Old Nick never heard of the final fate of Ilsa, but there was no need for him to do so: she had gone out to end their foes, and from the silence he knew that they had ended her.
Old Nick didn’t mourn. Ilsa had been at the edge of the Sixth Circuit, Isabella inside it; both of them were more than halfway to completing the Ninth Circuit, and attaining immortality. If they had died, it was either through foolishness or because their enemy was deadlier than even he’d possibly imagined. And Ilsa was no fool. All this time he’d been inferring that Santa had hired agents to defend Christmas; now, he realised that these must be Santa’s masters themselves, come to personally protect their disciple.
***
“No, but seriously,” Santa swore, as he made sure his sleigh was ready for the big night, “who keeps looking down on me? These past few weeks it’s felt like an entire organisation of people keeps doubting me day and night. Why? Has one of those sorts of journalists published another ‘the Dark Truth of Christmas’ articles?”
Toffeetime the elf shrugged. She didn’t see what this had to do with her wanting to fulfil little Johnny (aged seven)’s request for a pneumatic jackhammer, but if Santa was distracted that meant it was probably fine. She’d include safety goggles.
Whistling, she turned to leave, but Santa stopped her. His eyes were glowing, spheres spinning on his lids as he read something only he could see.
“Oh, and Toffeetime? No power tools for Johnny just yet; I received a very distressing letter from his little sister, explaining that he hadn’t kept his promise to build her a doll house with the hammer and handsaw we gave him last year. Send him a new tape measure and a guidebook on optimising room measurements, and a note reminding him of this.”
Toffeetime nodded. She’d give him one of the living measures the elves used, the ones with the forked tongues. That would be a nice consolation gift.
***
Yes, it couldn’t be Santa himself: he was far too meek and humble. (Innocence, as everyone knows, is a state which can only be maintained through ignorance and which, once lost, can never be regained. Old Nick had never seriously examined this belief of his, but it was definitely true.)
No, Old Nick didn't mourn. Instead, he started to plan. Of the eleven members in the executive, seven were left. Merida (#0005) had been tasked with architecting the final assault on Christmas, and Anna (#0007) was really only considered an executive so they could increase her workload without commensurately increasing her pay (it was a 'qualitative promotion'). Hence there were five people he could send, himself included - though the day he himself had to fight would only be the day Das Gleiche was at risk of falling.
He had convened a council, not at breakfast - for breakfast had proved an unpropitious time for evil - but over a corporate luncheon. Merida was there, called up from deep underground, and Anna, though she looked terrible. (Possibly due to overwork, but the glances she kept making at the altar hinted at another matter.)
Old Nick let them eat in peace, knowing that bad news should always be delivered on a full stomach, and waited till after dessert to inform them of Ilsa's probable death. He spoke eloquently for ten minutes on the subject, seeking to hammer home the precariousness of the present situation, and then motioned for Anna to speak.
She stood up slowly, shuffling her papers. She always disliked this part of her job. Not that she minded public speaking, but Mirabelle smirked at her, and Merida scoffed, and it made her feel nervous. She was the only one of the executives who had inferior spiritual roots, and the weakest in cultivation, and even Ilsa - her nominal inferior - had not let her ignore this failure of hers.
“As some of you may know, I’ve been performing an analysis on the two who attacked our headquarters. Our initial assessment was that they were agents of Santa Claus, an assessment which was recently changed by our CEO and sect leader to make them Santa’s masters. But while this is certainly true for the elderly, humped thing - who must be some sort of ancient master, returned from seclusion - I’ve been able to acquire the birth records of the lithe but impressively muscular man with the sexy jawline who accompanied him.”
Old Nick took the implied critique impassively. He had long known that the weakest CEOs - those most likely to torpedo their business and careers - were those who were the worst at taking criticism.
“Caedes was born and raised in an orphanage, vanishing under suspicious circumstances sometime after his sixth birthday. He must have exceedingly impressive spiritual roots - he’s the same age as I am, yet unless he’s proving to be entirely dead weight he can go toe to toe with cultivators twice my strength.”
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There was a snicker from Mirabelle, which Anna ignored.
“He has known affiliations to several street gangs as a cultivation teacher and personal mentor called ‘the Doc,’ and is suspected of being the assassin known as ‘the Master of Puppets’ who has so terrorised the rich and influential of this city.
“Unfortunately, the decision made to assault the mayor’s daughter without attaining formal approval must have angered whoever leads the Ministry for Organised Crime [which was the mayor’s daughter, not that Anna knew that], and while I did file a bribery request to learn his whereabouts and regular haunts, I’ve yet to hear back. [Cindy accidentally shredded the paperwork, then burnt the remains, not that Anna knew that.] Basic probabilistic reasoning indicates that this situation is unlikely to change. [That, Anna knew.]”
Anna gave several other known facts about Caedes not immediately relevant to our plot, and sat back down. Old Nick steepled his fingers, thinking.
“It’s no issue if we don’t know his haunts: we have tried frontal assaults twice now, and I’m not especially inclined to see if the third time’s the charm. It’s time for a more nebulous, insidious art.”
The hitherto unmentioned executive #0006, Ray, grinned wickedly. This was his moment.
“Moreover, we have no need to track his movements. If he’s dating the mayor’s daughter, it is all but certain he will attend the city’s Christmas Ball two days from now. The most effective strike would be to kill him on his way there; we can worry about the ancient master after him.
“In the interim, we need to speed up our plans. Originally we had arranged for Merida to assault Santa’s workshop on the twentieth, giving the Forces of Light no time to react prior to Christmas Eve and ruining the holiday for children worldwide. But we may need to kill the Fat Man and his weak, adorable elves a week from now.”
***
Winky, Splinky, and Zf’zhk’fareyegn tuned their fiddles three. In the absence of Yaaroghkh - Santa’s janitor - on a great cleaning mission, the lesser cleaning missions had fallen to them. There was a cockroach infestation on the 1,753rd floor of Santa’s workshop, and the pure innocence of the children’s presents had made the creatures grow to monstrous size. Winky’s feelers stroked the other two elves, messages quivering along his tendrils.
“Are you ready?” He hummed, his ‘voice’ vibrating on unfathomable angles in higher worlds. The other two vibrated affirmatively.
The Sixth Circuit cockroach rose to its feet, roaring, chains of trashy qi flowing from its claws. The elves began to play their violins. Alien music wafted up, floating strangely in patterns and shapes no true soundwave would ever be able to mimic. The tune was beautiful, but it was an unearthly beauty, evoking crystalline skies, purple oceans, and the movement of great things among the stars.
The cockroach screeched once, and dissolved into a putrid ooze on the floor.
The elves didn’t even pause in their playing. They had killed but one cockroach, and had a thousand more to go.
***
He looked at Merida meaningfully. “Will you be able to pull that off?”
She nodded once, her expression fierce. “All is ready.”
“You’re prepared for the dragon pirates with the itchy underwear?”
She slapped her thigh. “I’ve been having the troops wear the wool of the Demonic Super-Sheep since day one.”
“And the contest against Ugoth, daimon of Interior Decorating?”
“Isabella may not have been capable of much,” she smirked, “but she knew her shoes.”
“And surviving the technosirens while swimming through the Sea of Unwashed Goblin Gym Socks?”
In answer she pulled the cap off a stick, filling the air with the scent of demonic deodorant. Old Nick nodded approvingly, but Anna raised her hand.
“What are your preparations for unexpected eventualities? Whoever we’re fighting isn’t simple: before he was able to find Das Gleiche, he visited a half dozen arrogant Young Masters and Mistresses of the Families and Sects. What he did to them is utterly unknown - when they were first found, they’d been driven mad, but that can’t have been the thrust of the technique, since they’ve not only recovered but, as the orthodox say, reformed.”
This was true. They had returned, not simply to good health, but to a healthy goodness, and had publicly renounced their pasts and gone on a substantial campaign of business reform. Sweatshops had shut down, experiments had been terminated, and a diversified investment strategy had been orchestrated by the six of them to restore sovereignty to their victims through healthcare, technical education, and land reform.
This was partly due to Yaaroghkh himself - who shattered those who saw him, but only by revealing to them the terrifying joy of reality (which is why whimsical people like the classical musicians weren’t bothered by his presence) - but was also because Santa knew what happened when people gazed at his elves, and had created the Alfar Association for Recovery and Goodness-Health (AARGH) to clean up after his clean up crew. None among mortals know their methods, but they were led by Frosty the Snowman, who’s a fairy tale, they say, and was able to bring even coal to life.
But I digress. Anna finished her question:
“How do you plan to adjust for unexpected surprises?”
Merida just laughed, smirking at Anna. “Unexpected? My dear, I’ve prepared for every eventuality.”