“You would be the expert on drugging people,” Welf finally couldn’t help himself.
“Did it for a good cause.”
“We did win the match,” he admitted.
Oh, talking about the waffles.
“You ever figure out I was the one who made Hope pregnant?” I asked him.
“What?!?”
“That came out very wrong . . .”
“Explain yourself before I have Autumn—”
“ I may have slipped Hope some pills to ensure she didn’t get a certain monthly flow around graduation, so you would be distracted and forget to study for our exams.”
“I knew it!” Welf shouted. He even pointed at the ceiling with his cane like he was in the court of law. “She said I was crazy and that these things happen, but it was you!”
“I had to track her period and get a shipment of said pills sent to the Asylum and find a way to slip it into her food, lucky I also subliminally made her decide on trying a smoothie diet for breakfast at the same time. Then I made sure I was the only person on campus with a birth control test, I even had to raid Miss Strange’s supply and break into her office after she found out about it to make sure the order forms she sent for a restock were marked with the wrong item numbers. Plus a few other things. Ya know . . . no big deal.”
Welf wanted to hit me. Maybe more than once. “Do you know what finishing third-in-the-class did to me, Foul Mouth? Do you know what the shame on my father’s face was like? That I did worse than he did?”
“The father that not a few days ago you were bashing for spending all his time in finance instead of focusing on the Mancy?” I reminded him.
“He’s still my father,” Welf whispered.
“But I’m a Maximus, remember? You didn’t have a chance.”
“Except you didn’t beat me. You cheated like always.”
“Only sometimes. Sometimes I exceed expectations.”
“You won’t be able to cheat in that cage.”
“I know that more than you do, Welf.”
Why I don’t plan to cheat.
He paced up and down the dressing room again. “It should have been me,” he mumbled under his breath.
No idea if he was talking about back at school or about stepping in the cage.
[CLICK]
Usually my fights don’t have this kind of buildup.
Not to say I never had any lead up to one.
Back in middle school a lot of my fights were of a more spontaneous variety, but occasionally you’d find that one fucker you wanted bad and he would pull out the ‘after school’ card. Got to fight in front of crowds then too. Didn’t always win back then. Sometimes my ‘luck’ just wouldn’t come and at five-foot-nothing it didn’t matter how tough I was or how many punches I could take, my normal output sans iron fist was barely enough to earn a draw in most cases. Sometimes I was even beat pretty badly.
But one time . . . a teacher found us out before the fight. Got suspended for a week. So I had a whole week to sit around at home, grounded. Thinking about what I would do to that fucking asshole. Cody Deeds. Name even makes him sound like a special kind of fucktard. Cody. Way to fuck up your kids before they’re even sucking at the tit, parents.
Cody, unsurprisingly, was a bully who especially liked to flick other kids ears while the teachers had their backs turned, like Cody was stuck in the fucking 50s.
Cody wasn’t suspended like me.
Cody had his grandma on the school board.
Cody is the piece of shit who warned the teacher about the fight in the first place.
Planned for a week how I would trap him alone and beat him into a wall.
He was ‘sick’ the day I came back.
Had the principal call me in and give me a talk about solving problems with my fists.
Shows what he fucking knows, about to solve a really big seven-foot-problem with my fists.
Pocket and Jesus showed up to tell me Conan Sapa had arrived.
Alone.
No Isabel.
Bet she’s in the stands somewhere. Waiting to call Paine and report on what happens. If the little dog or the monster are dead.
My phone was in my locker along with the glass-steel dagger that had Mini inside of it. Outside of the occasional flicker, the fairy had been very quiet. Trying to conserve anima until I can get him back to his table in Fresno.
Or Mini was scared I’d yell at him.
Could call Paine myself. Gloat a little.
Ask him another question: Why did you sacrifice Sapa like that? He failed you the one time with Christmas Ward? That all it took to move him from a useful ally to a useless tool you could experiment on?
I didn’t feel bad for Sapa.
He made his bed.
Child thief.
Murderer.
But I wouldn’t even throw Welf to the wolves like Paine had with Sapa.
Got himself some replacements it seems.
People joining Paine. Not even crazy mancers like Isabel. Just people pissed off at the Learning Council and other things that had been building for too long. Felt them just like all the rest did, but joining Paine? Seeing them intense lunatic eyes, hearing that call of ‘cut cut cut’ and saying ‘yes’ to them?
Never.
Not for all the answers to all the questions in the world.
“You doing okay, dude?”
“Need anything, El Rey?”
I shook my head each time.
Two hours before the fight I got out of my clothes, changing into some shorts. No idea which one of my friends got all the gear ready for me, but they had KHP stenciled on the hem, with a nice Artificer for Hire logo across my left ass cheek. There was a ring robe that I slipped on too, made out of the same color, if not the same material as a geomancer’s coat. Had my full name on the back across my shoulders: King Henry Price.
“Fucking absurd,” I said.
Pocket took a photo. “Memories,” he said when I scowled at him.
“And blackmail if you ever have children,” Jesus added with a laugh.
“I ever have kids and you two better keep your mouths shut about all the stupid shit we’ve done, poor things will be fucked up enough already.”
Welf snorted his agreement, still pacing past me occasionally. He clicked on a television again. “Electromancer magnetic tug-a-war,” he read off the screen before shutting it off.
I packed up all my discarded clothes and handed them to Pocket, where they were stored in a gym bag. None of us trusted the Weres at the Ouroboros to not line my clothes with something or Vega to not take the opportunity to steal my glass-metal dagger.
Jesus pulled out some focus mitts, got me warmed up by punching into them. Was no wrapping to be done, no boots to wear, no gloves to lace, no cup even. Just me and my shorts stepping into that ring. Five-foot-eight little shit that I am.
Just me and one more thing.
Hour and a half before the fight I sat down on the floor, cross-legged.
I closed my eyes and started pooling anima.
[CLICK]
“How is he still going?” I heard Jesus ask somewhere around the hour mark.
“It can be done,” Welf whispered back, “but he’s taking it to the extreme.”
“Like always,” was Pocket’s comment.
Still no sign of T-Bone or Vicky.
Welf had called them.
They were alive despite the lack of evidence.
Ain’t spending the day grunting and humping while my life is on the line. Those two are up to something.
“Could do without the smell, dude,” Pocket pleaded. “An hour has to be enough. You got to be floating in anima.”
“What do you smell?” I asked him, still pooling anima.
I was floating in it.
Felt calm, at peace, one with the earth.
Total Zen shit.
Deep down the earth waited, deep down the earthquake rumbled to be released.
But not yet.
“Some type of stinky ass cactus flower, I’m about ready to barf,” Pocket complained. “Come on, Vega’s about to give his speech, then you got to head to the ring.”
I kept pooling.
Time to know my limit.
If I could reach my limit in the next half hour.
[CLICK]
Welf clicked on the television to listen to what Vega had to say.
I didn’t watch, but I did listen.
“As I said at the start of this exhibition: my name is Horatio Vega. I am the King of the Coyotes. But I am more than legend, I am also a man, a man with family. Cousins, nephews, nieces, and a beautiful wife, my dear Josephine. But also her family . . . her brother who will step inside this eight-sided cage behind me very soon.
“Many rumors have sprung into existence about this last event. The Days of Supernatural Exhibition is such a success, why would they sully it with something so crass? We do it because during the Day of Brawn a young man was murdered in front of our eyes. Not killed, but murdered. Assassinated.
“Going into these Days we spoke of unity in the supernatural world. Of honest competition. Our world is not united and may never be united, but here in this arena we hoped for a quick peace. But one man and his monster broke this peace, he shattered it. That this man did so is no surprise to anyone. For that is what he does elsewhere. He is a terrorist, a maniac. He has no friends, only enemies. He is my enemy. He is your enemy. Mancer, shapeshifter, vampire, he stands in hate of us all.
“Particularly he stood in hate of the Noble House of Welf, a great mancer family dating back seventeen generations. One of the foundations of our world. A respected name. Young Heinrich Welf supported our endeavors and pushed his own friend to compete in these events. This friend was a Facechanger named Jason Jackson, who was the young man slain in the ring by one Conan Sapa.
“At first, it was thought an accident, but it was not an accident. Conan Sapa entered under a false name. Conan Sapa in reality works for a rogue mancer known only as the Curator.”
You didn’t need the television to here the crowd hiss and boo, you could hear it through the foundations.
“This is why the Ouroboros Corporate Board has allowed this last event to take place. One death wasn’t enough for the Curator. Breaking our unity and our spirit wasn’t enough for the Curator. No, the Curator wished to spit at us one last time. He made of us a challenge. He said, ‘find someone to fight my monster if they dare.’”
It’s bullshit, but it’s pretty bullshit.
“One man stepped up before any other. He is . . . a handful, yes he is! But he always steps up before any other. My brother-in-law King Henry Price. The Artificer who spits in the face of the Guild. The man who we all hear rumors of. Did he really fight the Curator and survive? We ask that. Well . . . I don’t know the truth. But I do know that tonight he is the man who is standing up for all of you against the Curator! He is the man who is stepping into that cage to stand toe to toe with the same man that killed one of the Day of Brawn competitors and horrified all of you.
“The Ouroboros Hotel and Casino gives to you King Henry Price versus Conan Sapa!”
The cheers shook the foundations more than the boos had.
“That was nice of him,” Pocket said.
Suppose it was.
I finally stopped pooling, feeling just a little too full.
Fit to burst.
Ready to erupt.
There was a knock on the door as the Tsar poked his head in. “It’s time.”
[CLICK]
Conan was already out in the cage collecting more boos from the crowd as I made the way from my dressing room out to the backstage doors. Got some nods from other competitors as I listened to those boos carry like waves of sound above my head. Had so much anima in me I could feel the way the vibrations bounced off the metal frame of the arena. Feel boots and high heels and sandals and tennis shoes bounce over the concrete.
The pitter patter of little feet.
Jesus was on my left, Pocket was on my right.
Welf brought up the rear with his Construct even behind him.
There would be no repeat if something crooked happened from Paine, all three would go out on that field with me. The field where hours before mancers had been showing everything they had in them. Entertaining the crowd one blast of anima at a time. Free from constraints, free from our need to remain hidden from mundane eyes.
Igor waited for me again at the backstage doors. “He went out alone. Confident too.”
“So am I,” I said.
“Anima is anima, but . . . he’s twice your size.”
“He’s twice my size, but anima is anima,” I threw back at him.
“Bad luck I know to bring it up, but any last words you want told if you don’t make it?” Igor asked me, as depressing as most Russian epics.
“Pocket and Jesus already know what needs to be told and who they need to tell it to,” I rebuffed him. Can always trust the Tsar, can always trust him to play every side . . . can always trust him to scrounge for every drop of information that could earn him money.
The Smashing Pumpkins started playing across the speakers.
“That’s your cue, King Henry,” Igor told me. “Every Were in this arena is rooting for you . . . can you believe it? King Vega gives a good speech. Good thing he can’t run for president, eh?”
I turned to Pocket. “Smashing Fucking Pumpkins?”
He just grinned. “Song always reminded me of you. Rage, cage, and all that.”
“Ignore the fact it mentions vampires in the first line,” Jesus complained. “I wanted Hendrix for you, but was outvoted.”
I jutted my chin at Welf. “Suppose you wanted me to come out to the Nazi National Anthem?”
“Of course not,” Welf snapped.
“Wagner?” I guessed.
“If you don’t shut up then the song will be over before you get to the cage,” Welf complained.
“Not some pussy Bach shit?”
Welf sighed, finally giving it. “O Fortuna.”
I nodded. “Not bad.”
Fate strikes down the strong man, everyone weep with me.
Wouldn’t be the Bitch-Queen striking in that ring.
Would be King Henry Price.
[CLICK]
Standing in the ring with Sapa made the differences in our size seem worse than the hypothetical had been.
Next to Jason he’d been massive, across the cage from me he was already a giant.
Enjoying himself too.
Enjoying the pomp.
Enjoying his encore.
Killing another mancer in the cage. Proving to everyone watching what the Curator could do with a simple Intra corpusmancer as his only tool. Make an Intra corpusmancer superior to a Facechanger and you overturn the world of stratification we live in. Make an Intra superior to an Artificer? What wasn’t possible then? What would save the Learning Council or all the other aspects of our society from the Curator’s wrath?
It’s weird.
But I fought for the status quo.
Fought to make a point about a system I hated.
Making that point let me kill a man I hated more, let me poke the eye of the man I hate most on the entire planet.
“Just breathe,” Pocket yelled from outside the cage.
“You got this one, El Rey,” Jesus added, trying to sound confident even if he kept eyeing Sapa like all the rest of us.
Welf said nothing. Neither did Autumn at his shoulder.
His tombstone eyes planned his own revenge if I failed trying to win mine.
One way or the other, even over my dead body, wasn’t any way Conan Sapa would step out of that arena.
Even if Paine himself showed up.
My eyes drifted up to the crowds cheering me on, to my own picture on the huge screens, to the luxury boxes hidden in shadows above it all. JoJo was up there with her husband. Who knew Horatio could say something nice about me? Isabel would be somewhere, hi
ding in plain sight. The Divine Falschein as well. T-Bone and Vicky were up to something . . . but what?
My dirt eyes came back down to settle on Conan Sapa.
Don’t matter to you in the next few minutes, does it?
There was a referee.
Not sure why.
Bigger than me, a corpusmancer himself. Didn’t recognize him, but he wasn’t Big John McCarthy so wasn’t like I’d be asking for his autograph. Sapa flipped off the crowd again, earning another round of boos. Were guards all around the cage, cameramen, all the stuff you expect. Even had some ring girls in little Ouroboros snake-scale skirts.
Multiple rounds? Who they kidding?
An announcer came out to give our names and mancer titles. Sapa didn’t fight under an alias this time, but under his own name. Me, I got the whole listing of what I’d done at the Asylum. Not a mention about what I’d done since I graduated. Too bad I don’t have the World-Breaker with me . . . be funny as shit to just disappear in front of this many people.
Try to hide that shit about other realms then, ESLED.
You want to die? That’s a quicker way to die than whatever Sapa’s going to do to you.
Bunch of stuff going through my head.
Being an uncle one day, holding JoJo’s brat in my arms and teaching it dirty words.
Val sitting at a desk in London, with paperwork burning all around her.
Ceinwyn at a funeral with two coffins instead of one.
Annie B trapped in glass, screaming without the lips and lungs to make a noise.
Eva in her hospital bed, motionless.
Paine walking the halls of his asylum, checking on his patients.
Every Divine I knew sitting in a marble chair in that pink, pulsating chamber, humanity standing before them to be judged.
Meteyos thrashing against the walls of his cave, trying to get out to stop me.
Or to save me.
Mini wasting slowly away without anima to use as fuel.
Isabel changing her face into mine.
The Lady dead, Mordecai Root taking her place and turning all the teachers into Constructs.
Val again . . . just standing there. Just waiting for me to say three little words.
The Foul Mouth and the Mancy Martial Artist (The King Henry Tapes Book 5) Page 58