T-Bone came running in from the other side of the suite. “There’s an infinity pool on the balcony!”
“And a cappuccino machine in the kitchen,” I noticed. “A lot of free booze too . . .”
Pocket glanced at me quizzically. “You just sobered up.”
“Yeah . . . not by choice. Also . . . I don’t want to get drunk because of Val dumping me, I want to get drunk over my friends being a bunch of dumbasses.”
They both frowned after me as I went on a rummaging binge. I found the most expensively labeled beer in the refrigerator and popped it open with a small burst of geo-anima. Made it look like the bottle cap bent on itself and just fell off the top. Needed to use anima in some extravagant, frivolous way before I put a hole in the wall. Forget my doubts and inner thoughts, the here and now was bad enough without them.
The room ain’t free. The room was just another string I’d have to chop off. Or pay back or . . . Vega would pretend it’s all a favor he did for me.
T-Bone spoke my thoughts aloud, “You’re worried that your brother-in-law will use this as another favor you owe him?”
I sat down at the kitchen table. It was made of glass. Thought about breaking it. Break, break, break. “Why you think we can just move past the part where you and Pocket are a bunch of dumbasses?”
“With everything else that’s happened, I never even considered that we should be worried about Were Nations,” T-Bone admitted. “All I thought was: there are no vampires in Las Vegas, so it shouldn’t be too much of a problem. And even knowing your brother-in-law is involved in the Ouroboros . . . I checked it out, King Henry! It’s not approved, but it’s legal and it’s aboveboard. It’s not the Coyote Nation’s; they’re just a part of it. The Circle of Light has to be involved too with how many spectro-crystals they’re using. Other Were Nations and other mancer organizations too.”
“He obviously doesn’t want to kill you,” Pocket added, popping open his own beer. “Unless you’re some sacrifice he’s fattening up and last I checked you’re about as opposite of a virgin as you can get, dude.”
“It’s not some plan, not like with Los Angeles,” T-Bone reminded me. “It’s just happenstance that we came at the last minute, because you . . .”
Silence.
“Got dumped,” I finished for him.
Pocket nodded at his beer like it was really good. It was really good. Had to be really good for a floromancer to like drinking up his precious plants. “So unless Miss Dale is in on it and gave Val a promotion so she’d dump you, making me free to invite you to Ouroboros for the event, which has been in production for over a year now and involves thousands of people . . . there’s plays and then there’s just bullshit conspiracy theories. The Three Queens couldn’t even come up with this one.” Pocket glanced at T-Bone. “You know who the Three Queens are, right?”
T-Bone gave a quick shudder. “King Henry told me about what they turned into at the end. I was two years ahead of them, so I mostly remember them as a trio of crazy little girls, quite a few of those at the Asylum . . . crazy little boys too.”
Pocket frowned. “Don’t remember you at the Asylum.”
“I was a nerd,” T-Bone laughed, “not much has changed. I was a graduate busy with my studies and my experiments and planning for my Acceptance Test by the time you two arrived.”
“Wait, Miranda’s cousin Lisa . . . wasn’t she our student-advisor?” Pocket asked me.
“Oh yeah . . .” I thought back, “barely ever showed up. Miranda always drove her off when she did.”
“Not as bad as Matty Rivera though.”
“Yeah,” I agreed, “fuck that guy.”
“Him, I remember,” T-Bone said. “Always wanted to be the most popular guy in the room.”
“Yeah, who wants popularity?” I teased Pocket.
“You were popular too.”
“Only in a run-for-the-hills-the-Foul-Mouth-is-coming kind of way.”
“You loved every moment of it.”
“I did,” I agreed some more. “Don’t know what all this reminiscing has to do with you two being dumbasses though.”
“I was hoping you’d forget about it if we got some beers into you,” Pocket guiltily admitted.
“Gonna take ten more beers for that.”
Pocket looked at his own beer. “I think I’d throw up.”
“You wouldn’t even get a buzz, you damn evil can’t-get-drunk floromancer,” I complained.
“Too much dead hops and barley for my system to handle though.”
T-Bone came over and got his own bottle. Although it was light beer . . . cuz diet, motherfuckers! “And for the thousandth time I’m glad to not have any Mancy-influenced food predilections. Not being able to get drunk does sound pleasant however.”
I chugged down the last half of my beer and got another. “Sounds horrible. I would’ve killed someone if I couldn’t get drunk this last week.”
Or told T-Bone about the dragon.
Which might have gotten him killed in the end.
Or me killed.
Break, break, break.
Why my subconscious got to be such a douchebag?
Pocket studied me warily. “You seem more focused since we arrived.”
I shrugged, glad Pocket wasn’t a mentimancer. “Crazy arrived to flick my balls just like it always does. So, yeah, I’m focused.”
Focused on all the shit I’d been trying to forget.
Ceinwyn.
Val.
Lies and strings.
“It’s just a casino and a sporting event,” T-Bone said. “It’s not like LA. There are no blood gods around to die.”
“Just us,” I miserably pointed out.
“If I apologize for just running a normal background check on the casino instead of a crazy, paranoid, conspiracy background check on it, will that change the situation we find ourselves in?” T-Bone asked.
“Not really. Make me feel superior though. It’s nice not being the dumbass for once.”
“I’m sure you’ll prove your pole position eventually,” Pocket teased me, “you always do.”
“Speaking of pole positions . . .” I led.
T-Bone seemed confused. “Are you . . . trying to make us order a stripper?”
I waved my hand angrily. “Fuck strippers! I want to talk about the Day of Speed bullshit.”
“Fuck strippers?” Pocket whispered, “I take back what I said about you being back to normal . . . you’re just being a different kind of weird.”
“I think one of his ex-girlfriends from Visalia is a stripper now,” T-Bone supplied.
“Sally became a stripper!?!” Pocket asked me excitedly.
I pointed at both of them in warning. “Day of Speed, you dumbasses.”
“It’s been too much fun keeping you on the edge of your seat,” Pocket complained. “Not sure I wanted to give the details up yet.”
I gave him some glare. Then I popped open another bottle with a blast of geo-anima and kept drinking. “Fair warning: that could’ve been your head.”
“How the heck are you pooling that fast?” he asked.
“Ah . . . seems I have some information you’d like. Pity you chose war, good sir!”
“I’m not even smelling anything . . .”
Floromancers smell scents when mancers pool around them. Some of the most sensitive can even pick out specific anima types by what flowers or bushes or trees or whatever it is they’re smelling. Not that Pocket is tops at Mancy senses. He’s not really top at anything, more of a Jack of All Trades. But still pretty strong for a floromancer.
Throws a mighty big fern, does Pocket.
“You didn’t tell him about that?” T-Bone asked. “You said he knew everything.”
“Well . . . not everything,” I corrected my earlier inebriated comments. I considered everything. Even T-Bone’s everything wasn’t the actual everything. I paused, waiting for my subconscious to call me a hypocrite or a liar. But nothing. Oh good, another re
ason to drink, just what I needed.
Pocket pouted like a puppy.
“That might work with everyone else, but it don’t work on me, fernthrower.”
“It is a bit of a double betrayal though, isn’t it?” T-Bone got on his philosophy. “Yes, you’re pointing out that having information kept from you isn’t enjoyable, but you’re also showing that you’ve been withholding from Pocket for months now.”
Pocket’s pout turned into a smile. “That is a very good point, Tyson. Once again we have proven that King Henry is a crap friend by hiding anima secrets from me.”
“I haven’t hidden anything from you,” I sidestepped how I’d been acting lately. “Just haven’t had time to spread it around yet. I told you about split pools and extended pools anyway. I’m two up on teaching you awesome shit.”
“Jesus and I have supplied you with floro-anima and fauna-anima free of charge for over two years,” Pocket countered.
I took a drink. “Gave you a free SDR.”
Pocket took a drink. “Threw you that birthday party in Pismo last summer. During which I overlooked you hitting on my sister.”
I snarled at him.
“Yup, I’m the better friend,” Pocket gloated with another celebratory swig of beer.
“We should tell him though,” T-Bone said.
“Oh, I know,” Pocket agreed, “I was just taking the piss out of him one last time.”
“Pair of dumbasses,” I grumbled into my beer bottle.
“It’s like this sports extravaganza,” Pocket finally admitted. “Mancer Olympics, if you will, except with a lot more show and weird ideas on how the events should play out and it’s not in any tournament format with medals at the end exactly. It’s about mancers showing off what they can do and shapeshifters showing off what they can do, everyone being competitive with each other . . . but friendly.”
“And buying a shit-ton of booze and food and gambling away their money, both at the casino and in all the betting on the events,” I pointed out what was really going on.
“Well . . . yeah, mostly,” Pocket agreed. “It’s called the Days of Supernatural Exhibition and it’ll last five days, with each day being about a certain aspect to show off.”
“And why wouldn’t Val want me to get involved like Jesus is?” I paused, frowning to myself. “Where is that dirty Mexican goatfucker, anyway?”
“Practicing,” Pocket said tightly, “that’s all he’s done . . . for three whole months. Practice.”
“We should go see him,” I decided.
“Only competitors can enter the arena until the Exhibition starts the day after tomorrow . . . that’s why I’m here . . . with you . . . drinking . . .”
“Aww . . . poor Pocket. Drinking free booze bought by my conniving brother-in-law, just horrible.”
T-Bone frowned at us, but I waved him off. “Day of Speed and what else?”
“Day of Brawn, Day of Finesse, Day of Intellect, and Day of Elementalism,” Pocket listed, “in that order.”
“I recall my question: why wouldn’t Val want me to know about it? I’ve never really been one for extracurricular activities. Never been in a school club in my life, told the Guild to go fuck themselves . . . do like strip clubs though, those count?”
“Wasn’t that boring at the Asylum?” T-Bone asked.
“Shit no! You know how much free time I had to make plays and steal stuff and do all the things that are fun in life? Tons of it. Meanwhile . . . Pocket cleaned up a lot of horseshit and went wandering around in the forest. How am I the weird one?”
“Um,” Pocket started, probably remembering all the times he picked up horseshit fondly, “Val didn’t want you to take part because . . . she’s an evil controlling something-or-other, right? Wasn’t that what we decided?”
“You argued against it,” I pointed out.
“Crap.”
“King Henry found out that if you push your anima pool to just outside of your body that there’s an area where it’s possible to split off just a part of that pool and hold the rest of it,” T-Bone went way the fuck backwards in the conversation.
“Are you trying to distract me again?” I complained.
I was a little pissed with the way T-Bone could just go out and say that shit while I had so much trouble getting the secrets out of my mouth with other people. Should be the other way around. Should be him worrying and me just going for it.
Pocket wasn’t paying any attention to me now. “That sounds like it would hurt. A lot.”
“It does,” T-Bone said. “I only did it one time . . . which was enough for me.”
I shrugged. “You get used to it.”
Pocket shook his head. “That what you and Miss Dale are fighting over? She won’t give you all the secret training? If it hurts when you do it then it’s not right, dude.”
I knew they were dragging me away from Val’s reasoning; I let them—even if we were still on shaky ground. “Split pooling and extending pooling have both been fine—”
“Extended pooling makes you feel loaded if you take in too much anima and split pooling is dangerous for people around you with stray anima flying all over the place if you don’t get a grasp on it,” Pocket corrected.
“Just takes practice like anything! I don’t even have spare anima pieces flying around anymore . . . usually. Most times . . . definitely most times.”
He gave me a look. “You haven’t even mastered them and you’re already onto something else? Something that hurts you?”
“You’re just jealous my max pool is twice the size of yours!” I accused.
“Which is still bigger than mine,” T-Bone grumbled.
“Yeah, but you got a big dick to compensate. Pocket’s got a little cucumber floromancer dick.”
Yay! I did it!
Pocket let the joke roll right over him. “People worry about you. That’s why we try to keep you from finding things out. We know you well enough that you’ll charge right in and eat it all up when you find some new nugget of wisdom or some high you haven’t attained yet. That’s why Boomworm didn’t want you to know about this when I mentioned it to her the first time around.”
“What?” I joked to ignore the feels, “they have a lecture series in Hall F on how to kill vampires?”
“Nah . . . but the guy who runs the event, I’ve talked to him a few times while Jesus was auditioning. He’s hinted enough that it’s not just exhibitions of speed and strength and all that. Meaning fights between mancers. Not a lot of them, but . . . a few, enough to test the idea that there could be more, see what people like, if you understand. Boxing, MMA, full-on anima duels for all I know. Can’t imagine why anyone would want to keep you away from those. Not like you ever like to fight people . . . not King Henry Price.”
I sat back in my chair, thinking this over. “So . . . you brought me to Las Vegas, to a mancer hotel and casino, to watch mancer sports for five days, during which there will be mancers and Weres and who knows what beating each other up?”
“Yes,” both T-Bone and Pocket answered.
“Bunch of dumbasses, ain’t ya?”
[CLICK]
One good part about Horatio Vega giving me a reach-around was that T-Bone and I didn’t have to fight over the bed. We each had our own . . . with a whole room to go with them.
Not that I have anything against sleeping with black people . . . it’s just they usually have vaginas when I do it.
. . . What?
Yeah, I’m pretty equal opportunity when it comes to the grunting and humping. Don’t matter what your skin color is, what your cultural background is, just that you got the naughty bits I like and you’re interested.
Even fucked an Armenian chick once.
Had arm hair so long and thick you could braid it. Don’t even want to know what the jungle I had to wade through downstairs was like. Next time I’m bringing an extra pair of clean socks and a machete.
. . . What?
Again?
Okay.
/>
I’ll give you that one.
After he had another of my not-so-free beers, Pocket took off to find Jesus. It was pretty late by then and I was pretty drunk by then, the Jack Daniel’s making a comeback and building on top of the beers once it was obvious Vega wouldn’t be killing me right that moment. So Pocket promised to meet up with us for drinks and dinner tomorrow night.
Until then the responsibility of my guardianship fell on T-Bone’s shoulders.
He made me give up my smart-phone so I wouldn’t drunk dial poor Miranda for the eleventh time.
I am so fucked right now.
At least my subconscious had shut up.
I had my own room.
The bed was soft.
Could have done without the light from the Strip outside the balcony, especially the way it reflected off the infinity pool. Some little fucking pool on the edge of the building. Mostly glass. Filled with water. Didn’t trust it at all.
Maybe Pocket was right. Maybe Val was right. Or both of them, I don’t really know. I kind of got mixed up on who decided which and what somewhere around the fifth beer. But maybe I would have rushed into this exhibition and signed up for a fight if I’d gotten here early enough.
Punching people always made me feel good.
Getting punched by people was even better.
Damaged-beyond-all-repair, Price, sure as Pocket wasting his time cleaning up horseshit.
Was good to see the fernthrower.
Would be nice to see the goatfucker tomorrow.
T-Bone seemed to fit in well.
Black Raj. Less girl problems, but more video games.
Have to make sure those two never got together. Especially Miranda, Raj, and T-Bone together. Holy shit. It was the Tri-Force of Following the Rules. I’d have to kill myself. Or them.
I’d give me even odds of surviving. Suppose T-Bone likes the gingers . . . maybe I should hook him up with Miranda.
I really do think about Miranda too much for me to not have some latent attraction for her. Deep down. Really deep down. Easier thinking about her or even Hope or Asa or . . . Catherine I-Cut-Your-Balls Hayes . . . easier than thinking about Val.
The Foul Mouth and the Mancy Martial Artist (The King Henry Tapes Book 5) Page 12
