Henry Rider: Clown Hunter

Chapter Ten

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Chapter Ten

I burst through the Wombo World's glass double doors like a sheriff entering a saloon filled with outlaws. Ethan was right behind me, sporting a few shiny new bruises from our training session. I scanned the area, and grinned when I spotted Aesop and Jade sitting in the corner booth. Jade was looking at her phone, headphones covering her ears, but Aesop raised his hands in a where the donkey farts have you been? gesture.

"Can I take your order?" asked the gangly, pimple-faced teenager behind the register.

I glanced at the menu. "Yeah, I'll have a triple patty Wombo Combo with no tomatoes, two large fries, a Wombinator with extra cheese, three peanut butter cookies, a large fries, a Wombo Melt with onion rings on the side, three large fries, and, uh...what do you call those drinks that make your teeth glow in the dark?"

"A Toxic Sludgee?"

"Yeah, a large one of those." I paused, then looked back at Ethan. "You want anything?"

He raised an eyebrow. "You're going to eat all that by yourself?"

"What can I say?" I asked with a shrug. "Beating the snot out of you works up the appetite!"

He glared at me and stormed over to where Aesop and Jade were sitting, which I took to mean he wasn't hungry. That was just as well, considering what we were planning to do to him. A few minutes later, I balanced my heaping tray of food over to join them.

"What took you two so long?" Aesop demanded as soon as I'd sat down. "We've been waiting for almost an hour!"

"Sorry," I said, unwrapping my first burger. "McGus wanted to smack me around for a while."

"You poor thing," Ethan said, rubbing one of his bruises.

I bit into my post-workout meal, eyes rolling back in my head as deliciously unhealthy grease bathed my tongue.

"Okay," said Ethan, "can someone please explain what's going on already?"

"Erff brrurr erff—"

"Don't talk when you've got half a cow in your mouth, Henry," Aesop interrupted. "Ethan, what our barbarically mannered friend here meant to say is, it's better if you see it for yourself."

Ethan narrowed his eyes. "You guys know that doesn't make me feel better, right?"

"Of course not. Why else would we say it?"

I shoved a handful of fries into my mouth to keep from laughing. Through the window near our table, the Dusk Dimension's sky glowed a burning orange. The sun sat just above the western horizon, like it was a few minutes away from setting. It never budged an inch, though, giving this dimension its name as it cloaked the world in endless twilight. Beautiful, in a Halloween-ish sort of way. Jade, Aesop, and I came here to hang out every couple weeks.

"So, uh...Jade?" Ethan spoke up a few minutes later.

To my surprise, she looked up at him. I had thought she couldn't hear us, what with the headphones covering her ears, but she must have been curious enough about Ethan that she'd turned her music down. That in itself was unusual, being in public the way we were — and more than a little dangerous. I opened my mouth to bring it up, but then stopped myself. Talking about things like that...about her...wasn't a good idea while Ethan was here.

"What?" she asked coldly. Her hood was down, letting her long black hair spill down her back, but her bangs still obscured the right side of her face.

Ethan swallowed under her piercing stare. "I was, uh, just thinking. Back at school, you never told me what you were."