Rudolph! (18 page)

XVII

T
hey came in a gentle falling of feathers. One instant, I was all
alone on the rooftop with the frozen shape of Ramiel, and the next, I had visitors. I turned casually, tucking the cold pistol back into my coat. There were two of them, and they looked just like I remembered: flowing robes, wings, pearly smiles, and nametags.
Michael
, one read. The other one said
Gabriel
.

"Nice to see some real members of the Rank," I said.

Michael hadn't changed, though I would have been surprised if he had. It was the rest of us who lived lifetimes between visits. He came with a nicer disposition this time. And without his flaming sword. "There is no Quarantine," he said in a tone that didn't quite match the jovial coffee shop voice I had heard last year—but it also wasn't the doomier voice he had used on us on our way out of purgatory.

I nodded. "Yeah, I kind of figured that out."

Gabriel floated up to the frozen statue and buried his fist in the creature's chest with a chunking sound like burying an ax in a block of wood. His wings stretched and bunched, and he and the frozen demon glided up into the air. I watched until they were only a tiny dot in the sky. "There's a lesson there," I said to Michael. "You should be able to tell the real thing right away. They aren't much for conversation."

Michael wandered across the rooftop, his slender hand touching the taut wire of the helium angel balloon. "There are a number of lessons," he said. A line of fire ran from his fingers. It streaked up the line, and the floating angel exploded in a rush of light.

My face was still turned towards the sky, and the retinal burn of the exploding balloon faded slowly from my field of vision. "Yeah," I murmured, "There's been a couple."

"You understand now, don't you?"

I nodded. "Satan tried to capitalize on our weakness, on our lack of faith. He set us up from the beginning, didn't he? I should have known it was too easy to hack in to purgatory from the coffee shop. You had a security leak, didn't you? But you couldn't do anything about it until he used it. Only then could you seal up your network. Only then could you lock him out, once and for all."

Michael might have shrugged. It was hard to tell. Damn angelic inscrutability. "And afterward, Satan knew what would happen. He knew we'd be vulnerable. He knew we would be wondering what would happen after we had gone to purgatory. It was just like the firewall, wasn't it? We gave him the opening, and he crept in and tried to steal what meant most to us. And he almost succeeded."

I thought of Ring's valiant struggle on the raft to realize his dream. I remembered Prancer singing carols as we crossed the desert in hell, and how I wouldn't hear that voice again. "I don't like being used like that," I said. "But that's the price of the miracle we performed last year, isn't it?" I closed my eyes and shook my head. "I don't much care for that either."

"You aren't meant to. We live by Old Testament rules, Bernard. Those of us outside the normal realms must abide by the strictest laws."

"An eye for an eye. A tooth for a tooth. Is that it?"

The angel nodded.

"But you're not taking it back," I said. "And so that means we can do it again, can't we? If we wanted to. We could perform another miracle for Christmas. And you'd let us. But I get it now. There's a price to be paid for such things. We bring a soul back down; you get to take one up."

"Exactly."

"But we gave you two," I said, my voice starting to shake. "We gave you Ring
and
Prancer. Two reindeer died on this trip."

Michael shook his head gently, a smile ghosting across his lips. "No, Bernard. Only one."

There was a squeal from the sky, and a shape fell right down to the rooftop, scattering snow as he landed with a clumsy thump. I stared, unable to believe what I was seeing. He looked . . . he looked so
washed
and groomed.

Ring bounded across the roof and bumped into me. "Lookit. Lookit," he squeaked. "They let me keep the scar." He showed me his flank and the vaguely star-shaped pattern of Satan's hand against his skin.

I threw my arms around the frenzied reindeer and hugged him tightly. Ring squirmed out of my embrace and bounded away to examine the rain of destruction he had dropped on the rooftop.

"I don't understand," I said, wiping at my face.

Michael watched the young reindeer wrestle with a sheet of bubble wrap that had survived the bombing run. "We couldn't keep him. He wasn't in heaven five minutes before he tried to jump the gates and come back here. I don't think we could have stopped him." The angel offered another inscrutable movement of his shoulders. "Maybe we could have. Once or twice, but not more than that. He wanted something too badly to let his soul rest. He wanted something we couldn't give him."

I nodded. "Yeah, I know what he wanted. I can't say I blame him."

The angel looked at me, something akin to the color of surprise darkening his eyes. "Belief is a powerful thing, isn't it, Bernard Rosewood?"

I looked him dead in the eye. "Especially when someone tries to take it away from you."

He lifted his eyes towards heaven. "Yes," he said, his voice almost too soft to hear. "I know. I know very well."

I looked up. A rain was falling on the North Pole. A rain of angels of all sizes and shapes. They fell from the sky and landed on the rooftop of the Residence and on the snow-covered Pole. Ring bounded up to a small cherub that alighted on the bent edge of Ramiel's forgotten lawn chair. The tiny angel's wings buzzed apprehensively, but he held still while the young reindeer sniffed him.

Michael was offering something to me. It was my hat—the goofy one that Rudolph had given me in hell. I had lost it—somewhere, I couldn't even remember where. "You've still got a lot of work to do this year," the angel said. "We thought you could use a little help getting back on schedule."

I took the cap from him. "I'll do my best."

He nodded. "I know you will." His wings unfurled.

"No miracles."

"That would be nice." His wings moved like the sails of a gigantic ship, and he lifted gracefully from the rooftop. I noticed that there weren't any footprints to mark the passage of his presence. "Good night, Bernard Rosewood, and good luck."

"Merry Christmas," I shouted after him as he flew into the night.

Ring glanced up from the sheet of bubble wrap he had been stomping. "Merry Christmas," he shouted joyously. He dashed towards the edge of the roof, stopping before he fell off. He looked out at the angels falling on the North Pole. "Merry Christmas to all," he yelled, "And to all a year of good cheer." He scampered past me again, giggling and kicking at the snow.

I rubbed my jaw. "Good night," I said to myself. "‘And to all a good night.'" I looked down at the reindeer figure on the front of the hat, and then at the letters that were stitched across the back.
SECO
. Senior Elf in Charge of Operations. I traced my finger along the stitching. Rudolph hadn't done it, but I knew who had.

Mrs. C.

I had given Santa my word once, but it hadn't been enough to keep me here.

But Mrs. C was the one who had stayed with Rudolph. She had believed in him when he had been lost. And she had believed in me too, even when I hadn't known how lost I was.

Michael was right: there was a lot to do. Santa was going to have to be double-stuffing the calories to get himself up to optimum weight. The elves would have to be retrieved. Probably with a promise of hazard pay. We were going to have to find out who was better at snapping LEGOs together—the cherubs or the seraphim. A new sled was going to have to be built.

Ring bumped into me again. I made a grab at his tail as he danced around me.

Someone was going to have to teach him the words. If he was going to be leading, he was going to have to know the words. "Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night."

Could we do it? Could we get everything done in time for Christmas?

I put the cap on.

It fit. Someone had shrunk it to fit my head more snugly.

I guess Mrs. C wasn't the only one who believed in me.

"W
hat's that sound?"

"That? That groaning noise? It's nothing."

I blinked several times, not sure if I was seeing things in the dark or if Rudolph was putting out a little light. The drugs were wearing off. Ahead of schedule. In a few minutes, he was going to be fully awake. And pissed.

I still wasn't sure this was a very good idea, but I hadn't known what else to do. It was our first Christmas away from home. I didn't know how he was going to take not being
there
at Zero Hour, and so I did something creative. Or maybe stupid. It was too early to tell yet.

Rudolph moved around in the dark, and I heard his hooves banging against metal. "We're not in the sled," he said. His voice was getting stronger and angrier by the syllable. "Bernie. Where are we?"

"I'm not entirely sure," I lied.

More banging noises, and now I could definitely see a ruddy glow coming off Rudolph's skin. The light revealed the plain metal bulkheads of the tiny chamber where he and I were hanging out. "What is this?" Rudolph demanded.

"It's called a bathysphere," I said. "It's used for deep sea exploration."

He cocked his head, listening to the sounds coming from the metal around us. "We're underwater, aren't we?"

"We are," I said. "More than a mile down, I think."

"You think?"

I shrugged, and adjusted the pillows behind me. "We're kind of floating free," I said. Kind of. There was a thick cable attached to the bathysphere that ran all the way up to a boat, but he didn't need to know that.

The interior of the bathysphere had been stripped down to the bare metal. It wasn't the most comfortable place to spend a few days over Christmas, which is why I had packed along some pillows, a cooler, and more than one thermos of hot chocolate, spiked with peppermint schnapps.
Heavily
spiked.

He clattered over and loomed over me, his skin ruddy with anger. "Bernie," he said. "What's going on?"

I glanced at the luminous hands on my watch. "Well, it's Christmas Eve," I said. "Almost midnight, in fact. Zero Hour is coming right up."

He snorted angrily and lowered his head, pointing his antlers at me. "Why are we here?" he repeated. "Why aren't we at the Pole?"

I shook my head. "You know why."

He rapped a hoof against the metal flooring. "I could bust out of this thing," he said.

I was watching the sweep hand on my watch. "We're a mile down," I said.

"I could hold my breath," Rudolph said.

"You'd get the bends," I said. "It's a nitrogen-rich atmosphere in here. Because we're, you know, a mile from the surface of the ocean."

"No, I wouldn't."

I glanced up at him. "Yes, you would. And then you'd be all weird and crampy and floating out in the middle of the ocean. Is that how you want to spend Christmas?"

He blew air heavily out of his nose and stomped around in the bathysphere. "You know how I want to spend Christmas," he said.

"I know." I sighed. "I'm sorry."

Five more seconds.

"For what?" he asked.

The sweep hand passed the twelve. It was now midnight. If the boat towing us was on time and on course, we had just crossed the International Date Line, heading west. Two seconds ago, it had been 11:59PM on Christmas Eve. It was now 12:00AM the day
after
Christmas.

We skipped a day that year.

December 2nd

"W
e're considering torture."

I was still blindfolded. "This your first kidnapping?" My lips were parched. "I'm just curious ‘cause you're kind of off to a rocky start."

I got slapped for that. It was what tough farm boys would consider a girlish slap, but, in my exhausted and dehydrated state, it was enough to rattle my molars. My jaw hurt; I hadn't had any food or water in at least thirty-six hours; my feet and hands were numb from the bonds that kept me sequestered on this uncomfortable chair; and my bladder had long ago given up on trying to get my attention. All in all, nothing a decent massage and six hours submerged in a hot tub couldn't erase. My captors were amateurs.

The fact that they had managed to tie me to a chair and blindfold me notwithstanding.

The slapper grabbed my chin and squeezed me like an overzealous grandmother. "The account password," he said. "That's all we want."

"I don't know what you're talking about," I replied through mashed lips.

"The money in the account, Rosewood. Just give us the password and we'll let you go."

"Where?" I asked through fish-lip pucker. "Where will you let me go?"

My head was shoved back. "We'll send you to hell if you don't cooperate."

I laughed. "Really? That doesn't frighten me as much as you think it might."

Slapper tagged me on the head again, and I rocked back in the chair. The front legs came off the ground, and I teetered there for a second and then the chair came down again. The impact woke my bladder, and I felt like someone had just dropped an anvil in my lap.

There was a scrape of shoe leather against the worn floor as the two men stepped away from my chair to talk quietly. They thought they were playing church mice, but my hearing was a little better than they knew. "I don't like this," the meek one said. "This isn't what I signed up for."

"There's more than a million dollars in his account," Slapper said. "All we need is the password, and we can move the money somewhere else. You gonna walk away from a million fucking dollars?"

"I can't spend it in an American jail."

"We're not going to jail. Not here. Not anywhere."

"We might be if he talks."

"He's not going to talk," Slapper said. "We'll get the password, move the money, and then . . ."

"And then what?"

"We'll see. Okay. Just don't panic. I've got this under control."

There was a rustle of fabric, and Meeker's voice became strained. "Take your hand off me," he said.

"Did you hear what I said? I've got this."

More rustling. "Yes, I heard you." Scrape of shoe leather again. "You're an utter fool if you think he's going to talk. He's been down here a day already, and he doesn't seem the slightest bit worried."

"Maybe not. But there's a couple of things to try yet."

"You had better try them soon. The longer we stick around . . ."

"God, you can be such a—look, don't worry. Everything is under control."

"Yeah?" I heard Meeker walk away from me, and then a door opened. "Whose?" Meeker asked as he left, closing the door behind him.

"Drama queen," Slapper muttered under his breath, and I didn't disagree with him. That exit was pure stage drama, of the most ham-fisted sort.

I waited for something to happen, straining to hear any clue as to what Slapper was doing. There was more rustling—of paper and plastic this time—and then the metallic click of a lighter being opened. Thumb raked flint wheel, and then a crackling sound of tobacco burning. Slapper closed the lighter and exhaled heavily. My nose picked up the pungent smell of cheap hand-rolled tobacco.

Slapper wandered back to my chair, and I flinched as he bent over and pulled heavily on the cigarette next to my ear. It sounded like I was in the path of an approaching forest fire.

"I've done dinner theater," he whispered in my ear. I could feel the lit tip of the cigarette dancing somewhere near my cheek. "I know something about pain," he said. "You will tell me what I want to know."

This was how my holiday season was shaping up.