Disclaimers: It all belongs to
L.J. Smith.
Notes: Written for the LJS100 'Halloween'
challenge on LiveJournal. A Halloween drabble starring Nilsson for
the awesome Cathy as a thank you for a picture she's drawing for me.
--
Halloween was Nilsson's night off. He never did anything much, just kicked back with some popcorn and a beer or two and indulged in a marathon of bad horror movies. The aim was to enjoy himself and relax, then get a few hours of decent sleep; he'd be needing it for the following day. The reason that Nilsson always took Halloween off was because of the aftermath of Thierry's famous Halloween parties. He used to attend them, but had found that if he didn't get some kind of relaxation in preparation for the cleanup the following day, he was in danger of going homicidal.
Generally these parties started out restrained, only to devolve into madness when most of the guests had gone home with only the residents and die-hard party-goes left. Swinging from chandeliers was among the least of the wild activities that over-excited and inebriated Night Worlders got up to. He was pretty sure that some of the escapades he'd witnessed over the years were illegal in at least thirteen states, and other things would have been illegal if the authorities had ever dreamed they were possible. Nilsson himself wished that someone would invent brain bleach, because he'd dearly love to forget some of the things he'd seen. If he'd been dealing with humans, he'd have some wicked blackmail material. Unfortunately, it was dangerous to even attempt to blackmail Night Worlders. A witch would hex you to death (if you were lucky), a vampire would do unspeakable and painful things to your body you before draining you dry, and werewolves... well, actually werewolves weren't so bad in the scheme of things, but if they decided to get some petty revenge, it was never pleasant. It had taken weeks to get rid of the overpowering, vile scent of werewolf piss from the front steps of the mansion after Ash Redfern had swindled (there had never been proof per se that he'd cheated) a group of them in a game of poker.
All in all, Nilsson was usually a calm, patient man, but one look at his face after one particularly bad cleanup operation (that year had involved Hunter Redfern, a can of squirty cheese and a priceless, antique chaise longue in the library; and that was the tame part) had left Thierry looking a trifle alarmed and readily agreeing to his butler taking Halloween as paid leave. With the chaos of the most recent party critically surveyed, Nilsson decided that he was going to be asking Thierry for an extra bonus in his salary this year. Then he caught sight of Hugh, and promptly changed his mind. He was going to demand a raise, and he wasn't even going to think about how Hugh could have possibly got his head stuck between the slender gaps of bannisters on the main staircase. Though, despite his annoyance, he couldn't help but smirk at the genius who had found reindeer antlers and stuck them on the boy's head. Very decorative.
Snapping on some rubber gloves, Nilsson set about directing his cleaning crew to where they needed to be first, and then gave himself the task of releasing Hugh from the clutches of the staircase. If it involved tools or damaging the bannister, Nilsson was going to take the path of least resistance and rip the Old Soul's head off to free him. It wasn't as if the boy wouldn't be back again in a decade or so, after all.
Fin.