The Dark Messenger

by Milo Spires

  Longinus looked back at them with rage burning within, but was clever not to let his anger show. Instead he held a completely expressionless face as he readied himself for challenging that idea, with his escape.

  Raffious turned around and then sniggered at him, ‘Sorry old boy, but I guess this is where you and I will be parting company.’ He chortled in a mocking tone.

  In Longinus’ head he had done his waiting, listened to enough bull shit and was completely ready for the escape. If any more goons turned up he might find it impossible to pull it off and considering it was now about 5.30am, the time was perfect too. He would get outside the main coven doors and then have just a short time to fly away, before the sun reared it’s murderously oppressive head. OK it would mean sleeping underneath a car, or inside a chimney, or under a bridge, but it would only be the once, then his next stop would be freedom. They would never chance following him with only 30 minutes till sun up, and then they would have no choice but to wait until 12 hours later when darkness fell again. If he was lucky enough to find an unsuspecting human out there too, then by the following evening when darkness did finally begin to chase across the land, he would have fed and rested too.

  Longinus leant back against the far wall, to give the impression that he was quite comfortable and was no threat, and then he went for it. The first part of plan freedom, awake and ready in his mind, just got a green light for go.

  ‘Okay, well, considering I’m having my limbs amputated for being a spy, then Rex’s promise of lush lands and being free from covens clearly isn’t going to be happening—even though he said none of you would dare hurt me until you heard from him first,’ he said to Hoidrious in a relaxed but very condescending tone, before adding, ‘I suppose you might, you miserable old bastard, like to learn something about our Raffious here though, something that he hasn’t told you.’

  Hoidrious snorted in derision. ‘Rex might have said not to hurt you but I doubt he meant it. Let’s wait till he gets back here and we can ask him then, shall we?’ He burst out laughing.

  Longinus got the drift and fully understood his insinuation, which he had to agree was probably true. It was highly unlikely that Rex would honor anything of the deal between them, and would probably insist on killing him himself. Longinus had known that even before he sought refuge with the White Coven, but at the time he had had no choice; he had to stop the other half of the Trucale vase from being stolen. Otherwise, if Raffious used it, then it wouldn’t have be long before he would have ceased to exist anyway.

  Meanwhile, Raffious had reacted quickly to Longinus’ remark. He spun around and gave Longinus an enraged look, one that was meant to keep him from speaking further.

  Then, just as quickly, he dropped the harsh look and smiled. He doubted that Longinus could possibly say anything now that would change their agreement in the slightest anyway. No, in his mind this was just a ploy, a ruse, a last pathetic and deeply wasted effort to try and seek a reaction.

  ‘What has Raffious not told me, then?’ Hoidrious sniggered. He turned around to look questioningly up at his two goons, as if somehow they might be able to shed some light on what Longinus was going on about.

  They didn’t know of course, and in reply to their master, they simply shrugged their shoulders. Hoidrious’ grin disappeared; he rolled his eyes and sighed at their stupidity. “I didn’t think you actually knew, you idiots,” he muttered.

  ‘Okay, here goes.’ Longinus rubbed his hands together and grinned. He then glared across at the old bastard of a cellmate and bared his fangs. ‘Now you are in deep shit without a paddle, Raffious, old boy. You thought us vampires were stupid. Well, wait till Hoidrious hears this.’ A smug expression rapidly spread across his face.

  He turned back to the coven leader, whose eyes showed deep curiosity. ‘Has Mietioc come back from his last mission for you yet? I know he hasn’t, see, because he and the warriors you sent to Scotland are all dead.’

  Hoidrious was about to answer when, even before the first word had passed his lips, there was the unmistakable sound of a visitor coming. But not any visitor—it sounded like a heinous beast from the pits of hell.

  Whoever was coming, as he or she charged down the rock steps, the ground-shaking vibrations coupled with the extremely heavy thuds of their feet, suggested that whoever it might be, would easily fit into the ‘monster’ category exceptionally well. There was also the sound of steel as it crashed and grated sporadically against rock.

  The sound was enough to make Longinus forget he had just been speaking, whilst fear took hold of his brain. He expected it to be an executioner, and that Hoidrious had lied about amputation being tomorrow. His subconscious mind suddenly started taunting him again, saying, ‘They tricked you, and they are going to chop your limbs off now.’

  Raffious wasn’t far behind him with the sinister thoughts. He knew he had made a deal, and thought that freedom was only a day away, but the deal had been with a vampire none-the-less. For all he knew the deal might stand, but they could still chop off a limb or two, just as a warning.

  As whoever was coming was nearly upon them, the sound had a somewhat pernicious effect on Hoidrious as well. For it was just as much a mystery to him, and he had been trying to think of who could have the temerity to be coming down to the cells. Once Longinus and Raffious had been captured, for his own reasons he had told the whole coven that the dungeons were out of bounds, so whoever it was, he knew they had no care for his rules and with that thought, he reasoned that they were probably going to be well armed too.

  The goons had turned, but unlike the others, they were well up for the confrontation they felt ensued. Grasping their swords, they slid them up a few inches so that the double-edged, razor-sharp blades were only just climbing out of their sheaths. They paused and waited.

  A second passed, and then suddenly those heavy feet touched down in the end of the passageway with an all mighty crash.

  Longinus had been edging himself away from his position and was now crouched in the corner by the bench. His subconscious mind had started taunting him again, saying, ‘They ain’t coming for amputation. I bet in less than ten minutes you are dead.’

  He ignored his fears, banning them from taking residence in his mind as he armed himself with the arrow that he had pulled out of Raffious’ leg. When he had yanked it out earlier, he had accepted it as the only weapon available should he ever get the opportunity to escape. Therefore he had surreptitiously rolled it under the bench for safekeeping, using the back of his boot.

  Now, with his gloved hand firmly grasped around the arrow, he knew the time had come.

  Hoidrious was in clear view of their new visitor to the dungeons, and his face was bathed with deep and utter shock.

  As the goons also registered who it was, they both turned around to Hoidrious for his confirmation, his orders of what they should do.

  Hoidrious muttered to the goons, but loud enough for Longinus to hear, ‘How is Mietioc here? Angus told me he had killed the Elite warriors.’

  When Longinus heard Mietioc’s name mentioned, coupled with Hoidrious’ overt look of extreme shock moments before, it had startled him. He leapt up and grabbed the bars, slamming his cheek up tight against the rusty metal so he could look down the passageway.

  Approaching at a slow pace was the somehow not deceased, but very much alive, Elite warrior, Mietioc. As he got within twenty feet, it was clear, by his facial expressions and how he was swinging his swords in slow circles, that he was harboring deeply malevolent and wrathful views. It was also starkly evident, by his tunnel-vision stare, that he was intent on killing them all, or at least Hoidrious.

  Even though he hadn’t seen Mietioc killed, and for all he really knew the Elite warriors might not have died as the stories of the past had suggested, still Longinus had gone a long time thinking they were all dead. Now, seeing Mietioc brazenly walking down the passage, and swinging his swords in true Mietioc style, Longinus’ mind was momentarily lost in great sh
ock.

  Raffious, knowing he was, or at least thinking he was directly responsible for the Elite warriors’ deaths, now had fear dancing through his pathetic body. He was turning around on the spot, and his hands were all over the place, a sort of St. Vitus’ Dance of terror. He truly thought Mietioc was coming for him, and his death was but moments away.

  Longinus, however, was still taken back by Hoidrious’ last remark. In fact, it was that last sentence that brought him back to his senses. His brain spun for a second as he tried to settle on the answer.

  Did Hoidrious just slip up and reveal something he shouldn’t have? Were Hoidrious and Angus allies, and was he guilty of treason? Had he ordered the Elite warriors to be killed?

  Then, as he ran Hoidrious’ words back around in his mind, he also thought that maybe he was completely wrong, and that after Mietioc had arrived in Scotland his surprise attack had actually failed. Then as a result, Angus had phoned Hoidrious and told him the Elite warriors were all killed. But how did Mietioc escape?

  Mietioc, who had now stopped in the passageway and was standing within range of a battle with the goons, told them assertively to get out of his way.

  Hoidrious interjected by demanding, ‘How are you here? Angus phoned us the day after you left for Scotland and said you were all killed in his ambush room! He said because of the attack we were at war, and then slammed the phone down.’

  As Mietioc heard Hoidrious’ words, suddenly his own conscious thoughts, and the rage for revenge with them, were thrown into some kind of holding cell in the back of his brain. He stood there looking extremely confused as the brain tried to validate the coven leader’s story.

  ----------

  Mietioc had truly died as the bullets had torn through him. Rather than the oblivion he had expected however, a tunnel of flames had appeared in his mind. The tunnel had sucked his conscious and subconscious thoughts into it, leaving the savagely ripped body behind.

  All Mietioc knew was that he was moving fast through a tunnel filled to the brim with flames. It looked like a remote Vietnamese jungle at the moment a napalm bomb exploded into a world of fire. Strangely though, and contrary to his expectations, Mietioc actually felt no pain.

  After a few seconds, which had seemed like an eternity, the tunnel then suddenly ended and he was thrown down hard against a rock floor. He crouched there on his hands and knees for a moment, as he tried to get his bearings.

  From behind him he heard a voice that sounded like an explosion or a thunderous roar. Spinning around to look, he saw Satan standing there grinning at him, pitchfork and all. Mietioc was so frightened that his bowels almost let go, and he nearly shit himself.

  Satan demanded to know how he had been killed. Mietioc told him that Angus had ambushed him, and that all of his warriors had perished as well. He also told him that he had been sent to Scotland under orders to seek retribution for the Scots’ breaking of the age-old rule.

  When Satan heard that the rule had been broken, flames poured out of his nose, his eyes, and seemingly everywhere. The whole cavernous room of rock and lava they were in, had then roared up in vehement agreement.

  Mietioc also told him what Angus had said moments before his death, and gave him the name of the vampire who the Scot had said was undeniably responsible for breaking the rule.

  Satan had responded with more belching flames and a violently lashing tail, before he gave direct orders for him to go back up and send the culprit down to him.

  Then when his conscious, and sub conscious thoughts had been placed into his new body, the Prince of Darkness told him that for an undisclosed time, it might take a while for all his memories to come back to him and truly bed in.

  Mietioc wasn’t too happy about the memory-lapse thing, but was told that such things could not be helped, and that it was different for every vampire in his situation. Satan also said that in the first couple of days, some decisions might confuse him, but this would pass.

  Mietioc was still unsure of what he meant, so Satan told him in another way. He said that, for a while, he might meet with problems if he was asked a question that required old memories to answer it. If those memories were not yet available, like in a computer’s damaged hard drive, his mind would need a few minutes to unpack those old memory files before they could be used.

  So up in the cells, when he had come to a stop in front of the goons and was about to kill them if they didn’t get out of his way, Hoidrious’ words had cast doubt in his mind about who was actually responsible for breaking the age-old rule. Mietioc’s brain put most of his conscious thoughts into lockdown emergency, as Satan had warned, and he knew that this was the emergency procedure he had spoken of. His thought processes desperately tried to access old memories—the memories of Angus’ true words, the ones that he had spoken moments before Mietioc had been killed.

  ----------

  Whilst Mietioc’s backup files were being imported back into his mind, he turned and glanced at Longinus, who was staring back at him. Although he knew him, he was having difficulty placing him for a second. Then suddenly those thoughts became fully available, and he knew exactly who he was.

  He remembered that Rex had given Longinus direct orders to leap back in time to 2014 and turn Jenny, and that he had seen Longinus with his own eyes lying on the floor in the center of their pentagram, moments before he had vanished, sucked back in time. This concerned him; he didn’t need memories to know what was almost burnt into his being; vampires can’t travel forwards in time. For Longinus to have returned to 2099 meant that there was some trickery or skullduggery involved somewhere, and he wanted to know what it was.

  Hoidrious, for his part, was feeling somewhat slightly relieved that he was still alive, as he doubted his goons would be a match for the second in command of the Elite warriors. Then he noticed Mietioc’s sudden interest in Longinus, and volunteered an explanation for his presence in the cell.

  He told Mietioc that Longinus was a spy, and that he was working for the old boy standing there next to him. He tried to make a joke about the piss stains down Raffious’ front, but Mietioc blanked the words as if he never even heard them.

  That was when Hoidrious started feeling jittery. Mietioc was disturbingly calm, especially after the great noise he had made entering the place, and that worried him. Deferring to Mietioc and still trying to befriend him in the hopes that he had placated the warrior’s previous thoughts of killing him, he then brought up Rex. This too had no effect on the warrior.

  Hoidrious said, in an exasperated voice, that Raffious, using dark magic, had kidnapped their leader but that he himself had arranged the release, and Rex would be back as coven leader tomorrow. He had added that Longinus was under orders to steal Rex’s piece of the Trucale vase from him, and that Raffious’ whole plan was centered around the old boy’s revenge for Adina, the whore, having been killed back when Christ was crucified.

  Mietioc still said nothing as he looked at Longinus, who felt for the moment that it was probably best to keep quiet. He knew that Mietioc was a coven member loyal to Rex, and what Hoidrious had just said, apart from being undeniably true, might be enough to enrage him to a point where he demanded death. Even though Longinus had the arrow, and he had always known that to escape meant attacking whoever came into his cell, he felt that fighting this warrior would certainly result in his escape failing and death. This highly trained killer could, and would, easily slice him in half.

  Raffious overheard Hoidrious mention Adina in the same sentence as ‘whore’ and became furious. His face had turned tomato-red and he began to froth at the mouth. Hoidrious saw him and grinned. He then said again that Adina was a whore, just to drive the knife in.

  Raffious, suddenly remembering that amputation still loomed, held back the vehement swear words he was about to be reeling off. But he was not happy at all. Longinus could almost see steam shooting from his ears.

  Mietioc suddenly laughed, surprising all. He then said to Raffious that Adina had indeed b
een a whore. Under orders from Satan, Rex had paid her to get close to Christ. She had been a slave and a beggar beforehand. It was the perfect ruse; she had dated a Truth Messenger, and by fooling Raffious into thinking she loved him, there had been no suspicion on her part, or by Christ’s entourage that she had wicked intentions, and was trying to get our Heavenly fathers only son killed.