Secret Santa Read online

  Lussi followed Agnes into the kitchen. The Long Island ranch-style home was simple and unpretentious, with orange wallpaper that had been dated the moment it was put up. Hadn’t been difficult to find—there were several Agnes Baileys in the phone book, but only one in Massapequa, the town Lussi recalled Digby mentioning. Hard name to forget. The woman’s house was spacious compared to city dwellings, but far from the “palatial estate” Digby had described. The suburban backyard was lit by an alley streetlight. Snow covered the lawn. It could have been a Christmas card, if not for the elevated LIRR tracks just beyond the fence line.

  Agnes went to the cupboard next to the stove. “You look like you could use a coffee. I’ve got Vienna roast, Suisse Mocha…”

  “Anything without sugar,” Lussi said. She took a seat at the dining room table, draping her coat over the chair back. This room was several degrees warmer due to the oven.

  “NutraSweet okay?” Agnes asked.

  “Just black coffee for me, thanks.”

  Agnes spooned the instant coffee mix from a red-and-orange tin. If Lussi had learned anything from Shirley Jackson, it was to be wary of condiments in the homes of strangers. The polite act was a put-on. Agnes was not simply Xavier’s secretary or personal assistant. She was the keeper of his secrets. His misdeeds. How much had she covered up for him?

  Agnes sat across the table. The skin on her forearms was loose and hung like clothes on a line. She poured a dollop of creamer into her own coffee and stirred it. She pushed the creamer pitcher to the center of the table.

  Lussi did not touch it.

  Agnes stared into her mug for five minutes. Ten minutes. Just the two of them, sitting in silence. Agnes was clearly engrossed in whatever was happening in her coffee. It was as if she were trying to divine the future. Finally, she looked up at Lussi.

  Tears welled in her eyes.

  Lussi reached for Agnes’s hand—instinct, nothing more—but the woman withdrew it and raised her mug to her lips. She was an old woman who was done with comfort, who didn’t need pity from a twenty-eight-year-old girl who knew nothing about life.

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” Lussi said. She found her desire for answers conflicting with her innate compassion. This woman had buried her partner only that morning. “I couldn’t attend the services. I’m sorry.”

  Agnes’s face softened. “I wasn’t there, either. Emotions tend to run high at funerals, in my experience. Why complicate things?”

  “Because you loved him?”

  “I did, you know. Love him. His ex-wife never forgave us—she still thinks I’m the Antichrist. The Church wouldn’t marry us. They’re old fashioned about that sort of thing. So in a way I suppose I did take him down a dark path. I assure you our relationship wasn’t as tawdry as it sounds. Secretary, boss…you know how that is. It’s not like we were locking his door and making love every day over lunch hour.” She smiled at the memory. “Not every day, at least.”

  Lussi about choked on her coffee.

  “Watch out, it’s a little hot, Laura,” Agnes said.

  “Lussi.”

  “Of course. Lussi,” the woman said. “You didn’t come all the way here to listen to an old lady reminisce about her affairs over instant coffee. You’re here because you’ve got boy trouble.”

  “Boy trouble?”

  Agnes smiled. “Sorry, force of habit. He’s thirty-five, but he’ll always be a boy to me.”

  “I’m sorry, who’s thirty-five?”

  “Why, Digby, of course. Thought I’d heard you two were an item?” The oven’s buzzer went off, loud and harsh. “That would be the fruitcake. I’ll be right back.”

  * * *

  —

  Lussi felt like hammering her forehead into the table. Repeatedly. How could she have been so clueless? She was twenty-eight, a rising star in the world of genre fiction. Compared to the aging workforce at the Blackwood Building, though, Lussi was barely legal. She had talked herself into a senior position—unheard of for somebody her age, even with her experience. No wonder rumors had been circulating about her and the new boss.

  “Could I use your restroom?” Lussi asked. Agnes, pulling the fruitcake from the oven, pointed her down the hall.

  Lussi found it and flipped the light switch. The toilet seat was padded. Where do old ladies find these things? she wondered, sitting down.

  She had to remind herself why she was here. Frederick had told her about a long list of injuries and disappearances—the missing interns from Fabien’s story. Dead kids, call them what they are, dead kids, she chided herself. She could hardly believe it would go unnoticed amongst the staff. If interns had been disappearing from Blackwood-Patterson for years, her coworkers had to know. Agnes might have been in charge of the internship program, but she wasn’t the only one guilty here. Were the intern deaths a warning to staff, perhaps? Was it why people never left the company, for fear that some smiting spirit would come after them? It almost came together for her, except Frederick—Frederick had escaped with his life.

  She reached for the toilet paper, but the roll was bare. Awesome. The hits kept coming. Lussi nosed around the sides of the toilet for a crocheted TP holder. Nada. She twisted to look behind her and found a wooden box on top of the tank. An antique, from the looks of the flaking black paint. She was about to flip the lid when she paused. It wasn’t any old box. It was the box from Mr. Blackwood’s shelf. The one he’d kept the Percht in…the one with the iron clasp and hinges.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Toilet paper–two spare rolls. That was all that was inside the box in Agnes’s bathroom, thank God. As Lussi replaced the empty tube with a fresh roll, she tried to imagine how the box had wound up in Agnes’s home. According to Digby, his father’s secretary had walked out the day of Lussi’s interview and never come back. Not even to clear out her desk. But Agnes had taken something with her, after all. Which she was now using to store double-ply.

  Lussi scrubbed her hands. Did this mean that the woman was her Secret Santa? If she’d meant to protect Lussi from evil, why hadn’t she come clean already? That wasn’t all, though. The timing was all wrong. Agnes couldn’t have known Lussi was going to be hired by Digby Blackwood at the hospital. It was impossible. Lussi was mulling the question over as she returned to the dining room. There, she found Agnes seated at the table, bowie knife in hand.

  The woman looked up at Lussi. “We need to talk, sweetie.”

  Run. Lussi’s first instinct was to get the hell out of here and not look back.

  But why? Despite what she may have done in the past, this woman wasn’t a threat. Not with a knife, at least. Maybe not even with a gun—Agnes hardly looked like she had the strength to pull a trigger.

  Lussi sat across from her. “I saw the box.”

  “I thought you might,” Agnes said. “I’d forgotten all about it—at my age, you forget just about everything except what night Matlock is on.” She sighed. “I’m disappointed in you, Laura. I thought we were having a nice time, and then I find this knife. Imagine my surprise.”

  “Somebody attacked me with it.”

  Agnes shook her head slowly. “The city, it gets more and more violent every year. Especially the East Village. The city needs to take that park back.”

  “It was Mary Beth,” Lussi said. “Not some street psycho, not a mugger. Blackwood-Patterson’s editor in chief.”

  “Can’t say I’m surprised. She always did have a mean streak.”

  “She’s dead.”

  This got Agnes’s full attention.

  “She choked to death,” Lussi clarified. “She’s not the only one who has been targeted, either. Stanley’s in the hospital. A brain injury. He might never recover. My intern has a broken leg and bruised ribs. More people will be hurt unless I put a stop to this.”

  “Ah. But you can’t stop it, my dear. He’s chosen you.”
>
  Lussi’s blood ran cold. She watched Agnes carefully as the old woman turned the knife in her hands. How much did she really know about this old woman at the end of the day?

  “Are you talking about Xavier?” Lussi said, almost in a whisper.

  Agnes giggled. “Not Xavier. The boy.”

  This time, Lussi knew she wasn’t referring to Digby.

  * * *

  —

  “How much do you know about the Nazis and the occult?” Agnes said calmly as she used the bowie knife to slice the fruitcake. This conversation was certainly taking a left turn.

  “Assume I know nothing,” Lussi said.

  Agnes plated the fruitcake. “Hitler had a well-documented fascination with the occult. The Third Reich sought out ancient treasures they thought could turn the tide of the war. Obviously, they failed in their pursuit of a supernatural game changer. A weapon is only powerful when it’s wielded by someone who knows how to use it.” Agnes ran a finger lightly over the blade’s edge. “That box is Nazi paraphernalia, discovered by our former employer in the snowy fields of Germany at the close of World War II. But it’s not the box that should interest you—it’s what’s inside. Or what was inside.”

  The skin of Lussi’s forearms pricked with gooseflesh. “The Percht.”

  Agnes nodded approvingly. “So you’re familiar with the legend surrounding your gift.”

  “My grandmother had one. She told us stories, but nothing I remember. They’re like dreams now.”

  “She didn’t have one like this,” Agnes said. “This one is special. Within days of discovering it, Xavier’s luck turned a sharp corner. Too sharp, perhaps. First he was shipped back to the States months ahead of schedule. Then, when he arrived home, he learned he would soon be newly flush with cash. The price, however, was steep: his parents had died in a car accident less than two weeks earlier. His newfound wealth was a settlement from the automobile company.”

  “I don’t mean to be rude, but I don’t need his life story.”

  Agnes slid a plate and fork across the table to Lussi. “If you don’t see the point yet, you’re not as smart as I thought you were.”

  “Don’t tell me the Percht killed his parents.”

  “In a way, yes. I can’t say how Xavier knew this. He just sensed a connection to the doll, understood that it was influencing his life. It became more apparent as his wealth began to accumulate. He loved the boy like a son. He needed to hide it away, though—not in a box, but in a fortress.”

  The Blackwood Building. A four-story brownstone built by a long-dead, superstitious first-generation immigrant.

  Lussi sipped her coffee. It was cold.

  “Some magic must have inevitably leaked out of the building,” Agnes said. “The unnatural scent lured strange folk to the neighborhood, although if you asked them, none would know exactly why they were drawn to the area. The Blackwood Building was a freak magnet. It’s no coincidence the city’s lost souls have made their home in Tompkins Square Park. Look at how the writers and artists, alcoholics and junkies, and just plain crazies have taken over the East Village.”

  Lussi stabbed the fruitcake with her fork, her patience dwindling. “It sounds to me like Xavier became paranoid and locked himself away in a four-story coffin.”

  “Believe what you want.”

  Lussi said nothing.

  “It took me weeks to buy into it,” Agnes said. “It was all so fantastical. But I saw things that I couldn’t deny. It didn’t take long for him to realize that the doll would enrich him for life, as long as he catered to his…whims. The Perchten, you see, are servants of the one called Frau Perchta. When their chains are broken, however, you can train them to be house spirits and serve a new master.”

  Lussi’s head was swimming with newfound knowledge. The events of the past couple of weeks were finally beginning to make sense. She didn’t want to believe it—didn’t want to believe a damn word—but the pieces were fitting together too well. There was evil in the building after all. Evil inside the one thing she stupidly thought was there to protect her.

  Agnes pointed the tip of the knife at Lussi. “He enjoys the things you make him do. You are his Frauchen now—his owner. His mistress. You’re the reason he killed my Xavier.”

  Lussi thought of what The Raven, dressed as the Green Witch, had pointed out to her. Lussi had idly cursed the fruitcake thief, Cal, and Stanley. Look what had happened to them. Except…

  “I never wished for Xavier to die.”

  Agnes’s fingers curled around the knife handle so tight that her knuckles went white. “Didn’t you?”

  “I certainly did not!” Lussi shouted. “And I certainly didn’t ask to be this doll’s master.”

  “ ‘You wouldn’t know a good book if it walked into your office and took a bite out of your cold black heart.’ I heard you through the door. Those were your exact words.”

  “That’s not a threat,” Lussi said, seething.

  “There was so much rage in you then. And there’s rage in you now. That’s why he chose you. I merely assisted, as I’ve always done.”

  “You’re my Secret Santa,” Lussi said. It wasn’t possible, yet it was.

  “In a sense. The boy guided me. I placed him in a gift box from the basement and left him under the tree before I even knew what I was doing. When I was fully lucid again, I was on the train to Long Island with his wooden box tucked in my handbag. And I knew that I could never go back.”

  “I don’t accept your gift,” Lussi said flatly.

  “I’m sorry, dear. This is one gift you can’t return. Your fortunes have already changed—you said so yourself.”

  “I never—”

  “But you did, child. Mary Beth. Now that she’s gone, who do you think will take over her position?”

  Lussi’s eyes widened. “I would never—”

  Agnes shook her head. “You don’t realize you already have. And now you must do your part. You must make sure the boy is properly fed.”

  Lussi didn’t even bother to ask. She already knew. The interns.

  This was too much. Way too much. She pushed herself out from the table. “I’m leaving, and I’m taking that damn box with me,” Lussi said. “And then you’re going to call the police and turn yourself in. The families of those interns deserve closure.”

  Agnes didn’t say anything. Her eyes were vacant, opaque.

  “Agnes?” Lussi said. “Did you hear me? I don’t know how involved you were, and I don’t want to know. But you are complicit, at the very least, and you must answer for your…crimes.”

  Blood the color of holly berries foamed from the woman’s mouth. It formed a slick down her chin, drip drip dripping onto the white lace tablecloth. Lussi reached out but then withdrew her hand as the blood started to come faster, faster, a river now—a great bubbling torrent, spewing forth. Agnes’s eyes rolled back, leaving only the whites visible. Her head tipped forward in slow motion, and then, with a quick snap, the brittle, osteoporosis-riddled vertebrae in her neck powdered to dust, leaving her head hanging at an unnatural angle.

  There was a clatter on the tile at Agnes’s feet. Lussi looked below the table and saw the knife’s blood-stained blade glowing in the kitchen light. Blood dripped from the old woman’s hands as they dangled lifelessly from her lap.

  The old woman had told Lussi all she was willing to tell. She would take Xavier’s remaining secrets with her to the grave.

  That was what had sealed it for Lussi. She realized she’d been on the fence about what was behind the happenings at Blackwood-Patterson for too long. Denial. That’s what it had been. There was no denying it any longer—Lussi had to either give in or go mad.

  She gave in.

  Xavier Blackwood had said the Percht was no toy. He’d known its power. He’d also made a fatal mistake by believing he could control it. As s
oon as it was tired of him, the Percht dropped him like a publisher axing an author who’d been caught plagiarizing.

  The horror hadn’t begun with Lussi…but it could end with her.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Lussi parked Agnes’s Yugo around the corner from the Blackwood Building underneath a burned-out streetlight. It was nearly three in the morning. She had never stolen a car before and never planned to again. Tonight was turning out to be a night of many firsts—first time she’d drugged a friend, first time she’d been tied to a conference table, first time she’d become master of a demonic doll.

  The drive into the city had been terrifying. She couldn’t afford to be pulled over. She’d kept the speedometer well under the speed limit. Not that she could go any faster—every time she approached fifty-five, the Yugo started shaking like it had caught the Holy Spirit. The AM radio only picked up talk this time of night, but it was loud enough to mask the sputtering engine. Larry King’s monotone also served to drown out any thoughts she might have had of backing out.

  All the pieces had come together as she drove toward the East Village. Her coworkers seemed to understand that there was some sort of supernatural force at work in the building and that it could be bound with iron—hence the bells they’d tried to bind her with. Perhaps they had assumed that Xavier had been protecting them and that, without him, they were at the mercy of the spirit, made flesh in the form of a brand-new senior editor who seemed to be on hand for every maiming and death in the building for weeks now.

  And they were right to suspect her. They just didn’t have the whole story.

  Lussi pulled the Percht’s box from the trunk and marched down the street toward the Blackwood Building, her wrists jangling with silver bracelets she’d lifted from Agnes’s jewelry box. They weren’t iron, but—if nineteenth-century German folklore could be believed—they would offer some modicum of protection.

  Every fiber in her body wanted to believe that Agnes was either delusional or an outright liar. But she knew, in her heart, that the woman had told her the truth. A person wouldn’t kill herself to protect a lie. If she believed Agnes, she also had to believe that Perky would seek out a new master even if Lussi never set foot in the building again. Someone who wasn’t ungrateful. Lussi couldn’t afford to wait weeks or even days to box it up and blunt its reign of terror. She only had until the first staffers began to roll in around eight thirty.