A Wolf at the Door

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 all-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.”