“Well, no, but I thought-” Ded mumbled, ears drooping.
“You better go then. Now,” Bels fairly hissed.
“Ah- Well- Well...” The Elkfen’s shoulders slumped and he seemed to deflate. “Alright then,” he mumble-muttered. Reluctantly, Ded collected my things and placed them in my hands, his thick fingers brushing mine in the process, lingering. “I’ll be back,” he said with the reassurance of someone who didn’t really know. “Perhaps,” he said as he started to trot off to stop. “Perhaps there’s another-”
“There is no other way!” Bels shouted, incensed. “And even if there possibly was, it’s too late now!” Glaring at Ded, daring him to argue further, the gross brown stuff was on his lips again. It was leaking from Bels’ mouth, as if he produced it naturally. Ew.
Ded left after Bels’ outburst, leaving me to my fate with Bels and his friend in need Shnikel.
With a deep breath, Bels put on a fake smile. “Well now then, shall we go and introduce you two kids?”
NO! I wanted to scream, but just stood there idly, blinking. Tears started to well in my eyes and gently trail down my cheeks. They burned hotly, pricking my iced over skin.
“No need for those.” Muttering lower, he said with an annoyed huff, “We’re long past that now. What’s done is to be.”
Bels had me shuffling along beside him, his hand at my back leading me down a winding passage way.
Grumbling, grunting noises issued from somewhere deeper in the catacombs looking maze carved out of this rock. The deeper we went, the harder to see it grew. The urge to flee was strong but the body was not willing.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Bels said between rough clearings of his throat. “I’m not a monster,” he insisted, as something straight out of a nightmare came into view. “There’s nothing to be done of it. Shnikel is the only real friend I’ve ever had, and I’m not about to let him just slip off into oblivion, a mindless creature, to become- To be-” Bels throat worked and he was starting to look a little choked up himself. Shaking his head, sniffling a little, he tried to shrug it all off. “Nevermind,” he said on a laugh of a huff. “You’re here now.” Smiling up at me with a soft look, he took my hand in his and gave it a pat.
The nightmare snorted and snapped its teeth, then slammed a hooved foot into the ground. It was just up ahead.
Cells. The passage we took spilled out into a space as tall as it was wide. Cells lined the walls, carved right into the mountain. The cell with an actual occupant, a snarling beast stamping his hooves at the intruders nearing his pen. Thin lips pulled back over long teeth. The noise that erupted from him had my teeth on edge. And still yet, docilely I trotted alongside Bels.
“I’ve brought someone, Shnik, that I’d like you to meet,” the Elf called out casually, like we were about to sit down and have a leisurely brunch.
Shnik’s lips pulled up higher at Bels’ voice, an ugly noise rattling his wide chest. His chest was so wide it contrasted greatly, looking as if it popped out, in comparison to the sunken in appearance of his stomach. He was furred in a way that showed his Elkfen heritage, dark greys, lights, and browns of every shade mixing in with swaths of pure, thick, long white fur that was scraggly to the rest of its fluffy tufts. The white fur was thickest at his hips, thighs, over his shoulders, and down a bony spine that looked like it was about to burst from the stretched skin at his back. His ribs were in no better shape, skin stretched over them, visible where the fluff of fur had visibly thinned.
I knew what that was. Mother used to tell Beau and me tales of such things, the stories her mother and grandmother told her and so on.
“Krampus,” I garbled out.
“Oh goody, you know what he’s turning into.” Bels let go of me to clap his hands together. I’d almost say he was enjoying himself. Maybe he was. Nasty little gremlin bastards, Elves were turning out to be. This one was, at least.
We were right in front of the cage now. If Shnikel Krampus sniffing loudly over there, his nose turned up, a garbled rumble fighting with the deep, chest lifting deep breaths things, reached out, he might be able to touch us. His hooves shifted, drawing my attention to them as they scraped the ground. The bits of fruit chunks at his feet squished beneath his odd feet.
Again, my gaze unerringly drew up, traveling up his towering frame to once more find his face. Where the Krampus I knew of from folk tales were depicted with ram looking horns, this one’s were still very Elkfen looking. The points’ main beams were curving funnily, unnaturally, the base of his horns thicker, the burrs sporting sharp looking spikes Elkfen did not have. Rings where the base had thickened were starting to show, the points along the very ends curlicued. Some of those curled ends were cracked and crumbling, one snapped off but still dangling there, flopping this way and that with every jerk of his head.
Eyes as black as pitch met mine, held, and then his eyelids slowly blinked. Grunting, Krampus Shnikel began to weave on his feet. With another grunt, he stumbled backward. The thick tail sprouting out of the top of his furry arse flicked wildly behind him. He lost his balance, tripped, fell. When Krampus dropped back, horns cracking the ground as his head slammed backward, he just kind of passed out.
“Apples are working,” Bels said with that creepy tone that literally made my skin crawl. “I was worried he wouldn’t take the bait, his humanity still with him enough to fight the Krampus instincts.”
When I turned my head to him and just stared, the effects of his bite slowly starting to wear off and un-numb my addled brain, his eyebrows shot up.
“Oh, I’m sure you have questions. I’ll answer some of them, but while we work.” Pulling out a ring of keys, he gave them a jiggle. Unlocking the door to the Krampus’ cell, he had to work to get the door open. It was iced over in spots. With a bit of elbow grease he had it open, creaking on its hinges.
Then he was back to me, guiding me along. My feet felt like blocks of ice as I entered the beast’s cell. Everything in me was screaming for me to run. At the horrible noise I made, Bels grabbed my unblemished arm and sank his teeth fangs deep into it.
When I was once again a dolly for him to lead, the Elf walked me right inside the Krampus Shnikel’s cell, maneuvering me right over the fat hooves on thick legs sprawled out across the space.
“Over here, I think. This will do. I suppose it’s not necessary to tie you up, but the quicker we can hurry this all along and see if it works, the better.” My hands were once more tied up and then lifted over my head. This position left me completely open, vulnerable. Smoothing his hands down my arms as he released the ends of the rope he’d tied, he curled his hands and raked the short, pointed claws on the tips of his fingers down my forearms.
A soft cry left me, but it was so weak it was barely a sound. The screams in my head were louder. Gripping my chin, he smiled into my fear filled eyes. “This isn’t going to be pleasant. You’ll excuse me for hurrying things along, but I really am on a race with the clock, and I’ve got an ignorant fawn to catch up to and distract so Shnikel can waken and partake of the Snowmaiden.”
A clawed hand scraped across my cheek. It slid down my neck, past my collarbone, pressing until it hurt but leaving no more than a thin trail of blood. Down the middle of my chest that finger went, dipping over my lower belly. His other hand joined in when he got to my thighs and he scraped them down the thickest part, same as he had raked them down my forearms. My legs jerked but I was stuck, at his mercy.