The Book With No Name

by AnonYMous

  Kacy offered a baffled shrug of her own. She, of course, knew perfectly well the reason for Carlos’s sudden generosity, but she’d keep it to herself. Dante was openly brave, always looking for a reason to protect her. If only he knew the things she had to do to protect him from himself.

  As Somers was disappearing into the motel, Jensen was using his thumb to press the ENTER button on his cellphone to play his new message. He put the phone to his ear. To his surprise, the message was from Lieutenant Paolo Scraggs.

  ‘Hey, Jensen, it’s Lieutenant Scraggs here. Listen carefully, I’ve found that book you’ve been looking for. If Somers is anywhere near you, get the fuck away from him. I think he’s the killer you’re hunting. The whole Bourbon Kid thing is a red herring … or something … I’m not sure. Just call me or the Captain, but don’t talk to Somers. There’s a picture of him in the book. Says he’s a Dark Lord or some shit like that. Call me.’

  Jensen sat for a few seconds, frowning as he replayed the message in his mind. Somers? The killer? Couldn’t be … could it? Why would Scraggs lie? Scraggs didn’t like Somers, but then Somers didn’t like Scraggs. And hold on a minute, it was Somers who had come to Jensen’s rescue the night before when Scraggs had turned up in the barn. But … wait … Somers was late because his yellow Cadillac had been stolen. What if Somers had got to him before Scraggs had showed up? And come to think of it, hadn’t Carlito taken Jensen’s cellphone outside with him for a few minutes while he was tied up in the barn? What if he’d used it to make a call? Jensen flicked through the menus on his phone. And there it was: CALLS MADE – YESTERDAY – SOMERS – TIME 23.52 – DURATION 1:47

  Carlito had used Jensen’s phone to call Somers while Jensen was left tied up in the barn with Miguel. After speaking to Somers, Carlito had then come back in with the scarecrow in the wheelbarrow. Somers had mentioned nothing of this phone call from Carlito. SHIT.

  The keypad on Jensen’s phone had never seemed so small. He pressed at least three wrong keys in his frantic attempts to call back Lieutenant Scraggs. He needed to speak with him before Somers returned from doing whatever he was doing in the motel.

  ‘Sorry, the cellphone you are calling has been switched off. Please try again later.

  This isn’t funny, thought Jensen. Is it Scraggs playing a practical joke? No. It can’t be. That wouldn’t explain Carlito’s call to Somers on my phone. And … er … talking of Somers … here he comes now.

  Somers looked a little tetchy as he walked past the front of the squad car and over to the driver’s side. Jensen thought about reaching over and locking the door. No need. Somers doesn’t know I’m pretty sure he’s the killer. I’ve got time to think. Now think … for FUCKSAKES!

  Somers opened the door and climbed in behind the steering wheel. ‘You okay?’ he asked, observing his partner’s attempt to look calm.

  ‘Yeah, fine. You?’

  ‘Yeah, I’m all right. Didn’t find out much in there, though.’ He peered across at his partner and said, ‘You sure you’re okay?’

  ‘Yeah yeah,’ Jensen said impatiently. ‘I’m just pissed off, y’know? I think we missed our chance. We should probably check in with the Captain. See if he’s heard anything?’

  Somers looked down at Jensen’s right hand, which was tightly clenching his cellphone. Then he looked up into his eyes. Jensen couldn’t hide the frightened look deep within them.

  ‘You know, don’t you?’ said Somers softly, barely moving his lips.

  ‘Know what?’

  There was a horrible pause. Jensen knew in that moment that Scraggs had been right. Somers was the killer. And Somers now knew that he knew. Their friendship was to count for nothing. Time was up. Somers forced an apologetic smile.

  ‘I’m sorry, Jensen. It’s nothing personal, but I need the Eye of the Moon.’

  ‘But the eclipse is over. You’ve missed it.’

  ‘I know. But that stone is capable of much more than just stopping the moon. It can also bring my boys back to me. And my wife. That stone can restore her to her former self in next to no time. If that lousy Bourbon Kid hadn’t shot them all down, I wouldn’t have had to do this. I’m sorry.’

  CLICK. The central-locking system on the squad car made Jensen a prisoner instantly. Not that there was likely to be any escape from this situation, anyway. Not without some sort of miracle.

  Jensen took a look at Somers’s fingers, which were now resting on the steering wheel. They were slowly increasing in length. His fingernails, too. They became thicker, longer and sharper. With extreme alarm he saw that his partner’s face was also changing. Blue veins were appearing, first in his neck, then in his cheeks, and they were bulging. They needed to be filled with blood. The blood of Miles Jensen. Somers turned his head towards his partner and opened his mouth to reveal a set of teeth, huge yellow fangs that made it hard to imagine how, before, he had been able to keep his mouth shut. These were jagged and razor-sharp. A foul stench permeated the car. Too late, Jensen fumbled for his gun.

  ‘You may want to close your eyes, my friend,’ Somers hissed in a voice that came straight from the uttermost depths of Hell. ‘This is gonna hurt …’

  Sixty-Three

  The police radio crackled into life. The voice of Amy Webster came through the speaker.

  ‘Detective Somers, you there?’

  ‘I’m here,’ said Somers, picking up the mike with his right hand.

  ‘I need you to come back to the station.’

  ‘I’m kinda busy.’

  ‘You’re going to want to see this, sir.’

  Somers eased his foot off the accelerator a little, causing the body of Miles Jensen to slump forward and bang against the dashboard. He had been speeding down the highway out of town for less than five minutes since killing his partner. His plan was to catch up with the driver of the yellow Cadillac, who, if he had any sense, would be on this strip of road and heading out of Santa Mondega for ever. There was no other traffic in sight, in either direction.

  ‘What is it, Amy?’ Somers replied to the familiar voice of the switchboard operator at police headquarters.

  ‘I’ve got this big blue diamond in front of me. Someone just handed it in.’

  Somers slammed on the brakes and, as the protesting squad car squealed to a stop, pulled a three-point turn in the middle of the deserted highway.

  ‘Where did this big diamond come from?’ he yelled into the mouthpiece.

  ‘A guy just dropped it off. Said it was for Detective Jensen. I can’t get hold of Jensen on his mobile, though, so I thought I’d give you a call instead.’

  ‘You thought right, Amy. I’ll get you promoted for this. Just hide that stone away until I get there. I’ll be twenty minutes.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Somers reached over to the dashboard to replace the radio mike. Just as he was about to click it off a thought struck him.

  ‘Amy, does anyone else know about this yet?’

  There was a pause. A slightly longer pause than necessary, he thought.

  ‘No, sir. You’re the only person I’ve spoken to ’bout it.’

  ‘Good. Keep it that way.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Oh, and Amy? This man who handed it in, did he have a name?’

  Again an unnecessary pause.

  ‘No, sir, he didn’t leave a name. He was in a hurry.’

  ‘I see.’ Somers was intrigued, and although he had no reason to doubt Amy Webster, who had always been an honest employee (a rare thing in the Santa Mondega police department), he couldn’t help his suspicious nature.

  ‘What did this man look like?’

  Again that slight, unhealthy pause.

  ‘Er … I don’t know really. He was kinda average-looking. Short hair, blue eyes. I’ve never seen him before.’

  ‘Okay, Amy. That’ll be all. I’ll see you shortly.’

  Somers stamped his foot down on the accelerator and headed back into town with the siren blaring. He barely noticed th
e cab that passed him in the opposite direction. It was taking Dante and Kacy out of Santa Mondega to a place where they would eventually find the happiness together that they longed for. The Lord of the Undead had more pressing matters at hand than checking out the passengers of the local taxi companies. He needed to get to the Eye of the Moon very quickly if he was to have any chance of bringing Jessica back anytime soon.

  There might even be hope for his sons, El Santino, Carlito and Miguel.

  *

  Amy Webster put the microphone she had been speaking into back down on her desk. Her hands were still shaking. The hooded man standing in front of her and aiming a shotgun directly at her forehead had been dictating to her what to say in response to the questions Detective Somers had asked. She had repeated his words exactly. It didn’t look like it had pleased him much, though. He still looked like he was about to kill her, and judging by his reputation he probably would. Although there was no sign of any bourbon, so she guessed she had a chance.

  ‘You’ve done well,’ he said.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Amy, her voice trembling with fear. ‘But Archie Somers will kill me when he finds out I’ve lied to him.’

  ‘I wouldn’t worry about Somers, if I were you. You’ll never see that sonofabitch again.’

  ‘But he’s coming here now isn’t he?’

  ‘Yeah … but you’ll never see him again.’

  Amy shut her eyes. Maybe he was kidding. Maybe he would just disappear.

  BANG!

  Maybe not.

  Sixty-Four

  Somers walked into the reception area of the police headquarters. He had been through here a million times. It had never looked like this, though. Bloodstained bodies of officers and secretaries were slumped over desks and scattered around the floor. A few criminals still in handcuffs appeared to have been shot down, too. This was a massacre. At least forty bodies in the foyer. He spotted the blood-spattered body of Amy Webster still sitting at her desk, but with most of her head missing. He recognized the handiwork, too. This was a one-man job. The only question was, where was that one man?

  At the far end of the ground floor there was a bank of three elevators. Somers noticed a red light flicker on above the middle one. It was the down arrow, indicating that someone was coming down to the ground floor. He slipped his gun from its holster inside his grey jacket and stepped over a dead civilian’s body, positioning himself about thirty feet from the bank of elevators. He’d be ready to deal with who or what stepped out of the elevator doors.

  PING! The elevator came to a stop on the ground floor, and slowly the doors parted. There, in the middle of the elevator, stood the dark hooded figure of the Bourbon Kid. His hands were resting by his sides. He appeared to be unarmed, but appearances can be deceptive. Somers, of all people, knew that.

  ‘Where d’you think you’re going?’ Somers asked. When there was no immediate response he took another slow step towards the elevator, still a good distance away. One step was enough to elicit a reply from the unmistakable, gravelly voice beneath the dark hood.

  ‘I’m looking for a better place to die,’ said the Kid.

  ‘Well, this is as good a place as any,’ Somers snarled back at him. ‘You can’t kill me with your silver bullets. You can soak them in holy water and garlic for all I care. Hell, you can stab me with a crucifix, it matters not. I’m impervious to all these things you’ve read or heard about. Mirrors, stakes, crosses, sunlight, running water, none of it can harm me. You take me on and there’s only one winner. I have the blood of Christ and the blood of the vampire running through my veins. No one, not even you, can kill me.’

  ‘I know that.’

  ‘Do you? Do you really? Because somehow I doubt it. You’re here and you wanna play the big hero. You wanna show me that you’re brave enough to face me. You didn’t just kill Jessica and my boys for no reason, and you sure as hell didn’t make Amy Webster tell me the Eye of The Moon was here, just so I’d come back here to join you for coffee and home baking.’ He stopped talking for a moment, feeling the power within him, the thrill of Jensen’s fresh blood coursing in his veins. Then he continued, his voice dripping with venom.

  ‘No, you think you can take me on and kill me. Well know this, I’m invincible. You strike me down and I’ll get straight back up. Gimme your best, but I assure you, when you’re done, I’ll rip you in half. Your best bet is to kill yourself before I get to you. Take out a shotgun and blow your fucking brains out. Do it right, too – shit, take a swig of bourbon first if you want, and make it official, make some headlines. After all that’s what you love doing, isn’t it? ISN’T IT?’

  Somers waited for the other to respond. What the Kid did was step out of the elevator and walk towards him. He came to a standstill when the distance between them was no more than fifteen feet.

  ‘I told you, I came here to die,’ he said.

  ‘Fine, then you’ve got three seconds to take out one of your concealed weapons and blow yourself away, otherwise I’m gonna kill you like no man ever got killed before.’

  ‘Good. I want you to do it. I wanna see if you’ve got the guts to kill me. Prove you’re not scared of me like that pussy El Santino was. Or those other two faggot brothers of his. Or for that matter that piss-ugly bitch of a whore you called your wife.’

  Somers’s eyes turned red with rage.

  ‘Right. That’s it,’ he snarled. ‘You wanna die the hard way, I can see to that.’

  ‘Good. It’s what I deserve.’

  The Dark Lord needed no further invitation. Throwing back his head, he began the transformation into his undead form. His fingernails sprouted, his fanged teeth extended themselves and his face thinned to reveal the veins beneath the skin. Veins that had not yet had their fill of the daily intake of fresh blood they required.

  ‘You’re right. Death is exactly what you deserve, but I’m not going to kill you. I’m going to make you one of my kind. You will live for all eternity as a member of the Undead, the very race you despise.’

  There was a clattering sound as the Bourbon Kid dropped the two shotguns he had concealed in his trench coat. They hit the floor and bounced away from him. His pair of Skorpions fell from his sleeves. He stepped forward towards the enlarged, nightmarish figure before him and lowered his hood, revealing his face. It was spattered with blood, no doubt from the many victims he had slain that day.

  ‘Do your worst,’ he said.

  Somers tilted back his head and let out a huge roar, the sound accompanied by a graveyard stench from the depths of his being. This was a moment he had long been waiting for. An opportunity to rid himself of the menace that was the Bourbon Kid. He flew forward with his clawed hands outstretched, floating just a few inches above the ground. Unflinching, his adversary stood his ground. Still airborne, Somers grabbed his victim’s head with both hands and thrust his fanged teeth deep into the left side of his neck. The Bourbon Kid’s response was to wrap both arms around Somers’s body and pull him in tight, embracing his attacker as if he were a long-lost brother back from the dead.

  Somers drew his head back from the Kid’s neck and looked him square in the eye. A wisp of smoke rose up in the small gap between their faces. Somers glanced down. He could feel a burning sensation on his chest. Something had ignited a flame between him and the Kid. He tried to push the other away from him, but such was the strength of the Kid’s grip that for once he found himself powerless. And the burning sensation was growing, the pain now agonizing. He let out an anguished howl.

  ‘Aaagh! Let go of me, you fucking maggot!’

  Much to Somers’s surprise, the Bourbon Kid obeyed. He released his arms from their grip around Somers’s back, but now the detective found that he couldn’t pull himself away. Even without the Kid holding on to him he was still attached, as if they had been bonded together with a powerful glue. The Kid used his now free hands to pull open his trench coat a little further.

  Somers realized at once the severity of his predicament. S
trapped to the Bourbon Kid’s chest and previously concealed neatly beneath his coat was The Book With No Name. Now it was pressed tightly against Somers’s chest, causing his skin to blister and peel, burning away into ash and smoke.

  ‘Can’t be killed by crosses, right?’ said the Bourbon Kid, smiling. ‘That’s what you said, isn’t it?’

  Somers couldn’t believe what he was seeing. His body was now wreathed in flames that were even enveloping the Kid, who seemed impervious to them.

  ‘Aaagh! You bastard! You fucking bastard!’ he screamed. He staggered back, but the book ripped away from the Kid and went with him, as if it were melting into his chest.

  ‘The Book With No Name,’ said the Kid. ‘The cover and the pages were made from the Cross on which Christ was crucified. Now tell me, are you sure you can’t be killed by a cross?’

  The expression on Somers’s face was a picture of fury, agony and horror. He stood here now faced with the only thing on earth that could kill him. This was the secret he had fought to protect. He had killed all the people who had read the book, but he had been unable to destroy the book itself because to touch it meant death for him. Vampires do not go without a fight, however, and Somers wasn’t going to meet the Devil on his own if he could help it.

  ‘You’re coming with me, you muthafucker! I’ll take you straight to Hell.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  The Bourbon Kid stepped back far enough to be clear of the flames that now engulfed Somers’s entire body, devouring it. For ten seconds or more he stood and watched as the creature before him turned from Dark Lord and most powerful being on earth into nothing more than smoke and ash. Screaming like a soul in torment as he went.

  Then he was gone. The flames dwindled and died, the smoke evaporated, and nothing was left.

  Maybe not.

  The Kid stood and surveyed the carnage around him for a few moments. There were bodies strewn all over the floor. All his own doing. The important thing, though, was that Detective Archibald Somers was gone. For ever. The only legacy the Dark Lord had left behind was an irritating scratch on his killer’s neck. The Kid put his left hand up to feel how deep the wound was. His fingers ran along the small graze that Somers had inflicted upon him. Didn’t seem too bad.