The Dark Messenger (42 page)

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 been 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.

Mietioc paused as the old boy in the cell
began to shake, and the red anger dissipated as he turned deathly
pale. Smiling cruelly, Mietioc then continued.

He told him that she had come to them and
begged them to find another woman for the role, because she loathed
Raffious in every way. The sheer ordeal of pretending she loved him
had made her vomit on several occasions.

He added that Rex, Hoidrious, Captain Ognian,
Vius and himself had all slept with her and to prove it he then
said that she also had a tattoo of a red rose, high up into her
private area, at the top of her leg. He told him that it was her
greed for more money that had got her killed—and after Christ had
been crucified, she had demanded more money than had been
previously agreed for her role. She had laughed at the four gold
coins offered, and then when she had threatened to tell everyone of
the deed, and that they were all under orders from the prince of
darkness himself, to keep her mouth firmly shut, orders were given
by Satan for her to be gang-raped and violently killed.

Raffious was in tears hearing this, and
although he tried desperately to hold on to the good memories he
had of her, and vehemently told himself that she did love him and
that it was all lies, his mind and the fact Mietioc knew about the
tattoo, told him what he was hearing, might actually be true.

Mietioc finished his good news by saying that
after she was raped, they had each taken out their blades and then
stabbed her, and left her to die in the dirt outside her home in
Jerusalem. And that, in the last few agonizing moments before she
had passed away, Rex had then cut off her lips and using a
roasting-hot poker, he had burnt her out eyes too.

Hoidrious started laughing and stamping his
foot. He walked up to Mietioc and, feeling complacent that he was
now out of harm’s way, then patted the warrior on the back and told
him, ‘Well done! That was a great story, and such a nice ending
too.’

Blame it on the pat on the back, or maybe it
was just that Mietioc’s mind had finally accessed the data it had
been searching for, but something had jerked Mietioc’s memory. Now
the whole story that Angus had told him before his death, plus the
Scot’s verification proving that it had been undeniably true, all
came flashing back to him, and he was furious.

Chapter 35 – The End is Near.

Regina and Becky had just started crawling
along inside an old air vent, with Bruce and Solomon hot on their
trail, whilst Jenny who was having a panic attack, had to decline
the forlorn passageway from hell, and go with Kaine instead.

Kaine being far too big to fit inside the
tunnel himself, and had devised another way out for him and Jenny,
only his way was fraught with danger. It involved going upstairs
fast and leaving through their top exit, which was just past their
traps room—a place full of old Alaskan bear traps.

Leaving that way was extremely dicey though,
considering that there were over seventy vampires outside who now
had an even bigger grudge against him after loosing their Captain
Ognian. Once outside the view down to where the Elite warriors were
digging, was only about one hundred feet or so and Kaine was hoping
they were all inside and wouldn’t see them leave. Only he knew
there was every chance the leader and a few stragglers could be
outside having cheeky a cigarette break. If they were, then it
changed things in a big way, because all Jenny would have to do was
tread on a twig or cough, and then his extremely cunning plan of
escape, would be grossly compromised to say the least.

If that part of the plan
worked, then they would fly the half a mile down to the beach and
after leaving Jenny somewhere safe, he was going to double back
along the base of the hill to link up with his wife and Becky. The
part he wasn’t looking forward too, was having to clamber through
dense blackthorn bushes surreptitiously. He actually doubted the
words,
clamber,
blackthorn
and
surreptitiously
even went together,
as he imagined the pain he was going to experience as he pulled
himself through them.

‘We need to leave
fast
. Jump on my back
Jenny, and put your arms around my neck. Be sure to hold on tight
though,’ Kaine said to her in a gentle but assertive
voice.

Jenny did exactly that,
although she didn’t understand why because she could run quite fast
herself, but as she leapt on and locked her legs around his waist,
he educated her on his meaning
fast.

Going through the rooms was like what a
werewolf might see when it was on the prowl, or as it was darting
through the bushes, chasing down those campers who were never going
home again, or not with the same amount of limbs they came with
anyway.

Kaine spun round the corridors in his house
with lightening speed, and didn’t once crash into anything. The
journey only took 4 seconds, but the memory of it would be with her
for a lifetime. She thought she was auditioning for the next
superwoman movie, and was utterly blown away. Her hair was all over
the place and she was completely lost for words when he stopped. It
was faster than her day out in a sports car around brands hatch
race track, and the G forces were breathtaking, so much so in fact
that if he hadn’t slid his hand behind her, she doubted if she
wouldn’t have just been flung off at the first corner. 5 stars to
that one she had said as she hopped off.

For a moment, she felt quite jealous of the
abilities vampires had, and appreciated just how lucky her best
mate was to now be one of them. Not having to work, no landlords to
moan at you for late rent payments and living forever with the
ability to fly. It seemed almost too surreal a lifestyle to
comprehend. She thought.

Kaine turned and smiled at her. ‘So you
enjoyed that ride, I see.’