The Glassbreaker Goes Home (The King Henry Tapes), page 16
Most importantly: Sariel was back in her cage.
For now.
As long as King Henry behaved.
Which he was so good at.
King Henry might be having the Long Conversation with his dad just now, but odds were both the Lady and Ceinwyn would want their own as soon as he got back to the Asylum tomorrow.
But it was so perfect!
He somehow only gave Vega what he was willing to give away, he distracted Ribera without smacking her upside the head with a blackjack, he found a way to punish Moore without starting World War Mancy, and . . .
And . . . what the fuck?!?!
Countess Sariel, that’s what!
Fucking Divine, just without the title. Beyond even King Henry’s worst assumptions.
Atlas was ten thousand years ago, right? Meant Sariel could be almost that old . . . maybe younger. Yeah, but what’s a thousand years or two when you stack that many up, right? Said it herself, didn’t she? Way she acted . . . had that ‘god’ thing going for her. Looked at humans like they were creatures to be stomped, walking and talking midnight snacks. Had traded so many shells she’d lost track of which one she started in, maybe even forgot the original memories she’d stolen too.
Had . . . ascended.
Younger ones all seemed to remember. Annie B, Joannie D . . . Moore—who was dead, F-fucking-Y-fucking-I. Dead dead fucking very damned dead. Liquidated, and don’t that word conjure up a horrible mental image. Linebacker or Sideburns too, whichever one Annie B hadn’t ate way back when, King Henry could never remember. Didn’t matter now.
All that mattered now was Countess Sariel and her swift bitchslapping of King Henry’s night.
Acted like I was something to play with, didn’t you? Sariel . . . what piece of mythology you show up in, bitch? Always at least a few of them, Guild info taught me that. Sariel . . . sister of Falschein, daughter of Jinn. Jinn, who ran around in the Middle East. Sariel . . . ain’t no Little Mermaid with no singing crabs, was she? Sariel . . .
Azrael maybe? That it, bitch? You the Angel of Death? You put the Angel of Death across from my father’s house, Inanina? You promise my hometown to the Angel of Death?
How ‘bout I crack your Divine Chamber? No, no, fuck that! How ‘bout I crack your whole City of Suck with my World-Breaker? Want to up the stakes then we’ll fucking up the stakes! But no, can’t do that, can I? Got to have the Long Conversation I’ve been dreading for ten years! You fucking asshole bloodsuckers!
Somehow, King Henry didn’t scream. He just paced.
See? He was too pissed off to do the spiel. Not being a coward, just being . . . rational.
Leave it to Val.
Lovely, calm, centered, caring, the Best Girlfriend Ever: Valentine ‘Exploding Gas Main’ Ward.
She got this shit!
Just do your pacing and try not to get too loud mumbling all those curse words.
King Henry wasn’t the only Price unhappy with the night’s sudden turn of events. JoJo was livid. Didn’t have a tail at the moment, but if she did it would’ve been thudding against a wall. Her nails kept flexing like they wanted to draw blood and her face had that pugnacious expression King Henry associated with mirrors. Only reason she wasn’t kicking Vega in the shin just now is because she’d already bruised it up good outside.
Susan, on the other hand, wasn’t angry but scared. Scared of the vampire for one, since it was her first. As much damage as Paine might have done, he still kept his prisoners isolated from the other supernatural powers.
Wasn’t just Sariel’s presence though. Susan was scared of the same shit had King Henry pacing. Might manage to keep the blood gods and the dragons secret, but everything else was about to fly into the open like a flock of seagulls just wrapped up a few hours at a whale carcass. And you get bird shit in your hair! And you get bird shit dribbling down your glasses! Ouch, right in the mouth! Not enough toothpaste in the world to get that taste out!
Old Man Price just wanted the Long Conversation already. He’d waited through the police and the firemen and now Marge and Nick were settled, so hurry the fuck up already! They had him sitting down in his favorite recliner just in case he fainted. Also so they could all face him . . . and . . . like . . . watch. Watch every reaction. Watch all them emotions and . . .
“Happy, you jackass?” King Henry struck out at Vega to distract himself. “Why you told me about it, right? What you fucking wanted?”
Vega swatted the air in disgust. “You were supposed to kill it. Nice, quiet, sensible, and easily hidden!”
“Ain’t my fault you and Ceinwyn both been trying to teach me that I should talk things out and control my impulses and shoot for a middle ground. Guess what? Some of it stuck!”
“You bungled—”
“You told me it was Moore!”
His brother-in-law looked as unnerved as King Henry had ever seen him. Wore the same type of expression as when he’d told the story about Paine killing his Poly-shifter clones over and over. “That thing is in my territory. If it ever is activated . . . it won’t stop at Visalia’s borders.”
“It’s just one Vamp,” King Henry growled some bravado he didn’t exactly feel.
A Vamp called Death.
Val finally started the Mancy infomercial.
JoJo growled unintelligibly through the whole spiel. Susan just winced again and again.
King Henry paced and paced and . . .
Yup, paced some more.
“You’re worse than I was in the waiting room,” Vega complained.
“Go fuck yourself, Horatio.”
When Val finished, she stood back, casually leaning beside the flat screen television to wait. She looked so calm. How was she so calm? She even winked across the room at him. Made King Henry feel at ease for only a second, but for the first time he realized his father now knew what the Mancy was and King Henry would survive it.
They all waited.
There would probably be some disbelief.
There would be questions.
There were always questions.
More waiting and more pacing.
Maybe I won’t survive it. Maybe I’m about to have a heart-attack.
“Huh,” was the first word out of Old Man Price’s mouth. His expression was quizzical, but not particularly aggressive or hurt by the news. “Magic? Really?”
“Yes,” Val affirmed. “Magic.”
“Huh.”
Fucking award winning dialogue right there.
“Huh.”
Yup, we’re related alright.
“Thirteen types you said?”
“Yes.”
“And that’s what the school is about? Well, at least it’s not a cult.”
Valentine only smiled with encouragement. King Henry assumed Old Man Price was in the upper quadrant compared to some of the reactions Recruiters must get. You know, like . . . shotguns, exorcisms, and unintelligible screaming not so different from JoJo’s unintelligible growling. Little Sis sounds like a cat, not a Coyote.
“All of you are these . . . mancers?” Old Man Price frowned over that thought. Could read the words on his face: my children do magic, how ‘bout that? “I’m still a little confused. Is the lady across the street one too? I could’ve sworn that Jordan—”
“She’s a fucking vampire,” JoJo blurted, still half growling. “Vampires are real too. They live inside bodies, but aren’t the bodies, they’re the blood, and since they’re the blood, they need to suck ours to survive. They’re so gross and . . . I hate them so much!”
Forget hitting the floor, Old Man Price’s jaw just fell off.
“Really?” King Henry snapped at her. “Think you of all people would’ve learned how to use a little lube by now.”
“Oh shut up! This is your fault! What were you thinking playing with it like that?” she shouted back.
“I was making a point about vampires living across from my father!”
“So you weren’t thinking? Like always!”
“Hey, I wouldn’t have even known she was there if your hubby hadn’t told me!”
“I’ve already kicked him!”
“Not nearly enough!”
They weren’t really yelling at each other anymore so much as . . . well, it felt good.
“No! It wasn’t! Which is why as soon as I get him alone, I’m going to put my nails an inch deep into my hubby’s chest so he knows how mad I am about him manipulating my stupid moron brother!”
“Even if in your crazy blame-my-brother-for-all-my-problems head you somehow put all this on me, what the fuck you want me to do? Just let the Vamp live there without saying nothing?”
“If you were going to do anything colossally stupid, you should have killed it. Really, when did you turn into such a pussy?”
“Notice hubby ain’t stepping up to the plate on that one either!”
“He would if he had to!”
“There’s another JoJo Price delusion.”
“What does that mean?!?!”
“CHILDREN!!!” Old Man Price roared. “ENOUGH!!!”
Man always did have a skill for getting people to shut up.
Just had to acknowledge that much volume with an equal amount of silence.
A thousand years ago Old Man Price would’ve been a chieftain yelling commands across the battlefield, not working in a warehouse as some cog. Still, warehouse worker or not, it commanded silence today just as much as it had during the Dark Ages.
So it was silent.
For like . . . a whole five seconds.
“Moron.”
“Spoiled princess.”
“Retard!”
“Twat!”
“There are vampires,” Val was still the only one keeping her chill. “Even when we give this talk, we often leave that part out. It’s obviously alarming, much more alarming than learning about the Mancy. But given what you saw and who your children are—how far are we going, King Henry?”
Asked the woman who argued against telling Ribera anything just an hour before.
Responses might be proportional, but failures? They never stop growing.
How far?
King Henry didn’t like the way Vega perked up at that question.
“Not . . . not that far. Intra level should be enough,” he muttered, before somehow forcing more words through his throat to expound further, “Yeah, Dad, vampires are real. Like JoJo said: they’re real evil fucktards that see us as cattle at the best of times. Met a total of one who ain’t unrepentantly horrible, but even she considers herself a monster. They’re tough, damn tough. Even if that AC fell on Sariel instead of her Lexus, she would’ve just gotten pissy about it. Probably for the best if you leave her alone and don’t get any ideas about going Van Helsing on her ass.”
Old Man Price nodded at that. “Guessing there’s more than just vampires? Your Mom always did love reading mythology books in high school . . .”
King Henry hadn’t known that. “Fairies,” he grunted out. “They’re bits of conscious anima. The power source we mancers use. This is fucking wild, know that? Full circle even. Ceinwyn Dale had this same fucking conversation with me the day I left this place.”
“Kind Wind Dale,” was Old Man Price doing the grumbling now. “This explains why she wanted you too, don’t it, Boy?”
“Yeah, suppose it does.”
“Can do magic, can you?”
King Henry shrugged. For one of the few times in his life, he felt truly caught. When I stop pacing? “Yeah, I do magic, Dad.”
Breathe.
Have to breathe.
“What type?”
“I’m a geomancer. Earth. Steel, dirt . . . glass.”
If you don’t breathe, you’ll pass out.
Somehow he got a single gulp in.
Still sitting in his recliner, even if he was on the edge of his seat, Old Man Price squinted across at his son just like he used to when something in the house ended up broken. “Steel? Like bolts holding up an air conditioning unit?”
“Yeah, Dad, like that,” King Henry confirmed. “Had to send Sariel’s bosses a message so . . . didn’t think it would be a big deal.”
Old Man Price laughed so hard the whole recliner shook. “Yeah, King, you’ve had trouble with thinking since I taught you how to make a fist. Sometimes I wonder if I shouldn’t have and if I hadn’t . . . maybe you wouldn’t have gotten into so many fights. But you were so small. My small little boy . . .”
Beat, King Henry told his heart, you have to beat.
Was that Susan whimpering? Wasn’t JoJo right? Couldn’t look, couldn’t . . . whole world felt foggy.
Old Man Price turned to Val. “What do you do, dear? Fine bit of speechifying too, I must say. Recruiting, hmm? Consider me on the team!”
Val grinned across at him. Pure Boomworm awesomeness lighting the night. “Thank you, Mr. Price.”
“We are not doing show-and-tell!” JoJo suddenly shrieked.
“We are,” King Henry somehow worked up the mental power to form words again. “We are too. Dad deserves to see it.”
“He bullied me out of this house! He beat you!” JoJo shrieked some more.
“He did. And as mad as you are about it—and as mad as I get about it at times—you got to admit . . . he’s paid for all them mistakes. Besides, all that old shit ain’t why you don’t want to, Little Sis, and we all fucking know it.”
Vega putting a hand on her shoulder kept her from shrieking anything more. If only for a moment. Long enough for Val to continue the conversation with one of mankind’s most important words, “Fire. I control fire.”
Old Man Price’s eyebrows went up. “And people are scared of fire. So . . . explains everything you said earlier too, doesn’t it? How ‘bout that. Only my King is too stupid to know better, ain’t he?”
Val beamed even brighter. “Your King knows more than anyone else and still never flinches.”
Old Man Price burst into a full belly laugh. “That’s how you burned down that hill!”
Val nodded, a tad guilty. “It . . . got a bit out of control. But he really screamed way more than he needed to.”
Old Man Price almost bent double. “Oh, I wish I could’ve seen his face!”
Val stepped away from the television, out into the middle of the den. There, she put out a palm and raised a questioning blond eyebrow.
Old Man Price nodded vigorously.
Val must have wasted a half hour of anima with her show. A quick moving clap-dance that was completely mesmerizing. It struck at your core. Not some magician tricking you, real magic. Impossible. Not even holograms or lasers or CGI could add that heat. The room temperature had to go up twenty degrees in as half as many seconds. And the smell . . . pyro-anima didn’t need gas or wood; instead, it burnt upon itself and the air filled with an odd spiciness. Or the controlled mastery in how the flames spewed and billowed around her, flung away and returned, almost orbiting her like she was the sun itself.
At the center of it all she twirled, hair and limbs mixing with the flames . . .
A complete waste of anima.
Flashy and useless.
But it touched something inside of King Henry.
Boomworm.
All those years ago, he first made that glass statue for her and here was that statue made reality.
Queen of Fire.
Val’s twisting slowed and all that flame contracted like it was a connected web. Inward and inward, gathering down into the same palm of her hand where it had all started. A tornado of fire almost, until even circular momentum failed under the very pressure she placed upon the flame and in its place bloomed a miniature star.
Which Val popped up into the air and snagged with a quick bite of her mouth. Like it was just some leftover chip . . .
“Fucking douchebag pyromancer show-off,” King Henry couldn’t help but complain.
Val grinned at him, smoke pouring through her teeth.
“Missed a chance to blow some rings,” he ruefully noted.
“Maybe next time,” she teased.
Old Man Price had gone full kid in a candy shop. Not one of the skinny ones either. Big, fat chucky kid sucks chocolate by the bucket. Swirling in his chair from Val to King Henry, he motioned expectantly.
“What?” King Henry grumbled. “I ain’t . . . that . . . she’s a . . . listen, I did the AC earlier, right?”
“Didn’t see that as it happened, Boy, only all the trouble after.”
“I’m not doing it,” JoJo whispered to no one in particular. Vega patted her shoulder some more, strong and silent. Oh, he might be pretending at supporting her, but Vega wants to flash the Coyote bona fides more than anyone in this room.
Surely more than King Henry, who Glassbreaker or not was still a geomancer. Old Man Price deserved to see, but . . . King Henry always felt frustrated when it came to creating a spectacle with geo-anima. “What you want from me? Want me to break the TV into fifty pieces?”
“No!”
“Breaking stuff is kinda my thing,” King Henry pointed out grumpily.
“Always was, even without magic,” his Dad pointed right back at him. “Must be something you can do that won’t set me back a TV?”
“Fine. Something.” Always something. Even when you’re trying to have a quiet night with your family, always something.
There was shitty glass vase on a nearby shelf, so King Henry walked over, picked it up, then sat it on the den table. Nothing in it, not even fake flowers. Kinda sad, really. Make an object that wants to be full and then leave it empty and dusty . . .
The remainder of his pool went flowing down into the glass. Metal you had to push and smash around, stone you generally had to subtract, but glass . . . glass loved anima. Just . . . sucked it up. Turned it into putty almost. Why is it that only I can do this shit?
Seemed so damned easy. Surely Plutarch could handle it, right? Or Paine? All Paine knew and he could never work glass? Artificing being the domain of Ultras made sense. Needed heavy enough geo-anima to hold back the other anima types, right? But this?
