by Deanna Chase
Hex the Halls
A Paranormal Christmas Anthology
Mindy Klasky
Christiana Miller
Kristen Painter
Deanna Chase
Saranna DeWylde
Michele Bardsley
Liz Schulte
Angie Fox
Contents
Copyright
Dreaming of a Witch Christmas
Copyright
Dreaming of a Witch Christmas
A Note From the Author
A Mindy Klasky Sampler
About the Author
Speed-Dating the Christmas Demon
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
About the Author
Also by Christiana Miller
The Werewolf’s Christmas Wish
Copyright
Summary
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Author Note
About the Author
Other books by Kristen Painter
A Miracle On Bourbon Street
Copyright
Summary
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
About the Author
A Very Merry HEX-mas: A Woolven Secret Novella
Copyright
Summary
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Other Books in the Series
About the Author
Cupid’s Christmas (Broken Heart Worlds #1)
Copyright
Summary
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Epilogue
Also By Michele Bardsley
About the Author
Frost’s Bite
Copyright
Summary
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
About the Author
Also by Liz Schulte
Ghost Of A Chance
Copyright
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
About the Author
HEX THE HALLS
Copyright © 2015
Dreaming of a Witch Christmas
Copyright © 2015 Mindy Klasky
Speed-Dating the Christmas Demon
Copyright © 2015 Christiana Miller
The Werewolf’s Christmas Wish
Copyright © 2015 Kristen Painter
A Miracle On Bourbon Street
Copyright © 2015 Deanna Chase
A Very Merry HEX-mas: A Woolven Secret Novella
Copyright © 2015 Saranna DeWylde
Cupid’s Christmas (Broken Hearts World #1)
Copyright © 2015 Michelle Bardsley
Frost’s Bite
Copyright © 2015 Liz Schulte
Ghost of a Chance
Copyright © 2015 Angie Fox
Cover Design by: Rebecca Poole
All Rights Reserved
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The authors acknowledge the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
Dreaming of a Witch Christmas
Copyright © 2015 Mindy Klasky
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portion thereof, in any form.
This is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Cover design by Lee Jay Stura
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Discover other titles by Mindy Klasky at http://www.mindyklasky.com
Dreaming of a Witch Christmas
Mindy Klasky
The weather outside was frightful.
Which made a perfect excuse to be sitting inside, in the Cake Walk bakery, nursing a hot chocolate and trying to keep from snitching the last Hot Spiced Plum mini-cupcake from its pottery plate. Melissa White, the evil baker who’d dreamed up that molasses and caramel confection, did what a best friend should do. She pushed the plate closer and urged me to snitch away.
“Maybe I’ll just get David a box of your mini cupcakes,” I said, after licking the caramel glaze from my fingertips.
“Nothing says First Married Christmas like baked goods,” Melissa agreed with a sanguine smile.
Married. After only two weeks of wedded bliss, the word still sent a shiver of pleasure down my spine. I twisted the silver band on my left ring finger.
Melissa consigned the now-empty pottery plate to the sink. “As a witch, aren’t you supposed to skip all this Christmas stuff? Isn’t Yule your winter holiday of choice?”
I shrugged. “Same difference, in a lot of ways. We have a pine tree in the front room, decorated with a lot of sun ornaments to encourage the rebirth of the year. We have a Yule log in the fireplace, decorated with three candles—red, green, and white. I set out bowls of cinnamon sticks and cedar chips, and the pine boughs make the whole place smell like the holidays. I was never real big on mangers and magi and all that traditional Christmas stuff.”
“You’re just traditional enough to send your students home for a couple of weeks,” Melissa smirked.
“The Jane Madison Academy is formally on Winter Break,” I said primly. My school for witches was about to undergo some major changes, based on a major catastrophe two weeks earlier. But I wasn’t going to dwell on that. Not with two shopping days left before Yule. I knew how to prioritize emergencies. I took another slug of hot chocolate before saying, “I’m sure you finished your holiday shopping months ago, Little Miss Organized. What did you get Rob?”
Melissa wrinkled her nose. “I held off on getting anything, until I knew if he’d make partner at the law firm.”
“And now that he has?” The vote h
ad been held two days earlier. My Birkenstock-clad best friend was thrilled for her husband, but devastated at the thought of attending formal firm events.
“I bought him a membership in one of those airline clubs because he’ll be doing a lot more travel.”
Yeah. I couldn’t quite steal that idea. When David needed to get from point A to point B, he used warder’s magic. No airport lounges for him.
Melissa said, “And I bought him a booklet of parking vouchers for hockey games, down at the Arena.”
Another non-starter where David was concerned. He could apply his warder’s powers to find curbside parking anywhere in the city. Not that he even followed hockey.
“I wanted to get him something for his new office,” Melissa continued, “But it’ll take a few months before one opens up at the firm. So I settled on getting him a Montblanc pen, instead.”
“That’s brilliant!” I said, jumping to my feet in a rush of enthusiasm.
“Um, it’s a pen.”
“No. I mean, Rob will love it, I’m sure. But I could get one for David.”
“There’s a good selection at—”
Before she could tell me the best purveyor of luxury pens in the Washington DC metro area, the door to the bakery swung open. A trio of customers swirled in on a bitter wind, bringing snow and ice with them. I glanced at the clock on the wall. It was nearly three o’clock—long past any time I could reasonably have called my lunch break.
As I collected my purse from the counter, Melissa said, “Wait! I wanted to talk to you about a yoga retreat. The studio is doing a New Year’s Day seminar, with hot yoga in the morning, and—”
“Sorry. I can’t make it.”
“You don’t even know what time it is!”
I inclined my head toward the avid customers who crowded the display case. “I’ll let you get back to work.”
“Come on, Jane!” Melissa was well-accustomed to my yoga-avoiding ways. “Rock, paper, scissors.”
“Whoops!” I said, cinching my scarf tight around my neck. “Will you look at the time?”
I dashed out of the bakery, leaving Melissa to serve her paying clientele. That had been a close call.
I almost regretted my yoga cowardice as I leaned into the winter storm outside the warm, cheery bakery. The promised “wintry mix” was well under way, with sleet blowing in on an arctic wind. Tiny pellets stung my cheeks as I made my way toward the bus stop. I’d give almost anything for a dose of warder’s magic, for the ability to close my eyes and nod my head and be surrounded by the warmth of my very own living room.
In the end, I gave twenty bucks to a cab driver instead, adding a hefty tip to the storm-surcharge-enhanced fare. After all, it was the holidays. Whichever one my cab driver happened to celebrate.
Blanton House waited for me near DC’s trendy Logan Circle neighborhood. David and I had decorated the five inter-connected townhouses for the season, setting candle-shaped lights in the ground floor windows and placing evergreen swags on the cast iron railings that led to each front door.
With my magicarium on winter break, four of the five massive townhouses were dark. I climbed the steps to the fifth one, the one David and I called home. We’d installed a marble stone on the landing, a protective block to guard over comings and goings. Automatically, I touched my fingers to the door-frame and whispered a traditional spell:
“Protect and keep us safe from ill,
Hecate, guard us as you will.”
The words were a reminder that I was sworn to the goddess of witchcraft, even if I no longer had anything to do with the formal bureaucracy set up in her name. As I said the last word—will—a tiny drop of power coalesced in the marble beneath my feet. It was stored there, ready to be called on if Blanton House was ever attacked.
Who was I kidding? When Blanton House was attacked.
But with any luck, our enemies wouldn’t mobilize quickly. We should have several months before they launched a new chapter in our ongoing battle.
For now, I had a more immediate challenge to address. I needed to find a Christmas present for David, something that would express my love for him and my respect for our marriage, something that illustrated the value I placed on our union as husband and wife, as witch and warder.
I quickly added my coat and scarf to the massive rack in the corner of the foyer. Until I’d moved into Blanton House, I’d never bothered with a coatrack. I’d always been satisfied with tossing my clothes onto a nearby couch or, in a pinch, onto a kitchen chair.
But David preferred order. And it was nice to know where my coat was, every single time I wanted to go outside. I’d probably saved an hour or two already, not needing to hunt down my outerwear.
Shaking my head at how I’d become a changed woman, I headed back to the kitchen and the stairs that led to the basement. Long before Blanton House hosted the Jane Madison Academy, it had belonged to Henry Blanton, a prestigious architect during the Gilded Age. Good old Hank had maintained countless valuables in his home: blueprints for robber barons’ mansions, Lalique jewels for his mistress, and thousands of dollars in cash to be distributed to Congressmen and city inspectors as occasion required.
Those trappings of traditional wealth had been stored in a massive basement vault. The chamber was equipped with three doors, each cast from tons of steel. The walls, floor, and ceiling were solid metal too, thick enough to withstand anything short of a direct hit by a cannon ball.
Of course, when I’d taken possession of Blanton House, I’d added to the protections, casting half a dozen spells over the vault as well. My treasures were protected against the depredations of other witches as well as warders and familiars. I’d tossed in magical incantations against mundane thieves, fire, and silverfish.
That silverfish spell was key.
The vault no longer guarded a wealthy architect’s playthings. Now, it protected the Osgood collection, a trove of arcane paraphernalia. The core of the collection was books—pages and pages of vellum, parchment, and paper. An infestation of silverfish could have destroyed all of them in a few short months.
I grunted as I pushed open the third vault door, putting my whole weight into the enterprise.
“Very ladylike.”
I wiped my hands against my jeans and brushed my hair out of my face before I turned around. Neko, my familiar, stood in the middle of the room behind me, his hands on his slender, leather-clad hips, his lips pursed in a disapproving pout. It was just like my familiar to show up after the heavy lifting was done. He was great in a crisis, but lazy in the day-to-day monotony of witchcraft. I pointed out, “You could have given me a hand.”
“And miss seeing that look of concentration on your face?”
“You couldn’t see my face.”
“Oh,” Neko said. My familiar had begun his life as a statue of a black cat. He was still capable of pretending he was always, completely, one hundred percent in control of everything that happened in the world around him. And just in case he wasn’t, he knew how to steer a conversation toward a distraction. “So?” he asked, gliding into the vault. “What working are we doing his afternoon?”
His hand darted out, like a tabby’s paw batting around a toy fur mouse. He came up with one of the true treasures of the Osgood collection—the Morningside Athame. The two-edged blade was fashioned from a single piece of obsidian as long as my hand. A silver finger-guard separated the knife from the hilt, where a master craftsman had added a delicate carving of the Tree of Life.
Even in its simple leather sheath, the athame sang to my powers. It stirred my magic, sharpening my astral senses until my breath tingled at the back of my throat. The athame was more than a valuable knife—it was a symbol of everything I was, everything I’d become. It tied me to all the incredible witches who’d come before me, all the women who had protected the Osgood collection.
Neko drew the blade, and its power washed over me like a physical force. Runes shimmered on its surface, a delicate tracery of protective marki
ngs. The ancient inscriptions dedicated the knife’s workings to the Guardians of Air and Earth, of Fire and Water. But more than that, the powerful runes bound me into a network of magic, into the web of my people.
The athame was all my magic distilled into one physical form. It steadied me, even as it offered up a heady reserve of power. It made me more of who I was. It was was one of the most valuable pieces in my entire collection—but more than that, it was me, in some central, essential way that I could never describe in mundane words.
Neko knew all that. That was why he tempted me with the athame. But I managed to shake my head reluctantly. The blade couldn’t help with the research I needed to complete today.
Neko huffed a little sigh of disappointment and returned the athame to its shelf. “Then what are we here for?”
“I’m buying David a Yuletide present.”
“Wouldn’t it be easier to shop online?”
I glared. “Melissa gave me the idea. She’s getting Rob a Montblanc pen.”
“Bor-ing.” Neko stretched his criticism into two syllables. “Why don’t you ask Melissa to bake something for David. Something with custard. And extra whipped cream.” Neko was describing his own dream Christmas present, of course. Nothing that David would want.
So I ignored his wheedling and said, “Her plan got me thinking. What is David’s prize possession?”
“You,” Neko said immediately.
I wrinkled my nose. “David doesn’t possess me. Come on. Think.”
Neko sighed, resigning himself to an immediate future sans milk-based treats. “It was probably his warder’s ring, before the recent unpleasantness.” He shuddered delicately. “Now? Probably his griffin quill pen.”
“Exactly!” I said. Even as Neko said the word—pen—I could picture David sitting at his desk, his treasured quill nestling comfortably between his fingers. Plucked from the wing of a rare griffin, the pen was fashioned out of a single stiff feather. Its shaft was the color of deep green malachite, overlaid with a faint bronze sheen. The tip of the feather was cut into a perfect nib, and it was charmed to hold its shape against the pressure of use.
