Son of Krampus (Holidays of Love)

by Ellen Mint

  As soon as she appeared—the way he remembered her, how he never wanted to forget her—she vanished. Her body drifted away like golden dust on a winter breeze. A vise tried to cinch up Emeric’s heart, but the warmth wouldn’t let it. Numb, he turned to watch Nadire place the staff back on its pedestal.

  “That…” He gulped struggling to get a breath into his lungs. “What was that?”

  “Christmas in its raw form. Or so my father claims. The power he yields, that we all have, comes from that.” She tipped her head to the simple stick, arms crossed over her chest. Emeric stared in wonder at her, his mind churning with questions of what she saw. Was it her parents? Her childhood? Or had all her Christmases been devoted to work?

  Nadire’s soft eyes rolled to him and her stance hardened. “Anyway, it shouldn’t concern you.” Obvious discomfort wafted over her as she realized she just revealed their greatest weakness to the enemy.

  “May I ask a question?” Emeric began, watching her stomp towards yet another shelf filled to bursting with books.

  “Will you sue me if I say no?” she bit back with, reminding him she was angry.

  “Why doesn’t your father need a cane any longer? Even my father was surprised to see it gone.”

  “Oh, that.” She waved a hand as if it was the least of her problems. “He had knee surgery in the ‘70s. Hasn’t needed the staff since.”

  Trying to appear uninterested in the staff, Emeric slid back to the desk at the heart of the operation. Nadire watched, her fingers shifting as if she intended to weave a spell and toss him back. Could she do such a thing? He needed to ask his father more about them. Though, he feared that asking any personal questions about the Myras might reveal how well Emeric knew one of them.

  “Why are you asking me about the windstriding now?” she spoke up, distracting him from his languid perusal of the desk ornaments. There were three sets of those clacking balls. “I’d done it before with you, after the…”

  The restaurant. When he’d foolishly hoped that there could be something more. Then she stormed out and remained good on her word. Any inquiries to the Myras would land him with Trevor on the phone. It was impossible to send her any mail, the postal offices not known for stopping by the north pole. She seemed to vanish off the face of the planet in order to avoid him.

  “I suppose at the time I was…” Emeric’s gaze lingered over her body. The limber arms, the soft chest, the curvy hips, the sculpted legs. “Distracted,” he breathed, watching her shudder in response.

  Was it a good reaction? Bad?

  What did it matter? He knew how it would end even if he did pin her to her father’s desk and… All right, that wasn’t a wise idea even with his heart banging about. Surely she had a room in this palace by the snow.

  Focusing on said desk, while trying to tamp down his urge to swipe her across it, Emeric snickered. “I see a tin of crackers, but no biscuits, no cookies? This cannot be the desk of Santa Claus.”

  A laugh burned up her cheeks. “My father doesn’t like cookies much. His preferred snack is orange slices drizzled with honey.”

  “What does he do on his stops? All those children with plates of homemade sugar cookies and glasses of milk, waiting with bated breath for Santa to consume their offerings.”

  “Don’t tell anyone this,” Nadire whispered, a hand placed to the side of her mouth as if anyone else were near. “But he often breaks a piece off and leaves it on the roof. Usually the head.”

  “Sacrilege,” Emeric gasped as if he was truly scandalized.

  Another giggle charred her cheeks, her warm body drifting ever closer. “I keep telling him one day someone will find a broken Santa cookie on their roof and wonder.”

  In her need to be conspiratorial, Nadire slipped across the room, her fingers nearly brushing against his, her cheeks red in laughter, her lips ripe for a kiss. Emeric had to pinch himself to keep from lunging forward. Tugging even further back, out of fear physical punishment wasn’t enough to stop him, he said, “I suppose the squirrels will solve that problem.”

  Nadire seemed to breathe in the same cold reality as he did, the lustful sheen in her eyes snapping away as she nodded and slid away. “I guess. Or mortals don’t care.”

  “You call them mortals as well?”

  A laugh rolled through her throat as she sashayed to yet another bookcase. Perhaps her hip-swaying wasn’t intentional, perhaps she simply glided like Aphrodite stepping free of the oyster shell, but Emeric was distracted regardless. “Too much time around the elves, I suppose. I always wonder what if we aren’t truly immortal? What if one day the magic…dies?”

  The son of the Krampus snorted. It was impossible to imagine the myth of Saint Nicholas fading any time soon. “I doubt you need concern yourself with such an end,” he said, his fingernails bouncing against the desktop. An ancient, vicious instinct tried to get him to scratch something rude along the wood but he shook it off.

  Nadire’s hunt for the way to free her father paused once again as she turned to him. “How so?”

  “This is Santa Claus, after all. People go to war in his name, often over the most inane things like the color of a cup. He is all but a god in his own right.” Emeric wasn’t certain if he was trying to be kind or cruel. The Myras seemed to not take their fame well, at least not with a kind smile. But her wary eyes kept darting to the staff as if she truly feared it losing whatever spark was gifted to them.

  “Please,” Nadire’s voice was stricken and pure as the snow clumping on the windows. “Please don’t tell my father he’s a god. He’s hard enough to live with already.”

  An honest laugh bundled up Emeric’s lips at the ego inflation if he said as such to Nicholas of Myra. “I will, but only if you do not call my father a demon.”

  His earnest plea dropped her jolly spirit, Nadire clasping her fingers as if she had no idea where to put them. “Oh, I…I don’t ever remember…”

  “When he’s into a bottle he starts to think he can survive the flames of hell. Which, is partially true, but no one wants to suffer the stench of burning body hair,” Emeric mused, trying to disarm the situation. No matter what he said, that barrier would forever remain. Santa on one end, the Krampus another. They were a teetering balancing beam with him and Nadire only meeting at the fulcrum for brief moments.

  She took his joke with a wince and nod, returning to her work. Worried that this would take hours and fearing he couldn’t fend off either his foot in his mouth or his libido, Emeric asked, “What precisely are we looking for?”

  “It’s your list,” she shot back.

  “And it’s your father,” was his retort earning a sigh of exhaustion as if she was tired of being reminded. Curious, he began to yank on the various drawers. The first opened to reveal ancient biscuit tins, but judging by the rattling inside they weren’t full of cookies. At the second drawer, he unearthed a massive leather tome, gold leaf lining the binding rings beside a crimson cover. Digging it out, Emeric’s biceps groaned at the weight and it tumbled to the desk.

  “Is this…?” he asked, pointing to the book hoping it might be the answer before he caught the title Moralis followed by the year. “This is the list?” Emeric gulped, his fingers parting just above the fresh leather cover.

  Nadire took a glance over to see what had him bamboozled. For a moment he feared she might shriek at his defiling Father Christmas’ belongings, but she smiled and nodded. “Yes.”

  “I…I didn’t think it real.”

  “Why not?” She leaned over to dig through a pile of scrolls wadded up in an umbrella stand.

  Taking a silencing breath, Emeric pulled back the cover. Pages rifled past his fingers, names and addresses in print so tiny he’d need a microscope to see. Gold leaf outlined each page, robins, holly berries, and other hallmarks of the holiday decorating the names.

  “Wait!” Nadire suddenly shouted, her body rising from the floor. She reached out to him, Emeric frozen, when a great red light erupted from the book, blin
ding both. A siren erupted out of thin air, deafening them.

  Forgetting the book, Emeric stuffed his hands over his ears and shouted, “What is that?”

  “The alarm! No one is allowed to look at the List other than…”

  A dozen swords reverse dissolved from silvery snow into the very real air beside them. Emeric gulped as he stared down the deadly points to twelve grim faces hidden behind forest green helmets. The bodies were thin but fully armored, the metal studded with emeralds and peridots to form leaf patters and spell out “Kringle” across the breastplate.

  “You are trespassing,” one of the armored creatures said, drawing its sword back as if it intended to slice Emeric’s head clean off. It moved so quickly, he could only blink once, his body stumbling to find a way to safety.

  As the silver blade came slicing through the air colder than an icicle, Emeric prayed to whoever watched over them. A hand lashed out, fingers and thumb digging into the flying metal and holding it a few inches from cleaving his head off his body.

  “Wait,” Nadire sputtered, her arm resting almost against his throat as she kept the deadly blade at bay. “Wait, calm down. It was an accident.”

  The lead guard’s shadowed eyes, hidden behind the slit in the helmet, darted from a trembling Emeric to Nadire. He removed the blade as fast as it appeared, all the others sheathing their swords in one fluid movement. “Ah, my Lady.” He bowed his head so deep, prickling jealousy burned in Emeric’s gut. “We did not see you.”

  “I keep telling father you need better helmets.” Nadire laughed as if this whole thing was a bit of a lark.

  “We quite like them.” The had-to-be-an-elf drew his hand down the metal armor that was pieced together to replicate verdant scales. What had been a solid piece of metal transformed into the hide of a dragon with a single touch, every other guard beside him doing the same.

  “Periphery might help, Dracul,” Nadire said. The name caused Emeric’s eyes to open wide, his head swinging from the smiling woman to the eclipsed face. Were there fangs under there? Did Santa also employ vampires?

  Dracul grumped as if he thought such an idea preposterous then turned his red eyes upon Emeric. “You are aware no mortal can gaze upon the List?”

  “Yes? I mean, I am now,” he gulped, hoping to not have another round of swords shoved at him.

  The elf or vampire gazed from the not-technically mortal to his lady. “Madam, I hope you can keep him restrained.”

  “Oh, I’ll…” Her eyes darted from the guard to Emeric and a blush blossomed. “I’ll do my best.”

  “Good.” Dracul nodded once and, without another word, all twelve of the guards vanished into a puff of smoke. Still, Emeric remained with his hands up, his heart throbbing in his chest. He kept peering through the air, his nose sniffing, but he couldn’t get a single scent off of any of them. All that filled his nose was myrrh and cinnamon, Nadire so close opening himself up like that almost sent Emeric tumbling to his ass.

  She was chuckling at the minor accident that nearly ended in major decapitation. After wrapping the book in cloth, she returned it to the drawer. “No one can look at the list, not without going mad. It…sort of sends the information straight into your brain. If you can’t process it, well…”

  Made sense, but there was one matter Emeric couldn’t get over. “Dracul?”

  A snicker rolled through her glistening lips, her eyelids heavy as she stood so close he could scoop her into his arms. And there are literal invisible armed guards who call her Lady watching. Don’t do a damn thing.

  “It means dragon. They were, are dragon elves from the Slovenia region. My father attracts all sorts.” Nadire shrugged as if the idea meant nothing, but Emeric was still huffing in a breath to keep himself steady. While she pulled on another drawer below the deadly list, his brain finally caught up.

  “Wait, are dragons real?”

  She ignored his question, her fingers locking around a golden box. There were edges and notches all along the sides and top reminding him of the ancient puzzles crafted for nobility. A ruby inlay across the top certainly didn’t diminish that impression. A golden inscription rested atop that, Emeric leaning over to read it.

  “‘Can only be opened with…’” He shook his head. “My Latin must be rusty. I can’t remember what Adalet means.” Some sort of incantation? A spell? A secret word? His musing paused as he turned to find Nadire’s lips moving but no sound escaping.

  Picking the box up, which had to weigh thirty pounds from all the glint, Nadire twisted and turned it. She pried at the top, her fingernails scrabbling to get a purchase before she gave up. With a resigned sigh, she said, “My mother.”

  Emeric stared at her.

  “Adalet is my mother and, apparently, the only person who can open this.” She seemed less than thrilled with the idea. “That is just like my father. To hide secrets in puzzles, knowing that…”

  After rubbing a hand over her face, Nadire forced on a smile. Her eyes met Emeric’s and she shrugged. “I suppose it’s time I take you to meet Mrs. Claus.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  FROM THE RICH warmth of her father’s office, Nadire stepped into a frostbitten landscape stripped of nearly all color. Scraggly grass, drained of its summer greens wafted in the breeze. Salt off of the sea tinged the air, along with the unmistakable smell of a pack of herd animals.

  Emeric struggled beside her, sucking in more breaths as if to make certain his lungs worked, before he gazed out across the snowy hills of Sweden. “Are those…?” he pointed to the grazing herd of nearly three thousand, their felt-like horns tipped down as long pink tongues ripped up the last of the dying grass.

  “Reindeer,” Nadire said beginning her long walk to an old problem. She kept the puzzle box tucked safely under her arm while skirting around the clumps of horned animals. They weren’t very large, most of their muzzles coming to her waist, but they could kick and trample just as well as any deer.

  It took a moment for Emeric to realize she was moving, his eyes wafting over the brown hills dotted with the soft white and tan fur of thousands of caribou. Mixed in between were the telltale bright blues, reds, and greens of the Sámi, the true herders and guiders of these beautiful animals. They must be moving them closer to the sea as winter swept in, but it was to the tents and a ring of logs that formed a fence Nadire walked.

  “Are we still at the North Pole?” he asked, despite not becoming a popsicle the second they left the secure building. Nadire glanced back and her breath caught. A serenity washed over him, his eyes brighter than blue diamonds as he smiled while standing amid a herd of wild animals. Nadire’s jaded heart faded as she too took in a yearling nuzzling against its mother, the older deer curled up beside trees, their ears flicking this way and that. Wide brown eyes watched from all angles, but they weren’t worried. They knew her as well as they knew her mother.

  “No,” she said, twisting her head to try and get him to catch up. “We’re in Sweden, following a herd of reindeer.” Nadire heard the familiar voice on the wind. Where she knew it from teaching her letters, scolding her for forgetting to dump the chamber pot, or whispering a goodbye, this voice was different.

  “Hold it tight!” her mother ordered, glaring from inside a paddock at a young man in a bright red parka. She had her hands on a reindeer’s leg, the poor thing trying to kick off the woman causing it pain. “Shh, shh, young one,” she purred, a hand parting against the snowy fur, “you’re all right. Let me tend to this.”

  Nadire paused before the makeshift fence, her hands digging into the tops of the split wood while watching. A warm shadow drifted in behind her, Nadire foolishly smiling at the comforting smell. “Is she selecting reindeer for your father?”

  A snort rolled out of her throat. “No. Those are special bred. Centuries in the making. Well, since whenever that damn poem was written. My mother does not believe in what we do.”

  “She…left?”

  “As she put it, the myth had no room for her
.” Growing up, while her father reveled in every wacky twist and re-imagining the mortals came up with for his life, her mother bristled.

  ‘All they expect me to do is make cookies. Morning, noon, and night. Be chained to a damn oven yanking dozens upon dozens of the cursed things out. Do you have any idea how many that is? Fifty-seven thousand, six hundred cookies in a year. And for whom? Your father doesn’t eat them. The elves only want whiskey or milk. Am I to do all that baking just to dump it in the trash?’

  Her mother cinched the bandage tighter, checking the reindeer’s leg before patting its side. Like a miracle, the poor animal rolled up and rose upon rickety legs to find all four under it.

  “She’s a vet?” Emeric guessed.

  “Adalet Myra has twenty-six different degrees under her belt. At the moment, she is a conservationist with an innate knowledge of animal anatomy,” Nadire whispered to the man who seemed impressed. There was a lot of time to kill when one didn’t care about maintaining tradition.

  Her mother had been so proud when her daughter started heading out into the world to attend some of the first classes to allow women to study. Century by century, Nadire would find a way to sit them, her father’s money certainly helping to grease the wheels. But while she’d kept racking up business degrees for their family’s work, Adalet had stopped celebrating.

  After wiping her hands off on a towel, making certain to clear all the reindeer blood for fear of it startling the others, Adalet spoke to her helper. The man nodded, smiling, then pointed a long finger to the two interlopers. No one was supposed to interfere with the reindeer herd. It took all her mother’s skill for her to worm her way in. And it looked as if the Sámi was in no mood to put up with Nadire.

  “Ah, it is all right. They are welcomed guests of mine,” Adalet said, rising off her haunches and stepping across the paddock. Instead of a long dress of red wool with white fur for the trim, her mother was dressed in canvas coveralls. A bright blue coat was slung on the ground, which she pulled up to help hide her arms from the cold. The peppery hair, always kept long, was bundled into a top knot with a single silver pin in the middle.