The Wolf Witch (The Keys Trilogy Book 1) (17 page)

“Oh. Spittal,” said Grayson. “S-P-I-T-T-A-L. It’s different. It’s what they used to call a safehouse, back in Scotland.”

“Whatever. He wanted to build one on his property, but the swampers are acting up and claiming all kinds of bullshit with the boundary lines.” Reese glared at Charlie. “You said this wouldn’t happen. If I...you know...if I did what I did.”

“No, I hoped,” said Charlie.

“You never told me that at the time,” said Reese, dragging a dish of nuts across the bar towards him.

“Would it have helped?”

Reese stuffed a mouthful of peanuts into his mouth and chewed angrily. “Yeah, it would have helped. It would have meant I didn’t have to
do that
. Because it was fucking pointless, obviously. You said this wouldn’t happen. You said the swamp wolves would fall in line, but they fucking
haven’t
, Charlie.”

“Say it, don’t spray it,” said Charlie. “Maybe stop eating for five seconds - ”

“ -
no
,” said Reese, his eyes beginning to water. “It’s the only way I can get the fucking taste out of my mouth.”

He grabbed another fistful of peanuts and kept chewing as he talked. Kid was clearly on a roll. “And since when do you care so much about boundary disputes? You couldn’t give a shit when Dad was alive.” Reese’s jaws slowed for a minute, and he broke into a stupid, childish grin, red peanut skins sticking between his teeth. “Or maybe you wanna get in good with Mike’s wife. Dad always said you were itchy to fuck that dried up old sk - ”

“ - keep your voice down,” said Grayson, but Reese had stopped short in the middle of a word. His breath stopped in a rasping wheeze and Charlie felt the world slow around him, in one of those strange, suspended moments that came whenever you felt your car slide into an irretrievable skid or looked down to see that the hard thing you’d felt beneath your kitchen knife was actually the tip of your finger.

Reese clutched at his throat, his eyes brimming over. “You okay?” said Charlie, pushing Reese’s drink towards him.

But Reese shook his head frantically. No, this wasn’t just a fragment of something gone down the wrong way. The kid was already turning purple.

Grayson slapped Reese’s back, but nothing came up. Charlie could feel the faint ripple of fear running through the bar as people began to realize the emergency. “Heimlich,” said Grayson. “Do you know how do it?”

Charlie got behind Reese and wound his arms around the kid’s ribs, but it was ridiculous. He couldn’t even feel a rib cage, never mind where it ended. Reese’s midsection felt like a goddamn moonbounce and he was starting to sag towards the floor, fighting for air.

“Under the ribs,” Grayson kept saying. “Under the
ribs
.”

“I can’t
find
his fucking ribs...”

People were shouting all kinds of helpful advice, but Charlie could see Reese’s ear, once a happy, fat-guy shade of pink, turning an awful livid blue right before his eyes. Time was running out so goddamn fast that Charlie’s mind decided to catch up and sped him past the bar, past Reese’s death, forward to a time where Charlie was alone and handling the very prize he’d told Mike Hallett he would never want, could never want, not without getting some vital part of his brain removed.

Maybe it wouldn’t be so hard. Lyle had handled it, after all, and he was barely half as bright as Charlie.

Reese hit the floor. Charlie stood there for a moment, so absorbed in feeling out the weight of his new burden that he hardly noticed the huge figure elbowing past him. A large hand flew past his face and landed between Reese’s shoulder blades, once, twice, then Reese gave a whooping, wheezing breath and everyone who had been holding their own breaths in sympathy let them out in a great collective gust of beer and rye.

“Okay, now. I got you. It’s okay.” Charlie recognized the voice before anything else, that Nordic sing-song that sounded so exotic this far south. Big Joe Lutesinger was kneeling on the floor beside Reese, who was now coughing hard enough to pop his eyes loose from his sockets.

“Oh my God,” said Grayson, in a breathy outrush that Charlie couldn’t tell was relief or disappointment. For an instant there he’d been standing on the precipice of power and his own head was still spinning. No more bullshit, no more prodding the kid to step up to the plate. Just cut straight through it, if he was prepared to take what he’d never really wanted. Sure, it was a piss poor prize compared to Islamorada, and he’d have to fight for his life just to keep it, but what was life without the fight?

Grayson held the glass of water for Reese; the boy’s hands were shaking too much to hold it and when his blurred, wet eyes met Charlie’s Charlie knew that Reese knew exactly how close he’d come. And maybe – just maybe – he had an inkling of how easily the world would keep on turning without him.

Charlie turned back to Joe Lutesinger, another source of bad blood. Some nights he still saw that pale wolf, lying there in a stillness that made it seem smaller, deflated, a bloodstained fur stole. Too far. Too much. Just like Lyle to take a sledgehammer to crack a nut.

A big nut, all the same. Lutesinger was easily six foot six and Charlie had to look up to speak to him.

“Hey there, Fargo. How you holding up?”

“Okay,” said Joe, and the chill in his frost-blue eyes made that long O sound a whole lot less folksy-cute all of a sudden. He had to know Lyle was dead; he wouldn’t be here otherwise.

“You’re a hero.”

“I guess.” Jesus, old Joe the Plumber wasn’t making this easy. Or maybe he hadn’t gone back quite right. After the beating he’d taken it was a wonder he wasn’t lying drooling in a hospital bed. Or a dog pound.

“It’s good to see you,” said Charlie. “In one piece.”

Joe hardly blinked, but Charlie touched his arm, gently steered him around to turn his back to the still-sputtering Reese. “Listen,” Charlie said. “I just want you to know – I think his old man went too far, okay? And I’m sorry I couldn’t do more to stop it.”

“It’s okay. You do what you could. It was something.”

“I know, man. But it wasn’t enough.”

“It is what it is,” said Joe, and glanced over at Reese, sizing him up, like he was trying to figure out what the new regime meant. Him and everyone else, it seemed.

“And Gloria?” said Charlie. “How’s she doin? How’s my old ma?”

*

“Your shower leaks,” said Joe. As soon as he said it he knew it was the wrong thing to say. Rude. If someone let you into their home and let you use their bathroom and spare bed you weren’t supposed to comment on the shortcomings of the same.

Grayson looked up from the couch, where he was sitting in front of a laptop. “I’ll take that under advisement,” he said, reaching up briefly to push a hank of now silver hair back from his forehead. The last time Joe had seen him his hair had still held the very last traces of salt and pepper, and that had only been maybe five months ago.

“Sorry,” said Joe. “I smelled the damp under the tile. It’s like my nose got turned up to eleven or something.”

“That’s got to be an advantage in the plumbing business,” said Grayson, switching off the computer. The reflection of the screen blinked off in his glasses and Joe thought he saw a glimmer of social panic in the older man’s eyes. Joe’s nose was still a sore point.

“Grab a drink. Please. Make yourself comfortable.”

Joe ran a hand through his damp hair and took a seat opposite. There was a bottle of Scotch open on the coffee table, and the foggy, boggy smell of it filled the room, making Joe think of heathery moors and all those old Scottish songs that Gloria had used to sing; her maiden name had been McCormick.

He poured himself a glass. The coffee table was covered in books, some of the elderly, dusty variety that probably only answered to the name of ‘tome’. The other kind were new paperbacks, the covers featuring howling wolves set against full moons, or full moons gleaming down on impossible shining abs. Forget eight packs; some of these guys were sporting sixteens. They were all written by the same author – Jennifer Devine.

“You still doing that, huh?” said Joe.

Grayson removed his wrist bandage, a complicated strappy arrangement that looked like a beige, surgical version of an archer’s bracer. “When I can,” he said, flexing his fingers. “The arthritis is getting worse now.”

“You should get a secretary. Dictate them.”

Grayson smiled and shook his head. “God, no. It’s one thing to write purple prose. Quite another to say it out loud. I’d feel silly.”

“Is feeling silly worse than being in agony?”

“It is if you’re British, yes.”

Joe picked up one of the paperbacks, one of an identical stack. “It looks...interesting.”

“It’s not. People want to read the same tired
Twilight
knock-off story over and over again. Girl meets werewolf, werewolf removes shirt - ”

“ - werewolf ripples abs at girl?”

“For several hundred pages. Yep. I tried to make one a bit more authentic, but the publishers hmmed at me and the reader reviews were fucking savage. Won’t do that again. No amount of full moons and scary, hairy werewolf bikers prepare a man for dealing with romance reading housewives.”

“They’re not interested in the real-life experience, huh?”

“Not remotely,” said Grayson. “They just want to read about abs. And no, I don’t know either. I mean, I like a six pack as much as the next man, but...”

Joe laughed, surprised to find himself charmed. It was the smallest flirt but it felt good. He liked the way Grayson had thoughtlessly batted it into the air; no pressure, no stress. And maybe a little part of him was sore that he’d be off Gabe’s To Do list for now.

“I meant to ask you something,” said Grayson.

“What’s that?”

“Charlie. He’s not really Gloria’s son, is he?”

“Oh,” said Joe, disappointed. “No.”

“Funny. I never knew any of her other fosters refer to her as their mother.”

“Charlie’s different,” said Joe, picking up his drink again. “Gloria would
say
she never played favorites, but we all knew the score. There’s something in him that’s...I don’t know...just like her.”

“Kindred spirits, you mean?” said Grayson.

“That. Exactly. Same attitude. Same sick sense of humor.” He took a swallow of his Scotch; it burned. “And what happened to him was pretty horrible, I guess.”

“Everyone’s nightmare scenario. Yes. Everything we do to keep things like that happening; the basements, the bars, the provisions, the safehouses.” Grayson seemed to light up in spite of the subject. “Do you know Mike Hallett? Mike the Bike? Well, he referred to a safehouse as a
spittal
the other day. How’s that for a taste of the Old Country?”

“Which one?”

“Scotland.”

“Oh. Not my old country. I think my great-grandparents were from Trondheim or something. But Gloria would get a kick out of it, if she was...” Joe stopped talking before his tongue ran away with him. Things seemed to be in a state of flux here, with everything up for grabs and nobody in real control. The last thing he needed was to tip off anyone – even Grayson – that the wolf witch of Islamorada was...what? Dying?

No. He wasn’t ready to face that yet. None of them were.

Grayson sensed the shift in atmosphere and silence settled uneasily .

“To tell you the truth,” said Joe, feeling as though he should reveal something, at least. “Nobody was supposed to know I was here. I was just going to sneak in, take a look around. But then I walked into the bar and...well...”

“What you lack in espionage skills you make up for in first aid training,” said Grayson. “You saved his life.”

“What are you gonna do? Stand there and watch him choke to death?”

“Some might say you had every right.”

Joe sat up, startled by the flintiness in Grayson’s tone. “Some?”

“Not me. But some might.”

“No,” said Joe. “I’m not into that ‘sins of the father’ business. What Lyle did was nothing to do with Reese.”

Grayson cleared his throat. “No. I know this doesn’t help, or make up for what happened to you, but I tried to talk to Lyle about letting you and Gabe go. I did, Charlie did. Especially Charlie. God knows he has his flaws, but that man knows you don’t fuck around with Gloria’s kids, not unless you want to bring down the full force of her mojo down on your head.” He took a swallow of Scotch and sighed. “But you know how Lyle was. Never had time or respect for wolf witches. And my word never had any weight with him, despite what some people might say. I was quite amused to find that in some quarters they thought I was some sort of
consigliere
; in fact he thought I was – and I quote – ‘a snooty English cocksucker who writes kissing books for girls.’”

He drained his glass and went to pour another. He offered another to Joe, but Joe was still working on the first, still unsure as to whether he liked it or not. It felt like the wrong drink for swampy old Florida; Joe could picture himself sipping it happily in a cabin in some snowy corner of Minnesota, but here belonged to tall cocktails and iced white rum.

“How did Lyle die?” asked Joe, while the booze was still making him brave enough to do so.

“Slowly,” said Grayson, with that same stoniness as before. “He should have had the sense to put a bullet in his head before he turned forty-five, never mind fifty. But you know Lyle. He had a habit of hanging on by his fingernails when it came to power. Wouldn’t have a wolf witch, wouldn’t admit he was getting old. He had a billion pills and powders and nostrums he’d picked up off the internet; you look surprised. Didn’t you know he was a massive hypochondriac?”

“No. I didn’t.”

“He was obsessed. Protein supplements, overpriced vegetable juices – you name it. Half of them had the labels in Russian, and you can bet your pink pajamas that
they
weren’t FDA approved.”

“Roid rage?” said Joe. Through the red and black haze of it all he remembered thinking several times that Lyle would
have
to stop soon.

“Probably. Wouldn’t surprise me.”

There was another uncomfortable silence while Joe tried not to remember. Bloody knuckles, steel-capped boots, his head ringing like a bell with every blow and the crunch and squish of his own battered flesh. When they brought out the motorbike chain - that had been the moment when he curled into an even tighter ball and found that place deep inside the center of his self, the one he didn’t think he could even reach unless the moon was full. The place where the wolf lived.