by Apollo Surge
She shook her head.
"I can barely get them to answer my calls on a good day," she said. "And last I heard a lot of the bound fae creatures they had doing leg work for them are apparently getting sniped by the courts, or are in open rebellion, so they're pretty busy."
Sawyer paled. That didn't sound good. If even the Council was having that kind of trouble…
"We may be in this for the long haul," he said, and saw the immediate tension in everyone else at the table. "I think we need to start preparing for this to be the way things are now. And for them to only get worse."
"And how are we supposed to do that with Elliot refusing to lead?" Serena asked, her tone more concerned than accusatory, though Sawyer had a feeling she probably understandably sided more with Alicia on what had been happening. "And Alicia being... like she's being."
"We can function without Elliot or Alicia," Sawyer said, fists clenching on the table. "We're not helpless without an Alpha. Hell, have you forgotten Jacob and Mateo are alphas too? Just because you guys aren't the Alpha doesn't mean you aren't capable of making decisions. It's like I was trying to explain to Elliot. None of us needs to be doing this all by ourselves. We all have skills, we can figure something out together."
Jacob and Mateo sat up a little straighter and Serena smiled at him a little.
"All right then," Serena said. "So, what's the plan? I mean, where do we even start?"
"I think housing needs to be a priority," Jacob said. "Finishing the barn, possibly putting up some additional shelter. The campsite for the deer solved the immediate issue of conflict between those two groups. But if this is to be a long term situation, we cannot expect them to live in tents on the lawn much longer. Especially as winter approaches."
Everyone else at the table nodded in agreement.
"I think our little legal situation requires more immediate consideration," Mateo offered. "We will only dig that hole deeper by building permanent housing, I think. And the town is likely to try and do something well before winter."
Sawyer grimaced. It was a good point. He'd seen the nightmare of paperwork and regulations Alicia was embedded in trying to keep the town off their back. This land had been in Alicia's family for generations, back before this town had even been incorporated into the United States. It rankled him that they couldn't have as many people living here as they liked. But, if what he'd gleaned from Alicia's frustrated rants and long phone calls was correct, it had been a recurring problem every time the pack got a little too large. The town seemed to consider any number of unrelated, unmarried adults living together to be not just potentially illegal but morally suspect- either a cover for illegal activity or for deviant sexual behavior. Or, on one notable occasion in the early 70's, a satanic communist cult that was almost certainly involved in both organized crime, deviant sexual behavior, and anti-government activity to boot. Alicia had pulled out a massive file on the whole mess looking for legal precedents her parents and grandparents had used to deal with these issues before. Sawyer had seen the newspaper clippings. They'd nearly been run out of town with torches and pitchforks.
But this situation was a great deal more complicated by the number of people and the fact that they'd all arrived at once. It was unlikely any of the previous legal cases would solve the issue.
"Honestly," Serena said. "Maybe we should focus on getting Elliot and Alicia back on track first of all? It'll be a lot easier to fix all the other problems with them working with us. And the longer we let Elliot sulk and Alicia spiral, the worse they're both going to get. They need our help."
"Unfortunately, they don't want it," Jacob said plainly. "In the most literal sense. I've been having to plan everything for the cooking and kitchen rotations on my own because if I so much as mention it to Alicia she tries to take over completely and more or less tells me to get out of the way. Then she can only half do the job before she's pulled away by some other crisis."
"And I have asked her a dozen times for direction on what I or any of us should be doing," Mateo added. "She just starts listing things she needs to do. If I suggest handling something for her she nearly has a fit."
"I've had the same problem," Sawyer agreed. "I mean, there's no shortage of things to do, but our time could probably be better spent than just running menial errands right now."
"Not to mention, the lack of organization means many things are being done twice, or skipped entirely," Jacob said with a sigh. He was a man who valued organization. This must have been unbearable.
"Right," Serena said, looking guilty. "I know Alicia's been bad lately, but she's really trying."
"She's being stupid," Mateo said frankly, holding up his hands in appeasement at Serena's immediate scowl in his direction. "She is. No one could handle all of this alone. A good leader must be able to delegate. If Alicia intends to be Alpha-"
"She isn't trying to be Alpha," Serena cut him off, bristling, standing up from her chair. "She's just trying to keep things running while Elliot's refusing to do his job."
"Elliot wouldn't be refusing to do his job-" Sawyer pointed out, defensive, "A job he didn't want and wasn't prepared for, by the way- if Alicia had been willing to help him at all. She took over all the management stuff when Duncan was in decline and never even offered to show Elliot how to do it or even discussed what she was doing with him. She made it seem like he wasn't even expected to do that kind of thing. He never had any idea what he was expected to be doing."
"It isn't Alicia's job to teach him how to be Alpha," Serena pointed out, getting angrier. "She doesn't have any more experience being in charge than any of you! Why does she have to hold his hand for him to figure out that paying the bills is part of being in charge?"
"Her parents were the Alphas," Sawyer said, hands open in an obvious gesture. "She grew up watching them. She's a born shifter- Elliot was turned."
"Jacob and Mateo are both born shifters too," Serena said, jabbing a finger at them. "She wasn't being trained to be Alpha! It was always supposed to be Paul who took over after Duncan and Antonia! And Paul is..."
All eyes turned to the end of the table, where Paul had been sitting quietly, picking at his dinner. He glanced up at the mention of his name, silver eyes shining.
"Damaged," he finished for her.
An awkward silence fell over the table. Serena slowly sat back down.
"Sorry," she whispered.
"The Moon was never going to choose me," Paul said. "Even if none of it had happened as it did. She told me."
He smiled a little, sideways, down at his plate.
"Penny was getting serious with this boy in town," he said. "He wanted to travel. She'd already talked about leaving with him, before it all happened. She asked me to go with them. I hadn't decided to go yet, but the Moon says in most timelines I do. We travel the world together. Sometimes it's disastrous. Sometimes it's just disappointing. But most of the versions the Moon showed me are wonderful, and we are so happy..."
He trailed off for a moment, gaze distant. Then he blinked.
"But in all the versions of that future she showed me, I almost never return here. Or not for very long. I would never have been Alpha."
"The Moon showed you the future?" Jacob said quietly. Sawyer was stunned silent. It was more than he'd heard Paul say at one time since before his twin had died. He knew Paul was connected to the Moon in a way none of them understood, but that was so much more than he'd expected.
"Only that future," Paul answered, staring back at Jacob, his silver eyes inscrutable. "Only the one that will never happen."
He said no more, and around the table a sense of awkward discomfort settled. Sawyer took a deep breath.
"I'm sorry for getting defensive," he said quietly to Serena, scratching at the surface of the dining table with his nail.
"I'm sorry too," Serena replied. "We're both in love with stubborn idiots. We should be commiserating, not fighting over whose partner is the stupidest."
Sawyer snorted, and silen
tly agreed.
"So," he said, scrubbing a hand through his hair and trying to gather his thoughts. "We need to convince Alicia and Elliot to get their shit together, find some kind of legal protection for the land, and finally sort out housing for everyone already here before winter, plus more for the other shifters and near fae that will probably show up eventually. We're also going to continue having problems with money and food until we find more income."
"That's about the shape of it," Mateo said, sitting back in his chair and breathing out with exaggerated heaviness.
"So what do we do?" Serena asked.
A beat passed in silence as they contemplated the enormity of the task ahead of them.
Sawyer looked around the table, hoping Jacob or Mateo might speak up. Instead, Paul met Sawyer's gaze directly with his eerie silver eyes. Sawyer's shoulders tensed and he looked away.
"Sawyer has an idea," Paul said, as Sawyer had been afraid he would.
Sawyer sighed, feeling everyone's eyes on him.
"I do have some suggestions," he admitted, crossing his arms and hunching into his chair. "But they're... I would have to do something I'd rather not."
"Is it dangerous?" Jacob asked, frowning.
"Potentially," Sawyer admitted, scratching the back of his head. "It could go wrong in a lot of ways. But it could also stabilize things here a lot faster."
"If it puts you at risk it's not worth it," Mateo said immediately, and Jacob nodded.
"I agree," Serena said, her eyes flicking briefly to Sawyer's stomach. Sawyer flushed, resisting the urge to cover himself, as though she could see through him. Alicia must have told her.
"It wouldn't be that kind of risk," he said quickly, before she could potentially say more and reveal him. "I mean, not mostly. The danger of actual physical harm to me would be... I could deal with it. But it could backfire in ways that could potentially endanger everyone."
"Just tell us the plan," Mateo said. "We'll decide if it's worth the risk."
He took a deep breath and laced his fingers in front of him.
"So, you know how my Influence is really strong?" he said, trying to squash the note of shame in his voice. He saw frowns from Jacob and Mateo and a confused look from Serena. Paul just stared, unreadable as ever. But none of them said anything, waiting for him to continue.
"Well, it turns out it's a lot stronger than I thought," Sawyer went on. "I mean, in comparison to what normal Influence is like. I thought it was normal, but then I started talking to Elliot about it and apparently it's pretty unusual. Long story short, I can use it to get money. A lot of it. And a big discount on a bunch of trailers we can set up out back. Hell, find me the right plumber and electrician, I can probably get them to do the wiring and septic tank hook ups for free. If we get lucky and the right public officials react to me positively, I can probably use it to make the city look the other way about our legal problems. There's a risk, obviously. It'd be noisy. People would notice. And even if I'm not technically doing anything illegal it'll look suspicious as hell. We might draw the kind of attention that could make things a lot worse. Especially if the wrong person reacts negatively to me. It's also, you know, kind of ethically questionable."
"Where are you planning to get the money?" Mateo asked. Everyone at the table, save placid Paul, looked somewhere between shock and worry.
"Cam sites and casinos, probably," Sawyer admitted in an embarrassed mutter, looking away. "I've done it before when I needed money fast. I can get a lot of money fast in a casino, but you can't do the same casino twice in a month. The staff gets suspicious fast. Cams are safer. On a good day, I could make a couple thousand dollars in an hour just by sitting in front of the camera."
"You Influence works over camera?" Jacob asked, eyes widening. Sawyer's already red face heated up another degree.
"Yeah," he said, hunching into himself. "The effect is kind of dulled, but it works. Sorry. I told you it was weird."
"What else can it do?" Jacob asked, leaning closer.
"Um, when I was talking about it with Elliot, he mentioned it was weird how long I could maintain it. I can keep someone fully Influenced pretty much indefinitely if I reestablish every fifteen minutes or so. And they stay partially Influenced for a while even when I'm not in direct contact with them. Depends how long I've been Influencing them. I spent a couple months with someone once and they were still Influenced, shit, I don't know, like weeks later."
"Partially Influenced?" Mateo asked, raising an eyebrow. "I didn't know it came in partial. Either you are looking into their eyes, Influencing them, or you are not."
"The effect lingers for me," Sawyer explained, putting a hand to his forehead to hide his face, scratching at the table finish again. "Fully Influenced, I can make someone do almost anything. I've had people offer to commit murder for me. When I'm not right there with them, it fades a little bit. They stay, you know, obsessed with me. But they're more under their own control. They won't do anything crazy or out of character. If I asked them to do something extreme and I'm not next to them reinforcing it they'll snap out of it. Usually."
"But not always," Serena gathered, her expression mildly horrified. Sawyer swallowed a guilty lump in his throat and decided not to elaborate on the time it hadn't worked out that way.
"I don't think that's Influence," Jacob said, puzzled. "I'm not sure what it is, but I've never heard of anyone's Influence working even remotely like that. No one can sustain Influence without constant eye contact. And it can never make someone do something they wouldn't do on their own."
"I've never heard of anything like that either," Mateo agreed. "Believe me, if the Alpha of my old pack had been able to harness that kind of power, he would have conquered a continent by now."
"Elliot thought it might just be an omega thing," Sawyer said with a shrug.
"Pretty sure it would have come up," Serena said, still staring at him as though slightly afraid of him. "I know none of our sources had a ton to say about omegas, but that seems like a pretty important detail to leave out."
"If it's not Influence, what could it be?" Sawyer asked.
Everyone looked toward Serena, who shrugged.
"Don't ask me!" she said. "I mean, there are a bunch of magical creatures and near-fae that can cast glamours, some of which are kind of like that, but I don't know which one, or how a wolf shifter would end up with that kind of power."
"Wait," Sawyer said, holding up a hand. "It has to be Influence. Because it's not working on you. You have that charm for preventing being Influenced, right?"
Serena pulled a necklace out of her shirt from which a small wooden pendant of a wolf was hanging beside several other strange tokens.
"Yeah, but it's not the only one I have," she said. "I wear charms to protect myself from all kinds of things. I've only added more since the Fae started acting up."
"I suppose you could try them one at a time," Mateo said, scratching his chin thoughtfully. "Until you figure out which one works."
Sawyer and Serena exchanged a glance.
"No," Sawyer answered.
"Yeah, no thanks," Serena said at the same time.
"It doesn't matter," Sawyer said finally, trying to convince himself. "The point is it would fix a lot of our problems. Once the other shifters aren't living in tents they can look for work and contribute to food and bills in case this turns out to be a long term thing. Then, all we need to worry about is Alicia and Elliot."
"Which is its own problem," Serena muttered, reaching for her drink.
"Then let's solve it," Sawyer said, shaking off his embarrassment at confessing to the reality of his Influence. "If the five of us work together, we can figure something out."
"Five?" Mateo repeated, and Sawyer gestured to Paul.
"Paul's going to help too," he said. "Right?"
Paul blinked slowly, seeming like he wouldn't answer for a moment.
"Of course," he said finally.
"Good," Sawyer said, standing up. "Because w
e're going to need you."
Chapter Fifteen
Over the next few days, the plan unfolded. Sawyer reopened his old cam site accounts and had multiple running any time he could, skin crawling under the gaze of hundreds of people constantly watching, spewing praise and vitriol in equal measure in the chat box while he washed dishes or worked on knitting. He hit the casinos by himself, not wanting the others to see him calmly talking people out of their chips. It was as easy as he remembered it. Of course, he'd never needed this much money before. Even when he was young and stupid and not so concerned with taking advantage of people he'd always been cautious never to get too greedy. But he had no choice now. Serena was researching housing options for them, and it was painfully expensive. The cheapest options were prefab steel boxes, but they carried unknown costs in preparing the foundations and getting the insides suitable for humans to live in. It was starting to look like travel trailers might be ideal, but the cheapest were ten thousand apiece new, and they'd need at least four. Sawyer and the others stayed busy, while things around the house slipped further from their absence.
The next week, Serena and Jacob accompanied Sawyer into town to talk to the officials causing their legal troubles. Sawyer would have preferred to go alone, but there was too much of a risk if someone reacted badly. Jacob was there to make sure Sawyer didn't get into any fist fights, while Serena was there with memory charms to smooth things over. The first three people they talked to reacted negatively and needed Serena's gentle memory modifications before they got a winner. They signed a few papers and, within an hour, all the city's complaints had been dismissed and all the permits were in order. Serena kept staring at Sawyer like he'd grown a second head, awed and terrified.
"That's the kind of mind control magic Raven was desperate for," she said as they left. "I don't know a single caster who wouldn't trade an arm and a leg for that kind of power."
"It's not as great as it sounds," Sawyer said, uncomfortable, digging in his pocket for an antacid. "Not when you can't turn it off."
