by Milo Spires
He told them that the dark spirits had not only implied it, but they had also warned him that by testing Satan, the outcome would mean their own extinction. Then he reminded them of what he had told them beforehand about the equilibrium balance, and advised them that they should never be so brazen as to try upsetting it, because the results he felt sure, they would not, find pleasurable.
The room had slightly picked up with the sound of whispers, but then as they had all considered his words, suddenly it had fallen deathly quiet again. Then they had nodded amongst themselves, fully believing that what he had just told them was true. Only Hoidrious who had emancipated beliefs that physical harm could never find him, shocked everyone by his reaction.
Rex had just puckered his rotting, badly flaking lips when Hoidrious who was standing on the same ledge with him, found he couldn’t hold his giggles in any longer and gave in to the pressure of restraining them--he burst out laughing. His bodyguards, who had been standing below with their deeply expressionless faces, had known this was bad. They were suddenly thrown into a situation where they knew they had to resist from defending him too. They had suspected Rex would be immersed into a furious rage, and if they had tried to block his wrath, they too would have succumbed to the heinous punishment, that seemed to be inevitably heading their master’s way.
Then to make matters far worse, Hoidrious had opened his mouth, and whether joking or not, he still said the old boy in general, didn’t half talk a load of old shit.
This was the reason that Hoidrious had come out of his dormant sleeper cell mood with regards to wanting Rex dead, or at least the punishment he’d received afterwards was.
Rex had been taken to a new zone in his brain. Like walking around lost in a maze for hours, to then suddenly find the middle. Rex had never been to this part of his mind before, and there were reasons for it. The evil that surged there was of the most nefarious of kinds. Utter villainous thoughts stemmed from there. It was the core to his being and the true depth of his evil.
Rex, to a startled and surprised crowd, had responded by whipping out his dagger and bringing the razor sharp blade, diagonally up and across Hoidrious’ chest. It had cut through his robes and then sliced a deep gouge in the flesh beneath them. The silver blade as it had moved through the air, almost looked bronze as it had reflected the deep yellowy orange light that was coming off a nearby torch.
Hoidrious screamed, and as he had moved to avoid another strike, he then lost his footing and fell off the ledge.
After he had hit the floor upside down on his shoulder and back, his bodyguards Loicheonk and Marchilla, had then run over to help him up from the crumpled mess he was in.
The pain for the two thousand year old vampire had been substantial, but thankfully his adrenaline had within moments, risen up enough to mask it.
Rex who had been fuming at the number twos’ seditious behaviour, then screamed for the guards to shackle him to the whipping posts.
For a brief moment the guards, whom outnumbered the massive bodyguards Loicheonk and Marchilla, had then paused to consider the command they had been given.
Rex who was almost bent over double, had then screamed out, ‘Did you not fucking hear me, fucking shackle him to the posts, Now.’
Then in complete disbelief that he was in that situation, Hoidrious had pushed his own guards back as he’d turned around to look up at Rex. Then from behind he had felt his arms snatched up in the grip of many, as he was spun around and then roughly marched across to the heavily blood stained, eight foot tall, deeply forlorn, and covered in human remains, whipping posts.
Hoidrious was fuming as you can imagine, and being manhandled in such a way with blood spewing from the huge gash across his chest didn’t help matters either, but what could he do?
Then he tried screaming at them to get off him, but it did no good either, as he found the rusty forlorn shackles, were suddenly clamped tight around his wrists.
Even though they were outnumbered, his bodyguards Loicheonk and Marchilla had surged forwards. Only as ten bowmen had then pointed their lethal silver arrows in their direction, did the message finally get through, and with it they had reluctantly backed away.
The crowds of vampire onlooker’s had been lost as to what they should do, and simply stood there motionless with their mouths wide, and gaping.
Then Rex had leapt down from his ledge, and after grabbing a curled up whip from the side, he had walked out into the centre of the room, deeply prepared to use it.
The whip was 6 metres long and made from exceptionally hard leather with the last metre being roughly braided and twisted over on its self. An archaic design, viciously intended to maximise the pain.
After Hoidrious had received fifty violent whips across his back, each one having left an eight inch savage gash, that was six millimetres deep, finally the number two succumbed to the pain he had been dealt.
Then with his arms diagonally pointing outwards above his head, held there by the rusty blood covered shackles, even though the crowds believed that he had had enough, and the extremely harsh punishment was over. Rex had grinned up at them before dealing his insubordinate second in command, a further ten.
This was the reason Hoidrious came out from his dormant state of accepting his role as number two in their coven.
A week later when his cell door had finally opened, and the number two’s wounds had finally healed enough for him to be able to walk again, the only order he gave Loicheonk and Marchilla, was to arrange a phone call with Angus.
Hoidrious whilst he’d been laid up in extreme agony on the hard bench in the back of the cell, had decided the only way to overthrow Rex, was by breaking the age old rule of vampires not being seen when they attacked humans. Then in doing so, it would have the obvious effect of causing a huge war against humanity.
He had grinned inwardly at his idea and fully welcomed that vampires would finally be ruling the Earth. He also had absolutely no doubt in his mind at that point, that Rex was talking a load of old shit, when he had said that Satan would be furious with anyone who broke the age old rule.
Chapter 37 – The Traps Room.
Kaine had just made it back to the traps room where Jenny was waiting in the darkness, and before he could close the door, two vampires had charged straight past him into the center of the room.
Then with a millisecond before the others were upon him, he slammed the door shut with a wall-shaking ‘BOOM’.
It didn’t want to stay shut because the rest of the warriors had by then reached the door and were trying to bash it in from the other side. He had to thrust his foot against the bottom and push with all his force whilst he managed to slide one of the bolts across.
The door rocked against it as he took his foot away though, and light appeared around it every time they crashed into it. He knew it wouldn’t hold long either, but had no time to do up the other locks.
In the minutes that Jenny had been in there on her own, she had only managed to move a very short distance. She had crouched down, and with her back firmly pressed against the wall she was only able to slide herself a few feet along it. She was in tears and extremely scared. Then when Kaine had ripped the door open again, for a moment the horribly pitch-black room was suddenly, and refreshingly bathed in warm light.
But now just as the door was closed and the room was drenched in darkness again, to her horrified surprise it was filled with the most intense and horrific screams. She almost passed out from the fear they instilled within her.
Turning around fast, Kaine saw the vampires had run blindly straight into two of his Alaskan bear traps and laughed at them.
The evil traps were chained down, and a huge bolt fired into the concrete beneath them. He hated these things but knew they were perfect for vampire catching.
How dare mankind be so evil trapping bears with such cruel devices and causing them to die such an awful, agonizingly painful death, he had thought. But once he’d gotten them home, and then tipped th
eir huge jaws with silver, he was immensely happy he had bought them.
‘So you try killing me in my own house, you fools. Now I'm going to kill you,’ he said as they desperately tried to free their savagely smashed legs from the cast-iron jaws.
Ignoring the intense pain he was suffering, one of them looked up at him and then snarled before he screamed out, ‘You will die, and so will that bitch Jenny, the priest’s daughter.’
Jenny heard him and screamed a sound so unearthly that Kaine immediately swung around to look across at her. He hardly recognized her; she was a hysterical, complete mess.
‘It’s okay Jenny, I'm here!’ he shouted across to her. ‘They can’t hurt you, darling. We will be leaving in a second!’
With extreme fury pouring through him, he turned back to look at the two vampires.
‘If only you knew how evil you are. Jenny is God’s child, and my friend,’ he growled.
Unfortunately, time was too short for re-education. He knew that it was probably pointless sharing another word with them. Leaping forwards, he grabbed the head of the one who had just spoken to him and rammed it back so hard that he snapped its neck. Then with his hands either side of the head he turned it hard and with one powerful yank, he ripped it clean off. As he did, he threw the head away from himself and then reached down for the corpse’s sword. With it now in his hand, he lunged for the second vampire.
Kaine came at him hard. He twisted his feet and spun around full circle, ducking slightly in the process for maximum effect before upper cutting the vampire’s face. The sword connected perfectly and the head offered little resistance to the bite of the blade as it split it in two halves. A massive jet of blood then sprayed everywhere.
Dropping the sword he spun around and ran across to Jenny. What he saw had an instantly harrowing effect upon him, causing his blood to run even colder than it normally does.
She had her knees tucked up underneath her and the top half of her body was rocking backwards and forwards. Her face was completely white and she was mumbling something. Then apart from her eyes that were black and staring lifelessly forwards, her mouth was overflowing with some kind of strange, white foamy liquid. As it dripped down, it was forming long lines of drool that were collecting on her now soaking wet blouse.
Seeing her in this way was a profound experience for him and he blamed himself for leaving her.
Had I just left without going to get that fucking iPad, then none of this would have happened. He told himself.
He knew that the reason he had left her was an extremely valid one though, because without his iPad and the connection to the drone, the vampires outside would have had a better chance to kill them. At least now with it in hand he might get a chance to check with his eyes-in-the-sky to see where they were all hiding. He knew that, even with Laouse Gerhad’s battle gear on, he wouldn’t be safe; they had at least one machine gun, and being caught in the open by them wouldn’t be good.
Crouching down by her side, he spoke softly to her in the same voice he had used when he had met her in the hospital, which seemed a lifetime ago.
‘It’s me Jenny. We are safe. We can leave now.’
She didn’t respond at all. Instead she stared forwards listlessly with her gaze transfixed on the opposite wall.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Kaine’s mind had been in a transient state for a second and the sound of the vampires crashing against the door had almost drifted away. Then suddenly his mind kicked back into the real world and sensing he had but seconds left to escape, he leapt up.
Lifting Jenny in his arms, he flew over the other traps and whilst crashing his wings into the ceiling, he made his way to the exit.
As he reached it he heard the bolt on the door behind suddenly snap, and it was thrust open. Then in an instant he heard the bear traps greedily snapping down on their prey, and a moment later, the room was filled with the wildly macabre screams of vampires in agonizing pain.
He grinned for a moment. Then he thrust the exit door open and his heart sank as he was taken back by just how harsh the weather was outside. Freezing cold torrential rain and huge winds tore into him from the sea. Opening his wings with visibility from the downpour being almost zero, he leapt up into the hideously dark sky above.
In the seconds he was airborne, he began to fear that everything that had happened to him over the past couple of days, was nothing more than a portent of darker things to come.
Chapter 38 – Hoidrious’ plan
In the cells, Mietioc’s memory had come back to him, and with it he had clearly remembered the last moments before he had been killed, when the Scot leader Angus had thrown down a voice recorder to him.
He also remembered exactly what he had heard on the device too.
When he had pressed play, he heard Hoidrious’ unmistakably evil voice. The second in command had sounded like he was in deep pain. He and Angus were discussing a plan to overthrow Rex. With the plan he had also heard Hoidrious say that the Elite warriors would have to die but he was willing for that to happen so long as he finally got to see Rex ousted from power.
Then as the memories came back, Mietioc was furious, and launched himself into deep attack mode.
Hoidrious who had been thinking for a fleeting moment that his words had somehow placated Mietioc’s rage, suddenly realized by the warriors’ actions that they hadn’t calmed him down at all.
In that moment of panic for the slimy treacherous second in command, his subconscious mind had reminded him of the plans he’d formulated in the past to have Rex thrown out from the coven.
These were those plans!
Predicting that Rex would be furious when he heard the age-old-rule had been broken, he also knew that he would demand outright to know who had the gall, the valorousness, or perhaps just the temerity to have done such a thing. Hoidrious also knew from spending two thousand years in his evil shadow, that he would also react by readying himself for war.
Then when he had heard that it had happened up in Edinburgh, his anger would be replaced with sheer joy and utter happiness, as he thought about Angus’ gold and riches that he had missed out on before.
Hoidrious had also known that Rex would realize that now he could place undeniable blame on Angus’ vampires, and make the accusation they had been responsible for the callous act. Hoidrious also knew the coven members would agree with him this time, and back him if he planned to wage war against the Scots.
Rex would also know that with this attack to use as the perfect excuse, his coven members wouldn’t be able to say that he was only there for Angus’ riches, as they had been suspicious of in the war before.
Hoidrious had predicted Rex would use his usual devious and cunning words as he addressed them on the subject. He would probably say something like, ‘It is our duty to seek retribution, because Angus and his coven must be punished for their crime.’ Hoidrious knew he would layer the lies and then undeniably bring in Satan for good measure, saying something like, ‘if you don’t attack then all the covens in the world will risk extinction when Satan’s wrath is felt for this.’
He would also add even more lies and then tell them stuff like, ‘My dark spirits have warned me we must attack now or risk the real threat of demons sucking us all into Hell.’
Whatever bullshit he used to manipulate their brains, Hoidrious knew it wouldn’t be completely irreversible, especially when they got a load of his own well-thought-out plan.
Hoidrious knew there was a drawback though. Just once he would have to openly piss Rex off again like when he had been whipped before, and hope to hell he didn’t get another session of the lashes for doing so. He would have to choose a point in time to rudely cut in on Rex’s tirade against the Scots. Then as Rex was beginning to look mighty furious and the crowds were turning paler than they already were, he would say he didn’t agree with the old fucker at all.