She looked at her pack and made sure to make eye contact with every single one of her pack mates. “You may not like it, but this job is probably one of the more important to keeping our city unnoticed by the human world.” She took a step toward William, “Do you know how much time and effort goes into keeping the water and sewage lines safe and hidden from prying human eyes?”
William looked at her, “No, do you?”
Aceso’s lips parted the barest fraction of an inch. “It’s a lot.” She turned back to the other two. “This will be done, any questions?”
William ran his claws through his fur on his head and scratched himself behind his ear. Of all days for a shitty assignment like this. He had to smile at that thought, though it was a shitty assignment, in more ways than one. Aceso nodded and started walking, the rest of her pack followed silently behind her.
The pack made their way through the streets, not talking much. William hung back to walk by himself and Katherine, Charles and Aceso obliged him. He was slowly tracing over every detail of the city around him, trying to memorize everything he could. The building structures, how they were stacked on top of each other, the way the buildings and rooms had been carved as part of each other and yet separate. He wasn’t sure as to why this seemed so important to him. It wasn’t as if anything was going to happen to the city anytime soon, but it was a nagging sensation of something that had to be done regardless of the rationale behind it, like making mountains out of mashed potatoes.
Aceso led them around the city. To the untrained it might seem like Aceso was going around in circles but the way the city was built it always seemed like you were going around in circles.
Suddenly the group stopped and William had to pull up short. Even so, he still bumped into Katherine. She looked over her shoulder at him. “I’m sorry I don’t have tail lights to warn you when I’m going to do something crazy like stop walking.”
She looked up at William as he hastily took a few steps backward, “I’m sorry, Katherine I didn’t mean to. Are you ok?”
Katherine smiled at him as her tail flicked out from behind her, “Will, I’m just messing with you, lighten up a little bit.” Her eyes squinted as she looked at him and it was as if she saw him for the first time that day. “William? Are you alright? You look terrible.”
William waved the remark away, “Yeah, sure, I’m fine.”
Katherine wasn’t convinced at all. “Will, you look like you’ve just come off a three day speed binge.” She squared herself in front of him. “Now tell me what’s happened.”
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William lowered his head to the ground, “Look, it’s nothing. I’m fine.”
“Yeah, William always looks like that on Tuesdays.” Charles gripped Katherine’s shoulders gently and steered her back around to the building where Aceso had stopped them at. “Besides, you have to tell me what you’ve been up to. You hardly visited me at all when I was locked away.” Charles expertly moved her into the building and Katherine was gracious enough to let the subject of William drop and be taken into the building where Aceso had disappeared into.
He knew it was stupid to let his dream depress him this much. At the same time, it was also stupid to keep it from his pack mates. Charles thought that it was the memory of Achelois that had him in this mood. He wanted to tell them about what had happened in his dream, the buildings ablaze, most of the shape shifters dead. But that would just open the way for more questions and more inquiries that he just wasn’t ready to deal with. He thought that maybe Charles would understand, he might. But, he had no recollection of anything at all like another presence inside of him either during or after his possession. Maybe William really was crazy. If that was the case then his dream might be something a little more than just the whimsical fancy of his subconscious, and that thought terrified him.
Moments later William’s pack exited the building preceded by another older shape shifter, in his human form. The man was lightly tanned with black hair and brown eyes. He stood about five feet, eight inches tall and he had a very scholarly look to him. He didn’t wear glasses but it looked like he should. William recognized him, he was Ryan Yamamoto, Aceso’s teacher. He didn’t say anything but walked silently down the street with a large leather satchel in one hand. William and the rest of the pack followed him.
They walked farther and farther away from the Tower. They still had to travel in a roundabout path but they were getting into the newer parts of the city. The buildings were less worn here. The air was still fresh by the same miracle that kept all of the city’s air clean and fresh but there was a stale atmosphere out here. William had never been able to put his finger on it, one way or another, but this far out the city was a husk, a warning of some unspeakable grievance or neglect. It would have made William wary on the best of days but today, that feeling beat down on him like hale.
After a long time of walking through the city, they finally stopped outside of a nondescript building. Ryan set down his bag and sat down on the street. Ryan dug into the bag and pulled out a rather thick and worn paperback book. William looked at him with his head cocked to the side. Aceso looked at him as well.
Ryan sighed, folding the book carefully in his lap, “Come on, Aceso. I do my job after you and your pack do yours.” He pointed at another building behind him. “There’s stuff in there to help.” Ryan leaned back on his large satchel and reopened his book, “Have fun.”
Katherine looked around at Aceso and then at William. William had no idea what had happened, much less what to do about it. Katherine walked up to the building and peered inside. A very long and disgusted sound echoed out from the building where Katherine had stuck her head into. Ryan glanced up from his book momentarily but said nothing. Katherine bolted out and away from the building holding her claws in front of her face.
William exchanged glances with Charles. The tall black shape shifter shrugged his shoulders a little wide eyed with surprise at Katherine’s inexplicable behavior. William shrugged his shoulders in response and stepped up to the building.