King Henry Short Pack One (The King Henry Tapes)

by Richard Raley

  Sometime over the summer break Isabel Soto had jumped from not only face manipulation but to body manipulation as well. Along with perfectly straight, silky black hair, and a beauty pageant contestant’s fine-featured face, she also now had the figure of a burlesque dancer, breasts and hips tight against a corpusmancer uniform that had been fitted for a girl as flat and as square as a book.

  Even Naomi couldn’t look Isabel in the face. She stared at the same two objects Price and Heinrich found so fascinating. “Seriously, don’t you think you went overboard?”

  “Someone’s jealous,” Isabel declared, swaying so her chest jiggled. At least she sounds the same. Isabel was a strange girl; old families like the Welfs would have politely called her an Odd Anima. The Foul Mouth probably would have called her A Crazy Fucking Bitch.

  Naomi sniffed at the cleavage show. “I have plenty and I didn’t make them.”

  “Yours are nice now, but imagine after three children and twenty years? They’ll hang like the Lady’s.”

  Naomi gasped, clutching her own breasts like they might fall to the floor. “You take that back!”

  “Mine will always be this nice . . . or better!”

  “They’re obscene!” Naomi declared.

  Heinrich wrenched his gaze towards the Foul Mouth. The Foul Mouth stared back. Neither wanted to continue looking at Isabel’s new friends given how uncomfortable that made one’s pants and since Isabel’s new friends were everywhere, they could only look at each other.

  Naomi couldn’t help herself, “What size are they?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “How can you not know?”

  “I’m not wearing a bra.”

  Naomi gasped in amazement. “How is that possible?”

  “Corpus-anima.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “I’ll show you when we shower tonight.”

  The Foul Mouth wrote something on the piece of paper and showed it to Heinrich: Period Truce?

  Heinrich nodded.

  *

  Heinrich was exhausted by the time dinner rolled around. A day at the Asylum was a long day. 6AM to 6PM just from classes. There was also ‘home’ work to turn in on a weekly basis, for Heinrich much of it was finished in class. Still, he had to help Jason and he was also a member of the Basketball Club and the Fencing Club, along with being president of the Graveyard Club and likely the Captain of Class ‘09’s Winter War team. Finally!

  Added to all this was the Foul Mouth and now . . . being a brother.

  I need to go see Miss Strange for an antacid prescription if this keeps up . . . was I really thinking about how much I like this place only yesterday on the bus ride in?

  Heinrich von Welf wouldn’t crack, he wouldn’t!

  Theory of Anima and Elementalism as Art weren’t as bad as Gullick’s class had been. The Foul Mouth was at least on the other side of the room. As for the subject matter . . . Theory of Anima sounded very interesting; Elementalism as Art looked like a complete waste of his time.

  Death was certain but it was never artistic, just messy.

  It was taught by Rainbow Greenbrier, an Intra spectromancer who was completely detached from reality as far as Heinrich was concerned. The woman wore furry animal slippers instead of shoes, her clothes were made of hemp, and she had a very strange odor about her. Heinrich couldn’t be sure because he had never smoked any substance at all in his entire life but he suspected it was . . .

  . . . marijuana.

  Greenbrier spent the entire time of the class period not with a syllabus but by bringing out example after example of student art from her tenure at the Asylum. Spectro-crystals giving miniature lightshows, water paintings from hydromancers, wood carvings from floromancers, stone sculptures from geomancers, and even pictures of long melted ice statues from cryomancers. No sign of a single work by a necromancer.

  Because there was no work to be had.

  All of our art lies in the Constructs.

  So Heinrich came upon the end of a long day, feeling tired and strangely worthless. Necromancers often suffered more than the other disciplines when it came to hands-on assignments, more than even corpusmancers—Greenbrier had shown a ‘dance painting’ that one of her corpusmancers had made with sponges tied to her body and a large canvas. Most days, Heinrich cared not a fig. He was a necromancer, a Bonegrinder. In the end, he would be the one ahead. But on days like this one when he felt so stifled and restrained, both in protecting Victoria and in class, a great despondent mood came upon him.

  He brooded.

  Necromancers might not be good at art, but they were very good at brooding.

  Jason handed over a tray from the line and Heinrich accepted it without even muttering a ‘thank you’. It was as if he was in some scio-anima created shadow world. Jason even ordered for him and at the end of the line even picked up the food to place on Heinrich’s tray—onion soup with small prime rib sandwiches on the side, thick with sauerkraut.

  He walked over to the Ultra Bi table in a daze. A spare glance for Victoria revealed her absent from the Ultra Single table.

  “You okay?” Jason asked him.

  “No, I’m not okay,” Heinrich admitted aloud, “It was a troubling day.”

  “Listen, I gave Foul Mouth a talkin’ to in Theory of Anima. He’ll calm down about Vicky and refocus on me.”

  “Her name is Victoria. After my grand-grandmother. Who was named after Queen Victoria. Who was the Kaiser’s grandmother. My grandparent’s generation took the most American names possible to fit in but with Victoria and I, my father thought we could truly return to our roots, remind the world we were von Welfs, not just war prizes.”

  Jason sat down at the table and instantly dived into his own plate of food—two baked potatoes, a side of greens, and two huge slices of country-fried-steak covered in a thick gravy.

  Heinrich stood there, still not sitting, staring at his food. The necromancer in him craved it. The moody fifteen-year-old boy felt sick to his stomach with worry about the year he was facing. He had never had a panic attack before, but he felt like he was close to one now.

  Laughter down the table caught his ear.

  Heinrich’s head turned.

  There was Victoria.

  Sitting between Valentine and . . .

  .

  .

  .

  The Foul Mouth.

  It hasn’t even been a day.

  I pushed him against a wall and threatened him like some ruffian and IT HASN’T EVEN BEEN A DAY!

  Heinrich’s mind lost control of his body. An anger he’d never felt before rose up. A certainty rose up inside of him. Heinrich von Welf wanted to punch King Henry Price in the face. No matter the penalty. No matter the punishment. No matter what Valentine or Hope or Victoria would think. No matter what Father or Mother would think. No matter if the Foul Mouth started punching back and Heinrich ended up black and blue.

  Price noticed Heinrich staring at him and Victoria. He gave a nonchalant shrug. What could I do? Our table not hers. Just deal with it, you pompous douchebag.

  It was a certainty.

  It was a fact of the universe.

  Heinrich von Welf would be taking the path of least resistance and would be throwing himself at King Henry Price in . . .

  5.

  4.

  3.

  2.

  1.

  Heinrich vaulted over the table. His feet hit food trays and cups of soda and water and iced tea. He made a mess of everything and everyone. He also made a straight line for the Foul Mouth. Clank. Clank. The table reverberated under Heinrich’s feet.

  Not much further now.

  The little bastard was right there, standing up in shock. The Foul Mouth surprised. That made it worth it. Heinrich loved that expression on the Foul Mouth’s face. Astonishment, followed directly by frustration. It was the same expression the Foul Mouth wore any time Heinrich bested him. Or humiliated him by proving what a know-nothing rube Price was.r />
  This was the first time Heinrich had surprised the Foul Mouth with physical confrontation. Usually it was a well-timed verbal spar or a grade on a test or some prank he had pulled or at best, on the sports field.

  But now . . .

  Physical confrontation.

  A certainty.

  Heinrich dropped in a baseball slide Jason had taught him last year. His black colors were immediately stained with food and fluid but Heinrich’s momentum carried him past all the mess, his long legs kicking out to aim right at the Foul Mouth.

  They collided, feet slamming into the Foul Mouth’s chest, knocking his balance backwards. Heinrich couldn’t slow, his shoes slipped off Price’s brown geomancer colors and on he came, taking both of them down to the floor in a tangle of limbs.

  Somehow Heinrich ended up on top.

  He didn’t really know what to do. Not like the Foul Mouth would have with elbows and positioning and fists. That was another art beyond Heinrich. But he knew his fist was supposed to go into the Foul Mouth’s already yapping jaws. “You fucking prick, she came to me!”

  Certainty.

  Heinrich punched.

  It hurt.

  His hand hurt.

  A lot.

  That’s what the Foul Mouth felt every time he punched someone?

  And he liked it?

  Heinrich tried to understand this.

  He decided the only way would be to punch again.

  So he did.

  It hurt again.

  Heinrich tried his other hand.

  That hurt too.

  Everyone was yelling at him.

  The Foul Mouth was bleeding from his lip.

  Heinrich kept trying to understand.

  He kept punching.

  They had to pull him off.

  Heinrich still didn’t understand.

  But both his hands were broken.

  It was a certainty.

  *

  The Slush cooled Heinrich’s knuckles.

  Miss Strange assured him his hands would be as good as new in a few days. Slush worked best on fine bones. He wouldn’t even need to wear a Slush Tank.

  Price . . . was fine.

  Cut lip, bruised cheek, black eye.

  For the Foul Mouth this kind of pain was apparently in acceptable levels, since he refused Slush, only asking for an extra-dosage Ibuprofen pill. He seemed to enjoy the turn of events.

  King Henry Price as the victim.

  Heinrich von Welf as the perpetrator.

  Heinrich hadn’t apologized.

  Didn’t plan on apologizing.

  He had asked again and again, but Price only spoke one language.

  Miss Strange checked on Heinrich’s hands one more time before motioning that she would be leaving the room. “The Lady will want to talk with you two about this. I need to go get her.”

  “Yeah, yeah, drag the old bag in here already,” Price complained, moving his jaw back and forth as he talked. “Tell her to make sure she’s dressed first. I see her in a muumuu again and I’m gonna hurl all over your nice clean floor.”

  “Before I do go, however, please imagine what I will do to you if you attack Welf while I’m away, Price,” Strange warned.

  “Hey, he’s the crazy bastard, not me!”

  Strange rolled her eyes at the act, heading out of the room. “I’m sure you’re the innocent angel in all this.”

  “I am . . . as good as . . . toilet-paper.”

  Strange forced herself to stop at the door. “Why toilet-paper?”

  “What else in this world has given more relief?”

  She barked a laugh and then left.

  Welf tried to move his fingers, pain lancing all the way up his forearms. Why does he like this?

  “Didn’t know you had it in ya, Welf,” the Foul Mouth broke the silence with a chuckle, “Went fucking beast-mode on me. And that slide-kick? I’m kind of impressed by it.”

  “Leave my sister alone,” Heinrich whispered.

  “Yeah, yeah, don’t touch Vicky’s vagina. I hear ya, Welf.”

  “Don’t even talk about it.”

  “Sure.”

  Heinrich squinted across the room. “Why are you being amiable?” Like everyone else, Heinrich had heard the adage about punching a bully to get him to stop picking on you, but he had never dared believe it.

  “Because I thought you were a fucking robot who only cared about station and money and all that bullshit you use to make me feel like a piece of shit under your boots. But . . . what ya know? Heinrich Welf loves his sister. Even got in a fight for her.”

  “I warned you not to approach her.”

  “She approached me.”

  Heinrich mind took a few seconds to accept these words. “What?”

  “She came to explain that you and me shouldn’t hate each other. That you’re a nice guy, Welf, and a great brother, and that I should forgive you for all the bullshit you say about me because deep down you’re so worried about screwing up that you hold on to propriety too hard.”

  “She did what?”

  “Yeah. Believe that shit? She made a pretty good case for you. Of course, Val was sitting there too, so I steered the conversation in a direction to completely embarrass you.”

  “I’m going to throw up.”

  “Yup. Fucking kiddy stories. Val and me heard all about your cursing parrot and—“

  “Please stop talking.”

  The Foul Mouth actually shut the mouth in question.

  Heinrich studied the Slush on his hands some more. “Then I punched you.”

  “Yup. More than once.”

  “No hope for what Victoria wants, is there?”

  “Nah, you’re still a prick, just not as much of a prick. But know what? I really like her. Not in an I-want-to-pee-in-her-butthole way either; don’t get worked up, Welf. She’s a nice girl. I don’t think she’ll let me pretend she doesn’t exist though, so you’re gonna have to deal with us talking occasionally, but I won’t torture you anymore. We’ll make a rule: no siblings. Deal?”

  “Deal, I suppose.”

  “Good. That’s settled then.”

  “If you do—“

  “Yeah, yeah, you’ll punch me again. I promised, didn’t I? Vicky is off limits. Assuming you ever meet my sisters, they’re also off limits. Unless JoJo assaults you in the dead of night after too much Boone’s Farm and in that case, make sure you get yourself tested within a week.”

  I didn’t have to lift either of my hands . . . Victoria was already trying to save me . . . It wasn’t supposed to be that way. He was the big brother.

  “Glad that’s all settled,” Price announced, “cuz your sister is cute and all but that friend of hers? Makayla? Or was it Genesis? I’m not sure . . . but one of them totally had Fuck Me eyes.”

  Leaving Victoria alone or not, the Foul Mouth was still completely repulsive.

  A certainty truer than even death.

  THE END

  Griefing

  “Griefing” did not begin life as a novella. It was actually the original school story for “The Foul Mouth and the Headless Hunny,” but because “Headless Hunny” was moved up in the queue to be FM4 instead of FM5, the themes of “Griefing” no longer worked with the very Annie B and Ceinwyn Dale focused story. It was also the reason the author reevaluated the entire school story and decided it would be ending with FM7, to not overstay its welcome or stretch more story than it could give. This left the author with four chapters of extra material that were repurposed into this novella, changed from first person to third person. It takes place at the start of King Henry’s third year, immediately following Session 6 from “The Foul Mouth and the Fanged Lady.”

  Going home.

  King Henry couldn’t say it was ever something he looked forward to during his life back in Visalia.

  But now?

  Now the idea of being back at the Asylum gave him a feeling of contentment. He guessed that made it home. Or at least as much of a home as he could e
ver claim. The common room especially. Pocket laughing over some joke. Raj’s face, scrunched up in horror over some play against Welf he’d been filled in on at the last moment when backing out would be impossible. Val teasing him. Hell, even that ginger abomination called Miranda Daniels scolding him for being an unrepentant, womanizing scoundrel.

  He’d miss it all if it was sucked into some void and went poof.

  Guess that meant he cared about the place.

  Guess that made it his home.

  His mom’s funeral had left him ragged. Emotionally more than physically, but driving down to Fresno and back in one day hadn’t done him any favors either. His dad crying like that, his mom in her casket looking so beautiful. It fucking haunts me, he thought. Every second of every minute since he’d returned to the car with Ceinwyn . . . it haunted him.

  That hole. That void. That gap.

  Knowing it wasn’t cancer so much as suicide by corpus-anima.

  God, Mancy, whatever is out there, how it haunts me . . .

  Susan. She was the bright spot King Henry held on to. Susan’s fine. Susan’s doing well for herself. Something good came out of everything that happened during his childhood. Still don’t know where JoJo’s at, but . . . well, I take that back. I know where she’s at: she’s hooked up with some guy that’s no good for her. He knew JoJo enough to know that’s what was going down. He just didn’t know where it was going down. Or who the douchenozzle of a guy is.

  Probably some suave, rich asshole.

  Drug kingpin or something.

  Knowing JoJo.

  Better to think about JoJo and Susan than about Mom and Dad. Shit. There it was again. Haunting him . . . the gap. His dad crying behind him. A beautiful, charming life stripped away by Anima Madness. Wonder what Mom would have been like if she’d gone to the Asylum?

  Only an Intra but . . . King Henry would bet his life that some Ultra would have asked her to the Winter Ball every year. She was smart, would have been good at the classes too. King Henry was pretty sure his mom had gotten some college scholarships out of high school . . . just, she ended up pregnant with Susan so soon after . . .