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

by Raley, Richard

  “Why not make Eresha the example?” I expounded aloud. Really should stop doing that . . . my mouth, Ceinwyn, yet again you’re right.

  Ceinwyn . . . had some serious questions for her.

  And if she didn’t answer them . . .

  Better answer them, Auntie Badass.

  I’m not in the mood after this shit.

  “Excuse me?” Inanina hissed. Angry, so angry. Happy, so happy. Cover one with the other or they might see . . . they suspect, but if they see then they’ll know.

  Big-titted bitch did it, I know she did.

  But like Pwent said: no evidence. I destroyed it all.

  You played me. Tried to kill me along with Eresha and Annie B and Hector.

  Gonna make you pay one day, hunny.

  You don’t think it’s possible, but I’m gonna make you pay.

  “Let’s say you were behind it,” I smirked, liking the idea. “All of the Divines, not just . . . the obvious ones.”

  Inanina actually rose out of her seat at the slight, breast and pouch and thighs tumbling. “One more—”

  I talked over her, “Eresha’s greed was too great, shell collecting out of control, so you destroyed her with what she loved most. Remind everyone how badass the Divines are, that the only thing that can kill a Divine is two Divines.”

  Pwent laughed again, eyes alight with mischief. “I like this human!”

  Nii-Vah sighed, anger turning into sadness. “Swept under the rug like always . . . I suppose even our mysterious necromancer will be happy if we take responsibility, after all: can we try a person if they were acting at our command?”

  “If we ever find him,” Pwent added.

  Sadness returned to anger. “There are only so many Bonegrinders in the world,” Nii-Vah stated. “One day I will find the one responsible for this.”

  “And Boleyn’s punishment?” Pwent asked.

  “I won’t agree to glass and you need all three votes for it.”

  “What will your internal punishment be?”

  “Every horrible assignment I can find for her in the next year, I think.”

  Pwent shook her head. “Pride . . . pride recovers, but a banking account can be drained for good.”

  Nii-Vah rolled her eyes. “How much is enough, Pwent? How much invisible currency? How many treasures? You’re worse than Eresha!”

  Silence.

  “Than Eresha was,” Nii-Vah corrected. “What do you have in mind?”

  “She found fifty-six shells, she gets no collector’s fee.”

  Annie B whined at my feet. “Thanks, King Henry, instead of a year in prison I’m about to lose a billion dollars.”

  “Agreed,” Nii-Vah came to terms.

  Pwent kept going. “As sole heir, all of Eresha’s shells are given over to Inanina.”

  “I am still here!” Inanina shouted at her fellows. “I will not accept any of this!”

  Pwent looked affronted. “I’m making you money!”

  “I won’t take part in my sister’s disgusting trade,” Inanina claimed.

  “Lucrative trade,” Pwent clarified.

  “You have them then,” Inanina said, “I don’t want them.”

  My mouth opened in surprise.

  Fuck me, they are in on it together and Pwent just got her payment.

  It pissed me off. They used me. Used Annie B. And they were going to get away with it. All because I was so busy trying to keep Annie out of glass that I didn’t call bullshit. Still couldn’t call bullshit.

  But I could throw some. “Should keep a couple at least, like that pretty toga one she had, looks a whole lot better than the Neanderthal knuckle dragger you’re wearing now.”

  Pwent and Nii-Vah gasped as one.

  Oh shit . . . I just hit a really big button, didn’t I?

  Inanina hurtled the marble table, rushed me, and picked me up by the neck like I weighed five pounds. “Knuckle dragger? DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH I HATE THAT TERM?”

  I grinned down at her, all predator and teeth and unblinking defiance. “About as much as mouth breather?”

  She punched me in the stomach.

  It hurt.

  Go figure.

  Annie B tried to get to her feet, but stumbled back to her knees from the heat.

  All me, all alone.

  “Inanina!” Nii-Vah rebuked. “I will not have you causing a diplomatic disaster and blame it on grief! You’ll be punished if you kill him!”

  One hand still clasped around my neck, Inanina punched me again—in the balls.

  It hurt.

  Go figure.

  “She always kills the ones I like,” Pwent complained.

  “Inanina!” Nii-Vah shouted, “I’ll take it all the way to Balhad and Amarusa.”

  “He’s just an anima-infused!” Inanina complained, momentarily distracted from pummeling me and my big mouth. “We’ve killed thousands over the years!”

  I took the spare second of distraction to slide my hydro-slicer knuckles from one sleeve of my tux into my left hand.

  “You know he’s more than just a normal anima-infused,” Nii-Vah said.

  “I don’t trust him. The Killer of Fools spoke to him!”

  “Best to keep enemies close.”

  “Best to kill them!”

  “Not when the Mancy will just make another.”

  I pooled.

  Five seconds.

  Fast.

  Snap and done.

  Giving up on clawing Inanina’s grip off my neck, I punched downward. Into her tit. Accident, okay! Geez . . . they’re big, hard to miss ‘em. With my miniscule pool of anima I activated my SDR.

  Electrical current rushing through Inanina seized up her body, including her hand. I dropped the couple feet she had lifted me, landed, and pressed the trigger on the edge of my hydro-slicer knuckles. HSKs. I’m sure someone will think up a better name for them one day. A flat saw of curving water shot out one-and-a-half feet in a closed loop, carried from one end of the knuckle to the other in a torrent of incredible pressure.

  Water.

  All them failures with spectro-anima and pyro-anima and it was hydro-anima that did the job. Just like a water-press will cut out metal, the HSKs will cut through about anything in the ten to twenty seconds they work. Most powerful and violent artifact I’ve made. Ain’t even a closed-recharger. Have to stock it with anima each time I use the thing.

  Test runs really hurt the pocket book.

  Good thing I asked for a million dollars and not a percentage, since Annie B ain’t getting anything.

  Assuming I survived doing what I was about to do to a vampire of the Divine Court.

  I cut Inanina’s head off.

  Left to right.

  The buzz of high pressure water.

  Gone.

  The electricity of the SDR still racing through it, her shell fell to the floor with her head, shaking. Her eyes blinked, but without clean neural pathways even a Divine couldn’t make her headless body crawl over to reattached itself. Plus she was in a ton of pain. Stunned from it.

  Vampires can turn off their pain receptors, but that don’t mean they like to. They keep those feelings open all the time, wide and wanting to remind themselves they have a nice shell that can touch and experience the best of human existence, not a burning piece of glass to rub against.

  I hit Inanina with so much pain, so quickly, that she didn’t have a chance to do anything about it and once the pain started, it overwhelmed her. Imagine feeling nothing but pleasure for centuries and then . . . electrocution and decapitation. Bandits attacking you? Pain off before the fighting starts. Doing a sit-up challenge? No lactic acid buildup for me, good sir!

  Not saying I knew all this in the moment.

  I got lucky.

  Really fucking lucky.

  And it wasn’t like I actually hurt her. I just cut her head off. “Now you know what it feels like, don’t you Headless Hunny?” I growled down at her, predator’s grin right at them blinking fisheyes.
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br />   “I like this human so so much,” Pwent gasped. “I’ve wanted to do that ever since she caused the Dark Ages.”

  “I was just defending myself,” I quickly said.

  Nii-Vah shook her head. “One day you’ll die suddenly, King Henry Price, and you just guaranteed that it will be Inanina behind it.”

  Not if I get her first, I thought. “She can join the club, long line ahead of her,” I put forward my cocky.

  Nii-Vah kept shaking her head. “My Ceinwyn tries so hard to keep you safe and you keep picking on the biggest enemies you can find.”

  Biggest bullies you mean.

  “We done?” I asked, hauling Annie B’s half-delirious form up onto its usual place at my shoulder.

  “For now I think,” Nii-Vah whispered.

  “Tell me you got that on one of your cameras!” Pwent squealed in joy.

  [CLICK]

  The donor Annie B ate on wasn’t from Moshi’s Stables this time. Just a semi-pretty human chick that got off on being poked with a knife and having Annie B twist around inside her . . . veins. Semi-pretty, tats, piercings, hair with blue highlights, she reminded me of JoJo near the end, just before she ran away, all rebellious and ready to say, “Fuck you, world.”

  Rebellious and ready to say, “Fuck you, world” . . . it’s a family trait.

  The comparison didn’t help my mood.

  I was pissed off and seeing Annie B chow down on a human and a human more than happily providing herself only pissed me off further. This whole thing had been about money, I’d been a whore, a happy, well-paid whore of a mancer. Until Inanina made it personal just now.

  She used me. Used me to hurt Annie B. Used me to hurt Nii-Vah. Used me to kill her sister . . .

  Just cuz a gentleman is a man-whore, that don’t mean you call him one.

  Never again with these Vamps. Not for money.

  Money, world all comes down to money. Root of all evil, some say. Power, some others say. Money is society’s freedom. Some get a little, some get a lot. More free you want to be, more of it you need. Long as you’re part of society that is . . . could always build yourself a doomsday castle instead.

  But I gotta warn you, I can tear that pretty castle down really quick for you, bud.

  Take me a few seconds.

  Just like Eresha.

  And Paine.

  And Joannie D.

  You should really stop dropping buildings on yourself, dumbass.

  The donor chick shivered in delight. No two separate chairs this time, instead Annie B straddled her prey, both hands clasped together. Clothes on, but you could tell Annie B was pressing every button the chick had from inside her circulatory system. “Sure you don’t want to join?” Annie B mumbled, her lips more busy with the chick’s ear than with making words.

  “As a last ditch attempt to seduce me this is pretty pathetic,” I pointed out to her. “Can we finish this? I want to change my clothes, cash my check, and get back to Fresno.”

  Only you don’t really want to do that, King Henry Price.

  What you really want to do is find Inanina and cut her head off again.

  “Inanina won’t try to hurt you,” Annie B said as she changed over to the other ear.

  Donor chick’s toes spasmed, pointing into the ground. Guess Annie B finally found the right combination.

  “If it was Meal and I knew he couldn’t understand English, maybe I’d be okay with having this conversation, but not with the strange chick that looks like she’d sell her soul for a pack of cigarettes.”

  “She can’t hear a thing,” Annie B whispered into said chick’s neck. “All she can do is feel me play with every nerve.”

  I sighed. Fine. Annie B wanted to do this with an audience . . . we could do it with an audience. “I cut her head off, why wouldn’t Inanina try to kill me?”

  “She will eventually, but not now. Nii-Vah and Pwent witnessed your little stunt and Inanina will have to trade concessions with them for a promise not to reveal the information.”

  “Maybe Nii-Vah, but not Pwent I think.”

  Annie B scowled, finally turning away from her dinner. “Noticed that, did you?”

  “They set us all up,” I downright raged, “from the beginning.”

  “Yes . . . likely, but we have no proof. So we all stay living and we all keep smiling at each other. It’s the way civilization keeps on heading forward.”

  Civilization.

  Peace.

  Repressing the anger of Horatio Vega turning my sister into a Were . . . for peace.

  Keeping my mouth shut about Meteyos and all the Asylum lies . . . for peace.

  Inanina getting away with murder . . . for peace?

  That poor fucktard Hector Vega, dead . . . for peace?

  Zoey Vega childless, Tatter punished, Annie B punished, the decent vampires weakened, the cruel vampires exultant . . . for peace?

  Just another day of cocksucking and clitlicking on this here planet called Earth.

  “Sorry I couldn’t save Eresha . . . would’ve simplified everything,” I eventually said.

  Donor chick was almost comatose by the time Annie B stood up from straddling her. “She’ll sleep for a few hours after that feed.”

  “I said I’m sorry I didn’t—”

  “I heard you,” Annie B whispered, but still didn’t comment on it. I think she was embarrassed I’d saved her again. “Your check should be here any moment.”

  “Sorry you got screwed too.”

  Annie B walked over to the table of our Second Floor booth, sat down on it right across from me. Close enough to be in my personal space. “Don’t be sorry, King Henry. I wondered if you would save me and you did. Saved me from my duty and from my masters instead of from some monster, but . . . you saved me. I’m grateful.”

  “Shit, don’t get all mushy.”

  “I don’t suppose you’ve cracked even a little bit on your monogamous relationship with the little blond princess in the last few hours?” she asked point blank.

  Her velvet eyes said: right here on the table. Take your reward, conqueror. Take me right here.

  “Sorry, Annie . . . if I ever was a monster, I’d want you to be the monster right next to me. But . . . I think I kind of slay monsters more than anything else.”

  Her velvet eyes narrowed. “Stop apologizing.”

  “Sure thing.”

  Her hands reached out to cup my head. My shoulders clenched in warning. But instead of getting aggressive, she slowly titled forward to plant her lips on mine for a single second. “See you in a year?”

  “I hope not,” I whispered.

  No more kissing, but she didn’t back way. “Perhaps I can help you next time around?”

  “Really good at anima conversion formulas are you?”

  “If Horatio Vega doesn’t forgive you for Hector as an example.”

  “That could happen,” I admitted.

  “Or if the Curator decided to come after you.”

  “Also a possibility.”

  “Or if you cheat on your little blond princess with some bar skank and she happens to be chasing you across California and you need a place to hide out . . .”

  “Someone watches too many chick-flicks.”

  She smiled. “Probably . . . even monsters need the occasional happy ending.”

  I snorted at how sentimental she was being and she only smiled more. A waiter arrived with a bag filled with my clothes and artifacts, plus an envelope. “I’ve been meaning to ask you . . . what was that bit about your will at Eresha’s place?”

  That made her pull back, stand all the way up, and walk away from me to collect the personal objects from the waiter. “Nothing important.”

  “Uhuh. Seemed important at the time.”

  “If I died, then I needed you to take care of a few secrets for me . . . of . . . of Ceinwyn and a few others,” she worked her way around the words like they were a hedge maze. “But since I’m still alive, they’re still mine to bear.”
/>   “Okay,” I said stupidly, pretending I bought every word.

  Secrets . . . like I need more of them to deal with.

  Especially Ceinwyn’s.

  Annie B handed over the envelope and I opened it. Million dollar check. All them zeroes. Signed by Anne B. Smith IV. “Smith?”

  “I got tired of picking different names after four hundred years,” she complained. “Inheritance laws are not one of the better parts of modern civilization.”

  Which just made me think about peace again. Which just pissed me off again. “She’s really going to get away with it,” I said.

  “Let it go, King Henry. Let Nii-Vah deal with her,” Annie B advised me.

  “Bye Annie,” I said, sulking about the bad beat, “don’t kidnap me next time, okay?”

  Her velvet eyes twinkled in the low light. “No promises.”

  [CLICK]

  And that’s where the story ended.

  Right?

  Great place to wrap it the fuck up.

  Happy fucking ending.

  Managed to get my money. Managed to spend all that time with Annie B without cheating on Val. Managed to embarrass Inanina, if not make her pay for using me like a game piece.

  Happy enough ending for my life.

  Happy enough ending for these tales of King Henry Price.

  Alive, loved, and rich.

  Could’ve driven back up to Fresno right then.

  The end.

  [CLICK]

  But I was pissed.

  I killed a man.

  Inanina played me and put me in a situation where I accidentally killed a man.

  Sure, he was a fucktard, but forget Hector Vega. He just died . . . I’d been used.

  Me.

  King Henry Price.

  I was sick of being used.

  I was sick of civilization.

  I was sick of peace and lies and cocksucking and clitlicking to keep it going.

  Six months ago in Fresno I did the adult thing, did the civilized thing.

  I made peace.

  King to King.

  Coyote to Dirt.

  And I’d been pissed off about it ever since.

  Been fretting about it ever since.

  Every floro-seeder I made and here I was with a dead nephew on my hands, Vega with something else hanging over my head to get me to accept more of them strings.