The Dark Messenger (22 page)

‘BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP
BEEP’

Regina’s IPad started making a loud beeping
noise, and the screen suddenly lit up with a message across it
saying MULTIPLE INTRUDERS DETECTED.

Kaine knew exactly what that meant because he
had wired up the home security system. ‘Regina, stop Jenny from
opening the doors!’ he screamed as he leapt up sending his chair
sprawling across the room. Spinning around he grabbed the iPad.

Regina picking up on his mind waves even
before the vocals were heard, flew out of the room with lightning
speed. Seconds later she was already two levels below, and just
turning in to the garage. Kaine clicked his fingers at the dogs who
chased down the stairs after their mum.

The noise they were making as they flew
across the lounge was the kind that sent fear straight through you.
They were up for defending their family and whatever was outside
that spooked them, by the sounds, they were sure going to fucking
kill it, painfully.

A sudden suspicion made him turn to Raffious.
Considering everything that had just been discussed…

‘What’s happening, Raffious?’ Kaine shouted.
‘Who's outside?’

‘I am sorry,’ Raffious replied calmly, ‘but
as I said to you both many years ago, I cannot warn you of the
future. You always said you would understand.’ He picked up his
napkin and serenely wiped at his beard, where gravy had just spilt
down on it.

‘This is different! It’s my home! You can
happily sit there eating my food and then allow us to be attacked?’
Kaine roared. He mashed his clenched fists down so hard on the
solid oak table that he put a huge crack in it.

He was furious; immense rage flowed through
him as his wild fangs forced themselves down guided by his anger
and his muscles tensed.

Shoving his face into Raffious’ he screamed,
‘If any of us die today, I promise you old boy, I will kill you for
this but not in a quick way either, do you understand my
meaning!’

Raffious suddenly felt that he was being
called. Someone had actioned his archaic spell as they had spoken
the words to it. The spell was summoning him.

He smiled to himself as he realized who it
might be.

‘I am sorry. I truly am, but I am being
called by someone and I must leave,’ he said as he then stood up.
Unperturbed, he turned to look across at Becky before saying, ‘It
was nice to meet you, Becky.’

Kaine furrowed his brow as
he considered sticking a dinner knife through the old boys head
right there and then. ‘
Fucking leaving, no
you aren’t you slithering little toad.
’ he
thought as he reached for the knife.

Becky was far to busy with the raw meat,
cramming it down her throat and refused to look up at him for even
a second. She did vaguely wonder though, if maybe his blood might
taste good as she ripped his throat out.

As Kaine turned around with the shimmering
steel blade, Raffious knew it was his call to leave and suddenly
vanished. Leaving Kaine thrusting the thing into thin air.

‘Bastard.
’ he thought.
‘
I nearly had him too.
’

Dropping the knife he spun
around and looked at the iPad screen again. There was something
like a hundred vampires outside, circling around by their garage
entrance and none up by their traps room.
Strange,
he thought,
why just the garage?

Quickly he messaged Regina
to ask if the emergency exit was shut and if she was ok. She said
she was fine and that she had luckily just got there in time as
Jenny had her hand on the door handle. Then she added,
‘
They were both coming back upstairs
now.’

Kaine and Becky both looked at each other
with their fangs down, and rage booming through their veins. He
told her that Regina wouldn’t want her fighting yet, but that after
he had seen what she did to the skinhead in the hospital, that he
thought she should go down with him to the garage and he would
educate her on just how its done.

In response a wide smile ripped across her
face and then she craned her neck back and roared.

‘Good that’s settles it then.’ he said, as
they both moments later charged down the stairs.

Outside Kaine and Regina’s house, Longinus
had just returned from meeting with Rex’s Elite Warriors from the
future. They had met at the old tree where he had been carving
messages for them in their year, 2099, and had followed him to the
house. Vius, the leader of the Elite Warriors, had already been
told where the entrance was by Longinus, and had ordered his men to
go down to the garage door and attack.

Reaching the door full of bitter rage for
their fallen leader Rex, they tore into it with their usual brute
force only to find it never succumbed, instead as it was reinforced
by Kaine to stop vampires, it stood fast. He had been assiduous to
detail when he had constructed it and even laced the outside with
silver spikes, before painting them dark green for camouflage.

Whilst they were attacking it, Longinus stood
back on the grassy Devils Dyke hillside, surrounded by warriors who
were waiting their turn to have a go at the door too. Longinus had
deep reservations about whether he wanted them to break it in or
not, considering since he had met them there was a strange mood in
the air. He thought he could feel a kind of tension coming from
them, but wondered if maybe he was just on edge and imagining
it.

They are my own
coven,
he told himself.
Don’t be stupid--why would they have bitter
harbored feelings towards me?

He knew the reason though, however much he
wanted to pretend it wasn’t there. The reason was because he hadn’t
succeeded with the mission and had had to ask for help. When he had
chiseled the help message into the tree, he had been fully aware it
would come with a high price—his life. He also knew that Rex had
clearly told him that if he needed help he should ask for it, which
was why he was thinking maybe they wont punish me with death. When
he had left the message though he had absolutely no choice, because
he couldn’t complete the mission alone. Basically he was buggered
either way he had looked at the situation.

A warrior he knew well then walked over to
him and asked if he knew that Rex had been killed.

Longinus turned to the vampire who had just
said it.

It was Voitek, with his battle-scarred looks,
a captain of the Elite Warriors under Vius. His face had been
seriously disfigured from many previous battles, where he had
proven his loyalty towards their leader. His left ear was badly
chewed up, as if he had grappled with an enemy and had had his ear
munched upon. His left cheekbone had been dented in too, as if he
had looked up at the wrong moment and was then hit in the face with
a flat object, maybe a rock or a club possibly.

‘What did you just say?’ Longinus asked,
pretending that he hadn’t quite heard properly.

‘Rex was killed, or at least he vanished, and
we haven’t seen him for days since he went to meet the priest,’
Voitek said.

‘What? Rex, our master?’ Longinus said,
trying to look shocked.

‘Yes you fucking idiot, who
bloody else?
We never saw a priest, and considering the
Scots
valorousness
and temerity to have
broken the age-old-rule of recent, we think it was Angus who killed
him. We were all watching from the shoreline and
Rex fell off the raft he was on into the blessed waters of
the reservoir before a moment later, he vanished beneath the
surface.’

‘You didn’t see him die, though,’ Longinus
said, immediately wishing he hadn’t opened his mouth because Voitek
was now looking seriously angry with him. So much so, that the dark
veins on the side of his head were beginning to pulsate as he
spoke.

‘What are you saying?’ Voitek growled, his
face darkening. He had turned and was beginning to front up to
Longinus, and at the same time he was slowing tightening his
fingers around his sword.

‘Nothing. Honestly. I was just asking.
Really. Sorry, I was hoping our master wasn’t dead and might come
back, that’s all.’ He said hoping to placate his obvious anger.

Voitek nodded and then slowly opened his
fingers, releasing his grip on his sword.

‘What about our master’s plan to infect the
world with werewolves though?’ Longinus asked.

‘Yes, Mietioc’s warriors are on their way by
train up to Scotland with the infected to make the Scottish
bastards pay for breaking the rule and killing Rex. They left just
before we did. Now shut up asking questions or you may annoy
me!’

Hearing that, Longinus immediately stepped
back a few paces, hoping that he was out of sword-swipe distance
from him if he took a swing. Turning around, he glanced back down
to check on the warriors’ progress breaking through Kaine’s door.
Regretfully from where he was standing, it looked like in a few
moments they might actually be through. All of the outer casing had
now been ripped off and thrown to one side, and they were inside
the door, pulling apart the locking mechanism.

Longinus suddenly found himself worrying
again about whether or not they would kill him, only this time the
feelings were far worse. He tried desperately to think of something
else but couldn’t stop the thoughts. Then because of how nervous he
was, he nearly found himself asking another stupid question, but
luckily bit back on the words just in time.

Then a few moments later as the fear begun to
spread exponentially throughout him, he realized he was so anxious
inside that he couldn’t wait around any longer, he had to leave, he
had to escape this place just incase they did kill him.

‘I have to do something anyway. I will be
back later. Can you tell Vius I left?’

‘You are NOT going anywhere, you fool! How
dare you say something like that to me--and in battle too,’ Voitek
said as he drew out his sword and prepared to strike.

‘Kill him! Kill him! Rex said to kill
him--those were our orders!’ a warrior shouted to corroborate
Longinus’ beliefs entirely that he was on deaths door.

‘Go ask Vius first,’ another warrior called
out, ‘and if he doesn’t kill you, which would surprise me, then
maybe he will just cut your legs off, just for the insolence of
saying such a thing.’ He started laughing. ‘Let’s go with you and
ask him. Better still, I will message him for you.’

‘Voitek, let’s kill him anyway,’ someone else
said.

Voitek turned round to them and said, ‘I am
your Captain, and I will have you all very much remember that. I
make the orders, so all of you shut the fuck up, will you?’ He
glared at all of them, a meaningful vicious expression. ‘No one
messages Vius. That’s my job, and if anyone does, I will kill them
for it.’

Longinus suddenly had a plan. Straightaway he
dropped to his knees in front of Voitek. ‘There's a way. I'm sure
it will work, and I just thought of it--a way to get Rex our leader
back. That is, if that is what you want?’ he said.

Voitek suddenly had a look of extreme
confusion pass across his face. ‘You? What…how? If you are lying, I
will…’ and he brought the tip of his sword up underneath Longinus’
neck. It sank just millimeters into his flesh as the tip
disappeared beneath his skin. The swords perfect shine was tainted
suddenly with his blood, as it slowly trickled down the length of
the blade.

Longinus’ normal reaction would have been to
grab the blade and push it away from himself as he thrust himself
backwards, and then attacked. Only against Voitek however, such an
action would have been madness. It would probably have meant his
instant death. Then if by some miraculous chance he had managed to
stay alive battling the battle-scarred captain, the others would
have attacked him from behind. No he was severely outnumbered and
had no choice but to resist the temptation as he showed sincerity
about what he had just said.

Voitek had his own
suspicions about Longinus though, which were due to the fact that
he had left the Scottish coven recently and had joined his. He
himself had never wanted to leave Rex’s coven, and had wondered on
more than one occasion what the true reasons were behind Longinus
wanting to leave the Scots. He remembered asking him directly some
time ago, along with Mietioc, and his answer was that Angus was
pathetic and weak. That answer was sufficient at the time; he and
Mietioc had accepted those reasons after a fashion. Only when Rex
had vanished and the blame was undeniably put against the Scot
having deep involvement, many of the coven had reminded themselves
about Longinus being a Scot too. Immediately negative vibes had
spread through the ranks about him. Vampires had even been heard
quoting that,
if he were ever seen again,
his head and one of their blades would make a perfect
match.

With those memories, Voitek
suddenly had a massive urge pouring through him to slice Longinus’
head off.
Maybe just the very top of it so
he suffered in extreme pain before he died
, he thought.