Outside Hell (30 page)

Then as he’d arrived in the village he’d only
raised his arms up above himself to gesticulate, and found without
his direct permission that flames of mammoth size were pouring out
of them, and incinerating the entire village. Every building in
front of him in a millionth of a second had turned from damp icy
weathered timber into nothing more than smoldering embers.

In Satan’s mind he’d had to have the bowman
and this was his moment to prevail, if he’d failed again and
somehow he’d lost the little bastard, or he’d simply escaped him,
the prince of darkness would return to hell and then vaporize a
million souls because of it. There’d be no increase in the searing
temperature like he usually does; it would just be simple
eradication of their existence and nothing more.

Then when news had come back suggesting that
he might be escaping, Satan had felt his insides almost consuming
themselves and his control over the evil that surged within,
becoming uncontrollable. A moment had passed and then whilst his
legs had strangely grown pathetically weak, in turn they’d also not
been able to hold his massive frame, and resulted in him collapsing
to his knees.

The bowman couldn’t escape him, he had to win
and the fucking demons were useless if they’d let him escape. He’d
thought to himself as tunnels of flames then roared out of his
eyes, and savagely melted the earth beneath.

His demons who were unaware of his rapidly
building deeply negative views towards them, flew back across the
village to give him the bad news. They’d said that they were
gathering in their intensity over the bowman, and were just about
to engulf him and the stallion that he was riding too, when a
strange blue light had appeared and freaked them out. Its energy
had been pure as if it was linked to the angels, and then in
response to it simply hovering there in front of them, they’d
stopped the chase.

The roar that Satan had made when they’d told
him this had been so loud, that other counties far and wide had
also heard it too. He was beyond all realms of furious and his tail
that had been lashing from side to side, was so angry and suddenly
started to attack him too.

Then as the prince of darkness knelt there in
the boiling hot ground of the village, suddenly he’d been consumed
with the strangest of thoughts, ones that he’d never had to think
about before either. He’d started to question how he the prince of
the underworld, and the centre of the extremest levels of evil,
could possibly after existing for a millennia, have actually been
outsmarted twice by the little bastard.

For him to be consumed by thought and to have
to deliberate over how he’d failed, wasn’t something that he’d ever
had to experience before. Even when he was kicked out of Heaven,
he’d never tried to think about what he’d done wrong. The fact that
God hadn’t cared for him and then thrown him out of the Pearly
gates, hadn’t bothered him. Then afterwards he’d always got his
evil way too. The people that he’d consumed in his fireballs and
taken their souls to burn in hell had all tried to run, only none
of them had ever escaped his wrath like this bowman. He’d always
been able to incinerate them, and then afterwards watch his demons
dragging their souls into hell screaming.

Through all the wars of the ages he’d turned
up to the battlefields, and whilst both sides of thousands of men
had tried to flee, throwing down their mighty broadswords and
spears at the sight of him, he’d always consumed them. Castles full
of gallant knights were simply wiped from existence by his
infernos, and always the souls came down to hell too.

Then as a moment past, he’d held his chin and
posed over the idea that somehow he was might be loosing his
touch?

Another second past and then suddenly in true
demonic style he’d recanted on his previous thought and launched to
his feet, deciding that the whole world would pay for this. Fury
then poured from him in rivers of flames that roared hundreds of
feet into the sky too. He wasn’t loosing his touch, this was just a
set back, he’d have the bowman and soon too. He’d thought.

Then after turning around and exploding the
oppressively huge black cloud of demons that had failed him, and of
course not letting them know that he too had been mesmerised by the
same blue light up the mountainside, he’d reminded himself about
Regina and grinned.

In response to that thought he’d then
vanished and reappeared back in hell, intent on finding her.

The little bitch that he’d plans to make her
into his own dark queen would pay for escaping him, and when she
was found, she would have to suffer even more pain. She’d get the
pain that he’d reserved for the bowman’s term in hell too.

Meanwhile Regina was beginning to loose
hope.

So far she’d followed the air vent through
hell without any way of escape appearing either. Then moments later
she’d witnessed her arms simply vanishing in front of her, replaced
by flames that reached out from underneath her, and then the shape
of her fingers was lost within the depths of it too.

She’d also tried to wipe the flames away from
her face that were blocking her vision, but the flames from her
hands had actually made it worse. Then and completely unaware that
her head was now also a ball of fire, when she’d turned around to
look at her legs, she’d been completely horrified to see that her
bum was glowing red and beneath her knees, the lower half of her
legs had turned into flames too.

Hell was consuming her.

Then as she’d pushed on with more flaming
tears rolling down where her cheeks had been, suddenly the
passageway ahead of her took various twists and turns with more
savage flames to pass through. Only inside Regina had started to
loose hope, and felt that she’d be in hell for an eternity now and
maybe she should give herself up to try lessening the punishment
that she’d receive. Then as she’d almost laughed but didn’t because
she knew the pain that she’d receive for doing so as fires roared
up her throat, she’d seen Kaine’s face again and with it sense told
her there’d be no lessening of the pain, this was HELL. Regina
responded and then furious with herself for thinking stupid
thoughts and with Kaine’s image smiling back at her, she’d crawled
ahead and picked up her pace.

She’d also looked through more holes in the
side of the passageway every now and then, and found that they were
just the same as the first one she’d looked through. The cells
beneath were absolutely rammed tight with thousands upon thousands
of souls looking like slaves in the galleys of old pirate ships,
with demons floating above them lashing down flames too.

Then after some more twists of the passageway
and a few sudden descents that she’d had no choice but to fall
headfirst down into, finally the glowing passage finished.

When she’d approached its end, and was also
racked with the extremest levels of terror thinking that she’d be
greeted by hordes of demons, she’d actually found that there was no
one. The long normal sized passageway that she’d dropped down into
was empty. It led off in both directions but the right seemed to
climb back upon its self as if it were going up to the cells. No
way was she heading that way for sure.

So taking the left, she’d floated along it
and suddenly realized that because she’d no firm legs to walk on,
and just wild flames instead, she’d couldn’t feel the ground
beneath her. Then after sometime and when she was presented with
another fork, this time she’d taken the right.

The passageway after a short time had started
to climb though, and she didn’t like the idea of it at all. Only
because she’d felt that she was going in the opposite direction to
the cells, she progressed along it.

Regina was actually lost though, but of
course she was, it wasn’t like she’d paid daily visits to hell
before, she’d never been there, and had truly hoped like all
vampires do, that the eternity they were given to roam the earth
would be just that, eternity. Only now that she’d come to terms
with dying and her eternal life was clearly revoked, the sight of
the place and the thought that it was for eternity sent shivers
through her flames.

Kaine’s image had also grown weaker as the
flames had consumed her, plus her own thoughts were effected by it
too. She’d felt her movements were much slower, and with it new
levels of terror raced into her mind.

Then after hearing screaming that was clearly
coming from behind her but some ways aways, and also a massive roar
that had literally had the same effect as if she’d been injected
with pure adrenaline, her mind came back clear and with it she’d
increased her pace.

The demons had been ordered by Satan to
search the entire place, starting from the greeting room and then
to cover every inch of hell. They’d gone in to the air vent that
she’d used to escape, and were flying along it, completely unaware
that it had been the way she’d taken. Only soon they’d be at its
end and close on her tail.

Regina though was nearly at the end of the
establishment, and hadn’t far to go before she’d find a hole in the
wall that led out into the baron wastelands. Only the millions of
demons that Satan had ordered to join in the hunt were fast
approaching, and there was every chance that they’d catch her
before she’d reached it.

Laouse arrived following the bowman’s
directions to Hungary, and as Dracus felt the surge of energy
coming from his cursed arrow saying that they were close, he’d told
the Austrian vampire to land.

Dracus had said that the chopper had landed
in some kind of military base and that it was surrounded by both
hundreds of soldiers and tanks, but also shielded on three sides by
huge cliffs. Laouse had looked across at him with slight concern,
but then snarled with his fangs fully down as he’d thought of his
friends trapped inside the place needing his help.

Claudius had briefly met Dracus in Paris but
most of the journey between the swirling mist in the bowman’s mind,
the Bavarian monster who was so heavy that the chopper was flying
to one side, had asked the bowman to tell him why Satan was
following him.

Laouse had told him in his lab about the four
cursed arrows that Dracus had fired into Satan’s neck just before
he’d saved their lives a couple days previously, but Claudius had
wanted to hear it from Dracus himself.

Dracus had also said that he’d no real proof
that the chopper that they’d followed there to Hungary had captured
Kaine and Regina either, except that whilst he’d been standing
outside the shack, he’d remembered seeing hundreds of shiny spent
bullet cartridges laying in the snow beneath him.

The bowman had also said that both of the
choppers he’d seen; had steel cages full of vampires that were
dangling beneath them, and presumed that Kaine and Regina must have
been in them. He’d said that the choppers must have fired on the
old shack and then burst in there afterwards and captured all who
was inside.

Once Dracus had said everything that he could
and the priest who was sitting on the opposite side in the back of
the chopper he’d heard the story, and turned deathly white,
Claudius had furrowed his large eyebrows and started thinking. He
was thinking what he was going to do to these soldiers when he’d
finally caught up with them, and if they’d taken his son he
wouldn’t kill them straight away but do something far more fun. The
Bavarian monster would first rip off their outer skulls and then as
his fingers were swirling around in their brains like a cook
tasting his food, he’d then make them suffer the most extreme pain
that they’d ever suffered before.

Claudius paused his thought process only a
second or two in though, and then asked if Dracus had seen any of
the vampires in the cages moving. The bowman had apologised and
said that he hadn’t noticed because the blizzard was unbelievable
on there at the shack, and the wind was so harsh that his eyes were
filling with snow.

*****

Stepping out of the chopper with Claudius
also stepping down on his side, the bowman a Changalk hunter from
Eldor that was used to making sure there were no wild
fire-breathing beasts weighing hundreds of tonnes hiding in the
bushes; turned into his predatory mode and began to survey the
area.

He’d swung around with two cursed arrows
glistening in the moonlight and his drawstring fully back as he’d
watched the tall pine trees in front of him for any movement.

Claudius who was like Obelix from the Asterix
comics and used to beating anything to death just by his bare
hands, clenched his massive fists and also looked over into the
trees to see if anything was there.

Laouse had turned the radio dial around
beforehand to pick up the Vatican in Rome, and then like a child
calming to the sound of their favourite cartoon playing, the priest
mesmerised by the soft reverberating music inside the soundproofed
cab, stopped panicking and simply sunk back into the choppers cream
leathers seats and listened.

Laouse had said that he should stay there
whilst they went looking for Kaine and Regina, and although he
didn’t know how long they’d be; John should lock the choppers doors
from inside and not step outside until they’d come back.

The priest had smiled and then as he’d
clicked the door lock button shut, he’d sucked in the sounds from
Rome, and then in a far more relaxed state, he’d started fumbling
through the pages of his bible that was on his lap.