Ascension (8 page)

Malcolm drove to a town on the other side of the Sorrentinos’s country estate. He pulled into a parking lot in the downtown core.

"Here?" I said.

He shrugged. "Near here. A little place I go when things get crowded at Dominic’s. Come on."

He led me to an unmarked door wedged between a dry cleaner and a convenience store. I stepped inside and found myself nose to chest with a massive bald man. When he saw Malcolm, he backed out of my face.

"Hey, Mal. Been a long time." He looked down at me. "Who’s the kid?"

Malcolm put a hand on my shoulder. "This is Clayton. My boy."

"You got a son? You never told me you got a son."

"You never asked. Mind if I take him inside? Don’t worry, he’ll stick to root beer."

"Yeah, sure, take him in. Buy him a real beer if he wants it. No one’s gonna care."

Malcolm led me into a small, dark bar, where the only music came from the clink of glasses and the occasional laugh. He steered me to a table at the back.

"You want a beer?" he asked as I sat down. "Smells like you’ve had one already, might as well make it two."

I shook my head.

"Soda?"

I shrugged.

He shook his head, went to the bar and returned with two mugs, one cola and the other beer. Before he could sit down, a red-haired woman in a faded tank top and frayed miniskirt slid over from another table.

"Malcolm," she said, and kissed his cheek. "You didn’t call me."

"Do I ever?"

Her lips curved in a half-pout, then she saw me in the shadows and blinked.

"My son," Malcolm said before she could ask. "Clayton."

"Oooh," she squealed, the sound grating down my spine. "What a cutie. He must take after his momma."

"Ha-ha," Malcolm said. "I don’t mean to be rude, Deedee—well, yes I do. Clear out. I’m spending time with my boy. He’s had a rough day."

"I could make it better for him." Her gaze slid over me and she grinned. "End it with a bang."

I tugged my jacket tighter around me.

Malcolm shook his head. "Another time, Deedee. Clear out. Now."

She pouted and flounced away.

Malcolm sipped his beer. "So, what’d it feel like, killing your first mutt?"

I shrugged.

He leaned forward and his eyes glittered. "Don’t give me that. It felt good, didn’t it? Taking a life. Made you feel powerful."

I looked at him, and tried to figure out what he meant, but I couldn’t.

"Not comfortable with it yet?" he said. "Sure, I understand that. Can’t be easy when
he
tells you it’s wrong. But it isn’t wrong. You feel that, don’t you? Taking a life isn’t a crime, it’s an act of power."

I had no idea what he was talking about, but I needed information from him, so it seemed best to play along. I nodded and hoped that was enough.

He clapped me on the shoulder. "See? I do understand."

"About the mutts," I said. "Something’s happening, isn’t it? That’s why there’s more of them coming around."

"You don’t know why? You’re a bright boy, Clayton. If you think about it, I’m sure you’ll realize you already know the answer. Why are more mutts coming to Stonehaven?"

Stonehaven. Of course. That was it. With my own problems, I’d overlooked the obvious clue to solving this one. The mutts were coming only to Stonehaven. No one else in the Pack had reported an increase.

"You’re sending them," I said. "You’re testing me."

Malcolm’s laugh startled the patrons at the next table. He shook his head and lowered his voice again. "Not bad, not bad at all. Wrong, but a good guess. I wouldn’t do that to you, Clay. You’re still too green to be facing mutts without backup. If I wanted to test you, I’d take you to the mutts, not send them to you. They’re coming on their own. Think about it. Who lives at Stonehaven?"

I frowned. "We do. So? We’ve always lived—"

"Wait. Who lives there? You, Jeremy and me. Now most mutts don’t know about you, so they’re obviously coming to see Jeremy or me. Nothing new there but, as you said, something has changed. Something that makes them want to challenge Jeremy and me in particular."

I hesitated, then looked up sharply. "You’re both potential Alphas. The mutts know that, don’t they? That you want to be Alpha and Dominic seems to be backing Jeremy."

Malcolm nodded. "Good boy. Now why would they—?"

"Why would they want to challenge a potential Alpha?" I cut in, my brain racing ahead to fill in the blanks. "Because it’s as close to an Alpha as they can get. They can’t challenge Dominic. Even if they won, the Pack would hunt them down. But they could challenge an Alpha candidate. That’d be the next best thing, wouldn’t it?"

"And an opportunity that doesn’t come around more than once or twice in a mutt’s life. If this stretches on much longer, we’ll have every mutt on the continent getting up the nerve to try his luck."

I slumped into my seat. It
would
stretch on much longer. We all knew that. With Dominic showing no signs of giving up his position, this waiting game could continue for years. Years of having mutts on our doorstep, trespassing on our territory, threatening Jeremy.

When I looked at Malcolm, I knew he’d read my thoughts in my face as clearly as if I’d said the words.

"There is a way to stop it," he said. "If Jeremy tells Dominic he doesn’t want to be Alpha, he’d be out of the race. The mutts would hear about that, and they’d stop coming after him. Now, they’d still want to take a shot at me, but most of them know I don’t spend much time at home. So Stonehaven would be safe again. Jeremy would be safe again."

Malcolm really needed to work on his finesse. I’d have to be a moron not to see through this ploy. Play on my fears for Jeremy, and I’d use my influence with Jeremy to persuade him to drop out of the Alpha race. Like I
had
any influence with Jeremy. He wasn’t even going to let me influence where I went to college.

I said none of this to Malcolm. Instead, I nodded and he settled into his chair, smiling, pleased with his success. In a way, he had succeeded. I now realized that Jeremy was in danger, and would continue to be in danger as long as he was running for Alpha. So how would I deal with that? By removing the source of the danger. To do that, I didn’t need to persuade him not to challenge Malcolm for Alpha. As angry as I was with him right then, I still knew he’d make a good Alpha, and I planned to do everything in my power to make sure he got what I knew he wanted. No, what I had to do was stop the mutts from coming. But how?

I told Malcolm I wanted to either meet up with Nick or catch a cab to the estate so that I didn’t return to the house with him, and worry Jeremy. The truth was, I wanted to get out of his company as quickly as possible, and I wanted time by myself to work on this problem.

Malcolm dropped me off back where he’d picked me up. I started heading back toward the party. Once he’d driven out of sight, I resumed my aimless wandering. I’d figure out how to get to the estate later. For now, I needed to think.

How could I get mutts to stop coming to Stonehaven? I had to do something to make them stay away. As I walked, I remembered Jeremy’s "riddle" to Antonio, his explanation for why he was letting Malcolm train me. If I was a good enough fighter, I wouldn’t need to fight. Not a riddle at all, but a logical fact, one that only now made sense. When you reached the top of your game, fewer and fewer people cared to take you on. Yes, mutts came to Stonehaven looking for a fight with Malcolm, the Pack’s top fighter. Yet mutts did the same to other Pack wolves, picking the one they thought was in their league.

On average, fewer mutts came to Malcolm than to Antonio or Wally Santos, who were considered the next best fighters in the Pack. Most mutts aren’t suicidal—they challenge the best Pack wolf whom they think they have a shot at beating—and Malcolm was more than most cared to handle.

Outside those few formal challenges, mutts almost never picked a fight with Malcolm. When a less experienced Pack wolf, like Stephen Santos, traveled, he always had to be careful. Technically mutts weren’t supposed to hold territory but Dominic didn’t like to bother with mutts any more than necessary, so many settled in cities and defended them against all comers. If Stephen passed through a city that a mutt considered
his
territory, Stephen was in for a fight. When Malcolm came to town, though, all but the stupidest mutts decided it was time for a vacation.

What I had to do then was make sure mutts knew that, to challenge Jeremy, they had to get through me first. If I was a formidable enough fighter, few would care to bother. Great plan. Only one problem. Such a reputation took years, maybe decades, to build. I didn’t have that much time. I needed to stop these mutts soon, before the campaign for Alpha gained momentum. To do that, I had to cheat my way to a reputation. Instead of fighting dozens of battles, I needed to do it with one or two, to do something that would fly through the rumor mill and make every mutt in the country decide he didn’t want to tangle with me. How would I do that? I had no idea.

I heard someone shout, but was too engrossed in my thoughts to look. When footsteps sounded behind me, I wheeled, fists going up.

"Whoa!" Nick said, backpedaling. "I thought you heard me call you."

I shook my head, turned and continued walking. He jogged beside me.

"Okay, you’re mad," he said. "I don’t blame you. I was a total jerk."

It took a moment for me to remember what he was talking about. When I did, I brushed it off with a muttered "it’s okay" and returned to my thoughts.

"I had too much to drink, and then Becky’s boyfriend showed up and she took off with him, and then I walked out to the backyard, saw you standing over Mike, and I lost it. I know you hate parties. I didn’t mean to be there that long and I’m sorry."

Another mumbled "it’s okay."

"I’ve been driving around for hours looking for you. It’s too late to catch a show, but we could get pizza. Do you want pizza?"

I shook my head, still walking.

Nick exhaled loudly. "Shit, you really are mad. Okay, okay, well, at least come back to the car with me. Please?"

I stopped and blinked, returning to reality.

"Yeah, sure," I said. "Let’s go."

I turned and started back for the car.

"You sure you don’t want pizza?" Nick said, hurrying up beside me. "There’s this great—"

"Pizza’s fine. I’m just trying to work out a problem."

"Oh, well, okay, then. Maybe I can help."

I shook my head. "Not your kind of problem." I paused. "But thanks . . . for offering."

He grinned. "So we’re square?"

"No. You owe me pizza, a movie and your first Change. Then we’ll be square."

Another grin. "The first tonight, the second tomorrow and the third soon. Real soon, I hope."

I didn’t come up with a plan that night. Or that weekend. Or that month. This was one problem that required serious deliberation. That would take time.

Circumstances

My life swung out of its rough patch soon after that weekend. Jeremy shelved the college debate, which gave me time to cool down and see that I’d overreacted, been too quick to jump to the conclusion that he was getting rid of me. Old fears die hard, I suppose.

In trying to send me off to college he only wanted what he always wanted for me: the best. In this case, that meant the best education possible, and the best opportunity to gain experience living in the human world. I still had no intention of leaving Stonehaven next year, but I realized that if I wanted to stay, I needed to stop shouting and throwing things, and come up with a logical argument.

So I set to work researching the matter and within a few weeks developed a line of attack—verbal, non-confrontational attack. After earning my undergrad degree, I wanted to go to graduate school, a plan Jeremy fully endorsed. My goal was a career in anthropology research, and I needed a Ph.D. for that. At that level, though, no one really cared where you’d taken your undergrad courses. It was the advanced degrees that counted. Since I had no intention of spending seven years living away from Jeremy and the Pack, it made the sense for me to reserve the ‘good’ schools for my grad degrees. As well, that would give me a few years to get accustomed to college life before I ventured out onto my own.

When I was ready, I argued my case to Jeremy. He listened, he asked questions and then agreed to think about it for a few days. Then he came back with a decision. As long as I promised to go to a top-tier school for my graduate degrees, I could attend undergrad classes in Syracuse.

Nick had his first change at the end of October. Although Jeremy and I had prepared him as best we could, I’m sure it wasn’t easy. Yet if it was any less wondrous than he expected, he never let on, never complained.

In the past few years, the question of Alpha succession had gone from back-room mumbling to heated debate, and I’m sure that whenever Dominic walked into a room and heard conversation stop dead, he knew exactly what was being discussed. He had now formally turned over all youth training to Jeremy. He’d also put Jeremy in charge of the Legacy—the Pack history book. This latter duty I’m sure he was glad to hand off, and no one else was clamoring for the job, but it still sent a clear message. These were Alpha duties. If Dominic was passing them off to Jeremy, everyone took that to mean that, any day now, Dominic would officially endorse Jeremy as his choice of successor.