Looking in those bright blue eyes, Tyson got braver still. “How would this person pay for these tutoring sessions?”
Vicky’s face was the very epitome of mischief. “Maybe you’ll find out tonight . . . maybe not.”
*
Tyson took a road off the freeway, heading out into the foothills of California.
Like a reverse of Fresno itself, there were surprising pockets of civilization out in the foothills, but few where Tyson was headed. You could never be sure where you would run into a lake or some cluster of mansions up here, but west of Highway 41 was open land, marked with depressions and rises, dotted with the occasional oak or buckeye.
Old land, ancient land, Tyson thought as his Tesla invaded it at sixty-miles-an-hour. Legend had it that the Coyote Totem went back to the Native-Americans of these lands, almost three-hundred years. Some said it had been destroyed once and only rebuilt a century later by Mexican migrant workers in the same spot as the old Totem, others said those same workers had stolen the Totem for themselves and refused to share the power with any but their families.
Modern history began in the 1960s with the Counter-Culture War, where the Coyotes sided with the Asylum against the Vampire Embassies. That Coyote Nation wasn’t the Nation of today; smaller in number, more geographically packed into California, it had been run by an infighting council that saw itself crushed into pieces along with the rest of their Nation during the aftermath.
It lingered, corrupted and barely functioning, no code, no purpose, a tool for scared humans to find a way to escape the Vampire Embassies but with little real power. Until the Vega family came and conquered it all in the late 80s, with the little brother Horatio standing tall and ruling supreme by the end, building and expanding and making sure that when the next war came, the Coyotes wouldn’t be a lesser partner easily sacrificed at the peace table.
Maybe that war will never come, Tyson thought. He knew everyone worked against it . . . even King Henry, despite all of his complaints. It was an odd balance of power. Especially with everything King Henry has learned about the Divines. The Learning Council worked to not anger the Vampire Embassies, the Were Nations worked to not anger the Learning Council, all while the Divines played their games and assumed their superiority. No wonder Miss Dale works so hard to keep the peace and uphold what rules we have for whatever reason we have them, it’s all really a house of cards.
“What are you frowning about?” Vicky asked him with a smile, her head tilted to the side and the window open so she could feel the sun on her face.
“Supernatural Politics,” Tyson admitted.
Vicky’s nose scrunched up. “I leave those to Mother, I just make pretty pictures.”
Tyson couldn’t hold back a snort. “I remember what you were like when you drugged your brother and took charge.”
“It was a once in a life time experience, brought on by necessity. Never to happen again if I’m at all lucky, just portraits and pleasing my patrons. And the sun . . . such a nice sun you have here in California . . . even if it isn’t spring . . .” Vicky mumbled as she drowsed.
Tyson tried very hard to keep his eyes on the two-lane backcountry road as the highway faded behind them. It was difficult with Vicky there. So easy to let his eyes wander over to her and linger on the sight of her scrunched up into her seat, head to the side with that perfectly content smile on her face. Vicky taking charge when her brother fell into grief wasn’t all Tyson remembered from Vegas. Other memories . . . lots of them . . . some of them with Vicky lying like that on her side . . . except with Tyson beside her in the bed, both of them naked as can be and utterly exhausted from what they’d been doing . . .
Tyson yanked his car back into the correct lane before they hit a four-by-four truck that flew past them on the other side of the road.
“What was that?” Vicky mumbled sleepily.
“Just . . . dodging a pothole.”
“I see a fence up ahead, is that the compound?”
Most land in the country was marked with barbed wire, just like it had been a hundred or more years ago when it was first invented to keep cattle from ranging off farms, but up ahead the barbed wire was backed up by a chain-link fence that also had another coil of barbed wire wrapped around its apex. The fence ran off perpendicular to the road, all the way until it disappeared and reappeared time and again among the hills, off until Tyson couldn’t see where it ended.
The land it guarded wasn’t prime real estate by any means, but left to fallow, grasses and weeds and rocks and brown, sun-baked dirt. Coyote and rattlesnake country. They neared that perpendicular fence and kept going past it, another of the same kind running parallel to the road about ten feet from the curb, just barely enough for someone to pull off and turn around if they valued their hide.
“Last chance to turn around and go to Table Mountain for the weekend.”
“What’s Table Mountain?” Vicky asked.
“A casino . . . Native-American, not Coyote run.”
“We’ve seen enough of those for the next lifetime I would say, no matter who manages it.”
“There will be fewer machine guns at the casino though.”
Vicky glanced back over her shoulder at him. The sunlight made her blond hair glow almost as much as her smile did, though with spectromancers one could never be sure if glow was just poetic description. “Just follow my lead and you’ll be fine. Welf Diplomacy works far better at handling machine guns than King Henry’s fist ever would, trust me.”
“What happened to pretty pictures?”
“Just an exception to get to the pretty pictures, nothing more, not a calling for sure.”
“And what will handle King Vega’s subterfuge?” Tyson asked seriously.
“His better half being on our side,” Vicky said just as seriously.
Tyson sighed at that bit of wisdom, though whether Vega’s better half had any influence on the King of the Coyotes was debatable and was debated among many a supernatural body. “So you’re saying I’ve escaped babysitting one Price only to be babysat by another one?”
Vicky’s face got a bit mischievous once again as she turned back to sunbathing near the window. “I would make a joke about you giving me one of your wonderful spankings, but I think you would crash the car if I did.”
*
The chain-link fence led them to a gatehouse. Mancer, Were, Vampire, we all seem to shop at the same security surplus store, Tyson thought as he turned the car off the road and onto a gravel path. Step by step, civilization was being peeled away. He also thought a bit about what those little pieces of rock would do to the bottom of his car, but . . . well, he’s the one who bought the Tesla and not some armored SUV like Vega drove around in. Where do you even buy an armored car from?
Beside him, Vicky sat up straight in her seat, hands falling into her lap like she was a perfect lady, one who hadn’t just been stretched out in a sunbathing nap. “What?” she asked when she noticed Tyson studying her.
A small, imaginary King Henry popped up on Tyson’s shoulder. He leaned to one side like he was drunk, brown coat rumpled. Tell her you like her ta-tas, man, that always works. Tigole bitties, muffins, faceslappers, papbags—
“I was just thinking that this is the last moment we’ll have to ourselves this weekend,” he said instead.
Pussy! Oh wait, that’s the wrong body part . . .
“You think so?” Vicky asked again, a glint in her eyes.
“Even if they aren’t putting on some sort of show for us, I imagine there will be guards and maids and—”
“They won’t be in our room, will they?”
Tyson blinked. “Our . . . our room?”
Again that glint, but she said nothing more about it. “For the person who was worried about machine guns, you sure are being risky by flirting with me instead of talking to the gatekeeper. He’s probably wondering if you’re an assassin or something now, imagining one fantasy after another to liven his dreary day.”
&n
bsp; Tyson’s head whipped around, his finger trying to make the car window roll faster by pushing on it harder. The gatekeeper didn’t look so different from many of the guards at the Ouroboros, just plain clothes instead of Ouroboros uniforms of black and gold. There was no gun visible on him, but Tyson imagined his own fantasy on what would be hidden in that gatehouse. When your main worry is vampires, a machine gun is the least of your tools for the job. “Sorry about that,” he greeted the man, forcing a friendly smile without teeth. When you were as big as Tyson, sometimes smiles with teeth came across as threatening. Especially to people who are dogs one night out of the month.
The gatekeeper bent down so he could look further into the car at Vicky in the passenger seat. “You two must be the mancers everyone’s complaining about.”
“Com . . . complaining?”
“Just because he’s the king, doesn’t mean all the peasants agree with his every move,” the gatekeeper informed.
“I suppose they wouldn’t, but I’m surprised you’re talking about it so openly,” Tyson rebutted.
The gatekeeper squinted at Vicky some more, hands still perfectly in her lap, back straight as a board. “So you’re what mancer royalty looks like, huh?”
Vicky’s own expression was one of the sweetest Tyson had ever seen. “I think you will find that we are all just people, sir, and that prejudice does neither of our kinds any good.”
The gatekeeper snorted. “Pull in on the left next to the trailer and exit the car for a security test.”
Tyson closed the window, glancing across at Vicky. “Oh goody, now we get to worry about peasants . . . whatever that means.”
“You and King Henry always see King Vega as an enemy, but that’s only because neither of you have heard the stories of what it was like before. He’s married a mancer’s sister, is having a child with her, he built the Ouroboros in conjunction with other Were Nations, and now he’s invited two mancers into the Coyote homeland . . . whether it is diplomacy or your suspected subterfuge, it does all come as a blow to tradition. That man called them peasants, but it’s not really peasants who are angry, it’s the nobles who have something to lose if changes continue to take place.”
Tyson pulled his car through the gate as it opened, beyond was a square parking lot and a small prefabricated trailer house. The whole thing didn’t give off the vibe of hidden lair so much as a construction yard. There were a few big trucks parked nearby and even a quad-ATV. Next to the trailer was a sign that read “First Lie Ranch” with a painting of a laughing coyote next to the words.
Three men exited the house door as Tyson shut off the Tesla’s electric engine. “Pooled up just in case?” he asked Vicky.
She squinted at him even as she nervously played with the fringe of her scarf. “We’re fine. Even if I had anima at the ready, what would you have me do to them with it? You electromancers never realize how lucky you are with those easy lightning bolts for defense.”
“Now you sound like King Henry complaining about douchebag show-offs,” Tyson sulked a little. “And you have lasers and illusions and invisibility . . . all much more exciting than what I do on a normal day.”
“Victoria von Welf does not do lasers.”
Tyson opened his door, exiting to hurry around the car. Some women didn’t like the old-fashioned chivalry of a man opening a woman’s door, but he expected that even a modern Welf like Vicky only reached to about the 1960s. “Lasers or not, your blinding conjuration with Isabel was very impressive,” he complimented her as she exited.
She blushed slightly, noticeable only due to how pale she looked clad in her white spectromancer ensemble. Her gaze met Tyson’s. She was very tall for a woman, very solid, but even she wasn’t nearly as tall as Tyson. Her brother was, even if I had a hundred pounds on the spindly . . . Tyson Bonnie didn’t like calling people pejoratives, but Heinrich Welf deserved a few of them. I suppose King Henry would be using ‘douchebag’ as a description yet again. Or asshole . . . or cocksucker . . . or fucktard . . . everything is a fucktard.
Vicky tapped his chin with a finger. “No nerves, we’re fine. And, no teasing me in front of the Vegas or their servants. It’s not fitting.”
“No teasing or flirting all weekend?” he whispered with his back to the Coyotes. He wasn’t hopeful that their anima-enhanced hearing wouldn’t make out his words, but he had to try for some privacy.
Vicky’s blue eyes sparkled. “You will have to keep it all in and let it loose in our room, won’t you?
“If we do have a room to ourselves I don’t think I’ll be interested in teasing and flirting . . . over . . . other . . . activities.”
Her finger rose higher to tap his nose. “Don’t get ahead of yourself.”
“No teasing,” he reminded her.
“Oh, I can tease you.” She gave him a last wink before walking around him to greet the Coyotes. “Gentlemen, some type of security test was mentioned?”
Here we go, Tyson thought as he followed behind her, far more focused on keeping her alive for the rest of the weekend than he was with teasing or flirting, much less whatever invisible pleasures might await in their room, assuming it was a room and not separate cells on either side of the compound.
First Lie Ranch . . . what a name to set the mood.
*
The three Coyotes led them inside the trailer house. They were efficient but not friendly, neither were they cruel. They treated Vicky like a troublesome but respected dignitary and Tyson like her servant. All addresses were made to her and she was the one tested first. Very similar to what we went through at the Ouroboros really, Tyson decided. Until they pulled out a portable anima tester that Recruiters used on potential mancers.
“Where did you get that?” Tyson couldn’t help but ask.
One of the Coyotes let out a sigh as he brandished the device in a small ‘oh this?’ gesture. It had a small flat board at the top with thirteen white crystals, each marked with a Mancy discipline. Underneath the board was a small hole for you to insert your thumb, which would then be poked with a small needle. Not so different from a diabetic testing their blood sugar really. Only its interest is residual anima in your blood.
“We bought it at Wal-Mart,” the Coyote joked as he motioned for Tyson to use the device. “Last test, then you can go meet your ride.”
“What about my car?”
A not-so-friendly smile. “It stays here. We check your luggage for things that go boom or listen in on a conversation, then—assuming you weren’t stupid—someone else will bring the bags to you. Please understand that some of this isn’t just because I like being an asshole to you mancers, it’s also for your protection, since if you die then King Vega will take it out of our hide. Also know that despite the fact that they enjoy the check King Vega sends to them every month, many of the older families who live on this land have never forgiven him for marrying a woman who wasn’t related to one of them.
“For whatever reason that same woman has now invited the first two mancers to join us on these lands since Llywelyn Dale and his vampire bitch ended the Counter-Culture War by systematically fucking every hole those old families had on their bodies. To say this is a dangerous situation for all of us is understatement, wouldn’t you say?”
Vicky stepped forward with a placating nod, inserting her thumb into the anima detector. “I’m sure once they meet us and see that we are only here to provide King Vega with a lovely spectro-portrait for his birthday present that they will see we mean no harm.”
The Coyote looked at her like he wasn’t sure if she was dumb or just naive. Tyson had noticed that Vicky played innocent to help ease a situation far more than matters actually went over her head. “You seem nice enough for mancers.”
Vicky put a hand on the Coyote’s wrist as the anima detector declared her a spectromancer. “And you are doing us a favor by assuring our safety. It must be very awkward for the three of you to be seen as greeting us as friends instead of telling us to leave the First Lie Ran
ch. Do you know I had a call from a client complaining about me daring to paint a Were? They yelled at me and told me they were thinking about throwing my portrait of their wife in the trash.”
All three of the Coyotes tensed. “What did you tell them?”
Vicky nodded at Tyson to be tested while continuing, “I told them that Josephine Vega was the sister of one of my best friends and that friendship meant more to me than any money or fame my portrait hanging in their home could bring me.”
The lead Coyote glanced at Tyson. “King Henry Price,” he stated.
Tyson quickly stuck his thumb in and out of the hole, wincing when it pierced his skin. The electromancer light went off. Well, wherever they stole it from, it works as it should.
“You’re his business partner?” the third Coyote asked. “The one who gives juice for all the rings that Vega buys?”
Tyson backed away from them, closer to Vicky so he could put an arm around her. “SDRs,” he said, “We’re thinking about renaming them.”
“They really knock out a vampire?” the second said.
“For a tiny amount of time . . . they’ve been tested on a number of occasions,” Tyson forced out. He still wasn’t sure if they were with friends or foes and he half felt like he might need to push Vicky out of the trailer door and run after her towards the car for a quick escape.
“But he also killed Hector,” the second reminded everyone.
Yes, that . . . King Henry Screw Up Number Twenty Million. Making things awkward for just about everyone.
The lead Coyote put away the tester, scowling at the other two. “Hector died while making money behind all our backs. Fuck him.”
One of the others cursed in Spanish. “Don’t let Esme hear that shit, she cut your balls off and she’ll be here any minute.”
The lead Coyote kept scowling as he motioned at the trailer door. “Esme Castro, one of Vega’s nieces. She’ll be your driver to Vega Hall.”
So promptly fuck off, Tyson heard in King Henry’s voice.
“Well,” Vicky said as she gave her own comforting squeeze of Tyson’s wrist, “have a lovely day, all three of you.”
King Henry and the Three Little Trips (The King Henry Tapes) Page 4