Read The Foul Mouth and the Cat Killing Coyotes (The King Henry Tapes) Online
Authors: Richard Raley
The Foul Mouth and the Cat Killing Coyotes (The King Henry Tapes) (29 page)
Looked like T-Bone was handling his
day after
worse than I was. I shrugged. “I’m pretty sure the crazy shit is over with for now. I mean, Annie B could be in one of your bushes and Ceinwyn’s still in town but . . . no bullets at least.”
“That
KFC?”
“Yup.”
“You racist bastard.”
“Going to turn it down?”
“Get inside.”
I went inside.
After I put the bag on the kitchen table, T-Bone pulled out the bucket of chicken, grabbed a drumstick, and walked into the living room, where he plopped down into an
La-Z-Boy
recliner, gnawed on the drumstick, and un-paused the video game he was playing. “I deserve a vacation from you.”
“Wasn’t that bad.”
“We got shot at.”
I grabbed a drumstick for myself. Got to be careful with them drumsticks, they go fast. “Survived though, found out a lot of stuff we didn’t know.”
“You owe me so much . . .”
“I know, man. I promise I won’t lie about what I’m planning ever again.”
“Better not.”
I watched
T-Bone play some RPG swords-and-dragons shit for awhile. “No guns?”
“Never play an FPS again
. . .”
“Give it a few weeks.”
He paused the game, made a plate of mashed potatoes, gravy, and biscuits, then returned to his hobbits. Didn’t even bother with a spork, just went all in with the biscuit as a utensil. “How long until Vega threatens us?”
“He’ll play it nice until he gets a few floro-seeders.”
“Then?”
“Then he’ll push for the back half in
a fifth of the time.”
“So probably a year.”
“Yup . . . a year. Then we play another round.”
“Need to be ready,”
T-Bone mumbled angrily through a full mouth.
“We will be.”
“You need to teach me how to do that split pool trick,” T-Bone said.
“Alright
y.”
“Not fair you’re the only one that gets to look cool.”
“Says the guy that lightning bolted a Coyote.”
“And a truck.”
I nodded, sitting down on his couch and watching some goblins get chopped in half. “So that all I need to do to make it up to you? Some lessons on the side? Fill you in on the secret infos?”
T-Bone
thought about it. “Stop calling me
T-Bone
.”
“Come on
. . .”
“Stop calling me
T-Bone
.”
“What about Bonnie-T?”
“Tyson.”
“Iron Mike!”
“Tyson.”
“Electro Mike!”
“Tyson.”
“I’ll try
. . . but it will probably slip out occasionally . . .”
“
Tyson
,” he repeated slowly.
“Tyson,” I muttered.
He nodded at my gift. “What’s that?”
“It’s
kind of a laser sword.”
Tyson
. . . urgh . . . dropped his controller. “Don’t mock me with my dreams!”
“It’s
an artifact . . . light-sword, maybe? Whatever you want to call it. Spectro-blade?”
The gift wrap was off in record time, the artifact was out of the box even quick
er and then the metal, mirror, and glass cylinder was in his hand. “This button?”
“Yup.”
No noise. Come on, people. Imitation maybe, but more to see if I could do something resembling the on screen Hollywood masterpiece that is
whomp-hiss
action, than to actually make something that worked the same way. No noise, just a blade of blue light, reflecting and channeled with the Mancy. Didn’t even look like a—
“
Oh my God, I’m holding a lightsaber!”
“Spectro-blade,” I correct
ed. “You can’t call it
that
, George Lucas would sue the crap out of us. In fact, the condition of this gift is that you can’t show it to anyone.”
“Aww
. . . come on!”
“I
got King Vega to worry about; I don’t need King Bearded Chin too. In fact…it’s not even a blade…it’s a wand…a spectro-wand. Nothing to do with swords at all…”
He tried to cut his table in half but the light blade went into it like it wasn’t there, reflecting a little at the focus point of the blade. “Weak!”
“It’s spectro-anima, it’s not heavy enough to do anything but be pretty.”
Good thing too, because
T-Bone . . . Tyson . . . went into a spin and a few slashes that would have impaled the TV and cut Tyson’s leg off. Spectro-
things
. . . made fake for geek safety.
“King Henry
. . .” Tyson said, getting over that he wouldn’t be saving any princesses any time soon, “This is still the coolest gift I’ve ever gotten.”
“I try
. . .”
“No lying?”
“No lying.”
“Call me Tyson?”
“Going to try that too.”
“Guess we can still be friends then.”
Friends . . .
I nodded at him, arms crossed
as I watched the light show. Didn’t succeed at anything in the last few days. One screw-up after another. Kept the status quo . . . but the status quo couldn’t last. The center could not hold. Poly-shifters. Vampires. Two Ultras. Didn’t succeed at anything . . . but here . . . I did pretty well here.
Maybe the two of us were enough.
Maybe a year was enough time.
Maybe I’d get through the year without someone walking through my
shop door causing me problems . . .
Yeah, good luck on that one, King Henry.
Richard Raley was born and raised in Fresno, California and even still lives there on account of the city being an evil vortex you can’t escape. He grew up on
Star Wars
,
Transformers
,
Legos
, and
Everquest
—he never escaped them either.
The Foul Mouth and the Cat Killing Coyotes
is the second novel in
The King Henry Tapes
; it will not be the last. Keep an eye out for King Henry
updates at:
http://richardraley.blogspot.com
www.twitter.com/richardraley