The Pit of No Return (The King Henry Tapes Book 6)

by Richard Raley

  Trust her to get Susan back to the others even if I’m dead.

  Sobering thought, but one I forced myself to have.

  Forced myself to have just before Vicky Welf provided Interruption Number One.

  Glanced up as she finally hit the ground. Or rather . . . the underground. Stared at the ladder like she’d never seen the thing before. Not just that one, but even the idea of a ladder.

  “First time in an underground sanctum?” I joked.

  “Not at all,” she replied, distracted by taking in all the sights. “Only . . . Mother has an elevator leading to her laboratory. It’s also less . . . like a hole and more like an actual room.”

  Vicky glanced at a few of my workbench setups. Unlike T-Bone, she wasn’t quite tall enough to need to duck, although the ceiling came close to disturbing her bright blond locks. Had it all in ringlets, even pieces of ribbon wrapped through it. Spectro-crystal earrings, changing color every few seconds, a double line of pearls around her throat. Bit closer to Victoria von Welf today than she usually is with just me and T-Bone around.

  Went ahead and mocked the obvious reason for that change in appearance, “No holes for Moira von Welf, got it. Only the finest room to hold all her corpses and accompanying instruments for meat puppetry.”

  Vicky passed by the SDR and floro-seeder workbenches, pausing by the one where I assembled spectro-portraits for her. “You really reworked the Circle of Light version down to its core, didn’t you?”

  Shrugged at her, not moving from my place at my main worktable, that same piece of massive steel been with me since the beginning. Now it was covered by the Jinshin Ken itself, a jade casing split into two, a tablet containing T-Bone’s anima conversion formula program and a rather large stack of paper, complete with pen. Had my Anima Detection Lenses on, trying to generally map what slashes of anima I could make out. “That portrait design was a piece of shit, Guild should be ashamed of themselves.”

  “Yours are quite a bit better,” Vicky agreed. “Although the Circle is very annoyed with me that yours only take a third as much spectro-anima to keep running. If the design spreads they could lose quite a lot of income from their patrons.”

  Put down my pen and took my glasses off. Too fucking hard to be pissed off when you’re wearing glasses. “You never mentioned that.”

  “One would think that the Guild arresting you and putting you up for censure would make you realize that correcting a respected bodies’ long perfected design creates an uproar,” Vick snapped just a tiny bit, at least as much as she ever snapped at anyone. “Also, given the way you’ve treated my trust these last months, I also don’t believe you’re the person to complain about another being circumspect with their business life.”

  My shrug might have been just a little guilty this time. Also, as much of an asshole as I can be, wasn’t about to rat out T-Bone as the cause of my silence. “Didn’t want you hurt, Vick. Serious shit this. Kinda shit gets people dead. So . . . we waited until we had to tell you. Let you be blissful instead.”

  Vicky’s lips compressed as she put her hands on her hips. They were pretty big hands for a woman and damn shapely hips. “Tyson already confessed, you don’t need to take a bullet for him.”

  Pretty disappointing since I already took the fucking bullet for him and looks like I’m about to take a few more. “Huh . . . was smart he would’ve just told you I wanted to talk and ran off to Mexico while you were distracted.”

  “Not that I haven’t been very annoyed by all the cloak and dagger these last few months,” she decided, stalking over to my anima vial wall to count their number. “Frankly it was an insult to my intelligence. The both of you aren’t that tricky. Especially Tyson. He’s like a babe when it comes to subterfuge.”

  “Wasn’t so much cloak and dagger as cloak and jade dildo really . . .”

  “This isn’t funny!” she finally turned on me, clearly upset. “It’s not a joke!”

  “Didn’t you say something about him taking the bullet?” I reminded her.

  “He’s in love with me, people in love do very stupid things to keep each other safe!” Vicky laid out some logic that I’m not sure was very logical, but was extremely emotional and only went to prove her point. “You’re my friend. You’ve been my friend since I was a Single. A teenage girl scared about all the new things she was seeing at the Asylum for the very first time! Just because Tyson and I are in a relationship, that doesn’t give him the ability to completely wash away your own choices. You—my friend—lied to me.”

  “Feels like I’m kinda getting machinegunned actually . . .”

  Didn’t matter if I was a Maximus, didn’t matter I was in my underground lair, didn’t matter I had a World-Breaker in easy reach. Vicky Welf advancing on me was just about the scariest thing I ever saw, even put the Divines to shame. Mostly cuz she’s one of the few people can make me feel shame. A finger was poked directly into my chest. Was not of the dainty variety either. Was the go-there-and-kill-those-Romans-remember-to-bring-me-their-skulls-as-a-nice-soap-dish variety. “I knew you were up to something dangerous. That trip Tyson pushed me to take to London to do a portrait for Matron Trickelbank and then you tagging along. All the late nights. All the looks you shared when you thought I was distracted. There was that Were who kept sneaking into town and he usually only came after you called Josephine to make sure Horatio was busy at the casino. Then you’re arrested by the Guild and Tyson just mumbled about how everything was fine and I shouldn’t worry! Of course I was worried! You of all people should know what it’s like to be in the dark, King Henry!”

  “Is it weird to anyone else that Vicky Welf is taking this worse than Val or Ceinwyn did?” I asked the universe for some sort of help under the onslaught.

  Her finger formed into a fist and she actually hit me in the chest. Fine! I’ll get the Roman skulls myself! “You could have died! Both of you could have died! All of you could have died and no one would have ever known why! I never would have known what happened to you! You would have just disappeared . . . forever . . .”

  “Keep hitting me and I’ll be too sore to make this fake, Vick. Then we will be in trouble,” I tried to repress some emotion.

  Only . . . hard to do that around Vicky Welf. Impossible for her to do it, for sure. A sob finally escaped her mouth and she threw both arms around me. This time she did very much knock us to the ground. “Don’t ever do this again!” she ordered around tears. “Don’t ever disappear on me either!”

  Gave her a pat on her blond locks, not able to do much else with all her weight on me and her face buried into my geomancer’s coat. “Best I can do is promise not to keep it from you any more, Vick.”

  “That’s a start,” she sniffed.

  “T-Bone get yelled at like this?”

  “No . . . he was raised right and knew to get on his knees and beg. You just stood there like an uneducated idiot.”

  “To be fair, I am an idiot most the time, all the education they slapped into me at the Asylum or not . . .”

  “Don’t put yourself down like that,” she ordered some more, finally letting go of her hug just enough for me to breath. “You’re a wonderful friend and very caring when you let your heart show . . . especially when you don’t take the nearest excuse to keep it buried.”

  Somehow managed to leverage myself back to my knees and then get both of us to our feet, Vicky still holding on in the Surprise Hug to End All Surprise Hugs. “Stealing from the Guild . . . what were you thinking?”

  Now I was confused. “Stealing from the Guild ain’t even in the Top Ten . . . did T-Bone just tell you the stupid shit we did and not the stupid shit we need to do, cuz—”

  “He told me more than enough,” she cut me off. “Although I must admit my first clue was Brother calling yesterday and ordering me to under no circumstance do anything dangerous concerning the Curator until he or Mother arrived. I’ve never heard him sound more Welf than he did in that phone call . . .”

  “There’s
a Geo Realm and—”

  “I know that. Tyson explained how I can’t go because I’m a spectromancer . . . it’s not very fair, I would’ve loved to do a portrait of your Black Elf friend he told me about, but you can’t wish away the differences in anima.”

  “I’m back with Valentine—”

  “I know! I’m so happy for the both of you, King Henry!”

  “I’m a—”

  “Maximus. Like Mother. We had this conversation, remember?”

  “The Curator—”

  “Has your sister!” Vicky grabbed my hand in support. “I’m so sorry, King Henry! I’ll do anything to help get her back!”

  My head hurt and it wasn’t from the lack of sleep or from the Dr. Pepper caffeine leaving my system or from about a million other little pains my body felt. Was from emotions, especially trying to understand them. “If you’re pissy about us being in danger over the Guild thing then how can you possibly be fine with us confronting the Curator?”

  Vicky blinked at me. “They’re totally different!”

  “Yeah, this shit is more dangerous!”

  “But I’m here to help you this time!”

  Well . . . she was.

  Couldn’t argue with that.

  The mighty terror herself, Vicky von Welf.

  Her hand moved up to my shoulder. “I’ve taken up enough of your time yelling at you. You need to get back to work.”

  “But I kind of want to yell at you now . . .”

  “No time! You have an artifact to make, don’t you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I love the both of you, but you’re helpless really,” she commented to the same universe that I had. “We have almost a dozen people arriving today, don’t we? We’ll need supplies. Food, of course. Sleeping bags and beds. Toiletries. The shop floor will need to be rearranged so we have space, since we’ll never manage to move any of Tyson’s computers. Quite a lot of work to do and neither of you even thought about it . . . I’ll need to get to it at once! Do they express deliver those portable restrooms, do you think? Also, what kind of vehicle will we need when meeting with the Curator? At least a few of them too, I should think, especially if Mother brings all her Constructs. Why are you looking at me like that?”

  I somehow got my jaw back into place from where it had fallen. “Yeah, you, uh, do all that. I’ll . . . do this artifact thing.”

  “Well, you are the only one who can, King Henry. Anyone can keep everyone fed and happy, as long as they think about needing to do it in the first place. That’s the hard part.”

  Now I was the one putting a hand on her shoulder. “Glad you’re on my team, Vicky Welf. Just need one thing out of you.”

  She raised her chin, daring me to tell her she couldn’t go with us. “Yes?”

  “Stay in the back and no laserbeams, cuz you suck at them.”

  At least that hug didn’t knock me to the floor.

  [CLICK]

  By the time Interruption Number Two arrived, my fake looked a whole lot more realistic. At least the outside casing. The inside . . . well, I’d get to that soon enough. Would have to work on each half separately and then eventually combine them. Most important part would be to make it feel right with anima senses and to look right to a trained eye using Lenses. Gonna be the razor’s edge the whole way, each step a possible stumble into more shit than could even fill the Pit.

  Seeing inside the hydro-anima version had helped immeasurably. Wasn’t able to duplicate even a tenth of what I saw there, nothing close to gears and levers made of nothing but anima, but I could fake it. Just like I’m faking the rest of it. Ten-year-old can take apart a V-8 engine long as he has a wrench and plenty of time. Learn how it all works, yes . . . putting it back together though . . .

  Anima would be in the places where it should be, just who knows if the fuel lines are connected. Felt like I did get the structure of it right, way it was supposed to be compartmentalized. Compartments themselves would be gibberish, but even Lenses won’t let you see that far into the makings of it, meaning I could skimp on that part of the job.

  Looking the part.

  That’s what mattered.

  That’s what bought me the minutes and seconds we’d need.

  A replica.

  A good replica.

  So far.

  Except like all those pretty lightsabers T-Bone has on his bedroom wall, it ain’t ever gonna cut a bitch.

  Outside of that blowing up thing.

  Artificer Rule Number One: Make the Explosions Work for You.

  “If you could not do that, that would be awesome,” I told it. “Or at least wait until Paine’s the one holding you.”

  It gave no answer, neither did the Jinshin Ken, right beside it on the worktable.

  No talking artifacts, ever. Not even under the influence of monk mojo juice, please.

  Bad enough Mini talks back to me with his shield.

  Was said Golem Don Quixote who opened the hatch and crashed his way down the ladder like a drunken midget. After returning to his feet, Mini threw a salute of some sort my way with one of his gauntleted hands, words appearing on the shield he carried in the opposite: Dirt King, the True Charge wishes to inform you that the Dog Orphan and the Fernthrower will soon arrive.

  “Tell T-Bone I’ll be just a minute.”

  At once!

  On up the ladder he went, doing his little pull-up hops rung to rung.

  “Also, remind me to build you an elevator, I’m getting tired of banging out the dents from all the falling you’re doing.”

  I already am ordered to do so daily, am I not? appeared on his shield even as Mini kept ascending. Another reminder that the golem wasn’t Mini himself, it was just a tool the Gnome manipulated.

  “Yeah, yeah, I’ll get to it . . . one of these days.”

  Five minutes, or the True Charge will make me return.

  “Yeah, yeah,” I mumbled, still mostly focused on the fake artifact and how to keep the jade sealed while matching up the anima types on either side, then how to merge the halves together.

  True Charge was T-Bone’s fairy title. Mini was always good for surprising me with them, every time I heard a new one was usually followed by a few moments of me trying to figure out who he was talking about. Some were harder than others, though once you made the connection they seemed to fit well enough. Fairies might even be better at naming us than our mothers are.

  Except for me.

  A king by any name I choose, ain’t I just lucky?

  More accurate or not, the worst part of fairy titles was that they could change. Eva hadn’t always been the Lighteater. Also, it seemed like a Maximus got an extra title on top of their original. Only . . . I didn’t for some reason and neither did Val. King of Dirt and Queen of Fire respectably. Fairies called Ceinwyn the Last True Dale just like humans did and I’d never heard them refer to her as the Queen of Fates before Poug mentioned it, like Last True Dale was the greater meaning. Then they also started calling Pocket a Fernthrower thanks to my help bringing it up to Meteyos all those years ago at the Asylum. So . . . I still wasn’t sure what the rules were or if they mattered or maybe it was just another bit of prudish bullshit I should ignore like all the rest, even if it was balls of conscious anima doing the naming instead of humans.

  Dirt King, Fire Queen, Last True Dale, True Charge, Dog Orphan, Queen of Puppets, Dead Prince, Fernthrower. Vicky was the Canvas of Joyous Feelings, Prunella the Shy Corner. Didn’t stop just at mancers, although not every Intra seemed to have one and not a single mundane. Vega, however, was the Lord Ferryman, and JoJo the Caged Princess. Whether that title had to do with her relation to me or being the Queen of the Coyotes or even had to do with her having once been a mancer but now only a Poly-Shifter, I’m not sure.

  Suppose one day I’ll have to tell her that if the Recruiters found her, she could’ve been a mancer. After, ya know, surviving the twenty different things that might kill me in the next forty-eight hours.

  Don’t
think either Pocket or Jesus would kill me.

  Don’t think they’ll be pleased to learn about the change in our plans either . . . but they’ll probably stop at just whining.

  “Don’t go anywhere,” I ordered the Fakeshin Dim, still in two halves and unfinished on the worktable.

  The Jinshin Ken I took with me.

  It wasn’t leaving my sights until Susan was safe.

  Maybe not even then.

  [CLICK]

  “They actually took the fucking RV?” I asked T-Bone. “I thought that shit was just a code word.”

  Said massive vehicle was attempting to enter the shopping center where the Nerd Nirvana resided, hopefully without crashing into a street sign or killing a hobo. It might have been the least inconspicuous spying choice ever made. Sure as fuck couldn’t see James Bond ever driving in one. Not unless it could also turn into a jet.

  Plus the fridge is only ever stocked with cheap beer, no martinis in sight.

  No women to seduce either.

  Well, it ain’t got any bullet holes either and the engine ain’t smoking, so that must be a good sign they didn’t run into too much trouble.

  T-Bone was the only one waiting with me. He’d called in Prunella from her vacation—vacation for Prunella meaning eight extra hours a day to play video games—to help Vicky with logistics and both of them had taken off in the pink Mini Cooper that T-Bone had leased for Vicky. Yeah, Vicky Welf has a driver’s license. Fucking terrifying, right?

  Sun was well and out now.

  Morning in Fresno.

  Already hot, already got that lovely tinge of brown along the horizon.

  The burger joint that ruled over the shopping center was still closed, so were the craft stores, the used bookstore, and the barbershop. Ten dollar trim, even give you an old-fashion shave. Only place with cars around it was the Nerd Nirvana and then the tea shop down on the end. Know you an addict when you’re jonesing for a hot beverage even though it’s ninety degrees out by 9AM.

  Amidst that small group of vehicles near the tea shop was a car I recognized. Blah-est beige you ever seen with some heavily tinted windows would never reveal who was inside of it. Despite that, I knew exactly who it belonged to. “I see Detective Ribera is back.”