Outside Hell

by Milo Spires

  The six feet tall heavily clad soldiers wearing bulletproof vests and body armor, didn’t wait around either. They’d instantly charged forwards in the waist deep snow, throwing modified CS gas into the shack. The military steel canisters had rolled and then bounced a couple of turns with a loud hissing noise, whilst pumping out clouds of white noxious gases that filled the shacks lower level.

  The chopper pilots could faintly see in the ruined shack about forty feet in front of them, the silhouettes of vampire women in bikini’s that were struggling to stand. The potent MX1 chemical that they’d shot them with and as it was being sucked through their veins, was consuming them and sending them to sleep.

  The scientists had previously formulated darts with a milder version of the chemical inside, but when news had got back of two vampire security guards at the Palace de Versailles in Paris having resisted them, they’d changed things. Now they weren’t taking any chances and the choppers bullets apart from being re engineered and exploding a second after impact, they were also hollowed out and filled with a more potent version of the drug too. Sixteen soldiers had arrived on the desolate mountainside, and all of them were wearing facemasks that covered their eyes and also came down past their chin. Inside and behind the outer casing that was molded to look like three upside down letters V’s, they had an air filtration system that gave them clean air to breath.

  Then as soon as the vampire women had dropped to the floor, the soldiers with their cool looking masks pointed their laser beams into the shack, and cautiously advanced up towards the building with their eyes scanning everywhere. Then as they’d swirled their bright red laser beams around through the noxious gas, they’d looked like they were Darth Vader’s with light sabers searching out Luke Skywalker from a star wars movie.

  Chapter 14 – Mayhem

  Dracus was standing eighty floors down underneath the Tower of London, deep down in the pits of the earth, where the sounds of hell’s fires could be heard as they’d fought against the cooling sensations of humanities rainwaters from above. He’d entered the torture chamber and was surrounded by hundreds of vampires in their caves and the two coven leaders who were dressed in their sacrificial red robes. They’d summoned him to discuss the crime of a couple of days previously, where he’d shot their creator with four of his cursed arrows.

  Dracus had been completely aware over the years of being a coven member that even he wasn’t immune to the outer reaches of Rex’s evil wrath. It was also obvious to him that there wouldn’t be a deferred sentence for him this day. No warning with a financial penalty and an address on the back to send his payment to, or even a community service that he could maybe clean the torture chambers for a thousand years to say sorry. It was one punishment for his crime of shooting Satan, and that punishment was DEATH.

  Then as he’d walked in to the chamber through the archaic old stone doorway that Lucious was standing by, and as he’d seen the ardent flames of the burning torches and the leaders to his right dressed in their red sacrificial robes, the sight had instantly confirmed his suspicions and because of it he’d laughed inwardly. OK there hadn’t been a soft and cuddly lamb laying there in the cavernous room whilst crying out with its last few breaths of life after having its throat slit by Rex’s blade, but then there didn’t there need to be? Anyone would have had to have been outright stupid not to have seen by their costumes that they were planning a sacrificial death. They were obviously planning a deathly offering to Satan, and he was going to be their lamb.

  The reason that Dracus had taken himself there wasn’t to succumb to their ignominious slaying, but instead to do the slaying. He wasn’t a fool and had welcomed their attempt to try and pass the death sentence on him, with a mischievously cheeky grin. He was also aware that whilst they were thinking that he’d be trying to flee with his life, they’d leave themselves open for his cunning attack. Then at that moment he would reach down for his secret weapon and after using it, mayhem would ensue.

  Now though as Dracus was standing underneath Rex, the old crone had had a terrible coughing fit. Then as a moment had past and as his coughing had stopped, suddenly he’d launched his second missile of black phlegm up into the air. Only this time as it had left his rotting lips and taken various grim shapes, it had missed again and splatted down inches from the bowman’s feet. Dracus hadn’t moved though and the very fact that he hadn’t and that still Rex had missed his target had infuriated the evil leader. Then as he’d walked around on his ledge and glared down at the bowman with a past stern expression upon his face, the anger within him had suddenly metastasized and threatened to consume him.

  Meanwhile the two hundred or so vampires that were scattered around the cavernous room in their caves, and the same evil fuckers who’d up to this point remained quiet fearing a deathly punishment, suddenly burst out into a furious rage. They were banging their chests together and snarling in each other’s faces, whilst also screaming their demands for him to be killed.

  Only Rex who’d appreciated their loyalty, held his bony hand up with his long black nails that were slightly protruding from his red sleeve to silence them.

  The vampires with their eyes darker than the darkness itself snarled and then as they closed their mouths, they’d leered out of their caves at the bowman for insulting their leader with his grin.

  It was clear to all who were watching that Dracus would die for his insult; only they weren’t sure how his end would come. Would Rex leap down and challenge him personally with his silver dagger, or would he simply order his Elite warriors to kill him instead? The vampires in their caves honestly didn’t know, but then most of them didn’t have the minds to be able to deliberate over such a thought either. All they knew was for hundreds of years Dracus the bowman had been level with Vius the leader of The Elite warriors, but only in a military capacity and not to oversee the covens operations. He was also Rex’s number one and mostly away on dangerous missions like some kind of secret agent or something. They’d never seen him fight as they had with Vius, but were aware from stories that he was a sorcerer with deadly archery skills too. They did know though that as the night changed into day and when the moon slipped away from the shade of the gathering clouds, that the bowman would be dead. He’d have succumbed to their leaders wrath, and by nightfall he’d be in pieces rotting in the dungeons chopping rooms below.

  Rex killed almost everyone that was ever brought before him, and took great joy in all forms of torture. The only vampire that they’d ever seen challenge Rex and publicly threaten him was Kaine, but then they all knew the reason why Rex hadn’t ordered his death too. Kaine apart from being a deadly warrior was also the savior of the coven throughout the war against the heinous beasts that howled at the site of the moon. He’d risked his life on numerous occasions for them, and Rex owed him big time for that too.

  *****

  As Dracus stood beneath Rex twisting his feet in the dirt, he’d allowed his eyes to glance across at the closed doorway that he’d come in through earlier.

  Rex saw his glance and then said, “You won’t be leaving here, your magic doesn’t work in the coven as you know, and Lucious has been ordered to keep that door locked, so there’s no escape.” Then as he’d finished saying it and as a moment of silence happened that felt as if it would last an eternity, and the atmosphere became so tense that you could almost cut it with a knife, Rex spoke again.

  “You have done the unspeakable and shot our creator in the neck as he was trying to capture Kaine and Regina in the Palace de Versailles, and because of your actions that tyrant the angel Abdiel had nearly caught him. If he’d been successful then Heaven would have thrown him into the bottomless pit for all eternity.”

  Then another moment of tension happened without anyone saying anything and Rex blasted out, “Do you realize the severity of your actions?”

  Dracus sensing the moment was soon to be upon him then looked up and stared deep into Rex’s red hood, allowing his eyes to burrow deep into the evil bas
tards being and then said, “Satan’s an ugly fucker and you aren’t any different, you make me sick just looking at your rotting face.”

  In response to his comment Rex nearly swallowed his own rotting black tongue, and the crowds of vicious vampires went absolutely fucking crazy. They were banging their chests together and screaming for him to be killed.

  Rex responded to their request instantaneously by screaming, “Elite warriors, Loicheonk and Marchilla, kill him.”

  Dracus then bowed to Rex in a ridiculing fashion as he’d prepared for the onslaught that ensued.

  The bowman graciously took a few paces backwards and then grinned. His stance as he’d left one leg trailing the other and his face tilted whilst looking down at the soil beneath him, was like that of a bull fighter from Spain.

  A moment past and then there was a rock grating against rock sound coupled with another huge uproar from the crowds. Dracus looked forwards and from beneath Rex a secret door then slid back in the rock wall. As it did and from the pitch black hole that was revealed from behind it, four huge warriors stepped out that he knew. All of them had faces that were twisted cruelly into snarling masks of hate.

  In response to their size that dwarfed him, Dracus grinned.

  The first warrior to step through had been Vius from the Elite Warriors with his one eye. He’d lost the other one in strange circumstances when Rex had been in Paris at a friend’s palace drinking wine, and he’d ordered his warriors to wait outside the walls of the palace.

  Later that evening there’d been an assassination attempt and his friend who’d been paid a lot of cash had turned on him. Only Vius with his concerns from the very start for his master’s safety had ignored Rex’s rules to wait outside the palace walls, and because of it he’d been lucky enough to bare witness to the whole thing as it had unfurled before him. He’d saved Rex’s miserable existence, and then when one would expect something like the Victoria Cross for his bravery or Rex simply offering his gratitude for his heroic act, instead the evil bastard had decided to go the opposite way and punish him. The punishment that he’d given him for ignoring his rules to wait outside the palace walls was to have one of his eyes cut out. The sick twisted fucker had cut Vius eye out, and then for deranged memorabilia purposes or whatever you want to call it, he’d kept the thing rolling around in the pocket of his brown robe for many years afterwards too.

  The second warrior to walk out from underneath Rex was Mietioc. He was kinda like the younger brother to Vius, and apart from being second in command in the Elite warriors; he was also just as equally skilled in swordsmanship and handing out vouchers for a one-way ticket into hell too. Then bringing up the rear was Hoidrious’ two bodyguards, Loicheonk and Marchilla who’d preferred the idea of slicing the limbs of their victims first, and then whilst they’d suffered extreme pain and had a new look something like a skittle in a bowling ring, they’d laugh down at them, taunting them, and then urinating over them before finally death by slowly chopping off their heads.

  All of these warriors were around seven feet tall with huge muscles, towering frames and broad shoulders. Then to make them this massive one might have thought that Satan had use steroids in these boys, only they’d be wrong because in his twisted mind he’d just designed them this way.

  Dress wise they were all wearing the same leather body armor. It was on their legs, across their backs, and down their sides. Then across their chests they’d breastplates of steel, and down their arms the leather was thicker and bonded heavily to the leather underneath forming a flexible, but effective defense against sword swipes.

  In each of their hands they’d wielded huge gleaming broadswords that looked like they were forged and crafted fit for kings. The handles were dark leather with large shiny pommels at the end, and huge guards in front of their fingers lending their overall shape to that of a cross. These weapons apart from seeing many battles and experiencing rivers blood passing over the savage bite of their lethal blades; were imbued with the clear and obvious sense of death. Then as the four warriors stormed towards him with their brows furrowed and teeth firmly gritted, their heavy strides dislodged the dust beneath them, sending it spiraling into the air.

  Then when they’d got to about twenty feet away from him, rather than continuing straight they’d fanned out and tried circling him. Vius and Mietioc went left, and the other two meatheads swung right. All four of them were now grinning at him whilst dangling their massive broadswords in their right hands that were so long, the tips were scraping in the dirt beneath them.

  Dracus was ready for the fight but was also very much aware that if one of his moves was a millimeter out of place, then it might be his last fight. Only to enrage Satan enough to be ultimately sure that he’d follow him back to the Valstrath realm, he’d no choice but to follow through with it. The prince of Eldor only hoped that he’d still got his head by the end of it too.

  Then as the four meat heads approached him, he’d slid his hand behind himself for his weapon, only as his fingers had skimmed the surface of his bow, and like a phone embarrassingly going off in the cinema or something, he’d felt in his mind what he’d thought was Regina’s Scareb bracelet calling to him. Then in response to it he’d paused and to be sure that it was her bracelet, he’d quickly slipped his fingers up from his right hand and touched his temple. Only as he did something strange happened, his mind was flooded and deeply washed in hundreds of images that were coming back at him. Aware though that the Elite warriors were almost upon him, and that they’d relish in him being incapacitated making him an easy kill, he’d desperately tried to clear his mind only he was unable to stop it from clouding over. His conscious thoughts were sucked into a viewing room somewhere deep within the subterranean grey matter of his mind, and everything around him was blocked out. The images that he was looking at showed an old wooden floor, a bar table and something like four or five pairs of legs that had snow on their boots whilst walking around a shapely body that was laying in a pool of thick crimson blood. He couldn’t see the head but knew that it was Regina, because he could see her tapered milky thighs and badass ass boots that he’d recognized from Paris.

  The whole pictures watching thing for him even though it had felt like an eternity in his mind, had actually only lasted second, but it was still too long in the situation that the bowman was in. The warriors saw his back arch and his eyes suddenly roll back into his head and then as his body had started to shake suggesting that he was under some kind of dream or something, they’d charged.

  Dracus’ predatory hunting skills from his other world had taught his subconscious mind a few things over the years. One of them being never to let go of reality completely and his senses hadn’t.

  As the warriors had charged suddenly the picture show in his mind was halted, paused as if the cinema had been rudely closed for the day. Then as his vision had come back online, Dracus with the speed of lightening had reacted; only his move was a millimeter out of place.

  The bowman had tried to dive down to his left, dropping below a lethal strike but the tip of Vius’ sword had found contact and sliced deeply across his right shoulder, finding vulnerable tissue and bone. The wound was savagely painful but it wasn’t life threatening, only had it been a few millimeters higher and like a lump of firewood under a deafening blow from an axe, it might have split his head cleanly in two.

  The blade as it was doing its wet work sliced through the strap that was going over his shoulder and down to his quiver. Then as it’d fallen down lifelessly from his side and crashed into the dirt beneath him, the cursed arrows had leapt out in a fanned position across the floor.

  Dracus winced from the agonizing pain as he’d brought himself around, and then whilst coiling into a defensive stance and ducking his head from Mietioc’s first attack, he’d rolled to his side over the cursed arrows and flung his concealed red handled throwing knife straight up into Rex’s chest.

  The evil leader had been grinning down at him with Hoidrious his s
econd in command. They were discussing a wager and from the crowds that were close to them, the two leaders were taking bets on how long Dracus would last. Only when the knife had embedded itself, it had all happened so fast and for a millisecond all Rex had been aware of was a thump in his chest. The evil fucker hadn’t actually seen the weapon take flight, and was completely unaware that his existence was about to be over in this world too.

  Then as the pure silver had done its work, Rex’s eyes had rolled backwards in his head and his mind as he was preparing for his journey back into hell, was consumed in a tunnel of flames.

  Dracus had been right, they’d been so sure that he was going to be killed by the four warriors that even his own guards had taken their eyes off protecting their leader. Finally after hundreds of bitter years working for the evil tyrant who’d be deeply paranoid throughout all that time of assassination attempts on his miserable existence, he’d let his guard down and was dead because of it. Rex had felt safe and just like most assassinations; he’d not been expecting his own death coming at all.