Sacrifice of the Septimus: Part 2 (Afterlife saga Book 7) (30 page)

“Now what to do with you? Let me see, I could just kill you now and leave you as a gift for Arsaces…” he said, suddenly spinning me back to face him and encircling my throat once more with his hand, using it to push me up against the wall as he started strangling me.

I desperately started to claw at his hand, trying in vain to tear it away from me, as my air supply started to run out quicker in my panic.

“But as tempting as that is, I think using you as leverage will be a far greater advantage to me at this present time.” He looked back to see Sophia and Pip being dragged away and allowing this to happen because of what Pertinax currently held in his hand…
my life.
Then he pulled me closer until I could feel his breath hitting my skin, my own air quickly running out.

“It will at least keep his sister in check until the time comes to kill her but until then…” he paused so he could squeeze harder making my vision start to blur and I knew this was it, this was the end.

The last thing I heard was his sickening promise…

“Let’s have some fun.”         

Chapter 65

Operation Dominic

“Well that's another fine mess you've got us into, Stanley.” Pip said laughing at her own joke.

“Hey, don’t look at me, it was Sophia he wanted this time, so technically this doesn’t count as a kidnapping.” I told her as I slumped down in my own stone cell that looked as though it had been cut right out of a mountain.

“Yes and may I add that the first attempt had been unsuccessful.” Sophia said adding her money’s worth.

“Fifty/fifty odds then, not bad, much better than Keira’s ninety/ ten.” Ari added, giggling when I shouted,

“Oi! What is this, pick on Keira day?!”

“No, just your usual snatch and grab day, with a little extra threaten Keira’s life thrown in there for good measure,” Pip answered on a chuckle making everyone laugh.

“Ha, ha! I am so reminding all you bitches about this when I am the one coming to rescue your asses next time!” I said, glad for the banter and keeping it going as long as it kept up our spirits.

“Yeah right.”

“Like that’s gonna happen any time soon.”

“I won’t hold my breath.” They all said collectively but it was Ari’s response that had me biting.

“Oi you! You can’t say anything as I have already saved your ass once before, so you don’t count! Oh and Electus here, so technically I save all your asses when the crappy prophecy ever happens.”

“Yeah, she has a point.”

“Totally got us all there.”

“I guess that’s true, she did save my life on that altar thingy when our uncle and mother tried to kill me, who weren’t really related, thank God, just crazy cult people who wanted to take over the world…man, does anyone else think I might need therapy?” Ari asked making me smile.

“Oh that’s nothing, try getting punished in Hell for accidently bringing a teeny tiny plague to Europe.” Pip said as if this was nothing and Ari made a choking sound before saying, 

“Tell me she is joking.”

“Nope.”

“Afraid not.”

“It wasn’t my fault!” The last one to speak was obviously Pip and she went on to tell Ari of how it wasn’t too bad as this was how she met her husband, which must have stunned Ari to silence as there was no way anyone would have fallen asleep during this story.

Meanwhile I was still wondering where we were and if it was Ranka who had been the one to deceive us all along. Nobody else was sure on either question, so we quickly moved on to joking about our situation rather than freaking out about it. 

The cells we were in were all bunched together but were only big enough for one person to sit down in. They seemed to have been cut from the rock and each had crude bars made from stalagmites rising from the floor and stalactites that hung down from the ceiling, all interlocking as if the mountain had teeth.

I knew that these wouldn’t have been enough to lock in the likes of Sophia and Pip and my first question would have been, ‘can you not get out of them?’ That was until I saw all the strange demonic symbols that had been etched all the way along the length of them.

I remembered seeing something like this before and it had been back in Draven’s garage surrounding the large glass box that housed the strange silver Porsche. It didn’t take a wild stab in the dark cave to know that these were some form of demonic spell to keep Sophia and Pip from escaping. Which then begged the question, how the hell were we gonna get out of this one?

“Anyway, it’s been years since the last time I was kidnapped,” Pip said as the conversation continued.

“Oh yeah, I remember that. It was the Cubans right, just after the Bay of Pigs invasion?” Sophia asked and I frowned knowing that I had definitely not heard this story.

“Yeah, the bastards heard about a weapon that was the most dangerous ever made!” Pip said, muttering
‘Idiots’
to herself. 

“What happened?” I asked.

“They were led by this dipshit Demon that used to be a somebody back when the Dead Sea Scrolls were a best seller.” I laughed loving her reference to the ancient texts.

“I can’t even remember the dude’s name now but anyway he convinced these bloody Cubans that they could win the cold war by abducting me and letting who they thought was a weapons analyst know where they were keeping his wife and if he ever wanted to see me alive again…yada, yada, yada.”

“Oh shit.” I said and Sophia laughed,

“Oh shit indeed.”

“Yeah they thought that he would be able to tell them where all the US hidden Nukes were kept or some shit like that. They had no clue that
he was the weapon,”
she said chuckling.

“I’m confused.” Ari said and it was only now that I realised she had never seen the terrifying sight of Pip’s husband in his Demon form.

“Adam is the most powerful Demon in history,” I told her and no doubt Pip was currently beaming with pride hearing me say this.

“What, even more than Lucifer?” she asked and Pip made a ‘Pah’ noise before saying,

“That guy has nothing on my man.”

“Then forgive me if I am being dim here but if this is the case then why isn’t he ruling Hell or better yet, why didn’t we bring him with us?” Ari asked making me laugh at the idea.

“Ever heard of the Hulk?” I asked making the others laugh.

“The comic book green guy?”

“Yeah, him.”

“Yeah why?” she asked.

“Well think bigger, badder and more out of control…oh and did I say bigger because what I actually meant to say was think Godzilla bigger.”

“Ah.”

“Yep, that’s my hubby,” Pip said proudly.

“So what happened?” I asked getting back to the story.

“Well they nabbed me and stuck me on some deserted island in the Pacific Ocean and waited with their bait thinking it was gonna be an easy ‘torture the prisoner until he talks’ type of gig.”

“And I gather it wasn’t?” Ari asked.

“Not even close. But they got the torture part, just not the type they were hoping for,” Pip said giggling.

“What she is trying to say was that the second Adam found out she had been taken he went against every order to stop him and allow Lucius to handle it. It was the first time he knocked Lucius out cold…right?”

“Oh yeah, I’d forgotten about that bit, didn’t he also do the same to Dom when he then had to intervene?” Pip asked Sophia.

“Oh yeah, I remember that. We tried to stop him at the airfield from getting on that private jet. He laid Dom out cold the second he told him that as his King he forbade his actions. I remember Vincent and I just holding up our hands in defeat after seeing Dom hit the floor and letting him go, before he could do the same to us.” I could barely believe what I was hearing and was stunned just trying to picture it.

“Aww he’s such a sweetheart… I miss him,” Pip added in a forlorn voice.

“So what happened then?” This time it was Ari that was hooked.

“He took the plane, flying it himself after knocking out the pilot first of course.”

“Of course,” I said thinking this story included a lot of people getting hit by Adam, which I had to say surprised me as much as it didn’t. Pip was without doubt his Achilles heel as were most women to the men who loved them.

“Then he crashed the plane after having nowhere to land it before jumping out of it mid Demon change. I remember those assholes’ faces when they first heard his battle cry…
priceless,”
Pip said chuckling away to herself.

“Anyway, he not only killed every human waiting for him on the island, which thankfully didn’t include any innocents, but he also destroyed the actual island itself,” Sophia told us, helping Pip out with the story.

“Well you say destroyed but he did leave us a nice bit of beach to have sex on until you guys turned up,” Pip said in her husband’s defence.

“Holy shit.” I heard Ari mutter in astonishment before adding,

“Jeez, you weren’t kidding.”

“I will never forget Dom’s face when Adam walked on the boat carrying Pip straight past him stating calmly ‘I will never apologise for hitting you, for no one stops me from rescuing my wife, but I will thank you for bringing the boat’. Oh Gods it was priceless!” Sophia said laughing as my mouth dropped open.

“What did Draven say to that?” I asked flabbergasted.

“He took a step back and said, ‘Understood.’ Then I raised an eyebrow at him when he walked past me. I will never forget the way he just rubbed his sore jaw and said, ‘What? Would you take him, ‘cause I fucking wouldn’t!’ I think I saw Vincent near wet himself he was laughing that hard.” Sophia told us making us all laugh as this time I could just picture it for myself.

“Trust us all to be locked up in a hopeless situation with a demonic banished megalomaniac, with an army of Romans waiting to destroy a city before taking over the world, and we are laughing about Pip’s husband hitting my husband because he tried to stop his mass carnage and destroying an entire island!” I said near to tears with what I suspected was closer to hysteria than anything else.

“Forget about me, I think you lot need therapy!” Ari said before joining in.

“So I am curious, how did the world react to finding a King Kong attack on a Pacific island?” I asked after the laughter had calmed down.

“Oh now that’s the genius part. See lucky for us the King knows high powered people in high powered places and considering things were still a bit testy with the US and Soviet Union in the early sixties, good old President John F. Kennedy was only too happy to help Dom out and drop a few ‘test bombs’ in the area. Am I right in saying he even named it ‘Operation Dominic’?” she asked Sophia and I briefly heard her agree, however, I was still stuck on Draven asking the US President for a favour. And something as major as dropping a nuclear weapon on an island to cover up Adam’s raging murder shit storm no less.

“You guys tell the best stories,” Ari said and I had to agree with her there. 

“Now if we could just figure out a way of making this a great escape story then we would have a real doozy to tell our grandkids one day,” I replied and Pip sounded like she was choking,

“Seriously, did she just say the word doozy?!”

“What?” I asked.

“I am nearly nine hundred years old and even I don’t say doozy!” Pip said laughing at me and I was surprised because I didn’t know how old Pip was. Wow, nearly nine hundred years of causing trouble! I was surprised the world had survived her this long, I thought on a grin.

“Oh yeah, and I am getting stick from the girl who has called me every form of Toots since she met me!” I said making Ari giggle.

“Yeah but they’re almost always sweet versions of it,” she argued making me shrug my shoulders… mind you not that anyone could see me. Each of the cells were all on different levels with a slim cut staircase that interweaved in between each one and with us all being on the same side there was no way of seeing the one next to you.

“Good point. So any ideas about how to bust out of this joint?” I asked and after there was nothing but silence I couldn’t help but say,

“Wow, that many.”

“Well these symbols mean we can’t touch them, so woman kick ass brute strength won’t cut it this time,” Pip answered and Sophia agreed,

“She’s right, we would kind of just melt to the bone.”

“And that’s never pretty to watch,” Pip added.

“Ssshh, someone’s coming!”
Ari hissed and she was right, from the sound of the footsteps above someone was coming, who though was yet to be seen.

“Which one did Master want?” I heard one of the voices snarl, which quickly told us all we were dealing with more than one.

“He wanted to play with the human bitch before she dies, the rest he wanted their heads mounting on pikes ready for the battle.”

“Well I have to admit, that doesn’t sound like much fun,” Pip commented dryly and I couldn’t tell if she just wasn’t taking this new threat seriously or whether she just knew that she wouldn’t be going down without a fight.

“Well, it’s been nice knowing you ladies,” Ari said in a wavering voice that told me how terrified she was but also how brave she was being by standing up to that fear.

“Always,” I agreed.

“It’s not over yet, just be ready to run,” Sophia told us seriously and we heard the demonic laughter of whoever was coming. A sound that grated along my skin like a fork scraping on a china plate.

“Delusions of escape won’t make it so, little girls.” One said in a high pitched sneer.

“Yeah and we will just see how little I am when I am crushing your skull between my thighs!” Pip growled back. I think at that point I would have high fived her if I could, as if I was going to die right now then I couldn’t imagine doing it any other way than standing tall with the girls I loved. I got to my feet, ready to take on the unknown enemy, as I refused to go down without a fight or still sit on my ass for that matter. 

“I love you girls.” I told them just before the first of the horrors stepped in front of my cell.