Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
We step through the portal, and the world twists around us in a dizzying swirl of red and white, like the stripy spiral of a Christmas lollipop.
The colors blur together, streaking past in a hypnotic whirl, their sugary brightness edged with cracked peppermint—festive on purpose, but with a prickle of oddness underneath.
The air is thick with the scent of candy canes and frost, sweet, cloying, and my stomach churns as the swirling slows, depositing us into the Hollow of Mischief with all the grace of a snow globe shattered on the floor.
This place is a Christmas fable gone wrong.
Like if Willow Creek’s gala were designed by a madman who thinks ‘chaos’ is a type of tinsel.
The ground beneath our feet is springy, felted snow—like a carpet underlay—over something that refuses identification.
Twisted, blackened trees lean in closer with every step, their branches creaking like they’re trying to whisper secrets left behind.
There’s not a single animal noise. Sound itself feels muted.
Above, through a web of branches, the sky shows its sickly pink stripes—an unsettling reminder that we’re no longer in Willow Creek.
My spine shudders, and I decide a joke might help me feel better. Gallows humor feels appropriate when I’m surrounded by vampires. I open my mouth to say something witty, but to my surprise, I scream.
Crinkshaw and Ronan stare at me, eyes narrowed and eyebrows arched. Nick looks at me like I’ve lost all composure.
“I said it would be better if the lass didn’t come,” Ronan sighs.
“That’s not terribly gentlemanly of you,” Nick replies, that usual, annoying smug grin he always wears lighting his face. “Now we know that Holly has excellent projection.”
I turn a shade of crimson appropriate for the season and immediately wish the ground would open and swallow me. Of course, Nick would say something like that. Of course, he would.
“I’m having a perfectly normal, completely justified reaction to seeing this nightmare version of Christmas,” I mutter, brushing off the awkwardness like snowflakes on a coat. “And I’m not a screamer.”
Nick laughs, a deep rumble that cuts through the Hollow of Mischief’s eeriness. “Sure, Frost. Keep telling yourself that.”
We make our way further into the grove of trees. There’s not a path exactly, but rather a slight thinning of the trees that we follow. Nick leads the way like he’s been here before, and I’m learning that with Nick Draven, it’s impossible to separate unearned confidence from actual knowledge.
We march in silence, an awkward parade through this snowy madness, trying not to draw any attention. Crinkshaw produces a thermos and presses it into my hands.
“Cocoa. Calming,” he rasps.
I take a sip, and it’s flawless. Nick winks at me, and I wonder about the relationship between vampires and their not-incorrect belief that hot chocolate solves nearly everything.
And then Ronan speaks, in his default voice, which is a bellow.
“I’m not sure why we’re even bothering to sneak around,” he rumbles, entirely unconcerned with alerting anyone. “Battle is the way to solve this. Whoever’s behind this will have to face Sally.”
Nick’s expression shifts from amused to serious in an instant.
“Easy, Ronan. The goal is to get the tree while escaping notice. And Holly,” he adds, glancing at me, “if you’ve got any more screams left in you, I suggest you keep them to yourself.
We’re about to need all our wits about us. Stay sharp.”
“Thanks for the advice, Draven.” I swallow against the terror rising in my chest.
The air thickens around me, and an ominous buzz rings in my ears.
Nick’s right. This place is more than a puzzle—its magic bites at nerves and fusses with courage.
The trees groan and their twisted branches reach toward us like claws.
There’s something darker here than rogue elves, and it’s been brewing in this perverted place for centuries.
There’s more to this than a few mischievous elves, and whatever’s happening with Willow Creek’s gala is more than a prank. It’s been planned. Someone’s pulling some strings. And that means they’ve made my naughty list.
“Nick,” I murmur, my voice low. “This place is worse than I expected. What if this is a setup? Maybe we should tape fifteen smaller trees together and hope that does the trick. Quantity over quality.”
It sounded better in my head.
Nick doesn’t respond right away, but there’s slight tension in his shoulders now. He knows this is bad, and he knew it before we walked in here.
And just as the gravity of that realization hits, the ground beneath our feet trembles slightly. There’s a soft creak and the sound of sugar-crunching underfoot, and it makes the hairs on the nape of my neck stand on end. I stumble forward and prepare myself as best I can for the unexpected.
We emerge from the nave of trees—to find an enormous gingerbread house looming in a clearing.
The icing roof sparkles in the sinister Hollow light.
At first, the giant hut seems like a harmless, whimsical decoration.
Something out of a Christmas fairy tale.
Almost pretty. Covered in candies, it even has soot-stained footprints leading to the front door.
It reminds me of the ones I used to make as a child, and it seems innocent. Innocuous even.
Then the door opens.
A gingerbread man steps out.
I blink twice, sure I’m seeing things. But no. There it is. He is. A gingerbread man. Larger than life, with candy eyes glowing red. He raises his arm, and I swear I hear the faintest rustle of crumbling cookie. He notices us and growls. Menacingly.
“Uh, Nick?” I duck behind the vampires.
The door of the gingerbread house slams open, and more creatures pour out—a generous handful of gingerbread sentries with licorice ties and oversized candy-cane batons. They approach us like rejects from West Side Story, fanning out to surround us.
This is insane. And yet, it’s actually happening.
We’ve solved the riddle of the world’s worst advent calendar, gone through a lollipop portal and found a life-sized gingerbread house, and now we’re fighting a small army of gingerbread men armed with candy.
I’m pretty sure my health insurance doesn’t cover this.
“Guess we’re fighting cookies now,” Nick mutters, his smirk not quite reaching his eyes. “Ronan, you take point. Crinkshaw and Holly, stay at the back. Let us handle this.”
Before I can blink, we’re swarmed.
Nick and Ronan jump into the fray, creating a distraction. Nick punches one, and it explodes into a mound of crumbled confectionery while Ronan barrels into a group. Some still manage to get past and rush toward Crinkshaw and me.
I stumble, steadying myself with a jagged tree branch sticking out of the snow. It comes up loose. On impulse, I douse it with hot cocoa from the thermos as a three-foot-tall gingerbread monster wobbles towards me, wearing an unhinged, icing-slick grin.
I swing my cocoa stick.
The cookie monster’s head caves in with a soft crack, and it collapses into crumbs, coating me in a fine dusting of cookie. Four more rush in to take its place, and just like that, I’m in the middle of a battle.
Ronan’s axe cuts a devastating path through the chaos.
I never thought I’d find myself saying this, but I’m very glad he brought it with him.
He cleaves through gingerbread people like they’re nothing, roaring with glee as they crumble around him.
And Crinkshaw’s hovering at the edges, contributing in his own way—lobbing the occasional stick with surprising accuracy.
“Is this what you meant by unspeakable horror?” I yell.
“Pretty much.” Nick strikes another blow, destroying another gingerbread attacker. The creature falls apart in a shower of sugar, but more keep coming. This is like a Christmas parade that will not end. Not how I imagined dying, but festive nonetheless.
I narrowly avoid a sugary fist aimed straight at my face.
“How do we stop this?” I ask.
“Keep breaking them apart,” Nick calls over his shoulder, moving with an effortless grace. “There aren’t many left.”
And to my surprise, he’s right. We’ve actually beaten most of them. The ground is covered in cookie crumbs.
“See?” He grins. “It’s just sugar and magic. It can’t get much worse—”
I glare at him. He gives me a sheepish look.
He’s broken the cardinal rule. The one that everyone who’s ever watched a movie knows. You do not, ever, under any circumstances, tempt fate.
Now things are about to get very, very much worse.
The ground shudders again. The gingerbread house trembles, then groans as its walls bow outward, as if something inside is forcing its way out. Its sugar-sculpted windows crack and splinter.
Something far worse than sentient cookies is inside that house.
I do not know how I will explain this moment to my future therapist.
In a move that doesn’t just defy physics but openly mocks it, the structure swells to four times its size. The door slams open.
A creature bursts out and roars.
It’s a dragon.
Not a normal dragon—another phrase I never thought I’d use—but a gingerbread one.
Complete with chocolate horns and a jaw full of caramel teeth.
It’s impressive, and I wish that it wasn’t.
It opens its wings in a clearly threatening gesture and flashes a grin laced with every ounce of candy-based badness that my mom tried to warn me away from.
I shudder, and I wonder if the dragon should visit a dental hygienist.
“This is ridiculous,” I mutter. “Now we’ve got dragons made of cookies.”
“I was wondering when things would get fun,” Nick says, dashing forward.