Holidays are Hell

The house quaked like the hills of San Francisco.

Lindy grinned as she swayed. "He knows."

As, it seemed, did everyone else. As Zoe was escorted beyond the foyer and into the core of the house, doors began to swing open. She didn't make eye contact as speculative whispers turned to hissing, and curiosity turned hostile. Instead she let her eyes stray over the shoulders of her enemies—Raven was here, she saw, and Polly and Damian; they leered at her as she passed—but she ignored them all and searched out the rooms she remembered and recognized by layout, pretending to look for the Tulpa. There was neither anything resembling a nursery, nor any sign of a child. He'd called these his drawing rooms when she was living here, and she was surprised to find nothing had changed. Not even the furnishings. Even after Zoe's infiltration that first time, even though he knew she'd returned to the Light and reported every secret detail of his lair—and she knew them all—he'd stayed put.

Arrogant bastard, she thought, as Lindy smiled back at her from over one slim shoulder. That arrogance would be his downfall.

She wiped away the thought like cleaning a slate in her mind. Imagination was what was needed to keep her alive through the day. So instead of thinking that the Tulpa was stupid as well as manipulative and cruel, she thought of him as trusting and hopeful, just waiting for the day Zoe would return to him.

"I'll take that." Lindy said, holding out her hands for the cornucopia once they'd reached the end of the hallway. It was an unnecessary precaution. Nothing on the physical plane could injure the Tulpa. But Lindy wasn't about to release Zoe without letting her know she wasn't trusted. Zoe almost thanked her. It was a good reminder after the relative ease of the entry.

"It's a gift," Zoe said lightly, "and it's not for you."

Lindy could've easily wrested the cornucopia from Zoe's grasp. Instead she reached out and deliberately plucked the finishing piece, a sugared plum, from atop the carefully arranged mound, leaving a hole where the fruit had been. She bit into it without breaking eye contact, and juice ran down her chin as her mouth curved upward.

"Attractive," Zoe commented dryly. "And the manuals still speculate why you've no heir to your star sign… or prospect of spawning one."

Lindy's expression snapped, anger pulling it tight at the center, but she didn't use the fist clenched at her side, and she didn't tear the cornucopia from Zoe's hands. Security tapes had shown Zoe entering with the piece. If she didn't walk in with it now the Tulpa would wonder why.

And if there was a weapon hidden in the cheerful basket, he'd want to shove it down her throat himself.

There was a pedestal perched next to the door, one that had once held a fern, but now sported a blood-red scripture box with twin dragons on each wooden side, a lone bright spot in the long bare hallway. That was one difference, Zoe thought. She hadn't seen any living thing—plants, animals, humans—in the house. Because Shadows didn't count, she thought as Lindy slid open the box's ornate lid, and pulled out a pair of gold-rimmed aviator glasses. "Put these on."

Zoe screwed up her face. "I'm not going to meet the Tulpa in glasses that make me look like I'm stuck in the eighties."

"Put them on," Lindy repeated, her voice brittle.

Zoe sighed, shifted her gift to one arm and accepted the glasses, her confused gaze winking up at her from the mirrored lenses. "Why?"

"Because I said so." Lindy rapped on the door twice with her knuckles and it immediately swung open to reveal a dim and deep interior. It wouldn't have been intimidating… if there'd actually been someone manning the door. Lindy saw Zoe hesitate and the cruel smile was back on her face. "Have… fun."

Zoe wondered at the deliberate word choice, but slid the glasses over her eyes like she hadn't noticed, and smirked. "We always do."

Zoe would've given her life just then to be able to smell the bilious jealousy she knew was seeping from the woman's pores, but the cursing and chattering behind them told her the other Shadows did scent it. Knowing an impending riot when she saw one, she stepped smoothly into the room and watched as the door swung shut on the demonic faces glaring at her from the hallway.

Then the vacuum of silence was absolute.

The glasses accentuated the room's dimness and Zoe thought that was their purpose. So she emptied her mind and tried not to let it unnerve her; tried, too, not to think of all the empty space around her, or how she could be cut down where she stood without even knowing the blow was corning. She knew fear stank like something pickled and old, and the Tulpa fed on that fear.

Zoe was determined to make him starve.

Still, she jumped when a movement flickered across from her, freezing as she did. Swallowing hard, she cradling the curved horn like it was a talisman that would ward off injury, and took a step forward. Three beings across from her mirrored the movement. None of them spoke.