Page 54 of Scary & Bright
I gasped and immediately shoved a bit of down coat into my mouth to muffle my breath. To hear what they were saying outside when Santa wasn’t yelling, I had to really strain my ears and couldn’t risk their words being drowned out even by the sound of my own nervous breathing. If the Spirit had been in the castle spying on us…
Then Santa already knew, without a doubt, I was alive and well. I cringed at the thought of what else the Spirit may have seen of us. My stomach churned, knowing that the worst was yet to come.
Krampus remained still as a statue, his great arms still pinned behind him in the icy handcuffs.
“And you trust the Christmas Spirit to provide you with accurate and reliable information?” Krampus scoffed, pressing his luck. “Come to think of it, I didn’t get the pleasure of seeing you during this year’s drop-off… Was this, perhaps, the first year you allowed him to perform his duty unsupervised?”
I couldn’t make out the expression on Santa’s face, but based on his silence, I wagered he was weighing whether to give his brother the benefit of the doubt over his trusted partner.
“You don’t think it’s possible that your Spirit may have made a mistake and is now trying to twist the story to fit his own narrative?” Krampus said, his voice dark and smooth as he did his best to personify the demonic entity his enemies made him out to be. This was a direction I hadn’t expected Krampus to take—trying to turn Santa against one of his own—but I had to admit it was clever. If Krampus could somehow convince Santa that the Spirit had messed up, it would certainly take the heat off us. Besides, there had to be a reason that Santa Claus hadn’t let the Spirit take care of this particular task on his own, so maybe Krampus was banking on being able to tap into that anxiety that the Spirit might actually be incapable of handling the responsibility.
“Absolutely not!” the Christmas Spirit spat, the ghostliness of his body pulsing with an orange light, like his anger might start an ethereal fire. He turned to his boss as he pointed aggressively at Krampus with one gnarled finger. “This is not the first time he has tried to go against what is required of him. You know this! And I have served you faithfully for years, sir. Please tell me you’re not giving this stinking goat the time of day!”
Santa didn’t say a word as he approached Krampus with his mittened hands held firmly behind his back, like a military sergeant inspecting a soldier. He paced around him in the snow, and I could see behind him the line of bear-riders turn their gaze toward their leader, their bows still at the ready.
“So, you’re telling me in absolute confidence that you, my dear Krampus, haven’t fallen in love with a human girl?” Santa mused, his voice like that of a disappointed father. “You’re telling me that you’ve already killed her, and it’s just pure coincidence that I haven’t felt her removed from the Naughty List? You do know that I’ve got a sort of sixth sense for this particular thing, yes?”
If Krampus had known that, he had never let me know that was the case. I suppose part of me assumed there had to be some sort of communication between the North and South Pole. Otherwise, how would Santa Claus have kept track of his brother? If the Spirit had been his undercover spy this whole time… that meant he had probably done similarly in the past.
Krampus remained silent for a moment before taking a deep breath and continuing to face down his brother. Watching him kneel in the snow, I couldn’t help but think about how he wasn’t even in a cloak. He must have been so damned cold. My heart ached with every beat, and I hated every moment of this.
“I do not know the intricacies of the Poles’ magic,” Krampus said finally, refusing to let his gaze drop. “It is not for me to understand why you haven’t felt anything.”
“Hmm,” Santa Claus mused as he paused in front of his horned brother, digging in his jacket pocket. Within half a moment, he had fished out an unusual object. Something small, no larger than a cell phone.
But the lurch in my stomach told me it wasn’t a cell phone. Not even close.
“Good thing I have a really great way to get to the bottom of this.” Santa chuckled. I’d always expected that the hearty giggle of Santa Claus would be something truly contagious and jolly, but the noise was so unnerving and uncomfortable that it was almost painful to listen to. I squinted my eyes, trying to focus on what it was, exactly, that he was toying with in his hands. “And I’ve really been looking for a reason to test this puppy out. So, for that, I thank you, Krampus.”
Oh, no. Oh, no. No, my mind repeated, as if my thoughts were glitching.
It was like time moved in slow motion. All at once, things escalated faster than I could process and keep up. The noises from upstairs grew louder, assuring me that Santa’s troops were getting frustrated that their search had come up short. A few groups of retired, well-loved toys began to file out the front door, doing anything they could to keep a level of distance between them and the militant elves.
But even worse was the sight and sound from outside.
Krampus. My Krampus crumbled to the ground with the vilest, blood-curdling, pained, gagging cry as his brother pointed the device in his hands toward him, as if he were simply pointing a remote at a television. Krampus’s hands shot toward the iron ring around his neck, trying to rid himself of the source of his agony, only it didn’t look like the iron ring I’d gotten so intimately used to seeing. It had changed. Shifted. It was glowing white with… Magic? Heat? It didn’t matter. The look on Krampus’s face—the same face that had carried me out of the darkness and despair I had suffered through for years—was now actively, violently suffering before my eyes.
“Where is she, Krampus!?” Santa screamed as he leaned over his brother like a vulture hovering over a kill. “I know you haven’t killed her. You’ve gone soft! You’ve always been soft.”
Watching this was torture. Krampus’s face was contorted in pain, and his spine arched backward like he was being exorcized. With one random jerk, his eyes locked with mine. There was no way he knew I was hiding behind the door like a dust bunny amongst the rubble, but I saw his face. I saw his eyes. I saw the sacrifice he was making for me, and I knew it was time for me to go. Move. Do something. Anything.
All at once, I understood why I’d heard of people being able to lift cars in emergency situations. I understood how Bruce Banner felt when he changed into the Hulk. The entire world around me went still and quiet, and I could swear I felt myself rise out of my own body to watch my actions in third-person. A real out-of-body experience had me watching myself rise to my feet like a phoenix from the ashes. I watched myself charge around the remains of the broken door, throwing coats and boots around me like confetti. I was a bull released from a bucking chute, determined to toss anything and everything from my back.
“Stop!” I cried as I felt every single pair of eyes fixate on me. “Let him go!”
My body lurched forward into the blinding white of the South Pole, and I was suddenly very aware that I had never even tied my second boot as my foot threatened to pop out with every trudging step forward.
My sight was so dead-focused on Krampus that I didn’t notice the line of bear riders pulling back their bowstrings, ready to loose their arrows as soon as Santa gave the word.
“Hold fire, company!” Santa said with an excited cough of disbelief trailing after his command. He squatted down next to Krampus and whispered something into his ear that I couldn’t make out, pointing to me with a threatening gloved hand.
“Stop it!” I cried again. “I’m right here. Just please, stop it.” Tears began to run down my face from terror, anger, and deep sadness. Krampus looked at me, and I could have died right there. The look in his eyes was so immensely heartbreaking that I was ready to hand myself over to the North Pole army just to make his pain stop.
“Take her down, boys!” Santa said, rising to his feet next to his disabled brother. “Looks like we’ll have to do our job and his if we want Christmas to go off without a hitch this year!”
I continued to trudge forward, knowing my fate was ahead. There was no turning back now. They knew I was here, and they knew I was ready to fight or at least meet them head-on. Suddenly, a chorus of thwips sounded off one after the other as arrows began to sail through the air toward me, followed by the yips and howls of foxes and wolves tearing through the snow.
Now my goal was simple: to touch Krampus one last time before I met my end. To apologize and tell him I loved him before my blood was spilled all over the pristine white of the snow. I had no magic running through me, no tactical experience, and no means to protect myself. A holiday themed firing squad was coming for me, and I was running right into it. So long as Krampus was safe and hopefully spared an eternity of torment, this would be worth it. All of it would.