And then the back kitchen window blew in. I grabbed Kanesha and pushed her under the table, trusting Laura to look after herself. Or at least to be able to take being hit by a few bits of glass.

The word I used wasn’t repeatable. “Tell me these are your enemies.”

Laura brushed glass dust out of her hair. “I…”

“So, they are yours.”

When I picked myself up, she was Loki again, and he had moved to one side of the window, peering out. “Not sure. Maybe they’re Kanesha’s.”

Kanesha, emerging from under the table, squeaked a bit.

“Or maybe they aren’t any of ours.” I made it to the other side of the window, and outside were a group of Latino gangsters. A large rock lay next to the table, no doubt the missile that had shattered the glass. “Unless somebody’s setting kids on you now.”

One of them finally moved, up to the window. He drew a gun.

“Oh, come on,” Loki said. “Guns. So trite.”

“This isn’t a laughing matter,” I said as the bullet flew into the room, narrowly missing Kanesha and burying itself in the fridge. Which started to leak coolant. Great.

“Sure it is.” And he tossed a knife which hit the kid in the hand. He dropped the gun.

I felt distinctly unprepared, but was ready to move. The kid backed off.

“Why did you come here?”

No answer. In lieu of one, a second kid tossed a knife at Loki. It grazed him in the arm, but he didn’t seem bothered. Kanesha was diving for the kitchen cabinet, a good source of weapons. I did note they must have climbed the fence to get into the yard.

I took the opportunity of the two front guys being momentarily without weapons to launch myself into the middle of them, throwing blows with hands and feet. The rest backed away.

“Whoever sent you to bug us, they aren’t paying you enough for this, right?”

Still no answer, although there was a string of rapid-fire Spanish. I caught the occasional word of it, and it implied we weren’t the droids they were looking for.

In fact, they turned and ran.

“Well, that was interesting.”

“They didn’t seem to be even looking for us.” Great. Now I’d have to find out what was going on with that. And I’d rather hunt monsters than men.