Henry Rider: Clown Hunter
*AUTHOR'S NOTE: * Sorry if you were expecting the next Amber Silverblood chapter. That'll go up tomorrow. Today, I wanted to share something new with you guys, a story I've been working on for a long time called Henry Rider: Clown Hunter. It's not furry, but I think you'll probably find a lot to enjoy in it anyway. Unfortunately, I'm not going to be posting this one on SoFurry. Not in its entirety, at least. I'm really proud of this story, and I think it has the potential to be picked up by a real publisher. While I'm busy querying, though, I'd love to get some feedback from my readers. So here's the first chapter, and if you'd be interested in beta reading the entire thing for me, then shoot me a PM with an ail address for me to send it to. Anyway, enough from me. I hope you enjoy it!
Chapter One
My blood burned with excitement, as if my veins were full of Red Bull, the night I appeared above the house at 1157 Westwillow Drive. My name is Henry Rider, and I'm the Hunter. The protector of humanity. The slayer of...
Wait. _Above_the house?
I fell, hitting the roof with a painful thud. Luckily, I'd only warped myself a few feet above the house. Not so luckily, the roof was sloped. Down I went, rolling like a bowling ball, until I flew over the edge with a scream, bounced off the trash can below, and crash landed face first on the concrete driveway.
Ow.
A sound like dice rolling reached my ears, and I looked up to see the polished stone cube I'd had in my hand skittering across the driveway. The Escher Cube! If I came back with so much as a scratch on it, McGus would skin me alive!
I got to my feet just as the trash can I'd landed on tipped over to spill a very confused raccoon in front of me. It glared at me for interrupting its meal, but then froze, its eyes widening when it spotted the shiny Cube.
"Oh, chicken biscuits," I cussed. "Don't you dare!"
Too late. I dove for the Cube, but the stupid trash panda was just a little bit faster. It snatched it in its greedy little paws, dashed across the road, and clambered up a nearby tree. There, it held up the Cube, admiring its prize in the moonlight...
And then vanished in a flash of white.
My heart sank into my stomach as I stared at where it had been just a second before. Great. Wonderful. Now I was going to _wish_McGus had stopped at skinning me by the time he was done.
Before I could contemplate my inevitable doom, though, a scream of terror came from inside the house. I was on my feet in an instant, heart pounding in my ears as I raced for the door. With one hand, I drew the ping pong paddle that hung from my belt, and flicked my wrist. The handle extended until it was as tall as I was, and the paddle poomph-ed outwards, becoming a massive wooden hammer.
Her name is Splatsy.
I swung her, easily reducing the sturdy front door to splinters, and charged inside--where my foot instantly caught on something. I pitched forward, cringing at the loud SPLAT my cheek made when it hit the smooth hardwood floor. Rolling back to my feet, I raised Splatsy to block the attack my instincts were screaming must be coming. Nothing happened. I silently begged my eyes to adjust to the darkness faster, but when I saw what tripped me, I almost wished they hadn't.
The owner of the house lay on his back, staring sightlessly up at the ceiling with a horrified expression on his face. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, feeling like my heart had just gained twenty pounds. My feet felt like lead as I trudged over to him, praying to the great whoopie cushion in the sky that it wouldn't be...
It was. A ring of teeth marks ran around his mouth, like a french kiss gone horribly wrong.
"Crème brulee," I whispered, clenching my fist. Sympathy clashed with anxiety inside of me. I knew I should feel bad for what had happened to him--and I did--but all I could think about was what the council would do when they found out I'd let another person die.
I stood up, tightening my grip on Splatsy until my knuckles ached. I'd been too slow to save him, but that didn't mean there had to be more victims. The thing that had killed him was still here. The sense of evil in the air made my blood curdle like rancid pudding.
We both knew that neither of us were leaving until the other was dead.
A floorboard squeaked, and I spun around just in time to see a shadow dash across the upstairs hallway. I gave chase, an angry snarl twisting my face. A door at the end of the hall slammed shut just as I reached the top. I even heard the lock click. My eyebrows went up. Since when could maiams use locks? Not that it mattered, since I had the world's greatest lock pick with me. Holding Splatsy out like a battering ram, I charged down the hallway. We crashed into the door together, ripping it clean off its hinges, and I charged inside, ready to mash some--
I froze. There was no maiam here. Just a teenage boy.
Staring at him in shock, all the fight leaked out of me like a squeaky fart. The boy sat with his back against the wall, clearly thinking I was some kind of hammer wielding psychopath. Not that I blamed him. It looked like he was about sixteen. A year older than me.
"Uh, hey," I said, reaching up to make sure my N.O.S.E. was activated. "You, uh, seen any monsters around here?"
He cowered from me, but didn't answer. His big brown eyes met mine, then moved to look over my shoulder--and widened.
"Oh, gorgonzola," I whispered.
I spun, but was too slow. The maiam backhanded me with a hand half the size of my torso, sending me crashing into the wall. Pain turned my vision white, and I slumped to the floor, fighting to stay conscious. My eyesight came back slowly, and the first thing I saw was the maiam reaching for the boy, grinning. Its fangs, each as long as my finger, were tipped with scarlet blood from its victim downstairs, the only color on its entire body. Like a wax figure pulled from an episode of Leave it to Beaver, half melted and then reflected through a dozen funhouse mirrors.
Ignoring the pain, I rolled to my feet and gripped Splatsy in both hands. All of its attention was on the boy, so I was able to run right up to it unnoticed, and swung with all my might. Splatsy struck it right in its ugly black and white face_,_ and the maiam stumbled back through the door with a howl of rage.
I sagged against the doorframe, gasping. The pain was trying to swallow me like a quicksand bean bag chair. No bones were broken--that's what I told myself, anyway--but I knew I couldn't fight like this. I dug my inhaler out of my pocket and held it to my mouth. Life sprayed out of it. Human laughter, bottled with my grandpa's secret technique. Like inhaling a storm, it exploded in my lungs and sent lightning coursing through my veins. I sighed in relief, the pain receding a little with every heartbeat.
Out in the hallway, the maiam sniffed, then growled. I wasn't the only one here who fed on laughter.
"Stay here," I said to the boy, pocketing the inhaler again. "This'll only take a minute."
I stepped out into the hallway, and the maiam regarded me with wariness glittering in its beady eyes. A thin trail of blood as black as ink trickled out of its nose. It hadn't expected me to hurt it like that. For the moment, it had forgotten about the boy. Now I just had to keep its attention on me.
"Come and get it, fondue face!" I yelled.
Not my best insult, but it did the trick. I ducked as it lashed out with both arms, and sprang back to my feet to ram Splatsy into its chin. It lumbered backwards, each step heavy enough to shake the floor. While it recovered, I saw my chance. Raising Splatsy like a baseball bat, I channeled magic into her, making her glow with blue light. One solid hit was all it would take. I swung--and the maiam thrust its hand against my chest, throwing me backwards.
"Mothercrumpet!" I screamed as my attack went right over its head. The magic exploded out of Splatsy, blowing a hole into the roof big enough to drive a car through. Landing hard on my back, I had to fight off a moment of panic when the maiam towered over me.
A fist big enough to wrap around my entire head came hurtling down, and I reacted with the speed McGus had drilled into me. Kicking my legs backwards, I somersaulted out of its way half a second before it punched a hole through the floor. My heart was racing, sweat pouring down my face, but as it worked to wrench its fist out of the floorboards, I got my first good look at it.
It was wearing the tattered remains of its clothes, like a werewolf in some cheesy horror movie. That was normal for maiams. But the glowing stone talisman that was stuck to its forehead wasn't.
"What the baloney ice cream sandwiches?" I whispered.
The maiam sensed my distraction, and lunged forward to bite my head off. I backpedaled, nearly tripping, and forced myself to focus again. So what if it had decided to get some new bling before coming here? I wasn't a fashion critic, I was the Hunter!
The wooden floor cracked as it began to tear its arm free, and I darted forward while charging Splatsy with magic again. Not a killing blow--I didn't have enough time--but she still slammed into the side of its head hard enough to send it crashing through the banister. Down it went, landing in a heap on the first floor.
Yes! Leaping down after it, I raised my weapon for the killing blow, already tasting victory, and--
It caught me.
"Oh, come on!" I managed to exclaim before its massive, banana-shaped fingers closed around my throat. It wasn't fair. Something that big had no right to move that fast! Somehow I doubted the universe would care if I called foul, though, so all I could do was dangle from its grip as it opened its mouth to bite my head off.
"U- Uncle Doug?"
The maiam and I froze in perfect unison, our heads turning to look at the top of the stairs where, for some insane reason, the boy had decided to come watch us.
"Oh, spicy nachos," I whispered.
With that, the maiam lost all interest in me. It flung me aside so hard that the g-forces nearly made me pass out, and I crashed headlong through the flat screen TV in the living room. For a second, I was taken to a dimension of pure pain. It howled inside me, sucking away all coherent thought. It was all I could do to pull the inhaler out again and bring it to my lips. Praying to the whoopie cushion in the sky that I wouldn't be too late, I mashed down on the canister five times, nearly emptying it.
Power surged through my veins once again, and I was on my feet before my wounds had even finished knitting themselves back together. The maiam had just reached the top of the stairs. Long strings of drool were dribbling from its mouth as it eyed its next meal. The boy had his back against the wall, mouth hanging open in horrified disbelief.
No! I couldn't let two people die in one night!
With fury fueling my steps, I charged back into battle. This time, I channeled magic into my shoes, making them light up just like Splatsy had. Exhaustion weighed heavy on the back of my mind--healing had cost me almost all my laughter, and this was taking another good chunk of it. Still, I released the magic, letting it explode out of the soles of my shoes. I rocketed upwards so fast that the air stung my eyes, but I kept them trained on the maiam. Hands tightened around Splatsy. One good hit was all it'd--
The boy screamed.
That didn't surprise me. Anybody with a shred of sanity would scream if they saw those teeth coming for them. What did_surprise me was the shockwave of pure _power that came with it. It hit me so hard that, even flying toward him at a hundred miles per hour, I suddenly found myself going the other way. I crashed into the wall above the front door, let out an admittedly pathetic whimper, and tumbled down to the floor.
The maiam landed beside me half a second later, but I barely noticed.
What...the frozen microwave burritos...had _that_been?
That was a stupid question. I already knew what it was. It was the same thing that my inhaler was full of. But my brain, rattled out of alignment from smacking into so many walls, refused to believe it. There was just...so freaking much of it! Enough to make my inhaler look like a nightlight compared to the sun! That wasn't possible. I had to be dreaming, or hallucinating, or...
The maiam growled and started to pick itself up. Right. I had bigger problems to deal with.
Somehow during all of that, I'd managed to keep hold of Splatsy. Summoning what was left of my strength, I threw myself to my knees and swung her as hard as I could. She struck the maiam on the arm, and I felt its elbow snap, making it collapse back onto its face. Then I was on my feet, raising Splatsy as high over my head as I could. One foot went onto the maiam's neck, keeping it from getting back up.
"William Halbert," I said, "I end your suffering."
It glared up at me without an ounce of humanity in its depraved predatory eyes.
"May you find joy in the next life."
I brought Splatsy down, crushing its head like a water balloon. Black blood spattered everywhere, and its body writhed and thrashed as if it was still alive. Gasping for breath, I took a step back and leaned heavily against the wall, Splatsy falling from nearly numb fingers, and watched as it slowly began to flatten like one of those inflatable Christmas decorations after you unplug it. In less than a minute, it was gone. Even its blood was slowly evaporating off the walls and floor. I sighed in relief--but there was sadness there, too.
Poor William. He had no one but himself to blame for this, but still...poor William.
As the sticky black mess continued to disappear, a shape took form within it. The small stone amulet that had been on its head. Gray like granite, the cracks that spiderwebbed across it told me I must have hit it directly when I'd smashed the maiam's head. Before my eyes, the glowing blood-red rune began to fade.
Despite how utterly crappy I felt, I couldn't help but be curious. I reached out to pick it up, but stopped when a faint whimper come from the top of the stairs. I hesitated, and then left the amulet there as I trudged upstairs, where the boy still stood with his back against the wall, eyes staring vacantly at nothing. He probably would have stayed there all night if I hadn't done anything.
"Hello?" I asked, waving a hand in front of his face. "Yoohoo, anybody home?"
Slowly, he blinked and turned to look at me. "You...You..."
"Easy there, I'm on your side!" I even shrank Splatsy down and hung her from my belt to prove it. "Are you okay?"
He shook his head. "N- No, it's...you're bleeding."
I was so tired that it took a few seconds to register what he'd said. Finally, I looked down at my arm, where my trip through the TV had sliced straight through my shirt sleeve. There was blood running down my arm, leaving a drip-drop trail on the floor behind me.
Blood that was a deep navy blue.
"Don't worry about that," I said, turning slightly so that he couldn't see it. "What about you? Are you okay? What's your name?"
He was still in shock. Understandable. I just needed to keep him talking, and eventually he'd come back to his senses.
"Ethan," he said at last. "Ethan Griggs."
It was still there, I realized. All that laughter. I could smell it in his voice, carried on his breath. It was less noticeable now that he wasn't screaming, but every time he opened his mouth it still looked like he had a lava lamp jammed down his throat. No wonder the maiam had come here.
And it wouldn't be the last. Maiams would be able to smell that laughter just like I could. They would swarm this place like flies to an enticingly putrid piece of poop. I was surprised they weren't here already.
I knew what I had to do before I'd even realized there was a choice to be made. I groaned, leaning against the wall. No. Please, great whoopie cushion in the sky, no! All I wanted was to lie down and sleep for a month. But I couldn't leave him here. Not with that treasure trove of laughter inside of him. I had to take him to...
I groaned. Scrambled eggs and ketchup, the Council of Shnoob was going to kill me!
"What?" he asked.
I shook my head. "Nothing. Come on, we need to get out of here."
I extended a hand to him, but he just looked at it suspiciously. Well, I couldn't really blame him for that, could I?
"My name's Henry Rider," I said. "I'm here to help you."
"H...Henry?"
"Yes, that's what I said. Now--"
"But you're a girl!"