The Foul Mouth and the Fanged Lady (16 page)

“Something more than friend if I had to
classify the relationship,” the old lady mumbled, starting to eat
what I hadn’t finished of my eggs, which on account of my brooding
over my mom had been quite a lot of the plate. “My . . . these are
very good. Touch of rosemary?”

“Yeah . . . I was kind of eating them.”

“Really? Oh well . . . you could use the
protein it looks like . . . I must say, I don’t know if I’m more
surprised that a little thing like you knows how to cook or that
Ceinwyn has
food
in her house. I wonder, how does it get
here? I really should know . . .”

She went on eating the eggs. “Good, but
needs a sauce . . .”

I started trying to make her cane crack in
half. Yeah, I know, I’m a troublemaker. Sue me. Not like I got any
success on that front anyway.

“I see Ceinwyn has already put you in your
badges and your colors. Always showing initiative that girl. One of
the brightest students we’ve ever had.”

“I hadn’t noticed.”

“Oh yes, first of her class—90’ or 91’ I
can’t remember which. Used to annoy Obadiah Paine to no end, I
remember
that
. He was a geomancer like you. You are
geomancer, yes?” the old lady asked, pouring herself a glass of
water. “Had a bit of an accident on the trip in to let Ceinwyn know
what you are, did you?”

I got distracted from answering . . . I got
distracted a lot back then. Mancy, legs, boobs, Valentine Ward
making books explode, it was horrible. This particular time, was
because instead of using the faucet, the old lady poured a thin
stream of water directly from a finger. “Ain’t that a waste of
animal or whatever the hell it’s called?”

“
Anima
, that’s what it is called . .
. and anima . . . anima gets easier as you get on with age, one of
the few parts of life that does. I have got on with a great deal of
age, so anima is a great deal of easy.” A flick removed the stray
remaining bead of water. “Ceinwyn must have found you difficult to
begin an introduction class; usually she ignores recruits the
moment the papers are signed.”

If I hadn’t seen the hallway wall with the
pictures, maybe I could have agreed and sized Ceinwyn Dale up as a
professional, but it didn’t really fit. She’d annoyed me, she’d
pushed me, but I figured she cared somewhere in her hollow
aeromancer heart. As long as I kept being interesting at least.

“I broke the child-lock on her car,” I said
proudly. What a little badass I was. Broke a child-lock. Watch out
world.

“Isn’t that something.” The old lady took a
sip of the water. Which I think may be considered cannibalism.
Cannibalism or a very odd form of recycling. “Did you break
anything else perchance?”

Like they were going to throw me out . . .
why not? If they did, I’d get to find a cigarette. “Bunch of
shelves, a table, and some kind of wall art thing, you can still
see it—what’s left of it. Been trying to break your cane since you
poked me with it, but no luck.”

All I got was a shake of the head, not even
a batting eye. “Indeed . . . so much effort to harm someone.”

“It doesn’t work when I try, seems like . .
.”

She laughed. Unlike Ceinwyn Dale she had a
real laugh. But old like the rest of her, worn out and tired.
“Thank God for that. You’d cost more than you’re worth.”

“Not worth anything since you lot took all
my stuff.” I started staring at the cane. Face might have gone red
from the effort too.

“Taking ‘
stuff
’ is school policy.
I’ll let you in on a secret, what you say?”

“Sure.” Face went maroon.

“Our goal is to form community among the
students, so we try to give you nothing but each other. See how it
works?”

“I don’t like other people.”

“You’ve gone purple, dear, do stop.” A flick
of a finger and what was left of the water in her glass splashed
into my face like it shot from a hose. Which I think may be
considered flinging bodily fluids. “I’m tired feeling your
efforts
.”

“You can do that?”

“You’ll learn . . . you seem dedicated
enough. Or at least committed. And the right kind of committed too.
We get both kinds.”

“Who are you anyway, old lady? Don’t you
have to go play shuffleboard or take your pills or something?”

She laughed again. This time it neared
crackling. “And you’re fearless, which can be such a good quality
if you’re also a survivor. If not, at least you’ll have a death
worth writing about.”

You’re noticing the habit that Asylum types
have of talking over students’ heads I hope. Annoyed the hell out
of fourteen-year-old-me. Ceinwyn Dale and the Lady were the worst,
but hardly the only ones. My math teacher, now there’s a woman who
loved to pretend she’s talking to herself.

I came back with, “I’m not a toy, you know.
You people seem to be forgetting it.”

Lint got picked off her sweater. Tiny balls
of string discarded from the whole. “We don’t belittle you . . .
you’ll understand soon. With Elementalism there is so much to see
we often don’t look at the right clue, or don’t have time to coddle
you with so many wonders and terrors happening around us.”

“Yeah,
whatever
—still looking for a
name, lady.”

“She’s Maudette Lynch,” Ceinwyn Dale said as
she finally walked into the kitchen dressed for the day. “And even
if you don’t respect me, you should respect her, King Henry. She’s
the Dean of the Institution of Elements and Head Chair of the
Elemental Learning Council.”

Like I knew what that meant. I’m still
working on
communal
here. “That some kind of teacher?”

“Lovely quality in the United States school
system these years,” the Lady muttered to herself.

“She’s our Charles Xavier,” Ceinwyn Dale
simplified for my comic book prone mind.

“Oh . . . like a principal.”

“Yes, you have it.”

“My last principal liked wearing
glow-in-the-dark latex. So as long as she’s not into that, we’re
cool.”

Ceinwyn Dale actually took it in stride.
“There’s a condition I haven’t heard before.”

“Sounds uncomfortable,” the Lady muttered
some more. I call her that, though fourteen-year-old-me didn’t know
it yet, because Maudette Lynch’s nickname is ‘
The Lady of the
Lake
’ and that’s all she’s ever called.

The way the story goes is that the Asylum
was founded in 1920 and the year it was founded, the first Dean
came upon three-year-old Maudette walking on the waters of Lake
Tahoe. She was adopted after the news came out about a boating
accident which had killed her parents. She’s seen every year the
Asylum has existed. A hydromancer, a Riftwalker like our good lord
Jesus Christ. Well, that’s another rumor at least. Don’t worry,
fundies, they’re probably both full of shit.

The Lady kept on grossing me out, “Awfully
lot of work to get into, I’d assume.”

“Surprisingly not,” Ceinwyn Dale said,
winking at her.

“Oh . . . just wrong . . .” I whispered,
“Shove some air or water in my ears, man.”

They ignored me. Of course they ignored me.
They were grown women. What’s new about that? “I’m going to have to
cancel. King Henry still needs tested and Russell will be whining
through the whole process. Best if we start it early.”

“School first as always, Ceinwyn,” the Lady
agreed, picking up her cane like it was a sword. “Place him before
he breaks something expensive.”

“I’ll find time for lunch.”

“Yes, yes, that will be lovely.” The Lady
turned to me. “Thank you for the eggs, King Henry Price, and
welcome to the Institution of Elements, Learning Academy and Nature
Camp. I wish you best of luck in your testing.”

“You owe me breakfast.”

She laughed again as she walked out the
door, metal prongs limping before her. “We’ll call it even for you
trying to break my cane, young man.”

The place we rolled into looked more like an
insane asylum than the Asylum ever did. It was walled. Big, thick,
prison walls meant to keep in and keep out, that said ‘
this is
my space, asshole
’ better than those lying beware-of-dog signs
ever do.

The walls were made of white stone, topped
with preening angels and carved along the top with Latin script,
which is outside the edge of even my overindulgent education to
translate. The gate our car—we’d stolen another after the last flip
job—went through was just as thick, crisscrossing metal that hummed
as it moved. Metal resonating . . . music to my ears.

“You people don’t like visitors, do you?” I
asked Annie B.

“God, it’s hot,” was her only answer,
flapping the neckline of her shirt to get cool air against her
skin. It’s a miracle the woman wasn’t constantly getting arrested
for public indecency.

My first trip to San Francisco and I can’t
say I thought much of the place. Sure, there’s ocean, but I’m not a
water kind of guy. The water didn’t help. There’s just too much of
it: too many bridges, too many wharves, too much water trying to
trap you in on three sides. The earth actually under my feet . . .
half of it was worse than dog-shit—it was
human-shit
.

Trash, waste, broken buildings. It wasn’t
really soil or bedrock, it was fake, man-made. It made me feel
sick, like I’d ordered bacon and got that tofu-turkey imitation
stuff. No wonder the city kept trying to kill the people living in
it.

Humans don’t belong to the ocean—we come
from dust. Vamps though . . . they belonged in the water still,
made them right at home. Aphro-fucking-dite rising up from the
seafoam. Sirens giving a call. Yeah . . . myth fits sometimes.

The roads of San Francisco were even more
crowded than Fresno, created by the same problem: too many people.
California’s problem as a whole. Too many people. People getting in
each other’s faces, people getting pissed and resorting to
violence, people fighting over jobs, people fighting over supplies,
people fighting over road space. All the time, fighting, and not
the fun kind of fighting, just the pissy kind.
Learn to drive
that tank, bitch. Fuck off, asshole, buy a real car next time
.
Music to my ears more than the metal gate.

Guess overpopulation is good for the
vampires too. If your business is eating people, then business is
booming. If your business is selling condoms, doesn’t look like
you’re doing your job, douchebags.

Before I met Annie B, I sized the people I
saw based on their threat level to me. First off, are they a
mancer? Second, are they physically dangerous? Third, are they
female and hot? If yes, four, do they look crazy? Now though . . .
I saw a little differently. Instead, I saw veal-shank over here and
lobster-tail over there. Food, so much food. Vampires and
mosquitoes and ticks and leeches and bed-bugs, blood brothers all.
Each more disgusting than the last.

“You’re basically naked and it’s not even
sixty, how are you hot?” I rose to the bait. I was still in my
brown geomancer coat and my jeans, both of which looked like they’d
been through a tough day of blue-collar work. Pair of fights will
do that to you. I also had a circle of dried blood wrapping around
my throat, where I’d been strangled, and the band-aid on my hand
were Annie B had fed on me. Not my best look, I admit, but at least
I actually could have passed for a normal guy on a winter day, not
on some tropical island as part of the chief’s harem of dancing
girls.

Annie B parked the car outside the
asylum-looking building. I don’t know architecture, but it looked
old. Same white stone as the walls, it could have been a church
once upon a time. Now, it was the San Francisco Vampire
Embassy.

Just about any town north of
one-hundred-thousand people has one, but this was the oldest in
California. Vampire presence in California predated the state
and
the United States, so the Embassy, if not the building,
was the oldest west of the Mississippi. Vampires follow human
migration about as well as the Indians used to follow the buffalo.
The gold rush brought more than prospectors in gold, it brought
prospectors in blood. Plenty of time for it to build its fair share
of secrets . . .

No one was outside to greet us. Just trees
and grass, a hint of fog with a hint of sun.

Annie B got out of our car and glanced up at
the bright orb, her eyes glaring disgust. “Not only hadn’t I fed
for days before you provided such a wonderful breakfast, I haven’t
slept for days during the course of this investigation. We don’t
need sleep like humans, and can go without it for extended periods
if required, but the longer we go, the more difficult to stay cool
it becomes. To put it simply: you’re not seeing me at my best.”

I exited the car, watching her as she shaded
her face with an arm. The same arm I’d seen buried under our last
car. “What do you do when it’s really hot and you have an
investigation
?” I asked, curiosity getting the best of
me.

She looked away from the sun, back my way. I
couldn’t help but think it would be so much easier to hate this
creature if she wasn’t so appealing to my hormones. Every part of
her and you wanted to stare. Not all Vamps are like that, some are
the last you’d expect, but Annie B . . . a walking problem. I had
to keep reminding myself this was just the shell. It helped . . .
but only a little . . .

“I eat well, sleep through the day, wear as
few clothes as possible, and take a great many freezing showers,”
she said.

“Guess that means you don’t cuddle,” I
teased.

“No . . .” she whispered to herself, “no
cuddling with humans. You’re too warm . . . walking furnaces
heating up at all the wrong times . . .”

That got a laugh from me. “Shit . . . it’s
really too bad you want to eat me, you know? You might just be the
perfect woman. Can kick ass, don’t wear clothes, perfect body, into
freaky sex, and no cuddling. Damned shame . . .”