XXIII.

“He’s a goddamn zombie!” Diana shouted. “Look at him! He just sits there all day, drooling and mumbling about that woman!”

Smitty listened to Diana as she vented. It had been a week since Christmas and Santa showed no sign of getting better. “I know, Diana. I’m sorry.”

“All day I have to hear about her beautiful tits, her delicious spit, her heavenly piss. I swear if I have to hear about it one more time, I’m going to kill myself.”

“Take it easy, Diana. Aleph’s going to be here any minute. He said he’d see if there was a way to help Santa so let’s just wait and see. No use getting more upset until we

know if there’s anything we can do.”

Diana sighed. “Yeah, I know.”

There was a flash of light and Aleph stood in front of them, naked and with a bandage over his crotch. “Hello Mrs. Claus … Mr. Smitty.”

“What’d you find out?” Diana said.

“Well,” Aleph said. “Kay, the woman who kidnapped your husband, we couldn’t find anything more on her even after we did the initial search of the house. But here’s the weird part. A few days later we went back to the town, only to find that the town had.. .disappeared.”

Diana’s jaw fell open. “What are you talking about?” “The town .I knew there was something strange about it, but I didn’t think it was that significant. I thought it was limited only to Kay. But now it’s as if the town was never there.” Smitty said, “Maybe you guys weren’t checking the right place. Maybe you got lost or something.”

“No,” Aleph said. “The city of Tusk never existed, at least not in that form. We did find some other information...about a small village named Tusk from the fourth century. It may or may not be related to our situation.” “What? What about it?” Diana said.

“Nevermind that. It’s not going to help your situation.” Aleph didn’t want to go into detail and risk having a vengeful wife on his hands. “I do have good news, though.” Diana’s face got considerably less upset. “What? Is my husband going to get better?”

“Well, yeah. But it’s a good news, bad news sort of thing.” Smitty spoke up. “What’s the good news?”

“The good news is Mr. Claus will go back to his old self.” Diana looked hesitant. “And the bad news?”

Aleph sighed. “It’s going to take about five years.”