The Dangerous Train Ride (1 of 4)

too. That’s what it was. That was why Astor was so good. Had lived so long. Knew how to use his magic. That was it. Others had mastered stronger spells, more powerful forms of magic. But Astor knew how to use his magic.

  “Yes,” Astor said to the children at his side, wiping another quick line of blood from his mouth. Pressing his dripping brow against his sleeve. “We will wait here until the train reaches Trux, and the passengers depart. Then I will deal with this man here.”

  His eyes narrowed on the tall thin man in front of him. Clad in all black. Like a funeral.

  Nico grimaced that evil face of his.

  Then a thought came to Astor. He’d almost forgotten completely, in fact. He turned to Chick suddenly, and said:

  “Chick, make me a pistol! I’m going to shoot this man dead.”

  Chick’s eyes jumped wide with shock. “A— A pistol? Why, I—I’ve never made a gun before …”

  “It’s alright,” Astor coughed, “you can do it. Just try now.” He turned his old green eyes back up toward Nico.

  “Ha! Guns! What a bunch of crap!” Nico laughed, and waited to see what the little boy was going to do.

  Chick, protected by the forcefield, turned towards Astor and positioned his hands as if he was holding a small ball. A light began to grow in the center; a white, glowing blob. Nico’s eyes grew with excitement.

  ‘So this is Thin-Air Alchemy,’ he thought.

  Already the white, glowing blob was beginning to take shape. Chick worked and worked, and finally handed the thing to Astor as it began to morph into the form of a gun. Astor held it pointed at the tall man in black, poised, ready to release the forcefield and fire every shot in the revolver. But suddenly the thing in his hand didn’t feel quite right anymore.

  When he looked down, he realized—he was holding an iron banana!

  “YAAAAAAAAAAA-HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA-HAAAAA!!!!!”

  An overwhelming, gut-bursting laugh erupted from Nico, as both he and the rest realized what Chick had forged. A useless iron banana. A fancy paper-weight.

  Nico almost doubled over backwards and split in half from his laughter, gasping for the air he wasn’t getting. He clutched his stomach in an attempt to hold himself together. “F—face it, kid,” he said, bringing himself upright again, regaining his composure. “Thin-Air Alchemy is a myth!”

  “I—I’m sorry, Astor!” Chick blurted, ashamed, his face red, his eyes worried. “I failed you!”

  ‘Tch!’ thought Astor. But, “It’s okay, my boy,” was what he said, still holding the pointed metal banana like a pistol. “Don’t lose your confidence!”

  “Oh, that’s good advice, kid,” Nico chortled. “You should listen to that.”

  The three in the clear dome scowled contemptuously at the tall thin man in black.

  Then Nico slumped backwards into a seat at the edge of a booth and crossed his long black-clad legs. The pointed tip of his black boot rocked up and down.

  “I should really sit for a show like this,” he said.

  Astor finally let the iron banana drop from his hand, where it banged on the floor. He grabbed hold of a small round table that was within the forcefield to steady himself. He was weary, weak, all the blood rushing from his head. Race was on one side, helping him stand, his other hand on the table. The use of that magic back there, and now the maintaining of the forcefield, was taking its toll.

  ‘Too old,’ Astor thought. ‘You’re just too damn old for all this … No longer able to keep up … But I must … I must … I must…’

  “You really are something, old man,” Nico said with a sneer. “What a mentor!” And he smiled at Race and Chick with devilish eyes. “But here’s the thing …” he began, pointing at them.

  “You see, old man, people are the same. You and I, for instance, are not as different as you would like to think.”

  Astor gritted his teeth, peering at the too-calm man through the occasional sheen over the clear dome.

  “What I mean is this,” Nico went on. “We are all human after all. Are we not? At least all of us here, anyway. And as humans, we must know, whether we like it or not, that we have been programmed to be the way we are through six-hundred thousand years of evolution. So, over those years patterns form—habits as we know them.

  “When one human walks up a flight of steps, chances are they will grab the rail with their strong hand, whether they need the assistance or not. It has become a habit. An instinct, if you will.”

  Astor’s brows wrinkled and pressed together, his eyes peering sharply at the ill-looking figure talking to him.

  “And,” that figure continued, “these habits, as we call them, are even more exemplified during moments of haste, urgency, emergency, or what have you—”

  “What is your point?” Astor barked suddenly, not liking the man’s calmness and confidence, and not liking the game of a long, drawn-out riddle. He wanted to know what the hell the man was getting at, and he wanted to know now. And that man was very close to telling him.

  “My point is this: Habit,” Nico said simply.

  “Habit. Habit. Habit. If habit was a rabbit and a rabbit was a habit, we’d all be little bunnies. HAAAH-HAHAHAHAHAHAHA-HAAAA!!!”

  His head flung back and his shoulders jumped with his laughter. The brim of his oversize hat flopped up and down.

  “Habit,” he said again, much more serious this time.

  “More specifically … your habit.” He smiled at the old man.

  ‘Tch! Just trying to bluff me out!’ thought Astor. ‘An old trick.’

  The sweat started to roll down his wide forehead and wrinkled face again.

  ‘Trying to throw me off my track. Distract me. Prevent my thinking and planning while he formulates a strategy. Well I won’t let him! I won’t fall for that kind of childish tricker—’

  “Like now,” Nico said, interrupting the old man’s thought, “how I’ve tactfully backed you into this specific corner in this exact car.

  “Nine times out of ten a person will rest their hand on a table, or a chair, given it is near enough and high enough so as to provide comfort or relief. It does not matter whether the person is in casual conversation, or fighting for their life, the habit comes from thousands of years of subconscious tendency, deep rooted in the ancestry before us. It is written in to you, so to speak. Therefore, certain premeditated measures can be taken. Take now, for instance. Here all you thought you were doing was resting your hand on a nearby lamp table. But, Astor, think again!”

  The old man’s eyes grew wide, dark. The sweat poured down his face in streams now. Rivers.

  “Why don’t you look where your left hand in fact is!” Nico said, and he stood up.

  Astor hadn’t noticed before, he was too distracted with everything—but suddenly the table he had his hand on didn’t feel right. Something was warm, wet … lumpy.

  Slowly—reluctantly—he turned his head, seeing it with horror. His hand wasn’t on the table at all.

  It was on another hand!

  A lifeless and bloody hand! Amputated at the wrist, but still warm, oozing from where it had been cut! It lay palm up, with Astor’s pressed right against it.

  Astor looked up, a sickly expression twisted into his green face. Nico was just standing there, staring, smiling. His right arm was behind his back.

  “Y-you … you c-c-cut … c-c-cut your …”

  “HAHAHAHAHAA! You are truly funny, old man! You should have given it up years ago! CORRECT!!!”

  And he thrust his handless right arm up in front of him! The one he had kept hidden since his appearance, though Astor hadn’t noticed until now.

  “My hands don’t need to be attached for my power to work. My hands are the power!”

  Frantically Astor glanced back and snatched his hand away, but it was too late. He could already feel the magic taking effect.

  “H—H-hnngh!—Hubula-blub-blub—Grrrublgh-blrr!!—GRrrrghb!!—!”

  Astor’s body became all wobbly and distorted, rubber
y, losing its solid shape. The molecules of his mass were spinning wildly, out of control, changing in their physical makeup.

  As his human form started to morph, he tore the satchel from his shoulder and flung it at Race, along with the single word:

  “RUN!!!”

  Right before their eyes, the man Race and Chick had known as a master wizard, an elder of the High Order, and mentor to young apprentices like themselves, shrunk down and down, transforming in the strangest of ways.

  When it finished he was nothing more than a fully-cooked rotisserie chicken, steaming hot, with a side of asparagus and roasted red potatoes.

  Race let out a piercing scream, Chick made a chocking, gasping sound, the two of them stumbling back. The forcefield flickered and was gone.

  The satchel flew in a high arc, into Race’s shaky arms. Nico watched it with wide, viscous eyes.

  “ASTOR!” Race cried, her shaking hand shooting to her trembling mouth, as she looked down with big, pupil-shrinking eyes at the steaming chicken on the ground.

  Chick’s swarthy face turned ivory. Frozen in disbelief.

  “NYAAAAAAA—HAHAHAHAHAHAHAA!!!!!” Nico almost folded together like a lawn chair this time. Then he stood up again, seemingly taller and more menacing than before.

  “You just never know what they’re going to turn into!” He eyed the brown satchel over Race’s houlder. “Now, darling girl,” holding out his handless arm for her to hang the bag over, “let’s have the thing—before I turn you and your little friend into a pair of ice cream cones.”

  Chick stepped out in front of Race suddenly, assuming his battle stance. He had made up his mind,