The Dark Messenger (50 page)

As they hit, and driven by the immense
weight, their razor sharp points burst through the goon’s sternums,
and continued on their path until they ripped themselves out the
other side.

In reaction to the tremendous pain, both of
them dropped their swords and still masked, turned to look at one
another.

Then within the miniscule of time, two
identical tunnels of flames appeared in their minds, and sucked
their conscious thoughts inside them.

Mietioc wondered whether Satan would be as
forgiving with them, as he had been with himself only a few hours
before.

Then grabbing his swords by their handles,
and with a powerful jerk, he slid them back out of their chests,
and watched as their lifeless frames crashed hard on to the floor
beside him.

Wiping the blood of his swords across their
bodies, he turned and walked on down the passageway.

When he had reached Raffious’ headless
corpse, he kicked the head ahead of him and walked on towards
Hoidrious who was laying paralysed on the floor.

Standing over the top of the naked leader,
Mietioc grinned down at him and said, ‘What a pathetic way to leave
this world, and you had so much beforehand, I can only imagine how
being trapped down there for eternity will feel like. Give my
regards to Satan though, wont you.’

As he finished his sentence, the memory of
his warriors faces flashed before him, and rage overtook his
mind.

He brought his swords down and sliced off
both of the evil leaders hands off. Then he kicked them away and
grinned. ‘Now im going to cut you limb from limb.’

Then he swung his swords around his head and
brought them down hard across Hoidrious’ legs.

Then he picked them up off the floor and
showed them to him. Then he picked up his swords and debated over
whether he should end the fucker now, or leave him like that for
eternity and simply walk away.

A moment passed, and his mind spurred by
Satan’s request, decided on death. Then to accommodate the old
serpents requirements, and with a lightening flick of his swords,
cleanly he chopped off the fucker’s head.

----------

Earlier as Mietioc had kicked Raffious head
and then walked on, he had failed to look inside the cells as he
was passing them. Had he looked in to the one near Raffious’
headless corpse, he would have seen Longinus under the bench.

It had been his plan of escape without having
to cross paths with the battle-hardened nut, that he felt sure
would slice him from ear to ear if he challenged him

Moments before and after putting on
Hoidrious’ robes, he had dived into the shadows under the forlorn
bench. Longinus had thought about maybe using words on Mietioc
instead, but had grinned to himself as he had realized how foolish
that would have been especially after witnessing Hoidrious’ failed
attempt to placate his anger with words, moments before. No he had
decided words would see him in hell if he tried to use them, so
wiping away a puddle of something vile, he had slipped himself
underneath the bench and played dead.

Then as he heard him talking to Hoidrious, he
waited a few more seconds before he slid out from under the bench
and then disappeared down the passageway towards the stairs.

----------

As he climbed the seemingly never-ending
stairs, Longinus congratulated himself for his cleverness. He mused
over the plan once again, reveling in its brilliance.

Whilst Longinus had been a prisoner of the
cells, and as the misty swamp had started to consume him, desperate
to evade it from sucking him in, he had started to think up an
escape plan. As the plan was coming together though, there had been
something he knew he had to achieve but couldn’t for the life of
him think how to do it.

OK getting out of the cells would be easy. He
would say that Raffious had arranged for the Elite warriors to be
killed, which he believed would undeniably result in the cell door
being thrust open as they came piling in to brutally torture him.
Then as they did, he would simply attack them with the cursed arrow
and escape.

But getting up the one hundred and fifty
three floors undetected, that was the million-dollar question,
which for some time he had absolutely no answer for.

He was fully aware if one vampire saw him and
then screamed, all the floors above him would undeniably become
blocked by hoards of them as they charged down to kill him.

Then one day it had become obvious, and as he
felt the saliva was building up in his mouth suggesting the swamp
was calling to him, desperate to not forget his thoughts, he had
scratched them into the bench. Then when he had come around again,
he saw the message to himself and was filled with joy.

It told him the answer to his million-dollar
question, that for his escape plan to work, he needed Hoidrious’
robes. Although it sounded ridiculous and completely unreachable,
he told himself that should the moment arrive where the old fucker
appeared with only two goons, he would have to take that as a
sign—a sign meaning the escape plan from that moment on, had a
green light for go.

Only for a moment back there in the cells he
had thought he had ruined his chances for escape.

Hoidrious had said ‘ok what don’t I know
about Raffious.’ And then he had told him, but the evil bastard
hadn’t batted an eyelid, or even had one slight bit of anger pass
across his ugly face. Instead he had looked scared because Mietioc
had arrived.

Longinus also appreciated how lucky he had
been that Mietiocs’ mind was filled with his own hatred thoughts
towards Hoidrious, because had he been a loyal goon of his instead,
Raffious might have been killed as a result, and then there would
have been too many for him to fight. So the cell door would have
been opened and his number one card would have been used but
ruined. If that had happened, he felt sure he would have never get
another chance to escape, or at least not whilst he still had his
feet attached to his legs, that is.

So when Hoidrious had asked him if he wanted
to help fight Mietioc, and then promised him afterwards he would
grant him his freedom, just as Longinus was deeming it a completely
farcical thought and was going to refuse, suddenly he had
remembered the idea of stealing the fuckers robes.

And with the idea his plans for escape
suddenly got their second green light for go.

----------

Now walking up the stairs dressed in
Hoidrious’ attire, Longinus made sure he kept his head extremely
low, and that his face was covered by the hood.

Floor after floor he ascended and hundreds of
vampires he past without any of them looking at him even once.

Then as he drew closer to the top floor,
suddenly a deeply harrowing thought passed through his mind. What
if his dripping clock he had been listening too was out somehow,
the sound of the dripping he had kept the time by from the cell
next door. If it was out, or somehow he had mistaken it repeating
itself every 8 seconds, when really it had dripped every ten
seconds? Scanning his brain he tried to calculate fast what that
could mean, and how much it could have altered the time by if it
had been so.

Longinus was fully aware when he got up to
the exit and then threw open the secret door, if he found the land
basking in murderous and deeply oppressive sunshine, then his
escape plans had failed and he would be buggered. There would be no
way for him to leave the coven, and in turn also no way he would be
able to turn around either. If the sun was baring down its deathly
rays or even if first light was just appearing, shafting itself
through the canopy of trees, then in his mind he decided rather
than turn around for more cell time on death row, he would bravely
step out into it anyway.

His reasoning being to die free this day with
his mind full of visions of pastures wide and plentiful, remote
rambling cottages and a myriad of flowers and bee’s, would be
better than being locked up in solitary awaiting a heinous death.
OK death would come and it would be with much pain but not by their
fucking hands, and as he died he would smile knowing that too.

There would be no way he was going back down
to those heinous cells, ever again.

---------

When he finally reached the secret door
leading out though, a pleasant sight caught him. The guards were
still standing there with their long spears. This undoubtedly meant
that it was night, as if it wasn’t they would have already retired
from their posts.

As he approached them, he kept his mind
focused on his slow and laborious walk, making sure he was walking
like Hoidrious would have. Then as he stood in front of the secret
door with a guard either side of him, the worst thing happened.

Suddenly from behind him, the stairwell
filled with horrific demonic screams, and he could hear hordes of
vampires charging up towards him. Their wings were beating and
crashing against the walls as they ascended the stairwell.

They were screaming out don’t let anyone
leave, Longinus is free and has escaped, lock the main doors, don’t
let anyone leave.

The two guards believing he
was Hoidrious then spun around and stood with their spears out
between the back of him and the stairs.
The fools
he thought as he turned
the handle and then gritted his teeth before muttering, ‘Please
god, don’t let there be sunshine.’

As he threw the door back, he was met by a
blast of undeniably gorgeous night air. The moon was high in the
sky and gently masked by gathering clouds, whilst the land was
covered in dark shadows diving here and there.

Then without waiting a moment longer, he
leapt into the sky and beat his rusty wings as he flew away to
freedom.

It was one hour later now and Kaine had been
walking up and down the beach thinking about different
possibilities. He considered the various ways that the meeting with
Vius could go, so that he could try to be prepared for all
possibilities. He had only one purpose in mind: to save his family
at all costs.

Glancing up at the sky, he
thought for a moment about the angel coming to his house with the
offer for him to join Heaven as their Truth Messenger.
Did Heaven really want me to be their truth
messenger?
He wondered. Then he thought
about Jenny again, and the sad memory made him drop to his
knees.

If only he hadn’t gone back
for the damn iPad.
He thought as he also
realized how things had turned out, that he never even used the
damn thing anyway.
She had died for
nothing.
He thought.

After a few minutes doubled over and staring
lifelessly down at a piece of seaweed, he slowly stood up. Kaine
was racked with sadness and felt completely lost, he had never in
his life felt this way before, but then apart from Regina’s father,
he hadn’t lost anyone close to him before either.

Turning to look out to see, he found himself
walking out into the water and he kept walking until the water was
splashing up wildly against his chest. He was so cut up inside that
he hadn’t even realized that the murderously oppressive sun would
be up soon, and that he only had about thirty minutes left until he
would be savagely killed by it, as the deathly rays chased across
the land again.

Looking up, he held his arms out level either
side of himself, with his palms facing upwards, and begged God to
help him.

‘Please father, I am so confused. I want to
understand, I thank you for the offer to join you, but I love my
wife too much to leave her. Please save her.’ He cried with tears
flowing down his cheeks.

At that moment, Vius and a few of his guards
flew towards him.

Vius laughed when he saw Kaine in the water
and then roared with laughter as he saw the tears on his
cheeks.

‘You killed my warriors, and have established
quite a myth for yourself,’ he sneered. ‘Some say you are strong
and invincible, but now I see by your tears that you are just
pathetic! You are turning to Heaven? What are you hoping for, some
kind of divine alliance or something with them?’

Vius flew over Kaine’s head and landed hard
on the beach behind him. He landed so hard that as he touched down
and tucked his wings in behind himself, his boots had sunk deep
into the wet sand. ‘We are vampires, you imbecile. Lucifer made us.
Heaven does not care about you and your stupid prayers!’

Kaine’s body was tingling all over and it had
nothing to do with the freezing cold water either. He was so torn
up inside over Jenny that he didn’t know what to do or say really.
He expected that anything he said to this vampire would just be
turned around on him.

‘So you say Rex is alive and you can get him.
How?’ Vius emitted a feral growl and said, ‘If you are lying, I
will kill your pathetic little family.’

‘KILL MY FAMILY??’
Kaine thought as the tingling was replaced with
wild rage. Turning around he began to wade out of the water towards
him. Suddenly it crossed his mind that maybe he should forget
diplomacy and just attack him. It would be easy enough to grab him
from behind, and then threaten to his warriors that he would kill
him. He was reasonably sure that would save his family.