Kissing Krampus Page 2

  “Why are you kissing my forehead like my grandma used to?”

  She was awake.

  * * * *

  The proximity to the elf was disconcerting. She looked up into his eyes, and he smiled as he leisurely retreated to a sitting position at her side. “I was removing the last of the cold from your body. I had to bring you here to help you.”

  She frowned. “Why?”

  “The cold was working its way into your organs, and shock was about to set in.”

  She flapped her hand. “Not that. Why did you have to bring me here? I thought you were going to help me find Krampus.”

  “I had to bring you here because this is my domain. I am going to assist you in speaking with Krampus, but you have yet to explain what you want him to do.”

  “I want him to get my nephew back and take the changeling and get rid of it.”

  His lips quirked. “There are still days before Krampus walks the night.”

  “I know, but my brother-in-law comes home in a few days, and he is not a nice person. If the changeling is acting up again, he will take it out on Phoebe, and when Liam returns, he will take it out on him.”

  “The changeling will defend itself.”

  “But he will not defend my sister. They thrive on conflict.”

  He scowled. “This is a complicated situation.”

  He got up, and she reached out. “If you just let me explain this to Krampus...”

  He glanced back at her. “You have. I do not always wear the fur, hooves, and horns. I am not yet on duty.”

  She stared at him, and his eyes drained of colour until the slit pupil and ice-white eyes were looking at her.

  “Holy...”

  He chuckled, and there was an edge of anger to it. “Not usually. I will look into precedent and see what I can do.”

  Leda wanted to follow him, but he simply disappeared. She sat up and looked around.

  The chamber she was in was sparse, but the windows opened onto something she hadn’t expected. Spring. She could smell the green plants and the dark earth in the breezes entering through the window panes. The walls were filled with windows.

  Leda looked down and noted that she was still wearing towels, but there was a silky soft blanket that she could wrap around her in a toga-style.

  She tried to find her host, but when she left the room she was in, she merely exited the door and was back where she started. She couldn’t get out.

  * * * *

  “Klaus, I need to speak with you.” Krampus walked along the icy pathway and looked for his oldest friend.

  There was the sound of bells and a clatter of metal followed by a curse. Aha. There he is.

  He moved briskly toward the barn and found his friend nursing a bruised hand. “Klaus.”

  His elder brother looked up and sighed. “Krampus. Good to see you. Weird but good. Give me a hand with this.”

  Krampus looked at the bolt that his brother had been working on and lifted the wrench to lend his own strength to the effort. “I thought you were supposed to be putting things together, not taking them apart.”

  “I have a few weeks before it becomes dangerous to have the skid off the sleigh. I have the rest of the sleigh supported, but there is a crack in the wood. I need to replace it.”

  The nut began to move, and then, it was free. Krampus handed the wrench over to his brother. “I need to ask you something in a professional capacity.”

  “That sounds serious.” Klaus pulled the skid off the sleigh with a grunt.

  “It is. I need access to your naughty list.”

  “The changelings don’t appear on them.”

  “I am not looking for a changeling, I am looking for a human male.”

  His brother looked at him with a twinkle in his gaze. “I didn’t think that guys were your type.”

  “Grow up. I am looking into something for an acquaintance of mine. If it is as bad as she says, I am going to have to find a way to act.”

  Klaus blinked. “She? There is a woman involved?”

  Krampus growled. “Obviously. She was a taken child when she was seven. Apparently, the events after her abduction remain in her mind.”

  “That isn’t supposed to happen.”

  Krampus snorted. “Your magic is supposed to wipe out those memories for everyone in the household. What went wrong?”

  Klaus swiftly put the new and waiting skid into place. “We are going to find out. Come on. We are going to check both lists.”

  Krampus attached the nuts and tightened them until they were immobile. He didn’t want them coming off on Christmas Eve.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Making sure that this is done before we look in the books.”

  Klaus chuckled. “Come on. You don’t want to keep the young lady waiting.”

  “How do you know she is waiting?”

  “Because you have colour in your cheeks. Come along, little brother. We need to get to the lists.”

  Krampus trailed behind his brother into the glassy underworld that Klaus favoured.

  Two huge doors swung open at their approach, and his brother held his hand up. “What is the woman’s name?”

  “Leda.”

  A scroll pulled itself off a stack and flew through the air to smack into Klaus’s hand. “First, we check your lady then you can tell me the name of the naughty one.”

  Klaus walked to a sloped table and set the scroll down, unfurling it until there was a column that glowed. “Well, that is new.”

  “What is it?”

  Klaus leaned in and looked. “Is this your woman?”

  Leda’s face was in a small portrait in the corner of the column. “She isn’t mine, but yes. That is Leda.”

  “Well, I can see why she was taken. She is kinborn. The court is trying to pull its blood back in. The other addition to her bloodline is rather unusual.” Klaus smiled.

  “What? What addition?” Krampus quickly read the biography and character assessment that was listed. “That isn’t possible. That lineage is dead.”

  “Well, as the humans say, you have no idea when a recessive gene is going to rear up. She has the blood of the ancients in her.”

  Krampus felt slightly ill. “Check her nephew, Liam. He is the one the changeling took over for.”

  Klaus lifted his hand, and another scroll slammed into it. He moved to one side and opened the scroll, unrolling and rolling it until Liam’s name glowed green, not purple like his aunt’s.

  “He is a normal and sweet human boy. He hasn’t had any of the indicators that would normally summon a changeling.”

  “What of his father, Antony?”

  The scroll that flew to them was dark, and it crackled as Klaus opened it.

  “He is a parasite. The fey have most likely taken his son to spare him a violent destiny.”

  Krampus groaned. “So, if I get him back, his father will not change.”

  “No. This kind of predation needs a life-or-death moment to turn around, and neither of us is able to administer that kind of punishment.” Klaus grumbled.

  “I will find a way. I have to. She brought me one of my coins.”

  Klaus was shocked. “How did she get one of those?”

  “She was afraid of Christmas, so I had someone deliver a coin to her so that she could always know a fey if they approached her.” Krampus didn’t mention that he had changed his own shape for the occasion. His brother was already far too delighted with the situation.

  “Hmm. Well, you are either going to consign that child to torture, or you can leave him with the fey.”

  Krampus grimaced. “I choose a third option.” He turned and started walking for the door.

  Klaus ran after him and walked with him. “What third option? You are bound to your role and me to mine. We can’t step out of those boundaries.”

  “I am not going to. If she wants to save her nephew, she is going to have to do
it.”

  “You are going to involve a human in this?”

  Krampus looked at him. “You said it yourself, she is a throwback to a bygone era. She is essential to this scheme if everyone is going to come out alive.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “She walked up a mountain in a blizzard, coated in ice, carrying cold iron, and she still demanded to see me. The fanged and horned me. She had her choice of supernatural, mythical beings to choose from, and she chose me. That has to mean something.”

  He walked away from his brother, back the way he had come until he crossed the bridge. He looked back and waved at the figure with the icy hair and crimson tunic. When his brother waved back, he walked through the portal and returned to his home. He had a lady waiting, after all.

  * * * *

  Leda sat and looked out the windows as that was all she could do. She still wasn’t sure that the elf who had her corralled here was Krampus. She had seen his eyes pale, but she had looked into the fey, and glamour was part of their schtick.

  She didn’t know if she had been here for hours or days. The sun never rose, and it never set.

  She sat, and she worried. She worried about Liam, wherever he was, and she worried about Phoebe. From the moment that her sister had brought Tony home, she had worried about Phoebe.

  Tony had a temper, and no matter what the family said, Phoebe declared her undying love for him. In stereotypical fashion, he had separated her sister from the family, and it had only been dire straits that had prompted her to call for help. It wasn’t help for her, it was help for Liam. Leda respected that call, but she didn’t want her sister to suffer for it. She needed to get back quickly.

  When her keeper came through the door, she stood up and faced him. “Can you help me?”

  He extended his arms to her with her folded clothing in them. “I will do what I can, but this is not going to be a simple process. There are parts of it that you must take charge of as I am bound to my situation and cannot exit it.”

  She looked at her clothing and then back at him. “Let me get dressed, and we can be on our way.”

  He nodded and stepped back through the door.

  Leda pulled on her underwear and got dressed as quickly as she could. Her boots were damp on the outside but warm on the inside. Wherever they had been, someone had been considerate.

  She kept her outerwear draped over one arm and called out. “Ready.”

  He opened the door and extended his hand to her. “Whatever you do, don’t let go.”

  She looked at him and saw the seriousness in his eyes. “As long as Liam is at the end of this journey, I won’t let go.”

  He nodded, and when she clasped his hand, the world spun around them, landing them in a place that was eerily familiar.

  “I know this place.”

  “That makes sense, considering that you have been here. You were here for three weeks when you were a child.”

  The trees had a silvery gleam, pathways were made of crushed iridescent shells, and the folk that were walking on those pathways were indolent, beautiful, and only mildly concerned with the interlopers in their midst.

  “So, the elves are stealing children?”

  Krampus kept hold of her hand. “Yes and no. Some children call out to them. Others pull them in because the children have a kinship with them.”

  “So, Liam is here?”

  “We will see, but if he is, he is under their protection, and you have no bargaining power. Allow me to inquire for a solution to the situation.”

  She frowned. “Talking. I remember you talking to the woman who took me.”

  He began to walk at a careful pace. “The changelings are supposed to be under their control, but they get out. Fortunately, it is fewer and fewer each year. The changelings take the children, and I come here to plead the case for the families and for the children themselves.”

  Leda walked with him, her hand clasped in his. “I remember that part, but that wasn’t what happened to me. The glowing woman came through my window and said she was going to take me to a wonderful place, but if I didn’t want my family to worry, I had to let the small shadowy creature touch me. Another girl who looked just like me was suddenly standing there, and she smiled. The lady took me away, and we walked through the wall and into the yard, disappearing into an archway. Everything gets a little blurry after that.”

  Krampus slowed. “She came to you?”

  “The lady? Yes. She promised me a thousand years, and all of them joyous and beautiful.”

  He paused. “Promised?”

  “Yes. She stroked my hair and promised me that if I came with her that one night, I would have forever to enjoy.”

  Krampus’s mouth tightened. “Did she now? Excellent. That is a chip to bargain with.”

  “Why does that matter?”

  “Because the fairy queen cannot lie.” He didn’t offer any additional information.

  They walked along with the slow, steady pace that he was setting.

  “Why aren’t we walking with more urgency?”

  He glanced down at her. “They don’t understand urgency. They barely understand time.”

  “You are of the same species, people, whatever.”

  He chuckled. “Not for a very long time now. My brother and I were assigned to be guardians over humans in their most vulnerable time.”

  “Humans would believe that you steal and beat children.”

  He chuckled. “I know. In the early days, Klaus did not come and soften their memories, so when I grabbed a changeling and beat it through the dimensional portal, the memory of my capturing and hauling off naughty children remained. It is not a bad legacy.”

  “So, how did you come by the fur and fangs?” She had to know.

  “It was to deter humans from becoming fascinated. The same reason Klaus manifests as an old, fat man. And the reason that all the fey who manifest around human holidays have another form. They were all interested in safeguarding their favourite aspects of humanity. Love and luck, fertility, fear, and warning for the coming winter. Even the renewal that strikes every year and marks the passing of human lives has an avatar who oversees it. Our presence on earth is part choice, part punishment for selecting the humans over our own people. So, the tavern where you found me is where we socialize.”

  She smiled. “You are nervous.”

  He frowned. “What?”

  “You are telling me things that you would not normally say.”

  He frowned. “Ah, that. Yes. It is the nature of this place. Only the truth can be spoken here, but why I am still speaking is a mystery to me.”

  She chuckled. “I would guess it is because you have a guest. Sometimes having company when you are not used to it makes folks a little chatty.”

  He muttered. “That must be it.”

  The pathways converged onto a wide expanse that led them toward an area that she remembered all too well. The throne room.

  She gasped when she saw the group of children playing near the throne. “Liam!”

  One of the little faces looked up, and her nephew beamed, running toward her with his arms outstretched. “Aunty!”

  She kept hold of Krampus’s hand and smiled as Liam dodged the fey who tried to intercept him. He giggled and laughed the entire time. She dropped her winter clothing to the ground and knelt as the small human missile struck her and wrapped his arms around her neck.

  “I have missed you, Aunty. You have been gone so long.”

  She didn’t speak. She didn’t want to tell him about his father forbidding her to visit, so she picked out the truth. “I have missed you so much.”

  The woman sitting in the slightly smaller of the two thrones smiled. “Leda. It is good to see you again. You have grown.”

  With Krampus holding one hand and Liam riding on her hip, she approached the throne and bent her knee, as she had been taught. “Queen Titania, it is good to see you again.”


  “Ah, I always knew we would meet again. You are too precious for this world to keep you to itself.” Titania quirked her left brow upward. “The boy is yours?”

  “My nephew.”

  “Ah, he is one of the endangered ones. His father is not a safe man to be around.” The queen got to her feet, rising to the nearly seven feet tall that Leda remembered.

  “Krampus, my child. It is so rare that you bless us with your presence.” Titania kissed him softly on the cheek and stroked his hair.

  “Thank you for the gift of your welcome, Mother.”

  No lie could be spoken, so they were actually mother and son.

  “You can stop clutching her hand, Krampus. I am not going to whisk her back to the human world.” She smiled softly. “She is safe here.” Titania reached out and stroked Leda’s cheek. “She always was.”

  Leda asked. “What about Liam?”

  “Ah, that boy is a treasure. He can cheer anyone up. He doesn’t have your blood, but he has your knack for seeing the truth in those around him.”

  Liam started to squirm. “I want to go play again.”

  Leda didn’t want to let him go, but Titania smiled. “It is safe. He will come to no harm here.”

  Leda crouched, and Liam kissed her and hopped off, running to go back to the other children who were playing with toys made of magic and wood.

  The queen beckoned to them, and she walked out into the gardens that Leda remembered running through.

  “Now, there is a situation. I will not send that child back to be tormented and eventually murdered by his own parent.”

  “I will try to stop that from happening.” Leda heard that the absolute she felt in her soul could not be spoken.

  “You will try. You will fail. You cannot enact this protection as you are. There is nothing for it, Leda. You are beloved to me, but you are only human. For now.”

  They walked into the center of the gardens, and trees bent to hide them from prying eyes.

  Titania smiled and turned to her. “Let my son’s hand go and tell me what you would do if you could hear the cries of those in need around the holidays. Those who need to keep a good memory for the sake of the children.”