The Foul Mouth and the Fanged Lady (35 page)

“The . . . man . . . you . . . love,” Annie
B gasped between whatever happened inside her body as the two
warred over veins and arteries. “Your . . .true saint . . .”
Another laugh. “It’s funny because . . . he . . . fucked me like a
jackrabbit . . . that’s how I got close!”

“Liar!” D’Arc hammer-fisted Annie B across
her broken nose, but the baroness only kept laughing.

“He wasn’t even . . . good . . .”

“The words of a dead woman!”

“King Henry . . . the Artificer . . . right
there . . . he’s better . . .”

Hell yeah.

“Your betrothed . . . wanted me . . . to
spank him . . . did you . . . spank him, Joan?”

D’Arc full on pimp-slapped Annie B. “Shut
up! You will be dead in a few minutes, just shut up!”

Annie B turned her head so she could see me.
“If this doesn’t work . . . glad to know . . . you, King
Henry.”

“Same,” I told her, motioning the fake
artifact.

Annie B’s right hand, the one still attached
to her, came out of her pocket with the ring I’d given her on the
tipping point of sliding down her finger. It worked the same as
Cold Cuffs only it didn’t impair movement, didn’t even try to last
for a long period of time, it just straight up slammed cold into a
person. One really good jolt.

Might kill a human . . . a vampire . . .

“Joan . . .” Annie B said, “Sorry . . .
you’re a . . . self-righteous twat . . . that couldn’t . . . give
it up . . .”

“What is that?” d’Arc asked in puzzlement.
Last words she ever spoke.

The ring slipped on.

Annie B met d’Arc’s eyes and you could see
the battle turn just by the way their faces shifted. Raising her
other arm, the one that had been cut off, Annie B held it over the
countess’ heart. “You were never supposed to survive the fire,” she
whispered. “Heretic. Blasphemer. Godless.”

D’arc’s eyes went wide the exact moment a
huge spear of vampire-manipulated blood shot through her chest.
Some straight up
Terminator
shit. The spear shifted behind
d’Arc, shrinking back into her body, until I could see Annie B’s
wound was forming an arm and a hand made entirely of manipulated
blood. Her teeth showed as she grasped within the countess and then
d’Arc’s heart tore from her chest. Shells are useless without a
heart . . .

What a way to die.

All left to d’Arc was to see if she’d grown
old enough to survive the atmosphere by herself, where she might do
better than survive and be declared a duchess.

Die or flourish.

Goo slid from the body, onto Annie B, and
then to the floor. It moved towards Righty, making no sound, but
there was something in its movements that could only be called
shrieking—a wiggle like a lightning bolt that said pain without
words.

Halfway to him . . . the gooey mass
stopped.

Righty gazed down at his countess’ true
from, then to her body, then to Annie B as she breathed heavily,
then to me and the Shaky Stick, finally at the vampires still
surrounding us. Looking for a way out of what had just happened.
When he couldn’t find that way out, he was happy with someone to
crush.

I was already moving to stand over Annie B,
to protect her.

Righty snarled, he stared at d’Arc’s body
and snarled again.

Annie B went ahead and put salt in the
wound. Not just a little shifting salt shaker. She took a mound of
fine white salt and slammed it down into the wound. Then she rubbed
it in. “I claim her body by right of duel.”

“Murderers!” Righty screamed.

That was my cue.

I
pulled
at the anima inside the
Shaky Stick. Feeling what came out of it, I instantly realized my
mistake and realized exactly why it got called the Earthquake
Baton. It’s not made to cause an earthquake, but it
could
.
It’s exactly like my hour long pools, only at such a size that it
wasn’t even a
lake
but an
ocean
of anima.

The problem is that some idiot—like me—comes
along and instead of picking at the scab they yank the whole thing
off and take Annie B’s arm right on with it.

All that anima and how could you control
it?

I grabbed at an hour’s worth and still
missed enough to crack every metal object in the room. Plutarch
told me once that I’m one of, if not
the
strongest geomancer
he’s ever met. A poor normal geomancer? Not an Ultra? He didn’t
have a chance.

Me?

I grabbed at every piece of anima I could
and started slamming it into
things
. . . and I knew the
second I started doing it, that it wasn’t going to be enough. There
was just too much . . . how long would it take to drain the Pacific
if you had yourself a container for all the water and really tried?
We’ll even give you industrial pumps. Months? Years?

The earth shook under my feet, the
earthquake building. My first piece of anima smashed into the
ground at Righty’s feet, the concrete foundation riding a wave of
soil strong enough that it catapulted a block the size of a VW Bug
up into the air, rolling right on top of Righty and killing him
where he stood. Cars might be made to give, earth ain’t.

More anima escaped.

There wasn’t enough to do. Not enough
targets. Not enough earth around me. Not enough time to think of
ways to use it. I couldn’t stop it, no matter how much I tried.
One-hundred years worth of anima.

The building shook.

Outside, you could hear the car alarms start
going off, even as metal on those cars shattered when unleashed
anima found them. I grabbed more, trying to hold back the ocean.
More concrete slabs flew, smashing vampires that wanted nothing to
do with me now, that were all trying to escape, but I had to do
something.

I broke those slabs into dust and then
formed them back. I made the metal of Annie B’s knives reform. I
made art out of what remained of d’Arc’s sword. I spewed soil from
deeper than the foundations, sending it in waves all around the
dance floor. I pumped anima into my own body, my old
iron
fist
but for every single bone.

Annie B got to her feet and kept her balance
despite the shaking ground.

I could feel deep into the earth now . . .
our shaking was localized but not for long. The anima poured and
stretched and wanted to be used.

In front of me, Annie B reattached her arm
like nothing special. D’Arc’s body stayed at her feet. “Can I do
anything? Knock you out?”

“Won’t work,” I gritted out through my
teeth. Around us, the soil formed into people and the concrete
coated them like clothes and they danced around the room in a waltz
as I controlled each of them in turn, even each grain in turn.

Below Fresno, deep in the ground, the anima
found it’s outlet among the deep faults running over California and
the entire earth shifted. All around the city, home for half a
million people coated in gray fog, the ground moved, their houses
swayed . . . an earthquake, a huge earthquake up and down the fault
and what could I do . . . there was still more . . .

“I need to burn it all,” I gasped, “But it’s
too much.”

Annie B watched the room of dancing soil
people. “
This
isn’t enough?”

“Not even close . . . can’t you feel
it
? It’s a big one!”

Across the room, where I’d earlier broken
two pieces of steel reinforcement in the roof, the roof gave way,
crashing down on a pair of earth dancers. The magnitude built . . .
not one earthquake but consecutive ones as the anima streamed down
into the fault like water that had found its way through a single
hole.

4.9.

5.3.

5.7.

5.9
.

6.0
.

6.1
.

“Help me!” I screamed.

“Artificing,” she shouted over the rattling
building and the moving earth. “Make one.”

“You need a design and formulas and more,
it’d just go wrong and that’d be worse than this! I need something
else!”

Annie B grabbed at me to keep me standing.
One of my hands stayed in my coat, the other holding what looked
like the Shaky Stick.

She didn’t seem to notice as her eyes lit up
with an answer to our problem. “Divination! You can do that, right?
Do the biggest geomancy divination ever on all this soil!”

“Brilliant! That’s brilliant!”

I threw almost all the remaining anima of
the Shaky Stick into the soil around me, finally getting a handle
on it. I flooded it all, so hard and thick the soil and concrete
snapped like it was explosive. A pair of gigantic concrete hands
gathered the divination soil into a huge ball of earth—soil, broken
metal, ground-down rock, even glass, all the types I could
control—it was almost ten feet wide. It hovered before us, concrete
hands shattering themselves to nothing, anima alone keeping the
ball of earth in the air through magnetism, waiting, anima
saturating more and more, pushing it even more tightly together
until . . .

It burst apart, littering the dance floor
with cursive writing, a clock-like shape of twelve verses.

Holy shit . . .

This wasn’t a divination . . .

This was a full on Anima Prophecy.

My eyes found the words.

And I think it was about me . . .

Daerht reh stcelloc ydal eht

For idle play not a king’s heart is

Can break more than one madman’s mind

Ruoy slavir stiaws, eht tsol stiaws uoy

Tnuocca ot dellac eb nac sgnik

When another possesses found never
enough

But not yet has been shell-less

Ro ylerus htob lliw gnah

Yadot maercs senivid, yawa klaw daed eht

Stand again and meet anew

Relief comes among ring and steel

Evivrus ro ton, rof eurt s’neeuq
noisiced

Netaeb eb tsum gnik trid eht

Go away easily pain will not

Stolen by he of gruesome renown

Eh gnilliw ot ecifircas llahs niw

Yawa sdaelp yad s’tnias fo ehs

Other’s face the both hate

Mangy canines ravage at chest’s latch

Dna ecaep tsum eb edam, trid gnik

Kcohs ni nopu decnahc buc tsol

Will be needed all the ladies

Out of past comes a Virgin Foe

Rof sebab era knil ni erom naht tsuj
tneserp

Neeuq daed gnol dna gnik trid

And neither gives in King Dirt King faces
Dog

No matter how big a chorus sing

Erom sedir no siht tset naht a elgnis
doohilevil

Gink, lleb ruo seog gnir

In eternal battle mortal enemies lock

Yet both will face the same fate

Won resolc ot a gnik naht reve erofeb

Gnik trid, ecnirp daed

Have run ahead a pair and more

All your secrets will be given

Sdneirf sevil od gnah yb a s’llub nroh

Kcolc eht tuo dessim, dekcol era spil

Broken and gone what is thought

Armies are gathered

Ecaf niap yb gniwollof a s’lavir dnuoh

Ylowls sehcaorppa yad wen

Once been headless has Long Dead Queen

Red sweet must be had, Dirt King

Eht gnik tsum worth meht sih enob

Llah ot semoc dloc, llac eht seog wak

Love gone scorn to forget another

A king must hold back the powers

Tseildaed fo nek ot hserf sdnah og

A burst of anima wiped the words out. That
didn’t make sense . . . it was gibberish . . .

One last bit of anima . . . small . . . not
even a second worth . . . went into the artifact in my hand, the
very last to remain in the Shaky Stick.

The earth stopped shaking.

I could barely breathe. I could also barely
stand.

“King Henry?” Annie B asked, worried.

It was over . . . I’d done it . . .

The artifact in my hand crumbled into jade
dust right before I passed out.

The ground caught me softly, just like
always.

“I hear you’re still a free agent, King
Henry.”

I was on my favorite bench, up near the top
of the Mound. It was old as dirt, some floromancer construction of
wood that refused to give into the elements, the rain and wind and
snow, refused to rot. I liked that about it. Instead, it was hard
and smooth, the lines of grain cracked open near the surface but
still holding together on the inside.

Guess you’d call that a metaphor. Beaten and
used, still fighting despite the scars. I liked the bench. We had
some shit in common.

The bench sat on the side of the Mound
facing south towards the Field. Four-hundred-ish mancers, including
twenty-eight Ultras, had graduated three days before, the entire
Asylum and selected parents turned out to watch. I’d worked hard so
my dad would be on the list, but he’d been unable to get the time
off work, which is nothing new for me, I guess . . . at least I’d
gotten a phone call out of him, even if it had ended in cursing . .
.

Three days, but that’s a lot of mess to
clean up, the Field still remained covered in debris—discarded
programs and tissues, even a graduation cap or few—the platform
where the diplomas had been handed out was still erect, but it
wouldn’t last another day. The Asylum had moved on from Class 2009.
I was the only one left. Still undecided. The last one . . . just
like Day Number One.

“You hear right, Miss Dale.”

She’d snuck up from behind, as sneaky as
always. I’d never gotten her actual age from her but she’d probably
gotten to forty by then. Not that you could really tell. Few more
wrinkles maybe, but she looked just as good as always, just as
alive. Long blond hair with not a trace of gray, eyes still blue,
and lips that still smiled with mystery and curiosity. Hands soft
and thin and ready to push your buttons. Ceinwyn Dale and the bench
have some things in common too.