The Dark Messenger (37 page)

Longinus wasn’t
a gambling man but he highly doubted Rex would give up his number
one card so easily, for fear of execution immediately afterwards.
No he envisaged the deal or trade off between Hoidrious and
Raffious over Rex would take some time to thrash out. If Raffious
had a high threshold for pain, that is.

‘I don’t
know
, I
wasn’t watching
,’ Longinus
replied
,
pretending he hadn’t just seen what hit the fool
. His own words were garbled, since his hand was still
clamped across his mouth, desperately trying to keep out the putrid
stench that filled the air.

‘And get me up from the floor, because
otherwise I will…’ Raffious started.

Longinus suddenly felt a sense of temporary
power over him and interrupted, mumbling through his closed
fingers, ‘Or you will do what? Your days of bullying me are over.’
He laughed shortly. ‘I’m not helping you. Lie there and rot for all
I care.’

Turning around, he walked over to the array
of bars that made up the front of the cell, and began to peer
through them. First he looked back up the passageway towards the
way they had come in.

‘If you don’t come over here and help me get
up, then when my spells, finally overcome the powers from that
thing in my leg, I will leap away and leave you here.’ Raffious
said, sputtering his words as his lips kept catching the filthy
floor.

Longinus turned away from
the bars with a sigh. Since he couldn’t see anything anyway, he
walked over to Raffious, but not out of reluctantly accepting him
without protest. Instead
when he reached him
, he
hovered his boot
directly
above the back of his
head.

‘I believe you would do just that, after all
the things I have done for you,’ Longinus said through gritted
teeth. His voice rose as he went on. ‘What a bastard you are. I
might just stamp on your head now, and watch your brains spill out
all over the floor. That will fuck up your leaving plans, for
sure!’ he shouted.

Raffious started laughing, causing bubbles to
form in the drool around his mouth.

‘You find that funny, do you? I think it’s
funnier that you, the mighty powerful wizard or whatever you think
you are, are now lying helpless under my boot.’

Raffious stopped laughing, and said, ‘If you
do, then you are sure to suffer even more. There is no guarantee
that anyone will come back for weeks. Not only will the hunger
pangs for blood cripple you, but without someone to talk to you
will experience insanity much sooner than you might expect.’

Longinus realized that the
old fool had a point. Regardless of how much he hated him, to be
trapped on his own was really not a welcoming thought. Raffious was
probably right; after the initial joyous feeling of smashing his
brains in for all the evil he had done to him, reality would come
knocking. Days filled with nothing—no music, no gorgeous women to
arouse his sexual feelings…just that
annoying dripping noise he could hear
coming from the next cell
. Then after
twisting and turning a millennia of times without a blanket as he
tried to sleep, his mind would begin to develop strange thoughts.
Granted, the executioner jailers with their sinister masks had said
it all happened in a different order to that, but how would they
know? Had they tried it first-hand as he was about to
do?

Suddenly
with that thought,
all
his temporary power vanished and again
he was the old Longinus, the one who was in Raffious’ shadow and
utterly scared of what he could or might do to him. Even though
Longinus hated the feeling,
for now
he accepted
it
s grisly
return
.

Removing his boot from the
killer position, he bent over and, so as not to touch the floor
with his already-filthy hands, took hold of Raffious’
dirt-encrusted robes and hoisted him up. Then, holding his breath,
he carried him over and set him down tentatively on the bench,
before clamping
his hands back around his
nose and mouth, and again inhaling, more unwanted
stench.

‘Thanks,’ Raffious muttered, his lips covered
in both vile dirt and hair. Some of the hair was white, and his
own, but some of it looked to be a similar shade of brown to that
of the eyebrow that now lay looking at them from its last resting
place on the floor.

The brown hair around his mouth was
definitely not his.

Leaning forwards and trying
to mentally block out what he was about to do, Longinus closed his
eyes and quickly wiped
away
the filth from the
old boy’s mouth.

‘Thanks again,’ Raffious said in a much
clearer tone. ‘Now get those fucking puke-covered hands away from
me.’

Longinus looked at him in
disbelief and muttered, ‘…that’s fucking gratitude, don’t
you dare even think
about leaving me here after this.
’

Raffious
as expected
didn’
t even reply.

Longinus tutted and said
Wanker
in reply to his ignorance and he turned
around and took a seat next to him.

The smell
in the cell
was becoming
just
too
overpowering, and
with it,
Longinus was feeling
anxious beyond belief. He would give anything at this moment just
to be able to breath in one mouthful of clean air. His thoughts
wandered back to the air quality and the beautiful valley outside
Kaine’s home in Devil’s Dyke. The memory nearly made him
cry.

The angel’s last words were going around and
around inside Regina’s mind. She didn’t know exactly why, but to
her it felt like the words meant something so much more. It was as
if they had missed something, and that the angel was trying to help
them in some bizarre way.

Kaine turned and read her mind as again she
let the words bounce around inside her brain,

‘DOES NOT MEAN’ and ‘THINK, BUT THINK
WISELY.’

‘What’s troubling you about those words? Do
you think there’s another way, other than taking his job offer?’ he
messaged.

‘Yes I do, but quite what I don’t know yet.
It’s just…well…an angel comes here and tells us everything before
giving you a job offer, which he must have known we wouldn’t take.
Then the last words he ends on saying are those words. I think he
was helping us’.

She paced, thinking.

‘Yes! That has to be it! I think it was like
a riddle, maybe he was giving us a clue? I think he definitely
wants us to refuse his offer and to THINK, because if we do, AND
THINK WISELY, there is another way to escape. He wants to save
Jenny because she’s the priest’s daughter.’

‘I see the logic, but he did say we wouldn't
live if I didn't join him. He felt sure it was only a matter of
time before Raffious had the vase complete again,’ Kaine messaged
back.

‘No, not exactly. What he said was this: if
we escape, Raffious was heading for the chamber where Rex kept the
vase, but we don't care because that’s in the future. If he gets
the vase complete, it’s useless unless he goes back in time, back
to when Lucifer created vampires.”

Her eyes lit up. “Well, we can go back in
time, can’t we? Together we could go back and stop him.’

Kaine smiled, hoping she was right. It did
make a lot of sense when he thought about it. The angel’s offer
wasn’t very attractive, to say the least.

‘Do you understand?’ she messaged.

Kaine agreed he liked her idea a lot. He then
started to recite the words in his head, saying them over and over
again, double-checking her idea and making sure he fully understood
the riddle himself:

‘Does not mean Heaven is leaving you here to
a certain death. Think, but think wisely.’

Regina turned and started walking towards the
kitchen. ‘I need a proper drink. What about you, darling? And
Becky, do you need some blood?

They both nodded.

Becky raced into the kitchen to help Regina,
and left Kaine and Jenny crashed out in the lounge.

Regina messaged Kaine, saying to tell the
girls what her thoughts were about the angel’s last words whilst
she washed up some glasses. She hoped they would agree.

Launching himself up from the sofa to stand
in the kitchen doorway so both Jenny in the lounge and Becky
standing beside his wife washing glasses could clearly hear him, he
explained it thoroughly.

‘I agree it really does sound like the angel
was trying to help us. I think you are right, Kaine,’ Jenny said
from her place on the sofa. Or, rather, she fairly trumpeted it so
that Regina and Becky could hear her.

Kaine, Regina, and Becky winced at the sound,
trying hard not to let Jenny see their reaction.

‘Someone needs to tell her about our sense of
hearing,’ Regina whispered. Becky snorted softly.

Jenny, unaware that vampires’ hearing was ten
times better than that of humans, had merely been trying to be
polite. Truth be said, she could have whispered softly from the
sofa that she was lying on and they still would have heard her
quite well.

‘The angel did say he knew your father, and
that he was a very special man, Jenny. I'm sure they wont let any
harm come to you; they want to re-unite you with him,’ Kaine told
her.

‘That may be true, but it doesn’t help you
three though, does it?’ Jenny said.

‘Well it does, because we are in here with
you. If they break in we could all die. Maybe Heaven won’t let them
break in, or they will make the sun come up earlier so that we can
all escape. Like I said, when it’s daylight, those vampires can’t
stay outside because of the burning sun. Also, the humans will be
about, and they know that. Even if they have skin wraps, they can’t
risk being seen, else the police and army would arrive soon after,’
Kaine said, hoping that he had helped to calm her nerves a little,
after having seen her biting her fingernails for the past hour.

‘That makes me feel a lot better, thank you.’
She smiled at him gratefully, then the frown returned to her
face.

‘I’m also worried about you trying to catch
Raffious, and that if you go back in time he might hurt you. The
angel did make it very clear that he could kill you easily if you
tried fighting him. He is too powerful, and I don't want you to get
hurt,’ she said in a worried tone.

‘My darling, the angel only said that to warn
me that I must change the way I attack him. I can guarantee you
something; if I'm up against him, I will rip his dirty little head
clean off, that’s for sure!’ he said but Regina had her own doubts
about that and for the moment kept them to herself.

‘What about your father? Don’t you want to
see him?’ Kaine asked, hoping to change the subject. He laid back
down on the sofa again in his dirty clothes, ignoring Regina’s
silent protests from the kitchen. He could feel her roll her eyes,
defeated. He grinned to himself.

‘I haven’t thought about him anymore, to be
honest,’ Jenny replied.

Becky was standing next to Regina in the
kitchen passing glasses, and her newly improved vampire hearing
allowed her to clearly understand what Jenny had just said about
Raffious hurting Kaine. As she heard it, she felt the rage inside
again. It was trying to flood through every part of her body, and
the fangs were beginning to grow. This time she managed to stop
herself as she thought of the consequences if her mate saw.

Regina looked at her, realized what had just
happened, and laughed. ‘You two are so funny!’ she giggled before
walking back into the lounge from the kitchen, holding two pint
glasses full of deer’s blood.

‘Here,’ she said as she passed one down to
her husband, noticing again just how filthy he really was. ‘Take
your drink and go and have a shower, will you? Oh, and you better
put on your battle gear too,’ she said, not knowing if he might
need it but not wanting him to take any chances.

Kaine looked up and furrowed his brow because
he had only just that second sat back down and was quite
comfortable, now he had to move again.

Becky walked back into the lounge and smiled
as her bare feet left the cold hard-tiled kitchen floor and again
landed on the warm, deep-piled soft carpet in their living room.
But as she did so, a thought raced through her mind that deeply
concerned her.

Looking across, Regina noticed her face
change to a frown and her eyes become distant, as if she were in
deep thought. At first glance she thought that maybe her recent
transformation into a vampire was still troubling her or
something.

‘What’s up? Why the long face?’ she said.

‘Nothing. It was a stupid thought,’ Becky
replied, hoping to change the subject. But Regina was all ears and
interested to know what it was.