The Lady stirred.
I kicked Mike’s foot. “Hey. Wake up.” He came awake with a start, clutching his shotgun. He peered around, bleary eyed, then flopped back down on the floor. He swore.
“What time is it?”
“I think she’s waking up.”
Mike let out a groan and rolled out of his sleeping bag. He shuffled over to the Lady on the bed. She moaned, shifted under the covers. He watched her for a moment. He shook his head.
“She’s not waking up. She’s stirring in her sleep.” He ran a hand through his hair. “What time is it?”
“You’ve been asleep for four hours.” I heard a car door slam, outside. “You said to wake you up if there were any changes.”
“Well that was stupid of me. I’m going back to bed.” He yawned, shuffled back to his sleeping bag. He stopped short of crawling into it and cocked his head, listening. “Or not.” His hands tightened over the shotgun.
I heard them, too. Footsteps, more than one set, headed up the walk to our house.
I picked the sword up off Mike’s dresser. Mike led the way to our front door, shotgun in hand. The footsteps stopped in front of our door. Mike looked back at me. “You ready?” I nodded.
The knob turned. The door rattled as someone tried to push it open. Mike reached, unlocked the deadbolt. He jumped back as the door slammed open, raising the shotgun.
“Dudes, what’s the deal?” A man stood in the doorway. At 6’5”, he towered over Mike and I. Everything about him was massive, from his lantern jaw to his ham hands to his size 16 feet. His hair was green and straggly. It twisted as it fell over his shoulders, tangling like seaweed. He wore jeans, boots, black and red flannel, and a pair of gold hoop earrings. A cardboard box was tucked under one slab-like arm, next to his beer gut. “You guys never lock your door.”
I let out the breath I didn’t know I’d been holding. “It’s Troll.”
Mike lowered the shotgun. “Hey, Troll. This isn’t really a good time.”
“Sure it is.” Troll stepped through the doorway. “It’s Saturday. It’s six o’clock. That means it’s game night. ” He stopped just inside, noticed the bandages. “You guys look like crap.”
“What’s with the gun?” Another man asked. Troll was still blocking the door. Justin squeezed around him. Rail thin, Justin wore his usual black shorts and white t-shirt. His brown hair was short, wavy, and never seemed to stay in place. “You in some kind of trouble?”
“They’re always in trouble. Hey, Troll, you want to get out of the doorway?” Troll shifted out of the way, revealing Stephanie. Tiny and delicate, she reminded me of a china doll. A really gorgeous gothic china doll. Eyes like dark chocolate looked up behind long lashes. Red lips smirked beneath her snub nose. Her hair was black as midnight. Her left bang had been dyed a vibrant blue. She didn’t wear much makeup, aside from the lipstick. Her skin was pale and perfect. A long sleeved black shirt of some silky material clung to her small frame. She’d cut holes in the end of each sleeve, and hooked her thumbs through them. Black jeans fit snuggly against her legs, flaring out over high-heeled leather boots. “Thanks.” She started to smile, saw the condition we were in, then decided to smile anyway. “How are my boys doing?”
Mike started to shrug, winced. “Oh, you know. Rough night.”
“No kidding. Look at you.”
I could see her point. Mike, built like a brick beneath red shorts and a black tanktop, held the shotgun loosely in his right hand. His short red hair stuck up in all directions. He carried himself stiffly, half his face and both arms covered in gauze, and the medical tape his ribs were wrapped in could be seen peeking out from under his tanktop. I stood behind him in my boxers, my throat ringed with bruises, holding a sword in one hand with my other bound up in a sling. We were covered in contusions and scrapes and bandages.
Her face turned serious. “What happened?”
“It’s kind of a long story. Who’s that?”
I looked where he was pointing. A wholesome looking blonde stood behind Stephanie. Her eyes were a pale shade of gray behind glasses. Jeans and a white t-shirt covered some very intriguing curves. She was looking at us with a dubious expression on her face.
“Oh, right!" Stephanie smiled and hooked a thumb in the new girl's direction. "This is Gina. She lives upstairs from me, and I invited her to game night.”
Mike shifted his weapon to his left hand, offered his right. “Nice to meet you Gina. Mike Cross, at your service.”
“Thanks.” She said, eyes doubtful as they traded grips.
I leaned the sword against the wall and shook hands with her. “Kevin Shrive. Any friend of Stephanie’s is a friend of ours.”
“Especially if she’s pretty,” Mike piped in. “Welcome to our humble abode.”
“Thanks,” she said. “It’s a nice place you have here. I like the, um… crosses?”
Our place is small for a house, but more spacious than an apartment. Two bedrooms, with an expansive living room and dining area. We have a lot of couches and comfortable furniture, but there isn’t much in the way of decoration. Or, at least, there hadn’t been. Crosses had been cut out of a pad of yellow notebook paper, and taped to the walls, doors, windows, and ceiling.
“I put them up this morning,” Mike explained. “They protect us from evil spirits,”
“Oh.” Gina turned to Stephanie. “Is this normal?”
Stephanie frowned. “The craziness is normal. Mike getting beat up is less normal, but not unheard of. But Kevin and the crosses? Not so much.”
“Seriously,” Troll agreed. “You going to tell us what’s going on?”
Mike and I exchanged glances. “Maybe it’s better if you don’t know,” Mike said.
“Don’t know what?” Stephanie asked. “What’s going on?”
“We’ve run into some…” Mike struggled for the word. “We’ve got some stuff that we’ve got to deal with. Bad stuff. I don’t want you guys involved.”
“Yeah, right,” Troll snorted. “What kind of trouble could you two losers get into?”
“Like I said, long story.” Mike grimaced. “We’ll tell you about it later. But we can’t hang out tonight. You guys should go home.”
“Go home?” Troll scoffed. “It’s game night. We’re not going anywhere.”
“What he said,” Justin seconded. “Besides, now I’m curious.”
Mike bristled, but I spoke before he could say anything else. “Come inside. We’ll tell you all about it.”
Mike shot me an incredulous look. “Are you serious? We can’t bring them in on this. You know what could happen.”
In principle, I agreed with him. Mike and I had taken a huge risk when we rescued the Lady in White. The Shadow Men would be back. They'd find us, if they didn't know where we were already. Simply being in the same room with us would put our friends in deadly peril. Telling them the story would be worse. It would give them dangerous information. The enemy could come after them to find out what they know. Or to silence them.
But we needed the help. Our survival last night had been more luck than skill or cunning. We knew almost nothing about the enemy, and even less about the woman we were protecting. Hell, I hadn’t known the supernatural existed until some shadow beastie tried to choke the life from me. We were injured and out of our depth, and our friends were the only source of aid we were likely to find.
Mike didn’t want to accept that. He’d rather power through on his own than ask for help and endanger the people he cared about. But I’m more practical. I wouldn’t ask anyone to help us without knowing the risks, but I didn’t relish the idea of fighting alone with no one the wiser. If nothing else, I wanted someone out there to know what had happened to us if we died.
“They were in danger the second they knocked on our door,” I told Mike. “Keeping them ignorant won’t change that.” He glowered at me. I continued. “We haven’t been attacked yet. I don’t think anyone’s coming for us until nightfall, if they're coming at all. We’ve got time to tell them what’s up.”
“Stop talking about us like we’re not here.” Stephanie cut in.
“Sorry, Steph,” Mike grimaced. “It’s dangerous.” He told me. “We should keep them out of it.”
“They’re our friends,” I replied. “They’ve got a right to know.”
We exchanged a look. Mike knew the real reason I wanted them to stay, and he didn’t like it. But he knew I was right. Our friends might be in danger, already, and they deserved to know. He nodded.
“Alright, guys,” he addressed the group. “Here’s the deal. Some things happened last night. There are some… people out there that might come after you for knowing about it. We don’t really know how much danger you’d be in. We’ll tell you about it if you want, but it’s gotta be your choice. I think you’d be better off if you left right now.”
Troll rolled his eyes. “Jesus, Cross. You are such a drama queen. Let us in and break out the beer, already.”
“What he said,” Stephanie piped up. “Give me beer.”
“Beer.” Justin agreed.
“Beer.” The new girl smiled.
“It’s unanimous,” I said. “You want to fill them in, Mike? I need a shower.”
He looked like he wanted to argue, but in the end he shrugged. "Ok. Try not to use all the hot water this time.
Everyone filed in as Mike headed for the fridge. I started for the bathroom.
“Wait!” Stephanie said. “You can’t go, yet, Kevin.”
“What?”
She put her hands on her hips. “Aren’t we forgetting something?”
“Uh…”
“Where’s my hug?”
A smile stole across my face. I loved this woman. “Oh, right.” I hugged her, thrilling ever so slightly at her touch. She nestled her face against my shoulder, held me tight. She was careful to avoid my damaged arm, but still managed to squeeze hard enough to upset my other injuries. I ignored the pain in favor of feeling all warm and gooey inside. Stephanie gives the best hugs. She wrinkled her nose as we pulled back from each other.
“You’re right. You do need a shower.”
“Told you.” I laughed.
She turned to Mike, held her arms out. “C’mere, you big lug.”
Mike carefully set the shotgun on the coffee table by his favorite easy chair. Grinning, he stepped into her arms. “Careful, babe. I’m a little fragile right now.”
“Yeah, right.” She wrapped her arms around him. His eyes lit up, and he sighed. He pulled her to him, for all the world like a child with his favorite teddy bear. The warmth in his face changed to a grimace of pain as she squeezed. He grunted.
“Not so hard, Steph. I’m kind of tender right now.”
“Sissypants.” She grinned, let him go. “And you smell even worse than Kevin.”
Smiling, I made my way to the shower.
BREAK
Hot water soothed aching muscles, burning slightly over cuts and scrapes. I resisted the urge to luxuriate, and washed quickly. Well, as quickly as I could, with one arm and all those bandages in the way. Washing the hair took the longest. It falls past my shoulder blades, and requires a considerable amount of time to clean properly. I’m willing to put out the effort for it, because my hair is my best feature. A brown so dark it's almost black, it’s full and shiny and fairly soft. Girls love the hair, so I try to take good care of it. We menfolk can be just as vain about that stuff as women. We just don’t like to admit it.
I dried off carefully, wiped the fog off the bathroom mirror so I could take a look at myself. Average height, with a dancer’s build. A dark goatee over a pointed chin. Long fingered hands that look like they belong on a musician. One bandage covered the gash on my forehead. Another bandage ran across my belly. I’d gotten them wet. I carefully peeled them off. I replaced the one over my stomach, but didn’t bother fixing the other one.
I wrapped a towel around myself and went back to my room. I could hear snatches of conversation as I walked down the hallway.
“You’re lying.” Justin was saying.
“No. I’m serious.” Mike replied.
“Then you’re insane.”
“He’s lying and he’s insane.” Troll contributed.
“No, seriously. I’m not making this up. That’s really what happened. I give you my word of honor on it.”
“Your word of honor?” Troll snorted derisively. “What does that mean?”
I threw on some jeans and a t-shirt and stuffed my hair into a ponytail. Good enough. I headed back to the living room.
Our living room furniture consists of a couch and a love seat flanking a pair of easy chairs in front of the TV, and a trio of coffee tables. Justin and Stephanie were cuddled together on one end of the couch, with Gina on the other end, looking somewhat uncomfortable. Troll lounged across the love seat with his arms behind his head, and Mike rested in one of the easy chairs. They all had beers. The shotgun lay on the coffee table next to Mike, muzzle pointed at the television.
“I mean, word of honor, right? Who even talks that way?” Stephanie snickered. A surge of raw, jealous hatred flashed through me as she snuggled closer to Justin. I kept my expression smooth. Justin was a good man, and a good friend. It wasn’t his fault that my heart’s all stupid. Mike’s face was bland as he reclined in his chair. He’d admitted to having a crush on the girl, too, but he’d always been careful not to show it.
“Mike thinks his word’s sacred or something.” I informed her as I made my way to the fridge. “He swears up and down that he’s never broken it.” I pulled out a beer.
“Why don’t you tell me what happened, Kevin?” Stephanie said, casting a suspicious eye on Mike. “We’ll see if your stories match up.”
I shrugged. “We rescued a woman from a bunch of shadow monsters. And Mike got his ass kicked by a girl.”
Stephanie looked at Mike, then back at me. “Ok. I believe you, Kevin.”
“What?” Mike protested.
"You do?" I asked. "Really?"
"Nope." She grinned. "Not even a little "
“So when are we going to meet her?” Gina asked.
“Meet who?” Mike asked.
“The Lady,” she gestured at the door to Mike’s room. “Assuming I believe your crazy ass story, this Lady in White is still in there, right?”
“Yeah. But she’s not in white anymore. She’s the Lady in Flannel, now.”
“So when do we meet her?”
Mike and I shared a look. “She’ll come out when she’s ready,” I said.
“Let her sleep,” Mike agreed. “She’s had a rough night.”
“Whatever,” Troll rumbled. He picked up his cardboard box and gave it a shake. “We gonna get a game going or not?”
“Sounds good,” Mike said. “I’ll join you in a minute. Gotta get cleaned up.”
“Well hurry it up, then,” Troll said. He started pulling dice and character sheets out of the box. “These goblins ain’t gonna kill themselves.”
“Oh, I’ll be quick,” Mike shot me a reproachful look. “I’m pretty sure Kevin used up the hot water.”