Nicholas and the Krampus, Page 3

  “So what do I call you?” I asked.

  “My name is Nicholas of Myra. You can ignore the ‘saint’ bit.”

  I glanced at my husband. “Two Nicholases. That’s going to be confusing. Do you mind if I call you Nick?”

  “Just don’t called him Santa Claus,” Frau Perchta said with a cheeky grin. “He hates that!”

  6

  Four Torc Fianna in their human form carried in a large circular table and set it down in the middle of the floor. The surface was etched with a series of interlocking Celtic knotwork designs that shifted when you looked at them, forming new patterns. It was both hypnotic and unsettling. One of the Torc Fianna, a delicate-looking woman who moved with the same deadly grace I’d seen in Scathach, arranged half a dozen snow globes in a circle on the table. Two of the were-deer carried over one of the largest globes I’d ever seen, easily the size of a human head, and set it down in the center of the polished wood. The white flecks within twisted and whirled, obscuring whatever lay inside. Finally, the Torc Fianna arranged four high-backed wooden chairs around the table.

  “Please, sit,” Nick said to us, indicating the chairs closest to us.

  Neither Nicholas nor I moved. “You owe us an explanation,” the Alchemyst said. “Although technically, your Torc Fianna did not kidnap me—they implied that my wife was already in your hands.”

  “And they told me that they’d already taken Nicholas,” I added. “So we were coerced.”

  Nick shrugged his broad shoulders. “You must forgive the Torc Fianna. They are warriors beyond measure, but not too bright sometimes. They take instructions rather literally.”

  “How did a Christian saint end up with deadliest of the Torc clans?” Nicholas asked.

  “It’s a long story.”

  “Tell us the short version,” I suggested.

  Nick sighed. “Before I became immortal, I did a favor for the Elder Saule.”

  “We’ve met her,” Nicholas said shortly. “She nearly killed us.”

  “She nearly killed me,” I reminded him. “You, she liked!”

  “She was not always so short-tempered,” Nick said. “But I would not take any payment from her. So she gifted me with her sleigh and her Torc Fianna bodyguards, who pulled it. There are eight…” He lowered his voice and glanced toward the door. “I can’t get rid of them. They are oathbound to me for eternity.”

  Frau Perchta, who seemed to be called Holle when she was in her young girl form, snorted. “Ignore him. He loves to ride that sleigh across the night sky.”

  Nick looked vaguely embarrassed. “It is rather wonderful,” he admitted. “You must come out with me some evening.”

  I bit my lip and said nothing. Over the course of my long life, I have done many wonderful, extraordinary, exciting, and stupid things. But I’ve never imagined riding through the heavens in Santa’s sleigh.

  “So before San…before your legend of the reindeer and the sleigh, Saule rode the heavens in a similar sleigh?” I asked.

  Holle barked a quick laugh. “Before Saule, the sky belonged to Tanngrisnir and Tanngnjóstr, the goats who pulled Thor’s chariot across the sky; Freyja’s celestial chariot was pulled by cats; and before Nick was given Saule’s sleigh, I commanded the skies in a sleigh of my own, pulled by eight Perchten.”

  “Must have been a very crowded sky,” Nicholas remarked.

  “In the days following the sinking of Danu Talis, the world was indeed a place of wonders,” Holle said. “And terrors,” she added, blinking away the sudden tears in her blue eyes.

  I looked at Nick. “You still haven’t told us what brings you to New York or what you want with us.”

  Nick gestured to the four chairs set around the table. “Sit, please. And I will tell you all I know.” He pulled back one of the chairs. “Madame Perenelle, please?”

  We remained standing.

  Nick sighed. “I once did a favor for a hook-handed man. I am sure you know of him: Marethyu. It starts with him.”

  Nicholas and I looked at each other, and then, without a word, we took our seats at the table. Centuries ago, Marethyu, the hook-handed man, sold us the Codex and started us on this long immortal journey. He appeared occasionally to ask for a favor, something he was either unwilling or unable to do himself. Though, to be honest, I don’t think there is anything he could not do. If Marethyu trusted Nick, then we knew we could trust Nick also.

  Holle took the seat directly opposite me, while Nick sat facing my husband.

  Reaching across the table, Nick picked up a tiny snow globe. Glittering speckles of sand swirled within. “Marethyu gave this to me and said that if I was ever in trouble, I could use it to call upon him.” He pushed the globe toward us and we looked into it. The sand settled to reveal a sickle-like hook spinning in a circle. “Yesterday, I used it for the first time, and I spoke to the man known as Death.”

  “And what did the hook-handed man tell you?” Nicholas asked.

  “Surely the better question is why you chose to contact the hook-handed man in the first place,” I said. I waved around the room. “Clearly you are not without power.”

  Nicholas smiled at me. “That is a better question.” He raised his thin eyebrows and looked at the round-faced man.

  Nick sighed. “For centuries I have been trailed by a monster, a creature born of chaos and old night. I thought I’d lost it in Europe decades ago, but yesterday I learned that it is en route to this New World. My past has caught up with me,” he said dramatically. “I contacted Marethyu to ask for his advice. He told me you were both in New York and that I should seek you out. He said, ‘Find the Alchemyst and the Sorceress; only they have the peculiar combination of powers that will help you.’ ”

  Nicholas and I exchanged a look.

  “You still haven’t told us why you contacted Marethyu…,” my husband said.

  Nick rubbed his hands together and sighed again. “Well, it’s complicated….”

  “Everything is complicated with you,” Holle snapped. “This, however, is not.” She looked from Nicholas to me. “The Krampus has come to New York to kill—”

  “And eat,” Nick interrupted. “Don’t forget that. Eat like a piece of gingerbread.”

  “The Krampus has come to New York to kill and eat Santa Claus.”

  “Don’t call me Santa Claus.”

  “Kris Kringle, then.”

  “Hate that.”

  “Sinter Klass.”

  “Hate that even more!” he muttered.

  7

  “I have no idea what a Krampus is,” Nicholas said.

  But I did. The goat monsters were common to all the Celtic lands, including Brittany, where I had grown up.

  Nick pushed another snow globe across the table. My husband picked it up and shook it. Glittering black sand swirled and spun to reveal a monster.

  “The Krampus,” Nick said. “Or a version of it, at least.”

  Within the small glass globe, the creature moved and turned, almost as if it was real. Tall, with the muscular body of a man, the Krampus had a huge goat’s head, with thick horns curling on either side of its head. Beneath leather and metal armor, it was completely covered in shaggy, dirty-white fur, and its eyes were bloodred. But through the matted coat, there was almost the outline of a human skull. A thick chain was wrapped around its waist and trailed on the ground behind it.

  “It is Torc Gabhar? A were-goat?” Nicholas asked.

  “I have dealt with the Torc Gabhar many times,” Holle said. “This is not a creature of the were.”

  “This is something older, far older,” Nick said. “I have often wondered if it was one of the fabled Earthlords.”

  Nicholas and I shook our heads. “Earthlords are serpentine,” I said. “This definitely has the look of a goat about it.”

  “And those are not the t
eeth of a goat,” Nicholas said, tilting the globe so that I could see into the creature’s mouth: it was filled with a double row of needle-pointed teeth. “Guessing it’s not an herbivore either.”

  “It has a taste for humans,” Nick said softly.

  “Humans in general or, special humans?” Nicholas wondered.

  “There was a time when the Krampus was not too fussy. But in the past few centuries, I understand it has developed a taste for immortal humans. Now it will eat nothing else. It considers them a delicacy.”

  “It will think its entire Christmas dinner has come at once if it sees the three of us,” I said. “Nicholas will be the starter, you the main course, and I the dessert, of course.”

  Nicholas pushed back from the table. In his plain blue suit, rumpled shirt, and stained tie, he looked like an accountant, but even Leonardo da Vinci admitted that Nicholas Flamel was a genius. Without looking at me, my husband said, “So you expect us to help you—what? Fight the Krampus? Why?”

  Nick looked confused. “Marethyu said I should talk to you. He said only you have the peculiar combination of powers to help me. I’m not sure what he means,” he added. “You know the hook-handed man. He can be a bit cryptic sometimes.”

  The small man tilted his head to one side and smiled sadly. “Before the war, the Krampus had busily devoured his way through a dozen European immortals. This war, and the previous one, have complicated matters.”

  “I would have thought the chaos of war might have helped conceal its crimes,” Nicholas said.

  “On the contrary. Individuals and communities are so much more suspicious now. The Krampus, like many of us, lives in the shadows. European society is shattered, entire communities scattered, and when it reforms, it will be very different indeed. It would be impossible for the Krampus to remain invisible. Also, the Krampus’s preferred meal, the immortal human, has moved on. Most of the immortals chose to fight in the war, for one side or another. Many gave their lives in the ultimate sacrifice. Those European immortals who survived are seeking anonymity in America. I knew it was only a matter of time before the Krampus made his way across the Atlantic. And now that he has reached these shores, I have no doubt that once he has finished with me, he will start to munch his way through those immortals he finds here.”

  I looked at Nicholas and nodded. We could not allow the Krampus to roam freely across the Americas. We had too many immortal friends here.

  I looked across the table at Holle. “Before we come to any agreement, however, we need to know who we are fighting alongside. I know a little about the legends of Saint Nicholas, and something about Frau Perchta. Is it not unusual to find you together?”

  “Once, perhaps,” Nick said with a grin, “but no more. We have joined forces. We are two halves of a whole. I reward the good, whereas Holle punishes the wrongdoers. For centuries, separately, we roamed this world and the Shadowrealms, protecting the innocent and punishing wrongdoers. Now we do it together.”

  “Why don’t we hear more about you?” I asked Holle. “Santa Claus is everywhere.”

  She jerked her thumb at Nick. “I prefer the shadows, but this one, well, he is his own best publicist. Have you seen the latest images he’s come up with—the red suit, the white hair and beard, the sack bulging with gifts?”

  “Hey, that had nothing to do with me,” Nick protested.

  Holle continued to stare at him, until he finally relented. “Well, maybe just a little.”

  “And the poem,” she persisted.

  “Which one?”

  “The one with the reindeer names. Dasher, Cupid, Comet…”

  “Shhh. For goodness’ sake, keep your voice down. Don’t let the Torc Fianna hear. That was not my doing!”

  The three of us stared at him.

  “Well, maybe just a little. Look, I might have put the idea in a couple of writers’ heads at the same time, but I definitely did not give either of them the names of the reindeer.”

  “Dunder and Blixem…,” Holle said.

  “I changed those names….”

  “To Donder and Blitzen.”

  Nicholas rapped on the table with his knuckles, silencing the squabbling pair. “Quick question: Have we any idea where the Krampus is right now?”

  “Moving across Europe. Later tonight it will arrive on Bedloe’s Island, stepping through the leygate in the tunnels beneath the Statue of Liberty.”

  “He will not be alone,” Frau Perchta said. “We’ve learned that he is bringing the Turon with him. And while the Krampus prefers immortals, the Turon love the taste of human flesh. If they get off the island, they will level this city.”

  “So we have to stop him on the island,” Nick said.

  Nicholas raised a finger. “And the Turon. What are they?”

  Nick tapped the largest of the snow globes in the center of the table. The smoke within swirled and cleared to reveal a heaving mass of beasts. They looked like a cross between a bull and a man, with huge pointed horns jutting from their heads. Their jaws hung loose, revealing ragged teeth and lolling black tongues. And then, one by one, the Turon stopped moving, before turning to look directly at us. They surged forward, pressing themselves against the glass, peering out, and for a heart-stopping moment, I imagined they were trapped within, pushing to break out.

  “They are on a distant Shadowrealm,” Nick said quickly. “We are looking at them through a slab of ice. They should not be able to see us….”

  “The big one is definitely looking at me,” Nicholas muttered.

  “Perhaps they see shadows moving on the ice.” Nick touched the globe, and the image faded.

  “How many will answer the Krampus’s call?” I wondered.

  “Eight.”

  “Eight Turon, eight Torc Fianna,” I said, and looked at Holle, “And you had eight Perchten to pull your sleigh.”

  “Eight is the magic number,” she said.

  “And if I were to ask you when the Krampus will arrive with his eight friends,” Nicholas said, “you would tell me…”

  “Tonight,” Nick said. “At midnight, when Christmas Eve becomes Christmas Day.”

  8

  Nick and Holle left to round up the Torc Fianna and arm themselves, leaving us alone in the huge wooden room. We wandered around, saying little, aware that there might be eavesdroppers. Without Nick in the room, the Shadowrealm no longer seemed so solid. Occasionally the walls would thin and flicker, revealing what looked like an ordinary warehouse outside. The tree growing out of the floor was no longer as green or as vibrant as it had been, and most of the candles—which I’d initially thought were a terrible fire risk—had gone out.

  “Not a true Shadowrealm, I think,” Nicholas said finally. “More of a simulation. A powerful one, though—it takes extraordinary skill to keep something like this together.”

  “Not all fake. The hot chocolate tasted real.”

  “Probably was. Table is real also, as are these.” He stopped before the shelves of snow globes.

  There were thousands, of all shapes and sizes. Most were filled with white speckles to simulate snow, but others had red, black, gray, or brown particles. The scenes within the globes were fantastically detailed, and those containing characters—human or monster—were extraordinarily realistic. A scrawl of indecipherable words was etched onto a brass plate at the base of each globe.

  “I feel I know some of these places,” Nicholas muttered.

  I ran my finger over the text. “Looks like Ogham, or Runic. Frau Perchta has a list covered in similar writing.”

  “The naughty list?” Nicholas asked with a smile. “Were you on it?”

  “We didn’t find out. If we don’t come up with a plan to defeat the Krampus, the next list we’re going to be on is a menu.” I realized Nicholas was not listening to me. He was staring intently at one particular globe. I
followed his gaze. Within the globe, a city of crystal towers perched on a spit of land. Shifting sunlight turned each of the towers into refracting rainbows. “That’s the Lyonesse Shadowrealm,” I said.

  Nicholas smiled. He pointed to another globe: a golden city encircling an enormous pit in the ground, surrounded by sand dunes and desert. “And that looks like the Ophir Shadowrealm, built around the fabled gold mine.”

  I looked along the shelves. “Here are Tir Tairngaire and Tir na nÓg together. This looks like Asgard, and this is definitely Lyonesse.” I squinted into the Lyonesse globe. I could actually see tiny flea-sized people moving on the golden streets.

  Another shelf held a series of globes showing places around the earth: the Eiffel Tower, the Taj Mahal, the recently opened Golden Gate Bridge with Alcatraz Island in the background. The Tower of London sat alongside the Colosseum.

  The top shelf held a dozen empty globes. Nicholas picked one up and turned it over in his hands. “These are leygates,” Nicholas said finally, unable to contain the excitement in his voice. “This is how Nick can be all over the world at the same time on a single night. Miniaturized portable leygates,” he said in an awed whisper. “He can hop from world to world, place to place, in a heartbeat, be everywhere simultaneously.” He stopped.

  “And the empty globes?”

  “For when he discovers a new Shadowrealm.” Nicholas held up the globe. “He can capture its…” He paused, struggling to find the word.

  “Address,” I suggested.

  “I was going to say essence, but yes, address will do. Then he can add the location to his list of places to visit.”

  “But if he’s that powerful…why does he need us?” I said, then answered the question myself. “Because he did not create these.”

  Nicholas held up the empty globe. “These are ancient beyond reckoning.”

  “So Nick’s powers are limited. Which is why he needs us.”

  Nicholas blinked at me, his almost colorless eyes taking on a gold tinge from the surrounding wood. “Madame Perenelle. You are a genius.”