The Dark Messenger (33 page)

As the nervous thoughts passed through his
mind he knew he wasn’t prepared to risk himself any longer.
Stepping forwards, he summoned a spell. Then he turned around to
look at what he had just created and smiled at its perfectly
sculptured beauty.

In the place where he had
just been standing was a clone of himself, an exact copy in every
way. His new idea was to go
and
hide
somewhere
,
let
ting
the
clone risk itself. If Longinus came out, he could watch from safety
and allow the clone to jump him and the piece of vase back to Rex.
Then he would follow them. When he got there he would take the
piece of vase and afterwards, kill Longinus slowly for telling him
to ‘shut up’ earlier.

As he started to walk away
from the clone but still in clear sight of the tower, the secret
door he had seen Longinus disappear through
earlier
,
suddenly
opened
.

Stepping out with a
mischievous grin across his face, and holding the other piece of
the vase tightly against his chest. Longinus
double-
checked
it was clear
before he started
running across the road towards him. Raffious suddenly felt almost
giddy with extreme happiness, and laughed as he thought about just
how furious they were going to be when they realized they
had
just
been burgled
and lost Rex’s
piece of the vase too.

Watching Longinus
as he was
approach
ing
, Raffious
reconsidered the idea of killing him.
Why
should I, if Longinus is this loyal?
he
thought. No, maybe he would just demonstrate his powers to him back
in front of Rex and tell him he was going to be his slave
forever.
Yes, a vampire slave. How
perfect,
he thought.

At that exact moment he
suddenly felt a massive pain in his left leg. Looking down, he was
horrified to see that there was something sticking out
of
his kneecap
. It looked
like a
luminous green bolt or shaft of some kind.

How?
his mind screeched. He had spells protecting him--powerful
spells that he had cast upon himself to make sure that he couldn’t
be stabbed by anything. He knew they worked too, because earlier
when he had tricked Voitek on the hillsides in Devil’s Dyke by
shape-shifting into Rex, he hadn’t died when the sword had been
thrust deep into his chest.

Looking across, Longinus
had stopped running
now
and was walking slowly towards
him.

‘You fool!’ Longinus
shouted as he drew even closer. When he was about ten feet from
him, he laughed mockingly. ‘You thought you were going to get the
vase to make us vampires extinct. Well, your mistake was when you
told Rex. He then told me everything telepathically, and I told his
coven. You honestly didn’t know
that
we could
communicate by thought alone? You are an idiot, and now you will
probably pay with your life.’

Raffious was absolutely furious. He had only
one thing on his mind, and that was to kill him for this, then
afterwards he would continue on his mission to rid the vampire
species from the earth forever.

How dare this vampire do
this to me?
he thought.
He knows what I am capable of doing.

Thrusting his arms back
high either side of his head so that his long white sleeves slid
down his pale forearms, he tried to summon his nastiest of spells.
But as he spoke the words, absolutely nothing happened. Full of
rage, he tried another, then another, but none of them did
anything. As he desperately tried his last one, he felt his body
beginning to twitch violently, as if he had trapped nerves
everywhere. Then numbness began to settle in, replacing his sense
of touch with nothing
ness
. It scared him to
the core of his being, especially when seconds later, he couldn’t
even feel anything below his neck.

He was paralysed.

Longinus had reached him by now and said, ‘I
have something to remind you that a vampire outsmarted you.
Consider it a gift,’ he said coldly as he drew his sword out and
held it up so Raffious could inspect the shiny archaic blade.

Then as he could see
Raffious’ eyes flickering backwards and forwards and turning blood
shot from fear, he said to him as he leant
right
in to
his face. ‘For all the lies and the disgusting way you treated me,
I'm going to scar you forever.’

Pushing the tip
of the sword
deep
into his cheek, Longinus slowly began
to twist,
and
in doing so, he allowed the
razor-sharp tip, just beneath his eye, to rip open the old boy’s
cheek. Raffious’ deeply
mumbled words suggested nothing more than he was
in deep
. Then as the blood began to
trickle down the sword, Longinus grinned at him. He stared into his
eyes as he pushed the blade in even deeper till it grated against
the bone. Then he slid the blade downwards and with it sliced open
the whole cheek.

‘I hope that hurts, you bastard!’ Longinus
sniggered just before something heavy hit him across the back of
the head and he passed out.

Dragged by their feet with
their head’s crashing against the ground.
Warriors
from the coven took both of them back inside and then they
closed the
secret
door behind
them.

Kaine and family were just coming round from
their shock at seeing the angel appear in their home. Solomon and
Bruce had no such discomfort; it was clear to all they had a
strange connection with him.

The angel had briefly explained that he was
there to offer Kaine something, and had just started telling them
about Raffious’ origins, when Jenny cut in.

‘Sorry for interrupting, but wasn’t Lucifer
an angel in Heaven too?’

The angel smiled at her. ‘He was. By his own
doing however, he is now a fallen angel. Prior to his downfall, he
had been a magnificent being with a unique ministry. Unfortunately
pride overtook his heart, and sin cost him everything.’

Kaine’s thoughts drifted back to when he was
just a simple farmer--a human working hard in the fields, covered
daily in sweat trying to provide for his old parents and to keep
their farm running.

He had been late returning one evening and
had heard a noise close by in a wooded copse. Curious, he had gone
to investigate, at which point he was attacked and bitten.

The vampire who had attacked him left him for
dead. Then afterwards he went into his family’s farm and killed his
parents, before fleeing as local villagers came running with
pitchforks and the then, local priest.

It had definitely not been Kaine’s choice to
become a vampire. He had spent many years alone, hating what he had
become. As a farmer, he used to go out hunting deer on their lands
for his parents to eat. Once turned, refusing to be like other
vampires, he found that deer’s blood gave him sufficient energy to
survive on.

Two hundred years passed without him really
acknowledging them. Then one evening, he disturbed another vampire
who was attacking a woman and her young daughter. Kaine killed the
vampire, hoping to save both of the humans. Sadly, the daughter
died, but he was able to save the woman and cared for her through
her turning process. Not long passed before they fell in love, and
soon afterwards announced their betrothal.

‘It was a sad beginning for you both,’ the
angel said, as Regina read her husband’s mind and reflected back on
their first days as vampires together. She had a tear in her eye
for the memory of her young eight-year-old daughter, whose memory
had faded over the years.

‘You made a great sacrifice, and I am sorry
for your sad past,’ the angel said sympathetically. Kaine and
Regina nodded their thanks.

‘But now we must speak of that which I came
to tell you.’ He then resumed his tale concerning Raffious.

‘After leaving Heaven so that he could plan
the extinction of your species unimpeded, Installis started to
practice dark magic. He spent hundreds of years working hard to
improve his knowledge of spells and dark rituals. I was ordered to
take him to Heaven to answer for his actions, but because of his
dark magic I couldn’t find him. He had taught himself how to
shape-shift and to appear as different people. It was only recently
that we learnt he was disguised as a holy man in white robes, with
a long knee-length white flowing beard, and was calling himself
Raffious.’

The angel then explained about the Trucale
Vase and how it had been made, and that after Christ’s death,
Heaven had ordered it to be destroyed. He explained that it was
broken in two pieces, which were then hidden in the far distant
parts of the world.

‘As time passed, both Raffious and your kind
learnt the story and the location of the two pieces of the vase
through Jonivac, another fallen angel who was thrown out of Heaven
because he was found to be sinful.’

He paused to let them take it all in. Then he
smiled and said, ‘Regarding the vase, Raffious was busy when he
first learnt about it, and for many years didn’t fully understand
how the vase could be useful to him. He chose to ignore it, and
concentrated on creating more howling beasts. As your kind fought
them, many of your friends and family died as your covens were
wiped out, as you know.’

‘Excuse me, but what are ‘howling beasts?’
Becky asked, thinking they sounded intriguing.

‘They are werewolves,’ the angel said to
her.

Becky sat there
thinking,
Werewolves? But I thought they
were only in the movies.

The angel smiled at her thought as he
recognized her naiveté on the subject, then continued explaining
about the howling beasts.

‘Raffious thought for a time that his plan
was working, but your species became stronger and wiser. Vampires
fought back harder and harder against the werewolves until one day
it was very clear that his beasts were losing.’

‘Sorry, did you say he made the werewolves?’
Kaine asked, hardly believing he had correctly heard what the angel
had just said.

‘Yes, he was their creator,’ the angel
replied.

Kaine and Regina were furious when they heard
the truth about how the werewolves were created, and who their
creator actually was. Raffious had been a close part of their lives
through the war, and had met Kaine’s family and friends. He had
even shook Regina’s father’s hand once in the past too.

The angel raised his hand and their anger
vanished. They blinked in surprise.

‘Raffious was fuelled with even more rage
when he saw that his werewolves were dying in unbelievable numbers.
Your kind’s tactics had changed, and thousands of vampires had
gathered in larger covens to protect themselves. The werewolves
would burst into your havens intent on destruction, but you were
ready. Your tunnels had hidden traps, silver spears, and vicious
weapons inside, which killed them before they could get through.
Furious that you were outsmarting his evil creations, Raffious
attempted black magic on your covens--but with terrible
results.

‘He became aware that he needed to improve
his dark magic further, but also knew that there was no time to do
so. He knew that if he left his werewolves unattended, they would
suffer in his absence. Therefore he decided to try and even the
odds by creating a myth.’

Jenny had been sitting back in the sofa
listening, but now both she and Becky found themselves sliding
forwards with keen interest.

Kaine was dumbfounded at
this revelation, while Regina had already abandoned her
poisoning him at dinner with a stamp on the head
plan
for a more primal one:
simply rip the fucker’s head off the next time
she sees him, plan
.

The angel smiled at her and shook his head.
He then cleared her mind of such thoughts.

‘Wish you’d stop doing that,’ she messaged.
The angel smirked.

He continued: ‘The myth circulated amongst
your species like wildfire. It suggested that a magical Silver
Sword existed. It was so powerful that its possessor would easily
win the war against the werewolves. The rumor was that its powers
were derived of some kind of divine intervention against them, and
after it had chopped the head off one beast, then instantly all the
werewolves around the world, would vanish too. Call it, the
desperate need to rid the planet of them or whatever you will, but
many vampires succumbed to the belief that the myth was real. They
believed it so much, they even left the safety of their covens to
look for it.’