Harvest of Holidays Read online

  Jimmy nudged Carson in the ribs and held out a well-rolled joint. “Hair of the dog that bit you,” he said.

  “Never did understand that one,” Carson murmured. He eyed the joint, still thinking about Connie’s live-fast philosophy. “Why not?” he decided, feeling some of the same recklessness, and reached for the joint.

  Damian emerged from the kitchen once more as Carson was drawing the thick, musky smoke into his lungs. He put another coffee cup in front of Tally, who was still eating in slow, delicate mouthfuls. She looked up at him, a brow lifted.

  “It’s herbal,” he told her.

  “Thank you.”

  Carson coughed as facts coupled up and pointed to an incredible, mind-blowing conclusion. He coughed harder as the remainder of the pot smoke got into his eyes and up into his nose and Jimmy took the joint from him. It took a good minute for Carson to get his lungs clear as he coughed and spluttered and tried to open his eyes and really look at his wife. All the while his heart skidded and bumped about in his chest.

  Finally, with his eyes streaming and his throat raw from the hacking, Carson got to his feet. Everyone was watching him, alarmed or amused. He ignored them. Instead, he lowered himself to his knees next to Tally’s chair and pressed his hands around her waist. She was watching him with a touch of wariness.

  “You’re pregnant?” he whispered.

  Tally bit her lip. Then she nodded. It was a tiny movement. And abruptly, her crystal green eyes filled with tears and they cascaded down her cheeks.

  Carson shook his head. “Don’t,” he whispered. He wiped her cheeks. “It’ll be fine. You’ll see.”

  Tally threw her arms around his neck and pressed her face into his shoulder. She was crying fully now, shaking with the force of it. He held her and rubbed her back and let her know silently that everything would be okay.

  Everyone, he realized, had fallen silent around them. He glanced around. None of them looked happy and a baby was supposed to be happy news. For normal people it would be.

  But they weren’t normal.

  He closed his eyes. “Everything is going to be just fine,” he said, but it sounded weak, even to him.

  Halloween

  Andurag

  “You have to understand,” Oscar said gently, turning his coffee mug with his long fingers, “that yours is a high risk business. The chances of you being hurt are one hundred percent. Sooner or later, you will be injured. Quite apart from the fact that what you do is so secret, not even members of your family get to find out what you do. The CIA are allowed to tell their spouses who they work for and everyone knows who the CIA are fighting.”

  Tally bit her lip. “We know all this, Oscar. No insurance. Never. Except what a day job might offer. That doesn’t solve the problem.” She rubbed her belly as the baby kicked and wished that she could kick out like that, too. This had been a long, trying afternoon.

  “I still don’t see what the problem is,” Nick said shortly.

  “Me, either,” Damian added. “It’s not like we’re going anywhere anytime soon, Tally. If something happens to you or Carson, we’ll be here.”

  Carson shut the front door and put the bowl of Hershey’s Kisses back on top of the record player. “It’s 1983, guys. You acting in loco parentis wouldn’t work now.”

  “Why not?” Nick asked, his tone even sharper. “Tally turned out just fine.”

  “And I agree one hundred percent,” Carson said, picking up her hand and holding it. “You did a fantastic job raising her and training her, and whatever the flavor she’s got inside her now, the sprout has two demon hunters for parents, so the chances are he – she – they will be hunters, too, and will need your expertise. Poor kid,” he added with a sigh.

  Tally squeezed his hand and looked at Nick, who was having the most trouble over this. Damian just looked thoughtful. “Nick, it’s not like in the sixties. Raising kids is much more formal and controlled these days.”

  “You’re trying to explain cultural shifting to me?” he asked, sounding both pissed and amused.

  “No, she’s trying to be nice about it,” Oscar said. “So let me put it in legal terms. You two don’t have a single legitimate identity between you. You’ve been moving through time using bluff and the worst fake IDs I’ve ever seen. That’s not going to work much longer. Fingerprinting is hugely sophisticated now, then they’re starting to talk about DNA testing – have you heard about that?”

  Nick frowned. “It’s not a legal form of ID,” he said.

  “It’s moving through the court system now,” Oscar replied. “It will pass in the next year or so. But that’s not the point. The point is, neither of you could prove in a legally acceptable way that you’re really who you say you are. You don’t exist in legal terms and so far you’ve dodged complications because you don’t impact the system. So long as you don’t line up for social security, or apply for a government job, you’ll go unnoticed. For now.”

  “We’ve gone unnoticed for a very long time,” Damian said quietly.

  Oscar nodded. “But now computers are going to screw that up for you.”

  “Computers?” Carson repeated. “You mean that Atari thing the kids use? That’s a threat?”

  Oscar shook his head again.

  There was another knock on the door. “Trick or treeeeaaat!”

  Carson flexed up onto his feet and grabbed the bowl. “Computers are so freaking expensive, they’re never going to catch on.” He opened the door and doled out candy to the costumed kids outside and shut the door once more and sat down with the bowl in front of him.

  “They will,” Oscar said firmly. “Especially for processing mega amounts of data, and the government is already using them for just that. They’re going to cross-reference everything you do and irregularities will pop up just like that.” He snapped his fingers.

  Damian sighed and glanced at Nick. “They would never let us take care of the child.” His voice was soft.

  “Exactly,” Oscar said. “Because legally, you don’t exist and you don’t have a prior familial or moral claim on the child.”

  “He’s a descendent of mine,” Damian pointed out.

  “You can’t prove it,” Oscar shot back. “You guys need to shift with the coming times. I know you’ve been doing that all along, but you need to pick up speed, because change is going to pick up speed. There’s a book that came out a few years ago, by a guy called Toffler—”

  “Future Shock,” Carson added. Then he shrugged as everyone looked at him. “I read.”

  Oscar nodded again. “That’s the one. Even normal humans have trouble keeping up with the rate of change and it’s only going to get worse. You have to make a real effort, you two, if you want to stay covert.”

  Nick sat back and crossed his arms. “Embrace technology,” he summarized flatly.

  “Yes,” Oscar said. “Use it to your advantage instead of being screwed by it.”

  Tally watched Damian and Nick exchange glances and knew they were having one of those perfectly in-sync moments where they knew exactly what the other was thinking, and agreed with him.

  Then Damian nodded. “We’ll work on that. Thank you.”

  Oscar leaned forward. “Do it fast and do it soon. This will catch you by surprise if you don’t.”

  Something shifted in Nick’s expression and his jaw rippled.

  Tally touched Oscar’s arm. “When they say they’ll do it, they will, Oscar. You’ve sold them on it. Leave it alone.”

  Oscar scooped up a Kiss and unwrapped it. “’kay,” he said stiffly. “Was there anything else you wanted to ask me? I gotta go take the girls out around the neighborhood before it gets dark. Donna’s out catching that…whatever it was.”

  “A revenant,” Tally told him. “It’s been feeding on children that use the shortcut through the river valley.”

  Oscar nodded. “Suburbia,” he said with a small sigh. “It’s supposed to be bucolic and peaceful, but I think we’ve spent more time dealing with
demons and crap since we moved from Manhattan than we ever hunted before the girls came along.” Then he grinned. “By ‘we’ I’m speaking collectively, of course. I don’t envy you guys in the slightest. I like my job.” He stood up. “I like the money, too.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Carson threw another Kiss at him. “Go home and kiss your kids.”

  Oscar glanced at Tally. “If you’re up to it, would you step out to the car with me?”

  “Of course I’m up to it,” Tally replied instantly. “I’m only seven months pregnant, not disabled.” But she got up carefully. Lately she seemed to be knocking her belly into everything. It was wider than she was, now.

  * * * * *

  “Disaster planning is exhausting, isn’t it?” Oscar commented as they walked slowly down the path toward the Chevy sitting by the sidewalk. A little girl dressed up as Snow White skipped past them while her mother stood at the gate, watching. There were more young children walking along the street with their treat buckets. Later, after dark, the older kids would systematically scour the neighborhood for their sugar fix.

  Tally sighed. “It’s not something we’ve ever had to think about before. Some of the questions you have to answer are…stressful.”

  “Donna and I went through it just after Casey was born. For people like you, wills and insurance just doesn’t cut it, not when there’s the possibility of…well,” he paused as they walked past the mother at the gate, then added softly; “The possibility of some pissed-off demon or spirit coming back to wreak vengeance upon your heirs and bloodline.”

  “That doesn’t happen a lot,” Tally said quickly, speaking just as softly. “I hope Donna didn’t let you think it was a natural hazard.”

  “No, but I spent years as a contract lawyer. Thinking about the worst that could happen has been trained into me.” He smiled to take the sting out of it and leaned against the long dark green hood. “Do you mind if I ask a direct question?”

  “I think you’ve earned a direct question or two, today,” Tally told him.

  He considered her closely. “Demon hunters are a pretty tight bunch. Close.”

  Tally shrugged. “I suppose. It’s unusual for us to work in groups like we’re doing now – but we’re working that way because of the gargoyles. It’s the only way to find them and fight them – use bigger numbers than they’ve got. I suppose we’re close because of that.”

  Oscar’s scrutiny didn’t fade. “When you get close like that, when you’re risking your life every time you go out…you get to depend on each other. Lean on each other.”

  Caution rippled through her. Tally tried to smile naturally. “What’s on your mind, Oscar?”

  He drew in a breath. Then another. “Is Donna…and Jimmy…?”

  Tally instantly rejected a dozen different answers, while her mind buzzed with thoughts and cautions and warnings. Finally, she settled for a type of the truth. “I can’t answer that, Oscar.”

  He swallowed. “If she wasn’t, you’d just say no.” His voice was strained.

  Tally shook her head. “No, you don’t understand. It is rough out there. You do have to depend upon each other. It builds up…extraordinary stresses. And knowing you have a short life expectancy…well, everyone deals with that in different ways. Carson parties. Hard.”

  “Not anymore,” Oscar said quickly. “I haven’t seen him drunk since you got pregnant.”

  Neither had Tally. She tried for another example. “Jimmy likes his booze. Miguel likes his drugs. Connie and Joy…well, they have their own private rituals. But that’s the point, Oscar. Everyone is different, but it’s part of the life.”

  “And that’s where it stays, right? Inside your little world.” He sounded very bitter.

  “I honestly don’t know what Donna does on her down time,” Tally said truthfully. It was more than she should have said and she shifted uncomfortably on her feet. “Why don’t you ask her directly?”

  Oscar shook his head. “I can’t. You don’t understand what it’s like, being married to one of you when you’re not one yourself. I knew, going in, what she was. Donna was frank about it. I think she wanted to scare me off, but it just made me more determined.” He smiled. It was a weak smile, but it was there. “I still think it’s one of the coolest things in the world, this realm of yours. Demons are real. Vampires are real. Ghosts aren’t just stories. It’s…exhilarating.”

  Tally grinned. “You sound like Carson does, sometimes.”

  Oscar’s smile faded. “But that’s just it. You’re both hunters. You’re both a part of your world, so neither of you has to stand to one side and let the other just…do what they’re good at. And Donna’s good. I know that. I wouldn’t take it away from her, and she does the very best she can with the girls and for me…but because I accepted her for what she was, I have to accept all of it. I can’t start crying uncle now, just because there’s a part of her life that I don’t like.”

  Tally touched his arm. “You’re a very decent man, Oscar. I think you do marvelously well as a straight human married to a hunter. It must make life a strain.” She pressed her lips together. “I didn’t want to end up with a normal human, even a normal human hunter. I thought, if I was to settle into any long term relationship it would be…I don’t know.”

  “With a vampire, perhaps?” Oscar asked gently.

  “Perhaps, in the far corners of my subconscious, yes,” Tally admitted frankly. “Vampires seemed more normal to me than humans, but I fell in love with a human that had been in the business only a few years. It has taken every day of the six years we’ve been married to figure it out, Oscar. It has taken arguments and compromises and exhausting discussions like this one this afternoon. But we do it because we want it to work.”

  Oscar blew out his breath. “I gotta go,” he said, digging keys out of his jeans pocket. He stood up. “Thanks.”

  Tally tried another smile, and this one came more easily. “Talk to her,” she encouraged him.

  “Maybe. I’ll think it through.”

  She watched him walk around the car and get behind the wheel, and waved as he drove off, moving at turtle speed in deference to the little kids hopped up on candy that were spilling out onto the road and racing to the next house without a care about their surroundings.

  Feeling a baffled sort of sadness, Tally walked slowly back into the house.

  * * * * *

  Carson was standing by the phone on the wall when she entered, talking into it. He glanced at Tally as she shut the door. “I don’t think Oscar is still here, Donna.”

  Tally shook her head.

  “No, he just left,” Carson added and frowned as Donna said something that sounded high and fast, even from across the room. “Where?” he said sharply. “We’ll be there in…forty minutes.” He hung up, leaving the white coil swinging against the wallpaper.

  Damian and Nick were already getting to their feet.

  “Explain for the one human in the room without supersonic hearing,” Tally said.

  “Donna and the rest. They didn’t find the revenant, but they did find three bear carcasses. They had been torn into like Kentucky Fried Chicken.”

  Gargoyles. They were the only creatures big enough and strong enough to think of wild bears as mobile snacks. Tally went to the front closet and handed out everyone’s coats and jackets, then pulled her long working coat off the hanger and shrugged into it carefully.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Carson demanded, pausing half-way through buttoning up his pea coat.

  “I’m coming with you.”

  “Like hell!”

  “I’ll stay out of the way. But if the clan has moved into our neighborhood, then you need every single person who can wield a blade out there.”

  “I’ll watch her,” Damian added.

  “You’re fucking pregnant!” Carson cried, the tendons in his neck standing out in sharp relief.

  “I’ll be careful,” Tally said softly. “But I’m coming with you. The Stonebrood Cla
n has been my one focus for six years now and in six years, we’ve taken down one of them. One. Now they’ve come to us. There will be a nest out there, Carson. If we find a nest, we stand a real chance of taking them all down in one hit. Don’t make me sit on the sidelines for this. Just…don’t.”

  Carson was silent, but she could see his chest rising and falling as he battled his instincts.

  Nick cleared his throat. “Not that I want to get in the middle of a husband and wife fight, but I have to point out that since Tally turned sixteen I haven’t once succeeded in coaxing her to change her mind.”

  Carson looked at him, and Tally had the oddest sensation that they were communing just like Nick and Damian often did. There was a look that passed between them, and she knew it was about her.

  Then Carson ruffled his long hair with one hand, scrubbing hard. “Okay,” he said heavily and pointed at Damian. “If she gets so much as a hangnail over this….”

  Damian grinned. “You’ll…what?”

  “I’ll figure out something,” Carson said darkly.

  Damian shook his head. “She’s safe with me.”

  * * * * *

  The river valley was a mile-wide strip of lush woodland that was, after two decades of careful preservation, returning to something like it would have been before the British tramped their way through the state, making everything another little England. The nature preserve ran along the river for nearly ten miles, stretching out to two miles across in some places, and narrowing down to nature trails in others.

  “We should think about walkie talkies if we’re going to keep hunting in packs like this,” Carson said, his breath billowing out in dense mist. Now that it was dark, the warmth had left the day.