Noelle woke with a start. The room was still bathed in darkness, but Nick was way ahead of her, hurriedly pulling on his clothes at the foot of the bed. He'd obviously reacted faster to the unexpected interruption, although the loud whomp, whomp, whomp of an alarm that rivaled any tornado or air raid siren was impossible to ignore.
"What's going on?" she asked, sitting up and yanking the blankets up to her armpits. The room was colder than she'd remembered from when they finally fell asleep, although that was after a pretty good workout. While both were dripping with post-romp sweat, they thankfully hadn't disturbed the natural order of the world.
At least they didn't think they had.
Still shirtless, Nick bounced up and down on one leg as he tugged on his pants. "I don't know," he answered curtly, focusing on his singular task.
Noelle covered her ears with her hands. "Then why is the alarm going off?" she yelled.
"I DON'T KNOW!" he repeated the denial more forcefully while grabbing a pile of clothing off the floor. After throwing the garments at her, he bent down again to find his sweater, but continued to hurriedly speak. "Get dressed. We need to go."
His abruptness was uncharacteristic, so Noelle knew something was deeply wrong. Whether he really had no clue about what was going on or just didn't want to share it to protect her didn't matter. Following his instructions, she put on her rumpled clothes in record time and was ready to leave by the time he opened the bedroom door.
The ground seemed to glow, but after Noelle had taken a better look, it was just the type of LED light strips embedded on one side of the baseboards that airplanes had in the aisles to illuminate the way out for emergencies. Otso was also standing at the end of the hallway, and when he saw them emerge from the room, he wagged his tail, barked, and turned the corner, as if urging them to follow. Although Nick pulled her in that direction, Noelle hesitated.
"Wait. What about Avery? We can't leave her," she said, nodding toward the door diagonally across from Nick's room. The air smelled of ash, and while there was no smoke, if this was the precursor to a fire like at the inn, then they'd need to evacuate her friend, too.
Nick nodded, as if belatedly also remembering that they hadn't been alone in the house. "Of course," he said, running to the other door before forcefully knocking. "Avery! Open up!"
There was a thump of something landing on the floor before a loud meow answered.
"Cat Damon!" Noelle exclaimed, pushing Nick aside and trying the doorknob. It rattled, but didn't open. There was no keyhole, so the door must have been locked from the inside. "You'll need to break it down," she said, moving aside to give him space.
Instead of backing up for more leverage to throw his shoulder at the wooden panel, Nick held his left palm flat against the handle.
"What are you doing?" Noelle asked, but as soon as the words left her mouth his intentions became clear.
Even in the dimly lit hallway, she could see the air around his extended hand vibrate and feel the immediate surroundings become a few degrees warmer. As he rotated his palm, the knob moved in the same direction even though it wasn't being touched. Then, the door popped open.
Magic. Nick Klaas wielded the power of magic.
Noelle was momentarily stupefied, staring at the knob with open-mouthed amazement. But as soon as the gap was large enough, the cat ran out. Slipping past her legs, he got halfway down the corridor before noticing the Husky who'd also backtracked. Not taking his chances with the dog, Cat Damon slowly reversed and jumped into Noelle's outstretched arms.
By the time she'd followed Nick inside with the feline safely huddled against her chest, he had already searched the room.
"It's empty. There's no one here," he said, rushing past the queen-sized bed with its disheveled comforter as he headed back to the door.
"But Avery," Noelle objected when he walked out again. Peeking inside, she tried to turn on the lights with her free hand, but popping the switch up and down did nothing.
"The power's out," Nick said from the hallway, reaching for her waist to gently nudge her toward the exit. "And your friend is also obviously not in the room. Come. We need to see what's causing all of this. She probably already got out when the alarms first went off."
Would she leave the cat behind, though? And how did the room end up locked from the inside if she did? Noelle felt uneasy about leaving without Avery or at least logical explanations to those questions, but they wouldn't get answers by sticking around, either.
"Fine," she relented as she followed Nick.
The lights guided them down the stairs all the way to the tunnel entrance. Once again, Nick used his antique key—which apparently he either had on him at all times or was able to conjure out of thin air when needed—to unlock the heavy door. Otso ran ahead as they traversed the underground path all the way back to the concert hall. The alarm that had been continuously been sounding went silent as Nick entered the high-tech, Christmas Eve navigation room.
"Oh, thank the gods you're here!" exclaimed a woman monitoring one of the workstations as she stood and waved him over. Because of her messy bun, flannel PJs and no makeup, it took Noelle a second to recognize her as Nick's assistant Ronja from the day before. Although everyone else was dressed normally, she—like them—must have also just rolled out of bed and run straight over.
"Catch me up," Nick said as he joined her. Spreading his legs, he crossed his arms and stared at the large digital map covering most of the far wall. The image was centered over the North Atlantic with Europe and northern Africa on the right, North America on the left and Greenland on top. A dotted red line had criss-crossed from the east and made an almost web-like pattern as it moved westward, until abruptly cutting off over the Labrador Sea. There on its end, a black dot blinked like a lonely cursor waiting for input.
Ronja cleared her throat. "Well, the thing is . . . uhm, at three twenty-nine GMT time we lost contact with the sleigh."
Nick was quiet. According to the clock above the map, that was nearly an hour ago. He took a deep breath before responding. "All right. Glitches happen. And delays can be made up. So when did you re-establish the connection?"
Ronja shook her head. "We didn't, Mr. Klaas. It's as if they've just disappeared."
Noelle gasped. Her worst fears about Halla's interference were coming true. "You said everything would be okay. You told me nothing bad would happen if we—" she addressed Nick, but he cut her off.
"Calm down, Noelle," he said, facing her and holding up his hand. "We don't know what exactly has happened, so no need to panic."
No need to panic? NO NEED TO PANIC?! Her blood pressure shot up as her anxiety turned to anger.
"But Avery is missing. How do you explain that? Don't you think these things are connected?" she asked, walking to his side fully aware that all eyes were on their squabble.
"Who's Avery?" Ronja asked, thrusting her chin forward in Noelle's peripheral vision.
She snapped her gaze toward the woman; shocked that in her position she wouldn't be on top of everything that happened in Nick's immediate sphere of influence, if not in all of Keskitalvi itself. "Avery Cooper is the woman I came here with. She's my colleague from the New York City Concert Orchestra, and she was laid up with the flu in Nick's house until—I don't know—a couple of hours ago?"
"And now you don't know where this person is?" Ronja asked, tapping her fingers on the desk in front of her as if Noelle's exposition was boring her to the point of irritation, but humoring her was a necessary evil.
"I don't. And I get that to you losing track of Santa Claus is a huge deal and would take precedence, but I'd appreciate it if you'd also pretend to care about finding my friend, especially when the two might be connected," she said.
Nick furrowed his brows. "Connected? Why would you think that?"
In spite of being completely on edge, Noelle almost laughed at the absurdity of his question. She'd thought he was smart enough to figure it out, but it looked like she overestimated Nick Klaas.
"Well, your kooky-ass frost fairy was helping your even weirder goat-man cousin screw up Christmas, and seeing how said cousin was also hanging out with Avery for most of the last three days and now she disappeared while Christmas might actually be screwed up, I'd wager there could be a connection," she said, releasing all the pent-up sarcasm she'd been holding in.
The room went completely quiet. Even Otso, who'd been trying to nip at Cat Damon's tail as Noelle cradled him, stopped his mischief and sat still at her feet with his ears perked.
"What?" Noelle asked when she still hadn't gotten a response to her diatribe.
"Your friend has been associating with Piet Mustapukki?" Nick asked in astonishment.
Noelle grimaced. "Well, yeah. You've seen them together. I mean, I kind of had a bad feeling about him from the start, but since you—"
Nick stepped closer and grabbed her upper arm before she could finish. "You've also spoken with Piet personally?" he bellowed the question.
Backing away, Noelle shook off his hold. "You know that I have. Nick, you've seen us all together. Piet was in your reindeer stables the other day, for goodness sakes," she said as fear gradually bubbled up inside her. It was the same fear she saw reflected on Nick's face as he processed each new word she spoke. And because this information appeared to be completely new to him, it could only mean one thing.
"You were right, Noelle," Nick admitted as he shook his head in disbelief while raking his fingers through his hair. "The Black Buck shouldn't have been able to enter city limits and even if he had, none of us should have stood for it. The only reason he succeeded is because everything is interconnected. And your friend Avery is the key."
Noelle never wanted to be wrong as much as she wanted to be right now. "How?" she squeaked out the question, remembering Avery's inexplicably black-colored lock of hair and sudden illness while already fearing the answer.
Nick sighed. "Enchantment? Curse? Spell? Whatever you call it, Piet is using the girl as a conduit for his depraved magic against my father, against me, and actually, against all of us," he said. "We've obviously been blind to his presence ever since you arrived."
Momentarily shocked into speechlessness at the revelation, Noelle was beaten to the punch by Ronja. "So what now?" asked the woman from behind Nick. "If the girl is the key, then I'm assuming we'll need to find her, break the spell, and drive Piet out of Keskitalvi before Sinter Klaas can resume his journey. How do you suggest we go about this?"
For the first time since the alarms sounded, Nick smiled. "I have thirteen little friends who just might be able to help."
He had a plan. Just a smidge under her clavicle, Noelle felt a spark of hope. It warmed her up from the inside, radiating through her torso and spreading out to her limbs until she also managed a weak smile.
The act disappeared as soon as a man in a thick, furry coat burst through a side door. "Mr. Klaas, sir. I think you'd better come look at this," he said between ragged breaths, the look of pure terror on his face unmistakable.