“The Son? You mean Jesus?” Adora gulped. “You personally knew the Christ? The Messiah—the Lamb of God?” This was much, much worse than saying he wasn’t Christian. This was out and out blasphemy. You weren’t supposed to lie about Jesus, even if you were nuts.
Kris’s face softened and his eyes lost their intense inner focus.
“Yes. The Son changed my mind. I learned from Him that pure Divinity can be made human. It’s a pity that humans have managed to muck His message up in the intervening years.” Kris leaned forward, his eyes focusing again. His gaze could be felt as clearly as a touch. “But, again, the story of our meeting is a tale for another day. There’s no point in telling you about it when you don’t yet accept my story as truth.”
Adora tried to regroup, but she was shaken by his sincerity. A part of her was even beginning to believe Kris’s yarn, in spite of her inner warnings that it couldn’t in any way, shape or form be true. It just couldn’t.
But what if it was?
“Talk of religion makes you uncomfortable, doesn’t it? And magic as well?”
“Yes,” she admitted. “Both seem like a lot of hocus pocus: Let’s fool the people while we rob them blind.”
He nodded, but in understanding, not agreement.
“How old are you?” she asked suddenly.
Kris tilted his head, considering. “I’m not certain. In the beginning, we did not reckon time as we do now. I think, in human years, I first came into the world about ten thousand winters ago.”
“T-ten thousand winters?” Her brain stuttered too. This was too much of a fantasy, even for a craz—eccentric—man. She fiopped back hard in her chair and scrubbed her face. Kris wanted her to believe, and she wanted to believe. But she couldn’t. And now her headache was getting worse. Her thoughts were too large and crammed into too small a space.
“Yes, that would be about right. Of course, my presence in human affairs was not documented until the Christians decided that I should be made a saint. Then I started turning up regularly in religious art. It was rather nice. In those paintings—unlike the ones in the caves—I always had clothes on. They occasionally even painted me with women. It was a pleasant change to have a feminine presence for company.”
Adora shook her head. This was impossible. Just . . . impossible. She could never put this stuff in a book. What the hell was she going to do?
“Are you all right?” Kris asked. “You look very tense. Would you like to try a Goblintini? Pennywyse says they’re very good. They’re made with vodka and strawberry juice.”
“No, thank you. Vodka and I don’t get along. I’m not much of a drinker, really. No one in my family was. None of us could hold our liquor.” There she went again—telling Kris things he didn’t need to know. What was wrong with her? She was such a mess! What had made her think that she could do this job?
Kris stared, as though her statement were somehow significant. Another time she might have asked what he was thinking, but she was determined in that moment to follow at least one thread of Kris’s story all the way to the end. It was annoying that she was getting tired and her brain had all but locked up.
“Uh, where were we? Feminine presence . . . Okay, let’s talk about women. In all your wandering, through all these years, you never met Miss Right?” Adora was trying for something light and normal to talk about, since the subject of his nudity was almost as disturbing as his proclaimed age, or his assertion that he had known Jesus. “I mean, I always heard there was a Mrs. Claus in the background, baking cookies.”
Kris shook his head. “Actually, I met a few candidates, but it would have been wrong to ask any woman—human or fey—to share my vagabond existence. It was a form of exile, you see. And I never stayed in one place for very long; there was always some new fire that needed putting out, some new outbreak of despair, or an attempt to crush the human spirit. And then there was the whole sacrifice thing.” Kris’s silvered eyes focused on her, first her lips and then her eyes. Adora’s pulse began to hammer. The scrutiny was both thrilling and scary. “Sacrifice thing?” she managed to say. “How much sacrifice?”
“As much as anyone can give,” he said. “But things are different now. That era is done. The fey are at the very edge of extinction. We must all do what we can to ensure survival. When the spirit next lists in a lady’s direction, I shall follow—if I am able.”
“So . . . you see marriage in your future?” Adora asked. Her voice nearly squeaked, and she noticed her heart was beating heavily.
Kris smiled, his eyes dancing merrily in the gloom. She could almost swear they glowed.
“How very alarmed you look at the idea, my dear. I assure you, I am not all that frightening. Indeed, many people have no fear of me at all. In fact, in the under-six crowd, I am still very much beloved and known for benevolence.”
“More fools, they. You’re about as harmless as a heart attack,” Adora muttered, ducking her head to escape his scrutiny. Scribbling nonsense in her notebook, she said, “This would be a big change for you, becoming a family man.”
“Yes, but change is good. Stubbornly continuing in your daily rut is like digging your own grave. I mean that metaphorically, of course,” Kris added in what should have been a soothing voice but that stroked her nerves and made them tingle. And: “Don’t let that death fey stuff you’ve read about bother you. I turned from that path long ago. Anyway, the whole wife matter is one for the future. I don’t propose to worry about it now. Worry is negative meditation, you see. Concentrate on the bad long enough, and you can make every dark concern come true.”
Death fey stuff? She must have missed that. She couldn’t be certain, but she was willing to bet that anything that had the word “death” in it wasn’t something she—or readers—wanted to know about Santa. He was clearly a kook. And that was a damn shame, because this was the best-looking man she had ever seen. She was really attracted to him.
What?
Where the hell were these thoughts coming from? Adora rubbed her forehead. She was definitely getting one of her bad headaches, and it served her right. She could not—could not—be attracted to Kris Kringle. Because that would lead nowhere. And even if she was attracted, she could never let him know that. No way, no how.
Maybe she had jet lag.
“Kris? You call yourself ‘fey.’ But you mean that in the sense of being an elf or a pixie, not in being precognizant or psychic.” Abandoning subtlety, she added desperately, “No bullshit now. Tell the truth. You really and truly believe that you are . . . ?”
“An elf? No. Humans got that wrong.” Adora had no time to sigh with relief, for he added, “But I am a bit what you would call psychic, and of the magical persuasion. It’s just that I come from the other side of magic. It’s understandable that they got it mixed up—death feys and elves look a lot alike. Both races are always very attractive. For death feys, perhaps it’s a sort of consolation prize.” Kris looked at her pale face, then did some subject changing of his own. He asked lightly, “Have you been a good girl this year? I’m obliged to ask, you know. I’m making my Christmas list.”
“Can’t you look into your magic ball and tell?” Adora asked grumpily. She began hunting in her bag for aspirin. Sometimes, if she took them early enough, she didn’t have to resort to the other prescription her doctor had given her. She probably had a few tablets left, if she really needed them.
“No. Don’t do that.” Kris shook his head. He reached out suddenly and pressed his finger against her forehead. Adora froze as a gentle warmth traveled through her skull and down her neck, unknotting muscles and sluicing away the pain in small, undulating strokes. Her head seemed to expand and suddenly there was room for all her thoughts and feelings.
She sighed with pleasure, letting her arms go limp. The pen dropped from her fingers and her purse slid to the floor. “How did you do that? What did you do?” she asked slowly.
He ran a finger along her brow, down her temple and across her cheekbones. His finge
r paused on the bridge of her nose. And, “I’m a healer,” he said simply. Then: “Do you believe that, Adora? That in spite of being a death fey, I can heal with touch?”
“I . . . yes. I guess I have to.” And, at that moment at least, she did. It was a compulsion she couldn’t resist. And her senses did not lie; the pain in her head was gone, wiped out with a stroke of his fingers.
“It’s odd the fairy tales you choose to accept as true,” he said matter-of-factly, dropping his hand. He got up and went to the wall to flip a switch. The room assumed a normal brightness. “To answer your comment about the crystal ball, I don’t ‘see you when you’re sleeping’—not unless I’m there with you. But I can listen in on dreams and prayers. If you want me to. Though a millennium and a half has passed, I still remember how to hear prayers. They’re usually in Turkish these days. A person has to ask, though. It got a bit unnerving, having all those voices in my skull, let me tell you, so I don’t keep the ears open unless asked. . . .” He looked into her eyes. “Do you want to ask me to do this for you? I can. And it might put a lot of your doubts to rest if you knew I could see into your mind.”
Don’t let him! Joy’s voice was fearful.
Adora shook her head: partly refusal, and partly to clear the confusing thoughts he wanted her to jettison. She closed her notebook, which appeared to list her growing acceptance of his wild assertions, as if that action would somehow contain the craziness of her thoughts. And it was crazy to be writing this story at all, assuming she ever found a place to begin. No one else who was sane was going to believe a word. She would be thought a prankster or— worse yet—a fraud. They’d say she was a kook.
“No thanks, Kris. I’ve never been into the Big Brother thing. I’d prefer to do it the old-fashioned way—you know, drink too much one night and then spill my guts before I pass out. Anyway, there’s no need for you to see all my flaws at once,” she said. Then she realized that she meant what she was saying, that at some point she’d been ferried across the river of utter disbelief and deposited on the foreign shore of partial acceptance. She wasn’t convinced of everything yet—that would require a lot of mental island hopping—but she had suspended her complete disbelief. For a while anyway. After all, at the very least, Kris was some kind of a healer, and he seemed to believe what he was saying. He wasn’t a complete charlatan. And there were more things in heaven and earth and all that. Maybe he was psychic. Maybe he had been Saint Nicholas in another life.
“So, have you been good?” Kris asked again. “Should I leave something nice in your stocking?”
“This year?” Adora’s brow wrinkled. She impulsively decided to be truthful. Maybe her honesty and linear storytelling would set an example. “Well, mostly, I think. I had a bad moment last February,” she admitted, though the memory was still humiliating. “I was dating this guy and he turned out to be a cheater. I’m afraid I didn’t take the news well.”
“A cheater? Do you mean that he did not play fair in games of sport?” Kris asked.
Adora tried to think of an explanation of Derek that wouldn’t be too vulgar. Mentally she discarded the words rat bastard and slut. It had taken her an embarrassingly long while to realize the truth about him: Derek’s soul didn’t match the angelic packaging. His conscience—assuming he ever had one— had atrophied, and he had turned into one of those men who believed in the survival of the fittest, and who were not encumbered by any antiquated notions of chivalry or fidelity. It had taken her too long to realize that he was always on the lookout for number one, and that she had never been anything more than a distant third.
It had been stupid to fall for him so quickly. The relationship had started—when? It was when she had gotten desperate and refinanced her home— and it had been over before the loan was approved. She was an idiot sometimes. She got in a relationship and her IQ dropped to the level of the speed limit in a hospital parking lot. That’s what love did to some people.
Adora felt something move through her head, a gentle breeze that cooled her sudden anger. Grateful, she sighed.
“You might say that Derek didn’t play fair. I certainly think he sees relationships as sport. But he didn’t cheat at chess or volleyball, he—ah—betrayed me with another woman and an S-and-M porn site. I wouldn’t have minded the latter so much, but he used my computer and let it catch a nasty virus. I have spam filters and a firewall, but really—there is just no such thing as safe sex these days.” Her tone was joking, but her mood was not. The affair had left her . . . diminished. And she’d had to replace her hard drive, which had been expensive.
“I see.” Kris nodded once. “It’s sad, but some men are simply Janus-faced. It’s a common human failing. They can kiss two women at once, loving neither.”
“Well, Derek was two-faced and fork-tongued. What a liar. He denied the affair even after I confronted him with witnesses. . . . Not that I needed them. It got so that I could smell her on him.”
“You have a keen sense of smell?” Kris asked.
“I guess, but her perfume was like a force field. I think she was deliberately marking territory with it.”
“Ah—perhaps. Indirection can be popular in these matters,” he said obscurely.
Adora retrieved her pen, giving herself a moment to put her poker face back on.
“I think what offends me most is that he thought I’d be stupid enough to believe him because he was so handsome and wealthy. Of course, I should have seen trouble coming long before that. He’d begun using the same tone of voice with me that he used on his dog.” Adora knew she sounded outraged, but she couldn’t help it.
Kris coughed into his fist, and she knew he was laughing.
“He spoke to you like a dog?” he asked.
“Yes. You wouldn’t think it, in this day and age, but some foolish people actually believe that old saw about blondes being dumb and of easy virtue. There are some people who even think that women should be grateful for male guidance to keep them from straining their brains. But I am not anyone’s pet. And since I don’t actually have four legs, or bark at cars—or men—I really felt it would be best if I went on thinking for myself.” She exhaled, releasing her anger. “He didn’t react well to the it’s-her-or-me ultimatum.”
“Your views came as a surprise to this man?” Kris guessed.
“Oddly enough, yes.”
“How did you ultimately prove his betrayal?” her employer asked curiously. “You did, didn’t you? I can’t see you walking away without some vindication.”
“You’re right. I set out to catch him,” Adora admitted. “It wasn’t hard. I started with an intuition that he’d lied about what he was doing for Valentine’s Day. Once I caught the bad vibes, I went looking. Proof wasn’t hard to find. He was as faithful to his schedule—if I can use the word faithful in conjunction with this man—as an atomic clock. And he had no sense of discretion. The bimbo got lunches at the same restaurants where we ate dinner on Monday and Thursday nights.” Adora cocked her head as she added, “You know, I understand why he was attracted to her. She is better arm candy than I am. I think Derek only kept me around because of his work. He needed a female companion with an IQ greater than her bust size to show off to the boss.”
“Bimbo? This word is not familiar,” Kris said.
“It means to have a low IQ and lower necklines. I have a theory about them. I think maybe it happens when women diet too much. They kill their brains with protein deprivation. Or maybe they get the wrong things lipo’ed. Think about it: You go to have fat sucked out of your neck, and oops—there goes the brain! And if it was itty-bitty to start with . . .”
“Hm. What did you see in him?” Kris asked, plainly curious. “There must have been something besides an attractive face.”
Adora found herself answering with a degree of truthfulness she hadn’t realized she possessed.
“I was attracted intellectually. And he was polite, knew how to wear a tux. He also associated with the kinds of people who could help me
with my research. Old money cherishes its secrets, you know. The only way into their vaults is with an escort of their class.” Adora exhaled and admitted, “I was also needy enough that I wanted to believe he cared about me. I . . . I had just lost someone important to me the year before, and I was feeling very alone. That’s not a good excuse for being stupid, though, and I knew it at the time. I just couldn’t stop myself.”
Yet another reason why she had given up those damn pills. They affected her judgment. They made her stupid.
“You’re not stupid. And your indignation and hurt is understandable,” Kris said gently. “No one likes to lose, and certain failures are more difficult than others. Lost loves—even the lost chance of love—can cast long shadows over our hearts.” His words, though kind, touched a sore spot. So Adora was grateful when his tone turned brisk. “You still look very angry even after all this time. Did this incident lead to bloodshed? Am I harboring a violent fugitive?”
His words were playful, and Adora found herself beginning to smile. Somehow, Kris made her feel absolved for her stupidity and weakness. Maybe Catholics had something there, about confession being good for the soul.
“No blood was spilt, but I’m betting he would have preferred that to what happened. Derek hated being made ridiculous. I mean, publicly.”
The Saint Page 8
