Got a monster in your present.
Got to prepare.
Got to focus in on Conan Sapa.
Got to clear out the schedule before you step in that cage or you won’t be stepping out of it.
T-Bone dropped on by.
Breathless, apologizing, his usual self. “I’m so sorry! I should have been keeping an eye on you or been with you, but I had so much work to do and . . . well . . .”
“Sex, yeah, I get it,” I told him like it was no big deal.
“I didn’t think you would be in danger after the cage match was set up,” he apologized some more.
“Neither did I.”
“You look . . . horrible.”
“Been worse. Not so bad. Can’t hear the fairy talking now, so that’s a plus,” I repeated my earlier thoughts aloud. “Though, he had some interesting opinions while he was squawking at me. Might be useful having a fairy around if it can talk . . . especially if I can work out how to make a golem.”
T-Bone was doing his best to not make eye or body contact with me. “I thought . . . I thought golems were illegal for personal use?”
I was naked. A blue, naked, bleeding guy with drugs in his system. That’s how my day went. But . . . been in worse. Which said something about my lifestyle that wasn’t positive. “Golems are Guild property. You never own them. If you’re in the Guild—which I’m not. Think we call that a loophole.”
“They won’t be happy about it if you branch off into golem construction as well as artifacts.”
“Just the one, not like I’m making an army out of them.”
“It’s the same one from your table?” T-Bone asked. “He transferred into your GOB and then into the knife?”
“He did.”
“I thought they weren’t very intelligent.”
“Or we just did the usual human thing and haven’t been listening hard enough. If I survive my meeting with Sapa, I can ask Plutarch some questions. Pappy really ain’t big on phones that have numbers and not operators working them, so . . . I’ll have to visit the Asylum.”
“I could go with you if you need the support—”
“Nah. No use both of us wasting our time getting attacked by one teacher after another. Have to sit down with the Lady and shit . . . gonna be awful. Just so I can hear you talk again, Mini!”
T-Bone stared at the blue man yelling at an inanimate object before he remembered to avert his eyes towards the ceiling. “I suppose you’re right about all that being in the future.”
“Of course I’m right,” I mumbled, mixing some of the Slush on my chest so the hydro-anima vapors only I could see started going again, taking extra time to recoat my bloody palms. Regrowing skin, absolutely the worst part of it all. “I go talk to Plutarch with Mini, you stay behind and watch the shop. Hey, has anyone talked to the Employee in like . . . the last week?”
“She’s fine. We’ve even made a profit the last few days.”
“Profit from a comic shop? What’s the world coming to?”
T-Bone nodded, forgot about not looking at me, and frowned at what I was doing with my chest. “Are you sure you’re feeling better? Pocket said you’re better than when you stumbled in. Did a shapeshifter really attack you?”
“Yup.”
“And you’re going to be an uncle?”
“Don’t remind me.”
“Busy day for someone with nothing to do . . .”
“It’s okay if you go back to Vicky, man. I don’t blame you at all.”
“Great!” he shouted before leaving the bathroom.
A few minutes later, he hurried back in. “In my haste to . . . well, I forgot to give you this,” he added another apology to the heap, handing me a tablet. “I cut a few views of the Jackson-Sapa fight on it. Also . . . I hacked into the Institution database and pulled any info on Sapa that I could find. It’s in a file. Same stuff that the Recruiters and ESLED use, so . . . it might help somehow.”
“By hacked do you mean that you called Ceinwyn and she gave you the file?”
“No . . . what . . . why would you think that happened?”
He looked guilty.
“Or my ex-girlfriend.”
He looked guiltier.
“Nice to know she still cares,” I grumbled, trying to use the tablet without getting any Slush on it.
“Make sure you don’t drop it in the puddle at the bottom of the tub,” T-Bone advised.
“Do I look like an idiot?” I asked sarcastically.
T-Bone stared at Fucktard Smurf until Fucktard Smurf remembered what he looked like at the moment.
“I’ll return to Victoria then . . .” T-Bone finally said.
“Try not to get kidnapped.”
“Will do.”
“And be ready for practice tomorrow.”
“Is that really—”
“If you don’t leave soon I’m throwing either Slush or shit at you, fifty-fifty on which it’s gonna be.”
He left.
[CLICK]
Conan Sapa.
Samoan-American, born in Los Angeles.
First generation mancer as an Intra corpusmancer.
Graduated three-hundred fifty-sixth in his year. Usual for a corpusmancer Intra unless they’re a genius at normal school work and for all their body improvement, they never seem to think about improving that particularly important organ.
Tried college, dropped out, joined the US Army. Few years with the normal grunts, eventually invited to join the special corpusmancer division even Congress doesn’t know about. My classmate Samuel Bird was with them now. Too bad I didn’t have the time to get his number and see if he could collect some scuttlebutt on Sapa for me.
Discharged five years ago, became a freelance mercenary specializing in armed extraction. Got into some shit with his employers and went wrong, finally completely dropping off the face of the earth almost two years ago. The next few paragraphs went into detail about my little adventure with Christmas Ward and the fact Sapa worked for the Curator.
Who knew my ex-girlfriend had access to such high level shit?
Must have come with the new job.
Or she was lying to me all these months about what she knew.
Doubt that.
Doubt that very much.
There was a reference number to other files on the Curator himself, but I didn’t have those on the tablet.
Sapa, focus on Sapa.
Focus on the monster, not the man behind the curtain. Monster of the week still kill you dead.
No sight of Sapa since I’d seen him. Reports of some children being kidnapped in Rio and Bogota, but no direct link from them to Sapa or the Curator, but both were suspects. Two more for lockup and regulated anima siphoning, I thought, just a little pissed off about it.
Gonna be easy to go into this fight pissed off.
Dangerous to do that.
Could go wrong on me.
Real professional would go in cold.
Use the emotion when they needed it.
All that Zen killer shit.
Me . . . that’s not me. Always the raw nerve and the raw nerve was worked up after the last few days.
There were physical measurements on Sapa, but I didn’t even bother reading them.
No point to it now. Not with him being changed by Paine . . . however Paine had changed him. Still wasn’t sure on that one.
Pump him full of corpus-anima?
Had a feeling it would be fucked up, whatever was done. First time in my life I’d ever felt even a tiny bit of sympathy for Horatio Vega, hearing him talk about being captured by Paine. Lucky to be alive. Saved by Sharp. Or released into the wild after the tests were done? Force Vega to spawn extra werecoyotes and then kill them. All to get data on how Poly-Shifters worked.
Vega couldn’t be the only one.
Not if JoJo was one too.
Just had to be rare.
Rare enough to be a rumor that the Poly-Shifters themselves would hide. Learning Council hid
it as well, just like they hide a lot of stuff on the Were Nations. Vamps . . . vampires would never want that information more widespread. Any more power for the Were Nations was bad as far as the Vamps were concerned.
Wonder if they know about the Eternal Order?
Master Zhou . . . he was on my list now.
Sapa, all that matters is Conan Sapa.
Pretty sure I heard Jesus and Pocket trying to do some stealth fucking in one of the rooms.
Conan Sapa, not your gay friend sucking on some Jesus cock.
Was just this dull rhythmic thudding sound through three or four walls.
Conan Sapa!
The Asylum file came with some videos. Winter War clips. Some therapy sessions with various teachers. Recognized Rainbow Greenbrier in one of them, my Elementalism as Art teacher. Tried to imagine Conan Sapa painting a watercolor and I failed. What was weird is he looked like a kid. Slightly buff, wide-shouldered teenager sure, but that’s usual for corpusmancers. Saw plenty like him during my time at the Asylum, red and white colors and all.
Yet only Conan Sapa ended up a freak of nature.
Unless we count Isabel in there too.
More info. Lists and percentages in file after file. Likelihood of breeding a mancer in the next generation. Likelihood of descending into Anima Madness. All that shit.
Finally opened up the tapes of the Jackson-Sapa fight.
I watched Jason Jackson die.
Again and again.
Dead.
Dead.
Dead.
Over and over.
Until I fell asleep.
[CLICK]
YOU DARE CHALLENGE THE BROKEN ONE AGAIN, KING OF DIRT.
“Fuck me,” I whispered into the brown, shapeless void that resided somewhere between the real world and the Geo Realm. Dream or in the flesh, it always felt the same, which said something about its divided nature. Whatever it represented, it was becoming a shockingly familiar sight. “Not you too, Meta-Yo-Yo.”
YOU CHALLENGE THE BROKEN ONE. AGAIN.
“Always a downside to drugs, kiddies, and here we are, after months of ignoring the dragon it gets to come right into my head and berate me for not doing exactly what it wants me to do, all thanks to stupid ass monk mojo juice making me so receptive to anima,” I complained to the world at large, trying to ignore the pissed off dragon essence that surrounded me.
IN THE LAST ENCOUNTER I WAS FORCED TO SAVE YOU FROM DESTRUCTION.
“Yeah, that’s some quality deus ex machina shit, man. Does it still count if I expected you to do exactly what you did and played both you and Paine to get that reaction though?” I hedged the truth just a little bit.
I WILL NOT HAVE THE STRENGTH TO SAVE YOU AGAIN. NOT WITH THE KEY LEFT FOOLISHLY BEHIND.
“Don’t want you to save me. Don’t want anything to do with you if I can help it.”
The void shimmered in anger. YOU WOULD RATHER GREET THE GREAT NOTHING?
“I got this. It ain’t Paine himself. I can beat Sapa.”
PERHAPS YOU WILL. BUT WHAT THEN? WORSE THAN CHALLENGING THE BROKEN ONE DIRECTLY, WHERE YOU MIGHT END HIS EXISTENCE, YOU CHALLENGE HIS PRIDE. THERE IS NO VICTORY HERE. VICTORY ONLY FANS THE FIRES OF HIS HATE, OF HIS DESIRE.
“Desire?” I barked.
DESIRE FOR YOUR KEY. DESIRE FOR YOUR MANTLE. DESIRE FOR POWERS HE WAS BORN WITHOUT. DESIRE THAT ONLY THROUGH YOUR DEATH MAY BE QUENCHED. HE IS UNSURE OF THIS, HE BUT GUESSES AT IT. IF IT SHOULD BECOME CERTAINTY IN HIS MIND THEN HE WILL NEVER CEASE UNTIL YOU ARE DEAD, LITTLE MANCER.
“You’re talking about being a Maximus? It’s not just something you’re born then? It can be passed between people, is that what you’re saying?”
Anger turned to humor, the anima around me jiggling in laughter. AHH. NOW THE PROPHET LISTENS. NOW THE PROPHET QUESTIONS.
“But Paine ain’t sure—it’s buried in secrets like all the rest. Him seeing the World-Breaker in action set him off, set him questioning all the rumors, set him off to find all the answers. That’s what this is about, ain’t it?”
IT DOES NOT BEGIN AND END WITH THE BROKEN ONE.
“Yeah, yeah, quasi-religious bullshit and all that from you, I know. But as far as this play . . . he wants to find out how a Maximus comes about. He’s heard rumors, probably more than I have. He decides to make a test, a test that requires a Maximus to die. Only, how are you certain who is a Maximus and ain’t a Maximus? Only the Learning Council knows for sure. So you have to listen to the rumors again. Lot of them rumored people are hard to kill. Samson and the Lady are always at the Asylum for example. Then you got Ceinwyn, but Paine can’t hurt her, not yet at least . . . not until she knows.
“Who else is the best target? Moira von Welf. But it’s even better than that, ain’t it? He’s got Isabel in with Welf, the fucking heir apparent. So if Isabel kills Moira and ain’t found out she can watch everything Welf goes through if he can actually become a Maximus.”
HE IS NOT TITLED THE DEAD PRINCE LIGHTLY, BUT EVEN I CANNOT PREDICT WHERE THE QUEEN OF PUPPET’S MANTLE WILL SURFACE. INDEED, I HAVE TRIED FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS TO CREATE ONE SUCH AS YOU.
I don’t have a grave yet, but it felt like a stampede of cattle ran over the top of it. “What?”
NOTHING IS MORE POWERFUL, NOTHING BRINGS GREATER CHANCE OF SUCCESS THAN A BORN KING.
“I ain’t your prophet no matter how many times you say it, Meta-Yo-Yo,” I spat into the brown void. If I wasn’t floating uselessly through it I might have even thrown a punch or two. “I wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t for that monk mojo juice! Take all your bullshit and stuff it up your ass!”
NEVERTHELESS . . . YOU CANNOT ESCAPE IT.
“I can cut any string if I try hard enough. Just watch me.”
YET YOUR EVERY STRUGGLE ONLY TANGLES US TIGHTER TOGETHER, LITTLE MANCER.
“I thought you didn’t want those struggles? Thought you were scared I would die? Make up your mind, dragon.”
ONE CAN STRUGGLE WITH STRINGS WITHOUT WALKING INTO THE SPIDER’S WEB. THERE ARE EVEN THOSE AMONG THE PARASITES WHO POSE LESS DANGER TO YOU THAN THE BROKEN ONE.
“And if I did bitch out, what then? Like Paine will stop? He saw the World-Breaker! He wants to kill off half the planet just to balance anima levels! Fuck him! I stand in fucking defiance of him! He’s just as bad as the Vamps, maybe worse! This fight has to be fought, it has to start here, and I’m involved in it!
“You can be like Ceinwyn or the Lady or even Vega now, if that’s what you want, Meta-Yo-Yo. Throw your hands up at me. Say I’m being a child. I don’t care. Cuz I’m not being a child. I’m being more of an adult than any of you are. I’m facing the problem. I’m actually trying to solve it. I’M NOT KICKING IT DOWN THE ROAD TO THE NEXT FUCKING GENERATION WITH MY FINGER UP MY OWN ASS, REPEATING ‘Peace, Peace, Peace’ LIKE A GOOD LITTLE COG!”
Silence.
Above, below, and all four directions, nothing but silence.
Yet somewhere out in that void I felt immense satisfaction.
It scared me a whole lot more than the dragon’s anger had.
[CLICK]
The gym that Jesus and Pocket had procured wasn’t in the Ouroboros, which was both a plus and a negative. Plus: I didn’t have to see a damn snake motif every time I turned around—I might get triggered! Negative: I did have to see Las Vegas again, even non-Strip Las Vegas.
What a shithole.
Like the ‘Ol Faithful of shitholes. Just diarrhea shit streaming out of an asshole every thirty minutes like clockwork.
Dusty and overcast and fucking pavement and asphalt all over the place.
Wasn’t for the gambling then it would be worse than Fresno.
Especially since every ten feet you had to dodge some party girl still up early in the morning, puking her guts out into a gutter. No one even around to hold her hair back.
Fucking humans, man.
Least we’re better than vampires.
Kind of like placing bronze at the Special Olympics, but hey, we
got a medal. Can’t read it since our IQ is under fifty, but . . . can we eat it?
. . . What?
Anyway, gym was pretty much a boxing gym. Five-thousand dollars had convinced the owner to let us rent the whole place out for six hours. We overpaid by the look of the joint, but . . . best not to have anyone around that we didn’t know, given the atmosphere of the last few days. Jesus, Pocket, T-Bone, and I arrived in T-Bone’s rental and I got to working out soon as we were inside.
Used to work out and lift weights and engage in all manner of healthy obsessions back before Val and Ceinwyn and so much that had happened in the last year. Didn’t have as much time now. Too much business. Too many artifacts to experiment on. Kept exercise to the basics of sit-ups, push-ups, pull-ups, and the occasional quick session with the boxing bag I hung in the corner of my underground lair.
No running . . . never been a runner.
Too slow.
Built too wide.
Geo-anima might not be working me over like a corpusmancer would have with perfect physique, but I’m a stocky, solid little fucker. Lots of neck, lots of shoulder. Bit too much gut for my liking lately. Maybe I do need to do some running . . . assuming I survive the next couple days. Hard to consider your physical health when you got so many knives, guns, and explosions in your life. And a week you spent passed out drunk still visible in your rear-view mirror.
Worked up a sweat on some machines. Jesus and Pocket did too. They’re gay . . . of course they know their way around a gym. T-Bone . . . not so much. Most exercise he gets is when he puts himself into one of those shitty VR rigs. Which are not designed for six-foot-four three-hundred-pound black dudes, let me tell you.
After that I laced some gloves up and stepped into the boxing ring.
Wouldn’t be nearly the same as an eight-side steel MMA cage, even the equipment I used that night would be different. Nothing but shorts really. No gloves, no headgear, just . . . primal shit. Two men enter and only one leaves type of fight. In front of ten-thousand people. King Henry Price slaying a monster in front of every Were Nation worth the name . . . in front of the Guild, the Rejuvenation Society, the Circle of Light, even be some covert ESLED agents in the arena.
Isabel gonna show up, you think?
The Foul Mouth and the Mancy Martial Artist (The King Henry Tapes Book 5) Page 50