“Wake up.”
Kris groaned and rolled over, his broad back to the source of the nudge. The still sleeping part of his mind longed to return to candy cane dreams, while the waking section of his brain hoped to ignore the irritant.
“Wake up. It’s the red phone.”
Kris grumbled and rolled back onto his other side. “What?”
“The red phone. It’s ringing.”
Kris moaned. He had been a damned fool shutting the ringer off in the bedroom. But it was time for his yearly hibernation, and the red phone hadn’t rung in years. Not since Spiro Agnew called him demanding a Christmas miracle for Nixon. Whatever reason it rang now could not be good.
Kris eased to a sitting position, wary of waking his wife lying soft and warm beside him, and knuckled sleep from his eyes. He looked down at the elf who had woken him. Ernst stared up at him expectantly, gold wire-rimmed spectacles perched on the end of his long nose, a wispy white beard jutting from his pointed chin. “All right,” Kris said. “Gimme a minute.”
He waited until Ernst left the room before getting up and wrapping a voluminous robe around his naked, corpulent frame. Then he opened the door to the study, entered, and closed it softly behind him. There he was greeted by the petulant ringing of the red phone. The bell on it was turned down, but he could hear its interconnected bell throbbing down in the workshop, a discordant chitter that made his back teeth ache. He gripped the bakelite handset and put it to his ear. “Yes,” he said with more forcefulness than he had intended. “This is Big Red.”
“Authorization please,” said a nasally, officious voice on the far end. He sounded like he was shouting to Kris from the New Jersey side of the Lincoln Tunnel, through half a mile of basalt rock, through six-inch steel plate, through a paper cup affixed to a piece of string at the bottom of the Mariana Trench.
Kris sighed and looked around. Stuck in a nook in his large desk was a yellowed envelope. He reached for the aged, brittle paper and, handset braced between his head and left shoulder, tore open the paper and read the passphrase inside aloud. “Jolly Mistletoe.”
“Passphrase confirmed. Please hold for Eagle.”
Kris tossed the piece of paper aside with a groan. Whoever had come up with each passphrase had been a little too on the nose with them. If the next one was candy cane, he vowed to put them on the Naughty List in perpetuity and give them coal and switches from now until the Heat Death.
“Hello. Big Red?”
Kris recognized the voice of the President of the United States from all of his many television appearances, but he knew him more intimately than that. After all, he had given the leader of the free world a train set when he was eleven.
“Yes, this is Big Red. Am I speaking to the President?”
“Yes. You are.”
Kris heard whispering, as if the guy on the other end was asking about protocol. He was sure this stuff was printed in an ultra top secret manual somewhere, probably sandwiched between detailed schematics of Area 51 and the nuclear launch codes. but it probably wasn’t referenced unless it was needed. And decades had passed since he was needed in this capacity. He waited for the President to get his shit together. Finally, the voice on the other end said, “We have a problem.”
“What sort of problem?”
“It’s my understanding that this is your side job, but there are monsters on the loose.”
Kris felt an icy boulder form in the pit of his stomach.
“I’ve been told you can take care of this. Quietly.”
“I will look into it, sir,” Kris said. “Do you have specific locations or just a general area to search?”
“I have, uh, coordinates.”
“OK.” Kris thought that was weird, but as long as he had something to work with, he’d worry about the specifics later. He wrote down the coordinates on a scratch pad, then gave the Commander in Chief a hearty “I’ll take care of it, Mr. President.”
“See that you do. I don’t have to tell you that things are very bad. And I hope I can count on your support in the next e-.”
Kris hung up. He had no time for foolishness. He wasn’t even a registered voter. Hell, on paper he’d been dead for over a thousand years. Up here, in his home at the North Pole, the myriad problems of the world seemed far away. Once a year he made his rounds, oblivious. But occasionally he had to do his part to make sure there would be another Christmas. The world had brought itself to the brink too many times for his comfort. The last fifty or sixty years of his run had been more difficult than the previous century. And now it appeared as if he was needed again.
He exited the study and got dressed, donning long thermal underwear, a flannel shirt, and red Gortex snow pants and matching red flack jacket, trimmed in his signature white fir. He shook his head as he stared at his garish outfit in the dressing mirror mounted to the inside of the bedroom door. Before Haddon Sunblom depicted him with an icy cold Coca-Cola in his hand, Kris had made his deliveries in animal skins provided by the local Inuit. Now he had to travel around as the children of the world expected him, in lurid crimson like some god-damned clown.
Next he pulled on his polished black boots and kissed his wife on the cheek, promising to be back by breakfast, though he knew what a hollow promise that could turn out to be. Still, no sense frightening her if he didn’t have to.
Her eyes still closed, she smiled up at him sweetly and rolled over to commandeer his side of the bed as Kris left the room and headed downstairs, where Ernst was waiting for him on the second story landing with a battered Thermos full of hot cocoa. He was dressed in his cold weather gear, a green sock hat shoved down over his long pointy ears and night vision goggles resting atop his high forehead. Kris smiled down at him. “I like where your head’s at, but not this time, Ernst.”
His head elf looked crestfallen. He stared down at his pointy shoes.
“This isn’t a toy run, old friend. This is dangerous.”
“It’s OK, Boss. I understand. Just…be careful. If anything happens to you, there won’t be a Christmas to save.”
“I’m always careful. Prep the sleigh for me, wouldja?”
“Of course.” Ernst said. Beaming with renewed purpose, the little elf scampered off down the stairs.
Kris followed the elf down the stairs and across the northeast edge of the workshop, which had now begun 24/7 operation as it geared up for the Big Day. If the hundred or so elves thought it strange that their boss was going somewhere at this early hour, and at this time of year, they did not let on, so focused were they on their work.
Kris paused to watch them work before taking a detour to a heavy metal door set into the far, rough-hewn wood wall of the shop and affixed with a fingerprint and retinal scanner. He pressed his sausage thumb to the plate, glared into the retinal scanner, and was admitted into the room with a buzz and a click.
The room’s interior fluorescents hummed to life as Kris entered a small space ringed with metal shelving and plastic storage bins. A rack of weapons of every type, make and description loomed before him. His mouth stretched into a bemused grin when he looked up at the sign hanging over the wall of destruction. Wooden letters cut out long ago by the hand of an elf with vast woodworking knowledge and a dark sense of humor, and painted in alternating red and green, proclaimed the collection of firearms and melee weapons Santa’s Toys.
Kris grabbed an empty satchel from a storage bin on the floor, placed it on the stainless steel table behind him, and considered his options. He really didn’t know what kind of toothed or tentacled horror awaited him at the coordinates the President had provided, or if it had tentacles or teeth at all. Best to be prepared for anything. He grabbed the pump shotgun and tossed it into the bag. Then he strapped on a bandelier loaded with shells.
Kris tisked, running a hand through his thick white beard, his eyes landing on one weapon in particular. “You can’t go wrong with old Snowflake,” he muttered.
Snowflake was his trusty .50 Desert Eagle, and the only weapon he had nicknamed. The frame, slide, and barrel were stainless steel, while the grip was wood inlaid with four mother of pearl snowflakes, two on each side. The slide and frame were also worked in snowflakes, adding to the wintry motif. The weapon had been a gift from a grizzled old Special Forces commander after that clusterfuck in Beirut. Kris removed his jacket and put on the leather shoulder harness. Then he slapped in a loaded magazine and tucked Snowflake away under his left arm. It felt cold and heavy and reassuring against his ribs. Then he replaced his coat. Snowflake only carried seven rounds, but at .50 caliber he hoped that was all he would need.
Kris continued moving along the wall, tossing implements of destruction into the duffel.
Kris loaded a Sig Sauer 9mm. and put it in the bag, followed by a Kalashnikov AK-101 and ten rounds of ammo. Next he moved to his array of edged weapons, grabbing his trusty Indian kukri and strapping it across his broad back. Then, as he always did in these moments, Kris hoped he would never have to use any of these terrible weapons. He didn’t even like giving children wooden pop guns, and now he was carrying enough firepower to wipe out a squad of insurgents. But sometimes these things couldn’t be helped. That Earth made it to another Christmas was all that mattered, and sometimes he had to roll up his sleeves and get a little dirty to make sure that happened.
Kris zipped up the bag and hoisted it onto his left shoulder. He left the toy room and headed for the back exit. Kris paused at the vast toy shop’s rear door to don his red, white-trimmed cap, hanging from its brass hook, and went out into the milky perpetual twilight that was de rigueur this time of year.
The sudden cold hit him like a giant hand, but Kris was used to it. He had his many layers and his vast bulk to keep him warm. He marched to the stables, boots crunching on new-fallen snow. Ernst had the reindeer fed, watered, and hitched to the sleigh.
“All ready, Chief,” said Ernst, smiling brightly. He looked a hundred years younger.
Kris climbed aboard, noting how strange it felt to be doing this without his big red sack. He sat on the bench and pulled out the scrap of paper with the coordinates and programmed them into the sleigh’s navigation computer and watched as it worked its magic, honing onto the location he had punched in. It pinged when it had it pinpointed.
Kris smiled. “Vegas. Perfect.”
* * *
It was just after midnight when Kris landed on the roof of a building just off the Vegas strip. The reindeer clopped their hooves nervously, sensing something not of this earth was nearby. Kris moved toward the building’s duct access and touched his nose, moving down into the building in a puff of red dust. His finely honed senses brought him down to the right apartment, which was empty but still filled with furniture and personal items, most of them in disarray. Whoever lived there had left in a hurry, probably frightened off by whatever entity had manifested here. Kris drew Snowflake from its holster and inspected each room. He paused before the last room, the door ajar and a soft muttering coming from it. He pushed the door open and stepped inside.
It was a boy’s bedroom, and a bookish boy at that. The wall to his right was taken up by a bookshelf overloaded with plastic dinosaurs and sci-fi paperbacks. Lying in the center of the floor was a 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual, a gift Kris had given Billy Wallace, age fourteen, last Christmas. The book vibrated with each soft muttering. The Wallaces weren’t home. This was a good thing, in Kris’s opinion.
“Who’s in there?” said Kris, aiming Snowflake at the quivering tome. “Show yourself.”
The creature on the cover, a globular thing composed of many eyes on protruding stalks—known to D&D fans far and wide as a Beholder—looked at Kris and let forth a raspberry that rattled the bedroom windows.
Kris blinked. That had been unexpected. The benefit of living for so long meant little surprised him. He flexed the Desert Eagle and tried again, his voice more forceful this time. “Show yourself. Now.”
He was hoping whatever had animated the book wouldn’t call his bluff. He needed it to come out. Otherwise all Kris would manage to do is destroy the book and create a very large hole in the floor, not to mention the ceiling of the apartment beneath. The book swelled, the hard cover buckling before sinking like one of Mrs. Claus’s soufflés. It rose and fell, again and again, simulating breathing.
“All right. Now you’re starting to piss me off.” Kris reached toward the Monster Manual, feigning an attempt to open it. The book flew open, pages whipping about as if the book were in the path of a tornado. Garish creatures, animated by whatever had taken up residence in the game supplement, reared up toward Kris before being pushed back down by their neighbors. He stepped backward as clawed hands and green tentacles swiped up at him. Nightmarish artwork writhed on every other page. Still he couldn’t fire. Not yet.
“Don’t make me come in there,” Kris said. Snowflake was cold and ready in his hands, the loathsome creatures pawing at Kris from the book reflected briefly in its triangular barrel. Then it happened. The book snapped closed briefly before exploding open again as a black writhing mass erupted forth, a swirling origami nightmare of one-dimensional paper horrors. Kris backed away, gun raised. Still, he could not fire. The chimera had to coalesce, pick a form and stay in it long enough so that he could dispatch it.
It swirled and collapsed in on itself, one end still firmly anchored to the book. That’s what was powering it, Kris decided. It was feeding off it, getting its energy from the collective imagination the Monster Manual contained. It spun and morphed into a sneering orc.
Something wasn’t right. He wasn’t expecting a psychic chimera. This was a lower-level monster. “Who sent you?” said Kris.
The orc hissed. Clearly, it wasn’t much of a conversationalist. Kris leveled Snowflake at the orc’s head and plugged it between the eyes. The .50 shell exploded the back of the orc’s head, showering the area behind it with orc brains and bits of paper. It fell backward, becoming a pile of goo. Kris scowled as the smell hit him, fighting back the urge to wretch. He made a mental note to give whoever had the misfortune to clean that up an extra special gift under the tree.
He waited for a long moment, Snowflake still raised at the steaming pile of orc goop, ready for the possibility that it could reanimate and become something even more deadly, something bullets would not stop. When it didn’t he holstered his weapon and stared at it. “Who sent you?” he said to the empty room. Two things were immediately clear: There was something greater at work here, and this wasn’t over. Not by a long shot.
His earpiece buzzed. “Kris.”
“Boss,” said Ernst, his already tiny voice tinny and small in his ear. “We’ve got another hit.”
A chill fled up Kris’s spine. “Where?”
“Bloomington, Indiana.”
“Send the coordinates to the sleigh.”
Taking one final look around at the carnage he had wrought, Kris Kringle touched his nose and was gone.
* * *
The coordinates in Bloomington were for a toy shop that had been closed for some time, but there was still dusty inventory lining the shelves. He whooshed through an air vent and raised the Kalashnikov to his shoulder, sweeping a darkened hallway in a wide searching arc. The flashlight attached underneath the barrel painted the shelving with a searing beam. He heard a thud, followed by the sound of tiny footsteps, and spun around at the sound and followed it toward the front of the store. Milky afternoon sunlight coming through the soaped-over windows illuminated a set of glass display cases. Atop one of these cases was a toy tank. Its turret ratcheted around, the gun firing a plastic pellet at Kris. It bounced off his shoulder.
”Is that all you’ve got?”
His voice echoed strangely in the small space. He heard the tiny feet scampering again. “Come out, come out wherever you are,” said Kris. “You don’t want to anger Santa.”
“Fuck you,” said the little wooden doll as it clattered into view. It bared fangs and leaped at him. Kris squeezed the trigger. The Kalashnikov stuttered, spitting fire. The doll exploded into splinters.
“Did you get it, Boss?” said Ernst over the comms.
“Hang on.”
Kris heard something else, the sound of hundreds of tiny gears whirring to life. The tank turret spun toward him, and he swept it off the counter with the barrel of the Kalashnikov. It toppled to the floor upside down, the turret swiveling uselessly. Kris put a spurt of bullets into it for good measure. They were there then. Marching, tottering, rolling and crawling toward him from the shadows. Hundreds and hundreds of toys. A phalanx of soldiers marched on his position. Toy cars rammed themselves into his booted feet. An army of robots buzzed and wobbled in formation toward him. As Santa, he had the occasional nightmare about this very thing. But now that it was here…
He uttered a laugh, sweeping the tiny automatons away with a swift kick. The Kalashnikov barked, leveling the line of toy soldiers. He dashed the robots to plastic and springs. He stomped. He shot. He slashed with his kukri. When he was done the marauding toys were so much clockwork flotsam.
“OK,” said Kris into his comms. “What’s next?”
* * *
He killed a tentacled thing at a truck stop just outside Galveston. It scared one Donna Martin, a poor waitress working the graveyard shift, shitless. To cheer her up, Kris gave her an early Christmas present: the home address of her deadbeat ex who owed her fifty grand in child support.
* * *
In New Mexico, he fought a giant scorpion menacing a late-night drive-in theater near Albuquerque. The theater was running the restored print of Fritz Lang’s silent classic Metropolis. He shredded it—the giant scorpion, not the ninety-four–year-old German film—with the Kalashnikov, the oversized arachnid spewing acidic, amber-colored ichor all over the dry rocky ground as it died.
* * *
At Angkor Wat, Kris killed a great serpent that had never seen a Cambodian jungle. In Port-au-Prince, Haiti, he lopped off the head of a Loa that had gotten too big for its britches and had in fact made a pair of britches from human skin. In Paris, he dispatched an excessively flirtatious succubus. And on and on it went, Kris zipping around the globe, from Toronto to Timbuktu, from Greensboro to Giza, each time delivering death and mayhem instead of peace and joy. The monsters were incessant, and each one was harder to kill than the last.
But it all felt like a distraction.
“What in jingle bells is going on?” Kris muttered as he drove his sleigh in a supersonic arc that sent him soaring past the storied minarets of the Kremlin. Something wasn’t right. He wasn’t this busy on Christmas Eve. Someone or something was fucking with him. It was time to head north and home.
“Someone is being extremely naughty,” Kris told the reindeer as he spurred them toward the North Pole.
As he neared the complex of buildings that made up his home and workshop Kris saw it. “How did I not notice this before?” he said, driving the reindeer downward toward the ruins.
“By Scrooge’s withered balls, this ends tonight,” he swore to the reindeer through gritted teeth.
He circled first to survey the threat. The ruins glowed a sickly green, and black tendrils of shadow reached across the frozen no-man’s land to the carefully constructed perimeter of Santa’s workshop grounds. The elves who normally patrolled this region on snowmobiles were nowhere in sight.
“Something’s wrong,” Kris muttered, driving the sleigh downward to the earth. The reindeer skidded the sleigh to a halt, uttering eight nervous grunts of agitation.
“I know, boys. I know. It’ll be all right. Stay here for me. I’ll be right back.” He slapped a fresh mag in the Kalashnikov and alighted from the sleigh, his boots crunching snow.
He hadn’t been this close to the ruins in more than a century. They unnerved him, as few things did. The aurora borealis danced overhead, keeping time with the undulating light at the center of the ruins. The Inuit shunned this place, and European and American explorers somehow never made it this far. It was as if it didn’t exist. The perfect place for Santa Claus to set up his workshop. But it was also, Kris realized, the perfect place for something else to set up shop. Something purely and perfectly, if not evil, then absolutely inimical to human life.
He could feel the callous indifference coming off it in waves. This, he knew, was the source of the sickness infecting the entire globe. Not the virus currently making the rounds. Kris had endured its like before—the Black Death, scarlet fever—and there would be others. No, it was the self-centered selfishness landing everyone on his incredibly long naughty list, which was currently as long as it had ever been.
Kris realized as he crept toward the edge of the ruins that this was his fault. He should have kept the ruins cordoned off better. He should have explored here more often. He should have been ready for something like this. Magic, even magic as powerful as his, had a price. And that price was vigilance.
The ruins were little more than a vast pile of cracked plinths and crumbling columns, remarkable in one aspect: their age. They predated every human civilization and, judging by the shapes of doorways and the wide-sloping bridges and companionways, had been built by beings that did not conform to humanoid morphology. When Kris first came to this place, after the elves had transformed him from a traveler near death into an immortal maker of toys, he had been fascinated by this place, if freaked out by its implications. But he quickly shunned it, moved as far from it as he could and still take advantage of its magic, and more or less forgot about it.
This, Kris realized, gripping his Kalashnikov tightly as he walked beneath an ancient archway, was a profound mistake.
The tomblike silence played havoc with his senses, and his ears played tricks on him. He thought he heard a soft chittering, like plague rats chewing behind a wall, followed by discordant chimes that played in time to the flashing northern lights above. Kris gritted his teeth and followed the green glow toward where it was strongest. And there, dead center of the ruins, atop a raised platform of some black rock not native to this region of the world, Kris Kringle found his answer.
“Ernst!”
The little elf sat cross-legged facing Kris, his little eyes closed. Behind Ernst, atop a tall metal staff was a large green jewel, the source of the eerie glow. The sound of Kris’s boots and bells caused the elf’s eyes to snap open, revealing oily black pools.
“Ernst,” Kris said again, softer this time. “What happened?”
“You’re too late,” said his head elf. “I’ve got him. And soon I’ll have them all.”
Kris stepped forward, falling short of aiming his gun at the elf’s head. “Let him go!”
“You know,” said the thing that used to be Ernst, “I really thought my distractions would take you out. But that wasn’t my main goal. I knew if I got rid of you for a few hours, got rid of your magic, I could finally take back what is mine.”
“Fight it, Ernst. You’ve got to fight it!”
The elf grinned. “He can’t hear you. I’ve had him under my control since your little phone call. All that time on the comms? You were talking to me.”
Kris raised the assault weapon, leveling it at Ernst’s head, his eyes brimming with angry tears.
“All your magic, all your bombast, can’t save you,” Ernst said, ignoring the threat. “You are an abomination. Your sickly sweet altruism. Giving rewards without effort, without merit. You disgust me.”
“I’m giving you one last warning,” Kris said, wrapping his right index finger around the trigger. “Let. Him. Go.
“No. He is mine. A gift to myself, if you will. I—”
The elf’s words were cut off as Kris fired, not at his head but at the jewel behind him. The Kalashnikov barked loudly in the twilight, the sound echoing off million-year-old masonry as the glowing jewel exploded in a cloud of green. The glow vanished.
Ernst looked up at Kris, his eyes once more the pale glacial blue that all the elves shared. “Why am I sitting out here freezing my bells off?” he asked.
“I’ll explain later, old friend. For now, get to the sleigh. This place isn’t through with us yet.”
“Oh dear,” said the elf. “Have I been naughty?”
“Afraid so. But don’t worry. All is forgiven.”
Kris helped Ernst to his feet and shooed him toward the sleigh. Then he checked the Kalashnikov’s load and waited for what came next.
The ruins were alive with green fire. It danced from a row of low, squat obelisks worked in obscene hieroglyphs, lancing from one bit of crumbling architecture to the next. It was a zeitgeist. The last vestiges of a collective alien intelligence that should have died before the continents shifted. Energies that people who didn’t know any better would call magic coalesced around him. The same power the elves had used to save his life—the same energy he used to fulfill the desires of the world’s children—was now coming for him.
The Thing that lived in the ruins had taken root. The same shadowy tendrils that threatened his workshop moved beneath the planet’s crust, beneath oceans, to infect the world with indifference, selfishness and demagoguery.
“It’s all my fault,” Kris muttered again, gripping the Kalashnikov tightly against his barrel chest. The magic worked both ways, and as long as he could use it to make people happy, even if only one day a year, he didn’t much care where it came from.
Except where it came from mattered. Mattered a lot.
A single tear fell and froze to his cheek. He could end it all. The entitlement. The fake news. He could end it all tonight. But he’d have to kill Christmas to do it.
The green fire danced among the ruins, looking for another living vessel to inhabit. It couldn’t infect Kris. He was too strong, too filled with similar power. Besides, without the focusing jewel, it couldn’t concentrate its essence in one place, at least not for very long.
Kris wished he had something to shoot, but could only watch as the collective consciousness of a long-dead alien race bounced around its former home in impotent rage before diving into a pile of tumbled basalt blocks and animating something from the ruins. It rose up, a lopsided spider-thing standing on nine legs composed of spindly columns. Its body was a cracked pillar, while its head was the bust of some garish nightmare creature that either represented the former inhabitants of this dead city or something the devils worshiped. Kris wasn’t sure which. Nor did he care.
Then, using the strange chimes and eerie pipes located throughout the ruins, the Spider Thing spoke.
“This world is ours. It has always been ours. Tonight we take it back.”
Kris stepped closer to the stone beast. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but you guys are hardly in any shape to play conqueror.”
“Irrelevant,” said the Spider Thing. “Your world is our birthright.”
Kris had theorized long ago what had happened. The climate, formerly hospitable even at this high latitude, had become cold and near desolate. The creatures who once thrived here were frozen out. Kris had always assumed they left Earth the same way they came. But what if they had simply died? Or had some technology allowed them to linger in some inchoate form? Their magic had certainly lingered, giving rise to the elves. To tales of ghosts and goblins and legends of strange creatures that spread throughout the world. Not to mention Santa Claus. And his giving magic was the only thing holding them back.
“Well, come and get it then,” Kris said through gritted teeth.
He emptied the Kalashnikov into the Spider Thing, bullets biting into ancient stonework with no effect. He threw down the weapon and ran toward it, rolling under one of its legs to come up beneath it, unsheathing his kukri. With a wide slash, he sliced through one of its legs, the material becoming inanimate stone once more.
The Spider Thing lurched but did not fall. Avoiding the creature’s attempts to skewer him with another leg, Kris ran toward its left set of legs and got to work cutting it down to size. Kris barely missed getting squished as it fell to the ground as a loose assemblage of tumbled stones. The thing’s head spat green fire at him as it died.
Kris kicked the small statue’s head, sending it into a pile of ancient masonry. The thing wasn’t through yet. It was like an iceberg; most of it was below the surface. He felt its black coils tighten down under the earth, below the freezing ocean floor. This wasn’t over. Not by a long shot.
The ground shook. Long cracks formed, swallowing some of the ruins. Kris stuck his arms out by his sides in an attempt to balance himself.
Black tendrils shot up through cracks in the frozen ground, reaching for him. He swiped at them with the kukri. They became smoke and shadow at his blade’s touch, only to reform. When they grabbed him they were winter cold and strong as steel. He hacked and slashed, but it was no good. More rose from the ground, wrapping around his legs, his arms, his waist. He dropped the knife.
It was over. Christmas was canceled. Evil had triumphed.
Kris had never been one to give in to despair, but he was starting to now. His heart ached. If only he had paid more attention. If only there was something else he could do.
“Santa!”
Kris heard the sound of bells and a reindeer bellow from somewhere above. He turned his gaze skyward as Ernst in the sleigh flew overhead. “Here!”
A bag fell at Kris’s booted feet. But not the duffel filled with death. His other bag. The one he carried just one night a year. Ernst had returned to the workshop to retrieve it.
Ernst. That silly, wonderful, deluded elf, helpful to a fault. What was he supposed to do with his work bag?
“You’re the Claus!” Ernst exclaimed as he drove out of sight. “Be the Claus!”
Kris’s nimbus eyebrows curved in consternation. What was the little elf going on about? Then, realization dawned and his eyes widened.
He had been going about this all wrong. He had been tackling this as Kris Kringle, monster hunter. When who was needed was Santa Claus. Kris was all out of ammo. But Santa still had a little magic left up his sleeve.
He pulled at the tendril confining his left arm, tugging it free just long enough to reach down and grab up the sack. He un-cinched it with his teeth, revealing a golden glow within. Kris bellowed gleefully. “Hohoho! What do you want for Christmas?”
The tendrils wavered, becoming smoke, reconstituting. It was too late. Kris was free and reaching into the sack with his right hand, a golden warmth spilling out to bathe the hateful ruins in a bright flash of purifying light. He was the Claus, and part and parcel with that title was the ability to know what everyone wanted most in the world. Even long-dead creatures from another star.
This would be the biggest thing he’d ever pulled out of the bag, the biggest feat of magic the world had ever seen. Kris just hoped it was enough. The northern lights flashed in exultation overhead as Kris pulled his arm from the bag holding what the would-be conquerors desired most in this or any world.
* * *
“I think it looks great on the mantel with all the others,” said Ernst as he and Kris sat with their feet up across from the roaring fireplace, he with a cup of steaming hot cocoa and Kris with a mug of black coffee and a smidgen of brandy. There were over twenty such fireplaces all around the complex, but this one was where Mrs. Claus kept her vast collection of snow globes.
The newest one was the strangest of all. The size of a softball, it was filled with a warm, green scene of deep time, with a vast, cyclopean city surrounded by verdant jungle. If one looked closely, eerie creatures could be seen moving around.
“Don’t drop it,” said Kris. “Or we’ll have to do this all over again. And I don’t think the bag could manage it a second time.”
“Don’t worry, Boss. That thing is safer here than in any other place on Earth.”
“I hope you’re right. That was some quick thinking, by the way. Throwing me the sack. You knew before I did that if I gave it what it wanted it would leave the world alone.”
Ernst shrugged. “Did you really give it what it wants?”
Kris pondered the snow globe. “It thinks I did. That is all that matters. Inside that globe is the temperate world it once conquered. It thinks it has a whole world to enslave. That’s fine by me.”
They sat in silence for a time, the only sound the cracking of logs in the fire. Kris took a sip of his coffee and said, “Thank you again. I—all of this—would be a goner without you.”
Ernst blushed. “Twas nothing, Boss. I’m just sorry I got us into this mess in the first place.”
“It wasn’t you, old friend. It was me. I should have been more careful with those blasted ruins. Thanks to you, Christmas is saved.”
“I’m just glad everything is OK again,” said Ernst. “Everything is OK again, isn’t it?”
“I hope so,” said Kris. “If it isn’t, it will be in time. And if not…” Kris patted Snowflake, still in his shoulder holster.
The End?
Kris Kringle: Monster Hunter
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