by Milo Spires
Laouse paused and then still not recognizing the voice he said, “Yes but if you don’t mind, who are you?”
The feeble voice told him that he was a priest by the name of John and that he was staying with Kaine and Regina. John then asked being cautious not to reveal too much to a complete stranger, who Laouse was. Laouse replied by saying he was a friend of theirs. John feeling that it was safe to say what was worrying him, then said that Kaine had stormed out of the house with Regina looking for revenge against a vampire called Sorchek who’d killed his parents hundreds of years before.
Laouse fully aware of the hunt for Kaine's parents killer that had been fully exhausted over the years with no results, then asked John if he’d any idea where they’d gone.
John told him that when Kaine had received a phone call and the person on the phone had told Kaine about the location of the killer, that Kaine had scribbled down notes but he couldn’t read them himself.
John said that it was written in some archaic language.
Laouse fully aware that John the priest was not a vampire, because Kaine would have written the notes down in their old vampire language, and that’s why he couldn’t read them, told John that he was coming there himself to read the note.
Laouse said that it would take him about eight hours in his chopper to fly there and then said goodbye and abruptly hung up the phone.
Turning around to Claudius, they both looked at each other for a second puzzled.
Laouse had a horrible gut feeling that somehow the happenings of Paris, Satan and now Kaine steaming off looking for revenge, plus there being a priest in his secret home that no one knew about except a select few, that somehow it was all connected.
Claudius who’d overheard that Kaine was looking for revenge suddenly connected the dots with Paris too and then stood up asking if he could accompany Laouse to Kaine and Regina’s house too.
Laouse thought about it for a second, and then owing to the gravity of the situation plus the fact that Claudius was looking for his son, he’d agreed.
Laouse didn’t like the idea of revealing Kaine’s address to anyone, but thought that as it was eight hours flight away, that Claudius wouldn’t know exactly where it was afterwards anyway. Laouse would fly through the clouds and mask the directions there, keeping it a secret from the Bavarian monster too.
*****
As Laouse navigated his way down through the clouds using his instruments, finally the massive chopper touched down from its flight to near Brighton from Austria. They’d refueled once in Belgium quickly, and then continued on at full speed passing over the British channel to Devil’s Dyke.
Stepping out of the chopper into the thick wet grass with the huge rotors slowly coming to a stop above them, Laouse quickly locked the bird up and then the two vampires ran through the moonlight and deep mist for half a mile. As they’d reached the old derelict cowshed where the secret entrance to Kaine and Regina’s home was, Laouse quickly using his mobile phone then called down to warn John that they were letting themselves in.
John thanked him for letting him know and then Laouse hung up as he’d felt inside a hole in the bricks for the secret latch.
After navigating through the deadly traps room avoiding the old Alaskan bear traps that were eagerly awaiting a misplaced foot, the two vampires went downstairs.
John met them in the kitchen and as he’d cowered at the sight of Claudius who was twice broader than Hulk Hogan in his prime and much taller, John who’d found his hands shaking then passed across the piece of paper that Kaine had written the address on.
Laouse forgetting his manners snatched the piece of paper from him with extreme urgency and opened it up from the folded state it was in.
Then he’d leant across the kitchen table to read it, whilst Claudius was smiling down through his thick beard at John, Laouse was suddenly fully aware where Kaine and Regina had gone.
The note had said in Kaine’s handwriting,
Carpathian Mountains of Romania above the village of Fagaras, there’s a small cabin on the western face, home to vampire women working the local skiers for sex and blood.
Laouse paused as he’d thought of the area that he knew well from skiing holidays and that it was fairly local, bar a few hours flying, to his lab in Austria. He wasn’t aware of the cabin at all but the note had said the peak of the mountain and he’d never flown so high during the winter months due to the terrible conditions up there.
Turning to Claudius who’d asked him if he knew where Kaine and Regina had gone, Laouse looked up at the Bavarian monster towering above him and nodded. Then turning to John who was standing there in his black priestly gown holding a bible, Laouse told him that he should leave Kaine and Regina’s home immediately.
John looked up with fear tracing through his soul, and then in his feeble voice asked the reason why it wasn’t safe.
Unaware if Kaine and Regina being chased by Satan had found itself to John’s ears yet, Laouse cautiously and not wanting to reveal too much, simply replied saying that it was unsafe for him to stay there with recent events that have happened.
John had started to tell Laouse that he’d been promised by Kaine and Regina that their home was safe, but then paused mid sentence as he’d realized that maybe Laouse was right that now Kaine and Regina wasn’t there, that it wasn’t safe to stay there after all.
John then nervously said to Laouse that he had nowhere he could go.
A moment passed and then Laouse asked him why and John told him that he’d seen Raffious in a vision and how it had shown him that he’d been using Kaine and Regina as part of a sick plan for revenge against Rex from the white coven. Laouse cursed when John told him about Raffious because he’d met Raffious on numerous occasions too.
“So the old boy is really against vampires and trying to kill us all is he.” Laouse replied.
Claudius who was keenly listening furrowed his massive eyebrows at the mention of killing vampires, and then as the eyebrows came down anger boomed its way through his whole body and he’d snarled.
“Who’s this fucking Raffious guy?” the Bavarian demanded to know as he walked up to John. In response to the towering giant approaching, the priest who’d just got over cowering moments before, suddenly held his bible out in front of him and said, “I’m a servant of god, don’t hurt me.”
Claudius paused in his tracks and turned his head to look at Laouse before both of them suddenly burst out laughing.
A few seconds passed and then as the big man wiped spittle from his beard, he looked down at the priest and said, “Don’t worry little man, I won’t hurt you. I’m sorry I didn’t mean to scare you.”
Laouse then said, “Right John, you have a minute to get your things together because we are leaving.”
John nodded and then after snatching up his bag with his wallet and a few other personal items plus his bible, all three of them made their way back to the chopper.
Chapter 20 – The Cursed Arrow
When the chopper was approaching the base in Hungary with their vampire cargo swinging underneath, the pilots had finally been able to contact them on the radio. They’d said with an uneasy edge in their German voices, that they weren’t happy with the mechanics who’d serviced the bird the day before, because the engine had failed and they’d nearly died.
Then when the control room had ignored the comment and asked them if the mission was a success, and also if the second chopper was with them, they’d told them that they’d both got away with vampires, and that they hadn’t seen the other chopper since minutes after taking off from the shack in Romania.
Then ignoring their questioning but reverting back to their previous complaint, and with much sterner voices, they’d reminded the control room that they were coming in heavy, and that they didn’t even know if they’d make it there. They’d said that apart from the engine, the electrics had failed a minute after takeoff too. They’d then added that they’d had to reduce the engine power to the bare min
imum for the whole flight back, and were glued to their dash hoping that something else didn’t fail, that would result in them spiralling to their deaths in the icy fields below.
The control room had got the point and then asked them how far they were away from the base, because they’d said that they couldn’t see them on the radar.
The pilots with their headsets on and their mouthpieces across in front of their lips, had both looked across at each other with deep shock etched into their faces.
OFF Radar, how the hell was that possible? They’d both thought. “The night just gets weirder and weirder,” the co pilot then replied with the soldiers in the back also feeling tense.
They were actually only a couple of miles away now and hadn’t thought that they’d even be able to make radio contact before landing, because the whole journey their radio had been dead. The copilot had been frantically pressing the speak button trying to warn the base of their grave situation, but all that was coming back through their headsets, was the most insanely high pitched hissing sound.
To be fair though, they’d actually had a couple minutes talking to the other chopper after their electrics had malfunctioned, and then when they’d lost radio contact with it, they’d tried all the other radio channels hoping that they could get something, but every channel was either hissing or completely dead.
When they’d first heard the hissing sound it had been so loud that it had caught them off guard, and in response to the searing pain in their ears, they’d both let go of the controls and then ripped their headsets off. The heavy old German chopper had instantly gone into a nose dive heading for a forest hundreds of feet below them. Then as the pilots had scrambled to regain control and only just saved them death, with the heavy rotors screaming above them in the climb, the soldiers in the back had words. They’d not heard the loud ear piercing sound and didn’t care too, they’d just wanted to get back in one piece. Jamming their guns into the backs of the pilots necks, and to pale expressions, they’d warned them not to fuck around and to get them back to the base.
The tension in the chopper was palpable and none of them truly had any expectations that they’d ever feel the hot showers in the base again, let alone experience the long life that they’d been promised after being good boys and taking their DD10 serum.
The noise that the pilots had heard through their headsets had been immense. It was like standing with your head inside a jet engine, and the captain of the hundred tonne beast grinning out of his window at you whilst giving it full roar.
*****
Finally though as the injured bird of steel had cleared the last set of snow covered pine trees, and then made its final descent down into the square mile of icy tarmac outside their base, they’d all felt deeply relieved. Then once they’d hovered for a few minutes and the cargo underneath was unhooked, and the soldiers had leapt out the side doors, they’d flown over the armored vehicles and the King tiger tanks, before landing next to the other choppers by the main entrance.
Then after reaching up and flicking off several switches and applying the compression brake to slow the rotors down to a soft purr, the pilots had opened their cockpit hatches and got out. Only as their feet had touched the ground both of them ran away from it, just incase the thing was going to blow.
If there was ever a flight in their history that might have been so harsh that it could have grounded them instantly, and then also made them hand over their chopper licences, never trusting another chopper again, that was it. Normally one thing in the bird warns them of failure, but never everything at the same time like they’d just experienced, with smoke belching up from the dash too.
All the while the noise was thunderous as they’d stood there on the tarmac looking cross faced back at the chopper. There were pairs of soldiers forming long lines that were marching up and down, and keeping out of the way of the tanks that were also roaring across it, after carrying out exercises in the woods. Then the armoured cars were trundling up and down too, whilst the forklifts were also busily unloading more heavy cargo from old curtain-side military trucks that had just arrived.
Meanwhile high up above them and oblivious to their actions, the family of eagles with their feathers ruffled, were sitting warmly in their nest. They were feeding their young and so far the days kill that they were ripping apart with blood soaked beaks, amounted to a ferret of a small size, which was also partially substituted by the remains of a head from yesterdays half devoured rabbit. A savoured prize that was still with it’s eye balls and cute fluffy ears, as it rolled around underneath their talon’d feet.
*****
Then after the pilots had got over their near death experiences that they’d just had in the chopper, by taking a minute to breath in the icy fresh air, they’d turned and started lazily walking across to the hanger. The thought of piping hot showers after a not so fun mission debriefing to Adolf, was like music to their ears. Only as they’d took a few steps in the ice, suddenly everyone around them had stopped and then raised their hand to salute someone who was coming.
Then as the pilots had looked they could see that the main entrance door had been slid back, and from it Heinrich Himler their second in command had emerged surrounded by his SS soldiers in black, that were holding sub machine guns.
Instantly the tanks had halted and the turret gunners then raised their arms, whilst the chopper mechanics without question laid their wrenches down and also stood firmly to attention. It was surreal to watch and literally everyone on the icy tarmac that amounted to a hundred or more soldiers had stood there saluting him.
Then to the pilots surprise, or regret rather, as they’d stood there with their arms out in front of them at a forty five degree angles, and their hands also flat pointing forwards the same way, Heinrich the evil bastard had approached them.
He didn’t look happy either, and as he’d walked across the ice towards them it’d looked like he’d a stiff rod up his back that went deep down into his trousers. The second in command was wearing his deep grey uniform and polished boots that were in perfect condition. Then on his tiny head and sheltering his sinister looks, he’d a deep grey cap that swooped up at the front, with a black peak and the badge of an Eagle firmly centred in the middle. Then on either side of his wide collars, he’d two badges that were both in the shape of a horseshoe shaped cleft of corn, whilst across the top of his left breast pocket, he’d long strips of colored badges that he’d probably got for killing his first million Jews.
Heinrich with his pale complexion and gaunty little nose was furious with them, and his face showed it too. The fact that they’d just radioed ahead and said that they’d problems in the air and that it’s the mechanics fault and not theirs; was clearly ignored.
Heinrich had demanded that they tell him how they’d managed to disable the radar on their chopper, and also why they hadn’t radioed the base too.
In the pilots minds as they’d stood there not daring for a second to lower their salutes, they were pissing themselves laughing. Heinrich was known for his stupidity but hearing that he’d actually thought that they could somehow just flick a switch, and then turn the radar off, in their minds it took stupidity to a whole new level. Surely he was aware that the radar was in the base simply detects the steel from the chopper, but obviously not they’d thought.
They’d also still got their tired arms up at forty five degree angles, and if the bastard didn’t fuck off soon, they’d drop.
Only they’d known that would have changed things in a big way for them because they knew the rules, never lower your salute to such a supreme leader until he tells you to. The problem they’d got though was even though they were genetically modified, after five minutes in the same position with your arm out in front of your face, it still ached like a bastard.
The pilots weren’t wishing to feel the bullet from Heinrich’s Lugar as it tore through their brains though, and because of this they’d lied to him. They’d said that the radar in the chopper had malf
unctioned along with the radio too. They’d known that they were lying to him, but there was no way that they were going to try educating the idiot. If Heinrich thought for a minute that they were trying to belittle him, they’d known what the next thing would be, they’d be experiencing his deathly fury.