Secret Santa Read online

  A chilling calm had come over the neighborhood. Fabien’s coat was plenty warm, as was the sweater she’s taken from Agnes’s closet, red and embroidered with snowflakes, Christmas trees, presents, and snowmen. There was something creepy about wearing a dead woman’s clothing and jewelry, but wasn’t that what a lot of thrift store finds were anyway? Plus, Agnes was the one who’d disemboweled herself by performing ritual hara-kiri, splattering blood all over Lussi’s white tank. What else was she supposed to do?

  The park was quiet. An orange glow emanated from its deeper recesses. The blanket merchants had packed up long ago; the panhandlers were resting for the night until the world woke up again tomorrow. Three gutter punks were having a snowball fight in the street. As Lussi passed them on the sidewalk, she could hear their laughter echoing off the surrounding buildings. A taxi swerved around them and kept going, the driver leaning on the horn. The punks flipped him off.

  Ah, to be young again.

  “Hey, lady,” one of them said. A teenaged boy from the look of his pockmarked face. “What’s in the box?”

  Lussi picked up her pace. She should have parked closer to the office, but she hadn’t wanted to try her luck in case anyone was watching for her. She ignored the punks’ taunts and turned down the alley that went past the back of the Blackwood Building. The fire escape was still her best bet to get into the building unnoticed.

  “We’re talkin’ to you, little miss rich bitch,” another punk said, closer now.

  Lussi paused only for a moment to look over her shoulder to see if it was time to kick into high gear. Too late. The three kids had caught up to her, encircling her like a pack of wild dogs. They were close enough that she could smell the whiskey on them.

  “I don’t have money,” Lussi said. Her breath hung in the air.

  “I asked what was in the box,” the first kid said. He was, like the others, wearing denim from head to toe. His jacket was decorated with hundreds of silver studs. He couldn’t have been older than fourteen or fifteen. A runaway. An addict. A troublemaker. All of the above.

  “Toilet paper,” Lussi said.

  “Open it,” the third one said, a girl with a shaved head. She had so many piercings on her face that it looked like she’d been in a teleporter accident with a stapler.

  Lussi lifted the lid, showing off what was inside.

  Not toilet paper.

  She’d cleaned most of the blood from the bowie knife except for some stubborn stains on the handle that refused to come out. The punks scattered, arms and legs pinwheeling. The two boys disappeared around the corner but the girl slipped on a patch of ice, faceplanting on the concrete.

  Against her better judgment, Lussi helped her to her feet. The girl’s fingerless gloves exposed her frozen fingertips. “You got a winter jacket?” Lussi asked, aware of how much she sounded like her mother now.

  The girl shook her head.

  “You want this one? It’s real fur. Unless you’re one of those PETA types.”

  The girl looked at her skeptically. The sable fur was worth several thousand dollars. It wasn’t Lussi’s to give away, but Fabien would forgive her. Maybe.

  “C’mon,” Lussi said, shrugging out of the coat. “I’ll trade you. You could buy twenty denim jackets with this if you wanted.”

  “You’re crazy, lady,” the girl said. She removed her studded denim jacket. “I like you.”

  “All the best people are crazy,” Lussi said. Maybe that was true, and maybe it wasn’t. There was, however, a method to Lussi’s madness. She wasn’t being altruistic; this wasn’t the goodness of Lussi’s heart finally coming to light. Lussi was going into battle against an evil that may have been older than the city itself. She needed more than a half dozen jangling bracelets.

  She needed armor.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  The ladder to the fire escape stopped about ten feet off the ground. Too high for Lussi to reach, even if she had a pair of Air Jordans. Thankfully, the dumpster was close enough to jump from. She set the wooden box on top and hoisted herself up.

  As soon as she stood tall on the dumpster’s lid, the plastic began to buckle under her weight. She didn’t even have time to curse before it gave way, dropping her straight into the trash. There was just enough garbage to cushion her fall.

  She tried to climb out, but the trash was like quicksand—with every step, she sank further into the rotting mass. She touched down on the bottom and wetness seeped into her shoes, pooling between her toes. Dumpster sludge. At least now she could finally get some traction and wade to the edge. She was about to pull herself up onto the rim when the second-floor fire escape door swung open, spilling light into the alley.

  Digby stepped out onto the landing and peered over the railing. Lussi could only see his silhouette, but nobody else in the office wore a suit jacket with shoulder pads that big. Had he been in the secret meeting about her the other day? Had he been under one of the cloaks earlier tonight?

  “Get out of there, you derelicts. I’ve got a gun,” he shouted, not recognizing her in the dim light. “It’s very large.”

  “It’s Lussi,” she yelled back. “My door code wasn’t working.”

  She waited to see whether that would stop him from firing a warning shot or cause him to empty the firearm’s clip into her. “I don’t really have a gun,” he said. “Meet me out front and I’ll let you in.”

  He went back inside. More lights flipped on. Lussi could see the trash in Technicolor now. The plastic bags were full of ragged-edged holes. They’d been ripped open by tiny teeth…or not-so-tiny teeth. She wasn’t going to wait around any longer to find out. As she hoisted herself out, her left foot snagged on something. She looked down to see her foot was caught in an elastic band. It was the plastic green witch mask, wedged between two heavy trash bags. A reminder of what was at stake.

  * * *

  —

  Of all the ways she’d imagined getting back inside the building, simply walking through the front door had never crossed her mind. Lussi had assumed her access code would have been deleted from the security system; or, if it hadn’t, that it would alert somebody off-site that she’d returned. The locks were the most high-tech thing about the building—if there were closed-circuit TV cameras watching the entrance or front desk, she’d never seen evidence of them.

  Digby held the door open for her. She stepped through with the box. She half expected to burst into flame like Michael Jackson on the set of a Pepsi commercial. When she didn’t catch fire, she breathed a silent sigh of relief.

  “Interesting jacket,” Digby said, locking the door behind her. He’d flipped the lobby lights on. “Don’t think I would have pegged you for a Maiden fan.”

  She craned her head to look at the patch on her back but couldn’t see it without taking the jacket off. Which she wasn’t about to do. Since she had no iron, the silver was the only thing shielding her from the Percht.

  “Iron Maiden,” he clarified.

  “My roommate’s,” she said, glancing around. “So is it just you here, or…”

  “Alan’s probably around, but good luck finding him.” Digby rubbed his eyes. “Couldn’t sleep. Long day, burying Dad. Thought I’d come do some work. Walked in the door and heard the ruckus out back.”

  “I wanted to be at the service but something came up. I’m sorry.”

  He narrowed his bloodshot eyes at her. The collar on his wrinkled white polo was popped. It didn’t look hip on him; it looked tired. Dated. She could smell his cologne—Obsession for Men. Must have been using it to cover up the fact that he hadn’t showered in days. Weeks, possibly. They were both hiding something, and they both knew that the other knew. She wanted to be the first to come clean, to get everything off her chest.

  “I have something to tell you,” they both said at the same time.

  He laughed. “Jinx.”


  “Really?”

  He playfully slugged her upper arm. “Buy me a Diet Rite, and I’ll lift it.”

  “I don’t have time for this,” she said.

  He hit her again and smirked. “I could do this alllllll night.”

  She glared at him. Now was not the time to push her buttons. She hadn’t been up this late since college. Her socks were soaked through with garbage juice. The last time she’d had anything to eat was over twelve hours ago—her blood sugar had to be out of whack. Oh, and there was the tiny matter of the Nazi devil doll roaming the halls of the Blackwood Building.

  But sure, she had time to get Digby a pop from the break room.

  Who did this guy think he was?

  Your boss, dodo brain, she reminded herself. The one everyone apparently thinks you’re sleeping with. No wonder they were so quick to villainize her.

  “Fine. I’ll bring it up in ten. I need to clean up first. I’m sure I smell wonderful.”

  He cocked his head to one side, possibly contemplating whether she’d broken the jinx code. He decided to let it slide. “Diet Rite. None of that RC crapola,” he said, snapping his fingers and pointing at her.

  He mounted the winding staircase. When he reached the fourth floor and disappeared from sight, Lussi rushed to Gail’s desk and opened the top drawer.

  The gun was missing.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  On her way to the vending machines, Lussi stopped at the conference room doorway. There was no sign she’d ever been held captive here—no cut-up strands of Christmas lights, no tipped-over cat carrier under the table. No dripped wax from the candles, no soiled spot where the editor in chief had collapsed and died.

  No doll.

  Had she expected it to just be sitting around, waiting for her?

  “Hey, if you can hear me, I don’t want you to hurt anyone else.”

  Worth a try, but naïve to think it could actually work.

  She would be damned lucky if it didn’t backfire. It reminded her of when her mother had told her to stop reading “trash” like The Exorcist. Lot of good that had done.

  She went into the break room to pick up Digby’s pop—Diet Rite, none of that RC crapola—and then headed to her office. She needed to find her handbag with her compact. Her plan, if it could even be called that, was to tell Digby everything. The doll, his father’s role, Agnes’s suicide—everything. Cleaning herself up wasn’t necessary, but looking like a bag lady who’d been dumpster-diving wasn’t going to help her cause. Especially when it came time to convince Digby that there were forces beyond this world at play here.

  Lussi stashed the pop inside the box and tried her office doorknob. Unlocked. Good news since her key ring was inside her handbag…which was right there on her desk, where she’d left it. Her coworkers might have rummaged through it but they hadn’t thrown it out. That was nice of them. She pulled the chain on her desk lamp and sat down.

  She fished her compact out. The light wasn’t all that bright in here, but it was enough. She snapped open the compact and raised the mirror to eye level. She’d touch up her foundation, and then—

  She inhaled sharply.

  Someone was standing behind her.

  There was only a small gap, maybe two feet, between the back of her chair and the bookshelf. Impossible for someone to be in that space and for her not to hear them, not to feel them. And yet. The figure was tall. Too tall to be human. It was veiled in darkness, the only color two bright red, burning eyes. She was gazing into the abyss through the mirror, and the abyss was gazing back.

  Lussi had done her fair share of abyss gazing. Always within the safe confines of fiction. Horror took you right to the precipice, where you could stare into the darkness without falling in. Without losing yourself. She enjoyed that feeling, giving death the finger.

  She didn’t enjoy whatever this was.

  She craned her head only as far as she needed to in order to see what was behind her with her own eyes. She didn’t know why this was important—she didn’t know what it would prove or disprove, but she did it anyway.

  There was nothing there except for the doll on the shelf. Grinning as usual.

  —detestable—

  She was almost certain it hadn’t been there when she’d sat down.

  She glanced back at the figure in the mirror. A glimpse of the spirit’s true shape. Its edges were undefined. Blurred.

  Holy. Shitballs.

  It was real.

  If this wasn’t a dream—if she was really in her office—then all of her beliefs about how the world worked were null and void. Lussi had crossed some invisible line between what she understood was possible and what was actually true. Her assumptions about reality now belonged to a world that no longer existed.

  Keeping an eye on the shaking mirror, Lussi reached for the box. She carefully lifted the lid. The ancient hinges squeaked as she flipped it open. She removed the pop. It trembled in her hand, too. Her whole body was trembling, she realized. It wasn’t fear. The chair was quaking beneath her; the floor, humming under her feet. The building was rattling, as if a train were passing through the lobby.

  She would have to act fast. Swing around, grab the doll, and stuff it into the box. She snapped the compact closed; she couldn’t work up the courage while seeing that…thing out of the corner of her eye. Just pretend it wasn’t there. Because…it wasn’t.

  The can of Diet Rite, shaken to its bursting point, sprung a leak. A fountain of pop erupted, showering Lussi. A momentary distraction, but it was all it took for things to go south. The manuscripts stacked in the corner took to the air, shooting straight at her like they’d been fired out of the world’s fastest Xerox machine. Lussi crossed her arms over her head to protect her face—she needed a papercut on her eyeball like she needed an asshole on her elbow. The pages were circling her desk, a great white cyclone. Her hair was whipping around, too—Aqua Net was no match for a supernatural twister. The slush pile meant to claim another victim.

  Lussi pulled the box into her lap and pushed herself away from her desk, ramming her chair into the bookshelf. A handful of paperbacks rained down on her, plunking off her head and onto the floor like Plinko chips on The Price Is Right. The doll tumbled off, too, landing right in the open box. She didn’t take time to question her good luck. She flipped the lid closed and held the wooden box tight to her chest and waited for the storm to die down.

  The whirlwind spun its way out of her office and into the hallway. Her ears popped as the air pressure changed in the room. A few final pages flitted about, taking their time falling to the ground. She snatched the last one out of the air. In Dog We Trust, this page. She balled it up and tossed it across the room. The crumpled paper bounced once and then rolled for the door, rounding the corner and chasing after the cyclone.

  What the hell? Why hadn’t it died down? It continued to rage in the lobby, battering the building from within. She should’ve known better to think she could just walk in, grab the doll, and leave.

  Finally, a deathly silence fell over the building. She took a moment to gather her wits and then crept slowly down the hall, box under one arm. Digby would have to forgive her disheveled appearance.

  She paused at the railing to marvel at the state of the lobby. It looked like an F5 had come through, which was about what had happened. Pens, pencils, scissors, and staplers were strewn about the lobby, mixed in amongst the manuscripts that had taken flight from Lussi’s office. The needles had been shorn off the Christmas tree by the wind, leaving bare wooden dowels. The scattered tinsel gave the ruinous scene the luster of midday. The cyclone appeared to have burned itself out. Lussi prayed to a god she was putting more and more faith in lately that it had been the last gasp of the Percht. The twitching eyelid of a corpse.

  In the steady calm, the disquieting stillness that only follows storms, Lussi heard a muffled cry. T
he door to the basement was open.

  The shout came again, this time less emphatic. Help.

  Fabien.

  Lussi didn’t think. She ran, taking the stairs by twos and threes. Her silver bracelets jangled as she rounded the staircase, down, down, down. It wasn’t until she was at the top of the basement stairs that she hesitated.

  Something about this wasn’t right. What was Fabien doing here? He was supposed to be on the Upper West Side, sleeping like the dead. It smacked of a trap. The setup was perfect: there was only one way out of the basement. If the door were to be locked on her…

  Lussi heard Fabien call out again. Help. This time his voice was weaker. More pained. Screw it. She didn’t have time to overthink this. If it were Fabien, she needed to get to him fast. She descended into the bowels of the Blackwood Building, not even slowing when the door swung shut behind her.

  She was right. It was a trap. But the bait was real nonetheless.

  On the floor at the bottom of the stairs, Fabien lay in a pool of his own thickening blood.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Lussi stripped her denim jacket off and pressed it into the sucking hole in Fabien’s chest. The wound was just below his rib cage on his right side. Lussi didn’t have to ask how the pain was; she could tell plainly by the grimace on his face. But at least he could grimace. She’d only seen that look one other time, when he’d read a few lines of the latest Shaun Hutson. It’s vulgar as a pot of piss, he’d said, hurling the book off his seventh-floor hotel balcony.