The wizard sat on the coverlet of the motel bed and shelled peanuts.

            “These are really good,” he said around the peanuts. “I mean, really good. Do you have anything beside peanuts?”

            I looked at him. There was a wizard on my bed.

            He looked embarrassed, and kind of piled the shells neatly in his lap and patted them. “My body can’t process the ambient energy in this dimension. But, I still need energy so I have to . . . to eat.” He looked down and played with the shells.

            Watching him twitch made me feel horrible. “There’s some crackers in the desk drawer.”

            He bounced up immediately, and kind of sprawled himself over the floral print reaching for the drawer. The small packages almost flew into his hand and he was carefully ripping them open and crunching into the crackers.

            “So, why did you say you’re here again?” I had the desk chair, and my right foot bounced over me knee.

            He mumbled something around the crackers.

            “What?”

            He swallowed carefully. “I’m here to save you from the minions of evil.”

            My foot stopped bouncing. “Minions of evil?”

            “Yup. These are really good crackers.”

            “There are minions of evil?”

            “I know, it’s really weird. Evil has minions and good tends to go the free agent route. It’s a bit unbalanced, but mostly it works out.”

            Someone knocked on the door. The wizard straightened, and for the first time more like a guard dog than a brainless teenager.

            I waited, but the wizard just stared with his dark blue, unblinking eyes.

            “Come in, it’s open.”

            The handle turned and the door eased open. “I hope I’m not intruding.”

            The young man in the door way was older than the wizard on the bed, and he had a neat white dress shirt and long hair. But it was the same sandy blond hair, and jeans, and the same confident, artificially cheerful smile, which vanished as soon as he saw the wizard on the bed. “What the hell are you doing here?”

            I looked at the wizard. “I’m guessing that he’s not a minion of evil.”

            The wizard was shelling peanuts again and popping them in his mouth. “Nope. Good to see you, bro. He’s my brother. He’s a wizard, too.”

            “You’re another wizard?”

            The newcomer glared at his brother, then looked at me. “I suppose you could say that. Are you the prophecy?”

             “She is,” the wizard said. “I’m ninety-six percent certain.”

              The other frowned. “Ninety-six?”

             “There’s a heartbeat of blur from the dimension, but otherwise it’s solid.”

             “Good enough. Are there more of those?” He sat on the edge of the bed and reached for a peanut.

             “They’re really good.”

             “So, you’re brothers?’

             They exchanged glances. The younger one grinned, the other frowned. They both ate a peanut. “You could say that,” the older one said.

            “Because it’s true,” the younger agreed.

            “So, both of you are here to protect me from the minions of evil?”

            “You told her about the minions?”

            “She asked, bro.”

            “Do you have any more of these crackers? Unfortunately, my body can’t absorb the ambient energy of your dimension.”

            I pointed to the same drawer as before. The newcomer reached out and pulled out more crackers. The two wizards methodically opened the crackers and munched through them like a pair of chipmunks.

            “So. Minions of evil.”

            The younger one swallowed. “Yup. Should be here any moment.”

            The older one picked crumbs off the covers. “I tried to disguise my passage, but they will probably be able to track me anyway.”

            His brother looked at him. “You can do that? Disguise the passage?”

            “Yes. You didn’t?”

            “No.”

            “Shit.” The older one got up and paced to the window. He pulled back the blackout curtains, peered out, and then closed them again. “Then they really will be here any moment. Hand me those peanuts.”

            “I’m almost sorry to ask this, but why am I going to be attacked by minions of evil?”

            “We really don’t know,” the older one said. He cracked the peanuts and then tossed them in his mouth. He didn’t slur his words at all, even though he had to have had six or seven peanuts in his mouth. “There’s a prophecy.”

            “And it says that the minions will attack a woman fitting your description, at this time, in this place, in this dimension.”

            “And that if they succeed, bad things will happen.”

            “What kind of bad things.”

            The looked at each other again. It was starting to irritate me.

            “Well that’s the thing,” the older one said. “Prophecies are always unnecessarily vague.”

            “Prophecies and wise old men,” the younger agreed.

            “They didn’t exactly say what would happen, or who you were.”

            “Or even which set of minions we’re talking about.”

            “Could be anything from black wizards to orcs.”

            “Or even a dragon. I hate dragons. They bite. And, I mean, they don’t even try to bite, they succeed at biting. Do you remember that dragon, bro?”

            “I wish I didn’t. Can you lock this door?”

            I pointed at the dead bolt. He fiddled with it a bit, and failed completely at sending the bolt home. I got up from my chair and walked over. “You have to turn it while it’s closed.”

            The second my hand touched the cold metal the fingers went numb. And then the numbness crawled up my arm.

            “My hand’s numb,” I said, and then the door burst open and I toppled backward. When I went to catch myself my muscles didn’t respond. I opened my mouth to scream and nothing came out. I hit the floor hard.

            I saw the older wizard fly past my head, the edge of his jeans brushing my cheek. He held his hands out and scarlet fire flickering around the edges of his fingers.

            The monster that moved in through the door was a skeleton distorted in a mirror. All bones and ties of red ribbon and twisting, curling wires warped so my eyes twisted and crossed trying to actually see the shape. But I saw the foaming mouth and the gently flexing serpent fangs that dripped greenish bile onto the cheap motel floor. It stretched its snout into the air and widened its jaw.

            “Prothessssssssssy.” The air it drew in through its dog-like muzzle rattled against the barren ribs. I saw them expand. “Ssssmella prothesssssssy.”

            Its eyes looked down and found me and they were brown and human and gleeful. “Gotcha, gotcha, prothesssssssy.”

            The wizard hit it with his flickering fiery hands and the monster dodged easily, like silk in the wind.

            “Wiiithard,” it said, turning with that horrible human grin. “Withard no can breath this air. Withard no have pretty pretty power.” It lunged and missed the older wizard by inches. “Withard weak.”

            The fire had died around his hands. He stumbled back, face grey and drawn, wrinkles growing around his eyes. “You will not get the prophecy,” he said. He drew himself up and his shirt flapped around him like a cloak. “I will die first. But I don’t really think that will be necessary.”

            “Ah! Withard thinkeee have a ssssssecret weapon? What be? Prayers?”

            His dark, blue, unblinking eyes never moved from the horrible brown ones of the monster. “Brothers.”

            He dropped to the ground and a wooden stake, scavenged from the desk chair flew over his head and straight into the bony ribs of the monstrosity at the door. The monster screamed, and it sounded like a baby crying in a storm, both the baby and the storm that killed it in a single sound. It dropped to one knee, black fluid oozing between the bones, and raised its head. The eyes were still human brown, but now they blazed with rage and madness.

            “I killeee! I killeee. I rippee withard with my claws until bleedee clean.” It launched itself at the younger wizard, who stood nonchalantly across the bed with another chair-leg stake in his hands. When the monster came near the wizard swung and slammed it skull first into the mirror above the desk.

            The monster began to scream the second it hit the mirror it. Long piercing screams, like a chainsaw against stone. The younger wizard, hands glowing blue, jumped onto the back of the monstrosity and dug in his nails. He climbed the bones until he was right next to the head and he pushed and pushed. The crack in the mirror widened. The twisted, distorted monster began sinking into the mirror, whimpering and crying and threatening the wizard with its green bile fangs. The glass of the mirror looked like a lake in slow motion, rippling as the monster’s head moved through. When the wizard had the monster’s head, and his own hand, buried in the glass, he pulled back, breathing heavily. His brother, gasping and growing greyer by the second, held the body of the monster against the mirror. The wizards shouted a word together and the glass snapped shut, no longer a rippling pond, but just a mirror. The monster collapsed, headless, into a pile of dusty bones, red ribbons and bright copper wire.

            “Damn right I have a secret weapon,” the younger wizard said. “I eat peanuts.” He turned to me and bowed graciously. It looked ridiculous paired with his jeans and t-shirt. “I thank you, my lady, for your wonderful sustenance.” He picked up another package of crackers, opened it and began munching.

            The older wizard took a cracker from his brother’s hand and ate it while he limped to my side. “I think it paralyzed her. I hate nightmare golems.”

            “So it was a golem? I can’t tell.”

            “You killed it well enough. Why aren’t you as tired as I am?”

            “Lots of peanuts. I really really like them. And I didn’t try to blast it, bro. You have to use your resources. I mean, I couldn’t do anything major, but a little extra strength cost a lot less than a fireball. And when it started to go into the mirror naturally, I figured I’d just help it along.”

            “Well, that was obvious.” The older wizard crouched next to me. “Can you speak, prophecy?”

            I made a gasping sound.

            He reached out and waved a hand over my face, but then his eyes rolled up and he passed out, falling next to me on the floor.

            The other wizard rolled his eyes and walked over. He slapped his brother awake and shoved a cracker at him. “Eat. You need to eat, bro, or you can’t spend any more energy.”

            “She’s pretty deep,” the elder said. “I got that much. I can’t break it, not here.”

            The younger scratched his head. “Then how do we get her out of here? I mean, there’s bound to be more minions. And I think if another nightmare shows up I’m going to pass out, too.”

            “And if the minions get here, then everything the prophecy promises is over.”

            “We assume.”

            “We assume. So, I think we should go home.”

            “And leave her here?”

            The elder glared at the younger. The younger looked sheepish. “Sorry, bro. Yeah. That sounds like the best idea. Mirror?”

            “Mirror.”

            It took both of them, muttering and constantly munching crackers, to lift me to the desk, and from the desk shove me up against the mirror. I felt a slowly rising panic at each stage of the operation, but I couldn’t say anything. I just felt my heart burning harder and harder in my chest.

            “Think this will work?”

            “Probably.” The older wizard popped six peanuts in his mouth and crunched. “It’s going to hurt like hell though.”

            “Yeah. Is this really the right thing to do, bro? I mean, what will happen if we don’t get there? And what about getting back?”

            “You have a better idea?”

            The younger wizard ate another cracker, and thought for a second. “No.”

            “On three, then?”

            “One.”

            “Two.”

            “Three!”

            And then I saw the mirror ripple very close at hand as they pushed me into the glass. Each ripple of rainbow power felt like the kisses of butterflies against my cheeks and I felt the paralysis unlocking as I moved into the swirl of power and light and sound and mystery.

            As they pushed the last of me through the mirror, their hands on my feet, I fell into a dark, warping twisting world. And as I fell, free from the spell, I screamed my head off.