A/N: First, please note that the first three chapters have been edited (yes, again!) and some minor but mildly significant changes have occurred—I highly suggest you re-read those chapters. Second, I'm not going to lie, this chapter isn't exactly my favorite. But it's necessary for the plot, so bear with it.
Chapter Six: Requiem for a Fallen Brother
Seth wasn't ready. The packmind swept over him, crushing him in its fury, and all he could do was stupidly follow his brothers on their warpath. Lion King. It's just like Lion King.
Stop them, Seth! He wasn't sure who shouted it. He wanted to tell him, It's Lion King. We're stampeding. But that didn't make any sense and he couldn't direct his thoughts anyway. He couldn't think, and his breath was choking up in his throat with big globs of vomit and bile. They should stop. They should.
Seth just wasn't strong enough to make them.
It was the alpha-command which brought Embry back to consciousness. He couldn't remember much of the past twenty minutes, just a blind rage.
And pain. He remembered that, too.
Jake must have just phased in when he gave the command. It was painfully powerful; there was no way in hell they could resist. Some of them tried anyway. They failed, and the pack ground to a halt.
They were in a heavily forested area forty or so miles east of La Push, Embry guessed. They'd run forty miles in fifteen minutes, which in other circumstances he might have found impressive.
Now he just felt stupid.
Jake exerted his alpha power again to mentally lasso his pack and drag them back to the rez. Some of the wolves resisted, but Jake's stronger mind crushed them all easily. Twenty-five minutes later they were in La Push, in a clearing near the Uley house, dealing with one extremely pissed off alpha.
The hell were you doing, Seth! Jake shouted. Yes, he knew about Jace. But Seth shouldn't have let the pack fly apart like that. You're my beta. Man up and lead.
If he hadn't panicked, Jace would still be alive, snarled Paul. You call that a beta?
And who do you think could've done better? asked Leah. You, I suppose.
Maybe! Paul said angrily.
Seth stayed silent the entire time, staring miserably at the ground as the pack divided into factions attacking and defending him. They jumped on Jake too—they had needed their alpha, and he had't been there.
Embry watched, bewildered, as the pack disintegrated into argument. He hated the divisions in this new pack. It seemed no matter how long they worked together, the old lines remained. Things had been so much easier before the split, under Sam.
Embry only realized he'd projected the last bit through the packmind when he felt Jake's mental wince. Shit, Jake, I only meant that—
Don't apologize, the alpha commanded roughly.
Embry phased human so no one could see his confused thoughts, then walked away from his fighting brothers and into the woods.
It was true; things had been easier under Sam. He hadn't been a better alpha than Jake, but everything had just been so simple. Vampires were bad. Killing them was good. Pack was brotherhood. Imprints were special.
That was all still true, of course, but with exceptions and mitigating circumstances and, worst of all, pack politics.
Sam had stopped phasing two years ago with the birth of his and Emily's first child. He'd meant for Jared, his beta, to take over his pack, but it hadn't worked out that way in the end. The instant Sam gave up phasing for good, his pack had attached itself to Jake. The other alpha hadn't meant to grab Sam's pack; it just happened.
When the packs were recombined, the original dominance structures had been destroyed completely. Jared and Leah went down in the rankings; Paul and Embry, up.
Most surprising of all was Seth. He was a Clearwater, descended from Taha Aki through the female line. He never should have been beta.
But he was. Embry could only trust that the packmind knew what it was doing.
And now he didn't really want to think anymore.
There was a soft padding noise behind him. Embry turned slowly. It was Nick, the specked blond wolf with paws too big for his body. The wolf retreated behind an oversized spruce and reappeared seconds later, human again, in dirty cutoff jeans.
"Why are you following me?" Embry asked.
"I'm not," Nick answered immediately.
"Right." Embry turned away from Nick and began walking out of the woods. The other werewolf trailed behind him. "Are you following me now?"
"No," said Nick, grinning.
They walked until they reached Embry's house. Staring at different spots on the ground, they stood awkwardly on the front porch for a minute. "You want to crash on the couch tonight?" Embry offered finally.
Nick hesitated for a moment, and Embry briefly wondered if he was going to accept. Then he snorted and ducked away. "No fucking way, man," he called over his shoulder as he half-ran back towards the trees.
Embry shrugged, then opened the door and went in. He left the door unlocked just in case. Late that night he heard a muffled crash and hurried footsteps downstairs, and when he woke up at one, Nick was sprawled across the living room futan.
The older shapeshifter left him there as he left for patrol. When Embry returned at seven, Nick was gone, the blankets and pillows scattered in a studied disarray.
The high noon sun was visible from the rooftop. A concentration of rainclouds loomed in the northeast, but above Seattle the sky was a seamless blue.
Anastasia crouched low under an oversized satellite dish. The rooftop pigeons had flapped away in a screaming rush when the ancient vampire appeared, but masses of wet and dried poop, layered with ugly gray feathers, remained.
Emelyan was hunting again. They should have left the city two days ago, but Emelyan loved Seattle. Victoria farther north was probably safer, though Anastasia hadn't cared enough to argue.
But she was keeping an eye on Butterfly's coven.
She liked the young Vietnamese vampire, but she didn't trust her a bit. Especially not around Emelyan, whom Butterfly counted as the bigger threat. If the coven could take him out they probably would.
Butterfly and the two males, one of whom was her mate, didn't seem to have a permanent home. They spent nights hunting recklessly, mostly preying on the homeless and poor, and days crammed into a narrow, dark alley between the backs of two cheap apartment buildings.
Anastasia watched them from the rooftop. She wasn't worried about being seen, even when she left the cover of the dish for a better look at the coven below. The sunlight scattered brilliantly on her pale skin, which acted as a prism, throwing faint rainbow glows on the dirty concrete.
She stretched to her full height, just under five feet, standing on the very edge. A tip forward would send her tumbling to the ground—but then, she would land on her feet, crouched and ready to fight. If a cat had nine lives, a smart vampire had millions.
Counting on her gift to conceal herself, Anastasia ran across the rain gutter. A cool, slippery green algae lined the inside. It squished through her toes, clinging to her smooth marble skin. She dived over the edge of the roof, catching hold of the aluminum downspout and contorting herself around it. Freezing for a minute, she watched the three vampires in the alley, then let go of the pipe and dropped a solid three stories, stopping herself with a one-handed grab at maybe thirty feet off the ground.
Below, Butterfly abruptly cut off her mumbled conversation with her mate. She glanced, startled, at the alley entrance. Perhaps she suspected something. At any rate, she didn't even look at the pipe where Anastasia silently watched. The older vampire hadn't expected her to. Anastasia's gift was a useful one; she deflected attention. If she didn't want to be seen, a searcher would have a hard time focusing his mind on her. It was a blessing many times over, although it hadn't helped Anastasia the one time it really mattered.
Anastasios. Resurrection.
Only a fool would so consider this undead half-life. But then, no one had ever accused Anastasia's creator of possessing great intelligence. Only unnatural control and perverted religious fervor.
Butterfly and the blond male resumed the mumbled discussion. Anastasia was close enough to hear, but the subject was uninteresting. She kept an ear open, anyway, but the larger part of her mind drifted.
The two males were clearly very young. The bulky blond, Butterfly's mate, was barely more than a newborn. His jerky, uncontrolled movements betrayed his youth. He had a chiseled face and thick neck, with muscular arms and a broad chest. A small growth of a beard covered his chin all the way to his ears.
Hidden a short distance away in an empty dumpster, the other male sprawled lazily. He was dark and slim, with a weak chin and sharply triangular face. He'd been in the exact same position as long as Anastasia had been watching and showed no signs of that changing.
Anastasia didn't think much of it at first when the boy walked into the alley. He was human; he'd probably get eaten, but what of it? Humans reproduced like rabbits. There were always more to take the place of whatever the vampires killed.
He was a scurrying ant, and Butterfly was about to crush him. Anastasia watched eagerly. She hadn't yet seen the young vampire hunt, but she wanted to very much.
The human, an oversized, dark-skinned youth, couldn't see the vampires yet. He was shaking violently, casting hateful looks at the sunlit street behind him. Was that what humans did when upset? Anastasia couldn't remember.
A nasally female voice called from nearby, "Jace! Jace! I didn't mean it!" The human male shrank into the depths of the alley, shaking even more violently than before, if that was possible. A minute later a young human woman ran past the alley entrance. She peered in briefly as she passed, but the darkness was uninviting and she didn't see her quarry, so she moved on.
Anastasia watched Butterfly rise fluidly. The Vietnamese woman crouched low, shook in anticipation, prepared to spring—
Then something happened that neither of them had expected. The shaking human gave a guttural roar and exploded. Anastasia scuttled up the pipe in fright as Butterfly, shocked, sprang backwards.
A giant wolf stood where the human had been. Anastasia went cold in fear.
Once before she'd encountered Children of the Moon, in Scotland, long before she met Emelyan. She'd barely escaped with her life. Children of the Moon—pah. They were demonic creatures, and the moon had no hold over them. The Volturi were fools if they thought they'd stamped them out. Anastasia hadn't been back to the British isles since that sixteenth century encounter in Sutherland.
She was hiding in the churchyard, the wolf indiscriminately upturning graves in his mad search. He wouldn't find her in the end, but oh, the fear—
They were all the same, monsters.
Anastasia watched as Butterfly and her coven taunted, attacked, and killed the wolf. For one brief, fleeting moment the beast looked directly at her and they made eye contact. That confused and frightened the old vampire; he couldn't have known she was there.
When he finally died, the body blurred and morphed into its previous human form, now broken and bloodied. Anastasia hadn't ever seen a werewolf die before, but she supposed this was normal.
The alley smelled disgusting, like a wet dog but far stronger. Although the werewolf's blood was pooling all around his body, Anastasia didn't feel any bloodlust. She wondered if it tasted as bad as it smelled. Slithering down the last fifty feet of aluminum pipe, she ran to the body and slid her hand into the largest, gaping wound. It pulled out dripping with dark red. Disgusting.
The Seattle coven commented noisily over the size and smell of their kill, then meandered out of the alley. Anastasia supposed they would look for a cleaner-smelling resting place; the stench of the body was ridiculously overpowering.
The werewolf's young face was a stark contrast to his destroyed body. He was maybe twenty at most, indigenous, innocently handsome. And very dead.
Anastasia rearranged his arms to cover the worst of the injuries—there were large, gaping wounds on either side of his chest, his ribs crushed in and his heart pulverized by two granite fists. "Until we meet again, brother!" she whispered, suddenly filled with a lost spirit of her first life. Hadn't she been a Christian, a Gnostic?
Anastasios. Resurrection.
They would meet again on the judgement day, all of them. This time, it would be her hands which tore his head from his shoulders and ripped out his heart. Eighteen centuries she'd been owed that kill—eighteen centuries bearing his stolen name, and waiting.
I've waited long enough.
A/N: Thank you TearsOnTheRiver, NarutoQueen, Lady Syndra, Crazygirl8243, BooBoo33, Dreamcatcher94, Just one randomgirl, purplecheer14, chickentikka99, sincerelyerinn, wolfhappiness, LeahLUVER, AnnechanB, Tatie1984, I Am Switzerland101, ADORATIO, SundaySolis, LeahLuver, EleanorGg, Live To Ride, designersimmidutta, Beckylovex, lani'sworld, YellowTigger, Kago of the Funk, TimeTurnsFlamesToEmbers, caleb's babe, happinie93, Sefaltreal, Iamsumbody, Mercury-Serenity, mkc120, lovesong101, BrookeBelikov, LoneWolfPack, Baloo18, kyra3015, miramisa90212, Vccle10, 1h2a34, Blue Moonstones, weasleytemper, BVBride12, PrincessDripDrop, awesomeami316, completelyrae, sunshineandstars, ms unpredictable2000, Malaya1, Kimmyy93, betzen84, Alicewrotethis, Azn-Wemo, foxface333ChocolateLabrador, cullensrule, Caspergirl523, AnnyJackson19, The Dark side of the Mind, ChelseaDagger14, BreakingFree2015, Alaina08, and ChristinaAguileraFan.
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