“Fuck you,” I managed to grunt out through the stars.
“You asked me why,” she whispered, tongue almost in my ear. “This is why. Your strength. Your refusal to compromise. You are the Earth as I am the Body. You’re the only lover who’s ever been my equal, that’s why I keep coming back to you, why I’ll always come back to you.”
I started to rise, but she slammed a fist into my kidney that sent me right back down to the carpet. I made some kind of groaning noise.
Newsflash: kidney punches hurt.
“I’m going to punish you now, but it’s for the best. You see me as the weird ugly girl still, even after everything that happened. In your mind, I’m not a threat to you. If I was a threat in your mind, then you would have attacked me at once or would have bargained with me over keeping your silence. But no . . . you tried to tell me I’m crazy—like always—even though I’m not crazy, King Henry.”
Keep monologuing and I’ll get up enough of a pool again to take you out. Got your wish, Soto Crazy, not holding back. I’ll make your ass go boom.
“So, you see, for this all to keep working . . . you have to see me as a threat!” she announced. “A big threat! Such a threat that you’ll know to leave me alone. Such a threat that you’ll know it’s better to just let me spy without making me hurt anyone, yes?”
She stood up.
I rose a bit again.
She took a step backwards, rushed forwards, and punted my face.
Lights out.
Wake up with my underwear on my head.
Tied to the bed.
Smelled booze too.
Like she’d doused me with it.
Dry mouth and my head foggy.
I’d been injected with a sedative in addition to the ass kicking then.
I’m getting out of this and then I’ll . . .
. . . do something.
Would’ve normally called Ceinwyn.
Should do it anyway. Hey Ceinwyn, I still hate you . . . and FYI: Isabel broke out of prison. Have fun fixing that shit, I’m getting drunk again.
Or I could just tell Welf, let him handle it. Seemed to be his problem anyway. I was just stumbling into it like always.
He hated Isabel more than I did, so he’d have motive if I got him to the point where he believed the situation. Only I’d have to get him away from her to talk to him and I had a bad feeling that would be impossible. Meant I couldn’t tell him, I’d have to just accuse her out loud. Veronica Lee is really Isabel Soto and you’ve been fucking her for the past couple months, so handle that shit on your own, okay? ‘K thanks, bye now.
He’d laugh at me.
Even if he didn’t laugh, he’d never believe it coming from me.
He would be frozen when he needed to react, head filled with confusion just like mine had been.
Nah, I had to handle this.
I was the one who knew.
I was the one who hesitated.
On me.
But how do I handle it?
I’m not good at shit like this. Never have been. First reaction always fucks me over. Been learning to get around that reaction faster, but apparently I’m still not quite there, being I ended up knocked out again.
Besides, if I made the straight charge play and tried to attack her, then Welf would defend her most likely. Jason would be busy with his fight tomorrow . . .
Tomorrow?
I pushed the underwear with my shoulder, getting it up high enough on my head to get a glimpse out the window.
Sunlight.
Correction: Jason has a fight TODAY.
Jason was out of the picture. Good. I couldn’t fight Welf, Isabel, and Jason all at once. No chance. Welf and Isabel? She just kicked your ass, he has a Construct. You’ll have to blow it up to start and then . . .
FUCK!
Too beat up to be thinking this hard.
Also . . . fucking underwear over my head, no one should have to plan revenge while they’re smelling their own ball sweat. Need to get out of here. Get a clear head. Regroup.
I struggled with the ties. She’d used those plastic cuffs that riot police dole out to protesters like they’re candy. Plastic cuffs, pepper-spray, and a whole bunch of shut the fuck up and know your place, citizen.
Plastic.
Plastic is iffy.
It’s from the earth, yeah, but it’s also dead liquidized tree. Floromancers hate plastic for just this reason. The bed posts were wood. Wall had some metal in it. Bed did too. Bed springs. Grab onto them with geo-anima, force them up to the plastic cuffs and cut them. Would need like a ten-minute-pool for that.
Or I could scream for help.
Even if T-Bone was in bed, even if he had ignored my imaginary sock on the door . . . did I really want him to find me like this?
You need his help with Isabel, so you should look halfway sane when you ask for it. At least put the underwear where it’s supposed to go and not on your head first.
I sat there with nowhere else to go, pooling anima, with a headache.
I didn’t want to think. It was all bad thinking.
But . . . I couldn’t help myself.
Isabel broke out of the Pit. Isabel is spying on the Welfs. Isabel doesn’t want me to tell the Welfs. Veronica Lee is imprisoned somewhere, but really . . . kind of felt like my odds of getting her back were pretty small. Isabel is pretty scary in a fight. Isabel is still crazy as shit with variable moments of sanity.
She faked being Veronica for two months, made Welf fall for her. So it wasn’t all-whack-job all the time.
We gonna do this then we’re gonna do this right.
What questions you got, you fucktard?
Okay.
One: who broke Isabel out of the Pit?
Two: why is she spying on the Welfs?
Three: how do I stop her without someone else getting hurt?
One: Weres are probably out. Both Vega and the Tsar are the two you’d think capable of it and it’s pretty obvious that they’ve been busy with the Ouroboros. You want to discard the Vamps just because it’s more likely they’d send in their own spy, but it’s possible the Welfs have measures to thwart vampires, since they’ve been doing this for a long time. Also . . . Vicky might be able to spot a vampire, never have asked her.
So it could still be the Vamps. Or an agent of the Vamps like Root. The Divines could easily snag a corpusmancer and break Isabel out of the Pit.
Could be an Old Mancy family like the Welfs too. Or the Learning Council . . . no, maybe not the Learning Council since they would’ve just sent Veronica Lee herself as a spy, or another equally pretty face. Moira Welf does something for the Learning Council, though no one has ever told me fucking what. Maybe it’s an enemy trying to get her kicked out.
Paine . . . fuck no, please no, please no, even you ain’t that much of a Bitch-Queen.
Two: What’s the motive? About Welf’s parents so it’s about Moira’s shit or about Project Cassandra. Vamps make the most sense there. Paine . . . does he even know about Cassandra? Probably not and even if he did care about it, why would he give a shit? He’s got his own cure in the genocide he wants to unleash, right? He’s just trying to figure out how. I think.
But if Paine spied on someone it would be on Ceinwyn, right? Not the Welfs. He doesn’t give a shit about the Welfs that I’ve seen. Other than general hate for the Asylum and the system that turned on him.
Maybe I have to reconsider Vega or the Tsar. Vega would want Cassandra’s answers for the same reason the Vamps would: so he could use it as a weapon. The Tsar would sell it to the highest bidder and it would be worth billions. We’re at their event too. Maybe the Tsar knew and that’s part of why he invited me? To fuck over Vega’s plan?
So what do we know?
Whole lot of nothing. Just have assumptions that make an ass out of the whole world cuz we all got one, right?
I went back over everything in my head, wishing my anima would pool faster. Why couldn’t I be angry? I pooled faster wh
en angry. The amount of pissed off I’d worked myself up to was just too cold for that.
So . . . more time to think, lucky me.
Learning Council seems to be the only body that wouldn’t do it itself. Vega and the Were Nations seem to lack the means of accomplishing a Pit breakout. Paine has a motive problem. Vamps . . .
Could be the Vamps.
Another Divine.
Root.
Unless it’s all about something I don’t know . . . which is just about everything, which is why Ceinwyn’s such a bitch for keeping me in the dark!
I sat there in silence for a couple more minutes, frustrated.
Finally, I released my pool of geo-anima into the bed.
I might have been a little more vigorous with thrusting the bed springs out than I needed to be.
Look at that, gonna end up on a couch tonight, free suite or no free suite.
[CLICK]
Underwear went into the trash being as I didn’t have time to burn them, quick shower to get the alcohol she dumped on me off, and none of my other clothes from the day before were in the bedroom with me, so I got on a new pair of everything. No shoes either. The door was shut and locked on the inside. What did she do, go out the window?
Opened the door.
Went down the hall.
Someone had cleaned up.
Not Isabel. No way. Not given how all the girls in our class complained about how much she messed up their bathroom. Hope, Quinn, and Jessica might hog the mirrors, but at least they clean up after themselves once they’re finished, I recalled Miranda saying once upon a time.
Her father is a widower and a rancher who doesn’t have a clue when it comes to raising a girl, Val responded to it, we just have to show her the way to do things and not snap her head off when we do.
What are you saying?
You snap, Miranda.
I do not!
I’d have smiled at the memory, but I didn’t feel it. Couldn’t feel it. All this week my emotions had overwhelmed me. Others would say I was depressed or some other psychoanalyzed term. Wasn’t that. Was the opposite. Too many feels, man. First about Val, then as soon as I got a handle on them, now about Isabel. Some of these feels were good feels, even if they hurt. The ones now were neither of those things.
I found my clothes and artifacts on the counter in the kitchen, placed in a neat little pile. I slipped my Magic Little Balls out, my Cold Cuffs, and HSK’s out of one geomancer’s coat and into the same places in the fresh one I now wore. SDR was still on my ring finger. Fat lot of good that did me if I can’t even touch her with the thing. Maybe I need to make some type of mini-stungun.
I shook my head at myself, pulling my GOB out of one pair of jeans and putting it in the ones I now wore. Stop being such a fucktard, Price. Crazy is here, get your head in the game before it gets bitten off.
Something tickled my nose.
I sniffed it in.
Air freshener. It was a few hours old but still barely hung in the air.
Three: I tell T-Bone about it. We watch Isabel. She looks like she’s about to hurt someone and we do something about it, no half measures. Get an opening? We take it. No pity party. Poor crazy girl. Fuck her. Done with it. So crazy she made me feel bad for her, even after all the shit she done to me and to everyone else.
Fuck her.
She wants me to explode?
I’ll fucking explode.
I started pooling anima.
Felt good. Felt safe. Felt like an addict with a full bottle just waiting to open it. Who needs alcoholism when you have anima?
Went to T-Bone’s door.
Opened it.
“Fuck me!” I yelled, hands going up over my eyes.
A screech and some noise as covers were thrown over naked bodies.
“Don’t you knock?!?!” T-Bone yelled at me. “Why are you just standing there?!?!”
“Because that damn thing is so big, I figure it can’t see you if you don’t move. How it works in the movies, right?” I joked. I couldn’t help myself.
Holy shit.
You make some big black wang jokes, but you never expect it to have its own zip code.
“Also,” I continued, “I just saw a naked Vicky Welf in bed with a black guy—even if he’s my friend—and after the last twenty-four hours I’ve had . . . well, I just don’t have anything left in the emotional tank to deal with this shit. Also, I’m trying not to throw up.”
“Thought you didn’t see color?” T-Bone snapped at me.
“That was the RV that didn’t see color, and that thing between your legs is bigger than the RV, so—”
“It is not!” T-Bone grumbled back.
There was a small rumble at my feet as anima was released nearby. It wasn’t a lightning bolt into my chest, so that was a plus.
“We’re covered up now,” Vicky yelled over us, sounding far too rational for the situation. “You can put your hands down and stop being an idiot.”
I did so, slowly opening my eyes to squint at them. They were still very naked. Just covered by a comforter where all their important bits were at. Vicky had added some spectro-anima into the air, hazing everything in an amount of bloom only equal to a cheaply made fantasy movie.
T-Bone’s face was somewhere between guilty and angry that I’d walked in on him. Can’t say I blamed him on the anger. If that thing got blue balls he might die from the pain. Vicky, on the other hand, only smiled at me through the spectro-bloom like it was a normal day with nothing amiss.
“Feeling better, King Henry?” she asked me sweetly. “Have a hangover?”
“Shouldn’t we talk about the fact that—”
“We shouldn’t.”
“But you just met him and—”
“We all have needs and desires, King Henry, even me.”
“Okay,” I muttered, trying to accept the fact that Vicky Welf had sex. Not specifically with T-Bone, but at all.
“He’s your friend, don’t you think—” she tried.
“It’s just,” I interrupted her now, “I don’t think you’re supposed to have something that big inside your vagina unless you’re delivering a child.”
Vicky rolled her eyes at me. “It’s just sex, King Henry.”
“Does it grow when it’s angry or does it always look like an elephant’s trunk?” I asked.
T-Bone gave a deep troubled sigh. “This is the reason I told you to keep it silent about me and Lisa Daniels. Doesn’t matter what year it is, doesn’t matter if I’m a successful businessman, a black man and a white woman—”
“Lisa Daniels?”
“ . . . what? Oh crap!”
I pumped my arms in the air like my team had just scored a touchdown. “You dog, T-Bone! You fucked two ginger Daniels cousins!”
Vicky cleared her throat.
I waved in her direction. “And Vicky Welf . . . which apparently is a thing . . . cuz she has sex . . . who knew?”
Silence.
“Really, you two need to tell me how this happened in one night. I usually need either lots of alcohol or people trying to kill me and the chick in question to pull this move off,” I eventually stated.
Silence as they glanced at each other for an explanation.
I realize that if I was a considerate man I probably should have left the room and let them get dressed. Let T-Bone put a leash on his cock and put it back in its cage. Ya know . . . considerate things.
But I couldn’t help myself. Just the proverbial cherry on top of all the shit thrown into my face. Sitting there asking for it and nothing, followed by more nothing, and then . . . BLAM!
Fate giggled at my back, loving the trick she’d played on me these last few quiet days.
You did ask for a distraction, King Henry.
I gave you so many, don’t you see?
Aren’t they wonderful?
Will you be able to sort them out?
Or will they drive you mad?
As mad as Isabel Soto!
As
mad as your mother!
One crazy corpusmancer after another!
The better to distract you with!
Vicky and T-Bone’s quick look morphed slowly into adoring smiles.
“Oh fuck me,” I growled, “you said it was just sex! ”
“Now was just sex, all night we shared our feelings and emotions and dreams for the future while we waited for you to wake up,” T-Bone grumbled. “Then it took so long we fell asleep on the couch and woke up holding each other and well . . . we ran to the bed. You’re an asshole, so of course that’s when you finally woke up.”
Vicky put a hand on his shoulder. “There will be more sex later,” she whispered.
I tried to rip my ears off. “Can’t unhear! Stuck in brain forever!”
Vicky’s chin rose, her posture changed, and suddenly she wasn’t a young woman caught in bed with a man, but very much the Welf. “After Veronica was missing for the second hour, Tyson took me aside and told me about your phone call. The two of us returned to the hotel room to stop the pair of you . . . which is . . . I’m so ashamed of you, King Henry!”
“Can’t be more ashamed than I am of myself.”
I fucked Isabel Soto last night just to prove it was Isabel Soto.
The fuck, man?
“And Veronica! I can’t believe she would do that to Brother—”
“Oh . . . I didn’t fuck Veronica,” I corrected her.
Her chin rose higher. “We aren’t fools, King Henry. We saw the . . . the . . . aftermath!”
“I know. You ain’t a fool. You know if King Henry Price does something, he’ll admit he did it and so what?” Usually . . . before Paine and the Divine Council. Now I lie really badly, only not this time . . . not exactly. “I did not have sex with Veronica Lee last night, Vick.”
Vicky blinked at me. “Then who tied you to the bed?”
“Well . . . it’s embarrassing and I’d rather not admit to that.” I mean, I could have told her. Why wasn’t I? Was I just that used to lying now? That used to stabbing myself in the thigh and calling it a necessity? She’ll want to tell Welf, right? Want to talk it all out? Give Isabel a chance to prove she’s not Isabel but Veronica, just in case? Or maybe not. That’s the problem with the lying thing: can’t predict where people will go when nothing is out in the open.
The Foul Mouth and the Mancy Martial Artist (The King Henry Tapes Book 5) Page 26