Guns and Tasers were drawn. The police formed a human barrier around the mayoral family, their eyes searching the crowd for the missing boy. His mother screamed in an almost continuous wail so that we almost didn’t hear it.
A laugh echoed in the night, reverberating through our bodies and sending a chill through the crowd.
Chapter 7
We were on lockdown. The police had called for backup, and I was having a serious moment of déjà vu. Ronnie had gone with her parents to get everyone food because it looked as though we would be there for a while. Joey was huddled with her cousin at the edge of our blanket, and Spencer was on the stage with Jameson and other members of the pack, watching the crowd and keeping his Alpha safe.
The star was still on the stage, unlit and waiting to be hoisted up. The mayor was yelling at the police, but I couldn’t make out what he was saying. His wife was sitting in a chair, clutching her daughter in her lap and crying. She was on the verge of hysteria and had caused her daughter to start crying.
“So kinda crazy, right?” Cole asked, pulling my attention away from the stage.
“Crazy,” I said, pulling my eyes from the stage to give my attention fully to Cole.
An officer walked by, flashing a light in our faces to make sure we weren’t the missing boy or holding him hostage. He moved on, and Cole was muttering a curse under his breath, rubbing his eyes.
“Okay, here we go,” Ronnie said, sitting next to me. She had a couple grilled cheese sandwiches and bags of chips. I wasn’t surprised she hadn’t brought us any meat, but I didn’t say anything about it.
“Hey there, kiddo,” Ronnie’s dad, Connor, said as he sat in front of me.
“Heya.” I gave his hand a squeeze when he held it out to me.
“How are you, sweetheart?” her mom, Christine, asked.
Looking at Connor and Chris, one could make the argument that Ronnie looked exactly like either of them or both of them. She was the perfect blend of the Kilpatricks. Chris was a petite woman, shorter than Ronnie or me, though I still remember looking up at her thick, heavy brown hair shot through with silvery strands. Her rich brown eyes, flecked with green and gold, made me feel safe when they landed on me, and her clear olive skin, belying her age, made her ageless. Then there was Connor, with his thinning orange-red hair and his pale, freckled skin. He was taller than Ronnie and me, but that wasn’t saying much. His brown eyes were dark and warm.
“I was doing pretty good before all this,” I said. I took a bite of the hot sandwich, a gooey string of cheese stretching from my mouth as I pulled the sandwich away.
“Ah, this is just a bunch of stuff and bother,” Connor said as he opened a bag of chips.
“Maybe,” Cole said. “Did you guys hear that laugh?”
“Yes,” Ronnie, Joey, Charlie, and I said at once.
“Oh, I heard that,” Chris said. “Do you think it was something?”
“Maybe,” I said cautiously, taking a chip from Ronnie’s bag.
Another cop came through, flashing our faces with a flashlight. He clicked something as he peered into each of our faces.
“How long do you think this is going to take?” Joey asked, munching on a bag of kettle corn. The sugar put some color back in her face.
“Hours,” I muttered.
“What exactly happened?” Chris asked. “Did anyone see?”
“I bet it was Krampus,” Joey said, making Charlie choke on her mouthful of corn.
“Don’t make jokes,” Ronnie said.
“I’m not!” Joey said, her lavender eyes wide.
“What’s this?” Connor asked with a bemused smile, but Chris watched us carefully, a small wrinkle between her brows.
“Nothing,” I said.
“Not nothing,” Ronnie said. “Kids are missing. One was just snatched.”
“And you think it was Krampus?” Connor asked Joey, making the pixie girl blush.
“Maybe,” she muttered, keeping her eyes on her kettle corn.
“I haven’t heard that name since you two were knee-high,” Connor said, making Ronnie and me squirm. “But Krampus hasn’t been around in generations. Why do you think it’s him?”
No one answered him right away, letting his searching eyes move from face to face. Only Charlie looked back at him, having no idea what any of us were talking about.
“Girls?” Chris’s tone pulled our spines straight and brought our eyes up. One perfectly shaped brow arched over her left eye as she pinned us in place, waiting for us to answer.
“Fine.” I told them about the missing human children and the new revival of Krampus-believers. “But I never said I actually believed it was Krampus doing the snatching.”
“But you saw him!” Joey accused, pointing a sugar-coated finger at me. I cut her a look, and her arm fell into her lap.
“Matilda?” Chris said, hitting all the syllables of my name, making me feel like a child again.
“I saw someone,” I said, my grilled cheese going cold and forgotten in my lap. “Coulda been a glamour, coulda been a shifter. Hell, it coulda been a really ugly satyr.”
“You believe that?” Connor asked.
When I looked at his open, friendly face, I deflated, blowing out a breath and shaking my head. “I guess not. But what good is it? There’s nothing I can do. What can anyone do about it?”
“What do you mean?” Chris asked.
“He’s a demigod.” I felt my eyes taking up too much room on my face as I looked from Chris to Connor and back again.
“You should tell the police.” Chris’s voice was gentle but firm, as though she was explaining right from wrong to a small child.
“No flipping way,” I said.
“Why not?”
“And risk getting collared for sounding like a crazy person? You’re kidding.”
Ronnie shifted uncomfortably next to me—she couldn’t talk quite as candidly to her parents as I could. I picked up my sandwich and ate, mostly to give myself something to do besides meet those penetrating gold-and-green-flecked brown eyes.
“I’m sure you’ll do the right thing,” Chris said, her aim hitting right on the mark as she patted my knee. Before I could do or say anything else, she turned her attention to Ronnie and grilled her about the pale, blond Were on the stage.
“Your mom is a hardass,” Cole whispered to me, giving me a reason to turn my attention in another direction.
I gave him a closed-lip smile as I swallowed a bite of sandwich. “She’s Ronnie’s mom, not mine.”
“Wow, the way you guys were talking…” Cole’s eyes moved from me to Chris and back again. “I’d never have guessed.”
“Well, they took me in when I was teenager after my parents died.” My voice dropped on that last word, but I managed to say it without hesitating. That was progress.
“Mattie?” Joey crawled over and knelt in front of me, popping the bubble of anxiety in my chest. She’d interrupted at the perfect moment, before Cole could ask how my parents died and force me to tell the story again.
“What?” I asked, trying to sound normal.
“There’s a Krampus installation at the Natural History Museum.”
“What?” I asked again, not sure I’d heard her right.
“Yeah.” She dug into her pocket and pulled out the Krampus Rumpus postcard she’d taken from me. “Look.” She unfolded the card. White creases ran through it on both sides, but most of the festivity schedule was still legible.
I squinted at the distorted list and saw that she was right—there was an art exhibit featuring artifacts and paintings of the holiday devil. “Artifacts?” I glared at the card, wondering how I’d missed that.
“How could they have artifacts?” Cole asked, reading over my shoulder.
“Oh gods,” I whispered.
“Do you really think they’d be stupid enough to excavate his cave?” Cole said, looking at me.
His face was dangerously close to mine, and I could feel the heat of his skin press
ing at me. He didn’t wear cologne, which was nice, but he smelled of herbs and spices, familiar notes that I could find in my own kitchen. I wondered what he’d brewed earlier.
“Mattie?”
Joey’s tinkling voice made me blink, and I leaned away from Cole, breathing in the night air to clear his scent from my senses. I thought I saw him smiling out of the corner of my eye.
“Guess I know what I’m doing tomorrow,” I said, handing the card back to Joey.
“Can I come with you?” she asked as she folded it back into a tiny square to fit into her pocket again.
“Why not? I’ll have to get up early to go during business hours, and you’ll be up.”
Joey grinned, her cheeks sparkling like the stars. She crawled back over to her cousin. I felt eyes on me, and I turned to see Chris watching me with a look of maternal approval. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t warm something inside me.
***
When my alarm went off the next afternoon, I hit the snooze button with a painful groan.
The police had kept us for another two hours after Joey and I decided to take our fieldtrip. Children had fallen asleep on the grass and in their parents’ laps. The food trucks shut down after they ran out of food. The music was turned off so as not to disturb the neighborhoods. The witches in the crowd worked together to cast warming charms to keep the chill away. If they had kept us five minutes longer, there might have been a riot. It would have been a slow, shuffling riot, like a zombie march, but it would have been a riot nonetheless.
My alarm went off again, those precious seven minutes gone in the blink of an eye. It was so early that not even Artemis was awake. Normally when I woke, he was standing on my bladder demanding I get up and pour him some cream. Instead, he was curled up on a pillow, breathing heavy and slow. How I envied him.
There was a knock at my door, quick and light. I groaned again and threw off my covers, turned off my alarm, and stumbled out of my bedroom. The floor was cold against my bare feet and I almost tripped on my flannel pajama bottoms, but I got my balance and opened the door to a bright-eyed Joey. She was a spot of pink in my vision. Being a pixie meant that she was awake at all hours, stealing catnaps through the night and day.
I waved her in as I turned away, making a line for my coffee pot. The early afternoon sun streamed through the windows, and I grumbled again as I poured my first cup. After a generous addition of cream and sugar, I took a sip.
“I thought you were already up,” Joey said, helping herself to the fridge.
“I’m up,” I mumbled.
“Sorta.” She took a carton of noodles out of the fridge and found a pair of chopsticks.
“I’m up,” I said again, and left her there while I went to the bathroom to put myself together. I might need a rejuvenation elixir to get myself going if the coffee didn’t kick in soon. By the time I was ready to get out the door, Artie had woken and demanded feeding before he would let me go.
When we pulled up to the museum, it took me ten minutes to find a parking space. People flowed in and out of the museum as we scaled the wide steps to the entrance. People were squealing and laughing, and when we got to the top of the stairs, I saw why.
Standing in front of the entrance was a man dressed like Santa Claus, his booming laugh and real snowy beard showing why he got the job, and next to him was Krampus. The costume was impressive, making the man inside look twice as big as he probably was. His horns glistened in the sunlight and reached two and a half feet over his shaggy head. His face was contorted into a permanent scowl, showing sharp fangs that glistened with lacquer, black lips, and a long red tongue that was permanently lolled out.
He held a long, thin birch branch and was swatting passersby with it, which accounted for the squeals and laughter. Joey and I hesitated, watching that branch swing back and forth, the man inside the Krampus suit wielding it with uncanny precision.
“Okay,” Joey said, “that is actually really creepy.”
“I told you.”
Dozens of camera phones were pointed at the spectacle, and when one guy tried to take a selfie with the raging Krampus in the background, he was rewarded with an epic swat on the ass, almost making him trip down the stairs. His friends hooted and hollered their approval. Santa shook his gloved finger at Krampus, chortling good-naturedly. That, to me, was way creepier.
A lone woman tried to walk by as quickly as her kitten heels would let her, but Krampus spotted her. I gasped, thinking he would try to swat her—I didn’t want to see the thin twigs hit her bare legs under her power skirt—but that wasn’t what I should have worried about. Krampus threw his branch down and ran after the woman.
Feeling his presence, she looked over her shoulder, screamed, and broke into a run, but she wasn’t fast enough. Krampus scooped her up and shook his head, making his lolling tongue waggle suggestively. The crowd cheered and Santa let out a booming laugh as Krampus jostled the poor woman.
Power snapped at my fingers as anger and embarrassment went through me on the woman’s behalf.
Joey put her hand on my shoulder to keep me in place. “Let’s just get inside before he comes back.”
She nudged me forward, but I couldn’t move until I saw him put the woman down, unharmed. She was flushed with embarrassment and surprise, but managed to smile when Krampus gave her an awkward thumbs-up. I didn’t really think she was okay, but it would only embarrass her more if I went after the actor or checked on her, so I released the pent-up power and let Joey lead me inside. Joey took a candy cane offered by Santa as we passed, but I ignored him, knowing I would just want to cram the stick in his eye after he’d laughed at that spectacle.
The entrance to the Krampus exhibit was impressive, with massive snowy mountains covered in pine trees, all decorated with glass ornaments and lights. They’d started with blue decorations and progressed to purple, to red, to yellow, to green, as though we were moving through a rainbow. The mountain-scape came closer and closer together until we were walking through a tunnel. The temperature dropped degree by degree, and finally we came to the entrance of a dark cave.
In glittering red letters over the mouth of the cave was the word Krampus. We stepped through, and the darkness swallowed us whole. Joey glowed, giving off her own light, and I called power to my eyes so that when I blinked, I could see clearly.
Once we moved away from the entrance, the “cave” looked like any other museum exhibit. Paintings hung from wires on the walls, ranging in size from portrait to massive. Glass boxes were placed around the room, protecting the items inside and giving the illusion that those things were real and not reproductions. In the corners were statues of Krampus, looking much like the costumes the Krampus revelers wore at the club the other night. People stood close to them, as close as the ropes would allow, and took pictures with them.
“Whoa,” Joey said as she stepped forward.
The lighting was dim, but we could see, so she allowed her glow to fade and I blinked the light out of my eyes. She flitted away from me, going to the biggest portrait of Krampus in the room. It stood about ten feet high and possibly seven feet wide. I wasn’t sure how the wires were holding it up.
I didn’t need to see another leering rendition of Krampus, so I moved to the first case in the room. In it were dead birch branches and a thick bundle of switches. The plaque stated they were the original tools of discipline used by the Christmas Devil, the right hand of Santa Claus. I rolled my eyes and turned away, facing a glass case raised on a wooded block.
It stopped me in my tracks.
Inside the glass box was a faded black sack. It was laid out and propped open so that we could look into the black depths of the bag. A chill ran up my back as I stepped forward. People paused in front of it and moved on, looking bored. With a lump in my throat, I stepped up to the case and held out my hands. Heat pressed against my palms as the power of the bag answered my seeking power.
It was real.
It was Krampus’s bag.
They had found Krampus’s lair.
Krampus was awake again.
“Mattie?”
I nearly jumped out of my skin when Joey’s hand landed on my shoulder. The yelp that came out of me sounded like a wounded cat’s.
“Take it easy,” a docent said from the side of the room, giving us a disapproving look.
Joey had to stuff her knuckles in her mouth to stop her giggling. “That’s the same noise Smert makes when you step on his tail.”
“Thanks,” I said, running my hands through my hair and tucking it behind my ears.
“So what’s the matter?”
“What do you mean?”
“You were looking at this thing like it was a ball of slime or something?” Joey leaned over to get a closer look at the bag.
Even without trying, I felt the power of the bag pressing at me, pushing at my aura and making my cheeks warm.
“Whoa,” Joey whispered when her eyes landed on the plaque. “They’re kidding, right? I mean, it’s not real?”
“No, they’re not, and yes, it is,” I said, not realizing I was taking a few steps away until Joey looked back at me.
“So you were right?” She blinked slowly, and the look on her face was heartbreaking, like when a kid finds out Santa isn’t real. “Krampus is back and snatching those kids?”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “No. That the bag is here proves he’s not.”
“What?”
“All the stories say that if you were bad enough to get snatched instead of switched, you were stuffed in the bag and taken to his lair,” I explained. “If the bag is here, then he has nothing to take the kids in.”
“Are you serious?” Joey gaped at me, but I shook my head.
“That’s how the legend goes.”
“You think a demigod needs a bag to snatch kids? C’mon, Mattie.”
“Listen,” I said, checking my phone, “the shop is gonna open in an hour. We need to get you back before you’re late.”
“So you’re just gonna stick your head in the sand?”
“What?” I stopped and looked at her.
Yuletide (Matilda Kavanagh Novels Book 3) Page 8
