Ceinwyn’s whispered advice and her sudden disappearances to do political shit behind the scenes? Don’t cut it.
Jury’s questions? Don’t cut it.
That heap of evidence MacNess presented before the Guild? Don’t cut it.
Massey, either enjoying his handiwork or frustrated when I stuffed a decent counterpoint down his throat? Don’t cut it.
Estefan Ramirez making another showing, testifying on behalf of ESLED about how they consider the SDR lethal force? Don’t cut it.
Me making Estefan admit the SDR had saved the lives of countless ESLED agents? Don’t cut it.
Javier Castillo, Head of the Jaguar Nation, testifying to my relationship with Horatio Vega, both business and personal. Don’t cut it.
Fucker telling all those people how my sister is a Coyote? Even that don’t cut it.
Lunch? Okay . . . so I had some really good chili and some great cornbread. More coffee, of course. Where was I?
Oh yeah. Cut that bitch too.
Plutarch made to testify? Plutarch slapping MacNess’s punk ass around while calmly waiting for my turn to ask the question we both knew I would about golems. Cut.
Me asking said question about Elemental Gnomes and how many laws there are on them? The answer, which was zero? Cut.
The final witness . . . Gentlewoman Moore showing up again when I least expect her. Cut.
Gentlewoman Moore on the stand, telling all them Guild members about how I testified to destroying the Jinshin Ken of Hiroto Arashi before the Los Angeles Vampire Embassy. Cut.
Me standing there, having to say that yes I did indeed testify to that, even though I had said World-Breaker in my pocket. Cut. Fuck, yes, cut that shit, especially cut Moore’s too expressive face too damned pleased with herself.
Me leaning in to threaten Moore. One day I’m going to find you. On that day you’ll tell me the location of Atlas’ ruins free of charge or you’ll see how quick my Elven Blade works. Cut.
Look on her face, the horror, the realization that suddenly I knew way too much for any twenty-four-year-old Ultra. Cut.
Ceinwyn and Val, both of them giving their goodbyes and telling me I needed sleep, no staying up tonight. I know you wanted one more night, but look at you, you’re exhausted. Get some sleep, King Henry. A couple more days and then we’d tell Massey the truth about what I am, Ceinwyn makes a deal, all this goes away. Cut.
Make a deal and I get away free with all that knowledge.
Mostly free.
Val gets to decide if she wants the same conversation I already had with Ceinwyn.
Future . . . future will be different, but . . . looking good.
Looking lucky.
A successful plan for once.
Ignore all the dead Black Elves.
Don’t go back.
It’s just a safe.
Spend a day lying around in your cell.
Spend the next day testifying before the Guild.
Deal.
Get out.
Done.
Story over.
Happy endings all around.
None of that was important. Didn’t go that way. Fate finally slipped free from my grip. Artificial Court is just the in-between. In-between the train that ran over all them Black Elves. In-between the train about to run over me.
So it all gets cut.
Cuz . . .
Cut the world.
Cut it all.
Cut.
Cut.
Cut.
[CLICK]
So tired.
Six months on four to six hours of sleep a night.
Last week on two to four hours of sleep only taken in naps during the day.
Now this.
Two days, no sleep.
Wasn’t just some normal two days either, two days of emotional ups and downs like some roller-coaster built by a psychotic thirteen-year-old wants all the riders to throw up. Felt like I might throw up too. Brain was all fucked up. Seeing shadows that weren’t there. Zoning out with weird phrases echoing from deep in my subconscious. They say kindness and morality goes away the more exhausted a person gets. Don’t ever have much of those, but it had never felt this bad.
Felt raw and angry and like I’d sacrifice a baby if it just meant I could get a single night’s sleep. Doubt most people ever feel this exhausted. Maybe those Deadliest Catch crabbers. Secret of that is they’re sneaking amphetamines when the camera is off and all I had in me was an unhealthy amount of caffeine. Even that wasn’t enough. Just give me the baby and tell me which volcano you want me to throw it into.
Torture, fucking torture alright. See why those CIA fuckers used stuff like this on the terrorists they catch. Pretty sure you could get every Christian on the planet to renounce God if you just kept them up for forty-eight hours straight. Not a normal forty-eight hours. Made up with Ceinwyn . . . got myself recognized as a Maximus, massacred me an army, got my ass kicked around in court. Val’s idea sounded good. No realm-jumping tonight. Just sleep.
All I wanted was sleep.
Deep enough sleep I couldn’t even dream about dragons or blood gods or all them obsidian-skinned body parts flying about as I killed and killed and killed some more. How you like that one pyromancers? How you like that one necromancers? Took my kill count from three all the way up over three-hundred in one day.
And I’d do it again and again if that’s what it took to protect those closest to me. That was inside of me, no running from it. Maybe that’s why I was so scared of crossing the line into killing people for these last couple years. Once crossed, it would be easy to just keep on going. What’s another hundred when there’s already a thousand in the pile?
So tired.
Mind so dark.
Should’ve felt awesome. Trial might have sucked, but it was mostly over. Plan might have taken six months of planning and a week of thievery, but it was mostly over too. Fucking won, damn right I did. Ceinwyn work her magic with Massey, treat that fucker like I don’t want to kick him in the balls next time I see him, drop my leverage . . . done, over.
New world I’m living in, but at least it’s one I forged, not one someone else made for me.
Sleep.
So close to sleep.
Sleep, day off, last realm-jump, testify for myself, make a deal, and done.
Victory.
So tired, too tired for even victory.
Repeating myself.
Too tired to notice the elevator went deeper than it should have.
Too tired, I didn’t even notice the corridor we exited out into was all wrong, nothing like the one that led to my posh royal apartments. Was clinical, white, rocking the mental hospital vibe. Deeper in the Pit, as deep as you go. Deeper than even the prisoners, down where they keep the patients who never leave their cells, never even leave their minds most days.
Even when I noticed how wrong the corridor was, I was too tired to care, too tired to react. Used up too much adrenaline over the last couple days for something merely wrong to get a spike out of my body. Whatever regulated my system knew it only had a jolt or two left, so better save it for a predator trying to eat me. Corridor looking wrong? Didn’t rate highly enough.
Find a tree and go to sleep already, you ape.
I stopped following Watson eventually, coming to a halt. Glanced about at the walls, at the doors bolted shut for the night. Wrong corridor and it’s empty. Felt like it should’ve had another golem walking down it, maybe even a human doctor or three. Didn’t feel abandoned, just deserted. Cleared out for whatever was about to happen to me.
“This where Massey has you rough me up, Watson? That what’s going on?” I managed to growl. Wasn’t my usual rage-filled growl or even my frustrated one. Just one that had reached its limit. “Gonna use that blackjack of yours to crack my skull in?”
Watson turned around, weighing my reaction. Never trust the friendly ones, especially the ones from Canada. A decent country don’t have hockey as a national sport. A country
with lots of buried aggression just wants to stab a guy in the throat with an ice-skate has hockey as a national sport.
He started off with an apology, that’s when I knew I was fucked. “Wouldn’t call you a decent sort, Artificer Price, but you’re not what them upstairs are making you out to be. Still . . . a man has the kind of opportunity I have fall into his lap, can’t pass it up. Not when you’re just an Intra in an Ultra world. Not when saying ‘no’ might see me hurt.”
I set myself as best I could. Didn’t have a chance, not here. No anima, with two security golems at my back. Sluggish as fuck from lack of sleep. Felt about as weak as I ever had in my life, a cruel mirror of the night before in the Geo Realm. Always a risk Massey would get desperate; start in with the beatdowns to try to break me.
My defense hadn’t been the best, but I guess I’d scored more points than I thought. Can’t even remember them, whatever they were. Pretty sure my brain stopped recording half my memories a good eight hours ago. “Get on with it then,” I dared Watson to start. “Don’t worry about the nose, been broken before.”
“I’m not doing the beating,” Watson said, still studying me. “I know you’re a tough guy outside of the Pit, but really, you’re nothing here, Artificer Price. Better if you come quietly and don’t make the boys drag you along.”
Sluggish as I was, I finally started having doubts and second thoughts about my first expectation of Massey being responsible for this. “Why bring me down here? Why not do it in my cell?”
“I’m not doing the beating,” Watson repeated. “Not even sure that’s what he wants. Only know I’m getting paid to bring you and to help you afterwards. It’s only a few more doors, don’t put up a fight, okay? Might not go so bad for you . . . I don’t think he wants to kill you. Not now at least.”
A few more doors. “Where are the other guards?”
“Asleep. Docs have cameras in with the patients on this level,” Watson explained, finally reaching down to grip his blackjack, security baton, whatever you want to call it. Do a nice number on my face, that’s for sure. Especially without any anima to deflect the blows. “No one knows but me . . . and them. They knew before me . . .”
I glanced backwards at the hulking golems, at those brown floating bits of anima at their center. They knew before him . . . what’s that mean? “How much was I worth? A raise? Two?”
“Five million dollars cash and my life,” Watson told me, motioning at the golems. “Grab him.”
Five million dollars? I thought in a moment of panic just before Salt and Pepper wrapped their bulky, metallic hands around my shoulders and lifted my ass up off the ground like I was nothing more than a bag of groceries, surely not the two-hundred pounds of pissed-off aggression and hard muscle I usually am.
Five million dollars? I thought again as I growled out like a bear caught in a trap, leg bleeding all over the ground, fur matting. You’re trying to hold me still? I’m a fucking bear! But thrashing against the golems got me nowhere. As creatures of steel and stone, they had no bones to break and no ligaments to tear.
Up and forward I went, a few more doors down that clinical corridor. Watson shrugged at me as he unlocked the door switch and pressed a button. Big, wide, Star Trek sliding thing. Vroom. All modern down here in the belly of hell. Big enough door for Salt and Pepper to carry me on through with my feet a foot or more above the ground. My eyes went to the ceiling and the walls, impossible to look forward with how they held me up.
Padded walls.
No sharp objects.
Padded floor too as Salt and Pepper threw me down on it, not that it did much to keep my side from crying out as it smashed hard on my right arm. I spun around on them, snarling. “Gonna suck the both of you dry for this shit!”
“An empty threat in your current predicament,” a sharp voice said from behind me.
In an instant I was more awake than I had been in months. Adrenaline flooded me as cold rippled down my limbs, goose bumps rising along my arms and legs, hackles quivering at the back of my neck.
The golems stayed on this side of the door, just inside of it, but made no move to follow me all the way. Watson pressed his button again, closing the door on us. Leaving me all alone with . . . Watson’s expression, I should have known. I was good at judging expressions, but I was just so tired . . .
But I knew that look.
That fear.
Lizard brain fear telling you something is very wrong.
Same fear filling me now.
Run!
Throw some shit!
Do something!
I didn’t turn around right away, didn’t need to see him to know it wasn’t Massey behind me. The voice was enough. That cracking, consumed, inhuman anger even I couldn’t reach on my worst days. So much hate. So much coiled rage. A fist so white and tight that you imagined the knucklebones breaking through the skin. A jaw so ground against its own teeth it might crack them in twain. A continuous scream. A pledge to the rest of mankind.
YOU.
WILL.
KNOW.
PAINE.
I knew him. Knew that voice. Had nightmares about that voice. Worried about hearing that voice when I would least expect it. Like right now. Some street in Fresno while I was buying a whatever-the-fuck from Taco Bell? Why not. In the Pit? Never here. Thought I was safe from all the other bullshit in my life. Divines, Eternal Order, Vega . . . was outside and away. Only Massey and some Black Elves to worry about.
Worried about Pocket and Jesus crossing paths with Paine. Of course that. Not me. Wrong. So wrong. The whole time the devil had been on my tail.
Knew those eyes. Eyes that cut. Eyes that want you to bleed. Eyes that want you to beg. Say I am better than you are. Say it . . . and maybe you will live. Maybe I will let you go on as a cripple, as I have been crippled. Maybe I will give to you the clarity that was once given to me. We shall see if you have the same strength I did to live through it all.
So tired . . . too tired for this shit, even with the adrenaline.
Still in a world of lightning quick instants one after another, my thoughts wrapped around the fact I had my World-Breaker on me. Could just grab it and zip away to the Geo Realm. Run like a coward? Another part of me, a very young part of me, thought about what would happen if I couldn’t get the World-Breaker out and use it before either of the golems reached me. Same part of me that was a little boy, faking sleep so my drunk dad would walk on by my bedroom door. Little boy, before I started egging dad on, to whip me and only me. Little boy still couldn’t believe he deserved that, thought if he just showed his belly maybe it would all stop . . . maybe the bad wouldn’t happen.
Bad like Obadiah Paine realizing I have the World-Breaker on me while I’m completely in his power. If he ever thought I did have it . . . he’d take it. Then I’d be dead soon after. After he finished torturing me.
Do whatever you have to do to make sure he doesn’t think you have it then. “Could’ve just called, Obadiah,” I growled out, still not standing to face him. On my knees, he’ll like that.
A cold bark echoed through the room but died quickly. About the only part wasn’t padded was the toilet and that was just a hole in the ground, not the traditional crapper we all know and love. Guess I’ll just have to crap my pants instead.
Even with the padded floor I could hear the difference between Paine’s steps as he paced a circle around me. Softness followed by the thud of weight hitting the padding. Reminded me of the sound a fist makes against a punching bag. Each step felt like it was smacking me in the face, that’s for sure.
“Always yapping, that is the little dog I know,” Paine hissed. “So big. So bad. So sure of its strength even where it has none.”
Came into my view, me still on my knees. Lot like I’d seen him before. Except even older, even harder, eyes even more mad and sure of their greatness. More sure of my insignificance. Sure once again that while I might have outsmarted him that single time, I wouldn’t outsmart him this time. I had
wondered if that earthquake I caused destroyed his metal appendages and I guess it had, judging from the fact they now gleamed in the padded cell’s light, not with steel but with plated gold.
Artifacts all about him, just as it was that first time as well. A satchel, a bandoleer with his own spider golems, although . . . he seemed to control Salt and Pepper as well. Paine casually unsnapped his satchel, removing a pair of vials that were injected into the golems one after another. “Payment to seal your aid once again . . . my friends,” Paine told them, though the word ‘friend’ was all wrong coming from him.
Master and underling, only way he can have it. Even Isabel, Maximus that she was, even powerful Ultras like the Three Queens . . . in Paine World, all were beneath Paine. Especially this yapping little dog.
“That’s how you broke Isabel out. Not the guards or the doctors or some brilliant escape plan,” I spat. “You bought the golems with anima.”
“You are a steel-working artificer. You should know the importance of stress points,” Paine scolded me, his cheek so tight it barely got the words out. “So many stress points in this decrepit civilization of ours. So much ruin, few organizations with more of it than our precious Brothers. The current Head Golem Crafter has no love of his charges and underfeeds them significantly. So easy to gain their loyalty as long as one knows how to harvest nature anima. Now . . . this prison is mine to do with as I will, when I will it.”
“Still other people in here.”
Paine snorted in contempt. “Intras easily bribed with mundane coins.”
The contempt was mutual between us. Even playing things cool I couldn’t hold it all back from my gaze or from my mouth. Mouth might get me killed right now, Ceinwyn, how’s that prophecy working for ya? “So you bribed both the golems and the guards, came all the way to London just to say ‘hello’ to me? I’m honored, Obadiah, didn’t know you liked me so much.”
“Quit playing the fool,” Paine snapped, finally thudding his way over towards my kneeling form. “Of course this was all about you, little dog. You have what I want most in this world . . . and those beyond it.”
The Pit of No Return (The King Henry Tapes Book 6) Page 48
