A Wolf at the Door

by Stewart, K. A.

  It obviously wasn’t enough, but she nodded a little. “Okay, Daddy.”

  I stood to find Mira in the doorway, one brow raised. “What stuff?”

  Before I could answer, Estéban barreled through the room, scooping Anna up and bolting out the door with her, leaving only shrieks of little girl laughter behind. Chunk followed with a surprised “growf!” leaving Mira and me alone. I slid the door shut behind them to keep the cold air out.

  Mira was still looking at me expectantly, so I handed over the plane ticket. “Los Angeles? What for?”

  “Some bodyguard work. I’ll only be gone a week, he said.”

  “He said. That thing.” She slapped the ticket down on the table and planted both hands on her hips. I was in so much trouble. “You’re going out there for that thing.”

  “I owe him, baby—”

  “Don’t you ‘baby’ me!” Her green eyes flashed. “Dammit, Jess! You promised to spend this week with Anna and Estéban. I need to be at the shop, remember? You promised Anna you were going to do all kinds of things this week!”

  “Estéban can watch her…”

  “That’s not the point, Jesse! Explain to me just why your promises to him mean more than your promises to us.”

  That hurt. That hurt a lot. “Mir, he saved Cole. He saved Marty and Will. I owe him.”

  “Never make a deal, Jess. Isn’t that what you always said? What Ivan taught you? One small deal, one harmless little arrangement…”

  “Should I have let them die? I’d be without three of the most important people in my life, but gee whiz, my soul would be lily-white spotless!” Instantly, I regretted snapping. She didn’t deserve that from me.

  Mira just glared at me, grinding her teeth together for a few moments. Finally, she shook her head. “Go. Just…go run your errands or whatever. I’m too angry to talk to you right now.”

  I started down the hallway, then came back to try to kiss her. She turned her head and it landed on her cheek instead. “I love you.”

  “Mmf.”

  Ouch.

  She was right, though. We weren’t going to get anywhere in this discussion if we were both pissed off. One of those things you learn as you try to get through married life.

  See, I was the hotheaded one, quick to anger, quick to forget. Mira was the calm pool, the steady force. Once she got angry, though, we were gonna be there for a while. Truthfully, as I got dressed, I had to wonder if the emotional response was maybe an indicator of something off-kilter with her. Y’know, something like pregnancy hormones. Guys, even if it’s true, never suggest that to a woman’s face. You will end up dead.

  Mira had gone outside with the kids by the time I got back out front, and I poked my head out the door. “Kid! Saddle up!”

  Estéban obediently abandoned the snowball fight, though he took one in the back of the head as he trotted to the door. He turned long enough to stick his tongue out at my daughter, then darted inside when he was answered with a barrage of snow from my two lovely ladies.

  Mira just looked at me through the sliding door and didn’t say a word. Later. We’d discuss this later. At much length, no doubt.

  The kid waited until we’d pulled out of the driveway at least before he offered his two cents. “You should apologize to her.”

  I shifted gears roughly, and my truck gave a little jerk. “For what?”

  “For whatever you did. Just say you’re sorry.” Wise words, but somehow I didn’t think that was gonna cut it this time. When I didn’t answer him, he dropped it. “So where are we going?”

  “Marty’s. I need to pick up my new sword.”

  About four months ago, I’d broken my katana in a bad fall that nearly broke my neck, too. I’d also nearly broken the friendship with the man who had made the sword for me. Marty hadn’t signed on to get chased by zombie demon minions. He didn’t volunteer to risk his life. I’d done that. I’d forced that on him.

  He’d promised me a new sword, but I wasn’t sure if I rated a new friendship, too. I guess we were about to find out. To be perfectly frank, I’d asked Estéban to come, ’cause I wasn’t sure I wanted to have this showdown alone.

  For his part, the kid pulled out his new cell—a gift from Mira and me for Christmas—and started texting.

  “So…how’s old what’s-her-name?” Instantly, he flushed red, and I grinned to myself. I had no idea what Estéban’s girlfriend’s name was, or if he even had one. But mentioning “old what’s-her-name” was guaranteed to get a blush out of him, so I did it whenever possible.

  Marty’s Suburban was in the driveway when we pulled in, so at least he was home. His wife was due to go into labor any second now, and I’d half imagined missing them as they left for the hospital or something. But no, he was there, and he stepped out his front door as we pulled up in front of the house.

  “Stay in the truck, kid.” He grunted acknowledgment and never looked up from his phone. Yeah, I didn’t want to be here alone, but I also wasn’t sure the kid needed to hear all the gritty details. He’d missed out on last fall’s debacle.

  I stepped out into the snow, nodding to the man on the porch. “Marty.”

  “Jesse.” He looked good, at least. Way less beat up than the last time I saw him. Built like a damn fireplug, shaved head, bristly black beard for winter, his heavily tattooed arms crossed over his chest.

  The two of us kinda stood there in the snow, the silence uncomfortably taut between us. It felt like two gunslingers, waiting to see who was gonna twitch first. Turns out, it was Marty.

  “You come for your sword?”

  “Yeah, if you’ve got it done.”

  “It’s done.” He jerked his head toward his workshop behind the house. “Go on back, I’ll meet you back there.”

  Yeah, I noticed that he didn’t invite me into the house. So that’s how it was gonna be. I trudged through the yard to the back, and Marty met me at the workshop, unlocking the door.

  “Wait here.” Shit. He wasn’t even gonna let me into his man-cave?

  I stuffed my hands into my coat pockets and waited and pretended that it didn’t feel like a rock in my guts. I knew this could happen. Pretty much counted on it, really.

  I mean, I nearly got the guy killed. It’s a little hard to be best buds after that no matter what the cop movies say. What Marty had been through last fall…no one should have to do that. I couldn’t blame the man if he wasn’t all puppies and sunshine with me anymore. Couldn’t blame him at all.

  A few minutes later, Marty reappeared, a cloth-wrapped bundle in his arms. “Here. Check it out, make sure it’s okay.”

  He balanced the bundle across his arms, and I unwrapped it slowly. I think I stood there gaping like a landed fish for a good long while, but if you could see this sword, you might too.

  It was a katana still, that didn’t surprise me. It was the weapon I was most comfortable with, the fighting style I knew. The polished steel blade swept out in a graceful curve, and just looking at it I could tell it was silk-slicing sharp.

  He’d done the circular guard in brass, big enough to just cover my fist as I held it. The pommel was brass too, and came to a subtle point. A skull-breaker. The hilt though…oh the hilt. My old sword had been plain, the hilt just wrapped in blue cord. For the new one, Marty had chosen some kind of bone, smooth and white, and etched into each side was a line of kanji.

  “The way that is spoken here is not the eternal way,” I murmured quietly. “The name that is spoken here is not the eternal name.” I knew those lines. They were tattooed down each of my biceps. The first two lines of the Tao Te Ching. Marty had carved them into the sword, specifically for me.

  “I named it The Way.” Apparently deciding I’d looked long enough, Marty shook the wrappings back over the sword and thrust it at me. “The pommel makes it a bit heavier on the back end than you’re used to, but the hilt is lighter, helps balance it out. The bone is lion bone.”

  I didn’t even bother to ask him where he’d found lion
bone. If he said it was, it was. I couldn’t even think of anything adequate to say. The man had just handed me a goddamn work of art. Finally, I settled for, “Thank you, Marty.”

  He grunted a little. “This is the last one, Jess. I’m not gonna do this anymore. I got Mel, and the baby, and…I just can’t.”

  “I know. It’s all good, man. I understand.” A small part of me even envied him. What would it be like to have the luxury of just…walking away? The rest of me, well frankly it hurt. Marty had been my best friend for years now. And now he just…wasn’t anymore. “You uh…take care of Mel, okay? Call Mira when the baby comes, she’ll want to know.”

  He grunted again, and retraced his tracks in the snow, disappearing into his house. The door slammed with ominous finality.

  I stared at the bundle in my arms for long moments, until my truck’s horn beeped at me impatiently. “Yeah yeah, I’m coming.” With a shake of my head, I started back to the truck.

  What’s done was done. No changing that now, no use dwelling on mighta-coulds or maybe-shouldas. Marty and his family would be safer for it. I had to believe that.

  I handed the sword to let Estéban as I climbed into the truck, and he unwrapped it immediately. “Oh wow…I don’t think I could use it. It’s too pretty.”

  Though I was inclined to agree with him, I knew I’d use it. I’d had my chance to give up this glamorous life, and I’d passed it by a long time ago. Just one of those sacrifices a hero makes, or some shit.

  “Hey, kid. How’s your spell casting going?” Like most champions, Estéban had magical ability. His mother—a powerful bruja in her own right—had been teaching him a little, and Mira had picked up there when he came to live with us. He wasn’t up to either woman’s skill level yet, I knew that, but every smidgen of power he had was a smidgen more than I possessed. Me, the great magic-less wonder.

  The kid looked at the weapon in his lap, and quickly shook his head. “No way. I’m not good enough to do this. You have Miss Mira do it.”

  I ran the truck through its gears as we bounced down the road, pondering that notion. There was no way I was having Miss Mira do any magic in the foreseeable future. Not until we knew for sure. If there was even the slightest chance she was pregnant, I couldn’t ask her to risk that. Not again.

  When I missed the turn that would have taken us home, Estéban gave me a look. “Where are we going?”

  “We’re gonna go find Cameron.” I knew one other powerful magic-user, and I had absolutely no qualms about asking him to drain himself for my benefit. He was still on my shit list anyway.

  Cameron—Brother Cameron if you wanted to be formal—had moved out of his little hole of an apartment shortly before Thanksgiving, saying something about black mold or whatever. Personally, I think he needed to suck it up and suffer.

  Of course, the woman he was dating, my wife’s best friend Dr. Bridget, had taken him in. She didn’t know he was really a priest, sent to spy on me, and whatever discussions they’d had about him sleeping in the spare bedroom were none of my business. Seriously, how could she not question why the man wouldn’t sleep with her?

  Bridget looked surprised when she answered her door to find us standing there. “Jesse…Estéban…”

  “Heya, Bridge. Cam here?” I gave her my best charming no-nefarious-deeds-to-see-here grin. Pay no attention to the teenager standing to my right with a sword behind his back. Bridget was still in the dark concerning magic and all things demonic. I wasn’t going to be the one to burst that bubble.

  “Yeah…come on in.” She gave us both a wary look as she stepped back from the door. “Cam…! Jesse’s here!”

  Cam appeared from the direction of the kitchen, drying his hands on a towel, and his look of faint curiosity faded almost instantly, seeing me standing in the entryway. “Jesse…”

  “Cam. Got a second?” My words were friendly, but my tone of voice said “yes, you have as many seconds as I require.”

  “Uh yeah, sure.” He passed the towel to Bridget and kissed her on the cheek. “The biscuits are ready to go in the oven, hon.”

  I waited until the good doctor had vanished into the recesses of the house before turning a flat look on Cameron.

  “I’d say Merry Christmas, but I’m guessing you’re not here delivering gifts.” The priest raised a brow. “What’s up?”

  “I need that voodoo you do so well.” Estéban brought the sword forward when I nodded, unwrapping it.

  Cam’s eyes went wide. “Wow…that’s…did Marty make that?” He reached out, but stopped just short of touching the blade. No matter what he called himself, in the end, Cam was just a champion like myself. He knew good weaponry when he saw it, and he knew that you didn’t just reach out and grab another guy’s sword. It’s rude.

  “Yeah. And now I need it magicked.”

  The priest frowned in puzzlement. “Why don’t you have Mira do it?”

  “She just can’t right now. And this has to be done before tonight. My armor’s in the truck, and I need those spells refreshed too.” If I was going to be fighting a soul challenge, bargaining for a demon to retrieve someone’s lost soul, I wouldn’t have bothered with blessing my gear. I usually negotiated those protections out anyway. But this job wasn’t normal, and I had no idea what I was going to need in the next week.

  Cam frowned thoughtfully. “All right…um…I can’t do it here, for obvious reasons. Do you know where Redemptorist is?”

  Of course I did. Everyone in Kansas City knew that church. “Down on Broadway. Sure.”

  “I need to get some stuff first. Meet me there.”

  As we stepped out the door, I could hear Cam inside explaining to Bridget that he had to run out for a little bit. It sounded oddly like the conversation I’d just had with Mira, only with a lot less “angry” in it. I think it just made me dislike him a little more.

  Cameron was a part of the Ordo Sancti Silvii—the Order of St. Silvius. You ask any Catholic about that saint, and they’ll look at you like you’re crazy. It’s a saint that doesn’t, as far as most of the world knows, exist. The men in the order were champions, like me, who operated under the direction of the Catholic church. They tended to look down on the more secular champions, like me, and in return, I usually referred to them as the Knights Stuck-up-idus.

  A few months ago, Cam’s superiors sent him to KC to keep an eye on me. Too bad none of them bothered to tell me that the demons were gunning for me. I had to admit, without Cam we’d have all been zombie chow, but I still didn’t appreciate the deception. Especially when it involved him lying to a woman I greatly respected.

  If the jerk hadn’t seemed to genuinely care for Dr. Bridget, I’d have probably kicked his ass months ago. As it was…I couldn’t bring myself to break her heart like that. Maybe I’m a big ole softie on the inside.

  Our Lady of Perpetual Help, better known around Kansas City as Redemptorist Church, was one of the most amazing churches I’d ever seen. What I know about architecture you could fit on the head of a pin, so I couldn’t tell you if it was Gothic or Baroque or whatever. I could tell you that it looked like a medieval castle with spires and turrets sweeping to the high heavens. The stained glass windows were amazing, and the sun cast multicolor images across the parishioners as they sat in their quiet prayers. It seemed like there might just be angels lurking in the shadows of the vaulted ceilings, listening to those prayers.

  Yeah, I know. I don’t really believe in god-with-the-big-G, but if I did, this was what church should feel like. Like there was something so much bigger than me out there, looking out for us.

  Luckily, we’d just missed the midmorning service, and I slipped in the door feeling like a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. Estéban paused to dip his fingers in the font, making the sign of the cross like the good Catholic boy he was, then we walked up the center aisle toward the altar.

  Damn, were my boots always this loud? I shifted my equipment bag on my shoulder and I swear it sounded like I had
a herd of Santa’s reindeer in my bag, jingling away. Even the slightest footstep seemed to echo off the cavernous ceiling. There were only a couple of people still in the church, their heads bowed as they tended to whatever spiritual needs they had. They never looked up at me, so maybe it was my imagination.

  I glanced at the kid, but he was gazing around with wide eyes, entranced by the ornate beauty. “I wish mi madre could see this. She would love it so much.” Even his quiet awe seemed to reverberate in hushed whispers from up above.

  “Is there something I can help you gentlemen with?” Both Estéban and I flinched at the soft question, and the priest who’d snuck up behind us smiled his apologies. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you. I am Father John.” He was seventy if he was a day, bristles of white hair sticking out above his ears, but leaving the rest of his head shiny and bald. Smile lines were etched deep around his pale blue eyes, and his face was simple and kind. I can think of no other way to describe it.

  “It’s okay, no harm done.” Though it was a good thing the sword was in Estéban’s arms, or things coulda got nasty there, real quick. Don’t startle the paranoid guy, ’kay? “We’re just waiting for someone to meet us here.”

  The priest’s eyes swept over my duffel bag, and the bundle clutched to Estéban’s chest, but he didn’t ask. “Well, our next service isn’t until tomorrow morning at seven, and we take confessions a half hour before all of our weekday masses.”

  “Thank you.” Geez, the things I could confess would probably turn the man’s hair white. Y’know, if it hadn’t been already.

  Deciding that perhaps we weren’t potential parishioners, Father John excused himself, leaving the kid and me standing before the altar.

  “Um, Jesse? Would it be all right if I sat here for a while?” I raised both brows at the kid, and he studied his toes intently. “I have not been to church since Miguel died. I think perhaps I should spend some time.”

  “Yeah, kid. You do what you gotta.” I thumped him on the shoulder once and he gave me a very small, grateful smile, handing me the bundle containing my new sword. I mean, what was I gonna say? The kid really hadn’t had a chance to deal with his brother’s murder, almost a year ago now. If he wanted to sit and commune with God or whatever, who was I to question?