“Yes, that’s the reason, Junior. Not that you’ve been thrashing her man around the campus for four years running. It’s only anima personalization, nothing to worry about. Horrible lovers at any rate; for everyone involved, not just geomancers. Only discipline that can match a mentimancer for smarts though, so it’s good to have one around to throw ideas off of. Or in your case: to remind you when you’re about to do something colossally stupid.”
I put down my glass before I crushed it in my hand. “For a hermit, you sure do know a lot about my life.”
Plutarch nodded at me like I was a good boy who had finally noticed low hanging fruit. “Sciomancers make wonderful friends, but not good lovers. Getting us to move challenges them at first but after a time it’s too much of a frustration. Corpusmancers, faunamancers? Might as well admit you’re settling. Electromancers aren’t bad, but really when can you ever get one away from another electromancer?”
“You’ve crossed off almost every discipline.”
“Aeromancers . . . no, not at all. Our most natural enemy.”
I had a feeling he was still talking about my life and specifically about Catherine Hayes. “Seem okay to me.”
“The Dale girl is about as strange for an aeromancer as you are for a geomancer, Junior.”
“You did notice,” I deadpanned.
“Which have I left unmolested? I grow forgetful in my dotage.”
“Hydromancers, spectromancers, and necromancers.”
“And geomancers too,” Plutarch reminded me of my own discipline.
“Not enough girl geomancers.”
“Good company though. Take all matters as seriously as we men geomancers do. Slow to anger, slow to passion. That can be good in a wife.”
“Who said anything about a wife?” I snorted.
“Don’t you love your Valentine Ward? Was I mistaken on why you’ve been so moody in these first two days of the school year? Or are you always such a moody little shit, Junior?”
I ignored the question and attacked his last point. “That what your wife was? Some stoney Artificer girl?”
“Hydromancers . . . earth and water, well, one would think you’d just end up with mud, but mud does stick together, doesn’t it? Spectromancers, like the girl you spent the day rescuing, always seem to cheer us up and a happy life is a good life even if geomancers aren’t a happy people.”
And he knows about Vicky . . . what the fuck? “Now I get it. Your wife was a disgusting ass necromancer, wasn’t she?”
Again he sucked at the gap in his teeth. “No wife, only a one true love for poor old Plutarch. White woman marrying a black man . . . wasn’t done in those days, even for elementalists. We were young and stupid and in love though. Had a great time of it before war took her away from me.”
“Fucking a necromancer, don’t make me gag. Suppose it’s a free threesome if you’re into banging corpses though.”
“We get along so well, geomancers and necromancers. Natural friends, natural allies. The most scientific of the disciplines with their Constructs and our artifacts and yet . . . you hate them so much, Junior. It really is quite a misplaced rage.”
I counted out on my fingers. “Root hates me and wants me expelled. Welf hates me and—”
“That was your fault.”
“What?”
“Mr. Welf did not begin your rivalry, you did.”
“He said I looked like a fucking kid.”
“You did,” Plutarch slapped me upside the head with some truth.
The glass of water on the counter broke.
“And you’re acting like one now, leaking anima all over this room like it’s your first day instead of your fifth year. Stop embarrassing me, Junior.”
“How do you know all this stuff anyway?” I complained, not sure at what. The world maybe. Sometimes I do wonder about me and Welf. Maybe if I hadn’t punched him . . . but then he always ended up being douchey and I stopped wondering. “Thought you were a hermit?”
“Come back to my house and I’ll show you.”
“Why don’t you just offer me candy?”
Plutarch laughed at the crude joke, which I guess means he’s not a complete asshole, just mostly one. “Come back to my house and I’ll show you. Start your training tonight. You can forget about your day’s misadventures; about me slighting you by not showing up yesterday.”
I laughed too, cruel and slow and hard. “Bet you had a fun day too, running around the school after me.”
“I never left the sofa for most of it.”
“Bullshit!”
“Why would I? You had to come here and sleep, yes?”
I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from calling him a fucktard.
“Besides, I’ve been watching you for years now and you never noticed me before, did you?”
“Some spectromancer artifact invisibility belt?”
“Not an artifact kind of Artificer; we’ve been over this, Junior.”
I thought about what little I knew about him. “You’ve been spying on me with fairies for four fucking years?!?”
“One of the reasons for my nickname is the way I keep the histories, Junior. Now you know.”
“If you weren’t a teacher I’d be kicking your ass right about now, Pappy.”
He finally stood up from my couch. “If you making an attempt and failing will finally earn your obedience then do try. But you’ll be disappointed, I think.”
I stared. “You’re telling me I can kick your ass?”
His good eye winked at me. “I’m ordering you to try, Junior.”
Session 152
You hit a girl, King Henry!
How could you?!?
Fuck you!
First of all: I live in a world with the Mancy, Weres, and Vamps. I don’t have time for your mundane bullshit about how women ain’t a threat. They’re just weak and physically smaller and . . . who’s the sexist here again? Yeah, I hit her. Guess what? In my world women are a threat. Sometimes more of a threat when it’s not a woman, but a blood parasite living in a female shell trying to get near enough to go suck suck on one of your veins. Or . . . a shapeshifting woman pretended to be another damn woman for Mancy knows what fucking reason.
Second of all: she raped me for years pretending to be Val.
It’s not rape cuz you have a dick!
Double fuck you!
You probably even enjoyed it at the time!
Triple fuck you!
Outside of my parents and maybe Catherine Hayes, no one has hurt me more in my life and caused more damage than Isabel Soto. She screwed up my relationship with Val for years. She used me. Used Val. Fine, we won’t quibble over definitions and you can hug your word, instead we’ll just all agree that what she did to us was a special kind of fucked up.
So yeah, I punched her.
I got the first blow in. No hero bullshit. No white knight bullshit either.
I know exactly how dangerous Isabel Soto is.
Might look exactly like Veronica Lee. Might sound exactly like Veronica Lee. Might have all of Veronica Lee’s mannerisms down. Might even walk like Veronica Lee. But guess what?
Fucks like Isabel Soto.
Exactly like Isabel Soto.
Been nagging at me all day. Way she knew us more intimately than Veronica Lee ever did. Veronica Lee was a super-hot Intra chick who dated one graduate student Ultra after another from the second she arrived at the Asylum until she left it. She didn’t even know Bi’s existed.
All day I been thinking: could it be? Is it possible? Are you just being paranoid again?
Clues just kept adding up. Way she kissed Welf. How nervous she got when Vicky started talking about my ‘aura’ and how that had screwed up Isabel before. Learned that lesson. Picked a strong Intra corpusmancer to imitate, strong enough to fool Vicky’s senses for once.
Then at the first opportunity she runs out and starts playing the stalker.
Just like always.
Just now I suspected it was her and not
the mask she hid behind.
But I couldn’t be sure.
Can’t just punch women on assumptions, even in the supernatural world. Got to have some proof.
I figured: if it wasn’t Isabel, then I got to fuck Veronica Lee, get over the hump with some humping, put my relationship with Valentine behind me with a huge bang.
If it was Isabel: well, I was too furious to be disgusted about it.
Isabel.
Of course she’s dangerous.
What she did during Pent . . .
She’s so fucked up in the head they threw her into the Pit, without much hope for rehabilitation. Asylum so quick to kill the crazy Intra mancers they missed, but not the Ultras they caught who went wrong.
It was her.
The way she’d moved, the hunger, the need. We’d fucked like we wanted to murder each other. I should’ve been throwing up. Just fucked Isabel Soto hoping it was Isabel Soto. So I would know.
Know that somehow she broke out of the Pit, took the place of Veronica Lee, and yet again played me for the fool the whole time.
So I acted.
So I didn’t hesitate.
SO I PUNCHED HER IN THE FACE.
.
.
.
Then she grabbed my arm, slid sideways, threw her long, perfectly-shaped Veronica Lee legs up, and had my ass in a triangle lock.
Not again!
I tried to hit her to loosen the lock, but I missed in the twisting of limbs.
She shrieked at me, yanking her legs tighter to get a better grip, all in an attempt to put my ass to sleep. “You know! Why do you have to know?!? It was so wonderful when you didn’t know, when you just thought I was her,” Isabel complained in a babble. “I could give you what you wanted and I could take from you what I needed and everyone was happy, weren’t they? Why is it bad? Then you turned me away . . . and then . . . Catherine convinced me to do all those things!”
“Why?” I growled at her, managing to connect a punch on her ribs.
Her legs tightened in reaction. Her whole body twisted to remind me that she might look like a skinny supermodel just like Veronica Lee, but at her core she was still the strongest corpusmancer that the Asylum had ever produced.
“I didn’t like it there, King Henry! I didn’t like being away from all the other people I grew to need, especially away from you! Even though it’s partly your fault, isn’t it? But never mind! I’m out now. I’m free! I have a family of my own who loves me for who I am. It’s all better now!”
What is it with women and trying to strangle me to death with their thighs? I mean . . . if you’re gonna die then this is definitely the way to go, but . . . god damn, that is a stanky ass pussy! What the fuck did I do to that thing?
“Why?” I repeated in a hiss, trying to fake hard-to-breathe and appear like the fight had left me.
She laughed. At me. At the situation. At the world too. Or maybe at all the voices in her head. “I couldn’t go to you. I need to move beyond you, I know that. You were never the only one, I want you to understand, but I . . . I crave contact, King Henry. I crave humanity and power and . . . you’re very much those things, so very much!”
“Why are you here?” I managed to sputter out.
Never been much of an actor or much good at playing the passive submissive, but she bought it. That’s right. You’re in control. Let’s talk, Soto Crazy. You want to talk. Lighten up on that vice you got going with your legs.
She smiled with Veronica Lee’s face, but Veronica Lee’s mannerisms had abandoned her. “I couldn’t go to you. I knew . . . you were with her. While I was alone for all that time . . . I realized why it caused the strain between us. I realized that unlike all the others, you weren’t ever actually with her, were you? But when I escaped . . . you were with her. I couldn’t go to you.”
Imprisonment had not been kind on her already scarred psyche. She’d always been a little weird. Always gave the bad vibe. Corpusmancers never do that, just like mentimancers always do. But for every hundred there’s the one exception. The exception that sets off your nerves. Or in mentimancer cases, the one that you can’t help but like despite the fact he could be reading your mind. Russell Quilt is like that: the friendly, good-natured, therapist. Isabel was in the opposite direction: the weird, strange girl that had no understanding of personal spaces.
Now . . . couldn’t even blame the vibes on the Mancy.
Way she talked . . .
How come they didn’t just kill her?
“So you came to Welf instead?” I asked against her thigh.
Wish T-Bone would walk in right about now.
Why’d I tell him not to interfere again?
Oh yeah.
I couldn’t decide if I wanted to kill her or not.
Still undecided on that one.
But was leaning towards finishing what the Asylum should’ve done a long time ago. Not even sure if ever actually curing Anima Madness would be enough to fix Isabel. Her problem seemed way beyond what Mom and others had gone through. Asylum kills the ones they should fix and leaves alive the ones they should kill, typical ass-backwards bureaucracy.
“You’re angry,” Isabel said. “I . . . I know you enjoyed it, I know you enjoyed me. Back then and even now, didn’t you? I let you feel your true power, didn’t I? Wasn’t it intoxicating, King Henry? Just like it was back then? Don’t we have a special connection? I always thought . . . I always . . . it never hurt you.”
“It hurt me when I figured out how you used me,” I growled at her, unable to keep the submissive act up in my anger.
“Stay calm or I’ll—”
A sudden burst of strength broke the leg lock and I scrambled backwards. Off the bed, back on my two feet. Looking around, I noticed discarded clothes and shoes and . . . holes in the walls and part of the bed post missing and what seemed like shattered glass coming out of the bathroom. My chest was scratched, blooded. There was a bruise on her throat. My lip was sore where she’d tried to rip it off with her teeth.
Yup . . . special kind of fucked up sex alright.
I raised my arms in front of my face in a fighting guard.
Bit odd being in a fight when you’re naked. But you get used to it. I mean, the Greeks used to do it during the Olympics, right? That’s why they had the No Bitches Shall See the Free Peepees rule, right? Also sad to say, but it was not the first time I’d experienced this particular phenomena.
Not my fault she’s on her honeymoon, was it? I mean really, what kind of asshole stops in Fresno during a honeymoon? Did ‘em both a favor breaking up that marriage while they could still get an annulment!
. . . Yes, man-whore.
No, I still don’t deserve what Isabel did to me!
Quadruple fuck you!
What you gonna do next? Say I was asking for it in that skirt, you total hypocrite?
Isabel watched me. Her smile kept up. “I’m better than she was, that’s the real reason you’re angry with me. Better than she is. You make her the best of all things, but she’s not. When it comes to the human body, I know everything. I know how to please and use and be used and drive the both of us towards euphoria and insanity. She can’t do that, can she, King Henry?”
I showed her my canines. Don’t just lay there! Come at me! All you did and it’s just talking? “Think you drove off the cliff where insanity is concerned, Soto Crazy.”
Her smile wilted, madness beyond madness in her stolen, slanted eyes. “DON’T CALL ME THAT!”
I’m not crazy! I heard a much younger version of the woman before me yell in my memories.
The ugly, odd girl that weirded us out so much we all tried to ignore her. Wasn’t bullying on my part . . . just neglect. Just my usual lack of humanity with my guarded personality. Don’t touch the poop. Nod at her and move on. She’s harmless.
Not everyone treated her like that though.
“How many others, Isabel? Me? Welf? Who else? How many of us did you trick?”
He
r smile came back. “Most of them came to me, King Henry. They asked me to take on a face or a feature or a cup size and I did it for them, let them live a fantasy. No one was hurt that way. I knew . . . I knew that I was being wrong with the others, that it was . . . but it was only a few dozen!” she tried to hedge her crime in a forgotten hurry. “With them it was usually only the once. So I could taste them. So I could know them. So I could understand the way their body worked. It wasn’t betrayal, King Henry, it’s never that ugly word.”
“What about Val?” I asked, raging, screaming, boiling on the inside. I could’ve killed her right then. Used Paine’s explosive conjuration, splattered her across the ceiling and the three or four above it. Done. Finished. Closure. Move on. But no. I was talking. I asked questions. Some part of Ceinwyn and Val and T-Bone and civilization had seeped inside of me, enough to hold the earthquake at bay. “She was one of the few people at the school who tried to include you. She was nice to you, right? How could you do that to her, Isabel? Or Raj, or Miranda, or Athir!”
She sprung off the bed like a gymnast, only about with ten inches too many on her body’s frame that should’ve made it impossible. But of course it wasn’t impossible for her. Her body did whatever she wanted it to do. Acrobatics is easy compared to changing your entire bone structure and your body mass on a whim.
I’d never actually seen her do it.
She’d always go off to some mirror and then come back looking different. At first it was once a month. Then once a week. Then . . . then she changed more than anyone expected. With most Facechangers it’s a difficult process within certain hard won limits of what could be done. Change a nose, color your hair, gain an inch or two, drop ten to twenty pounds, go from a B to a D-cup, put a couple inches on the ol’ wang.
The usual tricks.
Some perfected the body they wanted and stuck with it. Jason Jackson was one of those. Samuel Bird was a type that could bend and twist his body into odds shapes and stress positions, could even push his way through steel bars if you gave him enough time. Others did change faces.
But Isabel . . .
One of a kind.
Her body changed. Height was the same, but she gained weight, gained muscle, gained bust and more hip. The cheekbones were still sharp, but the skin covering them became fair; the eyes dark, but straighter; hair the color of midnight blazed with the sun.
The Foul Mouth and the Mancy Martial Artist (The King Henry Tapes Book 5) Page 24