The Foul Mouth and the Fanged Lady

by Richard Raley

  One hour of anima . . . I had trouble conceptualize the amount. Sixty minutes divided by five . . . okay, twelve five-minute pools. All lumped together.

  Fuck me. I was going to cause an earthquake.

  No wonder the Asylum staff didn’t want us trying this. I’d always wondered if the bastards weren’t downplaying what we could do, always wondered about how easy it seemed for Ceinwyn or the Lady to do some of the things they did. Trick after trick after trick. Now I got it. A five-minute pool compared to what I was holding ain’t nothing. It made a five-minute pool seem smaller than it had ever felt before.

  And I could have pooled more.

  It’s a damned secret, I thought in the darkness. Another damned secret just like all of them before it. A secret any Ultra can do, they just have to be in on the game. There’s nothing over the mountains, kiddies. Yes there was . . . the world was over the mountains. Only if an Ultra had a normal life with a normal job, or at least a normal-ish job, why would they ever need to pool more than five minutes? They wouldn’t. So the Asylum teachers didn’t train us beyond that amount. They pretended like doing it would hurt you. Maybe it would eventually. But it wasn’t a straight up cross the line and blow yourself up kind of deal. Maybe if I kept pooling like this I’d turn into Mom. Maybe not. A secret . . . a secret well-hidden out in the open. I didn’t have a normal life or a normal job and it still took a vamp kidnapping me to get to this point.

  “Fuck me sideways,” I said just to feel the magnitude of it.

  My eyes opened in surprise. What else could I do?

  “Fuck me sideways with a shovel-wielding pelican.”

  The car slowed down, turned off the highway, drove and stopped, drove and stopped, turned, drove and stopped, turned again and stopped. I didn’t have anything else to study our movement, so I paid a great deal of attention to those simple changes.

  The car’s engine shut off.

  Showtime.

  A door opened and shut.

  Steps walking off.

  Nothing for awhile.

  Off in the distance, I heard a road. I thought about shattering the trunk door and escaping but decided against it. I had an hour of anima and I wanted to smash Annie B’s face with it after she’d strangled me with her blood.

  Escape wasn’t good enough. I needed to figure out what this was about. How did she find out about me? What did the person get out of telling her? Did anyone else plan on using me? Was dealing with Vamps going to keep happening or was it a onetime deal? The kind of questions most job applicants figure out over coffee, for me was going to be done only if she was tied up and I had a gun to her head. A gun might not even be enough . . .

  The footsteps eventually came back, stopping by the trunk of the car where I eagerly awaited with my can of whoop-ass.

  “Are you awake, King Henry?” Annie B asked the trunk.

  I thought about it. Why not? “No . . .”

  “This is going to go two ways,” she said with a tone so sure of itself I just wanted to punch her . . . again, “Either I’ll open the trunk and you’ll attack me, probably using the anima you have stored up. Only that one conjuration won’t do enough to kill me, it will only hurt me, and then I’ll be mad. I’ll take it out on you by beating you unconscious yet again. Once you’re unconscious, I’ll drag you into the motel room I’ve just purchased and have myself a snack . . . and I don’t mean something out of the mini-bar . . . I mean something out of your mini-body.”

  “No liking that one,” I yelled.

  “In the other possible outcome: I still open the trunk . . . but you don’t attack me. You get out and we walk over to the motel room and we negotiate an exchange of services.”

  I’d never met a woman who could make me turn down sexual advances so easily. “Why do I get the feeling these services involve me getting cut by a silver knife?”

  “It doesn’t hurt, King Henry.”

  If anyone ever tells you something doesn’t hurt—tighten your asshole. “Guess you open the trunk and we see what we see, Annie B.”

  Click.

  It was automatic. Slow rising. Just this graceful movement as the trunk rose up free of any hand. God damned technology. I’d hoped she’d open it by hand and be right there for me to kick in the face.

  The street lights outside burned my eyes, reflecting over the gray of the fog. We weren’t in Fresno, so it wasn’t the Fog, but we were still in the Central Valley, and the whole Valley could be covered as well some nights, though not to the extremes I’d learned to live with. Fog and the lights made the world a hazy reflection of silver.

  There was a building—the motel. Annie B was nocturnal, all vampires were. Sunlight didn’t boil them but it doesn’t mean they liked it compared against the chilled darkness of night. I had trouble convincing myself she’d stopped so I could get a nap in. Bitch was hungry and I’m handy. Negotiating . . . like I’d let her just slip into my body and suck on me for a piece of ass, even a quality piece of ass like her own.

  I rolled out of the trunk, found my feet. They were shaky. I took a breath to settle myself, then glanced around to find her leaning against the driver-side door. Her body and head were against the metal, like a reptile sunning on a rock, only in this case she enjoyed the cold, especially the drops of dew from where the fog had left behind moisture.

  “I was always able to seduce you, my dear king,” she whispered to me. The look on her face had a fair chance of bringing me to climax without her even touching me.

  Why did this chick have to be a vampire? And a crazy vampire? Just my luck. Beautiful chick . . . fucking crazy. Story of my life. “Cut the crap, lady,” I told her, “You ain’t Anne Boleyn. I ain’t buying it.”

  Her tongue reached out to lick a particular large drop of water. I’ve changed my two features theory just for Annie B. Neck, eyes, and tongue. That tongue has to be included in the party . . . “I suppose I’m not,” she said.

  “What’s the B stand for then?” I asked.

  My legs were starting to feel stronger. Any minute now.

  She didn’t answer right away. Her velvet eyes just kept looking at me, daring me to jump into them for a swim, to reach and see how deep they went.

  “I’m sorry I have to do this,” she finally said. “We don’t have time for me to find another.”

  Yup, bitch was going to eat me alright. “Find your inner anorexic and go without.”

  “I’ve been too busy to eat the last few days.” She rolled over, pulling her shirt up just enough so her back pressed against the metal. “When we get hungry, it gets harder to stay cool. Like an engine without oil. I should have made it back to San Francisco for a donor, but you were more trouble than I expected.” She rolled over to her stomach. “It took too much out of me. I’m old enough to manipulate my blood but not old enough to do it without wearing myself out. Sorry . . . it has to be you . . .”

  “Well . . .” I said. “I guess I’m sorry too then. You’re okay for a crazy lady but I have a rule that only I get to put foreign objects into my own body.”

  An hour worth of anima snapped out of me in a torrent. A dam burst. There was no stopper to it. No way to let some out and then more later. One go. So much I could only control a piece, not even a half of it. The rest escaped, filled the air, found the ground and sunk. The wall behind us cracked. A street sign across the parking lot bent like rubber. A car’s window broke.

  Annie B took them all in. “That was a waste, wasn’t it?”

  Only I had more than enough left for myself. To do what I wanted. Anything I wanted. Only requirement was to be earth or metal or glass and was limited to what my imagination could come up with. The way she leaned against the car . . .

  The idea formed.

  Oh, baby.

  I flipped the car over and smashed her ass flat like she was a Wicked Witch of the East and I’m Dorothy with some pretty little red shoes.

  It wasn’t the car itself I moved. I’m not Magneto. A geomancer can’t make metal fl
oat, it can only manipulate its form. What I manipulated was the ground around Annie B. A huge circle of it. Some scientist watching over a seismographer noticed a very local, very large seismic shift. One strong enough to twist the ground. To sink the car’s right tires and pop the car’s left tires on over—center of mass doing the rest of the work. So much force that the car got air, turned and slammed roof first into the ground, flattening the vampire who happened to be rubbing against it like it might . . . vibrate.

  All I could see from where I stood was her hand, poking from under the caved in roof. Her fingers twitched. I remember the glass from the windshield scattered all around it, the asphalt ground tilted. What was strangest was the silence. After that one crunching boom, there was nothing else. Just the sound of the highway not too far away.

  The parking lot was deserted. The front office of a motel renting rooms by the hour is paid to look the other way. The louder it got, the farther their neck turned. All that noise for just me . . . and Annie B locked up all nice under a ton of metal.

  She’s lucky I wasn’t in any position to starting pooling again. I could have crunched the whole thing flat. The much talked about Hammer of God entering reality. Could have, because I couldn’t. I was drained. It was like I’d run a mile for the first time in my life and was then asked by some personal trainer to do jumping jacks. Could have, because I couldn’t even do one measly jumping jack.

  I was a gutted mancer. I’d gone anima slut. Who knew when I would tighten back up?

  Good thing Annie B wasn’t going anywhere.

  “Much like your piece-of-shit foreign car,” I said, noting it was Japanese, “It seems the tables have turned. Or one might say . . . flipped.” Got to give it to Annie B. Her hand flipped me the bird. That was cute. Woman knows how to work from the bottom. “How about we start with you telling me what city we’re in?”

  “And what will you do if I don’t, King Henry?” Her voice sounded unsurprisingly like she was having trouble getting air into her lungs. They came fast and weak. Not in pain though. Cool vampire fact: they can turn off pain receptors.

  “I have a vial of electro-anima you didn’t notice in my coat pocket.” I took out said vial and tossed it end-over-end in my palm. “Figured I’ll open it into your hand and see what happens.”

  “We’re in Los Banos,” she answered quickly.

  “That’s more like it.” Los Banos is a shithole of epic proportions between Fresno and San Francisco. I’ve yet to figure out why anyone not running a fast-food shop or hotel would want to live there. “Now . . . why did you kidnap me?”

  “It’s a long story . . .” Annie B whispered.

  The car shifted. For a moment I thought she might try to lift it, but it settled back down. Her hand hadn’t moved. “You ain’t trying to escape, are you? If you ain’t escaping, it looks like we have some time to ruminate.” Learned that one at the Asylum. Always liked it. Ruminate. Good word.

  Her voice came from somewhere under the car, from lips I hoped were pressed against concrete, each word scratching them raw. Being kidnapped had brought a surprisingly sadistic streak out in my usual abrasive personality. “An artifact placed in our keep has been stolen. I need you to confirm the artifact’s ability based on the anima it left in its safe.”

  “It’s leaking anima?” I asked, unable to help myself.

  “Yes.”

  “Enough to saturate the area and not burn off?”

  “Yes,” this time weaker.

  I thought about it. That’s something I wanted to see. “It’s not going corporeal is it?”

  “We don’t believe so. Sorry about the lack of details but the geomancer I used first wasn’t worth his weight in blood.”

  She should have told me this crap before she tried to kidnap me. Would have saved us a lot of time. I said as much. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me this before?”

  “I was asked not to . . . Can you get this car off me?”

  “No . . . I can’t pool for nothing right now.” Which was probably stupid to say. “I’ll call a tow-truck and then you can get loose and he’ll be your snack, what you say?”

  No answer.

  “Annie B?” My foot touched her hand. It slapped at me. Okay. “Who told you I was available for this?”

  “An old friend,” the barest whisper.

  I had a sinking suspicion. Plutarch, Ceinwyn, or the Lady. Who would screw with me first and foremost just to see what would happen? “Fucking Ceinwyn do this to me?”

  No answer.

  I touched the hand yet again with my foot. It touched back. “You okay?” I asked again.

  “I’m fine, King Henry.”

  This didn’t come from the car.

  This came right behind me.

  Like a dumbass, I turned around. Give me a break. I was in shock or something. Annie B was standing there, her right arm missing from the elbow down. It wasn’t like seeing an amputee with folded over skin. The cut was open. Muscle, bone, all easy to see, a clean cut, only all covered with a layer a gooey vampire blood. Like I told you: starfish, amoeba, a sea-creature, nothing human.

  Her punch into my stunned face hit me so hard my legs went out from underneath me for the third time that night. My plump booty hit asphalt too.

  Annie B looked down on me with an expression that said, ‘bad food’. “Ceinwyn says hello, King Henry,” she told me. Then she smashed her foot into my balls so hard I blacked out.

  Stay away from the vampires, King Henry. Don’t cause problems, King Henry. No fighting, King Henry.

  Always bullshit with that woman.

  [CLICK]

  I woke up lightheaded. There was water running. I was in a bed. I knew from the sound of the springs as I moved my head back and forth to check out the room. The only light came from a table-lamp that had seen better days. Actually . . . the things the table-lamp had seen are probably what made it look so haggard.

  I stayed there in my haze. Bitch had eaten me. I could feel it in the lost blood, the kind of woozy dreamlike state where you’re barely aware the world exists. Weirdest part was . . . my hand felt numb. I pulled it up with my other, since it didn’t feel like working very well either, and was unsurprised to find a band-aid slapped over a cut, blood crusting around my palm.

  Bitch had eaten me.

  And then used a Carebears band-aid.

  That’s some cruel and unusual punishment right there . . .

  The shower went off. A hiss to a drizzle to nothing.

  Barely awake, I couldn’t help but feel betrayed over Ceinwyn apparently hiring me out to this crazy bitch. I mean, I owed her money, and never let anyone tell you Ceinwyn Dale ain’t a hardass, but this was a step too far even for her. Why did I deserve getting eaten? Or getting knocked out? Why give my name?

  Unless it was because she trusted me to do something . . .

  Unless it was because she didn’t trust anyone else with this item . . .

  Unless she was trying to teach me some kind of lesson which only getting surprised by a vamp could bring . . .

  And here I thought my school time was over.

  Annie B stepped out of the bathroom, still mostly undressed. All she had on was a pair of black underwear that showed more than they covered. Any other woman stepping out of a bathroom and I’d have been ogling her body. Hips that knew the word ‘hourglass,’ a stomach so tight it defied anatomy, and a pair of tits at just the right size before too-large, that didn’t know the word ‘gravity’ and had never experienced it. And shoulder-bones and a hint of collar bone, and a neck that went on and on, and lips twisting in enjoyment as I studied her, and eyes that whispered what I could have had but had turned down.

  I didn’t ogle at all this amazing physicality that naturally defeated any plastic surgeon alive because my eyes couldn’t leave her right arm, back where it hadn’t been earlier. It wasn’t even bruised.

  “Is it the same one, or do you grow a new one like a lizard?” I asked.

  Annie B laughed.
With a shake of her head, she ran her hands through her hair. Water dripped from it to the floor. Without the help of a towel, it dried in seconds. She kept at it, bending over to arch her back towards me, showing me the other side of the moon. She looked better from that angle . . . I think . . . it’s hard to decide . . . I’m a big fan of both . . .

  “It’s the same one,” she finally answered about the arm.

  “Huh,” was my expert opinion.

  Her hair dry, she stood straight and finally got about clothing herself. New clothes. A pair of shorts and one of those airy looking half-dress, half-shirt things most girls wear during the summer with another top beneath it. I don’t know the name for it. I remember it was violet though. January and she was dressing for July. A slutty no-bra, no-undershirt July too. It looked cold. Douchebag showoff vampires.

  “Do you go naked in the summer then?”

  It was too easy for her. With a straightforward look-you-in-the-eyes glance on her face, she told me, “I go naked whenever I possibly can, King Henry.”

  “Huh,” was my continued expert opinion.

  Give me a break, guys. She could have stripped naked and dry humped me, it wouldn’t have mattered. I didn’t have the blood in me to walk without feeling woozy, Prince Henry popping a stiffy would have knocked my ass back out quicker than an eighty-year-old geezer downing handfuls of Viagra.

  Annie B continued with the freaky, putting her hands through her hair and styling it like she had globs of styling junk. Only there was nothing. The hair knew what she wanted and stayed exactly where she put it. Retaining the exact amount of fluid to keep the position. Douchebag showoff vampires. A press of finger at her lips and cheeks rushed in blood, completing the look without a single bit of makeup.

  When she moved to put her heels on, I decided it was time to talk. My head was starting to feel better and I knew I didn’t want to leave that room without an understanding between us of what’s cool and what’s not cool. “Why didn’t you just tell me Ceinwyn sent you?”