“Adios, mother bitches!” Jesus screamed as he rushed forward.
I was right there with him. Rick Brown and Athir followed behind. Raj blasted someone with an anima-projector and I heard a vest go beep. Yeah, baby! First blood! I stomped on a Blackjack’s chest, getting a similar result. Beep, beep. Glorious to be on the other side of it. Next to me, Jesus did the same. Stomp. Beep.
Couldn’t see nothing in that ash cloud . . . just like last time. I surged down the hill, looking for Mary but finding another Blackjack. The guy was back on his feet, swung a punch at me, but I just launched myself at him. We tumbled in the ash. Punching, scratching, even a kick. I ended him with a headbutt to his nose.
Do not try this at home, kiddies.
Don’t work like in the movies.
Leaves your head ringing too.
I punched his vest, put him out, then stumbled further down the hill.
Where was Mary?
Ain’t no one threatening my pee-hole and getting away with it!
Blam.
All the dust disappeared, thrown down into the ground by hydro-anima condensed water. No idea where she pulled it from, maybe she snuck in a water-bottle or maybe she condensed it from the air or . . . snow melt? Mary had also gotten around and above me and wasn’t giggling any longer. Forget pee-hole trick, girl looked like she was about to rip a heart from a chest. Four of the Blackjacks taken down, but the three remaining surrounded her instantly.
I noticed Nizhoni and Robin down too.
Seven against four.
Everyone with a beeping vest started crawling out of the way.
Guess I’m the only idiot in the school stupid enough to risk it.
Stupid enough . . . that’s me.
I glanced around our bit of the Mound. Eva and Miranda stood at the top, Raj and Athir a little to their left and below them. Rick and Jesus stayed even with Mary and her guard. I was at the very bottom.
Why don’t I got a partner? Where’s Fernthrower when I need him? Getting his ass kicked with Welf most likely.
“Well, well,” I said, “got us a Mexican standoff . . . and the only Mexican is on our side.”
Mary looked down on me from up there. Mary, Mary, quite contrary. Mary, Mary, she fucking crazy. She giggled. “I thought maybe you’d understand us . . . but no, just a scared little boy in the end like all the others we’ve . . . removed.”
“I understand that you’re out of juice, that I have numbers, that I have more projectors . . . what else I need to understand?”
She giggled into a Blackjack’s shoulder, rubbing her hands over his stomach. Guy looked freaked so I guess the Blackjacks ain’t complete mindless drones. “You need to understand,” Mary singsonged at me, “that we don’t care about beating you this game. All we care about is hurting you.”
I met her eyes. Let her see into me. Unlike most she didn’t flinch but she did smile. “What you think now?” I asked her.
“You do understand . . .” she whispered, as happy as if she’d gotten a puppy for Christmas . . . to torture knowing her. But still . . . fucking puppy, man! “Break one of his bones for me, boys. A big one!”
You’ve never felt fucked until you’ve had three Blackjacks coming at you full bore. Only reason I didn’t get that broken bone was a sudden blast of red light in front of my face. I went blind. My head hurt. Couldn’t think of nothing but throwing up at my feet.
What . . .
The . . .
Hurts . . .
I fell to my knees to throw up some more.
Thumps all around me. Mary screaming about someone being unfair. Miranda calling her an evil bitch.
Someone put their arms around me, helped me to my feet. “I’m sorry,” they whispered.
I shook my head. It still hurt but I could kind of see blurs now. “What?” I asked, trying not to vomit again. This must be what a migraine feels like . . .
“I made a starlight in front of you to blind them but it blinded you too, I’m sorry,” the person whispered.
I shook my head again. “Malaya?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“But . . . didn’t they catch you?”
“I got scared. I bent light around me. I never ran.”
Right.
“Well, thanks for being a big enough coward to hide but not a big enough coward to abandon us, I guess.”
“You’re welcome . . . I guess.”
Thirty seconds later it was all over.
We still had eight people up and they didn’t have a single one. Mary O’Connell sulked where she sat in the ash. “So unfair! Stupid spectromancer!”
“Yeah, yeah,” I muttered, walking past her, blinking like crazy but starting to make out shapes again. “Anticlimactic for me too, sister.”
“Next game, Foul Mouth, I’m hurting you good!”
“Yeah, yeah,” I muttered some more. I poked a smaller black shape with a finger. “Jesus?”
“Eva,” the shape said. “You should sit down.”
“Can’t . . . need to go help the others.”
“We can do that, you should sit.”
“And let Root put it on my highlight reel? Never!”
“Well . . . what’s the plan?” Eva-Shape asked me.
“Raj, Miranda, and Jesus come with me to Welf’s group, you four back up Estefan and Debra.” I poked a tall, skinny black shape. “Come on, Raj.”
“I’m Athir.”
“Whatever! Just point me in the right direction and on I’ll go!”
[CLICK]
“I’m telling you, they didn’t want to win that game, this is their plan!” Welf yelled at me.
We’d been arguing the entire break between game one and game two. The class couldn’t decide which of us was right. “It doesn’t matter if it’s their plan!” I yelled back, “you don’t kneel on the one yard-line, you score the fucking touchdown! We don’t need no prevent defense bullshit!”
“They have the defender’s advantage this game; they’ll win it anyway! If we let them hurt us then we won’t have anything left for the last game!”
“We win this game and there is no last game!”
Pocket pulled me away before I could take a swing at Welf. Jason did the same for Welf. Both of us glared at the other.
Estefan played conciliator. “We can’t forfeit an entire game like that, Heinrich.”
“It’s the smart play,” Welf said, “The passionless play.”
I stopped glaring at him and nodded to outside of the curtain. “You hear that? Yesterday we were the villains and now the whole crowd is cheering us on. What you think is going to happen if we forfeit a game? What you think we’ll be dealing with for the next five and half years if we forfeit game two and then lose game three?”
Welf turned to the class, trying to plead with them. “We’re three people down already. Robin, Jessica, and Quinn aren’t coming back. They lost one of the Blackjacks. Bird will be playing with a broken wrist. We’re basically even right now . . . but if the Three Queens do what they want, if we do what Foul Mouth wants and attack because we’re supposed to—we’ll be the ones playing with fewer numbers.”
No one made any comment on that. It was hard truth. Welf continued, “I’ll shock all of you right now by giving King Henry credit for what he did with the pancakes—”
“I won’t!” Naomi growled.
“Pocket warned you,” I pointed out.
“But!” Welf raised his voice to stop the argument, “That was a smart move . . . that’s why I give it credit. This isn’t. This is just emotional. Because he doesn’t want to be seen as giving up even one time.”
Estefan tried to meet in the middle. “We can’t forfeit. Root might not even allow it and even if he did—Welf, your parents are out there.”
“They’re used to me disappointing them with imperfection,” Welf muttered.
“Yeah, well . . .” Estefan rallied, “My dad is out there too, lots of our parents are, lots of people who will be offering u
s jobs when we graduate from this place. So how about we attack, but as one group? Watch out for each other? Don’t let any bones get broken but give the crowd a show? Then we hunker down for game three and win this thing.”
“Fucking kneeling on the one yard-line bullshit still,” I said to myself, but no one was listening.
The crowd was more excited than anyone expected. Bi’s actually won the first game. Used a neat strategy, beat up on the biggest bullies in the school. Amazing how quick popularity can swing with teenagers.
Then, during the placement phase of the game, ’09 came out as a group, set ourselves up across from the Water Zone. Corpusmancers in the front. Those with anima-projectors at the back. Bulldozer maneuver.
What I’d argued for against Leo and Class ’08 was what made me bitter now.
The crowd wasn’t bitter about it though, the crowd was beside itself. Blackjacks started appearing from around the Mound, then the Three Queens themselves popped up from behind a spout of water. Earth was impassable . . . and if you’re giving one of the Three Queens her element, it won’t be Catherine or Teresa. That means Water. Means King Henry versus Mary O’Connell, Round Two in game two.
Cheers, loudest cheers I’ve ever heard.
I didn’t care about the crowd though . . .
All I could think about was being glad my eyesight had come back.
About the ash having been washed from my face.
It’s the small things in life.
Being able to cook.
Not having gonorrhea.
Eyesight.
Having a hot awesome date for the night standing beside you.
Val clicked her teeth nervously. She’d been untouched in the first game, scored a pair of kills to add to her total too. Badass awesome date. “So do you dance as well as you kick butt?” I asked her.
She didn’t say anything about either, but instead looked me in the eyes. “I have an idea. It’s crazy . . . but . . .”
“What?”
“It’s crazy . . .”
“You’re talking to King Pancake here.”
She glanced at our group, at Pocket and Raj laughing, at Debra and Estefan sharing a quick kiss, at a fretting Welf. Then Class ’07, at the ruthlessness of Teresa Garcia, at the giggling madness of Mary O’Connell, at Catherine Hayes soaking up the coming carnage like it filled some need of hers.
Val turned back to me, grabbing my shoulders. She peered into my eyes, maybe into my soul. “Do you trust me?” she asked.
“Yes,” I told her.
I really should have asked her what her plan was before doing that . . .
Earth.
That was her plan.
Scary ass nightmare Earth Zone.
All them dry brambles . . .
“You’ve got to be kidding,” I said. “If they catch us in those bramble tunnels . . .”
“I don’t think they noticed us sneaking away,” Val said.
“People are pointing at us, Root has a camera just for us at the moment. Trust me: they realize what’s happening. All three of them are probably heading over here through that maze for a chance to break our bones while the Blackjacks take out our class.”
Val gave me a look of disgust. “I thought I brought King Henry Price with me, not Heinrich von Welf.”
“Low blow,” I grumbled.
“It doesn’t matter if they’re onto us anyway,” Val put my concerns to the side. “Not with what I plan.”
“What plan is that?” I hesitantly asked.
“I control the fire. You get us to the fifth level button for the win.” Val grabbed my hand and clasped tight. “We do it together.”
Why do girl hands got to be so damn soft?
I stared down at it. “It’s only a dance, remember?”
She smirked as the extra-large ten second countdown timer started. “Consider this and the dance your audition for being my boyfriend.”
My heart thudded twice as hard as normal. Then my brain caught up to everything she’d said. “Hey, Val . . . what fire?”
“Be ready to run and don’t stop running. Drag me if you have to.”
“Val . . . what fire?”
Session 130
“It’s raining and overcast,” Val said, “I suppose that means we’re in Seattle like we planned.”
“We’re on Earth at least, that’s a plus.”
Oddly enough it was the smell that gave it away. Diesel. Any smell more human than burning petroleum product? I doubt it.
“Or Tacoma, I think they have a huge port in Tacoma.”
We’d . . . stepped out? Formed? I was trying not to think about the physics of it, but we were in an open storage container of all things. Those big huge red metal ones they throw on ships and then transfer over to trains without a second thought for what’s inside. Mostly TVs, cars, crappy Chinese-made decorations that women never seem to stop buying on every holiday—the national trade debt, all your fault, ladies. You just had to have a new snowman statue for Christmas, and now look, your hubby is out of a manufacturing job.
Or something.
The doors on the shipping container had been left wide open but outside it was dark and there was very little to see. Leave at dawn, arrive at night. Didn’t seem like more than a handful of hours had passed, but . . . ‘time works differently’ is fairyland law in all the stories, ain’t it? Couldn’t see much, other shipping containers stacked up.
Val was right though, it was raining. You could hear the rain beat against the metal. Tap tap. Tap tap. Kind of soothing. Don’t like me ocean or sea or snow but rain . . . ain’t so bad. Cleans off the rock in me. Makes the metal in me feel shiny.
Val squinted outside, less friendly than I was. Fire and water don’t mix. Doesn’t matter if it’s star-fire or forest-fire. “Rain in July—it’s unnatural.”
“If it is July. And not 2050 or something Rip Van Winkle.”
“Don’t remind me. I’m trying to forget about the whole trip already.”
“Poug wasn’t so bad.”
“No . . . he was friendly. It’s his entire existence that I’m worried about.”
“And more . . .”
“And more,” she agreed, “but if we go down that route we’ll get distracted for hours. Let’s focus on finding my sister.”
I nodded, checking outside again. Rain, metal. Smell . . . petroleum and machinery. Some kind of port alright. “Poug said to head right and look for a green chariot.”
“I think he meant a car.”
“Probably.”
“Another van?”
“Also probably.”
“Are you . . . pooling normally again?”
So she had been worried about me. Makes me all fuzzy inside. “Sadly, yes, mostly at least. Feels easier than before . . . I think. It’s weird. I’ll need a few days to experiment.”
Wasn’t a whole lot of light to see it by but her brow wrinkled up. “How?”
“It’s like . . . some of the Geo Realm came with me and it’s slowly leaking away and when I pool, that anima hangs on.”
She rubbed her forehead. “The worst part of this is that I can’t talk to anyone about it who might have a clue about the anima dynamics, like Mister Gullick or Mrs. Quilt, even Miranda would know a good deal.”
“Yeah, welcome to my world. Lies everywhere, you get used to it eventually. Are you back to pooling normal?”
“Yes . . . fire in my belly and all that.”
“Good.”
“Yes, very good.”
Val sounded relieved but also slightly sad. Guess regaining responsibility is like that.
“Wait until we’re pooled and then head out?”
She nodded. “And we stick together this time so I don’t have to rescue you again.”
“I was fine.”
“They had you surrounded, cuffed, and at gunpoint.”
“It was all an act to get them to talk.”
“When you tell the story trying to impress college girls you�
��re free to tell it that way, King Henry, but I know the truth of it. You make a really ugly damsel in distress, I must say.”
“College girls? I’d never!”
“Uhuh. Remember the thumb-tip talk?”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about. College girls . . . especially not with our date coming up.”
“I suppose you’ve earned it.”
“Two or three, maybe four once we have Christmas safe.”
She sighed, the teasing seeming to disappear behind reality. “I’m always amazed at how you believe you can accomplish these things even when the world is set against it.”
“Says the woman who won us the Winter War as a Bi and saved King Henry Price from twenty armed kidnappers.”
Her lips quirked in the darkness despite herself. “Twenty?”
“You said I get to tell it how I want.”
Her hands grabbed my face and before I knew it I had Valentine’s lips on mine. It only lasted a few seconds—too quick of a few seconds—but damn was it good while it lasted. “I’m pooled, let’s go.”
Women . . . dangle the carrot and then pull it away . . .
Just what I wanted, going into battle with a chubby.
[CLICK]
Shipping dock alright, filled with rows and rows of containers stacked high. It was dark and rainy and no one else seemed to be about. We headed to the right like Poug told us to, Val in front on account of her ability to throw Fireballs of Doom. Hopped up on Geo Realm anima or not, I couldn’t match her pure offensive destruction.
Where’s a guy to punch in the face when you need to impress a chick?
More containers. Kind of amazing how much shipping just one port has in it. How much shit does one country need? What else could be hidden in all this? Why bring Christmas here of all places? Another fallback position near a boat? Felt old school. Suppose boats ain’t as tracked as all the rest. GPS in cars nowadays, FAA all over airplanes, even the new high speed rail lines popping up have extra security just in case. But boats . . . ships . . . whatever.
Easy to take a boat from Seattle to Vancouver I’m guessing. The great north . . . all Curator country. Vamps kicked out of their favorite summer dinner spots, Recruiters on the run. Curator’s whole playground. Enemy territory. Four, maybe five million people, don’t even know they’ve changed sides. Don’t even know they’re prey for another kind of predator.
The Foul Mouth and the Troubled Boomworm (The King Henry Tapes) Page 33
