cake.”
The three smiled slyly at each other, and Race took the cake from the conductor, who then turned and walked off.
“Is that—?”
Astor and Chick looked at the harmless cake in Race’s hands with nervous caution and skepticism.
Then Race stuck her face abruptly into the cake.
Chick and the old man gasped.
The girl’s head popped up with a chocolate-ridden smile, her tongue running over her lips.
She giggled excitedly.
“It’s good!!!”
The three shared a hearty laugh and stepped off the train. When the people had gone around them, and the station cleared out, Astor stopped the two children. He knelt down beside them.
In a grave, quiet voice, peering out at the city in the distance, he told them:
“We now make our passage through town.”
*
Epilogue:
Atop a sun-drenched hill, under the stripe-canopied château of a promenade, a man was sitting at a sole muslin-clothed table, his face just out of sight in the shade.
His big hands—covered in soft white cotton gloves—rested clasped upon a white cloth napkin, draped over the knee of his long, crossed legs.
The shadow from the canopy above consumed the man’s face, but his body could be seen quite well.
The man sat very stately yet casually in the chair, his legs crossed, his body leaned back slightly. He was looking on at the women at the café tables below, down at the bottom of the hill.
His dress was of the very expensive sort. He wore a light crème suit, single-buttoned, with a shy-pink shirt underneath and matching pocket square; not folded properly and instead shoved in casually. On his feet were shy-pink socks and brown alligator shoes.
A deep gold watch on his left wrist sparkled like a star when the sun hit it just right. Which was often from where he was sitting.
From under the shadow that engulfed his head and neck, you could start to see the silk crème and pink polka-dot ascot, tucked into his breast.
Of his face there was nothing but an umbra.
On the table, off-centered towards the man slightly, was a large bottle, filled with a dark-amber liquid, and a bone china teacup next to it. The bottle had a very small label off to the side, with the letters ‘J. H. C.’ stamped into it. There was also a gold ashtray on the table, filled with several filtered butts, and a gold lighter.
The man blew smoke from the cigarette he was smoking, and watched the young girls down below; laughing in their short-shorts and slackened shirts, eating little food and drinking much wine.
He leaned forward slightly—his smooth, sleek chin inching into the light for a moment—and reached for the teacup and took it back with him.
Suddenly he noticed a waiter in a black tuxedo, marching along the path up the hill, carrying a silver tray over his arm. On the tray was an ivory-and-gold telephone.
The man adjusted himself in his seat, placing his cigarette in the ashtray holder.
The waiter approached the man’s table, bowed, and spoke in a very formal voice with a thick accent:
“Ze telephone, monsieur.”
The man with the shadow-face reached out a big white-gloved hand and picked up the receiver.
He put it to his ear and waved the waiter away.
The waiter removed the base of the phone from the tray and set it down on the table. Then he bowed himself away, and made his long trek back down the hill, holding the empty silver tray out in front of him.
A voice came back on the other line of the phone.
“Nico has been defeated. The artifact is still with the group. They have just gotten off the train and are making their way through the town. We will do what Nico couldn’t.”
The man at the table hesitated. Then he simply made a noise in his throat with his lips closed and hung up.
He picked his cigarette from the ashtray, lifted his teacup from the table. He smoked and drank. And continued to watch the girls.
He loved to watch the girls at the tables below.
To Be Continued….
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