The Wolf Witch (The Keys Trilogy Book 1)

by Anna Roberts

  “Oh shit,” she said.

  *

  The precinct was like the embodiment of all the reasons why people hated Florida.

  The AC didn’t work nearly as well as it needed to, the bathrooms held a lingering odor of stinkroaches and everyone was mad as hell over some kind of traffic infraction. An elderly woman from New Jersey was talking loudly on a cellphone, while her husband recovered from a nose bleed. “...well, no - I think he’s staunched it, but I don’t wanna go to the emergency room until I get this dickhead on file, Janine. I heard the highway cops down here were useless.”

  A bewigged Hispanic hooker sat nearby, giving them the sideeye and huffing irritably every time the woman’s jackhammer voice started up again. Opposite her was a scowling middle aged man in shirtsleeves and a tie; he was trying to avoid all eye contact by energetically fanning himself with a pamphlet about the dangers of texting while driving.

  All in all, a typical Miami scene. Garnish with giant bugs and lousy drivers and serve hot and sweaty.

  Joe drooped at Gabe’s side, his long legs folded under the plastic chair, his blond hair dark with sweat. He didn’t speak and Gabe had a good idea what he was thinking; coming here had felt like the right thing to do, but now that they were here they realized there was nothing to do. Police stations and hospitals - these were just places where you waited when the world fell apart.

  It was like a buzz in the background, this texture of boredom. An anxious kind of boredom, the blank spaces of time only serving to intensify worry and fear, a feedback loop of yawning emptiness and unpleasant consequences. All the way into Miami there had been a strange smell on the wind, something sickly sweet and ruined, and carrying with it the tang of trouble. Big trouble, like the brackish whiff of a hurricane moving towards the coast.

  The hooker crossed her legs and the man with the tie tossed his head in disgust. She caught Gabe’s eye and gave him a glittering wink, her eyelid shimmering like an iridescent fish. He smiled politely back, realizing there was more than met the eye here. Her thighs were broad and her jaw strong, her make up extra thick. When he glanced down at her hands he saw she was cuffed.

  A fat cop came out, his rolls like the inflatable skirts of a hovercraft, undulating as he walked. “Marietta Nunez?” he said, glancing at a clipboard.

  She stood up and held out her wrists. “This ain’t necessary, officer. If anybody’s a flight risk it’s him.” She jerked her head towards the fanning man, who shot her a look of pure hatred and got to his feet.

  “Look, officer,” he said. “I’m only here to clear up a misunderstanding. My car broke down at the kerb and this...young woman...misinterpreted my intentions.”

  Marietta snorted. “Yeah, apparently ‘hey baby, do you still have your boy-junk?’ is some kind of code for ‘I seem to have stalled, please find me a mechanic.’ Who knew?”

  Fanning man waved a finger. “I would never...”

  The fat cop waved them on with his clipboard. “Okay. This way please...”

  “...I’m a happily married man, officer. I have never solicited the services of prostitutes. Especially not...specialty sex workers...”

  Joe stifled a giggle as they were led away. “Yeah,” he said. “Right.”

  “He so tried to hit that.”

  “He totally did.” Joe stretched his legs. “Would you?”

  “Probably. I’d buy her a drink, yeah. You?”

  “Oh sure,” said Joe. “You know me. I’ll try anything once.”

  “Bullshit. You’ve never tried anything once in your life. You always go back for more.”

  Someone opened the door, letting the humidity elbow its way through for an instant. The smell was danker and sweeter for the wet and it brought them both up sharp, reminding them of trouble and the reason why they were here.

  “What do you think that is?” asked Joe, after a short silence.

  Gabe wanted to smack him for saying; making it real. He had been hoping it was just in his head. “I don’t know.”

  Joe exhaled slowly and scratched the nape of his neck. “So it’s not just me, then?”

  “No.” If only.

  “Huh. I thought I was having a stroke for a minute.”

  “A stroke?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “They say that happens. Like if you smell hot metal - usually means you’re about to blow a gasket in your brain.”

  Gabe frowned. “Metal? You smell metal?”

  Joe poked the tip of his tongue out. “I don’t know. Maybe. It’s like an edge. It’s mostly sugar and rot, but yeah - there’s some metal in there. I think.”

  Oh God. Gabe sighed. There was no getting away from it; they were both smelling the same damn thing. “Do you know what it is?”

  “Nope. Smells like death, but different.”

  Death. Trouble. Same sides of the same coin. The door opened again and the smell pushed in once more. “This is Lyle,” said Gabe. “I know it.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “It’s obvious. Either him or one of his dumbass disciples; they killed that girl. They got their ass kicked and they figured out a way to hurt Eli without going south.”

  Joe sucked his teeth. “How? It wasn’t even the full moon. And Lyle’s not that dumb.”

  “Oh, he is.”

  “Charlie, maybe...”

  Gabe gave a humorless laugh. “Are you kidding me? Charlie’s an evil genius. If he ever winds up in charge of North Florida then we are all fucked; he’d make Lyle look like Pope Francis.”

  “Yeah, well that’s not gonna happen, is it? You know Lyle’s got that kid. Didn’t even skip a generation with him.”

  “What? Greasy Reesy? Three hundred pounds of pork rinds and chocolate milk? Yeah - he’s gonna be a real contender.”

  The clock said it was almost midnight. Gabe was thinking about asking someone for information when a young, dark haired cop came out. Her belt cinched her waist nicely and her ass - even in the unflattering police issue pants - was round and firm. When she stepped back from the sergeant’s desk and turned to make her way to the vending machine, Gabe saw that she was pretty. Nowhere near as pretty as Blue Beaufort, but still hot. And more importantly she had that sparky yet slightly bemused expression that women often got after being in Eli’s presence.

  Gabe headed for the Coke machine. He paused there for a while, pretending to deliberate between Sprite and Diet Coke, then caught her eye. “Hey.”

  He glimpsed the name Miranda on her ID tag, but he couldn’t be sure if it was her first or last name. It was too late anyway; the flirtatious twinkle vanished as soon as he looked at her and she was all business. “Can I help you?”

  “Yeah, actually,” he said. “Is Elias Keane still here? And did his attorney come up?”

  She bent to get her can of Diet Dr. Pepper, frowning as she straightened up. “Are you a friend of his?” she asked.

  Gabe waved an arm towards Joe. “Yeah. We’re...” He had no idea what he was doing here. “We’re...uh...character witnesses, I guess.”

  The officer gave a short laugh. “Well, you’re jumping the gun. He hasn’t been charged yet.”

  Yet. Oh shit. “Please,” he said, practically falling over himself in an attempt to do something. And it couldn’t hurt, could it? “He didn’t do this. He was...he was with me.”

  She arched a sleek, black eyebrow and he realized right away how badly he had fucked up. Who knew what alibi Eli had already given them? “All night?” she said, and it was a flash of inspiration. Find something Eli would deny.

  “Yeah,” he said, drawing on all those stupid teenage yearnings to load his words with the right implication. “The whole night.” He knew he could sell this; he had always been derided as a pretty boy. The kind of man who would do if there were no women around. The kind that couldn’t afford to get sent to prison.

  Officer Miranda frowned. “Is that right?”

  “It’s not something he’d admit to,” said Gabe, at once ashamed of how much he wan
ted the lie to be true. That was just Eli; he never quite loosed his grip, no matter how much you told yourself you’d moved on.

  “Really? Because I was under the impression that Mr. Keane was a notorious ladies’ man.”

  “He is,” said Gabe. “He just...he gets less choosy when a lot of booze is involved.”

  “I see,” she said, but then the door opened once again and this time she turned to look as well.

  A small, skinny old lady had walked in, and for a split second Gabe didn’t recognize her; she had tidied her hair and put her teeth in. It was only when he looked down and saw her feet in their blue fuzzy slippers that he realized just who he was looking at.

  “Gloria?” he said. Joe had stood up and was standing there with his mouth hanging wide open.

  She walked straight over to Gabe, with a purposefulness he hadn’t seen in years. “Are you the officer in charge of my nephew’s case?” she said, peering up at Miranda. “His name is Elias Keane. Is he here?”

  “Yes. He has quite the fan club, it would seem.”

  “You have no idea,” said Gloria. “If I had a buck for every girl who had dropped her drawers for him over the years, well - let’s just say I’d be driving a much nicer car.”

  Joe stared at Gabe, but Gabe just shook his head. Driving? Gloria hadn’t been allowed to drive for over three years. He pictured her driving to Miami, without a license and in her bedroom slippers; just the thought of it made him feel lightheaded and sick with worry.

  “No offence,” she said, and touched his wrist. He reached out his hand to her, then just when he thought she couldn’t surprise him anymore, Gloria dropped a set of car keys in his palm.

  They were his.

  8

  One of Lyle’s eyes wouldn’t close properly, so that whenever Charlie raised his head to take a breath that didn’t smell like blood and organs, he inevitably wound up face to face with the clouding, slitted eye. He’d been rummaging around in Lyle long enough to know that a dead body was nothing more than meat, but he almost wished the dead man’s ghost would rise up like Banquo’s and take a seat at the dinner table. Got some fine fresh eats for you, ghostie-man. How’d you like your ass literally handed to you on a platter?

  This was a lot harder than it looked in the movies. You didn’t just Kali-ma into someone’s chest and yank out their heart; there were bones in the way, spongy messes of lung. And tubes. So many fucking tubes.

  Charlie worked steadily, following each one to its source like he was untangling Christmas tree lights. Through the thin motel wall he could hear Grayson talking to Reese.

  “I’m sorry about earlier. I just want you to know it’s nothing personal.” Liar. Grayson had enjoyed that potshot at Reese, and why not? Charlie had been ready to pity the kid on some normal, human level, but Reese was just one of those people who wouldn’t let you.

  Something membrany caught between Charlie’s fingers. He took a slow breath and listened for Reese’s response. None came, and he pictured Reese’s sullen nod, bestowed like some great royal favor. Little prick.

  Charlie breathed hard again, his head spinning, his fingers leaving bloody marks on the side of the plastic bathtub. Hours of forensic fun in here. He had dreamed about doing this, but all his youthful fantasies about yanking Lyle’s rotten heart from his chest now had the dumb, plastic gloss of cheap movies. The reality was messy and complicated. Lyle’s sprawled, dead limbs had that flesh tone that Charlie had seen too young and would never forget, and he knew he would pay in bad dreams for this. Gray-white skin and darkened blood, her turquoise chip birthday ring still on her lifeless finger.

  “This doesn’t happen very often, Reese,” Grayson was saying. “You know how it usually skips a generation. It’s not often so cut and dry as alpha being handed down from father to son...”

  “...I don’t wanna be alpha.”

  “I know that. But this is what we have to work with. And you won’t be alone. But it’s going to go a whole lot easier if we can win over the swamp wolves. They respect family.”

  That was one way of putting it. Charlie heard Reese snort and then there was a bang on the door. Somewhere a new voice joined the others; Big Jim, Charlie guessed. A five foot nothing graybeard with Manson family eyes and a head balder than a porn star’s snatch. Jim knew the score. Like Grayson, he was old enough to remember the bad times.

  Charlie felt something solid under his fingers and his own heart skipped a beat; finally he was close. The smells of blood and poison and the beginnings of rot swam up to meet his sensitive nose and he reeled for a second, leaning back from the edge of the tub. He vaguely registered doors opening and closing in the next room, but then he tasted the tang of metal on the edge of the blood. Not the regular iron. Something colder and sharper and all his. He closed his eyes and waited for someone else to smell it, waited for the whole thing to unravel there and then. In a way it would feel good to tell.

  Instead Grayson tapped on the bathroom door. “How are you doing?”

  “Oh, just dandy.” Charlie fastened his fingers around the heart and pulled. It didn’t budge. Great. More tubes.

  “It’s ironic, really.”

  Charlie narrowed his eyes. “Really?” he said, with slow, simmering patience. “You picked a fine time for musing, Alanis.”

  “Why?” said Grayson. The door opened. Charlie didn’t look up from what he was doing, knowing that if he turned away he would never want to turn back. He heard Grayson gag and step back behind the door.

  “Oh,” said Grayson. “Oh, fuck me.”

  “In your dreams, Sugarplum.”

  Grayson cleared his throat loudly. He was breathing slow and loud like someone trying very hard not to throw up. “Oh God,” he said. “Why did I look?”

  “Yeah, you just clutch your pearls out there,” said Charlie, feeling something thick connecting back there. Come on – this had to be it? Surely. How many things did a heart actually connect to anyway? “I’ll just be in here digging out the goddamn giblets.”

  He nudged something and greenish fluid oozed out of a neighboring organ – the stomach, Charlie guessed. The telltale metal tang rose up over the sour smell. “So?” he said, determined to keep talking. Businesslike. Like he was tinkering under the hood of a car. “What’s ironic?”

  “That we’re even making him do this,” said Grayson, from the other side of the door. “All those years Lyle derided the swamp packs as halfwits and inbreds and now we’re kowtowing to their customs in the hope that they won’t spot an opportunity and recycle the lot of us as hog roasts.”

  “He made fun of them because he was scared of them,” said Charlie. Long pig. Wasn’t that what they called it? The room swayed as the stomach fluid oozed away into the maze of Lyle’s other parts. Goddamn, what a piece of work is man, as Gloria liked to say. What a sack of guts and gristle and all kinds of nasty. And who knew where the rest went when all that was left was just meat?

  “Can you hear him?” Charlie asked. If anyone knew it was Grayson.

  “Who?”

  “Lyle.”

  “No,” said Grayson. “Not yet. Someone killed a hooker in room five and she’s not happy about it. Apparently heroin jones is twice as bad when you no longer have a body to feel it. Think phantom limb itching, but all over.”

  “That’s fucking creepy.”

  “I’m used to it.”

  Charlie’s hands cramped inside of Lyle’s chest cavity, and for a panicky second he thought he’d never get his thumb to go back to its proper position and it would be caught behind a rib forever. And the stink under his nose would only get worse.

  He wrenched his hands free with a hideous sucky sound, and reeled back before those baby carrots came right back up on a tide of sweet tea. His hands were red to the elbows and beyond, the blood so deep under his fingernails that he knew he’d be looking at the clotted little crescents long after the rest of Lyle had gone to the gators.

  “You had that all your life? That Haley Joel Osme
nt thing?” Charlie said, determined to talk about something other than flesh. Spirit would do just right.

  “Yep. Even before I knew I had the werewolf gene.”

  “So? You think Lyle will show up?”

  “Why?” asked Grayson. “Are you expecting him for some reason?”

  A lot of reasons. The pills were still in Lyle’s bag, but nobody would look twice at them; those homeopathic things were nothing more than overpriced sugar pills. Besides, he’d been old. Fifty was ancient by werewolf standards, long past the age where you could expect to wake up from a rough moon with dog brains or the wrong liver.

  “I don’t know,” said Charlie, choosing his words carefully. He thought of angry ghosts, chairs knocked over, light bulbs swinging for no reason. No, Lyle wasn’t here. If he was they would know about it. “I guess I’m expecting him to be pissed. He hung on for so long, you know? Stubborn.”

  Charlie looked back at the body, a skinny bare arm hanging over the edge of the tub, one eye already starting to sink back into its socket and the other a half-lidded glare. Belligerent old bastard; even in death he wasn’t giving an inch. “Right. I’m going back in. That thing has got to come out.”

  “Try not to cut it too much.”

  “Yeah. Thanks for the advice. You want to get in here and give it a shot?”

  Grayson went quiet. Charlie dug in again. It was cool inside Lyle now, like butcher meat left out overnight.

  “You know what was strange?” said Grayson.

  “I have no idea.”

  “Lyle’s place. The last time I was there it was silent.”

  “Fascinating.” Something gave in there. Was this it?

  Grayson ignored his sarcasm. “Not a whisper. Nothing. No resonance, no voices. I know it was a relatively new house but you still get a background noise, even if humans haven’t lived and died on that exact spot before. Like a hum, like something plugged in to life. Gophers, earthworms, anything. I expect even bacteria make it on some level.”