“Shit,” Go-Joe said, “I’m out. Got too much to live for messing with someone scares the Vamps. Shit . . . didn’t even know someone like that existed. You want to party one day? Gimmie a call, hook you up with a booth at one of my clubs.”
Just like that, all the white boy thugs stalked off too . . . struggling to keep their pants higher than their knees.
Val eyed Jarvis.
His cool slipped enough that he looked guilty. “Please . . .”
“Tell me where they are, now,” Val ordered.
“They told me it was for a bank, I wouldn’t have supply the cars or the hideout otherwise, I promise,” he tried to explain. “I don’t make an honest living . . . but kids? A mancer? Never! I told you: I’m an Intra!”
“Which is why,” Val whispered, “you’re not ash. I don’t care about your dealings. I don’t care about bank robberies or if you’re faking being a Were Nation or whatever is going on with you, I just want the girl back.”
“I can’t turn on a client like that,” Jarvis tried to complain, “Word gets out—“
“Name your price,” Val whispered.
“It’s not so easy—“
Val stepped closer to him. “Name your price or I’m going to burn both of your bodyguards and then King Henry will knock you out with that nice electric ring of his.”
Heh.
Never seen bodyguards preemptively run away like that before.
Abandoned, Jarvis tried to stand up tall but failed. “Like the vampire helpfully pointed out, I want my group recognized officially by the grand and important Institution of Elements, Learning Academy and Nature Camp.”
“Get in my car, show us where their hideout is, and I’ll give it.”
Jarvis wrinkled his nose at the idea like it smelled foul. “Think I want that from the Learning Council and not a junior Recruiter.”
Val and I shared a look. We both knew calling the homeland would be a bad idea. Letting Ceinwyn know what we planned would likely get us reeled in . . . trying to get the Lady to help—at midnight—yeah right.
“I have more guys at my ride, that’s who they’re grabbing,” Jarvis told us, hoping he wasn’t bluffing but not exactly sure.
We shared another look. Those eyes without iris pleaded with me to find a way. “I’ll deal with Ceinwyn while you drive. I’ll tell her it’s either Asylum recognition or me supplying the Pitbulls with SDRs, that should get her on our side for the next half hour at least.”
Val smiled at me.
Damn.
Why’s that all it takes?
I grabbed Jarvis by the bow tie. “Come on, Washington; time to prove you’re still on team mancer.”
Session 127
I came to just in time to feel a gun press up against the back of my head.
Shit.
How the hell did you end up here, you fucktard?
[CLICK]
I handed my phone to Jarvis. “Deal,” he said and handed it back. “She said it’s a deal!”
“They track the call?” I asked.
Val drove like a badass. Think they give the Recruiters lessons on that shit? Cuz she was working the car like a stunt driver.
Really . . . just once . . . motorcycle . . . please. While I’m dual-wielding uzis if at all possible. Gorgeous busty stripper chick in a USA bikini top holding on to me as I maneuver the handlebars with my cock alone through a hail of gunfire. Chimp in the sidecar.
Is that too much to ask for?
“Positive they did,” Val said while taking a turn that swayed the pair of us guys in the backseat. Someone had to watch the prisoner . . .
We’d left behind Jarvis’ gang and Golden Gate Park both, crossed the Bay Bridge, and now we drove through Oakland, headed north. “Should I throw it out?”
Val barked some laughter. Now that we had a solid lead she was less scary and more back to the usual Boomworm I drooled all over. “They’re tracking my phone, the car, and my briefcase too, King Henry.”
“Well . . . fine then, guess we need to be quick.”
“I’ve seen the picture in Ceinwyn’s house, you throwing the iPod out the window, what is it with you and breaking electronics?”
I put my phone back in my pocket. “Not just electronics I like to break, pretty much everything.”
“That wasn’t a veiled threat, was it?” Jarvis asked. He’d been edgy the whole ride and getting his precious status recognition as an official Were Nation hadn’t helped.
“Nah, man, you’re too smart to lie to us about this. Might want to tell the lady our final destination though, before she starts going flamey again.”
“Richmond,” Jarvis supplied, “by the docks, guys wanted to be able to take a boat if things got too hot for the highways. Might want to drop it under ninety though, I know it’s Oakland and all, but we still have these things called traffic cops.”
Oakland. It was too dark to see the city but I’m guessing it was a shithole like all the rest. We’ll call it Shithole Nation. “What’s your story, anyway?” I asked Jarvis.
“Like your girlfriend guessed, Price. Faunamancers pretending to be a Were Nation.”
“Why?”
“Not exactly a whole lot for us Intras to do once we get out of school. Not like we can be Recruiters or join ESLED or open our own Artificer shop, know what I mean?”
“I work with Intras every day,” Val retorted.
“The lucky few,” Jarvis barked, “and probably everyone of them in the First Tier. We have magic, and that’s amazing, but the societal structure behind the Mancy is bullshit.”
“I agree with you,” I told him, “but can’t blame the Asylum for what Fate slapped on us. We ain’t talking race or gender here; fireballs are more useful than making Toto into a badass.”
“Yeah, yeah, typical First Tier Ultra bullcrap that doesn’t realize what the other side of the coin is like. Most Intras don’t have a thing to do with the Asylum or the Mancy after they get out. We feel lost and alone. Most of them go to college, get a normal job, get married, have kids, don’t even tell their wife or husband they can talk to animals.
“Me . . . I couldn’t live like that, took what I could do, took all the information I have on Were Nations, got some of the faunamancer guys I knew together—there you go, Pitbull Nation. Every year I go the Asylum for graduation, know why? Recruitment of my own.”
“Dog fighting?”
“I’m a faunamancer, Price, think I’d support killing animals like that?”
I thought back to all the faunamancers in my class. Jesus always had one of the teacher’s dogs following him around. Rick Brown used to teach the mockingbirds to mimic his favorite songs. The faculty even allowed both Robin White and Jessica Edwards a cat in our dorms when we reached Tri.
“Guess not,” I said.
“Damn right. I might be building an empire, and it might get dirty and grey and yeah, whole bank robbing thing blew up in my face, but PETA themselves would be jealous of my record saving thrown out fighting dogs. Dogs aren’t bred to be killers; they’re bred to be loyal. Now coyotes . . . Go-Joe was right about Vega, not a guy I’d trust.”
“He’s my brother-in-law,” I said.
Jarvis looked like I’d kicked him in the balls.
I hadn’t yet . . . but . . . I might if he tried to run.
Few minutes later, we parked the car outside of what looked like a two story bar. Jarvis pointed at the boarded over windows. “Shut down for three years. Bought it for cheap just after, meaning to fix it up and put it back in business, but it’s a shitty spot outside of pierworkers chugging down boilermakers to start the day. Wasn’t worth the liquor license, so I turned it into a safe house for rent.
“Basement has a tunnel under the street to the other side.” He pointed at a grate by the road. “Right there. That’s your best bet to surprise them. Front door was rated against a vampire or construct, even a RPG would have trouble making a hole.”
Black guy talking about RPGs . . . th
is I’m used to, though I’m pretty sure Jarvis and T-Bone have different ideas about what those letters represent. “What about the windows?” I asked.
“Boards are covering crossed bars, you’ll never get through them.”
“You’ll be surprised what King Henry can break when he’s motivated,” Val said. She killed the car engine, studying the dilapidated bar. “I only see one SUV.”
“You blew one up,” I reminded her.
“What you say I blow up the second one to get their attention?”
“Uh . . .” Jarvis eloquently said for the both of us.
“How about we do the whole sneaky sneaky thing?” I tried.
“Spoilsport,” she complained.
“Mind if I call some guys to pick me up while you’re in there?” Jarvis asked.
That didn’t seem like a very good idea. He’d been helpful, but . . . I didn’t really trust the bastard.
“Take his phone and lock him in the trunk,” Val said.
Jarvis whined as I got a hold on his bow tie again.
“Trust me,” I said, “it’s not that bad.”
“Really?”
“Well . . . I was mostly knocked out when it happened to me.”
“I don’t like the dark,” Jarvis whined.
[CLICK]
The ten-minute pool I’d been holding for the better part of two hours felt overkill to bust open the cellar doors, but there was no other way into the bar that didn’t involve knocking. The thick steel actually popped up, opening without me touching them, despite the fact I’d thrown everything into the locking mechanism on the inner side and not the doors themselves.
Guess that’s one thing going my way tonight.
Inside the passage and the doors closed behind us, Val put a hand on my shoulder to stop. “Pool up,” she whispered.
“Val . . . clock’s ticking.”
“I’m not having you go in there without a pool when they could have more guns. Either Christmas is in there . . . or . . .”
The passage was bigger than I expected. Val could stand up straight other than watching out for the light fixtures. The low-watt LEDs bathed everything in sterile, electronic moonlight. Just enough so it didn’t blind you, but nothing more. Way down at the other end of the passage was yet another set of steel doors, luckily these looked unlocked. Locked doors to a passage under a street, what could this possibly be used for?
Drugs in . . . bodies out . . .
Jarvis said bar, but bars are one story, little shitholes with a line of stools and a wall of liquor. Clubs . . . they can be more complicated. Dockside, secret passage—screamed smugglers. Wonder who Jarvis really got it off of?
“Think they’re all in there?” Val asked me.
“No.”
“So quick to answer?”
“Scene we made at your parent’s house . . . majority have taken their pay and split by now. Too much heat. Here’s hoping it’s just the corpusmancer and a couple muscle sticking behind, waiting on this Curator guy to show up.”
“You think Ceinwyn knows about him?” Val asked another question, but this one was the first that seemed to touch something deep.
I flexed my fist, the one broken earlier in the day. Still hurt, but at least it worked. The miracle of Slush. Head, jaw, and chest didn’t feel too bad either, just a little sore. “Rumors maybe.”
“Rumors and lies . . .”
“Council bylaws or some shit, according to Ceinwyn. They can’t fill us in on certain realities until we’re thirty-three. Some are told more, some are told less. Though she never said why some more or some less. I mean, she told me some stuff but never told it to T-Bone. He’s an Ultra and I’m an Ultra, so what’s the diff? First Tier?”
“T-Bone?”
“Ah . . . friend of mine. Tyson Bonnie, Stormcaller graduated a bit before us.”
Val smiled despite the situation. “For a guy who’s so anti-social, you sure do end up with enough friends.”
“It just keeps happening to me.”
“All these lies to hide the Mancy from the world,” Val whispered mostly to herself, “Although . . . it has to be the worst kept secret.”
I nodded. “Every graduate from every school, their families, certain political leaders. Has to be millions who know . . . still, big world out there, Val.”
“The millions know about the Mancy,” she agreed, but also corrected, “but they don’t know about all the tricks hidden from them. Blowing up cars or causing earthquakes or . . .”
“Yeah, that ‘or’ is a real bitch, ain’t it? How deep the lies go?”
“Curator deep?”
“Yeah, well, we’re about to bring that asshole into the light, ain’t we?”
Val’s expression took on a tinge of pride. “We are.”
“The Curator . . . stealing kids, stealing Mancy knows what, someone needs to stop this shit.”
“He’s not here yet.”
“Nope.”
“Just Christmas.”
I could hear the hope in her voice. “We’ll get her back, Val.”
Her smile was brittle, but at least it was there. “I know we are, King Henry.”
[CLICK]
Fully pooled, we snuck all the way into the basement. One of the other pluses of Survival and Defense class besides choke holds, knots, and basic first aid, is learning how to move quietly. Never one of my strong suits, but next to me Val might as well have been a ninja. A pink-shirted, blond-haired ninja . . . but a ninja nonetheless.
The bar’s basement was empty of kidnappers but heavy on junk. Electronic moonlight escaping through the passageway doors silhouetted machinery, big, black, and foreboding. But no Christmas Ward crying her little hazel eyes out. Of course . . . no one with a gun just waiting to take a shot either. Put that bitch in the plus column.
Soda machine, broken beer tap, deep fryer, fog machine, stripper pole . . .
You could smell the gonorrhea on the thing.
What’s gonorrhea smell like?
Whole lot like three-year-old strawberry-scented glitter.
I tripped over something furry, barely holding back on the cursing. Fucking enough, I thought, reaching into my coat pocket to find an artifact. I pulled one out, felt the imprint on the top. Right in one. It looked exactly like the PAD I’d used to help Val show off and my SEM-DEW, round little metal ball. Only this was a SAD. Spectro Anima Dispenser.
Light flooded the room at a whole three-sixty.
My something furry turned out to be a pompom.
I hoisted the SAD up so Val could get a look at it. “Cool, huh?”
She only stared.
“What?”
“Flashlight, heard of them?”
“But this uses anima . . . oooh, aaah, magic!”
“You and your magic balls.”
“Yeah, don’t you forget it.”
“Figure out one for scio yet?”
“Next on the list. Ball of darkness, how useful would that be?”
“A lot more useful than your spotlight that says ‘please, shoot here’.”
We worked our way around a mechanical bull, heading for the only other door in the room. “This place is a lot bigger than I figured.”
She nodded, but didn’t say anything more.
Guess she was back in huntress mode. Nothing scarier than a female after a lost cub.
We went up the basement stairs, her first. I think I could absorb bullets better than she can, but Val’s got the whole fireball thing going for her. Fucking showoff pyromancers . . . nice to have one on my side for once . . .
The deadbolt lock on the basement was on our side, so it was easily turned over. Still made some noise. Thunk. Val waited for a minute with her hand on the door. Listening for footsteps most likely. She eventually nodded and turned the knob. No creak at least as the door opened out into another hallway.
Here there was light, so I clicked the SAD off and stowed it in its pocket. I really had to do something about all the Artifice
r balls being the same color and casing. One of these days I’d try to throw a SEM-DEW and end up with a ball of light at my feet just as the bullets blew a hole in my gut.
Not a way I want to go out.
Red lights. That soft wash of blood red that makes everything look like Hell and takes all the maybe out of shadows, turning them into pure black pools. If this place was actually a bar I had no more wonder over why it failed. Who wants to deal with this shit while you’re trying to get good and drunk? Shooting whiskey with some forty-year-old barfly on your knee is depressing enough already.
To the left of us was more hallway; to the right some stairs leading to the second story.
I pointed at the stairs, then at Val. She squinted back at me like I was trying something tricky. We couldn’t talk, we both knew that. Basement you could risk it, but here . . . no way. We had the argument instead with little twitches of our heads, shoulders, and faces. Finally, she glared over me taking the more dangerous of the floors but went up the stairs all the same. Come on, look back, then I’ll know you still care. She did look back, expression disgruntled before taking the last few steps out of view.
It’s the little things, I thought. Always had been the little things between us. Not the sex. Not the dates. Her sitting down next to me at lunch and teasing me over some blunder. A frown when Welf and me got too serious with our rivalry. A laugh just before a class final when I managed to crack her out of a worrying shell.
It’s the little things.
Little things you missed.
A too silent corner.
A shadow that retreated when you looked the other way.
A click you couldn’t hear over a passing car.
It’s the little things.
Silence ain’t for me. Earth is never silent. Even when it’s quicksand it’s loud as fuck. A gruesome, struggling, horrible death that fights for every extra second. Five-foot-eight if I rig the tape-measure, but . . . lots of shoulder, lots of neck, lots of muscle for that size. Never silent, especially that night. Slush is amazing stuff, but it’s not perfect. Ribs still ached. Hand felt mashed if not broken. No SEM-DEW. No Cold Cuffs.
Wasn’t at one-hundred percent at all.
The Foul Mouth and the Troubled Boomworm (The King Henry Tapes) Page 19