“Yup,” I got a little angry myself. “Just let it drift away, fingers unraveling by the second. Sorry I gave enough of a shit about all of you to try to head back and help out.”
“I must see to my wounded,” Vega managed to get out before walking off in a huff, shaking his head in disgust over the lost opportunity. No matter how much he wins, man always wants more. One piece of you after another until you’re his and his alone.
“I wouldn’t worry about him,” Mama Welf advised from the Old Mancy perspective, “unlike us, Vega does not share in the victory. Were Nations of a certain growing power always eventually try to play with their betters and then when our obvious strength becomes apparent they whine like little children about the outcome. With the Vampire Embassies they know better, but with us they always listen to their own delusions of grandeur. And in the end, when they do play . . . we can’t help it that we are the lions and they are the sheep, can we? Now, within a month there will be rumors about how we mancers sat back, how we lost not a single person. That we are not to be trusted, even if a mancer is family. Vega has trouble in his future from the more hard line members of his court. A body might have sated their blood-thirst . . . but that’s something else the mongrels never realize: when mancers battle, bodies rarely survive intact. Just like some of your girlfriend’s beautiful art, they all fade with the wind . . .”
Felt a bit weirded out getting advice from Moira von Welf while Ceinwyn was the silent one, but . . . still felt like Vega deserved some defense. As much as we’d fought, as little as I trusted him. Vega came up aces. Vega backed me up. Fought for me, fought for Susan. For his sister-in-law. Don’t want him, but guess he is family after all. “Fifty dead . . . I owe him a few now.”
“No worries about that,” Mama Welf chuckled, “Horatio Vega always collects.”
Frowned at her. It was just . . . weird. A Welf being cozy, especially one not made of sparkles and moonbeams. Looked at her like she grew an extra head since I’d realm-jumped away with Paine. “You wanna make out or something?”
Ceinwyn’s smile finally made an appearance.
“I can be pleasant you know. On occasion,” Moira claimed. “Especially in triumph. What we won today . . . the political capital . . .”
“Yeah, leverage. Get to that in a bit after I check on everyone. Can’t help but notice you sucking up a lot now that I’m the one killed the Curator, by the way.”
There’s the Moira Welf scowl I know and . . . well, I know her, won’t ever love her. “Vega’s not the only one you owe, boy,” she informed me imperiously. “I lost two Constructs today. Years of work ruined, years more to replace them. One day there will be a vote on the Council I wish to go my way and you better come through for me. Hero of Eureka and Slayer of the Curator or not!”
Her huff was a lot more enjoyable to watch than Vega’s, especially from the backside.
Yeah, yeah, sexist.
“Hero of Eureka? Fuck that shit,” I said.
“You’re absolutely sure?” Ceinwyn asked, referencing Paine’s demise.
“Yeah.”
“I was sure. I even found an arm,” she pointed out.
“I’m sure.”
Part of me wishes he could come back, wishes I could kill him again, I left unsaid, knowing that most people wouldn’t understand that feeling, maybe not even one as strange as Ceinwyn Dale.
Paine would’ve.
Paine did.
Why Vega hated him so much.
Dying again and again is bad enough. Seeing the joy in those diamond eyes as they got to kill you over and over . . . that was worse.
Ceinwyn touched me again, a hand rising to my shoulder as the both of us looked over that piece of Eureka we ruined. Still didn’t see any news choppers up in the sky . . . meant some part of ESLED knew they needed to jump on the mundane just now. Also saw an ambulance nearby with what looked like Miss Strange’s ugly ass checkered Vans poking out the back hatch . . . meant someone called her and told her to be ready to treat our wounded. Two nice surprises in addition to everyone being alive.
Not that I saw any more of Team Don’t Lick the Vamp Clit standing around.
Just Coyotes, either dead, dying, or living.
And the Wilder corpses, can’t forget them.
Army of almost five-hundred Wilders.
Did not expect that shit.
Nice move, Paine. Not a bad one for it being your last.
Still couldn’t believe it. All felt unreal.
Obadiah Paine dead.
Obadiah Paine . . . fucking dead!
Never planned for that shit!
But apparently someone did do some planning for our victory. “I did cheat a little bit,” Ceinwyn told me. “I put in a call with Director de Clermont so he could keep the media and the first responders away. I’ve never seen eye-to-eye with the man, and he’s a complete pompous flop, but he is loyal to the Institution and knew what officers would never betray him to the Curator. As for Evelyn . . . things could’ve been far worse than the wounds we suffered. Cheating, however, is not the same as taking the ball and running off with it where I couldn’t reach. What were you thinking?”
“Wasn’t much. Sorry about that. Know you wanted to kill him again, but it seemed like the only way to protect all of you.”
“You took him to the Geo Realm?”
I nodded. “God-King versus God-King. Lucked out. Helps that for all he knows and all his artifacts and all his skill, I’m still stronger than he ever was. I just . . . overpowered him eventually. Took out a lot of real estate and sure made a lot of noise, but . . . he’s really gone.”
Ceinwyn’s smile twitched. “I suppose I’ll have to live with just seeing the look of shock on his face as you beaned him with the fake World-Breaker.”
“Yeah, that one was pretty good too.” I frowned a bit, recalling a part that hadn’t been. “Even with me being stronger, I still almost died. Would have died if I didn’t realize he was pooling twice at one time.”
Ceinwyn Dale actually bit her bottom lip in embarrassment. “Oh, that.”
“Yeah, that.”
Damned if she didn’t give me a perfectly imitated I-don’t-give-a-crap shrug. “Sorry. I didn’t want you getting distracted trying to learn it in twenty-four hours. Not with so much already going on. Also, it’s dreadfully hard. You never would have managed it.”
“Turned out okay anyway, I suppose,” I gave her as much forgiveness as was in me, while keeping back that I kind of already had with my World-Breaker’s help. Closer to being good between us, but still some edges in that mix. Even with those fibs or whatever you want to call them, Ceinwyn Dale and me still work pretty damn good together.
Won the Battle of Eureka didn’t we?
What a scene.
What a battle.
Might’ve had my own war, but I missed all this . . .
Sucks, don’t it?
Yeah, I wasn’t there, so I can’t tell you about it.
Can’t even promise this shit won’t happen again.
King Henry Price is only one person, even if he is a Maximus, he can’t be everywhere.
He missed Eureka and he would miss some very important moments going forward too . . . some moments that even haunt me today.
Ceinwyn noticed the look of regret on my face, same regret on hers about missing out on Paine’s death. “Vega is whining over his loses, but he’s not wrong about there being more fighting in our future.”
More fighting in our future, part of me liked the sound of that. “They escaped then?”
A nod. “Your wall . . . it saved us, but made it hard to follow. It took Catherine a time to get them focused on breaking holes in it. Enough time for Valentine to fight her way back to us with Susan. It was chaos after that. Five-hundred Wilders throwing everything they had. Breaking through in a number of places. Rushing up the highway at us. The Constructs killing what they could, the Coyotes shooting at just about anything that moved downrange. After Susan was ha
nded off to Tyson and Victoria, Valentine found me and the both of us threw enough of a barrage that it stalled their attack. At least until Isabel led a charge on the Coyote positions. She’s the one with the most bodies to account for. You can ask Jesus and Pocket, they were in the middle of it. So were Moira’s Constructs. Isabel broke the two of them. That girl . . . it still eats me up to see her like this. Worse than when she was stuck in the Pit.”
“Yeah, she’s something,” I said sarcastically.
Ceinwyn pursed her lips at me in annoyance, but continued story time. “Valentine rushed in again . . . I’ve never seen anyone pool anima that quickly, not even the Lady. The flames scared Isabel away and put them on the retreat. They ran across the highway, towards the buildings there where they emerged. Catherine tried to organize a last stand, but eventually it was too much. The problem with an anima battle is that it’s all over quickly. We laugh at machineguns, but the Coyotes brought plenty of ammunition. Then . . . well, Valentine charged in again. Chased after them . . .”
“Yeah, she’s something,” I repeated, a bit more serious this time. Although I can well imagine what it was like seeing Val go Purifier in front of everyone like that, even to someone like Ceinwyn who’s seen what a pyromancer can do in a fight.
Needed to find her.
Was just a lot more people I needed to find too.
“So . . . we won,” I tried to summarize. “But I killed the only person holding all those Wilders together and I don’t have a body to prove it to them, so now two-hundredish Anima Mad fucktards will be in the wind only the Mancy knows where while worshiping a dead man?”
Ceinwyn only patted me on the shoulder again. “Another day, King Henry. Unlike the Coyotes, none of us died. So . . . I’m going to smile all night, what about you?”
Smiles don’t come as easy as a canine grin, but I managed one. “Yeah, sounds good.”
Hand on my shoulder gave it a squeeze. “Go tell everyone that you’ve returned. Get hugged by Victoria. Have a word with your sister. Help calm Valentine down, please. Then we have some more business to finish concerning a certain Curator’s hideout, don’t we?”
See my friends.
See my Big Sis.
See my love.
Then time to play the Leverage Game.
Never expected to have this much.
Leverage, it felt stranger than my victory did.
But I’d take it.
Take it and use it.
Question was: how grand did I want my plans to be?
How much did I dare to push?
Well, might have won, but we still haven’t found the floor to that Pit of No Return, have we?
The Leverage Game.
Not just with Ceinwyn.
But with Massey too.
And I just killed the fucking Curator.
[CLICK]
I stood at the edge of the ambulance door for a moment, just watching Miss Strange at work. Usually I was the one in there and it was my friends laughing over whatever dumbass stunt I pulled to get me hurt. This time, I still did the dumbass thing, but I wasn’t the one hurt. They were. Not like any of the walking wounded had life threatening injuries, but all three of them were whining something fierce as they got blasted with outbursts of ‘moron’ and ‘idiot,’ not to mention exaltations about how if they did something so stupid again Miss Strange wouldn’t be saving them the next time around.
But she will, she always does, I thought fondly.
Hard for even the Foul Mouth to be cynical today.
Made the smile I had from my talk with Ceinwyn grow to a grin, one of the non-canine, genuine variety don’t often grace my face. Also shook my head at the scene, them all lined up and cramped in that tiny ambulance.
What a sorry sight to see.
Smell was a bit more serious, that odor of Slush mixed with blood triggered memories. Of the Winter War, when the games got a little more real than any athletic competition should, even one involving magic. Of Valentine, just after we had Christmas stolen away from us, desperate and regrouping in a hotel room, dabbing my bruises and scrapes with the stuff. Of Miranda, slathering the stuff all over me through tears of frustration that I dared to crawl half dead to her door and not someone else’s. Of the Ouroboros, after I killed Sebastian Rojas very dead, evil snake fucker that he was, high on monk mojo juice and lounging in a bathtub. Slush and blood: that too heavy smell of dampness and the salty tang of iron.
But the sight!
I couldn’t help it.
Started laughing at them.
Earned four confused stares in my direction.
Didn’t take long for confusion to turn to excitement or for excitement to immediately become hurt and defensive and just a little annoyed I caught them looking like that. Someone had placed Mini and his beaten up metal GOB belt in the ambulance with them and even it seemed to sulk.
Pocket was the least wounded of the three. Something must have bit him on the neck, guess he’s lucky there’s no Vamps around or it might have been more serious . . . if Vamps actually had fangs that is. Miss Strange had cleared away most of the blood, squirted on a gel-like ointment the same color as Slush, then practically choked him to death with all the bandages she wrapped around the wound. Not like she didn’t know how to apply one, just think she enjoyed leaving a lasting impression on people about why they got hurt in the first place and how they never wanted to do it again.
Jesus . . . well, if it was me, I’d say he lost his favorite finger. One of them, at least. Must have found it again, since he held the digit in his other hand, submerged in another decoction that looked the same color as Slush but wasn’t nearly as thick, in fact was almost opaque. He too got the extra bandage job, all around his hand and remaining fingers, clearly highlighting the fact that one was now missing.
T-Bone . . . T-Bone was laid out on the ambulance floor, ass up toward the roof, his unusual jeans down around his knees. Might have lost some weight what with all the long nights Vicky put him through, but it was still sizable as posteriors go. Miss Strange had just gotten to working on him, blood barely cleaned off the wound. Said wound was right in the middle of one of them brown mounds of flesh.
That’s right.
T-Bone got shot in the butt.
I started laughing harder.
“It’s not funny,” T-Bone growled at me, but given his face was right there at the edge of the ambulance, big soft hands ready to grab on for dear life once Miss Strange went about finding said bullet, just made me laugh so hard I almost fell over.
Jesus was the first the join me, missing finger or not.
Pocket smiled, but didn’t laugh. He pointed at T-Bone with a thumb, other hand still holding the bandage at his neck, or trying to keep it from choking him. “I’m with him. Want to take a guess what bit me?”
I shrugged, chest still shaking. “Crazy ass faunamancer thinks he’s a bear?”
“Soto Crazy, El Rey,” Jesus answered for Pocket. “Scary shit to see a woman don’t care about getting shot and kills with every punch or kick. Only reason she didn’t hurt him more is she was too busy strangling a pair of Coyotes with her hands.”
“Or she likes me because I was one of the few people who didn’t treat her like crap at school,” Pocket rebutted.
“Called her Soto Crazy just like the rest of us,” Jesus remembered.
“Don’t think I will again . . . not after I saw what she can do,” Pocket grumbled.
“So ferns didn’t do so well for you?” I joked.
“Why are we talking about what happened to us?” T-Bone asked angrily. “What happened to you? What happened to Paine? Why didn’t you tell us?”
Jesus waved it off. “El Rey likes to have his little moments. Boomworm knew about it and went along, that’s enough.”
“Yeah, Valentine knew,” Pocket said, getting a little pale.
“Only person out there today scarier than Isabel was your girlfriend, El Rey. Even Miss Dale, Welf’s mama, or Catherine coul
dn’t match her.” Jesus shook his head like he couldn’t believe what he saw. “Try not to piss her off again, okay?”
“I try, I fail, I try again,” I quipped. “Take today for example: seems you boys are under the mistaken impression I planned all that stupid shit out there.”
Pocket seemed shock. “It . . . it wasn’t a play? But like . . . dude! It had to be a play. And you didn’t tell anyone because you didn’t want us to interfere with your one-on-one fight, right?”
Glad Ceinwyn is smarter than these morons or she would’ve slapped my head clean off she thought I pulled that shit. “Do I look that stupid?” I felt like I had to ask.
“Yes,” Jesus automatically answered.
“You’re missing a finger.”
“Stupidity is not a zero sum game, El Rey.”
“Well, I ain’t that stupid,” I informed them. “Just did what I thought I had to do once I saw Paine’s army was five fucking times as big as we expected it to be. Grown up, remember? Don’t lie no more. Sound similar to all the shit I’ve been saying for the last six months?”
“Yeah,” Pocket said, “but we didn’t think you’d completely keep to it. I mean . . . it’s you.”
Put my hand theatrically to my chest like I was in pain. “I am so wounded right now, man.”
“Are you at least going to tell us if you killed him?” T-Bone grumbled in frustration.
Miss Strange had stopped her work to glance over me, seeing me almost spotless for once, except for Kitty Cat’s paper-cuts and all the dirt that had showered over me during the fighting. Neither needed Slush for sure. She didn’t smile, cuz that’s a Ceinwyn Dale kind of thing, not an Evelyn Strange kind of thing. But she did nod my way.
“Not that important, right?” I teased them by pulling the carrot away. “Rather hear about how Jesus lost that finger . . .”
The Pit of No Return (The King Henry Tapes Book 6) Page 82
