A Vampire's Christmas Carol

  Ben slammed his head into the shifter’s nose. There was a savagely satisfying crunch of sound. Blood spurted. The shifter howled.

  “Don’t fucking talk about her,” Ben snarled at him. He was more than ready to let his own beast out. “She’s the woman I’m going to—”

  “What? Marry?” The shifter pressed a hand to his bleeding nose. Then, not even pausing for a second, he snapped the broken nose back into place. “Sorry, man, but I don’t see that in your future.”

  “Oh, you don’t?” It took every bit of his self-control not to grab the guy and re-break his nose just for the hell of it. “Then what do you see?”

  Jamison flashed a broad smile. One that showed way too many sharp teeth. “I thought you’d never ask.” His hand slapped down on Ben’s shoulder. “The future…that’s what I’m all about tonight. Your future and that sweet-ass angel’s future.”

  Ben’s back teeth ground together.

  Jamison pushed him forward. They started plodding through the thick snow. “She wasn’t just your angel,” Jamison told him as if confiding a big secret. “It’s not like a one angel per person deal. They watch over a lot of folks at the same time.”

  Ben hadn’t known that. Mostly because he didn’t know anything about angels.

  “I was her charge, too.” Jamison stopped, staring straight ahead. “I used to think death would be my way out. The alpha was so freaking twisted. He cut on us just as much as he did his prey.” Jamison’s hand rubbed over his chest. “But then, maybe we were his prey.” His hand dropped.

  Ben’s head tilted as he considered the shifter. The guy’s nose wasn’t bleeding anymore. It wasn’t even swollen.

  “We heal fast,” Jamison said, obviously reading the question on his face. “Almost as fast as vampires do. That’s why I didn’t scar, no matter how many times the alpha took the skin right from my body.”

  Fuck.

  “The past can be hell, and the future…” Jamison exhaled on a rough sigh. “Sometimes, it can be a nightmare, too.”

  “I’m supposed to believe that you’re about to show me the future?”

  “I’m going to show you the future that could be,” Jamison said carefully. “The real future is what you make it…or haven’t you realized the point of this shit-forsaken night yet?”

  Ben blinked.

  “And it’s not like I’m doing it on my own. We’ve got a special magic working for you. Courtesy of our angel girl.” Jamison’s gaze hardened. “For the record, I don’t think you’re worth what she’s done, even if you did save my hide ten years ago.”

  What she’s done… “What do you mean?” Ben demanded.

  “I mean I’d let you rot.” Jamison stalked forward. “If I had been given the choice between—”

  “What has she done?” Ben caught the shifter’s shoulder and whirled the guy around.

  And he heard a scream. A loud, desperate scream.

  “There it is,” Jamison drawled. “Right on time.” He gazed at Ben. “Do you even react when you hear screams anymore? Or do you just not care?”

  Ben threw him back and ran toward that sound. As he raced ahead, Ben realized that he could smell…blood…in the air. The scent was too tempting for a vampire. Ben rushed through the trees. He shoved the branches out of his way and he found—

  Blood in the snow.

  A boy, broken on the ground.

  Ben stumbled to a stop. He knew that boy. It was the kid that Simone had shown him in the alley. Cale. The boy’s torn, old shoes had fallen off his feet. They lay several feet away in the snow.

  “Told you,” Jamison said as he slowly approached. The guy seemed to be taking his time. “The future can be a nightmare.”

  Ben swallowed and managed to ask, “Is this…is this what will really happen in the boy’s future?”

  “It’s the future planned now, what can happen.” Jamison’s voice held sadness as he said, “He tried to run, but he wasn’t fast enough.”

  Ben leaned over the boy. The kid’s eyes stared sightlessly ahead. Two deep puncture wounds lined the boy’s throat. The kid had screamed—and now Ben knew why the scream had been cut off so abruptly. A vampire had fed on the boy, and when the vamp finished his meal, he’d backed away.

  You let him scream, didn’t you?

  Then the vamp had broken the boy’s neck.

  “He won’t rise, so you don’t have to worry about that,” Jamison told him, voice cold and hard. “He’s just going to get buried by the snow out here. It will be days before anyone finds the body.”

  Ben’s gaze snapped toward the shifter.

  “The snow plow will eventually come through.” Jamison shrugged. “That’s the way it is for some people. They die, and no one even notices.”

  Ben was noticing. The poor kid. Broken in the snow. He turned his head and looked back down at the boy. Just a teen. In someone else’s cast-off clothes. No socks on his feet.

  “If he’d stayed in the alley, he would have survived the night,” Jamison said. “I thought you might like to know that bit…”

  Ben’s shoulders tensed.

  “The restaurant over there had a broken back window. Cale lived in that alley because he could sneak in the restaurant on cold nights. He could fill his belly and stay warm. But the boy was too afraid you might come back, so he ran tonight.”

  “I wasn’t the vampire who did this.”

  “No, you weren’t. There’s another vamp in town, and you didn’t even notice him. Seems like that happens with you a lot. The whole not-noticing-routine.”

  “This future sucks.” Ben’s hands were hard fists. The kid’s eyes were so blank. Ben swallowed and asked, “What was his full name?” Simone had just called him Cale.

  “Why? It’s not like knowing will change anything.” The shifter’s hand pushed into Ben’s back. “There’s more to see. We don’t have all night to stare at the dead.”

  Ben knocked his hand aside. “We’re not just leaving him in the snow.”

  “Sure we are.” That hand came right back to his shoulder.

  Ben shoved it off again. “No, we’re not.” Ben looked down at the ground. “He’s—”

  Gone.

  “We’re looking at the future, vamp. He’s not dead. Not yet.” Jamison propelled him forward once more. “Let’s see what else is waiting for you.”

  Ben didn’t want to go anywhere. “Unless it involves Simone, I don’t want to see the future that’s coming.”

  Jamison stopped shoving him. “This night isn’t about her.”

  “Yeah, well, guess what? I’m changing the rules. From now on…it’s about her.” Because she was alive somewhere in this world. Maybe in heaven. But she was alive. “I don’t go anywhere, I don’t see anything, unless it’s about her.”

  Jamison tilted his head back and stared up at the sky.

  “You told me that I wasn’t worth what she’d done for me,” Ben nearly shouted at the guy. “I want to know what she did. I want to know what happens to her.” I have to know if she comes back to me.

  Jamison’s head lowered. His gaze found Ben’s. “Maybe I can show you her future…and yours. Both mixed together. That won’t break the rules too much.”

  If their futures were mixed, then that had to mean she came back to him. Hope flooded through Ben. “Good. Do it, just—”

  Snow swirled around them. The snowflakes were moving so fast then that they almost looked like wings—an angel’s wings.

  The twisting, gnarled trees vanished in that blur of white.

  “Remember,” Jamison growled, “you asked for this.”

  Ben heard screams then. Voices rising and falling in desperation. So many voices.

  So much pain. So much fear.

  What did they all fear?

  Is it me? Did they fear him? In the future, what would he do?

  But then the snow vanished once more, and Ben saw…Simone.

  Chapter Eight

  “Simone!” Ben cried out her name.
r />   “Aw, man, come on,” Jamison shook his head in disgust. “You know it doesn’t work like that. This is your third freakin’ time tonight with this crap. Get the drill down, okay? No one can hear you or see you in these visions. That’s just how it goes.”

  Simone was walking in front of Ben. They were…in Desolate? Yes, the shifter had transported them back to the heart of the little town. Ben glanced around and recognized the town’s lone bar. The bar waited just a few feet away.

  He hurried to keep pace with Simone. She might not be able to see or hear him, but he had no intention of losing sight of her.

  The bar’s door opened. A man wearing a heavy coat staggered out. His eyes locked on Simone. “Well, hello, there, sweet—”

  She grabbed him and rammed the man against the bar’s outer wall. Then she sank her fangs into the man’s neck.

  “Surprise,” Jamison said.

  Ben could only shake his head. This isn’t right. “No, she’s an angel!”

  “Not in this future, she’s not. Actually…she hasn’t been a full angel in about ten years.”

  Ben’s eyes were on Simone. The man wasn’t fighting her. He couldn’t. She’d just—she’d ripped his throat open.

  Simone?

  She let the man fall when she was done with him. Then she wiped her mouth, stopping long enough to lick the blood from her fingers.

  And she headed into the bar.

  Screams came then. Ben lurched forward when the cries erupted.

  Jamison blocked his path. “You know what she’s doing in there. Wasn’t that—” He jerked his thumb toward the dead body. “Wasn’t that enough of a future glimpse for you?”

  Ben’s gut twisted. “Simone isn’t like this.”

  “You mean, she wasn’t.”

  The screams quieted.

  “I told you.” Jamison nodded and flashed that toothy grin of his. One that held an evil edge. “She gave up a lot for you.”

  Simone appeared in the doorway again. Her blonde hair gleamed in the bar’s light, and that light also clearly showed the blood that soaked her shirt.

  “There’s a price for magic.” Jamison turned his head and watched as Simone walked away. The woman was even whistling. “Especially for the kind of mojo she wanted used on you tonight.”

  Ben peered into the bar’s window. Three bodies were sprawled across the wooden floor inside that place. “This isn’t her.” He grabbed Jamison by his t-shirt once again. “This is some trick you’re using to mess with my mind. Now show me her, the real Simone. Show me her future.”

  Jamison’s hands came up, and four-inch long claws had sprung from his fingertips. “Move ‘em,” he ordered Ben, “or lose those hands.”

  Ben didn’t move them. “Don’t make me kill you, shifter.”

  “You mean…the way you killed Simone?”

  That hit went straight to Ben’s heart.

  And so did Jamison’s claws. Because they sank deep into Ben’s chest. “Warned you…” Jamison ground out.

  Ben pushed Jamison back as his blood dripped onto the sidewalk. “Bastard, you said you’d cut off my hands.”

  “So I went for your heart instead. Maybe I was trying to see if you had one. I mean, use your freaking head. What do you think happened to the woman after you took all her blood ten years ago? You took her blood, and then you turned her.”

  No. Ben’s gaze flew around the area, but he didn’t see Simone. I can’t lose her! “I didn’t give her my blood.”

  “Uh, yeah, you did. It wasn’t a lot, I’ll grant you that much. The stories say it was just a drop or two, but that was enough to seal the deal, and enough to turn Simone into the first vampire-angel that the world has ever seen.” Jamison smirked. “Come on, it’s not like she was involved with any other vamp. Your blood did this to her.”

  And Ben remembered a kiss. A last, desperate kiss in his penthouse. His lips had crushed against Simone’s, and, for just a second, he’d tasted blood. “No,” he whispered.

  “Um, yes,” Jamison tossed right back. “And let me tell you, a lot of powerful folks were sure shocked by that change. Angels aren’t supposed to become vampires. Vampires are evil and dark, and they only exist to kill.”

  Ben flashed fang at him.

  “My point exactly.” Jamison flashed his own fangs, then said, “Angels are supposed to be good. They’re the protectors. To see one changed like Simone, it shook up the powers-that-be. They kept her in lockdown until they could see what she’d become and what she’d do.”

  Ben brushed past the guy. Simone was close. She had to still be close by.

  Another scream broke the night.

  Ben ran toward that fading sound. Simone! He just had to get close to her once more and then—

  He rounded a corner.

  And staggered to a stop.

  This time, Simone’s prey was a woman. Blood dripped down the woman’s throat as Simone laughed.

  “No!” Ben yelled. “This isn’t you, baby! Stop!” She was the one who helped people. In the future, there was no way that Simone could become like this.

  “Three freaking times,” Jamison’s voice was disgusted as he headed to Ben’s side, “and you still act like folks in these visions can hear you. I told you, they can’t. She can’t.”

  Simone’s hands rose. They curled around the woman’s neck.

  “Don’t,” Ben whispered.

  Simone jerked her hands to the right. The snap of the woman’s neck was too loud in the quiet of that narrow alley.

  “Take a close look. What’s missing from this picture?” Jamison asked, his words sharp. “I mean, other than the whole soul that Simone used to have?”

  Ben’s eyes burned. “She looks the same to me.”

  “You are such a fucking liar. That woman looks like a monster. Check the fangs, dude. Look at all of the blood that covers her.”

  Ben did, but in his mind, he still saw her as the woman he’d met in New York. The woman who had laughed so sweetly. When they’d bought that Christmas tree together, her eyes had lit up. She’d stared at him with so much love in her gaze.

  After they’d decorated the tree, she’d kissed him. Promised him forever.

  “Her wings are gone.” Jamison’s voice was flat. “But I guess you never really saw those anyway, did you? How can you miss what you didn’t see?”

  Simone started to whistle again as she walked into the night.

  “Where is she going?” Ben asked.

  “To kill again. That’s pretty much all she does these days. But tonight…tonight will be different for her.”

  Ben had to swallow the lump in his throat before he could speak. “Why did she lose her wings?”

  “That’s the price for powerful magic. To save your sorry ass, she had to give them up. She traded her wings for your chance at redemption. Her wings…your soul.”

  Snow began to fall around them once more. Only…

  Ben lifted his hand. It wasn’t snow. Instead of catching an icy snowflake, he was touching a soft, silken feather. An angel’s wings. His hand fisted around that feather. “No.”

  “How else do you think you were able to see the past? And the future? An angel’s wings are so powerful—they’re the source of an angel’s magic. Those wings can do anything. Even give a jerk like you a second chance.”

  The feathers swirled around them. Ben knew the feathers were taking him to Simone once more. Only it was a Simone he didn’t know. He’d lied when he told Jamison that she looked the same. She didn’t. She looked like a shell of the woman she’d been. All of the vibrancy, the life—it was just gone from her face and her eyes.

  The feathers slowly drifted to the ground. Ben glanced around and saw that they were in a cemetery again. Simone was strolling through the graves. She paused for just a moment near what appeared to be a freshly dug grave.

  “Fuck,” Ben muttered because he knew how this part of the tale went. “Is that my grave?”

  Before Jamison could answer, four shado
wy figures sprang from behind the tombs in that cemetery. Another cemetery attack…just like with William…

  Only Ben wasn’t in this image. He didn’t rush to Simone’s rescue.

  Simone spun toward her attackers, baring her fangs.

  “Hunters,” Jamison said on a sigh. “Not all humans are clueless. Especially when you kill as boldly as she’s been doing.”

  The men were armed. With—cross bows?

  “Simone!” Ben lunged between her and the men just as one guy fired a wooden stake from his cross bow. The stake flew right through Ben’s body, like he wasn’t even there. Fuck, I’m not.

  Then Ben heard a gasp behind him.

  He spun around. Simone was still standing, but the stake had driven into her chest.

  “She’s hit!” Ben heard one of the men yell. “Close in! Take her head!”

  Simone’s fingers curled around the stake. She tried to pull it out of her body.

  “Must’ve missed her heart,” another man shouted. “I’ll get her this time.”

  Simone’s fangs flashed.

  And another stake sank into her chest. She fell back then, dropping to the ground.

  Ben dove to his knees next to her. “Baby?”

  She was choking. Trying to speak. Coughing up blood. But, even though she wasn’t supposed to see him—Jamison had been fucking clear on that—her head turned. Her tear-filled eyes seemed to find Ben.

  “L-love…” Simone whispered.

  “I’ll take her head,” a man called out.

  Simone’s lips curled as her eyes sagged closed.

  And a machete sliced toward her throat.

  “No!” Ben bellowed.

  But his angel was gone. Her blood spilled onto the snow, spreading beneath her like wings. The wings she didn’t have any longer.

  His breath heaved out, his lungs burned, and agony twisted Ben’s body. Not Simone. Not Simone. Not Simone.

  “Let’s dump her body with the other vamp’s. She sure seemed crazy enough about him. The bloodsuckers can be together in death.”

  One man grabbed Simone’s feet. Another her—her head. Ben swallowed bile as he watched a dark-haired male drag Simone’s body toward that freshly dug grave.