The Dark Messenger (29 page)

Every step they had passed, his head had
crashed violently against it. Then when he tried to push his arms
up underneath himself to ease the strikes, his right shoulder had
almost dislocated as his sleeve got caught on a doorframe. His arm
bent round completely underneath him, so far in fact that the
shoulder was about to snap.

Regina ignored his desperate screams of
agonizing pain and like she was in a tug of war contest, gave his
ankle a real hard pull. The bone in the shoulder snapped as the arm
went right back, then the sleeve tore free again.

Now sitting slumped in a chair, the thought
of escape one would think was foremost in his mind, only it wasn’t.
The reason being is that although Regina wasn’t watching as she was
rummaging through the drawer, Becky was still standing there and
the dogs were present too. They were watching him as they paced
backwards and forwards in front of him, like panthers in the
jungle.

Seconds later she grabbed his arms from
behind and regardless of his bleeding head and agonizingly painful
shoulder, she ripped his arms back mercilessly and zip tied his
wrists to the chair. In doing so she pulled the narrow nylon
strands so tight that they cut deep into his flesh. He did try to
complain but after receiving her elbow extremely hard in the side
of his face, he kept anymore complaints to himself.

Then just as she was
finishing his ankles off in the same gruesome manner,
Kaine’s
let’s be crazy and blow up a full
canister of oxy acetylene with two grenades
idea
,
nearly killed him.

The force somersaulted him, complete with
chair, straight up into the concrete ceiling. Then as the energy
passed, he came crashing back down headfirst and was nocked out as
he hit the concrete floor beneath him. Much to his disgust as his
blurred sight began to clear he realized the damn chair had stayed
intact behind him.

Regina had bounced off the prisoner in the
explosion, and was lucky that he had hit the ceiling and not her.
As she came back down, somehow she landed face down on the sofa.
The dogs seemed to be fine as well; they were whimpering but awake.
Becky had the same severe impact as the prisoner though, and was
laying unconscious in a crumpled mess with blood coming from her
head. Regina would have rushed over to her, picked her up, and then
laid her on the sofa, but in her mind there was no time. She had to
find her husband.

Charging down the stairs in a state of panic,
she found herself in a situation that she hadn’t expected. It was
like she had run into the eye of a sand storm, because the
visibility on the floor below was zero.

The first thing she realized was somehow her
eyes had become full of the stuff. It was like a thick grinding
paste; it was everywhere and seriously painful too. Then as she
tried to breathe, she found her chest was incredibly tight and
there was a burning sensation inside, like fire was racing across
her lungs.

She desperately messaged Kaine, but he didn’t
answer. She knew she couldn’t scream his name for fear of breathing
in too much dust and collapsing herself. As panic tore through her,
she dropped to her knees and began to crawl towards the next flight
of stairs, leading to the floor below.

As she reached them, she suddenly felt
something blocking the path in front of her. Blindly, she examined
it and realized immediately it was her husband. Sliding her arms
underneath his torso, she picked him up and ran him back to the
stairs.

Luckily Becky was now awake and was there to
greet her. She clambered halfway down the stairs and took hold of
him. Together they rushed him over to the sofa and laid him down on
it. Regina then charged across to the kitchen sink and, between
deep fits of coughing, she slammed her face underneath the running
water. After washing her eyes out and drinking great mouthfuls, she
was quickly back in front of him.

Becky was already dealing with him though.
She had his mouth open and crouched by his side, she was blowing in
air and then pumping his chest.

Kaine suddenly opened his eyes and smiled at
her. Then he sat up on the sofa and started laughing. Becky just
stared, agog.

After telling Becky that vampires don’t need
the kiss of life like humans do, Regina smiled at her and made a
‘move aside’ gesture. Becky shifted, and Regina pushed in to sling
her arms around him.

‘Darling when I found your body downstairs, I
thought you were dead,’ she said, her voice quavering. Now that the
immediate danger was over, she found herself falling into a deeply
panicked state.

‘Nope, but wow! I think that was the nearest,
near death experience I have ever had. One second I was awake, then
there was a blinding white flash, and that’s all I can remember.’
As he said this, he stood up and charged across to the sink to wash
his eyes out.

Regina took a moment to survey the damage to
the room. She noticed that strangely enough, even though the door
to the stairs was wide open, the dust really wasn’t a problem on
their floor. OK there was some dust in the air but nothing as
intense as the floor below.

Then Jenny surprised
everyone as she walked down the stairs from the next floor up.
Although she looked unscathed, her hair was in a wild mess and she
was shaking. All three paused to look at her. Then as she reached
the bottom of the stairs, she turned to look at Kaine and smiled
before saying lightheartedly, ‘Kaine that explosion was massive,
once again you have saved our lives but you are a
bloody fool.
’

‘I have to agree with you, Jenny. My husband
does have some wild ideas. I think that was the craziest of them
all, though.’ Regina looked at him, then everyone burst out
laughing.

When they had stopped laughing, only then did
they register the prisoner who was upside down with his face
touching the ground and still bound to the chair. He was saying
nothing for fear of receiving the same treatment from Regina that
he had gotten from her before.

Kaine walked over to him, and after he had
lifted him and the chair back upright, he asked the prisoner if he
was prepared to talk to them. The prisoner had said that he was,
but because of how he was stuttering and looking about himself, it
was clear to Kaine that he expected him to be violent and brutal
with him.

He had good reason to think that too. He and
ninety nine other warriors had broken into his home, which would
warrant torture in the most heinous of ways. He had also seen him
single handedly chopping his comrades to pieces, so he had no
illusions about Kaine’s strength and ability. Then his wife had
demonstrated her anger on him by breaking his shoulder and elbowing
him in the head, before finishing him off with zip ties that cut
deep into his flesh.

‘Darling before you question that fucking
scum, don’t you want to take a shower first?’ Regina asked. ‘After
all, you are quite filthy.’

He looked down at himself, and had to agree.
His battle gear was covered in dirt and dried blood, and he had a
slice down his left cheek with blood on his chin. His hair, which
was normally slicked back and had been that way at dinner, now
looked like he had gone through a hedge backwards or maybe even two
hedges backwards. Parts of it around his forehead were sticking up
in the air and the back was splayed out in all directions, as if
maybe he hadn’t nearly died in a massive explosion, but was
exploring some kind of new vampire/rock kind of look.

‘No darling, there’s no time. I need answers
first, then maybe I will.’ he said as he crouched down in front of
the prisoner.

‘I ask you straight, will you help us? We
need honest answers and I must remind you that if you lie once, the
punishment I was going to give you downstairs, will very much still
apply.’ he said as he glanced across at the dogs.

Then just before the prisoner was going to
answer, he also asked him if he was telepathic and if he could
communicate with the warriors outside. The prisoner told him that
he wasn’t telepathic. Kaine tried to scan his mind to find proof of
this but couldn’t find anything. Kaine was aware there are a few
vampires who aren’t telepathic, but then if he truly wasn’t, how
come he was in their Elite forces? Surely Rex wasn’t stupid enough
to use warriors without telepathy skills. Its crucial in war to
have this ability, it can mean the difference between life and
death.

‘OK well for now I believe you, but again if
you are lying I will fuck you up something proper.’

‘I promise im not telepathic,’ he almost
shrieked. The words poured out of him. ‘Anyway what do you want to
know? I know Rex died in a reservoir of holy water, the priest or
Angus killed him. I know where Longinus is. He has gone back to
2099, he summoned a time shifter outside called Raffious who
arrived and then tricked our leader Vius. I know they went to get
the Trucale vase. I know th….’

Grabbing him by the throat and slamming him
back against the wall, Regina demanded to know what Raffious looked
like. She was furious and guessed that everything that had happened
so far to them was just a portent of darker things to come.

‘He’s, er small, has a very long white beard,
and I was told he is desperately looking for a vase that Christ
blessed. Sorry, that is all I know about him,’ he said as he tried
to speak through a shallow windpipe, her hand still tightly around
his throat.

‘I will break the old bastard’s bloody neck
I'm sure of it.’ Kaine shouted as he stood up.

Looking down at the prisoner he could see his
sudden outburst was scaring him. ‘Calm yourself, I am not going to
hurt you, I am just angry because that guy was our friend and he
would let us die rather than warn us you were going to attack.’

Turning to look again at his wife he said,
‘All those years we knew Raffious, and he does this to us.’ He
shook his head ruefully.

Becky felt overwhelmed with rage and as it
raced through her veins, and her fangs burst out of her gums. ’I
knew I should have killed him earlier!’ she screamed.

Jenny turned and saw the fangs again and
slapped her hard across the face. She hated seeing the fangs.
’Don’t do that! How many times do I have to tell you? It scares
me!’ she shouted at her.

Kaine saw the slap and laughed, then everyone
laughed, and even the prisoner smiled.

Curiosity overcame any fear Jenny might have
had of the prisoner. ‘What’s your name?’ she asked as she walked
towards him.

‘My name is Arquin, and I am truly sorry to
be meeting you in this way. I had to come or they would have killed
me before the jump in time. I have been trying to escape them for
centuries, but they watch everyone so closely. They know there are
lots of us inside the coven who want to run, but no one ever admits
it for obvious reasons. Rex would kill us if we did.’

‘How do you know this Longinus guy so well?’
Kaine asked.

‘I met him when I was on guard duty outside
Rex’s chamber. I saw him looking suspicious and asked him what he
was doing? He denied he was doing anything and walked away but I
suspected something, just I couldn’t be sure of it.’

Regina then said ‘Why would this Longinus guy
be helping Raffious though? Before she turned to Kaine and said ‘Do
you think it might be the same guy from your vision, darling?’

Pausing, he furrowed his brow, and then
said,

‘I think so, because in my vision Rex had
told someone called Longinus to go back in time to turn her, so
YES, I suppose it must be.’

‘A couple of weeks later I saw Longinus again
and then we became friends. A few more weeks passed and he told me
that Raffious will trade him his powers of jumping forwards in time
if he helps him get something. I asked what and he cautious at
first but then as he knew I could be trusted, he told me.

‘Raffious wants Rex’s piece of the Trucale
Vase from inside his chambers.’

Even though the punishment for being in there
is death preceded by a violent torture, I agreed to help him—but
only if he helped me escape the coven. If he got it, I told him he
only had to drop me in another time in the future. All I truly
wanted was to escape them and nothing else.’

Jenny felt sorry for Arquin, and she smiled
at him. He returned her smile.

’Can’t we untie him? There’s blood leaking
down from his wrist’s.’ She asked

Regina shook her head. ‘No way, he stays
there until we leave.’

But as she said her words, Kaine had already
sliced through the zip ties with his razor-sharp fingernails.
Regina’s mouth hung open in disbelief.

Arquin brought his arms forwards and
stretched out. The feeling of having his arms fully outstretched in
front of himself again was amazing, and he felt immense relief as
the tendons clicked back into position. He could almost hear the
blood in his upper body charge down the empty veins that had been
squashed shut for the last half an hour.

Just to remind him of the
punishment should he try to escape, Kaine then said about the dogs
ripping him to shreds, before Regina grabbed him around the throat
and told him that before the dogs tore him apart, that she
would
fuck him up too
.