My phone started to ring out in the living room, its bubbly Christmas carol ringtone all I could hear in the empty, quiet space of my apartment.
It was saying, Secret, get your mopey ass the hell out of bed.
Actually it was singing “Baby, It’s Cold Outside”. But that wasn’t how I heard it.
I threw off the covers and padded into the living room, not bothering to put on a robe over my tank and boy-short undies. Cold wasn’t a problem for me, even with the subpar radiator we had in my apartment.
The caller ID screen showed Desmond’s cell, and the fretful despondency I’d felt in bed was shucked off and replaced with a warm glow.
“Santa’s workshop,” I said with a breathy purr. “Have you been nice…or naughty?”
He groaned, but it didn’t sound like it had anything to do with being put off by my poor attempt at Christmas humor. “If you tell me you’re in a Mrs. Claus costume, I might die. ”
“I’m wearing significantly less than the suggested North Pole uniform. ”
“Tease. ”
“Standing under the mistletoe, too, with no one here to kiss. Oh, wait, is that the door? Knock knock. ”
Then someone did knock on the door, a heavy solid pounding. I went rigid on the spot. When I sniffed the air all I could smell was pine, and with Desmond in my ear I couldn’t hear what might be outside my apartment.
“Desmond?”
“Mmmhmm. ”
It didn’t sound like his voice was echoing on the other side of the door. I stepped onto the bottom ledge of my fireplace and grabbed hold of the katana hanging on the wall, then slid the protective sheath off.
In the light of the Christmas tree the steel glinted with the cheerful LED reds and yellows. The power of the old blade hummed in my hand. I had come by ownership of the sword as a fluke late-night purchase, but I often wondered if there was more to the weapon than met the eye.
All I needed it to be right then was a weapon quieter than a gun. The knocking at the door resumed, louder this time.
“So what are you wearing?” Desmond asked, oblivious to my sky-high anxiety.
“I’ll be wearing a brand-new werewolf fur coat if you’re playing some sort of trick on me, Desmond Javier Alvarez. ” I jerked the front door open with a rough gesture while I grasped the sword with my other hand. I kept the phone wedged between my shoulder and my ear and braced myself in an attack stance.
The hall was empty.
“Trick?”
Lowering the sword, I poked my head into the hall cautiously. It was a tiny space with nowhere to hide, and there was no one but me there. What the hell?
“Secret, what’s going on?” Desmond’s voice had taken on a tone of worry, something I liked far less than the heated passionate promise of only minutes earlier.
“Nothing. I thought I heard something, but I must have been imagining it. ”
I turned towards the apartment when the front door leading to the street swung open with a loud smack against the interior wall. I yelped with surprise, dropped the phone and held my sword with both hands in preparation for a defensive strike. A dark figure stood silhouetted by the dim streetlights outside, looming in the doorframe without moving.
Then I tasted lime and snarled. “Christ, Desmond. ”
He closed his phone with a snap and bypassed the two-step drop by jumping into the landing with a hop. I still held the sword up, but it didn’t look like it fazed him at all. He was sniffing the air with exploratory, careful precision, but judging from the frustrated sigh he let out, he didn’t sense anything more than I had.
“What happened?”
I hated it when he went all business on me. I was standing around in my underwear, wielding a sword. Somewhere a D&D nerd had a contact erection and couldn’t figure out why. My boyfriend, on the other hand, looked deadly serious.
“Someone knocked on the door. I thought it was you, but when I opened it up the hall was empty. You suddenly showing up makes me wonder if I wasn’t right the first time. ” I lowered the sword again because the space in the hall was too limited to risk keeping it up at accidental-impalement levels. Cold air was wafting in from the open door, but it was a dry cold. There was still no snow.
“It wasn’t me. ”