Yuletide (Matilda Kavanagh Novels Book 3) (4 page)

“You made that?” Joey asked, her big lavender eyes blinking as she took in the girl.

“Yep,” I said, feeling a little bit of pride.

“Can I take a picture?” Joey asked.

Courtney obliged immediately, posing like an anime cartoon. After Joey got me to take a picture of her and Courtney together, she took one of me and Courtney together. The crowd behind us was getting angry, so I made Joey put the phone down.

“Here you go,” Courtney said, handing us both silver armbands. After we had them on, she gave me a few more and whispered, “These will get you into the rest of the events after tonight, so you don’t need the invitation anymore.”

I felt the strained smile on my face because Joey was practically vibrating with anticipation next to me. “Thanks.”

Joey’s smile was as bright as the North Star as she held open the curtain for us. Stepping through was like walking through a portal into another realm. We left West Hollywood and stepped into an Alpine winter wonderland. Joey squealed in delight, twisting around to grab my wrist and bounce on her toes. She was already pulling her phone out with the other hand.

The club spread out in front of us, the crowd of people packed in close to an empty U-shaped stage at the far end. The walls were formed into a 3-D mountain range, the tops painted with sparkling white paint to emulate snow. A massive chandelier made out of dozens and dozens of antlers that I really hoped were fake hung from the middle of the ceiling. The curtains hiding the backstage area were green felt. The lights strobed red, green, and white, changing the fake snow to different colors. Music filled the space, forcing people to yell to be heard. I quickly recognized it as the soundtrack from
The Nightmare Before Christmas
.

I snickered, shaking my head. “Appropriate.”

“Let’s get something to drink,” Joey yelled before leading the way to the bar in one corner.

She easily dodged through the crowd, but I had to squeeze, shove, and sneak through. Joey ordered us two hot buttered rums. I assumed she thought that was an appropriate drink for the milieu. It was sweet and thick and made me make a cat face that I quickly hid for fear of Joey’s camera.

Soon the lights went dark, and the crowd around us erupted into screams and cheers, making my ears ring. A spotlight burst to life on the center of the stage where a man dressed like a cheesy version of Hansel from
Grimm’s Fairytales
stood. Again, the crowd cheered.

He held the mic too close to his mouth, so I had a hard time understanding him, but the rest of the crowd clapped and hollered as if they knew exactly what was going on. I had no idea how they could understand him. I was pretending for Joey’s sake—maybe everyone else was pretending too. Maybe none of us were as young and hip as we wanted everyone to believe. The curtains lifted behind him, and a line of chorus girls dressed like Gretel took the stage. The music swelled again, and the show was on.

The people around us danced and stomped and clapped, pulling Joey and me deeper into the center of the club. I shook off the feeling of being a chaperone at a kid’s dance and let the energy of the crowd fill me. I moved with the music and reflected Joey’s smile, and eventually I wasn’t forcing it. I didn’t even mind Joey’s incessant picture and video taking.

My skin tingled with power, my muscles were warm, and a fine sheen of sweat formed at my hairline. But this was nothing like being trapped in the mall and the never-ending line to Hell. This was exciting and fun and full of happy energy. I cheered with the crowd as the different acts took the stage, whistling whenever the Hansel-look-alike came back out.

Before long, Joey glowed with her pixie energy, glitter falling from her in pinks and silvers. The crowd loved her. People circled her to watch her dance and touched the pixie dust and wiped it on their faces or in their hair to make themselves glitter.

Someone touched my shoulder. I turned to see a man smiling at me. He looked as though he was within a year of my age, making him a bit older than the average person in the crowd. That immediately made me feel a little better.

He had wavy brown hair that was pushed back and looked as though he might’ve rolled out of bed with its perfect carelessness, but I had a feeling it took some time in the mirror to get it that way. He had a narrow chin and fine cheekbones that led to his warm, honey-brown eyes. When he smiled at me, one dimple formed in his right cheek.

He said something, but a swing band had taken the stage and started up their rendition of
Boogie Woogie Santa.
I couldn’t hear him. Leaning in, I tilted my head so he could speak into my ear. In doing so, I felt his aura. He felt human, but there was a little something more there, something vaguely familiar. Something magical.

“Hi,” he said, smiling again.

I laughed and gave him a small wave.

“Would you like to dance?”

The crowd around us had shifted, half the people slinking to the sides of the dance floor while the rest partnered up. I’d never learned how to swing dance. I turned my head, and he obliged, giving me his ear.

“I don’t know how,” I admitted.

“Just follow my lead.” He held out his hands and lifted his brows expectantly.

I felt Joey’s sparkling energy at my side and turned as she pulled my purse over my head and gave me a small push toward the handsome stranger. She waggled her pink brows, and I had to repress a snort. Half reluctantly, half excitedly, I gave him my hands.

He leaned in with one arm around my waist and said, “Just rock step on every third step.”

“What?” I managed to ask before we were off and spinning.

My feet took a moment to catch up with the rest of my body as he led me through twirls and spins, but I managed to force myself to count.
One, two, rock step. One, two, rock step.
In no time, I felt like a natural.

He flashed me that dimpled smile as I swung under his arm, rock stepping before he pulled me back through. The room swirled around me in a myriad of colors and sparkles, making my head spin. By the time the music came to an end, I was a little dizzy and out of breath, but I was laughing too. That was the most fun I’d had in a club in my entire life.

“Thank you for the dance,” he said, bending slightly at the waist.

A flush crept up my cheeks, and if my smile got any bigger, it would split my face. “Thank you.”

“Can I buy you a drink?”

I glanced at the bar, many of the seats open as the crowd rushed back onto the floor. The idea of sitting was pretty alluring, so I nodded. Joey passed me my purse as she went deeper into the dancing mob. At the bar, I ordered a water, feeling a little too warm in my jacket, and he ordered a simple beer. We sat on the high stools with one side toward the bar and the other toward the crowd so we were facing each other.

“Cole,” he said.

“Matilda,” I said. “But my friends call me Mattie.”

“So which should I call you?”

“Well, that was a pretty fun dance, so I think you can call me Mattie.”

Cole smiled and lifted his pint glass in a toast, and I tapped it with my bottle of water.

We fell into an easy silence as we sipped our drinks and watched the people around us. Slowly, Cole asked me a few questions, easing us into the getting-to-know-you conversation. It turned out my sense of something magical about him was right—he was a kitchen witch. His mother had been a full-fledged witch, like Ronnie and me, but his dad was human. Cole didn’t have his mother’s talents, but he could do some special things with medicinal herbs and food. As soon as I told him my last name was Kavanagh, he recognized me by my reputation and almost gushed over meeting me.

“How do so many humans know who I am?” I asked. “I’ve had a sudden influx of human clientele lately.”

“Because you’ll actually see humans.”

“What?”

“Remember all the attacks from PEACE?”

A shudder went through me. Of course I remembered. I’d had to get a newly remodeled kitchen because an initiate set off a pipe bomb in my apartment. The look on my face must’ve answered his question because Cole chuckled before taking a sip of his beer.

“Yeah,” I said, “I’m familiar.”

“Well, after the Solstice attack, a lot of supernaturals won’t do business with humans. So any witches that were selling spells or potions to humans just stopped. But you didn’t.”

“Oh, I hadn’t realized. None of my friends reacted that way,” I said slowly.

“Mostly it’s the ones who live on the very edge of Havencrest, the ones around a lot of humans,” he said.

I nodded. Ronnie and I lived almost in the dead center of Havencrest. Any humans who ventured that far into our pocket of the city would be incredibly stupid to try anything like PEACE’s attacks.

“So yeah, that and the website.”

“What? What website?” I asked.

“Your website?” he said as if I’d lost my mind.

“I don’t have a website.”

“I guess it’s more of a fan page, but that’s just semantics. You put on there that humans are more than welcome.”

“I don’t have a website,” I said again, stressing each word.

Cole just stared at me for a moment, then realization dawned on me. My eyes traveled over the crowd until I spotted my pink little friend. Before we could continue our conversation, trumpet fanfare cut through the music and voices. Cole and I turned to look in the direction the rest of the club had turned, like a swarm of bees answering the call of their queen.

The doors burst open, and a blur of horns and fur and massive bodies flooded the hall. My body went cold as a dozen or more Krampuses (Krampi?) stomped in, pushing through the crowd and swinging their bundles of birch switches. Their modeled masks were too lifelike, and their onyx eyes glittered menacingly.

“So fucking creepy, right?” Cole asked, leaning in to be heard.

“You grew up believing?” I asked, a little surprised.

“Yep,” he said, his eyes sliding to the closest Krampus, who was swatting a Hansel look-alike. “Thanks for the nightmares, Mom.”

I laughed, but it was a strangled noise. The closer the costumed revelers got to me, the more I wanted to run out of the club and into the night.

Joey bounded up to me, her energy alive and singing. “This. Is. Awesome!”

I nodded slowly, trying to act cool, but the label of my water bottle was shredded in my hand.

“We should go, though,” she yelled.

“Why?” I asked though I was more than a little relieved to hear it.

“Everyone is going to follow them when the Krampus parade leaves, and we’ll never get home.”

“Great!” I jumped off the stool. “It was so nice to meet you.”

“Yeah, you too,” Cole said as he stood.

I was afraid of some awkward moment where he might lean in for a kiss or press for my number, but instead he held out his hand. I blinked for a second before my smile caught up with my thoughts, and I took his hand.

“Listen, if you ever wanna get a cup of coffee, or exchange spells, give me a call.” He held out a white card with his name, number, email address, and website printed on it.

“Wow,” I said with a small laugh, “guess I get my choice of mode of contact.”

Cole just smiled, nodded slightly, and turned to meld back into the crowd.

Chapter 4

The night air was cold and bracing when we stepped out of the club. When the doors fell closed, I could still hear the noise from inside. The crowd was chanting something, and their feet pounded hard enough that the sidewalk almost vibrated.

I shook out my short hair, letting the cool air lift it away from my face. Behind my eyelids, I saw a bright flash. When I looked, I found Joey lowering her phone and tapping away at the keys. I couldn’t imagine her phone could actually keep up with her fingers.

“Speaking of,” I said, catching her attention.

“Speaking of what?” Joey’s lavender eyes looked violet in the dim light of a street lamp.

“Website,” I said. “Let’s see it.”

To her credit, Joey didn’t act as if she didn’t know what I was talking about. She just smiled shyly. “How’d you find out?”

“That guy told me about it.”

“Oh,” she said, her pretty bow mouth making a perfect circle.

I waited, and she closed the distance between us to show me her phone. She’d opened the Facebook app, and my face smiled at me from a tiny box with a picture of my kitchen in full brewing-mode behind it, taking up a bar across the page.

“This is your fan page,” she said. “I post updates every couple of days about how busy you are or what’s a good spell for the time.”

“Joey, you can’t do that,” I said, blinking at her.

“I don’t put anything up you don’t actually do.”

“But you’re not a witch. You can’t know what spells are good when,” I said.

“Ronnie’s teaching me. I have a page for her too.” She swiped the screen quickly to show me a page with Ronnie’s quiet smile and a picture of her shop’s front window as the background.

“I have more fans than her.” I didn’t mean to sound so proud, but it surprised me.

“You have more Instagram followers too,” Joey said, showing me that app next. “But she’s got more Twitter followers.”

“Dude, how many accounts did you open for us without telling us?”

“Oh, Ronnie knows,” Joey said with a small shrug.

I took the phone and paged through all the pictures and tweets. There were a lot of really cool pictures. She’d gone around my kitchen taking pictures of potion bottles with moonlight bouncing against the glass. My spell pots bubbling away on the stove. Pictures of me stirring a potion. A picture of me igniting a flame with my wand. Pictures of Artemis in different poses around the apartment, his yellow eyes always catching the light. The pictures of Artemis had the most number of likes. The last picture was posted less than three minutes ago. I was standing in front of the club, my eyes closed and face lifted to the night sky. It was sort of beautiful.

“Ronnie knows about this?” I switched to Twitter to find that Joey tweeted for both of us. Most of Ronnie’s tweets consisted of specials going on at the store or tips about herbs and moon magic. My tweets were more sporadic and looked like copies of my updates on Facebook.

“Yeah, it was her idea. Help drum up business, you know? Since I’m basically her assistant, she made it part of my job.”

“You coulda warned me,” I said, handing her the phone.

“Ronnie said you’d hide from the camera if I did.” She shrugged, finally tucking the phone away. She wasn’t wrong about that—I was practically photophobic.

“Well, at least I know why I have so many new human customers.” I popped my collar against a cold breeze winding through the deserted streets. The noise inside was swelling louder, and I knew we would miss our chance to get out of the way before they spilled out into the night.

Joey grabbed my wrist, twirled us around, and dashed away from the front of the club just as the doors burst open. The crowd inside flooded the streets like water from a broken dam. Joey pulled us up onto a bench to keep us from being trampled. She had her phone out again, holding it over her head to film the crowd.

The biggest of the Krampus creatures led the rest, jumping and dancing as he went. His face was ferocious, frozen in a snarl with fangs that almost touched his hook nose. The others followed his lead, moving like a Chinese dragon, up and down and side to side. I don’t think the real Krampus ever danced. The crowd cheered and clapped, following the parade of Krampuses down the street, thankfully in the opposite direction from where my car waited for us.

“Okay,” Joey said, “my battery is almost dead. We can go home now.”

“Gee, thanks,” I said, nudging her in the ribs.

She made an “eep!” noise as she hopped down. I hesitated, watching the crowd disappear down the road. A chill ran up my arms, raising my flesh in tiny bumps. Slowly, I turned my head, my eyes almost refusing to follow, not wanting to look for the source of my sudden unease.

But I looked.

Across the street, in a pool of yellow light, stood a Krampus watching the parade disappear, just as I had. He wasn’t very tall or broad like the others. His face didn’t look as if it was a frozen mask of plaster of Paris or plastic. When he felt my eyes on him, he turned to look at me. Even at that distance, I could see the light playing in his yellow eyes. My breath caught, shards of ice piercing my lungs. He tilted his head, and the deadly points of the two black horns twisting out of his head glinted in the lamplight.

“Mattie?” Joey’s voice pulled at me, then her hand was on my sleeve, tugging.

I blinked and looked at her, feeling the shock on my face reflected in the worry on hers. “Can you see him?”

“See who?” Joey asked. She looked in every direction until meeting my eyes again. “See who?”

“You don’t…” My words were almost silent. With every ounce of courage I had, I lifted my eyes again and looked across the street. The pool of yellow light was empty, illuminating a bare sidewalk.

“Are you okay?” Joey asked in a gentle voice.

“Yeah,” I said, jumping off the bench. “Just tired I guess, seeing things. Let’s go home.”

***

The next few nights passed in relative quiet. Joey let me know that our pictures from the Krampus ball had gained me new followers on every site. All that meant for me were new orders for glamours coming in. At least those were fun spells that didn’t give me more dishes to clean. I had to go out and buy a bunch of new silver bracelets to fill all the orders.

Thanks to the few quiet nights, I finally had a quiet enough night to go out and get my Christmastime tree. I wrangled Whelan and Bu into helping me so I wouldn’t have to carry the tree and get sap all over my clothing. Both had dressed for the occasion, which threw me a little when I opened the door to greet them. They were in jeans—black of course—with black lace-up boots, but they were also wearing plaid, long-sleeve flannels, Whelan’s black and green, Bu’s black and blue. Whelan had covered his spikey mohawk with a slouchy black beanie, and Bu had covered his Samurai top-knot with an Elmer Fudd hunting cap that matched his shirt.

“Oh, for the love of frogs,” I said as I stood in the doorway, taking in the sight of them. “We’re just picking out a tree, not going into the woods to chop one down.”

“Would you have preferred kilts and fishnets?” Whelan asked.

“I’m just surprised you didn’t grow a beard for the night.” I locked the door and shooed them down the hallway.

The tree lot where Miles worked was just beyond the border of Havencrest and West Hollywood, so when we drove through the barrier, we felt the shift in temperature as the air coming through the vents became warmer. I pulled into a parking space and took off my jacket when we got out of the car. Though the sun had gone down, I was warm enough without it.

“Merry Christmas,” Whelan said, his voice heavy with sarcasm. “Enjoy an ice cold cup of eggnog while you sweat your balls off.”

Bu laughed and I practically snorted, giving Whelan a shove toward the entrance to the lot.

There were trees everywhere. It was a maze of evergreens. A flocking machine belched next to the three cash registers, and next to it was a giant metal ring with a net fitted over it. While I watched, one of the workers practically threw a tree through the ring, and the netting enveloped it, making it easier to carry.

I started down the aisles, a little overwhelmed by the choices. The last couple Christmases, I hadn’t been able to afford a tree like these—I settled for the tiny rosemary “trees” I could buy at the grocery store—so I didn’t really know what to look for. I turned a corner and almost ran right into Miles.

“Oh, Ms. Kavanagh!” he said, holding out his gloved hands with a smile.

“Mattie, please.” With a smile, I took his hands and gave them a squeeze. “How is Tobin doing?”

“It’s a miracle,” he said, his eyes shimmering with tears. “He is already doing better than when I brought him to see you.” He pulled me into a hug that surprised the breath out of me. His arms were crushing, and I had to wait for him to release me to draw in a breath.

“I’m so glad,” I said, one hand on his shoulder. “Just remember, same time next week.”

“Yes, yes.” He dropped his eyes and looked down the aisles. When his eyes came back to mine, there was a wrinkle between his brows.

“What’s the matter?”

He cleared his throat and wrung his hands, twisting his fingers. “Mattie, I’m so sorry. I’m embarrassed to say my boss said I couldn’t give out any tree bigger than four feet tall.”

His grimace was so endearing that I couldn’t help but give him another hug. I pressed a kiss to his scruffy cheek, much to his surprise, and said, “Tiny trees are adorable.”

Relief broke over his face, and he let out a soft laugh. I linked my arm through his and let him lead me to the smaller trees where, I was very happy to find, I wasn’t overwhelmed at all. Miles helped me pick out the best little tree with thick needles and sturdy branches and no holes. He managed to get me a tree stand and threw the tree through the netting himself.

The tree was small enough that Whelan could carry it without Bu’s help, and I wasn’t so nervous to drive with it strapped to the roof of my car since it didn’t hang over the edges. Back at my apartment, Bu and Whelan set up the tree, working to get it standing straight in the tree stand. They popped up and down, adjusting the screws so often I was glad it wasn’t me trying to do that. Finally satisfied, Whelan poured water into the basin and stood back with Bu. With their arms crossed over their flannel chests, they looked very manly, and I had to run into the kitchen to hide my giggles.

We put the tree in the living room beside a bookshelf. I just hoped it was a small enough tree that Artie wouldn’t try to climb it. I set a tray of gingerbread cookies on the table, holes punched into the tops for ribbon to be threaded through. Bu rushed over with eager hands that I had to slap away.

“These aren’t for eating,” I said as Bu held his slapped hand to his chest. “These are decorations.”

“I thought we were all supposed to bring an ornament.” Bu pulled a tiny silver reindeer out of his pocket, holding it up by the wire attached to it.

“You were,” I said, moving to the corner to pull out the boxes of decorations. “But these are to fill the holes once those ornaments are up.” I pulled out a small string of white twinkle lights and held them out to Bu. “Here, put these on the tree.”

With a long-suffering sigh, Bu took the lights and headed back to the tree. Whelan came over and picked up a box with a cartoon drawing of a fireplace on the side. He eyed me skeptically, and I smiled at him.

“Yep, a fireplace,” I said, my chest swelling with pride.

“Made of cardboard,” Whelan replied, deadpan.

“I don’t think Frankie would appreciate it if I built a real fireplace.” I turned to my record player and tapped it with my wand to set it in motion. A jazzy rendition of “Here Comes Santa Claus” filled the air. I twirled in place before hurrying into the kitchen to get started heating a large pot of hot chocolate.

I heard Whelan fighting to open the box and Bu grumbling over the lights as I pulled down coffee mugs. Then the first of my guests arrived. Joey and Ronnie came in together, Joey rushing toward the scent of chocolate. Spencer and Jameson were only minutes behind them. Spencer found Ronnie immediately to greet her with a chaste kiss on the cheek. It was the biggest display of affection I’d ever seen him show. I averted my eyes, busying myself with ladling out hot chocolate, so I wouldn’t embarrass them. They’d courted in private. Ronnie had even kept their first few dates a secret from me. Since she had Joey to watch the store, it was easier for her to sneak around. That bugged me a little, but seeing how awkward they were around people, I got past my feelings of being left out and understood why they kept things so quiet.

Laney was the next to arrive, carrying a basket of goodies. A knot formed in my stomach when Frankie came in on Kyle’s arm, but she gave me the tiniest of smiles when Kyle whispered something in her ear. I tried to return the smile, but I’m sure it just looked weird.

Though there were only ten of us in my apartment, it felt over-full with my boxes of decorations taking up so much room. I spotted Artie on top of the bookshelf just inside the front door. His yellow eyes glinted in the light as he watched the four Weres. That was fine, so long as he didn’t launch himself at any of them.

Joey knew my plan, so as I set out goodies for everyone to eat, she passed out boxes and put people to work. Jameson and Kyle took the box from Whelan and put the tiny fireplace together next to the tree. I used a hover charm to push my bookshelf aside to make room. Spencer and Ronnie hung a kissing ball of mistletoe a few feet inside the front door. Spencer was holding Ronnie up, his large hands around her waist, so that she could attach the ribbon to the ceiling.