Granny’s House

Ekon

Granny’s House. Damn, I hate it here.

I heard the turbines of Alpha Vladimir’s jet cool behind me as I stepped onto the damp tarmac of Stoker Island, an uncharted isle in the Bermuda Triangle.

It had been years since I had last set foot on the foggy shores of this veiled spot of land.

Not since the last years of the Great War, when my boys were escorting convicted Rogue leaders for internment in the international prison here.

That was also the last time that I’d seen Granny Mabel Poe.

She was a peculiar old lady, though she didn’t look it.

As I recalled, she appeared as frumpy and wrinkled as any other Grandma well past the age of one hundred, sans the warmth and charm.

She was a tough old bird. A recluse. She’d been warden of the Devil’s Triangle Supernatural Penitentiary for so long, that others had taken to calling the maximum-security prison “Granny’s House.”

She possessed no magical qualities except the fact that she just simply hadn’t died.

No member of the supernatural world could remember a time before Granny Mabel.

Most speculated that she had lived well over a century and a half.

Some believed she’d lived at least five centuries.

The rumors of her secret to immortality ran broadly from a devil’s bargain gone wrong to a condemned witch’s dying spell.

Whatever the cause, the grizzled old prison boss had seen her fair share and was known to make even the most fearsome convicts quiver.

I’ll admit, she even made me a little on edge.

I wasn’t anxious to be near her or her equatorial gulag, particularly under these circumstances.

I had argued until I was blue in the face about why we shouldn’t go along with Fak the Quack’s plan to try and remove the evil witch Tyler from prison.

She was a dangerous criminal during the Great War, one whose heinous acts of arson caused the deaths of countless innocents.

The slightest possibility of her escape would be a risk to international security.

Unfortunately, I had been outvoted.

To add to the indignity, I was charged with coming down here to make the necessary arrangements.

Since I was the only one who had any history with Granny Mabel Poe, they figured that I had the best chance of talking the old bat into seeing things their way.

Under normal circumstances, I would have fought tooth and nail to stay out of this.

But after the complete ass I’d made of myself at the pool party, my hands were pretty well tied.

Two prison sentries escorted me from the barren landing strip into the yard of Granny’s House. After a security check, they brought me to a parlor to wait for the famed warden to see me.

It was a strange room. It didn’t feel like a prison at all.

The couch was cushy and cozy with some sort of lacy throw over the back.

A strong aroma of apple cinnamon floated on the air.

It felt eerily like a… grandma’s house.

Not at all as I remembered it.

The only clue to the facility’s true nature was the hard, concrete floor beneath my feet.

A short while later, an unnerving presence entered the room, accompanied by a thick cloud of cigarette smoke.

I squirmed a little in my seat.

Granny had arrived.

“Alpha Ekon,” her coarse, shrill, old voice bounced off the walls.

“G… Granny Mabel Poe,” I stuttered, “It’s been a long time.”

The sound of her rickety, three-legged step echoed as she made her way to the seat across from me.

“You’ve changed the place, I see.” I tried to ease into a conversation.

“You see?” she smirked impertinently, “I didn’t think you ~could~ see any more Alpha.”

Typical old bitch. But I have to admit, a part of me had a deep respect for bluntness.

“I may not have my eyes, but I have my nose. And last time it sure as hell didn’t smell like a fucking bakery.”

“I’m burning a candle in here. We just used this room to euthanize a satyr that had been in solitary for the past year. You know how bad those fuckers smell?” the old lady griped.

I shifted around uneasily on the couch, hoping they’d sanitized the couch cushions too.

“So, what can I do you for Alpha?” Granny said, smacking a menthol between her lips. “I know you ain’t here just to stare at my pretty kisser.”

“I’m here to see about extraditing one of your prisoners, Granny.”

The old lady began to cackle loudly.

“Extradite? Hah! Only time anybody wants to extradite one of my chillun is when they’re too impatient for a life sentence to run its course. Who the hell do I have that you wanna extradite?”

I took a deep sigh, disbelieving what I was about to say.

“I’m here for Tyler. The evil witch.”

Granny’s laughter abruptly stopped.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding, Alpha.”

Bambi

“You’re all a bunch of fucking idiots!” Hunter bellowed virulently across the table.

“How could you think that getting one of the most powerful evil sorceresses in the world out of maximum security imprisonment would be a good idea?”

“Desperate times call for drastic action!” Alpha Leonardo barked back, “You’d condemn our kind to its death just because you had a bad feeling!”

Ela, Alpha Vladimir, and I sat staring down into our steaming soup bowls as the battle raged on.

Since Ekon left for the Bermuda Triangle a night ago, Hunter and Leonardo had been at each other’s throats even more than usual.

When we’d all voted on whether we should accept Chair Fakari’s admittedly questionable deal, only Hunter and Ekon had been opposed.

Ekon just sucked it up and carried out the plan with his tail between his legs as a result of his actions. But Hunter still stood vehemently opposed to our decision.

Naturally, Councilor Leonardo couldn’t let the “Cunt Sniffer” get away with this without giving one of his famously long-winded rebuttals.

“It is beyond me, sir, how you could so obstinately refuse to stand with your own kind in its hour of direst need!” Leonardo scolded imperiously. “Perhaps when the witch is out of prison, it’s you that should take her place!”

“Are you calling me a traitor?” Hunter leaped from his seat with fire in his eyes.

“You’re suspiciously opposed to this vital deal for someone who claims loyalty.”

Hunter’s body heaved with fury. His musculature was bulging through his shirt. He was about to shift.

Alpha Vladimir interjected, “Gentleman, if you must duel then I bid you, take it outside. Neither my home nor my hospitality shall abide such puerile foolery as this.”

The old diplomat threw down his napkin and retreated into his office.

“So be it!” Leonardo raised his voice.

They rose from their seats and started towards the door.

They were serious.

I looked over at Ela who had decided to drown out the tumult with her earphones. She didn’t want any part of her mate’s quarrels.

It looked like it was up to me to stop this.

“Leonardo! Hunter! Sit your asses down!”

They turned around in almost perfect synchronization and stared back at me. They couldn’t believe I had just addressed two Alphas this way.

But I’ll be damned if they didn’t deserve it.

“What the hell is this going to solve?” I asked.

The two stared at each other with intense abhorrence.

“I’ll finally rid our kind of this cowardly cunt-sniffer!” Leonardo snapped.

“And I’ll send this pseudo-intellectual snob to the hell he deserves,” Hunter growled back.

“If one of you kills the other, it’s going to spark another war amongst ourselves! There’s no way we’ll be able to keep the feds off our asses AND defeat the Rogues if that happens.”

Leonardo and Hunter cast their eyes to the floor to contemplate my point.

They knew I was right.

Leonardo huffed and stormed upstairs like an ill-tempered child. Hunter stomped off towards the kitchen to douse his disgruntlement in whatever snacks he could find.

I returned to the table and sat with Ela in silence for a while.

I wasn’t even sure she’d been paying any attention to the brewing fight.

Then she spoke up, “I think Hunter might be right.”

I was shocked. She actually agreed with her mate on something.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“It feels a little too coincidental that the only way to win our case is to spring one of Devina’s most powerful acolytes from the slammer in the wake of her defeat and disappearance.”

“You think it’s a trap?”

“I’m not sure,” she bit her lip in thought, “I’d have to learn more about the whole situation.”

An idea came into my head.

“Well… we’re just a short car ride away from Leopold House. Home to the world’s largest library and archive of supernatural history.”

A smile lit up her face, “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

“That’s right. The book club is back!”

Ekon

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing Alpha?” Granny asked as we stood outside the thick steel door at the entrance to Tyler’s prison cell.

Even the steel-nerved old warden seemed jittery.

This didn’t do anything to placate my nerves.

But I’d already come this far. And admittedly, it didn’t look like there was much choice if I wanted to save my pack from government incarceration.

“I know what needs to be done, Granny.”

“Okay,” the old woman sighed, “But we’re gonna have to give her a good grilling before I let you turn her over to that old witch doctor.”

“Then let’s not waste any more time.”

She nodded and motioned to the guard.

After going through some convoluted fingerprint identification and retinal scan, the door slowly hissed open.

And there, in the middle of the cold concrete room, bound and chained, sat Tyler.

Her glowing green eyes peered out from behind her cascading black hair.

“You shouldn’t have come here,” she whispered diabolically.