A Wolf at the Door

by Stewart, K. A.

  Estéban found a seat in the front pew and clasped his hands, murmuring quietly to himself. I turned away. It seemed too private to watch, this whole religion thing. Thankfully, I spotted Cameron coming in the big double doors, which saved me from trying to figure out what to do with myself in the interim.

  The incognito priest also stopped to dip his fingers in the holy water, making the sign of the cross, then strode down the center aisle toward me. “Where’s E— Oh.” He spotted the kid, I guess.

  “He’s dealing with some stuff. I’ll grab him on the way out. So where do we do this?”

  “I need to let them know I’m here; they’ll have a place available, I think.” Cam hefted a black duffel bag on his own shoulder, eerily similar to mine, and I followed him toward the recesses of the big church.

  Behind the scenes, the church looked just like any other generic building. There were several doors that opened into what appeared to be classrooms. A janitor’s closet. And several doors that simply had nameplates on them. We stopped at one labeled REV. RICHARD STRONG and Cam rapped lightly with one knuckle.

  The man who opened the door wasn’t as old as I was expecting. I’d been picturing another elderly fellow, like Father John, but this guy was young. Ish. Forties, maybe, athletic build, sandy hair. In a blue polo shirt and khaki pants, I never would have guessed he was clergy.

  Reverend Richard’s eyes lit up, landing on Cameron. “Cameron! Damn, it’s good to see you!” They traded rough, backslapping hugs, while I was pondering the concept of cussing in a church. “I was beginning to think you weren’t going to come see us.”

  Cam chuckled and shrugged. “The life of a busy man, you know how it is. Um, Jesse, this is Ricky. Ricky, Jesse.”

  “Pleased to meet you.” I had to juggle stuff so that we could shake hands, but once managed, I found the reverend’s grip nice and firm. I also noticed the calluses, the sign of a man who worked with his hands. And I mean worked hard. Either this man was only pretending to be some administrative lackey, or he had some really interesting hobbies.

  “So what brings you in?” Reverend Ricky asked, eyeing the bundle in my arms curiously.

  “I need a place to work.” Cam nodded toward his own bag of supplies. “Thought I’d ask if we could borrower your Sanctum?” Reverend Ricky gave Cam a curious look, and a dart of his eyes toward me. Yeah, that was subtle. “Jesse’s fine. He’s one of Zelenko’s.”

  “Ah. I was wondering. It’s back here.”

  Ricky led the way and I brought up the rear of our odd little train, trying to decide if I was offended to just be known as “one of Zelenko’s” or not. Especially since I wasn’t technically speaking to Ivan, right now. See, that’s what happens when people lie to me. I get all pissy.

  Ivan had been lying to me from the moment he’d turned up on my doorstep almost five years ago. I’d seen proof of it last fall as picture after picture scrolled across Viljo’s computer screen. Images of more champions than I’d ever been told about, people who weren’t supposed to exist. It might seem like a small deception, but my life depended on being able to trust Ivan’s information. If he’d lied about that, what else was he less than truthful on?

  No, we’re not going to talk about me lying to other people. I’ll struggle with my hypocrisy on my own time, thank you very much.

  There were more hallways in the back of the church than I really realized, and then we even found a staircase leading down beneath the building. The air temperature dropped about twenty degrees, and what might have been dampness during the summer felt like pinpricks of frost on my bare face. Yay for being underground in a brisk Missouri winter.

  Despite the aged feeling of the natural stone walls, the lighting was thoroughly modern, and pointed our way to a room at the farthest end of the hall. I glanced up, estimating that we were under the nave. Part of me wanted to bang on the ceiling, see if I could scare the people sitting above us.

  “Everything should be ready, we refresh the supplies every morning.” Reverend Ricky gave Cam a polite nod, and included me in it at the last second. “Let me know if you need anything else.”

  He left us down there in the dungeon (yes, I know it wasn’t, but the image was stuck in my head) and the door above boomed shut. Cameron gave me a small shrug and pushed open the plain wooden door, revealing nothing but a dark featureless room in front of us. “Ready?”

  “Guess so.” I had to wonder, ready for what?

  4

  While I had visions dancing through my mind of medieval torture implements and manacles hanging off the walls, when Cameron flipped on the light, it was just another room. Two rooms, actually, and the first one had a row of old porcelain sinks against one wall, a shelf above it holding a row of clay pitchers. The doorway to the second room was low—I’d have to duck to get through it without knocking myself out—and I couldn’t see much except the same stones as the walls, set in concentric circles to make up the floor.

  Cameron dropped his duffel bag on the floor and went to select a pitcher. “You should scrub up too, I may need your help.”

  “What is this, surgery?” I set my gear down with a bit more care and moved to the sinks.

  Cameron ditched his coat, then poured water from the pitcher into the basin in front of him. He dunked his hands in it up to the elbows, so I quickly followed suit with another pitcher from the shelf.

  “Jesus freakin’ Christ!” I snatched my hands back just as quickly, splattering freezing-cold water every which way.

  “Language, please?”

  I glared at the priest as he performed his ablutions in the ice-cold water. “You could have warned me.”

  “It’s winter. It’s cold down here.” He glanced at me once. “It’s holy water. You may feel a tingle.”

  “After my fingers go numb and fall off, I may never feel anything again,” I muttered to myself, but plunged my hands back into the ice bath. Keee-RIST that was cold!

  He was right, though. Once I got used to the frigid liquid, I could feel more than just the cold lancing through my bones. Under that was the telltale prickle, the only trace of magical power that I was able to sense. I brought a handful of water to my face to sniff at it, and caught the faintest hint of cloves. It was distant, but discernible if you knew what to look for. I may not be able to use it, but I could usually tell when it was present.

  My scrubbing didn’t take nearly as long as Cameron’s, and I shucked back into my coat so I could pretend I wasn’t shivering. “You guys just leave holy water sitting down here in case someone happens by?”

  “Yes.” Apparently, he was clean to his own satisfaction, because he pulled the stopper on the sink and moved to his duffel bag again. “The function of a Sanctum is to be prepared whenever someone needs it.”

  “That’s a lot of wasted juice,” I observed, watching the blessed water draining out into the local sewer system.

  “Not really. Most novices have enough latent ability to bless the water, even if they don’t know their results have actual power. Faith is an amazing phenomenon.”

  “Mmhmm.” Cam and I had discussed this whole magic vs. religion thing before. What it boiled down to, for me, was that my pagan wife’s magic smelled and felt just the same as Cam’s prayers. You can call it an elephant if you want, but for me it all still quacks like a duck.

  Cameron was unloading his duffel bag right there on the floor, setting out vials and bells and small containers of unidentifiable powders. “Only take what you need inside the next room. Leave your bag out here, the wrappings on the sword, that kind of stuff.”

  Hey, I don’t ask. I leave the whys and the how-comes to the magic folk. I unpacked my gear, like he said, managing somehow to carry all my armor and padding with one arm, leaving my other hand free to carry the precious new sword. It was heavy as hell—the armor, not the sword—and it took only a few minutes for my arm to start complaining.

  Cam appeared to be taking his sweet time, mulling over the other ingredients of his al
l-purpose bag of magic paraphernalia. “What exactly do you think you’ll be needing?”

  That was a damn good question. This wasn’t one of my usual soul challenges, and I really had no idea what I’d be going up against, if anything at all. Axel had said they’d send someone, or something. One of those zombie things, like what we’d faced last fall? No, that didn’t make any sense. Even in L.A., those things would start a raging panic.

  A person, maybe? Somebody like me, but demon-sworn? I’d never turned my sword on another human being in my life. I honestly don’t know if I could. Let’s all just hope I’m never faced with making that decision.

  “General protective spells on the gear. Bionic me up.” I didn’t think I could run down a Los Angeles street, waving a katana, so I’d need more than just my weapon in case things went bad. “A way to set up wards would be good, something portable. I’ve got mace already, but you could snazzy it up a bit.” Demon mace was only cayenne and cumin mixed together, but a little magic oomph couldn’t hurt. “Anything else you think might be useful. General anti-demon stuff?” Yeah, a font of information. That’s me.

  “The wards are easy.” He pulled a spool of thick string out of his pack and laid it with the rest of his supplies. “And maybe…” He plucked a few more things out, then folded all the bottles and jars and knickknacks up in a cloth I hadn’t even seen him produce. Standing, he looked at me very seriously. “Once we’re inside the room, we don’t leave until we’re done. If you gotta piss, you should do it now.”

  “Are you allowed to say that in a church?” He just rolled his eyes at me and disappeared through the low door. What could I do but follow?

  Ducking to get through the doorway, I saw that there were also a few steps down, an awkward maneuver with an armload of armor and weaponry. The room itself was perfectly circular, as I’d guessed, with a raised altarlike surface in the dead center. A plain wooden cross hung from the ceiling above it, the end centered over the stone table where Cameron gently laid his supplies.

  Though there were electric lights in this room as well, the priest then went around to wall sconces and lit torches—actual torches!—narrating as he did so. “Once we start, we’ll probably lose the lights. Trust me when I say that being down here in the pitch black isn’t fun.”

  “I thought you’d never been here before.” Finding no place to set down my heavy burden, I was forced to just stand there and wait.

  “The Sanctum is the same in any church that has one. Most of them on this continent were even built by the same man, back in the early 1900s. Until that point, the Order was solely based in Europe.” With quick, precise movements, he started setting things around the altar, a place for each one and everything in its place. I couldn’t help but smirk a little, watching him. “They’re scattered all over the country, available for whoever might need them.”

  “So, everybody knows that demon-hunting knights might come strolling in at any time?”

  “No. Only a few in each parish. Most think this is just a room for meditation and prayer.” He flicked his lighter one more time, lighting a tiny candle in his array of random objects. “They know it as the Sanctum. The rest of us know it as the Sanctum Arcanum.”

  Finally, I leaned against the wall, careful not to get my long hair anywhere near the flickering torches. “Why is the Order a secret, even within the church?”

  Cameron finally looked up from his fiddling. “Why doesn’t Marty want to talk to you anymore?” I frowned, and he nodded. “Because some people, even those in the church, just can’t handle that reality.” He turned his gaze back down to his work, examining everything on a microscopic level, it seemed. “Those who can handle it…they get recruited, either as knights or as support staff.”

  “Like Reverend Ricky.”

  “Yeah, like Ricky.” Cam smiled a little. “We went to seminary together, actually. He’s a good man.”

  “So why’s he not a knight?”

  “He was.” With a few minor adjustments, Cam seemed satisfied with his toys. “You can’t tell, but he’s blind in his left eye now. They pulled him out of circulation.” He stood up straight, stretching a little, then motioned to me. “Bring me the sword first, we’ll start with that.”

  Pulled him out of circulation. A retirement plan. I had to wonder how many of Ivan’s champions had ever retired. Ivan no longer fought, that I knew of, but the rest of us…our life expectancy wasn’t good. Retirement meant just one thing, and it had nothing to do with long afternoons spent fishing.

  I laid the new sword on the altar where Cam directed, and stepped back. The priest took another moment to just look over the wonder that was my blade. “This is the kind of sword that ought to have a name.”

  “He called it The Way.”

  “The etchings…that’s the same as your tattoos, right?”

  “Yeah.” I was still touched that Marty had gone to such amazing effort, all for me. For a guy he didn’t even really like anymore. “Get this moving, it’s freezing down here.”

  “Step back a little more.” I did, and Cameron closed his eyes, placing one palm on the hilt, the other on the tip of the blade.

  His lips moved silently for a few moments. That was one thing I’d noticed, Cameron’s magic required words. Mira’s didn’t. I found the differences fascinating. Mira would have cast a circle, a barrier of her own will. Cam scrubbed down like a brain surgeon. My wife’s implements usually involved a scrying bowl and various herbs. I spotted salt on Cam’s altar, alongside saltpeter, wine, and a tiny bottle of magnetized iron shavings. A cross, of course, in addition to the one already hanging overhead.

  The priest mouthed something, in Latin I think, and the thick scent of cloves wafted out of nowhere. My skin tingled again, like pins and needles, and I couldn’t help but rub my fingertips together, like I could almost grab it if I just knew how.

  To my left, one of the lightbulbs shattered with a pop and a fizzle. I flinched just in time to avoid being peppered with glass fragments, and brushed the sparks off my shoulder before it could catch my hair on fire. Two more bulbs across the room followed suit, eliminating three of the four electric lights. The torches kept flickering merrily, but the place looked even more like a dungeon than it had before.

  In the dimmer lighting, I could make out the faintest of glows around Cameron’s hands as he prayed, and it spread slowly from his fingers to the metal of my sword, oozing along the blade like syrup. It met in the middle, gained in intensity for just a moment, then sank into the weapon and vanished. His hand trembling, the priest dipped his fingers into a small bowl of water and spattered it across my sword. The water sizzled when it touched the metal, apparently to his satisfaction. Cameron took a shaky breath and leaned hard on the altar.

  “You all right?” Magic—all magic, no matter what Cam wanted to believe—was fed from the life force of the user. The bigger the effect, the greater the price. It was entirely possible to cast yourself to death, just pouring out your own life until there was nothing left.

  Luckily, things like wards and protections were fairly minor on the magical spectrum. Defensive spells had minor costs. Not like the big flashy stuff. That’s why even those champions who had magic didn’t use it in combat. No great wand duels or fireballs. That’d kill a champion faster than any demon.

  “I’m fine. Just gotta catch my breath between, you know?” Cam gave me a small grin that faded when he remembered we weren’t quite friends. “Let’s get the armor next.”

  I traded out my newly blessed sword for my pile of tarnished mail armor and padding, Cam clearing more space on his altar for the heap of metal. As he reset some of his supplies, he casually asked, “So, why is Mira not doing this for you?”

  “She just isn’t.” It was none of his damn business.

  He gave me a flat look. “I heard Bridget talking to her on the phone.” Crap. “If she is pregnant, you’re right to keep her from casting any spells.”

  “I know that.” I’m not stupid, I swe
ar.

  “Are you excited?”

  That was a damn good question. I mean, I love my daughter. She’s one of the most amazing things in my life. And I’m sure I would love any other kids that came along just the same. But was that being a responsible parent, bringing another kid into this mess? Poor Annabelle, she was here before I got involved in the lunacy. But another kid? It was a daunting prospect.

  “Can we just save our male bonding for another time when I’m not freezing my balls off?” When I’m uncomfortable, I snap. Sorry.

  Cam went to work without answering me, spreading his fingers to touch as much of my armor as he could. Again, the faint blue glow started at his palms, trickling through his fingers and into the gear in front of him. Topping the pile of armor were my leather bracers, and I could see the sigils on the inside surface flare brightly when Cameron’s magic passed over and through them. Mira’s runes, carved by Marty’s hand. In the pile of chain, tiny sparks danced in the links, adding a metallic hint to the clove-scented air. I didn’t remember seeing that happen when Mira worked her stuff. Interesting.

  Watching the priest work over my armor, it occurred to me what else Marty’s absence in my life would mean. Damn, where was I going to get my armor worked on when it was damaged now? The stocky blacksmith had crafted every link with his own two hands, fitting and designing it by trial and error over the course of the last four years. It wasn’t like I could just drop it at the drycleaners and pick it up a couple of days later. I could ask Cam, sure, but I’d rather choke. Maybe I could call Avery, out in San Fran. Surely he’d know someone…

  The spells on the armor went much the same as the blessing over the sword, except there was just more to cover and thus it took longer. It cost us the last lightbulb, leaving us with the torches and the increasingly smoky air, and despite the icy temperatures, Cameron was soaked with sweat when he finished. As he recovered from the second round of hoodoo, chugging a can of energy drink that I didn’t see him bring in, I grumbled about the lack of ventilation. “It’s actually a safety mechanism.”