The Eye of the Moon (43 page)

The dark figure of the Bourbon Kid stood motionless, loosely holding the sawn-off shotgun at the level of his waist. It was aimed at the elevator doors, waiting for them to slide apart and reveal the face of Michael De La Cruz. Dante watched on nervously from his position behind Bloem’s reception desk, ready to duck down in the event of any gunfire. Eventually there was a rather quiet pinging noise, and then as expected the automatic doors parted. The Kid’s trigger ringer twitched, but as the doors opened it was immediately apparent that there was nothing for him to shoot at. The elevator car was empty. Where had De La Cruz gone? He was supposed to have come up in the elevator and then promptly taken a charge of heavy shot in the chest. Things weren’t going according to plan.

As the Kid stood frowning at his reflection in the mirror at the back of the vacant elevator car, Dante and Peto decided it was safe to join their partner, and took station on either side of him.

‘Where the fuck is he, then?’ Dante asked, staring into the elevator, looking for any corners that might conceal the missing detective.

‘Basement,’ said the Kid, stepping inside the car.

Dante and Peto exchanged shrugs and followed him in, once more taking up their flanking positions beside him. The sight of the Bourbon Kid standing, shotgun at the ready, with two uniformed officers watching his back was not the sort of image the local police department wanted to promote, but it was what any passerby would have seen.

As the elevator doors closed, the Kid pressed the button
marked ‘B’ to send the elevator to the basement. Then the three of them stood waiting in silence for it to start its descent. The Kid was armed to the teeth. Strapped about his person was an arsenal of weapons, all extremely well concealed in holsters and pockets and sheaths beneath his robe. Dante and Peto each had a nightstick. Given the Kid’s record for slaying enemies, it was probably best that he had all the firearms anyway. He might only be able to fire two at a time, but he would achieve more by keeping any spares for himself than he would by lending them to his comrades.

All three of them were staring at the elevator doors in front of them, ready to react to whatever might greet them on the other side when they reached the basement.

BANG!

The noise of the gunshot inside the small elevator was deafening. Dante imagined it to be what the sound of a bomb going off was like. It was immediately followed by a piercing scream and a clattering from above. Then, suddenly, a brown-booted foot appeared from nowhere, kicking Dante in the face.

The Kid had fired his shotgun upwards and was now reloading it. The charge of buckshot had blown a huge hole through the service hatch on the roof of the elevator. More than an ounce of heavy lead shot had seared though it and into the foot of De La Cruz, who had been crouching quietly on the roof above them. With the latch on the hatch now blown to pieces, the hatch door had fallen open and the lower half of De La Cruz’s body had slipped through it. One of his feet was dangling around by Dante’s face, but the other was flailing around wildly. It was missing all of its toes and all of the boot that had previously covered it. What remained of it was a bloodied stump that was spurting the red stuff around the elevator and over the Kid’s face.

Wedged in the hatchway was the backside of the unfortunate De La Cruz. His upper body was still above the elevator’s roof and he was trying desperately to haul his lower half up with it. He was screaming and cursing,
hanging precariously on to the thick cable attached to the elevator’s roof. Then the car came to a stop as they reached the basement.

The doors opened and both Dante and Peto leapt out into the locker room outside. The secret panel was open, but there was nothing much to see save for a curious room at the back of the shower area, in which there was a table with a golden cup standing on it. Otherwise the locker room was empty, so both turned their attentions back to what was going on in the elevator, where the Kid was trying to pull De La Cruz through the service hatch by his trousers. The detective, however, was clinging to the cable above the elevator for all he was worth, his long vampire fingers wrapping themselves around it as tightly as he could manage. He was rapidly transforming into a creature of the night, but was it already too late?

In a rather undignified moment, the Kid succeeded in pulling De La Cruz’s trousers and underpants down to his ankles. The vampire wasn’t coming down with them, though. His only hope was to break free of the Kid’s grip and try to climb or leap his way out of there.

Realizing that he needed to take his chance where he could, the Kid took aim at the target presented to him. Without worrying himself about the consequences, he aimed the shotgun up at the crack in De La Cruz’s ass. Then after briefly hesitating for maybe half a second, he forced the muzzle of the gun up between the unfortunate vampire’s butt cheeks as far as it would go. The screaming abruptly stopped, no doubt replaced by a wide-eyed look of panic and dread on De La Cruz’s face.

BANG!

The report wasn’t as loud as the earlier one. After all, this time the Kid had a large ass-shaped silencer on the end of his weapon.

SPLAT!

Blood, guts, shit, bits of corn, internal organs, bone splinters, the whole bloody mess sprayed out all over the elevator. A fair amount of it went over the Kid and out into
the locker room, spattering the onlooking Dante and Peto. The remains of De La Cruz slipped through the hatch to land soggily on the floor, and the Kid pulled his gun clear, shaking off the sloppy mess that began sliding down the barrels towards his hand. The stench was overwhelming, and the sight of all the matter sprayed everywhere was even worse. Typically, the hooded gunman was unaffected by any of it. Brushing a piece of corn from his left shoulder, he casually stepped out of the elevator and held the end of his shotgun beneath Peto’s nose. The monk recoiled in disgust.

‘Fuck off! I don’t wanna smell that!’

The Kid walked on past his two companions. He had set his eyes upon the wooden table in the secret room at the back of the shower area. Normally the room was concealed behind the shower wall, but right now the sliding panel was out of sight, and there was nothing to keep him from heading over to the table.

‘Four down. One to go,’ he said, as much to himself as to the others. ‘Then the job’s done and we can all go home.’

‘Amen to that,’ said Dante, flicking a small amount of brown matter off his shoulder and on to the back of Peto’s thick dreadlocked hair. The monk tutted and quickly brushed it off.

‘This last one’s gonna be the hardest though,’ said the Kid, without looking back to see if Dante and Peto were paying attention. ‘The first two were just fuckin’ lowlife dogs. Now the two lieutenants are down. All that remains is our new Head Vampire. The new Dark Lord. I don’t know how tough this guy’s gonna be, and this is where I might need your help. There’s a book in this headquarters somewhere that can kill the chief bloodsucker. It’s a book with no name, and it’s made from the cross they crucified Jesus Christ on. It’ll kill any fuckin’ undead folks, no fuckin’ messin’. Only problem is I can’t touch the thing ’cos I got vampire blood in my veins at the moment.’ He finally turned around. ‘Can you two head upstairs and hunt through all the offices until you find it?’

‘Sure,’ said Dante and Peto in unison. ‘What are
you
gonna do?’ Dante asked.

‘I’m gonna wait here for the big badass boss man Benson to come back. Now hurry the fuck up, ’cos if he gets back here and I’m taking him on by myself, I might only be able to kick his ass for a few minutes before things get tricky. If he really is the new chief bloodsucker, then without that book to kill him he’ll keep on getting back up every time I knock him down.’

‘Meaning what?’ Dante asked.

‘Meaning get the fuck upstairs and start searching for the fuckin’ book, dumbass.’

After Benson’s departure, Jessica and her father, Rameses Gaius, remained in the Olé Au Lait to discuss the rest of the evening’s plan. Neither of them had bought anything to eat or drink, but neither Flake nor Rick the chef were about to give them any grief about it.

Not long after Benson had left, hell bent on his mission to return with the Holy Grail, Jessica made her feelings about him known. ‘I’ll tell you what, Father,’ she grumbled across the table to the looming figure of Gaius. ‘There’s no fuckin’ way in hell I’m letting that lecherous slimeball anywhere near me. Now, I know we’ve agreed that you can pick my new life partner for me, but if you think I’m having his filthy hands on me you can think again.’

Her father allowed a smile to break out across his face. If he hadn’t been wearing his dark sunglasses, she would have seen his good eye visibly lit up, in appreciation.

‘You don’t disappoint, my dear,’ he said. ‘Feisty as ever. It’s no wonder you’ve lasted as long as you have. Do not fear, however. Randy Benson isn’t the only candidate I have picked as your future partner, and if I’m honest he’s my least favourite. He reminds me of your last husband, Armand, a vile, treacherous, untrustworthy maggot. I’ve a feeling he’ll perish at the hands of the Bourbon Kid before he ever gets his hands on the Holy Grail again.’ He paused reflectively, before going on, ‘You know, this has actually worked in our favour. Those three idiot Pigs killing the Kid’s brother has distracted him and allowed us to gain a march on him.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Think about it, my dear. He doesn’t appear to know that you’re back on the streets. And he wouldn’t know me if he saw me. He’s too busy chasing after Benson and his buddies to worry about us. If, as I suspect, he kills Benson, then one of the other candidates I have shortlisted to be your new partner will kill him for us when he least expects it.’

‘So who are these other nominees?’ Jessica was eager to know.

‘Robert Swann, the guy I picked out to be the guardian of those two idiot kids, Dante and Kacy, is your second choice. I picked him because he is a direct descendant of an old friend of mine. He doesn’t know it, of course, but he has royal blood in his veins. Add your vampire blood to it and I think you’d make a fine couple.’

Jessica sat and stared hard at her father, wondering if he was serious. He picked up on her look of disdain. ‘What?’ he asked, sounding baffled.

‘Are you shitting me?’

‘Look, he’s a fine male specimen and a ruthless killer,’ Gaius protested.

Jessica shook her head. ‘I don’t believe it. My father is a retard.’

‘Excuse me?’

Jessica stood up and made an announcement to the entire clientele and staff in the coffee shop. ‘Everyone, I would like to make it known that this man, Rameses Gaius, is a retard. Thank you.’ She smiled at her father, who snapped angrily back at her.

‘Sit down will you, for fuck’s sake.’

‘You
sit down.’

‘I
am
sitting down.’

Jessica shook her head. ‘Do you even know what “Sitting down” means? ’Cos you obviously don’t know what a rapist is!’

‘What?’

‘You have to be fucking nuts. Benson and Swann, they’re both serial rapists, for fuck’s sake! What kind of father tries to
fix his daughter up with a rapist?’

‘One who’s giving her a very fine wedding gift.’

‘Which is?’

‘The corpses of all your enemies. By the end of the witching hour tonight, the Bourbon Kid will be dead, that fool Dante Vittori who helped him shoot you down last year will also be dead, and so too will the last of the Hubal monks. In exchange for this, I get to pick your husband for you.’

‘Well pardon me if I don’t dance for joy. You couldn’t have gotten me flowers?’

‘Don’t be cute.’

‘I can’t help it.’

Jessica was standing with her hands on her hips, working the naughty child routine on her father, and it was beginning to piss him off. ‘
Jessica Xavier,
sit down and behave,’ he ordered. ‘I didn’t spend the last nine months trying to track you down just to fix you up with someone you cannot abide. Now SIT DOWN!’

For once, the Vampire Queen did as she was told, sitting back down at the table opposite her father. The watching crowd of seated coffee drinkers returned to their hushed conversations now that the drama seemed to be over.