But it was too late. Digby was on her, driving the knife down into her hand on the top of the desk, through her palm and into the leather-padded wood, nailing her in place. There was no pain, just pressure. Her entire left arm went stiff and numb. Dark red rivulets welled up around the edges of the blade.
“Is this enough blood for you?” Digby asked the doll. It didn’t respond.
Digby rested his hand on the bowie knife. Lussi thought he meant to finish her with it. Instead, he plucked the doll from the box and walked out, leaving her pinned in place. Lussi didn’t try to stop him. Digby was a bolting bank robber, unaware of the dye packs about to explode inside his sack of cash.
Lussi heard him march downstairs and out the front door.
She heard squealing tires. A dull thud.
After a few minutes, sirens.
And then everything faded to black.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Lussi dreamt the building was on fire. She watched it burn from the curb from across the street, alongside the gutter punks and the homeless, the protestors and the addicts. The flames were shooting high into the night sky, carrying Blackwood-Patterson into the past. History was burning right before their eyes. Every editorial letter, every first printing. Every record. Every scrap of paper; every Post-it note. She could hear the crackling and snapping as the fire it feasted its way through the building. Every floor. Every room. Every thing. No matter how much water the firemen flooded it with, they weren’t going to save the Blackwood Building. All that would be left of the historic structure in a few short hours would be a charred iron skeleton. Blackwood-Patterson wasn’t a phoenix capable of rising from the rubble. The intellectual property would be sold at auction, acquired by a Midtown publisher to beef up their backlist. Her coworkers would scatter. It would be Broken Angel all over again. It began to snow, and she opened her mouth to the sky, tongue out to catch the flakes. The snow wasn’t pure white, but dark gray. It wasn’t snow, she realized as it coated her tongue with a chalky residue. It was ash. So much ash…
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Lussi sneezed, and Xavier’s ashes scattered in a gray plume. She lifted her head off the mirror. So that explained the chalky taste in her mouth. She didn’t know how long she’d been asleep, but Xavier’s fourth-floor office was flooded with sunlight. Her lower back felt like she’d spent the night on a futon in the devil’s dorm room. She was seated in the old man’s tall leather chair, where she must have slept hunched over the desk. Good news, though—her left hand was no longer pinned to the desk. Someone had bandaged it.
As she slowly came to, she became aware of somebody sitting across from her. The intern. Cal, who had not died. His crutches were leaned against the desk, and he was seated in the chair that had almost swallowed her whole during her job interview. Cal was watching her with great interest, a steaming coffee in his hands.
“That had better be for me,” she said.
“Black, no sugar,” he said, placing her Phantom mug on the desk. “I was just keeping my hands warm. The front door was open when Gail got in this morning. You don’t feel that? It’s freezing in here.”
“I feel like I’m on fire,” she said. The Christmas sweater she’d borrowed from Agnes was soaked through with sweat.
“Probably your hand. Might have an infection setting in.” He fished two fat burgundy pills from his shirt pocket. “Painkillers. Until you can get to a doctor. Oh, and before I forget, your friend Mr. Nightingale left a message—he’s not dead.”
“That’s all his message said?”
Cal pulled a Post-it note from his shirt pocket, followed by his glasses. How much stuff could you keep in a polo pocket?
“Not dead,” he read off the note. “Yep. That’s what it says. ‘Not dead.’ ”
Lussi swallowed the pills. The coffee was weak. Cal would need to work on that.
“Let’s go down to my office,” she said, rising to her feet. “Get out of here before Digby—”
“Ah, I suppose you haven’t heard, what with you being pinned to the boss’s desk with a knife. There was an accident,” Cal said. He put some bass into his voice to indicate his seriousness. She found it adorable. “You’d better sit down for this.”
* * *
—
Cal told Lussi what she already knew: at three thirty-four this morning, Digby Blackwood—heir to the Blackwood-Patterson publishing house—was hit by a checkered taxi on the sidewalk as he exited the building. The driver had been arrested on suspicion of driving while impaired. He’d blown a .235. Lussi covered her mouth, trying to project the appropriate amount of shock and horror. It was easy to fake. A blood alcohol level like that was rather impressive.
“Not another car on the road at that hour,” Cal said, shaking his head. “The road conditions might have played a part. Bad luck all around.”
The Blackwood family’s luck would grow even worse once Agnes was discovered. Lussi had left the body where it was but washed, dried, and put away her coffee mug and fruitcake dishes before leaving. It was as if no one else had ever been there that night. She had left the front door open, hoping that it would attract the attention of neighbors. It hadn’t seemed right to let the woman go undiscovered for too long.
There was a knock at the double doors. “Come in,” Lussi said.
It was Sloppy Joe. He glanced at Cal and handed a paper to Lussi. It was a typed-up list of a dozen names. All Blackwood-Patterson employees. Brian. Stanley. Rachael. None of them she’d worked closely with, except for Mary Beth Wilkerson, whose name was starred.
“What am I supposed to do with this?” she said.
“It’s the list,” Sloppy Joe said.
“The list.”
“The ones who voted to…you know.” Sloppy Joe made a throat-slash gesture. “The ones with the asterisks are the ones who tied you down. I was there. Undercover.” He lowered his voice. “I set you free.”
Cal nodded. “When the meeting turned into a witch hunt the other day, I began to suspect something strange was going on around here. I knew I could trust this big fella, though. He’s a fellow cinephile.”
“Praise Hollywood,” Lussi said.
“What do you want to do about them?” Sloppy Joe asked. His eyes flicked back to the doors. He’d left them open a crack.
“What can I do?” she said. “I’m not getting the police involved, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
Sloppy Joe got an evil glint in his eye. “You could turn them into newts.”
She glared at him.
“Or fire them,” he said quickly.
She set the paper down on the desk next to the box. The empty box. “And how am I supposed to fire them? That was in Digby’s job description, not mine.”
“You’re the only one here with a senior title,” Sloppy Joe said.
“I’m sorry, what are you trying to tell me? That I’m…”
Sloppy Joe nodded. “You’re the boss now, boss.”
Lussi hadn’t expected to vault straight to the top. She’d been prepared for more internal resistance, more political jockeying. At least that was how she’d imagined it last night when she’d made the deal. She’d offered to unshackle the Percht—to let it loose upon an unsuspecting world and free it from the iron cage of the Blackwood Building in exchange for Fabien’s life. A lowball offer. A starting bid. One it rejected outright, as she’d known it would.
Worth a shot, still.
Like Xavier Blackwood, the Percht was as much a part of the building as the soot-black brownstone veener. What had Agnes called it? A “house spirit.” Asking it to leave—or, worse, attempting to evict it—was futile. The best outcome she could hope for was to come to terms with it. By the time they’d metaphorically shaken hands, she had handed Digby Blackwood over on a platter. He died not understanding his ploy for the doll’s affection had fallen on deaf ear
s.
Lussi would not allow the building to be sold to developers. She was confident she could convince whoever inherited Blackwood-Patterson from Digby to hold on to both the building and the publishing house. And if they didn’t want to…she now had ways to make things happen.
* * *
—
Lussi told Sloppy Joe to let the eavesdroppers in. He swung the doors open and Brian stepped gingerly into the office, as if he were testing the temperature of a pool. Rachael followed close behind, staying far from the windows. When Dracula’s Brides entered, the floodgates burst. The employees poured into the office in twos and threes, packing it from bookshelf to bookshelf. Alan was the final one to arrive, clear in the back. When he nodded to her, Lussi rose and stepped on top of a stack of her predecessor’s books she had placed at her feet.
“First, let me say how sorry I am to hear about Digby,” she said. “Many of you knew him from the time he was a little boy, and I can only imagine how difficult this is. Especially after what happened to his father. And what happened to Mary Beth. And Stanley. And Agnes. And—”
“What happened to Agnes?” someone shouted.
“She quit last week,” Lussi said without missing a beat. “Only the second employee to ever leave this company, as I understand it. Which brings me to my next point: no one else is losing their job.” Sighs of relief. “It has been brought to my attention that there was a training exercise that got out of hand last night. Some of you were there; some of you weren’t. All of you had some culpability, though.” Lussi bit her lip and shook her head. A twin bill of disappointment she’d picked up from her mother. “That’s all in the past. We need to come together if we’re going to get through this rough patch. Xavier Blackwood left some big shoes to fill, and I need every hand on deck. So let’s let bygones be bygones. Besides, Christmas is just around the corner. ’Tis the season of forgiveness.”
Lussi Meyer surveyed the room from behind the majestic desk where two generations of Blackwoods had presided. She was the first woman to occupy the executive office. The first non-Blackwood. Her coworkers—soon to be her employees, once the paperwork was worked out—were nodding in agreement with her. She wanted to say something powerful, something poetic. Something Dickensian, in the spirit of the season. Instead, she said, “Who’s ready to publish some horror books that are going to make people shit their pants?”
It wasn’t Dickens, but it brought out tears just the same.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
At the end of her first full day as publisher, Lussi took a moment to enjoy the view from her new office. The sun was setting behind the building, casting a brilliant orange glow over the clouds. The park below seemed less threatening from this height, the vagrants and their problems less troubling. A few short weeks ago, she could have never conceived of an office with a window. Now she had an office with a panoramic view of the city.
And the price? Ah, the price. As Michel de Montaigne said, there was no more expensive thing than a free gift. Already, Lussi could feel the corrupting influence of the Percht in the way she viewed the park denizens. Or maybe it wasn’t the doll. Maybe it was what happened when you climbed the ladder—the farther you went, the less you could see. The less you were forced to see.
As the sky darkened, the spirit’s reflection sharpened in the windowpane. The doll was now sitting on the bookshelf behind her—the same bookshelf she’d accidentally knocked it from during her interview. Or not so accidentally, as she was beginning to believe. Cal had found the doll on a street vendor’s blanket during lunch. He’d paid two bucks for it. Hadn’t the slightest idea that it had been thrown from Digby’s hands in the accident. He’d simply remembered Lussi’s description of Perky from the other day when she’d asked if he’d seen it. She patted Cal on the head like a puppy and thanked him. He was earning every penny he wasn’t being paid.
Lussi didn’t feel the need to put the doll in its box. Not yet. She could sense the spirit’s hunger was satiated. No harm in leaving it out for a few hours. Maybe a few days. Let it stretch its legs. When it started acting ornery again, though—playing pranks, breaking legs, or worse—she would need to box it up. Put its dark magic on hold.
She pulled the list from her jeans pocket. Lussi had forgiven the Blackwood-Patterson staffers who had voted to eliminate her, but she would not forget. When it came time to balance the books at the end of the year, she would need to feed the Percht again to get it to work its magic for her. It would help to have dinner ready.
EPILOGUE
New York City
December 1, 2019
“Tell me, Ms. Meyer, when was the last time a Blackwood-Patterson book hit the New York Times best-seller list? As a woman, I respect everything you’ve done—I’m not denigrating your track record. Transylvanian Dirt and its sequels have sold, like, a bazillion copies. I’m guessing those books kept the lights on around here through the financial crisis. Outside of Fabien Nightingale, though, horror is dead. Has been since the early nineties. You and I both know the so-called ‘horror boom’ was a fad. Readers got tired and moved on. Even the great Stephen King ditched the genre. He’s writing mysteries now—finally decided to relinquish the crown to Nightingale, I guess.
“Walk into any bookstore today—independent, Barnes and Noble, take your pick—and look for the horror section. There isn’t one. Young adult, though—that’s where you can still get away with horror. Just don’t call it ‘horror’—they prefer the term ‘paranormal.’ Less scary. Oh, and you need to throw in some romance. Teens and their hormones, y’know? Everybody’s heard of Twilight, of course. There’s also Beautiful Creatures, Vampire Academy…
“Wait, you’ve never heard of Vampire Academy? O-M-G. You would love it. There’s twelve books, but start with the first one. There are two types of vampires, plus Rose, who is a dhampir—a human-vampire hybrid—and there’s this boy, Dimitri—so, so hot—and the whole thing takes place at a…
“Yes!!! At a vampire academy. See, you’re catching on. Skip the movie, though. They say the movie is always better, but not in this case…
“ ‘The book is always better’? Never heard it that way. Maybe a hundred years ago or whatever. But with the advances in CGI technology…
“I’ve got the internship? Seriously? I won’t let you down, Ms. Meyer. All my girlfriends said, ‘Why would you want to work there? They’re living in the past.’ But I don’t know, I think what you do here is quaint. I love the building—so, so retro. All the vintage flickering bulbs, the faux-wrought-iron brushing on everything…and that doll. I just loooooove that doll. So spooky! My grandmother has one just like it…
“Is something wrong? You don’t look so well…Oh, God. I’m calling for an ambulance. Hang in there, Ms. Meyer…hang in there.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Merry Christmas to everyone at Quirk Books, especially my editor, Jhanteigh Kupihea, who pitched the idea of doing a horror novel centered on a Secret Santa office gift exchange.
Happy holidays to Brett Cohen, Nicole De Jackmo, Jennifer Murphy, Moneka Hewlett, Rebecca Gyllenhaal, Jane Morley, Mary Ellen Wilson, Christina Tatulli, Kelsey Hoffman, John J. McGurk, Andie Reid, and Ryan Hayes.
Adam Rabalais—thank you for the glorious cover illustration. May your days be merry and bright.
Wishing my agents, Brandi Bowles and Mary Pender at UTA, a season full of yuletide cheer.
Season’s greetings to Angel Melanson, Martin Aguilera, Clay McLeod Chapman, and Grady Hendrix for their generous support and feedback.
Glad tidings of comfort and joy to my family, whose influence can be felt throughout this book. My unapologetic love of ’80s horror novels will forever be tied to memories of swapping used paperbacks with Grandma Shaffer. Special shout-outs to Aunt Patti—who took me to see Gremlins more times than was probably healthy—and to Grandpa Dars, who introduced me to VHS creature features such as Critters and Ghouli
es over my grandmother’s objections. And, of course, thank you to my parents for letting me check out whatever horrifying shit I wanted from the Fairfax Public Library.
Finally, a joyeux Noël to Tiffany Reisz, my first reader and second wife—all I want for Christmas is you. And a stocking filled with Peanut M&M’s.
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