Chương 30: Chapter 29 - The Ghoul Man

Olivia sat back in her chair and groaned while massaging her closed eyes with her thumb and her forefinger. Only when her eyes were closed and she was holding still did she notice how bad her headache was. Before then, it had blended into the background of pain. Something else to be ignored. She was in the refreshment tent. The smell of bad coffee and stale donuts managed to overwhelm the smell of the canvas. It made her empty stomach churn. She didn't mind. It was better than staying in the other tent.

When she heard the rustle of heavy canvas, she hurried to sit up and open her eyes. Cosmo Uhler had just come in. He was walking over to the table where the box of coffee was kept.

"Good morning, Miss Oliversen," he said. His voice was friendly but the words came out slow and slightly slurred. Olivia had learned to recognize—and empathize—with that sign of exhaustion.

"Good morning, Master Uhler," she said. She tried to keep her voice bright to hide her own fatigue. Uhler dumped some sugar in his coffee, grabbed a stirring stick, and turned toward her.

"You didn't sleep, did you?" Apparently her attempt had failed.

"I slept for two hours," Olivia said. Uhler frowned at his coffee as he stirred.

"What is it?" Olivia demanded. Uhler said, "Maybe I'm old fashioned—or old—but I would've wanted someone your age to get more sleep than that." Olivia ducked her head so he wouldn't see her scowl.

"Or maybe I'm projecting." Uhler flashed her a shy smile.

"I didn't get any sleep at all." When Olivia saw the smile, she found herself smiling in return, and a warm sense of fondness dawned in her chest, followed by faint embarrassment. Olivia usually prided herself on not being emotional. But Cosmo Uhler had a way about him. She'd noticed it the first time she'd met him. Small mannerisms made him come across as introverted and, in some ways, insecure, but he was also open and friendly.

It was so good at disarming the people around him that it took a while for Olivia to accept that it wasn't an act he put on. He really was like that. And when she realized it, she realized that she'd been disarmed as well.

"Master Uhler," Olivia said, "may I ask you a question?" Uhler threw his stirring stick away in the plastic grocery sack that was acting as their garbage bag.

"Certainly." He turned to her and nudged his glasses. They settled right back to where they'd been before. Olivia hesitated. Uhler had been working longer and harder than any of them. Did she have any right to impose on him? But her curiosity had been eating at her, and there was no one else she felt comfortable asking. Not when everyone was so tense. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"What's a ghoul?" Olivia asked. Uhler's body went rigid. The hand holding his coffee tightened around the cup, and he stared at Olivia.

"Does this have something to do with our current situation?" When Olivia heard the quiet tension in his voice, her heart rate sped up.

"N-no—I…" Olivia put a hand to her mouth and waited for her heart to slow. She had done this. She needed to fix it. She moved her hand.

"I'm sorry, Master Uhler. It doesn't matter. It has nothing to do with any of this. It was a word I heard someone say. I thought it meant something like a ghost, but that didn't fit the context." Uhler relaxed.

"Oh." He let out a breath, then added, "Good." He turned to face her.

"Ghouls, Miss Oliversen, are monsters. Rather terrifying ones."

"They're real?"

"There aren't many left. The last of their kind are hiding in the deserts of the Arabian peninsula. They can look human, but they prey on the dead."

"Prey on the dead?"

"They devour corpses." Her gaze dropped to the dirt floor.

"I see." Uhler wandered over to where she was sitting and stood by her chair.

"Are you doing anything interesting?" He frowned when he saw the papers spread over the table.

"Miss Oliversen, are you allowed to be working on this here?" Olivia let her eyes rest on the mess of diagrams, equations, and notes. The balance of power. Magic as force. Magic as movement. Miniature spells, finished, except for a few key runes she'd drawn a half inch away from their proper place. She'd been studying them for so long that they had all but disappeared, fading into meaningless lines and symbols.

"I got special permission." She offered Uhler a crooked smile.

"I didn't feel like working around Northrop." Uhler's silent laugh came out as a huff from his nose.

"He can be a little aggravating at times, can't he?" There was Uhler's friendliness again. Northrop? A little aggravating? Olivia would have gladly stabbed the man, but since it wouldn't even shut him up, it didn't seem worth the effort. Her smile faded, and her eyes darted back up to the torrman.

"Master Uhler, can you read these?" Uhler held up one of the pages to see it better in the dim light.

"I spent some time studying sorcery spells and diagrams. There's a lot to be said for their efficiency." He looked away from the page long enough to smile at her.

"But I suspect you already know that." Olivia didn't know how to feel about that comment. It sat in her head, inert and unfiled. Uhler went back to gazing at the paper.

"I think you will change the world, Miss Oliversen, and I'm excited to see where it goes." At least she knew how to react to that comment: she blushed. Uhler went on, "This is the first time I've ever seen a witch's spell drawn out like this." He added in a mutter, "A hybrid of two systems. Use the magic to finish the half-made tool." Uhler noticed the silence as it stretched from the first second into the next. He cleared his throat and lowered the paper, then glanced at Olivia, hoping he hadn't upset her somehow.

He had. She was staring at him, wide eyed, looking more severe than he'd ever seen her.

"Why do you think it's a witch's spell?" she asked. Uhler shifted his weight and nudged his glasses.

"It has to be one, doesn't it?"

"Why do you think that?"

"Because it only balances with spiritual magic." Olivia continued staring at him as she slowly shook her head.

"I can't use spiritual magic, Master Uhler." Uhler put the spell down on the table and tapped his finger on the paper.

"This isn't your spell?"

"You haven't seen it before?"

"You're telling me that this isn't your spell?" Uhler repeated.

"That's part of the spell that Northrop used to move the mansion." Olivia started pawing through the other papers.

"I was trying to figure out—" She stopped and looked at Uhler again.

"You said it balances with spiritual magic?" Uhler stood up straight.

"No, Miss Oliversen," he said softly.

"I said it only balances with spiritual magic." They watched each other for several seconds, saying nothing. Olivia blurted out, "But…" When her sentence trailed off, Uhler finished the thought for her.

"But that's impossible."