Twenty-Three
Kacy hadn’t set foot in the
Tapioca for a long time. The place hadn’t changed much. It was still a
shithole. The walls were a disgusting yellow colour, it stank of cigarette
smoke and although it wasn’t very busy, everyone in there looked like a
criminal. The only major difference was that there wasn’t a fat guy behind the
bar this time.
She followed Dante and the
Bourbon Kid up to the bar. Before they had even taken a seat, the Kid called
out to the barmaid.
‘Get me a bourbon. And fill the
glass.’
Kacy grabbed a stool and sat
down at the bar. The barmaid set a whisky glass down on the bar and began
filling it to the top with bourbon from a dirty brown bottle of Jim Beam.
Dante nudged Kacy. ‘Watch what
happens once he’s downed it. Those four guys at the table in the corner are
most likely gonna get wasted.’
Kacy glanced over at the table
in question and saw four greasy lowlifes supping at bottles of beer. She made
eye contact with one of them and immediately looked back to the bar. The Kid
had thrown a five-dollar bill at the barmaid.
‘Keep the change,’ he muttered.
As the barmaid began ringing the
sale up in the till at the back of the bar, he picked up the glass of bourbon
and took a long hard look at it, inspecting the contents. The glass wasn’t
particularly clean and the bourbon didn’t look particularly special, but he was
definitely going to drink it. He put the glass to his lips and poured the
contents down his throat. Then he slammed it back down on the bar.
From all that she had heard
about him, Kacy expected to see him turn into a giant psycho, or pull out an
arsenal of weapons. What actually happened was distinctly underwhelming. He
simply stared down into the empty glass, deep in thought.
Eventually he looked over at
them. ‘I feel nothing,’ he said. ‘Something’s gone. Right now I should be
looking at those four guys in the corner and deciding on how I’m gonna kill
’em.’
‘What do you mean?’ Dante asked.
‘I can’t think of a good reason
to kill them.’
‘Since when did you need a
reason?’
‘Since now.’
Kacy gestured over to a table by
the entrance. ‘Why don’t we take a seat and talk about this,’ she suggested.
The three of them made their way
over to the table and each sat down on one of the creaky wooden chairs around
it.
‘What’s different?’ Kacy asked
sympathetically.
‘I don’t feel the same,’ the Kid
said, looking confused. ‘I used to get a major adrenaline rush after a drink.
You know that feeling where you just wanna kill everyone you see?’
‘Not really,’ said Kacy.
‘Well, something used to take
over after I’d had a drink. It was brought on by the memories of the moment
when I killed my mother.’
‘You killed your mom?’ Kacy
couldn’t mask the shock in her voice.
‘She turned into a vampire.
Begged me to kill her. I had to have a drink first. Drank a bottle of bourbon,
ploughed about six bullets through her heart. After that the only thing that
ever made me feel alive was drinkin’ bourbon and killin’ folks. Especially
vampires.’
‘And you’re not getting that
feeling any more?’
‘No. Not since…’ he trailed off.
Dante finished the sentence for
him. ‘Not since he used the Eye of the Moon to get his soul back last night.
Now he’s a regular guy. Got a conscience like everyone else.’
The Kid reached inside his
jacket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. He used his teeth to pull one out
of the pack and sucked hard on the end of it. It lit up brightly and he
replaced the pack in his jacket. ‘There’s some shit I can still do,’ he said.
‘Don’t go thinking I’m all washed up. I still know everything I knew before,
I’ve just lost a bit of my inner rage.’
Dante looked at him. He looked
like a regular guy. Something was missing and it wasn’t just the dark hooded
coat. There was something missing from his eyes. Those eyes used to reveal a
look of contempt for everything and everyone, but now they looked just like
anyone else’s.
Without realising he was doing
it, Dante shook his head scornfully as he looked at the man opposite him. ‘So
how are you gonna help us kill Rameses Gaius and get the Eye of the Moon back?’
he asked.
‘You can’t kill Gaius.’
‘Why not?’
‘You said he’s got the Eye of
the Moon in his head. It’s a part of him, like a pulse or a living organism
that gives him his strength, so he’s totally immortal. And a mummy. Those
fuckers don’t die. There’s only one way to deal with him.’
‘And what’s that?’ Kacy asked.
‘You send him back where he came
from.’
Kacy looked at Dante. He
appeared to have no idea what the Kid was talking about either. ‘Where does he
come from?’ she asked.
The Kid took a drag on his
cigarette and blew the smoke back out through his nostrils. ‘A tomb. You gotta
wrap that fucker up in bandages and bury him alive in a tomb.’
‘You’re kidding, right?’ said
Kacy.
‘Nope. That’s why you’re gonna
need my help.’
‘So what are you gonna do?’
Dante asked before Kacy had the chance.
‘I’m gonna head out of town for
a while. Can you two get into the Casa de Ville and meet me there tomorrow?’
‘Yeah,’ said Dante. ‘We were
there this morning. Big place. Fucking lot of vampires there. Heavily guarded
too. I’m not sure how you’ll get in there. No offence, but unless you can get
back to your bad old self, you won’t even make it past the front gate. There’s
an undead only policy there at the moment.’
‘Wait a minute!’ Kacy butted in.
‘He’ll get in if he’s a vampire.’
Dante raised an eyebrow. ‘You
wanna turn him into one then?’
‘Won’t need to,’ she replied.
‘Huh?’
She tapped Dante on the leg.
‘Give him that serum you brought back from the hotel.’
Dante’s eyes lit up as it dawned
on him what she was getting at. ‘Good idea.’
‘What serum?’ asked the Kid.
Dante pulled a syringe and a
small bottle from his pocket and slid it over the table to the Kid.
The Kid looked at it and
frowned. ‘What the fuck is that?’
‘That’s what’ll get you past the
front gates.’
‘Care to elaborate? ‘Cause I
don’t wanna have to read your mind.’
‘This is the serum I was using
to lower my blood temperature when I was undercover with the vampires. It’s
what helped me walk among them unnoticed. Inject yourself with that before you
get to the Casa de Ville and they’ll think you’re one of them.’
The Kid picked up the bottle of
liquid and looked closely at it. ‘This stuff didn’t work that well for you. I
spotted you right away when you were undercover.’
‘Maybe so,’ said Dante. ‘But the
rest of the clan fell for it. It’s worth a shot.’
‘Fine,’ said the Kid. ‘You got a
cell phone?’
‘I have,’ said Kacy.
The Kid slipped the syringe and
bottle into a pocket inside his jacket and pulled out a cell phone. He handed
it to Kacy. ‘Stick your number in here so I can contact you if I need to.’
Kacy took the phone and began
inputting her number.
Dante prodded the Kid in the
arm. ‘What do you want us to do while we’re waiting for you?’
‘See if you can find out what
happened to my woman. If she’s still alive I wanna know about it. If she’s
dead, I wanna know about it too. Send me a text, okay?’
‘Sure thing,’ said Kacy.
‘What about Gaius?’ Dante asked.
‘He’s mounting a whole fucking army at the Casa de Ville. How can we deal with
that? There could be a million of them by the time you get there?’
‘Let me worry about that.’
‘Normally I would. But you
aren’t exactly demonstrating
army destroying
skills right now, if you
don’t mind me saying.’
‘I
do
mind you saying,
since you ask.’
‘Sorry, but I’m only callin’ it
as I see it.’
‘You’ll see it differently
tomorrow.’ The Kid got up from the table. ‘Right now I’ve got a conscience.
I’ll be back to my old self once I get rid of it. I’ll see ya later.’
As he walked towards the exit,
Kacy called after him. ‘So where exactly are you going?’ she asked.
He stopped short of the door and
turned around. He pulled a pair of sunglasses from inside his jacket and
slipped them on. Then he answered her question with two words that meant
nothing to her.
‘Devil’s Graveyard.’
Twenty-Four
Gaius burst into his office and found
Jessica sitting in his black leather chair behind his desk with her feet up.
Her black knee-high boots were resting on his favourite notepad. She was
wearing an all black outfit as usual, with a plunging neckline on the top,
revealing a fair amount of cleavage, much to her father’s disapproval.
‘You’d better have found The
Book of Death!’ he snarled.
‘Nope,’ said Jessica
nonchalantly. ‘Got something better.’
‘I seriously doubt that.’
She gestured to a cream sofa set
against the wall behind him. He looked over at it and saw a woman slumped
across it. She was lying face down and was wearing a pair of tatty ripped black
jeans and a blue cardigan. This was not the usual kind of riff-raff Gaius
expected to see in his office.
‘Who the fuck is that on my sofa?’
he asked.
‘That’s Beth Lansbury.’
‘Who’s Beth Lansbury?’
‘She is.’
‘Very funny. Seriously, who is
Beth Lansbury and why is she in my office, taking a nap on my sofa?’
Jessica took her feet down off
the desk and stood up. She pointed at Beth and smiled. ‘That there little lady
is the Bourbon Kid’s girlfriend.’
Gaius raised an eyebrow and half
a smile. ‘Is that so?’
‘Yep.’
‘Did you kill her?’
‘Nope. No sense in that. Look
what happened to those three idiot cops who killed his brother.’
‘Okay. So why is she here in my
office?’
‘Leverage. If he cares about her
as much as I think he does, then he’ll try and rescue her. When he shows up, we
give him a choice, his life or hers.’
Gaius was unimpressed. ‘I fail
to see how this is better than bringing me The Book of Death.’
‘You’re getting cranky.’
‘No I’m not.’
‘You are. And you’re getting
paranoid again too. You’ve been keeping that Eye in your head for too long.
It’s making you all paranoid, just like the last time you had it.’
Gaius squinted suspiciously at
her. ‘Who’s been saying I’m paranoid?’ he snapped.
‘Just me.’
‘Are you sure?’
Jessica sighed. ‘See, you’re
being all paranoid now. That Eye is having a bad effect on you. You need to
take it out for an hour or two here and there, otherwise it makes you all vengeful
and you make bad decisions based on all your pathetic personal grudges. That’s
what got you in trouble all those years ago and it’s why you ended up being
mummified for centuries. Take it out and think for yourself, for fuck’s sake!’
‘I am fucking thinking for
myself, thank you very much. Now are we going to kill this woman on my sofa or
not?’
Jessica strolled across the room
to the sofa and gave Beth a prod in the back. She didn’t stir. Jessica turned
back to Gaius and smiled. ‘Calm down, father, and just listen to me for a
minute. Before I put her to sleep I managed to extract some information from
her. She didn’t even know her boyfriend was the Bourbon Kid until today when he
killed Silvinho. She knew him by another name. His real name.’
‘Which is what?’
‘Jack Daniels. Corny, huh?’
Gaius nodded. ‘Very. We finally
know his name but we’ve lost the fucking book. Does anything ever go according
to plan around here?’
‘No, but that’s why it’s always
good to have a backup plan.’ Jessica leaned down and stroked Beth’s hair. ‘You
put too much faith in that book, father. With her as bait we can kill him
without having to worry about whether or not his name is in your precious
book.’
Gaius walked over to his desk
and sighed rather loudly as he sat down in his black leather chair. ‘Jessica my
dear, the reason I want The Book of Death isn’t simply to kill the Bourbon Kid.
He’s a mere irritation. I could kill him easily with my bare hands. I need that
book for far more important matters.’
‘Such as?’
‘Insurance. Once my undead army
is established and my plan to conquer the rest of the world is underway, the
leaders of the free world will attempt to take us out with nuclear weapons and
all kinds of other shit. But once I’ve demonstrated to them that all I have to do
is write their names in my book to kill them, those world leaders will soon
come around to my way of thinking. I’ll have them all in my back pocket. We’ll
be able to waltz on in to any country we wish, uncontested. Our army won’t need
to fight anyone, we’ll just travel freely around the world, conquering.’