Holidays are Hell

"The timing is curious, though," he was saying, as he popped a ripened fig into his mouth. He was propped up beside her on his elbow as she lay with her dark hair splayed on his pillow, her image reflected back at herself from above.

It turned out it wasn't only his reflection he liked to watch in the mirror.

"What's curious about wanting to be with the one you love on the holidays," Zoe said, running a hand along the fine hairs of his arm. He fed her a blood-red berry, approval in his eyes as he watched her eat, and she nibbled lightly on his fingertips. "It's a time to be with family. I wanted to come home."

"I don't mean that." He smiled down at her, looking infinitely younger. "I mean that after years of no word or sighting of you, you pop up after reports of your capture and death."

She had no idea what had been reported back to him, so kept her response deliberately vague. "I told you. I've been trying to find a way back to you for a long time now. If I've been sighted lately it's because I've been working toward that. Toward this."

He almost grinned as she continued to stroke him, but shook his head. "Not a sighting of you, not like this. Reports had you posing as a young girl who was caught and killed in the desert."

They thought she'd been posing as Joanna, Zoe realized and almost shuddered at the easy way he spoke of her death. "And did you believe them?"

"Oh, no. I knew you were still alive. I felt it in my mind and core, no matter what Joaquin said."

Joaquin, she repeated, committing the name to memory.

The Tulpa mistook her silence for confusion. "He's always been one for hyperbole."

"Then you've… reprimanded him?" she asked, hopefully.

"Oh, yes. He knows how I love children."

And the reminder was all she needed to shore up her nerve. "Fruit," she asked sweetly, holding out an apple. He smiled down at her and took it willingly.

Zoe watched him bite into it, imagined it as the juiciest and sweetest fruit he'd ever tasted, the crisp skin smooth against his tongue, the juice trickling down his throat. She put all her energy into envisioning this as she watched his eyes flutter half-shut as he swallowed and she rose up to her elbows, placing the cornucopia—the horn of plenty—on his belly as he reclined, trance-like, the scent of ripe fruit rising to permeate the air.

He came back to himself slowly, so that by the time he realized what was happening it was too late. The cornucopia was once again a tool of the Greeks, the pagan farmers… a tool of Zoe's will melding with the traditions of the past. The wicker unraveled as those ancient powers merged and the straw was once again a living thing, slipping around the Tulpa's body, burrowing through the bed and deep into the earth. The growth was slow at first, but it sped up as Zoe's excitement soared… and the Tulpa's spirit was enslaved in the narrow tip of the horn.

His eyes flew open, black searing to red, only to be snuffed by Zoe's power. She smiled, closed-mouthed, then rose—fruit and nuts, pomegranates and gourds, peppers and artichokes all spilling over the bed and floor. Each grew stems and spines and burrowed into the earth, both rising and falling, vines weaving among themselves to bind the Tulpa where he lay. Zoe knew the fruit he'd already eaten was doing the same to his insides and smiled again, feeling his eyes follow her as she dressed. When she was done, she turned.

The Tulpa's throat worked, visibly paining him, but he managed a deep breath, even as an emerging leaf shot from his mouth. "But… you're… mortal."

Zoe brushed the remains of someone else's ash from the crease in her slacks. "You forget what mortals are capable of, Tulpa dear. We can use belief to create, imagine, wish, and will things into being. And those of us with extremely powerful minds believe anything is possible."

She leaned in close to whisper in his ear. "You asked me before 'Who do you think you are? But I never got to answer, did I?" She licked her lips and despite himself, the Tulpa's gaze flickered down before he drew it back to her eyes. She smiled knowingly. "Well, I'm Zoe Archer, dear. The woman who can break you at will. And the real question—you nameless, formless fuck—is who the hell do you think you are?"

His enraged howls were muffled as a miniature gourd spilled over his tongue.

"I'm leaving now. I'm going to bring in your so-called harvest and return those children where they belong, but keep one thing very clear in your mind," she flipped her hair back from her shoulders, knowing she was planting another seed, this one in his mind. "I can and will get to you again. Mortal or not, on this plane or another, anytime and anywhere."

Dozens of images of her smirking saluted her as she turned to leave the room, but before she did she glanced over her shoulder one last time. "Oh, and next time, babe? You'd better have a castle and a moat. Because I'll have learned how to kill you by then. And I won't be stopped by a mere kiss."