Fane stood to one side and waved Bella forward. She stepped into the small shelter with a small gasp.
The interior walls and the ceiling were hung with bright mercury glass ornaments. Simple balls and hearts, intricate doves and angels, fanciful birdhouses and nutcrackers, even a fine-spun dreamcatcher, and stars, stars, stars swayed from every surface.
Bella’s gaze fixed not on the ornaments but on the little man hunched at the work bench with a blow torch, a multitude of glass canes, and a flowing white beard.
“There really is a Santa Claus,” she murmured.
Fane nudged her forward. “Handmade, one of a kind, Old World artistry, made by Santa himself. These should keep the tenebrae away.”
The old man glanced up, his blue eyes bright behind his little spectacles and his cheeks red from the cold. Or maybe from the Glühwein at his elbow in a mug substantially larger than the cute commemorative boot. “If you’re looking for cheap crap, get out.”
Bella slanted a dubious look at Fane
He shrugged. “Here’s a man who obviously believes in the power of his creation.”
The old man glowered. “I’m the only one who cares about the work anymore.”
“Not the only one,” Bella said softly. She drifted forward. “What are you making now?”
He straightened with an aggrieved noise to reveal the small sleigh between his burn-scarred hands. He’d spun out the glass ridiculously fine, the sleigh’s tiny runners curled high in front, as if in expectation of a terrible snowstorm to be crossed, and hung with two tiny glass bells.
Bella reached out to nudge the little bell with her fingertip. The ring was almost inaudible, high and sweet. “The Snow Queen’s sleigh.”
The old man thrust out his chin so his beard bristled alarmingly. “Not Santa’s?”
“No. It’s empty.”
He cackled, more demented gnome than jolly old elf. “I could sell you gifts to fill it.”
“And eight reindeer.” She smiled. “Nine if you have one with a red nose.”
Fane tossed out his credit card, his attention fixed on Bella’s grin. The sight of it—white and wide—made his chest throb. It had been so long…
“I have a finished one.” The old man pointed toward the wall. “Not the same, of course.”
“No,” Bella said. “I’ll take the one in your hand, if you don’t mind.”
“It’s not quite done,” he warned.
“It never is, is it?”
He cackled again.
As the old man wrapped up the purchases in tissue, he gave Bella a long, rambling lecture on how to pack the glass after every holiday. “For your lifetime,” he bellowed suddenly. “Through your children’s lifetime and your grandchildren’s lifetime, these will last.”
“I need them to last at least through the solstice,” she told him.
“At least. Watch out. The edges can be sharp.” The old man swung his Glühwein-glazed eyes to Fane. “You’ve been here before, haven’t you? Years ago. I sold you a tree topper star. Gorgeous thing, gold edged cutouts so you could see the silvering inside. What happened to it?”
Fane shifted from one boot to the other. “I think my ex took it with her.”
“Ah. Very sharp edges, that.”
Fane grunted.
The old man grinned. “So I suppose you need another star.”
With two shopping bags in hand and enough money swapped to keep the old man in glow wine through the next equinox, Fane led the way back through the crowds toward the parking garage.
Bella trailed behind him, letting him break the path, until they got to the relatively clear sidewalk where she sidled up beside him. “So you and Nicole did your Christmas shopping there.”
“She said the mercury glass reminded her of her grandparents’ tree, and she wanted a ‘Baby’s First Winter’ ornament for them.” He stared up at the sky where the clouds had descended more menacingly, shaving hours off the light of day. “We never used it. I don’t know where that one went.”
They stopped at a crosswalk as a mob of runners passed them. The runners were all dressed in gold and white, and many sported wings: fairy wings, feathered wings, bat wings. The race bibs around their necks said ANGEL RUN. Some were clutching fake candles, some had boots of glow wine. They all giggled as they ran.
Bella clicked her tongue. “Crazy.”
Fane lifted the shopping bags and his brows, and she inclined her head in wry acknowledgment.
Toward the tail end of the pack, a runner in a white tutu sprinkled with gold glitter cavorted with a long, slender wand topped with a gold star. From the star dangled a string, and at the end of the string danced a small cluster of rounded green leaves studded with white berries.
The runner paused beside them. “You’re under the mistletoe!”
Bella blinked.
Fane leaned over and, very gently, matched his lips to hers.
It wasn’t a long kiss—probably only one change of the traffic light; maybe two—but when he lifted his head, the angel runners were gone and only a sprinkle of gold glitter remained on the sidewalk.
Bella blinked again. “The bomb.”
He drew back. “What?” While he’d been kissing her under the mistletoe and for some time thereafter, she’d been thinking about detonating demons. The heat curling thought his veins fizzled away.
The crosswalk sign blinked, and she started across, the clack of her heels a staccato counterpoint to her words. “The demons are trapped inside the orbs, right, at least until the glass is broken, and then we have a catastrophic eruption of churning tenebrae emanations. We can’t move the orbs for fear of triggering them; we can’t move the residents at the home for fear of the same. But, what if we were able to catch the tenebrae as they emerge?” She tapped the paper bag in his hand. “These ornaments made me think; the djinn-men aren’t the only ones to blow glass. Instead of dreamcatchers, we’d have demoncatchers.”
He paced alongside her. “I have no doubt the talyan are considering all the angles.”
She scoffed. “You’ve seen the crap cars they drive. They don’t have the resources for extreme demonic containment.”
He frowned. “The league isn’t interested in containment anyway. They’re like me; they do crackdown, clear-out and cleanup.”
She stared down at her boots, her shoulders hunched. “I’m thinking of another way.”
“There’s only one way to deal with—” He cut himself off, but she didn’t look up. Of course she knew what he’d been about to say.
How had he forgotten, even for a moment, what she was?
But wasn’t that exactly what he’d told her, he wanted to forget, just for a night? Yet the sun had risen—as much as a northern sun would rise, anyway—and here he was, still side by side with a demon in the stolen body of a dead girl.
She tucked her hands into opposite sleeves of her parka, the faux fur cuffs making a thick muff. “If we could just stop them where they can’t hurt anyone, if they never had a chance to get at the old people or anyone else…”
If only she hadn’t.
Her words remained as unsaid as his, but still the echo reverberated between them, pushing them a few steps apart as they walked.
“You’re talking about more than a few really big glass ornaments,” he said. “It’d need to withstand the earthly explosion of Thorne’s gifts plus the supernatural forces inside. We’d need abraxas-strength power.” His hand tightened around the rough twine handle of the shopping bags. Nothing like the smooth, flowing, living grace of his sword.
Bella glanced away. “Impossible, I guess.”
As impossible as reclaiming his blesséd weapon. He knew she hadn’t meant that; still, the implication was inescapable. And it cut deeper than demon glass or holy steel.
Finally, he said, “Only one place might give you what you want.”