Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
Holly insists on driving back to town, and I’m happy enough to let her, so I can stew in my thoughts. They’re a bitter flavor, and nothing seems to sweeten them. Even sitting next to her doesn’t make this better.
Outside, snow taps against the windshield; inside, the heater sighs while the dash throws a soft amber glow over Holly’s scarf and my currently thawing boots.
Almost everything about this little adventure has turned sour. We didn’t find the missing tree, except for the tacky snow globe, with its garish plastic and awkwardly swirling glitter. This cheap holiday curio is very clearly hiding something unpleasant.
Then there was the gingerbread dragon.
There’s no way rogue elves could organize enough to secure the support of a dragon.
That takes serious, heavy-hitting power, and for the tenth time, I wonder what is truly going on in Willow Creek.
This has the markings of a more sinister scheme, presumably from ‘he of the crooked crown,’ whatever that meant.
A familiar pattern nags at the back of my mind. I’ve seen this kind of thing before—the careful layering, the misdirection, the way every thread pulls toward something larger. A particular kind of mind works like this. Old. Patient. Delighted by spectacle.
I sink deeper into the passenger seat, watching fairy lights blur into soft constellations along Main Street, the way they do when a town is trying its best. Time is slipping through my hands. The festival is only days away.
“Easy there, speedster,” I snap at Holly as she careens around a gentle bend at a terrifying twenty miles an hour.
“Stop sulking,” she barks back.
I sit up straighter. “I am the Lord of Tomorrow, the Arrow of Vengeance, the Feast That Rises Before Dawn.”
“Here we go,” mutters Crinkshaw from the back seat.
“I am the Last Breath of the Night. Mortals cower in my presence. I do not sulk.”
Holly keeps her eyes on the road. Her knuckles are white on the wheel, sugared with a dusting of portal grit. The smell of burnt caramel lingers in her hair. I am performing for the cheap seats when she needs a plan.
“I didn’t know you were a theater major,” she says, her voice light in the way glass is light before it shatters. “When do tickets go on sale?”
“Ha,” Ronan laughs and even dour old Crinkshaw rearranges his mouth into a curve that might be a smile, if seen from a distance and given generous lighting.
Silence settles in like heavy snow. The car smells of damp wool and burnt ginger. A gingerbread button is welded to the dashboard by caramel and stubbornness. The wipers squeak. Holly’s jaw works once, as if she’s chewing on a thought she cannot swallow.
“It is not over,” she says to the windshield more than to us. “We’ve still got time, right?”
It takes all my considerable vampiric powers to provide her with a nod that resembles reassurance.
She is one splinter away from bleeding. Sugar glass glints in her hair.
There is icing on her sleeve that used to be a dragon’s eye.
None of us wants to say Christmas might be broken.
None of us wants to say there’s too little to salvage.
A singular image enters my brain, of Holly and me laughing together in bed.
It’s late at night, and her hair is up, and she’s wearing a mud mask.
I’m wearing reading glasses and doing my sudoku puzzles, an affectation I don’t require to perform an activity I don’t enjoy.
Will and Grace is playing on the giant TV at the foot of the bed. There is a cat. And fluffy slippers.
I shake my head to clear the idea.
What’s wrong with me? I shouldn’t be daydreaming of soft domestic idiocy. And I shouldn’t be fantasizing about kissing her neck, her wrists, her ears, putting my hands on her—
“We’re here,” Holly says as she brings the car to a stop, and I blink. We’re in front of the coven, and I have no memory of passing through the iron gates. The heater hums. The gingerbread button lets go and drops into the cup holder with a soft, defeated click.
“What’s next?” Her eyes stay on the door.
“Plans,” I say, scrambling to give my brain time to keep up. “The next step is planning. Huge, firm plans. Ronan and Crinkshaw will bring the coven up to speed while you and I have dinner.”
“We will?” Ronan asks.
“How does dinner help us?” Holly squints at me.
“Can’t plan on an empty stomach. Napoleon swore by it.” I lean in, lowering my voice. “Close friend, in case you were wondering. Terrible height. Threw excellent parties.”
“Fine,” she says, staring grimly out the window. “We’ll get a quick bite at the diner.” She swallows. “Then we plan.”
I sputter out a half-hearted protest, once again thrown off course by Holly’s inexhaustible ability to befuddle me. In the back seat, Ronan nudges Crinkshaw, and I glare daggers at both of them. As they get out of the car, I take the snow globe from my pocket and toss it to Ronan.
After they leave, Holly drives us to town.
The diner is once again full, and we once again retreat to the cubicle in the back that I’m coming to think of as ‘our’ booth.
The young server—Tessa—is still there, and she giggles at me while Holly studies the menu.
I’m strangely piqued that her attention has drifted away from me.
I defeated a gingerbread dragon for her, and I expected her to be at least a third of the way to fawning.
“I’ll have steak,” I say. “Blood rare with cinnamon butter on top, just to keep it festive.”
“Bold choice,” Tessa giggles. “And you?”
“Caesar salad.” Holly shuts the menu, and I raise my eyebrows at her. She exhales sharply. “Fine. With cranberries on the side. Good enough?”
We sit in silence, each lost in our own thoughts. The snow is falling yet again, and Holly’s face looks lost and desolate in the reflection of the glass. There’s nothing of me to see because I don’t cast a reflection, and that makes me think about how different she and I are.
Not as much as she thinks, and more than I’d like.
“We should call Frank,” Holly says. Her shoulders are hunched, and she’s chewing on her bottom lip. I’m shocked to see a hint of moisture in her eyes. “I don’t think I can do this. Maybe he can magic up another tree. This is obviously too much for me. He never should have trusted me with this.”
“Hey,” I reach across the table and rest my hand on hers.
She looks up, her big eyes shining at me.
“You’re doing great, okay? Willow Creek still looks wonderful, and that’s in huge part thanks to you.
Even if we don’t get the tree, we can find another, and there’s still enough going on to make the gala special.
You still have Meribel and the Christmas Carol Choir, don’t you? ”
“Yuh,” she sniffles.
“And the eggnog river with the marshmallow waterfall is still running?”
“It is.” She sits up a bit straighter.
“And the chocolate maze is open for business?”
“You know a lot about the Winter Wonderland Festival.”
I offer her a warm smile. “I fear cars, not Google.”
She laughs and wipes her eyes, digging into her purse for a tissue.
I’m surprised to realize that what I want more than anything isn’t to solve this for her, but to give her as much support as possible so she can solve this.
I know she can do this. She can do anything she wants to. She’s that kind of woman.
Why can’t I just tell her that?
“You’ve got this,” I stumble on my words, tongue-tied for the first time in centuries.
“We’ve got this,” she says, emphasizing the ‘we’. Our gazes dance together for a single beat before she coughs, seemingly embarrassed, and pulls her hand away.
The moment breaks, and just like that, we’re back to business.
“Okay, think, Draven,” she says. “What clues do we have? We know the crooked crown person is behind the rogue elves. We know they left a tacky ornament behind. Think. There must be something we can use in that.”
“It’s not enough.” I tap my fingers on the table. “I’ve got fragments of clues, at best. There’s something there, but I can’t quite place it.”
“Can we go back to Mímir?”
“Not for a week. He’s full after a reading and it’ll be some time before he wakes up.”
“What if we shake the snow globe? Or we could take it apart and see if there’s something inside it we can use?”
“We can try. The worst-case scenario is that it explodes and kills us and the entire town.”
Holly pales alarmingly. “Is that an actual possibility?”
“Technically, everything is a possibility. But I don’t know. It’s a magic snow globe we found in a pocket dimension protected by cookie monsters and a gingerbread dragon. For all we know, it’s not even a real snow globe—it could be anything.”
Because she is biting her lip and my speech isn’t helping her distress, I flash her a very good smile. Probably a six. She doesn’t swoon, not even a little bit.
“You’re the most unhelpful vampire I’ve ever met.”
“That can’t be right. You’ve met Ronan.”
“I stand by my assessment.”
“I destroyed a gingerbread dragon.”
She takes a deep breath, presumably to give it to me with both barrels, when I feel a vibration in my chest, starting all the way from my feet. It’s deep and thrumming and wrong, and from the look on her face, Holly feels it too.
“Draven?” she says. “What is that?”
“I don’t know, Frost. An earthquake?”
“Oh god,” she groans. “What now?”
I run to the front door. Other patrons have felt the rumbling as well, and a few of them are also standing. We’re about to have a riot in here if I don’t do something.
“Everyone, be calm.” I raise my voice and add a touch of vampire charm to sweeten my speech.
Dozens of eyes turn toward me. “Holly and I are professionals. We’ll take care of whatever’s going on.
Trust in us. Good will be our star in these dark times.
In the meantime, have a round of eggnog on me. Be reckless and add nutmeg. Huzzah!”
The smitten server swoons, and the assembled patrons provide some scattered applause. I bow a few times, waving in case anyone is filming. My saluts finaux are rudely interrupted by Holly elbowing me in the ribs.
“Draven,” she hisses. “The rumbling?”
“Right. Sorry. Let’s go see what it is.”
We pour out onto the street, hunting for the source of the disturbance.
It’s close to empty. Just a few stragglers looking for a last-minute hot chocolate and some patrons from the diner who’ve wandered out despite my magnificent speech.
Everyone’s as confused as we are, looking everywhere, trying to work out what’s causing the commotion.
Dropping to my knees, I put my ear to the ground. Gravel jitters and bounces like popcorn in a pan. With my vampire-enhanced sight, I squint down one end of the street. As bad as I’m starting to believe this is, part of me screams I’m being overly pessimistic.
But there’s something there—
I can make out the edges of it. Something large and rolling and coming towards us like a freight train out of control. As the thrumming grows more intense and a low rumble fills the air, the details of the shape heading towards us become clear.
I gasp.
“Everyone inside,” I croak.
No one moves.
I raise my voice to a yell. “Everyone back inside! Now!”
Holly looks at me with terror in her eyes and grabs me by the collar. It’s dramatic and worthy of a romance movie. Maybe even Hallmark.
“What is it, Draven? What did you see?”
Bells. Lots of bells. Wreaths. And…antlers...
My jaw clenches, as is appropriate for this moment.
“Reindeer. Stampede.”