I Applied for a Delivery Job and Got Turned Into a Flying Reindeer?!

Chapter Twenty Three

Chapter Twenty Three

Everything immediately turned to chaos. The reindeer, who had been flying calmly despite their excitement, suddenly burst into frantic motion. Like wasps protecting their hive, they swarmed the sleigh, filling the air with speeding antlered projectiles. Several of them came to a stop surrounding Santa and the gifts, but the vast majority of them continued to dart in, snatching presents out of the bag, and then fly away.

"Wait," Justin exclaimed, watching everything unfold around him, "what do I do?"

"Find Lucas and Willow!" Lena said, holding onto his antler with one hand. In the other, she now wielded her white staff. "There they are!"

Giving Santa one last look, Justin took off in their direction.

"Did you see anything?' Lucas demanded as soon as he came within earshot. "Is Krampus really—"

"Santa and I spotted them over in that part of town!"

Everyone spun to look, and something caught Justin's eye. Strings of yellow Christmas lights, perhaps the biggest display he had ever seen outside of Laetitia, glittered softly in the night. They stretched for miles in every direction. The entire city must have worked together to light up the whole...

Those lights, he realized, his heart sinking into his stomach, are moving toward us!

Those weren't Christmas lights, they were eyes! Hundreds...no, thousands of them, all making their way across town, closing in on the sleigh.

"What do we do?" he asked again, the fur on his spine rising.

Lucas made a fist, rubbing his knuckles. "We go down there and show them some real Christmas spi—"

"No!" his Rider interrupted him.

"Tanraak is right," Moryta agreed. "We have our duty, and that's to deliver these gifts!"

Justin stared at the red haired elf in disbelief. "We're under attack from the forces of hell—"

"Mantombra," Lena corrected him.

"—and you're still thinking about delivering toys? We have bigger things to worry about!"

Lucas spun around, grabbing Justin by the collar of his jacket. "There is nothing more important than delivering these presents!"

"He's right," said Willow. "Don't you understand yet, Justin? These aren't just toys! They're weapons—the only ones that stand a chance of defeating Krampus!"

"Every gift we deliver acts as a shield against him and his minions," Lena said tugging on Justin's antlers to turn him away from the ocean of gleaming eyes. "If we get there first, that house is safe for another year!"

She thrust forward, and Justin reluctantly shot back toward the sleigh.

"But what about the farmhouse we saw earlier?" he asked above the rushing winds. "Santa said—"

"We can't protect them from everything, Justin! The world will always be full of darkness, and the lights of children will always be at risk of going out. But for tonight, one night every year, we can keep Krampus from attacking them directly! All we have to do..."

"...is what Santa is trusting us to do," Justin finished for her, the whole truth finally dawning on him.

They reached the sleigh, where the Council of Eight had gathered to speak to Santa. Hundreds of deer were still grabbing presents from the back, but the small group—they couldn't have been more than two dozen—hovered in a sphere shape around the sleigh.