by Tegan Maher
A small spark hit Evangeline and she yelped, jumping away from the tree. Adam growled and jumped up, planting his paws back on the tree. The gnome cursed at him—at least, I assumed that’s what the words meant—and another hex hit him, this time right between the eyes. He barked sharply and jumped down, swiping a front leg furiously over his face.
“All right, that’s it,” I growled.
With a curse of my own, I sent a stunning spell up the trunk of the tree. The gnome screeched something in his language and a purple bubble of magic flashed, sending the stunning spell ricocheting off to the side. The bubble faded and he cackled menacingly.
“Oh, you little—” Evangeline grabbed her wand from the inside pocket of her coat and cast a spell.
The gnome danced out of the way and her spell missed by a solid foot. He danced in victory, jumping a few inches off the branch as if temporarily weightless, and tapped his ankles together. That’s when I noticed the small golden jingle bells on the back of his small brown shoes. A tinkle rang out and Adam snapped to attention. He looked up at us, his large brown eyes wide. A shallow slash ran along his snout, a trickle of blood smeared from his rubbing.
“He’s not—” I stopped short, not wanting to even say it out loud.
“I thought Santa used elves?” Evangeline said, picking up where I’d left off. “Not … gnomes. That is what we’re looking at, right?”
The gnome seemed to take umbrage at her question and sent another hex down the tree trunk. We dodged it easily. We fired back, but he dodged Evangeline’s next spell and threw a shield that sent mine bouncing off. “Argh!”
It went back and forth for a few minutes. The gnome didn’t seem interested in trying to escape, but all the same, we couldn’t leave him up there. If he got away, and among the humans, there was no telling what he’d do. The question was why. Why was he doing any of this? If he was truly one of Santa’s helpers, shouldn’t he be … I don’t know … jolly?
At the very least, a little less stabby.
“This is ridiculous!” I exclaimed when another two-pronged attack failed to snare the devilish little creature.
“One second,” Evangeline said, holding up her left hand. She closed her eyes and when she opened them, a victorious smile spread across her full lips. Glancing at me, then down at her fingers, she counted off a silent three … two … one!
Flurry swooped in from out of nowhere and nabbed the gnome from behind, and Evangeline and I both triggered off our spells. The gnome’s red eyes went wide as the spells hit dead center, his body pinned by Flurry’s talons.
Adam barked happily and wagged his tail.
“Nice work, Flurry!” Evangeline called up the tree.
The hawk gave a self-satisfied screech and then lifted the gnome from the branch and brought him down to the ground. He deposited the stunned creature at our feet and then flew off into the dark forest. Evangeline took a step back and conjured a new ball of light, this one forming a large bubble that encapsulated the gnome. “This ought to hold him,” she told me. With a swirl of her fingers, the bubble swallowed the gnome and lifted him off the forest floor.
Adam circled through the clearing, his nose pressed to the ground. At one point, he stopped, his nose lifted in the air, almost as if taking some kind of mental note before circling back to us.
I rubbed my hands together and noticed my teeth were chattering. I’d forgotten how cold it was in all the excitement. “Let’s get him back to the manor,” I said, pointing at the gnome. “We can call Agent Bramble as soon as we’re back in cell phone range.”
Evangeline nodded and called the bubble-like cage to follow after us, drifting a few inches off the ground. The bubble was either soundproof or the gnome was still stunned. Either way, it was a relief. The hex he’d hit me with still stung and while I hadn’t seen a hole in my coat, I wouldn’t be surprised to find one once I took it off.
Naturally, it was brand new.
Sometimes being a witch was a real pain in the rear.
Adam trotted ahead as we made our way back to the manor, his large head swaying back and forth to scan the forest. He was on high alert and it made me nervous, as if there was something he could sense that we couldn’t. Were there more gnomes out in the woods? Or was he looking for signs of Lester? It was cold enough that Lester wouldn’t fare well if left out there all night. It had to be nearing dinner time. Someone would have to go find him before it got too much later.
When we reached the manor, we realized Lester’s truck was missing. A scattering of Christmas trees lay in a disheveled pile, suggesting the terrified man had peeled out without stopping to shut the truck’s tailgate.
“Bat wings,” I mumbled, digging my phone from my pocket. “Bramble needs to get someone out here ASAP.”
Adam took one more look around and then went up the steps of the front porch. Evangeline looked at me. “Where should I put him?” she asked, pointing her wand at the gnome.
“Um.” I looked around. The manor sat on a large plot of land, but across the street was one of those cookie cutter types of subdivisions. It was cold enough that I couldn’t imagine anyone being out and about, but it was better safe than sorry. “Let’s get him inside. We can lock him in a bathroom or something.”
Suddenly, the gnome sprang to life. He shook his fists and started spouting off more curses and hexes. The bubble contained him, but it was apparently permeable to magic because as he shrieked, the two potted poinsettias on the porch beside the front door shriveled, turned black, and drooped over. Dead. Then, moments later, a string of colorful lights hanging from the eaves of the manor exploded in a loud pop.
“What in the Otherworld!” I shouted.
Another stunning spell stopped the Christmas carnage, but the shock took a second to wear off. Squinting at the small creature, a bubble of panic welled up from the pit of my stomach.
Just what exactly were we dealing with?
And how were we going to stop it?
Chapter Four
We wrestled the gnome into the manor and shut the door. We’d have to worry about replacing the poinsettias and Christmas lights later. Evangeline released the gnome from the bubble and we immediately jumped on him and fit him with a pair of magical cuffs around his hands and ankles. Evangeline went into the kitchen and came back with a roll of duct tape and we slapped a swatch of it across his mouth to prevent him from flinging any more hexes at us.
He sat at the corner of the couch, red-faced and squirming.
I cast a nervous glance up the stairs. Adam had trotted up them a few minutes before. He’d go to his room on the second floor to shift back, as that entailed a little too much nudity to be fit for public consumption.
“Stars,” Evangeline exclaimed, wiping her brow. It’d taken a bit of effort to get the tape fixed to the gnome’s face. Her gaze caught on something and she bent from the waist, inspecting the bottom of the gnome’s shoe. “Um, Holly. You know that theory about him being involved with Santa…”
I cringed, not sure I wanted to know where she was going with the question.
“Look,” she said, pointing at the soles of the shoes. “NP. North Pole?”
Sure enough, embossed in the leather sole were the initials. “Maybe it’s not North Pole?” I said, ignoring the churning in my gut.
“But what if it is?” Evangeline asked, straightening. She took a step back, worrying at the ends of her long braid. “A rogue Christmas gnome? Days before Santa is set to visit? And the way he destroyed those poinsettias, with just a word? I mean … imagine the damage he could have inflicted if Adam hadn’t found him.”
The shifter in question came padding down the stairs, his face coated in a sheen, his dark brown hair tousled. With a wary eye, he glanced at Evangeline and me as he came into the living room before his gaze found the gnome. “Why’d you take him out of the bubble?” he asked.
“The spell doesn’t hold that long,” Evangeline answered. “We had a few more minutes, at best.”
He bobbed his head, still staring at the gnome.
“What happened out there?” I asked.
Somewhat reluctantly, Adam tore his attention away from the gnome. With a heavy sigh, he planted his hands on the back of the couch and sagged forward, the exhaustion painting his face. “Lester and I were just about finished with the trees. There was one more I wanted to get. It was a little deeper in the woods, but it was a real beauty and would have made the perfect focal point for the market stalls. They wanted one sixteen- to eighteen-footer to put in the center of it all.”
I gawked. “The two of you were going to haul an eighteen-footer out of there by yourself? All that way?”
Adam’s lips twitched. “I could do it single-handedly if not for the length.”
Evangeline and I exchanged a quick, skeptical glance but didn’t question further.
“Anyway,” Adam said with an edge of frustrated emphasis, “we’d just found it and Lester was having some trouble with the chainsaw. I was about to take over when I was attacked from behind. My instincts kicked in and took over before I could realize what I was doing. Lester turned around and saw the whole thing. He bolted off into the woods.”
“That was the scream,” Evangeline said.
Adam nodded. “I howled, hoping someone would be close enough to hear and come lend a hand.”
“That’s us,” I quipped, “your friendly neighborhood gnome-busters.”
That drew a brief smile from Adam. “Guess so.”
“Are you all right?” I asked. “Those cuts on your backside looked kind of nasty.”
Adam shrugged, not usually one to complain.
Unless hungry or when he had a cold. Then it was the end of the world as we knew it.
“I’ll heal up. They’re shallow cuts. More annoying than anything,” he replied, cutting a nasty glare at the bound gnome.
The gnome struggled to speak, his voice muffled by the tape across his mouth.
“Yeah, yeah, we get it. You’re a real tough guy. Ambushing people in the woods,” Adam muttered.
The gnome’s nostrils flared, his cheeks going a deeper shade of red.
“We think he’s from the North Pole,” I told Adam. “His shoes say NP and he’s got those jingle bells.”
“What does it mean?” Adam asked, studying the creature.
“I have no idea, but Agent Bramble needs to get out here with a team. They’ll have to find Lester and hope he hasn’t told anyone else what happened out there.” I dug my phone from the pocket of my coat and dialed her direct number.
Evangeline disappeared into the kitchen again and I heard the sound of coffee beans grinding as Agent Bramble’s line rang. When she didn’t answer, I left an SOS message and hung up, deciding to give her five minutes before I called the main SPA Seattle switchboard asking for any contingency of agents. I always preferred to deal with Agent Bramble, but this wasn’t a situation where I could be too choosy.
“Are you all right?” Adam asked when I hung up the call. “You got stung with one of those hexes, too?”
“Just a little.” I set my phone on the coffee table and shrugged out of my thick puffer coat. I sighed when I realized the hex had indeed torn a hole in the coat on its way to my skin. “Good thing I got this on sale, I guess.”
Adam frowned and took the coat from me. He inspected the tear. “Might be able to patch it.”
He set aside the coat and turned his attention to the cut, a two-inch slice just below my elbow. “Doesn’t look too bad.”
“It’ll mend.”
Evangeline came back into the living room. She’d slipped out of her coat and rubbed her hands over her arms. “Should we start a fire?”
Turning, I sent a spark of fire magic to the stone fireplace, igniting the pile of kindling we kept there. The gnome’s eyes glowed red, transfixed on the wavering flame as it caught and danced along the bits of branches. Slowly, the red glow from his eyes faded and his ferocious struggling stopped.
The three of us exchanged a surprised look.
Adam came around the couch and added a log to the fire. As the fire grew, the angry glow drained from the gnome, revealing a pair of dazzling green eyes, as bright as emeralds but darker, like the strand of garland draped along the fireplace mantle.
Slowly, I approached the gnome. He didn’t fight or try to curse me. Instead, he lifted his eyes in curiosity and then a flash of panic burst through him. He looked down at his bound wrists and ankles with alarm, then shrank back from me, quivering with fear.
“I’m going to take the tape off,” I told him gently, unsure if he could even understand me. “It might hurt a little but it will be quick. Okay?”
I waited a moment and, slowly, the gnome lowered his tiny, rounded chin in a single nod.
Gingerly, I peeled back a corner of the duct tape and removed it from his lips. When it was gone, the gnome blinked. “Where—where am I?”
I jumped back, startled by the perfect English. What had happened to the deranged-sounding curses and hexes? “You—you’re in a town called Beechwood Harbor, in Washington State. Um, in the USA. America?”
With some difficulty, the gnome got to his feet, standing about two feet tall at his full height. He bounced nervously on the couch cushion, his eyes casting wildly around the room. “Oh no. No, no. I can’t be here! Now I’ve been seen! Oh, the big man will have my head for this.”
Fat tears welled in his eyes and he began to sob. “Please let me go. Please, I must get back home before he notices!”
“Hold on,” I said, extending my hands toward him. “Slow down.”
“What happened to you?” Adam asked. “This side of ten minutes ago you were trying to hurt us! That’s why you’re all trussed up.”
“Do you have a name?” I interjected.
“Buzz—Buzz Evergreen,” the gnome stammered, tears still glistening in his eyes. “I—I’m from the North Pole! I have to get back there!”
“Okay, okay! We’ll do what we can to help you,” I assured him.
Evangeline looked at me, her brows lifted. “Holly, are you sure we should—”
“I won’t try to hurt you!” Buzz interrupted, hopping up and down for emphasis. On the third hop, he lost his balance and toppled over to one side.
With a flick of my wrist, I sent a burst of magic toward him, snapping the hand and ankle cuffs. Buzz looked at his wrists and ankles, as if needing to confirm he was in fact free.
“Do you know what happened to you? What made you go—”
“Psycho?” Adam supplied.
I shot him a dark look.
Buzz slipped off the couch and toddled to the fireplace. We all drew in a collective breath but released it a moment later when the gnome stretched his hands out toward the fire, warming them before turning to warm his backside. “I don’t know what happened exactly,” he said slowly. “The Supernatural Protection Agency opened the portal this afternoon. I was the one Santa chose to come and inspect the town, making sure everything was ready for his visit tomorrow.”
My eyes bulged. “Tomorrow?!”
Buzz looked at me incredulously. “Yes. Didn’t you get the letter? There was an official announcement sent to all—” He stopped and considered us and then tilted his head to one side. “What is it that you are?”
“Evangeline and I are witches, Adam is a shifter,” I explained. “And yes, we got the letter, but it wasn’t dated. I figured it would be closer to Christmas.”
“You must have missed the update,” Buzz replied, turning back to face the fire. “There was a scheduling conflict. We had to bump Santa’s visit up to accommodate another three towns that were added at the last minute. I’m afraid to say that the magic of Christmas is looking very dull this year. It’s going to take more than the usual three stops if we have a hope of gathering enough magic to see us through.”
“That’s terrible,” I said softly. “Is there anything we can do to help?”
“Where is the portal?” Evangeline
asked. “Maybe we could escort you there and get you back to the North Pole.”
Buzz spun back around and smiled up at her. “That would be very kind of you.”
“Hold on!” Adam exclaimed, holding his hands up. “Are we just going to forget all about the hexing business?”
Buzz looked sheepishly down at his shoes. “I don’t know what came over me. All I can do is apologize.”
“Are there more gnomes in Beechwood Harbor? Could any of them be out there on a hexing spree?” Adam asked.
“I—I don’t think so. Santa sends one gnome to each town. I should be the only one.”
It was something of a relief, but Adam was right. We weren’t going to be completely safe until we knew that whatever had happened to Buzz was a one-off occurrence.
A knock sounded on the front door and we all jolted to attention. Buzz side-stepped behind my leg, as though he were a nervous child. “I hope that’s not the big guy himself. You didn’t tell anyone about this, did you?”
“That’ll be Agent Bramble,” I told him. “She’s with the SPA. She’s here to help us.”
Buzz nodded but he didn’t look fully convinced.
“Thank the stars,” Evangeline exclaimed, jumping off the arm of the couch to go and answer it. “Maybe she can make some sense of all this.”
Agent Bramble left no time for polite greetings. As soon as Evangeline opened the door, she burst into the room, her intense eyes searching every nook and cranny. They landed on Buzz and widened in surprise. “He’s—what happened to—is he okay?”
It was rare to see Agent Bramble at a loss for words and it unnerved me. I stepped away from Buzz, as if expecting him to self-combust. “Agent Bramble, this is Buzz Evergreen. Buzz, Agent Bramble.”
“This isn’t a dinner party, Holly!” the agent snapped. “I know full well who he is. My question is why he’s not red-eyed and rabid?”
I blinked. I’d mentioned the quasi-rabid part in my message, but not the red eye thing.
Sensing my question, Agent Bramble continued. “Someone sent a box of fudge to the North Pole. The fudge had walnuts in it and walnuts can make gnomes go berserk.”