Moon Born

Chapter 14

Despite the heightened level of anxiety, the walk to the town hall was quick and uneventful. My heart was still pounding as I held up the too-big pants and shuffled along because the shoes were too large. I breathed a sigh of relief when we entered the building.

Safety.

"Beta Alastair!" the guard sitting at the desk exclaimed, jumping up.

"Bruce," he said, leading us past the man.

"Where is the water department?" I asked.

"Their office is on the third floor. They keep all of the city plans there," Alastair answered.

Instead of going to the elevators, he led us to a set of stairs.

"It's quicker," he said.

I nodded and followed behind him and Ashley. She stayed as close to him as was appropriate for a Beta and his newly found mate.

I can't believe she found her mate in the middle of all this shit. How is that even possible?

We walked up the three flights and entered a dark hallway.

This isn't promising. It's the middle of the day and everything is off?

Almost like he could read my mind, he pulled out a key ring and inserted a bronze skeleton key into the first door we stopped in front of.

"Where is everyone?" Ashley asked.

"I'm assuming out checking drainage systems and whatever else they do."

"Checking them? As in being inside them?"

He paused for a moment and looked up. "Shit. I guess so. When we go in I'll radio the guys from one of their radios."

"Where would the city plans be?"

"Physical plans? They're in giant binders on bookshelves. It's just a matter of finding the right ones."

The door swung open and Beta Alastair flipped a switch, illuminating a large and messy office.

"Oh Goddess," Ashley gasped. "This place is a mess!"

"Yeah, the guys aren't really good with keeping things neat."

"I'm going to start over here," I said, pulling a binder off the shelf.

I flipped through, reading the descriptions trying to find one of the drainage plans that weren't specific to just Silver Peak.

On my third binder, I found one that showed the drain system where the creature climbed in.

"Here's the initial entry point that we found. Now we just need to find a map that connects all of the systems."

"Here!" Ashley said pulling multiple pieces of a map out of the back of a binder.

We laid them out on the floor and stood back looking.

"This could be a huge problem," I said, staring at the paper.

"I had no idea that we were all connected underground," Beta Alastair muttered.

"What does this mean?" Ashley asked.

I laid the thin piece of paper that I had from the entry point on top of where it was located on the giant map. I pointed to the entry drain.

"This is where the initial creature climbed in. This manhole here, this is where Chief Wayne saw the three creatures in the pipe."

"Okay?"

I traced my finger along the smaller pipes to the very large ones. "The pipe connects to these large ones, the large ones spider out and connect to every other pack."