The Last City (13 page)

Eli crawled to the edge of the building and looked down over the famous Whitlow Square. It had once been the stage of so many gang rumbles and deaths that it became known as
the battlefield
, but was later agreed to be neutral territory. Crowds of gangsters were filling the square. The centre of Whitlow was dominated by the gang second in rank to the Greenway Galleys – the Crook’d Town Pride. The mass of hyped and boisterous Pride members had geared up in their best gold and purple dress. They, like all the other gangsters, were infected with a delirium-like excitement, a dangerous invincibility. It rippled the air electric like a new summer wind. The Pride members paced and stalked, greeting each other loudly with the gang’s call of
Prey together, stay together
, and flashing the Pride sign. The Pride girls, known as Esses, wore short skirts and shorter tops and flirted with the men.

Eli saw a definite hierarchy in the massing Pride. Dukes, generals and foot soldiers kept to one side, while the princes and family girls, those Pride by blood as opposed to those traded in from other gangs, stood on the other. In a circle around the Pride, the gang’s lions and other great felines sat with calculated patience, eyes of infinite understanding and sorrow fixed into the distance as they waited for Caesar, their leader, to appear. They sensed his presence in the absence of light.

The other gangs spread out around the Pride as they arrived in basic order of Gangland hierarchy. The whip cries of Kelly’s Crew rivalled the maniac yells of the Northside Chaos – the third and fourth ranked gangs. After them, was the Eastern Rim Mafia, standing silently, all dressed in black, with black bowler hats and their gang beasts, the Jada – part-avian, part-puma – crouching beside each man. The Western Rim Taipans, ranked next, were wearing copper-coloured clothing with the gang symbol of the snake on their backs. Each member had a deadly adder draped around his shoulders, to which the West Rim had natural immunity. Following them was the League, ruled by a tech-head called Minimum Maximum. They stood on hover-bikes and speed-drift platforms, a small but wealthy gang due to the technology they created and peddled.

Following the League in rank were LD’s Troopers, all dressed in camouflage, majestic golden eagles riding on their shoulders. On the tail of the Troopers the Tribal Boys galloped in on their spotted and striped horses. They’d painted their faces with the gang symbol and held spears in one hand, raising them up and giving long high-pitched cries. These calls were soon replaced by the howl of the Hound Boys and their dogs, the big pack renowned for its ability to track food. One of the hounds just barely missed the snapping jaws of a blue-belly alligator as the Bay Boys arrived. The ragtag H-Town Mob followed them into the square together with the Penny Little Alliance (a union between two small gangs, Penny Place and Littletown). The Peacetown Pack was second last, along with the Bell-Tower Bulls, with horned helmets and rings through their noses. Finally the Wolf-Tower Weres and their wolves slunk into the square. The scruffy, bearded gangsters snarled with sharpened canines and were avoided by all. They were known as the scavengers of the Gangland, violent and unpredictable, half-crazed from drinking weir water. The final and only unofficial gang appeared on the tops of the buildings on the opposite side of the square. They were the Rooftoppers, or as the other gangs called them, the Gone Girls. They were the only all-female gang and had not been accepted by their male counterparts. All the gangsters kept to their own, while standing uneasily close to bitter rivals – everyone right on the edge of an all-out Gangland war.

At the sound of nearby footsteps, Eli and SevenM flattened themselves into the shadows of the rooftop ledge. The door to the roof swung open and Caesar K-Ruz, Pride leader, and Smudge K-Ruz, Caesar’s first cousin and leading Pride girl, stepped out under the lantern light. Eli remembered them both well from his time around the gangs. Caesar was very big and muscular with pure black hair and lion eyes that, like the commander’s, could see beneath the skin. Smudge was a stunning beauty, her gang name originating from the brown birthmarks all over her face and body.

The mighty gangster boss moved to the edge of the roof and looked down over the square, while his shadow, in the form of a giant lion, stayed guarding the door. Eli held his breath hoping the shadow would not sense him. Smudge moved to Caesar’s side, her big black cat, Inski, slinking around her legs.

‘No sign of the Galleys,’ Smudge said. ‘Looks like Christy Shawe’s going to be a monkey’s arse about this.’

‘Goes without saying,’ Caesar replied, his voice deep and rich. ‘But he’ll show.’

‘It’s not too late to cancel this,’ she told him.

‘And put what in its place?’ he asked.

Smudge shrugged. ‘Breakfast.’

A weary smile touched the edges of Caesar’s mouth.

‘I am serious, Caesar. You don’t have to go through with this,’ she told him. ‘You don’t have to do what Shawe says. He’s nothing compared to you.’

‘As much as I despise Shawe, what he’s saying is right. Life in the Gangland is not sustainable anymore.’ He sighed. ‘There’s no going back now.’

He turned away from her, and the look Eli saw in Smudge’s eyes, directed at Caesar, made him feel guilty that he was watching and fascinated at the same time. Truth was, ever since Eli had known her, Smudge had suffered from a degenerative, incurable disease – love – and not just any kind of love, the worst love a person could have: forbidden love that could never be returned. Eli had no doubt that Caesar knew how she felt for him, and she probably knew that he knew, and he knew that she knew that he knew, yet everything was left unspoken, unfixable, unchangeable.

‘The Galleys are coming,’ Caesar said, though Eli heard no sound.

The gangster boss moved out of the shadows and stood up on the ledge of the roof. In the square below, all eyes turned his way and every conversation, even between rivals of the Pride, ended immediately. All the gathered Pride members fell to their knees, their heads bowed. After a moment’s quiet appraisal, Caesar lifted his hand and the masses burst onto their feet releasing wild, deafening roars, making the Pride sign high in the air. Caesar’s great felines paced and stalked, silently pawing the air, eyes fixed on their leader. Caesar leapt off the roof and landed lightly on his feet some four storeys below. He waded out into the crowd greeting his Pride brothers and sisters, speaking to each by name.

‘No turning back,’ Smudge whispered to herself. She crossed herself, and she and Inski jumped off the roof after Caesar. They went to join their family girls, each with the sleek physique of hunting cats.

The distant sounding of a horn jarred Eli’s nerves and silence fell again over the crowd, but this time not out of respect for Caesar. This silence was the disquieting still before the storm. The blast sounded again.

‘Can you smell cabbage?’ Eli quipped to SevenM. It was a joke between him and Jude about the Galleys, known for their violent brawls, potent brews and foul cabbage soup.

The horn sounded a third time very close and the Greenway Galleys turned the corner. The leading gangsters held up banners decorated with their gang symbols, the horn and the fist, and each wore a cap tilted to the left towards Greenway. Some had even dyed their entire skin green for the occasion, patriotic to the extreme. This top-ranking gang was not
blood in blood out
like the other gangs. To really be a Galley, you had to be born a Galley. As they neared the crowd, the arriving gangsters flashed the Galley symbol, both thumbs crooked and pointed out like the horns of the gang beast – the Galley rhinoceros. These hulking and ill-tempered giants lumbered in the midst of the men, some permitting riders, others given a wide berth. Every Galley member was armed with a thick sword, fashioned after the horn of the great rhinoceros, displaying their collective cynicism that this would be a peaceful meeting.

At the head of the gang strode the Galley boss and King of the Gangland, the fierce and ugly Christy Shawe. He was wearing his lucky dragon-skin jacket. Eli pressed further into the shadows. He hadn’t quite remembered exactly how huge and how ugly Shawe was. He led his gang up Baxter Street and they poured into the square, assembling opposite the Pride. For a few long moments the rival gangs stood in utter silence staring each other down – then Caesar snarled, Christy Shawe gave him the middle-finger salute and all hell broke loose.

From their opposing sides of Whitlow Square, the Crook’d Town Pride and the Greenway Galleys fought to out-shout, out-stomp and out-curse each other. Their deafening sounds shook the ground. Eli’s skin prickled at the terrifying and awesome display. Swears hurtled back and forth and both sides made insults of their rivals’ gang signs, but no one threw any objects. No one dared to violate the neutral ground treaty. All the other gangs stood on the periphery of the square, no one stupid enough to get between the superpowers. Christy Shawe laughed and jeered with his gang-mates, but Caesar K-Ruz stood silently taking everything in. The essence of the longstanding rivalry between the two men spoke in the pauses between the sounds. Neither side backed down and nothing changed until a Pride prince made the distinct mistake of questioning the Galleys’ manhood. In response, Christy Shawe grinned savagely, his teeth yellow and chipped, and immediately whipped down his trousers and waved his genitalia in the prince’s general direction, to the outrage of the Pride. Eli tried to look away, but the sight was somewhat mesmerising. To say Shawe had been blessed with more than his share of manhood was an understatement.

‘You’ve seen mine,’ Shawe yelled at Caesar. ‘Let’s have a look at yours then, or are you scared?’ Shawe staggered, even more drunk than usual, and that was really saying something, but it was also strange behaviour considering the importance of this gathering. Shawe liked to party and get completely smashed, but he was also a sharp and gifted leader who would have never, as far as Eli knew him, turned up pissed to an event as significant as the first ever combined Gangland meeting. Something was obviously seriously wrong.

Caesar spoke, his voice ringing loud and clear around the square. ‘I didn’t come here for a pissing competition. I came here to talk strategy.’

‘Yeah, Shawe, we’re not here to watch the grass grow,’ Jimmy Hatfield, boss of Kelly’s Crew, shouted.

To the relief of all there, Christy Shawe finally pulled up his trousers and said to them, ‘It’s not the grass growing that’s the problem, it’s our ranks. We have no more space. So either we start killing each other or we start expanding into other areas of the city.’

‘Which means killing off civilians,’ Jimmy Hatfield said, pointing in the general direction of the rest of Scorpia. ‘I don’t like it, Shawe. Every time we directly attack the Regiment, we end up losing people and getting punished. It’s never worked before.’

‘If you’re scared, Jimmy, stay back with the women,’ Shawe mocked him.

‘Typical Galley – all balls, no brains,’ Maximum, boss of the League, said. ‘Hatfield is right. Unless we have a clear and workable plan there’s no point.’

‘And there is also no point if we don’t work together. This has been our mistake in the past; we attacked separately, not as a whole.’ Caesar said. ‘Why don’t we discuss this further inside?’ He gestured to the bar behind him.

‘Great,’ Shawe mocked. ‘Then we can all join hands and sing “She’ll be Coming Home at Noon”. Discussing won’t change anything. Only war will.’

‘You just don’t get it, do you, Shawe.’ Maximum stepped off his hover-bike and, with two of his high-ranking men, walked towards the building below where Eli sat. They entered and all the other bosses silently followed their lead, with Shawe being the grudging last. He took a swig from a flask and stomped through the door, slamming it shut behind him.

Eli crawled as silently as possible to the skylight and lay on his belly peeking into the building. He couldn’t hear anything, but could see the gathering of bosses, Christy Shawe in the centre, pacing, smoking, drinking, stopping to yell at one person and then at another. Caesar’s lion shadow moved up and down the wall, twitching the tip of its tail. Soon things became heated between Shawe and Jimmy Hatfield, and Shawe’s two men had to intervene. They escorted Shawe out a side door into the alley beside the building for some air. Eli scurried to the side of the roof to listen to them speak. He peeped over, only able to see the outline of their shadows cast on the opposite wall to where they stood.

‘Christy, mate you need to calm down,’ the man, whom Eli recognised as Malcolm, one of Shawe’s cousins, said. ‘We need to get everyone on side with this, otherwise the plan will be blown.’

Eli strained up on his tiptoes, listening carefully for any mention of dark sects.

‘Trutt the plan!’ Shawe cursed. ‘I don’t give a rat’s arse about it anymore! I just want to find him.’

‘We will, Christy, we will. Like I said, I bet you anything he’s just holed up somewhere with a few girls and some flagons of Araki and he’s lost track of time. We did the same thing when we were young like him. He’ll show up when he’s ready.’

‘No, Mal!’ Shawe yelled. ‘Stace would never do that – never. I know him. Something happened to him and I know Kane’s behind it. I told you. He has Stacy’s ring, for trutt’s sake. Said he found it at a crime scene, but I know he’s lying. Kane has him. He has my brother. He’s messing with me. Trutt! I’m going to kill him this time, I swear. I’m going to rip his head off and piss in his trutting skull.’

Eli’s foot slipped and he fell on the roof with a thud. The talking below him stopped abruptly and he could feel the strained silence of listening.

‘Oi!’ He heard Malcolm calling back into the building. ‘Check the roof! Now!’

They were made.

SevenM instantly fled, scurrying into the darkness. Eli buzzed his wings and took off fast, not looking back, expecting the zap of an electrifier to fry him any second. He zipped around corners and through open windows and out the other side, gradually losing the shouting voices behind him. He slowed to gain his bearings and eventually found his way back to Hackside. He paused in the air above the
Ebony Rain
where the commander stood a few paces from the craft, talking with someone half-hidden by shadows. Eli knew it was impossible, but the other person looked like a Midnight Man. Eli flew down and landed. Sensing his presence, the commander turned. The shadows shifted and the shape was gone, but Eli could still feel eyes watching them from the darkness. He moved swiftly to the craft. The commander jumped in on the other side and they took off, not talking until they had put some distance behind them.