Page 80 of Blood and Bells

Inconveniently, I would like very much not to.

She turns away before I can do anything foolish. Or more foolish.

“Damian—take a small strike team, thin the elves on the flanks. Ranu—set up recovery: Nanaimo bars, cocoa, seats by the diner heaters. Borrow extension cords if you have to. Three on the roofs—there, there, and there—if it jingles and isn’t festive, sing out.”

And there it is again. That stubborn miracle of Willow Creek. A town that brings casseroles and extension cords when the world misbehaves. A place full of stubborn, ordinary people who keep showing up, again and again, and who somehow expect that to be enough.

Absurdly, it usually is.

The coven moves. No hesitation. No debate.

Just…movement.

I watch her for a second, the way she stands there with that clipboard like it’s a weapon of mass organization, turning chaos into something almost reasonable.

She is, infuriatingly, very good at this.

And I—equally infuriatingly—am a little in awe of her.

I give the barest nod as the others pass, which is all the permission they need. We’re doing this her way.

Assuming we survive, I suspect they’ll be doing it her way rather often.

“Our priority is waking up the townsfolk,” Holly says, already moving onto the next crisis. “We can’t do anything while Santa’s got them magically captured. We use carols, cocoa, and contact. Warm hands, warm voices, familiar faces. We start bringing them back and get them to help us rouse the others.”

My brethren spread out, serious in their tasks. In short order, we’re divided and slipping through the streets toward the town center.

On impulse, I take Holly’s hand.

Her fingers are cold from the night, faintly dusted with sugar and glitter—evidence of her recent proximity to festive sabotage—and they fit into mine with a kind of alarming precision.

She startles, glancing at me, and for a moment I think I’ve overstepped.

Then she doesn’t let go.

That steadies me more than it has any right to.

When I moved the coven to Willow Creek, it was meant to be another distraction. Something to occupy immortals who’ve already fought most of their wars—including the one that got us banned from Christmas in the first place.

In hindsight, defeating Santa and expecting him to take it well was optimistic.

Now there’s a town being slowly hollowed out by a corrupted ornament, a centuries-old grudge unfolding in real time, and a woman beside me who has decided—clipboard in hand—that this is a logistical issue we can solve if everyone would just cooperate.

Against all available evidence, I find that reassuring.

It has been a very long time since I’ve had a reason to involve myself in anything quite this enthusiastically. Longer still since I cared whether I got it right. But I’m walking next to the woman who is Holly Frost, marching toward a supernatural disaster like it’s a poorly managed gala with inadequate staffing and a theme that’s gotten out of hand.

I tighten my grip on her hand, a fraction.

We creep forward until we reach the first line of townsfolk. I lean in, close enough that her ridiculous blood-orange-and-cinnamon scent threatens to derail my concentration entirely.

“The last time I fought Santa, it was just the two of us,” I murmur. “He didn’t have this kind of reach. He’s drawing on the globe—look. You can see the pull. We’ll need to be careful. He’s not just a man in a suit. He’s an elemental, and he’s very good at holding a grudge.”

“How did you beat him last time?”

“I tricked him.” I shrug. “It was close, though. He had me beat, but elementals are notoriously fickle and rely on others for their power. If we make him sip from a source that isn’t fuel—something thin, dissonant, disruptive—it’ll gum the works. Elementals are fickle engines. Foul their intake, and you stall their storm.”

“Who’s got the energetic profile of cold porridge?” she asks. “A person so hollow and emotionless that there would be nothing to drink. Utterly unsurprising. Passion-free. Bureaucratic, ideally. We’d need someone completely devoid of passion or life. Someone who flattens the energy of a room simply by existing. Who’d even come close?”