Duel Nature (32 page)

Staring straight ahead, the two Elders
floated across the room followed by Ondrej and Hosokawa. Upon
reaching their dais, the two vampire leaders stepped up to their
respective seats and stood in front of the heavy throne-like
chairs.

The two body guards took up a position to the
left of the raised seats. That put Hosokawa right at the bottom of
the stairs next to my seat, between dais nine and ten. As he
positioned himself he glanced up and spotted me. Grim rose to the
surface beneath my skin, twitching, ready to react. Power pooled in
my right hand without my conscious thought.

Hosokawa drew himself up straight, stared
directly in my eyes and – bowed. It wasn’t a slight lean at the
waist thing, but a full-fledged martial arts type, eyes down,
bow.

I froze, completely caught off guard.

“Bow back you
idiot!
” Lydia hissed at me, her voice
almost inaudible.

I stood and awkwardly bowed back, doing my
best dojo/sensei bow.

He straightened and turned smoothly to face
forward as I hurriedly sat back down. Every eye in the arena was on
me, every vampire having seen the Duelist’s action.

Tzao’s face reflected nothing as she turned
forward, but Senka had a slight gleam in her eye as she faced the
room and began to speak.

Chapter 31

“Welcome my fellow Darkkin. Welcome to the
Conclave of the Coven,” she began. “Called by the Patrons, this
will be the thirty-seventh occasion when we have gathered to select
a new Elder to help bring calm and control to our world.
Thirty-seven moments in history since the savage times of the
Anarchy have Darkkin come together and picked strong leaders to
guide our race with grace and direction.

The centuries of the Anarchy saw the full
extent of our unbridled appetites and emotions, but not our wisdom
and intelligence. Little better than animals…that’s how we existed.
But strong leaders emerged and fought to select an even stronger
triumvirate of Darkkin to bring order to chaos, reason to insanity,
and direction to our people.

Now, once again, we are called on to select a
new leader, as one of ours has fallen. Venerable Fedor, he of iron
will and iron hand, has left us behind, preceding us into the Dark.
He will not be easily replaced – no, in fact, our next Elder will
have a long row to hoe and the shoes of a giant to fill. But while
he will be missed, Fedor will serve in death as he did in life, as
the specifics of his passing have much to teach us. About our fast
changing world and our place in it.

Therefore, as tradition dictates, the
Conclave will first explore the details of Fedor’s final death to
best extract the lessons he left us to learn. Then our Conclave of
Patrons will sift and filter, test and retest those among them who
seek a higher role. Finally, they will vote and re-vote until they
agree on which of these candidates will best serve our needs.

Thirty-six times before has this happened,
but this Conclave will be at least as important as any before,
including the first. You see my fellow Darkkin, your Elders,
including fallen Fedor, have known for some time that we stand on
the cusp of a new era. Our human brethren, whom we have nurtured
and guided over the centuries, have grown and expanded the sciences
and world of technology as never before. And our own scholars have
worked right alongside them, helping bring forth these new
understandings and insights. The last one hundred years has seen an
exponential explosion of growth in physics, chemistry, astronomy,
the biological sciences and technology itself. From the forges of
the blacksmith our flock has arrived at the new forges of Nano
science, computer science, quantum physics and genetic engineering.
The future is difficult to see, increasingly hard to predict with
each new breakthrough. So we must be more than ready. We can’t just
be positioned to survive, but to thrive. To ride this wave of
knowledge into our future. But should we not prepare, should we
fail to plan – than we may face dangers we have never known.
Weapons far beyond silver, wood and fire. Enemies that can match
and exceed our abilities and strengths, enemies that fear and hate
us. That is the challenge our next Elder will face, a challenge
that Honored Tzao and I identified decades ago. One that she and I
have planned for in exhausting detail.

Fedor too saw these changes coming. He sought
a different path, one he felt was better for our people. Long did
we debate the directions we each took, not knowing which was best.
That, my fellow Darkkin, may well be the final truth that Fedor
bestows us. For in the manner of his passing the kernels of
knowledge may lay scattered about for us to find.

You see, there are two ways to look at these
changes: you can either fear them or you can embrace them. Fighting
the change is like fighting the transformation into vampire…it
doesn’t work. In fact it can kill you. But accepting new ways, new
ideas,…new beings, all can make us stronger just as the Turn made
you stronger as Darkkin.

Tzao and I have chosen this path, the one
that gives our people the best of the new world. Some of you fight
that. Some will see only danger and threat where we see
opportunity. I promise you that hiding from these changes is futile
and leaves the best of these new resources available to our
enemies.

So I challenge the Patrons to select one
among them who can embrace change and help guide us into this new
reality. I challenge them to put aside their fear and gather their
courage.

Now is the time – let the Conclave
begin!”

Every vampire in the stomped their right foot
once, in unison, while shouting a guttural ‘ASSA!”.

I had been prepared for clapping, not this.
Lydia, Nika, Galina and Tanya all stomped and shouted with the
others. I was the only one in the room who didn’t.

That one unified action, that one group
response sank home how completely out of place I was. The feeling
had been there all along, the understanding that I stood outside of
the group. In Senka’s message I wasn’t part of them, I was the new
thing...the new idea…the new being.

It was like being in a new church and not
knowing the right time to say ‘amen’, but worse. Every vampire
around me was aware of my lack of understanding…my failure to
belong.

Tanya gave me an apologetic glance, maybe for
not explaining the group response beforehand, but it just made me
realize how far out of my element I really was.

Lydia says I belong with the Coven, by right
of being Chosen, but she is wrong. I didn’t really fit in, no
matter how much I tried to tell myself that I did. I was in the
middle of a room full of blood sucking vampires every one of which
was intensely aware of my heartbeat, my warmth, my blood scent.

Suddenly dizzy as if my seat had suddenly
spun in place fifty times like the tilt-a-whirl at the county
fair.

My grandfather had once taken me on a trip
into Canada, north of Montreal. We had stopped at a small
restaurant for dinner and he had excused himself to go to the men’s
room. Left alone at the table, I had suddenly become aware that
every conversation in the room was in French. I was ten at the time
and while it wasn’t my first trip into the Quebec province, it was
the first time I had realized just how much different the world
became a few miles over the border from my home.

This was like that time only magnified
exponentially.

I won’t sit here and tell you it was the
first time I had wondered at the strangeness of the supernatural
world I had found myself thrust into over two years ago when I met
Tanya. There had been plenty of moments of introspection and
questioning. But life had progressed at a speed of motion that
smoothed those specks of uncertainty over. Now, in this moment, it
was as if I had stopped my headlong rush and all those thoughts and
emotions had come rushing up behind me, catching up and slamming
home, a twenty car pileup on the interstate of my brain.

Tanya froze, then turned in place to look at
me, even as Senka spoke the words that turned over the Conclave to
Gault and his fellow Patrons. I couldn’t meet her gaze, too
overwhelmed by the feeling of culture shock…hell…species shock.

Then we were standing and moving, dismissed
from the amphitheater along with the rank and file Darkkin. She
didn’t say anything, but I knew she could feel my emotions on our
personal wi-fi connection. We shuffled along, moving to the exit,
but now I was hypersensitive to the larger than usual space around
me, the odd sideways glances, the subtle sniffs of air to gather my
scent. Hundreds of personal conversations swirled around us, but we
each stayed silent.

“Well, that was….short!” Lydia said,
brightly. “Here I thought it would take hours and hours.”

Nika murmured an agreement, but Lydia was
suddenly studying Tanya and me, her personal radar sniffing out a
situation.

“What’s up?” she asked, looking back and
forth between us. I didn’t answer, keeping my gaze on an imaginary
spot on the floor ten feet in front of us.

“He is feeling out of place,” Tanya said
quietly.

Lydia started to make a comment, most likely
wiseass in nature, but slammed her mouth shut at the last moment. I
could see her shoot a look at my vampire from my peripheral vision,
but couldn’t see Tanya’s response. Nika was watching me as well,
but I had my anti-mind reading shield in place. The trip back to
our rooms was very quiet.

I veered off toward the kitchen just before
we got to our quarters, claiming hunger. I don’t think anyone
believed me, but I needed time alone and they needed time to talk –
probably about me.

The thing is whenever I’ve been with Lydia,
Nika, Tanya and a few others, I haven’t felt odd. Well odder. Let’s
face it, I’ve been odd my whole life. But what I mean is that I
never really felt out of place. I was just hanging out with three
beautiful girls who happened to drink blood. They didn’t act too
much different from other girls I had observed.

But when I was in a large crowd of vampires,
particularly old ones, the alien nature of their society would
suddenly press on me. Sitting in the amphitheater with several
hundred very old vampires had struck me like lightning. What was I
doing here? I didn’t belong underground with a race of
bloodsuckers. I belonged above ground – actually, I belonged above
ground and out of the Big Apple. I should be somewhere with forests
and fields, lakes and streams.

The kitchen was empty, which was a relief.
The industrial fridge yielded a block of sharp cheddar and a lump
of roast beef. I made toasted sandwiches and washed it all down
with full fat milk while I pondered my life.

Claws clicked on the floor, but some deep
seated part of me instantly identified the sound as belonging to a
young were bear-wolf. Awasos padded into the kitchen in wolf form
looking hopefully at the chunk of beef.

“Ah, I wondered if you would track me down,
fuzz face. Here, have a slab,” I greeted my furry friend, ruffling
his neck fur. Looking him over I realized he was getting
bigger.

“Still just a growing wolf-bear aren’t ya
pal?”

He finished his chunk of beef, snuffled my
face then looked pointedly at the hunk on the butcher block.

I laughed and cut him another piece. I might
be out of place but I was certain that I belonged with Tanya and my
furry pal.

Feeling marginally better, the two of us
headed back to the rooms. We didn’t make it.

A pair of Arkady’s security guys found me in
the hall. “Chosen, the Conclave has…requested your attendance,” one
of them said. By his momentary hesitation I knew he had been about
to say ‘ordered’ but changed it at the last moment. Arkady’s guys
hold me, or at least my abilities, in some respect. With a sigh, I
followed them back to the amphitheater, Awasos at my side.

Chapter 32

A pair of guards that I didn’t know held me
up at the entrance to the Conclave, telling me the Patrons would
call for me when they were ready. Apparently ready was an hour and
a half later, when the doors opened and a visibly weary Arkady came
out. He looked like he’d been thoroughly wrung out by the
Conclave’s questioning. Spotting me as he came out, he nodded then
swung back around. “Try to keep your temper Chosen,” he said, till
one of the unknown guards told him to keep quiet and the other told
me the Conclave was ready for me.

That little exchange said a lot. Arkady
headed up the Citadel’s security, so these guards wouldn’t be any
of his to talk to him that way. Must have been brought in by either
the Elders or the Patrons. His comment to keep my temper was also
telling. I could assume that he’d been questioned about the events
of Fedor’s death as he had been assistant security chief at that
time and would have detailed memories of the cleanup of Fedor,
Anton, and Vadim.

All of this ran through my head as I was led
into the big room by one of the guards. I had just gotten to
wondering why my temper was about to be tested, when I arrived in
the center of the room, facing all of the Patrons on their raised
dais’s.

Gault had taken Senka’s spot at number ten
and Atta had moved into the seat that Tzao had vacated. Hosokawa
stood at the midway point between the two, feet spread in parade
rest, a pair of sword hilts poking above his shoulder. Eleven pairs
of eyes studied me, while Gault kept his eyes on his desk, reading
through notes. Up high on my right side, on the walkway above the
highest row of seats, was a door. Something was behind that door
that I didn’t like, but I couldn’t put my finger on what it was.
The feeling was muted and dim.

Finally Gault spoke. “You are called
Christian Gordon?”

“Yes,” I answered. He studied me with cold
gray eyes for a moment before looking back down at his
paperwork.