The Eye of the Moon Read online

  ‘Greetings, Mrs Lansbury,’ said the tall man, sonorously.

  ‘Do come in.’ Olivia Jane smiled, gesturing for the visitors to step into the warmth of the entrance hall.

  The thirteen guests filed in one at a time, each nodding to Olivia Jane as they passed her, and all marvelling at the sight before them. There was one decorative touch which Olivia Jane insisted upon inside her house: all the walls, ceilings and carpets were bright red, the same scarlet as the robes of her female guest. A walk round the entire building would have confirmed what a magnificent yet creepy sight this was. The evening’s agenda didn’t actually allow time for a guided tour, however, and none of the guests was about to request one. Each and every one of them was eager for the night’s festivities to begin.

  Olivia Jane led them through to the living room, a huge, imposing space with a ceiling fully thirty feet above the red-carpeted floor. It was filled with comfortable red furniture, and a pair of dining tables loaded with bottles of wine and dishes of rich foods. Within ten minutes, all of her visitors had removed their robes and were cavorting orgiastically, naked apart from their masks. Soft classical music played as they indulged in all manner of sexual activity, pausing occasionally only to eat and drink.

  Their hostess need not have bothered spending so much time on her hair and selecting her outfit. The dress was ripped off her in a moment of frantic lust by one burly man as another tugged at her hair and pulled her maskless head down to his groin. The start of Olivia Jane’s initiation into their satanic cult was just beginning. A two-hour orgy would be followed by the evening’s main event just after midnight. Her acceptance into the cult was dependent on her offering up a young virgin for sacrifice during the witching hour.

  Beth was due home at midnight.

  Seven

  Sanchez knew he shouldn’t have grabbed the mentally challenged boy and dragged him to the floor with him. Now the kid was hugging him tightly like a randy dog humping some poor bastard’s leg. He had both arms wrapped around the bartender’s neck and was gazing at him adoringly.

  ‘You saved me,’ Casper said, smiling inanely.

  ‘Yeah. Yeah, that’s right,’ said Sanchez. If the kid wanted to believe he had pulled him to the ground for his safety, then why shatter his illusions by telling him the truth? In reality, he had simply used the boy as a shield to keep away any swooping vampires. As it happened he need not have bothered, because the vampires were now all focused on attacking Elvis while avoiding his deadly aim. Two feelings washed over Sanchez. One was a sense of relief at having survived so far. The other, if he was honest, was one of acute embarrassment at being seen cuddling a young boy in church.

  ‘You’re my hero,’ beamed Casper.

  ‘Yeah yeah yeah. That’s enough, okay? Get the fuck off me, will ya? I don’t want nobody to see us like this. Fuckin’ embarrassin’.’

  Casper seemed only further encouraged by Sanchez’s show of embarrassment and hugged him even harder. The two of them were lying between two rows of pews practically spooning, legs entwined, looking like a couple of young lovers.

  ‘I don’t want no more of this goddam shit,’ Sanchez snapped, prising the boy off him. ‘Go on, fuckin’ move!’

  With a single strong shove he pushed the boy off him and underneath the pew behind them. No sooner had he done so than a vampire swooped down on them from above, grabbed Sanchez by the neck with one hand and pulled him to his feet.

  ‘FUCK!’

  Pale-faced and red-eyed, the bloodsucker leaned in, his mouth wide open and his fangs arcing out, ready to tear into the sweet meat of Sanchez’s neck. Terrified, the young bartender closed his eyes, wincing. A sharp snapping sound followed, yet he felt no pain. No teeth in the neck either. Then, to his great relief, he felt the vampire relinquish his grip on him. He opened his eyes again and was amazed by what he saw. The vampire had the business end of a rawhide bullwhip wrapped around his neck and was being pulled, hissing in fury, backwards at a rapid pace towards the man holding the whip handle. No ordinary man, either. It was only the Reverend, fer Chrissakes! Now, Sanchez liked this new preacher. He’d been a breath of fresh air in town since he’d arrived, but no one would have expected to see him take on a vampire with nothing but a bullwhip. That does it, thought Sanchez. I gotta stop pissin’ in the Reverend’s holy water.

  Both Sanchez and the boy cowering beneath the pew watched in awe as the unshaven holy man pulled the struggling vampire right up close to him, the whip still wrapped tightly around the creature’s neck. When its face was close enough to feel the stubble on the preacher’s jaw something even more unlikely happened. The Reverend pulled a sawn-off shotgun from somewhere within his dark robes and thrust the muzzle into the tight skin beneath the bloodsucker’s chin.

  BOOM!

  Blood and brain matter and pieces of shattered skull sprayed high into the air. Then the remains of the vampire’s body exploded into flames and crumpled to the floor. Unfazed, the priest looked around for his next victim.

  For the next two minutes the stunned members of the congregation watched as Elvis and the Reverend destroyed the remaining hooded vampires. All the while Elvis was still singing ‘Steamroller Blues’ and strumming away on his guitar, which he would occasionally point the way of a vampire and fire off a dart or two. Sanchez, in particular, watched on in open-mouthed wonder.

  Awesome.

  Eventually the one-sided fight ended and a hush descended upon the shocked congregation. The graveyard stink had gone, to be replaced by a smell of scorching and a blue haze of gunsmoke. The Reverend set about checking that the members of his flock were all okay and that none of them had been bitten. When he got to Sanchez – to whom Casper was once more clinging – he looked the young bartender up and down.

  ‘I’m proud of you, Sanchez. That was a brave thing you did.’

  Huh?’

  ‘I saw you drag the kid down to the floor with you, and then push him under the pews when the vampire went for him. Takes real guts to do that. You should be proud of yourself.’

  Sanchez saw no need to tarnish the holy man’s view of him.

  ‘Aaah, it was nothin’, Reverend, anyone woulda done the same.’ He shrugged, hoping that the movement would shake off the clingy kid. It didn’t. The Reverend smiled at them.

  ‘No need to call me “Reverend”. My friends call me Rex,’ he said.

  ‘Reverend Rex? That’s a catchy name for a preacher, ain’t it?’ Sanchez remarked.

  ‘Well, truth is, I ain’t really a preacher. I just kill bad folks on God’s behalf, y’know?’

  ‘Oh. Yeah. Right.’

  ‘So, you two want a room out back or what?’

  That was the cue for Sanchez to try to shake off the kid in the parka once again.

  ‘Sanchez saved me,’ Casper beamed at Rex.

  ‘Yep, he did. You owe him one, I reckon.’

  Casper grinned at Sanchez, his new hero. Although the grin was a little freaky, and once again accompanied by a flash of lightning and a thunderclap from outside, it was also faintly endearing. Coupled with the look of helplessness and enormous gratitude in the boy’s eyes it was actually starting to melt Sanchez’s heart a little. The poor kid was really quite sweet… For a nutcase.

  ‘Awright, now. That’s enough,’ Sanchez snapped. ‘Shouldn’t you be home in bed?’

  ‘He’s got a point,’ said Rex, turning to address the crowd of bewildered churchgoers, many of whom were resurfacing from between the rows of pews. ‘Everyone. Listen up. I suggest you either head home now, or bed down here for the night. There’s a heck of a big storm goin’ on and it’s only gonna get worse.’

  In spite of the bad weather, no one actually liked the idea of bedding down in the church after the horrific events they had just witnessed, so most of the congregation headed for the door at the end of the church. As they began filtering out of the building, whispering among themselves about what they had just seen, Elvis jumped down from the stage.

  �
�Thank y’all. Thankya very much,’ he called after the departing crowd. Then, after laying his guitar aside, he headed down the main aisle towards Sanchez, Rex and the kid, Casper.

  ‘Yo, Rex, guess I’m done here for tonight. You okay cleanin’ up on your own?’

  ‘Shit, man,’ groaned Rex. ‘You splittin’ on me already?’

  ‘I got some other fuckers to take down tonight, buddy,’ Elvis protested.

  Rex shrugged and smiled at his killing partner. ‘Sure thing, man. Do what you gotta do.’

  ‘I’m kinda looking forward to this one,’ said the King. ‘I gotta go kill some boy band in town.’

  This guy Elvis was cool and Sanchez couldn’t hide how impressed he was by the guy’s self-confidence and all-round swagger. ‘Wow,’ he gasped. ‘This band, are they vampires too?’

  Elvis pulled a pair of his trademark sunglasses from his breast pocket and put them on.

  ‘Nope. They’re a just a boy band,’ he said, deadpan, his eyes now hidden.

  ‘Right. Yeah. O’ course,’ the barman stammered.

  Elvis nodded at him, then began walking towards the door. Just then a young man burst in, fighting his way through the crowd. He was dressed as a scarecrow – if a rather wet and bedraggled one – and he was looking around the church as though frantically searching for someone or something.

  ‘Casper!’ he called out.

  It was instantly evident that he was someone who meant a lot to Casper. Suddenly the kid who had been so enamoured of Sanchez forgot all about his saviour and ran down the aisle towards the scarecrow, overtaking Elvis as he went. Sanchez watched as the young boy jumped up at the young man, who caught him, nearly falling backwards with the force of the jump.

  ‘What the hell has happened here, Casper? People are going nuts outside. They’re saying that a bunch of vampires broke in here. Are you okay?’

  ‘Yeah, I’m okay, bruv.’

  Casper was clinging tightly to his older brother, and now that he knew he was safe he began to sob as the enormity of the danger he had escaped began to sink in.

  ‘It’s okay, Casper. I’m here now. D’you wanna go home?’ There was no verbal response from the boy, just a tighter squeeze. ‘Come on, I’ll take you home. We’d better hurry, though, it’s startin’ to rain pretty heavily, and I haven’t got a coat.’

  ‘You can wear mine,’ said Casper, smiling and pulling down the hood of his parka, ready to offer it to his brother.

  ‘Don’t be dumb,’ JD said kindly, ruffling Casper’s hair. ‘You need your coat more than I do. I reckon Mom would probably kill me if I turned up wearing it and you were soaked through.’

  Elvis caught up with the pair of them on his way down the aisle. Stopping, he looked the scarecrow up and down.

  ‘You know, you should be thankin’ those two guys back there for savin’ your brother from the vampires,’ he remarked.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Casper. ‘Sanchez saved me.’

  ‘Sanchez, huh?’ said JD, eyeing the bartender, who was now deep in conversation with the Reverend. ‘I guess we owe him a favour.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Elvis. ‘You should drop by his bar some time. The Tapioca. He needs the custom. Take a weapon with you, though. It’s kinda a rough place.’

  ‘Wh-? Well, yeah. Okay, man.’ JD was thoroughly bewildered.

  Casper let go of his brother and pointed back at Rex. ‘You should meet the Reverend, he’s really cool,’ he said excitedly, tugging at his elder brother’s arm.

  ‘Yeah, sure, maybe another time, bruv. We’ve gotta get goin’.’

  Even though the rain outside was showing no sign of letting up, JD was not overly happy at having Casper hang around in a church where the floors and walls were in places splattered with blood. The sooner he could get his little brother out of there the better. There was already a strong chance of sleepless nights on the horizon if Casper started having nightmares about what he had seen. As JD tried edging his brother in the direction of the main doors Elvis threw a comment his way.

  ‘Ain’t you gonna at least shake hands with the new preacher?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m sure I’ll get a chance to shake hands with him another time,’ said JD, offering a polite smile as he pulled Casper down the aisle with him towards the exit.

  ‘Yo, scarecrow man,’ Elvis called after him. ‘You’ll get fuckin’ soaked through in that outfit. Wear this.’

  The King had picked up a dark cloth from the floor and tossed it at the young man. It was a hooded robe, recently worn by one of the now dead vampires. JD caught it and took a long look at it.

  ‘Thanks, Elvis,’ he called back.

  ‘Ain’t nothin’, man. Just take good care of your brother.’

  As JD tugged at the robe so that he could put it on without getting into a tangle, Elvis headed past them and out into the night. He had other business to attend to, taking down the local manufactured pop acts.

  JD struggled for a moment to get his arms into the sleeves of the long dark robe. When he eventually managed to do so, he found that it fitted snugly around his shoulders and hung nicely just above his ankles. After securing it around his waist with its narrow leather belt he followed his excited younger brother out into the rain, pulling the hood up over his head as he went.

  Eight

  Beth sat in one of the two comfortable, but distinctly grubby, dark green armchairs that Annabel de Frugyn had in her trailer. The older woman had sensed that the cold wind and rain had left Beth chilled, so had boiled the kettle to make them both a cup of her finest tea.

  The kettle stood on a sideboard behind her at the far end of the trailer in what passed for the kitchen area. With her back to Beth, Annabel poured the steaming hot water into her two best mugs and stirred the contents for a short while, then returned and sat down opposite the young girl and handed her a mug. It contained extremely weak tea; more disturbingly, it had a picture of John Denver on it. The reason for the tea’s weakness lay in the fact that she refused ever to use more than one teabag a day. On this particular day she had already had about four cups, so the dried-out prune masquerading as a teabag really hadn’t imparted much flavour to the hot water in the mug.

  Annabel made herself comfortable in the chair opposite Beth and placed her own mug (decorated with a picture of Val Doonican) on the small table in between them.

  ‘He’ll come back, you know,’ she said reassuringly.

  ‘Am I that obvious?’ Beth asked.

  ‘It’s practically stamped on your forehead, my dear. He’s the one for you, though. I can tell. I have a nose for these things. I’m a fortune teller by trade.’

  ‘Is that right?’ Beth perked up. ‘Could you read my fortune?’ Then a thought struck her. ‘I don’t have any money, though,’ she said sheepishly.

  The darkly dressed woman smiled. ‘Of course. Hold out your hands. I’ll give you a palm reading.’

  ‘Okay.’

  Beth placed the John Denver mug on the table in such a position that it was in a staring contest with Val Doonican. Then she held her hands out to Annabel’s examination.

  Outside, the rain was falling harder, and making an almighty racket as it pounded on the tin roof. There seemed to be no electric light in the trailer and the only illumination was provided by candles spaced intermittently on a ledge along the walls, each flickering with an eerie green flame. The only window was just behind Beth’s head, and every so often a flash of lightning outside would light up Annabel’s pale, warty face. One such flash occurred just as she took hold of the girl’s hands with both hers and smiled her gap-toothed smile at her.

  ‘Oh, I sense great things for you, Beth, my dear,’ she said, after a long pause.

  ‘Really? Like what?’

  Annabel looked her up and down and began to nod. ‘Yes, yes, you’ve come a long way to be here. You’re not originally from Santa Mondega, are you?’

  ‘No, that’s right. My father moved us here a few weeks after I was born.’

  ‘From
Kansas, I’m thinking.’

  ‘Delaware actually.’

  ‘Shush. Don’t interrupt, unless it’s to agree with me. You’ll break my concentration.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Now,’ Annabel went on. ‘You miss home, don’t you? And you want to get back there, but you’re not sure how.’

  Beth frowned. Was this woman for real? Just because she was dressed as Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz didn’t mean that she was from Kansas and believed that there was no place like home. She couldn’t help a feeling of relief that that this would all be over soon and JD would return. This fortune-telling old biddy was, frankly, a joke. Not only that, it seemed she was stupid enough to think that Beth hadn’t seen The Wizard of Oz. Even so, the girl let her continue anyway.

  ‘And your friend, he searches for something too. His road will come to an end when he finds his soul.’

  Beth raised an eyebrow. ‘Don’t you mean brain?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘In The Wizard of Oz, the scarecrow wanted a brain.’

  ‘What’s The Wizard of Oz?’

  ‘Are you kidding?’ Beth was astonished, her surprise overtaking her normal good manners.

  Annabel sat back, looking slightly offended. ‘Do you want me to tell you your fortune, or not?’

  ‘I’m sorry. Please do go on.’

  ‘Thank you.’ There was a hint of suspicion in the fortune teller’s voice. She was not used to being challenged in such a direct fashion. ‘The path you choose will matter not, for you, my dear, will always arrive at the same destination. All roads lead back to what feels like home for you. Under the light of a sleepless moon, that boy will be with you always.’

  Beth raised an eyebrow. She’s lost it, she thought. This old fruitbat is absolutely cuckoo. ‘What does that mean, exactly?’ she asked, anxious now to get the whole stupid business over with.

  Instead of replying, the darkly dressed woman suddenly jumped slightly, as if someone had jabbed a pin in her ass.