Rudolph! (19 page)

November 21st

T
he Fantasyland Hotel at the West Edmonton Mall has theme
rooms. What motel with the word ‘fantasy' in the name wouldn't? However, since the hotel had a couple of skybridges connecting it to the mall, the rooms' themes were more family-friendly. The Igloo Room, for example, had penguins painted on the walls. Happy little penguins.

It drove Rudolph nuts. There were no penguins in the Arctic. But we could get the thermostat down to fifty-four which made him less grumpy, so we put up with the penguins.

Anyway, the Fantasyland was where Rudolph and I stayed between assignments. The 60th parallel was the line we didn't cross, and goofy penguins aside, the Igloo Room helped us deal with our separation anxiety. Well, it helped Rudolph. After last year's incident with the bathysphere, I had promised to not trick him like that again. But we still needed coping mechanisms for the fact that we didn't work out of the North Pole anymore.

The Igloo wasn't available this time around, so we ended up down the hall in the Exploration of Space room. There was a scale model of Sputnik attached to the wall over the bed, and a dial next to the bed provided three levels of lighting—ambient, sensual, and stark. Scattered across the ceiling and the other walls were luminescent points of the Milky Way. The designers had made some effort to match the play of stars across the actual night sky, and when all the lights were off and the satellites (Sputnik wasn't the only one) were darkened, it was almost like sailing beyond the troposphere into the inky blackness of unexplored space.

I could only get the thermostat down to sixty-two, but Rudolph didn't mind so much as long as I kept the lights off.

He started getting extra cranky as soon as the stores put out their Halloween costumes, because it meant that Christmas was coming. We were still working, and the approaching Season meant we were busy, but the final days before Zero Hour were hard. Last year—our first year away from the Pole—I had doped Rudolph up and taken him for a ride in a deep-sea bathysphere. I'll admit it wasn't the best Christmas present, but we made it through the holiday without an international or supernatural incident, which made everyone happy. Including our new boss, Mrs. C.

We worked for her now. Seasonal stealth agents.

The balcony of our room looked out over the eastern radius of the mall, and even at this early hour of the morning, the parking lot was nearly half full. Through the clear windows of the dome over the center of the mall, I could see the frenzied shopping action going on inside. It was like watching ants in a glass-walled ant farm, scurrying back and forth. Package and parcel standing in for leaf and twig.

I had just wrapped up breakfast—pancakes smothered in maple syrup, crisp bacon, and a cup of fresh fruit—and was finishing my coffee. Rudolph had eaten all the plates already.

"You done with that?" he asked, eyeing the partially empty cup in my hand. There was a smear of maple syrup on his nose.

"I was going to have a second cup," I said. "But then you went and ate the carafe."

"You shouldn't drink so much coffee," he said.

"And why is that?" I asked.

"Caffeine makes people unpredictable." He looked down at the tray resting on the side table next to me. "How about the flatware?" he asked. "Can I have that?"

I shook my head. "Management says they don't care what happens to the china, but they want the silverware back."

"Flatware," Rudolph corrected me. "There's no
silver
in it."

I glanced up at him, and he held my gaze for a moment before his tongue flicked out and cleaned the syrup off his nose. "What?" he asked.

"Okay, Super Goat," I said. "When did you have the mass spectrometer installed?"

He shrugged. "It just tastes different," he said. His head swiveled toward the mall's parking lot all of a sudden. His eyes narrowed, and he lost interest in gnawing on the silver—sorry,
flatware
. His nostrils widened as he took in the scents rising across the mall. "Fat Boy," he announced.

I sat up, trying to pretend I could make out any real details all the way across the parking lot. It was a pretty typically overcast day for Edmonton, the sunlight diffused into a gentle radiance by the layer of gray clouds cloaking the sky from horizon to horizon. Even with the uniformity of light, I couldn't match Rudolph's ocular ability. "Where?" I asked.

"Silver Acura." Rudolph said. I glared at him. As if there were only one Acura or one silver car in the lot. "He just got out. Blue windbreaker. He's wearing a baseball cap. It's got a moose on it."

I gave up, sinking back into the lounge chair. "What's he doing here?"

Rudolph wandered over to the railing and watched the tiny figure make its way across the lot. "We're expecting contact today, aren't we?" he asked.

"Yeah, but not Fat Boy. She usually sends Blitzen."

Rudolph chewed on the inner lining of his cheek. "Last weekend before Thanksgiving, isn't it?" he asked.

It took me a minute to remember the NPC schedule. "Lockdown," I said. "It's the weekend before Lockdown."

The day after Thanksgiving, the North Pole entered Lockdown—the final thirty days before Zero Hour. All leaves were canceled, and no one was permitted to leave the North Pole, including Santa. Especially Santa. They didn't need to be wondering where Fat Boy was the night before Christmas.

That had happened once already. The NPC wasn't keen on it ever happening again.

Rudolph nodded. "He's heading for the amusement park. One last ride this year."

The phone back in the room rang, and Rudolph glanced over his shoulder. I knocked back a final swallow of my lukewarm coffee—knowing that the cup would be gone when I returned—and went inside to answer the phone.

So, even though Rudolph and I
saved
Christmas the Season before this last one—
again
—the NPC didn't budge on their previous decision to kick me out. Ungrateful bastards. Who invited them back after Ramiel was turned into an ice sculpture anyway? Rudolph called their bluff, saying that if I went, he went too. The NPC didn't even blink.

Which meant I had some company on the ride south this time.

We ended up at the Fantasyland—in the Iguana room that first time, which wasn't a very good choice. That first night was really long, and the only reason we weren't banned from the hotel was because Mrs. C was there in the morning to smooth things over with the hotel management.
You two are my special ambassadors
, she told us over breakfast.
There will be no more incidents like this one with the lizards. Okay?
You will go wherever I tell you to, do what is needed, and you will ensure that the world understands how Christmas works now. There will be no more miracles. There will just be people being nice to one another all year long. And at Christmas time, there will be lots of presents under the tree for ALL the good boys and girls. Do you understand?

After she left, Rudolph said we were going to be the Christmas SEAL team: we'd drop in out of nowhere, bag and tag, refresh some memories, and get out before anyone really noticed us.
Mission: Impossible
-style. And, sure, I'll admit that it sounded a lot more fun when he put it that way. We'd even taken to calling Blitzen "Mr. Phelps" when he visited to deliver a mission briefing.

Blitzen played along. He's good that way.

"Ride the roll," he said when I answered the phone in the hotel suite. "Go go green. Granddad's got a moose."

"Rudolph saw him in the parking lot," I said. "Why aren't you here?"

"Last ride before Lockdown," Blitzen said. "You know how he is." He paused for a second. "Look, Bernie. Talk to him, okay? He's a little . . . moody."

Uh oh
. "What's going on?" I asked.

"He'll . . . he'll tell you," Blitzen said. "Just . . . just listen, okay?"

"Okay."

"And don't tell Rudolph."

"Wait. What?"

But he had already hung up.

Santa loved any vehicle that played tug-of-war with gravity using your body as the rope. Roller coasters were a passion he indulged whenever he could. The one at the Edmonton Mall was only a four hour reindeer hop from the top of the world and he could usually get in five or six rides, check stock at the toy stores, buy Mrs. C something lacy and nice, and still be home in time for dinner. Which meant that making Santa wait to ride the roller coaster was akin to pulling out his fingernails with pliers.

When I arrived at the ride, he was already sitting in the lead car of the green train, and the kid working the line had roped off the cattle chute to the front half of the train. The kid gave me a funny look when I came up, and recognizing that universal gleam in his eye, I slipped him a few twenties as I ducked under the rope.

We were going to be riding awhile.

Behind me, children wailed and shouted at the kid who had let me through, and we both ignored them. I slipped onto the wide bench next to Santa, and the kid banged down the security bar, which didn't come down nearly as far as I liked. Santa's belly was already pretty round, and there was an inordinately large space between the rubber-coated bar and my belt. There was no chance Santa was going to fall out. There was every chance I might.

I hate roller coasters.

We did the whole course three times before Santa deigned to acknowledge the white-knuckle signals I was throwing him. When the train came to a complete stop, he signaled to the kid, who came over and raised the security bar. "Come on, son," Santa said in that voice he used whenever he's at the mall. "Let me buy you a smoothie." He clapped me on the back as I staggered out of the car. Just the two of us out for a lovely day at the mall—jovial grandpa and green-around-the-gills grandson.

As soon as the floor stopped spinning, I was going to grab one of the metal poles that fed the cattle chute ribbons and smack grandpa in the kneecap.

The smoothie did little to assuage my mood; my stomach was all knotted up and wasn't in the mood for anything—not even mixed berries and sherbet and a couple superdoses of powdered vitamins.

Santa wolfed down two enormous chilidogs while I sat on a bench near the merry-go-round, trying to coax my stomach back into its normal place. "You going to finish that?" he asked, indicating the smoothie sitting on the bench between us.

I shook my head. This seemed like the question of the day.

Santa happily slurped away at my smoothie. His baseball cap was pushed back on his wide forehead, revealing a curling lock of his shaggy white hair. It hadn't been cut to regulation length yet, and more of it curled out the back of the cap and disappeared past the collar of his windbreaker. There actually was a moose with a rather surprised look on its face stenciled on the front of the cap. He was surprisingly tan. "I love field work," he said, tugging at the straw. "I don't get enough of it anymore."

I groaned.

He glanced at me. "You've got to relax more, Bernie. You can't tighten up in the turns. You've got to stay loose."

"Easy for you to say," I said. "You were caught under that rail like a mouse pinned in a trap. I was sliding all around on the seat. If that loop had been any taller, I would have fallen out at the top."

"But you didn't," said Santa. "See, that's the beauty of the rollercoaster. You
almost
fall. It's
almost
dangerous. Doesn't it get your heart pounding? Doesn't the adrenaline start thumping through your veins?"

"My life flashes before my eyes, and I wonder about dumb things like: is all the change in my pocket going to fall out and cause the train to jump off the track?"

"Don't you feel more alive?"

I gave him a stern look. "I'm bunking with Rudolph," I said. "I get more than a recommended dose of heart-pounding, adrenaline-rushing, muscle-quivering excitement before breakfast. Every day. When he gets up in the middle of the night, I worry that he's hungry and is going to eat the plumbing in the bathroom. Then the room fills up with water and drowns me before I can get out of bed. I really don't need to go out of my way to get my heart pumping. Especially after our holiday dive last Season."

"Shoot, Bernie. I miss it. It just isn't the same up there without the two of you. The Consortium has put the squeeze on everything. These past few Seasons have rattled them so hard that it's become all tight-ass corporate paperwork pushing up there. No one dares to have a creative thought any more because it might violate a T-PIP or a 2/45-Y or some other ridiculous acronym. I swear they spend most of their time coming up with new regulations and procedures. You know where we had to get over half the toys last year?"

"China?" I tried.

"Target," Santa said.

I shrugged. "It's not a bad idea. They have a pretty good selection. Plus, if you order online, Ama—"

"Don't say it," Santa snapped. "Don't you dare say it." He sucked heavily at the straw, and it made a scraping noise on the bottom of the cup.

"We had help after we went to hell," I said. "But the angels left after Zero Hour. It's not like the NPC didn't know they were going to have to do it themselves after that." I was trying really hard to be sympathetic. From the reports I had read, Christmas last year had been fairly successful. Not the best Season, according to all those places that tracked yearly retail sales, but still pretty good.