Chapter 34
The Blue Moon Diner wasn’t very big. There were six booths, three on either side, and a counter where four more people could sit, read the paper, and drink a cup of coffee with their cobbler. The Penguins were singing “Earth Angel” in the background while a woman with gray hair and horn-rimmed glasses poured coffee into two porcelain cups.
“Sit anywhere,” she said as she placed the coffee back on the burner and wiped her hands on her crisp white apron.
“Thank you, Ethel,” Mayor Cross said. He removed his hat and coat and looked around the room as though he was surveying his options. Colt wanted him to pick something in the back of the diner, away from prying eyes, but the mayor slid into the booth next to the front window. “How is this?” he said as he threw his tie over his shoulder.
“Fine, thanks.” Colt felt the eyes of the townspeople boring into him as he took his seat across from the mayor. Everything had happened so fast, and now he found himself wondering if he should have listened to Oz and reported the randoms right away.
“Here you are,” Ethel said as she gave each of them a cup of coffee and a heaping plate of apple cobbler. “Can I get you anything else? Maybe some vanilla ice cream to go with it?”
“That sister of yours is going to be upset enough that I’m eating the cobbler, particularly at this time of night. Or morning, whatever it is,” Mayor Cross said with a wave of his hand. “I better skip the à la mode.”
“What about you, young man?”
“No, thank you,” Colt said.
“Well, if you need anything, just holler. I’ll be in the back making biscuits.”
“Will do,” the mayor said, not wasting any time as he dug his fork through the crumble of brown sugar, oats, and butter and into the soft apple filling. “Wait until you taste it,” he said as he chewed. “It’s heaven on a plate.” He took another bite and licked a crumb from his lip before he dabbed at his cheek with a napkin.
“Now,” he said before taking a sip of coffee. “Let’s get the hard part out of the way, shall we?”
“Sure.”
“As you can see, Sanctuary isn’t your average town,” Mayor Cross said. “We’re what you might call a social experiment. You see, the Thule of this town represent a segment of our society who believe in peace and harmony. So when our brothers joined forces with Hitler’s Nazis back in the thirties, we fled Germany and settled in the United States.”
“You’ve been living here since World War II?”
“Yes,” the mayor said. “But there have been Thule on your planet for centuries.” He waved his hand. “But that’s not the point. What you need to know is that we’re what you would call a secret society, and we protect that secrecy vigorously.”
Colt stopped midbite, knowing full well that the mayor was threatening him. “We don’t want to give away your secret. It’s just that we think we’ve found the spot where the Thule plan to open their gateway.”
“Yes, Jonas told me a bit about that,” Mayor Cross said. “Don’t get me wrong, it’s fascinating, but I’m afraid he’s mistaken.”
“He said the tests verified his research. If the Thule are going to use Sanctuary as the launching point for their attack, there’s a good chance everyone who lives here is going to die.”
“So what would you have us do? Leave our homes and try to live among people who revile us? Who would rather have us dead?”
Colt could smell the sadness on the man. It was so different from the rage that he sensed with the warrior Thule. The mayor was a person just like him, or like Glyph or Lohr. Sure, he took a different shape, but it was obvious that he cared about the people he served.
“Jonas said you have a portal that leads back to Gathmara.”
The mayor nodded. “We convert thermal energy from a hydroelectric power plant to keep it open. In fact, Jonas’s father—Dr. Hickman—designed the plant himself.”
“You need to shut it down.”
The mayor stopped before he took another bite of his cobbler, his jaw slack and his brow furrowed. “Excuse me?”
“The Thule—well, the bad ones, anyway—they’re going to use it to power their gateway.”
“Even if that was true, I’m afraid I can’t make that decision alone.” Mayor Cross took a last bite of his cobbler before he dabbed at the corner of his mouth with a napkin. “The entire town will have to vote, and I don’t see that happening until tonight at the earliest.”
“But—”
The mayor raised his hand to cut Colt off. “The question is what to do with you and your friends between now and then.” He sighed. “Now I can tell you that the sheriff will want to lock you up, but I think that might be a touch drastic, especially since there’s more than enough room out at the Hickman place. As long as I have your word that you’ll behave yourselves, I don’t see why you couldn’t stay there.”