Something deep inside of me got an earthquake stiffy. “Compete how?” I asked.
Isabel stared at me, stolen ageless eyes wide, head shaking back and forth.
Just as promised I had to look away instead of meeting her gaze. “Compete how?” I repeated.
“The Curator,” Isabel said, to make sure it was the fiction and not the man she apparently idolized responsible for this, “will pay damages to the Ouroboros Hotel and Casino for the regrettable incident that took place tonight when Jason Jackson was accidentally killed.”
Maybe it’s more than that, maybe she’s repeating the words exactly as he said them.
“To prove his goodwill to the supernatural community, the Curator will further pay the Ouroboros Hotel and Casino for their time and their arena. If any should wish to avenge themselves on the fighter who killed Jason Jackson, he proposes that they do so in the main event of the entire Days of Supernatural Exhibition, on the last night of the Day of Elementalism. This offer is open to one and only one, for a fight to the death, all feuds settled, all questions answered, the first who accepts it to be the one who steps inside the cage with Conan Sapa. No other.”
I finally grinned, not like a predator this time, like a monster. “Ain’t we lucky, Pocket? We don’t even have to chase him down this way. I hate that shit . . . people never let me drive . . . getting shot at . . . pain in that ass, I tell ya.”
Pocket’s eyes were wider than Isabel’s. “Dude! That’s crazy! Crazier than her!”
Isabel hissed at him. “That’s exactly what I was told to say. I said it exactly how he said it! He wanted me to offer you first, but that doesn’t mean it has to be you, King Henry. I can go to—”
“I accept,” I interrupted her before she could stick her fingers in her ears. “Tell Paine to arrange things if he can really manage it. If he don’t then I’m gonna hunt Sapa down and kill him anyway. But this works just fine for me. I can even take the next couple days off, ya know? Spa day or something. Maybe find those hookers I’ve been thinking about.”
“Now who’s the dumbass?” Pocket accused. “I keep you away until the events are closed and still you’re trying to get yourself killed!”
“It has to be me,” I decided. “If it’s not me, then it’s Welf. He might do it with that Construct, he just might, but me? I know I can kill Sapa. Day of Elementalism, not the Day of Brawn. Ain’t gonna be no gloves this time around.”
“It’s a trap!” he tried to argue.
“It a trap, Isabel?”
She just stared at me, scared. Lip quivering like I’d just killed myself.
I forced myself to meet those stolen, ageless eyes. “You know me,” I told her, “you know I had to say ‘yes.’ Couldn’t go any other way. So tell me what I need to know to survive it if that’s really what you want.”
“It’s not a trap,” she whispered. “It’s you alone in a cage with Conan Sapa—that’s more than enough.”
I nodded, picking up a piece of pork this time. “Best get going then. The Tsar will be triple-crossing us and telling Vega you’re here pretty soon. You can always trust that man to screw you over. Which is somehow why you trust him . . . it all works out.”
She glanced down at her shoes, impish, shy, very much like the girl I’d first met as a Single. “I . . . I won’t see you again. Not for . . . you won’t be nice to me the next time you see me either I think.”
“Against everything inside of me I just gave you an out, Isabel. I just told you that I’d go to war with the Asylum to give you an out, to protect you from Paine. After everything you’ve done to me. I know, I know! It was an accident, that’s what you keep saying. Well, you ain’t confused now. You turned me down. You chose him.”
“If you just talked . . .”
“I’ll talk to Obadiah Paine over Conan Sapa’s dead body,” I stated.
Most people use the front door. Isabel left out the balcony window.
Huh, I thought, taking another bite of pork. She’s a really good cook!
At some point I noticed Pocket staring at me like I’d lost my mind.
“ . . . What?”
[CLICK]
The Tsar apparently had an office in the casino’s upper floors, but only while the Days of Supernatural Exhibition was going on. After that Vega would likely kick him out on his vodka-soaked ass, the Tsar stashing whatever money he could grab into his pockets on his way out the door.
Just pissing everyone off, ain’t you, Igor?
I know he had the office because I was called into it far too early the next morning. Hadn’t slept great. Even with Pocket and Jesus bunking up in the suite with me. T-Bone spent the night with Vicky . . . this time in the suite she shared with her brother, so there was no chance I’d be walking in on them again. We’ll call that progress. Let Welf be the one to walk in on them. Supposedly T-Bone was sleeping on the couch for protection. In case Isabel made another showing.
Uhuh.
At least Jesus and Pocket were too busy faking being really good straight friends still for any grumping and humping on their part. Should say something to them in the next couple days. Should say everything to everyone . . . I mean . . . I could die, right? Head crushed in by Conan Sapa just like Jason’s was?
Answer to my problems dropping right into my lap.
Didn’t sleep so well after the adrenaline of the day faded behind me.
Left alone.
Alone to think.
Alone to brood over the day.
Jason Jackson was dead.
Jason Jackson was fucking dead.
Just like that.
Wasn’t my first classmate to die, but . . .
Never thought of him as someone in danger of dying either.
Not like that.
Not casually removed as some pawn in Paine’s experiments.
Jason was a Recruiter and they did occasionally die . . . it wasn’t unheard of. Usually some international Recruiter who got on the wrong side of someone like Javier Castillo, or some rogue vampire in Sweden or weird shit like that. Not beat down in front of ten-thousand people.
I’d been so focused on Isabel that I hadn’t even considered it. So focused on Isabel that I couldn’t even really remember the fight much, what had happened, any of that. Was all foggy, mixed together with Isabel’s escape, my brain flashing past the red lines as I put together that this was all Obadiah Paine.
“That’s fucked up, El Rey,” Jesus said when Pocket told him about Paine being the Curator. “You so paranoid you think Miss Dale faked his death?”
“No. I just . . . it seemed like a really good idea to shut up about everything that happened that week. Divines almost killed me just on the rumors—what if they figured out the truth? Find out one lie and wonder if there’s more of them, right?” I explained my tenuous reasoning such that it was.
“There’s more?” Pocket asked.
I only nodded, not ready to rock his world with the rest. Should gather them all up. Tell ‘em about Meteyos and the Geo Realm. About the Divines. About what I think I’ve figured out. Get all the lies out before I step into that cage. Baptism of truth, wash the bile out of my mouth. Go into the cage clean . . . as clean as I ever get at least.
“We won’t go running to her about it,” Jesus added, “but . . . she needs to know. Asylum needs to know what they’re dealing with. They think he’s just some foreigner at the worst, maybe a wilder, sure as hell not one of our own.”
“She didn’t tell me what I need to know,” I sulked a bit.
“Maybe she would have if you’d opened up about this first,” Pocket pointed out.
“Yeah, maybe.”
“You act like he’s Satan,” Jesus said.
“He has no boundaries. He keeps people locked up as living anima batteries, he kidnaps children, he buys children, steals and murders without any thought as to their value, who cares if they’re in his way, right? Look at Jason. Wasn’t about Jason. Was just a step on a flow chart. Jason dies. We
lf throws a funeral. Welf’s friends and family show up to it . . . then what? But I manage to fuck it all up by finding out about Isabel. Now we go down the other side of the flow chart. Paine offers up Conan Sapa to me. Might be a sacrifice if I win, but even then . . . it proves the Curator is now a big enough force to kill a Recruiter and then buy off the Weres so they sweep everything under the rug. A big enough force that he can even get them to sanction a death match in their brand-new casino.”
“What’s he gain by killing you?” Pocket asked.
“Cut, cut, cut,” I whispered.
I might bleed for you, Paine, but I ain’t gonna die for you. Gonna kill your big ass mercenary. Gonna enjoy it.
Beating the shit out of people. Only way I ever grieve.
Wish I could have saved you, Jackson. Wish I could really be a hero sometimes, but . . . just ain’t in me. You got fucked, big man, ain’t no way around it. I’ll miss throwing down with you over all the stupid shit we have in the past. Remember Quad Winter War when we charged out of the trees and scared the Singles so bad that they ran the other way? There was literally this trail of piss heading all the way down the Mound? You laughed so hard you almost fell over?
Welf showed up at the Tsar’s office not long after I did.
Autumn was at his shoulder as always, but had a limp in her gait.
Her? When did you start personalizing it, Price? It’s a puppet. It’s an it. Don’t matter if Welf used it to fight by your side against Isabel. It’s still dead. Still ain’t really breathing, just faking it. Still don’t feel a bit of pain over that limp. Just its mechanics all fucked up, favoring certain muscles to keep from ripping it up more.
Autumn’s owner looked paler than the Construct did. Welf had thick black rings under his eyes, he even walked like every step forward exhausted him, actually leaning on his cane. Instead of standing erect, with the perfect posture, he slid down against a wall and gave a sigh like it had taken all his reserves to do this much today, despite the fact how early it was.
“You look like shit,” I greeted him.
Welf sneered back at me.
Some things even death don’t change, especially death itself.
“I had to listen to my sister cry yesterday,” he said, voice hollow, “and for the first time in my life I wasn’t able to hold her.”
He doesn’t know, does he? He just thinks they’re . . . like twelve or something.
“You ain’t blaming me for your sister being sweet on my black friend are you? Cuz . . . I’m on your side on that particular subject. When I mentioned this to Vicky she started talking about being a person too and then I covered my ears and ran way screaming. So if you need a hug maybe you should just ask her for one.”
Welf shook his head, rambling on, “I didn’t have time for her anyway. I needed to call the Institution, call Dale, call Mother, call Father, call Jason’s mother. Arrange to take possession of the body today. Set up a small funeral the day after this foolish event is over and done. Vega and your sister stopped by to give their condolences. He said you told them everything and that they’re sending out trackers to hunt down Sapa, but that they would never directly confront the Curator himself over a mancer’s death . . . that it was up to me to get what revenge I could.”
“I must have really pissed Vega off by threatening all the Nation heads; he’s usually a lot more subtle than that.”
Welf closed his eyes, leaning harder against the wall. “I haven’t slept. Then I received a phone call to come here for an update on the situation . . . and here you are waiting for me, Foul Mouth.”
“You weren’t the only one busy last night, Welf.”
A considering silence.
Was a dick move waiting for the Tsar to spring the death match with Sapa on Welf, but part of me didn’t think Welf would believe it if it came from me.
You think this is funny, Foul Mouth? You think now is the time to mock me?!? I imagined his indignation.
In the real world, Welf only showed weariness. “I called some of our classmates after all the official business was finished. Those who were close to Jason. I always thought Quinn just accompanied him to the Winter Balls to please Hope or me, but . . . she broke down crying on the phone. I’m not good with crying. Even when Victoria cried, I just held on so she would never notice I didn’t join her. I’ve never been able to cry, my parents would have considered it a failing. I don’t . . . I called his colleagues in the Recruiters after that, from the numbers on his phone. It was left in his locker.”
“You call Val?”
Welf smirked a little, but even it was in the motions, an act of what he was supposed to be doing. “We talked for an hour. She’s so considerate, and . . . quite enchanting, I always thought. How is it that you are here and not in London pleading with her to take you back, Foul Mouth? Why am I here and not on a plane to London myself for that matter?”
“She’s never liked you like that, Welf.”
“I suppose not. I suppose those stolen moments between us weren’t her. But then I was always with Hope at school. The real Valentine isn’t one to commit infidelity, is she? Another clue I overlooked. Those memories were like dreams and now they’re nightmares. I questioned whether they were real . . . now I hope they aren’t. I wish it was so easy to forget about the last few months I spent with Isabel, but . . . I can’t help but roll them over again and again.”
“You get used to it . . . you start focusing on other stuff in your life.”
“Perhaps.”
“You told Val about me sleeping with Isabel to figure it out, didn’t you?”
His smirk twitched. “Of course I did. It’s the only enjoyment I’ve had since Jason died.”
“You’re still a vindictive prick, Welf.”
“Guilty as charged,” he whispered, baggy eyes closing.
He seemed to be resting like that, so instead of cursing him out I decided to pace up and down the hallway. Guess I can’t blame him too much, considering the way I got over my mom dying was punching Welf in the face. Makes us even, don’t it? Val will understand . . . right?
Uhuh.
Jason had been there for that rumble at school too.
Kicked my ass good.
Whole class had ended up in a brawl.
Welf was so out of it he probably doesn’t remember all of us getting locked up in the Holding Room.
I ended up knocking on the Tsar’s office door.
A secretary opened it to again tell me that Mr. Black was in a meeting and I would be called in soon.
Hallway filled with offices in a casino. Why not?
UN for the Were Nations.
Just what the world needed.
The Ouroboros.
Been thinking about that name a little bit. Thinking about little ass Master Zhou talking about the Eternal Order. Eternal Order and the symbol of eternity—too much of a coincidence. So Zhou put in enough money to get to name the place? Weresnakes or something? Can you even be a reptile? They were usually mammals. Outside of Annie B calling Igor a wereraven, I don’t think I’d ever heard differently. Unless you count those stupid fucks trying to be gators down in the bayou.
Chinese weresnake religious monks going on about ladders and arrogance . . . why not?
Not any weirder than blood gods and armies of undead or fairies that are also dragons.
Pocket and Jesus barely believed the little I’d told them about Paine. What would they do when I told them the rest of it?
Welf flinched, his eyes snapping open. He sneered at me again as he seemed to remember where he was at. “I assume you have something to do with this,” he finally said. “That you did something stupid last night and now I’ll be forced to bail you out.”
Instead of answering him, I asked, “You want to punch me?”
“What?”
“Do you want to punch me? Right in the face. I’ll give you a freebie. No cane.”
He frowned. “Your character is so deficient that I don’t know where to
start trying to list it all.”
“Come on, Welf. Make you feel better. Not with your Construct. With your fist. Give me an ol’ wallop, good chap.”
“You feel guilty about Jason,” he accused. “You want me to punish you.”
“Nope. A little maybe, but not really. Even if I had figured out that Isabel worked for the Curator, I couldn’t have captured her much quicker than I did. And how was I supposed to know Jason was in danger? I was more worried about you.”
Shit . . . did I just say that out loud?
Welf smirked again. “If only I had a recording of that.”
“Fuck off.”
“What stupid thing did you do now, Foul Mouth?” he asked again. “Did you try to find her and punch a few guards? We won’t find her. We won’t find the werebull either. The Weres won’t help us. I’ve dealt with these people my whole life. My father and grandfather and his father before him have all dealt with them. They smile to your face, taking and stealing behind your back time and again. So many times they steal, all the way until you have nothing left to offer them and then they renege on your partnership when you need them most. They hate us. They hate that the Vampires fear us instead of them. They hate that we live in the open while they pick at scraps. They hate how our magic is superior to their claws.
“The truth is . . . the vast majority of their kind cheered when Jason died. A Were killing a mancer. They lusted for it. Deep down they hoped it would happen one of these days in one of these foolhardy events. They hope it happens again too. The Learning Council is right . . . we shouldn’t be here. We shouldn’t have trusted them to protect us and we shouldn’t trust them to find justice.”
The Tsar’s door opened again, Igor himself stepping out. He glanced between Welf and me. “Did I interrupt a fight?”
“Philosophy,” I quipped.
“Boring! Good that I missed it!”
“Welf thinks you’ll screw us over again.”
The Tsar waved us through and into his office.
Autumn waited outside.
It was utilitarian but not plush. A few chairs, a desk, files. The only decoration was a smaller version of the poster advertising the Days of Supernatural Exhibition. “I suppose you heard we’re continuing with the event, Mr. Welf. King Vega has an express crew working on your box and it should be ready if you wish to attend. I haven’t heard what your plans are yet, but we’ll all understand if you wish to leave our company.”
The Foul Mouth and the Mancy Martial Artist (The King Henry Tapes Book 5) Page 40