The Dark Messenger (18 page)

It was also planned that when they arrived,
they would hide their weapons outside in the park, knowing that to
carry weapons inside would be distasteful and might arouse
suspicions of an attack. They would have to enter unarmed, giving
the Scottish vampires the infected humans as a present and enjoying
their company for a time. Rex’s “gifts” were all strong, athletic
males and clean from most diseases--just not the werewolf curse.
Mietioc would hand them over suggesting they were a peace offering,
and a humble gift from the masterful Rex himself.

Rex, and those who reported directly to him,
believed that they would be greeted with open arms as soon as the
Scots saw their gift. They felt that the highland coven would
welcome their warriors and then store the humans down in their
dungeons for later blood supplies. It was also assumed that because
of how long their covens hadn’t seen each other, there would be a
huge party thrown. There would be food and wine, there would be
music, and with the ten uninfected females that they would also
take with them, lots of blood to go round too.

Rex had informed Angus that his warriors were
needed to track down the true culprits and could only stay with
them for five hours, after which they would have to leave. Once
they had said their goodbyes, the plan was to go back immediately
to the park to get their weapons, then wait for the infected to
transform and for the howling to start. After hours of laughing and
hearing the Scotts screaming as they were being torn to pieces,
then in the early hours of the following morning, they would break
back inside the coven with heavy fire power and wipe them all out,
beasts and all.

The guns that they would be taking with them
were all AK-47 machine guns, the ammo silver-tipped. As a
precaution they would take swords and a few short thrusting spears,
which were laced with silver for maximum destruction. Standard
swords worked, but only if they beheaded their enemy; once inside,
though, they wouldn’t have time for that.

Rex knew his plan was perfect, and as his
Elite Warriors were completely ready for this mission, he knew it
couldn’t fail either. One hundred heavily armed and deeply vicious
vampires, with the element of surprise--it was foolproof!

----------

The journey had taken sixteen hours to get up
to Scotland. Just before the last stop, the doors were opened and
then the prisoners were freed from the floor. With everyone ready
and the train still moving, they leapt into the air, beating their
wings as they headed for Edinburgh Castle.

The first thing that they noticed as they got
high into the sky, was that the wind was not as strong as in
London, and the skies weren’t nearly as dark with pollution. They
were grateful of this because they still had to get to the entrance
of the Scots’ coven.

The journey from the train took only a few
minutes of flying, before they found themselves hovering over the
top of Holyrood Park. Far below them, their spotter at the front
made out a vampire sentry who was hiding in some bushes beneath
them; quickly he messaged Mietioc and told him that they had
arrived. The sentry looked up, and after a few moments, he flew up
to greet them.

Mietioc had moved up to the front of the
group when he received the message, and when the sentry took to the
air, he flew down to meet him halfway.

‘Greetings! Greetings!’ the sentry said. His
smile was a little stiff as he glanced at Mietioc’s warriors.
Fortunately for them, they had hidden their weapons out of sight
beforehand.

The sentry’s face relaxed. ‘We have a great
party arranged for your arrival, sir,’ he said as he bowed his head
in respect to Mietioc. Instinctively, he knew that he was in the
presence of a superior vampire in the hierarchy.

‘Please don't bow,’ Mietioc said with a
smile. ‘We are all vampires, and we come as brothers bearing
gifts.’

The sentry looked up at him directly and
said, ‘Thank you. We are pleased you have come. Actually, we have
special gifts for you too. Please follow me.’

Turning, he shot back down like a missile,
with his wings only slightly open, landing hard beside a small
cliff. Mietioc then raised his hand and signaled for everyone to
follow him. Waiting for his warriors to pass him in their descent
before he took up the rear, he couldn’t help but laugh to himself
at the thought that the sentry and his coven by tomorrow, would all
be torn to pieces.

The sentry uncovered a secret passage in the
rock, and then disappeared inside it. Mietioc’s warriors at the
front had passed their weapons back carefully so that they wouldn’t
be seen, then they followed the sentry inside. Mietioc landed at
the rear but pushed forwards through the ranks, going inside the
tunnel and leaving half of his warriors following him.

Turning to one of them just before he passed
through the entry, he had instructed him, ‘Wait outside. Hide, and
if none of us come back, get word to London.’

The warrior was disappointed that he wouldn’t
be able to join in on the festivities, but dared not show it. ‘Sir,
I will, sir!’ he said, before running off to find a suitable hiding
place. Mietioc then went inside, stashing his weapons in the same
bushes as the others had.

As he passed through the entrance, he
couldn’t believe what he saw. The tunnel was so narrow but
strangely about nine feet tall. It had water dripping down
everywhere and the ground was ankle deep in mud too.

How could this be their
main entrance?
he thought to himself. He
became suspicious of it, because as a main entrance it was pathetic
and made no sense at all. The width was no more than two feet wide,
and he had to turn his upper body almost ninety degrees just to be
able to pass through it. To make matters worse, it also went
steeply downwards and twisted sharply back and forth into the
darkness. In places, he had to bend his legs to avoid rocks that
were jutting out from the walls. He looked at the mess around him
and wondered how attacking the Scots later could even be
possible.

Surely it would take too
long to get enough firepower inside to do damage before they
retaliated! My warriors would have absolutely no element of
surprise—with it like this we will probably lose?
he told himself as he began to feel unsure about
the missions success.

He wondered if his leaders Rex and Hoidrious
would have abandoned the attack if they had known it was like
this.

Suddenly he realized that there wasn’t any
ceremonial torches burning either. Surely out of respect they would
have lit a few torches, wouldn’t they? It definitely wasn’t that
they wouldn’t burn in this extremely damp tunnel; he knew all
vampire torches were still made the same way as in ancient
Rome--branches dipped in sulfur and lime so that they wouldn’t
diminish even if they were plunged into water.

At the very least, the
Scots should have lit the tunnel for us. Something here is not
right.
Maybe we should just turn and
leave, forget everything and report back our failure and the
reasons behind it, suggesting it had been badly planned.

He dismissed that idea though as he
remembered their last mission had failed too.

Two failures back-to-back under Rex’s rule
meant certain death. Would it be the same way with their new
leader? He mused as he wondered if Hoidrious might step up into
Rex’s role.

Today was judgement day in their coven, and
one of three potential evil candidates would be given the role of
ruling till Rex returned. He wished he was there instead of here.
Actually, he wished he was anywhere besides here.

Suddenly he heard the sentry’s voice in the
distance saying, ‘Follow the tunnel and I will see you later.’

What? This was completely unacceptable! He
messaged all his warriors as one: ‘Whichever of you is with the
sentry, hold him and don't let him go.’

‘
Sorry, sir. You were too
late. A hidden doorway just opened and he vanished through
it.’

Mietioc had a very bad feeling now, and was
just about to give the order to retreat when another message
arrived from the warrior he had left outside.

‘Sir, I was surprised by them, they have me
prisoner and…’

Hearing this telepathic message without an
ending, reminded him of when he had been messaging a warrior on the
battlefield. He was halfway through the message when had seen an
enemy creep up behind him and cut his head off. There could be no
other reason for only receiving half a message, he thought, The
warrior outside must have just had his head cut off.

‘RETREAT! EVERYONE RETREAT!’ he messaged. Too
late though, because he heard from behind him the sound of rock
sliding on rock.

‘Sir, they have blocked the exit! Come
quick!’

‘I’m on my way, Kneel!’ he messaged as he
charged back up the tunnel towards the entrance. Stepping on their
shoulders because the tunnel was so narrow that it was impossible
to pass any other way.

How had this
happened?
he asked himself. All of his
warriors were trapped in a tunnel, which was almost impossible to
turn around in.
The Scots must have had a
main entrance after all, and this was somehow a planned
execution.

As he reached the last warrior, he could see
that there was a huge rock wall that was blocking their exit. There
were no gaps, and upon first inspection it seemed impenetrable.
Both he and the warrior beside himself tried to wobble it, but it
wouldn’t move, then they tried to slide it. Again, nothing--it
wouldn’t budge.

He sighed, then said to the warrior, ‘Keep
trying whilst I go to the front.’

As he turned around, a
thought suddenly passed through his brain.
‘How could I have missed this rock wall earlier, when I first
walked inside?’
He felt sure that if he
had seen it, he would have questioned it being there.

Something inside him, suggested that it was
stupid now to even consider for a moment that they would be able to
escape that way, but still he ordered ten of his men to keep trying
to free it.

Walking back again over the other warriors
shoulders towards the front, and crouching a little to keep his
head from hitting the ceiling. As he got halfway, another message
arrived. ‘Sir I think there’s a trap up here waiting for us.’

‘I’m on my way,’ Mietioc replied as he then
sent a whole-group message, telling everyone to brace for impact.
When he had jumped down off the last warrior’s shoulders, he spun
around to look at him for the report.

‘The room ahead sir, it looks like a
slaughter house and the walls seem to go up more than fifty feet. I
couldn’t see the ceiling without walking out there, sir.’

Mietioc turned to see for himself, and
noticed that there were in fact blood stains in places around the
walls on the far side too. Yes, it had to be a trap, but what were
his options? No warriors outside to send messages to, and no way
out except walking forwards into that room and dealing with
whatever came their way. Staying huddled in this tunnel was
completely unacceptable.

‘Stay here,’ he messaged as he walked
forwards into the room alone. Normally one of the others would have
gladly gone in his place, only he had led them into this trap and
felt like it was the honorable thing to do.

The room was circular, about fifty meters in
diameter with black and white tiles diagonally alternating in color
across the floor.

I have never seen anything
like this before. Why would they have bothered to do this?
He mused, as he began to scan the walls, which
indeed seemed to be completely smooth, with no ledges at all, even
up to the…

He froze.

There, about one hundred
feet up or thereabouts, hordes of vampires stood, saying nothing,
and simply staring back down at him. Still looking up, he slowly
turned around full circle and could see they were completely
surrounding him too.
There must be at
least a hundred or more
, he thought to
himself, aghast.

‘Hello brothers, we are here! It took a long
time to come up from London, and it’s good to see you all. I am the
leader, and my name is Mietioc. How do we get up there to you?’

They said nothing and just continued to
stare.

He decided to open his wings with the
intention that he would fly up there and hover at their same height
to talk with them. Only as he did though, they immediately reacted.
Guns were slung over the sides and pointed down at him.

‘What is the meaning of this?’ he screamed at
them. We were invited to come here by Angus! Where is he? Our
leader arranged this, and we have brought you fresh blood as a gift
too.’

He waited for the reply, and then after a few
seconds he noticed that the weapons being pointed down at him, were
actually their own weapons, the very same ones that they had hidden
outside in the bushes earlier. He couldn’t believe it, he had come
all this way laughing at the thought that he would be killing them,
and now it looked very much like it was going to be them that were
going to be killing him, and with their own weapons too.