“Visibility as good as hell,” the pilot complained, “and will be only worse further. I don’t know how we’ll fly to Malcolmtown. That is, we will—by instruments, but I don’t know what you hope to accomplish out there.”
“Is it possible to descend a bit more?” John asked without any real hope.
“Where? We’re already flying almost on top of the trees. If we encounter a radio mast, it’s bye-bye. We need either to climb over the clouds or to land and continue by car.”
“It’ll take two hours to get there by car,” objected Douglas. “And he kills usually just at this time, at sunset. Every minute can cost lives.”
“Oh yeah—ours,” the pilot grumbled. “As you want, gentlemen—I’ll deliver you to the place, but then I guarantee nothing.”
“All right, we’ll see then,” Douglas waved away.
“That’s what I doubt.”
“You have come after all,” Greg said.
“I always come to those who need me,” Santa answered.
“You are not a disguised actor? Not ‘an assistant?’ You are indeed the real… magic Santa Claus?” Gregory faltered on a hated word.
“Absolutely real. And if you are so mistrustful, look what I have brought for you…”
“Do you swear on your life that you’re telling the truth?” Gregory interrupted, ignoring the hand diving in the bag.
“I do,” Santa smiled, and Greg internally rejoiced. Done! Now his position is faultless! If this creature has lied, he deserved death according to his own words. And if he has told the truth then a weapon can’t harm a magic being, so an attempt is not an evil deed.
That’s what he’ll say, of course, if the weapon doesn’t work.
Meanwhile Santa took from his bag a plane. With an air of triumph, he rotated the propellers of all four motors, moved the small barrels of defensive turrets, showing that they also turn, and offered the model to the boy.
“Strategic bomber Boeing B-29 Superfortress,” skillfully stated Greg, examining the gift from all angles. “From such a plane a nuclear bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. The bomb was called ‘Little Boy.’ ‘Little Boy’ killed 70 thousand people.”
“You are very clever,” Santa said. “And you know a lot. Much more than other boys of your age. (Greg couldn’t keep himself from making a contemptuous grimace). And do you want to learn something more? I can show you my sleigh and explain how it works. After all it is interesting to you how it can fly, isn’t it?
“Is it the truth?”
“Of course it is! Let’s go, I landed in the middle of the park.”
Greg followed Santa, thinking that if this being indeed would show and explain all this, the main plan should be postponed. But not canceled completely, certainly not. Simply it is necessary first to find out the enemy’s secrets, as clever military commanders always do.
He was carrying the plane by the fuselage, and the wind, blowing in short gusts, rotated its propellers. Greg imagined how the motors of the “Enola Gay” roared approaching its target. It appeared to him so clearly that he really distinguished a sound coming from the sky… But it wasn’t the even buzz of a bomber. It was the choppy whirring of a distant helicopter.
Santa, seemingly, heard this sound, too, and it perturbed him.
“Come faster!” he exclaimed, turning back over his shoulder. “There!”
The red mitten pointed to an arbor standing on a bank of the frozen pond. The arbor was big and old, with the peeled off stone columns and a crack meandering through the domed roof. No benches remained inside it. Sinking in the snow, Santa and the boy ran to it and dived under the roof just seconds before the helicopter rumbled deep-voiced over them, invisible in low overcast.
“Why did we hurry like that?” Greg exactingly asked, panting. The entire floor of the arbor had been covered by deep snow—a bit less in the center than along the edges.
“We had to,” Santa conspiratorially winked, “I shouldn’t be seen by adults now.”
The noise of the helicopter gradually went away and at last completely faded out in the distance.
“Well, so when will we go to the sleigh?” the boy reminded.
“Later,” Santa murmured, “the sleigh flies only when it is completely dark. And now…” he paused, listening, and, having heard no suspicious sounds, finished… “now you must undress.”
“What?”
“Undress, be a good boy,” demanded the voice which suddenly became hoarse, “you’ll see, you will like it.”
“Oh, just a minute,” Greg answered with unexpected ease, though his heart beat already at some ultrasonic frequency and his fingers shivered when he unbuttoned his jacket. He carefully placed the plane on snow.
“Well, how long are you going to dawdle?” asked a dissatisfied voice.
“Just now,” mumbled Gregory, resting his chin against his breast, “my button is stuck…”
The being in red bent down to him, ready to tear off the hindrance if necessary. At the very same time the boy jerked open his jacket, snatching out from the left inner pocket a bottle from which he had already taken out the glass stopper. The colorless liquid with a caustic smell splashed directly in the red face bent over him. Hydrochloric acid from a set for young chemists (which was intended for older schoolboys, but Greg had persuaded his mom) was not very concentrated—but it got into Santa’s eyes and was quite sufficient to make him howl wildly with pain, crawling both hands about his face. At the next second a keen knife jerked from the right inner pocket sparkled in the air—it was Greg’s main weapon upon which he put special hopes. He understood that his childish strength—and the length of his self-made knife—may be insufficient to punch through the red jacket and the flesh to the vital organs. Therefore he raised his hand and slashed the throat of the blinded and howling enemy with the sharp edge. Blood jetted fanlike, sprinkling the snow, Greg’s clothing, and his face. The boy grasped the knife in his other hand and slashed Santa’s throat from the other side.
His opponent who didn’t even howl, but now only squealed, still made himself move one hand from his eyes and tried to seize the boy. Gregory quickly jumped aside. The enemy heavily moved forward, blindly ran into a column, started aside and, having lost his balance, fell down from the arbor porch to the snow outside. Gregory leaped onto his back like a wildcat. The previous wounds were only superficial, but now Greg, having seized with one hand Santa’s hair from which the red cap had fallen, with the full force of his other arm, pricked and cut the hated neck. The enemy vainly tried moving his hands back to get rid of the little devil tormenting him. When one of his hands, which already lost a mitten, brushed Greg’s face, the boy with all his strength sank his teeth into the enemy’s finger (his mouth was immediately bit by acid).
The prostrated enemy didn’t shout any more but only rattled and gurgled. His movements became more and more languid. At last, having ascertained that the opponent was already weak enough, Gregory arduously turned the heavy body on its back and unbuttoned the blood-sticky red jacket. Under it there was a gray sweater; Greg cut it, then a T-shirt, and bared pale skin and the left nipple from which a long black hair grew. The heart, as much as he knew, was a bit lower. A cut throat is good, but the procedure should be completed. Not without reason he had refused his initial idea to use an ordinary knife and, using a hammer and a file, had made a thin silver blade from the biggest spoon in his parents fine dinner set (luckily his parents hadn’t noticed its disappearance ahead of time). A wooden handle from a toy sword suited to this knife excellently.
Certainly, no books explained how to kill Santa Claus. But if silver helps against werewolves and vampires, why won’t it help in this case also? Certainly, Gregory didn’t believe in werewolves and vampires. But mum said that legends contains particles of the truth in a fantastic form. Stabbing the heart played an important role in these legends, too.