Duel Nature

by John Conroe

  “Chris, study those cards when you can, alright, and we’ll work on it some more later.”

  They left and I fell into bed and passed out.

  Chapter 28

  When I woke, I found five hours had slipped by. It was late in the night or early in the morning, depending on your point of view, I guess. I ate a huge breakfast, courtesy of Remy’s kitchen, then went looking for answers. Chet Akins was yawning and rubbing bleary eyes in his computer alcove.

  “Hey Bud, how’s it going,” I said.

  He hopped up and gave me a bro-hug, then collapsed back into his ergonomic computer chair.

  “Dude, it’s freaking busy around here,” he said. “I’ve got dozens of groups of vamps coming into Citadel, each packing sophisticated electronics, each trying to get one over on our systems. I’m blocking viruses, frying bugs, scrambling signals and pulling lots and lots of file searches for the Elders. This Conclave thing is crazy!”

  “Any problems?” I asked.

  “Only every other minute!” he said. His long piano-player fingers darted over his keyboard and a video box popped up on his main monitor. “Check it.”

  The security camera feed showed one group of vampires passing another in one of Citadel’s broad passageways, both parties tense. Suddenly the footage blurred and the parties were merged into chaos. Security vampires appeared and waded into the fray with Darkkin stun guns, which make standard Tasers look like toys. Liberal application of the zookeeper-grade prods sent vampires leaping to the walls and ceiling, finally leaving the two groups separate.

  “Some of these groups really hate each other. I gotta flag each of these clips and send them to Lydia’s team. Some seem to get along pretty well and those are even more important for the Elders to know about,” he said. “Which reminds me. Senka asked me to make a file for you on the major players.”

  He handed me an encrypted zip drive. “She wants you to get up to speed on the contenders for the Elder position. She also wants you to keep a low profile and stay out of sight as much as possible.”

  “She’s afraid I’m gonna start some shit or something?”

  “No…she’s afraid some visiting vamp will start some shit and you’ll finish it, creating a political nightmare. These foreign vamps are an arrogant bunch, think their shit doesn’t stink. We’re already having problems with assaults on the human staff. Arkady even assigned two of his guys to escort me around this stack of concrete.”

  He pointed across the room and my eyes spotted two vampires that I knew worked for Arkady. They were talking to four others that had arrived in the room the same time I did. My own security shadow appeared to be back on the job.

  “Chris, I gotta get back at this. I don’t get to go off duty till the sun comes up,” he apologized, pulling his chair back in front of the console. I waved goodbye and headed back toward my quarters. The four lounging Darkkin suddenly ‘felt’ the need to go in the same direction, two out in front of me and two behind. The hard plastic shape of the zip drive felt like it was burning a hole in my hand and my curiosity was riled up.

  A strange vampire came around the corner ahead, quickly followed by two more. All in their third or fourth centuries, they wore matching dark Italian suits. My security shadows tightened noticeably at the sight of them. Another group of Darkkin appeared about ten feet behind them, also dressed in high fashion, three females and two males, followed finally by three more dark suited types. My ‘age’ sense was jumbled by their close proximity to each other but they seemed in line with the front bodyguard guys, that is, until the middle female became visible enough for me to get a good look at her.

  She stood out from the others like she had sparklers in both hands and one on her head, my vampire sense telling me she was 860 years if a day. A mental picture of one of Nika’s cards popped into my head and I realized that I was about to run head first into one of the contenders for Elder… Mausya.

  The two Citadel guards in front of me were undecided and nervous, so I whispered “Let’s give them room.” All five of us pushed up against the right side wall, letting the Russian Patron’s party continue by as if we weren’t there. That seemed to be what they expected us to do, the entire party giving off an incredibly arrogant vibe. The three body guards in the front didn’t even glance our way. The two males and one of the female assistants maintained haughty expressions, while whispering quietly to their boss. The other female, a tall blonde, looked at me curiously for just a moment till her eyes suddenly widened. Immediately she leaned down and whispered into Mausya’s ear. The older vampire stopped suddenly, her party freezing in place directly even with us. Cold dark eyes scanned me from toes to scalp, finally coming to rest on my own eyes.

  “You’re the one. The human that started all this,” she said. From Nika’s reaction to her I had expected a voice like Crypt Keeper’s. Instead, it was a warm, a deeper than expected tone, completely without any accent of her native Russian.

  “So I’ve been told,” I replied, immediately cursing my wiseass mouth.

  The ‘aides’ and lackeys all froze for a moment as if expecting my sudden death. Mausya just stared at me, her eyes evaluating. The tension was broken by the clicking of nails on concrete further down the corridor. Awasos in wolf form came around the corner, stopped at the sight of our strange group and then plumped his butt down on the floor.

  “Were!” one of the dark suited bodyguards said, pulling a Skorpion machine pistol from under his coat. Part of me identified it as the 9 millimeter model.

  “He’s with me!” I said quickly. The guard ignored my comment bringing his gun on target, his finger not yet on the trigger, but indexed alongside it.

  “Shall I kill it?” he asked with a heavy Russian accent.

  Mausya was watching me, not the giant wolf, a cruel little smile on her lips. I was watching the guard’s finger, and as it started to curl toward the trigger, Grim surged to the surface, my right arm suddenly wreathed in mono-edge. One more millimeter of movement and the guard would lose his arm. The cascade of events that would likely follow flowed through my head, as Grim ‘war-gamed’ each scenario, catalogued each person’s position and plotted all their deaths. Part of me sighed internally. On site for less than twelve hours and I was already about to create a major incident. That same part noticed a slight tightening around Mausya’s eyes as her head tilted sideways.

  “Nyet,” she said, in a no nonsense voice.

  The guard froze. She spoke a few words in Russian then turned and started to walk away from us. Her whole party shifted into motion, machine smooth and just as sudden. The Skorpion disappeared back inside the black suit and within moments they were gone.

  I looked at my security shadows and we all exchanged confused expressions. Awasos yawned.

  ***

  “You shouldn’t be let out of the nursery!” Lydia said.

  “He was going to shoot my wolf-bear, Lydia! What else was there to do?”

  “Stay put where you belong!” she shouted. Lydia doesn’t shout much. She was really worked up. Something about almost precipitating a deadly incident with an Elder candidate seemed to have done it.

  “Quiet you two, I can hardly hear this with all the yelling,” Tanya said from her position in front of the desk computer. She was running and re-running the video and audio footage from the corridor security cameras. My link told me she was intensely curious about something.

  “What’s there to hear?” Lydia asked, shooting me a glare.

  The little punky haired vampire had been run ragged handling all the details of the Conclave.

  “If I heard what I thought, which with all the noise I can’t be sure, then I think she told the guard ‘No…it’s not your time to die.’ That’s pretty interesting since she doesn’t know Chris from Adam, yet she knew the guard would die if he tried to pull the trigger on ‘Sos,” Tanya said, reaching down to rub the furry wolf head lying next to her.

  “Well, she must have heard stories,” Lydia said.
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br />   “Maybe, but almost to a person the Patrons have all dismissed Chris and myself as inconsequential. In fact, look here,” she directed, pointing at the screen. She hit a control and the video started. The look of dismissive contempt on the older vampire’s face was glaringly obvious, but it changed suddenly just before she commanded the guard to stop.

  “What were you thinking just at that moment?” Tanya asked me.

  “I thought he was going to shoot ‘Sos, so Grim slipped up to bat and was ready to take his arm off if he went for the trigger. Then the rest would react and Grim had multiple options lined up,” I said, ignoring Lydia’s scowl.

  “Look at Mausya,” Tanya said, slowing the action to a crawl. “You are dirt to her…right up until the moment Grim appears..here!”

  Her finger pointed to my image, tapping me at the moment my body language changed. I had never seen footage of myself flipping into Grim mode before. It was decidedly creepy. I went from a tense posture to a coiled posture in the blink of an eye. My facial expression went from concerned to serial killer, at least that’s how it looked to me. At that exact moment, when my killer alter-ego appeared, the old Russian vampire in front of me stiffened slightly, did that head tilt thing, then called off the guard and headed down the hall as if nothing had happened.

  “Is she a mind reader?” I asked.

  “No, at least we don’t think so. Nobody knows what other abilities Mausya has, but she has survived every confrontation, every plot against her and every assassination attempt. She has an uncanny ability to avoid problems,” Tanya said. “Your abilities are not secret, but the older vampires discount most of what they hear from the rank and file as hype. Yes, your posture and facial expressions change, but even if she realized that was your combat personality, how would she know to give credence to the threat?”

  “Yeah, it’s like there was a professional bookie who suddenly changed the betting odds and she cancelled her bet,” Lydia said with a slight laugh.

  “What was that?” Tanya whirled and looked at her tiny sister-in-fact.

  “Oh, nothing. It just reminded me of some television episode we were watching the other night. The one where the horse trainer tried to get the odds higher on his horse so he could cash in big. The change in her expression was like the trainer’s when he saw the betting boards change.”

  Tanya said nothing, just continued to stare at Lydia, but her eyes were unfocused as she followed some intense thought. My link told me that Lydia’s comment had triggered a ‘Eureka’ moment in my beautiful vampire’s scary smart brain.

  “Let’s go to the library. I need to do some research,” she said suddenly.

  Fifteen minutes later found us in the Citadel’s library, which housed all the old records and books of the New York Coven. Most information was digitalized and stored on the Citadel mainframe, but several hundred years of documents and printed volumes were carefully maintained in a climate controlled set of rooms. Thick Turkish rugs covered the concrete floors and the walls were hung with colorful tapestries that seemed to all run to a medieval theme.

  “Where’s the Steven King stuff?” I asked Lydia, expecting a glare in return.

  “He’s too tame,” she replied without missing a beat.

  Tanya ignored our banter and headed to the computer terminal that acted as a card catalogue.

  “Whatcha looking up?” I asked.

  “Well, these documents are all new, only a couple of centuries old. The libraries in Europe and Asian date back thousands of years. But I know there used to be some handwritten histories that came over when this country was first settled. If I remember right, one of them documented known talents.”

  “And you think Mausya’s is in there? Something to do with precognition or prophetic reading?” I guessed.

  Lydia froze in mid-stride, then looked at me in wonder.

  “Holy shit Gordon! How did you come up with that?” she asked.

  “Well Tanya reacted to your horse racing comments and so it makes sense. Being able to see the near future would explain why she suddenly left and would be a hell of a good survival skill.”

  Tanya shushed me, looking around to see if any other vampires were nearby. The library appeared disserted.

  “Actually, I don’t think it’s precognition at all,” she said. “If it was, she would have known you would be in the hallway, instead, her aide had to point you out.”

  “Yeah, and she would have known Awasos was coming around the corner,” Lydia added.

  “Then what do you think it is?” I asked.

  “I think Lydia was closest when she talked about horse racing and odds. I think Mausya reads probabilities for near term events,” Tanya said. “The probability of you staying out of her way and remaining submissive was extremely high…right up until her guard pointed his gun at ‘Sos. Then Grim popped up and the probability went off the chart that her whole day was about to be ruined.”

  “Reading probabilities?” I asked, confused.

  “We all do it to some degree or another. Think about it…you automatically assess the odds of getting hit by a car when you’re looking to cross the road, or the probability that the vendor will accept your low price offer when negotiating a deal,” Tanya explained. “I think she just has an extra edge, some other sense that feeds her updated information on each new situation.”

  “Like when Grim prepared to lay waste to her entire group?” Lydia quipped.

  “Exactly. She knew in an instant that all the odds had changed. She couldn’t really know how dangerous you are, or if she did, then she was incredibly stupid to brace you in the hallway and threaten your bear,” Tanya said.

  “I don’t really like people to threaten my bear,” I said with a slight growl, thinking about the gun pointing at ‘Sos.

  “Easy compadre, no bad vampires near your bear right now,” Lydia said slowly, like I was the village simpleton.

  “Her expression was real; that look of haughty disdain. Then it changed in a split second and she stopped her guard and left. Anyway, that’s my theory. And this is the section where the book is supposed to be,” Tanya said, having lead us to a book shelf of very old looking books.

  I didn’t trust myself to handle the ancient tomes so I let the two women move forward and scan the shelves. Tanya found the book she was looking for almost instantly, pulling the large leather clad volume from the shelf. Lydia was focused on a slim red book that had caught her eye.

  “Three centuries ago a French vampire named Tristan D’Aramitz compiled everything he could find about known vampire Talents. He organized his book by groups of like talents, so I’ll start under what he calls ‘Prophetic powers’.”

  I looked over her shoulder but the writing was all in French so I wandered over to the nearest tapestry instead. It showed knights on horses charging a line of infantry holding pikes.

  Tanya closed the book, apparently having finished reading everything it offered on the subject. Her face was thoughtful and I could feel her thoughts humming with speculation. Lydia was deeply engrossed in the red book she still held.

  “Anything?” I asked.

  “Yeah, he mentions a Turkish vampire who could ‘weight the likely actions of others’.”

  “That’s all?”

  “Yeah, but it backs my theory, at least, to some degree,” she said. “Let’s get back to the room.”

  “What did you find, Lyd? Some vampire porn? Fifty shades of red?” I asked.

  She snapped the small book shut and gave me a smirk. “No it’s an education piece. How to raise a village idiot.”

  “Then it’s probably dedicated to me,” I said, feeding her an easy set up.

  She frowned and gave me a push toward the door. Luckily, I was Clinging with my feet or she would have thrown me across the room. It wasn’t like her to not take a verbal shot at me. I tried to see the cover of the book, but she tucked it under her arm and gave me a glare.

  “Would you two come on? Maybe the book ought to be ti
tled How to herd morons and I could read it,” Tanya said.

  “Don’t you dare lump me in with Boy Wonder,” Lydia said, but took the hint and exited the library before Tanya could say anything else.

  ***

  “Mom and I are going to the business center to get some work done. Neither of us is needed right now and I don’t like being around the Patrons,” Tanya told me a little later. Dawn was a couple of hours away so they wouldn’t get a whole lot done, but Galina and Tanya were so sharp that even a little for them was a lot.

  “I’m gonna sack out for a while,” I replied. “Then I think I’ll get out of Citadel for a while. Maybe catch a movie.”