Duel Nature (36 page)

I didn’t like it. And making matters worse
was the occasional rumor of a few, who despite all precautions,
died during the feedings.

So when the summons came, I was in less than
a stellar mood. Trudging along the corridors to the amphitheater my
mood grew darker and darker. I didn’t want to be here, didn’t
belong here and really didn’t want to be stared at by a bunch of
old vampires who shouldn’t be judging anyone.

I walked right up to the open doors, passed
the two guards who didn’t react to my presence and straight into
the Conclave’s chamber. They were arguing, at least that’s how it
looked to me. Atta, Mausya and Frimunt were all simultaneously
explaining their positions, and their election platform appeared to
be the fate of the human race. No one noticed me so I took a seat
in the stands and watched.

“Fedor had the right of it!” Frimunt said.
“We are the top of the food chain, so why not make it visible?”

“Have you forgotten the whole pitchforks and
torches thing?” Atta answered. “Humans are weak and feeble…until
you bunch them up. Now they number in the billions and you want to
frighten them by exposing us?”

“Humans are dangerous, not only in numbers,
but with technology. Senka is right about us staying behind the
scenes until we have an edge,” Mausya added.

“Bah! We have all the edges we could ever
want! We can hunt them in the dark, remind them why they fear the
night!” Frimunt argued. “Although I will admit that their numbers
have grown excessive. So maybe a culling is in order, something
like the Black Plague which was so effective before.”

“Oh, that’s brilliant. We killed off a major
portion of our food supply during the Dark Ages. It left vampire
against vampire for those small food populations that were left.
Your mind has grown soft and spongy Frimunt!” Atta said. “And Senka
is a sentimentalist! Partner with humans? Insanity. And use the
Full Blood to do it? She’s barely adult and saddled with that
…abomination.”

“Where is Gordon? Did you not summon him
Gault?” Mausya asked suddenly.

“The abomination is sitting right here!” I
said, standing.

Twelve heads snapped around to stare at me,
twelve faces flickered with micro frowns before smoothing into the
standard blank look of old vampires.

“You’re here,” Gault said, his voice level
but I could read enough of the Patrons mannerisms now to know that
he was honestly surprised by my presence. They all were which was
ridiculous, because it is just about impossible to sneak up on a
single vampire over the age of a hundred, let alone a dozen who
each approached a thousand years.

“Yeah, you rang, I came,” I said.

They were all silent for a full thirty
seconds. Finally, Gault spoke.

“You have spoken of the US government’s
knowledge of Darkkin. We need more knowledge of this.”

“Yes, I heard, for your secret plans for
world domination,” I snapped. They stilled again, except Hosokawa,
who moved just slightly to better face me. In hindsight, my
sarcastic tone was probably not the best way to address a dozen
super predators, but I was having trouble controlling myself. The
God Tear around my neck warmed slightly at my words.

“You eavesdropped?” Atta asked.

“I marched in here and stood for ten seconds
then sat right here in front of all of you!” I shot back at her.
“Maybe vampire senses decline with age.”

They all shifted at those words, flickers of
anger crossing most of their faces. Some small part of me rang the
alarm bell to ‘shut the hell up’ before I got bitten by a dozen
sets of fangs.

Frimunt’s anger was the most visible. He even
started to get up from his mini-throne but Gault motioned him to
stay where he was. He obeyed the non-verbal request although he
flashed a nasty glare at the Prolocuter.

“How much do the humans know?” Gault asked,
attempting to move past the suddenly volatile atmosphere.

“About Darkkin? Quite a lot. They know of the
Coven and its worldwide network. They know you have fingers in
every area of the global economy and have influence over most
governments.”

“How long have they known?” Mausya asked.

“Decades,” I answered. “At least, in terms of
knowing about vampires. The part about the Coven may be more
recent, I’m not sure.”

“What levels of the government know this?”
Gault asked.

“From the President on down. Homeland
Security as a whole sector assigned to vampires and weres.”

“They know of the Elders?” Mausya asked.

“Yes, Senka has spoken to some of their
higher officials, but they knew of older vampires before that I’m
pretty sure.”

“Senka has spoken to them?” Frimunt asked,
his tone cold and dangerous.

“er, yes, at least once,” I said.

“Because of you!” Mausya said suddenly.

“Well, yeah I guess.”

“And now the Coven cowers underground!”
Frimunt stormed. “This is a ridiculous state of affairs! They run
from us – not us from them!”

He was working himself into a pretty good
temper and I don’t know where it would have gone, but suddenly a
small hand bell rang. It was just a small thing, like you see in
movies where the sick person gets to ring a bell to get the
attention of and on the last nerve of their parent/spouse/friend.
Its effect was pronounced. All twelve vampires snapped their
attention to the upper door that the possessed girl had come
through when the Conclave had ‘tested’ me. This time the guard on
duty led a string of young, fit looking humans through, most of
them showing substantial skin.

“Lunch is served,” the upper level guard said
in a serious voice, but he said it with a sardonic grin. The
Patrons promptly forgot our conversation and kept all their
attention on the upcoming ‘meals’.

The line of twelve humans came nervously down
the amphitheater stairs, each one branching off to go to a
different vampire. Their behavior was a blend of fear and
anticipation, a mixture I’m told is extremely attractive to
vampires. Most of them were roughly college age with several
looking just barely legal. The last was a tiny slip of a girl in a
thin, formless dress who definitely looked underage. Petit and
lacking the curves of the other females, she looked about fourteen.
She looked far more afraid than anxious and while the others all
knew which vampire to go to, she didn’t. Of course it was Frimunt
who raised his hand and waved her in his direction.

I found myself moving closer, studying the
little girl who was practically shaking as she approached Frimunt.
Her fear made him grin in anticipation – it made me see red.

“They have to be eighteen!” I said
suddenly.

Most of the Patrons turned to me surprised,
having forgotten my presence in the face of tasty treats. Frimunt
looked the most off guard, but his surprise turned to anger.

“They are provided by the New York Coven. You
can argue their ages with your Chosen,” Frimunt said, grabbing the
girl by her wrist and pulling her onto his lap.

“Oh I will, but she’s coming with me till I
get her age figured out,” I said, the God Tear suddenly warm on my
chest.

“How old are you my dear? Eighteen?” Frimunt
asked her, his voice oily.

Frightened out of her mind she shook for a
moment before her head wobbled in the loosest of nods.

“There, see!” the German vampire said,
opening his mouth wide to show extended fangs and slamming down on
her neck like a striking rattlesnake.

“Bullshit!” I yelled, moving toward him.
Suddenly he was standing, the girl torn from his fangs by the speed
of his rising. Bright blood arched in jets from the torn arteries
in her neck as the old blond vampire stared at me with killing
hate.

My attention shifted to the girl who was
clasping her neck, but when I moved forward I found my body locked
to the ground and my arms restrained by Hosokawa. He was
simultaneously holding me in a jointlock technique while using
energy techniques to Post me. My right arm was jammed up and behind
my back. Grim took over instantly, using my aura to break his Post.
My vision had shifted to show the blue column of energy locking my
feet to the ground and a short burst of purple aura slashed through
it as I watched. Hosokawa was caught off guard which made Grim’s
break of his arm hold easier. Grim dropped my body low in a squatty
stance to gain room while my left hand slapped against my right
shoulder, shoving it back toward Hosokawa and opposite the
jointlock. The momentary lack of pressure on my arm and shoulder
joint was enough for me to turn further into Hosokawa and shove
while hooking my right leg behind his foot. He fell backward which
allowed me time to turn back to the approaching blur that was
Frimunt. Grim formed a deadly spear of aura in my right hand, but
the God Tear thrummed on my chest, reminding me of my vow to Tanya
not to lose my temper, and at the last moment I changed it to just
a simple blast of power. I had hit many vampires with aura blasts
just like it, sometimes at their own request. I thought of it as a
stunner and while part of me questioned the effectiveness of it on
a 900 year old vampire it would have to do. On the younger vampires
I had used it on it had the effect of knocking them back to human
condition for a short time.

This all happened inside the space of a
single second, the three of us moving at very accelerated vampire
speeds. Frimunt was only feet away when my blast hit him, then he
freight-trained me flat. Grim sprang back to my feet, ready to face
the angry German vampire. But Frimunt was on the ground writhing in
agony and screaming while his body jerked and shook. The remainder
of the Conclave crowded around, pushing me further back from the
mortally wounded teenage girl.

A scream of torn metal and the popping of
displaced air was all the warning we had of Senka and Tzao’s
arrival on the scene. Tanya stood just behind the two Elders as
they looked at Frimunt.

“What did you do?” Senka hissed at me.

“I just stunned him!” I replied as I worked
my way around the vampires to the wounded teen.

Her brown hair, done up in a ponytail, was
matted with her blood, her brown eyes huge and scared as she tried
to keep her hand on her neck. I pulled her hand away and covered
the wound with my own hand, summoning aura to bind her flesh back
together. My one glimpse was enough to scare the hell out of me.
Frimunt’s fangs must have been piercing her carotid artery when he
tore free. The feeble pulse of blood against my hand and her
rapidly dimming eyes told me time had run out along with her life
force and no matter how much power I pushed into her she still died
in my hands.

“You’ve killed him!” Atta said.

I looked over at Frimunt, who now lay
still.

Whenever I’ve knocked a vampire into human
condition before there had been an interesting side effect, at
least on those vampires older than fifty or so years. While they
remained human, their bodies had aged at an accelerated pace as if
trying to catch up with their actual chronological years. The older
the vampire the more pronounced the effect.

Frimunt took it to a whole new level. Nine
hundred years of age had caught up to him in minutes. He probably
died at the point his body reached two hundred years of withered
age. By five hundred, his flesh was dried and flaking. At the full
nine hundred, his skeleton, brown and crumbling, was all that
remained. It looked like an ultrarealistic Halloween decoration,
dressed in modern clothes.

“It seems that what stuns young vampires,
kills old ones,” Senka said, looking at me, an odd gleam in her
eye. Tzao was the first to leave, moving so fast that the air
popped as it rushed into the vacant space she left behind. Mausya
was next, disappearing after tilting her head at me for a second or
two. The rest were gone almost as fast, gone like smoke in the
wind.

Hosokawa and Senka were the last to go. The
Japanese warrior gave me a short bow then vanished. Senka looked at
Tanya and I, that odd flicker of something suspiciously like
satisfaction on her face, then popped out of the room.

I looked to Tanya only to
find her staring at me with a mixture of horror and shock. Tears
slipped out of her eyes and I rushed to grab her arms. I might have
thought her scared of me, but my link told me she was a veritable
hurricane of emotions, with fear
for
me being dominant.

“Christian, you have to leave! Do you
understand? They fled in fear, but they will attack you somehow if
you stay!” she said in a rush.

“What?” I asked, looking at the blood on my
skin where my hands held hers.

“Your simplest ability, the blast of aura you
have used on dozens of young vampires is almost instantly lethal to
the old ones! When you knock them human, it somehow releases their
pent up age and they die! You have to leave now!”

“Wait, so they’re scared of me? So what?
Vampires have been scared of me before,” I said, trying to
understand her fear.

She shook her head
furiously. “No, these are
old
vampires. They are generally scared of nothing,
but when they do find a threat, they always, always find a way to
remove it. That’s how they got to be old!”

“So we have to leave?” I asked, wiping my
hands on my pants.

She stared at me without saying a word, tears
streaming down her face. My bond told me the answer even as I put
it into words.

“No,
I
have to leave. You’re staying
here…to do what? Defend me?” I asked as I read the mixture of
determination and resolve that she was broadcasting.

“Christian, if I go with you, there will be
no one to explain things to them, no one to moderate their fear. By
staying back I will be able to reassure them and try to make them
see sense.”