.. The Mutilator's basement. ..
BANG!
A pressure so high that it made everyone in the hall fall on their knees suddenly emanated.
The hind legged creatures bowed their bat like heads as they all chorused. "Lord."
The Mutilator's desperation suddenly turns to perplexity. He felt lost. He felt sour all over. He felt like his life has ended.
"My Lord." His voice was like that of a half dead person as he went on his knees.
Candles lit the more in the basement and illuminated the space.
An average looking manly figure under a dark cloak stalked The Mutilator. Cold bodies under cloak flanked and trailed him.
Among the bodies, one that led the others, had a staff in his completely covered left hand. On the top of the staff was the wooden three eyed bat with it's wings spread wide.
A three eyed bat with spread wings. The trademark of one of the Primordial Vampires. The Tribunals. One of the clan of vampires that has existed for thousands of years, before every other vampires, before humans existed.
Heads bowed around him and a serene silence descended into the space.
Even the spiders in the dark corners ceased their webbings. This is the Tribunals.
The figure stopped before The Mutilator and lowered his hood.
A disfigured profile came into picture.
It's him. The vampire Lord Aro spoke with a day ago. Akotal.
Crimson eyeball gazed down at The Mutilator. An impossibly pallid hand reached out and touched his chin, lifting it slightly.
"You've found it?" The voice was guttural. Calm and deep. As deep as a grave.
"N- no." The Mutilator shivered under the chilling touch of the vampire Lord.
"Why?" Akotal lifted his red eyes from The Mutilator and it ran around the basement. Over the hind legged creatures hiding in the shadows of the candlelights.
The cold fingers of Akotal's left the Mutilator's chin and he released the carbon dioxide that had been held captive due to fear.
Akotal walked away from the Mutilator, his aura so suppressing yet his demeanor calm. His guttural voice echoed off the silent walls of the basement as he narrated.
"Among all other Tribunals, I'm the weakest. But do you know why?"
The Mutilator's trembling eyes flashed up. It's welled up. He knows the question is for him but how is he gonna answer when his death is still inevitable. His human brain couldn't even process a thing.
Akotal's red eyes looked so distant as he recalled. "It's because I faced what no Tribunal could face. I fought a battle no Tribunal could fight. Not that they don't have the power. There are those more powerful than me in the clan. But they are cowardly."
His voice was the only sound that echoed in the basement like a trumpet in a pit of hell.
"I fought him. I fought Skull. I overpowered him and I destroyed his people. I destroyed his clan. But I paid the price. My fight with him costed me my face."
Akotal turned back to The Mutilator. A deadly smile on his distorted lips. "I injured my soul in the process. I must perform a ritual to respawn myself. An organ of the descent of the tribe of a thousand Stars."
His thick booted legs waltzed towards the trembling Mutilator. "I gave you an army to bring me that. Yet you bought me nothing."
"It was a vampire that hindered us."
Akotal halted in his steps. His disfigured face turned to the blue eyed supernatural that was behind The Mutilator.
The Mutilator could see Akotal's boots as he moved away from him and stopped before Hellsong.
Akotal stared down at Hellsong. The fatigue in the blue eyes didn't miss him. He saw it and figured out what happened easily. Having lived for a thousand years is something. The experience gives what no Intel could give.
He squatted before Hellsong's kneeling figure. "Tell me more. You found a bloodline?"
"Yes, my Lord. But he wouldn't let us get her." Hellsong said. He could still taste the iron on his tongue and the dried blood on her lip. The shockwave from the last battle had gotten him very hard.
"A vampire?" Akotal pondered on his own. Hellsong waited. He watched the calculating red eyes of the Vampire Lord before him.
Akotal gazed into his blue eyes again as he said. "Can you kill the vampire and bring me the bloodline yourself?"
Hellsong didn't hesitate. Venom flashed across his eyes as he nodded firmly.
Akotal stood to his feet, towering above him as he shoved his wrist into the latter's mouth. A gulp sounded in the silent basement as a mouthful of pale red ran down Hellsong's throat.
"You assume the command of my creatures immediately. Go, shred the body of the vampire and bring me the bloodline."
Hellsong felt a wave of power course through his body. A thrusting force flushed through his veins and his eyes flashed. The right eyes glowed blue while the other glowed red as he leveled Akotal's gaze.
"Yes, sir."
Akotal barely casted The Mutilator a glance before melting away with his armies.
*****************
"Leader, the Tribunals are in town."
Caius' pale face snapped to the vampire. "What did you just said?"
"Akotal's here in New York." Bones-the-old emerged from behind the vampire. His slightly wrinkled face ugly from the news itself.
"What the hell?!" Caius' spranged to his feet. His face distorting horribly.
Not now. He had expected this but not so soon.
The Tribunals. They had their mark on him. An intricate line, a crest of a three-eyed bat, drawn by claws that cut deep into his flesh like hot knife cutting through butter.
It had burned like hell back then. More like a hot knife. The claws aren't normal tho. A Tribunal is a Primordial vampire. And a Primordial Vampire isn't a Primordial vampire for nothing.
They are deadly. Everything about them is deadly. They are dangerous. Is it their claws, their fangs, their speed, and finally their special abilities that's even more lethal than those of ordinary born vamps.
All these are formidable. They are formidable. Every Tribunal is. All Primordials are.
For every other vampire coven leader, it's an honor. They envy those who had the mark. But for Caius, it's like a bondage that saves live. It's like a prison that preserves life.
It keeps one under the safety of death itself.
But what everyone don't know is that, it doesn't keep one from the claws of death itself. But Caius knew better. He knew it's only gonna keep them from death temporarily.
And now that a Tribunal is in town, a change is bound to occur. There's always one anytime a Tribunal goes to a place.
He has been having this feeling of impending danger, of an inevitable doom ever since Aro came. It became more clear when the old hunter left again.
And now what he felt that time is finally here.
Caius cursed himself inwardly as he paced the room. Bones-the-old gave orders to the Vampires around but he heard none of it. He's just too preoccupied. His mind is.
He had kept this coven alive for over four centuries now. He has held born vampires within his fingers and he has made not a small number of turned Vampires. He has been progressive but now everything might crumble.
His face snapped to the young vampire at the edge of the room. "Bellerin, where is Adrian?"
Bellerin fidgeted beneath his black cloak.
Caius glared and the young vampire mustered his courage. "I don't know, leader."
Caius' face tightened with a frown and he ordered. "Find him now, there will be a claw glow tonight."
Bellerin dropped half his body in a bow. "Yes, leader."
*****************
An Italo disco thrummed in the background. Lights of different colors shone from above. But no loud noise.
A body in scarlet cloak maneuvered through the hall.
Bodies moved around, in the large hall of concrete walls. Sexy ladies slittered around, half naked. Bodies under cloaks had drinks and hummed in murmurs. Deals went on in every angle and every table but no one moved closer to the room at the North.
A figure under a scarlet cloak moved towards the room. Eyes that spoke a thousand words gazed at him from the tables around. But the figure stop not.
Towering bodies under cloaks stood by the door that led into the room, their huge arms stopping the figure under the scarlet cloak.
Their eyes gazed down at the scarlet cloaked figure with disgust.
Several dark bees materialised from the air and swooped for the men.
Their eyes flashed in surprise just as their minds clicked in recognition.
They both parted like the red sea and the figure in scarlet cloak entered.
"Vinicius. Leader of the La venzo vampires." Adrian ventured deeper into the room. Throngs of towering bodies shrouded in cloaks lurked around him in shadows, yet he seemed so unbothered.
He's in the place of another vampire group.
A group of castes lower to the Casal coven led by his father. The Roman Vampire sect led by the Roman, Vinicius Piotti.
Vinicius' slitted eyes stared at the latter in puzzlement. What would the son of the leader of the most powerful vampire coven in the entire New York be doing in his lair?
"Why do I have thee here, Adrian de Caius?"
"That sounds rude you know." Adrian said, giving an offended look.
"The wish of finding you here is beyond the moon." Vinicius pondered with a raised thick brow. "What are you here for?"
"It's because of a vampire."
"Any of my fangs that offended thee should be beheaded right away!" Vinicius said.
"No, not that."
Viniciius cocked his head with a 'then what?' look.
"It's a vampire of my father's coven. He's a rogue. Yet my father seems to be in love with him." Adrian said.
"That's shocking. So undoing of the ever vicious Caius. Could it be that his sharp fangs are softening?" Vinicius smiled and glanced at his trusted men around him. Their pale faces had a surprised look on as they reasoned what Adrian had just said.
"As you know. We follow the Tribunals. We follow them as the enchiladas and we follow their rules. The vampire should have been killed but my father kept a blind eye."
"I failed to believe Caius would do that, he has the mark of the Tribunals so without a grave reason he wouldn't want to lose such grace." Vinicius' eyes flashed with envy as he clenched his pallid fist on the antique table. "Give me a clue."
"The vampire doesn't see his fang glow."
Gasps flew. Surprise poured outta the pores of the bodies around. Vinicius not left out.
"That's-"
"That's so deadly, so rogue of a vampire. That's it, Vinicius." Adrian finished.
"What do you want me do about it?" Vinicius asked with a calculative look.
Adrian smiled in pleasure as he leaned on the rare wood table that parted him and Vinicius.
"I want you to join me destroy the vampire."
"And what's for me then?" His slitted eyes narrowed even more as he asked.
Adrian smiled. "You'll have my father's place as the leader of the mighty Casal coven."
Vicinius glared at Adrian. The Roman isn't a foolish Italian anyway.
Adrian shook his head. "Don't think that way. I never had the desire of ruling the Casal in the first place."
Vinicius grinned as he glanced at his shocked men around. His eyes gleaming with desire fell back on Adrian. "Deal."
Adrian looked around. The cloaked shadows in corners now coming into the limelight. Their towering figures making his heart jump in satisfaction.
His face turned back to Vinicius as he leaned off the antique table. "Deal."
*****************