The Book of Death (Bourbon Kid 4)

it before.
    She’d been reading the
occasional passage in the book and analysing some of the fine pieces of artwork
for about half an hour when she finally stumbled on something that set her
heart racing. It was a picture of four men and a woman. It was an old picture,
but the faces of the four people in it were crystal clear. And the woman was
instantly recognisable. It was Jessica. Beneath the picture she saw some lettering.
It read:

 
    Dark Lord Xavier and his family,
believed to reside in Santa Mondega, a city of the New World.

 
    Dark Lord Xavier had a face she
recognised too. She had known him better as Archibald Somers, a cop obsessed with
finding the Bourbon Kid for most of his career. The page next to it indicated
that the people in the picture had dabbled in the dark arts. Hardly surprising
when one of them was the owner of the title Dark Lord. Reading on furtively,
Flake began to realise why everyone who read The Book With No Name was found
dead afterwards. The book identified a whole bunch of high ranking vampires,
one of which was Jessica. Sanchez obviously knew nothing about any of this and
he was heading to the Casa De Ville with The Book of Death. Flake had to stop
him.
    She whipped her cell phone out
from her trouser pocket and dialled Sanchez’s number. It rang twice then the
call went straight to voicemail and Sanchez’s voice spoke.
    “Good day to you. You have
reached the voicemail of Detective Sanchez Garcia of the SMPD. I’m probably
busy taking down bad guys, so please leave a message after the tone.”
    Flake waited for the beep and
immediately started babbling a frantic message. ‘Sanchez, it’s Flake. Don’t go
to the Casa De Ville. Your friend Jessica is a vampire. It says so in The Book
With No Name. I think she’ll kill you as soon as she has The Book of Death.
Call me as soon as you get this!’
    Hopeful that he would hear her
message before it was too late and not dismiss it as nonsense, she slipped her
phone back into her pocket and pondered what to do. Her stomach was in knots
and her mind was overflowing with different options. What if Sanchez didn’t
call back? Or didn’t get the message?
    In an attempt to keep her mind
occupied she flicked through a few more pages of The Book With No Name. It
didn’t help much. All she could think about was how much trouble Sanchez was
in. She had to figure out a way to help him. If the shoe was on the other foot,
she was sure he would do the same for her.
    She closed The Book With No
Name. As it slammed shut, she stared at its worn brown cover and cast her mind
back to the moment she had killed Ulrika Price. Of course! She had at her
disposal a weapon that could kill vampires. The Book With No Name.
    All she had to do was get to the
Casa De Ville with it and somehow find a way to hit Jessica over the head with
it as she had done with Ulrika Price. At the very least it would prove to
Sanchez that Jessica was a vampire. But how would she ever get close enough to
Jessica to do it?
    She muttered her thoughts out
loud. ‘Come on Flake, think! What would Sanchez do if he was here, and it was
meatthe Casa De Ville with the vampires?’
    Suddenly an idea came to her.
She reached down to the bottom drawer of her desk once more and flicked through
the clutter she had brushed aside to get to the book earlier. Sure enough,
there was something there that could prove to be useful: a can of black spray
paint. She pulled it out and shook it. The noise it made suggested that there
was enough spray left in it for what she wanted.
    She closed The Book With No Name
and flicked the lid off the can. With a little trepidation she sprayed a small
amount onto the cover of the book. It settled surprisingly well and looked as
if it would dry quite quickly. She blew on it and then dabbed at it with her
finger. It was still wet, but wouldn’t smear too much. The tip of her finger
had turned a little black, but for the most part, the paint seemed to have
embedded itself into the book like a tattoo. With a little bit of care, such as
covering the edges of the pages so that the black spray didn’t hit them, she
could make the nameless book look just like The Book of Death, well, from a
distance at least. There was hope for Sanchez yet. Her plan was flawed and
reckless, some might even say it was shit, but it was the only plan she had, so
it would have to do.
    For the next twenty minutes
Flake carried out an excellent piece of book camouflage. The once