Across from us . . .
Obadiah Paine and his Demon Brides.
Suppose I’m one to talk, since I got me a pair of Queens too, Fire and the Fates.
Well . . . guess there ain’t no delay left to us.
Here we were.
Here was the moment.
The standoff.
No one’s saying anything, we’re just staring at each other.
Felt like if I flinched in the wrong direction it would all explode, but I had to say something. Had to start this tumble. Keep it slow, keep it controlled. Think about Susan, think about Val. Don’t let the earthquake get the best of you, got to be a little bit civilized to win this one.
“Isabel, if you don’t change away from that body right now, I’m gonna smash your face in,” some part of me growled out.
Well . . . that didn’t last long.
“But she’s the reason we’re all here!” Isabel whined. “I’m not being mean . . . I could have. I could have been Valentine . . . not that one there, but the one from when we were students. Do you remember how much you liked that one, King Henry? The things we did together! How you explored it and so fiercely, so needy!”
Don’t think I’ve ever seen Val shake with anger, not even when Christmas got kidnapped. Went full avenging angel mode then, but this . . . like I said once before, wasn’t just me and my trust got abused by Isabel, was Val’s too. Was . . . well, just about everyone at the school I think. Even without the three dead kids on her head, Isabel still did more than enough to end up in the Pit.
Says a man just spent a week inside and knows what a horrible place it can be. Of course maybe without all the killings she wouldn’t deserve that padded cell, might not even deserve it with them. Ain’t high on my list like some others, but I would like to cure her Anima Madness and meet the uncorrupted Isabel one day. Wait till that day to judge her, see if it’s just the Madness caused me so much harm or if she’s more like Catherine—rotten from the start.
“Why are you even on that side of the line?” I purposely tried to confuse her, never hard to do. “You hate the Queens, hate what Catherine pushed you to do to Leo and Scott, and Athir especially. You always wanted to be accepted by Ceinwyn and the other teachers. Wanted peace too, wanted love and not hatred. You think he loves you, Isabel? Think his path is about peace? Bet you’re too scared to try on his body, cuz then you couldn’t lie to yourself no more. Then you’d know it was everything Paine tells you that’s the lie.”
“I tell her how very special she is, little dog,” Paine rebutted. “I see her as she is and do not judge. More, I exalt in her abilities and strengths. I use them to better this world, not drag it down to remain as it has been the last ten thousand years. No, I do not love as others love. But what I do give her is honest. You speak of lies, but it is your world, your government that is built on them. My world, my people, know that what I give to them is truth in all its forms, no matter how uncomfortable those truths may be.”
“He’s madder than he ever was at school,” the big ass Construct Winter said in a gravelly voice, yet with Mama Welf’s scolding, often disappointed tone.
Paine gave the dead man one of his fake smiles looked like something a robot would use to attempt to mimic a real human. “You feared me then, Moira Jenkins. You feared that I saw through your mask to the real you, the pretty spoiled girl who was so terrified of others noticing how vapid and subpar her skills were, for all that she had been given. Look at you now, hiding behind an ancient name not your own, hiding behind your very children’s successes as if they were your own. The only Maximus on this planet clearly bested in her discipline by a mere Ultra. Just as you stole the Welf name, you stole the mantle that rightly belonged to Mordecai Root, didn’t you, Moira Jenkins?”
Three Queens all chuckled or smiled cruelly over that one, especially Catherine. “Didn’t we kill that already?” she asked, pointed at Belisarius.
“Yes, sister, you did,” came out Jason Jackson’s voice with Welf’s haughty manner.
Fucking Bonegrinders, man. Standing in front of Obadiah Paine and still it’s the Constructs giving me the willies.
Didn’t give Catherine the willies, gave her a small delighted gasp. “So your bitch of a mother finally told her spawn what a horrible person she is.”
“My mother tried to wait your Madness out so she could avoid the harsh regard of society, that was her failure. I know better. I know you are my blood, Catherine Hayes, and as you are in great distress, it is my duty to deal with you myself as quickly as possible,” Belisarius spoke again. “You are obviously quite afflicted and regrettably I have no choice in the matter but to end your suffering before you hurt anyone else.”
“Of course not,” Paine mocked us. “No choice in the matter. That is always the refrain of the Learning Council. Time and again, mistake after mistake. We have no choice in the matter, we must keep this world spinning on and on, broken and beaten and bleeding as it is. Yes, young Welf, how truly you speak. Fear. All of it is out of fear. Fear of those who rule us, but more, fear ever pervasive, fear ever consuming.” He glanced at us one by one, slapping us each down, dissecting us with his blazing, crazed gaze.
Welf: “Fear we do not live up to our forefathers, that we are weak where they were strong, that we are alone and shall never be deserving of comfort or companionship.”
Moira: “Fear of how little we rate on the world stage no matter how many silks we wrap about our lush body and how many fingers we twist to get our way.”
Valentine: “Fear of ourselves, of our power if we only dared to wield it in the light, how brightly we could glow then, but no, we might hurt those lesser than us, might be forced to admit we are greater than those yapping animals that flock around us proclaiming their love.”
Me: “Fear we are a beast, not a man. Fear we came too late, when we weren’t needed, for another greater man had already been born. Fear of chains, but still grabbing them, weighing ourselves down with them because it is such a convenient excuse for our many failures. Fear we believe as our enemies believe, but unable to ever admit it, because admitting it would force us to bow and we do not bow. Fear of bowing and servitude most of all.”
Ceinwyn: “Fear, nothing but fear in those eyes I once loved so much. Fear of me, but even more fear of my words, fear of my thoughts. Such fear that you never even let me speak before you killed me. Never let me explain. Never let me tell you how Amis Valet died, how he died a traitor to the both of our dreams, how I begged him to see reason and how he threatened not only me and my work, but you as well. But no . . . we cannot speak of that, we cannot admit our love betrayed us. We especially cannot admit that one time we chose wrong or else all the other choices, all the other foresight that places us above the mere mundane would be in doubt.”
Only words, but an effect as great as any cut.
Cut, cut, cut.
Words Paine has waited so long to say.
Words Paine didn’t wish to end there, but wished to carry all the way to the halls of power. To the Learning Council, the Guild of Artificers, the Rejuvenation Society, to the Hall of the Coyote King, to the Divine Chamber itself. To Nii-Vah and Inanina and Pwent, no, higher than that. To Kien and Amarusa and Balhad.
To the dragons in their prison caves.
To the blood gods once cast them down, to the blood gods rule us all.
Don’t rule me and no matter how pretty they might have been, yeah, Paine, I refuse to kneel to them.
Might know fear, yeah, it’s always there.
It’s human.
What reminds me I am human.
The monster in me that both Paine and Annie B seemed to want to unleash, it didn’t know fear. It was the side of me that never cared. Side of me would’ve seen everyone surrounding me dead just to get to Paine. Even Val. Even Ceinwyn.
But I ain’t all monster, just part, and that’s why I keep the chains.
Two women standing beside me done the most in my life to convince me of that
. Maximus though it might be, filled with anima and earthquake and dirt and steel and glass though it might be, it was still human.
Forced myself to snort at those petty cuts flowing from Paine’s mouth. Made me ignore them. Me ignoring it gave all the others strength to resist, to let it go. When the bad influence breaks good for once, well . . . got to live up to his example, don’t ya?
“Glad you got that out of your system, Obadiah,” I got all merry. “Hope you enjoyed it. Me, I got nothing to say to you I haven’t already. Know why I’m here. Know why you’re here. Know what I want. Know what you want. Know you made plenty of threats too . . . I don’t plan on letting them be carried out, but I can’t stop you from trying. So how ‘bout we cut all the rest of the bullshit and the build-up and we just get this thing done? How ‘bout you bring the real Susan Price out?”
“And if we don’t?” Catherine Hayes shot back. “Still pretending you’re so tough, aren’t you? We have all the cards. If we want to mock and belittle you for hours then you’ll just have to stand there and take it, Foul Mouth.”
“We shouldn’t do that . . .” Isabel mumbled, unhappy with the conflict. “We should just give his sister back and let him go. We don’t need to hurt him if he doesn’t have the stick thingy.”
Catherine sneered at Isabel in disgust, but kept her mouth shut to not start an argument in front of us. “If we must. It would be rather troublesome to reach my siblings with the way they’re being cowards all the way back near those cars, wouldn’t it?”
Yet in her green eyes I saw the same cut as Paine. Same cut to bleed. Same cut gave me that scar over my brow. Agree with me, Master Curator, please! I want to kill them! Let me kill them, please!
Paine glanced at Ceinwyn. “No words? Really?”
“King Henry’s right,” Val said to back me up. “I have nothing to say to any of you. This is as far as you come. This is the moment you lost. So enjoy your World-Breaker. We’ll get it back. You’ll all be locked up in the Pit one day or dead. The Asylum didn’t fall in the Counter-Culture War and it won’t fall to the Curator either.”
Paine still only had eyes for Ceinwyn. “Speak,” he ordered.
Somehow she worked up the strength to smile at him. That same I-know-more-than-you smile that drove every new Asylum recruit mad. “What a disappointment you’ve become, Obadiah.”
Paine’s cheek twitched, his jaw grinding from side to side. “I stopped caring about your opinion when you tried to murder me.”
“Now who’s lying?” Ceinwyn asked him. “Now who’s a scared little boy? You talk of fear? I see through you, Obadiah. I see a diamond that is so worried the world will realize it’s nothing more than compressed carbon. I see a diamond that has been cracked. I see a diamond unworthy of jewelry or praise, useless but for mere curiosity.”
“I did everything you wanted and you murdered me! You took my arm and my leg!” Paine screamed across the gap. “You left me to crawl. You left me buried in all that dirt. I solved it. I found a way out just like you wanted and you murdered me.”
“You’re the murderer, Obadiah.”
“It was self defense. We would all have ended up in the Pit if Amis had spoken his falsehoods. I would have anyway . . . for you, for our goal. But no . . . you cared more about your false vengeance than saving this world. Perhaps because you already knew so much of what I have learned these last twenty years. Is that it? Were you always keeping the truths from me? Look at the boy’s expression. He knows how that feels. He knows that sting. But . . . does he know the name of his masters yet? Does he know anything? Do any of them? Or are you using them too?”
“I never used you Obadiah and I asked you for a cure, I never told you to create a weapon like that.”
“IT WOULD HAVE WORKED!” Paine screamed. “A RESET WAS THE ONLY WAY!”
It hurt Ceinwyn to see him like this. Whatever he was now, he used to be her classmate. Just like me and Isabel. Have no sympathy for Paine or Catherine or many others, but when you remember that fourteen-year-girl or that fourteen-year-old boy . . . well, of course it hurt her. Might have even hurt Moira von Welf, but Winter made no comment on the matter, just stood there ready and waiting.
Still no sign of the Coyotes. Did have cars honking on either end of the highway now, plus a small lake thanks to that water main Mary blew. No trains, no news copters. Few boats out in the ocean blue, granted not the same famous ocean blue Columbus sailed across, the other one.
Standoff was tense before all them words and it was even worse now. “Know why I’m here. Know why you’re here,” I repeated. “How ‘bout you bring my sister out and we get this over with, Obadiah?”
“Still think you can survive after what’s been said, little dog?”
“Do what I must to make sure I do,” I warned him.
“I asked her, so I’ll ask you: do you know, little dog? Yap me out the names of your masters.”
“Don’t care about them, not for awhile yet. Maybe one day—if I live long enough—I will fight them. Right now, I only care about the people here in Eureka. Care about leaving here and doing whatever I have to do to get Massey off my back. So . . . enough talk. Bring out my sister right now or I’m gonna assume that picture you showed me was a fake. Then I’ll leave. With your precious World-Breaker.”
Isabel looked askance of him, like she was the one responsible for grabbing Susan. Paine shook his head though. “You first. Show me the World-Breaker. Now. Still I cannot feel it . . . if you did not bring it, I will—”
Me pulling out the Fakeshin Dim silenced his threat. Waved it in front of my face, all that blazing anima inside of it. The most powerful and expensive paperweight in existence.
Paine’s hands actually trembled at the sight of it, even the gold-plated artifact version. “For so long you have kept what is mine,” he muttered, “today it ends, little dog.”
“Show me Susan or I break it in half,” I warned him.
He barked in amusement. “Do try.”
We both waited each other out.
“I thought not,” Paine sneered. “Nothing alive on this planet can destroy a World-Breaker. Especially not you, little dog. But . . . as you say, you have done your part, time for me to do mine. Isabel, if you would bring the rest of our friends.”
“Here comes the part where we get outnumbered,” Val whispered to me as Isabel ran off toward that brick building among all the other brick and metal sheeted buildings that made up those outskirts around Eureka.
“Only Wilders . . . probably,” I whispered back.
“Where are the Coyotes?” Ceinwyn asked, again low so the wind and the honking might keep it from carrying twenty yards across to Paine and the Three Queens.
“Should be here any minute if Vega wasn’t full of shit,” I told her. “Long as they arrive in time to soak up some damage I really don’t care when they get here. Might be better off if they ain’t around for this part anyway.”
“Yes, Horatio Vega is so trustworthy after all,” Winter said in Moira Welf’s tone.
“Can you please stop doing that shit?” I asked. “That’s freaky even for douchebag Bonegrinder crap.”
“There she is,” Belisarius said for Welf. “The Foul Mouth related to someone so beautiful . . . it’s quite shocking, isn’t it?”
Heinrich Welf just called your sister a hotty, some part of me thought.
You can’t call him on it, another part thought, because that is Susan.
Susanna Belle Price.
Thirty-years-old.
Looked so much like Mom, except even taller, even prettier maybe. Only . . . she had the first sign of wrinkles in a way Mom never did, due to all the corpus-anima floating around in her system. Mom had a stolen youth inside of her, a stolen youth that killed her eventually. No matter the fact that she was my mom, Abigail Price never quite looked like a real woman, just what a girl expected a woman should look like. Susan was a woman, a woman at her peak. Strong, intelligent, weathered, but her head up with dignity
even though they had her wearing nothing but nurse scrubs. Made a quick guess that was her job in Paine’s madhouse.
Taking care of other people, that’s Suze alright.
She was bound with handcuffs, but otherwise didn’t resist Isabel leading her along. Like she was used to it. Also like Isabel and her don’t necessarily hate one another. The glance Susan gave to Paine was filled with fear and the one at Catherine brought a purse to Susan’s lips.
Mom’s lips.
Mom’s smile.
“It really is you,” Susan said, “you really are one of them. One of us . . .”
“Victoria confirms this woman is a Bonegrinder,” Belisarius said for Welf. “A . . . very unique one apparently. An aura more white than black, whatever that might mean.”
Paine tilted his head at this, intrigued. “Word of Victoria von Welf’s anima senses do not do them justice it seems. It would be quite a skill to test . . .”
“Stay away from my daughter,” Winter growled for Moira.
“As of yet undecided, Jenkins,” Paine mocked. “So early in the trade . . . how will we know the night’s end so soon? A great many surprises are in store yet, aren’t they?”
“Not much longer, Suze,” I ignored all of them. “You want to come home, right?”
She smiled at me. “I’d like that, King Henry. The last few years have been . . . but I’m mostly better now. Mom says ‘hi’ by the way. And wants you to know that she’s always watching over you. And JoJo . . . who Mom still isn’t happy with, but she could have married worse, so . . . there’s that.”
.
.
.
Susan thinks she’s talking to our dead mother.
Okay.
That wasn’t . . .
Well, it was pretty fucked up.
But . . .
Well, she’s not sticking her tongue up her nose, so I suppose that’s something.
Second time I’ve ever seen Obadiah Paine grin and it was just as evil, just as cruel as the first. Turns your stomach to see so much joy over your own discomfort. “I did say she was only mostly sane, little dog.”
The Pit of No Return (The King Henry Tapes Book 6) Page 77
