Nicolas leaned back onto his seat and hunched his shoulders forward as he crossed his arms over his chest. The sad thing is William knew what Nicolas was pouting about. In the outside world Nicolas would have been able to look at William’s slim frame and been reassured that William’s size couldn’t possibly compete with his enlarged weight room body. However, in here, William was an enforcer and Nicolas was a scout. They both knew that in a fight William would kill him, with very little effort. The crushing blow that that must be to his Brooklyn ego was something that William could only contemplate on.
William began tearing into to his freshly cooked venison. He looked up and took in the rest of the cafeteria. It was quiet. The same quiet that had come over the city outside had invaded into this building as well. There was a hushed atmosphere that rubbed at some part of William’s mind, he just couldn’t finger it.
He glanced over at Katherine, who was sitting quietly next to him eating. “Kat, what time is it?”
Kat looked up from her plate and glanced at the ceiling crystals. She craned her neck to look outside the doors into the heart of the city. She went back to her tray with a shrug, “I don’t know, around six, seven o’clock, something like that.”
William nodded slowly, looking around the room. He stopped eating and folded his hands in front of his face as he tried to work at what was bothering him. After a few minutes he asked both his pack mates, “How long have we been here?”
Nicolas looked at him out of the corner of his eye, “I’ve been here in this hell forever.”
Katherine rolled her eyes and said, “You’ve been here less time than I have and I’ve been here for about seven or eight months.”
William shook his head, “Ok, how long has it been since…Achelois?”
If there was a hushed mood over the room before, a solid blanket dropped down on them as soon as he mentioned her name. Nicolas looked away, suddenly uncomfortable and Katherine started working her hands like she was cleaning her finger nails.
“Come on guys, seriously. How long has it been?”
Katherine glanced at William and said almost as if she didn’t want to, “seven or eight weeks.”
Nicolas nodded in agreement, “sounds about right to me.”
William nodded as he thought back to his time in the City under the Mountain. “So that means I’ve been here for about three months give or take a week.” William looked around the room once more and then outside towards the heart of the city. He knew what he wanted to ask but he found himself hesitant about the answer. He looked back and forth between the scout and the sage. There was no getting around it so he just asked, “Hasn’t there been any other new werewolves in this city since I got here?”
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Nicolas shared a glance with Katherine, who shot a look around the room. William looked over the room again, the hushed atmosphere was oppressive as the question hung in the air between the three of them.
Katherine’s eyes met Nicolas’s and she shook her head slowly. “No, there hasn’t been.” The small realization seemed to shock her a little, as if she simply hadn’t given it much thought before right then. She said, “Not unless the excitement of the city over new werewolves and shape shifters has died down so much over the past three months that we just didn’t notice it.”
William didn’t know what she was talking about. “What do you mean the ‘city’s excitement’?”
Nicolas swiveled on his bench to face the enforcer, “You didn’t know? Oh, that’s right you were in the Tower or knocked unconscious for the first few weeks you were here, weren’t you?” Nicolas let a harsh smile cover his face as he laughed silently to the room. “That’s right, you Mr. West Coast, was the talk of the town for like two weeks straight. Aceso had found a wild werewolf and brought him back here. This place was on the verge of parades and parties thanks to you.” Nicolas scoffed and turned back around to show William his profile.
“Why haven’t there been more shape shifters and werewolves brought here? There has to be more of our kind born that can be brought here and trained” William asked.
Katherine shrugged her shoulders, “Yeah, you’re probably right, Will. The problem is finding them and getting to them, then bringing them here before they kill themselves or somebody shoots them.”
“Wait a minute, what do you mean ‘before they kill themselves’?”
Nicolas sneered at the enforcer, “Not everybody is as blessed as you are.”
William wanted to say something really nasty back to him but the only thing he could ask was, “What do you mean?”
Nicolas opened his mouth to answer but before he could say anything Katherine stepped in, “Both of you can knock it off any time.” Katherine turned toward William. “Look, very few of our kind survive the first time they change.” She added, “Most of us here in the city, myself included, where brought here weeks before we changed and when that happened for the first time I was surrounded by other shape shifters, healers mostly, to help me through it. It was like being born all over again, in a way.”
William nodded his head, “Ares told me a similar story about when he was reborn.” He paused to gather his thoughts and take in what Katherine had just told him. “But that still doesn’t explain why there hasn’t been more shape shifters brought to the city.”
Katherine shrugged her shoulders, “I don’t know what to tell you, Will. It’s not like our kind are not being born anymore, it’s just that they haven’t been able to be brought here, for whatever reason.”
William couldn’t argue with her logic and questioning his pack mates about it wasn’t going to get him anywhere. He let the subject drop and finished eating his meal. When they were done they got up and walked out of the cafeteria. William made sure to not look anywhere near Keva who was standing behind the counter serving the people that had just come in. He nodded his head to Acharya who had just entered the room with his pack. Acharya nodded back and smiled warmly.