by Various
Angel paused briefly in midlunge as the wave of radiance struck him. It hit like a physical force. Red tatters fell from his Santa Claus costume. Again, he felt unfamiliar sensations stir within him. This time, he realized what they were.
His body was trying to age.
“Won’t work,” he said as he lashed out at his assailant. “I’m done with that.” He pounded on the demon, again and again.
Timmy shrieked, “Santa Claus! Don’t hurt my Daddy!”
Daddy?
Angel paused in midblow, then realized he had no choice. He swung again.
The little boy rushed at the combatants and began flailing with balled fists. “Don’t!”
“Don’t…,” Wesley echoed. The croaked word was a grim echo of Timmy’s, but he did not look to the child as he spoke, or to Angel. Instead, he stared, pleading, at the demon. “Don’t…do it. Please.”
“Years,” Dhoram-Gorath slurred, his speech intelligible again, however barely. One hand reached for Timmy.
“Don’t,” Angel said. He understood now, too. With the realization came sick despair. “Please, stop.”
“D-daddy?” Timmy asked. His voice was deeper now, no longer a child’s lisp. He was taller, too, and the pajamas he wore split and fell away as he outgrew them. “Dad? I—I feel funny—”
“Don’t do it,” Angel said. “You’ll kill him! You are killing him!”
Dhoram-Gorath paused then, drew back. The demon stared down at the young man who stood where a little boy had stood only seconds before. Already, the young man had become less young. With increasing speed, his hair thinned and faded, and wrinkles formed on his face and neck.
“Dad?” Timmy said, quavering.
“You—you’ll kill him,” Wesley gasped.
He was wrong.
With a scream far worse than the one that Luther Gibson had made earlier, Dhoram-Gorath drew back. His lips shaped a single, silent, “No!” The fire dancing on his fingertips retreated, and as it did, Timmy’s age receded, too. In a moment, the rapidly aging man had become a very young boy once more.
Now, the demon’s hands came up yet again—but this time, they pressed against Dhoram-Gorath’s own brow. The pulsing curtain of runes and glyphs parted to reveal an agonized expression—but it was Luther Gibson’s face once more.
“I’m sorry,” he said. Tears spilled from his eyes. “I’m so sorry.”
Then the curtain of luminous graffiti closed again, and the demon fell to the floor in a quaking heap.
The house began to shake. Ragged cracks opened in the stone floor and spread to mark the walls, as well.
“Go!” Wesley said. He rose, still trembling, but moving with new energy. “We—we’d best be leaving.”
Even as he spoke, his youth and vitality were returning. Skin that had been pale and freckled by age was firm and ruddy now, and color had returned to his hair. The years that Dhoram-Gorath had stolen from him were returning, as the demon’s host-body died.
The house shook some more. The worn stone floors of the basement workshop trembled as they split, and chunks fell from the ceiling. Timmy, frightened, began to move toward the picture again, but Angel intervened and scooped him up in strong arms.
“Not that route, kiddo,” he said, over the boy’s struggles and protests. “I have a hunch it’s not going to work much longer.”
“I have a suspicion that you’re correct,” Wesley said, very nearly his former self again. “Structures such as this have an alarming tendency to collapse when their hosts fall from grace. We’d best be going.”
Timmy struggled against them both, desperate to go back to his father, only to learn what so many children had learned before him.
The small and the weak do not get to pick their paths, but must allow the big and strong to choose, instead.
There were many long miles between Luther Gibson’s collapsing house on Aptora Drive and the secluded estate where Rachel Gibson lived. As Angel drove Wesley used the time to make some calls on his wireless. One was to Cordelia, to assure her that things had gone as well as could be expected. The other call was to Timmy Gibson’s mother, to tell her that her son was on his way home.
Timmy, securely belted in the backseat of Angel’s black convertible, listened but said nothing. He whimpered as the miles went by.
“Not a happy ending,” Wesley said softly.
“I can think of someone who won’t agree,” Angel replied, but he said nothing more until they reached their goal.
“Timmy! Oh, God, Timmy!” Rachel Gibson said, her voice breaking.
“Mommy?” That was Timmy’s voice, quavering and doubtful.
The words carried well on the night air and reached Angel’s ears easily. From a distance, he had watched Wesley lead the wayward son to the doorstep of the palatial home and now, he watched from that same distance as the dignified woman threw comportment to the winds and swept her son up in a desperate embrace. Hearing that could detect a human heartbeat let him listen to Wesley’s mumbled explanations and Rachel Gibson’s effusive thanks.
He listened from the curb because the house that Timmy would now call home was decorated for Christmas, with too many crosses in evidence for Angel’s comfort. Besides, he did not want to explain to their client the costume he wore.
With Wesley, of course, he had no choice.
“So,” the Englishman said, upon returning to the car. “Santa Claus. Ho ho ho.”
Angel nodded, but said nothing.
“Jolly St. Nick,” Wesley continued. His premature aging was reversed completely, and youth and fussiness alike had returned. “Isn’t it odd? The cross is anathema to you, but a saint’s vestments—”
“It was the only way,” Angel finally said. The words came in a dead voice. He wasn’t proud of how he’d fooled the little boy. “He wouldn’t let me in otherwise. I had to fool him somehow. I bribed a charity Santa for the outfit. Good thing he had a pillow with him, too.”
“Just so,” Wesley said, climbing into the car. “Well, we’d best be getting back. It seems there’s to be a party.”
Angel glanced at him.
“When I called, Cordelia said that she and the others are having a little get-together. A last-minute thing, in the spirit of the season,” Wesley said. “Or seasons, I suppose. So many observances to be made. Even Mr. Gibson…”
Long miles went by in silence before Wesley spoke again.
“Why do you suppose he did it?” Wesley asked.
“He wanted to see his son grow up,” Angel said. He spoke as if it were the most obvious truth in the entire world. “He wanted his son to grow up with his father.”
“No. That’s not what I mean,” Wesley said. “Why did Gibson turn Dhoram-Gorath’s power on himself? That’s what saved us, you know.”
“He did it to save Timmy,” Angel said curtly, and wondered if Wesley could possibly understand, given what little he knew of Wesley’s relationship with his own father.
A child like Timmy, with many years ahead of him, would be a source of temptation to a thing like Dhoram-Gorath, especially now that he’d had a sampling.
“He reached out some way and took back control,” Wesley continued. “I was as good as dead, and you weren’t enjoying much success, really.”
“I haven’t really enjoyed anything today,” Angel said. “Anything at all.”
He was thinking still of the elated little boy who had greeted him in the Gibson house on Aptora Drive, so gleefully excited that he couldn’t stand in one place for even a moment. He was thinking about that same little boy, less than an hour later, sobbing and alone in the backseat of the black convertible as it raced along night-dark streets.
Timmy might remember this as the night he found his mother again, but he would also remember it as the night he had lost his father forever.
Wesley ignored the comment. “Why destroy himself, then?” he whispered. He spoke as much to himself as to Angel. “He wanted so badly to see his son grow up.”
&nbs
p; “And he did,” Angel said, then nothing more.
7 P.M.
A Joyful Noise
by Jeff Mariotte
The December night was cold, but it was cold by Los Angeles standards, which meant the mercury might head for the high forties or low fifties. Darren Meadows had been comfortable in the fuzzy red Santa Claus suit when the night had begun, but as he stood on his designated corner ringing his bell—and ringing and ringing and ringing—the suit’s insides began to itch and he started to sweat, and after a while he felt the sweat running down his sides, down his ribs, and underneath the belly that made him such a natural for the Santa gig in the first place.
But a job was a job, so Darren determined to ignore the discomfort and do this one. It only lasted a couple more nights, and according to the weather report he’d heard, at considerable length and volume, delivered by the woman sitting behind him on the bus he’d taken to the employment agency that provided the Santas, the next few nights would be considerably cooler. He could last this one night, then get back to the residence hotel and take a shower, and then the last few nights of the job he wouldn’t be such a sweaty Santa. The gig would make him enough money to pay his month’s rent on the room, buy some groceries, and maybe even send a few bucks back to his kid in West Virginia.
“Thank you, sir,” he said to an expensively dressed businessman type who’d tossed a quarter into his bucket as he hurried past. “Merry Christmas, ho ho ho.”
But then again, he thought, a bottle would be good on a cold winter’s night. Or even a not-so-cold winter’s night. Maybe he’d just pick up a bottle of something—not too expensive, he didn’t need the good stuff—for tonight, and then pay the rent and then figure out how much he could send back East.
A woman backed through the doors of the department store Darren had parked himself in front of, her arms laden with bags and packages. Her shoes alone must have cost five hundred bucks, and the burden she carried another thousand, but Darren could tell by the set of her mouth and the determined way her gaze bore right through him instead of seeing him that she wouldn’t give a dime to help the—what is it we’re supposed to be helping? he wondered. Kids, I think. Or someone, anyway. He hadn’t paid a lot of attention to that part.
And he was right, Miss Half-a-Grand Pumps hustled right past him without a second glance. He rang the bell a little faster and a little louder, hoping to annoy her into at least acknowledging his presence, but she didn’t. He slacked off as the staccato rap of her heels on the sidewalk dwindled away behind him.
Darren wondered what time it was. A little after eight, he guessed. He had pawned his watch months ago, and wasn’t supposed to wear one in uniform anyway, because, as they explained at the agency, Santa wouldn’t wear a watch. He didn’t quite get that—how would the guy be able to schedule his Christmas Eve, hitting every single girl and boy, if he didn’t have a watch? And a good one, not some cheapo drugstore watch like he’d owned. Santa would wear a Rolex.
If he was right—and he’d gotten pretty good at estimating the time since he’d hocked the watch—then he had less than two hours before the van came around to pick him up. He scratched at his ribs and gave the bell a couple of desultory rings. “Merry Christmas,” he shouted at no one in particular, since the sidewalk was empty for the moment. “Ho ho ho!”
He heard a sound from behind him, the soft scuff of sneakers on the sidewalk, and did a kind of half-turn so he could glance back in that direction. But when he looked, there was no one there. Darren stopped ringing the bell, cupped his hand around it to silence the tone, and set it into the bucket that hung from a metal tripod. Maybe he’d been hearing things. He was still for a moment, listening. Cars rushed past on the cross street, “We Three Kings” echoed faintly from inside the department store, but his street was still quiet.
It remained quiet even when a powerful hand clamped over his mouth from behind him and a second arm snaked around his throat and dragged him into a nearby alley, the heels of his Santa boots scuffing lines across the sidewalk.
“Let me do this one,” Georgie pleaded. “You did the last bunch of ’em, man.”
Ash hesitated, the sacrificial blade poised over Santa’s exposed throat. This one’s whiskers had been phony, and Ash had tugged them to one side of his face, making them look like muttonchop whiskers gone berserk on that cheek. The elastic band stretched across the Santa’s face, cutting directly between his nose and upper lip. Santa’s eyes were wide with terror, his mouth working silently because Ash’s grip on his throat was too tight to let sound come out. He looked over at R. C., who was tall and muscular, with the full complement of tentacles tattooed up his chest and neck and across his bald head. R. C. simply shrugged.
Neither of them liked Georgie too much. The kid was spoiled—his dad was the Grand High Wizard of the Order for the Imminent Ingestion of Earth, and he never let anyone forget it. He only had the beginnings of his tattoos—nothing that was even visible outside his coat yet, though Ash knew from meetings that he had the starter designs across his chest and back. He was a long way from being a full initiate, but if Ash didn’t let the kid slice this Santa’s throat, his voice would take on that plaintive tone, which turned rapidly into the really annoying whine. “My dad said I could do some of them,” he’d say. “He’ll be really mad if he finds out you wouldn’t let me.”
When the World Devourer came, Ash hoped that Georgie would be the first to go.
“Let him have one,” R. C. said. “He’s eager to take part.”
“You sure you know how?” Ash asked him. The Santa tried to wriggle and kick, but Ash’s hold was firm. The only thing he had to worry about was if he accidentally applied too much pressure. It wouldn’t do for the Santa to die before the dagger could do its job.
“Yeah, I know how,” Georgie said. “’Course I do. You think I never killed no one before?” He reached for the dagger, and Ash let him take it. He kept his grip on the Santa, though. Georgie wasn’t physically strong; there was no way he’d be able to both hold the Santa and open his throat.
Georgie was right—he did know how to do it. Ash couldn’t help being impressed with the skill the youngster showed when he plunged the dagger’s crooked blade into the Santa and drew it cleanly across. After it was done and the Santa was still, Georgie even dipped the blade’s tip into the Santa’s blood and drew the proper design on the Santa’s bell. Ash was surprised—maybe he’d underestimated the runt. Kid shows some promise, after all.
Right on schedule, a car pulled into the alley and Hugh got out, already dressed in a Santa suit. He barely glanced at the lumpy pile of red-and-white fur that they had shoved up against a Dumpster, and held out his hand. Georgie put the bell into it, and Hugh strolled out of the alley and back to the bucket, already ringing away.
“Merry Christmas!” he shouted. “Ho ho ho!”
That’s seven, Ash thought. Another thirteen to go.
It was going to be a long night.
In the starry reaches high above the earth, a tear in the fabric of space began to widen.
“Are you really sure about this?” Angel asked. He was watching Fred weave red-and-green bunting between the balustrades on the stairway and having second thoughts. Or tenth ones, more accurately.
“Sure I’m sure,” Cordelia said. She wore a long, clingy, deep red dress that shimmered like moonlight on the sea when she moved. Her rich brown hair was pinned up at the back, and a luminescence danced in her eyes. She had been looking forward to this night, Angel knew, and now it was here. “Angel, you can’t change your mind now. Again. It’s too late, there are already guests here. And I don’t understand how you can possibly not like parties.”
“It’s really not hard,” he said. “I just think about how much not-fun I’ve had at them over the centuries.”
“But—gaiety and laughter and good cheer. People having fun together. It’s great.”
“People acting much sillier than they do in small bunches, which is already pre
tty ridiculous to begin with much of the time. Sorry, Cordy. I understand they’re sometimes a necessary evil, but—”
“Look who’s talkin’,” Gunn said.
“What?” Angel asked. “Me?”
“Not evil,” Cordelia assured Gunn. “Just not exactly Mr. Sociable.”
Angel looked at her for a moment until she added, “And definitely necessary.” She brushed his arm with one hand and then went to the door to greet more guests.
“Cordy’s right,” Gunn told him. He was more dressed up than Angel had ever seen him, wearing a rented black tuxedo with a red-and-green pin-striped vest over his white shirt. The bow tie at his neck was red as well. It made Angel feel a little self-conscious about his own attire: black leather pants, gray shirt. Not very holiday-themed.“It’s too late. Party’s started, and you just got to make the best of it.”
“I know,” Angel said. “But it’s the winter solstice, you know? Who knows what’s going on out there in the city? There could be all kinds of bad guys at work.”
“Cordelia had any visions?”
“No, I don’t think so,” Angel concurred.
“She did, you’d know about it. So just relax. You can’t have fun, that’s okay, just don’t spoil hers.”
Angel nodded. He knew Gunn was correct. Cordelia had thought of the Solstice Party several weeks ago, and wanted to hold it in the Hyperion Hotel’s vast lobby. Angel had reluctantly agreed, then wavered, then finally agreed again. The party would be a good way, Cordelia argued, to introduce Fred to all their friends at once. She had met a few since returning with them from Pylea, but her emergence from her self-imposed isolation had been long and difficult. Now she was finally coming out of her shell, and Wesley and Gunn had joined Cordelia’s mission to convince Angel that the party would be good for the young physicist.
“Plus,” Cordy had added repeatedly, “it’ll be fun.”
That was where Angel drew the line. There was a time when I believed that rampaging across Europe as Angelus was fun, he thought. Hanging out with Cordelia and Wesley and Gunn is fun. Opening the hotel up to dozens of people, some of whom might break into holiday caroling at any moment—that’s more like mortal terror. But the lobby smelled of fir from the enormous tree that was decorated and standing in a corner, and the place was filling up with the invited guests.