A Wolf at the Door

mistake this thing for the genuine article.

Gretchen jerked against his grip again, and only then did I see the gun held in his free hand. That should have been the first glaring clue that it wasn’t me. Yes, I can shoot. No, I don’t. “I will scream my goddamn head off if you don’t let me go.”

“Go ahead.” Now the voice…the voice he had down. I was used to hearing my own voice out of Axel’s mouth, I knew what I sounded like. “No one will hear you up here.”

“I will.” Seemed like a good line to make an entrance on. I stepped out of the overhung path, dropping The Way’s scabbard in the bushes. I angled the blade just right so the scant light would reflect down it. Melodramatic, yes, but I wanted him to know it was there.

There was a soft gasp from Gretchen as I appeared out of seeming nowhere. “But…” Her eyes were wide as she looked between her captor and me. Okay, so apparently the fake me was more convincing than I’d thought. Obviously, Gretchen hadn’t known the difference.

The golem was a bit less surprised. “Stop where you are.” It leveled Tai’s stolen gun at me. “This has nothing to do with you.”

Slowly, I kept moving forward, one step at a time. “First off, you stealing my face and my voice, that has everything to do with me. Second, you happen to be threatening someone I promised to protect. Again, to do with me. And third, I think you got caught midtransformation. Your hair’s a bit muddled there, your face isn’t quite right. So I think the odds of you hitting the broad side of a barn with that gun are slim to none. I’ll take my chances.” I’d seen this thing be clumsy before, and my guess was that it happened when it had to change form quickly.

Apparently I was right, because it quickly rethought its strategy. It yanked Gretchen closer, jabbing the barrel of the gun into her ribs. “At this distance, I won’t miss.”

Yeah, I stopped advancing then. “You can’t kill her. You need her to name her master. Presumably your master?” I tried to catch Gretchen’s gaze, promising her with my eyes that this was all going to be all right, somehow. Even in the darkness, I could see how pale she was, but she nodded to me faintly. She was at least trying to hold it together.

“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,