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

by Raley, Richard

  The hallway looked exactly like a hallway in a high rise apartment building, only it was underground instead.

  “You think you’re sleeping in my bed do you?” she downright scolded me. “You lost that chance hours ago.”

  “Might I point out that you were ready to fuck me on the floor of the Great Bank far sooner than your ‘hours ago’?”

  “I’ve since remembered I’m furious with you for being attached to the little blond princess.”

  “The whiplash from you . . . you’re worse than an ex-girlfriend. You’re like a living Taylor Swift song.”

  “You could sleep in my bed, I suppose . . . but only with your clothes on.”

  “That’s such an obvious trap that a little fishman just popped into existence on my shoulder to warn me about it.”

  Annie B found a door among the many doors, dug out a keycard, and opened it. “There’s the couch then.”

  Annie B has a couch . . .

  Weird.

  [CLICK]

  I don’t think I expected anything from the place. The whole concept was too weird. But even if I had managed to expect something . . . this wouldn’t have been it.

  It was homey.

  Warm even.

  There should’ve been a dog.

  And children . . .

  I think if I had expected anything, I would have expected a place like Ceinwyn’s home at the Asylum. You might call it a home, but it wasn’t. It was a rest stop she used between trips. No food in the refrigerator outside of energy drinks stacked one on top of the other. Bed barely used and guest rooms that were lifeless zombies just there because they’re supposed to be there. No form of entertainment or sign of activities taking place if you discounted the coffee maker.

  Here . . .

  A decked out kitchen, pots and pans and utensils hanging from the walls, a full blown spice rack above an island bar. Built in fryer and grill in addition to the usual stove, oven, and microwave. There was a wine rack and a full liquor cabinet. Given how much it took Annie B to get drunk, she probably went through booze like water.

  The living room had a full couch that curved along its length, big and soft enough for three or four people to stretch out on. She had a massive TV, underneath it a cornucopia of electronics and gaming consoles. The walls were covered in old posters, classic stuff from the 60s that were collectables now, but—given her age—she might have actually been at the concerts. Bay Area during the counter-culture revolution . . . last time Vamps and mancers squared off against each other.

  Peace, love, and togetherness . . . yeah fucking right.

  The condo was . . . cool.

  “This is your condo?” I asked, just to be sure.

  “Not what you expected?”

  I clicked the TV on. It was on ESPN. Fuck me . . . Annie B’s the girlfriend every guy dreams of having. If only there wasn’t the whole eating people thing.

  Such a boner killer.

  And my little blond princess, I reminded myself, a smile coming to my face just thinking about what Val might be up to at the moment.

  You whipped bad, son!

  Annie B stood in the middle of the room, scowling at me.

  “What?” I asked her.

  “I can tell when you’re thinking about her and it’s nauseating,” she said heatedly before disappearing into another part of the condo.

  I followed after a few seconds. Or at least used following as an excuse to sneak around and see a few more rooms. Not one of them was a sex dungeon. I am disappoint, son.

  I found a bathroom and used it . . . cuz, ya got to go when you got to go—even when a blood creature might be lurking outside the door. Number Two stops for no one, not even Gandalf at his most You-Shall-Not-Pass.

  Still no sign of Annie B after I was finished, so more snooping. Exercise room. Boring. Office/Library. Now here was some interesting stuff. She had a bunch of antique books. Again, I’m pretty sure she was around to buy them herself. Not just classics, genre shit too. H.G. Wells. Jules Verne. Magazines too . . . ancient copies of Weird Tales in plastic containers. First edition Dune; Jethro Smith would’ve been jealous, since that was his favorite book.

  On a wall were paintings. Art History wasn’t a huge part of our History class, but we did spend some time on it at the Asylum. One thing about six-day-a-week schooling is that you have plenty of time for useless bullshit. I guessed based on the styles that the paintings were spaced out about every twenty-five years.

  Annie B throughout the ages.

  There was a Monet . . . a Picasso.

  But one was even more interesting.

  It was a nude of Anne Boleyn . . . the same Anne Boleyn we have other paintings of in museums, just not so . . . nude. Welp . . . so much for getting to pretend she’s just insane and not a historical figure. She stretched out on a table, a skinned wolf rug beneath her. It was profile, showing a single velvet eye that just barely glanced at the viewer—

  “Excuse me? Are you spying for Ceinwyn now?” Annie B asked from behind me.

  I turned around.

  Oh hell.

  She had on a see-through nightie and lace underwear that . . . oh hell.

  She smirked over my reaction, sauntering into the room. “Why look at dirty pictures when you can have the real thing?”

  I was so embarrassed that I might have actually blushed for once in my life, but all my blood was busy with another body part. “Nice . . . paintings.”

  Boobies! my subconscious screamed. Round, honking papbags! Tig Ol’ Bitties! Honka, honka, honka!

  Annie B stopped next to me, studying the nude in turn. I’m proud to say I didn’t ogle like I did Inanina. Mostly because if my erection got any harder my dick might snap itself in half. Or it would start fucking my own bellybutton.

  “It was for your namesake’s birthday,” she said, “when I was seducing him away from his queen. Before we were married. Before my life revolved around my birthing canal and Inanina’s insistence that I stillbirth or abort over and over.

  “It was only for his eyes. I sent the painting to him along with a basket. The instructions made it clear he was to open neither until he was alone. When he did, he found this and the head of the painter, so he would know my flesh was his and his alone to covet.”

  Poor fucker didn’t have a chance.

  “He kept it even after he cut my head off,” Annie B continued. She stepped in front of me to draw a finger along the painting’s frame. It just happened to give me a nice view of the lace underwear that was doing such a horrible job covering the fullness of her curves. Her back was even attractive, strong muscles under pale skin, covered by the flimsiest of cloth. “He kept it in a hidden room where he would go and study it for hours at a time, never forgiving my betrayal.

  “One night, when he was thick from wine and in pain from his gout, I returned to him. He was old and crumbling, but I was untouched by time. I used him, cursed him, fed from him. I handled a king like he was a helpless child . . . and before I left, I took back my painting. He believed it to be nothing but a dream when he awoke. Yet . . . he always doubted.”

  She turned back towards me, revealing her front half. The way the nightie gathered against her nipples, the way it drifted away from her stomach and hips thanks to the size of her breasts. All that naked skin at her neck. No choker here. Just bare neck, long and curving, split by a straight scar where she’d never healed the sword strike that had ended her ‘life.’

  “Would you like me to commission a painting for you, King Henry?” she asked.

  Mancy, but it was an ultimate moment of seduction the likes of which I’d never seen before. Not bold like I knew she really was, but placating, soft, innocent, and especially, most importantly: honest. In her home, in her sanctuary, a shockingly warm, kind sanctuary for a vampire . . . not demanding or forcing me, but offering me. Those velvet eyes were almost shy as she dipped her head to only glance at me through thick black eyelashes.

  It was . . . it made a fellow
doubt everything. Was this Annie? Was this an act? Was the powerful baroness who threw her body around to get a job done the act? Could the same being that ate her own kind, that sucked blood from humans who were more bred cattle than really human, that . . . punched me and kidnapped me . . .

  How did all that square with this in front of me? This wasn’t a monster’s lair. This was personal and . . . she cooked, she read, she liked music. She played video games of all things.

  I’d seen glimpses of this before. When she thought she was going to die. When she feared the Divines. Yet here she was not afraid, willing to connect, willing to give—willing to be as human as her shell and not the monster inside of it. Desperately hoping I’d help her try.

  Or it was all a lie.

  All seduction.

  I never know with Anne.

  Would never know with Anne.

  That’s part of the seduction.

  Twirling on itself all the way down into those velvet eyes.

  I was with Val. That saved me from finding out. “Just need the couch, ma’am,” I managed to croak out.

  Annie B learned forward, smelling me. Anywhere else, at any other time, it would have been threatening enough for me to push her away. Not here. “You always smell like dirt, tilled dirt, so rich that anything could find life in it.”

  “Just the couch,” I croaked some more.

  “One day,” she whispered into my ear, “your little blond princess is going to break your heart. That night you’ll find me in your bed, waiting to ease your pain, and you won’t be able to resist finding out how monstrous we both can be together. Then, the next morning . . . you’ll realize that even monsters feel, even monsters care, even monsters live.”

  [CLICK]

  The first five body brokers were huge busts.

  Three were Vamps, two were humans.

  They all grossed me out.

  They didn’t deal solely in bodies, but also in blood, donors, sexual partners, and narcotics strong enough to give a vampire a high—a vampire or an elephant. From the way they were explained, the drugs could kill a horse and humans spontaneously combust on usage.

  Not really.

  Only my girlfriend makes people do that.

  Thoughts of Val got me through a fitful bit of sleeping on Annie B’s couch. That little seduction had been worse than the twins. Annie B’s act had been just innocent enough and just naughty enough to hit bull’s-eye on heartstrings I hadn’t realized existed inside of me.

  Vampires were a headfuck in a way I hadn’t expected. Weird and scary, yes, but . . .

  Your real problem, Price, is that you’ve found unexpected complexity and unexpected evil at the exact same time. Both can be processed separately, but together you start choking on all that Grade Triple A bullshit.

  I called Val as soon as I woke up; just hoping to hear her voice, hoping for some extra resolve. I’m about the most willful person I’ve met, but even I have limits. I got feelings too! And an erection that hard really feels uncomfortable against jeans. If only there was something close by, naked and willing, to make it go away . . .

  I got Val’s voicemail. It was a personal message from Val and it’s kind of pathetic, but even hearing the recording did help. Next up was Auntie Badass herself, but she too had her phone off. Guess that meant the warned about, important Recruiter trip was on and both my gals were on a plane to Wherever-the-Fuck-Istan.

  I put my phone away and faced the day . . . still alone. I decided it needed to be my last day in Los Angeles. I couldn’t take another night of Annie B fucking with my buttons over and over. Hot. Cold. Pissy. Friendly.

  I’ve met more mellow pregnant women.

  And it wasn’t mine! I have a genetic test to prove it!

  . . . What?

  The first five body brokers were huge busts.

  Three were Vamps, two were humans.

  Two were women, three were men.

  All were equally assholes.

  “I thought it was nice of her to give you all those shell crafting tips,” I said as we returned to our car. The car was a Porsche. A fucking Porsche 356 Speedster. Annie collects cars too. I wasn’t allowed to drive it.

  My curse continues.

  “Shut up,” she growled at me.

  “Especially the part about rejuvenating your used up, moldy vagina,” I kept going, sliding into the passenger seat.

  “I’ve killed for less,” Annie hissed, hands white on the steering wheel.

  “Why leave her alive then? Just a gentlewoman, right? I recall you killing the shit out of them the last time we were together.”

  “Because if someone important didn’t get their blood shipment it would fall onto Nii-Vah to reimburse them and apologize . . . and then I’d get my ass chewed out.”

  “Divines apologize?”

  “Even the lowest gentle could one day be a Duke with an embassy under her sway. In our society, it’s best to be polite if you don’t have immunity or absolute power over a situation. With the Divines, the problems arise from the favorite of another Divine being jilted. Not even the Divines themselves know who is the strongest among the thirteen. Better to not put it to a test by measuring blows.”

  Made sense. “Ya know, if they could get their acts together, they actually would rule the world instead of just kinda-sorta running the world.”

  Annie B started the engine. She smirked across the interior at me. “We do rule the world.”

  “Then why the peace treaties? All the fights with mancers throughout history? Weres, all that shit?”

  “Because occasionally mancer consent to our rule is revoked if we go too far. Neither of our kinds can defeat each other totally. It’s a balance point, a carefully worked at balance point. Vampires are left to our games in the shadows of human society, Elementalists are unmolested in their pursuits with anima, while Weres are tolerated at the edges of the law. Checks and balances, just like your country’s founders designed.”

  Whether she was just making a comment on the United States constitution or making a deeper point about how the country started, I wasn’t sure. “Delicate balances . . . I’m so good with those.”

  Annie B drove the car away from our last stop, heading out into Los Angeles traffic again. Which was exactly as fun as one expected it to be. “It bothers you, now that you’ve seen us at our most manipulative and our most cruel.”

  “It does,” I admitted. Annie B, always good at picking out your thoughts and throwing them back at you.

  “It’s worked for thousands of years . . . mostly.”

  “Slavery—in previously brought up constitution—worked really well for about a hundred years too, until it didn’t.”

  “The two times we’ve abandoned the equilibrium completely, the world experienced the Dark Ages and the First World War . . . would you really risk even worse just to end Moshi’s life, King Henry? To free a subspecies of humanity that doesn’t even possess enough intelligence to know it’s been saved? How many of your allies will you see dead for it? Ceinwyn? Your little blond princess?”

  “The price of civilization,” I whispered.

  “You made your own peace with Vega, how’s this different?”

  Such a philosophical turn from Annie B. I was starting to see what she was trying to do to me. It didn’t ease my thoughts any, but I saw it. Showing me how horrible Vamps are all night long then offering refuge in her arms at daybreak. Like I was some scared little boy that only needed some prime sex to make life uncomplicated.

  “It’s not different,” I eventually said. But that didn’t mean I was right the first time around. Peace with Vega had been bitter. If JoJo had given me the least bit of a sign that she actually wanted to be saved, I’d have risked it all then. But she hadn’t and I hadn’t.

  Sometimes the girl doesn’t need to be saved.

  Sometimes you don’t get to be the hero, just the fucktard.

  “Six bodies worth as much as you say these are worth can’t just disappear,” I sai
d, turning everything back to business. “The Great Bank security is too good; it would’ve taken too many people to accomplish this, even with a Bonegrinder walking the bodies out.” It had to be a Bonegrinder, the necromancer title for Ultras. Intras only dealt with spirits mostly. Bonegrinders played with bodies and Constructs, all the repulsive stuff. “Someone knows something.”

  Annie B turned onto the freeway. Also as enjoyable as you’d expect. At least the radio player was belting out Classic Rock. “We’ve crossed off the official sources doing something under the table, now we turn our eyes on the black market.”

  “And who runs the black market?”

  “A Were does, of course. Weren’t you listening to my whole plea for civilization?” she teased me.

  She was in a good mood, even given her inability to lash out over the used up vagina remark from the body broker. Annie had been in a good mood since she’d woken up. I made myself breakfast and she arrived to steal half for herself. Her true body didn’t need food, but her shell liked the extra fuel to work with.

  It’s surprisingly hard to complain about a woman stealing food from you when she’s in a see-through nightie. “Breakfast?” she’d smiled, pecking me on a cheek of all things and disappearing with half the scrambled eggs and all of the bacon.

  At least she left the sausage . . . left it hanging sad, alone, and unused . . .

  . . . What?

  She appeared again, ten minutes later while I was in the middle of wolfing down what I could before she stole any more. She had a robe now. Somehow it made her more desirable. It covered her breasts, but the way it was so casually tied shut, like just the softest yank could reveal everything. The way it was too short, stopping mid-thigh to reveal all her legs but hiding what the legs led to.

  I showed some teeth over the show, momentarily fortified by hearing Val’s voicemail. “You gonna play dress-up all night or we getting to work?”

  She hand-washed her dish before opening the dishwasher to slide the plate home. She had to bend over to reach the lowest rack of course, her robe magically sliding up to hint at the lace panties still in place and temping in their presence. “Follow me and find out,” she ordered.