Ascension, page 6
“Bullshit,” the girl said. “I just came out here for a smoke, and he grabbed me. Tried to cop a feel.”
I snorted. “Not likely.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” the boy snapped.
The look I turned on the girl answered for me. The boy grabbed for me again, but I threw up my hands and knocked his aside before they could touch me.
“Oooh, tough guy,” the boy said. “You asking for something, tough guy?”
“Yeah, I’m asking for you to leave me alone, take your girlfriend and go back inside.”
“Ah’m askin’ fah ya . . .?” The boy screwed up his face, exaggerating and mangling my drawl. “Is that English? What rock did you crawl from under, talking like that? Who brought you here?”
“Nick,” the girl piped up. “Nick Sorrentino.”
“Well, then, I think I should talk to ol’ Nicky—”
“Leave Nick out of this,” I said.
“You gonna make me?”
When I said nothing, he grabbed me by the shirtfront. I swept my arms up fast, knocking his hands off me. He stumbled back, then caught his balance and rushed me. I didn’t budge, just whipped out my hands, slammed them into his shoulders and sent him flying backward to the ground. Before he could get up, I stepped over him.
“Whoa!” a familiar voice yelled. “Whoa! Hold on!”
Kelley Armstrong
Ascension
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I looked up to see Nick running off the porch, pushing past the small group of onlookers who’d gathered. He waved me off the guy, and I did as he asked, slowly backing away, then strode to the far rear corner of the yard.
I waited, with my back to everyone, while Nick sorted it out. When I heard him walk over, I turned, fully expecting an apology for the way he’d abandoned me. Instead, his eyes blazed with fury.
“What the hell is the matter with you?” he hissed, bathing me in beer fumes. “I bring you to a party and you pull this shit? In front of my friends?”
“I didn’t pull anything. That girl came out here—”
“And you blew her off, right? Couldn’t be nice about it. It’s a girl, Clay. Any normal guy—oh, wait, but you’re not a normal guy, are you? You don’t even try to be normal, that’s the problem.”
One of the partygoers on the deck shouted an insult in an exaggerated drawl. Nick winced and waited for the laughter to die down.
“See?” he said. “See? You gotta be different. Can’t even bother talking normally. There’s no reason why you keep that stupid accent—oh, wait, there is a reason. Because you don’t want to sound like everyone else. You like being different, being an asshole, acting like you’re too good for everyone. Well, let me tell you something, Clay—”
I brushed past him and headed for the front gate.
“Hey!” Nick shouted. “I’m not done!”
When I didn’t stop, he jogged after me.
“You walk out that door, and you’re walking all the way home. I’m not coming after you.”
I pushed open the gate and strode through.
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Ascension
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I had money for a cab, but no idea how to summon one from a residential neighborhood. I assumed that if I called the operator, they could put me in touch with a local cab company, but first, I had to find a pay-phone. So I wandered up and down the streets, telling myself I was looking for a phone, but I’m sure I could have walked right past one and not noticed. What did it matter? Where would I go? Nobody wanted me around. I could probably wander the streets all night and no one would even notice I was gone.
An hour or so passed. When a horn blasted behind me, I jumped, expecting Nick and ready to blast him back, or maybe ignore him and keep walking. But it wasn’t Nick. It was, however, a familiar car, driven by someone with a familiar face.
“Now my week really is complete,” I muttered under my breath, and walked faster.
The car revved up beside me. I thought of taking off across the lawns, but that would be fleeing, and this was one person I refused to give that satisfaction. So I stopped and waited for him to roll down the passenger window.
“What?” I said.
Malcolm laughed. “There’s a greeting to warm the heart.”
“Go away.”
“That one’s even better.” He leaned out the window. “Not even going to ask what I’m doing here?”
“No.”
I did wonder, but given what I knew of Malcolm, if he’d said his pet demon told him where to find me, I wouldn’t have doubted it. As I’d discover later, the answer was far more ordinary.
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Ascension
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Dominic had summoned him to the estate to discuss a mutt problem and, shortly after he’d arrived, Nick had called, wondering whether anyone had heard from me. Malcolm found out where the party was, made an excuse to leave, and came looking for me.
“Having a rough time of it lately, I hear,” Malcolm said. “Want to talk about it?”
“With you?” I snorted. “No.”
“I don’t see anyone else offering.”
That arrow hit its mark. I strode away. Malcolm kept pace beside me with the car, leaning into the passenger seat so he could talk.
“Let’s see if I can guess what the problem is,” he said. “No one understands you.”
I kept walking.
“Now I might not be the person you’d choose to talk to about it, but I might be the best person there is. I understand you.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Ah, you might be surprised. I know you’ve killed two mutts at Stonehaven. Bet I’m the only one who knows that.”
I stopped, wondering how he could know this when I hadn’t told anyone. Again, pet demons whispering in his ear was a damned fine explanation, but I quickly thought of a simpler one.
“You found the bodies,” I said.
“Found where you buried them. You have to work on your technique, Clay. It might fool Jeremy, but it won’t fool me.”
“And now you’re going to tell him.”
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“Is that what you think? Nah, I wouldn’t tattle on you. You’re a good kid. You want to kill mutts for Jeremy, all the power to you. When I found that first one, I thought, ‘well, the mutt was pretty old, it wasn’t a tough kill.’ But then I found the second, and I was proud of you.
Damned proud of you.”
“I don’t want—”
“I know, you don’t want my admiration, but you have it. You’ve earned it. Now, in case you haven’t noticed, we’re having a problem with these mutts at Stonehaven, and I think maybe you and I should talk about it.”
I hesitated.
“Do you know why they’re coming around?” he asked.
I shrugged as if I didn’t care, but I’m sure he could see in my eyes that I did.
“Well, I know why, and I think you should, too,” he said. “Climb on in and we’ll go someplace where we can talk.”
The mutt problem had been weighing on my mind. This wasn’t the person I wanted to discuss it with, but right now, Malcolm was the only one who wanted to talk to me at all. So I nodded and opened the car door.
Problem
I wasn’t worried about Malcolm driving me to a dark alley and breaking my neck. Wouldn’t happen. Not that I could outfight him; I couldn’t—not yet. But I’d lived with Malcolm long enough to understand how he operated. If he wanted me dead, he’d have ended my life that night outside Los Angeles. Training me for a few years, lowering my defenses and then killing me might seem like a clever plan, but Malcolm could never pull it off. He was a creature of impulse, of brawn and might, not without the cunning to conceive of a long-term plan, but lacking the patience to see it to the end.
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.
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“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.”
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“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.
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“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.
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Ascension
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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.
Kelley Armstrong
Ascension
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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.
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Ascension
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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.”
