Author's Note: This chapter, indeed this whole story, is dedicated to Coleen561 for all her help and support.

CHAPTER TWO

'This'll fetch a pretty penny.'

I saw through the thief's eyes the image of a pocket watch, golden and gleaming by the light of a dying coal fire. No wonder he'd left the window open. The fumes were pungent. They nearly overpowered the lavender scent clinging to the thief's clothes.

He opened the watch, swearing a little when he couldn't figure out the catch at first.

'What's this? An inscription? To Albert Love Always Mary?'

He set the watch down abruptly and pondered the new development.

'This will lessen its value.'

Dejection rolled over him.

'I'll never get enough to pay off Carlo, never. Why did I let Ronald talk me into that poker game? I knew it was too rich for my pocketbook. Everyone knows Carlo is a dangerous man. Now he holds my note.'

He envisioned the dirty scrap of paper where he'd written his 'I owe you'.

'I'll never be able to pay up by Christmas.'

I saw the thief's hands. He held them up in front of his face and was staring at the way they were shaking in fear. Fingers curled as he clenched them into fists and let them drop.

'I can't do this anymore, I can't. My poor nerves. I thought my heart would stop the whole time I was in there. I'm not cut out for a life of crime.'

He picked up the watch again and stared at it as a wave of self-loathing went through him.

'Better to get beaten within an inch of my life. At least that way I won't end up in jail.'

His thoughts became aggrieved.

'I paid off the amount I lost at the game. It isn't fair that Carlo keeps raising the interest. The way he has it set up it'll never stop. He's going to come after me and beat me, I just know it.'

I caught a glimpse of wood planking, and then darkness descended as the thief closed his eyes, laid his forehead against the table, and began to sob.

Backing away, I forced my feet to move away from the building.

I hated the man for being weak, for being a thief, but most of all I hated him for making me feel sorry for him. What right had he to my pity? It wasn't my problem. I had a table to fix.

My footsteps slowed.

If it wasn't my problem, why did I feel guilty walking away? I could break into the thief's apartment, take back the gifts and deliver them to Mrs. Kendall's house, but what then? How would I explain finding the gifts? And where would that leave the thief? He'd be free to rob some other poor family, and with the level of desperation I'd felt from him, he'd be convincing himself soon enough to go out and rob again.

I could break his leg, forcing him to stay inside, but that would make me just like Carlo, the man he feared. Besides, Carlisle would never approve. If I miscalculated the tiniest bit and broke the skin…

Shuddering at the thought of fresh blood, I knew I'd never be able to hold back. It was far too dangerous to contemplate.

Carlo.

He was the real culprit.

I knew what I had to do.

I stashed my purchases down an alley near the apartment building and set off to complete my task.

Three visits to local saloons later, I found a man who believed my story about going to Carlo's to pay off my bed-ridden father's gambling debt. He gave me directions to Carlo's house, making me promise to be discreet since Carlo didn't like doing business where he lived. Only my assurance that my 'father' owed a lot of money, convinced the barkeep to give me the address. Judging by the man's thoughts, Carlo liked money a lot, and tended to be unforgiving towards those who kept him from his money.

Carlo Santorini lived in a nice part of town in a brick house locked behind a tall iron gate. It took less than a second for me to leap over it. There were lights coming from windows on the ground floor. I crouched by the mellowed brick wall, careful to stay out of sight near two French doors that led to a side garden.

Three servants slept on the top floor, a man and two women. On the second floor the innocent chaotic dreams of two children surprised me. A woman slept in the room next to theirs, so recently asleep that she wasn't dreaming yet. Carlo had a wife? A family?

I dismissed the notion as I honed in on the thoughts of the only wakeful occupant of the house. He was half drunk, grumbling mentally about having to put up with his sister and her two children for the holidays.

'Damn fool, getting himself sent up state for Christmas. Now I'm stuck with Theresa for the next six months until he gets released. Her brats too. Can't throw them out either. I don't want people saying I can't take care of my own kin. It's bad for business.'

He took another gulp of whiskey, holding up the cut glass drinking cup to admire the color of the liquid.

'Ah, that's the stuff. That's what it's all about. Good liquor, good food, and fast women. Not that there'll be any of that this Christmas, not with Theresa in the house,' he thought resentfully, his mind touching briefly on past conquests.

Thankfully, his thoughts moved back to his grievances quickly.

'Saint Theresa,' he thought derisively. 'Reading Dickens to the brats and singing bloody Christmas carols are what I have to look forward to each night. I saw her looking at me when she read that bit about Marley and Scrooge. Ungrateful hag. I'm nothing like Scrooge. I'm a real businessman. If people can't pay they deserve what they get.'

A series of memories filled his mind of people bloodied and crying out for mercy as he or one of his henchmen broke them with bats, saps, and sometimes their bare fists.

'Besides, I don't believe in ghosts.'

I couldn't have asked for a better opening.

"Are you sure about that?" I growled as I broke the lock on the French doors and strode into the room.

Night air swirled in with me, causing the flames in the fireplace to leap high.

Carlo Santorini's jaw dropped. His glass slipped through his fingers, splashing his trouser leg with whiskey and saturating the Oriental rug at his feet. Shock froze him in his armchair a moment, then he began to react.

He was a heavy man with jet black hair parted in the middle. His eyes were small and set into folds of olive toned flesh. His broad mouth drew up in a snarl.

"Who do you think you are? Get out of my house!"

He was angry, but not fearful, not yet. Placing his hands on the armrests of his overstuffed leather chair, he began to heave his considerable bulk to his feet, only to stop dead as I moved with vampiric speed to prevent it.

One moment I was in the open doorway, the next my hands were on top of his, securing them to the armrests, with my face directly in front of his.

It was dangerous to be so close, but thrilling too in a sense, to know that his life was mine to take or to leave.

He yelped, startled.

'His eyes, his hands, so cold,' came his thoughts, jumbled by fear.

Good. That was exactly what I wanted him to feel.

"What the…What are you?" he stammered.

"Perhaps I'm just a drunken nightmare come to haunt you after too much Dickens," I suggested mildly.

"Or perhaps," I continued, glaring, "I'm your conscience in human form."

I let him ponder that for a second, and then lowered my voice menacingly.

"Or perhaps I really am a ghost."

A nervous smile flitted across his mouth as his mind rejected the thought.

"No, it's not possible. I don't…"

"Believe in ghosts?" I finished his sentence for him. "I know that. I know everything about you, you disgusting parasite."

I lifted my right hand and drew an ice-cold finger down his cheek, stopping it at his jugular vein. I pressed the tip of my fingernail against it lightly, just enough to cause pain but not enough to puncture the skin.

It would be so easy to rip it open. The skin would yield like tissue paper with a flick of my finger.

Venom filled my mouth. My stomach tightened. So close, so tempting was his blood. I swallowed back the venom reluctantly. I had a job to do.

"It would be easy to kill you."

I heard the longing in my voice. So did he. His eyes widened, pupils dilating as his heart rate sped up. I had to swallow back another rush of venom.

Brushing his hand off the armrest, I ripped off the leather and stuffing covered wood and held it up for Santorini to see before tossing it into the fireplace. The flames began to dance and the smell of burnt cowhide filled the room as they began to consume it.

"I could snap your neck just as easily," I informed him.

"What do you want?"

His mind was scrambling for options. He had none. His butler/bodyguard was upstairs asleep. I was stronger and faster. He didn't have a chance of beating me. I'd just demonstrated that.

"Your promissory notes. The gambling debts you've collected."

A frown creased the fat man's face as he mentally ran through the list of everyone who owed him money, trying to come up with the name of a person who could afford to hire out of town muscle. That's how he thought of me, as a hired thug sent to scare him. I suppose it was easier for him to believe than what he was seeing with his own eyes.

"Which one?"

I hesitated for a breath of time, realizing I didn't know the name of the thief. Then I smiled as a solution presented itself.

"All of them."

"What? No! I can't."

He was totaling up the amount he'd lose by releasing the notes. Incredibly, his greed was overcoming his fear.

Brushing his other hand off the remaining armrest, I continued to vandalize the chair by ripping it off as well and tossing it to join the first one in the fire.

Then I laid my hand on top of his trouser covered kneecap, pinching either side of it gently with my thumb and forefinger.

"I can remove other things besides armrests," I said softly.

The stench of urine filled the air as his bladder released.

"Where are the notes?" I asked.

It took a moment for the gibbering mass of his thoughts to calm down enough to form a coherent answer. I waited patiently. It was full dark outside. I could wait all night if I had to.

"Wall safe! The wall safe!"

His brain focused on the image of an oil painting, a hunting scene with huntsmen in red coats on horseback with dogs milling about all around them. I'd seen it as I entered the room.

Straightening my spine, I stepped away from him.

"It's over…" he trailed off for I was already in front of the painting on the wall by the fireplace, moving it aside on its hinge like a window shutter.

"I know where it is," I said sharply as I stared at the newly revealed square metal door.

I left him to ponder that mystery as I grasped the black handle and wrenched the metal door off the safe, letting it drop at my feet with a muted clunk as it hit the carpet.

Inside were two shelves. The bottom contained folders and records of his personal finances, including a deed to the house and a couple of apartment buildings. I bet he was a horrible landlord. Below those I saw a sheaf of paper money and an account book.

I swept them to the floor and took out the folder from the top shelf. A small notebook began to drop out of it. I caught it one handed and opened the folder to find bits and pieces of papers containing I Owe You notes. Curious, I opened the notebook to find the names and amounts owed meticulously recorded. I'd be taking the notebook too.

"These will be going with me. If you happen to remember any of the names or amounts and go after anyone on this list, I'll be back."

Santorini whimpered and pressed his back into what was left of his armchair as I glared at him from across the room.

I walked in a leisurely fashion to the open French doors, turning around as one of his thoughts caught my attention.

"What will you tell people?" I echoed it mockingly. "Tell them that the ghost of Christmas future came to call and in the true Christmas spirit you've decided to forgive all debts and start fresh in the New Year."

As I left, his porcine brain was already beginning to plan more rigged poker games to recoup his losses.

Sighing mentally, I leapt back over the gate, tucking the folder and notebook under my coat.

I had successfully fulfilled my role as the "ghost of Christmas future." Now I would attempt to perform the duties of "the ghost of Christmas present."

o-o-o

It started to snow, the flakes gently wafting down to land on my head and shoulders where they'd stay until I brushed them off. Snow didn't melt on me anymore.

In a short while I was back at the basement apartment.

Ironically, the thief forgot to lock his door. I walked in and surveyed the decrepit two-room abode. The sitting room had a small coal fire, a table and two chairs, and not much else save the smell of the latrine on the floor directly above. The Kendalls' gifts were stacked on the table.

Moving aside the curtain that served as a door between the two rooms, I knelt down by the thief's bed.

His face was relaxed in sleep, unshaven with the sort of blonde hair more the color of ash than of gold. I could smell the remnants of tears on his lashes. And the blood of course, pulsing through his veins. It seemed I was intent on torturing myself.

I shoved the bed, causing it to bump against the wall. The occupant of the next apartment cursed, rolled over and tried to get back to sleep.

The thief woke with a start to find my hand over his mouth.

"Don't speak, don't call out for help."

He shivered, near paralytic with fear, but was able to nod.

"What do you want?" he asked when I removed my hand.

So much for terrifying him into obedience. Thankfully his fear made him whisper the question.

"Get up. Get dressed and come into the other room."

The other room wasn't much larger, but it had the advantage of an outside window. Suddenly I needed outside air. The man's blood was calling to me.

I stood at the window gulping in the night air through my nose as the thief pulled on some clothes in the other room.

Unlike Santorini, he was resigned to whatever fate awaited him. There was no plotting or planning going through his head, just a calm dread and the sense that he deserved whatever he got. The self-loathing was still in ascendancy. Besides, the only way out of the apartment was through the front door, and I stood between it and him.

"I'm here," he said softly as he came into the room.

I turned away from the window and pointed to the Kendalls' gifts.

"You will re-wrap those. They're going back to their owners."

His shoulders fell.

"Are you going to turn me in to the police?"

"Not if you do exactly what I say."

He pointed to the pile of discarded wrapping paper on the floor.

"I ripped some of it getting it off."

"Do the best you can, and don't forget to include the jewelry and cuff links you stole."

I kept my responses short and stayed by the window and the fresh air. I'd about reached my limit and I didn't trust myself to say much more at the moment, as it would require taking in more of the human scented air from the room.

Carlo Santorini's study had been twice the size of the thief's entire apartment, and he'd had a nice acrid smelling fire going whereas the thief's coal fire had burned out.

The man sat dejectedly at the table, his thoughts focused mainly on how to piece bits of ripped paper together and tie bows over them so that they would stay in place. When he wasn't thinking of that, he was wondering how he'd fare in jail in case I'd lied, or contemplating which bone Carlo planned to break to teach him a lesson.

When the last gift was re-wrapped he set it down and sighed.

"I'm done."

"Not quite."

Fear began to touch his thoughts as he stared up at me, his mind touching again on Carlo Santorini's methods. He wondered if he'd accidentally robbed the house of one of Santorini's friends or relatives, and decided it was just the sort of unlucky thing that happened to men like him.

I moved to cut off that line of thought.

"I want you to write an apology letter to the family whose gifts you took," I told him. "Don't tell the family why you stole their gifts, just apologize for taking them."

He stared at me, mouth agape.

"Do it!"

My sharp tone snapped him out of his mental fog. He walked over to a chest of drawers, found some paper and a pencil and brought them back to the table.

He scratched his head, and then began to write.

'I'm really sorry I took your presents. It won't happen again ever. I tried to put the wrapping paper back but it doesn't look good. I hope you have a happy Christmas anyhow.'

The pencil slowed to a stop, the tip pressing down on the last period.

"Should I sign my name?"

He was serious. It surprised me into a laugh.

"Not unless you want to go to jail," I told him. "Just give it here."

The room was so small that I didn't need to move from the window to take the paper as he leaned over to hand it to me.

"What happens now?"

There was absolutely no hope at all in his thoughts or voice, and he avoided my eyes as he asked the question. Again I felt annoyed with him for making me feel sorry for him, but how else could I react to such a creature?

There was a basket in the corner of the room. Judging by the residual scents it was probably the one he used for shopping for his daily bread and other foods. I nodded to it.

"Put the gifts, jewelry and cufflinks in that and leave it on the table."

He did it slowly then stepped away. I swung the basket handle over my arm and stared him in the face.

"What you did was very wrong," I told him, feeling every inch the mother hen I'd accused Carlisle of being in my thoughts just yesterday. "I know you're sorry for it, so I'm leaving you a little gift. Take what's yours and burn the rest."

Drawing Santorini's folder and notebook out of my coat, I placed them on the table.

He frowned, puzzled, but didn't dare speak.

I opened the door and prepared to ascend the steps to street level.

"Oh, and Merry Christmas," I threw nonchalantly over my shoulder and exited.

A few drunks were weaving their way down the street so I had to walk at human speed to avoid notice. I was halfway down the block before the thief, whose name I still didn't know, yelped in joy. He'd finally found the courage to open the folder.

I made my way back to the Kendalls' home with a smile on my face. The door was locked up tight, and I wasn't about to disturb Mary or her son by ringing the bell, not in the middle of the night after a robbery. I laid the gifts on the porch and tucked the apology note under one of the ribbons.

There was no way to ensure that a passerby didn't re-steal them so I settled down next to a large snow covered shrub across the street and watched over them. Sleeping minds were much easier to deal with, and I amused myself by eavesdropping on the dreamers in the house at my back.

The sky began to lighten, signaling the coming dawn. I'd wait until just before full dawn then leave quickly in case the cloud cover decreased. Sometimes morning dawned clear after a midnight snow storm.

Footsteps echoed at the far end of the street. Curious, I raised my head and caught the man's thoughts. He was remembering the train ride, the jostle of the passengers, and his total inability to sleep on the way back home.

As he came closer, I saw that he was a bit taller than average with grey blue eyes, bloodshot with lack of sleep, and sandy blonde hair sticking out from under a grey hat and shapeless overcoat.

I moved back into the shrub, expecting him to walk past, but he surprised me by turning into the Kendall house's front gate. He paused on the porch, confused as his mind registered the gifts piled in front of the door. When he put his key into the lock it didn't work.

Even more puzzled now, he lifted his hand and knocked, glancing up and down the street to reassure himself that he was at the right house.

So this was Albert.

Mary, Mrs. Kendall, woke and ran down the stairs, moving aside the curtains of the parlor window to see who was at her door. Her face changed completely at the sight of her husband.

She threw open the door and practically fell into his arms, laughing and crying at the same time. Her thoughts were a mass of joy and relief.

Albert's echoed her joy, but registered bemusement at her reaction.

"Mary dear, I was only gone for three nights," he murmured into her hair. The top of her head only came up to his shoulder, and she'd pressed her cheek against his chest. "And what are these gifts doing on the porch?"

"Gifts?"

She pulled back from her fierce embrace, only just noticing the pile at her feet. Her mouth opened into an 'O' of surprise.

"They're back? Someone brought them back?"

Albert shook his head as he knelt to pick up the basket of raggedly wrapped gifts.

"I take it there's a story behind all of this?" he asked ruefully while standing up again.

She nodded and shivered in the open doorway.

"What was I thinking?" he asked himself rhetorically and nodded behind her. "Mary, please go inside, you'll catch your death of cold out here."

A smile broke out on her face, the dimples appearing in each cheek.

"Nothing bad can happen when you're here," she said and the love and adoration in her eyes made Albert go weak in the knees.

He leaned down and kissed both her cheeks gently, brushing his lips on each dimple.

"Come inside," he whispered, his thoughts venturing into realms I'd really rather not witness.

They were married, after all. Still, there were some images I'd rather not carry away with me so I fled as soon as the door closed behind them.

o-o-o

I was sitting at the piano playing "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" when Carlisle came through the door.

His thoughts were careful, but he couldn't help the surge of happiness at hearing me making use of the sheet music he'd brought home.

"Welcome back," I said lightly, continuing to play the song to the end.

"I almost didn't make it back," Carlisle admitted. "Dr. Harrow nearly put us on the wrong train. We barely made it. I was hoping to be home by Christmas at least," he continued, making a joke of it.

He began to wonder if I was softening my attitude towards the holiday and reconnecting with human traditions. Perhaps I was beginning to see the value of Christmas?

"You could say that," I answered his unspoken question.

I thought of Mary and Albert, happily reunited with the prospects of gifts on Christmas morning. Even the thief would have a merry Christmas because of me. I wasn't entirely sure how I should feel about that, but if I were honest, I felt good.

"Did something happen while I was gone?" asked Carlisle, trying to read the expression on my face.

"Let's just say that I caught a little bit of the Christmas spirit," I said and smiled.

The End.