Pandora walked around the menagerie of shifters with Avery, inspecting them, making sure all the harnesses were correctly hitched up together. The bears were organized according to the position they’d played before when they’d done The Ride in the past. Sean, who’d flown as Dasher, was in the front left. Next to him was Ryan, who’d flown as Dancer. Behind Sean was Ethan, who’d ridden as Prancer, and next to Ethan was Cain, who’d ridden as Vixen. Behind Ethan was Connor — Comet — and next to him was Rowan — Cupid. Behind Ethan was Kevin, who’d taken Donner’s position, and next to Kevin was Eamonn, who’d flown as Blitzen. Behind Ethan and Blitzen was the ‘sleigh — Pandora’s SUV — and in front of Sean and Ryan was a black goat with black horns and fierce green eyes and sulfuric farts.

“Krampus, get that look off your face,” said Avery, crossing her arms. “You’re being a baby. Stand still. You’re going to poke my eyes out with your horns if you keep wiggling like a wee worm.”

“Am I?” asked Krampus, able to use his human voice even in his demonic shifter form. “Or am I being a horny old goat?”

“Well, because of your unique abilities, you’re leading the sleigh, whether you like it or not,” said Pandora. “Now, let Avery put the hat on you so that you can hear the communications station back here at The Workshop.”

“Don’t see why we had to switch to a hat-based system,” grumbled Krampus.

“These hats are special,” said Avery, putting the hat down on Krampus. “It won’t fall off until you land on the tarmac tonight. When you shift, it’ll make sure you’re fully clothed, and you’ll be able to hear the comms station with the hat, same as you would with the earpiece. The harnesses are pretty standard, but, because none of you, except Krampus, can fly in your normal state, they’ll be what connects you to the sleigh. You’ll basically be in a magical circuit with the sleigh, but your energy will also act as a battery. It’s a mess of magical engineering that, well… Let’s just say that it’s probably so messed up that if we tried to fix it, we’d probably ruin a couple Christmases trying to get the system back online. The point is, in the harnesses, your shifts can fly. That’s a feature of the harnesses we’ve always included as a contingency protection backup thing.”

Sean let out a confused grumble.

“That’s right,” said Avery. “The powers of these hats work on bears too. When you turn back into humans, you’ll be in tactical suits. That’s why we had you get changed into the suits, put the hats on, and then, shift back into your bear forms. The suits automatically retracted into the hats. It’s magic. I’m not a tailoring elf. I don’t know how it works. But, when Pandora lands, you’ll be able to pop out and help her do deliveries.”

The bears all nodded.

“Of course…Krampus would’ve been ready to go if he wasn’t fighting with Santana until the last minute,” said Avery.

“Oh, so, I’m a big jackass because I wanted to deliver presents with my plane?” asked Krampus.

“No, you’re not a big jackass,” said Avery. “You’re a lil’ goat! Now, before it gets too late, here — this one’s for you, Panda Claus.” Avery passed Pandora a red velvet hat with a white fur lining. Pandora put it on.

“Testing, testing,” said a comms elf.

“Hearing you loud and clear,” said Pandora. “Over. Perfect. Thanks, Avery.”

“I’ll be making deliveries tonight, with the other ladies, on broomsticks…but, you’ve got this, Pandora,” said Avery. “You’re gonna do great. Now, get that SUV in the air!”

Pandora nodded. “Merry Christmas, Avery.”

Pandora got in the driver’s side of the SUV.

“Alright, boys, let’s get this bird in the air,” said Pandora. One by one, the shifters rose into the air — Krampus, followed by the bears behind him, followed by the next row of bears, and the next, and the next, until the SUV started to move into the air.

“Alright, Miss Claus — you ready for your first set of deliveries?” asked the Christmas elf acting as air traffic controller.

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” said Pandora. “Where’m I off too?”

“Someplace called…Bear Buns,”‘ said the elf.

Ryan let out a roar that sounded a lot like a laugh.

Pandora felt a lot closer to her father. They were doing the same thing, around the world — The Ride.

Okay, to be fair…

He had a sleigh.

She had a magical flying SUV.

He had eight reindeer.

She…had eight grizzly bears, led by a horny old goat.

Santana was delivering gifts to all the kids around the world, especially the Nice ones.

Pandora…well, she was targeting really Naughty adults who could handle the red-hot spicy romances.

But, at the same time, Pandora felt bittersweet. She’d always wanted to do The Ride, ever since she was old enough to know what exactly it was, even when she was old enough to know what it entailed.

The inside of the SUV was comfortable. After all, she had heated seats. The moonroof was down, so she could magically hop in and out of the top of the SUV. She’d tried that feature out for the first time about two days after she’d gotten the sleigh, with Jack Frost. Of course, as he wasn’t a Claus, he didn’t have the magic to do it, and he’d ended up stuck with half his body sticking out of the moonroof.

Behind the wheel of the SUV, with eight grizzlies flying in front of her more awkwardly than she’d ever seen a shifter fly, with a goat leading them that flew better than any of the reindeer driving Santana’s sleigh, she felt lonely. Nine friends were supporting her that night, but, there was one person she wished she had sitting next to her, cracking jokes like he had on their ride up to The North Pole.

Pandora shook her head and snapped out of her trance. She had to stay focused. After all, the entire night was about saving that same person, and she could only do that with a clear head.

Pandora watched as the wind brushed up the dark brown fur of the grizzlies. She could see the wind whipping against Krampus’ black curly goat hair once they were over Seattle and the light pollution from the city made Krampus’ body visible again. After all, it was pretty hard to see a jet-black goat against a clear night sky.

Pandora landed the sleigh in the back of a strip club, of all places — Bear Buns, an all-werebear strip club in Seattle.

“What are we doing here?” asked Pandora.

Ryan shifted back into his human form. “Come with me.”

Ryan led Pandora to the back of the strip club, where a variety of strippers and support staff were putting on a very special Christmas pageant.

“Look out there,” said Ryan.

Pandora peeked out of the curtains. The strip club was full of women!

“What is this place?” asked Pandora.

“A strip club that caters to folks that like handsome werebears,” said Ryan. “Now…I think that these ladies deserve some early Christmas joy, don’t you?”

“Yes, but, how are we gonna deliver gifts to them?” asked Pandora.

“You just leave that to me,” said Ryan. “Grab that cart, and I’ll go talk to management.”

Pandora grabbed a free pushcart, pushed it to her SUV, and started to fill it with presents from her sack. As she removed gifts from the bag, elves back at The Workshop tossed gifts into it, as the magical Christmas sack had a type of portal or wormhole built into it. Its copy was back at The Workshop, which is how Pandora was able to deliver a seemingly endless number of presents.

“Two hundred,” said a voice.

“What was that?” asked Pandora aloud.

“It’s me,” said the voice. “Your link back at HQ?”

“Oh, right,” said Pandora. “Two hundred what?”

“You need to get two hundred gifts out of the bag, for the ladies in the audience,” said the voice. “Trust me — this beats jumping down two hundred chimneys.”

“Got it,” said Pandora. “Guys? I’m gonna need a —”

The other seven bears, and a certain goat, had already shifted back into their human forms.

“ — An extra paw?” suggested Ryan, coming up behind Pandora and the group with a team of his own. “Because, well…let’s just say that we’re going to need to be as efficient as those elves up North if we’re going to get these presents to the ladies.”

“So management said —” started Pandora.

“Look, they heard someone wants to give out free gifts to the customers, romance novels and chocolates, and they don’t ask questions,” said Ryan with a wink.

An assembly line formed, with Pandora and the other Nuthusk bears loading carts with presents while the Bear Buns staff wheeled the gifts in. Pandora pulled the boxed sets out of the magical sack. Hers had rhinestones on it, not just because she liked rhinestones, but, to differentiate it from her father’s magic bag. Back at The North Pole, the elves were tossing gifts into matching magical bags as fast as possible, using a mix of a conveyer belt system and elf-power to get all the gifts out into the world. The gifts that were tossed into the plain sack would show up in Santana’s sack. The gifts that were thrown into the rhinestone sack would appear on Pandora’s side. Pandora just kept on shaking her sack, and gifts kept falling out of it, into the laundry bins that the Bear Buns crew had rolled out to the back. There were smaller matching sacks for all the teams. Santana’s team had a set of old sacks with the reindeer names on them – Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, and Blitzen. When Santana landed, his team would help him deliver gifts to houses in an area. Pandora’s sacks for the bears had their names on them – Sean through Eamonn. Befana, Ginny, and Avery had their own bags, as did the eight BBWs joining them on The Ride. Every last sack had a pair back at HQ so the elves could teleport the gifts over to the delivery folks.

From the lot behind Bear Buns, Pandora could hear the crowd hooting and hollering as the gifts were passed out. She smiled. Her Christmas was indeed off to quite a start. If all the readers they delivered the gifts to would react with that level of excitement, well…things might just work out in the end.

A way’s away from Seattle, nestled in a rural forest that shared its name with the town, was a small, tiny town, lit only by Christmas lights, filled with the sounds of carolers, of children’s laughter, and of bear paws and goat hooves hitting the roof of the lodge of a particular bear Clan. The sleigh landed in a town familiar to the eight bears, and to the goat, but not familiar to Pandora.

“We’ve got this,” said Sean, after he shifted back into his human form, fully clothed, thanks to the magical Santa hats that all the shifters were wearing.

“You do?” asked Pandora, furrowing her brow.

“Of course we do,” said Connor. “This is Nuthusk — our hometown. We can use the chimneys or the front doors for the deliveries.”

Sean and the rest of the reformed bad bears grabbed their smaller Santa sacks from the back of the SUV and went off into town, to deliver box sets of the books and the chocolates to their friends and loved ones.

“Come on,” said Krampus, grabbing his sack. “I’ll give you the grand tour.”

Pandora landed the sleigh on a building on Main Street of a little town called…Port Jameson. Her first delivery of the night was to three older women, sisters, who ran a knitting supply store — Spinning A Yarn. Pandora grabbed the three packages, enabled her stealth technology, and jumped down their chimney, unseen.

“Goodness me, you think we’ll really have customers at this hour?” asked one of the sisters.

“Well, you never know who might need a last-minute gift,” said the second. “Isn’t that how our niece’s story starter?”

“You know, if memory serves — that is just how her ‘once upon a time’ began with that billionaire,” said the first sister. “Hey — did you get those?”

“Get what?” asked the third sister, who turned, to see that there were three large wrapped gifts by their fireplace.

“Well, they aren’t from me,” said the first sister. “Read the labels, Bertha.”

“Let me see,” said Bertha. “Why, they’re addressed to all three of us! One for me, one for you, Helen, and one for you, Lorraine.”

“And who are they from?” asked Lorraine.

“It just says they’re from ‘Panda Claus,’” said Bertha. “Well, I’ll be.”

Helen walked over, grabbed her gift, and opened it up.

“Helen, what are you doing?” asked Lorraine.

“You can always open one gift on Christmas Eve, can’t you?” asked Helen. “Well, this is mine.” Helen grabbed a knitting needle, sliced open the gift, and unwrapped it.

“Well?” asked Bertha. “What did you get?”

“Twelve books…and a big box of chocolates,” said Helen. “Huh. Never heard of these books before, but, they’re romances — the saucy kind. I bet you two got the same thing, given your presents look to be the same size as mine.”

“What’re they called?” asked Lorraine. “Do they have vampires in them? Oh, or dragons? How about some aliens?”

“Looks like they’re rather normal — all about shifters, nothing magical at all. The series is called…’The Twelve Mates of Christmas,’” said Helen. “Put on a pot of tea, Bertha. Seems we all have some reading to do!”

Pandora landed the sleigh on a large mansion in Texas, in a town called ‘Fallowedirt.’ She’d teleported the sleigh over to the mansion, which wasn’t rural enough to be part of Avery, Ginny, and Befana’s delivery route, but was still a ways out of town. She got out of the sleigh and grabbed eleven packages — one for each of the five women living there, one for their grandmother, and five for their closest friends. She hopped down the chimney with the sack of gifts.

Because Pandora’s routine had been thrown off by this set of deliveries, she had forgotten to enable her stealthing magic. She was perfectly visible to the person who was right next to the mantle…eating a cookie.

Pandora looked at the curvy woman.

The curvy woman looked at Pandora.

“Can I help you?” asked the stranger.

“Uh…I have some gifts for you,” said Pandora. “Please don’t call the cops.”

Pandora tossed the gifts out of the bag and onto the floor. The curvy woman grabbed the present with her name on it — Savina.

“Huh,” said Savina. “What is it?”

“Romance novels — and chocolate,” said Pandora.

“You brought me chocolate? Well, honey, in Texas, breaking and entering’s an awfully foolish thing to do…but I do love me some chocolate,” said Savina with a grin. “You don’t tell Santa Claus I’m eating his cookies, and I won’t tell the cops some BBW managed to shimmy her curves down my chimney. Deal?”

“Deal,” agreed Pandora. “But, uh…can I ask one more favor?”

“What is it?” asked Savina.

“Can you make sure you and yours all read what’s in these presents? From the front cover of the first book to the last cover of the twelfth book?” asked Pandora.

“You’re assigning me and mine reading on frikkin’ Christmas?” asked Savina, crossing her arms. “Well…there’s chocolate in all those packages, right?”

“Right,” said Pandora. “The books are good, too — romance novels! The spicy kind!”

“Well, why didn’t you say so in the first place? I think me and mine will be up to the task. After all, this household loves spicy things,” said Savina. “In fact…I think I’ll call my sisters down and call our friends up so we can start right now, so you best git, because I think my older sister is the ‘shoot on sight’ kinda matriarch if you know what I mean.”

Pandora nodded and jumped back up the fireplace.

Savina looked at her cookie and looked at the milk on the mantle. Either somebody had spiked her eggnog at dinner, or she had just met a frikkin’ Christmas elf or something. Either way, she had one heck of a story to tell — after she and her sisters and their friends blasted through the twelve books delivered by the stranger who’d jumped down her chimney while Savina was committing grand theft Christmas cookie.

By the time Pandora had reached the UK, she was getting the hang of things. She landed her sleigh on the top of a pub, enabled the cloaking technology built into her tactical suit, and took off with the packages of books and chocolates, hopping down the chimneys, hopping back up chimneys, and doing all the deliveries she had to do in town before taking off.

From the air, she saw a pair of eleven magical ladies weaving in and out of the cottages of the countryside, delivering packages to all the readers that they were sure would want to read stuff that could get them on The Naughty List.

Befana was there. So was Avery. Of course, Ginny was there too.

The eight BBWs from Nuthusk were still gaining their bearings but were doing remarkably well for first-time broom riders. They’d had a lot of experience riding on top of tufted shafts.

That made eleven flying ladies.

Pandora looked in the mirror of her SUV and realized that she was the twelfth flying lady, making special deliveries for a very special man. Sometimes, it was funny how Fate made things add up.

The shifters turned back into their animal forms when they were in their harnesses and took off, their paws and hooves leaving the sands of New Zealand’s South Island. As Pandora rose high into the air, she looked down and behind her, at the oceans leading to the shores of The South Pole.

Would the work Pandora had done that night be enough to save Jack, and everyone else at The South Pole? Or had this just been another ordinary Christmas?