by Holly Ryan
She growled, obviously not a fan of leaving her boyfriend behind.
Luc winked at her. “It’s okay, Cleo. Go on, and I’ll give you extra belly rubs when this is all done.”
She lolled her tongue out at that, thwacking her tail against my leg so hard it hurt, and pranced toward the empty house with an extra butt wiggle.
My three loves followed, skidding gracefully across the street, with Jacek’s words floating out behind them, “Should we feel relieved or emasculated or both?”
The other two didn’t seem to have an answer.
I grinned but it faded when I noticed the devil’s gaze locked on my mouth. “What are you staring at?”
He looked away, his jaw pulsing. “Nothing.”
“Well, nothing some other time, Satan, and tell me the plan.”
“You distract him.” He pulled a chain from the inside of his black leather jacket, much too long and thick to fit inside there without a little magic. “I wrap this chain around him and drag him back to hell.”
I leveled him with an incredulous look. “That’s your plan.”
“Yeah...”
“No back-up plan in case I get eaten?”
“Don’t get eaten.” He shrugged, his smug grin a perfect target for my fist.
“Great plan.” I almost rolled my eyes, but honestly, if I kept doing that around him, my eyes would turn into a constantly scrolling slot machine. I was sure of it.
Luc pointed down the road. “Sometimes he lures children out by the sound of his sleigh bells. The kids think he’s Santa and come running.”
Now that was just unfair. “How very awful of him,” I said through gritted teeth.
“I’m sure it won’t take long for him to pick up your—” He vanished. As in, just like that. Gone, chain and all.
“Uh...” I looked around the icy street, my gaze catching on the frozen cars parked on the sides and thinking I’d found myself in an inappropriately timed game of hide-and-seek. “Where are you, Satan?”
Silence, except for creaking, icy branches above. I was very much alone. A deep growl reverberated up the street. Well, not totally alone. I gripped my god bone tight while I took my seraph knife from my thigh holster. The devil had said not to kill Krampus, but the devil wasn’t here. I would do what was necessary so I wouldn’t get chomped.
“Let’s go, goat demon,” I said.
About twenty yards ahead, the icy dome of trees overhead rustled. Ice cracked and fell, though I still couldn’t see anything, which was weird since I had amazing vampiric/fae/pirate twenty-twenty eyesight. Still, it made me wonder just how tall this thing was. When I’d heard the word goat, I’d immediately thought...goat. Regular goat. Goat-sized goat.
Maybe not. Silly me.
Another car alarm sounded from about fifteen yards away, and then a car flew through the air and crashed into another parked one across the street. The flying car flattened on impact and molded itself to the top of the other. Its alarm stopped. That was one way to solve that noisy problem.
This seemed less and less like a good idea.
I glanced at the other houses along the street. Surely not all the families who lived in them were vacationing in Florida. Krampus must’ve had a volume control on his...whatever the hell he was doing right now. Playing? With me? I was in no mood.
A scraping sounded, metallic and loud. And then movement. Something huge was coming up the street.
Finally, coming up from two blocks down, the scraping sound revealed itself. It was a car, tipped up on its very front end and sliding down the center of the slick street toward me. Orange sparks flared out from where it grated along the ice.
No sign of Krampus, which meant he was using magic, and not to impress me. To distract me.
The car slid up toward me fast, but I didn’t budge. I held out my arm, stuck out my finger, and touched it to the cold top of the car to stop it. When it did stop, the night roared with quiet.
Too much quiet.
Except for the slightest creak behind the car. An arctic prickle scurried over the top of my scalp. I took a single step back and flicked my gaze upward.
And locked eyes with a pair of beastly red ones. A mouthful of yellowed fangs opened, and a horrible wail burst out as well as a long, forked tongue. Two humongous goat horns jutted from a dingy furred hood and curled up over the top of his head. From behind the car, he smacked a clawed hand against it and sent it flying.
Terror gripped my dead heart. A scream welled up inside my throat and froze.
That was my cue to run, and I did. Yeah, I know that wasn’t the slayer thing to do, but I needed to reevaluate, find a weakness, something, and fast. I couldn’t do that if I was served on a plate and stabbed with a fork.
The car crashed into the house with my vamps and dog inside, so I sprinted away from it, as fast as I could, to draw Krampus away from my loves. I slid to a stop on the other side of a white van. With my ungraceful speed, I nearly took off the passenger side mirror. I ripped it the rest of the way free and threw it as hard as I could toward some bushes a couple houses down. It crashed into them with a satisfactory amount of noise, and a growl rolled toward that direction.
I had no idea how smart Krampus was, but I hoped he was dumb enough to go investigate and give me time to think. The van I stood next to had chains on its tires. Maybe I could make those work for me. But first, I needed a plan. Something to distract him long enough so I could tie the chains around him. And then what? The devil wasn’t here to take him back to hell, so it would just be Krampus and me, hanging out. Unless I could stash him somewhere until the devil came back...
A faint ringing of jingle bells came from the bushes I’d thrown the mirror in.
Quickly, I dropped to my knees and rolled underneath the van so the ice seeped up through the front of my open leather jacket and Sylvester T-shirt. To my left was an empty street once more, though I doubted it would stay that way for long. As quietly as I could, I reached my seraph knife out in front of me toward the chained tire.
From the back pocket of my jeans, my cell began to ring, so loud in the silent night. Fuck. I scrambled to answer it. It was probably Eddie with an idea of how to catch Krampus.
“Hello,” I said, not even a whisper, and Eddie began talking.
I didn’t hear a word he said. More jingles sounded, much too close. Then the van I hid under tipped fast and knocked on its side with a loud bang. Leaving me exposed. Leaving me staring up at the big guy himself.
Dressed in a once-red, fur-lined cloak, he towered over me. Battered jingle bells edged the bottom of his cloak and scraped along the ice, and as he shifted, I glimpsed hoofed feet. Strings of drool dripped from his yellowed fangs, and four-inch claws that poked from his long sleeves clicked together.
My flesh felt like it was peeling away from my bones at how badly I wanted to scurry away from him.
We eyed each other, assessing. My muscles coiled tight. My grips on the seraph knife and god bone turned painful. His beastly red eyes homed in on the knife particularly, as if he recognized exactly who it was meant to kill—demons like himself. Even goat demons. At least I hoped.
Behind his red eyes, I sensed a great deal of intelligence and cunning. And hunger, just as sharp as my seraph knife and growing sharper.
Oh. Shit.
With a horrendous snarl, he lunged.
Chapter Two
I rolled over the ice to escape Krampus’s clicking claws, his drooling, snapping jaw, his forked tongue that wriggled dangerously close to my cheek. Swear to god, if he licked me, game over. He was dead. Same if he ate me.
Surging to my feet, I lashed out with my seraph knife, aiming right for his wandering tongue. He dodged. I missed. He swung a claw-tipped arm, and didn’t miss. Mother fucker. I went flying, then crashed to the icy street and slid about half a block away. Good thing I didn’t have any breath to knock from my lungs. Still, no one knocked me down without getting knocked right the fuck back.
He rocket
ed toward me, fast for someone his size, the ice not impeding him one bit. Once again, I sprang to my feet and raced to meet him for a little hand-to-hand combat.
“Hey, goat breath,” a familiar voice shouted. Jacek. The loud click of a gun’s safety followed.
I allowed myself a fourth of a second to look away from Krampus, toward my three vamps standing outside the house they’d gone inside. At the sight of them, panic coalesced in a tight ball in my gut.
When Krampus swung his head toward them, eyeballing my loves the way I used to with pie, I instantly knew what would happen next, because I would’ve made the same choice. It didn’t matter that Sawyer held a shotgun aimed at Krampus. They were closer to him than I was, three delicious vampires compared to one, all bigger than I was. All meatier.
The choice in entrees was obvious.
Krampus lunged toward them, but I was faster. I sprinted for him, and before he got far, I stomped on one of the jingle bells dragging off the bottom of his cloak, which pulled him up short. Then I jumped onto his slightly stooped back, my seraph knife primed for slicing and dicing. He flailed, attempting to whip me off, but I wasn’t going anywhere. Still, it was hard to stab him when he wouldn’t stop moving.
“Don’t shoot!” I called to Sawyer.
“Definitely not with you on it, Sunshine,” Eddie yelled.
“Where the fuck did Beelzebub go?” Jacek shouted.
Excellent question, one I wished I knew the answer to while I tried to ride a bucking rodeo Krampus. Before I could bury my knife into him, he slammed me down onto the icy street. His claws bit into my neck. I grasped his hand—no, a damn hoof, covered with claws and brittle fur—daring him to come a little closer.
“Belle!” Sawyer bellowed.
“Shoot it!” Jacek yelled.
A shot rang out. Krampus didn’t even blink. But he did lean closer, his tongue like a wriggling black worm.
I slashed out with my knife. Greenish, brownish blood splatted all over my face and jacket. Krampus jerked back with a loud, keening wail. I buried my knife into the ice next to me with the force of my swing and found half of Krampus’s tongue attached to the pointy end. I heaved a disgusted groan, and almost all the blood I’d drunk at breakfast.
“Gross!” I stared open-mouthed at Krampus, as if he should be ashamed for making me do something so vile.
He was screaming up a fit and spraying blood all over the place. Then, in a bright blue flash of light, he was gone.
“Well, shit.” I pulled my knife free and held it up toward my vamps. “Krampus tongue, anyone?”
They blurred toward me, their concerned ochre gazes ticking from me to the rest of the street.
“We’re good, thanks,” Jacek said. “Nauseous but good.”
“How are you?” Sawyer leaned down, his perfect lips tugging into a grimace at the goat-demon blood all over me.
“In desperate need of a shower. He didn’t chomp on me, but he didn’t let me catch him either.” I searched the street even though I knew I wouldn’t find him there. “He’s still out there.”
“Yeah, but maybe you stopped him from taking another kid,” Jacek said. “At least for tonight.”
“But I also stopped him from showing us where he’s keeping the kids he’s already kidnapped. Can you hand me Night’s Fall?”
“It’s inside.” Jacek started to turn toward the house and then jerked back. “Hey, who put the upside-down car in the yard?”
“Krampus,” I said. “You didn’t hear it?”
Eddie shook his head. “We didn’t hear a thing, but when you didn’t say anything when I called, we decided to come check things out.”
Krampus had some serious magic, then, to block out the noise he made from those inside their cozy houses. It must’ve not worked on children, though, if they were lured outside by the sound of his jingle bells.
“I’ll go get your bird-sword,” Jacek said, heading back inside.
I pushed myself to my feet, Sawyer’s hand at my elbow since that was a blood-free zone.
Jacek came back with Night’s Fall, and I took it from him and shoved it up into the air with an order to find Krampus. And then the missing kids. Nothing.
“Shit,” I said. “He must be blocking that too.” It wasn’t as though we could knock on all the doors asking if their kid was missing or if there was a stockpile of them inside somewhere. We needed more information, and the one devil to give it to us had disappeared.
Eddie gazed at me, seeming to read my thoughts. “How about you call it a night, Sunshine, and I’ll tell you what I learned about capturing Krampus.”
“Yeah.” Still, the thought of leaving those kids out there somewhere for a whole, freezing night felt like a kick to the ribs. They must’ve been terrified. And bone-deep cold.
We headed inside anyway because there wasn’t much left we could do.
While expertly twirling Night’s Fall, Jacek peered closer at Eddie’s face as we made our way up the sidewalk. “Hey, you’ve got a little something...” He brushed his hand over his mouth.
Eddie sighed. “I do not.”
“I do,” I said, raising my hand. “Pretty sure I have goat demon in my mouth.”
Jacek winked. “Then that son of a bitch doesn’t know how lucky he is.”
“Thanks?” I said with a laugh.
He stopped on the porch to let me pass. “It’s where I want to be at all times.”
“Well, maybe that can be arranged, after I clean the goat out of it, I mean.”
“That sounds an awful lot like a promise.” He grinned and swept his hand through the open front door, gesturing me into the house. “Welcome to the slayer’s Christmas haven, also known as someone else’s house.”
And it was quite the haven indeed. It opened up onto a spacious living room with gray stone floors spotted with large, fluffy white rugs. A two-sided fireplace climbed toward the high ceiling, inside of which a warm fire crackled. Cleo lay on one of the white rugs in front of it, belly up, her tongue lolling lazily out.
I snorted. Silly dog.
On the other side of the fireplace was a large, stainless steel kitchen. In the far corner in front of the tall windows facing the street stood the most beautiful Christmas tree I’d ever seen. It smelled of pine and twinkled little white lights that reflected on the intricate, very expensive-looking ornaments. The people who lived here weren’t even in town to enjoy it, which was just bonkers, especially since they’d left piles of carefully wrapped presents underneath it.
The tabletop tree Mom and I had paled in comparison to this one, but... I shut that thought down, or tried to anyway.
Jacek took my free hand and squeezed, seeming to sense the direction of my thoughts.
“Belle,” Sawyer said softly from my other side. “Are you all right?”
I shook my head and forced a swallow, but my voice ended up creaky anyway. “Sorry, Christmas is kind of hard if I let myself think about it.”
“There’s no reason to be sorry.” Eddie appeared in front of me with a kitchen towel and dabbed the blood from my face, along with a few tears that sprang from happy memories from too far in the past.
I studied the kindness on his face to help anchor me here, with my loves, instead of reliving Mom’s excitement when she announced it was time to decorate, which was usually the day after Halloween, aka my birthday.
When I thought I could speak again semi-normally, I said, “I can’t imagine going somewhere that tree isn’t. What was this family thinking?”
Eddie nodded, folding up the bloody towel. “It is strange. I really hope they don’t come back tonight though.”
“Maybe that’s where Beelzebub went. To be sure,” Jacek said.
“No, he left mid-sentence, just poof. Gone. Like he wasn’t even expecting it. Maybe he was called back to hell for an emergency meeting to see if 666 really meant 999 this whole time.”
The three of them burst into laughter.
Hearing them was like a hug for my s
oul, and I couldn’t help but join in. “What an embarrassment that would be, huh?”
Eddie held out a hand, his laughter still dancing in his eyes. “Wait until you see the basement in this place.”
“Is there a shower?” I asked.
He nodded as I took his hand. “There is. As soon as you clean up, I’ll tell you how to catch Krampus.”
“We’ll be up here if you need us,” Jacek said to our backs.
I waved and blew both him and Sawyer kisses over my shoulder as I followed Eddie to the door. “If it involves cutting Krampus’s tongue out, I’m already halfway there.”
“No tongues, unfortunately. Just swans.”
“Huh?”
“Shower first, swans second.”
“Are you telling me I’m filthy?”
“Only in the best way possible.”
I looked down at myself and grimaced. “Accurate.”
Downstairs, I smelled the magic before I saw it—paper and ink and leather and knowledge. Bookshelf after bookshelf lined the walls with cozy chairs and reading lamps clustered throughout the large space. Nestled between the shelves on one wall stood a fireplace, which made me nervous. Fire plus books equaled bad. Through an arched doorway on the far wall, pinball and old arcade games surrounded a pool table.
I whistled. “Impressive. But do they have a demonology section in their library?”
“Sadly, they don’t. But there is a complete set of signed Harry Potter books.”
I quirked up my eyebrows, impressed. “Well, I guess we’ll just live here, then.”
Eddie grinned and pointed toward a nearby door. “The shower’s through there.”
It took a little longer than normal to scrub my body—and yes, the inside of my mouth too—clean because I spent much too long playing with all the dials and buttons on the shower wall. One button lit the rain showerhead into a swirl of different colors, and I punched that sucker again and again. Honestly, it didn’t take much to amuse me. After I turned into a prune, I wrapped myself in a big, fluffy towel and wandered out into the library again.
