Chapter Two

With relief, Lina dropped her bag on the floor, dusting off the snowflakes from her jacket shoulders the annoying stubborn bits of ice that had refused to melt away.

"Hate damn Christmas." Lina hissed as she dusted it away. "Why does everyone go so crazy for it?"

Behind her, children raced up the hallway, screeching and happily singing-dancing their merry hearts away, anxiously awaiting Father Christmas.

Lina cringed at the sound; she could feel the onset of a headache coming on.

"Come on, Mommy, we will miss Santa!" One shouted.

Lina waited for the harsh reply, as Lilith had done to her many times, Christmas with the Leonards had been cold and cruel, all money and no heart, and her mother was the most callous of them all.

It never came.

Instead, Lina heard a gentle laugh. "He's not going to forget you, Nico, and Sam, stop winding up your brother."

"Sorry, Mommy. "

As soon as they had arrived, they were gone, escaped around the corner, and Lina found herself alone again.

She thought she was alone.

Voices sounded behind her, making her jump up into the air with shock, turning around her eyes full, she was faced with the most frightening sight anyone can see at Christmas....a choir.

"It came upon the midnight clear,

That glorious song of old,

From angels bending near the earth

To touch their harps of gold:

"Peace on the earth, goodwill to men,

From heaven's all-gracious King."

The world in solemn stillness lay

To hear the angels sing. "

"Wow, hold on, what the hell is this, and why are you signing at me?" Lina shrieked her hands, flailing wildly. "I think there are laws against this, and if there isn't, then there should be."

A man with a full white beard smiled warmly, small lines crinkled deeply around his little blue eyes. "A Kiera Daniels gave us your name and address and paid us a donation to come and help install some Christmas spirit into you this fine and magical Christmas Eve."

Lina felt angry frustration build from somewhere deep within her; she should have known Kiera Daniels was behind this; who else would have done something like this?

"I'm going to kill her, I will kill her slowly and very painfully." Lina seethed silently.

"Still through the cloven skies, they come

With peaceful wings unfurled,

And still their heavenly music floats

O'er all the weary world;

Above its sad and lowly plains

They bend on hovering wing,

And ever o'er its Babel-sounds

The blessed angels sing."

"STOP!!" She shouted.

"Why? "Another choir member asked.

"I'm terribly sorry, but I prefer Grandma got run over by a reindeer," Lina replied smugly. Replace Grandma with mother, and it's the perfect song. "Now, if you don't mind, my Thai takeout is getting cold, and as I have a sweet pad thai brimming with kale, you will have to forgive me for telling you all to get lost! "

"Well, I've never been so insulted in all my life!"

"All I can say is you've been damned lucky. " Lina said firmly, a dangerous smirk cutting across her lips as the various members of the choir gasped and whispered under the breaths of their anger at the raven-haired woman's rudeness.

One woman scowled, before turning away with her colleagues. "Oh, dear."

"Yes. "

"Watch yourself before your heart turns too much to stone that there is no going back." With her grim advice, she left, leaving the hallway truly empty all except Lina and her Thai food, the delicious smell filling all around her; if her hunger wasn't too great, she might have stood and wondered what the woman's words had meant, maybe it would have saved her.

Instead, she picked up her bag and put her key into the door, smirking at the sight of the familiar quirky old big door knocker shaped in that of a face; it had been what charmed her at first about the apartment, such a vintage touch that had made the whole place filled with wonder.

It reminded her of the old Victorian doors she'd seen in London before she returned to New York to take over her brother's place as CEO of the family business. Lena had enjoyed winterly walks through the ancient streets and charmed by the giant elaborate old door knockers.

They were undoubtedly replicas in many cases, but they still held a kind of wonder Lina enjoyed.

Before her eyes, the knocker began to change; it's shapeshifting from a characteristic brass male face, cheeks bulging out, and a bulbous nose set at the center, to something all too familiar.

What the hell was going on?

"Leon!" Lina gasped at the sight of her brother, his face stood out illuminated, unlike the shadowy objects in the hallway, but this was strangely illuminated.

Lina felt fear grasp at her; the expression on his disembodied face is neither angry nor violent; it looked just as Leon was apt to look before his untimely mysterious death in his prison cell the year before.

It's otherworldly nature created a grotesque, horrible specter; Lina's eyes stared at it with a mixture of chilled fear and disbelief, rubbing her eyes to try to clear away the image from her sight. Then as quickly as it had appeared, the specter was gone, and the knocker returned to normal. With shaking fingers, Lina reached to touch the brass knocker, it's ice-cold touch froze her fingers, flustered. She reached for it and pushed the door open, running inside and closing the door, her chest rising and falling hard as she breathed out her fear.

Caution made Lina turn around, half expecting her brother to be standing there in the doorway; finally, when she saw he was not, she let out a struggled breath.

"Oh God, I've really been working too much, I'm hallucinating now." Lina sighed. "Let's get this food eaten because I am so hungry I could eat a horse."

It had to be her overworking; there was no other reason for having seen her brother visage.