“So you did just step aside and let those rogue wolves kill those families?”
“Sirhan sent men after them. They were captured and dealt with for almost exposing the pack. Their ringleader was banished for injuring Rachel, who eventually died, and for trying to usurp the position of alpha from Sirhan.”
“Banished? Why not killed? Where did he go?”
Gabriel pursed his lips and placed the open book on the desk. “Sirhan ran him out of the area. He traveled around a bit, and then decided to start his own pack by marrying a human woman and having a child. He eventually started killing again. I believe you knew him as the Markham Street Monster.”
I gasped. “Mr. Kalbi? Daniel’s father?” I searched around in my head for his first name—Daniel never ever spoke it.
“Caleb Kalbi,” Gabriel said. “Yes.”
Now I finally understood why Sirhan hadn’t let Caleb’s son rejoin his pack last year. Why he seemed to despise Daniel for no fault of his own.
“I am just grateful that Caleb is not a true alpha, or this world may be a very different place. If he’d convinced more than a couple of members of our pack that he should be the leader …” Gabriel shook his head. “Caleb did enough damage as the Markham Street Monster, but imagine if he had a whole pack doing his bidding. It’d be Gevaudan all over again. Most likely worse.”
I shuddered at that idea. Caleb had killed at least two dozen people on his own before he left town. I couldn’t imagine his having an entire pack under his control. “What do you mean by true alpha?” I asked Gabriel. “You called Sirhan that before.” My head was beginning to spin from absorbing so much information, but I didn’t know when I’d get a chance to ask Gabriel questions like this again.
“True alphas are very rare. They are Urbats born with a certain mystical essence that grows in them as they age. They are the true ‘chosen’ pack leaders, and if a true alpha wants to be the alpha of a pack, usually the rest of the pack will recognize him as such. I don’t really know why, perhaps it is some magical phenomenon, or merely pheromones. There have been very few true alphas, and they are even rarer now than before—probably because Urbats tend not to procreate very often. Most packs operate under the leadership of a regular appointed alpha, rather than under the direction of a true alpha. Sirhan is the last remaining true alpha that I know of. I thought there was another at one point, but not anymore. And with Sirhan on his deathbed—”
“Sirhan is dying? Did someone try to kill him again?”
“He’s dying of old age, I guess you could say. Sirhan fell to the curse of the werewolf nine hundred and ninety-nine years ago, and he’s beginning to feel his age now. He’s quite sick. No werewolf has ever lived past a thousand years. I believe it’s only a matter of weeks at this point.”
“So what will happen when Sirhan dies?” I remembered Talbot saying something about how Gabriel deserved what was going to happen to his pack when Sirhan died.
“According to pack law, when an alpha dies, a new alpha must be called. If there is no true alpha present, then usually the calling of the alpha passes to the beta. That would be me, in this instance. However, before the beta can take charge, he must hold a ‘challenging ceremony,’ during which any wolf can present himself to contest the beta without anyone prohibiting him. The beta can either step aside and let the challenger become alpha, or the two can fight it out until someone relents—or dies. The winner is named alpha of the pack, even if he is an outsider, or is already the alpha of a different pack. If more than one challenger presents himself—or herself, though that is rare—at the ceremony, then they all must battle it out for the position. It can turn quite deadly.”
“And I’m guessing you’ll step aside if someone contests you?”
Gabriel sighed. “Usually the beta goes unchallenged out of respect,” he mumbled.
“But what if someone like Caleb challenges you?”