A Wolf at the Door

by Stewart, K. A.

  “I don’t need to kill her. I only need to hurt her.” It shoved harder with the gun, and she winced at the dig into her ribs. “The outcome is already decided. She only needs to say the words.”

  “I’m not saying shit…” That earned her another gouge in the ribs, and she whimpered, but stood firm. “If you knew me at all, you’d know that.”

  “He knows you better than you think. He’s been with you for…weeks, maybe.”

  Gretchen turned startled eyes on me. “How is that possible?”

  “Dante. He’s been impersonating Dante.”

  The creature smirked. My smirk. “It took you long enough to figure it out. Even your little test failed. I bled his blood for you, easy enough.”

  “Dante’s blood…?” Gretchen looked back at the creature holding her captive. “You killed Dante?”

  “He’s alive,” I quickly assured her. “Hurt and sore, but he’s fine. He’s downstairs. The thing kept him alive, because he needed the blood to take Dante’s form, his voice.” And my blood, he’d gotten from the tissue I’d told “Dante” to burn. At least, that’s what I’d have done in his place.

  Golem-Me grimaced. “As well that this masquerade is over then, if he’s escaped. He wouldn’t have kept much longer at any rate.”

  “You hurt Dante?” Despite the darkness, I could see angry fire flare in Gretchen’s blue eyes. “You hurt him?” As scared as I knew she was, only one thing would override that, and it was sheer rage. Women in protective mode are probably the scariest things I’ve ever seen, bet you me. “Fuck you!”

  Damn, the girl was quick. Before I could yell at her not to, she swung, jabbing her stiff fingers into Golem-Me’s eyes. The thing recoiled as she raked her fingernails out, taking huge gobbets of clay with it. In the scuffle, it dropped the gun and Gretchen snatched it up. The golem lurched in her direction, and she fired, the flash bright in the darkness. A good chunk of the golem’s shoulder disappeared. “Stop! Don’t you make a fucking move!”

  I’d been on the move myself, and we both came to a screeching halt. Always do what the lady with the gun tells you. I didn’t think she could kill the golem with it, but a stray bullet was definitely not going to be healthy for me.

  The pause gave the golem time to fix its eyes, the creature smoothing away the gouged clay with its fingers until it could see again. Definitely no chance of mistaking it for me now, the eye sockets hollowed out and lumpy around the edges. The clay orbs rolled like real eyes, but there were no pupils or irises to be seen. Just flat, matte gray marbles in the deep, dark sockets.

  Gretchen climbed up on the edge of the reflecting pool so she didn’t have to look up at the both of us. Her bare feet shuffled for balance on the precarious stone edge, but her aim with the gun never wavered. It was enormous in her small hands, but she held it like she knew which end was the dangerous one. She looked like a child up there, lost in her huge sweatshirt, hiding behind someone else’s gun. “You pretended to be my best friend. You sat there and listened to me spill my guts. I told you stuff nobody else knows. I trusted you!”

  If I didn’t know better, I’d almost say the golem looked sheepish, but his voice was flat. “As you were meant to.”

  “You were supposed to trust him, Gretchen.” The thing was still between me and her. I slowly circled, trying to put myself at a better angle if I had to rush the golem. Man, I hoped I didn’t have to. “You were supposed to trust him enough to hand over those souls.”

  “And you?” The muzzle of that gun swung my direction, and I froze again. “Some mysterious person sent you here to ‘protect’ me? I was supposed to trust you too, right?”

  Girl had me there. I could totally see that as part of Axel’s plan, and he’d have known that I’d never go along with it if he laid it all out beforehand. “Doesn’t matter what the person who sent me here wanted. I said I’d protect you. I meant that.” I motioned with my free hand. “Come down, come this way.” If that thing went to grab her, I was pretty sure I wasn’t gonna make it in time. I needed her closer.

  “No. Screw you both. I’m done being told what to do and when to do it.” I think Golem-Me must have moved, because she swung the gun back around in his direction. “Did it ever occur to anyone to just ask me? I mean, what am I gonna do with them? I’d have given them to anybody who asked. But no, you gotta mess with my head, mess with my life.”

  The golem blinked at her a little with his malformed eyes. “Then…can I have them?”

  She laughed bitterly. “You know…I might have given them to you. Except you hurt Dante. Nobody hurts my friends.”

  I was trying so hard not to pay attention to the sharp, icy goose bumps marching up and down my spine. Something was going to happen in the next few moments, I could feel it. Something not good. “Gretchen, come here. Give me the gun.” I stretched my hand out to her, trying to will her to step down and take it.

  Her gaze swiveled to me again, and she gave me a ghost of a smile. “I believe you, you know. I think you’d have protected me, if you could. You’re good people. You don’t belong out here with people like us. You don’t belong working for whatever asshole sent you out here.”

  “Gretchen, don’t…” I had no idea what she was about to do, but I knew I desperately didn’t want her to do it.

  She shook her head, her blond hair falling in wisps around her face. This high up, the wind was starting to pick up, tugging everything in the direction of the ocean. “They’re not gonna stop coming. If you kill this thing here”—she gestured toward the golem—“they’ll send something else. Bobby almost died. Tai might be dead. They’re gonna kill you too. Until I give these things over to somebody else.”

  Golem-Me moved again, and she calmly aimed and blew another hole through its shoulder. I heard the splat this time as the lump of clay went flying through the air and plastered against a nearby light fixture. “I said don’t move.”

  With one arm half-detached and dangling, the golem had no choice but to stop again. It held up its one good hand defensively.

  I leaned closer, as if that one or two inches closer to my hand would make her suddenly want to grab it. “I’m harder to kill than you think. Just come to me, and we’ll figure out how to deal, okay?”

  Gretchen shook her head, her hair flying around her face in the chill breeze. “Nobody’s invulnerable. That’s just in the movies. But I’ve seen your scars. I know you’re damn hard to kill. You’d have to be, doing what you do, right?”

  “Right. Not a job for desk jockeys.” Just keep her talking. It was all I could think to do.

  She nodded, then raised the gun. For a heartbeat, I just knew she was going to aim it at herself, and I jumped forward to stop her. “Stop!” Her barked command jerked me to a halt again, and I watched as she pointed the gun instead into the reflecting pool.

  I couldn’t see the glass in the pool, but somewhere around the fourth or fifth shot, I heard the glass start cracking, and by the time she emptied the entire clip into it, the snapping and popping of spiderwebbed glass continued like more gunshots in the night. It would be a matter of moments before it collapsed under the weight of the water, spilling into the lobby so many stories below.

  “They’ll never stop. They’ll come after me, they’ll come after the people I love. And frankly, I’m not the kind of person who can deal with this. I’m not strong enough.” She tossed the now-useless gun aside. “I hope you are.”

  The world went into slow motion there, I swear. The golem and I both lunged for Gretchen at the same time. I saw one of her bare feet step back, hovering in the air over the rapidly draining pool. Even as she teetered, her balance shifting backward, she smiled at me. “I name Jesse James Dawson my master.”

  And she fell.

  The fractured glass in the pool exploded as she hit it, dropping her nine stories down to the marble floor far below. I knew the instant she hit, because the sensation of two hundred and seventy-six souls slammed into me with the force of a tsunami. It took my
breath away, drowning me in the scent of cloves, crushing my chest under the pressure of so much power. My vision went white, and my ears were deafened by the sound of distant screaming, words I never could quite make out.

  I came to—at least, I think I came to—on my knees with my forehead pressed against the white stones on the ground. I could feel them under my splayed hands, every little ridge, every tiny imperfection in the rock. I could have told you which ones had quartz in them, a few with fossils, some with flecks of granite. I could have picked out the tiny forms of dead insects, trapped under the sealant.

  The night breeze passed over my skin, and I could have named every bit of contaminant in the polluted air, and underneath it all, the hint of sea salt. Someone three floors down was smoking weed on their balcony, and I could taste that too, like they were standing next to me. Tiny particles in the wind rasped over the backs of my hands, my cheeks, like I was being sandblasted by things people normally never noticed.

  Under my supersensitive touch, I felt the rooftop ripple infinitesimally as the golem shifted its weight, turning to face me. “And so I will simply take them from you instead.”

  His voice, stolen from me, jangled in my head like a thousand fire alarms. Even as expert as the mimicry was, I could tell the difference now, and the forgery of it grated at my senses like jagged chunks of glass.

  “No. You will simply kiss my ass.” My own voice wasn’t much better, rough-edged with anger and grief. It raked my senses like steel wool.

  The Way’s bone hilt was within my grasp when I reached for it, and I could feel every thin porous hole in the carved femur as I wrapped my fingers around it. The bone warmed instantly, like it was happy to be in my hand again.

  As I forced my way to my feet, I could feel the outlines of each and every rock through the soles of my heavy boots, and when I was finally able to focus my eyes, every light in sight—from the streetlights far below to the stars so many zillions of miles away—pierced straight through my corneas and seared in the back of my brain. It should have been agonizing, but instead it was just…pure. Like I was finally seeing things as they really were, with all the filth and the grime stripped away.

  I could see the thin veins running through every leaf of every plant that surrounded me. I could see the water pulsing through them, bringing life. I swear I could see the plants breathing, absorbing our castoffs to produce life-giving oxygen. I almost got lost, watching those wisps of gas wafting off into the night sky. Might have, even, if the golem hadn’t lunged for me then.

  The roof dipped and swayed and I moved with it, countering with The Way before the golem had even committed to its charge. My sword passed through the clay fingers on one hand, sending them spinning off into the dark.

  It was hard to concentrate on what I was doing. Part of me just wanted to watch the bits of light, gleaming and bouncing off my blade as we moved. I could have stared at the layers and layers of magic that coated the blade for hours, picking through each tiny bit of Cameron that remained on the metal. Because that’s what it was. Every bit of magic on my sword was a piece of Cameron’s soul, freely given, and I could smell him on it now.

  That same Cameron-taste permeated my armor, and beneath that, on my body itself, I was wrapped in delicate golden threads, just like Mystic Cindy had said. Those tasted like sage and strawberries. Like Mira.

  Again, I felt the ground beneath me lurch and ripple, and though I felt like I was moving in slow motion, part of me knew I was striking impossibly fast, dropping under the reaching clay arms to slash at the knees. The Way passed through the first, and halfway through the second before I lost momentum. I threw my shoulder into the golem’s stomach, sending it careening off balance with only one leg left to support it. The severed calf stayed where it had been left, the flesh color melting into gray from the cut downward. From dust to dust…With my strangely enhanced vision, I could see the threads of magic stretch to the breaking point between the severed pieces of the limb. And then, like a rubber band extended to its max, the golden strings of power snapped back, yanking the lumps of clay back into one piece.

  Bit by bit, the lost pieces of it snaked across the rooftop, plastering back together with a wet sucking sound. In no time at all, the thing was struggling to its feet again, turning to face me.

  Any other time, this would have been cause for concern. How do you destroy the indestructible? But my vision was dazzled with the glimmering web of magic, with the intricate connections that protected and animated the clay. I could see the spell, wound tightly around its clay flesh, anchored into a sigil etched between its shoulder blades. Erase the sigil, he’d said…. But why? Why do that when I could just…

  Okay, I admit I have no idea what I did that night. At the time, it was all just so…logical. The golem bared its teeth at me, hatred gleaming from what used to be my eyes. Within one of its palms, I could see the snippet of blessed thread glowing, a piece of my wards. That was how it had passed in and out. Inside the other palm, the single piece of Tai’s hair shone like a beacon, ten times as bright as Cam’s blessing. Taken when the Golem-Dante had been rubbing the big man’s shoulders. And embedded at the back of its neck, a piece of paper, no doubt the token from the creature’s maker and master.

  The web of magic that bound it up was complex, delicate but strong. Lace made of steel. But as such, just one small snip would unravel it all. So that’s what I did. I gestured with one hand, flinging my will away from me, and every thread of magic in its path snapped with an audible pop.

  The golem itself burst into a cloud of dry dust, drifting all around me, glittering like fairy dust as it slowly sifted down to earth. The piece of Cam’s string turned black and shriveled, withering like it had been burned. Tai’s hair, almost pure magic in and of itself, was immolated entirely. And the piece of paper, the token, poked out from the pile of dust and ash, one charred and curled corner visible.

  The rooftop swayed as someone else’s feet took careful steps, and I whirled, The Way poised to strike. What I found there was nothing that I had ever expected.

  It was Felix. I knew, deep down inside, that it was Felix. But the mental image of the eccentric homeless sage with the colorfully ribboned dreadlocks just would not hold together in the face of…I can’t even describe it. With my vision practically boiling over with magic, I could see straight to the truth of it, and I dropped to my knees, pressing with the heels of my hands at my burning eyes. And still I could see it.

  There was only one thing in the world that could be so beautiful and so terrible all at the same time, and if you’d have asked me ten minutes before, I would have sworn that I didn’t believe in them.

  Felix was an angel. Contrary to popular myth, he did not have a halo, or a white robe and feathery wings, and I was pretty sure he didn’t know how to play a lyre. There aren’t even words invented yet to describe what he looked like, and even just glimpsing him like I had, I knew the image would be burned behind my eyes for days. Maybe forever.

  “It is best to keep your eyes averted, warrior.”

  “Yeah, no shit,” I mumbled, feeling the scorching-hot salt of my tears coursing down my cheeks. It felt like lava, searing straight into the bones of my skull. Thankfully, Felix’s voice just sounded like Felix. I was pretty sure hearing an angel actually speak would have liquefied what was left of my brain cells.

  “The sensitivity will pass soon. Your body must adjust to so much power.” I felt every step he took as he approached me, and I shied away, scuttling over the ground like one of the lesser demons I had fought so often. I couldn’t risk glancing at the edges of his toes or something. I didn’t want to see, couldn’t stand to see.

  “Adjust, or go stark raving mad, is that it?” ’Cause oh, I could feel it. At the edges of my thoughts, this little gibbering voice usually reserved only for reacting to demonic speech. The part of my mind that would run away and never come back, given its choice. If I let my guard down, even for a second, I wasn’t sure I’d ever get c
ontrol back. A rather frightening thought.

  “That is correct.” Felix crouched just out of my arms’ reach, thankfully. I think, if he’d have touched me, that’d be all she wrote. I’d have been done.

  “So…you’ve been here, this whole time. You knew what Dante was…you knew what he was after….” It explained the raw hatred I’d seen in the old man’s face—God was that just a couple of days ago? It felt like centuries.

  “Yes. We knew.”

  “Then why?” Really, that’s the only thing I wanted to know, the only thing I felt like I could wrap my mind around. “Why didn’t you do something? Why didn’t you protect her?” Because he could have. Surely he could have. If there were demons, and they were bad, then the angels, they were good, right? They did good things, like save people and grant wishes or some shit, yes?

  Felix sighed, and I felt the ground beneath me sway as he stood up. “Because this is not our war, warrior. Our fallen brothers, they battle amongst themselves, but it has nothing to do with us. So we only watch.”

  “Bullshit!” I dared a glance up, without thinking, but luckily some of the dazzle in my sight seemed to have worn off. Felix looked almost like himself again, though his rags and dreads were wreathed in a faint golden glow. “What is that quote? All evil needs to triumph is for good men to do nothing?”

  He smiled a little, his whiskey-colored eyes absorbing the last of the glow to shine like polished gold in the darkness. “We are not men.”

  “Then why make yourself known now? If God’s not going to send us help, why are you here?”

  “Who says He has not sent help?” With a faintly sad smile, he melted back into the narrow pathways and I knew the moment he was gone. The weight on my chest, the mere pressure of his presence, was gone.

  I sat there for a few more moments, rocking back on my knees and balancing my sword across them. I could still feel the minute texture of everything I touched, but it was no longer threatening to overload my circuits. Another few minutes and I’d be almost normal, I thought. If I had another few minutes. Gretchen was down in the lobby and inevitably, someone would come looking up here to see what had happened. Being caught here with an empty gun and a bared sword probably wasn’t going to end well for me.