Then . . .
Well . . .
Then . . . it didn’t matter if I ran toward him, away from him, or dropped my jeans and bent over, please sir, use some lube.
[CLICK]
I roared something animal as I rushed him. Some real lizard-brain shit. Loud as can be. Forget silent. Forget concentration. This broken fucker bought children and used them as anima-banks. Sucked them dry, used them up. Here’s hoping anima is the only thing he’s using them for.
He had some goal, some goal to meet at any cost. Saving the world. Sounded familiar. Had a suspicion our ‘saving the world’ meant two different things. Being as I care about those left in the dirt and he’s abusing them to get where he wants to go. Worse than that. Straight up kidnapping now. It going to stop there? It going to stop at kids?
Ultras going to be abducted in the night?
Going to stop at Vancouver and Seattle?
The rest of the world on his plate?
That how Obadiah Paine is going to save us from ourselves?
I remember the name now.
In that last moment before my feet rushed me forward I remembered the name.
Lady mentioned it to me first time I met her. Heard it a few times since. Such a genius Artificer, so perfect, so brilliant. Kind of like Val’s reputation. Only . . . her exploits were mentioned with pride, this Obadiah Paine . . . whispers. Like something had gone wrong.
Like the Diamond was broken.
Cut cut cut.
What if the Star gets broken? This how Val will end up? Just waiting to hurt the world? Some psychotic cult leader burning everything around her?
I remember the name now. Obadiah. Oh-ba-die-uh. Say that bitch slow and cruel and mocking.
Oh.
Ba.
Die.
Uh.
The end of the beginning.
The first battle of a long war.
What would I be without Paine?
How would I learn?
First of her class—90’ or 91’ I can’t remember which. Used to annoy Obadiah Paine to no end.
The Lady said that about Ceinwyn.
There was another before you actually, Obadiah Paine, a classmate of mine who discussed the problem with me but he disappeared, went too far away from everyone.
Ceinwyn said that about fixing Anima Madness.
Had a sudden feeling that ‘went too far away from everyone’ translated to ‘I cut his arm and his leg off and thought he was dead’.
Oh.
Ba.
Die.
Uh.
Not so dead, Ceinwyn.
Just broken.
I roared with everything I had and charged.
I don’t recommend this as a fighting tip. It’s actually a good way to get your ass knocked out. Even to something as lightly thrown as a jab. Bone’s lock up through their arm and shoulder and all that force has nowhere to go but your chin, then your neck, cuts out all the signals going from your brain to your legs.
Given it’s me though . . . since when those brain signals ever been that strong?
I built up so much momentum I didn’t throw a punch so much as a running lariat. Paine clanked his way backwards just enough to dodge most of the blow. All I caught was his shoulder on his flesh side, which didn’t do damage but did spin both of us around to face each other.
I raised my hands up in a guard, ready to throw bombs.
No explosion at my feet yet.
A good sign Paine was rebuilding his pool.
Fucking got to get me one of those wristlet things. And those glasses. So many cool toys to play with.
I was pretty sure, but only pretty sure that Paine wasn’t a fighter. Him going for his satchel instead of throwing a leading punch with his gauntlet proved that. I feinted with a quick jab to get him clanking back once more, following it up with an equally quick kick to his shin.
Paine screamed as our legs connected, a deep thud of bone on flesh. He backed up some more, twisting his body around so his metal parts shielded the rest of him. “Brutish!” he snapped. “How low!”
“You ain’t no gentleman, best not to pretend it, Obadiah. You’re just a broken predator turned scavenger, ain’t no good at the straight hunt, have to steal what’s left over after others make the kill.”
“Class?” Paine actually laughed. “What care I for class? I care for skill! For talent! For Artificer Superiority and this attack shows none of it from you, King Henry!”
“You want Artificer Superiority? I want to have a serious fucking relationship with Valentine Ward, can’t always get what we want, Obadiah! Sometimes we just have to settle for saving their life instead of having a life with them!”
We were screaming at each other despite there being no more than five feet of separation between us. I kept sidestepping, trying to get to his face or his flesh side without beating my fists against his gauntlet. He kept backing up with his clanky boot dragging after the rest of him.
“Relationships . . . low as well.”
“Last one end that badly for you?”
“She threw a bolder on me.”
“Val lights me on fire sometimes . . . never stopped me.”
His whole body shivered in pain, but not the physical kind. “You know nothing of love, of vengeance, of heartbreak, little dog. Of being one with a person, of doing everything for them, and then to have them look on you with pity and disgust! Judgment! Of me? For doing what she asked! AT ANY COST!”
“Who knew Ceinwyn was such a bitch?” I asked him, a pure guess.
It shocked Paine, so I guess I was right on the money. “You . . .”
I didn’t give him any more time to talk. I dove in with fists flying. Feint at his gauntlet with a right, slip in, land with a hook to his stomach with my left. Back up, dodge a backhand from the gauntlet. Slip all the way around to the right, throw a kick into his side. I’d hoped it was only his arm and leg, but my kick found metal as well.
Go out and kick a volleyball pole some day.
It’s fun.
For the pole.
I yelped, limping back. “What the fuck are you? More machine than man bullshit?”
His eyes bored into me. “You know her. I’ve heard reports. You’re one of her prized pupils.”
I grinned some nice sharp teeth at him. “I’m your replacement, Obadiah. I’m doing what you tried to do but without all the crazy. So tell me, was it the experiments that drove her to attack you or something worse?”
“I killed my best friend. Her lover . . . a jealous rage. Beneath me, but in the moment . . . after being rejected after so much success at finding a solution . . . a perfect solution! But all she wants is an impossible cure!” Cut cut cut. “He never deserved her. If only she’d never found out it was me. I could have convinced her to my way of thinking.”
I actually spit at him I was so pissed off on Ceinwyn’s behalf. “Yeah, sure it was really hard to figure out it was the freak job stalker behind it all.”
He made to respond but I moved again. He expected another feint, but this time the right jab was real and collided with his jaw in a pleasant forward whip of muscle.
Paine crumbled to his knees, crying out in shock and rage. “You judge me too? You dare! Fine! Let us play as low as you!”
All that talking. Plenty of time for a one-minute pool. I led with my left foot, aiming right into his shoulder. Enough force to crack his collarbone even without the geo-anima adding a bang on top. A finishing blow.
A finishing blow that met a separate blast of geo-anima from Paine, completely shielding him from the effects. I couldn’t actually feel it, since it was all inside of him. I didn’t realize what happened until more poor foot bounced off him, almost tumbling me to the concrete beside him. I threw a hand out to steady myself and by the time I had, Paine was back on his feet.
He wasn’t a natural like me, and badass metal arm and leg or not . . . he was still gimpy. But he had trained at the Asylum, had the same classes. Knew
enough to throw a punch. Also knew more than I did about the Mancy. I might not have gotten my legs blown out by a geo-anima blast, but . . .
It only takes one iron fist to your body for you to realize what’s happening.
Paine hit me with three, right in a row.
I blocked the first with my left forearm. The bone broke.
The second hit my ribs. Those broke too.
The third glanced off my jaw.
Now I know what it feels like to get hit with an iron fist.
Guess what?
Don’t feel so hot.
[CLICK]
I woke up on the ground.
It couldn’t have been but maybe a minute after I went out.
Paine hadn’t killed me in that time.
Like I’d figured about him, he wanted to lord my death over me.
Gonna give me another offer.
Gonna sneer down at his defeated enemy and make me beg for my life with information, about Val, Ceinwyn, my experiments, anything just so he doesn’t kill me.
I was beaten.
Not defeated, but beaten.
I thought fighting him with fists had a chance. Guess that’s my real character flaw: I always thinking fighting someone with fists has a chance. My fists had failed me, but . . . I still had something.
I blinked through the fog.
I think I had a concussion too.
It hurt to breathe. I couldn’t move my left arm below the elbow. My right leg was numb from kicking his side. No artifacts left. No anima pool. No way to get an anima pool without Paine knowing it. Paine had all the cards. So many cards he’d pulled some type of stool from his satchel, the thing an interconnection of wires somehow supporting his weight despite looking like it couldn’t support a fly. A Slush tube had also appeared and he dabbed it on his jaw with a delicate touch.
“Awake so quickly,” Paine observed, “it speaks highly of your constitution.”
All the cards . . . save one.
My ace in the hole.
Card I’d been saving this whole time.
If I could just wake my body up enough to reach it. This was apparently a harder task than I expected. The world kept going fuzzy on me. My eyes kept snapping awake. After a few seconds of trying to talk I settled for grunting an affirmative his way instead.
Paine wore his fake smile again. Just delighted with himself on the inside, so best to show it on the outside. Or else they will see and if they see they will know.
Another foe vanquished. A replacement removed and brought to heel. Questions he’d had for years during all that time in the shadows about to be answered. “I will be fair with you. Instead of interrogation I will award you a question for each answer given to mine. Understand that you will not walk out of this room alive. But, I am willing to give you a small hope while you prove useful to me.
“After all, this foolish sacrifice of yours was about buying the Wards time, was it not? Be logical about this and your words could buy them hours that your fists could not. Prove illogical . . . and I will hunt them down and gut the both of them. Regrettable, since I struggle to find pyromancers and geomancers for my collection. However . . . they’ve learned too much of the Curator fiction I’ve created.”
This might be it, fucktard.
End of the road.
Fucking heroic end for one of the least heroic men to ever walk the planet.
Taking down the Curator. Scariest mancer I’ve ever met. Not the saving the world I had in mind. But . . . it would save Val. That’s enough, right? Save the girl and the girl’s sister. Kill the bad guy. Sure . . . I’d had plans. Stopping anima madness. Breaking the Guild so all Artificers could be free to design whatever they wanted. Wiping out Horatio Vega and getting JoJo to leave the Coyotes. Figuring out all the lies the Asylum’s told me and all the other students over the years. Meteyos . . . Sawaephim . . . world-breakers . . . prophets. Finding out where Susan ended up . . . maybe even having me a couple kids . . . try not to screw them up too bad.
Get married . . . try to be the man she deserves.
Sorry, Val. Gonna need to be someone else makes you laugh from now on.
Just don’t pick Welf, please.
I’ll fucking haunt you if you do.
I managed to nod my head in Paine’s direction.
I’d thought I would have something left in the tank if we reached this point. If fists ever failed me then that huge willpower always saved my ass. Push through anything. Thought I’d be able to sack up, stand up, fight off Paine with the Shaky Stick. Walk out of the warehouse.
But . . . all the last few days . . . all the fights and bleeding and beating . . . I couldn’t stand up if I wanted to.
And I have to admit: I don’t even have the willpower left to want to.
Answer a question.
Get an answer in return.
Then . . . ace in the hole.
Earthquake.
Take Paine out with me.
Hope Val cries at the funeral . . .
I always thought I’d die to a knife in the back. Not like this, not against a mancer. In some shitty bar . . . not even see it coming . . .
Not like this.
Sure as hell never expected to be pulling the plug on myself.
Don’t know if you can hear me, Meteyos. But yeah, I lied. I fought the Broken One. He’s destroying me alright. But I’m pulling him down with me. So you’ll have to go through with your plans without a prophet or Dirt King or whatever you think you need. So long, you Puff the Magic Fucker.
“Ask,” I managed to say through teeth that screamed to their cores. Hey, that’s something. All my teeth are still there.
It’s the little victories.
Too bad the whole warehouse falling on me wouldn’t leave much of a body behind . . .
Paine leaned down closer to me. Showing how unafraid he was. “What was your and Ceinwyn’s plan?”
“To . . . cure . . . Anima . . . Madness. Didn’t we . . . cover this?”
He got angry at my attitude. “But how? She turned away from my reasonable ideas, why back yours? What is so special about you? I am everything she needed but she turned away, attacked me, almost killed me. Yet a repellant, know-nothing child she supports with all the power of the Last True Dale?”
I managed enough for a grin. “They’re lying pieces of shit, Obadiah. You think I know why? I don’t know nothing about it. Taken me months to work out split pools and extended pools and now here you are with another trick: holding back your pool. Multiple times. What the fuck, man?”
“Is that your question?”
“Sure.”
I expected a lot of Paine but I didn’t expect humility, or an aww-shucks shrug, yet that’s what I got. “It can be done if you have the will.”
“Bullshit . . . I’ve tried.”
“But they told you it was impossible. So the pain the skill causes made you give up. This is an animal’s response. A human, if he knows a goal is possible, will hold on through pain.”
“Sometimes you got to know the secret’s there to see it . . .” I mumbled.
“Yes. Knowing there is light at the end of the tunnel, what better motivation?”
“It still hurts.”
Those zealot eyes took joy in the thought. Cut cut cut. “Oh yes. But . . . pain can be clarifying to your state in life.”
“Your question,” I told him, getting ready to battle my own bit of pain, but not to hold back a pool. Just to get my good arm up and into my coat pocket. Do that. Pull out the Shaky Stick. Say goodbye.
Simple.
If my head would just stop going fuzzy.
“Is this the extent of your artifacts or have you fabricated more of them that could be beneficial to my studies?”
Hand on chest, do it!
My hand twitched. “Finger.”
“Excuse me?”
“Static Defense Ring . . . uses electro-anima core to hold electric charge generated by static. Came about from studies into how anima t
ypes react to their real world equivalent.”
“That’s fascinating. But I think I’ll wait until your slip it off your finger instead of touching it myself.”
My hand twitched again. “Having some trouble with that. Think you can sprinkle some Slush on me or something?”
Cut cut cut. “No, I don’t think I will.”
I closed my eyes. Remember the Geo Realm . . . remember the feeling of power without effort. You don’t even need anima. Just get your arm to your coat pocket. The Shaky Stick charged up too. It’s ready to go like never before. Don’t even have to aim. Just get your stupid hand to your stupid pocket.
My whole right arm twitched and rose from the concrete. It landed on my chest. That simple victory seemed to bring a lot of life back into my body. With life came pain from everything that hurt but . . . pain’s better than being unable to feel. Whole lot better than it.
Paine enjoyed the show. Enjoyed it too much frankly. Guy acted like he was getting a stiffy from the whole thing. Here’s hoping he never meets Catherine Hayes.
I worked the SDR off my finger and flicked it to him.
It clattered on the concrete until he picked it up, studying it with his glasses.
“I see . . . an intriguing line of study.”
My teeth gritted, I kept snaking my arm over, inch by inch until I touched the Shaky Stick. With a final gasp, I pulled it from my coat and clasped onto it so hard my knuckles threatened to rip through my skin.
“What’s that?” Paine asked, distracted between the SDR and the Shaky Stick.
“I’m not quite sure . . . but . . .” I blinked back some clarity. “But I know a little about what it can do.”
“And what’s that?” Paine asked, bemused with me, not expecting the shitstorm coming his way.
“It’s going to kill you. And me . . . probably. Odds are. I mean . . . a fucking dragon could save me . . . but . . . yeah right, ya know? Especially after he told me specifically not to do what I just did.”
Paine frowned. “Perhaps I should give you a bit of this Slush; you seem to be losing touch with reality.”
The Foul Mouth and the Troubled Boomworm (The King Henry Tapes) Page 37