This one was for the NQW Podcast competition too, as if I remember right you could throw in as many entries as you wished. About two hours from the deadline I banged this one out too. At least I think it was anyway. I can’t honestly remember, but I know it had the usual list of restrictions and prompts you had to hit.

I doubt I nailed it, but it was fun enough to write.

**

I knew the kid was trouble when he bamfed into our basement, but I had no idea how Miki knew that the way the wall shrunk above our bar meant that we’d unlocked a portal in our new house. I’m sure Miki’s casual demeanour while watching black ash spill out and a kid apparate from it should have tipped me off to something as well, but too much weird at once can really distract a guy.

Shivering, clad in a tailored black suit and bright red tie like a miniature mob hitman, the boy’s first glance around the basement games room, then at me, was cold and angry, as if he plotting his next evil empire. His eyebrows knitted underneath the part in his black hair before lifting into a bewildered pitiable countenance as Miki came in with a blanket and a hammer.

Despite my insistence that I get to be out in front of any and all threats to our home and possessions, my new wife insists that one half of her biracial genes have magically gifted her with a level of badassery to outdo anything a yuppie dude like me could come up with. When I see the way she wields the hammer like a Nordic God, it occurs to me that I hate that she’s right.

Hiding my sulk as best I can, I wrap the child in the blanket and start to carry him up the stairs.

“Wait,” Miki’s eyes bore into mine, “Where are you going? Honey, we… have to look after him.”

I nod as if I understand anything going on, “I’m just taking him away from the… basement, and holing up in the back shed for now.”

“Okay,” she’s still tense, “Not off the property though. Please.”

I shrug. “Whatever babe.”

We’re inside the doorway to the shed before I realised all the back lights were out. Shit. I wasn’t even surprised there were darkened figures in robes moving about our yard, and as one glided past the open door to the shed I thought about punching him in the head and then bolting.

Miki rarely makes demands though, so I stayed put, laying the boy down against the far wall. There was no way I could know that the property lines had been wrong for centuries and the boy was now technically across them.

The robed figures were suddenly surrounding us, darkness coming with them, and an armour-covered arm shot out to grab the boy up and, once outside, raise him by one leg and wave him like a prize.

I would have fought them, of course, but the kid was back to his resting conqueror face and he began to growl in a way that I felt through my entire torso.

Miki came up the stairs and stood in front of me, facing the half-circle of robed bulks while protectively raising the hammer.

“Shit, we’re too late…” she whispered as the child’s eyes glowed red, “But watch this shit.”