Holidays Are Hell Page 10

  I sniffed loudly, and my mom glanced at me before turning back to my brother. “Robbie, can I have a word with you?”

  “Mom—”

  “Now.” Her tone was sharp, brooking no complaint. “Get in the house.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Pissed, he stood, dropped his marshmallow and stick into the fire, and stomped inside. I jumped when the screen door slammed.

  Sighing heavily, my mom took the stick out of the fire and rose. I didn’t look at her when she handed the marshmallow to me. It was all out now, and I couldn’t even pretend I had the ability to do what I wanted, do what made my blood pound and made me feel alive.

  “I’ll be right back,” she said, giving my shoulder a squeeze. “I was saving these for the sunrise, but I want you to open them now—before the day begins.”

  Her thin but strong hands drew from her coat pocket a card and small present, which she set into my lap.

  “Happy solstice, sweetheart,” she said, and a single tear slipped down my cheek as she followed Robbie into the house. I wiped the cold trail away, heartbroken. It just wasn’t fair. I had done it. I had summoned a ghost, though not Dad. I had helped save that little girl’s life. So why was mine in the crapper?

  Setting Robbie’s marshmallow to burn, I took off my mittens and ran a cold finger under the seal of the card. Eyes welling, I opened it up to find my I.S. application, signed by my mother. Blinking furiously, I shoved it back in the envelope. I had permission, but it didn’t mean anything anymore.

  “And what are you?” I said to the box miserably. “A set of cuffs I’ll never get to use?” It was about the right size.

  I stared at the brightening pink clouds and held my breath. Exhaling, the fog from my lungs seemed to mirror my mood, foggy and dismal. Setting the envelope aside, I opened the box. The tears got worse when I saw what was in it. Cradled in the black tissue paper was Dad’s watch.

  Miserable, I glanced back at the silent house. She knew what spell I had done. She knew everything; otherwise why give me the watch?

  Missing him all the more, I clenched Dad’s watch in my hand and stared at the fire, almost rocking in heartache. Maybe things would have been different if he had shown up. I was glad he was at peace and the spell wouldn’t work on him, but damn it, my chest seemed to have a gaping hole in it now.

  A warm sensation slipped through me, and startled, I sniffed back my tears and sent my eyes to follow a small noise to the side yard. A pair of hands was gripping the top of the wooden fence, and as I wiped my face, a small man in a long coat vaulted over it. Pierce.

  “Oh, hi,” I said, wiping my face in the hopes he couldn’t tell I’d been crying. “I thought you were gone.” I dried my hand on my blanket and folded my hands in my lap, hiding my dad’s watch and my misery all at the same time.

  Pierce looked at the house as he approached, boots leaving masculine prints in the snow. “After seeing your mother at that spawn’s house, I had a mind to heed the better part of valor.”

  A faint smile brought my lips curving upward despite myself. “She scares you?”

  “Like a snake to a horse,” he said, shuddering dramatically.

  He glanced at the house again and sat down in Robbie’s spot. I said nothing, noting the distance.

  “I couldn’t find your home,” he said, watching the fire, not me. “The drivers of the public carriages…ah…buses, won’t be moved by pity, and it took me a space to figure the Yellow Book.”

  I sniffed, feeling better with him beside me. “Yellow Pages.”

  Nodding, he looked at the still-burning wad of Robbie’s marshmallow. “Yes, Yellow Pages. A man of color took pity on me and drove me to your neighborhood.”

  I turned to him, aghast, but then remembered he was over a hundred years dead. “It’s polite to call them black now. Or African-American,” I corrected, and he nodded.

  “They are all free men?”

  “There was a big fight about it,” I said, and he nodded, eyes pinched in deep thought.

  I didn’t know what to say, and finally Pierce turned to me. “Why are you so melancholy, Miss Rachel? We did it. My soul is avenged and the girl is safe. I’m sure that when the sun rises, I will go to my reward.” A nervous look settled in the back of his eyes. “Be it good or bad,” he added.

  “It will be good,” I said hurriedly, my hands gripping the watch as if I could squeeze some happiness out of it. “I’m thrilled for you, and I know you will land on the good side of things. Promise.”

  “You don’t look thrilled,” he muttered, and I scraped up a smile.

  “I am. Really I am,” I said. “It’s just that—It’s just that I tried to be who I wanted to be, and I—” My throat closed, as if by admitting it aloud, there was no way it could happen. “I can’t do it,” I whispered. Fighting the tears, I watched the fire, forcing my breathing to stay even and slow.

  “Yes, you can…” Pierce protested, and I shook my head to make my hair fly around.

  “No, I can’t. I passed out. If you hadn’t been there, I would have passed out, and he would have gotten away, and it would have been all for nothing.”

  “Oh, Rachel…” Pierce slid to my mother’s chair. His arms went around me and he gave me a sideways hug. Giving up my pretense, I turned into him to make it a real hug, burying my face in his coat. I took a shaky breath, smelling the scent of coal dust and shoe polish. He had a real smell, but then, I’d heard most ghosts did.

  “It’s not bravery you lack,” he said, his words shifting the hair on the top of my head. “That’s the most important part. The rest is incidental. Real strength is knowing you can live with your failure. That sometimes you can’t get there in time and that your lack might mean someone dies. It was cleverness that captured the vampire, not brute strength. Besides, the strength will come.”

  It sounded so easy. I wanted to believe him. I wanted to believe him so bad, it made my chest hurt. “Will it?” I said as I pulled back to see his own eyes damp with tears. “I used to think so, but I’m so damned weak. Look at me,” I said derisively. “Wrapped up like a baby, my knees going shaky when I get up to turn the TV channel. I’m stupid to think the I.S. would want me. I should give it up and go out to Portland to be an earth witch, set up a spell shop and…” My eyes started to well again. Damn it! “And sell charms to warlocks,” I finished, kicking a snow clod into the fire.

  Pierce shook his head. “That’s the most dang fool idea I’ve heard since having ears to hear with again, and I expect I’ve seen and heard a few fool things since you woke me up. If I might could talk to the dead, I’d ask your father, and I know what he would say.”

  His language was slipping again; he must be upset. I looked up from where my kicked snow had melted, dampening out the fire to show a patch of wood. “You can’t know that,” I said sullenly. “You’ve never even met him.”

  Still he smiled, his blue eyes catching the brightening light. “I don’t need to. I expect a man who raised a young lady with such fire in her would have only one answer. Do what your heart tells you.”

  A frown pressed my lips together. “I’m too weak,” I said, as if that was all there was to it. “Nothing is going to change. Nothing.”

  I didn’t want to talk about it anymore. My hands were cold, and I dropped the watch in my lap to put my mittens back on.

  “Hey!” Pierce said, seeing it. “That’s mine!”

  My mouth dropped open, but in a moment, I looked at him in understanding. “No wonder the charm didn’t work. It’s your watch?” I hesitated. “Before it was my dad’s? Maybe I can try again,” I said. But he was shaking his head, clearly wanting to touch it.

  “No,” he said. “You’re his daughter, and your blood that kindled the charm is a closer bond than a bit of metal and fancy. If he had been in a position to come, he would have.” An eager light was in his eyes, and, licking his lips, he asked, “May I?”

  Silently I handed it over.

  Pierce’s smile was so beautiful tha
t it almost hurt to see it. “It’s mine,” he said, then quickly amended. “Pardon me. I meant that it once had been. I expect it was sold to pay for the stone they used to keep me from rising up to avenge my wrongful death. See here?” he said, pointing out a dent. “I did this falling into a post to avoid a nasty-tempered nag of a horse.”

  I leaned to look, finding a small comfort in his history.

  “I wonder if my sweetheart’s silhouette is still in it,” he said, turning it over. My eyebrows rose when he wedged a ragged fingernail into a tiny crack and whispered a word of Latin. The back hinged open, and a folded paper fluttered to the ground.

  “That’s not it,” he said with a sigh, and I picked it up, handing it to him.

  “What is it?” I asked, and he shrugged, handing me my dad’s watch to unfold the off-white scrap of paper. But then my heart seemed to stop when the scent of my dad’s pipe lifted through my memory, rising from the paper itself.

  Pierce didn’t see my expression, and he squinted at the words. “My little Firefly,” he said, and tears sprang into my eyes as I realized who had written them. “I write this on the evening of our day in the leaves as you sleep. You’re still a child, but today, I saw the woman-to-be in you—” Pierce’s words cut off, and he brought his gaze to my swimming eyes. “This is for you,” he said, extending it. His expression looked tragic as he shared my heartache.

  “Read it to me,” I said, catching a sob. “Please.”

  Pierce shifted awkwardly, then began again. “Today I saw the woman-to-be in you, and you are beautiful. My heart breaks that circumstance will probably keep me from seeing you reach your full strength, but I’m proud of your courage, and I stand in awe at the heights you will achieve when your strength builds to match your spirit.”

  I held my breath to keep from crying, but my head started to hurt and a hot tear slipped down.

  “Don’t be afraid to trust your abilities,” he said, voice softening. “You’re stronger than you think. Never forget how to live life fully and with courage, and never forget that I love you.” Pierce drew the paper from his nose and set it in my lap. “It’s signed ‘Dad’.”

  I sniffed, smiling up at Pierce as I wiped my eyes. “Thank you.”

  “Little Firefly?” he questioned, trying to distract me from my heartache.

  “It was the hair, I think,” I said, bringing the paper to my nose and breathing deeply the faded scent of pipe smoke. “Thank you, Pierce,” I said, giving his hand a soft squeeze. “I never would have found his note if it hadn’t been for you.”

  The young man smiled, running a hand over my hair to push it out of my eyes. “It isn’t anything I did a’purpose.”

  Maybe, I mused, smiling brokenly at him, the spell to bring my dad into existence had worked after all—the only way it could, his love bending the rules of nature and magic to bring me a message from beyond his grave. My dad was proud of me. He was proud of me and knew I could be strong. That was all I had ever wanted, and I took a gulp of air.

  I was going to start crying again, and, searching for a distraction, I turned to find my mom’s gift. “My mom signed my application,” I said, fumbling with the envelope beside me with a sudden resolve. “I’m going to do it. Pierce. My dad said to trust in my abilities, and I’m going to do it. I’m going to join the I.S.”

  But when I turned back to him with my signed application, he was gone.

  My breath caught. Wide-eyed, I looked to the east to see the first flash of red-gold through the black branches. From across the city came the tolling of bells, celebrating the new day. The sun was up. He was gone.

  “Pierce?” I said softly as the paper in my grip slowly drooped. Not believing it, I stared at where he had been. His footprints were still there, and I could still smell coal dust and shoe polish, but I was alone.

  A gust of wind blew on the fire, and a wave of heat shifted my hair from my eyes. It was warm against me, comforting, like the touch of a hand against my cheek in farewell. He was gone, just like that.

  I looked at my dad’s watch and held it tight. I was going to get better. My stamina was going to improve. My mom believed in me. My dad did, too. Fingers shaking, I folded up the paper and snapped the watch shut around it, holding it tight until the metal warmed.

  Taking a deep breath, I sent my gaze deep into the purity of the morning sky. The solstice was over, but everything else? Everything else was just beginning.

  About Kim Harrison

  Born and raised in Tornado Alley, New York Times bestselling author KIM HARRISON now resides in more sultry climates. She rolls a very good game of dice, hangs out with a guy in leather, and is hard at work on the next novel of the Hollows.

  For more information, go to www.kimharrison.net.

  Run, Run, Rudolph

  Lynsay Sands

  Chapter 1

  “Beth?” Jill peered down the stairs that disappeared into darkness and frowned. She’d looked everywhere in the house for her errant niece before noticing the cracked-open door to the basement. Now she stood on the landing, biting her lip as she looked into the black pit and wondered if her niece could possibly be down there.

  Her brother, Kyle, had obviously forgotten to lock the door. That was unusual. With all the experimental equipment—including the molecular destabilizer—he housed in the basement, he was fanatical about locking it. However, it wasn’t locked now.

  Surely a toddler wouldn’t go down into the dark on her own, though?

  A faint rustle from the stillness below answered the question. Beth was definitely down there. And shouldn’t be. She could get hurt.

  Flipping on the light, Jill started down, calling, “Beth? Honey? You aren’t supposed to be down here. Come to Aunt Jill. Your breakfast is ready.”

  Pausing on the bottom step, Jill waited for some sound to give away the girl’s location, but there was nothing. Her gaze slid around the room, skating over gleaming metal surfaces and glass-fronted cupboards containing all sorts of scientific-type paraphernalia. She’d never been down here before, but it looked just like she’d imagined, like every lab she’d ever seen when she visited her brother at work.

  A faint scraping sound drew her gaze to the far corner of the room and Jill peered toward the large glass chamber that took up the end of the basement. It held the molecular destabilizer Kyle had spent so much of the last five years rebuilding…And the door into the small glass room was open.

  Alarm rising in her, Jill hurried toward the open door. “Beth? Enough. You aren’t supposed to be down here. Your mommy and daddy will be mad,” she said firmly. When she reached the door without receiving an answer, she added pleadingly, “Come out, honey. Your breakfast is ready.”

  The only answer was another rustle, this time from behind the machine. Breathing out a sigh, Jill approached the front of the destabilizer. It was huge, stretching from one wall to the other. There was no room to slip between the machine and the wall to peer behind it. That left crawling under the table set up below the telescope-like apparatus that the beam shot from. At least Jill thought it probably came from there. She was no scientist, but didn’t see anywhere else it could come from.

  She eyed the crawl space under the table, unhappy at the prospect of crawling under it but seeing no alternative. She had to get Beth back upstairs.

  Cursing Kyle for carelessly leaving the door unlocked, Jill started to climb under the table, pausing when she bumped it and it shifted slightly. Noting it was on wheels and could move in and out, she straightened and wheeled the table out of the way to make more room, then crawled into the space to peer behind the machine.

  “Beth,” she said with relief. The child was sitting in the narrow space between the machine and the back wall. Spying Jill, she giggled and clapped her hands with glee. It was a grand game to the tot.

  Jill was less entertained. She was very aware that she was now kneeling directly under the destabilizer beam, exactly where Beth’s mother, Claire, had been when a crazy coworker, det
ermined to try the molecular destabilizer on humans, had zapped her. Claire had survived the exposure to the destabilizer, as had Kyle when he’d run into the beam to pull her out, but now the two of them were different. They could both shift their shapes, taking on the facial features and body shape of others. A cool trick to be sure, and one Jill had first thought she might like herself, but that was before she’d heard Kyle’s fears. The destabilizer had done what it was meant to, made their molecules unstable and changeable, but they weren’t sure how unstable and feared the possibility of the cells collapsing, leaving them to die in a puddle of human slime, or worse yet, not die, but be alive and aware as a puddle of human slime. That possibility was enough to kill any desire to be zapped.

  That thought in mind, Jill started to lift her head to glance nervously toward the beam, but instead cried out as pain shot through her skull and everything went black.

  Jill moaned and slowly opened her eyes. At first she didn’t know where she was. She stared at the dim bulb overhead, then blinked and lowered her gaze as she felt a soft patting on her cheek.

  “Beth,” she whispered. The child was seated on the floor beside her, patting her cheek, a worried look on her little face.

  Jill offered her a reassuring smile and then sat up, her gaze sliding around the glass chamber as she tried to sort out what had happened. She recalled coming down in search of Beth, crawling under the machine, and then lifting her head and bang, unbearable pain had hit her. Obviously she’d slammed her head into the telescope thing and knocked herself out. Brilliant. She always had been the clumsy one in the family.

  When Beth made a gurgle of sound, Jill got carefully to her feet. Much to her relief, while she felt a little weak, she didn’t appear to be suffering any other side effects from the encounter.

  Letting her breath out slowly, she glanced down to her niece, then carefully bent and picked her up. The action made her woozy, and she stood still for a moment, hugging the child close until her head cleared again. Once she felt steadier Jill started across the basement to the stairs. She had just put her foot on the first step when she heard a car engine and the crunch of tires on gravel.