I press the call button on the other time-evator but nothing happens.
“Jammed! Nutcrackers!”
I look around the room, searching for a stairwell. I spot a door in the corner and scramble over to it and fling it open.
Bingo!
I don’t waste time with the stairs. I simply form an ice chute that spirals down over them. I hop on and slide to the bottom where I burst through the doors and into the basement.
“Dee!” I shout. She’s lying against the wall cradling her neck and ankle.
I rush over to her and kneel at her side.
“Can you walk?”
“No. I twisted my ankle when he tossed me out of the time-evator. That’s why he left me behind.”
“When I get my hands on that lowlife—!”
“Don’t worry about me, Jack. I’ll be fine.”
She points to a tunnel on our right.
“He went that way!”
I linger for only a second, caressing her chin between my thumb and forefinger. Then I rise to my feet and take off after Father Time. I don’t bother going dim. The magic of Father Time’s staff is too powerful for my clothes to hide me from him.
I run through a maze of tunnels filled with steaming pipes and fire hoses. I duck around a corner and dive just in time to dodge a spell from the end of Father Time’s staff. I hear him curse but when I pop up to return fire, he’s gone.
I proceed down the tunnel with caution. He almost had me with that little ambush. I’ve got to turn this game of cat and mouse around, somehow.
I exit the tunnel to enter a large, underground loading dock. It’s filled with boxes, crates, and forklifts—any of which could serve as his hiding place.
What can I do to draw him out? I ask myself.
And then I answer myself just as quickly.
His Ego!
I recall how he enjoyed my recounting the events of his plan to remain Father Time—how he wanted me to know—how he wanted to have his Machiavellian workings admired.
Yes, it’s a man with an ego who thinks himself worthy enough to wield absolute power for all eternity!
I slip behind a skid of shrink-wrapped boxes.
“Hey, FT!” I call from my hiding place. “I’ve got to hand it to you, when you screw up a plan, you do it big time!”
I fall silent, listening for a response. I hear nothing. I crouch and duck-walk forward to another hiding place behind a row of boxes.
“And right on inter-holiday news, too! Man I bet every man, woman, and child in the holiday worlds are laughing their buns off at you right—!”
I hear zapping spells streak across the room. They strike the boxes serving as my hiding place and send them scattering.
I duck and roll behind a forklift, dodging oncoming spells. A few more blasts hit the forklift before all falls silent again.
“That was a close ice shave,” I whisper.
If nothing else, I’ve learned he’s within striking distance. If he can hit me, then I can hit him! I’ve got to press him. Get him fuming mad and careless.
“That the best you can do?” I shout. “I think you need your eyes checked. You missed me by a mile!”
I wait.
Nothing.
“But that’s to be expected from a Father Time whose year has passed. You must be ancient by now! A real old codger way past his prime who’s too senile to realize when he needs to give up the reins!”
“Shut up!” Father Time screams.
I pop up from behind the forklift, knowing he will be doing the same to try to get a shot at me.
I pray I’ll be faster.
I am.
But not fast enough.
My shot goes over his head as he ducks behind a stack of wooden pallets. It hits the wall behind him where it spreads out in a large patch of ice.
“Peek-a-boo, I see you,” I whisper.
I count on him keeping still for a moment and crawl forward to another hiding place behind a large barrel on his left flank.
“It must be rough to see all your hard work and planning slip through your fingers,” I say. “And to think, you were the very one to call in the guy who would bring it all crumbling down around you. Namely me!”
I get ready to wait out his fire and volley back, but no spells ever come. Inspiration strikes and I form an ice sculpture of myself. Just enough of its stocking-fedora is sticking out from behind the barrel to make the old man think it’s me still crouched behind it.
I crawl out from behind the barrels on my belly and inch my way to a position behind the dispatch desk.
“Yes, one of us was just a little bit smarter than the other,” I say throwing my voice at my ice-double. Like the whistling, it’s another little trick I’ve picked up along the centuries.
“Well, let’s be honest here. One of us is smart, and the other is just plain stupid—the one who has delusions of grandeur and multi-world domination, that is. Not that I’m naming any names!”
I crawl out from behind the desk to a stack of pallets a mere ten feet to the left of Father Time’s hiding place. Almost home. Just got to get him angry enough to pop out again.
“What would you do with eternity anyway?” I ask, again throwing my voice. “It’s not like you have the brain capacity to do anything—!”
“Shut up!” he screams as he pops out from behind his hiding place.
I freeze him solid just as he lowers his staff to shoot. I sigh in relief and get up from my hiding place and walk over to him.
You can imagine my surprise as I round the stack of pallets and see another Father Time crouched there, his staff raised to fire. It does and this time, it’s me who freezes!
Father Time rises to his feet. “Yes, one of us here is certainly stupid,” he laughs. “And since it’s not me, let me clear things up for you, Frost.”
He taps the back of frozen Father Time’s head with his fist.
“Look familiar?” he asks. “He should. He’s me from three minutes ago—the me you made angry enough to come out of hiding.
“That was me before the near miss with your ice blast brought me to my senses. I realized I had to bait you. And using my staff’s powers to bring this old boy into the present seemed like just the thing. Obviously, it was!”
Nutcrackers! My own trick used against me. What a snowflake I am!
“Oh, Jack my boy!” Father Time says, ecstatic.
He moves forward and seizes my shoulders.
“I’m almost sorry this has to end. This is the most fun I’ve had all year!”
He turns and paces as he talks. It must be something he does when he gets excited—or angry—like back in the H-Town jail.
“Now, I know what you’re thinking, my boy, but don’t you worry. As you pointed out, I am the master of this year and all those that came before mine. And contrary to what I said earlier, as you might have guessed by now, the time-evator works just fine!
“I’ll just do a little time-traveling to the day this all began and make sure to smooth out the rough patches in my scheme you mentioned during our little talk earlier.”
He stops and whirls to face me.
“But what about you? There’s no guarantee you won’t come back into the mix to foul things up again.”
“Hmmm?”
Father Time strokes his beard and starts pacing again.
“Yes. What to do about you?”
A moment later he turns to face me again.
“I’ve got it! Oh, yes, my boy. This should be quite interesting. I’ve wondered about it before, but never quite dared to do it.”
He rushes up to me and puts his face in mine.
“I’ve always been curious to see what would happen if I chronologically regressed a holiday person to the time before the humans—to the time before there was anyone around to give the forces and seasons of the world a name and a face!
“Would they explode, implode, or simply fade from existence? What’s say you and I find out, shall we?”
Father Time’s mirthless grin spreads wider than I’ve ever seen it.
“But I’m afraid, my boy, one way or another, it’s the long, silent night for you!”
He lowers his staff and points it at me.
That staff.
It’s the source of his powers. If only I could get it out of his hands.
The staff’s tip begins to glow and Father Time’s eyes grow wider and wider.
“Yes,” he says excitedly, “Yes! I can feel the years coming off you! Century after Century!”
Father Time’s nervous habit kicks in and he begins to rock back and forth on his feet.
If I’m going to get out of this and stop him, I’ve got to do it now, before I become less than a memory.
Unlike Old Man Winter, my powers are somewhat limited. He can freeze with a thought.
Me? I like to channel the cold through my body, especially my hands. It’s not absolutely necessary, but it makes it a heck of a lot easier for me. But it’s a hang-up that’s almost cooked my Christmas goose here.
To beat Father Time, I’ve got to think outside the icebox. If I have to use my body to channel the magic, fine.
But that doesn’t mean I have to use my hands!
“Closer, now!” Father Time says as he rocks excitedly. “Almost there!”
I send the cold snaking out from my feet across the ground. It forms a thin sheet of ice along the floor as it advances toward Father Time.
“Yes, yes!” Father Time is all but dancing now. “You’re there at the dawn of civilization. You’re little more than a flickering image now! Just the spark of an idea in some Cro-Magnon’s—!”
The ice reaches Father Time’s dancing feet and he slips. For a moment, he seems to hover in the air, his arms and legs flailing like those of a lumberjack trying to keep his balance on a rolling log.
Then gravity kicks in and he lands smack on his back, the wind rushing out of his lungs. His staff goes tumbling out of his hands across the room and immediately his spell over me is broken.
I don’t give him time to recover.
I pounce on top of him, seizing his robes in my hands.
“You rotten, no good, liar!” I say, shaking him. “You were supposed to be our leader and you double-crossed us!”
I feel my anger rise within me and it brings the cold with it—the wild, uncaring blizzard that always rages in my heart—the storm that only wants to freeze and destroy!
“You kidnapped my father! Almost killed us both!”
The blizzard of my fury takes shape around us. In seconds, we’re knee deep in snow, Father Time’s clothes and beard frosted over.
“I should do the same to you! You’d deserve it! I should freeze you until you—!”
“Son.”
It’s Pop.
It’s Santa Claus.
His voice is soft. I feel his hand come to rest on my shoulder.
“This is not the way, son. You’re better than this.”
I turn and shout in Pop’s face.
“He tried to kill us! He tried to stop the birth of his own son. He wished that his own son never be born!”
I turn back to rage at Father Time.
“Do you know how that feels? Do you?”
I feel Pop’s arms close around my shoulders.
“It’s okay, son,” he says. “It’s okay. Poppa’s here. Let him go, now. It’s okay.”
I shudder with anger and frustration.
And fear.
Fear of myself.
Then I abruptly release Father Time and bury my face in Pop’s beard and chest.
Pop hugs me and lets me cry there until the storm, both inside and out, passes.
Then Pop helps me to my feet.
“Take his staff, son,” Pop says. “Wait for me over there.”
I nod and obey, picking up the staff and walking with it over to the loading dock entrance.
Pop lays his finger to the side of his nose and the color returns to Father Time’s face. Pop helps him off the floor.
“Your year is long up, my friend,” Santa Claus tells him. “You know that, don’t you?”
Father Time starts to protest, but somehow, when he looks into Pop’s eyes, all the anger drains out of him.
Father Time nods and begins to sob.
“I’m scared,” he says, his voice small and sheepish.
“It’s okay,” Pop says as he places a hand on Father Time’s shoulder. “New things are always scary, at first.”
“I don’t want to end,” Father Time says.
“End? Why, there is no end. Only new beginnings, new states of being.”
Pop places an arm around Father Time’s shoulder and gestures to the air. A vision of a bright and shining future appears before them. It is not fairy magic, but the magic of truth.
It is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen!
“Just as the humans rise from and return to the fabric of the cosmos,” Pop says, “so shall you return to the fabric of time. You shall join with your forefathers and go on and on to make up all the new years that come after you, forever and ever. This is not something to be feared, but embraced!”
Pop turns to Father Time and holds him at arms’ length.
“Are you ready?”
The two men hug.
When they release one another, Father Time nods.
“Then go, my friend,” Pop says. “Join with the past so that you may become tomorrow unending.”
Father Time turns and walks into the vision of the future, his face alight with a brilliant smile.
Then he and the vision of the years to come are gone.
Out in the lobby, things had gone south.
“Downstairs, Jack!” Then Time’s hand covered Dee’s mouth.
“You won’t catch me, Jack. Now or later!”
Then they disappeared into the time-evator.
Jack pressed the call button. “Nutcrackers! Jammed!”
Into the stairwell, his body he rammed.
Over the stairs, he formed an ice chute.
Then he skated down. Man, did he scoot!
Jack reached the sublevel to find Dee sitting there.
“He tossed me aside, Jack, taking little care.”
“Tell me, Dee, which way did he go?”
“He went to the right. Be careful. Stay low!”
Jack found the mayor, and him he did seize.
“I’m sorry, Jack! Don’t hurt me, please!”
But Jack wanted to freeze him, he was so mad.
“You kidnapped my, pop! You deserve it, you cad!”
But Santa Claus appeared and calmed Jack down.
“Don’t stoop to his level, son. Don’t be anger’s clown.”
“I’m scared,” Father Time said. “I don’t want to end.”
“Your year is up,” Santa said. “Now a new one begins!”
EPILOGUE
“So you gave half of all that reward money to that little girl and her mother?” Dee asks in disbelief.
“Yep. Money well spent if you ask me.”
“Well, what are you going to do with the rest of it?”
She leans across our park bench and tickles my chin, teasingly.
“You know how I like bright and shiny things!”
I smile at her. I know she’s a creature of the night, but her beauty is especially stunning on sunny days like today.
Ha. Sunlight. Days.
I was beginning to wonder if I’d ever see either again! Thank Great Ak Santa’s back at the Pole and time in full swing once again.
“Actually, I’ve been thinking about moving my office to H-Town.”
“Here?” She gestures to the mostly deserted park we’re seated in, but I get her meaning. “But you always complain about how hot it is. And you’ve got that pet polar bear cub now.”
“Ha! He’s hardly a cub anymore. That one grows like a Christmas tree. Anyway, with the reward money the city gave me for finding Pop, I can more than afford the cooling
bill for both of us.”
“That reminds me, you never told me—when did you realize Father Time was behind all this?”
“He claimed Talbot confessed that I was in on it with him. I knew that was bogus. It caused all the other clues that had been circling around in my head to fall into place.
“I guess it all worked out in the end.”
“More or less. There is only one thing I couldn’t figure out, Dee.”
“What’s that?” she asks as she snuggles against me.
“Why did you do it?”
Dee sits back up and looks at me in shock.
“Pardon?”
“Why did you convince Father Time to kidnap Pop?”
“Jack,” Dee says, “if this is some kind of joke, it’s not funny!”
“The only thing I can figure is, somewhere down the line after we split up, your ambitions for success got twisted into some kind of monstrous lust for power.”
“Stop it, Jack. I said, this isn’t funny!”
“Was it easy to seduce Father Time? To turn him away from his wife and unborn son?”
“I—I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
“I’m talking about how you always wanted to be a rung above everyone else on the political ladder.
“I’m talking about how you were the only one I told I was going to the October Country—the only one who could’ve phoned Talbot to let him know I was coming.
“I’m talking about why Talbot, a known felon and Halloweenian, would dare get involved in such a scheme behind Samhain’s back.”
“You think I brought Talbot into this?”
“Oh, I admit, for the longest, I assumed Talbot’s part in this was Samhain’s doing. But that wasn’t right at all was it, Dee?
“You played Talbot just like you played Father Time.
“Just like you’ve played me from day one.
“Even at the end—your own kidnapping. That hurt ankle of yours. It was all an act. A set up so you could send me down the right tunnel for Father Time’s ambush.”
“This is ridiculous! I did no such thing! And I’d never heard of Talbot before in my life!”
“Oh no?” I say as I pull out the document Fred gave me. “This printout of his known associates reads different.
Long Silent Night Page 11