Crack.
Crack.
Crack.
Three times.
And the barrels of three machineguns sliced clean off, clattering to the ground.
Beside me, T-Bone raised a finger, pointing at the grande truck and before any of the Coyotes could protest a bolt of electricity flew from his hand, sizzling the very air around us as it dove straight into the truck’s engine and did some downright horrible stuff to the plastics, rubber, and electronics inside.
Douchebag electromancer showoffs with their special effects.
“Guess you’re walking home,” I told the Coyotes.
Suit’s face said murder. “This isn’t over, mancer-bitch.”
I grinned back. “No . . . it ain’t.”
T-Bone and I could just hear the sirens as all seven of the Coyotes ran out of view. Maybe Ceinwyn was right . . . I’m pretty sure I just started a war.
At least I’m winning it.
Session 11
Jason Jackson snored.
I already knew it. I’d heard the big bastard for nights in the Ultra dorms, but before I’d been lucky . . . since he slept on the other side of the room it wasn’t on top of me. It had been other bitches’ problem then . . . only now . . . sounded like I had me a bison in the tent. The plastic-like wind-breaking material shook with each inhalation, ready to either collapse or explode.
Damned Pocket slept right on through it.
Damned Jason slept right on through it.
After four hours of torture, Welf and I weren’t even trying to fake sleep any longer. We each sat huddled in opposite corners of the tent, trying to maim each other with the Mancy. Maybe it’s a good thing they hadn’t taught us yet . . .
I don’t think hate is the right word for what we feel for each other. You don’t hate a pebble in your shoe; you take your shoe off and shake it out. You don’t hate a mosquito; you just crush the bug and wonder why no one has eradicated the things already. That’s the way Welf and me acted with each other. We wanted the other gone.
Erased from existence.
But the Asylum wouldn’t let them be gone.
So we nursed our resentment and annoyance and all those petty fucking words.
Sometimes I’ve wished I could just blame it on the Mancy. Ceinwyn and Audrey Foster? Aeromancer on aeromancer hate is forced on them. Asa and Valentine? Hydromancer on pyromancer is forced on them too. But I’m not so lucky. Necromancers and geomancers got no beefs. We got no magic juice making us act a certain way towards each other. Death and dust actually got a lot in common . . .
No . . . Welf and King Henry just started off wrong and snapped into rivalship. If I’d been found a week earlier and not come into school late, if he’d just kept his mouth shut like he usually did, if Ceinwyn had been any other teacher and stopped me from dishing out my brand of justice . . .
Fucking if . . . that’s life, ain’t it? You ain’t a grown-up until you got yourself some if to think on. There’s truth for you, kiddos.
Heinrich von Welf: Bonegrinder, tall, regal looking, top of his class for every year of his life, raised in wealth, raised to service, raised to a family name that meant something, always setting the example, an uptight perfectionist, already the president of the Graveyard Club as a Single.
King Henry Price: short, skinny, dirt hair and dirt eyes, bottom of the class or near enough, raised poor as shit with a name that meant even less, dislikes people who order other people around, rebellious, rebel without a cause, not in a single damn club and didn’t care what others thought.
No wonder we could never find a middle ground to agree on.
“Annoyed Pocket did a better job than you could’ve?” I asked him, set of my mouth belligerent.
Pocket had the tent together before anyone else was even halfway and not a single piece had been in the wrong place. Welf had sniffed and fidgeted and barely held back comments through the whole assembly. Even Jason had been impressed. ‘Boy knows his tents.’
Not Welf.
“I’m not perfect,” he whispered, looking off at canvass wall, barely heard over the snoring.
“Don’t I know it.”
“One day . . . when you least expect it . . . after you assume I’ve forgotten . . . I’ll pay you back for the black eye.”
“Keep on assuming, Welf, keep on assuming you’re better than everyone else.”
“I don’t assume I’m better than everyone else, Price, just you. And with you? I don’t assume, I know.”
I bristled. “Must eat you up being shown up by a surfer boy.”
After Pocket checked the joints and made sure it wasn’t going to collapse, Samson had stopped by our tent and gave us a nod. Our only reward was more work, in the form of going down the lakeside to a dock-house about half a mile away, finding and hauling back a pair of ice-chests filled with hotdogs and buns and soda cans.
Someone was watching out for us . . . made me suspicious.
“Yes,” Welf said in the Tent’o’Snore, “being shown up at putting together a tent, if only houses would go out of style, then I’d feel the proper fool.”
By the time we returned, my little ass not doing much good at lifting the heavy load, but Pocket and Jason managing just fine, the rest of the tents were set up. Samson had the class take our turns at starting a fire with flint. Eva Reti with her short hair and boyish frame was the first to manage. At the time I didn’t think much of her, just got caught up in being glad it wasn’t Welf winning the glory.
“Looked the fool standing there for two minutes banging the flint on the knife, didn’t you?” I mocked him.
He shrugged, but I saw the sting in his eyes. Welf has eyes the color of a tombstone. “You did no better.”
“Right, but I don’t care if I look a proper fool.”
He smirked. “Yes you do, Price, that’s the only way we’re alike. Only I react with culture and you react with your fists. One day you’ll see which one wins in the end. Which one gets you expelled, which one gets you the key spot at graduation. Which one gets you rejected, which one wins you the girl of your dreams.”
“You dream of girls? That’s news . . .”
He pulled his necromancer’s black coat tighter around himself to fight the cold. It was only October, but in the mountains that meant forty degrees in the night if you’re lucky. “What possessed the Mancy to make us equals as Ultras, Price? Why do you deserve to be in the same class as me? I’ve done everything right. I’ve prepared for this my entire life. I knew of the Mancy before I could walk, felt it from mother and father both. You’ve done nothing. Not a clue at all. You’re as ignorant as some barbarian trying to understand the aqueducts. And here you are.”
“Good thing too, else we’d have a bunch of stuck-up fuckers like you running this place.”
[CLICK]
I dreamed of butterflies glowing in the sun.
. . . No, that wasn’t it.
I dreamed of naked women dancing through a field, all flesh and hair, flicking their index fingers in my direction and calling me to come and play.
. . . Closer to usual.
I dreamed I was a piece of the mountain.
I rose from blackness into brown pebbles, into minerals of a dozen kinds. Through the mountain I connected backward through all of the earth, from the Sierra Nevada, with its ice cut strangeness; to the Rockies, with their size and presence; and then to the Appalachian, eldest of all, worn down by wind and water, wounded by man.
They had names I had never heard yet the core of my mind knew. Meteyos. Watassin. Ghenalle.
They were not the only ones with me in my dream, across the world there were thousands more, some just as strong, just as ancient, but these three were the names I heard repeated over and over by a chorus of rock and topsoil.
I swam through it all, carried by geo-anima through pressures that make diamonds of carbon, temperatures that confuse earth with fire. Above my head were the domes of mountains and below my feet the rising tide of magma
, spurned out by the very center of the planet. Time was meaningless to these beings flowing at my side. They had seen ice age after ice age, witnessed the death of dinosaurs and great mammals both, taken their bones to be a part of them and strengthen them.
The saber-toothed, the giant sloth, the direwolf, the mammoth; all dead and gone.
The elf, the dwarf, the dragon; all forgotten.
Now, man ruled. Cities of asphalt sat atop them, clinging to their side, striving to last, broken down and replaced at an unsustainable rate. Gold and silver and copper were stolen, marble was ripped away, coal was blasted free. Yet these three would remain through it all. They had already watched as billions of these men fell to join in their embrace, turned into dust and soil like all the rest.
They would outlast.
When man ended, if the seas rose, if air boiled, if fire spewed from deep below, they would outlast.
In my dream I was part of this. I felt the truth of the message. I felt the song of limestone, the beat of granite, the crackling of mud. I was King Henry Price and as small as I am every day, I’ve never felt more small than then.
WHAT HAVE WE HERE? a voice called to me from everywhere.
I kept floating, unsure, eyes awash with brown-tinged anima, hearing the words but unsure if I understood them.
YOU WANDER WHERE YOU DO NOT BELONG, LITTLE MANCER. WHERE YOU SHOULD NOT BE.
“I’ll be wherever I want,” I whispered.
OH? HOW BRAVE OF YOU . . . OR FOOLISH.
“Who are you?” I asked of the anima.
With each word the entire of my world, every piece I floated upon, pulsed, a slap of power. I? I HAVE MANY NAMES.
“One usually does it . . .”
IF ONE WOULD DO THEN PERHAPS IT IS YOU WHO SHOULD NAME ME, LITTLE MANCER.
“I’m dreaming . . .”
YES.
“Is this real?”
YES AS WELL.
I thought my situation over. Everything seemed fuzzy, like I’d drunk too much or saw the world through glasses. It made my head hurt. Way worse than any nicotine detox. “Are you a fairy?”
Top ten phrases I never expected to say at any point in my life . . .
There was laughter from the anima. Each boom smashed upon my skull with as much force as a sledgehammer.
“Are you or not?” I growled. “Or Corpus Animal Concentrate or something or other, whatever Ceinwyn said.”
YES. THIS IS WHAT MANY NAME MY KIND.
I frowned. Now I’m having dreams. Maybe I was going mad like Mom and nothing they could teach me would stop it. “Why are you talking to me? I wanted to sleep.”
IT IS YOU WHO CAME TO ME, LITTLE MANCER.
“Stop calling me little . . .”
WHO ARE YOU?
This question from the anima . . . or fairy . . . or whatever . . . it was a whole lot more serious than when I asked it. It was like . . . it wanted to know what my entire mind, soul, and body were made of. Like it wanted me to consider my life and give an answer more than a name or a title.
Only . . . I was too scared to look inside. “I’m King Henry Price . . . I’m an Artificer.”
THE FIRST IS TRUE AND LONG A GREAT NAME OF MAN . . . THE SECOND IS A LIE.
“Well . . . not yet, but I will be.”
ONE DAY . . . YOU WILL BE EVEN MORE AND NO MAN-KING WILL HAVE BEEN GREATER.
“If you say so . . .” I muttered doubtfully.
ONE DAY, KING HENRY PRICE, YOU WILL COME TO ME AND WE SHALL TALK FACE TO FACE.
“I’d rather not . . . you don’t seem too bad for a fairy but I’m very busy trying to learn how to be a mancer, plus they got me out in the woods right now freezing my ass off for who knows what reason . . .”
TIME IS ON YOUR SIDE. YOU ARE OF THE EARTH, REMEMBER HOW THE EARTH WINS.
“Landslides?”
WE OUTLAST, WE ENDURE, WE DO NOT BREAK.
“Don’t break . . . like that one. You’re okay for a fairy, man.”
WE WATCH AND REMEMBER.
“I watch . . .”
THEY MEAN TO TRICK YOU, KING HENRY PRICE.
“Don’t I know it . . . something’s strange with this camping trip even if the other kids don’t believe me.”
YOUR PEERS WILL LEARN OF IT SOON ENOUGH.
“Figures . . . and I’m last in the class why?”
THEY WON’T BELIEVE EVEN THEN.
“Figures some fucking more.”
WATCH, KING HENRY PRICE, WATCH THE MOUNTAINS AND WE WILL HELP YOU.
“I’d rather watch some naked girls . . . don’t got any nymphs hanging around do you?”
LITTLE MANCER . . . THEIR KIND ARE OF THE TREES.
“Oh yeah . . . bummer. I get rocks, Pocket gets hot slutty chicks, how’s that fair?”
WE WILL SPEAK AGAIN.
“Really hope we don’t. No offense . . . but one freaky ass dream is enough . . .”
REMEMBER MY NAME.
“You never told me your name!” I yelled into the brown.
I HAVE NOT, YET YOU KNOW IT.
Meteyos the Mancy whispered to me. You spoke to Meteyos, the Killer of Fools, and survived to tell of it.
[CLICK]
A hand at my shoulder shook me awake. “Huh?”
“Shh . . .” a voice whispered urgently. Pocket I realized.
My eyes took some time to adjust in the darkness of the tent. Still night outside, since no sun came through the thin fabric of the tent. Welf and Jason were already awake as well, wrapped in their mancer coats, sleeping bags zipped open and left discarded. Their eyes darted from one side of the tent to the other, searching for something.
“Huh?” I repeated, less loud, but not much.
Pocket threw a finger up in front of his lips, face about as scared as it got when Mrs. Dingle threw us a pop-quiz at the start of class.
I shrugged at him, what the fuck?
He tapped his ear. Listen, right.
Scooting up out of my own sleeping bag, I managed to get out without unzipping anything. For once it was a plus being small. I looked to Welf and Jason. They paid my every movement attention usually reserved for someone with a landmine stuck between their ass-cheeks. Right, I thought, clench, King Henry, clench. The shit I’d been waiting for finally got thrown by the pissed off chimpanzee of spite. Samson’s Sword of Damocles was ready to bugger us all.
I threw my hands in the air towards the three of them, meaning as clear as before, what the fuck?
Welf glared.
Jason mouthed, shut up, fool.
Pocket caught my eyes and motioned to his ear again, then he pointed outside, something’s out there.
Right, I thought again. Chimpanzee had definitely been working overtime.
I listened.
First thing I noticed was the lack of wind. Nothing hit the tent and the branches stayed surprisingly quiet. The whole woods stayed surprising quiet. I frowned to myself. The fire had either died or been put out. No snoring, from either Jason or the other tents. Whispers from my other classmates as more people woke up to the same scenario.
I tilted my head. There was something moving out there. I heard the swish of padded feet across dirt.
That’s when something, multiple somethings, howled.
“Stay inside your tents,” Samson’s voice came, soft as always but straining to be loud enough for all of us to hear. “If you stay inside your tent you will not be hurt. Whatever you do, no matter what you hear, or see, stay inside your tent until the sun is well out.”
“This can’t be happening . . .” Welf muttered under his breath. “This is impossible . . .”
Jason slapped Welf’s shoulder for talking.
More howls. Whatever moved out there, one of them ran past our tent, a bulky four-legged shape visible against the weak moonlight. Full moon? You got to be kidding me . . .
“Are there werewolves?” Pocket asked as low as his voice could go.
He earned his own shoulder slap from Jason but Welf gave a nod as answer. Aren
’t supposed to be in California, he explained silently.
This is bullshit! I mouthed back.
Talk and I mess you up, Jason warned me.
It’s Samson screwing with us!
Even more howls.
Screams from nearby tents.
“I said stay inside, Ramirez!” Samson yelled, his voice high for once. “I’m handling them, don’t you worry. I’m not old enough for a few Weres to give me trouble.”
I began to feel anima drawn. A rumble at my feet. It was the one piece of the Mancy we’d learned in our first month. Not that the teachers had taught it to us, just that from all the mancers being around you felt it enough to realize what it was and got better at sensing by the day.
The four of us traded gazes. They felt it too. Different feelings than mine. I know corpusmancers describe it as the body tingling and Pocket has told me more than once it’s like smelling flowers for floromancers. No idea what necromancers feel. Never gave enough of a shit to ask Welf, Mordecai Root, or Jethro Smith. Maybe smell too . . . smell rotting corpses for all I care. Hope it sucks for them.
“What are they?!?” a girl’s voice screamed. Might have been Jessica Edwards or Tamiko Lewis, sounded southern.
“Stay inside, hug the ground!”
This is bullshit, I thought again.
That’s when Samson screamed, followed by howls and trashing bodies and terrible noises that have no name.
I still would have kept thinking it was bullshit, only . . . the blood that splashed against the tent told me maybe I’d been wrong.
Tough as we pretended to be . . . Welf, Pocket, Jason, and me . . . we all hit the dirt, shivering all four of us, praying that we’d get through the night.
I also tried to pool anima like never before.
Session 116
As a kid I always viewed the cops as my enemies . . . but I never actually clashed with them either. Delinquent children aren’t high on the list of wrongs to right in the Central Valley. Long as you weren’t destroying property, shooting someone’s dog, or painting graffiti on a mailbox they mostly left you alone. Plus . . . white kid, so I got those bonus points in my favor free of charge.
Never liked the cops though. Has to do with the bully thing. Even if they’re nice guys . . . that bully thing is just there. They could totally flip out, beat me, taser my ass, and they’d get away with it. That system’s too unfair for King Henry Price to not resent the benefactors. I always glared at cops as a kid, always dared them. Try to fuck with me, we see if you get suspended with pay or get hospitalized with some broken ribs. They’d glare back but never did anything. Probably went into the office and laughed their asses off at my little pugnacious self.
The Foul Mouth and the Cat Killing Coyotes (The King Henry Tapes) Page 9
