Chaos & Christmas
A Mount Olympus Academy Christmas Carol
Kate Karyus Quinn
Demitria Lunetta
Marley Lynn
Copyright © 2019 by Kate Karyus Quinn, Demitria Lunetta, and Marley Lynn
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Created with Vellum
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Happy Holidays!
About the Authors
Also by the Authors
1
Maddox was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that.
Pulling your mother’s bloated and battered body from a swamp tends to stick with a guy.
I did a DIY cremation afterwards, the way she’d always told me to...although, that was usually when we were out raiding monster sites.
“Burial takes too long,” she’d say. “Burn me and go. Save yourself, Nico.”
Save yourself.
My mom wasn’t the affectionate type. Not with words. Not with kisses or hugs or crap like that. Telling me to save myself was her way of saying she cared.
In the end, I was the only one to watch her burn, my one good eye streaming tears in the smoke.
Burning her was my way of showing that I cared, too, without words or affection. It was the way she would’ve wanted it. Clean and simple. Reduce her to ash so none of her enemies could mess with her remains.
And Maddox Tralano had plenty of enemies.
I watched the fire until there was nothing left but embers and then stomped those into the ground. Shifting into my werewolf form, I howled goodbye and left to find vengeance.
That didn’t work out so well.
When I took on the vampires who killed my mom, I ended up getting expelled from school.
But that wasn’t my only score to settle.
Maddox always believed that “an eye for an eye” was too merciful. And weak. If someone takes your eye, you go after them until they’ve been removed from the Earth.
In theory, it makes sense.
In reality, I saw the body of a girl I’d once loved broken beyond repair. Sure, she’d taken my eye. A chunk of pride too.
But in the end, bringing her down had brought me nothing but grief.
Pursuing revenge felt a lot like chasing my own tail. It didn’t bring back my lost eye. Or Maddox.
So I put all that aside. Not clearing the debts, but not pursuing them either.
Instead, I’m focusing on saving myself.
And doing things a little differently than my mother did.
I live in a big old house in a neighborhood that must’ve been nice at one time. Once half of Florida disappeared under water, most people who could afford to scram, did.
Cowards.
But their loss is my gain. I had my pick of houses, no down-payment required. There was one that had all these statues. Greek gods, of course. Zeus and Hermes and Artemis. All my old teachers at Mount Olympus Academy from before I was expelled. And before the whole school—and then the whole world—fell apart with the death of Zeus.
Of course I picked the house with the statues. Figured it was what Mom would’ve wanted me to do. I guess it doesn’t matter if she’s gone and burnt or not…she’s still with me. Still in my head.
Maddox wasn’t religious in the way most people think of it, but she sure did believe in the gods. If the gods wanted centaurs and harpies and minotaurs dead, then Maddox wanted those monsters dead too. She didn’t ask what was in it for her. The joy of the kill was all the reward she needed.
As a kid, I had all the fresh venison I could eat, but no fresh fruit or cookies hot from the oven.
No cookies at all actually.
In the winter when Maddox couldn’t afford a new coat, she’d shift into her wolf and tell me to do the same.
“These fur coats are warmer than anything at the store,” she’d bark at me.
Practicality was always a strength of hers. Except when it came to killing. It could depend on her mood, and the timing. If there was a little bit of leeway, she might play with her prey, like a cat shifter would. Not that any cat shifter I ever met had instincts like my mother. Not at Mount Olympus Academy, anyway.
But the world is different than it was then. Apocalypses have a way of shaking things up. Suddenly it becomes real clear where everyone falls on the food chain.
And me...I’m at the top.
I even started my own business—assassin for hire. I’d never really thought of myself as the CEO type, but there was clearly a market need for someone willing to get their hands bloody. Humans haven’t adjusted very well to this new world, one where paranormals walk among them freely.
But it’s not always vampires or monsters I’m going after. The end of the world can bring out the ugly in people, and I’ve helped a few humans settle scores among themselves, too. I did a couple jobs—quick, easy, neck snappers—and then, without having to bother with advertising or hanging a shingle reading, “Have Teeth, Have Claws, Will Kill,” word got around and business grew. And then it grew some more.
I raised my prices and clients didn’t blink an eye. They somehow found the cash and carried it into my office in old plastic bags, shoe boxes, and even one time some guy wheeled in a refrigerator on a dolly. When he opened it up, the whole thing was stuffed with cash. And a steak, which was a nice touch.
It’s a quiet Florida afternoon right now and I’m headed upstairs to the panic room disguised as a walk-in closet. Whoever lived here before me must’ve hid inside for a while, ’cause the place had a stale piss smell. Some pine scented cleaner fixed that up, and then I was able to put the room to good use.
Entering the code, I jerk the door open. Stacks and stacks and even more stacks of money line every wall from floor to ceiling.
I always knew that I didn’t like not having money. That it bothered me more than it did Maddox, who never seemed to think about it at all. But I hadn’t realized how much I would like having lots and lots and lots of money.
I’m not even spending it. Not really. Mostly I just like watching the dollar bills pile up. When I open the door to my improvised safe, I see for the first time in my life something that’s all mine.
And I like it.
Taking a step inside, I grab a pile of bills and fan them out between my fingers. Hundreds, all of them. The smell of money fills me with a giddy joy.
Someone clears their throat from behind me.
I don’t have to turn around to know who it is. Even before my werewolf nose sniffed him out, some deeper part of my wolf psyche sensed him—and started salivating.
“I told you not to come up here,” I remind the rooster shifter who works for me.
The kid was also my former roommate at Mount Olympus Academy. He was pathetic then and he’s pathetic now. He came limping up to my door a few weeks after I moved in, begging for protection. I guess most of his chicken shifter family got wiped out in the aftermath of the world going kablooey.
Like I said already, the food chain got real for a lot of people. And chickens, well, chickens are food. And it’s not my fault they got the short straw in shifter genetics.
“Yes, I know. Um...sorry.” Chester clears his throat nervously. “I just, um, knew you’d be up here for a while
fondling, um petting, er counting, your money, and well um...it is Christmas Eve, you know.”
“So what?”
“I was...um...wondering if I could...leave a little early…”
I finally turn to face Chester. He’s standing in the doorway of the safe and I don’t like his beady little chicken eyes on my money.
“Out,” I bark at him.
He startles, jumping almost a foot and then scuttling backwards, tripping over his own feet.
Laughing, I follow him out and slam the panic room door behind me. The wad of hundreds is still in my hand, so I shove it in my pocket.
“You already asked me for tomorrow off,” I remind Chester. “And now you want to leave early today too?”
He gulps. “My sister and little brother are in town visiting. I thought—”
“I don’t pay you to think,” I interrupt. “You’re my secretary—”
“Administrative assistant,” he whispers the correction.
I pretend not to hear it. “You greet clients. Offer them a beverage. You answer the phone...when it works. You take care of contracts. Paperwork. Basically all the stupid stuff I can’t be bothered with.” I smile at him, letting my fangs show. “And in return…”
I nod at Chester to finish the sentence. “And in return, you let me live in the basement rent free. Under your protection.”
“Under my protection,” I repeat. “You’re a charity case, Chester. Eating my food. Using my toilet paper. Breathing my air.” I take a step toward him just to watch him dance backwards. “Where are you going tomorrow that you need the whole day off?”
His eyes go wide. “Wh-wh-wh-what do you mean? Where?”
I stare at him and wait.
His Adam’s apple bobs convulsively as his mouth trembles. “Just getting together with some friends,” he says at last.
“Mount Olympus friends?” I ask.
“No!” he squeaks.
“Are you lying to me, little chicken?”
“Rooster,” he corrects softly.
“Chicken,” I repeat, my voice hard. So quick he doesn’t have time to even think of jerking away, I grab his neck in one hand. “My mom and I always had fried chicken on Christmas. It was our one tradition. Should I keep it going this year?”
He shakes his head.
I open my hand and he falls to the floor.
“Where are you going tomorrow and who will you be with?”
“To an old mausoleum! That way Greg and Val and Marguerite can visit from the Underworld.”
I nod. It’s exactly what I suspected.
Chester came crawling to me. And I’m the one who took him in. But his so-called “friends” are all those people from MOA.
“Who else will be there?” I ask.
Chester doesn’t answer me, and I feel a little bit of my control slipping. He doesn’t need to see my weakness, and I hope he doesn’t figure out who I’m really asking about—Edie, the dragon shifter I would’ve married if she hadn’t…well, if she hadn’t rejected me.
For a vampire, a nasty little voice whispers in my head. One of the vampires who killed my mom.
“Shut up,” I say, and even though Chester isn’t making a sound, he nods in agreement. I toss a pencil at him.
“Draw a map of where you’ll be, and a list of who will be there, in case I need you for anything. After that’s done, you can go.”
His eyes widen and I’m pretty sure he’s about to refuse. But then his whole body sags, and he nods.
“Yeah. Okay. A list.” But then he looks at me with this weird light in his eye. “You know, instead of the list…” He hesitates, before finishing in a rush, “Youcouldjustcomewithme.”
I laugh. “Or I could shove a screwdriver through my remaining eye.” I mime it and Chester flinches. “Or maybe one of your good friends from MOA would do it for me.”
“No-no-no!” he stutters, but not from nervousness. Instead, he seems so offended by the idea. “They would never! And they’re not my friends. I barely know them, but they invited me because, well because, Christmas is meant to be shared, as far and wide as possible. That’s what Fern said when she asked if I wanted to come. And so, well, I know there’s some bad feelings—”
“You could say that,” I interrupt.
“But maybe Christmas is the day to forgive...and to ask to be forgiven,” Chester finishes.
“Ask to be forgiven,” I repeat thoughtfully as I slink toward Chester. Then with one swift movement I pick him up by the back of his shirt. He weighs almost nothing. I could hold him here until he slowly strangles on the neck of his polo shirt.
“Make sure you’re here early all next week...to make up for the time you lost.” I quietly snarl at him, and then toss him out the door. He slides along the slick hardwood floor but stops right before he would’ve gone down the stairs.
Standing, he brushes himself off with a quiet dignity that always makes me feel like a heel.
He starts down the stairs, but right before he disappears from sight, he turns back to me. “Merry Christmas, Nico.”
I snort. “Bah. Humbug. That’s my line. Right?”
“Or you could just say, ‘Merry Christmas to you too.’” Chester smiles sadly. Almost like he feels bad for me. Which is crazy.
I don’t feel bad.
Not for bullying him.
Not that my old classmates are getting together nearby and that, despite what Chester thinks, I am definitely not welcome to join them.
Not even that I made up the story about Mom and me having a Christmas tradition of eating fried chicken.
Maddox wasn’t into holidays and crap like that.
The only thing we did on Christmas was the same thing we did every other day of the year—
Kill.
2
As promised, Chester left his list. And directions to the mausoleum.
Everything I need to know is there. Names.
Edie will be there. I try to ignore the little leap my heart makes at the sight of her name. I have to remind myself that she’s my ex.
Val, her vampire lover.
Mavis. Edie’s sister. Also my ex.
The name I’m most interested in though is this one: Fern.
Sweet little Fern. Probably the nicest person who ever went to Mount Olympus Academy. And a talented healer too.
I bet Chester assumed this was something to do with Edie or Mavis.
It’s true, in the past I’ve maybe fixated too much on their betrayals. Both of them took a piece of my heart. And Mavis, the little cat, got one of my eyes too.
Or the vampires, Val and Marguerite, who helped kill my mom.
But I’ve let all that go now.
Mavis, like all cats, proved to have more than one life.
And Edie, well, Edie was probably out of my league.
So that leaves Fern.
Just to be clear, my interest in Fern is not romantic. She is committed to Marguerite, a vampire who currently attends Underworld Academy. I don’t know why a witch wants to be with a vampire. Honestly, I don’t know why anyone at all wants to be with a vampire. Filthy, dirty, cold-blooded freaks.
Stuffing Chester’s list in my pocket, I head out. Even though he’s in charge of scheduling my appointments, he doesn’t know about the one I put on my calendar for late this afternoon. Usually I meet clients in an abandoned high rise, but today I’m doing something a little different.
In a post-apocalyptic world power tends to come and go. Yet the lights are always on and flashing at HOO HOOS & TATAS GENTLEMAN’S CLUB.
I push through the double doors. Inside the dimly lit interior is heavily decorated in gaudy Christmas decorations. Tinsel lines the long catwalk, lit up in green and red, that slices through the center of the room. Rickety tables surround it, each with a mini Christmas tree. At the very end is the VIP section where there’s a booth with plush red leather seats.
It’s here that I find Hermes and Priapus, each wearing a Santa hat and sipping candy cane
martinis. The two of them are staring at the stage, which is currently empty.
“Assassin boy!” Hermes says with a smile. “Sit down, sit down. Priapus and I were just about to watch a new girl audition.”
“Great.” I motion to the holiday decor. “You don’t find it odd that two Greek gods are this into Christmas?”
Priapus shrugs. “Christmas, Winter Solstice, it’s all the same excuse to throw a big party! Now shush, the show is starting.”
I slide into the booth as music begins to play. Oddly enough, it’s the chicken dance song. The one with no words that people flap their arms and clap along with. Seems like an odd choice.
The gods look confused too. “Not a good start,” Priapus says with a shake of his head.
“Oh, but I like that,” Hermes says, pointing to where a girl struts down the stage wearing only strategically placed feathers. With every twitch of her hips, feathers drift off her body. I’m honestly not that into the whole stripper thing. Wolves don’t like to share. But there’s something about this girl…
I sniff and her smell is strangely familiar.
Before I can bring it into focus, I’m distracted by Priapus shouting, “Show us your hoo hoo!”
Her eyes go wide at this and her steps falter. That’s when one of the smells becomes clear—fear. She was hiding it well, but this girl has no business here.
“Cut the music!” Hermes calls out, standing. He smiles at the girl and she smiles back at him. He’s got one of those faces that’s like that. Charming, I guess.
There was a time girls smiled back at me too. But not anymore. There’s something in me now that makes them look away, scared. It used to be they could overlook the missing eye—it made me dashing. Now I guess it’s what they see reflected in the other one that sends them running.
“Priapus here was just kidding about showing us your hoo hoo,” Hermes says, his voice all calm and sweet.
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