Welcome to Inadvertent Consequences

A few days ago, I was “encouraged to write a Christmas short based on my Main Characters. Considering my workload, and other factors consuming my time, I had no intention of doing so. Unfortunately, my brain had other ideas and I managed to put 3700 words down for the first draft (not pro-edited yet).

I hope you are happy twitter darers….

Christmas Showdown

The private elevator carrying Maria Ferrante and Decimus Traianus Felix arrived at the seventh-floor penthouse suite owned by her ex-boss, and the doors opened with a quiet whoosh. Angry voices could be heard from within, and they glanced at one another before stepping out onto the hardwood that covered much of the open floor plan apartment. The argument was taking place near the large island in the kitchen.

“No, goddamnit. Not even so much as a single wreath, much less a fucking Christmas tree.” Alexander Matthews stood in front of his mate, and soon-to-be wife, leaning down toward her, his face contorted with frustration. A low, bass rumble that originated within the man’s chest could be heard clearly from across the room.

Confronting him, all 5’10” of her standing toe-to-toe with the taller man, arms akimbo, and glaring up at Alexander despite his nearly four-inch height advantage was Tina Ferrante. Her scowl transformed a normally happy face into something that an ordinary man would see and instantly back away from. Unfortunately, the man before her was anything but ordinary.

“What’s your major malfunction, Alex? It’s almost Christmas and I want to decorate. That’s what people do this time of year, you know?”

Maria gently touched Decimus on the arm, concern plainly visible in her eyes. “Oh dear. It seems that we may have arrived at a bad time.”

The solidly built man patted her hand where it lay and nodded fractionally. He glanced at the couple twenty meters away and shrugged a shoulder nonchalantly. “Fortis fortuna adiuvat.” The smirk that accompanied his response made Maria snort in amusement.

“Fortune favors the bold, indeed. Have you ever heard the expression between a rock and a hard place?” She gestured toward her visibly upset niece. “That would be the rock.” Shifting her hand toward Alexander she continued, “And that would be the hard place. There isn’t an inch of give in either of them. I fear this may become…heated.”

Alexander’s head quickly swiveled toward the elevator; his keen hearing having picked up their quiet conversation. “Maria, thank God you’re here. Maybe you can talk some sense into your thick-headed niece. I sure as hell can’t.”

Tina, arms still firmly planted on her hips, also turned to face their visitors. Her eyes narrowed, daring her aunt to do anything but support her position on the matter. Whatever that matter might be.

Decimus calmly helped Maria remove her jacket and made his way to the coat tree near the entrance and hung it up. His own was settled beside it moments later, and he walked next to her as she strode forward into closer proximity to the two combatants. Her path took them directly across the tatami dojo floor that was central to the suite, stocked weapons racks stood on two sides of the exercise area, and Decimus grunted his appreciation of the well-used space.

The 5’5” brunette let her hazel eyes rove over Tina and Alexander, assessing the situation before speaking. “I don’t suppose that either of you would care to explain to a little old lady just what the hell is going on here?”

A rude noise erupted from Tina, and an epic eye roll indicated just how much she thought of her aunt’s turn of phrase. Alexander just grinned fiercely and shook his head, shoulder-length ebon locks fluttering with the motion before replying. “Little old lady, my ass.” He shifted his focus to Decimus, “Is that what we’re calling Master vampires these days? Did I miss the memo?”

Maria’s companion slipped an arm around her shoulders and gazed fondly at her before returning his eyes to Alexander. “Far be it from me to gain-say a lady, but no, that would be the last way I would describe her. As you well know, she was formidable enough as a human, but now…?” A gallic shrug punctuated his words.

He winced as a sharp elbow was driven into his ribs but didn’t remove his arm despite the danger said elbow still posed.

“Enough.” Maria scowled at everyone equally. “Why is it that I come to visit my niece and walk into an argument?”

Alexander and Tina both began talking at once and refused to give the other precedence. Within seconds a disgusted Maria stalked away and settled herself on the couch in the media area facing the east wall. Decimus followed suit, leaving the two antagonists looking at each other before dashing to take their own seats.

Alexander Matthews, Master of the City of Spokane, flopped down into the comfortable leather chair that was positioned just to the left of the matching couch. His leg was draped over the arm, and he glowered at all three of the people facing him. He was not fond of being treated like some errant schoolboy, but Maria had always had a way about her.

Tina had her legs curled up under her, arms now crossed over her chest, and blazing eyes shooting daggers at him. Like her aunt, she had long brunette hair, which was currently pulled back into a tight ponytail, positioned high on the back of her head. Unlike Maria, however, she had mismatched eyes that duplicated Alexanders’ turquoise and amber orbs. They hadn’t always been that way. Prior to her transformation into a werewolf they had been a soft brown, but part of the phenotype for the dire wolf genetic changes Alexander had imparted to her was the heterochromia that manifested in this way.

Decimus, a well-built man who stood 6’0”, had short blond hair and grey eyes. Eyes that currently danced with barely concealed amusement. He looked to be in his mid to late thirties but looks could be deceiving. In fact, he was a former Roman Centurion who was turned into a Master vampire as the Library of Alexandria burned to the ground around him in 48BC. He was also the single oldest person that Alexander had ever met. The Alpha wolf was a child in comparison having only been around for one-hundred-fifty years.

Maria had spent three decades working for the Master of the City as his personal assistant and office manager, helping to run the antiquities business that supported his interests and lifestyle. She had retired a little over a year prior but got caught up in the fallout from Alexanders’ actions in Naples, Italy. Actions instigated by a life-threatening attack on Tina by a duo of local Genetic Underground members. As a result, Maria had been held hostage by the European Council and her throat had been cut when the rescue team had arrived on the scene. Decimus had turned her as the only method of saving her life when the rescue operation had gone pear-shaped in Bruges, and the fifty-nine-year-old woman, who now looked to be in her mid-thirties was summarily inducted into the hidden world of the Genetic Underground.

The woman in question turned her gaze onto him and cleared her throat. Great, now she’s in full-on counselor mode, he grumbled mentally, having been on the receiving end of such on prior occasions. Sitting primly, spine straight, shoulders back, and hands clasped before her, Maria began to speak.

“I realize that the two of you haven’t been together as a couple all that long, relatively speaking, and while one could expect a certain amount of friction to crop up now and again, this seems to be a bit more than that. Would you care to give me your side of things, Alexander?”

Tina immediately began talking, “Why does he get to go first?”

Her aunt raised a palm toward the young woman, “Shush, child. One of us has to be an adult, and it appears that this role has fallen on me this evening. You will have your turn.”

Maria quirked an eyebrow at the Alpha male and gestured for him to state his case. A low rumble emanating from his torso filled the silence. “And you can stop growling at me,” she stated calmly.

Alexander sighed heavily. “Fine. Your niece wants to decorate my penthouse for Christmas.”

“Our penthouse,” Tina interjected angrily.

Ignoring Tina completely he continued, “You, of all people, should know that I have never participated in that annual foolishness. And I have no intention of doing so now.”

Understanding flared in Maria’s eyes. “I see.” She turned her head toward Tina. “I can indeed verify that there are two holidays a year that your mate never, ever, recognizes. Christmas is one, and Easter is the other.” She waved a languid hand in his direction. “Oh, our Alexander spends profligately on gifts for those children in such circumstances who might otherwise not receive anything for the holiday through no fault of their own, but you will never see a single decoration anywhere within his personal spaces, nor will you find him attending church services.”

Alexander rose from where he was seated, the leather squeaking as he removed his weight, and made his way to the kitchen where he snagged four glasses, a corkscrew, and a bottle of wine. Uncorking the bottle, he set aside the stopper now impaled on the opener and walked back to the media area where he placed the glasses onto the short table sitting in front of the couch. The dark notes of a good Pinot Noir wafted through the air as he poured for all of them.

“This is going to be thirsty work, I think.”

Tina scowled at her aunt, unsure of just what she was being told. It was such a silly argument, and yet Maria seemed to understand Alex’s point of view. Not only to understand it but to support his position. None of this made any sense. Yes, Alexander was incredibly rigid and set in his ways, and was as stubborn as a man could get, but…why draw a line in the sand over Christmas decorations?

“Would someone please explain to the really hot, but evidently mentally slow, girl in the room exactly why this poses a problem? I mean, seriously, what the hell?”

Maria reached out and laid a gentle hand on Tina’s arm. “What do Christmas and Easter have in common, dear?”

Tina considered the question for a moment. “Jesus?”

A brilliant smile broke out on the older woman’s face, and she patted the arm beneath her hand a few times, indicating that this was indeed the correct answer. “That’s right. Both holidays are Christian, and both celebrate the Christian belief that Jesus was divine.”

“Bullshit…” Alexander mumbled just above the threshold of audibility.

Maria’s gaze sharpened and pivoted toward him, “What was that, dear? I can’t be sure I heard you correctly.” The disapproval in her tone radiated throughout the area they were seated in.

The Alpha wolf shifted uncomfortably in the chair and looked everywhere but at the female vampire. If anything, Decimus amusement seemed to grow at Alexanders’ discomfort, and he did absolutely nothing to try to hide that fact.

“I said, bullshit.” Alexander reiterated strongly. “Jesus, if he even existed and isn’t a myth made up wholesale by the Catholic church, was no more divine than I am.”

Shocked by what she had just heard, Tina turned toward her aunt, but couldn’t find the words to adequately explain what she was feeling. Fortunately, Maria realized this and stepped in to fill the gap.

“Would you care to clarify the bombshell you just dropped, Alexander?”

One-shoulder rose in a half-shrug. “I shouldn’t have to, Maria. She got the same type of upload the rest of us did when I infected her. It’s all in there. Tina should know that the Anunna were not gods, that the very concept of godhood was bred into humanity as a control mechanism when the aliens enslaved our kind forty-thousand years ago.”

Tina’s brain kicked into gear at that point. “What does that have to do with Jesus?”

Hooded eyes peered at her from beneath a lowered brow. “It has everything to do with Jesus…or Buddha, or Zoroaster, or any of a dozen other so-called divine beings. Tell me, do you consider yourself to be a god, Tina?”

“No, of course not.” She replied quickly, horrified by the idea.

“Two-thousand years ago normal people might have seen you that way. It doesn’t make them right, but we do have abilities normal humans don’t have access to.” He paused momentarily, then continued. “What about the Jesus story, in particular, leads you to believe he was a god?”

Stunned, jaw agape, the female wolf struggled to come up with an answer. “The fact that he died on the cross and rose again three days later? Besides the miracles, that is.”

Alexander smiled sadly at her, which only increased her ire. “Tina, just a few months ago I was shot twice in the torso with high-caliber rounds—rounds that blew fist-sized holes in my body, and proceeded to bleed out in the driveway of the Pack villa in Naples. You saw this with your own eyes. Both wounds were far worse than what Jesus was allegedly subjected to, and yet, here I am. Are you telling me that Decimus, or Maria, wouldn’t survive being beaten, crucified, and stabbed with a spear?”

As his words hit home Tina was forced to reevaluate two and a half decades of being raised Catholic. Was it all just a lie? Could Alexander be right? Though she considered herself a lapsed Catholic at best, she had been raised in the faith, and deep down inside there was still a certainty that a loving god watched over her.

Alexander lifted a hand and gestured at Decimus. “Let’s ask the guy who was actually alive at the time.”

The Master vampire sighed softly and set down the excellent wine he had been sipping. “Your mate is right, you know? I have been alive for twenty-one hundred years, and not once during that long period of time can I claim to have met a true god. Oh, there have been many who saw themselves that way, but none meet the criteria as I understand it.”

Tina flinched as if he had just slapped her, eyes wide as his words struck home.

“If there was a man named Jesus, or more correctly Y’shua in the original Hebrew, who was tortured and crucified like the stories tell, then he was almost certainly a member of the Genetic Underground. Which species would be impossible to tell from what little we are told about him, but one of us nonetheless.” He leaned forward slightly and glanced down the couch to where Tina sat. “Nor did he die on that cross. I suspect that he was removed when it started to get dark, and everyone just naturally assumed he was not going to survive his ordeal. But, as you well know, our kind can recover from wounds that would prove fatal for a normal human.”

“What about the miracles, though? Resurrecting Lazarus, turning water into wine, all of that?” The young woman asked plaintively.

“What about them?”

“How do you explain those if he wasn’t divine, a part of the Holy Trinity?”

Decimus shifted uncomfortably where he sat and Maria reached over and held his hand, smiling encouragingly. “First of all, you have to place those stories into context. Judaea, and much of the known world at that time, was chock-full of so-called prophets and holy men. Many of these had large followings and were ignored for the most part until they became problematical for Roman authorities. At which point they were summarily dealt with.

“These cults would often embellish the truth, sometimes outright fabricating miracles to attract more and more followers and to increase their standing in the community. Only the gullible believed that these stories were true. Most of the time such retellings were only heard third, or perhaps even fourth hand. Everyone knew of someone who had been a witness to these miracles, but no one verifiably seems to have been there when it happened. And, as such things do, the stories grew in the retelling.

“Essentially, we have no real proof that any such miracles took place. Knowing the church as well as I do, I can almost guarantee that they created nearly all of the Jesus mythos out of thin air…and stole the rest from other cults that were present at the time. They have a history of doing just that with pagan holidays and rituals.

“Take Christmas itself. Originally this was a pagan holiday celebrated around the winter solstice. Saturnalia was celebrated in the family home and was a time for parties, the exchange of gifts, and even the decorating of trees. It wasn’t until the late third century that any mention of this being the birth date of Christ is even mentioned. Which is patently false.

“The Christian Bible talks about shepherds tending to their lambs when Jesus was born, right?”

Tina had begun to look more and more distraught as Decimus continued to speak, but she nodded in response.

“When are lambs born, Tina?”

“I’m not sure.” She whispered.

“Lambs are born in the March-April timeframe. Therefore, if we are to take as gospel that they were present at the birth of Jesus, then it couldn’t have been in December.”

Decimus knew he could continue to poke holes in what the Bible had to say on the subject, but that wasn’t the primary purpose of his exposition. Providing enough information to lead the young lady down the path to understanding was his goal, and he had to do so as delicately as possible.

“If a man named Jesus even existed, then I suspect that he was far different from the man you were taught to believe in. Most likely he would have been a bit of a firebrand, unhappy with the Roman occupation of Judaea, even more unhappy with the leadership of the Jewish faith at the time, and preaching some form of resistance, if not outright insurrection. The Holy land was a hotbed at the time, a blaze just looking for a match.”

Tina visibly slumped further into the couch, the impact of what she had been told weighing heavily on her.

Tina was suffering from a severe crisis of faith…an existential morass that threatened to consume her. Intellectually she knew that Alexander and Decimus were probably right, and the memories she had inherited from the device her mate wore around his neck only served to drive that fact home, but… What would fill the void left behind? A belief in a higher power had always been a cornerstone of her existence, had always been there in her moments of doubt and despair. And now? Now there was nothing.

“You guys’ suck.”

At least the men had the decency to look uncomfortable at her words, and Maria appeared to be sympathetic.

“We are sorry, dear. And truthfully, I had assumed that you had already made the mental connections on your own.” Her aunt told her.

“I guess I should have, but it was never exactly at the forefront of my thinking, if you know what I mean?” Tina turned her eyes toward Alexander. “You went to the services for our dead in Naples. Why would you do that if you don’t buy into any of this?”

A grimace passed across his face before he responded. “Our Pack doesn’t have access to the information that we do. Only the four of us, here in this room, are recipients of that knowledge, and only because of the devices that Decimus and I wear.

“That being said, it meant a lot to them, and the majority of our people are active members of the Catholic church. I owed it to them, and I would do it again if it becomes necessary. Just because I’m not a believer doesn’t mean I would deny them the closure that those funerals represented. And truth be told, there is power in ceremony, power that I needed at that moment as much as they did”

Tina nodded, acknowledging the truth of this.

“If I might add a thought or two?” Decimus murmured quietly.

“Please do,” the female wolf said, even if a bit reluctantly.

“I was born and raised as what modern society would call a pagan. The Romans had hundreds of gods, some homegrown, some borrowed from other cultures, and the one constant was that the pantheon was always changing, fluid by its very nature. There is a certain flexibility built into such a system that perhaps is lacking in today’s religions.” He paused for a moment to collect his thoughts. “People need something to believe in that is larger than themselves, something that can guide them, or help them deal with tragedy. What that something is has changed over the course of human history, but there is a reason that religions still exist, even in the twenty-first century. In a clinical sense, we probably should have grown beyond needing such a thing, but I’m not convinced that it will happen any time soon. If ever.”

Tina wrinkled her nose, processing what he had just said. “Ok, but how does that apply to my situation? I mean, you guys just basically told me that I believe in a fairy tale.”

“Harsh, but accurate nonetheless.” The Master vampire frowned before continuing. “Just because I have never come face to face with a higher power, doesn’t preclude that such might exist, nor does it mean that you personally cannot believe in such an agency.

“If it brings you comfort, then I see no reason for you not to embrace the sentiment. Each of us has to come up with a solution that meets our personal needs. I suspect that Alexander and I share a common skepticism when it comes to religion or faith-based systems, but that doesn’t mean that we are correct.”

Alexander nodded in agreement. “I didn’t mean to pee in your cornflakes, Tina, but this shit is a hot-button for me.”

“I guess I can see that. And it makes sense now, but that doesn’t mean I like it.”

“Understood.” He replied.

Tina slapped her palms down on her thighs, startling the others. “You’ve given me a hundred reasons for why I can’t decorate based on Jesus, but I didn’t hear a damn thing about Santa themed decorations.” The smile that lit up her face was brilliant in its intensity.

Alexander surged forward, “Now just a goddamn minute…”

Decimus full-throated laughter erupted as he threw back his head and let loose.

Maria glared at the Alpha wolf, although laughter danced in her eyes. “Alexander, just let it go…”

The End