This will be deleted soon - The Wrong Hope *Complete and Free*

25. The Vault

Guy

Year: 1983 1st of August after 3am,Monday, Summer

The instant I passed through the wards I felt lighter. Not only was I elated at having got what the f**k I wanted it was clear how much my little Doll had been effecting me. As I descended the stone stairs into the vault I contemplated Doll’s Tick. She had some sort of emotional thing going on. Now that I was safely behind the wards of the Vault and her Tick couldn’t reach me I was able to truly gauge the strength of her ability. Holy f*****g Christ in hell I was going to have to be a lot more careful.

While the wards blocked her entry and any interference from Ticks or Magic it did not block out sound. I could hear the b***h wailing like a f*****g banshee, raw, uncontrolled, pain filled howling. I had no f*****g clue how I was going to deal with that s**t after I was done down here. For God's sake that little taster of grief had been enough, I didn’t even want to imagine the depth of pain she was projecting right now. Ah crap, no way I was going to be able to persuade her to transfer the other Vault. It was an idea I’d been toying with, swinging across town and getting her to hand over her Uncle’s Vault but I didn't want to run before I could walk.

Well, I thought to myself, that was a problem for future me. I licked my lips in anticipation. This was set to be the biggest score I'd ever made and Lord above the excitement was almost too much, any minute I might start f*****g squealing like a pissing school girl. There were only a couple of steps left before what appeared to be the vault floor. Sod’s law the flash light started to flicker.

“Agh come on!” I said aloud while giving the device a good slap. “f**k!” I shouted into the dark when the light died and wouldn’t come back on. Standing on the last but one step I was fuming. As if I didn’t bring another f*****g set of batteries.

Closing my eyes I let out a breath between my clenched teeth, I didn’t even have a spare light in the car. Damn well I wasn’t going back up without even stepping foot in the actual Vault.I’d come too far. I stepped down.

“Holy Fuck.” I yelled. There was a whoosh and light flared in the Vault. Dozens of sconces that lined the walls had lit themselves, bright flames roared casting glowing light across the room.

“YES, f**k YE! WHOOOOOOO!” I jumped up and down elated. Jackpot. The vault was jam packed wall to wall, floor to ceiling, I could see things glittering from where I stood at the bottom of the steps. Tempted as I was to run around mindlessly I decided to take a more organised approach and start one end of this insane treasure trove. Wondering if the sconces came off the wall I took a closer look.

It appeared that they did in fact come off the wall but... they were pretty gnarly. A magically flaming torch casually rammed through the open maw of a Vamp skull. The skull was screwed to the wall and the jaw was fused somehow. The torch itself appeared to be made of bones, Vamp bones I guess, formed into a typical torch cone like the olympic one. Holy Mother of Jesus so grusome, f**k this place was cool and... it was all mine. Well and ‘my blood’ blah blah blah but if I didn’t tell them they wouldn’t know. Didn’t really know any of the fuckers anyway and as far as I knew none of them had the slightest clue about Vamps, Hunters or anything else. Mostly I'd added that clause for spite. Ya see if it was solely in my name and I kicked the bucket it would be open season for any fucker but this way... it was like an eternal dibs. If I couldn’t have it then pretty much no one could.

Excitedly, I took off my shoe and removed a sock so I could wrap it around the torch. I was being a baby but I didn't want to touch it. The Brice’s had killed a whole lot of Vamps to make this many magic torches; perhaps they had deserved their reputation after all I mused.

Starting on the far right I browsed the shelves assessing the value of each item as best I could. The first set of shelving was just Hunting gear; very tidily organised into weapons and attire. On the whole a lot of it was useless to me, I wouldn’t call it trash – it just didn’t fit my initial criteria; small, valuable and easy to sell. The next section was really boring – camping gear; tents, maps, canteens, compasses, bone scaled swiss army knife... Ooo actually that was pretty f*****g nice. I put the army knife in my duffle bag and gave up on my shelf by shelf perusing, already bored and impatient with my own plan.

Seeing all this basic b***h stuff upfront gave me confidence that the good stuff was at the back and boy was I right. Christ I didn’t know where to look first and my eyes were bulging so pissing much it was a shock they hadn’t popped out their f*****g sockets.

The shelves were heaving with artefacts and jewellery, each piece had one of those brown paper tag things tied on. God I loved the Brices’. I tore through the shelves using the tags as a reference. Anything I was 100% sure about I stuffed straight in the duffle and things I kinda wanted to take if I had space I stacked on a bit of shelf I cleared. Having everything labelled was a God send; now I knew what it was, where is was from, how old it was, if it was enchanted and what the f**k it did.

A particular gold bracelet caught my eye, it had one of those religious charm coins on it like a Saint Christopher only I couldn’t tell you if it was Saint Christopher, never gave a s**t about all that. I turned the tag over in my hand trying to read the annoyingly super cursive handwriting.

Name: Saint Eustace Medallion, Date: Unknown

Origin: Unknown (collected Rome),

Enchantment: Fortitude of the Huntsman, minor fire protection.

Now that was interesting... I wondered if it would help with my Doll issue. Although I supposed I could just kill her now but it would spoil my fun. I licked my lips, I was such a greedy boy. No harm in trying I mused, slipping the chain on my wrist after removing the tag (which I popped into a side pocket on the duffle bag, no way I was going to remember that St. Eusty crap or whatever it was).

My swag bag was getting pretty heavy, making me think it was probably time to head out, when something caught my eye – a metal cabinet right in the corner with a hefty padlock. Now, now what did we have here?

I gave the padlock an experimental tug. Why the hell in a magically sealed and protected room would anything need an additional lock? I put the duffle bag down and walked back to the first set of shelves. It didn’t take me long to find what I was looking for; something solid to give the padlock a good whack. Taking a hefty broadsword I went back to the locked cabinet. With one good swing the padlock broke in two just leaving the metal arch dangling. I winced. Not because of the lock clattered to the floor but because of the sound of breaking glass from inside. s**t. If only I wasn’t such an impatient bastard.

Dumping the sword on the ground I gingerly opened the doors while mentally crossing my fingers. Thank f**k for that. The damage was minimal with only two broken glass flasks – like the conical ones used in science. A glittery, silverish liquid oozed from one at a snail's pace but it had unfortunately already coated the tag so I couldn’t know what it was. No f*****g way in hell was I touching it. Hastily, but really f*****g carefully, I moved all the ones underneath out of the way so they wouldn’t be spoilt. The other broken flask had contained a red mist, I knew this because it was still there hovering in a semi threatening kind of way. I could just about see the label which read 1843, London, Unknown. Ok... not touching that either.

This was crazy. I’d never seen such a collection of potions outside of a Witches possession. After a super deep f*****g breath I set to work checking all the labels; if it wasn’t crazy valuable or really, really useful I wasn’t even going to think about taking it. I wasn’t set up for transporting potions and the last thing I needed was any of that s**t leaking, well, anywhere.

The more labels I checked the more my mind was blown, this was some real deal s**t here – shrinking, invisibility, object concealment, tracking, silver tongue and mirror potions to name a few. There was even a lightning storm in one. How f*****g awesome. The best part was I wasn’t even halfway done looking!

In the end I decided on 3 – animation powder, invisibility potion and drum roll please! This was the best; an obedience potion. Christmas had come early, I was going to have my cake AND eat it, with silver service whilst I was f*****g at it! According to the label it was top shelf as well, needed a witch for it to work. Lucky me. I knew exactly where to find one.

I took off my jacket, slipping everything from the pockets into the sides of the duffle, my waist band or my pants pocket, and used it to safely wrap the three containers. Once I was sure they were secure I made my way out of the Vault and up the stairs.