A Wolf at the Door

Bobby frowned, waving his hand to get attention. “So who was this asshole? Did security get him? Did you call the cops?”

Gretchen snorted weakly, and I shook my head. “The cops can’t help. This thing…I’m ninety percent sure it wasn’t human.”

“What the hell do you mean, ‘not human’?”

“I mean, I kicked that thing hard enough to put four ribs through a lung, and almost shattered my knee in the process. I don’t care how much muscle you have, a human body doesn’t stand up to that much punishment.”

“On drugs, maybe?”

Again, I shook my head. “Even on drugs, bones break. Joints fold.”

It took Tai, the nonbeliever, to ask the important question. “So…if it wasn’t human, what was it?”

“No freakin’ clue. I’ve never seen anything like it before. But I will say that this thing didn’t make a sound. Not one peep, not one groan, not one hiss. In my experience, that means whatever it was, it had no soul.” Voices came from the soul, offered a direct line to it even. People that I called soulless, like Gretchen, really weren’t. I mean, the soul was still in the body. But if it got yanked out? Poof, voice all gone. A creature like that would be able to mimic back other voices, but their own was forfeit.

The thing had looked human. Not unusual in the demonic world, really. Much easier to slip by unnoticed if you look like one of your prey. But like most otherworldly things, it had been off slightly. That blank, mannequin-like face, for example. Even in the era of Botox and silicone, I’d never seen a face that devoid of identifying marks. It meant something. I just had no idea what.

“Great.” Bobby sighed, running a hand over his cropped hair. “How the hell do you protect against something if you don’t even know what it is?”

“And there’s the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question.” I pushed off my seat, stretching a little. “First things first, I’m moving my gear in here. I can’t do any good if I’m clear down the hall when the shit hits the fan.”

“And what do you want us to do?” Bobby wasn’t standing at attention, but it was a near thing. The good soldier, waiting for orders.

Despite the fact that I desperately did not want to be the one in charge, there really was no way around it. I was that guy. I pursed my lips thoughtfully. “If this was a normal stalker type, what would you do next?”

“Call the cops. Notify hotel security. Get a restraining order.”

“Notify hotel security, then. They already know to be on the lookout for people who don’t belong, so leave it vague, and tell them that only known personnel are to be coming up to this floor. Anybody else has to be cleared by one of us first.” Surely, even Bobby or Tai could spot a six-foot-tall Roman centurion, right?

“I’m gonna take a shower,” Gretchen announced, standing suddenly. “Things are getting too weird for me, I just need to chill out a little.”

While she went to do that, I skedaddled down to my room to get my stuff. Unfortunately, someone else had the same idea.

Now, I know I’m not the most organized guy in the world, but I think I would have remembered flinging my clothes all over the damn room. “Shit,” I muttered, surveying the damage.

Like any truly paranoid person, I did have the stray thought that whoever it was might still be in the room, and I stood in the open doorway for long moments, just being still. A living presence leaves a mark, something felt beyond sound or scent. A tremor in the Force maybe. But no…in the end, there was no one there. The door had been shut and locked. Whoever had paid me a visit was long gone.

My first thought was for my sword and armor, but both were tucked in the back of the closet right where I’d left them. What kind of robber didn’t check the closet? Just to be sure, I flipped the case open, holding my palm just above my sheathed sword. Prickles rose all up and down my arm as the tiny hairs stood at attention. Yup, spells still there. Examining my armor found the same result. My gear hadn’t been touched.

The only way to see if anything else had been taken was to start the process of cleaning up. I had the feeling reporting it wouldn’t do a damn bit of good. “Can you describe the suspect?” “Sure, he was about this tall, plumed helmet, bit on the stocky and indestructible side.” It would have been easy for the centurion to ransack my room while we were having our shopping spree, then meet us at the movie lot for our exercise in fleeing like a little girl. All the more reason for me to move into Gretchen’s suite. We were too separated here, too vulnerable.