Long Silent Night

by Berryhill, Shane

  “You first,” I command.

  Smeagor hesitates a moment, then smiles and nods. This carols like a set up. But what choice do I have? Smeagor is the only solid lead I’ve got on the wolf-pilgrim.

  He shambles down the broken steam-powered escalator and I follow. I reach into my pocket and pull out a bit of the aurora borealis I’ve saved from previous trips to light our way.

  If I’d done that in the darkness when crossing over to Halloween side, it would’ve been like shouting “Dinner is served!” to the nameless things that lurk in the void. Not that it’s exactly safe to do it here, but like I said, I don’t have a lot of options in any case.

  We reach the escalator bottom and advance into the subway proper. The ground is damp beneath our feet. These old tunnels often flood with a hard rain. It must have come a gulley-washer not long ago as I can still hear water dripping all around us.

  At last, Smeagor halts.

  “So where’s the wolf, Smeagor?” I ask.

  A growling voice in the dark answers.

  “Right here!”

  The electric lights snap on and I see we are surrounded in every direction by snarling werewolves. They crouch low, their fur bristling, their ears flattened against the backs of their heads, their muzzles drawn away from their fangs. The particular werewolf I’m looking for stands before a sparking breaker panel. He’s still clothed in his pilgrim costume despite being fully wolfed-out.

  Before I can do anything about it, Smeagor scampers over to him and crouches by his leg. The wolf-pilgrim reaches down and pets his head.

  “Good boy,” he snarls, never taking his eyes off me.

  “Thank you, master!” Smeagor replies.

  “Where is Santa Claus?” I ask the wolf-pilgrim.

  He throws his head back and voices something half howl, half laughter. “You’ll never see that jolly fat man again, Frost. Just be glad we have orders that this be quick and relatively painless.”

  He smiles, his yellow canines glistening under the lights. “Of course, I was never one to follow orders!”

  The other werewolves begin to bark and creep toward me. It’s now or never! I consider going dim, but realize it wouldn’t do any good against those keen werewolf noses. Instead, I use my magic, freezing the damp floor so that its surface becomes a solid sheet of ice. Just in time too, for the three wolves closest to me go slipping and sliding in their botched attempts to pounce on me.

  I skate quick as a flying reindeer for the stairs, dodging one spinning-out-of-control werewolf after another. I reach the stairs and scamper to the top. I spare a backward glance to see if any have made it off the ice to follow me. It’s a big mistake for, just as I’m craning my neck, I feel something crash against the back of my head and then everything goes dark.

  Down in Necropolis, a party was in full swing,

  Due to the eternal night and the freedom it did bring.

  Now all the Halloween monsters could travel around,

  With no fear of sunlight keeping them bound!

  “Have you seen a werewolf?” A zombie, Jack asked.

  The ghoul just shrugged his shoulders and shambled past.

  Then Jack saw a monster he did anything but adore.

  It was his old enemy, the hunchback named Smeagor.

  “Hello, master!” Smeagor said, “It’s so good to see you!”

  “Stop lying,” Jack said, “Or this night you will rue!

  “I’m looking for the wolf who wore this collar.

  “If you don’t help me, I’ll make you holler!”

  “No need to get angry” Smeagor then cried.

  “I’ll take you to the wolf. Let me be your guide.”

  Through twisting back alleys, Smeagor led Jack.

  “If I take my eye off him, he’ll stab me in the back!”

  Suddenly, out of the shadows, a werewolf pack sprang!

  “You set me up, Smeagor! I should’ve known! Dang!”

  Jack froze the ground so the wolves couldn’t creep.

  But then a blow to his head put him to sleep!

  Chapter 11

  I wake up with my head pounding for the second time tonight.

  “Nutcrackers!” I say as I massage my scalp. “Just when I’d gotten over my last headache!”

  “May we get you anything?” a voice says to me, pronouncing the word we like vee.

  I’d know that exaggerated Hungarian accent anywhere. The room stops spinning before my eyes and I see by the light of several well-positioned oil lamps that I’m lying in a Victorian parlor with the Count seated beside me in a plush, high-backed chair. He’s dressed to the nines, his widow’s peak an oily dagger slicing its way down the middle of his pale forehead.

  Lenny Frankensteinbeck stands at his side, ever the obedient guard dog.

  “Hello, Count.”

  “Hello, Jack,” the vampire replies. “Good to see you again.” The Count is one of Samhain’s chief lieutenants. I thank my lucky Christmas star it is only him before me and not his sister, Lilith. That’s one witch you don’t want to cross paths with!

  I look up at the patchwork corpse and nod.

  “Lenny.”

  “Hi, Jack!” he says, waving one huge arm at me enthusiastically. “Sorry I had to bonk you.”

  Despite serving as the Count’s muscle, Lenny Frankensteinbeck is one of the nicest patchwork corpses you’ll ever meet. In contrast to his towering, monstrous frame, Lenny has the mind of a child. It makes it easy for a master of manipulation like the Count to control him.

  I turn my attention back to the Count. “You could have just said, ‘Hello.’”

  He shrugs. “Old habits die hard.”

  “Yeah,” I say, massaging my head as I rise to sit. “I guess this is the part where I ask what horrible fate you have planned for me.”

  I try to sound tough, but I’m praying this isn’t the last stop on my way to see Samhain.

  “Please, Jack!” the Count says, feigning surprise. “Harming you is the farthest thing from our minds. In fact, it was the master himself who asked us to rescue you from that pack of werewolves.”

  “No doubt after he’d sicced them on me in the first place.”

  “No, Jack!” Lenny says shaking his head emphatically. We didn’t do that! Honest!”

  “Hush, Lenny!” the Count commands. Lenny hangs his enormous, block-shaped head in silence, sheepish and defeated.

  “Now Jack,” the Count says. “Such harsh accusations. That pack was operating outside of Samhain’s authority. They will be dealt with accordingly.”

  “I’d like to see the pack’s leader, first. He and I have business.”

  “Alas, he alone has slipped between our claws for the moment.”

  “How convenient.”

  “Now Jack. I know what you are thinking. But believe me when I say it is in all our best interests that you find him. We want Santa delivering presents and the spell of eternal night lifted just as badly as you.”

  “Your townspeople don’t seem to mind eternal night so much. They’re throwing a party in celebration of it as I recall.”

  “Yes, but their festive attitude will be short-lived, I assure you.”

  “How so?”

  “How much trick-or-treating do you think can be done with the human children asleep in their beds for all eternity? It’s bad for business. And bad business is something the master absolutely will not tolerate.”

  “I see your point. So where does that leave us?”

  “We want to help you, Jack.” the Count reaches a bony, taloned hand into his coat and produces a photograph. He hands it to me. In it, a dark, handsome man with bushy eyebrows is hugging a beautiful woman in white robes.

  “The wolf in question’s name is Larry Talbot,” the Count says. “That’s him in his human form. The lady he’s hugging is his on again, off again girlfriend, Lupercalia Lovelace. She’s a Valentiner.”

  “And?”

  “Larry has to know October Country isn’t safe
for him anymore. We’ve searched every cave and grave Halloween side, but haven’t found a trace of him. He’s had to have gone on the lam, and chances are it’s Valentine side with her.”

  “So go there and get him.”

  The Count raises his eyebrows in shock and revulsion. “With all that horrid love and affection everywhere? You must be joking!

  “Fear, not love, is our unlife’s blood. Hardcore Halloweenians in the Valentine world? It would be like asking you to search for Talbot in the tropics!

  “Yeah, yeah. But I suppose it is me you’re asking to go take a look, huh?”

  “Was that not what you were doing already? Samhain would be most appreciative. It broke the master’s heart when you left us. He could really use your help. Now and later.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Both your skills as a P.I. and your abilities as an elemental would be very beneficial to the master. Especially should he ever wish to expand his operations.”

  “Do tell?” I say. I stand up, already knowing where this is going.

  The Count also rises to his feet.

  “Your Old Man can’t stay a boss forever. I’m sure it’s because he sees his eventual replacement in you that he treats you with such disrespect.

  “What if I were to say we could help hasten your ascension to your Old Man’s throne?”

  I fold my arms as my gaze frosts over. “You put October Country’s muscle behind me to overthrow Winter and all I have to do in return is be Samhain’s stooge in the Pole?

  “Ha!

  “A) I’m not interested one snowflake in taking my father’s place, and

  “B) there’s doubly no way in summer that I’d do it as Samhain’s lackey.

  “Once was enough. No thanks!

  “I’ll find Talbot, but only to help Pop. You hear what I’m caroling?”

  The Count throws back his head and gives his malevolent, trademark laugh.

  “What’s so funny?” I demand.

  After a few moments, the Count wipes his eyes, his laughter settling.

  “It’s just that you try so hard not to be what you so obviously are. It’s quite amusing!” With that, he breaks into laughter once more.

  I feel like breaking his face!

  I take a step forward, intending to do just that when I look around the room and realize what the Count was laughing about.

  The walls, ceiling, and floor are covered with frost and, despite the doors and windows being closed, the wind is blowing furiously around us.

  I look at Lenny. He’s hugging himself, his teeth chattering beneath the icicle hanging from his nose.

  He’s scared.

  Of me.

  I’m doing this. Without realizing it. My temper has gotten out of control and with it, so have my powers. I’m throwing the same kind of blizzard tantrums the Old Man is infamous for. I feel disgusted with myself.

  I stow the picture in my pocket and then turn and exit the room, slamming the door behind me, the Count’s laughter echoing in my ears.

  Jack woke to find that he lay on a couch.

  He rubbed his head and it hurt. “Ow! Ouch!”

  “Hello, Jack,” the vampire said. “Ve’re glad you’re avake.”

  “Right,” Jack said. “But I have no blood for you to take!”

  “Please, Jack. Listen. Ve just vant to speak.

  “It’s in our best interests you find who you seek.

  “How can I trust you?” Is what Jack said.

  “After all, it was you who bonked me on the head!”

  “That was me, Jack,” said Lenny Frankensteinbeck.

  “It wasn’t my intention to your skull wreck.”

  “Okay,” Jack said, “Come on. Spit it out!

  “Tell me right now what this is all about!”

  The vampire spoke up. “Ve can give you the perp’s name.

  “It vas a verevolf called Talbot who is to blame.

  “Ve think he’s hiding out in Valentine Land.

  “If you’d go get him, it sure vould be grand!”

  Jack was suspicious. “What do you get out of this?”

  “All the trick or treating ve’ll othervise miss.

  “How many kids can a vampire give fright,

  “Vith them asleep in their beds for the long silent night?”

  Chapter 12

  Flash is there waiting for me when I get back to H-Town. We zoom across the night sky for the aurora borealis. In no time, I’m back at the Pole with Fred running a background check on Lupercalia Lovelace. Fred runs it off the ‘grid.’ The grid is part of something he calls the ‘enter-net,’ though he never enters a net or anything else. So far as I can tell, he just sits at his computer.

  “Yo!” Fred calls when he finds the info. “Lupercalia Lovelace. A nymph from the house of Juno. She’s got a few misdemeanors, but nothing serious.

  “She’s the owner-operator of the Siren’s Song. It’s a popular watering hole Valentine side. Loveland to be exact.”

  Fred swivels his chair away from his computer to face me. “Shouldn’t be too hard to find, J-Dog.”

  “Thanks, Fred. You got a secure line I can make calls from?”

  “Word. The globe in my bedroom. It’s tricked with the latest anti-spyware. Should be safe enough.”

  I go to Fred’s bedroom and put in a call to the castle. A Blond-headed elf with a dentist’s coat appears within the crystal ball.

  “Hello?” he says.

  “Sherman, it’s Jack.”

  “Oh. Hi, Jack.”

  “Mom around?”

  “She’s sleeping. You want me to wake her?”

  “Nah. That’s okay. She needs her rest right now. When she wakes, tell her I called. Tell her I said—”

  “Yeah, Jack?”

  “Tell her I said I’m getting close.”

  “Okay, Jack.”

  I hang up and put in a call to Dee’s office.

  “Hello?” Her voice comes through but not her image.

  “Call me at this number from a pay-palantir in five minutes. Voice only.”

  I hang up and wait. Five minutes later, the globe jingles on cue.

  “Jack?”

  “It’s me, Dee.”

  “Are you back? Why the cloak and dagger routine?”

  “I found him, Dee. I found our wolf Halloween side. He’s a lowlife named Larry Talbot.”

  “You did? Where is he? What did he say?”

  “He got away before I could snowstorm him, Dee. But listen, he was waiting on me.”

  “Oh no! Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine, Dee. But you see, he knew I was coming. Did you tell anyone I was going Halloween side?”

  “No. No one. What are you saying, Jack?”

  “I’m saying it was a trap. And he said he was following orders. And it doesn’t look like they were from Samhain.

  “Dee, I think this is bigger than either of us suspected. I think this is about more than just some rogue Holiday world trying to raise its status above Christmas.”

  “You think there’s someone inside City Hall.”

  I nod, though Dee’s not around to see it. “I always said you were one sharp ice skate.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’ve got no proof—yet. Finding Talbot will be the best way to finger whoever’s behind all this.”

  “Where are you going to look for him?”

  “It’s best I don’t say. Even over this line. You never know who could be listening in.

  “I’ll call you when I get back. In the meantime, keep an eye out around the office. If you notice anyone acting suspicious, keep tabs on them. Don’t act! Just watch. Don’t put yourself in harm’s way under any circumstances. Okay?”

  “But, Jack I—”

  “Promise me, Dee. I couldn’t take losing both Pop and you on the same watch. Promise me.”

  “I—I promise, Jack.”

  “I’ll talk to you, soon.” I hang up and bid Fred goodbye.

&nb
sp; Before you can blink, Flash and I are out of the Pole and over HolidayTown flying toward its amusement park. It’s the off season, not to mention late at night, so the park will be closed—not that it matters to me either way.

  We reach the park and I leave Flash behind as I jump the gate. The park is deserted—not even a wandering security guard to be seen. I bypass Ferris wheels and roller coasters, heading deeper inside until I reach the Tunnel of Love built over the park’s lake.

  I help myself to a boat and steer it inside the tunnel. As I float down the tube, conveniently dark for young lovers, I can’t help but think of all the times Dee and I took our own boat rides here.

  Ah, sweet memories.

  Finally, I come out the tunnel’s other side and begin to ascend the track that will ultimately drop the boat into splashdown. I crest the ramp’s apex and concentrate on my feelings for Dee.

  Thinking about something you cherish—or even love—is necessary to journey to Valentine side. Otherwise, you just finish the ride in the park, ending up soaking wet!

  The boat descends the ramp like a torpedo moving at high velocity. The boat hits the water and plummets beneath the surface. The next thing I know, my head is bobbing in the water just off the Loveland shore.

  The trip always amuses me. I guess love does feel a lot like you’re drowning in some ways.

  I swim to shore. It may be night, but here in Loveland, it’s always springtime.

  I am immediately unhappy.

  Spring is too close to summer for my liking. I prefer to stay where just above freezing is considered a scorcher, thank you very much!

  I make my way inland. There’s no need to dry off. The water freezes right to me, fitting in naturally with my already frosty exterior.

  Soon, I hit downtown and, as is the usual here, attractive young godlings hold hands and trade love notes as they walk down either side of the street. Chubby cupids and winged, anthropomorphic hearts flitter above their heads, losing arrows of love left and right.

  Sometimes even I think the Pole is a bit much with its candy cane road signs and sugar cookie manhole covers. But it’s got nothing on the sappy, greeting card billboards and chocolate-covered lampposts here in Loveland. The whole town is sickeningly sweet to the last sprite, nymph, and cupid. I can’t half blame the Count for not wanting to set foot here.