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Aseverybodyclearedoutthe night of the full moon, Jude and Graham had managed to confront Delilah with a request. They had asked her to help them set up for the pack dinner, which was supposed to take place the following evening. Given how detached she had been up to that point, and that Miranda was nowhere to be seen, they expected a firm no.
They were surprised when she agreed. Jude almost wondered if maybe she had begun to overcome her past, and their aggressive strategy the day before had worked in their favor despite the potential risks. He had not been proud of the way they confronted Delilah, forcing her to talk with them, and he knew Miranda felt even worse about.
Delilah was impressively strong, even for a shifter. To prepare for the dinner, she, several of the pack members, and even some other lone wolves had been tasked with moving tables down to the main plaza, where the market stalls normally stood.
By all appearances, she was contributing about half of the effort. One pack member, Kieron Dotson, probably wouldn’t have even attended on time had he not been part of the coordination effort. He would lift one table, take an hour-long break to look down at his phone, and then return to the task at hand. Meanwhile, Delilah toiled away, dripping sweat and barely catching a breath between exertions.
Graham moved from the loft up above, where the food was stored, to carry down heavy platters to the table below. During the setup, Jude carefully observed the coordinated effort.
Jude’s contribution was that he had cooked most of the meal. He had prepared the prime rib, scalloped potatoes, stuffed mushrooms, and ravioli. He’d found and purchased the cheeses, reached out to local distilleries for the wine and beer, and even worked with some locals in town who had made the Italian meatballs, eggplant, and beef pho. Of course, he needed an intermediary to do a lot of it.
None of this would have been possible without their food coordinator, Gerund Wynn. As Jude looked down on the area below, Gerund asked how he was able to get away with it.
“They’re down there slaving away, and you’re, what, watching?”
Gerund was a heavyset shifter with an eyepatch, who wore a gun holster everywhere he went. He didn’t like staying in the district, and had his own pack somewhere outside the city.
A shifter’s biggest motivator was scarcity. Jude knew it well. It had been the reason why, twelve years ago, his pack had nearly been taken off the face of the Earth.
As soon as they had a reliable source of food, they found that growing the Grimmaw pack and the Fang District came easily. Shifters went where the food was.
Something like ten years ago, Gerund had become their means of obtaining food, and every month on the day preceding the full moon, he came in with a generous shipment for their feast. He also brought in their monthly food supply. It was up to Jude to research meals and mingle with local businesses.
“I cooked all this food,” Jude said. “If you don’t understand the effort that took, I guess you don’t know food as well as you think.”
Gerund chuckled and disappeared down the fire escape. Jude would see him again in another month, and the battered wolf would probably try to rile him up again.
“Guess Delilah’s not going to get to meet the food guy?” Graham commented as he lifted a soup kettle out of the fridge. Jude shook his head. “Well, she’s not missing much.”
Once all the food had been brought down the pair of them made their way down to the tables.
“I thought it was justtwo packsand some lone wolves down here?” Delilah gestured toward the several dozen people who had gathered at six long tables. Many filed in through the tavern at the back, but some entered through back shop entrances or apartment spaces overlooking the area.
“Well, a lot of people were displaced by the expansion of the city.” Graham took a seat at the table beside her. “We said ‘some lone wolves.’ Maybe we should have clarified. Most shifters here are unaffiliated, and just welcome neutral territory.”
“It’s a brutal world out there,” Jude added, trying his best to convey sympathy. She missed the hint.
“Have you spoken with many of the people here?” Graham asked. “That should give you some idea of how the Fang District came to be.”
Graham climbed atop the table, currently barren of food, plates, or silverware. He had always been one for flamboyant displays.
“Please welcome Delilah Belfin to this, our hundred and twenty-fifth monthly pack dinner celebration!” Graham announced. “Tell her all your stories, so that she might know the histories of the Sable pack, Grimmaw pack, and the Fang District!”
Graham paused to allow a ripple of applause to run through the crowd.
“This month, we celebrate the seventh wedding anniversary of our own Sarah and Dakota Baysong!” Graham continued. Jude looked at Dakota, afraid of the kind of reaction he might have.
“I keep telling him to shut the hell up.” Dakota scoffed. Sarah had her small arms wrapped around him, teeth showing in a beaming grin.
Jude watched from afar as Delilah pieced together the history of the Fang District. He tried not to be too obvious about it, but was also kind of surprised that nobody noticed his eavesdropping as he stood at the potluck table.
From Gray Ellis, whose grandfather had startedThe Fast Times, she learned that shifters had lived in the city long before either the Sable pack or the Grimmaw pack had arrived. She learned that sixty years ago, Gray’s grandfather Wilson Ellis had started the newspaper to protect shifters within the community from a growing paranoia in the city.
From Sarah, and an apologetic Dakota, who was sorry for last night’s interaction, she had learned that in the early days, the Fang District was just a few members of the Grimmaw pack huddled together in an apartment. She learned that Sarah had to learn a lot of skills fast to help Graham, whose first success was a cloud-based compression algorithm.
From Tive, she learned that when the Sable pack joined the district, Jude had offered his own coding skills, and that they had all started the community garden together.
From Rachel Wilson, the short, mousy brunette who ran the teahouse, Delilah learned that what had grown the district were the independent ambitions of every member that joined the pack. The Fang District had been in an impoverished area, and they had all contributed to develop the properties and make the park more welcoming to shifters.
