Page 32 of Blood and Bells

“Yes. Those too.”

“I’m a Renaissance zombie,” Crinkshaw deadpans.

He steps forward and squints at some markings on the side of the structure. He reads aloud:

Think on the Holly’s Eve of cheer,

Two digits open, drawing mayhem near.

“What does that mean?” Holly whispers. “Why does this door know my name? I don’t want a giant nightmare calendar to know my name. This is worse than when an ex likes your posts.”

I shrug. “It’s how magic works. Crinkshaw, you have the answer?”

“Twenty-four. Christmas Eve. Eve of cheer.”

“There was an S,” Holly says, backing away from the calendar. “Digits. More than one.”

“Two and four, that’s two digits,” Ronan says triumphantly.

Holly frowns. “No, it isn’t. Do you know how numbers work?”

“It will be fine,” I soothe, certain that it will be anything but.

I wave a thread of magic toward the window marked twenty-four. The structure flares to life, glowing white, and Holly immediately buries her face in the back of my coat. I lift a hand to shield my eyes against the brightness, which rather unfortunately prevents me from properly appreciating this moment.

When the light finally fades and the air clears, the calendar is gone. In its place stands a frost-covered archway, filled with a glimmering nimbus of multicolored light. Bells tinkle softly in the background. Something dangles from the entranceway, and I reach forward to cup it in my hand.

“Look,” I say. “Mistletoe.”

I waggle my eyebrows at Holly and deploy every last ounce of charm I possess, letting the silver of my eyes catch the light reflecting off the snow as I lean in. Slowly. Agonizingly slowly. At a pace that makes women swoon.

It hardly registers. She’s too busy clutching her chest and breathing deeply.

“I hate magic so much,” she says. “So very, very much. None of this was covered in Event Planning School.”

“There’s an entire school for that?”

“It’s a series of online courses.”

I laugh and rub her arm because there’s nothing else to be done.

“We’ll be in and out before anyone notices. Ronan, be so kind as to lead the way. Let us enter the Hollow of Mischief.”

Chapter Eleven

We step through the portal, and the world twists around us in a dizzying swirl of red and white, like the stripy spiral of a Christmas lollipop. The colors blur together, streaking past in a hypnotic whirl, their sugary brightness edged with cracked peppermint—festive on purpose, but with a prickle of oddness underneath. The air is thick with the scent of candy canes and frost, sweet, cloying, and my stomach churns as the swirling slows, depositing us into the Hollow of Mischief with all the grace of a snow globe shattered on the floor.

This place is a Christmas fable gone wrong. Like if Willow Creek’s gala were designed by a madman who thinks ‘chaos’ is a type of tinsel. The ground beneath our feet is springy, felted snow—like a carpet underlay—over something that refuses identification. Twisted, blackened trees lean in closer with every step, their branches creaking like they’re trying to whisper secrets left behind. There’s not a single animal noise. Sound itself feels muted. Above, through a web of branches, the sky shows its sickly pink stripes—an unsettling reminder that we’re no longer in Willow Creek.

My spine shudders, and I decide a joke might help me feel better. Gallows humor feels appropriate when I’m surrounded by vampires. I open my mouth to say something witty, but to my surprise, I scream.

Crinkshaw and Ronan stare at me, eyes narrowed and eyebrows arched. Nick looks at me like I’ve lost all composure.

“I said it would be better if the lass didn’t come,” Ronan sighs.

“That’s not terribly gentlemanly of you,” Nick replies, that usual, annoying smug grin he always wears lighting his face. “Now we know that Holly has excellent projection.”

I turn a shade of crimson appropriate for the season and immediately wish the ground would open and swallow me. Of course, Nick would say something like that. Of course, he would.