Cuz all Ching Changs are the same, ya know.
Prunella and Miles. That’s all I’d need to deal with, another one of these relationship things in my dot of a life.
My life has way too much high school drama bullshit in it for the kind of stakes that are at play. But, hey! At least I’m not drunk off my ass throwing shit at T-Bone or drunk dialing Miranda Daniels this time around. We call that character growth! Or a tumor . . . could be a tumor . . . shaped like a penis . . . just like the butterfly.
Did throw something at the ESLED agents, but it wasn’t shit this time around. “Catch, Pak,” I said as I tossed a small plastic box at his twerpy chest. “And stop flirting with the Employee, Ramirez.”
Estefan’s smirk morphed into a smile that proclaimed everything a misunderstanding. This happens all the time, officer! Let me explain. Also, that taser won’t work on me, so don’t even bother. “Not flirting, just friendly conversation. Should try it some time, Foul Mouth.”
“Neat!” Miles exclaimed when he opened the plastic box and saw the copper SDR with his initials marked on the top: MHP.
“SDR Mk 4,” I told him while pointing at the ring. “Latest product line: two charges and twice as quick to get zapping. Ton better than the old shit Estefan has on his finger.”
Miles slipped the ring on. “Neat!” he repeated.
For once Estefan’s pretty boy face squinted with some intelligence. “How’d you know he would be here to have the initials ready?”
“Just had it lying around in the back waiting for the next shipment to ESLED,” I lied, giving a wink to Prunella. “They ain’t sexually harassing you, are they?”
“Nothing you haven’t done fifty times before, Boss.”
“Hey, you trying to get me arrested?” I complained, pointing at the fake FBI badges hanging out of the ESLED agents’ jacket pockets.
Prunella returned my wink. She left her place at the counter, crossing to the other side of the store so she could restock a shelf while I did some conversing of my own, none of it friendly.
“Don’t ever get an employee, they’re horrible,” I told Miles and Estefan once she was out of earshot. “Especially if there’s only the one of them and they have all the power over you. Maybe I should hire a new girl to fire a few weeks later, might instill some discipline . . .”
Estefan cleared his throat.
I blinked at him, playing the situation all up like I was clueless. Helps that I am clueless most of the time. “What are you two in town for anyway? Next shipment ain’t for another week.”
“For which ESLED, as always, thanks you for your cooperation,” Miles said, “and hopes that it will continue—”
“Blah, blah, give us our goodies. Got that, but I never had an in-shop pickup with actual agents, so I’m guessing it’s not that.” I motioned at the city outside the Nerd Nirvana’s door. “Ain’t Detective Ribera trying to get a warrant again, is it?”
“Listen, Foul Mouth,” Estefan tried to explain, “we didn’t want this assignment—”
“It’s not about me selling the SDRs to the Coyotes, is it? Cuz I’ve tried to get out of that deal and Vega won’t hear of it and as a peace-loving citizen of this supernatural world you must admit that selling to the Coyote Nation just like I sell to ESLED shows that we place Weres on the same ground as we place our fellow mancers and I think that’s an important step to an actual alliance between our factions, don’t you?”
Estefan searched for the words. Miles tried to help, “That’s a very nice thought, but it’s not why we’re here. As Estefan said, we didn’t want to come, but—”
“It’s not about the sex toys I sell to the Vamps, is it?”
“You . . . you,” Miles stuttered as his bowtie wilted. “You sell sex toys to vampires?”
“Who knew a cryo-anima injecting cock-ring would sell for one-hundred grand, right?” I bragged a bit. “Got one customer who even asked for SDR-level electric nipple clamps. Vamps are into some downright freaky shit. You guys ever heard of the Nine-Headed Spitting Dragon?”
“It’s not the vampires!” Estefan shouted while trying to blink away the mental image of electric nipple clamps and cryo-anima cock-rings.
Right now you’re wondering if I was just bullshitting them about that stuff. Would King Henry really do that? Even for that much money? And the answer is: deniability!
“Then what?” I asked, still playing dumb.
“Listen, Foul Mouth,” Estefan tried to explain again with the same rehearsed speech, “we didn’t want this assignment, but it was decided by the top brass that we would be about the only two people in ESLED who might have a chance at completing it without resorting to violence and before I even tell you what’s about to happen, please understand that ESLED isn’t the body responsible for this, we’re only doing our duty.”
Gave him some canine grin. “Bet you practiced that the whole way down to Fresno. Best you could do was an argument that got plenty of Nazi’s hanged back in the 40s?”
Estefan rolled his eyes and pulled out his wallet to throw Miles a twenty. “Thanks for being predictable,” Miles told me with a grin.
I turned to Estefan like he’d insulted me. “You didn’t think I’d go Godwin? Really?”
“People keep telling me you’ve grown up,” Estefan complained. “How dare I believe them, right?”
“I mean, I won’t kick you in the balls or nothing, but I’ll still go Godwin and I’m still gonna call you a ‘fucktard’ if you do what I think you’re about to do.”
“Foul Mouth,” Estefan kept on trying, “promise me that when I say what I’m about to say that you won’t do something stupid.”
“Something stupid as in kicking both of your asses out of my shop?”
“Something stupid as attempting to,” Estefan rebutted with a bit of bravado that both of us knew was paper thin.
Do love me some shit-talking, made my canine grin spread to the rest of my face. “I have my own electromancer friend in the back and his dick is massively bigger than yours, Pretty Boy. Not that I’ll need to call him, but ya know, maybe I’ll have him come out and teabag your face after I knock you out.”
Miles grabbed Estefan by the shoulder and pulled him back into a corner. Heard ‘asshole’ and ‘prick’ and a few choice words from Estefan, but eventually Miles seemed to calm him down. When they walked out of the corner it was Miles out front while Estefan hung in the back looking like he might zap my ass. “Let’s start again, shall we?”
“Sure, all friends here, right? Buddies, chums, wouldn’t fuck each other over for women, money, or power?” I kept on needling. Sure, I wanted to get arrested but that don’t mean I was happy about two of my classmates bowing down and doing the job. Also don’t like thinking about how it might put us on opposite sides one of these days.
“You’ve been antagonizing the Guild lately, yes?” Miles asked with the pleased expression of a man who has facts on his side.
“Always do it, just gotten really good at it lately.”
“The contract with the Learning Council allowing you to license your work as that of an independent Artificer has a clause in it. This clause gives the Guild the power to make you account for your actions, especially to ensure you haven’t broken any mancer laws,” Miles explained.
“Of which I haven’t.”
“Bullshit you haven’t,” Estefan growled under his breath.
“They disagree,” Miles said loudly enough to cover it up. “The Guild contacted the Learning Council activating the clause. The Learning Council in turn has tasked ESLED to escort you to London.”
Pregnant pause shit as they prayed and hoped I wouldn’t try to kick their asses—or the reverse of it.
It’s what you wanted, you dumbass, I told myself. It’s what you’ve worked for. Why you so pissy the moment it actually happens?
Strings.
That’s why.
All about strings still.
Gave the Guild one and here it is. Sure,
I poked, I prodded, I forced their hand, but still wasn’t me pulling the string. Was them. Just reminded me of all the other strings still at my back could make me dance the puppet. Accepted some of them now—did do some growing up whether Estefan believes it or not—but this clause wasn’t one of the accepted few. Didn’t choose it. Was a string I grabbed while drowning, grabbed without hope of ever breathing free air again. Bunch of them like that still, from when Ceinwyn won me some independence as an Artificer, if not the complete freedom I still fought to earn.
By the time all this was done I wanted the Guild string cut or I wanted my own wrapped around their balls so tight I could make them squeak by giving it a tug. Make them squeak out the Nutcracker every time they start to piss me off.
“You’re arresting me?” I finally clarified.
“Lucky we aren’t cuffing your dumbass,” Estefan said under his breath. “Tell me I have a little dick, who does he think he is?”
“We wouldn’t use that term,” Miles said loudly to cover yet again. “Escorting or protecting sounds better.”
“Can I not go?” I went Socratic.
Miles shook his head. “Orders,” he apologized.
“Then you’re fucking arresting me.”
“Of course we’re arresting you!” Estefan finally exploded. “You’re selling artifacts to the Weres, you made a stupid golem, you—”
Miles pushed Estefan out the front door before he added anything else; I could still hear him yelling outside. “Man takes his dick size really seriously, doesn’t he?” I quipped, knowing T-Bone was listening in on it all.
Prunella walked back to her counter just then, expression disappointed. “Where’d the pretty one, go?”
I shrugged at her.
“Boss! You called him a ‘fucktard,’ didn’t you?”
“You think Miles is cuter anyway, admit it,” I goaded her. “You crave his tiny Korean dingle donger.”
She blushed furiously, punching me on the shoulder before she went over to fiddle with another display. Really should have had little sisters over big sisters, would’ve been better at that job, I considered.
Miles walked back inside alone. “We’re arresting you, but we can’t say we’re arresting you, as that would be illegal,” he admitted. “Even you can’t get out of this one, King Henry. It’s the Council, it’s ESLED, it’s the Guild. It’s politics. So please stop giving us a hard time and give them a hard time, okay?”
I faked thinking it over for awhile. “Have to go right now?”
“In the next hour.”
“No cuffs?”
“Not if you go willingly.”
Now with the first potential problem area of my plan, would suck if it all goes wrong at the start, wouldn’t it? “Even though you just sprung this on me and all—and even though I had a long night of doing nothing planned—I’d like to go willingly. It’s just . . . well, lot of people who want to kill me, ya know?”
“Hence why we’ll protect you.”
Let a bit of the pissed-off drop from my face, giving Miles some actual concern. “Yeah, that’s the thing, ain’t it? Just won’t be me in trouble if a Vamp or the Curator tries something. Be you guys. Know you’re still single, hint-hint Employee—” she threw an action figure at my head “—but Estefan has Debra. So me cuffed up and castrated . . . don’t think that’s a good idea. For me or for you guys.”
“I just promised we won’t cuff you.”
“Right . . . and when you hand me over to the Guild they’ll throw my ass in the Pit, but I’ll be safe there. It’s the in-between I’m worried about . . . and about whether once said in-between is over, if the Guild will be a dick to me or not. So I’d like to take some of my artifacts with me, just in case, but I need the Guild to promise me they won’t steal them when I arrive there, that I get to keep them as my property. Legal assurances and all that. Kind of stuff that might have stopped this from starting if I was smart enough to ask for them.”
Miles frowned a little bit. “You’re saying that if I let you keep some artifacts to use for your protection—on the slight chance something happens during the trip—that you will come without any trouble or further complaint at all?”
“See?” I said. “Might still make dick jokes, but I ain’t so bad anymore, am I?”
The frown disappeared and instead Miles beamed like he’d won the lottery. “Give me half-an-hour to make some calls . . . and for Estefan to calm down. Then we’ll be out of here.”
“Get to keep my artifacts?”
“If the Guild isn’t actually arresting you then I think you still have all the rights of a free mancer,” Miles decided.
“You would think,” I agreed, barely keeping the sarcasm in check over how full of shit I found this whole arrest-that-wasn’t-an-arrest.
“Just a disciplinary hearing,” Miles decided some more.
“Right.”
“No reason to cuff you or take the property from your person.”
“Right.” Just a disciplinary hearing that involves locking me up in the only prison capable of holding mancers on the planet. A prison connected to the Guild, a Guild even older than the Asylum. Hundreds of years old. Knows all the secrets. Got themselves an unbreakable prison, so how could anyone ever steal those secrets from an even more unbreakable vault? Under the ground, surrounded by guards and golems and Guild members, no access to the Mancy in the Pit . . . would be impossible.
Right, impossible, could never happen, I told myself while giving Miles another canine grin. “I’ll just go get my artifacts and tell my business partner what’s up then, okay?”
“No problem,” Miles said. “I’ll be standing here when you’re done.”
“Last chance to get his number,” I whispered to Prunella as I walked by her.
She brandished another action figure. “You want it down your throat or up your butt?”
“Be safe when I’m gone,” I told her seriously.
“What are you up to, Boss?”
“No good,” I gave her another wink, “Like always.”
Prunella ain’t the emotional type, so all she did was nod at me, but you could see that deep down she thought about maybe hugging me. Or she thought about sticking the action figure up my ass again.
One or the other.
Gonna go with the maybe hugging.
One college girl’s thumb rocked my world, don’t even want to think about what an action figure could do.
Especially if it’s the Hulk.
[CLICK]
“You need to let the dick joke go, man. T-Bone’s cock is at least in the ninety-ninth percentile, if not the ninety-ninth of the ninety-ninth percentile. He’s the Bill Gates of Cocks. It’s okay to not be favorably compared against it.”
Estefan just glowered at me from the driver’s seat. I was in the back like a good ‘ittle not-technically-a-prisoner. “Can you please not talk about cocks the entire way to London?” Estefan eventually begged me. “It’s a double-digit flight.”
“Sure thing,” I told him, probably lying. Not saying I was planning to make any more cock jokes, but it’s me . . . so, odds are: Cock Jokes, Dead Ahead! “Hey, if you need to prove your manhood, we could always drop by a strip club on the way to the airport. You know, fondle some glittery ta-tas, eat some buffalo wings, jerk off into the cum-stained bathroom corner. Manly kind of shit.”
“I can’t believe you promised not to cuff him,” Estefan whined in frustration.
“Your problem is with his mouth and restraints wouldn’t stop that,” Miles said.
“And I promised to come along peacefully, not to come along silently about the fact you two assholes are arresting me.”
“Put your seatbelt on,” Estefan ordered.
I stared at him. “Really, Mom?”
“I’m not getting demoted because you died in a car crash on the way to the airport,” Estefan told me.
“He’s a senior agent now,” Miles filled in.
“Even more reason to celebr
ate at the strip club! Sure Debra will be fine with it,” I said. When he didn’t answer, I kept pushing. “Hey, she try to make you go on the knock-her-up-vacation yet?”
“Please shut up, Foul Mouth,” Estefan whined some more. Mommy, he’s touching me again!
“Holy fuckballs! You didn’t volunteer to escort me just to miss out on baby-making time, did you?”
He just sighed like a wounded animal.
“Was just joking about the strip club too, only strip club is way out of town. We’d be late to my date with the Guild and we wouldn’t want that, would we? Besides, they’re Fresno stripper ta-tas, you know what those things look like? Ain’t enough glitter or tattoo ink in the world to cover up all them stretch marks.”
Estefan clicked on the radio.
It was a Taylor Swift song.
I tried again to mend fences. “Even if your dick is small, Debra still likes it and that’s all that matters, right?”
He turned the radio up even higher.
“This is cruel and unusual punishment!” I yelled over the pop music about how horrible men are, especially our love of glittery, stretch-marked pap-bags.
Neither of them turned around. Miles started fiddling with the GPS to get directions from my shop to the airport. Wasn’t a long drive. Would be a long flight. Done it before, after all that shit with Annie B and the Divine Court. Ten hours stuck on a plane, thinking about what I would say to Ceinwyn.
Said some stupid shit.
Emotional shit.
Right from the feels I usually repress.
Waste of ten hours thinking, that’s for sure. Spent the next few days after the flight in a hotel room with Val, living off of room service. Liked that part of London. Only part I saw, since anytime either of us thought about going out and exploring the city, the other one would drag us back into bed.
Good times.
Had a feeling this trip to London would be different. Less hotel and more jail cell.
Locked up in the Pit and at the mercy of the Guild. Just got to hope they’re as arrogant and out-of-date as I think they are. Had to hope that the Tsar’s info on what kind of security they had in the Pit was still up-to-date. Ten fucking SDRs and a brand new Adamantine Coat, first one off the production line, even I don’t have one for myself! Better be good or I’m strangling the shifty bastard when I break out.
The Pit of No Return (The King Henry Tapes Book 6) Page 3