The Foul Mouth and the Cat Killing Coyotes (The King Henry Tapes)

by Richard Raley

  My mind might have done angles and trajectories just fine when it went a million miles an hour, but back in normal land it drew a huge blank on the length of the railing and the height of the balcony. A ramp, sure a ramp, but only for a few feet extra. Didn’t help that I came on it so fast . . . fast for me at least.

  Hallway, hallway, open space again . . . there’s Tatter, not even bothering with another clip, just throwing the gun to the floor like it had been the one to mess up his aim. Railing at the very edge of my vision, a hint to some safety just before the fall. My foot kept running with the drop, hit railing, then pushed off.

  King Henry Price went airborne.

  Not a place any geomancer wants to be. Randy ‘Macho Man’ Savage I am not. No flying elbow drop here.

  King Henry Price went kind of straight and then lots of down. No elbow, no shoulder tackle. Nothing heroic, just plain falling in the general direction of Tatter. Hundred-eighty pounds of meat slamming into another hundred-something pounds of meat.

  The impact carried the both of us backwards and then only me downwards. I ended on my knees in front of him, arms grabbing at his shirt and pants, head all near places no man wants his head near.

  Got to give it to Tatter, nasty cat killing Coyote he might be but the bastard was tough enough to stay standing. More than tough enough to stay standing. Tatter started raining down short little punches to the top of my skull immediately and didn’t stop for nothing.

  The world going slightly fuzzy on me, honor damn died real quick . . . like I had any to begin with?

  I punched him in the balls.

  Didn’t stop the smack, smack, smack against my skull so . . .

  I punched him in the balls again.

  The sequel got through where the original had failed, making Tatter back up a few steps, giving me the space I needed to stand up and bring up my arms to guard myself. Tatter did the same, gun forgotten . . . wherever it had fallen to.

  We stared at each other for a moment. Both all pissed off. No secrets between us now. Not like in the parking lot a few days back. Knew he was a Coyote. He knew I was an Artificer. Information gets that good and the game gets a lot more complicated. Ain’t the overconfidence or chaos that was in our first encounter. No possibility for lopsided outcomes.

  Both our asses were going to get bloody.

  Of course . . . both of us were so focused on beating face we forgot about T-Bone.

  Being that he’s an electromancer, a fucking Stormcaller that my earthborn ass is jealous of, with the ability to throw around balls of lightning and ground electricity, and all that awesome shit that makes my little metal railing move look like a parlor trick . . . being all that . . . T-Bone charging across the room at full tilt caught me just a little off guard.

  Caught Tatter off guard too.

  I know for a fact that the man has never played football in his life but damn . . . this little move would have ended up on his highlight film. He rammed into Tatter, wrapped him up right under the armpits and kept on going. He even hurtled the table, not stopping a bit until he reached the now television-less wall, where Tatter slammed against plaster and paint and whatever else they make houses out of. Tatter hit so hard that he got embedded into the wall.

  T-Bone stepped back, looking back at me so shocked by what he’d done that maybe it had been me responsible.

  Tatter’s only comment was a low groan.

  My hands dropped to my sides. “You couldn’t let me punch him at least one time?”

  [CLICK]

  Suit whined all the way down the stairs.

  You’d think he’d be grateful I untied him from the bed and only bothered to retie his hands. Sure, I left him naked as his birthday . . . suit . . . but that’s only because I didn’t want to have to touch him enough to put some pants on the bastard.

  Not that Suit could see it, on account of his blindfold, but the living room was devoid of any type of body. The movies never mention how heavy knocked-out people are to move around. T-Bone huffed so hard that he might be near a heart attack. Might have been the weight or might have been Pajamas being naked. Guy definitely needed to get a girlfriend if he was getting turned on by Coyote skank.

  I leaned Suit into a commandeered kitchen chair and sat down on the table opposite him—same table that had the coke and porn mags on it. Coke was gone to the ether, porn mags were still turned to buttress mode. Glass crunched under my shoes and Suit’s face cringed from the same. His feet pulled away from the floor, small cuts leaking blood from market to wee wee wee all the way home.

  T-Bone gave me a nod before he sat at the couch. All tied up and accounted for in the guesthouse save for Suit. Good. Makes little talks easier when you don’t have to worry about someone crashing the party. Little talks and interrogations . . .

  “Gagged too?”

  “Gagged too, phone disconnected, and all locked in a room.”

  My turn to nod. Given how much I’d screwed up . . . things could have gone a lot worse.

  “We should cut our losses and leave,” T-Bone said, not for the first time in the last few minutes.

  Hadn’t been into attacking in the first place, wasn’t into having this bit of conversation either. Wanted to be gone. Wanted to wait for Ceinwyn to help us fix our screw-up. Considering we just kept screwing things up even more, maybe T-Bone had a point.

  I wasn’t no closer to finding Horatio Vega than I’d been to begin the day.

  Wasn’t no closer to JoJo either.

  Bucket of fail, King Henry. You fucktard.

  “I was told this is Horatio Vega’s house.”

  Suit, naked . . . tied up . . . blindfolded, still smirked. “You’re an idiot, Price.”

  “Too true . . . really looking forward to killing him too . . .”

  Suit laughed, smirk all wide. “You don’t know shit. Mancer . . . so you think you’re a badass . . . don’t know shit.”

  “Handled you and your boys.” I flicked the blindfold off his face, let him take a peek around his living room. TV going banzai charge seemed to really upset him. “All alone . . . Hector, I’m guessing.”

  “Hector Vega, puta, don’t forget it before you think about touching me.”

  “See, T-Bone over there made a mistake. Saw a piece of property owned by H. Vega on Van Ness . . . who else it going to be? Then I made the same mistake reading it on a list of your uncle’s properties. Had to be him. Makes sense. But it wasn’t the big man; it was you, the little screw-up nephew.”

  That hit a nerve. “Fuck you! Screw-up? I’m in his inner fucking circle! Untie me and I’ll show you screw-up, mancer-bitch!”

  My quick jab caught him in the face so hard the chair almost felt over backwards. “Only I get to curse like that, Hector.”

  “Fucking coward!”

  “Guy who used machineguns in the middle of the night calling me a coward, T-Bone.”

  T-Bone didn’t have anything to say. His eyes told me to hurry it up already. I’m just getting to know the guy really, guessing he’s not much of a gambler either, unless it’s card-counting.

  T-Bone . . . likes a sure thing.

  Me . . .

  “If you’re in the inner fucking circle, then how ‘bout you tell me where the boss man really lives, Hector?”

  All that bet won me was more laughter.

  “Come on, Hector . . . making it real easy on me to kill you.”

  “Kill me?” Suit said, offended even as T-Bone gasped, “Kill him?”

  My own grin said its favorite words. “Make a statement to King Vega, won’t it? Kill his own nephew . . . kill one of his inner fucking circle.”

  Suit’s bravado shattered just a bit. Saw it in my eyes. Wasn’t no bluffing here. Damn right I was ready to do it. There are days when I wake up in the morning and I just want to kill someone . . . and today looked like my lucky day.

  “You wouldn’t even last twenty-four hours,” Suit stammered.

  “Maybe . . . but I think I would. Start a war . .
. lot of Coyotes die, lot of mancers die, maybe even lot of vampires die since I know of few of them that owe me a favor. Maybe I die in the fighting . . . maybe not.”

  “You have no fucking clue what you’re dealing with, Price. No fucking clue how many of us there are. Day by day we only get stronger!”

  I shrugged. “Don’t matter how many of you there are if they’re all big empty nutflaps like you lot, does it?”

  Nutflaps, T-Bone mouthed.

  “Unless you ain’t as inner fucking circle as you pretending to be,” I continued, “Less . . . you don’t have a clue where the big house really is.”

  “I know,” Suit spat, “I know but I tell and I’m dead anyway, so no reason for me to snitch is there?”

  I reached out to touch his knee. “Wrong . . .” I whispered a second before I activated my SDR and fried his ass.

  [CLICK]

  “Look at that, already awake. How ‘bout that Coyote stamina, T-Bone? No wonder his lady has to chain him down.”

  “Don’t do this, King Henry.”

  “Why not? Tried to kill us, remember?”

  “He didn’t.”

  “Tried . . . machineguns, shop, his uncle using my sister as a wifely fuck-toy, ring a bell?”

  “You’ve beat him. Look at him!”

  “Him? Fuck him! I don’t want imitation tofu Vega, I want the real thing.”

  “So everything you’re doing with your shop can fall apart?”

  “What do you know about my shop?”

  “Ceinwyn told me . . . about what your goal really is . . .”

  “That woman . . .”

  “All that dies if you kill him. You can joke about war . . . but that’s what this would be. Mancers versus Coyotes . . . you might know how to split pools, but what about Intras? What happens when they start getting gunned down in the street all because you couldn’t let this slide?”

  “Hector here gives up the goods and the war will be over as soon as I get to Vega, no matter how many Coyotes are with him.”

  “Now you’re just being a child who wants his way.”

  “Doubt me, T-Bone?”

  “A child who wants his way even if he knows it ends wrong for everyone but him.”

  I slapped Suit awake, pattering his face with the back of my hand. Maybe T-Bone was right in some kind of moral sense. Starting wars: bad. But I knew fighting. Knew that if Vega got away with trying to kill me he’d eventually try again. Best just blow it all up now, when I knew it was coming, instead of later.

  If I waited . . . what did I gain by going Cold War Coyote?

  “You awake? Earth to Hector Vega.”

  “Fucker.”

  Start war now: kill Vega sooner. Do some shock and awe with the Shaky Stick, make sure no one looks sideways at King Henry Price ever again. Free JoJo, get her a divorce at least . . . okay so she’d keep being a Coyote . . . nothing I could do about that. Lady would probably lock me up. Shop would close down. Ceinwyn would get fired for saying I could be trusted. Mancers like Mom would keep dying. When I was unlocked . . . Guild Bitch Number 62523. If I was ever unlocked.

  “That’s a yes. Did you like the joke, Hector? Earth . . . get it?”

  “Fucking kill you.”

  “See, T-Bone . . . not giving me a lot of options.”

  Don’t start the war: live in fear that some Coyote is going to shoot at me all the time. Let it get out that you can push around King Henry Price. JoJo keeps on bending over for Vega . . . keeps Shifting once a month. But . . .

  Learn more about splitting pools. Learn more about large pools. Teach it to my friends. Show Ceinwyn I can be reasonable to a point. Keep the Shop open. Save the world . . .

  “Fucking going to tell my uncle about your bitch sister having a mancer for a brother. Hope he guts her, it’s what the cunt deserves.”

  I punched Suit so hard it did knock him over this time. My hand pulsed, not with anima but just with pain.

  “King Henry!” T-Bone yelled behind me, getting up off the couch to stop my beatdown. “Try anymore and I’ll . . . I’ll stop you.”

  I frowned at him. “How?”

  “I have a pool up . . .”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You’d lightning bolt me over this guy?”

  “I’d lightning bolt you to keep you from becoming a killer.”

  Didn’t matter one way or the other. No more beatdown came, but not from T-Bone standing up to me. In the seconds the conversation lasted I actually listened to what Suit had said.

  It all clicked.

  Damn.

  “Did you hear that?” I asked.

  “Huh?”

  I looked up at the ceiling . . . to the Mancy or God or even Ceiling Cat . . . no idea. “We are such huge fucktards.”

  “Huh?” T-Bone repeated.

  Getting to my feet myself, I rolled Suit over with a toe. Man . . . remind me never to jump naked into a bunch of glass. “Vega don’t know about you attacking my shop, does he?” I asked in a growl.

  “Fuck . . . you . . .” Suit spit, blood coming out with the words.

  “Tell the truth or I shock you again, asshole. Did your uncle know about it or was that all you and your stupid boys?”

  “Fucking couldn’t tell him you kicked my ass . . . had to make it right. Fucking Princess Josephine wouldn’t tell about any of it and I couldn’t tell on her without . . . but if I could get payback, then my uncle wouldn’t care if I got beat the first time. He’d just use it in his own games with you mancers and the vamps.”

  T-Bone’s face went green over yet another possible fuck-up on our part. “It was these idiots the whole time.”

  My face went pissed off more than usual. “Yeah. Except . . . Ceinwyn probably called Vega and asked him to explain.”

  “No way we messed up this badly . . .”

  “Yeah, think we did.”

  “So . . .”

  “Out in the open now.”

  “But he didn’t try to kill us.”

  “Look at you with that optimism while you’re covered in six feet of coyote shit.”

  “It could be worse.”

  “How could it be worse?”

  “You could have killed Hector.”

  “Still thinking about it . . .”

  “Lightning bolt, King Henry!”

  “Okay . . . but . . . damn. ‘My bad’ ain’t going to put this back in the bottle.”

  Suit spit some more. “What you fuckers talking about? Why it matter? Vega still going to kill you for doing this to me. Blood is blood. Sangre.”

  T-Bone grabbed my shoulder, held me back from throwing another punch into Suit’s face. “There’s nothing to win now. Just one mistake after another . . . we can walk away, no war, now or later.”

  No war ever . . . assumptions just keep thrashing my life.

  Session 15

  I was right all along.

  The fucking teachers were screwing with us. Jethro Smith and his hard liquor, I’d know that voice anywhere, even buried under dirt. I didn’t know how they’d managed the howls and the blood, but it couldn’t be that hard. It’s not like any of us had ever seen the werewolves, not until we were good and caught. For all my city-boy ass knew those were dogs howling.

  Or a tape recorder over some speaker, I thought, getting myself extra pissed off.

  Sleeping was out the window. Not that I’d ever been good at it. Even with the stolen lock I’d set up in my old room, you’d always be worried, always keep one eye and one ear at the ready. JoJo had caused most of those problems, always sneaking in late, smelling of cigs, beer, and older guys. Dad’s yells used to rattle the whole house.

  In the cave, I couldn’t move at all. Each of the girls outweighed me by probably twenty pounds. It wasn’t exactly comfortable. Drowning in girl is still drowning. Miranda—fucking Miranda!—had her head on my shoulder, her glasses drooping to rub against my neck. On the other side, Isabel drowned me with her boney elbow stabbing int
o my ribs like a knife.

  Sleeping was out the window. Even the nights when it was quiet back home, when JoJo came home on time, when Susan would be typing away at the family laptop—piece of shit like all the rest but it could steal WiFi from the neighbor’s house—getting good grades, when Mom and Dad had a ‘Good Night’ . . . I still had trouble sleeping.

  I’d get pissed over something that day. It would stay with me for hours. Thinking it over, thinking how to solve my problem. Thinking how to protect what’s mine.

  In the cave, I was ready to ruin some bitches. Some bitches with ‘Mr’ and ‘Mrs’ in front of their names.

  Faking Samson’s death, I get that. Seeing how we react to stress? Okay, I’ll give you the one test. Maybe Miranda’s right, maybe you want to make sure we’re ready to get taught the Mancy, so you put us in the Octagon, make us fight. See if we have us accidental discharges. See if we’ve learned the required amount of control.

  But the second attack? Making us run through the woods like this? Backpacks left behind? No food. No water. Making me huddle in a cave? Make me be nice to Miranda ‘I know better than you do’ Daniels? Make me have to keep Isabel from dry humping me all night?

  That’s a total dick move, Asylum, total dick move.

  Then there’s my fairy dreams . . . they were really starting to freak me out. What the fuck is happening to me? The Mancy, breaking a table or a child-lock, sure. But dreaming I’m standing on a mountainside? Dreaming I’m swimming through the earth, hearing conversations happening miles away? Ceinwyn Dale didn’t mention this . . . it wasn’t on the brochure, assholes!

  Plus . . . had myself a suspicion I needed an answer to.

  “You real or you just a teacher screwing with me too?” I asked the cave floor, making sure all those vibrations were angled right.

  It took awhile this time, the words forming slowly. MORE REAL THAN YOU, LITTLE MANCER.

  “That last dream . . . that was real. That wasn’t in my head; it was in the real world.”

  No change. I looked at the REAL though, nodding.

  “If it is real, if this is just teachers testing us . . . then why are you helping so much? Why would you care about thirty kids walking through the woods?”