Dylan leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees.
“Am I one of them? A Kallikantzaroi?” He got it right this time. He’d had time to practice.
This time the not-so-old man fumbled his brush stroke in surprise. He set the toy down and wiped his hands on his apron as he looked at Dylan.
“Why would you—” he started to ask, then grimaced. He wiped the blue off his lip onto his thumb. “I suppose I can see your reasoning…but no. You’re not one of them—not that there would be anything wrong with that if you were. You’re my grandson, Dylan, from the unbroken Line of Nick. Although I never wanted you to be part of that world.”
“Why not?”
That wasn’t one of the questions that Dylan had planned. It was the question of the little boy who’d woken up on Christmas Day to an empty house and a social worker at the door. Why had they all left him behind?
His grandfather made a disgusted noise in his throat as he turned around to get a bottle of turps and a rag from the shelf. He soaked the rag and carefully started to wipe the paint off the toy.
“The Line of Nick has spoiled,” he said. “The Saint-born are rapacious, power-hungry, and selfish. All they care about is pleasure and self-indulgence. I didn’t want that for you.”
“You thought foster care was better?”
“Kinder, no,” his grandfather said. “But you put your life at risk to rescue your friend. Do you think any of them would do that? I don’t. I don’t think any of them would put their heart first in their questions either. Ask me what youneedto, Dylan, not what you want to.”
They looked at each other in silence. Dylan finally got up and walked over to lean on the glass counter. Up close his grandfather looked more like the spry sixty-year-old, with deep wrinkles and thinning hair at his temples.
“Why did you make me Santa when you did so much to keep me away?” he asked.
His grandfather clucked his tongue. “That’s still want,” he said. “But I didn’t. The plan was never to burden you in my place, it was to destroy the institution. I staged an attack and sent Gull with a decoy watch to Skellir, knowing he would try and save Yule. He was meant to fail, and this—” He reached over and tapped a wet finger against the watch face. “—would just have been a memento from the family you'd lost. More family than you ever knew.”
Dylan closed his eyes. The smell of turps was sickly as he breathed it in.
“I fucked that up,” he said.
His grandfather grinned. For the first time Dylan could see Santa in him, the way his eyes twinkled and dimples grooved into creased cheeks.
“Christmas isn’t so easy to derail,” he said. “But you live and you learn, and you try again. Last chance, Dylan. Ask me what you need.”
The temptation not to, just to annoy him, was strong. His grandfather was right though, Dylan needed to know.
“Why?” he said.
And there was the old man. He set the toy down and leaned over the counter. His hands were dry and warm as they cupped over Dylan’s.
“Because they killed my son,” he said. “Someone found out I’d polluted the Line of Nick with a monster bride, and they killed your father to clean it up. That’s the other reason I had to send you away. To keep you safe.”
Of course. Dylan pulled his hands out from under his grandfather’s. It couldn’t just be that his grandfather had wanted to defraud an insurance company or something. No. It had to be something that would throw Dylan’s life, weird as it was, for a loop.
“I assume that if I come back here on Christmas Day…”
“I’ll be gone,” his grandfather confirmed. That twinkly smile came back. “All of us will who matter. I might not be Santa anymore, but I have a few tricks.”
Dylan nodded and turned to leave. The bells over the door chimed cheerfully as he unlocked it and pulled it open.
“What are you going to do now?” his grandfather asked.
Dylan paused on the threshold. “You should visit grandmother,” he said instead ofanswering. “She misses you.”
Andthatmight keep him out of trouble until next year. Dylan stepped outside and let the door close behind him. Despite Krampus’s concern, the Sleigh was just where he’d left it. Dylan climbed up onto the bench seat and gathered up the reins.
“One more stop,” he told the reindeer.
The wolves were injured—inasmuch as they understood that—and worn. They still ran. That’s what wolves did. Rough paws scraped over the dirt track as they followed the smell of the rat-queen who’d double-crossed them up the mountain.
