The Wolf Witch (The Keys Trilogy Book 1) (23 page)

“ - wait. People confessed to being werewolves?”

“Mostly under torture, yes,” said Grayson. “Didn’t you know? Back at the height of the witch craze in Europe lycanthropy and witchcraft went together like...well, like...”

“...peanut butter and jelly?”

“I was fishing for a more satanic simile, but yeah. That’ll do. Wolves were a source of anxiety, a hungry predator that picked off sheep and children and travelers. Like the spittals I was telling you about, remember? They were originally shelters built for travelers, at a time when the wolf population of Scotland was so out of control that the king ordered mandatory cub-hunting. It made sense to blame wolf attacks on witches; they genuinely believed that those women could fly, conjure spirits and had sex with the devil. It wasn’t exactly a stretch of the imagination to think they could also command and turn into wolves.”

“You don’t think they could?” said Joe. “Conjure spirits, I mean?”

“Like I say,” said Grayson. “There were so many false accusations. It’s not really going to be any easier now, except these days everyone
wants
to be a witch. You could advertise on Craiglist for a wolf witch, and within twenty-four hours you’d be knee deep in a bunch of piss-weak, blessed-be reconstructionalists with dreamcatcher tattoos.”

Joe sat back in the booth. “What about Gloria?”

“What about her?”

“You think she’s a fraud?”

“No,” said Grayson. “She’s the real deal. An old school witch with McBride blood in her veins and the kind of power that hasn’t been seen in this country since the Croatan wolf witches made an entire colony disappear. When she’s gone we won’t see another one like her.”

And she’s going. May as well face it.

Joe’s phone shuddered again, stopping his thoughts in their tracks. “Excuse me a minute,” he said, and got up from the seat. His head was starting to spin from the overpowering smells of bacon and melted cheese and he was glad of an excuse to stick his head out of doors.

“Hey, what’s up?” he said, as he pushed open the door and breathed in the sweaty, swampy all-Florida smell of the parking lot.

Gabe sighed down the phone. “Well, I hope you have theories,” he said. “Because shit just keeps on getting weirder down here. I’ve got holy rollers on the fucking lawn, a second-hand case of teenage angst and I just came out to my girlfriend as a werewolf.”

“That doesn’t sound good. How’d she take it?”

There was a brief pause and for a moment Joe wondered if the signal had failed. “Kinda offhand,” said Gabe, eventually. “Probably something to do with the big tent revival outside Gloria’s place. That blabbermouth Renee overheard Blue talking about Gloria at work and now she’s told all her Jesus freak buddies and they’re swarming all over the place looking for proof of a miracle.”

Joe raised his head; something else wafted across the parking lot, something sweet and metal-edged. He could have sworn it was the same smell as the one that night in Miami. “Renee?” he said, aware that he was asking the wrong question but unable to stop himself, his brain swimming with connections he didn’t yet completely understand. He smelled Marlboro Reds and bleeding gums, so vivid and sharp that it wasn’t even a surprise when he spotted Charlie climbing out of a black pick-up on the other side of the parking lot.

“Renee. Greg’s Renee.”

“Greg?”

“
Leg
Greg. Jesus, Lutesinger – where’s your head at? Like it even matters.”

The blood and the tobacco, that was definitely Charlie. But the deathly sweet metal – that was Reese. And there he was now, lumbering out of the passenger seat, all pale and swollen like some kind of giant human grub. Never mind sheltered; the kid looked downright sick.

“Sorry,” said Joe. “I’m here, I’m listening. Have you talked to Eli?”

Charlie waved. Joe raised a hand.

“What? About the kid?” Gabe gave a nasty laugh.

Charlie was close now, wearing a grin that didn’t reach his eyes. Reese was wheezing audibly. He’d looked pale from a distance but up close he was the color of the moon, or as much of it as any of them ever saw, minus that final sliver that marked the start of all the howling.

“I’ve been trying to reach him all last night and this morning, but he’s not picking up,” said Gabe “Like always. You know what’s gonna happen here, don’t you? I’m gonna be the one having The Talk with his goddamn kid because he’s too far up his own ass to do it.”

“Hey man,” said Charlie, lightly bumping a fist against Joe’s shoulder as he passed through the door into the diner.

“Yeah, well, he’s been through it lately,” said Joe, holding up a finger. “Listen, I can’t really talk right now.”

“Whoa. Was that
Charlie
?”

Joe waited for the door to close. “Yeah.”

“Shit. Do you think he heard us? He always had ears like a fucking bat.”

“I don’t know. He’s here with Reese.”

Gabe sucked in his breath. “Royalty. You been practicing your curtseys?”

“There’s something going on, Gabe,” said Joe, ignoring the joke. “Reese looks...
gray
.”

“I thought everyone looked gray to you?”

“Not that gray. Not ‘I’ve been dead for two days’ gray. He looks sick and smells worse.”

“Well, he probably is. Diabetes, anyone?”

Maybe. It would account for the sugary smell, and maybe even the sweetness of rot, but there was that edge again, that cold singing note of metal, and not the usual iron of blood. “I don’t know,” said Joe. “Listen, I gotta go.”

“Yeah, okay. Wait.”

“What?”

“Don’t tell Charlie about Gloria.”

Joe took a breath. “Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure. Why are you even asking me that?”

“You don’t think he has a right to know?”

Gabe didn’t speak for a moment. “Look, right now she’s fine. If she goes downhill again then yeah, maybe. But the last thing anyone needs right now is Charlie-darling playing the fucking prodigal son on top of everything else.”

“Okay.”

“Okay. Be careful.”

“I will.”

He went back inside the diner. Reese was squashed in one side of the booth opposite Grayson. Charlie, perched on the edge, was talking a mile a minute.

“...like, seriously. You look at some people and think ‘how are they even still alive?’ There’s no hope for these people. They need warning labels to tell them not to drink bleach or that hot coffee might actually be – y’know –
hot
. We don’t need to give these people any more warnings. We should just toss ‘em out there and let them fend for themselves. Eat themselves to death in front of
Keeping Up With The Kardashians
– boom.” He smacked a hand down on the Formica tabletop. “There you go. Your social security problems solved. Hand them the cheeseburgers and a commode and let them Elvis themselves to death in front of the adventures of a human urinal cake who’s famous for taking pictures of her ass.”

“I think that’s the first time I’ve ever heard anyone use Elvis as a verb,” said Grayson.

“You know me,” said Charlie, baring a mouthful of teeth that were even worse than Joe remembered. “I’ve always been inventive.” He turned his smile on Joe. “Hey. How’s the weather up there, big guy?”

“Oh, you know. Same as always.”

Charlie leaned forward. “Was that Eli you were talking to?” he asked, and plowed ahead without waiting for an answer. “God, it’s been years, man. You know, he used to say I’d be dead before I was thirty, and now look at me. I should collect on that bet sometime, right?”

“Right,” said Joe.

“This was probably before your time, but do you remember that crazy little Wernicke chick he used to bang?” Charlie took a sip of coffee, warming to his theme. “Oh my God, that fuckin’ broad was loopy. Total metalhead. Check it, Grayson – she went to the doctor’s, right? With a pain in her neck? He thought she had whiplash. Thought she’d been in a car accident, but it turned out she’d done it to herself on Pearl Jam’s fucking farewell tour or whatever was buttering her muffin back in the day. Or maybe it was Guns N’ Roses, or had they split up by then? I don’t know. Whatever. It didn’t stop her from naming her kid
Axl
.”

“It’s not the worst name I’ve heard,” said Grayson.

“I guess,” said Charlie, swallowing a yawn. “Jesus, the kid must be old enough to drive by now. And wasn’t there always a little suspicion that he might have been Eli’s?”

“Maybe. Probably,” said Joe. “I don’t know.” He was being shaken down for information and he knew it. The air seemed to crackle between them for a moment. If any of them had had hackles, they would have been raised. Reese brought the smell of sickness with him, and it hung over the four of them like a greasy foil blanket, but under it Joe could just make out a thin spinechill. A breathe-and-you’ll-miss-it whisper of anxiety. Fear. He couldn’t make out who it was coming from.

“This has been tremendous fun,” said Grayson. “But we really must get going.”

Charlie let out another one of his barky, smoke-stained laughs. “Sew propah,” he said, in an awful fake English accent. “Nah, I’m just kidding with you. You make every day sound like the Queen’s garden party.”

“One tries,” said Grayson, and they made their escape. As soon as they were at a safe distance from the diner Grayson took a breath, like he’d been holding it the same way Joe had, the better not to smell that sickness.

“Goddamn, he’s unbearable like this,” he said. “If I didn’t know better I’d say he’d been snorting his breakfast.”

“But you do know better?”

Grayson shrugged. “His connections aren’t what they used to be. He was making a
lot
of money when Lyle was still alive; the last thing he wants or needs is a messy civil war.”

Joe said nothing for a moment, but he knew what was coming next. There was an unspoken ‘but’ hanging off the end of Grayson’s last sentence, and it had everything to do with that sad, fat, weird-smelling kid they’d left behind them in the diner.

“What do you think will happen?” Joe said.

“What always happens,” said Grayson. “What happened before Lyle took control. Jacksonville hates Tallahassee, Orlando hates them both and everyone hates the Everglades. It’ll be an absolute shitstorm.”

“And what about Reese?”

Grayson shrugged again. “
Que sera sera
. By the way, did you notice that he seems to be turning
blue
?”

*

Blue had never believed in ghosts before, or psychics, or ley lines or even horoscopes, but the state of Gloria’s lawn that night made her wonder if there might be something to the law of attraction.

Not that happy, self-help bullshit about being positive and attracting positive energy. Blue knew all too well that you could be the nicest, brightest, kindest person in the world and still end up drowned in flood water that stank of shit, disease and death. Forget that kind of watered-down Pinterest karma; that nonsense couldn’t even explain why babies got cancer.

No, this was something else. Like a lightning rod. Gloria had done nothing to encourage them – quite the opposite in fact – and yet still they came. Psalm singers and abortion nuts and that glittery little woman in the cat t-shirt. Ever since the lights had started flickering, it was like they knew. Like they sensed that some otherworldly energy was crackling through the house, and they turned towards it like plants towards the sun, hands open to heaven, eyes closed, lips moving, their blind faces twisted with strange ecstasy as they swayed to the bland jangle of acoustic guitars.

Stacy carefully picked her way through the worshippers and stepped onto the creaking porch.

“Well,” she said. “This is officially the most Florida thing I’ve seen since our senior residents’ committee got up a petition about pythons.”

“They’ve been trickling in for a couple of days now,” said Blue.

“More like a damburst. It’s like the levee broke and let all the Jesus out all over the place. Call the cops already.”

“They’re not bothering anyone,” said Gloria, coming out with a hammer in her hand. She was wearing an ugly necklace made of spotted metal butterflies, a piece of junk jewelry that Blue hadn’t seen before. “I know these types. You give them an inch of trouble and they cry persecution and all but nail themselves to the goddamn cross all over again. Something about the Beatitudes, I don’t know. Hold that.”

She handed Stacy the hammer as she pinched a nail into position.

“Interesting necklace,” said Stacy, but her words got lost in the babble of the worshippers and the heavy blows of Gloria’s hammer. Or so Blue thought.

“Iron,” said Gloria, twitching the rusty butterflies in Stacy’s direction.

“Iron Butterfly?” said Stacy. “Very cool.”

She wandered into the house, humming
Inna Gadda Da Vida
.

Iron. Blue folded her arms tight around herself, as if she could squeeze any unwelcome visitors out of her body. Gloria had said something about blood and iron, and keeping your underpants at night. And Blue hadn’t. She was still unsure if what had happened last night had been a dream or something else.

Earlier she had tried to go back down to the cellar, but the key was nowhere to be found once more. And Gloria had been brusque and twitchy all day, yelling at Gabe when she found out he’d drank half of her rum.

Meanwhile, he was still a werewolf. Blue had made a point of asking him when she was fully awake and completely sober; the answer had still been yes.

“Are you just gonna stand there?” said Gloria, still hammering away at the door frame. “Either hold the nails or get out of my way.”

Blue retreated.

There were vinyls scattered all over the living room floor, in a way that she knew would make Gloria nuts if she saw them. Axl had been going through the records as if they were alien artifacts; it had given Blue a nasty turn when she realized he was probably too young to even remember CDs.

Stacy came out of the kitchen with a drink in her hand. All those people gathered outside had lent the day a party atmosphere. “He’s lurking in the bathroom,” she said, presumably talking about Axl. She knelt and started sifting through the records. “Holy shit. Iron Maiden.”