Easy.

  Think and form.

  Anything he wanted.

  Was probably a way to lace it just like you did metal too. Would explain how the Pit Artifact didn’t come crashing down.

  Anything he wanted.

  What did he want?

  Anything . . .

  Wait . . . what if? I know World-Breaker’s are some type of crystallized anima and not real gemstone, right? But I still assumed you started with gemstone . . . cuz, why not? But gemstone is even worse than normal stone; it’s a complete pain in the ass. So, what if?

  What if . . . glass?

  Oh, fuck me!

  An epiphany the last place he wanted to have one.

  Eureka!

  Last subject he wanted to have one in too.

  I am not making World-Breakers, I ain’t fucking doing it!

  I’m curing Anima Madness, you hear me, Fate? Hear me, Bitch-Queen?

  King Henry barely even noticed as the vase melted, molded, and formed swiftly into a statue. A miniature time warp of his father, perhaps seventeen or eighteen, in football pads, helmet also on his head. All Valley linebacker that he was once upon a time, scholarship waiting, maybe even good enough to get drafted one day if he worked hard enough. Only . . . his body crashed and burned.

  Not in that statue though.

  That glass statue was forever.

  As long as someone cherished it.

  Old Man Price reached forward and took it up in his over-large hands. He held it with the same wonder and joy he had while holding his grandson for the first time earlier that night. He turned back to Val with the statue still in his hands, “No offense, dear, but . . . well, this is even more beautiful than you are.”

  King Henry immediately felt embarrassed. Not an emotion he was used to. Confused too, especially with that epiphany rumbling around in his head, but . . . fucking feelings! You’re the worst!

  Val studied both of them, father and son. “That is the exact same way he won me over.”

  “Plus the whole mountainside thing too,” King Henry added.

  “That was . . . unique,” Val politically agreed.

  “It was awesome!”

  “The statue was all I needed,” she whispered.

  Still sappy!

  “Who’s next?” Ol’ Sugar Addicted Old Man Price prompted of his daughters. More candy!

  Daughters who both looked as emotionally spent as King Henry felt.

  “I can’t, Daddy,” Susan whispered after a moment. She kept flicking at an invisible wristband, likely the one Paine had used to keep track of his patients.

  Old Man Price’s face went dark as he struggled to put the pieces together. “Can’t?”

  “I don’t . . . know how.” Susan glanced down at her feet, embarrassed.

  “Oh. Has to do with what you and your Mom have then? Which means . . . oh, of course your Mom had magic too, didn’t she?”

  Susan only nodded, tears hidden with the rest of her face.

  Old Man Price turned to his son. “We talked earlier some, but . . . what causes it? Why your Mom and sister, but not you, Boy?”

  “Because Ceinwyn Dale found me in time.”

  His dad digested that news. “Suppose that means I should thank the woman if I ever see her again.”

  “Suppose it does. To be fair, they did miss Mom all those years ago though. Missed Susan and JoJo too, obviously.”

  “But Jordan’s fine. Ain’t she?” Concern filled Old Man Price’s face.

  “No, no, no,” the fine one freaked out as Vega stood behind her, whispering in her ear. He was about the only thing keeping her from fleeing the room in blind panic.

  “We’ll, uh, get to JoJo later,” King Henry hedged before laying out some of the more gruesome truths about the Mancy, “When you’re not trained and you can’t conjure, anima builds up inside of you. It affects you in odd ways even when you are trained. But when you let it go and the anima takes the driver’s seat slowly but surely . . . they call it Anima Madness.”

  Old Man Price looked away just like his daughter had. He also might have teared up, but he wouldn’t let his children see it. After a minute of silence, he tried to ask, “Do you know . . . what could . . .”

  “She was a corpusmancer,” Val filled in since King Henry had a sudden rock mysteriously appear in his own throat. “Corpusmancers use anima to make changes to their own body. They often tend to be very athletic, although sometimes they’re very beautiful like Mrs. Price was. Or it can manifest itself in more playful ways on occasion. We have a classmate who likes to change the color of her hair each day and not just the normal colors either. She even makes patterns some times and can grow hair enough for a whole wig in an hour or so. That’s what she does for a living.”

  “Then there’s Yvette, who gave herself a nose job as soon as she figured out how,” King Henry finally put in, “And you can’t tell me that ass was all-natural either. Or Sam Bird, who could scratch the back of his head with his toes if he wanted. Mancy can get plenty interesting.”

  “Corpusmancer,” Old Man Price mused over the word, placing it upon his dead wife like a new cloak. “Your Mom always was beautiful. Such soft skin, even at the end . . .” He glanced up at Susan, Mom’s spitting image in many ways. “Are you the same, Susanna? But . . . you’re better than your Mom was, can tell that.”

  “Like hell she is,” JoJo joined the party with some running commentary.

  Susan broke, her face first, then her whole body. She rushed over and into his arms like she was still eight years old, back before she took so many of the household responsibilities on her shoulders. It was all tears and boiling pain. Old Man Price held her, whispering promises of protection in her ear. You’re okay. You’re with family now. We won’t let anyone hurt you. You’re okay, baby.

  “I’m not okay, I’m not,” Susan bubbled out fear and anger both, “he made me watch after them, Daddy, and if I said anything . . . I was just a number for so long and when I wasn’t a number it got better and that scared me even more. I felt guilty too. All those poor people, Daddy, and I was so happy I wasn’t one of them. But then he learned my name and he started looking at me like I . . . like I was a prize. He became obsessed with me. Every minute, every second of my day and he knew where I was. Then something made him angry and he started punishing me and I never understood why. He’d forget to have a vial sent to me . . . for one hour, then two hours, and later and later . . . he let me go a whole day once and I knew what it meant, I knew what he was doing, but I didn’t know how to use my anima any other way. You have to give to a vial, you have to!

  “And it wasn’t just him. I hear voices, Daddy. Only they’re real. Or . . . mostly real. They’re so nice too, most of the time. They tell me stories or teach me lessons or . . . but other times they weren’t nice. Other times, they say such horrible things. I don’t know if I’m me, or them, or . . . sometimes I lose a minute or even an hour and . . . I just keep on going, but what happened? We didn’t have calendars there, but we do at the school and . . . I think I skipped a whole day, Daddy, and I don’t remember any of it and the way Little Bro looked at me . . . what did I do? What did I say? I’m not okay. I’m so sorry, but I’m not!”

  “Suze,” King Henry forced her attention, “he’s dead. I killed him. That part is fixed.”

  But some deep fear wouldn’t let her believe him. “I know he is. Or I want to. But, Little Bro . . . I’m still so scared, I’m always scared.”

  Val grabbed Susan up out of Old Man Price’s arms, motioning for him to remain sitting. Susan pushed at Val, shaking in terror. It wasn’t until Val moved her own hands up to cradle Susan’s head that the other woman calmed and then only slightly. Val shushed Susan, not letting go of her. Yet again she shushed her, meeting those frightened eyes with infinite care, control, and most importantly: inner strength.

  “Miss Dale has been too busy to give you this speech, so I’ll have to do it myself, okay?” Val asked, so calm she might as well have been an avatar of serenity.

  Susan nodded agreement, as much as she could.

  “Susanna Belle Price. Bonegrinder. One of hundreds. You are weak right now. So weak, so scared, so ignorant. You fear this, but you should take solace in that fact. You will learn. You will grow strong. And when weakness and ignorance fall then fear will flee.”

  “How? I’m—”

  “Hush. I promise you this is the truth. I promise that your brother will teach you. I promise that I will teach you. No matter how many people scold us, we won’t leave you in fear.” Val brightened at an idea. “Maybe we’ll even get Heinrich to help occasionally with the necromancer parts, hmm?”

  Susan blushed crimson.

  We’re cutting Welf’s dick off just to be sure, King Henry’s subconscious hissed in pure sister protecting fury.

  “So remember this night,” Val continued, “Remember how you feel. This is the weakest you’ll ever be. Tomorrow, you start your journey as a mancer. It took you much longer than most, but you’re here, we finally found you. You will control this, it will not control you. It will be hard for you, perhaps even harder than it was for me, but you’re still going to do it. Yes, your brother needs to do his part to cure the damage that has already been done. But in the meantime? You’re fighting every damn day.”

  “Part of me really hates her,” JoJo whispered.

  Vega only grunted.

  Susan visibly calmed as Val released her. Was a magic trick all on its own. Some Asylum mindfuck voodoo worthy of the Lady or Ceinwyn Dale. King Henry wasn’t the only one being taught after all.

  “Thank you,” Susan said.

  Val nodded. “I just remembered, mostly.”

  JoJo’s lip pulled back in a snarl. “More than part of me.”

  Vega grunted again.

  Repressing most of what he just saw like any good Price, King Henry’s father seized on the obvious word. “Necromancer?”

  “I hear dead people, Daddy,” Susan didn’t try to make it sound funny, but there wasn’t much you could do with that phrase.

  “Oh.” Old Man Price blinked, brow furrowed. “Well . . . if you ever hear your uncle, you should probably thank him for giving me that defective condom, it’s the only reason you’re standing here.”

  Susan gasped in horror. “Dad!”

  Old Man Price laughed so hard the whole recliner shook, hinges and springs squeaking in fury.

  “Dad!” Big Sis complained again, not sounding much like a woman in her thirties.

  Old Man Price shrugged, at a loss. “It’s true. I was furious at him for . . . well, until I saw you. Bastard dared to look smug about it too.”

  “I know someone who does the same,” Val put in as the Price family genetic mysteries unlocked before her eyes.

  “Speaking of that someone,” Old Man Price turned to his son. “Who’s the fellow—”

  “Dead,” King Henry preempted, “Very fucking dead.”

  Old Man Price nodded solemnly. “Your uncle killed people too. Take up that hobby, did you, Boy?”

  “Four people. First one I killed on accident. Second one I killed because it was him or me. Third one I killed because I wanted to. Fourth one . . . I enjoyed. There have been other things. Them I haven’t kept count on. Future don’t go so well, suppose I’ll lose track of the people I’ve killed too. But for now . . . easy enough to remember all of them since they go on one hand.”

  “Which one was Susan’s fellow?”

  “He’s the one I enjoyed.”

  It cannot end like this!

  “Still enjoy it.”

  Old Man Price let out a deep breath, not touching that one. Maybe next conversation. “World felt safe an hour ago, now I got magical kids and a vampire neighbor.”

  “Know that feeling.”

  The furrowed brow returned. “Ain’t you known for a decade now?”

  “Always more to learn,” King Henry carefully hedged.

  Old Man Price grunted agreement. “So . . . this Mancy can make you crazy. Susan learned a bit from her fellow, you learned a lot from Kind Wind Dale and her school. Don’t remember no Kind Wind Dale asking after my Jordan. Though my Jordan is very out of sorts at the moment . . .”

  JoJo raised her chin. “There’s nothing wrong with me.”

  “Made that very clear today, Little Sis,” King Henry put in to draw her fire. “But talk is fucking cheap. So show us.”

  Everyone waiting on JoJo, Vega most of all.

  Her mouth moved, but no words came out.

  “Can’t think what could possibly be worse than what your sister does,” Old Man Price grumbled. “Having a conversation with Douglas MacArthur while on the pot would be damn inconvenient.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with me,” JoJo repeated, “or with hearing dead people.”

  Susan smiled at that. “She’s not a mancer, Dad. Neither is Mr. Vega.”

  Mr. Vega, who knew a moment to seize when it arrived plump and moist before him, and here it was shaking that booty. “Using the orientation I spoke of earlier this evening, my organization is a third player in our often confused supernatural political landscape. We are collectively known as Shifters.”

  Old Man Price still wasn’t thinking big enough to get it in one. “Shift . . . like them corpusmancers and the nose job or the hair?”

  “No. Not like them. We wield no anima of the human variety. Shifters bind themselves to a Totem with animal anima and may swap places with the sacrificed animal in question. The most obvious popular example—”

  “My daughter is a werewolf?!?!” Old Man Price shouted.

  “See!” JoJo beseeched the room, “That’s why I was so nervous! That right there! Did you hear all that judgment? That’s how people always say it, like . . . like we’re scum!”

  “Your daughter is not a werewolf. We are neither as singular as vampires, nor as uniform as mancers,” Vega proudly explained, sounding a tad like Javier Castillo when he got rocking with his shifter-supremacy bullshit. “We stands as nations, each unique and yet all constructed to protect our members. The Wolf Nation . . . it is a sad collection, barely deserving the name and unworthy of its history. Puny, weak, and now leaderless as well. My nation is neither laughable nor puny, and it is my nation. I am King Vega. A title not gained with birth, but earned through blood, through sacrifice. I rule the largest Nation in the whole world. I began as a poor boy in the most impoverished of houses, leaky roof and all. Now, I protect thousands upon thousands of my people; give them care, comfort, even a reason to continue.”

  Old Man Price nodded along with all that, even if he didn’t look like he was about to vote the ticket. “You aren’t a werebear, are you? Marge reads these werebear books . . . well, I suppose I don’t read at all unless you’re talking game scores, so I shouldn’t judge, but . . .”

  Vega’s jaw clenched. No politician’s smile now. Just . . . Welf-like pride. Paine-like megalomania. His moment. Standing before his father-in-law, openly proclaiming his worth in a supernatural world where silence reigned supreme. In a way it was no different than his choice to run the Ouroboros, another avenue to gain the civilized acceptance he craved. “I am the King of the Coyotes and Josephine is my queen.”

  .

  .

  .

  “My daughter turns into a coyote?!?!?”

  Vega nodded, arm wrapping around his Josephine so they stood as one.

  “I think Marge reads those books too . . .”

  “Dad!” Susan scolded this time.

  “What? Never had much to say before, sure as hell don’t have anything important to add now. Werewolves, wizards, and vampires . . . what a night! Hey, are there dragons?”

  Everyone glanced at King Henry.

  Who checked his fingernails. “No comment.”

  “Oh, so everyone else gets to show off and have emotional reunions, but you’re all just going to ignore me, are you?” JoJo somehow took offense at getting her way.

  “You were hyperventilating, Sissy,” Susan politely pointed out.

  “I was dealing with stage-fright!” JoJo corrected. “I’m ready now.”

  “We can’t wait to see it then,” Val encouraged.

  JoJo gulped, some more of that stage-fright apparently at work.

  “Let me, Josephine,” Vega offered valiantly . . . oh so valiantly.

  “No!”

  And . . .

  And she stared removing her dress.

  “Well, we’ve all seen this trick a dozen times before,” King Henry couldn’t help himself.

  JoJo blushed furiously, but instead of yelling at him, she turned her back so she at least wasn’t full frontal to the den.

  “Boy! Be nice to your sister!”

  “So they do have to take off their clothes?” Susan asked Val.

  Val only shrugged. “I’ve never seen a Shift actually.”

  “Some do,” Vega stepped in to explain while also stepping sideways to hide his disrobing wife with his body. “Animal anima is the most perfectly balanced of anima, but in that balance you find the recipe for greater diversity. It is not rigid in its equations but instead chaotic, always mixing. In this, one must have a perfect sense of self to even accomplish a single shift, much less add one’s clothes into the problem. So . . . some must disrobe. Others can Shift away clothes but not regain them. Myself . . . I have a great sense of self. Josephine, she is quite a primal Shifter. She thinks only of what her body is and what it will become. She is also, like me, a Poly-Shifter.”

  “What?” Old Man Price asked.

  “Wait for it,” King Henry told him.

  JoJo pushed her husband out of the way, nude head to toe. Wasn’t much to her, even with the baby weight. King Henry tried not to make a thorough examination, her being his sister and all. Though there were a few tattoos to count . . . which Old Man Price glared at. Regardless, JoJo gave him no chance to make even a quick comment about them. One second, there was JoJo in all her JoJo-ness, then . . . thirteen blasts of anima working together, mixing and matching, both inside his sister and somewhere else far away, linked forever. JoJo snapped, no silly mighty morphing coyote ranger. Human and then not human. Three not humans. Three werecoyotes sitting in a row, blinking up at her father.

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18