Book Two, Chapter Twenty Two

Chapter Twenty Two

Willow’s heart raced as she shot through the night sky.

Where are they? she thought, frantically scanning the ground below. Her eyes were sharp, but it was a cloudy night, so she didn’t even have the moon to help her see. As she flew, Justin’s words echoed endlessly inside her head like the tolling of an ominous bell.

Mari Lwyd is coming. Mari Lwyd is coming.

Had she made the right choice? The question sent a chill coursing through her that even Santa’s badge couldn’t chase away. She had decided to go find Vixen and Lena first. That way they could race back to Charlie’s house, get there before…

Oh, sweet silver bells, she thought. I have to get back before that happens!

But where on Earth were they? She was flying as low as she dared, but her height plus the darkness made it nearly impossible to spot anything down on the ground. Gritting her teeth, she began to fly lower to give herself a better—

A car appeared around the corner, its headlights blazing, and Willow streaked back up into the sky before its occupants could see her.

“This isn’t working,” she muttered, her breath steaming the air in front of her. What else could she do but keep looking, though? As she continued to zip this way and that through the air, making erratic zigzagging shapes in the night sky, she thought of Justin, injured and all alone at the Dawsons’ house, potentially facing down Mari Lwyd on his own, and an ironclad feeling of determination settled over her heart.

Streaking down toward the ground, she transformed, taking on her four-legged form a split second before she landed. Then, keeping her hooves hovering just a couple of inches above the ground, she took off across the countryside. She moved faster than a regular deer could ever run, but hopefully anyone who spotted her wouldn’t pay enough attention to notice anything strange. And if they did, she didn’t care.

She and Justin were finally together.

She wasn’t going to lose him now!

————

“Attention, shoppers!” an artificially cheerful voice rang out over the loudspeakers. “The mall will be closing in ten minutes. Please make your final purchases and exit the shopping center at this time. If you are injured and unable to move, rescue teams will be deployed first thing tomorrow morning. Thank you for shopping with us this Black Friday, and have a merry Christmas!”

Lucas’ ears perked up, and he glanced toward the food court’s clock. It was only four fifty. That seemed a little early to close up. Then again, the raging torrent of shoppers had died down to a trickle, and the intercom was playing Christmas music to a mostly empty mall. Only a handful of kids were still in line, though judging by the bags and bundles in their parents’ arms, most of their Christmas presents had already been purchased. There wasn’t much point in staying open any later, it seemed.

“Hey, quit staring at the clock,” Joyce whispered. “Reindeer can’t tell time!”

Lucas turned to look at her and raised an eyebrow. As if anyone would see a reindeer staring blankly into the distance and immediately jump to the conclusion that it was reading a clock. He still couldn’t talk to her in this form, but the way she smirked made him think she knew exactly what he was thinking anyway.

“Well, Aaron, I’ll tell my elves to get right to work on that!” said Charlie. “Now, smile and say jingle bells!”

“Jingle bells!” the little boy in his lap echoed.

The camera went off, and Charlie lifted the boy onto Lucas’ back. “All right, I’ll see you on Christmas Eve, okay?”

“Okay!” said Aaron as Lucas carried him back to his father. “Bye, Santa!”

Lucas counted the remaining children while Joyce got the next one ready. Five more, and it looked like two of them were siblings, which Charlie usually saw at the same time. Would they be able to get through all of them in just ten minutes? Part of him hoped that another swarm of children would come bursting through the doors and force them to work overtime. He was tired, but he would gladly take twelve more hours of this rather than what was coming next.

He closed his eyes, but quickly snapped them open again when Mari Lwyd’s grinning equine face appeared in the darkness.

“Okie dokie, Haleigh!” Lucas’s eyes shot open as another child was placed on his back. “Santa’s ready to see you!”

Haleigh was a six year old girl who had, apparently, watched too many cowboy movies, because as soon as Lucas started walking, she drove her heel into his side with a loud “YEEHAW!”

Watch it, you little straggele! he thought, glaring at her over his shoulder. I’ve got connections with the big guy, and I can make sure you won’t get anything but a box of scorpions for Christmas if you do that again!

Charlie took Haleigh off his back and began the routine again.

“You all right?” Joyce asked, coming to stand next to him. “That one looked like it hurt.”

Lucas grunted in reply.

“You’re doing good, though!” she said with a smile. “Just a few more to go. Think you can hold out for that long?”

He gave her an indignant look. Lady, I pull a hundred thousand ton sleigh around the entire planet every year. It’ll take more than this to tire me out!

Joyce chuckled, and Lucas wondered again if she could tell what he was thinking.

That being said, he thought once her back was turned, I wouldn’t say no to a bathroom break.

————

Justin sat up in his bed, a cold sweat running down his brow. His back flared with pain, but it was less intense than it had been an hour ago. Willow had filled him in on all the details before she’d left, from his miraculous—and ongoing—recovery, to the Dawsons discovering their secret, to how everyone has split up. He supposed it was good that Charlie and Joyce knew the truth. If the worst came to pass, he wasn’t sure how they were going to explain themselves out of this one.

And the worst would come to pass. He had a sinking feeling deep inside his gut that tonight was what their entire misadventure had been building up to.

With a groan, he got out of bed. The badge was healing his injuries at an astounding rate, but he still had a long way to go before he would truly be back in fighting condition. Even so, he couldn’t just lie here and wait for Mari Lwyd to arrive. She knew where the Val Luminarans were staying, and that meant that Charlie and Joyce were in danger—and it was all Justin’s fault.

“Idiot!” he snapped at himself, limping down the hall toward the living room. “You knew how she chose her victims, but it never occurred to you that you were carrying your friends’ home address around in your pocket? You may as well have invited her over for Thanksgiving dinner!”

That would make Charlie and Joyce the main course, and the very thought of that creature devouring them like a pair of…

Justin forced the image out of his mind before it could make him sick.

Heading into the dining room, he grabbed one of the chairs and dragged it into the entryway, and sat down. He may not have been in any condition to fight Mari Lwyd, but there was still one thing he could do to protect his friends.

He could play her game.

Justin settled in to wait.

————

There!

A bright crimson light was shining out of a small copse of trees next to a river. Still hovering a few inches above the ground, Willow shot towards it. She moved her legs as if she were running, though to anyone watching it would have been obvious that she was going too fast. She didn’t care. All that mattered was rounding everyone up before Mari Lwyd struck.

She came to a road, and in her haste she didn’t notice the oncoming car until she was halfway across. She was safely out of the way a split second later, but the driver still blared his horn, and the sound of screeching tires ripped through the night air. Willow glanced over her shoulder to see the car spin out, leaving dark tire marks on the road behind it as it skidded in a complete circle before coming to rest. Nobody inside seemed to be hurt, so as bad as Willow felt for nearly causing a wreck, she forced herself to focus on the task at hand.

The copse was still two hundred feet away, but she closed that distance in a heartbeat. Circling around the small grove of trees, she shifted back into her two-legged form without slowing down and cupped her hands around her mouth.

“Vixen!” she shouted at the top of her lungs. “Lena!”

Nothing happened, and Willow’s heart sank. Had she just imagined the light? How much longer was it going to take for her to find—

A pair of familiar shadows burst out of the trees. Lena was having to stand on her toes to push Vixen’s chair, but they were still moving through the dirt and tall grass faster than Willow would have thought possible. For some reason, Vixen was carrying an old styrofoam cooler in her lap.

“Willow?” the old doe shouted. “Is that you?”

Willow swooped in closer, slowing down until she was hovering in place in front of them.

“What are you doing here?” Lena demanded. “You’re supposed to be watching—”

“Justin is awake and he knows where Mari Lwyd is going to attack next!” she said, speaking as fast as she could before they could bog her down with pointless questions. “Vixen, you gave him the note with Charlie and Joyce’s address on it. When Mari Lwyd sliced his jacket open, she stole the note. She knows where their house is, and she’s going to strike there unless we can stop her first!”

Vixen leaned forward, a fierce glint in her eyes. “Where is Justin?”

“Still at the house. He sent me to warn everyone.”

“Have you told Charlie and Joyce?”

“No, but they should still be at the mall.”

“Then go now! Tell them to stay there. As long as they’re not at the address on the note, they should be safe. Bring Lucas and the elves back with you as well.”

“How will you two—”

“No time to explain! We have our ways. No go, and hurry!”

Willow nodded, then took to the sky again.

————

Justin found himself breathing heavily as he stared at the front door. With nothing to do but wait, his mind had decided to try calming him down by imagining all the very worst scenarios that could possibly play out tonight.

Surprising absolutely no one, that didn’t help much.

He swallowed nervously. Willow would come through for him. He would have trusted all of his friends with his life, but he would have trusted his heart with Willow—which, his anxiety whispered to him, was exactly what was at stake tonight. She would find the others and bring them back in time. Then, together, they would be able to end this nightmare once and for all.

And what if she doesn’t? the other part of him asked. What if you’re still all alone, when Mari Lwyd gets here? You know you can’t fight her on your own. Not in your prime, and definitely not in this state.

Taking a deep breath, Justin forced that voice down into the back of his mind. He was afraid, but that didn’t mean he had to give in to his fear. He wasn’t the same cowardly shelf stocker he had been a year ago, who could be reduced to a shaking, whimpering ball of excuses if he so much as stood on his tiptoes. He had faced his phobia and come out on top. He had looked the Krampus straight in the eye and refused to back down. He had done all of that for his friends, and now that his friends were in danger again, he would—

His antlers flickered with blue light.

—do it again in a heartbeat.

Justin sat up with a surprised gasp. For eleven months, he hadn’t been able to make his light give off so much as a spark. Why had it decided to respond only just now? Was it because of the danger his friends were in? No, that couldn’t be it. His friends had been in even greater danger yesterday, and it hadn’t seemed to give a half chewed sprig of mistletoe. So what had changed? What had he done—

The lock on the front door clicked, and Justin sucked in a sharp breath as the knob began to turn.

————

The roaring wind was all Willow could hear as she blasted through the night, high enough above Derby Mill that she didn’t need to worry about being seen. The city below was all lit up, as if the Earth had decided to decorate itself for Christmas. Willow had seen countless human cities while helping Santa deliver the presents, and the way they were able to so effortlessly push back the darkness had never ceased to amaze her. She made a point to see as many of them as she could from as high up as she could manage, just to witness humanity’s complexity and ingenuity. That, more than anything else, helped her to understand what Santa saw in their strange race. Taller than elves, less hairy than reindeer, unable to fly or do magic…and yet, somehow, they had still managed to create cities so vast that they made Laetitia look like a backwater village, works of art that could bring a tear to anyone’s eye, songs that made her wish she had toes just so she could tap them, and stories blurred the lines between fantasy and reality—and so much more. They were worth fighting for.

They were worth dying for.

But tonight, she saw none of that. All that mattered was making it to the mall before Lucas and the others left. Once she had ensured the Dawsons’ safety, she could fly back to the house and take her place by Justin’s side again. Then, with their other friends all backing them up, they would make sure Mari Lwyd never hurt anyone again.

A particularly bright mass of lights caught her eye, and Willow knew she had arrived. Tapping on her badge, she took on her human form before she got anywhere close enough to the ground for people to see her. A flying human would raise a lot of questions that she didn’t have answers to, but not as many as they’d have if they saw a flying, two-legged reindeer.

She came in like a meteor, touching down at a dead sprint, and made for the food court doors. Her heart leaped. She could see the fake North Pole through the glass! All she had to do was talk to one of them, and they would—

She crashed into the doors, but they refused to budge.

“Wha—” she gasped in horror. Taking the doors in both hands, she shoved frantically against them, but they still refused to move. “No, no, no, no!”

If the doors were locked, that meant the mall was closed. And if the mall was closed, that meant the workers had all gone home. And if the workers had gone home, then that meant that Charlie and Joyce were…

————

Justin watched as the door began to swing open.

I will protect my friends, he thought. His antlers sparked again, but didn’t light up the way Vixen’s did.

I won’t let any of them be hurt! he told himself.

Another spark, but nothing more.

I will—

“Justin, you’re awake!”

Justin blinked, and realized he recognized the face standing on the doorstep—all five of them.

Oh…oh no…

Lucas ran in, a look of pure shock on his face. “Are you okay? How do you feel? Where’s Willow? You shouldn’t be out of—”

Wide eyed with horror, Justin pushed his friend aside and ran toward Charlie and Joyce. His wounds complained about the sudden movement, but he ignored it. Joyce gave him a smile and opened her mouth to say something, but he didn’t hear what she said. He reached her grandfather just as he closed the door behind them.

“Glad to see you’re up and about, Jus—” he began but froze when Justin grabbed him by the shoulders.

“You need to get out of here!” he said. “Now!”

“Hey!” Joyce shouted. Before he could do anything, two pairs of hands grabbed Justin and pulled him away from the old man. “Don’t do that! What’s wrong with—”

DING DONNNNNG!

Horror washed over Justin, freezing his blood solid as he watched Charlie turn and take the doorknob in his hand.

“NOOOOO!” he screamed at the top of his lungs.

Too late. The door burst open, and a tidal wave of darkness flooded the house.