by Cal Matthews
“Mom?” I called, peeking into the living room. Lloyd didn’t spare me a glance, propped up in the recliner with a Coors light in the V of his crotch. His bare, flabby belly hung over the waistband of his sweats, making the beer bottle tilt precariously forward. I swallowed hard, burying both revulsion and hatred, and gave him a nod.
“Lloyd,” I said.
He grunted once, which I took as both a greeting and a dismissal, and went to find my mother.
I stepped into the cluttered kitchen, taking in the sink full of dishes and the counters covered with discarded cans and empty containers. The guys on the radio implored me to search for Christ's love and mercy, and in the meantime, consider making a secure investment in gold. On the stove, saucepans and pots simmered away, but my mother was nowhere to be seen.
I continued down the short hall past the kitchen to the door to the basement. It lay open, the single bare light bulb dimly illuminating the staircase. I cocked my head to listen, and heard the whump whump whump of the ancient washing machine.
“Mom!” I called again, descending the plain wooden stairs to the unfinished basement. This had been my domain as a teenager. My sanctuary, cold and full of spiders, but still mine. There was the window I'd snuck out of at night. There was the old chest freezer behind which I had stashed my liquor and my weed. There was the bedroom where I'd cried and raged and screamed to loud music, and the bed where I'd shared my first shy, heart-stopping, embraces with the gorgeous angel-faced vampire I'd found in the woods.
I found my mother behind the stairs, in the small area she referred to as “the pantry” but in reality contained the washing machine and maybe three Costco-sized ketchup jars and a forty-pound sack of flour. Dusty Christmas decorations weighed down the rickety shelves I’d assembled in tenth grade shop class. Boxes of various family memorabilia stacked up against some of my old, broken, toys. Relics from another life. My mom sat near the wall on an old camp chair with a mason jar propped on her knee and a cigarette in her fingers. She jumped when she saw me, ash floating down onto her blouse.
“Hi, honey,” she said, giving a rattling smoker's cough.
“Hi.” I pulled a box up opposite her and sat, leaning across to snag her pack of cigarettes. She lit it for me and I inhaled deeply, trying not to cough. I only smoked when I was with her; it was one of the few things we did together, but Leo hated the smell of it on my clothes.
“How was your day?” she asked, brushing some of her blond hair out of her eyes. It was the color of wheat, the exact same shade as mine. No bottle blond, my mom was the real deal. She looked tired, I noted, the makeup she had on doing little to mask the dark circles under her eyes. She worked two jobs, cleaning motel rooms at the Travel Lodge in the mornings, and working behind the counter at the liquor store every other afternoon. Lloyd, in theory, was a truck driver, but he hadn't worked in several years due to his alleged and, I suspected entirely fictional, back problems.
“It was all right,” I told her. “I brought some stuff to help you sleep. You said that the lavender helped, right?”
She nodded, giving me a distracted smile. “Thanks, honey. Dinner will be ready in a bit. Did you say hi to Lloyd?”
“Yes,” I said peevishly. “How are you?”
“Oh, fine.” she said, and coughed again.
We finished our cigarettes to the chugging of the washing machine, and she stood, grimacing as her knees popped.
“It's the shits getting old,” she said to me.
She told me to go sit with Lloyd while she got dinner on the table, but I sat at the kitchen counter instead, drumming my fingers and watching as she made space to cut the garlic bread. Without asking, she poured me a glass of wine and slid it across the counter to me.
“Thanks,” I said, wetting my lips with it to be polite. I idly poked through the pile of mail in front of me, noting the impressively large amount of flyers from various religious organizations. My mom collected religions the way some people collect work out routines. When I was a kid, she was into Buddhism. Now, since Lloyd, it was nothing but Christian fire and brimstone.
“Carry this over,” she told me, handing me the salad bowl.
I'd endured many such dinners before, but tonight my patience was painfully worn. Lloyd grunted at me again as he came into the kitchen. He scratched his belly.
“When's dinner?” he asked loudly.
“Right now,” my mother snapped back at him, carrying the rest of the food over to the table. “Put a shirt on, Lloyd.”
“Why?” he demanded. “It's my fucking house.”
I bit back the protests springing to my lips and stalked to my own seat, leaving my mother to reply.
“It's just good manners,” she said.
He cast me a sidelong glance. “Afraid your faggot son is going to get ideas?”
It was hardly the worst thing he had ever said to me, but my face flushed and my jaw clenched. The knife on the table looked inviting.
“Oh, for Christ's sake, Lloyd,” my mother said tightly. “I hate that word.”
“I hate faggots,” he quipped, tossing his head.
“Lloyd, I swear to fucking God -”
“Mom, it's fine,” I interrupted. “Just sit, okay?”
They glared at each, but she sank slowly into her chair and after a pause he did too. We waited while Lloyd mumbled through a prayer, which he cut off abruptly when he stopped to listen to a particularly interesting voice from the living room TV. We waited to see if he would continue, but he forgot the ‘amen’ as my mom heaped food on his plate. Lloyd noisily started eating, shoving forkfuls into his mouth.
“How is Leo?” my mom asked, turning back to me. It was a peace offering, a white flag. They didn't know what he really was, of course, only that he was a fixture in my otherwise barren life.
“He's fine, thanks,” I said, giving Lloyd a challenging stare.
“You should have brought him.”
“He's busy.”
She nodded once and let it drop.
“It's fucking disgusting,” Lloyd said after a beat. He never could let it go.
“So is fraud,” I replied and his face went red. It was the impasse we often found ourselves at.
“How's business?” my mom tried again.
“Steady.”
“Missy Burnette told me how much she enjoys your store. She said you blended up some tea special for her.”
“That's good.”
“What I don't understand,” Lloyd started. “Is how a place like that can operate in the US? Aren't there laws regulating what sort of drugs you can sell?”
“I don't sell drugs. I sell herbs,” I said, though it was a lost cause.
“I see no fucking difference. You probably sell shit to teenage girls to give 'em abortions, huh?”
“Not recently.”
“Should be illegal, if you ask me.”
“No one did,” my mom said, glaring at him. “Honey, did you plan on going up to the ranch to do any hunting?”
“Yeah,” I said, surprised by the sudden evolution into lucid statements. “I'm going tomorrow, why?”
“Sharon Brock called to let me know that they allowed some hunters onto their land today, on the far side of Black Gulch, and they are camping overnight. So when you go up, be aware that there are other people about, okay?”
“Sure,” I said, but it struck me as strange. The Brocks - my mom's cousins - never allowed people to hunt their land, with the exception of family. I had never heard of them opening their land, let alone for an overnight camp trip.
“They never let people on their land,” Lloyd protested, echoing my thoughts. “They charging, or what?”
She ignored him. “Sharon also said to tell you that Cody might want to go with you. He saw a big herd of deer up past the north gate, where we moved the cows last year.”
“Why didn't you tell me?” Lloyd said. “I could have gone down and gotten us a nice freezer full of meat!”
“You're suppo
sed to have back problems, remember?” I said to him, grinning. “Funny how you keep forgetting.”
“You don't talk to me -”
“Both of you stop it!” my mom yelled, biting into her garlic bread and ripping out a chunk with her teeth.
“Sorry, Mom,” I said, with a stab of guilt.
We ate in silence for a while. When she ran out of wine, Lloyd got up to grab the bottle and pour her a fresh glass. A look passed between them and I saw, for just a split second, his small brown eyes soften when he looked at her.
It filled me with rage, the sight of that affection between them. There was no one on earth I hated more than that man, and I hated that she loved him even more. I hated that while she had always defended me, even when Lloyd once walked in on Leo and I sharing a bed, she always inevitably took his side over mine. The proof that they were still together, still married. I was the one who had been cast out.
“Great dinner, Mom,” I said and her eyes flickered back to me. She smiled at the praise.
“Thanks, honey. I have dessert, too. I made your favorite - cheesecake.”
Wait for it.
“Fruitcake, is more like it,” Lloyd grumbled.
And there it was. So predictable.
“Thanks, Mom,” I said. “But I'll have to take it to go. I haven't been home yet to let Johnny out.”
The lie came smoothly off my lips. She looked disappointed for a second, but nodded. We both knew that the less time I spent there the better.
“I'll wrap some up for you,” she said, standing and reaching for my dishes.
“I'll help you clean up,” I said, taking them out of her reach and carrying them into the kitchen. From behind me I heard a low exchange between them, and when I glanced back, I saw Lloyd playfully smack her butt.
Ugh. I wanted the fuck out of here.
Chapter Nine
By the time I got home, plastic-wrapped cheesecake in hand, my eyelids drooped and I was more than ready to put the day behind me. I turned on the lights in the empty trailer and looked around, but Johnny stood alone in the empty living room, swishing his tail as he looked at me. Leo must have gone out. Maybe he was doing some hunting of his own. He wasn't above chasing down deer for a snack.
I wanted to face plant into my bed, but I was determined to go hunting tomorrow, and I had yet to get my gear together. With a sigh, I stashed the cheesecake on the kitchen table and headed back out to the shed to gather my stuff.
Remembering my mom's words, I fished my phone out of my pocket to call Cody Brock, my mom's cousin's kid, who was kind of my friend. He was a few years younger, but we had always gotten along well and occasionally met up to drink beer and shoot pool. Since his divorce, he had been calling me a lot more.
“Hey,” he said loudly. A scratchy juke box blared in the background.
“You want to go with me tomorrow?” I asked.
“Yeah, man, I’m in. Pick me up, 'kay?”
“I’ll be there early, Cody.”
There was a pause and then Cody’s voice, a little muffled. “I’ll be ready. Bring me something to eat, okay?”
“Sure. See you then.”
“Yep.”
We hung up. Cody was big on drinking, not talking, which was why I liked him and probably why his marriage had been so brief.
Later, I sat on my couch, hunting equipment scattered around me and Netflix playing on my laptop. With the heater blasting out warm air and Johnny's head on my leg, I began to relax, the roller coaster of emotions I'd felt all day finally leveling out into pleasant numbness.
I took inventory of my stuff - last year I'd just stowed it all in the shed without really being careful, and now my cold weather pants and coat were crumpled, crusted with blood, and smelled faintly of cat piss. Not much I could do about that.
I carefully checked over my gun, finding it to be in good working order. My grandfather's guns were all still out at my mom's house. This one was a .270 that I'd picked up at a pawn shop.
I heard fumbling at the door, and lifted my head, the rifle still across my lap.
“Hey,” Leo said, his eyebrows shooting up at the sight of the gun. His mouth twisted into a wry smile. “Did I miss curfew?”
“Hey,” I said back, belatedly, ducking my head because the sight of him made my guts twist and ache. Unbidden, a memory came back of him growling into my neck. I shifted on the couch, growing uncomfortably warm. I didn’t know if he was still annoyed with me.
Leo walked past me into the kitchen, shrugging off his coat and tossing it over the back of a chair. I heard his boots thump against the linoleum.
“It smells weird in here,” he announced. Then, “Oh.” I could hear the plastic wrap rustle as he examined the cheesecake. “How was dinner at your mom's?”
“Same as always.”
“How's Load?” he asked, using the immature nickname we had always used to refer to Lloyd.
“He's . . .” I waved my hand dismissively.
“I fucking hate that guy,” Leo finished for me, wandering back into the living room and sitting gingerly beside me, mindful of the gun.
“It's not loaded,” I said.
He shrugged. “So you're going hunting tomorrow then? What time?”
“Early. I want to leave around four.”
“God, I love Montana winters,” he said, stretching one arm out on the back of the couch. “I've been up since five tonight. And the sun won't come up until after seven tomorrow. Why so many vampires stay down south is beyond me.”
I gave him a playful nudge. “Yeah, you really can't beat the climate in Heckerson, Montana. And the views are just to die for.”
“This one isn't so bad,” he said, wiggling his eyebrows at me and I smiled, relieved. He smiled back and leaned against me a little, dropping his arm to rest across my shoulders. The casual affection warmed me, and I started to reach for him when he went stiff. His face changed immediately when we came into contact, contorting into something hard and fierce. He twisted, grabbing my shirt with one hand and pulled me close.
“Leo-” I protested, confused, but he shoved his face into my shirt and huffed, snuffling me like a dog.
“What is that smell?” he growled in a voice that was not in the least bit human, and took another deep sniff, burying his face in my shirt.
I pushed him, grabbing the gun with one hand and lifting it out of the way. I leaned back to set it on the carpet. Leo took advantage of my unbalanced position, shoving me flat on my back on my couch. He leaned over me, his face in my shirt.
“Fucking stop it,” I snapped, but lay still, experienced enough to know that it was best to just wait it out. He trailed his nose up to my shoulder, and then down my arm, taking my hand in his and pressing his nose into my palm, inhaling.
“What is that?” he asked again, his eyes closed and his lips moving against my hand. The sensation was enough to me squirm with tentative arousal.
“I don't know,” I replied, snatching my hand back. “Can you be more specific?”
His eyes snapped back to mine and I was somewhat alarmed to see the gold wolf glow - the telltale sign that the predatory part of him was in control.
“You smell like magic,” he whispered, and licked his lips, fangs curling out of his mouth. The sight of them always shocked me, and my heart gave a lurch and started to pound. For a second, he wavered, like he was going to strike, and I held up a hand pleadingly.
“Don't,” I said quietly.
Clarity gradually returned to his eyes and he blinked a few times. I watched his fangs slide back into his mouth. “Ebron, why do you smell like that?”
“I met some witches,” I said, because there was no question now as to whether I would tell him. I should have known that he would have smelled Marcus on me. Leo's sense of smell was terrifying at times.
His eyebrows came together and I felt him relax minutely, settling down against the couch. With my eyes still on him, I sat up but didn't move away, leaving our legs still intertwined
. Best not to make any sudden movements.
“Witches?” he said incredulously. “In Heckerson?”
“Apparently.”
“Real witches, too,” he said musingly, giving another discreet sniff in my direction. “Not some of those Goth kids who bug you all time.”
“How can you tell?”
“The magic,” he replied. “I can smell it. Smells good.” He seemed to come back to himself again, and run a hand over his eyes. When he looked at me again, he was apologetic. “Sorry, love. I didn't mean to.”
“It's fine.” I said, though the endearment threw me off. Love?
“And what did these witches want?” he asked.
“Herbs. Obviously.”
Leo ignored that. “Did they say why they were here?”
“No, they said that they had been in Missoula. At some gathering.” I replayed our conversation in my head, trying to remember any more details. “The Samhain festival, they said.”
“Hmm. That's interesting.” Leo lifted a hand to his mouth, chewing on his thumbnail. His eyes were fixed on my face, intense and glittering. “Nothing else? Did they say anything to you”
“No, but...”
He leaned forward. “But what?”
“It’s nothing, I just saw one of them again today when I was getting lunch.”
He looked blank for a second, and then tilted his head, his eyes narrowing. “Again today? When did you meet these witches?”
“Yesterday,” I admitted. “But I saw them today, too.”
Leo made a weird snorting exhalation through his nose. “So they’ve taken an interest in you.”
I thought of Marcus, giving me his phone number. I thought of Corvin, watching me from across the street, his smirking face. “Maybe. I don’t know,” I said, getting flustered.
“I'd like to meet these witches.”
“Why do you think they are here? Is it because of me?”
“I don't know. But I really don't like it.”
“Why?” I said. “Is this your territory?”
“Yes,” he said bluntly. “Do you want to go to bed? I'd kinda like to fuck you before I head back out tonight.”