The Dark Messenger

by Milo Spires

  Only the thought that maybe he wasn’t lying about Rex, kept him from swinging for him.

  Another warrior then stepped forwards and said, ‘Sir I believe you should ask Vius first, sir.’

  Voitek’s built up rage suddenly blew its top. He swung around and brought his sword up under the vampire’s neck. The blade sliced upwards slightly and missed cutting his ears on both sides as it flew through his neck. The head somersaulted forwards and bounced of the muddy ground. The body now headless sank to its knees and then fell forwards to lay beside the head.

  Looking down at the victim with spittle coming out of his mouth, he screamed above the rapidly increasing wind, ‘How dare you ignore me? Didn’t I just say don't question me?’

  Turning to glare back at the other warriors, he said, ‘Anyone else want to question my judgement? I am your Captain, and I have decided that if Longinus can bring us back our master, then it’s worth giving him the chance to prove himself. Rex would forgive him and the coven would be saved.’

  None of them dared to disagree. No one wanted to donate their body to making it two dead warriors on that hillside, so they said nothing.

  Longinus then noticed that, down to the left of the door, Vius was looking up at them.

  ‘Damn!’ Longinus uttered.

  If he came over, Longinus knew that he wouldn’t agree that there was a way to bring Rex back, and he definitely would be punished for having suggested it. Probably the same way as had just been suggested too--his legs being amputated on this hillside. He felt very nervous now, and prepared himself for fleeing if Vius made one move towards them. If Vius messaged Voitek, he wouldn’t wait a second longer. He would leap into the air and try to out-fly these fools. He started to concentrate on his legs being strong, preparing for what seemed inevitable now. They would have to give him a powerful thrust, so powerful that he flew up fast like a missile into the sky--so fast in fact that he would have to clear their sword swipes from beneath too. Would it be fast enough to clear their bullets though, he wondered. He knew he would catch them off guard by fleeing. Maybe, just maybe he...

  Suddenly his thoughts were cut short as he heard Vius screaming for a new fresh wave of vampires to get involved with smashing the door in.

  ‘Be quick! How can you bring Rex back?’ Voitek shouted at him.

  Longinus like a fool had forgotten what he had just said about knowing how to bring Rex back, and just for a millisecond then with a blank expression across his face, wondered what the fuck Voitek was talking about. Then it came back to him and he remembered.

  ‘Oh yes, Sorry, I will be quick-- Right, er, I know a chant to summon a time-shifter.’ Longinus said choosing his words carefully.

  ‘Can you summon him here now or not?’ Voitek demanded. ‘Because if you can’t, that changes things, and not in a good way for you too.’

  ‘Yes! Wait! Let me call him.’ Longinus closed his eyes and started to chant some demonic ritual that the time-shifter had taught him:

  ‘Gliades immordalis confoundatis gladioris sietioras vioertis immordalis’

  As his words aired into the night sky, the wind all around them seemed to pick up again since its blast when Voitek had just decapitated his own warrior. Then the sky began to darken quite significantly too. Longinus repeated the words and as he was finishing for the second time, suddenly standing there was the old bastard himself, Raffious. He had food around his mouth too.

  ‘Longinus, my friend, how are you? Are these your vampires, now that I finally killed that stupid fool Rex?’ were his immediate words as he appeared in front of them.

  Longinus almost swallowed his own tongue--he couldn’t believe what he had just heard Raffious say, and grabbed for his sword to defend himself.

  ‘Your old master Rex was a fool and all of you are weak,’ Raffious sneered.

  Voitek lunged hard at Raffious with his sword in a forwards stabbing motion, using both his hands to increase its power. Raffious immediately shape-shifted into the form of their master Rex and, using his black magic, allowed the sword to look like it was a killing blow. It penetrated deep into his chest. Dropping to his knees, and appearing as Rex, he reached out towards Voitek.

  ‘You killed me!’ he said in Rex’s old crony voice.

  Voitek couldn’t believe what he had done, forgetting completely that moments before this guy had been an old man with a white beard in white robes. He looked in horror at Rex.

  Completely stunned, he let go and stepped backwards in shock and horror. ‘My master!’ he cried, bowing down his head.

  Then suddenly from behind he felt a cold steel blade forcing its way up through the center of his back, ripping through his veins and arteries before it slid out of his throat. He fell forwards, sliding off the sword, and lay face-down on the ground, dead.

  And there behind him stood Vius.

  Raffious then changed back into his “old man” look, with his long white beard and priestly robes. He stood laughing at Vius, whose hands were still firmly grasping the handle of the bloodied sword. Vius suddenly realized he had been tricked.

  Raffious then burst out laughing as he grabbed Longinus by the shoulder and they both vanished. Only his laugh stayed a few seconds longer though, as if it were playing mysteriously with the wind.

  Lost for words and looking down at his captain who was laying dead before him, he crouched by the body and said, ‘I’m truly sorry, my friend.’

  Chapter 18 - A new Recruit

  Longinus had met Raffious in 2099 when he was a member of the Scottish coven. Raffious was up there trying to trade a story with the leader Angus, that concerned the church and a priest having a baby with a nun. He wanted in return, their broken piece of the magical Trucale vase, which he knew they had.

  The Scots didn’t care much for their piece of the vase though, because they knew it did nothing and was useless by itself. The highland vampires had searched for the other half of the vase for many years, but still to that date they had never found it. They had their own suspicions though of who did have it: the White Coven under Rex in the south.

  Now though, with the promise of trading it for a story involving the church Angus, who hated Christianity, was seriously contemplating doing the deal.

  The vase itself dated back to the time of Christ when he had blessed it, just before his crucifixion.

  ----------

  Christ had met a poor invalid man who had travelled for days in the blistering heat from his village to visit him. He had recognized his suffering and after healing him, he also took the man’s drinking vase and blessed it. The vase was forever after known as the Trucale Vase. Its divine powers meant that it would always stay full of the most purest water ever known to mankind with magical healing powers. The man promised Christ that he would travel the earth with it curing the terminally sick and injured as he went. After Christ was crucified, Heaven ordered the vase to be destroyed. Only because of a war raging between good and evil, there wasn’t much time. The angels did visit the man who was entrusted with the task of destroying the vase for them. Using a hammer and an axe, he split the vase into two identical pieces in front of them and then said that he would bury them in the furthest, most opposite parts of the world.

  Jonivac though, who was soon to be a fallen angel watched over the man and saw exactly where he had buried the two pieces. Hundreds of years later when he was kicked out of Heaven, in his anger he remember the vase and told the vampires and Raffious where the pieces of it were. The Scots got to one piece first but just as they did, Rex’s warriors also got to the second piece at the very same time. Raffious at that point, hadn’t been interested in it. He was too deeply engrossed with his plan of creating werewolves, and hadn’t thought of a way to use it for himself by that stage.

  ----------

  Up in Scotland trading for the vase, Angus said to Raffious that he would do the deal, but first the story he was offering would need to be verified. So Raffious told him which priest was responsible and where his
cathedral was, but kept back some information incase Angus tried to double cross him. The Scots leader had also been assured that he would be the only one to hear about the story too.

  When they had verified the story and then honored the agreement, as they were handing over the vase as a parting gift, Raffious couldn’t resist causing Rex’s coven even more problems by warning Angus that his coven were going to attack him. He even then went one better and gave them the exact date and time of the attack too. Angus smiled back at him and nodded appreciatively of the information, mentally linking it with an illegible email that he had received 85 years before.

  The broken up email had said something about ‘TV,’ and ‘ATTACK YOUR COVEN’ in it, which had been very alarming to them, as it hadn’t named the coven that it was referring to. After intense investigation, they still never managed to discover what the emails complete message was. The senders return address had been blocked too.

  Raffious smiled inwardly when Angus said about the email, as he knew who had sent it.

  With regards handing over the vase though, Angus had been cautious of being tricked by Raffious the time shifter, because he knew just how easy he could vanish. He was also aware that as vampires they could only ever travel backwards in time, yet Raffious could leap forwards too. With this in mind they had triple checked his story first.

  Angus had ordered one of his most loyal vampires called Longinus to jump back in time and told him that when he arrived in the year 2014, he was to confirm the story was true. After he had then Raffious would bring him back to their year. If they had completed their other checks by then, they would give him the vase.

  Only whilst preparing to jump back to 2014, Raffious and Longinus also did their own secret deal between themselves. Longinus had showed a lot of interest in time travel and also said that apart from disliking Angus, he was tired of the coven too. Hearing this, Raffious thought it was great because he had been looking for another servant; a top quality guy who was strong and powerful to infiltrate Rex’s coven for him. He offered Longinus the same time travel deal as he had with the two other two vampires that Rex had killed previously.

  He told him that he would give him the very same powers of time travel that he had, and explained that with them, he would be able to leap forwards or backwards in time too. Only Raffious then told him he would have to do something for him first though.

  Even though Longinus had been extremely excited about the prospects of the offer he had also been extremely cautious that it wasn’t a trap too. He wanted to be completely sure that Raffious wouldn’t tell Angus if he accepted, because he knew what the punishment would be, death. Raffious had assured him that it wasn’t a trap and explained that soon he would have the first piece of the vase, only the second was piece was heavily guarded and that he couldn’t get it on his own.

  Curious, Longinus asked what he would have to do for him then?

  Raffious saw he was extremely eager, so he told him, ‘If I give you the most sacred powerful gift of time travel that no other vampire has, then the price will be high.’

  Longinus didn’t really care about the price at all. All he cared about was that with it, he would be able to disappear and none of the covens would be able to find him.

  ‘What is the price?’ he asked.

  ‘OK, for it, you must join another coven and then steal the other part of the vase from them, plus you have to tell Angus that the story I am selling is true without us going to verify it first.’

  ‘DEAL’ He had said without even considering it for a second.

  As soon as he had left the Scots and then kept the first part of the deal lying to his old leader Angus, Raffious then told him who the new coven was going to be. He also said to him, how he would be able to persuade Rex to let him join them, when he went for the interview.

  Fear had raced through Longinus’s brain though as the stories of just how barbaric and evil the white coven were under Rex’s rule, then re-emerged to taunt him. He was actually so apprehensive inside about seeing Rex, that he almost tried to cancel the deal. He didn’t though because he didn’t want to be on the run from Angus with no protection. He was well aware that if they let him join them that Angus would never dare starting another war by coming for him there.

  Raffious said to him that when he went to see Rex though, it was imperative to offer him the same story about the priest and nun having a baby together that he had sold Angus. He also said to tell them that they could blackmail the church with it too.

  Longinus had agreed and then said that he wouldn’t forget. Only inside the London coven, the deeply foreboding feeling that they were giving him, had caused him to do just that, forget.

  It was only when Rex had finished sharpening his nails with that stupid silver dagger of his, that he had turned to stare down at him and then said,’ you dare to come here without offering me something.’

  At that moment he suddenly remembered about the priest and Raffious saying that he had to tell him about it.

  ‘Well I do know about a story concerning the church which you can blackmail them with.’ He said, not entirely sure that it would redeem him from whatever they were planning but strangely

  the palpable mood in the air, vanished instantly. After telling the whole story, Rex even smiled as he leapt off his ledge and then ran up to him. Grabbing his hand, he shook it and welcomed him to the coven. Then he led him through into his private quarters and wined and dined him, before giving him a tour of the whole place too. His entourage had looked upon him with deep shock, clearly suggesting they had expected a far more sinister ending to the interview.

  Raffious had known all along that Rex would never be so foolish as to trade the story for his piece of the vase as the Scots had stupidly done. He knew Rex never got rid of his priceless arte-facts and would be a far tougher nut to crack than that. This was the only reason why Longinus had to join them, because after sometime of befriending and then when the moment arose, he would have to sneak into his private chambers and steal it from within. Of course he always knew that Longinus might not make it past the interview stage, and Rex might kill him. He didn’t care so much because if that happened, Raffious knew he would just have to find another stupid vampire and try again.

  After 10 months in Rex’s coven, he had been so pleased with him that Longinus was given permanent stay and promotion. In that time though, not once had he been able to get close enough to check if the piece of vase was even there. It wasn’t a problem though because he knew this beforehand, Raffious had said to him from the beginning that he might have to wait a couple of years before he was trusted enough to be near the vase.

  To make him feel more comfortable with going into Rex’s chamber, knowing that the punishment would be death if he were caught. Raffious gave him a bracelet with his demonic chant written on it. He told him that if ever he was in deep trouble, all he had to do was read out the words on the bracelet, and by doing so he would instantly appear to save him.

  The only thing was, he kept a crucial part back, the part about Satan warning him personally never to use his magic against his vampire’s covens. This also included jumping inside Rex’s coven to save someone. The promise of punishment to hell for eternity had a strong effect on the old boys mind.

  Raffious always knew from that point on that he would never risk experiencing Satan’s wrath for anyone.

  So if Longinus was caught inside Rex’s chambers, the stupid vampire was on his own, as far as he was concerned.

  But of course he never told him that.

  Chapter 19 - Visiting Jail

  Longinus felt seriously ill as he jumped forwards in time with Raffious, after narrowly escaping death from Voitek’s sword, just outside Kaine’s house.

  All around him whilst they were jumping were images of buildings, ghosts of the dead, and souls of the living flashing past him. His clothes were shaking violently, as if he was standing on the deck of a boat in a violent storm. He felt very uneasy, and his mi
nd was in a state of great confusion.

  Suddenly the images stopped, and he was thrust forwards as if seated in a car that had just driven hard into a brick wall. He collapsed to the floor, spewing his guts up. His insides were in turmoil. Behind him, he could hear Raffious laughing, and vaguely wondered if he was still laughing at the trick on Voitek and Vius, or if the laughter was directed at him. He wasn’t sure and didn’t really care, because of how ill he felt; even his supernatural powers of healing were having major troubles settling his body after that journey.