“Appeal or some shit!” I yelled as I slid through the tent opening and into the barely lit interior.
Whole bunch of important eyes turned my way.
Sharp, weighing, measuring eyes: my Math teacher, Delores Dingle, almost had to turn her whole chair to look at me and the poor chair didn’t want to move, lest it fucking implode. A faunamancer, she sat like some big bird nesting an egg, all fluffy with its feathers. Her eyes glared, yet she held back her usual call over my foul language. Old, having taught for a long time at the Asylum, she was also Head of Mathematics on the Learning Council, and I suppose I would have respected that if she hadn’t been torturing me with geometry for months.
Friendly but tough taskmaster eyes: my Elementalism teacher, Keith Gullick, sat on the edge of a table overloaded with treats and drinks, pouring himself a glass of clean water. Being a floromancer he wasn’t too into eating plants, meaning no tea, no coffee, no high fructose corn syrup . . . just kill me now, right? Mr. Gullick won the Favorite Teacher award at the Asylum year after year and also had a seat on the Learning Council as Head of Elementalism. In our second year of learning, we’d branched out from Mancy pooling, sensing, and safely releasing anima and into the differences between Intro and Extro disciplines . . . which is cool shit, so no torture there.
Questioning eyes: Ceinwyn Dale in the flesh, looking as hot as always even buttoned up in winter clothing, slicing little smile dancing into a smirk at my appearance. What kind of shitstorm was King Henry going to raise now? Forget that she started the avalanche tumbling. I see Ceinwyn occasionally, but not as often as I’d like. She’d pop up and question me, see how I’m doing, then disappear the next day. Flighty wind, leaving you lulled for weeks and then throwing up a gale to wreck you on the coast.
Eyes dead to emotion: Mordecai Root is short, slim, and slight. Black hair parted on the left as traditional as you get, an unreadable face and even more unreadable black eyes on a man in his thirties. You get the feeling that Root is soft, that you could beat him to a pulp, but also get the feeling that after you did . . . one night he’d cut your throat and get away with it. Necromancer, Ultra, a Bonegrinder, he was an artisan, an aristocrat in the romantic mode. Kill you with science, box you in the corner. Beat you so completely you’d sign your own suicide note. So . . . the opposite of yours truly’s first reaction. I never had a class taught by Root, but as Head of Physical Theories and also as the Bonegrinder teacher, he had a serious presence at the Asylum.
Eyes that had seen every wonder the Mancy could work: The Lady looked cold, even with a thick sweater on, a shawl around her shoulders, and a blanket wrapped around her legs. She was bundled up enough to need unbundling before she could leave the tent. She winked at me first thing, making me think maybe Ceinwyn wasn’t the only one who’d bet on my class.
More eyes I don’t have a judge on: I’d been at the Asylum for over a year now, but there’s a big faculty. I didn’t know every teacher, never would know them well. Names and faces and a few rumors at best. Especially the Ultra teachers, silent and unknown except for what I’ve heard from my classmates.
Tristan McBee, Shadeshifters, always wore sunglasses every time I’ve seen him and according to Eva was by preference nocturnal unless Asylum business forced him out during the day, like the Winter War. Noelle Clarke, Stormcallers, in her thirties, tall and thin and athletic, the kind of woman who gets described as long; according to Estefan and Debra she likes to run naked through lightning storms . . . I wish that was the weirdest thing I’ve heard about at the Asylum, I really do. Leander Marlow, Riftwalkers, Asa says he sleeps in a deprivation chamber and he always looks like it, perpetually droopy and old in a way Riftwalkers usually never get. Wolfgang von Welf, Beasttalkers, yup, Heinrich Welf’s uncle, pretty much rightly named and always looking very wolfish, big German beer-guzzling fucker that he is; if Jesus hadn’t more than once stood up for him as a good guy, I’d hate him on account of being a Welf.
Only two people in the tent didn’t turn to look my way . . . since they weren’t actually people. Black channels of necro-anima ran over the skin of Root’s constructs, networking them together, keeping their bodies useful beyond death. They manned a pair of terminals, sitting in front of a wall of monitors showing views of the Mound from even more cameras than the crowd outside would see.
Constructs are creepy as shit.
Alive people except for those black lines, like dead people only need anima circuits to be made functional. Guess you’d call them zombies, except . . . no brain eating, no slow movement, no melting skin. I read up on constructs once, cuz know your enemy and all that, and this type, the alive-type, is the highest art-form. There are others. Nothing but bones, using animals, all kinds of weird fucked up shit. As if Jethro Smith bringing out his favorite skull of Lord Byron to have a chat with us about poetry during Languages wasn’t bad enough.
Seeing that many important people together I expected some serious complications. I bothered to describe it all to you, spending this much time on them, purely so you would feel the same fucking disappointment I did. Big scene coming . . .
Only . . . the Lady shrugged, pretending to be bored, “A Game-Ban for post-elimination contact. Return to your team, Artificer Price.”
Root gave no comment one way or the other, but I had a feeling I’d be paying for Ceinwyn and Quilt’s manipulation later. He already hated me for what went down at the end of last school year, this just added to my toll.
Me? I stayed still, dumbfounded. “Why do I never get an argument with you people when I’m actually ready for one?”
The Lady crackled. “How quickly they find out they’re not the center of the universe.”
Which goes to show you . . . she don’t know everything.
King Henry Price? Very much the center of the universe.
Session 123
“Did you really have to bring an arsenal along?” Val asked while keeping her eyes on the road.
The car-ride up San Francisco way turned out to be a whole lot more enjoyable when you ain’t in the trunk of the car and a vampire hasn’t just kidnapped you for her evening meal. Of course, there was more to it than that. Summer instead of winter. Day instead of night. Val instead of Annie B. I’m not a metaphorical guy . . . but there ya go.
The car smelled of Asylum, the same brand-new, invisible, conformist shit I usually expect out of them, though Val had somehow gotten a convertible. With the top down, the wind cooled us just fine. Val’s hair, shorter than usual or not, moved in the breeze. She had a pair of overlarge sunglasses on, could have been going to the beach for all she looked.
Me . . . not so much.
Same scars, same coat, same jeans. I’d taken my time getting ready, more focused on artifacts than on clothes. Clothes are easy. Pair of coats, pair of undershirts, pair of underwear, pair of jeans, all thrown into a duffel. Toothbrush, deodorant, and a razor in a zip-lock. Helps that I live half the time at my shop anymore. My office is more a home than the house Ceinwyn forced me into buying. Bet you I’ve spent five nights a week there ever since the Coyotes shot it up.
Guess it’s the homesteader in me. Protecting what’s mine from those dirty bandits with my Winchester. Don’t actually have a Winchester—not a gun guy, I’m an artifact guy.
“They’re just tools,” I said, voice loud enough to fight off the wind that roared over our heads.
Val didn’t believe a word of it. “Yeah, right. I slept in the same room as you for four years, remember?”
“I remember being annoyed it wasn’t for seven years.”
“I remember having the graduate dorm across from yours and catching a great many Intra girls and Ultra girls and even one maid scuttle guiltily out of your door before sunset,” Val teased. “I find it hard to believe you’d have settled for just me.”
I squinted across the car. “I always settled for just you when it was you . . . or someone I really liked . . .”
That just gave her more ammunition. “Like E
va?”
“Yeah, like Eva,” I agreed through a scowl.
Shit, shit, shitty shit.
“Ever talk to her?” Val asked.
“Nah. You?”
“She’s ESLED, some super secret spy-like branch of it apparently. Most I get from her is a nod when we cross paths in the Admin building.”
I changed the subject. “I still can’t believe how many of you stuck around the school.”
“It’s not just a school, it’s the mancer capital.”
“Yeah, why don’t that bother no one but me?”
“Only because you hate authority.”
“Hate school too.”
“You’re not going to use any of those artifacts on my sister, are you?
I’d let her watch me go around my shop selecting them. Which I think shows how much I trust her. Even T-Bone doesn’t know about one of them . . . or Ceinwyn.
“I doubt it,” I said. “But she comes at me; I might have to karate-chop her.”
“I’ll be sure to let her know: no sudden movements.”
“Or sharp objects.”
“Still haven’t answered me,” Val complained. “You scared I might go Boomworm on you?”
“Nah . . . at least not as long as I don’t try to blackmail you.”
She smiled at the memory. “You deserved that, you little shit.”
“Or try to get a hand in your pants.”
The smile went wicked. “I might scorch you . . . or I might not. You’ll have to try it.”
My heart hoped it wasn’t just a joke. Prince Henry really hoped it wasn’t just a joke. But my head knew differently. “Cruel, Val, really cruel.”
Val’s face went circumspect. “I’m really sorry about that time, you know. I was just surprised.”
A lustful madwoman one day, a blushing maid the next, I thought. Sometimes it was even the same day. “It’s okay . . . I mean, there was a pond next to us, so it didn’t even burn my skin.”
“Your poor pants though . . .”
“Walking back to the common room with my ass hanging out was a new experience, I’ll say that.”
She laughed into the steering wheel and I smiled at her. Valentine Ward . . . the smiling, happy, teasing Valentine Ward. And I get to spend a few days with her. All for the cost of one measly story I’ve already given to a tape-recorder.
Good deal.
Odds were I wouldn’t have to face anything other than a whiny teenage sister who didn’t want to leave her friends behind and whose parents weren’t going to make her. “So fill me in on the story of Christmas Ward,” I said, after a few minutes of silence eaten up by nothing but Central Valley scenery.
“I wish I could, King Henry. I really wish I could.”
“What’s that mean? She’s your sister!”
“I don’t know her at all,” Val explained, “I . . . I only saw her for two weeks of winter holidays and a month during August break for seven whole years. When I left for the Asylum she was what . . . five? Now she’s a teenager and I don’t have the same memories that she has for the other ten months a year.”
The Asylum is worse on loving families than fucked up ones I guess. Helps that my sisters had already bailed before I got drafted into the Mancy Corps. Still . . . “But you reconnected with them afterwards, right?”
Val nodded. “For a few months, and I visit all the time, but . . . I’m still a Recruiter. I had training, now I have a job where I’m traveling all over the globe. My family was very close, is very close. My parents aren’t about to sacrifice seven more years out of another daughter’s life to the Asylum.”
“Even if it will save her life?”
“They don’t believe it,” Val said bitterly, “or don’t want it to be true. Christmas is worse . . . doesn’t want to go to ‘Valentine’s weird school’ and they won’t make her. My parents are hiding it behind the fact that I was so forceful about going to the school—”
“The dog thing?”
“—so now they . . . could you not bring that up just once?”
“I’ll try to contain myself,” I promised, though it being me the promise wasn’t worth much. “So they gave you a choice about it, now they’ve convinced themselves it’s fair to give Christmas a choice about it too?”
“Yes, that, exactly,” Val growled. “They see I’m fine, so they don’t think Anima Madness is a real thing.”
“No matter what you say?”
“Yup.”
“But they know, right? You’ve told them about the Mancy?”
“They know plenty.”
“And still?”
“Yup.”
“And that’s where it ended?” I asked.
“Do you recall me giving up so easily at school?” she asked back, almost offended.
My turn to laugh. “Suppose not.”
“I brought in Ceinwyn for a sit down, I had Miranda come over another time and talk about her experience as a teacher, I even convinced the Lady to make a phone call . . . do you know how hard that is, King Henry?”
“I really can’t believe the old bat ain’t dead by now,” I muttered.
“King Henry!”
“She’s like one-hundred and seven-billion or something,” I complained, “Keel over already, have some decency.”
I’d finally managed to completely shock Val. She shook her head at me and glared a bit. “You are such an asshole . . .”
I ignored the insult—or compliment. I rather like being called an asshole; it means they noticed all the hard work I was putting in. “Yeah, meetings, talks, Special Dispensation for an extra admission year, but did you show her? Or your parents?”
“What . . . the Mancy?”
“Yeah, the Mancy.”
“Of course I tried that to sweeten her up, but she wasn’t impressed.”
I think I saw the problem. Val was holding back with her family. If Valentine Ward is anything . . . it’s impressive. Especially with the Mancy. Family . . . funny thing. Not like I’ve told my old man, so not like I could blame her. Hell, JoJo’s a werecoyote and you think we talk about it? Shit no. Family . . . always too close, too big of a jump to show them your real self, and if you try it—they’ll flinch away or pretend it didn’t happen.
“What did you do?” I asked.
“With the Mancy?”
“No, with your clitoris . . .”
Val didn’t miss a beat on that one. “No handed push-ups. I can snap a dick off at twenty yards.”
Silence.
“I asked for it.”
“You did.”
“So . . . did something wimpy, did you?”
“Wimpy?”
“Let me guess: lit a candle and then a few minutes later unlit a candle . . . ooooh! Ahhhh!”
“What’s wrong with that? Did you want me to light a forest on fire or something?”
“Wouldn’t be the first time . . .”
“That would have scared her to death, my parents too; they never would have let her go.”
“Yeah, well . . . that’s what you want me to do.”
“With a story, not with an earthquake.”
I knew it was inanimate but a part of me couldn’t help but feel the Shaky Stick get excited at the word. Earthquake. “No, no earthquakes. But we need to show them more than candles, they need to understand what’s inside of Christmas. If she’s an Ultra . . . wait, did you test her yet?”
“With a portable, not from Quilt’s room. They aren’t one-hundred percent accurate, but . . . they’re not bad.”
I got sidetracked by the thought of a new artifact. “How do they work?”
“They measure anima residue in the blood for strength and then filter for type. Eight times out of ten they’re correct about Intra or Ultra but they always correctly identify discipline. Recruiters didn’t have them when we were kids.”
“Would love to see one . . .” I mused.
“If you convince Christmas to stop being a spoiled brat or my parents to act like
parents, I will gladly show one to you.”
“Anything else you’ll show me?”
Val winked but didn’t add any more rewards.
“She’s an Ultra?” I asked.
“Yes, she’s an Ultra,” Val whispered.
“Thirty if she’s lucky then,” I whispered too.
“We have to convince them, King Henry . . . we have to . . . if we don’t . . . and then Christmas does go mad . . . it won’t just kill her, my parents will never forgive themselves.”
I studied her until she noticed and met my gaze, highway driving or not. “I’m not going to be easy on them, Val.”
“I know.”
“You know who I am; you know what to expect if I want an outcome.”
“I know who you are, King Henry,” she agreed . . . but I think she was seeing something better than the monster that’s really there.
She always did.
“What discipline did she test?”
“Geomancer.”
Ah.
Well, shit, that would be a pain in the ass.
Fucking geomancers, man, defiant little shitheads.
[CLICK]
Couple more hours of driving and we pulled away from the highway and into a residential neighborhood of a higher class than anything I’d ever lived in during my street rat, white trash life.
We’d made good time, partly thanks to a lack of traffic and partly thanks to Val having a lead foot. Why the fuck is it that anytime weird shit goes down around me I never get to drive anything? Just one situation where a motorcycle is needed, that’s all I’m asking for.
We took the obvious route. North of Fresno until just after Madera—Madera is like Fresno’s smaller cousin, kind of like my hometown of Visalia but north of the Biggest Shithole on Earth instead of south—then we turned west. Not long after that it was a pass through my good friend Los Banos, the Shithole of All Shitholes. Further west, we drove through rough, ugly summer-in-the-valley land, then through small satellite Bay Area shitholes, followed by San Jose. Never actually been to San Jose, just through it on the highway . . . but it looks like a shithole too.
After San Jose and off the highway things got kind of nice for once. The summer temperature mellowed out from boiling eggs to a warm Mediterranean climate with just enough wind to cool you off. Green land, well-paved streets, some nice trees all around. We drove by Stanford University and then . . .
The Foul Mouth and the Troubled Boomworm (The King Henry Tapes) Page 5