“Uh. . . .” I hesitated before ruining her day.
Mary looked at me and a knowing light flashed in her eyes. “You didn’t get this for me did you?”
I shook my head. “Emmy.”
For a second I thought Mary would be upset at not getting to keep the expensive frame. Instead she just broke out laughing.
“It’s kinda fun opening others gifts. Here you go Miss Emmy.”
She handed off the crystal frame with a smile.
“Thank you Mary. And thank you for the gift Sis.”
“Paul downloaded the pictures from the camera in the Hummer to the frame already. Sorry again for handing out to the wrong person,” Charles shrugged.
Emmy held the frame out so we could stare over her shoulder as she cycled through the pictures of us with Santa. Everyone but me broke out laughing when she passed the one picture that hadn’t come from Mary’s camera.
The picture was of me, pissed off and armed to the teeth with an arsenal I could barely carry. It was the picture Charles had taken of me before I went to war only hours earlier. But someone had digitally altered it a little. They placed a santa hat on my head and wrote out on it, “Christmas with the Grey’s. Santa’s little helper ready to deal with the ‘Naughty’ children.”
“That’s not funny,” I grumbled in protest. Everyone else kept laughing.
Charles pulled another box from his sack and looked at the tag.
“Vicki?” he offered it to her.
“Why not?” She grabbed the small package and held it up in front of Cassie. “This is how you open Christmas presents.” With that she yanked the paper off in one move.
“Wow! You lucky! You got Zombie Death Raid Nine!” Mary squealed when she caught sight of the uncovered package.
Vicki spun the game around in her hand so she could see the front. “Huh? Why’d you get me this?” she turned around to ask me.
“Mary.” I pointed at the maid.
Vicki shrugged and tossed her the game like she was discarding a losing poker hand. Mary caught the box and flashed a big smile.
“Really?! You got this for me? Thanks Miss Kieran!”
“Everything about your life is so interesting, isn’t it? You can’t even have a normal package exchange,” Tanaka poked fun at me.
“Well then Tanaka, let’s see how interesting we can make it.” Charles dropped a box in Tanaka’s lap.
With another laugh he tore off the paper. “You got this for me?” he asked me holding up the book.
“Yep. Good call Charles. I thought I would give you a little piece of home Tanaka. Since you’re stuck here for the holiday.”
His laugh turned into a bellowing roar. “You have no idea what this is a book of, do you?”
I’d found the book at the mall. It was full of Japanese that I hadn’t the faintest of how to read. To me it just looked pretty.
“Not really. It is Japanese, isn’t it?”
He laughed again. “It’s Japanese alright. It’s a book of Japanese erotica!”
The room broke out into laughter as I went red and suddenly felt like crawling under the couch. Great. I bought him a sex book for Christmas. Can this get any worse?
“This is the first Christmas I’ve ever had with so many sexual gifts. What else did you buy?” Ren gasped at me while roaring with laughter.
“Let’s find out,” Charles announced handing the detective a box.
No one ever stopped laughing as she tore open the box and held up the set of slinky lingerie for all to see.
“Kieran! I had no idea!” she mocked my gift then handed it to Vicki.
“Mine?”
I groaned through my embarrassment. “I was planning on giving you those later. When we were alone.”
“They’ll go good with the vibrator,” Cassie declared while brushing her doll’s hair.
“Cassie!” Mary chided her.
“Alright then Little Miss Grey. Your turn.” Charles handed her a box with my name on the from tag.
This time she tore into the paper. I cringed and kept my eyes closed in fear of another adult gift being paraded around in front of the kid.
“Neat! These were the ones I wanted! Thanks Big Sister!” She dropped the box of Legos to give me a big hug.
“Well Charles you are two for eight. I’m not sure if that’s good or not though.” Emmy was sitting back loving every second of my embarrassment.
He chuckled to himself. “I happen to have one here for you. Care to try your luck?” He held out the thin box.
I recognized it right away. “That’s for Ren actually.”
Ren grabbed the box and handed it to Emmy. “Open it for me. Let’s keep the mystery going.”
Emmy folded back the paper from the velvet box. Everyone stopped what they were doing to watch as she opened the lid.
“Oh my,” Emmy gasped and handed the box back to Ren.
She took it and lifted the molecularly sharpened folding pocketknife out of the box. “Together we’ve faced the jaws of hell and survived. There’s no one else I trust as much to go through a door with than you. My best friend forever.” Ren put a hand to her lips and stared at the blade after reading the inscription out loud. Her eyes got all teary when she moved over and hugged me. “Thank you.”
* * *
And so it went. We each would open a gift. Then the person that bought it would hand it to the intended recipient. It was like a weird gift exchange. We all laughed as we opened each other’s gifts. All in all they did a fair job matching the giver with the givee.
In the stack of gifts Tanaka had brought with him were the three life monitoring watches I’d ordered from Yuric. Unlike when Yuric had given me mine, I told the others about the hidden purpose of the watches. After the night we had just had, no one objected in us being able to find each other and make sure they were okay. Tanaka even had one himself from Yuric.
Most of the gifts I received were gag gifts. Or at least I thought they were, like the Jr. Miss My First Makeup Kit from Emmy complete with instructional DVD. Mary took it upon herself to get me a thick book that explained the do’s and don’t’s of women’s fashion. Ren gave me a handbook of tactical procedures for close quarters combat. Tanaka took it a little too far by getting me the, “How to make a Woman out of any Man handbook,” that was written as a guide for cross-dressers.
Marsala had sent a very large bottle of expensive wine that was supposed to be my favorite. I put it to the side until he gets back. Even Arkon the dragon sent me a book, “The Realities of Dragons, Separating Myth From Monster.”
Vicki gave me the Star Wars Blu-Ray collection since she found out I was a fan. It was a great gift, and I never said a word to her about already having them all.
Cassie gave me one of the greatest gifts of all. She never went shopping for it, she made it. It was a scrapbook diary she’d started keeping when the vampires rescued her from the government experiments years ago. Pictures she drew, poems she wrote, and a daily log of things she wanted to do when she finally found her long lost ‘Sister’. I have every intention of doing each and every thing she wrote down, together.
After exchanging gifts I dressed and went to deliver the Christmas bonuses while the others pitched in and helped Mary prepare a feast for lunch. I gave the same amount as the old Kieran did for the bonus checks the year before. However, I doubled the amount for Charles, Mike and Paul. They had helped me out a lot lately. Charles actually got triple what he did last year. Why not? He sure has went out of his way to help. I doubled Mary’s bonus too. Along with a blank check for her textbooks. Those things are expensive you know.
* * *
I got back to the apartment just in time to hear a shriek from the guest bathroom. Ren fell out of the door white as a sheet. I never stopped to think that I was only a regular helpless human then, as I entered the bathroom. There on the wall next to the sink was a spider. A black hairy inch-long spider. My skin crawled remembering all the spiders from the night before. I
screamed throwing up my arms. My shields flared to life smashing the spider into the wall.
“LOOK!!! Everyone look!” I yelled.
“EEEWW!!!” was the statement from most everyone when they saw the smashed spider in the dent in the wall.
“Not the spider. The wall. I dented the wall . . . with my shields. They’re coming back to me!”
Everyone was happy for me. But Mary still complained when she went to clean up the mess.
Epilogue
We’d survived. With everything that has happened we were all still here.
Ren is having some trouble sorting out what all Doc did to her, but she gets better every day. He never took any memories away from her, or her powers, but she did get some of his. Only time will tell what that means. Also, Emmy tested her since she got splattered by the werewolf blood. Apparently Ren is also naturally immune to the lycanthrope virus. Yet another problem solved.
Vicki officially moved into the spare room. And yes, she spends the night in my bed from time to time, with and without clothes. Not to mention her little pink toy.
Cassie loved all her presents. She spends hours playing the video games and building things with her new Lego sets. She is actually acting like a kid for once. Of course the doll never leaves her side when she’s at home.
Marsala was sent to the Vampire Council. I think they’re in Venice. His Christmas present is waiting on his oversized bed for when he gets back. Yes, I bought the traitors both gifts when I was at the mall. I hated to not get them something in case they weren’t really traitors. Marsala has a giant teddy bear with a big bow waiting for him. It should be just right for his huge size.
As for Tanaka, well we’re kinda dating. I know it’s weird, but strangely enough, it works for us. He loves to take me out to fancy, expensive, foreign restaurants that I can’t read the menu at.
Emmy got promoted to Doc’s old position as head of the Archives. She’s been swamped with work, a lot of it from our Christmas Eve invasion, but she’s happy. She even is going to try to forgive Marsala when he gets back.
Arkon finally got hold of the gryphons only after I killed the arachnataur. They were a little snobbish about being disturbed for nothing.
The kittens even got presents, including names. The orange and white one was dubbed Marmalade, and the black and white one is now called Sundae.
No one talks about Vixen. Especially the fact that she used to be Kieran. We all know she is still out there with Doc and the still much alive Jacob. I’m sure we will run into her again soon. I look forward to the day we finally stop Jacob for good.
As for me, I have my shields back. Well, sort of anyway. They’re a lot weaker than before, and not reliable at all, but at least they’re coming back to me. Soon I should be as strong as I was. I hope.
Not even a month has passed since I became a woman. Even with all the chaos I’ve found a real family. My new life sure is better than my old one was. I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world.
Revenge's Web (Kieran Grey Psionic Hunter) Page 27
