Polterheist(16)

Born to a Cuban-immigrant father and Irish-American mother, Lopez was in his early thirties, slightly under six feet tall, with a slim, athletic build. He had straight black hair, dark golden-olive skin, and long-lashed blue eyes. The strength in his attractive face kept it from being pretty, despite his full, lush mouth. And although patience was one of his virtues, he wasn't someone you'd want to mess with.

"Where'd that ax come from?" Candycane asked. "We have axes here?"

Jingle said, "There's an emergency station next to the North Pole. This was covered in your training, Candycane. Fire extinguisher, first aid kit, ax, and so on. And getting that ax was good thinking, Twinkle!"

"Actually, I took it from a kid who'd gotten it," Twinkle admitted. "He could barely lift it, but he had the right idea."

"No, stupid idea," the Russian elf said brusquely. She added to Lopez, with grudging approval, "But you were cool-headed. Using ax to cut power. Much more intelligent than whacking tree."

"He's supposed to be cool-headed in a crisis," I said, still breathing hard. "He's a cop."

"A cop?" Twinkle bleated. "A cop?"

"Yeah, I'm a cop. But we're cool about the ax, so calm down." Lopez asked me again, "Esther, are you sure you're all right?" He knelt beside me and put his hand on my wrist. I thought this was an affectionate gesture until I realized he was checking my pulse.

"Yeah, I think I'm okay," I said, pulling away from his hand. I knew my heart was still racing. I didn't see that it would help matters for him to know it, too. "Just really shaken. And . . . ouch." I shifted uncomfortably. "Bruised."

Well aware, it seemed, of why I had rejected his touch, Lopez firmly put his hand on my wrist again, kneeling beside me in silence while he checked my heart rate. I noticed he was wearing a dark wool coat over a navy blue suit. The formality of his attire made me suspect he was at Fenster's as a detective, not a shopper.

He let go of my wrist, then slipped his hand into mine. Now that was an affectionate gesture. I felt the suddenly intent gazes of Santa's helpers on us as he said, "I want an EMT to look at you. They should be here any minute."

"When did you have time to phone in an emergency?" I asked.

"Someone else has done it by now." Confirming the suspicion that was forming in my mind, he said, "There are other cops here."

"Because of Jonathan?" I blurted. That kid's mom must have been really mad.

"Who's Jonathan?" he asked.

"A little boy who had a bad scare here this morning."

"Oh. Well, that's not hard to believe." Lopez glanced up at the tree. "But, no, that's not why we're here."

No, of course not, I realized. Lopez was a detective in the Organized Crime Control Bureau. I didn't think anyone was worried that Jonathan had encountered loan sharks or witnessed a professional hit in Solsticeland.

"Cops? There are cops in the building?" bleated Twinkle. "Why?"

Lopez said to him, "When the EMTs get here, ask them to come see Est . . . Dreidel. Go to the entrance of this place and wait for them. Go now."

Twinkle rose to his feet-assisted by two reindeer, since his accordion made the process awkward. "I won't fail you!"

"Good to know."

As Twinkle departed, I said to Lopez, "I really don't think I need an EMT."

"And I hope you're right. But humor me, okay?" he said as he set down his ax.

"Don't put down that ax!" I shrieked.

The elves and reindeer collectively fell back another step.

Lopez blinked. "Okay. I won't. Stay calm." He picked up the ax again. "I've got it. See?"

"I just mean . . ." I took a long, deep breath, trying to calm myself. "I mean, don't leave the ax lying around."

I had no doubt that what had just happened was a mystical incident, not a mundane one. And whatever force was animating that tree had dissolved before I heard the ax hit the floor and cut off the electrical power. The overloaded mechanics of the paralyzed tree had relaxed and released me when it was severed from Fenster's system; but it had already been abandoned by whatever Evil had caused it to act with such menacing violence.

I didn't know what had incited the tree to attack, or why it had stopped attacking. And I didn't know whether-or when-it might attack again. So I was emphatically against leaving a deadly weapon lying around within reach of its long branches.

Jingle said, "That's a good safety tip, Dreidel. I'll go put this ax away in a safe place. You can hand it over to me, officer."

Lopez looked at me to check my reaction to this.

I nodded my assent, adding to Jingle, "Stay away from that tree."

"It can't hurt anyone now," Jingle said soothingly.

"Oh, yes, it can," I said grimly.

Putting this incident together with what Satsy had told me about the freight elevator, I realized that the drag queen was right: There was something at Fenster & Co. that didn't belong here; something evil.

As I started to get up off the floor, I had a feeling I knew what I would see when I looked at the tree.

"Esther," Lopez said, trying gently to prevent me from rising, "I want you to wait until an EMT has had a chance to-"

"I'm fine," I said. "Help me up."

"I really think that . . ." He blew out his breath on a resigned sigh as I placed a hand on his shoulder to steady myself and rose to my feet. ". . . you should just ignore whatever I say and act as if absolutely nothing dangerous has just happened to you."

I took a few more deep breaths to steady myself, then cautiously approached the tree. As I had expected-as had been the case with the freight elevator-it looked normal now. It was completely dormant, severed from its power source, and one of its eyes was still ruined. But there was otherwise no sign at all of what had just happened. No fangs, no remnants of drool, no odor. Nothing.

I turned around and said to my colleagues, who were all watching me examine the tree, "Did anyone else hear the voice?"

"The voice?" asked the Russian.

"What voice?" asked Lopez, who was also examining the tree now.

"There was a voice saying it would kill me," I said.

"I heard a voice, but I didn't hear that," said Eggnog, the prince of Princeton, giving me a peculiar look.

"What did you hear?" I pounced.

"Well, to be honest, I wasn't paying that much attention to what it said. I was mostly, you know, trying not to get clobbered by a branch," he said. "But I thought it was reciting reindeer names."

"That's eerie," said one of the reindeer.

"No," said Candycane, "that's just part of its programmed patter."

"Did anyone hear it saying it wanted to kill? That it wanted flesh and blood?" I asked impatiently.

The elves and reindeer all looked at each other in perplexity and shook their heads.

"I only heard screaming," said the Russian.

"There was a lot of screaming," a reindeer agreed. "It's all I could hear, too. Well, that and the smack! of branches hitting people."

"I did hear Twinkle shouting that he'd rescue you while he waved that ax around. It was like his dungeons-and-dopes game had finally come to life for him." Candycane pointed to Lopez. "And I heard this guy shouting to cut the power, but I don't know where the power switch is."

Eggnog said, "I don't think that was covered in our training."

I supposed I shouldn't be surprised. The screaming had indeed been loud (especially my own, until I couldn't breathe anymore), and the tree's voice had been soft-intended only for me, the victim, I thought.

"Did anyone see the fangs or the drool?" I asked, ignoring the way Lopez was looking at me now.

"Fangs?" Candycane shook her head.

"Drool?" The Russian made a face. "Who drooled?"

I felt frustrated, but I knew this happened all the time on Crime and Punishment and The Dirty Thirty. Police and prosecutors on C&P shows were always questioning witnesses who all gave them different accounts of an event, none of which tallied with each other or with the physical evidence.

I looked again at the tree and realized that, trapped as I was by a large branch trying to feed me to that drooling, toothy mouth, I had probably masked the tree's face from view for most people. Add in the screaming, the confusion, and the fear, combined with people getting hit by flailing branches . . .

Lopez put a hand on my arm. "Esther, you're still shaken up. Maybe you should-"

"Did you notice the odor?" I asked him. "A really foul stench."

He sniffed the air. "There's no odor now. And I think it would be a good idea for you to-"

"Did anyone notice the odor?" I asked my colleagues, raising my voice.

Jingle returned from his errand in time to hear this, and he piped up, "Oh, yeah, that smell. Somebody messed his pants, for sure."

"No, that wasn't the smell," I said. "It was more like . . ."

"Like what?" Lopez asked.

"I don't know. Indescribable. Like nothing I ever smelled before." And I hoped never to smell anything that revolting again. "There was also sulfur, I thought. Did anyone else smell that?"

Eggnog said, "I thought I smelled something burning, maybe. But I wouldn't say sulfur."

"You probably did smell something burning," Lopez said with a glance at the tree. "It's lucky that thing didn't start an electrical fire."