~

 

“Well, there it is — all ready to go. Don’t say I’ve never done anything for you,” Jake sneered as he eyed the two witches and the expectant looks that they were giving him.

Tall, dark, and with a hint of the menacing characteristics of a vampire that lurked just beneath the veneer of the man, Jake had it all. Like any other vampire; he was designed to lure you in.

A good-looking, broody, bad boy — if you liked that sort of thing. Luckily, neither witch did.

“It’s Christmas Eve, and no one else had one. Otherwise, I would never have come to you!” Saffy wasn’t afraid to let the man know exactly how she felt, and she offered him a scowl that almost made her eyebrows meet in the middle.

You would have thought that she was asking to share the bags of fresh blood that he had stocked in his cellar, instead of one miserable little tree – not that it looked miserable, or little, but still.

He’d owed her a favor for something that she’d done for him a while back, and his land was covered with nice pine trees. It wasn’t as if he’d had to hike to the back of beyond for her, scale a mountain, fight deadly tigers – some supernatural beings could be so ungrateful.

“Why a couple of witches want a stupid Christmas tree, I’ll never know,” he said and sighed inwardly.

Manual labor hadn’t been his thing in nearly two hundred years, and he wasn’t overly fond of it now. Unless, of course, there was something in it for him, which there wasn’t. They could have, at the very least, offered him a nice, straight from the vein, tasty witch treat.

When Saffy opened her mouth to speak, he held up his hand right in front of her face and cut her dead to rights. “And I don’t need or want to know.”

“Gee, you’re just full of the Christmas spirit, aren’t you?” Natalie shot him a look that could have melted steel. Unlike Saffy, she didn’t do deals with vampires, and asking one for a favor went against the grain.

“No.” He didn’t believe in mincing words, sugarcoating them, or expending needless energy making up a sentence. He also didn’t believe in Christmas.

Maybe back in the day, when God was all the rage; he’d done his bit in going to church — and then a monster had turned him into a monster — and he’d had a hard time believing that God — any God – would have allowed that to happen. He certainly wasn’t going to celebrate Christmas.

“I noticed.” Natalie offered him a small sneer.

“I’m sure you also noticed the no trespassing sign, but that didn’t stop you from coming onto my property, now did it?” Jake folded his arms across his chest and sneered back one more time in the hope that they would get the message and leave him alone.

He’d done his bit. He’d got them a damn tree. Now he and Saffy were even.

“But it’s Christmas Eve, and you had…” Saffy tried again.

“A tree. I get it. Please leave.” Jake dropped his arms back to his sides. Obviously, they weren’t going to take the hint without a little help. He drew them a map by turning back to the large imposing mansion that was his home and stalking toward it.

He didn’t appreciate visitors. He reveled in the whole solitary life of a vampire thing.

“Humbug!” Natalie called after him.

Jake raised his hand and offered her a backward wave. Natalie rolled her eyes back toward her friend.

“The vampire’s right, we should be going before the snow sets in, and we’re stuck with Mr. Sucks to be him.”

“We’re not going to get stuck in the snow. I read the weather reports. I timed everything out to perfection. We go home, put up the tree, and have a nice normal family Christmas just like normal people do.” Saffy assured her as she started on fast feet towards the driver’s door.

“That’s two normal’s in one sentence. Define normal.” Natalie tossed over the top of the car, as she rested her elbow against the metal roof, and eyed her friend for a long moment.

“Not witches!” Saffy offered with glee after a moment’s thought.

“I think you’re taking this — no magic — thing a little bit too far,” Natalie warned her.

It wasn’t right, it wasn’t normal, and a witch without her magic was just another human. Who wanted to be just another human?

“It’s just for now. I just want to see how the other half live.” Saffy gave an over-exaggerated shrug of her shoulders, bringing them up to her ears, and stretched a big beaming smile that warmed Natalie’s heart, even if her head was telling her that her friend was never going to manage to do the no magic thing for long.

“Well, on your head be it. Don’t expect me to bail you out when something goes horribly wrong.” Natalie said as she reached for the door handle, hesitating only briefly when her friend chuckled.

“What could go wrong?” Saffy offered the words that no self-respecting witch would ever utter if they didn’t want fate to give them a giant kick up the backside.

“I think we might just find out,” Natalie grumbled and grimaced to herself as Saffy pulled open the driver’s, seemingly oblivious to the challenge that she just handed fate.

 

~

~

~

 

“Holy cow!” Saffy squealed out into the confines of the car.

She stomped on the brake and squealed again as the back end of the vehicle tried to meet the front end with the added challenge of the tires skidding against the icy surface of the road.

“Wolf!” Natalie screamed out at the same time at the sight of the big beast that had dashed into the road in front of them, and just in case Saffy wasn’t already deaf from her screams — she added a little stream of curse shrill words to go with it.

“Of all the stupid…” Saffy bit off her words and then added her own list of curse words to Natalie’s.

The car finally came to a screeching halt. There was a loud ping from somewhere, followed by a thump against the metal paneling, and they both gritted their teeth at the rush of something that squealed like fingernails running down a chalkboard against the roof of the car.

Both witches kept their eyes firmly on the wolf. It didn’t move.

The dark beast glared back at them — until Saffy’s Christmas tree shot through the air like an arrow from a bow that was headed straight for the animal.

“Oh!” Saffy rushed out on a grimace that twisted her face at the pending doom that the animal faced.

“That’s…” Was the only word that Natalie could manage to say before the tree slammed into the wolf. “Gotta really bloody hurt!” She finished into the silence of the car as they both stared ahead.

“You’re telling me!” Saffy bit out. She unpeeled her fingers from the steering wheel and the death grip that she’d had on it.

“You know what’s worse than watching our hard earned Christmas tree go splat?” Natalie asked.

“No, not really.”

“It’s the fact that there’s a wolf at all.”

“Okay, I’ll give you that one.” Saffy shrugged her shoulders and conceded the point.

“Now what?” Natalie asked as they sat peering out of the windscreen at their downed tree.

“We get a new tree?” Saffy grimaced at the thought of going back to the vampire and asking him to cut another tree down. It was like getting blood from a — vampire.

“What do we do about the wolf?” Natalie urged her to think of the big picture and not just the damn Christmas tree.

“I’m not looking for a pet — just a Christmas tree.”

“He’s blocking the road. We can’t just leave him there.” Natalie pointed out.

“Sure we can. There has to be another way home,” Saffy said on another grimace that was tinged with only a little guilt. After all, the wolf had run out in front of them and not the other way round. It wasn’t as if she had aimed for it, on the contrary, she thought she’d done well in avoiding hitting the beast.

“Seriously?” Natalie turned a sour look upon her friend. She knew that Saffy had a thing for Christmas at the moment, but surely, she was taking it a little too far.

“I don’t wanna go out there. Best case scenario — he’s really miffed off. Worst case scenario – he’d get all fangs, and claws, and bloodthirsty intent, and I’d like my head still on my neck – thank you very much.” Saffy pointed out the obvious pitfalls of helping a wild beast.

She turned to look at her friend, challenging her to say it wasn’t so. Natalie gave a slow nod of agreement and then shrugged.

“Maybe the vampire will cut us down another tree.” Natalie offered back as if the matter was solved.

Saffy opened her mouth to speak when a loud roar shook the car with just as much force as the weight of four large paws that landed on the bonnet and announced a beast’s arrival.

The witches shrieked in unison. They snapped their heads back around to the windscreen, and their eyes took in the snarling beast with its razor-sharp fangs that were on display for their viewing pleasure.

“Guess he went with the worst case scenario,” Saffy muttered as she scowled at the wolf that was glaring back at her.

“This is where I have to say — Christmas sucks!” Natalie bit out.

“That’s a generalization. I don’t think he has the Christmas spirit either.” Saffy hissed back in a whisper.

“You can get off the car now. We are impressed — not.” Natalie offered a death glare for the beast and got another snarl in return; followed by a long, deep, angry growl. The wolf pawed at the bonnet, running one set razor-sharp claws against the paintwork. Saffy grumbled in annoyance.

“I think we’ve already miffed him off enough, don’t you?” Saffy offered in a low singsong voice that masked the nervous apprehension inside of her, and she didn’t even want to think about what her paintwork was going to look like when the beast had finished.

“No.” Natalie shrugged.

Her hand shot out and slammed down on the steering wheel, making the horn blast out into the silence of the night, and causing Saffy to jump in her seat. The wolf looked as if he’d jumped in place on the car bonnet, but Saffy couldn’t be sure, at any rate, he recovered his snarl quickly.

Saffy slapped Natalie’s hand away, but the damage was already done — the wolf looked even meaner, hungrier, and it craned its head forward on its neck to practically press its nose against the glass. Water vapor collected on the windscreen between them.

“That was not the best idea you’ve ever had.” Saffy bit out, chastising her friend for her lack of thought.

“No? How about this one?” Natalie already had her magic at the end of her fingertips since encountering the beast, and she wasn’t afraid to use it.

The witch flicked her hands towards the windscreen, and before Saffy could stop her, she’d unleashed her magic, and the wolf was flying backward through the air.