Nøtteknekkeren (5 page)

If I moved the wrong way, I could be killed. I wasn’t armed, not that I knew anything about swords, but I had to avoid being taken out by either side. I was kind of sure the dolls and the nutcracker were the good guys, but I had no proof of it. The mice might be the good guys.

I decided the mice were the enemy when one of them attacked me, even if all I was doing was standing there. The mouse was about my size, and swinging a heavy sword, the kind found in all those sword and sorcery movies. He charged, pointing the sword in front of him as if he was going to skewer me like a shish kebab.

I was saved by one of the dolls, a pretty thing in an empire dress with a katana. Her dress was tucked up so her legs were free, and I didn’t want to know where she had gotten her weapon. The doll neatly beheaded the mouse and kicked the body to one side without a hair moving in her elaborate braids or a speck of blood splashing on her dress.

“Thanks,” I gasped, wondering if my heart was going to pound out of my chest.

The doll curtsied, bowing her head, and then flicked the blood off her weapon.

“My pleasure,” she said with a trace of a French accent. “To save the heart of the
casse-noisette
is an honor.”

“The heart?” I asked her, because I had no idea what she was talking about. I had no idea what or who a “cass nwazet” was.

She just smiled and dashed off to take care of someone else in trouble. I knew I should have been insulted that I was saved by a “girl,” but I wasn’t armed and she was pretty good with her katana. I just had to find someplace to hide, and then I would be fine. Unless the mice won, and then I didn’t know what I would do. Maybe hope Uncle Yvo ate them all in his owl form? Or just run like hell and hope none of them caught me?

I looked over and realized the nutcracker was in trouble. He had been beaten back into a corner—he was trapped and had lost his sword. I looked around frantically, cursing the fact that I didn’t even have slippers to throw at the king. When I spied a small, heavy-looking crystal statue shaped like some sort of fruit, I drew back my arm and threw it at the Mouse King.

“Asshole!” I screamed as I threw.

I was amazed that I actually hit the mouse. I wasn’t good at throwing things, never having played baseball or anything like that. But my strike was true, hitting the Mouse King on his sword arm. The creature looked stunned and shifted his position to see who had been foolish enough to attack him.

“You!” the Mouse King hissed, lumbering menacingly toward me. “I should have known you were back. Only you have this power!”

I didn’t have any idea what he was talking about. Fuck, what had gone on here when I was younger? I should have remembered something like this! And why did this thing sound like my brother Rik?

Distracting the Mouse King for a moment was what the nutcracker needed. He took advantage of the Mouse King’s sudden interest in trying to kill me to recover his sword.

“Don’t touch him,” the nutcracker snarled, swinging his saber.

“You didn’t protect him before,” the Mouse King snarled, homing in on me as he tried to keep an eye on the nutcracker too. “Why do you think you can do so now?”

I looked around frantically, wondering where I could hide. I wasn’t proud, I didn’t know how to fight, and this thing outweighed me by a lot. And what was this stuff about the nutcracker protecting me? Unless the mouse monster had run out in front of the car ten years ago, there was nothing the nutcracker could have done.

“But I was in a car accident,” I said, backing up slowly.

The mouse snickered, and I was beginning to believe he
might
have run out in front of the car.

The nutcracker’s eyes widened when I said that. I was confused by his reaction. Why would he care about that? His sword was at the king’s back, lightly touching his fur. The threat was clear to me—if the king hurt me, he got his spine severed. The Mouse King wisely dropped his sword. I let out a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding.

“I just didn’t remember all this,” I continued.

“And if you had?” the Mouse King asked.

“I would have stayed in my room,” I said.

The nutcracker stopped when I said that, looking at me as if I had said the worst thing in the world.

“You would have?” the king asked.

I stopped, wondering if that was a trick question. The nutcracker stared at me woodenly, his eyes as flat and cold as marbles. He was stiff and cold, fading toward the wooden doll he had been before.

I took a deep breath. I needed time to calm down. To think. To get out of the trap I…
we
were in. If I said the wrong thing, the nutcracker would be hurt too. I was missing something important, and that was my weapon—the memory I was missing.

“Don’t you remember?” the nutcracker asked softly, breaking the silence. “You told me I was your first kiss!”

“Even looking like….”

Then I remembered that kiss, as my voice trailed off. I was remembering all those wonderful Christmas Eves I had spent talking to him. Yes, he was ugly, with his oversized jaw, weird sideburns and white hair, but he hadn’t been a nutcracker when we had talked. Some sort of Christmas magic had allowed the nutcracker to be human when were together at Christmas. Where the fighting mice and dolls came in to this, I didn’t know.

“You were my first kiss,” I agreed softly, edging toward him and trying to keep my distance from the mouse. “And….”

“And?”

I didn’t know which one of them said that—it could have been both of them. I was drowning in the memories now. They danced in my head like sugar plums, whirled like snowflakes, and drenched my brain cells like the morning dew. It was overwhelming and I wanted it all to stop, to stop the eighteen years of Christmas dreams flooding my consciousness.

The nutcracker had figured prominently in those dreams. When I was younger, he had been a friend, someone who kept me company and out of trouble. As I got older, he was someone to talk to, to confess my dreams to. A friend… and on that last Christmas Eve, more than that, a friend who wanted to be my lover. A man, he was a man then, one who wasn’t fairy-tale pretty, but a man whom I had fallen in love with as I grew up. And he had fallen in love with me.

“Your name is Zubar,” I said hoarsely.

The Mouse King lost confidence when I said that.

“Yes,” Zubar breathed.

That last Christmas Eve had been magical. Wonderful. Heartbreaking. My parents hadn’t understood, even when they saw me with Zubar. A nutcracker didn’t grow and become a man, so I was crazy to think it could happen. That didn’t fit into their world view. We’d left that morning in a strained silence, since I was hurt that they couldn’t accept what I was telling them. And then there had been the accident.

“I know you.”

It wasn’t a declaration of love, but Zubar softened when I said it.

“Isn’t that wonderful,” the Mouse King said sarcastically. “It’s almost like—”

“I’m so glad,” Zubar said, speaking over him. “I… I mi… was worried about you.”

I wished I could say the same, but until now, I hadn’t known what I had been missing. And now I didn’t want to leave, but I didn’t think the Mouse King would let us walk off into the sunset together.

“Why?”

“Because you’re—” the Mouse King started.

“But you’re here now,” Zubar said loudly.

Even I had figured out there was a lot more to this than I knew, given the way Zubar kept cutting the king off.

“I am.” And how much had Uncle Yvo had to do with that? The others who had been at the party?

“You aren’t winning!” the Mouse King screamed. “Not after all this time.”

With that, he sprung at me, his hands clawed to attack. I danced back, surprised by his attack and that his bulk hadn’t made him slow. Zubar tightened his grip on his sword, responding to my danger.

“You aren’t touching him,” Zubar snarled, closing in on the mouse with his sword raised.

I didn’t know where the others had gone. We were the only ones here, and I didn’t hear any fighting.

“I kill him and the curse isn’t lifted,” the Mouse King laughed, taking a swipe at me. “You’ll—”

“Curse?” I squeaked.

“He just wants you to end his curse.” The king laughed. “He trusted someone he shouldn’t have to keep their word. And he paid a
pretty
price for it.”

I winced at the bad pun about Zubar’s appearance. A curse made sense to me, even if it sounded outrageous. And yes, if Zubar was cursed, I would help him because that was the right thing to do. But he wasn’t faking his concern for me, and I thought he might like me… a lot.

“There are worse ways to start a relationship,” I said, trying to find something to place between the two of us. If he got his hands on me, I’d be in trouble.

The king looked at me as if I were insane. And I noticed all his heads really did resemble Rik when he was looking at me like that.

“There was once a pretty princess—”

“It doesn’t matter what happened,” I cut off the Mouse King. “What matters is now. Zubar needs my help.”

“And you aren’t giving it to him!” screamed the Mouse King as he threw himself at me. “My people will be avenged!”

Zubar would have to explain that to me someday, I thought, as I skittered away from the Mouse King. I was sort of trapped, and I didn’t know what I was going to do, but Zubar ran the Mouse King through with his sword.

The Mouse King made an odd noise, a deep whine, before collapsing into a heap. Zubar shook the blood off of his sword and sheathed it. “I didn’t want to do that.”

“I’m glad you did,” I said faintly.

There had been real hatred in the mouse’s eyes as he was coming after me. I didn’t know—remember—what the curse was, but the king hadn’t wanted me to end it.

“Come away with me,” Zubar coaxed, leading me away from the body. The place was quiet, everyone else having disappeared.

“Come where?” I asked dumbly.

Zubar smiled at me, and he was almost beautiful for a second. There was a hint of it, an overlay of a face that was almost his, proportioned normally. “I asked you this before. Don’t you remember?”

I opened my mouth. “I’m… I’m not sure.”

He wanted me, and I should hate that he had used me. But… I was lonely. And there were worse reasons for being with someone. Zubar liked me, maybe more than liked. But he wasn’t just using me, because I knew what that was like. I’d seen it all too often when I had ventured into the dating scene. We seemed to have a whole history that I didn’t know about, but learning about each other again would be fun.

Zubar frowned and walked over to me. He gazed into my eyes. “You are telling the truth.”

I wanted to lean into the man, to just feel him. It wasn’t sexual—Zubar made me feel safe. Made me feel… normal. I didn’t want this feeling to end, and I wished I could wrap the man around me like a fuzzy afghan. I gave in to the feeling and hugged him, burying my head in his chest. I was tired and there was a dead body a couple of feet from me, and I thought I would either laugh or cry hysterically if I couldn’t hug Zubar.

“I don’t really remember any of my Christmas Eves before my eighteenth birthday,” I told his chest. “And after that, Rik never wanted us to be here. I… I didn’t know what I was missing.”

I’d felt odd with other men, feeling like something was missing whenever I was with them. That was one of the reasons those relationships never lasted more than a date or two. The other was that I didn’t “put out,” and “cock tease” was the kindest remark I had heard because of that.

“But I’ll go with you,” I said.

Zubar kissed the top of my head. “And you won’t regret it.”

Z
UBAR
ESCORTED
me out the door of the conservatory. I stopped short. What had been a snow-covered backyard in the country was now a vast plain. All I could see for miles were snowdrifts—it was like the house had been transported to Siberia. I shivered. I didn’t know if it was from the cold or the shock of what had just happened. And did the house move? Or did something equally impossible happen during that battle, so we weren’t where we had been? How would the servants clean up the body of the Mouse King before Rik woke up? Was Rik even still asleep? Was he in the house, or had the mice gotten him? Did I really care?

“You’ll be warm soon,” Zubar promised. “The rugs are thick.”

I looked around, wondering if I was dreaming again. But I felt the cold. I felt the snow drifting down from the sky, some of it hitting me, before falling to the ground and sticking. I felt the bottoms of my socks dampen as the snow melted from my body heat. I was awake, because dreams were never this realistic. But was I sane?

In front of me was a heavy wooden sleigh. It was white, with accents of gold and silver. There were fur rugs piled high on the seat. I doubted even PETA would bitch about those rugs if they had felt as cold as I did. But I was outside—without a coat, without shoes—because I was an idiot. Or this really was a dream and I was asleep in bed, not even having been able to sneak down the stairs to the Christmas tree this time. But I doubted that. I wondered briefly where Uncle Yvo had flown off to, and I hoped he was safe.

There were reindeer at the front of the sleigh. One of them snorted, and a couple of them pawed the ground, as if they were impatient with waiting around. These weren’t the eight tiny reindeer famed in song and story. These reindeer were the size of overlarge draft horses, with impressive racks of antlers.

“You don’t have to come with me, if you don’t want,” Zubar said softly, sounding like he would break down and cry if I didn’t. “I understand this might not be what you want. You’ve had ten years to… explore… your desires.”

I snorted, touched that he was being so delicate in his reference to sex. “I explored squat, trust me. I knew I liked guys, but aside from some hormonal fumbling when I was a freshman in college, I’ve been more of a stay-at-home kind of guy.”

I would have had to be an idiot to not see how pleased Zubar was when I said this. There was a weird mixture of possessiveness and satisfaction in his eyes. I opened my mouth and then closed it. It might have been the light, or maybe I was just tired, but Zubar was looking better. More human. Zubar’s hair looked less like silvered wire, and more like coarse curls tamed into a braid. I had a sudden desire to loosen the queue and run my fingers through it.