Page 12 of A Little Red
“You’re in the city. It takes you too long to get here.”
“Too long for what?” asked Liam. “Have I missed something?”
“Well, the meet and greets,” began Paxton hesitantly.
“Oh, for fucks sake! I already talked to Mom about this. Don’t tell me she’s pestering you about it.”
“What do you mean you already talked to Mom?” asked Paxton.
“The only reason me greeting visiting pack members is ever a problem is because wolves can’t fucking use phones.”
Paxton let out a bark of laughter.
“If visiting pack delegates could, I don’t know, give us a call, send a calendar invite, flash some Morse code, whatever, then it wouldn’t be such a scramble when they arrive. And if someone in our pack could pick up a damn phone and call me, I could be here on time. And, plus, it’s not like visitors come directly here. They come to the airport and train station like everyone else. I’m actually closer to most visitors than you are. But again, no one ever fucking calls me until it’s too late.”
Paxton sighed. “It’s Mom. She’s the one who takes the calls and you know how anti-technology she is. And lately, I swear she’s worse. It’s all the recent warlock activity. She’s twigging.”
Liam nodded. Aisling’s control freak tendencies had soared after Callum’s death. Liam thought it was unfortunate she didn’t believe in human inventions, because she could really use some therapy.
“What recent warlock activity?” he asked, searching his memory, trying to recall any recent reports. Usually he knew about warlocks before she did.
“I don’t know. She talked to Aunt Bryn.”
Liam groaned and Paxton laughed, but kept going. “Someone says they smelled one a few weeks ago.”
“Someone always says they smelled one,” said Liam sourly. “I spent half my college years chasing these rumors. Once I figured out that warlocks smell like really shit-skunky weed and that no one in Mom’s generation ever smoked pot, things got a lot clearer.”
Paxton snort laughed so hard that he almost fell over.
“You didn’t know that?” asked Liam, laughing at his brother.
“No! I was too young for the last raiding party. I have no idea what warlocks smell like.”
Liam made a grumbling noise. “I wish we knew more about magic. Clodagh says we have lost a lot of valuable information from the old times.”
“What are you talking about? Clodagh knows all kinds of spells.”
“Healingspells,” Liam said. “Clodagh’s a good healer. But wolves reliance on oral tradition bit us in the ass during the Great Migration. She says there’s a lot we used to be able to do that we can’t anymore. We used to work with Fae, and other changeling races like Selkies and mermaids to do bigger magic.”
“Do you think Fae really even existed?” asked Paxton skeptically.
“Yes!” snapped Liam. “This is what I’m talking about. Other people wrote things down and they remember more than we do.”
“Didn’t help the witches any,” said Paxton.
“Yeah, well, fuck the Puritans,” said Liam.
Paxton laughed again. “I feel like I’m going to have start keeping a notebook for you like I did for Dad.”
“What?” asked Liam, confused.
“I called them Dad-isms. Maybe I’ll create a Twitter thread. Hashtag: Liamisms.”
“You are such a dork.”
“Hashtag: facts. What were we talking about before?”
“warlocks smell like shitty weed.”
