“A conference to examine the phenomena was set alongside the Paris peace talks and it was on the opening day of this conference that the Divine Amarusa made her last public appearance in the shell of an elderly Japanese woman. There she gave us no doubt that the legends were true, that we had forgotten them. She told of a true Great War many thousands of years ago when the vampires and mancers had joined together to avoid extinction. She spoke of the terrors we had to live with back then, of a city called Atlas where . . . dragons of each element reigned as a tyrant over all peoples.
“She spoke of how mancers and humans formed the backbone of our forces, while the Divines were our champions, the only ones strong enough to battle with the great beasts themselves. The whole world was at war, long before machineguns or artillery, ancient civilizations we’ll never know, peoples whose languages have vanished into time. Atlas was destroyed in the fighting. Many mancers, mundanes, and vampires all fell with it.
“But we were victorious. We weren’t able to destroy the dragons, but we were able to imprison them within their element. Humans are inherently neutral, but a side effect of this victory was that each of the other races were imprisoned with their specific dragon. Whole other dimensions hidden and powered by the Mancy. Locked away forever, we all thought.”
I snapped my fingers. “Anima Quota.”
Ceinwyn gave me one of those really, how do you possibly know about that? expressions.
“My girlfriend mentioned it.” I glanced at said girlfriend. “Try not to hold it against her that she’s drooling on her shoulder. She’s really smart, I promise.”
Ceinwyn gave Val her own glance too. “I think she over did it with the sleeping pills.”
“You’ll have to inform the Purifier about all this tomorrow morning when she wakes up.”
“And you’ll be back in your cell, I take it?”
“By then, yeah.”
An eyebrow quirked for more information, but when I stayed silent she continued, “Yes, the Anima Quota. Amarusa informed us that they always knew too much anima being let loose could open these holes into the prisons, but that they never thought it possible we could reach such numbers. Only . . . we had. So a modern, regulated world was created, with rules for mancer conduct: who could pool, how long they could pool, who could know about the limits even existing, and how many mancers could be taught each year in each nation.
“As long as we rationed and were responsible, and promised never to engage in another mundane war, the Divines promised to help us meet the Anima Quota and to keep peace with us. Outside of the Counter-Culture War, we have kept that peace and we have also kept under the Quota. When they first designed the rules, no one thought we could ever even go over the limits. Four-hundred mancers a year for America, impossible. Yet here we are, King Henry . . . and it’s getting worse.”
“Are we under the Quota?”
“By the slimmest margin. You haven’t been helping, let me tell you.”
“Only one guy.”
“Only takes one earthquake in Fresno to cause a fire giant to appear in Tokyo and then we’re all screwed, aren’t we? Amarusa made it very clear to the mancers back then that not meeting the Quota would mean war until it was corrected. I don’t want that, do you?”
“So you believe all the bullshit Amarusa fed them? Just like that?”
“There are pictures of the other creatures, skeleton fragments—”
“I’m not doubting the Quota or what happens if there’s too much anima flying around, I’m doubting this idea that the Divines championed humanity out of the goodness of their evil, breed-humans-as-retarded-fuck-toys hearts.”
A grimace marred her ageless face. “I’m sure it was more complicated. But however monstrous they may be, they aren’t suicidal and last I checked: mundanes are still their only food source.”
“How do we know the dragons are evil? Or the people we imprisoned with them?” I forced her to confront the likeliest truth. Fucking worse than I ever imagined. Learning Council ain’t evil, they’re just fucking incompetent without a single clue about what happened back in the day. I’m a budding expert stealing from fucking amateurs . . .
I had another thought.
It was a bad thought.
I am not talking to the fucking dragon again.
I ain’t doing it.
Not happening.
You can’t make me!
“What does it matter?” Ceinwyn asked. “That’s all over and in the past as long as we keep the Quota. We’re separated from each other; a better fate than annihilation, and there’s nothing that can change it. Even if we could change it . . . even you, King Henry, don’t want war with the Divines. Imagine a calamity worse than that; imagine unknown armies invading any city at any moment during any day, imagine if mancers were revealed before the mundanes . . . it would be chaos.”
“Yeah, probably would be,” I had to admit. “But it’s still bullshit. Vampire bullshit at that.”
Amarusa . . . so you do exist and you might be the boss woman herself. Japanese shell . . . wonder if she’s in Tokyo or some little village out in the country? Bunch of vampire ninjas as guards I bet . . . vampire ninjas, just what the world needs!
Ceinwyn spread her thin-fingered hands to surrender my point. “I don’t agree with your belief that they rule us, but I do concede it’s a vampire world, King Henry. They remember, we don’t. If they’re scared of what’s in those prison dimensions then we should be too. I’ve never seen even Inanina treat the Quota as anything but a sacred law to uphold at all costs.”
Silence as we were lost in our own thoughts.
Silence . . . ignoring Val’s snoring.
I would’ve put her in bed, but I couldn’t see a way to get her up those stairs without me breaking my neck. That’s why beds should be on the floor, you English knobgobblers. I mean really, does no one think about moving roofied women around your house anymore? They would’ve thought about that shit in the seventies, let me tell you.
My mind was spinning. More than it had when I found out about being a Maximus. All the times I begged Ceinwyn and this time she was there for me and . . . I only believed half of it. Ancient war . . . figured on that one. The sides in the war, the Realms, dragons, imprisoned . . . all checked out. Even the Quota and WWI causing outbreaks from the other Realms . . . yeah, that shit is scary. Agree to terms you don’t think you’ll ever reach, made sense, especially since humanity almost ended over the Y2K computer bug. That great ravager of grandma’s Windows 95!
History is written by the victors . . . maybe our current reality was too.
Ceinwyn couldn’t answer that question . . . still more in that brain of hers to pick, like mancer skills and being a Maximus and stuff like that, but . . . only a Divine or a dragon had those answers. Maybe there’s a nicer one than Meteyos . . . like the hydro-anima version or something. A super nice, friendly healing dragon. Got to be possible, right?
“Suppose you’re going to yell at me about the World-Breaker now,” I said just to distract myself.
Not doing it.
Not talking to him.
Now that I got most of what I came here for, I need to pick up the crumbs too. Still have half a night to get some stealing in. Val can’t come, but I could do it alone.
Or . . .
I glanced at Ceinwyn, who was studying the World-Breaker in my hands.
“Let me see if I understand . . . you didn’t destroy it, likely faked destroying it—which makes it the stolen property of the San Francisco Vampire Embassy—lied to the Learning Council about destroying it, lied to the Divine Court about destroying it, from what I can now assume also used said stolen property to travel instantly from San Francisco to Seattle while again lying to the Learning Council and scaring us all to death about how you made a deal with a fairy, and are now using said stolen property to rob from the Guild.”
“Well . . . yes, but . . . well, yes,” I had to admit, “but not the last one. Not actually stealing s
o much as reading their files and email and . . . Massey’s freaky chalkboard with all our names on it. Want to explain that one to me, by the way? Also, what the fuck did you mean earlier today when you said telling us the reason for breaking Val and me up would be illegal?”
“Did I say that?” Ceinwyn hedged.
“Yes,” I growled at her.
“I was very tired from my flight . . . just gibberish that slipped out.”
“You just told me that elves might invade if we use too much anima and you’re clamming up about you manipulating my love life; really?”
“There’s . . . a prophecy . . .”
“Oh fuck me.”
“About the Child of the Greatest Powers saving us from certain doom, that kind of thing. So it’s a tad of a mancer taboo for two Maximi to have a relationship with each other.”
“Maximi? Really?”
“Not nearly as pleasurably plural as Ultras, is it?”
“You broke up the only healthy relationship I’ve ever had over a stupid ass prophecy some guy licking toads out in the middle of the desert wrote down with his own dried shit a thousand years ago?” I tried to understand.
“Yes, I did . . . reluctantly. Mostly reluctantly. I do want her to replace me as Head of Recruiting if they make me the Dean—since I shouldn’t be the only one who has to suffer—and her marrying King Henry Price would show a rather large lack of judgment, don’t you think?”
“Wait a sec, if the child is gonna save us from doom, then shouldn’t you want us to be having kids and support us fucking like rabbits?”
“Some believe that way, hence Alexander’s fascination with Maximi—”
“Please stop pluralizing it like that.”
“—however, the more mainstream view is that if there is no child then there can also be no doom.”
“That’s fucking stupid.”
“It’s a prophecy, of course it’s stupid.”
“Like the one about you, right? Last True Dale? Never did tell me what it said.”
“Even stupider I’m afraid, but some . . . worry about its possible meanings and meddle in my private life over it, namely in the opposite direction I meddled in yours. It’s said that when the Line of Dales passes from this world that our world will pass with it. So . . . there was quite a lot riding on my womb and I . . . I told the world to fuck off.”
“Oh . . . okay. Well . . . there’s other Dales, right? Just offshoot families and stuff?”
“Exactly! Last True Dale . . . nonsense . . .”
“Val and I ain’t exactly at the kid having stage anyway,” I grumbled, “we’re still working on being in the same city for longer than a week. You know how much that hurt me? Who the fuck does the Lady think she is? And wait a second, weren’t her and Samson grunting and humping? They were both Maximuses . . . Maximoos . . . fuck me, that is the only way to pluralize it . . .”
“I argued with her for hours, King Henry. It wasn’t done lightly and it wasn’t just about your relationship. We do have deeper concerns than a love life, as I have just informed you for the better part of the hour.”
“Notice there was no explanation on how the Lady ain’t a hypocrite for fucking her own Maximus boy-toy for decades.”
“Well, Fines happened to be sterile.”
“Oh. I’ve seen his balls . . . they looked fine . . .”
Total fucking silence as neither of us could figure out what to say next that wouldn’t cause the both of us to blush bright red in humiliation.
“Who knows you have the World-Breaker?” Ceinwyn eventually asked.
“Val, T-Bone, Jesus, Pocket, you, and Annie B.”
Ceinwyn’s whole body drew up in alarm. “Anne was in on it with you?”
“Nah . . . I just told her I was lying after what happened with Eresha. See if she sold me out to Nii-Vah, get it over with, that type of thing.”
“Nii-Vah won’t kill you over it, but Inanina would.”
“Not my fan, figured that when she tried to kill me for even less than a World-Breaker and I cut her head off.”
“One of the worst parts of our argument is that I didn’t get to yell at you about that stunt,” Ceinwyn complained.
More silence as we thought about all the time we hadn’t been able to talk to each other in the last nine or so months. All the puzzle pieces or gossip we hadn’t shared. All the ideas and stories and . . . or equally silent phone calls.
“In the interest of keeping our . . . friendship, or ya know, whatever you want to call it, open,” I bumbled around a bunch of emotions. “I got to come clean about a couple more things. One I’m gonna keep for another day, cuz . . . it’s a special bit of fucked up. But the second . . . well, I didn’t lie about Meteyos.”
Ceinwyn’s head tilted as she thought about it. “So the same fairy that helped you through the Camping Test helped you use the World-Breaker to travel the first time?”
“He’s not a fairy,” I told her, “he’s a dragon.”
Grabbing at Ceinwyn’s hand, I unleashed a tide of geo-anima from the World-Breaker before she could make another comment.
Time to see if that Cheshire Cat smile of hers holds up in wonderland.
No tea parties as such, but we do have our choice of mushrooms to lick.
Session 69
Don’t know why, but it never even occurred to me that someone else could die like Leo did, especially so soon after what had happened. Especially without me there to witness it. Was so close to this all and now . . . I felt completely detached, completely unsure of my footing. Fact I watched the whole mess play out with Teresa Garcia standing next to me didn’t help. Fact Teresa’s expression was troubled by it all helped even less.
Not like Leo did.
Worse than Leo did.
Except a whole lot more usual around these parts than Leo did.
Victim Number Yank.
The victim who was not a victim.
Suicide.
With a note.
A confession.
To killing Leo.
Without Teresa beside me looking more than a little broken, I’d think it was part of Catherine’s diabolical plan. Don’t know what their plan was, even if I knew without a doubt there had been a plan, but this wasn’t it. This was . . . implosion in action. Whole world sucked into a small little pebble, nothing else matters. Knew that expression on Teresa’s face. Had it on mine when Mom died. A face that said the world wasn’t working like you’d always been told it was supposed to work.
Face of betrayal. Face says you finally realize all these adults are just as big of fucktards and just as fallible as any of you teenagers, maybe more so. Worse when adults are that way. Teenagers are supposed to be half a fuckup with a pinch of fuckdown for flavoring. Adults . . . adults are supposed to know better. Supposed to stop this shit.
Trying to, trying harder than ever.
Failing, but trying.
Cuz: fuck your fortune cookie bullshit, Yoda.
Always.
Root’s Constructs descended upon the Ultra dorms like the undead locus swarm they were. Anyone inside got kicked out. This hour most the students were in classes, but a surprising number of wash women, maids, and janitors got evicted. Constructs took the stairs same as any human would, but part of me imagined them scuttling up the walls. Wouldn’t be shocked if their joints hadn’t been replaced with double-hinged steel to allow for just that. Would be the productive thing to do, wouldn’t it? And Root loves him some productivity . . .
Got on with plenty of productivity in those first minutes. The caution tape had just gone down from the railing the day before and there it was again, this time only marking the door to the highest floor where the Three Queens and the Blackjacks had their apartments.
Unlike the last time, not much of a crowd around to watch the grisly scene play out. Seven members of the Learning Council I’d been with—Fines Samson having bothered to wake up—and then Miss Strange out from the Infirmary to go up and check the body over
.
Strange came down quickly, shaking her head at the Lady. Nothing to do for him. Dead. Only other student present was Mary O’Connell. Who found the body and wasn’t saying much. Just shaking and rocking back and forth, her mouth clamped shut. Lady ordered Miss Strange to take Mary back to the Infirmary and administer a sedative.
No sign of Catherine.
Or other Blackjacks.
Yet.
Wasn’t long before the body was removed.
Mentimancer in black and blue colors.
Hung himself from a ceiling fan.
Small guy.
My heavy ass would’ve broke the fan I tried to jump with a belt noose around my throat like that.
King Henry Price . . . of course the fucktard screwed up his own suicide, that’s what they’d say.
Feeling pretty shit right now. Not suicidal, but . . . being right had never felt so wrong.
Mentimancer Blackjack dead.
Admitting to being drunk and giving Leo the push that accidentally sent him over the railing. Then running down and changing Leo’s memory to hide it all. Never the crime, just the cover-up. All the leniency in the world didn’t give me direct access to the note, but Teresa had blubbered the gist of it as we ran across the Asylum grounds.
Weird seeing them run like that.
Not sure if Ceinwyn running or the Lady running was weirder. Ceinwyn just seemed to . . . glide everywhere. Or was just where she needed to be, when she needed to be; make you believe in teleportation. Ceinwyn Dale running. Fucking weird. Fines Samson running . . . knew he could from our classes with him. Midday naps aside, guy was in perfect health for his age. Doubt he ever dies from old age, bet he goes out like a badass one of these days. Fighting a vampire or some shit. The Lady didn’t run so much as hobble with undue speed. Good thing too . . . she actually ran and her wobbling tits would’ve got up enough momentum to kill someone else. Why am I blind in one eye? Well . . . this nipple just came right at me and then BLAM.
Mama Welf didn’t run.
Pity.
Really would’ve loved to see that spectacular ass do a little jiggle. Not just for more horrible, horrible objectifying enjoyment, but also as ammunition to use against her son over the next couple years. If what’s supposed to be on that suicide note is actually on it then Welf’s here to stay no matter what Root’s formulas said beforehand.
The Pit of No Return (The King Henry Tapes Book 6) Page 40