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"Do you believe that?"
"Yes," said the girl quickly. Then after a moment. "I don't know ..." She regarded it for a moment more, clearly tempted. Then she asked, "What will you do to me if I don't take it?"
"Nothing," said Nick. "Just because I'm offering it to you doesn't mean you have to take it." He was surprised by the question, but he supposed he shouldn't be. The lies that Mary must have told her children about him were woven so deeply into their minds, it would take more than a chocolate smile to win them over.
"I'm not supposed to take anything from you, sir."
"I understand. Go back to Mary and tell her the Chocolate Ogre says yes. I'll meet her."
The girl left as quickly as she could, and Nick showed the note to Johnnie-O.
"Two hundred Afterlights?" said Johnnie-O. "If all she has are two hundred, we outnumber her two to one! We could take them on right now!" He pounded his fist into his palm. "Sneak attack!"
"We could, but we won't. This is about freeing, not fighting--never forget that."
"Yeah, but you got an army back there waiting to bust some heads."
"We're in Everlost," Nick reminded him. "Heads don't bust." But Johnnie-O still wasn't satisfied. Nick sighed. "You'll have your fight," Nick admitted--as much to himself as to Johnnie-O. "Mary's got them so brainwashed, they'll fight us rather than take their coins."
"Then we'll force 'em" said Johnnie-O. "We'll make 'em take their coins, and if they don't, we'll push 'em down into the dirt. Good riddance!"
A surge of anger raged through Nick, and for a moment his chocolate ran as dark as licorice. He grabbed Johnnie-O by the shirt, and his voice became a deep liquid roar. "That's not the way we do things around here!"
Johnnie-O was not intimidated. "You're the one who wanted an army," he said. "What did you think an army was for?"
Johnnie-O's point struck deep. The idea of gathering a fighting force was one thing--but actually using it was another. Nick might have been a good leader, but he was no warlord.
His anger faded, and he let his chocolate arm slip from Johnnie-O's shirt, leaving behind a nasty brown stain in the middle of his chest.
"Once Mary's defeated, we'll free the ones we can," Nick said. "And if they won't take their coins?" Johnnie-O asked.
"Then we take them as prisoners of war," Nick told him.
Johnnie-O nodded, but his expression was still one of worry. "Y'know ... you can't fight her if you love her." All this time it had been an unspoken rule that they never spoke of Nick's feelings toward Mary. But maybe Johnnie-O was right to bring it up.
"I fought her before, and I won," Nick reminded him.
"Yes, but this time, she'll be ready."
Nick closed his eyes, and searched for something in himself more sturdy than chocolate. "So will I."
The note from Mary had come shortly after noon, but it was more than an hour before Nick called for Zin. He wanted some solitude, some silence so he could find a sense of resolve, but the Mississippi wind whistled over the train, making it difficult to feel anything but uneasy.
His good intentions had become like the chocolate devouring him--sweet and rich, but also muddy and debilitating. He had become too much of a good thing. Now he sat with a full bucket of coins that could free countless Afterlights, but how many had he freed since he began to build his army? None. He began to wonder how much different he was from Mary after all.
"So, is this it, then?" Zin asked, as she stepped up into the parlor car. "Do we got our date with the devil today?"
"Sit down," Nick told her.
"I prefer not to, sir," she said. "Ain't no chair clean enough in this train car."
And she was right, so he didn't force her. "Mary has called for a meeting. We'll take a team with us, but once we get there, you and I will go in alone," he told her. "Bring paper--I'll tell her you're there to write up a treaty."
"Johnnie-O's been teachin' me readin' but we haven't got to writin' yet."
"That doesn't matter--because when I give the word, you're going to drop everything, and cram Mary like there's no tomorrow."
Nick had played it out dozens of different ways until he saw the whole thing clearly in his mind. He would be there with Mary, engaged in a polite, but guarded conversation of diplomacy. He would string her along until he felt the moment was right, then he would make his move.
