The Eye of the Moon (21 page)

Gaius’s fall mirrored that of many tyrants. Like many extremely powerful people, he became paranoid and untrusting of those around him, as Professor Cromwell’s book recorded. He had quarrelled with his daughter Jessica after she had recognized, and he had emphasized, that she could never rule in Egypt herself, for he had achieved immortality by wearing the Eye of the Moon at all times. He would never die, and therefore could never be succeeded, so Jessica’s desire for the throne of Egypt would never be realized. Furious, she had fled the country and disappeared for several years.

In her absence, two of Gaius’s early followers, Armand Xavier and Ishmael Taos, returned from a search for the Holy Grail. They claimed to have drunk the blood of Christ, thereby acquiring for themselves immortality similar to that enjoyed by Gaius through the Eye. This was extremely unwelcome news to the Egyptian ruler, particularly when they demanded a share of his power.

In order to rid himself of them, Gaius planned to write their names in his book. Xavier and Taos expected as much, however, and one night before he slept they sneaked into his private chambers and, while one held him down, the other removed his precious Eye from its socket. Then the pair of them wrapped him as a mummy and buried him beneath his own temple, placing a cheap green stone in his empty eye socket to complete his humiliation.

Gaius eventually died from starvation within the tomb in which they had encased him. The Egyptian chief monk had always known, however, that the day would come when someone outwitted him, and had taken out an insurance policy. Deploying one of the Eye of the Moon’s many powers, he had created a curse which had later become known, to the few people who learnt the story down the centuries, as ‘the Curse of the Mummy’. In the event of his murder and the theft of his precious Eye, a spell of sorts would ensure that he would be reborn the moment his killer or killers eventually died themselves.

Peto took his final sip of coffee.
Hmm. Well, that has now happened,
he mused. Armand Xavier and Ishmael Taos had both been killed by the Bourbon Kid shortly after the last eclipse. And now the mummy exhibit in the museum had come to life and escaped.
This could be bad,
the monk thought.
That mummy is gonna be after the Eye of the Moon. And that means it’s after me.

From what Peto had learned from an intensive study of Hollywood movies during his time away from the tranquil Pacific island of Hubal, the mummy was the Daddy of the Undead. Not someone you wanted in your life, and even less so on your tail.

At first, the long-winded prose and tortuous constructions of
Egyptian Mythology
had threatened to send Peto to sleep. Yet as he had read on, the story of the Eye of the Moon had begun to grip him, and he was now wide awake. He read on for just a few more minutes before finally settling to sleep. There was nothing else of note in the book, and he was disappointed
not to learn more about what became of Taos and Xavier after the mummification of Gaius.

Peto did not sleep well after all his reading. His mind was troubled. What had become of Jessica? Was she dead now? And if so, would she be reunited with her father Rameses Gaius, now that he was free again? One thing of which the monk was certain was that the two of them would be after the Eye of the Moon.

He was certain of something else, too. Once he had completed his mission of finding the Bourbon Kid and using the Eye to cure him of his evils, he was getting the fuck out of town.

Sanchez was having a shitty day. And not for the first time, either. He’d had hardly any sleep for about three months now, and he was starting to look paler than the vampires he so often refused to have in his bar. The Tapioca was still the one place in town that wouldn’t tolerate bloodsuckers.

Sanchez could generally sniff out a vampire better than anyone in Santa Mondega. Yet in the upstairs apartment of the Tapioca he had the most dangerous vampire of all, Jessica the Vampire Queen. And Sanchez had no idea she was a bloodsucker. Not a fucking clue. He just thought she was really cute, and he was desperate for her to come out of her latest coma and finally show him some gratitude. Last time, after he’d spent five years secretly keeping her safe with the help of his late brother Thomas and Thomas’s late wife, Audrey, she had regained consciousness and been pretty rude to him. Then she’d jumped in the sack with a notorious bounty hunter named Jefe. Well, now Jefe was dead, so effectively there was currently no competition for her affections from anyone else. Sanchez had a head start, and intended to take his chance this time.

Jessica had been in her current coma ever since that bastard the Bourbon Kid had shot her to pieces again. The Kid had been helped by the Terminator – well, a guy in fancy dress who had turned up as a T-800. Sanchez wanted the pair of them dead, though he would happily settle for not seeing them again. These days, he didn’t have the contacts he’d once had with people who might be capable of offing someone like the Bourbon Kid, or a Terminator. His two best hopes would
have been Elvis and Rodeo Rex, but both had been brutally murdered. No one was really sure by whom.

So Sanchez had lived the quiet life for almost a year since the last massacre in his bar. He wasn’t sleeping well, and he was unwittingly harbouring a Vampire Queen while she healed, but aside from that everything was just peachy.

Until now.

Things had just taken a turn for the worse. The minute they walked in Sanchez knew that their appearance would be followed by all kinds of trouble. The members of a vampire clan known as the Filthy Pigs arrived in the Tapioca, three of them to be precise. They were in plain clothes. One of them, the senior officer, Captain Michael De La Cruz, was smartly dressed in a pair of casual black trousers with a bright white shirt and a trendy, loose-fitting brown leather jacket. His hair was impeccable, slicked back with some fashionable spikes here and there, and a little bit of growth at the back.
Oh great,
thought Sanchez,
another one of these New Age pricks with three haircuts going on all at once.

Mind you, De La Cruz was nothing compared to the second guy, a dirty-looking bastard whom Sanchez knew as Detective Randy Benson. This guy was far worse. He was wearing a fluorescent blue short-sleeved shirt and a pair of knee-length, fluorescent yellow shorts. And he could have done with having De La Cruz lend him at least one of his hairstyles because he didn’t appear to have any of his own. A mad-professor’s haircut was the only way to describe this loser’s mop of white hair.

The third guy, whom Sanchez had never met before, was Detective Dick Hunter. He struck the bartender as a pathetic, weaselly-looking individual with a queerboy look about him, wearing a tight white T-shirt that revealed a pair of inappropriately pointy nipples. More than enough for Sanchez to take a dislike to him. He was a stranger, after all; not much more was needed to make Sanchez hate the prick.

De La Cruz swaggered up to the bar, flanked by the other two. He knew how uncooperative the bartender could be, so
he didn’t mince his words. ‘Sanchez, you miserable son of a bitch, we wanna see upstairs,’ he snarled. ‘And get us three whiskeys to take up with us. On the house.’

Sanchez was cleaning a glass by wiping the rim of it on his dirty white sweatshirt, and doing his best to act uninterested, at which he excelled. ‘You ain’t going up there without a warrant,’ he promised in his usual pissed manner.

De La Cruz retaliated. His response was programmed, much like Sanchez’s. ‘Don’t fuck with me, Sanchez. If I have to come back with a warrant I’m gonna wipe my ass on it. And then I’m gonna rub it in your face.’

‘Guess it won’t be the first time I’ve been shitfaced in my own bar,’ the bartender replied with a sarcastic smile.

The detective leaned a little way over the bar, just enough for Sanchez to get a waft of his foul breath, and a glimpse of his protruding fangs. ‘Then I’m gonna rip your throat out with my teeth. Now let us upstairs, you porky little fuck.’

Sanchez sighed and put the half-cleaned glass down on the shelf directly beneath the bartop. He didn’t mind making enemies of vampires or cops, but vampire cops, well, that was kinda different. These guys could really make his life miserable. They could harass him every day if they wanted, and basically put him out of business in next to no time. He was worried about Jessica, but he knew when he was beaten. No point in fighting a battle you were never going to win.

‘Let me get you those whiskeys,’ he said.

‘Good man. I knew you could be relied on to assist a police officer in the pursuit of his duties.’ De La Cruz winked and patted Sanchez patronizingly on the cheek before settling down on a stool at the bar. His two colleagues remained standing either side of him while Sanchez reached for a bottle at the back of the bar and poured shots into three of his cleanest glasses.

‘Make mine a double …
Fatso
,‘ Benson growled. He had sensed the bartender’s resolve weakening, and his natural bully’s instincts made him demand a double even though he didn’t particularly want one. Like De La Cruz, he was also
pointing out the obvious. Sanchez was getting heftier, and there was no hiding it. The newly grown thick black sideburns that covered the sides of his face did nothing to disguise the folds of flesh that merged his chin into his neck.

Ignoring the insult as best he could, Sanchez placed the three shot glasses on the bar in front of the undead officers. Then he used a dirty white rag to wipe the bartop around the drinks. The sun had been out all morning and the place was hot, so every time Sanchez spilt something on the bar the surface grew sticky as the liquid evaporated in the heat. The massive propeller fan on the ceiling over the bar area was working overtime to keep the place cool. It wasn’t having much success.

‘You gonna tell me what you’re expectin’ to find upstairs?’ Sanchez asked nonchalantly as he swabbed away with his cloth.

‘Sure,’ said De La Cruz, picking up his glass of whiskey and chinking it against the glasses of his two colleagues as they picked up theirs. There was a two-second pause before the bartender spoke. He actually asked the same question again.

‘Whadd’re ya expectin’ to find upstairs?’

‘A pretty lady in a coma. But don’t you worry, Sanchez. We’re not gonna take her with us, so you can rest easy. She’s still all yours.’

The three men downed their drinks in one. De La Cruz and Benson immediately began retching, spitting the liquid onto the floor. Hunter seemed to be savouring the taste, but after seeing his colleagues’ reaction he joined in, pulling a disgusted face of his own.

‘What the
fuck
is that?’ asked De La Cruz, trying to spit every last drop of the fluid from his mouth.

‘That’s my finest whiskey,’ Sanchez shrugged. ‘I gotta say it’s an acquired taste, though.’

‘No shit,’ gasped Benson, who was still retching. ‘It tastes like piss.’

‘Yeah, a lotta people say that,’ smiled Sanchez.

‘I can see why,’ remarked Hunter, staring at his empty glass in disgust. ‘What’s this stuff called? Just so’s I can avoid it in the future, you understand.’

‘It’s a homebrew.’

‘You got any more?’

De La Cruz and Benson both threw questioning looks at Hunter. Was he serious? Did he really want more of the stuff? He picked up on their incredulity and quickly covered his tracks.

‘I believe I ought to confiscate some. Y’know, health an’ safety an’ all that?’ Seeing that the others didn’t look convinced, he turned back to Sanchez. ‘You got much of this in stock?’

The bartender offered a beaming smile. ‘Sure. There’s an unlimited supply. Reckon you can have the rest of this bottle on the house. Here y’are.’ He handed the bottle over to the detective, who took it willingly.

‘Okay. That’s enough of this,’ De La Cruz interjected. ‘Show us where the girl is, Sanchez.’

‘You can find what you’re looking for up this way.’ The bartender gestured behind him to the stairs in the room that led off the bar.

The three vampire cops made their way around the bar and through the back room to the foot of a bare stairway. Two of them were still spitting the remains of the foul taste from their mouths. The other, Hunter, took a swig from the bottle he’d been handed by Sanchez and swilled it around in his mouth to savour the taste as he passed by the bartender on his way to the stairs.