Down the Chimney Read online

  I wondered if they realized that having a dozen buff dudes stroking my wings and commenting on how soft they were was pretty much orgy-times as far as I was concerned. Probably.

  But now that we were getting down to business and greeting the busloads of little kids, handing them toys along with a ho-ho-ho, there was no more bad language, or wing-stroking, or anything-else-stroking sadly.

  Boring. I handed yet another wrapped package to some kid, informing them that I was not granting wishes, or taking their toy orders for next year, or healing their grandmother’s bunions, nor could I take a message to some dead relative for them. By the time we’d finished handing out gifts, I was ready for a bottle of vodka and possibly a hotel room with these Marines.

  The kids opened their gifts while we put out cookies and punch. Wrapping paper and torn ribbons flew about the room. Most kids seemed fairly satisfied with their gifts, a few of them swapping with others to get the toy they really wanted. I contemplated spiking the punch, only to do a double take as one young girl squealed and held up her toy.

  Even from this distance, I could clearly read the lettering on the packaging as well as the picture of a flying Godzilla with flames shooting out of his mouth. It couldn’t be. Someone had just used an old box to wrap a teddy bear or something, because there was no way a human who had been lucky enough to score one of these toys had chosen to wrap it up and give it away to a needy kid.

  I jumped over the table and ran for the girl, my wings knocking a few children over in the process. “Hey! How much do you want for that toy?”

  She looked up at me. “It’s not for sale. I like it.”

  “I know you like it, but perhaps you’d like…” I thought about what I had in my purse and car. “A six-hundred-dollar scarf and an Outback Steakhouse gift card?”

  She shook her head, clutching the box against her chest.

  “A scarf, a gift card, and…” I checked my wallet, “fifty dollars.”

  She shook her head.

  “And… a pack of peppermint gum, an iPhone charger, and a Bluetooth headset.”

  She shook her head.

  “And a Bic pen, three paperclips, a pair of Oakley sunglasses.”

  “No,” she told me.

  “Leave her alone,” one of the organizers scolded. “Can’t you see she likes her toy?”

  “My ATM card and pin,” I offered. “My Corvette, and two horses, one of them half demon. A ride on a dragon. And I’ll cure your grandmother’s bunions.”

  I couldn’t cure her grandmother’s bunions, but I was hoping if I explained the situation to Gregory, he’d do it for me. He was a sucker for little human kids. And bunions were no fucking fun.

  “A dragon?” She looked down at the box, up at me, then down at the box once more.

  “A real dragon. He’s red. I’ll even tell him to set something on fire while you’re on your ride. It will be way cooler than a plastic toy that will probably break by the end of the week.”

  She pursed her lips, then slowly shook her head. “No. I like the toy.”

  Screw it. I upended my purse in front of the girl, tossed the Coach bag on top, yanked the box out of her hands, and ran for the door. I didn’t get far before a dozen Marines tackled me, yanking the box from my hands and roughing me up. As sexy as the wing stroking was, this was even better—well, it would have been better except in about five seconds I wound up on my ass in front of the building with the contents of my purse strewn around me.

  And no toy.

  Chapter 9

  “Mommy hurt?” Lux asked, touching my torn shirt. I’d repaired my physical form, but hadn’t been able to fix my clothing and I was too lazy to go change right now.

  “Just my pride,” I told him.

  It was Christmas Eve. Gregory was off dealing with some shit about his choir. Gabe had dragged Nyalla to a twenty-four-hour tour of churches across the world with a goal of midnight mass in every time zone. Snip was doing something with Beatrix at the gate to Hel.

  “It’s just me and you, bud,” I told Lux. He sat on my sofa unusually silent, regarding me with his big eyes. The little angel had his wings out, folded against his back at an awkward angle to accommodate the sofa cushions.

  What should we do? We’d already watched all the holiday specials in six different languages. I didn’t have a babysitter handy or I would have gone off to Hel and partied with my Lows. I wasn’t about to go check out churches. What did humans do on Christmas Eve?

  Drink eggnog. Send the kids to bed early and spend the night trying to set up complicated gifts. I didn’t have a bike to assemble. I didn’t even have a Super Action Godzilla Droid, just a bunch of scarves that had been wrapped and tagged weeks ago and gift cards ready to shove into stockings with some candy.

  “Sing?” Lux asked, a hopeful note in his voice.

  “Like Karaoke?” I did like to sing, although I wasn’t sure any bars would be open late on Christmas Eve, let alone ones who had Karaoke.

  “Carolers,” he informed me. “At houses. Then hot cider and cookies.”

  I wrinkled my nose thinking of how shitty this was going to be. This week had been horrible. The fucking tree, the stupid decorations, the parade, the tree lighting, the Toys-for-Tots, the insipid movies and all that motherfucking holiday cheer. And now Lux wanted me to go caroling? This was going to fucking suck.

  Or…maybe not.

  Why was I trying to be someone completely different to Lux? Why was I sitting through It’s a Wonderful Life and turning myself into a stereotypical human soccer mom and feeling miserable every step of the way? Yes, my kid was an Angel of Order, but he’d have to like me just the way I was. And if Gregory thought I was being a bad influence or something, well, too fucking bad. He could step up his participation if he wanted to balance out my chaotic influence, or he could just realize that Lux was my responsibility, and I was going to raise him like an imp, a demon. Maybe he’d actually turn out halfway decent that way and not like some of these shithead angels who’d been locked in Aaru for millions of years.

  “Yes, we’re going to go caroling,” I told Lux. “Caroling my way. But first we need to take another look at the menu for tomorrow and redecorate a bit.”

  He looked around at the tree, the nativity in the corner, the evergreen and tinsel. “Redecorate?”

  “Yeah. Mommy-style. Starting with replacing the evergreen boughs with thorns and nettles. Oh, and mistletoe everywhere. And let’s switch up some of those ornaments on the tree, and get a little creative with the nativity, shall we?”

  I ran upstairs to raid the bathrooms and bedrooms, and got started on the tree, hanging condoms and tampons from the branches. With a flap of his wings, Lux was at the top of the tree replacing the angel with a strap-on dildo that Leethu had left behind last year. The three wise men were now delivering a switchblade, a mini bottle of Jack Daniels, and a rubber chicken instead of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. I replaced baby Jesus’s head with a plastic goat head, and gave Joseph a ball-gag and Mary a whip. Dinner now included Jell-O shots and a hot-sauce laced turkey with four legs and a lobster crawling out of its ass.

  Then Lux and I went caroling, teaming up with a group from some local church. They made us leave after they realized we were singing lewd lyrics to the familiar songs, so we went out on our own, heading through the local nursing home where the residents were more than happy to hear our unusual renditions.

  Afterward we roamed through neighborhoods, knocking over trash cans, positioning inflatables in sexual positions, and pulling down lights to rearrange them. By the time we were done, there were snowmen, Santas, and Grinches fucking all over neighborhood lawns as well as lights announcing “I eat my boogers”, “free blow jobs”, “Santa is a lie”, and “I like it in the ass”.

  Lux waited while I smashed a window and broke into a liquor store, absconding with all their snack food and a few bottles of decent vodka. Then we went home to watch porn and get drunk.

  “You know, I tried reall
y hard to get you that toy you wanted.” I snuggled Lux up against me, my arm around him. “That flying dinosaur thing. I tried, but no one had any for sale. I’m sorry.”

  I don’t know if it was the vodka, or that I’d just had an amazing evening being impish with my kid, but telling him this made my eyes burn and something heavy settle in my chest. I’d failed. My kid wanted one fucking thing for Christmas and I’d failed. I shouldn’t give a shit, but I did.

  “S’okay.” Lux slurred. “Santa will bring it.”

  I looked over at the stockings nailed to the fireplace brick, at the milk and absolutely disgusting oatmeal raisin cookies that Lux had insisted we set out. There was no red-suited, gift-bearing Santa, no Samael, just me—and I’d failed.

  But I didn’t have the heart to tell my drunk kid that. Let him believe in a lie for a little bit if it made him feel better. Let him hope for a miracle. I’d lied to Gregory about his youngest brother coming, and now I was going to lie to Lux. Maybe all the excitement and fun tomorrow would dull the hurt that would come when the both of them realized there were no miracles, not even for angels.

  “Maybe Santa will bring it,” I lied. “If not, you and I will go out in a five months and get one.”

  “With the Goodbye Tokyo option?” he asked, his eyes heavy with sleep.

  I had no idea what the fuck that was, but it seemed to be integral to the toy’s appeal. “Yes. And Jazz Hands.”

  “Jazz Hands.” He started to snore, spit saturating my sleeve as he drooled in his sleep. I finished off the bottle of vodka, turned off Tits A Wonderful Life, and carried the angel upstairs. Once he was settled in, I popped over to Hel to party with my Lows for a few hours, leaving Boomer in charge at my house. I returned home before dawn, noting that no one, not even Boomer, had eaten the oatmeal raisin cookies Lux had set out for Santa. Wrinkling my nose, I steeled myself for the worst and ate every damned one of those nasty things. I even drank the milk, which didn’t go very well with the vodka and roast beaks already in my stomach. Then I put the empty plate and glass back next to the fireplace and wrote a little note to Lux about how sorry I was that I couldn’t manage to get him the Godzilla toy in time for Christmas, tucking the note and the voucher from the toy store under the plate.

  Then I filled stockings with candy and gift cards I’d grabbed at the grocery store as well as a whole bunch of scratch-off tickets I’d stolen from the liquor store when I’d picked up the vodka and snacks this evening.

  “Merry Christmas,” I told the goat-headed Jesus in the nativity before heading upstairs to curl up with Lux in his bedroom to sleep and wait for morning.

  Chapter 10

  “How many church services did you guys end up attending?” I poured batter into the Baphomet waffle maker that Lux had been so excited to give me this morning. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that not only did Baphomet not have this wise half-goat form, but the demon was a complete and utter dickwad. It was the thought that counted, right? Besides, pouring a gallon of syrup on that fucker’s face and carving him up with a knife and fork did kinda make my Christmas.

  “Thirty-five.” Nyalla covered a yawn with her hand. “I told Gabe I was feeling ill after the fifteenth, but he healed me and made me go on saying it was good for my vibration pattern or something like that.”

  “Next year you’ll need to distract him with something else,” I told her. “I’ll manufacture some kind of crisis in Siberia or something and you can act noble and self-sacrificing while encouraging him to take care of it because of duty, responsibility, and all that shit.”

  She giggled. “I might take you up on that offer. I love my angel, but he gets a bit overzealous at times.”

  Understatement of the century.

  “And here’s our present to you.” Nyalla pulled an envelope with a bow on it and thrust it into my hands. “From Gabe and me.”

  I eyed it with considerable trepidation. “Did Gabe pick this out?”

  “No, silly. It was my idea, but he was completely in agreement.”

  That worried me. Nyalla often had strange and inappropriate gift ideas, and I was totally on board with that. Gabe, on the other hand…

  I extended a claw to slice through the top of the envelope, then turned my finger into something more human as I pulled the slip of paper out and unfolded it. Nyalla had gotten creative with some clip-art and fashioned something between an announcement and a coupon, informing me that she and Gabe were going to take Lux for a week’s vacation checking out aquatic creatures in the depths of the Pacific Ocean so that Gregory and I could have some romantic time together.

  I was so touched. Lux would love this. He adored Nyalla, and in spite of his constant tormenting of Gabriel and somewhat indecent affections toward Nyalla, the two angels actually enjoyed each other’s company—especially when they were one-on-one.

  “You pick the time,” Nyalla told me. “Even next week if you want to do something with Gregory for the New Years.”

  I hugged her. “Maybe this spring? Or summer? Don’t let anyone know, but I think Lux and I had a sort of breakthrough last night. I’m looking forward to spending a lot of time with my kid in the next few months—both including Gregory and without him. I might even bring him to Hel with me later tonight or tomorrow morning to help distribute the leftovers to the Lows.”

  I’d lain in bed last night and thought about that. An Angel of Order in Hel was always a risky situation, and I’d previously been too concerned for Lux’s safety to take him back to Hel. But I wanted him to see my home, to know where I’d grown up and meet the demons I cared about as well as the ones I hated. I could protect him. My household would protect him. And much like demon young, Lux needed to learn how to navigate his way in the world—which included assessing others’ intent and taking precautions.

  Gregory would have a fit. Too fucking bad.

  Nyalla squeezed me tight. “I’m so happy you two are bonding. Can I admit there was a time when I thought ninety percent of Lux’s life would be spent with babysitters—me, Asta, Ahia, Harper, and Jaq? Gregory is always so busy, and you and Lux didn’t seem to click at first.”

  We didn’t. And the thing with the chipper shredder had both scared me and made me doubt my abilities to be a decent parent to an angel. It’s not that I was a shitty parent, it’s just that I was an imp parent. And if last night proved anything, I’d learned that Lux was totally down for that.

  “Sam, your waffles are probably more than done.”

  I cursed, pulling away from her and tossing my gift onto the counter before flipping the lid on the Baphomet waffle maker. They weren’t burned, just super crispy—which was actually how I liked them.

  Gregory showed up, Gabe came downstairs, and the five of us sat down and ate waffles and bacon, and drank coffee. Well, all of us except for Gabe who sat at the table with his smug expression and turned down every offer of food and beverage.

  “Your vibration pattern this morning is quite admirable,” Gregory told his brother.

  It was, and I intended to do something about that. Before I could act though, Lux shook up the ketchup and squeezed it as hard as he could, pelting his uncle with a stream of red.

  “Sorry!” Lux announced cheerfully as Gabe sputtered. Yes, the little angel was eating his waffles with ketchup, announcing that the “nightshade syrup” was a better condiment for Baphomet-shaped waffles.

  He was totally my kid.

  After breakfast, we opened gifts. Everyone admired their Hermès scarves, and promptly put them on—even Lux. The infant angel shared the candy and booze miniatures in his stocking with the others, and proudly showed off his Outback gift card. He loved the stuffed walrus Nyalla got him, and was politely enthusiastic about the CD of Gregorian chants and rosary from Gabe.

  I saw him cast a sad glance under the tree, then over at the empty plate of cookies. My heart twisted.

  “It’s on its way,” I whispered to him. “Sometimes presents are a bit late, but you’ll get it. I promise y
ou’ll get it. It might be May, but I promise you’ll get it.”

  He turned big eyes my way and reached out a hand to touch my arm. A stream of lightning-fast angel speak burned through my brain. All I understood was a sadness about Santa and his being concerned about his father. Gregory had been good-natured about eating the waffles, complementing Lux on his excellent gift choice. The archangel had clearly loved the painting I’d given him by a notable local artist. He was animated—well, animated for him—chatting with Raphael and Ahia over by the fireplace.

  His heart hurt. And in spite of his cheerful demeanor, I could tell.

  “These things take time,” I told Lux. “You’ll get your toy sometime around May, but Daddy is going to need to wait a bit longer for the present he wants most. It’s okay. When you’re billions of years old, time is a weird thing. And angels are supposed to cultivate the virtue of patience anyway.”

  “Fuck patience,” Lux announced.

  I agreed, but I still hushed him and sent a quick panicked glance over Gregory’s way. Thankfully the angel hadn’t heard his adopted offspring.

  The rest of our guests arrived, including Snip and Beatrix and several other Lows who’d come through the gates for the occasion. I was glad I’d bought an allegedly eighty-four-pound turkey—which was now sizzling away on a spit by the winterized pool. My house’s temperature reached Hel levels as everyone packed in and the fire roared in the background. Six times I’d removed Gabe’s kale salad from the table, stuffing it in the fridge, in the garbage, and even in the stable, only to find a new bowl of leafy greens on the table moments later. Lux was off in a corner playing with Karrae and Austin, building LEGO houses and knocking them down with plastic superhero figures and impeccably dressed Barbie dolls with feathers glued to their backs.