The rumor mill in Weedfield didn't run on electricity; it ran on sweet tea and boredom, and it moved faster than a fiber-optic cable.
By noon the next day, the story had mutated. Marcus hadn't just thrown Bo Miller; he had apparently known karate, was an ex-Navy SEAL, and had broken Bo's nose with a single finger.
The diner was packed.
It was the busiest lunch shift they'd had since reopening, but nobody was really eating. They were chewing slowly, eyes darting toward the kitchen every time the swinging doors opened.
"Table four needs a refill," Liri whispered as she breezed past Marcus at the pass-through window. "And the old lady at table six asked me if you've ever killed a man with your bare hands."
"What did you tell her?" Marcus asked, plating a burger.
"I told her you don't like to talk about the 'dark times'," Liri winked. "She tipped me five dollars."
Marcus grunted. "Great. Now I'm a fugitive."
He looked out at the dining room. Eira was playing her part, though he could see the strain in her jaw. She was carrying a tray of drinks with exaggerated care, acting as though the weight was significant. When she placed a glass down for the Sheriff's deputy, she gave a small, shy smile that didn't quite reach her eyes.
"Thank you, ma'am," the deputy said, tipping his hat. He then turned his gaze to the kitchen window, locking eyes with Marcus.
Marcus didn't blink. He just nodded and went back to scraping the grill.
The bell above the door jingled. The conversation in the diner died instantly.
Standing in the doorway was Big Roy.
If Bo Miller was a pickup truck, Big Roy was a semi-trailer. He was the foreman at the local quarry, a man made of granite dust and bad attitude. He scanned the room, ignoring the empty tables, and walked straight to the counter.
He didn't sit. He just leaned, his forearms looking like tree trunks on the laminate.
"Hey," Roy grunted.
Pearl froze. She looked at Marcus.
Marcus wiped his hands on a rag and walked out of the kitchen. He didn't rush. He kept his movements slow, deliberate. He stopped behind the counter, directly across from Roy.
"Help you?" Marcus asked.
"Heard about Bo," Roy said. His voice was deep, a rumble that vibrated the coffee cups. "Heard he came in here lookin' for rent money and left lookin' for a dentist."
"He tripped," Marcus said calmly. "Clumsy guy."
"Tripped," Roy repeated. He chewed on the inside of his cheek. "Bo says the girl threw him. Says she's a witch."
The diner went dead silent. Eira, standing by the jukebox, stiffened. Her fingers twitched.
Marcus leaned forward, resting his hands on the counter. He got right up into Roy's grill. He lowered his voice so only Roy.. and the three people closest.. could hear.
"Bo was drunk, Roy. He was trying to put his hands on a lady. You know how Bo gets. He stumbled, I helped him toward the door, and he was too embarrassed to admit he got walked out by a fry cook. So he blames the girl."
Marcus held Roy's gaze. He channeled every ounce of the cold, void-touched energy he soaked up from the Slipgate every night. He let his eyes go dead, that thousand-yard stare that said I have seen things in the dark that would make you wet yourself.
"Now," Marcus said softly. "Are you here to order the special? Or are you here to trip over your own feet, too?"
The air in the diner was thick enough to choke on. Roy stared at Marcus. He looked at Eira, who was clutching a menu to her chest, doing a perfect impression of a terrified waitress. Then he looked back at Marcus's scarred knuckles.
Roy laughed. It was a dry, barking sound.
"I'll take the special," Roy said. "And a coffee. Black."
The tension in the room snapped like a rubber band. The conversations started up again, louder this time. The test had been passed. The hierarchy had been established.
Marcus turned to the coffee pot. "Coming right up."
As he poured the coffee, he caught Eira's eye across the room. She gave him the tiniest nod.. a microscopic gesture of approval.
He had sold the lie. The town believed Marcus Hale was the danger here. They believed he was the wolf guarding the sheep.
They had no idea that the "sheep" holding the menus was as lethal as the wolf, and that the diner itself was sitting on top of a hole in reality that was slowly, quietly, beginning to leak. Marcus watched the steam rise from the coffee, twisting into shapes that didn't look quite right, and wondered how long he could keep the lid on this pot before it boiled over.
The fragile peace Marcus had constructed held together for exactly forty-five minutes. It was a beautiful deception while it lasted. The diner hummed with the rhythmic clatter of silverware on ceramic plates and the low, contented murmur of people filling their stomachs with grease and caffeine. Sunlight poured through the front windows, illuminating the dust motes dancing in the air and gleaming off the chrome trim of the counter. For a brief window of time, the Slipgate Diner felt less like an interdimensional fortress sitting on a fault line of reality and more like a regular establishment in Weedfield, Texas.
Marcus stood at the grill, scraping the flat-top with a metal spatula. The repetitive motion was soothing. He watched the line of tickets, satisfied that the chaos was manageable.
Big Roy sat at the counter, nursing a coffee and working his way through a plate of meatloaf. He looked like a boulder that someone had dressed in a flannel shirt, his massive shoulders hunched forward as he ate. His presence was a deterrent. With the quarry foreman sitting right there, the other customers kept their voices down and their manners in check.
Eira moved through the dining room with a tray of iced teas. She had adopted the persona of the "fragile damsel" with terrifying dedication. Every time a customer asked for a refill, she would offer a shy, trembling smile and pour the drink with exaggerated caution, as if the pitcher weighed fifty pounds. It was a performance worthy of an Academy Award, though Marcus noticed the way her emerald eyes sharpened whenever someone turned their back. She was bored. A bored High Elf was a dangerous variable.
Behind the counter, Pearl stood on her apple crate, drying glasses. She looked pristine. Her skin possessed the milky, flawless quality of fine porcelain, and her sea-blue eyes, ringed with those striking halos of gold, tracked every movement in the room. To the locals, she was just a petite, strangely beautiful girl who didn't talk much. To Marcus, she was an addictive tactical schemer wrapped in a deceptively breakable package.
Then the door exploded inward.
It did not open. It did not jingle the bell. It was kicked with enough force that the safety glass shuddered in the frame and the heavy oak slammed against the interior wall with a sound like a gunshot.
Conversation died instantly. Forks froze halfway to mouths.
Ty Miller stood in the threshold, but it wasn't the Ty Miller from yesterday. Yesterday, Ty had been a smug bully backing up his brother. Today, Ty looked like a man whose internal wiring had been stripped and reconnected by a blind electrician.
He was vibrating. Sweat poured down his face in greasy rivulets, soaking the collar of his stained t-shirt. His eyes were blown wide, the pupils dilated so fully that the irises were barely visible, reducing his gaze to two black, abyssal holes. His jaw worked furiously, grinding back and forth as if he were chewing on gravel.
A chemical stench rolled off him in waves. It smelled like burning plastic and cat urine.
"Meth," Marcus whispered under his breath, gripping the handle of his spatula until his knuckles turned white. "Or PCP. Something homemade and dirty."
Ty took a step inside, his boots stomping heavily on the linoleum. He didn't look at the room. He didn't seem to see the people. His head whipped back and forth, searching, his movements jerky and unnatural.
"Where is she?" Ty screamed. His voice was a ragged tear in the silence, raw and bleeding. "Where's the witch? Where's the little doll?"
Big Roy turned on his stool. He didn't stand up yet, but the air around him grew heavy. He set his coffee cup down with a deliberate clink.
"Ty," Roy rumbled, his voice deep and gravelly. "You need to turn around, son. You ain't right."
Ty didn't even register the warning. He fixated on the counter. He saw Pearl standing on her crate, her golden-ringed eyes wide with a perfectly manufactured look of terror.
"You!" Ty shrieked, pointing a shaking finger at her. "You put the hex on Bo! You broke him! I'm gonna snap you like a twig!"
He lunged forward, moving with the terrifying, erratic speed of a chemically altered nervous system.
Big Roy stood up. It was like watching a mountain rise from the sea. He stepped directly into Ty's path, blocking the aisle with his massive frame.
"Get the hell out of my way, rock-head!" Ty yelled, not slowing down.
He shoved Roy. Under normal laws of physics, shoving Big Roy was like trying to shove a parked bulldozer. But Ty was operating on hysterical strength. The shove didn't move Roy, but the impact sounded like meat slapping against concrete.
Roy didn't hesitate. He was a man who broke rocks for a living. He pulled his right arm back and delivered a short, brutal hook directly to Ty's jaw.
Crack.
The sound was sickening. It was the sound of bone giving way. In any bar fight in history, that punch would have been a knockout. It would have put a man in the hospital.
Ty didn't fall. He didn't even blink.
His head snapped to the side from the force of the blow, spitting a spray of blood and saliva onto the floor. Then, slowly, mechanically, he turned his head back to face Roy. He grinned. His teeth were coated in red, but there was no pain in his eyes. There was nothing in his eyes but the void.
Roy took a half-step back, his face draining of color. He looked at his own fist, then at the monster standing in front of him.
"Oh boy," Roy muttered, his voice tight. "He's on that shit again. He's dusting."
"Out of my way!" Ty roared.
He threw a wild haymaker. Roy dodged it, but in the process, his elbow clipped his own table. The half-finished salad and the bottle of Italian dressing spun off the edge and shattered on the floor, coating the linoleum in slick oil and vinegar.
Ty scrambled past him, scrabbling over the tables like a rabid animal, his eyes locked on Pearl.
"Come here, little girl!" Ty slobbered, climbing over the booth seats. "I'm gonna twist your head off!"
Behind the counter, Pearl dropped the glass she was holding. It shattered. She backed up against the prep station, bringing her hands up to her mouth.
"Help!" Pearl cried out, her voice pitching up into a perfect frequency of distress. "Marcus! Please!"
Eira stood by table four, watching the scene unfold. She did not move to help. She simply crossed her arms, her expression one of utter disdain, as if she were watching a particularly ugly rat scurry across the floor. She looked at Marcus, raised an eyebrow, and waited.
Marcus was already moving.
"Stay back, Pearl!" Marcus shouted.
He vaulted the grill station, his boots hitting the floor with a heavy thud. He sprinted toward the end of the counter, intending to intercept Ty before the man could reach the gap. Marcus was fast. He had training. He had adrenaline.
He rounded the corner, planting his left foot to pivot and tackle Ty.
His boot heel hit the puddle of Italian dressing that Roy had knocked over.
Friction vanished.
Marcus's legs went out from under him as if he had stepped on black ice. He didn't just fall. He wiped out. His arms flailed, grasping at empty air, and his hip slammed into the hard tile floor with a bone-jarring impact that knocked the wind out of his lungs.
"Damn it!" Marcus wheezed, scrambling to get his knees under him, sliding in the oil.
The delay was fatal. It gave Ty the three seconds he needed.
Ty reached the counter. He didn't run around it. He didn't stop. He launched himself into the air, diving headfirst over the mahogany surface like a torpedo.
"Gotcha!" Ty screamed, his hands outstretched, fingers hooked into claws ready to tear.
He crashed down behind the counter, landing directly on top of Pearl.
The customers screamed. Liri gasped, covering her mouth with a hand to hide the smirk threatening to break through. Big Roy shouted something unintelligible and started rushing forward.
Ty's weight slammed Pearl into the floor. He was heavy, sweaty, and fueled by a drug that turned off his pain receptors. He landed with a wet thud, pinning the small Glimmuck beneath him.
"I got you now!" Ty grunted, forcing his forearm down toward her throat.
For one second, there was chaos.
Then, there was a sound that nobody in the diner would ever forget.
It wasn't a scream of fear from the girl.
It was a scream of agony from the man.
"AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!"
The sound was high, thin, and absolutely blood-curdling. It was the sound of a vocal cord shredding itself in response to a nervous system overload.
Ty Miller stiffened. His back arched violently, creating a perfect inverted U-shape. His eyes, already wide, seemed to bulge out of his skull as if pressured from the inside.
Beneath him, obscured by the narrow space behind the counter, Pearl had stopped acting for exactly two tenths of a second.
She had not panicked. She had not struggled against his strength, because compared to her density, Ty Miller was made of wet cardboard. When he landed on her, spreading his legs to straddle her, he had unwittingly placed himself in the optimal geometric position for the maneuver she had practiced in the kitchen.
Pearl had shifted her hips, creating a pocket of space. She had surged upward, burying her face into his jeans. And she had clamped down.
She didn't just bite. She engaged the masseter muscles of a Glimmuck—muscles designed to chew through the tough, fibrous roots of the High Vale flora. She locked onto the zipper, the denim, and the sensitive anatomy beneath it, and she applied three hundred pounds of pressure per square inch.
She didn't tear. She crushed.
Ty's scream went on for a solid ten seconds, changing pitch from a roar to a gurgling sob. He collapsed sideways, rolling off Pearl and curling into the tightest fetal position humanly possible. His hands clamped over his crotch, his knees drawn up to his chest, his face turning a terrifying shade of purple.
Pearl immediately scrambled away from him, crab-walking backward until her back hit the refrigerator. She let out a terrified wail, her hands shaking as she pointed at the writhing man.
"He tried to kill me!" Pearl sobbed, tears instantly welling in her blue-and-gold eyes. "He jumped on me! I... I just panicked! I tried to push him off!"
Marcus finally managed to scramble to his feet, ignoring the oil soaking his jeans. He rushed over, grabbing a rolling pin from the counter, ready to beat Ty off of her.
He stopped.
Ty was making sounds like a dying whale. He was rocking back and forth, foaming slightly at the mouth. He was completely incapacitated.
Marcus looked at Ty. Then he looked at Pearl.
Pearl looked back at him. Her face was a mask of trauma for the audience, but her eyes were clear and sharp. She gave Marcus the tiniest, almost imperceptible wink.
"Get back!" Marcus shouted to the room, playing his part. He stood over Pearl, brandishing the rolling pin. "Someone call the Sheriff! Now!"
Big Roy leaned over the counter, his face pale. He looked at Ty, who was now vomiting on the floor from the sheer intensity of the pain.
"Good lord," Roy whispered. "What happened? Did he have a seizure?"
"He attacked her," Marcus said, his voice breathless. He reached down and helped Pearl up. She buried her face in his chest, sobbing loudly. "He jumped on her and... I think he hurt himself. Maybe he hit the edge of the counter on the way down."
Liri sashayed over, looking down at Ty with clinical fascination. She nudged the sobbing man with the toe of her boot.
"Looks painful," Liri said, her voice dripping with false sympathy. "The drugs must have worn off quickly. Poor man."
Eira remained by table four. She picked up a napkin and wiped a speck of dust from the table, completely unbothered by the screaming man on the floor.
"How tragic," Eira said, her voice carrying clearly through the silent diner. "It appears karma has a swift delivery service in Texas. Perhaps next time, he will not attempt to assault a defenseless maiden."
The door opened again, and this time the Sheriff walked in, hand on his holster, looking around at the devastation. He saw the shattered salad dressing, he saw Marcus holding a rolling pin, he saw the crying girl, and he saw Ty Miller curled on the floor, weeping and clutching his groin.
"What in the hell is going on here?" the Sheriff demanded.
Marcus hugged Pearl tighter, shielding her face from the lawman.
"Self-defense, Sheriff," Marcus said, his voice grim. "Just self-defense."