by Sean Shake
I used my Frozen Touch power to channel cold into her and try to cool her down.
“Grab that,” I told Rue, nodding at Alexa’s dress lying in the sand.
The rest of the walk I kept channeling cold into Alexa, worried that something bad was going to happen to her.
“Is she going to be okay?” I asked Rue.
“Maybe. As long as doesn’t overheat.”
“What happens if she overheats? How would I know?”
“Oh,” Krampus said, humor in his voice, “you’d know.”
“She’d explode,” Rue said.
“You mean that figuratively, right?”
“No, she’d actually explode. Blood and guts everywhere. It would not be a pretty sight.”
“Jesus Christ are you serious!”
Both Krampus and Rue froze, startled, and looked around.
“What is it?” I asked, scanning the area and activating Track to look for any spectral traces.
I didn’t see anything.
“Nothing,” Rue said. “Let’s hurry up and get to your vehicle. How much farther is it?”
30
“If it’s still here, it should be right up here.”
We’d made it to the area where we’d left my truck.
I hoped.
I still held Alexa in my arms, and while she was still warm, she wasn’t sweating anymore, my Frozen Touch so far having prevented a wife explosion.
Less than a minute later I saw the rocks I’d driven through.
We walked through the portal and found my truck just where I had left it on the other side.
I laid Alexa in the backseat with Rue, and then got in the driver’s seat.
“Come on,” I said by way of prayer as I hovered my finger over the pushbutton start.
I jabbed it down.
Nothing.
“Dammit, the battery’s dead.” I hoped we weren’t out of gas too.
I didn’t think I’d left it running.
Krampus opened the passenger door and started to climb in.
“Whoa, hey! What are you doing?”
Krampus stopped, one foot in the truck, head lowered to squeeze in, which he now turned to look at me. “I’m getting in the truck.”
“You should ride in the back.”
“I’m a fourteen-rex demon. I’ll stand out.”
Wow, I thought, thinking back to the river of blood. He could have just said jump half my height.
I looked at the bed of my truck. The open bed. No camper shell here. “Son of a bitch. Fine. Don’t touch anything.”
I turned to look at Rue in the backseat. “I don’t suppose I have the power to jumpstart a car, do I?”
“Oh, that uses pure energy, right?”
“Uh…” I frowned, thinking. “Do you mean electricity?”
“Yeah, that’s it.”
“Then yeah, it does.”
She got out excitedly and went around to the back of the truck and knelt down out of view. “Okay,” she called. “Try it now.”
Frowning, but used to the strangeness by this point, I pressed the button, wondering how in the hell she channeled electricity from all the way back there.
It turned out she hadn’t, because nothing happened when I pressed the button.
I got out and went around to the back of the truck.
Where I found Rue with her mouth wrapped around the tailpipe.
I gaped at her.
“What are you doing?” I finally managed to get out.
“Iv fhheeth who hvvh who fa sha,” she replied.
“I have no idea what you just said.”
She unwrapped her lips from the tailpipe and leaned back. “I’m trying to give you a jump.”
“Why are you doing it from back here?” I pointed to the front of the truck. “The battery’s up there.”
“What’s a battery?”
I sighed.
Five minutes later I had finally convinced her that if she wanted to jumpstart my truck, she had to do it from the front.
So now we stood at the front of the truck with my hood open.
I pointed out the battery to her. “So you just have to touch those two parts,” I said uncertainly, not sure exactly how this worked. “Put electricity into the one with the plus sign.”
“That’s the cross right?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, you just have to turn me on, I’m not excited anymore.”
“Turn you on? How do I turn you on? I don’t see a switch anywhere.”
“I have lots of switches. The easiest one’s probably between my legs.”
I stared at her. “Um, what do you mean?”
“To activate my power. I was excited before, seeing all those people on the beach, and I still had some remnants of it and so I channeled that into… into what you said was a tailpipe. But I guess that didn’t work. So now I’m all out of energy.” She tapped her nose, which I noticed was no longer glowing red, even faintly. “So I either need to get really angry—which is a bad idea, you wouldn’t like me when I’m angry—or I need to be turned on.”
“Turned on like a light switch, or turned on like…”
“Like both. It’s sexual energy that powers me. Well, not just sexual energy. Like I said, anger works too. Anger and sex. But yeah, anger wouldn’t be a good choice. I kind of lose control when I get angry.”
“Out-of-control reindeer. That would be… horrible.”
“You don’t even want to see what happens to my antlers when I get angry.”
This drew my attention to said antlers, which seemed larger than before. “Are you sure you’re not angry now? Because your antlers seem to have grown.”
“Oh no, that’s normal. They grow up until Christmas. Then I shed them. They’ll get much bigger than they are now. By Christmas Eve they’ll be large enough for me to channel power and keep us safe as we fly around and fulfill the Christmas spirit.”
“Fulfill the Christmas spirit? You mean deliver gifts.”
“Sure. Now come on, turn me on so I can jumpstart this thing. We don’t want Alexa to explode. Cleaning up her guts wouldn’t be pleasant. No husband should have to clean his wife’s guts up.” With that she stuck her thumbs into her waistband and down her shorts.
She wasn’t wearing underwear.
She pointed at her crotch. “Right here. It’s basically like a button, not so much a switch. But if you rub it it will turn me on.”
“Yeah, I know how it works. Are you serious?”
“Unless you have a better idea.”
I could call AAA, but I wasn’t sure how I’d explain the seven-foot-tall demon. Or the girl with antlers and strange eyes. Beautiful eyes, but no less strange for being beautiful.
I stared down at her bare sex, and felt a tingling below the belt. “But I can’t, I’m married.”
“Oh she won’t mind. She knows this is part of your duty. How do you think you’re gonna power me up on Christmas Eve? You’ll have to keep me turned on allllll night.”
“This is so fucking weird,” I said and reached for her crotch, looking away as I did.
I didn’t know why I looked away, it just seemed the right thing to do.
I found her nub and started rubbing it. I couldn’t help the erection that started growing in my pants, but I tried to ignore it.
She’d said Alexa wouldn’t mind, but I didn’t know that for a fact. But we did need to get the truck jumpstarted, and if Alexa exploded… well the point would be moot anyway.
And I didn’t want to walk somewhere with a seven-foot demon and a reindeer girl, carrying an unconscious girl in her underwear in my arms.
This was Florida, but I imagined that would still draw a lot of attention, even here.
Rue let out a loud moan, drawing my attention.
I tried to keep it focused on her face, which started to glow.
Then, unable to stop myself, I looked down at what my finger was doing to her and saw that she was glowing there too, an even
brighter red.
I could feel her heat up, though nowhere near as hot as Alexa was.
“Oh yes, Santa. Good Christmas, yes.” Her hands hovered above the battery, and what looked like red lightning slowly unfurled from her fingertips and worked their way towards the battery.
“Faster, charge me faster.”
I obliged, rubbing my finger even faster, and the bolt thickened as energy poured into the battery.
The headlights flickered on, and then started to grow bright.
“That’s enough,” I said.
She didn’t react, but then I realized I was still rubbing her.
I quickly withdrew my hand, worried the headlights would explode or worse, the battery would catch fire and the whole truck would go up in flames.
Rue collapsed to the ground, panting, and the headlights dimmed to their normal brightness.
I looked down at her, shook my head, and closed the hood.
And found myself staring at a demon.
Krampus looked like a little boy that had just been caught peeking in his teenage neighbor’s window. He looked side to side then back at me. “Oh hi, I didn’t see you there.”
31
We sat in my truck—which thankfully wasn’t out of gas—trying to stay off of busy roads, Krampus hunched over in the front seat beside me, taking up so much room that our elbows were touching.
And then there were his horns, which I was worried were going to take one of my eyes out.
They’d already gouged the headliner.
He poked at the radio, then I saw him look at me from the corner of my eye.
He poked it again.
“Would you stop that?”
He put his hands in his lap.
Half a minute later, he started messing with the climate controls.
He managed to turn the heater on full blast.
“Ahh,” he said. “That feels nice.”
I pushed his hand away and turned the AC back on. “Keep your hands to yourself.”
“You’re the one who touched me.”
“You can’t turn the heat on. Do you want her to explode?” I asked.
“Who?”
“Alexa.” I gestured with my thumb to the backseat where she was unconscious next to a contented Rue.
“No of course not,” Krampus replied.
“Then stop messing with that.”
Krampus crossed his arms and pouted—a sight more unnerving than a snarl would have been.
What had my life become? I was driving around Miami, looking for a strip club, with a demon, a reindeer girl, and Santa’s daughter.
Who was my wife.
And who would explode apparently if she got too warm.
We’d have to look into fixing that.
My phone—which I’d left in my truck with my keys—turned out, indicating it finally had enough charge to do so. I hadn’t charged it last night, dealing with Alexa and all, so it was a good thing I kept a charging cable in my truck.
Of course it would have been nicer if my truck had had GPS.
It was rather odd that it had touchless entry, but not GPS.
Trying not to crash, I opened the GPS on my phone and typed ‘strip club’, wishing Google Maps had an incognito mode. “Here,” I said, holding out my phone to Krampus. “Hold this. Don’t do anything with it. Just hold it.”
Krampus took the phone in his large hands, and despite it being a large phablet, it looked comically small in his grasp.
“I remember these things,” he said warmly. He turned around in his seat, his horns smacking me in the face.
“Ow! Dammit. Watch out.”
Ignoring me he said, “Hey, Rudolph. Didn’t we used to make these?”
“My name is Rue. And yes, a hundred years ago or so. We mostly stopped production when we got contacts, and then stopped completely once we got implants.”
I hadn’t even thought about the fact that I had the contacts. I wondered if they had GPS. There was that empty map section. “Wait, a hundred years ago? You had this technology a hundred years ago?”
“Yeah. We supply your world with tech. The Pentagon mainly. We give them old stuff. They think it’s new. Then they drip it out to other people, or other humans discover it on their own. I mean it’s not like it’s that complicated. It’s just some antennas and a few specialized microprocessing chips in an organic LED display with a lithium-based energy store.”
“We call those batteries,” I said, somewhat in awe.
“Oh right. We call them energy stores. I think it’s a better name. Battery sounds weird. It’s like, did someone just punch you in the face?”
“That’s a different kind of battery.”
“This is why English sucks.”
“It sounds like your native language is English.”
“It’s not.”
“It’s funny you speak English at all. I mean, you’re from another realm.”
“It’s is what everyone speaks in the realms.”
“Not the werewolves,” Krampus said.
“Yeah whatever. No one cares about those losers.”
“Still at war with them I see.”
“I’m not at war with them. I wasn’t the one who ate one of us. Besides, you can’t be at war with an animal. You exterminate animals.”
“Jesus,” I said, that’s harsh.
Neither of them responded. They looked—
“You have arrived at your destination,” an electronic voice said from my phone.
32
A minute later, Rue and I were walking back to the truck, having been denied entrance on account of Rue not having ID.
“How did you do this before without ID?”
“They didn’t ask for ID last time we did this. Hardly even had police or laws.”
“How long ago was it?”
“I don’t know, not that long. Fifty years? Maybe four hundred. Something like that.”
“That’s a big gap.”
She shrugged.
We reached the truck, and I saw Alexa was up now, though still in her underwear.
“How are you feeling?” I asked.
She smiled brightly at me. “Great, now.”
I looked at Rue. “Does it have to be strippers or prostitutes?”
She got in the truck. “No. It can be whatever you want.”
“Wait,” I said, climbing in myself, “it doesn’t matter what they are? They don’t need any special status?”
“No. It’s just been every Santa’s preference. They prefer prostitutes and strippers. Tend to have fewer attachments. More likely to go along with things.”
“Does it have to be girls?”
“Well, I just assumed you would want girls. You’re the one that has to sleep with them. But if you want boys—”
“Hold up. Sleep with them?”
“Well yeah, you have to turn them into elves.”
“And to do that I have to… sleep with them? You mean have sex with them?”
“That’s how elves are made. Didn’t your parents ever talk to you about the birds and the bees?”
“We must have different birds and bees than you do. How many elves do we need?”
Rue shrugged. “Maybe a hundred.”
“A hundred! I can’t sleep with a hundred girls.”
“Or boys if you want. I just didn’t think—”
“No, that’s not what I mean. I mean a hundred is way too many.”
She shrugged again. “We need elves to rebuild.”
“And you’re okay with this?” I asked Alexa. “Me sleeping with a hundred random girls?”
“It’s always been this way.”
I grunted. “Where the hell are we gonna get a hundred girls?”
33
“Chad. Hey man,” I said into my cellphone when my friend picked up. “How’s it going?”
“Ah, you know. Fuckin bitches. I don’t know why I let Lilly convince me to foster dogs. Jessica isn’t happy about it either. I had a
golden retriever try to eat him. And they say cats and dogs get along.”
“Yeah, hard work. Hey, I have a question for you. You remember those underground parties you used to always tell me about? You wouldn’t happen to know of one going on tonight would you?”
“Bro, of course. When you looking to have some fun?”
“Right now would be good.”
“Gimmie a minute, let me text someone.”
“Sure.”
Thirty seconds later he came back. “Alright, you ready?”
“Hit me.”
He gave me the location. “You need directions?”
“No, I know where that is. General area anyway. They aren’t gonna check ID, right?”
“No way. You might want to though, if you know what I mean.”
“Okay. Thanks. I owe you.”
“Come help me take care of a few of these bitches sometime, I’d consider that payment enough. As long as you bring a few sixers with you. You need a wingman?”
“No that’s okay, I’m good.” I already had three, and I didn’t know how I was gonna deal with them.
“Sure man. Have fun. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do. You know, before I got chained down.”
“I’ll keep it in mind.” I disconnected and put the phone in my center console. “Good news. I’ve got us into a party which will have even better girls.” Though I would have to be careful, I didn’t want to get some underage girl whose parents were going to report her missing.
I drove us across town, cursing at the holiday traffic, and finally arrived at the abandoned club the party was being held at.
I thought it was funny that the location was an old club.
I parked around the corner of the building so no one coming out of the club would see Krampus.
It was dark now, but still warm, so I looked back at Alexa. “It might get warm in there. Do you want to stay out here in the AC?”
“I’m fine now. As long as you’re around you can cool me off.”
Krampus started to get out with us.
“What are you doing?”
“Je—” He froze, then continued. “Isn’t it obvious? I’m getting out of the truck.”
“Stay here.”
“First you don’t want me to get in, now you don’t want me to get out? Make up your mind.”
