"What?" said Rachel, offering up a silent blessing to God for inventing nipples.
"The look on Santa's face when he finds out."
*****
As Santa neared the Pole, his sleigh passed abruptly from the blizzard that whipped furiously about him into the mild winter of his domain. But he paid the transition no mind. His shouts to Lucifer and the others, his pro forma whipsmacks over their heads, unfolded on automatic.
There was far too much else to think about.
For one thing, the Tooth Fairy had not shown up once on his rounds. He had braced himself for his worst trial yet, certain that this time he would withstand her wiles. It unnerved him, her not attempting to seduce him along his route. The Tooth Fairy was not, he knew, the sort of creature to give up easily.
Then there was the sorry situation awaiting him at home, his two lovely wives who ought to adore one another but did not.
It hurt Santa's heart, the sadness of it all.
Wendy and Rachel's impending absence shrouded him in gloom. God knew how long it would last, that gloom, and how Anya would respond to it. Would their marriage ever be whole again? Did it matter?
The sleigh's runners skimmed the tops of snowy pines, throwing up clouds of mist that sparkled like diamond dust in the sunlight. Out from the elves' dormitory swarmed hundreds of dark dots. The dark dots did a slow curl around the skating pond, then scattered everywhichway across the commons. As Santa swooped lower, they grew greener and sprouted distinguishable legs and heads. More came tumbling out of workshop and stable, all of them headed for the expanse of snow before his cottage.
There on the porch was Wendy in a bright red dress, waving wildly up at him. Beside her on the railing sat Snowball and Nightwind, legs tucked under, patient black and white pods.
Behind them stood Anya and Rachel, holding hands and waving like twins, broad smiles lighting up their faces. Santa dropped the reins in shock, then groped forward and grabbed them again.
When Wendy leaped into the roil of elves that swarmed the sleigh, Santa lifted his radiant stepchild out of the turmoil—as though he plucked a holly berry from a cluster of leaves—and squeezed her tight. Her kisses warmed his cheek. Then his helpers closed in and one beloved face after another came into focus. Hearty handclasps and hugs besieged Santa on all sides. Wendy laughed in his arms and clasped him round the neck.
"We're staying!" she shouted.
When the green sea finally parted, Santa's wives were waiting on the porch. He bounded up and hugged them both, Wendy giggling as he crushed her against her mother. Anya he kissed first, tasting a new flavor of frisk and frolic there that pleased him greatly. Then, still puzzled, he bent to Rachel; her full lips parted and her lovely scent captivated him anew.
In the commons, the crowd went wild with cheering.
Later, in the living room, Santa heard the laundered version of what had happened. "Mommy got attacked by a giant animal," Wendy blurted out. Then, skirting around the details they later provided, Anya and Rachel painted the broad picture of what had occurred and how it had brought them together. Santa had noticed the bare floor in the hallway and the dried trail of egg running down the mirror. "Several of the elves have volunteered to weave us a new carpet," Anya told him, which left the larger question unanswered, "and the egg residue simply refuses to yield to conventional methods of cleaning, so we're leaving it there for now. More on that later."
When he had showered and was robed in red, soft black slippers hugging his feet and a long thin clay pipe wreathing aromatic wisps of smoke about his lips, Santa sat back in his easy chair and let Christmas unfold before him. On his return trip, he had dreaded this final round of giftgiving, the funereal mood that would surely pall every attempt at merriment. Now it was all he could do to keep from laughing out loud, things having fallen out as he had always dreamed they would. There was Wendy in a beautiful gingham dress Anya had sewn for her, once more assuming responsibility for delivering the gifts, pausing before him once to stick out her lower jaw and wiggle her first loose tooth in more than a year. ("Be sure to let someone know the instant it comes out," he cautioned.) There was his dear wife Anya, rocking and knitting and beaming as he hadn't seen her beam in ages. And there was Rachel, young and zesty and full-breasted, an arm draped over Heinrich's nearest shoulder where he sat, all six of him, bunched up on the couch, barely able to contain his glee.
At long last, after the eggnog had vanished but for a filmy residue at the bottom of the cut-glass bowl, and the large plates piled high with gingerbread men held only a stray crumb or two, Santa put on his holiday best and they adjourned to the elves' dormitory for festivities and giftgiving that lasted until dusk.
By nightfall, Wendy began to nod and Santa brimmed with a delicious mix of curiosity and lust. She drifted asleep in his arms as they watched elf after elf whiz by on the ice. With a twinkle of his eye, Santa summoned Fritz to his side.
"Fritz, I think you understand how much Wendy and her mother mean to me."
"Of course, Santa," Fritz assured him, watching the sleeping girl's head loll against the crook of Santa's arm as they made their way across the commons. "All of us, to the last elf, feel the same way."
"Good. That's good, Fritz. Now I want to tell you something. Get the door, will you?"
Fritz opened the front door of the gingerbread house, turned on the hall light, and stepped aside to let Santa through with his precious burden.
"Now, Fritz," said Santa while the sleepy girl was in the bathroom brushing her teeth, "Wendy and Rachel are not like us. They can be hurt. They can be killed."
"But Santa," Fritz scoffed, "who'd want to hurt—"
Santa held up a finger. "Never mind who. I'm afraid they may be in danger of further attack. You saw the rug. You heard what happened."
"Yes, but—"
"Then you know as much as you need to know. Keep an eye on Wendy tonight. Don't relax your vigilance for an instant. Will you do that?"
Fritz, puzzled and frustrated, stood by the picture window and looked out across the commons at the skating revelers. "She'll be safe with me, Santa."
"Thank you, Fritz."
Tucking Wendy in, Santa laid a fatherly hand upon her brow. "Go back to sleep now, darling. Fritz is here to look over you, and I'll see you in the morning." He bent down and kissed her.
"I love you, Santa," said Wendy with a yawn.
"I love you too, Wendy," Santa replied. "Sleep well, dear one."
Wendy smiled and her eyelids closed.
Santa paused at the door, his face soft but fearful. "Remember," he whispered to Fritz.
Fritz mouthed renewed assurance, and Santa headed back to his wives.
Hours later, when the festivities were over, Anya took one of Santa's hands and Rachel took the other and they led him beguilingly to his bed, stripped him naked, and demonstrated beyond the power of words how much love they had in their hearts for him and for one another. Hour after hour they dallied, these three, exploring with delight the new instance of matrimony they had become. Three hours shy of dawn, his arms full of contented woman, Santa drifted off at last into sleep, feeling safe and cozy and warm, drained and happy and, by any measure, complete.
*****
"G'night, Fritz," Wendy said. The next moment her eyes blinked open and everything was dark and silent except for the soft glow of her nightlight and the breezy snores of her guardian elf curled up in a chair by the window. Snowball and Nightwind lumped dim and immobile at the foot of her bed. Outside, snow stretched in a silent blue roll across the commons past the gleam of the skating pond.
Too much hot apple cider. She needed to go tinkle. She had to leave her warm cozy bed and lift her nightgown above her waist and sit on the cold potty seat. Yes, but then she would get to nestle back under the covers again and that would feel wonderful. Nothing to be done. Wendy angled back her blankets and stepped down, chill air upon her ankles. She eased open her bedroom door so as not to disturb Fritz, crossed the hallw
ay, and snapped on the bathroom light.
Loud knock of potty cover against the bright white tank; white seat cold on the backs of her legs; a sudden spray of tinkle hitting the water, and the easing of her discomfort within. Nightwind craned his head around the door and yawned up at her. Wendy worried the loose tooth with her tongue. She felt it give. Raising a hand from the seat, she brought it out.
It glistened between thumb and forefinger, jutting up thin and white and almost smooth, a pinched drop of red at its root end.
In her mouth she tasted blood.
She wiped herself and flushed the potty, then stood at the sink. Santa had said to let someone know if it came out. Should she wake Fritz? She set the tooth on the countertop and stared at it. No need. She was fast approaching eight, a big girl. What had Mommy done the last time in their old house? Stood next to her, an arm around her shoulder. Suggested she rinse her mouth out. Set the tooth beneath her pillow and tucked her in.
Anya told her often what an independent young lady she was becoming. They would be proud of her the next morning when she told them she had taken care of things herself. There might even be more dimes in it, assuming the Tooth Fairy rewarded such efforts. It was worth a try, anyway.
Wendy sloshed warm water about in her mouth and spat out the pink fluid, washing it down the drain. She did it a second and third time. Then she closed her palm around the tiny tooth, flicked off the bathroom light, and ushered Nightwind back into her room, shutting the door as quietly as she could behind them.
Fritz snored. He looked cold, Wendy thought. She tipped up the pillow and centered her prize beneath it, then pressed it firmly down around the tooth. She lifted a confused Snowball off the bed and set her on the floor. "Sorry, Snowball," she said. Her top blanket, light blue and pilled with age, she took off, draping it around Fritz and tucking it behind his shoulders so that he looked as if he had fallen asleep in a barber chair. A smile came to his lips. At last, Wendy crawled beneath the covers, savoring the mommy-like warmth that wrapped her in its arms, and drifted down into deep slumber.
13. The Tooth Fairy Takes Her Revenge
When immortals dream, death and disfigurement come surprisingly often into play. And yet not so surprising when one considers their indestructibility in waking life. Upon the deadly playground of a dreamscape, the agonies of separation and irrevocable loss are theirs at last to claim and be claimed by.
Because God had given Santa and Anya memories of past mortality, their dreams frequently took up these themes. In a typical scenario, God reached down in displeasure to peel away the veneer of immortal life from this or that inhabitant of the North Pole. There followed many tearful visits to the victim's deathbed, an elaborate burial scene in the woods, and after a heartrending period of gloom and mourning, at last a reversal: God forgave all, the grave belched forth its victim amidst a rain of flowers, and joy returned tenfold to every heart.
This night, however, Santa's dreams took an atypical turn. He floated blimplike above the world, an earth made not of rock and soil but of mattress, white with feathery blankets and pillows of snowdrift. Lying legs akimbo in every direction were vast expanses of women, naked and swollen-lipped. Down he drifted into the embrace of each of them, dipping into her ready flesh and leaving liquid gifts inside her. Glancing back, Santa watched them belly up and birth out girl babies, who blossomed swiftly into womanhood, their limpid gaze inviting his return.
But when he closed his eyes to savor his bliss, a blast of chill air suddenly assaulted him. Peeling his lids back against the wind, Santa found himself falling precipitously toward an island engulfed in flame. One twisted cypress burned, as did the ash trees racing up a mountain slope. Beaches of sand and rock roared with the ferocity of a furnace. Into this inferno he fell, skin scorched, lungs scandalized. And this isle—which was somehow the Tooth Fairy herself—rose to seize him. She held out inflaming arms, hugged him to her fiery bosom, sucked his prick into her pit of love, and pressed it to white coals until it sizzled and blistered like a hotdog on a grill.
"Santa." Her demonhood gripped him. "Look into my face. Behold what once you were, what realms of bliss you lorded over in days past." Through the wash of flame, her skin cleared like a pool and he witnessed scenes of forest abandon, heard reed-pipes endlessly rippling. His head fell forward into hers and the goatishness surged within him, wild and gamy, clever in chase, rough in capture, rude in ravage. Raising a hairy arm, he splashed wine down his throat and the spirit of pressed grape filled him. "Nymphs," came his command, "pleasure me!" At once, out from the trees—ash and oak and lofty pine—they flew to him. Lips moistened, grandly flush between the thighs, they grabbed at him, smothering him in tongue and cunt, nippling his lips with full milk-yielding breasts.
She thrust him up from her flaming face, tearing the vision away. Pain seized his limbs and worse pain gripped his sex. "But you gave that up long ago, fearing to die. Hoodwinked by God into a life of selfless giving, you are no longer worthy to wield such a lovely weapon as this." The blazing pit of her vulva, sprouting teeth and tongue, parted its jaws and inched around the tight pouch of his testicles. Then her teeth dug deep and incisive, severing his genitals with one savage chomp. As he screamed, her vaginal jaws munched away at their prize. Then she tossed him upon the hissing sea, straddled his head, and irised open her anus. Out fluttered flurries of currency, all colors, shapes, and sizes. Engraved presidents and kings and queens slapped across his face. Monetary excrement blinded him. So thick and furious came the defecation of banknotes that no air was left for breathing. With his last gasp, he found enough breath to scream, scream for his life . . .
. . . but suddenly he was awake. And it wasn't his scream he heard but Rachel's. There by the bedroom door in the moonlight stood the Tooth Fairy, her strong right arm thrown savagely across the shoulders of Wendy's torn nightgown. Wendy's head whipped from side to side in protest. Ringed in a ghastly red, her torn and toothless mouth sobbed open.
*****
When Rachel saw the look on the intruder's face, she knew at once why this hellspawn stood at Santa's bedroom door, hurting her daughter. In the same instant, she saw Wendy's terror, her face a fist of pain, and Rachel's love for her took over.
"Let her go!" Flinging back the bedsheets, she leaped at the vengeful demon before her.
"With pleasure," said the intruder, hurling Wendy with a loud smack against the wall and turning to embrace the charging mortal.
"Mommy, a big bunny rabbit took Thnowball," she heard her daughter cry out, but then Rachel's ribcage snapped like a rack of twigs in the Tooth Fairy's brutal hug and the creature's jaws suddenly gaped far wider than seemed possible. Rachel inhaled sharply, astonished at how much pain went with the puncture and crush of internal organs. Then the Tooth Fairy's head sprang forward and her teeth lit into Rachel's face, and Rachel knew no more.
*****
Blond bitch tastes halfway decent, came the thought. But there was no time for thinking, no time to savor the woman's flesh; time only to bolt it down. First the head, face and teeth and tongue, shove the skull in, crush it, gulp down bones, brain, and all. Then the torso, ripping into it like a hungry shredder pulping a treetrunk, taking in shoulderflesh and clavicle, arms and elbows, wrists and fingers, breasts and breadbasket. Finally she heaved the rest of the woman up into the air (a swirl of motherblood slapping across the whimpering girl's nightgown), ate away at innards and cunt and buttocks, stuffed down thighs and legs and feet, gulped flesh and bone and blood in quick triumph.
She was in high spirits, the Tooth Fairy. She'd been in the room ten seconds tops, her feast had taken no more than three, and Santa and his wife lay wrapped in shock. Already she could feel her insides working over her meal. Her belly bulged and she rose into the moonlight, hugging her knees to her breasts, ready to mint the mortal bitch.
She screamed at the pain.
Her anus gaped wide, straining at all sides. The milled edges of the coin came first, accordioned over three
or four widths' worth. It fanned out as it emerged, gleaming golden. Faster and faster the impacted metal issued from her, hurting her even as it fed her pride. Like a flat balloon it filled out huge and round and golden. On the upturned side, she made out the mortal woman's breasts and hands and anguished face. When its last serration had been shat, the huge disc stiffened in the air like swiftly tempering steel and clattered to the hardwood floor, digging deep dents in it.
The sound roused Santa to action, but the Tooth Fairy rocketed over to Wendy and swooped her up, screaming and kicking, by the waist.
"In the name of God, put her down!" Santa shouted as he leaped from the bed.
She threw him one last look, then folded herself and her victim into magic time and was gone.
*****
Still cocooned in shock, Anya watched Santa race to grapple with the Tooth Fairy.
Too late.
The moment his moon-white arms began to close on her, she winked out, Wendy with her. Santa slammed full force into the wall. A long, wounded howl issued from him. He struck it with his fist and crumbled against it, weeping.
Anya went to Santa. Turning at her touch, he hugged her. "Good God," he sobbed, "what have I done?"
"There, there, Nicholas." He blubbered in her arms. Anya fought away her tears, shutting out the terrible images of her loved ones bloody and dying, so as to tend to her husband.
"I could have stopped it. I could have held Rachel back. Don't you see, Anya, I could have gone into magic time and saved her."
"That's enough," she replied, looking him straight in the eye. "It happened much too fast for either of us to stop it. Now pull yourself together. You've got a child to save."
"Yes, I must think of Wendy." The catch in his voice tore at Anya's heart. "But how will I ever find them in time? They could be anywhere. Wendy might already—"
"Wendy is not dead," said Anya with more conviction than she felt. "But she's out there somewhere, hurting, and you've got to find her and rescue her." An image of Lucifer sprang to Anya's mind, his antlers glowing bright as neon.
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