supermen. Prologue July 19th, 1914, in the Black Forest, on the German border “I wish we’d never come here, Thomas.” She squeezed her hands together until her knuckles turned white, released them, and laced them together again, alternating the dominant hand. Thomas put his hand on her shoulder. “I know, Martha, I know. But I’ve never taken a holiday in Germany alone. To do so would have aroused suspicion.” He put his arms around her as she shuddered. “What news of the factory?” He shook his head. “Things are turning as I feared. The machinery has been altered. What’s more, efforts were made to hide the alterations from me. My German holdings are being seized, and being transformed for war.” “Then can we leave? This place no longer feels hospitable to me.” He smiled softly. “Yes. I’ve summoned the doctor already. You’ve come down with something dreadful, and we must hurry home to doctors and climes we know.” She smiled for the first time all evening. “Is mom all right?” came a timid voice from the study. “Bruce, what have I told you about sneaking?” Bruce came out of the study with his mother’s handkerchief tied around his face. “But… is she?” “She’s fine, son. But she misses home, and we should all be getting back. It isn’t safe-“ Bruce broken in, “But we like it here!” Thomas adjusted the pipe in his mouth. “I know, son, but you and Harvey can play back in America, just like you always do. Europe has become too volatile.” Three hard knocks came from the oak front door. “That’s the doctor for your mother, Bruce.” Martha smiled warmly at her son. “Yes, be a dear and go back to Harvey.” Bruce ran back into the study, where Harvey exclaimed, “I have caught you, Pimpernel.” “Ah, but not so much as I have caught you, Chauvelin, en guard!” Thomas opened the door, but it was taken by the wind and swung wide. An aristocrat, wearing the finest of German fashion, stepped with purpose into the room. His eyes were fine and dark, and focused on Thomas as he circled him. Harvey lunged at Bruce, who caught him and covered his mouth. “Chauvelin,” he said, pointing through the crack between the study doors. The man did not identify himself, but spoke in quick, broken sentences in German, and Thomas replied angrily back. “Dear, we’re leaving, now,” he said. The German drew a pistol and shot Thomas through the heart, then slid the pistol back in its place as daintily as a man returning his kerchief to a jacket pocket. Martha looked at the man, who spoke to her in more genial German, then to her son. Bruce understood her eyes, and pleaded with her. She swam her fingers through her hair, undoing her bun, cooing gently to the German. He smiled, and blushed a little as she stroked her fingers across his chest. She looked back one last time at Bruce, and stabbed an ivory comb into the German’s right eye, twisting it deeply. German soldiers ran into the room but he raised his hand and stopped them, and shot her himself. The guards had let the oak door swing wide, and the study door creaked in a draft. The aristocrat pointed at the door, and the soldiers kicked open the study. The room was empty, but the curtains were blowing in the breeze from an open window. Children’s tracks in the snow led down the hill to the stable. Seven horses burst from the stables, and split in three directions. Another soldier entered the home from the rear, apologizing profusely. He grabbed the hem of his commander’s coat and started to his knee, begging, “Mercy, Count Wil-” Wilhelm shot him in the stomach. “Find them,” he said, his breath steam dancing between the snowflakes coming in the window. They rode across the snow a hundred miles, until the horse collapsed, and then they walked. Bruce sold the watch his father gave him in a pawn shop and bought them tickets on a steamer home. Harvey fell asleep first as Bruce watched through a port hole a storm pouring in from the black sea. Bruce covered him with a green blanket. Harvey woke a little later to find Bruce curled up against a post, sobbing; the other passengers in the hold paid them no mind. Harvey draped the blanket around Bruce, and let him sob on his shoulder, because it was all he could think to do. Next Part