Wild Card by Mark Henwick, Lauren Sweet

wasn’t going to get a better opportunity, so I ploughed on. “Also, Altau are requesting your assistance in this. They’re too stretched—”
    “With their own preoccupations and they want us to fix their problems and track down the Matlal Athanate. No.”
    “But—”
    “No. Since you offered it, we’ll take your help with the Matlal Were, but we’re not putting effort into helping Altau again.” He waved his hand as if he were away swatting flies. “If we come across them, we’ll inform Altau. Nothing more. We deal with the Were, Altau deal with the Athanate. That seems fair to me.”
    “We could at least try and ensure she has some of the Were to question,” Ricky said. “They might not know about the Matlal Athanate, but they must have some idea where the other Matlal Were are, and, as she said, they might know something about the rogue.”
    “Good point. Agreed.”
    “What will happen to them afterwards?” I said, afraid I knew the answer already.
    Felix’s flat stare confirmed it.
    “Can’t you try to assimilate them somehow?” My skin crawled at the thought of interrogating prisoners who were going to be killed.
    “They’re not the assimilating types,” Noble said quietly. “It’s not that kind of situation.”
    “If you’re with us, you’ll see,” Alex said obscurely.
    “What’s Altau’s position on the Matlal Athanate?” Felix asked. “Or any Basilikos in Denver? Are they going to adopt them?” He knew the answer to that. Any Athanate House would kill Athanate from the opposing creed who ventured into their area without specific permission. I could hardly say the Denver pack were being unreasonable.
    I shifted in my seat. I wasn’t going to progress in that direction. Time to change tack. There was so much I didn’t understand about what was going on. “Why are they staying?” I asked. “Matlal’s out of power, his House has been effectively disowned. There’s nothing for them. It’s a death sentence to stay in Denver. Why don’t they just run?”
    Ricky froze. Noble stopped scribbling on his pad. It looked like I’d just stumbled on some secret that they’d not wanted to tell me.
    I put on my best polite, attentive face and waited.
    “They made a decision as soon as Matlal lost his position, didn’t they?” Alex said.
    Felix silenced Alex with a look. I could see him weighing up whether to allow this to be explained to me. In the end, he waved Alex on. He was staring at me, as if he wanted to gauge my reaction to what Alex told me.
    “We don’t know where Matlal brought them in from, but we’re sure they didn’t have their own territory, or we’d know about it. We’re not like the Athanate, but we do communicate.” Alex reached forward and poured us a glass of water each from a pitcher on the table. “Anywhere else they go, they have nothing. But they do have something here, if they can hold it.”
    “You’re saying they have a chance to take this territory from you? Damn! How many of them are there left?”
    Ricky sniffed. “There might be a couple of dozen left.”
    “Then how could they take Denver?”
    “With help.” Alex said. “I said we’re not like the Athanate, but there is an association of werewolves. It’s called the Central Mountain Confederation.”
    I felt the overtones in his voice and prickled with unease on behalf of my maybe-pack.
    “They stretch from around Calgary all the way down to Cheyenne,” Ricky said. “Colorado is the first piece of Rocky Mountain estate in the south that’s not part of the confederation.”
    “They’ve requested we join them. We refused. Three times so far.” Alex took a sip of water. “The Matlal Were will know that. If they can claim to be a pack in residence, and they’re willing to join the Confederation, we’ll have real trouble. The Confederation will come in on their side.”
    I was surprised by the anger that caused in me. How could the Confederation dare to do this?
    “There’s no