The Foul Mouth and the Cat Killing Coyotes (The King Henry Tapes) (11 page)

[CLICK]

A hand at my shoulder shook me awake.  “Huh?”

“
Shh . . .”
a voice whispered urgently.  Pocket I realized.

My eyes took some time to adjust in the
darkness of the tent.  Still night outside, since no sun came through the thin fabric of the tent.  Welf and Jason were already awake as well, wrapped in their mancer coats, sleeping bags zipped open and left discarded.  Their eyes darted from one side of the tent to the other, searching for something.

“Huh?” I repeated, less loud, but not much.

Pocket threw a finger up in front of his lips, face about as scared as it got when Mrs. Dingle threw us a pop-quiz at the start of class.

I shrugged at him
,
what the fuck?

He tapped his ear. 
Listen
, right.

Scootin
g up out of my own sleeping bag, I managed to get out without unzipping anything.  For once it was a plus being small.  I looked to Welf and Jason.  They paid my every movement attention usually reserved for someone with a landmine stuck between their ass-cheeks. 
Right,
I thought,
clench, King Henry, clench
.  The shit I’d been waiting for finally got thrown by the pissed off chimpanzee of spite.  Samson’s Sword of Damocles was ready to bugger us all.

I threw my hands in the air towards the three of them
, meaning as clear as before,
what the fuck?

Welf glared.

Jason mouthed,
shut up, fool
.

Pocket caught my eyes and motioned to his ear
again, then he pointed outside,
something’s out there
.

Right
, I thought again.  Chimpanzee had definitely been working overtime.

I listened.

First thing I noticed was the lack of wind.  Nothing hit the tent and the branches stayed surprisingly quiet.  The whole woods stayed surprising quiet.  I frowned to myself.  The fire had either died or been put out.  No snoring, from either Jason or the other tents.  Whispers from my other classmates as more people woke up to the same scenario.

I tilted my head.  There was something moving out there.  I heard the swish of padded feet across dirt.

That’s when something, multiple
somethings
, howled.

“Stay inside your tents,” Samson’s voice came, soft as always but straining to be loud enough for all of us to hear.  “If you stay inside your tent you will not be hurt.  Whatever you do, no matter what you hear, or see, stay inside your tent until the sun is well out.”

“This can’t be happening . . .” Welf muttered under his breath.  “This is impossible . . .”

Jason slapped
Welf’s shoulder for talking.

M
ore howls.  Whatever moved out there, one of them ran past our tent, a bulky four-legged shape visible against the weak moonlight.  Full moon? 
You got to be kidding me . . .

“Are there werewolves?” Pocket asked as low as his voice could go.

He earned his own shoulder slap from Jason but Welf gave a nod as answer. 
Aren’t supposed to be in California,
he explained silently.

This is bullshit!
I mouthed back.

Talk and I
mess you up,
Jason warned me.

It’s Samson screwing
with us!

Even more howls.

Screams from nearby tents.

“I said stay inside, Ramirez!” Samson yelled, his voice high for once.  “I’m handling them, don’t you worry.
  I’m not old enough for a few Weres to give me trouble.”

I began to feel anima drawn.  A rumble at my feet.  It was the one piece of the Mancy we’d learned in our first month.  Not that the teachers had taught it to us, just that from all the mancers being around you felt it enough to realize what it was and got better at sensing by the day.

The four of us traded gazes.  They felt it too.  Different feelings than mine.  I know corpusmancers describe it as the body tingling and Pocket has told me more than once it’s like smelling flowers for floromancers.  No idea what necromancers feel.  Never gave enough of a shit to ask Welf, Mordecai Root, or Jethro Smith.  Maybe smell too . . . smell rotting corpses for all I care.  Hope it sucks for them.

“What are they?
!?” a girl’s voice screamed.  Might have been Jessica Edwards or Tamiko Lewis, sounded southern.

“Stay inside, hug the ground!”

This is bullshit
, I thought again.

That’s when Samson screamed, followed by howls and trashing bodies and terrible noises that have no name.

I still would have kept thinking it was bullshit, only . . . the blood that splashed against the tent told me maybe I’d been wrong.

Tough as we pretended to be
. . . Welf, Pocket, Jason, and me . . . we all hit the dirt, shivering all four of us, praying that we’d get through the night.

I also tried to pool anima like never before.

As a kid I
always viewed the cops as my enemies . . . but I never actually clashed with them either.  Delinquent children aren’t high on the list of wrongs to right in the Central Valley.  Long as you weren’t destroying property, shooting someone’s dog, or painting graffiti on a mailbox they mostly left you alone.  Plus . . . white kid, so I got those bonus points in my favor free of charge.

Never liked the cops though.  Has to do with the bully thing.  Even if they’re nice guys
. . . that bully thing is just there.  They could totally flip out, beat me, taser my ass, and they’d get away with it.  That system’s too unfair for King Henry Price to not resent the benefactors.  I always glared at cops as a kid, always dared them. 
Try to fuck with me, we see if you get suspended with pay or get hospitalized with some broken ribs.
  They’d glare back but never did anything.  Probably went into the office and laughed their asses off at my little pugnacious self.

I guess when you s
it on the other side of the cash register, things become different.  Or . . . maybe not so different.  They noticed me now . . . acted like I was to be respected since I was a small business owner in the community paying their salaries.  They noticed me now . . . I’d just had my shop shot up by what everyone agreed was gang violence the likes of which even a shithole like Fresno had never seen before.

“I’m going to read back your statement now and you can correct any
. . . misremembered or badly worded facts,” the head cop explained to me with a shake of his notebook.  Translation:
you’re full of crap but you can still put some smell-odorizer on if you come clean now instead of later
. 
If you come clean later, I’m going to be pissed and make your life hell
.

I nodded, conte
nt to be silent as I could be.  No glare here.  Just that
don’t give a shit
attitude I manage so well.

The whole affair
went on outside of my shop.  We had flashing cop cars barricading the area, print journalists flocking for a story before deadline, concerned citizens taking in the train wreck, and TV reporters standing beside satellite vans, the dishes reaching up three stories towards the heavens.

There was also the
grande
truck, which had started on fire about a minute after T-Bone electrocuted the thing . . . now being overseen by the Fresno Fire Department to make sure it didn’t start up a second time.

Noisy, lots of noise, lots of movement.  The moment felt more pressing than when I’d had machineguns pointed at me.

Of T-Bone, there was no sign at all.

Then there’
s me . . . looking like I’d just been through a war, scratched up by glass, smelling of gunpowder residue, and just generally pissed off I didn’t get enough time to cut Suit’s head off.  Leaning beside my broken window, I knew I looked guilty as all fuck.  Not like I could tell them the truth either, is it?

Hey, officer, I’m a mancer and those were werecoyotes
, we have a peace treaty but I guess it went boom
.  From what I understand, some higher ups in the federal government know about the one in a million world . . . but local cops?  Not so much. 
Most mancers don’t even have to deal with this shit . . .

I’d gotten interview requests from all four local channels
. . . what was next?  CNN?  Anderson Cooper dropping down from a helicopter and still having perfect hair?

My local cop frowned at his notebook, start
ing from the top, “You were in your . . .
antique store
.”

“Yes.
 
King Henry’s Hidden Treasures
.”  Yeah, that’s hard to say with a straight face.

“
Then you noticed a truck pull up into the parking lot.  You were closing down your cash register and noticed them through your front window.  A number of men exited the truck and pointed firearms at your shop.  You ducked and they fired.”

I nodded again.  “Correct.”

“They then reloaded and fired again . . . twice.”

Since he stopped I assume he wanted another answer.  “Yes.”

“When they heard the police sirens they fled on foot, leaving their vehicle behind.”

“From what I could tell from my position on the floor, yes.”

The cop wasn’t buying it.  He pointed at my blown-out window with his pen.  “How do you account for the slugs on the inside of your window sill that my forensics team . . . claim appear to have been stopped by some type of armor?”

A SEM-DEW, you want to buy one?  I’m fi
guring on selling them at fifty-thousand . . . too much for your salary?  Yeah, I know, man.  Too much for my salary too.  Oh well, Department of Homeland Security probably bought you guys a tank back during their glory days, right?  Tank’s going to have to be good enough.
 
No SEM-DEW for you
.

“I have no clue.”

“The window also appears to have been blown out towards the assailants, can you explain that?”

Haven’t come up with a name for it yet, but that’s pretty impressive
, ain’t it?  We’ll settle on twenty-five-thousand, same as the SDRs
. 
Still too high?  What a bummer.  Probably won’t sell them much, tell you the truth.  Pain to get them charged up, probably just give one to Ceinwyn as a gift and call it a successful experiment.
 
Move on to another anima-type now . . . spectro?  Hydro?   Pyro’s already in testing . . .

“Not from where I was on the ground.”

“And the truck?”

“I don’t follow you.”

“What happened with the truck?”

I gave a stupid frown.  Same one I used to give at the Asylum when I
got in trouble.  “I have no idea what you’re talking about, officer.”

“Their truck caught on fire, they abandoned it.”  He pointed at the charred wreck. 
All the news cameras were zoomed in on it.  Good tape, I guess.  “Another witness reported seeing a
bolt of lightning
strike it.”

Sadly, I don’t have an artifact that can do that yet
. . . but one day?  Who knows . . . just might manage it.  Wouldn’t that be something to have when troublemakers make a play at me?  Zap, zap, fucktards.
  “I was on the ground, so I can only speculate as to what the . . . lightning bolt . . . was about.”

The cop wasn’t enjo
ying himself.  “And what is your speculation?”

“I would guess that they shot my electric bike and it exploded on them.”  Did I forget to mention that?  My poor un
der-driven bike?  Riddled with bullets.  As if the shop insurance wasn’t going to be bad enough, now I had to deal with car insurance guys and tell them my motorcycle had been machinegunned to death.  Bet that little Gecko fucker never sees it coming.

“I don’t think that’s likely.”

I gave him another shrug.  “Then I got nothing . . . maybe magic?”

The cop
really
wasn’t enjoying himself.  “
Are you lying to me, Mr. Price?
” he growled my way.

“Not at all officer
. . . how else would it have happened?

[CLICK]

The Coyotes
weren’t out of sight before I slapped T-Bone out of his post-fight euphoria with a heavy chop against his shoulder.  “Don’t just stand there!  Get in your car and pull around back.”

“What?” he asked, coming around slow
, still watching as the seven forms disappeared from view.  Guess if they were dwarves their names would have been Charry, Broiley, and Glassy Assy.

I knew th
e feeling T-Bone had.  It’s great.  It’s a shit-ton of chemicals pumped straight out of your glands that makes the rest of you feel like a champ.  Your body almost buzzes.  Your heart goes insane on you.  You can’t concentrate on anything for long since everything seems so clear.  It’s not just
great
. . . it’s the best feeling in the whole world.

But we didn’t have time for
no high-fiving, butt-slapping, or head-butting.

“There are cops coming,” I pointed out with a wave at all the
thrashed merchandize surrounding us.  Those machineguns had done worse to my store than the earthquake I’d caused a few months back.  In fact . . . they’d kind of ruined the entire store.

“
So what?
” T-Bone asked, turning all those chemicals towards being indignant for once in his life.  “You’re going to make a giant-black-man comment, aren’t you?  I consult with the Fresno PD and the Fresno County Sheriff’s Department on computer security, I have
clearance badges
.  I’m
fine
!”

I waited for the rant to end.  Okay, maybe I
was
going to make a giant-black-man comment.  Instead I went after his business sensibility, “You realize I have three SDRs in the back and about two-hundred-thousand in anima vials I don’t want to get confiscated as evidence; don’t you, Mr. Twenty-Five Percent?”

“Shit
-boogers!” he yelled, glancing all around with an ear for the sirens.  “Shit!”

“Right
. . .”

“Shit
-boogers!” again.  Don’t knock him. It’s a step up over ‘
what the bitch
’.  “Around the back?” T-Bone asked before rushing out my front door, which was just as thrashed as the rest.

“Don’t get shot,” I called after him
, before running off towards the back of my shop.

Those bastards, they killed my teapots
. . .

. . .
Did I really just think that?

No one
would ever call me fast.  Quick, yeah, with my hands especially.  But not fast.  I filled out too blocky for it and I never exercised for speed.  Stamina, that’s my thing. Outlast them into the ground.

We had some fast people in my class at the Asylum, especially the corpusmancers.  You ever want to see something amazing, have Welf’s m
an Jason run you the forty-yard dash.  He could have played in any professional sports league if the Learning Council hadn’t outlawed it.

Me?  I ain’t ever
come close to Jason.  Never came close to any corpusmancer.  Earth . . . it don’t move well.  Which is too bad . . . I could have used some
fast
.

Those sirens
grew, block by block.  I figured the reported gunshots and bullet-holes would slow them down for some backup, but pretty soon the whole area would be swarming in red and blue flashes.  I had to get my Artificer stuff out . . .

I burst into my shop, not even pausing to study the trio of bullet gouges in my backdoor.  
Stay calm . . . don’t panic, fucktard
, I told myself.

Container was first.  Got myself some packagi
ng boxes.  Dropped the as yet unnamed fan and the SEM-DEW inside.  Next I went to a drawer, pulled out the SDRs in their ring boxes and threw them inside too.  Next drawer was a pair of cold cuffs lined in pink fur . . . don’t ask . . .
please
, don’t ask . . . then a drawer with some projects that weren’t going as well as my prototypes but I didn’t want the cops to see, and finally my design journals with all the diagrams and the anima conversion formulas of everything I’ve ever made.

I heard
T-Bone’s car pull up to the back, not a roar but a hum.

“Should cut do
wn on the
grande
whatever-the-fucks, Price,” I muttered as I hurried across the room with another box, throwing in anima vials like they’re on sale for half off.  Floro from Pocket.  Aero from Ceinwyn.  Fauna from Jesus.  Cryo from Raj.  Electro from T-Bone.  A lone scio-vial from Miles Hun Pak and another lone spectro-vial from Curt Chambers.

And ten geo-anima vials that weren’t exactly the same as normal geo-anima but worked just fine.

Crap . . . Shaky Stick!

“No
. . . leave it,” I thought aloud.  It was in a padded safe, hidden in the floor.  Cops would probably walk right on over it.  “And if they don’t . . . might not see it anyway, will they?”

T-Bone
pounded on my backdoor.  There was a muffled, “Hurry up.  Let me in!”

Grabbing the two boxes, one under each arm, I jogged out of the shop and into my office.  The other way, I could hear the first set of sirens enter the shopping center.
  A spare bit of geo-anima I’d saved up unlocked the backdoor for me.  We’ll call it a three-minute-pool, just enough to lever the industrial size bolt.

T-Bone
popped open the door in my face.  “What’s taking . . . oh . . . okay.”

The two boxes hit him in his chest.  “G
et out of here . . . don’t speed, act normal.”

“I play
Grand Theft Auto
. . .”

“Yet you drive a Nissan Leaf
.”