by Ellen Mint
“Expecting the sleigh?” She summed up his shattered expectations rather quickly. With another laugh, her glistening hair shaking as she turned to face the fall of the December sun, she said, “Some countries expect Santa to be astride a great white horse. Who are we to ruin their traditions?”
“Counting down,” one of the elves spoke up. “Five, four, three, two…”
He didn’t speak one, he couldn’t as all the air shattered from the room. Emeric’s vision erupted into sparks, each blink scraping tinsel over his unprotected eyes. He tried to well up tears but all the liquid in his body was slowing, stilling along with his heartbeat which beat to a sluggish, fading standstill.
“And synch,” Nadire’s heavenly voice yanked him back to life, his wide eyes whipping up to find her striding to the window. “We’re ready whenever you are,” she commanded to their fathers, her eyes darting back to the man who was fairly certain he died on his feet.
“Breathe,” Nadire ordered, “keep breathing.” She wafted her hand to try and get him to cycle the oxygen in and out. “Come and look at this.” Her hand flattened to the crystal clear window, looking as if she was reaching for the stars.
As Emeric walked up the handful of stairs, computers and elves spitting out data flanking him, he looked up to watch a snowflake frozen in place. It hung in thin air, as if caught in an invisible spider thread, partially tipped to the side. “That’s…” He gulped at the realization that all of the rest of the world was held in limbo while time passed normally for them. “Amazing.”
“What?” She turned to catch his eyes, then followed his line of sight to the snowflake. “Not that, this.” Nodding her head to the elves at their left and right flank, Nadire said, “Let’s spread some Christmas cheer.”
A burst of red and white stars erupted from below the SOB. The comet seemed to rise up from the ground itself to embed into space. It streaked in a circle higher and higher, the sparks falling in its wake and sticking to the same time molasses as the rest of the world. Emeric stared at the burst of magic frozen just like the snowflake, while Nadire graced her hand against his shoulders.
“Now the real work begins. Count in, I want to hear all departments sound off on my mark…”
The woman who’d directed such a miracle countless times over was unimpressed while Emeric stood gazing up at the stars left in Santa Claus’ steps to the heavens. No wonder his father wished to be a part of such a fantastic feat once again.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
“NICK, WATCH YOUR six,” Nadire ordered, a hand plastered to a console as she glared at the screen. When their fathers had rocketed for the first stop, Sweden, she’d taken the time to explain what all the numbers in the heads-up display were.
One tracked the passage of time, another counted down much time remained. The idea confused Emeric, but as Nadire explained it they couldn’t slow time any further than they did. They were only gifted their allotment and had to make do with it. Anything after was a wash.
At the very bottom of the blue display was a count of houses visited, or maybe people gifted presents. It was rising at an enormous rate rendering it difficult to follow. And, on the top of the screens was a percentage. That one barely moved even as Nicholas and Mirek worked their way through half the country.
“I see her, Naddie. Don’t fret so.” Nicholas refused to give his daughter an inch despite her being the one with eyes on everything.
“Really?” she muttered. “You spotted that cat about to leap into the bubble?”
“Metrokoites,” Nicholas cursed, glaring at the tuft of fur that Nadire must have noticed from the camera hooked to his coat.
While Nicholas’ daughter was already moving to find easy escape routes, it was Mirek who tsked his tongue. “Now now, Nicky, you should watch your tongue. There’s children around.”
“Aren’t you here to punish them instead of me?” Nicholas bit back.
“They’ve been rather good this year. You on the other hand.”
“What? Plan to flog me so I can’t even sit in the saddle.”
Nadire’s groan broke so loud over their side it fed back into the mics. “For the love of God… Can you move on before the cat explodes?”
“Yes, Command.” Nicholas turned to a mirror over the mantle and saluted into the camera. After placing down the shoes laden in goodies, he hefted up a sack Nadire assured Emeric was mostly full of styrofoam and both men headed back into the night. Emeric watched his father scratch the nose of the horse, ancient greek dripping from his lips as he spoke to Holly.
Tugging the headset off while the two fathers rode off to the next house, Emeric asked Nadire, “What’s this about a bubble?”
“Oh, God, that is the most harrowing part of the job. Due to us slowing time to such a degree that…” She pointed to the snowflake that first enthralled Emeric. Despite hours having passed, it hadn’t even rotated more than a few degrees in its fall. “If any mortal were to draw too close to my father, our fathers…uh.” She flinched her beautiful nose as if she didn’t want to tell him. “Their heads would explode.”
“What?!”
“It’s fine, we have it under control. There are countermeasures in place and it’s why I’m here. Mostly the big button.” She pointed to a large white button with a small barricade around it to keep any errant elbows or coffee cups from hitting it. “Slam it and time reverts to normal.”
One of the elves rolled back in their ergonomic chairs, rising from the comfy seat to grumble, “And we lose ten percent.”
“Yes, it’s not ideal. In the minute or two it takes for my father to escape, we have to abandon a good chunk of the deliveries.”
She seemed to take the idea hard, as if each sudden surprise by a little girl who needed a drink of water was her fault it’d cost a hundred children gifts. “But there are stories of people seeing Santa Claus. You mentioned the chicken…”
“Is he bringing chicken?” a voice piped up from behind Emeric. As he turned, he spotted the elf from the elevator, her eyes wide in either terror or excitement.
“No Tin, that’s Christmas. This is…” Shaking off her answer to the elf, Nadire focused on him. “We’ve allotted time for my father to be seen. Little reminders here and there throughout the countries that he’s still around to gift magic. Not that he doesn’t push his advantage about such chances.”
Her finger tapped the radar screen which showed the horse galloping across an ocean toward Greece. Saint Nicholas’ day was more of a Middle-Europe and Laplander celebration. Sweden liked to start early on the fifth so it was always the first stop. Nadire said her father would then move East to start for the proper day and timeline.
She’d used a whiteboard and lines with x’s through them to try and explain, but Emeric blanked and admitted science was not his strong suit. Nadire had laughed and said, “Quantum mechanics is science’s answer to magic. Or maybe the other way around.” Regardless, he’d gotten the flight plan, and Greece wasn’t on it.
“Dad, where are you going?” Nadire tried to speak to him, but they had to be traveling at such impossible speeds her words couldn’t reach, not until they stopped. The cameras on both Nicholas and Mirek shifted from white static due to the hyper-traveling to…
Emeric had to ease closer to make certain he spotted tall ships bobbing on the sea. Lights were strung all over them, giving the sails a ghostly appearance while sounds of music and a festival filtered over the hot mikes. “Father, what are you doing?” Nadire tried, but the old man waved her concern away as the people all danced and twirled past the camera. No one was frozen in time.
“Stopping for a kebob.”
“We don’t have time.”
“Calm down, these are my people!” he called, the extension of his arms crossing over the camera. Instead of the red and white coat, he was dressed in golds with green and ivory trim. The embroidery looked intricate, of deer and vine embellishments that had to take hundreds of hours to sew. And he was going to risk that
beautiful antique to all manner of potential mustard stains.
“Dad, everyone is your people, remember. Kind of the point of the holiday…”
Her attempts to get through were thwarted by Nicholas shouting, “Mirek, what do you want?”
“The usual,” was his father’s response, causing Emeric to crank his head in surprise. His father was always particular about food but, as he turned to look at the Krampus’ view he began to understand why the man suddenly didn’t care.
Despite the camera lens in the shoulder to chest region, his father’s towering Krampus height allowed Emeric to view a rather fetching greek soldier—or one in uniform at least. There could be no finer trap laid for the man. Curses rolled under Emeric’s tongue and he leaned upon the button.
“Father…”
The object of his attention didn’t mind the fur, or the horns, or the foot-long tongue, Mirek enchanting with his own brash magic. He spun a few jokes, before finally responding, “What?”
“Don’t you have a purpose to be getting to? Now.”
“It’s nothing more than trading pleasantries with a handsome man,” his father spoke in German, but it was obvious either the soldier spoke the language or could read compliments even over the goat visage.
By all the… Emeric wanted to both burn into flames watching his father flirt and throw something at the man. The fact he was halfway around the world didn’t diminish the urge.
“Krampus, Nick.” Nadire leaned in beside an elf, her fingers jabbing at the mass of keys as she spoke, “You’re due to begin in Austria in two minutes.”
“Since when?” responded the muffled voice of her father, no doubt with a half a kebob down his throat. Which seemed to be his father’s plans as well.
“Check your schedule,” Nadire said, rising away from the data she’d manually changed.
“Buggers and bodkins. Mirek, get the damn horse!” Nicholas shouted, wiping off the last of his kebob as he took off.
“Why?” Krampus argued back even as he too turned away from the handsome man for Holly.
Rising into the saddle, giving them a view of Holly’s snow-white mane decorated in red berries, Nicholas said, “We get behind and the elves turn stabby. Let’s go, girl.” The bubble re-emerged, time stilling as they resumed their travels.
Nadire paced away to inspect data comparing last year to this. Nervous but also grateful for her interceding, Emeric slipped closer. Out of the side of his mouth, he whispered, “Thank you.”
A warm smile lifted her lips. “Not a problem. Keeping him, them on task is why I’m here. Though…” The ancient paper with dot-matrix printer strips attached fell from her hands. She gazed at him, a hint of a blush on her cheeks while his had to be bright red. “I had no idea your father’s…”
“So liberal with his affections? He’s never been the subtle type in any aspect of life.”
She laughed at that, seeming to not care much beyond the curiosity. “Mine just wishes to be everyone’s friend at all times.”
“I imagine if he tried to flirt with every pretty face your mother would have something to say about that,” Emeric tried to keep it light before remembering her mother currently didn’t live at the North Pole.
To his relief, Nadire laughed instead of turning sullen. “You have no idea. Her hatred of ‘Santa Baby’ is legendary.”
“I can well…” he began, his body instinctively pulling himself into her orbit, his hand lifting as it subconsciously moved to slide back her hair. Nadire turned away from whatever work required her, a light infusing her soul as she smiled at him.
“Imagine,” Emeric breathed, the fool that he was falling under her sway. She moved closer to him. No, not simply closer, but in time with. Her hand curled closer as if to knock fuzz off his shoulder or wrap him up in more than a friendly hug.
“Captain, we’ve got a problem,” the elf’s stern tone shattered the silly notion, Nadire spinning on her sensible heel.
“What is it?” She bent down to inspect the same data even as the elf told her.
“Reports of a storm converging over the mountains…”
“This is what he gets for taking a detour,” she whispered to herself. “All right, it’s not a big one. Certainly no blizzard. Reroute the schedule to try and beat it at the proverbial pass. I’ll…” As she launched into the true commander of this base, Emeric stepped back to watch. She was elegant, lighting quick with ideas, and unflappable. He doubted that even the threat of armageddon would stop Christmas from coming.
And what did he think he could offer someone like that? A woman who breathed certainty, who walked into a room as if she already knew precisely what to do and how to do it? He’d hoped, thought, fantasized really about there being an ending to this that didn’t end them. But what could she need in a lawyer copycat of the Krampus?
“Emeric?” Nadire’s voice shook him from his funk. “Can you monitor the air traffic? If we have to reroute they will too. The last thing we need is a jet spotting a flying horse…again.”
He laughed at himself and gave a salute. “Yes, ma’am.”
Before he could dash off to the console with all the airport activity in the world, a hand grabbed his cuff. The sullen eyes of the whiskey elf stared into his. “She prefers to be called Captain, Lady, or Mistress.”
“I will…” Emeric licked his lips while watching her march around the room. “…most certainly remember that.”
“Put another notch on the board,” Nadire called as the data came in. “Hungary is done!” She peered over the endless readouts then skipped to the schedule. “That just leaves…half of eastern Europe and father swinging back up to the Netherlands.” Sweden threw their groove off, but tradition was tradition as he always reminded her.
Digging a hand into her shoulder to excise the wear, Nadire stared at the tallies. The number of homes hit was mostly there to make everyone feel better, its size too gargantuan to mean much. She honed in on the percentage, seventy-eight percent and climbing. Maybe this would be the year they finally reached one hundred. They’d come close, but something always threw the timing off.
The other number, the clock, caused her to wince. Twenty-one hours. They were nearing the breakdown of the spell when time would reassert itself all across the world. Not for ten hours or so, but God—pulling down the twenty was a slog. She felt the yawn rattling in her ribcage but kept it locked behind her teeth. While the elves didn’t require as much sleep as humans, they still liked to have their downtime, which was not an option up here. Meanwhile, the factory elves were all hooting it up down in the elf quarters celebrating.
Rubbing into the side of her neck, Nadire peered around to try and find a piece she realized was missing for some time. “Has anyone seen Emeric?”
“Who?” Tin asked. While she wasn’t a part of the Watch Group, nor could be trusted near this sophisticated of technology, Tin was a great go-between should Nadire require anything from outside the base. Leaving the tall dome didn’t happen until the dawn of the sixth of December, at least not for her.
“You know, the…” Nadire tried to drop her voice, aware that the contingent of spy elves were all listening in, “the Krampus’ son.”
“Oh! I believe he headed into the snack room. He’s quite delectable himself, I must say.”
“Tin, don’t…” Nadire snarled. The last thing she needed were the Watchers reporting on her activities with Mirek’s son to her father. And they would too. They were awful snitches.
“What?” The elf giggled as Nadire crossed the black and white marble floor toward the break room. “It’s not as if I have any interest in him.”
Nadire paused before entering, a hand grasped to the doorframe as she glared at the elf already phasing through space. “What?”
“He’s pretty to look at, but so damn breakable.”
That caused the sort-of mortal to snort. “You’d be surprised,” she tried to whisper to herself, but Nadire caught Tin’s eyes lighting up. Waggling a fin
ger, she ordered the elf, “No! Don’t even think of it.”
That brought out a pout, but Nadire knew Tin would keep her word. It was one thing elves were exceptional at. Oh, they could word things better than any lawyer, but if you covered every contingency they had to tell the truth.
Closing the break room door, lest Tin listen in, Nadire said, “I forget how elves can be so much like old ladies who set up shop in the back pews before mass. Nothing but gossiping and…”
Her words faded as she turned from the half-empty drink dispenser, the scraped clean cauldron, and the picked at but still steaming buffet table to find Emeric. He wasn’t slurping back his tea or attempting to eat the magical stew. Black hair tumbled off the armrest of the couch where he’d curled up on his side in sleep. His silvery blue eyes were shut tight, his breaths measured as he slumbered deep after a long day he probably didn’t train for.
Nadire should have told him. She’d assumed his father would, but that was idiotic. Mirek seemed as willing to share as hers did, the old not-gods preferring their secrets and ‘magic’ to the banal truth. As she trailed along the slumbering form, warmth filled her belly. He’d taken off the tie within the first hour, then slowly lost the jacket and undone his collar. In time, the shoes were gone as well, Emeric Hellswarth running around in his stockings in the lair of Saint Nicholas.
It was adorable for her to turn her head and watch this erudite man sliding around in his socks. Then she’d spot the tuft of black chest hair poking through the undone buttons of his shirt, or the wildness in his eyes when he’d helped guide Nicholas through a wind eddy, and adorable transformed to something primal. No matter how well he cleaned up, and God did he ever, when Nadire looked at him all civility vanished from her brain and she’d swear he was a fertility god.
Not cupid, who became the exact version of an insipid asshole one doomed to spend immortality as an infant would. There was nothing civilized about Emeric when his cheeks were flushed, his eyes hooded, and his shoulders squared as if he intended to fling her over his shoulder. He was a god of sex as much as one of justice.