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

  Well, that had certainly killed the festive mood for me. In a rare stroke of genius (yes, I admit, sometimes I’m not the brightest spark in the light bulb – wait, is that a saying?), I turned the figure over to search for an artist’s signature. A movement to my right startled me and I nearly dropped the doll, but after fumbling around for a moment I managed to catch it. Henry had sidled up to me, apparently having managed to book us a room.

  “What’s that?” he asked.

  “Not sure,” I said, not wanting to tell him how I’d managed to discover it. The less Henry – and his Department Overlords – knew about my abilities, the better. “I was trying to read the inscription on the base.”

  “Why’s that?”

  Time to lie. “I appreciate the artistry.” Henry stared at me unblinkingly, obviously not buying the story. I continued, a little too defensively: “The brushwork is impeccable.”

  “Sure,” said Henry, before transforming back into his gorilla form and pulling a phone from Satan-knows-where. He copied the words carved in the wood into Google, and waited for the page to load. It was a painful wait given the terrible reception out here in the middle of nowhere. Deciding I couldn’t take it any longer, I took the phone from Henry and sent him to the bar to fetch us each a mulled wine. I had no idea what that actually was, but it seemed like an appropriate beverage for this location.

  While he was occupied with the drink-buying mission, I shot a small burst of energy into the phone to boost its reception. The page loaded immediately. Magic certainly had its advantages. (It had its disadvantages too, though, to be fair – like a certain terrible licensing process. Oh, and its propensity to spill out at awkward moments and kill people who happened to be standing near me at the time. So far, I didn’t really regret any of the murders, but still! It was the principle of the thing. Wait, what was I saying? Uh, never mind.)

  The top search result was a town that, according to Google maps, was only 10 kilometres away. I frowned, scanning various articles about the town. The full inscription on the base of the nesting dolls seemed to be the name of a local museum in The Town Which Had An Even Trickier Name Than The Inn. The doll must have come from the museum’s gift shop, although what kind of maniac would have paid money for that terrifying, possessed, demonic Christmas decoration I did not know.

  “I got us a room,” Henry told me.

  “Just the one?” I asked, raising my eyebrows questioningly. If Henry was trying to seduce me, he picked the wrong time to do it. Dragging me across the planet on a mission to assassinate someone was not exactly the way to my heart.

  “They’re booked out,” he explained, handing me the wine. “Holiday season and all. There’s only one bed, but I don’t mind sleeping on the floor.”

  Of course he didn’t. He could just shift into a cat or something and sleep nestled in a pile of clothes. Still, it would have been nice to have a room to myself. I wondered briefly if Henry had done it intentionally – if, for some reason, he didn’t want to let me out of his sight. Probably not. He wasn’t that conniving.

  “The page loaded,” I said, handing Henry back his phone and taking a swig of the wine. “It was made in a town not far from here. Unless you’ve got any better ideas, I think maybe we should head there. It looks like they have a Santa museum. Might be something there that can help us.”

  Henry nodded, although he was frowning. “Funny how it loaded for you.”

  I just shrugged. “I have a way with technology.”

  “I bet you do,” he said, still frowning. “Alright, we’ll head there tomorrow then. First, though, I think we should do some reading on the big guy. See what we’re up against.”

  “Sure. Christmas movie marathon? Personally I’m a big fan of ‘The Grinch’, but since I guess it doesn’t have that much educational value in this case, I’d settle for ‘The Santa Clause’.”

  Henry raised his brows at me, looking decidedly unimpressed.

  “Oh, what – do you have a better idea?”

  I was secretly hoping the answer was ‘yes’, but I didn’t want to let Henry know that. Sure, I had no idea what I was doing (and sure, by this stage Henry probably realised that about me), but this guy was responsible for giving me my licence. Fake it until you murder Santa, as they always say. Wait, that isn’t the classic saying? Oh, my mistake.

  “Well, I could hardly have a worse idea,” he sniped. Wow, OK Henry. Tell us what you really think.

  “Unless you’ve got something better –”

  “How about we google him?” he suggested. “Seeing as my internet seems to have magically fixed itself now.” He gave me a meaningful look. I just shrugged. He couldn’t prove anything.

  “Fine,” I said. “Shall we head up to our room, then?”

  “Sure.”

  “Cool.” I downed my drink. “Grab me another mulled wine and I’ll meet you there.”

  Henry opened his mouth to protest, but I’d taken off too quickly for him to stop me. I heard him sigh and looked over my shoulder to see him making his way over to the bar. Excellent.

  When I reached the top of the stairs, I realised that a) I didn’t know which room we were staying in, and b) I didn’t have a key, so I just waited for Henry to show up with my drink. There were a lot of Christmas decorations here, too: tinsel, wreaths, mistletoe, deer heads – oh, wait. They weren’t Christmas decorations. Nope, they were just hunting trophies. My upper lip curled looking at them. There was something incredibly sinister about the reindeer head mounted on a wall with Christmas lights tangled in its antlers. Welcome to Disturbing Christmas Decorations R Us™.

  Henry caught up to me, handing me the tumbler of mulled wine with a decidedly unimpressed look on his face.

  “Thanks!” I said, pretending not to notice his annoyance. He just shook his head at me and walked ahead, leading me to the room.

  Henry unlocked the door and pushed it open. Inside was a single bed with red sheets printed with white snowflakes. Fairy lights lined the walls (although, mercifully, this time they weren’t attached to Rudolph’s disembodied head). The room smelled of pine needles, thanks to the small Christmas tree that stood in the corner, looking kind of desolate. The floor beneath it was bare, devoid of any gifts. I was hit by a sudden pang of panic as I realised that I hadn’t bought any Christmas presents yet. Oh, shit. I needed to sort that out quick smart – Satan would not stand for a presentless holiday.

  Who else did I need to get gifts for? God, did Henry expect something from me? Could I buy him a chew toy like people do for their pets, or was that rude? I usually got something for Death, but this year I wasn’t sure he’d earned it. Maybe I could get him a book on how to make friends – he needed some help in that department. What about Hecate and Daisy? Were we close enough for that?

  Christmas was so much easier back when I didn’t have friends.

  “Nessa?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Something wrong?”

  I shook my head. “No, sorry. Just thinking of what to get people for Christmas.”

  He nodded and smiled. “Leaving it a bit late, aren’t you? I’ve already got yours. I think you’ll like it.”

  Great, so I did have to get him something.

  “Unless it’s my licence, I don’t want it.”

  He rolled his eyes. “There’s no need to be so grouchy. I can see why you like ‘The Grinch’ so much – you must identify pretty strongly with the main character.”

  “Oh, I do. Usually I turn it off before he redeems himself. I like it best when Christmas is ruined. Lucky, considering I’m about to slaughter Saint Nick.”

  “This quest should be right up your alley.”

  Plonking myself down on the bed, I opened my bag and took out my laptop. “Google time,” I said. The sooner I did some research, the sooner I could get this whole thing over and done with.

  Henry joined me in searching for information about Santa on his phone, which I used as a Wi-Fi hotspot. (I didn’t want to risk him catchi
ng me magicking up more internet – that kind of thing was probably regulated. I couldn’t imagine that service providers would be too thrilled if they learned that people could hijack the internet with a little bit of a magic boost. No money to be made on that. Actually, maybe there was some money to be made on that… Perhaps I would add ‘internet service provider’ to my business repertoire. Between that and séances, what more could people want? And I could certainly use the extra cash, what with all these quests eating into my usual business hours.)

  Into the search box I typed ‘Santa evil’, not expecting it to return much. I love Google, but the internet has a tendency to be dominated by the normals (non-magical folk), who like to fill it with their fiction and stories. That was all well and good, but it’s not the most useful thing for the magicals looking for actual information – generally, our lore was relegated to crusty old tomes that hadn’t yet been digitised. (Maybe I could create a magical search engine when I started my service provision business.)

  Most of the results were the kind of weird shit you’d expect – ‘Santa promotes consumerism!’/‘Santa works for Satan!’/ ‘Sexy Evil Santa Costumes For Halloween Now 50% Off!’ – but there was one interesting article that caught my eye: a page from that trusty well-of-all-knowledge ‘Wikipedia’ about a creature known as Krampus.

  One website described him as a Yuletide ghoul – as Ghoultide, if you will. This guy didn’t reward the good kids – he punished the bad ones with his sticks and chains before dragging them down to The Underworld. The chains seemed to represent his bond with an old friend of mine: Her Majesty The Queen of Hell. Plus, he did all of this with bells on. Literally.

  “Brings a whole new meaning to ‘Jingle Bells’,” Henry murmured.

  “Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle while we slay.”

  “Oh what fun it is to die at the hands of a horned goat-creature.”

  “Do you reckon this is the guy we’re looking for?” I asked. “Rather than the other Santa?”

  “From what Death has told me, I think they might be one and the same.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “Death gave you hints?” Why was this the first I was hearing about it?

  “Not really. Nothing concrete. He just told me enough to get me onside.”

  “Oh, so you had reservations about this at the start, and yet you’re forcing me to do it anyway?” Nice double-standard there, Henry.

  “The Santa you know doesn’t exist. A couple hundred years ago, this Krampus guy got a good PR person in. Now everyone thinks he’s some jolly old guy who gives out presents when in reality he beats, kidnaps and kills children.”

  Right, OK, so maybe killing this guy wasn’t so wrong. I took a gulp of my mulled wine. Then another. Suddenly it was empty. Oh. How had that happened?

  “How does that work? It says here that Krampus appeared after the whole Saint Nicholas thing,” I said.

  “He was first called ‘Krampus’ after the Santa rumour started. Before that, his kind appears in Greek literature.”

  “Do you mean satyrs?” I asked, frowning. From what I knew, satyrs were foul-mouthed drunks, but I hadn’t heard of them attacking children.

  Henry nodded. “Yes.”

  “Are you sure they’re connected?”

  “I think Krampus may just be a particularly bad egg.”

  “You don’t say.” Way to state the obvious, Henry.

  “He’s our guy. I’m sure of it.”

  I sighed. “You better watch out, you better not cry, you better sharpen your knife and murder the guy.”

  “I think the ‘repurposing Christmas Carols’ moment has passed.”

  “Right, sorry.”

  We were silent for a moment, both lost in thought. OK, so everything I knew about Santa was wrong. There was no Santa. There was just this evil faun serial child killer.

  “A lot of these articles link this guy with the devil,” said Henry.

  I nodded. Of course they did – she got blamed for all the dodgy characters that wandered the earth. “Yeah,” I said. Henry looked at me expectantly. “What?”

  He rolled his eyes. “Well, are you going to ask her about it?”

  “Oh, right. Yeah. Good idea.” I looked up at the ceiling. “Satan?” I called.

  “Yes, darling?” came the voice from above.

  “Do you know the guy?”

  Henry looked both confused and terrified. Guess he didn’t realise that Satan was listening in on everything we did and said.

  “We’ve spoken about this before, my dear. I can’t help you with your quests. It wouldn’t be ethical.”

  “But ‘not ethical’ is your middle name.”

  She laughed softly. “I’m sorry, darling. You’re on your own.”

  “Am I on the right track?”

  “In this matter or in life generally?”

  I shrugged. “Both?”

  “Yes and no.”

  “Which one is which?”

  Silence. Argh, of course. Classic Lucifer.

  “Don’t call me that,” her voice growled from above. My heart began to race a little. Satan claimed to be able to read minds, but I think she was just exceptionally good at reading body language. She’d had a lot of years to practise, after all. Still, it was a little unnerving that she could pretend to know what I was thinking with such accuracy.

  Henry was sitting next to me on the bed, eyes wide, shaking. He found Satan significantly more terrifying than I did.

  “I’m done for tonight,” I said. “I don’t think I can take any more of my childhood dreams being squashed.” Henry remained silent. “Henry?” He didn’t seem to be calming down although Satan had left. He was hugging his hairy gorilla knees and rocking back and forth. “Are you OK, buddy? You know she’s gone, right?”

  He whipped around to me so fast that I jumped and pulled back a little in fright.

  “Can’t you feel it?”

  “Feel wha–”

  I stopped, finally registering what he was talking about. The warm light that the town had given out earlier – the warmth he hadn’t been able to feel – was gone. Things were cold, and it had nothing to do with the snow falling outside. There was something coming.

  Or already here.

  I cast out my mind and tried to pinpoint the source of the dark energy. The thing about dark energy, though, is that it’s kind of hard to track. This cloud especially felt less like magical energy and more like… absence. It was like a void, sucking the energy from the world around it. I felt woozy just peering into it with my mind. (Although that could have been the mulled wine.) What was it? It wasn’t grabbers – I knew their kind of energy. I knew most kinds of dark energy, in fact; Satan had introduced me to some dodgy characters over the years.

  This was something I didn’t recognise.

  “Is it him?” I whispered, not really expecting Henry to answer. He was still frozen with fear. I’d never met a satyr before, so I didn’t know what kind of magic they had. It could be Krampus, coming to get us before we had a chance to go after him. I wondered if Satan was still listening in. “Satan?” I hissed.

  No answer.

  “Please! I’m sorry about what I said – thought – but I really need your help now. There’s something coming and I don’t know what it is and I don’t know how to fight it!”

  Nothing. Satan wasn’t listening. Henry was useless.

  I was on my own again.

  Naturally.

  Henry and I had been researching for some time, and it was now very late at night – so late, in fact, that the patrons downstairs had left the pub and the place was shut up for the night. The sound of a knock upon the door echoed through the silent night. (Not a holy night. All was definitely neither calm nor bright.)

  Who was knocking on the door of a pub at this time of night? Come to think of it, who would knock on the door of a pub at any time of night? If the door is open you come in, if the door is shut you go home. It’s not hard, homicidal maniac.

 
; I made my way to the window to peer down into the street, hoping to catch a glimpse of whoever (or whatever) was out there. I didn’t have the best view of the door of the pub, but I thought I could see a dark figure moving out there in the shadows. It was hard to tell for sure, though, because the lights in the street were off. All of them. The street lamps and Christmas lights were out, and no light filtered into the street from any of the windows. Either this town was very conscientious about energy saving practices or the mysterious figure downstairs had darkened the town intentionally. I was betting on the second one.

  The figure whipped its head towards me. I jumped back. Although it was too far away for me to see what it was, I was sure it had been able to see me. After all, this room was the only one in the whole town with a light still burning. My heart thumped in my chest. What now?

  I waited.

  Chapter Three

  And waited.

  And waited.

  Then I got sick of waiting and went back to the window. The street below was empty. Feeling around for the energy, I noticed the village’s warmth had returned. The darkness was retreating.

  Well, that was anticlimactic.

  “It’s gone, Henry,” I said, climbing into bed. He was still rocking back and forth, hugging his knees. I gave him a gentle push with my foot, trying to get his attention (and maybe a little bit so he’d stop taking up my leg room) and he toppled off the end of the bed. When he hit the ground, he seemed to break out of his trance.

  “You didn’t have to kick me,” he snapped, standing. “I was about to move.”

  “I think we both know that’s a lie,” I replied. “Are you OK?”

  “Yeah, yeah,” he said. “I’m fine. It was just… Yeah.”

  “Henry?”

  “Hmm?”

  “What happened to you?”

  “Nothing, I –” He stopped when he caught the look on my face. He sighed. “I’ve never felt anything like that before.”