“Then let us hope she is.”
[CLICK]
Ceinwyn’s legs showed plenty in the black dress she wore to the party as well. I worked very hard not to stare at them. The idea of actually having sex with Ceinwyn was just . . . like having sex with my sisters or something.
Just . . . no . . . NO!
But . . . I still noticed when Susan first started getting breasts and training bras mysteriously appeared in our washer piles. How it terrified me as a young horny little thing in the making. My sister had boobs! Sisters weren’t supposed to have boobs!
Ceinwyn Dale being ageless and blond and blue-eyed and . . . beautiful was one thing. Ceinwyn Dale having great legs is something entirely else. Legs I’d like to nibble on and . . . spread open . . . and . . . damn, it was terrifying!
I’d let the cashier at the ShopsMart get a pass for studying her ass, but dressed like she was I was ready to throw down and fight every guy who looked Ceinwyn’s way.
The way she smiled at my discomfort was intolerable. If she dared to say I was being ‘cute’ or ‘adorable’ in my protectiveness then I’d snap. The suit didn’t help. I’m not a suit guy. I’m a jeans guy. Barring jeans, I’m an Asylum uniform guy. Nice brown colors, that’s what I like. Coat open, of course, can’t be too conformist.
Conformist, exactly like a guy wearing a suit.
I could even admit that yeah, it did make me look somewhat, just a tad, maybe a little above average looking, which for my blocky ass with my big neck and thick shoulders and often broken nose . . . well, above average was a miracle.
But the collar was tight and the shoes pinched and . . . I had a tie on and, even after three Winter Balls, hell if I could figure the thing out. Who the fuck thought it was a good idea to knot a piece of cloth around your neck where anyone could grab the thing and use it to haul you around? The fighter in me always expecting trouble hated ties.
The thought of looking like this in front of Hope and Welf didn’t help either. Welf would never be able to contain himself. He’s wired to be a condescending prick, so he’d make a comment. About dogshit being polished or something. Might play the gentleman with everyone else, but he’s never forgiven me for that first punch the first day of school.
I wonder sometimes if he hadn’t called me short and if I hadn’t punched him . . .
We’d still hate each other. Inevitable really. Hard to feel regret over. We’d still both love Valentine Ward, always a contention between us even if he didn’t have a chance in hell at being un-friendzoned. He’d still have a shitty girlfriend who I couldn’t stand. Hope . . . frozen twat through and through. She only got worse as the years went by.
So yeah, we never would have liked each other. But maybe if we’d handled ourselves better we wouldn’t have hated each other.
How boring would that be?
I pooled up five minutes of geo-anima as Ceinwyn drove into the Hunting Cryotech lot. A big, square building in an unassuming part of Denver. Quiet and unassuming . . . just like the Asylum. Bunch of crazy inside trying to act normal . . . just like the Asylum. Boring most days and then Holy Shit Shingles, Batman . . . just like the Asylum.
Ceinwyn left her car for a waiting cog where we got out in front of the building. The party was right in the lobby and you could see it from outside, lit up. People talk about the need to break glass ceilings, but I assure you, ain’t nothing crueler than a glass wall showing those outside what they missed out on. Poor cogs working the joint while inside the betters proved how much better they were.
Dance floor, orchestra, hors d’oeuvre table, even a podium where there would be speeches. Rich people, man. Just what a party needs: fucking speeches.
Men were in suits, women were in dresses. Everyone I could see looked to be twenty to thirty years older than me at least.
“I feel like a phony,” I whispered out the corner of my mouth.
“I remind you,” Ceinwyn said to me, trying to encourage me for once, instead of playing with me like I was a choose-your-own-adventure book, “you are the only Artificer that the Institution will graduate for a considerable period of years. At worst, if you have no talent for it, you will become a Guild member in good standing, you will craft items of unique power for vast amounts of money. You will be a rich man and an important man, who any person in that building will seek to please and who any father in that building would quickly welcome into his family, including Hope and Heinrich’s fathers.”
Silence.
Then: “I think my dick just grew an inch.”
Ceinwyn rolled her eyes at my predictability, giving me her elbow not like I was a date, but like I was a family member helping around an elderly aunt. An elderly aunt who had really nice legs. “This is why I don’t encourage you.”
I took her arm. “Maybe two inches.”
“Also remember that only I know that you have a papercut on your left ass cheek.”
“. . . And it just shrunk to normal.”
[CLICK]
Everyone knew Ceinwyn Dale.
She’s Ceinwyn Dale.
Everyone knew King Henry Price.
Wait . . . what?
Well, once Ceinwyn gave my name everyone knew King Henry Price.
Oh, the Artificer!
Oh, the chap who burnt down the Mound?
Oh, the boy who nicked the Staff of Rebirth?
Oh, the troublemaker always fighting with Frederick’s boy?
Frederick’s boy.
That’s what the men called Welf.
Moira’s boy.
That’s what the women called Welf.
For the first time in a long time I almost felt bad for Welf. To have all the baggage of your parents and your name around your neck like a millstone. No wonder he was so high strung. No wonder me rigging things so he ranked third instead of first in our class made him burst into tears. I almost felt bad for him then too, but then Val started to console Welf and any remorse wore off really quick.
What kind of pussy cries over a class rank?
Frederick’s boy.
Moira’s boy.
The Welfs and Huntings greeted the guests one after another, next to the podium. There was even a line for all the ass kissers and foot washers leading up to them. It was enough of a distraction that not a one noticed either Ceinwyn or me watching them from across the room. Yup, Welf was there. Suppose I should call him Heinrich just for the clarity of this next bit, there being four Welfs all clumped up together.
Von Welfs . . .
That’s why I like calling him Welf so much, it pisses him off royally. That and giving him Nazi salutes and asking him how the Fuehrer is doing. And spending time with Vicky. And spending time with Val. And getting a better grade than him.
Heinrich wore a blue suit that attempted to lighten the gray in his tombstone eyes, while also bringing some color to his pale face. He was the tallest person in the room at six and a half feet and had a way of standing that made him seem unmovable and important. Guess it was from some etiquette lessons his butler gave to him between splashing baby powder on his ass over the years.
Hope was to his left and Vicky to his right. All three were blond, but in very different ways. Vicky wore a dress so very pink that it made me smile. The Bright Welf, I thought. She wasn’t a beautiful girl, her face was long and her nose had some serious schnoz just like her brother. But her blue eyes were baby blues and her blond hair was the stuff of daises. She was a spectromancer and if someone told me rainbows formed in her wake I’d believe it. How that family produced one sibling so sweet and the other sibling so foul, I’ll never figure.
Guess you had to lay it at the feet of the Theory of Anima Personalization.
Or Momma Welf had some side action going.
Hope was tall enough to not be dwarfed by Heinrich, six feet of hard athletic muscles and almost no curve. Her features were classic, her neck and collar bone delicate. She had on a white dress with silver trim, rocking the Ice Queen look. With blond hair so li
ght to be platinum and eyes like icy water, it wasn’t a difficult look for her to pull off. Imagine a Swedish beach volleyball player who only practices on Antarctic ice and that’s Hope for you.
Beautiful . . . but you dick be a snapping off, bro.
Take it to a doctor, they staple it back on.
There was another Hunting girl . . . woman . . . a few years older than Hope and a small boy, who from what I’d been able to tell was either a drunken, post-anniversary surprise or had been medically produced to help Hope’s mom’s first congressional run. Dawn and Wilson, those were their names. Might have made a Good Willy Hunting joke or two in my day.
Neither were at the party. Just Hope, Vicky, Heinrich, and their parents. Frederick von Welf was a shorter, older version of his son. His blond hair was already graying and balding and he had a few extra pounds on him. He looked like a plump little Prussian lord transported to the modern age and thrown into a five-thousand dollar suit. He’s a cryomancer and had graduated the same year as Hope’s dad and Mordecai Root. They were all friendly, but Papa Welf being in the Second Tier and finishing second in his class had been a sore spot, a sore spot that passed on to his son.
Moira von Welf is . . . scary. A gorgeous woman and a bit younger than her husband, she had on a black dress to match Ceinwyn’s, though with less leg showing. She was middling height and built curvy, with big full lips and large dark eyes, crowned in curly black hair. She graduated the same year as Ceinwyn from what I understand. That year at the Asylum gets compared to Ultra Class ’09 a lot. Filled with geniuses and troublemakers and . . . the just plain troubled. Momma Welf was a necromancer like her son and at her back stood a large man in a suit, the lines of black necro-anima on his face so fine to almost be invisible, but the pallid nature of his skin unmistakable.
Fucking Constructs creep me out.
Boris Hunting—no, I’m not joking about that shit—didn’t merely have some extra pounds, but was actually chubby. Chubby and short with thin-rimmed round glasses and graying brown hair, he looked like the scientist and engineer that he was. His wife, Congresswoman Jane Hunting, was about four, maybe five points above him. She was good looking, but I think her daughter eclipsed her. The way Hope and Jane seemed uncomfortable standing next to each other, I think they both agreed with me and didn’t know how to deal with it.
There might have been a line for the ass kissers and foot washers leading up to them, but it’s a well known fact that Ceinwyn Dale doesn’t believe in lines.
I followed behind her, having a flashback to my first day at school when she went right around a complaining Miss Foster.
I wasn’t really sure what to expect between Ceinwyn and the two families. I knew my relationship with the children, but just because there was antagonism there, that didn’t mean it carried upwards to the adults. Ceinwyn wasn’t really my aunt, was she?
The Huntings seemed pleased by her appearance.
The Welfs didn’t.
Momma Welf barely covered a scowl. Papa Welf looked embarrassed.
Boris Hunting stepped up to kiss Ceinwyn on each cheek. She was nice enough to bend down so he could manage it. Know the exact feeling, man. “Ceinwyn, my dear, you made it!”
“I couldn’t pass by such a claim to progress, could I, Doctor?” Ceinwyn politely teased him.
“You’ve foiled my plans,” Boris teased back, “I had this unveiling now just so you’d be too busy with your new boys and girls to pester me.”
Ceinwyn moved over to trade pleasantries with Hope’s mother.
Everyone else noticed me for the first time.
“Sup?” I said, giving an I-don’t-care shrug. I hadn’t done a thing, but I felt like I was about to be accused of something.
Hope’s face was the worst. Pure revulsion at the sight of me. Welf’s . . . Heinrich’s was barely better. He wasn’t revolted, just pissed at me over the class rank thing. Okay, so sending him the list of all the ways I’d thrown him off his game for the week leading up to finals was a dick move . . . but the lengths I went to, how could I let those plays die unknown?
I dosed Hope with contraceptives for three weeks so her period stopped coming, man! Would have been the first kid conceived at the Asylum ever, but like either of them could go to the teachers with it. Instead of studying, Welf spent three days running around the Asylum bartering for a black market pregnancy test.
It was fucking brilliant.
Neither Papa nor Momma Welf indentified me, so I guess I don’t rate in the exclusive circles the Welfs run in, nor do I guess that they ever talk to their children about school other than to tell them to get better grades, or else . . . the butlers will spank them or something. Without even applying the baby powder first!
The horror of it all!
Vicky had a completely opposite reaction to her brother’s. She blinked at me, took a second to study my aura, and recognized the brown coat of geo-anima around me even if I was in clothing contrary to my personality. A delighted squeal followed and suddenly Vicky leapt forward to throw her arms around me in a hug.
She almost knocked the both of us to the floor. “King Henry! What are you doing here?”
“Anything to see you, Vick,” I said, grinning at how happy she was. Not a reaction I got from many people.
Bouncing on her feet, her baby blue eyes were pure mischief, “Stop flirting with me, you’ll give Heinrich a heart attack.”
Papa Welf seemed befuddled by the outburst, but Momma Welf cleared her throat sharply.
Vicky realized she was on thin ice and let go of me. She also corrected her posture so she was the perfect little lady. “Welfs aren’t allowed to show emotion in public,” she whispered conspiratorially under her breath.
“Better start frowning then,” I warned her.
She did. “Mister Price,” she greeted crisply.
“Miss von Welf,” I greeted back.
We shook hands formally. So formally it was an obvious gag and Momma Welf cleared her throat yet again.
Vicky stepped back and I turned to her brother. “Foul Mouth,” he hissed.
I nodded. Damn fucking right I’m the Foul Mouth. But I couldn’t very well let him know I liked the title, could I? So I gave him a King Henry snarl and a, “Third Place.”
Welf . . . Heinrich—fuck me, I hate thinking of him on a first name basis like this—bristled. “You piece of trailer trash,” he hissed some more. Behind him, the Construct took two steps towards me. For a second, I felt fear.
“Heinrich!” Momma Welf snapped. “What are you doing?”
Heinrich’s expression turned from anger to embarrassment in a blink. The Construct returned to its original position. “Sorry, Mother.”
Fuck me. Momma Welf wasn’t the one in charge of her toy for the night.
Fuck me sideways.
Ceinwyn returned to save my ass. Just like always. “Moira, Frederick, lovely party. I see you’ve met King Henry.”
Papa Welf recovered first. “The Artificer boy?”
“Yes. Victoria, dear? Would you like to take King Henry for a dance?” Ceinwyn asked. “He’s much better at it than he looks.”
“It would be a pleasure,” Vicky said, taking me by the hand and leading me away. When we were out of earshot she elbowed me in the ribs. “Quit antagonizing Brother.”
“He started it, Vick.”
“Oh . . . bullshit.”
“Vicky Welf, such language!”
“Can you actually dance or does Miss Dale merely want me to save you from humiliating yourself in front of two of the leading mancer families in the United States?”
“I never asked you to dance during any of the Winter Balls?”
“No, you haven’t,” she said, sounding affronted.
“Really? I can’t believe I passed up so many opportunities to annoy your brother.”
Vicky lost some of her bright personality. “Try again.”
I did. “I can’t believe I passed up such a splendid partner as the ravishing Vi
ctoria von Welf.”
“Better,” she declared, letting me lead her to the dance floor.
Session 136
The Divine Chamber couldn’t have been more shocked if I’d farted. And not a normal rip of gas neither, some nasty wet fart you know left a little something behind on the tighty-whiteys.
Then the Chinese vampire laughed and the rising tension immediately drained away. She smiled at me, very friendly, very warm, very . . . dangerous. Just cuz it ain’t got fangs, don’t mean it won’t kill you. If your cells are poisonous enough then skin contact is all you need. And what better way to lure a person in close than a warm smile? “Your reputation well precedes you, King Henry Price.”
I showed some teeth back, about as friendly as I get when I’m in a room with four women who want to poke holes in me. “Wish I could say the same, but I didn’t know you ladies existed until about an hour ago.”
The Chinese vamp nodded at this, motioning to herself. “I am the Divine Nii-Vah. I will be your bottom bitch for the evening.”
Annie was so scared that she visibly shook at my side, sweat dripping down her forehead and her usually silky hair slowly gaining a sheen that looked sickly. Meanwhile . . . I kept on digging a hole, “Pleasure meeting ya, Nii-Vah, who-da other hoes?”
Again, a laugh from . . . Nii-Vah. Like I was some little monkey dancing on cue, but still laughter. I’d take it. Whole lot better than the reaction I got from the other two Divines.
Nii-Vah elegantly waved a tiny little hand to her right, a hand so delicate you’d never imagine it holding a knife to cut open flesh. Yet . . . I still wasn’t fooled. JoJo’s small like that and Mancy knows she’s smacked me enough times in my life. “This is the Divine Inanina,” she said of the ginger fertility goddess, “she has questions to ask you regarding your contact with the mancer titling himself the ‘Curator.’”
I gave Inanina another look-see. She glared back, shifting in her seat so her whole body was a mass of undulation. Again, not to a level of being unattractive . . . just . . . extremely healthy . . . telling every part of the male brain interested in reproducing its genetic code that this woman could pop babies out of her vagina like it was a tommygun.
The Foul Mouth and the Headless Hunny (The King Henry Tapes) Page 12