As Scrooge’s lead enforcer burst into the room, he found not a terrified child, but a floor covered in micro-machines and a tripwire rigged to a heavy bowling ball. It was Home Alone played for keeps, and as the mercenary tumbled backward, Santa was there to meet him.
Upstairs, young Trudy Lightstone clutched her walkie-talkie, whispering prayers to the man in the red suit. She was the only one who still believed. Her belief was a beacon, a tether that kept the old man from simply hopping on his sleigh and leaving this pit of vipers to their fate. Noche sin paz (2022)
Above him, "Mr. Scrooge" and his team of professional killers were methodically dismantling the house, looking for a three-hundred-million-dollar payday. They thought they were the baddest things under the moon. They thought they were prepared for everything. As Scrooge’s lead enforcer burst into the room,
The first mercenary died near the chimney. He didn’t hear the heavy boots; he only felt the crushing weight of a sack filled with heavy toys smashing into his jaw. Santa didn't use a silencer; he used a sharpened candy cane and a heavy-duty sledgehammer he’d nicknamed "Skullcrusher" back when he was raiding coastal villages a thousand years ago. She was the only one who still believed
"Bah humbug," he wheezed, pulling a half-empty bottle of gin from his sack. He took a swig, the burn fueling the ancient, Viking fire still flickering in his veins.
Santa looked up, his eyes glowing with an ancient, magical hearth-light. "I'm not a myth, kid. I'm the consequence."
Santa moved through the mansion like a crimson ghost. He wasn't the jolly fat man from the soda commercials tonight. He was a warrior. When a mercenary cornered him in the kitchen, Santa didn't reach for magic dust—he shoved the man’s head into a deep fryer and finished him off with a meat tenderizer.