The Foul Mouth and the Headless Hunny (The King Henry Tapes)

by Raley, Richard

  “What do you think, King Henry?” Ceinwyn turned to me, lab-coat twirling around her black dress.

  “I think I know how to play YouTube videos,” I pointed out my qualifications, “oh, and I can download porn from BitTorrent.”

  Ceinwyn beamed at the deflection, but Papa Welf was less pleased with me. “Have you still not forgiven me? Are you still so hurt that you torment me with this idiot, crude boy being in here, knowing the wonders we work, when even my own son won’t learn of this project until he’s graduated?”

  “That was a lot of ammo you just handed over free of charge, Freddy,” I noted aloud.

  Ceinwyn turned back around to give Papa Welf some of her ageless eyes. “No, I’ve never forgiven you.”

  “Haven’t I made right with this?” Papa Welf asked.

  I got some really weird vibes. “You two didn’t fuck, did you? Cuz . . . I might throw up. Wonder if it will freeze before it hits the floor . . .”

  Ceinwyn barked a laugh. “I’d join you if that was true.”

  Boris put a hand on Papa Welf’s arm to keep him from lashing back. He whispered something that had to do with investments and money. Papa Welf nodded in understanding. “This is the answer you’ve wanted,” he calmly addressed Ceinwyn. “Why are you fighting it?”

  “It’s dangerous,” Ceinwyn whispered, “in the wrong hands it could be more than dangerous.”

  “You don’t trust me then? Is that it? Or Boris? Or Moira? Or Jane?”

  Ceinwyn’s smile became brittle. “I trust King Henry more than the four of you combined.”

  Papa Welf’s face got dark. Darker than I’d ever seen on his son, and Heinrich Welf and King Henry Price had done some pretty fucked up stuff to each other over the years. “Just because of what happened with Amis—”

  “Don’t you dare!” Ceinwyn snapped so loud you could almost imagine a miniature sonic boom among those miniature skyscrapers. First time I’d ever heard her scream like that. Most emotion I’ve ever seen from Ceinwyn . . . other than when I agreed to let her back my shop maybe.

  Ceinwyn advanced on Papa Welf. He backed up to a wall, his face white. “I shouldn’t have tried to—”

  Ceinwyn’s ageless blue eyes tore into him like invisible daggers. “Don’t you ever bring that up to try to manipulate me, Frederick, or I will tear through this room like a hurricane! I will rip your pretty computers into little confetti pieces and I will physically dip you in an anima-bath so you blister on every inch!”

  “I’m sorry!” Frederick apologized, cringing. “I just . . . I believe in this project.”

  “Belief isn’t required, only acknowledgement. Remember who I am and remember who you are, von Welf,” Ceinwyn scolded him in an angry whisper.

  “I do . . .”

  With a heaving sigh, Ceinwyn finally turned back to Boris. “I want more security.”

  I have the weirdest boner right now.

  Boris spread his hands. “I will listen to your suggestions of course.”

  Papa Welf went about getting himself back together, but we all ignored him. His reaction reminded me of someone surviving a wild animal attack.

  “Good,” Ceinwyn said, calming down some more, “I’ll have a list for you before the new school year.”

  “Is that your only condition to signing off?”

  Ceinwyn studied the monoliths. Dark and glowing. What would they unlock? What new world would they create with their coming? “What do you think, King Henry?”

  “I don’t have a fucking clue what it’s supposed to do.”

  Papa Welf made a noise, but Boris motioned for silence. “We mean to crack the Ratio of Anima Dispersion.”

  “Like . . . how ain’t it already cracked?”

  “Not the numbers themselves, but where they’ll show up in the human population,” Boris corrected my thinking. “Mathematical formula and prediction on a scale even the number crunchers at the Institution can’t reach. We believe that, within a decade, this room will give us precognition on which child will be a mancer and which child will be mundane.”

  Fuck me.

  “No more Recruiters?”

  “They’ll still be needed to convince the children,” Papa Welf quickly placated, sensing a point of contention now that Ceinwyn’s outburst had calibrated him. “Project Cassandra will be able to find them, but the rest will be up to someone else.”

  “Project Cassandra,” I thought aloud. “No one ever listened to that bitch.”

  “Listening will be up to the Recruiters,” Boris agreed, still fluffing Ceinwyn’s ego.

  If she has one . . . sure as fuck has sore points I didn’t know about.

  “Okay, but why?” I asked. “Already got more kids than you know what to do with.”

  Boris mapped his logic on the issue. “Millions of dollars are wasted every year sending Recruiters into dangerous situations, all in the hope of finding children with the gift. Some of them don’t return and even of those who do, imagine if their time was better spent. With Cassandra, we will know where to surgically send those Recruiters; it will save time, money, and lives. It will also let us focus on Ultras. Imagine two Ultra classes at the Institution a year, not one, and think of the quality effect that will have on each graduating class.”

  My stomach twisted into a knot. “More Ultras . . . but less Intras? You’ll predict it all, but keep the same four-hundred students?”

  Ceinwyn smile grew on her face, like she was proud of my response. “Exactly my problem with this money sink, King Henry.”

  “You don’t have the votes,” Papa Welf snapped like it was an old argument among many old arguments.

  “Your wife doesn’t help,” Ceinwyn shot back.

  Papa Welf glanced at his thousand dollar shoes. “I don’t speak for Moira. But she’s right to fear what your wish would unleash and you know it.”

  All three adults looked to me for my answer.

  I thought about it.

  “Yeah, guess it could help . . . long as the right person is listening.”

  Long as someone can save the mancers you pass on by.

  [CLICK]

  Why try to cure Anima Madness when it’s simpler to pick and save those you want?

  I hate civilization, I really do.

  Always picks the status quo . . . even if the status quo will make the world go boom.

  Civilization . . . if it didn’t have decent Mexican food, I’d bring the whole thing crashing down.

  “So you’re from California?” one of the farmboys finally worked up the courage to ask.

  The farm made me feel like I’d traveled back in time. Gravel road, farmhouse, wooden fence, overalls, there was even a chicken coop and a barn with animals inside it. I thought all farms were corporate owned horror shows by now? What’s with this family shit?

  “Yeah, California,” I carefully said. Ceinwyn told me to be circumspect, enigmatic, and to ‘generally keep your mouth shut.’ I was to observe for my first day as a Recruiter intern, not to play a part in it unless ordered to. Silent but deadly . . . so not me. I was more of a room-clearing, loud rip than anything else.

  What kind of fart are you, kiddies?

  Guess they don’t have internet tests for that one . . . heh.

  “What’s the ocean like?” one of the other farmboys asked a follow up.

  “Don’t know. Lived in the middle of the state, farmland and shit.”

  “Never even been on a trip?”

  “Nah. Never even been on a trip.”

  Before this one.

  Up to my neck in Kansas farmboy questions while Pocket and Jesus are macking on bikini beach hunnies. Sledding the Mound has to be better than this shit!

  “Marybelle’s school at the same place you from?” the eldest asked. Only way to tell the boys apart was body size. They were all the same: skinny, blond, dark eyed, with skin so tanned and already leathery it could stop a knife. His father was inside with Ceinwyn . . . his skin could stop bullets.

  Ain�
��t the farm life supposed to be the ideal this country was founded upon? Guess them lies get in early when it’s the slave owners writing all the laws. Mostly, I figured that if it was fun and great to be a farmer then more people would do it. Not exactly an answer you see on them five-year-old What You Want to Be When You Grow Up tests, is it?

  Nah. Movie star. Astronaut. Cop. Firefighter. Nurse. Doctor. Sports star. Farming ain’t the stuff of dreams. Just the stuff of necessity.

  I finally answered the question. This mysterious, barely dishing out the knowledge stuff was easier than I thought it would be. Made Ceinwyn’s whole spiel to get me at the place a whole lot less impressive. Except for the whole walking through a locked door, miracle of anima manipulation part. “School’s up in the mountains.”

  “Like a hunting cabin?” one of the younger ones asked. Guessing he was the ‘odd’ one who liked to shoot critters with his pellet-gun just a bit too much.

  “Like a college, just up in the mountains. Everything you could want of city life, none of the bad parts. I like it.”

  Here I am on the opposite side. It was weird. I’ll always fight authority and The Way Things Should Be, but the Asylum as a lifestyle had won me over. Nice place to live as far as places go. Less of the shithole than all the rest. I didn’t give my opinion to win points with Ceinwyn. I gave my opinion because that’s how I felt. Say this is a tape she gives to you recruits . . . then I have to say: go to the Asylum. Not just because you’ll go crazy without it. But cuz it’s a better experience in your life than normal high school.

  What you missing out on? Cheerleaders using you for homework copying? Jocks calling you a lard-ass or gay or retard or freak-zone? Teachers who don’t give a shit, who only think of you as a name on a list of paper?

  Only ones who like high school are the assholes in life.

  Asylum’s better. Not perfect. Still got the Three Queens and their like, but it’s a whole lot better than high school. So go to the Asylum, kiddies.

  It’s King Henry Price approved.

  Ceinwyn popped out of the screen door of the farmhouse and motioned for me to come inside. She waited until I was close enough to whisper, “Be honest, just don’t be King Henry honest.”

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  “This is serious,” she reminded me. “This is a life saved every time we do this.”

  No pressure, King Henry.

  “She backing out?”

  “Just nervous.”

  I stepped through the screen door, finding some more false idealism in the way of a kitchen table sitting on hardwood floors, with whitewashed walls surrounding it, cupboards and pantries, an old stove and oven. Fuck me, they don’t have a microwave. No dishwasher either. Even Shithole Price had a dishwasher.

  The parents were in their late thirties, Pa Farmer as tough and tanned as his boys had advertised, Ma Farmer in a blue flower print dress fifty years out of style, her hair combed back into a quick braid.

  Marybelle was fourteen, auburn haired, in a yellow dress with small white dots across it. She kept her eyes respectfully on the table, but peeked up now and again to steal glances at Ceinwyn and me.

  Marybelle was also one of the lucky ones. Ceinwyn had her pegged as an Ultra Floromancer. Something about her jams and jellies being prized in the whole state of Kansas. There was a write-up on her being a prodigy in a few local papers. Asylum detective wizards caught it a couple years ago and out came some Recruiters to check up on her. Now Ceinwyn was making the final pitch. Soothing fears and settling nerves. Telling the girl and her parents that everything was okay.

  With my help.

  What could go wrong?

  Nothing went wrong, you assholes.

  Have some respect for my ability to manipulate people, will you? I’m only a blundering dumbass half the time. Other half, I’m a maniacal genius doing the impossible.

  The job with Marybelle needed neither of my extremes.

  Just me sitting at that kitchen table and playing the prop.

  Good student.

  Well . . . bad-case-turned-top-student is more accurate. Might get the grades, but I ain’t ever been good, have I? Ain’t good for nothing. What my dad used to bellow when he whipped me with the belt. Good for nothing. That’s me. You good for nothing little shit, why can’t you behave? Why you got to be so bad all the time? Why can’t you mind your manners? WHY YOU MAKE ME BEAT ON YOU?

  Cuz I’m a geomancer, Dad. I don’t bend. Even as a kid. Even when you whipped me. Even when you beat on me. Even when I’m supposed to be someone else to help Ceinwyn save a life.

  Don’t lie to you, do I, kiddos?

  Think I lied to Marybelle?

  Nah. Told some truth. Some good truth.

  Didn’t talk to Marybelle, Ceinwyn had that half of the equation, talked to her parents. Pa and Ma Farmer were concerned about losing their daughter to a whole different world for eleven months out of the year. They’d seen brochures, Ceinwyn and the other Recruiters had done the whole spiel about job placement outside of the school following graduation, all that shit.

  So what could I say to get through to them?

  I guess you could call it my tape before there was even any of these tapes. My audition. It went something like this: “I’m not a guy for fancy words or sales pitches, so I’ll just tell you my story.

  “My name is King Henry Price. Mom was already a little crazy when she named me and it got worse over the years . . .”

  Session 138

  “So now what?” I asked once we were back in the elevator and away from Eresha the raving lunatic.

  The Divine had not taken kindly to the thought of necromancers not only stealing, but in her words ‘polluting’ her shells. Only thing freakier than Eresha throwing a fit was how calm her handmaidens took the scene, like it happened often. There’s something unnerving about finding out a ‘god’ is a spoiled child. An eight-foot-tall, hulking beast of a spoiled child. She’d wrecked the casket lift device.

  With her bare hands.

  I asked Annie about the whole gender/sex thing in reference to the shell switching. Apparently, since Eresha’s name is feminine and her prime shell is feminine—the one I saw in the Divine Chamber, and Fun Fact: rumor has it the body used to belong to Helen of Troy—I’m supposed to use feminine pronouns regarding the Divine.

  Even if she currently has a bigger cock than I do.

  “It’s morning,” Annie said. She leaned back against the elevator wall, tapping her foot to the elevator music. Second Fun Fact: vampire elevator music is no better than human elevator music.

  “So?”

  “So the vampiric world is about to go to sleep. We won’t be able to question anyone until the sun comes down.”

  “Who are we even questioning? Local necromancers?”

  “I’ll get a list of them from our databases, but I think it’s unlikely they’re locals.”

  “You have a database?”

  She snorted at my naivety, still tapping away to the smooth jazz tunes. “You don’t think we keep track of every mancer on the planet?”

  Didn’t like the idea of that. Made me fire a shot. “Still don’t know who the Curator is.”

  Annie B’s foot stopped moving. “I lost friends in that massacre.”

  “You have friends?”

  Something sad grew immediately in her eyes. “Perhaps you’re right. Vampires don’t have friends . . . we have mutual understandings for our own protection, we have those we dominate, and we have those who dominate us in turn.”

  I thought about it. “Your species is migratory, it hunts alone, and it reproduces without sex . . . so I suppose you don’t really need communal bonds like us humans do. Tell ya the truth: I’d kinda prefer life your way sometimes. Especially around the holidays.”

  A wan smile grew to try to cover her sadness. “It is lonely at the top of the food chain.”

  The elevator opened and some vampire in a business suit got in with us.

  We waited a few floors unt
il he exited, then continued. “How dangerous is he, King Henry? The Curator?”

  “He wants to hurt the world . . . all of the world,” I said, “Vamp, Were, mancer, normal humans, all of us. You can see it in his eyes.” Cut cut cut, I remembered. “I’m more scared of him than I am of you.”

  “How sweet,” she mocked. “Do you need another punch to the face to remind you of my ability?”

  “I meant vampires as a whole. Curator’s worse, he’s broken. You Vamps ain’t human and I don’t agree with what you do to us—one day I might try to kill this Moshi prick, fair warning—but the Curator . . . someone needs to put him down fast.”

  Monsters, monsters all around.

  You don’t lack for problems, do you Planet Earth?

  For most of my life, I’ve thought of myself as a pessimist. Just a cynical, Everything Is Shit pessimist. And I still do think there’s heaps of shit out there . . . but after the last year, I’m starting to think I’m really an optimist down deep. Or I’m just delusional. Vamps, Paine, Vega, Meteyos, Anima Madness. Some fucked up shit.

  But down deep I believe I can fix it all.

  Or at least break it enough so it works better.

  “If not local necromancers, then who are we looking into?” I asked.

  “Body brokers,” she said.

  I thought about these two words going together. “I’d like to kick these people in the balls if at all possible.”

  “We’ll see. But for now we need to sleep, so we’re going to my condo on the third floor.”

  Annie B has a condo?

  Annie B can’t have a condo . . . that means Annie B has a home, and a bed to sleep in and a refrigerator with food in it and a toilet to shit in.

  “I promise I won’t bite you when we get alone,” she mocked some more.

  I was exhausted. I’d been up for about twenty-four hours. I’d been punched plenty and even knocked out in that time frame. I could use the shut eye. Just . . . “If you touch me at all when I’m sleeping, I’ll lash out with deadly force, no halfsies.”

  The elevator opened to a reception area. Another vampire receptionist sat in a bare room with only a few couches for company. Without a word, some button was pressed and yet another door opened for us to walk through into a hallway . . . of doors. For body snatchers, they sure do like their personal space.