The Book of Death (Bourbon Kid 4)

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the entrance. ‘Why don’t we take a seat and talk about this,’ she suggested.
    The three of them made their way
over to the table and each sat down on one of the creaky wooden chairs around
it.
    ‘What’s different?’ Kacy asked
sympathetically.
    ‘I don’t feel the same,’ the Kid
said, looking confused. ‘I used to get a major adrenaline rush after a drink.
You know that feeling where you just wanna kill everyone you see?’
    ‘Not really,’ said Kacy.
    ‘Well, something used to take
over after I’d had a drink. It was brought on by the memories of the moment
when I killed my mother.’
    ‘You killed your mom?’ Kacy
couldn’t mask the shock in her voice.
    ‘She turned into a vampire.
Begged me to kill her. I had to have a drink first. Drank a bottle of bourbon,
ploughed about six bullets through her heart. After that the only thing that
ever made me feel alive was drinkin’ bourbon and killin’ folks. Especially
vampires.’
    ‘And you’re not getting that
feeling any more?’
    ‘No. Not since…’ he trailed off.
    Dante finished the sentence for
him. ‘Not since he used the Eye of the Moon to get his soul back last night.
Now he’s a regular guy. Got a conscience like everyone else.’
    The Kid reached inside his
jacket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. He used his teeth to pull one out
of the pack and sucked hard on the end of it. It lit up brightly and he
replaced the pack in his jacket. ‘There’s some shit I can still do,’ he said.
‘Don’t go thinking I’m all washed up. I still know everything I knew before,
I’ve just lost a bit of my inner rage.’
    Dante looked at him. He looked
like a regular guy. Something was missing and it wasn’t just the dark hooded
coat. There was something missing from his eyes. Those eyes used to reveal a
look of contempt for everything and everyone, but now they looked just like
anyone else’s.
    Without realising he was doing
it, Dante shook his head scornfully as he looked at the man opposite him. ‘So
how are you gonna help us kill Rameses Gaius and get the Eye of the Moon back?’
he asked.
    ‘You can’t kill Gaius.’
    ‘Why not?’
    ‘You said he’s got the Eye of
the Moon in his head. It’s a part of him, like a pulse or a living organism
that gives him his strength, so he’s totally immortal. And a mummy. Those
fuckers don’t die. There’s only one way to deal with him.’
    ‘And what’s that?’ Kacy asked.
    ‘You send him back where he came
from.’
    Kacy looked at Dante. He
appeared to have no idea what the Kid was talking about either. ‘Where does he
come from?’ she asked.
    The Kid took a drag on his
cigarette and blew the smoke back out through his nostrils. ‘A tomb. You gotta
wrap that fucker up in bandages and bury him alive in a tomb.’
    ‘You’re kidding, right?’ said
Kacy.
    ‘Nope. That’s why you’re gonna
need my help.’
    ‘So what are you gonna do?’
Dante asked before Kacy had the chance.
    ‘I’m gonna head out of town for
a while. Can you two get into the Casa de Ville and meet me there tomorrow?’
    ‘Yeah,’ said Dante. ‘We were
there this morning. Big place. Fucking lot of vampires there. Heavily guarded
too. I’m not sure how you’ll get in there. No offence, but unless you can get
back to your bad old self, you won’t even make it past the front gate. There’s
an undead only policy there at the moment.’
    ‘Wait a minute!’ Kacy butted in.
‘He’ll get in if he’s a vampire.’
    Dante raised an eyebrow. ‘You
wanna turn him into one then?’
    ‘Won’t need to,’ she replied.
    ‘Huh?’
    She tapped Dante on the leg.
‘Give him that serum you brought back from the hotel.’
    Dante’s eyes lit up as it dawned
on him what she was getting at. ‘Good idea.’
    ‘What serum?’ asked the Kid.
    Dante pulled a syringe and a
small bottle from his pocket and slid it over the table to the Kid.
    The Kid looked at it and
frowned. ‘What the fuck is that?’
    ‘That’s what’ll get you past the
front gates.’
    ‘Care to elaborate? ‘Cause I
don’t wanna have to read your mind.’
    ‘This is the serum I was using
to lower my blood temperature when I was undercover with the vampires. It’s
what helped me walk among them unnoticed. Inject yourself with that before you
get to the Casa de Ville and they’ll think you’re one of them.’
    The Kid picked up the bottle of
liquid and looked closely at it. ‘This stuff didn’t work that well for you. I
spotted you