The 24th of December

Even atop the ceremonial altar, staring death in the eye, he still looked stronger than any man I’d ever known. If there was ever one suited to carry the weight of the world’s gifts, it was him. 

Elves watched in silence around the candy-striped room, locked at the elbows, their skin a dull jade against the ceremonial torches. Mrs. Claus knelt in tears holding her husband’s hand. It seemed my responsibility to ease her pain, but what could I offer? I’d been here for one Christmas. Their world was still so foreign that even in the official reds, I felt like a stranger. My mind flashed back to that cold December evening, the towering old man in my alley asking why I’d give my coat and last twenty dollars to strangers. Simple. Baltimore winters were harsh and those children still had a chance to believe people were good.

Nicholas smiled weakly to his beloved. “You made it all worth it.”

“Shhh, save your breath,” she said, shivering in her fur cloak.

“I’d give anything for more time,” Nick whispered, “but to silence the truth would be a crime. Even if I was the flame of the world, you kept it going.”

Her tears blended with his perspiration as she kissed his forehead. He eased his eyes shut and smiled. “Death can’t take that from me.”

Panic swelled in seeing him wretch through a violent cough. “Cameron,” he whispered, unable to look. “I know this burden lays heavy, but you are the new Saint. Yours is a light brighter than any before.”

Why now? A month before Christmas? I still knew so little. Only that the twenty fourth was a massacre.

“You were meant for this,” he said. Mrs. Claus wiped the spittle from his lips. “But the brighter the flame, the greater the shadow. Remember, you are the good in them. Should your faith falter…”

Regardless of the situation he’d put me in, I wanted to thank him for finding me. For giving me a chance. Renewing my spirit. But there was no time. A squeeze of the hand. A gasp. My throat sealed, breathless as he, until… a helixing rainbow light emerged from his mouth. His chest fell back to the altar, lifeless, Nicholas no more.

The light hung for a moment, but with a blinding flash, I closed my eyes and felt something shoot down my throat. I gasped and shook, lightning through my nerves. Colors lit like fire. The light of all Nick’s passed. That of the First.

Mrs. Claus’s cries muffled against the real Nick’s coat, but the elves' eyes were upon me. I took the twig from my evergreen and laid it on his chest. At the foot of his altar sat the star-speckled, green totem of our position. The Sack of Need, said to be able to contain the entirety of the Milky Way. It brought to mind one of my first questions, “How do you find the right gift?”

His smile was still clear. “The sack provides the right present for the right time.”

My thoughts turned to war machines and blood in the snow. Krampus was coming. 

*

From the top story balcony of Castle Greenstone, I watched Christmas City, its stone ramparts tall and frozen, walls old as humanity, skyscrapers, shops, and factories all glowing under stung rainbow lights. Elves hurried down the streets, riding reindeer and carriages. The wind pressed needles into my cheeks, though not as painful as it should’ve been. The Old Magic saw to that. The Coat of Frost was one of our most important abilities. The primary armor against the cold and everything else. Of the countless Red Spells, it was one of my weakest and there was little time to practice.

The door behind me opened. I turned to the grizzled elf standing at attention before the Ornament Room, command center for all things Christmas— from letters to radio communications, toys to munitions. His hair lay slicked and eyes implacable. The diagonal scar across his face was more a badge of honor than a wound. Pop Pop, commander… ex-commander of the greatest military unit unknown to man. Somehow I was his superior.

“They’re ready for you, Sir,” Pop Pop said, as always, sucking on a large candy cane.

I nodded and followed the old elf past the Ornament room, down the cobble hallway and into one of the meeting rooms. Cut from stone like most of the castle, though adorned with a state of the art hologram table— like everything we used— courtesy of northern production. I swallowed my apprehensions and tried to fill the suit by straightening my posture. I could’ve used Size Changing, but one of the first lessons I’d learned was to respect the Old Magic. It was the source and end of light. I wouldn’t defile it for pride’s sake. 

Sat around the table, the Red Noses, deadliest soldiers below five feet tall and proud leaders of our minute army. Bongo bounced on the left, humming to the tune of her oversized headphones, her red curls rocking atop the pilot’s jacket.

“Want some?” Mocha asked from the seat to my right, offering a half eaten bar of chocolate— most of which was on his lips and thick glasses. 

“I’m fine,” I said, fighting nausea as I took my seat.

“Hoppy?” Mocha asked. 

The burly elf shifted her entire body— her neck too muscular to allow for free movement. She tightened her pink hair bow and snapped a piece off. “Thanks, Sugar,” she said, planting a kiss on Mocha’s cheek which in turn flushed red.

Pop Pop shuffled around the table and took a seat beside Mojo. In posture and presence alike, the father and son were cut from steel. The young elf sat with his fingers interlocked over his mouth, face shrouded by the white bucket hat and scarf, on his back a set of crossed wakizashi. 

We sat in silence until at last I noticed Pop Pop gesturing me on. I firmed my voice and said, “Report.”

Instinctively I turned to Pop Pop— lead advisor to three Nick’s past— but the retired veteran diverted his and my attention to what would be my board for many years to come. As the new lead, I expected Mojo to speak, but by the flat gloss of his eyes it seemed he had no desire.

“Toy production is on track,” Bongo said.

“Munitions slightly behind,” Mocha added, “But we’re borrowing crews from the electronics factory.”

“Good,” I said. “And the devils?”

“Surveillance of the south pole shows an unprecedented spike,” Hoppy said.

It made me physically ill to think of Krampus and his legion of monsters. Barbarians feasting on live flesh and chanting to the moon. In truth, I still didn't understand him or his servants. All Nick would say was, “We are their light, he is their darkness.” 

“What’s our plan?” I asked.

Hoppy pressed a button on the table and a hologram of the city, its walls, ice flats, and surrounding hills emerged from the center. “They’ll press from the frozen hills, tanks and foot soldiers, snowmobiles with artillery. I have three lines of trenches and tanks ready to slow their assault.”

Mocha pushed his glasses up— an act which magnified his eyes to the size of tennis balls. “Along the walls we’ll have artillery and snipers. If they breach, a ground force within.”

Bongo pointed beyond the hills. “After last year we’re projecting they’ll likely focus anti-air cannons around the cardinal points. Timing will depend on what their airforce looks like, but once we make a path, all that’s left is the flight.”

In the face of their nonchalance, my fear felt ridiculous, yet inescapable. 

“What about… him?” I asked.

Their eyes turned to Pop. “There is no answer. Blades and bullets will only slow.”

I asked, “I recently came across something in the archive, ‘Weapons of Power’, the ancient symbols of the season. It said he’s shown weakness to them.”

Pop shook his head, “The last we had disappeared with Nick the Kind two centuries ago.”

The small fact made me wonder what moniker I’d be remembered by. “So if I meet him?”

Silence took the room. Perhaps the old Nick— a mountain brawn, master of Old Magic, and seasoned veteran— might have been able to ward him off, but me? A boy barely shaving?

“That’s why you have me, Sir,” Mojo said. 

I tried to appear at ease. “... Has he ever attacked before the Eve?”

“He’s sent bombers, but we always shoot them down.” Pop answered. 

“Has he come himself?”

“Not possible. A shadow can’t enter the flame, and that is what Christmas City is. That’s what you are.”

A small bit of the tension in my chest untwined. “Okay. Finish your preparations, and joy to the world.”

They saluted, “Joy to the world.”

I didn’t believe there was any way to avoid something that had persisted for centuries past, but I couldn’t dive blindly in without at least understanding. One by one the commanders made their leave, but I stopped Pop. He gestured Mojo on, and after I was sure they’d gone, I asked, “I’d like your insight on something, Sir.” 

“I’m no, Sir, to you,” he said, examining the sharpened edge he’d sucked his candy cane down to.

My mother taught me respect and I didn’t intend on forgetting. “When I was in the archives, I also read about how there used to be a balance between us. Reward and punishment. Is there a way things can return?”

“You’re asking the wrong elf. I’m a bad philosopher and a worse negotiator.” He looked off in silence. “For better or worse. Nothing stays the same.”

It didn’t bring much relief. “... I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who’s all naughty or nice.”

“Heavy lies the crown.”

Why did he have to quit this year? Old and worn as he was, there’d have been no better partner on the sleigh, no one who could’ve eased my nerves better. “Are you sure you won’t ride with me?”

“My time has passed, Sir. It’s a brave new world.”

*

Orange muzzle flares and explosions which shook to the marrow. The kind yet shadowed face of a mother I’d almost forgotten. A bristly beard and booming voice asking if I was ready to live for something greater. 

I shot up from the bed in a sweat, rough with gooseflesh and the feeling I was being watched. The glow of the city was faint through the window, leaving most of the master chambers in shadow. 

“I understand now,” a hoarse voice said from the corner. An outline emerged from the darkness. 

My throat swelled shut. Though we’d snuck by the year before without confrontation, I knew immediately. Krampus. Two heads taller than myself while hunched, glaring with dull yellow eyes, the eyes of the last Saint he’d slain— eyes taken so that he might understand ‘what we see in them’. Flies buzzed around like a black nimbus and while throngs of serpents coiled over his gray flesh. Though hidden under a tattered hood, his face was skeletal and rotting. 

“How are you here?” I asked, crawling back in my bed, scanning for weapons. Across the room on my chest of drawers lay the red and green swords passed down from the old Nick, no Weapon of Power, but something. Then I remembered. From my bedside drawer, I pulled the nine millimeter Mojo had asked me to keep at all times. 

“The light has dimmed,” Krampus said. “I can go where I please.”

With chattering teeth, I said, “Then you can go to hell.” Twelve rounds of thunder filled the room. Black blood, fly carcasses, and snake flesh turned to aerosol mist.

The monster growed through yellow fangs. “You may look different, but you’re the same,” he said, drawing a long iron staff from under his cloak. “A sick creature who protects sick people!”

A blurred arch. I summoned the Old Magic and a Coat of Frost. The blow cracked my armored arms, the next emptied my lungs. Grasped by the ankle, I flew across the room, crashed into my chest of drawers, and dropped along with its contents. “I’ve watched your kind over the millenia, delivering gifts to wicked beings, rewarding evil. You’re the reason mankind has rotted,” the demon screamed.

I drew a long and icy inhale, and released Storm’s Breath. All at once the room became a tempest of snow. Hidden under the cover of winter, I brandished the twin swords and charged. Razor tips found home within rotted flesh, but pain flared upside the head, the low dull of iron on bone. I deflected an overhead and tore through the chest. Another blow to the stomach, one in the ribs, and then a spinning strike to the temple sent me across the room.

Delirious and bloody, I looked up to the black silhouette. I called on the Magic, filled myself with Red Strength but my limbs were no longer mine to control.

“The wicked shall pay,” he said, raising his staff for the final blow. North or south, it didn’t matter, I was still me. “Gahhh!” Krampus screamed in agony.

My eyes opened to Krampus writhing on his feet and grasping at his side, bright rays shining from within, a sharpened candy cane buried into his stomach, held by Pop Pop. None of it made sense.

Krampus fixed his dead eyes upon him. The flesh of his forearm undulated and a snake-shaped dagger emerged from his wrist. Snatched by the throat, he raised Pop Pop off the ground and growled, “You evil dwarf!” With a quick, shlink, the blade carved into Pop’s eye.

The monster released and the elf fell. Krampus stumbled, holding his wound and exhaling something in the devil’s tongue as he threw the candy cane aside. “You’ve shown me more than enough.”

Another shadow came into shape at the door, the twin blades of Mojo. “Dad…” 

A swirling black hole opened before Krampus, and with a flash, Mojo sliced through the air. I looked around, skin gooseflesh, and then to Pop, his dead gaze set on the ceiling. 

“What happened?” Mojo screamed.

Darkness had pierced the fire. With a quivering hand I took up the bloody candy cane and wondered— 

“Santa!” Mojo said.

That wasn’t me.

*

“You did what you could, Sir.”

“He’s still with us, Sir.”

“I need your signature, Sir.”

I felt Pop stare in the walls of Greenstone, smelt the phantom aroma of metal polish and aftershave. Everywhere I went his memory followed. I haunted the castle halls, running from the sound of tears and tales. It wasn't long before I found myself at the crypts, the subterranean room called ‘The Source of the North’. The exact top of the world. A vast room of blue ice and evergreens, one for each Santa passed. At the center, a towering conifer topped with a blinding star. The Heart Tree.

I walked the rows of great pines and stopped at mine, a skeletal tree with hardly a dozen pine needles, already missing two branches. Back in my old life, I tried not to believe in omens. Homeless and alone, most pointed in one direction. But this one was hard to ignore. Our greatest warrior felled before we’d even finished opening letters. Tears froze upon my cheeks. I wondered, if I should just leave— 

“I thought I might find you here,” Mrs. Claus said, still in her ceremonial crimson dress from Pop’s service.

I stood tall and cleared my throat. “I just wanted some quiet.”

“Oh, I’m sorry to disturb you,” she said, turning away. “Maybe later—”    

“No!” I paused, hoping not to sound desperate. “Don’t go.”

Over five years since my mom walked out the door, but when I was with Mrs. Claus, it didn’t matter. 

“It would break a lot of hearts to see Santa like this,” she said, wiping my icy tears.

“I’m not Santa.”

Her brow wrinkled. “Then what’s with the outfit?”

I looked down to the oversized coat and pants, the pristine fur trim for which so much blood had been paid. “I should go.”

“Where? Back home?” she asked.

I didn’t think she was trying to insult me, but it hurt nonetheless. 

“This is your home. Just as it was Pop Pop’s. Just as it is for all who believe in the goodness of Christmas.”

“What’s the good in Christmas?” I asked, letting my vision go black in the light of the star.

“The good in people.”

“There was a lot of good in Pop Pop. Where is he now?”

“There,” she said, pointing to the top of the tree.

I thought of the family who hadn’t yet scattered his ashes. 

“Don’t hold back,” she said. My face fell to her shoulder, soft and cinnamon-scented. She stroked my hair. “You're scared because you don’t believe.”

“What’s there to believe in?” I asked, derisively. 

“Your position is based on belief.”

“I don’t know when’s the last time you went south, but the world doesn’t believe in Santa.”

“It’s not about belief in Santa, elves, or presents. It’s about the good of mankind. Even if done for selfish reasons, a gift is a sign of an open heart, Nicholas. And as long as that belief holds strong, so shall you be. But should it falter, specifically yours in yourself… well that bodes something grave for the world.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “What am I even doing? Delivering presents? It’s pointless.”

Her eyes turned to dark caverns. “Don’t you ever say that…” she said.

“Pop Pop died for nothing—“

The suddenness of the crack across my face left me unsure if it had really happened, but the warm outline of her fingers spoke truth.

“He gave his life for the cause,” she said. “For you to belittle it, is to belittle not just his death, but his life.”

I remained silent and small. “Is it possible he might have chosen the wrong person?”

Behind the soft mask of condolence, I saw her pain. A woman who’d lost everything. A mother trying to protect a child. “Tell me, Nick, why did you give your coat that evening?”

I thought back to the night. Full shelters. Closed shops. Below freezing. That pale mother on the corner and her two children huddling under a single blanket. She was beautiful, likely could’ve found herself a partner if she’d have cleaned up. If she didn’t have kids. But even through the worst of days, she hadn’t abandoned them. 

“It was the right thing to do,” I said.

“The season brings out the best and the worst in people. He saw greatness in you.”

I stared at the base of the Heart. “He used to say that when my light joined the First it would burn like the sun. I don’t feel it…”

“No flame feels its own heat.” Her fingers interlocked with mine. “It wasn’t fair this was sprung on you so early. Most Nicks have twice as many years before their term is considered. But you are Santa now. If anybody needs to keep the holiday spirit, if anybody needs to believe in Christmas, it’s you. For if not you, then who else?”

I felt it in my cheek and summoned the strength to look to the star. Though soft and distant, I heard the Old Magic calling me. The light of the First. She turned towards the door.

“Mrs. Claus?”

“Yes?”

“What was your husband’s real name?

“Nicholas.”

“No, his real name.”

She smiled. “You’ll get it eventually.”

*

Staring out on the black battlefield from the castle’s heights, my heart pounding in my throat, I felt all those souls around the world, anxiously turning in bed, laying cookies on the table, and wondering what the morning would bring. Northern lights danced above. Though we couldn’t see them, the devils waited beyond the hills. Tens of thousands against our hundreds.

I scanned the city walls. Snipers and turrets lined the ramparts. Fighter jets sat in pairs down Peppermint Avenue. Black windows and empty skyscrapers. I imagined the families down in the bunkers, what they must feel, that moment of petrified wonder when the shelter doors closed and the lingering question of who’d be there when they opened. 

On the southern wall, the little green elves were hard to make out so closely packed, but I knew Mocha was among them— suspected it had something to do with the fact that Hoppy was leading the southern tank platoon. I couldn’t help but smile and hope that love found a way, then something in the air changed. A feeling, and a rumble. From all sides, the red glow of planes emerged on the horizon.

I spoke into the earpiece, “Incoming.”

Mocha said, “Bongo, time to get airborne.”

“Copy,” she said.

Pine green fighter jets shook the city as they soared down the avenue and up to the sky, four units in spear formations towards each cardinal direction. My mouth went dry as I watched our jets meet the enclosing perimeter of red bombers and dog-fighters. With one muzzle flash, it all started.

Streams of bullets and missiles burned like falling stars. Beyond the frozen hills, the anti-air cannons came to life. The thunder of rolling tanks joined the symphony as Hoppy and her battalion exchanged with the ground forces cresting the hills. Snow and stone exploded across the city. Screams rang from felled elves on the wall. With the first deployment of bombs over the city, buildings and streets turned into rubble. I almost didn’t hear—

“Sir!” I turned to Mojo standing out front the Ornament Room, his white bucket hat shielding his eyes, his scarf wrapped around his mouth.

“We’ve got to get you to cover,” he said.

Down to the castle’s entryway where, before the massive gold doors, my sleigh waited, the reindeer already harnessed and adorned in bulletproof vests. Scars haunted their muscular frames, some missing eyes, other’s ears, far more battle hardened than myself. I knelt beside Rudolph and rubbed his cheeks. “Lead us through the night you handsome son of a bitch.”

Up the golden ladder, I took my seat alongside Mojo. We sat in silence, trying to ignore the calamity beyond the castle, to fill out the seats that last year had rightfully belonged to another. In the back of the sleigh the Sack of Need was already loaded and waiting. I took it up and tied it over my shoulder.

Angst stirred in my idleness, elves sacrificing themselves so that I might be able to sneak to safety. For what felt like days we listened, idle on pins, but in time—

“Wahooo!” Bongo cried. “The eastern anti-air field is cleared, Sir. You’ve got your path.”

A shiver rolled across my body. I couldn’t speak. 

“Santa?” Mojo asked.

I took the reins with a mix of terror and conviction. “… Santa’s coming to town.”    

“Give ’em hell, Sir,” Mocha said.

“And bring back some cookies,” Hoppy said. 

Out the doors and to the sky, the wind howled cold. Elves cheered below as we shot over the eastern walls and atop a sea of corpses. Black smoke rose from the felled warmachines. I winced at the sudden barrage against the sleigh’s bottom.

“They’ll need something more than that,” Mojo assured. 

A massive boom sounded from below. I yanked the reins and a tank round shot past. Mojo reached under the seat, handed me a green AR, and for himself, a red minigun— an absurd choice for his size, yet he somehow propped it over the edge. In the glow of the muzzle flares I saw the bloodlust painted on his face. Rudolph’s nose charged oh so bright and loosed a great, ice-cutting beam.

An incoming fighter roared from port-side. I pulled Mojo into my arms and gritted through the mind-numbing barrage. Two missiles tore behind, twisting with the evasive maneuvers and, BOOM!

“Sorry about that, Sir,” Bongo said, shooting over in a happy-faced jet. 

Mojo pushed himself from my arms and checked me frantically. “Are you alright!”

Trying to breathe through the agony, I said, “Yeah…”

Something snapped in him. He mumbled something to himself and pulled from below the seat a cylinder loaded RPG. “Season’s greeting mother fuc—!”

White noise and vibrating chaos. So lost in it, I hardly realized we were over the hills. It was only the emptiness that came from the wind, the silent and smoking remnant of anti-air guns below. Before us lay the open ice. In time we turned south over the Arctic Ocean and, for the first time, I considered success. Old Nick could rest easy. Pop Pop’s sacrifice—

“Sir…” Mojo said. By his tone, I understood. 

An obsidian sleigh led by a grisled team of slobbering wolves with long scorpion stingers emerged from the clouds above. Cackling at the helm, Krampus.

I whipped the reindeer to their limit, but it wasn’t enough. Our sleighs crashed and locked on the railings. Fear rose again as I brandished my blades— and felt for the peppermint treat secured to my vest. Last time he’d caught me weak… not again.

The demon drew his staff from under his rippling cloak and swung, but the blow locked within my blades. Sly as a Saint down the chimney, Mojo flipped behind Krampus and sent one of his arms to the ocean. The wound sprayed black ooze, but within moments, serpents emerged and hardened into flesh. In unison we struck, four blades at once. Like old Nick and Pop—

Krampus’s eyes flashed, yellow and hypnotizing. It was as if a flash grenade went off in my head. The next thing I knew, an impact like a meteor sent me over the sleigh, yet somehow, I didn’t fall. I looked to the black waters racing below and up to the small hand holding my wrist.

“I got you, Sir!” Mojo said, suspended from the sleigh’s railing. Time slowed. His fingers slipped, and together we fell.

I wrapped him in my arms and attempted Feather Weight, but my focus was weak. I braced for the water, but insead, harshly upon a thick floe. My heart lodged in my throat as the Sack of Need ripped from my back and slid, but by the grace of fate, it grinded to a stop before the edge.

A resounding crash rang from the ice. “You can’t even fall properly,” Krampus hissed. 

I pulled the candy cane daggers from my vest, expecting fear, but received a hearty laugh. Ducking swiftly under his cudgel, my fist caught his cheek. The razor tip of the dagger cut the wind but he snatched my wrist. My sole met his chest and he flew.

Darkness flashed and he disappeared. My spine erupted in pain, and beneath my crash rang the slight snap of the candy canes. Another blow upside my head threw me into a sea of stars.

With the taste of blood on my tongue, I fought to my knees and watched the grisly wolves make chase for Rudolph and the rest. I’m sorry…

“It’s not my fault, Red,” Krampus said. “You overstepped your boundary. I can count a half million naughty children that you are planning on giving gifts to. Kids who will grow up to torture the world and expect a treat in return.”

Drained of magic and strength, I fell prone to the cool embrace of the ice. Of home.

“Sir!” Mojo said, from the edge of the floe, pulling at the otherworldly weight of the sack. 

Krampus hissed, “I am the light.”

Mojo ground his teeth, took up his strewn blades and charged. With the last of my Red Strength I pulled myself to the sack and looked inside the cosmic abyss. In the vast lightyears of presents, one floated forth, brighter than all. The right present for the right time. I grasped mine.

At first touch, my veins surged with shimmering white light. I squeezed the wooden hilt and pulled the double-sided blade into the world. As wide as a sequoia, nearly ten feet tall, dark pine steel, conifer-shaped, and with serrated edges. A legend amongst the Red Ranks, ‘The Evergreen Claymore’. 

Krampus, holding Mojo aloft by his neck, turned in shock, gasped as the blade ran him through.

Blinding rays erupted from his chest. He screamed in agony and threw his cudgel. I pressed until the handguard came flush to his chest, and with a final twist, torrents of light burst forth. He fell writhing to the ice, his gray flesh bubbling into vapor. I watched through my fingers in neither joy nor sorrow. 

The dust of him carried with the wind, his cloak close behind. In the distance rang the echoed cries of wolves fleeing from great red beams. I couldn’ help but wonder if darkness be erased? Exhausted as I was, I realized, only one gift had been given so far. 

I couldn’t help but grin. 

*

As I woke the next afternoon on my couch, still in my working reds, my body shook with restless elation and debilitating exhaustion. The weightless joy of a child and tiredness of a soul after sixteen hours on their feet. The joy won me over.

Elves had a tradition of playing ‘box opening’ videos across the city. On plasma billboards and in the windows of shops, there played an endless supply of Christmas spirit. I walked the streets, watching them dance and embrace.

Many asked me to join the parade, but this was more their victory. I walked in silence, taking in the videos of screaming children, huddled families, and those like me— working through the night. What touched me most weren’t my own gifts, but those traded amongst themselves. Friends, family, lovers, and strangers. I tried and failed to hold back my tears. In each lay the truth of what Old Nick had been saying all along.