Val smiled over the rant, like she saw something different and I couldn’t hide from her. Whatever. Let her believe what she wants. I know I’m fucked up. How do I know? Cuz what’s driving me ain’t just saving the girl. It’s the hope that I just might find the corpusmancer and break my other hand across his jaw.
“What’s my sister worth?” Val asked, turning down another back road.
Wonder if her parents would keep quiet or if they would let the cops know about us chasing after the kidnappers? Hard call. Parents do stupid things about their children. Peter or Ronnie might crack . . . tell themselves the cops know best, or the FBI knows best. Might crack to keep Val safe from machineguns too.
My right hand started shaking from the pain. I gritted my teeth and buried it in my coat pocket. The fabric hurt worse but at least it went still. “Christmas Ward . . . spoiled kid who wouldn’t listen to her sister’s advice, who wanted to be smarter than everyone else and different than everyone else, all for a chance to stand out from the star,” I finally said.
“That’s not fair to her,” Val said, mouth tight.
“You know I’m right.”
“She’s a teenage girl; of course she wants to be special and different.”
“Doing the same thing every teenage girl does—real special.”
“So what’s she worth? How far will we go with this, King Henry? She’s my little sister. I have to keep her safe. But you . . .”
“But me . . .”
“Why won’t you answer?”
“It’s not a nice answer.”
She seemed hurt for once. “You don’t think she’s worth all this. The kidnapping, us trying to save her . . .”
We pulled into a parking lot. The engine cut out. Val turned to look at me. Eyes without an iris waited for an answer.
What’s Christmas Ward worth?
“Nothing,” I said, “she’s nothing to me. If she was a nice kid she’d still be nothing to me. Guess I should value her as a human being, but I don’t have that part in me, someone left it out . . . or stole it. Sorry, Val. No good heart on this one.”
She didn’t glance away. “Then why are you here?”
I was the one who broke the gaze. Too personal of an admission to watch for the possible emotions in her eyes. “I’d break the world in half if it made you happy . . . if it kept you safe. If everyone was more like you . . . maybe then I’d care . . .”
“Ah, there you are. If you don’t like someone then forget them or destroy them . . . but if you do: you won’t stop. Ever. Now we just have to get you to like my sister.”
“She’s not making it easy . . . but she’s got some attitude, I’ll give her that.”
“That’s the caring King Henry I’ve always liked.”
“Yeah . . . the caring King Henry. He’s the real fucking monster.”
[CLICK]
Not exactly the motel I would have chosen, but at least the cops wouldn’t expect it as a hiding place, even if we had to use an Asylum credit card to pay for it.
The Four Seasons.
Believe that shit?
I waited in the car, on account of being a mess. Val smelt vaguely smoky, but otherwise could act like nothing strange had happened to her today. Just a couple buying a swanky hotel room for a night of hot sex.
Why can’t my life be that normal?
She returned to the car with a room card and a baseball cap to place over my forehead. The fabric sliding over the cut hurt like hell and I didn’t give it much time before blood started to seep through the brim. Luckily, we quickly moved through the lounge, to the elevators, and on up to our room.
“Doubt anyone will look for us here,” Val said once we had privacy in the elevator.
My good arm had my duffel, my bad arm stayed snug in my pocket. The only thing keeping me from passing out was the pain itself. Pain . . . it’s crystallizing. Makes the world come into focus does pain, makes you revalue what you need, what you want.
“I hope you have some ibuprofen in those cases of yours,” I mumbled, on account of mumbling being the only way to talk without my jaw getting pissy.
“I have better.” She had a suitcase that looked like a normal suitcase and then another briefcase, all metal and expensive looking. She tapped the briefcase with a finger. “Standard Emergency Recruiter Field Kit.”
“Vicodin?”
“Better.”
I closed my eyes, letting the elevator draw me upwards like flying in a good dream. “You have Slush?”
“You’ll be good as new . . . not that you’re ever very good, but as good as you get at least.”
“Back to teasing?”
“It’s that or thinking about how I killed a man.”
“He kind of deserved it.”
“No one deserves that.”
“They’re kidnappers.”
“That’s the only reason I’m not crying over it. Still . . . no one deserves to die that way.”
“Doubt he felt anything.”
“Everyone says that like it’s a good thing.”
That statement made me open my eyes and glance at her. She looked tired, more tired than even I felt. But she kept her back straight, her head high. “You’d rather die to a gut wound over hours?”
“I’d rather live for every second I possibly can no matter the pain.”
I nodded to myself. I’d never thought about it, but I’m pretty sure that was Val’s motto, her connection with the Mancy. Live for as long and as strongly and as brightly as you can. The only way to be a star is to be too hot for even fire.
The elevator opened and we found our room. It had a living room, a kitchen with a full fridge and stove, and two bedrooms sharing a bathroom. “I’d have been happy with just a microwave,” I told her.
She gave me a pat on the shoulder and a smile. “Go take a shower and then I’ll nurse you back to health the mancer way.”
“Right . . .”
Taking a shower with only one good hand and wearing an arsenal of artifacts . . . not easy. Took me awhile to get undressed. Val asked if I needed help and I offered to share the shower with her but neither situation came about.
Suppose if my life was a romance novel this would be the scene to put some female asses in the seats. Sorry ladies, I’m just a guy. Don’t got no flair for describing the male body. No fun in it for me. No titillation. Besides, little five-foot-eight fucker like me? Shouldn’t you be aiming higher? Sure, I got some muscles: black and blue or leaking red ones. Guy been pounded purple is your turn on and you got more problems than I do.
Water off, underwear and a new pair of jeans back on. GOB belt around my waist. I pulled out a clean black t-shirt and the geomancer’s coat I’d worn on the way up to San Francisco—it stank but at least it wasn’t bloody. Another great part about my coat is that it makes fashion easy.
King Henry Price is many things . . . but he ain’t a fucking fashionista.
I moved my Anti-Vamp Hot Cuffs from one coat to the other, PAD ball, Shaky Stick, and all the artifacts still on my person. Feeling how light the coat was I realized I’d left a number behind at Casa De Ward. The SEM-DEW would still be lying broken in the hallway, maybe already taken as evidence by some cop. Good luck ever seeing that again. My Cold Cuffs would be with the kidnappers. And I’m getting it back from the assholes along with Christmas.
Is it wrong I value an inanimate object more than a fourteen-year-old girl simply because one is mine and the other ain’t? Yeah, probably is. Fourteen-year-old girl . . . who would want one enough to abduct her in daylight?
Sure . . . I realize there are some sick fucks out there, but—fifteen guys in tactical gear? A corpusmancer leading them? Nah. This wasn’t about Christmas Ward the fourteen-year-old girl. Ain’t even about Christmas Ward the daughter of WardWall Founder and sole owner Peter Ward.
About Christmas Ward . . . the Artificer potential.
Still . . . Artificers are rare, but why kidnap one who’s completely untrained?
> Who can find value in that?
Some foreign country looking to make her a prisoner and pump out artifacts? Vamps doing the same? Were Nation doing the same? But how do you train her? That cuts out the Vamps and Weres I figure. Leaving a country with a need or some invisible party doing something seriously fucked up with mancers . . .
I put my shirt and coat over my good arm and left the bathroom for a bedroom and then started for the living room. This hotel room is nicer than my house. I stopped in a doorway when I heard Val’s voice and another following it. Snooping . . . I’m pretty good at it.
“—and then we drove to the hotel and I called you immediately.”
Val had Ceinwyn on some type of video chat machine that had come from her emergency kit. She’d plugged the thing into her phone and there was the boss in an instant. Technology: it’s better magic than the Mancy ever will be. Even with extended and split pools, I thought, fuming once again at all the lies I’d been told during my schooling. Ceinwyn’s face was good at bringing up the grudge. The woman knew things she still wasn’t telling me . . .
Maybe like who would want to kidnap a fourteen-year-old mancer?
Nah.
Tricks with the Mancy, that’s fair, but when it comes to her recruits . . . Ceinwyn would never let her kids be stolen from her like that.
Does it make you feel better or worse that she’s clueless?
“You’re uninjured?” Ceinwyn asked Val over the magic box.
“I’m fine . . . I think I might have a bruise on my back from when King Henry knocked me to the ground . . . but I’m fine.”
“And King Henry’s hurt?”
“I have Slush to use, he’ll bounce back.”
“Where is he?”
“Getting cleaned up.”
“You two need to stay where you are. Jason Jackson is in Oakland checking another recruit for us, I’ll have him head to you for support. I know she’s your sister and I know King Henry will be talking about his usual response of smashing in faces and doing something rash. You need to keep a clear head, Valentine.”
“I promise to stay here until we have a lead,” Val lied without lying.
“This won’t end quickly,” Ceinwyn said. “The Learning Council will be informed; ESLED will be sending agents, with a full investigation team as follow up.”
“Has this ever happened before?” Val asked.
“Untrained mancers disappear all the time . . . but kidnapping? Not to my knowledge.”
“And you would know.” There was condemnation in those words.
Maybe Val had learned some on her own about the Asylum lies.
“Stay where you are,” Ceinwyn repeated.
Val clicked off the device. She let out a deep sigh. “I hope your leads are better than mine.”
I stayed silent.
“Poor geomancers, so heavy on the carpet even in silence.”
I grunted, annoyed at being caught out. Didn’t help that we’d done the whole living together for four years thing. Or the fucking like animals on and off thing. Friends . . . so much harder for me to shock and surprise them. Where’s T-Bone when I need someone to get offended and righteous?
I sat next to her on the couch, putting my shirt and coat down. “Sup.”
“Sexy,” Val teased, nodding at my bruised chest.
“I’d make a move but if you poke me, I’ll probably die.”
She smirked and nodded, like the world was just so and to her liking. “We’re supposed to let ESLED handle things.”
“Could be worse, could be the Fresno PD.”
“Not a fan?”
“They think I’m a CIA informant.”
Val laughed into her knees, bent over and her whole body shaking, for a good minute. It was good to see her as her and not shut down over either Christmas or over killing the SUV driver. I suppose learning to cope with surprises and twists and turns is one of the main lessons they do teach at the Asylum.
“I didn’t know Jackson worked with you.”
“We use him in inner cities. He’s really good, although he’s always going off on side trips with Heinrich that infuriate Ceinwyn.”
“Oh really?”
“Don’t ask, I don’t know the answer.”
“Right.” Don’t ask about my Arch-Nemesis going on strange trips . . . just ignore it. Focus on Christmas. The little brat. Who deserves to be saved for her worth as a fellow human being or something. Keep saying it and you’ll start to believe it, monster. “Um . . . you said you have Slush?”
Hydromancers make Slush, infuse water with anima and bam portable healing salve worthy of a video game. Sure, it’s blue and it stinks like stagnant water, but what else you got that will heal a broken bone in a few hours? Stuff’s not quite as expensive as artifacts, but it’s not exactly over the counter either. Outside my pocket book, even with the business upturn. Nice to have the Asylum foot the bill for once.
Val grabbed a plastic packet and ripped the end off of it. Some kind of slimy wrap fell out and into her hand. “It’s my first time applying Slush . . .”
I shrugged. “Smells like it.”
She shrugged too and made me give my hand over. The wrap was lain on my knuckles, taken under my palm, and then put back around. It was made more for ankles, knees, wrists, or elbows I think but it worked fine. My scrapes and cuts already felt cool, a slight itch building up. She wrapped it around again and then finished by twirling it around my thumb separately with a finishing knot to keep the thing in place.
“Feels like Slush too.”
Val smiled, pulling out another toy from her magic case, this time a squirt bottle. “Where are you hurt?”
I pointed at the mass of bruises on my chest.
“Um . . .”
“Not like you’ve never seen me with my clothes off before.”
She blushed of all things. “You were younger . . . and smaller . . .”
“I’d flex my pecs to show off but it would hurt too much.”
“You sure are making a lot of excuses for not ravishing me.”
“Yeah, well . . . I’m more ravage than ravish.”
She dripped . . . squirted . . . ya know, it’s hard to not make fluids sound sexual in this situation so I’m just going to go for it: she squirted Slush into her hand and applied it to my chest. I focused on not looking smug.
“Thank you for trying,” she said.
“Huh?”
“At the house.”
“To save her?”
“That too . . . but I was talking about the iPhone, winning my dad over with artificing, and your stunt with the fire.”
“You called me a prick.”
“Sometimes you need a prick.”
I shook my head over the bait. “Too easy.”
“Not worth your time, am I? Where else are you hurt?”
I pointed at the gash on my forehead. “Thanks,” I said too.
“Least I could do.”
“For asking me to help,” I corrected.
She scooted up next to me on the couch, very much invading my personal space to get a good look at the wound. Why does intimate time have to happen when I’m busy chasing after kidnappers?
Val’s beautiful when she’s concentrating on something. I mean . . . I’m always a fan . . . but that intellect of hers focused on a task, the way she taps her teeth and the way the smooth skin settles across her cheekbones . . . wowza. “I’d have come to you with it first, I just didn’t want to ask you to do something so personal unless I absolutely had to,” she explained to me.
“Never did get a chance to tell her about Mom.”
“You will.”
I chuckled. “Assuming we do save her—you think she’ll need more convincing after the Fireball of Doom and being kidnapped?”
“The Fireball of Doom?”
“Have another name for it?”
“I’ve never named my conjurations.”
“Fireball of Doom, trademark it.”
�
�I’ll take the suggestion under consideration . . .” Her face went from concentration to puzzlement. “About the Mancy, can I ask a question?”
My turn to smirk. I also went from staring off at nothing to meeting her eyes less than a foot away from mine. “You can split pools.”
“What?”
“It hurts at first. Kind of like exercise or sex, I guess. I don’t know, people say that but sex was always good for me.”
She rolled her eyes. “You get used to the pain?”
“More like it goes away, like working a muscle. Get buff and a single pushup doesn’t bother you.”
“Who taught it to you?”
“Figured it out on accident. Helps being in desperate life or death situations.”
“So . . . maybe we’ll learn new stuff as soon as we find the kidnappers?”
“Never know . . . oh, you can also pool for longer than five minutes.”
“I knew that.”
“Really?”
“Ceinwyn likes her Recruiters to be showy with certain hard case potentials. So she makes us pool larger to be showy enough.”
“Yeah . . . that sounds familiar.”
Awkward silence for a bit.
I eventually nodded across the room. “Unless you want to make out for a little while, you should probably shower and change too. While I make my calls . . .”
No making out, but when she stood up Val did bend over to kiss my forehead just above where the Slush was removing the head-wound. “Don’t try to sneak in the shower with me or it’s the Fireball of Doom for you.”
[CLICK]
I picked up my phone with dread filling my stomach. I’d thought a bit about who would be the best to call. T-Bone’s law enforcement servers? Detective Ribera about any kids going missing? Annie B for an awesome three-way with Val?
Only one name seemed like he had a chance in hell at giving me what I needed. A chance in hell . . . because the cocksucker has more of the Devil in him than any man I’ve ever met. I dialed the number and waited.
JoJo answered, “King Henry? What are you doing?”
The Foul Mouth and the Troubled Boomworm (The King Henry Tapes) Page 14
