by Dean Murray
Chapter 18
Alec Graves
Graves Estate
Sanctuary, Utah
I'm not sure how I survived. I've tried to put together some of the pieces, but James, Jasmin and Jessica have all been extremely reluctant to talk about what happened and I haven't had any opportunity to talk to any of the independents down in Arizona.
The bits and pieces that I managed to tease out of my three friends didn't make me feel any better. One of our SUVs had been stocked with several units of blood, but there hadn't been enough blood to go around to everyone who needed it. The fact that I was alive almost certainly meant that someone else was dead who otherwise would have been saved. Considering the sheer amount of blood that I'd lost it was possible that saving me had cost more than one life.
James and the others were less reticent when it came to questions about what had happened once everyone got back to Rico Rio. Kaleb and Brandon were trying very hard to spin the operation as a smashing victory, both internally to everyone in Sanctuary and to the rest of the packs, but it had apparently been obvious to all three of my friends that the few independents who'd survived and even most of the Sanctuary people had felt like we'd had our heads handed to us.
I tended to agree. Killing twenty-one cats, three of which had been Ancients was an impressive feat, but it hadn't been worth losing nearly that many of our own people. The Brain Box and Brandon had been suckered and we'd committed to the wrong operation instead of biding our time and killing that many cats over the course of a few engagements where the odds were on our side and we could engage without losing most of our force.
Juan hadn't made it. When I'd first woken up in my bed in Sanctuary I'd thought that maybe his death had been some kind of terrible nightmare, but Jessica's face had told me otherwise. The scars were already fading, but I could clearly see where she'd taken a set of claws while trying to keep the Ancient pinned down enough for everyone else to pile on.
Jess had mistaken my expression for concern over her appearance and had hastened to reassure me that she was fine and that the scars would be gone within a few weeks, but she was trying to bandage the wrong metaphorical wound. Even her joke about not being able to wear a swimsuit at the pool now that we were back didn't tease much of a smile out of me.
Even back then, before I knew the full toll we'd paid to bring down the Ancients, I'd still known that it had been heavy and that Juan hadn't survived. I'd been sad, but I hadn't understood the full weight of that particular loss yet. That understanding didn't come until later when James and Jasmin arrived to check up on me.
Juan had been my connection to the independent packs. He'd had credibility with them that I didn't have, and might not ever have now that he was gone. Not only that, I'd doubtlessly alienated some of his friends when I'd made the scene at the briefing and refused to go on the assignment to Naco.
It had been James who had asked what we were going to do about the people Brandon had ordered killed in Naco. The four of us had decided to go on a short walk as a way of getting out of the house. Only seconds after we'd gone far enough that the house was no longer visible he'd brought up the single biggest unanswered question and I had been forced to tell him and the girls that I didn't know how to proceed.
Vincent had apparently survived as had more than half of his team, so one way or another it was virtually guaranteed that we'd be hearing about more incidents from the border where humans were killed by the southerners.
Despite his efforts to convince everyone that the operation had been a success, Kaleb had issued a slew of orders as soon as he received word of Brandon's losses. Several of the pack who'd been scheduled for downtime were ordered back down to Arizona along with a few members of the pack who had never been considered particularly suitable for pitched combat.
Most surprisingly of all, Kaleb had ordered Brandon to ship Jasmin, Jess, James and me back up to Sanctuary. It hadn't particularly made sense for Kaleb to pull four fighters out of Arizona considering all of the knots he was tying himself into so that he could get more fighters down there to reinforce Brandon, but the order had apparently been non-negotiable and one of the planes had arrived only an hour or so after we'd arrived back in Rio Rico.
I'd still been unconscious when James had carried me onto the plane and it had taken to the air. I'd remained unconscious for nearly forty-eight hours and as nearly as I could tell Kaleb hadn't asked after me a single time while I'd been out.
Mother had been a different matter altogether. She'd sent Donovan over several times to check up on me both before I woke up and since. I'd spent the last twenty-four hours ducking her. I wasn't ready to see her yet because I wasn't ready to discuss the things that she'd been keeping from me. There was a subsidiary benefit that my staying away from Mother would help convince Kaleb that I could finally be brought over to his side of things, but as much as I tried to tell myself that my evasions were part of a larger scheme, I knew the truth.
Once I talked to her there was a chance that I'd have to acknowledge the fact that I couldn't trust either of my parents.
The summons that came from Kaleb thirty minutes after my friends and I returned from our walk was hardly a surprise. He might not care enough to check in on me when there was still a possibility that I might not recover, but now that I was up and walking around he no doubt figured that it was time to put me to work.
James and the others looked reluctant to let me out of their sight, but I waved them away and told them that I'd meet them in the garden once Kaleb was done with me. I turned around to follow Kaleb's messenger, a young kid named Thomas, and instead found Rachel blocking my way.
"I know that you're avoiding Mom, but are you avoiding me too?"
"I'm not avoiding you or Mom either one, Rachel."
It was a bald-faced lie, but my friends were far enough away that they wouldn't be able to catch me in the lie and Rachel and Thomas had only human senses.
"Just for the record, Mom didn't send me to check up on you. I came on my own initiative just because I've missed you while you've been away."
I sighed. "I missed you too, Rachel, but I need to go see Kaleb now. Can I swing by your room in a couple of hours?"
"Right, you're totally not ducking Mom."
"We don't always have to talk in her presence, Rach, but if that's what you want I'll swing by her rooms and we can talk there."
The words came out without my really having thought them through, but I realized that it was time to stop prolonging the inevitable. Once I was done with Kaleb, I would go talk to Mother and find out once and for all where things really stood between us.
Rachel looked at Thomas, who was practically hopping back and forth from one foot to the other with worry over the possibility that he might get into trouble for not bringing me back quickly enough. Rachel scrunched up her mouth the way she tended to when she was trying to make a decision and then stood up on her toes and whispered in my ear.
"Something isn't right, Alec. Mom has been acting a little weird since before you left, but it's just getting progressively worse. I still don't know what's happening down on the border that has her so secretive, but Kaleb visited last night and she's been a complete wreck ever since. If you're going to push her to find out what she's been keeping a secret from us then today's the day to do it."
A wave of emotion washed through me. I didn't need to ask Mother what was going on down on the border because I already knew all about it. I knew, but I hadn't told Rachel yet—in fact I hadn't even thought about telling her before she brought the issue up.
Maybe in my own way I wasn't any better than Mother after all.
"I'll see you in an hour or two, Rach. We'll talk then and I can fill you in on everything that's happened to me since we last talked."
Rachel gave my hand a squeeze and smiled back over her shoulder at me as she walked away. Thomas gave a big, dramatic sigh that was probably much louder than he meant for it to be and then led the way off to Kaleb's off
ice.
Kaleb was typing something on his computer when I arrived. He waved me towards one of the leather chairs.
"I'll be just a minute."
I sat down and looked at his office with new eyes. It hadn't changed while I'd been gone, but I had. The massive sword, built to a scale that made it suitable for use by a hybrid, dominated the space behind him in a way that it never had before. It was a piece that didn't fit with the public image Kaleb projected of a dutiful member of the Coun'hij, but it explained so much.
Swords like that had once been common in every house. They made a single hybrid more deadly than any but the most dangerous of the Ancients and they allowed the warrior who used them to be nearly the equal of a werewolf all by themselves.
Most of them had been destroyed, a few probably existed hidden away by some of the loyalists to the monarchy, but this was the only one I knew of that was openly displayed. Kaleb had never taken it into battle, but the mere fact that he displayed it was a subtle sign of rebellion—an indication that he didn't stand for quite the same things as the rest of the Coun'hij.
I was certain that Kaleb had been the one to hit on the idea of creating the clawed gloves that Vincent and his men had used to slaughter dozens of innocents. Kaleb really was the architect of every wrong I'd encountered over the last few weeks. Rage started to rise up inside of me as my beast awoke and started amplifying my feelings, but I forced my emotions back down and let a cold kind of numbness take over.
I needed Kaleb to think that he could trust me, that I'd finally turned the corner after all of these years, and was someone that he could mold into doing whatever dirty work he needed done.
"You've learned some self-control while you've been away. That's good."
Kaleb followed my gaze and then frowned slightly as he saw that I was looking at the ancient sword that had stood silently behind him for more than two decades.
"That's one of my few failures. Before you were born I spent a lot of time trying to unlock the secret of creating more swords like this one. Do you know that modern metallurgists are still having problems figuring out how the Damascus blades were made in India? All of our modern science and we still can't create swords with as fine of an edge or as hard of a metal."
"I didn't know that."
"Neither did I, at least not until I started paying for tests to be run on this monster. I eventually had to stop because every time I let someone new run any kind of analysis on it they came back wanting to release their findings to one peer-reviewed journal or another."
Kaleb tapped on his desk with one finger as he strolled down memory lane. "There are trace elements in the metal that the scientists couldn't even identify at the time. The periodic table has grown quite a bit since then, but I still wonder from time to time if I had it analyzed now whether or not there would still be an element or two in it that the eggheads still haven't managed to identify yet."
"I didn't think that most of the newer elements that they've identified over the last few decades were very stable."
"You're right, they aren't, but as nearly as I can tell those ancient swordsmiths had found a way of stabilizing normally unstable elements inside of the steel. That sword is five percent lighter than an equivalent blade made of steel, but it has a hardness that approaches what you'd find in a diamond."
"How is that possible?"
"I don't know. The tensile strength was tested at thirty percent better than steel too. The tester wanted to push it to the point of failure but I wouldn't let him. Back then the sword was a symbol of everything that we'd lost. Swords like this were what allowed our ancestors to drive the cats back down to the darkest jungles in South America. In a very real way the monarchy was founded at least partly on the strength of these weapons. I thought that if I could create more of them it would pave the way for a new golden age for our people."
It was always possible that Kaleb was simply playing me, but I didn't think that was the case. The regret in his voice was too palpable for it to be contrived and he'd had no way of knowing that I would focus on the sword when I came into his office.
"What happened?"
"I grew up and realized that it was going to take more than symbols and dreaming to keep our people from being exterminated. We have vampires breeding like lice on both coasts and the cats applying more pressure against the border with every year that passes. I stopped dealing in the realm of make-believe and started living in what was. I think that you've started making the same transition over the last few weeks and I wanted to call you in here and let you know how proud that makes me."
I'd tried to mentally prepare myself for this meeting, but I knew I was about to be tested in ways that I'd never been tested before. I wasn't a good enough liar to control my breathing and pulse in an outright lie, but there was a decent chance I could mislead him if I chose my words carefully.
"I've definitely had my eyes opened to things that I'd never considered before now."
Kaleb nodded and smiled. "I could tell from the reports I got back from Brandon. I don't buy that you've buried the hatchet with him any more than he does, but the simple fact that you're willing to pretend that you did so as to avoid causing more problems is a good start. It means that you're finally starting to realize that there are problems that you can't just charge blindly at and hope for providence to save you somehow."
I nodded. My nod had more to do with the fact that I should have realized that even nearly being killed by Vincent's efforts wouldn't be enough to justify an actual change of heart, at least not in Kaleb's mind.
"You do know that Vincent nearly got me killed right?"
"Of course I do. That was always a chance, but frankly you didn't leave me any choice but to send you down there and hope that combat would wear you down a little."
I took a deep breath. "Since we're being so honest with each other I'm just going to point out that Brandon led us into an unmitigated disaster."
Kaleb nodded, seemingly pleased by the fact that we were carrying on a dialogue for once. "Oh, it was bad, there's no question about that. My intelligence assets have done quite a bit of digging and it's starting to look like Brandon's presence caused a bigger stir even than I expected. I always figured that putting a group down there and kicking off active offensive operations would bring cats out of the woodwork to try and kill our people, but I didn't count on Brandon killing so many of those so-called Ancients of theirs."
The frown was back and Kaleb's fists went white as he tried to control his anger over what had happened.
"Those animals are the real power south of the border and they've always been happy to let the younger cats throw themselves at us because it serves to take some of the pressure off of them. The truth is that until Brandon came along we never had a good way to deal with an Ancient who decided, for whatever reason, to come adventuring out north. Back in the day two or three hybrids with swords were generally a match for a single Ancient, but now that we have to take them with our claws our options are severely limited."
Kaleb held up a finger. "Jaclyn might be able to knock one of them down with that electrical jolt of hers. She's used her ability to good effect against some cats who were approaching the end of their second century, but by all accounts even then she only knocked them down for a few seconds, so it's possible that a cat who is pushing three hundred years might be able to just shrug off any charge she's capable of generating."
A second finger came up. "Puppeteer is capable of bringing down an ancient by using three or four werewolves, but Puppeteer tends to be a clunky kind of tool. He's a bit like a nuclear weapon. If you've got a stationary target and plenty of time to prepare he can burn it to the ground, but he doesn't do as well against small, mobile targets because it tends to take him so long to round up a group of werewolves and sic them on whatever you want killed."
I already knew where he was going. "Which means that mostly we just have to use the third option, which is swarming them under with superior numbers
."
"Yeah, and you saw how that went. Those damn cats are so fast that it's hard to get enough bodies in close enough proximity to them to bring them down. Even once you've got enough people there fighting them it still comes down to a matter of luck as much as anything else and they always leave a big pile of bodies behind them."
I realized that I was rubbing the arm that had been ripped open three days before. I forced myself to stop, but it was one of the harder things I'd done in recent memory. The nerves were knitting back together at a record pace and I already had most of the feeling and mobility back in my fingers, but healing at that speed took a toll and more often than not it felt like my arm was on fire.
"We definitely had a lot of luck on our side."
Kaleb waited until I looked back up and then smiled at me. "You had a lot of luck, but it was still an impressive accomplishment. That's part of what helped convince me that you're starting to realize your potential. Mallory stopped by while you were sleeping to check you out, so I know that you didn't manifest an ability or anything, but you still showed the kind of speed that not many normal hybrids ever manage. You kept your friends and everyone else on that northern side of the road alive."
"It wasn't me who saved everyone, not really. Juan stopped the Ancient from killing me when it first tore into us. Without him I would have been dead."
"I know. I have to say that I'm sorry that Juan died, but he made the right decision. He was instrumental in convincing members of other packs to go down there and help us in our fight, but at the end of the day that fight wasn't as much of a disaster as you think it was. There are only a very limited number of cats as powerful as the three you guys killed. Just living for a long time doesn't guarantee that a cat will manifest that level of power any more than becoming a hybrid guarantees that someone will eventually manifest an ability. We just took three of their kings off of the board and although we lost a lot of people we didn't lose any of our key pieces."
This time I couldn't stop at least some of my rage from leaking through and the white noise generator crackled and popped as some of the energy that escaped me bled over into the physical plane in some way that it never had before.
"It's possible that you're right, but right now I don't particularly appreciate you calling us all pawns."
Kaleb waved my concern away. "No offense was intended, and you know it. More importantly, you're not one of the pawns. The truth of the matter is that I've been very careful with regards to who I've sent down to the border. Wolves, yes, by the dozens, and hybrids even, but not young hybrids who Mallory says have the potential to manifest an ability. The only two exceptions to that rule have been you and Brandon. I'm trying very hard to keep from losing anyone truly important to the fighting down there."
Kaleb sighed and then waved his arm around in a gesture that seemed to take in the house and even the estate beyond it.
"Our population growth is actually coming close to matching the cats now and that hasn't happened in centuries. As long as we're careful about who we lose and keep our key individuals, those with the potential to make a profound difference in the long term, out of the fighting then a war of attrition isn't completely a bad thing. Brandon's discovery that the cats massacred all of those people in that border town hasn't had the impact I would have expected as far as galvanizing more people to volunteer to go down and fight the good fight, but sooner or later we're going to see the recruits we need down there. In the meantime, in a lot of ways, this is the opportunity we've been waiting for."
Kaleb seemed to be waiting for another metaphysical outburst from me, but I had a death grip on my beast and I was doing my level best to stop it from acting up. Having the energy from my beast melt into the real world enough to cause electronics to go on the fritz, even slightly, was new. In another time and place it might have been an interesting phenomenon, but right now it was just one more thing that I had to control if I was going to keep Kaleb from realizing that I knew he and Brandon were behind those murders.
A little bit of energy still slipped out, but it was understated compared to how bad it could have been and Kaleb seemed to think that it was outrage over the deaths of the humans—which it was, just not in the way he thought.
"Brandon's support among the pack is the weakest it has ever been. His staunchest supporters were down in Arizona with all of you and some of them are dead now. Those members of the pack here in Sanctuary who supported him are shaky right now too. They've either lost friends and family in the fight against those three Ancients or at the very least their confidence in his judgment and ability to lead has taken a severe hit."
"What do you want me to do?"
"Now is the time for you to begin trying to cement your support here in the pack. James, Jessica and Jasmin are a decent start, but you're going to need many more at your back if you're to serve as a counterweight to Brandon. If your ability had manifested itself already it would make your task much easier, but you're not going to get a better chance than right now."
It was perfect. Kaleb was asking me to do exactly the thing I'd been planning on already. He wanted me to build a power bloc that could be used to counter Brandon's influence, and I would build a following to the best of my ability, but the goal would be to stop both of them rather than just Brandon.
"I can see the wisdom in what you're asking. I'll do my best to circulate among the pack and befriend everyone. I'd like to make a request though. I'd like Alison to be brought up from the border. I think she's already got a degree of loyalty towards me after our time together on Juan's team."
A look of annoyance flashed across Kaleb's face. "You're missing the point. A bunch of teenage wolves aren't going to secure your spot. You need to gather hybrids, preferably experienced ones. Once you have a solid core of dominant fighters, the submissives will naturally gravitate towards you. This isn't about making friends with people, Alec. Shape shifters don't want leaders who are their friends, they want leaders who can protect them when something bigger and meaner than them comes along."
I opened my mouth to respond but he talked right over me. "I've made sure that the story about your fight with the Ancient has been circulated widely through our pack, both here in Sanctuary and elsewhere, which will help make your task easier. Even so, until your ability manifests you need to build a coalition of hybrids who are weaker than you, who you can defeat in a challenge match if they become problematic, and hybrids who are more deadly than you, but whom you have some other hold on—usually either because you can throw money at them or because they want a slice of the security represented by those that you've made submissive to you. That's the secret recipe to being a pack alpha and you need to get that through your head. Starting with nobodies like Alison just makes your job harder because you give off the appearance of weakness. By starting with submissives you essentially tell everyone that you don't believe you can manage the dominants who are required to make a pack function properly. Do you finally understand?"
"I understand that you're refusing to recall Alison despite the fact that she's been down there as long as anyone and all without ever getting a chance to come back home for some leave."
"My hands are tied with regards to Alison. Once you're running your own pack and I'm not sheltering you from the realities involved, you'll quickly realize that sometimes you have to trade favors to keep your most valuable people happy. That means that the less valuable members of the pack get stepped on sometimes. Alison isn't dominant and she doesn't have any skills that are particularly valuable. She's done nothing to provide herself with a single ounce of leverage."
"Very well. I'll go start putting together my power base."
I stood to go. It wasn't the right tone to take with Kaleb, but I couldn't seem to help myself. Besides, after the things I'd said already it would be much better for me to leave, even in a huff, than stay and say something worse.
"Sit down, Alec. I'm not done yet."
I sat down and did my best to hide
the tremor that was starting to develop in my legs and hands.
"I've been trying to lay the pieces out so that you could draw the proper conclusions, but it's obvious that despite your recent strides you still don't understand the core of how the game is played. Brandon is operating from a much weaker position than he was a few weeks ago, but he's still the single most deadly wolf in our pack. I downplay that fact at every turn, but the truth is that he could cut his way through every single hybrid I could field against him and take over the pack at any point."
Kaleb sighed and leaned forward in his chair. "Right now Brandon knows that he's lost influence and it's making him push harder than normal. In many ways, until you do manage to create some kind of counterweight, I'm even worse off than I was before. Back when he had more power he was actually less pushy, but he's still too powerful for me to ignore if he decides that he really wants something."
My mind flashed back to my last fight with Vincent and the favor that Brandon had wanted out of Kaleb.
"What's he asking for? What does he want?"
"Rachel."
My whole world seemed to vibrate like an enormous gong the tiniest fraction of a second after it had been hit. The outer edges of everything were still absolutely motionless, but I could feel tremors starting up here in this room that would quickly make their way out to everything I knew and I could somehow feel that it would be ages before the vibrations would die back out.
"I don't understand."
My voice sounded calm, dead even, and it took me a second to realize that it sounded calm because inside I was absolutely still. The massive blow that Kaleb had just struck to my life had started everything moving, but somehow in my center the vibrations had canceled each other out. Even my beast was quiet, but it was the motionlessness of a predator in the instant just before it strikes.
"Not for himself, for Vincent. He's dealing with the same problem on a smaller scale that I'm dealing with. Vincent is pushing Brandon. He's had his eye on your sister for a couple of years now and Brandon doesn't feel like he can put Vincent off anymore. I've already told him that it's a go. The two of them are flying up tonight to collect her."
"You're talking about slavery."
Kaleb's hand hit his desk hard enough that the thick wood buckled. "I'm talking about the way that pack life works. Jessica runs and fetches for you at the slightest crook of your finger. That's no different than this. Rachel doesn't have the strength to stand on her own. She's had a pleasant life up until now because I've been protecting her. Just like I protect your mother, just like I protect even you to a lesser extent. I'm at the end of my strength, Alec."
Kaleb stood. "It's come down to a decision as to whether I protect Rachel or I protect the rest of the pack, and I won't sacrifice dozens of people for her. I can't afford to let the fate of minor pieces stop me from doing what needs to be done. Not even my own daughter can be allowed to destroy everything I've worked for. I keep my position as the head of the Coun'hij solely based on the size of this pack and the fact that Brandon backs my every move. Our pack has just suffered a major loss. If I do anything to alienate Brandon then Puppeteer and the rest would tear through this pack like a tornado."
It was obvious that our interview was over. I stood and turned to leave and this time Kaleb didn't stop me, but he did call out to me before I made it to the door.
"It's already decided, Alec, but I wanted to at least give you a few hours' heads-up. You'll need some time to prepare yourself. You can't afford to get in Vincent's or Brandon's faces about this. Brandon is on a hair trigger and I can't interfere if you do something to really piss him off."
I looked back at him and nodded, but he already had his phone out and was muttering something about needing to use a different room for the next few days until his desk could be repaired.
