Clare Kauter - Sled Head (Damned, Girl! Book 2)

  Sled Head:

  A Christmas Story

  Damned, Girl! Book 2

  Clare Kauter

  Sled Head Copyright © 2015 Clare Kauter

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

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  This book is NOT dedicated to Alexi. (You’re just going to have to get used to it, alright? It’s not all about you. Welcome to the real world.)

  Chapter One

  Every year since I’d turned 14, I’d spent Christmas in Hell. Not the metaphorical Hell like most people – I didn’t have an annoying family to put up with during the holidays. I actually made the trip Down Under. Satan puts on quite the spread – mushroom burgers, grilled artichokes, seitan roast – plus her personal chef makes just about the best mashed potatoes in existence. If you ever get an invite to Christmas dinner with the devil, I would recommend that you go. (And not just because Satan doesn’t deal all that well with rejection.) Sure, it was kind of hot in the belly of The Underworld, but it wasn’t any worse than in my seaside shack in Australia at that time of year. At least the devil had air conditioning.

  Things were going to be different this year, though. Death had other plans for me.

  Stomping loudly around my bedroom (making damn sure that the two ‘men’ – to use the term loosely – who were waiting downstairs could hear how annoyed I was), I pulled clothes from my cupboard and shoved them into a backpack. I couldn’t even take a proper suitcase, oh no – we were going to be trekking through an arctic wasteland on foot, so I couldn’t even bring real luggage. I grabbed thermal tights and a puffy jacket, stuffing them into the bag without bothering to fold them.

  Although I’d tried to argue at first, I was now resigned to my fate. I was going to kill the most beloved figure in history. And at Christmas, of all times.

  Goodbye, Santa.

  Thumping down the stairs, I dragged my bag behind me. Henry, who was currently a gorilla, and Death, who was currently one of my least favourite people in existence, watched me re-enter the kitchen

  “He’s not as nice as you think,” Death said, obviously still trying to placate me.

  I glared at him. “It doesn’t matter how horrible he is, if I kill him then I’ll be a monster! I’ll be the girl who ruined Christmas!”

  “You’ll certainly ruin Christmas if you don’t stop moping,” Death said.

  I stuck my tongue out in response. OK, not my best comeback. Whatever. He’d had a lot more years of practise at being snarky than I had.

  “This doesn’t need to be such a big deal,” said Henry. I turned to glare at him. Henry was the shape-shifting Department official who’d supervised me on my last botched quest. (Not my fault that it was botched, I should point out – it just wasn’t the quest I was meant to do, and so The Department refused to issue me a licence to practise magic until I performed another task of their choosing, which this time involved snuffing out St. Nick. And just in time for Christmas, too. Great. Tis the season to be jolly. And commit murder.) I still hadn’t quite forgiven Henry for not bothering to check in with head office before taking me on the wild goose chase of a quest that Ed had led us on.

  Urgh, Ed. My face contorted into a scowl at the mere memory of him.

  Henry caught the look on my face and took a worried step back. Although I hadn’t actually been directing the look at him, I didn’t bother to tell him that. He deserved to be a bit scared.

  Clomping into the kitchen, I plucked another of the muffins Henry had baked for me (to try and butter me up before telling me about this new quest) from the bench and bit into it. Yes, OK, it was delicious. Hummingbird. And he’d gotten the cupcake to icing ratio correct – 50:50. But I was not going to be distracted by these delicious baked goods. He’d need to bribe me with more than this to make me like him again. Like maybe a shiny new licence that didn’t come with strings attached. Where by ‘strings’ I mean ‘a death certificate’.

  “All packed?” asked Death.

  “Yes,” I said. “Although I wasn’t quite sure what to bring. My usual murdering outfit is in the wash.”

  “I didn’t think you had a specific outfit for it,” said Death, raising his eyebrows. “Don’t you usually just murder when the mood strikes?”

  I glared at him. “That is not something you should joke about.”

  Not around a Department official, at least.

  He raised his eyebrows. “Right. Yeah. Joking.”

  “How are we getting there, then?” I asked, trying to change the subject.

  Henry frowned at me, probably thinking I seemed a little too enthusiastic about leaving all of a sudden, and wondering why I was so eager to change the subject. He answered nonetheless.

  “The Reaper will conjure us a portal.”

  Oooh, The Reaper. Someone was trying to suck up to Death by using his official title. I guess when you worked in The Department of Magic and Death, having an ‘in’ with Old Grim probably helped your chances of promotion.

  Hunh. Work. The whole reason I was going through this shemozzle. Although my ramshackle abode was largely self-sufficient (powered by magic and surrounded by a big vegetable garden), I still needed a little bit of extra cash for buying rare magical herbs, candles, spell books and soy lattes. Although I’d recently befriended the owners of the café/magical bookstore Witch’s Brew in the nearby town of Gretchen, I wasn’t sure if we were close enough for me to just take their products without paying. And I wasn’t going to try it, what with them being the local magical law enforcement and all.

  Anyway, up until a week or so ago, I’d made my money by working as a clairvoyant. I’d always been able to see ghosts, and had no moral qualms about making money from other peoples’ grief. It wasn’t like I was a fake or anything. I was going to be seeing ghosts everywhere I went anyway – they seemed to seek me out. I figured I might as well take the curse of seeing dead people and turn it into something lucrative. Communing with the dead on behalf of the unsighted non-magicals, hosting séances, you know – it was a nice little sideline.

  Until Henry showed up in my kitchen and announced that if I wanted to continue, I was going to have to get licensed. That was when this whole farce began.

  “When are we leaving?” I asked. The sooner we got there, the sooner Santa could be dealt with. I might even be done in time to spend the holidays stuffing my face with Satan. (Not, like, stuffing my face with Satan. Just, you know, eating Christmas dinner at the same table as her. Although she is pretty hot. I wouldn’t be totally opposed to stuffing my face with her, that’s all I’m saying.)

  “Now,” said Death. “Hang on to your muffin.”

  We walked outside, me trailing behind the others, down my garden path and out into the open space between my house and the small cemetery across from which I lived. I looked around, sighing, wishing I could just stay here and wallow alone. At that moment, Death opened a portal in front of us and motioned for me and Henry to step through.

  Time to start running, Santa.

  Chapter Two

  Henry and I stepped through the portal and were immediately hit by a blast of icy air. I swore to myself and wished I’d had the foresight to chang
e out of my four-day-old pyjamas before making the journey to the arctic. Snow fell lightly from the sky, filtering in through the trees. We appeared to be standing in a forest of pines, but there were no signs of any inhabitants nearby.

  I turned to ask Death where we were and found myself face to face with nothing. The portal was gone, and the Reaper had disappeared with it.

  “Well, great,” I said.

  “He’ll be back later,” said Henry. “Had stuff to do.”

  “What stuff could he possibly have to do?” I exploded. “He can travel through time and space as he pleases, but can’t be bothered helping us on this stupid quest that he came up with just to mess with me?”

  “Now, I don’t think that’s fair. I’m sure he didn’t –”

  “He did!”

  “Why would you think that?”

  “Because –”

  I paused. Because he’d helped me dispose of two bodies earlier in the week and he had a sick sense of humour? Because even Death wasn’t sure what the limits of my abilities were? Because, like everyone else in my life, he was testing me?

  “Because if Death can’t find this guy, how the hell does he think I’m going to be able to?”

  Henry shrugged. “You found the Doomstone. Before you lost it again.” I glared at him. OK, so it was true – technically I had lost the Doomstone, but it wasn’t like it had been my fault. Ed – duplicitous, conniving poltergeist Ed – had stolen it from me and disappeared before I could do anything about it. “Not that anyone blames you,” he added quickly.

  Nice save, Henry.

  “I just thought Death might want to be around for, you know, the death.”

  So maybe this wasn’t my first trip down this particular road – the ‘killing bad guys’ road – but that didn’t mean I enjoyed it. The other times had been an accident. Hunting down Santa was new territory, and I wanted someone experienced around. Who could be more experienced than the Grim Reaper?

  “It’ll take us at least a couple of days to find Santa, even with your seeking capabilities.”

  “What seeking capabilities are you talking about, exactly? Earlier this week I passed out trying to find a rug that was a couple of kilometres away, and for that I had a full circle of magicals backing me up. Unless we’re incredibly lucky and just stumble across him, I don’t have that much confidence in my ability to find Santa.”

  Henry shrugged. “I’m not super thrilled about this quest, either, but neither of us has a choice. For now, maybe we should just focus on finding somewhere warm.”

  I raised my eyebrows at him. “Oh, yeah, sure. We’re definitely going to be able to find a nice warm nook in this forest. It’s not like it’s 30 degrees sub-zero here.”

  “There’s no need to be like that,” said Henry. “We might as well try to enjoy ourselves. Now just let me change into something more comfortable.”

  He shifted into a caribou.

  “You ready to go then, Rudolph?” I asked.

  “After you.”

  I stepped forward, moving through the trees at what I hoped seemed like a leisurely pace. Rather than concentrate on where I was moving, I was feeling my way around the forest with my mind, sensing nearby energy. I didn’t want Henry to realise what I was doing, since I was pretending to be a basic clairvoyant around him. Some of my talents were, uh, unusual, and I didn’t particularly want The Department to find out about them. Especially since my magic had a proven track record of killing people.

  There were whispers of magical energy in the forest – probably just small magical creatures, maybe the occasional local witch, an ice elf. Nothing impressive. What I could sense, though, was a kind of warmth not too far from where Henry and I were – I wasn’t sure what the source of it was, but any kind of warmth out here had to be a good thing.

  Shivering, I picked my way through the forest towards the source of the warmth, still trying to look as though I wasn’t moving in any particular direction. Eventually we came across a path.

  “Oh, look, a path,” I said. “Fancy that.”

  Henry slid me a suspicious look. In hindsight, maybe I should have just kept my mouth shut.

  We followed the track through the forest, and eventually the trees began to thin and the path seemed more worn. Ahead of us lay a small village (very small – as in a single street) with signs written in a language I didn’t recognise. This place had been the source of the warmth, but what exactly had given off the energy was still not clear. I wondered if there was something in the village connected to Santa. I hadn’t been consciously searching for him yet – I was really only interested in getting warm – but maybe there was some piece of the puzzle here that would help me track him down.

  We approached a small tavern with a name I couldn’t pronounce, and it occurred to me that I didn’t even know what country we were in. (The North Pole wasn’t a country, right?)

  “Henry,” I whispered. “Do you have any idea where we are?”

  “Of course,” he said, but as he didn’t elaborate I wondered if he was actually telling the truth.

  The Inn With The Overly Tricky Name was undeniably ready for Christmas. There was a wreath on the door as we walked in, and a Christmas tree in the corner of the bar downstairs, where a number of patrons (all of whom were greying, bearded men with red faces who could easily pass for Santa) were sitting, warming themselves on the log fire and getting merry on massive tumblers of beer. The faint strains of a carol coming from an indeterminate source could be heard throughout the room. The scent of nutmeg, orange and spices permeated the bar, making it all seem extra festive.

  While Henry approached the counter to try and organise our rooms (slightly startling the bartender, who probably wasn’t used to reindeer wandering into the tavern, much less asking for a tour of the facilities), I made my way around the pub, sensing the energy of the room. The warm, yellow glow was stronger here, but even so I couldn’t pinpoint its source. It wasn’t any of the men, which was a relief – as much as I wanted to get this quest over and done with, I didn’t think I could stomach killing Father Christmas tonight, in this room filled with carved wooden decorations of him and his elves, alongside the holly, pine cones, candles and various other paraphernalia that made the room look like a shrine to Christmas. How very unseasonal it would be to murder the big guy here, of all places.

  As I made my way to the fireplace, I noticed that the energy seemed to grow hotter. (No, not just because I was walking towards the fire – I’m not that thick.) I knelt before the fire, blocking it from the view of the other patrons, and shot a small burst of my own energy into it. The purple bolt that emanated from my hand dissipated upon contact with the flames, fizzling out in a rather anticlimactic way. Hunh. So the energy wasn’t coming from the fire after all.

  I straightened up to a standing position, though I didn’t move away from the fire. I was still wearing the light summer pyjamas I’d worn in Australia, and this country (whatever it was) was freezing. A figure on the mantelpiece caught my eye. It was a small, carved set of Santa-themed babushka dolls. Something about the set caught my attention, though it took me a moment to figure out what it was.

  I leaned in closer to inspect the largest doll and found myself staring into its eyes – its red, malice-filled eyes. (Yes, I’m aware that it might sound like I’m projecting my own feelings onto the nesting doll, but I swear that whoever had painted this thing had a twisted sense of what Santa was all about. He looked like he was going to eat a corpse.)

  Extending my arm towards the large Santa figure, I knew immediately that this had been the source of the energy. Up this close, however, it no longer felt like a warm, welcoming energy. It was burning hot, and the yellow glow had morphed into a brown now that I was up close to it. There was something wrong. I picked up the nesting dolls, feeling the smaller figurines rattle around inside. It took some twisting and pulling, but I managed to pop it open.

  The next figure was Santa again, but this time his coat was a dirty brow
n rather than red, and the look in his eyes seemed even more sinister thanks to the artist’s decision to remove Santa’s eyebrows from this model altogether. The eyes weren’t even the worst part. Santa’s face was red in this one, but not like you usually see in pictures of him. This guy hadn’t just had too much whiskey. It looked like he’d dipped his face in blood.

  The third figure wasn’t Santa – at least, I hoped it wasn’t. It was some sort of hooded demon, all teeth sharpened to a point. I’d met a few demons in my time, and all had been exceedingly polite to me (possibly because I was with Satan at the time – creatures of all extractions tended to try and stay on the good side of the devil). This demon, however, looked like it had sinister motives. I know, I know, how could a doll have sinister intentions? This wasn’t just an ordinary doll, though. It had a weird, overwhelming energy, and clearly it wasn’t your average Yuletide decoration.

  Wishing I could just shove the rest of doll back on the mantel (where I’d put the outer two layers), but knowing that I should continue, given that for some unknown reason I’d been drawn to this creepy little nightmare of a decoration, I drew a deep breath and opened the demon to reveal a smaller figurine – an elf. Ice elf, I presumed. Couldn’t imagine there’d be many water nymphs or sirens running around these parts – all the rivers were frozen over, and you’d die if you tried to jump in that sea. This was ice elf territory. With that, of course, came vampire territory – vampires loved faeries, and ice elves were a particular favourite. We’d have to watch our backs around here. I glanced at the second Santa doll resting on the mantel with his blood-covered face. Could that explain why Death wanted him? Was he some sort of crazed vampire? I couldn’t see it being the reason, but I had to entertain the possibility. Hey, I was here to murder Santa. I couldn’t really count anything out.

  The final doll was tiny, yet somehow seemed the most sinister of them all. It was a small baby wrapped in a blanket. That was it. Ordinarily that would have been fine – expected, even – in a set of nesting dolls, but here it seemed to take on a whole new meaning, and I didn’t want to dwell on what that meaning might be.