In Love by Christmas: A Paranormal Romance (40 page)

57

Reparations

“
D
id you bring
your checkbook, Will?” Vanessa Schierman sat at her kitchen table with Will. He’d spent the night at the estate, being too shaken to go home, even with a chauffeur driving.

“Yes, Vanessa.”

“Good. Be a darling and write me a check for twenty million dollars.” She smiled, looking more like the gargoyles on her walls than she would have liked to admit.

“Twenty million dollars! Are you out of your mind?”

“I told you that you would be smiling and saying, ‘Yes, dear’—or Vanessa—for the next few years. And writing checks. So write me one for twenty million, now.”

“What could possibly cost that much?”

“Write the check, and then sign here and here, where the tags are.” She indicated a thick document. “Wait until Mrs. Naughton arrives to sign. She’s a notary.

“Do it, Will, or Ashley will turn into pumpkin and you’ll never see her again.”

“You wouldn’t do that!?”

“I certainly would, you deserve it. But
she
will be the one to reject you, not I. She has bleeding memories of what happened. She may remember the whole thing eventually. We will not talk about the Havertin Institute and your murderous predilection for putting your daughter places where they’ll kill her. We
will
remember it, and the jet landing on Skyline Boulevard, and what happened afterward. And why she’s alive, the reason for which you will never know.
Write the check, Will.”

He wrote the check.

Vanessa fanned a fat contract in front of him as Mrs. Naughton entered the room with her notary kit.

“Sign on the pages with the sticky tags,” Vanessa flipped through the document.

“What am I buying?”

“Read the contract.”

Will scanned the first few pages. “You’re selling Ashley and Leroy some of your property. I’m paying for it.”

“Brilliant, don’t you think? If Leroy doesn’t protect her from Donatore, the land will. Leroy would never be happy in that smog-infested, over-populated Valley where you live. Silicon Valley is jammed with arrogant, excessively smart, hubris-laden clods. It’s nothing like the old days down there, when people had taste and manners.

“He’ll love it up here. She’ll be happy and safe. Air rights to the entire estate are grandfathered in. He can commute by helicopter if he works for you. And you’ll never get an inch of my land in your name ever, Will, for any amount. I’m selling it to them.

“The fact that construction is already underway for the house keeps that despicable, communist Open Space Agency away. It’s a win-win.”

“Construction?”

“Yes, the twenty million covers the land, plans for the estate, and early development. You’ll have to cough up for the rest later. Now write me one for five million.”

“This is extortion, Vanessa.”

She shrugged. “Maybe. It’s also the price of grandchildren. I did do a bit of extraordinary magic yesterday. You owe me.”

Will cowered and wrote another check to Leroy and Ashley.

“The five million is a wedding present. Very generous of you, Will. Now, shall we go see them?”

“Yes! Where are they?”

“They’re at the barn. Leroy brought Ashley the most beautiful horse in the world home from England. I pulled every string I knew to get her—them, he brought a horse for himself too—through quarantine so they could be here for Christmas. You must see them. She’s ecstatic.”

He got up, but she put out a hand to caution him. “She fainted today, Will. I would be as nice to her as you can. No confrontation of any sort, and for God’s sake, don’t tell her what happened. Leroy can do that later.”

Ashley stood in the barn, hugging Leroy and looking at her beautiful new horse. “I’m sure she has a registered name, but I’d like to give her own name, one that I choose.” Ashley thought. “I’d like to name her Princess, or Star, or Twinkle.” She frowned. “But I can’t.”

“Why not?”

She whispered, “They’re not sophisticated names. I should name her Anastasia or Sarasvati.”

“Name her whatever you want. She’s your horse.”

If the heavens had opened and the Voice of God had boomed,
“It’s your horse, Ashley. Name her whatever you damn well please,”
Ashley’s reaction could not have been more profound.

“I don’t have to be sophisticated.” Her shoulders dropped and her mouth opened in a joyous Whoop! “I can do what I want. I’m free! Her name is
Princess
!”

A shadow darkened the entrance of the barn. Her father.

She shot toward him, fists clenched. “I don’t have to ride jumping horses and go to shows anymore. I hated them. I was scared. I did it for you, but I was scared to death. Every single time!”

She attacked so fast and hard that she didn’t notice that her father was twenty years older than she remembered and already looked like he’d been hit by a baseball pitched by a major leaguer at one hundred miles an hour.

“I hated you because you made me show horses. You didn’t really
make
me. It was, ‘Oh, sweetie pie. I’m so
proud
of you.’ You were only proud of me when I was doing something that
terrified
me. Or made me look better than everyone else.

“I will never show a horse again. Leroy knew about me right away. He brought me a horse that I really love. She’s beautiful, and sweet and not too big.”

Leroy raised his hand, “Um, Ashley, I just brought Princess, but I found her in a …” He sputtered. This was not the time to tell her about her mother.

No one paid any attention to him. Will backed out of the barn. Ashley shot after him.

“I’m not going to boarding school next year. I will
never
go to boarding school. The only reason you wanted me to go away was so you could have affairs and cover up Mommy’s drinking.
Do you think I didn’t know?”

Will backed up as fast as he could, taking giant steps rearward.

“Did you know when you were out with other women, Mommy cried? And then she drank. She fell down and hurt herself. It wasn’t just times you found out about, it was
lots
of times. I was scared stiff. A lot, Daddy, not just sometimes.

“I
heard it, not you. You’re a grown up. You’re supposed to love and take care of me, your kid, and you’re supposed to love your wife and not make her cry.
You didn’t do any of that!”

Will turned and bolted, running into an antique concrete garden bench that happened to be right behind him. He hit its back mid-thigh and flipped ass over forehead, his neck making an impossible backward curve. They heard a crunch. And then silence.

Leroy ran to him. “He’s out cold.” He began healing his father-in-law without any reluctance.

“I didn’t kill Daddy, did I?” Ashley was beside herself.

“Well, sweetheart,” Leroy said, “I’ve heard that the truth can’t kill. In this case, I think it maimed. He’ll be fine. I think.”

Epilogue

‘Twas the Night After Christmas

D
iego didn’t know
who he was or where he was. He didn’t know why he kept walking up and down the same stretch of road. Wisps of memories came and went. He was supposed to find someone. Someone else would be very angry at him if he knew what Diego was doing. He didn’t know who it was, but thinking of that person terrified him.

“I am good. I am kind. I only do good and kind things. I think good thoughts and I help people,” he said to himself. That was who he really was. Someone had done terrible things to him and hurt him very badly trying to make him think he was bad.

Whoever was after him wanted him to hurt people. He’d been on this mountain for days. He knew that he had to find someone here, or that other one would hurt him very much, if he caught him.

The hill was foggy. Fog came in and went out, came in, and … Things got lost in the fog. Thoughts and ideas. Everything was a fog, except for a kind voice telling him he was good.

“You will no longer act like a monster. You will not scare people. You will keep your claws and fangs and scales hidden, because you are so nice. You will help people and take care of them, and care for your wives and children. For the wives and children of all the world. You are good.”

That’s what Diego remembered. That and his name, Diego. He kept walking.

A black and white car pulled up next to him. “Hey, buddy. Would you come with us?”

“All right.” They wanted to put handcuffs on him, but Diego showed them his hands and wrists. They were torn up, almost to the bone. His nails were torn off. “If you put those one me, it would hurt me very much.”

“What happened to you?” Officer O’Riley asked.

“When I was getting out of the plane.”

“Which plane?”

“The one that crashed.”

“Crashed up here?”

“No. The one in the ocean.”

“The Bay, you mean?”

“I don’t know. It was wet. Everyone died.” That made Diego so sad, he cried.

“Maybe he was in the crash and has amnesia?” Lopez, O’Riley’s rookie partner, said.

“Or PTSD or something. What’s your name?

“Diego.”

“Diego what?”

“Just Diego.”

“Where are you from?”

“I don’t know.”

He had a Spanish accent. “Where are you from?” Officer Lopez asked in Mexican-accented Spanish.

“I don’t know,” Diego replied in pure Castilian tones.

“He’s Spanish, from Spain.”

“Why are you naked?”

“My clothes came off getting out of the plane.” Diego remembered a little bit. Clawing through the fuselage had taken all of his strength. His clothes split and tore from his body when his scales came out. Diego’s claws and teeth grew too, as sharp as they could be. He needed them; he had to get out of the plane.

“You got out of the plane that went into the Bay?”

“It was very wet.” He swam from the downed plane at the bottom of the Bay to a park on the water’s edge. It was the Palo Alto Baylands Park. It was dark. People were there, parked in cars, mating.

When his scales went back inside him and he looked like a human, he knew he needed clothes. He thought that he could kill one of the humans in the cars and take his clothes, but something occurred to him. He was good. He only did good things. Killing someone, especially while mating, was not nice.

So Diego left the park, silently and almost invisibly. He went to an all-night grocery store. They had no clothes to steal, but a box on the wall showed many moving pictures. It showed a plane fall into the water. He had been on that one. Another plane crashed at the same time, on Skyline.

Diego didn’t know why, but he knew whomever it was that he wanted was up there, in that plane or near it. He had to go from where he was to the top of that mountain.

The store was empty; it was very late. Diego asked the man behind the counter, “Can you tell me how to get to Skyline from here?” He remembered to speak English.

“You fucking asshole! Get out of here! Stop bothering me! Get some clothes, for Christ’s sake.”

The man was very angry. Diego realized that there must be more like himself, wandering around without clothes.

“I’m very sorry,” he said. “I lost my clothes in the plane crash. I need a map to get to Skyline Boulevard.”

“You were in the crash! Holy shit! Let me call an ambulance for you.”

“I’m OK. I need to get to Skyline.”

“Why?”

“I’m supposed to find the other plane.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. May I have a map?”

He gave it to him, but he called the police after Diego left. Diego hid and they didn’t get him. He was proud of himself, because he could feel his scales wanting to come out. He didn’t let them. He was good and kind and did not hurt people.

Now he was sitting in a police car on Skyline Boulevard.

“You’re saying that you escaped from the plane crash and came up here. Like that? No clothes?”

“Yes. I had a map.”

“You went all the way through Palo Alto, Stanford, Woodside, and then up the mountain, naked as a jay bird. And no one noticed?”

“They noticed. I was in a place called Stanford. Someone gave me something called a beer and asked if I had gone to the frat party. I said, ‘Yes, I have just come from there.’ He said, ‘Did you get any?’ I didn’t know what he meant, but I said yes. He said, ‘Way to go, bro’, and slapped my hand. What is a bro?”

Lopez and O’Riley rolled their eyes.

“What planet are you from?”

“I believe I am from the planet Earth, though that may not be accurate.”

“So you get up here and do what?”

“I walked along the road.”

“Naked.”

“Yes.” Truthfully, Diego had been tempted. He was very hungry and cold. People were walking in these mountains and he saw many signs saying “hiking trail.” He thought that killing one of these hiking people, taking his clothes and eating him might be a way to get warm and fill his belly.

But he remembered that killing and eating people and stealing their clothes was not good. So he shivered.

“Why are you walking along here? Do you know whose place this is, where you’ve been walking?” O’Riley thought if their weird friend knew whose house he was stalking, he’d pick up his blocks and leave the party.

“No. It is a very dark place.”

“Do you know anyone in there?”

“I think the person I am supposed to find is in there, but I don’t know how to get in.”

“Who is this person?”

“He is my father.”

“What’s his name?”

“His name is Leroy.”

“Would he take you if we turned you over to him?”

“I think so. He said he loved me.”

A posse of Sheriff’s patrol cars had gathered behind them. O’Riley turned to his partner. “Lopez, you’re new to Woodside. I’m going to teach you the way I teach all of my partners. They give us courses on how to act down in the flats, in the barrio. They don’t give classes on how to act here, with the rich people,
especially here
, in the place we’re going. You gotta adapt to the culture and understand the customs of the people or you’ll fuck up real bad. That means they’ll come after you with
lawyers.
You don’t ever want to see a rich man’s attorney. No matter what happens when we get inside, don’t tell anyone. Not your mother, or your wife, or your father confessor.”

O’Riley drove south on Skyline about a mile and a half, all the black and whites following him. He pulled over, dialed a number, and was told he could enter.

“Turn in the gate, Officer,” said a crackly old voice from the phone. “Your car may enter, no one else’s. Tell the rest of them to go home. We’re having a Day-After-Christmas party.”

They turned through some gates that just appeared in the fog. Looked like they came from Frankenstein. O’Riley thought he saw trees move to get out of the car’s way as they drove down a lane that showed up out of nowhere.

“You’ll never see nothing like this,” O’Riley said to Lopez. The forest ended abruptly and they crossed a huge lawn. Baying filled their ears. “Oh, God, the dogs are out.” Hideous, gigantic dogs with misshapen heads circled the black and white as they approached the mansion. A few had pointed muzzles.

“Are those things on the walls moving?” Lopez grabbed his arm.

“Yes.” O’Riley turned to Diego. “How’re y’ doin’?”

Diego’s eyes glowed with wonder as he gazed at the mansion. “It’s beautiful.”

A huge African American dude met them at the door. He didn’t invite them in. The guy had what seemed to be brands blazing on every inch of skin that showed. “What are you doing here, Diego?” The dogs were friendlier than this guy.

“I am good. I am kind. I only do nice things. Because of you, that is how I am. I came to you because someone very bad wants to make me bad again. See what he did to me.”

Diego opened his arms and O’Riley fully saw what he’d glimpsed before. Diego’s torso looked like someone had run him over with a rototiller.

“He did this to me, and much worse. But I didn’t turn bad. He just thought I did.”

Leroy scowled, “Were you on the plane following us?”

“Yes. I thought I could run away when we landed.”

“Did you hurt her?”

“No! I would not hurt anything. I am good. She was gone with you when we arrived.”

“If you’d had the chance to hurt her, would you?”

“No. I could have hurt many people getting here, if I wanted. But I didn’t. I wanted to get to you.”

“Why?” Leroy’s eyes were angry slits.

“So you could protect me. I am very afraid. He is after me.”

“Enzo, your brother?”

Diego screamed and fell on the stone porch with his hands over his ears. He groveled and wept.

“Why did you want me?” the big guy with the brands said.

“You made me. In the park. You said the good words and changed us all. I went to sleep. When I woke up, that bad person was there and caught me. All the others got away. They didn’t sleep as long as me.”

“How many were there with you?”

“Twenty. They got away, but I slept longer and the bad man got me.”

A tiny old Indian joined the big guy in the doorway. “Twenty of your kind, good like you, are running loose?”

“Yes. They do not hurt people or eat …” Diego shut up fast. “Leroy changed us. We are good.

“I came here so he didn’t get me again and make me do bad things. I am
good. Leroy
made me good. Please.”

The old man approached him. “Bend down, Diego. I want to look in your mouth.” Diego did and the old man looked, then stood up, nodding. “Hmm.”

Then he was stern. “Did you attack my people at the Meeting?”

Diego cringed. “Yes. I did. If you want to kill me for that, you can.”

“Ah. You know I can kill you. Do you know who I am?”

“Yes. I am sorry. Please forgive me. You can hurt me as much as you want.” Diego fell to Grandfather’s feet. “Hurt me. I don’t care. I am good now; I would never do that now.”

O’Riley looked at Lopez.
Holy fucking shit
hovered between them.

A woman almost as tall as the black guy, and older than anyone O’Riley had seen, inserted herself between the two men. Her head looked like it might fall off. That was Dr. Schierman, the estate’s owner. He’d met her during the ticket sale for the Sheriff’s Ball for the last fifteen years.

“How do you do, Dr. Schierman,” O’Riley said.

“I’m fine, Ben. Are you selling tickets to the Sheriff’s Ball? I’ll take all of them.”

“No, ma’am. We’re trying to find out who this guy is.” He nodded at Diego.

A black ruff of silk and glittering spikes shot from the old lady’s neck. A wand—a real witch’s wand—appeared in her hand. Sparks shot off the end.

“What are you doing here, Diego?” Her eyes were no longer kind.

“I need help. I am good now, but no one wants to help me. I could have eaten many hikers coming here, but I didn’t.”

“That’s a
wonderful
recommendation, Diego. Officer O’Riley, take him to jail. I won’t have him here.”

“Wait, Vanessa,” the old Indian said. “You’re missing something. What is strange about this situation?”

O’Riley couldn’t see a thing odd. A naked man, obviously a torture victim, stood in an entranceway with carved-stone snakes crawling up the walls. They faced a branded, enraged giant, a witch, and an old Indian midget. Normal as pie.

“I have no idea, Joseph.”

“He’s
here
. The land let him in. He can’t be evil if he’s here. The land would kill him.”

“They got in at the Meeting just fine,” the giant spit out.

“They got in because of the wrong-doing of my People. People flaunted the Rules, drank and fornicated, and made an opening for demons. Diego is here by himself.”

“I am good.”

“I think you are, Diego.” The little guy turned to the giant, “My grandson! You have created a miracle. You have saved the most evil of all.”

“No,” Diego whispered, “
that’s
my brother.”

“Leroy, you turned a creature of the darkness into a creature of light. Let me hug you.” The big guy bent about in half hugging the old man. “We will go inside and get Diego some food. We will finish our party, and I will tell you about the great event that has happened. Come!”