Michael Scott - Nicholas and the Krampus: A Lost Story from the Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel

This is a work of fiction. All incidents and dialogue, and all characters with the exception of some well-known historical and public figures, are products of the authors imagination and are not to be construed as real. Where real-life historical or public figures appear, the situations, incidents, and dialogues concerning those persons are fictional and are not intended to depict actual events or to change the fictional nature of the work. In all other respects, any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

Text copyright 2020 by Michael Scott

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My dearest Virginia,

Wishing you a belated Happy Christmas and the very best for the coming year.

Apparently, the holiday of December 1945 is already being called the Greatest Christmas Celebration. And why not? The war is over, there is the promise of lasting peace, and the troops are coming home. A couple of months ago, the US military started a program called Operation Magic Carpet, designed to get as many of their eight million service men and women home in time for Christmas. Over twenty thousand now return every day, and more are on the way. Everyone wants to help the war heroes reach their homes, no matter where they are, and I have heard stories of ordinary people driving the men and women hundreds of miles just to reunite them with their families. The roads out of every port city are experiencing the worst traffic jams in living memory.

What a time to be alive!

I am over two hundred years older than you, and even though we have lived so long and seen so much, the last few years have been difficult. All of ushuman and nonhuman alikedid our bit to bring this terrible war to a conclusion. Scathachs stories could fill volumes, and Joan and Saint-Germain were instrumental in the liberation of Paris. We have not heard from Aoife since the Battle of Stalingrad, but Scathach assures me that her sister is alive. Will Shakespeare has promised to write about his experiences with Palamedes in MI6 during the Blitz, but I doubt he will do it. He will claim that his reticence has to do with the Official Secrets Act, but in truth, I think he has writers block. Palamedes tells me that Will has been working on Love Labors Won for centuries.

I heard whispers about a Miss Dare in the Pacific and guessed they referred to you, and I have it on good authority that you were in Tibet during the Nazi expedition there in 1939. Next time we meet, we will share stories.

I am sorry Nicholas and I missed you in Nevada. We had to leave in rather a hurry, as you can imagine, and I know that the army and the FBI are still looking for us. I am not too concerned; we change identities as easily as other people change clothes.

I trust you are well and fully recovered from your adventure in the Grand Canyon. I am so glad you took my advice and brought Billy with you. All I can add is a warning to stay away from archaeologists: they are too much trouble! (Or perhaps it is just the archaeologists you associate with.)

Since your little run-in with the Rattenfenger, I know you like to keep up with the latest mythological immigrants to your land. Toward the middle and end of the nineteenth century, the nonhumans could mingle unnoticed with the waves of immigrants and slip into the country. Now I am afraid that the war in Europe has displaced those immortals and the were-clans who chose to remain on their native soil. I understand it is the same in the Far East. With their homelands in ruins, the immortals have been forced to travel farther afield. It was inevitable that some would come to America. No doubt they believed that with so many distracted by the war, their efforts would go unnoticed.

They were wrong, of course.

Over the centuries, I have come to know most of the protectors of humanity, those of you who stand against the Dark. What would the humans say, do you think, if they knew that a legion of immortal humans, Next Generation, and a few Elders protected them against the ever-present danger of the return of the Dark Elders or the Earthlords?

One of the truths Nicholas and I have discoveredand one you know all too wellis that at the heart of every legend, there is a grain of truth.

Well, this Christmas, December 25, 1945, three legends came to New York.

One of them was Nicholasand for once, I am not talking about my husband. The others were Frau Perchta and her companion, the loathsome Krampus.

Perenelle Flamel

1 January 1946

Hells Kitchen

New York, New York

PS: Rather than send you a Christmas card, I thought the following pages from my diary might be of interest! (Use the da Vinci cipher to decode them.)