Requiem for the Dead (3 page)

Marcus drove into the canyon of the U and right through what looked like an old restaurant patio. The glamour tickled my skin, as it always did when we passed, and we drove into a wide parking area. The sense of awe I'd once felt at what they'd created here, out of the bones of an old structure, didn't come as often. But the whole thing was still damned impressive.

He parked, and we all tumbled out as a group. Like the city we tried to protect, the Watchtower never really slept. Even at almost three in the morning, the hum of activity buzzed in the corridors. Most of it seemed centered around Operations, which was the norm, as well as down the east branch of the corridor—the way to the cafeteria and living quarters.

We were halfway to the cafeteria when Marcus's cell phone rang. He pulled it out without breaking stride, glanced at the display, then replied with a quick, "Yep?" A few seconds passed before he stopped walking.

The rest of us paused, too.

"On my way." Marcus closed his phone. He didn't seem upset, only curious. "Astrid needs to see me. I'll catch up with you in a bit."

He pivoted neatly and marched back in the direction we'd come. We continued on. Only a handful of people were in the cafeteria, sitting in small clusters. The available food at this hour was mostly wrapped sandwiches or hot dogs off a little roller cooker that looked like it was stolen from a convenience store, so I grabbed two hot dogs and a bag of potato chips.

Wyatt took four hot dogs, plus a tuna fish sandwich, and two bags of chips. I smiled at the laden tray, still amused at how his appetite had increased since becoming half-Lupa. Contrasting both of us, Milo grabbed a soda and nothing else. Our trio invaded a table where Tybalt Monahan and Kyle Jane were seated and finishing their own snacks.

Both seemed agitated and not because of our arrival. "What's up?" I asked as I sat down across from Tybalt. Wyatt took the seat on my right, while Milo sat next to Tybalt.

Tybalt and Kyle shared a look. They worked together on Quad Four, and if their night had been anything like ours….

"Rough night," Tybalt said.

"Bullshit," Milo replied. He popped the soda tab, then glared at Tybalt. "Try again, pal." The pair had been friends for more than a year and a half, and had worked together in the defunct Triads. They knew each other well enough to spot the half-truths.

Tybalt frowned. He reached out with his prosthetic hand and turned Milo's head to the side, exposing the red mark on his neck. "What's that? Love bite?"

"Close encounter." Milo pulled away and gave Tybalt a hard look. "Don't change the subject."

"It's not our place to share this kind of news."

"It'll become common knowledge soon, anyway," Kyle said. "And Marcus is their quad-mate."

Milo's stare became more intense, and my own interest piqued exponentially. "What about Marcus?" he asked.

"Elder Dane is stepping down from the Assembly," Tybalt said. "He has the Shadow."

The Shadow is what Therians called the cancer that only affects their people. It kills quickly and is incurable. About five months ago, the same illness had killed Seamus Dane, the former Pride Alpha, and his son Keenan (Marcus and Astrid's cousin) had taken over the role of Alpha. Elder Marcellus Dane had been Seamus's uncle, and also Marcus and Astrid's grandfather. From what I understood of most Clan politics, the role of Elder was passed from parent to child, in order to avoid a lengthy voting processes—and any sort of lengthy process was avoided by Therians, considering their average life spans.

"He's dying," Milo said.

"Yeah." Tybalt picked up his fork and poked at the remnants of something on his plate. He'd been raised by the Felia Pride, within the Dane family specifically (something I'd only learned from him recently), and then kicked out when he was sixteen. He found the Triads soon after and was taken in by another kind of family. The loss of another father figure had to hurt, after losing Seamus earlier in the year.

"Who's in line to take over as Elder?" Wyatt asked.

"That's the problem," Tybalt replied. "Elder Dane has no surviving children."

"So wouldn't the title of Elder pass to Marcus or Astrid?" I asked. "They're his grandchildren."

"It's supposed to."

"But?"

Tybalt pressed his lips together, and I saw a spark of anger in his eyes. "But Elder Dane wants to ensure the Elder title remains within the family line. Since Astrid and Marcus are both unmarried and childless, as well as at the half-point of their lives, Dane has named a younger cousin in their place. Keenan's brother, Riley."

"Hell," Milo said.

Keenan was the current Pride Alpha and Elder Dane's grand-nephew. Giving the title to Riley instead of one of Dane's own grandchildren was pretty harsh.

"Would either of them have even wanted the position?" I asked, pretty certain the answer was no.

"That's not the point," Tybalt said.

"No, I see the point, and I understand why you're upset. But my question still stands."

"I don't think either would have wanted to be Elder, no. But this is also a public announcement, and it's a public embarrassment. Astrid's choice to protect the Clan, rather than be a mother, was never a popular one. Female Felia who don't have children are considered second-class."

I bit back hard on a scorching comment on the status of feminism within the Clans. My opinion on women, Felia or not, as nothing more than baby incubators had no place in the current conversation. I'd vent it out in the gym later.

Kyle flinched. His girlfriend, Lynn Neil, was Felia as well, and the simple fact that she was dating a Cania (a were-dog, instead of a fellow were-cat) meant she had eschewed tradition and forgone having children—as long as she was with Kyle, anyway. The Therian Clans simply could not inter-breed; it wasn't genetically possible.

My respect for Lynn went way up.

"And Astrid doesn't want to be a mother," I said.

Tybalt made a scrunched face I couldn't readily decipher. "Astrid's past is complicated. At one time she was promised to Keenan, but she never wanted to be the Alpha's mate."

"Keenan is the current Alpha of the Felia."

"Yes."

"And her grandfather is Keenan's uncle?"

"Yes."

"So Keenan is her cousin."

Tybalt seemed to see where I was going with that, and he deferred the topic to Kyle. Kyle shrugged both shoulders, unconcerned. "Clans are small, enclosed societies compared to humans. And before you judge, don't forget that it was once acceptable for humans to marry one's first cousin."

Yeah, like two hundred years ago, and maybe still in other countries. But I got his point, too, and who the hell was I to judge who other Felia married? "So she ditched her cousin for the single life," I said. "What about Marcus? He's handsome enough that I bet he could find a wife with no trouble and pop out a litter of kittens."

"That's not what Marcus wants," Milo said, surprising me by being the one to answer. Even Tybalt gave him an assessing look.

"How do you know?" I asked.

Milo held my gaze steadily and opened his mouth.

"Because I told him so," came the reply from the topic of conversation himself. And he wasn't alone.

Marcus and another man stopped behind Tybalt's chair. The stranger had the same black hair and strong, square face as Marcus, but he carried himself differently. Higher, more proudly.
I'll swallow my tongue if they aren't related.

"This is Keenan Dane," Marcus said. "Our Pride Alpha." He introduced me, Wyatt, and Milo. I guessed Tybalt and Kyle knew him already.

"To what do we owe the pleasure of your visit, Alpha Dane?" Kyle asked with a heavy amount of respect in his voice.

"Family business," Keenan said. "Business of which you were just now discussing?"

No one denied it. Keenan took a seat on Kyle's left. Marcus circled around the table and plunked heavily into the empty chair next to Milo, weariness weighing him down. Tension from Keenan's unexpected arrival wafted over the table like a fog.

I picked up my hot dog and took a big bite. Wyatt had already polished off two hot dogs and one bag of chips, and he was starting in on the tuna fish sandwich. Even though he seemed to be concentrating on his food, I knew he was paying attention to everything said at the table.

"I'm sorry about your grandfather," Milo said in a gentle voice that made me look up from my food. To Keenan, he added, "And your great uncle."

"Thank you," Keenan said.

Marcus tilted his head in Milo's direction in an acknowledging nod. "It's his time. The Shadow seems to run particularly strong in our family, and Marcellus is twenty-one." Same age as Milo. And that was a truly bizarre observation. "Riley will make a strong Elder, if he manages to not get killed."

"Killed?" I said it at the same time as Milo and Tybalt, our three voices a squawk of protest that might have been funny if the word wasn't so serious.

"The Bengals," Tybalt said. "Have they challenged Riley?"

"Not formally, not yet," Keenan said. "That's why I'm here. I wanted to discuss the possibility with Astrid and Marcus. They were once elite guards in the Pride, and I value their tactical input."

"It's possible someone is picking up where Prentiss failed," Marcus said.

Prentiss? The name didn't ding any bells for me.

"So it seems."

"Hold on a minute," I said, knocking my knuckles on the table. "How about a little back story for the rest of us? Should I know about this? Who's Prentiss?"

"No," Tybalt said. "The thing with Prentiss went down while you were, uh, missing. Before you died. The first time."

Translation: while I was being tortured to death by goblins. Got it.

"Several months ago," Keenan said, "when it became known that my father Seamus was ill with the Shadow, his position as Alpha was challenged by a man named Prentiss. His true form is a Bengal tiger, and the entire family is quite…"

"Fanatical?" Tybalt said.

"A less polite word comes to mind, but yes. They don't like change, and they are quite rigid in their view of Pride roles. Our families have clashed often over the last few generations."

Pride roles. Just the way he said it made my eye twitch. "Such as Astrid choosing to not marry and be a mother?" I asked.

"Among other things," Tybalt said. "They weren't very fond of Seamus taking me in, either, and they let me know it as often as possible."

"But Prentiss obviously didn't win the position of Alpha from Seamus." I was staring right at the current Alpha. "What happened?"

"As the Alpha's son," Keenan said, "I was allowed to answer the challenge and fight in my father's stead, only I kidnapped by Prentiss's people."

With a nod from Keenan, Marcus took over the storytelling. "With Tybalt's help, and with a little covert assistance from Milo, we were able to locate and free Keenan. Prentiss was captured and executed by the Assembly for treason."

"Those who we could not prove were involved then are likely responsible for sowing the seeds of discontent among several other Felia families now."

Kyle made a frustrated snort. "That nonsense with Belle back in June didn't improve Felia unity, either."

That nonsense was the kidnapping of two Therians from my personal care, because Belle and a few of her friends decided that Therians protected Therians, and the personal freedoms of the kidnappees meant jack shit. Belle also tried to kill me and got shot for her trouble, then turned over to the Assembly of Clan Elders for punishment.

"Other Felia agreed with what Belle did?" Wyatt asked, finally taking part in the conversation.

"Not with her methods, but with her rhetoric, yes," Keenan said. "And Felia isn't the only Clan experiencing division on the topic of human-Therian relations, especially with the Fey threat looming over all of us."

"They blame humans for what the Fey are doing."

"Some, yes. Others are using Michael Jenner's murder as an excuse to pull support from the Watchtower. It's become extremely complicated."

The bit about Jenner didn't surprise me. He was the mouthpiece for the Assembly, the one who went into the field and issued directives on their behalf. We never got to be friends, exactly, but he let me recover in his apartment after I got caught in an explosion. He didn't deserve to die the way he did, at the mercy of a (very literal) mad scientist.

"What happens if Riley is challenged for Elder and loses?" Milo asked.

Marcus's expression turned thunderous. "Then the Watchtower will lose Felia support."

Felia made up a good quarter of our Therian members. Never mind the fact that Astrid was one of our leaders, and I was kind of fond of Marcus, too. And from the identical look of outrage of Milo's face, I wasn't the only one.

"Let me guess," Wyatt said. "The loss of Felia support will cause a cascade effect within the Assembly, and very soon there will be a majority vote pulling all Therian support. Is that the general direction this is going?"

"In a nutshell, yes," Keenan said.

"Fuck," I said, torn between anger and fear over a potential outcome that meant tragedy for the city. "We can't do this without the Therians."

Wyatt took my right hand and squeezed it hard. I held on, ignoring the little smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. Yes, it was probably funny hearing me say that, considering six months ago the only Therian I trusted was a young were-falcon named Danika. But it was true. The Watchtower had been hatched by Therians and vampires, and humans were invited in later. The humans-only Triads had already failed.

We could
not
do this alone.

"Is Riley a good fighter?" Wyatt asked.

"He's an excellent fighter," Keenan replied. "I'd match him against the best in the Pride, myself included. But this is also the best chance for a change in leadership, and the challenger will make sure of a victory."

"You mean they'll cheat?"

"Yes. "

"Where is Riley now?"

"At our family compound with our great uncle. Until he has officially been granted the title of Elder, Riley is safest there. The home is well protected."