The Dark Messenger (25 page)

Rex suddenly realized what he had just said:
if he killed himself stepping off the raft, he would instantly
appear in front of Lucifer and be off the raft too.

Walking to the edge of the raft, Raffious saw
him though and figured out exactly what he was up too. Using his
magic, he made a cage appear around him. Rex was trapped inside it,
and there was no way for him to commit suicide.

‘Hope you like the new cage--wouldn’t want
you to go killing yourself now, would we?’ Raffious chuckled.

Rex screeched in
frustration, furious with himself.
I
really must be stupid,
I just told him my
fucking plan. he thought to himself. Then he turned his hooded head
and gazed across at Longinus. The vampire even though he was still
mighty ill inside, was taken back by just how stupid Rex was too.
Longinus stood there on the banks of the reservoir shaking his head
in disbelief.

Rex’s face suddenly contorted into an evil
grin. He called over to Raffious, ‘So you are clever, are you? Well
you weren’t when I slept with your woman before killing her, were
you. Where was your cleverness then?’

He laughed at Raffious’ agonized look. Then
he arched his body back and launched black phlegm as hard as he
could in the old boys direction. It fell short though and landed in
the water.

Longinus needed air. His body was again
starting to feel strange inside. It was then he realized that
obviously this was why vampires didn't time-travel forwards. He had
only jumped back a few years at a time for Angus and Rex. He was
far too scared to commit to longer, knowing that without jumping
forwards, he would always have to wait in that time zone until time
slowly returned him to his original time at its normal pace.

‘I am going for a walk, I feel quite ill,’ he
said to Raffious as he started walking away rapidly, thinking he
was going to throw up.

Raffious burst out laughing. ‘Vampires are
weak. Lucifer made weak creatures from those who should have rotted
in hell for killing my woman,’ he said as he turned and then stared
at Rex.

Longinus overheard what Raffious had just
said and began to wonder if he must have thought he wouldn’t have
heard him. Otherwise he felt sure that he would never have said
it.

Or would he?

So he thinks we are stupid,
does he? Well, we will see about that
, he
thought.
He obviously has a lot of hatred
towards us vampires.
He wondered then how
he and Raffious were even working together.

A deeply harrowing thought then crossed his
mind as he remembered that soon they would have to jump forwards
again, back to Rex’s coven. He really wasn’t ready inside at all
for anymore time travel; he actually thought this time it might
kill him. Now he was sure, very sure, that he had changed his mind
about the time travel deal that Raffious had promised him. He
didn’t want it if it made him feel this bad.

It suddenly dawned on him that Raffious
wasn’t to be trusted. Hearing his last comment about vampires,
Longinus had a strong feeling, a preminition that Raffious was
going to fuck him over on their deal. He now as he thought more
into it, felt absolutely sure that he would kill him, just as soon
as he got the other piece of the vase for him.

Was he himself that third vampire maybe that
was sent for the interview? He wondered about that, and then
started thinking. If he was, there was no way Raffious would have
known if Rex wouldn’t have just killed him. He’d heard what
Raffious had said moments before, about the others he had sent for
interviews having being killed.

‘That bastard!’
he thought, realizing that Raffious had tricked
him from the very start, giving him his chant and saying that he
would protect him.
He only wanted one
thing—that fucking vase!

Thinking even more into it, he began to
wonder: Why was the vase so important to him anyway? He had gone to
so much trouble to get it. Longinus decided that he wanted to find
out more about what he was up to before he did anything else for
him.

Maybe I should try to steal the vase off him
somehow. Raffious can keep his time travel rubbish. Maybe the vase
is much more powerful.

Longinus knew that it dated
back to Christ and would always be filled with magical healing
water.
But what could the old fool
possibly want with it? Could he maybe know someone who was sick and
needed help? Possibly someone who was badly injured, and that he
wanted to end their suffering with it?
Longinus then laughed to himself. How stupid to think
Raffious wanted it for any of those reasons. The man was clearly a
dark messenger now; he wouldn’t want to do good with it. So what
was the reason?

Then walking back over towards the old boy,
he saw Rex holding the bars of his new cage and arguing his best
with him.

He looks so angry, and
rightly so,
trapped on that bloody old
raft. I would be mad too if it were me. He did deserve it though,
undisputedly
. Longinus thought as a
telepathic message surprised him as it was coming in.

Then he realized who was sending it, it was
Rex.

‘Do you know that Raffious just said to me
why he wants the vase? Probably not, since you were busy spewing
your guts up.’

Wanting to ignore him and just leave this
place, Longinus thought he would tell Raffious that he was feeling
better inside now and was ready to go. He stopped himself though,
realizing that he did want to know more about what Raffious’s plans
were, and maybe this was the only chance he would ever truthfully
get to find out too. He appreciated that if he asked the old boy
himself that he would lie to him, so then who else would there be
to ask?

‘What is his plan then?’

‘Raffious plans to wipe vampires off the face
of the earth by traveling back to when we were created by Lucifer.
Using the vase, he would then infect our waters so when we drink
it, we would be healed of the vampirism curse, and all vampires in
the future will never exist too--including you.’

Not wishing to be tricked, as he was very
tired of the double dealings that he had been involved in for some
time now, Longinus asked, ‘Can you prove this?’ making sure he
didn’t look across at Rex. Longinus had this new horrible feeling
inside though, that what he had just been told was undeniably true.
It had to be, now everything made perfect sense.

‘We are leaving! Come here!’ Raffious said,
startling him.

For a brief, deeply panicked moment, when
Longinus had heard his voice, he thought that the old boy just
heard their messages and could in fact read telepathic thoughts.
Feeling quite on edge now as if he had just been caught with his
fingers in the sweet jar, he knew that he had to finish the
messaging quickly. If he didn’t, he would most likely get
caught.

Rex suddenly messaged him again.

‘I was the leader of the Roman cohort that
crucified Christ. I led a legion, sixty-strong. I killed the whore
that Raffious thought was his woman. She was paid and instructed by
Satan through me to get close to Christ. When she threatened to
tell everyone about the pact we had with the prince of darkness, he
ordered us to kill her. I remember it well, I even burnt her eyes
out with an extremely hot poker. She truly did die an agonizingly
painful death. First kill for my dagger too.’ He grinned at the
thought.

‘Then as our souls were drifting around the
empty planes of time, Lucifer who was so pleased with us for
killing God’s only son, then gave us life again. He made us into
vampires to walk the earth, and never to die. It must have messed
with Raffious’s brain that we were never severely punished for
killing his woman. From his obvious time-shifting skills, I guess
that he was connected to Heaven at some time. However, I’m also
pretty sure that Heaven would never have condoned his actions, so
he must have run from them and is now in their eyes the dark
messenger.’

‘I guess all these years he
has never forgotten me. He wants revenge and obviously can’t find
the other Romans involved in her killing either. I know where they
are, but I won’t ever tell him. I will never say! He has decided to
rid the planet of all of us to be sure that he kills every one. Now
do you believe me, you
fool
?’

Longinus had actually believed it before,
just he wanted to hear the story in full. Obviously there was a
massive underlying reason why Raffious thought vampires were
stupid, and now he knew.

Having just registered that
Rex had just called him
a
fool
, he reacted violently. ‘I could tell
him what you just told me, and you will stay here forever. Dare to
call me a fool again and I will!’ he messaged.

‘Then you are a true fool, because if he
knows you are aware of his plans, he will kill you for sure after
you get the vase. There’s always that possibility that he won’t,
but I'm sure he will. Probably outside my coven as you hand it
over. Obviously if you ask him, he will say he won't, but you know
he will.’

Longinus couldn’t disagree with that either.
He knew he had been duped, he knew it very well.

And yes, I am a
fool,
he thought to himself. He had made
so many things far worse in his life since leaving the Scots. Rex
would probably be after him if he escaped his prison on the raft,
and Raffious might also chase after him for revenge too.

‘Damn!’ he cursed to himself, thinking his
life would have been so much better if he had just left the Scots
and had never met Raffious at all. If he had it would have meant
that he would have had only one coven chasing after him, and he
might have been able to escape them. But having two covens after
him, as well as Raffious, was insane.

Thinking more into it, he suddenly realized
that he had only two choices. One of them was to go with Raffious
and then try escaping from him, hoping that he never got found. He
unfortunately knew though, that if Rex’s theory about the vase was
right, he wouldn’t be chased for long at all. As soon as Raffious
leapt back in time 2000 years with the vase, he would pour its
water into the first vampires drinking water, and then he himself
would cease to exist too.

And the second choice he
had was to maybe somehow stop Raffious from getting the last piece
of the vase.
The only problem
being,
he thought,
is how the hell am I supposed to do that?

There was yet another problem he had
forgotten. When he walked back into the London coven, they would
probably kill him. They had to, because they would suspect that he
had something to do with either Rex vanishing or had run from Vius
and his warriors. They saw him jump back in time from the coven to
go on the mission, and they all know there’s no way vampires can
jump forwards in time. In their eyes they would see him as a
traitor for sure.

Then he had another thought that seemed
hopeful: maybe Vius, had scratched a message into the tree, telling
them that he had killed Rex on the hillsides of Brighton. Only then
he remembered that Raffious had bloody reappeared as himself before
he had leapt away, so no that wouldn’t happen, either. Vius knew he
had been tricked.

Then the most shocking thought passed his
brain: if they left a message for Rex on the tree not to go to the
reservoir at all, then maybe he never gets caught by Raffious, and
then maybe Rex is waiting for him in the coven when he arrives. If
he is then Rex wouldn’t know anything about him coming there to
save him and would kill him for sure!

Then he realized that he knew that never
happened because Rex was still sitting on the raft behind him.

Damn he cursed as he thought about how
confusing time travel gets.

Another option could be to help Rex though,
and then hope that he didn’t kill him. Longinus wasn’t fond of this
idea though; how could he trust him when he even killed his own
vampires for being a minute late?

Then he thought about how Vius had one eye
and that Rex had cut the other one out in Paris even though he had
saved his life. How could he possible be thinking he should trust
him, he thought.

Of the two plans though,
something was telling him to take his chances with Rex, and he
hoped to hell that he wasn’t making
another
grave mistake in doing so,
like all the other decisions he had seemed to fuck up recently.
Longinus hated Raffious and knew that it was far too risky to try
escaping him. Longinus felt sure that the devious bastard would get
the vase eventually, if not with his help then by some other means.
To stay with that old bearded fool anymore was clearly signing his
own extinction, no he had no choice in the matter, he had to trust
Rex.

Suddenly Raffious screamed out at him that
they were leaving, and stood there with his hands on his waist. He
looked severely pissed off that he was having to wait for him.