Chapter 35

Aleda wasn’t talking to him.

In fact, she was barely looking at him… Which was a unique trick, considering that she’d been pummeling him with those wooden claws for the past forty minutes. He’d had to take his shirt off just so she wouldn’t rip it to shreds like she was attempting to do to the rest of him.

One of these days he was really going to have to make a new dummy.

She was working on combination moves today—Talia’s idea. His sister swore by fly-by stabbings and so she had decided to pass her preferences on to her little protégé. Aleda would never be as good at theatrics as Talia—after all, his sister had trained as a gymnast for years even before she was called—but she was making progress. At the moment, Talia was giving her a boost up and having her claw him before she hit the ground. Her aim was good. It was the landings that got a little rough. Ryan had to stop himself from grinning every time she picked herself up with determined dignity as if nothing had happened, like a refined cat who had just stepped off the edge of a table.

The silence was disconcerting.

Usually they would be trading half-serious insults by now, with Talia chiming in now and then with a dirty joke. He decided to try something.

“Not bad,” he remarked after she picked herself up. “You almost gave me a bruise that time.” Actually, she had been peppering him with fast-fading welts the entire time, and would have been doing worse if he hadn’t finally taken a bit of sandpaper to the damned claws. It just seemed like a good opening comment.

Aleda finally looked at him, giving him a cold, silent glare.

Okay, so she was definitely mad at him.

“You’re hitting that concrete pretty hard,” he added. “Do you need a pillow?”

She rolled her eyes. Talia boosted her up with a flip this time; Aleda managed to scrape him down the shoulder and landed awkwardly on her hands and knees. Ryan offered her a hand up, which she ignored.

Good grief, she really did look like an offended housecat. Claws and all. He stifled a snicker, but not quite fast enough.

“What the hell is wrong with you!?” Aleda finally burst out at him. Ryan hid his treacherous mouth with a hand, pretending to scratch his nose. “Am I just some big joke to you!?”

“No!” he denied immediately. He hesitated. “…Well… you did look pretty funn–”

“You make a sport out of pissing me off!” she interrupted. “You call me a spoiled little girl!” …Ryan wasn’t about to comment on that right now… “And when that gets old? You toss my boyfriend over a freaking couch!”

“Hey, excuse me!” Ryan yelled. “But were you even there last night?”

Talia moved sideways towards the stairs. “Hey, guys, I just remembered… I have to… answer that phone… Coming, Aria!” And she ran upstairs. Neither of them looked up.

“Of course I was there!” Aleda retorted. “What kind of question is that?”

“A legitimate one, I’d say!”

“You’d say? You’d say!? You’re the one that started in on Nate yesterday! I’d say you say a bit too much!”

“Obviously I didn’t say enough, if ye’re still defending tha’ b*****d!” Ryan shot back.

Aleda let out a frustrated growl. “What the hell is your problem with him, anyway!? You’ve been nothing but a jackass around him since Thanksgiving!”

“He started it!”

“What are you, five?”

“Look,” Ryan said, trying to regain his calm. “Your precious Nathaniel insulted Mike in his own house. That’s no’ exactly a good way for him t’ ingratiate himself!”

“So you’re basing your entire opinion of him on one bad impression?” Aleda demanded.

“One!? Try every bloody time I see that little gobshite!”

“You’ve seen him twice! And the second time all he did was sit on a couch and watch television!”

“Aye—watched television and treated ye like a fekking piece o’ meat!”

“You have no idea what he’s really like!” Aleda insisted. Ryan snorted. “And anyway, how he treats me is none of your freaking business!”

“It surely is, when he’s in me own apartment!”

“Oh, please! You just want an excuse to be your usual a*****e self! From the moment I met you you’ve been a jerk to me! Forget Nate—you don’t even treat me like I’m a human being!”

Ryan narrowed his eyes and stepped close to her, forcing her to look up at him. “I know exactly what y’are,” he growled, low in his throat. “An’ ‘human’ has nothin’ to do with it.”

Aleda jerked herself away from him. “B*****d!” she spat.

Jaysis, that girl didn’t understand a damned thing, did she?

“Get out of here.”

“What’s that?”

“You heard me,” Aleda said. “Get the hell out of here. I don’t want to look at you right now.”

Ryan clenched his jaw and nodded slowly. “Fine,” he said through his teeth. “Then I’ll leave yeh be.”

He quickly found his shirt and jacket, and pulled them on as he walked up the stairs to the living room. Talia met him at the top.

“Heya, Big Brother,” she said, fidgeting nervously. “Aria says they’re having a bit of a party tonight, and we’re invited. You’ll come, right? You don’t have to stay the whole time—you can leave for work or whatever if you want.”

Ryan eyed the Christmas lights that had already been strung around the house. “I see they’ve already decorated.” They had strung the lights practically everywhere, actually, without quite straying from tasteful. Candles, too, and a liberal application of fantastic-smelling pine garland. If he weren’t in such a bad mood he would probably be basking in it. He glanced back at the door to the basement.

“Yeah, I’ll come.”

 

 

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Any culture still standing after several millennia is going to have some bloody old traditions. Hunters, for example, had some pretty universal holidays. Of course, they’d adopted most of them from whatever civilization was convenient at the time, just like they adopted most of their new generations, so really they just celebrated whatever holidays had been the most popular for the longest time, for the most part. Solstices, then, were a hell of a popular excuse to get a few cousins together and have a good time. As far as some of the older hunters were concerned, holidays like Christmas and Yom Kippur were new fads.

Kwanzaa was about the equivalent of “New Coke”.

Solstices, though—those had been around for freaking ages. Everybody loved a good solstice. Winter didn’t give a crap what religion a person was. Winter was going to come whether people liked it or not. And winter coming was a fantastic bloody excuse to drink copious amounts of hot beverages and light fires of all sizes.

This particular year, the winter solstice fell on a Saturday—at a quarter after eight in the evening, to be exact. The party would start a bit before that, so that there was plenty of time for food and whatnot, and Aria had certainly gone all out to make plenty of nice, hot, rich food for everyone. Everybody was invited, too—well, everyone in the area, so Talia and Ryan, of course, and the Burns family, and good old Mike Connor, and a few others as well. Come to think of it, it was the same crowd that got together for Thanksgiving. But that’s what happened.

Talia watched her brother out of the corner of her eye as he gathered up their contributions for the event. Cookies, mostly, and a few bags of fancy chips that Talia had bought on a whim and hadn’t liked much. She was kind of worried about him. Okay, so he had never exactly been Mr. Popular, or the friendliest guy in the neighborhood, but she had never seen him quite so strung up. Maybe it was the twenty years spent living like a vagrant monkey, or maybe it was the shock of having conversations more profound than “Hungry. Have food?” with people who actually spoke bloody English, but Talia was actually worried that he would burst out at her next. Not the fun rantings—he always ranted a bit and it was damned fun to watch—but real old-fashioned bitching. He had never actually been mad at her, though, and frankly he probably never would be. But she was worried about him regardless.

“Hey,” she said. “You’re going to be good tonight, right?”

He stuffed the last bag of chips into the larger shopping bag and looked up at her. “What do you mean?”

“That kid you hate is going to be there. And so will his parents.” Ryan grunted in response. “You know,” she continued. “Our cousins. Emphasis on cousins. Just… be good, okay?”

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll behave, mother.”

Talia stuck out her tongue. “Stop it, you know I hate when you call me that.”

“Heaven forbid you ever settle down and have kids.”

“Meanie! You are so mean!”

Her brother could never resist a good teasing. “Hell,” he persisted. “I bet you get married before I do. You and that Pizza Boy.”

It was Talia’s turn to snort. “Yuh-huh. Keep telling yourself that, Zeus.”

“For crap’s sake, what’s with the nickname?”

“I give everybody nicknames, dummy!”

Oh, geez, he was so fun to mess with. Talia was actually keeping a private bet with herself on when he’d finally figure it out. She threw a scarf at him. “Here,” she said. “It’s cold.”

It had landed awkwardly on his shoulder and head, concealing one of his eyes. The other one gave her an irritated look. The best part was that his hands were too full of bags of food and crap for him to be able to do anything about it. Talia laughed and bounced through the door. Carrying bags was something best left to big, strong, gullible boys. Besides, she had to drive.

It was a good thing those crazy Solanas had a nice, long driveway, because Mike and the Burnses were already there and taking up the better part of it. Talia managed to get her rusty old Ford up onto the edge of the driveway without leaving too much hanging out into the street, and they squealed to a stop. Bloody car. Talia parked and headed up to the porch without waiting for Ryan to gather the food back up.

“Come on, slowpoke!” she called. She didn’t bother knocking. With a party like this, it was easier to just walk in and not bother the people who were already there.

It looked like just about everybody was crammed into the little living room/dining room area they had. It was a shame the house wasn’t bigger—it was harder to have a nice big party with this amount of space. It wasn’t much more than Talia had in her apartment—actual, useful party-space, anyway. If it were warm out they could pile outside into that pretty backyard they had, but that kind of defeated the purpose of a winter solstice party. She would have to remember to suggest it for a spring party, if she was still around by then. She probably would be. The lease was for a full year, and she’d moved over the summer.

“Heya, Little Leda!” Talia called out, waving at the girl. That boy of hers had his arm around her. Cute boytoy, certainly, but a little mundane for Talia’s taste. Aria emerged from the kitchen with a plate of roast beef looking shinier than usual. “Hi, Aria! Nice afterglow!”

Aw, redheads were so cute when they blushed.

“I brought some cookies and stuff,” Talia said. “Where should I put it?”

Aria frowned. “Where is it?” she asked, just as the door opened again.

Talia grinned and jerked a thumb behind her.

“Right,” Aria said. “Anywhere on there.” And she gestured vaguely towards the nearly-full table.

Ryan was busy glaring at Little Leda’s boytoy so Talia pulled the bags of food out of his hands and set the cookies and chips out on the table. For once she wasn’t nearly as interested in the food as she was the drink: somebody, some wonderful soul, had made a freaking vat of eggnog and set it out in the middle of the table. Sweet merciful heaven, was there anything better? Milk, eggs, sugar and cream, all the very best stuff. Talia grabbed herself a cup of that heavenly drink and took a sip. Oo-oh! Vanilla and nutmeg! Very nice! She grabbed a plate and some various small fried things and wandered over to talk to Mike.

Ryan, fortunately, was behaving himself. Not being very polite, just standing over in the corner and glaring at his roast beef and eggnog, but he was behaving. No throwing people over couches, or anything like that. Aleda, for her part, had chosen to ignore his existence, which, considering that incident earlier, was probably for the best. Talia looked over at Aria again. She’d been studying her curiously for most of the time she’d been there. Something had definitely changed since that morning, but she couldn’t figure out what. Well, sure, she had that whole afterglow thing going on, but that wasn’t really uncommon for her and Alex, those crazy kids. Although, she did seem even a bit glowier than him today, which was wei– Oo-oh. Talia grinned, and excused herself from the conversation with Mike.

She leaned over the table next to Aria, reaching for one of the cookies she’d brought. “So,” she said conversationally. “Think it’s a boy this time?”

Aria looked up at her with a sparkle in her eyes. “Well, Alejandro kind of wants a boy.”

“Congrats, girl,” Talia said. “Although I guess this means you won’t be hunting again for a while.”

“Yeah, well, I’d say it’s worth it,” Aria said, grinning.

Talia hugged her, and then asked her about work. They chatted for a little bit, while Talia kept her eye on Ryan. So far he had only been taking out his frustration on cooked meat, but she wouldn’t put it past him to finish his food and go looking for something else to b***h on. Especially if Leda’s pretty little armcandy opened his mouth again. That one was all pretty and no tact. That’s why Talia favored the quieter guys, herself. They were much less likely to stick a foot in their mouths. 

As soon as Ryan’s food ran out, Talia edged over to stand closer to Ryan’s path to the table, just in case she needed to pull somebody off of somebody else. Leda’s boytoy whispered something funny into Leda’s ear just as her brother walked by, making Leda giggle. Talia cringed. Growing up with her temperamental brother had given her a sixth sense about when he was about to snap. It helped, of course, that she had run extensive experiments on that very same threshold during their childhood.

Ryan’s grip on the meat fork tightened in time with the boy’s arm tightening around Little Leda. Not quite… The blond kid slipped his hand a bit too low on Leda’s back. Aw s**t.

“Do you mind not groping her right next to the food?” Ryan snarled. “You’re making me lose my appetite.”

“What’s your problem, dude?” the kid asked angrily.

 “You’re not good enough for her!” Ryan shouted. His eyes widened when he realized what he had just said. As did Little Leda’s, and, actually, just about everybody else in the house. Oh geez, it was starting to look like the party she had thrown just yesterday. Serious déjà-vu.

“What?” the kid demanded. “And who is? You?”

Ryan dropped his plate onto the table and clenched his fists, ready to rough him up even more than he had the day before. The look in Little Leda’s eyes stopped him, though. He spun around and strode quickly towards the door.

He didn’t have car keys, but he might just try to walk home. Talia dashed over to Aria to hug her again and apologize for his outburst, then ran to catch up with her brother.

“By the way,” Talia told him as they were driving back to Elkton, “It’s still December. You owe me five bucks.”