Elves vs Vampires

Christmas Eve at the North Pole. Jingle bells in the air. Gingerbread in the oven. An improbable architecture overwhelmingly inspired by peppermint. Santa's sleigh has just departed, and the elves are wrapping up production before the end of a successful year.

CC, the elf in charge of candy cane development, said, "Merry Christmas," and put his pants back on.

Noelle, a lollipop parked between her teeth, squeezed back into her stripey tights. "You're not allowed to pay me in candy anymore."

"What?" CC hissed. "Of all the bureaucratic...I mean, I know what you're going to spend it on."

"I know."

"This is just extra steps."

"I agree," Noelle assured him. "You want to take it up with Blitzen?"

Grumbling about capitalism, CC handed over a sticky fistful of cash. "Were you anticipating a tip?"

The lollipop popped free of Noelle's bemused lips. "Always."

Outside, fresh snow blanketed the landscape, sparkling in kaleidoscopic colors of a thousand Christmas lights. CC pulled up the collar of his jacket, breath misting in the air as he watched the ghostly aurora veiling the stars. Trudging his short legs a little further from the workshop, CC took advantage of a rare still moment to put some yellow in the snow. Looking up, he smirked at the small silhouette high above him, flying through the silent night.

Actually, it was flying the wrong way.

Actually, it was getting bigger.

* * *

Chet was the lead elf in present expediting, and he resented the idea that Santa could deliver every single present to every single child on Earth in one trip. That was absurd. It took three trips.

There was a pretty tight turn-around between them, and the third sleigh was running behind schedule. When the sound of the workshop door creaking open and banging shut reached his oversized ears, Chet didn't even turn around before calling, "We need all hands on deck!"

"Uh, I'm in R and D, I am not a 'hand'," CC muttered. "Look, we...we're safe here, right?"

Chet spared a glance at him. "Little late to start thinking about the naughty list."

"Oh, I hope I'm fucking underlined," CC assured him. "But, say something out there tried to get in..."

"Poachers and polar bears hit the fence from time to time, it's nothing to--"

"This is not a polar bear."

Against his internal deadline, Chet lowered the itinerary. "What's out there, CC?"

The elf at the door lowered the collar of his jacket, where two neat puncture wounds spilled blood down his neck.

"Holy night!" Chet shrieked, scrambling and leaping off the side of the sleigh. "Fucking lead with that, next time! Are you dying?"

"I don't think so," CC said as Chet fussed over him. "I stabbed an icicle into his eye. Don't remember any lore about that, but it seemed effective. We should call Santa."

Chet stepped back, chewing on a fingernail. "We should. We should. Although, you seem fine, and you already stabbed it, and this is kind of our busiest night, so if we just--"

A thud on the workshop roof shook the dangling mistletoe, making all the elves break from their work to look up at the shuddering rafters. "Did I not say?" CC winced. "He wasn't alone."

* * *

Morgueana extracted the blood-stained icicle and gave her injured compatriot an exasperated kick. "Get up, you're fine."

The one-eyed vampire pulled himself out of the snow. "Those little things taste awful! Is this really even worth it?"

A few other vampires looked down from the roof, their black capes billowing in the breeze as they listened for the answer. Cracking her undead knuckles, Morgueana snarled, "I want that nice list! Every innocent virgin in all the world, sorted by address! Unless you want to go back to catfishing incels for a meal?" All the vampires emphatically shook their heads, even gagging a little at unbidden memories. "I thought not."

Scratching her long nails against the workshop door, Morgueana crooned, "Here we come a-wassailing--"

"Go away!" came the helium-inhalatory defiance from inside. "We don't invite you! Get lost!"

"Oh, come on," Morgueana oiled. "It's cold out here! We have presents and candy!"

A little voice inside the workshop said, "Candy?"

Another elfish voice scolded, "Noelle, you dumb junkie, get away from the door!"

* * *

Inside the workshop, most of the elves were staying well behind the barrier of the laden sleigh. Noelle, chewing a soggy lollipop stick, was subtly edging toward the windows, trying to see if the offer was legit. "Noelle, they do not have candy!" CC insisted. "Even if they did: we have candy! Don't be an idiot!"

"If you let us in," said the serpentine sing-song through the door. "You can have all the candy you want, forever, for free!"

Noelle's sugar-shiny eyes darted between the angry elves and the door full of promises. "Aw, guys!" she whined. "It's Christmas!" The moment the haphazard elf threw open the doors, she was clamped between Morgueana's vampiric chompers.

"Noelle, no!" CC cried. "I loved--well, I was really used to her!"

Vampires surged in through the door, a cloud of bats swarming down from the chimney, a few of them gracelessly careening into wreaths. Panicked elves scattered, shrieking as the flying fiends scooped up miniature morsels, spattering blood across the sugarplum decor. Quickly determining the tiny toymakers were indeed not even slightly delicious, the vampires ceased biting, and took to carrying the wriggling victims up to the highest peak in the raftered ceiling, and dropping them.

Chet, middle management fury seething in his elfish veins, broke the head off a nutcracker and drove it into a vampire's chest. Breaking the legs off a rocking horse, Chet ripped through the melee in a whirlwind of stripey limbs, whacking and jabbing at crotch height to bring his enemies down to size. A flying vampire lifted Chet into the air, but the enraged elf steered his surprised abductor into a giant light-up Christmas star, electrocuting him in a shower of sparks. Landing squarely on a black-caped chest, Chet dispatched his crash mat, then turned to face off against Morgueana.

Her black lips twitched. "Not bad for a half pint."

"Half pint of whoop-ass," Chet growled. "Come get some!"

"No, I don't think I will." Morgueana held Chet's attention long enough for three of her henchmen to seize the elfish combatant, disarming him and wrapping him in a tree skirt like a furiously squirming Christmas burrito. "The nice list," Morgueana demanded. "Where is it?"

The elf spit in her face. "With the coal in your stocking, bitch!"

Morgueana wiped a hand across her cheek. "Take him to the fireplace!"

The vampires bundled the elf over to the hearth, prepared to inflict whatever pain would pay for the list's location, and Chet's nuts...well...you've heard the song.

* * *

CC found himself staring once more into the eye he'd failed to stab, vengeful fangs bearing down on him. Ducking into his lab, CC took a quick glance around and clambered up the familiar machinery, slipping out of sight as the one-eyed vampire came stalking into the room. Watching the black-caped shadow, CC shoved against the side of a vat, dousing the fanged intruder with a hot lava flow of boiling candy.

The vampire screamed, shielding his mangled face as the cooling confection quickly hardened, sugary plate armor searing the undead flesh. "What is wrong with you tiny people?"

"Oh, we're in the middle of a home invasion," CC explained. "And somebody fucking bit me! We have so many good-tasting things here, why are you trying to eat us?"

Wincing through gritted fangs, the vampire picked hard candy off his burned skin. "Blood sours. Shame, regret, greed, all of it spoils the taste. Innocent blood is the only good kind, and it's harder and harder to find. Your boss has a list of where to find it."

"Pretty sure that's not what he has it for." CC watched the vampire cringe and grimace, and he didn't look so frightening anymore. "If it's a question of taste...I mean, that's literally what I do. I could make you an innocent-tasting candy cane that would hold its flavor way better than murdered kids."

The vampire gave him a one-eyed squint. "Really?"

"Easy," CC said. "I mean, the only downside is that it's bad for your...I'm gonna do that right now!"

* * *

Red streaks smeared the snow, bits of elves and vampires dangling from garlands and flattened under fallen trees. A bruised and battered Chet spat blood between cracked teeth and started to chuckle. "Aw, damn, I think we broke this one," one of the vampires said.

Morgueana gripped Chet's hair and turned his face upward, studying the lop-sided grin. "What's so funny?"

"Me," slurred Chet. "So dumb for not working it out before. All those vampire powers, the mastery over animals, the hypnotism, flight, immortality. Fast travel, only at night. You wanna find out who's naughty or nice..."

Opening her mouth for another snarky retort, Morgueana stopped, listening. Her keen hearing picked up a far-off sound. "Jingle bells?"

Blood dripped from Chet's grinning chin. "Slay bells."

Up on the housetop, hooves thundered on the tile, and clattered to a stop. The vampires abandoned the elves they were menacing and gravitated toward Morgueana, putting her between themselves and the chimney. "Why are you all turning into children?" Morgueana snorted. "It's only--"

Click! The fire extinguished from the hearth.

Click! All the lamps were plunged into darkness.

Click! The chimney belched ash and smoke, a dark shape rising from the embers, towering in stature, drenched in red, with a snow-white beard and a bowel-shaking, "HO! HO! HO!"

Morgueana's eyes grew wide, her mouth dropping open as she barely noticed her henchmen fleeing into the night. "But, you're...you're a..."

Santa Claus leaned in, inches from the intruder's face, his beard parting around a glistening maw of jagged fangs. "A vampire?"

"So fucking stupid," Chet muttered, shaking his head. "Why all the presents? So the parents will invite you in. Why the milk and cookies? To convince them you eat human food. And all us elves are your fucking Renfields, gobbling up candy instead of bugs. Jesus Christ."

Morgueana winced, but Santa Claus didn't. "Go out on Jesus's birthday," he rumbled. "And you build up a tolerance to crosses. I've been doing this for hundreds of years, and no one has ever guessed. And you pissant parasites thought you could muscle in on my blood supply?"

A huge boot crashed down in front of Morgueana, and the far junior vampire backed up in a hurry, shaking her head. "We didn't know," she breathed. "Nobody did, nobody will! I won't, I would never--"

Santa Claus clapped his hands together with Morgueana's head between them, and her little skull popped. "And to all, a good night."

Chet wriggled out of his restraints as Santa Claus lumbered toward the laden sleigh. "You're leaving?" Chet marveled. "Now?"

"It's kind of my busiest night," Santa said, his vampiric telekinesis lifting the sleigh off the ground. "Have this cleaned up when I get back."

"Wha--but--many of us died--" The sleigh flew through the unhinged door, leaving Chet in the middle of that bloody devastation, gingerly adjusting what was left of his pants.

A few shell-shocked elves started pushing back debris, re-lighting the lamps and getting a mop for all the blood. Chet could tell himself it was hypnotic compulsion that forced them to do as they were told, but he suspected they'd just been doing it so long, they didn't know what else to do. Kicking a broken candy cane out of his path, Chet knew he had limited time before Santa came back, and there was something he wanted to see.

CC emerged from his lab and hurried across the war-torn floor. "Chet!" he gasped. "I have a new flavor for development!"

"Not now." As lead expediter, Chet knew where the keys were kept, unlocking the glass cabinet that held two massive ledgers full of names. Ignoring one of them entirely, Chet cracked the other and started flicking through it. "There's your name, Candide Cain," he said hollowly. "And there's mine."

CC peered over his shoulder. "Is that the naughty list?"

"I had no reason to look before," Chet groaned. "We don't deliver anything to them. Silver bells, don't you get it, C? The naughty kids don't get coal in their stocking, they get fucked off to the North Pole and turned into elves!"

"We are kid-size," CC mused. "But listen, you're gonna like this."

Chet closed the book. "I don't think I like candy anymore."

"No, but, look!" CC held up a candy cane, a solid, glossy, dark red. "This is the flavor of innocent blood."

"Ew."

"I know, but my vampire guinea pig had three already!" CC grinned. "He won't bite any of us when he has that to suck on, and Chet...they're really bad for your teeth."

The elf thought about it, locking the glass cabinet before his master came home. "How many do you think you could make? For next Christmas?"