by Anna Roberts
“Why not?” said Axl. “It’s a toy. Look, it even says ‘Made In China.’”
Gabe pulled the board towards him. “So do fireworks,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean you should set them off in the kitchen.”
“Neat, Confucius. Where did you get that one from? A fortune cookie? Come on – I saw Paranormal Activity when I was like ten. And I didn’t even have nightmares.”
“It’s four in the morning, Axl,” said Gabe. “Go back to bed.”
“I wanted a glass of water. Are there any Advil?”
Gabe sighed and poured him a shot. “Somewhere. Here, take the edge off, and don’t tell your mother.”
Blue stared at him. Grinning, Axl threw down the shot. He sputtered for a moment, red faced, eyes watering, and then held out the glass for more, still wheezing.
“Don’t push it,” said Gabe, in the same level, no-nonsense voice he used on the boat. Axl went to the tap to fill a glass, then shuffled back off to bed, casting a wistful glance at the Ouija board as he went.
“Stacy’s going to murder you,” said Blue.
“Only if you tell her.” Gabe gathered up the shot glasses and put them in the sink. “The kid’s probably in pain.”
The shadows in the cracks of the kitchen blinds were blue now. A new day, and one where the world was a whole lot different to the one it had been when she fell asleep. “Why? Is it something to do with how he’s changing?”
Gabe turned away from the sink. “Yeah,” he said. “The older you are, the harder it gets. When you’re as young as he is, your body is damn near indestructible. And it’s already turning from one thing into another. Every nerve, every bone, every brain cell and hair follicle – it’s all geared towards change. It doesn’t even need to be a full moon for kids his age. They can just pop into wolves without warning.”
Blue stared at him for a long moment, digesting the implications of this. “Isn’t that incredibly dangerous?”
“Very,” he said. “Why do you think I told Stacy to let him stay over?”
15
Grayson brought his own teabags.
Joe tried not to stare, but it was difficult when Grayson ordered a cup of hot water and furtively dropped a bag into it when the waitress’s back was turned.
“What?” said Grayson, staring him down. “Yes, I’m a national stereotype, okay?”
“No, it’s cool,” said Joe. “Actually it’s...it’s kind of cute.”
Grayson took a teaspoon and squeezed the teabag without mercy. He added milk to the lethally strong smelling brew and peered into it in silence for a moment, like he was trying to read his fortune.
“What are you thinking?” asked Joe, unsure if he’d crossed a line.
“Charlie.”
“Oh. Always a fun topic.”
Grayson didn’t laugh. “He’s been talking a lot lately – even more than usual.”
“About?”
“How he never wanted Lyle’s old turf. And how dumb he’d have to be to want it.”
“And what?” said Joe. “You think he doth protest too much or something?”
“It’s possible, isn’t it?”
Joe picked up a piece of bacon and nibbled the edge. “I don’t know. Charlie accepted Gloria’s decision when she gave Eli the Keys.”
“That was Gloria, though. I don’t know that he ever respected Lyle in the same way, and certainly not Reese.”
Joe bit his tongue. At first he’d found it hard to believe that that doughy, whiny child had anything to do with Lyle Raines, but then he realized that Reese had that certain lonely sadness that went with the sons of vicious men, or at least those sons who didn’t share the father’s deep-seated cruelty. Even Reese’s weight seemed not so much a symptom of indulgence but one of neglect, of thoughtless drive-through dinners and consolation buckets of ice-cream that never quite filled the hole inside.
Grayson caught Joe’s eye and sighed. “I know,” he said.
“Know what? Can you read my mind?”
Grayson smiled. “Nope. But your face is revealing enough. Not very impressive, is he? Our new alpha?”
“No.”
“He’s just a boy. And a sheltered one, at that.”
Joe felt his phone shudder at his hip, but he ignored it. For now. “You think things are gonna get bad?”
“I think it’s a very real possibility, yes. We went all out to impress the swamp wolves, but it’s clearly not working. And once rumors spread – the way they will – then there’s really nothing preventing the whole territory turning into a free for all.” Grayson took a sip of his tea and sighed. His eyes were dark against the white of his hair and Joe wondered what color they really were; he’d never know now unless he asked. The skin on the backs of Grayson’s hands looked thin, pulled tight and shiny over the knots of his swollen knuckles.
“What are you going to do?” asked Joe.
Grayson shrugged. “Leave, I suppose. If I have to. I’d rather not, but if push comes to shove...”
“Did you ever think about going back to England?”
“Sometimes. It’s still home. I miss it now and again, but then I remember the cold and the damp; hell on the old arthritis.” He took another sip and peered out at the parking lot. “I like this climate, even if the local fauna sometimes reminds me of the ten plagues of Egypt.”
Joe smiled, remembering having almost exactly the same thought when he’d moved down to Florida. Biblical sized blizzards of things that chittered and chirped and crawled. Loudmouthed frogs belching away all through the night. Hurricane clouds that smothered the sun. All that was missing was a river that ran red, or for the angel of death to swing his great scythe over the heads of the firstborn.
He shivered suddenly, like the biting chill from a long-ago Minnesota Bible class had escaped from the realms of memory. It was an image that had always haunted him, of blood smeared on rough wood and sleeping breaths stilled to silence by the vast, soft thrum of black-feathered wings. Or maybe it was because he’d seen Gloria doing it, her fingers red from a pot of blood she’d got from God knows where (and he didn’t like to ask), her face blank with the same watchfulness it got when she was listening to someone who wasn’t there.
And then it came to him, and it seemed like divine inspiration. A simple solution.
“Why don’t you just talk Reese into getting a wolf witch?” he said.
Grayson blinked over the rims of his glasses. “From where? They don’t exactly carry them at Wal-Mart, you know.”
“No, but there have to be some,” said Joe. “What are they? Jedi?”
“Practically, yes,” said Grayson. “It’s 2015. You’re about four centuries too late to find a real one, and even then it wasn’t a sure thing. For every Meg McBride there were about thirty mouthy old catladies who were guilty of nothing more than giving the wrong neighbor the stinkeye. I mean, of course they confessed to being witches and werewolves; most people will tell you anything they think you want to hear if it looks like it’s going to get them out of the thumbscrews - ”
“ - 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.