“There will be consequences for this, King Henry,” she said.
Ain’t there always, kiddies?
Last time I ever saw her like that.
Years since that night and we never got to third time is a charm.
[CLICK]
For the next conversation to take place in my apartment I was the one butt-naked.
At least I got my shower in.
Thanks for small favors, Fate.
You cruel bitch.
Butt-naked King Henry Price.
Not nearly as attractive a sight as a naked Valentine Ward.
Like . . . one-thousandth the attraction level.
Maybe.
On a good day.
Least my ass crack is clean.
Clean ass crack. It’s the key to any situation.
Even your new teacher barging into your apartment unasked and unwanted.
I felt the release of geo-anima into my lock a second before he came through. Same conjuration I used to get just about anywhere in the school, but with a lot more finesse. I always went brute force at a lock, just made a key of geo-anima if you will. What Plutarch did was manipulate the lock itself. His way you didn’t even need a keyhole. Had advantages. Suppose I’ll learn some new tricks if I don’t tell him to fuck off in the next five minutes.
Still wasn’t sure on that score.
Part of me wondered if this wasn’t another Welf situation. If Welf had just kept his douchebag mouth shut maybe I wouldn’t have knocked his ass out. Wouldn’t have liked each other even without that beginning, but we wouldn’t have spent so much effort fucking the other over either.
If Plutarch had just shown up at the classroom . . .
Instead I had to go searching.
I arrive pissed off, use all my favorite words.
He eats it, waits for me to show the next day.
I don’t show, so he invades my space.
I try to punch him.
He comes back at me with his hole-in-the-ground lesson.
I escape . . . and . . .
And?
We could keep this up for months.
Three years really.
Back and forth.
Unlike Welf, making peace with Plutarch would get me something.
Get me more tricks.
Get me artifacts.
Get me some fairy knowledge if I wanted it.
He was surprised to see me sitting on my couch. Not that I was naked, but just that I was there.
I’d reheated some potato wedges from a previous meal and chomped on one, washing it down with some coffee. “Fairy 411 line gave me away the second I showed up on the campus, did it?”
He studied me. With the one eye. It twitched slightly. Made all the scars on his face twitch too. Wasn’t a pretty guy at all, made me wonder if maybe there wasn’t some truth about him scaring students once upon a time. Now . . . you saw weirder shit on the Internet by the time you were seven.
Daddy, why is the dragon putting his pee-pee into a car tailpipe?
Cuz Rule 34, son!
Plutarch couldn’t seem to decide if he was happy I was safe or if he should throttle me. Know that look. Dad used to have it on occasion, so did Susan when she was the one responsible for me. That why I’m still rebelling against authority? Daddy didn’t love me enough?
Plutarch also couldn’t seem to decide if he wanted to ask how I’d gotten out of the hole or where I’d been all day. Eventually, he settled for a plea for sanitary over sanity, “Put some clothes on, Junior.”
I chomped on another potato wedge. “Skin’s sensitive at the moment. Don’t like the fabric too much. Can’t imagine why. Care to make a guess, Pappy?”
He didn’t make a guess.
“How pissed is the Lady at you? Miss Dale find out about it all? Or she in Siberia or something?”
His single eye twitched a bit more. “You little shit. You think you have leverage on me now.”
“Think I got out of your hole. That didn’t sound right . . .”
Plutarch went into my bedroom and came out with a blanket to throw over me. “I’m going to assume the pressure of a no-win scenario and a day in the sun addled your brain more than usual, Junior.”
I laughed. Like my damaged-up-beyond-all-repair brain could get any worse than it already was by the time I was a teenager. “So did I impress you enough to be worthy of your presence without being some slave to your wisdom or we gonna have to keep up this back-and-forth shit for a little longer?”
Plutarch sat on the table across from me after the blanket had fallen enough to cover all my bits and pieces. “I’m impressed,” he agreed.
I nodded. Okay. Keep on going. Make some peace. Do the shit Ceinwyn’s always getting on to me about. Get this war over so I can focus on the Three Queens. “Alright. I go to your house tomorrow, we start over. You teach me the stuff you think I need to know without us getting all close master and apprentice bullshit.”
“I’m impressed by how colossally stupid you are,” Plutarch corrected my assumption.
“I ain’t giving in to you.”
“You’ve made that clear, Junior; congratulations. You only needed to risk your life with an unknown fairy to do it.”
“I kinda know it.”
Plutarch stared at me. “Do you realize that it could have spit you back out in the Congo? Or Siberia? Right next to your Miss Dale?”
“Uh—”
“Or it could have kept you! You must have reached quite far to touch one that powerful . . . it might have kept you and fed on you as a snack for as long as you lasted.”
“I—”
“Didn’t think,” Plutarch snapped at me. “Instead of showing the least bit of humility to another person, you made a deal with a wild concentration.”
“You’re the one who wanted me to ask for help,” I sputtered.
“I wanted you to realize that you know exactly nothing about being an Artificer: about the dangers and the limitations and the requirement of the discipline and its need for aid from other mancers. A Forestplanter like your friend Pocket can go out and frolic in the trees for the rest of his life. You are part of a collective. You need to ask for help. You need thirteen anima types to do your job correctly.”
“So what you’re saying . . .” I deadpanned, “ . . . lesson wasn’t about asking for help?”
Plutarch’s eye kept twitching. “I should retire. Leave you to Massey. Only I know he’d balls it up worse than I already have.”
“Please don’t,” I said. “I’d have to kill him.”
We stared at each other for a long time.
Still waiting for the other to give in.
“I do stupid things all the time,” I eventually admitted. “Start fights, fuck hillbillies, steal whatever ain’t tied down. I can’t be no Erikson or Massey or . . . one of the other twenty-billion students you’ve had.”
Plutarch got a funny look on his face. “I wouldn’t want you to be.”
“But I’m smart,” I continued, “I pick things up quick. Always had to do it that way to keep an edge. Anything you can teach, I can learn. All those books on the wall in your house? I’m gonna read the ones you let me read and I’m gonna steal the ones you say I can’t read.”
“I’ll have to hide them,” Plutarch said ruefully.
“Good luck with that.”
He nodded. “We’ll start tomorrow. Get some sleep, Junior.”
Now it was my eye that twitched. “Stop calling me that.”
A chuckle escaped Plutarch as he rose from the table. “It’s not a slight, Junior. It’s an honorific. Junior Member in Artifice. You’re part of the team now, even if you don’t want to be. Who knows? One day you might be Guild Master.”
The horror at the idea must have shown through to my face, since Plutarch guffawed his way out my apartment door.
[CLICK]
Outside of my balls still being chafed to levels they hadn’t felt since I’d first figured out what masturbation wa
s, I woke up feeling pretty good about myself following a short nap. A second shower helped me make sure all the grit and sand and leaves were where they were supposed to be down the drain and not on my body.
Can’t say I’ve ever been the cleanest of persons, but I’ve never been a fan of nature. Especially when it starts talking to me. Plutarch don’t scare me even when he’s burying me, but Meteyos sure does. I felt like a child that had been scared straight off drugs. Here’s a dead crackwhore, Timmy, just say no!
Here’s a talking piece of eternal Earth and it wants your soul, King Henry, maybe instead of fighting with the nice black guy who wants to teach you to play well with others, we come to an understanding with him to avoid the sentient mountain, hmm?
Plutarch figured it was all about him. That he’d made his point. Or worn me down. That I was ready to be a good Guild member tipping my skullcap to all the other cocksuckers in the club. Ain’t that easy, Pappy, if you bothered to ask Ceinwyn you’d know that. Ceinwyn Dale’s been fighting to keep me controlled for four years now and she still only barely manages to keep me from killing myself through stupidity.
Pappy will learn eventually.
But for now?
Let him have some blissful ignorance.
Let him think I learned the lesson he wanted.
Only lesson I really learned is to only go to fairies when you have no other choice.
And even then . . . know you’re gonna be walking through the woods all alone after they’re done with you.
I put both Meteyos and Plutarch behind me for the moment as I dressed for the day. One crisis averted, needed to deal with Vicky and the Three Queens now. Felt good to be back in a clean suit of geomancer browns. Still kept the coat unbuttoned, still had Mrs. Dingle glare at me every time she saw it, but I’d gotten used to the feel of the fabric.
Strings build up slowly.
Sometimes they just itty-bitty little strings.
Insignificant fabric barely a thread thick.
Like the Cafeteria food. Like the way your coat feels. Enjoy a nice roadtrip with Auntie Badass. Run to the gruff authority figure to keep the evil fairy away when you’re scared shitless. Play the white knight for once to protect Vicky Welf from the evil queen.
White knight would go find Catherine Hayes and tell her to be nice for truth and justice and the American way.
Could just see Raj or Welf or Estefan or any of the other guys in my class doing that. Even Pocket had a bad habit of playing the peacemaker, he was just so likable and such a consensus builder that he got away with it more than most.
So maybe not a white knight.
But I couldn’t just go in there and slap a bitch.
For one: wouldn’t work.
For two: sexist, misogynist, rabble, rabble!
For three: going all earthquake on the situation would only break things further.
On my way to breakfast, I tried thinking up a solution that didn’t involve me getting into a fist fight with half the Blackjacks.
[CLICK]
It was early in the day.
Should’ve been exhausted, but strangely I felt energetic.
Way earlier than I was even supposed to be up.
6AM.
Civilized countries don’t even call that ‘day.’ Countries that take siestas. Next time some redneck is complaining about Europeans just remind them that those people get drunk in the middle of the day just because. All the while American cogworkers are shoveling down a quick four dollar diet cardboard piece of shit with sauce on top of it—ya know, got to watch your weight and ya know, only got a fifteen minute lunch.
Yes, I’m fucking jealous.
Maybe I can convince Ceinwyn that siestas will help my productivity with my shop. Not that the little old ladies after teapots will like me anymore drunk than they do me sober, but . . . customer relations or some shit.
But back to the Asylum, kiddies, not my current indentured servitude. To the events that caused the servitude. Three Queens being evil bitches. Plutarch getting his way that first time, just like he did every time afterwards. Me trying to save the girl that don’t need saving or if she does need saving . . . somehow fucking it all up.
My scheduled breakfast technically wasn’t until an hour later, but I figured I could use the time to check in on Vicky. Vicky’s class was also the only place I could be sure to find Catherine trailing around as their student-advisor. Hunting the Queens is a dangerous profession. Quite a few people have gotten pissed at them over the years and gone off searching, only to come up empty. Then, after they cooled down, that’s when they’d stumble across a few Blackjacks and get jumped.
Most dangerous game ain’t man; it’s a woman with a plan.
And the Three Queens always have a plan for how to deal with you.
Don’t matter if your name’s Price or Welf or Teddy Fuckin’ Ruxpin.
So early it shouldn’t count as morning or not, food from the Asylum Cafeteria is always good, even when some asshole pours laxative into the waffles. Should probably apologize to Naomi for that some more, before we start banging and suddenly she’s shoving an unexpected catheter in my pee-hole as revenge.
I went for said waffles that morning, poured on some real maple syrup—not laxative—threw on a side of bacon—cuz bacon—and went in search of Vicky’s class on the second floor. Quads . . . it’s good being a Quad, especially an Ultra Quad, especially as a Welf. Mancer royalty that. Especially if you’re approachable and not a stiff patrician like her brother.
Vick and Heinrich ain’t the only Welfs around the Asylum. Wolfgang von Welf’s firstborn showed up as the Single year before last and there was an aunt who had hyphenated that bitch up, she had a bunch of younger kids that would soon be polluting the place. To say nothing of second-cousins and third-cousins, though I don’t know why anyone would bother counting at that point.
All I count is there are too many fucking Welfs in the world.
They weren’t the only ones of course. Eriksons. Waldens. The whole slew of Daniels girls. Their mothers didn’t even bother to hyphenate their names, just made the husband change for them. Whole family run by aeromancer women hating on each other . . . surprised Miranda didn’t grow up to be more of a pain in the ass.
I take credit for that.
Pulling the stick out of her ass that first Camping Test to keep the pain in the ass under control.
I deserved a medal for my sacrifice.
That way I could just wave the thing in her face and shout ‘came in first!’ neen-er, fucking neen-er.
I found Vicky surrounded by her friends, all of them laughing and chatting while attacking their breakfast plates. Vicky’s friends were named Makayla and Genesis. I’d banged nasties with one of them and the other had a crush on me, but I could never remember which one was which, so I feigned politeness any time I was around them and just focused in on Vicky for conversation.
Yeah, yeah, I’m a horrible man-whore.
You should know this by now.
Yes, it happened right after the first time I broke up with Valentine.
No, I have not learned a single lesson.
I pushed one of the boys in Vick’s class out of the way. Ralph? Reggie? Starts with an ‘R’ I’m pretty sure. We kicked Ronald’s ass in the Winter War and he never tried a play against my interests. So why would I remember Robbie’s name?
Maybe it wasn’t an ‘R’ . . . was it Dick?
I feel like I would remember a guy named after a sexual euphemism though . . .
Dong, was he Asian?
Anyway, he was trying to earn some Vicky Sunshine points, but I pushed his ass out of the way and took the seat across from her. I wasn’t some asshole about it, just forceful. Also made sure the guy knew he was earning points, just not Vicky’s. “I owe you a small favor, but I take up this conversation time for myself, got it?”
Dong—that’s what we’re going with—nodded his head and gave me space.
He was scared of my rep, but
he also knew a favor from King Henry Price could come in handy. I ain’t a bully, but you remind people not to fuck with you long enough and there’s some nasty crossover between the two viewpoints.
Mostly I tried to be fair. I fucked with those who deserved it and if you ended up as collateral damage like poor Dong, I tried to balance the scales with favors down the line. Dong ended up getting a date with Genesis, who was his real target of conversation, the poor guy just got sucked into Vicky’s orbit of happiness
Dong . . .
I don’t think it was Dong . . .
[CLICK]
According to my yearbook he was named Steve.
My bad.
The Artist-Formerly-Known-As-Dong—but now Steve—got out of my way and left me sitting across from Vicky.
Who had a curious reaction to my sudden appearance.
Anger followed by guilt.
These are not emotions that make up the sunshine and sparkles conglomerate that we humans have dubbed Vicky Welf. She also didn’t greet my arrival with the usual fan-girl squee of ‘King Henry!’ and a sudden hug. Instead she studied her plate of food intensely. Spectromancers are one of the disciplines that don’t have food preferences, other than their propensity towards light and bright colors, which leads a few of them to consume candies at a rate equal to an aeromancer’s sweet tooth.
They also like to sunbathe.
All the spectromancer girls lounging around the Pools makes for some nice scenery during the summer. First time Vicky showed up at the Pools in a bikini it almost killed her brother. Which is exactly why I convinced her to have a little fun and indulge her anima driven urges.
I try not to think about why I like Vicky so much without all the usual sexual baggage I attach to girls . . . or women . . . or voluptuous-shaped trees. It would likely lead to a psychotic break dealing with lost sisters, subverting my rival’s place in her affection, and maybe something Freudian. You can always expect that Freud fucker to show up and ruin a party.
Vicky stuffed a piece of cantaloupe into her mouth, chewing it intensely and pointedly ignoring my presence.
“I want to apologize, Vick,” I started with.
Any bit of anger disappeared, her face nothing but guilt. “Why?” she mouthed around the cantaloupe.
The Foul Mouth and the Mancy Martial Artist (The King Henry Tapes Book 5) Page 37