Especially with that strange gas explosion in Fresno.
I’d rigged my floor safe with a pyro-anima trap if anyone tried to break into it to steal the Shaky Stick. Jinshin Ken, World-Breaker, whatever-the-fuck.
Also should’ve thought about the safety of that decision sooner, but to be fair: when I’d made it, I was expecting Paine to kill me any day. And if someone does trigger your explosive trap then you ain’t paranoid, are you?
You’re just an idiot who blew up his own shop.
Again.
“Everything can be tracked if you give them enough time,” T-Bone said, not putting me at ease. “The trick is to be elusive enough and quick enough that you’re gone by the time they notice.”
More clicking and typing.
“We should probably pool just in case though,” he admitted.
“Right. Anima solves every problem.”
[CLICK]
“We’re connected to the spy network,” he finally announced with a smile a couple hours later. “There were a few firewalls to—”
“Don’t care,” I interrupted him, “show me the cameras.”
“I always let you tell me about artifacts.”
“You’re actually interested in artifacts; I don’t care about your computer mumbo-jumbo. I also sat through a three-hour lecture on why the PS4 is better than the Xbox One, so let’s not pretend I always ignore you.”
“It is better,” he grumbled. “It’s cheaper, more—”
“Cameras. Proving a Divine killed another Divine, remember? Right the wrongs of the world? Make a bully pay? Ring a bell?”
He sighed, clearly wanting to talk about the PS4’s superior list of exclusives yet again, but instead brought up the entire list of Nii-Vah’s camera network. “Uh, you don’t happen to know the floor number do you?”
I gulped. Eight-hundred and sixty-two camera feeds.
“Guess it’s time we got our peeping tom on.”
T-Bone clicked the first camera.
It was of the club on the first floor. The normal one. Given his drive down the Los Angeles and the time it took Eva to do her work, we were back into night time. I’d slept most of the day away. I was all turned around. On the wrong side of the world. Just like the Vamps.
Anyway . . . it was night time yet again. Good twenty-four hours since I killed a man. Still pissed off about it. Not like I should’ve been. Not sad. Not guilty. Just pissed. An accident, chance fucking me, throwing another string around my neck. One I’d never get to cut away, not even with a million dollars.
T-Bone cycled through to a new camera every ten or so seconds. People dancing. People drinking. A former Disney star snorting coke off of some guy’s ass.
“I think she’s doing that backwards.”
T-Bone shook his head. “This is why I work on the security side of the business. People deserve privacy.”
“Yeah, yeah, Black Snowden, keep showing me new cameras.”
He clicked on the next floor, showing the vampire club in all its gory glory. “Another club?”
“Non-human.”
“But seriously,” he went back to his earlier point, “how much influence and power can a person accumulate by spying on people like this? It’s dangerous.”
“Yet we’re doing it.”
“To catch a killer.”
“That’s how it always starts, T-Bone, that’s how it always starts.”
Another camera. “Are they . . . feeding?” he asked.
“Oh yeah.”
T-Bone just stared at a Vamp couple sharing a meal. “Mister Root showed us diagrams during Survival and Defense, but never the actual act.”
“Ah . . . Fines Samson had slides. A few people threw up.”
“Did . . . your vampire do this to you?”
“Not this time . . . year ago, yeah, but I was unconscious.”
“It doesn’t look like it hurts.”
“Nope.”
“Looks like it feels really good given her expression . . .”
“Yup.”
He switched to the next camera, a private booth with a man smoking a cigar. But he still asked about the last one, “You think they’ll kill her?”
“From what I can tell, as long as you’re in that club then you’re on a menu and someone is paying to eat you, which means you’re safe. It’s the ones Vamps ask back to their private condos that end up dead. Or end up sleeping on the couch for a few days . . .”
T-Bone couldn’t help himself. “Just the couch?”
“I have a girlfriend,” I reminded him with heat.
“And I really like her, and she’s too good for you, but you’re King Henry Price and—”
“Enough out of you,” I growled. “More cameras. Inanina ain’t showing up at the Second Floor.”
Click.
Click.
Click.
“WHAT THE TITTY NIPPLE IS THAT?!?” T-Bone bellowed in shock at a camera viewing a whole bunch of bodies writhing together.
“That, good sir, is the Nine Headed Spitting Dragon.”
We watched in shock and awe. “What’s the ninth head?” he asked.
“I still haven’t figured it out.”
The ninth head appeared and T-Bone clicked the camera off.
“And now that I’ve figured it out, I wish I hadn’t.”
[CLICK]
Next came camera views of the Great Bank. They seemed to be the same as the official security system, but with one added for each private vault. T-Bone had a realization while looking through them. “They’re not grouped by floor; they’re grouped by folder type. Now we just have to find the right folder and we can cut out the rest.”
I shook my head. “Click through these for a bit.”
“I thought we were trying to prove murder? Not breaking the Fourth Amendment?”
“They’re vampires. They don’t even qualify.”
“Why wouldn’t they?”
“They ain’t human, do dogs qualify?”
He frowned for a bit. “But they were humans once.”
“The human is dead, the vamp is just wearing what was once the human,” I corrected.
“That’s a very gross way to look at it.”
“Of course it’s gross, it’s life: it starts with a placenta and ends with a rotting corpse.”
“How I’ve missed your cynical comments this last week.”
“How I’ve missed your passive-aggressive comments this last week.”
We both stopped, realizing we were tired and being assholes. We were men, so there was only one way to fix the problem.
“Pizza break?” T-Bone asked.
[CLICK]
Two extra-large combination pizzas and a twelve pack of Dr. Pepper later we had finally crossed off the majority of the cameras and zoned in on the most important ones. Bathrooms, elevators, condos, hallways and then . . .
The Divine Chamber.
“Wow,” T-Bone said, even more impressed than he had been by the Nine Headed Spitting Dragon. “Reminds me of an MMO dungeon.”
“If you say so.”
“Massive Multiplayer Online—”
“I don’t care . . . why did we eat the second pizza?”
T-Bone burped in answer. “Not our smartest decision . . . smarter than spying on the Divine Court though.”
“We’re spying on the spies, there’s a difference. It’s not like we kept watching the chick snort the coke off that guy’s ass, is it?”
“It’s unethical,” T-Bone complained, but still clicked through camera feeds of the Divine Chamber, stopping on one in the hallway showing the same secretary I’d met twice. “She’s cute.”
“Vampire.”
“Bummer.”
“I’ll give her your number the next time I get dragged in for questioning.”
“Expecting that?”
I thought about it. “One of these days it’ll happen.”
“What are you even going to do with your proof that this Inanina killed h
er sister, anyway?” T-Bone asked. “There’s no authority over them. It’s not like the Learning Council can do anything about it. Would the other Divines even punish her? I mean, King Henry, if we see it on these cameras then this Nii-Vah is seeing it too, so the Vamps will already know.”
“Haven’t thought that far ahead really,” I said.
T-Bone banged his head against the table.
“Well, it took all my planning to get you and Eva to help out . . . I’m planned up to here for now. I don’t know . . . maybe I’ll trade it to Ceinwyn for some info on what us Ultras can do.”
“And what will she do with it?”
“Give it to the Learning Council. Hell, maybe I’ll give it to Vega too. It’ll get him off my back for Hector. I just want the world to know what she is, man. I don’t care about the outcome. You aren’t going to try to start talking me out of it again, are you?”
“I’m just trying to limit the damage,” T-Bone grumbled, “like always. I figure you looking at some camera feeds is preferable to you storming in there to punch her in the face.”
“Ceinwyn, I’ll give it to Ceinwyn,” I decided.
“Okay,” T-Bone agreed, trusting Ceinwyn’s judgment more than mine, “now we just need to locate her living quarters.”
I’ll give it to Ceinwyn to see if I can trust her, I thought, but didn’t say. No halfway anymore, either me and Auntie Badass trust each other and put our cards on the table or I’m done with her, and all the strings and lies and papercuts.
[CLICK]
“Stop.”
“Is Donald Trump a vampire?” T-Bone asked as we looked at the room filled with gold furniture.
“The Divine Pwent, she was in on it with Inanina,” I told him, “she likes gold.”
T-Bone did some more wizardry, pulling out a grouping of cameras. He flicked through about six of them before finding Pwent lounging next to a pool. An indoor pool, with golden diving board. There was a pair of big, buff vampire men with her, fanning her like she was a queen of the Nile. She didn’t have a bathing suit on, rather . . . nothing on.
Golden pubes too.
“Pretty?” I teased T-Bone.
He blushed. “If you’re into dye jobs.”
“More like vamp natural.”
He blushed deeper. “Okay, so we’ve found a Divine, what now?”
I shrugged. “We wait.”
We got lucky.
Lucky enough that I started to think Fate was on my side for once.
Lucky enough that if I’d been thinking about how much Fate hates me, I maybe would’ve thought twice about my good fortune turning to shit in my hands, soon enough to not screw things up.
But I wasn’t thinking.
I was just angry and looking to pop the bully in the mouth. T-Bone was right. Couldn’t do it in person, so this was the only way. Like one of those plays against Welf when we were students, but now large and complex with higher stakes, some good ol’ fashion espionage thrown in for seasoning.
“Holy fuckballs,” I growled out, already getting worked up over seeing her, “there’s Inanina. Turn up the volume.”
Of course there was sound, Nii-Vah knows her shit and we were copying every answer off her homework.
“That’s Inanina?” T-Bone asked.
“Pretty?” I teased again.
“If you go for . . . that kind of girl.”
“Meaning?”
“You know what I mean.”
“Just look at them things and you start thinking about sucking down for eternity, don’t ya?” I commented.
“I thought you hated her? You’re acting like you want to sleep with her.”
“I have a girlfriend.”
“So you keep pleading.”
“Turn up the volume already, they’re sending the goons away.”
“This timing seems fishy,” T-Bone said, but he did click something that made words come from the speakers.
Not the best reception, but you could understand what they said.
Inanina: Are they yours?
Pwent: My grandchildren.
Inanina: I’m always amazed at your fertility.
Pwent: Family is just another fortune, my dear; if you would stop killing your offspring then perhaps you would have grandchildren of your own.
Inanina glanced cagily around the swimming pool.
Inanina: you disconnected the cameras?
Pwent winked at us when Inanina wasn’t looking her way.
Pwent: Of course. Nii-Vah can watch me feed, but to give away my secrets so cheaply? I’d need a very big price for them.
“I thought you said she was in on it?” T-Bone asked.
“Playing both sides,” I replied, impressed by the vampire despite myself. “Gets shells from Inanina and something else from Nii-Vah.”
Now I had to wonder if Pwent mentioning the cameras had been for my benefit. What else had she said? I was being choked out for a chunk of it and couldn’t remember much. Nii-Vah had said something too, something about the Mancy.
Inanina: I would’ve preferred doing this elsewhere.
Pwent: But where else? You won’t give me the location of your sanctuary, I won’t give you the location of my sanctuary; neither of us would trust some place public. As I told you: if we let Nii-Vah watch everyone else trying to spy on us then we only need to worry about turning off her cameras when we plot.
Inanina: I can’t fault your strategy.
“She really goes around naked all the time?” T-Bone asked.
“You’re recording this, right?”
“Of course.”
“I told you, man, total fertility goddess mode. Makes it really hard to concentrate with them things swinging side to side in front of your nose.”
Pwent: Besides! You’ve won! It’s over! Victory is yours!
Inanina: My fifty-seventh attempt at killing her and finally success. Do you think she bothered to put that number together with the stolen bodies at the end? It was a nice bit of cheek, I thought.
Pwent: Thanks to your necromancer.
“If it’s Welf, you owe me an apology by the way.”
“You said you didn’t think it was Welf this time.”
“Yeah, but . . . still.”
Inanina: His kind remains the only of the anima-infused that belongs here.
Pwent: Old arguments.
Inanina: Perhaps we should have them again now that my sister is out of the way.
Pwent: Some might not go in your favor. Eresha was with you to war on the mancers. Nii-Vah will carry that debate with ease.
Inanina: Unless something should cause the others to turn to our side.
Pwent: Another plan already?
Inanina: Only now forming . . . due to recent events.
Pwent: The Maximus? As Nii-Vah pointed out there will only be another if you kill him.
In the hotel room, my mouth dropped open.
“What’s a Maximus?” T-Bone asked.
“Not sure . . . but I think they’re talking about me.”
Inanina: It’s good that he survived. Now I can take away everything he loves before I kill him. And what a tool to scare the others with . . . a Maximus who has talked to the Killer of Fools.
Pwent: It is distressing news . . . how do you plan to tell your necromancer when he arrives? It was he that wanted to use Price, all in the hope he’d die, and yet now . . . that’s against your wishes.
“Maybe they are talking about Welf,” T-Bone mumbled.
“It’s not Welf,” I said. Welf hated me, but he didn’t want me dead. He loved his sister Vicky and Vicky liked me too much for Welf to risk ruining their relationship by murdering me.
Inanina: He’ll be here soon?
Pwent: Yes, same as before. Faking an affair with one of my youngest, a great-granddaughter. Her apartment is above mine and down he’ll come any minute. I do love this clandestine business . . . we should kill the others more often!
Inanina: Who did you have in mind?
Inanina: You just want his business.
Pwent: And? My motives need not be as hot as yours were to kill Eresha.
Inanina: I’m more interested in who will replace my sister.
Pwent was silent for a long time.
So were T-Bone and me.
It was like having a window into the Oval Office or something. All this important world changing shit happening right in front of your eyes.
Pwent: I . . . I hadn’t thought someone would replace her.
Inanina had swung a trap shut on Pwent and the gold loving Divine didn’t like it. Like for all she’d won by playing both sides and as far as she’d gone to win it, now the stakes were too high.
Inanina: Thirteen, there must always be Thirteen.
Pwent: But who is old enough or powerful enough among the dukes? They’re children compared to us!
Inanina: There’s one. He’s not a duke.
Pwent stood straight up from where she had been lounging.
Pwent: You can’t mean Iscariot.
Inanina: Why not? Has he not served us well?
Pwent: He’s the monster in the attic!
Inanina: I’ll have your support, of course?
Pwent flinched, glancing down at her feet. She was saved when one of her buff grandchildren returned with another man.
Another man I knew immediately.
[CLICK]
“No way,” T-Bone whispered.
“I wish it was Welf,” I said quietly, “this is worse.”
Short, slim, and slight. Black haired, black eyed. Eyes that were dead to emotion, with an unresponsive face. Soft-looking. Like a professor. A professor of death and bones and human remains. A gamesman, a tactician. A general who couldn’t throw a punch, but didn’t need to—for he had dead men and dead women to do it for him.
Mordecai Root.
Head of Physical Theories at the Asylum
Bonegrinder teacher at the Asylum.
He had a seat on the Learning Council . . . people said if Ceinwyn didn’t take over after the Lady finally died then it would be him. Mordecai Root, in charge of every mancer in the United States, with a sway over every mancer on the planet.
Working for Inanina.
Working to kill me and Annie B.
The Foul Mouth and the Headless Hunny (The King Henry Tapes) Page 35