might not have been the toughest guy in the world, and certainly not the smartest, but he was her guy. Always there for her in a crisis. Willing to do whatever it took, no matter how daring or stupid, in order to protect her, the woman he loved. And that was just one of the many reasons why she loved him.
‘Oh God, are you a sight for sore eyes,’ she called down the hallway to him. He was a good thirty yards away, but that distance could be covered in a matter of seconds. Lowering the pistol to her side she began to walk towards him. She felt a little weaker than she had done only seconds earlier, simply because the adrenalin brought on by Swann’s fearful attack was now subsiding. Everything was going to be okay. Dante began jogging towards her with a big smile on his face. ‘C’mon, let’s get you the fuck outta here,’ he yelled.
Kacy tucked the gun into the back of her jeans and opened her arms wide. ‘Come and get me, honey!’ she beamed. Dante began to run a little faster, ready for an over-the-top embrace like the kind one sees enacted on a beach in a cheesy movie.
Then, BAM! Just as he passed a side corridor a figure dressed in a leopard-skin catsuit flew out from it and slammed him into the opposite wall. It was Roxanne Valdez, and she was in full-on bloodsucking mode. To Kacy, everything seemed to move in slow motion as she looked on aghast as the events unfolded. She watched Dante’s expression change from one of joy to one of surprise and utter horror. Valdez had hit him with the speed of an express train. His head was slammed into the wall of the hallway with such force that it was a wonder he hadn’t been knocked cold straight away. The vampire-agent’s strength was clearly phenomenal, and the fact that she had taken him completely by surprise meant that Dante’s attempts to fight her off were futile.
Kacy stared in stunned bewilderment as Valdez opened her mouth wide, revealing a set of fangs which she sank deep into the side of Dante’s neck. A horrible crunching sound followed, and Kacy saw fresh blood spurt from her lover’s wound. His whole body was pressed up against the wall so that he could muster little of his strength or leverage from his arms to fight back. Worse, by the time Valdez had pulled her head back to allow his blood to trickle down her throat he looked incapable fighting any more. The blood slowly drained from his face, and his knees began to buckle as he stared blankly down the hallway at Kacy with an almost apologetic look.
Kacy finall
y screamed. ‘DANTE!’ It felt as if she had been watching this action unfold for an age before her mouth had allowed her to make her inevitable despairing cry.
The scream drew the attention of the blood-crazed Valdez, who released her grip on her latest victim and turned her evil glare on Kacy. Dante’s battered and bloodied body slid towards the floor, leaving a thick stain of blood on the wall as he collapsed on the carpet, like an unwanted rag doll.
Valdez took a step towards Kacy and eyed what she probably classed as vampire’s dessert. Streaks of Dante’s blood were dripping down from her mouth onto her leopard-skin catsuit. Kacy froze, and for a second the two females eyeballed each other. Then the vampire made her move, charging at the wide-eyed innocent before her.
The movement finally brought Kacy to her senses. Reacting instinctively, she pulled the pistol back out from the waistband of her jeans. She fumbled for a solid grip on it as, with trembling hands, she pointed it in the direction of the onrushing bloodsucker. Then for reasons even she herself didn’t know, she closed her eyes, looked away and fired blindly.
BANG!
For a few seconds a deafening silence followed the echo of the report. Then Kacy, wincing like someone expecting a custard pie in the face, opened one eye, then the other. Lying on the carpet less than a yard in front of here was a bloodied, smoking mess of a corpse, the remains of Special Agent Roxanne Valdez.
Dante was still in a heap on the floor up against the wall fifteen yards down the hallway. He was looking at Kacy with puppy-dog eyes, but his head was resting on the floor in a pool of blood. The pool was getting bigger and spreading slowly across the carpet. There was blood dribbling from his mouth, but the main cause of the ever-expanding pool was pumping out from the gaping wound in his neck.
In spite of the numbness that she felt, Kacy’s mind was racing. She dropped Swann’s gun on the floor by the now burning remains of Valdez and ran over to Dante with all the strength her legs could muster in their current turned-to-jelly state. Kneeling, she placed one hand over the hole in his neck to try to stem the flow of blood. Then she used her other hand to lift his head and turn it to face her.
