Santa Claus Conquers the Homophobes (38 page)

They fought valiantly. Wendy especially showed a ferocity he would not have thought she possessed. But then she
was
fighting to defend her mother, as her mother defended her in return.

At one point, he said, “Michael, we need you.”

But no archangel appeared.

I’m a shade, he thought. I guess he’s under no obligation. Oh, but he came at my summons on the plains of Tartarus. Maybe he’s still fighting there. Maybe he lost.

That thought sobered him.

Whatever the reason, Santa couldn’t afford to be distracted from defending his loved ones. He hovered just above the fray, a dim shade in dismal air, gesturing to repel the worst attacks, his eyes darting between daughter and wife.

“That’s it, Wendy,” he shouted, “toss the bastard off.”

But inside, Santa harbored doubts. Fourteen against three was horrendous odds, especially when the imps, all but a half-hearted one with a prognathous jaw and the look of a halfwit, attacked with such vicious glee, and Rachel and Wendy (and, dare he admit it, himself) were good-hearted souls fierce in defending those they loved but not quite as fierce as their adversaries. The scales had begun to tip in favor of the bad folks. He knew from recent experience that there was a limit to his immortal strength. And no archangel, no reinforcements of any kind, had come.

But as he teetered on the edge of despair, through the sky came careening what seemed at first a bit of fluff. Then that fluff grew bulk. It sprouted paws and hind legs, a furry head and tall pointy ears pressed flat against its skull from the swiftness of its flight, and two righteous red eyes ablaze with the fires of helpfulness and goodwill. One who had acted shamefully now acted nobly, carrying on his philanthropic activities earlier that evening.

The Easter Bunny paused beside Santa.

“Where’s the rest of you?” he said with a wink, but stayed not for an answer. Ahead he flew, not into the melee but above it. He gestured to his pack and a large chocolate egg sprang into his grasp, expertly bobbled and balanced, though his pace never slackened.

* * *

Chuff knew there’d be hell to pay once this fight was over.

He had always been the odd imp out. But not until this moment had he called it quits on wicked deeds. His brothers and his mother kicked and cuffed him out of his inaction. At first, he kept up the façade, zooming in to brush past the girl or her mother, then darting away. But in the thick skull that encased his brain, there dawned a glimmer of decency, though he could not name the alien feeling.

It came down to role models. Though he felt a perverse loyalty to his wretched family, he sensed nobility in these creatures from the North Pole and revulsion at the riot and rot surrounding them. Santa’s shade had more integrity, more kindness, in its little finger than any of Chuff’s family.

So when the Easter Bunny showed up, Chuff stood slack-jawed in awe. And when the first imp-high egg thumped into the sand, big end down, he forgot to breathe. His brothers skidded to a halt, their faces wrinkled in distaste and panic. Then they scampered away from the egg. A dozen more swiftly followed, making an all but complete circle around the woman, her daughter, and the sleigh the woman had arrived in. Into the last gap in the circle, the largest egg of all made a resounding thunk, with all the finality of a portcullis rumbling down for good.

The aroma of milk chocolate filled the air. But these eggs were more than mere confection. They threatened annihilation, or rather a leap from one’s familiar self to a self unknown—death, and the promise (who could say how valid?) of rebirth.

One egg in particular called to Chuff. Each imp fixed upon an egg, repelled by it even as he drooled for it. Inside the protective circle, the woman and her daughter hobbled together toward the sleigh. Santa’s shade swooped in to encourage them.

“Don’t let them escape,” shouted the Tooth Fairy, unable to penetrate the force field the ring of eggs had created. “Bastard!” she shouted at the Easter Bunny, a look of smugness plastered across his puss, “take those things away.”

She flew at him, gripped his floppy ears, and wrenched them off at the roots. They fluttered like dead flounders to the sand. But a new pair at once sprouted from the sockets. He darted from her grasp, ducking and dodging and weaving until she gave up the chase and turned her attention below.

Now or never, thought Chuff, making his decision.

“Out of my way,” he yelled, strong-arming his brothers aside and surging toward his egg. In the blink of an eye, he devoured every last morsel, down to the sculpted lace decorations, taking a heady whiff of the divine air inside the shell. His vile acts and urges passed before him, acknowledged and forgiven, and he was utterly transformed.

But his quick communion had opened a breach in the circle.

“Hold your noses, boys,” shouted the Tooth Fairy, “stop them!”

He was determined to stand his ground. Behind him, Santa’s shade urged his loved ones along. But they were only halfway to the sleigh. When his brothers surged in, Chuff kicked, clawed, and battered them for all he was worth. His mother swooped down to strike him, but he fought back for the first time in his life and it felt grand.

He glanced over his shoulder. Mother and daughter had gained the sleigh, Rachel desperately groping for the elusive reins and yelling to the white doe to take off. My one chance, thought Chuff, abandoning his post at last. He sprinted toward the sleigh, his brothers nipping at his heels. He put on a burst of speed, but the sleigh was moving too fast. He leaped and missed. Then he glimpsed Santa’s finger-flick and felt an extra push that tumbled him over the trailing lip into the back seat. The sleigh bucked and bobbled as his brothers made a grab for its runners, their fists closing on air as the sleigh swiftly rose out of reach.

The shouts that skirled up past Chuff’s ears fell away in the distance. Wendy’s face flared in panic at the sight of him, but she looked deep into him and chose to smile instead. Rachel took even less time to accept him. “Hold on, you two,” she said, “we’re not out of the woods yet.”

But, miracle of miracles, no one pursued them.

* * *

Santa’s heart leaped at the turn of events. Up flew Rachel and Wendy and the imp who had helped them escape. The remaining twelve, disheartened, were not as quick on the uptake as before. The handful that tried to fly after the sleigh he finger-flicked away with ease.

Some forgot his permeability and turned their attacks on him, darting through him and knocking one another senseless. Others went after the Easter Bunny. But he, a seasoned flyer indeed, shot out of sight, pursued in vain by a small band of stragglers.

The Tooth Fairy rose into a rage, barking incomprehensible orders at her remaining sons, half of whom cast barbs of ill will ineffectually about, while the rest stared hypnotically at their designated egg.

I ought to be getting back into my body, thought Santa. Then a pang of anxiety lanced through him. Would he be able to resurrect? Or would he arrive and be naught but corpse and shade immiscible, the joys of corporeal existence—the feasting, the hugs, the pipe, the bed—forever denied him? There was but one way to find out. With luck, he would commingle spirit with flesh and revive in time for sunrise.

He dove into the sand and beelined toward the North Pole, solid rock yielding to his desire to reach home as quickly as he could manage.

Chapter 40. Sour Grapes, Sorrows O’erturned

NEVER HAD SUCH RAGE consumed the Tooth Fairy.

For the longest time, she could not bring herself to touch down. She scored her breasts until they bled, tore out clumps of hair rooted in bloody divots of scalp, and shook her fists at the heavens, shouting her defiance of Zeus, the Fates, and scores of others who fell into the hopper of her invective. They were all to blame, every last immortal arrayed against her.

“Blustering thunderer!” she railed. “You think you’ve won this round. But I have more tricks in store. What they are I cannot say, but they will be terrible—and I’ll start with these eggs.” Glaring earthward, she dive-bombed them, anticipating the impact, the delicate shells smashed into shards, and the shock rippling through the heavenly host at her affront to the Divine Mother. But as she neared them, so repellent was their stench that she glanced off just before impact.

“Boys,” she screamed at her bewildered imps. The loss of her last-born was a bitter pill. She would miss kicking the little shit around. “Hear me well. You are to fetch me the skulls of bad little boys and girls, as many as you can carry. When you chase them down, squeeze the rich red nectar of fear from their bodies. Hold it in your mouths—don’t dare swallow a single drop—for my delectation when you return. Now go.”

They hesitated, consumed with hunger for their eggs.

Through them then like a fury she raced, seizing each of her bastards and pinwheeling him into the sky, Gronk first, the others swiftly following. And out into the world of mortals they spread, seeking mischievous tykes who roamed the streets, tearing into them, chasing them into alleyways or across moonlit parking lots, snapping their leg bones, sucking up the marrow, imbibing their cries of pain, wrenching off their heads, peeling back the flesh, and tucking the still-warm skulls under their arms, then hunting down the next little miscreant.

Cheeks bulging, arms a-topple with precarious pyramids of fresh skulls, they sped back to the island, where their mother continued to swirl above the circle of eggs in a whirlwind of a fury. She babbled incoherently, out of her mind with rage at her deflected revenge.

In a mad parody of communion, the Tooth Fairy gagged down whole skulls like horse pills, one imp’s armload after another. With a savage kiss, she drank terror from their mouths, its taste blistering her throat with bile. Once an imp was deskulled, she discarded him and reached for the next, eager to quench her unquenchable thirst. And when she had bolted Gronk’s offerings and quaffed from his lips a long slow chaser of fear, she tossed him aside as well and positioned herself precisely above the circle of eggs.

Through her digestive tract slithered her dreadful meal, turned to currency in her colon, bone to gold, soft first, then solidifying into serrated disks. Out from her fundament flew a great clatter of coins, raining down in flurries upon the eggs. Each bore the face of a screaming child, panic on one side, pain on the other, flipping end over end. Heavy suckers they were. If an incisor might convert to a quarter, each skull became a hundred-dollar gold piece.

She expected her monetary payload to pock and pelt the eggs into oblivion. Instead, as each coin reached its target, the stamped urchin’s face relaxed, the child’s spirit emerged and evaporated upward into bliss, and the smooth-faced coin melted, coating with gold leaf one small part of the shell, until all thirteen eggs had been gilded thick, not one patch of chocolate showing.

Dismay lay heavy upon her sons’ faces. Those who tried to rush in before the gold hardened proved too late. A few broke their teeth in their attempt to batten on the inaccessible food. They skittered away, holding their jaws and wailing. Others sat stunned, bewildered, and disoriented.

Down flew the Tooth Fairy, her anger spent. “Scan this beach,” she said. “Commit it to memory. Never are you to return here again, on pain of death. Our island is vast, many its miles of shoreline. One day, I will figure out how to shatter these abominations to kingdom come. On that day, we will reclaim this place. Until then, get you gone!”

Before their mother’s command, they scattered.

The Tooth Fairy gave a last look around and went to brood in her mountain cave. Her frenzied dance of defiance, she knew, had sprung from utter impotence. Thwarted from unleashing chaos on the world of mortals, she had let it out here.

Her time was not yet, but it would come.

She would send Gronk out to spy again in a few hours, not this second. There were times to act and times to simmer in the juices of hatred. And she knew one from the other.

* * *

After the elves had helped Anya to her cottage, they stood in the commons looking dazed and confused. They had said their farewells to Santa, whose body remained in the sleigh, covered with snow crocuses. Gregor and his brothers had long ago led the reindeer to their stalls, rubbed them down, fed them, and drawn thick drapes over the windows to prevent the coming brilliance of sunlight on snow from disturbing their rest. They were concerned about Wendy and Rachel, of course. But they were too numbed by Santa’s death to share that concern with one another.

It was odd. Though they avoided looking at their master’s corpse, each elf felt connected to it, each knew precisely where it was behind his back. How could they go on? No groomed successor waited to assume the mantle of leadership at the North Pole. Immortals weren’t supposed to die. And if no one delivered toys, what was the point in making them?

Gregor stood, arms folded, observing his aimless brethren. He had been tricked out of his sanctimony, humiliated to the depths, and briefly ostracized. Then they had taken him back, showering him with all the kindness and generosity in their natures. Well and good. He had deserved what he got. Indeed, he had deserved far more. But that didn’t mean he had to put up with their endless moping and pining.

“I have something to say,” he said. Heads turned. His gimlet eye narrowed. “Gather ‘round, I don’t intend to shout. But I’m going to speak, loud and long, about the greatest saint that ever lived. And what he meant, what he means, to me. He was a grand chubby old fellow, generous through and through, who liked you just as you were. Now I’m not the easiest joe to get along with. Everyone here knows that. But he got along with me. He got along with all of us. He was our father, our brother, our friend—one on one and right on your level, looking you smack-dab in the eye so that you felt, well, ‘put together’ and squared off from top to toe. Damn fine soul, that fellow yonder. We’ll not see his like again.”