“I do not see why we couldn’ wait until the weather was a little warmer,” Whurdin growled as the party of elves—and one dwarf—trekked across the fresh layer of snowfall.

“Because it does not get warmer here, Silly Dwarf,” Pax chided.

“Ya damned elves and yer resilience to the cold. No wonder the lot of ya work with vampires.” His chuckle was short-lived as he stopped to fasten his heavy werewolf-fur cloak more snugly about his neck. “Still, ya coulda’ let me finish me mug of spiked cider first, Pax old boy.”

“That mug of yours never seems to have a bottom. We most likely would have been waiting all 363 days until next Christmas, and toy production goes into full swing in February. Besides, you would never find me standing close to you while you swing that massive hammer of yours after you finished more than one mug of that lethal cider you brew.”

“Ya are a smart elf after all; are ya not?”

Before Pax could respond, their scout, Revion, called from ahead. “No sign of werewolves, Pax, and I believe this area would provide enough room for the extension. I do believe we are far enough out.”

“It has been three years since we heard their howling last. Let us hope they have left our land for good.” The Head Elf trotted out to meet Revion, his golden hair snapping like a whip in the fierce wind. “I think you are correct, My Friend. This space should do nicely. Good work. It is as if you can summon blueprints from inside that head of yours.” He turned back to the small group behind him. “Everyone else,” he shouted, competing with the screeching wind, “come. We need to dig down under the snow to see how far the permafrost extends. That will tell us what kind of equipment we will need and whether we must spell them to aid our efforts.”

“Break out the silver shovels, Glennodad. We may as well get to it.” Whurdin helped the young elf disengage the large backpack crowded with shovels half the size a human would wield.

“Landion, head to the outer edge of the perimeter until you find yourself in line with the edge of the workshop; you should be able to locate it with a simple tracking spell. We need to cover the farthest point where the addition will be constructed under the ice. Dig down as far as you are able.” Pax clapped the stout elf on the back. “Those broad shoulders of yours should serve you well.” His fellow emerald elf nodded almost imperceptibly before becoming random swirls of green and gold in the swirling snow. “Everyone else spread out at random from this point to the one Landion takes up. We will try our best to see what kind of excavation we have on our hands.”

The group scattered across the vast space destined to become a second kitchen and additional toy-making workshop—the add-ons were becoming a regular occurrence as the world’s population of children grew. Pax shouldered his own shovel and made his way to the center of the proposed site. He was an elf who liked to lead by example. For the dig, he would be relying only on his substantial muscles to do his work. Elves could only call upon a certain amount of magic in a given span, afterward, requiring time, rest and good food to replenish their stores. One never knew what kind of emergency might demand the necessity for magic. Digging an exploratory hole was not one of those times. Additionally, the chance to exert his muscles beyond the customary workout they received during the many hours of toy-making he found most welcome. Every part of him below his shoulders had disappeared down into his progress when he heard the shout.

“Pax! Come quickly!” That was Landion calling out to him.

“What is it, Pax?” Whurdin called from several hundred feet away.

The impressive solidity of the dwarf was a welcome sight as he ran toward the emerald elf. Pax felt uneasy about his friend’s panic-edged tone. “Come with me, Friend Dwarf. We shall discover Landion’s cause for alarm together.”

As the pair sprinted through the rapidly-falling snow, dodging the digging efforts of the other elves, Pax noticed Landion backing away frantically from the hole he’d been digging. In his haste, the bulkier elf’s boots slipped on the ice beneath, and he fell backward, sprawling across the snow while his arms continued the battle to place his body farther away from the icy pit he’d dug.

“Landion, whatever is the matter, Friend?” Pax rushed to kneel by his side, while Whurdin extended a stout arm to help the scrambling elf climb to his feet.

“It-it…one of the fallen!”

“What?” Pax breathed out into the icy air, stumbling back himself before he regained his balance and edged over to the gaping pit—Landion’s broad shoulders had indeed served him well as it was double the size of the one Pax had dug. “Megildur,” he whispered. Whurdin caught the grief enveloping the single word. After Landion was up and about, he tread lightly to Pax’s side.

“What the hell?” he gasped in surprise. “I mean no disrespect, but is that a dead elf?”

“It grieves me to say it is. One of the fallen from the were-deer attack.”

“But was that fateful day not more than four centuries ago? Should that body now be little more than bones? And what is that green goop splashed all o’er him?”

Pax stared down at the corpse of his beloved friend, his mouth stretched in a solemn line. “The cold slows the decomposition—the weather really does not warm up here—as well as the magic lingering in the tissues. As for the green… What is that?”

“That brand of green is like nothin’ I ever saw before. It appears to glow, like one of yer Christmas lights.”

Mostly recovered from his state of shock, Landion had come to stand between them and peered down into the hole as well. “I do not remember burying the bodies this close to the workshop.”

“I should have made sure we distanced ourselves farther from their graves.”

“You could not have known, Dear Friend,” Landion replied. “You were still healing from your wounds when we buried the fallen. Even I believed the gravesites to lie well beyond this point, and I served as one of the gravediggers during that tragic time.” He narrowed his eyes, keen elven sight slicing through the wind-driven snowflakes. “Curious… My eyes can find not one gravestone, and the snow has not fallen of a depth which would bury them beyond sight.”

“Hold up, Pax, Landion. There lies somethin’ more down in that grave with yer poor, departed friend. “See that bit of yellow off to the side, there? And that green gunk is leakin’ out from there. Can you tell what that thing might be, Pax? You have seen more of the outside world than most of us.”

Pax moved into the dwarf’s line of sight, peering over his massive shoulder. “I can only see that end broken free from the ice. Hmmm, yellow, metal… I do believe it to be one of those barrels the humans store things in.”

“Did Santa not tell us to stray far from such things if ever we happened upon one? I seem to recall him saying the humans store their most harmful concoctions in metal barrels.”

“He did, indeed, Landion.”

“There be somethin’ else atop that barrel. Look down there in that corner. I can see a blur of colors through the ice. Somethin’ is amiss, here. Somethin’s always amiss when it comes to those humans.”

“Now, Whurdin, many of the humans are quite lovely… Say, what are you up to? I do not think…” Pax initiated his warning too late. The impulsive dwarf had already launched himself from the precipice of the deep hole, landing with a gruff growl near the barrel’s iced-over end. “Careful, Whurdin. Take care not to touch any of that green ooze. Perhaps, you should climb back up until we better know what we are dealing with.”

“Silly elf! How can we know without a little investigatin’?” Thick arms drew his battle-axe—strapped to his body even as he slept—from beneath the thick fur of his cloak and rounded on the ice with enough force to shatter the entire sheet shielding the lower half of the barrel.

“Oh no…” Uttered simultaneously from Pax and Landion. Other of their kin had begun to crowd around the pair, curious to see what Landion had exhumed.

“Is that…” one of the silver elves began.

“The lot of you get back to the workshop,” Pax commanded, hoping to quell a panic. “Inform Santa we have an…emergency. No! Do not approach and do not peer down into the hole. Until we have a better idea about what happened here, I need everyone to keep clear. Scatter now! Fetch Santa as I requested.”

The party turned back toward the warmth and safety of the workshop—none hesitantly—excluding Landion.

“Are you not going with them?” Pax asked his friend.

“I already saw the horror the bottom of that hole holds, including that second body lying atop that barrel. But how… We buried them so reverently, so carefully.”

Whurdin pitched the head of his axe down solidly into the ice and rested his folded arms on the base of the wide handle. “I can tell ya what I believe happened. The ice here does shift durin’ the brief summer, and o’er the surrounding land where the temperatures warm, the ice is going to reposition itself—even inside this little ever-winter bubble you created for yerselves. The outside is gonna affect the inside—the law of nature. Now, when that ice shifted in past years, it carried that there barrel along under the permafrost and into yer elven gravesites. Tore yer dead right out of their restin’ spots and brought them here.”

Pax nodded, his face somber. “Your theory is a sound one, Friend Dwarf.”

“We have to return our friends to their blessed resting places, Pax!” Landion moved toward the hole as though determined to join Whurdin inside.

Gripping the other elf’s arm with pressure inviting no argument, Pax halted the sandy-haired elf’s progress. “We cannot collect their bodies until we know more about the substance leaking from the barrel. Both of them are coated with it, and the stuff could prove poisonous to the living. I do know humans make special suits to protect their bodies from such toxins. I will consult Santa.”

“Breaks my heart to leave them lying in that hole like that, open to the wind…or the werewolves if they were to return.” Landion didn’t fight Pax’s unyielding grasp. He merely hung his head and stared morosely at his unearthed kin, knowing in his heart his friend’s decision to protect the living elves was the wisest one to make.

“Okay, easy now,” Pax advised as he and Alassë—both clad in clunky radiation suits—opened the pair of radiation-safe body bags inside the lead-lined concrete chamber the north half of the infirmary had been modified to include. Santa and Whurdin peered in from behind the safety of the lead glass window. The cleaning of the dead would involve as few live bodies inside the radiation-safe room as possible—and those live bodies had been willing volunteers. Santa had been the first to do so, but not only did the elves refuse to risk his well-being, elven law also dictated that elven hands must be the only ones to prepare the bodies of their fallen brothers and sisters. Pax had explained the danger of deviating from his people’s custom; mishandling of the bodies meant that the souls of their dead might not move on to DúEryn, the forests of the afterlife for Pax and his pixie-mixed kin. So dogged was Pax’s belief that he feared the two long-deceased elves they had discovered could have their souls snatched back from their century-long peace in the eternal woods if any but elvenkind were to lay hands on them.

“Their bodies should have had adequate time to thaw by now so we can remove the human’s contamination. We will wipe them down with the Radiacwash™ wipes to remove the green goop and then wash down their bodies with your soap made from lavender, cedar and sage—but only after the radioactive material has been thoroughly cleared away,” Pax instructed his female counterpart. The golden elf only nodded in return. One of the desecrated bodies had belonged to her sister, Nithiel, and Pax felt wounded by the gleam of honey-colored tears his living friend refused to let fall.

“Wonder what that goo is?” Whurdin whispered to Santa as they watched the pair of elves, their grief for their fallen renewed, clear away the smears and globs of radioactive waste. That the fluorescent-green substance was radioactive remained the extent of their knowledge regarding its composition. Once the barrel had been completely cleared from the ice, no label or paperwork had been attached to it announcing its contents…or the documents had been long lost to its icy burial ground. The only marking to be found upon the glaring yellow paint had been a black skull-and-crossbones—the universal symbol for poison—painted over the traditional trefoil symbol for radiation. Why the two had been superimposed, no one could deduce. No amount of research or query by Santa with his contacts in the human world had gained the workshop family any further knowledge. The closest they had come to an identification had been in an email from a distant cousin of Nikolaus’ who’d worked in a nuclear power plant. He’d written: Usually, the symbols are stenciled on separately. Sometimes the government will put some crazy symbols on their really dangerous, experimental shit. Must be some extremely lethal stuff. Santa wasn’t taking any chances. The entire enchanted area miles around the workshop would be excavated and explored once their current situation had been rectified and he’d brought in the appropriate equipment.

“We might be better off not knowing what the hell it is,” Santa responded. He lowered his eyes from the large window when Alassë began to strip away Nithiel’s goo-soaked garments, as did Whurdin, roses blooming on the bit of cheek exposed above his impressive white beard.

“Perhaps, we should check on the progress of the doll-makers?” the dwarf suggested.

His tall friend clapped him on the back, knowingly. “I understand it’s uncomfortable, My Friend, but I feel we must remain close by in case anything should go wrong. I want to be able to get those two out of there quickly if the need should arise.”

“Shouldn’ ya put on one of them fancy suits then?”

Santa chuckled, a dark-edged sound. “With speed like mine, who needs a clumsy suit? It would likely only slow me down.”

Whatever words Whurdin had opened his mouth to say were swept away on the tide of Alassë’s scream. The pair’s efforts to exercise discretion was forgotten as both turned back toward the glass.

“What the hell?!” Whurdin thundered, disbelief driving his voice up an octave.

“W-w-what is happening?” There wasn’t much in the world that could make a vampire, especially one as old as Santa, stumble over his words.

Beyond the thick, lead-lined door and its ample window, both Alassë and Pax struggled…with Alassë’s sister!

“Pax! Look out!” Santa roared, slamming his palm against the door in rapid succession, making the supports at the top groan like they felt pain. “Behind you!” He pointed wildly. Megildur had risen from his own table, rapidly approaching Pax’s back, green-and-black tinged teeth snapping apart and together in a mindless, chaotic rhythm while his milky eyes floated about in the bloody sea of his sclera, focusing on nothing.

But Pax’s focus was directed on Nithiel…out of necessity. The elf, supposedly dead for more than four centuries, tore at the arms of the thick yellow suits with ferocity, but it was her teeth which ripped through the sturdy material as though it were made of nothing more than substantial than gauze.

“I need to get in there,” Nikolaus shouted, reaching for the emergency door-release with his fingertips, as he didn’t trust his broad palm to leave the mechanism intact. He burst through the entrance before the door had cleared the open space, leaving a shoulder-shaped dent at the bottom of the metal as it rose. “Pax!” he called out, tackling his friend as gently as he could manage under the circumstances. He removed his friend from the dead elf’s attack path, sending the fetid corpse to sprawl and slide across the spot where Pax had stood a slice of a second before, leaving a trail of displaced skin and chunks of gore in its wake.

“Thank you, Old Friend.” Pax’s voice sounded muffled behind the suit’s mask. Remembering Alassë’s plight, he sprang to his feet immediately. He and Santa rounded the table on opposite sides, each wrestling one of Nithiel’s arms to the metal surface. The decomposed state of her face nearly forced Pax to recoil in horror. One eye socket, as empty as a scooped-clean melon hull, drew his gaze into its bone-rimmed darkness. When he tore his eyes away, they settled on the unsettling sight of rotted-away cheek, through which he observed her molars, caked with her own decaying flesh, gnashing together with such force that cracks began to zigzag along their faces. Pax started to worry that those foul, death-encrusted teeth had sunk into his friend’s flesh—and what the consequence of such a mishap might be.

“Alassë, are you wounded?” Pax queried, calling to her over his shoulder.

“No, she only tore through my suit.”

“Get out of here!” he commanded. “You too, Santa.”

“We are all getting out of here,” the vampire growled. Scooping up Pax with such speed the world spun before the elf’s eyes, his boss cleared the room—gathering Alassë under his free arm as he ran—before the living-dead Nithiel could register their withdrawal. Her arms still fought against absent hands, teeth snapping at empty air.

When the trio cleared the door, they rushed past the stocky frame of Whurdin, who had buried the edge of his mithril-tipped battle-axe into the dent hollowed out by Santa’s burly shoulder—which had wedged awkwardly into the top-feed locking mechanism. Whurdin had punched the button to initiate the door’s descent, knowing how quickly Santa and his charges would end up on the outside with him. The repeating whiiiir-click-clang, whiiiiir-click-clang coming from above his head had initially alerted him to the door’s impeded progress.

Santa’s attention focused at that moment on the sleeve of Alassë’s radiation suit, ensuring her skin had remained unbroken under the assault of her sister’s tissue-encrusted teeth. “We have no idea what a bite from one of them might do, given their current state.”

“Santa! I cannot close the door. The damned thing is stuck, and I need yer help!”

Nikolaus reached the struggling dwarf’s side in a blur of movement. Powerful fingers latched onto the base of the door, prepared to wrench the warped slab free. Movement below them drew the pair’s eyes as the hand of the crawling elf corpse locked around Santa’s ankle like a vice. The knobby ridges seeking to, unsuccessfully, bite through his vampiric flesh told Nikolaus stretches of bone had broken through the grey-green skin of the fingers. Vampires were filled with too much leftover life to feel any kinship with dead things… Involuntarily, Santa shook his leg violently in a desperate attempt to rid his body of the reanimated death encircling his limb.

“Begone, foul creature,” he thundered, slinging his leg frantically from side to side. He cringed inwardly a moment later, hoping he hadn’t offended either of the elves, who watched the scene unfold with fear-widened eyes at his back. A sharp crack struck the air as the creature’s radius and ulna snapped free from the hand, the decaying flesh ripping apart like overripe fruit under greedy fingers. The reanimated corpse whipped into the far corner of the room nearest the entrance, but his bony digits remained tightly coiled about Santa’s ankle. Sanguine fluid, spoiled black, puddled atop the toe cap of Santa’s black boot prompting him to curl his full lips back in disgust—vampires were notoriously-clean creatures—the offensive stench of the dark pool permeating the skulls of every living being in the room.

“Whurdin! Get it off me!” Santa extended his ankle toward the dwarf in a panic, proving even vampires could harbor fear.

Just as his friend’s thick fingers closed fearlessly around the scaphoid bone of the discarded hand, Whurdin fell backward, fooling Santa in the short span of seconds into thinking he still fought to pry the offending, death-gripping appendage away… But then the dwarf began to swat fervidly over his shoulder while roaring, “Get off me! I say; get off me, ya damned ghoul.”

“Whurdin!” Pax sprang from where he’d been deposited on the ground, concern for the friend he’d come to love pumping fire into his muscles.

Santa whirled, the distress brought on by skeletal shackles forgotten when he caught sight of Nithiel’s green-and-black-smeared teeth cresting over Whurdin’s burly shoulder. “Whur…” His cry of alarm ended with a hiss of relief when those decrepit teeth missed their mark, sinking into—and denting significantly—Whurdin’s silver-plated armor until he winced at the bite of metal against his skin, preferable, though, to the ill-fated alternative.

Before Nikolaus could offer his aid, Pax’s bulky, suit-clad body sailed past, his shoulder acting as battering ram against Whurdin’s attacker. The pair crashed amidst the metal lengths of examination-table legs, the glass front of Pax’s facemask cracking as it bore the full brunt of the pair’s forceful landing.

“Pax, get out of there!” Santa shouted, his fingers reaching toward the deformed base of the door once more. “I want to try and trap her inside.” The puffy yellow form remained motionless on the floor, Nithiel’s jaws chomping together on mouthfuls of the hide-like material, still-sharp teeth beginning to rip through the area covering the unconscious elf’s shoulder. “Pax? Pax!” Before he sped across the room, Santa said to Whurdin, “If I cannot get that door down soon the entire workshop could be contaminated. As soon as I grab Pax, we need to toss him back…” He inclined his head toward the corpse struggling to stand near the far corner. “…and lock both of these monsters inside. We will have to figure out what to do next once the immediate danger has been sufficiently contained.”

“Perhaps I should bolt the main door to keep out any…”

“What is going on in here?”

The ugly bang of metal crashing against stone reverberated off the walls, and Whurdin whirled to find, much to his dismay, Suzibelle, who must have been drawn to the room by the repetitious clang of the trapped door trying to free itself. “Oh no,” he muttered under his breath as he moved in her direction. “Suzibelle, ya cannot be in here, Lass. We have ourselves a bit of a situation from which yer gonna wanna steer clear.”

As he finished his sentence and her brain fought to make sense of his words, the movement of the figure rising along the wall, coupled with the anguished moan slipping through cracked olive-green lips, stole her attention away.

“Is—is that a z-z-zombie?” The voice, broken apart by heady fear came from behind the emerald elf who stood frozen by terror just inside the doorway.

“And things just keep goin’ from bad to worse,” Whurdin muttered under a hefty sigh. “Sophie, git back to yer chamber! Run away, Little One, this instant.”

Having regained his footing, the zombie-elf extended the bony termination of his arm in the advancing dwarf’s direction. Far out of reach, Whurdin didn’t slow his pace until writhing, neon-green tendrils shot forward from the living corpse’s arm, lengthening until they reached his location, halfway across the room. Stout forearms rose to protect his face, but the only touch Whurdin felt was the rush of disturbance in the air around him as the wiry lengths—Megildur’s veins coursing and dripping with the strange waste from the barrel, he realized—raced past him. Their mission was not to bring him harm but to retrieve the creature’s lost limb. Goo-filled blood vessels wound their way through the bared tendons and bones of the wrist jutting out from Santa’s ankle. His rescue mission already accomplished, Santa stood locked in place by disbelief as the reanimated elf laid claim to his missing body part. Nikolaus’ eyes fixed on Whurdin’s—both filled with disbelief—as the wormlike extensions retracted, delivering Megildur’s hand back to his arm.

“Well, so much for the hope the corpses might fall apart due to rot!” Whurdin’s husky voice exclaimed as he recovered from his fleeting state of shock.

“That IS a zombie.” Sophie’s voice hitched up an octave to shrill as she sidestepped her mother’s immobile body.

“Soph—“ Suzibelle began, suddenly sorry she’d let the girls stream The Walking Dead on a laptop, but the command directed at her daughter cut off in a jarring scream when Megildur’s head snapped around, wobbly on the half-exposed bones of his neck, ice-colored irises fixating on her form. He sprang, faster than any long-dead thing should’ve been able, pinning her to the floor while his filthy incisors snapped hungrily at the rounded tip of her nose.

“Mother!” Sophie shrieked; fur, teeth, nails and ears elongating as her preternatural senses sparked with adrenaline rush. She leapt onto the attacker’s back before Whurdin could reach the trio and yank her away from peril.

He called out to her anyway, however ineffectually. “Sophie, no!”

Santa moved forward at human-sprint speed in an attempt to avoid shaking the unconscious Pax any more than necessary. Both he and Whurdin halted at the sound of the sharp crack, the same noise made by the pines father south when a heavy snow snapped a thick branch. But the break had occurred in the middle of the zombie-elf’s spine, causing his abdomen to plummet at an impossible angle.

“Get off my momma!” Sophie squealed, digging her slender fingers into the incapacitated fiend’s shoulders. Rearing up and back with extraordinary were-elf strength, Sophie managed to pry Megildur from her mother’s body. After tumbling backward over the tile floor, the young elf ending up in the compromised position under the flailing, gasping zombie-elf. Luckily, his movements had been compromised when his spine snapped, because the back of Sophie’s skull connected with the stone tile, the sharp crack, driving Suzibelle’s panic to the boiling point as she watched her daughter slip into unconsciousness.

Santa lowered his oldest friend gently to the floor as the golden-haired elf screamed her daughter’s name, his eyes snapping up to find another impossibility unfolding before them. Just as they had when his arm had reattached, worm-like tendrils, their neon-green color stark under the surface of the long-dead elf’s pallid skin, worked at the break in his spine, knitting bone and cartilage back together. Megildur’s body stiffened and then straightened in an exaggerated manner, relaxing less than a minute later after the radioactive-charged vessels in his body repaired the catastrophic damage his body had suffered. When Santa realized the zombie had regained full use of his limbs, he moved too-little-too-late toward young Sophie.

Whurdin’s pine-colored eyes stretched full in horror as he watched the blur of red and white he knew to be Santa rush past only to reach Sophie’s limp form a microsecond after both upper and lower sets of rot-coated teeth tore through the red satin of Sophie’s nightdress and into the vulnerable flesh of her shoulder. Santa was careful not to rip the zombie free as impulse was driving him to do, lest the embedded teeth carried away a large chunk of skin and muscle as they broke away. After drawing back his elbow and releasing a vampire-powered punch to the side of the zombie-elf’s head—while his other hand cradled the opposite side to keep the bite from tearing away—bones and teeth alike shattered as if made of glass. The latter sprayed down in a shower of enamel and blackened flesh tinged with toxic green. Whurdin shuddered as the side of the corpse’s face sunk inward, the fragmented cheekbone and eye socket lacking enough integrity to hold the crimson-marbled orb in place. It slid lazily down the length of wasted cheek, dangling at the end of a rotting jumble of nerve and muscle like some ghoulish disco ball…until the neon wisps reached down to drag the eyeball back to its former position.

With more than half the bite’s weaponry missing, Nikolaus pried the zombie’s ruined mouth away with ease, tossing him back into the far corner by the door. Suzibelle, recovered from her fall and the wave of panic which had overtaken her, scuttled to her child’s side on all fours, her hands fluttering around the wound, peeling away cloth and blotting at the blood which continued to pool in the double horseshoe ring of ragged indentations.

“Santa,” she cried in alarm, pointing a shaky finger at the bite mark. Jagged black lines bled across the pale surface of Sophie’s skin, each haloed by a thin ring of red—infection setting in at an alarming rate.

“Dammit,” Santa muttered, gloom infiltrating every recess of his silent heart at the thought of putting Sophie down out of necessity. “Whurdin, would you be so kind as to carry Pax to my personal chamber and secure him, along with Alassë and my wife, behind the bolted door?” Even though both of them were vampire, he wouldn’t risk Willa to suffer a bite if the situation spiraled out of his control.

“But ya may need my…”

“PLEASE, Whurdin?” The need in his eyes negated any argument the dwarf might have raised.

“Alright, alright,” the stout creature huffed as he tossed Pax’s immobile body over his shoulder. Alassë latched onto his bicep in a state of distraught shock, the sight of her dead sister reanimated as monster too devastating for her fragile state of mind to fully process. She stumbled blindly behind the dwarf as he led her suited form, the facemask fogged over by the force of her sobbing, from the room.

Santa’s preternatural gaze fixed on the point over his shoulder where Nithiel, fully recovered from Pax’s crushing tackle, stalked the living sequestered in the room, poisonous green flashing in a ring around irises stripped of color by death. “Go,” he commanded in a voice reinforced by steel. Whurdin obeyed without question.

New problems presented themselves at the door to the room in the form of woodshop workers from across the hall shortly after Whurdin had disappeared. “Wha-wha-what happened?” Erynion, the night shift supervisor, stammered as he stumbled hesitantly into the room.

“Ery, get out of here!” Santa called to him, his stance protective above Sophie.

“Santa,” Suzibelle called to him again. Only this time, a twinge of hope edged her voice. The scarlet flare edging her daughter’s wounds had receded, pulling back inside the black vines crisscrossing her exposed shoulder.

“She is fighting the infection. The were-elf blood flowing through her veins may prove to be her salvation during this trial. Ery, come and assist Suzibelle in carrying Sophie back to her chamber…and move her sisters into their mother’s room.”

“Right away, Santa,” Ery promised. He lifted Sophie’s slight shoulders, her tiny body not much of a burden, while his counterpart, Calanon, lifted her feet. The woodshop toy-builder was swept off his own when Nithiel lunged after sneaking up behind the small group, sinking teeth littered with the remains of death into his throat.

“No!” Santa roared, turning and sweeping the undead she-elf away with the back of his hand. But he knew it was too late for Calanon, who’d sunk to the floor, his hand falling from the gaping wound in his neck and sending a torrent of blood to splatter and pool across the tiles and stain the white grouting. Worse yet, Santa’s well-intended reaction had sent Calanon’s attacker spinning through the air and then along the earth-toned tiles…into the workshop across the hall. The ensuing screams called her companion in death from his rising crouch on the other side of the doorframe.

Panic swelled in every cell making up Santa’s body, his mind whispering reminders about protecting the fate of the many even if doing so meant the forfeiture of the few, a thorny truth for Santa, who loved each elf as if they were his own progeny. The impossible choice was ripped away from him as Calanon gurgled out his last blood-misted breath, despite the clamp of Santa’s hand over his wound like a vice. Before he rose to help the others, the heartbroken vampire watched the last of the light recede from the silver orbs of the lifeless elf in his arms.

“How many do ya reckon got away?” Whurdin queried, his tone touched by alarm.

“I had to put down nine.” Nikolaus’ voice was hollowed out by grief. “But while trying to keep Suzibelle and Sophie safe, at least six escaped the workshop. I just cannot believe it. Just like those nightmarish television shows and movies the humans make. A bite from one of the…zombies…” He choked on the word. “…and the bitten die, returning in short time to become one of the monsters themselves.”

Whurdin cocked one shaggy eyebrow at a ridiculous angle and let out a weak chuckle. “Disbelief in zombies comin’ from a vampire?”

“I suppose you have a point. And the humans can concoct poisons that register on a catastrophic level. They are even foolish enough to do it with their foodstuffs.” The pair rounded the corner at the end of the main electronics assembly line –at a standstill for the first time in history since all remaining elves in the shop had been sequestered inside their sleeping chambers.

“How fares the wee one?”

“It’s touch-and-go for the moment. The fever and infection abate but then come charging back through her little body with a vengeance. Is it not funny that, had the werewolves failed to attack, we would have lost her by now, as well?”

“I suppose it must be true everythin’ happens for a reason.”

“Of that, Old Friend, I cannot be sure.” He hung his head sorrowfully. “When I found Willa and was able to save her this time, I thought all the good we tried to spread over the centuries had paid for all my sins, but the recent past makes me wonder if this workshop and all its inhabitants have been cursed.”

Whurdin remained silent, and Nikolaus knew which sin he was mulling over inside that dwarven brain of churning iron and steel.

“No matter,” he blurted out before Whurdin could give voice to Santa’s folly. “The task at hand remains the capture of the infected elves and to put them out of their misery…before they can infect anyone else.”

“But will the zombies not just freeze out there on the tundra?”

“My own…er, not-exactly-living…flesh became quite impervious to the cold. As long as they keep their bodies moving, I have the feeling that green ooze poisoning them will not freeze. We cannot take the risk there may be fishermen or campers in close proximity to the edge of our spelled borders. The enchantment keeps mortals from venturing inside, but its magic cannot keep the zombies from wandering outside.”

“By the way, how did the new zombie recruits come to have that toxic waste in their systems too?” Whurdin asked.

“Passed to them through the bites. I saw the green pooling in the marks, and their blood vessels sucked it up and carried it inside. Stopped their hearts in mere minutes. The stuff seems to be able to repair any wound or loss of limb…other than the brain. When that piece of them is destroyed, the poison appears to lose its control center. If the goo did not strip away life, it might serve as a medical miracle. When half of poor Vanya’s torso was eaten away…”

Whurdin ground his eyelids together and lifted his burly hand in protest. “Arrrrr, spare me the gory details. Just knowin’ the dead walk and hunger for the flesh of their own livin’ kin is horror enough.”

“Agreed,” Santa conceded. Both allowed the incomplete peace of silence to envelop them as they made their way to the far end of the main manufacturing floor and rounded the corner on the elves chosen to make up the hunting party.

“Pax, are you certain you feel up to such an expedition? You only awoke a couple of hours ago. To be honest, I would feel better were you to remain here looking after everyone at the workshop.”

Pax shook his head, his expression resolute. “No, Santa. That our defiled kin are laid to rest by their own kind remains a necessity. I feel I must be present to ensure their spirits are moved on to the afterlife without fail.”

“I understand, Old Friend. I was sure this would be your answer, but I only have your good health in mind.” He settled his massive hand, inherited from Viking DNA, over Pax’s shoulder in a gesture of goodwill and comfort. “Whurdin, would you mind to accompany the elves on this perilous quest—but only to observe unless needed, should a dire situation arise. I hate to ask such a dangerous favor…”

“Ya could not keep me here if ya chained me to one of them candy-cane-striped steel supports. I be guessin’ ya will stay behind to keep an eye on the wee one.”

“That I will, Whurdin.” His hand traveled to clap the armor-encased shoulder gratefully before pulling the dwarf into his embrace and whispering. “Keep them safe…even if that means doing what you must, no matter how much Pax may disapprove.”

“Ya musta read my mind, Lad.”

“Tis a cryin’ shame this magical barrier of yers cannot keep the storms at bay!” Whurdin shouted at Pax, hoping he could be heard over the shrieking of the snow-swirled wind.

The emerald elf chuckled without humor before he answered. “The barrier’s purpose is to render Santa’s Workshop invisible to curious eyes. No elf alive would dare mess with the mechanisms of Mother Nature.”

“Well, perhaps, ya should strike up a deal with her sometime soon. That arctic wind is cuttin’ me right to the bone. Revion!” he shouted with even more force, hoping the scout would hear. “Should we not be gettin’ close to the edge of workshop’s boundary?” When the golden head whipped around in response, he added, “Have ya caught sight of anythin’ at all?”

Abandoning his post at the head of the small group, Revion braved the gusts flying in his face to make his way to the dwarf’s side, the shine of his golden eyes a spasm of pained nostalgia in Whurdin’s gut for the winter-shrouded sun. “I have not caught a glimpse of the missing elves yet, Master Dwarf, but I did spot a fishing trawler anchored close to the shore.”

Whurdin shielded his eyes, unsuccessfully, from the large dancing flakes in an attempt to see the boat Revion had spoken of, but, sharp as his vision had always been…the damned elf’s was far superior. He couldn’t even make out the dark lip of the shoreline. “I suppose ya can tell me what color the vessel is too, eh Lad?”

“Blue with a red stripe painted approximately two feet below the deck.”

“I did not actually… Oh, never mind,” the dwarf muttered, ignoring the confused slant to Revion’s expression. “We should press on ahead to the periphery of the bubble this place rests inside. See if we can tell whether a ruckus kicked up on board that boat of yers while we all try to remain outta sight. What do ya think, Pax?”

“I say that sounds like a prudent course of action. Revion, lead the way to the barrier’s edge, please.”

The scout’s flaxen hair mingled briefly with coiling eddies of falling snowflakes as he nodded his assent before loping back into place at the head of the pack.

The group hadn’t progressed much further before he called back to them in a voice excited by fear, “There’s blood on the water!”

Pax and Whurdin ran forward from their positions flanking the party’s rear to join him. That time, the dwarf’s eyes beheld the same sheen of crimson, spreading across the surface of the waves to stain their frothy caps beneath the muted light of the wintry sky that Revion’s had spotted. Fresh blood streamed down the side of the hull to add to the volume of gore tainting the waves peeking up among the large chunks of ice holding the fishing-boat’s hull captive. A miniature mountain of ice shaped like a baby glacier floated by, a fresh spurt of scarlet coloring its apex. Whurdin thought it resembled a gruesome version of one the strawberry snow-cones, young Sophie so fondly cherished—a treat her mother often employed as a bribe when the young elf sought to abandon her chores. The dwarf’s thoughts shifted away from the grisly comparison his mind had just made, back to the workshop where the young girl lay battling the mysterious virus, about which he wished they knew more. Did Sophie yet live? If so, would she fully recover?

“What should we do?” Landion asked, shifting the elf-sized broadsword—his weapon of choice—so that its gold-filigree-embellished handle hung within easier reach and snapping Whurdin’s thoughts back to the present. “There are likely to be humans aboard that vessel.”

“Judgin’ by that there pool of blood atop the brine, the humans navigatin’ that tub are likely no longer breathin’.”

“But, Whurdin,” Landion responded, “are we truly willing to take such a risk? Elves in the middle of the Arctic, clothed as we prefer to be, year-round, in attire which celebrates the spirit of Christmas… Dangerous assumptions will be made.”

Whurdin pinched the wide bridge of his bulbous nose with thumb and forefinger. “And ya do not think the sight of the same in zombie form would cause a brouhaha?”

“Excellent point, Friend Dwarf,” Pax interjected, attempting, futilely, to keep the hint of amusement from his tone. “We must exercise diligence in our search for the infected who escaped. None must be allowed to reach any area populated by humans.”

“Could they, though?” Revion questioned. “What I mean to ask is whether the zombies can swim?”

“If they cannot, I would really like to know how they ended up on that boat. Surely, the monsters cannot fly!” Whurdin exclaimed.

As if in answer to the scout’s question, another fair head—stained by lingering traces of blood—rose above the frigid waters. Stretching forward arms stripped of flesh in half a dozen places, the zombie-elf drew her battered body onto one of the slabs of ice connecting the water to the shore.

As the party tensed into attack stances in reaction to the growling corpse’s approach, Whurdin reasoned aloud, “Well, that one rose up from the water, which means they can at least navigate the sea floor beneath the waves…and I would assume that to be bad news for anyone across the drink. That be one of six, Lads and Lasses. Shall we offer her the peace she deserves and hasten to the other five? The quicker we can return and share a mug of cider before the hearth. Toast our honored dead.”

“Agreed,” Pax answered, the tension in his muscles worming up to touch his tone and pair with the grief. None would have wished such a ghastly fate on a sworn enemy, much less one of their beloved kin. “I will take care of this one,” he finished in a whisper heard by the entire party. All recognized the undead elf to be Meldamiriel, Pax’s beloved first cousin. She had been caught unaware by the zombie attack, her attention focused intently on the wooden caboose she’d been painting, her love for the children who received her gifts evident in the careful details created thousands of times over by her brush. Pax kissed the tip of a golden-headed arrow before drawing it tight against the string of his bow. Whurdin knew he had done so to spell the weapon, to ensure it offered a final death free of any pain. Tears filled the eyes of all present as the instrument of her demise flew true to its target, each remembering moments they had shared with the kind-hearted elf whose life was stolen away far in an untimely manner. A black pool of spoiled blood left behind on the ice was that remained of her legacy after her body slipped away beneath the surface of the Denmark Strait.

“We had best make haste to that tug, Pax,” Whurdin said softly, his tone apologetic. “We do not know how many of yer kin escaped over the edge as Meldamiriel did. We can send divers to try and recover her body after our mission is done.”

“Of course,” the emerald elf responded, the prismatic light drained from his eyes, leaving flat green discs, devoid of emotion, within his face. He stalked across the befouled stretch of frozen seawater. Whurdin fell into step behind him, determined to prevent any distracted misstep which might send his friend sinking to the wintry depths of the ocean floor.

“No sign of living humans aboveboard on the deck,” Revion reported, his approach so silent both Pax and Whurdin started in response. “Sorry,” he mouthed, grinning sheepishly.

“I believe it is high time we go below board, then,” Whurdin growled, agitated by the tell of his fright. Zombie elves were not an element with which to trifle. Zombie anything, really.

“It is likely that when things went wrong, the humans collected in one of two places,” Pax said. “The bridge or the engine room. They would need both navigation and propulsion.”

“Makes perfect sense,” Dauglewen replied. “Exactly the strategy I would employ…were I a sailor.”

“Very good,” he responded. She was their most fierce and cunning warrior, and he trusted her judgment wholeheartedly. “You and the other elves explore the bridge. Whurdin, Landion and I will check out the engine room, though I do not suspect we will find any living humans in either space…nor anywhere else on this vessel.”

“Try to find the crew roster while ya are snoopin’ about up there. We need to know how many humans boarded this tug and account for every one of em’…along with the elves.”

“Will do,” the female warrior replied, the tips of her silver locks seeming to slice the air as she whirled and retreated toward the bridge, a small group of armed elves sprinting close at her back.

“We had best get below.” Whurdin’s words flowed forth, weighing down his sigh.

“Lead the way, Friend Dwarf,” Pax responded, already falling into step behind him as he lumbered toward the steps leading through the processing area below deck and further down into the engine room.

As the group began to descend below the second level, the hull groaned, pitching forward and down—at nearly the same moment Whurdin heard the rush of incoming seawater below them. “Grab onto the rails!” he called in warning, one which sounded too late for Landion, who tumbled past his two friends into the flooded engine room beneath them.

“Landion, hold on,” Pax shouted down to him, as the burly elf fought valiantly to tread the frigid water rushing in through the jagged tear breaching the starboard side of the ship’s belly. Pax’s nimble steps took him down the slippery ladder with ease. When he arrived at the last one above the surface of the invading blue-grey water, Santa’s second in command lashed his body to the slender metal rail with the leather strap from his quiver, extending his hand into the freezing water as far as he could reach. “Landion, swim to me,” he commanded.

“Try to hurry it up, Lads!” Panic poured as thickly into Whurdin’s tone as the ocean did through the breach in the hull. “This tub’s takin’ on water and sinkin’ fast.”

“Got him!” Pax shouted in triumph as his fingers closed around Landion’s thick hand.

Whurdin hurried down to assist with hauling the heavily-muscled elf out of the icy grip of the watery trap. Heavily-calloused hands gripped Landion under both armpits and heaved upward with as much strength as the dwarf dared without toppling over into the water himself. Pax hoisted the other elf by the waistband of his green pants at the same time. Just as his knees were clearing the water’s surface, Landion’s body stiffened, his emerald eyes glazing over with pain as his body was pulled back toward the waves roaring past.

“Landion! What is it, Lad?”

“One of the zombie elves must be in the water with him, Whurdin! Please, Landion, tell me you have not been bitten,” Pax huffed out as he fought along with his dwarf friend to retrieve the elf’s body once again. A sizable cloud of blood pulsed out into the water as they lifted Landion free, a scream of agony ripping its way up his throat. As his torso slid past them, both his friends gasped at the sight of Landion’s leg—severed well above his knee, the edges of the wound ringed by tattered wisps of torn and bloody flesh, the splintered ends of bone a testament to the strength of the doomed elf’s attacker.

“I do not believe any of our zombies could have inflicted such a bite.” Whurdin’s whisper came out as ragged as the edges of Landion’s stumped limb. As he finished speaking, a sickly-grey-green triangle rose before them, parting the waters, appearing to easily hold its ground despite the turmoil and pull of the sea rushing around its base. “W-w-what in the seven h-hells…” Whurdin stammered.

The thick pyramid rose higher, seawater skimming down a pair of moon-pale eyes and a half-horseshoe of white dagger tips, their jagged edges caked with hunks of bloody meat Whurdin just knew had once been a part of Landion’s leg. The massive Great White was missing parts of its own body as well. The left pectoral fin had been chewed down to half its length, the remaining edges oozing dead-darkened blood. Enough of the creature’s skull had been eaten away on the opposite side to allow a peek at the grey lump of brain matter nestled within. As the shark revealed more of his body, rising at an eerily slow and controlled pace from the water, the hide behind his mangled fin came into view, revealing a long rope of bared backbone, a streaming length of intestine flapping outside his body like a displaced racing stripe peeling free from a stock car. Milky dead eyes focused on the trio, fired by a spark of intelligence—mixed with lethal menace—both elf and dwarf found most disconcerting.

“Is…is that a zombie-shark?” Pax demanded in a sharp tone born of unadulterated fear.

“I believe it is, Friend Elf. What might you suggest our next move to be?”

Pax’s eyes never left the hulking, twenty-foot-long monster looming halfway out of the water before them. “Move away…now!” Pax detected the flicker of intention in the milky iris half a second before the massive monster lunged, exponentially faster than his hulking form suggested he should be able.

Somewhere within the reasoning portion of his brain, Whurdin knew Landion’s life was forfeit. Still, the loyal dwarf gathered his friend’s body in his strong arms, foregoing any thoughts for his own safety, and tossed him with all his strength so that the injured elf landed to the left of the stairwell inside the processing area over their heads. Only then, his brain automatically shifting to self-preservation mode, did Whurdin attempt to retreat as Pax had advised. The dagger-tips scraped and dented his silver armor, but did not break through, as finely smithied as Whurdin’s armor had been by his own hand. But still, he fell… Fell through the deep and dim seawater bombarding the engine room of the ill-fated fishing vessel. When he opened his eyes, rows of teeth like hunting knives greeted him, above and below. Whurdin knew that even a miniscule scratch from one tooth, one which allowed the saliva to invade his bloodstream, would doom him to endless, mindless hunger for the flesh of the living…the flesh of his dearest friends.

One booted foot flew forward in desperation and struck home at the apex of the zombie-shark’s nose. It was the point he and his kin had always been trained to strike should they ever encounter one of the man-eaters…and, thankfully, the tactic worked. The shark dove, his first dorsal fin atop his back sweeping the dwarf farther into the depths, but the gigantic beast swam even further below, put off—for the moment—by the heavy blow Whurdin managed to deliver. Relief flooded through the dwarf as he watched the caudal fin—nearly double his own height—swish fervently beneath his feet before disappearing into the murky bowels of the drowning ship. Fighting both the violent current and the dragging weight of his armor, Whurdin fought his way toward the light which heralded the water’s end, his face breaking the surface the second his lungs refused to hold onto the air Whurdin had gasped in with surprise, any longer.

“Grab my hand, Whurdin!” Pax’s fingers were already fishing below the water trying to hook the dwarf’s flailing arm.

Panicked breath spluttered through thick, cupid-bow lips before Whurdin gathered his composure enough to cease his battle with the frothy churn of captured ocean around him, focusing his efforts on the lifeline Pax’s extended arm offered.

“Got you!” Pax exclaimed with relief, pulling with all the strength he could muster, his other arm wrapped through the railing and anchoring them to the metal stairs. “We need to get out of here before the water rises any higher…or that thing comes back.”

“Agreed,” Whurdin growled, hauling his upper torso out of the water. “Did ya see that mighty kick to the beast’s nose I…” The dwarf’s gravelly voice fell off to a surprised grunt, loud even over the roar of the sea racing into the large chamber.

Pax looked on in horror as his friend’s stout body rocketed into the open space above them, propelled forcefully from the water by the upward rush of the shark’s pistachio-fleshed body. A hunk of the gnawed edge surrounding the gaping wound which exposed his spine fell away as he sped upward in pursuit of his prey. Once Whurdin’s upward momentum had come to a halt, he hung, like a bearded star, for the briefest flicker of time…after which he fell between the cavernous jaws of the undead shark. Death-shrouded eyes rolled backward with terrible glee as the monster swallowed the brave dwarf whole.

“What is that over there?” Revion squeaked, fisting Dauglewen’s fur cloak into his hands. “I know I saw something move.”

Exasperated, Dauglewen jerked a shoulder forward, managing to break half her scout’s two-handed grip. “For the final time, Revion, give me some space. Do you believe I would be capable of fighting off attacking zombies with another elf attached to my person?”

“I-I s-suppose not.” He backed a reluctant two steps away as his companion crept stealthily toward the pair of feet extending from the edge of the opposite side of the control console.

“When did you lose your courage? It is always you scouting out in front of every search party we send, even when the wolves came.”

“The sight of that thing rising from the water… To actually lay eyes on one of our kin called back from the peaceful slumber of death, all the love stolen from her eyes, soulless... To think an elf would wish to harm another of her kind… The sight of such a thing unnerved me completely.” Revion stretched out slender fingers to grip the warrior’s cloak again but managed to stop himself.

“I understand; really I do, which is why we must rid the world of their existence entirely. Any creature so devoid of love, one who would turn on their own kin, is an abomination.” The last sentence floated free as feathery whisper as the small party of elves neared the unmoving black work boots.

“That had to be one of the humans,” Gwestiel, another of the warriors surmised, swiping a lock of ebony hair out of her silver eyes.

“How can you be certain?” Revion wondered aloud as he tore his eyes away from the corpse lying on the floor before them. *Half corpse,* his mind spat back at him, stating the gruesome obvious. The perfectly-intact legs ended at the thick band of black-leather belt…and that was all there was to the body unless one were to count the smear of blood, dark hair and globs of tissue scattered over the space the torso and head should’ve occupied.

“Have you ever laid eyes on an elf with legs of such length? Or one with such a drab sense of style?”

The plain work pants were the same black as the boots and belt, Revion noted after Gwestiel spoke. His brain spit forth his next ramble onto his tongue. “Do they eat the bones?”

“Stop worrying over such nonsense and prepare to fight,” Dauglewen hissed over her shoulder at him. “Do you hear that?”

The air around them grew so silent that Dauglewen felt certain each elf must have halted his or her breath. She broke the quiet nearly a minute later with her rough whisper. “The sound…is like the clatter of rocks, as if someelf were holding a rock in each hand and knocking one against the other.”

As she finished her sentence, the bow of the vessel lurched down toward the ocean floor, a sudden shift that sent the party of six elves sliding across the freshly-waxed wooden floor toward the open glass door opposite from the one they’d used to enter the bridge. As they scrambled along grabbing at the empty air in panic, Revion turned toward the noise at his back to find the disconnected legs of the human they’d found gaining ground on him. He tumbled forward in alarm, revulsion washing over him at the thought of being touched by the leftovers from the zombie elves’ meal. His frantic attempt to escape the pursuing limbs toppled Dauglewen, earning the scout another scowl from the golden-haired warrior with the piercing sapphire eyes. ”Watch yourself,” she growled as he slid ahead of the party and out onto the upper deck.

Revion’s desperate struggle to escape the corpse’s lower body led him to be the first to discover the upper half…what was left of the poor man. The mystery of the clacking sound solved when the elf’s wiry body crashed to a halt against the metal gunwale. Stars flitted before his eyes momentarily before the bright flashes faded to the pale green-grey of four undead faces—three elven, one human—their empty eyes focusing on the new entrée they’d just been served. The group had pursued the scant remains of the upper torso on hands and knees as the downward slant of the bow pushed the bloody lump forward, but most of what remained consisted of gore-smeared bones. Filthy teeth crunched against the mineralized surfaces, echoing like rocks breaking free and clattering down the stony face of a cliff. But Revion had just rung the dinner bell for a new course. *Ah yes, why pick at bones when you can eat fresh meat?* As if the pack of undead hunters had heard his thought, the four clambered toward him as if they hadn’t just finished off the full half of a two-hundred-pound man.

“Revion, Look out!” Dauglewen soared over his head, unseating the red-and-green wool cap from the scout’s hair, as she crashed into the human zombie who’d flanked the smaller elf while Revion’s attention had been focused on the three monsters directly in front of him.

The heel of one finely-crafted boot connected with the double rows of gnashing teeth, visible through the window chewed into the man’s cheek by his new companions. A few flew free and rattled across the deck as the female warrior rebounded off the top edge of the gunwale. As she shifted with innate ease into a battle stance over the fallen zombie, withdrawing her mythril katana—specially forged to meld to her hand by Whurdin. Dauglewen thrust the weapon through the snapping fiend’s forehead with so much force that it broke through the back of his skull, as well as the wooden planks beneath. The elven warrior fought to retrieve her weapon, the scene reminiscent of some darkly-twisted version of King Arthur’s battle to free Excalibur. When she heard Revion’s scream, Dauglewen abandoned the blade, leaping to his side and ripping one of the crawling corpses from his trembling frame. As she tossed one of the zombie elves aside, however, the other two fell upon her from behind, pinning her body to the deck and biting viciously at the forest-green cloak covering her back.

“No, Dauglewen, no!” Revion screeched, but he didn’t rush to her aid, uncontrollable fear driving him backward and away from the fray. Gwestiel dove amidst the skirmish before he could gather the breath to scream his savior’s name again, one of her twin blades skewering a female attacker. Half of the other zombie’s face had been reconstructed by glowing, squirming tendrils, where the flesh had been eaten away, keeping her jaw fastened in place and her brain within her skull—although her eyeball must have disappeared down another zombie’s gullet. After Gwestiel tossed the body, more bones and tendril than remaining flesh, from her dagger, the dark-haired warrior followed through with the crucial final blow through the brain pan…but not before she spat, “Coward,” at Revion.

The young elf felt mortified. Both Dauglewen and Gwestiel had been birthed in the wilds of a Transylvanian forest while he had come into the world at the workshop, which had, for the most part, served as a haven of peace. The pair had fought in several fierce battles over the centuries; whereas, Revion had only ever fought with his little sister, words their solitary weapons.

“Do not be so hard on him,” Dauglewen grumbled as she climbed to her feet. As if she’d read the scout’s mind, she added, “He was born into the soft life of the workshop, do not forget.”

Revion’s lips fell open further when the taller-than-the-usual-elf warrior thrust her gloved hand out to help him rise to his feet. “I-I-I am truly sorry,” he murmured, lowering eyes that matched the gold trim edging his cloak. Tears of shame made their uninterrupted color dance with light.

“Once we return to the workshop, I will ensure you receive weapons and battle training. Had we not set out under such urgent circumstances, perhaps, I could have better prepared you for our current mission. Do not give the incident another thought…as long as you intend to show up for your training sessions.”

“I will! I promise,” the young elf cried, eager for any chance to make amends for his lack of response.

“Very well, then. Four of our returned kin down, two to finish.” Dauglewen clapped him on the shoulder, sending his sinewy body reeling as she surveyed the scene, ensuring the others had dispatched the last remaining zombie-elf. Even Gwestiel’s expression relaxed into a near-smile as the rest of the party chuckled uneasily.

As the recovering warrior led them forward, she lifted her fingers to knead the back of her neck. Fear pricked at the surface of Revion’s skin, light at its inception, when he caught sight of the scarlet star painting her fair locks when she lifted the hair as she ruffled through it to reach the skin beneath. “Blood!” he blurted without thinking.

“Dauglewen, are you wounded?” Gwestiel swept Revion aside with an ample arm, her twin warrior cousins hurrying alongside to assist her with examining their comrade.

“I believe the lesion to be a scratch. She only sank her teeth into the armor covering my shoulders. Bless Whurdin for such protection. Only the saliva carries the infection as others were scratched with no ill result during the initial attack. There is no cause for worry.”

“Let me see,” Gwestiel insisted, her eyes flashing fire tempered by their silver.

Dauglewen swatted her hand away. “I told you; I am fine.”

“Cundmaethor, Calamaethor, secure her arms.” The two golden-eyed males obeyed, each binding a struggling arm to their chests—with exceeding difficulty—as the female warrior, double each elf twin’s mass in muscle, battled against them.

“It is no more than a scratch!” Dauglewen screamed, her keen plummeting in tenor to a vicious snarl.

“No, my warrior sister, it is indeed a bite.” Gwestiel began to unsheathe her weapons as Revion looked on, disbelieving, as the gold in the eyes of the elf who’d saved him imploded then misted out again as blue-tinged opaque cloud.

“She is turning!” someone screamed. Revion watched the two males topple like the dominos he’d painted before they’d left the workshop as Dauglewen ripped her arms free of their collective grip. The milky coins her irises had become ringed by neon-green blaze, blood-swirled drool frothing and leaking from the line dividing her full lips.

In that instance, when the massive warrior leapt toward the friend with whom she had shared her entire long life, Revion sprang too in an attempt to shield the elf, who had branded him a coward, from harm.

“Whurdin, no!” Pax screamed as the shark slammed its rows of wicked teeth together so hard that three of the bony weapons fragmented and fell from the cruel mouth. His shout drew the attention of one large eye, so murky one would have laid bets as to its state of sightlessness…except for the fact that eye focused on him so sharply.

Tears threatened to overtake his own vision, but he scrubbed the blinding moisture away, survival taking hold in every cell, superseding the grief when the nightmare before him opened his greedy jaws again. “You were my best friend,” Pax realized aloud before turning to navigate the slippery steps leading to freedom, safety…the first leg of the journey home. He hoped the hunting party above him fared better he and his doomed companions. His fist latched onto the slippery length of rail leading him away from the peril below as his feet rose sluggishly from the agonizing grip of the frigid seawater.

*Whatever you do, Pax, do not look back,* the logical part of his brain instructed, even as his head swiveled rebelliously to find the monster’s conical nose an inch from his backside.

Toying with his prey, the shark wedged his snout beneath the fleeing elf’s body, effortlessly tossing Pax up and away from his means of escape, positioning his hulking frame beneath the red-and-green morsel gliding overhead.

Pax fought to clear his mind after the initial panic rushed into his bloodstream along with the fresh spurt of adrenaline priming his muscles. Time offered the gratifying illusion of slowing to a sloth’s pace, allowing for rationale to lead his hand to his quiver of arrows. His quaking fingers managed to curl around two of the slender shafts and pull them free. As he plummeted back toward the rows of jagged blades below him, the elf kicked and rolled, directing his body toward the wrinkled triangle of nose—a tiny safe haven above the cavern of certain death beneath. Somehow, he managed a shaky landing exactly where he’d intended, employing just a touch of magic as he’d used most of his store while trying to heal Sophie after she’d been bitten. Without pause, he raised the arrows overhead, taking aim at the grey lump of exposed brain inside the raw, uneven edges of gnawed-away flesh. But the undead beast under his feet snapped his jaws in desperation, trying to throw the morsel just out of reach off balance.

Pax managed to strike, but missed his mark, embedding the heads of the arrows several inches below the folded tissue of his intended target. The gigantic zombie opened his mouth in a silent scream, tossing the emerald elf aside into the water and diving deep below the tumultuous surface. The cold struck at Pax so sharply that for an unnerving moment he believed the shark was impaling his body upon the deadly points of its teeth. He flailed about in panic before the realization struck him he was held prisoner by nothing other than the freezing swell of seawater.

*Get out of the water!* his brain screamed at him. He willed his limbs to carry him back to the flight of stairs, but they responded sluggishly as needles of icy pain fired the length of each extremity. The water began to churn more aggressively below his feet, alerting the elf to the monster’s ascent, and Pax cursed his misguided aim. Neither the intense cold nor the dizzying flow of the water would slow his attacker’s onslaught.

A wall of water rose up behind him as the shark broke the surface, hurtling Pax toward the metal stair rail…but sweeping him along too rapidly for his numb fingers to take hold. Instead, his skull connected painfully with the solidity of the steel, causing the pointed snout racing through the water before him to divide and become two. Pax rubbed at his eyes in an attempt to bring the world back to normal, but only succeeded in forcing them closed when the saltwater on his fingers delivered a nasty sting.

His arms thrashing with the desperate need to save his own life, Pax fought to reach the stairs behind him again. When his arm struck the rail, the elf did his best to ignore the jolt of pain shooting into his shoulder and twisted his wrist so his fingers could gain purchase. As the zombie-shark bore down on him, Pax tore his body up and away from the water so that the tip of the creature’s nose found him rather than the hungry maw. One foot had found its way onto the safety of a stair, but the lack of sensation in his body kept the realization from him for several seconds.

As he began to finally climb free from the deathtrap rising to fill the engine room, Pax chanced a glance behind him and discovered he’d been granted a reprieve from looming death. The torn body of the shark thrashed violently a few steps down, struggling to free its wedged snout from the space between two stairs. Taking advantage of the extra seconds he’d been granted, the elf climbed the stairs as fast as his frozen feet would allow, only pausing to turn again so he could discover the source of the strange ripping sound at his back.

The shark had managed to pull his head free, but in doing so had torn nearly the entire right side of his face from his skull. Dead grey-green flesh hung like a tattered sheet from exposed bone and cartilage to the point just beyond where his eye had been seated. At present, the scallop-shaped organ swung freely from the monster’s ruined face, suspended by a thin strand of death-darkened muscle, which began to glow toxic-green as Pax stared at the spectacle in disbelief. Even though the tendrils seemed to possess no need to patch the large holes in the shark’s spongy hide, they appeared determined to keep any further body parts from falling away completely. A single glowing tendril snaked its way down the string of eye muscle, retracting and snapping the orb back into its socket as more of the wisps wound their way out of the skull to crudely stitch most of the huge flap of displaced skin back onto the protruding bones of his face.

Once his visage had been largely restored, the undead shark snapped back into attack mode, and Pax, temporarily fixated on the preternatural repairs taking place before his eyes, was caught off guard. A well-timed leap saved the elf’s ankles from being caught in the trap of the shark’s jaws, but the creature managed to snag the tail of Pax’s fur-lined cloak and drag his feet from the step upon which he stood. Through the thick soles of his knee-length boots, the elf felt the spiked points of the shark’s teeth, prompting him to spring back toward the staircase, his muscles fueled by an overwhelming rush of terror.

Regrettably, the emerald elf’s cloak remained snagged on the jagged edges of shark tooth, and he found himself being pulled abruptly from his means of escape once again. Death imminent, a shocking thought broke loose from some hidden recess of his mind. *Why did I never confess my love to Suzibelle…* The heady mix of regret and fear drew his eyelids shut as he waited for the teeth like razors to clamp down through muscle and bone…

*What is he waiting for?* Pax didn’t dare to cast a glance over his shoulder…until he realized the thwack, thwack, thwack set on repeat couldn’t be the sound made by the beat of the shark’s mangled caudal fin through the water—the monster was already in closest proximity. Whirling so fast he nearly lost his grip on the slippery rail, Pax fixed his sight on the zombie-shark bucking backward through the water like an unbroken stallion during a rodeo ride. The elf’s mind couldn’t grasp any plausible explanation for the creature’s retreat, but then, impossibly, a new fin began to form and burst through the top of the incompletely-fleshed skull. Could the veins and arteries hijacked by the humans’ poison be reshaping the zombie’s physiology yet again? If so, what advantage could the shark gain from an additional fin atop his head? Could the invader be causing more harm than help? The violent writhing of the shark’s body clearly communicated the extent of his agony. When he opened his mouth, Pax was certain a scream might pour forth…if the shark had been equipped with vocal cords…but what was that?

“Wh—Whu—Whurdin?” The extra fin... It wasn’t a fin at all. It was the curved tip of his dwarf friend’s mithril battle-axe! But how? As the shock of realizing Whurdin had survived melted away, Pax sprung without another thought onto the top of the beast’s head once more, determined the massive jaws would not close forever around his friend again.

Pax’s hand closed around the blade, earning him a nasty slice across his palm, but better to suffer the wound than succumb to the jaws snapping so close to his heels. The zombie-shark’s twisting struggles slowed before ceasing altogether, and Pax felt certain Whurdin had struck true and sent the beast to his final rest. The elf removed his hand from the blade of the axe so he could sidle further up and peek inside the massive hole chewed through the shark’s head. The brain remained intact, but Whurdin must have cracked through the underlying bone and severed whatever tether had held the grey folds in place because the lump slid toward him, threatening to flee the shark’s body altogether. Wriggling green tendrils issued forth from the skull to recover the Y-shaped brain matter before it could slip away, one of them swatting at Pax in an attempt to knock the elf off-kilter and into the icy water once more.

The sure-footed Pax leapt backward, easily maintaining his balance after landing on the pointed bridge of the shark’s nose, more to escape the powerful advance of Whurdin’s axe than the spindly thread of repurposed artery snapping at him.

While the dwarf’s mark had repositioned itself out of reach, his blows had managed to hack his way through enough bone and muscle to peer up at Pax with a wicked grin in place. “Bastard should have known better than to swallow a dwarf whole.”

Glowing green tendrils scurried across the opening where the ruddy face appeared, knitting a barricade over the dwarf’s means of escape, as long as the treacherous mouth remained shut, and Pax knew he had to act fast. Reaching over his shoulder, he fished for one of the feather-fletched shafts of arrow, realizing when his hand found nothing but empty air that the sea had stolen them.

The living ground below his feet shifted, and his eye caught the slow downward crawl of the protective membrane covering lifeless eye as it receded, the zombie-shark rousing after his latest healing session. *The ones you shot before!* his brain screamed at him. At Whurdin, he shouted, “Cut your way through if you can, My Friend. I will return to assist you straightaway.”

Whurdin’s reply escaped him as he dove down on his belly, his hands gripping at gore-encrusted bone to keep his body from sliding off the awakening monster. There! Right above the first gill, embedded deep in the flesh. Pax yanked at the arrows with as much vigor as he could muster—one-handed while hanging upside down. As one of the barbed heads pulled free, the other bent with the force of its twin’s release. Pax heard the tip snap off with a sharp crack and groaned inwardly, but pulled the arrows and his body upward until he reached a kneeling position. “Oh well, I suppose one is better than…” His words cut off with a grin when he saw the sharp and splintered point of the wood making the second arrow as lethal as the one with the head still intact. The rough sound of Whurdin’s grunted effort, as he chopped away at the tangle of vine-like coils interlocking above him, spurred Pax into action. Rising on legs made wobbly by the shark’s cresting upon the rushing waves, the brave elf dove once again, aiming for the gaping void leading to the brain the toxic tendrils still worked to reinstate.

“Die!” Pax screamed as he buried both gold and aspen into the coil-upon-coil of grey matter peeking through its neo-green wrap. The monstrous vehicle for the zombie virus spasmed beneath dwarf and elf one last time…before its truly-dead weight began to sink.

“Whurdin!” Pax’s panic proved to be groundless as he watched in relief when the strangling vines fell away without any further resistance, their glow and luster fading away to near-black. He reached in to drag his friend to safety as the seawater invaded the shark’s inert body, sending the hulking mass of dead flesh to the bowels of the drowning fishing vessel.

“Whurdin, I am overjoyed you yet live,” Pax told him, gripping his shoulders, a tear slipping from one emerald eye.

“Me too, Lad,” the mischievous dwarf responded, his green eyes twinkling like dew on pine needles. “Now, what do ya say we make our way up top to collect our huntin’ party and head for home?”

“No… No, no, no!” Pax wailed.

Five pairs of death-dimmed eyes focused on both him and Whurdin as they rounded the corner leading to the ship’s bridge. The sixth pair had been gobbled up by the zombie-elves feasting on Calamaethor’s body—what little remained of it.

“Not the entire huntin’ party,” Whurdin groaned as he unsheathed his axe once more, flicking a shred of shark brain matter away before advancing with weapon at the ready over his head.

“What cursed days we have endured since this plague was visited down upon us.” A sob choked off the words as Pax followed his friend, his eyes fixed on the elegant sword Dauglewen had cast aside. He dove for the weapon, but a snarling Gwestiel, ripped flesh still dangling from her lips, leapt onto his back with the grace of a panther and crushed his ribs against the deck in a flare of white-hot pain. As his hands scrabbled for the golden hilt, Pax felt the rough scrub of Gwestiel’s teeth as they sought skin beneath his heavy, wet cloak. The elf thanked every lucky star above that he hadn’t shed the garment when its weight and frosty touch had begun to trouble him.

“Sorry, cannot let ya eat my friend,” Whurdin bellowed as he swung his axe, embedding the bulk of the blade in the zombie-elf’s head. Pax shivered as he heard a crack like a dropped watermelon, blackened crimson raining down over the bare skin of his outstretched hands. “Get off me!” rang in his ears as the dwarf whirled to hack through the two attackers who’d snuck up from behind.

Pax rolled to remove the weight of Gwestiel’s ruined body from his back and scrambled to wrap his fingers around the fallen weapon’s handle as he slipped on the dark puddles while trying to stand. The ship moaned and sank further forward, throwing Pax against the deck’s railing, but out of reach of Revion, who’d abandoned the scantily-clad bones of his former meal in pursuit of a second helping.

“We need to finish this quickly, Lad, before we find ourselves at the bottom of the sea.”

“Agreed,” Pax responded, offering Whurdin a quick and determined nod. The light in the sky was dimming rapidly as the day faded out of being. Pax was thankful for the diminishing of his lifelong friends’ features as he swung the borrowed sword to lop off the head of its true owner and split the skull of their young scout. The obligatory butchery completed, he sank to one knee and uttered an elven prayer. “I am filled with regret and remorse that your lives met such a cruel and violent end. I swear to return when we acquire the proper equipment allowing me to collect your bodies for burial. For now, I must leave you all to the cold arms of the sea.” Tears froze in a thin layer over Pax’s wan cheeks, and he found the same icy sheen coating the dwarf’s face, tiny icicles forming in his beard.

Whurdin extended a gloved hand and pulled Pax up into his embrace. “So very sorry, Friend Elf. I never imagined this mission would end with the loss of so many we loved so dearly.”

“Nor I,” Pax whispered, his voice peppered with grief.

The boat lurched violently, its bow dipping deeper into the frigid water visible between wide stretches of ice. A swishing sound followed, moving closer to the confused pair as they drew away from one another and looked about in confusion.

“Arggh! What is…” Pax’s emerald discs were drawn to the deck in alarm, where he found Landion leering up at him as he gripped his friend’s ankle with a hand like an ice-encased shackle.

“I wondered where ya went to,” Whurdin rumbled. The one-legged elf had been granted the advantage of being able to slide along the deck toward his prey by the sinking ship. “Dragged yerself off to wait for yer chance, did ya?” On instinct, the dwarf’s thick arms swung the axe down to sever the zombie’s hand at the wrist, his initial reaction to neutralize the immediate danger to Pax. When the neo-green coils snapped forward to retrieve the lost appendage, Whurdin muttered, “Those damned things again!” With a deep growl, he sent them flopping, listless and dark, to the blood-spattered deck when he brought a booted foot down to cave in poor Landion’s skull. “Guess I shoulda planned that out a bit better,” he said, grimacing as he dragged his brain-and-blood-covered boot across the wooden deck.

Pax averted his eyes, but there remained no safe place to fix his gaze. However, he did find a bit of resolution. “There are three of the six from the workshop attack we were seeking. Our warriors managed to put them down, along with that human over there, but not before one of them was bitten.”

“With the one who crawled up outta the drink, that leaves two.”

“We have to ensure none of them escape. We cannot risk the infection spreading, especially to heavily populated areas.”

“But the poison which started this whole mess… Do ya not think the humans have more of that goo somewhere out there? Seems to me they could start another outbreak like this one at any time.”

“Even if that is true…” Pax sighed heavily. “…we should do nothing to contribute to another tragedy of this magnitude. Or one far, far worse.”

“We do not even know if any humans were infected and escaped or even how many were aboard this tub to begin with.”

Pax’s head was swirling with the terrible implications of their failed mission. “Before the vessel is lost, we can make a run through every room above water. The monsters seem to be drawn to sound, so I would imagine the fact that only Landion showed up after that last battle is quite promising.”

With another loud groan of complaint, the fishing boat tipped downward. Whurdin gripped Pax’s shoulder to steady himself as much as his friend. “Come on. We can search every nook and cranny not yet claimed by the sea...and pray none of your infected kin bit a chunk out of a giant squid.”

Santa stood, nodding his head in slow, thoughtful succession after Pax and Whurdin finished speaking. He was still recovering from disbelief to learn they had been the only two members of the hunting party to return.

“You heard the whole of our tale. Now, tell me how the young lass fares?”

“We already laid her to rest…”

“What?! Sophie…no!” Both war-weary travelers sank to their knees, feeling as though the last bit of good had been sucked from the world.

“I brought you two some cocoa.” Alassë nearly dropped the silver tray she carried, laden with several large steaming mugs. “What in the woods has happened now?” The mugs clattered against the ornate surface of the tray as the golden elf’s slender frame began to tremble.

Santa’s steady hands reached out to secure the cocoa from her uncertain grasp. He winked an ice-blue eye at her. “What has happened is that these two did not allow me to finish my sentence. The words you missed were, for the night. The child’s fever broke the night previous after you all vacated the workshop.”

“Finally, some good news,” Whurdin choked out hoarsely. Pax merely sobbed in relief beside him.

“Alassë, would you be so kind as to help them to the table? I will set their places with the cocoa there and fetch a plate of pork loin and potatoes from dinner. As delicious as your cocoa is rumored to taste, I believe the two of them will need much more to fill their bellies after such a treacherous errand. I will bring some of Maggie’s fudge as well.” Whurdin very nearly smiled, but his eyes held a sorrow Santa hoped time might someday be kind enough to displace. “On my way, I will ask Suzibelle to bring dry clothes from the laundry for each of you, and you can change behind a screen near the fire.”

“Thank you, Santa,” Pax managed, the familiar sounds and smells within the workshop leaving his limbs weak with a relief he’d never before known.

“I hope ya put somethin’ stronger than chocolate in that drink after the time we had on that boat,” Whurdin said to Alassë as he settled gratefully into the soft safety of the padded wooden booth in the communal dining hall.

She winked a golden eye. “You are not the only one in possession of a ‘special’ drink recipe.” She came to light before her own candy-cane-striped mug and sipped gingerly to avoid burning her tongue. “I heard most of what you told Santa from the kitchen. So…the two of you accounted for every infected elf and put an end to their suffering? And none of the humans survived the initial attack. Is that correct?”

Whurdin dropped his eyes and focused on the steam rising from his cup. Like each of the elves, the mug bore his name in curling gold script. “Is that cognac?” he asked after savoring a mouthful of the concoction.

“Do not change the subject. Even I could hear the lie in your voices.”

Whurdin lowered his voice to a coarse whisper. “We did all we could without goin’ down with the ship.”

“By the time we reached the bridge, the computer was under water. There was no way of discovering the crew complement,” Pax added.

“So…you have no idea how many humans were on the boat, much less whether any caught sight of a zombie-elf or six running about…or became zombies themselves.”

“How else do ya suggest we shoulda handled the situation? Do ya know how taxin’ it is to battle a zombie-shark? A zombie-shark for chrissakes!”

“I did suffer a run-in with the Krampus once…”

Whurdin’s ham-like fist crashed down on the tabletop. “One Krampus. In my estimation, that equals half a zombie-shark…and you be forgettin’ the ten zombies heaped on top of the whole steamin’ mess!”

“You did only miss one, then,” she responded with a sly edge to her voice.

“After the ...hunting party,” Pax murmured despondently, “we saw one of the escaped elves wandering about on the ice as we crossed back to the mainland. Thankfully, Whurdin still possessed the strength to send her to her final rest.”

“We barely managed to make it onto the ice before that rusted heap drug us down to the ocean floor,” Whurdin grumbled. “Ya tell me how we coulda done anythin’ more.”

“I do not criticize, Friend Dwarf,” Alassë lifted her palms in complacency. “I just hope your efforts were not carried out in vain. I pray, you and Pax did bring an end to the contagion so no further harm can come from the humans’ barrel of poison.”

“I agree with Whurdin.” The deep voice sounded from the dining hall doorway.

“Santa!” the trio exclaimed in surprise.

Santa waved away any concerns raised by the knowledge he’d overheard their conversation. “You cannot lie to a vampire; you all know this.” He raised his finger to silence the objections he knew were about to spill from their lips. “You may have fudged the numbers slightly, but I agree that you both fought on every front there was to fight to the best of your ability. Oh, and speaking of fudge, I have some girls who brought a platter to share.” From under his arm, Sophie emerged, Sadie, Maggie and Willa ducking under to follow her, all clad in Christmas-colored nightgowns with ribbons to match tied in their hair.

Joyful, thankful cries of “Pax! Whurdin!” filled the space, and the returning heroes stood to receive the girls in a collective embrace.

“You girls are a festive sight indeed. Ya do an old dwarf’s heart good, the lot of ya.”

“Sophie! We are overjoyed to find you recovered and well.” Pax swept the girl into his arms with newfound strength. “Does your mother follow behind you? I desperately need to speak with her a little later.”

Sophie pressed her lips to his cheek, bringing back a touch of warmth back to his skin. “She’s bringing you both some warm pajamas. We are so happy you and Whurdin came home.”

“As am I.” Santa strode forward to place a large platter of food on the table. “Tomorrow, we can formulate a plan to retrieve our fallen friends…and should the need arise, quash any further trouble which may—or may not—have eluded us. But tonight, we celebrate your return to us and leave any worrisome thoughts for another time.