The Book of Death (Bourbon Kid 4)

‘You’re calling me a shit. You’re accusing me of setting you up!
After all I’ve fucking done for you. You muthafucker!’
    Dante responded to the
aggression the best way he knew—by responding in kind. He stormed towards
Vanity and the pair of them stopped inches apart, staring one another down.
    ‘I am calling you a
shit,’ Dante snarled. ‘What the fuck is going on here? Are you my fucking
friend or what? Because right now I’ve got this feeling like you’re Rameses
Gaius’s bitch and you’re using me to get in his good books.’
    There was an awkward silence as
he waited for Vanity to reply. The two of them stared at each other fiercely
for a few seconds until quite by surprise, Vanity’s face broke out into a huge
beaming smile. He laughed heartily and slapped Dante on the shoulder.
    ‘Haha, good one,’ he said. ‘You
almost had me then. I thought you were serious for a second there. Come on. The
time for joking around is over. We’ve gotta go pick a fight with a mummy before
it’s too late.’
    He slapped Dante on the shoulder
again and then bounded back to the corridor at the back of the reception area.
Dante couldn’t work out what to make of it. Vanity seemed to think he was
kidding when he accused him of double crossing him. But he hadn’t been kidding.
He started following on after his laughing buddy, unsure of whether or not he
was making a terrible mistake.
    As he reached the corridor he
felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. Someone had sent him a text message. He
pulled his phone out of his pocket and flicked to the message. It was from
Kacy. It read –
    VANITY LIED. GET AWAY FROM HIM.
I THINK IT’S A SETUP! CALL ME!
    He read the message twice to
make sure he wasn’t misunderstanding it. He’d been right. Vanity was a
shit. And a bit of a cunt for that matter. He stopped walking and looked up to
see Vanity striding along the corridor up ahead with his back to him. He had a
chance to turn and run before Vanity noticed. He slipped his phone back in his
pocket and turned back to the museum’s front entrance.
    As he turned he heard the sound
of the front doors being slammed shut. His eyes confirmed it. Standing in front
of the now closed doors in his shiny silver suit was Rameses Gaius. And his
precious blue stone was still lodged firmly in his right eye socket.
    ‘Mr Vittori,’ he said stepping
forward. ‘We meet again.’
    ‘Pardon?’ said Dante, pretending
not to have heard him.
    Gaius looked irritated. ‘I said,
Mr Vittori, we meet again.’
    ‘Sorry, I still can’t hear ya,’ said
Dante, his eyes desperately searching for an escape route as Gaius walked
towards him.
    ‘I said, we meet again!’ Gaius
raised his voice, almost shouting.
    ‘What?’
    Gaius stopped in the middle of
the reception area, approximately ten metres away from Dante. ‘Let me put it
another way,’ he said.
    The giant mummy raised his right
arm. In the palm of his hand was a bright blue glowing light. Dante stared at
it, unable to work out what it was. It was unlike anything he’d ever seen.
Suddenly Gaius jolted his arm and the blue glow formed into a laser bolt. It
flew from his palm straight at Dante. It blasted into his chest. The sheer
force of it lifted him off his feet and he flew backwards through the air until
his head crashed into a wall behind him with a sickening crack. Everything went
black and as he drifted into a state of unconsciousness and slumped to the
floor, Dante hoped Kacy wouldn’t come looking for him without the Bourbon Kid.

 
    Vanity dashed back to the
reception area to find Gaius standing over the crumpled, unconscious figure of
Dante. The Lord of the Undead looked mighty pleased with himself, which meant
that he was most likely pleased with Vanity too.
    ‘Too easy, huh boss?’ Vanity
said, grinning.
    Gaius grinned back at him.
‘There’s nothing as simple as defeating the gullible, is there?’
    ‘Uh, yeah. So what’s next? You
still need me?’
    Gaius glanced over Vanity’s
shoulder. ‘No,’ he said coldly. ‘We’ve no further need for you.’
    Vanity didn’t like Gaius’s tone.
He spun around to see what it was that his boss was looking at behind him. Four
vampires from the Black Plague were approaching him from behind. He turned back
to Gaius.
    ‘I thought we had a deal,’ he
said, failing to mask the concern in his voice.
    Gaius raised his right hand. His
palm was glowing blue. “I don’t make deals with people who double cross