They needed to remember that most Heavies weren’t known for their smarts. Jake Sullivan was an anomaly in that respect. “Do you live here? Is this your house?”
“That’s a dumb question. Of course I live here… Who are you guys?”
Dan turned up his Power. “We’re friends from out of town, come by to visit.”
“Oh hey!” the Heavy grinned. “Good to see you guys. Come in! Come in! Hey, Alice, we got company!” Totally defenseless against the Mouth, his demeanor changed. “You guys want some cookies?”
“Naw, we’re good.” Dan smiled. Pushover. “We’ve only got a minute so we can’t stay.”
“Aww, but I haven’t seen you guys in forever.”
“We just wanted to know, friend, how did you end up living in this nice house in this lovely little town?”
“It is real nice, ain’t it? Lord knows I couldn’t afford this on a steelworker’s wage. The government folks sent me a letter. Alice helped read it. Said since I had magic, we could come and live here for free. Even said that if you didn’t have work, you could live here for free until they found work for you. Everybody in Drew Town’s got magic of some kind. Mr. Drew says only magical folks get invited to live here.”
“The architect,” Francis muttered as he remembered bumping into the man in the White House. “Son of a bitch.”
“Aw, he’s perfectly nice,” the Heavy said. “He just wants to keep Actives safe from the folks who don’t like us. You know how those League types can get.”
Francis knew that he was talking about the League for a Magic Free America. Like most groups of bigoted fools, they loved lynching and firebombs. It still chapped his hide that he’d gotten shot saving a bunch of those ungrateful bastards from a truck bomb. “Those hoods are nothing a tough guy like you couldn’t handle, I bet.”
The Heavy shrugged. “Yeah. I’m tough, so what? But I got a wife and little kids. Here, we don’t have to worry about nothing. My kids don’t even have to worry about getting treated different for being weird, and they can go to school like I never got to. I ain’t alone. Bunch of folks already signed up. Mr. Drew says pretty soon this town will be all filled up with magical folks and they’ll make more towns like this across the whole USA.”
“Thanks, friend,” Dan said. “Have a nice night, and forget we were ever here.”
“Okay. Buh-bye.” The Heavy closed the door.
They walked back to the Packard. Francis turned, went across the lawn, hopped the fence, and ran up the next porch. There was a Crackler plaque on that door. He crossed the street to find the crossed bones of a Shard. He pulled a flier off of one of the light poles. Beneath the Norman Rockwell painting was a reminder that Actives could get monetary bonuses for suggesting their Active friends and family for membership in Drew Town to the town administrators. Francis ran back to the car and got in. “All the houses are tagged.”
Dan was drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. They were all thinking the same thing, but it was Jane that spoke first. “It appears that President Roosevelt understands that you can catch more flies with honey than vinegar.”
“You can also catch flies with bullshit.” Francis held up the flier. “This is Bradford Carr’s master plan all over again, only with a happy face, a two-car garage, and a fish pond.”
“They won’t need to round up Actives if most of us volunteer,” Dan stated. “We know the OCI was making lists, and now they’ll just send invitations. I bet once this place is all beautified and full up, it’ll be all over every newspaper, magazine, billboard, and radio program. That’s how I’d do it. They’ll have every fed-up, tired of being picked on, or out-of-work Active in the country beating down their doors.”
Francis looked out the car window at the white picket fences and imagined them replaced with razor wire. Once again, the men in charge were trying to herd magicals into easily controlled groups…
But why?
Somewhere in France
Jacques had shown up the next morning with two train tickets and asked Faye to gather her things. She didn’t have much in the way of things so it hadn’t taken very long. The Grimnoir elder had been as enigmatic as ever when quizzed about their destination. Faye couldn’t read French, but it helped that there was a very rough map printed on the back of the ticket. It looked like they’d end up in Germany eventually. She didn’t know much about Germany, other than that the Kaiser had been on the other side during the Great War, and men like Mr. Sullivan had fought there until its capital had gotten blown up by a Peace Ray. Heinrich, the only German she knew well, had made his homeland sound pretty nice, actually, except for the parts about the starvation, poverty, anarchy, and, of course, all those zombies.
“Come now, Faye. Why so sullen? You have done nothing but stare out the window all this time. You should be happy. We are traveling!”
Faye snorted. “You call this traveling?” Regular folks would never be able to understand the glorious freedom of her magic. Traveling was like pure bottled happiness.
“Admit it, my dear. You are only content when you are in motion.”
“This ain’t traveling, Jacques. This here is some rich folks took a room out of a mansion and stuck it on rails.” Faye pointed at the table between them. “Heck, we even get served cookies. What is it with you and big sugary things?”
“I am a big sugary person.” Jacques patted his belly. “Come now, perhaps this method of transportation is not as fast as you are used to, but this way we get to enjoy the scenery.”
She had to admit Jacques had a point. Europe was rather lovely. Everything she’d seen so far in France was neat and green. Very pretty. Sure, Faye was a fancy world traveler now, but that was all a recent development for her. Most of her life had been spent in two places. First was Ada, Oklahoma—and most of what she could remember about that was it being a barren, dry, horrible, mean, ugly wasteland. Then she’d gone to El Nido, California, which had been a paradise of alfalfa fields and happily chewing cows in comparison. France reminded her a lot more of California than it did Oklahoma. She’d never seen a fat person until she’d gotten to California. The sun and the wind burned the fat right off you in Oklahoma, left you hard and mean. Mr. Bolander had changed that, since his death had unlocked the rain and saved Oklahoma. Faye had heard on the radio that grass was starting to grow there again, but that wasn’t the Oklahoma she remembered. She’d been glad to get out. Didn’t miss it one bit.
“It’s nice I guess.”
“Besides, we have this all to ourselves.” Jacques picked up a cookie and used it to gesture around the luxury car. “Being a retired man of wealth has its benefits.”
“My boyfriend owns UBF.”
“Indeed. How could I forget? I am but a penniless hobo in comparison to young Francis Stuyvesant, but I reserved this car because it was the only one which gave us privacy. It will give us time to talk.”
“So I can continue my lessons?”
“I do not know if there is actually a lesson to continue. That was Whisper’s notion. I will tell you what I know of the Spellbound. Hopefully you will manage to not turn into a rampaging murder machine in the process.”
It was a little too late for that, but Faye figured she could keep her murdering and rampaging confined to just the bad folks at least. “That’s mighty hopeful of you, Jacques.”
The old man grinned. “I am by nature an optimist, my dear.”
“So where are we going?”
“Do not trouble yourself. I will tell you when we get there. Just know that we go to speak with an old friend of mine. He helped me to understand what the Spellbound was truly capable of. I hope that he will be able to do the same for you.” Jacques reached into one of his bags. “We will not be there for many hours.”