Maybe I can get T-Bone to hack us some floor plans of this place. Along with Eva’s list of board members it would go a long way to demystify everything around us. If she wasn’t just joking and actually sends the thing.
Eva would’ve enjoyed the arena just then. Full on darkness. Nothing but shadows to slide through and around. Real invisibility, Lover Boy, not that ugly predator-turn-the-light trick that spectromancers like to play. Always made me a little nervous when I was in bed with her, knowing she had all the power and all the information over me, no matter how much bigger and stronger I was supposed to be.
Ain’t that all mancer women though?
For all my jokes about Pocket being a Fern Thrower, there had even been a few times when I’d been with Naomi in the Park that had seemed slightly dangerous. The weird way the tree branches would shiver in delight if I hit the right spot . . .
Thousands of mancers were in that dark room with us.
Thousands of Weres too. Maybe a few Vamps even.
Hadn’t had this much supernatural around me since the Asylum. Not even the Auction of Illicit Wonders stood against it, that had been maybe a couple hundred people at most. This . . . this was a convergence of power and purpose, a moment of history if the Ouroboros kept to its name and kept eating its own tail for the rest of time.
The first step taken on the long path for the magical minority admitting it exists to a mundane majority?
Nah.
Never.
Not without some genocide one way or the other.
The big screen went white and then words flashed across it: DAY OF SPEED.
The ‘S’ looked like a snake.
Cuz snakes, bitch.
A grouping of spotlights came to life, focused on a spot at the very center of the arena just next to the swimming pool. Two men stood there, both in suits. One looked perfectly in place. Like the universe itself had said: be here, at this time, it is your moment; it is for you and you are for it. The other looked nervous, but had a bit of aura about him that business was his business despite the suit not sitting well on his shoulders or the spotlight not sparkling in his eyes.
I knew both of the men.
Some pieces clicked.
Huh.
“That’s Mr. Black squinting at the spotlights,” Pocket said.
“That’s Horatio Vega preening in the spotlights,” T-Bone added for Pocket’s sake.
“Oh . . . crap,” Pocket whispered.
“Dumbasses.”
“I thought he was supposed to be Mexican?” Pocket whispered some more.
The people behind us weren’t too happy with our conversation. Either cuz it was loud or that Pocket might be viewed as slightly racist if you didn’t know he regularly inserted his penis into another Mexican man’s asshole.
Neither Vega nor Mr. Black spoke yet, instead they were eating up some applause. Mr. Black wasn’t as natural at it as Vega. The King of the Coyotes even had a perfect hand wave that turned to all sides of the crowd. “His grandmother is English,” I explained. “Think his Mexican side has some French in it too. Makes him into a striking mix with all that European and Indian rapeage fighting it out. Also, that ain’t Mr. Black. That’s the Tsar.”
“Who?”
“The Tsar. Igor’s his real name . . . I think. He’s an exiled ex-KGB wereraven who is one of the few Weres that the Vamps let work out of Los Angeles. He deals in illegal shit, mostly information and favors, but apparently he saw some bucks in this thing and set it up.”
I did just like he asked and told JoJo that he missed her and thought of her still. She must have gotten in touch with him somehow. Broke the ice between Vega and the Tsar and . . . and now the Days of Supernatural Exhibition is taking place at the Ouroboros arena instead of somewhere out in the desert . . . or not at all.
Fuck me!
I’m responsible for me sitting here.
I fucked myself before T-Bone and Pocket even got around to thinking about doing it.
I’m Dumbass Prime!
“Well . . . he seems stand up,” Pocket said, clapping along with everyone else. “He’s been really supportive of Jesus and again: he gave us these tickets, so . . .”
“Wait . . . that’s not because Jesus is competing?”
He had to yell into my ear to be heard. “They’re like a couple thousand dollars a night for each person, dude! And we got all five nights for four of us; you think they give that to every competitor? They wouldn’t have any left!”
Double fuck me! Is Igor planning something or just screwing with Vega for the fun of it?
“You two need to be quiet before the people behind you start kicking you in the head,” T-Bone scolded us like we were five.
Down on the arena floor, the Tsar had picked up a microphone from somewhere and started the day’s show. “Welcome to the Days of Supernatural Exhibition! Welcome to the Day of Speed!”
Even heavier cheers echoed out, surrounded by whistles and clapping hands.
They have to be pumping some of that in from a recording, I thought even as the two dumbasses on my left and right cheered and clapped louder than anyone.
“Today is the day that this community comes together and finally answers the truly important questions!” the Tsar continued. “Not serious questions. Not questions for the Learning Council or the Vampire Embassies or for any Were King on the planet. Not even the fine gentleman standing behind me!”
Vega laughed like a politician too. Just enough, no real emotion showing through. I’m pretty sure that these two men weren’t on the best of terms—even if Dumbass Prime accidentally broke the ice between them—and yet with the way Vega stood in support of the Tsar’s greeting, you got the feeling they were in this together. That they had been friends and in business together for decades.
“Today and tomorrow and the days after are for the important questions!” the Tsar declared again. “The ones we actually want answered! Who is the fastest corpusmancer on the planet? And once we’ve named him, can he outrun a vampire baron?”
A finger pointed at the pool. “Who is the fastest swimmer among cryomancers and hydromancers? And why not throw in our good friends the wereotters for fun?” Louder cheers yet, so loud it almost hurt. “Why have them all swim, when we can have them try to run across the water and see which one gets the farthest?”
The finger turned to the course of rings in the air. “Which faunamancer has the fastest bird?” Then obstacle mazes on the ground. “Or the fastest dog or cat? Can they even compete against werecoyotes or werewolves? How will it all turn out? No one knows . . . yet . . . but after today? After today we will know!
“And you will be here to watch every moment of it unfold!”
The cheers subsided somewhat as the Tsar handed Vega the microphone. Cheering was all well and good, but hearing what the King of the Coyotes said seemed a little more important than mindless noise. “My friend gets to have fun with you, but today I am the sheriff,” Vega started in his affable, almost seductive way, despite his lack of preamble. All the words came through that sincere smile with just enough teeth to be real, never enough to make you question his intentions. Unless you knew him. Then you always questioned his intentions. He likes it when you do, that way you can never guess his motives.
“My name . . . is Horatio Vega.”
The cheers dropped away to almost nothing.
“You have no doubt heard of me as the infamous and powerful and handsome King of the Coyotes.” The laugh next, making sure you got that he thought the whole title was absurd. Like he don’t masturbate to the idea every night. This horrible mental image formed in my head of Vega on top of JoJo yelling, ‘who’s your king? Say I’m your king!’
Good thing these chili fries didn’t come with a spoon or I’d be stabbing it into my eye right about now to make my brain stop working.
“I am also the manager of the Ouroboros Hotel and Casino and of all the events that will be taking place inside of this arena over the next week
and into the foreseeable future. As such . . .” He spread his hands in apology. “As such it is my responsibility keeping order between the many supernatural communities now sitting next to each other and competing against each other. It is my employees who will deal with you if you cause trouble.
“I say this only once: if you wish to make a point about your superiority? Make a bet. Don’t throw a punch. Don’t Shift. Don’t throw fire or lightning or any other type of anima. Or I will have to deal with you.” The smile faded. “I do not want to have to deal with you. But trust me; you very much do not want to have to deal with me.”
Silence.
The smile came back. It was just a joke! “Now! On to the Day of Speed! Corpusmancer races are up first! Don’t forget to get your bets in quickly! I’ve seen the practice runs and they won’t last long!”
[CLICK]
The corpusmancer racing heats finished as quickly as advertised. Quarterfinals were even faster. Yay? What the fuck do I care about people running really fast? Have some guy running around in pads trying to tackle them at random; maybe then it will be interesting. Needed to be less Olympics and more American Gladiator, all I’m saying.
It was near the semi-finals when an Ouroboros arena employee approached my group in our not-so-shit seats like we were royalty sitting amongst the penny groundlings. “Excuse me?” she asked politely.
“Yo?” I said back.
T-Bone gave me a look about my manners.
“She’s either here to kick us out or to fluff our balls,” I said.
“She’s a person. Be nice.”
“I just got some Raj Déjà vu,” Pocket whispered, trying to pay attention to the races as more corpusmancers lined up to speed around the track.
I gave T-Bone a look right on back.
He nodded at me, encouraging.
I turned back to the Ouroboros employee in her gold and black uniform with a circling snake pin at her breast. “Hello, how are you? Are you having a good day? What’s your name? Can we help you with anything? Which Were Nation do you belong to?”
Pocket glanced away from the races long enough to add another look to the party. “Who replaced you with a robot?”
“Just being polite,” I said around a shit eating grin.
The employee frowned over us. “I’m just doing my job.”
“And is your job to fluff my balls or to kick us the fuck out?” I asked, dropping my sudden manners as quickly as they had arrived.
“The three of you have been invited to a private box,” she informed us. “Do you think you can stop being jackasses long enough to follow me?”
I nodded at T-Bone. “See? Deep down, she’s rude too . . . and I like her for it.”
“Always making everything difficult,” T-Bone growled under his breath.
I gave a don’t-give-a-crap shrug. “Guilty.”
“So that’s a ‘no’ on not being jackasses?” the employee asked. “My name is Maya and I’m a werecoyote by the way. You must be King Henry Price and no I won’t be fluffing anything of yours, especially your little cojones.”
“I like her even more now,” I told T-Bone.
Pocket frowned, catching up to the conversation as the race finished. “Someone say something about a private box?”
“Yup. Let’s go meet with my brother-in-law and see if he wants to kill me or not.”
Maya smirked.
Should’ve been my first clue that my expectations were about to get fucked.
Just like always.
[CLICK]
Let’s play a game.
A game of simple statements to see how long it takes you to realize how expectations fucked me again.
There were five people in the private box.
Two were women.
Two were men.
One wasn’t human.
One I was delighted to see.
One is only living because I saved his life.
One I knocked out pretty recently.
One made Prince Henry go, ‘sign me up!’
One made me snarl in revulsion.
I’m related to none of them.
I went to school with four of them.
One calls me ‘King Henry.’
Two call me ‘Foul Mouth.’
One I’m pretty sure doesn’t know I exist.
One had no comment on anything at all, I’ve never heard one talk, I’m not even sure if they leave the tongue in or rip it out as useless.
Can you guess?
Wasn’t no Horatio Vega. Wasn’t no JoJo Price or Josephine Vega, whichever she’s going by now. Wasn’t no Sharp in the corner with his expression like he wants to eat me. Wasn’t no Tsar with glitter around his pant’s fly. No Go-Joe in the corner snorting coking and popping pills. No Were Nation ambassadors at all.
One was a white woman. She had short-cut blond hair and wore a blue and yellow dress, underneath it a pair of purple and white checkered leggings—clothes all a mess of contrast. Her ears were studded with multiple earrings, her nose with a single nose-stud, her wrists were heavy with bracelets, and her neck was buried under lines of jewels and pearls. No diamonds. The old-fashioned bling before people bought the advertizing lie: topazes and sapphires and amethysts flashing against her skin. You would never call her ‘small.’ Her genetic line had been bred to breed and birth and survive. She was solid and tall and sure. She had a smile for me; part concerned sisterly affection and part impish joy that my usual antics might soon enter into her life. She wasn’t pretty, but perhaps would become regal as she aged, long-nosed and bright-eyed.
One was an Asian woman in a red dress so small that it showed tight, skinny, muscled supermodel arms and supermodel legs. She had a face with hard cheekbones and a petite nose. Chinese-American by origin, her hair was dark and silky and fell down her shoulders like a cascade of sable waterfall. Her eyes were dark too, large and slanted and seductive. There was a single mole perfectly positioned on a cheek that I didn’t remember, but hey, corpusmancers gonna corpusmancer.
One was a black man. He was bigger than Pocket, bigger than T-Bone. Bigger than most men I’d ever met. About the only person I’d ever seen that was bigger was Eresha’s battleshell. He had on a UNLV football jersey, thousand dollar jeans, and five-hundred dollar tennis shoes. Could’ve played football if it wasn’t illegal, linebacker or DE. Surprised he wasn’t out there running the races right now, not that he’d ever been particularly fast for a corpusmancer, just unbelievably fast for his size.
One was a woman. Once was a woman. Now she was a thing. Now she was eerily beautiful in death, with lines of necro-anima tracing their way up her neck, down into her fingers, and far more that I couldn’t see. The thing was in a servant’s outfit, with pants and a jacket, not a dress of any sort. The black cloth brought out the lines of anima in her skin, made that skin appear very white, almost ashen. Her hair too was dark. Only her eyes had color, a pair of bright jade that blinked and moved and were too alive for something so completely dead. Once alive . . . now a Construct.
The final was a man. Same age as me. Birthday a few months before my own, in fact. Always used to annoy the shit out of me when he claimed that edge of superiority only teenagers ever think to claim. He also wore a black suit, but there was no touch of a servant to it. It fit well enough to make one question if there was any air between fabric and skin. Taller than me, taller than anyone in the room. Hard-faced, long-nosed, handsome if he showed a smile, but he almost never did around me. Blond hair cut perfectly to bring it under control. Tombstone eyes of gray that measured everything in their sight.
Lineage, profession, bank account. In that order.
He had a cane of dark wood in his left hand, an accessory he’d started carrying after the events at the end of Pent which almost cost him his life. Slush had healed his ruined knee, but the cane remained. He’d clubbed me with the thing once. I asked for it. Slush had healed the knee, but it hadn’t completely healed the slash of scar over one of his eyes. It went partl
y through one eyebrow, an inch away from taking his eye.
Why did I push him out of the way again?
Oh yeah, I’m a glutton for punishment.
No . . . no Horatio Vega in sight.
Just Victoria von Welf, Jason Jackson, Veronica Lee, Heinrich von Welf, and his Construct.
“King Henry!” Vicky shouted as she threw herself across the length of private box and into my arms.
I’m a pretty stout guy, but we’ve covered the whole bred to breed thing. Sure, geo-anima makes me solid, but I ain’t a corpusmancer. I didn’t have a chance at holding that weight up. So the pair of us crashed to the floor, me on the bottom. It was carpeted at least. What is this stuff? Feels like the fabric is trying to have sex with my neck.
Barely able to breathe from down there, I still smiled up at her. “Ain’t you too old for this? People will talk, Vick. Or I might break a hip.”
She planted a kiss on my forehead, giggling. “I know the people who talk,” she whispered into one of my ears, “they’re assholes!”
“Trying to steal my job too!”
Still not getting off me, she waved at Pocket. “Still failing at keeping him out of trouble, I see!”
Pocket reached down and scooped her back up to her feet, giving her a bear hug just like he did everyone. “What about you, Vicky? Out of trouble?”
“Never! I’m a Welf who became an artist and then dared to become a popular enough one that the great Moira von Welf couldn’t even complain about it. I live on the knife’s edge! Do you see the nose-stud? Just got it a few months ago and it almost killed her when she found out!”
Yeah, funny how she grew up, ain’t it? Don’t think anyone quite saw it coming, even when Vicky got a bit more confident with herself in our later years at the Asylum. She started doing portraits for couples my last year at the school. Now, there ain’t an Old Mancy family that doesn’t want an original VVW spectro-portrait hanging in their mansion somewhere where they can show it off. She’s a leather jacket, some torn-up jeans, and half a shaved head away from being a rock star.
The Foul Mouth and the Mancy Martial Artist (The King Henry Tapes Book 5) Page 18