The Book of Death (38 page)

He stopped outside the door and
considered knocking on it, but just as his knuckles were about to rap against
it, he thought better of it. He needed every ounce of surprise on his side. He
reached out for the doorknob and twisted it quickly. He pushed the door and
flung it as far open as he could, keeping his pistol at the ready. Directly in
front of him Elijah Simmonds was sitting behind his desk in his large black
leather chair, counting money. Lots of money. On the desk in front of him was a
huge mountain of cash. Bundles of fifty dollar bills were stacked a foot high.
He looked shocked at the sight of Harker appearing at the door.

‘Captain Harker,’ he spluttered.
‘What can I do for you?’

Harker pointed his gun at
Simmonds and stepped inside the office. ‘I’m gonna have to ask you to stand up
and put your hands on your head,’ he said.

Simmonds raised his hands
defensively, a nervous look across his face. ‘Don’t shoot,’ he said. ‘This
isn’t what it looks like.’

‘Stand up,’ Harker repeated
taking another step towards the desk.

‘Okay, okay,’ said Simmonds. He
began to slowly rise from his seat, taking great care not to make any sudden
movements. Harker stared down at the bundles of cash on the desk. It was more
money than he’d ever seen. ‘What’s with all the cash?’ he asked.

Simmonds didn’t respond. Instead
the next sound Harker heard was that of the door slamming shut behind him. He
spun around to see who or what had shut it. Stepping out from behind the door
was a giant of a man in a silver suit. He had a shaved head and wore a pair of
sunglasses.

‘So you’re Captain Dan Harker,’
the man said. ‘You’re the smartass detective who’s been on the news warning the
public about the possibility of vampires taking over the city.’

‘That’s right. Who are you?’

‘I’m Rameses Gaius, the leader
of the undead army whose plans you tried to wreck.’

Harker could feel his fingers
twitching on the gun. ‘Well, Mr Gaius, I’m gonna have to ask you to get on your
knees. You’re under arrest.’

‘I don’t think so.’

Gaius raised his right hand. His
palm began to glow a bright blue colour. A source of electrical energy seemed
to be generating in the centre of his hand, and from behind his sunglasses a
similar blue glow appeared around his right eye. Harker decided to take his
chance and squeezed the trigger of his gun.

BANG!

The gunshot was deafening in the
confined space of Simmonds’s office. The bullet ripped through the chest of
Rameses Gaius. But the man didn’t fall. He stood there and smiled, his hand
still glowing.

BANG!

Harker fired another shot into
his chest. Again it seemed to have no effect on Gaius, other than to broaden
his smile.

‘My turn,’ Gaius snarled.

Harker’s eyes bulged with fear
as he saw the blue light in Gaius’s hand generate into a sphere the size of a
bowling ball. With one flick of his wrist Gaius then unleashed a blue laser
bolt from his hand. It struck Harker in the chest, lifting him off his feet and
sending him crashing back into the wall behind him, The wall was made up of
shelves of books and the impact of him crashing into them caused a bundle of
them to topple from the higher shelves down on to his head.

Feeling dazed and severely
stunned by the blow, Harker fought to regain his breath. His lungs felt like
they had collapsed and his eyesight had temporarily failed him. He tried
blinking furiously in the hope of clearing his vision and seeing what might be
coming his way next. His gun had slipped from his grip and he scrambled around
on the floor with his right hand hoping to relocate it.

As his eyesight slowly returned,
the face of Elijah Simmonds appeared above him. The museum’s new manager had a smirk
on his face. He had picked up Harker’s gun and was now waving it in his face,
taunting him with it. Where Simmonds had looked terrified only moments earlier,
now he looked smug and dangerous. ‘Looking for this?’ he asked, grinning.

Harker opened his mouth to
answer, his lungs sucking in a huge gulp of air as he did so. Simmonds seized
his opportunity and was upon him in an instant. He grabbed Harker around the
throat and thrust the barrel of the gun into his mouth.

‘Not so tough now, are you,
Captain?’ he jeered.

Harker stared back up at him
with pleading eyes, hoping and praying that Simmonds wouldn’t have the guts to
pull the trigger. In spite of the gun in his mouth he managed to splutter out a
barely audible
“please don’t”
. The plea fell on deaf ears. Simmonds
squeezed the trigger on the gun and blew his brains out.

Forty-Eight

Since Dante and Vanity
had departed for the museum, Kacy had found it tough going sitting with the
girl scouts. Her biggest problem was that her vampire instincts were hard to
control. Each of the girls was beginning to look like an ideal snack, and Kacy
was feeling hungrier with every passing moment.

One of the girls, a
tiny little thing with long dark pigtails protruding from underneath her blue
pom pom hat, had gone to find a toilet. Kacy remained with the others and tried
to keep them entertained with a game of charades. Lucy, the head Sunflower Girl
with the blond pigtails, was acting out the name of a film. Kacy sat in amongst
the rest of the girls on the front pews, encouraging them to guess the answer.
For the past five minutes they had been stuck on a film title and only had the
words
Butch
something
and the Sundance Kid.
The girls couldn’t
get the missing word from the actions Lucy was performing. Kacy wanted to just
shout out
“It’s Cassidy for fuck’s sake!”
but the girls’ determination
to work out the answer for themselves was keeping them occupied and therefore
taking their minds off all the horrible things they had seen earlier.

Then came another
problem. Veronica, the girl who had gone to the bathroom, returned with a
concerned look on her face. She was hopping around from foot to foot too,
suggesting she hadn’t actually managed to use the bathroom yet.

‘What’s up, honey?’
Kacy asked her.

‘There’s a man in the
toilet,’ Veronica replied. ‘He’s locked himself in and won’t come out.’

‘What?’ Kacy stood up
and walked over to her. She placed her hands on the girl’s shoulders and looked
her in the eye. ‘Did he say who he was?’

Veronica shook her
head. ‘No.’

‘Okay, wait here. I’ll
be back in a minute.’

Kacy headed off in the
direction Veronica had come from. It was the area Vanity had dashed off to
earlier when he was supposedly securing any doors and windows to prevent anyone
from getting into the church. The door marked “Toilet” was on the right. She
walked over to it, glancing back at the girls to give them a reassuring smile.
They were all now ducked down between the pews peering over them.

Kacy knocked on the
toilet door. ‘Is there someone in there?’ she asked.

A man’s voice replied.
‘Who’s that?’

‘My name is Kacy. Who
are you?’

‘I’m the priest, Father
Papshmir.’

‘Why are you locked in
the toilet then?’

‘I locked myself in
here when the vampires came in. Have they gone?’

‘Yes, they’re all
dead.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Positive. It’s just me
and a group of Sunflower Girls here now.’

‘Has Vanity gone?’

Kacy frowned. ‘How do
you know Vanity?’

‘Has he gone?’

‘Yeah, he’s gone.’

She heard the sound of
the toilet door unlocking. The door opened inwards and the face of an elderly
priest peered around it. ‘Thank God for that,’ he said.

‘Hi,’ said Kacy
stepping back to allow him to come out. ‘I could sure use your help out here.
I’ve got some terrified little girls. They could use some guidance from God
right now.’

The priest stared hard
at her. ‘Are you a vampire?’ he asked.

Kacy felt herself
blush. He’d obviously rumbled her and with him being a priest and all, he might
have a crucifix on him, so she figured it was best not to lie in case he
decided to use it. ‘Yes, but I won’t hurt anyone. My boyfriend Dante has gone
with Vanity to find a cure to make us back into humans again.’

Papshmir stepped out
and closed the toilet door behind him. He was dressed in his official black
church robe as if ready to give a sermon. He looked Kacy up and down. ‘Well,
you
look harmless enough,’ he said. ‘But I can’t believe for one minute that
Vanity would want to quit being a vampire.’

‘How do you know him?’
Kacy asked again, curious as to how a man of the cloth could be so clued in to
the local vampire scene.

‘How do I know Vanity?’
Papshmir almost laughed. ‘Fuck me, that cunt,’ he looked up to the heavens and
added a quick
“Forgive me, Lord,”
under his breath before continuing.
‘He’s been married in this church by me on no less than six occasions. He’s a
serial bride killer. As well as a total cunt.
Forgive me, Lord
.’

Kacy was shocked at the
revelation Vanity had been married so many times (and also at the fact the
priest had used the word cunt). ‘I saw his wedding video this afternoon,’ she
said. ‘With his wife Emma. He really loved her.’

Papshmir scoffed. ‘Did
you see the film of the wedding reception?’

‘No, just a minute or
so of the ceremony. I didn’t notice if you were the priest marrying them
though.’

‘Well I was,’ said
Papshmir. ‘And if I remember correctly, Emma was wife number five.’

‘He really loved her
though didn’t he? I could tell by the way he was looking at her in the video.’

‘Oh yeah. He loved her
all right. He loved her so much that him and his vampire buddies killed her and
her entire family and friends at the reception.’

‘What?’

‘That’s the reason he
gets married all the time. He comes in here at least once a year and threatens
to kill me and my entire flock if I don’t perform a marriage ceremony for him
and whoever he’s decided to slaughter at his next big wedding function.’

Kacy swallowed hard.
Vanity had lied to her. If his wife Emma was dead, killed by him, then he would
have no desire to become human again and return to her. If he’d lied about that
then there was a very good chance he’d also lied about Gaius taking his eye to
the museum for cleaning. Dante was most likely heading into a trap.

She grabbed Papshmir by
the arm. ‘Can you look after the girls out there for me? I’ve got to go after
my boyfriend. He could be in trouble.’

‘Sure thing,’ said
Papshmir. ‘I’ve been listening to them playing charades for the last half hour.
I’ll just carry that on. You go do what you have to do.’

‘Thanks.’

Papshmir walked off to
the main hall where the children were peering out over the tops of the pews.
Kacy grabbed her phone and began frantically sending a text to Dante, warning
him that he could be in danger and urging him to get away from Vanity and call
her as soon as possible. She considered calling him, but decided a text would
be more discreet. As she was doing it she heard Papshmir addressing the
Sunflower Girls.

‘Right then girls,’ he
bellowed. ‘It’s Butch
fucking Cassidy
for fuck’s sake!’

There was a chorus of
“Ohhhh” from the girls. Then Papshmir spoke again, much quieter this time.
‘What’s that smell?’ he asked.

One of the girls spoke
up in response. ‘Veronica just shit her pants.’

‘Where?’

‘In your confessional
box.’

‘Holy shit. Not again!’

Kacy hit send on her text and thought
hard about what to do. Drastic action was required. A text to the Bourbon Kid
might be a good idea too, she decided. But with Dante possibly in grave danger
and the confessional box in the church filled with shit, she decided her best
option would be to get out of the church and head to the museum as quickly as
possible.

Forty-Nine

Normally the museum would be
closed by five o’clock. And in light of all of the murdering going on in the
city it made more sense than ever for the place to be shut. But as Dante and
Vanity walked up the steps at the front of the building Dante was surprised to
find the front doors were wide open.

‘That’s kind of odd, don’t you
think?’ he remarked.

‘I’d say it’s a stroke of luck,
personally,’ said Vanity coolly.

‘You’d think that security would
have the place locked up though, right? I mean when I worked here the place
closed on time every day. They were hot on that kind of thing.’

‘It’s under new management
though isn’t it?’

‘I guess so. Rotten news about
Professor Cromwell getting killed. I really liked him. I never quite got around
to apologising to him for calling him a cunt last time I saw him either.’