Chapter 7
"Spike." Warm breath was in his ear, pulling him from a sound sleep. He cracked his eyes the least bit, and saw that it was morning. A wet little tongue dipped hummingbird-like into the ear and small teeth tugged deliciously at his lobe. The enticing whisper came again.
"Want to see an old southern holiday tradition?"
Spike rolled onto his back to find Fred leaning over him in the bed, bracing herself on her palms, long brown strands of hair tickling his chest and shoulders, and he smiled in anticipation. "Mmmm, yeah. Is it nicer than mistletoe?" Then he saw the gleam of criminal mischief in her eyes. "Oh, god, what is it?"
"CHRISTMAS GIFT!" She screamed into his face. She vaulted across the mattress with a squeal of laughter, not quite kneeing him in the stomach, and galloped to the doorway, dragging most of the bedcovers with her.
"CHRISTMAS GIFT! CHRISTMAS GIFT!" Now her parents could be heard shouting the weird greeting from the other end of the house, and Spike wondered if the entire family had gone berserk. He sat up groggily and drew on a shirt and warm-up pants (Bloody hell, where's she getting her energy?), and then Fred was back in the room, pulling him to his feet and down the hallway.
"Come ON! It's time to open presents!"
"I'm comin'. What the hell was that all about?"
"Whoever yells 'Christmas Gift' first on Christmas Morning wins."
"Wins what? A chorus of 'It's 5:00 A.M., shut the fuck up' from everyone else?"
"They don't win anything. It's just the tradition...only most people don't do it much anymore," she admitted.
"Small wonder."
It was fun, though, opening bundles with the Burkle clan. No sitting politely for this lot, passing out items one at a time like timid old ladies. They attacked their tree, crawling around it on their hands and knees, tossing boxes and stockings back and forth with gusto, creating a snowstorm of wrapping paper. Nothing at all like the quiet Christmas mornings Spike remembered from his youth, although those had been good, too - woolen sock hanging from the bedpost, heavy with ribbon candy and oranges; sip of port with the grown-ups by the best parlor's fireplace; winding the big Swedish music box; watching Mother distribute gifts to the servants out in the hall.
He gave those long-ago days a mental "Cheers," and then he joined the mayhem on the floor.
At eleven o'clock Illyria opened her eyes.
"Happy Christmas! You're just in time. We've slaughtered a bird, not in your highness's honor, thanks anyway, and now we're gonna eat it and open the rest of the prezzies." Spike raised a glass to her from across the dining table. Illyria took stock of the room and then appraised the plate in front of her.
"Fred fixed that," Trish told her. "If there's anything on it that you don't like, or you want more of something, why, just help yourself. I cook a real good turkey and dressing if I do say so."
Illyria took a bite and swallowed. "During my reign it was a sacred privilege to remain in my presence while I was eating. My subjects brought me delicacies from the ends of the universe, and vied for my attentions. I was fed the comestibles of Anshar and Olympia."
"We used to do all our grocery shopping at the Piggly Wiggly."
Roger passed a bowl of mashed potatoes to his wife. "We put your presents over there under the tree, 'Lyria. You can open 'em now if you want to."
Spike and the Burkles continued to eat, and Illyria came to the conclusion that she was expected to retrieve the presents herself. She waded slowly through the shredded tissue and foil, knelt, and pushed back loose paper until she found several still-intact packages. In them she found: a soft chenille throw blanket; a set of nunchukas; a PlayStation2; a large bouquet of peacock feathers; and a Sea Monkey kit.
"We thought that video machine was something all three of you could use; it's got a DVD player 'n everything. Spike said you liked Crash Bandicoot, and there's a Grand Theft Auto game and a Mercenaries. We didn't get Final Fantasy 'cause I thought it looked kinda sissy." Fred's father paused to take a sip from an enormous glass of iced tea. "Now, those sea monkeys don't really wear little crowns like it shows on the box. We were gonna get you an ant farm but the post office couldn't deliver the ants on time, so you'll hafta take a raincheck."
Illyria stared at the fine print on the box.
"These are brine shrimp."
"Yeah, ain't that a kick in the pants? Where they got 'monkeys' outta that I'll never know."
Illyria opened her mouth to inform the shell's parents that she found shrimp tiresome and had no use for their world in microcosm. Then, for some reason she couldn't explain (and puzzled over later, floating through the Eternal Shrimp Dimension to see if that would provide an answer), she checked her words and said instead, "I thank you. For the shrimp. They will be fine shrimp."
The bulk of Christmas Night was spent snogging on the couch.
It was nice that the mister and missus retired to bed early, and that the telly was just loud enough to give them a bit of privacy, and that the long, slow, drugging kisses between mouthfuls of wine were so deep and heady that their tongues caressed places they hadn't known a tongue could reach. When finally kissing was not enough - "In the shower, I want you in the shower," - Spike got to his feet with a groan and hurried the bottle of wine back to the kitchen refrigerator.
When he returned, he discovered Fred lying on her back underneath the Christmas tree, her head and shoulders hidden by branches.
He squatted down beside her, amused and curious. "Thought we were gonna do it in the bathroom, Love."
Winifred smiled. "I had to do this first. I almost forgot." Her hands rested on her stomach, fingers interlaced. "When I was little I liked to turn off all the lights in the room and look up into the tree this way. Come on, try it. It's like magic from this angle."
"All right." He slid down next to her and wiggled onto his back, feeling a pleasant sense of deja vu - how often he had humored Dru this way, going along with some insane fancy that had struck her, usually something that only she could see.
"Isn't it wonderful? It's like you're one of the ornaments." Fred stared up into the tree's depths. Spike followed her gaze and discovered that she was right: your entire field of vision from here was filled completely by metallic sparklings and glowing colored bulbs and the dark, shadowy green of the branches and trunk, which rose up and up unendingly.
"Did you ever try this stoned?" he asked, meaning it as a joke.
"Yeah, but it wasn't nearly as good." She missed his surprised double-take, her eyes remaining fixed on the view overhead. "The nicest way is stone-cold sober. Then you know you're not just dreaming."
Did I dream?
Oz raised his head from the car's bucket seat and looked around him. It was daylight, the morning of the 28th, and the air was still chilled. Both of the car's doors were thrown wide open, and the ice chest had been emptied of the bones and hamburger and the chest itself chewed to pieces. Jordy was curled up in the passenger seat, bare-naked and shivering on top of the pile of blankets, and Oz found that he himself was in that condition as well. He tugged his own blankets out from under him and laid them over his little cousin, then hurriedly dressed and cranked the car, snapping the heat switch to "High."
Jordy stirred now, blinking. "We're okay," Oz told him. "Made it through the night. No more 'til next month." The meditation hadn't worked as well this time, but he hadn't really expected it to. He remembered snippets of the moon hours: showing Jordy the meat stash; herding him back towards the car (den) whenever they strayed too far from it. He had managed to remain partly human, he thought.
They got back onto the highway once more. After several miles of silence Jordy spoke up.
"Those people were crazy."
"Pretty much," Oz agreed.
"Elsie D was okay. The rest of them were scary. They'll keep them in jail, won't they?" It was another question he'd asked repeatedly.
"Yeah." Oz had a nagging question of his own, one that continued to puzzle him. "Jord, what did they do when you changed?"
"I don't remember. They didn't say anything to me about it. They were always sleeping when I woke up; they always slept a long time in the mornings. Maybe they tied me up or something."
A kid turning into a wolf hadn't scared them shitless? Had they been so drunk or so high that they hadn't even noticed for two nights in a row?
Highway 82 to Alamogordo; Highway 70 to Las Cruces.
They were west of Las Cruces when the alternator went out.
"I think everyone really liked their presents this year," Fred announced. She maneuvered the van along Interstate 10, heading west back to Phoenix. Overcast weather with possible rain had helped them decide to start out during daylight, but to be on the safe side Spike had chosen to stay in the back seat with the windows comfortingly covered by black plastic trashbags.
"Yeah, the 'chuks weren't a bad idea after all. Gives Blue something to do with her hands."
"Uh-huh. And she's not as likely to break things with them. We can always get her the boomerang some other time."
A car came into view on the shoulder of the road. Its hood was up, and as they drew abreast of it Spike exclaimed in surprise and leaned forward.
"Fred, turn around. I know that bloke - the one just stuck his head under the bonnet. Back us up."
"What? I can't - wait, there's an underpass. Who is it?"
Spike broke into a chuckle. "Well, I'll be damned."
The van took an exit and circled back until it approached the stalled car again. It pulled up behind it, and Fred leaned out her driver's side window. "Hey, y'all want a lift?"
"Yeah, thanks." Oz slammed the hood down and motioned Jordy out of the car. He opened the van's side door and boosted the boy inside, then climbed in after him and started to add, ""If you can give us a ride to a repair shop, that'd be great."
He stopped in mid-sentence and stared over the middle seat. And from the back of the van a familiar face grinned and asked cheerfully, "How are things in the land of loup-garou, Osbourne?"