Craptastic tinsel bombs!
“No fucking way,” I gasp. “Is that the missing flour shipment?”
“We need to get back to town. Now,” Klaus roars. “I’m not gonna make the reindeer haul our asses back to town. I’ll get them to make their way back safely without us. We need to shift.”
“On it,” I blurt out, preparing myself for the change. “I’ll have to stay close to you. Can’t freeze to death before we even get to the good stuff.”
He nods. “Destination is the wreath.”
“You got it, Blitz.”
I wish I could watch Klaus turn into the majestic reindeer that he is, but I’m too busy becoming a one-ounce bat. It doesn’t hurt, exactly. It doesn’t feel good, either. It’s sort of like really bad period cramps when my uterus is basically trying to escape my body to get the hell away from the hormones coursing through my veins.
Like that, only a million times worse.
Thankfully, it only lasts a few moments.
Klaus is through his shift. His coat is a thick, shiny chocolate brown on which snowflakes melt. His antlers are a fuzzy crown of badassery. He can do some serious damage with those. His eyes, usually beautiful emerald green, are now dark green. He groans and moves his head, motioning for me to hop on.
I do. I latch onto one of his antlers, perching there like a bird.
I’d fly if it wasn’t snowing like the sky was falling. The wind is so strong it’s likely to send me twenty feet in the wrong direction. With me settled onto him, Klaus books it and squalls to the reindeer. The animals don’t seem overly concerned but begin to follow in our footsteps at a leisurely pace. We soon outrun them.
The sleigh ride took us about twenty minutes, but Klaus manages to get us into town in half that time. The snow-covered streets aren’t deserted. A few courageous souls brave the weather to get last-minute errands in. They don’t even see us running by through the wall of flakes covering the town.
This is bad.
I don’t know why the Olympus Flour truck is in the middle of nowhere with busted-out tires, but it’s hardly a good sign.
It basically spells disaster if disaster is spelled Hera and Zeus.
Or Vitality Holdings.
Klaus doesn’t stop once we’ve reached Santa’s workshop. I sense what he’s about to do and take off, flapping my wings in the frigid wind. Klaus rams his antlers into the doors, forcing them open. As soon as there is a crack, I fly through. It takes him a few more tries to make his way in, but when he does, he quickly catches up.
We run by the cabooses, not bothering to hop on. Our shifter bodies are way more convenient. There isn’t a single elf in sight. I wish I knew if it was normal. You’d think that there would be a few here and there, making a few things, wrapping a couple of toys for the kids who changed sides of that dreaded list at the last minute.
“Would you just break it?” A shrill voice echoes through the long hall.
“No,” a second sniffling response comes.
“You’re useless. I won’t let a full life’s work go to waste because of you.”
I fly with everything I have. I move my wings faster than is safe, but I need to know who is in Santa’s office.
We finally come within sight of it, and honestly? It’s not what I expected.
A young woman with shiny blonde curls and a freckled face is wiping a steady stream of tears while Vanilla shouts at her, her starched lace bonnet flopping precariously on top of her head.
What the damn hell is going on?
Knowing this will need at least one agent in human form to communicate, I shift back into my human form.
“Stop right there.”
The blonde covers her eyes with a squeak, no doubt surprised by my blatant nudity. Vanilla blanches, turning the color of her bonnet.
“Raya, hey there. I thought you were gone.” She tries to appear calm but fails. Her entire body is shaking.
“I came back. What’s going on here?” I aim my question to the trembling young woman. “Are you okay? Cookie, right? You’re Cookie Trimmings?”
She hiccups a sob and nods. “Yes.”
I grab one of the thick throws from one of the chairs and wrap it around me. “Better?” I ask her. Seriously. It’s only a naked body. What’s her deal? Humans are funny about stuff like that.
Cookie takes a step toward me, clearly desperate to get away from Vanilla. “Help,” she mouths.
Klaus, now back to his sexy man-self, takes another throw and hides his dangly bits. “Vanilla, please tell me you’re not trying to steal the wreath.”
The older woman throws her hands up. “For Rudolph’s sake. Of course not!”
I am shocked. Truly. Vanilla is barely four feet tall. She is close to a hundred if she’s any age at all. She’s Santa’s head elf and her family has worked in the workshop for generations. She told me so herself the very first day I met her. It seemed to be such a point of pride.
“Frankincense,” she bellows. “Get your figgy pudding in here.”
The blubbering elf, the one who went on holiday to Hawaii — the one we cleared — sheepishly walks in, holding a gun.
“Where’s Officer Sugarplum?” I growl. I stalk toward him, only to realize the weapon is a toy.
Go figure.
“He’s fine, the big lug. We slipped a bit too much booze in his White Christmas. He’s snoring at the security desk,” Vanilla explains. “What gave us away?”
“Honestly?” Klaus answers. “Nothing. I didn’t suspect you at all. We just found the flour truck.”
Vanilla rolls her eyes. “I told you we needed to do a better job at hiding that damn thing.”
“Where’s the driver?” Klaus takes the question right out of my mouth.
“Back at our place. Safe and sound, if a little wrapped up,” Vanilla grumbles.
“Holy holly balls,” I exclaim. “I know what happened.”
“Please,” Klaus grumbles. “Enlighten me because I’m so confused right now.”
“It’s actually super simple. I should have figured it out the second I learned that Lisbeth Bannon was in Waikiki Beach. That’s in Hawaii. She wasn’t on holiday. She was meeting Frankincense. Probably to edge her out of Vitality Holdings after she got caught with the whole Val Downer thing.”
“Umm, Raya? Still lost here. Lead me to it, would ya, sweets?”
“Vanilla is Hera. Frankincense is Zeus. They’re behind Vitality Holdings. I’m guessing they put all of Christmas Town’s equity in funding their chase for immortality.”
“Please tell me she’s wrong,” Klaus shouts. “You didn’t, Vanilla. You love this place.”
“Exactly! I love this place. I would do anything for this town. Ever since Santa had his two sons, I’ve known I would have to step up to the plate and save this town. Everyone assumed that Niko would take the throne, so to speak. I know he’s a bad egg. I’m one of the only people in town who saw that lunatic for what he is. He’s one donkey short of a manger scene. You should know that, Klaus.”
“Of course I do. Why didn’t you ever say anything?” he asks.
“Oh,” she snorts dryly. “I did. I did. Every day, I was in Nik’s ear about his oldest. He wouldn’t hear of it. The more I pushed, the more he threatened to replace me. Nils would be such a better choice. I was so excited when Nils was with this one.” She juts her chin in Cookie’s direction. “I thought they would get married. Then the dolt went and broke up with Nils, leaving the Santa role wide open for Niko.”
“I didn’t have a choice,” Cookie interjects between two sobs. “Niko and Cassie made me do it.”
“Fuck me.” Klaus runs a hand over his face.
“Well, I didn’t know that,” Vanilla screams. “That would’ve been good information to have.”
“They’re not even together. He hired her to play his fiancée,” Cookie continues.
“Of all the devious bullshit,” I say in complete disbelief.
“I knew he was bad news, but this takes the cake. Seriously, Vanilla. You tried to use the Bloody Doctor’s research to find immortality? You blackmailed a FUC agent with death?”
“Frankincense is great with all that stuff. He’s not just a cook and baker but a bit of a scientist, too. We needed the proper leverage. We need our current Santa to live forever. We can’t ever get so close to losing Christmas Town to a demonic spawn like Niko.”
I want to point out that she and her husband have been pretty demonic themselves, but I refrain. It’s hard to do, but I really don’t need to add fuel to the fire.
“And when the Bloody Doctor and the Vitality people failed, you what? Started to believe in the magic of the wreath?”
“Oh.” Vanilla laughs. “We weren’t after the wreath at all. That thing has no power. We wanted to break into the safe and steal some of the money. A lot of it is missing already. I had to pay goons to do our busy work. It’s not like we could leave town. That would’ve been too suspicious.”
“So Klaus and I being here for the wreath was, what? Just a bad coincidence?”
Vanilla snorts. “Yup. We were going to frame Cassie for the missing cash tonight. Cookie tried to stop us. She wanted us to come clean to you. Said you could help.”
“We could’ve,” Klaus insists.
The elf pouts. “I was trying to avoid jail time. I was hoping to pin the whole thing on Cassie. It would’ve been fine by me, given that we’ve been trying to sabotage the wedding all week.”
“Hence the flour shortage.” I nod. “You weren’t merely delivering cookies, were you, Frankincense? You were stashing flour.”
The elf blushes with shame. “I’m just trying to save something bigger than myself.”
“Yeah, well, you went about it all wrong. More secrecy and lies, more hurt and deceit doesn’t do shit. That’s like trying to fix a sinking ship with modeling clay.” I shake my head, still reeling from this strange revelation. And I thought my sister’s first case with a pumpkin-shifting botanist was intense.
“You do realize you’ll be charged with a whole bunch of crimes, right?” Klaus asks Vanilla and Frankincense.
“So long as you promise not to let Niko take over, I don’t care,” the elf states, putting out her arms to be handcuffed. “Frankincense, come on. Time to pay the piper.”
The elf’s eyes are full of sadness. “Tradition is so important, you know? It’s not that we didn’t want things to change. We just got so scared that Niko would burn it all down. He’s a bad man. He doesn’t stand for love and community. He’s only after himself. That’s not what this town was ever about.”
Too bad they didn’t speak out all those years ago when Klaus was only a little boy.
More than one life could have been saved, then.
Once we get the big man back to the workshop, pulling him away from his pre-delivery nap, it takes Klaus and me a little while to explain everything. He and Doris listen to every word, more and more horrified.
“Nils will have to take over, obviously. As soon as possible, too. It’s clear to me now that I am no longer fit to wear the suit. I’ve got to step down.”
Doris sniffs and dabs at her eyes. “How did we go so wrong with him?”
I wish I had the answer for her. I really do. “Nils is a sweet man. I’m sure he’ll do a great job at upholding traditions, all the while breathing new life into town.”
“I think Nils should be brought here,” Klaus adds. “I’m pretty sure this young lady will want to have a nice long chat with him.”
Cookie gives him a grateful smile. “I never stopped loving him. I was so scared that Niko would hurt Nils or me. The whole town, really. He said he’d burn my shop down if I spoke a word. Nils warned me about him. About what he was capable of. I thought if I played nice…” She wipes a few stray tears from her cheeks. “I thought it would work out in the end.”
“It will,” I cut in. “Things can work out if everyone does their part to make it a better place.”
Hours later, well into the morning of Christmas Eve, Vanilla, Frankincense, Lisbeth Bannon, and a few other goons are arrested. Cassie is revealed for the fraud that she is, while Niko has been permanently banned from his hometown.
That seems too easy a punishment, but he’s a slick bastard. He hasn’t done anything illegal. Too bad being a major selfish jackass isn’t a crime.
Everyone in Christmas Town knows that, tonight, a new Santa will sit in the sleigh.
Nils.
And by his side, his future wife, Cookie.