Wolfsbane and Mistletoe (Charlaine Harris) (Kitty Norville 2.50)

He also sounded as if he were humoring her, trying to calm her down so that she wouldn't use her knife.

"Dead reindeer," Ingrid said, wryly, from high on Rudolph's back, "don't show up in Africa all that often, Santa Claus. " She pronounced his name with scathing sarcasm. "And reindeer this size don't show up anywhere unless they're supernatural. Besides, I'd always suspected - "

"Don't tell me. Because I work nights and live forever?"

"That, and your red suit. " Ingrid pointed to it with her knife, then quickly pointed back at Rudolph. "That was a stroke of genius. "

The Old One smiled, a facial change that made the dogs quiver with the desire to lunge and kill. Ingrid looked into the eyes of the dominant male dog and then the dominant female dog to tell them to control their pack.

They understood her.

Young dogs who needed nipping got nipped.

Nobody charged anybody. They stood in a standoff while young werewolf and ancient vampire confronted each other. Slowly, he took a few steps toward her. Careful steps, barely perceptible steps that a human with normal senses and eyesight might not have noticed.

"Yes, I thought it was inspired," Nicholas agreed, with no modesty.

"But why the white beard and white trim?"

He sighed. "I know. So stupid. Easy to hide blood on red, impossible to hide - much less get out! - on white. It was all red to start with. My hair, my beard, the fur trim. All red. Then the damned illustrators got hold of the legend, and turned me into a fat, ermine-trimmed fop. "

Ingrid straightened her posture, and looked at him: yellow wolf eyes staring their challenge into old, cold vampire eyes.

"I'm not going to let you kill my family," she said.

"Your family?" He laughed, sounding nothing like the merry old elf of lore. Like her, he was suddenly alert, all banter gone. "So that's it. So that's why you defend them like this. You warm-blooded monsters! You should take a hint from those of us with nothing left to lose. "

"Except - "

"My life?" He laughed again. "You think I'd be sorry to lose that?"

"No. " She pricked the reindeer's neck, enough to draw blood, and yet no blood ran from him. At the prick, the beast flicked his monstrous head back toward her, displaying a gleam of a tooth like a rapier. Suddenly, at the sight of it, and no sight of blood from the wound, Ingrid understood the importance of this animal. "Not your life. "

"No!" Nicholas roared. "Not Rudolph!"

"You fly away," Ingrid threatened him, "or I kill him. "

"I've spent a bloody fortune on that reindeer!" And then his eyes turned crafty. Proudly, he thumped his red and white furry chest. "You can't kill him. You don't have any holy water or a wooden stake or a silver bullet. "

Ingrid slid down off the opposite side of Rudolph and came up under his massive chest. With her hand that didn't hold her knife, she felt the sleek hide, gauging where a dead reindeer's heart must be. She peered out from underneath, at Nicholas. "Ah, but I have a dagger made out of silver bullets. "

"No!" The old vampire's cry seemed truly anguished, but then his eyes turned sly again. "Even that won't do you any good. I can't leave without Rudolph. He guides my sleigh tonight. "

"You have plenty of horsepower without him. "

She moved the silver dagger closer to the reindeer's chest.

"All right, all right, but I want him back!"

"I'll let him go when I know you're far enough away. "

"And how will you know that, little werewolf?"

In a mocking voice, Ingrid sang, "Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way . . . "

"He left us!" Pasha cried, in astonishment, as they watched the sleigh fly off.

Briefly, the whole sleigh - minus its lead reindeer - was silhouetted against the full moon. And then it disappeared into the Milky Way.