"Probably just as well if I don't." Estelle said amicably to the scarred man who was trying to not look as scary as he was. The smile was a nice touch, but she was fairly certain it didn't reach his eyes, not that she dared to look into them. She felt very keenly the dangerous game she was playing there and still wasn't entirely certain what kept her at it.
"See ya around," she said giving it an intonation that was half question, half statement. With a smile that dimpled her cheek she turned and left, something not quite there, but very real cradled in her hand.
Once outside the door she slipped around the corner into the small slice of shade the building and the sun conspired to provide and uncurled her finger to reveal the barely visible bit of spirit that looked like dissipating smoke the size of a mouse. She lifted it to her mouth and breathed a bit across it and felt it shiver in her hand. It was a little thing, a half-formed bit of spirit matter that was just beginning to form into sentience. Something like the echo of all the mice and rats that had ever lived in that bar, pulling together to form its own conscience. At least that's how she always understood it, though Giga had brushed off her tries at explanations, telling her somethings didn't need to be understood to be used. She'd often been chided for overthinking and over-questioning.
When she pulled back it seemed just a tab more substantial. She smiled ruefully. She was manipulating it, molding it and assuming that it would be better for it. Such was the way of things, Giga had told her, still, she felt strange to be taking such a new thing and changing it to suit her needs like she had the right simply because she had the means.
She knew she didn't have the time for qualms of morals about the ethical application of spirit stuff that she had done her best to forget for the past few years. She focused her will, pressing it down upon the thing in her hand, putting ideas into it, giving it reason and drive and a sense of artificial purpose, convincing it that her pleasure at its service was its sustenance. It shivered in her palm, pleased to have a reason to be. She then set it on the ground and pushed into it a need to catch onto the man she'd been talking with.
It wasn't going to be able to tell her anything about him, it wasn't formed enough to pass along information like the other, well fed spirit had, but she would know where it was, and thus, where he was, for the small bit of time the thing would exist without her reinforcement. Crude, maybe cruel, but not bad as far as improvisations went.
Focusing on the feeling of accomplishment rather than the niggling doubts of guilt, she moved back to her car, noted that cat was still there, despite the heat and the open windows.
"Well," she said to the beast as she slid onto the hood to wait for Hassun to come out of the bar, "hope you haven't developed a taste for people."
It sat watching her with an intensity that she found disquieting. So she ignored it and pulled out her phone (which didn't get much in the way of reception) and held it to her ear as a cover for why she was still there. Soon enough she heard the door of the bar open and caught just the barest glimpse of the man just as she felt a strange sliding feeling that told her the little bit of spirit had done as she'd compelled it. She grinned, punched the air in victory and slid off the hood of her car.
The last place Mars wanted to be was the center of town. Back at the house, bed was still calling his name, insisting on more, much needed sleep, but he didn't trust Delphine enough to close his eyes. This errand from his crazy mother sufficed just fine, allowing him to get out of the house for a few hours and work off some of the paranoia that still surrounded him. His mind was full of many things, lots of doubts and worries, and the lingering feeling of loss—though he didn't exactly know what he was missing. Shaking his head, half in disgust and frustration, Mars got back into his car.
For a few moments, he just sat there, smoking the cigarette that he didn't truly want. His hand hung out of the window, fingers flicking ash away every couple of minutes as the acrid smell of smoke mixed with the heat of the day. It was easy to waste time, and Mars let his eyes travel to the rear-view mirror, surveying the mostly empty street behind him. There were a few people about, some men and women on their way to work or heading to lunch, a few kids who looked bored and ready for trouble. It was the introduction of a pick-up truck that truly caught his attention, or rather, the man driving it.
Turning in his seat, Mars squinted, trying to get a good look at the driver. That long, black hair was a dead giveaway, as was the scent that trailed behind him. Mars cursed under his breath, flicking his cigarette out of the window and into the street, intent on following Hassun and—well, he didn't really have a plan—but this was his territory. Gabriel had already managed to make a joke of his leadership, he wasn't going to let the other man just move in on what was his before his body was even cold.
With incredible force, Mars turned the key in the ignition and the engine in the old car sputtered and strained, failing to come to life. "Piece of shit," he snapped, trying again, only to produce the same noises. He smacked his hand against the steering wheel, hitting the horn in the process and causing some passers-by to look his way. He stared them down, jaw set as he realized that Hassun was gone and there wasn't anything he could do about it.
The mirror revealed all kinds of things that afternoon, and Mars was quickly out of his car once more. After spending the entire night with Estelle, trapped in that shack she called a house, Mars was sure that he would have known that mess of hair anywhere. Coincidences were rare, and her car was parked too close to where Hassun had just come out. More paranoia followed and Mars couldn't help but wonder if she sold him out to the enemy, or if she had been the enemy this entire time. It was hard to tell anymore, hard to trust anyone and he didn't even know this woman.
"Little meeting?" he asked, tone rather accusatory as he laid a hand on the hood of her car. It was warm, bordering on uncomfortable, but Mars didn't take his eyes off of the witch. He wanted answers; needed them, or else things were about to get much worse.
The sensation of the thing she'd just given purpose to drifting away was so strange and singular that for a moment the world slipped away. As the thread connecting them stretched she found the sensation fascinating in the way it stretched and thinned but didn't snap. She was just experimenting with letting her awareness of it go and then picking it back up with ease when a bit of shadow fell upon her.
The sun had found its way past the bulk of the bar the air around her had grown heavy with heat so the bit of shadow should have been welcome, only it was not. Startled, Estelle gasped and dropped her crappy phone. It clattered and skittered to the ground, sliding under her car. Mars, looking like thunder incarnate stood before her, his hand planted on the hood of the car fencing her in. She felt her heart race and her stomach flip-flop. He was so very close and so damn big. She wasn't sure if it was his alpha-hood, his wolf-side or just the fact that he was pissed, but she could feel something roiling off of him and rippling over her skin. She was afraid to make contact with him then, if there were sparks and tingles when they'd touched before, she was certain someone would get hurt if they touched now.
He asked about a meeting and she swore she could hear something grinding as he did so, his teeth? His fingers ripping a hole in her hood? She couldn't' look away to see.
"Meeting?" she asked, confused, hoping to buy herself some time. Her tone was something tight and strange and even to her ears it sounded just a hair guilty. Then she added all the pieces together, his glower, where she was and what he must have seen and what he must be thinking about it.
"Oh." She said and her confused expression changed into something bright, sunny and more than a little proud. Behind her, through the windshield the cat, around whom lingered the stench of death, stared at Mars. Its ears were flattened as it regarded him though it did not deign to growl.
"Not a meeting so much as an accidental opportunity." She grinned up at him, waggling her brows a little in delight, the expression more than a little impish in the wake of her fear. She should maybe be flinching, or shying away, her cheek still throbbed from the blunt side of Shawn's anger but she couldn't.
"I saw your buddy head into a bar just as I was thinking I needed to get something to eat. So I followed to see what he was about. He was waiting so far as I can tell. Only no one came and he seemed more than a little pissed about it. So when he left I put a marker on him. It won't tell me stuff like what the other sprit did or much of anything but where he is at any given moment."
She paused to brush some of her hair out of her face, tilting her head to regard him. "I know technically it isn't any of my business any more but, well…" she shrugged, "It seemed to good an opportunity to pass up."
Anger or not, she moved the hand that had brushed her hair away to poke him squarely in the center of his chest, the same spark and tingle that had been there all along, unchanged on her end by his anger.
"So" she said, punctuating each word with a light jab, "What are you doing here?"
In the back of his mind, a logical part that hadn't been obscured by anger and paranoia, Mars knew that he had no right to feel betrayed by Estelle. They barely knew one another, and up until the night before, Mars hadn't even liked her. There was something maddening about seeing her path cross with Hassun's however, something that just set him on edge and made him feel like he was in this all by himself. If he couldn't count on Estelle, the gifted witch from out of town, who was going to be there for him?
It was clear that his presence was a surprise, and as her phone clattered to the ground and slid beneath her car, Mars didn't bother to look for it. He wanted all of her attention, to look into her eyes and see more than the wary uncertainty he was currently getting. He noted, however, that she didn't look guilty, just nervous as they faced one another. Standing there, the sun at his back, Mars knew that he was intimidating and although he didn't like to make women nervous, there was always an exception. He wanted answers, and his mind couldn't take any more unneeded worry.
"Yeah, a meeting," Mars repeated, still staring her down. If this was anyone else, Jules or Gabriel, he would have acted without thinking, solved the problem with violence and left the parking lot for another depressing part of town, but Estelle needed to be handled with care. It was hard to tell what she could to do him, or what she may have already done.
As she went on, recalling an opportunity rather than a set up, Mars relaxed slightly. His shoulders remained squared, jaw still tight as he contemplated her words and actions, the lack of nerves in her words. She sounded so light, so airy and proud of herself and those same feelings of awe and wonder began to return. For a moment, he was sure that she had put some kind of spell on him, but the touch of her finger to his shirt-covered chest brought him back to reality. That spark remained, literally as it sunk into his skin the same way her words finally passed into his mind, getting past the assumptions and anger that had originally brought him over to her.
In the end, he chose to believe her. What reason did she really have to lie?
"Getting my mother a new pack of cigarettes," he answered, "the devil stole her last one." That wasn't important, however, and Mars wanted to hear more about Hassun. He was surprised that Estelle had gone out of her way when he hadn't even paid her full fee yet. "Was he dumb enough to say who he was waiting for?" he asked, giving a sidelong glance to the cat in the passenger seat. It didn't seem to like him much—that old cats versus dogs rivalry—oh well.
"You wanna come with me?" he asked, flashing her a grin in his new-found calmness, "you can bring your new friend." Either way, he needed to get to the trailer park because Eula wasn't going to wait for much longer. If he didn't show, she might try and drive into town and the last thing that he needed was her hitting another pedestrian just trying to cross the street.
"The devil, huh?" she said as she looked up at him, the bright afternoon sun casting a full body halo around him. Only he didn't look like no angel, far, far from it. Still, she felt the anger slid out of him though his posture didn't change a lick. It was simply a change in the air or atmosphere but it was decidedly easier to breathe just then. So she took a deep breath, redolent with the scent of fry oil needing to be change and burgers.
It was strange to think of him having a mother. She knew that he had to have been born, but to think of someone holding that position, wiping his ass, burping him and signing off on his report cards felt odd enough she wanted to giggle. In her head—courtesy of the blood loss no doubt— she could picture a baby's body with a scowling Mars' head upon it. And he was asking her along to visit this creature who had born him. Was the woman a werewolf? Was that how it was done? She hadn't ever expected to be dealing with them and so hadn't paid much mind to the how of such things. She sensed it would be in bad taste to ask out right. She'd have to see what Giga could tell her, after she'd met his mother.
Because how the hell could she say no to that? The only other thing she had to do just then was stumble into a hospital and scramble to come up with a lie that wouldn't wind up with her stuck for observation. She supposed she could always head back to her cabin and become the target for Giga's frustrated ire as she puzzled out what the thing in the spirit jar meant.
"Sure," she said, beaming. "Sounds great. Does your mom like and or need a new cat? I sort of got this one by accident." The feline in question continued to watch Mars with the greatest of suspicion in its well-fed eyes.
Remembering how-when-and-why she'd acquired the feline sobered her up a little, though the image of Baby-Mars pressed against it and threatened to topple her hard-won self-control. She'd have to talk to Giga about Willa and her untimely demise though she was filling with dread on the matter. Things were unsettled and she'd chosen a really shitty time to come home.
"So, where's your mom live?" she asked, gently pushing him back a little so she could hop down off of her hood without ending up plastered against him. "Hopefully not Cypress Downs. I've been there today and it was a mess though I suppose the EMTs and police and such are probably mostly cleared out by now. Probably still neighbors milling about speculating about the whole thing." She was pulling out her keys when it occurred to her to look up and ask,
The town was full of so much crazy shit that most people didn't bat an eye anymore, but Mars was relieved to see a lack of cringe or humor on Estelle's face. Delphine was never that way about his mother, always going out of her way to say something awful. Eula wasn't innocent by any means, but Mars constantly found himself in the middle and at a time where he could barely keep his head on straight, the last thing he wanted to do was break up a fight between his wife and his mother. Bringing Estelle along was, somehow, a safer choice.
"My mom'll keep anything if you leave it at her place," he informed her, not thinking that the crowded trailer was the best place for an animal. The feline seemed wary of him anyway, seeming to sense that he was technically plotting its demise. "You should keep it, though," he said, gaze returning to the mystery of a woman in front of him, "accident or not. He suits you." Mars wasn't sure how Estelle acquired the cat, but he thought it best not to ask. Animals were part of ritual sacrifice among witches—at least that was what he'd always been taught.
Maybe bringing Estelle to his mother's trailer wasn't such a good idea.
Leaning back, electric current lingered through his skin as Estelle broke the news about the trailer park. For such a small town, historic in its own right, trailers had certainly become the preferred housing. He had been raised in one himself, the same one Eula continued to reside in and hoard up; she was never going to leave. "Someone die?" he asked, going for the obvious. People were old at Cypress Downs, and it was never a surprise when one of them keeled over. Mars was sure that his mother would have all of the details and then some by the time they arrived.
Nodding at her question, Mars grabbed his own keys from his back pocket and let them dangle between them. "If she doesn't see my car, she might think I'm the devil trying to lie to her," he explained and gestured over to the maroon-colored beater in front of the corner store. He waited for her to gather herself, cat included before leading the way. At the car, he even got her door for her like the gentleman his mother had attempted to raise. The last time he'd gotten Delphine's door, she was still his girlfriend.
Much like everything else in town, the driver over to the trailer park wasn't far. Mars did his best to make conversation on the way, still curious about Hassun. "You never answered me back there," he said, one hand on the wheel and the other lazily hanging out the open window. It didn't matter how fast they drove, the breeze was never going to be cool enough. "Did Hassun say anything important, or are we playing the waiting game again with your spirits?" He smiled, glancing over at her.
"Sure," she said as the sun flashing on his keys danced across her face like fairy lights. "You can drive, it's not like I'm going anywhere just now."
She wasn't. Her behavior and attitude were almost like she'd accepted her place in that rancid shack on the bayou. She hadn't, it was just temporary, wasn't it? The truth was, she realized as she slid into Mars' car, she'd lost track of her purpose in the chaos and excitement of the job for Mars. She was supposed to be in the area just to tie off the loose ends of Giga's estate, nothing more. That it was also a good time to hide from Shawn and collect herself had aided her delay. Giga's spiritual presence (which had still not exactly been explained away) complicated things. What was the old Bat doing, lingering and haunting? Was she haunting the place or haunting Estelle? It was a terrifying though, picturing herself going through life with that old bat mouthing off at her at random moments. If she allowed herself the luxury of thinking she might someday have a two story house, a husband and a picket fence the fantasy was shattered with a phantom cackle from Giga. A house she'd never and a man she'd never find if she stayed there.
Her thoughts were bleak in as he drove. Like him she stuck her arm onto the window, any bit of air a relief. The cat, who had allowed itself to be carried to the car was now curled up on her lap like it wasn't ninety plus degrees out. The damp air made her hair a wild nest of curls, making her feel even more the swamp witch she didn't want to be.
She was pulled from those bleak thoughts by his question. Turning her moon-pale eyes towards him she shrugged. "No, I guess I didn't answer you, though it wasn't me dodging so much as there wasn't anything to say. I played stupid bimbo and he seemed to buy it. He was guarded and wary and more than a little irritated. So I didn't press. I just took the opportunity. But waiting game? No, this one won't tell us anything. Just…" She closed her eyes and opened herself up just a little. There was a buzz of energy to her left, Mars and his primal-self, she noted before pushing past it. It took but a moment and was relatively faint but it was easy enough to find and clear enough all told. She lifted her hand and pointed.
"He's heading that way." She said. "I'm not so good with distances but I wouldn't take us too long to catch up I think. So it is of limited use but better than nothing."
She opened her eyes and looked at him, her mouth tight, watching his reaction. The arch that held the sign of Cypress Downs momentarily darkened her face and she looked around. People were milling about but it looked like the emergency vehicles were largely cleared out. People dying in Trailers were clearly routine business around here. She didn't see a cat either and hoped this one took its cues from its friends and vanished. It began to purr and kneed her leg with its paws. She hissed as it dug a claw into the bandage that covered her clumsily done cut that still hadn't been taken care of.
"Cut the shit," she said to it, lifting it up and resettling it as they pulled into a gravel patch next to a trailer not too far from Willa's. So it seemed that Mars' Mama might have seen the show this day, but more importantly, might have seen something the night that Willa had died, or something in between.
"Lead the way," she said as she opened the door and stood up. The cat didn't budge.
-
A rusty two door car that had seen its birth decades earlier came to a stop in a thin patch of gravel that showed more mud than rock. The door squealed when it opened and a tired looking woman in a t-shirt already stained with sweat stepped into the hazy sun. She tipped the seat forward and scooped up a thick brown paper back that rattled when she pulled it against her. Beer, good stuff, not the kind that came in the dozens, clinked in her arms. It was an offering, a comfort and maybe, hopefully liquid courage. She shut the door with a shift of her hip and then hustled down the dock towards her house on stilts.
"Sweetie?" she called as she put her keys down onto the battered table that stood near the front door, a table littered with unopened mail and take out menus. "I brought you some beer."
Her cheerful tone was not replied to. So she set the beer down on the table, pulled out two dark brown bottles and employed the use of the mounted bottle opener to crack the lids. The fell into the pail kept beneath it with a tinkle that sounded loud in the silence of the house.
"Sweetie?" she called as she moved to the main room in their humble abode. She could see his hands resting on the arms of the battered green chair and sighed. She walked towards him across the pitted wood floor, clinking the bottles together hoping to catch his attention. She stepped around the chair, holding a bottle out only to drop it to the ground.
It shattered and the deep brown liquid spilled, mingling with the sticky pool of red that was drying on the floor beneath the chair.
She screamed and let the other bottle drop.
-
Hassun's phone rang in the darkness of his pocket. It rang and rang and rang and would continue to ring until he answered it. The electronic notes of his ringtone just a touch off. When he did answer it a voice like rotting velvet spoke with no preamble.
"Darling, you should come to see me. We have things we must talk about. The game has changed and a problem I thought I took care of seems to have returned." There was a pause and the line crackled like a storm was approaching.
"Oh yes, I almost forgot, I got you a present."
A click, then silence, broken only but an occasional crackle.
Going after Hassun may have been as easy as a U-turn, but Mars was hardly prepared for the confrontation. "That way doesn't tell me much," he chuckled, though somewhat discouraged. If Estelle's spirit was going to stick around, he was confident that his path would soon cross with the other alpha's once more. For now, it was best to stay on schedule, lay low and go about his day for as long as things were normal until fate forced his hand or a plan could be worked up. The main problem was still Gabriel, and Jules by association. Mars needed time to figure out where he stood with his former friends, or if Jules was smart enough to jump back to his side and stay there.
"We'll get him later," he decided a moment later, the sign for Cypress Downs welcoming them into poverty-stricken paradise.
There were a few crowds of people sticking together up and down the block, the neighborhood seeing more activity than it had in months. Mars gawked at a few of them, raising his hand in a wave when someone recognized him. Most knew him from childhood, friends of his mother or parents of people he'd now lost touch with, but Mars was still polite. Beside him, the cat's kneading was a nice reminder of their dilemma from the night before. "How's the thigh?" he asked, wondering if she had taken care of it, or if she was still in need of stitches. Eula may have been nuts, but she was still a wonder with a needle and thread.
Once the car was parked, Mars grabbed the cigarettes from the top of the dashboard and breathed a short sigh. The trailer in front of them used to be white, but the bottom panels were rusted and the overhang was a dull shade of green, torn in places and completely fallen through in others. The place had never been something to marvel at, but it had been a little nicer in his youth. Eula didn't care to keep it up anymore, and Mars didn't have the kind of time he used to. As they walked up the creaky steps, some of the weeds in the yard licked at the rotted wood, ghosting across the old planks and nearly high enough to touch the railing.
"She's mean," he warned, shooting Estelle a cautious look before giving a few knocks on the door. It was just a courtesy, a way to let the woman inside know that she had familiar company before Mars opened up the screen door and let himself and Estelle inside. "Mama?" he called out, flattening his back against the wall so that the two of them could fit semi-comfortably. The walkway was filled with junk, shit from garage sales and thrift stores that no one in their right mind truly needed. Cleaning the place out was yet another thing that Mars lacked the energy for.
There was still some space in the living room, thankfully, and Mars shuffled ahead until his feet were back in front of his body. From the other side of the house, a shuffle could be heard and Eula's rough voice rang out before her small body was visible. "What took you so long?" she asked, making her way down the cramped hallway and into the living room as well. She was a short woman, bony and somewhere in her sixties with grey hair pulled back into a tight bun. The glasses on her face made her eyes look much larger than they actually were, but the deep green color had obviously been passed onto her son.
So had the frown on her face as she inspected Estelle with a suspicion that rivaled the man from the bar.
"You're not Della," she said, eyebrows raised behind her glasses. "Where's Della?" Eula held her hand out, bony fingers asking for the evidence of the errand.
Handing over the cigarettes, Mars supposed that he should have been honest sooner. "She's at home," he replied tiredly, "she doesn't like coming over here because it's a mess."
"She don't like coming over here because she's a bitch!" Eula argued before popping a cigarette into her mouth and digging into the pocket of her house dress for a packet of matches. She struck one, the dust in the air at risk of catching the whole place on fire. "Who are you?" she asked, wolf-like eyes shifting to the girl.
"What was that about the devil stealing from you again?" Mars asked, trying to turn the conversation around, but Eula wasn't having any of it. She held a hand up, effectively silencing a man with so much power as she continued to look at the woman in her living room, trying to figure her out.
On the outskirts of town, Hassun's truck finally crossed the bridge over the river and he was back in his own territory when his cell phone rang. He reached for it, angrily twisting in his seat and assuming it to be Jules. If the man thought that he was going to turn around now then he was out of his fucking mind.
Upon answering, however, an unexpected voice filled his ears. For as powerful as he was, there was a sickness to this woman that went unmatched by anyone else on his side of the river. When she called, people came—that was just the way it was.
"I'm close," he relayed, nodding although she couldn't see him. "I'll meet you in five minutes."
The rest of his drive was tense, amped up by a sense of urgency and mystery as he wondered what had gone wrong, and what she may have in store for him. Hassun racked his brain, trying to figure out a woman who was always so many steps ahead of him, but came up blank. It was likely a good thing that his mind was so busy, it made the drive faster and Hassun surprised himself by how quickly he found himself on her porch.
As usual, he gave a knock and waited politely for an answer.
Estelle made a face at him, a scrunched up, just short of sticking out her tongue sort of face. "I didn't say it was going to be super helpful. I was improvising."
She rolled her eyes, shook her head in mock disgust and looked out the window at the lingering people.
"Thigh's ok." She said without looking at him. "I came here earlier to get it looked at but that didn't work out." She pointed out the trailer with the police tape across the front stoop and the cats lingering in the yard. She lifted her stray and pointed its compatriots out to it but it didn't seem inclined to join them.
"I don't suppose you knew Willa Jensen? That was her trailer."
She continued looking over the crowd, recognizing a few of the faces in the crowd though not for themselves, simply in that she'd seen them lingering about earlier after the ambulance had shown up. If any of them recognized her they didn't seem to notice her inside Mars' car. She saw a few of them nod at Mars and wondered if they nodded because he was Mars and they knew him or if they nodded because he was The Alpha. She looked back over at him, pale eyes narrowed wondering how odd it seemed that he was a real person with a real life and family. She still wasn't certain if she was about to meet a crazy old werewolf biddy or if she was meeting his Mama who didn't know a thing.
She grinned when he warned her that his Mama was mean. She could handle mean and then some. Giga had put her through her paces in the mean department, she was certain she could handle whatever this one sent her way. She followed him in without comment and simply looked with interest, not pity at the maze of mess that filled the trailer. She was from too low a place herself to pass judgement on such habitation. Her Mama might have given this woman some competition if she'd even managed to land a permanent residence rather than hopping from boyfriend to boyfriend. No, Estelle was not inclined to judge and simply looked forward to seeing a little slice of Mars she might not otherwise have seen.
The voice that called out, crackling like a whip and just as stinging was no disappointment. Estelle grinned in anticipation, finding the oddest delight in the potential scene. Eula was certainly not a disappointment. Small and weathered she looked every bit as mean as her voice implied. Estelle looked for similarities between the small woman and the large man beside her and found little. Something around the eyes perhaps? Her grin grew when the old woman focused her attention on her and snapped her whip-crack of a question and so effectively silenced her large and powerful son. She couldn't help the way she flashed that bright-eyed grin at Mars, some perverse delight enjoying the scene. It was as if she was swimming in a pool of ambiance, warm and rich with the local flavors that didn't seem so bad when she knew she was leaving them and not trapped by them. Turning back to the woman she nodded her head courteously, extending her hand for a shake.
"Hello Mrs. Latier, I'm Estelle. Estelle Moreau, Lauralee Moreau's granddaughter." She never introduced herself via her mother if she could help it, as chances were they didn't know her of if they did they made assumptions about Estelle based on that, that she didn't want to foster. Most people around these parts knew about Giga, forgetting in her good mood that Giga was dead and that most people up on the town gossip would know that, or the fact that she'd neglected to mention it to Mars on more than one occasion.
The house was in the beginning stages of dilapidation with a slight stink about the place that seemed to come and go depending on the heat of the day. It was the sort of house that would likely be reclaimed by nature within a generation, like so many of its neighbors. But for now, it sufficed. The door opened at Hassun's knock though no one was behind it. It was a creepy trick that its wielder never seem to tire of, one he'd seen a great many times in their association. There was a skittering sound, from something unseen and then a fermented sweet voice called out from down the narrow hall.
"In here my sweet, you made good time. In this I am pleased."
A trail of smoke, to sweet and cloying to be a commercial cigarette drifted down the hall as if carried the voice.
"Come along, come along."
Lounging on a moldering sofa as if it were a couch in Caligula's court lay the woman he knew only as Ophelia. Her face was painted thickly with foundation that never ran despite the heat. It was seamless, the skin almost surgically taut as it stretched over fine bones and up into her hairline which was concealed by a blonde wig that was slightly akimbo on her head. She word a gauzy robe in an acid green that made her foundation look sallow. The ropes of pearls around her neck served to emphasize the withered crevasse of her cleavage. Her body under the gown was slender, almost fleshless and she held herself with a sensual air that belied the strange emaciation of her body. An astute observer would note that though the years looked like they had not been kind to her, they looked like they had taken less of a toll now than when they had first observed her.
"Here," she said with a laugh and plucked something out of her half-empty martini glass and tossed them through the air to him. Whether he caught them or let them fall, it would be immediately apparent that it was a pair of human eyeballs, Jules' to be exact.
"We had a little problem and I took care of it. I mislike having to clear up your messes, Sweet Hassun. I have enough of my own don't I? I thought I killed that witch but it seems I didn't do as good a job as I had thought. So now it is up to you. I cleaned up your mess with the puppy and now you will clean up my mess with the spider. Understand?"
Behind her in the shadows of the room beyond something skittered and chittered, the darkness moving in agitation.
A plume of smoke wafted up around the old woman, mingling with the dust and general stuffiness of the air, only making the cramped trailer more toxic. "Ain't never been no missus," Eula corrected, sounding pleased with herself. She took another drag on her cigarette, sucking the acrid smoke down into her lungs before exhaling through her nose at the girl's name. The town itself was small enough that everyone knew everyone else, neighbors were more than people who just lived side by side, and gossip was the lifeblood that kept everything going. Magic wasn't something that Eula had ever condoned, but the disapproval in her eyes, very much reserved for her own son, stayed on mysterious Estelle Moreau.
"Apple don't fall too far from the tree, huh?" she asked, hinting at a deeper meaning as she pushed past the girl, a bony elbow into one fleshy bit or another as she made her way to the kitchen. There was enough abuse left for Mars as well, a smack on his strong chest that was more menacing than playful.
If she weren't so frail, Mars knew it would have stung. As alpha, the town belonged to him, and sometimes, magic was necessary. He respected his mother, but her house was merely a pit-stop on the way to something more sinister. "You need anything else then?" he asked, growing annoyed and itching to leave. No matter the reason for the visit, Mars' skin was always crawling whenever he stepped foot into his childhood home. The fake wood paneling on the walls were popping off left and right, and the spots of visible carpet toted questionable stains. This place was nothing to him anymore.
"Why?" Eula asked, rummaging around in the once-white refrigerator, glass clinking as she produced a pitcher full of tea. "You got a hot date with some magic pussy?" She smirked, letting the ash from her cigarette fall to the floor as she produced a set of old glasses. They were printed with yellow flowers, surely found at some garage sale to keep with the running theme. Eula poured the tea and offered Estelle a glass, a wry look to her weathered features as poison welled within. "He ain't gonna leave his wife for you, girl," she shook her head, lips pursed and rather smug, "not when he got that big old house with all that land."
Jaw set, Mars bit down on his tongue. "It ain't like that, mama." It was, sort of, like that, though. He hadn't been able to get Estelle off of his mind since meeting her, and the universe seemed intent on continually crossing their paths. However, the glare wrinkling Mars' eyebrows softened some as his mother shoved a cold glass of sweet tea into his hands. At least if his mouth was busy drinking, he couldn't say something out of line.
Nothing set Hassun on edge quite like Ophelia, but like most things, he hid it well. When the door was opened by a phantom hand, Hassun stepped inside and let his senses adjust to the overwhelming nature of the house. For someone with heightened senses, the interior was a confusing nightmare and it always took Hassun a moment or two for his nose to adjust to the cloying and sour smell of old cigarettes and rot. Wrinkling his nose as he stepped further into the house, Hassun found Ophelia in her normal spot
Sometimes, he wondered if she ever moved from that old sofa.
Although her appearance was no longer shocking to him, seeing the older woman up close was always a sight. She was draped in a sick riddle, fitting for the toxic color she adorned herself with. They may have been working together, but his more primal senses had always found something uneasy about her, something that didn't quite shine. Standing there, however, shoulders squared among the decay and that viper-like gaze, he reacted quickly to her throw.
The slimy yet firm texture filled his hands and at first, Hassun thought this was her way of asking for another drink until her voice filled in the gaps. Upon further inspection, what he had originally taken as olives, were adorned with pupils. Ringed around the blackness was a swath of deep brown, a color that Hassun swore he'd seen before. An ominous chill crept over his spine as a frown settled onto his face before he callously dropped the eyes onto the surface of a frayed area rug, letting them roll away from his dirty boots.
"I don't follow," he said with a slow shake of his head after wiping his hand on the front of his shirt.
As far as he knew, their deal was still on and going smoothly enough. He may have operated outside the parameters every once in a while, but he didn't think Ophelia knew about his second meeting with Jules, or how close the other man was to backing out. In his mind, Ophelia's problems were handled. That witch was dead, and Mars was only steps away from losing territory he hadn't deserved in the first place.
"Spider problem?" Hassun asked, making sure to keep his eyes on her. He stood his ground, ready to face whatever issue she'd cooked up that day.
"No ma'am," said Estelle, wondering who would have lived if they'd locked Giga and this old bat in a room together, "The apple certainly don't." She looked over at Mars pointedly, deliberately misinterpreting the comment. "He's a big apple though, I can't imagine he'd fall far."
She sauntered after the woman as much as she was able as Eula made her way into the tiny cramped kitchen. As she walked she lightly rubbed her tummy where the bony elbow had bit into it. This was a level of bitch Estelle could handle, and the fact that she wasn't going to be around her much or for long, only sweetened the interaction for her. She grinned up at Mars with a twinkle in her eyes that told him she wasn't looking to behave if the old bat wanted to play, though she did find his question to his mother sort of adorable. A big boy like him, still jumping to his mother's wishes. She noted too that Eula didn't hold the buzzing aura of a wolf, just a cantankerous energy that might have been simply Estelle's reaction to her sour puss of a face.
She snorted a laugh at the idea of Magic pussy and bit her lip to keep it from being a full on laugh, though when Eula's beady eyes and razor tongue turned her way she let lip and laugh go. The woman was defending the marriage of the very daughter-in-law whom she'd just called a bitch. How sweet, Estelle was moved.
"Oh good, I should hope not. I mean the man's a fine piece of meat and I'm sure there's plenty that would want to take a ride on that, but I assure you, Ma'am, I am all about the pussy."
She made a dreamy Mmmm sound and licked her lips. "All about the pussy. So don't you worry. Missus Latier, you ain't gonna wind up with no brown grand-babies, least not on my account." She elbowed Mars companionably, ignoring the spark that flickered through her at the contact.
She took a long gulp of the sweet tea which was cool despite the antiquated fridge. The place was stuffy and hot so it was most welcome. She only hoped the woman had spiked it with nothing more than spite.
"You don't follow?" Ophelia shook her head as if disappointed in his doltishness. "Weren't you listening?" She shifted on the sofa, folding legs up and rolling towards her other hip. It was a languid, sensual gesture that was unsettling given the bony angles of limb that prodded the gauzy fabric of her robe. Also unsettling was the lush grin she gave him, as if she thought about devouring him in either a carnal or carnivorous capacity.
"Well then, I will try again. I'll go nice and slow, sweet Hassun and when I'm done you can ask your questions. First, your little pet Jules was growing a set of vestigial balls. He was ready to talk to Mars. Though he could offer little help to the Deadman we cannot let such betrayals go unanswered, can we?"
She took in a deep drag of her too-sweet smelling cigarette, held it in the desiccated sacks that served as her lungs before twin streams of smoke shot out of her nose and then began a spiral around her head, caught by some un-felt current in the still, rank air.
"So I took care of him and brought you a souvenir. Now because I took care of your little mess I need you to take care of mine. Remember that witch I told you was in our way? The one I saw too? Well it seems she has been replaced. Far too fast for my liking. I suspect family because of how quickly the defenses sprang up."
She did not want to admit to this disposable underling how impossible it would be for her to breach them. Things were delicate and she didn't want her pet wolf wondering at a short leash, not before she turned it into a noose once she'd got what she needed form him.
"Some of my work last night was interfered with and I cannot afford to spend the resources needed to see to it. A bullet in the back of the skull should suffice, or something more personal and satisfying for you if you like. I don't care. Go to the swamp witch's house and kill whoever is there. Simple."
She smiled, showing too long, to thin yellowed teeth
For one reason or another, probably because she liked the abuse, Estelle seemed pleased. Having grown up and been raised by Eula, Mars knew how quickly small jabs could turn into something much darker, and there were scars on his body that had only grown with time. He didn't trust his own mother most days, and it got harder to bring anyone around when she slipped further and further into mental decay with each visit. Considering the time of day, Eula was surprisingly lucid, but Mars didn't want to stick around and press his luck for much longer. His ego could handle it if Estelle thought that was funny too.
Sipping on her iced tea, Eula made a face behind the glass, eyes narrowed and calculating as Mars breathed a disgruntled sigh on what qualified as the other side of the room. "I don't want no grand-babies," she responded, setting her glass down to take another drag off of her cigarette. It was half smoked by then, more ash falling to the already dusty floor and ready to blend in with the rest of the grime. The older woman shuffled and crossed one arm across her thin body, house dress creasing against her thin frame, "brown, blue, yella—fuck 'em." She blew another plume of smoke.
"Delphine can't have babies, can she?" Eula asked, gaze whipping back to her son, and a smug smile curling around the filter of her cigarette.
The two women had never gotten along, and there were times in the past when Mars liked watching his mother take his wife down a peg or two, but some comments cut deeper than others. While Mars had never had any interest in raising children or passing on any kind of knowledge to a next generation, having a family with Delphine had been important in the early years of their marriage. Now instead of trying, actually being in love, they just fucked each other for something to do. On top of that, Delphine drank too much to ever sustain another life—she was too selfish for it, and part of Mars liked her that way.
"You got that big old house and no kids to fill it with," the older woman goaded, seeming to take real pleasure in the short-comings of her own son and daughter-in-law. There was jealousy wrapped in her words as well, some kind of resentment for the property that had been given to them while she continued to inhabit a piece of shit trailer on a tiny plot of dirt. Her front yard barely had any grass.
It was just bitterness, petty bullshit on a different day; nothing had changed. "I got better things to do than waste time with kids," Mars claimed.
Eula laughed, head falling back into a wicked howl. "Maybe your new queer friend can dust the cobwebs out of her snatch." She crushed her cigarette in response to the tense silence and immediately lit another. "Seems to be a lot of her kind creeping around here lately. That old bitch with all the cats just keeled over—shows you magic don't pay."
Truly, Mars didn't give a shit about any of that, and the last thing he wanted to do was stand around and gossip with his mother about what she may or may not have seen. The woman thought the devil was stealing her cigarettes—whatever she thought she saw was probably lies at best. "You seem real broke about it," Mars said and choked down the remainder of his drink in an attempt to end the visit. It would have gone down easier with a bit of alcohol, but beggars couldn't be choosers. Eula was awful, but the heat was just a little worse.
An anger rose inside of Hassun, that wolf-like temper flaring as the woman on the sofa spoke so callously to him. She talked in riddles more often than not, bringing new information into the mix without fully bringing him up to speed, and then expecting him to know exactly what was going on. Giving a brief shake of his head, Hassun regained his control and took a deep breath—a slow inhale through his nose, full of sweet rot and a discreet exhale that kept him sane just a few moments longer. Ophelia would be done soon, he told himself, she always cut to the chase.
The message was loud and clear, however, Jules was dead and now Hassun knew why he was late for their meeting. He glanced down at the eyeballs on the floor, one staring up at the ceiling, the other having landed iris-side down. The man had never been much of anything, just the muscles to Gabriel's incessant mouth, and Hassun couldn't say that he was going to miss him. As much as Ophelia often made him uneasy, left him with that sensation of his skin crawling over his bones, he was grateful that she had lifted a finger for him.
"Another one?" Hassun asked, not looking for a clarification, just surprised. Suddenly, he thought back to that feeling in the bar, the powerful sensation that that young woman had ushered in with her, and then convinced him that she wasn't much of anything. That territory was foreign to him, but finding that same woman was a good place to start. "I think I have an idea of who we're dealing with," he said, hoping that she wasn't going to grill him for much longer.
"She won't be a problem, I promise." It was difficult to assure her of anything, or keep a straight face when she flashed that yellowed smile in his direction. "Was there anything else?" he asked, almost sure there was another errand with his name on it. With any luck, he would be permitted to leave within the hour and get to work on smoothing this latest bump in the road. It would require reaching out to Gabriel again, or chancing another visit to Mars' neck of the woods.
Estelle was thinking it was just as well the old bat didn't want grandbabies. The chances of her getting grandmother of the year t-shirts was pretty fucking slim. Further more the way she talked about Mars and his wife told Estelle that there was a lot of dirty laundry peeking out from under the couch. From aspersions of infertility and sideways comments about property that simmered with resentment. She knew that with just a little poking and prodding the old bat would happily spill the whole mess, embarrassing Mars out of spite. Mars who was still, Estelle's client. The scene was so anti-homey that Estelle was almost feeling like calling her disaster of a mother for a mommy-daughter spa-date. The thought was funny for a second and then it was gone, as was her mirth. Her mother left her cold. She was callous and selfish but she wasn't cruel.
This shit was fucked up and it wasn't funny anymore. She felt more than a little uncomfortable in that cluttered, smoke-filled trailer. Giga had been, no, make that –was- a bitch, but she wasn't cruel. Estelle was pretty certain Eula was nothing but cruelty and spite. And if there was anything to Mars' comment about the devil stealing cigarettes she could add crazy to the mix. Suddenly tired and done with the scene she put her cup down in the full sink, careful to stay out of the woman's reach as she did so.
"Well this was just lovely, Mrs. Latier. The tea was wonderful and your company a delight but I've got to get going…"
Then she stopped, cocking her head to the side as she considered what the woman had just said. She knew something about Willa, not just her death but her association with Giga if her that kind comment was any indication. She wondered if the woman would answer questions if asked? Or if she'd withhold information just out of spite. Estelle supposed it was really a matter of approach.
"The bitch with cats… Willa? Do you mean Willa? Was that who died? We saw the people milling about and wondered."
She flicked a curtain aside and peered out. It was sticky with tar and dusty with ash and the sheer number of fly-carcasses resting on the sill of the window made Estelle's lip curl. "You've a good view of the fun here, don't you? See anything cool? Was her body gross? Did you see when she died?"
Ophelia's grin grew, shark like and sharp as she watched Hassun. It was as if she saw past his control into the struggle inside. Her nostrils flared as if she was scenting his roiling emotions. That she was a seemingly frail old woman sitting across from an enraged werewolf hardly seemed to phase her. She smiled and watched him as if savoring the danger, his fight for control and her sense of absolute control.
He capitulated, as she knew he would and she thought about what a lovely thing it was to have a pet wolf on a leash. He thought he was alpha but he'd been so hungry for territory that he hadn't balked when she'd offered her bargain with him and with it, her leash. Oh he could play at leading the pack all he liked, but she would be the one who made him heel. And when she had things squared away and had the energy at her disposal to fix what time had done to her—again—she might even bring him to heel and make further use of him.
Her smile turned predatory as she regarded him, a too-dark tongue slid across her skinny yellowed teeth in anticipation. Oh the things she would do to him when she was herself. It was a shame the current Alpha, who was much yummier that Hassun, had to die. But Ophelia knew he wasn't the sort to take a leash, no matter what was on line. Not like Hassun. Which made him a better Alpha but it also condemned him.
"Very good. I look forward to tales of your success. One more thing. Bring me her eyes, like for like, sweet Hassun."
She waved her hand imperiously, dismissing him as she took a long-deep pull of her rot-sweet smoke.
"Yeah, Willa," Eula replied, a certain amount of contempt in her voice as she shuffled across the small kitchen and added her own glass to the growing pile in the sink. "Her fucking cats were always hanging around my window, howling all through the night." There was clearly no love lost between the neighbors, and there wasn't a single hint of apology in Eula's voice for the woman's death. She was rotten inside, existing on cigarettes and spite, refusing to die just so that she could go on making everyone around her miserable.
Although there was a clear shift in Estelle's mood, no longer finding Eula's abuse entertaining, the news about the dead woman had them changing courses once more. Mars held back a sigh, lingering between the kitchen and over-flowing living room and tempted to leave Estelle there with his mother if she was that interested in what a crazy woman had to say. "She didn't see shit," he remarked, a familiar scowl on his face. "She thinks the devil took her smokes, you really think she can tell you what she saw out her window?" Talking about Eula as if she wasn't there was a good way to get smacked, but Mars had had enough, and his patience was just minutes away from completely gone.
"I did see something!" Eula claimed, arms crossed in a sudden child-like defiance. She shuffled closer to the girl, slippers dragging along the dingy floor as she moved over to the window and pulled the yellowed curtain back from the stained glass. She didn't pay any attention to the copious amounts of dead plies on the pane, and pointed a bony finger across the street. "There was someone over there a few nights ago," she said. "I know because there was a racket with all the cats."
Again, Mars breathed an impatient sigh. "It was probably Willa," he said, hoping that Estelle didn't really care about what his crazy mother had to say. "We really gotta get going."
Much like the flies collected on the windowsill, Eula didn't bother to glance back at Mars. "It wasn't Willa," she told the girl, "I know what Willa looks like, even in the dark. This was..." she paused, brows furrowing behind her glasses as a frown settled into the corners of her mouth, "I don't know. They didn't look right—whoever they was."
Pulling back from the window, Eula let the curtain fall closed before turning back to her guests. "Maybe you ought to go over there," she suggested, her frown curling into a wry smile, something of a dare to her words, "you never know what you might find in that place."
Truly, another cramped and dank trailer was the last place that Mars wanted to be. While he may have had to visit his mother and deliver on an errand, finding Hassun was more important than some vague hint about foul play. Still unamused and refusing to take the bait, Mars moved toward the door. "It was nice seeing you, mama," he lied, though the lack of affection in his voice made it obvious enough. When he reached the screen door, he turned his eyes back toward Estelle. "You coming with me or not?"
"Go on," Eula demanded, no longer so agreeable with the witch. "Get the hell outta here."
That smile was far from reassuring, but Hassun was willing to agree to whatever Ophelia wanted as long as she held up her end of the bargain. Killing that old woman was one thing, and although he didn't think the young witch from the bar was going to be half as formidable, asking for more blood was a little much. If it was possible to take down Mars on his own, just with Gabriel's help, he wouldn't have ever sought out the old witch who had a hunger in her eyes that looked insatiable.
Suppressing a shudder, Hassun gave her a firm nod. "Yes, ma'am," he agreed, regarding the eyeballs on the floor one last time before turning to leave the room. Walking back through th house, he found himself just slightly desperate to see the light of day and leave that deadly-sweet smell behind. It always seemed to linger with him after each visit, trapped within his clothes, settling into his hair. Ophelia made him feel dirty—wrong.
It felt good to be back in his truck, but his new orders were already grating on his nerves. Because he knew so little about the girl and Mars' territory in general, Gabriel was suddenly looking more useful. If he could find out where the woman lived, or even where she liked to hang out, he could kill her, cut out her eyes and be back to Ophelia within the week. On paper, it sounded simple enough but as he drove off into the sunset, a dark feeling came over him that said nothing was ever that easy.
(( sorry for the wait on this! my time really got away from me this past week. ))
So it wasn't exactly helpful information that Eula coughed up like a wad of tarry phlegm, but it served to firm up a suspicion Estelle had been forming since finding Willa dead that morning. There was more to this than two old women dying. Neither old woman had been ill or had any known conditions that would lend themselves to sudden death. And Eula, for all that she was not a reliable witness had seen something. There was nothing Estelle could do with the information besides keep it in mind when she looked around and asked a few questions.
Mars was clearly done with his mother and Estelle didn't blame him. She was done too. Her head was swimming with questions and the stifling air in the trailer, it was time to get outside and then, time to head home perhaps. Her thigh ached and she needed to ask Giga a few things.
"Pleasure to meet you Ma'am." She lied as she followed Mars out of the trailer and into the afternoon heat. She took a deep long breath and flicked a glance to the trailer with its bit of police tape, already broken, by the door. Was there going to be anything to see? Probably not, the dead body was gone and so were the cats. She saw movement in Mars' car and shook her head. Stupid thing hadn't run off when it had the chance. Looked like she was going to be taking it home after all. She'd come back to the trailer some other time if she needed to. For now she'd just hitch a ride back to her car and see what Giga had to say.
"So," she said as neutrally as possible. "Did that go how you expected? Better? Worse?"
She found she was curious about his wife, the "bitch" as Eula had named her. Was it a true naming or just Eula being charming? Mars didn't seem to rise to any effort to defend her, but that might just be understanding that it wasn't going to do any good. It wasn't like Estelle had any opening or business asking about the woman. Particularly since anytime she touched that woman's husband a tingle shot through her body and lingered where it shouldn't. He was a client, nothing more.
She ambled towards the car, making her decision not to go into Willa's trailer obvious without saying a word. The cat turned away, as if it hadn't been watching her approach with something like eagerness. "So just back to my…"
She cut off as the sound of a cell phone ring came from the back pocket of Mars' jeans. When he answered it turned away as if to give him some privacy, only it didn't do much good. A frantic woman's voice rang out, loud enough to make the words audible to Estelle even from a distance.
"You bastard. You fucking, sick bastard. How could you? He fucked up, sure but you didn't have to, oh god" the sound of something that might have been sobbing and might have been vomiting crackled over the speaker. "You didn't have to torture him first!"
It wasn't any cooler outside of the cluttered trailer, but stepping onto the porch unburdened Mars in so many ways. He didn't bother to look over his shoulder, to glance at his mother as she shuffled around in the filth and clutter that had become her life, and he didn't want to see that frown slip back onto her once-pretty face again. Across the street, yellow police tap lay in the street, billowing in the barely-there breeze as a dark thought crossed Mars' mind. So many times he'd wished for a phone call in the middle of the night, something to interrupt his day, some stranger letting him know that all of the junk in his mother's house had finally killed her. Willa's death was just another missed opportunity, another day where the wrong one was taken instead of the rotten.
Estelle's question brought Mars back to reality, and he finally glanced over his shoulder at her before they joined one another at the car. Inside, the cat was still lounging about, acting very disinterested in the world around it. In a way, Mars was envious of the apathy. "It wasn't horrible. She was nicer to you than she was to my wife the first time they met, at least," he admitted, his laugh and subsequent shrug not holding a single ounce of pride. Eula had always been particularly vicious when it came to Delphine, and that was something that was unlikely to ever change. "But it don't matter," he added a moment later, reaching into his pocket for the keys, "you're never gonna see each other again. She'll probably forget you before long."
At least, Mars hoped that. Eula didn't tend to remember many faces, but certain details burned into her mind like careless flesh against a hot stove. The last thing Mars needed, on top of so much other stress, was his mother spreading rumors that he was cheating—again. Inwardly, Mars told himself that this thing with Estelle was just business, and with one errand grudgingly accomplished, they could get back to a common interest. Hassun was still out there somewhere, driving around a place he had no business being, and Mars wanted to hear more about this spirit now that he didn't have to be anywhere else.
As an added bonus, Estelle didn't seem interested in poking around Willa's trailer on Eula's less than convincing hint. Mars was ready to take her back to her car and figure out a plan, but the ringing sound of the phone in his back pocket put the brakes on things. With an annoyed sigh, Mars flipped the ancient-looking device open and answered in a gruff hello. The woman on the other end of the line wasted little time in laying into him however, using words that Delphine threw around on the regular, but this voice didn't belong to his wife. Frowning, brows creased, Mars looked at the ID as the woman continued to yell at him, going on about...whatever.
"What the fuck are you talking about?" he snapped, unfazed by the sound of her sickness. Jules never let anyone use his phone, and although Mars knew that he should have been immediately concerned, worried for the ever-decaying state of his pack, he couldn't help but feel that Jules deserved everything that came his way. Karma was a real bitch sometimes. "I didn't torture anyone."
"You couldn't just forgive him, could you?" she screamed, her speech suddenly broken by another sob.
Quickly growing frustrated with her accusations, Mars resisted the urge to hang up and wash his hands of whatever had happened to Jules. "I didn't do anything," he stressed, teeth gritted as he set a hand on the car. His knuckled blanched around the handle, blunt nails digging into his palm.
"No?" she asked, skepticism dripping from her words.
"No," Mars reiterated before casting a glance to Estelle. She was tough to read, but seemed like she was attempting to mind her own business. "Let me come over there—alright?"
There was silence on the line for a long moment, to the point where Mars expected a dial tone to sound in his ear any second, but it never came. "If you're coming to finish the job," she warned, but there seemed to be a reluctant acceptance.
"I didn't start anything to finish it," he said, wanting to add that it was Jules' own fault, Gabriel's if they were being technical, but there was no place for logic or blame at such a sensitive time. Hassun's appearance had to be related somehow, and if first blood had been drawn, then any chance of peace was completely off the table. "I'll see you soon."
Without saying goodbye, Mars hung up the phone and slipped it back into his pocket, his eyes settling on Estelle once more. "I can take you back to your car," he said, more of a suggestion in order to spare her from the grizzly scene that was surely waiting. If she wanted to come along, however, he wasn't going to stop her.
Finally, Mars got into the car and started the engine after Estelle joined him. With so much on his mind, he barely looked before backing out of the parking spot, happy to leave his mother and this part of his day behind.
In the brief time that he was on the phone Estelle grew very acquainted with the rough edge of Eula's driveway. The edges of the ancient asphalt were worn and cratered, the whole thing was cracked and not well mended. Scrubby weeds poked up from between the pavement making a strange patchwork of the blacktop. She stared at it like it was the most interesting thing she'd ever seen. Some of the tar-coated pebbles had come loose at the edge and so Estelle made a game of kicking them off the edge into the dried up lawn. All the while her ears were perked up, trying to catch each and every word she could, but all without looking like she was listening. The woman's voice was harder to hear but she caught most of it and what she didn't catch Mars' response helped to fill in. Someone was dead and the woman thought that Mars had done it. That (hopefully) narrowed it down to two people, Gabriel or Jules. She had no way to guess and could find no clues is Mars' body language to even hazard a guess.
She'd just sent a mud-colored stone skittering across the lawn when he folded his phone and slid it into his pocket, telling her he'd take her to her car. Curiosity killed the cat, she thought as she moved to the car and then slid into the seat beside him. Her hip nudged the beast who'd been grooming itself, making him, or it, she wasn't sure which it was, slide down closer to Mars. It didn't seem pleased with this, but nor did it seem inclined to do anything about it. If the hot car hadn't driven it off she wasn't sure what would.
"Sounds pretty important." She said casually as she buckled herself into the seat and slung her arm out to rest along the open window. This thing with Mars and his pack was getting bigger and bigger each time and she had the sense that it was only going to get much bigger as they moved forward. She had her own troubles but it was somehow easier to deal with his than puzzle over hers. Avoidance at its best.
"I'd hate for that woman to have to wait." She said and then realized she was totally letting on to the fact that she'd probably heard more than she should have of his conversation. Wincing a little she gave him a sheepish look.
"Sorry, she was loud, I couldn't help but hear. Was that someone connected to Jules or Gabriel?"
She let her head fall back, her skull cradled as much by the head rest as it was by the humidity-encouraged pillow of hair.
"I don't want you to have to wait to go, sounds pretty damn time-sensitive. You can drag me along if you like. I'll stay out of the way and do a little snooping at the scene if you like. It is part of the case, after all."
The case whose lines were getting fuzzier, the breadth of which was getting significantly bigger and more dangerous. She was beginning to think she'd undercharged him after all.
"Or you can drop me at the car. Whatever works best for you."
In a small town, death was just something that happened. Word got around, people turned up to a cramped church, sweating in their Sunday best and then filtered over to so and so's house for free food, beer and sad stories. Mars had been to his fair share of obligations over the years, but death wasn't something that affected him the way it did others. While he knew plenty of people who were no longer walking the Earth for one reason or another, news tended not to surprise him. Most of his friends were reckless, drunks who came from bad homes and if they caught on the train tracks, or owed someone money, demise was inevitable. With Jules, however, the stirrings of sympathy and a healthy dose of fear were different.
This was a man that Mars had known his entire life, who had been a constant since they were barely old enough to walk, and now he was dead. It didn't make sense, and for a moment or two, as Mars tried to gather his thoughts and push aside the fact that he was being accused of murder, he fell silent. The car was stifling, cramped and the steering wheel was hot beneath his fingers, uncomfortable just like the feeling in his chest. Emotions weren't something that Mars ever liked to deal with, but he was even less inclined to do so in front of Estelle.
Until she spoke again, Mars had forgotten that she was there, that she'd heard every word of the screaming fit on the phone. As he drove, Mars attempted to split his focus between her and the road—eyes on what was in front of him, and ears tuned into her silken voice. There was no room to be upset about Jules if he just kept listening to her. It took a few minutes, the extra tick of extra seconds, but it finally registered with Mars that Estelle wanted to come along. He couldn't imagine why, and for some reason, he didn't believe that she only wanted to be cordial and make things easier for him. There had to be another interest there, and while Mars didn't think that Bette would take kindly to random company, having a with there, someone sensitive to death, might be useful.
"You sure?" he asked, one eyebrow raised as he took a turn down a different dirt road. Jules' house was out by the water, practically the middle of nowhere in a town that was already there. "I don't know what we're walking into," he added. It was another warning, an attempt to somehow protect her, although this was much more serious than his mother's miserable attitude.
Paranoia said this might be a trap, another plot of Gabriel's orchestration, but logic said that Bette's voice was too raw, too real to be a lie. Jules was dead, and for some reason, his eyes were missing. Whatever happened, the revenge had obviously been personal.
The rest of the ride out to Jules' place was mostly silent and Mars drove faster than he normally would have over the uneven road. The cat that had reluctantly curled up against him didn't seem pleased, and Mars was sure that he felt a sharp claw dig into his thigh after one particularly hard bump in the road. It didn't matter, though, and before Mars could give much thought on what to eventually do with the cat, Jules' shack of a house came into view. It looked as rundown as it always had, perhaps with a little more rust on the tin roof, but the same furniture sat outside, one dirty chair now occupied by Bette. She had a cigarette in her hand, dark head down toward her knees and shoulders hunched. When she looked up, it was easy to see her glassy eyes and the redness that ringed them.
Taking a deep breath, Mars shut the car off and slid out of the seat. The cat immediately spread out where he'd been, looking pleased now that they'd stopped moving. He motioned for Estelle to follow along as Bette stood to greet them. "Who's this?" she asked, her voice as apprehensive as her stance. There was no trust between any of them, and Mars hated that she thought there was blood on his hands.
"Don't worry about it," he responded, attempting to get down to business.
"You bring a woman here to gawk at my man?" she asked, her shaking hands bringing the cigarette to her lips for another drag. "That's low," maybe the argument could be had at another time, though, because Bette lead the way inside. She got the door for them, and the dying, afternoon sun illuminated eyeless Jules in his recliner, still as ever; dead.
Estelle snorted when he asked her if she was sure. No, she wasn't sure, not really but it felt like the thing to do. In for a penny, in for a pound sort of thing. "We haven't known what we are walking into for a while now, if you hadn't noticed." she huffed at him and rolled her eyes. She shifted on the seat, hating the sticky feeling of her back against the upholstery. The air was so thick with heat and humidity that not even the air coming in as they moved along seemed to help.
She rode in silence the rest of the way, resenting the cat who, by all rights should be far hotter than either of them in its fur coat, but which seemed relatively comfortable, if cramped. She shot it a dirty look, thinking no one asked you along and it deigned to look back and languidly blinked its eyes. She turned her head haughtily away and spent the rest of the time ignoring her thigh, the heat and the cat.
The house that seemed to almost pop out of the vegetation was much like so many others she'd seen. The specifics of its run-down nature weren't even unique, it was just the pattern of decay that was unique to each bungalow. The woman sitting on the porch was much the same, ubiquitous to this part of the world, cigarette in hand, careworn in unmistakable ways. It was only the rawness of her grief that made her stand out. Estelle slid out of the car, wincing at the way her skin stuck to the seat and the way her thigh twinged at the weight. She kept her expression respectful even as her jaw started to tighten and her nostrils flared. Something stank.
Not of death, though there was a hint of that. There wasn't any way for a body to remain anything like fresh in the heat of this place, no matter how fresh it was. The faint waft of decay was nothing to her jaded nose who had gotten a nice lung-full of rotten Willa not so many hours before. But overlying that stink was something worse.
It was fermented sweet, cloying and thick. It was a scent that wrapped around one's tongue and make you gag. Estelle tasted the scent in a way that didn't translate. She glanced at the woman to see if she caught the scent, but other than her grief and distrust, there was nothing to be read in her expression. Where had she caught that scent before? She felt like she knew it but couldn't place it. It was significant, her instincts screamed this at her.
She regretted not asking Mars how much this woman knew. Presumably she knew something. Was it possible to be married to a werewolf and not know it? Estelle didn't think so. She still wasn't sure if Eula knew but didn't think it was a good time to bring that up. The woman had her snap their way and then let them into the decaying house. Estelle followed Mars up the rotten front steps and did not under any circumstances note how nicely his jeans fit him. That would have been entirely inappropriate and wonderfully distracting from her worries.
"Does she know about… You know, wolf stuff?" she hissed under her breath to Mars. And then they were in and she had no more breath to speak. She gagged, her stomach heaving and threatening to eject her burger and fries. The scent, which had been thick out there was like a thick cloud inside, the woman's lack of reaction to it told Estelle more than anything that it wasn't exactly a scent, but something more. Aura, energy, some other word Giga would provide were she not dead.
"Oh god." She gasped and slipped outside to gasp in some lungful's of relatively fresh air. It didn't do much good, it wasn't a scent after all, but the stink was more dissipated outside and she could collect herself better. She moved to the car and put her palm on the hood, which was searing hot but just the distraction she needed. Hissing she focused on the pain and managed to wrest control of herself. She wasn't sure she could get back in there, she wasn't sure she needed to. The key was in whatever had left the stink. She thought back to that thing that had held them hostage the night before, the rancid spirit that had so sorely tried her Giga's shields and wards. It had been very like this hadn't it?
Feeling like a failure as a witch, she wished to hell Giga had an ectoplasmic cell phone. No matter the fucking roaming charges for calls to the dead Estelle would have given anything to get her grandmother's take on the matter. A twinge in her thigh caught her attention and she pressed her hand to the wound. It was getting really fucking annoying to be hurting all the time and she felt extra stupid for cutting herself so damn deep. It had been a real amateur move, hadn't it? She wasn't a real witch, not like Giga. If it weren't for the blood they shared…
Estelle tailed off mid though and her eyes widened even as her mouth spread into a grin. Moving around the car she discreetly slipped her fingers under the bandage and poked and prodded while she bit her lips until her fingers were wet with blood. Blood called to blood.
"This is either a terrifically stupid idea or a brilliant one." She said to herself as she began to scribble symbols on a bit of rock she found poking out of the ground.
What Bette did or didn't know might remain a mystery for some time, and there was a part of Mars that was sure none of it mattered. Jules was dead, so even if he had included her in whatever Gabriel's plans with Hassun were, that information wasn't going to help them now. Before Mars had a chance to answer Estelle, Bette pulled the door open and the scene obviously proved to be too much for the young witch. Mars turned his attention back to the scene, his heightened senses quickly assaulted by the stink and rot of death. It was thick in the air, heavy like the humidity radiating off of the swamp around them. Swallowing hard, Mars kept himself from wincing, not wanting to be disrespectful to someone who had once been a trusted friend.
Rather suddenly, it was just himself and Bette, which seemed appropriate considering how long they'd known one another. It was nothing compared to the years he'd put in with Jules, but she had been a constant in the other man's life for the last decade and to Mars, that said a lot about what kind of person she was. Glancing at her, her posture was uncomfortable, barely held together as her dark hands wrapped around her thin frame, fingers dimpling the flesh on her arms as she stared at the man in front of them. Without his eyes, Jules was barely recognizable and Mars supposed, that was the point of taking them. This was more than personal, this was a sign.
"When'd you find him?" he finally asked and took a few cautious steps toward the body. Up close, the wounds were even more grotesque, the smell that much more powerful. Frowning, Mars touched a hand to Jules' arm, finding warm skin thanks to the incredible heat, but the temperature offered few clues. Normal people might have called in the sheriff, but pack business trumped whatever laws were on the books.
From the edge of the room, Bette breathed a shaky sigh, probably ready to break down all over again. "Just before I called you—I left this morning to go to work at the salon, then I stopped at the store for a few things and came home. He was," she paused, and Mars turned to see her worrying at her lip, "like this. You were the first person I thought of."
Again, the sentiment stung but Mars didn't blame her. Whatever Jules had been telling her, she obviously knew that part of his job included dealing with problems by any means necessary. "This wasn't me," he told her once more, hoping to erase whatever doubt was still ping-ponging around in her mind. "I was asleep until this afternoon, and then I was at my mom's until you called."
"And that girl?" she asked, nodding toward the empty doorway.
Mars shook his head, "a bump in the road." He hadn't expected to find Estelle on his way to the trailer park, but if he ever needed another alibi, the witch was sure to come in handy.
They were silent for a moment, eyes moving from each other and back to Jules' body every couple of seconds before Bette spoke again. "He didn't want to hurt you," her admission was quiet, as if he needed reminding that Jules was some kind of gentle giant, simple and harmless, the opposite of another friend.
Now wasn't the time to argue, and Mars wasn't going to bring up how easily-swayed Jules had been, or why he might have felt it necessary to side with Gabriel. He nodded, accepting her words, "let me make some calls, alright? Get this cleaned up." The thought appeared to calm her some, and Mars pulled a blanket off of the back of the couch, shaking out the folds and letting the collected dust glitter in the remaining daylight before draping it over Jules' body. No one needed to see him that way, and the thick fabric may have stifled some of that overpowering smell.
Leaving Bette inside, sure that she was going to come out when she was good and ready, Mars took a deep breath of fresh air. The stench of death was still lingering, but it was less stifling as a lazy breeze rolled by. Running a hand back through his hair, Mars let his palm rest on the back of his neck. The skin there was annoyingly damp, making him feel worse, somehow dirtier and maybe even a little guilty.
There was a slight frown on his face as he approached the car, his mind stretching to several different places—who to call to clean up Jules' body, where Gabriel might be, and what to do with Estelle. Speaking of the witch, her presence was suddenly lacking, and Mars wondered if the situation had become too much for her and she'd split all together. He wouldn't have blamed her, most people didn't handle death well, but an eyeless man was something new entirely.
As he was about to call out for her, Mars caught a glimpse of wild hair on the other side of the car, crouched down and close to the ground, hand working furiously in...blood. "What the hell are you doing?" he asked, sidetracked again as he eyed the crude symbols. The gash on her thigh from the night before was the ink source, adding a new layer of filth to the already stifling air. It was metallic, a smell that Mars had always appreciated, but sweeter than the average wound.
The fascination he had for her would have to be dealt with at another time, and Mars internally chided himself for even bothering to pick out the smell of her blood from the rotting scent of the world around them. Crouching down beside her, Mars tilted his head, trying to recognize even one symbol scrawled across the rock. He came up empty, and looked to Estelle for some clarification. After all, dipping her fingers into an open wound couldn't have been for nothing.
"Probably just as well if I don't." Estelle said amicably to the scarred man who was trying to not look as scary as he was. The smile was a nice touch, but she was fairly certain it didn't reach his eyes, not that she dared to look into them. She felt very keenly the dangerous game she was playing there and still wasn't entirely certain what kept her at it. 
The last place Mars wanted to be was the center of town. Back at the house, bed was still calling his name, insisting on more, much needed sleep, but he didn't trust Delphine enough to close his eyes. This errand from his crazy mother sufficed just fine, allowing him to get out of the house for a few hours and work off some of the paranoia that still surrounded him. His mind was full of many things, lots of doubts and worries, and the lingering feeling of loss—though he didn't exactly know what he was missing. Shaking his head, half in disgust and frustration, Mars got back into his car.
On the outskirts of town, Hassun's truck finally crossed the bridge over the river and he was back in his own territory when his cell phone rang. He reached for it, angrily twisting in his seat and assuming it to be Jules. If the man thought that he was going to turn around now then he was out of his fucking mind.
The house was in the beginning stages of dilapidation with a slight stink about the place that seemed to come and go depending on the heat of the day. It was the sort of house that would likely be reclaimed by nature within a generation, like so many of its neighbors. But for now, it sufficed. The door opened at Hassun's knock though no one was behind it. It was a creepy trick that its wielder never seem to tire of, one he'd seen a great many times in their association. There was a skittering sound, from something unseen and then a fermented sweet voice called out from down the narrow hall.