Page 43 of Hostile Holiday

“Orla is going to need time with her mother. I want to let that settle. Holiday movies and pizza is my destiny.”

She smiled, and the ogre bodies inside the house caught fire.

“When will the house be back?”

“When all traces of ogre blood are gone.” She turned, and Orla was helping Yinmar out of the house. Hunter was there and tookover while Orla got the car door open. It looked like Orla was ready to enter a caregiver phase of her life.

She looked to Olmin. “Did you want any of the tomes for the dark archive? There is some nasty stuff in there.”

“Can you get it out?”

“Sure. Keep this stuff out of normal hands. It is soul-twistingly dark.” Emery focused, and a pile of books whizzed out of the corners of the house and settled in a pile in front of them. “I am going to put an energy condom on them, but the rest of the tomes are being set in one of their cars for safekeeping.”

Olmin stared. “Energy condom?”

“Yeah, they can’t be opened without my consent, but I have to be there. I can’t do it remotely. I don’t want anyone opening those books without the blood to open them.”

Kelnen frowned. “But you have the bloodline?”

“Of course. I just sliced my father in two. He raped my mother, she died in childbirth, and I am just here doing what all good ogre children do. I killed a weak parent.” She smirked. “Now I am burning his corpse so his ghost can’t haunt me, and I am taking down his father and son for good measure. I have just moved the house so it doesn’t get dirty.”

Emery smiled as Hunter drove away to get Orla into a shower and Yinmar into dry clothing.

Olmin and Kelnen explained they wanted the other grimoires for storage. Technically, they were all Orla’s.

Emery put her mark on everything, left them to it, and headed inside where she could turn up the heat to make sure there was nothing but ash left behind, and then, she summoned wind and water to scrub the house clean.

It was after midnight when she dragged herself toward the city, slogging along one step at a time. Opening a portal would have been handy, but she was nervous about portals when shewas at full operating potential. Today, it would take her one hour and twenty minutes to walk home.

She got a call over the broken bridge and answered it. “Hey.”

Orla’s voice said, “Emery, oh, my god. I forgot we were your ride. Are you home?”

“On the way. Had some stuff to do. The house is clear and ready for a sale if you want to get rid of it.”

“Um, that can wait. I needed to ask you about something that I hadn’t thought of until just now. You wanted to kill my dad. Why?”

“Because he got the summoning energy and didn’t want any of the magic users at the party. He went to his country club and found the young woman he had been lusting over and assaulted her but succeeded in starting a child. I was born three months early, and my mom died birthing me. Straight into the foster system and finally adopted years later. My mother’s family didn’t want me to be happy. I had taken their daughter, so they insisted it was fostering or nothing.”

“How did you find that out?”

“There was a court hearing when I insisted that they surrender all their rights so that my foster parents could adopt me. The nurse from the delivery room spoke about how my mother wanted me to have love in my life and how she wanted one of the names in her book to be mine. The notebook style was Emery, and here I am. How is the puppy?”

“Snowball is doing fine. I was going to go with Snowflake, but he likes to head-butt, so Snowball is better.”

Emery kept plodding along as Orla chattered about the new puppy when she asked the question, “How big do you think he will get?”

Emery laughed. “Pretty fucking big. Two to three hundred pounds.”

“Oh. That is big. Hunter doesn’t seem bothered.”

“Good. Well, my battery is almost down. You get some rest. I hear that Hunter is hosting a Yule party.”

Orla chuckled. “Oh, he is. The backyard is being filled with lights. There is a place to skate and a kind of sports field. Snowball is going to have so much fun.”

Emery nodded and focused on putting one foot in front of the other as she ended the call without a word.

She put her phone away and kept walking. A few minutes later, she saw someone keeping pace with her. “Why are you here?”

---