I duck just in time to miss a haymaker and manage to connect with one of my own that leaves Mickey dazed.
He shakes it off and smiles from ear to ear, as happy as I’ve ever seen anyone.
Did I mention that leprechauns are insane?
To describe the rest of the fight would be pointless other than to say we both fought long and hard.
When at last I wake up, I see Mickey smiling as he stands over me, one eye blackened and his gold tooth missing, his hand held out to lift me up.
“Laddie, that was the most fun I’ve had in centuries!” Mickey says as he helps me to my feet. “A finer bout of fisticuffs, I cannot remember.”
“Yeah,” I say, wincing in pain. “Big fun.”
It hurts to talk. In fact, at the moment, it hurts to do anything. I struggle, but manage to raise my fists.
“Well, come on. Let’s go. Round two.”
Mickey and the other leprechauns guffaw as he jovially slaps my shoulder.
“We’ll make a leprechaun out of ye yet! But no, lad, it’s over.”
“Not until you tell me where Talbot went to. Not by a long shot.”
“Easy, lad. Relax. The object wasn’t to beat me. No one can do that! Not here on the Emerald Isle. You just had to take me for a dance and show me a good time, and that you did and more.”
I lower my fists as Mickey puts his arm around my shoulder.
“I’ll be happy to tell a fighting man like yourself where that no-good wolf got to,” he says. “Twas me who sent him packing there in the first place, and good riddance to him!”
I sigh with relief. If we’d gone another round, there would’ve only been two more hits: Mickey hitting me and then me hitting the ground. For good.
“Where did you send him, Mickey?”
He grins at the other leprechauns, preparing them for the joke about to leave his mouth.
“Well, it so happens, Mr. Talbot owes me a large sum of money. It also just so happens, he’s had some, shall we say, unseemly dealings with the Cottontails that didn’t leave him on the best of terms with them.
“In fact, the Cottontails were so terribly out of sorts about it, they offered a hefty sum of gold for anyone who could, shall we say, reconnect them with Mr. Talbot.”
Mickey grins, ready to drop the joke.
“Now, there’s nothing more than a leprechaun likes than gold. And wouldn’t you know it? By the luck of the Irish, the sum of money the Cottontails were offering was equal to and beyond what our Mr. Talbot owed yours truly.
“So, when Talbot had the nerve to ask for sanctuary when still unable to pay off his debt, there was only one viable option left to me.”
Mickey puts his fingers to his bowler hat, mimicking bunny ears as he begins hopping around.
Did I mention leprechauns are insane?
“Here comes Peter Cottontail,” he sings, “Hopping down on Talbot’s tail. Hippity-hoppity, Talbot’s taken away!”
The leprechauns slap their knees and let loose with gut-busting laughter. I’d find it funny, too, if not for the fact that the Cottontails are the most vicious, brutal gang in all the Holiday worlds and I was about to have to walk smack down in the middle of them.
Jack set out for the Emerald Isle.
There was a leprechaun there who was high profile.
“Being on the run ain’t cheap. Talbot will need dough.”
“So to the leprechaun, the werewolf might go.”
Jack traveled between worlds over the rainbow bridge.
Soon the Isle came into view, just over the ridge.
To a small stone tavern, Jack Frost came.
For there resided Mickey, a leprechaun of great fame.
Thanks to the glamour’s magic, he couldn’t see Jack’s face.
Just as well, Jack thought. Disguise is best in this case.
“I’ll ask you a riddle,” Mickey said, “Best answer it true.
“Or you’ll be my servant, until time runs anew!”
For the riddle’s answer, Jack floundered and fumbled,
But his luck held, and upon it he stumbled.
“Fair enough,” Mickey said, “your answer was right.
“But to learn Talbot’s whereabouts, me you must fight!”
Through house and yard, they rocked and rolled,
But at last the leprechaun came up silver and gold.
“What a fight, Jack! Oh, what a rally!
“So I’ll tell you where Talbot’s gone: It’s Easter Valley.”
Chapter 16
Who benefits?
On the way over the rainbow back to H-Town, I mull the question around in my head. Who benefits from Pop’s kidnapping? Many have their reasons, including the Old Man and Samhain.
The Old Man would have free reign at the Pole. And the more stygian of Samhain’s crew would be able to roam at all hours anywhere they wished in the eternal night of Christmas Eve. But I’ve plowed those snow drifts before and neither seems to fill the Christmas stocking. The costs seem to outweigh the benefits.
Elf unions aside, Pop is the reason the Pole, the Old Man’s cash cow, exists in the first place. Without Pop, there is no Christmas. Without Christmas, sooner or later, there is no North Pole. It’s in the Old Man’s best interest to see that Pop stays in place and on task. What good is it to be the ruler of an abandoned wasteland, after all?
Samhain and his crew are in a similar position. Who cares about running free under the moon for eternity if your clientele, namely trick-or-treating children, are not awake to keep the business going?
Pretty soon, you and your ghouls would be forgotten about all together. And for Holiday folk, being forgotten by the humans is to cease to exist.
I’ve seen it happen.
Ever heard of Eye of Ra Day?
Exactly!
That’s the reason HolidayTown, a city for beings who are supposedly immortal, has a cemetery.
Anyway, so neither the Old Man or Samhain are to blame. But there is a connection with the October Country. Talbot’s involvement is proof enough of that.
Based on the rap sheet I had Fred pull, Talbot doesn’t have the brains or the jingle bells to pull off something on this scale.
And let’s not forget, he was waiting for me in Necropolis. Someone tipped him off that I was coming—someone who had to have overheard my conversation with Dee back at City Hall.
Someone who benefits!
Without a snowflake of a doubt, before I take Talbot in, he and I are going to sit down for our own little heart-to-heart.
I reach H-Town and, out of habit, stop at a pay-palantir to call Mom. I freeze in mid-dial, realizing what a fruitcake I am. The feds will surely have Mom’s line tapped.
Poor Mom. She’s worried about her husband and now, with me on the run from the law, her son to boot. She must be doing horrible. It kills me not to be able to call her to let her know I’m alright, but that’s how it is.
No point in trying to call and update Dee, either. With the ruckus back in Loveland, it’s simply not safe anymore.
Heck, it never was.
I walk the back roads of H-Town until I reach the corner of Fifth and Bunny Trail. I make a right on the ol’ hippity-hoppity-highway and before long, instead of pavement beneath my feet, it’s gravel.
Soon, I’m out of the city all together, heading down the forest path that leads to EasterValley.
The woods give way and the open, rolling fields of EasterValley reveal themselves. Even at night, EasterValley is a fine place to be, if a bit warm for my liking.
The flowers and trees are very alive and sway in time to the singing of night birds and the blinking of fireflies.
It’s a happy scene.
You’d never know that just beneath EasterValley’s surface, the Burrows run long and deep, full of huge, nasty, anthropomorphic bunnies who’d just as soon thump you to pieces as look at you.
Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. Easter bunnies are full of goodness and sharing. And that’s tru
e enough.
Velveteen, Hazel, and the others might run things up here—and even just below. But go down in the Burrows far enough and you enter the sewers—metaphorically speaking—that are Cottontail territory. And it’s there that I must go.
I cross the field before me, looking for an entrance to the Burrows.
I am not disappointed.
I find a hole large enough to accommodate my size—or Talbot’s for that matter, which is a good thing since I’m following his trail—and head down inside.
It’s not long before the light from above peters out, so I take out the piece of borealis to guide me. I step over protruding roots and scurrying bugs, spiraling deeper and deeper into the earth.
I begin to wonder if I’ve entered an old, deserted network when I hear voices up ahead. I extinguish the borealis and proceed toward the sound, hoping the glamour will be enough to pass me off as a Cottontail.
I reach a bend in the tunnel and see light flickering from the other side. I peek around and see two bunnies, obviously Cottontails, arguing heatedly among themselves.
Though these aren’t the first Easter Bunnies I’ve ever seen, I’m still amazed at the size of them. No garden variety rabbits are these! Each stands the full height of a Christmas elf from hind paw to ear tip. Their hand-like forepaws hold torches made of thin vines woven into tight bulbs. Light shines from the fireflies captured inside.
“I’ve been on watch for six hours!” the first bunny, a sour-faced rabbit with a chewed ear, says. “It’s your turn to take over!”
“Just because I happened to be passing by,” the second bunny, a rabbit sporting an eye patch, says, “doesn’t mean I’m your relief. I’ve got other orders! Maybe he’s your relief?”
I straighten where I stand, startled to realize the patch-eyed rabbit is referring to me.
So much for hiding.
At least the glamour’s working. They seem to think I’m another Cottontail.
“Is that right?” Chewed Ear asks. “Are you taking watch?”
“I, er,” I say coming out from around the bend, “that is to say—” Suddenly the tunnel begins to shake, dirt and dust falling upon our heads, with what sounds like the beating of a thousand drums.
“Assembly!” Eye Patch shouts and scampers down the tunnel in the direction opposite of me.
“But! But!” Chewed Ear pleads.
“Assembly,” I say shrugging my shoulders. I chase after Eye Patch down the tunnel. I hear Chewed Ear cursing and kicking at the tunnel floor behind us.
I follow Eye Patch into an enormous rabbit-dug cavern already filled with hundreds of Cottontails. They push, shove, and argue amongst themselves, jockeying for a position close to the elevated platform of earth located at the cavern’s far side.
For my part, I settle into a hopefully inconspicuous position along the herd’s edge.
A fight breaks out between two of the largest rabbits in the cavern over who gets to stand nearest the pedestal. The smaller bunnies around them are knocked senseless in the wake of their battle.
I begin to wonder how much damage they will do before it’s over when the biggest rabbit I’ve ever seen comes bounding through the herd and thumps both of them into unconsciousness with a mere flick of his hind paws. He leaps to the top of the platform and a name whispered in reverent fear passes through the herd—Bugsy.
He raises a forepaw and the cavern falls into total silence.
“Before I speak of the reason as to why I’ve called assembly,” he says, “let us again remember our dear, fallen general, whose mantle I reluctantly assume, though I am unworthy.”
The herd stamps its hind paws repeatedly upon the ground as a single unit and the cavern shakes.
Bugsy raises his forepaw again and the stamping stops.
“The herd above all else!” Bugsy says.
“The heard above all else!” the rabbits echo, their voices thunder.
“Loyalty to the herd!” Bugsy says.
“Loyalty to the herd!” the rabbits repeat.
“But what if I told you, my loyal Cottontails, that there is an impostor among us?”
The cavern erupts in shouts of outrage.
I gulp at my position along the herd’s edge.
“What should the herd do with such vermin?” Bugsy asks.
The bunnies scream unrepeatable things. I begin to back away from the crowd for a nearby tunnel. I can’t find Talbot if I’m pounded into an ice slushy by hundreds of rabbit paws.
“What if I told you, my Cottontails,” Bugsy continues, his voice taking on a razor’s edge, “that we know who the impostor is?”
I turn and bolt for the tunnel only to be greeted by four scowling rabbits. I try to shove by them but succeed only in being beaten down to the ground. Then numerous rabbit feet eclipse my vision and everything goes black.
Who benefits from Santa Claus’s kidnapping?
Around the answer, Jack’s mind was quickly wrapping.
Talbot was the muscle, but the brains were at City Hall.
It was someone who had overheard Dee’s and his phone call.
Deep in the earth below Easter Valley,
The Burrows ran like twisting back alleys.
A notorious gang, there did dwell,
Big, bad, Easter bunnies, the Cottontails.
Jack ventured inside, hoping the glamour would stick.
He needed to stay disguised to pull of this trick.
The Cottontail gang, he needed to infiltrate,
And find the werewolf before it was too late!
He joined the bunnies in their assembly hall.
Bugsy their leader was the meanest of all.
He stood high on a pedestal and addressed the herd.
“There’s an intruder among us! That is my word!”
Jack spun on his heels and tried to run out.
But the bunnies grabbed him and his head they did clout!
They stomped him up and down without uttering a peep,
Until darkness overtook him and he went to sleep.
Chapter 17
I am dreaming. I’m just a boy, back in the tropical rain forest, abandoned to thaw by the Old Man and scared to death of doing so when I hear the wonderful sound of sleigh bells ringing. It means the man who will become my father is here to rescue me in more ways than one—in every way that matters.
Then I’m strolling arm-in-arm with Dee along the Loveland shore on the day we first kissed. I lean in to do so, closing my eyes. When I open them to see if she’s doing the same, it’s not Dee before me but a snarling werewolf!
I awake from my dreams with a start, rising up and banging my head on the low roof of the burrow in which I’m imprisoned. I can’t tell if it hurts or not. My body already feels like one giant bruise from my thumping at the hands and feet of the Cottontails.
“I was beginning to wonder if they’d killed you.”
I turn and see a familiar man whose face I can’t quite place sitting beside me. “Who are you?” I ask.
“You know perfectly well who I am,” he says.
“No, I’m afraid—” in two shakes of a snow globe, Talbot changes into his wolf form and then just as quickly changes back.
“See now?” He asks.
I tackle him in response and pin him to the ground. I raise a fist to strike him and he begins to laugh.
“To be such a cool character, you’re quite the hothead, Frost,” he snorts.
“Where is my father?” I demand. “Where is Santa Claus?”
He finds this hilarious. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you!”
“Try me.”
“It wouldn’t make any difference, Frost. There’s nothing you can do about it. We’ve both been played like drums. And now several hundred bunnies are about to make sure we both go the way of the dodo because of our stupidity!”
I look around the burrow, noting the logs jammed in the entrance—our prison bars.
“I can get us out of here.”
I cross my arms. “Tell you what: If I get us out of here, you tell me where Santa Claus is the moment we’re topside. Then you let me take you in. I can get the feds to go easy on you.”
He chuckles.
“What are you laughing at, furball?” I ask. “Face it. Turning yourself in is your best option. You’re running out of places to hide.”
“You really have no idea who you’re dealing with, do you?” he asks, still chuckling. “Okay. Okay. Get us to the surface and I’ll tell you where the fat man is. Then we can worry about the rest.”
“Deal.”
I rise to a crouch and put my hand to my mouth, adjusting my fingers so that I can get just the right pitch. Then I blow.
“What was that?” Talbot asks.
“A whistle,” I say.
“I didn’t hear anything.”
“You might have in your werewolf form. Besides, it wasn’t meant for you.”
“Oh, yeah? Who was it—?”
There’s the sound of fierce scraping from the other side of the earthen wall at Talbot’s back and then it collapses on top of him, covering him in dirt. A glaze-eyed mole on size with the Cottontails pops its head in through the hole created in the wake of the fallen wall.
“You called?”
“Hermie,” I say, “I’ve never been so glad to see anyone in my life!”
“Pardon me if I can’t say the same,” the mole jokes, referring to its blindness. “How are you, Jack? Who’s the wolf I smell with you?”
“I’ve been better, pal. This skuzzbucket of a werewolf is Larry. We need you to dig us out of here. We’ve got to get to H-Town, pronto.”
“Certainly! Glad to help. Follow me.”
Hermie turns in the hole and begins to dig at an incredible rate of speed. I lift Talbot, dirt covering and all, and shove him in the hole ahead me so I can keep an eye on him.
Long Silent Night Page 8