“They tasered me in the balls, El Rey.”
“Someone’s a naughty boy and going to Hell then, ain’t they?” I tried to cheer him up.
Didn’t feel it much myself, but that’s no reason for him to threaten me like he did. “One of my dogs is going to piss on your leg soon. Hope you know that. When you least expect it too. Just be this warm drizzle into your shoe. Then you’ll smell it. Then you shall know you have experienced the vengeance of the Lord for making such a blasphemous joke.”
They had their own guards, a four-set. Like the guy following me around they were Mexicans in suits with shoulder holsters. Vega had at least restrained from calling out the cavalry with machineguns and anti-tanks rifles and shit. My own was a solid guard, I figured. Not the Hector Vega fuck-up variety. Not Sharp neither. If I told him what to do without causing problems then he’d do it. “I need the white guy with me, but can you at least take the other one and put him with Welf? Maybe send the doctor back in for him?”
“Think you can just pass me off due to me having a broken nose, El Rey? Could make it two of my dogs pissing on you if you want. One for each shoe.”
I knelt down next to him, giving his knee a pat. “Isabel broke out of the Pit. She’s been pretending to be Veronica Lee for two months. That’s what I’ve been fucking dealing with.”
Pocket was shocked. “How?”
“Same guy that arranged the hit on Jackson. It’s all part of the same play. I’m telling Vega about it. Maybe call him an asshole a little. Not cuz it will help, but just cuz I like to do it. You want to come or not?”
Pocket looked to his boyfriend that he couldn’t admit was his boyfriend for . . . reasons. “I uh . . .”
“Go with him,” Jesus decided for the both of them. “Keep him out of too much trouble. That’s what we were supposed to be doing with all this, right? Man . . . we are a bunch of pendejos.”
[CLICK]
“How’s your week going, Pocket? Having a swell time?” I asked him as we made our way through the backstage area towards the infield.
It was deserted more or less. All the competitors had taken off along with the crowds. Wasn’t a league and no unions as yet, so they had no reason to stick around and grieve for Jason. Most of them didn’t even know him outside of the five minutes they’d seen him fight. Probably a lot of drinking going on, happy about how it wasn’t them.
Part of me was stuck in that cage with him. What could I have done if it had been me? Could I take the monster that Conan Sapa had become? If I’d even been ringside could I have yelled some sort of insight out that would’ve given Jason enough of an edge to survive? All them questions boiled around in my brain.
Could I beat Sapa? Sure, I could. Nothing against Jason. Fuck, I’m pretty sure that Jason is the tougher of us two. I never could’ve survived a beating for that long. The doctor sent to the second luxury box had clinically listed a preliminary report on Jason’s many wounds and fractures, including the massive crack in his skull that had finally killed him.
I killed a guy by cracking his skull. Sure, he was a werecoyote at the time, but . . . I did the same thing.
Hard thing to do with your bare hand, but Sapa did it. Did what he’d set out to do.
I could take Sapa in a fight. Maybe not last five minutes with him like Jason did, but I could take Sapa. Would need to be over in a flash. Only way to do it. Just have to get my hands on him.
A security chief had explained that fact to Welf after the doctor left. “The assailant knocked four guards unconscious and fled the arena, we have no clue as to his whereabouts. We’re reviewing the security tapes now, contacting local law enforcement as much as the situation allows us to.”
Hit and run, just like Isabel. Now they’re both out there somewhere in this city.
Sapa would be easier to find than Isabel. Isabel could be anyone. Isabel could be Pocket for all I knew. I turned to him suspiciously. Paranoia taking over, Price, relax a little. “You ain’t talking much,” I said instead.
“It’s a lot to take in, dude.” Pocket shook his head. “Do I focus on the fact Jason is dead? Or do I focus on Isabel being loose? Or on you not clueing me? Or, you know, my black eye.”
“Yeah, guess I’m the dumbass now.”
He grinned over that admission. “You’re always the dumbass, sometimes we just try to rise to your level.”
“Didn’t want you guys to get hurt. Thought I could keep it contained. Thought I could handle it alone. Only it wasn’t a small problem like I thought. Was a big problem. I don’t know if telling you and Jesus would’ve mattered for Jason, but yeah . . . both of us should man up and stop with all the bullshit. Been coming to that realization since Val broke up with me . . . that secrets are shit and maybe no matter how big they are, we got to start talking about them if we ever plan on fixing this fucked up situation we find ourselves in.”
“Does this mean you’ll finally tell me about how you snuck the strippers into the Asylum?”
“Really? All the shit to ask about and that’s what you want to know first?”
“I don’t have a bet with Jesus about all the crazy fairy stuff you don’t talk about, but we have a hundred on the strippers, so . . . I’d like to buy some new shoes.”
I glared at him some, realizing that somewhere in the conversation he’d taken it upon himself to make his job cheering me up. Good friend, never deserved him and he never deserved having to put up with my shit.
He pointed at a metal double-door. “Through there, if they actually let us through and don’t beat on us this time.”
I turned to the guard still following us. “You gonna beat on us, Coyote Ugly?”
“Never heard that one before,” Ugly grumbled sarcastically, “and no, King Vega told me to let you do whatever you want to do . . . within reason. He did order me to remind you of your own predicament however, whatever that may be.”
Why is it that Weres are never the Big Bad but they always just somehow end up in your way when you’re trying to deal with the Big Bad? Obadiah Paine throws down the gauntlet, kills one of my classmates, and Vega thinks I gave a shit about whatever bullshit he’s got going with the other Nation heads?
Think I’ll give them a piece of my mind.
Clear this shit right on up.
“I know that look, dude,” Pocket warned, “that’s not a good look.”
“You’re pooled up, right? Not that I see any ferns in the vicinity, but . . .”
“Fuck you, dude, so much fuck you.”
I had a good fifteen minutes left on my pool from earlier in the day. Part of what was making me grouchy, no doubt. Sure, I’d gotten used to holding anima outside of my body and I’d come to accept the pain as part of the skill, but that didn’t mean it was without its complications. Cuz what I’ve always needed in my life was more excuses to be an asshole.
We finally went through the double-door, out on the arena field.
Wow, now that’s a different view.
Lot bigger down here alright. Brighter too. Stands sloping back for the cheap ten-thousand, row after row of gleaming private boxes above them—except for the Welf box, now just a hole of jagged glass. They still hadn’t moved any of the Day of Brawn sets out. Car lift, wrestling ring, boxing ring, and of course, the octagon for MMA fights. Guess they’ll have to change the mat, no way to get all that blood out of it. Blood from cuts is one thing . . . blood from death a whole ‘nother equation. Fights are about life, about passion, about fighting death . . . can’t have that reminder on display.
“Think they’ll cancel the other days?” Pocket asked.
“Nope.”
“Think people won’t show up to them? Might be too shocking for most.”
“Some free booze, some free gambling money and they’ll forget all about it.”
“King Henry Price, Champion of the Human Race.”
The corporate board of the Ouroboros was having its executive meeting right next to the cage. Guess they just wanted to
get into the arguments, not have to walk on over to the actual boardroom in the Casino first, wherever it was. Shows you how much they trust each other that they can’t even all be in a luxury box together. Got to have this meeting in a place with plenty of escape routes.
Groups of lackeys and guards surrounded them in small clusters of three or four, five at the most. Whatever entourage the specific board member had brought. Weres, all Weres. Mancer groups might have some stake in this all, but now that blood had been spilled we saw who stood at the heart of the enterprise. Who has the most to lose and the most to gain.
Something like forty or fifty people. Figure on ten or so board members. All sorts, all weaponed up. Maybe I should do my usual and start a fight. Wipe out a big source of the world’s troubles right here and now. Except JoJo was there, in the largest of the groups. Coyotes. Lot more women in that group, lot more finery, not just muscle. She had on a white dress tonight, playing up Josephine Vega again, the queen in charge of the party while her king was busy governing. Sharp was still at her shoulder like a prison warden.
Never did get an answer about that.
Shit . . . they didn’t threaten my sister too, did they?
Can’t be that stupid, would they?
Ain’t never been a fan of her husband, but Horatio Vega would torture the shit out of anyone that tried to harm JoJo. Only other Poly-Shifter he’s found . . . and he probably even loves her, the fool.
No one in that mass of guards and hired violence made to stop me from slipping through to the meeting.
My reputation preceded me.
Not sure if that was an improvement on being a nobody or not.
Pocket they stopped.
He shrugged at me, helpless before all the machineguns. “No reason to argue it out. I’ll just talk to your sister for a bit, find out what she knows. If you need help just start screaming for the ferns, okay?”
“Yeah,” I laughed despite the rage boiling inside of me, “cuz that’s what I want my last words to be.”
He gave me a final grin before the sea of guards engulfed me. “Nah,” Pocket said, “I already know your last word, and it’s ‘oops.’”
Can’t argue with that one.
[CLICK]
They all stood, positioned in a crude semi-circle that spoke volumes about who was trusted and who wasn’t.
No signs of weakness like sitting here.
All about strength, equality, and holding on to what was yours.
There was one woman, but even she had a dick, it just belonged to her husband and she kept it in a box. She was in her early forties maybe, hard to tell given how weathered her face was, guessing that she’s a smoker and likes the outdoors. Had on jeans and a leather jacket, blond hair cut short. A thick, solid outdoors woman who knew how to chop down a tree, build a log cabin, and shit in the woods with all the other bears.
I searched my memory for who she could be, leaning on information JoJo had let slip over the last year and what little Annie B had told me while I was with her in LA. Grizzly Nation, Ophelia Milton, I realized, Alaskan branch of the Nation, runs most of the oil roughnecks up there and more importantly: makes a chunk of change on the equipment they steal from the oil companies.
Ophelia clustered with a group of three other people. Other Nation heads. They didn’t seem to realize they were clustering closer together than they were with the others in the semi-circle, but they were. So the fault forms, ready to rip down everything that’s been built upon it. Part of me gets a big ol’ earthquake stiffy over that one.
Studying those three, I picked out Go-Joe first, my unhelpful pal from San Francisco who kept popping up like a bad pebble. He had on a Niners jersey just like before, plenty of bling that was half-fake, half-real, and all trashy as shit. He looked zoned out, which wasn’t too surprising . . . being as he broke the cardinal rule of drug dealing and sampled his own wares. Good shit too, designer drugs of the modern age too expensive for the casual addict, stuff only available for all the rich boys and rich girls with not a want in the world but an out from all their boredom and privilege.
Total Mega Douchebag, but Go-Joe ain’t dangerous. Doubt he’s part of the group that’s thinking about offing me.
Next to Go-Joe was another outdoorsman. Not in the hardworking variety, but in the kill-and-eat-it variety. Looked like he couldn’t decide if he wanted to audition for Doomsday Preppers or Duck Dynasty, and had accepted his inconclusiveness by going for half of each, which left him with jeans, a camo jacket, and a really thick beard. Was also carrying a sidearm on his hip, not that it was much threat to me when I had fifteen minutes of anima to work with. Wolf Nation, Pack Alpha Grant Little. More powerful than he looks, given how long the Wolf Nation has been around sacrificing animal anima to their Totem.
Still . . . not exactly the hunky werewolf you ladies were expecting, is he?
Think he’ll let you pick fleas out of his beard if you ask nicely?
The last gentleman huddled with them wasn’t exactly happy about his choice of allies, but it was better than being with the others. Guy was in a suit, had a power tie, respectable businessman and all that. Of course, that means he was likely to be the biggest con artist and thief of them all, but . . . at least he wasn’t in camo! Chairman Hudson Appleton of the Stallion Nation. Newer Nation, but made up of old East Coast families that had figured it better to be Weres than mundanes, if they couldn’t breed or buy their way into established mancer families.
Better than being for sale on the Market of Suck.
Grizzlies, Wolves, Otters, and Stallions. That’s an interesting mix of power, money, and manpower to do the dirty work. Behind the Coyotes they’re the best the United States has to offer in the way of stable Were Nations. The Grizzlies have numbers, the Wolves have the prestige of a Totem dating back hundreds of years, the Otters have money, and the Stallions have influence with mundanes. Everything you’d need to get this place built . . . except for outside investments.
Like the other four bastards in our semi-circle.
Chuma Matongo was Warleader of the Hyena Nation and had his eyes set on becoming the African version of Horatio Vega. He was the twelfth Warleader in five years, but the first to reach his one-year-anniversary without being replaced . . . violently. The Hyena Nation works in western and southern Africa, so no matter how quiet and reserved Matongo seemed, you knew there was a ruthless motherfucker underneath it all. You couldn’t keep any type of order among that many tribes and ethnic conflicts, to say nothing of dealing with dictators and corrupt governments, without having a powerful personality.
Now there’s a bastard who would love to kill me on the off chance it earned a favor from King Vega, no matter how small the favor.
In contrast to the Hyenas, the Jaguar Nation can date its history back over three-thousand years. Of course, that history is kind of bullshit and guess-work and built on hopes and dreams and fairy tales, but . . . so are dragons, right? So who am I to doubt it all? Maya, Olmec, all the great Mesoamerican cultures mention the jaguar, but the Jaguar Nation’s claim to fame is with the Aztecs, which backed up its entire army with jaguar warriors—perhaps more literal than historians presume the term to be. Then the Spanish came. With Vamps in their numbers. And smallpox.
Smallpox always helps.
Hard to fight when your colon is on the wrong side of your asshole.
The current tlacochcalcatl—no, I will not say it fucking again, I think my tongue just tried to kill itself—is a Peruvian named Javier Castillo. Castillo likes to talk a lot about how he’s not tainted by Europe like Vega is. The Jaguars as a whole got a pretty traditionalist, xenophobic view of the world, they even do crazy shit like play ancient sports and do the occasional sacrifice of captured prisoners. Besides the usual Were vices, Castillo’s favorite move is to find potential mancers in his territory before the Recruiters do and then hold them for ransom, all on the hope the kid turns out to be an Ultra.
So . . . he’s an asshole and I really hope I
get to kick him in the balls one day.
Third was Jaywant Agrawal of the Tiger Nation. Long, lean, clean shaven, had him a business suit. Another one of those groups that formed to separate themselves from all the other wealthy, powerful fuckers, make even another bar to get over to reach the top of the mountain. Not a whole lot of vampires in India. Not saying there’s none—they do love to ruin a party—but India is hot as hell. Like . . . waterfall dripping off your balls hot. Vamps won’t put up with that shit any more than they’ll put up with summertime in Vegas or Fresno.
Tigers are an odd mix. Exclusive, business oriented, but also, I figure a weretiger has to be about the last kind of shapeshifter you ever want to run into. Unless they make a werespider the size of a human one day, then fuck that shit. I mean . . . nuke it from orbit, right? But a weretiger? You’re damn right I had some extra respect for Agrawal that I didn’t for Horse Boy or Go-Joe the Wonder Otter.
Last guy . . .
No clue who he was.
Which is the very reason I’ve taken so long to regale you with my Were knowledge these last few minutes. I knew this particular enemy pretty well. Annie B, JoJo, the Tsar, Vega himself. Been listening to them. All those Coyotes coming to my shop for their custom non-mancer-useable SDRs? Gloating and making promises about fucking up other Nations? My ears have been open to it all. Soaking up that info like a good little sponge. Weres like to talk. Not like mancers. Not like the Vamps. Nah, they like to fluff their own balls and pound their chests.
Shit, Weres are about the only supernatural faction I do have a clear picture of.
I thought.
Cuz not one of them had mentioned a tiny, old Chinese monk-looking fucker.
Panda Nation? Fear our orange chicken with bacon, American. We give you heart attack, five dolla’. Shrimp and steak dolla’ extra, cuz fuck you, you need to feel more guilty about eating it.
The Foul Mouth and the Mancy Martial Artist (The King Henry Tapes Book 5) Page 34