A Wolf at the Door

I couldn’t help it. I busted up laughing, choking it off only when I realized that he had no idea why it was funny. The big man gave me an odd look, and I just shook my head. “Never mind.” Not a Monty Python fan, obviously.

The sounds of feet scuffing through the snow made me look up in time to see Svetlana come staggering down the hillside. Her hair was a deep brown, I realized, matted to her head with sweat, but her eyes were a striking pale blue, lighter even than my own. A trickle of blood gleamed wetly down the side of her neck, oozing from the back of her head, if I had to guess, where she’d smacked it on the stump. Still, she was moving damn good. Better than I had after my last fight.

She drew up short to find us in the trees, her glance dismissing me immediately, and fixating on the big Ukrainian.

“Svetlana.” Ivan dipped his head to her in acknowledgment.

Okay, I have no idea what she said, because it was in whatever language Ivan spoke, but trust me, I know the sound of a pissed-off woman, and that was it. She was not happy to see us there. There was more venom in her voice than the demon had spewed all over that hillside. She waved her hands as she talked, and I had to duck a couple of times to keep her sword from taking off an ear.

Ivan never got riled, never got ruffled, just calmly responded to her. Finally, she kicked a pile of pine needles at him and stalked off, muttering to herself as she stumbled her way through the trees.

I raised a brow at Ivan. “That went well?”

He shrugged his massive shoulders. “As well as to be going, with her. She is…strongheaded.”

Yeah, I could see that.

“So, what are you to be learning, Jesse Dawson?” He turned and walked off, I guess assuming that I was going to follow him. I did, of course. I mean, what else was I going to do, stay out here and become a lumberjack?

“What did you want me to learn?” That seemed the safest question.

“I wanted you to see what is to being possible, with the proper tools and resources. With her magic, Svetlana is faster, is stronger. Her weapon does more damage, her armor protects longer.”

“Is that why she didn’t break her skull open on that tree?”

“Tak. Yes. Special reinforcements on her person. Coatings on her sword, her dagger. Blessed phosphorous grenade.”

I blinked. “Maybe over here, you can get phosphorous grenades at the local gas station, but where I come from, they’re a bit harder to get ahold of.”

“Tak. But resources will to being at your disposal. Is amazing what we can to be doing when we harness our potential, is it not?”

Resources? What resources? What the hell was I getting myself into? Though he was right, it was amazing. The last demon fight I’d had nearly killed me. Maybe if I’d have had some armor, like Svetlana’s. Maybe if Mira could work a little voodoo on it. Maybe next time would be better.

We were nearly back to the village before I realized that I was thinking in terms of “next time.” Dammit.

2

Now…

There are a few things every guy dreads seeing in a trash can. His favorite boxers, for example. His comic books, or baseball cards. But first and foremost, at the tip top of the list, is the empty box to a pregnancy test.

I stood there and pondered the little blue and white box, sitting so innocuously in the trash can, my toothbrush hanging out of the corner of my mouth forgotten. It could have been old, I suppose. My wife cleaning out the bathroom cabinets from days gone by, maybe. There were no tests in evidence, just the box, lying there in the used-up tissues, empty.

Toothpaste dripped down my bare chest, and I wiped the sticky blob away absently. “Um…Mira?”

Of course, she was clear out in the kitchen, so she didn’t hear me.

I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror, and the man in the glass had this wide-eyed stare, like a deer in headlights. And a huge smear of blue toothpaste across his chest. I managed to clean myself up, still eyeing the very scary box in the trash can like it might bite me, then went in search.

“Mira?” I followed the sounds of bacon frying toward the kitchen, and only a quick sidestep kept me from getting mowed down as my daughter rounded the corner on her new bicycle, still trailing the Christmas bows from yesterday. Her gangly English mastiff puppy thundered around the corner a split second later, and nearly knocked me flat a second time. “Anna! No biking in the house!”

“Okay, Daddy!” She disappeared down the hall, pedaling her little legs as fast as they could go, and the puppy Chunk galumphing along after.

In the kitchen, my protégé Estéban was flipping pancakes while my wife stood beside him, frying the bacon. Even with her back turned, she was stunningly beautiful. There was just something about the set of her shoulders, the curve of her hips, the spill of dark curly hair down her back…I could watch her all day, if it wouldn’t have made me creepy.