The Book of Death (6 page)

The main hall was magnificent in
size. Its ceiling stood fifty metres high and had a balcony running around the
walls halfway down. At the far end of the hall stood a large set of very wide
marble stairs that led up to the landing and the balcony. It really did feel
like a castle. The only major difference Dante had spotted were the obvious
CCTV cameras recording every move. The fucking things were everywhere you looked.
The hall was already buzzing with noise. Literally hundreds of vampires were
standing around chatting amongst themselves.

‘Wow, something big is definitely
going down,’ said Vanity. ‘Let’s hang at the back. After that whole thing with
Déjà Vu being the Bourbon Kid I think a low profile is the way to go.’

‘I’m down with that,’ said Dante.

The crowd of vampires in the hall
resembled the audience at a rock concert. There were all kinds of strangely
dressed freaks from every vampire clan in the city, all congregated in this one
huge room staring up at the marble staircase at the end of the hall. Dante
recognised some of the clans, such as the Clowns, of which there were quite a
few. There weren’t too many of the Filthy Pigs and Rastafarians from the Dreads
clan around this time; of course, there weren’t many of the Shades around
either. Apart from Dante, Kacy and Vanity, only Cleavage and Moose had survived
the recent massacre. The two female members of the Shades were present in the
hall, but they had naively ventured to the front of the crowd to get a good
look at what was going on.

The majority of the audience now
seemed to be made up of what Vanity informed them was the Panda clan, a group
of vampires like the one who had let them into the building. They all had black
face paint across their eyes giving them a look much like a bunch of human
pandas, albeit carnivorous fanged bloodsucking pandas. One of the other
dominant clans was the Black Plague, a group that usually stayed on the
outskirts of the city. They all wore ninja style black outfits complete with
black masks that revealed just their eyes and a small amount of dark skin
around them. No doubt lethal predators at night, Dante thought.

After a twenty-minute wait, the
huge imposing figure of Rameses Gaius appeared at the top of the staircase. The
chatter in the hall beneath him hushed to a silence. Dante recognised Gaius
immediately. He shuddered at the memory of Gaius kidnapping him and Kacy a week
earlier. He had travelled under the name Mr E at the time and had claimed to be
a member of the Secret Service. He had given Dante the mission that involved
infiltrating the Shades clan to discover the whereabouts of Peto the monk.

Dante peered over his sunglasses
at Kacy. She peered back over hers. It was obvious that she too recognised
Gaius as Mr E.

Dante nudged Vanity in the arm.
‘Is that really Rameses Gaius?’ he asked.

Vanity nodded. ‘Yeah. Don’t mess
with him. He’ll snap you in half.’

Gaius wore a shiny silver suit (as
he had when Dante had met him before) and a pair of dark sunglasses. His head
was bald and his olive skin as smooth as a billiard ball. Both Dante and Kacy
lowered their heads in the hope that he wouldn’t spot them at the back of the
crowd.

‘Hey,’ Vanity nudged Dante back.
‘That’s his daughter Jessica behind him. Total babe. Queen of the vampires.’

Dante glanced back up and saw that
standing behind Gaius on the steps was none other than Jessica the Vampire
Queen. The very same woman he had fired a shitload of bullets into at the
Tapioca during the eclipse the previous year. The Bourbon Kid had been gunning
her down at the time, so Dante had joined in and then they had left her for
dead. It wouldn’t do to be spotted by her either.

Up ahead, Gaius raised his arms to
grab everyone’s attention. ‘Thank you all for coming,’ he said. ‘I have big
news for you today. After all that happened yesterday, when we lost a number of
our brothers and sisters to that scumbag the Bourbon Kid, we now have reason to
be cheerful. And very excited.’

A wave of muttered conversations
swept around the hall briefly before Gaius continued.

‘At just after midnight last night
we captured and beheaded the Bourbon Kid. He is no more!’

A huge cheer went up from the
crowd and Gaius gestured quickly for them to quieten down again.

‘With him now out of the way, it
is time for us to make our move. Soon we will be able to reveal ourselves to
the world. I have set in motion a plan which will enable each and every one of
you to hunt by day. No more sneaking around in back alleys and clubs at night.
We will soon take over the city of Santa Mondega.
This is our time!
’ The
crowd cheered even more boisterously than before. After hushing them, Gaius
continued. ‘The local police force is now crippled, and with the Kid out of the
picture I want everyone here to be ready to carry out my instructions to take
over the city. You may have noticed that it is snowing outside and that there
is a large formation of dark clouds settling over the city. This, my friends,
will become permanent very soon.’

A woman’s voice shouted out from
the crowd below. ‘How so?’

Gaius removed his sunglasses and a
huge gasp went up from the crowd, including Dante and Kacy. In his right eye
socket was a glowing blue stone: The Eye of the Moon.

‘Yes. That’s right,’ said Gaius.
‘I have the Eye of the Moon once again. It is secured back in its rightful
place.’ He tapped the eye gently and smiled at his watching audience. ‘With the
powers of the Eye I have brought together all of those clouds. At the current
time I estimate that ninety percent of the sunlight over Santa Mondega is being
blocked out. By the end of the day tomorrow I expect that to be one hundred
percent. And it will stay that way. We don’t need an eclipse to block out the
sun, my friends. I can do that for you using the power of my Eye. Once the
clouds have intensified sufficiently to block out the sun entirely, we shall
come out from the shadows and take over the city. The snow will incapacitate
our enemies and once we have complete control of Santa Mondega, we will look to
expand our empire and increase our numbers. The humans will be harvested and
grown for
your
consumption. Now I know most of you don’t need reminding
of this, but do not feed upon the children of this city. We will need them in
the future. They will live simply to create more of their kind for our future
survival.’ There were more mutterings from the crowd below, mostly voicing
their approval. Gaius waved them down and continued. ‘Now, I ask one thing of
you. Go out into the streets and hills of Santa Mondega and round up all of
your vampire brothers and sisters. I want the werewolves informed too. They
will make useful allies in the early days as we seek to conquer. Get the word
out to everyone. Tell them to congregate here tomorrow night. This will be the
staging point of our war on humanity. Tomorrow night will be the beginning of a
new dawn where the undead will rule the world!’

He shook his fist in the air as he
finished his speech. A huge roar went up from the watching crowd. Vampires
high-fived each other and slapped one another on the back. There were fanged
smiles all round in fact. Except for Dante and Kacy.

Kacy tugged at Dante’s arm,
dragging him back away from the crowd and out of earshot. ‘He’s got the Eye of
the Moon in his head,’ she said, her voice largely drowned out by the cheering
mob around her.

‘I know,’ said Dante. ‘I thought
things were
really
bad before but this is worse than I thought.’

‘How much worse?’

‘It’s
very
bad.’

Kacy frowned. ‘
Very
bad is
worse than
really
bad?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘
Really
sure.’

‘Well, let me know when you’re
very
sure.’

Dante peered over his sunglasses
at her and raised his eyebrows. ‘I’ll tell you what I
am
sure of. If we
try to get the Eye out of his head, we’ll most likely get killed. But if we
don’t get it out of his head, the whole world is gonna end.’

Kacy looked around at the cheering
mob of vampires surrounding them. ‘This is
very
bad,’ she muttered.

Seven

Upon arriving at the police
station for his first morning as the new captain, Dan Harker was disappointed
to find that the place was a horrible mess. The aftermath of the previous day’s
massacre was still in evidence. Although there were no dead bodies around, the
reception area was still covered in blood. An elevator at the back of reception
was covered in blood and faeces.

He eyed the elevator warily and
took the stairs on his way to the Forensics department on the third floor. Most
of the forensics guys had survived the previous night’s massacre and one of
them, William Clay, had even turned up for work. Harker found Clay at the first
desk inside the office.

Clay was a tall, gangly,
socially awkward scientist type with round glasses and a shaved head that
neatly disguised a thinning patch on the top of his head. He was sitting behind
his desk in the same long white coat he wore every day. As Harker came through
the door, he looked up and then immediately closed down a window on his
computer monitor.

Harker greeted him cordially.
‘Hi, Bill,’ he said. ‘Is this a bad time?’

Clay smiled. ‘Nah, fine. You
caught me by surprise. What can I do for you, Lieutenant Dan?’

‘It’s Captain Harker from today,
thank you.’

‘I know, just kidding.
Congratulations by the way. You pleased?’

‘Ecstatic.’

‘I’ll bet. Get a good raise?’

‘I did okay.’

‘Good, ’cause you know the last
two Captains were killed by the Bourbon Kid. Let’s hope he’s not looking for a
hat trick.’

‘Don’t you watch the news?
Bourbon Kid’s dead.’

Clay peered over the top of his
glasses. ‘He’s not though, is he? I can tell just by the look on your face.’

Harker pushed the door shut
behind him and walked over to Clay’s desk. ‘It looks like he somehow faked his
death. An hour or so after he was beheaded he showed up at the museum and
killed Bertram Cromwell.’

‘How do you fake having your
head cut off?’

‘You get someone who looks like
you to take your place.’

‘I’m not sure I’ve got a friend
that would give up their head to save me.’

‘Me either. But the Bourbon Kid
had one. I have no idea who it was. Just another John Doe to add to the list of
victims, I suppose.’

‘Which includes most of our
colleagues,’ Clay sighed.

‘Not all of whom will be
missed.’

‘That’s harsh.’

Harker rubbed his chin. There
was no easy way to make his next revelation without Clay thinking he was
insane, so he decided to simply blurt it out. ‘Did you know the last Police
Captain was a vampire?’

‘What?’

‘I said –’

‘I heard what you said.’ Clay
frowned. ‘You just implied that Captain De La Cruz was a vampire.’

‘I didn’t imply it. I came right
out and said it.’

Clay looked shocked, and unsure
of whether or not he was being teased. ‘You mean vampire, as in, sucks blood
and turns into a bat?’

Harker looked around the room
and spotted a plastic chair nearby. He grabbed it and sat down opposite Clay.
‘I don’t imagine the bat thing is real, but he was definitely a blood sucker.’

‘Seriously, you think he was
drinking people’s blood?’

‘I know he was.’

‘I hear the rumours of vampires
in the town all the time, but I assumed it was
at worst
just a group of
people drinking blood and pretending to be vampires or something like that.’

‘It’s very real.’

Clay didn’t look convinced. ‘So
I could have killed De La Cruz with a crucifix or some garlic then?’ he said
with a hint of sarcasm.

‘He would probably have
preferred that to the way he was killed last night.’

‘Yeah, I heard. A shotgun up the
asshole. Shitty way to go.’

‘Yeah, his lunch is all over the
elevator. I’m gonna have to get some poor sucker to clean that up later.’

‘Don’t look at me.’

‘Don’t piss me off then. Anyway,
I didn’t come here just to talk to you about dirty elevators and vampire’s
assholes.’

‘So what can I do for you?’

‘I spent half an hour on my laptop
this morning going through De La Cruz’s private files. There’s one particular
case he was working on that stood out. I can’t work out how it’s never been on
the news. His files say he spoke with you about it on a couple of occasions. I
want to know what you’ve got on it.’

Clay leaned back in his chair.
‘It’s the child killer case isn’t it?’

‘Yeah. How d’ya guess?’

‘Because it’s been pissing me
off how De La Cruz never did anything with it. And like you, I can’t work out
how it never made it onto the news.’