by Rachel Ford
But we, each of us in our way, however humbly on my own part of course, contribute to the good cheer of the Vale.
On account of our kinship in such matters, and begging your pardon most sincerely if I have, in so stating the case as I see it, overstepped the boundaries of decorum, I would offer you a plate of the best cookies from my kitchen. Each one has been crafted for you with the utmost care, and baked with all the well-wishes of our humble Vale, and my own humble kitchens.
I cannot, of course, claim credit for the actual baking. That belongs to Klaus, but I flatter myself that he acted at my direction. And as I left him no doubt whatever of the ardency of my desire that all should be perfect for you, I can only suppose the end product benefited that much more from his increased attention to detail.
The letter went on for a staggering five more paragraphs, but Jack couldn’t bring himself to finish it.
The cookies were another matter. He ate through all but the last one, and that only because, oddly, it immediately added itself to his inventory as he touched it.
He frowned, wondering if that had been a glitch, and opened his inventory. The cookie was there, sure enough, labeled, Mayor Cristobal’s Tribute to Father Winter. Jack tried to pull it out so that he could eat it. But the game told him,
You cannot consume quest items.
“Since when the heather is a cookie a quest item? And what quest?” There was nothing in his quest log about collecting cookies.
Karag shushed him, asking, “What are you talking about, Sir Jack?”
“Never mind. Let’s go, before the world’s best boss there wakes up.”
Klaus’s chambers were next, and they were decked out in much the same fashion as the mayor’s – except, more chaotically. Much more chaotically. Half a dozen suits lay strewn across chairbacks. They hadn’t been tossed haphazardly, but rather propped up, as if someone had put them all out on some kind of display.
“A real Jack Dandy, this one,” Karag said in low tones.
Jack nodded. The suits were all rather obnoxious, in the way Klaus’s outfits were always obnoxious. But they lacked something of the pizazz and flair of the monstrous thing he’d worn at their meetings so far.
The suits, though, didn’t particularly interest him. The plate of cookies, on the other hand, drew his attention. Klaus had set out a huge platter full of Christmas cookies. There had to be a dozen varieties, and multiple cookies of each type. And somehow, they were even better than the ones in Cristobal’s quarters.
Jack lifted the platter, cradling it like a mother might cradle her young. Then he wandered the room, nosing through anything that caught his eye.
Klaus’s desk looked something like Jack’s own in real life: cluttered. Very, very cluttered. Stacks of papers, half read books, and never-read books had been littered here and there. Some volumes had bookmarks jutting out. The spines of others had clearly never been opened. There was a correspondence pile, and a quill beside a stack of writing paper.
Jack glanced over at Karag, who had his head in the gift sack as he fished through it in search of Klaus’s gifts. He took a bite of a particularly delicious gingerbread man and glanced at the letters.
Dear Mister Klaus,
I am sorry to hear about the molasses stain on your best Christmas suit. I will, of course, be delighted to work on a replacement, but I’m afraid my backlog is so considerable that I would not be able to get started until tomorrow week – which, of course, will be too late for your party.
I am sorry to be the bearer of such ill tidings, but I look forward to working with you on a Christmas suit that will rival anything we two have thus far dreamed up.
S. Noe, Tailor
Jack shook his head, glancing from this missive to a half-finished reply.
My dear Mr. Noe,
Thank you for your prompt response. I feared as much, but thought I should inquire anyway. I completely understand the demands on your time – for there is not a finer tailor anywhere in the Vale, or beyond.
I pray you do not allow my misfortune to weigh upon you this holiday season. I shall persevere. As you know, I have many alternatives, and even if they do not live up to the moment, I shall do my upmost to exude whatever festive cheer the garment does not.
“These people are all insane,” Jack said.
Again, Karag hushed him. “We’re done here,” he whispered. “Come, let us go up this chimney.”
Jack frowned at him, and then the fire blazing in Klaus’s hearth. “I prefer not searing my hide, thank you.”
But Karag didn’t seem to hear him. The giant walked toward the fireplace, quiet as a mouse, and stepped inside. Immediately, he vanished in a trail of light.
Blinking, Jack stood fixed in place for a long moment. Then he followed, stared dubiously at the fire, and stuck a single foot half an inch over the flames.
A woosh of darkness surrounded him, and then Jack stood on the top of a chimney, some ways from the sleigh.
Chapter Fourteen
After about the fifth time, the process terrified Jack a little less. He almost got into a kind of rhythm: they dropped down the chimney, Karag took care of the gifts, and Jack saw to the cookies.
Then, of course, the giant had to switch things up. “We cannot forget the villains,” he said. Jack would have been happy to do so, except it was a required objective.
“Fine. Let’s start with Eben, I guess.” That’s what he and Arath had done, and Jack was, in many respects, a creature of habit. But more than that, Eben’s bunker was the only one with which he had even a passing familiarity. The other deliveries had been drive-by coal dumpings. But they’d gone near the bunker, even if they hadn’t been inside.
Karag, who had taken over piloting the sleigh, did as Jack said, and guided the reindeer to the bunker roof. “We’ll need to be very quiet.”
“No kidding. Man, Estelle sure hit the mark. I don’t know what I’d do without such invaluable counsel.”
Karag got out first and picked his way gingerly toward the chimney. Here, they had a surprise. At least, to Jack it was a surprise: a huge iron grate barred entry to the chimney. “Well,” he said, “that is going to make this a little difficult.”
Karag grunted. “You know…I may just have something for that.” Then, he sifted through his pack. A moment later, he produced a tool that looked an awfully lot like a blowtorch, albeit one that glowed with a magical energy. “There we are.”
“Is that…a blowtorch?”
Karag nodded. “You might want to stand back. The sparks can be – well, rather warm.”
“You just happen to have that on hand, eh?”
“Indeed. And very lucky for us, isn’t it?” Then, the giant turned back to his pack, this time retrieving a set of goggles. “You really should stand back, Jack.”
Jack, though, felt his jaw slacken. “So not only do you just happen to have a breaking and entering kit – lockpicks and a blowtorch that can cut through iron bars – you also just happen to have appropriate eyewear for it?”
Karag nodded. “As you say. Now, I’m about to begin.”
And he did. A shower of hot sparks rose from the metal, hissing and sizzling in the snow. Jack yelped as they hit and sizzled on him, too. Not because it hurt – it didn’t. It just surprised him; and the accompanying drain to his hit points annoyed him. But he did step back, now.
Karag went on tackling the bars, one at a time. When the final one gave way, he grabbed the grate a moment before it clattered to the bottom of the fireplace. Then he set it quietly onto the snow, removed his goggles, and slipped his gear back into his pack. “There we are,” he said, as if he’d just done something perfectly ordinary.
Jack shook his head and stepped into the void. A moment later, he materialized in a cramped fireplace in a dark room. Quietly, carefully, he pulled himself out of the soot and looked around.
There was no Christmas tree here, and no stack of gifts, or stockings hanging from the mantle. There were no family photos
, or festive décor, or anything at all, except animal heads on the walls. He saw a reindeer’s head, and the heads of a few dogs, and even a preserved hamster. This was not just the head, but the entire creature, proudly displayed. Underneath each dead animal hung a plaque, listing whose pet it had been before its untimely demise, and the manner of that demise. There was “Tim Cratchit’s hamster, electric shock,” and, “Holly Frost’s dog, candy shot,” and so on.
Jack stared in horror, wondering first at the demented taxidermist who would take such commissions, and second at the mayor, who allowed such a monster to live in his town. Somehow, he had accepted that Eben lived in a bunker, boobytrapped his yard, and would shoot visitors on site. He could deal with that. But to kill dogs and display their stuffed heads on a wall? The man was an absolute monster, and he needed to be stopped.
“You mind?” Karag hissed from behind him.
He stepped aside hastily, hoping to curtail any further disgruntled commentary about the view. The giant straightened himself up and threw a glance around the room. Then, he touched a finger to his lips, and pointed toward an adjacent room.
Jack craned his neck to see what the other man was pointing out, and then he blanched. There was Eben, his back to the pair. He was staring out a window with binoculars, the blunderbuss strapped to his back.
“I should probably rid him of that,” Karag said.
“What?”
“The weapon. I don’t believe a man such as this…” He gestured to the heads all around them. “Should have a weapon.”
Jack considered for a long moment. Certainly, Eben was a menace and a danger. Disarming him would be a public good. Then again, he remembered the other man’s preternaturally good hearing from his first time at the bunker. He shook his head. “You’ll never reach him. He’ll hear you first.”
Karag quirked an eyebrow. “My dear Jack, you consistently underestimate the many and varied skills I have picked up in my travels.”
Jack rolled his eyes, but he didn’t change his mind. Even if Karag could steal the gun without getting them both killed – and, the more he thought about it, the more likely it seemed – he wasn’t sure he wanted an Obsidian Isles’ operative having a lethal weapon like that one either. At least in Eben’s possession, it was the townsfolks’ problem. In Karag’s, it would be his. “No, let’s concentrate on the mission. Where’s the coal?”
So Karag dutifully produced a big, ugly lump of coal. Jack grinned, took it from him, and set it on the mantle.
“I believe we need to put it in a stocking,” Karag said. “For full effect.”
Jack pshawed this, and was about to tell the giant to get a move on it when he decided to check his quest log – just to be safe. Sure enough, there was no mark of completion next to Eben’s name. So he groaned. “Well sugar. There’s no stockings here.”
“I imagine we can use a sock.” Jack made a face, and Karag volunteered, “I’ll look. I’m sure I can find one in his bedroom.”
The giant tiptoed away, silent as night itself. Jack stood in place, wondering how his breathing could be louder than the other man’s movement.
He stayed there, fighting to breathe more quietly and keeping an eye on Eben. The old man kept his gaze fixed on the outdoors, like he was waiting and watching for someone.
Finally, Karag returned with a sock in hand. He passed it over to Jack, who took it and then frowned. “There’s a giant hole in the toe.”
“There’s holes in all of them,” Karag answered. “The man is a miser, there’s no doubt about that. I doubt he’s refreshed his wardrobe in the last five decades.”
Jack sighed, and dropped the coal in carefully, trying to find a position where it could sit deep enough in the toe that it wouldn’t fall out of the hole. After a bit of finagling, he got it right. “There we go.”
“Shh,” Karag warned.
So Jack turned to the mantle, looking for a nail and grumbling to himself at what an overbearing companion Karag was proving to be. He found a nail and fussed with it for a bit. He managed to get half of the nail head through the fibers without moving the sock too much. Then, though, the other half slipped through, and the sock bounced a little. The lump of coal shifted positions, dropped through the hole, and clattered to the ground with a terrible noise.
Eben came running, his eyes bulging with fury under his nightcap, his slipper-clad feet moving at a ridiculous speed. He had the blunderbuss at the ready, of course. “Who are you?” the old man demanded.
“Shit,” Jack said at the same time, which came out as, “Sugar.”
Karag was a little more collected. He stood tall and proud, and spoke in a deep, sonorous voice. “I am the ghost of Christmas past, Eben. I come bringing you a warning, before it is too late.”
The old man froze to the spot, looking a little hesitant, and a little paler than Jack remembered. “A ghost, you say?”
Karag nodded imperiously, and Jack stammered out, “That’s-that’s right. He’s a ghost. We’re both ghosts.”
Eben thought for a moment. Then, he snarled. “I don’t care if you are ghosts. You’re on my property. Which makes you trespassers. And there’s only one thing to do with trespassers.” He leveled the blunderbuss in their direction.
Jack and Karag darted for the chimney as candy shot ripped through the air. He heard the horrible clatter as it tore through the bricks of the fireplace; but he was already on his way up.
Eben’s voice followed him, and so did a second shot – this time, straight up the chimney. Candy pieces pelted his backside and drained away a few points of health. “That’s right, you better run. Merry Christmas, lads!”
The old man’s manic laughter echoed up the chimney. Jack pulled himself over the ledge as another volley of candy shot blasted up behind him.
“That is a very troubled individual,” Karag said.
“Troubled? He’s an absolute lunatic.”
“I do wish I’d relieved him of that weapon.”
Jack rubbed his backside where the candy had hit. “Yeah. Me too.”
They went back to delivering presents for a while. Jack had had enough of an adrenaline rush to tide him over. But eventually, they had to finish the coal deliveries. This time, he didn’t stop Karag from disarming the miserable residents of the Vale.
The giant pulled it off flawlessly and amassed a curious collection of deadly artifacts. He got a knitting needle from a witch who lived in a candy house – a knitting needle that dealt wicked, armor piercing damage. He swiped a ruler from a Headmaster Brocklehurst; the unprepossessing tool delivered a measly loss of four hit points but carried a fifty percent chance of limb crushing damage per hit. Then there was the quill, taken from a Mister Pecksniff, Esquire’s, residence. The quill’s piercing damage was inconsequential, but the steady drain of hit points that followed every attack had Jack whistling with surprise.
“That’s a very cool weapon. Weird as heck. But very cool.”
It was the last house on Winter’s map marked with a piece of coal that had Jack second guessing his objectives, though. He’d delivered the magical coal to this residence via a broken window on his playthrough for Krampus.
But this time, he had to land. And nothing about his mission seemed right when he did. It started the moment he stepped down the chimney, and into the room. Unlike the misers and monsters of the Vale, this house was decorated with a beautiful, festive flair. It lacked the wealth and pomp of the mayor’s abode, to be sure, and the palatial size. But no less care had been taken here to imbue every inch of the place with holiday cheer.
Garlands of paper stars and popcorn strings hung over the mantle. A modest fir, hung with gingerbread ornaments and cranberry garlands, lit up the room. And fourteen stockings hung in a row on the mantlepiece.
Jack was frowning at the incongruity of this stop compared to the others so far when a tiny chirp of a meow sounded at his feet. He glanced down to see a black kitten. He smiled. “Hey there, little one.”
The kit
ten chirped again and started to weave its way between Jack’s legs. Its loud purrs filled the little room.
“Let’s hurry,” Karag said. “The clock is winding down.”
Jack glanced up at the giant. “I think there’s something wrong. I don’t think –”
Just then, a little old lady bustled into the room. She was humming to herself and carrying a plate of cookies and a glass of milk. Jack spotted her at the same moment she spotted him, and they both yelped. “Oh dear,” she said. “Oh my. You – you must be Father Winter.”
Jack blinked. “Uh…yeah. Kind of.”
“You – you look much younger than I thought you would. Oh, I do hope you won’t be offended, Mr. Winter, Sir.” She held out the milk and cookies. “I almost forgot these. I know I should be in bed. Please don’t be offended. Only, I have to finish the pies for my little ones.” She shook her head. “There’s thirteen of them, you know, and they eat a good deal. And with their father having passed – well, it seems there just aren’t enough hours in the day.”
She stopped suddenly, seeming very embarrassed. “Oh dear. I’m rambling. I’m so sorry.” She thrust the plate and glass forward. “Please, take these, Mr. Winter, and pay me no mind at all. I’ll be in the kitchen, working on the boys’ Christmas meal. You do whatever you need to do. I won’t be any trouble at all. But call me if you need anything – anything at all.”
Jack took the proffered food, and the old woman went away again, shutting the door after her. He turned to Karag. “Doublecheck the list, Karag. Make sure we’re at the right place.” He knew they were. He’d thrown a lump of magical coal through the window on his previous run through town for Krampus. Still, he felt there had to be some kind of mistake. How could they possibly be planning to make life harder for a nice old lady like this one – and a widow and a mother at that?
Karag did as he was asked, and Jack glanced at the cookies he held. He’d eaten an awfully lot of cookies so far tonight. The game had even, weirdly, stuck a handful into his inventory as mysterious quest items. But, then, there was always room for another cookie. And he didn’t need to finish the entire plate this time. A cookie, or maybe two, would let the little old lady know her efforts had been appreciated.