As soon as Dante had been notified the Daimons were heading for his club, he had paged Wulf with an alert.
But as Chris had insinuated, the panthers had a way of being less than friendly to any Dark-Hunter who stayed too long at their place.
Flipping his weapons out of his clothes, Wulf returned them to the armoire against the far wall. "No," he said, answering Chris's question. "The panthers were fine. I just thought the Daimons would put up more of a fight."
"Sorry," Chris said sympathetically.
"Yeah, me too."
Chris paused, and by his expression, Wulf could tell the boy had laid aside his ribbing and was trying to cheer him up. "You feel up to training?"
Wulf locked up his weapons. "Why bother? I haven't had a decent fight in almost a hundred years." Disgusted with the thought, he rubbed a hand over his eyes, which were sensitive to the bright lights Chris had on. "I think I'll go insult Talon for a while."
"Oh, hey!"
Wulf paused to look back at Chris.
"Before you go, say 'barbecue.'"
Wulf groaned at Chris's usual last resort to attempt to cheer him up. That was a standing joke that Chris had used to irritate him with since Chris was a small child. It stemmed from the fact that Wulf still held on to his ancient Norse accent which made him lilt when he spoke, especially when he said certain words, such as "barbecue."
"You're not funny, rugrat. And I am not a Swede."
"Yeah, yeah. C'mon, make the Swedish Chef noises."
Wulf growled. "I should never have allowed you to watch The Muppets." More to the point, he shouldn't have pretended to be the Swedish Chef when Chris was a child. All it did was give the boy one more thing to aggravate him with.
But still, they were family, and at least Chris was attempting to make him feel better. Not that it was working.
Chris let out a rude noise. "Fine, you decrepit old Viking grump. By the way, my mother wants to meet you. Again."
Wulf groaned. "Can you put her off another couple of days?"
"I can try, but you know how she is."
Yes, he did. He'd known Chris's mother for more than thirty years.
Unfortunately, she didn't know him at all. Just like everyone else not born of his blood, she forgot him five minutes after he left her presence.
"All right," Wulf relented. "Bring her over tomorrow evening."
Wulf headed to the stairs that led to his rooms underneath the house. Like most Dark-Hunters, he preferred to sleep where there was no possibility of accidental sun exposure. It was one of the very few things that could destroy their immortal bodies.
He opened the door, but didn't bother with the overhead light since Chris had lit the small candle by his desk. The eyes of a Dark-Hunter were designed to need almost no light. He could see better in the darkness than humans could see in broad daylight.
Taking his sweater off, he gently prodded the four bullet wounds in his side. The bullets had passed cleanly through his flesh and the skin had already started to heal.
The injury stung, but it wouldn't kill him, and in a couple of days, there would be nothing left except four tiny scars.
He used his black T-shirt to wipe the blood from his side, and went to the bathroom to wash and bandage it.
As soon as he was clean and dressed in a pair of blue jeans and a white T-shirt, Wulf switched on his stereo. The preprogrammed songs started off with Slade's My Oh My while he grabbed his cordless phone and brought up his computer screen to log on to the Dark-Hunter.com Web site to update the others on his latest kills.
Callabrax liked to keep up with how many Daimons were slain each month. The Spartan warrior had some weird notion that Daimon crossovers and attacks were related to moon cycles.
Personally, Wulf thought the Spartan had way too much time on his hands. But then, being immortals, they all did.
Sitting in the darkness, Wulf listened to the words of the song as it played.