Val leaned in so she could knuckle me on the forehead. “The reason you’re in prison is because her name isn’t attached to your business.”
I waved that small fact away. “I’m in prison cuz I’ve been doing everything I can in the last six months to piss off Massey. He’s just . . . really pissed off.”
“Brilliant plan.”
“It is . . . maybe I’ll show it to you one day.”
Her eyes-without-irises contracted into squints, her teasing lips formed a line, and the way her jaw set spread the skin tight over her cheekbones. “King Henry, are you up to something?”
“I’ve been thrown into prison . . . I have a bench, I have a bed, I have time on my hands. These are things I have,” I told her, even if my predator’s grin hinted at something different.
She studied me in silence.
I kept grinning as I tried to distract her. “Okay, so you’re on my team, what have you done for me lately, Valentine Ward?”
“I’ve gotten a visitor pass,” she whispered, not quite distracted from trying to figure out if I was up to something.
“I appreciate the effort,” I teased her, “and the lovely sans-conjugal company.”
“I called Tyson and he’s putting together a package of clothing for you,” she kept whispering, head tilted in thought. “He seemed very distracted, but not worried . . .”
“Hard running that shop without the Artificer around,” I excused my partner’s suspicious behavior. “Have you figured out what charges Massey is using against me? Besides the fact I don’t give him a weekly reach-around.”
“No . . . he’s holding it all close to his chest,” Val told me. “But we do know Massey is forcing Plutarch to travel here and that he’ll be used as a witness against you.”
Didn’t expect that one, but Pappy wouldn’t be anything but a hostile witness for all involved if they made him miss his Matlock episodes. “So one of the charges is making a golem while not being a working member of the Guild, good to know.”
“The others probably contain the same clause of ‘not being a working member of the Guild.’ This might be a power grab, but it’s also about forcing you to join them,” Val decided.
“Don’t want that.”
“The Lady might, given how badly you going freelance has played out for her.”
“Yeah, don’t think her opinion matters.”
Again with the squint. “The Lady’s opinion always matters.”
“I made a bet with Massey,” I admitted. “If I’m censured I give him Poug’s dagger, probably have to join the Guild too, but if I’m released then he has to quit as Guild Master.”
Instead of Val’s jaw dropping open in shock again, her dark eyes narrowed further. “Why would you do that?”
“I’m reckless . . . in over my head . . . what will I do without all these adults running my life for me?” I got super thick with the sarcasm.
Her finger poked out and into my chest. “You’re up to something!”
I wiggled my eyebrows. “Maybe.”
“King Henry . . .”
“Do you trust me, Val?” I asked her.
She didn’t even blink. “Of course I trust you.”
“Spend the night with me then.”
“Maybe you should have a one-night-stand occasionally if it will keep you from being this horny.”
“Not have sex with me, spend the night with me in my cell, that’s all.”
“They won’t allow that and you know it. The visitation session is over in ten minutes actually . . . we should be talking about your case and our strategy, not flirting. Or we should be finding a way to get you out of here.”
Now it was my turn to lean towards her, so close I could whisper in her ear, “I don’t want out of here. Would you spend the night with me if they let you?”
“They won’t,” she said with surety.
“But if it was allowed . . .”
“I trust you, why aren’t you trusting me?”
“I do, I’m just playing with my food.”
“How very vampiric of you.” Some real snap on that one for once.
I reached into one of her pockets and my hand came out with her visitor ID. “Is this your address?”
“It’s an apartment. London realty is insane . . .” she whispered, unsure of me.
I memorized the numbers and put it back in her pocket. “Don’t work too late. I’ll drop by, okay?”
She shook her head in disbelief. “There’s no way even you can pull that off.”
“I would do anything to impress you, Miss Ward,” I told her seriously.
Val’s face showed her concerned, but inside of her eyes I saw a glint, a dare for me to do just that. Inside those eyes was the girl who lit the Mound on fire, who had walked through the Geo Realm, who escaped the Curator with four children under guard, who not only put up with my shit but liked me the better for it.
Maybe even loved me for it.
Good to have someone I trust at my back.
Tonight, I break into the Guild Vault.
Here’s hoping Val came with me.
Session 167
“Change of plans, Poug, I’m getting the Fire Queen,” I announced as I arrived back in the Geo Realm that night. Night for London, day for the Geo Realm valley. My poor circadian rhythms were already fucked up and it was just Night Number Two.
Night Number Two and we’re already improvising by adding Val to the plan.
Adding Val, but no Poug.
I’d been expecting the Black Elf to be sitting there on some rock or mushroom waiting for me, but instead he was completely absent from the area. Just me, King Henry Price, the Dirt King, Chosen of Meteyos, Wielder of a World-Breaker, holding his limp dick oh so proud of it, with no one to show it to.
Expectations in the One-in-a-Million World . . . still punking my ass after ten years of this shit.
Not a good start to the night.
Day.
Whatever-the-fuck.
No, not the Taco Bell kind, those would come much later.
Now, all I could think about was Val.
Valentine Ward. Boomworm. Of course I had to bring Boomworm into this.
Not just to have another shot at a relationship with her, but she was one of the few people I knew could handle it. Handle it better than T-Bone for sure. Brought Pocket and Jesus once . . . just to show them I wasn’t crazy. Figured it wouldn’t be a good idea to do it again after Jesus wanted to bring a lost armored armadillo-wolf cub back to Earth with us. T-Bone grabbed me and started yelling “Prime Directive! Prime Directive! Prime Directive!”
But Boomworm? Boomworm could handle it. Proved the first time she could handle it. Handled it better than I did, maybe. Sure got Poug sweet on her in those few hours. Valentine Ward kind of thing to do, befriending the odd and the strange so quickly, not seeing their faults or the danger inherent in the situation, or seeing it and ignoring it out of an even more inherent kindness, which is never a skill I’ll have.
So I wanted her with me.
More opportunities to not tell her I love her.
Dumbass, you should just say it.
But I hadn’t seen her in six months. Didn’t want to seem like it was out of desperation. I love you, please love me back! Naw . . . can’t go that route. Got to find a moment. Moment where those words can get past my lips. Today ain’t the time for it. Just want to clue her in, play it cool. Enjoy my friend, that cool chick Boomworm who always laughs at my jokes.
Yeah, that’s why you won’t say it today, not that you’re so fucked up you can count on one hand the times you’ve ever said that phrase to another human being. Shit, you don’t even like saying it when you end your calls with JoJo and she’s your blood.
“Quit being an asshole, subconscious,” I grumbled aloud, annoyed that there still wasn’t a sign of Poug.
Fine.
Could go get her by myself.
First, I’d need to figure out how to get to her apartment in Lon
don; that meant using T-Bone’s goodies. Using a quick blast of geo-anima, I uncovered another hollow boulder, this one made last night near the crossover point from my prison room. From this spot to the Guild Vault was maybe a fifteen minute walk. Into the Guild Library was five from there in another direction. Guild’s big and space is weird and twisting when crossing the Realms, but with T-Bone’s program I just had to cross reference it all, let the GPS whatever-it-was do some math and . . .
I stared at the screen. “Two hours diagonally across the valley to pick up Val,” I muttered to myself.
Won’t let me have my fun, will you, Bitch-Queen? Gonna make things difficult for me cuz I dared to be in charge of my life for once. Okay, figured you play it like that, that’s why I prepared for your bullshit. Also, your electric nipple clamps are going back on! So there!
Taking in a huge pool of geo-anima, I worked the ground below me until it formed into a board of packed dirt, which I stepped onto. All too easy. Easy to describe, easy to do. One of these days I’ll get bored of God Mode, but it ain’t even in sight yet. Think it up and it’s done. Waste anima? No big deal. With the dirtboard finished, my hands went to either side as I crouched down, preparing to splash more geo-anima around me to agitate the dirt.
Always been good at agitating.
“Practice makes perfect,” I whispered with a glint in my dirt eyes, “even if you fall on your ass the first time you try it.”
With a massive blast of geo-anima and a sweep of the ground beneath it, the dirtboard under my feet shot forward with me still on top of it.
My geo-surfing speed record was thirty-miles-an-hour.
Time to best it.
[CLICK]
Months Ago, but not as Many Months Ago as the One Before
I was trusting a computer.
A tablet.
GPS.
Whatever-the-fuck.
Nope, still not Taco Bell.
T-Bone probably had fifteen different designations for the thing, plus a bunch of file name shit and folders within folders and . . . shit, lots of computer shit. Not my area of expertise. His area of expertise, which was why he’s the one working the programs this time around, although I’d have to learn them eventually once we got to the Vault break-in part of my plan.
Hades Two, our second trip last week, had given us our first triangulation points and was followed up by Hades Three the next day once T-Bone realized some really weird stuff was happening with space and curves and basically we needed triangulation points for our triangulation points.
Not even math can take the magic out of this place. Not even the Asylum could make this the Nice, Quiet One.
Each time I flip over I still pause on the other end, realization hitting me across the face of what I’m doing. Couldn’t even be sure if the Asylum knew about it all. The Lady must know something with the way she saved Eva, but what about the rest? Given the way World-Breakers scare the Divines—so much they checked in on me destroying one—I don’t think the Learning Council has their own. Or . . . anyone else. Might be the only living person with one . . . joy to me, finally a special snowflake.
Had a feeling that using one like this would have unforeseen political consequences if it ever got out.
Like the Divine Inanina cutting my head off this time around.
“It working or not?” I bugged T-Bone after he’d been piddling the tablet for the better part of five minutes.
He glared from where he sat on his own mushroom, tablet in his hands beeping away. “I’m running the cruncher to make sure it comes up with the same answer every time, it takes awhile.”
“Do we have to sit here in the gloom or can we get with walking while it’s doing said crunching? I’m assuming you have the first hundred or so times it’s given our destination. Or maybe you’re just using the debugging as an excuse to not attempt Hades Four . . .”
Hades Four: use the GPS program to travel through the Geo Realm, from my shop in Fresno to the town I grew up in, Visalia. Forty-five minute trip by car on the good ol’ boring Earth, right down Highway 99. Val and me walked from San Francisco to Seattle in basically one day, so this should be a no problem skip and a hop, right?
Wrong.
“Three hours, that way,” T-Bone pointed to the west.
Hint: Visalia is south of Fresno.
“Assuming we keep up a nice pace and don’t run into a river or something,” T-Bone grumbled some more. “Also, I remind you that we don’t actually have any GPS satellites on this side and we’re stuck with using a compass and a pedometer.”
I couldn’t help myself. “Pedometer. What that do, check for nearby kiddie piddlers?”
Yup, he ignored me “The odds of us staying perfectly on track are horrible, but we might manage to come out somewhere near Visalia. At least for the return trip we have your Tracker Rod and the disc you buried to hone in on. By the way, what do you think about me naming the artifacts in the future?”
“They’re named for what they do,” I reiterated my position, “keeps things simple. Don’t have to explain it to the customer that way. What’s that ring do? Static Defense Ring. Oh, okay.”
“They’re bland, they’re long, you often need acronyms for them that no one can ever remember,” T-Bone rebutted, “including yourself.”
Swatting away some bug with a bright purple carapace, I tried to change the subject. “Why three hours?”
T-Bone dropped the naming thing, I was sure it wouldn’t be the last time he brought it up. “Assuming three-miles-an-hour hiking speed and it’s about ten miles away. I remind you this is the best outcome and given we’re in the middle of a forest—mushroom or not—it’ll probably be closer to four or five hours. Are you still sure this is a good idea?”
I thought about it. “So it actually is a shorter distance, it just takes longer.”
“Cars are unsurprisingly an efficient means of transportation,” T-Bone used some sarcasm.
“Maybe we could bring some bikes . . .”
“No!” he yelled at the very thought.
“Free Prime Shipping, I know, I know,” I grumbled. “They have horses . . . but I hate horses. All they do is shit and bite you.”
“We don’t actually have to use it like the Nether to travel long distances,” T-Bone pointed out. “The Guild Hall is huge and the math of all this could get complicated, but it’s not that huge. I suppose once you figure out a way to get the plans to the building, we’ll know more . . .”
“The Tsar will help with that and a few other things, don’t worry. Already got a meeting with him lined up.”
“Oh, yes, the most criminal Were on the planet with no loyalties to anyone but himself, nothing could go wrong with involving him in this madness at all.”
“Vicky’s been a bad influence on your sass, you know that, T-Bone?”
“Having her around is the only reason I’m not pulling my hair out,” he muttered as he watched another number fly across the tablet. “Same estimate again . . . I guess we’re doing this then . . . hours in the Geo Realm . . . hiking in a mushroom forest . . . yahoo?”
“Ya-fucking-hoo, T-Bone, ya-fucking-hoo.”
It was more like six hours. We had to ford a stream, dodge a pair of armored armadillo wolves, and skirt a strange glowing mushroom tree pollinating fiercely enough that it had T-Bone mumbling about ending up a Clicker, whatever that is. We were dirty, we were tired, and we were off course by an unknown amount.
Also, we ran out of wild mushroom forest before we reached the Visalia crossover point. Both of us stood on its edge, gazing out on a nearby Sawaephim village. By the time we reached it, it was alight only with fire pits and torches, something out of the dark ages or fantasy camp.
Six hours, no sun, path blocked by a village filled with Black Elves. Hades Four: Not going so hot. Only reason we could still move was by the light of a flashlight T-Bone had been smart enough to bring.
Not me . . .
Me: stupid.
Me: no flas
hlight.
Might be one of the most magically prepared people on the planet or all the other planets, but when it comes to Boy Scout shit I’m a moron. Just ask Pocket. Seven years of him asking me to go along with him to the Camping Club getaways and did I ever take him up on it? No. The Camping Test was enough for me. Shit, Eva barely got me out in the wilderness as it was and she put out.
Not that Pocket don’t, his hips just ain’t curvy enough for my tastes.
Also, Jesus probably kick my ass I ever made a move on his man.
“Should turn that off. They’ll see the LEDs from miles away,” I warned T-Bone as we stopped at the edge of the mushrooms.
“Doesn’t matter. We’ve come as far as we can, King Henry, we need to crossover and hope we’re close enough to a cell tower for me to call us a ride with Uber.”
“All your curiosity of this place and you don’t want to meet the natives?” I teased him. “They ain’t so bad . . . I mean they’ll probably tie us up and light us on fire, but . . . not so bad.”
“Don’t even think about it,” he scolded me like I was a two-year-old trying to stick a fork in the electric socket. “Don’t even joke about it.”
Shook my head dramatically. “Never thought you would be speciest against even blacker people than you, T-Bone.”
“You’re not funny.”
“They have bacon.”
“So does IHOP, it also has bathrooms. Every muscle in my body is sore, King Henry! Even my toes! My thighs are chaffed red! I’ve probably lost ten pounds from sweat alone! We need to go home . . . no more long distance hikes; we do just enough to get you into the Guild Vault and nothing more.”
“But think about how much time you could save this way if you figured it out.”
“Without a plane or a car, it’s pointless. They just don’t have the technology here to make it feasible.”
No technology, but I do have god-like amounts of anima to work with, don’t I?
[CLICK]
Took me two weeks of on and off experimentation after Hades Four to figure out geo-surfing. Didn’t plan to tell T-Bone what I was up to, but that first day I wasn’t so much geo-surfing as Geo Shooting My Ass In the Air and Crash Landing Face First. Popped into existence in my shop and scared T-Bone so bad with how bloody and bruised I was that he thought some armadillo-wolf attacked me.
The Pit of No Return (The King Henry Tapes Book 6) Page 18