Chapter Twenty Nine

Chapter Twenty Nine

“Henry.”

“Go away.”

“Henry, you need to—”

“Leave me alone!”

I slapped Jade’s hand away, knocking the inhaler out of it and sending it sliding across the circular room. My throat felt like I’d lost a fight with a carnivorous scarf, and every breath I took whistled a little, but right then I couldn’t have cared less. Cousin Gumdrop was gone, and she had taken Con with her. She was going to present him to the Council of Shnoob and tell them that I had protected him. I would be stripped of my title in a heartbeat. If I was lucky, I’d have to live the rest of my life with the shame of just being…me. If I wasn’t lucky—and let’s be honest, when have I ever been?—they’d probably send me to prison for obstructing justice or something.

And what would happen to Ethan? He lived with me because, as the Hunter, I was his best chance of protection from the maiams that wanted his laughter. The council would never let that stand once they fired me. Who would be his new guardian? Cousin Gumdrop? The thought made me sick.

But what could I do about it? I had lost. It was all over…

“You can’t give up, Henry,” Jade said, getting on her knees in front of me. I was laying on the cold concrete floor, too exhausted to move.

“He just gave himself up,” Paura said, her face frozen in an expression of horror. She was pacing back and forth, alternating between waving her hands around and wringing them. “Right in front of me! What was he thinking? Doesn’t he—”

“Alicia was going to kill all of us,” Ethan said. He was sitting on the other side of the room, cradling his shoulder where Splatsy had hit him. It didn’t look like anything was broken, thank the whoopie cushion in the sky, but an ugly bruise was already forming. “Con saved our lives.”

“I didn’t want to be saved!” Paura shrieked. “Do you think I would have come here looking for him, knowing that he’d gone rogue and was being hunted, if I wanted to be saved? I was supposed to save him!”

“We still can,” Jade insisted, walking over and retrieving my inhaler for the sixth time. “If Alicia brings him to the council, they’ll have to hold a trial.”

“She didn’t seem too concerned about a trial just now,” Ethan pointed out.

“If she had killed Con, they would have chalked it up to her doing her job as the Acting Hunter. But if the council gets involved, killing him would be an execution, and they can’t execute people without giving them a trial.”

I raised my head, a spark of hope springing up inside…no. It vanished, and I looked at the floor again. She may have been right about a trial, but it didn’t matter. Getting Con out of the Grand Lark, and then out of Mauldibamm, would mean facing off against Cousin Gumdrop again. Even if I thought I had a snowball’s chance in H-E-Double-Breadsticks of beating her—and I didn’t—any chance I still had of not going to prison would be thrown out the window. There was no use in getting my hopes up. There was no way out of this. It really was over.

I was so swamped in self-pity that I didn’t notice what was happening until—

“Uh, Henry?” Ethan said, slapping a hand over his eyes. “You might want to, uh…you know…”

Looking down, I saw that the twenty four hours were finally up. My horsebutt had gone away, leaving me with my normal, wonderful klaonbutt. I sighed in relief. At least one good thing had—CHICKEN FRIED MACAROONS, HORSES DON’T WEAR PANTS!

“Don’t look!” I yelled, jumping to my feet and scurrying out of the circular room. Pants, pants, I needed some pants!

I found myself in a room filled with dummies and mannequins, all dressed up in dusty Halloween costumes. A werewolf dummy caught my eye. In normal werewolf fashion, his shirt and his shoes hung from his fuzzy body in tatters, but his pants were still in one piece.

“Scuse me,” I said, pushing him over. Undoing his belt, I quickly slid his pants off his legs and onto mine. “I need these more than you right now.”

I fastened them up and moved around a little. They were a couple sizes too big, but the belt kept them from sliding off. Considering the circumstances, I’d say I looked fabulous.

But the joy of being repantsified was short lived. What right did I have to be happy when I’d just gotten my older brother killed? I looked around at the other mannequins, as if they would offer any advice, but they just stood there impassively, waiting for thrill seekers to scare.

“Even when its life is at stake,” Cousin Gumdrop’s voice echoed in my head, “a ghul just can’t help but prey on your worst fears.”

But that wasn’t my worst fear. Being fired, becoming even more of an outcast than I already was—those things did scare me, but not as much as Legion and the threat he posed to everything and everyone I loved. Not that a selfish creep like Cousin Gumdrop could ever understand that. A threat that didn’t affect her wasn’t a threat at all, in her mind.

What would a ghul turn into for her? I wondered. Something so strong that even she couldn’t beat it? A letter from the council telling her she has to be nice?

I tried to imagine her lying on the ground, curled up in a ball, too scared to move or speak. The thought almost brought a smirk to my face. If only Con had used his powers on her, maybe that would have given us enough of an opening to beat her, or at least to make our getaway.

I froze, eyes widening as the beginnings of a wonderful, terrible idea began to take form inside my head.

“Ethan!” I yelled, running back into the circular room. “Give me your phone!”

Ethan looked up, startled, and then fished his phone out of his pocket. I snatched it from him before he could ask what I was doing, and dialed the number I needed.

“Eh, what? Who’s this? Who gave you this number?” a familiar cranky voice demanded on the other end.

“Master!” I said, talking as fast as I could. “There’s an emergency. I need you to go to the Grand Lark and stall them until I get there. Can you do that?”

“Henry?” he asked in confusion. “What’s going on? What emergency? They told me you broke out of the hospital!”

I gritted my teeth. There was no time to explain the whole situation to him, but I knew McGus well enough to know he wouldn’t do something like this unless I gave him a good reason.

“It’s my brother,” I finally said. “They’re putting him on trial, and unless I do something they’ll execute him. I just need someone to draw things out until I can get there.”

McGus was quiet for a minute. “And your brother…he’s innocent?”

“He…” I took a deep breath. What did I say now? McGus would smell a lie a mile away, and he’d never help me then. But would he still help me if he knew Con was a murderer? “He’s my brother.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“I know it isn’t.” I squeezed the phone so tight that I almost thought I’d break it. “I just…I need you to do this. Please, Master, help me. Please.”

For a long, tense minute, there was no reply. If Ethan’s phone hadn’t said otherwise, I would have thought he had hung up on me.

“Are you asking me to help you free a criminal?” he asked at last. “One you know is guilty?”

“No, I’ll be the one doing that,” I said quickly. “I just need you to go be your normal, loveable self until I do.”

“Girl…” he growled warningly.

“Please!” I said again. “I know it’s wrong, but I can’t let Cousin Gumdrop kill my brother. I’ll do whatever you want. I’ll even…” I reached to my hip and touched Splatsy. “If you think this means I’m not worthy of being the Hunter anymore, I’ll step down. But I need you to do this first.”

“You love your brother that much?” he asked, sounding genuinely surprised.

“Y- Yes,” I answered, fighting back the sudden wave of emotions.

He grumbled for a few seconds, then said, “I won’t help you free a criminal.”

My legs went weak, and I almost fell over. So, that was it. My one and only hope of saving my—

“But being a pain in the council’s butt for a while?” he mused. “That might be fun. Not like I have much else going on these days.”

My heart leaped. “So you’ll do it?”

“Just remember what you promised, girl,” he growled. “Because I’ll need to think long and hard about you after this.”

“I won’t, I promise!” I gasped. “Thank you, Master. Thank you so much!”

“Yeah, whatever,” he muttered, and hung up.

“Okay, guys, gather around!” I said, handing Ethan his phone back. “We have to get to Mauldibamm!”

“So, you’re not giving up?” Ethan asked, getting to his feet.

“I thought about it,” I said as Jade and Paura made their way over, “but there’s something really stupid I need to do first.”

Ethan smiled. “Now that’s the Henry I know! So, how are we getting there?”

“With this, of course!” I reached into my pocket, and…

I didn’t have the Escher Cube.

“No, no, no!” I moaned, putting my head in my hands. “I- I had an idea! We could have done it! I can’t believe I forgot that Cousin Gumdrop has the Cube! Without that, we’ll never get there in—”

Ethan thrust something in front of my face. It glittered even in the dim light, and as I looked it began to glow with a greenish-blue light. I blinked, then looked at Ethan in shock.

“A- Are you sure?” I asked.

He nodded. “Just this once. And you have to give it back right when you’re done, okay?”

I looked over at Jade. “What about you? Are you okay with this?”

“It’s not my choice, is it?” she asked with a shrug.

“No, really! If you don’t want—”

“Henry!” she cut me off. “Save your brother! That’s all you should be thinking about right now!”

I hesitated, then nodded. Reaching out, I took the core from Ethan. Immediately, Jade’s eyes burst into light the same color as the gem.

“You hold my heart now in your hand,” she said, her voice going all echoey, “and your every wish is my command.”

I wrapped my fist around the gem, squeezing it tight. Part of me wondered if Ethan knew how much this meant to me. He wasn’t just giving me the chance to save my brother, he was giving me the most precious thing he owned with nothing but my word that I would give it back afterwards.

I fixed Jade with a firm stare. “I wish we were at New You!”