Polterheist: An Esther Diamond Novel by Laura Resnick Page B

you were going to behead me,” I panted, recalling the sight of Twinkle waving the ax near me.
    “No, I was saving you! I was attacking the tree!”
    “I didn’t mean,” I panted, “that I thought you’d behead me on
purpose.”
    “I didn’t think so, either,” said Lopez, shifting the ax to one hand. “Either way, though, it seemed like a good idea to take it away from him.”
    “Fuck
me,”
said Candycane. “Twinkle, you could have killed her with that thing!”
    Still lying flat, my heart racing in reaction to the attack, I glanced around and saw numerous anxious elf and reindeer faces looking down at me.
    “I think
that
thing could have killed her.” Prancer pointed to the tree. (Or maybe it was Dancer. Or Comet. A big, fuzzy, brown sock-puppet with antlers, anyhow.) “What the hell happened?”
    “I’d say it was the mother of all mechanical malfunctions,” Lopez said in disgust. “Don’t they do maintenance around here? Safety checks?”
    “No,” said several employees in unison.
    “For chrissake.” Lopez shook his head. “What do they
think
will happen if they neglect proper maintenance on a thing like that—that . . . What
is
that thing, anyhow?”
    Jingle’s face hovered directly above me. He must have clocked in recently, since I hadn’t seen him before.
    “Dreidel! Are you okay?” Without waiting for my reply, he turned around and made the general announcement, in a loud voice, “Dreidel is all right!”
    I heard a faint—very faint—cheer sweep through the Enchanted Forest in response to this news.
    “You’re sure you’re okay?” Twinkle asked me.
    “I’ll live.” I was profoundly grateful to be able to say those words.
    “That was scary,” said Jingle. “We nearly lost a good trainee!”
    Lopez said, “Okay, everyone please take a step back and give Esther—uh, Dreidel—some room to breathe. Come on—
back,
everyone.”
    My co-workers complied. People often complied when Lopez gave orders. Not me, really, but lots of other people.
    Born to a Cuban-immigrant father and Irish-American mother, Lopez was in his early thirties, slightly under six feet tall, with a slim, athletic build. He had straight black hair, dark golden-olive skin, and long-lashed blue eyes. The strength in his attractive face kept it from being pretty, despite his full, lush mouth. And although patience was one of his virtues, he wasn’t someone you’d want to mess with.
    “Where’d that
ax
come from?” Candycane asked. “We have
axes
here?”
    Jingle said, “There’s an emergency station next to the North Pole. This was covered in your training, Candycane. Fire extinguisher, first aid kit, ax, and so on. And getting that ax was good thinking, Twinkle!”
    “Actually, I took it from a kid who’d gotten it,” Twinkle admitted. “He could barely lift it, but he had the right idea.”
    “No, stupid idea,” the Russian elf said brusquely. She added to Lopez, with grudging approval, “But you were cool-headed. Using ax to cut power. Much more intelligent than whacking tree.”
    “He’s supposed to be cool-headed in a crisis,” I said, still breathing hard. “He’s a cop.”
    “A cop?” Twinkle bleated. “A
cop?”
    “Yeah, I’m a cop. But we’re cool about the ax, so calm down.” Lopez asked me again, “Esther, are you sure you’re all right?” He knelt beside me and put his hand on my wrist. I thought this was an affectionate gesture until I realized he was checking my pulse.
    “Yeah, I think I’m okay,” I said, pulling away from his hand.
I
knew my heart was still racing. I didn’t see that it would help matters for him to know it, too. “Just really shaken. And . . . ouch.” I shifted uncomfortably. “Bruised.”
    Well aware, it seemed, of why I had rejected his touch, Lopez firmly put his hand on my wrist again, kneeling beside me in silence while he checked my heart rate. I noticed he was wearing a dark wool coat over a navy blue suit. The formality of his