The Wolf Witch (The Keys Trilogy Book 1)

by Anna Roberts

  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?”

  There was nothing anyone could say. They were all staring at Axl, who scowled slowly around at them.

  “Great,” he said, in a high, breaking boy’s voice. “Thanks for fucking telling me, assholes. Thanks a fucking lot.”

  He slammed the screen door behind him as he stormed out.

  21

  The kid could move. When Axl saw Gabe and Joe coming he took off at top speed, tearing down the street.

  Blue - who had never been much of a runner - got as far as the corner, but when she looked around she couldn’t see any of them. Grayson followed at an awkward jog.

  “Where did they go?” he said, already limping a little as he caught up with her.

  “I don’t know.”

  He sighed. “Oh God.”

  “They’ll find him, right?”

  “I don’t know. Can you drive?”

  “Yes, but I don’t have...”

  He turned and hurried back towards the house. When they got back, Charlie was still in the throes of a grand apology tour.

  “Seriously,” he was saying, hand on his heart. “I am so fuckin’ sorry, man. I did not mean to put my foot in it like that. I had no idea you hadn’t...”

  “...I was working my way up to it...”

  “...yeah, I know that now. I just assumed...”

  “Good news,” said Grayson. “We now have a volatile teenage werewolf running around Islamorada.”

  Charlie sighed loudly. “If there’s anything I can do...”

  “You’ve done enough,” said Eli. “Just stay here and keep an eye on Gloria.” He turned back to Blue. “Where are the others?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Chasing Axl. I couldn’t keep up.”

  “We could do with a car,” said Grayson.

  Eli handed him a set of keys. “Take mine. I’ll borrow Gabe’s. Find the little bugger before something really unfortunate goes down.”

  Blue went into the hallway to find a pair of shoes. On her way back Gloria somehow got caught in her wake and bobbed into the kitchen, frowning and knotting her fingers together. “You’re not leaving me?” she said, looking straight at Charlie. “Why is everyone going? We haven’t had dessert.”

  “I’m not leaving,” said Charlie. “I promise. I won’t leave you.”

  Gloria’s frown deepened and then she started to cry - soft, baffled sobs, like something was tearing her to pieces inside.

  “Go,” Eli told Blue. “Please. I can take care of this.”

  Grayson dropped the keys into her hand as they stepped out of the back door. For a brief, stupid second Blue realized she didn’t even know which car was Eli’s, then glanced at the key fob and saw it was for the gunmetal-gray Land Rover parked behind Gabe.

  The inside of the car smelled faintly of cigars and something expensive she had caught a whiff of when Eli had bent to kiss her cheek in greeting. The scent recalled the brush of his stubble and the warmth of his skin, and in that instant she could picture him clearly as a ladies’ man.

  She hesitated over the unfamiliar controls for a moment, before reversing out into the street. The car felt big and growly under her, and her palms were sweating on the steering wheel before she had even reached the end of the street.

  “Where am I supposed to be going?” she said.

  “I don’t know,” said Grayson.

  “Great. Well, that makes two of us.”

  The last red sunset streaks of light were fading as she drove slowly around the neighborhood, taking care to look at everyone she passed. Kids on bikes, pizza delivery boys, chattering children trailing cleat-laden soccer moms. Blue had only some idea of why everyone was so worried about Axl, but it was enough to make her afraid for these people.

  She caught sight of Gabe just as the night rolled in. He was walking alone down a quiet street. She rolled the window down and called to him.

  “Where’s Joe?” she said, as he scrambled into the back.

  “Lost him,” said Gabe. He looked sweat-stained and tired and it was only a matter of seconds before the AC started wafting the salt of his sweat around the interior of Eli’s car. “He has much longer legs than me; I’m faster in the water. Did you see him?”

  “Who? Axl? No.”

  “Shit.” Gabe sighed. “Is this Eli’s car?”

  “Yeah. He took yours.”

  Grayson frowned. “Wait...you left Charlie alone with Gloria?”

  “Yes,” said Gabe, with an edge to his voice. “I trust him that far. Besides, he knows not to fuck with her. She’s the reason Lyle never dared come south of Miami.”

  Blue caught his eye in the rear view mirror. “Why?” she asked, trying – and failing – to imagine what an eighty pound old lady could do to scare a full-grown werewolf. “What did she do?”

  “That’s just the thing,” said Grayson. “Nobody really knows.”

  Gabe leaned in again. “Turn right. He might have gone to the beach to smoke. Hopefully calm himself down.”

  “I don’t understand any of this,” said Blue, the turn signal clunking loudly in her ear.

  “I told you,” said Gabe. “At his age – Reese’s age, even – they’re unstable. And resilient as all hell. Remember your teens? You’re built to bounce when you’re Axl’s age; your bodies are more or less elastic, to keep you alive through the dumbass shit your brain tells you do when you’re angry, full of hormones and a total moron when it comes to thinking through the long term consequences of your actions.”

  “They can flip just like that,” said Grayson. “Doesn’t even need to be a full moon. Just your average teenage moodiness can bring it on.”

  Blue kept on driving. She thought that might have been the reason for the emergency, but a small part of her was hoping it wasn’t. So much for that. “You’re serious?”

  “He’s probably done it before,” said Gabe, with a dreadful matter-of-factness. “You think that dead deer and him showing up naked on Gloria’s doorstep was a coincidence?”

  “Jesus.” She didn’t think she wanted to see this. There was something obscene about the idea of a boy – a child, really – being bent by some unseen force into the shape of something not hum
an. The whole thing gave her the deep-down shudders and she wanted it not to be real, some weird sick joke that the locals played on outsiders.

  “It could be worse,” said Gabe. “At least he’s healthy enough for the turn not to kill him. Not like that poor little bastard Charlie brought with him. Kid’s so pale he’s practically blue.”

  Grayson frowned out of the window, the dark pane reflecting his face back like a mirror. “Violet,” he murmured. “You’re turning violet.”

  “Huh?”

  Grayson’s eyes widened and he stiffened in his seat. “Oh my God,” he said.

  “What?”

  “We have to go back.”

  “Why? You think he’s back at the house?”

  “No,” said Grayson. “But I think I know what that metal smell is. The one that’s been bothering Joe. We have to go back.”

  At the same moment he said it, a noise cut through the night. Blue had heard it a million times in her own head recently, like the punchline of a joke. “I used to be a werewolf but I’m all right noooooooowwwoooooooo.”

  She felt a strange urge to laugh as it rose up into the stunned silence. A howl. Someone – or something – was howling.

  *

  Charlie heard the howl, too, spiraling up over the town into the night sky, but then he heard something else. Something even more unexpected.

  The floorboards were shaking. Reese was running, the fastest Charlie had ever seen him move, lumbering from one flat foot to the other on his way to the bathroom, hand over his mouth. Charlie could feel the house shaking right down to its foundations; the light fitting in the hall began to sway.

  “He’s just a little queasy,” Charlie told Gloria, who was staring at him with this awful, blank look on her face, like a puppy or a simple-minded child. “I guess seafood doesn’t agree with him.”

  God, it was rough seeing her like this. It was one thing to joke about it from the top end of the panhandle, but up close and personal it was clear that her final marble had long since rolled out of reach. She had always been so tough and resourceful, an expert at untangling the yards of red tape that went with the foster care system. And now she couldn’t even untangle her own hair.