Page 76 of Blood and Bells

Ronan swings the axe down with the force of a holiday berserker, splintering the first crate into a rain of wood shards and sloshing eggnog. The sickly-sweet smell of alcohol fills the air, so potent it makes my eyes water.

“Say goodbye to Santa’s secret sauce!” he bellows, decimating the stack of crates. Eggnog spills across the icy pavement in a sticky, boozy flood.

Crinkshaw steps back with a grimace, his skeletal frame leaning away from the mess. “Well, that’s going to freeze solid. Congratulations, you’ve made the parking lot undrivable.”

“And uninhabitable,” I mutter, wrinkling my nose.

Ronan pauses, surveying the carnage. “There. Problem solved. Now they’re just regular rogue elves, not liquored-up, supercharged rogue elves.”

Nick surveys the wreckage. “Well done. And now it’s time to get going.”

Nick’s coven begins filing into the truck. The vampires, each looking various degrees of irritated, jostle for space among the scattered crates and some broken Christmas decorations. A few of them exchange muttered complaints about the sticky smell clinging to the air from Ronan’s blitz on the rogue elves’ supply.

Crinkshaw bustles up to Nick, carrying what looks like a perfectly pressed shirt that is, somehow, untouched by the chaos of the night.

“Sire,” he says with an air of theatrical disapproval, “if you’re going to confront a rogue Santa Claus, might I suggest you do so with a modicum of dignity?”

Nick raises an eyebrow as the zombie hands him the shirt. “You think Santa cares about my wardrobe?”

“Perhaps not. I, however, do. Deeply.” Crinkshaw gestures to the rapidly healing cuts on Nick’s still naked chest. “You look like you’ve been mauled by a reindeer. I have standards to uphold.”

Nick snorts but shrugs into the shirt, buttoning it efficiently. “Happy now?”

“Delighted,” Crinkshaw sighs. I’m unsure he’s aware he’s the definition of deadpan. “Sire is now suitably dressed to save Christmas.”

With everyone loaded up, the convoy rumbles onto the snow-covered road. Up front, Ronan is already muttering about babysitting immortals and dealing with eggnog-related disasters.

“I am not trained for this,” he snaps at no one in particular. “There are no manuals. There should be manuals.”

“You’d ignore them,” I say automatically.

“I would improve them,” he shoots back.

Nick doesn’t join in. He’s got his phone pressed to his ear, voice low, trying to get a read on what’s happening at the mansion. I watch his expression instead—jaw tight, shoulders locked, the kind of stillness that means whatever he’s hearing isn’t good.

The call ends.

“Well?” I ask.

“Not good,” he says, which is not helpful and also exactly what I expected.

The car settles into a tense quiet, broken only by the hum of the engine and the steady sweep of the wipers. My hands knot together in my lap before I force them still.

“The snow globe,” I say, aware I can’t not say it. “He’s got the tree.”

Nick glances at me.

“The glitter, the star, the whole…aggressively terrible aesthetic,” I go on. “It’s all in there. Mímir told us—just…badly.”

Nick exhales through his nose. “He does enjoy a riddle.”

“‘Where glitter gathers, snow flurries,’” I mutter. “Which apparently translates to ‘it’s in the snow globe, you absolute idiots.’ I swear, if this whole god thing falls through, he could have a thriving career writing flat-pack furniture instructions.”

Ronan snorts from the front. “That explains a great many things.”

The lights of Willow Creek begin to bleed into view—soft, familiar, stubbornly cheerful. Porch lights blink along Maple and Third. Mr. Patel’s truck idles at the curb, salt spreader already whining to life. Outside the library, carolers huddle under an awning, voices carrying faintly through the glass. The chocolatier’s window fogs like a kettle while fairy lights blink Morse code along Main Street.

For a moment, it almost feels normal.