"I suspect he's only dangerous toroofsafter he eats too many carrots on Christmas Eve. Nobody wants to clean reindeer poop off their house on Christmas."
I rolled my eyes. "Jack. Focus. What are we going to do?"
Jack grinned and shook his head. "I'm pretty sure you're going to say barbecue is out of the question, so I think we should call the vet and see what she thinks."
I took a few steps away from the chatter surrounding the reindeer and dialed the vet clinic. Phin answered. "Dead End Veterinary Clinic, can I help you?"
"Boy, I sure hope so." I told him about the reindeer situation, but he was laughing so hard by the end of it I had to wait a few moments for him to calm down enough to hear me.
"Yes, we'll certainly take him and figure out where he came from. The flying is probably temporary. At least I hope so. I'll talk to Charithra, but in the meantime, do you have a way to get him here?"
"He can go in the back of Jack's truck," I said. "Let me go get some rope and we'll figure it out. I'll see you as soon as we can get there."
By the time we fastened a piece of rope into a modified collar and leash and got all the customers out of the way, the reindeer was clearly ready to get away from the crowd.
Jack lifted Rudolph into the back of the truck as easily as he'd lifted the injured dog. I had no idea how much a reindeer weighed, but I'd grown up around horses and cows. Just eyeballing it, I figured he was easily three hundred and fifty pounds.
Shapeshifter strength to the rescue.
"I'll ride in the back with him," Shelley said, all but vibrating with excitement.
"Oh, no, you won't," I told her. "If Rudolph decides he wants to take off, you wouldn't be able to stop him. And the idea of you floating through the air hanging onto the end of his rope is enough to give me gray hair."
"I'll go with them. No problem, Miss Tess." It was one of my customers. A strong, sturdy guy who probably could've lifted the reindeer all by himself. I didn't remember his name, but I knew he worked with Dave.
He and Jack shook hands.
"Julio Martinez, right?" Jack said. "Nice to see you again."
Julio grinned. "You, too. And let me tell you, we had fun for weeks making jokes about Dave's … incident."
That's right. He'd been in the hospital when Dave had gotten shot in the, ah, posterior region.
"Shifter strength. Wow! Not many people could lift that deer up and put it in the back of the truck. Well, let's get 'er done."
I agreed Shelley could ride along, but only in the front with Jack.
And then I stood and watched as Jack slowly and carefully drove away, with Julio sitting in the back on the wheel well, holding the rope. Before they even made it out of the parking lot, the reindeer launched himself into the air like some kind of twisted Macy's Thanksgiving parade balloon, with poor Julio hanging on for dear life.
"I gotta get a video of this for my grandkids," one of my customers said, and she scurried off to her car, yelling at Mabel to hurry.
A tiny white-haired woman—Mabel, evidently—clutched her Dead End Pawn tote filled with purchases to her chest and toddled off after the first woman.
I trudged back into the shop, which was now empty of customers. Eleanor walked in right after me, still laughing.
"Do you know what the worst part of all of this is?"
She shook her head. "Not sure. That there might be reindeer poop on the roof?"
"Knowing my luck, there iscertainlyreindeer poop on the roof," I said glumly. "But the worst part is, Jack and Shelley just drove off with our lunch. We'll be lucky if there's a crumb left by the time they get back here."
25
Tess
Another surge of customers kept me and Eleanor busy for a while, and then she took pity on me and ran out to get us some sandwiches. I hadn't heard from Jack or Shelley since they took off with Rudolph, which I had to think was a good thing. No doubt Jack would have called me if something had gone horribly wrong.
It was almost Christmas. We deserved one afternoon without a crisis.
