by Ellen Mint
“Does this live up to your expectations?”
He knew Nadire was talking to him while a dozen elves zipped back and forth stringing the pair up as if they were going to infiltrate an enemy war zone, but his brain clicked off. The sleigh, Santa Claus’ famous sleigh gleamed within reaching distance. Painted chimney red, it offered two seats—the main one at the front sported a crushed velvet cushion, and a smaller one at the back seemed to be there to hold the illustrious sack. Golden trim followed the swoop of the sleighs curves, the gilding rising to form a tail at the back like a turtle dove’s.
As the elves zipped around, the glow off of their bodies revealed a secret hidden in plain sight. To the naked eye, the sleigh was a beautiful but flat red. Add a touch of magic and words appeared in radiating blue. Latin, no surprise, it looked like a prayer of protection and guidance to whosoever drove the sleigh.
Six reindeer, two of which were a pristine white, stood at the front. Crimson harnesses studded with bells wrapped from the two lines of deer back to the reins left waiting on the driver’s seat. They didn’t tug on their reins but stared straight ahead as if knowing this was their time to shine.
“Well.” Nadire finished checking the battery pack on her waistband. She jerked her head to the sleigh and asked, “What do you think?”
“It’s…amazing,” Emeric breathed.
“Had to refurbish it, reupholster, replace the runners numerous times, but the heart of it’s the exact same sleigh he used to keep in the mountains. I can still smell the pine sap sticking to my fingers after trips to gather wood for the fire.” She glowed, all the trepidation and weight of her father’s illness had evaporated off her shoulders.
No, it wasn’t gone. Emeric could see it as she tried to check her phone for news even while sliding on the requisite red coat. “If you want to check in with them…?” he began, uncertain what advice he could offer to her.
Nadire shook away her maudlin turn and pocketed the phone. A crinkle of wrappers responded to the addition and from the coat’s pocket, she plucked a tiny candy cane. Rolling her eyes at the reminder of the season, she turned to the elves. “Start the countdown.”
Small heads nodded, the ‘airport’ crew made up of what one expected from Santa’s elves. All of them were incredibly short and something told him the heaviest drinkers. Emeric had noticed a new nipping a shot here and there even while harassing up the reindeer.
Nadire climbed into the sleigh. It creaked below her, but as she settled into the seat—the reins limply held in one hand—the sleigh’s entire structure began to radiate. It was like someone beamed a spotlight on it and the new Santa Claus.
“Are you coming?” she called to him, causing Emeric to scamper forward. Her gloved hand caught his. Together, they pulled him into Father Christmas’ sleigh. When he moved to sit, Emeric’s perspective shifted higher as if he suddenly gained a foot. It grew so quickly, when he looked up, his horns banged against a metal track on the ceiling.
Wait? He had horns?
In all his life, he’d never sprouted those, never grown the same goat hair as his father, never… A strange sensation reverberated up his tailbone and he turned to find the edge of a tail flicking against Nadire’s leg. Sweet infant Jesus, he had a tail.
Nadire seemed to take it in stride, watching as he tried to yank it back off of her. With a laugh, she said, “I think that means it likes me.”
Abandoning his hope to hide the tail away, Emeric leaned back. A snicker rolled on his lips as he admitted, “It’s impossible to stop it from feeling so.”
Warm fingers gripped onto his, both of their glimmers fading for a brief second as a woman stared into the eyes of a man, and he, in turn, lost himself in her.
“Okay, my lady,” that helpful elf’s voice pipped up. “We’re all set up here if you are.”
“Acknowledged, Tin,” Nadire said. She pressed a button not on her headset but what looked like an old car stereo built into the sleigh. Noises from the control tower drifted through tinny speakers as Emeric pushed a button on a tape deck of all things.
“It’s amazing my father can even use a computer. He only agreed to the stereo mount because I told him he could listen to his music when he wanted. Huge Johnny Cash fan.”
A smile burned on Emeric’s lips at the archaic technology, but he was interrupted by the Tin elf counting down. “Ten, nine, eight…”
Emeric worried his hands over his pants, which felt much furrier than before, and he muttered, “I can’t believe we’re really doing this.”
“Me neither,” Nadire admitted, her gaze flickering to his even as she pushed the proper buttons and raised up the reins. It sounded like an industrial fan in a restaurant’s kitchen broke out behind them, but Emeric didn’t turn his head to look. He had a funny feeling he knew what was coming.
“Five, four, three…”
With a flinch, he asked, “You do know how to fly this thing, right?”
Nadire scoffed, shouted out, “One,” and flicked the reins. As the crack reverberated through the empty landing pad, the sleigh and its six normal-sized reindeer rose into the air. It hovered, leaving Emeric with a floating sensation in his stomach almost as if he was reclining in the bath.
Her eyebrow shot up as she cast one last look to him and cracked the reins once more.
The sleigh rocketed out of the North Pole and straight up into the stars. Forces pushed Emeric so far back into the seat he swore he heard a crack like his spine shattered through the ancient wood. He tried to lash out for anything to grip onto, but his hands were trapped on his lap. All he could do was turn to watch Nadire with a great grin on her face.
She guided the sleigh higher into the atmosphere. The lingering clouds of the storm they’d ran through circled around them like marshmallow fluff, then blew past. They were left with the stained-glass colors of the northern lights swooping across the snowy peaks. A breath caught in Emeric’s throat at the wonders of the world before them. It was a beauty he’d never thought he’d experience above the clouds. They wafted below their feet, the red and green ribbons of nature seeming to wave them on to their task.
“This is amazing,” he whispered, the floating sensation returning when they reached a peak in their ascent.
Nadire laughed once more, her hair streaming out behind her like she was underwater. Absently, Emeric reached over to cup through the errant strands. “Might want to hold onto something,” she said, the reins rising high in her hands. By the time the order reached his brain, she was already cracking them and shouting, “Let it begin!”
The sleigh plummeted, the reindeers’ legs shredding apart clouds as they all streaked for the ground. A curse built in Emeric’s throat, his body trapped in place from gravity snatching the magic sleigh and hurtling it down. His view was of the reindeer’s backsides, the lead the furthest down, their legs running in synchronicity as they plunged apart the clouds.
Down and down they flew as if the sky was a series of banners to rip apart. Another set of clouds punctured into a sleigh-shaped hole revealing…tiny yellow lights twinkling over the darkening roads and highways of a city. Small squares of lights in patterns rose up to greet them, the buildings becoming skyscrapers as the sleigh plummeted for a dark winding ribbon cutting through the landscape.
Emeric tried to not squeal in fear, well aware that a shrieking Krampus did not fit the purview of the job. But he couldn’t stop his hands from lashing to cover his face as the reindeer dove for the rising waves of a river. At the last second, Nadire yanked back on the reins, and each of the damn deer dipped their hooves into the water as they righted the falling sleigh.
A laugh broke from the woman he was beginning to fear, the pair of them bouncing in their seats as Santa’s sleigh flew along the river. As it passed below a bridge, she said, “I think that answered your question.”
“Yes?” Emeric gulped, his mind in so many pieces he couldn’t remember what question he posed.
“Good.” She smiled, her
shoulder nudging into his chest. “Tin, start the clock.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
“AND THAT’S ZIMBABWE,” Nadire announced, tossing the nearly empty sack into the back of the sleigh. It tipped to the side when Emeric in his full Krampus glory climbed in beside her, causing her to slide to the right and bump against him. Surprised, he turned to her and those amber double-irised goat eyes faded to his striking blue.
“I had no idea there was so much of Africa to cover,” he responded, barely able to hide a smile as Nadire scooted over in place. With a loose wrist, she tugged up the reins and drove the reindeer into the sky. They left behind a small grassy knoll surrounded by palm trees, a pair of curious monkeys trying to sneak off with an orange she’d rolled to them on landing.
“Europe’s a cakewalk in comparison,” she said, “I wish more of the countries would embrace the feast to cut down on the buildup for the twenty-fifth.”
It was a bumpy start at first, literally as Emeric bumbled around in the very first house, his tail nearly thrashing a glass bulb off the tree. Thankfully, it’d landed on the rug instead of shattering against the stone floor, which didn’t require Santa Claus to leave behind a note explaining what happened.
In time, they began to get the hang of it. Nadire would slip down first and find a path for him. Way too many people seemed to think it wise to leave flammables near their fireplaces. After the first few hours, Emeric was taking the lead, tossing over the sack, quickly reading out who was nice and deserved gifts. She even taught him how to fly the sleigh…for about ten minutes until they nearly plowed into the side of a barely moving airplane.
After that, Nadire kept the reins, and she had a tight-lipped argument with Tin about watching the damn radars. Pressing on the call button, she said to thin air, “Did you get that marked down?”
“Yes, my lord. Lady! Ah, this is so confusing!”
She snickered at the poor elf’s panic, lifting the sleigh into the sky for the next set of coordinates. Luckily, it was the watchers on that duty, all of them scanning for open fields with next to no mortals around.
“Poor girl,” Emeric chuckled. As the clouds parted to reveal the Christmas sky above them, his glimmer fell away. The imposing goat horns and fur faded, though it did leave behind his chiseled jaw and striking eyes which far more affected Nadire.
“She’s nearly a hundred years old. Tin can handle it. More or less,” she tacked on, remembering their scare over the Indian Ocean with an aircraft carrier that seemed to pick up something it shouldn’t on its radar. They always planned their routes around militaries just to be safe, or tried to anyway.
“Really?” Those crisp eyes burned in hers, Emeric’s succulent lip lifting in a smirk, “Because I’m struggling myself to keep from either calling you sir or…”
“Or what?” she asked as the onboard display lit up. They had their next landing site.
A palm cupped the back of her hand, his warm fingers cinching in between hers. Over the burst of wind, he whispered, “Or kissing you.”
She glanced at the man who nearly pulled her into his lap. Santa sitting on the Krampus’ lap, that’d make for one hell of a holiday card. A gurgle grew in Nadire’s gut, that unending ache rousing from its cage and batting its hands around. It remembered far too well how long it’d been since she’d had him in her bed, and it grew impatient with this wait.
But there was work to do. Turning to gaze at the sleepy town on the edge of Angora, she brought the sleigh to a gentle halt. Emeric seemed to read the same thoughts she had. After this was over they were both due a long talk. Still…
Scooting on the bench to escape the sleigh, her hand fishing for the empty sack, she asked, “I can’t help but wonder…” Her pause caused him to glance back, the glimmer held at bay as it was Emeric in full curiosity mode. Skirting her fingers over his chin, feeling both his clean-shaven skin and the goat beard, she mused, “Does your tongue keep its length even after the holidays?”
A hungry growl rolled up his stomach already sprouting fur. Emeric snorted in a laugh and said, “You’ll have to find out.”
While the rest of the world only saw the loss of three hours, Emeric and Nadire canvassed the world for twenty-five. It afforded them an opportunity to talk, even while stuffing stockings and leaving behind bundles of ruten. There were a lot of issues to work through, but when she told him of the letter his father kept secret Emeric merely groaned and muttered, “Of course, that’s what it was all about. My father, confounding romantic he can be, is so damn stubborn he wouldn’t even tell me.”
“You think yours is bad? My father’s stubborn streak put him in the hospital.” Where he still was, slowly being cut open like a roast boar. For once, Nicholas was outside the time bubble, his world moving at a glacier pace to hers. All she could do was wait for this to pass before contacting anyone.
Nadire gulped, swiping at her eyes as if it was seawater stinging them. “I’m sorry, for my outburst in the hospital.”
“You said so already.” He was far too kind to forgive her worst hour.
“But it was…”
“Engel.” Emeric gripped her hand in his, the pair tumbling to the seat between them as she held the reins in just her left hand. “Please, I understand. But I don’t wish to relieve and re-litigate it. Can we move past that moment? Past nearly all of them?”
A smile fiddled around with her lips, Nadire’s heart still heavy even as she tried to loft it. “I hope so,” she prayed to their clasped hands.
Still the clock ticked on, twenty-five hours became twenty-seven, then leaned into thirty. The gifts from God to walk all of the world in one day afforded them the ability to keep upright and not that hungry for most of the unending night, but even they were beginning to wear. Swinging across the eastern seaboard of the United States and down into Mexico was when Nadire started to slip into exhaustion.
At a quaint house in the midst of a rollicking party—the guests kind enough to clear a path for the magical interlopers—Nadire spotted a pot of salvation. She ran to its rich offerings and filled a San Nicolás mug to the brim with the caffeine brew of the heavens.
While she breathed in the reviving scent, Emeric turned from his work weaving illuminating dreams into the minds of children who needed a lesson. “What are you doing?”
“Reviving my Christmas spirit.” Nadire took a long draught of the coffee. It was cheap and an hour or so old, but she didn’t care. She wasn’t exactly expecting proper Turkish coffee in an abuela’s kitchen.
While zapping her veins with energy from every sip, Nadire walked over to the Krampus who stood vigil before the Christmas tree. “Should Santa be stealing coffee from the children of the world?”
She glared over the rim at him. It was doubtful the family would notice a single missing cup from their brew. But Emeric wasn’t going to abandon his crusade. “What about the milk?” he pointed to the traditional offerings to the winter spirit.
“Oh, thanks.” Nadire picked up the cup and dumped a splash into the coffee. Blue eyes tried to glare but as she tipped back the last of the creamed coffee, she shoved the milk into his hands. With a sigh, he downed what had to be the ten-thousandth glass of milk. Honestly, it was his fault for still being able to digest it.
After snatching up a few cookies to drop back to the elves, who didn’t so much eat them as gamble with the treats, Nadire jerked her head to the door. She prepared to windstride back to the sleigh, before remembering the mug. She left it on the table next to the empty milk glass. The family would wake in confusion to find their misplaced coffee cup with a woman’s lipstick print on the top.
Round about Brazil, Emeric’s tune changed. The man who seemed to praise tea above all others was considering the merits of a coffee run. Even Nadire couldn’t shake off a contagious yawn passing between the two trapped together in the sleigh. As they drifted back North following the pacific time zone, she wearily asked control, “Tin, where are we at on the clock?”
Inst
ead of the frazzled elf, a stern voice answered, “You’re far behind schedule.”
Nadire sat up so fast she nearly bashed her knee into the console. “Mom? What are you doing on the line?”
“I’ll have you know I was running this operation long before you ever came to be,” Adalet cut back with as if that was Nadire’s concern.
“But you were…you’re in the hospital. You were in the hospital.”
“Still am, they have this thing called the internet now. Tin patched me in. I can’t believe you put an elf in charge. They’re not built for making complicated decisions.” Her mother sounded cryptic but also laissez-faire about the problem as if she’d anticipated having to take control.
Nadire gripped tight to her ear, expecting to find the headset instead of the earpiece. Gulping, she asked, “What about dad? Is he…?”
The line crackled, only silence filling the gaps. Nadire was left wondering why her mother felt she could patch in while Nicholas lay dying on an operating room table. Was it already over? Had he woken and cursed at the idea of his daughter taking the mantle? Or did the worst come to pass?
“He’s out of surgery, and alive, but he hasn’t awoken yet. Aaron’s sitting with him now, but I doubt we’ll know until morning. Sweetie, we have a job to do.”
“I know, mother,” Nadire grumbled, her heart pinging from hope to annoyance so quickly it gave her vertigo. Her rolling eyes found their way to Emeric. He’d been sitting on the very edge of the cushion, both knees tucked up to his chest as he listened intently. Nadire cupped her palm to his thigh, trying to assure him she was listening only to the hope and not despair. A weak smile lifted his lips at the touch, and it struck her that he may be reliving his loss of a parent.
Before Nadire could ask, Adalet broke over the line, “Do you also know you’re fast approaching hour thirty-five?”