Chương 32: Chapter 31 - Handful of Horror

"I'm sorry, Miss Cole," Gladwyn said.

"You shouldn't have had to go through that." I grunted. It hurt less than speaking. We were back at the four-wheeler. I was leaning against it while Gladwyn stood to the side. I'd considered laying on the ground near the pit until the pain stopped, but Gladwyn pointed out that a bed would be more comfortable. The choir of my injured body parts all throbbed at once to make their agreement known. Besides, Conrad and Kappa were waiting for me. Gladwyn helped me limp back to the road.

When we got there, he used the light of the nearby street lamp to assess the damage. There was nothing broken. Probably. My knuckles hurt like mad, and my nose felt five times bigger than normal, but I didn't scream when Gladwyn pressed on it, so he said it was "most likely" intact. The agony in my ribs made me wonder if a few of them had snapped, but I didn't know the difference between broken-rib pain and I-applied-for-a-job-as-a-soccer-ball pain.

Besides, there were plenty of other injuries to worry about—gashes across my face and scalp, scrapes along both arms, and a puffy, swollen ear. Gladwyn called it "cauliflower ear." It sounded awful. I couldn't imagine how bad it looked. I was limping because someone had stomped on my leg during the fight. Fortunately, he'd missed the ankle he'd been aiming for. There were bruises everywhere, and I had a black eye coming in.

"Do you want to see a doctor?" Gladwyn asked. I shook my head. I didn't want to see anyone or anything except a bed. And an ice pack. I'd marry an ice pack. There was a long pause, then Gladwyn said, "I know those boys. Jessie probably dug the hole. He grew up here. He owns a thousand-square-foot house on a postage-stamp plot of land, but he talks like he owns the whole town. He's been in a scuffle or two, but I didn't expect…"

I thought the sentence deserved better than a trail-off ending, so I spoke up through my split lip.

"That he and two of his friends would beat an unarmed woman while she was laying on the ground?" Gladwyn frowned. A soft breeze blew through the silence. It seemed like a pretty good answer to my comment, so I decided to leave it at that.

"Do you want to press charges?" Gladwyn asked. Oh, yes, I certainly did. A furious grudge squatted deep within my petty soul. But then I remembered the lurker caught in the trap, staring at me with his ginormous black eyes, his fins plastered against his head in fear.

"I can't," I murmured. Oh, well. Maybe the grudge would go away as the pain faded. Gladwyn sighed.

"That's probably for the best." My eyes rose to his face and I snapped at him: "Why?" I knew that I'd have to tell him about the lurker caught in the trap, but I hadn't done it yet. If he was trying to protect one of "the good ol' boys," I'd have Conrad slip an alligator into his bed.

"I couldn't see much," Gladwyn said, "but it didn't look like Jessie's face was in any good shape. Did you do that?" I stared at him for a second, then a giggle bubbled up from my chest all the way through my sore jaw and out my puffy lips. The tiny jerks of my chest hurt, but I felt better afterward.

"Yeah." Smiling hurt too, but I did it anyway.

"That was me." Gladwyn gave me an "attaboy" frown of grudging approval and nodded.

"Not bad, Miss Cole. But it does mean that, if the sheriff gets involved, it's likely to go into the records as mutual combat—""They threw the first punch!"

"Do you have any witnesses that would corroborate your story?" I started to frown, but it didn't seem worth the pain. I let my face relax into whatever lumpy mess made it most comfortable.

"What were you doing out there anyway?" Gladwyn asked. The time had arrived. I took a deep breath before I began my story, and as I spoke, I kept my good eye on Gladwyn to see how he'd react. After how he'd reacted that morning, I was worried he'd be irritated. He wasn't. If anything, he looked deeply satisfied. When I was done talking, he smiled. There was something fierce about it.

"That's it then," he said.

"What's it?" I asked.

"That's our problem solved."

"What do you mean?"

"The lurkers." The beating must have taken more of a toll than I'd thought. Was my brain rattled, or could cauliflower ear make you deaf? Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

"I'm sorry?" I said.

"We've got them." Gladwyn put his hands on his hips, raised his face to the sky and let out a deep, quiet laugh. Then he looked at me.

"I'm awful glad you came down here, Miss Cole."

"I think I must be missing something. How does this near disaster solve anything?" As he spoke, a tiny seed of dread sprouted in the emptiness of my head created by my confusion.

"All I need is your testimony about what happened. I've been warning the Torr for months, but now one of the lurkers was nearly caught and put on display by a bunch of non-initiates. That'll be enough to get the Torr to move them somewhere else. I can finally shut down that swamp for good." Word by word, the dread had grown until, now, I was saturated with horror and disbelief.

"You can't close the swamp," I insisted.

"Why not?" Gladwyn said, frowning. I put my hands behind me on the four-wheeler and used them to lean forward.

"It's an ecosystem, not a theme park!" He scowled.

"I can shut down the preserve, anyway. Once the lurkers are gone—""They're a part of that ecosystem! It's their home."

"They don't belong here!"

"Neither do you! You're both from somewhere else, and they've been here longer than you have!"

"At least my people come from this world, Miss Cole. The lurkers have been nothing but a problem—""What have they ever done to you?" He stepped toward me and leaned in, bringing his face close to mine. If he was trying to intimidate me, he failed. I was too worked up to be intimidated by anything. But it was more likely that he'd realized we shouldn't be shouting Torr secrets at each other. He lowered his voice to an angry whisper.

"You think this is fun for me? Keeping these secrets? Lying to my friends and colleagues? I didn't sign up for any of this, Miss Cole. I ran for mayor in good faith. I thought I knew what my duties would entail. It was only after I won that the Torr sent out a representative to take me aside, all friendly-like, and tell me the truth. Here it is, Ben! A handful of horror, right next door!

Your life will never be the same, and by the way, you can't tell another living soul because we have courts you've never trained under and laws you've never studied." My insides went cold while spots of my body stayed hot from the bruising and swelling. I hated it. Part of the reason I hated it was because he was snarling in my face. Mostly I hated it because I understood what he was talking about. It felt like someone had held a mirror up to my heart. When it came to the world of magic, I had no choice either.

I didn't resent it like Gladwyn did, but I couldn't mute that hushed sense of injustice. It haunted me like a faint bad smell. I remembered Brodie Kohler mimicking Daniel Vance.

"Boy, you're in trouble now." I had to ungrit my teeth to speak.

"That's not the lurkers' fault."

"It might not be their fault, but they're the cause," Gladwyn said, "and what they're doing now is, beyond a doubt, their fault." He backed up a bit.

"Those friends of yours—the lurkers—leaving the swamp, sneaking into my town—" I spoke over him: "Looking for something that was stolen from them!" Gladwyn folded his arms and nodded. There was a mean glint in his eyes.

"That's right. Thank you for bringing up the point. I talked to Ayla about that lamp you showed me. Then I called around until I could talk to another expert. They both agreed that there was no way the lurkers could've made that thing. Stonework like that is beyond them. They must have stolen it from someone else." My cheeks flushed. The extra heat made my bad eye throb.

"That's not true. They told me they were guarding it for a friend." Scorn drenched every word: "And you believed them." My horror and disbelief had returned, but this time it was so overwhelming that it left me speechless. If I'd been a giant, I couldn't have contained it all. I was awestruck by the astounding mulishness of the man in front of me. Benjamin Gladwyn had already decided what had happened, and nothing anyone could say would convince him otherwise.

How much effort had this man invested in finding a way to blame the lurkers? If I presented him with evidence of their innocence, would he gouge his eyes out to avoid seeing it? My voice returned.

"Is that why you were so mad this morning? You didn't want there to be a reason the lurkers were sneaking around? If it was a problem that could be solved, then you wouldn't have an excuse to kick them out!"

"I'm trying to take care of my home!" Gladwyn said.

"So are they! Why did you even ask for our help if you didn't want it?"

"I asked for your help because I need it. The Torr is moving slower than molasses. Rumors and hysteria are spreading like wildfire. It's only a matter of time before it all comes to a head! But you come back at me with a cock-and-bull story about how the lurkers are supposed to be guarding some damn stone bowl!"

"If finding that 'damn stone bowl' and giving it back to the lurkers is the only way to save your town, would you do it?" He stepped toward me again.

"Is my town in danger, Miss Cole? Is there something going on that I don't know about? Some secret the Torr didn't see fit to tell me?" It felt like my teeth had been stuck together with old toffee. I had to wrench them apart to answer.

"No."

"Then why would it be about saving my town?" Gladwyn asked. I glared at him. I was too ornery to admit I didn't know why I'd said that. I must have forgotten that most people didn't see the lurkers as part of the town. To Fort Rive they were—what had Gladwyn called them? A handful of horror, right next door. Gladwyn pointed at me.

"If you could prove to me that the lamp was theirs by right, I'd do everything in my power to see that it was returned. That's only justice." He lowered his hand.

"But if you can't prove it, then forget it. I won't help. That'd just be giving them what they want. We'd be at their mercy, dancing to any demand they dream up, while they hold our peace hostage." I looked away and shook my head. There might have been a sour look on my face, but you would've had to sort through all the bruising to find it. I pushed off the four-wheeler and turned down the street.

"Where are you going?" Gladwyn asked. I turned back to him.

"The grocery store. I have to buy some first-aid stuff."

"Were we done talking?" I shrugged.

"It felt like it to me."

"Are you going to tell the Torr about what happened tonight?"

"What? You mean about me picking a fight with one of your locals and whooping his butt so bad that it took him and two of his friends to take me down?" Gladwyn's face darkened.

"That's not what you told me a few minutes ago."

"I guess I was lying. A lot of that seems to be going around. Tell you what"—I pointed at him—"if you can prove what actually happened, then I'll help you. That's only justice." I left him and, without a single glance back, walked to the grocery store. All five people in the store came around the aisles to stare at me. They had double the reason this time, but they'd used that trick too often for me to care.

When I finished gathering the first-aid supplies I needed, I slammed my basket down in front of the cashier and said, "How much?" in a tone so loud and brazen that it dared—just dared— the man to ask me any questions. See how well that goes for you. He pursed his lips, then fixed his eyes on the scanner and started to ring me up. A few seconds later, he said, without looking up, "Do you want a bag of ice?" Okay. That question, I would allow.