CHAPTER 168

The others looked at her with puzzlement as she walked through the dining room, but she noticed that Tink was missing. By the time she made it out to the front room, she noticed the goblin stood at the window with Jenny, both of their faces pressed to the glass. Tink was hopping up and down in excitement, and when Beth looked through the peephole, she saw a witch, a Frankenstein's monster, and a nervous-looking army man.

The door creaked when it opened, and she looked down at the children as they lifted their bags and shouted with enthusiasm.

"Trick or Treat!" they shouted.

Stunned, she realized that she had forgotten to retrieve the bag of candy and asked them to wait. She locked the door and sprinted to the kitchen, then grabbed the bag of candy so fast that she accidentally spilled a box of pasta. On her way back, she noticed that Yuki and Quetzalli now stood at the window, and she was about to open the door when a hand fastened around hers.

"Oh, please, allow me," Yuki asked, then took the candy from her. Her features shifted, making her ears bigger and her nose longer and more fox-like. She threw a card on the ground to summon a large chalice roughly the size of a bucket and then dumped the candy in.

Standing back from the door, Beth watched Yuki open the door and growl at them.

The witch shouted "Trick or Treat" one more time, but the army man broke and ran down the front walk. Frankenstein's monster stared as he took his candy, but the witch clapped her hands in excitement.

"Your costume is so cool," she declared. "Can I get an extra piece for my brother?"

"Sure," Yuki told her.

"Thanks. I like your decorations, the dragon in your yard is so cool!" With that, the witch and the monster departed down the long path to the road and the safety of their parents. Beth couldn't help but notice that the Jabberwock opened an eye as they passed, then puffed out a wisp of smoke.

"Wait, they can see the Jabberwock?" Beth looked at the others with concern. "What happened to the geas?"

"It's Samhain," Yuki replied. "The thinning of the barrier between our world and the spirit world. My guess is that barrier may include the geas somehow. It's still up and protecting us, I can feel it. But maybe the visual protection is weaker. It's not like Emily ever had someone stand out front to test it on Halloween, we always just kept to ourselves. The Jabberwock, on the other hand, is bound to be noticed."

"It won't eat anyone, will it?" No sooner had she asked her question, the doorbell rang again.

"Hold on." Yuki closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them. "It'll just watch, for now."

Tink ran between them and snatched the bucket from Beth. She yanked open the door to reveal a princess and a teenager wearing a rubber horse head.

The princess rose her bucket eagerly, but the horse took a step back. "Bro, your costume is awesome!" he shouted, then took a picture of Tink with his phone.

"Extra candy for cute princess," Tink said, then bared her fangs at the teenager. "Tink is not bro," she declared, then slammed the door on him.

Outside, Beth heard the teen laugh. When she looked through the peephole, she saw that the fairies were now whirring around the yard, leaving spectral trails in their wake. Along the grounds, the carefully cultivated greenery that the centaurs had planted were now illuminated by flashing lights that shot out into the darkness.

"Of course," Yuki said from against the window, "you have a gate to the Underworld out back. With the veil thinning, the souls are using this place as a nexus." She furrowed her hairy brow and looked at Beth. "But why haven't I seen this happen before?"

"Did Emily ever open that gate?" asked Beth.

Yuki shook her head. "Not to my knowledge. But we also didn't have the grim reaper living with us, or a dullahan hanging out in the front yard."

"Speak of the devil," Beth muttered when she looked back through the peephole. Sulyvahn was watching a group of kids as they came up the walk, but they didn't seem to notice him until he popped off his own head. One of the kids screamed and ran down the path, but the others laughed and kept going, clearly under the assumption that he was animatronic. "Well, there's only one thing we can do."

"Which is?" Yuki turned to face Beth, a look of seriousness on her face.

"Not run out of candy." The doorbell rang and she smiled. "Can someone else get that? I have a costume I want to wear."

She sprinted up the stairs, nearly taking out Dana, who was near the top. Once in her room, she started digging through a couple of boxes from her apartment, eventually opening one near the bottom. She dug through the box and pulled out a black cape and tossed it onto her bed. Digging around some more, she found a small black box and a black dress with spiderweb lace.

She stripped out of her clothes and then slid into the dress. It hugged her a bit more tightly than she remembered, and she wondered if it either shrunk the last time she washed it, or if Sofia's cooking was putting some pounds on her ass. When she checked herself out in the mirror, she grinned. It still looked good, so who cared?

Seeing her teeth reminded her to pick up the box. When she opened it, she found a set of false fangs inside and some black lipstick. She popped the fangs in her mouth and examined the lipstick. It looked like it had cracks in it, so she slid it across the delicate skin of her wrist and frowned when it flaked off.

"Oh well," she muttered, then picked up the cape. The inside had red silk trim, and there were finger loops that allowed the cape to move with her hands. She held her arms out wide and smiled at Beth the vampire.

She picked out a pair of comfortable black pumps and then stepped out of her room. Dana looked up from her position at the weird door and then did a double-take.

"Is this...Are you just in costume or is this something I should be worried about?" she asked.