The Foul Mouth and the Mancy Martial Artist (The King Henry Tapes Book 5)

by Richard Raley

Lying in that bed that wasn’t mine, I fell asleep thinking about eyes-without-irises.

  You just waking up in London, Val?

  Wish you were here.

  Wish I could tell you a secret.

  I love you.

  [CLICK]

  The next day T-Bone dragged me away from the Ouroboros, made a drive down the Strip in a rental car, and made me attend something called MLG with him. I only survived due to my forethought of buying a flask and putting some vodka mixed with orange juice in it.

  I felt like an alien.

  A slightly inebriated alien.

  That convention hall was filled with nerds and geeks and dweebs and also something T-Bone called booth babes.

  It was a hive of scum and villainy and misogynistic, shitlord, pissbaby neckbeards.

  .

  .

  .

  I read it on Tumblr once upon a time.

  It must be true.

  .

  .

  .

  Want to see pictures of my hermaphrodite dragonkin midget cat?

  Geeks are cool . . . I guess.

  Talked about that earlier.

  More women in there than I thought there would be. More color in there than I thought there would be too. Skin color, not just hair color. Vagina, penis, brown, white, whatever . . . it stunk like ass.

  Like stale ass.

  Should’ve brought a second flask, I thought more than once as I nursed the precious not-so-free booze I had.

  It’s always nice to see people into something as much as these gamers were. Excitement over games . . . childish I suppose, but the world could use some more excitement, especially with cynical fuckers like me cackling at our species and our looming Armageddon.

  Also . . .

  You know how entertaining it is to see a six-foot-four, three-hundred pound black guy in a sweater-vest run around making high pitch squeaks, like a school girl hopped up on sugar and stolen amphetamine pills?

  It’s pretty fucking entertaining.

  I mean, it’s not stripper or gambling entertaining, but in any other city in the country it would be up there. Especially Fresno. Where watching a movie at the theater is about as exciting as life gets if some gang ain’t trying to murder you with machine guns.

  But at least it’s not Bakersfield.

  Cuz fuck Bakersfield.

  T-Bone got excited about things and people that grown men frankly shouldn’t get excited over.

  T-Bone got excited over a pudgy, balding British man wearing a top hat. “He’s a YouTube personality and an esports caster,” was whispered to me.

  I shrugged, taking a swig of emergency screwdriver. “Why’s he mumbling about sliders? Got something against tiny sandwiches?”

  T-Bone got excited over a really tall Slavic guy who could barely walk in a straight line and looked like he had repeatedly been punched in the face. “He’s a pro DOTA 2 player,” was the explanation I got.

  More booze down my throat. DOTA . . . the ass leakage pills again. “He’s drunker than I am and he just called you a cyka blyat.”

  T-Bone got excited over a tiny Asian guy with too much hair product in his perfectly tip-frosted hair for his own good. “He’s a Starcraft legend.”

  “I bet he has a really small dick.”

  T-Bone got annoyed over chicks in bikinis with fake foam swords, smacking each other over and over and giggling. “Why do they have to pander to us like that?”

  I put my flask away. “I think I’ll stand here for a while . . .”

  [CLICK]

  A feeling of unease settled over me yet again when I stepped through the doors of the Ouroboros, waving my passcard. A bellhop holding the door nodded at me, his face bright with a fake smile. “Welcome back, Mr. Price. If there’s anything you need just let one of us know, you’re on our special accommodations list!”

  Which I took to mean free hookers and blow.

  Fucking Vega . . . strings snapping at me from every corner.

  Why can’t they just try to kill me? Easier that way. Always with the offers and the alliances, trying to drag me to their side against the others. Even the dragon does it.

  For as boring as it was—despite T-Bone’s squeals of joy—I’d felt safe at that gamer shitshow. Wouldn’t ever expect King Henry Price in that place. Wouldn’t ever expect Weres or Vamps or two mancers wasting the day away.

  Second I was back in the Ouroboros my buzz started fading and my eyes started scanning crowds. My finger touched at my SDR, my hand grabbed at my Magic Little Balls, and I mentally checked and rechecked my customary thirty-minute-pool. Whether it was healthy or not, whether Pocket was right that maybe I pushed too hard into unknown territory—what fucking choice do I have?—it was the first thing I started doing in the morning.

  Begin pooling anima.

  Then take a piss.

  Priorities.

  I could almost hear one of Fines Samson’s crazy catchphrases, “You want to piss down your leg and live? Or die with an empty bladder?”

  The Ouroboros Hotel felt normal until you started lingering too long. Started realizing that you felt a rumbling at your feet all the time. That one of those people at the bar had a Rejuvenation Society pin on his shirt and he talked to a guy with a Guild of Artificers skullcap on his head.

  That the bellhop offering me anything I wanted was a werecoyote, that the waiter over there is too, that the woman over there looks vaguely like a Hep who graduated when I was a Single . . . what was her name?

  Had to be in her thirties now . . . with kids.

  When that ever stopped you, Price?

  Pocket brought me here to have fun and to distract me from Val. It distracted me. Not in the way he expected though, not in the way I hoped when I agreed to get into that RV. Thought it would be relaxing . . . thought it would be carefree. Thought I wouldn’t have to think about all the shit rattling around in my skull.

  Just chill, yo.

  But nope.

  Was the opposite kind of attitude that settled over me.

  I’m in the Crazy again . . . or close enough to it that I can smell it.

  I’d had six or so beers last night.

  Had a couple more this morning, plus the flask.

  Felt sloshed.

  Even as the adrenaline flooded my system, that primal reaction, shifting my brain in an attempt to compensate. To listen, to watch, to judge every man and woman as a threat. Caveman shit. Boost up that testosterone. Fight the fucking saber-tooth.

  Ain’t no saber-tooth around, but that Indian guy over there might be a weretiger. All the European and Eastern Were Nations were newer than the ones in the west . . . but they were spreading like a pandemic. Weretigers in India fought it out with the Elephant Nation—wish I was making that shit up, really do—Kodiak Nation in Siberia, Hyena and Lion and Wildebeest and probably even Hungry Hungry Hippos in Africa, even rumors about some rich oil sheik who tried to get a Hawk Nation together in the Middle East—bird hunting being one of their national sports or some shit.

  Vamps hate it every time a new one pops up and for once I can’t blame ‘em.

  I get why people do it. Get that they’re desperate bastards thrown into the one-in-a-million world just like I was, but they don’t have no iron fist or World-Breaker to rely on. Got nothing. Just humans. Want some community in their terror, want something-extra to fight back, want to make themselves taste like shit so the predators won’t bite.

  I get why.

  They’re still a pain in the ass.

  Especially when they’re ruining my vacation.

  Should’ve been relaxing and forgetting, all gentle-like.

  Instead I was uptight. Throwing away everything that didn’t matter in the moment, hard and fast and nasty as a dry, old lady pussy.

  You know you have them! I see all those commercials for vaginal secretion pills on TV! No one should have to see that shit during the Price is Right! But you just had to have a labia like a razor saw, didn’t you, Great
Grandma?!?

  .

  .

  .

  What was I talking about again?

  T-Bone went off to check his email the first second we were through our suite door . . . me, I tumbled down onto my bed and sat there in the dark twilight of another bruised Las Vegas sunset.

  Admit the truth, you fucktard, I told myself.

  I pulled out my flask, knew it was empty, but still tried to drink from it.

  She ain’t here. Ain’t gonna be here. Not for awhile. Not until she’s ready to make some space for you in her busy life or you’re ready to make some space for her in yours. That’s not happening until something colossal goes down and this shit you’re involved in ain’t colossal.

  Could still get me killed though.

  It hurts, hurts like holding that pool just outside of your skin hurts. But you did it. You learned how to do it. Because one day it will save your life.

  I noticed a half-empty bottle that I didn’t remember setting on my dresser. Maybe I had more than those six or so beers last night.

  In a perfect world the booze should’ve kept flowing. Slowly turning off that tap, slowly using that crutch until you could stand on your own two feet without it hurting to walk. But the world ain’t perfect, shithead.

  I’ve wondered about my luck. Big time alcoholic parents and I just luck on out of it for the most part. Fate showing me a flash of thigh for once, come here pretty boy. Just dip into it when I feel the need and then . . . work my way out of it. Still ain’t healthy . . . know that. Still dangerous. I don’t crave the drug from morning to sundown every day of my life, but that don’t mean I won’t develop a non-chemical addiction.

  Dad fought it all week. Gave in on weekends and then . . . what happened on Sunday, happened on Sunday. Back before Mom was sick I guess he handled it better. Once she was sick . . . disciplining me was the solution. Don’t think he’s drinking anymore, think he gave it up for Marge.

  Maybe that’s where I’m the same as Old Man Price: I need a woman in my life to make me work to do the right thing. Or the opposite. Being unable to help the woman in our life is the reason we drink. Don’t know. Don’t really want to think about it too much. Especially since in the mancer world women don’t really need your help all that much . . . in my experience they’re more likely to save your dumbass than the other way around.

  Then don’t think about it. But we both know you can’t keep using that crutch. You’re gonna be a cranky asshole, you’ll be typical Foul Mouth Shit for Brains, but you can’t fill that flask back up.

  Can’t be drunk.

  I glanced around at my room. Big ass TV. Wooden dressers and tables and chairs and . . . not my kind of financial station. Way above it. I glanced at the light fixture next, at the lamp, at the remote you could control the whole room from.

  Last . . . glanced back at that bottle of booze and whatever was inside of it.

  Day of Speed starts tomorrow. We both know that so far things have been okay, but that it will only get worse. You know it. You feel it. You’ve done this four times already. You see the signs. You know what it will take to survive the next week and that booze might make the pain go away but it will also make your edge go away.

  “I wish I could cry sometimes,” I whispered to myself, “be so much easier to just be one of them pussies in touch with their feelings . . . easier than all this repressed bullshit I got to pull. Raj used to cry . . . cried for a whole day over getting dumped and then he was back to normal. Me? Takes me forever.

  “Not like it’s with every woman who leaves me . . . or I leave. Whatever. Can’t even remember the names of most of ‘em. Night of humping and then gone by morning. Makes me a sexist pig . . . but it’s easier that way. Naomi I got over, that wasn’t too bad. Mostly cuz if I didn’t get over it Mr. Gullick would’ve hunted me down and fed me to a Venus flytrap, but . . . that was like what? Three days of being bummed out? That ain’t so bad.

  “Eva . . . that one took a week or two. Not so much the feeling as giving up the repetition and routine of the relationship. Finishing classes for the day, picking which of our rooms to stay in for the night, making dinner, doing all matter of fun things with our bodies, falling asleep next to each other and waking up next to each other . . .”

  Running out into the hallway and trying to open your apartment door fast enough, hoping no one will see your half-naked ass before you get inside. It was nice. Doing the same thing with Val was even better. I agree, gonna take a long time to get over it. Gonna hurt. Might never stop if this is the real end and there’s no fourth chance for me. But . . .

  “But the booze will get me killed,” I whispered, giving the flask a toss across the room. It missed the bottle just barely, the thing ricocheting off the wall with a loud thud. “Glad that’s decided. Don’t want to give Vega any more help than I have too.”

  Good. Now try to not get punched in the face too many times over the next few days.

  “No promises.”

  T-Bone stuck his head into my room. “You aren’t throwing shit again, are you?”

  I cocked my head to the side, studying the dent I’d made in Vega’s pretty Ouroboros walls. “I fear for your toilet if what comes out of your ass can make that noise when it hits a wall.”

  T-Bone seemed more concerned than usual. Probably had to do with me talking to myself in the middle of a dark room. “You okay for dinner with Pocket and Jesus?”

  “Yeah . . . just let me throw up a little first.”

  Throw up and then face an immediate future without alcohol.

  Also, you should man up and start unloading some of those secrets you have. Start making your own strings. Might live a little longer if you don’t have to do everything alone.

  “Yeah . . . I’ll get right on that one. Any time now.”

  Session 149

  I got through my first non-alcoholic night post-Val breakup mostly through willpower. Also thanks to Jesus and Pocket spending most the time telling T-Bone stories about us from the Asylum. I was pretty silent.

  Pretty . . . sober.

  T-Bone hadn’t heard about the time all of Ultra Class ’09 had been thrown into the Holding Room together—and was horrified at the whole idea of being that far outside the graces of the Asylum faculty to be punished so severely—but did remember the time I had burned down the Mound.

  Again . . . it wasn’t me.

  It was my crazy, brilliant girlfriend.

  Stories with Val as a teenager didn’t hurt that much. In the last few months I’d come to think of her first and foremost as the woman she was now—powerful, slightly reserved from that power, commanding in presence, but never cold, always capable of a word that could brighten a person’s day. Empathic, considerate, and dangerous if you harmed those she cared about. We were the same in that . . . minus the empathy and consideration. But, hey, one out of three ain’t bad.

  She seemed more solid than she had been before.

  She’s wasn’t that mythical girl who had gotten away. That mix of Boomworm, the most awesome friend and coolest girl at the school, and Isabel-as-Val, that sex crazed nightmare who could drive me to insanity at any moment. Now, she was real . . . she was, or had been, a part of my life.

  Wonder if I’ll look back on this Val as a fake recollection of nostalgia one day?

  I hoped not.

  Hoped it wasn’t a long enough parting for memory to have a part in it.

  Teenage Val was fine, but every time I carried the story forward to present day, I wanted to order a hard drink, something other than the coffee the waitress kept filling up for me. I tried not to scowl when she did. Wasn’t her fault. Was my fault.

  And Pocket’s fault.

  And T-Bone’s fault.

  Since Pocket was paying, I ordered a plate of crab legs and lobster just to spite his wallet. Not a very geomancer kind of food. More like something a hydromancer would fancy, maybe cryomancer if the meat was left so uncooked to be close to raw. But I forced myself to
eat it and enjoy it.

  I smiled only once that evening, when I saw Jesus the first time sitting there beside Pocket. He got a big grin on his face, standing up to throw a shoulder at me that had more manly cockiness to it than Pocket’s friendly bear hugs.

  Pocket was an older version of what you expected from his Asylum self. Tall, broad-shouldered, too damn handsome for his own good. Jesus didn’t turn out quite as ugly as you would’ve expected, the scarred-up, tough-skinned orphan that he’d once been. He started growing a mustache during Hep and now it was full and dark and I wouldn’t be surprised if he waxed the thing to keep it in place like that. Since graduating, he’d added a slight layer of facial hair too short to really be called a beard, but it did a good job concealing how marked his face and chin was.

  You couldn’t help but think of him as some bandit or desperado, maybe a pirate even. I’d pay good money to get a picture of him wearing a poncho and a sombrero. Bunch of ratty ass stray dogs at his feet, six-shooters in his hands.

  “So you graduated when we were Quads?” Jesus asked T-Bone. “Means you missed all the bad shit that happened during Pent?”

  T-Bone glanced at me. “King Henry doesn’t talk about it.”

  “Not even sneaking in the strippers, El Rey?” Jesus complained. “The Three Queens and what happened with the other puta I get, but you still haven’t told anyone how you got the strippers in?!?”

  I cracked open a crab leg. Even had one of them lobster bibs on . . . thankfully, no one had tried to take a picture of me yet. I’d have to break their phone . . . and maybe their fingers. “The stories everyone came up with to explain it were better than the real deal.”

  “He’s never even told you two?” T-Bone asked, surprised.

  “King Henry’s surprisingly honest about things, but he does like to keep secrets if it at all makes him seem like more of a badass,” Pocket quickly reminded.

  “That’s true,” T-Bone admitted.

  “What I think he did is get his fairy friend to help him out,” Jesus said, “he’s always silent when the fairy comes up, so it has to do with it.”

  I shuddered at the thought of making a deal with Meteyos just to get some strippers into the Asylum.