“How did you like San Francisco?” Annie B asked me, face deceivingly innocent. She knew she’d freaked me out past the point of no return, still didn’t mean she planned to give up her game. Some people get a thrill out of just stepping on the field, winning ends up secondary to smacking around the other players to such a point they don’t want to play any longer.
I watched her a bit, keeping my emotions close as I’d learned to do over my time at the Asylum. Gone was the little shit that’d stand up in the middle of class and cuss out a teacher. He stayed under a layer of dirt and sand and stone, covered in a layer of glass armor. If I’d learned anything dealing with the teachers at the Asylum, it was to only give away what you want. Sometimes—during a fight, maybe—that’s harder to control. But business . . . I could do business.
It was odd how normal Annie B had gotten. Could have passed for human easily. Jeans, blue sweater, even a jacket. A young businesswoman dressed casual, late twenties, the kind who’s modest until you get a few drinks into her and then who knows what’s going to come out of the box.
Wonder how many men she’d ate on by using the same act? I’d seen in the box, seen her fight, seen her struggle with her hunger until hunger won. I didn’t exactly feel guilty about it, but if I hadn’t pushed her so hard in those fights . . . I had to wonder how the night would have gone differently.
She wouldn’t have fed on me. I wouldn’t be wearing my Carebears band-aid. Sideburns wouldn’t have died . . . well, maybe he would have, but he might not have gotten ate in the process. I would have had some crazy-vampire-sex on the bed in the back of the plane, if not before then. That’s the thing . . . I’d seen Annie B at her worst, at her own point of no return where she had no choice but to feed, her body blazing hot and who knows what kind of changes happening inside her.
It seemed to embarrass her.
That she’d broken the game between us. Like what happened when you accidentally saw another person naked or drunk or caught them singing along to Lady Gaga. She might have beaten me twice in our fights but by pushing her to such lengths I’d won the war. Roma Victor, Hannibal you stupid fuck.
When I looked at the twenty-something business woman façade, I still saw the woman she showed me, but I saw the beast inside she wanted locked away too.
I saw the real Annie B.
Vampire.
What to know something shocking?
I kind of liked her.
Liked her more than the fake her at least.
Sure, she kicked my ass, but it’s my ass. Not easy to kick my ass. Got to respect that. Trying to seduce me? Okay, point against her, but she expected a normal guy. Funny thing about me is I’ve never went for a woman who came at me. I like to chase, I like to win the war, not the other way around. Turned down Isabel Soto, turned down a shitload of Intra girls that chased after me, turned down Sally after I came back from the Asylum.
Not Annie B’s fault she expected something else. What seducing she did do, the careful dance between revulsion of her being a vamp but temping me with that beautiful shell of hers, nicely played. The way she set up matters so we hit San Francisco the moment the duchess was asleep and out of the way?
Yeah, I noticed. Smooth move on her part.
Plus . . . Ceinwyn put her in my path . . . points in Annie B’s favor. Ceinwyn was using me on Annie B and using Annie B on me. She wanted us to get something out of the relationship. Guess that means I needed to get over watching her eat a guy . . .
“Not very much,” I finally said. “Too much water.”
“Which keeps the temperature normalized,” Annie B said, reaching into her travel bag. “We like coasts.”
My eyes couldn’t help but find the window nearest to me, filled with afternoon getting along with itself, not more than a couple hours of daylight left. By the time we got back to Fresno, the Fog would be forming itself to coat the whole city. “I’ve never been fond of water. Swimming ain’t my thing. Only do it when I’m made to. I’m more of a sit-and-watch kind of guy around the pool.”
She found what she was looking for, pulling out a cigarette and lighting it.
I stared. Been years since my last and I still remembered the feeling.
She took a draw, stray smoke lingering around her face. “You aren’t going to throw up on me when we take off, are you?”
I watched the end of the cigarette, the burning gray and orange. “It don’t make you too hot?”
“Not when I’m full,” she said, glancing at it. “Want one?”
“Quit at the Asylum.”
“Poor baby. They take the fun out of life, don’t they?”
Outside my window, the plane started moving. Taxiing for the runway, I think they call it. “I’ve never had a problem with air or heights. Don’t like too much water or douchebag necromancers though.”
The stewardess came back, refilled our drinks, offered us some snacks in the form of little sandwich things. I ate, Annie B didn’t. The stewardess was smart enough not to say anything about the cigarette, which got smoked down to nothing and replaced with another in minutes.
Annie B motioned with the new one, “Do you like aeromancers?”
“Generally, yeah. Have some problems with a classmate, but it’s more because she’s an ex’s best-friend than the Mancy.” I took another sandwich thing and bit into it. Hadn’t realized how hungry I was. My gut didn’t start hurting until the food hit my mouth. Hunger . . . makes us all stupid and greedy, human or vampire. “Plus, there’s Ceinwyn.”
“Yes,” Annie B murmured, “There’s always Ceinwyn.”
Curiosity got me again. “How’d you meet her?”
Annie B’s own eyes flickered out of a window near her, her face turning profile towards me, that long neck of hers leaning back. She took a long time answering.
“I’ve know the Dales for three centuries.”
It made me smirk. “So you’ve know her since she was a kid? Almost impossible to imagine. Tell me she wore pink dresses, that’d make my day.”
“She was a beautiful child,” Annie B said. “Sad . . . driven. Responsible for her name and what it means to the Mancy. The more pain she’s endured, the more she’s sunk into her act.”
“What act?”
There was a third cigarette. Not like she’s going to get cancer, I guess. One of the perks of being a disgusting blood creature. “Pretending she’s studying humans instead of being one.”
“Guess you’re the master, you’d know.”
Her velvet eyes came back from the window to find mine, dirty brown all full of skepticism. “How many times do I have to prove to you I’m not human?”
I finished the last sandwich. “I know you ain’t, Annie B. But if a human goes off into the wild and lives with some gorillas or some bears or some other wild animal, they ain’t exactly like the rest of us when they get back, right? Same thing for you. Years of knowing our names, watching us, living among us—more than most Vamps I’d bet, on account of you being a baroness and all. You ain’t as vamp as you like to believe, which is why it ashamed you so much when I watched you take care of Sideburns. Chomp chomp. Yummy yummy. Then that look . . . what did I do? Then you tried to make me hate you.”
Her pale face got dark, the cigarette quivered in her hands. “I’ve done worse. Much worse.”
“Not with me watching you.”
“You don’t matter as much as you think, Artificer,” she hissed at me, looking just like many a woman I’ve pissed off before. “I’m paying you for a job, using your skills; this isn’t some long lasting relationship between us. I don’t care what you think.”
“Now who’s pretending?” I asked, with another smirk that positively pissed her off even more.
The plane took off.
[CLICK]
Sure enough, I didn’t hate flying. It’s not all that different from a good looking woman studying her ass or tits or whatever she likes most about herself in the mirror. High up, I got to see the earth in a new way. All t
hose mountains and cities and coasts made small. Got to look at it from far away. Got to enjoy what I loved from a whole different perspective.
It was nice.
“Your face looks like a ten-year-old’s,” Annie B commented.
“Can’t help it, I’m not a billion years old—I still experience new stuff,” I said back.
“What else haven’t you done?”
I thought about it for a bit, watching one of the most beautiful sunsets I’d ever seen. “Haven’t been out of the country . . . never seen the Atlantic Ocean . . . still catching up on all the movies and television and music to come out the last eight years . . .” Each bit brought more thought into her expression. “Never voted . . . never broke a car axle . . .”
“Never killed a man?”
It stopped my list. “Not yet.”
“Planning on it, King Henry?”
“Not really . . . but I’ve come close a few times just by accident. Bound to happen eventually once I put some purpose into it, don’t you think?”
“Very flippant about death.” Annie B frowned. “Most humans are much more reverent about it.”
“When am I reverent about anything?” I took one last glance at the ground far below as the airplane drifted out over the ocean. Be back on you in an hour, old friend. “Enough bullshit conversation. Answer time.”
“Why should I bother? You’ve served your purpose.”
I was carefully noncommittal. “Going to bluff me, Annie B? Sure it’s the way to go after all we’ve been through? I’ve been patient up till now, but I’m done with the going along for the ride-on rails-magical-vampire-adventure. Time to break into some employee sections of the theme park.”
“Let’s see: you can’t follow the item . . . I already know who took it . . . you’re not that good in a fight . . . why should I bother putting up with your crass mouth any longer?” she threw back at me.
“Wrong. I can’t follow it. But I’ll know it the moment I get near it. Which means, whatever you’re planning, you’ll need me to confirm to you it is actually it and not a fake or a trick.”
“And what’s to keep me from getting what I think is it and then bringing it to you at a later time for confirmation, instead of hauling you along like the annoying little pebble you are?” she asked.
“Mostly me.”
“Oh really?”
“Yeah, I’m done with this unless we do it my way. You can take your paycheck and shove it up your perfect ass.”
“Compliments . . .”
We stared at each other. Neither flinched. It’s a really bad spot to be having a stare down—thousands of feet in the air. If I broke apart any part of the plane to defend myself then things could get bad quick. I don’t know if Vamps go squish, but I know I do.
She blinked first. Or maybe it was in her plans all along for me to tag after her. Never know with Annie B. “Fine.”
I tried not to look too smug. She sneered at me, so I probably failed at it. “What’s the plan? Break into the Fresno Embassy and steal it back?”
She called the stewardess for another drink and didn’t say another word until she got it. I waved off another rum and coke, wanting to keep a clear head.
“It’s Plan A,” she finally said after a sip of blue liquid that smelled like apple. Blue alcohol—damned abomination. “Plan B is if we get caught, I engage in a duel with their duke in the very small chance it will distract them long enough for you to escape with the artifact and return it to San Francisco.”
I frowned. “You said that like you don’t expect you’ll be winning the duel.”
“He’s a duke,” is all she said to explain.
“That’s it? Age wins?” I asked, affronted by the thought you couldn’t break the rules somehow to win the fight.
“That’s it, King Henry.” Annie B finished her drink and motioned for yet another. Guess you couldn’t blame her on account of her talking about dying. At what blood level does a vampire get drunk, anyway? “We fight, he beats me and begins to do to me what I did to Gentleman Shoals and I am left with a choice of dying to cannibalism or escaping my own shell and attempting to survive the night air . . . which is not very likely.” She laughed with a particularly morbid note. “Even if I did, I’d lose the only home I’ve ever had. The one I’ve worn since my birth. I’d have to find another . . .” Her eyes flickered to me. “The closest on hand.”
“Yeah . . . thinking you best get ate then.”
“I wouldn’t necessarily need to kill you.” Annie B, back to licking her lips. Winter clothes or not, the hungry look returned when she talked of me as a shell. “You’d just . . . hold me for a while until I could find a suitable replacement. It’s not painful . . . it can even be enjoyable. Like an invisible friend.”
My stare was no-nonsense. “You don’t pay me enough.”
“You’d let me die?”
“I’d step on your gooey ass.”
“And here I thought we were becoming partners.”
I changed the subject. “What is it?”
“Is this another of your requirements?” she joked.
“Yeah . . . it is. That anima is out of this world. Whatever it is, it is some scary shit I don’t want to grab without knowing what it’s going to do. Fiddling with unknown artifacts is how Artificers get dead.” I showed her a scar on my hand that ran down the length of my middle finger. “Touched what I thought was a yoyo in Plutarch’s office; only it’s actually a weapon which spins out blades on impact, some old Chinese thing. Only takes getting anima burned once. Or in my case: close to losing my favorite finger once.”
She downed another drink. Guys trying to get her drunk must have a hell of a time. Then all the effort and cash and she eats them. Just cruel, Annie B, just cruel. “It is classified.”
“By who?”
“They’re classified too.”
“Got Kings and Queens too, Baroness B?”
“Not quite, but something similar.”
“I’m not helping unless you tell me,” I said, putting my foot down.
“Really? All the curiosity as an Artificer, wanting to touch it and feel its power and you’d just give up and go home?”
I picked my foot back up. “Come on . . . don’t make me beg.”
She studied me. My shoulders, my arms, even my face with the scar on one cheek and the other scar on an eyebrow and the broken nose. Not an ugly guy but not a pretty boy either. Wasn’t one before all the damage, sure as hell not one after it. But Annie B still seemed to like something in it. “Maybe I should make you prove your reputation as a lover to buy the information from me. Tit for tat, as it were . . .”
“You know . . . I just don’t get why you want to fuck me so bad. I ain’t that interesting. Ain’t good looking. You can have any guy on this planet, why try so hard for me?”
She gave me one of her looks that could make a metal table pop wood. “Don’t sell yourself short.”
“It can’t be to get power over me no more,” I thought aloud, wondering about it—it just seemed wrong, “You know me enough to know it won’t work. Know I don’t like being chased too, but you’re still doing it . . .”
Her face turned sour as she tried to pump up Team King Henry. “You’re smart in your way, you have nice muscle build, you’re violent enough to hopefully fuck me like you fight, and you’re young enough to have the stamina to keep up with me. Why wouldn’t I want you? You humans and your emotional connections . . . It’s not a damned big deal. It’s something to pass the time besides cigarettes and drinks.”
Each plus in my favor only made me smirk more. “I got it,” I said to myself.
“Finally . . . take off your coat then . . .”
“No, not that. I know why you want to.” My smirk could cut metal. “Got a bet with Ceinwyn on it, eh?”
Her face went extra sour. “Damn the both of you for knowing each other so well.”
[CLICK]
After I finished laughing, Annie B finally gave me
my explanation by pointing at a lone, abandoned seat near the pilot’s compartment. “Get in my bag, there’s a manila folder on it. Try to take anything else and I’ll break your hands.”
My Cold Cuffs were in there, right on top, but she was watching. No way to get them out without starting some more fighting between us. I’d finally got her to the point where she’s spilling out info, so I didn’t want to revert back to threats and bullshitting each other. It’s fun stuff playing with another person like that—I learned the skill from some of the best at the Asylum, but too much of it became a bore . . . just like everything else in this world. Keep the peace, King Henry, at the cost of the first artifact you ever made.
My fingers ran over them, the polished metal still smooth, the glowing strip of white back to full force. They’d recharged their pool. I thought back to my workshop, to Annie B shuddering, in the kind of passion that only comes from chemicals or machine-grade sex toys. Then to that rope of blood not long after. There were some possibilities there . . .
I let my fingers slide off the cuffs, used them to shuffle through the rest of her bag. Guess it’s her way of saying she trusts me. A person’s suitcase or travel bag is personal after all, lots of private stuff in them. I’m not above snooping.
Annie B had her other sets of clothes in it. The one’s that were dirty, smashed by the car, and gone through some fighting and then the skimpy set she’d used to keep cool. They weren’t kept folded and neat, only thrown in wherever they would go, in a hurry. I pushed through them . . . fuck me. There was a set of knives, not cooking knives, the cutting into flesh kind. A semi-auto pistol too. Not a gun guy, so I don’t know the model or manufacturer, but I’m enough of a businessman to know a top-of-the-line product when I see it. There was also a cell-phone, a swipe of my finger told me it was coded to use. No hairspray or deodorant or lipstick or makeup or any product you’d expect a normal woman to have. Annie B is all business.
Underneath it all was the file. “This one?” I asked when I pulled it out and showed it to her.
The Foul Mouth and the Fanged Lady Page 18