Chapter Thirty Two

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Chapter Thirty Two

Bright white skin. Blue hair. I was Henry Rider the klaon again.

White hot panic shot through me. Had I been tricked? Had Heidi given me a pill that was only good for a few minutes instead of a whole day?

“WHAT?” Ichabod roared, standing up so quickly that he knocked his over. “Henrietta? What in the seven hells is going on here?”

Oooh, goat crap sandwiches on sourdough, this was bad. This was really bad! THIS WAS REALLY, REALLY, FREAKING BAD! Without thinking, I reached for Splatsy, forgetting that I had left her with…

Wait. There she was, right in her normal spot.

“Don’t you know anything about ghuls, Ichabod?” snapped Grandpa Teddy. “She turned herself into Alicia’s worst fear. It’s how they hunt!”

“That can’t be true!” Ichabod protested. “Because that would mean that the thing she’s most afraid of…”

“Is Henry Rider,” Patricia concluded, leaning forward with interest, “the Maiam Hunter.”

A chill ran down my spine. Could that really be true? With all her power and strength, Cousin Gumdrop had no reason to be even the slightest bit afraid of me. The idea that I was her greatest fear was absolutely ridiculous!

But then I looked at her, and the rage I saw burning in her eyes told me everything I needed to know. Those were the eyes of someone who had been humiliated in front of a crowd. Someone who wanted to project an aura of unmatched power and unlimited confidence, but had just had that image shattered—and was pissed about it.

Almost faster than I could see, she raised her chainhammer and hurled it at me, the iron glowing bright red with magic. She meant to kill me right then and there. My life would have flashed before my eyes if it’d had time, because there was no way I could dodge that attack.

I dodged it anyway.

A gasp rang out through the Grand Lark as I sidestepped the flying hammer, so fast that even I had trouble processing what had just happened. It careened past me, crashing into the wall with a flash of red light, and making a second hole exactly opposite the one I’d made two months ago.

But it didn’t end there. As soon as the chainhammer had flown past me, I sprinted straight for Cousin Gumdrop. The annoyingly logical voice in my head screamed that this was suicide, but my body ignored it. It was still acting on the same instincts that had let me dodge that first attack. Instincts I didn’t understand but that every strand of my DNA trusted.

As I ran, I drew Splatsy and extended her to warhammer form. Cousin Gumdrop yanked the chain, pulling the hammer back, but somehow I knew that I could get to her before it did. Splatsy felt lighter than she ever had before as I swung her directly at Cousin Gumdrop’s head. Cousin Gumdrop leaned backwards, and Splatsy missed the tip of her nose by half an inch.

I bent my knees and jumped, letting the chainhammer pass harmlessly below me. I spun in midair, swinging Splatsy in a savage overhead strike that my instincts told me would crush Cousin Gumdrop’s skull like a ripe grape. She must have realized that too, because she raised her hammer up in front of her face at the last second, and Splatsy slammed into it with all the force of a bungee jumping elephant. A shockwave of power rippled out from us, throwing all the councilmembers onto their backs.

“No!” Cousin Gumdrop whispered, her eyes wide. A new scent reached my nose, one that was sharp and, in a way I couldn’t explain, cold. It was also delicious. It wasn’t laughter, but it hit all the same chords to my ghul senses.

It was fear. Cousin Gumdrop really was afraid of me.

With our hammers locked together, I shoved against her with all my might, and to my surprise she actually stumbled backwards a couple steps. She regained her balance quickly, though, and came at me again. She swung her chainhammer at me, and I backflipped out of her reach in a way I never could have before. The moment my feet touched the floor, I retaliated, thrusting Splatsy out in front of me like a spear. It was the last thing anyone would expect a hammer wielder to do, and apparently that included Cousin Gumdrop. Splatsy’s head hit her right in the chest, sending her flying backwards across the Grand Lark.

Mustard milkshakes! I thought. I hit her. I actually hit her!

But of course the fight couldn’t end that easily. Cousin Gumdrop twisted skillfully around in the air, hitting the Grand Lark’s wall feet first. With a cry of anger, her paintmarks lighting up again, she thrust herself off the wall and in my direction. The chainhammer spun in front of her like a propeller, a humming gray blur, and even in my enhanced state I barely had time to channel magic into my shoes and blast myself out of her way. The spinning chainhammer carved a trench straight through the marble floor, and Cousin Gumdrop almost wasn’t able to stop herself before she went flying straight through the hole she’d made a minute ago.

Landing just behind her, I charged Splatsy with magic and swung her like Cousin Gumdrop’s head was a baseball and the stars were stadium lights. Again, she was just fast enough to react, and she raised her hammer to block my attack at the last second. Our weapons collided, and this time Cousin Gumdrop was launched out through the hole and into Mauldibamm.

For half a second, I dared to hope that the fight was over—but then her chainhammer came speeding back to me, wrapping itself around my waist and yanking me out of the Grand Lark after her.

My new skills let me flip myself rightside up in midair as Cousin Gumdrop towed me after her. With the wind stinging my eyes and blowing my hair in my face, I could only faintly see Cousin Gumdrop about seventy feet in front of me. Down the hill we flew, and then the colorful lights and buildings of Mauldibamm were streaking past us in a dizzying blur.

Cousin Gumdrop hit the ground first. Touching down in the middle of the street, she managed to land on her feet, and her momentum made her slide across the pavement before finally coming to a stop. With her chain guiding my fall, I was on a collision course with her. I raised Splatsy, ready to send her flying again the moment she came within reach.

I swung, and she threw herself forward, rolling underneath me a split second before I hit the ground. The sudden landing, combined with the force of my swing, sent me stumbling and falling face first down on the street. Splatsy went flying out of my hand, landing twenty feet away. I scrambled to get back on my feet, but the chain around my waist suddenly tightened and I was yanked back up into the air again. I caught a quick glimpse of Cousin Gumdrop below me, snarling like a wild dog, and then I crashed down onto the street a second time.

People were screaming. The sidewalks were jammed with people trying to get away. Brakes squealed as cars came to a sudden stop on both sides of us. One almost didn’t stop soon enough, and its tires left a long, black streak on the road as it desperately skidded to avoid hitting Cousin Gumdrop. I could see the startled klaon inside, his eyes wide as he came nearer and nearer to flattening the Acting Hunter. It stopped less than a foot away from her.

And then Cousin Gumdrop hurled me through its windshield.

I cried out in pain as the shards of glass sliced me up in a dozen different places. The car’s passenger seat caught me, and suddenly I found myself riding shotgun with a very surprised klaon. The chain finally slipped free of my waist, the hammer streaking back to Cousin Gumdrop’s hand.

“I HATE YOU!” she screamed, her paintmarks lighting up even brighter.

She struck the car in an underhand swing, flipping the entire thing up into the air. For half a second I watched the tops of the buildings get closer, and then I watched the ground get further away, and then the buildings—

My instincts took over again. Even as the car was flipping over and over, getting higher and higher by the second, I was able to keep my bearings well enough to kick the passenger side door open. Then, in one fluid motion, I unsnapped the other klaon’s seatbelt, wrapped one arm around his shoulders, and abandoned ship. I somehow knew exactly where and when to jump, and the two of us were sent falling back down towards Mauldibamm while his car went on without us.

I landed, my magic keeping both me and the driver safe, and the moment my feet touched the ground there was a deafening CRASH up above us. I spun to look, and saw that the car had hit the fifth floor of a nearby building. Its back half was hanging out over the sidewalk, while a stream of smoke billowed out from under the hood.

“Get out of here!” I told the driver, setting him on the ground. “Run!”

He didn’t need to be told twice. As soon as his feet were on the ground, he sprinted away from me—and then slid to a stop and ran the other way when he saw Cousin Gumdrop coming toward us.

“What the bleach and bratwurst do you think you’re doing?” I yelled at her. “The Hunter doesn’t hurt civilians!”

“I don’t care about them!” she ranted, teeth clenched. “As long I get you, they can die for all I care!”

She charged at me, looking more like an enraged bull by the second, and I charged my shoes to jump up and over her. She flung the chainhammer up after me, but this time I was ready for her. With my new skills, I was able to time my jump perfectly so that when the chainhammer reached me, I planted my foot on top of it and kicked it right back down to where it had come from. I heard Cousin Gumdrop curse in surprise as it slammed back into the ground, missing her by mere inches, but I didn’t look back. Her hammer had acted as the perfect steppingstone, and it had lent my jump just enough distance that I was able to land next to Splatsy. I snatched her off the ground and spun to face Cousin Gumdrop again.

What was going on? I hadn’t been able to think about it in the heat of the fight, but now the questions flooded my mind again. First my ghul powers had turned me into myself when I should have become Cousin Gumdrop’s worst fear. Then I had suddenly developed enough skill and power that I actually seemed to be a match for her. I knew my limits, and as much as I hated to admit it, she should have turned me into a smear on the Grand Lark’s floor before the fight had even started.

An idea began to tickle the back of my brain—but I didn’t have time to think about it, because Cousin Gumdrop came in for the attack again.

Using magic, she blasted herself across the street, leaving a bright red scorch mark on the pavement below. The moment I was within reach, she swung her chainhammer in an uppercut so powerful that it created a gust of wind that shot up into the sky and blew a hole in the clouds above us. I was barely able to get out of her way, but the sheer power of her attack threatened to knock me off my feet anyway.

“I deserve to be the Hunter!” she screamed, coming at me again with another swing. This time I managed to parry her attack with Splatsy, sending out another shockwave that shattered every window in a three block radius. “I’m a thousand times stronger than you’ll ever be!”

I feinted, acting like I was swinging for her head, but the moment she raised her chainhammer to block my attack I kicked her in the stomach as hard as I could. She doubled over with a curse, and I followed it up with a quick blow to her ear. I didn’t have enough time to charge up a killing blow—I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to kill her—but it was enough to knock her head into the nearby wall.

“There’s more to being the Hunter than strength!” I shouted back. “But you’ll never understand that!”

She glared at me, her paintmarks glowing so brightly that I could feel the heat radiating from them.

“Shut your damn mouth!” she growled.

She swung again, and I managed to duck and roll backwards out of her reach. I sprang back to my feet just before a wave of invisible force slammed into me, throwing me backwards like a leaf caught in the wind. And not just me—everything on the street. Empty cars, fire hydrants, street signs, and shards of rubble were all flung into the air alongside me. Even the street itself rose up, jagged chunks of asphalt surging toward me like an ocean wave. A quick glance down—or whatever direction constituted as down right then—told me I was careening toward a building at the end of the street. Shrinking Splatsy to ping pong paddle size, I held my hands to my sides and straightened my legs, making myself as much like an arrow as I could, praying to the whoopie cushion in the sky that my new instincts wouldn’t fail me now.

I closed my eyes and crashed through the building’s window.

This landing was rougher than the others. Almost as soon as I was inside, I slammed into a metal shelf, knocking it over. Long, cylindrical cans toppled to the ground all around me, and with a series of boings, colorful spring loaded snakes burst out of them. Cousin Gumdrop had inadvertently thrown me into one of Mauldibamm’s many, many joke shops.

The entire building shook like it was in an earthquake when Cousin Gumdrop’s wave of destruction slammed into it. Looking around wildly, I grabbed two of the cans that hadn’t popped open and ducked behind another row of shelves. My heart pounded in my throat, adrenaline coursing through my veins as I waited for—

A huge section of the wall imploded, blasting stone and glass everywhere. A dust cloud filled the store, but through it I could clearly see the shining X on Cousin Gumdrop’s forehead.

“Nothing is more important than strength!” she screamed, storming into the shop. When she didn’t immediately see me, she swung her chainhammer at a nearby shelf, sending tendrils of red magic racing up down its length—until with a flash, the entire thing exploded into tiny, razor sharp shards of metal. “Do you have any idea what I went through? How many years I lived in a waking nightmare to get this power?”

Gripping the two cans tight, I charged them with magic. The blue light shone through the cloud of dust, and Cousin Gumdrop spun in my direction.

“No,” I said, leaping out at her. “And I don’t care!”

The lids popped off the cans, and the springy snakes burst free, streaking across the store like two shining blue comets. They struck Cousin Gumdrop hard enough to send her flying across the store, crashing through half a dozen rows of shelves before coming to a sudden halt when she hit the far wall.

Drawing Splatsy, I chased after her.

“You’re nothing but a psycho!” I yelled. Putting one foot on a fallen shelf, I launched myself into the air and charged Splatsy. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew that I should have run out of magic a long time ago. I’d been using it almost nonstop since the fight started, and I hadn’t taken even a single puff from my inhaler. Strangely, though, I didn’t feel the least bit tired. It was like I had an endless supply of energy in me.

And I was only too happy to use it.

Coming back down, I swung Splatsy as hard as I could. Cousin Gumdrop’s eyes widened, and she dodged to the side. Splatsy slammed into the wall, missing her target, but the magic that exploded out of her didn’t. While that section of the wall was turned to dust, Cousin Gumdrop was blown off her feet.

Magic surged through my whole body, and I crossed the store in the blink of an eye, passing Cousin Gumdrop and raising Splatsy again. I swung, and my heart leaped when I felt the oh-so-satisfying jolt of Splatsy making contact. Cousin Gumdrop was sent flying right back in the direction she’d just come from, crashing headlong into another wall.

“That’s why McGus chose me instead of you,” I said, running after her. “He knows what kind of a person you really are!”

She was already on her feet by the time I got there. I swung, and our hammers met again, the impact shaking the building’s very foundations.

“I was promised!” she screeched, our faces inches apart. “It was supposed to be my reward!”

“Reward for what? Being the world’s biggest butthole?”

She screamed, her paintmarks flashing with light, and shoved me backwards. I quickly raised Splatsy to counter the attack I was sure would come next, but Cousin Gumdrop hadn’t moved. Instead, glaring daggers at me, she pointed at her face—and the glowing marks that colored it.

“For this!” she spat. “For all those years of tests and experiments! Day after day, month after month, of being stuck with needles! Being cut open more times than I can count so that my insides could be rearranged like a damn Rubik’s Cube!”

Those words hit me harder than anything that had come from her hammer, and I lowered Splatsy in surprise.

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

She grinned at me, though there wasn’t an ounce of joy in her expression. “He promised that I would be something new. Stronger than anything that had come before. I wouldn’t be shackled to humanity’s whims like every other klaon.”

She threw her chainhammer at me, and if it hadn’t been for my new reflexes, it would have taken my head off. I dodged, rolling back to my feet and racing toward her while she was unarmed. I could hear the chain clinking as the hammer returned to her, but for a brief moment I had an opening.

I swung Splatsy—and Cousin Gumdrop caught her with one hand.

“I don’t need laughter anymore,” she said, wrenching Splatsy out of my grip. She whirled around, and I barely managed to duck out of the way before being brained by the chainhammer. I was back on my feet in an instant, but my stomach did a backflip when I saw her wielding the chainhammer in her left hand, and Splatsy in her right.

She came at me, swinging the chainhammer first, then Splatsy. I was able to sidestep the first attack, but Splatsy managed to catch me on the shoulder, throwing me down onto the ground. Pain sprang to life in my arm, but it paled in comparison to the betrayal in my heart.

Splatsy, I thought, staring at my loyal hammer in disbelief, how could you?

“I feed on anger now,” Cousin Gumdrop said, raising both hammers at once.

Thinking quick, I charged my shoes with magic and released it just as she brought the hammers down. I blasted across the store’s filthy tile floor, and the hammers crashed down half a second after I got out of reach.

“And I don’t need to get it from somebody else!” Cousin Gumdrop yelled, leaping after me.

Kicking my legs up, I backflipped out of the way just before the hammers crashed to the floor a second time. I was back on my feet, but even with my new skills and power I couldn’t hope to beat Cousin Gumdrop without a weapon.

She grinned at me, giving both hammers a cocky twirl. “I can feed on my own anger. Can you do that, Blue? Are you the source of your own power?”

“Nope,” I said, eyes shifting left and right, “I can’t say that I am.”

And with that I turned tail and jumped over another row of shelves.

I could hear the metal shattering behind me, but I didn’t turn to look. Without a weapon I was helpless, but just because Cousin Gumdrop had stolen Splatsy didn’t mean there wasn’t anything else in here that I could fight her with. What I’d done earlier with the snake-in-a-cans proved that.

“You don’t deserve to be the Hunter!” she screamed from behind me. “Even compared to other Blues, you’re pathetic!”

Another shelf got demolished. I frantically scanned each one I ran down, searching for anything that could serve as a—

There!

I grabbed what I had spotted, then vaulted over the shelf that had been holding it. Again, Cousin Gumdrop smashed straight through it as if it were made of cardboard. Clutching my new toy tight in both hands, I charged it with magic. I had no real proof that this would work, but I had to believe that it would. Otherwise, I may as well just let Cousin Gumdrop squish my head then and there.

With blue light shining from inside my fist, I dug my heels into the floor and came to a quick stop. Surprised, Cousin Gumdrop stopped too. The two of us faced off against each other in the midst of the ruined store. Sirens were blaring outside, growing closer by the second, but for now the only thing that existed for either of us was each other.

“Are you done running, you coward?” she spat.

I looked down at my glowing fist, then up at her. “I think I understand now.”

She raised her eyebrows, grinning at the prospect of finally getting to kill me. “Yeah? What do you understand?”

“I turned myself into a ghul because I knew I’d never be able to beat you on my own,” I answered. “I figured, if I could turn myself into your greatest fear, maybe I would stand half a chance. But when I ended up turning into myself, I didn’t know what to think.”

The grin fell from her face, but she didn’t say anything.

“You and I both know that I’m nothing compared to you—at least in terms of strength and power. In terms of smarts and good looks, I’ve obviously got you beat.” I smirked at the way her eye twitched when I said that. “But why would a ghul turn into me when it saw your worst fear? I think…I think that, despite all logic and reason, I am your worst fear.”

Cousin Gumdrop’s paintmarks were glowing so brightly now that it hurt to look at them.

“The idea that someday, somehow, I might become as strong as you are terrifies you, doesn’t it?” I asked. “You keep saying you’re the strongest. You’re the most powerful. You’re the best at killing. And you do that because that’s all you have.”

“Shut,” snapped Cousin Gumdrop, “your mouth!”

But I didn’t shut my mouth. “If anyone else were to become as strong as you, you’d have nothing left. No pedestal to put yourself on. You’d have to accept that for once in your life, you were normal.”

I took a step closer, my eyes gleaming.

“And being normal is the most terrifying thing you can imagine, isn’t it?”

Cousin Gumdrop threw herself at me in a rage. My new instincts told me to dodge. I could have done it, just like I already had a hundred times. But this time, the part of me that was still a klaon took over, and it had one very important thing to say:

All comedy is based on pain.

Splatsy hit me hard in the chest. All the breath was driven from my lungs. I felt each and every one of my ribs crack. My legs threatened to give out. My vision went dark.

But it put Cousin Gumdrop right where I wanted her.

Unclenching my fist, I slammed the joy buzzer right into her face, shooting all the magic I had channeled straight into her. Her body immediately seized up in pain as arcs of blue lightning zigzagged across her skin. She fell to her knees, letting both hammers clatter to the floor. Her mouth was open, trying to scream, but no sound came out.

She began to raise her hands, struggling to reach mine, so I pushed even more magic into the buzzer. So much that I should have drained myself ten times over. Sparks were dancing all over her now, her hair stood on end, and the room was beginning to smell like bacon.

Finally, her hands fell to her sides, and she toppled over backwards. For a second, I thought I had killed her. The very idea made me want to puke. But then I saw her chest rising and falling. I knelt over her, and her eyes moved to look at me.

“Kill…you…” she whispered, a thin trail of smoke rising from inside her mouth.

“You know,” I said to her, “I feel sorry for you. Not because of all those experiments or whatever it was you were talking about, but because you’ve spent the past three years hating me for the wrong reason.”

She growled, but didn’t move.

“You kept thinking about all the things you have that I don’t,” I went on. “How much stronger you are than me, how much more magic you have. But you never stopped to wonder if maybe there was something I had that you didn’t. You want to know what it is?”

“Tear…your lungs out…through your…mouth!”

“It’s that I care about people! To you, this job is just another excuse to kill things. You don’t give a half-eaten muffin about the people you’re supposed to be protecting. That’s not what being the Hunter is about. And that’s why,” I leaned down so that we were eye to eye, “McGus was never going to pick you!”

She was breathing more heavily now. Looking down, I could see one of her fists clenching and unclenching. It wouldn’t be long before she could move again, and I wasn’t sure I could do all this a second time.

I reached into my pocket, pulled out the bottle I’d gotten from New You, and popped the lid off.

“Open wide,” I said, hooking two fingers into her bottom jaw and pulling her mouth open. “It’s time to take your medicine.”

Tipping the bottle over, I poured it into her mouth.

Every. Last. Pill.

Her eyes widened and she squirmed a little, but for now I didn’t have any trouble keeping her still. When the last pill was in her mouth, I pushed her jaw closed, and…

“It’s your turn to be at the bottom of the food chain for a while.”

…I punched her in the throat.

Cousin Gumdrop convulsed under me, but I had her pinned down. I let go of her mouth, and she gasped for breath, swallowing the pills in the process.

“What did you do to me?” she demanded. “What did you just make me…”

She didn’t get to finish. The medicine acted quickly. Cousin Gumdrop’s voice went away almost immediately, and she began to shrink. Just like when Ethan had turned into a fairy, she sank down into her clothes, smaller and smaller, until all I could see of her was a lump inside her shirt small enough to fit in the palm of my hand. It was moving frantically, and it made a wet slapping sound every time it did.

I reached into the empty pile of clothes, grabbed her, and pulled her out. She was cold and slimy in my hand, and never stopped wiggling. It was like holding onto a sentient bar of soap. I held her up to my face so that we could look into each other’s eyes.

A little orange goldfish stared unblinkingly back at me, its black eyes wide and completely void of thought. The only part of her that still looked like herself were the two streaks on her face where her golden scales suddenly turned blood-red in the shape of an X.

“There was a ninety day supply of pills in that bottle,” I told her, even though I doubted her little guppy brain could understand me. “That’s three months for you to think about what you’ve done. And if you decide you like being a goldfish, I can set something up with Jack and Heidi.”

Groaning in pain, I got to my feet. I reached for Splatsy, but just as my fingers brushed her handle, she shimmered and disappeared in a puff of black smoke. The rest of me soon followed, returning me to the ghul form I had been wearing when I’d broken into the Grand Lark. I guess Cousin Gumdrop had other things to be afraid of now—if she was able to feel fear at all.

Cousin Gumdrop wriggled in my hand, and I slowly limped to the back of the store and into the girl’s bathroom. The flickering fluorescent lights provided a fittingly dingy atmosphere as I lifted the lid on one of the toilets and dropped my slimy little cousin in. For a few seconds, I watched her swim in circles.

“See you at the next family reunion, Cousin Goldfish.”

Then I flushed.

Next Chapter: 9/21/24