“I don’t linger on your mistakes you know.”
“Throw up,” I reminded her.
Felt her lips twitch against my shoulder. “Okay, guilty on that one.”
“Also, I’m always making another mistake every other hour, you only do it maybe once a year, means I got less to work with.”
“Did you say living together?” she whispered near my ear. “That will be . . . well, different.”
“Good or bad kind of different?”
“Both,” she decided after thinking it over. “Living in love, but only because they’re going to make us give up our dreams.”
“Only for awhile, sweetheart. Let them stick us at the Asylum and give us the evil eye for awhile, but eventually we’re finding an out, finding a way forward,” I told her. “You still got kids to find, I still got Anima Madness to fix. Pay the price for stealing the truth, but I ain’t sacrificing everything to it, just like we shouldn’t have sacrificed everything to our individual causes months ago neither.”
Got a real kiss this time. “Who knew all that stolen knowledge would give you some wisdom?”
“Had to get some eventually, even by accident,” I joked back.
We just sat there for awhile more, glad to be back together.
Where we belonged.
[CLICK]
A Vicky Welf pushed into action is a terrible sight to behold and an inescapable whirlwind if you don’t get out of her way. Vick’s so sweet and adorable most days, even admitting she has grown up from that teenage girl I first met, that it slips your mind she’s just as much Welf as any of the others. Might even be more Welf. Her brother got him some white man’s guilt weighing down his patrician entitlement, with Vick, she had none of that, was just raised as a princess.
Maybe a rainbow and sparkle princess, but still a princess.
Got used to the maids and servants following her orders and catering to her desires. Got used to the world just snapping to her will and it all working out if she just waited long enough. Not saying birds sung to her or she had mice as friends, but close enough, right?
Even six months living with T-Bone and she still didn’t understand what it was like to be on your own or that when you started giving orders most people don’t hop to follow them. Me, I just get a slew of ‘fuck you’ and ‘who you talking to, shorty?’ Some of the mundane life she’d taken to. Like driving a car or credit cards or, apparently, ordering pizza. Having to do her own laundry or washing the dishes or actually having to pick up a display to move it herself . . . she was still learning those . . . might need some remedial classes even.
Well . . .
Mistakes were made while I was working on the Fakeshin Dim.
Pocket, Jesus, and Prunella all got themselves wrapped up in that whirlwind.
Now this is what I expected my shop to look like after the Three Queens got through with it, I couldn’t help but think after seeing the devastation.
Everything was being stacked against one of the walls. Completely chaotically. Completely without a care that it was some new item not worth the plastic it was made out of or a collectable some nerd would spend five-hundred bucks on cuz it had the special green shoes, THEY ONLY MADE TWENTY THOUSAND OF THEM WITH THE SPECIAL GREEN SHOES!!! Way Prunella kept wincing and whining, I could only imagine how the geek inside of her was pulling out it’s hair over the treatment of our merchandise. If you can call something never sold and just hangs on the wall merchandise . . .
Whatever the means or however many helpers it might have taken, you couldn’t complain with Vicky’s results. Plenty of room on the shop floor now. She’d repurposed a display table and had it stacked with pizza boxes, an icebox filled with sodas, a pot of coffee, various dinnerware, and disposable plates, with two trash-bins placed beside it, one of them marked specifically for recycling.
Just because we might die tomorrow that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do our part in the fight against Climate Change, King Henry! I could already hear the First World Problems explanation.
Even Jesus’ stray dogs had been taken care of, one of our packaging boxes cut in half and turned into dog beds, each one filled with a blanket while a communal bowl of water was between them. Less water and more slobber by the looks of it.
Ceinwyn was there too, although too savvy to get pulled into any sort of decoration or grunt work, she sat behind our checkout counter, sipping at a can of cherry coke. No sign of T-Bone. If I had to guess, he ran back home to change into actual clothes before Vicky’s mom got here.
Always got to be presentable that Tyson Bonnie.
Or he’s in Mexico by now.
Even odds on if we ever see him again.
Still mostly hidden in T-Bone’s computer room, I turned to Val and whispered, “We’ve been invaded.”
“You did invite all of us,” she blamed me for my own misfortune. “The least you can do is give us space for some hammocks and sleeping bags.”
“Welfs in sleeping bags, is that even legal?”
“I don’t know, I wasn’t the one who shared a tent with Heinrich during the Camping Test.”
Not one of my favorite memories that one. Sleeping next to Welf was only barely better than having to listen to Miranda’s incessant stream of complaints while hiding from the werewolf we all thought was after us. Not that Val would know, as I was sure to tell her, “Says the woman who didn’t have to run through the woods with the rest of us cuz the teachers were scared you’d set said woods on fire.”
“Says the man who did set the Mound on fire,” she teased me back, well knowing I hadn’t been the one responsible, no matter what the rumors were.
I pointed a finger in her face. “No! Other people don’t know better: I deal with it. You? Never! Not when you were the one galloping around in that maze like some horse high on spring, while I was yipping at your heels trying not to get my ass burnt.”
“Such splendid memories,” Val recalled theatrically.
“Other ones I’d rather remember,” I grumbled, “being I got a bed in my office and no reason for us to be in sleeping bags tonight.”
“I don’t care if you inject Dr. Pepper straight into your veins, there’s no way you’ll stay awake the very second your body goes horizontal, King Henry. So don’t get any delusions about what’s happening now that we’re in the same city again.”
“I could die tomorrow,” I pointed out.
She snorted.
“You could die tomorrow,” I pointed some more.
“Dead soldier ploy?” she snorted some more.
“It works . . . sometimes . . .”
“Yes, I suppose it did work in that very same bed, didn’t it?” Val got a little heated. “With Anne?”
I dug a hole. A really big hole. I blame being exhausted. “Some of it was in the bed. Started in here back when I had the workshop aboveground . . . ended on the floor, I remember that. Then there was the walls and some gymnastic position she pulled off and there might have been a bit where we were kind of hanging from the ceiling . . . kind of hazy from the dozens of orgasms we had, most my blood wasn’t in my brain, know what I mean?”
Val shook her head at me, unbelieving. “You are so lucky I’m me and not a normal girlfriend.”
“Don’t I know it,” I muttered, which brought her smirk back. “Besides, I’ve grown up since then. I’m a sensitive modern man.”
Val went back to snorting in disbelief.
“Sure am. Don’t need sex. Could just be some cuddling. Spooning even. I’m a damn good spooner, you know.”
Val put her hands up like she was weighing two scales against each other. “Spooning. Or s’mores. Tough call . . .”
“But if we do sleep together and when we wake up in the morning if our bodies are worked up and if we had a moment then—”
“We are not having sex when all those people are sleeping in the next room.”
“We just did it in the dirt like a few days ago,” I reminded her.
“Because
my emotions got the better of me for once due to me not having to worry about said emotions setting the room on fire,” she tried to explain it all away.
“Could be like the Asylum. Communal room stealth grunting and humping. You never partook, but maybe it’s time to find out what it was like.”
“All I remember is Estefan and Debra keeping us up every year before our finals. It got so bad I started wearing earplugs.”
“Way some people react to stressful situations . . . ya know, like this one,” I tried again.
She rolled her eyes at me. “We might see what happens in the morning after you get some sleep, but only if you take a shower and change your clothes before then. You reek right now.”
“Smell of maleness.”
“Smell of grease, dirt, mushroom tree, Vault dust, enough geo-anima that the air around you tastes like iron, and pizza breath,” she laid out how disgusting I was.
“Pretty repulsive even for King Henry Price,” I couldn’t help but agree.
“Very.”
“Guess I’ll ask Pocket for the RV keys.”
“Then you need to talk to Ceinwyn,” Val reminded. “Without ignoring her for days like the last time you had to talk with her.”
I met her eyes-without-irises. “Need to talk to you too. About tomorrow.”
She sighed, getting my meaning that it wasn’t something I wanted spread about until it couldn’t be changed. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah, long as you trust me.”
“Of course I trust you. I just wish I didn’t have to smell you right now . . .”
“Shower, I get it.”
[CLICK]
Val would be happy to learn that I didn’t even need to go horizontal to fall asleep. The shower knocked me out for a good twenty minutes. Water wasn’t even warm. Not cold either, to be fair. Fresno August, remember? Gets that warm out and even the underground pipes go lukewarm.
Twenty minute shower.
I think.
Was one moment of alert consciousness followed by muddled, foggy gray. That slow trap you find yourself in where you’re too tired and too exhausted to keep awake, but know you have to be awake, have to keep going. King Henry as golf ball, nothing but sand all around, bogging him down. Worse than sand. Tar pit. Sticking on me. Calling. Telling me just to give up. Sink down into oblivion. Just blink out.
Forever.
Pit never ends then might as well stop being, stop witnessing every terrifying moment of the fall, surrender to the fact that the receding dot of sunlight above me is something I’ll never reach again. No digging out of this pit, no climbing the walls. No hope. No victory in blood or life. No matter how strong the star burns for me to light my way.
Just give in.
Call it off.
Surrender.
Stop all this defiance that has beaten you down.
Give in to authority, do it all the correct way. Way Things are Done. Let the Divines rule over humanity. Just mundanes getting fucked, ain’t it? Nope . . . little Intra corpusmancer girls too; knocked off the list for whichever new Ultra they’ve found, damned to go mad. Check up on her in twenty years and give her a shot makes her heart pop. Check to see if her kids are something more valuable to mark down their anima allotment in the Quota. Nope, just mundane. See, that’s why you shouldn’t care about Intra corpusmancers . . . barely even mancers really!
Give up on being your own Artificer. Accept the Guild as your way forward. Cloak yourself in brown robes. Polish your shiny Inventor badges. Master Craftsman Price. Won’t be so bad. Massey can’t be Guild Master forever. Maybe not, but I’ll be his bitch long enough for me to commit suicide over it, no matter how many gold stars they give me.
No, no. You’re too important to risk like this. Opposite of the Way Things are Done. Too tired, too ill trained, and undersupplied. Let ESLED handle it. Take a step back. Give the Asylum Paine’s location. Spend all that leverage now, before its useless. Feel bliss, know happiness. Just go to sleep. Stay asleep. Let it all slip out of your hands. Maybe Susan lives. Maybe Susan dies. Does it really matter? She’s probably too far gone for you to save her anyway.
Tar pit.
Couldn’t wake up.
Snap the eyes and drift on back down.
Snap the eyes, feel the pain in my muscles.
Drift on back down, it all fades away.
Bliss.
Ignorance.
No blood gods. No dragons. No Guild. No Asylum. No Dirt King with no destiny.
Better than ignorance.
Nothingness.
No strings.
No Fate laughing in my ear.
No Paine.
No one. None of those people back in my shop coming through for me when I need them the most. No Pocket and Jesus going into hell for me and returning with what I sent them after. No T-Bone worrying as he holds down the fort. No Vicky Welf putting herself out there one mundane activity at a time as she explores this new world all around her. No Ceinwyn Dale worried for me, hugging me, holding me back to keep me safe. No Valentine Ward doing the opposite, that trust in her irisless eyes, whole new worlds to conquer, impossible feats to eclipse one after another. Together. Only together.
Maybe one day I’ll just stop.
Maybe one day I’ll just sink down with the rest of them.
Surrender.
Yeah . . . maybe.
One day.
If I don’t die first.
But today ain’t that day.
Somewhere in that oblivion I still found the piece of defiance to keep going, keep screaming, keep flipping the Bitch-Queen a two finger salute.
Twisted the shower handle to off, peace and bliss going with it.
“Besides,” I said to myself, “hard part is over. Tomorrow . . . scary as it’s gonna be, that’s the fun part.”
Tomorrow I got to trick Obadiah Paine.
[CLICK]
As long as Ceinwyn Dale signed off on it.
She was waiting for me outside the Nerd Nirvana. Had a bench out there. Rarely used it, but it had survived the shop being firebombed and machinegunned to death, so . . . hell of a tough bench. Wasn’t a very good view from it. Not like my favorite bench back on the Mound, overlooking all of the Field and half of the Asylum campus. This one just looked out on Fresno, not even a particularly picturesque part of Fresno.
Not that Fresno has many of them, but . . . I mean, there’s a zoo and some parks and they chased all the hobos away from the baseball stadium a few years back, so that’s something. I mean, now the hobos are all dispersed over the town itself, but hey, if the city can’t find them to count, then they obviously don’t exist . . . thus, our mayor solved homelessness. Not Mayor Bubba. He was years ago.
Yeah, yeah, I’m ignoring her.
Guilt.
Guilt kept me standing just outside the RV, watching Ceinwyn instead of walking over. Still ain’t one-hundred percent between us, is it, Auntie Badass? Maybe it never would be. Maybe it never was. Maybe that special connection between us was just in our imaginations. Blissful ignorance like all the rest, washed away when I found me some truth. Truth was . . . for much as I care about her good regard, Ceinwyn is further into the authority game than I’ll ever find comfortable.
King Henry Price ain’t ever gonna be in the running for Dean of the Asylum.
Never that far. Not even close to that far.
Only bit of authority I let into my life was Ceinwyn Dale.
Lot easier living with that when she was thousands of miles away recruiting some hydromancer in Belgium or the like. Not on my shop door, knowing the truth about all I been up to. Pushed the pause button on the price I’ll soon be paying, but the price is still there. It will be paid. Authority, always there. Always wants another piece of you. Always puts the rules above all else.
Me, I reject it at every turn. Have myself a throw down time and time again to keep myself free, keep doing what I think is best for the world without a single rule to be seen. Ceinwyn . . . she sur
rendered to its reality. She maneuvers it. She manipulates it. Sometimes alters the course just a tiny bit, makes the world a sliver brighter than it was before. Only, never enough to save us.
Air can’t divert the river’s flow.
Got to find yourself a big rock to do that.
Or have a nice sized earthquake shifts everything about.
Authority.
Gonna be having lots of fights with it in the future.
Won’t look as kindly on me as Ceinwyn does.
Be the harsh and cold authority.
Learning Council.
Guild.
Divine Court.
“Never stops, does it?” I said aloud as I finally took a place beside Ceinwyn on the bench.
No smile for me this time. Ceinwyn had on a pair of Anima Detection Lenses and had stolen the Fakeshin Dim from my workshop. Bet she’s had those Lenses the whole time I’ve known her. Her grandpa’s or the like, in the Dale family for hundreds of years. Never let me see them all this time. Let me guess: there’s some law banning people from using certain artifacts around people not in the know?
Or maybe she just didn’t want to muddy my unique progress as an Artificer. Didn’t want to skew the results by showing me the Dale family wares. Let me grow in my innocence. A baby finding out that fire burns by touching a flame. Or about Anima Detection Lenses by standing across from Obadiah Paine.
Ceinwyn flipped the Fakeshin Dim around with her thin-fingered hands, her favorite sapphire blue nail polish oddly complimentary with the jade. Blue to match her eyes, but not blue to match her discipline. Was the hydro-anima World-Breaker that was sapphire, not aero-anima. Opal? Pearl? Diamond even?
Never was much of a precious stone kind of Artificer.
Even more reason to get out of the World-Breaker business, even the fake kind. Val’s sister Christmas was the gemstone type, maybe I’d leave it to her. Or Paine . . . if ESLED don’t manage to off him during the raid. Suppose I could always get lucky during our escape too . . . although, that wasn’t a good thought to be having. Kind of thought might make a fellow regress, all his desires about punching some bully and not caring a bit if his sister dies in the process.
The Pit of No Return (The King Henry Tapes Book 6) Page 66
