Home for Horny Monsters Ch. 086

Mike regarded Mrs. Claus. "If this room is so important, then why show it to me?"

"If my husband wasn't on the verge of dissolution, we wouldn't even be having this conversation." She pulled on one of the rings, and Mike's ears popped. He rubbed at them while both doors opened simultaneously as if by magic. Golden light streamed from the room, and he followed her inside, squinting in an attempt to make anything out.

The light vanished, and he found himself standing at the bottom of a large metallic cylinder that stretched nearly a hundred feet into the air in the center of a gigantic room. Adorned with red, gold, and silver ribbon in a spiraling pattern, the cylinder was topped with a sphere made of light that pulsed gently.

"What am I looking at?" Mike noticed that a structure had been built at the base of the cylinder. Moving closer, he saw that it was a circle with numbers along the edge that counted up to three hundred and sixty.

"Welcome to the North Pole, Caretaker." Mrs. Claus shut the door behind them and hung her lantern on a nearby hook. The glow from the lantern expanded dramatically, revealing that the room containing the cylinder was spherical in shape. Several floors overlooked the center of the room, and he could see bookshelves, workbenches, and a ton of tools lying about. Everything looked old, as if he had stepped into a forgotten museum.

"Wow." Mike walked toward the pole, but Mrs. Claus grabbed him by the hand.

"No closer," she warned just as the sphere of light on top of the pole expanded. It swallowed most of the empty space in the room and formed into a replica of the Earth that spun around the cylinder. Green and red lights danced along the surface of the sphere, stretching all the way down to the South Pole. All along the planet, sparkling lights dotted the landscape.

"So this is where you can see everything," he said, then found a nearby stool to sit on. A sparkling light hovered over the east coast of Russia drew his attention. "What's that?"

"It's the sleigh. I have no idea what it's doing there, but am under the impression that someone is using it to deliver toys. Look." She pointed at the base of the North Pole, which looked as if it had filled with fluid along the outside. "When those gifts get delivered, it replenishes the magic used to allow Santa to move around outside of time. The spell itself is incredibly powerful, it took Santa over a century to unlock its true potential. I was originally thinking of retrieving the sleigh and hiding it here, but the Krampus likely wants it for his own nefarious purpose. If they are delivering presents, it may be best to let them continue doing so."

Mike nodded. It was clear that the Krampus had some sort of plan, but they didn't know what. Maybe that was something worth looking into. If they could figure out what the demon was going to do, it might give them insight into how they could stop him.

"You should know that I have sent Christmas Present and Dancer to assist with protecting the sleigh. It looks like they are almost there." Mrs. Claus pointed to a pair of lights that were moving toward the sleigh. "I'm not sure why they left the safety of your home, but that's something we can worry about later."

"I'm sure Lily will be thrilled for the extra help, especially because I bet that Death conned her into it." He pictured her reaction to the amazonian spirit and grinned. "Death will be upset that Santa himself didn't show up."

"Perhaps." Mrs. Claus found a seat of her own and sat next to him. "This is where everything began. For Saint Nicholaus, anyway. You see, once upon a time, he was called to the bitter cold of the north. The trip nearly killed him, but the call was strong. He found a doorway buried in the snow and it brought him here."

"Who built this place?" he asked.

"The Architect. It was the last of its kind that was built, but the first one of its kind on Earth."

"That doesn't make sense," Mike said, turning toward her, his mind racing. Was this place part of the Great Game? "From what I understand, my house was built maybe two centuries ago and Santa has been around way longer. There's no way this place was created last."

She laughed, her eyes actually twinkling in the lights of the magical globe. "Oh, I guarantee it was. You see, the Architect didn't get their title because they could design magical homes that are merely larger on the inside. This place was their magnum opus, the hardest of them all to build. Woven together out of stone, wood, and the very fabric of time itself, it sent itself back centuries once it was completed. Honestly, I wouldn't think about it too much. Anyway, the spot we now sit is where Saint Nicholas met the First Elf."

"The First Elf? Who was that?"

"The guardian of this place, much like your beloved nymph." Mrs. Claus smiled. "When you became a player in the game, they called you Caretaker. And when my husband joined, they called him Claus."

Mike felt the breath leave his body. "Santa is part of the Great Game? I have so many questions!"

Mrs. Claus frowned. "I'm afraid that I can't tell you too much about the game itself. There are certain rules that have to be followed when it comes to the game's secrets."

"But players don't have to follow those rules, right?" He remembered the shadow's claim about players in the game speaking with each other on a regular basis. "Santa can tell me whatever I need to know once I find him, right?"

She shook her head and took his hand. When she squeezed, he realized just how cold her fingers were. Looking up into her eyes, he saw that she looked older than he remembered. Was it a trick of the light, or...

"If he was still a player, then yes. But he died a long time ago."

Confused, Mike pulled his hand from hers. "But aren't we here to save him from the Krampus?"

Mrs. Claus took a deep breath and looked at the North Pole inside of the hovering globe made of light. With a heavy sigh, she patted Mike on the leg and tilted her head in his direction to look over the top of her glasses at him.

"Immortality comes with a price, my child. Allow me to share with you the price my husband paid so many years ago." She turned to face him, straightening the hem of her nightie. "I've heard that a nymph awaited you when you moved into your home. When Nicholas first came to the North Pole, he found a very different creature waiting down here for him. We call it the First Elf, but only as a sign of respect. You see, it was definitely not an elf. In fact, it wasn't even of this world."

"Was it the Krampus?" Mike asked, suddenly breathless.

"What? No. You're getting ahead of yourself, stop that." She dismissed further questions with a wave of her hand. "It was a being from outside time and space, an amorphic entity that had been chained here to protect the most powerful property devised by the Architect. To look upon it was to risk madness, and if not for my husband's sturdy resolve, it would have consumed him."

"Wait, you mean..." Mike held his hands up in apology. "Sorry, please continue."

There was a twinkle in the older woman's eye as she nodded.

"This time, I believe your guess is right," she told him. "They've been called many things over the years, these cosmic entities. Ancient ones, eldritch beings, abominations, doesn't matter. The guardian of this place was the only thing capable of protecting it, and my husband accomplished the impossible."

Mike almost asked if Santa fucked it, but knew better.

"They became best friends, as close as brothers," Mrs. Claus said wistfully, her eyes back on the map of the Earth. "And that's where all this trouble started."

❄️❄️❄️

The mirror room was hidden deep beneath the Workshop at the end of a long stone tunnel. Glyphs came to life and burned with harmless flames as Jack hovered down the long hallway, her arms wrapped around her stomach. The trip was always disorienting, but she had no idea why. Nausea, dizziness, and even a touch of vertigo assailed her senses until she entered the room where the mirror was stored.

Santa was waiting for her, his hands pressed against the glass. He smiled as if happy to see her.

"Quit the bullshit," she told him. The silver frame of the mirror melded into the marble floor, making it look like the mirror had sprouted up from the ground. The room had a harmless fog that clung to the circular walls. It would sometimes descend and cover the floor, but it stayed away from Jack, as if afraid. "There's no way you're happy to see me."

Santa shrugged, then took his hands off the glass. He didn't say anything to her, nor did he attempt to. Instead, he pulled a seat from somewhere outside of the mirror's edge and set it down. With a wink, he sat in the chair and patted his knee, as if to invite Jack to sit and tell him what she wanted for Christmas.

She ignored him, pacing the room as she gathered her thoughts. She had come down here when the Krampus had been trapped inside the mirror, the demon speaking to her telepathically. Back then, the room had felt ominous, like a prison. The fog was constantly drifting across the mirror, sometimes obscuring the Krampus as he pressed himself against the glass.

It was here that the Krampus had given her the recipe for the potion she had given to Santa. Grýla had provided her the ingredients, gathered by her kin and the Yule Cat. It had been a simple matter to get one of the elves to slip it to him, but Jack didn't see what happened next. The Krampus had assured her that it would weaken Santa enough that the demon could escape, but that was all she knew.

"So do you have anything to say for yourself?" Jack moved in front of the mirror and frowned. Santa just shook his head. "Really? The Krampus has taken over the North Pole, subjected your elves, corrupted your reindeer. It's only a matter of time before he...does whatever it is he needs to do to your wife. Christmas belongs to him now, which means you're done, gone, finished! And you really have nothing to say?"

Santa shrugged, then pulled a flask from beneath his beard. Those white, cotton curls of his twisted about briefly, as if they had a life of their own. Santa took a swig from the flask, which Jack assumed was eggnog. He licked his lips and held the flask toward Jack.

"You're inside of a mirror," she told him, stepping toward him. "Even if I wanted some, I couldn't take it."

Santa scooted his chair closer to the glass and held the eggnog out again. Jack squinted her eyes at him, suddenly wondering why she had even come down here. It had originally been to speak with Santa, to maybe come to terms with the things she had done, or maybe figure out what it was she was supposed to do next. The humans were fond of the term 'digging your own grave,' and she felt like she only now truly understood the implications.

"Why do you act like you don't care?" When she spoke, her breath billowed out from her in a fog. "He took everything from you. I helped him. Do you know that? I'm the reason why you're in there and he's out here."

Santa wiggled the eggnog and raised an eyebrow. He didn't look disturbed in the slightest, that fat, jolly bastard. It was starting to snow in the mirror room, and frost formed along the edges of the mirror, causing it to blend in with the background.

"That's it, isn't it? You knew this would happen, and you didn't care." Jack shook her head violently, her hair bobbing along her shoulders. "I've always wondered, you know? Always so carefree, nothing ever rattled you. It's why the Krampus needed me. He said that you wouldn't be able to see into my mind, but now I wonder if you wanted this, if you knew what I was up to."

Santa nodded.

"Seriously? What the fuck?!?" Jack stepped toward the mirror and slapped her palms against the glass. "You knew this would happen and you didn't try to stop it? Your elves are suffering up there right now. Why would you abandon them? He's taking Christmas from them, taking it from all the children in the world, and you just let him have it? How could you do this to them?"

Angry, she slammed her fist against the glass, suddenly aware of how warm it felt. Letting out a howl of rage, she tried to smash the mirror with her fists, surprised at its strength. Determined, she landed on the ground and punched the glass as hard as she could, then screamed in rage when it didn't shatter.

"What is wrong with you?" she cried as she struck the glass over and over. "You knew they would suffer. You knew I would suffer! Why would you let something like this happen!" Groaning, she pressed her forehead against the glass, frozen tears shattering on the hard ground below her.

The breath was stolen from her body as a warm surge shot through her feet. She tried to move, but her body was held in place by an energy that vibrated through her body, and she struggled to free herself.

"What are you doing? You tricked me!" She yanked her body away from the mirror and fell backward onto her butt. "You asshole, I'm glad you're trapped in there! I hope you rot and that the Krampus fucks your--"

Santa was no longer in the mirror. In his place, a woman now stood. She was taller than Jack with much fuller features. Her brow was adorned with a simple gold crown, and thick auburn curls fell across broad shoulders atop a full figure. Around her throat was a necklace made of gold and inlaid with amber. A solitary gemstone in the middle pulsed with light, calling attention to an impressive amount of cleavage.

The woman lifted her head to look down her nose at Jack.

She wore a simple dressing gown, as if she had just been awoken. There was a fierceness to her that was both familiar and a little frightening.

"Who...who are you?" Jack put her hand against the glass and was surprised when the woman did the same. There was a judgment in the woman's gaze that Jack didn't like, followed by pain in the back of her skull. Groaning, she stepped away from the mirror and rubbed her eyes, expecting to see Santa once more.

The woman remained, her arms crossed as if waiting for Jack to do something.

"Where's Santa? What do you want?" Frustrated, Jack moved toward the glass, but fell down when the pain returned. Images poured into her mind, confusing scenes of summertime and swimming in the ocean. There were moments with family, scenes of war, and long nights with a man covered in scars.

"Stop. Stop it!" She cast her hand out, summoning a powerful frost that crawled across the mirror, blocking her view. In agony, Jack tried to fly out of the room but crashed into the fog-covered wall instead.

"No. No!" Stumbling in panic, she eventually found the exit and rocketed down the hallway, crashing against the walls while the images chased her. Anger, grief, and mourning flooded her mind as she flew through the long hallways of the Workshop, eventually bursting through the large wooden doors and disappearing into the blizzard outside.

Even there, the images found her. It felt like someone else was inside her mind, shoving memories into place. She remembered the sea, riding pigs, fighting a witch. All she could do was howl along with the wind as she was filled with scattered thoughts.

Who are you? The voice in her head demanded an answer, and she somehow knew it was the woman from the mirror. The tone was commanding, and Jack clutched her head and cried out in shock. Where are we? What's happened to us?

"Us?" Jack blinked, her eyes unseeing in the storm. It was a whiteout, a moment when all the available light was gobbled up by the fury of the storm.

Yes, us. Her tone was derisive. Where is this place?

Jack pressed her hands into her temples so hard that her knuckles cracked. Her whole body was encased in frost as she willed the cold into her head in an effort to drive out the intruder. The cold permeated her being as her temperature dropped, well below freezing.

"Get out of my head," she whispered, her limbs becoming stiff as ice crawled along the outside of her flesh. It wasn't until she flew above the storm that the commanding voice finally vanished, leaving her alone beneath the Northern Lights with her thoughts.

She gazed at the hovering lights as they clung to the stratosphere like melting wax. It felt like they were watching her, and she didn't know why.

"What's happening to me?" she whispered, the storm beneath her slowly burying the North Pole.

❄️❄️❄️

Mike stared at the North Pole, his mind whirring. Mrs. Claus had told him the whole story about how Nicholas and the First Elf met, and how the two of them had become essentially inseparable.

When he and Naia had first met, she had swapped a part of her soul with a piece of his. This had enabled her to grant him a small portion of her power and to bind the house to him. He had become the Caretaker that day, not knowing that he had also become part of a mysterious game that played in the background of his everyday life. With Naia being a nymph, it was natural that the two of them had become lovers as well. It was the foundation for his magic, one that persisted to this day.

The being lying in wait had been some type of an elder god, one captured and tamed by the Architect. It didn't have emotions or thoughts comprehensible by mortals. Its primary instruction had been to bond with the first worthy soul who came to the North Pole. Nicholas had been worthy enough, and his desire to create toys for children and bring happiness to families had been enough to shape the creature into the First Elf.

When Mike died, someone else would inherit the house. It was supposed to be Beth or Dana, but they wouldn't know until it actually happened. There was no plan for permanence, nor did he desire immortality like his predecessor. He had gotten a peek of the other side, and knew that someone would be waiting there when his time was up.

To a creature with no beginning or end, like the First Elf, death was simply an obstacle to be surmounted.

"So when Saint Nicholas died, the First Elf brought him here and they...what, combined? Merged?"

Mrs. Claus shrugged. "I don't know that there's a proper word for it. The corpse of Saint Nicholas was reanimated using the body of the First Elf. That was how Santa Claus the legend was born. By doing this, he was both player and guardian, and therefore neither. He never had aspirations for the game itself and chose to ignore the others unless they started trouble. But he was officially the first player to find a way to stand outside the game by becoming one of the pieces inside it."

"Fitting, considering the First Elf's origin." He thought back to falling into Baba Yaga's trap, to the chunk of missing time while trying to destroy the piece of an ancient one. Dana had encountered one in the flesh and been tossed back in time by a week. They were powerful beings, impossible to understand. "So what happened next?"

Mrs. Claus sighed. "That's when Santa became bound by the rules. He was a mortal soul in an immortal body. Stories of the First Elf had persisted, but now tales of little helpers caused the first generation of elves to appear here. They were sloppy and inefficient, but that human part of him was able to tweak the details. As more people believed, his powers grew."

"So all the elves are clones of him or something?"

Mrs. Claus shook her head. "It would be easier to think of them as nail clippings, or beard stubble. In fact, I save the trimmings from his yearly haircut in a box in the closet, then plant them outside when the sun rises in the summer. Each year, those tiny pieces of him grow into new elves to replace those we've lost in the Workshop. Some die of natural causes, others..." She shook her head. "Accidents happen, I'm afraid."

"Since they used to be part of him, is that why they're so susceptible to...well, everything?"