Annihilation - Book Three

Chapter 13

We watch them leave, my eyes bearing down into the back of our burnt-out leader. Nobody moves, I suppose it never was a considered path for Verando to just decide he'd had enough. If I were being honest with myself, I'd always envisioned him as a being who couldn't fathom defeat. I never imagined it would be him who faulters, who waves the flag, and bows out of the challenge.

Yet, the more I think about it, the more I feel as though we'd had this same conversation in this same place once Marisol had been killed. He was done then, too. For as long as I could think, since he'd been captured, he'd been telling us he wanted out, and we kept dragging him with us. I think of his broken body, the restrictions we put on him while asking for more of his involvement, the sleepiness nights and the constant worry.  I'd thought he lived for this; now I see he was living for us.

How was it that I was on the rise and he seemed to be on the downward slope?

 Haryek touches my arm, and I shrug him off as I'm really not in the mood for his input through the Elf Lord has been much more tolerable since the battle to overtake the elf kingdom. I suppose I would be, too, if I got everything I was after. 

He hands over a leather book and I take it from him, arching a brow as I open it, flipping through the fragile pages. 

"Our sales records, Tomas looked over it; he didn't recognize any names but by the way he is drinking up our wine and eating our food, I'd say they didn't trust him considering he's supposed to be hunting us." The elf narrows his eyes and Tomas responds with an impish grin. 

"They aren't my friends; it's a job. 'N it's not you I be huntin' either." Tomas says casually.

 Haryek rolls his eyes, passing a hand smoothly through his braided crown. "Be that as it may, I'm putting security on you if you're going to stay here, and, you are going to stay here, Tomas. You know too much for us to let you go now." He turns his attention back to me.

 The elf seems to have matured so much since I last saw him, "Talk to him. See if you can get him back on our side; you did it once before."

 I frown as I flip through the pages, I don't recognize any names either. I might have done it before but he was Alpha then, I don't know who this man is. I suppose that's the problem, I don't know him truly. I'd missed the part he kept trying to show me, that he wanted out, and I'd only seen what I'd wanted to see. 

How do we get a lycan army to follow a human?

 My eyes fall on a particular name that shows up every month.

"Gerasim?" I ask, "It's here over and over again. Haryek, you're a master at trade deals; how did you miss this?" 

"I'm a trade dealer, not a bookkeeper. Sometimes people send their lackeys to do their trading so we never meet them in person." He tells me in such a posh way that I know old Haryek never left; he just got what he wanted. It sounds so familiar; like I've heard it somewhere. I say it a few times, asking the room if they knew who the name belonged to. 

 I notice Adriam and Victor are quietly talking and stare at them, willing them to let us in. Adriam stiffens but Victor looks decided. 

"Gerasim is leader of Mafia. Gerasim Burridge. If is buying 'wine', well, would not know why mafia needs wine. Especially from knife ear." He tells us, shrugging as if it's obvious. "But he is not human. He is lycan, like us." 

"The plot thickens..." Penelope whispered dramatically, and I glared at her. This doesn't make any sense. A lycan should have a sense of loyalty to his people, and using modified versions to go to battle seemed far-fetched, though I suppose, in a sense, our warlord had done much the same. It could be questioned that perhaps he was taking a page out of our book, just doing it in a dirtier fashion in that there was no consent warranted from those he collected.