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

by Raley, Richard

  He’s a swimmer . . . guess that’s a good sign that he’s our hydromancer.

  Ceinwyn liked the news as well. “Would you mind if we meet Maxwell? He sounds like a wonderful boy.”

  Momma Lamont was only too happy to show off her pride and joy.

  [CLICK]

  “We had a normal indoor pool at first, but when Maxwell showed such an affinity for the water, well, we knew he could go far if we pushed him and it was decided we’d pull him out of private school, tutor him, and built this complex for him to train in,” Momma Lamont explained as we stepped through a door into a massive room with an equally massive Olympic-sized swimming pool, complete with lane dividers and even a twenty-foot-tall diving structure. About the only thing missing were bleachers for a watching audience to sit in.

  Maxwell wasn’t alone.

  He had a swim coach, a conditioning coach, and a weight trainer all watching his every movement as he butterflied down his lane at a supernatural speed.

  Cuz it is supernatural.

  My feet had a low rumbling to them.

  Bingo.

  “He’s very fast,” Ceinwyn commented in a way that sounded impressed. We exchanged a look behind Momma Lamont’s back. She pointed at my feet. I nodded. I pointed at the back of her neck. She nodded as well.

  “Did you swim?” Momma Lamont asked.

  My ears perked up.

  “I dove,” Ceinwyn said, giving me a wink to let me know she was aware of my interest in her past. “I’m sure there are embarrassing photos in a yearbook somewhere.”

  Maxwell stopped at the edge of the pool, pulling back a pair of goggles to take us in. “It’s practice time, Mom,” he complained.

  Twelve alright.

  Not quite a man, but just starting on the path. Even had a few black whiskers showing on his lip. Kid’s face looked a lot like his mom. Might have a goofy as hell body type, but he would be a pretty boy when testosterone kicked all the way in. Drive the girls crazy. If he ever met one outside of this room.

  “I know, dear,” Momma Lamont said, like she’d done something wrong.

  “I need to concentrate,” Maxwell reminded her.

  “I know, dear.”

  “You can’t keep distracting me.”

  Weird vibe. Like the kid was the grown-up. Guess that’s true in some cases. Us humans like to pretend that being able to make a kid also confers the ability to be a parent . . . but it ain’t true, is it? Parenting is a talent like any other. Some are good, some are bad, some are ready, some are just older children faking being adults.

  Momma Lamont was faking it. Guess marrying in your teens retards your personal growth. Who woulda thunk it?

  “You can blame me for distracting you, not your moms,” I said, letting some of my real personality show through. Maybe a mistake given the way geomancers and hydromancers get along. Mancy knows Asa and me ain’t the best of friends. Then there’s my relationship with the Lady and with Miss Strange . . . not really close to either of those two, but we kinda like each other. And Sabine . . . mmm . . . yummy Sabine.

  Guilt tripped her into agreeing on a bet for our Tri vs Quad Winter War match up. We won and she had to go to Winter Ball with me. They won and I had to follow her around in only a spandex guy-kini for a whole day.

  Good thing for the whole Asylum that we won.

  So hydromancers weren’t all bad as far as I was concerned, but then that might have something to do with the kind of geomancer I was.

  Earthquakes cause tsunamis after all.

  “Who are you?” Maxwell asked. “College scouts?”

  “Sort of,” I agreed. “Why don’t you get out of the pool and we’ll talk?”

  “I thought we agreed we wouldn’t talk to scouts until I was sixteen?” Maxwell asked his mother.

  “They’re from a prestigious boarding school, dear, I’m just being polite in hearing them out,” Momma Lamont assured. “If you want them to leave, then I’ll send them away.”

  Maxwell grinned up at us like a water devil. “One of you get in the pool if you want to talk with me.”

  Ceinwyn raised an eyebrow at him. Interesting, those blue orbs said. “After you, Harry,” she ordered me.

  “You’re the diver, Miss Dale,” I pointed out.

  “I’m also the boss, I insist.”

  Shit.

  “If I do it, you have to give me something in return,” I tried to gum things up.

  However she only nodded. “I’ll stop frustrating your romantic efforts.”

  “Uh . . .”

  “Get in the pool, Harry.”

  [CLICK]

  I was soaked all the way back to the car.

  In the pool or not, Maxwell had enjoyed my discomfort only long enough for Ceinwyn to tell him about the Institution, then he told us to get lost. Momma Lamont apologized to me, but that’s about all the sympathy I received.

  Ceinwyn sure as hell didn’t give me any.

  She wore the expression of a battle commander plotting her next campaign.

  “Hydromancer?” I asked.

  “Hydromancer,” she agreed, “Ultra to already be using the Mancy for a competitive edge.”

  “Well, ain’t he a little fucking Stranger in a Strange Land.”

  “When did you read that?”

  “Jethro Smith. Always Shakespeare and 60s and 70s Sci-Fi with that guy.”

  Ceinwyn made me strip my wet suit off before I got into the car, wrapped only in a towel and wet underwear. She snapped a picture of me with her phone. “For the Lady,” she explained. “She always likes a good laugh.”

  “I hate you so much right now.”

  “One time I’ll tell you about how I had to be inducted into an Amazonian tribe for a recruit.”

  “Like the rain forest or like Wonder Woman?”

  Her smile got especially large. “I’ll leave that to your imagination.”

  Silence as we took in our success of finding the kid and our failure at him rebuffing us.

  “Please tell me that’s not the end of this,” I eventually said.

  “No, King Henry, that’s not the end. Now, we put on a full-court press.”

  “Right . . . full-court press.”

  “It’s a basketball term,” she explained.

  “I knew that. Wait . . . did you play basketball at the Asylum too?”

  Her smile turned more mysterious than usual. “I’m slightly disappointed that in four years you never thought to find the yearbooks for my time at the school.”

  “I have tried, someone always has them on loan from the Library,” I pointed out, suspicious.

  She nodded at the big lonely mansion. “Sometimes you have to break the rules to stay enigmatic. Other times . . . it’s not mystery that you need, but authority.”

  [CLICK]

  The next morning we set up shop in Ceinwyn’s room at the Heartland Office and she waged her war on Maxwell Lamont and his parents.

  Alfred Pemberton’s analytical genius and information databases supplied the ammunition.

  I sat back and watched, with a packet of stolen beef jerky and even more stolen Dr. Pepper. This was good enough for Pay-Per-View and I didn’t want to miss a moment of the action. Ceinwyn Dale in her element. Not even in the field, but something more, something fiercer. Auntie Badass kicking said ass, taking names, and conquering the shit out of her enemies.

  I don’t know who tapped the Lamont’s phones, but Ceinwyn had a speaker set to listen right in. FBI eat your heart out. At first was nothing but business calls Mr. Lamont made on waking up. Then Ceinwyn picked up her own phone and dialed.

  In came the deluge.

  The mayor of St. Louis. Their congressman. The fucking Governor. Anyone the Lamonts knew at all who was part of the elemental world. All of them calling to give Mr. Lamont congratulations on Maxwell being accepted to the Asylum. On what an honor it was. On what an amazing time he’d have there. On the school being other worldly at giving the student business and political connections
on graduation. And the jobs? Maxwell would never be unemployed! Google, Exxon-Mobile, Goldman Sachs, take your pick!

  Truth mixed with bullshit. Rejuvenation Society for you, kid. Pumping out Slush for the rest of your life. Paid well for it, but just another cog. Just like me and the Guild calling my name.

  Ain’t no escape for us.

  By noon we got a call back from Momma Lamont wanting to make another appointment to further discuss Maxwell’s admission.

  “You scare me sometimes,” I told Ceinwyn.

  She just nodded. “I scare myself too.”

  Session 142

  “My sister is dead.”

  Words I’ve feared for many years, but not from my lips.

  Not my lips.

  Not my sister.

  “My sister is dead and you two . . .” the Divine Inanina paused like she considered cursing us out, but her decorum as a living god kept her from doing something so very human. Instead, she finished inadequately with, “You two are the only witnesses to her death.”

  The scene in the Divine Chamber wasn’t much changed from my first trip to it, even if the circumstances were different. Hot and humid, three Divines in female shells, Annie B kneeling next to me.

  My life on the line over every little word I say.

  Only the third Divine had changed. Eresha was dead after all.

  Made sure of that, didn’t you?

  God damn No-More-Tentacle-Jokes-For-The-Rest-Of-My-Life right I did.

  It was always when my life was on the line that I stepped up my game. Put in a car trunk by Annie B, surrounded by Joannie D, Hector Vega trying to machinegun me, and of course Paine . . . now I could add Eresha’s Lair to the growing list of breakthroughs. Holding anima at bay . . . by literally holding it away from your body.

  So simple.

  Yet still a jump to make.

  Still a jump that left me very changed from the person I was before it.

  What are all these monsters turning me into?

  T-Bone be complaining about character power mudflation and expansion packs right about now.

  Another trick, King Henry? You haven’t even figured out the last one! The Asylum finds out we know all this stuff and we’ll be arrested!

  You’re a big black guy, what you got to fear from prison?

  No WiFi for one!

  I smirked at the imaginary conversation. The imaginary was better than dealing with what was in front of me.

  Better than thinking about two-story-tall blood monsters or armies of Constructs or a naked Coyote as dead as a doorknob with blood dripping out of his ears.

  The heat had Annie B out of it again, so it was all up to me. This time I tried polite and reasonable. I can do that, believe it or not. Well . . . I can fake it if it will help me along. “I apologize for not being powerful enough to save her and for only being able to destroy the Constructs that killed her.”

  I still thought Inanina was full of shit. Also figured she was full of breast milk the way those things gyrated, but we’ll ignore that passing fantasy and keep true to reality.

  Reality: someone with access to the Great Bank security systems smuggled in fifty Constructs and smuggled out fifty-something high price shells belonging to Eresha.

  Reality: Annie B was put on the case by Nii-Vah to find the missing shells.

  Reality: Inanina ordered Annie B to go collect me so I could be questioned about Paine at the same time.

  Possibility: Annie B having to deal with me distracted her from finding the bodies more quickly.

  Reality: Hector Vega, of all people, is sold the shells as patsy.

  Possibility: My being with Annie B turned the Auction of Illicit Wonders from what should have been a rough situation into a complete death trap for everyone involved.

  Reality: The mastermind wanted Eresha to know who was behind this and voice coded the Constructs to be awakened at her saying a specific word.

  Reality: Eresha thought Inanina was behind it.

  Reality: Inanina had some massive crocodile tears going on at the moment.

  Possibility: Inanina played all of us.

  Only I’d broken the plan. The Constructs had been destroyed while Annie B and King Henry Price were still standing.

  Think about how perfect it would have been for Inanina.

  Eresha: Her sister, who she has hated for thousands of years, finally dead.

  Hector Vega: A Were trying to form a outcast nation in Los Angeles, the Vamp City, put in his place and a message sent.

  Annie B: Her most disobedient child eliminated as a failure unable to stop a Divine’s death, her reputation ruined. Obviously, Inanina was right about Anne Boleyn all along.

  King Henry Price: A possible threat to Vampkind removed from the playing board, why trust him about Paine or Meteyos? Kill him to be sure.

  Hard to convict a killer without motive and no one had better motive in all this than Inanina.

  She finally did it, finally killed the human-loving, shell-collecting, twisted abomination that was her sister.

  The only vampire who looked really angry was Nii-Vah. That sweet, friendly Chinese face was a dark thundercloud now, a thing of cold and sharp angles. Outmaneuvered. Outfoxed. A Divine dead on the sheriff’s watch. Not good. Not good at all. Nii-Vah had lost status in this mess.

  The third Divine was a new face, but not a new name. The Divine Pwent had the shell of an African model. Long limbs, dark skin, short hair, cheekbones that were even sharper than Val’s. Only her hair was strange: it was golden blond. She also had on a dress that would’ve fit in among the Roaring 20s, with a short skirt and twines of golden tassel flashing the red light of the Divine Chamber.

  It all said the same thing her golden door at the Great Bank did: money is power and no money is more stable than gold.

  Pwent also didn’t bother to hide the fact that she was enjoying herself and the situation both.

  Pwent, another name Eresha called out before she died.

  Conspiracy between the two Divines?

  But what did Pwent get?

  “What have you to say on your failure, Baroness Boleyn?” Nii-Vah asked.

  Annie B played up the ass kissing too, murmuring out through sweating lips, “I have nothing to say. I only beg your forgiveness and ask for your leniency, Divine Nii-Vah.”

  “Glass for a century,” Inanina hissed.

  Tears splattered the floor at Annie B’s knees. “Anything but glass, please . . .” she begged.

  “Time the fuck out.”

  That was you, dumbass. Diplomatic and contrite lasted a whole minute, congratulations!

  “I mean,” I stumbled, trying to clean up my words as three Divine eyebrows rose at my previous tone, “all you ordered her to do was to find the shells and we found the shells in perfect condition.”

  “My sister died!” Inanina snapped at me, expression angry, but enjoying that it could be angry. Might’ve worn the same expression a time or two myself. “A Divine was murdered and someone will pay for it!”

  “Should probably be the necromancer who killed her, shouldn’t it?” I pointed out, mostly aimed at Nii-Vah, a little at Pwent.

  Pwent laughed. “Cost prohibitive with all the evidence destroyed, my boy. Why bother ourselves with an investigation when we have a fall-girl right in front of us?”

  “Because I’m standing next to her,” I warned.

  “You’re lucky you’re still breathing,” Inanina warned back.

  “Quit fighting with the children, Inanina,” Nii-Vah whispered. The sheriff studied me for a time, before deciding, “Artificer Price is correct. The baroness accomplished the task we set before her. Eresha’s death is not her fault. It is Eresha’s fault and the necromancer’s fault.”

  “True,” Inanina admitted, “and one day I will find out who that necromancer is, but as the ever frugal Pwent has already brought before us: we have no more evidence to trace that necromancer thanks to this anima-infused.”

  “Next time I’l
l leave them alive to come after you,” I growled at her.

  Inanina sneered. “Your threats are hollow. Don’t assume because you caused a room to crumble on my sister’s corpse that you’re a match for us. Only the Divine Nii-Vah’s promise to your Institution guaranteeing your safety keeps me from ripping you in half.”

  I made to make another threat, but Annie B grabbed my hand and shook her head. “I’m alive because of what you did,” she muttered slowly, “I’m alive. Don’t get us killed trying to save me from being punished for this. I’m alive, okay?”

  Pwent nodded. “Some amount of punishment, but not a century in glass. We really should just declare clemency and bring that whole wall down. You can’t imagine the costs of getting window wipers up there to clean the outside of the bulbs.”

  “A decade,” Inanina snapped.

  “For?” Nii-Vah asked.

  Inanina’s nostrils flared. “Because I’m grieving and I feel like it?”

  Nii-Vah scowled at the other Divine. “Be very careful with what emotions you play on, because we well remember your feelings towards your sister and how they clash with your present act.”

  “Grief shows itself in odd ways, Nii-Vah. I didn’t know what I had in my sister until it was taken from me.”

  A bubble of laughter escaped from Pwent that sent Inanina’s pale skin quickly to blush. “Tell me how you did it and I’ll vote a decade for Boleyn.”

  Inanina snarled something animal. “Utter that accusation again and I’ll have your head, banker.”

  Pwent scowled. “A year then.”

  “For?” Nii-Vah asked.

  “A year, I’ll accept—” Annie B mumbled before I threw a hand over her mouth. I wasn’t letting her plea bargain when she could barely speak.

  “For not informing you of the trap facing Eresha and trying to play hero,” Pwent decided.

  “That is an internal matter,” Nii-Vah hedged.

  Pwent’s scowl joined Inanina’s. “You have to punish your golden girl somehow. We need an example.”