The Book of Death (Bourbon Kid 4)

opening her eyes and
looking up at the Bourbon Kid. He had replaced his gun within his dark coat and
was once again looking down upon the blood-soaked body of the dead boy on the
hardwood floor.
    Caroline stood up
slowly. Lying flat on his back on the floor behind her, minus a large portion
of his head, was the vampire who had been chasing her through the streets. Smoke
was pouring out of the gaping hole in his head and blood was seeping out across
the floor in an ever-expanding puddle. She backed away from it and turned back
to the Bourbon Kid.
    ‘Thanks,’ she mumbled.
‘He’d been chasing me for a long time. I don’t know who he is.’
    The Kid did not
respond. Caroline took a step towards him and spoke a little louder. ‘Do you
know what’s going on here?’ she asked. ‘Did the vampires get that boy?’
    The Kid seemed to have
forgotten she was there. At the sound of her voice he glanced over at her.
‘That guy chasing you was a Panda,’ he said.
    ‘A what? Panda?’
    ‘Yeah.’
    She paused, unsure what
he meant. It made no sense.
    ‘The black paint on his
face, around his eyes, it means he’s a member of the Panda clan of vampires. Or
at least, he was til I blew his fuckin’ head off.’
    Caroline heard what he
said, but she found herself distracted by the body of the dead boy on the
floor. ‘Oh my God, that’s Josh. He goes to my school. Did the Pandas do that to
him?’ she asked.
    The Kid shook his head.
‘No. This ain’t vampire style.’
    ‘So who did it then?’
    The Kid ignored her and
reached inside his robe again. He pulled out the gun he had used to kill the
vampire. He looked like he was ready to use it. He strode towards her, his eyes
staring right past her as if she wasn’t there. She stepped aside, her back
pressing hard up against a shelf of books behind her in an effort to keep as
much distance between herself and the Kid as possible. He walked past her, his
robe brushing gently against her leg. At the end of the aisle he stopped and
peered both ways, his gun pointed and ready for action.
    Caroline tentatively
called out to him. ‘Is it safe to go back outside?’
    ‘For me it is.’
    ‘Can I come with you?
I’m scared to go on my own.’
    He glared at her. ‘You’ll
be safer here.’
    Caroline pointed at the
dead boy on the floor. ‘But what about whoever killed Josh?’ she asked. ‘What
if they’re still here in the library?’
    The Kid was already
walking toward the exit as he replied. ‘The man who killed him has gone already.’
    ‘Do you know who it
was?’ she called after him. ‘And are you going to kill him?’
    ‘He’s on my list.’

 
 
    One

 
    The gutters overflowed with
rainwater, sewage and blood. In the disquieting hush that had overtaken the city,
these were the final remnants of the massacre that had laid siege to Santa
Mondega for the last twenty-four hours. Ravaged by thunder, lightning, and
death, Halloween had never been more chaotic. And that was saying something in
Santa Mondega.
    Had it been any other town,
police and press would be roaming the streets, looking for clues and witnesses.
But if any cops were still alive, they wouldn’t resurface until daylight. The
city was normally crawling with vampires, a high percentage of which were cops.
But on this night the cops and the vampires (and in particular, the vampire
cops) had been the victims of the massacre. The residents of Santa Mondega
would wake to a city with virtually no law enforcement.
    At four a.m. two figures roamed
the ghost-like streets. The young couple stayed mostly in the shadows. The
girl, aged in her early twenties, wore jeans and a grey sweatshirt. The
bloodstains on the front looked black in the darkness. The blood was mostly her
own, dribbled there from a wound in her neck which she hid well beneath her
long dark hair. Her partner, a male of similar age, was the cause of the wound.
He’d transformed her into a creature of the night like himself just after
midnight.
    Since then they had traipsed
across town and had just spent several minutes in the shadows outside the
police station, the scene of some of the night’s more unpleasant carnage,
checking for signs of any life inside.
    The male, Dante Vittori,
eventually stepped out of the shadows and into the light that shone down from
the streetlights. The lights showed up the heavy bloodstains on his light blue
police officer’s shirt that hung untucked over a pair of dark blue pants. He
gestured to his