by Sean Shake
‘Crampy’, was suddenly next to us, apparently having teleported. That would be a convenient power. I wondered if I could do it.
“My dear,” he said, holding out his arms as she leapt into them.
I shuddered at the sight. Her skin up against that awful creature’s patchy fur.
“Your name is Crampy?” I asked. “I could see why you wouldn’t volunteer that information.”
“It’s just a nickname,” Rue said.
“She gave it to me when she was very young,” Crampy said.
Alexa pushed herself out of his arms, suddenly looking angry. “What was that note all about that you left? You took my parents? Why would you say something like that?”
The demon’s face twisted up into a hideous look of confusion. “What note?”
“The one you left at home, at our house, that said you took my parents to ruin Christmas.”
“I did no such thing. I wasn’t the one who took your parents.”
“You don’t seem very surprised,” Rue said.
He glanced over at her. “News travels fast. As you well know, little reindeer.”
She made a face, but didn’t have a comeback for this.
“Hold on,” I said, something clicking. Not Crampy, but— “Krampy? As in Krampus?”
“That’s me,” Krampus replied. “And if you try to take my soul I will… I don’t know. I’ll do something you won’t like. So don’t try it.” He pointed a large clawed finger at me. “And don’t even think of putting me in soup.”
“What is your obsession with soup?” I looked at Rue, then to Alexa. “So did he take your parents, or not?”
Alexa didn’t immediately answer, instead looking up at the demon. “I don’t think so,” she said finally, shaking her head slowly. “He likes to cause trouble, but not like this.”
“I would never do anything that caused you suffering my dear,” he assured her.
“Can we go now?” a voice called.
We all turned our attention to the Yule Lads, who for some reason were on their knees and lined up in a row.
Weird.
“Oh,” I said. “I forgot about you. Let’s keep it that way. Get out of here.”
I didn’t have to tell them twice, as they all winked out of existence.
Man, I would have to learn that power.
“You really shouldn’t have done that,” Rue said.
“Why?” I asked
“Because,” Alexa said, “you just told them to get out of here. And they take that literally.”
“Yeah. So? That’s what we wanted, them to get out of here. Right?” I looked around at the silent group.
“Right?” I asked again.
“Well let’s just put it this way,” Krampus said. “When you told them to get out of here, they got out of here. Out of this realm.”
“So?”
“Well, they like mischief, and you gave them permission to leave this realm, and so now…”
“They just went to Earth,” Rue finished.
25
The four of us trudged out of the cave and down the mountain back to the portal Krampus and I had come through.
“Why can’t we just teleport?” I asked.
“That’s hard to explain,” Alexa said.
“Don’t worry your little mind about it right now,” Rue said. “Just stay alert in case we get ambushed.”
“Ambushed?” I asked. “Ambushed by what?”
“If I knew, I wouldn’t tell you keep a lookout, would I?”
“You know you’re quite prickly.”
“You would be too if you’d just had your entire family and your best friend’s family kidnapped, who also were like family to you, and you were the one who allowed it to happen.”
Alexa put a hand on Rue’s shoulder.
I hadn’t thought about that, what they must be going through.
Alexa had lost both her parents, and she didn’t even know who took them, or why. Other than possibly to ruin Christmas.
And Rue, well I supposed she lost everyone she knew.
I wasn’t sure what the relationship was like between her and the other ‘reindeer’, but apparently she regarded them as something like family.
Now, she didn’t know if they were even still alive, and it was all her fault. Or so she thought.
I didn’t know enough about any of this to make that kind of judgment. I didn’t know exactly how much the North Pole protected the Northern Realm, or if it would’ve stopped whatever had happened from happening.
Krampus was silent on the way back to the portal to the crossroads.
I kept expecting him to do something evil—it was hard to get past how monstrous he looked.
Maybe we would look like monsters to some alien species who were even more soft-edged than we were.
Maybe there was a jellyfish-like sentient alien species out there, and our hard jagged lines would seem horrific to them.
This perspective did nothing however to dull my trepidation for Krampus.
We made out of this snowy realm and back into the slightly less snowy crossroads without Krampus doing anything evil. However as we were headed back toward the series of portals that would take us back to the secret layer, Rue stopped suddenly.
“Where are we going?” Rue said, looking at Krampus and then meaningfully at Alexa.
Alexa glanced at Krampus, then at me, then back at Rue. “Oh. Well, I suppose we should… go… investigate the crime scene? Go back to where it happened, back to my house in the Northern Realm. That’s what they do in those shows.”
“I told you not to watch those,” Rue said.
Alexa shrugged. “I’m a rebel.”
Rue snorted. “Yeah, you’re a big rebel, alright.” She looked at Krampus again. “Are you gonna try to betray us?”
“I would never do anything to harm her.”
She looked at him in that suspicious way of hers. “Yeah, well, what about us?”
“Or people she cares about.”
“Just to be clear then,” Rue said, “she cares about me. So, I’m included in that safety net.”
“I’ve not harmed anyone in a long time little reindeer.”
“My name is Rue.”
“Of course. Rudolph, the name you were given so long ago.”
“I chose Rue. Not anyone else.” She said this very defiantly, and glared hard up at the giant demon.
Which didn’t seem wise to me.
We continued on and as we went, I grew ever more excited, a little child in me that had been repressed for more than a decade trying to come to the surface, break the lock and bust out of the solitary confinement cell I’d put it in. Rip the duct tape from its mouth and untie the blindfold from its eyes.
Of course it would first have to undo the chains from its ankles and break free of the straitjacket before it could do any of that, but that’s beside the point.
Every kid, at least every kid that knew about Christmas and Santa, or was lied to about Santa—or I supposed told the truth—wanted to visit the North Pole.
And now here I was, getting that childhood dream fulfilled. I was about to see the North Pole.
Well, not the North Pole, which I had stowed unnervingly in my thigh, but the Northern Realm, which I and most everyone else, I’m pretty sure, thought of as the North Pole.
Santa’s workshop, the reindeer stable… everything.
Maybe Alexa would take me to her childhood bedroom and I could consummate our marriage further.
I admit I was obsessed with consummating with her.
But when we crossed through the next portal and into the Northern Realm, things were not as I’d expected.
For one, everything was on fire.
“Oh no!” Alexa exclaimed.
“Shit,” Rue muttered.
The air was filled with thick acrid smoke that made my eyes water and my throat burn.
“My house! We have to save the house.” Alexa pointed at a structure that hadn�
�t yet been engulfed in flames, but had flames slowly working their inevitable way toward it. There seemed to be a sort of… barrier? Something invisible that appeared to push the flames back. For now.
There were many other structures in between us and that two-story house, and those were all alight.
Some were so burned that I could see their underlying frame and see right through them, even with the fire encasing them.
Near one of the burning buildings was what looked like a military Humvee, but with smoother lines.
Hard to tell for sure, as that was on fire too.
Alexa turned to me and grabbed my forearm. “You must channel the spirit of ice and put these out. I don’t have the power to channel them, I can only experience them, use them on myself.”
“I don’t know—”
“Screw what you don’t know,” Rue said. “Just try.”
“Jesus, okay.”
Rue looked around nervously, then back to me. “Use the ice, try to surround the house before the flames get there. “The ward won’t last much longer.”
To me it didn’t look like the flames were in danger of reaching the house just yet. It looked like it would take several minutes for them to get there, especially with that invisible-though-failing forcefield/ward keeping them back.
But even the idea of my shitty apartment burning down filled me with a sense of dread, and so I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to have your childhood home burn down.
Especially one that was in the North freaking Pole, and where Santa raised you.
I focused on the area I wanted to freeze. I decided not to check my energy levels, chose to believe I was fully recharged now.
I took a deep breath—which was a mistake as my lungs filled with smoke.
Surprisingly I didn’t start coughing. Took it, in fact, like a pro cigarette smoker.
Which I wasn’t. One of my friends, Chad—yes, the virgin guy—had gotten me to try his Juul vape pen once. About half a second after that not-smoke hit my throat, I was coughing hysterically.
But now, even with this thick smoke that burned my eyes and the back my throat, breathing it in seemed to have no effect on me.
Maybe my gag reflex had just been stifled.
That was a horrifying thought.
I concentrated hard on the idea of ice and then threw my hands out like Iron Man blasting whatever it is he blasts from his palms.
I let out a roar as…
As nothing happened.
Alexa put her hand on me. “Relax. Channel the spirit. Feel it in you. Feel the ice and the cold. Let it touch your bones, let it fill you with power, and then pour it out all at once.”
I nodded and closed my eyes, concentrating.
I tried to feel cold, tried to ignore the hot breezes from the flames all around us, tried to imagine the blissful winter wonderland this place was when there weren’t infernos burning everywhere.
I imagined an icy spectral path, like the ones Track revealed.
I imagined it twisting through the air, darting back and forth, then diving down toward me and entering me through my back, right below my neck and spreading out to my arms, to my chest, my legs. To my face, my eyes, my nose, my mouth—my breath being replaced with icy vapor.
And as I exhaled my next breath, ice crystals formed on my lips. And when I opened my eyes, everything was blue.
Things were still on fire, but it was as though I was looking through a filter.
When I held my hands up in front of me, my gloves were covered in icicles.
I looked at the ragdoll representation of my suit and saw that it glowed a faint red.
“Wow,” Rue said, almost sounding impressed.
“I knew you were the one,” Alexa said. “Now channel your power. Use it to save my home for me.”
I did.
26
We approached the ice wall that I had formed around Alexa’s childhood home.
It was so large and tall that it radiated coldness even from twenty feet away.
“Think you might have went a little overboard there?” Rue said.
“He saved my house. Saved what might be the only place left with any clues as to what happened to my parents.”
Rue grunted.
“I haven’t been here in ages,” Krampus said.
“I thought you left a note here,” Rue said.
“I’ve already told you little creature, that was not me.”
We reached the door and Alexa reached for the handle, hesitated, then wrapped her fingers around it and pushed it open.
She looked back as we stepped inside. “You’re going to stay out there?” she worriedly asked Krampus, who was standing a few feet from the entrance, watching us.
“Your father banished me from entering this house. I can’t come in without your permission.”
“Well I give you my permission to come in.”
“Alexa!” Rue scolded.
“I trust him,” she said looking at Rue. “I was right about Nicholas wasn’t I?”
Rue grit her teeth, and her nose, which had been only a very faint red, dim enough to not even notice if you weren’t looking, grew brighter and began to glow.
Krampus took two steps on his cloven feet, then ducked and turned to the side to fit through the doorway.
Inside, the house was much larger than it seemed on the outside, and somehow instead of seeming surprising, this seemed just as it should be.
The ceiling on this floor was about forty feet, and so the Christmas demon had no problem standing straight at his seven to eight-foot height.
“Ah, it still smells the same,” he said. “Candy canes and gingerbread. And something else. Pine, maybe? Or maybe that’s just the smell of Christmas. I never seem to be able to replicate it exactly.”
It hit me then, that the smell I was smelling now, which was frankly wonderful, was not so different from the one that I had smelled when I’d first entered Krampus’s castle.
He was one weird demon, that was for sure.
“Okay,” I said. “So what kind of clues are we looking for here? Would there be a trail? Like there was with the Yule Lads.”
“I don’t know,” Alexa said. “Just keep your eyes open.”
“You didn’t see anything when you were here?”
“When I saw my parents were taken? Once I found the note I ran away to Miami and— Well, you know the rest.” She looked disgusted. “That makes me sound horrible. I didn’t even search for them,” she said guiltily, “or try to find Rue or… or anyone.”
I kissed her forehead. “Don’t worry, we’re looking now.”
“And what exactly are we looking for?” Krampus asked.
I looked around, studying the large house. “I don’t know much about police work, except what I’ve seen on TV. But we should start where it started. Alexa, where do you think they were when they were taken? Were they asleep?”
“I wasn’t here, but yes I think they were asleep.”
“Okay then, let’s start from the bedroom.” I looked at Krampus. “You need to not disturb the crime scene.”
He looked down at me disdainfully. “I’ve been around longer—”
“Yes yes,” I interrupted. “Longer than I’ve been alive and longer than I’ll be alive. Except I’m the Santa Claus now, remember? So you won’t be. Or you will be, but I’ll be here too.”
He glowered at me, and I thought he might finally lash out. I readied myself to dodge and push Alexa out of the way if need be.
But he didn’t attack, and eventually said, “I won’t disturb anything. Any trail I might leave will be much harder to follow than the one you leave. Humans are like bulls when they walk.”
“I’m the bull? You’re the one with bull’s feet.”
“They are not bull’s feet. They are sheep’s feet, if you want to classify them at all. And really they are not sheep’s feet, they are my feet. Do I look like a sheep to you?”
“Only in my nightmares.”
>
A few moments later, I was standing in Santa Claus’s bedroom.
This was a strange feeling.
The room was large, probably larger than my entire apartment.
The bed was also very large. It looked like it could sleep twenty across.
Looking up, I saw that there was a mirror above the bed.
Interesting. I tried not to imagine Santa Claus and Mrs Claus sleeping in the bed.
Perhaps not alone.
He did have a lot of elves, supposedly.
And eight more reindeer.
And while I was no sheep-fucker, Rue was no sheep.
She was no reindeer for that matter, either.
Other than her tiny antlers and weird eyes… and her red glowing nose—and glowing other parts—and a vaguely not-human but still-human face, she was just like any other woman.
Not just like any other woman. She was exceedingly beautiful.
I activated Track and scanned the room.
I saw trails everywhere, as though I were looking at the scene under a black light.
It was slightly disturbing, but I reassured myself that these were spectral paths, traces of magic. Not bodily fluids.
Though given that these were magical entities, I wasn’t sure that there was a difference.
“Umm, there are a lot of traces here.”
“Still playing with the help?” Krampus said with mirth.
“Focus on the task at hand,” Rue said, her cheeks—which had dimmed—turning red again.
We searched the bedroom but didn’t find anything. From there we moved on to the rest of the house, but there were no unaccounted for spectral paths.
“There has to be something,” Alexa said. “They can’t have just disappeared.”
“We’ll find them,” Rue reassured her, placing a hand on her shoulder. “But right now we need to work on getting things ready for Christmas. We have just over eleven days left and we still have a lot of work to do. We have a lot to rebuild.”
“Yeah,” Alexa said, “you’re right.”
“What do we need to do first?” I asked.
“My suggestion,” Krampus said, “would be to put out the fires. Try to save what’s left.”
“I doubt that will be very much,” Rue said. “But it will be hard to rebuild if they’re still blazing. So… I guess it’s a good idea.”