Chapter Text
Everything seems normal until the invitation arrives.
Things in the hunter community have settled down a lot over the winter. In a way, the insane events that had been triggered by Henry Argent and orchestrated by Sally Stoddard had done a lot of good for the ongoing quiet war. Two of their strongest opponents had been taken off the board, and without them, their opposition didn’t have the pull to keep the war ongoing.
Ariah Nazario was dead, and her younger sister Vanessa had taken charge of their family. Only a select few knew the exact details of Ariah’s death. Vanessa had publicly announced that her sister had died of old age. Some people were skeptical, but Vanessa quite plainly didn’t give a rat’s ass what anyone thought. She said what she had to say and then let people say whatever they wanted to say, without dignifying it with a response.
Vanessa wasn’t exactly on their side, but she wasn’t on the other side, either. She held the same belief as Hannah Winchester: she wasn’t getting involved. She didn’t tell what other hunters what to do on their territory, and she doesn’t appreciate anyone trying to tell her what to do on her own. That’s not great, but it’s a hell of a lot better than the alternative.
What had happened on Henry Argent’s territory was an entirely different story, and not one that had made anybody happy. Julien and Chris had had a long discussion about what they were going to do. It had been in the Argent family for generations; in fact, it was their original territory after moving from France. After talking about it, they had decided that Julien’s oldest son, Sam, was ready to take over. Henry and Rose had had a number of good lieutenants, and he could always call his father for help if he needed it.
The problem was, by the time they had gotten it settled and Sam had gone up to meet with said lieutenants, Martin Drake had already gotten there and taken over.
It could have turned into a fight – Chris thought it should have – but Julien thought it would be better not to let things get out of hand. Martin Drake fights dirty, he says, and given the fact that Sam wasn’t even one hundred percent sure that he wanted the territory, maybe they should take this as a sign.
“So why does everyone hate Martin Drake so much?” Stiles asks Chris, at their first monthly meeting of his spring semester. They text semi-regularly, but Chris is organized and meticulous and prefers to sit down once a month and talk things over, particularly with the Conclave coming up. Stiles isn’t sure how big a deal it’s going to be, given the new lay of the land. There’s almost no way to plan ahead, and of course Stiles isn’t even invited. That doesn’t necessarily mean that he’s not going to attend – just that a lot of people will be unhappy if he does.
Chris rubs both his hands over his somewhat bristly scalp. He’s discovered that he likes having his hair really short. “It’s kind of a long story.”
“Hey, I’m not going anywhere,” Stiles says.
“More’s the pity,” Chris says dryly, and Stiles makes a kissy face at him. “The thing is, this isn’t the first time Drake has done this. He actually got the territory he has now by doing the same thing. That area used to be the territory of the Stojanovic family.”
“Stojanovic,” Stiles says. “I know that name, don’t I?”
“You do,” Chris says. “Dragan Stojanovic is one of the three elders that you met at the last Conclave, and he’s the only member left of what was once a thriving clan. Well, don’t get me wrong – they’re still a big presence in Serbia, Croatia, that area. But the American branch of the family was all wiped out in . . .” He rubs a hand over his head again. “2002, 2003 maybe?”
“What happened?” Stiles asks.
“Memory’s a little fuzzy,” Chris says. “They were killed by, I want to say harpies? But that was a long time ago. Anyway, Dragan was the only survivor. He retired from active hunting, and that’s when he became one of the elders.”
“And then Martin Drake swept in?”
“Then, like what happened with Henry’s territory this time, a few people sat down to talk it over. Dragan didn’t want to try to bring more of his family over, so they agreed to divide the territory up between Argent, Stoddard, and Arnelle. Those were the three bordering territories. But, just like what happened that time, by the time all the negotiations were done, Drake had already taken over. He was one of the lieutenants on the territory, so it was pretty easy for him to do it.”
“I don’t get it,” Stiles says. “My territory is a single California county, and it’s all I can do to keep up with that. Why would someone want to take over a hunting territory? No offense, but it’s not like you get anything out of it.” He frowns suddenly and says, “Unless you do. Beyond, you know, respect and recognition and,” he waves a hand, “yadda yadda.”
“Hunting isn’t really a yadda yadda sort of thing,” Chris says, and Stiles just shrugs. “But no, you’re right. A lot of hunters do it for the right reasons. To protect innocents, to help people. It’s why I do it. And yes, it’s a tight circle and the respect and recognition of your peers is just as important to us as it would be to any profession. Athletes compete, businessmen have rivalries – we have the same things motivating us as any people.”
“Okay, that makes sense,” Stiles says. “But Drake only seems to be making enemies.”
“The thing is,” Chris says, “Drake wants to turn hunting into a for-profit business.”
“A what?” Stiles asks, startled. “How would that even work?”
“Well, the problem is that now we have to dive into the murky world of hunting financials,” Chris says. He looks up as Victoria walks in, holding two mugs of coffee and a tray of cookies. She gives Stiles her usual flinty glare, and he smiles merrily back at her. “So it shouldn’t come as much surprise to you that we don’t make a lot of money doing what we do. A lot of us have day jobs – some of us manage to combine them with our hunting stuff, and some of us don’t bother. But even so – day jobs might be enough to support ourselves and our families, but it’s not enough to buy ammunition or pay for travel. So most of us have backers.”
“Backers?” Stiles echoes.
Chris nods. “Usually people who are independently wealthy, who have some knowledge of the supernatural world, and understand why what we do is so necessary. Sometimes it’s family – I think Stella Jones is financed by her sister, who’s some big time bank CEO – and sometimes it isn’t.”
“So who’s your backer?” Stiles asks.
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“Oh, well, now I have to know,” Stiles says.
Chris doesn’t look amused, but he shrugs and says, “Bill Gates.”
Stiles blinks. “Seriously?”
“Yeah. He donates to a lot of charities. A million here or there to support various hunters is a drop in the bucket.” Chris takes a drink of his coffee. “Like the hunters themselves, the backers have their own prejudices and opinions. Plenty of them have supported one side of the war or the other at various times. People have theorized that the reason Stoddard hasn’t gotten involved is because his backers were urging to him to sit back, not get involved, until they could guess at who was going to win. And even though the backers don’t do any of the work, they can have enormous power over the hunters. If a hunter is smart, he’ll spread his financial support out, so if he loses a backer, it won’t be a huge problem.”
“Okay, that makes sense,” Stiles says. “So back to Drake. Hunting for profit?”
“I’m not sure how he thinks it would work either, to be honest,” Chris says. “But you hear sometimes about, say, fire departments in rural areas. How everyone is supposed to pay their dues, and if you don’t pay, they will literally let your house burn down. That’s what happens when something that should be a public service becomes a for profit system. Healthcare is another example, although I suppose if we got started on that we’d be here all day.”
“Chris, you freakin’ socialist bastard,” Stiles says, chuckling, then gets back to the point. “How could hunting ever be for profit when so many people are totally ignorant of the fact that it’s even necessary?”
“That, I don’t know,” Chris says. “My guess is that Drake has some ideas. He’s very intelligent, and he’s also good with people. He has a sort of charm to him that wins over ninety percent of people instantly and makes the other ten percent dislike him intensely. This is how he took over the Stojanovic territory, and Henry’s, too. He didn’t go for the lieutenants so much as the backers. And I think he’s convinced a lot of them that for once, they’re going to get a return on their investment.”
“Sounds shady,” Stiles says.
“He’s incredibly shady,” Chris says. “In some ways, he’s like you. He bends the rules. He’s a strategist, and he’d rather make friends than enemies, but he’s not afraid to make enemies if he has to. So if you were a money-obsessed sociopath, you and Drake would practically be twins.”
“I’m not sure if I was just complimented or insulted,” Stiles says.
“I’m just saying. He’s not the sort of person who can be underestimated. And I think letting him take Henry’s territory was a mistake. I think he’s going to keep pushing until someone pushes back, and the more power he amasses in the meantime, the harder it’s going to be to shut him down.”
Stiles nods a little in response to that, and decides to neither argue nor agree. He knows that Chris is a highly intelligent man with an excellent grasp of strategy. But he also knows that Chris hasn’t exactly been stable in the aftermath of the spell that Sally Stoddard had put on him. He’s more aggressive in some ways, much more protective of the people he cares about. But at times he also seems to sink into a strange malaise, an indifference to the ongoing problems.
When Stiles had asked Allison about it – since he sure as hell wasn’t about to ask Chris himself – she grimaced and said that her father had remarked the other day that he’s coming to the realization that things aren’t going to get better. That no matter how much they gain, things will never truly be right. “It’s a scary conclusion,” he had said, “that the world will be just as terrible when you leave it as it was when you entered it.”
Stiles thinks that a part of that is because Chris feels like he will never truly be right again. That no matter how much he puts himself back together, he’s stained now, in a way that nobody can fix. He killed innocents; he broke the Code. And no matter how many times people remind him that it wasn’t his fault, no matter how much he knows that, knowing and feeling are two separate things.
Chris’ complicated family history doesn’t help. Stiles remembers way back when he had first started associating with the Argents, how his father had said that pretty much the whole family was ‘batshit crazy’. Stiles had agreed. Gerard, Kate, even Henry to a certain extent – the specter of madness loomed over that family. He wonders if Chris worries that he’s going crazy, if by killing an innocent he’s somehow aligned himself with Kate.
There’s sure as hell nothing Stiles can do about any of that, and he can understand why Chris wishes they hadn’t let Drake get away with stealing the territory. Strategically, his logic seems sound.
Part of the problem, he thinks, is that after months and months of gearing up for some big showdown, the war had simply . . . petered out. Faded away. It wasn’t over, but it seemed like it had peaked in a way. The balance had shifted with Ariah and Henry’s deaths, and suddenly the war was over. Or at least it seemed that way.
“Kind of anticlimactic,” Stiles says, summing up his thoughts.
Chris chews on his thumbnail and stares out the window. “No, it isn’t over,” he says. “This is just an intermission, that’s all.”
“How so?” Stiles asks. “The only person left who was really against us is Stella Jones.”
“That’s true,” Chris says. “Stella, Henry, and Ariah were pretty much the triumvirate that was driving the war forward. But we haven’t won. Far from it. Stoddard still has his prison. Stella, Drake, Stoddard, they all kill supernatural creatures without compunction, and there’s nothing we can do to stop them. Since Vanessa and Hannah Winchester have both taken a hands off approach, they won’t support us if we go after them. What we have now is a truce. It’s not peace.
“And let’s not forget that the Gutierrez family still exists, still has their own territory, and probably still hates us,” Chris continues. “I can’t help but feel like they’re laying low, gathering resources and biding their time. They’re not all as stupid as Ruben was. Agnes St. James is still out there, and of course, still hates us. We have a lot of enemies, Stiles, and they’re going to rally. This is just the eye of the storm.”
And the thing is, Stiles isn’t sure whether Chris is right or not. It might be that Chris is paranoid after what had happened to him. God knows that Stiles has had his share of useless paranoia. It’s hard not feeling like everyone’s out to get you after everything that had happened to them.
Since neither of them can be trusted, he asks Peter, who’s better at thinking logically, without emotions intruding. “He’s right and he’s not,” is Peter’s opinion. “The war isn’t over – make no mistake about that. But the good thing is that, although you have your share of enemies, they probably won’t work together. The Gutierrez family is too proud. Agnes is too much of a bitch. Nobody will work with Drake. And Stoddard, it seems, as much as the sane part of that family dislikes you, they don’t want to get their hands dirty taking care of you. They don’t want to align with a family like the Gutierrezes. So if you can fend them off one at a time, you’ll be fine. But you have the wild card.”
“Sally,” Stiles says glumly.
“Yes. Odds are that she’ll continue using these families as weapons against you, as she has in the past. But still, you’ve survived her so far. And now you know she’s coming.” Peter’s silent for a long minute. “It’s the Conclave you need to worry about. Someone’s going to make a move there. Impossible to predict who or how, but at least you know the when.”
“So what’s your advice?” Stiles asks dryly.
“Take the week of the Conclave and go to Rio de Janeiro,” Peter says. “Let the hunters kill each other. Problem solved.”
“Unless the bad guys win,” Stiles says.
“They’re all bad guys in my opinion,” Peter says, and Stiles doesn’t argue with that, because Peter has valid reasons to hate hunters, and that’s a discussion he doesn’t want to have again. He’s lucky they got through the discussion without Peter reminding him that he should just kill all his opponents and have done with it. And to be honest, the idea of taking the entire pack to Rio while the hunters duke it out is rather enticing. If only he could be sure that the world would still be there when they came back.
“We need more allies,” he says to Derek the next day. “I mean, for the Conclave. We need people that we can trust at our backs. Not just the Argents.”
“Well, we have Mikael,” Derek says, although he sounds somewhat dubious. “What about his daughter? Are you still talking to her?”
“Yeah, we text sometimes,” Stiles says. “She’s become an actual human being. Too bad we can’t say the same for her brother, but Annika says he spends all his time with his girlfriend and he doesn’t even care about werewolf hunting anymore. And Wednesday will be there, of course, even though I haven’t talked to her in a while.”
“Maybe we should,” Derek says. “Her territory is small, but she is the head of her family, so she has a vote on that Council thing of theirs.”
“I don’t really think votes are going to be what we need,” Stiles says, “but yeah, I’ll shoot her an email.”
This conversation lingers in Stiles’ mind a few days later when he opens a plain cream colored envelope to read the following text:
~~//~~\\~~
With great pleasure
You are invited to the union of
Lucy Arnelle
and
Martin Drake, Jr.
Saturday, the twenty-seventh of February
At three o’clock in the afternoon
Reception to follow
~~//~~\\~~
Stiles puts down the envelope, stares into space, and says, “What the hell?”
~ ~ ~ ~