Krampus: The Three Sisters (The Krampus Chronicles Book 1) (9 page)

yra Lane was an underground village of one-story shops plastered along a cobblestone road that stretched as far as Maggie could see. The rooftops connected to a dark overhead abyss, and only the colorful building facades were visible before the rest of their exteriors disappeared into the surrounding walls.

Over the murky windows swayed battered signs that read:
Apotheker
,
Snop,
Markt, Kleren,
and
Speelgoed
and many more strange words that Maggie didn’t understand. But besides the oddly worded signs appearing deep beneath Manhattan, Maggie found the most unsettling thing about Myra Lane to be its emptiness.

According to a post clock in the middle of the road, the time was a quarter after twelve in the morning. But when Maggie drew closer, she saw it wasn’t a normal timepiece. The clock was twice as tall as Maggie and didn’t contain numbers. And instead of having one pair of rotating hands, there was an additional pair. These tiny hands were only a couple inches tall and clicked swiftly around the center.

Maggie tried to show Henry the peculiar clock, but he was busy studying the intricate details of a dusty shop window. He was so mesmerized by the village’s seemingly quaint aesthetic that he didn’t notice Maggie heading toward the pink candy shop called
Snop
.

Pressing her face against the front door’s round blue-tinted window, Maggie saw rows of stout jars packed tightly on shelves inside the shop. Reaching down, she turned the knob and the door surprisingly opened.

Maggie’s nostrils began to tingle as she inhaled the shop’s sugary air. There were dozens of candy jars stuffed with dark, hard morsels and colorful, gooey sweets. There were fat yellow balls, pale brown cubes, angular red sticks, and a few squishy pink hearts with white speckles.

By the time Henry entered the candy shop, Maggie was behind the counter with one hand in an overflowing jar of jellybeans and the other holding a purple and white swirled lollipop.

“Maggie!” Henry said as the pink door slammed behind him. “Be careful.”

“It’s only candy,” Maggie replied, chewing a mouthful of red jellybeans.

“But why is it here? We don’t know anything about this place. It could all be unsafe.”

Maggie reluctantly took her hand out of the jar and placed its glass cover on top. She was just wedging the sticky lollipop back into its wooden stand when voices came down the cobblestone road.

As they had become accustomed to doing that evening, Maggie and Henry quickly ducked. Maggie dropped to the floor behind the counter before crawling around to Henry who was crouching under the front bay window.

Three top hats drifted past the shop, but Maggie was too low to see any faces.

“We’re going to be late for our shift.” The voice of the passing Foundling was bleak.

“Ah, let the Garrisons wait. Most of them are up at the Krog. A bunch of drunken fools.”

“Shh. They could be hiding, wanting us to think they’re not around.”

A third voice agreed and murmured, “Castriot’s been harsher. I think there’s pressure coming from the outside. I hear the Garrisons whispering about…”

The voices became muffled as the Foundlings left Myra Lane.

Maggie and Henry slowly crept up the shop’s window and looked out to confirm that everyone was gone.

“This is getting strange,” Maggie whispered. When Henry arched an eyebrow, she added, “
Stranger
, I mean.”

Henry shook his head. “But what purpose does any of this serve?”

Maggie stood up. “We’ll never find out if we keep hiding. They’re the ones who came into Chelsea Manor. We didn’t do anything wrong. Now let’s just find out how to leave.”

Henry chewed his bottom lip before responding. “Maggie, we don’t know anything about these people. How can we be confident they’ll even let us leave?”

“Why wouldn’t they?”

Henry was silent for a moment. “I’m not sure. But none of this seems right.”

Maggie opened the shop’s door. “There’s only one way we’ll know for certain.”

Maggie and Henry started down Myra Lane again, hoping now to spot a Foundling. The odd children seemed more approachable than the Garrisons.

But Myra Lane remained deserted.

Maggie and Henry reached the end of the cobblestone road where two wooden doors stood under a tall archway. Henry grabbed the handle of one door just as the other shot open and a Garrison bounded through the doorway.

This Garrison was a strapping young man who wore a small black cap, exposing his shortly trimmed red hair. His face was lightly freckled and an oval brass nameplate sat on his left breast.

McNutt.

As witnessed with the burgundy-coated Foundling in the Great Room, the McNutt fellow was more surprised to see Maggie and Henry than they were to see him. The book he held crinkled within his clenching hand.

“So sorry to startle you, sir,” Henry quickly began. “We came this way by accident. I do not know what this place is or how to leave. If you could offer some assistance, it would be greatly appreciated.”

McNutt looked from Henry and then down to Maggie, his green eyes dancing wildly. Apparently, people there were not accustomed to receiving visitors. It also appeared they were rusty when it came to displaying proper etiquette toward guests, because just when Maggie thought McNutt was finally about to speak…
smack
!

Dropping the book to the ground, McNutt cocked his fist and placed a punch right on Henry’s jaw. Henry stumbled backward as his lip began spattering blood. He had no time to react before McNutt jumped on top of him.

Maggie watched as Henry and McNutt scuffled on the ground. Being broader than Henry, McNutt had a physical advantage. But even dazed, Henry was quick and put up a solid fight. Unable to stand helplessly on the side, Maggie stomped on the back of McNutt’s leg, allowing Henry a moment to slip away from the Garrison’s grasp.

Maggie and Henry ran under the arch of the double doors, which led to a curved stairwell. Maggie’s bare feet throbbed as she raced up the steps. She heard Henry running close behind, but couldn’t tell how far they were from McNutt. The stairwell twisted up a couple times before it opened into a banquet hall.

A grand, cobweb-adorned chandelier was suspended in the center of the hall, looming over rows of long tables. Columns were situated underneath a mezzanine that encircled the space, and Maggie dived behind the closest one. She pulled Henry into the shadows just as McNutt bounded through the entrance, running right past their column.

McNutt stopped in the middle of the hall, looking frantically around for the two outsiders. One wall was covered in a massive maroon curtain, and McNutt began prodding its fabric with his fists, swinging at any crease or bump that looked like it could be a hidden person. Then squatting on his knees, he searched under the tables.

Maggie worried that McNutt would soon start checking behind the columns, but instead he sprinted to the other end of the room where a scrawny staircase connected the space’s two levels. Maggie peeked around the column as McNutt charged up the stairs and then disappeared through a bright doorway on the mezzanine. Maggie and Henry cautiously stepped out, eyes fixated on the doorway, waiting for McNutt to reappear.

Maggie started to say something, but Henry brought a finger up to his swollen lip. They silently crossed the hall, but just as they paused underneath the chandelier, loud footsteps sounded from the mezzanine.

McNutt was returning.

Maggie and Henry quickly slipped between the tables and lunged behind the musty maroon curtain. Maggie could barely breathe as she gazed through a slit in the fabric.

McNutt came back down the stairs and stood in the center of the hall, pacing between the rows of tables. At one point he came within a few feet of the veiled intruders, but he didn’t bother poking around the curtain again. After a few moments, McNutt headed to the stairs that led back to Myra Lane.

Maggie and Henry remained frozen behind the curtain, but eventually, the stuffy smell was too much to handle and Maggie slid out. Henry reluctantly followed, keeping his eyes intently on the Myra Lane doorway.

“Are you terribly hurt?” Maggie stared at Henry’s bruised mouth and jaw.

“It’s not too bad,” Henry muttered, lightly touching the side of his face. He cringed. “I guess we have matching bruises now.” With a smile, Henry brushed Maggie’s bottom lip with his thumb. She pretended to disregard the small gesture, but her heart rate swelled.

“We need to leave,” Maggie said as a rush of anxiety pulsed through her. “Preferably without another Garrison seeing us.” She searched around the banquet hall before pointing to the doorway on the mezzanine. “McNutt has already been up that way. He probably won’t come looking there again. And we’re clearly underground. So the higher up we go, the more likely we will find a way out of here.”

Henry didn’t argue and followed Maggie up the stairs. When reaching the mezzanine, they saw an additional flight of steps within the doorway. Rough voices and an accordion playing a light-hearted jig could be heard coming from whatever lay at the top.

“I guess we’ve found the rest of the Garrisons,” observed Henry just as shouting filled the air. A cadence of drunken laughter followed shortly after.

“It must be the Krog,” Maggie said.

She started up the steps, but Henry grabbed her arm.

“What are you doing?” he hissed.

“I want to see.”

“Maggie, I’d be willing to bet they’re not too friendly.” Henry rubbed his jaw sorely.

“At least let me hear what they’re saying. McNutt probably told them about us.”

“That’s exactly what I’m concerned about.”

But Maggie was already halfway up the stairs before Henry could stop her again.

Upon reaching the top, Maggie stooped low on the steps and gazed out into what looked to be a tavern, complete with a stool-lined bar, shelves overflowing with bottles, and a table surrounded by card-playing men. Like the previous Garrisons, everyone at the bar and around the table was dressed in identical black coats and brass belts―even the half-conscious accordion player, slouched on a pile of cushions in the corner with a hat pulled down over his eyes. He sloppily performed a slow melody.

“Did you see how upset McNutt looked?” one man said with a stiffened jaw. He laid a card on the table and then bit down on the pipe wedged between his teeth.

“Mick’s face was as red as his hair,” another player commented.

The men laughed harshly.

“Like he saw a ghost. Blabbering about people from the outside.”

“Probably just a couple Foundlings having a good joke on him. Rightly so.”

“Always working,” the man with a pipe scoffed. “Never even comes up for a drink. Quite unheard of for an Irishman.”

The man behind the bar filled a short glass with dark liquor and shot it back into his mouth. “We don’t want a stupid mick up here. What do you say?” he slurred. “Should we teach McNutt a lesson? Give him the ol’ one, two, three.” He pulled out a revolver and jovially spun its cylinder.

“I would worry about yourself, Comstock.”

The room turned to stare at a man with a finely trimmed black beard who was leaning against the end of the bar, an empty tumbler loosely gripped in his hand.

“What did I do, Castriot?” asked the man behind the bar who had a short, stodgy build and thick moustache. He haughtily stuck the revolver back in his belt.

“All of you are just sitting around like it’s a normal night,” Castriot snarled. “No one taking extra shifts to watch the Foundlings.”

“Why do we need to watch them? Most are working the Sleigh Pit,” Comstock said, blithely. “Relax, Castriot.”

Seconds later, a tumbler whizzed overhead and shattered against a nearby wall. Maggie and Henry covered their heads to protect themselves against the raining pieces of glass.

“I should just send the lot of you back to the outside. The country can never have too many mindless men.” Castriot then stormed out through a door behind the bar, leaving a silent room behind him.

“Why did you have to get him upset, Comstock?” the pipe-smoking man asked through his taut lips.

“Oh, Curzon, it’s Christmas Eve,” Comstock defended. “Castriot is always stressed this time of year. There’s nothing anyone can say that won’t get him upset. He’s always worried about ol’ Nicky coming back.”

“Nicky can come back anytime he wants,” remarked another man.

“Yes, Cabell,” Comstock said. “But it’s only on Christmas Day that the sisters can be reunited. The old saint has no power here unless that happens.”

“But how would it?” Curzon asked.

“That’s what troubles Castriot the most. He doesn’t know. He only knows it can happen on December twenty-fifth. And if it ever would, all of this, all of us―
pffp
!” Comstock made a slicing motion across his neck with a hand.

Henry tugged on Maggie’s arm, trying to get her to come back down the stairs. Silently, Maggie scooted down the steps to the mezzanine. Henry grabbed her hand when she reached the bottom. She wanted to talk about what they’d heard, but they weren’t safely out of earshot.

Maggie and Henry headed down to the banquet hall, but the moment their feet reached the bottom of the steps two men jumped out from the shadows and grabbed the pair.