Outside of the circle – just outside the circle, much too close for Alex’s comfort – tendrils of smoke began to gather. Alex felt a shiver as he recalled the gathering plumes from his childhood memories that had engulfed his sister sprawled on that stone altar. The smoky tongues entwined and swirled, climbing vertically into a shaft. Then, they slowly began to take the shape of the monster he remembered. The smoky vision writhed and transformed, solidifying and growing as the demon they summoned crossed over into this dimension at the old witch’s bidding.
A shaggy, horned head twitched and jerked atop muscular shoulders. The infernal beast looked around, suddenly registering the foreign scenery around him. His giant crimson cock was just as grotesque as Alex remembered, and the demon’s black-haired, red skin glowed just as brightly. Krampus scowled at the old one in the center of the circle and glanced at Alex with some interest.
“Who are you that summons me against my wishes?” Krampus growled.
Alte Hexe continued to chant, her lips barely moving, her voice a hoarse whisper.
“Answer me, witch!” Krampus studied the woman and then turned his attention to Alex. He reached out a black talon and pointed. “I know you.”
“And I know you,” Alex replied, somehow finding his voice amidst the turmoil of emotion that raged inside of him. He was surprised at his own reaction, for although fear clutched his guts in a painful grip, and all the horrors of his childhood reared up afresh, it was rage at the loss of his sister, his friends, Uncle Henrik, and all the misery of the intervening years that ruled him now.
“You are changed now. You have grown up.” Krampus laughed. “I should have eaten you when I had the chance.”
“I was too fast for you.”
Krampus laughed. “I would have gotten you had I not been so sluggish from fucking your whore sister. Verfluchte Frau! Slut!”
Alex didn’t take the bait. He just shrugged. “What you speak is true. She was a cursed woman and she was a slut.”
Alte Hexe raised her face and looked at Krampus. Her voice raised a few octaves and grew surprisingly strong. “Demon of Hell we summon you to ask of you a question.”
“Well, ask it already.” Krampus scratched his balls with one talon.
“Many years you came and knew the sister of this man, Alex Brandt--”
“Knew?” Krampus laughed. “No point in getting all biblical with me, witch. I fucked her. I impaled the little tramp on the end of my throbbing cock! I filled her with my hot--”
Alte Hexe raised her voice, continued. “Ilona, the sister of Alex Brandt, was never seen again. Now, the uncle of this man has been murdered. This man has carried the damage done by your memory with him for his whole life.”
“Oh, cry me a fucking river!” Krampus shifted around, the smoke waving over him. “Does all this caterwauling have a point?”
“We know that you ate the souls of all those involved that night so many Dezembers ago. We know you wish to feast upon the soul of Alex Brandt, and consider it your rightful property.”
“Go on.”
“We wish to know what would appease you and what would release your hold on this man’s soul? What can we offer in exchange?” Alte Hexe stretched her arms out and Alex thought she looked very much like a woman on an invisible crucifix.
Krampus chuckled and shifted his goat-y legs. “Is this Krampusnacht?”
“No,” Alex answered.
“So, you called me here early, to squawk and complain, to bitch and groan, and this isn’t even my night?”
“I don’t give a pig’s ass about your night, you red bastard,” Alex hissed. “I want out of your damned clutches. I want to know what you want from me!”
“Your soul, you fucking idiot.” Krampus rolled his eyes and leaned as close to the protective circle as he dared. “But I might be open to negotiation.”
“I’m listening.”
“You went running off somewhere that I couldn’t reach you. Don’t think I didn’t try. Apparently, you and that insect of a father of yours scurried off to a place where I have no power.”
“How can that be?” Alte Hexe blurted.
Krampus laughed at her. “Gets you just a little excited, doesn’t it? Thinking that you might learn a secret? Gets your old, wrinkled cunny all wet, doesn’t it?”
The old hag fixed a determined expression on her face. “I am glad to learn there are places where your reach cannot extend.”
“Oh, there are places, Alte Hexe. The important factor in these places is that no one believes in me. No faith equals no power. No belief in my existence equals no power. You see, if you don’t believe in something, then that something cannot harm you.”
“But, I have always believed in you,” Alex said, confused. “Always. Even when everyone else doubted my sanity.”
“It’s those everyone else’s that cause me trouble. They are like a barrier around you – like this circle. But here, here in Deutschland, I am not so forgotten.”
“Yeah, where I went most people don’t even know your name,” Alex admitted.
Krampus sneered, his face contorted in anger, and he seethed with rage. “I should have eaten you like I ate your shitty little friends. That DiDi, the little fucker, shit himself, shit all over me. I made that Adelbert – he was a real worm, too – I made that kid eat the shit of DiDi before I gutted him like a deer.”
Alex tried not to show any emotion.
“And that Anika Schmidt. What a terrible fucking lay she was. Your sister though--” Krampus scratched his chin and said. “Your sister was a spectacular fuck. Tight as a virgin – but she was a spectacularly lousy mother.”
“She died,” Alte Hexe Adalwolfa said.
“I heard my spawn ate her pussy out like a sex-starved sailor.”
“The monster killed her, and then ate its own placenta. Only the priests would touch it. The people wanted to leave the babe to die.”
“Typical.” Krampus looked around the room as if suddenly bored.
“Enough with your insults,” Alex barked. “Get to the issue. I want my freedom and you want my soul. Tell me how to free myself from your bonds.”
Krampus put his face close to the invisible barrier provided by the circle. Alex could smell the wretched stench of his foul breath and see bits of flesh clinging to the jagged, black teeth. “You have until sunrise to bring me a soul. Your soul should have been mine that night – but you escaped. If you want your freedom, give me a soul in your stead.”
“Never.”
“You’ll eat your words when the sun comes up, boy.”
“I am not a boy any longer, demon.”
“Man or boy, you all die the same – squealing and shitty and calling for your miserable whore mothers.” Krampus began to disintegrate, his body morphing into haze. “Sunrise. I’ll be back.”
A burst of flames shot out in all directions from Krampus. Alte Hexe and Alex reflexively recoiled. And then, the demon was gone. A cloud of acrid stink and smudges of charred wood were left behind.
Alex stepped a foot over the circle, but Alte Hexe gripped his arm to pull him back. “What? He’s gone.”
“He can return at any time until he has his soul. Once summoned he may return until his price has been met.”
“Great. He might as well return then, because I don’t intend to kill anyone and feed them to him,” Alex said. He sat on the floor, dejected. “That’s what he’s asking of me: murder. A soul for a soul. I refuse to debase myself and commit murder in order to free myself.”
“We have time--”
“Time for what? I give him a soul, I go free. I don’t offer up someone for him to drag to hell, and I get to be the one dragged. There is no option here, Alte Hexe. Krampus is right. I should have died with my friends in the woods.”
“Hold your tongue!” the old one hissed. “That demon has a hold on your mind and now he has seized your courage, too.”
“He hasn’t seized anything from me that he didn’t always have. I ref
use to give him a sacrifice. The only thing left to do is wait for him to show up and get it all over with. He’s killed Ilona, my friends, that Schmidt girl, and Uncle Henrik. God only knows how many others he’s raped, mutilated and murdered. Thousands upon thousands as far back as time remembers.”
The red candles sputtered and popped, but continued burning. “I’m going to drink and go to sleep. You might as well go tell Gerd the bad news and then get some rest. I’m sorry this will all end badly, but I want you to know I appreciate you trying to help me.” Alex stepped from the circle and retrieved a bottle of whisky from the bedside table.
“I will leave, if you wish, but for me, will you stay in the circle? Surely, you can drink and sleep in the circle?”
Alex laughed. “I don’t think it matters now. Better that this all be over. He will continue to plague me – to plague those I love – it won’t end. He’ll find a way to get to me sooner or later.”
“But it’s been so long. Maybe if you leave Deutschland?”
Alex shook his head and opened the bottle. He took a swig. “Burns. Best I get used to that.”
Alte Hexe wiped a tear from her eye. “I will sleep in the room next to you. May Angels watch you.”
“Danke.”
The old hag left the room, closing the door behind her.
15
Alex did not sit and drink in the circle. Instead, he sat in the comfortable chair near the fireplace and worked on the bottle with great dedication. The encounter had peeled away the years, had stripped him of his desire to continue. No longer did he feel fear of the beast, but the demon’s hold on him, on his life, was now as deep as ever. He refused to sacrifice another in his place, so there was no escape. After a time, he began to wonder if perhaps he didn’t really deserve to die that way. He’d left his friends behind all those years ago, he brought death to Henrik, and now that things were over with Kimberly, there was really nothing for him back home in the States. He really didn’t care if Krampus showed up or not, and the more he drank, the more this opinion was reinforced.
Out in the house he heard the old grandfather clock gong four times. Sunrise crept ever closer. Alex stumbled from his chair to the dresser where another bottle of whisky awaited. As he fumbled with the seal on the whisky bottle, something rattled near the window.
“Left the damn window open,” he muttered and went to close it, only to find it locked and shut. “—the fuck?”
He peered through the frosty window pane and could see that freak Perchta clinging to the side of the house, shivering in the cold wind. Without a second thought, he threw up the window and stuck his head outside. “—the fuck do you want again? Why can’t you leave me the hell alone? Is this about your stupid wood toys? If I broke any of them, I’ll pay for them. Just … just leave me alone.”
Alex grasped the window sill for balance as the room began to swim and blur. “Need to sit down.” He crawled for the chair.
Perchta fell in through the window and picked herself up off the floor, arranging her clothing.
“You come to save me from your fucking father?” Alex’s words slurred.
She smiled grotesquely and as her lips shrunk away from her teeth; her giant tongue bulged from her mouth.
“Shit. Don’t do that. You really look better when you don’t smile,” Alex said, waving a drunken hand in her direction.
Perchta quit smiling. She fumbled in her pockets for something as Alex looked on.
“You gotta knife? Gonna kill me for your dad?” Alex said and then began to laugh. “For your dad.” He laughed louder. “’Cause he’s Krampus, you know, Krampus.”
If Perchta understood anything he was ranting about, she didn’t let on. Instead she uncoiled a red cord and held it before her. On the cord was a tiny wood figure of Krampus. The figure had prominent horns and a jutting penis that reminded Alex of ancient fertility statues dug up by archeologists.
“Wha’s dat?” Alex reached for the figure, but Perchta pulled it out of his grasp. “You make dat?”
She swung the tiny Krampus on the red cord back and forth with the precision of a metronome. Left, right. Left, right. The cord made a red blur like a tongue of fire and the little wood Krampus danced in the air. Alex fixed his eyes on the figurine and allowed the steady rhythm to hypnotize him. He fell back into the chair and only felt the thump, thump of his heavy heart in his chest. The other cares and fears for morning melted away like sugar over fire as the mutant before him morphed slowly into Kimberly, whom he longed to hold once more before death.
He was vaguely aware of lying on the cold wood floor, aware of hands removing his clothes. He shut his eyes against the swirl of colors and motion induced by too much whisky, not enough sleep and too many regrets. Kimberly was on him, riding him expertly, groaning and whispering about babies and living on and fulfilling destinies. And yet, when he watched her talk, her mouth didn’t move – still, he heard the words as clear as if they were spoken.
He reached out to touch Kimberly’s shoulder. She leaned forward, her long hair spilling onto his chest – when he saw behind her a pillar of gathering smoke. The haze grew denser and seemed to seep from the cracks of the floorboards. Alex held onto Kimberly’s shoulder as she continued to heave herself up and down on his stiff erection, but the realization that the smoke was solidifying near his feet made him anxious. He tried to speak but Kimberly held up the red cord and swung it before his face, calming him.
Kimberly’s passion mounted. She breathed heavier, increased her sexual rhythms, plunged herself onto him in a furious attempt to finish their union. She slapped his shoulder against the wood with one hand as she held the red cord in the air with her other. As Alex’s shoulder impacted the floor, a splinter from the centuries-old floorboard buried itself into his flesh. The jolting pain snapped him from his stupor as Krampus formed from the smoke and stood laughing.
Alex spied the jeweled dagger Alte Hexe left within the protective circle and tried to stretch his arm far enough to reach it. Kimberly knocked his arm away with violent force, causing the knife to spin out of the circle and away from his grasp. Alex jerked his head in her direction and realized, with horror, that it was not Kimberly, but once again it was the ungodly Perchta that had trapped him. Her talk of babies and destinies gelled in his brain.
The sun began to illuminate the open window, casting the room in a pinkish hue, making the flickering red candles seem very dim in comparison.
“Damn it!” he struggled to knock the demon spawn from his naked, sweat-slicked body. She held on, scratching and clawing his flesh with her jagged nails.
Krampus lurched forward, eager to collect Alex and his long-awaited soul.
Finally getting to his knees, Alex fell into the protective circle, and shoved the screeching Perchta off and directly into the arms of her hungry father. Krampus instantly ripped the girl into two halves, holding the top half by the long hair on her head and the bottom half by one ankle. Dangling the gory, blood-gushing mess in the air, he held Perchta’s lifeless face in front of his own and stared in horror.
Krampus threw his head back and bellowed a furious, beastly sound. He gathered the halves of his daughter in the crook of one arm and threw himself at Alex.
Crossing the invisible barrier of the protective circle, Krampus shrieked and cursed and was blown backward as if by a fiery backdraft. Alex watched as the demon was transformed from solid into smoke. The two halves of Perchta transformed with him, and they dissipated into a swirling, blackened vortex which materialized suddenly in the air. A loud sucking sound filled the bedroom, along with the scream of Krampus, as the vortex, the demon, and the promised soul were sucked straight back into the pits of Hell.
Alex sat, naked and covered with a film of soot, in the center of the circle, panting. Coming out of the terror-filled fog, he heard pounding on the door. Krampus had forced the door closed, but now with no power to hold it, the door flung open and a robed man burst into the room.
The robed ma
n gripped a crossbow in his hands and prepared to shoot Alex, but just as the man readied the bow, a wood panel in the bedroom wall banged open, startling the shooter.
Alex dived from the center of the circle to the side of the bed, looking for cover. As he slid over the floor, he watched as Alte Hexe came screaming like a banshee from the secret passage, picked up the jeweled dagger from the floor, and flung it with the strength of a warrior through the air and into the chest of the very startled robed man.
The big man stumbled backward, the dagger finding his heart. The weapon embedded deep in his chest, the robed man slumped against the wall and slid to the floor.
Alte Hexe stood half in and half out of the circle, her hand resting over her old heart. Alex didn’t move.
“He’s dead. You are safe now,” the old hag said, motioning for Alex to stand. She tossed him his boxers.
Jerking his underwear on, he watched as Alte Hexe neared the motionless corpse. “Don’t!” he called.
“He is dead. The dagger was blessed and spellbound to kill the man who aided Krampus in the death of your sister, Ilona.”
“Ilona?”
They stood over the corpse. Alex kicked the crossbow under the bed for safe measure.
“I used her blood to seal the spell so that one day the human that consorted with the demon could be brought down before he killed you.”
Alex heard running in the hall, and waited for Gerd to burst into the room.
“Are you okay?” Gertrude shouted, and then shrieked to see the room in disarray and a dead body on the floor.
Alte Hexe grasped the cowl on the robed-assassin and yanked it backward, exposing Krampus’s consort.
“Gerd!” Alex gasped. “My god! All of these years--”
Gertrude wore a bewildered look of horror and confusion. Alte Hexe yanked her jeweled dagger from Gerd’s chest and wiped the bloody blade on his robe.
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