by Sean Shake
I thought this question was rhetorical, but as the silence stretched on it seemed he was expecting an answer. “I don’t know.”
“Exactly. You don’t know. You know why?”
This didn’t seem rhetorical, and indeed he waited for my answer. “Um, no.”
“Exactly. Because no one needs extra souls. What are you gonna do with them? They’re just souls. Then you’d have to take care of them, put them somewhere. It’s like a pink elephant.”
This tickled something in my mind, though I couldn’t quite place what. “A pink elephant? You mean like one you try not to think of?”
“No. You give someone you don’t like a pink elephant. Pink elephants are immortal, they can’t be killed. Once gifted they are bonded forever. Or at least until the receiver of the gift dies. So they’re stuck with this elephant they have to take care of.”
“I think you mean a white elephant.”
“A white elephant? No. In any case, I can’t help you.”
He turned away from me, and then seemed to pretend I wasn’t there.
“What do you mean you can’t help me?”
“Well, I suppose if you really need my help I might be able to.”
“Uh, okay. Good. I need your help.”
“Fine. What do you need help with?”
“I need to get out of here.”
“And find Alexa?”
“Yes.”
He pointed at me “Aha! Her name is Alexa.”
I stared at him, trying to think if he had just tricked me somehow. But no, he’d said her name first. Had he guessed?
“So?” I asked.
He deflated. “Yes. What does anything matter? Well if you’re the Santa Claus, I suppose she wants to try to save Christmas. Is that it?”
“Are you against saving Christmas?”
“I like Christmas. Everyone likes Christmas. Even the ones trying to ruin it. It’s not like Christmas would go away if you ruined it. It would just be a ruined Christmas. It would still be Christmas though. That’s the most important part.”
“There are people who want to ruin Christmas?”
“I wouldn’t exactly call them people, not how you think of them. But yes, the inhabitants of the realms are not too happy with Mr Nick. Things had been going along just fine for quite a while before he came along. Then he had to go and shake everything up. Like a new CEO in your world, coming in and trying to make his mark on the company. In the process destroying everything. Or at least destroying what people have come to expect.”
“Punishing bad kids?” I tried.
“Oh but it’s so much more than just punishment. It’s the one time of year they would get to truly live and interact outside of this dismal place.”
“They’re from here?” I asked, wondering why in the hell Alexa and Rue had sent me here if that were the case.
“Not anymore. Not for a long time now. Not since the current—” He stopped himself. “Well not since the previous Santa. Seeing as how you’re the current Santa. Now it’s just lesser demons here. Maybe one or two greater ones who are slumming it. That’s why I moved here. After everything that happened in the Northern Realm, I decided it was time to pack up and find a safer place.” He grunted and then fixed his drifting gaze on me. “And then here you are, on the first day I move in, ruining things.” He sighed heavily.
Despite his demeanor, I was still slightly afraid of him.
He was a giant demon-looking thing after all.
“So, how do I get out of here then?”
“You’re persistent. You came here through a portal?”
I started to answer but he interrupted me before I could. “No, of course you did. And that would be closed now, or else you wouldn’t have come here. I suppose you were dumped in the wastelands. She probably would’ve wanted to train you here. Or maybe that would’ve been Rudolph’s idea.”
He seemed to know a lot about things. Probably even more than I did.
“So that must mean you came from the crossroads.” It was a statement not a question, but given his earlier rhetorical questions, I decided to answer the statement.
“Yes.”
“That likely means they were going to follow you here. I can’t see why they would leave you here alone. Even with the lesser demons, a new Santa would be vulnerable. You have his armor, and that can protect you. But not forever. If you got attacked, eventually they would overwhelm what the armor could resist and you would get torn to pieces.”
“I did get attacked,” I said slightly offended at his thinking I would lose. “And I beat them.”
“You beat them did you? You beat them all?”
“Yes, all of them.”
“And how many were there?”
“Nine.”
“And you killed all of them?”
“Well, I killed eight of them. And then one flew away.”
“So you’ve alerted the demons to your presence. You survived their initial attack, their feint, their testing of you to see how strong you are. But you haven’t faced the rest.”
“The rest?”
“Yes. Do you think this entire realm only has nine demons in it?”
“Well, I didn’t really think about it. I’m new to this whole thing. I don’t know what a reasonable amount of demons in a given realm is.”
He sighed again. “Why do Earthers keep getting the job of Santa? That is what I want to know. Why don’t I get the job of Santa? I know everything about the realms, I have plenty of experience. I was around even before the first Santa. But nooo. Every time, I get passed up.”
“Who exactly are you?”
He eyed me suspiciously, and I was reminded of Rue. “Why, do you want to steal my soul?”
“What would I do with your soul?”
“I don’t know. Humans are strange. You have odd fetishes. Perhaps you would put in soup and rub it all over your body.”
I frowned. “What? That doesn’t even make any sense.”
“I know! Exactly! Humans don’t make any sense.”
It was my turn to sigh. “All right, never mind. I don’t care who you are. Just get me back to Alexa.”
He pointed at me. “Aha! So you do know her—” Then he stopped himself. “Oh wait, I already said that, didn’t I?”
I shook my head at him.
21
As soon as we stepped outside, the approaching horde was visible.
“Oh wonderful,” the giant demon said.
The horde was coming from the direction of the forest and the volcano, and I was glad that I hadn’t gone that way, that I’d decided to come to this castle with this strange large demon that seemed to want to help me, and seemed to know Alexa. And even care about her.
I still didn’t understand the hierarchy of Santa Claus and Christmas spirits or realmspeople or whatever they were called, but I was just glad at least one of them wasn’t out to kill me.
At least not obviously out to kill me.
I drew the North Pole and extended it.
“Put that thing away before they see it. Do you see how many there are? What are you going to do, slice up all of them? Plus if they see it they’ll probably try to take it.”
Remembering the demons that had tried to do just that earlier, I deactivated the saber and stowed it in its holster on my thigh, which then disappeared back into my leg. I was still creeped out by that and wanted an explanation. But I had bigger things to worry about. “What are we gonna do?” I asked, watching the horde approach.
They were about two-hundred yards away now, and advancing at a quick pace.
“I just moved here. I’m not moving again.” He sighed. “Why can’t I find a quiet place to call my own?”
“You’re the one who chose a demon-filled realm.”
“Don’t tell me what I know and don’t know. I was alive long before you, and I’ll be alive long after your short miserable life ends.” He considered this for a moment. “Although now that you’re the Santa Claus, you
might be around for a while.” He shook his head. “Just let me do the talking.”
“Talking?” I asked. “You’re gonna talk to them?”
He looked down at me. “Have you seen me lately?”
When it became obvious this wasn’t rhetorical, I said, “Yes, I’m staring at you.”
“Exactly. We’re not that different.”
“I beg to differ. I’m a human. You’re… not.”
“No, not you and—” He grunted. “You don’t listen. The demons! We’re the same.”
“Oh. Right.”
So we stood there awaiting the approaching horde.
I was getting quite nervous, and started going through my interface to calm myself.
I saw that my arm was damaged, or at least the suit was. I couldn’t tell the difference. If my arm was in pain I was either too numb or too amped up to feel it.
When I inspected the ragdoll, text appeared.
Damage: 85%
Self-repair initiated. Progress: 11%.
That was handy. I wondered if the repair was done by nanites or something, or magic.
The horde was still a distance away, so I looked at the other parts of my interface.
I looked at the CONTACTS tooth of the cog, and realized I’d just assumed it was something like phone contacts, but maybe it was referring to what were in my eyes.
I selected it.
CONTACTS
Alexa
Rue
Secret Hideout
Claus Home
Or not.
Feeling like an idiot, I selected Alexa.
A little spinning cog appeared, followed a few seconds later by a message saying there was no connection.
I tried the other three, but the result was the same.
“You’re awfully quiet,” my demonic companion said.
“What am I supposed to say?”
“I don’t know, anything. The silence is unnerving. You humans are really creepy when you don’t talk.”
“You’re one to talk. I’m creepy,” I muttered, shaking my head. “Look at you.”
He looked down at me again, tearing his eyes from the approaching demons—which seemed to have not gotten much closer, and made me wonder if we were doing that thing that had happened when I’d approached, or if distances were simply different in this realm.
“Have you ever considered, in your little human-centric worldview, the possibility that maybe you’re the creepy looking one and not me?”
“No I haven’t.”
“That was a rhetorical question.”
Before I got a chance to reply, the demons were suddenly right in front of us, all however many hundred of them.
“Kraaa… old master,” one of the demons floating in the air said. It looked a lot like that ghost Pokémon… Gastly?
I’m not sure what it said about me that I thought these demons looked like Pokémon, but it was the immediate comparison that leapt to mind.
And this one really did look like Gastly.
Wait a second, was Gastly an evolution of Gengar?
Whatever, it didn’t matter. There were more important things to think about.
“Salakktus,” my companion said. “What brings you here?”
“We are here for the intruder.”
Oh, wow. I didn’t really think this through.
Maybe I should’ve hidden. That might’ve been smarter.
I’d had plenty of time. I could’ve gone back into the castle. It wasn’t like I didn’t know they were looking for me.
“I haven’t seen any intruders.”
The floating demon turned its large eyes to me, then back to my companion. “Oh no?” it asked. “Then who is that?”
My companion looked around, then back at the demon. “Who’s who?”
“Him,” the demon said, pointing a ghastly finger at me.
My companion looked directly at me, then past me, and all around. “I don’t see anyone. What kind of game are you playing?”
“I’m not playing a game,” the demon said, annoyed. “The intruder is right there. We want him. We’ve heard he has something…” I didn’t know if it was possible for demons to look unsure of themselves, like they’ve made a mistake, but if so, that’s exactly what this one looked like.
“This one has what?” my companion asked.
“Nothing. He’s an intruder, and you will give him to us.”
“Well I don’t see anyone, and you can’t take an imaginary person.”
“I disagree,” another demon said from the ranks behind the floating one.
This one had a deep voice, but when I looked in its direction, it appeared to be female.
And completely naked. Although she had no nipples and the area between her legs was smooth.
She looked like a mannequin, except she had hair on her head.
Actually, no, not exactly hair, now that I looked at it. More like some type of plankton, or something that moved as though underwater.
She saw me looking at her and then—
And then I was waking up, my head bouncing against something.
I groaned.
“About time you woke up. I’m getting tired of carrying you. You’re heavier than you look.”
I was still bouncing into something, apparently someone’s back, as I was carried over their shoulder. They were wearing a fur coat for some reason.
My Santa suit felt strange on me, and my ragdoll display was lit up red with twisting lines instead of dots. There were also many critical errors and things with percentages in the single digits that I didn’t bother reading.
“What’s going on?” I at least realized who was carrying me: my new giant furry demon friend.
“You let Ovariea seduce you. She had you half-naked before I stopped her. Who knows what she would’ve done with that Santa suit and the North Pole inside of it. Not sure she realized that’s where it was.”
“Ovariea? What? I don’t remember any of that.”
“That’s what she does. She steals men’s clothes and then absorbs them into herself.
“She’s absorbed a lot of clothes, I’ll tell you that. You humans just don’t learn. You see a beautiful woman and you lose your minds.”
“Would you put me down? You’re giving me a headache.”
I tried to look up and see what was going on, see what we were running from, but I didn’t see anything.
Of course it was incredibly dark, so that might have been hiding whatever was pursuing us.
My companion did put me down, in a manner of speaking.
He wrapped one large hand around my waist, picked me off his shoulder and hurled me in front of him.
I landed, rolled, and—to my surprise—popped up to my feet and started running with him just as he caught up to me.
“What the hell?” I said, as I found myself running beside him.
“It’s like a douchebag from your world.”
“What?”
“Something like that. Douchebag, airbag. I don’t know, it’s been a while since I’ve been there.”
“What are we running from?”
“The demonic horde that’s after that North Pole. And Ovariea, who’s after your suit. And your soul.”
“I thought you said demons didn’t have uses for souls.”
“You really need to listen better. I pondered what use someone might have for a soul. And then you gave that ridiculous example of putting it in soup and rubbing it all over your body.”
“I didn’t give that example, that was you.”
“Oh. Well that doesn’t make it any less ridiculous. And so now we’re running from the demoness who wants to make you into soup and rub you all over herself.”
I really didn’t have any good response to that, so I just kept running.
Whatever she wanted with me, I wasn’t gonna let her have her way.
Besides, I was a married man now. I wasn’t gonna sleep with another woman. Even if she was a demon.
; Though I had to admit to being curious as to what that would be like.
Not curious enough to find out, and perhaps have my soul taken for all eternity. I didn’t really believe in souls, but then again I also didn’t believe in Santa, so it just seemed like a wise move to not take that risk. Not tempt fate.
Another thing I didn’t believe in.
“Where are we going?”
“To your portal, to get you to your wife. You made me do all the running. You should lose a few pounds.”
I was actually quite slender, thank you. Which was why I had to wear a fat suit to play Santa Claus.
“I thought Santa Claus was jolly and chubby.”
“No,” he said simply and didn’t elaborate.
Demons were strange.
I supposed that shouldn’t have surprised me, but it did.
Or not so much surprise me, as take me by surprise.
Was there a difference there? It sure felt like there was one.
We were running toward what looked like the forest that I had seen earlier, but as I looked closer, I saw no mountains past the trees, and the mountains I’d seen earlier were high enough that even this close to the trees I should’ve still been able to see them if it were the same forest.
“Where are we?”
“Far away from where your lazy ass passed out. I’m not as young as I used to be. My feet can’t take all this running. There,” he pointed at a stream of what looked to be blood. “You need to jump seven rex above that. More or less exactly seven. No more, no less.”
“Which is it? And seven what?”
“Seven rex.”
“What’s a rex?”
“Oh Jes—” He stopped himself. “You humans. Seven feet. Well, no actually it’s not seven feet. I don’t remember the conversion. You know what, just…”
“Just what?” I asked.
“I don’t know. As a Santa Claus you should already know these kinds of things.”
“This all happened kind of fast. I’m learning on the job here.”
“I suppose you were coronated rather quickly. Normally you’re given a helper, who will ease you into things. But they probably didn’t have time for that.”
“They gave me contacts. Shows me spirits and damage to my suit.”
