Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

“Now?” Sketch said. He practically bounced with anticipation, his fists clenched and his eyes focused beyond the cage in the direction of the cellar door.

“Not yet,” Rune said. People weren’t even in position yet.

“I’m scared,” Lolly said. Holda whimpered and wrapped her little arms even tighter around Rune’s leg. He shook her free as gently as he could.

“We just have to wait.” Sketch joined him in peering toward the cellar door. Rune’s magic ended at the cast-iron grate, but his natural senses were keen enough. Light seeped in from narrow windows high in the walls, bathing the cellar in gray half-light. Above him, all was calm. Wooden floors creaked as Marvin and Henry walked about, no doubt wondering where Tinka had gone. If they only knew…

He stole a glance at his pocket watch. Its face was nearly unreadable even to his impressive senses. Surely, though, five minutes had passed.

Something crashed above them. Lolly jumped at the sound, and Holda found a foothold at the top of Rune’s boot and flung herself toward his arms with all her might. He pried her loose and handed her to Sketch.

Then came another crash followed by a series of heavy thumps. “Where’d he go?” Henry said. “Toward the kitchen!” Marvin answered.

More thumps. Wood scraped against wood as someone heaved a table or some other piece of heavy furniture across a wooden floor.

“Yule boys! Woohoo!” Janks exulted.

Rune grinned. It wouldn’t be long now.

“Now?” Sketch gasped. Holda had her arms around his chest so he could barely breathe.

“Almost.”

A radio turned on upstairs, announcing at full volume that “It’s the most wonderful time of the year.” The chaos upstairs continued for another minute. The humans yelled, furniture tumbled over. The squeal of an enraged rodent gave way to yelps of pain and calls for a first aid kit.

Finally, a door slammed. Thirty seconds later, chains rattled, and the cellar door creaked open. Angry footsteps descended into the dark.

Henry didn’t even bother turning on the lantern. He shone his flashlight in Rune’s face and spat a string of curses ending with, “Make it stop, you freak!”

Rune shepherded the children behind him. “Is there something wrong?”

“You damn well know something is wrong!” Henry said.

Marvin caught up, limping, with a bloody and tattered pant leg flapping this way and that. “If that friend of yours has rabies…”

Rune smirked as the twins stood there, helpless. Both of them bore bumps and scratches, not to mention expressions of utter bewilderment.

“Wait,” Marvin said. “You speak English.”

“Indeed.”

Upstairs the music continued. “Feliz Navidad… Feliz Navidad…”

“You’re not like the rest.”

Rune’s gray eyes bore into them, but he said nothing.

Henry waved an angry fist in Rune’s face. “If you don’t call off that…that thing upstairs—”

“You’re right. I’m not like these others.” Rune glared at the human, and even though the grate kept him from manipulating glamour to intensify the effect, he took a step forward and spread his arms to make his body seem bigger. It wasn’t an illusion, just something every predator knows.

“These are children. Do you have children? They’re in a strange place. They don’t know what’s going on, and they miss their mothers and fathers. I expect they’d do just about anything to make you go away.”

He took another step. His eyes flashed, cold and hard. “I assure you, Marvin, I am not like these children at all.”

Marvin flinched at the sound of his name.

“I’ve seen worse than you. I’ve dealt with worse than you. Push me too far, and you’ll find out I am worse than you.” Rune watched his breathing, his body language. You didn’t serve the King of Shadows your whole life without learning a thing or two about intimidation. Marvin and Henry were perfect targets, and Rune had little choice but to hold back for most of the past six months.

“I am the stuff of nightmares, do you understand? All of us: elves, goblins, trolls…. All your people’s fears, all their feeble attempts to hold back the shadows, the things that go bump in the night. All that fear only makes us stronger.”

He flung a handful of Tinka’s screws and springs through the grate. Marvin and Henry jumped and shrieked.

Rune smiled. “And now you’ve got me. Not a child, not a cowering victim, but me. Someone your own size.”

Henry reached for his gun, but his hand shook. Rune grinned.

“So what are you going to do now?”

“It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas…,” the radio blared. Something glass shattered against a wall. Janks started to sing along, loud and off-key.

“Let us go,” Rune said, “and I’ll be easy on you.”

“Bull!” Henry said, his voice shaking as badly as his hand. “We don’t have to listen to this, Marvin. He’s just trying to scare us.”

Marvin shook an accusing finger. “We’ll be back. And then we’ll see how tough you are.”

They backed away from the grate before at last scampering up the steps to the cellar door.

Rune let out a breath.

Sketch pulled on Rune’s jacket. “Now?”

Rune nodded. “Now. Tinka?”

Tinka appeared as soon as she released the crank on the indifference engine. She smiled and held up her prize: a ring of keys deftly lifted from Marvin’s belt.

It only took three tries to find the key that opened the grate. Sketch pushed the door open, and he, Rune, Lolly, and Holda spilled into the brothers’ workroom.

“Hurry now,” Rune said. He led them out of the cellar. There was no sign of the twins, though now a light or two burned inside the house. Janks was waiting for them.

“They’re gone?”

“Flew away like down off a thistle,” the troll said with a wide, froggish grin.

“Thanks,” Rune said. “You ever need a favor…” Holda grabbed onto Rune’s jacket and tried to haul herself up to his arms. This time, he let her.

“This one’s on me,” Janks said. “I forgot how much fun it is to kick up my heels like that. Makes me a little homesick, you know?”

“Maybe next Yuletide you can go visit your brothers again.”

Janks sighed. “That would be nice. But what now? What about these kids?”

“It’s not too far a walk to the cemetery. If we hurry, we can get to Goblintown before everyone’s asleep. And then…” He looked pointedly at Tinka. “I can return Madam Samarra’s stolen property.” He held out his hand. Tinka slumped her shoulders, reached into her pocket, and handed over the indifference engine. The wind picked up. Clouds rolled in from the west across the starry sky. It was Rune’s favorite kind of weather.

* * *

With the children safely in the care of the Brackwaters, Rune made his way back across into the Fallow. The cemetery was empty, and it was long past midnight. He gathered the swirling airy chaos around him and hurled himself skyward, leaping a block at a time until he finally alighted outside the mother-in-law apartment behind the Colemans’ house, the little place that had been his home since Midsummer.

He lay in bed fully dressed, wondering if the children’s parents had escaped, whether they’d ever see them again. Also, he’d have to keep an eye on Marvin and Henry. It wasn’t unheard of for fallowmen to know something about his kind, but these two’s interest was more sinister than the folklorists, dabblers, and neo-pagans he usually ran into.

But he didn’t have to do any of that tonight. The twins wouldn’t be in too big a hurry to get back in the child-abducting business. And Tinka and the others were in good hands. Brack and Thora would keep them warm and fed and loved until their situation changed. Tinka and Lolly and Sketch and Holda were family forged in fire. They would do fine with the Brackwaters. You can do the impossible, Rune had learned, when your family had your back.

Rune yawned. In a minute he’d get up long enough to undress and snuggle into his warm bed and settle down his brain. He lay still, breathing deeply, welcoming the airy chaos to wash over him with its cleansing magic.

He was almost asleep when something clattered against the roof. He sprang to his feet, instantly awake.

He braced himself against the icy blast as he opened the door, pulling on his jacket. The yard was empty. He looked up.

“Ah.” A tree branch had come down in the wind. Rune couldn’t see any damage, just the icy residue of recent snows half-melted and refrozen. He’d check it out once the sun came up.

“Rune? That you?”

It was Reverend Coleman, his landlord. He had thrown a heavy coat on over his pajamas and was stepping out the back door of his own house. His normally brown skin reddened in the biting cold.

“You heard it too?” Rune said.

“Is anything the matter?”

“Tree branch.” Rune pointed. “I don’t think it did any damage.”

“Well, that’s good,” Rev. Coleman said. After a pause he said, “Late night?”

“Not especially.”

“I came by earlier and you were gone.”

“Is something wrong?”

The Reverend shook his head. “Not at all. Anita wanted to know if you had plans for Christmas. If you don’t, you’re welcome to have dinner with us. I mean, I don’t know if… That is to say, you might not even have Christmas where you come from. We don’t want to impose.”

“Not at all,” Rune said. “That’s very kind. Thank you.”

“You’re a long way from home. That would be hard on me this time of year. Maybe it is on you or maybe it isn’t, I don’t know. But you’re welcome to be part of our family tomorrow.

“That means a lot.”

“Well then, just come by whenever you like. And Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas, Reverend. To all of you.”

the end

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

With some effort, Rune forced himself up and sat with his back against the brick wall. Three young children stared at him, wide-eyed. They moved closer.

“Fall down,” the dwarf girl announced grimly.

“That’s right, Holda,” the boy said. “He fell down.”

Holda pondered the situation. She set her heavy jaw and took another step forward. She offered Rune the cookie she’d been holding, part of the stash Tinka had brought from the mission.

Rune accepted the gift and said, “Thank you.” Holda clambered unbidden into his lap.

“Where’s Tinka?” Lolly asked.

“And that big guy?” the boy, Sketch, added.

Something rustled above them. Rune craned his neck to see the gap where Tinka said she’d escaped the first time. As if on cue, her green Santa hat popped into view.

“Sister!” Lolly squealed. Tinka and Rune both shushed her.

“Those men are looking for your sister,” Rune explained as Holda poked at his nose. “We can’t let them find her.”

Lolly slapped a hand over her mouth.

“Who are those men? How did you get here?”

“They were waiting,” Sketch said.

Rune puzzled at this, but Tinka explained. “We were running away. Our parents said it wasn’t safe anymore and we had to go.”

“Not safe?”

“The King of Shadows was mad at them.” She slinked through the opening and dropped to the floor. “That’s all they would say.”

“Stars above,” Rune said. The King of Shadows was one of the most powerful rulers on the other side, and one of the most ruthless. If he was angry with you, leaving—quickly—was the smartest thing to do.

It’s what Rune himself had done when he’d defected from the King’s service.

“But that doesn’t explain…,” he waved around at the cell, the grate, the camp toilet, “this.”

“Mr. Elmanzer sent us here,” Lolly said through tears. Holda fell back against Rune’s chest and grabbed hold of the lapel of his bomber jacket.

“He didn’t mean to,” Sketch said. “At least, I don’t think he did.”

“Mr. Elmanzer?” Rune said. “Your parents bargained with a waymaker to send you across?”

Sketch nodded, holding back tears. “They said it had to be at Midwinter ‘cause it would be easier to cross. Mr. Elmanzer knew the way. Mom and Dad said they’d come after us as soon as they could.”

“But when we crossed, those two brothers were waiting for us,” Tinka added. “They corraled us in a barb-wire fence, and the big, dumb one grabbed us and threw us in their carriage.”

Rune remembered the white van in the driveway.

“He shot me with that zappy thing,” Sketch complained. “And now he’s got you, too!”

“Not for long,” Rune vowed.

Something moved outside the grate. Rune gently lifted Holda to her feet so he could stand up. A rat appeared from behind the bookcase and scampered to the middle of the room, where it blurred and morphed and expanded to take on the size and shape of a troll in a dark brown long coat.

Janks smiled.

Rune said, “What kept you?”

“Just checking the place out,” he said. “This placed looked empty from the outside, but that’s just ‘cause the lights were off. It’s actually pretty homey up there.”

“Well, now that you’re here, we’ve got to get these children out of here.”

“And go home?” Sketch said.

Rune frowned because he knew that home was no longer an option. “Children shouldn’t have to run from a murderous king, especially not at Yuletide.” He looked at Janks. “I’m going to take them to Goblintown.”

“Is it far?” Tinka said. “Holda’s legs are little, and she’s too heavy to carry.” Holda had sidled up next to Rune. Now she wrapped an arm around his leg and looked up at him with big, brown eyes.

“Not far at all,” Rune said. “It’s just beneath the city and one world over.” He looked back at Janks and said, “I think I can get there through Cave Hill Cemetery.”

The troll considered this. “The boundary should still be thin enough. But then what?”

“I know some people there. People I trust. And they’re used to taking care of children.”

“Will they know where our parents are?” Tinka asked.

“I’ll bet they can find out,” Rune said. And if they couldn’t, the Brackwaters would do everything they could to find a place the children could stay.

“Then what are we waiting for?” Janks said. “Let’s figure out how to get you all out of there.”

“I have an idea about that,” Rune said. He knelt down to speak to the children. “Now listen carefully… and don’t be afraid.”

Part 6

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Rune and Janks looked at each other and then at the girl.

“You…,” Rune said, struggling to put words together. “How…?”

The girl pointed to a gap in the bricks where the ceiling joined the back wall, barely wide enough for a goblin to shimmy through. Beneath it, someone had piled rolled-up bedding to approximate the shape of a goblin-sized sleeper. She shrugged.

“This whole thing stinks,” Janks said. He stalked to the grate and gripped it with two huge hands—then lurched away with a gasp. “Crashing waves! It’s made of tupping iron!” He pulled off his shamlee cap, and his illusion of a human face dropped as grasped the sides of his head.

“Okay, okay,” Rune said. “Shake it off. Your magic’ll come back in a minute.”

“You think I don’t know how iron works?” the troll spat. “It’s just a bugger to have it ripped away like that!”

“We’ve got more important things to think about now.” He knelt in front of the girl. “These are your people?”

She nodded and pointed. “Lolly” she indicated the younger goblin, “Sketch, and Holda.” She faced Rune. “I’m Tinka.”

“It’s…good to meet you,” Rune said.

“So, you gonna get them out now?”

Rune studied the grate. It reached from floor to ceiling, with a padlock and chain that looked much older than the newfangled lock on the cellar door.

“Let me see that lockpick,” Rune said.

She handed it to Rune and then began to empty her pockets. Lolly reached her hands through the grate to receive her sister’s bounty: treats from the mission, a plastic water bottle, a bus pass, a paper bag of something that jingled like metal striking metal, and finally a fresh pair of little girl’s underwear she’d tucked inside her jacket.

“Holda can use the potty,” Tinka explained. “But she got scared the other night. Had an accident.” Rune spied the portable camping toilet in the corner.

“Stars above,” he muttered.

He tried to insert the jimmy without touching the lock itself, but with little luck. He tucked his hand inside his jacket sleeve, but that just made him clumsy. The iron of the lock grazed his skin, and he pulled his hand away as if he’d been burnt. In that fleeing second, the airy chaos was simply gone—and with it, all his magic. It was excruciating, not physically but psychologically, as if his tether to reality itself had been broken. He moaned and backed away, disoriented.

“Just shake it off,” Janks mocked.

Rune had a thought. “Tinka, you’re young. You have a little magic but not much, right? Could you…?” He offered her the jimmy. She took it and approached the lock. She grimaced when she touched it, but she held on and poked at the keyhole, getting more and more frustrated by the second. At last she turned away. “Jimmy’s too little,” she said. “And the iron’s too cold.”

“Somebody knew what they were doing,” Rune said.

“You ain’t kidding,” Janks said. He’d noticed a wooden bookshelf on the wall. Rune joined him and surveyed the titles on the spines: Grimm’s Fairy Tales he’d heard of, the other titles were new to him, but he could imagine their contents: The Invisible Commonwealth, The Fairy Mythology, and several volumes by someone named Paracelsus. There were old, musty volumes of folklore, alchemy, and Hermetic magic. There were also plastic binders with titles printed in black marker on the spines.

“Rune, heads up,” Janks said.

The elf’s head was still clearing up from the iron, or he’d have heard the car pull up in the driveway. Car doors opened and shut. A male voice shouted, “Marvin!” Then two pairs of feet hurried toward the cellar door.

“Hide,” Rune said. He darted to the lantern and flicked it off. The children in the cage wept and muttered.

Janks was gone in an instant, body shrank and twisted until it was the size and shape of a largish rat. Meanwhile, Tinka scurried into a tight corner behind a stack of plywood propped against a wall.

The cellar door creaked open. Beams of flashlights danced on the walls.

Rune pressed himself against the wall and summoned the airy chaos. Slowly it came to him, and he willed himself to be blanketed in a veil of invisibility. It was something he’d done a thousand times. He’d be safe, even in plain view, as long as he didn’t draw attention to himself.

“It doesn’t look like anybody’s been here,” a voice whispered. They were definitely in the cellar now, moving toward him.

“That don’t explain the door,” the other said. He entered the back section where Rune and Tinka were hiding. He was average height, maybe forty or fifty years old but in good shape. He moved like someone who’d been an athlete in his younger days. He took off his gloves and laid them on the table where the lamp was. He unzipped the front of his jacket and turned on the lamp. He was only a few feet from Rune, but his attention was on the grate.

“Boo!” he shouted. The children shrieked and backed away. The man laughed.

“Henry,” the other man scolded as he came into view. “That’s not going to accomplish anything.” This man—Marvin, apparently—was nearly identical to the first: a little pudgier and wearing glasses, but obviously Henry’s twin.

“Just having a little fun,” Henry said.

“We’re sitting on the greatest discovery in human history,” Marvin retorted. “You can have fun later.” He approached the grate and furrowed his brow. “Deutsch? Können Sie mich verstehen?”

“They ain’t gonna talk,” Henry said. “Even if you do find a language you both speak.”

“How many times do I have to tell you? They don’t have to talk, though that would make it easier. They just have to…be. Long enough for me to get a clear sense of what they are, where they came from.” He strode to the bookcase.

“Where they came from? You was there, same as me.”

“Obviously.”

“You drew that circle on the ground, did that mumbo-jumbo with the mirror and the stick and the barbed wire… damnedest thing I ever saw.”

“And soon….” Marvin stopped in mid-sentence and stood up straight.

“What?”

“Something moved. Over there.” He pointed at the plywood where Tinka was hiding. Their backs were to Rune; he tensed his muscles.

Henry pulled a yellow and black snub-nosed handgun from his pocket. “Who’s there!”

Tinka gasped. Rune heard it, but he wasn’t sure the humans did.

Henry yanked down the plywood, and Tinka bolted. Lolly and the other children screamed. Tinka slipped past Henry, who leveled his weapon at her.

Rune gritted his teeth. Before the mortal could pull the trigger, Rune stepped out of his corner. “Hey!” He lowered into a fighting stance, ready to spring. Henry spun away from Tinka and aimed at Rune.

The children shouted, and then Marvinin shouted and stumbled toward the wall. Tinka had kicked him hard in the shin.

Rune lunged for Henry. Henry fired, and Rune’s whole body spasmed. The sensation was like having a painful leg cramp from head to toe. He fell to the floor, his muscles jerking. He felt the sting of two metal stingers in his belly.

“Where the hell did he come from?” Henry sputtered.

“Just secure him!” Marvin ordered. “We’ll sort it out later, once we’ve found that girl!”

The next thing he knew, iron chains rattled, the gate creaked open, and two pairs of rough hands carried him into the cage.