The Saint (13 page)

He shook his head and changed the subject. “I have begun translating some of the fey gospels. Pennywyse is typing them up. I think you will find them interesting, and perhaps they will give you the starting place you need for your story. But, in the morning. There is no need to think about this any more tonight.” He gave a glance at the clock on the wall. It was late.

“Well, thank God—I mean Gaia—for small miracles, because I think my hamster has had a heart attack and her corpse has jammed the wheel,” Adora mumbled as she realized that she had spent the last several seconds staring at the serpents of candlelight writhing through Kris's hair instead of taking any notes.

Kris raised a brow in enquiry, and she explained: “My brain has stopped. The gears aren't turning. The dynamo is dead. I need sleep.”

“Then sleep you shall have. Let me show you to your room—” Her employer rose politely.

“It's all right,” Adora said, forcing herself to her feet. She swayed slightly. The brandy had definitely been a mistake. She walked carefully to the library door and then turned back. “Kris?” she said.

“Yes?”

“I really am trying to believe you. I . . . I want this project to go well, since it clearly means so much to you. But I'm having some problems. Your story is really . . .
improbable,
” she finally chose.

Kris smiled. “I appreciate that you are willing to try. Please don't worry. In time, everything will make sense to you. And it isn't such a stretch, is it? Why is it any harder to believe my story now than it was to believe in flying reindeer when you were young?”

“I don't know. It just is. Maybe because you look like a man and not Nast's elf.” Adora turned away. “Good night,” she said.

“Good night,” he replied.

She paused once more as an idea struck her. “Kris, I think I have the title for this book.”

“Yes?”

“Santa Claus: The Second Greatest Story Ever Told.”

Kris chuckled. Adora found herself smiling too as she headed for her quarters.

“Sweet imaginings,” Kris called after her. “Dream of me.”

“Like there was ever any doubt,” she muttered softly. Kris likely heard, for he chuckled.

 

And so it came to pass that the Sons of Man divided themselves again, this time the Rich from the Poor. And the Rich climbed into the mountains and built fortresses around their treasures and around their hearts, and became ever more removed from the Source of Love. And in fear of the Celebrants and the Worshipper Poor, whose numbers increased yearly, they made more weapons for their armies and began to hide the sacred rituals and words. Soon the Poor could only talk to Divinity with payment to the Rich, which payment they were made to offer inside special houses of worship open only on certain days.

Saddened by their cruelty and ignorance, still Niklas did go among the Sons of Man, rich and poor alike, and he did more good works amongst them.

—
Niklas 4:7

There was a low fire in the hearth, and a few patches of cobwebbed light thrown out by the odd lantern. Planks had been laid over the hard-packed earth of the tavern's ancient floor, but other than that, the building was the same as in the year it was rebuilt after the Great Fire, right down to the ale and bitter cider stored in the blackened barrels that had been old even when Charles II brought Christmas back to England.

Few of the hard-faced laborers that patronized the establishment could read or write, but they would still recognize the name Charles Dickens, so the two men kept their voices low.

“Charlie, the pen is mightier than the sword, as we both know. But I need something mightier still this time. I need a hammer to strike at the new world—and you're going to craft it for me.”

The bedroom was more than generous, and elegant, decked out in its silk and brocade. The bed was raised and had to be approached with a
prie-dieu
that was carved out of cheery warm wood.

Stepping into the bathroom, Adora sighed ecstatically. It was all marble, every last bit. There was a gigantic shower, but also a large tub deep enough to offcially qualify as decadent. Reaching out, she plucked one of the bath towels off the rack and brought it to her face. She rubbed the cottony velvet, allowing herself to feel spoiled for the first in a very long while.

Turning, she walked unsteadily into the small alcove on the right. Two works of porcelain perched on marble steps seemed too pretty to be called anything as mundane as
toilet
or
bidet,
yet that was clearly their intended function. And she was going to get to leave her toothbrush and comb on the counter of this art-deco palace? They'd never been so honored. The rest of her ablutions would have to wait for morning; she was just too tired to cope with the little jars and bottles that were supposed to preserve her youth and protect her from sunburn and wrinkles.

Exhausted, weary to the bones, Adora treated herself to a hot shower and then sought out the comfort of her bed. Her last thoughts were about Kris—if that was even his name.

Who was he really? she wondered sleepily. Mr. Bishop S. Nicholas? Kris Kringle? Niklas? Until she had a name—a real one—she could hardly do any research on her own.

Should she ask for a birth certificate? No, that wouldn't work. He'd just say they didn't have them ten thousand years ago. So what about a driver's license? He must have one of those. Or at least some form of ID. Who did the IRS think he was? Surely he didn't pay taxes under the name of Santa Claus! She'd seen one of his old cards in the file folder. The yellowed card stock actually said:

S. CLAUS
PURVEYOR OF TOYS

Like he couldn't get ID to be the Easter Bunny if he bribed the right people,
Joy sneered.
Hell, he could have had his name legally changed to anything.

Damn it.
Adora sighed. She just wanted to know his real name. There was a certain power in that. And how could she ever get a handle on him if she didn't know who or what he was?

Just as she was drifting off, lines from an old poem, “The Glory Hand,” came into her head:

And the North Wind howled,

And the shadow prowled,

And the Lightning did claw and bite;

And they huddled together

As they hid from the weather,

On that terrible Beltane night.

Yeah, it's almost May Day,
Joy said. She didn't sound happy, but Adora couldn't imagine why.

Kris stood in the doorway, watching Adora sleep. He felt guilt for having gotten her drunk and using his truth-magic on her while they were talking, but he sensed that there were many hidden layers to this woman, and that it was important to know the facts about her. Was she the one the Goddess had predicted would come into his life? Certainly she'd come from the west.

Adora Navarra. She had an inexpressible delicacy that hinted she was at least part fey. But how to tell her this? She identified herself so completely as human. She could barely allow for the possibility that he was fey; would she ever be able to accept that she herself was of mixed blood? Even if she eventually accepted, the cultural collision could be messy, and she really didn't need any further pain.

Adora's description of her last brief affair had at first made Kris suspect that she'd been fey-struck by another oblivious half-breed. But the longer she spoke, the more he'd come to understand that all the compulsions moving her were strictly internal and uninfluenced by magic.

Which was something of a relief. The fey-struck rarely recovered from the experience.

He felt for her, though. A child of mixed fey parents who didn't realize what they were and who had therefore given in completely to the attraction of a magical mating would be very lonely indeed.

Unchecked, the attraction between fey mates— especially between certain kinds of feys—would slowly exclude everything and everyone, even a child of that union. Not necessarily selfish people, like Narcissus they would become obsessed, so taken by the object of their affection that there would be no room for anything else. A few feys, away from their
shians
—their underground homes, their magical centers—had starved to death. They had made love incessantly, going without food or water until they finally died.

That wouldn't happen to Adora, though. He had found her. He could protect her from such a needless waste, eventually inform her and warn her of the truth.

Kris knew it was a bit voyeuristic, but he enjoyed watching her sleep. Adora lay like a child, or maybe a pill bug, rolled up in a ball, hands pressed together in prayer position and tucked under one cheek. She looked innocent—angelic, even. How very misleading. He was an excellent judge of character, and though he could see great kindness in her, there was mischief in equal measure. Which was to be expected in one of Seelie blood.

Kris doubted that Adora was aware of it, but something—probably her parents' steady application of indifference to her existence—had given her a little-girl-lost air that remained with her even in the rare moments when she smiled and laughed. Combined with her startling thinness and the soft murmurs of her emerging fey nature that rose from her like perfume, it made her almost irresistible to him. He wanted to protect her, to slay dragons for her—at least, metaphorical ones; he had nothing against the flesh-and-blood creatures.

He wanted to do a few less noble things as well.

Which was a very bad idea. It was, as his English friends were wont to say, a bit of a sticky wicket, because he was not—
really
not—cut out for the role of a lover.

Despite his unsuitability to the role, he wasn't blind to her reaction to him. He hadn't forgotten what often happened between death feys and certain other magical beings—sirens, especially—and he could see that she felt the same attraction that pulled at him. She was resisting it with all her unconscious might, which helped, but it was hard for both of them, and getting more difficult with every passing hour. He was almost certain that it was Gaia, again at work in the form of the Goddess, gathering up her lost lambs before the storm and mating them like the creatures on Noah's ark so that Her fey would survive.

He wished he knew for certain if this was Her will. She wasn't talking right now, though. Perhaps he was too far from the shian. Still, there was a way to test his theory if he really wanted to know. One kiss would do.

But . . . no. It was probably too soon in their relationship to suggest such an intimacy to Adora, and he didn't dare risk a permanent bond forming between them before she understood and believed what they both were; there was too much danger that such a relationship could entail. He had turned away from romantic love and hope of a mate when he had turned away from his magic and his people. For death fey, the two were often bound together. He'd had to let his magic go if he was to live among the warring tribes of Men and not be seduced into killing. But magic didn't die simply because he denied it. Left alone, its need grew ever stronger. It was reasonable to assume that his need for love— for a permanent bond with another of his kind— had grown too.

But to love one such as he was to willingly embrace death, and Kris could see that there was something in Adora terrified of her mortality and unwilling to trust anyone. No, it would be a long time before he heard the words that Adora needed to speak to make their union possible:
Eat my heart. Drink my soul. Love me to death
.

Kris closed his eyes as yearning washed over him. It had been so long since he'd heard anyone say those words. His dusty memory of love was buried under a sort of cataclysmic ash hangover at least as thick as what covered poor Pompeii. But his memory wasn't dead like that city, wasn't yet petrified. He'd thought he'd given up on the idea of a wife long ago, that he'd put all thought of romance from his mind. But something about Adora Navarra made the old longings struggle against the suffocating darkness and try to dig their way out of his partially voluntary amnesia.

Making a small sound that might have been a sigh, he turned from temptation. The Goddess would have to wait. He had a previous commitment, one that was ten thousand years in the making.

The seas he traveled were never calm, but this was likely to prove the most turbulent yet. He would have to be careful from here on out. His dark dreams of unanswered love could call storms, and the part of Adora that was magical would answer with lures of her own. They
both
had to be careful.

Unless . . .

Kris decided spontaneously—which was the way he decided almost everything—that it would be wise to take Adora to Cadalach. The mound would know if she was fey, and it could help her adapt if she was disturbed by the news.

At the end of next week, after they visited San Francisco.