“Price!” Sapa yelled at me, halfway out onto the canvas and only held back by the referee being in the way. “He wouldn’t let me kill you, Price! Wanted to do it months ago, but he said it wasn’t time, that you kept his secret, that we should watch and wait! He was right! He’s always right! Now I’m even stronger! Now I’m going to do it with my hands instead of with a gun!”
I stepped out the same distance from the cage, referee holding out a hand to stop me too. The announcer hurried out before the fight started early. I pushed my way closer to Sapa, both of us bracketing the referee, who shook uncomfortably.
“Hear what I said, Price? You got minutes to live!” Sapa yelled some more taunts, full on Cartoon Villain mode. “You little shit, look at you! Think you stand a chance because of your precious anima? I’m going to kill you, then I’m going to find that fire bitch that fucked everything up with her sister and kill her too! Maybe I’ll even visit the school and grab Christmas Ward back to where she belongs!”
I stared at his chest. It was in front of my eyes. He seemed even bigger from this close. I let my dirt eyes drift upwards again. Let them find Conan Sapa’s gaze. Inside of me the earthquake waited. When I spoke, my voice was a low growl, my words coming out of lips curled back to reveal sharp threatening teeth. “A few months back I killed my first man. Was just an accident. Couple days ago I killed my second man. Was in self defense. But you? I’m going to enjoy killing you. I’m going to kill you for me.”
Sapa laughed, but it was a little shaky.
Shaky over what he saw in my eyes.
Shaky as the earth under my feet, as the anima inside of me waited to be unleashed.
We went back to our corners.
I nodded when the referee asked if I was ready.
The bell rung.
[CLICK]
You want excitement.
You want climax.
You want five rounds of back and forth fighting.
You want my life on the line. Perhaps I break a wrist or an ankle or maybe Sapa cheats somehow. After all this lead up you want it to last forever. Want the moment to be worthy of all that came before. Oh God, good God, will King Henry survive?
Can’t give you any of that.
Fight wasn’t like that.
Sometimes life disappoints our expectations.
Don’t I know it.
Shouldn’t you know it by now?
[CLICK]
Let’s go back shall we?
So it’s thousands of years ago and there are these two groups of Irish or British warriors, we’ll call them fucktards, and these warriors are waving their asses and peckers at each other.
Only one guy ain’t in on pecker waving, he’s standing silent, concentrating so hard he might be constipated and then, after five minutes, a bolt of lightning flies down from the heavens and smashes into the other side, killing a couple guys and running the rest of them off. We’ll call the guy Merlin. As a normal mancer with preparation and a proper use of theatrics and bluffing about having a second bolt of lightning, he keeps his soldiers alive.
Or maybe it was just the pecker waving.
But hey, we changed the situation, didn’t we? In the second situation Merlin shoots down his lightning and misses and while a couple guys get so scared they crap themselves, all the peckerwavers still man it up and charge each other and what you got is a lot of dead people while Merlin is standing around for five more minutes pooling anima for another lightning bolt.
Surviving this, Merlin goes to his cute friend Nimue who happens to be an Artificer and Nimue whips Merlin up a nice staff with a snazzy crystal on top that can shoot a preloaded set of lightning bolts. Next time, Merlin’s got his staff and by thinking even further ahead he’s got more than one lightning bolt right off the bat.
But maybe Merlin doesn’t need the staff in the first place. Maybe Merlin is more aware of what he is than a young King Henry Price first facing off against Annie B, dodging around all the teapots. Maybe Merlin even knows more than the King Henry Price standing in the cage with Conan Sapa. Maybe Merlin is a Maximus at the height of his powers.
For an hour before all the peckerwavers even show up Merlin readies himself. He pools, he prepares. He has much more at his disposal than one tiny lightning bolt. He is the Greatest Power. He is not a Stormcaller. He is the Storm!
Maybe he’s standing in that field alone as the other group of peckerwavers approaches. Maybe they laugh at him.
Who’s this fucking guy?
Then Merlin pumps out an hour of electro-anima in seconds, lightning bolts flying from the heavens and from his hands, flinging peckerwavers all about, sizzling peckers before they can even start waving.
Just him.
Him and his knowledge of what he is and what his enemy is not.
No staff with a snazzy crystal on top.
No pretty sword.
Just him.
Fuck your legends.
Fuck your expectations.
Fuck your epic climax.
Sometimes the world ain’t fair.
Sometimes you ain’t the one Fate is fucking in the ass.
Sometimes you stand as the pinnacle of all your forefathers, of all the mancers who have come before.
Sometimes you are a Maximus, perhaps not in full control of your powers, but this time, in this place, it is more than enough.
Sometimes the enemy, no matter what experiments Obadiah Paine has performed on him, is barely more than that Intra corpusmancer and at the end of the day he can’t escape it.
He can’t escape Fate.
Conan Sapa can’t escape that in this Fated meeting, though the Storm is elsewhere, the Earthquake stands before him.
I destroyed him.
I decided to kill him, it was within my power, and I did it.
Don’t know what it says about me.
Or about power.
Or about life.
Or about expectations.
I beat him to death, one iron fist at a time.
Came in fast, took a couple punches to my shoulders as he laughed at me about how much bigger he was. His punches would’ve broken a mundane, but geo-anima flashed out of my pool, thirty seconds worth at each impact point. Same side of iron fist that protects against the impact of such a powerful punch. Just like every time before, even when I was punching that boulder down in the casino, I didn’t feel a thing.
I kept moving forward.
Into his guard.
Into his space.
He put his hands on my shoulders, laughing still.
Then I ducked down and starting swinging right into his gut.
After the fifth punch Conan Sapa laughed up blood.
After the ninth punch Conan Sapa leaned over, barely on his feet.
The twelfth punch broke a rib.
The sixteenth snapped his forearm as he desperately tried to get me to stop.
Seventeen through twenty-five went into his mouth, which was toothless by the end.
Twenty-six finally knocked him down to his knees.
I held him up with my left arm, the hardest part of the night, all four-hundred pounds leaning on me for support.
With my right I smashed hammer-fist after hammer-fist, every one of them augmented with geo-anima, into Conan Sapa’s forehead.
I’m not sure which one killed him.
But he died a long time before I ran out of anima.
Session 162
Can’t say I’m a fan of funerals.
Haven’t been to many of them.
Less than a handful.
But I’m not a fan.
Can’t help but feel the only people on the planet who are fans of them are necromancers and vampires. In this case even the necromancer present could barely keep from breaking down with emotion, his bright-haired sister by his side, holding his hand as the preacher went through the usual afterlife spiel.
Never been spiritual, downright hate the idea of the power organized religion can wield in people’s li
ves, but I can’t claim I’m an atheist either. Seen too much weird shit in the last year to make any claims on the afterlife with certainty. Or an all powerful something.
Or several semi-powerful somethings . . . which might be even worse.
Wasn’t crowded by any means at this particular funeral. Outdoors and graveside, I liked that part. Sunny. Death is dark, but another part of a funeral is remembrance and memory should be sunny when at all possible. Like Vicky Welf, standing there so grown up and adult, her array of earrings with spectro-crystals oddly clashing with the black of her dress.
Memory.
When I remembered Mom’s funeral, the shadows and the splotches of inky darkness were all I remembered. That and the sound of tears. There were tears here too, but at least in the winter daylight they glistened and were accounted for. Those tears spoke about loss. Tears in the darkness are just more noise.
Welf and Vicky stood side-by-side next to the preacher. Pocket, Jesus, T-Bone, and me were opposite them. Pallbearers of a ragged sort. I looked as I always looked, geomancer’s coat, jeans. Little more beat up than usual, but not too much. Felt solid. Felt good. Killed a man and I felt good. It wasn’t just the killing, it was the breaking that went along with it.
Pocket and Jesus had more clothes in the RV, so they at least had a shot at looking their parts with black t-shirts—if covered by a leather jacket in Jesus’ case and a windbreaker for Pocket. They held hands behind their backs where no one in the crowd could see it.
T-Bone had himself some black cords and a black sweater-vest. Plus, ya know . . . black skin.
The casket was between our two groups. All that had happened and it still felt like two groups. White seats had been spaced out for more visitors and a few were occupied by faces I recognized and others I didn’t.
Ceinwyn was there, black dress and overcoat oddly somber, her blue eyes not smiling at anything for once. I refused to meet them even so. Some part of me craved reconciliation with Auntie Badass. It was small and terrified of what it had just done in that cage and wanted an adult to grab it and hold it and apologize for what had happened between us. A much colder piece of me feared it, what if she did? What if she said she was wrong and I admitted I was full of myself and then . . .
Then I’d have to tell her what I had told the others.
Obadiah Paine is the Curator.
Conan Sapa might be dead—
Very fucking dead and you’re welcome for it!
—but the real mastermind behind Isabel’s breakout and Jason’s death was still out there. The man who killed Amis Valet was alive. He’s been out there hurting people this whole time and you never knew and I kept that from you out of hurt pride, over you not telling me what I wanted to know.
As many times as I’ve done it this week, telling the truth is still hard. Harder than killing a man.
Killing a man . . . gotten used to that.
Some other classmates and teachers had made the drive from the Asylum. Estefan and Debra, Naomi and her father. Fines Samson was there, in town to supervise Eva’s transport back to the Asylum. Fix her, Miss Strange, and I’ll never call you a grouch again, even when you’re throwing oranges at my head telling me to take vitamin c.
The rest of our classmates were busy or spread across the globe, but there in spirit.
As the preacher finished, Welf finally forced his mouth open to say a few words, “He was a better man than I am. He only wanted to help people for the simple sake of helping people. My motives have never been so pure. Always guilty, always forcing myself to do simple kindnesses that came easily for Jason. He never started a fight, but he always liked ending them. Sometimes it was with his fists, but more often it was just with a little lean and a smile that said, ‘don’t start trouble here.’
“He always stood up for me, even when I didn’t deserve it, when I was the one who started the fight. He always supported me when I doubted myself. He believed me to be a better man than I am and that has always helped me in my attempts at living up to it, if eventually failing along the way. He believed in the Institution. He could barely read when he arrived, but by the time he graduated he had developed a full-fledged addiction to reading an actual newspaper every day . . . even if it was that horrible rag the Journalism Club put together on Sunday. He was a prime athlete and taught me how to play team sports, even play team sports without trying to tell everyone what to do.”
Welf got a laugh, now there’s a bigger miracle than all that three-days-before-rising shit the preacher talked about.
“He was always the cornerstone of our Winter War team and nearly always the best player on any field he stepped on. He was a horrible dancer and could barely carry a tune. I offered to give him a job after our graduation, but he turned it down to become a Recruiter. Again, he wanted to help people. Kids out there don’t know how awesome life is gonna be, Heinrich, but I’m gonna find them, I’m gonna show ‘em.
“His friends, his family, and the school will all miss him dearly in the years to come, but we won’t forget him, we’ll never forget him.”
It dusty out here or it just me?
[CLICK]
Never actually got to the end of a funeral before, so that part was new to me.
Everyone standing around talking, trying to be nice, trying to not admit they want to leave over how creepy cemeteries are.
Pocket had driven the RV right on over to it, we’d be leaving from there back to Fresno. Pocket and Jesus would turn around after that and head back to their apartments in Pismo. “Should move in together,” I told them. “Won’t even have to get used to closing the toilet seat. Best of both worlds.”
Pocket turned around, searching to find a way out. “Oh look, there’s Naomi! I haven’t said hello to her yet!”
Jesus nudged me with elbow, eyebrows going up and down. “Don’t worry, El Rey, I’ll make an honest man out of him yet. Maybe even get a ring on him one day. Make him quit his job, stay home with the kids. They’ll be his of course . . . can’t have a kid look like me and have Pocket’s personality, poor little thing would get beat up all the time. But if it looks like Pocket and has my nurture given personality . . . might be president.”
There’s a sitcom in there somewhere, I thought, but said, “Maybe forget the daydream and try to get a dog that the two of you can share first . . . not a stray, like, actual dog that doesn’t have fleas or battle scars. Cute one even. With floppy ears. You know, the kind you hate?”
Jesus shook his head. “Would just piss on all Pocket’s ferns . . . turn them yellow.”
He wandered off after Pocket, likely to save him from Naomi. Should tell her you’re gay while you’re at it, Fernthrower. She might finally let the grudge go then. Sadly, there was nothing I could tell Naomi to drop the grudge she had with me. Or her father, who glared hellfire in my direction when he noticed my eyes were on Naomi.
Alone.
Did I want to talk with anyone?
Not particularly.
I’d said my goodbyes to Jason in that arena.
Thought of him lying dead and Christmas Ward locked in a cage with every punch. Wonder what Christmas will say the next time I see her? Wonder if I should even tell her? Maybe I should ask Val.
Felt like I might be able to do that soon.
Now that she’s out of my system I got to start working on getting her back.
Funerals ain’t a place for smiles and King Henry Price ain’t a man for them, but that thought put one on my face.
Alone.
Watching.
I kept checking on Ceinwyn’s location just to be sure I wasn’t near her.
She was talking with Welf now, had a hand on his shoulder even. He nodded at whatever she was saying and teared up over it.
Funerals just keep getting weirder.
T-Bone was with Vicky, saying goodbye. Hugging and kissing and luckily, no big black wang. I’d fallen asleep not long after the fight. Shower, change of clothes, slow lonely walk back to my hotel suite,
sleep. Vega and the Tsar both sent invitations to a party they were throwing to celebrate a successful event. Even the thought of seeing JoJo wasn’t enough to entice me. Heard Pocket, Jesus, and T-Bone up late chatting and joking with each other.
Relief was in the air.
We made it.
But me, I just got a good night’s sleep for the first time since Val dumped me.
Maybe since everything that happened with Ceinwyn.
Who was now talking with Vicky and T-Bone, smiling at them kissing and being less Auntie Badass and more Auntie Hitch-Em-Up like she had a habit of occasionally doing.
I drifted over to the casket to get more space.
Welf had his hand on that casket, staring down like it would help him understand. “Foul Mouth,” he greeted.
Figured I should say something, so I asked a question, “You really burying him here?”
“No,” he said.
“Taking him back to Memphis? That’s his hometown, right?”
“No,” he said again.
“Then what are you doing with him? Burying him at Welf Manor? Suppose you got a huge mausoleum there for your horses, much less your friends or your family,” I tried to make light of it all.
Welf shook his head. “He’s not in the coffin.”
Oh fuck me. I just . . . no. No. Please tell me he didn’t.
I leaned over the coffin, getting low enough so my face was in his eye-line. “What does that mean?”
“Facechangers make the best Constructs, Foul Mouth. Corpus-anima decays into necro-anima. It’s like working with a body that desires living on, not one fighting you the whole way. Even Intra corpusmancers are desired. If I buried him here or in Memphis someone would just dig him up and sell him on the black market.”
I would’ve almost pitied how sad it was if it wasn’t so fucked up. “Are you shitting me, Frankenstein?”
He shook his head, wiping at his dripping nose with a gloved hand. “Better I claim and use it than someone else. This way his mother and brothers will be supported by Welf Financial’s purchase payment. It’s time I stopped using Mother’s handouts. It’s time I made a Construct worthy of a Welf.”
The Foul Mouth and the Mancy Martial Artist (The King Henry Tapes Book 5) Page 59