If she ever was though, this would be the moment.
Only . . . the glare dropped and a smile formed on Val’s face. Only a polite smile, but still, that’s some Raj Malik emotional control going on there. “Baroness Boleyn, how are you?” Val asked with false warmth in her voice.
Annie B tilted her head like she was attempting to see Val at another angle. Yeah, I remember that tic, acting all above the humans. Bird watching the prey from skyward. “I just don’t understand what he sees in you, dear. Not a hint of trouble on that noble soul, is there? So bright and shiny, it must make the monster in King Henry just scream in his cage.”
“Don’t call him a monster,” Val returned, eyes without iris losing any hint of a smile that had drifted upwards.
“But he is a monster. A beautiful monster.” Annie B posed for the whole room to get a better look at her shell. Breasts at profile, hips jutting past the edge of her chair. “Just like me. Well, not just like me. Even better. A monstrous human. A monstrous mancer. So much more . . . useful.”
“If you have business with King Henry, then you should stop by his shop tomorrow morning,” Val helpfully pointed out, “instead of coming here and starting a fight with me like a bitch in heat.”
Thank the Mancy, the margarita had arrived.
“Keep ‘em coming!” I ordered before I started chugging.
Annie B rolled her eyes at Val. “Who’s fighting? I’m merely giving observations different from your own. You say, bad boy with a heart of gold. I say, monster just waiting for his debut.”
“Did it hurt to be turned away after his curiosity about vampires was satisfied?” Val asked.
Damn!
Jerry! Jerry! Jerry!
Annie B’s face flinched just a little. “Not at all, dear. It was all about a bet with your boss after all, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, that’s true,” Val agreed. “I seem to recall you stooped so low as to use the possibility you might die to get him in bed. Can a woman really claim she’s a seducer when her tool for the act is pity?”
Why did I come clean and tell her all these things again? Damn Valentine Ward, making me feel guilty and shit.
“Yes, I used,” Annie B said, sounding a little defensive. “And discarded for a time as events took me elsewhere . . . but here I am, returned to California and in need of a mancer! Why should I find another one when this one was so vigorous and attentive the last time around?”
Val turned things back around on her quick. “He wanted to ease your pain in that moment, even though you are a completely different, and revolting, species than he is. You corrupted the good in him, you didn’t unleash any evil. King Henry doesn’t sound very monstrous to me. But you . . . I agree with you, Baroness Boleyn, you are a beautiful monster.”
Too bad the chairs are too wobbly to take a throw across the room, could get some Pay-Per-View money out of this showdown.
Annie B dropped her careless attitude long enough to sneer across the table. “I liked you better when you were the pretty, young, silent thing hiding behind Ceinwyn’s skirts. I even thought about giving you the same offer I gave King Henry: a tumble for a taste.”
Also thinking I should have chosen the Texas Roadhouse with the complementary mud wrestling pit.
Velvet eyes and eyes without iris never left each other, both going dangerously still. Val snorted and was the first to look away, but not in submission. She returned to her food, like Annie B wasn’t worth keeping a watch on. “Anytime you want to tumble, Baroness Boleyn, you need only ask and I’ll light the way.”
Annie B sneered again. “Pity you’re Ceinwyn’s chosen replacement, little princess, or I could prove to you how little your flames scare me.”
Food stopped halfway to Val’s mouth. “Replacement?”
The sneer morphed into the same sultry smile I always pictured Annie B wearing. Tempting. Come to me. Have a conversation . . . and a bite to eat. “The Lady of the Lake won’t live forever. One day, she’ll pass from this world and a new Dean will be chosen. Either Ceinwyn takes up the mantle she was born to wear or . . . well, Mordecai Root is the other likely choice, and he has no love for Ceinwyn. For both outcomes, a new leader for the Recruiters will have to rise up. You, little princess, if you live long enough to claim it.”
It hit Val so hard because it rang so true with how Ceinwyn had been using her. Hit me hard too. One day in a couple weeks? Try one day in a couple months if Val took over the Recruiters. I’d never see her again.
Annie B, she knows how to hit you where it counts without even throwing a punch. She and I had beaten the shit out of each other, but it’s the words that have haunted me ever since. The words and those velvet eyes, so remorseful, so desperate in not wanting to be a monster . . . but so damn good at it.
“Are you going to cry?” Annie B mocked Val.
Yup, that’s my cue. “Enough,” I said, dirt eyes joining the party and immediately saying enough with the bullshit. I stood up, for once getting to use height as an advantage.
“And you,” Annie B continued over my warning, “Ceinwyn’s savior. Replacement for another man in her life. Has she ever told you the sad Tragedy of Amis Valet and Obadiah Paine? About how Paine was supposed to save the world, but instead turned to madness too young? Did she mention what his plan to fix the world was? It’s very simple. Too many people means too many mancers. Thus, the problem is too many people. Can you guess his next step of logic, King Henry?”
Get rid of the people, I thought. That was Paine’s plan? Genocide against humanity at large? Fuck me . . . if he’d gotten the Shaky Stick . . .
Paine wouldn’t have needed any more experiments. The Shaky Stick would answer the problem, one city at a time.
Annie B tilted her head at my silence. “She has told you?”
“Nah . . . just . . . rumors that make sense now.” I turned to my side. “Val, you’re fine, right?”
Val glanced up at me, nodded. “Just reexamining every conversation I’ve ever had with Ceinwyn, trying to think about how long I’ve been the heir apparent.”
“Join the club, that woman . . . she’s more manipulative than . . .” I pointed at Annie B with my thumb, “Than this thing.”
“Thing?” Annie B hissed. “I wasn’t thing when you had your thing inside of me. It was ‘Annie this’ and ‘Annie that.’ Annie don’t get any ideas about eating me, ya hear? Annie, holy shit, what did you just do down there? Annie, this position shouldn’t even be possible!”
I fumed, wanting to punch her in the face but realizing this wasn’t the place. Mexican dive or not, there was a large audience. Even ESLED couldn’t convince these people to shut up if Annie B and King Henry Price had one of their usual throwdowns. Blood and metal and salsa all over the place.
“Outside, now!” I growled at her.
She stood, as happy as can be. “I promise I won’t hurt him too much, little princess,” she whispered over her shoulder on her way out the door.
Val ignored her, peering up at me. “You’re sure?”
“I can handle it. Send her along, get back to our date, go home, have great sex to spite her.”
Val’s lips quirked. “Spite-sex, that’ll be a new one for me.”
“Everything’s a new one for you.”
She rolled her eyes. “Run in here if you need me to rescue you again.”
“It was one time, woman!”
Val enjoyed the outburst. “I trust you, King Henry.”
Damn. She really knew how to tug on those strings. Probably because they’re the only strings I like being attached to me. “Why wouldn’t you?” I joked. “Not a monster, right?”
“Not a monster,” Val agreed, “remember that no matter what she tries.”
Not a monster, I thought. But Annie B don’t tell me what she wants and leave when I turn her down, I might be a monster slayer.
I felt my SDR with my thumb, checked my Anti-Vamp Hot Cuffs with the other hand. No time like the present to test an artifact on
a live subject. Why couldn’t it be Paine? Or Vega. I want to beat up Paine and Vega.
With Annie B . . . I kept remembering those velvet eyes.
I walked out of the Mexican joint, turned a corner and saw Annie B to the side of the place. Hanging out in the shadows, like always. I stopped in front of her. “Was that really necessary?”
She grinned like we were little kids keeping a secret from our parents. “No, but it was very fun for me. Why her? She’s so good . . . she’ll hurt you, you know. She’ll choose Ceinwyn and the Recruiters over you. Both of you are fools too busy saving the world to have time to save each other, but you don’t even realize it.”
“Still?” I spat at her. “Still with the games?”
“It’s been so long since we’ve played them!” Annie B whined at me. “Do you want to have a little rumble again, just like last time? Or would you rather skip to the end of our relationship and . . . tumble?”
“It was one time, woman!”
“Woman . . .” Annie B said, happy about the characterization, sliding closer to me in the shadows, all curves-a-moving. “I like it when you think of me as a woman and not a thing.”
I shook my head at her. “What is it you want, Annie?”
Before I even knew what was happening, a vampire-assisted kick came right up between my legs. Next was a chokehold that had my arteries clamped so tight not a drop of blood could get through to my brain.
“Sorry, my King,” I heard words coming as if from another world, “this time I’m not allowed to ask. Your assistance is required . . . and neither I nor Ceinwyn nor the Lady herself have a say in it.”
The chokehold went even tighter.
Darkness incoming . . .
GOD.
DAMN.
FUCKING.
SON.
OF.
A.
BITCH.
That poor waiter, he’ll never get his twenty dollar tip!
Session 134
It was turbulence that woke me up.
Which meant airplane.
Which meant nothing good.
I opened my eyes without moving my body. Glance up, glance left, glance right, close them puppies.
Plane alright. Same fucking plane as the last time I was with Annie B, you believe that shit? Personal jet: posh, wood-panel interior, seats along the wall, some tables—no stewardess this time though. Not a whole lot of metal either, outside of the plane itself.
Smart move on her part.
If we’d been in a car, I’d have finally broken an axle. Shit. I’d have broken the car. Wouldn’t have killed her, but seeing Annie B get up off the pavement with asphalt burns from her face to her toes would have been a treat.
Still faking at being unconscious, I paused to think.
Yeah, me—King Fucking Henry Fucking Price—thinking before punching, it’s a miracle. Fishstick Boy walked on water, I paused to think: exactly the same difficulty level.
We had ourselves some facts to work with.
One: she’d abducted me on a weeknight from Fresno, California. No one makes that trip unless they’re desperate or they’re getting laid at the end of the trip.
Two: even though I was with Val—who, despite Annie B’s bravado, easily could’ve put a ruffle in the whole kidnapping me thing if I hadn’t walked outside and . . . damn, I’m never gonna hear the end of this from Val. She better not rescue me again. I’ll have to commit some ritual dishonor suicide shit from the shame.
Two—Try Two: even though I was with Val and in public, Annie B still nabbed me. Meant she didn’t even have the time to wait a few hours until I was at my place in a quieter part of town.
Three: Annie B somehow found out exactly what restaurant I was at, so . . . odds are Ceinwyn or someone at the Asylum tracked Val’s Recruiter gear to set this whole thing up.
Four: Annie B said my assistance was required before she knocked me out, means big problems with the Vampire Embassies again.
“Instead of thinking about it so very, very hard that you frown like a simpleton, you could just wake up and talk to me like a regular human being,” Annie B said out of nowhere, somewhere across the cabin. “Not that I’m either regular or human, but I’ve studied you prey-animals long enough to at least fake it.”
Five: I really hadn’t missed the whole super-alert, super-badass vampire sidekick. At all. Give me T-Bone complaining about breaking laws and breaking faces any day over the superiority complex Annie B has.
I opened my eyes, glared directly at where her voice came from.
There she was, Annie B.
Seductive gaze just for me, not shy a bit about what she was. Walking shell of sex, blood monster go suck suck.
I frowned again, glanced down at my hand.
Fucking band-aid.
Bitch ate on me.
Again.
Fucking Disney Princess band-aid.
Only . . . I didn’t feel woozy from blood loss this time.
And I didn’t think I’d been out of it for even an hour. Right. Accept some more facts, think a bit more about what they mean. Meant she hadn’t really taken the time to eat on me, just that she’d cut my hand with that silver knife of hers and slapped the band-aid on to make me think she ate on me.
Aww, how adorable . . . Annie B cares enough about what I think to mindfuck me.
Don’t you just love her?
Like a punch to the face.
Or a herpes outbreak on blueballs.
“How I’ve pined for that look of pure frustrated rage,” she mocked me to the universe at-large. “It always reminds me of some unruly baby boy throwing a fit about having to put clothes on, the poor thing just can’t understand the societal norms of wee-wee etiquette.”
Or like a punch to herpes-covered blueballs.
My thumb went for my fallback weapon, feeling for my SDR. It came up blank. Nothing.
I thought the move was subtle, or at least as subtle as King Henry Price gets, but she must have noticed judging by the way her lips twitched. “No toys for the bad baby,” she kept on mocking, complete with the appropriate tone of baby talk.
I stifled a growl. Ain’t giving her the satisfaction this time around. It was fun that first time. Opened my eyes on a lot of things. Vampire politics, vampire strengths and weaknesses, the whole wide world of the Mancy’s abilities the Asylum lies to us about. What I was actually capable of in a fight against a Baroness of the Divine Court. Was fun . . . was a game, really.
Wasn’t as much of a game anymore.
Not after Vega and Paine.
I wasn’t the first timer like last go around.
Even without my artifacts.
I knew a whole lot more about the truth of the world, could guess at a bit over that as well. Might still be fun as hell, but wasn’t a game. There be dragons in the caves and monsters to the north. Didn’t have as much time for the foreplay this time around.
Lick your own clit, Fanged Lady.
I know you’re flexible enough.
“A million dollars,” I said.
Annie B blinked, thrown off her game just like I’d hoped. “Excuse me?”
“My services for whatever you’ve kidnapped me for,” I told her in slow blocky syllables. “A million dollars, payable in cash or the anima equivalent.”
She stared at me for a long time as the plane got on its way. Still rising, so we weren’t so far from Fresno. I looked around the cabin again. Same plane, I’m pretty sure. Same plane or the Vamps have themselves a fleet of the things. Maybe it’s Annie B’s personal ride? I mean . . . she’s five-hundred years old. Got to have some bank by now . . . no matter how much she wastes on mechanical sex toys.
I was happy to see how put off she was by me flipping over the poker table instead of sitting down for a hand. Good idea, that one. Don’t just sit here; prove you have better things to do. I went searching for the liquor cabinet. No stewardess, but plenty of booze. I made myself a White Russian—cuz, I’m the Dude, man—and made Annie B
an Appletini.
Why do I know how to make a fruity, girly, will-shrink-testes Appletini? That whole year of sin with the college girls.
Your parents ever complain about you being a man-whore or a lady-whore, just tell them you’re educating yourself. You learn loads of shit by sleeping around.
Like how much penicillin costs.
I brought the drinks back, handed Annie B hers, and sat down across from her again. She still didn’t say anything, so I took a sip.
I suppose it wouldn’t shock you to learn I’ve been pooling anima this whole time?
Nah, didn’t think so.
Had up a five-minute-pool. Or at least, what was a five-minute pool before my trip into the Geo Realm. Now it was a three-minute-thirty-second-pool. I tried not the think about what a day in that place did to me, much less what happened when Meteyos swallowed me whole and spat me back out. Wasn’t just knowledge and artifacts that separated me from first timer King Henry.
Was a whole new world . . .
A dazzling place I never knew!
Sorry . . . that was the Disney Princess band-aid talking.
“You gonna answer or you have some type of blood creature stroke I don’t know about?” I asked her.
“You don’t even—”
“Nope. Not until you agree payment. Whatever it is, it’s you, Annie B, so it’s gonna suck some sweaty donkey dick. I’ll be eyed as a meal. I’ll get pushed around by some blood suckers. I’ll probably even get my ass kicked occasionally . . . oh, wait, I already have! So, nah, won’t play the game with you this time. Won’t whine and beg to get the info out of you like I did with the Shaky Stick—”
“Earthquake Baton,” she whispered a correction.
A World-Breaker, I thought, but didn’t say. Instead, I just continued, “This time’s business. Got a girlfriend now, won’t be no tickling your funny bits, even if you are a day away from glass, ain’t that what you Vamps call it?”
Annie B the Badass shrunk before my eyes into the Annie B who wants so badly to be a good human. Her velvet eyes pleaded with me, her voice soft, “Do you really think it meant nothing, King Henry? Do you think so low of me? I was only teasing your Valentine—”
The Foul Mouth and the Headless Hunny (The King Henry Tapes) Page 5