by Sonja Bair
Now it was David’s turn to rock quietly and think for a few minutes. I was about to break the silence when he spoke. “Being so different is a difficult secret to bear, but bearing that secret with others is one of the benefits of a pack. As you have noticed, there is strength in the pack, different and in some ways stronger, than a family. A pack makes you part of something bigger; the weight of secrets or problems is shared throughout the group. Although one string can break fairly easily, a rope woven together from many strands is much, much harder to break.
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but the Flock is more of a loose organization of Alva, not an entity in and of itself, like a pack. Of course, that has its benefits as well, one being the ability to strive for more independent success. But in times of trouble, you can always fall back on the strength and support of a good pack. And we have a good pack, Freya.”
Smiling into the dark night, I didn’t respond out loud. Those pack connections also made talking a bit redundant. I knew he could feel my appreciation of his words. But through the haze of good feelings, a sudden realization broke through.
“Crap, crap, crap! David, the man from my story, the one who saw my wings as a kid, I just remembered—he had this huge belt buckle. It had red stones in it. When he and my dad were talking, I was too scared to look up to his face, but I remember staring at that belt buckle. It was really elaborate and big. No. It couldn’t be. Could it? Could that guy be the same Nick that’s been hanging around? But he hasn’t aged. No. It couldn’t be.”
Nearly panicking, I pushed back and looked up at David’s face. It was still calm, but his jaw was slightly clenched.
“No. That’s impossible. It’s my overactive imagination right now.” I was breathing heavily, trying to convince myself of those words.
“Possibly it’s a coincidence. Big fancy belt buckles aren’t that uncommon. But on the other hand, this Nick has been turning up in a lot of unexpected places recently. It’s as if he is very intentionally, but also very covertly, stalking you. I don’t like it.”
“But Nick isn’t supernatural. Why does he keep showing up in supernatural settings and knowing so much about our world?”
Again, David’s face and voice were steady and calm except for the slight vibration of worry that snuck through his smooth façade. “I know enough about the world to know that I don’t know everything. Supernaturals have hidden their presence from the world for thousands of years. Perhaps there is something else out there as well, hiding from us, or maybe he is a very astute observer of humanity. Either way, we don’t have enough information for action at this point. My suggestion is that we keep on the defensive for a while, watching out for any more interactions with him. If he does show up in an unwelcome way, then we switch to offense. We will find out more about this gentleman, uncover his motivations, and shut him down. If he does have malicious intentions, he picked the wrong time to come to town. A convention’s worth of leaders from two powerful supernatural species is in town right now. We have many allies surrounding us.”
Maybe, I thought. But maybe having a whole bunch of leaders in town at one time would be the perfect time to create massive amounts of chaos.
I don’t know if my exact words traveled through the pack connections, but the emotion must have. David dropped a kiss on top of my head, took my face in his hands, and looked into my eyes. “I have your back, Freya. You can trust that I always will.”
Headlights from a car turning onto my block momentarily flashed in our eyes, blinding us. I pulled away from David, adrenaline pounding, imagination providing the image of Nick at the wheel, complete with a sneering smile, evil leer, and bloody chainsaw in the backseat. The more rational side of my brain told me I had watched too many horror movies. But when the car pulled up and parked right in front of my house, the rational side joined the irrational in its plan of shot putting the nearest flower pot at Nick’s head and running like hell.
It was Alrik. Laughing in relief, I shouted out to him, “It’s only you. Thank God.”
“Only me?” replied Alrik with an edge to his voice. “That isn’t the welcome I was looking for.”
I stood up, jumped down the steps of the porch, and gave him a quick hug. “Sorry—not what I meant. David and I were just talking about Nick, and I had this vision of him going all Texas Chain Saw Massacre on us.”
Alrik pulled me away and looked down at me. “Has there been another encounter with Nick?”
I filled him in on the childhood memory. He listened carefully, eyes squinted slightly as he looked off in the distance. He shook his head slightly after I finished.
“Let’s not invite trouble where none may exist. Nick doesn’t smell of supernatural, so I’m going to say that your memory is either a coincidence or a false remembrance. I came over here to give an update on Viktor.”
“Oh, that’s right! How is he?” In the chaos of the evening, I had forgotten about Viktor.
“You forgot about Viktor, didn’t you?”
“Absolutely not. Is he okay?”
Alrik tightened his lips into a slight momentary frown of disbelief, but then started his update. Viktor had been in critical condition from blood loss; if he was a natural, he probably would be dead. Luckily, medical help had been fast enough and his supernatural healing good enough that he survived. Doctors were calling it a miracle.
“Right before I left, Viktor called me over and asked to pass the message that you need to see him tomorrow morning before the meeting.”
The morning’s meeting didn’t start until ten, so I certainly could and should visit him. I nodded and Alrik continued, “He also asked about what happened to you. When I told him how you had fought off and killed Jerry, he asked me to say that he was sorry it came to that but it was the only option at hand and you shouldn’t feel bad.” Alrik paused and looked down at me again, eyebrows drawn in a look of slight disbelief, then continued. “He also said he was proud of you.”
I blushed red at Viktor’s high praise. It was common Flock knowledge that the best compliment anyone had ever gotten from Viktor was a lack of negativity. That he said he was proud of me was unheard of. And although I was highly flattered by his words, I didn’t really understand what they were based on.
“I’m proud of you, too.” Alrik’s words, spoken quietly and with an emotion not often heard from him, caused my blush to deepen to scarlet.
“Thank you,” I stuttered back, caught off guard. “I’m proud of you too.”
“Really, Freya? Are you proud of me?” His tone continued to be soft and serious.
While I mentally kicked myself for my reflexive response, I considered my words. Although they had been spoken in haste, they were true.
I looked up at him and smiled. “I am proud of you. You have been here for me. You have been challenged by the sudden changes in my life, but you stuck with me. It really would have been easy and understandable for you to get super frustrated with me. And yes, you have gotten frustrated and you have yelled at me, but only as a treasured friend would. Thank you for being a strong support.”
His face lightened considerably, but his shoulders dropped and then he sighed. “Sitting in the hospital waiting for news is more tiring than running a marathon. I need to get some rest, and you should too. It’s a long day tomorrow as well.”
“Sleep well. Some other time, I’ll have to tell you about how I rode a wild boar tonight.”
He smiled weakly, nodded, and turned to go. Halfway to the car, he stopped abruptly and turned back, glaring at me. “You weren’t kidding about riding a wild boar, were you?”
“Nope.”
Shaking his head, he turned down the sidewalk. “At the moment, I’m too tired to ask how in the world that happened. How about telling me over dinner tomorrow after the meeting’s finished?”
“It’s a plan.”
Chapter 23
Armed with the big pink bakery box, I paused at Viktor’s hospital door the next morning to gather my nerve. Even with
his declaration that he was proud of me, I wasn’t fully convinced he wasn’t going to order me back to Sweden, as it was my association with the werewolves that had landed him in here.
It took me the nearly the entire length of “I Have Confidence” before a smile was firmly in place and shoulders squared. Pushing open the door, I called out, “Good morning Viktor! Do you want a chocolate or a maple buttermilk donut? I’d suggest the pink sprinkle one, but I ate it on the way. Sorry.”
The man resting on the pillow was a shadow of the strong statesman from yesterday. There were bandages over much of his visible body, his cheeks were sunken, and his skin was sallow. But his blue eyes still maintained their sharpness. He motioned me to put the bakery box on his table beside his bed.
“What makes you think that I would like those overly sweet American confections?” He scowled.
“Your wife.”
“Ach, well. She is right. Give me the chocolate. But don’t tell anyone else.”
I chuckled. Only Northern Europeans would be too proud to admit liking a donut.
He took two bites before setting it back down, too tired to continue.
“I’m so sorry about—” I started before Viktor waved me quiet.
“Not your fault. I asked you here for a different reason. Have you heard of these clandestine meetings that Tilde is organizing? Yes? Good. I was not part of these meetings. Tilde and I have different opinions on the role of the Elders.” Again, he paused to take a long, slow breath.
“My mother said you haven’t taken a firm stand either way on the Elder debate.”
“Timing is everything in politics. I have allowed Tilde to pursue her agenda to a point where her actions would get her into the most trouble. And now I will act.”
“Excuse my impertinence, but wouldn’t it have been better to discuss this with her before she got so deep into disagreeable actions?”
“If you think she would have changed her mind, you do not know Tilde like I do.”
Alva etiquette told me not to push the Elder any further, but I was too uncomfortable with some of his assumptions to hold my tongue. “You certainly know her better than I do... Yet, your situation reminds me of a mistake that I made with the Denver pack. I never asked them what they thought about my being an Alpha, I just assumed that they wanted me dead and reacted highly defensively. Turns out that they had bigger problems on their hands than me and if I would have approached them with a more neutral tone, I wouldn’t have created as much conflict. Maybe if you talked to Tilde, you could come to an understanding. Although I don’t care for her personally, she seems like a highly intelligent person. Perhaps she has reasons for her actions.”
“She is intelligent, but not reasonable. Her primary desire is to promote unity and safety for the Flock, but she has lost her way. Yes, there are both internal and external threats to the Alva now, as there has always been, but she oversteps her rights as an Elder to pursue and punish those responsible. I must stop her. Please retrieve my satchel.” He nodded toward a well-used leather messenger bag hanging on the back of the hospital door. I grabbed it and placed it gently at his side. “Thank you. In this bag are copies of confidential emails and documents from Tilde to her co-conspirators. My allies and I have managed to swipe these from her personal files and computer. They show her predilection toward secret meetings is not a new trend. Her backroom negotiations occurred both before and after her election to Elder.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because now is the time to strike at her plan. The meddling in the werewolf conference added to the documentation of her authoritative measures is bound to cause further uproar within the Flock. As I need to be seen as the trustworthy and respectable leader in the aftermath of the scandal, I cannot be the one to reveal these documents. Someone outside the Elders must leak these documents to the others, preferably someone not closely tied with the council. You are the clear choice to be an informant. You will find an address in the satchel to which you can send these documents. The person who receives them will be outraged at Tilde’s actions and is in the position to widely disperse the information to the Flock.”
“But I…”
“Do you want the Elders to take away individual rights? No? Then this is the only choice. Take it. Mail it. You will be a hero.”
No amount of stuttering or excuses could dissuade Viktor, and over the next ten minutes, he convinced me that there was no other choice for the good of the Alva than for me to mail the binder. I made it outside the hospital before curiosity overwhelmed me. Sitting on a bench in the shade, I opened the bag. A binder, replete with dividers, tabs, and a table of contents lay inside. I scanned down the table of contents—Pre-election Schemes, Vote Rigging, Illegal Detention, Espionage… the titles were damning. I flipped to Illegal Detention. From what I remembered from my basic education in the Flock legal system, Elders were allowed to question Flock members if there was reasonable evidence of wrong doing. But according to these photocopied records, there had been a spree of unauthorized questionings based on rumors alone. Alrik should have been part of these, yet his name was missing from the notes. Out of the five cases, two of them had turned out to be legitimate. One was a case of an Alva selling confidential Flock information to other supernatural groups, and the other was a person from another supernatural tribe planning on breaking into Elder headquarters to plant listening devices. The three other people brought in for illegal questioning were deemed innocent and eventually released.
I flipped to Espionage and found similar results. According to the evidence provided, some of the Elders had clearly overstepped their legal restrictions and infiltrated other supernatural and natural groups. The results were mixed—in some of the cases, Elders found information that was valuable to protecting the Alva, in other cases, in overstepping their ethical restrictions, they caused detriment to both those in and out of the Flock.
After skimming through the entire binder, my head was spinning. What Tilde and others were doing was clearly illegal in context of Alva law. Outrage welled up in me. I stood up and grabbed my car keys, intending on heading to the nearest UPS store and sending the binder to the address attached via express mail. But then I stopped. My brain’s frontal lobes were frantically sending me signals that they were running through some ideas and I needed to pause for a moment. Sitting back down, I let the seed of rational thinking grow. The actions which prevented the bombing at my mother’s peace accord fit perfectly into the modus operandi found used in the binder. And my mother wasn’t the only one who had their lives saved from Tilde’s work. Sighing, I realized that right and wrong weren’t as black and white as I thought. What to do? I pulled out my trusty notebook to organize my thoughts.
Pros to sending binder
1. Tilde et al broke Alva laws
2. The Flock has the right to know
3. Individual rights would continue to be squashed if I didn’t do anything
4. Other supernatural tribes’ sovereignty had been trampled by Alva action
Cons to sending binder
1. Tilde may have saved my mother’s life
2. Tilde clearly cared about the Alva
3. Would Alrik get in trouble even though it appeared he wasn’t directly involved?
4. Would the binder be a trigger to chaos in the Flock? What would be the fallout from an expose?
5. And why was Viktor asking me to do this? Was I really the best choice, or was there some nefarious reason in setting me up?
Although the list didn’t provide a clear answer, it did help me get a better feel for the situation. Closing my eyes, I mentally walked through different paths I could take in dealing with this binder. Ambulance sirens wailed around me and the temperature crept higher, but I forced myself to stay still. Viktor would be getting out of the hospital in a few days, so I needed to decide what I was going to do before then. After nearly an hour of exploring options, I got up, feeling mostly convinced about the path I needed to take to
help the Flock. Checking my watch, I saw I had just enough time to go to the store before the day’s meetings started.
Compared to the first two days, the third day of the werewolf conference was more like a Cub Scout meeting. Tempers flared occasionally, but the only big drama was when Gina stood up to address the group. Amir lunged at her as soon as she opened her mouth, but Julia pulled him back. After whispering something in his ear, they quietly left the room. After the protests her parents had made at her being there, I think we were all expecting Gina to say something controversial or profound, but she only gave a more detailed recounting of her visions. In the end, she admitted to not knowing what it meant but emphatically assured us that she knew that it was relevant and important. After she got done talking, it felt like the entire room gave a collective shrug. If her vision could somehow help us, awesome, we’ll take it. If not, what harm could come from listening to her?
For most of the day, the Elders merely listened to the Alphas. When Tilde did speak, she offered to consult the Alva historians and look into our archives. As one of the oldest and most punctilious species around, the Alva had extensive and detailed records of the past, often knowing more about other species then they themselves knew. Her support was appreciated, but for the most part, the Elders blended into the background.
Alrik, on the other hand, proved to be open and useful. As Flock Arbitrator, he had lots of experience handling hostile situations, and it turns out there are some tricks to calming a supernatural rage. When Tasha lost it during one part of the meeting and turned to a snarling, lunging werewolf, he asked her Alphas for permission to demonstrate these techniques. Instead of pinning her down like they had done with Jerry the previous day, he approached her deliberately and calmly while making a steady, low-pitched hum. He captured her attention and then never broke eye contact. It looked like magic, but Tasha stopped her aggressive behavior and held still until he gently stroked her head. Breaking the shocked silence, Alrik regretfully told the room that this technique would not work all the time, nor would it work for everyone. The secret to control the rage, he said, was providing a combination of sensory overloads while remaining calm yourself. A spontaneous breakout session to work on that technique and some other tricks Alrik had up his sleeve took up the rest of the afternoon. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, neither Tasha nor anyone else lost it for the rest of the day, so the Alphas couldn’t practice any of these new strategies. But as we were breaking for the day, Alrik was on the receiving end of many handshakes and slaps on the back. Although his help didn’t solve the problem of the werewolf rage, it was the first concrete help that came out of the conference.
