But while all this was going on in unhallowed caverns under the earth, what was going on in Das Gleiche itself? Why were the entire upper echelons unavailable to meet until after Christmas?
I take us now up the stairs to the right, through a numberless sequence of halls, filled with ranks of dullish employees tabulating and counting and filing away, and up to the highest floor of the building.
The top floor of Das Gleiche looked, from the outside, like your average well-lit corporate floor, with shiny tables and glass walls. Inside and past the illusion arrays, however, was nothing of the sort. The room had been tastefully and thematically decorated with black cloth, hung across the walls, with the monotony broken up by bones, chains, and smear of blood. There was no light in the room, barring a half dozen candelabras, allowing its occupants to meet safely in shadow.
The occupants themselves sat at two curved, narrow tables, which bent in an ovular shape to meet at a throne in the middle. The reason for this unusual table setup could be seen in the floor between the two tables, which was centrally occupied by a bloodstained altar. This blasphemous square had been hewn from a ruddy, abyssal stone in ages long past, and had moved with the cult as they pursued ever greater ventures. Dried upon it as an eternal testament to its validity were the lifedrops of thousands of innocent men, women, and children.
The men and women who sat at the table and supped showed no sensitivity to the aberrant curse in their midst, as they carefully picked the bones out of chicken. They were wearing suits and ties, and in a handful of cases dresses, and it could have been a normal if eccentric breakfast party were it not for that thing in the middle of the room, and the curved, rusted knife impaled into its centre.
The lone exception to this was the sect master and CEO of Das Gleiche, Old Nick. #0001, as he was sometimes called, still preserved something of the old ways, wearing gilded robes and sitting enthroned rather than in an office chair. He watched the altar as he ate, his expression pensive, silently acknowledging the multitudes who had been consumed as an offering to its ghoulish gods.
They had heard the news, of course. A man in a suit and some sort of monster in a reindeer outfit had questioned Anna, the secretary, killed one of their employees, and then fled out through the basement. Merida had released the homunculi on them, but while she and his second, Mirabelle, were hopeful, Old Nick doubted they'd do anything. Unstable, and untested. They should have called for some of the executives, but as they hadn't and it was too late now, they could only forge ahead.
"They must have been hired by Santa," he mused aloud. Mirabelle, sitting immediately to his right, nodded.
"No worries, sir, we'll question them when we catch them. The Fat Man won't be able to keep his secrets from us."
Old Nick waved one long, bony hand. "Always assume the worst. Whoever they were, they're gone, and we should change our plan accordingly. Assume that Santa knows our plan to kill him and all his cutesy little elves, and that the man and his revolting colleague are merely acting as his agents in the matter."
Mirabelle raised one eyebrow, but didn't dispute his advice. She was cocky, and Old Nick knew that she was eyeing his position, but he was old and wily and it would be a while yet before she would pose a serious challenge - by which point there would be plenty of opportunities to dispose of her.
Old Nick considered what to do next, staring at the blood upon the altar, and finally banged his spoon against his mimosa glass. The diffuse discussion in the room quieted as the various executives waited for him to speak.
"It is time for us to talk of many things, of shoes and ships and sealing wax, of cabbages, and kings, of why the sea is boiling hot and whether pigs have wings… or, in other words, to more fully unveil our evil plan." There was a gasp in the room, for though aspects of the plan had been floated and approved none outside the top three of the corporation knew it all. Old Nick raised a withered hand to quiet them.
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“There is good reason for this. We have suffered a setback - Hans, a brave man, a loyal employee, lies dead. He was killed by agents of the Fat Man, infiltrating this sect; and recalling his last words may help to remind us of our mission. ‘Here at Das Gleiche, we pursue only the latest iterative integrations’ - which is to say, we refine our methods - ‘empowering optimisations’ - we refine our methods, to actualise perfection - ‘through synergistic energy solutions’ - and what of the last clause? Are we synergised if, in this moment of peril, we are not united? Thus, it is time to unify this sect and speak with one voice, and to reveal what was formerly kept hidden.
"You know, of course, the bare particulars - we sent an advance division to assault Santa's workshop, and you know that deep in the bowels of the earth we're preparing an army to finish the job. But who here knows why, exactly, we want Santa dead?"
Judy, #0004, raised one hand. "Money? With Santa gone, our shell corporations can corner the toy market at Christmas."
That was true. Caedes was knowledgeable, but his knowledge was only of what was publicly known, and it was not public knowledge that Das Gleiche owned multiple companies specialising in the production of children's toys, nor that they had a substantial, if not controlling, stake in many toy companies nationally. Nonetheless, Old Nick shook his head.
"Your vision is too narrow. What is money?"
Judy considered. "Numerical records that we use as a means of measuring purchases?"
Old Nick nodded. Judy was not among the wisest of the executives, but she had a remarkable ability for concision. "Precisely. Paper, metal clips, lines of scrip in a record book. With the right hand, all of that is money. But precisely because its value is determined by context, it cannot be what we as a demonic sect are looking for. It absolutely has value; but it has no absolute value. Nothing does, except for absolute strength, the will to break into the Heavens and roar. So, how does our strength benefit from cornering the Christmas market?"
Judy considered this. In spite of the fact that she'd nominally been rebuked, her face was happy: Old Nick was a good teacher, and she'd learned a lot ever since she had come here on a university internship all those years ago. Mirabelle saw this and snorted, ignoring Old Nick's warning glare. She'd never understood why the sect master wasted so much time on bettering the underlings.
At last, Judy looked up. "Well, if it has nothing to do with the Christmas market, it must have to do with Christmas itself. So…is it to do with the spirit of Christmas?"
Old Nick nodded approvingly. “The wonder and magic of Christmas does not merely make people feel good, nor does its influence end with giving them hope. That hope - that sense of whimsy and wonder - inspires them, and tells them that even in the farthest and deepest darkness the light will be born. This is unacceptable; to drain someone of all their soul, we first need them to accept that their fate is inevitable. If, on the contrary, they embrace their destiny - if they deny that the darkness is purely dark, but insist that within it is a sky full of stars - then they are out of our claws forever. Worse yet, the light and whimsy of Christmas, by filling them with love of their fellow man rather than an idle parasitism, may inspire them to create, and then not only are we no threat to them, but they are a threat to us.”
He refilled his mimosa glass, idly reflecting that it was difficult to create a proper atmosphere for giving an evil speech over breakfast.
“So you see, that is why Santa must die. In his pudgy body and cheerful face we see reflected all that is anathema to demonic cultivation, and to the destruction and chaos that we represent. When he fills people with hope - when they gaze on their fellows, and see not tools but other people, when they see the trees are filled with stars and the snow sparkles with magic - then that is the first step on the road to ruin.
“I do not ask you to help me in destroying Christmas because I care about any such paltry thing as money, nor even because I want the power which we would acquire if we controlled the Christmas market. I ask you to join me in destroying Christmas because it poses an existential threat; and because its annihilation opens the door to the Forces of Darkness’ inevitable victory. When all the world is flatness and despair, and there is no path save to devour your fellow, then we shall feed.”
There were cheers throughout the demonic boardroom as he finished his speech, standing on his throne and lifting his mimosa glass into the air. He let the cheers build up for a moment, knowing what it would do for morale, and as the excitement began to naturally die down motioned for quiet.
“My colleagues - or, dare I say, my friends - sharpen your claws. It is time to hunt.”