A Wolf at the Door

The roof was deserted, as it should be this late at night. The paper lanterns had been supplemented with string after string of party lights in preparation for the New Year’s festivities, but for now everything was dark.

I stepped out of the elevator, cursing inwardly at the cheerful “ding” I couldn’t prevent. My presence was known, whether I wanted it to be or not. Still, I took care to step softly on the white stone path, straining my ears for signs of where Gretchen and the thing had gone.

It wasn’t hard to find them. Above the sound of the distantly trickling waterfall, all I had to do was follow the sound of Gretchen’s outraged protests. “Get your hands off me! Let me go!” Her strident voice carried through the darkness. I tracked the sound through the narrow pathways until I arrived at the open area where tables and chairs had been clustered around the central reflecting pool.

Dimly, I knew that Spencer said he’d seen me get on the elevator with Gretchen, but I hadn’t truly thought about what that meant until that moment. A tall, slender man held Gretchen by the arm, not even budging as she struggled against his grip. His clothes…well, those weren’t mine. In fact, they’d been on Dante, last I’d seen. The few inches difference in my height from Dante’s made the blue jeans a bit high-water, and the difference in our weight made the shirt hang loosely on the wiry frame. His blond hair was unconfined, hanging at shoulder length, but the last few inches were fire-engine red, the remnants of the dye in Dante’s short dreads. When he turned, I caught a glimpse of his face. It was mine, sort of. The right nose, kinda pointy. Sharply angled cheeks, but they were smooth, my newly acquired scar only a faint blemish on the surface. The jaw was strong, but without the reddish stubble I’d started to grow. Me, but slightly off. Only someone who didn’t know me well would 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?”