Succubus Christmas Special Page 4

  But it was why he continued to call me ‘boss.’ It was sort of an inside joke left over from the days when I had enslaved him in a very dickish way of my own.

  Except he’d just called me the real deal in his native tongue – something he hadn’t done in quite a while.

  Oh well.

  I guess I kind of deserved it.

  I brushed off the ice from his face. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done that. But do NOT call me ‘bitch’ again – got it?”

  “…okay,” he grunted.

  “While you two idiots were calling each other ‘bitch,’” Alaria said, “the dick is getting away.”

  I looked over the rock to see Sinter Klaws trudging through the waist-high snow away from the herd. He was leading two reindeer along with him using bridles.

  Maybe he’d eaten Donner and Blitzen and needed replacements.

  “Let’s go follow him!” I whispered, and set off for the edge of the forest.

  7

  We made our way down to the trees.

  These weren’t just any trees, mind you. These were Christmas trees on steroids. Like, old-growth firs, spruces, and pines. They towered 30 and 40 feet above us, and their branches tended to be as big around as my wrist.

  Anyway, we hid behind a couple of thick firs and watched as our quarry receded in the distance. Sinter Klaws and his two reindeer were just tiny, toy-sized figures in a vast field of snow.

  They were headed for a massive compound of buildings in the lee of a Matterhorn-like peak. I knew the compound was big because all I could see were boxy shapes and twinkling lights – but there were a lot of lights, and they were spread out across the entire base of the mountain.

  As Stig, Alaria, and I stood there huddled behind the pine trees and watched our retreating target, the reindeer began to gather around us in a semicircle.

  I looked at the majestic creatures, with their dark eyes, tan coats, and spreading antlers, and was overcome with wonder and happiness.

  Hell, if I could have seen them as a kid, maybe I wouldn’t have hated Christmas so much.

  “Um… Ian?” Alaria said. She sounded worried.

  “What?” I whispered as I continued to watch the reindeer getting closer.

  “Maybe we should get out of here…”

  “Why?”

  “They’re reindeer, Ian.”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “They fly!”

  I laughed. “Really? Well, they ‘fly’ back where I come from, too.”

  Alaria recited, “The reindeer is a docile beast,

  “But only when it’s fed.

  “Be careful, child, when reindeer fly,

  “Or you might wind up dead.”

  Again with the fuckin’ nursery rhymes.

  “I don’t think we have to worry about anything since they’re not flying,” I joked.

  “Yet,” Stig said, and put a pine tree between himself and the herd.

  Alaria followed suit and joined him.

  The biggest deer edged closer to us. I reached one hand out to pet him. The creature balked at first, then edged his nose up under my fingers.

  WOW.

  The magic of that moment was overwhelming! I could feel the warmth of his breath under my fingers as I stroked the coarse hair on his snout.

  “Holy shit,” I whispered in awe, then turned back to my companions. “Are you guys seeing this?!”

  “What are you trying to do, draw back a bloody stump?!” Alaria hissed.

  “What?! Give me a break – he’s gentle! Aren’t you, boy? Sorry I don’t have anything to feed you – I would if I did.”

  Suddenly the reindeer’s eyes began to glow red.

  Not his nose. His eyes.

  This wasn’t Rudolph.

  This was the kid from The Exorcist.

  I quickly withdrew my hand. “…uh…”

  The reindeer’s lips pulled back, revealing not the flat teeth of an herbivore, but rows upon rows of sharp fangs.

  Then it snarled like a wolf.

  “RRRRrrrrrrr!”

  “What the FUCK?!” I cried out as I stumbled backwards.

  Stig called out, “I think that’s reindeer for, ‘Say my name, bitch.’”

  Before I could reply, the reindeer charged and flipped me into the air with its antlers.

  “AAAAAAAH!” I screamed as I somersaulted through the pines.

  “Yep,” Stig grunted.

  “Told you,” Alaria called out.

  “UNF,” I grunted as I face-planted in the snow.

  5% of my hit points, gone.

  Fucker.

  I struggled to my knees, severely pissed off.

  The reindeer that had tossed me was just 15 feet away, his head lowered, his eyes red, his snarling lips parted.

  I stared him down.

  “You shouldn’t have done that… bitch,” I growled, as dark magic flames danced along my hands.

  “Oh, it’s ON, now,” Stig said gleefully, repeating the phrase I’d said to him earlier.

  Then the entire herd’s eyes began to glow red, and they snarled as one.

  “RRRRRRRRRR!”

  “…uh oh,” I muttered.

  “Oh, it’s OFF, now,” Stig whimpered, and hid behind the tree.

  The lead reindeer lowered his head and antlers, then clopped one foot repeatedly in the snow like he was a bull about to charge.

  Rather than hit him with a regular damage spell, though, I switched to Terrify.

  It caused a target to retreat in extreme fear – and it worked perfectly here.

  The reindeer’s eyes immediately turned from red to black. Then it jerked back its head and turned tail and ran.

  The other reindeer in the pack looked at it in confusion, like Where the hell YOU goin’?!

  HA!

  Score one for the Warlock.

  Then the next five reindeer all looked back at me, lowered their antlers, and charged.

  Oh SHIT –

  I dove behind a tree and narrowly got out of the way. Normally I couldn’t dodge attacks with much success, but all five reindeer tried to rush into the narrow space between trees at the same time, so they collided and had to jockey for position. That gave me the extra second to step out of the way.

  “AAAAH!” Stig screamed and teleported away in a puff of black smoke. It was an ability he had when he got attacked. He was bound to me mystically as my former slave, and I’d just been attacked, so technically he’d been attacked, and now he could poof out of the way.

  “Ian!” Alaria cried out, and took flight with a flap of the wings on her back.

  She soared up above the reindeers’ antlers, dipped down long enough to grab my upstretched hand, and hauled me into the air.

  “I told you!” she yelled at me as we soared above the trees.

  “How was I supposed to know that they’d attack?!”

  “Didn’t you listen to the Goddess-damned saying?!”

  “It’s a fuckin’ nursery rhyme!” I yelled back. “You expect me to live my life according to – HOLY SHIT!”

  A hundred feet below us, ten reindeer launched themselves into the air.

  As in, they were fucking flying.

  Their legs galloped through the air like they were mounting some invisible staircase in the sky.

  It was exactly like a storybook picture of Santa flying through the air on his sleigh –

  Except no Santa.

  And no sleigh.

  And no riding harnesses.

  Just ten reindeer.

  With glowing red eyes and fangs.

  “THEY’RE FLYING AFTER US!” I screamed.

  Alaria looked back behind her. “Yeah, I see them!”

  “But – but – THEY’RE FLYING!”

  “Why are you acting so surprised?! You said they fly back where you come from, too!”

  “Yeah, but only in Christmas movies!”

  “What the hell’s a movie?”

  I didn’t have time to answer, because the rei
ndeers were closing fast.

  “GO FASTER!”

  “This is as fast as I go!”

  “THEY’RE ALMOST HERE!”

  They were so close that I could hear their fangs clicking as they gnashed their teeth in anticipation of their flying buffet dinner.

  “Hold on!” Alaria yelled.

  Suddenly we went into a steep dive.

  “AAAAAAH!” I screamed as she plummeted towards the forest canopy below.

  If players actually had the ability to go to the bathroom in the game, I would have shit my pants by now.

  The reindeer banked hard and followed right behind us. Ten feet away – five feet away –

  Suddenly I was getting slapped on every part of my body, REPEATEDLY, whap whap whap whap whap!

  Alaria had flown us into the treetops, where the branches were slapping me like an arboreal version of 50 Shades of Grey.

  Without the sex.

  Thankfully, since I didn’t want any pine boughs up my ass.

  The slap-fest hurt like FUCK, though, and was taking off a flurry of hit points with every smack –

  But the branches were close enough that the reindeer’s antlers were getting tangled in them.

  All of the beasts stopped far behind us, hung up in the treetops.

  “That was fucking BRILLIANT!” I whooped.

  “Thanks, babe!” she called back. “I – AAAAAAH!”

  A reindeer divebombed Alaria from above.

  Not one of the ten who had been chasing us. No – the big male I’d hit with Terrify at the very beginning.

  Did I mention that once the spell wore off, the victim came back twice as mad as before?

  Yeah.

  Well, the spell had worn off.

  “RRRRRRR!” the reindeer snarled as he ripped into her wing with his fangs.

  “IAN!” she screamed.

  “ALARIA – ”

  WHAM!

  She was distracted, and didn’t notice the slightly larger pine she’d been headed for.

  It clipped her wing, sending her tumbling off to the right.

  At least it separated her from the reindeer, who went spiraling off to the left.

  Me, though – I slammed dead smack into it.

  “OOF!” I grunted – then proceeded to fall through the tree, hitting branch after branch on my way down.

  I got -50 hit points on the first impact, followed by a flurry of -5’s.

  “Ugh! Oof! Unh! Ow! Unh! OOF!”

  I finally stopped falling about halfway down.

  Had it been the Ugly Tree, I wouldn’t have quite reached Elephant-Man levels… but I would have been one homely bastard.

  By the time I stopped falling and lay draped across one of the branches like a human bath towel, I was at 65% health.

  Who knew one of my deadliest opponents ever would be a damn Tannenbaum?

  Christmas SUCKED.

  As I tried to move without falling again, I heard a rattle and CRASH! through the branches.

  I looked up to see a reindeer slamming through the limbs, fangs bared right in my face.

  “RRRRRR!”

  “AAAAAAH!” I screamed, and scooted backwards across the limb.

  Even though his antlers were getting tangled up, he followed me through the pine boughs, teeth snapping.

  Ever seen a movie where a car runs into a deer and it crashes through the windshield – and then keeps thrashing around?

  Yeah, this was like that.

  Except, you know, no car.

  Or windshield.

  Just the deer.

  Except it was psychotic and could fuckin’ fly.

  So I hit Rudolph with a blue lightning bolt of Soul Suck.

  Soul Suck was a spell only Warlocks could cast. For six seconds, I could drain an opponent’s Health and add a portion of it to my own. In other words, I could kill somebody and heal myself at the same time.

  It came in handy – and made you a LOT harder to kill.

  It was also intensely unpleasant. It sort of felt like somebody had plunged a drinking straw through your chest and was sucking out your heart.

  Worst Capri Sun drink of all time.

  I’d experienced it myself, back when we’d faced down Alaria’s fourth ex-master and he had –

  …long story. Some other time.

  Anyway, I hit Rudolph with Soul Suck.

  Unfortunately, the fucker had a crazy amount of Health for a deer. 30,000 hit points! It would take me over a minute to kill him, so I kept recasting the spell –

  That’s when the second reindeer showed up.

  “RRRRRR!” it roared as it slammed through the tree limbs on my left.

  “AAAAAH!” I screamed.

  I felt like I was in a horror movie – one where a tourist in the Caribbean goes scuba diving in an underwater cage and suddenly a bunch of Great White sharks attack.

  Except sub in pine trees and snow and reindeers ‘n shit.

  I could only hit one animal at a time with my magical attacks, so I had to physically evade the other one.

  I scooted in further towards the trunk, hoping that as the branches became thicker, that would save me.

  It might have, if the third fucker hadn’t come in from beneath me.

  “RRRRRR!” it roared as it ripped through the branches.

  Its antlers hit smacked the limb I was standing on.

  My feet slipped – and I resumed my fall through the Ugly Tree.

  Except this time, the first stop happened to be the reindeer’s back.

  “OOF!” I grunted as I fell face-first into a coarse hide of hair.

  When I realized what had happened, I about shit myself. Again.

  Especially when the reindeer backed out of the tree and took off into the air.

  “AAAAAH!” I screamed as I grabbed onto whatever I could grasp with two hands.

  Which happened to be its antlers.

  “RRAARRRR!” it roared as it soared into the air, trying to buck me off.

  It was a flying reindeer, mind you, soaring across the night sky.

  Like somebody crossed a rodeo movie with a Christmas flick.

  Not a very good movie, either. Straight to video.

  My nads were in a different film, though. Hostel Part 5 from the feel of it, as my junk kept slamming into the reindeer’s back.

  But I held on for all I was worth. The alternative was falling 500 feet to a very likely death.

  If I died, I would be resurrected back in the village graveyard. I mean, this was a videogame, after all. That’s what happened in OtherWorld. You certainly didn’t stay dead.

  But when you’re 500 feet up in the air getting your testicles hammered on the back of an evil flying reindeer, you don’t normally have the presence of mind to think, Huh, maybe I should just bow out of this one. Start over.

  I did have the presence of mind, though, to swear that next time I’d pay the nursery rhymes a little more fuckin’ attention.

  Amidst all this chaos, a computer screen popped up.

  On Dancer… or Dasher… or Whichever Damn Reindeer This Is

  Bjorn to be wild! Steer your ‘Magic Cupid Ride’ with a reward from a previous quest!

  1000 XP

  I didn’t even have time to groan at the stupid Steppenwolf puns.

  ‘A reward from a previous quest’?!

  What the hell were they talking about?!

  The only quest I’d completed so far was killing the snowmen, and then all I got were a bunch of –

  OHHHHHH.

  I reached into my bag with one hand as I barely held onto the reindeer’s antler with the other. Then I pulled out one of my carrots and –

  Well, to be honest, I had no fucking clue what to do, seeing as I was behind the reindeer’s head and barely hanging on. So I just tossed the carrot out in the air in front of the bastard.

  “HERE, YOU FUCKER!” I yelled at him.

  The reindeer immediately went for the carrot. As soon as he chomped down on it, everything s
moothed out. He stopped bucking, slowed down, and flew at a level altitude.

  At the same time, ‘1000 XP’ floated up in front of me.

  Holy SHIT, it worked!

  A little bar appeared above the reindeer’s head. It was fully green, but slowly depleting. I was guessing that it depicted how long the animal would stay docile (fuckin’ nursery rhymes…), and until then I was safe. By the rate of decline, I figured I had 60 seconds before I had to feed it again.

  I grabbed the antlers with my now-free ‘carrot hand’ and hauled myself into a stable position on the reindeer’s back.

  I checked behind me anxiously –

  Nope, no more rabid Rudolphs in pursuit.

  Beneath me, the white fields of snow were approaching the Matterhorn peak and the vast complex of buildings beneath it.

  I wondered if I could steer this thing…

  I put a gentle pressure on the reindeer’s antlers, just a bit to the right.

  Sure enough, it banked right.

  Fuck yeah!

  I thought about going back to find Alaria and Stig, but I checked my Action Bar first. The Action Bar was a menu at the bottom of my field of vision, and was sort of the Master Control of my videogame experience. It contained icons of my demons that kept me updated on their Health and allowed me to re-summon them in case they died.

  Stig was still at 100%. He hadn’t even gotten hit once.

  Alaria was at 80% but her Health was gradually creeping back up. She must have taken some damage when the reindeer hurt her wing, but she had apparently escaped and was recovering.

  Since they were both okay at the moment, I figured I would do a little reconnaissance while I had the opportunity. The reindeer’s bar was about halfway done and turning yellow. I pushed down on the antlers, and we went into a gentle dive.

  Sinter Klaws’s compound was something else – almost a village unto itself. There were a dozen Bavarian-style buildings. It was hard to see much detail in the dark, but one looked like a giant ski lodge, another six or seven looked like smaller houses, and there was a sprawling, one-story structure that might have been a warehouse of some sort. All of them were arranged around a courtyard lit with torches that guttered in the wind.

  I directed the reindeer lower to see if I could pick out any fences or walls.

  Suddenly the bar turned red and began to blink.

  Shit – better feed him again.

  I reached into my bag for another carrot –