The Wyvern's Defender Dire Wolf

by Alice Summerfield

  When they had left, Rudolf’s car had been parked in one of those convenient slots nearest to his building. Now, they had to park across the width of the lot.

  It was not a small parking lot.

  The claiming of his previous parking spot by another wasn’t her fault. Logically, Helena knew that. Illogically, though, she still felt guilty. Already, she was making things more difficult for him!

  Firmly, Helena resolved to do something nice for Rudolf later to make up for setting off the alarm, which in turn had forced him to go fetch Declan’s keys.

  Of course, if I hadn’t done that, I’d still be sitting there, waiting for someone that wasn’t going to come home for at least a week.

  It might not have been that bad.

  Florida, even in winter, was still quite a bit warmer than Helena was used to, and by the time that they made it across the width of the parking lot and up a twisting flight of stairs, she was lightly sweating.

  At least Rudolf had the decency to possess the apartment closest to the stairs.

  As they had neared the building, the gentle hum various air conditioning units had filled the air, but Helena hadn’t fully relaxed until Rudolf led her into his apartment, which was both fully lit and deliciously cool.

  At that moment, Helena didn’t know if she was more grateful not to have fried the entire building’s electrical system or the inventors of air conditioning for doing the lord’s own work.

  Cheered, Helena paid better attention this time to her host’s living space. To her pleasure, Rudolf Shaw’s space was just as personalized as her cousin Declan’s had been. But where her cousin’s apartment had been Spartan yet lived in, Rudolf Shaw’s was lived in but cozy.

  He had painted the walls of his apartment a warm, nearly soft shade of white and put both a shoe and coat rack to one side of the front door, near the security system’s interface. In fact, as Helena watched – but not too closely, she didn’t wish to be rude – he punched in his code, something that made the little white security panel give a happy chirp before the device’s inexorable countdown disappeared.

  As in Declan’s apartment, the kitchen was to the left of the door and the dining room to the right of it. Unlike in Declan’s apartment, however, Rudolf Shaw’s kitchen showed signs of actual use. There were kitchen implements and appliances arranged on all the counters, as well as a knife, a cutting board, and some carrots. On a plate to one side of the cutting board was a heap of carrots, each chunk of carrot neatly cut down to roughly the size of a matchstick.

  At the sight of those carrots, Helena felt another pang of remorse. She had obviously dragged the poor man away from his lunch!

  Of course, the topic of lunch now raised, Helena’s stomach gave an embarrassingly loud gurgle, reminding her that she hadn’t had lunch either.

  I wonder if he would mind sharing? Helena thought hopefully.

  If he didn’t, her stomach might literally eat her.

  The dining room, although small, was being utilized as a home office. Two of its walls were filled with the sagging shelves of books, while the third remained bare and waiting to be filled in turn.

  From there, Rudolf took her through his apartment, showing Helena the living room in passing. Helena glimpsed another battered, overstuffed leather couch standing across from another flat screen television, between the two of which stood a serviceable coffee table.

  The bathroom, which once again lay across the hall from the living room, was very nice. It was all sleek white tiles with that same wonderful showerhead, this time perched over a large tub. There were fluffy towels stacked on one of the counters and absolutely nothing on any of the other ones.

  Looking around at that tub, Helena wanted more than anything to take a nice, relaxing bath. She crushed it down as best she could.

  It was a proven fact that gentlemen preferred women without scales.

  Across from the bathroom stood the laundry nook, and past both the laundry nook and the bathroom lay the master bedroom. Entering it, Helena discovered that Rudolf was not a person that truly appreciated his bed. It was small, maybe only a full, with precisely made bedding and a couple of sad little pillows. A dresser stood in one corner of the room, all of its drawers neatly shut, and there was a tall reading lamp to one side of the bed.

  And that was it. That was Rudolf Shaw’s entire apartment. Realizing that, Helena abruptly noticed what was missing from it: a guest room.

  Rudolf Shaw and Declan da Luz had more or less the same floor plan in their apartments, and Declan hadn’t had a guest room. Therefore, it followed that Rudolf wouldn’t have one either.

  Helena wished that this had occurred to her sooner, say before she had agreed to stay here rather than in her cousin’s empty apartment.

  Feeling awkward, Helena asked “Where’s your guest room?”

  “In here,” said Rudolf, opening the door that had led to a walk-in closet in her cousin’s apartment.

  It proved to be a walk-in closet in this one too.

  Past Rudolf’s shoulder, Helena could see that the nearest clothing rod wasn’t even half filled. The closet stood mostly empty.

  Rudolf went to the farthest corner of the closet, a place in which he seemed to have neatly stacked some sort of gear. As she watched, he began to assemble a frame.

  And that was when Helena realized what he intended.

  Horror thrilled through her heart.

  Oh no! It’s a cot!

  Over it, Rudolf unrolled a thick pad and then a sleeping bag.

  “There,” said Rudolf with every evidence of satisfaction. “That should be comfortable enough.”

  Helena eyed first the cot and then him with dismay.

  He expected her to live in his closet?

  But what could she do? She couldn’t demand her host’s bed nor could she go back to her cousin’s place, not without causing offense. There wasn’t even a guarantee that her cousin was still open to the idea of letting her stay at his place, not now that she had already turned him down. And Helena had the vague suspicion that staying in a decent hotel would eat into her meager funds rather quickly.

  No, she was stuck.

  My, how quickly the mighty have fallen, thought Helena wryly, as she pasted on a smile. Bravely, she said “It looks lovely. Thank you very much.”

  Rudolf grunted, dismaying Helena further. How had her cousin made him sound so at ease? When Rudolf had been on the phone with Declan, he had seemed friendly and approachable. Not so, now that it was just the two of them alone together.

  Is he annoyed with me? Helena wondered. After all, I am an unexpected guest. And I did interrupt his lunch. Things like that would have put me out of sorts too.

  There and then, Helena resolved to be less of an annoyance to her roommate. Her roommate! Helena had never had one of those before!

  Just thinking it made Helena’s smile widen and become more genuine. She had always wanted a roommate; someone with which to be friendly, share zany romantic hijinks, and get annoyed at for watching terrible television.

  Perhaps living here, at least for the time being, was going to be more fun than she had anticipated.

  “Rudolf,” said Helena. “Would you like help making… lunch, is it on the counter?”

  Chapter 06 – Rudolf

  There had been a brief, halcyon period of time in which Rudolf had thought that it might be nice to cook with Helena. He liked to cook, she had been eager to do it, and their mutual interest had seemed like a gift. Dolf had even dared to hope that it might help him to begin feeling more comfortable around her more quickly.

  That happy period of time had lasted all of two minutes. Now, he would be grateful if Helena didn’t accidentally cut her hand off.

  Thud! An agonizingly long silence from her end of the counter, and then another low thud as Helena brought the knife down again. This one, however, was followed by the soft hiss of breath pushed between teeth.

  “What? What is it?” demanded Rudolf, his heart quailing in h
is chest.

  Already, he was trying to think how he would explain Helena’s new hook to Declan. It wasn’t going to be easy, especially since she’d been in his care – Rudolf glanced at his watch – all of two hours.

  “Nothing,” said Helena, almost guiltily.

  “Did you cut yourself?”

  “…Not badly?” offered Helena after a lengthy pause.

  Rudolf almost sighed.

  Turning down the heat on his saucepan, he turned to Helena, saying, “Let me see it.”

  Edging down the length of the counter, Helena thrust her finger out to him. To Rudolf’s relief, her hand and all of its fingers still seemed to be attached to the rest of her.

  “Yeah, it’s not that bad,” said Rudolf, and as if to spite him, red blood welled up at the tip of her forefinger. Hastily, he added, “But you should probably go clean that up.”

  He told her where he kept his first aid kit, but the idea of her going through his bathroom cabinets at all – even for something that she obviously needed – made him so uncomfortable that it was all that Dolf could do to keep himself from following Helena into the bathroom and tending to her injured finger himself.

  Instead, he tried to keep himself busy by first finishing up with the meatballs, then adding to the pot whatever carrots they had managed to cut without injury, and putting the meatballs into the oven to finish cooking. Then he cleaned up Helena’s area, washing and putting away the offending knife, and put a lid on the pot of soup.

  Around then, Helena reappeared, a band-aid plastered around her injured forefinger. When she asked if she could help with anything else, Dolf nearly shuddered.

  “No,” said Dolf. “I think I’ve got it in here.”

  Perhaps it was irrational, but Dolf felt like he had only just barely avoided having to explain to Declan how he had allowed Declan’s long lost cousin to be maimed inside of his first three hours of knowing her. There was no need to tempt fate.

  “I could set the table,” offered Helena, surprising Dolf. He blinked at her, and she gestured towards the living room where his coffee table lived.

  “Your table?” reiterated Helena. “I could set it for lunch.”

  It had been a long time since Dolf had eaten a meal at an actual table. Mostly, he ate out or standing at the kitchen counter. Seldom did he eat while watching television.

  “Sure,” said Dolf, since that sounded like a nice, safe thing for her to do.

  Dolf pointed out the appropriate cabinets for the plates, cups, and silverware and Helena got to work. He was washing the lettuce for a salad to go with the soup – his physical was coming up. Rationally, Dolf knew that he would pass, but it eased his mind to eat lighter in the days before it – when Helena reappeared at his side, saying, “I can’t find your salad forks, soup spoons, cloth napkins, or napkin rings.”

  “I don’t have any of those,” said Dolf. He’d never seen a napkin ring in his entire life.

  “Oh.” Helena flushed, her fair skin betraying her embarrassment. “Sorry.”

  “It’s fine,” said Dolf. Nodding towards the drawers in question, he added “All of my silverware is in that drawer. I also have paper towels, and there are some paper napkins in that drawer next to the silverware one, if you’d prefer those.”

  The paper napkins lived in a drawer with handfuls of leftover disposable chopstick sets and complimentary condiment packets, all the remnants of takeout dinners past. Right now, Dolf was eating his way through those leftover supplies, but as soon as he passed his yearly physical, he was going to start getting takeout again and that drawer was going to get a fresh infusion of everything – paper napkins, disposable chopsticks, mayo, ketchup, and relish packets, the works.

  Dolf’s mouth watered just thinking about it.

  “Thanks!” chirped Helena, and she disappeared again.

  Dolf washed the tomatoes then chopped them up, along with the lettuce. All of that went into a large bowl, and the salad condiments – shredded cheese, granola, sunflower seeds, cashews, washed blueberries, quartered strawberries, crumbled bleu cheese, and the like – into smaller ones.

  Helena reappeared then to help him carry the salad, all of its makings, and his lone bottle of Asian vinaigrette into the living room, where she arranged them on the coffee table to her liking.

  Even given the fact that she had only had his mismatched silverware set, his collection of free paper napkins, and his collection of free mugs with which to work, it was still the fanciest layout that Dolf’s coffee table had ever seen. The woman just seemed to exude wealth and class, and somehow, she had gotten it all over his crappy secondhand gear. Frankly, the whole thing made Dolf’s palms itch.

  Passing him a plate, Declan’s cousin perched next to Dolf on the couch. Helena Tarleton was slightly built, and she looked underfed to boot, so when she sat, Dolf barely felt the couch cushions shift at all. It should have been no imposition at all.

  Instead, her proximity consumed Dolf’s attention. His skin prickled with his awareness of her. The sweet, artificial scents wafting off of her made his nose itch with the beginnings of a sneeze that Dolf knew from experience would never come. How he hated scented bath products!

  Irritation cleared his head, a least a little bit, which was when Dolf realized that Helena must run cooler than most people. They were sitting so close together that he should have felt the heat of her radiating against his side. Instead, he felt approximately nothing from her.

  She’s almost a ghost, thought Dolf, and he nearly frowned.

  She was as hungry as a ghost too, helping her plate with quite a bit of everything. Dolf wondered if she would even want any of the soup when it finished simmering, but he didn’t bother to ask. He’d find out soon enough, after all.

  They were strangers, who had little in common. Dolf had naturally assumed that meant there would be little conversation, while they ate.

  He was wrong.

  “The weather here is so nice! Where I came from, it’s so cold right now! I had to peel off my layers as I came south.”

  Helena paused a moment there, possibly to allow him to respond.

  Dolf couldn’t think of a damn thing to say. He desperately wished that he was better at small talk, but that had never come easily to him. It was a failing that had made his first dates – as well as the two nonconsecutive times that he had gotten trapped in an elevator – excruciating.

  Well, that and all the unfortunate accidents.

  When he failed to take the opening, Helena continued. Seemingly undaunted, she asked “So are you from around here?”

  “No,” said Dolf shortly.

  The less said about where he was from originally, the better.

  “So how’d you end up in Orlando?” asked Helena. She smiled up at him. “Did you move here for the sunny weather and theme parks?”

  “No, I came here for Gil,” said Dolf, more easily this time. “Giles Geissler. We served together in the army. Then he got an idea for this business, and after we got out of the military, I signed up with him instead.”

  In fact, most of the guys that worked for Dial A Defender had ended up working for the company, because they’d met Giles Geissler somewhere in their murky past, and they’d liked him. Gil just had that effect on people. Perhaps not coincidentally, Gil was great at small talk.

  “Do you like your work?”

  “Yes, very much,” said Dolf. “It’s not, like, running for Congress or anything, but it makes a difference in someone’s world, sometimes a big one. That’s important to me. And I like my workmates.”

  That was important to him too.

  “Yeah?” asked Helena. “What are they like?”

  “You’ll probably get to see for yourself,” said Dolf, avoiding the question. It felt too much like talking out of school. “A lot of them live in this apartment complex; different buildings, though.”

  Helena nodded.

  “So why didn’t you go to Las Vegas too? Is it because you don’t like gambling? D
idn’t you want to have fun with everyone else?”

  “We can’t all take the same days off work,” said Dolf, amused. “Someone had to stay behind at the office and actually protect people.”

  Helena nodded. “That makes sense.”

  “Besides, gambling isn’t my favorite,” added Dolf, trying very hard to keep up his side of the conversation. “I prefer other things.”

  “Like camping? And reading?” guessed the woman, and Dolf grinned at her.

  “Yeah,” he said.

  “I’ve never been camping before,” said Helena. “This will be my first time.”

  “You’re sleeping in my apartment,” scoffed Dolf. “That doesn’t count as camping.”

  “I’m sleeping in your closet,” retorted Helena, “and in a camp bed, no less! That definitely makes it camping.”

  “There’s hot and cold running water, electricity, a working toilet, and television! It’s definitely not camping!”

  Declan’s cousin stared at him blankly.

  “Why wouldn’t there be a restroom?” she asked.

  Clearly, the woman was a glamper at heart. Fired up, Dolf set out to explain to Helena all the reasons why glamping was the worst form of camping, barely camping at all, really.

  That, at least, was an easy conversation to have.

  Chapter 07 – Helena

  The particular horrors of various types of camping, as enthusiastically enumerated by Rudolf Shaw, made the salad course pass quickly. At the end of it, Helena could say for certain that she had very little interest in any form of camping save glamping, and far less for any form that was so far removed from communal facilities as to necessitate the digging of a trench.

  Helena tried not to communicate that fact to Rudolf Shaw, however. She had the feeling that he thought he was persuading her around to the more… rustic… forms of camp life.