The Dark Messenger (34 page)

‘Raffious would leave messages of the sword’s
possible locations for your kind to find, and then have his beasts
waiting for them when they arrived. His beasts outnumbered the
vampires and tore them to pieces.’

Kaine was enraged. ‘The sword was not real?’
he screamed.

‘No, it was not real. It was just part of the
myth that Raffious had created. He only invented it, as I said
before, for one purpose: to trick your kind and lure you all into
the open. It was his way to help his beasts who were loosing the
war against your species.’

‘Then after some time of his beasts winning
again and thousands of vampires being killed in the most heinous of
ways, he leapt forwards in time to see the bigger picture. When he
got into the future the results were shocking, his beasts still
lost the war. Then as his anger metastasized deeply within his
brain, doubt also began to flow through his mind, the doubt he
would ever truly have his revenge for Adina’s death. With this
harrowing realization, he remember suddenly Jonivac and his mention
in the past about the Trucale vase.

‘Thinking about how he could use its healing
powers against your people, the penny then dropped and it became
vividly clear all of a sudden just how he could use it. As he
deliberated over his thoughts he also realized if he had the vase,
it would be so much more effective than his beasts ever were.’

‘Approaching Jonivac to say he wanted the
vase, he was furious when he heard that it was now not available
and that he was too late. Jonivac had explained to him the pieces
of the vase had already been found and he was too late. Raffious
demanded with spittle coming from his mouth and a face that was
plum red with rage, to know who had the pieces. Jonivac told him
that Angus and Rex each had one half.’

‘Raffious wanting to scream wildy, had
scoffed instead at the news. His reasoning was that he felt
complacent in the knowledge that with his time travel skills, he
could simply leap back to a period before the vase was found, and
then without confrontation, simply take the pieces for himself
before Angus and Rex ever knew.

Jonivac had held his hand up and said,
‘Christ was not stupid. The vase only appears in one time zone. If
you leap back to where Rex and Angus found their pieces, the pieces
you seek will not be there.’ This of course enraged Raffious when
he was told.

‘Not long after that, Jonivac double crossed
Raffious and approached Lucifer. He told him about Raffious’ plans
for the vase, in the hope that the prince of darkness would be
furious, that he would find him and kill him.’

‘So what happened then? Uh, did Lucifer turn
soft or something?’ Regina fired into the conversation.

‘Sadly, no. He gave him a stiff warning
instead. He based his decision to offer leniency, upon the millions
of poor wretched souls that Raffious had sent to him over the
years. His unspeakable heinous actions against humanity were more
than even his own demons had managed, and the vampire species
together.’

‘The punishment was deferred, and he was
given a vocal warning. He was told that should he use his dark
magic against vampires in their covens, the punishment would be a
swelteringly hot cell for all of eternity in hell.’

‘Raffious was furious when he was told, but
he also knew that if he was incarcerated into hell, then all his
chances in the future of seeking retribution for Adina’s death
would be blown right out the window too.’

‘What window?’ Becky asked. Her mind had
wandered; she was thinking about going to get some meat from the
Kitchen.

Kaine looked at Regina and
the angel looked at them both. They shared a smile as Jenny
explained briefly to Becky what
window
the angel had been referring
too.

‘But Raffious is still looking for the pieces
of the vase though, even after fully realizing what the punishment
will be if he gets caught?’ Regina said and Kaine, deeply confused,
then slowly nodded but also furrowed his brow too.

‘Yes he is, but he feels it is the only way
to be sure of getting his revenge. He believes if he doesn’t get
caught, then he won’t experience Satan’s wrath for doing so. He
also has doubt in his mind as to whether his knowledge of dark
magic as he learns it, will not in fact become even more powerful
than Lucifer’s. He thinks that by the time he has both pieces of
the vase in his posession, that his powers will dwarf that of
Lucifers. He believes the threat will never become actioned as
Lucifer will end up becoming scared of experiencing his own
wrath.’

‘Sounds like our friend Raffious has got a
few screws loose in his brain.’ Kaine said as he laughed at the
notion of the old boy being able to kill Lucifer.

The angel smiled.

‘So what’s the plan for the vase then?’
Regina asked, feeling that the suspense of waiting to find out was
getting to be too much.

‘He plans to travel back in time with it, to
when vampires were first created. When he arrives, he will infect
the waters of the first coven, and your kind will be cured of the
curse of vampirism.’

‘Well…that’s a good thing, no?’ Jenny
enquired.

‘Yes and no my darling; If he does this, then
vampires will cease to exist through out all times, and that will
apply to Kaine and Regina here too. They will vanish, and will
never have existed either.’

The angel then said, ‘Obviously he hasn’t
done it yet though, because you still exist. There is still time
for my new Truth Messenger to stop him. The future is still
happening, even though we are in its past. If nothing is done, then
it will happen; but it can be stopped.’

‘You say that your new Truth Messenger can
stop him. Who is your new Truth Messenger?’ Becky enquired, as her
stomach was starting to speak back to her from the lack of meat it
was getting.

‘He has not accepted the role yet, but we
will come to that.’ The angel said as he smiled at her and then her
hunger vanished too.

‘How did you do that.’ she said.

The angel smirked!

Chapter 28 – A Righteous Punishment

Inside the coven, Longinus and Raffious were
dragged down the stairs to a floor deep within the bowels of the
earth. It was down so deep in fact, that most of the coven members
had never dared to venture there themselves.

On the way down, Longinus began to fret,
thinking he was being led to his execution. If so, it wasn’t going
to be before a hideous torture that lasted days, or maybe even
years if they could drag it out that long.

The pain that the vampires had lined up for
them both was going to be utterly odious, but until they could be
sure that the punishment was evil enough, and completely befitting
their terrible crimes, the prisoners would be left rotting in the
foulest cells available. In their minds, Longinus and Raffious had
committed the worst crimes that their coven had ever experienced,
and they had to be punished accordingly. So until such time as the
heinous punishments were decided, they would be kept deep
underground with the werewolves.

Longinus tried to escape by
thrusting his arms and legs in all directions, intent on throwing
off his captors. He found it impossible to do anything against the
might and power of his four jailers, who apart from wearing strange
masks, each had a limb of his in one of their massive hands. As
they had passed something like the fiftieth floor, one of them
leant down and whispered to him, ‘
Shut the
fuck up
,’ before he smashed him in the
face with the underside of his overly-large, clenched
fist.

The impact left his nose flattened like a
tomato sauce sachet that had just been trodden on, and with the
same colorful and slimy effects. Blood was everywhere, and as he
swallowed and blinked to try to clear his vision, his throat kept
filling with the stuff too.

Taking his jailer’s response as meaning he
shouldn’t wriggle anymore, he didn’t, and just let these beastly
vampires carry his limp body, deep into the depths of hell or
wherever they were taking him.

On the way
with muffled voices, they had said a few times that when Raffious
regains his speech, if he didn’t tell them immediately where Rex
was, they would probably start cutting off both their limbs.

The murky green masks that his jailers wore
were the reason he had started to panic. They were so sinister and
scary in appearance, and Longinus couldn’t work out the reason why
they wore them. All four of his jailers had on the same evil faces.
His first thoughts were that Hoidrious, being their new leader,
made executioners wear them now that he was in charge. If so, it
had meant in his head, that he was being led to his death.

The masks themselves were curved in around
the sides of their head about an inch, with 6mm holes of equal size
that ran parallel straight up through the center to the top. They
didn’t have any eyeholes either, which only increased his
deeply-paranoid feelings about them.

A few floors further down, he craned his
neck back and to the side to see how his partner in crime was
doing. The old bastard was in a similar agonizing posture, with his
own massive jailers surrounding him. Raffious’ face said it all—his
skin was deathly pale, and his heavily-bloodshot eyes were darting
in all directions. It was clear that, apart from being paralysed,
he was experiencing inside, his own astronomical levels of terror
too.

Finally when they reached the floor they
were going to be calling home for the foreseeable future, which was
one hundred and fifty three floors beneath the surface, their
jailers dragged them out of the stairwell.

They were so far down, that even the ground
was making strange creaking noises.

Longinus told himself that
it really wasn’t anything to worry about, and that it was just the
sheer weight of the soil above that was causing the noises. But his
subconscious mind intervened and said to him, ‘
what a load of bolloxes, it ain’t that at
all
.’

Then as the creaking noise
metastasized into a far more sinister note, the same voice in his
head said in a cheery note, ‘
see I told
you, it’s fucking demons and they’re coming for
you
.’

The floor they were now on was so disgusting
to look at, but even that could have been dismissed if not for the
unbelievably vile, putrid stench that was hanging in the air. It
was so horrid that it encroached on his senses, and as it burrowed
its way deep inside of him, he felt utterly repulsed by it. The
bile rose up, and, unable to use his arms or being able to bend
over due to his four new friends, he vomited all over himself.

The smell was so revolting that Longinus
felt absolutely certain that, if Satan appeared there, he would
have just turned and charged back up the stairs with his hand over
his mouth for fresher air.

His jailers laughed at him as they realized
he wasn’t finding it too pleasurable. They said not to worry; he
would get used to it. But by that time however, his insides would
be so infected that not long afterwards, apart from the screaming
pain inside, his vision would become blurred and he would start to
see things. Then they added for good measure that maybe a month or
two later, after the exceptionally cold nights without a blanket,
his mind and thoughts would become twisted beyond belief. They
laughed and told him he shouldn’t be concerned because soon
afterwards, he would be dead and burning in hell.

As he was being dragged along the corridor,
he tried to hold his breath and pucker his lips so as to limit his
exposure to this obvious toxic filth.

Then looking around, he began to take in his
new surroundings.

The passageway they were going down sloped
for some fifty feet before leveling off. It was narrow, about five
feet wide at the most. On one side was a rock wall, while the other
side was lined with numerous empty cells. At least he thought they
were empty; he did try to verify that no one was home, but the
speed they were going, along with his left shoulder rammed up into
his face, made it strangely, quite hard to tell.

Then when the jailers
stopped outside the cell that he guessed was to be his new home,
the door to it was already wide open,
welcoming him in some strange way, as if it was trying to
placate the forlorn feeling he was getting just being there.
Inside it looked seriously pitiful, like it was
from some third world country under an authoritarian regime, or
something.

Looking lugubriously in through the array of
rust-flaked bars that were joined together to make up the front,
Longinus said, ‘I’ve changed my mind, I won’t be staying tonight
after all.’

His attempt at trying to
make himself feel slightly better by cracking a joke fell short as
they threw him in.
Then a
fter they
had
thrown the old boy in with him as well,
then,
with a
crash
that made him jump, they slammed the
heavy door shut behind him and went to walk away. Only as they were
leaving, one of them paused and then
turned back to
look through the bars at him.