“Santa! Santa, come quick!”

“Ho, ho, ho. Now, what could be wrong, Pax? I thought you had everything under control? There are only a handful of weeks left until takeoff.”

“Vixen, Sir. She has fallen ill. I am afraid she might be…”

“Now, hoho, let me just… Oh, Vixen.” A lock of hair, so blonde it was nearly white, slipped from behind Santa’s ear. Pax watched his best friend kneel beside the reindeer writhing weakly on the straw-covered floor of her spacious stall. The pitiful injured animal was racked by pain, two oozing wounds marring her left rear flank and upper right shoulder. Crimson flowed with a tinge stretching toward ebony in a telling manner. The pain in his benefactor’s ice-blue eyes brought a tear to Pax’s emerald ones. “What happened, Pax? What happened to her?”

“I do not have to tell you. Surely, you see the evidence in her wounds.”

“Werewolf? I did not want to believe it could be true. But how could they have ventured so far? We traveled so far north in an effort to avoid them.”

“Your species are sworn enemies. When Dracula betrayed them…”

“Oh yes, Pax. I remember the history all too well…but to follow us this far. And we had nothing to do with…”

“I know, Santa, Nikolaus.” He addressed his friend with the name he’d first known him to use, hoping to further place his friend at ease, remind him of their long history together, the friendship that had shored each of them up many times over the centuries.

Santa cut to the chase. “Will she pull through?”

Pax raised his eyebrows and stared at his master inquisitively. “I think you know what will happen to Vixen, Santa, if she does.”

“Of course they would strike now when I’m so close. They would choose to strike this year. The wolves, they have impeccable timing, no?”

“What if she dies?” The night had passed slowly as the pair tended to the injured reindeer as best they could. The other elves had stopped by with quiet regularity, supplying charcoal poultice and goldenseal to apply to the wounds.

“What if she does not?”

“She helps lead the team, Pax. Is the strongest female. Stronger than Comet, even. The strongest I found in more than 200 years.”

“But she is twelve this year, Nik. You do realize you will lose her eventually no matter what, right?”

Cold fire, like glacial ice, lit Santa’s eyes. “But wait… What if the bite…”

“Santa, you know that kind of bite only affects humans.”

“Do we, My Friend? Tell me whether you have ever seen another reindeer bitten by a werewolf before?”

“Well…no…we ran so far away from them. We only needed to enlist the teams of reindeer because they were hearty enough to pull through the arctic and portal so you could reach as many children as possible.”

Vixen’s body spasmed violently when Santa pressed the fresh dressing against the flesh made raw and jagged by impossibly-sharp teeth. “Hold her head, Pax! And be mindful of her hooves. Alassë, was that the goldenseal? Did she react so adversely to it before?”

The female elf, clad in a velvet dress of hunter green, her golden hair touching the floor, mumbled an answer Santa had to ask her to repeat. She cleared her throat and answered in far too rushed a manner to find comforting. “Grendail found some wolfsbane in her old stores. She thought it might…help?”

Pax knew by the question tagged at the end of his cousin elf’s admission that she was fully aware of her deception…which had probably been wise old Grendail’s instruction. But had such trickery been the sensible choice? The internal struggle to control his temper blazed with white-hot intensity behind Santa’s pale irises. “You should have told me, Alassë. The wolfsbane could kill her.” The golden she-elf grimaced as she wrung out a clean white towel over the steaming basin of water a fellow elf had set on the small table at her side and flung her arm out in her boss’ direction. “Hand me the basin. Get ready, Pax.”

Santa poured the warm water over the deer’s shoulder where the wolfsbane had been applied, flushing the seeping wound until he emptied the large ceramic bowl. Two female elves shied away from Vixen’s flailing hooves, tears filling their shimmering eyes when the animal screamed out shrill yelps of agony. Pax gripped at the elongated base of her antlers and held them steady with a firm hand, so as to avoid becoming elf-kabob and keep Vixen from injuring her neck as she tossed her head about wildly in pain.

“I think that cleared all of it.” Santa peered into the twisted and torn mass of muscle until he felt satisfied none of the herb lingered behind. “Let us hope none of it entered her bloodstream.”

“I am so sorry, Santa,” Alassë whispered, gold-tinged tears sliding down cheeks bespeckled by flecks of the same color.

Pax’s emerald eyes met her golden ones so full of sadness. An elf’s eyes were drastically different in appearance from a human’s…and other immortal creatures, as well. Their irises were shining discs of brilliant color, undisturbed by a black pupil at their centers. The light entering an elf’s eye was controlled by a colorless membrane, which thickened or dissipated almost unintelligibly across the eye’s surface. Emotions could also waft through this membrane, outward, affecting anyone standing within close proximity. The weight of Alassë’s sorrow fell upon him, mixing with and deepening his own melancholy. “You only meant well, Cousin. You and Grendail both.”

“Pax is right,” Santa conceded. He lovingly stroked the neck of a calming Vixen. “I know you both meant well.”

“We have never experienced anything like this before. It is no wonder we are all so worried.” Pax almost always served as the voice of reason. When any of the elves faced a problem, Santa had noticed they most often sought his counsel.

A thump accompanied by a grunt sounded behind the small group and made everyone but Santa jump in startled fright. “We are not the only ones who are worried,” Alassë said, a slight lilt returning to her voice.

Everyone turned, and Santa emitted a strained, “Ho, ho, ho.” A laugh left over from his Viking days, deep, robust and full of the churn and roll of the sea. From the next stall over, Cupid strained his large form over the top of the wooden wall separating his enclosure from his mate, Vixen’s. The two reindeer had been separated after Vixen had been found outside bearing her wounds. The towering male made his displeasure at the arrangement known by scuffling his hooves aggressively against the surface of the wall while snorting indignantly as he struggled to climb into the adjoining pen.

Vixen raised her head and honked softly at her mate. Pax released her antlers and shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe it would do her some good to have Cupid by her side?”

“I just do not know, Pax. We have no idea how this will all play out.”

“Well, she is weak as a kitten, but she does look happy to see him.” Vixen fought to raise her head enough so she could catch sight of her mate. He responded by making the decision for his master and kicking out hard with his hind legs in order to propel his thick body over the dividing wall. He meandered over with caution, his eyes locked on Santa and Pax the entire time, his determination slightly squashed as he waited to learn the consequences of his actions. When neither scolded him, he positioned himself at Vixen’s head and cleaned her face affectionately with his tongue.

“I supposed it has been decided then,” Santa sighed, rising from the blanket spread across the straw bedding. “I will go and fetch Vixen’s corn-and-oat mash from Grendail; the poor girl must be famished.”

“No, Santa, let me feed her. You have so much to oversee out in the workshop, and I know you must feel the need to look in on Queen Elizabeth’s charge.”

Argument rose within him enough to briefly set his eyes alight, but the flare died away quickly, like doused flames. “Indeed I do, my old friend. Such a thing is nothing short of a miracle, and she must be guarded…but I want to see to Vixen first and make certain of her recovery. For now, I have to inspect the new batch of hobby horses Tawarthion carved this week. He sometimes tends to leave splinters. Ho, ho, ho.” Santa started off in the direction of the woodworking shop. “Oh, and Pax…”

“Yes, Santa?”

“No more outdoor exercise time for any of the deer. I know how much they enjoy the snow, but we must keep them all safe until we find some way to rid ourselves of our werewolf problem.”

With much love and care, Vixen improved over the course of the next two days. Each of the nearly 400 elves stopped by to stroke her dense fur and wish her well. Even though their magic could do little to heal a wound inflicted by a creature of dark magic, most tried to do so anyway. Pax didn’t try to discourage his kin from their attempts; he figured every single well-wish could only aid Vixen in her fight to survive. On the fourth afternoon, all their efforts were rewarded when she struggled to her feet at the appearance of Grendail herself, who wasn’t in the habit of leaving the kitchen, especially so close to Christmas, bearing the large bowl filled with the reindeer’s supper.

“Ahhh, her wounds have scabbed over nicely, and she is well on her way to healing up completely,” the 2,000-year-old elf asserted, running her fingers gingerly over both sites as she circled the deer, examining her thoroughly. Vixen stamped her left front hoof with impatience, waiting for her bowl of mash to be liberated from Grendail’s hand.

“Yes,” Pax chuckled with delight in agreement. “It looks like Santa will have his full team to pull his sleigh again this year.”

“It was a close call,” Grendail muttered, shaking her head as she bent to set the steaming porcelain bowl amidst the hay covering the floor. With a loud trumpet of protest, Vixen charged the petite elf, who only stood as high as the animal’s shoulder, sending both her and the bowlful of dinner crashing to the ground. Grendail peered up at Pax, her eyes the same shade of emerald as his own, shining with surprise. She swiped a splatter of mash from her cheek with the corner of the dark-green apron covering the front of her lightweight, pastel-green cooking frock. Pax thought her shocked expression made her appear even more childlike—elves’ bodies ceased to age further once they had reach maturation—although, at any given time, only the wisdom deepening the tint to her eyes gave any hint at her true number of years on Earth.

“Oh, Grendail! Are you hurt?” Her counterpart extended a hand to help her to her feet. “Vixen!” he scolded in the next breath, “what in the Pole has gotten into you?”

Grendail patted Pax’s arm once she was standing. “She is merely hungry is all. The poor dear has not eaten more than a few bites in days. Together, they watched the famished creature slurp her dinner, first, from the bowl before lashing her tongue across the straw to claim even the tiniest portions spilled in her bed.

“You must be right. I am certain I would be just as hungry had I lain sick as long as she.” No sooner had the words escaped his lips than Cupid decided he was hungry, as well. Dipping his impressive rack of antlers, he sought to help Vixen clean up the mess she’d made of her special calorie-heavy meal. His mate did not react well to his intrusion, locking her own tangle of bony extensions through his own, seeking to drive him backward with a fierce roar before baring her blunt teeth and snapping dangerously close to the swell of muscle just below his neck which made up his shoulder. Cupid’s nostrils flared out from his bulbous nose, and he shrieked in surprise. Vixen didn’t pursue him, much to Grendail and Pax’s relief, dropping her nose to the ground to search for more of the stray mash.

“Do you still think she is behaving thus only because she is hungry?” Pax retreated unconsciously toward the enclosure door. As an afterthought, he reached out to drag Grendail along with him by her upper arm.

“I-I do not know. I have never seen her behave that way before. I am unsure what to make of it.”

“I do believe we should go fetch Santa.”

After nearly an hour, the pair had finally tracked their boss down. The size of the workshop was quite extensive, with hallways branching off in every direction and leading to specialty workshops where specific types of toys were crafted far below the permafrost above. Only elven magic had made such a construct possible, and Santa seemed to grow busier each year, making even more additions to the structure necessary. The elves were committed to Santa’s dream of providing as many of the world’s children with toys as was possible, but the mythos only allowed him unfettered entrance into the homes of strangers on one day of the year—the world was becoming such a guarded place—and the reindeer could only travel so far on one night, sturdy animals though they were. The elves could shuttle the team and sleigh to one unreachable point in the world, but once they were separated at the end of the portal from the reach of the elves’ magic filling the workshop in Greenland, the reindeer had to rely on their muscles and strength of heart since Santa could extend none of his vampiric abilities to his team.

Pax turned over the memories in his mind since that first moment he’d met Santa as they searched, all they’d accomplished, the part the elves had played in preserving Santa’s remaining humanity, the dreams they’d all shared about making a difference in the world. Surely all that good could work to their advantage in some fashion to spare poor Vixen.

“The kitchen!” Grendail realized aloud. “That is the only place left where he could be that we have not looked.” Clasping at Pax’s hand, his emerald cousin dragged him along to where the wafting aromas of gingerbread, eggnog and peppermint all colluded together in a rather cheer-inspiring amalgamation.

“I can understand why he might have strayed to this end of the workshop.” Pax sniffed appreciatively and looked longingly at Grendail for the 10,000^th time. Even if she were 500 years his senior, such a fine cook would make a fine wife. He rather enjoyed being well-fed…and to run his fingers through the golden silk of her hair every night whilst being fed…

“Pax! Focus.”

Had she felt his stumble, or had she read his thoughts. Sometimes elves were gifted extraordinary powers…

There he stood at Grendail’s work table, all the young elves apprenticed to the head cook surrounding Santa as he demonstrated Christmas cookie decorating techniques taught to him by none other than the master standing at Pax’s side.

“Santa, would you like a sip? Some refreshment?” A young sapphire elf girl named Maggie asked, her deep-blue eyes glistening.

“Why, thank you, Maggie. You know elven blood is responsible for keeping my own soul pure and giving.”

“Yes, Santa!” Sadie, her sister, piped up. “If not for elven blood…”

“You might fall prey to the desires of the dark magic,” the third and youngest sister, Sophie, finished.

“You have all learned your histories well, and I am proud.” Santa bared his fangs, taking two gentle draws only when Maggie offered her wrist.

“Mine next, Santa,” Sadie insisted.

“No, mine!” Sophie shouted, trying to push past her older sisters.

His hand fell on each head of golden-brown hair. “I am so proud of each of you. Offering something of yourselves to ensure another has what he needs to sustain himself and for a soul to remain pure. You are all very fine and generous young ladies.” After taking two more sips from Sadie and one from little Sophie, who was only six, his eyes found Pax and Grendail standing in the doorway, watching in awed silence.

“He is so gentle with the children,” Grendail remarked. They had both forgotten why they had gone looking for Santa in the first place.

“Grendail, Pax, has something happened? Please, tell me Vixen is alive and well.”

“Never fear, Santa. She still lives, but we have become troubled by her behavior. When Grendail attempted to feed her, she became aggressive, knocking the bowl from her hands and Grendail, herself, to the ground.”

Grendail stood nodding her fair head in agreement as Pax spoke, adding her own details after he’d finished. “She did not hurt me; I thought she was only desperately hungry after laying sick for so long, but…”

When her words died away with hesitation, Santa urged her to continue. “What is it, Grendail? Please, tell me what else happened?”

“Vixen attacked Cupid, Santa. First, she went after him with her antlers and then very narrowly missed biting him.”

“We cannot allow her to bite any of the other reindeer…or any of us! We must know the full extent to which the werewolf bite has affected her before we allow everything to return to normal. This type of behavior is so uncharacteristic, especially between Vixen and Cupid.” They all remembered the night Vixen had come into the world. Little Cupid, born only a few months earlier, had wandered into the birthing stall as if the emerging doe had called him to her side. Cupid had even stood over the little newborn and helped her mother clean her off with his tongue…and oddly enough her mother had allowed him to do so. The pair had been mates, literally, from the second Vixen had been born.

“Wait…” Santa spoke again, pulled from the depth of the memory. “You did not leave Cupid in there with him; did you? You placed him back inside his temporary enclosure?” The way the two of them looked at each other with equal amounts of horror told Santa the answer he sought.

“Better hurry,” Sadie called as she watched the holes in her arm close up with fascination.

“Yes, you know what tonight is, right?” Maggie added. The bewilderment displayed in their elders’ expressions revealed they had no idea to what the girls referred.

“Tonight’s the full moon, sillies,” Sophie offered, offering them a gap-toothed smile.

“The full moon!” they each gasped in unison. The sun set early in Greenland in November, and the moon had surely risen by that time.

“Like I said,” Sadie added, “you had best hurry.”

Thanks to Santa’s vampiric speed, they reached the attached stables in minutes, even though it lay at the opposite end of the workshop compound from the kitchen—and Santa running with an elf hoisted onto each shoulder. What they found when they arrived was best described as utter chaos…utter chaos served with a heaping side of horror.

The full moon had already risen. Her bright face peeked through the window at the far end of the corridor which led to the icy surface, the waxy illumination adding another layer of eerie to the scene playing out before them.

Vixen stood, legs splayed outward in panic as if she were fighting a losing battle with gravity on a sheet of ice. The witnesses each knew she was warring with the newly-acquired beast within. Her face thickened, doubled in size, snout extending to accommodate her new compliment of teeth of the same size and sharpness as a cutlet knife. Thick arctic fur sprouted out in dense, shaggy patches all over her body, spiking upward and then falling around her neck and antlers as wild and unruly as a lion’s mane. The sand-colored velvet encasing her antlers stretched to its limit before exploding forth in a cloud of feathery tatters, unable to accommodate the twist and rise of new bone replacing the old. Curving reaches of antler doubling in mass and length as they spiraled and blackened, the once rounded edges mutating into oversized, deadly thorns. Four of the same spiky extensions shot out from each hoof, adding to the were-deer’s growing arsenal of lethal weaponry. Her lengthened coat of shaggy fur rose and flared as the muscles beneath swelled and bulged, tripling in size. She threw back her enlarged head and brayed out a noise akin to a howl, one with a dark timbre intermixed, as if Vixen had drawn her own sense of horror at the situation into her voice.

Cupid backpedaled away from his transformed mate, eyes bulging in fear, his hooves scraping against the stone beneath the straw even after the back corner prevented him from gaining any further ground. When this realization finally struck him, the panicked reindeer sought the closest exit and leapt to the top of the enclosure’s wall, his back feet fighting for purchase against the wood while his front hooves struggled to propel him over the barrier and into the pen next door.

“Cupid!” Santa called out when Vixen lunged forward. The mad deer didn’t even roll a reddened eye in his direction; her focus was so singularly trained on Cupid’s backside. Elves came running in streams from the workshop after she sank both rows of newly-formed razors into his meaty left flank, calling forth a thundering wail of agony from Cupid’s throat. Blood spilled down his leg as the poor animal flailed and kicked, trying to break free.

Pax yanked at the red cloth of Santa’s sleeve. “Do something! Vixen will kill him if we do not stop her.” He’d no sooner finished speaking than the vicious were-deer tore loose a considerable mouthful of Cupid’s flesh, calling forth a fresh torrent of crimson from the ugly, gaping canyon of torn skin and muscle. His struggles slowed, became feeble scrapes of hoof against the unpainted pine boards.

Santa rushed forward, moving so fast he became unintelligible streaks of red and white, but he crashed back into the throng of elves just as quickly, sending a crowd of them crashing to the floor like bowled-over ten pins. Everyone groaned as they climbed to their feet, rubbing various aching body parts, and Santa dripped cold, dead-darkened blood from the pincushion the front of his coat had become when Vixen had halted his advance by catching her vampire master’s body on the briar thicket sprouting from the top of her head.

“Santa! Are you okay?” Pax ripped the green woolen cap from his golden head and began dabbing at the slow-closing punctures glaring through the shredded pieces of his old friend’s woolen shirt.

“You know it will take more than what the old girl is dishing out to do me in. Look out!” His words ended on a gasp, and Pax felt his body lifted into the air as the enraged deer charged into the throng of elves. Luckily his ascent had been delivered by Santa’s strong hands rather than the prickly points of Vixen’s antlers…but that meant his rescuer took the full force of the blow in his stead.

“Nikolaus!” he cried as the pair crashed backward together—along with several of his kin—calling him by the name he usually reserved for times when they were alone, so as to avoid undermining the ‘head elf’s’ authority in any way. Pax’s head smacked against the stone tile of the stable entranceway, reducing the cries of terror and pain from his fellow elves into a background of dizzying clamor as the were-deer mowed through the crowd of them, head down, tossing bodies into the air like vegetables in one of Grendail’s salads. If the wolves had been looking in on the carnage they had released into Santa’s world, their joy would have most likely soured with envy at the sight of the lethal weaponry—and tactical advantage—Vixen possessed, one the wolves did not.

Santa managed to climb to his feet, further wounded though he was, in time to see Maggie, Sadie, and Sophie—each named after exceptionally-well-behaved human girls from his Nice List—rush into the stable as they ran to see why screams filled the air, disrupting the customary harmony of the compound. The sensitivity of the elves’ hearing would ensure they all had heard, even in the farthest corner from the attack. Santa knew he had to take control of the situation…and fast.

Lucky for Cupid, Alassë had been able to make her way past the chaos and into Vixen’s stall, managing to haul the injured male off the dividing wall and help him ease down onto the straw bedding, despite her petite stature. Her healing magic had failed to deliver much benefit to the gaping wound on Cupid’s hindquarters, but she’d managed to slow the bleeding by binding the ragged tear with some of the clean towels left over from Vixen’s convalescence. With Cupid removed from immediate danger, Santa was left free to deal with the attack on his elves. “Now, you three girls go find your mother. Lock yourselves in your room with her and don’t come out until I come to get you.”

“But, Santa, we want to help,” Sadie insisted. As the young elf finished her sentence, Pax groaned weakly, and the small group caught sight of him, barely conscious and bleeding on the ground.

“Pax!” Maggie cried, kneeling to examine the gash on her fellow elf’s scalp. The young she-elf, barely a teenager, pulled the fallen elf’s golden head into her lap. “Sadie, come here.” When her sister stood close enough, Maggie ripped a strip of fabric from the hem of her kitchen dress and balled it into a wad she could press against the deep laceration, attempting to stop the profuse bleeding. Vixen had shifted her line of attack to their left, leaving them a small window of opportunity to care for the injured head elf.

“Maggie, Sadie, Sophie!” The girls turned toward the voice to find their mother pushing her way past the tangle of entering and fleeing elves, her glittering emerald dress perfectly matching the color of her eyes and a perfect complement to the intricate platinum braid piled and pinned along the back of her head.

“Suzibelle!” Santa called, motioning her forward. “It is far too dangerous for the girls to be here. Vixen has transformed into some creature created by the combination of her DNA with that of the werewolves. I need you to help the girls and Pax escape. Take him back to your room and tend to his wounds. I will come to check on you all once we manage to lock Vixen back in her enclosure.”

Suzibelle eyed the macabre scene unfolding only a few feet away, the wild-eyed were-deer hurling her kin through the air, ripping and gouging with her claws and antlers at the brave number who stood to face her with the hope of herding the family-member-turned-monster back into her stall. As the monstrous creature tore through the throng of elves who had come running to help, she aroused the ire of the rest of the reindeer stabled in the large room, who dearly loved their elven caretakers. The six angry deer either kicked at the doors to their enclosures or fought to scramble overtop.

“Donner, Blitzen, get down! Stay inside your enclosures where you will be safe,” Santa called, the burn of his healing wounds stealing power from his voice. The way his words tapered off to a hiss made Suzibelle raise her head in alarm, diverting her attention away from combining her efforts with her daughters to lift and carry an incoherent Pax.

“Wait, girls, ease him back down.” All three looked at her as if she’d suggested they wrap the presents in plain black-and-white newspaper instead of the customary festive North Pole fare. “I have an idea,” she whispered, rushing past Santa as he doubled over with pain brought on by the rapid healing of the nearly dozen puncture and slash wounds inflicted by Vixen’s ebony rack. Moving forward through the melee, she was assaulted by the terrible images of elves she’d known for centuries lying slaughtered on the floor. Arms and legs torn away by the were-deer’s evil mouthful of teeth lay scattered about in rapidly-spreading pools of blood. Some of the bravest of elves broke free from the pack, narrowly escaping Vixen’s deadly bite…and Suzibelle could find no fault in their decision to flee. She knew her own plan might not succeed, but at the rate the elves were losing their lives—immortal only if no grievous damage rendered their bodies uninhabitable—there might not be a soul left standing when the full moon finally succumbed to the rising sun. Tears impeded her progress when she saw the seamstress she had worked beside for three human lifetimes lose her head, jaws closing like an Iron Maiden around her slender neck, easily shredding the flesh and breaking bone. Suzibelle averted her eyes when her friend’s head passed before her in a series of squishy-sounding thuds but not before lighting on the flat golden orbs which had lost all light and luster.

As she drew nearer to her goal, she heard Santa call out, “Suzibelle, no!” The emerald elf turned to offer him one last fleeting glance, taking note of how heavily his shirt had been soaked by his dark blood. But he would recover. One of his elves had offered his wrist even in the midst of all the bloodshed, and another stood ready to feed their leader behind him, and another, and another.

The green pearls that were her irises flashed with determination as she reached the nearest enclosure door and yanked at the latch. Donner, the largest male on the team, burst free from inside, nearly toppling Suzibelle as he charged his monstrous teammate, antlers lowered and primed to attack. As she made her way along the far wall, opening pens as she went, Suzibelle fought to push away the heavy shroud of guilt settling over her. *The rest of the team are our best chance,* she assured herself, before uttering a prayer she hoped might protect the other deer as they fought to save the workshop.

Donner had already locked the sharp curves of his bony antlers with Vixen’s darker ones. The well-muscled deer was half Vixen’s age and possessed a brute strength to rival any of the other reindeer, but he had never been as fast or spirited as his female counterpart. That deficiency did not serve him well during his present altercation. Several near misses with the cruel thorn-like spikes prompted every elf in visual range to hold their breath, their nails sinking into their palms subconsciously. Vixen dipped her complement of deadly black bone down and left before Donner could counter, spearing his shoulder with eight points of the deadly shards. Before Donner’s resounding bellow of pain died away, though, another of his friends came to his rescue.

Blitzen stormed past Suzibelle, his hooves ringing against the tile as he charged their accidental enemy. While Vixen’s antlers were embedded in Donner’s shoulder, Blitzen stole the opportunity to knock the were-deer off balance with his own, slicing through her flank in the process. Emitting a howl which drove every elf within earshot to clap their hands over their pointed ears, she whirled to face her new attacker, rearing up on her hind legs and slashing at Blitzen with her the spiky extensions jutting from her hooves. The injured buck catapulted himself backward in frightened surprise, four angry gashes oozing scarlet between his eyes and down the length of his nose.

Comet came to his rescue a moment later before any further damage could be inflicted by the doe’s dagger-like claws, barreling into Vixen’s side with a fury that nearly knocked her off her feet. Dasher and Dancer, freed only a moment before by Suzibelle, joined the fight next, Dancer kicking her hind legs out to deliver a blow which momentarily robbed the were-deer of her breath. Dasher used her pause to hook his large antlers under the monster’s hindquarters, lifting Vixen’s rear half so that she stumbled and lost her footing. Even after she lay thrashing and writhing on the ground, the were-deer gnashed her teeth, snapping at her former playmates until she caught Comet’s leg, just above the hoof, in her jaws, sending the giant buck crashing to the ground, with a bawl of agony, as well. As he lay beside her, Vixen captured a length of his antler in her teeth, snapping the bone with only a couple of snaps of her fangs. Comet cried out in pain again but managed to scramble to a safe distance where he could climb to his feet, although he remained unable to place any weight on his injured leg.

Prancer was the last to join the fight, using her front hooves to pummel Vixen’s monstrously-transformed face when she reached the pack of battling reindeer. The double rows of teeth, as sharp as a quiverful of arrows, closed around Prancer’s slender leg as well. Though Vixen was down, her speed and agility remained unmatched.

While the team battled, Santa had replenished his strength, his ability to heal maximized by the generous gift of elven blood full of white-magic properties offered up by several donors relieved of the urgent need to fight by the reindeer’s courage. When Suzibelle had freed the reindeer moments before, he had called out to her in hopes of preventing her from accomplishing her task, certain such strategy could only result in dire consequences. Even though nearly all of them had been injured, all yet lived, unlike the large number of elves who had lost everything they had to give in the space of only a small collections of minutes…and they were still holding their own against the vicious were-deer. Vixen hadn’t even managed to regain her feet. Suzibelle had chosen the correct course of action.

Still, the werewolves had delivered a crushing blow. So many of Santa’s beloved elves, friends from centuries past, lay forever lost, torn and scattered atop the rising pool of spilt blood. No longer incapacitated by his wounds, Santa’s thoughts ran in the direction of the three young girls, still children, the only children living at the workshop at present. Recent recruits from one of Greenland’s ancient forests, Maggie, Sadie and Sophie had made the journey to the workshop with their mother after their father had died in a hunting accident. The girls were far too young to behold such violent sights, and Vixen still represented a real threat. So, Santa made the decision to spirt them away to the living quarters they shared with their mother, along with Pax, and return to aid his team in their fight as expediently as possible.

Before he could carry out his plan, however, the trio rushed past him, literally under his nose, their desire to help their antlered friends outstripping the young girls’ instinct for survival. He managed to snag the sash of Sophie’s dress as she hurried along, but the sprite tugged at the opposite trail of bow, quick as the snap of a whip so that he was left with only a length of sapphire ribbon in his hand. *That little one is too clever for her own good,* Santa thought to himself.

The vampiric head-elf rushed past them using his gift of super speed, impeding their progress by appearing in their path half a snap of the finger later. He was just lifting a finger to wag at them sternly as he delivered a firm lecture when he was side-swiped by the bulk of an airborne Dancer, who had been tossed roughly by the neck after Vixen fought her way to her feet—while Santa’s attention had been diverted. The velocity of her forced flight carried the pair across the room and into the adjacent stone wall. Maggie joined them before either had time to rise, landing in Santa’s lap, her waist crisscrossed with lines of scarlet seeping through the white-and-blue apron tied over the dress which matched the blue of her eyes.

“Maggie!” He cradled her head, crowned by hair the color of hazelnuts, in his hands, the sting of bloodtears assaulting his ice-hued eyes.

Struggling to sit up, Maggie said to him, “I’m fine, Santa, really. She was busy fighting off the rest of the deer, so she just grabbed me and tossed me real fast.” To prove her point, she pulled one of the rips in her clothing wide to show her skin hadn’t been broken to a depth greater than a cat-scratch.

“Still…she broke your skin.” Santa became very worried, indeed. “Your sisters!” The realization hit him like a were-deer hoof to the gut. His eyes snapped to the ongoing battle across the way, finding Sophie clinging to Vixen’s back like a newborn koala to its mother, her tiny hands gripping without fail at the base of the crow-colored antlers. Although Vixen bucked and twisted wildly, the little elf’s grip held true. Although her position hampered the attacks by the other reindeer, Blitzen meted out his own brand of justice for his battered nose by clamping down on Vixen’s wolf-like tail with his teeth. He dug his hooves into the ground and hauled back on the trailing fluff, hampering the were-deer’s efforts to unseat young Sophie. The rest of the team surrounding her snorted loudly and stamped their feet, ready to reassert their attacks should the tiny elf become dislodged, while Sadie, positioned too close for Santa’s comfort, skillfully hurled apples from the reindeer’s treat stash through the gaps between the furry bodies ringing the were-deer. When the spirited girl managed to lob one of the spheres into one of Vixen’s oversized nostrils, where it lodged stubbornly, the were-deer charged forward with renewed fury, breaking the line of deer standing at the ready. Sadie whirled and sprinted away, but not before cruel black tips of bone snagged at her sleeve, slicing an ugly line of red along the length of the girl’s upper arm. Sophie cried out to her, fear for her sister breaking her hold, and flew eartip over toe into her sister’s back, scraping the tender skin of her legs along spikes of antler as she traveled forward. Thankfully, the other deer fell upon Vixen without mercy, so that the girls sustained no further injuries.

The girls’ mother ran to them, scooping each under the protection of an arm, like a mother duck taking her ducklings to wing, and the trio hurried across the room to join their sister and Santa. “Are you girls hurt badly?” their mother asked while fussing over each injury. She stripped Sophie’s sash from Santa’s hand to bind Sadie’s arm, shredding Maggie’s apron into makeshift bandages she used to wrap Sophie’s bleeding legs. Santa worked at untying what remained of Maggie’s apron and wound it about her waist, tying the fabric snugly, but gently, into place.

“We’ll be okay, Momma,” Sadie answered with only the slightest tremor to her voice. “Santa, are your wounds fully healed?” she asked, drawing her golden brows together and lifting her wrist.

Santa lowered her arm with a hand the temperature of fresh snow. “Your kin have already healed me quite completely, My Dear. But thank you.”

An anguished roar from the other side of the stable claimed the group’s attention and everyone turned to find Vixen being driven back—right into Dasher and Dancer’s empty stall—each of her shoulders skewered upon a different pair of antlers. Blitzen balanced on his powerful hind legs, drumming his front hooves in a merciless staccato upon her monstrous head to further hinder her ability to attack. Santa gasped in amazement and squeezed Suzibelle’s shoulder in a brief gesture of gratitude. “Good thinking, Momma. Both you and my team have astounded me with your resourcefulness this night.” He motioned to one of the woodshop elves standing nearby. “Beleg, come with me to your shop. Make haste.” As soon as the ruby elf with shining crimson coins in his eyes came within reach, Santa scooped him onto his shoulders, and they disappeared, a blur the color of Beleg’s eyes snaking around the corner and rocketing down the hallway.

Both returned in the same expedient manner, a toolbox held tight in Beleg’s grip and a bundle of long, thick boards tucked under Santa’s arm. “The reindeer and my elves before them have fought their portion of this battle; now comes the time for us to help them win the war.” As a small group of toymakers-turned-soldiers hurried over to assist, Vixen twisted her head at an impossible angle, tearing away the greater portion of Dasher’s ear as he drove her back with his antlers. Most of the bone he’d embedded in her shoulder muscle pulled free. The nightmarish creature began to gain ground…and push her way out of the pen. Santa watched in horror, his eyes stretching wide with surprise when he realized the punctures in Vixen’s shoulder were steadily closing. He hadn’t considered she might have developed the ability to heal instantaneously. Realizing their advantage was about to disappear like snow in the South Pacific, he motioned the remnants of his ragtag army forward, disappearing and reappearing in half a heartbeat to stand in the spot from which Dasher had been driven. The elves and reindeer waited at the ready, looking to Santa for instruction as he drew back a fist the size of a gingerbread house—the movement almost imperceptible to the eye—and struck Vixen between the eyes with enough force to send the massive were-deer stumbling back into a far corner of the pen where she fell, with a heavy thud, onto her rear end.

While she shook away the stars popping to life and blinking out just as quickly before her eyes, Santa teamed up with the group of remaining elves to clear the other fight-weary reindeer from the opening of the enclosure so they could slam the gate closed. Before the addled were-deer could fully regain her senses, Santa nailed three sturdy boards in place to reinforce the wide door, leaving a pile of the lumber behind so the elves could add to his makeshift reinforcements. Employing his vampiric speed once again, along with the added boost offered by a couple of reindeer backs upon which to stand, he built up the height on either side of the pen. Vixen had regained her feet by the time Santa had nailed the second board in place, one half of the pen’s added containment completed on the opposite side. The were-deer lunged, propelled by her own brand of amplified speed, very nearly resulting in a nasty bite to his forearm, the implications of which he began to consider.

“I distanced myself from the fighting between the vampires and werewolves early on during their war—as soon as I saw trouble coming. Do any of you know what effect a werewolf’s bite will have on a vampire…or other creatures?” His eyes flicked briefly to the spot where the three children huddled on the floor with their beautiful mother, his hands nailing three more boards effortlessly into place before he’d finished speaking.

One of the elder elves, Saeldur, spoke in answer, his features, like those of an impish teen, belying the wisdom he had gleaned over the centuries. “I saw a vampire bitten once in Transylvania, Santa,” he called up as he, too, nailed another slab of pine into place. “Luckily, that vampire immunity of yours, which fights off any disease and heals any injury, will also prevent the werewolf mutation from altering your genetic makeup. You would remain just as you are now. But…a bite is not the way to transfer the mutation…to other creatures.” He also turned his shining emerald orbs on the girls gathered together in the corner, the shimmering blue of their kitchen frocks forming a pool around them on the stone floor. “A scratch will also deliver the Were DNA into the bloodstream of the creature’s victim.”

“How do you know this, Saeldur?”

“Before we all escaped to the Pole, my sister was scratched by one of the wolves.”

The vampiric saint took pause, his hammer hanging in suspended animation over his head. “Miluiel. I remember her. She…”

“Remained behind when we made the journey here, yes. I can, however, relate the details of her transformation, and, yes, it occurs once every month…but only on one night. Did you know that the moon is only ever truly full for about the space of one second every month? But once that second has arrived and the moon has risen above the horizon so as to become visible, the catalyst for the change is incited, and that altered genetic material will not lie dormant again until the sun makes his presence known the next morning. For elfkind, the transformation is not as extensive as it is for either humans attacked by the werewolves or poor Vixen. Miluiel’s hair went dark, and her nails became talons, her teeth fierce fangs, but she did not sprout fur over her entire body, nor did her nose lengthen into a snout. She remained upright as well, walking upon two legs. Although she was quick to anger, she retained her sense of logic and did not bring harm to any living being. I can only attribute such failure to succumb to complete depravity to her existence as a creature of light, the purity which encompassed her soul. Her existence as an elf, in my opinion, only brought about a sort of half-change in her. But that half-change was enough to keep her from ‘contaminating,’ as she put it, such an endeavor as the workshop, a place from which so many of Europe’s children might receive a measure of joy. My sister always feared she might someday place its residents and its goals at risk, so she made the decision to stay behind in the forests of Transylvania.”

“I wish I had been told of the reasoning behind her decision,” Santa said softly.

“She would never have allowed me to tell you,” Saeldur confessed.

The head elf shook his head as if to dislodge the darkness tainting his thoughts. “I will pay her a visit as soon as I am able, but for now, we must tend to our injured…and bury our dead.” He drove the last nail home as he spoke the last word, and Saeldur and Suzibelle wondered if he did so in an attempt to cover the fracturing of his voice.

“And you’re positive each enclosure can withstand the transformations?” Santa gripped the newly-installed iron bars and tugged with half his considerable strength. They remained attached to the newly-forged solidity of the iron walls, despite his supernatural might. Santa and his elves had been forced to heal some of the tensions between the elves and dwarves in order to gain immediate access to the arctic dwarves’ supply of iron ore. Pax, who had healed up quite nicely in the space of a week’s time, had even negotiated for the permanent placement of a dwarven blacksmith in a swiftly-renovated chamber of the workshop.

“Absolutely, Santa,” the Pole’s new addition assured him. “My brethren have caged adolescent dragons within the bars I forge. One of those would outweigh yer largest were-deer by at least five-hundred pounds…but I laced the ore with mithril just to be safe.”

“Thank you, Whurdin. I do not know what we would have done had you failed to venture from your home to come work with us.”

“My kin have always admired yer generosity and that of yer elves. I, personally, consider it a great honor to be a part of somethin’ that makes so many of the wee ones happy.”

“Well, we are honored to count you among our company. Shall we venture down the hall to check on the other…”

“Cell?” The dwarf’s shaggy white eyebrows rose in question along with the intonation of his voice.

“Let us agree to refrain from calling the room this in their company, agreed?” Santa swallowed the dwarf’s shoulder with his hand.

“Agreed.”

As the small group tromped down the hallway, Pax felt the need to voice his concern. “Santa, the full moon will rise presently. Are you absolutely certain we are prepared?”

“Well, Pax, there is only one way to find out, unfortunately.”

“Here we are,” Whurdin announced, jangling the keys on a thick brass ring he pulled from his smock. He unlocked the heavy oak door comprised of twice the thickness of any other lining the hallway making up the elves’ living quarters. Behind that barrier stood a floor-to-ceiling gate made up of cylindrical bars, each the circumference of Pax’s fist. Behind the barred door stood Maggie, Sadie and Sophie—the only three elves bitten or scratched by the were-deer who’d survived.

Sadie gripped at the bars, so thick the tips of her fingers didn’t meet her palm, and pleaded with her benefactor. “Please, Santa, do we have to stay in here?”

“Can’t we at least have Momma stay with us?” Sophie begged.

“Don’t be selfish, Sisters.” Maggie, the eldest, strode toward them and wrapped an arm over each of her siblings’ slight shoulders. “Our fate is sealed, but I know you cannot wish the same for our dear mother.”

“I do not wish for Mother to become a were…elf? Though, I know we must,” Sadie replied in a small voice, barely audible to those around her.

“Nor do I.” Little Sophie hung her head.

Suzibelle’s hands closed over Sadie’s upon the bars. “You must let me in, Santa. No matter what happens, I must stay with them this night.”

“No, Mother!” the three girls cried in unison. They had lost their father to the jaws of a hungry polar bear during a hunting expedition before fleeing to the safety of the workshop. Each of them was resigned to keeping their mother alive and well.

“I didn’t mean it, Momma! I don’t want you to become a were-deer too!” Fat tears spilled from the corners of Sophie’s sapphire eyes.

“Were-elf,” Sadie corrected, pulling a hand free so she could wag her finger in her sister’s face.

“I don’t really want to be a were-elf.” Sophie cried harder.

“Santa!” Suzibelle cried, clutching harder at the bars above Sadie’s other hand.

He shook his blonde head. “I cannot take the risk, Suzibelle.”

“Then, I will remain right here. All night if I must. I will remain by my girls’ sides in any manner possible.” The beautiful she-elf sank to the floor in front of the bars, her golden hair tumbling all around her.

“Ya will not have long to wait. The moon will be risin’ at any moment now.” Whurdin retrieved his pocket watch and fixed his forest-green eyes upon its face.

“Mother…” Maggie whispered, “I think it’s starting...” Her pointed ears swelled and sprang outward, tripling in size, golden-brown hair sprouting along the outer edges. Atop the pink of her lower lip rested the tips of newly-grown fangs, her canines extending three times their length, as had her ears. Her hair, falling to a point well below her knees, coiled and snaked along the floor like a serpent, rising and flaring outward near its crown, resembling the overgrown mane of an unkempt lion. She grew claws like a jungle cat’s to match in an instant, the ones sprouting from her toes poking holes through her satin ballerina flats. But…that was the end of it. Her bones didn’t break and reform; fur did not spontaneously bud to cover the length of her body. The same abbreviated change occurred, first in Sadie and finishing with little Sophie.

“My ears feel funny, Momma,” Sophie said running her hands over the elongated tips. She giggled and exclaimed, “Oh! They have fur.”

The company on the other side of the bars exchanged questioning glances before Pax spoke what each was thinking. “They do not appear to be greatly changed. Perhaps, not even in demeanor.”

“Then, I can go in to them,” Suzibelle cried.

“Not so fast, Suzibelle. We need to observe them for more than a few seconds, more than a few hours even. Because they are creatures of light, the change may come over them more much more slowly than that of a mortal creature.”

“I will stay here with them.”

“As you wish, Suzibelle. Whurdin, Pax, would the two of you accompany me back to the stable so we can check on the condition of the reindeer?”

A bright flash of fear sparked briefly in Pax’s eyes at the remembrance of the attack…and on that night there had been only one were-deer in the workshop. At present, there would be eight with which to contend, and if even one of them were to escape…

“We must go right away, Santa,” Pax answered bravely. His master clapped him gently on his half-sized shoulder and followed after, allowing his courageous second-in-command to take the lead.

Every time one of the were-deer scrabbled to the top of one of the new iron enclosures, hooking claw and hoof over the horizontal support lines running across the vertical bars, Pax flinched reflexively in response. It had been a very long two hours for everyone gathered together in the room to keep an eye on the structural integrity of the pens. Thus far, Whurdin’s craftsmanship had held true, securing the growling, lunging were-deer inside each of the enclosures. Four extra had been constructed by splitting the original pens shared by deer couples in two to avoid injuries once all eight had transformed. The separation gates had been designed to be removed so that the reindeer could return to normal cohabitation during the majority of nights during each month.

“We can knock out that wall over there and expand the stable to accommodate a new team after Christmas,” Whurdin mused, scratching his beard.

“New team? Ahhh, in the instance of a full moon on Christmas Eve?”

The dwarf nodded, resting his fists on his ample hips, and Pax added, “Good thinking. With the full moon occurring so early in November this year, I am assuming we will be safe?”

“I already mapped the full moons for decades to come. We are indeed, but although another does not occur on that night very often, ya will need to be prepared with a fully-trained team. I understand from speakin’ with the deer’s caretakers that the trainin’ takes years.”

“We can start scouting for new recruits in the morning,” Santa suggested. He winced as Dasher slashed at Dancer, who was attempting to scale the bars even though the gap left near the high ceiling was no more than eight inches, drawing four deep lines of blackened-red across the white fur crowning the were-deer’s chest. The doe lost her grip on the iron and crashed to the straw-covered stone below, her bodyweight fracturing one of her hind legs so that a splinter of gore-encrusted bone broke through her flesh with a pop like some kind of macabre party favor. Several elves gasped out their revulsion at the sight, but in another minute, the bone was bowing back toward the leg, the separate shards of bone flowing toward each other to create a whole once again. Torn edges of gaping flesh surrounding the wound’s site filled in rapidly with newly-cultivated cells. Dancer howled, eerily wolf-like, in agony as her body healed, while Dasher growled out a stilted sound mimicking a maniacal brand of human laughter.

“I think we may want to fill in the gaps between the bars before the next full moon,” Santa said gruffly.

“I was just thinkin’ the same thing,” Whurdin responded.

“And we need not worry about werewolf hunting parties, for a little while at least,” Pax added.

“Yes,” Santa agreed, nodding his head absentmindedly as he focused his gaze on each of the reindeer in turn, hoping to prevent an escalation to disaster that time. “Some of the girls will be missing the silver jewelry they wished for, but the safety of the workshop and her inhabitants must come first.”

“We will be short a few wooden dolls and animals too, but you are right, the construction of the bows and silver-tipped arrows had to become our first priority,” Pax acquiesced.

“At least we did not have to solicit Maxwell’s help.”

“A wise choice, Santa. The North Pole is best left under your rule.” Pax took a careful stroll around the stable. “I do believe, aside from the attacks through the bars—which most of the deer are careful to avoid—we do have the situation well in hand. However…I do feel the need to check on Suzibelle and the girls?”

“Please do, Pax. I feel as though Suzibelle would have alerted us to any untoward circumstances, but the state of things may simply be that she has her hands full.” In response to those final words, Pax blanched and scurried from the room.

He returned expediently, the four female elves in tow. “Pax!” Santa and Whurdin gasped in tandem.

“Wait, Santa! The girls remained unchanged. Neither their character nor disposition has altered in the least since their transformation. See for yourself. Ask them anything.”

The trio stood at the ready, their countenance angelic, excepting the unnerving addition of deadly canines, above and below, to their cherubic smiles. Santa addressed the youngest who, logically, might wield the least control. “Sophie?”

“Yes, Santa?” the young elf chirped in response.

“How are you feeling, My Child?”

“Very well, Santa!” Before he could pose any more silly questions, the elven child ran to him and encircled his waist with her slender arms, her ear pressed to the spot on his shirt under which his bellybutton resided. She lifted her chin, concern etched into the wild golden hue of her eyes. “Are the reindeer okay, Santa?”

He gathered her shoulders in his hands. “Yes, Child. All of them will survive the night, thanks to the pens Whurdin constructed.” His lighter-than-sky-blue eyes settled on Pax’s emerald coins.

“They are amazingly…tame…” Pax seemed at a loss for a better word. “…given their…condition.” Telling pauses separated his words.

“Vixen!” Sadie cried, her tone full of love, were-elf though she was. And then. And then, the company in the stable all bore witness to the moments following, which became nothing short of miraculous.

The young girl ran to the doe’s enclosure and gripped the bars in her fur-covered hands—Vixen had always been Sadie’s favorite of the eight. “Come here, girl,” she called.

The reindeer calmed visibly, the crimson fire inside her eyes cooling considerably. Lowering her head in submission, she ambled over, her nose coming to rest inside the valley formed by the small hands extended between the bars. Her growl transformed to a pitch more liken to a cat’s purr, her eyes closing in serenity as Sadie stroked gentle fingers over her furry cheek.

Santa and Suzibelle locked eyes, their respective jaws dangling in shock. Within the surrounding enclosures, the neighboring reindeer strained their necks between the bars, begging for the comfort of Sadie’s touch. Maggie flitted past each cell door, stroking heads in succession as Sophie disengaged her body from Santa’s, approaching her sisters from the far side and soothing were-deer as she passed by each supplicating head. The girls emitted soothing utterances of the strangest brand, sounds resembling a cross between the cooing of doves and howling of wolves. The deer had fallen, utterly, beneath the trio’s spell, all eight clamoring for the elven girls’ affection and approval.

“Well…as I breathe. It would appear the were-elves hold dominion over the were-deer. Ho-ho-ho,” Santa chuckled.

Alassë, who had been lingering close by, raised a finger in epiphany. “Suzibelle! Quickly, gather your children. We must convene in the sewing room immediately.”

“Santa, are you sure you are up to the trip this year? With…all that has happened no shame could be found in staying home for one Christmas Eve.”

“No, Suzibelle, I cannot disappoint all the children here and in London. They all eagerly await their new toys.”

“Oh, London, that horrible place! The wolves run rampant there. What they did…what they stole from you, Santa. I-I…”

St. Nick rested his pale hand upon her shoulder. “For whatever reason, Suzibelle, time was not on our side. The fates will choose another century, perhaps.”

But Suzibelle could not overlook the melancholy dip of Santa’s head as he helped her daughters harness the reindeer. There would only ever be one mate for the head elf, and he would have to wait until fate decided to reincarnate her, even if that meant centuries, even millennia, might pass before her soul was bound to Earth again.

Pax executed a well-timed attempt at distraction. “Do not forget that your deliveries this year need not be limited to London. Your team has been granted the gift of immortal life and with that follows immortal power, strength and stamina, as well as a tie to the preternatural. Since the girls now hold dominion over the moon, by combining that dark power with their light, they can easily pull the moon into full view. That magic will be strong enough to initiate the change, bringing with it supernatural sway. Once you and the team pass through the portal in London, the elven gift of time manipulation can now encapsulate all of you. You will be free to move about the globe outside the constraints of time and space, visiting every child who lives upon the Earth during the space of one mortal night if you so desire.”

“Wonderful, Pax.” His number one noticed the lackluster tone to his old friend’s voice. Yet, he was willing to make his yearly journey, one during which he would bring joy to an exponential number of children he could never before reach.

For the werewolves’ attack had backfired. Once the workshop’s inhabitants had endured the first uncertain cycle of the full moon which followed, the unlikely benefit had been discovered. The change in Suzibelle’s children had equated to little more than dominion over the newly-transformed team. Alassë, the elf among them most keenly imbibed with magic, had realized the potential almost immediately and rushed the children off to the sewing lab. There, with the aid of her spellcasting, they had fashioned harnesses for the were-deer which would bind them to the wishes of their young masters—their spells of restraint woven into the very fabric encircling their heads and noses. No were-deer would attack another…or any other living creature in the workshop as long as their magical harnesses spelled by the little were-elves were buckled into place.

As Santa settled himself into the sleigh, the three girls raised their arms to signal confirmation of a clear flight path. “On Dasher, on Dancer, on Prancer and Vixen! On Comet, on Cupid on Donner and Blitzen!” No elf missed the escape of a single bloody tear as he urged his team forward. “Let us make this a Christmas to remember.”

With the beginnings of agitated growls which morphed into shrill howls, the were-deer, drawing upon their new power tied to the brilliance of the golden moon, took flight for the first time.