The Foul Mouth and the Fanged Lady (25 page)

Her face turned sour as she tried to pump up
Team King Henry. “You’re smart in your way, you have nice muscle
build, you’re violent enough to hopefully fuck me like you fight,
and you’re young enough to have the stamina to keep up with me. Why
wouldn’t I want you? You humans and your emotional connections . .
. It’s not a damned big deal. It’s something to pass the time
besides cigarettes and drinks.”

Each plus in my favor only made me smirk
more. “I got it,” I said to myself.

“Finally . . . take off your coat then . .
.”

“No, not that. I know why you want to.” My
smirk could cut metal. “Got a bet with Ceinwyn on it, eh?”

Her face went extra sour. “Damn the both of
you for knowing each other so well.”

[CLICK]

After I finished laughing, Annie B finally
gave me my explanation by pointing at a lone, abandoned seat near
the pilot’s compartment. “Get in my bag, there’s a manila folder on
it
. Try to take anything else and I’ll break your
hands.”

My Cold Cuffs were in there, right on top,
but she was watching. No way to get them out without starting some
more fighting between us. I’d finally got her to the point where
she’s spilling out info, so I didn’t want to revert back to threats
and bullshitting each other. It’s fun stuff playing with another
person like that—I learned the skill from some of the best at the
Asylum, but too much of it became a bore . . . just like everything
else in this world. Keep the peace, King Henry, at the cost of the
first artifact you ever made.

My fingers ran over them, the polished metal
still smooth, the glowing strip of white back to full force. They’d
recharged their pool. I thought back to my workshop, to Annie B
shuddering, in the kind of passion that only comes from chemicals
or machine-grade sex toys. Then to that rope of blood not long
after. There were some possibilities there . . .

I let my fingers slide off the cuffs, used
them to shuffle through the rest of her bag. Guess it’s her way of
saying she trusts me. A person’s suitcase or travel bag is personal
after all, lots of private stuff in them. I’m not above
snooping.

Annie B had her other sets of clothes in it.
The one’s that were dirty, smashed by the car, and gone through
some fighting and then the skimpy set she’d used to keep cool. They
weren’t kept folded and neat, only thrown in wherever they would
go, in a hurry. I pushed through them . . .
fuck me
. There
was a set of knives, not cooking knives, the cutting into flesh
kind. A semi-auto pistol too. Not a gun guy, so I don’t know the
model or manufacturer, but I’m enough of a businessman to know a
top-of-the-line product when I see it. There was also a cell-phone,
a swipe of my finger told me it was coded to use. No hairspray or
deodorant or lipstick or makeup or any product you’d expect a
normal woman to have. Annie B is all business.

Underneath it all was the file. “This one?”
I asked when I pulled it out and showed it to her.

“That’s it,” she said, leaning back in her
seat so far her eyes were on the ceiling of the plane. Her feet
stretched out from her body like a pair of loose snakes, at ease,
resting. Talk about bored. “We call it the Earthquake Baton.”

I sneered. I didn’t deal with
batons
.
The name was going to have to change.

I flipped open the file. Inside I found a
pair of pictures of the thing. No info at all. That sucked. I was
hoping for Artificer notes. Something concrete. Vampires wouldn’t
care about them though. Not like they could use the
baton
.
To them it’s just another treasure. And it was a stick, a green
stick somewhere between a foot and two feet. It had
markings—mountains—chiseled up and down it.

That’s got to be jade,
I thought.

It also had lettering on it, Asian stuff
that gives every American a headache. “Chinese?”

“Japanese.”

“Huh.”

She somehow rolled her eyes despite her
recline. “I’m so lucky working with such a genius.”

“Not much to say when I don’t know anything
about it. Jade, words I can’t read, you call it the Earthquake
Baton, and I know the anima it produces. But not much else.”

“It’s ancient,” she mumbled.

“How ancient?”

“Older than me.”

My eyebrows went up. That’s old. “Not like
artifacts break, but to still have pool power and be so old—it’s
some straight impossible stuff. Plutarch had a vase designed for
hydromancers that dated back to the Roman Empire, but it was so old
it actually not only lost its recharge, it was reworked enough
times it had lost the
ability
to recharge and now it’s just
like any other vase.” I thought about it. Be nice to have something
you make last so long. Time . . . humanity’s biggest enemy. Way
worse than vampires. “We still use the same design today though . .
. only its metal vases. Cheaper and quicker than learning how to
bake clay.”

“You can’t pre-buy it?” she asked,
curious.

“Not if you want the anima to hold.”

She thought about it for a bit, then gave me
what I guess you would call a briefing. “The baton is originally
from Japan, at least 16
^th
century, maybe before that,
made by an obviously very talented Artificer. That Artificer
eventually died and his family fell into hard times, his belongings
sold and sold again, eventually ending up in the hands of the
Emperor himself, passed on, prized as a great weapon of the Mancy.
It was stolen back from the Emperor’s treasure vault after the turn
of the 20
^th
century by one of the creator’s descendants,
who happened to be a geomancer and wanted his family’s property
back, if not for honor then for his own personal use. This man
escaped to San Francisco hiding as a poor immigrant in 1906 and
decided he’d use the baton the morning he arrived.”

I put two and two together. Four’s not very
good. I studied the pictures of the thing. “Looks like a Shaky
Stick to me. Better name, don’t you think?”

Her eyes found mine. Rather a miracle given
she sat almost horizontal and had a very perky pair of tits to try
to look around. “I just told you it caused the 1906 Earthquake and
that’s all you have to say?”

“Doesn’t it look like a Shaky Stick though?”
I asked, shifting the picture back and forth like it was going to
change. “Earthquake Baton takes itself too serious.”

“Neither is the real name, which was lost in
history . . . like many other facts about a person’s life and death
and what they left behind . . .”

“Obviously. And yeah, causing an earthquake
. . . that’s something. Gives me a big ol’ geomancer stiffy.”
Folding the picture, I slid it into my coat pocket. I was going to
need it later. A plan formed in my larcenous little brain. Making
an earthquake . . . not even the most amazing part about it. The
way it used anima was. I downplayed my reaction. No reason for
Annie B to guess my interest in this artifact. “Not very useful
thought. You say weapon, and yeah, it could destroy a city’s
infrastructure, but something personal would be much more
useful.”

Her eyes went back to the ceiling of the
plane. “Since this was before the Institution’s foundation, a group
of local geomancers who felt the artifact in action took it upon
themselves to find it and when they did they hung the Japanese
ancestor for his crimes against the city, taking the Earthquake
Baton for themselves. They fell into infighting over where they
would keep it until they decided no single geomancer could be
trusted and fostered the item off to the San Francisco Vampire
Embassy, where it remained housed for over one-hundred years,
causing no harm except when a clumsy marquess auditing the
embassy’s possessions accidentally bumped it off its podium in
1989.”

She gave me another look. I shrugged to keep
off suspicion. Two earthquakes. And this thing is in Fresno. I
don’t know if it was pride in my home, after all—an earthquake or
two might actually improve Fresno—but my shop’s there and I didn’t
like the idea of someone else having such a nice toy in town that I
had no ability to control. Either I needed to make it
mine
or I had to get rid of it. “This wasn’t a simple theft, was
it?”

“No,” Annie B agreed, “this has been
negotiated for a very long time. The Duchess Antonia has removed a
very dangerous item she doesn’t want in her territory and is either
paying the Fresno vampires to hold it or got someone else to pay
them. All the sides are pretending it’s a theft and will keep on
pretending it’s a theft, since it is a crime for embassies to work
together in this way. And despite the fact that we all know this .
. . I have to pretend like it is a theft as well and go after the
stolen merchandise.”

The view outside the window changed. My
first flight or not, I’m pretty sure we were getting closer to the
ground. “You’re going to die for a lie.”

Annie B’s hand reached up on its own accord
to touch the
B
at her throat. Through every change of
clothing and jewelry it was the only piece which remained.
“Wouldn’t be my first time,” she said in a whisper, her eyes
looking at nothing, glazed over, her pale face covered in a frown.
“At least this time they won’t cut my head off . . .”

That time I almost believed her . . .

Outside of the window, the Fog formed below
us. Just waiting to engulf our plane, to lock us in inescapable
gray.

It’s been two weeks since my last session. I
guess I could make some bullshit excuse, like saying I’m busy with
getting my shop ready.

Truth that. Boxes are everywhere.

I keep asking myself: why did I agree on an
antique store for a front, out of all the possibilities I could
have chosen? An old lady already came by and asked if I’m planning
on having any teapots. What the fuck do I know about teapots? And
if I keep this going long enough does that mean
I’ll eventually
know about teapots
?

This shit could turn out worse for me than
an STD. Breaking down what makes King Henry Price from the
inside-out, one teapot at a time. Badass Artificer turned teapot
expert. The crap old ladies collect, you wouldn’t believe it.
Teapots. Plates. Glass chicken eggs . . . fucking shot glasses.
Shot glasses are good for one thing and it ain’t collecting.

Not the shop. Not the shop at all. It’d be
the best excuse, but it’d still be a bitch-out.

Problem is . . . I’ve been asking myself
what the point is. Ceinwyn wanted this tape as a part of our deal.
She wanted me to give you some kind of real-crime version of my
time at the Asylum. ‘
So the kids learn the lessons you did
without all the blood and tears, King Henry,
’ that’s what she
told me.

I’ve been struggling. Been thinking. Been
wondering what this should be about. Then, once I got myself an
answer to that question and realized what it
should
be about
. . . I didn’t know if I could do it.

I went into this whole thing thinking,
maybe I’ll just give them a little bit of what life is like
going into the Asylum, then a little bit of school time, that will
get Ceinwyn off my ass
. Here I am now after hours of this stuff
and I don’t think that’s the way to go. Don’t think that’s the
story.

Two weeks and I’ve been playing the first
five sessions over and over like some kid with a new song they’ve
fallen in love with. Listening to myself talk. Each time I played
them my plan went more to shit. I figured on giving you the first
day of class next. Get into Pocket Landry and Heinrich Welf, tell
you about some of the teachers I dealt with. About how weird the
Mancy can make a man. But that’s all gone to shit.

Epiphany. Artificers run on epiphanies. At
least this one does. Can’t do it the old way, got to do it better.
Only way to make money. Only way to stay free of more strings than
I already got. Maybe that’s some insight. King Henry Price don’t
want to give the expected next. Doesn’t like to be boxed in by the
constraint of narration. Instead . . . epiphany. Listening to those
five sessions, this shit’s not about the last one I did. Not about
the buildings, or my testing, or any of the technical explanations
I wasted time on like the Ratio of Anima Dispersion. That’s me
ignoring the real tale as I got closer to the point where I would
have to tell it.

Me stopping at smacking down Welf, not
telling about the deep shit. Not telling about how I cried myself
to sleep thinking about Mom and Dad. About how I couldn’t take it
anymore and got up at 3AM to write Mom the letter I promised I’d
write. Not about the buildings. Not about my first day. Not about
my classmates. About
me
. About the dagger in my heart that
still pusses and bleeds to this day. About me and Ceinwyn Dale.
About me and Mom. About me and Dad. The rest . . . it’s gone to
shit.

Here we fucking go.

[CLICK]

It’s not like I didn’t see Ceinwyn
throughout my first two years at the Asylum. Usually it was a day
here or there. And always weird times. I’d be at lunch and she’d
stop by my table and tease me. Or she’d pull me out of a class and
spend an hour grilling me about what I’d been up to—if I’d made
friends, or girlfriends, that kind of stuff. We had a relationship
somewhere near aunt and nephew if I had to guess at it. Not that I
have any aunts I’ve ever know. Dad had a brother but he died in a
war . . . some misadventure in the 90s before war got serious
again. Mom was an only child. So with Ceinwyn, it was a new
relationship for fourteen-year-old-me . . . then
fifteen-year-old-me . . . then sixteen-year-old-me.

Third year.

By then, I’d finally gotten over all my
problems and was cool with the place. First year had been about
rebellion, second year had been about finding my place, third year
was supposed to be clear sailing. Supposed to be easy.
Theory of
Elemental Prophecy
.
Elementalism as a Weapon
.
Advanced Elementalism
. I was pumped for those classes. We
all were. By then, my little circle had formed. Me, Pocket, and
Raj, with Jesus on the way. Welf had his too—Hope and Quinn and
Jessica as the mean girls, with Jason as the muscle. His circle’s
better looking. Mine’s funnier. All going good . . .