A Wolf at the Door

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 Esteban 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, Esteban 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, Esteban 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…Esteban…”

“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.” Esteban 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.