Don’t let anybody tell you Santa Claus isn’t real. I’ve seen where they stashed his body. It’s in Italy, under a basement floor.
Yes, it’s true. Saint Nicholas—better known as Santa Claus—really lived and died. Centuries later, his corpse was stolen from a tomb in Turkey and taken to Bari, Italy, where it started riots. It was locked in a crypt, where it still sits in a cage a thousand years later.
Why was it stolen? Who would steal Santa Claus’s dead body? How did they get away with it?
Picture an ancient church a thousand years ago. Domed, dusky in the evening. The floors are dazzling mosaics that glimmer in the candlelight.
Now imagine you are kneeling on that floor. You are a monk, and your whole life has been devoted to living in this place and protecting the body of Nicholas, a saint—called
thaumaturge, wonder-worker—a being so powerful that even in death, his body itself is supposedly miraculous.
But that evening, you are not kneeling on the floor in prayer. You are kneeling there because a thief is holding a sword to your throat. He does not even bother to wear a mask. He tells you he has come for the corpse of Nicholas. Show him where it is hidden, or he will kill you.
He is not alone. Behind him, ranks of his companions bearing swords, spears, iron bars, hammers, recede into the twilit darkness of the church.
You know that if you give these men what they want, if you show them where Nicholas’s body has been hidden for all these centuries, they will smash open his tomb and steal his sacred remains. You will betray your life’s great mission, to protect the Blessed Nicholas.
If you refuse to tell this band of adventurers where the body is, they will kill you. But if you do tell them, when the people of your city discover that you’ve broken all your vows and given away the miraculous corpse of Nicholas, they will probably lynch you anyway.
Why have these strangers come from so far away to steal the remains of the wonder-worker, forcing you to face this impossible choice?
Because supposedly the corpse of Saint Nicholas, Santa Claus, drips an ooze that heals all wounds, all diseases. One of your duties is to scoop up the miraculous grease that flows from his bones and serve it in little glass bottles to believers.
Night is falling, and even the thieves are starting to get nervous as the sun sets. They have a long way to go before they are safely back on their ships, and they do not want to anger the ghost of the holy Nicholas, who flew through the air and fought demons and calmed storms.
Their voices shake with anxiety, but they make themselves clear:
Show us the body, or we will cut your throat in an instant.
What would you do?
Copyright © 2026 by M. T. Anderson. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
