Demon Rock (3 page)

In the security room they placed Warlock onto a chair in the middle of the room and fastened him securely to it. In a normal situation Warlock would have been powerful enough to evade this situation but not tonight.

‘
Why did I drink that much?’ Warlock thought to himself.

The security guards stepped out of the room and stood watch at the door leaving Warlock with his thoughts.

‘
All those winnings…gone.” He thought. “Ah well, I’ll go to Atlantic City next week and win it all back.” He smiled to himself. A minute later a tall burly man entered, he wore a pristine navy suit with a yellow tie. His identification badge read ‘Head of Security’.

“
We’ve been watching you for some time and not just us, most of the casinos on the strip. But we have never been able to figure out how you do it. Now, I am sure a wise gentleman such as yourself is aware that the joker’s are removed from a pack of cards before playing blackjack, would I be correct in assuming that?” The head of security spoke, bending down so that he was at eye level with Warlock. Warlock could barely focus and the smell of alcohol on his breath was near over powering. The head of security stood up to catch some fresh air.

“
Here’s what we are going to do,” he began. “You are going to tell us how you do what it is you do and then you are going to give back everything you have stolen from us.”

“
I didn’t steal anything, you are the crooks!”

“
Oh, a Robin Hood fan are we? You think we are the bad guys so it’s okay to steal from us? Is that it?”

“
Something like that, except I steal from the rich and give to me.” Warlock smiled, proud of coming up with such a come back despite his current state.

“
Our guards went to retrieve your cards as evidence after they grabbed you and you know what they found? They found that they weren’t Jokers after all. They also searched you as they secured you to this chair and guess what, they couldn’t find them either.”

“
Abracadabra.” Warlock managed, almost passing out.

“
You know what I think? I think that you are one of these people that the new government are on about. I think that by handing you in I will get a tasty reward and I think that you have an ability.”

Warlock couldn’t even conjure up a sentence never mind a spell at this point and fell asleep.

When he awoke he was strapped to a hospital bed. Men in white lab coats were poking and prodding him with needles and other instruments. As Warlock looked over at the doctors, a man who did not appear to be a doctor was standing in the corner of the room. One of the machines the doctors were using gave out a beeping noise as another doctor went to read the results.

“
That’s confirmed, he isn’t human.” He announced.

The man in the corner of the room walked up to the bed and stared down at Warlock. The man had a scar down his face. He looked down from above on Warlock and smiled.

“
You’re coming with me.” He said, and with this he brought his fist down on Warlock’s nose putting him back unconscious.    

Six thirty AM came way too quickly after the incident with the Banshee. What kind of wake up time is six thirty anyway! We were woken up by a loud siren echoing through the entire cell block as guards walked by each cell rattling their baton between the bars. I reluctantly forced myself up. The cell doors slid open and I noted that the other inmates were lining up outside their cells. I followed their lead; the Warlock was already heading towards the door as I lowered myself from my top bunk. I joined the single file line and looked about. Most of the men I could see were just that, they looked like normal men, no noticeable deformity but then again to most people I would look normal. The guard screamed for us to move, I followed the Warlock who was in front of me as I yawned from exhaustion. The guards led us to the dining area, maintaining the single file line with force if anyone broke the formation.

The mess hall was just as it’s named; a mess. The hall itself was quite large, with no windows or natural light coming in, as to not harm particular creatures I would imagine. All in all there must have been approximately two hundred inmates, all shuffling along slowly to the serving area. I couldn’t quite see yet what we were having but the smell was horrid.

“
Don’t worry, in a few days this grub will be like caviar to your lips.” The Warlock gave me another one of his cheeky smiles.

The queue moved on slowly, we were waiting for what seemed like the better part of an hour, although in reality it was probably much less than that, my tiredness getting the better of my perceptions. When it was my turn, I was handed a tray with what looked like porridge, although much lumpier and far too yellow for any porridge I have even had. Also seated atop the tray was a glass of milk which was almost as lumpy as the porridge and smelt off. The woman behind the counter who had placed his delectable meal in front of me was considerably overweight with a bright red face. Her hair was almost black, what was left of it anyway. I picked up my tray whilst giving the dinner lady a wink.

“
Cheers Ramsey.”

The next thing I felt was a jab in between the ribs by the guard supervising the front of the queue.

“
Move it along smart-ass or you’ll get another.” barked the guard.

I caught my breath, picked up my tray and looked around. A hand was signalling me with a wave, it belonged to Warlock. I moved towards him and sat down.

“
Saved you a seat.”

“
Cheers, now I can enjoy this Michelin starred treat.”

“
Ah it’s not that bad, and when you get two meals a day, and your first is at six thirty am, you’ll learn to take what you can get.”

Even in regular prisons you got the customary three meals a day, the place seemed to get worse by the second. I began to survey the area, this was the first time since my arrival that all the inmates, or at least the majority of them were in the same room. Most of the inmates looked normal, like the Warlock and I. Others however, were noticeably different. Some subtle differences like slightly different skin or eye pigmentation, others had scales, some even were almost completely covered in hair. I spied a group of about eight men in the corner, sitting up on the table. All the men had shaved heads and were well built. They seemed to be surrounding one of the men; he appeared to be their leader. He was sitting staring at the ground as the other men talked among themselves, he must have been easily seven foot and built like a tree. He had a tattoo inked onto the back of his neck of a spike that gave the illusion of coming out as the top of his spinal cord.

“
You don’t want to mess with them.” Warlock began.

“
They are the vamps, and not your sensitive vampires you see on TV these days, they are bad news. The prison keeps them in check with the concentrated garlic and silver dosages I was telling you about this morning. The dosage also contains some haemoglobin to keep them alive. Vampires can’t produce haemoglobin and so need to feed on blood to survive. They even need to use a long metal prod to administrate it through their cell bars like you would a large animal. The formula keeps them weak, but even with it they are twice the strength of you or me. Him in the middle, he’s their leader if you will, they look to him and will protect him at all costs. He was their greatest hunter on the outside and has earned his title of Master.”

“
I’ll bear that in mind.” I said, trying to avoid eye contact with the vicious gang. Last thing I needed was to be started on for being the new guy.

“
Moving on…” The Warlock continued. “We also have Djinns, Ghouls, Skin walkers, Werewolves. We have Windigos and even a Berserker but they don’t dine with the rest of us. They have to be kept separate because they can’t be controlled. Yep, we’re basically like a fun house for the weird, paranormal and supernatural.”

“
A Berserker?” I inquired, not having ever heard of one.

“
Ever read Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic ‘The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde’? Think of a Berserker as Mr Hyde without the Dr Jekyll. Pure strength and as wild as they come. I heard a rumour actually that one was coming in on the latest boat, which would have been with you?”

“
There was a separate box at the end of the boat; all I could see were piercing eyes though.”

“
That would be it if I had my guess.” The Warlock smiled, “only thing worse than the inmates is the first time you try the food.” His grin widened.

“
Eat up.”

I almost laughed at that one but kept it from coming out loud.

“
Oh, and the guards. Probably the most vicious creatures in this place; especially that one.” The Warlock nodded his head in the direction of a guard who stood up on a balcony overlooking the entire hall.

“
He is the Warden’s right hand man.”

The guard was about six foot tall, with dirty blond hair, blue eyes and a scar running down the left side of his face over his eye. My eidetic memory began to work, I noticed his build, his height, the shape of his skull and I remembered him. The previous few days’ events began to come back to me. I remembered him from the day my wife was killed. I remember him being the one to take everything from me.

After they had came for me I ran. My legs ached but my gift had allowed my broken legs to heal and gave me the advantage I needed to elude my pursuers. By the time the two men had reached the street level, I was several streets over, utilising my knowledge of the local area to cut down alleyways and side streets to avoid the main roads.

It had been several hours since my daring escape from my office, safe to say I no longer had a job there so I guess my office is the wrong terminology. I kept to my tactic of avoiding the main streets and I had yet to see any sign of the men. It was getting dark now, my watch told me it was six o’clock and during the winter months, six o’clock can seem like the dead of night. My wife usually called me at five to check if I would be catching the train on time so she knew when to put on the dinner. The thought had slipped my mind for the last hour as my survival instincts kicked in, but then as the thought of my wife and her unusual break in her routine flooded into my head I could no longer care about avoiding the main streets and made a dash towards the nearest train station.

It took me over an hour to get back to my home town outside of London. When the train eventually pulled into the station I leapt onto the platform and headed towards our house. The house was only about a mile away from the station and I was still pretty fit after running the London marathon, a number of months before. I ran, leaping over the turnstile and ran towards my wife.

When I neared the house I slowed down, trying to see if anything seemed unusual or out of place. It didn’t. The place seemed just like it always did around this time of night. Maybe my wife had just forgotten to call me, there were no strange cars and the kitchen light was on as normal. A wave of relief passed over me and I made for the front door. I walked up the path after opening our white gate. The door was unlocked and I entered the house.

“
Holly?” I called out.

Silence.

A deeper fear than the one that previously washed over me came flooding this time. I crept into the kitchen and there was Holly, my wife. She was sitting in a chair, tears streaked down her face.

“
Holly!”

“
Not so fast.” A voice rang out from somewhere. I could not see the source.

With a shimmer in what appeared to be the thin air, a figure appeared as if from nowhere. Was this figure like me? Did he have an ability? Did he have the power to become invisible? The figure took full form and held a knife to Holly’s neck. His position did not change, as if he had been there the entire time. He wore a mask, but I could see he had deep blue eyes and was about six foot tall. He was the guard I recognised in the prison. I know this without a single doubt in my mind, my eidetic memory and my gift allowed me to recall peoples build and features so much so that even with a mask on I recognised the son of a bitch. The now visible man looked at me, although the mask covered his face, I could tell he had a grin on his face.

“
You should have went with my associates earlier. It could have been a lot simpler.” he said.

Holly tried to speak but the man pressed the knife against her neck with more force causing a bit of blood to form on the edge of the blade.

“
Don’t you hurt her!” I screamed out.

“
You have been ordered to Demon Rock, you have refused.”

“
You have no right to arrest me. I have done nothing wrong, I have a job, I pay my taxes, I don’t hurt anybody, I don’t even use my gift.”