Page 2 of I Saw Krampus Kissing Ms Claus

“You think everyone is a great guy.” I sigh.

“And I’m right, aren’t I?”

“No.”

Kris grins. “And Krampus has the biggest supply of Christmas Cheer, other than us, of course.”

“You could skip a corner with fewer occupied planets? Leave off one arm of the Milky Way?” I pull out the second map that I drew up.

“Every planet gets Christmas, or no one does.” Santa nods decisively. “You will have to talk to Krampus.”

“Me? But he’s your best friend!” I protest. “Don’t you see him every week for cookies and poker?”

“I’m very busy Nikki. There’s only a couple days until Christmas and I still have the quarterly cookie quality check, and the endurance flights with the reindeer, the coat fittings, my beard fertilization—”

“Fine! I will speak to him.” I cut him off quickly. “I will ask him to lend us the Christmas Cheer.”

“Great! He would love to see you!”

“Doubt it.” I say.

“Don’t be like that, Nikki. When’s the last time you even saw him?”

“I don’t know.” It’s a lie. I know exactly when I saw him last. At the party to celebrate Santa’s first Christmas Eve trip across the cosmos. “I was maybe seventeen centuries old?”

“We were just kids!”

“And he was just a jerk.” I grumble.

“Well, he’s our only shot.” Santa folds his arms across his chest. “So you’ll have to talk to him, or Christmas will be ruined.”

I roll my eyes. He always goes straight for the big threat. Everything is always going to ruin Christmas.

Santa gets his way, he always does, and a few hours later, and reindeer’s hooves are meeting in the fresh powdered snow. Landing Santa’s spare sleigh outside of Krampus’s cave in the Frosting Mountain.

The cave is set deep into the dark side of the rocky cliff. Wind whistles through the limbs of the pine trees around me, like an eerie warning about the monster’s lair.

I square my shoulders and step into the darkness, ready to face my past.

The cave is much warmer than the freezing temperatures outside, but it’s still cool and damp. With the scent of peppermint, charcoal, and leather that shoots me straight back to my youth. Krampus always smelt unfortunately good.

The main cavern is large. It’s empty except for the torches embedded into the wall that cast a red glow on the dark gray stone. Tunnels lead in various directions, taking you deeper into the mountain, but it’s difficult to see much further into the caves.

“Hello?” I call into the depths of the cavern, trying to convince myself that I’m not scared to see Krampus in person, for the first time in nearly a millennium.

“Hey! It’s little Saint Nik!” a deep voice calls from a tunnel behind me. The old nickname unearths memories of a little demon pulling my pigtails and adding salt to my gingerbread dough.

“Vikram.” I sigh. I spin to face him.

“Krampus, please.” He lopes down the tunnel, long legs easily covering the distance with the loud clop of hooves. He steps into the large cavern, shaking the darkness from his fur and revealing a broad-shouldered body covered in fine white fur, almost like velvet.

“Oh. Saint Nik. You are all grown up, aren’t you?” He practically purrs.

I roll my eyes. But he took the words right out of my mouth. I haven’t seen Vikram in almost a thousand years. He’s taller than I remember, much taller, and he’s filled out from the skinny adolescent monster I used to know. With wide shoulders and well-developed chest muscles.

He’s grown into his broad goat nose, the bridge of the snout slightly crooked. I was there when he crashed Santa’s sleigh during a joy ride. It never quite healed straight.

I used to think the flaw was an embarrassing reminder of his accident, but now the feature gives him character.

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