he would not falter again: He would protect Race and the artifact even if it cost him his young life.
“And what are you going to do, boy?” Nico asked tauntingly, stepping forward and pointing with his bare left hand.
“Just run, Race!” Chick called.
“No!— No, Chick! Don’t’—!” Race tried to stop him.
But already Chick had sprung up, leaping at the man, a hammer forming in his small hand.
The tall man simply laughed, and leaned out of the way as the little boy leapt up at him and took a swipe with the hammer. The small metal thing swished past his long white face, brushing the floppy brim of his wide hat.
‘The boy’s quick,’ Nico thought alarmingly.
But he wasn’t quick enough.
After sidestepping he simply brought his bare hand around and grabbed the boy in midair.
The scream was caught in Race’s throat, while she watched the big hand grab Chick’s chest and twist. It happened much faster this time: Where there was just a young boy, vibrant and full of life, a cupcake was now flipping—strawberry frosted, rainbow sprinkled, and topped with a glistening meerschaum cherry.
Race lunged forward all of a sudden, the satchel swinging on her arm, and snatched the flipping cupcake out of the air.
Then she ducked the swipe of Nico’s hand by mere inches, tumbled to the floor, and somersaulted several times out of the way, back against the rear door of the car—next to the burnt heap of charred black goon that Astor had blasted with a lightning bolt.
She bounced up panting, the satchel around her neck. She stuffed the cupcake snugly into her light-blue summer dress.
Nico’s airy eyebrows become even airier, and he tilted his large black hat back over his head and looked at the girl. She had one hand on the door handle to the next car, her large blue eyes alert and excited, the tight coils of golden hair bunched around her shoulders and the side of her face. She was looking back at Nico, her bosom rising and falling rapidly. There was a slight tremble in her hand.
“Impressive,” said Nico, flexing his hand. “Quite the little acrobat, you are.”
Then he dashed forward like the wicked winds of a tempest, his black coat flaring around him, making him one immense shadow.
Race shrieked and slipped through the door, disappearing into the next train car.
As Nico did the same, in pursuit of the final thing that stood between him and the artifact, he turned back over his shoulder.
“DON’T LET ANYONE THROUGH THIS CAR!!!” he hollered to the goon at the front of the car, who was still bunched on the ground with a burnt arm, but conscious.
Then Nico burst through the door and disappeared himself.
The one-handed mug in the vest, sitting up on his elbow now, reached painstakingly for the black automatic near his side. All the faces in the car were on him.
Race hurtled on through the next car, then cannoned into the next one. There were no wide faces for which to look at the frantic girl as she raced to the back of the train. The cars were all empty!
Instead, she passed doughnuts, vanilla truffles, chocolate éclairs, breakfast platters, loafs of bread, strawberry shortcakes, upside-down cakes, lemon puffs, lollipops, gumdrops, gingerbread men … all the passengers had been turned to food!
Race’s horror-stricken eyes dashed madly at the random deserts and other edibles as she rushed on, feeling the presence of the black-clad man closing in behind her. The satchel swung recklessly across her body, her legs thumping and pounding, propelling her along.
She had no plan, no strategy in mind other than to just get away from the man in black and keep the artifact safe. She was the last hope and she knew it. If she could somehow defeat this terrible villain, then perhaps the spells on Astor and Chick and all these people would wear off and—
At the entrance to the caboose was a door. A different door. A fancy door. Race grabbed the gold-plated handle, twisted. And went through it.
She was in a neat little office now, a private room, which was empty. She glanced around nervously, panting, looking for some sort of weapon to use against the ever approaching wicked man.
In the center of the room was a large wooden desk. Mahogany. To the left was a white vanity, with a backless chair in front of it; to the right a green file cabinet.
In three lunging steps Race was behind the desk, hoping to find anything—a lighter, a letter opener, even a paperweight—to fight the man off with. She pulled at all the drawers but they were locked!
Her head swished and swirled for another option—when suddenly she heard the door creak open gently.
The tall black-dressed man calmly entered the room.
Race let out a yelp, and stumbled over to the vanity.
“Why, hello there,” Nico said. “You’re pretty fast.” He let the door slide shut behind him.
Race backed against the vanity, shaking, panting, clutching the satchel against her chest. Her face and neck were slick with perspiration, her eyes twice their normal size, her pupils pinpoints. Her lips were quivering with fear.
“We have reached the end of the line,” Nico said, approaching slowly. He took his steps gingerly, savoring this final moment of predator upon prey.
“I’ll have the satchel now,” he said. “And if you play right I might even let you live. In a couple of years you’ll make some man very happy. Wouldn’t you? So why waste a good thing?”
Nico was in front of the girl now, only several feet away. His handless arm was covered by the sleeve of his long trench coat, his other hand bare and in front of him.
Race was as far back against the vanity as she could go, frozen with fear, but unable to control the convulsions of her body. Her eyes made quick, desperate glances around the room, then settled back on the sinister figure in front of her.
“You will toss me the satchel now,” said Nico. And he held out his handless arm like last time.
Race still held the satchel against her body.
“Don’t be stupid, little girl. I am being uncharacteristically forgiving here. I will give you to the count of three to toss me the bag. One….”
Race didn’t move. Her shaking got worse. Her grip on the satchel tightened even more.
“Two….”
Slight whimpering sounds were escaping her trembling lips now. The rolling sweat slickening the sides of her face. Her breath hot and caught in her throat.
“Three….”
A tear rolled down her quivering cheek.
“HAVE IT YOUR WAY!!!” And Nico dove at the girl, his big white hand zooming for her face.
Race’s black pupils grew till they swallowed the blue irises entirely. She screamed and fell back—colliding against the vanity—before crumbling to the floor, her big eyes all deranged now. The back of the vanity crashed into the wall from the impact, shattering the mirror. Sharp shards of glass rained all around her.
Nico glided back from the girl suddenly, abruptly—but the brown satchel was hanging around his handless arm now. He stood several feet back from the girl. He looked down at her, and added in a very serious voice:
“I don’t like you very much, little girl. I don’t like you very much at all. You’re pure trouble in my eyes. And I’ve the feeling that the less I see of you the better. Adieu.”
And he glided to the door of the room, lifting his hat in a gentlemanly manner. Quickly he slid through it.
As he made his was down the car, back towards the front of the train, he was already humming Everybody’s Somebody After All to himself.
After sitting there for a good minute and a half in pure shock, Race bounced up from the floor and dashed to the door. She gripped the handle and turned it—but it came right off in her hand. Race looked down at the candy-cane she now held.
‘He must have touched it before he left!’
She tossed the useless thing to the floor and stood on her tip-toes to peer through the little rectangular window in the door.
Through it she could see the bl
ack figure getting smaller and smaller, as he headed in a dandy skip for the next car, the satchel swinging merrily over his arm.
She tried to move the door but it wouldn’t budge. Even if she broke the little window, there was no way she’d fit through.…
Cursing a word she was told a lady never uses, she looked frantically around the room.
A telephone!
In her haste she hadn’t noticed it before! Sitting at the corner of the desk! She could at least call up to the conductor and warn him! Maybe he could somehow stop the madman!
She dashed for the ivory-and-gold thing, and already had the receiver in her hand, yelling:
“Hello! Hello!?”
No response. No tone. Silence.
Race drew the receiver back from her head and looked down at it; already the mouth- and earpiece were morphing into circular waffles, the handle a link of sausage in her hand.
‘That bastard!’
She cursed again and threw the breakfast food to the floor. Then she looked around the room once more. Her eyes settled on the large glass windows to one side of the little room.
‘It’s the only way,’ Race decided.
But first she went over and picked something off the floor.
The big window shattered easily enough when Race threw the backless chair from the vanity through it.
Then she pushed the file cabinet over to the open window, clambered atop it, and managed to snake her way out of the room and on top of the train.
The wind was blowing wildly in her freckled face, as she plodded her way down the top of the caboose and leapt over to the next car. The train was going good speed, turning around a bend now, and Race