The Pit of No Return (The King Henry Tapes Book 6)

by Richard Raley

  “Move out of the way, King Henry. I have to do this. If Vicky won’t watch, then you can.” Her face brightened. “Maybe if you tell them what you saw, they’ll believe it.”

  “Or we could just leave him here. We could go back to one of our apartments . . .”

  Man. Even lying about offering that made me want to throw up a little bit.

  Might have gone too far with my false sincerity given the way Isabel tensed up. “You’d never say that to this body.”

  “I don’t know . . . maybe after twenty cups of rum. Never know what will happen, ya know?”

  She glanced at Welf and back to me, then to the door. “If you saw Vicky then where is she?”

  “She’s, uh . . . elsewhere. Doing . . . Vicky things. Portraits and moonbeams and stuff.”

  “You told her!” Isabel screeched. “She’s telling everyone else!”

  “Isabel.”

  She whined, tears slipping down her face. “You betrayed me.”

  “Isabel, you’re not thinking right.”

  “I’m not crazy!” she went full on banshee.

  “I didn’t say that!” I yelled back at her, reaching to put a hand on the pole holding Welf in place. “You’re not crazy. You’re confused. You need to listen to me. You need to trust me. You need to come with me.”

  “No! I know what you’ll do to me! You’ll put me in the Holding Room. I can’t be anyone else in the Holding Room. It starts eating at me. It starts forcing me to be myself and I hate every second of it. It hurts, King Henry.”

  “Then what? Killing Welf doesn’t fix anything. Killing me doesn’t fix anything either. There’s nowhere else, Isabel. You need help. You need a place where no one else can fill your head with bad thoughts.”

  “I like the thoughts!” she snapped, advancing two steps closer to me.

  Close enough for me to feel like shit was about to go down.

  Close enough for me to throw anima into that pole holding Welf. Down at the other end near his hands it cracked into uneven pieces, freeing the rope. The rest of the anima twisted the metal, tightening the whole pole down into a thick inch of metal. Always like using my fists, but four feet of steel club is pretty good too.

  Good enough for me to rear back and slam the length of the metal staff into Isabel’s face.

  Crack went her jaw.

  Snapped her whole head back and her body with it.

  Some hero.

  Cheapshotting a girl in the face with an oversized baseball bat.

  Isabel blinked up at the sky, seeing stars that wouldn’t appear for hours still.

  Still, was a good swing.

  Welf stood up beside me, already getting the cords off of his wrists. “Of all the stupid, over-exaggerated ways to deal with a situation, Foul Mouth. What were you thinking? She’s just an Anima Mad corpusmancer, hardly a match for either of us, let alone you with a full pool, as unsophisticated and ignorant of useful conjurations as you might be.”

  “Remember when you had to say thank you, Welf? Gonna need you to do it again,” I told him with a grin.

  “Given what a complete louse you were the last time I tried to do the civilized thing, no, I won’t. I refuse,” he said, instead ordering me around like usual, “Tell me what’s happened to my sister.”

  “Vick’s fine. Sent her to get us some help. Not that we need it.”

  “Yes, you do,” Isabel snarled.

  Fuck me, how is she still conscious after that hit?

  Better than conscious, she stood up. Better than standing, she popped her fucking jaw back into place. “You hurt me, King Henry. I thought out of everyone, you would understand how powerful I am. How powerful you are.”

  “Hit her again,” Welf ordered me.

  She blocked the swing, stepped in, and flipped me around behind her. Went face first into the roof, head ringing. Just an Anima Mad corpusmancer . . . had to tempt the Bitch-Queen, didn’t you, Welf?

  Isabel bent the metal bar in half like it was putty. “King Henry rescues you and still you think you’re the stronger. Still you think you’re the one in charge, always in charge, always telling us what to do, how to do it, who to do it with. I should have killed you at the start. They’d all be alive if not for you. You horrible, mean, cruel boy!”

  Over the side went the twin pieces of the broken steel bar. Useless though it already was, I hated to see it go. Nothing else to do, I pooled anima and stood up.

  One minute.

  Two against one.

  Just a girl.

  Just a monster and you ain’t no hero, Price.

  I rushed her, taking Isabel by surprise. Two arms around her middle, feet pushing to drag us to the ground. “Stop it! Get off me, King Henry! Let me kill him! Let me finish what I should have started with!”

  “Don’t make me punch you, Isabel. You know I’ll do it,” I warned her from behind. Might be a corpusmancer, but I still outweighed her. Still had the better positioning.

  “Are you fighting her or mating with her?” Welf yelled at me.

  “You’re not helping!” I yelled back at him.

  Isabel threw her head backwards, right into my jaw. Didn’t break any teeth, didn’t break my hold, but it did make me bite my tongue. Hurt like a son-of-a-bitch. “You’re making me do this to you,” Isabel whispered. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “No one else dies,” I growled while spitting out some blood.

  To this day I’m not quite sure if she had double hinged knees or if she popped her knee cap or what exactly happened, but somehow she managed to kick me right in the balls.

  That’s my move . . .

  I released her and crumbled down to the roof again.

  More honorable than I’ll ever be, Welf pointed at Isabel. Didn’t even bother with putting his fists up too. “This has gone far enough, Soto. You need to stop at once and turn yourself in to the authorities. You are unwell. You—”

  “Not! Crazy!” Isabel screeched as she grabbed Welf and hurled him back towards me.

  Both of us spun and tumbled away from each other.

  Like fighting a fucking American Gladiator. And I ain’t talking about that pussy Malibu . . . talking about one of the mean looking ones.

  Got back to my feet, blood dripping from my mouth. Liked that taste. Liked that smell. The salt, yeah, but especially the iron, especially the red. I grinned at Isabel, fists coming up even as Welf managed to stagger up beside me, blood as well from a slash over one eye. “Okay, ain’t no little girl, got ya.”

  We all had the same training. Sure, different direction from Samson, but he had covered the basics with all of us. Was about more than punching, of course, about survival too, but punching represented my best marks in that class. Might have come back from a steel pipe to the face, but Isabel still felt it when I slammed my fists into her arms as she covered up and backpedaled away from my onslaught. Winch, winch, cringe.

  Ain’t a girl, it’s a monster.

  Hook.

  Hook.

  Jab.

  Cross right through her guard and into her chest.

  “I’m not going to hurt you! I’m not going to kill you! I’d never do that!” Isabel yelled as I kept working at keeping her away from Welf.

  Hit me.

  Come on.

  I can take it.

  Leave JoJo and Susan alone.

  I blinked at that thought.

  Paused for just a second.

  Isabel punched wildly, but with about as much force as she used to kill Athir. Right into my shoulder and bone went snap. She gasped in surprise at her own strength, no follow up like she did with Athir. My only comment was a growl of pain as the arm went limp.

  Welf tried to kick her. Why? Because he’s a douchebag and douchebags are always the ones who try to kick people.

  Just like all the other douchebags try to kick people, Welf got his kick caught, cuz hands are awesome. Unlike with me, there was no hesitation from Isabel as she locked on his foot and twisted and yanked a
nd . . . well, she tore half of Welf’s knee ligaments right off the bone.

  Never heard a scream like that before.

  Scream of person just had their whole future changed and not for the better. Scream of a person even Slush couldn’t heal. That knee was fucked. Rehabilitation and hydro-anima healing sessions in his future. Wheelchair. Crutches. Cane. Hadn’t killed him, but she marked him. Marked him so every winter when that knee hurt he’d remember that roof. Remember how powerless he was to a lowly corpusmancer. Remember the Foul Mouth was the one saved his life.

  Welf curled up around that knee, doing his own bit of whining.

  Isabel smiled down at him, face so similar, like Welf if you sucked out all the features that made him Welf. “Do you know how many times you made me cry?” she asked him.

  “Enough,” I growled again, this time through the pain. My right arm hung useless and aching. Maybe healable, but for now nothing but a hamper. “They’re coming. Won’t be but moments now. Run while you can, Isabel.”

  “Not until I’m finished with him.”

  “No.” A step took me over Welf’s curled form. “Ain’t letting you. Better for all of us that this stops.”

  Whole week of examples and I was still saying the wrong fucking thing. Making more trouble for myself with every word out of my dumb, foul mouth. “Yes . . . we can all stop,” she said. “Boy I hate. Boy I love. All together. Stop being.”

  “Isabel Soto,” a soft, cerebral voice said from over by the roof door. Only time that voice ever sounded sweet to my ears.

  Mordecai Root to the rescue.

  Worst.

  Cavalry.

  Ever.

  “By the authority given to me by Dean Maudette Lynch, you are under arrest for the murders of Leonardo Sarducci, Scott Hardy, and Athir Al-Qasimi. You will be taken to the Holding Room until safe transfer can be arranged to the Cleansing Sphere of Reform. You are excised from Elemental society, you are expelled from the rolls of this Institution, and you will never know the feel of anima again for the rest of your natural life. Stand down and I will see you are not unduly harmed. Show further resistance and I will show no mercy.”

  Isabel went down hard.

  Broke herself a couple Constructs.

  Good thing Root brought a whole dozen.

  Like I keep telling you, kiddies, I ain’t the hero.

  Heroes die.

  I’m just the guy fought long enough for one monster to start fighting another.

  Just the guy got to watch it go down.

  Just the guy heard every last whimper as Isabel Soto had her last stand.

  Last stand to keep anima in her life.

  Cuz where they’d be sending her, there would be none.

  [CLICK]

  After the sun fell and the lazy spring day faded behind us, to make the world’s ceiling a brilliant canopy of stars, the whole of the Asylum gathered on the Field. Few places to fit all of us. The Cafeteria required two floors to manage it and only the students and not all at once. The auditorium in the Library could hold almost all, but that was the room for plays and concerts and announcements.

  A happy room for happier times.

  It was not the room for a memorial.

  At the Asylum, we had those in the open air.

  Among the elements.

  The students stood in their classes, in their colors. Even in our ranks. First Tier. Second Tier. Third Tier.

  Graduate students at the front of it all, only three classes. Then a row of Ultras. Finally the mass of Intras. Before us were the faculty, just on the edge of the Mound. From the lowest dishwasher to the highest of the Learning Council. Even the side of the Asylum usually hidden from us was in attendance, ESLED and the Recruiters both present in large blocks, ESLED with their badges and their g-man suits, the Recruiters with their swagger and not a single one the same as any other.

  On one side of me was Val, on the other Miranda. Val had a hold of my left hand, while Miranda kept sniffling even though a word had yet to be said. She also kept leaning in to my still damaged shoulder like she expected I might throw an arm around her in comfort. Emotions . . . good for nothing, especially from gingers. Not like I ever would or even could, since it was still in a sling. Two more days of Slush plus a few hydro-conjurations before Miss Strange would declare me as good as new.

  As good as I ever been, which is not much.

  Welf was on the other side of Val and, as I’d expected, in a wheelchair. What part of his leg wasn’t in a cast was in a Slush tank. Mama Welf hadn’t been very happy with Root or me, even if we had caught Isabel and saved her son’s life. Never been a hero, but a kiss to be had for saving the day might have been nice, especially from Mama Welf.

  Hard to think about that.

  Hard to joke about much of anything.

  Mourning was in vogue, now more than ever.

  Every class, every student.

  No Ultra escaped it.

  Isabel.

  Isabel Soto.

  Class ’09 had been thirty strong a few days before. Now we were down to twenty-eight. One dead. One worse than dead.

  Madness gonna take us all one day, no matter how many times we say we ain’t crazy.

  Had a chat with Ceinwyn earlier and Isabel had been sedated and transferred to the Pit already. She’d never leave it from what I understood. Don’t know if I consider that a win, but at least it meant no more dead kids. Especially since Welf and me were about to be Victim Number Twist and Victim Number Fucked To Death.

  Class ’08 had lost Leo.

  Class ’07 had lost Hardy . . . and Catherine Hayes.

  Wasn’t expelled, meaning they weren’t taking her life or sticking her in the Pit like Isabel, but she did ‘graduate.’ As Ceinwyn had said when giving me the news I always wanted to hear, bitter though it was coming from her smile-less face, “She’ll be given a diploma for any mundane degree she asks for, but from now on the mancer world is closed to her. Only aeromancer beside me I’ve ever been impressed by and she threw it all away. And for what? She didn’t even properly foresee the outcome of her actions. So very disappointing . . .”

  Mary and Teresa escaped serious punishment, trading places with Catherine in the Holding Room on Sundays. Doubt either would fare much better than she did when it came to jobs in the mancer world. No ESLED like Teresa wanted. No Rejuvenation Society like Mary wanted.

  Yay?

  Don’t feel so victorious at the moment.

  But I suppose I’m still standing.

  That’s something worth celebrating.

  The Lady stepped up to a podium they had prepared for her. She gave a speech. I don’t remember it.

  What I remember is that above her head the spectromancers had created massive spectro-portraits of the three students being remembered. Leo with his heartthrob good looks and those blue eyes made girls melt no matter how cold the anima inside him was. Scott Hardy, everyone’s younger brother, far too innocent to be one of the terrible Blackjacks. Athir . . . awkward but polished, so polished he was too bright to fit in among the crowd. Had a feeling Vicky was in charge of that portrait, being it managed to get across more than just an image.

  It got across a moment in time.

  A moment as long as the light would last.

  A moment as long as the anima kept it going.

  I told them what you did, Athir. What you said. Made half of us cry. Not me though . . . never me . . . anyone says differently and they’re a liar.

  On my left, Val squeezed my hand.

  On my right, Miranda leaned close enough to make my arm ache from the pressure.

  Surrounded by my friends and classmates and the whole of the Asylum, I felt safe.

  We all felt safe.

  The Monster was dead.

  The Evil Queen vanquished.

  Little over two more years to go at the place for Class ’09.

  The twenty-eight of us that are still left.

  Wonder what’s next?

  Hex,
on the horizon.

  Hep, after that.

  Felt like I’d gone through a crucible this week.

  Felt like graduating this place was finally possible, even a certainty.

  Not much left to learn, then we’ll see if I can start curing Anima Madness.

  No more like Isabel Soto.

  No more like Catherine Hayes.

  Might be evil, might be weird, but won’t be evil or weird with that something-extra. Something-extra should be special, not wrong.

  After the memorial we cleared the Field. Had some refreshments in the Cafeteria. On the way back to our Dorms after that, you could still see the huge spectro-portraits shining as bright as sunlight itself.

  Goodbye, Leo.

  Goodbye, Scott.

  Goodbye, Athir.

  Session 178

  They don’t sing songs no more.

  Sing commercialized shit to make your endorphins pop.

  But don’t sing songs.

  Don’t sing about important moments in time we should all remember.

  No star spangled banners waving, no foggy dew to walk through.

  Just that catchy tune you karaoke all summer and get sick of by fall.

  No songs, but if they did sing songs . . . if history was as truthful about what actually happened as reality itself, I like to think people would sing about that day.

  The Battle of Eureka.

  Had a lot of ups and downs in my life, but that might be the highest up. Mountain in the middle of it all . . . valleys to either side.

  Sure, sure, kids and wife and all that.

  People don’t like it when you ignore those or shy away from them. Supposed to say those are the highest highs, but . . . lot of fucked up surrounding those moments. Not just for me, but the world too. Most of it very down. Down, down the hole with the rest of the goldfish crackers.

  But Eureka . . .

  Not saying I didn’t make any mistakes that day. Made at least a couple of big ones and dozens of small ones. Don’t play a lot of What If with that day though. Could, easily could. Just can’t see how to do it differently. Not once that convergence was drawn upon the sands of time. Day of survival. Day of victories, any sort that could be managed. Day only brought about because of a mistake. Because I was utterly outplayed. Outmaneuvered. Surrounded.