Chapter 10: The Cold Shoulder

Yuki stepped into the bitter cold of the Arctic, pausing just long enough to close the window behind her. The sloped roof above was covered in thick powder that had acquired a substantial crust of ice along the top, and her feet broke through the drift beneath her as she walked away from the house.

The Northern Lights were now obscured, casting the Christmas village into darkness. A majority of the light now streamed from the windows of Santa’s home, which looked like a cross between an old lodge and a castle. The high, arched peaks of the house were decorated in sparkling lights, and a large wooden shield with a carved SC had been hung on the front of the house.

She was not surprised to see that it was much smaller on the outside. The exterior was only three stories tall with a small chimney up top that released a steady cloud of smoke. If she remembered correctly, the interior was at least five stories high, which made her wonder how the outside kept track of all the windows on the inside.

“Stay focused,” she muttered to herself, turning away from the home.

The front walk was already obscured by snow drifts from the storm, but she navigated it without any problem. The snow moved away from her, clearing the path in case she needed to make a hasty retreat or find her way to safety. She could already tell that the storm itself was unnatural, but the sheer amount of power she felt off toward the horizon was slightly alarming.

It had to be Jack. There was no question about it. If she had said something to Mike, he would have demanded to help. It was so far below freezing that it was almost too cold for Yuki. He wouldn’t last more than a couple of minutes outside, not unless Mrs. Claus had squirreled away a bunch of enchanted gear for visitors.

The street lamps were lit with magic, and more than a couple flickered, ready to go out. She sent out bursts of fox fire to the ones that were broken, bolstering the enchantment within so that they stayed lit. Whimsical buildings that looked to be made of gingerbread were frosted over, and some of the candy cane fencing had fallen over to shatter on the ground.

She closed her eyes and commanded the hair on her body to elongate, wrapping her in both warmth and safety. To an outsider, it would appear as a thick coat of dark fur, making her stand out on the icy tundra. Yuki didn’t bother trying to hide. Jack would likely be able to sense a warm body from a mile away.

It was a long walk to the edge of the village. The silent buildings around her were reminiscent of mausoleums, though she did occasionally notice movement in the darkness. She hoped it was the elves, but wondered what other dangers lurked in the North Pole. One shadow in particular was very large, skulking around behind nearby buildings for a while before disappearing. Were there other forces at work here? Would they go looking for Mike if they knew he was alone?

Mike.

She smiled, rubbing her lower belly. She was still sore from their rough lovemaking, though that wasn’t the correct term. It hadn’t just been fucking, either, there had been so many emotions involved. Not only had it been fun, but her entire soul had relaxed afterward, as if it had been stretched tight for the last couple of decades.

How could she pay back a man who not only saved her life, but maybe even her soul as well? Even now, she could feel that her magic had changed, like a friend who had gone away for many years, both familiar yet strange. So many aspects of it that had been closed to her now swirled within her, eager to be reacquainted.

When she got to the edge of the village, she took a deep breath in through her nose and smiled. Older magic radiated through her body, filling her with a warmth she hadn’t felt in decades. For the first time since Emily, she was ... complete.

After sex with Mike, something had changed inside of her. It was as though someone had picked up all the leftover pieces of who she used to be and put them back where they used to go. The pieces were still loose, and it would take time to glue them all back in place, but at least the whole picture could now be seen. It was why she wondered what he had acquired from her, because what she had received from him was peace.

Beneath her feet, the cold earth slumbered but responded with interest to her touch. On the day she had acquired her second tail, she had chosen the element of earth as her specialty. It had given her quite the array of magic, which she had used to protect herself and others.

On the day she had grown her third tail, her broken soul had latched on to the element of ice. It was cold and unforgiving, much as she had been. Recently, she had worried that her command over ice magic was slipping, but she knew better now. It wasn’t that she had become weaker, but that her heart was now stronger. She had relied so much on that sense of abandonment, on the anguish that had come with being broken to develop her bond with the ice.

The cold that had once comforted her now felt like a stranger. She no longer sought its embrace, nor found comfort in the way it numbed her. Where she had once craved it, the desire was gone, and the ice knew.

However, as the ice withdrew, the earth remained. She could no longer rely on one aspect of her magic alone, because the grief powering it had largely diminished. The ice was only one aspect of her magic, and without most of her deck of cards, it was time to rely on an old friend.

The horizon was obscured by what looked like a massive fog bank, but Yuki knew better. It was a swirling mass of snow and ice, barreling toward the Christmas village with the ferocity of a hurricane.

“What are you up to, Jack?” She pondered the length of the storm, realizing that the power she saw didn’t agree with what she knew of Jack’s abilities. A massive storm was doable, given enough time. It was the moving shapes within that had her concerned. Controlling a storm on top of elementals?

Had she underestimated Jack’s skills? There had only been the one encounter, and Jack Frost had easily overpowered any control Yuki had over elemental ice, a feat which would probably be even easier now. But if Jack had always been this powerful, she should have easily defeated Mike and Yuki when they first met.

Yuki crouched, pushing her hand through the icy crust of the top layer of snow until her fingers touched the frozen soil beneath. Closing her eyes, she let the magic flow through her, spreading out across the landscape. She could feel the steady pounding of feet, the heavy vibrations traveling out from the coming stampede.

Jack hadn’t just raised a storm. She was bringing an army.

Frowning, Yuki reached into her sleeves and pulled out her tarot cards. Nothing in the minor arcana would help her, and she had very little in the major arcana. She had burned through most of them on her return to Earth, and they took a long time to recreate.

The Moon, Temperance, and Wheel of Fortune were the only ones she had. Scowling, she looked up at the approaching army. The Sun card would have been great, but she had used that to build a dimensional pressure cooker to blow up a demon’s pocket universe. The Lovers card could benefit her, but she had accidentally used that on Cerberus. Smirking, she thought of Mike, and all the crazy adventures he had already taken her on.

“Crazy human.” She tucked the major arcana back into their secret sleeve and pulled out what was left of the minor arcana. Only a few cards had survived her trip into the furnace, and these wouldn’t be much help.

It was time to get creative. Closing her eyes, she communed with the earth, curious what she could even accomplish here. Summoning pillars of ice was easy, because ice was fairly light and craved being sculpted, transformed into various shapes.

The earth was different. It was stubborn and heavy, and she felt it groan beneath her as it pushed its way up through the snow, forming a thick stalagmite.

“Oh, come on.” She sent another tendril of magic down, feeling everything out. The ground beneath the Christmas village was solid bedrock, and would be hard to manipulate. She wasn’t going to be able to do a whole lot with it on a large scale.

Still, there were plenty of tricks up her sleeve. She sank her mind into the earth and drifted through the frozen stone, examining its capabilities. Though the earth was loath to obey her commands, it was happy to give her its strength.

When she opened her eyes, the surface of her fur had taken on a crystalline sheen. It was a defensive spell, one she hadn’t used in years. All around her, hundreds of small rock obelisks had formed. It was hardly the defensive wall that she had tried to summon, but it would do.

Hopping up onto the nearest obelisk, she created a tube out of ice. Crystals became lenses, and she used the makeshift telescope to get a better idea of what was going on.

“Holy mother of—” It was an army made of ice. Scanning the horizon, she found all manner of beasts charging toward her. Up in the sky, creatures zoomed about, carried aloft by giant wings. They were griffins with icy beaks and snowflake wings. Toward the back of the surge, giant abominations made of snow and ice lumbered along behind their brethren.

At the head of the pack was Jack Frost. Her blue features were determined, but were now lined with golden cracks that shed an immense amount of light. Cold, calculating eyes darted about with the gaze of a predator, and her icy hair hung like a blanket of fog behind her. The bland outfit she had worn before was gone, replaced by a fancy gown decorated with lace and snowflakes.

“And they called me the white witch,” Yuki muttered, lowering the scope. What would Mike do in this situation? Yuki was all by herself, and didn’t have the first idea what she hoped to accomplish on her own.

“Damn, damn, damn,” she muttered, her magic shifting drastically inside of her. Maybe this wasn’t a battle she could win, but then what? Go back and warn the others? They could flee to safety, but it would mean abandoning the North Pole. Mike wouldn’t do that, not while he knew others needed his help.

Even if her ice magic had been at full strength, Yuki couldn’t take Jack on in a head to head fight. Lifting the scope to her eyes once more, she saw that Jack was staring back, eyes brimming with power. Her face had twisted up into a wild snarl, the look of an unhinged woman ready to snap. It was a feeling Yuki knew very well, that sense of all-consuming rage.

Yuki tried to zoom in on those golden lines, but an icy fog enveloped Jack and her army, obscuring them from view. Even this far away, she could feel the magical pressure that came from Jack. It was an entirely different sort of energy, orders of magnitude greater than what she had felt from the woman before.

Somehow, Jack had gone through some form of apotheosis. It was a process Yuki planned to undergo someday if she could live to be a thousand, but there was a reason that the process took a long time. Tapping into divine energy was like putting rocket fuel in a go-cart—the vessel was far more likely to explode before it could even accelerate.

The how and why didn’t matter. She couldn’t let Jack reach Mike.

Smiling to herself, she summoned hundreds of images of herself on top of the obelisks. Calling out to the earth, she got it to feed thermal energy into the stones it had given, which would confuse Jack’s ability to sense heat differences. The mirages of herself were simple illusions, a spell she had learned along with foxfire. They were incapable of creating sound and were easily distinguishable from the real Yuki in bright light. It was a spell she hadn’t bothered with in years, preferring to lean on her ice magic.

Things were different now. It was as though a band of light was holding her together, reminding her both of the person she used to be and the one she could become. The best parts of her were ready to step forward and protect the man she saw as her friend and lover.

A battle of magic would be easily won by old bitch winter. But a battle of intellect? Yuki fingered the cards in her sleeve with a smile, then summoned foxfire into her hands. All across the snowy landscape, her copies did the same.

Jack was about to find out what happened when you fucked with a trickster.

The wind carried Jack across the low hills of the North Pole as she rode the edge of the storm. The plan was to send her army into the buildings and chase out anyone hiding there, be they elf or otherwise. She didn’t trust anybody, least of all that grotesque woman, Grýla. The giant was loyal to the Krampus, and would not take kindly to Jack’s coup.

Once the north was firmly in her grasp, she planned to lay a trap for the demon and catch him when he returned. If she could get him to divulge where he had hidden Santa, she planned to give the fat man a piece of her mind before informing him that she was now in charge. If he was willing to work with her, Christmas could even remain a reality.

But the stories about it? They were long overdue for an update. If Santa wanted to survive, it would be at her service. She had that much figured out. Was she still even Jack Frost? Or perhaps a better name was in order?

“You could always use our old name,” the mysterious woman whispered, using Jack’s mouth and a slightly different voice. “We were loved and respected, why not return to the old ways?”

“Old ways? What were the old ways?” Jack tried to ignore how disturbing it was to have her own face hijacked.

The woman chuckled, then twisted up her face. “We were loved and adored, long before the fall of Asgard. Some still believe, though we have become little more than stories.”

“Who was I? Or is it we? Am I really you?”

“You are little more than a fragment of former glory given time to wither and die. Old man winter, indeed, you settled for the first measly scraps offered! If I had my way, this version of you would be cast out entirely!”

“Well then it’s a good thing you don’t get your way,” Jack snarled, then turned her attention forward. Lights, dozens of them, dotted the landscape just outside the village. Had the elves been freed? No, these were too tall to be elves. Perhaps Grýla was up to something?

Moving closer, she saw the kitsune she had last seen disappearing down into the furnace. Copies of her stood everywhere, all of them staring directly at Jack.

“A deception so simple, even a child could see through it.” The woman grinned.

“Agreed.” Jack tapped into the cold, and was surprised to see that each of the illusory copies had an identical heat signature. How had she done that?

“Jack!” The kitsune called to her. “I just want to talk.” She held the flickering light in her hands aloft, and it briefly formed into the shape of a dove.

“Lies!” The woman screamed.

Jack shook her head, the woman’s voice ringing in her ears. All around her, the creatures of ice and snow paused, awaiting Jack’s commands. With a thought, she could have the kitsune destroyed, and continue on her way.

“Then just do it!” the woman yelled. Jack hovered there, buoyed by the winds and contemplating the fox demon below. She had been moments away from crushing her with a hand made of ice, but the woman’s belligerent tone made her pause. It wasn’t that she cared what the kitsune had to say, or that she had a change of heart.

Nobody told her what to do. Not anymore.

“Then speak,” Jack called, summoning a staff made of ice.

“It looks like you’re getting ready for a war,” the kitsune responded, gesturing toward the army of snow. “I would know who you plan to fight with these creatures.”

“Whoever I damn well please!” the woman shrieked.

“Anyone who would stand in my way!” Jack shouted right after.

“That’s technically two answers.” The kitsune frowned, then crossed her arms, the flames flickering overhead. Every copy of her performed an identical movement, some flickering briefly as the illusion adjusted so that they all faced Jack. “It sounds like you’re out to get everyone.”

“Look around you, little fox. The north has fallen, and is in need of new ownership. Someone who can protect it, someone who can guide it, someone who...” Jack paused. Did she really want to be in charge of the North Pole? What was she even doing here? Did she want to fight this woman? Pain flared right behind her eyes, and the golden light seeping from her veins intensified.

“You’re stalling,” the woman growled.

“No, I’m waiting for you to properly answer my question,” the kitsune replied, thinking Jack was talking to her.

“I wasn’t talking to you!” The woman raised a hand and one of the snow leopards, a beast nearly eight feet at the shoulder, charged into the kitsune. It leapt into the air and brought its claws down, only to shatter apart on impact. The kitsune had vanished, replaced by a smooth monolith made of stone.

“That wasn’t very nice,” the kitsune muttered, all of her copies briefly regarding the exposed monolith. “And I’m the only one here. Who are you talking to?”

“I didn’t mean to do that,” Jack replied. “I don’t know why I did that.”

“Because you are weak!” The woman’s temper flared, and Jack clutched at her head again. “You have made us weak! This place is to become our new home, and we will protect it as the Queen of the North!”

“So, what? Kill the Krampus and let us all go?” The kitsune pondered the answer. “I still don’t get your end game here.”

“Oh, yes, we will kill that evil bastard!” Jack’s mouth went numb as she lost control of her lips to the woman. “And we will kill the giant, and all of her disgusting children. And when people learn what we have saved them from, they will give us the love and adoration we deserve!”

“What about Santa? The elves? The people I came with?”

“Sa ... Santa will be fine,” Jack spluttered. “The elves and Santa will be fine.” She wanted to be loved and remembered, not universally loathed. Now that she thought about it, would enslaving Santa create the same problem? Her head hurt so much, she couldn’t keep her thoughts straight. Having the kitsune ask such a simple question was punching holes in her logic, but every time she looked, all she could see was that molten light inside her.

“You and your friends can leave,” the woman added, as if to placate Jack. “It is clear you are not with the Krampus, so I shall allow you the grace to leave and spread tales of my benevolence. But that man you came with, the one named Mike. I sense a fearful power in him, a power I will cut short.”

“Wow. I think I finally understand what’s happening now.” The kitsune shook her head, then waved her hand. A massive barricade of icicles appeared, spreading across the frozen ground, and the ground trembled, shaking loose ice and snow. Giant glittering clouds billowed outward, only to be sucked up by the storm. “Here I was, hoping we could have some super chill girl talk, but you went ahead and brought your backup bitch to do the talking for you.”

“Nobody speaks to me that way!” The woman held out Jack’s hand, summoning a massive amount of magic. The air swirled around them, visibility dropping. The kitsune’s flames still burned, making each of them an easy target.

“Ugh, I have no idea how Mike puts up with this shit.” The kitsune’s voice now came from everywhere, bouncing between the flames. “So I guess I’ll level with you. That guy you wanna kill? He’s done nothing to you. And based on your shitty Gollum impression, nothing I say is going to convince you otherwise.”

“I am no golem!” Beneath Jack, the army surged forward, running, flying, and swimming through the snow. It looked as if the ground was boiling, the storm’s fury coalescing around the illusionary kitsunes. “This body may be but a pittance of my former beauty, but know now that I am what remains of the goddess of War, Freya!”

“Freya?” Jack’s lips twitched as she forced the words out. She used to be Freya? The name sounded so familiar, but this anger? That wasn’t who she had been ... right? That small voice in the back of her mind was practically screaming now, and she could no longer see out of one of her eyes.

“Freya, huh? I’ve heard of you.” The kitsune growled, summoning a handful of flames. “If you’re good, maybe I’ll put that name on the other side of your tombstone, you crazy—”

Freya screamed, and the ground exploded. Creatures of ice and fury tore into each of the illusions, shattering themselves on hidden stone pillars as icicles erupted from the ground. None of the illusions left their posts, instead sending out fire and ice to destroy their attackers. The spikes slowed down Jack’s larger warriors, the giants she had created from the ocean ice. Massive limbs smashed the icicles into powder while the smaller warriors advanced. These ones were either pierced by more ice, melted with flames, or shattered themselves on the hidden stone beneath the illusions.

“I don’t know what you were expecting,” Jack snorted as she landed on the ground. Between the storm and all the snow that had been kicked up, visibility was nearly non-existent. “Your power with the ice is nothing compared to my own.”

“I will piss on your corpse, little dog.” Freya summoned a ball of golden energy and smashed it into the nearest kitsune. She winced and puffed out of existence, leaving a stone pillar behind. “You hide behind cheap tricks, you have no honor.”

“And you do?” The kitsune’s laugh was high-pitched. “Tell me, Freya, if that’s even your real name...”

“I AM FREYA!” When the goddess screamed, that golden light radiated outward, suffusing dozens of Jack’s minions with divine magic. The creatures affected stumbled as if disoriented, then went into a blind rage, attacking those who were unaffected.

“No, stop!” Jack cried, but Freya bit down on their shared tongue, filling their mouth with blood. She tried to press back against Freya’s control, but her presence was now too strong to resist.

“Thilenth! I’m thick of your weakneth!” Freya lashed out with their staff, smashing it into a nearby kitsune. The illusion shattered, leaving behind another stone monolith. “Now where are you? I will make you beg for your life, you thtupid animal!”

Jack’s blood boiled, the golden cracks on her body widening to reveal molten flows that spilled onto the ground, melting the snow away. Rays of light emerged from her body, blasting away the storm as Freya’s rage took over. In a moment of revelation, Jack saw that this wouldn’t bring the love, recognition, or adoration that she sought.

It was simply madness. Freya was casting magic at random, sending pillars of light into their phantom attackers, and screaming in pain. Their shared body was building up heat, and Jack’s cold hands tingled as the light burnt her flesh away. As more of Freya emerged, Jack realized that the goddess was fractured in a way she couldn’t comprehend. It was as if only the angry part of her had been able to manifest, the one desperate for survival and revenge. Was this really who she had been?

Because if it was, it definitely wasn’t who she wanted to be.

“DIE!” Freya threw their staff at the last remaining kitsune, who widened her eyes in fright. When the staff struck, the kitsune exploded outward, transforming into the stony remains of yet another monolith.

“COWARD!” Freya lifted their hands, golden light coalescing between her fingers. “I WILL BURN THIS PLACE DOWN TO FIND YOU!”

As they passed a nearby monolith, it blurred, the air distorting as the kitsune emerged, a single card in her hands. She was fast, her hand slapping Jack in the chest so hard that Jack fell backward into the snow.

“HOW DARE YOU, YOU FUCKING—”

“My name is Yuki.” The kitsune winked as a ball of sparkling light appeared just over her chest. Jack stared at it in wonder as it expanded, creating a haze between them. The haze solidified into a tendril of light that reached for Jack. She followed the line, surprised to see a card depicting an angel pouring water from one cup to another tucked into the bosom of her gown. “And I’m the goddess of kicking your ass.”

A beam of silver light connected the women, and Jack screamed as the golden energy was sucked from her body, spiraling along that connecting thread and entering Yuki. The smug look on the kitsune’s face faltered as a third line appeared, diverting the energy to someone hiding beneath the snow.

Yuki let out a groan of agony, doubling over in pain.

“NO! THAT’S MINE!” Freya’s shrill cry became a sob. “Give it back, please!”

“Eat ... my ... ass!” Yuki barked out a single laugh, and then screamed in agony. All around them, Jack’s surviving minions fled into the village, disappearing from sight as the storm finally died.

Mike was in the middle of one of the Tom Clancy novels when Mrs. Claus appeared above the stairwell. She looked tired, and several more wrinkles lined her face.

“You two look comfortable.” A wistful smile appeared on her face as she looked down at Mike. Holly had snuggled in next to him, her head on his lap. She was asleep, letting out tiny moans as she dreamed about sugar plums fairies, or whatever it was that elves dreamt of.

“She wanted to stay close in case the ghost who shall not be named arrives.” Though his tone was light, he felt a certain level of dread knowing that the ghost of Christmas Future was lingering somewhere, potentially ready to pounce. The first two ghosts had found him quickly, and he didn’t dare attribute it to dumb luck that the third hadn’t.

“I see.” A few strands of hair had come loose, framing Mrs. Claus’ face. “If I were to make an assumption, my guess is that a spirit who can see the future is waiting for the perfect moment to strike.”

“I hate that assumption.” Mike jostled Holly, who bolted upright as if an alarm had gone off.

“Nutmeg!” She yelled, then blinked her eyes and looked up at Mike. “Hey, there,” she purred, then noticed Mrs. Claus. As if a bucket of ice water had struck her, she was all business again. “Are the maps done?”

“They are.” Mrs. Claus waved them up.

Mike and Holly ascended the stairs, then walked down a long corridor that smelled like fresh cut cedar. The oaken double doors at the end were heavy, and when he walked inside, the smell of wood shavings took him back to the one semester of high school woodshop. He had been an average student, his birdhouse sufficient enough for the finch that had moved in. It only took one harsh winter for the structure to fall apart.

Santa’s personal workshop was the size of a three-car garage. Tools hung in carefully labeled places along a back wall, and a massive clamp at the end of a workbench held an alphabet block together the size of Mike’s head. A large letter M was carved in the visible side. Half completed projects had been pushed to the side, and a large sheet of drafting paper had been spread on one of the benches. Tink and Kisa were sitting at another table with smaller sheets of paper, the goblin using a pencil to make notes on it.

“Here it is.” Mrs. Claus tapped the larger sheet, then sat on a nearby stool. “This is about as accurate as I could make it. I don’t think there’s anything I missed.”

Mike stared at the map in awe. It looked like something that had been drawn up by an engineer, each of the buildings clearly labeled.

“You did this from memory?” he asked.

“I did. When you live somewhere for hundreds of years, you get to know the place.”

“Wait, hundreds?” He turned to Mrs. Claus. “I didn’t think you were that old.”

“You have to remember that time flows differently here,” she said, adjusting her negligee. “When you go to sleep on Christmas Eve, it can be months or even years for me here. Also, I wasn’t born an old woman, but created with years of pseudo-memories from around the North Pole, otherwise I would have been like a child. You keep forgetting I’m an extension of Santa’s magic.”

“I forget a lot of things,” he admitted.

“Maybe you should stop.” She chuckled, then slid the map toward him. “You’re going to want to keep this safe. I don’t have it in me to make another copy.”

Curious, Mike examined Mrs. Claus’ magic again. What had once been a bright light of energy was now just a dim glow, with dozens of massive threads unraveling from her body.

“Are ... are you okay?”

“I’m not.” Mrs. Claus opened her mouth to say something, then slumped forward on the table.

“Mother!” Holly ran to Mrs. Claus while Kisa and Tink abandoned their work to come over as well. Mike moved to the other side of the table and easily picked the woman up in his arms. She was much lighter than she should have been, definitely less than a hundred pounds.

“Let’s get her to the bedroom,” he said. He carried the frail woman to her room, and Holly adjusted the pillows while Kisa pulled the blankets back. Once she was properly tucked in, Mike watched in horror as the woman briefly flickered out of existence like a faulty light.

“Whoa!” He examined her magic again, a cold chill going through his body. In the time it had taken him to carry her up, most of her magic had unraveled like a massive ball of yarn. Out of protective instinct, he summoned his magic and went to work, tucking the threads back in.