Down the Chimney Read online

  Down The Chimney

  Debra Dunbar

  Copyright © 2018 by Debra Dunbar

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Debra Dunbar

  Chapter 1

  “Have you bought Lux’s Christmas present yet?” Nyalla asked.

  Technically I kinda sorta had. I’d asked Amber to pick up a bunch of Hermès scarves while she was in Italy and figured everyone would either get a scarf or the gift cards that I picked up at the grocery store the night before. So as of this moment, Lux was getting a scarf, some candy in his stocking, and whatever else I could either find in the kitchen junk drawer or at the 7-11 down the street. Which meant he also might end up with old twist-ties from loaves of bread, some scratch offs and a pack of Marlboro Lights.

  “Uh, yeah. I’ve already bought his present,” I lied.

  “What did you get him?” Nyalla bounced with excitement. “I got him a stuffed walrus. It’s sooo cute.”

  She meant a plush toy that somewhat resembled a walrus, not a taxidermied animal. I’d found that out the hard way last year. The stuffed fox I’d gotten her for her birthday was now displayed in the Low guest house, and I’d spent the day after Christmas scouring toy stores and the internet for a suitable replacement—one that wasn’t an actual preserved dead animal.

  “I…I got him a gift card to Outback Steakhouse,” I told Nyalla. She got that sad, disappointed expression on her face that always gutted me. “What? Lux likes steak. Everyone likes steak.”

  “Steak is not a Christmas present,” she scolded.

  “Says you. Steak is a perfectly good Christmas present. If Gregory rolled up here right now with a sixteen-ounce rib eye in his hand, I’d totally fuck him.”

  Sixteen-ounce rib eye. I was totally using that as a euphemism for cock from this point forward. Not that Gregory often manifested a sixteen-ounce rib eye. He liked to have sex the angel way, which was absolutely fine in my book. I just kinda liked getting nasty the human way sometimes. Or the demon way. He completely didn’t understand that, but I’d tried to convince him that was a time-honored birthday tradition for demons. And that demons had monthly birthdays.

  He hadn’t bought it for one minute.

  Nyalla rolled her eyes. “You’d do that even if he didn’t have a steak in his hand. And besides, it’s not even giving someone a steak if you just give them a gift card. That’s a lame present, Sam. This is Lux’s first Christmas. It should be special. And you should put a little more effort into his gift then grabbing a gift card from the grocery store.”

  “I’ll have you know I’m giving him a Hermès scarf too.”

  “You’re giving everyone a Hermès scarf. Not that I’m complaining, because I actually want a scarf, but you can’t just buy a dozen of something and give everyone the same thing. You need to think about what the people you care about might like as a present. A gift should be personal.”

  “Do you know how much those fucking scarves cost? For a damned square of fabric? When Amber asked me if I wanted her to pick up some scarves for gifts, I didn’t expect her to come home, hand me a pile of fabric and a receipt for almost six grand. I just about had a fucking heart attack writing that check. So guess what? Everyone is getting a scarf. And they better fucking like it too.”

  Nyalla had that disappointed expression again. I gritted my teeth, but I’d discovered when it came to Nyalla, I was weak, weak, weak.

  I groaned and threw up my hands. “Okay, okay. What does Lux want for Christmas? Do you have any ideas?” Hopefully it would be something I could buy from the grocery store. Or online. Hmm, I was pretty sure Lux would have wanted a taxidermy fox.

  “He really, really wants the Super Action Godzilla Droid, the one with the articulated hands and Goodbye Tokyo option.”

  I blinked. “What the fuck is that?”

  “It’s a toy he saw on the television the other day. He was so excited about it that I could hardly understand him. He really wants it, Sam.”

  A toy. My adopted infant angel wanted a human toy that he saw on TV. Thank the fucking stars above. All I needed to do was one-click that sucker off the internet, and it would be on my doorstep in two days.

  “All right. I’ll get him the flying dinosaur thing,” I told Nyalla. “And a scarf, because nothing is too good for my kid.” Especially a six-hundred-dollar square of fabric.

  “Oh, he’ll be so excited. I can’t wait to see his face on Christmas morning. Is it going to be from you, or Santa?”

  I was Santa according to a certain Low, but Nyalla’s words made me realize something horrible—not only was I expected to give shit to everyone, but I’d need to buy double the presents for Lux, who it seems had decided he wanted a traditional American human-child holiday.

  Or maybe it was Nyalla that had decided that. I eyed her suspiciously, wondering how much of this flying dinosaur thing was Lux and how much was Nyalla.

  “Santa is a cheap bastard. The toy and the scarf will be from me. Santa will be filling Lux’s stocking with candy, a bottle opener, and some plug-in air fresheners from the junk drawer and a spatula or two. Maybe a few other things from 7-11 if I’m feeling generous.”

  “Sam.” Nyalla had that disappointed expression on her face again.

  “Nyalla.” I glared at her. We had a mini game of staring chicken. Which I lost.

  “Fine. Santa will also be bringing Lux an Outback gift card. For steak. Because that’s the way the fat guy rolls. Happy?”

  “No, but I guess it will have to do.” She sighed dramatically. “How about decorations?”

  I looked around the room. “What about them?”

  Nyalla had put up some tinsel, and lighted evergreen boughs with bows on them around the doorways and windows. She’d also gotten a giant nativity scene which was by the fireplace. I’d been hoping a stray spark would light the whole thing up, because what sort of Iblis has a fucking nativity scene in her house?

  “We need a tree.”

  I blinked. “There are trees outside.”

  I’ll admit I’d done the tree thing a few times in my forty-odd years this side of the gates, but the novelty had soon worn off. Real trees evidently needed to be watered, and even with regular attention, they dried out and dropped sticky needles all over the floor—needles that you stepped on in the middle of the night and which impaled your foot clean through your socks. They also posed a fire hazard, which I did not realize until one went up in flames and nearly burned my fucking house down. Luckily I’d had a fire extinguisher handy. And luckily the fire extinguisher foam looked a lot like festive holiday snow if you drank a lot of vodka and squinted a bit.

  And those artificial trees…trying to get those fuckers back in the box and up in the attic after Christmas was a pain in the ass. The last one I bought went right out in the garbage pile with a big “free—take me” sign on it. It was there for two weeks before someone finally hauled it off.

  “Tree.” Nyalla set her jaw. “I did some decorations, but you need to at the very least get a tree and put on ornaments with Lux. My friends say it’s important to set a tradition with your child and do it together each year.”
>
  I opened my mouth to tell her that I had lots of traditions with Lux. We watched movies and ate hot wings on Friday nights. Saturday mornings was bacon, waffles, and cartoons. When the weather was good we sat by the pool and drank beer. Lots of traditions. But I looked at Nyalla and realized where she was going with this. She didn’t have children. She wasn’t going to have children unless she adopted one, or unless Gabe had special talents I was unaware of. The elves had fucking sterilized her, and human reproductive anatomy was a tricky thing, even for angels.

  Lux was like a nephew to her, or a baby brother. She wanted him to have everything in life that she hadn’t had as a changeling. She wanted him to have everything she would have given a child of her own.

  “We’ll go out and get a tree,” I promised her. “And decorate it.”

  “With traditional ornaments,” she informed me. “And a star at the top. Or maybe an angel.”

  I immediately thought of lopping Gabe’s head off and shoving it onto the top of the tree as if it were on a pike. That would be an awesome decoration, but Nyalla loved him, so it would have to be some other decapitated angel at the top of my tree.

  “A doll angel,” Nyalla said. “Papier-maché, or china, or plastic. Please don’t go killing an angel and sticking its head on the top of your tree.”

  She knew me so well. “Of course not,” I tried to compose my face into an expression of shock and outrage. “I would never do something like that.”

  Actually, I wouldn’t, because Gregory would be furious and even though he didn’t have access to the Aaru jail to stick me in, I’m sure he could find a horrible punishment for me. Probably one involving me never getting any sixteen-ounce rib eye for the rest of my immortal life.

  “That’s wonderful! Maybe you can pick up some other decorations as well? Lights for the outside? Some of those cute inflatable things?” Nyalla shot me a wicked glance. “Mistletoe.”

  Oh hot damn. How could I have forgotten about mistletoe? I was going to buy a fucking truckload of that shit and put it everywhere. If I was going to have to suffer through a traditional human Christmas, mistletoe would make it bearable. And eggnog. Lots of eggnog.

  Maybe I could convince the angels that being under the mistletoe didn’t just involve kissing, but getting some serious sixteen-ounce rib eye as well.

  “Did you order the food yet?” Nyalla added. “I started looking at the guest list, and we’re not going to all fit around your table, so maybe we should rent a few of those fold up ones and extra chairs.”

  “Wait, guest list? What guest list?” I’d envisioned me and Gregory and Lux for Christmas. Maybe Nyalla, although if I could manage to have her and not Gabe, that would be a fucking Christmas miracle.

  “Silly, the guest list. You three. Gabe and me. Asta and Dar. Ahia and Rafi. Snip and Beatrix—”

  She went on and on, and my eyes glazed over. I frantically tried to tally the names up on my fingers. “That’s almost thirty people, Nyalla.”

  “Thirty-two,” she told me. “And I’m struggling a bit to figure out how much food we should order because I don’t know if the angels are going to eat or not. Sometimes they do. Sometimes they don’t.”

  “How about we just send everyone to Outback with a gift card for dinner? There. Easy.”

  Once again I was a recipient of The Look. Nyalla pulled a notepad off the kitchen counter and handed it to me. “Here’s the list. I made some suggestions about food, but you know these angels and their likes and dislikes better than I do. I’ll handle getting the tables and chairs, but you need to be in charge of the food.”

  How hard could it be? I’d just order a bunch of food, most of it microwavable, and I’d be done. Much easier than coordinating tables and chairs and all that bullshit.

  “It’s going to be amazing. It’s going to be the best Christmas ever.” Nyalla shoved the notepad in my hand and turned to leave.

  I looked down at the list and wondered how the hell I was going to find a sixty-pound turkey. Would it fit in my oven? Or should I roast the damned thing over a spit in the backyard? Mashed potatoes. Sweet potato casserole. Baked corn casserole. Green bean casserole.

  What the fuck was up with all these casseroles?

  Cranberry sauce. Pumpkin pie, pecan pie, mincemeat pie. Fruit cake.

  Eww.

  Kale.

  I grabbed a pen off the counter and crossed that one off. I was not having kale at Christmas dinner. And Gabe was going to eat some turkey if I had to shove it down his throat myself. No, better idea. Gabe was going to eat the fruitcake. I thought about wrapping it up and give it to him as a present, but he was already getting a scarf and two gifts might have him thinking I actually liked him or something.

  I had no time for all this, so I did what every good American does when it’s time to do some serious shopping—I sat down at the computer. Luckily there were now these mega-stores online where I could pretty much buy everything, thus saving me from having to virtually go to different stores. One tab, one retailer, and I could click my way to a merry Christmas in about twenty minutes tops.

  In reality it proved to be more difficult than I’d thought. All these fucking casseroles had a ton of ingredients, and I found myself with a huge shopping cart full of shit before I even managed to think about the turkey. About fifteen minutes in, Snip showed up and moved to hover. I tried to ignore him, but when the drool started to hit my shoulder I finally scooted away and looked up.

  “What?” I asked him.

  “Are you buying my present?” He leaned closer. “Nyalla said you were getting me a present. That means I need to get you one too. I’m very good at present getting, just ask Beatrix. She says I give the best presents.”

  “I’m busy, Snip. You’re getting a scarf, just like everyone else. Beatrix too.”

  “You’re not supposed to tell me what it is,” he complained. “It’s a secret. Presents should be a secret. Are you getting me a turkey as well?”

  I squinted at the product description, irritated that in a giant mega online store, I could never seem to find exactly what I wanted. “Everyone’s getting turkey. It’s what’s for Christmas dinner—that and a gazillion casseroles and pies.”

  “That’s a nice turkey,” he said. “I think everyone will like it, especially if you put a bow on it. Angels like presents with bows.”

  I made a mental note of that, deciding that after we’d all eaten Christmas dinner and I’d kicked everyone out of my house, I was going to slap a bow on my naked body and see how Gregory liked that present.

  Wasn’t like I’d never done it before.

  “These are too small. I need a sixty-pound turkey to feed everyone, and the biggest I’m finding is twenty-eight.” I opened another tab and Googled the size of the world’s largest turkey, only to find the birds seemed to top out at thirty-eight pounds or so. “Damn it, that’s not big enough. I need a sixty-pound turkey. Maybe I can serve ostrich instead? How big are ostriches?”

  He leaned further over my shoulder, his breath fogging the screen. “Glue two turkeys together. Or three. No one will know. They’ll just think it’s some weird mutant genetically modified turkey that the humans came up with.”

  That was definitely a possibility. Just in case, I Googled ostrich.

  “Fuck yeah! Look at this! Four hundred fucking pounds, baby!”

  “That’s a lot of leftovers,” Snip commented.

  Not necessarily. Although most of my Lows were back over in Hel right now since I’d somewhat stabilized things that side of the gates, so I didn’t have hundreds of mouths to feed. Still, if I had three hundred pounds of leftover ostrich, I could send it over there. Those guys might like a break from all the roasted beaks.

  “That’s not going to fit in your oven,” Snip added, rubbing a greasy finger along the screen.

  He was right. Could I get a spit in time to roast this monstrosity for Christmas? And maybe hire someone to roast it for me, because I didn’t exactly want to stand outside for tw
elve hours turning an ostrich over a fire.

  I quickly realized it didn’t matter because no one seemed to sell an entire dressed ostrich, or even a side of ostrich. A few places had ground ostrich meat, but that was it.

  Back to the turkey.

  “If I cut off the legs and wings and smash the bodies together, then reattach two of the legs, it might kinda look like a giant turkey.”

  “Save the other legs, though,” Snip commented. “They’re my favorite.”

  I nodded, and put three twenty-eight pound turkeys in my cart. Then I clicked over to the toy section.

  Snip gasped. “Are you getting Lux the Super Action Godzilla Droid? That’s all he’s been talking about for days. Make sure you get the Goodbye Tokyo option.”

  “I will, as well as the Jazz Hands option, or something like that.”

  Snip’s face lit up. “There’s a Jazz Hands option? That’s amazing.”

  I didn’t think it was actually a Jazz Hands option, I just couldn’t remember what Nyalla said Lux wanted. Something about hands. Did Godzilla even have hands? I guess this one did.

  There seemed to be one small problem with my kid’s Christmas gift, though. No one had it. And I mean no one. Out of fifty sellers on my go-to retailer, every one of them showed the item was out of stock. I search eight other retailers, only to be told that the availability date for my purchase would be sometime in May. Could I postpone Christmas until May? I was pretty sure I could, because just as angels would have no idea that my freakishly large turkey was three turkeys stuck together, they had no idea when human holidays actually occurred. Plus with their weird immortal sense of time, I was pretty sure that May would seem like December to them anyway.

  “Oh no. He’s going to be so sad,” Snip said.

  Something in my chest twisted, because just as I couldn’t stand to see Nyalla hurt or disappointed, I had the same feelings toward Lux. Don’t tell anyone.