 
The Unlikely Adventures of Race & Cookie McCloud

Holiday Special: Race & Cookie (sort of) Save Christmas

By Tom Hoefner

Cover Art by Kev Gillespie

Text copyright © Tom Hoefner 2016

All Rights Reserved

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
_Table of Contents_

Chapter 1: Elf Off the Shelf

Chapter 2: An Escaped Clause

Chapter 3: Ponies Are Delicious

Chapter 1, 2, 3, 4: I Declare a Christmas War

Chapter 5: Just Send Cash (Tens & Twenties)

About the Author

For all the back-up Santa Clauses out there, doing Santa's work year in and year out for people they love and people they don't even know.
Chapter 1: Elf Off the Shelf

"Chestnuts roasting on an open fire... Jack Frost nipping at your nose... Yuletide thongs being burnt in a tire... and elk dressed up like dominoes....

Why, hello! I didn't see you there! I do so love Christmas carols, but I can never remember the words. So this time I wrote a few down, from memory. Admittedly, that one isn't one of my favorites. It's silly.

But why am I in the Christmas mood, you ask? Well, it has everything to do with Race and Cookie McCloud's latest case. It has been a few event-filled months since their initial partnering, and tonight they find themselves visited by a peculiar new client who has offered them a peculiar new case, a mysterious case, but a case that, as you will soon see, would rouse all but the most jaded of us with the festive holiday spirit.

As it turns out, Cookie McCloud IS the most jaded of us. In spite of this new client of McCloud & McCloud Investigations she is neither festive nor spirited. Discuss!

Good King William Pence in town, on the beast of Steven... eating grapes and selling figs...

I should probably look some of these lyrics up."

*

Race McCloud held on tightly to the side of the little red sleigh as it hurtled through the night sky. In the cold blue water below ice floes were starting to drift into view, a clear indication that they were heading further and further north. "Are you sure this is safe?" he yelled to their driver for about the forty-second time.

The little man in the green pointed hat, the one who had introduced himself back in the offices of McCloud & McCloud Investigations as 'Yule' while barely being able to look over Race's desk, glanced back over his shoulder at Race, keeping his hand on the reins and one eye on the pair of flying reindeer pulling the sleigh through the air. "I told you, detective!" he answered against the wind, his high-pitched voice cutting through to the back seat. "The magic of the sleigh will keep you in your seat!"

The iron runner attached to the bottom of the sleigh brushed against a puffy cloud, one of the few scattered on this otherwise crystalline night, spraying white cumulus in every direction and causing the sleigh to buck up a few feet, bumping Race off of the cushioned bench. "I don't feel like it's keeping me in my seat!" he called up front again.

"Would you calm down already, Uncle Race?" Cookie sat beside to him, her legs crossed at the ankles and her feet swinging back and forth underneath the bench, her gloved hands resting casually on the seat next to her. "This is probably the safest and fastest form of travel in the world. Nobody falls out of one of Santa's sleighs, not even one of these smaller back-up ones. Well, almost no one falls out," she amended. "Strange things happen to the naughty-listers sometimes." Race nodded and checked his head for his hat. It was still there, which was magical in and of itself considering the speed at which they were traveling. Cookie continued: "You won't fall out, you won't feel the cold or the wind, and time slows down... well, actually, it speeds up. It's hard to explain. Quantum mechanics. Hey!" The elf up front turned back to them. "How much longer until we hit the Pole?"

"Just a few minutes more!" Yule called back in a voice like tinkling bells.

"A few minutes?" Race asked, almost shouting to be heard. "But we just left! How could it be..." He stopped, though, and looked around. It was snowing now, but this wasn't normal snow. Snow flakes from one to six inches in diameter, a rare few almost a foot wide, fell slowly around them, twisting and pirouetting gracefully in the wind. Race dared a peek over the edge of the sleigh and saw that they were now zipping over a landscape of snowy peaks and valleys and beautiful frozen lakes and evergreen forests; many of the trees slipping quietly past them were decorated with brightly colored lights and fancy baubles and ornaments. "I don't understand!" Race said, looking back to Cookie with eyes wide as the snowflakes falling past them. "We just left Westside City!"

Cookie shook her head. "Magic. You can't explain it, but there it is." She scowled. "You have no idea how much I hate magic."

Race nodded. "Yeah, I do. You've said. Besides, I'd totally I'd peg you for a magic hater. But it's keeping us in the air right now, so..."

"... so I won't say it too loudly. I got it, don't worry."

The sleigh descended quickly as the pair of reindeer up front dove through the swirling snow. Race squinted into the wind and whipping white flakes: the trees of the forest below were opening up for them and the reindeer were leading the sleigh down to a long straight expanse of snowy white. As they drew closer to the ground, bright colored lights arranged in two long parallel lines burst to life, lining the narrow snowy strip in brilliant Technicolor, and Race realized that the big red sleigh was going to touch down on the world's most festive runway.

Race and Cookie both gripped tightly to the bench, but to no avail; they were still jolted up and out of their seats as the sleigh smacked tarmac (Narrator's Note: "Or perhaps it's called snowmac up here. Get it? Snow? Tar? Get it?... I'm sorry, that was terrible. I'm not feeling well today. A bit of a cold. I'll shake it. Let's go on!") "So sorry, so sorry," Yule cried out as he pulled back hard on the reins, slowing the reindeer down to a trot. "I'm not very good at this, I'm afraid. Santa does most of the flying."

The sleigh glided smoothly to a stop and two elves wearing big goggles and bulky leather gloves rushed out towards them, coming from a single-level wood building at the far end of the runway that had big gold-lined doors situated alongside a smaller stable entrance. "That's where the reindeer sleep," Yule told them, pointing to the stable, "and it's where we keep the sleigh. They mostly roam free during the day, though. Er... the reindeer do, I mean. Like Jangle and Silver here."

'Jangle and Silver?" Race asked, running through 'Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer' in his mind. He couldn't remember any deer named Jangle or Silver.

"They're part of the 'B'-team," Cookie explained.

"How do you know that?" Race asked her.

"I did a term paper on flying reindeer back when I was still at Perfect Academy."

"Of course you did."

The two handlers had grasped hold of the reindeer's bridles and were now guiding the sleigh slowly towards the stable. Race peered at two elves, trying hard not to look like he was staring. Like Yule, they were clad entirely in green and red with trimming of brown leather and gold and silver doo-dads. They wore big brown boots with pointed toes, and big heavy coats with white stuffing sticking out of the sleeves and colors. Race could see close-up that, again like Yule, all the clothes appeared to be hand-stitched, with the stitching always in red on the green fabric and always in green on the red fabric.

The sleigh pulled to a halt and its passengers hopped out. Race and Cookie immediately sank ankle-deep into the pristine snow but Yule stepped right onto the surface of it, the pristine newness remaining unbroken by his stride. "You could have told us to bring boots, you know," Cookie said to their guide.

Yule gasped when he looked down and saw Race and Cookie knee-deep in the snow. "So sorry, detectives, so sorry. But quickly, quickly!" He hustled Cookie along to a cleaner path that led off of the runway, winding towards a road lying alongside the airstrip. Race was left to wade through the snow for himself. "Quickly, quickly, down the path and to the cart. I wouldn't want you to catch a chill."

It wasn't until he said this that Race noticed his teeth chattering violently together. He looked at Cookie quizzically. "We're out of the sleigh," she reminded him through her own chatter. "This is the arctic north, after all."

Cookie hunkered down in her winter coat and Race pulled his long black one closer to his chest as he pushed his hat further down onto his head. They hurried down the path after Yule and through the gateway in the fence that defined the boundaries of the airstrip. A carved wooden sign arching over their heads as they passed through the gate read 'Reindeer Runway' in a rustic burnt-in script.

Yule guided them to another sleigh on the road, this one much smaller, about the size of a (very) compact car and made entirely of brass and wood. "Inside, quickly!" he said, ushering them into the rear two seats of the vehicle.

As soon as Race and Cookie stepped into the open-air sleigh the overwhelming warmth provided by the same spell used in the flying sleigh washed over them. Yule hurried to the front of the sleigh, where there were no reindeer or horses but instead a large brass key sticking out of the grille. The little elf had to stretch his arms wide to grasp the bow of the key in two hands, and then began turning it in big grinding circles. After ten or twelve turns he stopped, and beneath their seats they felt a mechanism tick to life as the whole sleigh began sputtering in place.

Yule jumped into the front seat of the sleigh and grasped hold of a tiny golden steering wheel. As soon as he did the little motorized sleigh zipped off, puttering down the snowy wooded road at a brisk pace, leaving Reindeer Runway far behind them.

Cookie leaned forward to talk into Yule's ear. "You want to tell us what's going on yet?"

The elf shook his head but didn't look back at them. "Not until we get to the workshop! I can't, sorry, sorry!"

"Great," Cookie muttered as she sat back in her seat.

"Hey, c'mon, don't be a Grinch!" Race said cheerfully. He knew his niece and knew how she was, but even she couldn't be grumpy in a place like this. Could she? "We're going to Santa's Workshop! How ridiculously awesome is that?"

But Cookie just gave an off-handed wave. "Been there, done that. They bring all the first years at Perfect Academy here. Supposed to impress us, or something. It's the only safe hotspot we can be brought to. What a snoozefest."

Race shook his head. "And a 'ho, ho, ho' to you, too."

They fell back into silence, Cookie glaring off into the trees zipping past them and Race going over the events of the last hour in his mind. It had been a quiet day in Westside City, and he and Cookie had just been about to shut down the office for the night when this miniature man in thick round glasses came rushing in, breathing heavy and mopping the sweat off of his brow. "So sorry, so sorry, but it's awfully hot down this far south!" he had said as he lifted up his hat and plastered his curly brown hair back down, the tips of his pointed ears glowing bright red.

Race was thoroughly stupefied to come face-to-face with someone claiming to be not only one of Santa's elves but the elf that was second-in-command at the North Pole, but Cookie, as usual, had been fairly nonplussed by it. "Project Perfect has a long-standing arrangement to run interference for Santa each year on Christmas Eve," she had explained to Race as they followed Yule up to the roof of the building on the corner of Williams and Jake that housed both their office and their home, Cookie pulling on a pink puffy winter coat and gloves as they climbed, Race putting a long black coat over his signature black jacket, white shirt, and blue tie. Also, mittens. "They've been covertly keeping the path clear for him ever since the near-tragic blimp fiasco of 1973."

"What happened with a blimp in 1973?"

"Don't ask," Cookie and Yule had both said to him.

The jittery little elf had insisted they both hop into the magical sleigh he had parked on the roof of their building, but refused to tell them why he needed them to come along. "Top secret!" he had squeaked when Cookie pressed him for details. "Top secret! Santa needs your help! Quickly, quickly!" So they had piled into the sleigh and taken off, the two reindeer leaping up into the sky and carrying them here to the North Pole.

"Here we are!" Yule chirped from the front seat of the their wind-up snowmobile. He cut around a corner and underneath an ornate bronze gate into a holiday wonderland of color and cheer that dropped Race's jaw to the floor. There were gumdrop colored buildings of all shapes and sizes, each festooned with twinkling lights and topped with glittering snow, and sidewalks of what seemed to be gingerbread lined the white powdery roadway along which they glided. Garland was strung from house to house and wreaths hung upon each door, while candy canes big and small stood planted in the snowy ground as light posts, sign posts, and decorative accents. Happy holiday music danced 'round their heads and the smell of baked treats filled the air. Elf mothers and fathers and their elf children filled the streets, waving to them as they passed, playing games and shopping and dancing and tra-la-la-ing as they went. The snow still fell around them, gentler now than it had in the woods, and smaller, and everyone wore big jackets of varying shades of red and green that looked comfortably warm enough to melt right into.

Race's eyes grew bigger and his smile grew wider as he craned his neck trying to look every which way at once. "Cookie, look!" he said. "This place is amazing! Look at these shops!" Each building was a wonder of design, bursting with activity and magic, the functional parts of each shop and factory practically exploding out of their structures. He began reading off the ones that most caught his eye as they passed them, trying to keep up with the multi-colored scenery as it whipped past them. "Ellie's Gingerbread Shop! The Peanut Brittle Workshop! Hot Cocoa Works! Fake Trees 'R Here! Yummy Gummy Bear Bakers! Reindeer Flight School!" He looked to Yule. "Reindeer need to learn how to fly?"

Yule steered them past a place called Starshine Dance Club, from which boisterous and lively music was emanating. "Well, you haven't ever seen a flying reindeer outside of the North Pole, now have you?"

"Fair enough. Oooo, look, the Candy Cane Cobbler! I love Candy Canes, don't you, Cook?"

"Bah," said Cookie, glancing disinterestedly in the direction her uncle was pointing. "Humbug."

Race rolled his eyes. "Oh, look, there's a place called the North Pole Cookie Exchange. Think we can trade you in?"

"You and puns, such a horrid combination."

The wind-up snowmobile took a right and started down a road that wound round and round a large hill at the far end of town. After three or four times around, the road leveled out and they pulled up to a large gated mansion at the top of the hill that was painted red and green with golden windows and doors. Race didn't need a sign to tell him what this was. "Santa's Workshop?" he asked in a hushed whisper as Yule the Elf slowed their ride down to a halt.

"Workshop and residence," the elf said, hopping out of the car. "Quickly, quickly! Inside!"

He scurried off, and Race and Cookie jumped out of the clockwork sled and hurried after him, heading towards the main gate of the workshop. As they approached, Race saw the first sign of anything un-jolly he had encountered here in Santa Land: the compound was blocked off with red and green barrier tape. Yule, though, ducked right under the tape and kept on towards the workshop. As Race and Cookie followed suit, Race noted the writing on the tape: "DO NOT CROSS - DEPT. 66 - CRIME SCENE - MERRY CHRISTMAS!"

How jolly.

They were trying to catch up with Yule as he headed towards the stone and wood building when...

"HEEEEEYAH!"

A tiny tornado in dark green plowed into Race from the side, knocking him down and into the snow. "Don't move!" came a high-pitched voice as the barrel of a gun was pressed against Race's head. "Don't move or I'll UGGGH!"

"Don't move or you'll UGGGH?" Race asked, lifting his head. "That doesn't make any sen-- Oh, I see you've met Cookie." She had reacted to the assault on her uncle as Race would have expected her to, and after a quick takedown she now had his assailant trapped face-down on the ground. It was another elf, his arm locked in an arm bar as he kicked his legs wildly, Cookie's knee buried in his back and his weapon a few feet away and half-buried in the snow.

"Ms. McCloud, please, no!" Yule cried, hurrying forward to shoo Cookie off of the struggling elf trapped under her knee. "Not the commander! So sorry, commander, so sorry!"

Cookie got to her feet, eying the little solider suspiciously as Yule helped him up. The commander was wearing green, but his was of a much darker hue and was not interspersed with stitching or patches of red. Just dark, solid green, from his boots to his gloves to his... bowler hat? Yes, that's what he was picking up out of the snow, dusting if off as he grumbled. A bowler hat. "These the humans, Log?" he said to Yule. "I told you we didn't need 'em. They're already causing trouble."

"So sorry, commander," Yule quickly repeated. "So sorry." He turned to Race and Cookie and jumped to introductions without explaining why this new elf had called him 'Log'. "Detectives, I'd like to introduce you to Commander Tinsel of Department 66, the security force of the North Pole. Commander, Detectives Race and Cookie McCloud, formerly of Project Perfect. They can help," Yule added eagerly, almost pleadingly. "Honest they can!"

Commander Tinsel took several steps closer to Race and Cookie. Race tried very hard not to giggle at the contrast of his stubbly face and clenched jaw cast against his bright red cheeks and the playful twinkle in his eyes. He was almost successful. "What are you laughing at, detective?" chirped the commander.

"Nothing, nothing. Just thought of a funny joke."

"Oh, really?"

"Nah, that's a lie. I can never think of funny jokes."

"Could someone tell us why we're here?" Cookie demanded. "We're about to turn around and go home."

"Go then," Commander Tinsel said stiffly. "Have a good walk back."

But Yule tugged on the commander's sleeve. "Please, commander. They've come all this way. And Santa needs their help."

The commander grunted; clearly he didn't much care if Race and Cookie had come from Mars, but he acquiesced with a shrug. "Santa. Right. Follow me." He turned and headed for the big wooden double doors at the front of Santa's Workshop. Race, Cookie, and Yule had to hurry to keep up; for a man with tiny, tiny legs, the commander's pace was parade-ground swift. "I suppose Log here brought you up to speed about our little dilemma."

"No, actually, he hasn't," Cookie replied.

The commander nodded approvingly, though under the brim of his bowler his face kept right on scowling. "Good, Log, good. Finally followed some procedure."

"Why do you keep calling him 'Log'?" Race asked as they climbed up a short stone staircase to the front door. "Isn't his name Yule?"

The commander stopped in front of the doorway, turning to a blushing Yule. "Didn't tell them, huh? Can't say I much blame you. Every elf is named something Christmasy," the commander explained to Race and Cookie. "But no two elves are allowed to have the same name. Since we tend to live a long time that sometimes leads to some unfortunate handles popping up."

"What's wrong with 'Yule' as a name?" Cookie asked.

The commander shook his head. "Nah, there's already a 'Yule'. Works in the popcorn mines. This boy's full name is 'Yule Log'. See? Unfortunate."

Race and Cookie turned to their guide, who looked very much like he'd like to disappear straight into the ground. "Yule Log?" asked Race. "That thing they show on TV every Christmas, where they play holiday music over the looping image of a single log burning in a fireplace?" Yule Log nodded miserably. Race grinned. "Dude... that's awesome! No, seriously!"

"I think you and I are going to have to have a conversation about what the word 'awesome' means, because clearly you have no idea," Cookie said to Race. "Can we go inside now?"

"Follow me."

Commander Tinsel pushed open the door and marched in, Yule (Log) and Race and Cookie following. Race and Cookie came to a dead stop in the middle of the main foyer. "This," Race said, eyes alight with wonder and a severe case of the cozies marching up and down his body, "just may be the most warmy fuzzy place I've ever been in my whole entire life."

"It's neat," Cookie agreed in her usual understated fashion.

Their eyes went first to a roaring fireplace of red brick situated in the far wall, at least twenty feet across and eight feet high, being stoked and coddled by no fewer than eight-hundred elves, but probably more like five. (Narrator's Note: Race has mathematical dyslexia. Not so good with the counting and things.) The rest of the room was done up in finished oak: oak ceilings and walls, oak furniture, oak everything, two oak staircases wrapping along either side of the two-story octagonal room design that both led to a landing, upon which sat a pair of oaken doors in a frame of carved wooden snowflakes and candy canes, the former swirling and whirling around the latter in everlasting relief. The room was carpeted in deep shag of a thick, lush red, the furniture was all upholstered in soft green velvet, and there were three smaller doors at the back of and on either side of the room. The smells of roasted food goodness filled the air, and upon closer inspection Race saw that two of the elves tending to the fireplace were actually roasting chestnuts over the flames in wire frame cages. "Hey, chestnuts roasting!" said Race. "They actually DO that?!"

"You've never had them, human?" barked Commander Tinsel. "They're SCRUMPTIOUS! What's wrong with you?!"

"This is the main foyer," Yule Log explained. "Through here is the Claus residence. East wing, west wing, south wing." He pointed to the three other ground-floor doors in turn. "No north wing because, well, this IS the North Pole. Santa always says a 'North' wing would be redundant. One of the little jokes he likes to make."

"He should stick to making toys," said Cookie. She pointed to the ornate door at the top of the twin staircases. "What's through there?"

"The scene of the crime," said Commander Tinsel, starting up the stairs on the left. "Let's go."

"It's actually just the elevator down to the workshop," Yule Log said to Race and Cookie as they climbed after the Commander. "Commander Tinsel sometimes enjoys talking as though he were on one of those police dramas that are so popular on the television."

"I love television," said Race. "Should I tell him that? Maybe he and I would get along better."

"DOWN to the workshop?" Cookie asked.

Yule Log nodded. "It's underground. It is very massive, VERY massive, as you'd expect."

They reached the top of the steps and Tinsel already had the elevator waiting. The elevator was a roomy wooden box illuminated by hundreds of tiny red and green lights, big enough for maybe six regular-sized people, or twelve elves. "I like the lights," Race said as he, Cookie, and Yule Log stepped on the elevator. "Very Christmasy."

"Really?" Tinsel said as he pushed a button marked with a big 'W' and the doors closed. "Because they give me a splitting headache. Humbug to 'em."

"I think I'm the one who's going to get along with him," Cookie said to Race.

The elevator descended swiftly, and after a few moments slowed to a stop. The doors opened with the sound of jingling bells, and Race and Cookie followed the two elves off of the elevator, and all of a sudden they found themselves in the middle of... how to describe it? Ah. If a room could be made entirely of the giddy feeling of joyous controlled chaos that comes from knocking over one million brightly colored dominos in a perfect chain, it would be the room into which Race and Cookie had just entered.

They stood on a raised platform overlooking the hustle and bustle of Santa's factory floor. Machines and gears cranked and turned as toys of all shapes and sizes moved along conveyor belts and down slides and up and over big spinning wheels, picked up and carried by factory cranes from one workstation to the next. Elves and elves and more elves were bustling away, hammering and screwdrivering and painting and sewing and soldering and whistling Christmas music. On the far side of the room, to their left, were rows and rows of high-definition computer monitors, at which elves tapped on keys, clicked on mice, and swiped the screens of touch-sensitive tablets. "Wow," Race said. "This is amazing. Wait..." He leaned forward, listening more intently to the music in the air. "Is every elf here singing the same song?"

"In perfect six-part harmony," Yule Log said proudly.

Cookie, her extra-sensitive hearing under holiday assault, held her hands tightly to her ears. "This is grounds for an aural disembodiment of the entire area, you know that?"

"What's 'aural disembodiment'?" Race asked, snapping his fingers to the elven beat.

"You don't want to know."

"This way, this way!" Yule Log hurried them to a spiral iron staircase that led them down to the factory floor. As they hurried among the workers, the rest of the elves didn't seem to know how best to react to the party: most of them saluted the commander and nodded to Yule Log, but they stared openly at Race and Cookie, nervously whispering to each other after the group had passed. "They aren't used to humans being here," Yule Log explained apologetically. "Please, please don't take their stares personally!"

"People whispering and pointing? Why would we take that personally?" Cookie muttered to Race as they crossed the factory floor. They walked around a large vat of something pink and rubbery that smelled like bubble gum (probably because it WAS bubble gum) and headed towards a door set into the far back wall of the factory floor, when...

"Yule Log!" A middle-aged elven woman in horn-rimmed glasses and neatly pulled-back hair of a shocking red ran over to them, carrying in one fist a large pile of papers. "Yule Log, what on two poles is going on around here? Why is Deptartment 66 puttering all over the factory?"

"Why don't you ask me, Turtledove?" snapped the commander before Yule Log could reply.

"Yes, well, commander, I would have, but \--"

"But I already told ya, it's a training exercise, that's all!"

Turtledove frowned and put her free hand on her hip. "Some training exercise. Santa's office sealed off, and now we've got HUMANS down here?"

"They're tourists!" Yule Log squealed, and not even Race was convinced. "Only tourists!"

"Nice cover," said Cookie out of the corner of her mouth.

"Where's Santa?" demanded Turtledove. Other elves had begun to take notice of the confrontation, slowing down their work and singing a little more quietly as they eavesdropped.

Commander Tinsel answered before Yule Log had a chance to make things worse. "In the office. You're right, Turtledove, this isn't a training exercise. There's been a breach of security. The formula for a new line of modeling clay has been stolen and Department 66 is investigating."

"Modeling clay?" Cookie asked, and there was no hiding the disgust in her voice. "THAT'S why you brought us here? Modeling clay?"

Tinsel nodded. "That's why we brought you here." He turned back to Turtledove. "Santa and I are looking over some improvements to the infrastructure so that it won't happen again."

"Fine," said Turtledove, although the frown on her face suggested that she didn't REALLY think that Tinsel's explanation was 'fine'. She again waved in the air her stack of papers. "But Santa needs to sign these forms in triplicate or they will not get sent out and they needed to have gone down south yesterday. Or does Santa WANT the children of Norway to go present-less this year? Also, we've got a jam on bear stuffer number eight. Someone threw in some fifty-fifty cotton-poly blend instead of the seventy-thirty." Turtledove looked over the rim of her glasses at Race. "You'd think nobody cared about quality anymore. I apologize, humans. You're not seeing us at our best." She turned back to Yule Log. "See that Santa addresses these issues ASAP, please."

"That woman's a pain," muttered Commander Tinsel as Turtledove headed off, nose high. "Hell of an office manager, though. All clear, let's get inside." The Commander opened the door, one which Race just then noticed was labled, 'S.CLAUSE: PROPRIETER', and all four of them entered Santa's office.

The first detail that popped out to Race's keen deductive mind was the giant, eight-foot wide hole blasted int0 the back wall of the office, right behind Santa's big wooden desk, which was covered in gingerbread and peppermint bark and cheese platters and sausage and paperwork. Through the giant hole, which was taped off with more Department 66 crime-scene tape, was a tunnel carved through the earth that headed off into darkness, sloping downwards as it went. At work in the office were six more elves dressed in the same dark green as Commander Tinsel, but rather than his dark green bowler hat they all wore dark green berets perched upon their heads. The elves were taking measurements of the hole and photographs of the hole and wearing headphones as they pointed long shotgun microphones down the hole and looked at readouts on little handheld computers they were sweeping around the hole. In other words: they were really, really focused on the hole.

The next thing after the giant hole that Race couldn't help but notice was the complete lack of Santa Claus anywhere in the office.

"All right," Commander Tinsel said, turning to Race and Cookie. Yule Log had grown very pale and was wringing his hands. "I lied about the modeling clay. We didn't want a full-blown riot of elves on our hands. Santa Claus is missing. We need you two to help find hm."

Race stared at the little man in disbelief. He turned to Cookie who, just as he had expected, could not have looked more pleased. "Modeling clay," she said, grinning as she shrugged off her coat. "I knew they were lying. This is more like it."
Chapter 2: An Escaped Clause

About thirty feet into the tunnel that had been dug through solid earth and into the back of Santa Clause's office, Cookie McCloud was on her hands and knees, a Department 66 forensics analysis kit at her side and latex gloves on her hands. She was peering with her magnification vision at a glistening strand of dried-up residue she had just found smeared across a rock. She scraped the clear residue off the rock with a scalpel and then transferred the scrapings into a clear plastic evidence bag. She sealed the bag and then held it up to the floodlight Department 66 had set up inside the tunnel, studied her specimen for a moment, and nodded. The slime combined with the other piece of evidence she'd collected pretty much confirmed the identity of the guilty party. Easy-peasy. She collected her equipment, got to her feet, and pulled off her gloves as she headed back up the tunnel and through the giant hole into Santa's office.

"... but why do you need us?" Race was asking Commander Tinsel. The six Department 66 elves that had been examining the hole when Cookie and Race had first arrived in the office had stepped back to allow the McClouds clear access to the inside of the tunnel. Obviously they hadn't wanted to look too far beyond Santa's office, as they would have had to get a special exemption from the world's governments once they left the North Pole and began operating on foreign soil. Cookie knew this, but she couldn't blame Race for not understanding treaties that dictated laws that regulated places that he hadn't known existed until earlier that evening.

"They need us because international law only allows them jurisdiction over the North Pole, and along Santa's route on the twenty-fourth of December," Cookie explained. "For something like this, they'd normally call Project Perfect." She turned to Yule Log. "But Project Perfect isn't answering, are they?"

"No ma'am, no ma'am," Yule Log replied. "I've been trying to reach them on the hotline all day, but no luck!"

Cookie nodded. "Yeah, well, they've been dealing with some stuff."

"Their computer tried to take over the world," Race said. Cookie shot him a warning glance. What did he not understand about the word 'classified'? He changed course under her withering look. "Er... but I don't really know a lot about that, so let's pretend I never brought it up."

Cookie turned to Commander Tinsel. "You came to us because I used to be in Project Perfect, didn't you?"

"That, and you're both McClouds. The name has weight." The commander put his hands on his hips. "So can you help us, or can't you? Did you find anything in there or didn't you?"

"I think so," Cookie said. "Do you have an analyzer?"

The commander turned and waved over another one of his strike-team elves. The elf hurried over with a briefcase, laid it on Santa's desk, and clicked it open. Mounted inside was a pocket computer with a small, built-in monitor, an attached plastic receptacle capsule, and a big green 'Start' button: the standard-issue P.A.D, or 'Perfect Analysis Device'. Cookie opened up her evidence baggie, carefully scooped out the residue scrapings she had collected from inside the tunnel, placed them in the analyzer's capsule, and pressed the green button. The capsule turned over and lights began to flicker on the base of the analyzer while the word 'Scanning...' flashed on the monitor. Everyone gathered around the desk and watched until a few seconds later 'Scanning...' changed to 'Results Inconclusive'.

"What else ya got?" Tinsel asked.

"Hold on." Cookie closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and dove head-first onto the information superhighway, surfing through conduits, binary code flashing past her while she looked for the proper off-ramp. She knew the way, and after just a few long moments she had reached her destination. Data zipped past her and she cherry-picked the proper stream, hooking it before retreating, flashing back to where she had started, drawing a connection between point 'B' and point 'A' as she went, finding the input point, syncing up the two feeds until a clean exchange had been established... and then she gasped and her eyes popped open, landing her back in reality and off the cybersphere. "Okay," she said, "I've opened a connection to the Project Perfect information database. Let's try that again."

"How did you..." Yule Log began to ask, but she ignored him, pressing the big green button on the analyzer. Once more, lights flashed and the word 'Scanning...' displayed on the monitor, but this time it took but a few moments for the display to change to, 'Match Confirmed.'

"Here we are," Cookie said as images began to flicker up on the monitor. "Hmmm. Just what I thought."

"You thought of a giant worm?" Race asked.

Cookie nodded. She pointed at the biggest picture on the monitor, an image of a large purple slug with razor sharp teeth and wearing a saddle. "That residue I found in the tunnel was a dried strand of slime from a Draconian Battle Beast." She pulled a second evidence baggie out of the kit. Inside of it was a single strand of pure white hair. "Pair it with this hair I found, and what happened is pretty clear: Santa Clause was captured by the Elder Elves of the Center World."

Nobody said anything for a few moments. Finally, Race spoke up. "Believe it or not, weird-ass crap like what she just said just makes this a regular old Tuesday for us."

*

"Deep beneath our feet, miles and miles below the Earth's crust, exists the magical realm of the Center World, where two races of warriors have been locked in combat for two centuries. In this corner, we have the Elder Elves, noble keepers of Gaia's Flame, long-eared and white-haired, with tiny, tiny pupils. So small, the pupils. You can hardly see them. They may as well not even be there, if I'm being completely honest.

In the other corner are the Light Eaters. Pig-dog heads sit on their shoulders, atop bodies that can only be referred to as 'humanoid' under the loosest of interpretations. These foul abominations long ago crawled out of the Center World's hills, wearing loincloths and carrying big wooden clubs with nails in them (nobody knows where they found the nails), waging war against the Elder Elves at even the slightest provocation.

Until recently, the Draconian Battle Beasts were solely the steeds of the Light Eaters, but in recent years the Elder Elves have begun to appreciate the usefulness of the creatures, taking advantage of their ability to travel miles and work for days with no food, water, or sleep. The beasts are slow-moving but nigh-unstoppable nocturnal tunnelers who feast on flesh. No, well, okay. They feast on soil and moss. But 'feast on flesh' has such a nice ring to it. For what purpose, one must wonder, did the Elder Elves tunnel through the Earth's crust and into Santa's basement office? The Clause carries much magic, and his holly power purloined could cause war with the enemies of Elders to end effortlessly.

I'm in an alliterative mood. Sue me."

*

"You shouldn't be coming," Cookie said to Commander Tinsel. She, the commander, and Race were back in the tunnel, at the point where it turned sharply downwards and fell into a steep drop, three Department 66 elves strapping safety harnesses onto them as they prepped for descent. "It could cause an international incident."

"If the American Imperial President were kidnapped by foreign agents, you can bet your honey biscuits special U.S. operatives would break treaties and cross borders to go get him," the commander said as he raised his arms and let an elf tighten the black nylon straps of the safety harness. "Probably even send one of your relatives to do the job."

Cookie frowned. He was right. She didn't like it, but he was right. "Fine. But let's find Santa and get in and out before anyone sees us."

Race turned to her. "What are the odds of this all going so smoothly OUCH THAT PINCHES!" He hopped away from his assigned harness tightener, who had just pulled up his harness' back strap.

"Not very good," Cookie admitted. "That's in response to the part of your question that came before the pinching, by the way."

Cookie's harness secured, her Department 66 handler handed her a sleek black sled. "Hold that," the handler instructed. She did, and the handler then reached in-between Cookie and the sled to attach the sled's silver hook to the center of Cookie's safety harness.

"These stealth sleds carry a bit of the same magic that power's Santa's sleigh," Commander Tinsel explained. "That'll keep them from flying off track and keep us from crashing at the end of this tunnel."

Cookie nodded. She'd never used one of these before and didn't particularly trust magic (Narrator's Note: "As mentioned earlier.") but she had trained on rapid deployment skids at Perfect Academy that worked on a hover technology not dissimilar to what Commander Tinsel was describing.

Race, on the other hand...

"Just keep your eyes closed if you start to get nauseous," she said to her already-turning-slightly-green uncle. "The sled will do all the work."

Race gulped and nodded. "Any chance you could knock me out before we go?"

Cookie half-smiled. "Don't tempt me." She punched him lightly in the side. "You'll be fine. Trust me." Race nodded again in reply, but did not seem terribly convinced.

"Lay 'em down!" called out one of the Department 66 elves. Three more handlers rushed into the tunnel, totaling six, two to each sledder. Cookie, Race, and Tinsel where then carefully tipped and lowered until they lay parallel to the ground. Cookie looked down at her sled's runners; as soon as they touched terra firma they began to sparkle with gold dust.

"Remember," called out one of Commander Tinsel's handlers, "hold onto the bar in front of you. Only steer when necessary. Let the sled find your path."

From back in the office Yule Log called down to them. "Good luck!" he cried. "Good luck!"

The handler began the countdown. "Alpha... set... launch!" The two elves guiding Commander Tinsel's sled grasped hold of it and took off, racing it forward and then letting it go; Tinsel disappeared over the lip of the pit and quickly out of sight.

"Beta... set..."

"You'll be fine!" Cookie called out as Race's handlers got ready to go.

"... launch!" To her uncle's credit, he didn't cry out when he was sent flying into the pit. Cookie wondered if he had already passed out.

"Gamma..." Her handlers grabbed her sled. "... set... launch!" Their grip tightened, they sprinted forward a few steps, and then swung their arms forward. She slid towards and down into the pit, and with a swoop in her stomach and a blast of wind in her face, she was off and over the edge of the pit. The power headlight in the front of her sled flickered to life. Up ahead she could see Race's flailing legs as he sped along in front of her, and beyond that she could just make out Tinsel's form, steady and speeding out of sight.

She lowered her head, stretched her legs back, tucked her arms in, and pointed her toes, trying to create as little wind resistance as possible. She picked up speed and quickly drew alongside Race, on his left. She glanced at her uncle; his eyes were shut tight and his teeth clenched as his sled wobbled from side to side. She reached out a hand and grabbed him by the shoulder, steadying him, but she didn't bother to offer any words of comfort; they'd have been lost to the roar of wind around them, anyway. He didn't open his eyes when she grabbed him to offer support, but he unclenched his teeth and stopped swerving about. That was something, anyway.

After a minute or so, Cookie could feel the tunnel begin to level off. Ahead of them, Commander Tinsel had long since disappeared, but now the tunnel began to twist and turn and she quickly forgot all about the commander. As promised, the runners of the sleds she and Race rode on didn't lift up off of the sides of the tunnel by even a hair's breadth, not for a single second, not even as the corkscrew of the ever-leveling tunnel grew more and more twisted.

Ahead of them appeared a gleam of yellow light that grew larger and larger, and almost before she could process that they were about to reach the end of the line, they were through, zipping out of the mouth and across grass. Cookie threw her weight into a hard left, turning the rudders of the sled against the grain and throwing up chunks of soil as she and Race came skidding to a halt.

As soon as their forward momentum had been halted, Race fumbled around with the security strap on his sled, unclicking it and then rolling off and onto the grass, where he lay on his back gasping for air.

Cookie unhooked her strap and pushed herself up to her knees. "You need a minute?" she asked him. He only nodded in reply, unable to speak through the large gulps of fresh air he was sucking in.

Cookie got to her feet and looked around. They were on a tree-dotted hilltop that sloped gently down into the valley below. Although the lush meadows surrounding the hill were the picture of pastoral loveliness (bunny rabbits, butterflies, daffodils growing along babbling brooks), far off ahead of them and stretching all along the horizon, high colorful flags of war were raised up high in the air. Cookie squinted a bit, telescoping her vision to get a better look. Moving among the flags and tents were tall, pale humanoids with long white hair and pointed ears: elves.

"Where's the Commander?"

Race had eased himself up into a sitting position. Cookie turned to look at him. "I don't know." She walked past him and over to the hole in the hillside out of which they had flown. It was surrounded with mouthfuls of regurgitated dirt, the excess that the Battle Beast who had dug the tunnel had spilled off through its gills.

Finally on his feet, Race came up beside her. "Aw, gross, is that poop?"

Before she could answer, someone answered for her. "No. 'Tis not. Turn slowly. Hands high."

"Great," Cookie muttered. She and Race complied, though, putting their hands in the air and turning. Behind them a cadre of warrior elves had appeared, bows drawn and arrows nocked. Alongside them was the missing Commander Tinsel, his hands tied behind his back and red in the face.

One of the elves, distinguishable from the others as he was the only one with streaks of gold in his long white hair (they all had long white hair, and bows and arrows, and leather armor, and tiny non-pupils) stepped forward, lowering his bow. "I am Galadrieallal," he said.

"That's way too many 'L's'," said Race.

Galadrieallal ignored him. So many did. "Your coming has been foretold. It has all happened as He proclaimed. Praise on high."

"Praise on high!" repeated the other warrior elves.

"I think you have us confused with somebody else," said Cookie.

Race nodded. "Yeah, our arrival isn't worth being foretold. Even on a good day I have trouble tying my shoes."

"Hands behind your backs, please," said Galadrieallal.

They did as they were told. Two of the warrior elves stepped forward and bound their hands. Galadrieallal motioned down the hill, towards the elvish encampment. "This way."

The party formed quickly, Galadrieallal and two sentries in the lead, the other two warriors behind, and Race, Cookie, and Tinsel in the middle. "Why'd you two even come along?" Tinsel groused, quiet enough for only Race and Cookie to hear. "I could have gotten captured all on my own."

"You did," Cookie reminded him.

"You have any theories about what's going on?" Race muttered to her.

Cookie nodded slowly. "I actually do. Let's let this play out."

They walked on mostly in silence for the better part of an hour, tromping through the meadows and then through the trees and thick undergrowth that lay between the hill they had landed on and the elven military encampment. Eventually, Cookie could see the smoke from campfires rising up into the sky, and the smell of roasted elderberry and tree bark soon followed. "We're close," she told Race.

"Good," Race said, panting. The last twenty minutes or so of uphill underfoot branches had been particularly hard on him. "When we get there, I think I'll lie down and die for a minute if that's cool with you."

"Oh, suck it up."

Moments later they broke through a hedge line and into the encampment. Galadrieallal had a quiet word with one of the sentries patrolling the camp exterior. The sentry looked at Race, Cookie, and Tinsel, nodded solemnly, and waved them through.

White-haired elven warriors were all about, drinking wine, crafting arrows, meditating, and doing something that looked an awful lot like Tai Chi. Galadrieallal and his men led their prisoners swiftly through the camp, finally stopping in front of the largest tent they'd yet seen, a red and green striped eight-paneled number, a crackling fire visible within. Galadrieallal held up a hand to stop the party, and then slipped inside the tent.

"I think this cinches it," Cookie said as she eyed the red and green tent up and down.

"Cinches what?" Race asked.

Galadrieallal reappeared. "Our Lord and savior on high would grant you an audience." He stepped behind them, untied their hands, and then gestured them forward, towards the entrance of the tent. "Come."

Race glanced at Cookie. She shrugged and stepped forward. Just before she entered the tent, Galadrieallal lightly placed a hand upon her shoulder. "Be mindful," he cautioned.

"Yeah, whatever, dude." Cookie shrugged his hand off and pushed her way into the tent, Race and Tinsel following behind her.

In the center of the tent was a roaring fire, on the other side of which was a large, towering figure. As Cookie's eyes quickly adjusted to the inside of the tent, that figure stepped around the fire towards the party and came into view. He stood about six feet, six inches high, and almost as wide around. His only clothing was a pair of bloodied and dirty red pants with torn white trim and heavy black leather boots. Coarse white hair covered a broad, bare chest, and on his wrists were thick golden braces. A wild white beard sat under a beet red nose, eyes that burned like coal, and a bald head surrounded by more tufts of white. In his right hand he clasped a blender-sized glass of ale; in his left, a whole roasted leg of mutton. A bandolier was strapped around his chest, and the head of a sheathed battle-axe stood tall over the warrior's shoulder.

Race leaned over to Cookie. "I'mma be honest," he whispered. "That's not how I've ever pictured Santa Clause."

"That's because he's never looked like this before," Cookie whispered back.

"S-santa?" Cookie looked at Tinsel. He had stepped forward and, though it was difficult to tell in the orange light of the flame-lit tent, she was pretty certain the commander had gone pale. Cookie couldn't blame him. She had met Santa Clause. This figure in front of her was indeed the man she had met, but at the same time, it wasn't.

"HO, HO, HO!" Santa's famous laugh sounded to Cookie's ears like a proclamation of authority, and his belly certainly wasn't shaking like a bowl full of jelly. To the contrary, with each, "HO!" his chest puffed out further and further. He turned to the commander of Department 66. His voice boomed. "Tinsel, my boy! It's heartening to see a familiar face, but you should not have come here."

Tinsel didn't answer. He just stared. Cookie cleared her throat and stepped in front of him. "Mr. Clause? We've met before. My name is Cookie McCloud, formerly a Junior Perfect Agent, currently of McCloud & McCloud Investigations."

"Race McCloud!" Race added with a wave. "Private eye. Uh... hi."

Cookie nodded. "Right. Anyway. We've been asked by your associates in the North Pole to journey here to the Center World and... ah... 'rescue' you."

"Rescue me?" Santa threw his head back and laughed again. "HO, HO, HO! Rescue me!" Still chuckling, he wiped a tear from his eye. "Rescue me from who, Ms. McCloud?"

Cookie shrugged. "I'm honestly not even sure anymore."

"I remember you." Santa gestured to a pile of cushions on one side of the tent. "Please, sit."

"With pleasure," Race said. He just about threw himself onto the cushions, elated to finally be off his feet. Tinsel, still in a state of shock, lowered slowly down onto a cushion. Cookie chose to remain standing.

Santa pointed his big leg of mutton at Cookie. "I know you, Cookie McCloud. I know all the world's children. But you... I know you, and you know me." Santa gave her a wink. "You took a field trip to the North Pole with your classmates from Perfect Academy. Ho, ho, ho! Santa remembers everything, my dear!" Santa then took a big, sloppy swig of his ale, belched, and wiped the mess off his beard with the back of his hand.

Cookie wrinkled up her nose in disgust. "You've changed since then."

"Have I?" Santa asked, wearing a mischievous grin.

She nodded. "Lil' bit."

Tinsel jumped back to his feet, determined anew. "Santa, are they holding you against your will? How have they done this to you?" He lowered his voice to an urgent whisper. "If you need us to help you get outta here, blink twice. Twice!"

"Now, Commander," Santa said, waggling a finger at his security chief. "There'll be no talk of escaping. I came here of my own free will. Tinsel, these elves could never have captured me. My magic far overpowers theirs. That's why they needed me, as it so happens."

"So about that," Race said, still sprawled across the cushions. "What happened in your office? It looked like a break and enter and kidnap. You know. Standard."

Cookie thought back to the crime scene. "Except there was very little evidence of a struggle. I assumed that meant it had happened quickly. What it means, though, is that there wasn't any struggle at all." She shook her head, disgusted with herself. What a stupid oversight.

Santa waved his empty mug around. "Would anyone care for a tankard of ale? I'm going for another. No? Suit yourselves." Santa stepped over to a large brown barrel that sat on a table on a far side of the tent, pulling on the tap and pouring another full mug of frothy, nut-brown ale. "Galadrieallal came to me," he began after taking a long swig from his refreshed mug. "Through the earth and right into the wall of my North Pole office, riding a Battle Beast. He and the rest of the Elder Elves are at war, you know."

Cookie nodded. "Yeah. I know. Eternal war."

"Which is why he came. He came to ask me to help end the war. To win it, for the elves."

"And you agreed?" Race asked. "You're Santa Claus, not a warrior."

Santa turned to Race. His eyes darkened and his expression hardened. "I'm two thousand years old. I'm the most powerful sorcerer on the planet. I fly 'round the world in a single night delivering presents to millions of boys and girls. I am everywhere at once and nowhere in particular. I. Am. The CLAUSE." He ripped the rest of the flesh off of his mutton leg with his teeth and tossed the used bone into the fire. He turned his back to them as he chewed, lost in thought. Cookie and the others waited for him to continue. "Tell me," Santa finally said, his back still to then. "What do you know of Santa's family?"

Race shot his hand into his air. "Oo! Oo! I know! Pick me!"

"You don't need to raise your hand, Uncle Race."

"You have a wife!" Race said. "There's a Mrs. Clause."

Santa turned towards them. "Anyone else? Parents?"

Cookie shook her head. "Not that I know of."

"Me neither," said Race.

"Commander?" Santa asked. They all looked at Tinsel, who shook his head. Santa went on. "For as long as I can remember, I've been Santa Clause. I'm an elf, but I've always felt different than the others. I'm so large and the rest of the North Pole elves are so small. What if I'm not one of them?" He gestured outside of the tent again. "What if I'm actually an Elder Elf? They're powerful warriors, imposing figures that use magic, and they have beautiful white hair. These are all traits I share with them."

"Beautiful?" Race muttered. Cookie kicked him in the ankle.

Tinsel marched over to Santa. He came only up to the big man's thigh, and even then Santa had to practically bend over to look the security chief in the eye. "Santa," said Tinsel, "this is nonsense. You aren't one of those other elves. You live in the North Pole! You hang up colored lights, make homemade marshmallows, and get into snowball fights with penguins wearing red hats! You're freaking SANTA CLAUSE!"

"SANTA CLAUSE as the world thinks him to be, IS A LIE!" the bigger elf roared, shutting Tinsel up. Santa looked back and forth from Race to Cookie. "Do you two know that S. Clause Inc. owns and operates every other major toy manufacturer in the world as subsidiaries?"

"I did," said Cookie.

"I don't know what that means," said Race.

"My corporation has a total global monopoly on the toy industry," Santa explained. "Many parents don't think I exist, but little do they know that when they buy a toy at Toys 'N Stuff or order a video game online at Euphrates-dot-com, the product they purchase is coming from my North Pole workshop."

"Every toy?" Race asked.

Cookie nodded. "Every toy."

Santa puffed out his chest. "It's the most successful multi-national corporation in the history of the world, and I've built it in secret. Being immortal really gives you time to work out the kinks." He sighed. "I'm a victim of my own success. The company is so well structured it barely needs me to run." Santa smiled wistfully, his eyebrows curling upwards towards dreams of happier days. "Sometimes I miss the forty-eight hour pre-Christmas crush from back in the old days. Just me and a handful of expert toy makers, whittling toy soldiers as if our lives depended on it, stuffing cotton into dolls by the armload, then wrapping everything up and shoving it all in a sack half-filled with sugar plums and candy canes. We'd throw the sack onto the sleigh and up I'd hop, all rose-cheeked and dimpled. A peck on the lips from Mrs. Claus for luck, then a crack of the whip and eight reindeer leaping to the heavens, and off we flew, toys for the good children and coal for the bad!" He held that memory for a moment, but then reality came sloughing back over him and his shoulders slumped. "Now I just rubber-stamp my name on a few thousand forms a day. All the toys are machine built. Our distribution system is second to none. Drones are sent out carrying packed product for the ten thousand plus warehouses we keep worldwide. I don't even deliver many toys myself, anymore."

"You still go out on the sleigh!" Tinsel said. "Every Christmas Eve, you still do that!"

"Commander, you know as well as I that my ride is almost entirely promotional in nature. I personally deliver a very small percentage of the total number of gifts that go out on Christmas Eve." Santa turned back to Race and Cookie. "Not only that, but as the world's population rises and the marketplace needs to accommodate greater and greater numbers of shoppers, the gifting season starts earlier and earlier."

"Is that why stores start playing Christmas music on Halloween?" Race asked.

Santa nodded. "It is."

"And why Thanksgiving is treated like Christmas pre-game?"

"It is." Santa took another long swig from his mug and wiped his beard clean(ish) again before going on. "In fact, by the time Christmas comes in one year, planning is already well underway for the next."

"So the Elder Elves showed up, asked you to come fight for them, and you left the Pole because you were bored." Cookie shrugged. "Seems reasonable."

"It's selfish," said Tinsel. Santa, rosy cheeks burning bright, turned slowly to the elf commander, but Tinsel stood his ground. "The world's children –"

"—will be none the wiser, so long as they get their presents," Santa said firmly. "Tell Yule Log to cancel my personal appearances." Santa drained the dregs from his glass and threw the mug into the fire pit, shattering the mug and causing tongues of flame to leap anew. "The Christmas Eve operation will run just fine without me, Commander Tinsel. I have a war to win here in the Center World. We'll talk about next Christmas, next Christmas." Santa reached behind him and pulled his long axe off his back. He thumbed the blade, frowned, and shouted, "Galadrieallal!"

The elf appeared through the tent flaps immediately, quiet as a breeze and soft as a whisper. "Yes, Father Clause?"

"I'll to the blacksmith's tent before addressing our warriors," he said. "Light Eater skulls are thick and heavy. Splitting them has dulled my blade. Assemble the men. I would address them immediately after the smith puts the edge back on my axe."

Galadrieallal bowed. "To your will, my Father." He exited the tent.

Santa looked back at Race, Cookie, and Tinsel. "You have your freedom. The battle will soon be joined. If you do not plan to fight, go home." Santa turned and left, ducking his head and turning almost sideways to fit his massive frame through a tent flap designed for slender Elder Elves.

Cookie stepped to the tent flap and watched Santa disappear among the other Elder Elves, each one he passed preparing for battle: crafting arrows, strapping into armor, joining hands and praying, etc., etc. "So that was an epic waste of time," she said.

Tinsel stomped forward to join her. "It can't be allowed!" he sputtered. "It can't be!"

"What would you like us to do?" Cookie waved her hand out towards the rest of the camp. "The man was asked to come here and fight, and he said yes. What, we're just going to drag him back to the North Pole? You know how powerful he is. You know we can't make him do anything he doesn't want to do." Tinsel didn't answer. He just folded his arms and pouted. Cookie sighed. "Hey, I get it. I do. It's going to be tough for you guys to get Christmas ready without him. He's not wrong, though. The whole process has been industrialized, more or less."

Tinsel laughed rudely. "More less than more. Do you know how many carefully balanced, intricate pieces of the Christmas Eve operation there are that keep the whole set-up running in secret? Without Santa's magic massaging the works, everything falls apart. Christmas falls apart! Deliveries don't happen! Children are left toyless! End of discussion!"

"Really?" Cookie asked.

Tinsel shook his head. "Every house in the world. One night. It doesn't matter how many drones or warehouses we have. Without Santa's magic, it's not possible. There aren't enough elves in the North Pole to make it possible"

Cookie sighed. "Look, I'm sorry, but without a kidnapping I don't think we can help you." She turned back to Race. "You ready to go home, Uncle Race?" Race didn't answer. His back was to she and Tinsel and he was standing stock-still, staring deep into the flames leaping out and around the fire pit. "Uncle Race?" she repeated. "Are you ready to get out of here?"

Race turned to face her, and Cookie felt her eyebrows rise in surprise. He looked... angry? Annoyed? Hungry? No. Determined.

Determined? What about?

"This is wrong," he said.

Cookie didn't follow. "What is?"

Race gestured all around them. "Him. Here. With all of this. Fighting this war. It's wrong. It's all wrong."

He was breathing heavily. It was not a reaction she had ever seen from her uncle. Keeping one eye on Race, she said over her shoulder to Tinsel. "Give us a second."

"What should I?"

"Because I asked nice."

"No you didn't."

"For me, that was nice, and so is this: get out."

Dragging his feet and muttering angrily under his breath (to be fair, things were not going anywhere near as he had expected them to) Tinsel stepped out of the tent. Just to be safe, Cookie reached over and drew the tent's flap closed before turning back to her uncle. "You want to clue me in here?"

"Santa Clause is not a bare-chested axe-swinging warrior," Race said. His jaw was clenched. Wherever he was coming from with this, he was throwing all-in with it. "It's not what he does, it's not who he's supposed to be, and... and we can't allow it."

"He chose to come here. It's not our call." Cookie shook her head. "Why is this bothering you so much?"

Race took a deep breath, let it hang for a second, and then exhaled it, his shoulders dropping with it. "I don't know," he admitted. "But it is."

"So can we please just go home?"

"No," Race said, his jaw tightening again. Wow. He was going to fight her on this. "We can't force him to leave. But we still have to get him out of here. We have to get him back to the North Pole. He has to be Santa Clause again." He leaned in closer to her. "He can't be here. It... it... it upsets things."

"Things? What things?"

Race threw his arms up in frustration. "I don't know! I don't know. I don't know, I don't know, I don't..." he closed his eyes and Cookie watched his lips move as he counted up to ten before re-opening them. "I don't know why this is upsetting me so much. But this is bad. This is very bad. We have to fix this."

She wasn't even annoyed. She found herself confused, utterly confused, as to the strength of his conviction over this. She realized, though, that as confused as she was about it, Race was even more so.

She nodded. "Okay. I don't get it, and I don't know what we can do, but okay."

Race half-smiled. "Really?" he said, his voice quavering a little. "You mean it?"

"You drive me up the wall sometimes..."

"Most times."

"I was trying to be nice. I have your back, though. Just like you have mine." She smiled. "We're a team."

Race nodded feverishly. He swallowed hard. "Cookie... thank you. I... I... would you like a hug?"

"Touch me and I will take back every word."

"Noted." Race cleared his throat, gathering himself together. "So... um... funny thing: I don't actually have any idea about HOW we can fix this."

"I have one idea. You're not going to like it, though."

"That happens a lot. What's your idea?"

Cookie crossed to the tent flap and pulled it open. She smiled and looked back to Race as she gestured to the masses of Elder Elves preparing for battle. "We're going to have to win a war."

To his credit, Race barely reacted. He just pursed his lips. "You're right. About your idea. I don't like it. I don't like it, very much."
Chapter 3: Ponies Are Delicious

The terrain changed quickly. The dew-kissed, sun-speckled greenery that made up the signature look of the elvish half of the Center World vanished without warning as Race climbed atop a particularly tallish hill. He crested the peak and did a double take: ahead of him was a desolate plain of ash and lava. Behind him, the elven meadowlands, and the line of demarcation between the two was remarkably precise. Race climbed down the hill to the borderline and hopped back and forth across it, from the grass to the ash and back again a few times, until he realized he probably looked pretty silly doing that. "I probably look pretty silly doing this," he said aloud, and then realized that talking to himself about how silly he looked would probably make him look even sillier, so he stopped doing either and pressed on.

Even the sky was different. The cloud-dotted blue sky of the meadows behind him had dimmed as he crossed into the land of the Light Eaters, and now plumes of darkness were rolling in up above him, spitting lightning back and forth and occasionally down to the ground somewhere off in the distance. The black sky, the dead terrain, the lightning, the cracks of lava veining the rocks and hills... it all struck him as pretty cliché when he thought about it. Still, cliché or not, it was an effective look, and an unsettling one. For the twentieth time or so Race thought about turning back... but then immediately thought of Santa Clause swinging a battle axe and cleaving off some creature's head. No matter how frightening the landscape became, he couldn't let that stand. Santa had to be Santa again, not some barbarian elf, and it was up to he and Cookie to make sure that happened. He firmly believed that.

He only wished he knew WHY he so firmly believed that.

He also hoped that the plan they'd hatched for setting things right was sound. Cookie had said they needed to win this war so Santa would have a reason to lay down his axe and return to the North Pole, but they had both agreed: war sucks and maybe they should try a Plan B. "I'll stay here and offer to train a squadron of elves, mostly as a stalling tactic," Cookie had said. "Santa respects Project Perfect's techniques and he won't mind me passing some on to his men. That'll give you the time you need to sneak into the Light Eater's camp and try and convince them to lay down their arms, at least long enough for us to convince Santa that they've surrendered and the war is over."

"Why would they do that?" Race asked.

Cookie half-smiled at him. "Hey, this is all your idea. I'm sure you'll think of something." Her smile turned and she got serious. "Go with a white flag. You're offering a truce. If things start to go south, or if you even think they might go south, get out of there and we'll go with the whole 'win the war' thing."

It was a hastily assembled, half-baked plan, but time was of the essence if they wanted to avoid massive bloodshed and head-loss. So Cookie went to go and train some elves, Commander Tinsel headed back to the North Pole to round up a Department 66 strike team to kidnap Santa back, if necessary, and Race was off to the Valley of the Light Eaters.

As he walked passed the third decorative pillar of humanoid skulls, the ones that he was to follow in order to find the Light Eater's camp, he was starting to think that maybe he'd drawn the short straw.

Though mostly hidden by the dark-clouded sky, what he could see of the sun had started to dip towards the horizon by the time Race crested a hilltop and finally caught sight of the Light Eaters' army. The swamp-green skin of the Light Eaters made them easy to pick out as they milled about in the camp below him, beginning to fall in line behind various flags and torn banners, howling war cries rising up from their ranks and impromptu slugfests breaking out between foot soldiers driven wild with bloodlust.

The camp wasn't a place he was eager to get to. Time was of the essence, though, so Race took out the little white handkerchief he'd borrowed from Commander Tinsel and waved it frantically above his head as he trotted down the hill and towards a random spot in the assembled ranks.

Two of the nearest battalion of Light Eaters (who rode under a ragged pink banner that depicted a wild boar eating an elf, intestines first) saw Race before anyone else and cried out, pointing at the intruder. One of them put some sort of hollowed out animal's horn to his lips and blew a low, resonating note. Moments later, the ground at the warrior's feet rumbled and undulated, and a Draconian Battle Beast broke through to the surface. Race skidded to a stop, stunned by the shock of seeing up close and in person the giant purple slug-beast Cookie had described back in Santa's office. Whooping wildly, the Light Eater, a fellow with a severe underbite and one eye, hopped atop the Battle Beast and prodded it forward. "We didn't think this through," Race muttered to himself as the creature and its rider slithered towards Race, who began instinctively backpedaling away from it.

The slug, though, proved surprisingly speedy for its girth, and within seconds Race found himself falling onto his back as the Battle Beast and accompanying Light Eater pulled within striking distance. Race threw his arms over his face (in a misguided attempt to turn invisible as much as anything else) and waited for the killing blow, but it never came. Instead, he felt a blanket fall over his face and his arms pulled tight against his body, and when he opened his eyes he saw that he had been pretty close, but it wasn't a blanket that had wrapped around him. It was a net.

The Light Eater, who Race could see if he craned his neck just past the point of 'comfortable', raised up his battle trident and bellowed a victory scream back to his fellows that made the nostrils of his pig snout flail out and about. The triumphant yell was returned by the Light Eater rank and file, and then Race's captor put his heels to the slug and off they slithered, back into the cheering throng and into the heart of camp, Race saying, "Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow," at each individual bump along the way, almost certain that none of this was actually worth it... unless it helped them get Santa out of the Center World and back to the North Pole, where he belonged. Nothing was more important than that.

And Race still couldn't figure out why he felt that way.

Finally the slug came to a halt and Race's net went tumbling to the hard dead ground. He could feel the air shaking with the fury and frenzy of the smoke-snorting pug-faced Light Eater warriors, each louder than the other, flashing their jagged jaws and pounding their spears on the ground. Still trapped under the net, Race managed to get to his knees. The sky was getting blacker and the Light Eaters were drawing closer. Race tried to pull back from them but he was surrounded; the best he could do was nestle in as closely as he could to the slug that had dragged him here. Slime oozed down over his shoulder as he burrowed backwards into the fleshy folds of the battle beast, but he pondered it for a millisecond and decided slug-slime was preferable to being torn to pieces by these goblin-looking things wearing the armor made of some sort of freshly-killed animal hide.

One particularly ornery Light Eater, a mottled-skinned one with one long fang protruding from his lower jaw, was really feeling his oats and began stomping his way towards Race, coming closer than the others and pounding his chest with closed fists while whooping war cries to the heavens, goaded on by his fellows. He took one step closer to Race, and then another, and then another, and then he didn't take any more steps ever again because a spear flew in from the side of the crowd and pierced the oats-feeler right through one stupid floppy ear and out the other.

That shut everyone up. Every Light Eater, now silent and as ashen-faced as half-mutt, half-goblin people could be, stepped back where moments earlier they had all been pushing forward. Then emerged through the crowd the one Race could only assume was the leader, something he assumed because this one was at least half a head taller than any of the others, wore a crown of rusted metal, and also had a little button pinned to his leather breastplate that read, "Hi! I'm the leader! Ask me about leading!" Which Race thought was weird, but who was he to judge?

The leader stepped towards Race... well, actually, first he stepped over to the body of the Light Eater he had just killed (Race was trying to ignore that that had happened; frankly, he wasn't used to such graphic violence in the cases McCloud & McCloud took on and he was right then realizing it had been more than a little naïve of him not to expect that in his chosen line of work seeing some pretty awful and graphic things was almost inevitable, but that was something he'd have to hide in a closet and scream himself hoarse about later)... anyhoo, the leader stepped over to the guy he'd just killed and took back his spear, pulling it out of the dude's ear cavity with a long SCHHHHHHHHWUCK! And THEN he stepped towards Race, bending down close and taking a long sniff-snort of Race's face with his drippy pig-snout. I'd better think of something cool and not-intimidated to say here, Race thought, so he went with, "Looks like you gave that guy a SPLITTING headache, huh?" Then he laughed too loudly, and nobody else laughed at all, and then he caught a glimpse of brains on the end of the leader's spear, and he threw up a little, by which it is to say that he threw up a lot. Which was weird, considering he hadn't eaten a single roasted chestnut back at Santa's workshop.

"Who you?" the leader asked as Race wiped his mouth clean on the sleeve of his jacket.

"Race McCloud, Private Eye," Race said in a weakened voice. He cleared his throat. "I'd like to talk to you guys about stopping the war."

The leader's eyes narrowed. "You not elf. Why you care? War not stop. Elves must die."

"Look, if you'll just hear me out... wait. Could you take me out of this net? This is really uncomfortable. Also, someone threw up over here."

The leader nodded, grasped the net in both hands, and ripped it apart. "Net gone. Now talk, or me rip you like net."

"Noted." Race got shakily to his feet, placing one hand against the Battle Beast to steady himself. "What's your name, anyway?"

"Grogmeister."

"Sure. Why not? Okay. So. The elves. Why do they have to die?"

"Center World have two types land." Grogmeister, Leader of the Light Eaters, pointed in the direction Race had come from. "Elves have good land." Grogmeister then gestured to the darkened, lightning-wracked sky directly above them, then at the burnt soil under their feet, and then at the cave-pocked barren landscape all around them. "Light Eaters have bad land. Elves won't share. We make them share."

"MAKE THEM SHARE!" yelled out one of the hundreds of surrounding Light Eaters watching Grogmeister and Race. The cry was picked up and carried across the Light Eater ranks like wildfire. "MAKE THEM SHARE! MAKE THEM SHARE! MAKE THEM SHARE! MAKE THEM SHARE!"

Grogmeister held up a hand. His men immediately fell silent. "So why you say we not make war?" he asked Race, drawing a dagger from his belt as he did. "Make answer good."

Race's eyes went wide as saucers as he watched Grogmeister casually pick a cutlet-sized piece of meat from between his teeth with his dagger. "Uh... sure. So the Elder Elves... they've got a new battlefield commander. Have you seen him?"

"The Fat Man!" shouted a Light Eater from in the crowd. "KILL THE FAT MAN!" Again, the crowd picked up the cry; again, Grogmeister held up a hand to stop it.

"The Fat Man crush Light Eater heads," Grogmeister said, his voice a low growl. "The Fat Man break Light Eater bones. I kill the Fat Man, eat his fat guts, take good land, send elves to bad land. So says I." Grogmeister turned from Race. "So says GROGMEISTER!"

Grogmeister's brothers-in-arms took their cue and all bellowed out, "GROGMEISTER!" Then they began chanting the name, bleatingly and full-throated. This time, their leader did not quickly bring it to a stop, instead basking in their adulation for a minute before gesturing to one of his fellows to come forward, a tall, stick-thin, pig-snouted, pug-faced, hooved loincloth wearing Light Eater, one with an axe. When Tubby Pug came close, Grogmeister pointed to Race and swiped his thumb across his own throat.

Race wasn't great with sign language, but that one was pretty clear. "Wait," he said, first to Grogmeister, then again: "Wait!" this time to the skinny guy who had just put on a black hood and was striking his axe-blade with a whetstone for that extra last little bit of an edge, but neither Light Eater heard him over the crowd's mad chanting of "GROGMEISTER! GROGMEISTER! GROGMEISTER!"

Grogmeister walked slowly away from Race as the executioner walked slowly towards him. Race looked back from one to the other to one to the other, panic rising, until he remembered to throw his Hail Mary and shouted, "THE FAT MAN IS SANTA CLAUS!"

Grogmeister's hand went up. The crowd dropped silent. The executioner froze. You could have heard a pin drop. Race looked around, confused. He cleared his throat and it sounded like a shotgun going off. Still no one moved. He repeated himself. "Um... the Fat Man is Santa Clause."

Grogmeister turned back to him. "You lying."

Race glanced to the executioner, who still hadn't moved. "Uh, no," he said, returning his attention to Grogmeister. "I'm not. It's Santa Claus. The Elder Elves recruited him for help. He said he's not doing Christmas again until the war is over." When he said it aloud, he remembered: that's why he was here. Santa Clause needed to go back to the North Pole, and it was Race's job to put him there. He felt some of his many, many nerves steady down, and he took his hand from off of the Battle Beast, straightening up and holding his ground. "That's why you need to stop fighting," Race said, surprising himself with the air of steady purpose now present in his voice. "I need to get Santa back to the North Pole and the only way he'll go is if the war is over."

Grogmeister stared him down, eyes locked on Race's. Race had to will himself not to look away, not to blink. When the Light Eater spoke again it was to ask, "What happen to Christmas?"

Race shook his head. "I'm not sure. Santa has people working for him, but... c'mon. They're not Santa. If Santa stays in the Center World, Christmas is gonna be a really sad imitation of what we're used to, if it even happens."

Grogmeister stepped closer to Race. Race didn't budge. "You lying!" he said again.

"You can accuse me of lying all day long," Race answered, "but what I'm saying will still be the truth."

Grogmeister's lips curled up in disgust. "This not fair. Grogmeister been good all year."

Race glanced at the still-warm corpse of the Light Eater whose brain Grogmeister had ventilated just minutes earlier, but decided to play along. "Uh... sure."

"All Grogmeister want is PlayBox VR. Grogmeister sick of playing Landskiers in boring 2D."

"You play Landskiers?" Race asked. "With the little toys you scan into the game?"

Grogmeister reared back, and with all his strength and might he bellowed, "THEY NOT TOYS! THEY COLLECTIBLES!"

Race sighed. Things had just taken a turn for the weird. Now he was in familiar territory. "Sure. Of course. Collectibles."

"Grogmeister scan them through the box and everything," the Light Eater grumbled. "They worth money someday. You see. You all see."

Another Light Eater stepped forward. "Me Soupburner," he said. "Me get picture with Santa last week. Santa say he bring me Cabblywurts!"

"Where did you get your picture with Santa?" Race asked. "And what in the world is a Cabblywurt?"

"THEY HOT NEW TOY!" yelled Soupburner. "SOUPBURNER NOT WANT TO FIGHT BLACK FRIDAY LINES FOR HIS CABBLYWURT!"

Another Light Eater spoke up. "Santa must come! Me ask Santa for pony this year!"

"A pony?" Race asked.

"Yes!" the Light Eater replied. "Ponies delicious!"

Race nodded. "That seems more in character."

Every Light Eater, it seemed, started complaining to anyone who would listen about the things they wouldn't get for Christmas if the war with the Elder Elves stretched on. As his men worried and grumbled, Grogmeister turned back to Race. "Christmas must come. Christmas good. Presents good."

"Okay, I have to say this." Race took a step closer to Grogmeister. "Grogmeister, Christmas isn't really about the presents. It's about family, and counting our blessings, and let's not forget, it's a celebration of the bir--"

"PRESENTS GOOD!" Grogmeister repeated, baring his surprisingly sharp teeth at Race as he did.

Race did a little hop-back. "Yes. Presents good. Presents very good. You want to make sure good presents keep coming?" Grogmeister nodded. "Okay," Race said. "Here's what you do."
Chapter 1, 2, 3, 4: I Declare a Christmas War

They stood one hundred yards from each other, the two armies did, the line of demarcation between the light and the dark halves of Center World standing in as the fifty-yard line. The two generals, Grogmeister on the side of the Light Eaters and Santa Claus on the side of the Elder Elves, each sent out a lone emissary to parley on their behalf, to see if some sort of peace could be achieved before more bloodshed took place. Neither general had high hopes.

The two emissaries met right on the line, one in the dark and one in the light, and looked each other up and down. The elven emissary shook her head in disbelief, and spoke:

"What the hell happened to you?" Cookie asked.

Her counterpart sighed. "I got dragged around in a net and then I threw up a little," Race explained.

"You throw up a lot."

"Nah, it wasn't that much."

"No. Not 'a lot', as in quantity. 'A lot,' as in often."

"Oh." Race nodded sadly. "I do, don't I?"

"It's like your thing. What about the clothes? Why do they smell so bad?" Cookie had known it was going to be hard to predict how the Light Eaters would react to Race's request that they stand down. Dressing her uncle up in a dead animal wasn't one of the reactions she had even considered.

"I know," Race said, shifting around the 'breastplate' of horsehide that still had short hairs on it and might still have been bleeding. "I think they killed this thing an hour ago. They insisted I be 'armored' if I was going to meet with the... now how did they put it... ah, yes... the 'awful bad stupid mean person' that the elves would send to meet me. So they got that part right, anyway."

Cookie half-smiled. "Ha, ha."

Race nodded towards her, indicating the garb she had been placed in. "It looks like you got the opposite treatment."

Cookie looked down at herself. She was wearing elven armor of elegantly crafted brown leather: breastplate, boots, a half-helm, and a bracer to protect her left arm while drawing back the string of the sturdy bow they had gifted her with and that she now clenched in her left hand. Under the armor she wore hand-spun clothes of rough, thick, green-dyed fabric that yet breathed and moved, and on her back was a quiver of arrows, held in place by a corded strap slung over her shoulder and running diagonally across her chest.

She looked back at Race and shrugged. "Yeah, well, while you were gone I gave them some pointers and strategy on how to win the war and then I saved a whole family from a massive house fire..."

"You did WHAT?!"

"... it was whatever, I was there, there was a fire, I had nothing to do, so... anyway, they gave me this stuff and made me an honorary general. No big deal."

Race laughed. "A general? They made you a GENERAL?!" He jerked his thumb back over his shoulder towards the Light Eaters. "They told me I was their new errand monkey."

"What's an errand monkey for?"

"I DID NOT ASK." He shook his head. "Can we get this over with? I'd like to leave this place now."

Cookie nodded. "Right. What have you got?"

Her uncle cleared his throat. "So the Light Eaters have agreed to stop fighting, on two conditions. First, Santa must return to the North Pole immediately and get ready to bring them all great Christmas presents. Second, they want a month's vacation time each in the good half of the Center World, somewhere in the southeast region, by the lake and the amusement parks. Oh, and they also want all-access park passes."

Cookie shook her head. "I can't get them all-access passes. The elves will never agree to that. Two weeks vacation, partial park passes. They can go to one park a day, but they can't hop between all three."

Race scoffed. "Oh, come on, that's ridiculous. The Light Eaters aren't asking for anything. They just want to be able to go to Elven Haven in the morning and Thunder Island in the afternoon."

"What about Learning Land?"

"Yeah, like anyone wants to go to Learning Land. Okay. Three weeks vacation, partial passes... but a full meal plan."

Cookie thought about that. "Okay. Okay, we can do that."

"And," Race added, "let's you and I not forget why we're here. Santa..."

"... Santa goes back home today," Cookie agreed. "And gets back to work making Christmas happen."

"And we get to get out of here and back to Westside City." Race frowned. "Hey, who's paying us for this?"

Cookie scowled. "That's always the question. We have got to start asking for more money up front. So do we have a deal?"

Race smiled and breathed a sigh of relief. "Deal." He held out his hand, Cookie grasped it and shook it, and at this sign of a treaty completed a cheer went up from the armies on either side of the line. "All right, then," Race said, looking around.

Cookie looked past him to the Light Eaters' side; they were all jumping on each other and hugging and yelling. She turned and looked to the elves, many of who had fallen to one knee and were praying and giving thanks to their gods.

Except for one.

"Uh... Uncle Race? Look." Race directed his gaze across the field to where she was pointing. His face fell. "Yeah," she said. "That's what I was wondering. Why does Santa look so torked off?"

Santa Clause's face was bright red and his jaw and fists were clenched, and as he looked around at the two armies celebrating a peaceful end to their conflict, his face just got redder and his jaw just got clenchier. He reached behind his bare back, pulled forth his long axe, and drove the butt end of it into the Earth. When it hit, a bolt of lighting tore across the sky and a crack of thunder echoed o'er the plains. Many of the elves fell over in stunned surprise, and a howl of fear rose up from the Light Eaters. "ENOUGH!" Santa roared, his voice inhumanly loud and ringing across the battlefield. "THERE WILL BE NO PEACE! NOT WHILE AN AXE LIES IN MY HANDS AND A LIGHT EATER HEAD REMAINS ATTACHED TO ITS SHOULDERS!"

"Huh," Race said. "Did not count on a bloodthirsty Santa Clause messing this up."

Cookie drew an arrow from her quiver and nocked it, but did not draw her bow. "This is going to be bad."

Over on the elven side of things, Galadrieallal had hurried over to Santa and was trying to reason with him, but Santa was having none of it. Instead, the Clause reared back and swiped at the elven captain with the back of a bear-sized hand, sending Galadrieallal flying backwards twenty feet and crashing into ten of his men, where he lay still.

"This is going to be very bad," Cookie said.

Santa raised his axe high in the air. Another crack of lightning ripped across the sky, glinting white hot against the blade... and then Santa brought the axe crashing down into the ground. Where the blade cleaved the soil a fissure ruptured and ran across the Earth... and directly towards Race and Cookie. Cookie dove left and Race dove right, each ending up on different sides of the newly formed tear in the ground. Cookie looked up and watched as the churned up soil ran straight to the front line of Light Eaters and stopped.

Time stood still and silence reigned. Elf, Light Eater, and McCloud alike all stared at the Santa-cleaved crack in the ground, wondering what was to come next... and then a wooden branch, gnarled and twisted like a monstrous skeletal hand, reached up and out of the fissure and grabbed at the earth right at Cookie's feet. She scurried back a few extra feet as another branch-hand followed suit... and then a few feet more as the hands gripped into the soil and pulled forth their owner: a monstrous living tree, a fir tree... no, not just that. It was a Christmas tree, decorated with baubles and tinsel, ablaze with lights, a star at its tip, two long branch-hands jutting out from its midsection, a split in the bottom of its trunk like two stumpy legs, and gaps in the branches on its face, two smaller ones above one long one. It took a second for the picture to register in Cookie's mind, and it only fully coalesced when the Yule Monster in front of her opened wide the longer of the three gaps and let loose a roar that sounded like an acre of forest being felled all at once.

It was inconceivable, but true: dragging themselves from the depth of the Earth, Santa Claus had called forth an army of Christmas tree monsters, with branches for arms, trunks for legs, and angry eyes and mouths ripped open in their needles.

"CHRISTMAS TREE MONSTERS!" Race squealed from the other side of the newly-formed mini-ravine. "COOKIE, CHRISTMAS TREE MONSTERS! LOTS OF CHRISTMAS TREE MONSTERS!"

'Lots' was an understatement. Cookie looked up and down the line of the fissure. Dozens and dozens of Christmas tree monsters were clawing their way out of the ground, screeching and yelling and grasping for Elder Elf and Light Eater alike. She turned her attention back to the one who had clambered to the surface directly in front of her. It was now shuffling its way towards her as fast as its stumpy trunk-legs would allow. It plunged a branch-hand into its own needles and drew forth a sparkly red Christmas ball. It hauled back and launched the ornament at Cookie, who ducked just in time, and the thing exploded behind her; she could feel some festive shrapnel bury itself into her armor. Her first thought? Think goodness I have this armor. Her second? Uncle Race doesn't have this armor. And she was pretty sure dead horse skin wasn't going to protect him from explosive Christmas decorations.

It was a good thing the Elder Elves had placed her in charge of munitions, then.

"I'm a dogdamn genius," she said as she drew back her bowstring. As soon as the nocked arrow was back and in launch position, the tip of it burst into flames. Having the elves arm themselves with fire arrows? That had been Cookie's idea. She released, and the arrow flew into the heart of the Christmas tree monster. As much as a neckless monster tree could, the thing looked down at its 'gut'; the flames from the arrow spread quickly through its needles and branches. It began to scream, a horrible sound of pain and fear that, given the circumstances, didn't bother Cookie all that much. She quickly sent two more flaming arrows whistling into her assailant, and within moments it had gone up in flames completely.

It was a scene replaying itself across the battlefield, as elves poured flaming arrows into their foes, but the sheer number of Christmas tree monsters, now somewhere in the hundreds and climbing, was threatening to overwhelm both the Elder Elves and the Light Eaters. The Light Eaters didn't have flaming arrows, but it looked as though their axes and heavy swords were doing the job as they hacked tree after tree into splinters.

Cookie began moving forward methodically and steadily, stepping over writhing, flaming branches and melting candy canes, ducking exploding ornaments and grasping branch-hands, and plucking arrow after arrow into the attacking Christmas trees. She reached the edge of the fissure and fired a few arrows straight down into it to knock loose from its sides the trees that were just about to reach the surface in front of her, giving herself a seconds-long window clear of any clambering Christmas trees. She took that opportunity to take a standing leap and effortlessly clear the ten-foot wide fissure, landing and surveying the battlefield on the other side.

All around her was a mass of meleeing elves and Light Eaters and trees; without looking, she shot an arrow to her right that caught a tree right in the 'forehead' and dropped it at her feet, its mad dash for her throat left unfulfilled. "Where, where, where, where," she muttered to herself, and then, "... there!" Thirty feet away, there it was: a tree just pounding and pounding away at something on the ground.

She began moving forward again, and reached for an arrow. "One," she said as it found its mark in the tree's back. The thing reared up and hollered in pain, but Cookie just reached for a second arrow. "Two," she said as she let the second fly, and then, "Three," as she followed that up with a third. Out of arrows, she cast her bow aside as she reached the still flailing, flaming tree. She drew from a sheath on her hip a silver short sword, reached through the flames and grabbed the top of the tree, pulled it down and back towards her, and with one quick slash of the dagger she severed the already damaged trunk, finishing the job. The tree collapsed in a pile of smoldering needles, and she stood over it, the top of the tree in her hand. She tossed that aside and then reached down and helped Race up off the ground. "You okay?" she asked.

Rae pulled the horse skin down from over his head. "Yeah. This thing held up nicely. What do they make horses out of down here, anyway? LOOK OUT!"

Cookie spun around but before she could get her sword raised another tree, this one the tallest she'd seen yet, had swung a massive branch-hand into her arm and knocked the short sword out of her hand, sending it flying away. She froze: no arrows, no sword, nothing but leather armor and horsehide to protect them. She was running five or six possible escape scenarios through her head, none of them good, when...

SLICE! SLICE!

The tree's branch hands fell to its side, severed at the trunk. The tree cried out with a twisted yelp of a scream that quickly went dead as its lights went out and it toppled over. Standing behind where the tree had just been, a long machete unsheathed in his hand, was...

"Commander Tinsel!" Race exclaimed. "Wow, are we glad to see you."

Commander Tinsel, dark green bowler hat and all, stood where the tree had fallen, a shining machete in his hands. "I brought help," the commander said. Cookie looked around. He wasn't lying: Department 66 elves had joined the fray and were turning the tide against Santa's trees, expertly cutting them down one by one. "They're automatons," Tinsel said. "Automatic sentries that make up the first line of defense against invasion at the Pole. Slice off their arms." A screaming tree, this one covered in very pretty blue and white twinkle lights, came running up on them. Commander Tinsel spun around to face it, and...

SLICE! SLICE!

... down it went with, its arms lopped off with two quick swings of his machete. The commander looked back at Race and Cookie. "That's how you disarm them." He scowled. "Santa's gone off the deep end. We have to beat back the trees and get him back to the Pole for treatment." He drew a second machete from his belt and handed it to Cookie. "Take this. Good luck." Without another word, Tinsel turned and dove back into the battle, the steel of his machete singing and flashing.

Race started laughing. "Disarmed! I get it! Because you cut off their arms! Wow, that's a good one!"

"That's an awful one," Cookie said. The trees were being thinned out around them, but no matter how many were cut down, fresh ones clambered out of the crack in the Earth to replace them. "If we want to stop this we need to get to Santa. Stay close. Let's go."

They headed towards the rear of the elven line, running, ducking, dodging, and fighting their way through, Cookie lopping off the arms of Christmas trees when necessary. Santa had taken to the top of a hill, daring all to get close to him, fending off Elder Elf and Light Eater alike, some with his axe, others with magical bursts of wrapping paper and holly that wrapped his foes from head to toe, turning them into festive mummies. As she and Race pushed closer to him, Cooke glanced up at this intimidating form. "I don't know how we're going to stop him," she said. "He's the most powerful being on Earth, to my knowledge."

"Just get us there," Race said. He ducked the clawing branch hand of a scraggly fir tree covered in candy canes. Cookie spun around him and with two quick swipes sent the tree to the kindling pile. She looked to Race. "Just get us there," he repeated, "and I'll talk to him."

She was about to dismiss him with an offhand remark, but then... something in his expression, something in his voice, gave her pause. She studied him. He frowned, thrown off by her reaction. "What is it?" he asked. "Is there something on my face?"

Cookie nodded. "Yeah. Confidence."

Race rolled his eyes, which was normally her move. "Geez, don't get weird on me. Come on, let's go!" She nodded, took a quick double slash at the tree reaching for the back of Race's head, dropping it down cold, and then moved them through the battle at double time.

Just minutes later they were within striking distance of Santa Claus. Two of his own Department 66 security force had grabbed hold of his axe, and Santa pointed far off in the distance. "That's where you're headed!" he roared. He gave the axe a mighty swing, and the two elves flew off screaming through the air, off towards the horizon and out of sight.

Race and Cookie froze and stared. "Soooo... go talk to him," Cookie said.

"I don't wanna now," Race said.

Santa, though, didn't seem inclined to give them a choice, as he now turned towards the two of them. "You," he said. "If you two had just left me alone, if you hadn't come here, this war would already be over!"

"Wars have a funny way of going on longer than you think," Cookie said. She raised her machete. "Call off the trees. It's over."

Santa threw back his head and laughed. "HO, HO, HO! HO, HO, HO, HO, HO!" Still laughing, he held up his hand. A ball of energy crackled to life in his palm. He thrust his hand forward, and from the energy ball exploded a bundle of wrapping paper, aiming to wrap Cookie up tight. She held up her arms, hoping she'd maybe catch enough of the paper on the blade of her machete to cut through it...

... but then Race stepped in front of her, and said, "No!"

The wrapping paper flying towards them tore itself in half and fell dead to either side of them. Cookie and Santa both stared. "How... ?" Santa asked.

"... did you do that?" Cookie finished.

Race took a deep breath. "Santa, you do not belong here. No matter how insignificant you think you've become in the modern age, you are Christmas. You aren't a warrior. You shouldn't have an axe. Peace and joy and goodwill are things we have in real short supply in this world, and I can not stand by and let you rob us of one of the few sources of pure good feeling we have left."

Cookie looked around. When her uncle began speaking, the trees had begun to fall, one by one. The battle was stopping as the elves and Light Eaters realized their foes were collapsing. Everyone was looking at each other in confusion, and one by one realizing that a horse-skin covered non-extraordinary detective was giving Santa a verbal dress-down. Cookie was mystified. Were the trees falling because Santa was distracted by Race? Or was it something her uncle was doing? But how could that be?

"You are Santa Clause," Race continued. "You represent something so much bigger than this. Do you even know what this war is about? Does anyone?" Race turned to the now halted battle, the combatants all staring at him in confusion. "So you both want to live on the same land!" he shouted. "Just live there! There's room for both of you! Why are you killing each other for something so stupid? What is the matter with you?"

Cookie stepped forward, closer to her uncle. "If it wasn't for stupid, there'd be no wars at all," she reminded him in a low voice.

He shook his head. "Don't tell me that," he said.

"It's true, though," she insisted. "Even the treaty we forged, that was you and I doing that. It won't last. We hoped it would last just long enough for us to get Santa out of here, but it didn't even last that long." Race closed his eyes and slumped his shoulders as she spoke. She felt for him, right in that moment. Even though she was the teenager and he was the adult, there were certain hard truths she knew and understood so much better than he. Or maybe, she realized right then, it was just that she accepted those hard truths and he did not. Of the pair, one of them was an incurable optimist. Cookie was not that one. And though she sometimes thought her uncle foolish because he was, she'd never change that about him, not ever.

The world needed some foolish optimism, once in awhile.

Race took a deep breath and opened his eyes again. "We can't solve the world's problems in one day. But we can solve the one we were hired to solve." He looked at Santa. "What do you say? Can we give up on this nonsense and go home? Get you back to the North Pole so you can get Christmas back on track? Maybe it's corny, but the world needs Santa Claus. The world needs, and WANTS, Christmas."

Santa didn't answer for a long time. He looked around, and he looked down at himself, looked at the axe in his hand. When he finally turned back to Race and Cookie, the ferocity and warrior's fire that had been in his eyes since they first encountered him in the elven camp had gone out, replaced with a deep, deep sadness. "I'm sorry," he said.

Race smiled and waved it off. "Hey, it's all right. We all have stuff we gotta deal with."

Santa, though, shook his head. "No. I'm sorry. I can't go back. I don't know who I am anymore. I don't know what I'm meant to do. Christmas isn't what it once was, and I... I need to find myself." He laid his axe on the ground. "Thank you for coming. Thank you for stopping me. The both of you are on the 'Good' list. But... good-bye."

"What?" Race said. "No, wait!" Santa placed his finger on his nose, and though Cookie tried to jump him and hold on to him, with just a wink and a nod and a twinkle of golden lights, he was gone. And Cookie's dive took her head-first through the spot where he had just been and she ate dirt.

"Eight-point-five out of ten," Race said as he helped her up. "I knocked off two points. Rough landing."

"One and a half points," Cookie said as she wiped dirt off of herself. "You have mathematical dyslexia." She looked out across the battlefield. The trees had all wilted into dead black twigs and the rest of the combatants were just kind of milling about.

"So... do we have a treaty or don't we?" Race asked.

Cookie shook her head. "I don't even know anymore." She frowned. "You know, if there's no Christmas, that's going to have huge global economic ramifications. It could be devastating, financially speaking."

"I'll trust you on the numbers, because as you point out: I have mathematical dyslexia." Race looked at her, worried. "So what do we do?"

Cookie turned back to the battlefield. Most of the soldiers had begun taking off their armor and putting away their weapons. Some of the Elder Elves and Light Eaters were even shaking hands. Commander Tinsel was gathering his people back together and glancing up at Race and Cookie, a disgusted look on his face. She and Race both grinned sheepishly and waved at him. "The North Pole elves aren't going to be happy about Santa running off again," Cookie said out of the side of her mouth to Race as they watched Tinsel stomp up towards them. "The commander looks like he's on his way to tell us just that. There's going to be a big leadership vacuum in the Pole, though, so I can't blame them for being upset about the long term picture. Short term, though, for getting this coming Christmas up and running?" She smiled. "I think I have an idea."
Chapter 5: Just Send Cash (Tens & Twenties)

"Yes, yes... this might work, this might work." Yule Log took off his glasses, cleaned the lenses on his coat sleeve, and put them back on. He was smiling, but it was a nervous smile, to be sure, and who could blame him? He'd just a few hours earlier learned he was the new de-facto Santa Claus. Among his many concerns about this was the fact that he, like all of the North Pole elves, was incapable of growing a beard. As soon as he had said that a light bulb clicked in everyone's head: maybe Santa WASN'T truly a North Pole elf, after all.

But Yule was rolling with the punches, and very admirably, Race thought. Given how nervous the little guy had been the whole time he'd first come to McCloud & McCloud, Race figured being named the new chief of Santa's operation would have him breathing into a paper bag for the rest of his life. He only spent a few minutes dry heaving out of a window, though, and then he pulled himself together and started putting Cookie's plan into action.

So now Yule Log stood atop a hill behind Santa's residence and workshop, next to Race, Cookie, and Commander Tinsel. Behind them were the holiday lights, smells, and songs of the North Pole's workaday elves, chipper as ever as they made and ate peanut brittle and marshmallows and peppermints and fruitcakes. In front of them, though, was the workshop's service yard, and it was crawling with Santa's elves, Elder Elves, and Light Eaters, all working together to haul back-up sleighs out of dry dock, getting them refurbished and ready for the Christmas run... a Christmas run they were going to attempt to undertake without Santa Claus. The North Pole elves felt a duty to the holiday, obviously, but Galadrieallal and the Elder Elves had come out of guilt for hauling Santa off in the first place, and Grogmeister and the Light Eaters had come because... well, they really wanted presents.

"Why do you need so many sleighs?" Race asked. Fifteen or so had been hauled out of the workshop garage and into the yard, and more were following, the Light Eaters tugging them out with long ropes under the direction of bell-wearing North Pole workers.

"Only Santa can get Red One into the air," Yule Log explained. "And only Red One can get across the world in one night. So it's going to take a lot of sleighs and a lot of pilots and a lot of reindeer, lots of reindeer, to hit half the houses in the world."

"That's why Galadrieallal and a team of his elves have gone into the woods," Tinsel said. "They're rounding up more reindeer for us to train to fly."

"Do you really need so many, though?" Cookie asked as another pair of sleighs, one with a broken runner and the other with a busted seat, were pulled out of the garage. Like almost all the other back-ups getting placed out in the yard, these two were going to need some patching up. "Santa said he only hit a few hundred houses anymore. Is that true?"

"It isn't," Yule Log said, shaking his head. "He still does millions. Millions of people who can't afford to buy the presents we put in stores. I don't know why he said that. I don't know what's gotten into him."

A thought occurred to Race. "Hey, has anyone told Mrs. Clause what's happened?"

Yule Log looked nervously down as he shuffled his feet. Commander Tinsel answered. "Humph. She left him a few years back for her tennis instructor. Guy was French. I didn't trust him."

"Say," Yule Log said as though it had just occurred to him, "maybe Mrs. Clause leaving had something to do with Santa's little identity crisis."

Race and Cookie looked at each other in amazement. "Uh, you think?" Race asked in disbelief. Even HE wasn't so blind as to miss the likely connection between Mrs. Clause leaving and Santa losing it.

Cookie shook her head. "Maybe you guys should shut down one of the eight gingerbread shops you have in the village and replace it with a therapist's office. You can have all the lights and tinsel you want, but it's still always nighttime in Santa's North Pole. Haven't you ever heard of seasonal affective disorder?"

"No," said Commander Tinsel.

"What's that?" Yule Log asked.

Cookie just shrugged. "Forget it. Not important. Well, it looks like you guys have a lot of work ahead of you. You'd better get to it."

"Oh yes, oh yes." Yule Log reached up and grasped Cookie's hand to shake it, and then Race's. "Thank you both, thank you."

"Why?" Race said, a little jolt of frustration kicking in his gut. "We failed. We didn't get Santa back."

"You tried, though," Yule Log said. "You tried very hard."

"Better we know what happened now," Tinsel added. "Instead of being paralyzed and indecisive, we can move ahead. Santa's not coming back anytime soon. It's up to us." He nodded curtly at the McClouds. "Detectives. Been a pleasure. All the best."

Tinsel marched off, headed down to the courtyard below, no doubt to bark orders at somebody. "We'll arrange a ride home for you," Yule Log told them. "Feel free to explore the village! It's ever-so-lovely-lovely. When you're ready to leave, I'll have a pilot meet you at the Reindeer Runway. And your fee will be in the mail. Do you take checks?"

"It's not going to bounce, is it?" Cookie asked warily. "What with Santa not here and all..."

"I'll get you cash, cash," Yule Log said. He then, of course, hugged them both and turned and headed down to the courtyard, a little Santa in training pants, overseeing an operation that was way too big for him.

"He's a nice guy," Race said, watching after him. "I hope he pulls this off."

"They'll be fine," Cookie said. "The truth of how many people they have to get to is somewhere between what they're claiming and what Santa claimed. A big part of the present business really is outsourced." She nodded towards the scene down below, all the sleighs being hoisted up on lifts and elves and Light Eaters swarming around, working on getting Christmas up and off the ground. "These guys just have to get to the people who don't have access to big department stores and credit cards."

Race frowned. "So the people who need them the most."

"... well, yeah, but..."

Race sighed. "We failed, Cookie. Santa belongs here, but he's not here, because we couldn't bring him back here. It just isn't right."

"Hey." Cookie reached up and put a hand on his shoulder. "You can't win 'em all, Uncle Race. And look: Christmas is still going to happen. We at least made sure of that. Silver lining."

"You're not usually the one of us looking for silver linings."

"Yeah, I'm not. So you'd better snap out of it and start doing it again, because I'm really not wired for it."

Race smiled. "Sorry. I didn't mean to swap roles. I'll do better."

"See that you do."

Before they turned to leave, Race took one final look down at the courtyard. "Look at that: Elder Elves and Light Eaters working together towards something bigger than themselves. Do you think this is the start of a new age of peace, compromise, and collaboration between the two races?"

"I'm not optimistic," Cookie replied. She smiled at him. "But that doesn't mean you shouldn't be."

Race smiled back. He was suddenly feeling a little bit better, a little bit warmer. Business-as-usual in the North Pole was going to go on with or without Santa, and maybe in the end that was all that mattered. "Optimistic. You're right. That's just what I should be. Merry Christmas, Cookie."

She gave him her best exasperated look and her best exasperated sigh and said, "It's still only July, Uncle Race." Turning her back to the courtyard, she started down the hill, back towards town. "Come on. Let's get the hell out of here. I'm freezing my face off."

Race thought about it. She was right. "It's only July." He looked back down into the courtyard and called out to no one in particular, "What was the freaking rush?!" Nobody looked at him to answer so he just shook his head, laughed at himself, and followed after Cookie.

He was definitely going to make sure she counted the cash before they headed back to Westside City.

*

"In lieu of the usual epilogue and 'Tune in next time!' I would usually leave you with, I'll do naught here but wish you and yours a Merry Christmas, or a Merry Whatever-You-Celebrate, and a Happy New Year!

... and I'll also point out that Race never did figure out why he was so passionate about getting Santa Clause back to the North Pole, or how he was able to disrupt Santa's magic and keep Cookie from being wrapped up tight in wrapping paper. No, those are two mysteries to which Race and Cookie do not have the answer.

But I do.

Until next time, dear reader! And a Merry Christmas to all, and to all a nude fight!

... okay, I KNOW that one can't be right."
About the Author:

"Vell, Tom's jus zis guy, you know?" – Gag Halfrunt, Brain Care Specialist

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