by Rhys Ford
Keller didn’t even fucking blink. Instead, he smiled at Joe, put his phone down, then leaned forward in his chair. “You probably don’t want to move too quickly. I think Kawika whacked you a little bit too hard there. Your pupils are huge. Damned kahuna said you probably didn’t have a concussion, but he’s also the kind of guy who breaks rocks with his forehead, so what does he know? How are you feeling? Sick? Need to throw up?”
“I’m fine,” Joe growled out, spitting his words past gritted teeth. “How about you answer some of my questions?”
“How about if I make you some tea or something first? Then we can talk.” Keller stood up, and Joe’s eyes followed the man’s stretch, nausea flirting at the back of Joe’s throat when he moved his head. “Lots of sugar. I hear that helps. Don’t go anywhere. I’ll be right back. And before you think about heading down those stairs, please think again. Took both of us to get you up here, and you’re going to get halfway down and take a gainer. I might be able to pick you up, but more than likely, I’m just going to grab you by an ankle and drag you back to the couch. I’d rather not do that.”
Joe spent the time Keller fussed around in the kitchen looking around the place. The man—if he was a man—was right. There was no way Joe’d be able to get down the stairs without pitching himself down their length. His head was too fuzzy, and he wasn’t convinced they hadn’t done something to him while he was out. Patting his pockets, he found his wallet and phone were missing as well, so there’d be no calling for a cab or for someone to help. Keller’s phone was across the room, sitting on an ottoman, but by the time he got across to snag it, Keller probably would catch him before he could make a call.
“Not like there’s anyone to call.” Frowning only made his head ache more, and Joe sighed. “Who the hell’s going to believe this?”
The place looked like a normal home—cleaner than he’d expect with a single dad with a teenaged boy, but it definitely bore the stamp of having two males living in close proximity. A collection of shoes and boots were shoved into cubbyholes next to a mission-style bench near the stairs leading down to the street, and the furniture was oversized and soft. Even the sectional piece Joe’d been left on was comfortable and clean, its upholstery unstained and its cushions plump with filling. The art on the walls ran mostly to what looked like kids’ drawings—a collection of ten or so papers framed and arranged on the space above the couch. Dogs seemed to be a theme, but Joe knew better now.
If it was the kid’s artwork from when he was younger, he’d captured life with a wolf father in all its glory, including what looked like chasing balloons or butterflies in a garden.
“Here, sip this.” Keller moved silently on his bare feet, appearing at Joe’s side without a whisper of noise. “And here’s some ibuprofen for your head. Tea’s hot, so be careful.” Putting a water bottle down on the coffee table in front of Joe, he said, “Drink some of that too. You’re probably dehydrated. Lots of adrenaline earlier. That stuff can burn through your system like nobody’s business.”
Damn the man for still being hot, because despite the headache and his dry mouth, Keller was a delectable sight. Taking the hot mug, Joe blew on it, then gratefully sipped at the very sweet tea, feeling relief when the sugared brew began to work to calm the throbbing at the back of his head.
Keller pulled the ottoman over, then sat down near Joe, still slightly out of arm’s reach but close enough a good lunge would take care of the distance between them. “You probably have a lot of questions, and I’m—”
“Just first tell me what the hell I saw,” Joe said sharply. “What are you? What was that guy who was in the alley? The… other guy… said he had business with me. Business he was going to settle, but I’d never seen him before in my life. So, when you’re done explaining what you are, you can tell me what the hell have I walked into.”
“What I am?” Keller cocked his head, studying Joe with a steady, thoughtful gaze, as if Joe’d been the one turning into some kind of dog by the pub’s kitchen door. “I’m a shifter. A wolf shifter. And well, it looks like you’ve walked into a pack squabble that’s about to turn into a war. Or at least it will if I don’t do something about it. Which I will. Right after I do something about you.”
Six
THE GARRULOUS female voice bouncing up the stairs not only sounded familiar, it brought shivers to Joe’s spine. He couldn’t make out what his grandmother was saying, but from her tone, whoever she was speaking to wasn’t going to like anything coming out of her mouth over the next few minutes. Perhaps even an hour, because if there was one thing Joe recognized, it was his pissed-off grandmother coming down on someone for injuring one of her family.
“Joey?” Nana’s frothy hair appeared at the top of the stairs before she did, a cotton-candy swirl of slightly pink curls bouncing furiously up and down as she stomped into the living room. It was obvious she’d hurried to dress, wearing a long red housecoat over a pair of bright yellow pajamas. But oddly enough, she was a sight for sore eyes. “Are you okay? What happened? This Vick kid said you were hurt.”
“Kawika,” the large Hawaiian man behind her said as he reached the top of the stairs. He stood there, quietly scanning the room. “Kah-vee-kah. Not Vicky, strega.”
“You calling my grandmother a witch?” Joe straightened, his head swimming furiously, but he knew that word wasn’t a good one, especially hearing his mother muttering it under her breath about his grandmother since he was a little kid. “Because if you are—shit. I think I’m going to be sick.”
“Joey, lean back before you throw up all over Levi’s rug,” his grandmother ordered. “Ah, here I’ve been calling you Vick all this time. Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Not my way,” Kawika replied with a wide, assuring grin. “Didn’t want to embarrass you. It happens. Names are hard sometimes.”
“I’m glad to welcome you into my house, Strega Zanetti.” Keller stood up, moving the ottoman back with a push of his foot. “Why don’t you sit down, and I’ll get you some coffee. Or maybe you’d like tea? Then we can figure this all out.”
“Again, with the—” The green rose back up, and Joe gripped the side of the couch, wondering if he was going to be able to make it through a single sentence without losing his salad. “Jesus, I’ve got a concussion. Pretty sure about it. What did this guy hit me with?”
“Who hit him? What’s with the hitting? What happened?” Nana strode toward the couch and patted at Joe’s stomach. “Sit down. Let me look at you. You look like you ran into a truck.”
Joe sat.
“Um, I’m going to go down and make sure everything’s locked up. I figured I’d let you tell her what happened. I mean, I got into some of it, but not a lot. Mostly about… you and the other guy getting into it.” Kawika shot a tight grin at Levi, holding up a brown paper bag. “Let me know if you need me, ’cause if you don’t, I’m going to head home.”
“Coward,” Keller said, amusement lighting up his face. “Go on. It’ll be fine. The strega and I will deal with it. Thanks for helping tonight. It could have gone pretty badly if you weren’t there.”
“Yeah, remember that when I start breaking heads on Friday if those assholes can’t keep in line,” the bartender rumbled. “Have a good night, and, well, good luck.”
Nana plopped down on the couch next to Joe, then grumbled at Keller, who stood in the galley kitchen watching a teakettle work up a boil. “Are there more lights in here, or is stumbling around in the dark one of those training rituals no one talks about?”
“Coffee or tea?” Keller asked again, leaning over the island separating the kitchen from the living room to flick on recessed lighting from a switch on the wall. The flare of white made Joe’s eyes water, and he flinched when his grandmother touched his face again. “For tea, I’ve got—all kinds of shit my mom keeps giving me. You’ve got every kind of twig, stick, and berry to choose from. Coffee, I’ve got Vinacafe or… some other kind of Vietnamese coffee. Or I can make a pot.”
“Nana, I can go to the emergency room. It’s better if they—” Joe shifted uncomfortably as his grandmother’s hands grew warm, nearly searing hot on his temples. “Look, I’ve got to get you out of here. There’s things here you don’t know about. I need to find my—”
“He’s a werewolf. I know. The big guy is a kahuna. Which is kind of like a priest but not really. I don’t know much about them. He seems like a nice enough man, even when I got his name wrong.” His grandmother ran her fingers over the tender spot at the back of his head. “Stay still. Let me look at you. Then we can talk.”
“Here’s your coffee, Toni,” Keller said, setting a cup down on the heavy wooden table, edging a few magazines aside to make room. “I told him I’m a shifter, but that’s as far as I’ve gotten. He looked at me weird, so I’m guessing he thinks I’m nuts. Or he’s nuts. One of the two. Maybe even both.”
“What the hell did you put in my food? Because I wasn’t hallucinating before I went into your place. I watched you turn into a dog.” His grandmother slapped his thigh, and Joe pulled his head back. “What the hell? Nana, I’m a cop. I don’t do—”
“Now stop moving so I can make sure all your marbles are lined up. I don’t think you’re that hurt, but I want to make sure. If you’ve still got a headache when I’m done, we’re going to the ER and they can scan you, but it will be a cold day in hell when I can’t fix a tiny thing like this,” she tsked. “And don’t call them dogs. It’s an insult.”
Joe shot Keller a look over Nana’s shoulder, eyeing the man suspiciously. He looked normal, just like he’d looked every other time Joe’d seen him. But the image of his body sculpting itself into something large and furry wouldn’t leave Joe’s mind. None of what he’d seen made sense. Werewolves were for movies and books, beasts with insatiable appetites bent on chewing their way through whatever prey they hunted down.
And usually that included humans.
“We consider being called dogs derogatory. It implies we’re domesticated and bound to humans in servitude,” Keller said, his voice quiet but firm. The shift in his demeanor was obvious. A regal tilt to his head and the feral gleam in his steady gaze was enough for Joe to clear his throat, readying an apology. “But you didn’t know. I get that. Just don’t do it again.”
“Yet you called my grandmother a strega,” he pointed out.
“That’s because I am one, Joey. Sixth generation and proud of it.” Nana pulled away, examining his face. The back of his head felt better, but his cheeks were still overly warm from where her hands rested on his skin. “There. All better. Nothing too bad, but your junior from downstairs has to be more careful, Levi. Boy doesn’t know his own strength.”
“I keep telling him that,” Keller drawled, crossing his legs. “But usually it’s after him throwing someone through the drywall because they’re being assholes, so I don’t think he’s really listening to me when I say it. Okay, Joey, all fixed. Gun, badge, wallet, and all of that is gathered up, and I’ve got a situation with a couple of rival groups I’ve got to figure out. Are we talking about this now, or are you going to break it to him that there are things that go bump in the night besides thieves and blind bats? Because it’s two in the morning, and I’m dead tired.”
“Now would be best,” the diminutive woman sitting next to Joe proclaimed. “Because Joey was always one who needed proof. He’s like his grandfather that way. My Joseph always needed to see things done before he’d believe it. Took him breaking his wrist to finally understand I could help him get it right. Argued with me the whole time.”
“Wait, you think you’ve cured….” Joe moved his head, realizing the throbbing was gone. The churning in his stomach only murmured, an echo of the sick greenness he’d been feeling since he woke up. Turning his neck slowly, he braced himself for the intense vertigo, but it never hit, only a whisper of a mild uneasiness along his temples when he stared at his grandmother. “Okay, what the hell is going on, Nana? Because I think I’ve seriously lost my mind. How the hell can you be a witch? You’re Catholic.”
“Oh boy,” Keller sighed, then rubbed at his face. “I’m going to make an actual pot of coffee. This is going to be a very long night.”
IT TOOK Keller working his body through another transformation for Joe to finally accept what he’d seen. The change itself was both fascinating and horrifying. The creaking and twisting of bone and skin into fur and fang wasn’t something he thought he’d ever get used to seeing, but the wolf emerging from Levi Keller’s human form was undeniably a gorgeous and powerful animal.
With a startling intelligence gleaming in its burnished golden-green eyes.
If there was anything that gave Joe pause, it was the wolf’s changing eye color—a rich spectrum running from gold to emerald with hints of deep sea blue at his dark pupils. Or it could have also been the devilish smirk the wolf seemed to have whenever he glanced Joe’s way.
There was nothing to show Keller’s change—no wispy skin shreds or discarded teeth. Whatever Keller sloughed off turned to dust in a matter of moments after it hit the floor, leaving behind only the slightest hint of grit, and even that seemed to whisper away.
Keller was massive, easily filling the space of his human form, perhaps even made larger by the wealth of pitch-black fur over his lean, muscular body. He was nothing like the other man Joe saw in the alley, something Joe mentioned when Keller walked out of the hall bathroom after he carefully plucked his discarded clothes up off the floor with a delicate nip of his teeth and changed back into his human form.
“Okay, you’re a wolf, then,” Joe exhaled, feeling the heat on his breath as he wondered if it was too late to switch from tea to whiskey. “Then what the fuck was that guy in the alley? Because he didn’t look like a wolf. More like one of those round, bouncing cartoon animals, or maybe one of those make-your-own plushies someone forgot to ease back on the stuffing when filling it.”
“Coyote,” Keller answered him. “Not a wolf.”
“Only for a little bit. Then it sure as hell did not look like a coyote,” he challenged Keller with a tilt of his chin. “For one thing, he was a furry deflated balloon. Secondly, he was a gigantic furry deflated balloon. Coyotes are a hell of a lot smaller than whatever he turned into.”
“If you’re an out-of-shape human, you’re going to be an out-of-shape… whatever you are,” Nana responded quickly. “It depends on weight distribution. Some shifting metahumans bulk up to strengthen their other form. Muscle, fat, and all of that counts.”
“Okay, Nana, the words metahuman and weight distribution are never things I ever expected to come out of your mouth,” Joe said with a sigh. “Jesus, my world is upside down. So he was bigger than a normal coyote because that’s just how it works?”
“Thing about us shifters is we don’t gain or lose mass. It has to go somewhere. Whatever weight you are as a human being, you’re going to be close to that no matter what form you have. It’s not magic. It’s a genetic mutation of some kind,” Keller elaborated. “It’s not so much as you can’t be overweight as a human, but you have to be fit enough to carry the weight you do. So you’ve got huge coyotes and scrawny pygmy tigers. It’s one of the reasons we try not to expose ourselves to the mundane world. Someone’s going to see a two-hundred-pound snow leopard in Lower Mongolia and wonder how the hell did that get there.”
“What about birds? Like, is there a two-hundred-pound hummingbird out there getting stoned off its ass on poppies?” he asked, giving his grandmother a dirty look when she giggled. “Hey, I’m behind here in class. I’m still trying to get over the whole strega thing.”
“Not birds. Usually predators or hunters—like hyena, wolves, and big cats. People think maybe there were sharks, because of gods like Kamohoali’i, but Kawika th
inks they were hunted to extinction. No one alive has ever seen one. Just stories to go on.” Keller picked up his coffee cup, frowning at whatever was left inside. “And we don’t know why we’re this way. Not like we can do open research on ourselves. There aren’t tons of any one of us, although canids and smaller cats are more plentiful. That could be because of hunting or just population. There’s really no history other than oral. Apparently our kind aren’t big on writing things down.”
“Something you disagree with,” Joe guessed, and Keller nodded.
He needed a minute to think. Actually, he debated asking Keller if he had anything strong to drink but didn’t think Nana would even let him have a beer after being knocked senseless. There was too much coming at him, and combined with his suspicions about the Vikings gang resurfacing in the city, Joe didn’t know what to tackle first—Keller being a werewolf, his grandmother being some kind of witch, or that there was an entire society of people he never knew existed and the motorcycle club he worked so hard to break up was a part of that secret world.
Footsteps on the stairs made all their heads turn, but Keller got to his feet, his shoulders squaring off with the landing. The fluidity of his rise was startling, and oddly enough, Joe reacted to it, drawn to stand by the force of Keller’s authoritative stance. He might not carry a star, but Keller’s commanding presence defined his place in the mysterious world Nana appeared to live in. Keller was someone to be reckoned with, a keystone in some puzzle Joe was struggling to fit its pieces together. But one thing was clear—Keller might as well have been wearing a star much like the one Joe carried every day.
“Just me,” Kawika called out before reaching the top of the stairs. “Levi, had to double back ’cause Reilly just called—”
“Los Lobos Reilly?” Keller’s sharp gaze narrowed, and Joe could have sworn he heard a growl roll through the man’s chest. “Why’d he call you?”
