I'm Dreaming of an Undead Christmas (13 page)

It is amazing
how entertaining it can be to watch a bunch of smooth, sexy, supernatural creatures reduce themselves to total dorks while rolling around in a human-sized hamster ball. Jane’s present got a serious workout, as almost everybody wanted a turn. I sat on the front porch, watching the action, because “Mommy’s Christmas Hamster Ball Adventure” was a YouTube video I did not want to have to explain to my future children.

“Whatcha thinkin’ about, mopey?” Iris asked, plopping down on the porch swing next to me, post-hamster-run.

I shook my head and took a long drink of my cocoa. “Nothing. Nothing. I’m thinking about nothing.”

“Jane says that you and Ben broke up.”

“Damn it, Jane!” I yelled. “That is a misuse of vampire powers!”

“Sorry, but your brain’s been screaming at me since I walked in!” Jane yelled back from inside the ball. Thank goodness it had those breathing holes. “It’s like having a car alarm in my head. Take a breath. Have a drink or something.”

“Yes, Ben and I broke up,” I told Iris. “There was a proposal. Sort of. It was horrible. And then it was OK. “

I’d expected Jamie to overhear and maybe congratulate me for finally growing a spine. But it was Ophelia who turned toward the porch, her expression positively horrified.

And then, suddenly, Cal was standing in front of me, arms crossed over his chest in a protective-father stance. “Proposal? I don’t seem to remember giving Ben any sort of blessing.”

“There was no reason, because it wasn’t a real proposal. It was like a practice proposal.”

“Why would Ben ask for
your
blessing?” Iris asked, but before Cal could answer, she added, “Oh, right, I forgot. You have a penis; therefore, you have all the authority. Never mind my being mother and father to Gigi from the time she was twelve.”

“Please don’t say ‘penis.’ It’s Christmas!” Zeb called. “Also, Joe is repeating everything he hears.”

Cal shrugged. “In my time, marriages were arranged between fathers. And I like to think I serve in that capacity in some way.”

I tilted my head and smiled sweetly. “Aw, Cal.”

Iris refused to be pulled into this sentimental moment. “As sweet as that is, you’ve had time to adjust since ‘your time.’ So get over it.”

“OK, all of this arguing is pointless, because I said no.”

Iris’s expression was relieved, as if she’d thought I would say yes because I couldn’t come up with a better answer.

“You said no?” Cal exclaimed.

“I said no. Breakup story. Remember?” I prodded.

Iris nodded. “Right, sorry. Holiday moment.”

“I said no.”

“Well, I’m glad,” Cal said, putting an arm around me. “I like Ben. He’s a good man. But you’re too young to settle down. You need to experience life for a few years yet.”

“And what, pray tell, do you think is a good age for my sister to settle down?” Iris asked.

Cal considered it for a long moment. “Fifty.”

“Well, I will look forward to my postmenopausal wedding.”

“See?” Cal said, kissing my sister. “She’s on board. Now, let’s go watch Collin make a fool of himself. It happens so rarely, it’s like a Christmas miracle.”

I stood out on the porch, watching as my weird-ass circle of friends made goofballs of themselves under the Christmas Eve sky. I laughed.
This is my life.

Out of the corner of my eye, I caught an odd metallic glow reflected from the twinkle lights. Tucked into the windowsill, underneath a faux pine garland, I found a little blue box with a bright silver bow. There was no label or tag beyond the Beautiful Things stamp. I opened the box to find the moonstone flower earrings I’d admired in the shop window. The stones picked up the moonlight in their depths and fired a hundred flashes of color. Who had put them here?

And then I remembered. I’d admired those earrings right before my encounter of the lippy kind with Tall, Blond, and Anonymous. Had he seen me? How did he know where I lived? Had he followed me?

Iris called my name from a distance. I closed the box and tucked it into my pocket.

“Coming!” I yelled.

Running out to the yard, I told myself that I would handle this. I was a grown-up. Mostly. I had an exciting new job. I was free from the emotional burden of my Ben-guilt. I was going to graduate soon. I could handle the possible interest of a mysterious, disappearing man who looked at me as if I was the most beautiful thing in the universe.

A little smile quirked my lips, even as Ophelia seemed to be staring holes through my head.

It was going to be an interesting summer.

Iris pulled me into a side-arm hug as Collin took a corner too hard in the hamster ball and bounced off Sam’s truck. “Having a merry Christmas?” she asked.

“The most normal, traditional Christmas I could have asked for.” I leaned my head against her shoulder. “God bless us, every one.”

“I know it’s not exactly like the traditional family Christmases we used to have, but . . .” Iris’s voice trailed off, and her brow furrowed. “I’m not sure how to follow that statement.”

I laughed. “No, this is as traditional as I think we’re ever going to get. And that’s a good thing. I like our weird vampire-werewolf family. We weren’t stuck with them because we happened to share DNA. We chose them, and they chose us. Somehow that’s better. And for all of your guilt over dragging me into the world of the vampires, this is what you gave me when you picked this life, so . . . there.”

Iris grinned and tilted her head against mine. “You’re right. They’re awesome. We picked good ones.” She hugged me to her side. “Thanks, Geeg.”

“Thank
you
, Iris.”

We laughed, watching as Cal climbed into the hamster ball and immediately ran down Dick and Gabriel like two hapless cartoon coyotes.

I nodded. “That’s your husband.”

She ducked her head. “Yes, it is.”

“We have to love him.”

“Yes. Yes, we do.”

David’s No-Fail Bacon-Sweater Turkey Method

1 bunch fresh rosemary

1 bunch fresh thyme

At least 1 pound thick-cut bacon

Turkey of your choosing

Thaw the turkey in a safe, responsible manner that will not result in food poisoning. It’s all fun and games until a holiday becomes “that year we all had our stomachs pumped.”

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit. Set up the turkey in your roasting pan. (We always use a roasting rack to keep the turkey from rolling.)

Rinse the herbs, and arrange them in a thick layer over the bird’s breast.

Lay strips of bacon over the top of the bird, weaving in a second layer in the opposite direction.

As the bird and the bacon cook, the fat drips over the herbs, basting and flavoring the turkey. Be sure to set the oven rack low enough that the bacon is not too close to the top heating element.

Cook the bird to a safe temperature. Remove the bacon and herbs before carving.

Aunt Linda’s “Un-Vegetable” Green Beans

Because if you left nutritional value in the vegetable, it wouldn’t be Southern! This is a great holiday side, because you can fix it early in the day and let it simmer for several hours while you cook other dishes. The original recipe came from the McCracken County Schools Food Services Department and then went through several experimental tweakings by various family members before we arrived at this version.

Six strips thick-cut bacon

1 gallon canned cut green beans

1 tablespoon garlic powder

1 stick butter

1 cup light brown sugar

Chop the bacon into inch-long sections. In a large stainless-steel pot, brown the bacon, and leave the bacon and grease in the pot. Add the green beans, garlic powder, butter, and brown sugar.

Bring the mixture to a boil, then reduce heat to low and cover. Simmer for two to three hours. The longer it simmers, the more the flavors soak into the beans.

The green beans will in no way resemble a vegetable by the time they’re served. But they are
delicious
.

Molly’s “No Skill Required” Brookies

Brookies are the beautifully baked babies of brownies and chocolate chip cookies. They are the easiest thing in the world to bake, but somehow look and taste like you’ve done something really impressive in the kitchen. They are my go-to bake sale and potluck contribution.

1 box brownie mix

Eggs, oil, and water as required by brownie mix

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

1 16.5-ounce tube cookie dough

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease a cupcake tin. Prepare the brownie mix as directed, adding vanilla to the mixture. Fill the cupcake wells about halfway with the brownie mix. Break off chunks of cookie dough, and drop them into the brownie batter. Each well should be about two-thirds full.

Bake at 325 for 25 to 30 minutes. The cookie dough will sink into the batter as it bakes. Cool before removing from the tin.

White Chocolate Trash Snack Mix

Every year, my mom spends weeks preparing huge batches of handmade candy, which she distributes to lucky people in enormous Christmas care packages. While my husband, David, is essential personnel in this endeavor, I am generally assigned to the sidelines, because candy thermometers intimidate me. Also, I once set fire to a microwave.

So Mom and David play Willy Wonka, and I make snarky comments from the breakfast bar. It’s safer that way.

If I share the recipes for said goodies, my own mother will break my typing fingers—my index fingers, which are the good ones. I need them. I can, however, share her recipe for White Chocolate Trash Snack Mix, because I figured out how to make it without her help. (Insert evil laugh.)

White Chocolate Trash Snack Mix is one of those go-to party or gift snacks you can’t possibly screw up. It’s called “trash” because you’re basically emptying your cabinets into a bowl and covering the mixture with white chocolate. Put it in a cellophane treat bag, tie it with a pretty ribbon, and you’ve got a gift for teachers, neighbors, and coworkers.

Other names for the snack include Reindeer Chow, Snowdrop Snacks, and Elf Granola.

Before you get started, cover two baking sheets with waxed paper.

You’re going to need a
large
mixing bowl. To get the right mix of salty and sweet, I recommend items such as Rice Chex, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Golden Grahams, Cheerios, pretzels, Reese’s Pieces, M&Ms, dried chow-mein noodles, peanuts, or party nut mix. But you can add anything that sounds good to you. You can mix this in any proportions you want. Just remember, you need enough white chocolate to sufficiently coat the whole mess. I usually melt a 24-ounce package of white chocolate for 10 to 12 cups of snack mix.

Melt the white chocolate candy coating in a saucepan over low to medium heat until it is smooth. (
No chunks!
) Pour the warm melted chocolate over your snack mixture, and stir until the pieces are evenly coated. Immediately empty the bowl onto the papered baking sheets so the chocolate can cool and set. Store the cooled, dried snack mix in an airtight container—assuming that your family doesn’t immediately devour it.

It’s happened before.

Enjoy this sneak peek at Molly Harper’s next book in her beloved Half-Moon Hollow series

The Dangers of Dating a Rebound Vampire

Coming Spring 2015 from Pocket Books!

1

You never get a second chance to make a first exsanguination.

—The Office after Dark: A Guide to Maintaining a Safe, Productive Vampire Workplace

T
he sensible beige pantsuit was mocking me.

It hung there in my closet, all tailored and boring. And beige.
Yes, wear me to work, and let all of your new coworkers know that you have no personality!
it said, jeering at me.
Look at you, all nervous and twitchy.
Why don’t you just bail on this job and
go work for an Apple store, you big baby?

“You are one judgmental pantsuit.” I flopped back on my bed and stared at the ceiling. Ever since I’d received the “you’re hired” news during Christmas break, I’d been trying to convince myself that I deserved this job. I was qualified for it. I’d gone through a particularly difficult test of my intelligence and ingenuity to get it. So why was I so nervous about my first day?

“Because, Gigi Scanlon, you are the Queen of All Neurotics,” I grumbled, scrubbing my hand over my face. “Long may you reign.”

Honestly, I was nervous because this job, programming an in-house search engine of vampires’ living descendants for the World Council for the Equal Treatment of the Undead, meant something. If I played my cards right, this would be the only first day of work I would ever go through. The Council was known for offering attractive perks and salaries to hold on to competent human employees, resulting in lifelong appointments. And if I played my cards
wrong
,
this would be my last-ever first day of work, because I would be dead.

“That is not helping,” I told my brain, closing my eyes.

OK, if I continued this line of thinking, what would the final outcome be? Not taking the job with the Council. And then I tried to picture my sister Iris’s face if I told her that I’d decided not to take the job after all. First, there would be elation, then relief, and then the “I told you so’s.” I really hated the “I told you so’s,” which were sometimes accompanied by interpretive dance.

Even after months to adjust to the idea of my taking this job, Iris was still “displeased” about my employment—if thunderous expressions and muttered threats when the job was mentioned could be considered “displeased.” She didn’t trust my supervisor, Ophelia Lambert. She didn’t trust the vampires I would be working with. She’d met and didn’t trust some of the humans I would be working with. She wanted me to have a nice, safe office job that didn’t involve coworkers who might drain my blood. I knew Iris felt guilty for dragging us into the vampire world years ago and how it may have ruined me for corporate America. But honestly, her worrying was getting annoying.

“You can do this,” I told myself. “You are more than the post-glory-days high school jock. You are more than Iris Scanlon’s little sister. You just need to figure out what the hell that means.” I launched myself out of bed, slipped into the suit, and pinned my hair into a responsible-looking chignon. I was thankful, at least, that I didn’t have to deal with Iris’s hair. Her dark, curly hair was beautiful—especially now that she had all that vampire makeover mojo on her side and looked like a sexy undead Snow White—but I could barely handle my own heavy, dark hair. I couldn’t imagine throwing crazy, sentient curlicues into the mix.

Iris and I shared our mother’s cornflower-blue eyes and delicate features, though I’d inherited Dad’s height. It really irritated Iris when her “little sister” propped her elbow on top of Iris’s head. Which meant I did it every chance I got.

Yawning, I picked up my practical beige pumps and checked my purse for the third time that afternoon. I’d stayed up all night, then slept through the morning, in an attempt to adjust my schedule to my new hours working from two
P.M.
until two
A.M.
This was considered the “early bird” shift for vampires, and it was going to take some adjustment for my very human body clock. But at least I would see more of my recently vampirized sister and her equally undead husband.

The house, as expected, was pitch-black, thanks to the heavy-duty sunshades Cal had installed to protect them from sun exposure. Carefully, I clicked a circular button at the end of the hall and waited for the “tap lights” to illuminate the stairs.

I turned the corner into the kitchen and punched my personal security code. Before I could use my “clearance” to open the downstairs windows, I felt a sudden strike at my neck, the sensation of hands closing around my shoulders. I gasped as my unseen assailant yanked me back against his chest, hissing in my ear. I curled my fingers around the offending hands and dropped into “base,” the stable fighting stance taught to me by the jiujitsu instructor Cal had insisted I train with for the past five months. Spreading my arms wide to loosen his grip, I thrust my hips back, knocking him off balance. Dropping to the floor, I stopped my face-to-floor descent with my palms, cupped both hands around his foot, and yanked—hard.
The force of my pull was enough to send him toppling back on his ass.

Springing up, I flicked the lights on to see my beloved brother-in-law sprawled on the floor, with a big, stupid grin on his face.

“Damn it, Cal!” I yelled, giving him one last kick to the ribs before climbing onto one of the barstools. “What is wrong with you?”

“I just wanted to get your blood going with a pre-work reflex test,” he said, pushing himself to his feet. “Well done, you. Your reaction times are much faster.”

I threw a banana at his dark head, which, of course, he caught, because he had superhuman reflexes. Totally unfair. Cal had thrown these little tests at me nearly every day for weeks. Always at a different time, always in a different mode of attack. The fact that Cal had probably downed a half-dozen blood-laced espressos just so he could get up at this hour was somehow very sweet and super irritating all at the same time. I understood that he wanted reassurance that I could defend myself if necessary—and that the insane amount of time and money he spent on my martial-arts education wasn’t wasted. Seriously, though, I just wanted to make coffee without someone putting me in a choke hold.

But since there were no jiujitsu schools in Half-Moon Hollow, Cal’s little “tests” were probably the most training I would get this summer.

“One of these days, Cal, you’re going to sneak up on me, and I’m going to stab you with something wooden and pointy. That’s not an idle threat. You’ve stocked my purse with a scary array of antivampire tech nology. If Ophelia ever decides to search me, I’ll probably be fired just based on the threat my change purse poses to the secretarial pool.”

“Which means my evil plan will finally come to fruition.” Cal snorted. He had lots of reservations about my working for the Council, so he’d arranged for me to take Brazilian jiujitsu classes, crossbow lessons, and small-blade combat training near my college campus. The good news was that I was no longer afraid of walking through the campus parking garage at night. The bad news was that most of the people in my advanced programming classes were now afraid of me, because they’d seen my knife-work gear in my shoulder bag.

“And if you manage to stab me, Gigi, I will deserve whatever pointy revenge you can inflict upon me.”

“You’re so weird.” I sighed, catching my reflection in the glass microwave panel. “Now I’m going to have to go fix my hair again.”

“It’s not that bad,” Cal protested. I raced into the bathroom off the kitchen and ran a spare comb through my mussed hair. Cal leaned his long, rangy form against the doorway, watching me fuss. “Iris would get up and wish you luck, but she hasn’t quite worked up to daylight waking hours yet. It’s more of an advanced vampire trick.”

“There’s also the small matter of Iris not wanting me to work at the Council office,” I said, leveling him with a frank smile. “It’s OK, Cal, you don’t have to try to sugarcoat it for me. I know I’m making Iris unhappy.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said breezily, following me back into the kitchen.

“Aren’t you kind of old for blithe denial? Like several thousand years too old?” I asked, ducking when he attempted to ruffle my hair.

“Keep it up, and I won’t give you this delicious lunch I packed for you,” Cal said, digging into the fridge and pulling a small blue square canvas bag from the top shelf. I opened it to find that Cal had made me a California roll and nigiri with his own two vampire hands. I’d developed a taste for sushi at school, and there were no quality Japanese restaurants in the Hollow. So Iris and Cal had watched YouTube videos to figure out how to make it for me, if for no other reason than to save me from truck-stop sashimi. This might have seemed like a minor gesture, unless one considered that to vampires, human food smelled like the wrong end of a petting zoo. “You’re the only human I know whose comfort food involves raw fish and rice.”

“Vampires living in blood-bag-shaped houses shouldn’t throw stones,” I told him. “And this is very sweet. I sort of love you, Cal.” I kissed his cheek, something that had taken him years to accept without flinching or making faces.

“You completely love me. Now, have a good first day at work. Play nice with your coworkers, but don’t hesitate to use your pepper spray. If you get into trouble, there’s an extra stake sewn into the bottom lining of your purse. Call us before you drive home, so we can wait up for you.”

“Your employment advice is not like other people’s employment advice.”

Ophelia did not
deign to visit us on our first day. My fellow recruits and I talked exclusively to Amelia Gibson, the stern vampire head of human resources, while sequestered—I mean, seated—in a windowless conference room decorated in “early American prison.” In fact, almost everything in the newly renovated Council office was gray: gray walls, gray carpeting, gray cement block, and gray laminate office furniture. Cold, impersonal, efficient, it wasn’t exactly home away from home.

While the grim-looking security guards processed our security-pass photos, we had to sit through the upsetting orientation videos. Most of them involved strategies for not provoking our vampire coworkers into biting us. Since I was pretty familiar with these tips—including “Lunch Break Hazards: Say Goodbye to Garlic” and “Empty Toner Cartridges: Replace Them or Die”—I spent my time studying my coworkers.

It was interesting to me that no programmers were older than their midtwenties. The oldest of us, Marty, looked to be about twenty-three or twenty-four. Then again, working at the Council office full-time, we would be exposed to many of the vampire world’s secrets and machinations. We would have access to vampire leaders. We would figure out how they managed to save enough money to survive on for centuries. That made us a liability, as far as the vampires were concerned, and historically, people who were considered liabilities by the vampire community tended to disappear. Maybe sensible adults knew better than to work for vampires. Heck, maybe even vampire programmers were too prudent to work for other vampires, because there were no undead members in our department, either.

I was sort of a mixed bag when it came to vampires and trust issues. I mean, Ophelia was a four-hundred-plus-year-old vampire who looked like a teenager and thought like a Bond villain. So I was going to avoid any situation that would lead to sitting in her office . . . or any enclosed space, really.