The Book of Death (Bourbon Kid 4)

From the shadows behind him, he
heard a familiar gravelly voice speak out in response. ‘Church won’t save any
of you either,’ it said.
    The clown frowned and
tried his best to peer into the shadows behind Dante to see the owner of the
voice. ‘Who’s that?’ he shouted.
    Dante kept his eyes
glued to the machete pressed against Kacy’s throat. A glowing red dot had
appeared on it a second earlier. It began moving slowly up onto the clown’s
neck and then his face. As it travelled up through his chin and nose, the clown
seemed to spot it too. It was a red laser sighter. The moving red dot
eventually came to a stop between the clown’s eyes, almost turning him
cross-eyed as he followed its journey up his face. And then the carnage started.
    BANG!
    The clown’s head
exploded. A bullet had burst through his forehead and completely obliterated
his skull. Blood and brains sprayed out everywhere. One side of Kacy’s face was
instantly caked in red goo. She ducked down, probably screaming, although it
was hard to tell because it sounded like everyone in the church was screaming.
Those screams were soon drowned out by four further extremely loud gunshots
that rang out in quick succession. After each one, a different clown’s head
exploded and a Sunflower Girl fell to the floor screaming and covered in his
blood and brains.
    Dante looked back over
his shoulder and saw the dark figure of the Bourbon Kid step out from the
shadows behind the altar. His face was concealed beneath a dark hood as was so
often the case when he was killing folks. In his right hand was a pretty heavy
duty handgun. He slipped it into a holster inside his long dark robe.
    Dante let out a deep
sigh of relief. ‘You showed up in the nick of time. Thanks, man.’
    The Kid walked past him
down the aisle. ‘No problem,’ he muttered under his breath.
    Dante followed on
behind him. ‘Gaius isn’t at the Casa de Ville any more,’ he said.
    ‘Where is he?’
    ‘He’s on his way to the
museum in the middle of town. We’re gonna have to go there if we wanna get the
Eye back.’
    The Kid stopped and
turned around. ‘I gotta go to a couple of other places first. Hang here for a
bit. I’ll meet you at the museum later.’
    ‘I’m not sure we can
wait. Gaius is supposed to be taking the Eye there to have it cleaned, or somethin’.’
    Up ahead, Kacy was
orchestrating some kind of group hug with the girl scouts in an attempt to calm
them down and wipe the blood off them. The Kid took a look at her.
    ‘Your girlfriend isn’t
ready to leave these kids yet. In about an hour the streets will be clear of
vampires. Then you can leave the kids here and head to the museum. I’ll meet
you there when I’ve done a couple of other stops.’
    ‘Where else you gotta
go apart from the Casa de Ville?’ Dante asked.
    ‘First up I gotta clear
the streets for you. Then I gotta stop off at the library and the police
station.’
    ‘What for?’
    ‘Gotta find me some
books and kill me some cops.’
    Kacy scratched her
head. ‘Why kill the cops?’
    ‘Tradition.’
    Without uttering another
word, the Kid walked down the aisle past Kacy and the mortified Sunflower
Girls. They all backed away from him as he strode through them. The clowns had
been scary enough, but this guy was way more dangerous. He walked up to the
front doors, slid the huge metal bolt to one side and opened the door on the
left. As he stepped through it he turned back to survey the carnage behind him.
    ‘You might wanna secure
this door behind me,’ he said.
    Kacy pulled herself
free of the girls and hurried down the aisle towards him. ‘I’ll do it,’ she
said.
    The Kid vanished
through the door and out into the snow covered streets outside. He left the
door open for Kacy to pull shut.
    In all the chaos, Dante
had forgotten all about Vanity. His vampire buddy reappeared, strolling back
from the West wing of the church. He waved at Dante as he approached. ‘I bolted
a door to the cellar,’ he called out. ‘The place should be secure now.’ He
walked up to Dante and looked around. The church hall looked extremely
different to when he had last seen it. There were smouldering corpses of clowns
lying around and everyone else was covered in blood. Then of course there was
the small matter of the shattered windows above the doors. ‘What the hell
happened here?’ he asked.
    Dante shrugged. ‘Clowns
flew in through the windows, grabbed Kacy and a bunch of the girls. Bourbon