Second Genesis

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Second Genesis Page 32

by Eric Williams


  Hermes began to slowly step back. “It was her idea! She orchestrated this entire coop.”

  Poseidon walked down from his throne and scoffed. “We don’t need an Aeonian regarded once by thieves to tell us what we already know.”

  Ninlil crossed her arms as other Council members surrounded the four. “Now, we will sign a new treaty, and have new laws to abide by, but first. I want to know something?”

  Mary Ann and Barry knew they couldn’t win this and knelt down. Mary Ann was the first to ask with a beaten voice. “What is it, my Queen?”

  Ninlil looked at Barry. “My past children, I will forgive their deaths, but my last child, the one who killed Jaxalon, I will not. I want to know who killed my latest daughter?”

  Barry began to cower. His breathing hastened. “What makes you think?”

  Ninlil rushed at him, grabbing him by his jaw line with her left hand and raised him up off the floor one handed while looking into his eyes. “I know you know, and if not.” She looked at Mary Ann. “She does. Either way one of your two factions are responsible.”

  Barry grunted. He didn’t want to answer because he knew what would happen. He saw the woman he came in with look around the room nervously. If he didn’t answer Ninlil, Themis’s nervous energy would do it for him. He grunted the name. “Themis…”

  Ninlil tossed him like a toy across the room and looked at the raven-haired woman. “Law and order, I should have known.”

  The next surprise didn’t come from in front from Ninlil, but the crowd of council members separating to the sides behind them as Damien Winters entered the room wearing his urban cowboy attire. Behind him were two werewolves, grey in color and in full form, growling, along with another Gargoyle in bestial form. The gargoyle looked like the blend of a bat, man and a snake. It hissed.

  Damien had a silver kukri at his side. His eyes were black, and his fangs were at the ready. “You killed my daughter?” He inquired with a monstrous voice.

  All four immortals cowered. They knew Ninlil was the mother, but the father of her last child was only rumors. Despite him being a younger immortal by comparison, Vlad was unusually powerful for his age.

  The dark-haired beauty could only spout her reply fearfully. “I was following orders. She had had killed our leader and broken the covenant of secrecy, she had to be judged!”

  Damien demanded to know something further. “And our grandchildren?”

  The room gasped. The woman wished not to answer, she watched his hand hover the holster to his kukri. She knew she would pay for this either way now. She cried the words. “They were half breeds. The daughter of your daughter was hunting us…”

  Ninlil’s eyes widened. “She hunted you? She was likely avenging her mother’s death!”

  Damien didn’t wait. He rushed the woman, and drove his kukri downward, from the top of her skull, down into her throat, assuring the brain had been destroyed by silver so the head couldn’t escape.

  Barry gasped as did Hermes. Mary Ann just looked forward.

  Barry was drug back to the center by one of Damien’s wolves the gray furred beast tossed the man back into the center ring easily. Barry wasn’t about to attempt to fight back yet. Damien looked at Ninlil and hissed the words. “You have a council seat open, I claim it.”

  Ninlil looked at Aphrodite, “There is a seat open for you as well. You can join me, or you can die, I care not which. If you choose the later, I’m sure the one who replaces you will wish to take the seat and assure the Tribunal has at least a say so in future events.”

  Mary Ann knew she couldn’t best Ninlil in hand to hand combat. She would resist her power of controlling the mind. She also knew Ninlil was far more agile in combat. She had hoped to wear the vampire queen down with her warriors, instead they ended up only fueling her. Aphrodite submitted. “I may join you, but those loyal to the Tribunal may not.”

  “Then you have your work cut out for you.” Ninlil said scoffing.

  Her attention turned to Barry. “Despite the rumors your Order spun to make me into a monster of men, I care not for a representative of the conclave on my council. You all have lacked compassion for mankind long enough. I’m quite sure one of your ranks was responsible for many atrocities against them. So… Who leads the Conclave now that Jaxalon is no more?”

  Barry didn’t wish to answer and kept his mouth shut.

  Ninlil looked over her shoulder at Heva. Heva grinned and walked up to the man and looked into his eyes. Her cat slit tiger eyes pierced his mind but couldn’t read it. She waited until he opened his mouth to say something, but her hand reached in to grab his tongue like a snake striking its target. A cliched response from Ninlil would have easily been, What's the matter, cat got your tongue? That old phrase had a deeper origin, an immortal one. Touching the tongue allowed for a werecat to absorb thoughts that one wished to keep from speaking. She could tell what his tongue kept from uttering and grinned. She looked over at Ninlil and spoke with a thick Indonesian accent. “It is the Titan Perses.”

  Ninlil nodded. “Humm, a little surprising, but after you think about it, not really given his history.”

  Heva let go of the man’s tongue and he fell to the floor. The werecat smirked as the silver haired immortal thudded on the stone flooring.

  Ninlil was feeling merciful. She looked at the immortals before her. Aphrodite, and then Barry. “I am going to let the both of you live. Aphrodite you can have a seat and represent your Tribunal. As for you… Ophion, you can defect from the Conclave and join me, or you can simply join her.” Lillian said while pointing at the woman lying on the floor.

  Hermes looked around the room. He was an expert at trans dimensional displacement, teleportation so to speak. He was trying to open a rift and phase himself and Aphrodite out of the chamber but found it odd that he couldn’t. Meanwhile Lillian smirked. She looked at him. Her biosonar could see the energy waves from his subtle hand gestures attempting the act but couldn’t. Eventually he asked the vampire queen a question. “What about me?”

  Hermes decided he wasn’t about to let her answer. He might not be able to open a rift out of the room but could inside it. If he killed Ninlil, he could challenge her new order by Immortium law since she had no heirs. He decided in that split second, he was going to kill her.

  A flash of light burst from his hand, blinding those around him, including Ninlil.

  With her sight impaired for the moment, her biosonar heightened. He had teleported behind her and was going to attempt twisting her head off. She ducked.

  Hermes’s facial expression was less than pleased. Vampires were sensitive to light that was a fact, but he had forgotten to take into account their biosonar.

  He swung at her, he missed. She took a claw, and slit down the side of her dress quickly, allowing for more room to fight.

  The other immortals in the room spread out. It was a one on one as declared by Immortal Law. Hermes SCREAMED OUT. “I CHALLENGE YOU FOR YOUR THRONE!”

  Amanda’s eyes widened. She knew in a one on one fight, it was possible given his age. So, did others in the room.

  With her sight blinded, her biosonar acted as her vision. The two were locked in a combination of various hand to hand combat styles. Each one, deadlier than the next. Spin kicks, and round houses, backflips and somersaults were the theme at present. Hermes was fast, Ninlil seemingly was faster.

  She didn’t need to revert to her primal form. She simply needed her claws to catch him off guard. Her attacks became infused with animalistic precision as her swipes became deadlier for him to evade. Now her sight was returning, making her twice as deadly.

  He went in for what appeared to be a moment of opportunity. She was faking being blind for a moment, long enough to give him a bit of courage to try. He took the bait. When he did, she grabbed his right arm and twisted it, causing the rubbery bone in his arm to stretch to the point of pain. He bent over, when she brought her knee to his chest, and then a clawed swipe to his back. He hit the floor. Ou
t of breath she kicked up, causing him to fly a few feet, right as she met him before crashing into a wall. She kicked him again, making a ping pong ball out of him. She wasn't about to get cocky, she knew if he healed this fight could go on longer. She waited until he was standing up against the wall she had deflected him too and rushed at him, she swung her right hand as it bore claws, it busted across his jaw line, ripping his jaw from its hinges.

  The immortal staggered, stunned by the blow and fell to his knees. Before Mary Ann could blink, Lillian had Damien’s kukri pulled from Themis’s head and sliced Hermes’s head from the center, clean through the nose and to the other side, slicing the top of his head in half. “I don’t need a thief god running amuck.”

  Mary Ann burst into tears, she cried out. “WHY?”

  Lillian looked at her as she kicked his body to the side. She was angry at the man’s audacity to even attempt such a folly in her chamber, in front of her council. “You betray me Aphrodite, you join him.”

  Lillian yelled. “IS THERE ANYONE ELSE WHO WISHES TO CHALLENGE MY RIGHT TO THE THRONE?”

  Everyone present knew Hermes was five thousand years old or possibly older, despite Greek rumors. No one budged a muscle nor mustered a word.

  She turned around and walked back to her seat. “Let the Conclave know, that from this day forward, all life is precious, mortal and immortal alike, violate this decree, and challenge me, I will have no mercy.”

  Ophion’s eyes widened at the disintegrating body near the wall. Ninlil had sliced his head in such a manner that the brain couldn’t have survived. He fled while a sobbing Mary Ann walked slowly and took a seat furthest from any sitting together. She kept looking at the body on the floor turning into a red slimy puddle, not the woman that was beginning to melt away, but David’s. Meanwhile Lillian’s guards arrived and took up posts. Alex was one of them.

  Ninlil wasted no time in getting to the next point of her meeting. “Now that everyone in this room knows I mean business, we can move on. We will address the most pressing matter. This new Genesis occurring, creating more immortals, it must be stopped before there are far too many. In the meantime, you have your orders to meet at our secondary location next full moon. I’m sure the Conclave will attempt a reprisal, so this site will be obsolete.”

  Alex looked around and spoke up. “Lillian Rutherford?”

  She was surprised a guard would interrupt, but indulged it. “Yes Mr. Fifer?”

  He acknowledged Argosh first, by bowing to him. He then walked before Lillian and bowed. Once he performed the formalities he looked up. “The detail, Xairin, that you assigned me to watch over…”

  Her left eyebrow raised. “What of him?”

  “He’s linked with one of the bats that escaped the zoo. He says that the bats are converting other bats. He said…”

  She was quick to interrupt him. “They’re becoming aware faster than I anticipated. What did he see?”

  “Hundreds of bats my Queen, hundreds. They’re making more just outside Bastion City in the Ruins of New York.”

  Argosh nodded and looked over at Lillian. “Now that the matter has been brought up, it's not just the bats, it's happening with the wolves too.”

  Lillian rolled her eyes. “Prepare our teams, and alert the Global Alliance. We need to be 100% certain that these packs and nests are dispatched before they become more aware.”

  _____

  Apartment 706J

  Xairin was drinking some blood while looking at his finance reports. His money was running out. He had enough to last a month or so, but was trying to figure out a way to purchase some weapons. If Alex couldn’t come through, he felt compelled to take matters into his own hands. Nothing he saw was in his price range which frustrated him. “DAMN IT!”

  Each time he closed his eyes, he could feel the bat responsible for his condition. He knew he could find the place she was roosting easily. Killing her however had a price, and even if Ethan’s blood might prevent it, he didn’t want to be an Alpha, but nor did he want more Alpha’s to emerge, either way, he had to find a way to help those people and killing the white bat was a possibility if she got in his way.

  . He just didn’t know how he would do it.

  Xairin got up and left his computer. He put on a red hoodie, sleeveless, and some comfortable black jeans with black sneakers. He left his apartment and headed to the elevator. Once inside he pressed the bottom floor icon and arrived in the lobby. He had to get out and get some air, meanwhile he kept hoping Alex would contact him. He didn’t.

  Xairin walked two city blocks, just wondering around the City while thinking. It then dawned on him that the scavengers that lived outside the city often had weapons. He already knew one site he could visit, where the bats took the child. He was sure that the humans didn’t stand a chance at fending off that attack, surly something of use would be left behind.

  He stopped in the middle of the city sidewalk he was traveling. He found a bench and sat down, taking his hoodie off. He looked at the back of it. He willed his claws to emerge, and used his pointer finger to draw a rounded slit around where the shoulder blades would be, hoping he could make the slits large enough so that the shirt wouldn’t be damaged too much when his wings expanded. He quickly put it back on once he realized his back was exposed. Being a little paranoid he looked around with his red eyes, he saw no immortal heat signatures near him. “Thank god.”

  At this point he didn’t care too much about what people saw next. He expanded his leathery bat shaped wings through the slits in his hoodie that he made. He had never attempted flying before, but didn’t want to take his jeep into the no fly zone. The metal would be detected easily, being a vampire in flight, maybe not so much.

  Humans nearby were not accustomed to seeing a vampire expose their wings in plain sight. Some got out of his way quickly, while others got out their phones and took videos.

  He flapped them a few times, he felt his body rise into the air. He hoped it was just like his innate combat skills and could tap into something from his grandparent, that or just the bat side of things. He did, but it wasn’t the grandparent, it was the bat inside him. Bats were one flying species that didn’t have to teach their young how to fly, they simply did it when they were ready. It was simplistic innate knowledge passed down from the bat that had made him a pure vampiric being.

  Flying was easy enough, as long as you could dodge the flying cars. Xairin did his best just to fly straight up until he cleared the tallest nearby building. After that he relied on gliding to travel, that way it didn’t take too much energy to perform. He remembered some of the videos talking about using your abilities too much could make you hungry, and flying was one of them. Finding the wind currents was also instinctive. His biosonar picked up the right ones quickly, until he found a current that would carry him more than 1,500 feet up. This was a no fly zone for dronemobiles, there were no flying vehicles here.

  Flying was a freeing sensation. It cleared his head as he glided along the air current. He felt like superman for a moment, aside from having wings doing the job. The feeling made him smile. It felt natural to him.

  His large wingspan carried him over to where he could tell the Haze was below him. The purple searchlights were a dead giveaway. Here he flapped his wings to get his bearings as he saw the darkness ahead. The haunting view of the ruins of New York City beckoned.

  _____

  Madison Avenue.

  Xairin began his descent into the dark of the ruins. His wings had to compensate a little here and there, but once the right current was reached, he managed to perform a downward glide with ease. He was more than a hundred feet from an aged street with plants bursting up through the old concrete roads. A few more descending flaps, and he touched down. It was his first landing which impressed himself at how easy he performed it.

  Right as his wings concealed themselves he looked up and saw an aged street marker for Madison Avenue. He began looking around as his red eyes and his biosonar assured his
location was safe enough. The only thing he was picking up were a few deer that were now residing in the ruins, along with numerous rats and a few other animals lurking about. He could see their hearts beating with his infrared sight when he zoomed in.

  If he was going to do this, he was going to have to power up. Flying was fun, but it did take a little out of him. There were no bottles of blood nearby, that was one thing he should have thought about, but now a means to feed presented itself. He knew what he had to do.

  The thought of killing anything was against Xairin’s mortal nature, but now that his vampiric nature was asserting itself, some of those qualms were dying off.

  He figured a deer would be the better choice. After all his biosonar and his heat vision had revealed quite a few in the immediate vicinity. All he had to do was pick one.

  A sick one was easy to spot. Using his infrared vision he could see a cancerous tumor growing inside a doe nearby. He could see the growth around the spine with his infrared vision easily. Xairin figured it would be a mercy killing which helped reduce his scruples in the matter even further. He simply hunkered down and relied on his blood to do the rest. He willed himself to hear it. Doing so, he knew exactly how to move quickly, faster than before. He climbed on top of an old bus that had aged into decommission. He perched himself and simply thought about what he wanted, and the knowledge was there. His muscles prepped themselves. He bolted in the blink of an eye, pouncing into the air like a wild cat.

 

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