Dominant Species (8 page)

Suddenly
a voice cut across the auditorium, bringing it to a complete silence. He had been waiting for it, but still Karick couldn’t help but grit his teeth and clench his fists as the voice of Rodan rang out across the chamber.

‘Overlord Karick we have heard these promises from you before. However, we are also aware of your… liberal ways…’

At this point Rodan glanced behind him and up to his left, his stare clearly directed towards Drameer, who simply touched a finger to his forehead in a mock salute.

Having made his point Rodan continued. ‘But you would do well to remember that not all of us agree with your
approach. It seems to me that we provide our livestock with food, housing and protection and yet they are still ungrateful. What we need is strong leadership that ensures that they show their gratitude and I feel this means a return to our core Vampire values.’

‘You mean kill anything that’s still warm?’ retorted Karick, half to himself. Then he raised his voice in response. ‘Look, Rodan, whether you like it or not we need the humans, we need their blood to survive, and you know it
.’

Rodan looked slowly round the auditorium, scanning the faces of his fellow vampires,
carefully judging how far he might be able to push things.

‘Yes, I do understand that, and our humans have chosen to support us to this end. They choose to stay in the inner sanctum because, in return, we provide them with work, with a purpose…’ Again he scanned the rapt faces of his peers, ‘...and of course with their lives’.

Laughter and cheers crackled around the hall like electricity. Rodan knew that he was in command now; he held his hands out and waved down the cheering. ‘But… the so called resistance, these…’ he considered his next words carefully, like a surgeon, contemplating which scalpel to use to make the next incision. ‘…Nuisances have become far more dangerous than you have hitherto suggested.’

He walked to the end of the row
he was in and began a slow walk down the steps towards Karick. Three steps behind him, Kadir followed like an oversized shadow. Thirty pairs of eyes tracked his every step; some of the vampires licked their lips, anticipating and looking forward to the possible fight they felt was getting close.

Rodan’s voice grew in strength
as he descended toward Karick. ‘We all have stories of theft of our property. But are you aware that over the past six weeks over fifteen humans have also disappeared?’

‘We have no proof that they were taken by the resistance
,’ retorted Karick as he watched Rodan closing, his mind racing.

‘Really? Then who is to blame? Perhaps you are suggesting that other Vampires are the
culprits?’ sarcasm dripped from each and every word.

‘Of course not! But I
do think you overstate the danger, they cannot cause us harm; we are far too powerful’.

Rodan
paused, raised an eyebrow. ‘And I think you underestimate the danger, Overlord Karick. They may not have the physical strength we enjoy, but what they promise to our humans, is something far more dangerous.’

He stopped
, near the bottom step now, and scanned the faces of the crowd, playing to the audience. ‘Something far more precious...’ Rodan turned to face his audience, and almost whispered the final word, ‘...hope.’

As Rodan placed
his foot on the bottom step that led up to the podium and on towards Karick, Voltan stood automatically in his defence. Below him and behind Rodan, the massive form of Kadir eased closer still, he growled, low and guttural. Voltan tensed and began to move rise, but Karick placed a hand on his friend’s shoulder, gently settling him back in his seat. Then Karick stepped forward as Rodan mounted the podium.

W
ithout taking his eyes from Rodan, Karick slowly walked toward him. They now stood only seven or eight feet apart. When Karick spoke again he spoke quietly, but his voice had taken on an unmistakable edge, an edge that managed to silence the auditorium as one. ‘I said it is in hand.’

Within that simple statement a challenge had
clearly been delivered, a metaphorical line drawn in the sand, a line for Rodan to stop at, or to cross; and Rodan knew it too. He knew also that if he crossed the line there would be no way back. He could feel how close he was, how close he was to usurping Karick, taking his power for his own purposes. He paused, it was a pause filled by a complete and absolute silence. As Rodan hesitated Karick filled the growing void with a simple question.

‘Do you doubt me, Rodan?’

And there it was, the unspoken challenge suddenly made vocal, loud and clear without any ambiguity for Rodan to hide behind.

Karick seemed to cross the gap between himself and Rodan without actually moving
. One minute they were six feet apart the next toe to toe.

‘Well?’ His voice remained totally true, the tone strong with absolutely no hint of fear
in it anywhere.

By contrast Rodan’s response, together with his initial hesitation had already lost
him some of the former power he’d garnered.

‘I speak only what others are thinking, no more, no less
,’ he replied, trying desperately to keep his voice as strong as possible.

‘So you believe you speak for the entire Council?’

Rodan looked to the audience where uncertainty had filled the air as well.

‘I believe the resistance must be stopped.’

‘And I agree. As I have already stated, it shall be done.’

Karick seemed to move without moving, his face was now only inches from Rodan’s. Behind him, Kadir tensed but froze the moment Karick’s eyes, full of power and menace, pinned him to the spot. In the audience Drameer hid a smile with his hand, his eyes glinting. Keermit scowled, her face burning
hot with anger.

‘So Rodan,’ continued Karick, his voice now calm and
quiet, but still with a steel core ‘I ask again, but only once more. Do you doubt me? Do you challenge me?’

A whisper rustled around the auditorium. At the back Zidtool leaned back in his seat, his long arms
crossed behind his head. His lopsided smile didn’t change as he glanced across at Drameer. ‘Interesting don’t you think, I’m really glad I came now.’

On the podium, Karick’s
face was so close, Rodan could feel his breath. His eyes flicked quickly to the faces in the auditorium. To each of his erstwhile supporters, Shallock, Dresden, one by one each vampire lowered their head, avoiding his pleading gaze.

With his support sapped
completely Rodan turned back to face Karick. ‘No’ he almost whispered.

‘Sorry? I didn’t hear you
,’ taunted Karick, louder now.

Rodan lifted his head.
‘I said, no.’

‘
Then,’ snarled Karick, the menace in his voice now very real, ‘I suggest you return to your seat…’ He looked to Kadir, one foot still on the first step the other still on the floor, ‘…and take your lackey with you.’

Rodan performed a half bow and swirled round, his coat floating out behind him as he strode back up the aisle, his face burning with anger and even worse,
complete embarrassment. Confused, Kadir, unclear as to how things had changed so quickly, trotted along behind.

Voltan half smiled, as Karick returned centre stage, very much back in command.

‘Mayor Cooper.’

Mayor Cooper jumped upright
out of his seat, as if hit by sixty thousand volts of electricity.

‘You have seen how...’ Karick
paused as he surveyed the faces around auditorium ‘…how important, this resistance business has become. Yes?’

Cooper’s head bobbed up and down.

‘Then you will see to it that it is resolved. Take your men and go to the outer sanctum, and find them. Tolon will go with you.’

Karick nodded to the first row
to his left where a vampire immediately stood. Tolon was tall and thin with bleached spiky hair, and he bowed low when Karick’s eyes locked with his.

‘Tolon, you will accompany the Mayor and ensure his success, understood?’

Karick scanned the auditorium and the disparate groups of vampires, before turning once more to Tolon and adding; ‘And take a human search and destroy party, together with as many half-lings as you see fit. Now go and take Cooper with you.’

‘As you
command, Sire’

In the audience Zidtool raised an eyebrow in amusement. He caught Rodan’s bleak look and smiled, before returning to cleaning his long finger nails with his silver bladed knife.

Karick watched Tolon exit the arena, Mayor Cooper scampering along behind. Then he turned his attention back to the auditorium, his gaze momentarily settling on Rodan before he spoke once more.

‘Now
the circus show is over, perhaps we might continue?’

The resistance drew to a halt near Williamsburg Bridge, from where they had seen the signal. Carefully they pulled out of sight and into the cover of a deserted building. Wrecked cars sat abandoned in the middle of the highway. Max walked out, unhooking his shotgun. He walked from the side road and crossed to Delancey Street and then into Bernard Downing Playground. He paused, transfixed by the site of the desolate and ruined playground now nothing more than a stark and mocking reminder of how things had once been; a time before the nuclear holocaust which had swept through their City like some cruel and devastating tsunami, leaving nothing but broken dreams in its wake.

‘Stand
very still and show me your hands.’ The voice that gave the command was whispered, and disarmingly close.

Max froze and
slowly and very carefully held out his shotgun at arm’s length.

‘Who are you? Where’s Trent?’
came the voice from somewhere behind.

‘Trent’s not here
. My name’s Max.’

‘But Trent was supposed to make contact.’

‘Not tonight.’

A small, slight
, black man of indeterminate age stepped out from the shadows, his gaunt face topped with tight-cropped hair heavily streaked with grey. Around his neck was a rosary. He walked round in front of Max, then peered passed him toward the second figure that slowly approached in the dim light, arms aloft. It was Jake. Eddy’s face broke into a broad smile.

‘Hey
, Jake, is that you?’

Jake lowered his arms
‘Hey Eddy, how you doing?’

Max watched as Eddy held out a heavily scarred hand, which Jake grabbed.
‘Okay’ Max growled, clearly unhappy, ‘enough of the reunion, can we get into some cover please?’

Eddy
, with a broad grin still on his face looked up at Max, ‘what? Oh, sure,’ he signalled the all clear and four more figures peeled out of the darkness, all armed. Jake and Eddy walked across the street toward the others with Max trailing behind.

‘How are things going my friend?’
asked Jake.

‘Not good, the heats been on lately, there’s been an increase in the search destroy parties. A few weeks ago they discovered one of our ou
tposts...’ Eddy looked nervously around at the rag tag figures of his own men as they moved across the street ‘…caught one of my men, tortured him real bad before they finally killed him.’

‘I’m sorry.’
Jake’s eyes closed, he didn’t know what else to say.

‘Did he give you away?’
Max asked coldly.

A spark of anger flared in Eddy’s eyes. ‘No. We all know the risks. Come on let’s get across the bridge.’

Jake threw his brother a look of disbelief, Max just shrugged.

Inside the New York Palace, Rodan stormed into
his suite, behind him Keermit and Zidtool tried to keep up. Keermit visibly flinched as Rodan roared, then span and threw a small table across the room where it splintered into a hundred pieces against the wall, taking a large chunk out of the old plasterwork.

Zidtool
didn’t react at all; instead he just leant against the wall and smiled his lopsided grin.

‘We nearly had him. The council were with us, they want a change, I can taste it,’
Rodan roared in anger. He looked from one to the other, breathing hard.

             
‘Yes my Lord. They do,’ purred Keermit trying to calm him down a little.

‘Keermit, we have come so far. I’ve managed to make the resistance the focus of concern; we've even ‘freed’ some
of the humans to help focus our friends’ minds.’ He paused, breathing hard. We cannot allow Karick to find the resistance first. If he does he’ll manage not only to cling onto his position, but increase his power.’

             
‘He won’t,’ Keermit promised, but without conviction.

‘But he has sent Tolon with that fool of a Mayor, something I did not anticipate.’

‘Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that,’ smiled Zidtool, ‘things can get very dangerous outside of the City, even for vampires.’

Rodan turned to him as if noticing him for the first time and looked thoughtfully
into the beast’s impassive face.

‘Go on, Zidtool.’

‘Well the way I see it, one more failure could be enough to finish Karick for good.’

‘Particularly if one of our own were also to be lost?’ added Rodan,
understanding dawning quickly. Keermit and Zidtool both smiled.

‘My Lord, if I may?’ continued Keermit.

Rodan returned his gaze to Keermit’s beautiful face and nodded.

‘I think there is one more thing that would surely bring new leadership.’

‘And that is?’ asked Rodan, suddenly very interested, all his anger long gone.

‘The council are ready for a change
, we know that. They believe that Karick has grown weak, yet they still fear him.’ She paused, looking to Zidtool, who was absently spinning his silver knife between his fingers as if he had no interest at all in the conversation. ‘My Lord, if his position were to be further weakened by yet another failure to stop the resistance, then perhaps the time would be right to challenge him under the Ancient Code?’

Rodan raised his eyebrows, ‘
Although I desire his place Keermit, I’d rather remain in one piece to take it, he said.’

Keermit smiled. ‘I wasn’t thinking of you, my love
,’ she ran a long finger down his cheek, ‘…no; I believe we can turn Karick’s strength to our advantage?’

Rodan looked at her quizzically.

‘But who could defeat him? If the stories are even half true…’ He looked to Zidtool who held up his hands in a gesture of surrender.

‘In all honesty probably no one
...’ continued Keermit, ‘…but they won’t need to.’

Rodan frowned, not following her train of thought. Keermit pressed on patiently.

‘If Karick is as strong as people say he is… and I have no doubt that he is, then what better demonstration of the council’s dissatisfaction with him than a challenge, despite the overwhelming risk. I mean, wouldn’t a hopeless challenge with no chance of winning say more to the Queen about how we all feel, than a challenge that had even a small chance to succeed?’

Rodan smiled as he
began to understand, his canines glinting in the room’s dim light.

‘
If such a desperate challenge were to be made, then the Queen would have no choice but to take note,’ Rodan added thoughtfully.

‘Exactly
, and then my Lord, who would be best placed to provide her with the support and guidance that she needs in order to reunite the vampires, thereby averting a war?’

‘I fear we shall make a politician of you yet, Keermit. All we need now is someone foolish enough to make the challenge, all for the better good
, of course.’

In the remains of the secretariat building of the United Nations, Drameer stood silently by the large
picture windows staring out at nothing in particular. Behind him Karick and Voltan entered the room in the middle of a heated conversation.

‘My Lord that was as bad as I've seen them
,’ he closed the door behind them, ‘They have become far too restless. I sense great danger, and Rodan - ’

‘- Rodan has shown his hand, nothing more
,’ replied Karick with irritation flaring in his voice.

‘I fear you are wrong,
my friend,’ Interjected Drameer quietly, ‘and I fear Voltan’s concerns only begin to touch the surface.’

Karick turned, realising for the first time that they weren’t alone. He took a deep breath before speaking again, this
time his voice was far more measured.

‘Speak Drameer
, what are your thoughts on tonight’s events?’

‘You have known for
some time where Rodan stands. Tonight has certainly confirmed that but…’ he paused, careful of what he was going to say next.

Both Karick and Voltan waited
patiently.

‘He has come out of the shadows now and tested you
,’ Drameer continued.

‘
Unfortunately, I think he may have also set the balance to win the first battle.’

‘In what way?’ challenged Karick, but
without any anger in his voice.

‘He has challenged you on where you stand in front of the Council
… and survived. Moreover he has forced you to make a pledge in front of your peers. Now, if you don’t succeed in stopping the resistance you will be seen to fail, considered to be weak, having failed in your pledge.’

‘Then I shall have to make sure that I don’t fail,
won’t I?’ replied Karick with a slight edge of despair and impatience.

‘
Indeed. But even if you do… even if you succeed as you have promised, Rodan will say that it was he who forced you into action. Either way he wins favour with the Queen, as well as with the rest of the Council.’

Drameer turned from the window to face his Master. ‘The Queen is unstable and remains uneasy. She needs the council’s full support to quell the
potential conflict and unrest that grows daily within the vampire clans. It is the worst I have ever seen them for many a year.’

He turned away,
staring once more out of the window. Below he watched as the Mayor and twenty men kicked their horses into action, at the back Tolon; around him six half-lings, half crouched, trotted alongside.

Drameer
glanced at Karick’s reflection in the window, feeling his eyes boring into the back of his head.

‘For years
… since the great War, we have tried to adjust to our new world, our new position, our new hierarchy.’ He turned back from the window; looked straight into Karick’s eyes. ‘I think we have been both blessed and cursed. The War that the humans brought upon themselves has left the sky dark, freed us from our one fear, fear of the light, and provided us a greater freedom. Yet…’ Drameer scanned the room, arms outstretched. ‘This is not us. Not truly. Not as we have been bred.’

‘But this is how we dreamed of being,’ muttered Voltan
, somewhat unconvincingly.

‘Is it? Before we came to this world we were nothing more than
criminals and scavengers, banished here centuries ago for our crimes. Our leaders thought that we would not survive, could not survive, because of the light and lack of food. They sentenced us to certain death on this planet. But against the odds, we did survive. We hid from the light and found an alternative food supplement’

He looked from Voltan to Karick.

‘Yet in doing so we have never needed to create anything, never needed to build anything. We have just taken. This, I fear, is our true nature and this I fear will be the cause of our downfall.’

‘But we are superior,’ stated Voltan, clearly unhappy
with Drameer’s appraisal of their species.

‘We are stronger.’

‘We are cleverer.’

‘More cunning.’

‘Your point Drameer,’ questioned Karick.

‘
For us to survive, our nature has to change, really change. The war has left destruction. The war has destroyed much of our food chain, even if it has left us in command, you have to ask… in command of what?’

‘But that’s why we created the inner sanctum, why we have the breeding programmes. The research and development programmes, the bio-ethonol production, other crude based fuels. We do this for them, not us.’ Countered Karick, but uncertainty was already audible in his voice. He paused looking at Drameer for reassurance.

‘You and I understand that we need the humans. I mean truly need them. But not the likes of Rodan...’ responded Drameer as kindly as he could.

Drameer turned once again to stare out of the window
and into the darkness. His reflection stared back at him, mocking.

‘Rodan wants to take. He is true to the nature of the vampire; he craves power
for power’s sake, nothing more. He cares nothing of the consequences. Just like all the others.’ His eyes flicked to Voltan who stood silently. ‘I fear he will do anything to win, regardless of the consequence.’

‘All the others?’ questioned Karick

‘Unless we learn to change; but first we need to believe we have to. There are no consequences in the vampire mind. Rodan wouldn’t build - couldn’t build. You know how hard it’s been to create a semblance of order here.’

This time it was Karick who turned to gaze from the window.

‘You speak true. It has not been easy.’

‘Sometimes the path of truth is the hardest to walk, even as an individual, let alone when others
must be made to follow.’

‘And you fear that Rodan wishes to lead the others from the path?’