Hi, all!
Annabelle Hawthorne back with another chapter of "Let's Lewd Christmas!"
New reader? Awesome! To catch you up to speed, dude met a nymph in Chapter 1, and now he's battling Santa's darker half, the Krampus. Oh, and there was a whole bunch of fucking, punching bad guys in the face with magic, and an actual plot that (largely) makes sense.
Returning reader? Welcome back! Also, sorry (but not sorry) about last chapter. That was a scene I wanted to write from the very first moment I put Death and Lily on that sleigh. There's one letter that I wanted to print out and put on my fridge, it was so nice, but kind of detracts from the whole anonymous smut smith gig, am I right?
Again, thank you all so much for the amazing comments and letters about 93, I'll tell you some fun facts about that scene after this chapter is over.
My posting schedule has been stressed, but I'm keeping up. Ch. 96 will be the last part of Book 6, at which point I will immediately start Book 7. For those in the know, Ratu will re-emerge from the shadows for another chance to shine, and we will be going somewhere much warmer than the Arctic, cause fuck the cold!
Anyway, please check my bio for release dates and any other important updates (like that one time I simply typed IRL problems and changed the dates). I owe huge thanks to my beta team for not only keeping me on track, but ensuring you all get a quality read.
That's enough out of me. I hope by the time this chapter is done, I will have created a few more
Believers
After the first thirty minutes of wandering through the enormous piles of undelivered gifts, Kisa was forced to take a break and fight back the panic attack that threatened to consume her. The darkness was absolute beyond the small range of her crystalline light, and it was during this moment of respite that she spotted a pallet stacked with bicycles nearby.
She thought it was pretty fucked up that a bunch of kids somehow never got their bikes, but she found one roughly her size and dragged it clear. The tag fell free of the handlebars, and she bent down to pick it up and read the name.
"Sorry, Thomas. Looks like a sweet ride." The bike was blue with a gold lightning bolt on the frame. She dug through the pile and found a helmet. When she pressed it onto her head, she hissed in frustration as she fought both her hair and her ears to get it on properly. By the time it was on, her ears had been folded against her scalp, muting the outside world.
Kisa made it nearly six feet on the bike before crashing. She didn't know if she had never learned how to ride as a child or if it had simply been too long, but she climbed back to her feet and tried again.
Between her natural grace and dexterity, she was soon pedaling forward in the darkness with the crystal tucked between her knuckles providing enough light to see. She hoped that she was still headed in the right direction. It had occurred to her more than once that being shuffled around may have pointed her somewhere else in the warehouse and she was moving away from the entrance.
The good news was that Christmas was finite. At some point, she would reach a wall. When that happened, she would pedal her bike alongside until that damn elevator appeared. The building couldn't be infinitely large on the inside...right?
Once she reached the cave wall, it was essentially a coin flip for which direction to go. She chose left and was finally able to pedal with some speed, no longer dodging piles of gifts. When she reached the dais, hot tears of joy ran down her cheeks as she tucked the bike out of sight around a corner.
Kisa was tired, but refused to find somewhere to nap until she was out of the warehouse. The darkness felt like it would crush her at any moment, and she had no idea how long her crystal would continue glowing.
The trip up the elevator was uneventful. When the doors slid open, she let out a sigh of relief to see the lit caverns empty. She moved along the tunnels and found herself back in Grýla's lair. A very large cauldron had been set over a fire and a pair of elves were cleaning up a horrendous mess on the floor that looked suspiciously like it used to be another elf.
"Fuck this place," Kisa muttered, moving back to the main tunnel. When she reached the pits where the elves had been stored, she crouched down upon seeing Leppalúði standing above one of the pits, a figure held between his hands.
"I cannot cook this!" he yelled at a smaller version of himself.
"Krampus say children frozen!" The Yule lad gave Leppalúði's shin a kick. "Stupid Christmas magic, only Santa can fix! After Krampus take pole, children become food!"
"What the hell?" Kisa moved to the edge of the pit and looked down to see that one of the elven prisons had been repurposed. Instead of elves, it held children, all of them wrapped in blankets and sleeping on the floor. Her heart raced seeing all of the children collected into a macabre sleepover in the giant's den.
Leppalúði let out a roar, and Kisa looked over to see that he had tried to bite the child in half and cracked one of his teeth. He spat the tooth fragment onto the ground and hurled the child at his son.
"Put it back in the pen," he snarled, rubbing at his mouth. "Your mother won't be happy."
The Yule lad squeaked in terror and ran off with his bundle. Leppalúði scratched his jaw and turned toward his lair, his large nostrils flaring. He walked within a few feet of Kisa, then stopped and sniffed the air.
Shit! Kisa crouched down, holding her breath. Leppalúði snorted, then picked his nose and wiped it on his shirt.
"They smell so good," he muttered, wandering past Kisa and back into his cave. She could hear him smacking his lips for some time and fought the urge to gag in response. Her brain was busy processing the horror of all those children, just ready to be eaten. When the time lock ended, they would all awaken in the middle of a nightmare.
Kisa's breath was coming quickly now. She reached into her coat and pulled out the adoption papers she had found addressed to her. Once upon a time, when she was a child, someone had wanted to make her part of his family. On Christmas morning, hundreds of families would wake to discover their children had gone missing. They would all disappear without a trace, just like Kisa had, only these children weren't destined for a weird, albeit happy ending. They would end up as food for the giants, their final moments filled with terror.
"This is wrong." She felt the hackles on the back of her neck rise as a surge of energy went through her body. No, this was more than wrong. It was evil, pure and simple.
A low growl came from her chest, and she bared her teeth as she moved against the wall and tucked her paperwork away. Something was brewing inside her. What little magic she had was concentrating itself and working its way through her body as if trying to figure out what came next. What would Mike do if he were here? Could he even do anything? What about Tink, or Yuki?
An elf wandered by Kisa, his eyes distant as he carried a stack of bloody towels. Kisa didn't know why, but she was compelled to fall in line behind him, her eyes affixed on the back of his head. The elf didn't acknowledge her existence in the slightest as he led her around the corner to a room full of garbage. It was a giant pile of busted furniture and appliances, most likely remnants of Leppalúði's new rich lifestyle.
The two of them were alone. The elf dumped his burden and spun on his heels, walking into Kisa.
"Wait." Kisa stuck her hand out and the elf froze, his blank eyes skimming her face. Had their brains been wiped completely clean, like a hard drive erased by a magnet? How much of the original elf even remained?
The elf hissed and moved around her. Worried that it was about to tattle on her to Leppalúði, an idea formed.
"I have new orders from the Krampus." It had occurred to her that the elves obeyed the Krampus first, and that the only reason they listened to Leppalúði at all was because they had been told to. She crossed her fingers as the elf stopped in place, then turned to face her.
Several tense seconds passed, but the elf seemed content to hear her out. She had seen the elves stand by as their brethren were eaten, so it was unlikely she could say or do anything that would elicit any sort of response.
"Bring me five other elves from the cells below," she demanded, then watched as the elf turned to leave. She moved against the wall and willed herself into the surroundings, hoping against hope that she was right.
Leppalúði was stupid. That much was true. There was no way he would notice a missing elf, or even several, which gave her room to improvise.
Soft footsteps echoed down the corridor and she was elated to see that the elf had obeyed. There were six of them in total, and they stood right where Kisa had been before, awaiting their next orders.
Smiling to herself, Kisa moved out of the shadows to greet her new minions. The giant was big, and an all out assault was out of the question. As of now, the elves didn't question her presence, and she certainly didn't want that fact to change. She would use these six to take the giant out of the equation.
As for after? By herself, she couldn't save more than a child or two. But with an army of brain dead elves ready to obey her every command? Anything was possible.
There was a pull in her core, and she felt Mike's presence wash over her, now closer than ever. He had been oddly distant for a while, but she hadn't worried too much about it. Satisfied that the elves would remain hers to command, she ordered them to move trash around and look busy while she snuck over to a dark corner of the cave and crouched down to make herself small.
It was time to check in with her man.
❄️❄️❄️
After Mike stepped through the flames of the fireplace and into the Workshop, he moved to the side and frowned. With the time variance, he should have only been gone a few hours from the North Pole.
Somehow the atmosphere here had shifted drastically. The abandoned Workshop had been mildly spooky before, but now there was an aura of malignance that clung to everything. The shadows seemed darker than usual, with a few of them seeming to dance around when he wasn't looking.
The flames flickered again, and Lily came through, followed by Freyja, Yuki, then Holly. Before the flames died out, Christmas Present stepped through the fire, brushing soot off her robes.
"This isn't good." She frowned and moved forward into the Workshop lobby. "Do you all feel that?"
There was a thud on the exterior of the building, followed by a screech. Dust fell from the ceiling and landed on the frost that had accumulated over by the door.
"Well, so much for first impressions. This place looks awful." Lily stepped away from the fireplace. "So what's the plan?"
"Hold up." Mike raised a hand as a questing presence touched the back of his mind. He closed his eyes and concentrated, causing Kisa to come into focus in his mind's eye.
"Thank god," she muttered, then leaned back against a wall he couldn't see. "I was afraid you might not be listening."
"Sorry, some big shit is going down," he replied. "We found out that Krampus has taken a bunch of kids."
Kisa nodded. "I know. They're being kept in that big bitch's lair."
"Are they okay?" He swallowed the lump in his throat. "Are they...scared?"
