The Book of Death (Bourbon Kid 4)

father, and just listen to me for a
minute. Before I put her to sleep I managed to extract some information from
her. She didn’t even know her boyfriend was the Bourbon Kid until today when he
killed Silvinho. She knew him by another name. His real name.’
    ‘Which is what?’
    ‘Jack Daniels. Corny, huh?’
    Gaius nodded. ‘Very. We finally
know his name but we’ve lost the fucking book. Does anything ever go according
to plan around here?’
    ‘No, but that’s why it’s always
good to have a backup plan.’ Jessica leaned down and stroked Beth’s hair. ‘You
put too much faith in that book, father. With her as bait we can kill him
without having to worry about whether or not his name is in your precious
book.’
    Gaius walked over to his desk
and sighed rather loudly as he sat down in his black leather chair. ‘Jessica my
dear, the reason I want The Book of Death isn’t simply to kill the Bourbon Kid.
He’s a mere irritation. I could kill him easily with my bare hands. I need that
book for far more important matters.’
    ‘Such as?’
    ‘Insurance. Once my undead army
is established and my plan to conquer the rest of the world is underway, the
leaders of the free world will attempt to take us out with nuclear weapons and
all kinds of other shit. But once I’ve demonstrated to them that all I have to do
is write their names in my book to kill them, those world leaders will soon
come around to my way of thinking. I’ll have them all in my back pocket. We’ll
be able to waltz on in to any country we wish, uncontested. Our army won’t need
to fight anyone, we’ll just travel freely around the world, conquering.’
    Jessica looked surprised. ‘Wow,
I had no idea you had such big plans. I’m mildly impressed.’
    ‘As you should be. Right now
though, there’s no sign of the book, or Ulrika Price. Which reminds me, I’m
going to have to make a stop by the library to kill her at some point.’
    Jessica shook her head. ‘See,
there you go getting all personal and vengeful again.’
    ‘Oh, shut up about that. You
don’t like Ulrika Price anyway. I thought you’d be glad to see the back of her.’
    ‘For all we know that bitch
might have gotten big ideas and decided to write our names in the book. I’m
amazed you trusted her with it, what with you being all paranoid and
stuff.   Or maybe she sold it and
skipped town.’
    Gaius could feel himself grinding
his teeth in frustration. ‘As I keep saying, it’s imperative that we get The
Book of Death back. These are testing times. With all the murders that have
just occurred in this city it’s only a matter of time before the rest of the
world discovers that Santa Mondega is rife with the undead. The minute the word
gets out about us, the governments of the world will start sending armies here.
We’ll be blown to bits before we’ve even gotten going. So, yes, great though it
is that you’ve kidnapped this woman, it’s nowhere near as important as finding
The Book of Death before word gets out about what we’re up to here.’
    ‘Oh dear,’ Jessica had a
troubled look on her face. ‘In that case you’re not going to like this.’
    ‘Like what?’
    ‘We’re kind of all over the news
already.’
    Gaius could feel himself
becoming extremely agitated. He ran his right hand back and forth over his
smooth bald head. If he’d had any hair he would have been pulling it out about
now. ‘What do you mean?’ he snarled.
    ‘There’s been a piece running on
the local news channel for the last hour. It’s picking up steam and causing a
fair amount of public outrage.’
    Gaius took a deep breath through
his mouth and exhaled slowly through his nostrils. ‘What is it? Go on tell me!’
    ‘There’s a child killer on the loose.’
    ‘Why should I care about that?’
    ‘Because it says that the
victims were all poisoned and have bites on their necks. There are mutterings
that it’s the work of vampires. We haven’t exactly been discreet in recent
times, but now that someone’s killing kids, it’s becoming very high profile.’
    Gaius slammed his fist down on
the desk. ‘For fuck’s sake!’ he yelled. ‘This will fuck up everything. If that
story goes national, we’ll have armies from every fucking nation in the world
sending troops down here! Who the fuck is doing it?’
    ‘Well, that’s the other thing,
the news flash says that some of the kids who were killed had goat’s hair under
their fingernails.’
    ‘Goat’s