Unholy Nights: A Twisted Christmas Anthology (16 page)

His skull and face break and reform, grow bigger, longer. His head becomes ponderous. Tusks grow in his mouth, ripping through his lips, and there is blood on the floor as he screams in agony.

He scrabbles for purchase as he begins to fall, his clothes ripping from his body, but he has no hands, and when at last he hits the ground she sees him, whole and complete, shifted into a form more fitting than that of a human.

Coarse bristles on brown skin. Heavy snout. Small, vicious eyes.

A wild pig in the middle of the kitchen.

She doesn’t scream. She is sure this is a dream.

The beast pins her with its rage-filled gaze.

She almost smiles, dreamily, and she knows it will trample her, rip her apart, eat her alive. There is only the hammer in her pocket, and with shaking, clumsy hands, she pulls it out.

It’s a paltry thing now. No match for a beast.

She is going to die.

The pig screams, lowers its head to charge—

—and then the whole house, the whole world shakes with the thunderous call of a hunting horn.

*

I
n the bleak midwinter, she spills blood upon the ground.

*

T
he walls of the house come tumbling down, except they don’t, because now she is outside and so is the pig, her father, the pig, and the moon burns against the blackness of space, turning the snow-white world into molten silver.

Behind her the house stands, its windows blazing.
Like a lighthouse,
she remembers thinking. A nightmare house where time stands still and everything changes.

Warning, warning, warning,
it says
. Here be monsters.

Thunder rolls across the sky, then, and the pig, her father, the pig screams again, lifting its great head to the darkness, and her head is swimming as the clouds shift above them, swoop across the sky, blot out the stars, and then they are no longer clouds, but are horses and deer, pennants and spears and strange figures that make her head hurt.

And there is the baying of the hounds. She hears them, above the thunder of hooves, the hunt heating their blood.

The pig turns and runs.

“No!” she shrieks.
Turn and fight me, you coward!
she wants to scream, but every second carries the boar further away, and she is forging ahead, but the snow is cold and deep, gives her no purchase, comes away in her hands until she is numb through and through.

She loses sight of him. Hot tears burn her eyes.

Then a dark shape appears against the blinding white of the snow, and she scrubs away her tears to see—

It is the stag, the stag branded in blood.

He has come.

There is no time to think. Even as she realizes she recognizes him, he bows his head toward her. An offering. A chance she must take or lose forever.

In a movement too fluid to be her own, she grabs hold of the hard bone of his antlers and springs onto his back. The heavy smell of musk crowds her nose and his rough hide chaps the insides of her thighs.

She throws herself forward, wrapping her arms around the stag’s powerful neck, and then away it springs, after her father, the pig, her father as he screams into the woods.

Cold wind slaps her face, branches tug at her hair and clothes, and high above her the hunting horn sounds again, rattling in her bones, in her teeth, in her chest. Somewhere nearby, the baying of hounds grows louder, and from the corners of her watering eyes she catches glimpses of ghostly creatures moving through the trees.

High above, the hunt thunders on.

She loses sight of the pig, her father, the pig, over and over but the stag never falters. A flash of hindquarters here. A dark flank there.

The baying is louder, and now if she turns her head, she sees the ghostly creatures are hounds, howling their bloodlust to the sky. They are pure white, except for their ears. Each one is a splash of crimson, like blood. Blood on snow.

They get closer, and closer, and then closer still, but the pig, her father, the pig is just out of reach. She wishes she had a gun, or a rifle. She buries her face in the stag’s rough coat and clenches her teeth against the frustration.

Then high above the hunting horn sounds a third time, and all around her the white hounds surge forward with a burst of unearthly speed.

A dog separates itself from the pack. As though it were the easiest thing in the world, it leaps.

Floats through the air.

Lands on the pig’s back.

She hisses, once, sharp, though it is lost in the pig’s squeal.

As though on cue more hounds leap, up and forward, an arch of shining white fur piling on the gray-brown flesh of the pig.

The pig, her father, the pig shrieks.

For a long, interminable moment, the pig surges ahead, shaking dogs from its body like a horse shakes off flies, and she wants to scream. She is close, so close, if only she had a real weapon, not just this stupid hammer, she could use it, could draw it out and fire, could make all her dreams come true.

Her father’s hindquarters are so close she could touch them. So close. So close to her goal. And yet so very far...

And then the stag bends its great head, hooks its antlers beneath the pig’s, her father’s, the pig’s hind feet, and flips him over.

He sprawls in the snow, stunned and disoriented.

Her moment is now.

Ayla springs from the stag’s back, like a bird taking wing, and lands in the snow next to her father, the pig, her father. He thrashes, seeking purchase on the ice, in the powdery drifts.

The hammer is in her hand, and his head is at her feet. The hounds hold him, growling with ecstasy and more dogs bay in the distance. Shadows pass across the moon, causing the world to flicker in and out, but she doesn’t look up to see them.

Instead, she holds the hammer tightly in both hands and takes a deep breath.

Then she smashes her father’s porcine skull.

*

I
t takes an eternity, and yet also no time at all. The ball of the hammer hits here. The claws catch there.

Blood splatters. Steam rises.

She crushes bone with iron, over and over again, faster and faster and faster until she is in a frenzy, until her frenzy carries her too far and the hammer flies from her hand and into the undergrowth.

Her arms and shoulders ache, and she backs away, breathing hard, sweat pouring down her brow. The pig, her father, the pig twitches and thrashes in the snow.

More dogs come. Their baying deafens her, and they jostle her legs, push against her knees, until she is certain they will knock her to the ground and tear her to pieces as well. She looks about for the stag, for its comforting bulk, but it is gone, so she retreats, and keeps retreating, until she finds a tree to cling to.

The hounds pay her no mind. They flow past her like water and close in.

The pig lets out one last squeal. The sound scrapes over her brain like fingernails, but in her chest there is nothing. She feels...nothing.

Everything is fine.

White hounds multiply until the clearing is bursting with them, their crimson ears searing the inside of her eyelids. Teeth gleam and flesh tears, and then the light begins to fade.

She lifts her head to the sky just in time to see the dark riders blot out the moon, and everything is plunged into blackness.

A rush of wind, the beating of wings, the call of a stag, the baying of hounds, and she covers her face with her arms, her heart thundering like the striking of hooves on the ground—

*

T
he wind is gone.

She opens her eyes and the dark cloud against the moon is passing. She is in a clearing, and a coppery smell hangs in the air.

She looks down to see the body of a dead man at her feet. From the corner of her eye something shivers in the underbrush, and she glances across the clearing to see a coyote staring back at her from the thicket, eyeing her warily. Waiting for her to leave.

To eat,
she thinks.
Yes.

For a moment she remembers the old fairy tales, the cruel ones that speak of baking bodies into pies, boiling bones for soup, and she wonders how well this corpse could carry her and her sister through the winter.

But no. Best to leave the body to the coyotes and the vultures, to the wild things whose magic brought him down. It is only polite.

She looks at the dead man again. She almost doesn’t recognize him. His face is well-smashed, and his blood is melting the snow around him, red poisonous roses blooming against the pristine ice. The steamy stench of copper clogs her nose. She wishes she hadn’t lost the hammer, but then again maybe it’s for the best.

The stag is gone. The hunter is nowhere to be seen.

Hunter. That’s right.

Where before there was nothing in her chest, now there is a hollow grief. Her heart aches for him, longs for him, lists toward him.

But it was not a deal ill-struck. Even if she had not taken the bargain, no one could have ever compared, could have surpassed him. When he returns in the dark of the year, they will meet again perhaps. A lifetime of freedom. A lifetime of bondage. She may see him then. She may not.

Or perhaps
she
will learn to hunt
him
, between this world and the next, and find him again. Either way, she will never love another, and she is content with that.

In the meantime, there will be questions.

Where did your father go? When did you last see him? Did he have a gambling problem? Any enemies? Where were you that night, who were you with, what do you remember?

What are you hiding?

But she knows how to be quiet.

She has
learned.

Turning away from the dead man she treads through the snow to a tree and climbs it, her limbs pulling her up with ease, her body strangely strong and light. She finds a branch she likes, then sits down to wait.

The night turns. More snow falls. And, after a while the sun rises behind the clouds, dragging the gray light with it, and she smiles.

She looks down at the corpse to see a modest venue of vultures already inspecting it with small, clinical pecks, while a larger kettle of them circles high above. A not-unexpected sight in the dead of winter. He will probably be completely gone by spring.

Then the clouds break, and golden sunlight pours across the pristine white landscape. No footprints remain from last night. Only a corpse, and memory.

With a happy sigh, she climbs down from her tree and walks away, her face turned toward the light.

It’s going to be a long day.

*

I
n the bleak midwinter, she goes home without a sound.

~

A
Note from the Author

You can connect with Andra Brynn on her
Facebook
, at her
blog
, or by joining her
mailing list
to stay updated on her releases.

About The Author

Andra Brynn writes books. Obsessively, and under several names. She lives in Texas and when she is not writing books, thinking about writing books, wishing she were writing books, anxious about not writing books, or passed out from writing books, she spends time with her husband, son, dog, and garden.

––––––––

C
hapter 1

"What am I doing here?" Dakota wailed. The big, Nantucket-bound ferry lurched beneath her feet and all she could see were the steel gray rolling waves of the Atlantic.

"It's a little rough," Brenna admitted. "But we'll be in Nantucket soon."

"I don't want to be in Nantucket. It sounds like the stuffiest, most overbred, snootiest place on the planet."

Brenna laughed. "You can find some pretentious people on the island during the summer. But Nantucket is just like any place else. Mostly good people, with a few bad."

"They aren't all cold and reserved Yankees?" Dakota fingered the soft silk of the love charm Brenna had made for her. She carried it in the pocket of her sweeping red cape, and considered it a good luck charm more than anything else. The red silk packet was comforting to the touch, and the scent of roses clung faintly to the sachet.

"There are a lot of traditionalists," Brenna said. "Particularly on the Nantucket Christmas Stroll, which draws people who like to maintain holiday customs."

"But I'm not a Yankee and I don't do traditions." In fact, it was a point of pride with Dakota that she was as footloose and fancy free as any Air Force brat ever hatched. She didn't have a sentimental bone in her body, nor an attachment to any place that could remotely be considered home.

"You like new experiences," Brenna pointed out. "This is new to you."

"What's this stroll you're talking about?" Dakota shuddered. Traditions handed down from Victorian times, or worse yet, Pilgrim times? How had she gotten herself onto this pitching boat headed for history?

"Nantucket Christmas Stroll," Brenna corrected. "I told you about it. It's a weekend in December when the town dresses up in its best to have a pre-Christmas celebration for fun and, of course, commerce."

"Glorified shopping, you mean." Not that Dakota had anything against shopping. But she didn't have to travel two hours out into the ocean to indulge that passion.

"Of course, stores and restaurants are open," Brenna said. "But it's more than that. It's a chance for people to return to the island at a time other than the height of summer, to see the island's charms in a new and different way."

"Uh, huh." Dakota nodded. "To eat and shop."

Brenna giggled. "Nothing wrong with either of those activities." She turned to smile at her husband, Joe, who was walking up to them, trying to balance three cups of hot chocolate in a flimsy box. Joe gave Brenna his heart-stopping grin and blew her a kiss.

"You're right." Dakota forced her mood to lighten. Just because she was a little jealous of what Joe and Brenna had together, that was no reason for her to ruin this expedition. She knew Brenna had suggested this trip to help Dakota get over a recent breakup. What Brenna didn't know was that Dakota was totally over the lying, cheating,
married
bastard. Even more importantly, she'd dumped him the second she discovered his marital status. Maybe she'd beaten him to it by a whisker, but the point was she
had
beaten him. She was the leav-er in relationships, not the leav-ee.