Children of Van Helsing

Chapter Seventeen - Dinner is Served

Jessica

I woke up and wished I hadn’t. Christmas. It was Christmas, and that meant… Family. I sighed, moaned, and whiningly said: “Ah, no. Fuck this. No, no, no.”

I heard Lily giggle next to me.

“Something tells me you don’t feel like it.” She said.

I just moaned as an answer. She rolled over next to me and put her arms around my waist, so that we were spooning. I couldn’t help but smile.

“You can do it, idiot.” She mumbled. “You have survived each year so far.”

“Barely.”

“If you don’t stop complaining I’m going to tickle you.”

I quickly turned around and held my hands up a bit, so that I could stop her if she tried. She grinned mischievous.

“Don’t you dare.”

“Is that a challenge?”

“N…”

It was too late and she started tickling me. I started giggling like crazy, tried to grab her hands, tried to kick her away, but she was faster – I was a professional hunter and she was faster than I was.

“Stop it! Stop it!” I yelled, while laughing uncontrollably.

She didn’t and I grabbed my pillow with one hand while trying to tickle her back with the other, and hit her on the head. She made an indignant noise and grabbed her own pillow as well. This time I was faster and hit her on the shoulder. She laughed, distracted me by trying to tickle me again – it seemed like I got some kind of spasm attack – and rolled over so that she was on top of me.

“Surrender!”

“Never!” I said, panting, and hit her again, so that she fell over on the bed. Just as she was about to attack me again, the door opened.

“If you’re awake, get up and help us.” Susanna said. Ian was behind her – they didn’t argue all the time anymore, thank God – and chuckled when he saw us. I blushed and pulled the blanket over my body; I had been wearing nothing but underwear, whereas Lily was at least wearing pyjamas.

“We’ll be down in a minute.” I said.

She nodded and closed the door again. We sat on the bed, both tired, and all the happiness started to fade away – it hit me once more I had to face my family for two whole days. I’d rather fight a group of killer vampires than do that.

Lily sat up and massaged my shoulders for a bit.

“Just get dressed, sweetheart. You can do this.” She said.

I sighed, nodded and slowly got up. I wanted to sleep – the bed called for me, still warm and soft. I was starting to get cold and quickly put on dark red jeans and a thick, woollen, cream sweater with golden reindeer on it. Lily had given it to me a few weeks ago to wear and I loved it already. While putting on my black sneakers, I heard people move through the house. I heard movement in the kitchen – Regina was probably finishing the Christmas dinner. I thought I heard Sacha helping her. I didn’t know what Greg and Helen were doing, but to be completely honest I didn’t care. Somehow I didn’t trust them and I didn’t know why.

While Regina was having her… ‘Attack’, they had just rang the doorbell and when Sacha opened, they had ran in without explanation. I had thought they looked strange immediately. They went upstairs, pushed Lily and Ian out of the way and had given her sedatives using a needle. Afterwards they told us it was a special kind of sedative, with some ‘witch secrets’ in them, as Helen said, and that it would keep the spirits away for a while. Then they had given her that bracelet and said that would protect her. They talked as one, moved as one. And they seemed rather full of themselves.