Chapter 4:
Henry Rider and the First Hunter's Hammer
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Chapter Four
“Henry, could you come down here, please?” Dad called.
I stopped in my tracks, hugging myself. It had been nearly two hours since Grandpa Teddy had warped us home, and I’d been promptly banished to my room while the grownups talked downstairs. I’d spent the time pacing back and forth while my stupid imagination made up increasingly horrible—but not quite impossible—ways this could play out. Now that the moment had finally come, it occurred to me that none of those scenarios were actually going to happen.
Whatever did happen was going to be a hundred times worse.
“What are you so worried about?” Ethan asked as I slowly walked toward my bedroom door. He had been standing in the corner while Jade sat on my bed, watching me pace without saying anything. “It’s just your parents. It’s not like they can fire you like the council could.”
I shook my head. “No. It’s worse. They could ground me.”
“Funny.”
I turned to him, eyes wide. “You think I’m joking, but I’m not! My parents have a kind of control over me that the council could only wish they had! They may not be able to fire me, or arrest me, or pass laws, but there are a thousand little ways they could make my life miserable!”
“It can’t be that bad,” Jade argued.
I began to count on my fingers. “They can ground me, make it so I can’t leave the house without permission, forbid me to go anywhere without an escort, set a curfew so I can’t stay out late! A hundred tiny roadblocks, and they’ll just keep adding more and more until I finally cave in and give Grandpa Teddy what he wants.”
“Henry?” Mom called.
”The council is all bluster and no mustard, but my parents...” I hesitated, glancing at the door. “They know exactly how to hit me where it hurts, and they won’t hesitate to do it. All Grandpa Teddy has to do is convince them that it’s for my own good. He’s more devious than I gave him credit for.”
“I still think you’re overreacting,” Ethan said, going to the door and opening it for me. “Besides, Jade and I will be right here with you the whole time.”
Jade got up and squeezed my hand. “You’ve been through worse things than this, Henry. Stay strong!”
She fwooshed into her gem, and I had to look away so Ethan wouldn’t see my eyes starting to water. I quickly wiped them on my sleeve, then nodded.
“Let’s do this like fondue crisp,” I said, passing him and stepping into the hallway.
“Like…what?”
“I don’t know. I’m having a hard time thinking straight.”
The air felt heavy as we headed downstairs, even though the conversation in the living room seemed oddly light.
“Yes, production on my inhalers is coming along nicely,” Grandpa Teddy was saying, taking a sip of coffee. He was sitting in the recliner, rocking back and forth as if nothing in the world was wrong. “I’m actually hoping to officially make them available to the public within the next six months.”
“That’s wonderful, Dad!” Mom said from the couch. She turned when she saw us come in. “There you are! I was starting to think I would have to go wake you up.”
“Take a seat, both of you,” Dad said, gesturing toward the minicouch by the far wall. I know it’s technically called a loveseat, but that always sounded weird—especially when I was sitting next to Ethan.
“We ordered pizza,” said Mom. “It should be here any minute.”
Maybe this won’t be as bad as I thought, I told myself. You don’t order pizza if you’re planning to rip everything your daughter loves away from her.
As soon as I sat down, though, the atmosphere darkened.
Yep, I thought, bracing myself for the worst, there it is.
“So, Henry,” Dad said after a moment’s hesitation, “your grandfather tells us you’ve been sticking your nose in places it doesn’t belong.”
I turned to glare at Grandpa Teddy, who met my eyes unflinchingly. I felt my anger rise up again, my face turning blue. Sticking my nose where it doesn’t belong? Did they think I was five years old, and this was nothing but a scheme to find out where they’d hidden the cookie jar?
“Henry…” Ethan said, putting a warning hand on my shoulder.
I ignored him, standing back up. “How can you say it isn’t my business? It became my business when Le—”
“Henry!” Grandpa Teddy barked, his voice echoing through the room like a gunshot. “That is classified information!”
I stared at him in disbelief. “Even for my parents?”
“Absolutely! Being related to someone on the council—or the Hunter—doesn’t entitle them to hear state secrets.”
I threw my arms open. “How am I supposed to defend myself if I can’t even talk about…the thing we’re talking about?”
“Perhaps, just this once, you could try listening instead of talking,” said Grandpa Teddy.
I opened my mouth to tell him I would listen when the council started listening to me, but Mom cut me off.
“Henry, being the Hunter is a great thing, and we’re all very proud of you,” she said in that soft, reassuring, but still stern tone that only mothers can use. “But you need to understand…”
“Understand what?” I demanded.
“That not everything is your responsibility,” Dad answered.
“Your compassion and drive to help people are two of the things we all love most about you,” Grandpa Teddy said. “They’re what make you such a worthy Hunter—but a Hunter is all that you are. Your duty is to hunt maiams, and that is the only thing you are expected to do.”
I scoffed. “That sure wasn’t all I was expected to do—” I did my best Grandpa Teddy impersonation for that part, “—when there was a rogue ghul running around Burning Creek a few months ago.”
Grandpa Teddy stiffened, but didn’t reply.
“Henry!” Dad exclaimed, horrified. “How dare you speak to your grandfather like that?”
“This whole conversation is ridiculous!” I ranted, starting to pace back and forth across the living room. “Le…the bad person came after me! He wanted to use me to get to Ethan, and he wanted to use Ethan to hurt everyone I care about! How can you tell me that I’m not involved after you-know-what happened?”
“You were involved,” Grandpa Teddy said. “And as I’ve said before, I will never forgive myself for allowing things to get to that point. But that is over, Henry!”
“But it’s not over!” I yelled. “Victoria is—”
“You have no proof of that!”
“I WAS TRYING TO GET PROOF, BUT YOU STOPPED ME!”
“Henry, lower your voice!” Mom scolded me.
Grandpa Teddy shook his head, as calm as ever. “If anything else happens, then the council will handle it.”
“Like they’ve been handling it up till now? By doing absolutely nothing?”
“We are doing everything that can be—”
“I led you straight to…” I glanced at Mom and Dad again. “...one of the bad places, and you people did diddly squat with it until someone went and blew the whole freaking place up!”
“That’s enough, Henry!” Dad said.
“No, it isn’t enough!” I shot back. “This may not have anything to do with maiams, but it has everything to do with us! People are being tortured and killed—”
“Henry,” Grandpa Teddy said warningly.
“—and a magical psychopath is running around with a grudge against the entire klaon race, and I’m the only one who freaking cares! I’m the only one doing anything about it! And the people who I should be able to depend on more than anybody else are…are…”
I had to stop, trying desperately not to sniffle like the overemotional little girl that I absolutely wasn’t. I looked at my family. Mom. Dad. Grandpa Teddy. All the frustration that I’d been bottling up inside me over the past year was boiling over, threatening to make me explode like a shaken up can of soda. And after I sprayed my sticky brown anger all over everyone in the room, I’d be left empty. Hollow. Unable—and even worse, unwilling— to summon the energy to keep going.
Maybe that was Grandpa Teddy’s plan tonight. To make me lose control, let everything out in a big ugly tantrum, and get it out of my system. Maybe then I’d go back to being the obedient little granddaughter he so desperately wanted me to be. I’d go to school, I’d hang out with friends, and occasionally I’d fight an unholy abomination against nature, but I’d never talk back to him or look too deeply into anything he told me to stay away from.
Part of me wished it could be that simple. I had never thought of my life as simple before, but compared to the emotional rollercoaster that it was now, it really had been. But Grandpa Teddy was right about one thing: I did have a drive to help people. Even if I did what he said and started ignoring Legion and the laughter farms, there would always be that annoyingly moralistic voice in the back of my mind reminding me that there were people out there who were suffering, dying, and I wasn’t doing anything to help them. I’d give it two weeks, three tops, before it drove me cuckoo for Cocobutts.
Grandpa Teddy must have understood everything that was going through my head just by the expression on my face, because he sighed and looked down at the floor.
“You’re not going to listen, are you?” he asked softly. “No matter what I say, you’re never going to back down from this ridiculous crusade.”
I hesitated, then shook my head. “I’m sorry, Grandpa Teddy, but I can’t. I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night knowing that this kind of evil is going on, and I wasn’t doing something to—”
Ding dong!
“That must be the pizza,” Mom said. “Henry, Ethan, will you two go get it, please?”
I deflated, feeling like my skin was hanging limp from my skeleton, and nodded. Ethan rose, and the two of us made our way to the entryway. For once, the thought of pizza didn’t cheer me up at all. Even the thought of eating made me feel sick. I put my hand on the doorknob, then stopped.
“Ethan,” I asked softly, “am I doing the right thing?”
“Yes,” he said without hesitation. He looked at me, and I was surprised by the determination I could see in his eyes. “Your parents just don’t understand. How could they, when they haven’t lived through it like we have? But you’re right, something does have to be done. And if the council won’t do it, then you’re the only one who can.”
I sniffed, then smiled. Gorgonzola cupcakes, I loved him, even if he didn’t love me back. I pushed open the door, already reaching out to take the pizzas from the delivery—
There was nobody out there.
CRASH!
I froze, then spun around.
“That came from the living room!” I yelled, already sprinting back through the house.
I was too late. By the time I got to the living room, Mom, Dad, and Grandpa Teddy were gone. The picture window looking out into our backyard had been shattered, and glass was scattered all over the place. Nothing else seemed to have been disturbed, but…
Someone I didn’t recognize sat on the couch.
“Hello, Henry,” he said. “Let’s talk for a bit.”
NEXT CHAPTER 8/6/25
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