I'm Dreaming of an Undead Christmas (3 page)

I rolled my eyes. “She’s not a flipping serial killer. Calm down, everybody!” I reached out to take Iris’s hand. It was oddly cool to the touch, but it was the same. Her fingers curled around mine and squeezed gently. They had the same weight, the same old scars.

“Hey, Geeg,” Iris whispered.

A little sob escaped my throat as I threw my arms around her neck and hugged her tight. Jane and Gabriel stepped closer, but I gave both of them the stink-eye over Iris’s shoulder.

I closed my eyes tight as my big sister folded her arms around me.

“Hey, Iris. It’s good to be home.”

Gift exchanges with a vampire may require more thought on your part to avoid hurt feelings. Items to avoid include fruit-of-the-month-club memberships, tanning packages, and anything wooden and pointy.

—Not So Silent Night: Creating Happy and Stress-Free Holidays with Newly Undead Family Members

I
really missed you . . . You smell like desperation and stale pizza,” Iris said, sniffing at my shirt.

I stepped away from her. “Well, I live in a college dorm. If you’d sprung for an off-campus apartment, I’d smell like entitlement and illegally obtained booze.”

Cal groaned and slid his hand over his face. “Which is why we
didn’t
spring for the off-campus apartment.”

I glanced around to Collin and Sam, who were still eyeing Iris as if she was a headliner on
Shark Week.
“Oh, stand down, you goofballs.”

Collin hesitated, but I thought it was more of a “not wanting to be bossed around by a human girl barely out of her teens” issue than it was concern for my safety.

I sighed. “Collin, use your Magic-Eight-Ball-ness. Do you see me getting attacked by any of the vampires in this room anytime soon?”

Collin shook his head, glancing at Miranda. “It doesn’t always work that way.”

“Also, he objects to the term ‘Magic-Eight-Ball-ness,’ ” Miranda noted. “But he’s too British to say so.”

“It will put everybody at ease,” I told Collin. “Just a little peek to assure everyone that Iris isn’t about to go all Elizabeth Bathory on me.”

Jamie snorted. “That would require you to be a virgin.”

Every eye in the room turned on him, including mine, which were full-on glowering.

Jamie grinned awkwardly. “Which I know nothing about, because . . . Gigi . . . that . . .” He turned to Gabriel. “Elizabeth Bathory was a Hungarian noblewoman who believed she was a vampire and bathed in the blood of virgins to stay young. You were the one who insisted I take that vampire history class at the community college! And then you get upset when I manage to apply it.”

“Oh, good gods, Collin, just look into the future so Jamie will stop talking!” Cal exclaimed.

Collin’s eyes seemed to cloud over for a second, and he frowned. “None of the vampires in this room will attack you.”

“See?” I told Iris. “You’re going to be fine. Everybody go get something to drink, and let’s all just downgrade to DEFCON Five.”

No one moved.

“OK, OK, I could use a booster drink, but we’re going to catch up!” Iris exclaimed. “Boys and your grades and your classes and your insane slutty roommate and everything.”

Cal put his arm around Iris’s shoulders and pressed a kiss to her temple as he led her into the kitchen. “Come on, everybody, I have a nice donor A Pos in the warmer!” Iris called. “And cider for the humans.”

As everyone drifted down the hall, Jane gave me a nudge and a wink. “Good job. Take a deep breath, and settle in for a minute. Your brain’s still all jumbly.”

“Stop looking into my head, Jane. Mind-reading without permission is not OK.”

“Yeah, because your inappropriate thoughts about Tom Hiddleston in the Loki costume are such a treat,” Jane singsonged over her shoulder.

I sighed. “Oh, it’s good to be home.”

Without hovering vampires or twitchy sisters, I finally had a chance to look around. The house was different, and not just in the “Cal has finally settled in and is mixing his belongings into the décor” sort of way. Sure, there was an ancient-but-somehow-in-museum-condition bronze shield over the fireplace and a marble bust of the harvest goddess Demeter on the entryway table (an inside-jokey nod to Iris’s green thumb and Cal’s Greek heritage). The clutter and debris I used to leave scattered around the house—textbooks, teen magazines, volleyball equipment—were long gone. Sam Clemson’s construction handiwork was evident in every corner, from the heavy-duty sunproof shades mounted under the window sconces to the security system keypad near the front door. The keypad served as a control center capable of reporting any suspicious activity directly to the Council’s security response team or delivering an incapacitating electric shock to whoever tried to open the door during the day without the appropriate access code. And the door to the basement had been replaced with a much sturdier solid steel version, painted to look like wood but able to stand up to several grades of explosives.

Did I mention that Cal was rather security-minded?

In addition to these “improvements,” it looked like a Hobby Lobby had exploded in our living room. Christmas decorations and twinkle lights were spread over every available square inch of space, from the beautiful snowflake-patterned blown-glass candlesticks to the slightly cheesy “Santa, please land here!” sign near the fireplace. And Iris had indeed busted out my mom’s tiny ceramic Christmas village, but she had added a whole new subdivision of little buildings, including a hardware store, an ice skate repair shop, and a “Santa’s Sushi Palace.” The little spinning Ferris wheel full of caroling passengers seemed particularly excessive. I glanced down the hall and saw that the holiday extravaganza continued through the rest of the house, all the way to the dining room, where Iris had set out the chubby elf-shaped salt-and-pepper shakers I’d always thought looked a little drunk.

And the whole first floor smelled insistently of the “Sugar Plum” jar candles on the coffee table. I had no idea what a sugar plum looked or tasted like, but apparently, it smelled like a flaming jelly bean.

Clearly, Iris had gone a little overboard with her holiday homecoming preparations. The only thing missing was the Christmas tree. I was grateful to Iris for that, because I would have been bummed to miss out on hanging the little glittered Popsicle-stick ornaments Iris and I had made when I was eight.

I lugged my suitcase upstairs, passing what used to be our parents’ ground-floor master bedroom. Cal had remodeled it into a dual office for his consulting business and Beeline, Iris’s multibranch vampire services business. Even after our parents died, Iris had never considered making that room her own. It was too closely tied to memories of them. Instead, she and Cal had taken the room down the hall from my own. They did keep a secure sleeping space in the basement as a backup, but Iris wanted to keep her life as normal as possible post-turning. And for her, that meant sleeping aboveground.

My room was the only one in the house left unchanged by the Extreme Vampire Makeover—it still sported the same denim-blue walls, the same quilted blue-and-white bedspread, the same beaten-up old paperbacks on the shelves. And mine was the only window without sunproof shades, so I would still be able to enjoy the view of the woods behind our house. In other, slightly more depressing news, my pinboard hadn’t changed since high school, with the same pictures of me with my friends at volleyball games, parties, and dances. Up front and center was a picture of Ben and me, all dressed up for the prom.

My cell phone beeped from my purse, the special “lightsaber swoosh” ringtone I’d assigned to Ben months before. Speak of the adorable devil. I dug through the bag, past my tablet, scribbled-on index cards, and about a dozen ChapSticks, until I found my glittery purple phone case (a choice based not on girliness but on the ease of spotting a sparkly object at the bottom of my purse).

I opened my message window to find:
Text me when you get into town. Missed you the last few days. Down to your toes. —B

And there was the squeeze of guilt around my chest, so tight I thought my knees would buckle. I hadn’t even thought to text my boyfriend, who had taken the time to find a sappy trademark phrase to tell me he loved me from the top of my head down to my toes every time he e-mailed or texted. My boyfriend, who looked past the fact that I’d used him as a human shield while sneaking out with a psychotic vampire teen in high school and dated me anyway. My boyfriend, who had helped me move in the middle of the night when my latest disastrous roommate tried to shave my head while I slept.

“I suck,” I told myself. I typed out several responses, ranging from
Hey, sweetie, home safe. Miss you already. See you in a few days. XOXO
—
G
to simply
Home
. I didn’t want to be too terse, but I didn’t want to be too mushy, either. Especially when I was thinking . . . I didn’t know what I was thinking. I eventually settled on
Home safe. See you soon
. And then I spent five minutes trying to choose the appropriate emoticon.

I tossed my phone onto my bed, then groaned while beating my head against my bookshelf.

“So you’re still doing the whole hating yourself thing?” Jamie asked from the doorway.

Without looking at him, I slung my arm back and pointed at him. “That is a misuse of vampire sneaking powers.”

“I thought we gave up the self-loathing and angst when we were teenagers,” he countered.

“You are still a teenager,” I reminded him, rubbing my forehead.

“I’m older than you, chronologically. And stop changing the subject. You haven’t talked to Ben yet?”

“No,” I moaned.

“Are you planning to do it anytime soon?”

“NOOOOO.”

“So the plan is to date the poor guy forever and not tell him that you don’t love him anymore? Good plan. Maybe you can even marry him and have a few of his babies. That will really show him that it’s never going to work out.”

“That’s not fair,” I grumbled, flopping onto my bed face-first. “It’s not that I don’t love Ben. I love him plenty, just not in that head-over-heels, forever sort of way. That spark that you feel when you’re with someone you’re crazy about? I just don’t feel it anymore, and not even in that ‘we’re settled into a comfortable relationship’ way. It’s just gone, like the dodo bird, New Coke, that TV show about the doctor with the split personality that was canceled after just one episode—
gone
.”

“Gigi, I get it, it’s gone.”

“Ben is a friend. He will always be my friend.”

Jamie stretched out on the bed next to me. “Yep, every guy wants a girl to get all wild and friendly on him.”

“I will stake you.” I smacked his shoulder.

“Coward.”

“I know.”

“I thought you were going to tell him when you were home for Thanksgiving.”

“What kind of person breaks up with someone who just brought them home for a holiday with his family?” I grumped.

“OK, I thought you were going to tell him during finals week.”

“He had a really big environmental chemistry test. It seemed wrong to distract him with the ‘let’s still be friends’ talk.”

“You’re just looking for excuses to delay the inevitable, aren’t you?”

I smooshed my face into my pillow and nodded. “Yes, I am.”

“Nice.”

I flopped onto my back. “What is wrong with me? What kind of person couldn’t love Ben? He’s adorable and smart and sweet and considerate. Of every relationship in our weird little family, mine should be the simplest and the easiest. But somehow your weird-ass train wreck of a courtship with Ophelia freaking Lambert is more functional than mine.”

“First of all, there is not enough time tonight for me to list all the things that are wrong with you. And second, Ophelia and I work. She may not be exactly what I expected, but she’s what I need. And she needs me, too.”

“Gross. I don’t want to hear about your perfect teenage vampire relationship when I’m wallowing in emotionally impotent misery. You suck.”

“Well, you might have had some unrealistic role models. Happily ever after isn’t a guarantee, even with vampires and werewolves and other mate-for-life types. Add to that the fact that you picked the blandest person on the planet to start a relationship with— Ow!” He yelped when I bashed him in the face with my pillow.

“Ben is not bland!” I exclaimed. “He’s sweet and nice and . . . he’s just non-supernatural. Your perspective is all wonky.”

A faint knock sounded at the door. Iris poked her head inside my room. “Hey, Geeg.”

She stopped in her tracks, eyebrows raised, at the sight of Jamie lying next to me on my bed. “Jamie, can I speak to my sister for a second? There’s still some blood in the kitchen.”

“I can take a hint.” Jamie ruffled my hair, making me huff in annoyance.

Iris gave Jamie her politest smile as he passed. But the moment he cleared the door, she turned on me. “So you’ve decided that having conversations behind a closed bedroom door with the future bloodmate of one of the highest-ranking, least emotionally stable vampire officials in the area is a good idea?”

“Jamie and I are just friends, Iris.”

“So you’ve said for years, but I don’t see you inviting any of your other friends into your bedroom for closed-door chats.” She hovered near the open door as if she needed an escape hatch in case the smell of my blood became too much for her. I glared at her, making her add, “I’m just saying that unless you want to provoke Ophelia, I would keep Jamie at a more platonic distance.”

“I’ll keep it in mind.” I sat up and motioned toward her yoga pants. “So, of all the postvampirism makeovers you could have gone with, you went from ‘efficient librarian’ to ‘woman who pretends to do yoga’?”