Holidays Are Hell Read online

  “Allow me,” came Pierce’s voice from my elbow, and I spun.

  “Holy crap!” I exclaimed, then covered my mouth, feeling myself go red. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were up here.”

  Pierce’s shock at my language melted into almost laughter. “My apologies,” he said, and I shifted to let him to lift the box with enviable ease. “I like attics. They’re as peaceful as God’s church. Alone and apart, but a body can hear everything. The past stacked up like forgotten memories, but with a small effort, brought down and enjoyed again.”

  I listened to the cold night and smiled. “I know exactly what you mean.”

  Watching my footing, I followed him to the stairway. He took the box from me and gestured that I should go before him, and, flattered at the chivalry, I did. My shoulders eased as the warmth of the house slipped over me, and I stood aside when Pierce lightly descended. He handed me the box to fold the ladder back up, but he hesitated at the bare bulb, still glowing in the attic. Without glancing at me for permission, he carefully pushed the light switch down.

  Of course the light went out. A delighted smile came over him, and much to his credit, he didn’t play with the switch but shoved the collapsible ladder closed and back into the ceiling. I watched his eyes travel over the lines of it as he did, as if memorizing how it worked.

  “Thank you,” I said as I went before him, back into the kitchen with the box.

  The coffeemaker was gurgling its last, and Pierce looked at it, undoubtedly figuring out what it was from the rich scent that had filled the kitchen. “If that doesn’t cap the climax,” he said, almost missing the table as he took the box from me and set it down. “It made itself.”

  “I’ll get you some,” I said as I hustled to the cupboard. It smelled great as I poured out two cups and I handed him one, our fingers touching. He smiled, and something tightened in my chest. God, I am not falling for him. He’s dead. But he did have a nice, mischievous smile.

  “I hope I’m not making a mistake drinking this,” he said. “How real am I?”

  I shrugged, and he took a sip, eyeing me over the rim to make my breath catch. God, he had beautiful eyes.

  His eyebrows shot up, and jerking, he started to violently cough.

  “Oh, golly,” I said, remembering not to swear as I took the cup from him before it could spill. “I’m sorry. You can’t drink, huh?”

  “Strong,” he gasped, his blue eyes vivid as they watered. “Really strong.”

  I set his cup down and took a sip of mine. My mouth tried to pucker up, and I forced myself to swallow. Crap, my mom had filled the filter, and the coffee was strong enough to kill a cat. “Don’t drink that,” I said, taking his cup and mine to the sink. “It’s terrible.”

  “No, it’s fine.”

  I froze as he caught my hand. I turned, feeling his light but certain grip. A slow quiver rose through me, and I stifled it before it could show as a tremor. I was suddenly very aware that we were here alone. Anything could happen—and as the moment hung, his silence and almost-words ready to be whispered that he was having thoughts, too—I nearly wished it would. He was different. Strong but unsure. Capable but lost. He knew I had been ill, and he didn’t baby me. I liked him. A lot, maybe. And he needed my help. No one had ever needed my help before. No one. Especially someone as capable and strong as him.

  “It’s undrinkable,” I said when I found my voice, and he took his cup from me.

  “If you made it, it’s divine,” he said, smiling like the devil himself, and I felt my heart thump even as I knew he was bullshitting me.

  His fingers left mine, and my presence of mind returned. I wasn’t a fainting debutante to fall for a line like that, but still, to have a man drink nasty coffee to impress me was way flattering. My eyebrows rose, and I wondered how far he would go. I had half a thought to let him drink the nasty stuff.

  “Why thank you, Pierce,” I said, smiling. “You are a true gentleman.”

  I turned to open the box, looking over my shoulder in time to see him staring into his mug with a melancholy sigh. Ten to one he was going to spill it, but there was an entire pot to refill his cup with.

  The dust made my nose tickle as I unfolded the flaps. A slow smile spread over me as I looked at the stash and saw my dad everywhere. He’d made many of his own ley line charms for work, and being home sick most of the time, some of my earliest memories were of him and me at the table while the sun set and he prepped for a night on the street apprehending bad guys. I had my crayons, he had his chalk, and while I colored pixies and fairies, he’d sketch pentagrams, spill wax in ley line figures, and burn all sorts of concoctions to make Mom wave her hands and complain about the smell, secretly proud of him.

  Smiling distantly, I ran a hand over my hair, remembering how it would snarl up from the forces that leaked from his magic as he explained a bit of lore while he worked, his eyes bright and eager for me to understand.

  The soft scrape of Pierce setting his cup down by the box jerked me from my memories, and my focus sharpened. “Is there anything here you can use?” I asked, pushing it closer to him as we stood over it. “I’m more of an earth witch. Or I will be, when I get my license.”

  “Miss Rachel,” he said lightly, his attention on the box’s contents as his calloused fingers poked around, “only a witch of some repute can summon those at unrest, and only those of unsurpassed skill I expect can furnish them a body.” A faint smile crossed his eyes. “Even one as transient as this one.”

  Embarrassed, I shrugged one shoulder. “It wasn’t all me. Most of the energy came from the collective emotions of everyone at the square.”

  “And whose idea was it to work the charm at the square?” he said, taking out a handful of metallic disks and pins and discarding them into an untidy pile.

  I thought back. It had been mine to go to the concert and use the emotion to help strengthen the curse, but Robbie’s to use the square’s instead. “Robbie’s, I guess.”

  Pierce held a charm up to the light. “Ah,” he said in satisfaction. “This I can use.”

  I looked at the thick silver washer with its pin running through it. Apart from a few ley line inscriptions lightly etched on it, the charm looked like the ones he’d set aside. “What is it?”

  The man’s smile grew positively devilish. “This likely bit of magic is a noisy lock picker,” he said, then set it beside his cup of coffee.

  “Noisy?”

  Pierce was again rummaging. “It makes an almighty force to jolt the door from its hinges,” he said lightly.

  “Oh.” I peered into the box with more interest and held the flaps out of his way. It was like looking into a box of chocolates, not knowing which ones were good until you took a bite.

  A pleased sound escaped Pierce, and he held up another charm, his fingertip running over the symbols etched into it. “This one senses powerful magic. Perhaps it’s still working?”

  His gaze on the charm, he pulled the pin. The empty interior of the washer-like charm started to glow a harsh red. Pierce seemed surprised, then he laughed. “Land sakes, I’m a fool. You hold it,” he said, handing it over.

  I took it, bemused when Pierce backed up, nearly into the hall.

  A faint cramping seemed to make my palm twitch, and the harsh red faded to a rosy pink. I glanced at the box of ley line stuff, and Pierce shook his head, coming back and taking it from me. Again it glowed brilliantly.

  “It’s functioning perfectly,” he said, and the spell went dark when he put the pin back in place. “I’ve no mind to guess how effective it will be if it’s glowing like that from me,” and he set it gently on the table.

  My lips parted, and I looked at him, and then the charms on the table. “You’re triggering it? I thought it was the spells.”

  Pierce laughed, but it was nice. “I’m a spectre, walking the earth with a body that is a faint step from being real. I expect that qualifies as strong magic.”

  Flustered, I shrugged, and he put his at
tention back in the box.

  “This one is for calling familiars,” he said, dropping it onto the table with the discards. “This one for avoiding people who are searching for you. Oh, this is odd,” he said, holding one up. “A charm to give a body a hunched back? That has to be a misspelling.”

  I took it from him, making sure our fingers touched. Yeah, he was dead, but I wasn’t. “No, it’s right,” I said. “It’s from a costume. My dad used to dress up on Halloween.”

  “Halloween?” Pierce asked, and I nodded, lost in a memory.

  “For trick-or-treat. I’d be the mad scientist, and he’d be my assistant. We would go up and down the halls of the hospital…” My emotions gave a heavy-hearted lurch, and I swallowed down a lump. “We’d hit the nurse’s desk in the children’s ward, and then the old people’s rooms.”

  I didn’t want to talk about it, and my fingers set it down, sliding away with a slow sadness. It seemed Pierce understood, since he was silent for a moment, then said, “You look the picture of health, Miss Rachel. A fair, spirited, young woman.”

  Grimacing, I picked up the charm and dropped it back into the box. “Yeah, well, try telling my brother that.”

  Again he was silent, and I wondered what his nineteenth-century morals were making of me and my stubborn determination. He said I was spirited, but I didn’t think that was necessarily a good thing back then.

  “This is one I’d like to take if I might,” Pierce said as he held up a rather large, palm-sized metallic amulet. “It detects people within a small space.”

  “Cool,” I said, taking it from him and pulling the pin. “Does it work?”

  Again, that cramping set my hand to feeling tingly and odd. The entire middle of the amulet went opaque, two dots showing in the middle. Us, apparently. “Still works,” I said, replacing the pin and handing it to him. “You may as well have it. I’ve got no use for it.”

  “Thank you,” he said, dropping it into his pocket with the noisy lock picker. “And this one? It also creates a distraction.”

  I grinned. “Another boom spell?”

  “Boom?” he said, then nodded, getting it. “Yes, a boom spell. They are powerful effective. I have the understanding to set one unaided, but I need to commune with the ever-after to do it. This one will suffice.”

  I had a feeling that most of the spells he was putting in his pocket were ones he knew how to do unaided. I mean, he’d blown the doors in the I.S. tower, and then set a ward over them. I hadn’t minded his using me to draw off the line. Which made the next step of wanting to go with him easy. I mean, I could really help him, not just this tour-guide stuff.

  “Pierce,” I said, fingering the charm to make a hunchback.

  The man’s attention was in the box, but he seemed to know where my thoughts lay as his next words were, “There is no need for you to accompany me, Miss Rachel. It has nothing to do with your health, and everything to do with me resolving this on my own.” He pulled out a charm. “This is a likely one, as well.”

  Momentarily distracted, I leaned until our shoulders touched. “What is it?”

  Pierce slid down a few inches to put space between us. “It allows a body to listen upon a conversation in a room set apart.”

  My eyebrows rose. “So that’s how they always knew what I was up to.”

  He laughed, the masculine rolling sound seeming to soak into the corners of the kitchen like water into the dry sand bed of a stream. The house had been so empty of it, and hearing it again was painful as our lack was laid bare.

  “Your father was a rascal,” Pierce said, not aware I had been struck to the core and was trying to blink back the unexpected tears.

  “You say that like it’s a bad thing,” I quipped. Why is this hitting me so hard? I thought, blaming it upon my recent hope to talk to him again.

  “Oh look,” I said, my hand diving in to pull out a familiar spell. “What’s this doing in here? This is my mom’s.”

  Pierce took it from me, our fingers touching a shade too long, but his eyes never flicked to me. “It’s a ley line charm to set a circle, but unlike the ungodly rare earth magic equivalent, you need to connect to a line to use it.”

  “My mother is terrible at ley line magic,” I said conversationally as Pierce collected all the discards and dumped them in, my mom’s included. “My dad used to make all her circles for her. She used to set this when she still made his earth magic charms for him.”

  I saw him stiffen when I reached back in the box, took out my mom’s amulet, and placed it around my neck. “I can tap a line. It will work for me.”

  “No,” he said, facing me. “You aren’t coming. I’ve forbidden it.”

  My breath came out in a scoff. “You forbid it?” I said, tilting my head up. “Look, Pierce,” I said, hand going to my hip. “You can’t forbid me anything. I do what I want.”

  “I have forbidden you from accompanying me,” he said as if that settled it. “I’m thankful for what you have done, and that you’re letting me borrow your father’s spells shows how gracious and honorable your spirit is. Now prove it and stay home as you should.”

  “You little chauvinistic pig!” I exclaimed, feeling my pulse race and my knees start to go weak. Trying to hide it, I crossed my arms over my chest and leaned against the counter. “I can help you, and you know it. Just how are you going to get there, Mr. Man From The Past? Walk it? In the snow? It’s got to be at least fifteen miles.”

  Pierce didn’t seem to be fazed by my temper, which ticked me off all the more. He calmly shrugged into his long coat and folded the box closed. “May I still take these?” he asked, eyebrows high.

  “I said you could,” I snapped. “And I’m coming too.”

  “Thank you,” he said, dropping the last into a pocket. “I will try my best to return your father’s belongs to you, but it’s unlikely.”

  He turned to go, me tight behind him. “You can’t just walk out of here,” I said, my legs shaking from fatigue. Damn it, I hated being like this. “You don’t know where you’re going.”

  “I know where he was before. It’s unlikely he’s moved.”

  We were in the hall, and I nearly ran into Pierce when he stopped short at the door, eyeing the handle. “You’re going to walk?” I said in disbelief.

  He opened the door and took a deep breath of dry, chill air. “I’ve a mind to, yes.”

  The cold hit me, and I held my crossed arms close now for warmth. “The world is different, Pierce. We’re out, and it’s harder to find just one of us now.”

  That seemed to give him pause. “I will find him,” he said, and he stepped out onto the snowy stoop. “I have to. My soul and the girl’s both depend upon it.”

  “You won’t find them before the sun comes up,” I called after him. God, what is it with men and their pride?

  “Then I expect I should run.”

  Then I expect I should run, I mocked in my thoughts, then came out on the stoop. “Pierce,” I said, and he turned. There was a whisper of hidden heat in his eyes, shocking the words right out of my head. I blinked at him, stunned that it was there and directed at me. He wasn’t amused at my temper. He wasn’t bothered by it. He respected it, even as he told me no.

  “Thank you, Miss Rachel,” he said, and I stumbled back, my eyes darting from his for an instant when my heel hit the frame of the open door. “I can’t endanger you any further.”

  He leaned in, and I froze. My heart pounded. I found my hands against his chest, but I didn’t push him away.

  “You are fiery and bold,” he whispered in my ear, and I shivered. “Like a fey filly who knows her own thoughts and won’t be broke but by her will. I don’t have a mind to be delicate about it. If I did, I would court you long and lovingly, living for the hour when I would earn your trust and your attentions. I have but this night, so my words must be bold at the risk of offending you and being handed the mitten.”

  “You didn’t,” I said, not knowing what my gloves had to do with it.
Tension had me stiff, but inside I was a quivering mix of anticipation. “I’d give anything if you’d kiss me,” I said. “I mean,” I said when he tilted his head to look at me, his eyes wide in shock, “I’ve kissed guys before. It’s like a handshake these days,” I lied, just wanting to know what his lips on mine would feel like. “Almost required if you’re leaving.”

  He hesitated, and my shoulders slumped when his fingers began slipping away.

  “Ah, the devil take it,” he said suddenly, then rocked back. Before I knew what he was doing, he curved an arm around my back, setting his free hand against the doorframe by my head. He leaned in, and as I took a startled breath, his lips found mine.

  A small noise escaped me, and my eyes flew wide. I stood there on my porch in the cold and electric light, and let him kiss me, too shocked to do anything else. His lips were cool, but they warmed against me, and his beard was soft. His hand at my back kept me to him, protective and aggressive all at the same time. It sent a tingling jolt to dive to my middle, settling low and insistent.

  “Pierce!” I mumbled, nearly driven to distraction by the sudden passion, but when he threatened to pull away, I wrapped my arms hesitantly about his waist. Hell, I had been kissed before, but they were bad kissers, all groping hands and sloppy tongues. This was…exquisite, and it plucked a chord in me that had never been touched.

  He felt it when my desire rebounded into him, and with a soft sound that held both his want and restraint, he pulled away. Our lips parted, and I stared at him, shaken to my core. Damn, he was a good kisser.

  “You are a most remarkable woman,” he said. “I thank you humbly for the chance you have gifted me to redeem my sins.”

  Redeem sins. Yeah.

  I stood there like an idiot as he took the stairs with a purposeful gait until he reached the shoveled walk. Unhesitating, he turned to the left and picked up the pace to run.

  Damn…

  I swallowed, trying to shake it off. Arms going around myself, I glanced up and down the quiet, snow-hushed street to see if anyone was watching. No one was, but I imagined Pierce had looked before he pinned me to the door like that…and kissed me senseless.