Please don’t be a feeding frenzy.
“ACTIVATE THE TIMESNAP!” she shouted.
Tinsel fumbled with the black box sitting on the bench. She hesitated, her thumb hovering over the button. Merry turned around, her face blustery.
“What are you waiting for?”
Tinsel pushed. The button clicked.
FffffssssssssttTTT!
The world blurred and spun.
Their skin tingled.
And time inside the sleigh came to a stop.
The timesnapper sped up the atoms inside the sleigh while offsetting the corresponding heat. For the individuals within a timesnap bubble, the world around them remained still.
They could travel around the world in a single night.
If they wanted.
The lights on the palace dimmed for a moment.
They would sense the timesnap activation and ignite their own. For a moment, Vixen and the sleigh plunged through suspended snowflakes and frozen six-leggers.
But then, little by little, the lights brightened.
Things moved.
And the timesnaps synchronized.
They were back to normal time. But it bought them several seconds.
Several precious ones.
The wind harvester fluttered behind the sleigh like a long whipping tail, feeding power back into the sleigh’s depleted generator.
Merry leaned forward again, hoping to push them faster, feeling the vertigo in her stomach as they dropped. Tinsel and Jon held onto their seats. Vixen veered down at the ground and pulled up, taking advantage of the air current to slingshot even faster.
They blazed several feet above the ice.
Suddenly, the abominable storm that was fending off the six-leggers vanished. The sleigh was aimed to crash right through the middle of the pack. Vixen ducked her head, antlers spread out like a train’s cowcatcher, ready to plow a path through the furry mob.
They closed in.
Seconds to impact.
No sign of Nog or Jessica. The six-leggers weren’t feeding on anything. They were attacking the palace. They were locked out.
Merry pulled hard on the reins, snatching Vixen’s head up, tilting her front legs up in time to soar over the six-leggers. The sleigh lagged in the updraft and the rails skidded over their backs, leaving a wake of yelps and snapping jaws.
Once they were past, Vixen dropped to the ground and the sleigh slid to a halt. The six-leggers were hot to follow.
Good. Let them come after us. It will give Nog time to hide and do whatever he’s doing.
WHAT IS HE DOING?
Merry tossed the sphere.
The abominable pulled ice and snow from the palace, weakening its wall to build a beastly body between the sleigh and attackers.
“Release Vixen,” Merry shouted. “Once she’s airborne, we need to punch a hole in the palace.”
The abominable met the first of the beasts with howling fury.
“We don’t have much time.”
Tinsel and Jon cut Vixen loose.
The abominable’s force spread out to contain the attack, but it was too wide and too weak. Merry couldn’t be careless. If there was an army on the other side of the wall, they wouldn’t be any better off inside.
A six-legger’s jaws snapped.
Merry opened her map.
The attack from the other sleighs was underway. The abominables had already weakened the defenses and the other teams were inside, making their way toward the middle. Strangely, the palace’s power grid was nearly shut down on the perimeter and appeared to be focused somewhere in the center. She didn’t sense anyone near them. No guards or even citizens.
Merry jabbed a dart into the wall and stood back.
The tip began to glow.
Thoop!
It was sucked inside.
A hole began to open like a flame to a plastic sheet. Water gushed out as the ice melted.
“In you go!” Merry waved Tinsel and Jon inside, double-checking for movement. If her readings were right, they would crawl right into the outer kitchens and composting center.
Merry backed into the hole, watching her map. She scooted back until she was all the way inside and opened her hand. The howling wind stopped like a light switch and the sphere smacked into her palm.
Merry slid back, sealing the hole as she went.
The room was dark and powerless and smelled of earthy bins of worms and decomposing food scraps. Merry checked the map. Still no one in sight.
“What’s that sound?” Tinsel whispered.
The walls vibrated in pulsing rhythm as if New Jack City was alive.
“It’s music,” Jon said. “Is there a party?”
Merry charted a course for the epicenter of activity. It appeared every elven in the palace was gathered in a large center room. It was in the direction of the music.
That’s where they’d find Jocah.
Nog, too.
Merry checked one more thing before they left. She searched for warmblood algorithms. It would show her where Jessica was. If she was in the palace, then she was with Nog. But what she saw didn’t make her feel any easier.
Several lights were scattered all over the palace.
As if there were warmbloods everywhere.
C L A U S
69.
Nog and Jessica sat completely still. Only the sound of their breath disturbed the quiet. That, and the distant music.
A small light – about the size of a child’s marble – began glowing between them, splashing red light on their faces and eerie shadows on the walls. The room was the size of a closet. Jessica barely fit.
Nog put the glowing marble on the floor. It grew a little brighter. Jessica noticed the small shelves crowded with knick-knacks and pictures.
“What happened back there?” Jessica asked.
“That was a thinning device. Made us skinny enough to slip through the crack. Not all that pleasant, but we weren’t exactly having a party outside, were we?”
Jessica thought about the time her little sister tried to crawl up the chimney and got stuck. They could’ve used something like that.
“What were those mouse things?” she whispered.
“Replicators,” Nog said. “I programmed them to emit warmblood thought algorithms. They’re slithering all over the palace by now.”
“Where are we?” she whispered.
“Our secret room.” Nog was distracted with something that started glowing in his palm. He spoke while watching it. “Merry and I… we carved this place when we were young, somewhere we could escape the world and talk about our dreams.”
There were small trophies and ribbons on the shelves next to drawings and sculptures and shiny stones. Jessica noticed the photo nearest her. It was Merry and Nog, smaller and fresh-faced. Nog’s beard was bright red and hung in droopy curls. Merry had dark hair that hung over her shoulders.
Jessica wiped the layer of frost off the surface and the images began to move. The two of them began to laugh. An elven ran behind them and Merry covered her eyes. He was stark naked!
Nog chased after him, undressing as he went. He cannonballed into an ice hole with a monstrous splash. Merry waved and the motion stopped, returning to the original picture.
“We’re not staying long,” Nog muttered. “Just until I can get a bearing on where everyone is at.”
“How old were you?” Jessica asked.
“Huh?”
She repeated the question.
He looked up. “Oh, I don’t know. That was a long time ago.”
Nog stared at his palm but looked back at the photo. His beard twitched and his eyes glittered in the red light. He touched the photo and it started moving again. He watched it all the way to the end. A chuckle escaped his clutch of whiskers.
He wiped his face and looked down.
“I shouldn’t have brought you along,” Jessica said.
“What, you were going to do all this yourself?”
“I never should’ve let you come in the first place.”
“My dear.” Nog sat with his head bowed. “Life is not about pleasure.”
“Then what?”
He shook his head. “This, right here. It’s about doing what’s right. Serving life. Truth. Whatever you want to call it.”
“So you won’t go back to Merry when this is all over?”
“When this is over?” The smile returned to his eyes. “My dear, I’ll be running back to her.”
They shared a laugh.
C L A U S
70.
It was like the world had become grainy.
Like each atom, every molecule, was as big as sand. The air was thick and heavy.
Nicholas shuffled each step forward.
He focused on staying balanced. The cotton in his head – as dense as lead – threatened to tip him over, so he just pushed each foot forward and watched the bright red coat lead him out of a room.
Down a hall.
And into a large room.
Small people were all around.
They stood and clapped in seats that inclined all the way to the top. It was so steep and so far that the ones at the top – too small to see – would tumble all the way to the bottom if they tipped over.
There was a group of little round people in front of him. Maybe five or six. It was hard to count. They were all dressed the same, in funny little outfits that looked like tuxedos. Their mouths moved and they were looking at Nicholas, but he couldn’t hear them.
Because of the cotton.
He followed beams of light that shined down from the top of the domed ceiling and raced around like loose cannons, spotlighting parts of the crowd and, occasionally, the small people on top of a large cylinder.
They were hammering instruments that sounded nothing like music.
One was hidden behind a huge set of drums. Others had string instruments slung around their necks. One had his leg wrapped around a metal pole and was screaming into a box that amplified his voice above the cheers and claps.
But it was noise.
All a buzz through the cotton.
No memories, just cotton.
The tuxedoed group squabbled with each other while they led Nicholas all the way to the base of the cylinder and squeezed him into the front row. The armrests ground into his hips. He flopped his head back as far as it would go but couldn’t see the band on top.
“Hey!” Tiny hands shoved the back of his head. “Elven back here, sir.”
Nicholas apologized.
He sat up straight and stared straight ahead.
The cylinder was polished ice. It reflected like cold steel.
The convex surface reflected his image – fat, wide and bearded. The whiskers were white and tightly curled over the lower half of his face. His hair, also white, receded over his head. The nose was bulbous and red.
Who’s that?
The bearded man moved when he moved. Waved when he waved.
For the life of Nicholas.
He could not recall ever seeing that face.
And next to him, staring almost as blankly, was a very short man that was just as round and just as wide. He was wearing a bright red coat with white trim.
The two sat staring.
The music went on forever.
The seats thundered beneath them.
Lights changed colors. Confetti and streamers fell from the ceiling. The crowd flashed signs that were hard to read, something about Champions and We Love You!
Nicholas thought of leaning over and asking the one in the red coat what was going on. He probably wouldn’t hear him, but Nicholas finally got curious enough to try.
He leaned to the right, the first word on the tip of his tongue–
“HOW YOU ALL DOING TONIGHT?” someone screeched. It was sort of a cross between yelling and singing. And whoever it was, he wasn’t really asking.
The crowd seemed to answer, though.
“GET ON YOUR FEET IF YOU AREN’T ALREADY ON THEM. GET ON YOUR FEET AND GET READY TO GIVE IT UP!”
That’s when Nicholas realized the cylinder was sinking into the floor.
The lead singer was on the edge of the platform, wrapped around his metal stick, shouting into the box stuck to the top of it.
“HE IS THE GREATEST LEADER THE FREE WORLD HAS EVER KNOWN!”
The stage slowed its descent.
“HE IS YOUR LEADER!”
The singer was eased down in front of Nicholas.
Eye to eye.
“THE COLDEST ELVEN IN THE WORLD–”
The cheers reached a frenzied pitch.
Signs around the top of the arena flashed: APPLAUSE! NOW!
The singer sucked in a loooong, deeeep breath. He inflated like a balloon, throttled the metal stick with both hands and bared his teeth, screaming into the box–
“JAAAAACK!”
The lights went out.
Something zapped Nicholas’s bottom, like it was poked with a hundred needles. Nicholas jumped up. So did anyone else that happened to be sitting.
A single spotlight cut the darkness, illuminating a spot to Nicholas’s left.
He could see over the heads of all the little round cheering people. He could see the spotlight hitting an entry tunnel leading toward the stage.
It was a short, round man with blue skin.
He was waving to the crowd and the band began to play hideous music.
He was riding on a platform that heaved up and down as it crept slowly toward the stage. It wasn’t until it was near him that Nicholas realized the platform was being carried by several elven.
C L A U S
71.
The platform was made of solid gold, a mineral that was in very short supply in the North Pole. Actually, it was nowhere in the North Pole. Jack heard about this gold from Nicholas’s memories and demanded that someone better find it and find it fast and make it happen.
It happened, baby.
They found it (the real deal, they assured him, but he had his doubts; they would pay if they were lying) to form the ornately crafted rails with tiny wings fluttering from the sides, inset with sparkling ice diamonds on the tips. The elven carriers struggled under the weight. They deserved it, a bunch of would-be traitors that – once upon a time – got caught sending messages to the rebels. They had family that ran away and wanted to make sure they were all right… WELL, TOUGH! They ran away and you get to carry a platform made of gold.
Lucky you.
Jack took one last look in the mirror, straightened the bowtie, and headed out the door. The public was crying for him and who was he to deny them?
“Eh-hem.” Jack stopped and gestured at the platform with the gold chair. It was still two feet off the ground. “Hello? Footstool?”
One of the elven flattened himself as flat as a round, fat elven can get on the ground, and Jack stepped on his belly with both feet and bounced up and down like a bouncy ball. He leaped onto the platform.
“That was fun,” he announced to no one, picking his teeth and sitting down. “Onward, lazy traitor elven. My public awaits–”
“Your Excellence.”
Jack looked around, but the glasses were too dark. He ripped them off and rolled his eyes. “What is it now?”
“Sir, there’s been reports of a blackout on the palace perimeter due to the power demands of the arena–”
“Don’t you dare, don’t you say it!” Jack snapped his hand at Pawn. “Don’t you even think of diverting power. We’ve got all year, we’ve got FOREVER to light up the palace walls! You are NOT going to rain on my party!”
“But, Excellence, there’s reports that attacks–”
“I don’t care.”
“–and the rebels–”
“Lalalalala, I can’t hear you.” Jack shook his head. “Just get out of the way before I make you carry me all by yourself, Pawn. Get, get. Shoosh.”
Pawn stepped aside.
Jack straightened his sunglasses and pointed
.
“Onward, tools.”
They waited in the entryway while the band screamed the introduction.
Jack could smell fried cod and walrus-on-a-stick. His favorites. He wondered why he didn’t eat that more often and made a mental note to put that on the menu. In fact, he would decree that everyone was to have fried cod and walrus-on-a-stick for the month of January. There, done.
From his vantage point, he could see some of the crowd. They were on their feet, rabid with excitement, absolutely rabid. Jumping up and down, they were. Clapping and cheering. Jack thought they would start climbing over each other if he didn’t get to the stage in the next two seconds.
He ignored the signs that told the crowd when to cheer and stomp their feet and he knew there were electric prods in the seats to get them standing, but that was merely to let them know when he was coming. They loved him, he could tell. He could feel it. The energy moved through him like the ocean’s current.
They love me. They really do.
The intro, flawless.
Jack would be sure to tip that elven singer when it was all over. Or at least let him slide on taxes. (Taxes, that was his next decree after the fried cod and walrus-on-a-stick. Someone had to pay for this party.)
The platform heaved and tipped forward as the ones in front slumped under the weight.
“Easy there,” Jack called. “Slow and easy or you’re swimming with the fishes before the night–”
Spotlight.
Cheers.
Showtime.
They walked into the open and the adoring cheers wrapped around Jack like a bedtime story.
He stood.
“I love you, too!” Jack blew kisses to the adoring crowd. “Oh, I love you, too!”
A band of children were herded to the platform by guards. They leaned away with terrified expressions. The guards shoved them forward.
“Here we go, children.” Jack pelted them with a handful of seal-flavored hard candy stamped with his face. “Eat up, eat up. All yummy in the tummy.”
Claus Trilogy (Boxed Set) Page 21