I looked down at her lap where two of her husbands lay. I hadn’t actually asked how many men she was with, considering we’d never spent enough time together to ask. Maybe she was considering adding another. I hadn’t met much resistance to the idea when I did that, but then again, it had been a unique situation.
I almost said something about it, but I remembered we weren’t alone. I couldn’t really give Jaz advice on boys when two of hers were sitting next to us. “We’ll talk boys when our boys can’t overhear us.”
“Spa day?” she suggested.
“If we can get out of this cursed book before New Year’s, I’ll agree to whatever type of girl’s day you want, Jaz.” The witch’s face brightened with enough glee to make me gulp.
“You’ll probably regret that later,” Pierce warned me as he scratched at his fluffy white ear. I pet his head to reassure both of us.
“Ready to go?” Knight asked once he was finished with Luci-deer. That tall, gorgeous man I married hauled himself into the sleigh next to me, making my stomach flip over.
Love sick teenager, totally guilty.
We left the barn, heading down the snow covered road, and Luci-deer’s harness jingled with every step.
As I gazed up at him, Knight’s smile dropped and his eyes changed. He jerked in his seat, stopping short when he saw me next to him. “Lisbeth! What’s happening? Where are you? Are you okay?”
Real Knight! I climbed into his lap and wrapped myself around him. He seemed warmer, more real.
“Hey Lisbeth’s hubs!” Jaz greeted with the Vulcan salute. “How are you here?”
Knight was hugging me tightly enough to make my eyes pop out. “Jaz’s husband alerted us when everyone in the attic disappeared.” He tugged me away from him so I could see the shocked look on his face. “Lis. There’s a blue guy here. And there’s this other guy who’s bigger than me. And they’re all witches and fairies and ghosts. A reaper made me a sandwich, Lis. A reaper.”
I giggled at him and tucked a strand of black hair behind his ear. “Glad to know I’m not the only one having a crisis about all this.” He bent down, taking my neck in his hands, and kissed me silly.
Jaz fussed at us, swiping her hand against me. “Kids, make out later. What did the guys say about the book? Can we get out?”
“Unfortunately, you’re stuck in here until you…” Knight put his hands over my ears and I raised my eyebrow at him. “…find the true meaning of Christmas,” he finished in a whisper.
“I can still hear you.”
Knight pressed his pointer finger to my nose with a stern look. “And you, missy. Arthur told me to be sure you knew how much of an earful you’re getting over this.”
I just wanted to put up a damn Christmas tree!
“So, hurry up and finish all that Christmas crap because that blue guy put in a roast and I want some.” Then his face went blank and he was back to Book Knight before I could blink.
Book Knight’s mouth curved into a smile when he noticed me sitting in his lap. “Not that I’m complaining, but I don’t even know your middle name, m’lady.”
“It’s Diana,” I told him as I got back into my seat. “And don’t remind me that I even have one, because it’s weird. Vampires don’t have middle names.”
Luci-deer turned back to us as he trotted down the road. “If you’re all done chitchatting, maybe Alec can tell us where to go?”
We all peered down at Alec-book in Jaz’s lap, his face furrowed in concentration.
“Wait for it…” he said, enjoying the dramatic suspense. “And three… two…”
I looked back up and watched as Santa’s Workshop appeared at the end of the road.
Chapter 4
Now, I know what you’re thinking.
“Santa’s Workshop, really Lisbeth? I know this is a magic book and all, but I wasn’t born yesterday.”
Let me tell you, I was also skeptical. And that worsened when our sleigh rolled through a giant ‘Santa’s Workshop’ arch, past reindeer, elves, and stacks of presents, before stopping outside of a candy cane infested factory building, complete with, and no, I’m not exaggerating, rainbow puffs of smoke coming from the industrial chimneys.
Sigh.
Knight noticed my less than pleasant expression at the sight of everything around us, especially when the little elves started approaching us with their cute green outfits and Santa hats. “Such a sour look on such a beautiful face. You don’t like Santa?” He jumped off the sleigh and held out a hand to help me dismount the sleigh.
Clasping his fingers, I climbed down to stand beside him, enjoying the feeling of his hand in mine. “I’ve never met the man, so who knows? Could go either way.”
As if on cue, the sound of jingle bells intensified before the entire North Pole shook with someone’s very enthusiastic rendition of “HO-HO-HO!” That very same person appeared from the workshop, touting a bright red suit with white fur trimmings, and a belly that looked like it was really a decorative pillow stuffed under his jacket.
“GILBERT?” Jaz shrieked upon recognizing whoever this was.
“Wait, Gilbert is Santa?” Alec-book asked loudly.
Gilbert-Santa sighed at their outbursts. “Trust me, I’m not excited about it either.”
Jaz cocked her head to one side, examining Gilbert and coming to the same conclusion that I had. “Gilbert, you’re actually in here? You’re not part of the story, are you?”
“Nope! We found a way for me possess the book so I could help you out. It only worked because of our connection to you, which is why Knight couldn’t stay. Sorry about that, Lisbeth.”
Jaz cut the man off, launching into him for a breathtaking kiss. Little Pierce circled their feet while Alec-book complained about being left in the snow at an angle where he couldn’t see the kissing.
I leaned my elbow against Book Knight’s shoulder, despite him being so much taller than me. “Ahh, to be young. Just kidding, we’re exactly like that.”
Knight ran his fingers through my hair, making goosebumps pop out over my skin. “I may just be part of a magical spell, but I’m beginning to wish you could be in here with me forever.”
“Even as an apparition, you say the sweetest things.” Flirting with a magical version of my husband was great, but I was more than eager to get back to the real one, and that meant we had to finish our quest. “Okay, kids, break it up,” I announced with a loud clap, but Jaz continued sucking Gilbert’s face. Pierce started pulling on her shoes as I walked over and picked up Alec-book. He was leaning against the cheerful sleigh on the cover of his book, but despite the beautiful illustrations around him, the warlock was sulking. “Alec, the sooner we get out, the sooner you can kiss her silly.”
He perked up. “Good point, my vampire friend.” Putting his fist to his chin, he concentrated for several seconds before a literal lightbulb turned on over his head. “We have to go inside the workshop. There’s instructions waiting for us.”
With Jaz busy, I carried Alec-book inside Santa’s workshop, and everyone else soon followed behind me, including Luci-deer who had been taken out of the sleigh harness by the elves. The workshop had a giant machine in the middle of the room, one with a conveyor belt, a massive smoke chimney, and did I mention it was striped like a candy cane?
Gilbert-Santa was still occupied with Jaz, but there were several elves ready to help us out. “Welcome to Santa’s Workshop!” one of them said with enough cheer to light up an entire city. “The princess is waiting for you, but first, you must finish a very important task.”
Please be something easy, like being really good at gift wrapping. I was excellent at gift wrapping, because if I had to give people gifts, they were going to look pristine.
“You must choose the perfect gift for the ones you love,” the elf continued. “Simply choose your gift, and it will come out of the conveyor belt.” He motioned to the machine, as if we hadn’t noticed it.
My mind was already whirring over what the perfect g
ift would be for my husbands, but I still had to question why this was part of the quest. “And how does this fit with finding the true meaning of Christmas?”
The elf narrowed his eyes at me, while still maintaining his cheerfulness. “All will be revealed, once you complete this mission.”
“Okay, god!” Before he could start hitting me with a candy cane, I set Alec-book down next to Pierce and hurried over to the machine’s large monitor. The screen had a nice holiday display with balls and lights, and several buttons to choose from.
The first option was age range, which was difficult to decide on considering we were all over one hundred years old. I picked late 20’s for Knight, and went through a series of questions as to the person’s interests, until it came to a final screen with three gift options.
A taco hat.
A Weird Al cd.
And a pair of fuzzy socks.
Knight Trimble, everybody. The perfect Christmas gifts for him were a taco hat, Weird Al, and socks.
I picked one of them for him and moved onto Arthur. The gift machine gave me his three options: a hunting knife, fingerless gloves, and skull shaped brass knuckles.
Arthur Lancaster, who had a million knives, obviously needed another one.
I chose again and quickly put in Balthazar’s information. The three options for his gifts were a very fancy set of pocket squares, a new cane that had flowers carved into the wood, and a vending machine package of powdered donuts.
When I hit the button to say I was finished, the machine whirred and moaned as it started making the gifts I’d chosen. Now that I thought about it, all of those gifts were things I would’ve picked for my husbands, but I was worried they weren’t enough. They weren’t expensive gifts, they weren’t extra special at all. And compared to everything my husbands had given me, some socks, gloves, and pocket squares seemed like a paltry gift.
The machine spit out three perfectly wrapped boxes for me to take, and I clutched them in my arms while Jaz stopped sucking face long enough to choose gifts for her husbands. She juggled them while picking Alec-book back up, but still leaned into Gilbert for another smooch.
“Excellent,” the elf praised with a beam. “Now you’re ready to meet the Princess and learn the true meaning of Christmas.”
“Finally!” Jaz and I shouted at the same time.
The elf led us all outside, past the workshop, and before us lay… a Christmas castle. What is a Christmas castle, you may ask? It was all red and green and gold, with garlands, wreaths, balls, lights, tinsel. It made Jaz’s gorgeously decorated house look like child’s play.
Jaz stared up at the red-green-gold monstrosity and gagged. “Ugh, gross. I love Christmas, don’t get me wrong, but this is ridiculous.” Holding Alec-book under her elbow, she cupped her hands over her mouth to shout, “NOT EVERYTHING NEEDS TINSEL!”
Whether or not the castle heard her complaint, the front doors opened and two soldiers came out. They were the twins I’d seen on the couch with Letty, one with long black hair and the other with long blonde hair, but their faces were identical.
“Welcome to the Princess’ castle,” the black haired one said. I still didn’t know their names, but at least they were easy to tell apart.
“She’s been expecting you,” the blonde one said. He did a double take when he noticed Gilbert and Jaz making out again, but he still ushered us inside.
The inside of the Christmas castle was equally a holiday eyesore, and the sheer amount of garland wrapped around the entrance staircase made me want to strangle myself. The twins led us up to the top of the stairs and opened a set of double doors.
Behind the doors was a scene that made my blood boil. Letty was surrounded by my other two husbands. Get your own husbands, Letty! Needless to say, fire started licking behind my eyes, and I clenched my fists on the presents, almost tearing the paper.
Letty noticed us and leaped up, wisely getting away from my men. She had on a poofy red dress with an evergreen tiara, very Christmas Princess-y. “Ohmygod, took you guys long enough. Do you know how hard it’s been dodging these two guys for an entire hour? They really want to rub my feet, Jaz. I don’t even know them. And also, the twins don’t seem to know me, so I told them to launch themselves into space, but they didn’t do it. Rude.”
While the two girls got caught up on our journey thus far, I glared at Arthur and Balthazar, because even the magical book versions of them should know better than to touch another woman’s feet.
Letty came to the center of the room and folded her hands over the front of her dress. “Okay witches, it’s time for the final quiz. And hurry up with your answers, I have some twins to punish. Now. What is the true meaning of Christmas? For you personally, not what you think is the answer.”
I looked down at the gifts I was holding. Those paltry measly gifts that weren’t special. That wasn’t the meaning of Christmas at all.
“I… don’t know,” I admitted. “I don’t know what the true meaning of Christmas is, because I’ve never celebrated it before. And the only reason I want to celebrate it now is so I can see my family enjoy it.” I looked down at the red carpet. “The time I had with my husbands, over half a century of memories, they don’t remember any of that. And I won’t waste this new chance with them by hating holidays again. They’ve already changed my mind about Valentine’s day,” I added with a smirk, and Jaz leaned over to give me a high five. “I figured I could continue that growth with Christmas too. We’re not going crazy and moving to celebrating every single holiday ever, but this is a good start, I think. Plus. I just want to see my husbands smile.”
Letty snorted under her breath. “You could’ve stopped at ‘so I can see my family enjoy it.’ That was a good enough answer according to the book, but… I know something about losing time. I think it’s good you’re wanting to make new memories. Better ones.”
“Okay, I have a question.” Jaz raised her hand like this was high school English class. “This journey didn’t teach us anything about the true meaning of Christmas. We found a sleigh, picked out gifts, made out a bunch. What gives, Letty?”
Letty squeezed her eyes together and sighed heavily. “The true meaning was inside you all along, yaaaay,” she chanted in a sarcastic sing-song voice. “And please don’t jump down my throat, I’m reading a card the book gave me.”
“That’s kinda shit,” Alec-book accurately assessed.
“Yeah, well, no one said this book was perfect. If it was, why’d they leave it in a dusty old attic?”
Fair point.
“Jaz,” Letty continued, looking bored. “You have to answer it too.”
The pink haired witch rolled her eyes. “Fine. Christmas means giving people amazing gifts and spending time with family. And having amazing—”
She got cut off when everything went dark and we were whisked away with a gust of magic.
Chapter 5
The farmhouse looked cozy with all the Christmas decorations I’d brought from Jaz’s house. There were stockings over the fireplace, garland strung by the ceiling, lights on everything that could possibly hold lights, and then there was the gigantic tree I’d set up in the corner of the living room. It had enough decorations on it to sink a ship, not to mention strings of lights, strings of popcorn, strings of cranberries, and you guessed it, more garland.
Suck on that, Hollywood! Vampires can do it better than you!
I sipped a warm cup of cocoa, because also yes, we were going the Full Monty here, while I waited for everyone to wake up. With my ears tuned into the master bedroom and the nursery, I heard it the instant one of our children woke up. The other two followed soon after, and my husbands slowly trickled out of our bedroom to check on them.
Knight appeared holding Kitty’s hand, tickling her side to make her giggle. Arthur was next, carrying Jason and kissing his brown cheek. Then Balthazar rounded the line of husbands with Dreya running circles around his legs. The triplets were wearing their matching Christmas pajamas I’d put on
them the night before, and they looked so cozy in the footies, I almost wanted to wear them.
Busy staring at the babies, I realized no one had spoken in several minutes as they all stared at my decorations.
Did they hate it? Maybe I’d gone overboard. I definitely had. I was just about to set my mug on the coffee table so I could start taking it all down when Knight broke the silence.
“Huh… I think Santa barfed all over our house.”
Arthur glanced at me, and while Jason placed his little palm on the scar running down the stoic warrior’s face, my husband started smiling at me. “This is why you were at the witch’s house.”
I blushed under his stare. “We never celebrated Christmas in our time before. I wanted things to be different now. Especially for the babies.” Arthur put Jason down and he ran to the tree, marveling at it with his little mouth popped open.
“Mommy, it’s so cool! I like the lights!”
Dreya stopped running around the room long enough to stand beside him, and she grabbed a piece of popcorn from the string, sticking it in her mouth as she inspected the tree. “Pretty colors.”
Kitty stayed with Knight, tugging on his pajama pants with her fist. Seeing how close those two were reminded me how different things were in this timeline. Good different.
I waded through the toddlers and picked up some of the presents I’d perfectly wrapped, handing the right ones to each baby, and they went at the gifts like, well, Christmas morning! Kitty accepted me handing her one, and she stayed close to Knight while she opened it.
I’d gotten the triplets some of the toys they’d enjoyed in my previous timeline, and they appeared to like them this time around as well.
With the babies happy and occupied, I took the last three presents out from under the tree. When the book spit us back out into Jaz’s attic, she and I were holding the presents we’d chosen, made real by the magic of the book. I still felt like the gifts weren’t good enough for the men I loved, but I timidly passed them out, watching my husbands’ faces as they turned the boxes over in their hands.
Holidays Bite: A Limited Edition Collection of Holiday Vampire Tales Page 11