A Chinese monk-looking fucker who might be on the same ‘side’ of the semi-circle as the other foreign Nations, but that didn’t mean he was with them. Or on the their level even. He had a good gap of space between him and Javier Castillo, who was the closest to him. The only person in the semi-circle with more respect and space was the guy at the center of it.
My brother-in-law.
King of the Coyotes.
Horatio Vega.
Looking good in his suit, pearly off-white skin a little tanned for once, blue eyes sparkling. He smiled his politician’s smile, despite the fact someone was just murdered on his watch, despite the fact some of his guests just got attacked. Vega wasn’t nearly the biggest man or the most dangerous-looking man among them, but his posture said he was in charge of everything and would always be in charge of everything and if you tried him . . . you’d end up selling your momma to him before he was done with you.
Then he’d kill you.
Or maybe not.
Maybe it was better to keep you alive, keep you a living example, telling your story to others about how he bested you so completely.
There were barbs and curses and accusations flying left and right, but Vega smiled through it all. He bounced on his heels and kept his hands locked together, like he was filled with energy and vigor and life. Had to be at least fifty by now, maybe older, but he moved like a five-year-old. JoJo had never given me an exact age, but if the Counter-Culture War was in the 60s and early 70s and Vega’s rise came a decade or so later . . . had to be over fifty, just couldn’t tell it by looking at him.
Slimy bastard reminds me of Ceinwyn too much for my liking.
Being related by marriage to Ceinwyn Dale . . . there’s a fucking nightmare.
More of a nightmare than being related to Horatio?
Maybe.
At least Horatio doesn’t give a shit about screwing with my sex life.
About the only thing he didn’t give a shit about screwing with.
Sure loved to screw with my business life, any excuse I gave him.
Fucking Hector Vega. I’d kill him again if I could, but this time I’d do it on purpose.
Only other person not in the semi-circle but hanging nearby was the Tsar.
He hung close enough to answer questions, but wasn’t allowed at the big boy table, given he didn’t have a proper Nation to back him up. There to help . . . as in the Help, otherwise there to shut up. Can’t say I pitied him, but I trusted him more than anyone else in earshot. The Tsar was a scummy underworld businessman . . . he played for Number One and Number One liked money and favors and as much power as he could accumulate. Played all the sides, dealt with the bullshit required to keep up the façade that he was your friend and only your friend. But the façade wasn’t thick. Everyone knew what it was. Everyone knew what he was.
Which is more than I could say for Vega or that Chinese monk-looking fucker or Javier Castillo or Go-Joe or all the rest.
Didn’t help that I was pretty pissed off.
About Isabel.
About Jason.
About Val still too.
Made it real easy to slide on by the Tsar, to slip away from his weak attempt at stopping me, and to walk right up to that semi-circle. I planted myself in the center like they were there for me and not the other way around.
Why’s it always got to be councils?
I never do well with councils.
Just want to call them what they are.
Bunch of dumbass fucktards without a clue.
So . . .
I did just that.
“Well ain’t this a bunch of dumbass fucktards without a clue to what’s going on in their precious brand-new casino?” I said as my greeting.
Got them all to shut up real quick.
Even Vega lost some of his smile. He motioned at me. “I don’t believe any of you have been properly introduced to my brother-in-law, the Artificer King Henry Price. You will have to excuse his attitude. I would blame it on the events of the evening, but it’s just the way he is. A birth defect, perhaps.”
A few of the Nation heads forced a chuckle or too.
A few others scowled at me.
“Heard he liked to play with the bloodsuckers,” Grant Little accused through his ratty beard. “He don’t belong here, your relative or not. No mancers on the corporate board, just advisors on construction and maintenance, we all agreed.”
Vega shrugged his shoulders; his palms open and out towards the others in one of his favorite conciliatory gestures. “Normally I would ask King Henry to apologize for such a rude greeting and normally I would agree that even as my brother-in-law he has no say on this casino’s course of action in these events . . .”
“You’re about to ‘but’ me in the ass, Vega,” Grant Little accused some more, hand twitching like it wanted to sit on the handle of his sidearm.
“But,” Vega said, nodding, “he happens to have been involved in this particular incident. The mancer who died was his classmate and King Henry was also present in the private box where the explosion took place. These two facts make him an impeccable witness and perhaps he can help us solve this problem.”
“Solve the problem?” Javier Castillo laughed scornfully. “We don’t have a problem unless you make it a problem, Horatio. You never wanted this event here and now you’re trying to use this as an excuse to stop it. What problem? A mancer fought a werebull and the werebull got a little out of control. Mancer couldn’t handle himself and he’s dead. It’s a fight. They knew going in that accidents happen. They signed waivers. You apologize to whoever backed him, tell them too fucking bad, and this is all over and we’re back to making the millions and millions of dollars we’ve been making the last few days.”
Oh, I’m definitely kicking this asshole in the balls one day.
If Vega didn’t beat me to the punch. It’s hard to tell, but it ain’t coldness or silence you got to watch out for with him. It’s actually an extra dose of gravitas, like suddenly the polite front ain’t coming so easy. Instead it has to be forced out and kept in place, so you can’t see the demon within. His smile went wide as he corrected the Jaguar; his palm went even more open to show a lack of malice. “Your sense of history eludes you with the near-present as well as the ancient past I see, Javier. I was quite pleased with this event as Igor envisioned it. What I objected to was the idea of adding your pagan blood sports. No doubt if you were in charge we would be sacrificing thirteen mancers at the start of every day, but . . . quite bad for business, the business that is making us those millions of dollars. If one is so crass to only care about dollar value and not the prestige gained yesterday and lost today with this unfortunate . . .”
He let it hang out there for anyone to trip over.
“Accident,” Javier finished for him, “it was an accident. No reason to pack up the three remaining days. We expected this. Wasn’t that so, outcast?”
The Tsar cleared his throat, less comfortable than when Annie B had a gun on him and Mistress Suck-a-Lot had her teeth around his dick. “Two or three was the estimate . . . along with a slew of injuries. As you say, Great Warrior Castillo, the participants were warned of this possibility and they did sign contracts waiving possible legal actions against the Ouroboros. King Vega made that requirement himself when he agreed to host the event.”
No amount of gravitas in the world could keep the coldness out of Vega’s eyes as he stared down the Tsar. “And what was your estimation, Igor, if we stuck with the original plan and didn’t add the cage matches that Javier sulked and whined like a child for us to include?”
Javier Castillo took in a deep breath, but held his tongue somehow. Long enough for the Tsar to admit, “Less than one. Perhaps nothing. The whole event was designed to not have this happen. To not . . . anger other parties.”
“Fuck the other parties,” Castillo finally let out a burst of heat. “You see that crowd? They wanted that cage match to keep going and they want more of it. Even after
the mancer was dead they couldn’t look away, could they? Half of them were still cheering! Tomorrow? They’ll be back for more if you actually have the balls to open the doors instead of worrying about a few mancers butthurt over their friend being too much of a pussy to win a fair fight.”
“Why you two even arguing about this? All the sluggin’ is over,” Grant Little pointed out. “Next day’s only about finesse, right? After that we got intellect? Don’t recall anyone ever dying on Jeopardy and I watch the damn thing near every night. Might have to worry a bit when the mancers are throwing fireballs around that last day, but if they kill each other then that’s a good thing, ain’t it? Less of them we have to kill when the next war rolls around.”
Why I get a feeling the ratty bastard has a castle filled with guns built somewhere in Montana?
Hudson Appleton answered as a few other of the Were leaders rolled their eyes at all the paranoid war talk. “If you had bothered to read the supplied schedule of the event instead of just signing away your agreement so the checks could be forwarded to your accounts, you would know that the outcast has filled the last three days with similar main events to take place in cages, each more outlandish than the next.”
“The outcast was ordered to do so,” the Tsar grumbled.
“Damn right he was, at my urging,” Castillo happily reiterated, “and over Horatio’s simpering whines about how it could cause a diplomatic incident. Now he sees an accident and uses it to create his own diplomatic incident while trying to blame me. I won’t have it.”
“How exactly are you explaining away the luxury box explosion in your accident theory?” Ophelia Milton asked. She had a way of standing and speaking that was very reasonable. “I do agree there’s no cause to cancel, but I see the whole thing from the other direction. We finally had a security lapse. It has nothing to do with the event, so why stop the event? The problem is with our matchmaking and our background checks.”
Leave it up to the lady to be the smart one of the bunch. The rest were thinking of dollar signs. Chinaman wasn’t speaking at all. Vega was playing both sides somehow, but I wasn’t sure what he wanted out of this yet. Somehow he’d get more control of the event and Castillo wouldn’t notice until it was too late.
Unless I fucked it all up.
“We checked government records, we did interviews, both fighters met and agreed to fight each other,” the Tsar explained as a way to deflect blame. “Granted, if we were to end the cage fights we could continue the event without worrying about direct confrontation between the contestants—”
“And what?” Castillo snapped. “Admit we’re in the wrong for trying in the first place? Never have that kind of event again over the stigma it will bring? I won’t allow it! Mancers and Vamps will be laughing at us across the whole planet!”
“So much anger and confrontation,” the little Chinese monk whispered like he had some Kung Fu to instill into our little brains, “and still we have heard nothing from our promised source of enlightenment.”
Everyone turned to me.
Judgment in all those Were eyes.
Say what you will about them, say they’re thieves, say they’re drug dealers, say they’re untrustworthy and duplicitous and just a little less human after they sacrificed their animal to that Totem. But not many a Were leader has gotten there due to daddy and mommy. Go-Joe is the exception. Think we can all admit that he proves how bad an idea nepotism is. Given the way he keeps rubbing his nose like he needs another snort.
“Don’t trust mancer opinions on nothing,” Grant Little finally declared. “Can’t be used as a witness before a Totem, shouldn’t listen to him here.”
At least he didn’t spit tobacco at me.
Though, if he kept talking to me like that he might be spitting up some blood. Something deep inside me didn’t like him, that Okie-Arkie part of my family line that wants to forget it has so much redneck in its past.
“What’s the point? It’s Kabuki Theater. I’ll bet any one of you that Horatio filled him in on exactly what he’s suppose to say,” Castillo supposed. “Boy’s nothing but an actor in a play, a lapdog for the scavengers.”
“On the contrary,” Vega rebutted, still ignoring the insults with a pleasant friendly tone, “I haven’t spoken at length with my brother-in-law since he so profusely apologized for the sad accident with my nephew Hector.”
Oh, by the way, all of you who wanted to kill him for me, you remember about that, right?
Vega smiled at me like it was all in the past. But neither of us would ever forget, much less forgive. “He has been doing great business for me lately, I will admit. He sells me such lovely artifacts, did you know? My poppy production was simply astounding last year and it was all thanks to him.”
Maybe you don’t want to kill him just to please me, but maybe you want to think about killing him to cripple my opium business instead.
Vega and me stared at each other.
Wasn’t no smiling on my end.
“I can tell you exactly what happened and exactly who’s responsible,” I finally said. “But first there’s something else we gotta get out of the way.”
I stepped forward, eyes glancing up at the big lights far above my head. At the blackened screens, the empty chairs. Behind me the collection of guards uneasily watched from out of earshot. Jaguars, Coyotes, Hyenas, oh my. All armed. Had a decent shot at starting World War Were right now if I wanted to.
I stopped a couple feet away from Vega. He was taller than me, barely, but what’s new? They’re always taller than I am. “See,” I said directly at Vega, but for the gathered body, “I heard some rumors these last few days. Heard that some of you dumbfucks might want to kill me. Now, maybe it’s just rumors. Shit . . . we all collect rumors, don’t we? I mean, growing up all I heard about was what a badass the guy who runs the Coyotes is, even calls himself a king, and now look at him—never seen a more friendly fucker in my life.”
“You’re making a mistake,” Vega whispered to me.
I grinned some canines in his direction before moving over to walk near the other Weres. When ain’t I making a mistake? And when would I ever listen to your ass for advice? “So rumors . . . could be a rumor. Could even be the friendly fucker himself trying to make me piss my pants,” I said while passing Ophelia Milton. “Or it could be he’s not too much of a friendly fucker and he plans to use said rumors to confuse my sister when he kills me himself,” I said while passing Go-Joe. “But just in case it’s not a rumor, just in case one of you dumbfucks thinks it’s a good idea to try to kill me,” I said while passing Grant Little. “How about you save us all some time and try right now,” I snarled at Hudson Appleton to finish. “What about it, Brony?”
“I wouldn’t even know where to hire an assassin!” Appleton squawked.
I turned from them and walked over to the other side of the semi-circle. “No takers then?” I asked. “That’s the way your kind does it, right, Javier? Old ways and shit; challenge for dominance right in front of the Totem itself.”
Castillo nodded at me with a smirk. “I know your kind, Price. Kind that comes at me before they’re ready.”
“Why don’t we see? Even got us a ring?”
“I would . . . but I like Ceinwyn Dale’s ransom money too much to risk it just for a little enjoyment,” he told me. “Besides . . . look at the way your little bit of strutting is enraging poor Horatio. Keep going and it might be the first time he Shifts in public in ten years. Unlike me, he does hate what he is.”
Unlike you, he doesn’t Shift into one animal.
“How about you, Chimichanga?” I asked Chuma Matongo. “Thinking about making a name for yourself by killing me? Shit, tell you the truth I’m surprised it’s even a man running your Nation. I heard Hyena clits are a lot bigger than what the males are packing.”
Chuma’s fists said he might throw down, but Agrawal put a hand on his shoulder to restrain him.
“No? Must just be a rumor like this one, huh?” I nodded
my head like it all made sense. “And last . . . Beijing Beef himself. Planning on killing me, chinaman?”
Both the Tsar and Vega wincing should’ve been a sign for me to shut up. But then, how will Ceinwyn’s prophecy about my mouth getting me killed one day ever come true if I learn to keep it closed?
“My name is Master Zhou,” the Chinese Were told me. “You are at the moment unworthy of my personal attention, Artificer Price. However, if you would like to begin climbing the rungs of the Eternal Order, it can be arranged. All you have to do is continue down the road you walk and this clash will become inevitable. Perhaps very soon.”
“That fucking so?”
“Yes. It has long been the Eternal Order’s duty to remind your kind that they are powerful, but they are not one of the gods. Your kind polices those beset with madness, but what of those beset by arrogance and corruption? Long ago the gods decided there must be a check on your power before that power brings ruin to us all. Continue spurning the lessons of your superiors, continue reaching for power beyond your control, and the Eternal Order will save you from yourself.”
Great, religious zealotry and shapeshifting. What a wonderful mix! I’m sure nothing will go wrong!
I gave him a long look. “What the fuck you Shift into? Liam Neeson?”
Master Zhou shook his head solemnly. “This secret is only revealed to those that reach the first rung.”
“Guess I’ll be finding out soon,” I said with a snarl. “But not now. Not now . . .”
“Are you done?” Vega asked, for once showing enough emotion to indicate he wanted to strangle me.
“No,” I told him.
“Who else is there to insult?”
“Hey, Igor?”
The Tsar was the only person nearby who was smiling at me. Guess it takes an outcast to appreciate another outcast telling the in-crowd that their shit stinks too. “Yes, King Henry?”
“You’re fat,” I told him.
He started coughing to cover up his laughter.
I turned back to Vega. “Insults. Checkmark. Now we move on. We move on to me warning all of you.”
“Is this a conspiracy then?” Vega asked.
The Foul Mouth and the Mancy Martial Artist (The King Henry Tapes Book 5) Page 35