last the werewolf put his head down, exhausted, on the snow. Santa Claus sat down beside him.
"I'm so sorry, Matthias. So sorry," he said. "I can only save a child once. After that, you have to save yourself. You were a good child and I never understood why you went bad. Then you ceased to be a child at all and I didn't know what had become of you for such a long time. I have many duties besides Christmas - patron of many things - and I suppose I didn't look hard enough for you. But you weren't a sailor or a baker or a prisoner and I didn't think you'd keep a shop or move to Greece. None of my other spheres of influence seemed very likely to benefit you, either - and that was my fault for not looking harder. Then, tonight, here you were and I had another chance. I have tried to help you. Now, Matthias. Now I do truly need your help."
"I don't want to help you. I think my Christmas Cheer has worn off," Matt muttered.
"But don't you like running through the night sky?"
Actually he did, very much, but he only shrugged, not trusting the old red-coated fake.
"Do you really want to strand the sleigh and the reindeer here? To disappoint all the other children I have to visit tonight? Would that be fair?"
Matt grumbled. He didn't care - well, he didn't. But maybe a little more running through the sky . . .
"I don't know," he muttered. "You weren't very fair to me. What do I get out of it?"
He could tell Rider didn't like that, but he figured he had the fellow by the short fur now. The sunrise was inevitable and the terminator crept toward them inexorably. If the Bishop of Myrna wanted to get home before it caught them, he'd have to make a deal.
Saint Nick heaved one more sigh and got to his feet. "All right. . . . You've got me over a barrel, Matthias. What's your condition?"
The werewolf sat up and shook his fur back down, grooming a little just for the delay. Then he said, "I want the recipe for Christmas Cheer."
"Christmas Cheer? But that only works once a year!"
"That's all right. I can be content with running through the skies once a year. It's not bad."
"Is that all?"
"Yup. Well . . . and directions out of the North Pole because that place is crazy."
Santa stroked his beard and said, "All right. It's a deal. So long as you get us back to Christmas House before dawn."
"And the recipe had better work!"
"I guarantee it will - on my word as Father Christmas. But only on Christmas Eve, remember."
"That's fine." The werewolf stood back up in the harness and shook his fur into place. "Give me a little more Christmas Cheer for right now and let's go!"
Another handful of the glittering magical dust was presented and drizzled over him while Saint Nicholas muttered his magic words. Then the man in red and his dark henchman settled themselves in the sleigh and Matt and the reindeer took off.
They raced against the creeping sunrise, dashing for the last of the houses full of worthy, sleeping children, and every time they stopped, Matthias paid close attention to what Pere Noel did. He always put his mittened hand to his face, said something, and then vanished into the snowy uproar of Christmas magic at work.
Finally Matthias asked, "How do you do that? The chimney trick, that is? How do you get in and out?"
"Mattie, we don't have time for a long discussion. We're running a bit late as it is."
"I'm not. I have all the time in the world."
"Oh, all right, I'll tell you. If I say the right words and breathe in a pinch of Christmas Cheer, I can pass through anything - I become the Spirit of Christmas itself for a few minutes. It doesn't last very long, so I have to make my trips quickly or work the spell again."
"Oh! So that's what that poet-fellow meant in the 'Night Before Christmas'! I thought he just meant you were winking at him."
"Poet-fellow . . . Oh, you mean Clement Moore who wrote 'A Visit From St. Nicholas.' Yes, yes . . . 'laying a finger aside of his nose . . .' That's what it was," Saint Nick agreed.
"Ech . . . snorting cookie dust," Matt said with a shudder. "That's disgusting." Though not quite as disgusting as