“Going to order them to watch me shit, too?” I asked her.
No smile this time. “They know you well enough to do that without me pointing it out to them.”
“Care to give me the Asylum side on this Curator guy? Or just going to be as mysterious as Vega and Gentlewoman Moore?”
“Why should I? You still haven’t told me what you’ve been up to, what you’ve learned. Or that you’ve seen Gentlewoman Moore!”
Quid pro quo. Fair, I guess. Not like my story would give away my next move either. No one would see it coming. I barely believed it. Maybe Plutarch could have given me away if he’d been around, but he’d be in his house at the Asylum doing his usual grouchy ass, recluse act. “Val and me dodged the cops, went to a hotel, I made a call to Vega and he hooked me up with the local Weres. We had a meeting, came to a deal with Jarvis Washington and the Pitbull Nation—“
“I already know this part.”
“—he gave up the kidnappers’ staging building, so we headed over to the Richmond waterfront, did a sneak into the building, I got caught and had a chat with the three kidnappers left behind to clean up, Val rescued me.
“And here we fucking are.”
“Gentlewoman Moore didn’t threaten you?”
“Nah, just made some bullshit promises about vamp knowledge about Atlas, whatever the fuck that is, trying to sound all badass.”
Ceinwyn snorted. “The only weakness of vampires: they attempt to make the same deals over and over. What about the Weres? You didn’t start another war?”
“Nah, Otters were idiots. We let Washington go after the whole kidnapper thing.”
Ceinwyn paused at this, “Let him go?”
“Out of the car trunk.”
“Very . . . straightforward retelling, King Henry.”
“Yeah, that kind of a night.”
Though it wasn’t much of a night any longer, purple had turned pink, pink would turn orange, orange would turn bright yellow. New fucking day. At least I’m still alive . . . suppose that’s something.
Artifacts are wrecked, Val’s a mess, I’m beat to hell, Christmas still nowhere in sight, Ceinwyn’s no help and has actually ordered her little minions to jump me if I try to leave . . . not a good spot.
One move to make.
Fucking insane.
Don’t have no choice.
I lost two sisters. Ain’t letting Val go through that. One day you will become desperate enough to come to me once more. Those were his words. Here was the day. One day you will become desperate enough to come to me in the flesh. Not that . . . never that. Not sure what it even meant . . . but it didn’t sound healthy.
Remember, Little Mancer, I will do anything to keep you alive . . . you have but to ask . . .
I shuddered involuntarily.
“What did you learn of the Curator,” Ceinwyn tried to keep me going, still not reciprocating.
I never thought I might know more than her about anything. But . . . nah, she had to be holding back. Part of growing up is realizing your betters are just as mortal as you . . . but Ceinwyn not keeping up on Mancy business, not having spies and allies everywhere, feeding her tidbits?
“His base is up north, Washington or Canada. Maybe both. He’s cleared the area of the Vamps. Vega’s scared of him. One of the kidnappers left behind had met him, said he’s a zealot. The guy running the kidnappers is a corpusmancer, mercenaries mostly, but might have a recurring deal with the Curator from what I can tell. Didn’t get a look at the corpusmancer’s face, not even at his skin color. Big fucker though, could’ve been Jackson for all I know.”
Behind me, Jason crossed his arms. When someone that big moves, you can feel it in the air. Estefan took a step away from us just in case. Using these two to help me instead of hinder me would be easy. My whole life I’ve been finding weak points. Work Jason up, get him to punch first. Estefan . . . he’s a good guy, but he’s too pretty boy to be brave.
Easy.
Regret from Jason.
Sympathy from Estefan.
Easy.
“So,” I finally called the bullshit, “you got any info to help? Or you just wasting my time?”
Ceinwyn seemed to consider the better play for longer than she usually did. Eventually, I got my own tidbits, “The Curator is a mancer, likely an Ultra. We don’t know if he’s foreign or self-trained, but no living Institution graduates are unaccounted for, or have spent time in the Seattle/Vancouver area he’s taken over. ESLED sent in one of their black ops sciomancers— he disappeared. The Recruiters sent in two different teams—the first were kidnapped, were told to stop asking questions, and were then released. The second pair died the day after stepping foot in Seattle.
“The vampire embassies responded to the attack on their territory by forming a strike team of Gentles under the leadership of Count Tarleton with the mission of hunting down and killing the Curator. Their . . . true bodies . . . were returned to the vampires, boiled into a stew. Their shells haven’t been seen since. It’s believed the Curator is using them for his experiments.”
Estefan gave a part-impressed, part-horrified whistle. “Don’t know about you, but sounds like diplomacy is the way to go on this one, maybe a ransom.”
Like I said . . . too pretty boy to be brave.
I glanced over my shoulder at him and then Jason. “Curator’s not Welf is it? Just want to be sure.”
Jason didn’t say a thing, but his face got it across clearly that the moment my call with Ceinwyn finished, he’d be thumping me into the ground.
“Estefan is right, King Henry,” Ceinwyn tried to reason with me, “Or—if we do have to fight to get Christmas back—we’ll need more than you and Valentine, no matter if you’re my most talented students in the last ten years or not.”
“Awww . . . I’m feeling all tingly,” I teased.
I don’t know how she managed it, but she did the Ceinwyn Look through the video screen. “Stay where you are, I’ll be there soon. And clean the blood off your face and get some sleep. You look horrible.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “Wish I could. Let go . . . sleep . . . be the little boy. The angry little boy. But damned if I haven’t grown up.” I nodded at Estefan, “do you have one of these emergency video chat things too?”
He huffed, like it was a bureaucratic disagreement. “No, only the Recruiters are good enough for them.”
“Cool.”
And I smashed this one into tiny bits with a pool of geo-anima.
“Being as I already broke the one Val had, guess this means Auntie Badass will have to live with text updates for the next few hours.”
“Foul Mouth, you prick!” Jason bellowed before rushing me.
I stood up and away from the patio table, but other than that, didn’t bother to defend myself.
I do not over exaggerate when I say his punch to my stomach threw me ten feet into the air and across the better part of the backyard.
I almost landed in the pool.
Yup, that’s what bruised ribs Slushed to perfection and then re-bruised feels like. Sometimes, you asshole, sometimes . . . why you always got to do things the hard way? Got the force a conflict. You don’t believe the Curator is Welf, just want to poke Jason with a stick, get beat up a bit more over your failure to save Christmas.
I stayed there, crumbled on the ground, laughing. This haunting rasp, purely black humor and blacker mood. “Guess it wasn’t you. You hit a lot fucking harder . . .”
“Jesus Christ!” Estefan cursed. “Jason! You know how he is!”
Jason kept from rushing me a second time, but just barely. Guy looked really pissed off. Guess I hit a nerve. I’m good at that. “Yeah,” Jason said, “he’s a prick and he asked for it just like always! We ain’t kids no more, Ramirez, I’m not taking his shit. No Heinrich here to say, ‘stay calm, we’ll get him later’. No teachers waiting to throw extra homework or take away our Sundays. I’m a Recruiter! You’re in ESLED! We’re twenty-fucking-years-old! I did not driv
e all the way here, console Boomworm’s parents while Foul Mouth is God knows where, just to have him come back and accuse me of being a kidnapper!”
I staggered back to my feet, grinning of all things. The cut from the pistol-whip on my scalp had broken open again and bled freely. “Why you talkin’ so much, Jackson? Got something to hide?”
Estefan didn’t physically stop him, couldn’t physically stop him, but just another person putting a body in front of his path kept Jason from running over to me and pounding some more King Henry face. “Damn it! Stop! Don’t you remember Tri? After his mom died?”
“When we were fucking sixteen! What part of ‘adults now’ don’t you understand?” Jason raged.
“What a pussy . . . just a weeping vag . . . whining all over the place . . .”
Estefan actually had to push on Jason to keep him in place. No one actually believed he held Jason back, but it saved face. “Think about the Asylum! What do you think this looks like from inside the house?”
A shudder went through Jason but his feet kept him in place. “One more word, Foul Mouth. You hear?”
I only grinned.
One problem taken care of, Estefan turned to me. “I should zap you . . . and he’s right, you are being a prick. Breaking the emergency transmitters . . . what’s the point? Like we can’t use cellphones?”
I chuckled again. “You got Ceinwyn’s number?”
Estefan’s not particularly the smartest person I’ve ever run across, but he’s damn good at reading people and even better at getting everyone on his side. His eyes shifted back and forth like he felt the jaws closing in. “No, actually, I don’t.”
“But I do!” Jason snapped, “You moron!”
“I figured you did, Jackson, that’s why when you were busy punching me . . . I was busy stealing your phone.” I held up his phone to show it to him and then tossed the thing into the swimming pool.
You could see the smoke coming out of Jason’s ears.
“Aww, shit . . .” Estefan muttered to himself, just before diving out of the way of the corpusmancer freight train.
Jason tackled me, football-style, arms wrapped, legs driving. I laughed the whole way. Even when he spiked us into the ground. My back and shoulders screamed, but this was the most fun I’d had in months. Outthinking, outfighting, outmaneuvering. I did feel a little bad. My feud with Welf had cooled in our last couple years at the Asylum and I’d never had much of a beef with Jason, he was just Welf’s shield, so I had to get through him.
He was still a shield today. Just the Asylum’s shield. Just Ceinwyn’s shield. Jason wouldn’t stand aside until I beat him. Estefan . . . yeah, Estefan would make a deal. He’d be the easy part. Especially since it wouldn’t seem like I was leaving the house until it was too late for him to stop me.
But Jason . . . given our history, he’d be suspicious the whole way.
I rolled with the blow, shifting our momentum so I came out of the slam on top of him. Jason still had his arms wrapped around me, so I threw a pair of backward elbows at his biceps. Short, quick, painful. He gave up the hold and I had a second of freedom. I used it to posture up, get a more dominate position. Bet it looked fucking hilarious. He has almost a whole foot on me and a good eighty pounds.
Just a massive guy. So massive that Jason snaked a hand around to grab the front of my coat and that’s all it took for me to be dominating nothing. Few more seconds and I’d have been thrown onto my back with fists dropping into my forearms and shoulders.
Only . . . I had my SDR Mark 2. This moment right here, this is why I’d refined the design. Even given the juice I’d put into Kimble, even given the only couple of hours it had been—still enough buzz to put Jason into birdy land.
Zap.
Thud.
Fight over before it could get ugly.
A relieved sigh escaped from me as Jason slumped to the grass, unconscious. I turned to Estefan, gave a shrug. “He’s right about one thing, this ain’t school. I have artifacts now. I’m a whole lot tougher than throwing punches.”
“Going to take a lightning bolt well?”
“Yeah . . . thing is, man, I’m not going anywhere. I’m staying here.”
“Bullshit,” he said.
“Nah, it’s true. I’ll make you a deal: you do what I say while I try to get us some more info on this Curator guy and I’ll stay at this house until Ceinwyn shows up.”
Estefan still looked disbelieving. “Why do that to Jason then?”
I shrugged again. “It was fun.”
“There is so much wrong with you . . .”
“Deal?” I asked.
“Deal . . . but if you try anything, I have a pool and what I do with the Mancy hits a whole lot harder than your rings.”
“Alright then,” I said. I got to my feet, stumbling my way over to a shed further back on the property. I unclasped it, looked inside. Nice gardening equipment, extra incase the gardeners forgot theirs I guessed. I picked out two shovels before returning to Estefan. “Alright then,” I repeated, “help me dig a fucking hole.”
Estefan studied the shovel like he’d never seen one before. “What?”
“Come on, you’re Mexican, it’ll come naturally.”
He might have had on the FBI-mimicking ESLED suit, but Estefan still had product in his hair, his face was still pretty boy, and the only thing physical he liked was playing soccer and having mad amounts of sex with his wife. “You’ve got to be joking.”
“Need a hole. Big enough for me and Val to get into.”
“Why not just . . . Mancy it?”
“I don’t want to give the bastard the extra conduit to me, that’s why. This will be dangerous enough as it is.”
After a few shovelfuls he eventually joined me. “How long until Jason wakes up?”
“Few minutes.”
“Ah . . . this will go fast if he helps.”
“Yeah. Guy can probably do one shovel a hand. Fucking corpusmancer showoffs . . .”
“What is ‘this’, by the way?”
“Oh . . . I’m having a little chat with God.”
[CLICK]
It takes a surprising amount of time to dig a hole the old-fashioned way. Even with three people. Jason was surprisingly good-natured about everything. Although, the fact we were digging what could be construed as a grave might have lent to that sunny attitude.
Two at a time, third taking a break. Peter Ward came out to ask what exactly we were doing to his backyard, I told him it was Mancy stuff. Ronnie Ward came next, bringing more coffee and some sandwiches, I gobbled both up, not having eaten in hours and really needing the caffeine to keep going.
“How are you standing, Foul Mouth?” Jason asked at one point, shaking his head.
I grinned my feral grin. “Earth endures.”
So much pain. Ribs, back, shoulders, fingers, knuckles, chest, head. I’d wiped some of the blood off with a wet rag, but still looked like a mess. Hadn’t slept for twenty-four hours. I should have been exhausted and broken . . . yet . . . yet Earth endures. I felt oddly Zen, some spiritual monk shit. One with my condition. One with my choice.
Facing him again.
For the third time.
What would I find?
Friend or enemy?
Questions or answers?
“How’s the wife?” I asked Estefan after awhile, talking being the only thing that made the digging bearable.
“Great,” he said from above Jason and me. Neither of us had said anything but we’d both noticed Estefan’s breaks had a habit of being twice as often as ours. “She’s teaching. The Ethics of Elementalism for Intra Quads mostly and some subbing if teachers get sick. I’m on the Northern California region, Political Relations, so unless there’s an emergency most of my job is phone calls. Have our own house . . . she makes me dinner every night . . . it’s great . . . just great . . .”
“Heh.”
“What?”
“Sounded like you’re convincing yourself.”
<
br /> “Nah . . . well . . . mostly not. I just miss school, all the guys being around. Even you, King Henry. We were so close for all those years. Now, it gets lonely.”
“I’m touched . . . just don’t mention you’re lonely to Debra.”
“Why not?” Estefan asked, clueless.
Jason snorted. “Babies.”
Estefan grinned down at us. “Come on, fellas, it’s the Asylum, place is natural birth control, no one gets pregnant.”
My turn to snort. “Just wait until she starts talking about vacation during the summer off month.”
Estefan’s grin disappeared after he checked his mental calendar. “Shit.”
Jason and I had to stop digging we laughed so hard.
“What about you, Jackson?”
“No ladies for longer than a night, it’s the Recruiter life. Always have to travel . . . never have time for serious. Which is just fine for me. Too young for that marrying stuff like Estefan.”
I nodded. “Val seemed to act the same way.”
Jason laughed so hard he stopped digging again.
“What?”
“You and Boomworm . . . Heinrich too. Never knew which of you I felt worse for. He never even got close, that’s bad, but you . . . you got to taste it and then you’d keep screwing it up.”
“Not this time,” I whispered, mostly to myself.
“Yeah, sure you haven’t thought about it at all.”
My mood soured, but I kept digging.
Hole.
Grave.
Neither really.
I’ll tell you what it was.
It was a turning point.
For me.
For Val.
For the Curator.
For the Mancy.
For existence itself.
It was the end of the beginning.
And on the other side . . .
So much of my life in the one-in-a-million world up to that point had been failed expectation leading to disappointment. Asylum. The Mancy. The Lady. Thousand other little things. Expect big and get let down.
It’s the whole purpose of the Asylum. Training you to not expect and to accept a world of little wonders.
But in that hole . . .
The world as I knew it turned inward upon itself.
The Foul Mouth and the Troubled Boomworm (The King Henry Tapes) Page 24
