CHAPTER 12
Facing the Enemy
I couldn’t breathe, and time seemed to slow to a halt as I traveled through whatever dimension the portal had created. It was stifling hot, like a muggy, humid Florida day. I felt as if I were underwater, the world distorted into a fun house mirror. Behind me I saw a stretched-out version of Grandmother, as if she were twenty feet tall and made of Silly Putty. I looked ahead, and the Masked Man was wider than a fat lady at an old-time circus freak show. I felt disoriented. Sick to my stomach. I felt stuck.
I heard a voice in my head, faint at first. Kick, Carol. Then louder. Grandmother. Like you’re swimming. Kick! I kicked my feet in unison and felt myself move. I kicked harder, the Masked Man getting closer. Only now he was thin in the middle and fat up top, his head like some kind of super-brained, big-skulled creature in a sci-fi movie. He looked even scarier that way. I kicked three more times with all my might. The Masked Man turned away from me and grew smaller, and I wondered if that were another trick of the portal. Surely he wasn’t running from me.
Then I was through. The cold night air jolted me but felt good after being inside the sweltering portal. I was high in the wispy clouds. The bright moon lit up the landscape far below. Mountains blanketed by endless trees rolled beneath me. I hung in the air for a moment, as if the portal still held me in its grip, and then I started to fall. So stupid! Here I was rushing in to save the day, only to plummet to my death. Truly the Useless One.
Above me I saw Santa and his sleigh being chased by the Masked Man. No, the enemy hadn’t been running from me. Santa was his target, not some silly girl. Two other men on flying machines hovered on either side of the Masked Man. The traitorous ex-Defenders, I guessed! The true Defenders swarmed around Santa, forming a shield. A combined pulse of immense power blasted out of their formation, and the Masked Man was knocked back. He was stunned. The traitors were blown from the sky, disappearing as they plunged to the earth. A victory!
The battle disappeared into the clouds as I rocketed toward Earth. I felt so helpless, so stupid and useless. But then I heard an odd noise, like the sucking sound a boot makes when it’s pulled out of deep mud. I looked up at the portal. Out popped a reindeer, darting through the air. Grandmother had sent the deer through to me! “Down here,” I yelled, and the deer dove toward me, like a jet screaming through the night, catching up to me in an instant and slowing as it flew under my legs. I landed on the reindeer’s back with a thump. “Haaaa!” I shouted, spurring on my mount. The reindeer shot ahead. The chase was on.
I zipped through the sky toward where I’d last seen the battle. All was quiet now, the silence ominous. Had the Masked Man already won? I tried not to think about what that could mean for me, for Mrs. Claus. Had we lost the ones we loved? Had the world lost Santa? Suddenly a riderless reindeer shot toward me, its eyes ablaze with terror. I recognized that deer, the white spot around his left eye, no saddle on his back. My stomach dropped, and I thought I might be sick. My father’s deer. “No!” I screamed and spurred my reindeer on. “Faster! Faster!”
I bent low, my face behind the head of the reindeer, my cane gripped in one hand, the reins in the other. Tears cut warm paths down my cold cheeks. I heard the whir of the Masked Man’s machine. Beyond him I saw Santa’s sleigh, the Masked Man in pursuit. As I drew nearer, the enemy seemed unaware of my presence. I sat up high on the reindeer’s back and let go of the reins, squeezing tight with my legs. I closed my eyes and concentrated, waving my hand through the cool night air, gathering my power. I focused the gathered energy into the wooden cane, tapping into its ancient elfin magic. With a fierce scream, I flung the point at the Masked Man. The air trembled like the ground in an earthquake. The blast slammed the Masked Man forward. He tumbled from his flying machine, toward the mountains below. His machine spun out of control, following him toward the ground. The Masked Man cartwheeled through the air and fell and fell, until I could no longer see him. There was silence.
I couldn’t believe it! He was gone. I beat him! I searched frantically for my father. Santa stood up in his sleigh and waved. I heard Mr. Winters calling from afar, “Carol! Carol! Over here.” He appeared on his reindeer, circling from behind Santa’s sleigh. On the back of the deer, his arms around Mr. Winters’s waist, sat my father. A wave of relief washed over me. I flew toward them. “I promised you I’d protect him, didn’t I, m’lady?” Mr. Winters hollered. The Defenders cheered, yelling, “Good job!” The elves on Santa’s sleigh said, Thank you, Gifted One. You saved us. Santa tipped his red and white cap.
“Carol, what are you doing here?” my father asked, but he was smiling broadly.
“Saving our bacon, I believe,” Mr. Winters said. They flew toward me. I wanted to hug my father, to hug Mr. Winters. But before I could reach them, a panicked voice cut through the night air. Santa yelled, “Look out!” I whirled. And there he was, the Masked Man, floating toward us without his machine. He pointed his staff below him and the air shimmered. Somehow he was creating invisible waves that pushed him upward, like the blast from a rocket.
“You didn’t think it would be that easy, did you, little girl?” the Masked Man said. He spoke through a device that disguised his voice. The sound was vaguely robotic. Twisted and evil. I felt paralyzed, terrified. He raised his staff and hurled a mighty blast. Had I not put up my cane as a shield, that might have been the end for me. The air felt alive, then solid as a punch, a giant fist that slammed into me. The breath escaped my lungs. My deer and I tumbled backward. I held onto the reins, hanging from the deer as we somersaulted toward Earth.
“No!” my father yelled, and he and Mr. Winters went on the attack. More Defenders zoomed in from every direction. “As one!” Mr. Winters shouted, and they concentrated their power into a mighty blast. The air trembled, and the blast was so strong it flung my father and Mr. Winters backward, like the kick of a shotgun, both of them clinging to the deer. The Masked Man reeled.
I watched as I fell. I yanked hard on the reins, but my deer seemed dazed. I pulled myself onto his back and placed my hand on his head, concentrating my energy into him. The deer stirred, but we kept falling. I could see mountains below, approaching fast. I turned my body toward the earth and aimed my power toward the ground, as I’d seen the Masked Man do. We slowed to a halt, just a few feet from a field covered by patches of snow. My deer’s legs started to churn. I wondered where we were. Not that it mattered. Whatever this place was, it would not be where I would die.
Up, up I flew. I couldn’t see the battle but heard the boom of North Pulses. “Faster!” I yelled, but my deer seemed to be injured, flying at half speed. I could hear his ragged breath. I heard another huge blast, and the clouds above me parted, revealing the battle.
Then it happened, the worst thing I could ever imagine. The Masked Man hovered. The Defenders and Santa were arrayed in formation in front of him. I heard a hum, a great power building and building. The Masked Man seemed to slow. He held his staff high above his head, as if he were drawing power from the moon itself. The Defenders and Santa froze. I thought they were preparing their own attack, but then I realized they couldn’t move. The Masked Man brought his staff forward with such tremendous speed that I could barely see it. A huge blast burst forth from his weapon, like the waves of power you see in the films of nuclear bomb tests, everything in the path annihilated. The Defenders and Santa were helpless, and they were flung backward. Santa’s sleigh overturned, throwing him and the elves and the packages into the air. I heard grunts and cries of pain. Santa’s sleigh splintered and broke into a thousand pieces. His team of reindeer fell toward Earth. Defenders were tossed from their mounts. Santa, my father, the Defenders, and elves—they were all unconscious, lifeless, falling, falling, falling. I tried freezing them, but I was too far away, my deer too weak to get me there in time.
The Masked Man had won. I had failed. I lost my friends. I lost Santa Claus. I lost my father again, this time for good.
A fury rose inside me. Grie
f and anger and pain swirled as I watched them disappear into the black night. “AAAAIIIIEEEHHHHH!” I screamed, and something stirred within me. It was a power so deep, so strong, I felt as if my body might explode. The universe trembled. The Masked Man spun to face me.
“You’re a monster!” I screamed, and my words sounded far away, as if they belonged to someone else, some out-of-body version of me.
“I am victorious,” he said in his robotic voice. He laughed. “And you are just a girl in way over her head.”
Then the words came back to me, the ones weird Mr. Winters had spoken to me at Rockefeller Center, where he first revealed that I had a greater purpose. A girl is a powerful, powerful thing. Never doubt your worth. I heard the words the queen had said to me just hours before. Always remember that you are an extraordinary girl … You are the master of your fate. The anger roiled within me. My body glowed. My hair stood on end. The white strand hung in my face, blazing like hot steel. I brushed it aside with my left hand and raised the cane with my right. “I am NOT just a girl,” I yelled. “I am a Defender of Claus!”
The Masked Man laughed again. “Silly child. There’s no one left to defend.” He raised his staff, preparing his final attack. The weapon vibrated with power. He pulled it back to hurl his next pulse, the one that would end me, that would complete his triumph. But suddenly he stopped. He froze in place, as if stricken with fear. For a second I was confused, but then I realized I was the one doing it. I felt myself rise. I don’t know where the power came from, but I began to float above my deer. The Masked Man hung in the air, unmoving. I pulled the cane tight to my chest. I started to spin, slowly at first, then faster and faster, until everything was a blur. It felt like I had no control over my body, yet I was controlling everything. My rage fueled the strength.
I spun so fast I could hardly see. I felt the power building within me until I was about to burst. I thought about the Defender of old who had lost control of his power and vanished. “Poof,” Mr. Winters had said. But I didn’t care. If I vanished, so be it. I didn’t want to live in a world without my father, a world without Santa Claus. I craved every ounce of energy I could gather. When I didn’t think I could take it anymore, I willed myself to stop. My body pulsed with energy. I felt electrified, tiny bolts of lightning firing from every one of my wide-open pores. The cane sizzled. I held my left hand to my face, and it glowed, sparks of electricity passing between my fingers. I extended the cane with my right. I moved my left hand forward, and my deer and the Masked Man moved forward with it. I moved it backward, as if I were tugging at the air itself, and they moved backward as well. I did it again, forward then back. Then an idea hit me so hard I gasped.
I started pulling, grabbing the strings of the universe. My deer lurched backward, heading down from where it had come. The Masked Man jerked back, spinning away from me but entirely in my control. The threads of time and space crisscrossed in a massive silvery grid before me, a web I could touch and manipulate, and I hoped that what I thought was happening was actually happening.
I kept pulling and pulling, but nothing appeared for what seemed like the longest time. I began to lose hope. Maybe it wasn’t possible. Perhaps what was done was done. But then, far below, came a black speck in the gray, moonlit sky. Then came another speck. And another. Then I saw a spot of red. Santa! I pulled as hard as I could, string after string of time itself. Then they appeared, my father and Mr. Winters. Their bodies reversed the tumble they had taken. The sounds of the battle and their screams were like a song played backward. Santa drew closer, the elves somersaulting beside him. The shattered sleigh pieced itself back together, with the strange sound of unsplintering wood. The reindeer straightened into their usual line, and Santa and his elves and the packages dropped back into the reconstructed sleigh. The other Defenders retraced the paths of their falls and landed safely atop their mounts. My father and Mr. Winters were the last to land back on. And finally, the Masked Man’s titanic blast reversed itself, seemingly sucked back into his magic staff. The Defenders moved backward into protective formation around Santa. The Masked Man hovered before them, back to before he struck his fatal blow.
I stopped pulling, stopped the reversal of time, my body quivering with power. I collected myself and floated over to the Masked Man, between him and the Defenders. I studied him, inches from his covered face, awed by my own ability to control this powerful man. I floated back and turned to Santa and the Defenders and the elves, making sure everyone was accounted for. I looked at the earth below but had no fear of falling. I needed no reindeer now.
I started time again, and the Defenders and Santa all stared at me, stunned by my sudden appearance. To them it was as if I had just materialized. Would they even remember crashing to the earth? Santa yelled, “Look out!” and I turned to face the enemy. The Masked Man rose before me, only a few feet away, pulsing with menace. But I was no longer frightened of him. He pulled back his hand as if to attack, and I held out the cane and raised my other hand in response. With such power throbbing within me, all it took was a flick of my fingers to freeze him. He struggled against me. I heard him grunting under the mask, summoning every ounce of energy to break free. I floated serenely toward him. I glanced back at Mr. Winters and my father, who watched with mouths open. I stopped in front of the Masked Man, hovering before him, studying the demonic mask and his magic staff. I felt him trying to move his mouth to speak. I relaxed my power so that he could. “Who do you think you are to oppose me?” he barked. His robotic voice no longer sounded frightening.
I floated closer, nose to nose. I smiled, looking into the eyes peering out from the mask. I could see his fear. I whispered, “Who do I think I am? I am Christmas Carol.” Then I ripped the mask from his face.
I will always regret what happened next. I should have been more focused. I should have taken his staff, maybe tied him up. I should have asked the Defenders to help subdue him. But I let my guard down for just a second. That second was when the mask fell away, and the man underneath was revealed. That was the longest second of my life, when everything I thought I knew about the past six years of my existence was shattered. Floating before me was the last person on Earth I expected to see.
Uncle Christopher.
Maybe some of you saw this coming. Maybe you weren’t as blind as I was. Yes, my uncle could be ruthless and greedy. He could be cold and impatient and act as if I were a burden. But he had always provided for me, taking me in when there was no one else. I loved my uncle, warts and all. For the longest time, he was the only family I had. I never would have suspected him in a million years.
But as it dawned on me that he was the Masked Man, the enemy who had kidnapped my father (his own brother!), killed Ramon, destroyed Santa and the Defenders, and had turned to destroy me next, I lost my focus.
“Carol, dear,” my uncle snarled, his voice deep and cold and chillingly evil. “You … will … pay … for this.” The last word came out like a hiss. The words shook me. I lost my hold on him. I floated backward, too shocked to function, staring at the man who had red hair and a white stripe, just like I did, but had concealed the mark of the Defender and used his powers for evil. My uncle, the enemy, saw his chance. He belted me with a North Pulse. I tumbled backward, the air knocked from my lungs. I struggled to breathe. My ears rang. Pain knifed through my brain. As I fell, my uncle raised his weapon again. I thought he was going to launch another attack, finish me off, and then go after Santa once more. But instead, he created a portal directly in front of him. It shimmered and sputtered and then came into focus. I saw palm trees, a beach. The Defenders rushed to stop him, but he dove through. The portal closed behind him, with a pop. And just like that, he was gone.
I plummeted toward Earth, too exhausted and too shattered to care. But then my body jerked to a halt. I floated upside down. My father and Mr. Winters flew to me.
“Carol!” my dad called. “Are you all right?” I hung in the air where they had frozen me. I felt woozy and nauseated.
Mr. Winters grabbed the reins of my deer, which had flown back up to us, and guided him to me. They set me gently on the reindeer’s back, and I slumped against his neck. My father climbed on and pulled me to his chest. His warmth enveloped me. I’ve had some good hugs in my life, but without a doubt, that was the best one ever. “Thank you, Carol,” he said softly. “Thank you.”
“Did you see, Daddy?” I was sobbing now. “Did you see who it was?”
“Yes, honey.”
“How could he? How could he do that?”
“I don’t know, sweetheart.” Dad kissed the top of my head and whispered that it would be all right. Santa and the Defenders and the elves watched in silence. And time stood still.
So you might think saving Santa Claus, rescuing my father and the rest of the Defenders, and defeating the enemy were the most amazing things I did on Christmas Eve. Well, maybe. Kind of hard to top that. But I felt so betrayed it was impossible to feel triumph. And the fact that my uncle had escaped ruined any celebration. But Santa let me do something later that night that lifted my spirits.
The battle had been fought over the mountains of West Virginia. When the Masked Man attacked, Santa had been about to deliver toys to the children of a little town called Petersburg. Now that the enemy had been defeated, Santa still had a job to do.
Christmas Carol & the Defenders of Claus Page 13
