Dominant Species (7 page)

‘
…That was before he was old enough to realize what I’d done,’ Jake muttered quietly.

‘Oh…’ said Trent, a hint of anger breaching his normal calm
…and what exactly was that?’

Jake looked up
and into Trent’s cold blue eyes, hardly believing the question he’d just been asked by the man who’d become the nearest thing to a father he had since he’d lost his own. Suddenly Jake found that he resented the man with every fibre of his being, his eyes narrowed as he watched Trent just standing there, leaning against the doorframe, baiting him. Jake stood, a coldness falling over him.

‘
You know what happened… what they did?’ he hissed, his hands once again balled into fists.

‘I do,’ replied Trent, a
sudden and tremendous compassion entering his voice, which threw Jake off balance ‘…and…’ Trent continued, ‘…if you hadn’t got your brother out? What then? If you’d left him there, would that have made everything all right? Would that have made things better?’ Trent absently rubbed at his bad leg. ‘Or just got the both of you killed as well?’

They stood facing each other in silence.

‘Look Jake, my legs been playing up and Nathan wants to go on this meeting in person. I’d consider it a personal favour if you’d go and keep an eye out for him, would you do that… for me? Please?’

Jake looked into th
ose steely blue eyes, sighed and nodded, all anger leaving him in a rush.

In the United Nation’s General Assembly hall, deep within the General Assembly building, seats circled the centre stage rising up, into the darkness. Where once there would have been up to eighteen hundred people sitting around the central raised dais, now thirty vampires sat at various points, many muttering in small groups to nearby neighbours.

Each of the vampires
in attendance wore formal attire. This consisted of a black hooded top, with body armour underneath, it was a look which did nothing but make them appear even more sinister than usual. Most sat with the hood of their formal cloak pulled up over their head. All wore the glinting leather and steel body armour beneath their long black cloaks, something they always did when gathering on mass; such was the general lack of trust between them.

In the front row the half dozen humans that made up the human support league, including the Mayor, slouched in obvious discomfort, seemingly trying to disappear into their seats
. In front of them the podium with the UN emblem still emblazoned above. Behind them the air was already beginning to fill with the sound of voices, rising like angry deep lunged wasps, magnified oddly by the large domed roof and vast empty space.

On each side of the auditorium, two large and now faded abstract murals looked down on the unusual group below.
It was a group that did not like to sit around waiting and as such it was a group that quickly became restless. The voices had begun to increase notably in volume. Suddenly one group of Vampires was shouting at another, their arms waving aggressively.

The sound of
the arguing and general chaos greeted Drameer as he entered the auditorium from near the back. He stood briefly, taking in the general disorder and then glanced to the centre stage and the empty podium. On each side leading up to the podium a huge vampire guard held one of the half human, half vampires, as they strained at their chain leashes. Drameer scanned the audience, saw a familiar figure and with a slightly surprised look on his face dropped down two rows to sit on the end. Four seats in the gaunt face of Zidtool turned and nodded to him. He spoke in his quiet, yet slightly grating voice.

‘Drameer. Good to see you.’

‘You too Zidtool, I haven’t seen you for ages, killed anything interesting lately?’

Zidtool snorted. ‘It’s always interesting, don’t you think?’

Suddenly the noise subsided and both Vampires simultaneously turned toward the podium as Overlord Karick entered, at his side the ever-present Voltan.

Karick climbed the steps to the podium and stood facing his audience. He cast he eye around the auditorium. Where he gaze fell, silence followed as one by one the vampires stood. That was until his gaze reached Zidtool, who remains resolutely seated as Drameer
climbed to his feet to his left. Karick paused on Drameer and then returned his gaze to Zidtool. His angry eyes burned like fire. An empty silence followed, before Zidtool, chuckling, stood. His voice hissed out across the auditorium.

‘My apologies, oh great one, I did not see you there.’

He threw in a mock bow sending hushed laughter rustling around the auditorium, which was quickly silenced by Karick’s steely gaze.

‘Always the comedian, eh Zidtool
, perhaps you would like to discuss your sense of humour with me, in private, afterwards?

A lopsided smile flickered across Zidtool’s face.

‘Well?’ asked Karick, reasonably, but everyone picked up the steely coldness beneath.

Zidtool lowered his head.

‘Apologies again, my Lord, that won’t be necessary.’

Content, Karick finally nodded. Around him the vampires, as one, silently sat down.

Although the microphones no longer worked, Karick’s voice rang through the auditorium, loud and clearly.

‘Consider this Council in session.’

Jake knew that moving around Brooklyn, or the City of New York, was dangerous at the best of times. Fear of discovery and attack from vampires, as well as the other clans, not to mention the things that were supposed to live further out, was always a threat. Also the things they knew as half-lings, neither man nor vampire, were often left to roam around on their own, or even left abandoned, seeking food. But moving around at night meant even greater danger. In the early days they had walked the streets in small, armed groups, but after various attacks and near misses with the vampires, they had realised that they needed a safer way to avoid unwanted detection if they were to survive.

             
It had been Lano’s father that had provided the solution - the abandoned railway tracks, stations and unused lines that lay beneath the City in an underground network labyrinth of tunnels. Lano’s father had been a history teacher, with an insatiable appetite for anything transport related. Having discovered the hidden, underworld of New York City as a young boy he had spent much of his life uncovering, researching and documenting the hidden rail network buried deep beneath the streets of the City. Now over the years the resistance had broken through walls, sealed others and made enough rough connections between both the abandoned, as well as the previously widely used network, to be able to travel around, if not in total safety, at least in greater safety than walking around above ground amongst creatures that could see in the dark and that had an unnaturally good sense of smell.

Entrances and exits to each of the routes were always well hidden and guarded by the
ever present watchmen. Once inside the tunnels, they would be provided relatively good protection from prying eyes. However, this still did not imbue any real feeling of comfort in those that had to take the route and pathways though the darkness, where the reality of the rats, lack of light and strange and sudden noises all conspired to keep them feeling anything but safe and secure.

It was now in such a position
that Jake found himself, on a dark and wet night near the Brooklyn Queen’s Expressway, amongst the sound of footsteps that could be heard echoing quietly all around. Inside, moving slowly, the small party shuffled along disused tracks in almost total darkness, their only light coming from the four oil lamps that swung rhythmically in the hands of the two watchmen that led the way and the two that followed behind.

Max walked at the front beside a burly watchman with a large walrus moustache. Jake, wanting to keep as much distance between himself and his
younger brother, had chosen to walk at the very back. Even though they walked slowly the four lanterns only managed to spread a small amount of illumination, and so they still stumbled on the uneven ground and old railway sleepers and other unseen debris that cluttered the path beneath their feet.

With eyes
darting left and right, they moved forward in a single line, treading carefully and ever wary. Suddenly the lead watchmen signalled for the group to stop, the signal was quickly and silently passed back from one person in the line to the next in total silence, until the entire group had stopped moving.

There
followed a long pause, then Jake heard Max whisper something up ahead. ‘What is it?’

Jake
was unable to make out the reply. He breathed quietly through his mouth, his ears staining for any sound that might be out of place. Two lamps moved past him creating a line of four white dots ahead. The four lights then began moving forward in unison and on into the darkness ahead, leaving the group behind in fast growing blackness. Then, as Jake watched the four lamps moved further away, they must have suddenly walked around a kink in the track ahead and the lights disappeared altogether, leaving them in complete and utter darkness.

No one moved. An uneasy feeling began to spread down the line.
It seemed an eternity before the lights returned. Jake waited for the watchmen to pass him in order to retake up his position.

‘What was it?’
he asked.

‘
Nothing; Bret thought he’d heard something, that’s all,’ whispered the tall watchman next to him, as the group started moving forward again. ‘I think he’s getting jumpy in his old age.’

‘Aren’t we all?’ muttered Jake
almost to himself as the group carefully picked their way ahead still looking all around and listening for anything else out of the ordinary. Ten minutes later they had reached their exit. Bret, the lead watchman with the bushy moustache nodded the all clear and the party crept forward and out of the tunnel and into an old subway station. Slowly the figures squeezed through the tall barriers and crept out into the cold night air, where they were briefly silhouetted against the slightly lighter sky outside. The two rear watchmen took up positions near the station and blended into their surroundings as the others continued on into the night.

Jake knew
that there was only so far you could go using the underground network and a part of him was glad to out of the claustrophobic surroundings, but there was now even more danger and he was now on an even higher alert as the possible dangers of the night fought to paralyse him. The resistance fighters slowly walked through the barren landscape, dodging round wrecks of abandoned and burnt out cars, their feet clambering over rubble and piles of rotting bones.

Derelict buildings rose in defiance to the general destruction all around. Smashed windows and fallen bricks littered the ground. Streetlights that hadn’t worked for years look
ed down in mocking silence. Up ahead the watchmen would move forward, checking the route, before stopping to signal the all clear to the group behind. On this signal the rest of them would move forward carefully until they had caught up to the watchmen, then the watchmen would set off again. This shuffling procession continued for about thirty minutes before Max suddenly raised his hand on hearing a small sound. Shotguns pivoted as everyone jolted to a stop, all of them holding their breath as one. Suddenly a half staved, stray dog tipped into the road. As one, the men relaxed.

Max signalled the all clear and the group trooped on quietly
again in their peculiar relay race. After another ten minutes Jake picked out a small light in the distance as it blinked quickly, once, then twice and the group proceeded forward at a slightly faster pace.

Within the bowels of the General Assembly Hall of the United Nations building chaos had returned. Anger burned in the air as a tall
pale faced vampire stood, all eyes fixed on him. His name was Shallock, one of the vampire Lords who ran the South Side
.
More importantly, Karick knew he was one of Rodan’s loyal followers.

He spoke with a strong New York accent
layered with a slight Irish lilt.

‘The resistance grows stronger by the day. We simply want to know
what you are doing about it,’ he demanded to rousing support.

Karick struggled to quieten the rising discourse. ‘Shallock
; they are a nuisance nothing more.’

Then a
squat vampire stood a couple of rows behind Shallock, his name was Dresden also one of Rodan’s loyal followers. When he spoke his voice didn’t match his physical appearance with its high pitched, nasally tone.

‘A nuisance you say? Well I say it is more when a dozen of my livestock goes missing with enough food for a month. Now, to make matters worse, two of my humans have disappeared as well.’

‘Aye,’ continued Shallock, ‘and they have stolen not just from Dresden, they have stolen from us all. Nowhere is sacrosanct anymore, from the lower East side, through China town; hell they’ve even hit Harlem.’

He looked round, noting with pleasure the growing support. From near the back Zidtool
continued to watch, a thin, wry, lopsided smile on his gaunt face.

‘You said
…,’ Shallock emphasised the word you ‘…that they didn’t pose a threat, that we should leave them be, they were just hungry. Then, when things got worse and leaving them unchecked was no longer an option, you said they would be brought to book. It was promised that the Mayor would provide the whereabouts of these troublemakers and bring them to the sanctuary or, failing that, dispose of them… and has he?’

All eyes focused on Mayor Cooper as he desperately tried to become part of the seat he was sat in. Behind him, the black
, leather clad figure of Keermit leant slowly forward and whispered in his ear. ‘Perhaps it is time for a new Mayor?’

Cooper shot forward as her breath
caressed his neck, accompanied by a cackle of laughter from the whole auditorium.

Drameer glanced around. It was clear to him that Rodan had orchestrated the discontent and
, he had to admit, had done it quite well. He returned his focus to Karick, knew he was beginning to lose his patience and waited to see what he would do.

On the elevated dais,
Karick raised his hand. ‘The Mayor will deliver… won’t you?’ he half bellowed at the human council members in the front row below. Mayor Cooper’s neck wobbled, as he vigorously nodded his head in agreement. Then his eyes bulged as Karick finished his sentence, more calmly ‘…or he will pay the consequence.’

The Mayor grabbed his handkerchief from his pocket to wipe the
building sweat from his face. Behind him, Keermit leant forward again but this time dragged a fingernail across his wet cheek before slowly licking it clean.