Chapter 10: GABRIEL

 

The dude in the mirror is trying to kill her!

Ivy moves into an overgrown cottage in the back of beyond two days before Christmas. She soon discovers that the old place keeps old secrets. The mirror above her mantlepiece is not what it seems. Ash and oil footsteps appear from nowhere, as does writing on a wall.

Is her refuge haunted? Ha, well, she’ll decorate the bejeezus out of it, overwhelm whatever it is with pretty baubles and blinking lights. Not everyone loves Christmas as much as she does, after all.

A good plan indeed … until Gabriel introduces himself.

Old houses certainly do keep old secrets.

X

 

W

ait. I have a condition.”

Arms akimbo at her CD player - she intended to pop her carols disc in - Ivy glared at Gabriel in his robes. Why robes? Folk didn’t wear bloody robes like that a thousand years ago. Was it a sorcery thing? Never mind.

Ivy, focus.

“I am not here to negotiate,” he growled.

Actually growled. One read about that shite in novels, but who actually did it in real life? Come on, peeved folk didn’t bloody growl like big cats, not in reality. He did. Blimey, he sounded for a moment there like a sabre tooth, never mind a cuddly lion.

She stood her ground. “According to the law of the land in the present, I am boss here. You have scared the crap out of me and yet, here I am, helping you. Yeah, because I want you on your merry way, but truth is, I could’ve run out that door and left you to your waiting. Correct?”

He stared at her so long, goosebumps clambered even into her armpits.

“What is your condition?” he eventually asked.

“I wish for light in my space, whether grey or bright. The ivy has overgrown the windows, and that makes me feel claustrophobic also. So, if you could remove the ivy … not everywhere, but so it’s pretty, an adornment rather than a strangler vine taking all light away. You know? You can do that, right? A finger snap?”

Baby Jesus in a hay bale, she was rambling. His unblinking blue stare made her nervous.

“You wish for a picture book cottage.”

She sucked at her teeth. Did she? All pretty and countrified? The kind she always drooled over in lifestyle magazines? Yes, she wanted that.

Shrugging, she admitted to it.

Gabriel smiled then. The gesture entirely altered his stern features. Wow. Pity about the thousand-year gap.

“My wife wished for that also.”

Right. A man in mourning. Put them flutter bugs back in the jar, girl.

He snapped his fingers. “It is as you wish.”

Of course, it was now too dark to notice the difference, but Ivy moved to the nearest window and grasped the grimy handle. After twisting and shoving a bit, she pushed the sash open. Fresh air swirled in, icy enough to reveal the threat of snow soon. No ivy remained over the window.

Grinning, she closed up again. This had just saved her weeks of painstaking and back-breaking labour. Damn, when a city girl got creative, she got creative.

“Thank you.”

Gabriel nodded and proceeded to light up every Christmas string.

True. That’s what they were doing. Luring a killer in with pretty baubles.

Sighing, Ivy shoved the CD in.

 

 

Near ten o’clock, having consumed the microwave turkey dinner for one she bought at the store the day before - she offered Gabriel a share, for the dinner was in fact enough to feed ten, but he claimed he had no need to eat - Gabriel’s End was one giant Christmas beacon.

Inside, at least. Flakes fell outside now, slow and soft, and thus Ivy put the outdoor strings off until another occasion. Maybe next Christmas … if she bloody survived this one.

Music soared.

Colours winked on and off.

Spices and gravy aroma permeated every space.

The fire crackled merrily.

The tree glowed as if fairies danced amid the plastic branches.

Tinsel twirled and glinted.

Clasping her hands together, Ivy got all misty-eyed. It was exactly as she envisioned. The perfect Christmas. Utter bliss. No one around to tell her how to behave.

Then her gaze fell on Gabriel in the shadows next to the fireplace. He waited there, still as a statue. Creepy. If anything did come through the mirror, he’d be in position to pounce.

Drat. What a way to spoil perfection.

Between ten and half-ten was the killer’s witching hour, apparently. They had discussed it, and now, as the electronic clock on her mobile lit up when the silent alarm she’d set kicked in, Ivy crossed warily to the mirror … and yanked the cover off.

An instant later she ducked and screamed.

A dagger came hurtling out of the darkness. It thudded into the wooden reveal surrounding the nearest window, quivering there like to a burrowing metal lizard.

Scuttling to her wall of unpacked boxes, Ivy cowered as a man in dirt-encrusted leather bespeckled with metal detail vaulted from the height of the mantelpiece and thudded to the hearth stones.

Washed out green eyes fixated on her, and then he leered.

Ambling closer, he hefted two wicked-looking knives.

Ivy screamed.

GABRIEL