Chapter 26 - The Christmas Goblins

With an inarticulate scream of anger, I charged the grinning demon with my knife while the two hunters split up to flank the creature that was obliviously befouling the ingredients tubs. The urinating creature's eyes widened as he quickly grabbed the lid of the pot and threw it like a Frisbee at my head, forcing me to duck, before scrambling away - knocking the pot of contaminated sauce to the floor. Unfortunately, because I had flinched while ducking the lid, I found myself slipping in the mess of separated sauce and the creature's secretions. I finally lost my cookies... literally.

Unfortunately, it didn't seem Hunter and Phoebe were having any better luck with their target. As if sensing the impending danger, he looked up and made eye contact with the bigger of the two girls.

"Want thum?" He asked, his lisping voice grating like nails on a chalkboard.

He plucked up a rotten olive from the tub on his lap and flung it with unerring accuracy right into Phoebe's mouth sending her to her knees retching and gagging. Hunter closed the distance, lashing out with her knife in a wide arc, blinking in shock as the celestial bronze blade passed harmlessly through his body.

"That wathn't very nithe!" He grumbled.

"What are you?" Hunter asked, shocked.

The creature grinned; "A dithtracthun."

"A... what?" She asked, even more confused.

"L-look out!" Phoebe and I gasped out, unfortunately too late.

The other demon creature had gotten behind Hunter with the pot lid and swung it into the back of her knees before slamming it into her head - knocking her out cold.

"Come on, letsh go," the Urinater said. "Shun ish coming up an' thish place ish getting too crowded."

"I gueth," the other one said, grabbing a fistful of the rotten olives and cramming them in his mouth.

I tried to get up and charge after the offensive creatures, but my legs were too shaky. Phoebe was no better off, still on her knees coughing and retching. The two creatures climbed out a window, vanishing as the dropped out of sight.

A moment later the bell over the front door rang, and footsteps ran toward us. Uncle Joe stopped in his tracks, his eyes wide as he took in the sight in front of him. I couldn't blame him, either. I was on the floor covered in sauce and... other fluids. Phoebe was kneeling in front of a growing puddle of her own sick and Hunter was face down surrounded by all of the now open food storage tubs.

"What is going on in here?!"

"...and our weapons are completely useless against them," Hunter said, holding an ice pack to the back of her head with a wince.

The sun had fully risen by the time we had cleaned up the kitchen - and ourselves - as well as we could, though the smell of rotten food still lingered. Somehow, all the fresh ingredients that were pre-prepared and properly stored were completely rotten. A couple of the containers had to be thrown away as a complete loss due to growing an active colony of mold.

We needed to resupply the entire food stock, which would prove difficult this close to the holiday. Realistically, we would probably have to keep the Kitchen closed until after the new year.

"Do you know what they are, uncle Joe?" I asked.

"I admit I have never heard of anything like what you described," he said, frowning. "Maybe the camp director knows something."

It was a possibility. The camp director was a centaur that had been alive for over three thousand years. And if he didn't know anything, maybe Zoë Nightshade, who'd been around almost as long, might know something. She traveled with the goddess of the hunt, after all.

"We can ask Zoë if she knows anything," Phoebe said, clearly thinking along the same lines as me.

Unfortunately, due to the customary game of Capture the Flag that took place when the Hunt visited the camp, neither Zoë nor Chiron were available to answer questions all day. Chiron was busy helping to patch up wounded campers while Zoë was similarly busy making wounded campers for Chiron to patch up.

Running out of options, and daylight, we decided to try our luck with self study and research. We decided it would be a better use of our time to split up - divide and conquer. I pulled on my enchanted parka and flared my inner flames to provide protection against the cold before setting off for Seward Park Library. Unfortunately, when I got there, it was closed for the holiday. I almost felt like I could understand old Scrooge a little better now.

Disheartened, I made my way back to the apartment. By the time I got back, Hunter and Phoebe were already sitting at the dining table hunched over a book. My mood immediately brightened.

"You find something?" I asked, running over.

"Kind of," Hunter said. "I figured since the libraries would probably be closed, I'd check the book stores instead."

"But you did find something," I pressed.

"It's an old book of folktales," Phoebe said. "The information is... Well, see for yourself Skipper."

The book was already open to the relevant pages, a cartoonish image of a chubby black imp stared up at me. I read on...

Kallikantzaro – The Creepy Christmas Goblins

The Kallikantzaroi are said to be small, black and male, mostly blind, with long black tails. They speak with a lisp and eat small creatures such as worms, frogs and snails. Deep dwelling creatures from the centre of the Earth, they spend their days cutting away at Yggdrasil, the great world tree.

When the Winter Solstice arrives, and the sun stops it's movement, the Kallikantzaroi climb and crawl their way to the world of man. Tricky devils they are, they enter houses anyway they can; through windows, down chimneys through keyholes and any cracks that they may find, in walls and around doors. Once inside they cause all sorts of mischief.

There are by some accounts up to twenty of these troublesome, mischievous imps. Each with their own name and game they play.

"Twenty of them!?" I looked up in shock. "How are we supposed to fight against that?"

"Keep reading," Hunter said.

It's said that if you leave a colander on your doorstep at night, the Kallikantzaroi, who can only count to two and consider the number three holy and will kill themselves before pronouncing it, will spend all night counting the holes.

They only ever reach the number two and start again so as not to utter the word three! At sunrise they hide away once more without having had time to cause any mischief.

To stop the kallikantzaroi from coming down the chimney a large log is found and burnt until sunrise on the sixth of January, when the Kallikantzaroi will go back to the centre of the Earth.

If they have already entered the home, the best form of protection is to burn a smelly shoe on the fire; the foul smell will drive them away.

"Wotcher lookin' at?" a thick male voice beside me asked.

"A book of old folk..." I stopped, turning to face one of the Kallikantzaroi. He was short, coal-skinned like the others, and wore a funny hat on his bald head. He grinned, showing off his large overbite.

I shrieked, grabbing up the book and swinging it at his face as hard as I could. It connected with a loud smack, knocking the hat off his head and sending him rolling head over ass across the room. A scratching sound on the window and at the door was the only warning I had that more were coming.

"Hunter, Phoebe, keep them distracted!" I shouted before running to my bedroom, making a beeline for my closet. "Where did I put them...?"

I frantically dug through my closet, throwing the contents across the room without care until I finally found my old worn out, beat up shoes I'd worn while living on the streets before uncle Joe took me in. They were probably white at some point (I wouldn't know, as I had gotten them out of a dumpster), now they were a grimy gray. Even as worn out and beat up as they were, I had been reluctant to get rid of them. They were old and comfortable and had shaped themselves perfectly to my feet and, at the time I had reasoned, one never knew when they would need a pair of old worn out shoes.

Grabbing them up by the rotting laces, I ran back out to the kitchen, opening the door to the oven and throwing them inside.

"I really hope this works..." I muttered, forming a ball of fire in my palm before throwing it in after the shoes. The material caught quickly, and acrid smoke began to fill the air. I coughed, dropping to the floor on my stomach. "Everyone, down!"

The smoke quickly filled the apartment, followed immediately by the shrill sound of the smoke detector going off. Beyond that, I could barely hear a round of hacking coughs and small, clawed feet scrambling away quickly.

"Are they gone?" I asked, crawling into the living room to see uncle Joe, Phoebe and Hunter sitting on the floor.

"Y-yeah..." Hunter coughed. "They ran away when th-the apartment filled with smoke..."

"Gods above, Skipper," Phoebe groaned. "What is that?"

"Reebok flambé," I said.

"Why?" uncle Joe asked simply.

"The book said it was the only surefire way to chase them out," I said.

"Does the book say anything about keeping them out?"

"They get in through cracks and keyholes and gaps in the doors and windows," I said. "Short of making the apartment airtight, I think our best bet would be putting the colander on the doorstep like the book suggests."

"I can help," Ari said. "I can keep th' smoke out of th' house but make it linger outside so they don' come back."

"That would be wonderful, Ari," uncle Joe said, trying to keep his breathing shallow. "While she does that, you girls can grab some plastic and cover the windows. I have weather stripping and double panes, but another layer of protection wouldn't go amiss. I'll grab the colander from downstairs and set it out."

It was the night before Christmas, and in one New York flat, myself and two hunters were laying out traps. The oven was set with wood chips being burned, in hopes that that entry point would be spurned. We girls were all wound up as tense as could be, weapons held ready - unable to sleep. As the night passed, and the hour grew late, we thought it was over. That would be great.

When, all of a sudden, there arose a great clatter. We sprung into action to see what was the matter. The colander laid on the doorstep was gone. Some mortal had stolen it for the price of a song!

"Oh, for Olympus' sake!" Phoebe groaned.

I sighed, "We figured this might happen."

"Doesn't make it not suck, though," Hunter retorted.

Fortunately, Hunter, Phoebe and I had gone out earlier that day in order to get enough supplies to last for a potential two week siege - a task made more difficult than necessary as it was Christmas Eve. Still, between the three of us, we managed to get everything we needed and back before the sun started to set. I grabbed the colander and set it outside before closing the door and fixing the plastic covering securely in place.

By the time the sun came up on Christmas morning, the defenses had held up. We let out a collective sigh of relief before succumbing to our exhaustion. Only twelve more days to go according to that old book...