The Book of Death (Bourbon Kid 4)

someone moving
behind him distracted Nate for a second. He looked back and heard a few of the
other vampires and werewolves fidgeting in their hiding places and talking
among themselves.
    ‘At least we get to stand on the
driveway,’ he called over to Lionel. ‘It sounds like everyone else is knee deep
in waterlogged shit back there!’
    Lionel stepped back from the
gates and shrugged. ‘The werewolves probably like that.’
    ‘I bet the clowns hate it
though.’
    ‘Why the clowns?’
    ‘Those big shoes will get filled
with muddy water. Ruins their socks.’
    Lionel looked surprised. ‘I
didn’t know clowns wore socks.’
    ‘Some of ’em must do. I’ve got
some new socks on today so I’m glad to be up here at the gates. This is
probably the safest place to be as well.’
    ‘How d’ya figure?’
    ‘Think about it. If the Kid
really is gonna show up here, then coming in through the front gates would be
pretty fuckin’ stupid wouldn’t it?’
    ‘Yeah, we’ll see him coming down
the road long before he gets to the gates,’ said Lionel, once more peering
through the gates and down the road.
    ‘Five bucks says he doesn’t even
show.’
    ‘I’m not taking that bet. Of
course he won’t show. I wouldn’t be out in this weather if I had a choice.’
    Nate sucked hard on his
cigarette and blew a lungful of smoke out into the cold night air. It vanished
instantly within the downpour of snowflakes. Lionel had a good point. Only
thing was, where most people would stay indoors in such abysmal weather, the
Bourbon Kid wasn’t most people. He was a fucking psycho with no fear of
anything or anyone. A few drops of snow wouldn’t keep him away if he was
intending on showing up.
    ‘You hear that?’ Lionel shouted
over to him.
    ‘No. What?’
    ‘I think I heard something just
now.’
    Nate took another drag on his
cigarette. ‘I didn’t hear anything. What did it sound like?’
    ‘A rustling in the bushes over
there,’ Lionel pointed at a row of bushes that ran along the inside wall of the
grounds, over to his right. He took a step towards them, his back turned on
Nate.
    ‘Whoa, hold on a sec!’ Nate
shouted. ‘Just stay here. This isn’t fuckin’ Camp Crystal. You don’t walk off
on your own to investigate a noise. Stay here where I can see you. And make
sure you’re in view of the CCTV cameras too. No one can help you if you do
something dumb like wander off on your own!’
    Lionel kept his back to Nate and
craned his neck around to see if he could make out anything over by the bushes.
    ‘It’s fucking hard to see
anything in those bushes, man,’ he complained. ‘Shouldn’t we have some lights
on down here?’
    ‘Quit bitchin’. If anyone sneaks
up on us, the guys watching on the cameras will turn on those big fuckin’
spotlights. But if you go wandering off behind a bush out of sight of the
cameras, I’m not following you in.’
    Lionel turned back to face him.
‘What if I need a piss?’
    ‘Piss through the fuckin’
gates!’ He took another drag on his cigarette. ‘You don’t actually need a piss,
do you?’
    ‘No. I was just askin’, is all.’
    Nate leaned his head back and
blew a lungful of smoke up at the sky again. This time he was able to watch the
smoke escape in a snake like shape upwards. The snowfall was slowing. The wind
had eased ever so slightly, but it still made a gentle whistling noise. The
dark clouds up above were beginning to part and a narrow shaft of light from the
moon began to reveal itself. Nate took one last drag of his cigarette and
tossed it down into the snow. As he heard the cigarette hiss and fizzle out, he
looked up again and was pleased to see that the snow had stopped completely. A
few flakes still floated around in the wind, but there was no more blizzard. “Finally,
thank God for that,” he thought.
    ‘Looks like Gaius is bringing
the moon out for the werewolves,’ he called over to Lionel, his voice suddenly
a lot clearer over the calming winds.
    Lionel didn’t respond. He was
stood still, just staring back out through the gates.
    Nate called over to him again.
‘I said, it looks like Gaius is bringing the moon out for the werewolves.’
    Still no response.
    Nate could only see him from a
side angle and couldn’t tell if he had heard him or not. ‘Lionel? Are you
listening—’
    Before Nate could finish his
sentence, Lionel’s legs buckled at the knee. He crumpled towards the floor in
slow motion. It reminded Nate of the moment