Xmas Spirit by Tonya Hurley Page B

red.
    Prue pulled her cloak up over her head and the black smoke began to grab and engulf her like hundreds of arms from lost souls from the other side. Prue rushed Charlotte, who was now coiled up in a ball to protect herself on the ground, and then slammed into her, all the smoky hands latching on toher, pulling at her, and then finally disappearing through the window.
    “Scary Christmas to all,” Prue said as the hands grabbed and her voice moaned into the icy darkness. “And to all a good fright.”

    Scarlet arrived home and bounded upstairs, loudly, hoping to interrupt whatever illicit activity might be going on in Petula’s room. It was even more nauseating being so close to a sacred holiday. Petula and Damen were undeterred, judging from the noise spilling out from behind her bedroom door and oozing out into the hallway. It was impossible to ignore. She wasn’t sure if it was sex going down or enhanced interrogation. Possibly both, she considered.
    “Sick,” Scarlet said as she passed and then abruptly stopped to eavesdrop, her curiosity getting the better of her.
    “Tell me!” Petula commanded.
    “Don’t break, dude,” Scarlet whispered to herself.
    Petula’s charms were too much to resist, even for a football team captain.
    “Okay,” he said.
    “Come on, Damen, grow some Christmas balls, for God’s sake,” Scarlet mumbled.
    “The Wendys are going to model tonight at this expo in town.”
    “Model?” both Kensington girls said simultaneously.
    A look of envy crossed Petula’s face.
    “For money to buy you a gift,” Damen explained vaguely. “See-through caskets. Buried alive or something.”
    Scarlet recalled her conversation with The Wendys earlier, hoping for a clue about what might be up.
    “Amazing!” Petula shouted, wiping a single tear from her eye. “They are going to sacrifice their lives for me? How festive.”
    We should be so lucky , Scarlet thought.
    “It’s just for a minute,” Damen corrected. “Besides, I’m sure they’ll find some sucker to do it for them anyway.”
    “Charlotte,” Scarlet whispered, confirming her suspicions.
    “What do you have to do?”
    “I’m working the graveyard shift,” Damen said, the smile on his face viewable from space. “Lowering them into the hole.”
    Petula quickly gathered herself and returned to the matter at hand, turned on by the gossip even more than she was by Damen.
    “Hmmm,” Petula considered, running through the latenight shopping hours at all of her favorite stores. “There better be time for you to spend that money on me.”
    “Everything is open late,” Damen said, hope in his voice. “I just wanted to be able to afford something special for you.”
    Petula melted.
    “Oh, my Santa Baby!”
    Scarlet stuck her finger down her throat, trying her best to vomit, and snuck away.
    “Just keep it between us, though?” Damen asked, pulling Petula in close to him once again. “I told The Wendys you wouldn’t find out.”
    “Pinky promise.”

    Scarlet and Petula entered the Kensington kitchen almost simultaneously.
    “You seem pretty relaxed,” Scarlet observed, referencing Petula’s traditional Christmas Eve freak-out. “Did you manage to pry the details out of Damen?”
    “Which details?”
    “Your gift? You know? The one you practically threatened his life over?”
    Scarlet didn’t let on that she already knew from eavesdropping, and Petula downplayed it, not wanting to share the info she’d garnered with Scarlet. Info Scarlet had already pieced together. It was a passive-aggressive cat-and-mouse game they frequently played with each other.
    “Oh, that. Not exactly. It’s a big secret, apparently,” Petula said, lying through her fake white teeth. She was preoccupied, barely giving her answers a moment’s thought, double-checking a list so long it scrolled at the bottom.
    “You know, one day he is going to figure out he doesn’t need to take that crap from you and leave you for another girl,”