I stared at him. “You are so much of a bigger asshole than I am.”
“You have no idea, dude,” Pocket joked.
I put up a gloved fist for him to bump in recognition of him joining the party.
“Sorry it took so long,” he apologized.
“No problem . . . kind of hypocritical of me to complain about someone keeping a secret. As Tyson loves to point out to me over and over again.”
“You still liked your trip with Miss Dale,” T-Bone refused to let me sidetrack the conversation towards him again. “You even told me some of those stories, especially the one about the bug guy.”
“Oh yeah, I so reminisce on those memories with fondness nowadays,” I deadpanned.
“Asshole or not, I used all the alone time between us to seduce Pocket. He didn’t stand much of a chance,” Jesus bragged.
I started chuckling as I recalled the memory, sour or not where Ceinwyn was concerned. “Does that mean you’re Miss Summer Nights?”
Jesus wiggled his eyebrows. “Met a boy cute as can be.”
We all laughed . . . ending in a kind of nervous silence.
Then . . .
We sort of all turned to T-Bone like predators wanting a tasty meal.
Chomp. Chomp.
Give secret!
Fulfill bet!
“No . . .” he whispered. “Please . . .”
We all glared at T-Bone.
Give secret!
Fulfill bet!
T-Bone sighed, giving in to peer pressure like he always did. “I didn’t sleep with each of the Daniels cousins. I kind of had a threesome with the Daniels cousins . . . we were very very drunk. Neither of them even remember the other one was in the room with us. You can’t tell anyone, King Henry.”
T-Bone took another puff from his inhaler, but it didn’t seem to help.
“Holy fuckballs,” I said for all of us. “That’s way better than Jesus’ gay love story.”
The peers all turned to me now.
“I won,” I reminded them.
“Come on, dude,” Pocket prompted. “Feels better. Trust me.”
Jesus pointed at Pocket’s face. “How can you tell those eyes no, El Rey?”
Pocket put his bottom lip out.
Guess it is fair.
Guess that it’s time.
Here’s hoping they don’t lock me in the Pit after I’m done.
“Yeah, okay . . . well, this will take awhile . . . and there will be lots of weird shit you won’t believe. Pocket won’t even remember his little revelation years from now, not compared to this one, cuz . . . well . . . there be dragons.”
Session 160
Noon had come and gone by the time Welf and Vicky showed up at the gym.
In a Rolls Royce, not a BMW, which I thought unfortunate. I’d looked forward to calling it the Nazi Mobile. They had a driver who never exited the car, and Constructs apparently call shotgun, who knew?
By then I was mostly done with training, if that’s what you could call what we were doing. After the extended show and tell, Pocket and I had gotten down to actually sparring. He’s not so bad when he’s not focusing on trying to resist being outed by his boyfriend. Really questioning who’s the top and who’s the bottom in that relationship. Although, if it’s Jesus who fucks Pocket then who fucks the goat?
Sparring.
We did some of it.
There were no more kicks to the balls.
Nor would there be against Conan Sapa.
Tried that, didn’t go so well for me.
Little over twenty-four hours until the match and I was starting to feel in the groove, starting to formulate how to kill the man. Gone from accidentally killing a guy to planning on doing it in a few short months. Conan Sapa, got to kill me some Conan Sapa. Didn’t think I could play him. Didn’t think I could show off for the crowd. I was a geomancer, it was expected that I’d use conjurations as an advantage over the corpusmancer.
Didn’t think I would.
Thought about what I could actually do if I went all out with my maximum limit of geo-anima clinging just outside my skin.
Be a lot like how I beat Vega’s trick in the Rock Zone.
Except . . . bloodier.
The sparring had little flow, due to T-Bone, Jesus, and Pocket’s bad habit of stopping the training session with more questions for me about Paine or the Geo Realm or Meteyos or all the rest of it. My assumptions on Vampires vs Dragons 2: Vamp Harder. Being clueless as to what a Maximus could be. Root working for the Divines and what that could mean when the Lady died. Lots of questions that I had no answers for.
Still felt good to have it all off my chest.
Fuck.
Did.
It.
Feel.
Good.
Off my chest. Cleared out. Free ballin’. Clean ass crack.
Except for T-Bone’s reaction to it all.
“Dragons are real? In Dragonlance blue dragons shoot lightning bolts, do you think there’s a blue dragon that shoots lightning bolts out there somewhere?”
“Sawaephim? Black Elf? You mean like a Drow? Or a Night Elf like in World of Warcraft? I wonder if there are trolls and orcs and stuff out there too. No Taurens of course, Blizzard made those up.”
Urgh.
Just . . .
NERDS!
Right?
Part of the problem was that I didn’t know. Never knew. Didn’t really want to think about the possibility. There’s a Geo Realm. Is there an Electro Realm? If so . . . what’s inside of it?
What I’d seen and the hours I’d spent among Poug and his people had been enough of a worry . . . enough of a mindfuck. I wasn’t sure I was ready for the world to get that big, be that complex, and everything that came with the idea. Too quick. Don’t adjust rapidly to new facts like I did as a kid. Still quicker than others, but if the world does get that weird, it might not be quick enough.
So I waved him off and focused on punching Pocket as the Fernthrower tried to weave his perfect six-foot-two All-American very gay, you got a problem with it? frame away from me.
Back to distractions are you?
First the lies themselves.
Now from the truths you’ve stolen.
Needed to steal more.
Needed to stop reacting and just . . . unleash.
The second the bell sounds.
Unleash on Conan Sapa and don’t stop.
Don’t stop when he’s lying dead at my feet.
Keep unleashing.
Keep moving forward.
Make Fate react to me for once.
Only . . . the Bitch-Queen had one card left to play
[CLICK]
Welf looked worse than I did.
Given I’d been drugged up, beat up, and Slushed up, the douchebag was having a pretty bad last few days.
He took in the gym like it was another world even stranger than the one I’d described when speaking of the Geo Realm. Especially with his long, regal nose, sniffing away at the stink of body odor and blood mixed with bleach. He looked out of place, out of sync. Like I had with T-Bone’s gamers or at the Ouroboros that first day or even worse: that first day without Valentine Ward in my life. Only Welf was too much of a patrician to crawl himself inside a bottle on the off chance it would bury the emotions. Instead he just heaped the emotions together and labeled it all as guilt, wallowing in it.
“I’m up for another round if you are, Welf,” I offered him, trying to be as friendly as the two of us got.
He sneered of course. Not at me, but at the ring. Suppose that’s an improvement in our relationship. He’s still a douchebag, he’s just a moldy enough douchebag now that I feel bad for him. After finding the ring and the gym it was inside wanting, he said, “I don’t believe that you hitting me will help us combat Jason’s killer.”
“Might make you feel better. Last punch seemed to help. Maybe a few more will be a bigger improvement.”
He glanced away, jaw tight. He’d punched m
e, sure, but I knew him well enough after all these years to know it was the rest that had really hurt him, even if he wouldn’t speak of it. Saw him cry. Saw him grieve. Saw him weak. Welf’s can’t be human. “I must apologize for the other day, Foul Mouth,” he said stiffly. “I let my grief get the better of me.”
“No hard feelings.” I told him.
Welf nodded like the world had been set in order.
“Actually,” I added, “I kind of forgot all about that punch with everything that happened yesterday.”
“Tyson told me late last night,” Vicky said as her greeting to me after having gone over to hug and peck at said Tyson’s lips, smiling over him in his over-padded sparring gear. “It seemed better to let you rest and recover than to . . . be motherly?”
“You know how to do that?” I teased her.
“It’s a learned not genetic trait,” she admitted with a wink.
“Shit, someone might have to hurt himself just to see what that’s like,” I said, glancing between T-Bone and her. “Could get kinky.”
T-Bone and Vicky both blushed at whatever went through their minds.
“I only just woke a few hours ago,” Welf added awkwardly, still clueless that Vicky had needs. “I don’t think I’ve ever slept for so long in my life, even after a wakeful, exhausting night like the one before.”
Vicky put her finger over her lips.
Don’t mention the sleeping pills, got you loud and clear, Vick. Might want to not put him into a coma next time though, readjust those learned mothering skills. “What about you? Want a round with the Foul Mouth?” I teased her some more.
“People would talk,” she teased me back, taking the time to dramatically ogle my sweaty, bare chest. Trust me, ladies, wasn’t so bad, but at five-foot-eight it ain’t exactly romance novel material. She turned from us and back towards the rest of the gym. “It’s very different. I remember the one at school being cleaner, much busier, and crowded with corpusmancers. Mundanes must have jobs to attend at this hour though, I suppose?”
Old Mancy kid trying to figure out mundane lifestyle, I’d have an easier time explaining it to Poug. “Don’t remember ever seeing you inside the one at the Asylum.”
“I had Physical Education like everyone else. I just had to acclimate to it all. As a child, Brother and I preferred walking the gardens or taking our horses out for a trot . . . maybe a gallop if Mother and Father were busy elsewhere,” she added with a sparkle in her eye.
Pocket perked up a bit. “You have horses?”
Vicky nodded enthusiastically. “A whole stable . . . though perhaps not as illustrious as those we had in Germany I’m told. The family had to rebuild when we were relocated.”
“Poor Welfs had to rebuild their horsey houses, just awful, the indignity!” I mocked her tone.
“Just because you’re a—” Welf started before biting his tongue. He started again with, “Our family has never viewed athletics as the female sphere.”
“Remember you not being so bad with a basketball, Welf.”
“Yes, well . . . Jason taught me the game.”
Guilty silence.
“Jackson did love his gym time at the Asylum,” Jesus agreed, trying to be friendly. He’s slightly better at it than I am, but only just. You need fur and a tail for him to ever be loveable towards you. Or, you know, be Pocket. Who did resemble a romance novel cover as he stood beside me leaning on the ring ropes.
“Tried to work out with him one time,” I agreed, “couldn’t walk for three days afterwards.”
A small smile appeared on Welf, who nodded in our direction like the effort at not being assholes was appreciated. “And how is your progress in avenging him progressing, Price?”
‘Price’ again.
Welf needs to make up his mind whether he just hates me or wants me to disappear off the face of the planet.
He better not ever start calling me ‘King Henry.’
I’ll punch him a few times on principle.
I tugged at my glove laces with my teeth, since it seemed like practice time was wrapping up. “Fight’s still a go. Most of me being attacked yesterday was about Master Zhou being a touchy prick, some of it—”
“Who’s Master Zhou?” T-Bone asked.
“Damn it, forgot to include all that in with the other stuff . . . okay so—”
“What other stuff?” Welf asked.
Jesus, T-Bone, and Pocket all had their eyes on me. Do we get to start telling other people or—
Of fucking course we don’t tell other people about this shit!
“Crazy Mancy shit like me maybe being a Maximus, stuff like that, not important,” I brushed it all aside.
Welf seized on the little I gave to him. “You’re a Maximus? You. King Henry Price is a Maximus?”
Of fucking course Mr. Old Mancy knows just as much if not more than Vicky did about it. Wonder if Momma Welf ever gave him a demonstration on what she could do? “Seems like you know a bit more than I do about it, Welf. Maybe you want to share with the class? Give you a chance to show off, you always liked that. Go for it.”
At first I thought Welf was about to explode. Like he was angry and in shock and . . . like the information pushed him to his breaking point. But then . . . I just watched his face as he imploded. Welf crashing in on Welf, all the way down with them turtles.
All of a sudden he started laughing. Uncontrollably. Inconsolably. Sad, harsh laughter like an out of tune violin. Even freakier, his Construct laughed along with him, her voice shockingly warm and pleasant and alive. Welf laughed so long that his tombstone eyes rimmed with tears. He laughed so hard he bent over double from the pain in his stomach.
“Brother?” Vicky whispered askance.
Welf shook his head, barely containing his mirth and his pain, mixed all together. “Oh Mancy . . . since I was fourteen I’ve been trying to understand how, how he always does it, how he always beats me and now . . . of course he’s a Maximus. You can’t imagine, you really can’t. You saying those words! What a relief! What an epiphany . . . but what horseshit too! As you would say, Price. King Henry Price is a Maximus . . . yes! Why not? Mancy help the world . . .”
He started laughing again, sitting down on one of the ringside benches before he fell to the ground.
“That’s the scariest damn thing I’ve ever seen,” Pocket whispered into my ear so only I could hear. “Heinrich Welf delirious with joy and—bunch of weird emotions—what’s the world coming to?”
Welf didn’t seem like he was about to answer my questions about the subject any more than Ceinwyn had, so I let it all slide off me. No one’s talking about it, not for all the anima in Lake Tahoe. Still . . . if a Maximus was some type of special mancer I could see how that would restore Welf’s worldview. No longer the street rat besting him. Was the special mancer besting him. The social order was intact. The world worked as it was meant to work, King Henry Price just happened to be a special case. Relax, laugh at the plebs, dear, everything will be okay, we always win in the end.
Keep telling yourself them lies, Welf.
Plebs powder your ass for you.
One day they might have enough and light said ass on fire.
“To not get sidetracked, Master Zhou is a Nation head. He gave Vega the idea for the Ouroboros and a huge chunk of the money needed to build it too.” I managed to get my gloves off all the way and tossed them into a ringside bin. Hands felt good after all that punching. Fists and knuckles always seemed to be on my side. Never tiring out. Enjoying the pain with me. “His Nation is all secretive and shit. Call themselves the Eternal Order.”
“What Were-type?” T-Bone asked.
I got out of the ring and hopped down to the floor before looking at him like he was just slightly retarded. “Snakes.”
“You were attacked by a weresnake?” T-Bone gasped. Everyone else seemed slightly unnerved by the idea, even Welf.
“Wereviper,” I corrected. “I dealt with it. Did I not explain all this to you guys l
ast night?”
“You barely made words come out of your mouth last night, El Rey,” Jesus reminded me. “All I made out was ‘kidnap’ and ‘drug.’”
“And that his sister is pregnant,” T-Bone blurted out.
Vicky gave a squeal. “How exciting!” she giggled, throwing her arms around me in yet another surprise hug. “When’s it due? Do they know what the sex is?”
“I . . . didn’t ask.”
“King Henry!”
“Hey! Someone tries to assassinate you, you have to set a bed on fire to burn him alive—”
“Jesus Christ!” Pocket yelled.
“Jesus Valencia,” I corrected. “Really, if you stick your dick in him then you should at least remember his name, Pocket. Or be out of his house before he wakes up . . . I kind of pull that move all the time, there’s no shame in it.”
Vicky blinked, hug lessening up a little bit. “You . . . set a man on fire?”
“He was a snake at the time,” I pointed out like it was a reasonable thing to do. “And I had to burn up all my artifacts too. I barely survived—”
“You burned up all your artifacts?!?” T-Bone yelled at me.
I motioned at how unarmed I was. “Did you think I just left them at the hotel?”
“Yes!”
“I barely survived,” I repeated insistently, “then I headed to see my brother-in-law, who knew about the attack but wasn’t behind it. But did I know that? No. So . . .”
[CLICK]
We took a quick shower.
Nothing homoerotic about that situation.
Especially with two gay guys in the shower.
So pretty much like every gym shower on the planet.
Got dressed, all that shit.
Should have been a simple drive back to the hotel. No problem at all. Welf was already on the phone working the lines to make sure Vega didn’t screw it all up. Welf wasn’t very pleased after I told him about last night. You just had to break his property and anger King Vega further, Foul Mouth!
The Foul Mouth and the Mancy Martial Artist (The King Henry Tapes Book 5) Page 52