Could she ever be with a man prettier than she was? If he looked like Horatio, in a heartbeat.
“Do elves kiss?” It was amazing what could be done within a drug-induced haze.
“We do,” the color returned to his cheeks, brightly.
“Do they marry?”
“Is that a proposal, Betsy?”
Now it was her turn to scoff. “I just don’t like my fantasies to already be married before I kiss them.”
“Then you may do so without further concern if that is your wish.” The bright color high on his cheeks wasn’t going away, which was rather cute.
It would be a little like kissing a movie star. He was too perfect. But that wasn’t exactly a complaint worth filing with the Fantasy Dream Department—a division of the US Army Personnel Services Branch she’d never thought of submitting a requisition request to before.
Betsy reached across the table to snag the lapel of his body-hugging black leather suit and pulled him closer. She leaned in and briefly tasted the mutton stew on his lips. Thankfully, she was past that before it could put her off completely. Past that, he tasted of cinnamon and the wild outdoors of a snowy night. Of luscious hot cocoa and a crackling fire.
Horatio’s kiss was warm, attentive, thoughtful…and masterful.
If she hadn’t been dreaming before, she most certainly was now. Dreaming of how fast they could go somewhere there weren’t any other people, just the two of them and a big, warm bed.
Her pulse was soon chattering faster than an M134 Minigun on full auto, yet Horatio was still only exploring the first steps of a kiss.
“Get me out of here,” her own voice sounded desperate and needy.
“As you wish.”
4
The cold slapped her so hard that she lost her breath—as well as her lip lock on Horatio.
“What the hell?”
“The stables.”
“You brought me to a freezing cold barn?”
“I brought you to the source as you requested. These are the reindeer stables of St. Nicholas of Myra.”
Betsy could only look around in astonishment. A long line of stalls appeared to be made out of living yew trees, all trained into walls and stable dividers. Their roots were lost beneath a luxuriant layer of living grass—the brightest green she’d ever seen. The stables were lit by fireflies swarming among the branches.
And the sky.
The ceiling was of glass so clear that she could hardly tell it was there between her and the magnificent night sky. As she blinked away the worst of the pub’s smoke and her eyes adjusted, she began picking out constellations.
“That’s the North Star.”
Horatio looked up as well. “It is.”
“It’s directly overhead.”
“Point six seven degrees from directly overhead to be precise. We are at the celestial north pole rather than the magnetic or geographic one. Nice, isn’t it?”
“But the North Pole isn’t over land. It’s over sea ice.”
“It is, in most planes of reality.”
Betsy couldn’t think of what else to do…so she hit him. Not hard—it had been a very nice kiss after all. Just squarely enough in the solar plexus that he wouldn’t be able to speak for a few moments so that she could do some thinking.
Horatio dropped to his knees and wheezed a bit.
North Pole.
A missing reindeer named Jeremy.
An elf, a very handsome elf who could kiss better than any human—a kiss that also left her wondering what else he could do better.
St. Nicholas beneath Polaris the North Star in some very adjacent reality.
Real? Surreal? Digital? Drugs?
No way to tell.
She sighed, and helped Horatio back to his feet.
The only way out is through. Old axiom. There were times she hated old axioms.
“Last spring. Did anyone see which way Jeremy went?”
5
It had taken the CIA years to find bin Laden. And another half-year to actually get around to taking him down after “Maya” had found him.
She had three days to track a reindeer. Her total assets? One elf who didn’t want it to be known that he’d lost Santa’s most famous reindeer, Jeremy.
The first break came when they were questioning the other reindeer. They didn’t like having her around and were very standoffish, until she dug around in Horatio’s larder and found a bag of carrots. They warmed up to her quickly after that. Who knew that reindeer had a major weak spot for carrots.
A small portion of St. Nick’s deer herd—mostly the younger set—had gone south and west last spring, rather than south and east to their normal habitat in Finland. It turned out that reindeer had a particularly low-brow sense of humor—even worse than most Delta operators. They liked spending their summers mingling with the Finnish herds and teasing them about not making the cut to become a Christmas reindeer. They also weren’t above tripping them into mudholes and the like.
The breakaway herd had crossed down over the Canadian tundra, mingling with the caribou herds in some sort of convention. But they quickly grew bored as the Canadians had even less of a sense of humor than their Finnish counterparts.
That had led to any number of fights and endless head butting. The younger members of the herd whined about it no end.
“Teenagers,” she scoffed to Horatio after he’d translated that for her. “Hard to deal with.”
“Gift cards.” Apparently that was his harshest epithet. “It is the only way St. Nick has found to deal with them at Christmas.”
Betsy had been such a good girl as a teen, of course taking care of her ailing mother had made that an obvious choice. She’d even been well behaved as an Army grunt then a Delta operator. And now, just three days from freedom, she’d been injured and was drugged up in some Fort Bragg hospital. It didn’t seem fair.
She tossed out some more carrots to get the rest of the story. Most had continued west to roam with the big herds in Alaska. But Jeremy had turned south once more, toward the heat and bright sun. He’d said he was headed to a place called Mont-a-land or something like. None of them had ever heard of it.
“Montana?”
Some of them thought that sounded right, but were more interested in carrots than answering questions. She took the bag with her when she left. When they protested, she simply made a show of resettling her rifle across her shoulders…which proved most effective. About time they did some growing up.
She and Horatio started in the Canadian Northwest Territories at a place with the unlikely name of Reindeer Station. Eight or nine houses located along the edge of the sprawling Mackenzie River delta less than fifty miles from the Arctic Ocean. It wasn’t all that much warmer than the North Pole with just two days to Christmas. The river was iced over and was crisscrossed with snowmobile tracks. She’d borrowed a brilliant red parka with a white sheepskin lining to keep her warm.
It took most of the morning to track the region’s sole remaining reindeer herder to his remote cabin. It was a gruesome affair. Not merely well away from even the hamlet of Reindeer Station, it was also the butchery for bulls thinned from the herd. Reindeer meat was stacked outside in the Arctic chill and quick-frozen beneath hides. Inside the hut, the tools of the trade dangled from hooks on the wall. Yet the herder also had a young reindeer on a leash as a pet.
Horatio was shivering even more than the temperature could account for.
Betsy held his hand tightly to calm him, which she didn’t mind doing at all, while she was talking to the man. Even while shivering from disgust or distress, Horatio’s hand was as warm as a handmade quilt. He appeared perfectly comfortable in his body-hugging leather despite the Arctic temperature.
The herder’s English was limited and apparently Horatio was only fluent in English, French, and reindeer, so he was of no help. The herder, speaking mostly in some Inuit language, allowed as he might have seen a rather curious animal that had stood aloof from his herd
of three thousand reindeer. A magnificent bull with more points than he could count. He waved south.
“Inuvik?” That was the next town, some twenty miles away.
He shook his head and waved again.
“Fort McPherson?” It was the only other town she knew in the Northwest Territories.
Again the wave south, “Mont-a-land.”
6
But going directly to Montana was too big a leap. It would take forever to pick up Jeremy’s track again. So they worked south in stages following the rumors of an aloof, many-pointed bull reindeer.
“I thought Jeremy was supposed to be a cute little guy.”
“Indeed he was, seventy-five years ago when Robert L. May wrote about him. He has matured somewhat over the years. He is still a sweetheart though as he never allowed the success to go to his head.”
“How long do reindeer usually live? Maybe he died of old age.”
“Fifteen to twenty years, typically, unless they are in the employ of St. Nicholas. Then their lives are rather extended.”
Betsy eyed him carefully. There was an agelessness to Horatio’s clear features. He would have been as classically handsome a thousand years ago as he was now. Perhaps there were some questions that it was better not to ask.
Besides, time was running too fast.
“Can’t you slow it down?”
“Not even St. Nicholas can do that.”
Thirty-six hours remaining.
Jeremy wanted her to eat something after they’d chased leads all the way down the frozen Mackenzie to the small town of Yellowknife on Great Slave Lake. From there, they’d run the ice road over to the hamlet of Detah and were now sitting in a small barn. The owner had told the story of the most “magnificent bull” he’d ever tracked while hunting. Best he’d ever seen, but apparently his shot had gone wild.
“Jeremy is very wily,” Horatio’s whisper had tickled her ear like a warm breeze.
She tried a carrot, but they’d frozen hard. “Give me an MRE and let’s get going.”
So, he gave her a pre-heated Meal-Ready-to-Eat. She didn’t ask how. Next time she’d ask for a roast beef dinner with Yorkshire pudding and see if her friendly neighborhood hallucination could deliver.
“Maybe you should rest.” The small barn had a hayloft, and the hunter had returned to his ice fishing on the frozen lake. It was tempting. So very, very tempting. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been this tired.
“When the mission is done.” She chowed down on the Southwest Beef and Black Beans while Horatio massaged her shoulders. Now that was something she could become very used to—far better than the cold, lack of sleep, and the utterly ludicrous situation.
His fingers were strong enough to ease even her soldier-hard muscles until she felt ready to melt against him. She tossed aside the empty MRE package and decided that a little melting wasn’t completely outside the mission profile.
She’d forgotten—mostly—about the kiss in the ancient French bistro. The memory did nothing to prepare her for what happened next. Horatio felt luscious as he pulled her tightly against him. In mid-clench, she tried to rub herself even more tightly against his incredible body.
Horatio grunted, and not in a good way.
“Your vest,” he managed to gasp.
Betsy paused and looked down between them. She wore her Glock sidearm, as most Delta did, front and center for a fast draw. Above that, pockets of ammo and emergency supplies made hard edges that had left scrapes on his smooth leather.
“Sorry.” Vest. Mission. Ludicrous scenario.
The only way out is through.
She sighed, sat up, and patted Horatio’s cheek. He had the decency to look disappointed despite the gouges she’d been digging into his chest.
“Your colonel,” Horatio nodded to the south, “said that you were the hardest-driving scout in his entire team.”
“You spoke to Colonel Gibson about finding one of Santa’s reindeer?” She tried to imagine how the stern colonel took it.
“Perhaps I may not have asked him quite directly, but he was very impressed with your skills.”
That was news to her. She hadn’t known that Delta Force’s commander even knew who she was.
She sighed to herself that some overwound inner drive wouldn’t even let her enjoy a hallucinatory snuggle.
They left the tiny Detah barn and they turned south across Alberta.
7
They had pizza in Banff and she spent three delicious hours mostly passed out in the curve of Horatio’s arms in a snowed-in hiking cabin high in Glacier Park. She didn’t ask how Horatio moved them from place to place. It seemed that they flowed, glided, perhaps simply morphed from one destination to the next. It was a dream, so it was easy to not question the transitions.
But she would miss her time with Horatio. No, she’d miss Horatio himself. Even strung out on whatever narcotic was giving her this extended dream, she was becoming very attached to him.
Yes, he’d started out all strange and mysterious and mostly concerned about a missing reindeer. But he had shifted. More slowly than their jumping from one place to another, but just as steadily.
Still wrapped in her parka, she lay in his arms in the chill cabin and felt…right. As if it was where she was supposed to be. Perhaps “content” was a better word, though it was not one that had ever come up before in her life.
He hadn’t asked about her past, which was just as well. She didn’t want to talk about it. But neither had he talked about his. Did elves have pasts? Did elves have regrets? She hoped not as she had enough for both of them.
“What is an elf’s life like?” She could feel him shift as if he was looking down at the top of her head in some surprise.
“Normal enough. The reindeer usually do a good job of taking care of themselves, that’s why I didn’t think to worry. Generally I spend but one month a year tending them. It’s a good life for them as well.” And he began telling her about their grazing habits, and the practical jokes they liked to play.
One year they’d started at the South Pole rather than the North, forcing St. Nicholas to act like a Dumpster-diver as he dug out successive presents from the bottom of the sleigh’s pile instead of working top-down. Or the year they’d switched all of the rabbits’ stockings with all of the squirrels’—the rabbits had ended up having a grand game of ice hockey with the acorns and walnuts but the squirrels had never figured out what to do with the sudden bounty of cabbage.
It was only as they were trekking south into the Flathead Wilderness of Montana that she realized he’d told her nothing of himself. Perhaps it was fair, she’d said nothing of herself either, but it rankled. Of course, with his voice, she’d happily listen to him reading the naughty and nice name list—especially the naughty if he gave some of the details.
Dawn broke hard.
She couldn’t think of how else to describe it. While traveling through Canada, they had been in and out of snowstorms beneath gray skies. This morning, they’d left the cabin in Glacier Park beneath the last stars of the night, almost as brightly perfect as those from Santa’s reindeer stables. It had been a relief that the North Star had shifted well down the sky, so they were indeed well to the south.
But standing atop the Castle Reef ridgeline and looking down at the Montana Front Range in one direction, and up into the heart of the snow-capped Rocky Mountains in the other, dawn began with a snap as sharp as the cold.
The sun lanced over the flat horizon from impossibly far away and the entire world was catapulted into a limitless blue bowl of sky.
“I take it this is why they call it Big Sky country,” Horatio sounded breathless.
“I guess.” Betsy also couldn’t catch her breath. It might be the eight-thousand-foot elevation or the slicing cold of the morning wind driving ice crystals into her face like blowback from Barrett .50 cal sniper rifle.
It might be the view.
But it was more the realization that this was Decem
ber 23rd. One way or another, their quest would be over today. As soon as sunset hit the International Date Line in roughly twelve hours, St. Nicholas would be flying off to do his job—with or without the errant Jeremy.
Yet she could feel that he was close. Some instinct, honed over the years by Delta training, told her their quarry was nearly in sight.
She flagged down a rancher passing by in his helicopter, who settled it neatly atop the peak. Clearly ex-military by how he flew, despite the fact that he now commanded a small Bell JetRanger with a herd of horses painted along the side.
“How can I help you, ma’am?” He drawled it out in a Texas accent so fake that it would get him lynched in certain states. “Need a lift off this here hilltop?”
“No, we’re fine.”
“We?” He tugged his mirrored sunglasses down enough to squint at her strangely.
She glanced aside at Horatio who just shook his head.
Fine. Whatever. So he was invisible or something. Had he shown up for anyone else, or had she just crossed Canada as a solo crazy lady talking to herself? She’d bet on the latter, but didn’t have time to deal with it now.
“Have you seen a reindeer that—”
“Reindeer? We have moose and elk in these parts. Even a few caribou, but no reindeer.”
“Reindeer and caribou are the same animal,” Horatio prompted her.
When the pilot didn’t respond, she repeated the information.
“Wa’ll, ain’t that a wonder.”
“Have you seen a particularly impressive one lately?”
He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. He’d have been the handsomest man in any crowd that didn’t include Horatio.
“Might have heard mention of one. Over to a hot spring up along the North Fork Deep Creek. My wife said she saw one when one of our guides and a guest shot—”
“Shot?” Betsy grabbed the pilot’s arm in a panic.
“Shot two young bulls,” the man looked down at his arm in some distress and tried to shake her off. At least the awful Texas accent was gone.
The Complete Delta Force Warriors Page 15