The Wolf Witch (The Keys Trilogy Book 1) (31 page)

“But didn’t the uncle
know?
”

“That he was eating his own sister?” said Gabe. “No. I told you. It’s different. We’re different. We’re wild animals who don’t know any better. I’ve heard some people say it’s different for them, that a part of them knows, stays human. But I’ve never experienced that.”

The look in his eyes hurt, and she knew why he didn’t want to talk about this. “I’m dangerous, Blue,” he said. “Really dangerous.”

Her heart was beating too hard again, anger flashing up to keep her from tears. “I know that.”

“I like you - ”

“ - stop it.”

“- I just think - ”

“ - no,” she said. “Don’t do this. Don’t you dare do the
Twilight
thing with me. At least give me a chance to find out what I signed up for.”

He pressed his lips together and nodded, his eyes too bright. “Okay,” he said. “I guess that’s fair.”

“It is, and you know it.”

Gabe sighed long and hard. “If things were different - ”

“ - but they aren’t,” she said. “Like you always said, you have to work with what
is
. Not get hung up on the things you can’t do anything about.”

*

There was a kind of crackle and hum in the air all that day, a hangover from the party atmosphere cut short when that woman had dropped dead on the lawn. The story going around was that she had died of a stroke caused by dehydration; she had done so much singing and praying and speaking in tongues that she’d forgotten to drink and simply sweated herself dry, prompting that God of hers to mash his almighty finger down on the SMITE button.

People couldn’t help it; death was exciting. They may have moved off Gloria’s lawn, but the buzz of their interest seemed to fill the air and mingle with the song of the cicadas. As Blue prepared dinner she recognized the atmosphere as that same state of whispering limbo that comes between a death and a funeral, the same sense of raw emotions filling the air like the strange static before a storm.

Gabe had brought lobsters, fished up from the sea floor with his own hands. Blue wondered if he had done this to make a point, so that she would be forced to watch him kill something. He had put them in a beer cooler with rubber bands around their claws, and they came out sluggish from the ice water. “Numbs them up,” he said, and placed them on their backs, their weird insect legs waving in the air. Then he took a large knife, placed the tip where their heart might be and brought the blade down through the head with a solid, queasy crunch. The legs kept moving.

“It’s just a nerve thing,” he said. “Like cutting the head off a chicken.”

This was the humane version, he said. The alternative was boiling them to death.

All through the time they were making dinner, Gloria sat at the kitchen table, playing with pebbles and chicken bones like a child. So much for miracles. The paramedics had said that she had just been having a lucid period – sometimes they lasted for hours, other times a day or so. Just the other day she had been standing here making meatballs and now she was useless, aimless in her own kitchen.

Grayson came with Joe, and brought flowers for the table. “Everyone seems so tense,” said Blue, as she arranged the spikes of white gladioli in a vase. “On edge.”

“That will happen,” said Grayson. “It’s part of the whole Charlie experience.”

“Yeah, I’m not sure I’m looking forward to this.”

There was a knock at the door. Grayson patted her on the shoulder. “Brace yourself,” he said.

Charlie burst into the room like ball lightning. She heard his voice before she saw him; a rich throaty growl, punctuated with a loud crackly laugh. “...the fuckin’ humidity, man. What do you get for living in this climate? Prizes? It’s like you took Orlando and turned it up to eleven.”

Gloria raised her head. Blue could hear Eli speaking indistinctly and Charlie muttering assent - some kind of mumbling male apology, she guessed. Hatchets buried. Grayson exhaled slowly through pursed lips and stepped out of the kitchen like he was about to walk across hot coals.

There was a boy in the living room, not much older than Axl. This was Reese, Blue guessed - the other alpha. He looked less than impressive; in fact he looked downright sick. He was pale and sweaty and looked like he might somehow leak all over something. Not blood, but some other unpleasant, dirty looking fluid, like the stuff that had run out of the lobsters when Gabe had crunched the knife through their brains.

Charlie saw Blue and whistled. “Well,” he said. “Who’s this fine looking creature?”

He grinned, baring a mouthful of gray-yellow teeth. He was only in his early thirties - the same as Eli - but he had the kind of blond, blue-eyed coloring that aged badly in the sun, and it was obvious from his hot, oscillating energy that he had no time in his life for caution. Or sunscreen. And yet the lines around his eyes had the charm of crack-glaze on pottery, and the deep grooves between nose and the corners of his mouth spoke of broad smiles. She could still see the faint outline of Gloria’s golden boy in his face; had he just gone to the trouble of getting his teeth fixed he would still be good-looking, in a weathered, interesting kind of way.

“I’m the...I’m the cleaning lady,” said Blue, but already Charlie had caught her in a brief, hard, sweaty hug.

“No way,” he said, releasing her and smiling into her face, too close. “Eli told me who you are, and what you’ve been doing for Gloria. You’re a saint, honey. A fucking saint.”

“Jesus, give the girl room to breathe, Charlie,” said Eli.

Charlie released Blue’s arm and patted her wrist. “Of course. You’ll have to forgive me. That’s just the way I am. I’m just like...
on
, all the time, you know. If I get a little much for you, just lemme know, okay? I won’t be offended. I can see you’re the quiet type.” He stuck an elbow in Gabe’s rib. “Hidden depths, right, Arnot?”

“Yeah,” said Gabe, like someone trying to gasp for air. Blue could see why; Charlie was clearly one of those people who consumed a room like fire.

“You still got that dive company? That’s awesome; I always thought it’d be cool to do something like that, but you know – me and this and that and the other. There’s always some kind of business going down up north. Usually on the down-low, if you catch my meaning. But we all adapt to our afflictions, right? You dive, Joe plumbs and the Queen of England here writes dirty books about skinny girls who bang werewolves.”

Grayson gave Charlie a look that was a visual representation of the sound that had been echoing around in Blue’s head ever since Gabe had showed her how to kill a lobster. Crunch, squelch – dead.

There was a soft sob at the door; Gloria.

Charlie rushed towards her and folded her in his arms; she was so little that she all but disappeared in his embrace. “Hey Ma,” he said, in a voice suddenly wet with tears. “Where you at?” She was crying loudly now, but he rocked her in his arms.

Under his breath, Gabe muttered something about it being a bad day for the fatted calf. Eli incinerated him with a look.

It was an uncomfortable dinner. The boy – Reese – just sat there like a sickly lump as Charlie chattered on. Eli had both eyes on Gabe and Grayson was all but grinding his teeth. The only ones who seemed to be having a good time were Charlie, as the center of attention, and Gloria, who sat beside him glowing like the moon. Every now and again she would reach out and touch him – his hands, his face – just to confirm that he was really there. Then he would take the hand that touched him and kiss it, wreathing her in further smiles.

“I’d be a goddamn sight worse than I am if it weren’t for Gloria here,” he said. “Ain’t that right, Ma? The number of times she straightened me out when I was just a snot-nosed little shit.”

He launched into yet another reminiscence, this time about when he was fifteen and got into shrooms. Blue was barely listening, picking the lobster meat from inside the claw and wondering if she even had the stomach to eat it, now that she’d seen it die. She drew the quivering, pink-freckled flesh from the shell and felt her guts twist, but when she bit down it tasted good. Perhaps better than she remembered lobster ever tasting before. She cracked another claw, her appetite stirring back to life. Scary to think how quickly guilt could dissolve.

Reese picked at his food like he was in a parable, some cautionary fairytale where his taste buds had been taken away as a punishment for gluttony. The contrast between him and Eli was stark and shocking. Gabe hadn’t been kidding about Eli being the picture of health; the big man’s dark hair was thick and glossy, his blue eyes clear and his smile wide and white. Reese would have looked insubstantial next to him even if he hadn’t been nearly two hundred pounds overweight. As it was the kid looked broken and bloated, a sad-eyed grub who couldn’t figure out how to escape the larval stage.

“So, Reese,” said Eli, leaping into the brief gap between Charlie-stories. “Is this your first time in the Keys?” He smiled, trying to draw the boy out.

Reese nodded. “I’ve never been south of Orlando before.”

“You’ll find it a warm welcome,” said Charlie. “Emphasis on the warm. How you finding the food, kid?”

“It’s um...it’s...”

“Fresh? Real?” Charlie cackled. “Don’t be offended, guys. Reese is a real junk food connoisseur. If it’s deep fried, full of salt and contains less actual food content than the bumper of your average pickup truck, Reese is in like Flynn. Ain’t that right, kiddo?”

Something went crack near Blue’s right ear. She couldn’t be sure if it was a lobster shell or if Grayson had finally broken a tooth. “Are you okay?” she asked Reese. “You look a little pale.”

He nodded. For a horrible second she thought he was going to be sick, but then he started to speak. His voice – what she had heard of it so far – was soft and a little too high. “I’m fine,” he said, and swallowed hard. “This is just...awkward, I guess.”

Reese looked across the table at Joe, then to Gabe. “I wanted to let you know. I know this is tough, but – what happened. I just want you to know I was never okay with that.”

“We know,” said Joe.

Gabe started to say something, but he was drowned out by a round of loud applause from Charlie. “Hear hear,” he said. “That’s what I’m talking about. Old wounds. Old damage. We gotta put that shit behind us; it’s not
healthy
, dwelling on it.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” said Eli.

“His brain didn’t go back right,” said Gloria, waving a lobster fork at Joe. Her voice was too loud and matter-of-fact, like she had just dropped into the conversation, decided to add to it and got it disastrously wrong. “That Lyle fucked him up so good he couldn’t switch back for two whole months.”

“He’s dead now, Gloria,” said Charlie, with slow patience. “Lyle is dead.”

“Good.”

Eli winced. “I’m sorry,” he said to Reese. “She’s...um...”

“...it’s okay. I heard.”

Blue reached for the bottle of wine and – by some glorious, heaven-sent miracle – found it all but empty.

“Excuse me,” she said, getting up. “I’ll go and open some more wine.”

Gabe all but leapt to his feet. “I’ll help you.”

“Me, too,” said Grayson.

Pathetic. They weren’t even trying.

Everyone seemed to exhale as they stepped into the kitchen. “Oh my God,” said Blue. “That was awful.”

“At least Gloria has an excuse,” said Grayson. “Charlie doesn’t.”

“Is he always like that?” asked Blue, taking another couple of bottles of Zinfandel from the fridge.

“Nope,” said Gabe, reaching for the rum. “Sometimes he’s worse.” He took a slug straight from the bottle and passed it to Grayson. “That’s what he does. Pushes everyone’s buttons and then acts like the wounded party when someone calls him out on it.”

“How do you stand him?”

“In small doses,” said Grayson. “He’s an acquired taste. Like anchovies.”

Joe came in, looking sheepish.

“Jesus, Lutesinger,” said Gabe. “We can’t
all
escape to the kitchen.”

“I’m not,” said Joe. “I left to use the bathroom.”

“The bathroom’s the other way.”

“Well, maybe I like to pee in the yard,” said Joe. “I got dog-brains, remember?”

“Are you all right?” said Blue. She only half understood what had been said out there, but she knew it was probably something painful for Joe.

He shook his head and poured himself a glass of water. “I keep smelling that fucking
metal
smell,” he said. “It’s like someone’s jamming a fork in my brain.”

Grayson touched his shoulder. “No, I know. It’s still there.”

“Like an edge,” said Gabe.

There were footsteps outside the kitchen door and for a moment all three men fell silent; Blue guessed that eavesdropping was another trick in Charlie’s repertoire. Then the other door opened and Axl hurled himself into the kitchen, bristling and impatient.

“What are you doing here?” said Gabe. “I thought you had some parent/teacher conference thing?”

“I did,” said Axl. “It was bullshit. Mom just sat there like a goddamn bobblehead while Mrs. Deathbreath bitched about my ‘disciplinary issues.’ Can I have some of that rum?”

“Absolutely not.”

The door behind him moved and Charlie stuck his head around it. “Hey, you guys,” he said, waving a corkscrew. “If you were lookin’ for this...” He handed it over to Blue and stepped into the kitchen, eyeing Axl with a keen interest that made Blue feel immediately nervous.

“We were just on our way back,” said Grayson.

“No worries,” said Charlie, not taking his eyes off Axl. “So,” he said. “You must be Eli’s kid, huh?”

Axl took a breath, the kind that – had he been ten years younger – might have been the one he filled his lungs with before dropping to his knees in the cookie section of the supermarket and screaming blue murder. Only this time he had a legitimate grievance;
that
conversation with Eli was clearly still pending.

“What?” he said, with a softness that Blue knew was the dead calm before the teenage storm. Oh God, what was it Gabe had said? They were volatile, malleable.

“Oh, shit,” said Charlie. “Did I just say something I shouldn’t?”