Page 7 of Never Kiss a Krampus
I started again, and this time the words came out smoother. The rhythm of them sounded almost musical, in a discordant, minor-key way, like a carol sung backward. The house creaked, and the candle flames flickered, even though there was no breeze.I hesitated, my fuzzy brain finally catching up to the fact that something was happening.
It’s just a draft. Perfectly normal…
I kept going. I finished the second recitation and started on the third. This time there was an odd echo to the words and I could almost sense the meaning of them as I spoke.
“…I call to the keeper of winter’s dark. He who walks between the worlds, who sees all debts and deeds.”
Something shifted in the air. A pressure, like the moment before a thunderstorm.
“…come forth, keeper of chains and judgments. Come forth and hear my petition.”
The final syllable hung in the air, vibrating, like a tuning fork struck in an empty room.
The candles went out.
All of them, simultaneously, as if someone had blown them out with a single breath. The only light was from the screen on my phone. The wind had stopped. The house had stopped creaking. Even my own breathing seemed muted. Then the salt circle began to glow. Just a faint luminescence, like foxfire or phosphorescence, tracing the line I’d made in the dust.
This isn’t real. This isn’t?—
A wind blew through the attic. Not a draft but an actual wind. It swirled around the circle, lifting my hair, making the salt line shimmer and shift. The offerings trembled in their bowls.
“Okay,” I said out loud, my voice shaking. “Okay, this is… This is just…”
Sparks erupted from the northern candle point. Actual sparks, like someone striking flint, blue-white and crackling. They danced in the air, multiplying, spreading to the other cardinal points. East. South. West. The circle became ringed in dancing, impossible light.
My phone screen flickered and died.
No, no, no,I thought, shaking it uselessly.Not now. Come on.
The sparks intensified, forming patterns in the air. Spirals. Runes. The same symbols I’d seen in the book, now written in lightning across the attic.
Then came the whispers. Soft at first, so faint I thought I’d imagined them. But they grew louder, overlapping, a chorus of voices speaking in languages I didn’t recognize. German, maybe, or older. Something ancient and guttural that made my teeth ache.
The temperature plummeted. My breath misted in front of my face. Frost began to creep across the windows, delicate fractals spreading like living things.
“Stop,” I whispered. “Stop, I didn’t… This isn’t…”
The whispers rose to a crescendo, a sound like wind through winter trees, like ice cracking on a frozen lake, like chains dragging across stone.
Chains.
I heard them clearly now, jingling softly in the darkness. Not the cheerful jingle of sleigh bells, but something heavier. Older. The sound of metal on metal, of weight and restraint and purpose.
The sparks swirled together, coalescing in the air above the circle. They formed a shape—tall, massive, definitely not human. The light pulsed once, twice, then exploded outward in a shower of blue-white brilliance that left afterimages burned into my vision.
When my eyes adjusted, the northern corner of the attic seemed darker than before. Shadow pooled there, thick and tangible, like spilled ink.Or spilled blood, I thought hysterically.
And then the shadow moved. It detached itself from the wall, from the floor, pulling itself free with a motion that was both fluid and wrong. It rose, taller and taller, taking shape. Taking form.
My heart stopped. Actually stopped. I felt it freeze in my chest, a cold fist of pure terror.
The shadow became solid. Became real. Becamehim.
He was enormous. Not just tall—though he had to be at least seven feet—but big. Broad shoulders and a muscular frame, covered in dark fur that seemed to absorb the candlelight. Powerful legs ending in… hooves? Heavy boots? I couldn’t tell.
But I could see the horns. Massive, dark, spiraling up from his forehead in elegant, terrifying curves. Like a ram’s horns, but larger and more dramatic, impossible to miss.
His eyes glowed. They actually glowed, burning with an inner light that was somewhere between gold and amber, like embers in a dying fire, and flashing red when he turned his head to survey the attic. Those eyes found mine and I forgot how to breathe.
