Curse of Ravens // Mikaelson

32 The Hard Way

I waited until the cab driver headed down the road back into the city before walking through the trees and down into the swamp. The sticky note had an address to what seemed like the middle of nowhere, but was actually a small collection of houses in the bayou where the wolves lived. Not all werewolves, but some preferred to stay here than to join the supernatural community in the city, which hasn't always welcomed them.

Forest mulch crunched underfoot. Rainwater dripped from all the branches overhead as the rain slowed to a drizzle. The snap of a twig somewhere in the trees around me pulled me to a stop in my tracks. I listened closely and looked around, but I wouldn't see anyone if they didn't want to be seen.

"I'm Alice Mikaelson." I said into the trees, knowing that someone was there, someone was listening. "I'm not here to stir trouble, only speak to a wolf who goes by Z. I'd never harm my Aunt Hayley's pack."

"Did she send you?" A wolf stepped out from behind a tree several feet away. I straightened up a little and shook my head. The wolf girl had a buzzed head and a suspicious expression. She wore a tee shirt that was faded with age, and blue jeans that looked just as well loved.

"She doesn't know I'm here." I admit. "No one does." The wolf seemed to know what I was doing with these words. Trying to get her to open up, let her guard down. Let her believe that I wasn't a threat. I knew when my tactics were working and when they weren't, and this time they weren't. She was too clever of a person to trust me.

"I'll take you to him." She shocked me by saying. My eyes narrowed, and it was my turn to be suspicious.

"Why?"

"I've heard you and Klaus have been working to end the systemic hunting of my kind overseas." The she-wolf tells me. I was a little surprised that word got around about that. Especially if the rumor included me- because typically my father was the main character in such gossip. "My sister studies abroad in Siberia. She told me you stopped the vampires killing the packs there."

"She left the bayou for that bleak wasteland- home to countless Soviet prisons?" I joked, and the woman smiled. All traces of suspicion left her features, and her stance became a little less tense.

"Apparently she likes the cold." The wolf replied.

"She'll be back. There's no place like home." I decided, reciting a stupidly overused line in an attempt to connect, as though I knew her sister personally. I didn't, but werewolves tended to stick in their families. Balance of probability said that I was probably right. Her sister would be back. The woman gestured for me to follow her, and lead me through the woods.

Z's house was small and I expected something like a hacker's basement would look like in a movie. Screens everywhere, some greasy young kid who sat in a swiveling chair and typed on a backlit keyboard. Open bags of chips everywhere and a pyramid of empty soda cans. But Z's house was nothing like that. It was homely inside, with patterned blankets over the window in the dining room to prevent a glare on the single laptop screen he had sitting on the dining table.

Z had a scruffy beard, like he typically kept it shaven but he had fallen behind on the personal grooming. His black hair was messy and his small eyes were winkled with age. He had to be in his thirties. The werewolf girl had introduced me and left afterwards, leaving me standing in his dining room to finish whatever business I was here for.

"I'm a very busy man. What do you want?" Z demanded, crossing his arms over his broad chest. I pulled the SIM card out of my pocket.

"Could you trace the messages and calls sent from this?" I set the piece on the table. Z glanced at it, and then back up to me.

"Why would I do that? Your family is no friend of mine." The werewolf's expression seemed to be in a permanent frown. His bushy eyebrows always scrunched, a winkle in his forehead.