The Eye of the Moon Read online

  ‘Russo, I need a favour,’ he said. It didn’t sound like a request. It sounded like an order.

  Russo got up from his armchair, his muscular body tensed for any confrontation. For a man in his early forties he was in pretty good shape. Only his thinning hair betrayed his age. He moved towards JD, oozing aggression in every movement. His body language spoke volumes: this man wasn’t in the mood to take any shit from anyone, and he very quickly picked up on the smell of alcohol on JD’s breath.

  ‘You’re all out of favours, JD. Take Casper and get the fuck out of here. Don’t you ever pull this shit again. I’ve got two jobs. I don’t have fuckin’ time to keep lookin’ after him every time you and your mother decide he’s too much of a fuckin’ liability for you.’

  ‘He’s not a liability.’

  ‘He fuckin’ is, an’ you know it. . I ain’t got the time nor the patience for him. I reckon in the grand scheme of things I’ve bent over backwards for that kid over the years, just ’cos I used ta feel sorry for your mother, but you an’ her are both pushin’ it too far. I just ain’t got the time to look after a goddam retard no more. You get him out of here, and don’t you ever send him back here, neither. And you can pass that on to your whore of a mother, too. I’m done with it. All. You hear me?’ He took a threatening step towards JD, and added, ‘Get out, take him with you, and don’t fuckin’ come back. Ever.’

  From his place in the kitchen Bull listened intently, a smile spreading across his face. It was about time his father told these two bastards how things stood. Yet despite Russo’s provocation, JD’s reply was calmly considered.

  ‘You don’t understand, Russo. Something’s happened. I need Casper to live here with you for a while. I can’t explain right now.’

  Russo pushed JD in the chest. ‘You just don’t get it, do ya? Why can’t you leave us alone? What the fuck’s wrong with you? You’re a drunk, and your brother’s a retard. Get the fuck out. Go on.’

  ‘Russo, you don’t understand.’

  ‘What part of “Get the fuck out” don’t you understand?’

  ‘Goddammit! Will you just listen a minute?’

  ‘I said OUT!’ Russo turned to Casper. ‘And you, Casper. Get your fuckin’ coat on. You’re goin’ home.’ But the boy appeared not to hear him, and continued to stare blankly ahead of him into the flames. ‘Casper. Hey! Hey you! Retard!’ He had a way of pronouncing the last word – ‘Ree-tarred’ – that made it sound especially humiliating.

  In the kitchen, Bull was helping himself to a carton of milk from the fridge. This was an argument he’d be best staying out of. Sure was interesting, though. As he was opening the carton in order to pour some of its contents into a pint glass on the kitchen sideboard, he heard JD’s reply. His voice had taken on a sinister tone, like nothing he’d ever heard before.

  ‘You call my brother a retard again, and I swear to God, I’ll drop you.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Drop you. For real.’

  ‘You threatenin’ me, you little shit?’

  Bull smiled to himself. If JD was taking a threatening tone with his father then most likely he’d finally get the hiding he so richly deserved. His father had been talking for years about teaching the boy some discipline. It would be a beating that JD had been asking for. Russo was a former Green Beret, and a master in hand-to-hand combat. If, after all these years, he decided to administer a beating to the boy it would be swift and very painful.

  If JD replied, Bull didn’t hear him. Hah! he thought. Probably shittin’ himself now, and backin’ down. He heard his father making it clear to JD one last time.

  ‘Right, now get out. You ain’t welcome. Truth is, you never were, nor your brother, neither.’

  JD’s voice came again, once more in the sinister rasping tone. ‘Casper. Put your coat on. We’re going.’ At last he seemed to have got the message. So much for the tough-guy act.

  Bull finished pouring the remains of the milk into his glass and walked over to the flip-top bin in the corner of the kitchen to dispose of the carton. He heard his father get in one last dig at Casper, just to rile JD and remind him who was boss.

  ‘Come on! Hurry up, for Chrissakes, you little retarded bastard.’

  Bull slammed the waxed-paper milk carton into the bin, the noise masking the loud cracking sound that came from the living room. He was still smirking to himself as he walked back to pick up his glass of milk from the sideboard by the sink. Before he reached it he was nearly knocked over by Casper, who rushed past him and out through the back door. The look on the young boy’s face was one of terror, as if he had seen a horrible apparition. The kid was terrified of something, making no attempt to close the door behind him or wait for JD to catch up with him. He ran straight out, leaving the door wide open, allowing a gust of wind and rain to blow in.

  Bull took a large swig from his glass of milk. A moment later the hooded figure of JD walked out of the living room and brushed past him, deliberately knocking his arm and causing him to spill a little of his milk. His face was still hidden inside the recesses of the dark cowl. Prick, Bull thought as he smiled and waved at JD’s departing back.

  ‘Bye,’ he said sardonically. ‘See ya. Come again.’

  To Bull’s annoyance, JD made no attempt to shut the door behind him, so he put his milk back down and walked over to shut and lock it to keep the howling wind and rain out. With the door closed, an eerie silence seemed to settle on the house. The living room was quiet now, and Bull half expected his father to walk out and start ranting about JD. After waiting a few seconds he called out.

  ‘Wanna drink, Dad? They’re gone.’

  No answer.

  ‘Dad?’

  Still no answer. Bull picked up his glass of milk again. Then he walked out of the kitchen and into the living room. There he saw a sight so ghastly that it would haunt him for the rest of his days. He was only fifteen. He had never seen death up close, but here it was. And it was his father who’d done the dying. The glass of milk slipped from his hand, bouncing off his foot and on to the floor.

  ‘Jesus Christ! Dad! Oh fuck, no!’

  His father was lying on his back on the floor. His neck had been broken and his head was twisted to one side. His tongue was hanging out and his eyes had rolled up into his skull, so that only the whites were showing.

  Once Bull’s initial shock at seeing his father’s corpse had passed, it was replaced by rage. The hatred he had always felt for JD erupted like a volcano in the pit of his stomach, engulfing his entire body. Like a man possessed, he rushed through the kitchen to the back door, unlocked it and wrenched it open. The night sky revealed nothing to him but the heaviest of rain and a gale-force wind buffeting the house. He shouted into the darkness to make sure his voice carried as far as the wind would take it.

  ‘You muthafucker! I’ll kill you, JD! You just wait!‘ He struggled to hold back the tears of sadness and rage that were trying to force their way out of the corners of his eyes. ‘One day, when you think it’s all forgotten, I’ll be waitin’ for you. You fuckin’ cunt. You’re a walking corpse, man. I’ll fuckin’ kill you. Mark my words! God might forgive you one day, but when He does I’ll be waiting for you! FUCKIN ‘BASTARD MUTHAFUCKER!’

  As if only to unleash his rage, Bull continued to howl out into the wind and rain for quite some time. He wanted to remember this feeling, wanted to be certain that the next time his path crossed with JD’s he would react accordingly.

  By killing the bastard.

  Fifteen

  Back to the Future

  Captain Robert Swann, US Special Forces, had been interned in a secret maximum-security prison in the desert beyond the outskirts of Santa Mondega for almost three years. In that time he had not had one single visitor. The same could be said for most of the other prisoners. These were men who had been forgotten about, whose former lives, many of them, had been expunged from all records. Of the four hundred inmates, only a handful would ever again be lucky enough to see the s
un rise as free men. These prisoners all knew something that they shouldn’t, or had done something so hideous to someone they shouldn’t have messed with, that they were effectively on Death Row, but with no mercy killing to put a point to their terms.

  Swann’s crime was a singularly unpleasant one. He was a serial rapist, and he had made the mistake of perpetrating one of his most vicious rapes on the daughter of someone high up in government. His victim had been so traumatized by the brutality of the attack that she had taken her own life shortly afterwards. As it happened, this worked in Swann’s favour, for her suicide meant there was insufficient evidence to proceed with a formal court martial. Not only that, but he had been lucky enough not to have been secretly executed for his crime. Indeed, he had not even been dishonourably discharged from the service – technically, he was still a serving officer.

  Swann had one thing on his side that kept him alive. It was why he was fortunate enough to be serving his time in the secret desert prison. He was a highly decorated Army veteran, a man with talents of such incredible rarity in the field of combat that it made no sense for his own government to erase him. Further, he had once saved the life of the White House Director of Communications. All this was just enough to save his neck, though even then it had been a near-run thing. Swann was an exceptional soldier, fearless and willing to die for his country; he just couldn’t keep his snake in its cage. Even now, at the age of thirty-seven, he was still a rampaging sex monster, and being cooped up in prison for such a long time had made his appetite insatiable.

  In the very early hours of the seventeenth morning of October, Swann was awoken in his cell by two armed guards. He was smart enough not to resist when they handcuffed him roughly, and despite his requests to know what was going on, and their refusal to answer, he made little fuss simply because he was grateful for the break from the tedium of his normal routine.

  He was escorted through the prison corridors and a seemingly endless succession of security doors directly to the Warden’s office. After being shoved through the door he was pushed down on to a chair in front of the Warden’s desk. He had only ever been in this office once before, and that had been on his first day, when he had had the prison rules rammed home to him by Warden Gunton.

  The office was twice the size of the shitty cell in which Swann had been living for the last few years. It had shelves on all four walls adorned with books and ornaments, with here and there the occasional painting hung where there were gaps in the shelving. Set between two windows behind the desk was a large painting of the grey-haired, leather-skinned Gunton, just to emphasize how vain the man was. He was wearing a smart grey suit in the portrait. This would have come as no surprise to anyone who knew him. The Warden had ten suits, all identical, all grey, all boring. That, however, summed up the man perfectly.

  The only curious thing on this dark morning was that the Warden wasn’t seated in the chair behind his desk, as Swann might have expected. There was another man sitting there. Not a weaselly little fella like the Warden, either, but a big, broad-shouldered muthafucker who could have passed a night-club bouncer. Same grey suit as the Warden, different face. Different aura. This man had a pale, smooth-shaved head, and a pair of dark sunglasses hid his eyes. The shades are clearly for show, as it’s night time, Swann pondered. Or maybe the guy is blind? Hmmm. Unlikely.

  The two guards who had escorted Swann nodded at this man and made their exits via the door through which they had come. The man stared at Swann through his dark glasses, his face giving nothing away. The prisoner wondered if maybe this man was admiring the fact that he had a full head of hair, for although his head was shaved at the sides, Swann had a thick crop of brown hair on top. Maybe the guy was envious? Probably not, though it was possible. For almost thirty seconds neither of them spoke. It was Swann who cracked first.

  ‘Okay, I give up. What?’ he said, looking out of the window to emphasize his unconcern at the intimidating stare of the man opposite him.

  ‘Want those cuffs off?’ the man asked.

  ‘Sure. Why not?’

  ‘Hands on the table.’

  It was an order, and Swann didn’t like taking orders from someone he didn’t know. At this point, however, he was still an inmate, and this guy might well turn out to be someone high up in the Secret Service or some such organization, so he played ball and held his hands out over the desk. The bullish man reached over and took hold of Swann’s wrists. He had a very firm grip. Quickly turning the other man’s hands upside down inside their restraints, with one swift movement, during which he really didn’t seem to do anything much, he made the handcuffs break in three places and fall free of Swann’s wrists and on to the desk.

  Swann was impressed. That was a neat trick, no doubt about it. Even so, he didn’t allow his face to give anything away, and he sat back in his chair without so much as a thank you.

  ‘So. You want out of this place?’ asked the man in the Warden’s chair.

  ‘Name’s Robert Swann, since you didn’t ask.’

  ‘I know who you are, thank you.’

  ‘And yet you haven’t bothered to introduce yourself. Kinda rude, if you ask me.’

  The man smiled. ‘You can call me Mr E.’

  ‘As in Mystery Man?’

  ‘No. As in Mr E.’

  ‘Awright, keep your hair … on.’

  Mr E smiled. Swann could sense that this man was admiring his attitude. In this he was right. Swann had exactly the kind of arrogant, sonofabitch, take-no-shit persona that Mr E was looking for.

  ‘I’ve arranged for you to receive a full pardon, Mr Swann.’

  ‘Thanks. Guess I’ll be on my way then,’ said Swann getting up from his seat.

  ‘No. You won’t. Siddown. The smartass act will get you so far, but don’t overcook it. It’s not cool, and you’re not twelve, so stop it.’

  Swann sat back down. Mission accomplished. He’d pissed this guy off enough. Time now to listen and see what the deal on offer was.

  ‘Go on then. Gimme what ya got,’ he said, rubbing his hands together in anticipation of whatever might be coming his way.

  ‘I need a guy with iron balls to work undercover for me. A tough job. Life threatening.’

  ‘Undercover? Where?’

  ‘Santa Mondega.’

  ‘Go screw yourself.’ Swann’s reaction was instinctive.

  ‘Hold on a second. There’s something a little different about this job. The undercover agent will be infiltrating a gang of vampires, disguising himself as one of them.’

  ‘Go screw yourself again, you baldass muthafucker! Do I look like a cunt to you?’

  ‘Yes. But you’re not listening. This job is not as bad as it sounds. Let me finish.’ Mr E remained calm in the face of the insults and general shitty attitude of Robert Swann. ‘A Hubal monk has returned to Santa Mondega with the Eye of the Moon, and I want you to find him, and it.’

  Swann still wasn’t quite listening. This was a mission for an idiot, and he was no idiot. ‘And just how the hell am I supposed to pass myself off as a fuckin’ vampire?’ he asked.

  ‘You won’t. First off, I just want you to find the guy who will work undercover as a vampire. We have developed a serum that will allow a mortal man to walk among the undead without them being aware that he is not one of them. I need your skills as an interrogator and your undercover experience to train this new guy so that he doesn’t get killed within five minutes.’

  Swann breathed an inward sigh of relief. So at least he wasn’t expected to be the new soon-to-be dead undercover agent.

  ‘Who’s “we”?’ he asked suspiciously.

  ‘You don’t need to know that.’

  ‘But it’s official? From the Goddam highest-in-the-land, kinda thing?’

  ‘How else would I be here, talking to you now? And where do you think a free pardon comes from?’

  ‘Uh-huh. But only a complete and utter fuckin’ brain-dead moron would take on a job like this. And I gotta tell you, I don
’t think I’ve met the moron that’ll take this one.’

  ‘Quite right,’ said Mr E. ‘You haven’t met him. Yet. But there is such a man.’

  Swann shook his head. He thought he knew everyone in the Special Forces skilled and brave enough to take on the top jobs, and this sounded like the top job in a very short list of top jobs. So it had to be someone new. Someone who had flown up through the ranks in the few years he had been away.

  ‘Go on,’ he said, smiling now. ‘Enlighten me. Who’s the man with balls enough to infiltrate a gang of vampires and pretend to be one of them, with only a serum and some white foundation as a disguise? I gotta know this. And even if he’s brave enough and stupid enough to do it, what exactly is his incentive? How much is this kamikaze joker gettin’ paid?’

  ‘Paid? Ha!’ Mr E sat forward again, leaning across the desk, smiling at Swann. ‘No, this guy will do it for free.’

  Swann was now beginning to suspect that this was a joke of some kind. Maybe even at his expense, but he continued to play along nonetheless. ‘Jeez, he really is a moron. So … What’s his name?’

  Mr E slid a stiff brown envelope over the desk. The convict picked it up. It was reasonably light, suggesting that details about this mystery man were fairly limited. He opened the flap at the top and pulled out a black-and-white five-by-eight photo of a guy dressed in a Terminator outfit. He placed it on the desk and then pulled out the remaining contents, which amounted to nothing more than a few typewritten sheets of paper containing the personal details of the man in the photo. It didn’t take Swann long to scan the information and realize that this clown had no military or law-enforcement background. He pulled out the last sheet, which was headed ‘Mission Details’. He scanned that, too, realizing at once that there was little danger in this charade for him. Mr E had told the truth: it was this guy who was at risk.

  ‘What the fuck? Who the fuck is Dante Vittori? And why the fuck is he your man?’

  Mr E surprised Swann by allowing himself a slight snigger. The bald head and sunglasses gave the impression that he didn’t have much of a sense of humour.