Esprit de l'escalier

Liame’s black lip curled under his snout as a low rumble rolled through his exposed fangs. The tall shadow froze in his tracks, crowbar still gripped in his gloved hands.
Liame’s deep yellow stare narrowed. Holding eyes with the leader of this intrusion, his muscles tightened beneath his fur. Waiting for his enemy to make the first move, he could hear his wife’s labored panting echo from the family room behind him. Not one of these men will live to lay a hand on her, not this time.
He knew their scent. That damp musky odor mixed with car grease and the cool mineral of soil. It was the same smell that hung in the air that night he came home late. Glass crunched beneath his boots, scraping the floor as he pushed the front door open – wider. His wife, Layanna, lay trembling on the hard wood. A thick stripe of blood ran from her lip and a black shadow framed her swollen left eye. She was beaten badly. “They’re gone…I’ve lost them,” she choked and wrapped her weak arms around her belly. In two swift steps he was at her side. Kneeling, he took her gently in his arms. As he held her, he noted at least three different boot prints on the floor. Rocking, she hugged her body and sobbed into his shoulder.
Now, images of that night flashed behind his piercing eyes as he stared at the tall man’s boots and the prints they left beneath the window. Starting with frayed black laces, he scanned the thick body, taking mental inventory of the most vulnerable parts of his murdering flesh.
Wooden floor boards creaked as two more dark coats crawled through the shattered front window of his house. The second stopped half-way through.
His right leg still dangling outside. “You didn’t tell me he had a dog!” puffed the fat man in a loud whisper, as if Liame couldn’t hear.
“That’s not a dog. That’s a wolf,” corrected the frozen crowbar man. His gaze still held by Liame, fierce and unblinking. “That’s him. That’s the man…the beast we are here to send back to hell.” Shaking, he blinked as perspiration gathered around his eyes and dripped from his brow.
Silver-tipped fur spiked on his back. Liame snarled louder and bayed a warning. The full moon’s glow reflected on dust in the air as the shadows began a careful advance as though approaching a rattler. They started to raise their weapons, a hammer, a shot gun and a crowbar. Suddenly, a fat arm shot up and they paused. “You hear that?”
Liame smiled to himself as he felt the presence of his brothers behind him. The click of claws against the cold wood floors ticked like an ominous clock. No man would pass through this hallway. Not past him, not past his brothers and most certainly not to his wife giving birth in the next room.