AN EXCERPT FROM “THE UNDERLING” BY REMY DESAI-PATEL
Harlan
Club Venus was packed like any given Friday. Acropolis loved a good party and the buzz of the Entertainment District filled the air with electricity. Hundreds of the young elite with money that burned holes in their pockets lined up and down the street waiting to get into their club or place of choice. Club Venus was the most popular by far. Every weekend for the past few years, the clubs’ numbers grew and grew. Energy was felt right up to the doors of the venue. Music spilled out into the streets like a flood of uncontrollable water.
It had several levels, each floor serving some purpose or another. The first was the actual nightclub, bursting with music, chatter, drink after drink, all fun and no worries. Second was for staff and supplies needed for down below as well as the kitchen. Third was the smoke-filled and dimly lit drug den that was only accessible via a passcode given every hour of every night. The fourth was for management. Normally quiet, cries of pain rang out in increments. “You’ll get what we fuckin’ pay you!!” Connie De Socio barked as Cashley squirmed in his chair, the bindings on his wrists digging into his skin. Several menacing goons stood around each wielding power tools. Cashley’s eyes darted around the room, surveying each of the men who had every intention to break him both physically and mentally.
“What the fuck is going on here?”
Harlan stood at the doorway, the men not noticing his entrance not even a minute ago. Cashley became dead silent. All intensity in the room had seeped out through every crevice and crack the space contained. “Everyone not named Connie or Jovan get the fuck out!” Harlan boomed. Nobody moved an inch as the room filled up with dead silence except from vibrations bumping from several floors below. “That wasn’t a fucking a fucking suggestion, out!”. Several of the men strutted out of the room. “Why are you such a hardass, Harlan?” one of the men said as he pushed through the door, closing it on his way out. Harlan walked up to Connie and Jovan, both still hovering over Cashley still tied to the chair, mouth taped shut, and scared out of his mind. “What are you doing? And why the fuck is that big nosed asshat here?! I fired him a week ago!” Harlan sneered. Jovan sighed as he lowered the rusty crowbar in his hand. “He asked for double than what we offered. Boss said no. This rodent said he was going to tell the Cutthroats about it. Boss got pissed and told us to beat the pulp out of him” he explained. Connie raised his head and nodded as Harlan turned his attention to him. “Your dad’s out of his mind I tell you. The press is gonna run with this once they get ahold of what happened. What about that did you not understand before you decided to do this stupid shit?” Harlan said, visibly annoyed. Jovan began to speak.
“He’s not gonna talk tied to a chair scared shitless, is he?”
“Get the fuck out”
“What?”
“Get the fuck out!!”
Jovan shook his head and walked out of the room defeated. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” Harlan asked as Connie hung his head again. “You’re supposed to take over from your old man, right? Unbelievable”. Connie walked over to a nearby table and placed his pipe down. “Dad tells us to do something, you do it. No questions. You know how it is” he said. Harlan remembered why he was there in the first place, the music continuing to ruin his train of thought.
“Speaking of, he hasn’t been seen since Monday” Harlan said. Connie didn’t flinch, instead continuing to stay zoned out into the distance. “He does that” he replied. Truth was, Gianni De Socio was become less and less like the feared man he once was. Gone were the days when his name brought fear into the minds of Ithica’s unruly elite. It came and past as the landscape of Acropolis’ underworld began to change quicker than the Silvestri Crime Family anticipated. No longer did a small group lead each sector of the city with an iron grip, it was now a complete free for all. Whoever had a basic knowledge of how to cook K6 or grow sweetroot could create a drug empire. Anyone with more than a few goons with not much to say was now a squad. Those who had guns could take what they wanted. Everyone could be something in the criminal world, and Gianni didn’t like that. Neither did Harlan.
The two exited the now completely empty conference room as the rest of the men waited outside, all seemingly bored. “What about him?” one of them asked as Harlan looked back. “Let him go somewhere and give him enough that he won’t talk about this” he responded as Connie and him walked into the elevator. Pressing the third floor button, the elevator lurched down and promptly stopped. The two got out and stepped into the smoke constricted air. The Venus Club originally began as a speakeasy before Gianni De Socio came along. His superior and superior’s superior had kept the location as a well-known underground speakeasy, until Gianni decided it would be easier to hide it in plain sight and turn it into a nightclub. It worked but its reputation stayed with no signs of fading no matter how fun parties were every night.
Another day and Declan Morose was high on the job. Harlan had threatened his role in the group several times on the behalf of Gianni with no results. The kid liked his K6, known by many as “pink dust”, and had already been deep into sweetroot since his early teens. He sat in the middle of the room on a red silk couch with a half finished mound of pink dust on the table and a dirty rolled up sheet of paper in between his fingers. Right as he was about to sniff up another line with the paper, Harlan grabbed it from him. “That’s enough” he said as Declan groaned. “Let’s go, we have somewhere to be”
______________________________________________________________________
The three sped away from the Venus Club in the purple four-seat convertible, gathering a few wandering eyes. Neon lights of the nightlife playfully bounced off the car. As the car crossed over the bridge leaving the Entertainment District, the scenery slowly started to change as they entered the North End. Apartment project after apartment project, boarded house after boarded house; where those who were abandoned by Ithica lived. After all, Vampir, undead/infected people, weremen and women, goblin, and anyone deemed undesirable had populated most of the North End. The police presence was noticeable as well, Acropolis PD cruisers crawling down almost every street every few hours. “It’s fucked up, man” Declan said as he stared out of the back seat of the car. The two in the front didn’t even reply. Most of Ithica’s underworld didn’t even accept them either strangely enough. They lived in the worst parts of Acropolis with no upward mobility, no employment, with the APD constantly breathing down their neck. Being involved in organized crime seemed like an impossibility. That was, except for some in Winston Heights.
They passed by a police car with three Vampir teenage boys sitting on the curb and two officers shining flashlights into their faces. “We were heading home, we didn’t do jack shit!” one of the boys shouted as the racket attracting attention from several nearby tenants, who stood on their porches to watch the scene unfold. “You’re not supposed to be outside at this time” the officer sneered as he leaned into the boy’s face. “Don’t point it too close, he might turn into ash” the second officer snickered “I mean, look at those bad boy fangs”.
“Fuck you”
“You keep it up with the disrespect and you’re looking at a night in a holding cell!”
“Respect us first, fuckhead!”
Claps and jeers erupted from the nearby low rise apartment blocks. The car took a right and parked in front of an unassuming low income townhouse. The police always would skip over this stretch of buildings, unassumingly believing they were the lowest risk of criminal activity. In reality, it housed the Silvestri Family’s drug manufacturing operation. For some reason, nothing seemed suspicious or concerning to them about cars leaving at all hours of the night and returning, rinse and repeat. Connie was hesitant about exiting the car. “I get the vibe that someone’s going to steal my ride” he said as Harlan rolled his eyes. The three walked up to the door, knocking twice. Waiting for a few minutes in the near pitch black darkness populated by only a handful of lights, the door finally rocketed open.
“Don’t linger outside, get in!” Idina said as she pulled the three inside. “Lower that shit, dummy!” she snarled as she shoved the goon hiding behind the door with the shotgun. “Sandy’s upstairs” Idina said as the three went up the stairs as she continued to berate the door guard. Harlan chuckled to himself. There was something amusing to him about the dichotomy between Sandy and his girlfriend Idina. He was as cool as ice while she had a fiery temper. Neither knew how they tolerated the other but somehow they did. Harlan, Connie, and Jovan made their way up the stairs, walking into the drug lab.
Slumlord
There wasn’t much Noel hated more than people not being punctual. Especially considering it was the Cutthroats he was meeting with. They were known for taking meetings and other important matters seriously. Today, apparently not. He got up from his armchair and pushed back his slicked black hair as he glanced out into the courtyard of the D Tower complex of Winston Heights. Dead Towers is what it had become affectionately known due to the notorious reputation of the building in an already conflicted area.
He hated to see his own kind treated the way they were truthfully. Day by day, fellow Vampir just barely being able to afford to live became a sickening reality. The same went for werekind, goblin, and ghoul. Every day the police posting new posters around Acropolis warning tourists of the other kind. “Be careful!”. Winston Heights could have been improved a long time ago but no one truly cared. Rather than spend city funds on rebuilding and improving the area, they would rather blow it on new nightclubs, restaurants, and other amenities a great portion simply could not afford, let alone even be allowed in. Sure it became illegal to discriminate against Vampir, werekind, goblin, and ghoul for the past few years but no one really enforced it. Plus, they were still viewing as dangerous monsters of the past when in reality they were nothing more than just like everyone else.
Noel fixed his tie in a broken mirror. Despite the unforgivable nature of his living space, he always found a way to make himself presentable to everyone. The police and organized crime rackets had drummed up the imagination of what Slumlord looked like. They described him as everything but how he actually looked, in reality being just a hair above five foot nine, straight black hair, semi pale skin, half fangs, and dull red irises. No one knew he was half human and he preferred to keep it that way. At the end of the day, it didn’t matter. To everyone, he was a Vampir and always would be.
Dallas walked into Noel’s room with several werekind in tow. “They’re not here yet?” she asked as Noel shook his head “Guess I’d be scared to come to Winston Heights this late too”. Noel pulled out a pistol from the drawer in the already wrecked side table and dismantled it. One of the biggest distinctions between Noel and other crime bosses was that he was not afraid to get his hands dirty. “Think this will go our way?” Dallas asked as one of the werekind henchmen sat on a nearby dilapidated table. “Get up, show some respect!” Dallas screeched as the wereman got back up on his feet, startled.
“No” Noel said “Let him sit”. The weremen hesitantly sat back down, visibly uncomfortable as he began to play with his hairy face. Noel looked back out onto the courtyard, seeing a group of people huddled around a small can fire amongst mostly deserted streets. Something didn’t seem right. It was a weekend after all and many of the inhabitants of Winston Heights liked to have a good time full of music bouncing off the shoddy walls of each building with crowds of people filling the streets and complex.
But not tonight and it was in the warm air. Noel looked down at his surprisingly expensive watch considering where he lived. “This is intentional” he said as he grabbed a walkie talkie off Dallas’ belt. A distant glint flashed far across the courtyard
“All eyes down and out. Get ready”
TO BE CONTINUED
Harlan
Club Venus was packed like any given Friday. Acropolis loved a good party and the buzz of the Entertainment District filled the air with electricity. Hundreds of the young elite with money that burned holes in their pockets lined up and down the street waiting to get into their club or place of choice. Club Venus was the most popular by far. Every weekend for the past few years, the clubs’ numbers grew and grew. Energy was felt right up to the doors of the venue. Music spilled out into the streets like a flood of uncontrollable water.
It had several levels, each floor serving some purpose or another. The first was the actual nightclub, bursting with music, chatter, drink after drink, all fun and no worries. Second was for staff and supplies needed for down below as well as the kitchen. Third was the smoke-filled and dimly lit drug den that was only accessible via a passcode given every hour of every night. The fourth was for management. Normally quiet, cries of pain rang out in increments. “You’ll get what we fuckin’ pay you!!” Connie De Socio barked as Cashley squirmed in his chair, the bindings on his wrists digging into his skin. Several menacing goons stood around each wielding power tools. Cashley’s eyes darted around the room, surveying each of the men who had every intention to break him both physically and mentally.
“What the fuck is going on here?”
Harlan stood at the doorway, the men not noticing his entrance not even a minute ago. Cashley became dead silent. All intensity in the room had seeped out through every crevice and crack the space contained. “Everyone not named Connie or Jovan get the fuck out!” Harlan boomed. Nobody moved an inch as the room filled up with dead silence except from vibrations bumping from several floors below. “That wasn’t a fucking a fucking suggestion, out!”. Several of the men strutted out of the room. “Why are you such a hardass, Harlan?” one of the men said as he pushed through the door, closing it on his way out. Harlan walked up to Connie and Jovan, both still hovering over Cashley still tied to the chair, mouth taped shut, and scared out of his mind. “What are you doing? And why the fuck is that big nosed asshat here?! I fired him a week ago!” Harlan sneered. Jovan sighed as he lowered the rusty crowbar in his hand. “He asked for double than what we offered. Boss said no. This rodent said he was going to tell the Cutthroats about it. Boss got pissed and told us to beat the pulp out of him” he explained. Connie raised his head and nodded as Harlan turned his attention to him. “Your dad’s out of his mind I tell you. The press is gonna run with this once they get ahold of what happened. What about that did you not understand before you decided to do this stupid shit?” Harlan said, visibly annoyed. Jovan began to speak.
“He’s not gonna talk tied to a chair scared shitless, is he?”
“Get the fuck out”
“What?”
“Get the fuck out!!”
Jovan shook his head and walked out of the room defeated. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” Harlan asked as Connie hung his head again. “You’re supposed to take over from your old man, right? Unbelievable”. Connie walked over to a nearby table and placed his pipe down. “Dad tells us to do something, you do it. No questions. You know how it is” he said. Harlan remembered why he was there in the first place, the music continuing to ruin his train of thought.
“Speaking of, he hasn’t been seen since Monday” Harlan said. Connie didn’t flinch, instead continuing to stay zoned out into the distance. “He does that” he replied. Truth was, Gianni De Socio was become less and less like the feared man he once was. Gone were the days when his name brought fear into the minds of Ithica’s unruly elite. It came and past as the landscape of Acropolis’ underworld began to change quicker than the Silvestri Crime Family anticipated. No longer did a small group lead each sector of the city with an iron grip, it was now a complete free for all. Whoever had a basic knowledge of how to cook K6 or grow sweetroot could create a drug empire. Anyone with more than a few goons with not much to say was now a squad. Those who had guns could take what they wanted. Everyone could be something in the criminal world, and Gianni didn’t like that. Neither did Harlan.
The two exited the now completely empty conference room as the rest of the men waited outside, all seemingly bored. “What about him?” one of them asked as Harlan looked back. “Let him go somewhere and give him enough that he won’t talk about this” he responded as Connie and him walked into the elevator. Pressing the third floor button, the elevator lurched down and promptly stopped. The two got out and stepped into the smoke constricted air. The Venus Club originally began as a speakeasy before Gianni De Socio came along. His superior and superior’s superior had kept the location as a well-known underground speakeasy, until Gianni decided it would be easier to hide it in plain sight and turn it into a nightclub. It worked but its reputation stayed with no signs of fading no matter how fun parties were every night.
Another day and Declan Morose was high on the job. Harlan had threatened his role in the group several times on the behalf of Gianni with no results. The kid liked his K6, known by many as “pink dust”, and had already been deep into sweetroot since his early teens. He sat in the middle of the room on a red silk couch with a half finished mound of pink dust on the table and a dirty rolled up sheet of paper in between his fingers. Right as he was about to sniff up another line with the paper, Harlan grabbed it from him. “That’s enough” he said as Declan groaned. “Let’s go, we have somewhere to be”
______________________________________________________________________
The three sped away from the Venus Club in the purple four-seat convertible, gathering a few wandering eyes. Neon lights of the nightlife playfully bounced off the car. As the car crossed over the bridge leaving the Entertainment District, the scenery slowly started to change as they entered the North End. Apartment project after apartment project, boarded house after boarded house; where those who were abandoned by Ithica lived. After all, Vampir, undead/infected people, weremen and women, goblin, and anyone deemed undesirable had populated most of the North End. The police presence was noticeable as well, Acropolis PD cruisers crawling down almost every street every few hours. “It’s fucked up, man” Declan said as he stared out of the back seat of the car. The two in the front didn’t even reply. Most of Ithica’s underworld didn’t even accept them either strangely enough. They lived in the worst parts of Acropolis with no upward mobility, no employment, with the APD constantly breathing down their neck. Being involved in organized crime seemed like an impossibility. That was, except for some in Winston Heights.
They passed by a police car with three Vampir teenage boys sitting on the curb and two officers shining flashlights into their faces. “We were heading home, we didn’t do jack shit!” one of the boys shouted as the racket attracting attention from several nearby tenants, who stood on their porches to watch the scene unfold. “You’re not supposed to be outside at this time” the officer sneered as he leaned into the boy’s face. “Don’t point it too close, he might turn into ash” the second officer snickered “I mean, look at those bad boy fangs”.
“Fuck you”
“You keep it up with the disrespect and you’re looking at a night in a holding cell!”
“Respect us first, fuckhead!”
Claps and jeers erupted from the nearby low rise apartment blocks. The car took a right and parked in front of an unassuming low income townhouse. The police always would skip over this stretch of buildings, unassumingly believing they were the lowest risk of criminal activity. In reality, it housed the Silvestri Family’s drug manufacturing operation. For some reason, nothing seemed suspicious or concerning to them about cars leaving at all hours of the night and returning, rinse and repeat. Connie was hesitant about exiting the car. “I get the vibe that someone’s going to steal my ride” he said as Harlan rolled his eyes. The three walked up to the door, knocking twice. Waiting for a few minutes in the near pitch black darkness populated by only a handful of lights, the door finally rocketed open.
“Don’t linger outside, get in!” Idina said as she pulled the three inside. “Lower that shit, dummy!” she snarled as she shoved the goon hiding behind the door with the shotgun. “Sandy’s upstairs” Idina said as the three went up the stairs as she continued to berate the door guard. Harlan chuckled to himself. There was something amusing to him about the dichotomy between Sandy and his girlfriend Idina. He was as cool as ice while she had a fiery temper. Neither knew how they tolerated the other but somehow they did. Harlan, Connie, and Jovan made their way up the stairs, walking into the drug lab.
Slumlord
There wasn’t much Noel hated more than people not being punctual. Especially considering it was the Cutthroats he was meeting with. They were known for taking meetings and other important matters seriously. Today, apparently not. He got up from his armchair and pushed back his slicked black hair as he glanced out into the courtyard of the D Tower complex of Winston Heights. Dead Towers is what it had become affectionately known due to the notorious reputation of the building in an already conflicted area.
He hated to see his own kind treated the way they were truthfully. Day by day, fellow Vampir just barely being able to afford to live became a sickening reality. The same went for werekind, goblin, and ghoul. Every day the police posting new posters around Acropolis warning tourists of the other kind. “Be careful!”. Winston Heights could have been improved a long time ago but no one truly cared. Rather than spend city funds on rebuilding and improving the area, they would rather blow it on new nightclubs, restaurants, and other amenities a great portion simply could not afford, let alone even be allowed in. Sure it became illegal to discriminate against Vampir, werekind, goblin, and ghoul for the past few years but no one really enforced it. Plus, they were still viewing as dangerous monsters of the past when in reality they were nothing more than just like everyone else.
Noel fixed his tie in a broken mirror. Despite the unforgivable nature of his living space, he always found a way to make himself presentable to everyone. The police and organized crime rackets had drummed up the imagination of what Slumlord looked like. They described him as everything but how he actually looked, in reality being just a hair above five foot nine, straight black hair, semi pale skin, half fangs, and dull red irises. No one knew he was half human and he preferred to keep it that way. At the end of the day, it didn’t matter. To everyone, he was a Vampir and always would be.
Dallas walked into Noel’s room with several werekind in tow. “They’re not here yet?” she asked as Noel shook his head “Guess I’d be scared to come to Winston Heights this late too”. Noel pulled out a pistol from the drawer in the already wrecked side table and dismantled it. One of the biggest distinctions between Noel and other crime bosses was that he was not afraid to get his hands dirty. “Think this will go our way?” Dallas asked as one of the werekind henchmen sat on a nearby dilapidated table. “Get up, show some respect!” Dallas screeched as the wereman got back up on his feet, startled.
“No” Noel said “Let him sit”. The weremen hesitantly sat back down, visibly uncomfortable as he began to play with his hairy face. Noel looked back out onto the courtyard, seeing a group of people huddled around a small can fire amongst mostly deserted streets. Something didn’t seem right. It was a weekend after all and many of the inhabitants of Winston Heights liked to have a good time full of music bouncing off the shoddy walls of each building with crowds of people filling the streets and complex.
But not tonight and it was in the warm air. Noel looked down at his surprisingly expensive watch considering where he lived. “This is intentional” he said as he grabbed a walkie talkie off Dallas’ belt. A distant glint flashed far across the courtyard
“All eyes down and out. Get ready”
TO BE CONTINUED