A Fashionably Dead Christmas Read online

  “Fine,” I huffed and let my magic recede. “He can keep his wiener, but if you cover any more of my decorations in black glitter, you’ll be singing soprano. We clear?”

  Satan slowly removed his hands from his crotch and nodded. “Yes, I believe we are. Now back to me and my issues. And please do not call my behemoth man package a wiener ever again.”

  I was speechless. Never in my life had I heard the term behemoth man package. The unfortunate visual was therapy inducing, not to mention gross. Ethan covered a muffled laugh with a coughing fit. It was a pathetic cover considering Vampyres didn’t really ever have to cough. Thankfully Satan was too self-absorbed to even notice.

  “It’s not fair. I want a birthday,” he insisted and stomped his foot like Samuel did when he didn’t get his way.

  My tiny and wildly unstable grandmother marched up to her six feet six certifiable son and slapped him on the chest. “Listen you little shit, calendars hadn’t been invented when you and your brother were born. I am getting bored with your petty whining over this.”

  “But God says his birthday is in June,” Satan accused. “You are a horrible mother to know one son’s birthday and not the other. And for this very reason, I shall permanently wipe June off the calendar year.”

  “Whoa, I call bullshit,” I said. “My birthday is in June. You leave June the Hell alone.”

  “Fine,” Mother Nature yelled at the Devil. “Your birthday is in April.”

  “April what?” he demanded.

  “It’s… April first,” she answered and then glanced quickly at her shoes.

  Ethan had a second coughing fit and I seriously wanted to join him. I hadn’t missed my grandmother’s evil smirk, but Satan sure had. Mother Nature had just given the Devil April Fool’s Day as his birthday. Clearly the victorious grin on his face proved he had no clue he’d been duped.

  “Wonderful. I declare April first to be a world wide holiday,” my Uncle said grandly.

  The Devil was obviously on a roll now. I adjusted my underpants weenie and sat back down to enjoy the show.

  “It will completely eclipse Christmas,” he went on. “There will be singing and fornication, and… ”

  “Flying monkeys shooting out of everyone’s asses?” I proposed.

  “Not sure that would make me very popular—and sounds rather unpleasant—but if it’s the new thing, I shall decree it,” he announced.

  “Hell’s Bells,” Mother Nature sniped. “This is making me gassy. I’m done with this subject. How did your meeting go?”

  “What meeting?” I asked. I really needed to find the baboon and get rid of it, but I knew my son was safe with Venus. And my curiosity was piqued. Or maybe I needed the distraction to keep from screaming the walls down around me.

  “My meeting with that talented fuckwad, Steve Perry,” Satan supplied with a displeased grunt.

  “Steve Perry’s not dead.” At least I didn’t think he was…

  “Well, he almost was today,” my uncle muttered under his breath. “I made that bastard famous and this is how he thanks me?”

  “Excuse me, Mr. Liar Liar Pants on Fire?” Mother Nature challenged with an eye roll and an un-ladylike grunt.

  “I did—you know I did,” Satan insisted. “I made sure all the other bands at the time produced crap… and I might have cooked the poll numbers a teeny tiny bit.”

  “And?” she prompted.

  “Well, I might have induced a few influenzas, created strife amongst several popular bands, twisted a couple vocal chords, encouraged some unsavory addictions… ”

  Mother Nature cleared her throat loudly, slapped her hands onto her hips, and gave her son a glare that made me want to hide.

  “Fine,” he huffed. “I gave forty-two bands the crabs so Journey had very little to no competition. Is that what you wanted me to say?” he yelled at his mother.

  “Oh my Hell, that is just wrong and horrible,” I said with a disgusted groan.

  I was pretty sure Ethan had a coughing fit for real this time.

  “Yes. Of course it was. And your point would be?” Satan asked, completely stymied as to why anything he did would be wrong.

  “Nothing. Forget it,” I said as I pressed my temples.

  I tried to remember if I’d been wasted when I decided inviting my family for the holiday was a good idea. The only problem with that theory was that it was next to impossible for a Vamp to tie one on. Not to mention, I was a young Vampyre and could only drink blood. I had a few hundred years before I could tolerate any other kind of liquid—alcohol or not.

  “So it went poorly then?” Mother Nature asked her boy.

  “Yesssssss,” Satan whined with an unhappy shake of his head. “Getting the band back together is apparently not going to happen.”

  My gaze bounced between my grandmother and my uncle. “Because I enjoy asking questions I don’t want the answers to, why in the Hell are you trying to get the band back together?”

  My Uncle stared at me like I’d grown two heads.

  “Because I want them to play at a ceremony I’m attending… ” he started explaining and then stopped abruptly. Slapping his hand over his mouth, his eyes grew wide with something I couldn’t put my finger on.

  “What kind of ceremony? Where do you want them to play? In Hell?”

  I giggled. My Uncle’s Journey obsession bordered on stalking.

  “Um… not exactly,” he hedged. “It’s a surprise.”

  “Please don’t tell me you’re trying to join the band,” I said as Ethan’s fourth coughing fit ensued.

  “Sweet Universe on fire,” Mother Nature said gleefully. “He tried that in the seventies. It was a no go then too. He doesn’t like to admit it, but my dear son is tone deaf.”

  “That’s quite enough, Mother, ” Satan grumbled as he flicked a pile of red ornamental balls off the table sending them crashing to the floor.

  Without a thought I aimed and fired. The zap to my uncle’s ass was loud and satisfying. However, the appalled silence in the room after the fact—including mine—was scary.

  Satan was frozen like a statue—an angry frightening statue from Hell.

  “Um… sorry,” I muttered, wondering if I was going to be alive to celebrate the holidays. “I did warn you about messing up my stuff.”

  My words came out like a strangled croak.

  Ethan stood and quickly shielded my body with his.

  Shitbrainsfuckballs.

  “Bravo! That was outstanding,” Mother Nature yelled. “Satan—if you retaliate, I will take back your birthday.”

  “How? Can you really do that?” he asked.

  Glittering black magic floated around him and I stepped out from behind my mate. It was my bad and Ethan would not suffer due to my itchy fingers.

  “Yes. I’m Mother fucking Nature,” she replied airily. “I can do whatever I want.”

  “Hmmmm… I’ve grown quite fond of the April first date.” Satan paused dramatically and considered. “Astrid, you’re safe this time. But since you burned a hole in a five thousand dollar pair of pants, and possibly scarred my perfect ass, I get to enhance four of your Christmas decorations.”

  I didn’t trust the wicked gleam in his eyes.

  “How in the Hell did your pants cost five thousand dollars?” I stared doubtfully at his pants. He was so full of shit.

  “They’re custom,” he replied.

  “Oh, well alright then,” I said, now understanding. He was a bigger clothes whore than I was.

  But back to the matter at hand.

  If I didn’t agree to allow Satan to enhance four of my decorations, there was a fine chance the entire room would end up black. A fourth of it was destroyed anyway. What did a few more changes matter?

  Shitshitshit. I never should have zapped him.

  I was actually getting off pretty easy considering I’d marred the Devil.

  “Okay. Only four things,” I told him warily. “And you can’t touch the tree. Samuel loves it.”
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  “That works for me,” he said with a smile that made me tingle all over and not in a good way.

  Slowly he walked around the room and examined the décor. His eye rolling and snorts of disgust made me nervous. It would take Hell freezing over for me to ever host a holiday again. This was turning into a massive clusterfuck and it had barely begun.

  It took the Devil twenty-three minutes and seventeen seconds to choose his prey. And true to his word—he enhanced them. He enhanced them to the point they should be put away for Halloween or burned in a bonfire.

  My once beautiful wreath over the mantle now sported naked big-breasted angels with mohawks and evil red eyes.

  The life-sized nutcracker now owned a boner.

  The Elf on the Shelf resembled Medusa with heinous snakes coming out of every orifice.

  And the star on the top of the tree was now a headless bloody Demon.

  “There. I think everything looks much better this way,” Satan said with a shrug and a lopsided grin.

  “And I think your taste sucks,” I replied. “You weren’t supposed to touch the tree.”

  “I didn’t,” he said innocently. “I fixed your star. It’s far more riveting this way.”

  I shook my head and gave the equivalent of a put upon sigh for someone who couldn’t breathe. “You done?”

  “For now,” he said.

  “Fair’s fair,” I shot back. “You ruin one more thing and I shrink your pants so your nuts end up in your throat.”

  Satan’s laugh of pure pleasure made me giggle. Sadly the niece apple didn’t fall all that far from the uncle tree.

  “Astrid, you continue to delight me,” he bellowed. “Now I’d like to see my boy. I have a present for him.”

  “Is it alive?” Ethan asked warily.

  “Absolutely not,” Satan replied, offended. “I’m far more responsible than my mother. It’s a Ouija board that talks.”

  “Fucking wonderful,” Ethan muttered as he stared at the ceiling and appeared to be praying for patience.

  I was going to owe my mate too many blowjobs to count to make up for the debacle I had been hoping to call a family Christmas.

  “Alrighty then,” I said in a voice that barely passed for civil. “Let’s go find my son and the baboon.”

  “Samuel named him Blobbityflonk!” Mother Nature announced with pride as she floated out of the room.

  “I love it,” Satan yelled as he followed his mother. “The boy is brilliant.”

  “This is going to be a long damn twenty-four hours,” Ethan stated the obvious as we slowly left the now ugly room.

  “That’s an understatement,” I said miserably. “A huge fucking understatement.”

  I glanced backwards and made eye contact with one of the butt-ass naked angels on my wreath. For a brief moment I was sure she winked at me. I closed my eyes and looked again. She was still. Obviously, I needed a nap in a big way.

  Chapter 5

  “What the fuck is going on in here?” I shouted as I entered my son’s nursery.

  Satan, Mother Nature, Ethan and I stood in the entryway with mouths agape. Not a peep came from any of them about my inappropriate language in front of my child.

  Clearly we were all on the same page for once.

  The room was decimated. Furniture was broken. Shredded clothing lay in piles on the floor.

  Toys were beheaded and dismembered and the bedding hung from the light fixtures on the ceiling.

  My son sat in the middle of the chaos cradled by a baboon who was clearly besotted with my child. Samuel’s chubby cheeks were covered in primate spit and he was giggling like he was drunk.

  Knowing my son’s immortal life wasn’t in danger was a relief. However, the clusterfuck that was his play area was another story.

  “What the fuck?” Samuel squealed as the baboon grunted and rocked.

  “Garuumph flafla googoobaba,” the hairy animal yelled, and then grunted out what I hoped was laughter.

  “I am so sorry,” a frazzled looking Venus apologized as she crawled out from beneath a mountain of ruined toys. “It all happened so fast I couldn’t stop it.”

  My beautiful friend, who was one of the deadliest Vampyres I knew, was dazed and confused.

  “Are you okay, Venus?” I asked as I helped her to her feet.

  Her gorgeous dark black skin actually looked pale and her wild curly hair stood on end. Venus was a freakin’ mess.

  “Um… as far as I know—yes. I was fairly certain you didn’t want me to kill the baboon, so I simply tried to run interference. Not sure I did a good job,” she whispered as she took in the room with a wince.

  “Samuel’s alive and unharmed. You performed as well as anyone could have. Why don’t you go take a shower, drink some blood, and pass out,” I suggested.

  “Okay. I’ll take you up on that one,” Venus replied with a weak grin as she practically sprinted from the room. “Oh, and Blobbityflonk is quite friendly, just destructive.”

  “Got it,” I muttered as I advanced on my baby and his new friend.

  “Oweeeeeeeeeeeeee,” a small voice shrieked from underfoot as I navigated my way across the room.

  “Right. I should have known,” I snapped.

  I reached down and yanked my four Baby Demons out from underneath a pile of ripped up Superhero underoos.

  “Did you guys have anything to do with this shit show?” I demanded as I plopped them on top of what used to be Samuel’s big boy bed.

  “Mooooomeeeeey,” Beyonce shouted. “Me love the babooooooon. He so funny!”

  The other three nodded their little heads spastically in agreement.

  My Baby Demons were tiny menaces, but I adored them. Beyonce, Honest Abe, Rachel and Ross stood about three inches tall. I found them on my ceiling when I’d just been turned and had adopted them as my own. On days like today, I regretted the decision immensely. They were named because of their uncanny resemblance to their historical counterparts.

  They were ugly little suckers who didn’t poop or bite. However, they did eat. They ate bad Demons and occasionally car salesmen.

  “The baboon has to go. The four of you do enough damage without adding a hairy six foot beast to the mix,” I stated firmly.

  And that’s when the crying started.

  Initially it was just the Baby Demons. Along with the tears, they began slapping themselves and each other as they tumbled off the remains of the bed and into a pile of what looked disturbingly like baboon poop.

  Samuel started next. Huge tears rolled down his cheeks as he silently pled with me not to get rid of his new beloved pet from Hell—or the zoo to be more accurate.

  Third and most alarming, the baboon let her rip. Enormous tears and sobbing that made me slap my hands over my ears ensued from him.

  The waterworks in the room almost rivaled the monsoon from my closet, but not quite.

  “Enough,” I shouted over the opera of sorrow. “Turn off the tears. If I get wet again, my dress will shrink more. Santa will be in danger of seeing my ass—not to mention the rest of my unstable family.”

  “Can me smack your ass?” Abe inquired politely.

  “No, you cannot,” I snapped as I put some distance between me and the little Demon bastards. I was certain they were covered in baboon crap and I had nothing else to wear. I refused to smell like primate poop. Not happening.

  “Samuel,” I reasoned as I gingerly removed my baby from the wailing baboon’s furry arms. “Your new friend seems… um… lovely… but this is not a good place to keep a baboon. Grandma Gigi was planning all along to let him live with her and you can visit him whenever you want.”

  “I was?” Mother Nature asked in surprise.

  “Yes,” I hissed through my smile, as I shot her a look that made even Satan drop his gaze. “You were.”

  “Oh, right,” she agreed quickly. “He can live with my monkeys in the guest house. There’s a pool and a wonderful Jacuzzi, and a banana grove right outside.”

 
Samuel considered this new wrinkle seriously for a moment before he nodded sadly. “Okay, Mommy. But he can stay for Christmas, right?”

  I nodded numbly and mentally kicked my own ass hard for giving in so easily. If the baboon could do this much damage in the space of an hour or so, there was no telling what he could fuck up in twenty-four. But I had given my child my word.