Free Ghost Leopard (A Zoe & Zak Adventure #1) by Lars Guignard Page B

open doors to find ourselves in the middle of a railroad station holding a crowd of people that could fill five stadiums. There was a towering ceiling and dirty tile floor, and amidst the litter and filth and people selling tea and cakes, sat a gleaming steam train.  
    I mention the train because it was so out of place next to everything else. The thing was perfect while everything around it was literally falling to pieces. The train wasn’t particularly long, but it was impressive. There was a cherry-red locomotive and eight carriages and a caboose. Each of the polished red carriages had gleaming golden bands on their steel wheels. The same carriages had golden sculpted monkeys peeking out from their rooflines. And there were spikes, almost like claws, curling up around every window. The red locomotive was blowing steam everywhere. Three men descended from a carriage near the front of the train, but I couldn’t really make them out through the crowd. None of these things would matter, of course, if the train wasn’t completely blocking our way.
    The thing was, the kids were still behind us, chasing us down. I knew there was probably a way under or over the track, but right now, we just needed to get out of there. I jogged in place, waiting for the train to move out of the way. I didn’t really want to have to fight off the little kids grabbing the money. I just wanted to be left in peace. I’m not sure why I did it, but I stood up on my tip toes and stared into one of the gleaming carriage windows as the train inched slowly past. I don’t know what I was expecting. A king maybe, wearing a crown? But instead of a king I found myself locking eyes with an olive-faced man who had deep-set eyes and jet-black hair. The man held a silver chalice in his hand — the kind of goblet an old-fashioned knight would have drunk from. I couldn’t tell how old the man was. His skin was tight and waxy like he had been around forever, or maybe not long at all. It was really hard to tell. Something about him bothered me though. It was as though I had seen him before, but for the life of me I couldn’t remember where.
    As I locked eyes with the man, he started for a second, as though he wasn’t expecting to see anyone. That’s when things got strange. The silver goblet actually fell out of the man’s hand, a big splash of whatever red stuff he was drinking going everywhere. But that wasn’t the weird part. The weird part was that as the goblet fell, the big drops of red liquid slowed their descent, and then just kind of hung there in midair alongside the goblet. Let me repeat: the goblet hung in midair. The drops hung there too. Then the drops actually reversed course, returning to the goblet, which hung there on its side. Everything flowed right back into it. I’d never seen a glass or cup do that; float in midair, then clean itself up after a spill. It was really weird. When the cup was full again, the guy grabbed it between two fingers, and drank, showing me a big toothy smile. His teeth were yellow and long and pointed and when I looked at them I felt a cold shiver run down my spine. I wasn’t sure what freaked me out more, the fact that the goblet had defied gravity, or those gleaming yellow teeth, but it didn’t matter because in another moment he was gone. The train picked up a little more speed and steamed down the track.  
    The street kids crowded around us as I turned to Zak. I was in no mood to talk about how weird what I had just seen was, so I decided to say something normal.  
    “We’re buying tickets back to the hotel,” I said.  
      “Come on, we’re more than halfway there. Let’s just say hi to this Mukta guy. See what he has to say.”
    “Why do you think he has anything to say at all?”
    “Why else would the butterfly lady ask us to go there?”
    Zak put on a big fake grin and flashed the picture of Mukta. Did Zak really think a smile was all it would take for me to change my mind? The guy in the