I had to admit, Paris was really beautiful. The buildings all seemed so old and fancy and really pretty in a non-American kind of way. I wished the guys could see it. I hope you guys can see it some day too, if it’s still standing after the whitecoats try to destroy the world.

Of course Nudge made us shop. At least street stands weren’t as claustrophobia inducing as enclosed stores. All along the Seine were little stalls selling books and flowers, and I felt as if we were in a movie with subtitles. I waited with saintly patience as Nudge and Angel sorted through T-shirts and hats and books in French that we couldn’t carry, much less read.

Ari tried on a leather jacket—his old one was shredded and bloodstained. The stall vendor looked at Ari warily, then Angel distracted him and he didn’t seem to notice Ari anymore.

“It’s you,” I said, watching him shrug it on. “Is it comfortable?”

He grimaced. “Nothing’s comfortable when you’re built like this.” He gestured to his hulking, overdeveloped muscles, the lumpy wings that didn’t fold in perfectly, neatly, like ours.

I stepped behind him to smooth out the collar, and that’s when I saw it again: the expiration date on the back of his neck. His time was coming, very, very soon.

You know what? I was glad I’d shown him Paris.

81

You know the other strange thing about Europe? It’s weensy. It was like, oops, I blinked, there goes Belgium! All of Western Europe could fit into America, east of the Mississippi. Flying from England to France took about thirty minutes. Crossing over France took about six hours. It had taken us almost eight hours to cross Texas, back in America.

Anyway. Here’s my one-note take on Germans: They’re scrubbers. Hoo, boy, we’re talking a tidy little country. France? Not so much.

“Okay, no one leave their socks lying around,” I instructed, as we drifted to a landing outside a town called Lendeheim. “That would send them right over the edge.”

Lendeheim seemed to have been designed by the “Germany” team at Epcot. I kept expecting Bambi to pop out from behind a bush. There was so much carved gingerbread on the houses that my stomach growled.

The one main road through town led uphill to an incredible medieval castle. You guessed it: Itex. Still lording it over the peasants, in their way.

“This is too cute,” said Total, hopping down from my arms. “I want to start planting window boxes or something.”

“The hiiillls are aliiive,” Nudge warbled, spreading her arms wide, “with the sound of—”

“Okay, listen up,” I broke in. “The castle is through these trees. Let’s do a quick recon and then decide what to do next.”

I set off into the woods, pushing aside the picturesque German underbrush. Frankly, I’d expected a German forest to be a little tidier than this.