The Foul Mouth and the Fanged Lady (8 page)

I did three things in those seconds.

First, I pooled anima like only an Ultra
can. I was going to need it.

Second, I realized I hadn’t felt anima being
drawn before she punched me. You might not
see
, but you
always get a feeling something is going down, like an added sense.
For aeromancers it’s like a breeze at the back of their necks.
Pyromancers, a heated forehead. Cryomancers, their dicks shrivel up
or something. For me and other geomancers it’s a slight rumble
under our feet. Like a big truck going down the street kind of
rumble. It didn’t matter what anima type was being pooled. It all
registered the same. A rumble. More anima, bigger rumble.

This time . . . no rumble.

Third, I realized the hand that had punched
my face wasn’t pumping blood at ninety-eight-point-six. It had more
in common with a summer day than the foggy night outside my doors.
Right . . . My eyes went to her choker immediately. Not to the
‘
B
’. To the side of her neck, that place where you can check
for a pulse under a person’s chin.

Anne’s pulse was so strong
I saw it
.
A shiver. A heart over-processed like some computer chip in a cold
chamber. A heartbeat hitting four maybe five-hundred beats a
minute. Crap . . .

I’m in trouble.

The darkness said
hello
.

“Fucking vampire?” I said aloud as my legs
joined the party and popped me back up on my feet. “A
real
fucking vampire?”

Her hand flourished to draw attention to her
lips. “I’d show my fangs, but we don’t actually have them. It’s
actually one of the more disgusting myths you humans have created
about us I’ve always thought.”

“Fucking vampire . . .” I said again.

Damned if I’d ever thought I’d really see
one. Ceinwyn told me to leave them alone, so I left them alone.
Weres too. ‘
Leave politics to the professionals, King
Henry
,’ that’s what she’d said. They were around somewhere . .
. just like homeless people or gangs or drug dealers are around
somewhere, but I didn’t want to have to deal with Vamps and Weres
just like normal people don’t want to have to deal with the other
problems. My shop was enough worry. I figured I’d leave the
supernatural treaties to the Asylum’s ESLED—Elementalist Security
and Law Enforcement Department.

“Are you properly scared now, little mancer?
Will you come without any more complaining?” Anne grinned a
mouthful of normal white teeth just to further prove her point
about the lack of fangs. “I promise I won’t bite unless you ask for
it. Deal?”

I resorted to my most tried and true
reaction straight from my childhood. “Fuck. You. Bitch.” I even
pointed with each word.

She shrugged, unconcerned with my puffed up
bravado. “I don’t want to beat you senseless, but I will. You don’t
exactly scare me . . . perhaps you’re not a crusty old man like
most Artificers, but . . . come now. You run a shop, don’t you?
Straight out of school, don’t know how the world really works. Just
living inside their lies, thinking you’re in on the secrets. Do you
think you stand any chance against me, scared little boy?”

“That’s right . . .” I agreed with her first
comment, fists coming up to a normal stance. It’d been awhile . . .
still felt
good
. . . always felt
good
. Fighter’s
stance with my fists up . . . no anima conversion formulas here. No
debt or ledgers either. Just me and her. Easy problem to solve.
Right that moment, instantaneous gratification, not some day in the
unknown future. “I’m not a crusty old Artificer working for the
cocksucking Guild. I run a shop and you damaged my property. So
let’s dance our little dance, Annie B. I won’t even use the Mancy
to throw you out the door. Nothing but my hands.”

Some kind of freaky groan escaped her, her
eyelashes flickering and her tongue arching out to touch her top
lip. “Well, well . . . now I know why you get the girls. So very
tough
. . . do you vibrate too?”

My jab at her face caught only air.

Newsflash—she was fast.

We had a lesson on Vamps but you think I
could remember it in the moment? Just like all schooling: it
deserts you the moment you don’t need it for a test. Why should
History of Elementalism
be any different? I grasped at the
knowledge I knew was in there somewhere . . . but it was no good.
Everything went out of my head. Smart part, stupid part, all gone.
It was all instinct. It’s a
fight
and I’m King Henry
Price.

It’s what I
did
.

What . . .
I did
. . . after my jab
missed, was catch a kick to my hip that threw me sideways and
eventually returned me back down to my ass. Could have been worse.
At least I missed crashing into another shelf. Not that there
wasn’t a therapeutic aspect to smashing the crap, but I couldn’t
afford to keep it up. Shrinks cost less than broken antiques.

Rolling over on my shoulder, I let out a
hurt gasp I couldn’t control. It was a strong kick . . . I got up
feeling it over most of my body.

Annie B hadn’t even moved from her spot by
the register. I’d been flying around the store like a dumbass nerd
trying to fight a linebacker, but there she was, feet in the same
place, not a scratch on her, clothes still neat and tidy.

“I’ve been doing this for longer than you,”
she told me with another twist of her lips. “But don’t worry—I’m
sure I’ll feel something if you keep on poking at me. You’ll get
the rhythm down eventually . . . it’s all in the hips . . .”

Right.

I kept saying that to myself with every bit
of information.

My biggest problem in life was I always went
for smashing through the wall as my first instinct. It’s not until
I’m stopped short that I begin to look for a creative way towards
my goal. The Asylum taught me to control my mind and go for the
creative right off the bat, but it hadn’t taught me the trick with
my body yet.

My body wanted to smash. It needed to get
creative. No time to learn like the present.

She was faster, she hit harder. My advantage
was the Mancy. I had just enough pool built up to do something
internal—to myself. She’d been doing this a longer time, she said.
Which meant she knew what my average anima pool was going to look
like too. She knew how to fight mancers and I had no clue how to
fight a vampire.

I stared across at Annie B and saw it in her
posture as she finally moved, shifting from facing the register to
towards me, where I stood thinking. It wasn’t a full stance—her
arms were at her side, carefree—but her legs looked ready to kick,
wide-set.

“Going to try harder this time?” Annie B
teased me. “I so like it
hard
. . .”

Yeah, she knew mancers alright.

Look at me in the corner.

I didn’t say anything witty. I was never
witty before a fight, rarely during too. I was all business.
Showboaters pissed me off. Solid fighters who got the job done,
that’s what I’d always tried to emulate as a kid.
But she
doesn’t know that,
I thought.

Right.

She knew
mancers
. Not
me
.

I smiled on the inside as I roared toward
her with an out-of-control punch aimed at her face. I missed again
. . . by like a foot . . . but that was fine. That’s the way I’d
planned it. Annie B didn’t know that either. She thought I’d blown
my anima charge on the punch. Good old
iron fist
which had
stopped so many of my fights back in elementary school.

Annie B thought wrong.

She dodged with a slide backwards then her
foot came up just as expected, straight in front of her to land
what’s called a push-kick. Push-kick ain’t really about a lot of
damage; it’s about making space, keeping the other guy back away
from you. Push them away with a stiff foot to their chest.

Only she’s a vamp with her muscles as tight
as a virgin’s asshole and what’s considered her blood is flowing at
three times the speed of the human maximum. Means she can throw a
push-kick that can end fights. At the very least—a push-kick
capable of breaking ribs. Anyone that thinks a broken rib is an
easy injury has never had one. It will finish you, your breath
gone, your chest a mass of pain with every movement of your lungs.
Reminder: lungs got to move for you to breathe.

It will finish you . . . unless you’re a
geomancer who’s holding back on your anima pool for
defense
.
Good ol’ solid earth burst in my chest, taking the brunt of the
push-kick, keeping me right in place. Her eyes flickered in
recognition but it was too late. One thing any good fighter knows
is that if you have the balls and the jaw to take a punch, you can
lay into your opponent. This wasn’t boxing. No clumsy gloves, no
referee to save the day. No bell after three minutes. And if you
got to three minutes you were going to be a bleeding mound of
flesh, from orifices you didn’t know you had.

I shifted my weight from my right to my left
with a step of my foot, moving into her space.
Get in
close
—any short guy’s creed.

My left arm came up, not to punch, but to
hook around her leg pushed firmly against my chest, sliding it to
the crook of my arm, holding her where she was. One foot in my
grip, one foot on the floor in three-inch-heels . . . vampire or
not, most of Annie B’s concentration instinctually went to keeping
herself standing. Instead of covering up, her hands moved to
balance the both of us, out at her sides like she was on some
balance beam going for the gymnastic gold.

Which left my right hand free to do whatever
it wanted.

My right hand wanted to beat in some vamp
face.

The first punch caught her in the throat,
stunning her, trapping air. It wasn’t
iron fist
, my anima
was burned, my pool was less than a puddle. It was starting to
build back up, drip by drip, minutes from being useful. Second
punch smashed just above her stomach into her diaphragm, pushing
what air was still there out. Third punch clipped her head. All
that I’d done to her and Annie B was still fast enough to make it
nothing more than a glance.

A reflexive turn of her neck kept me from
delivering the full force of the punch. It still snapped her head
back, and, so close to her, I saw those velvet eyes lock on me.

In them, I heard that beast in the darkness
give a content little gurgle at what she’d found. A part of me, in
that split second, remembered my
Elementalism as a Weapon
teacher, Fines Samson, telling me how above all things vampires are
collectors always seeking the best shells.

The way Annie B looked at me . . . like she
was thinking I’d make a nice vacation home. It stopped my fourth
punch.

Nope, it wasn’t one of those frozen moments
of pure prey-like fear. Have some faith in King Henry. I kept
moving . . .
I just went bigger
.

I threw an elbow instead.

A nice tight elbow won’t knock a guy out as
easy as a punch, believe it or not. One less fulcrum of strength,
less muscles, all that physics crap. An elbow is all in the
shoulder. Big muscles, compact motion.

Won’t knock you out as easy.

But what an elbow
will
do is cut you
up quicker than an exacto-knife. Sharp bone ground itself against
Annie B’s pale face, right across her cheek. The skin caught on it,
twisted, bone on bone in a clean part.

She screeched at me, hands finally stopping
their attempt to hold us up. I had a moment to realize I was about
to get my ass kicked.

It wasn’t a good moment.

Annie B grabbed at my coat and flipped
backwards, legs flinging out as I twisted into the air, the judo
throw to end all judo throws. There was no hope for me to roll. I
was in the air. Not a place I like to be. Especially when my feet
are closer to the ceiling than my head is. It’s just not natural.
My shoulders, back, and ass took the impact in a wave as I tumbled
over my head and back down. Then I slid a couple more yards just
for fun.

I got to my feet slower this time.

But I didn’t gasp.

In fact . . . I was kind of enjoying it.

Annie B’s hand found the gash on her face.
Blood dripped. But not human blood. A thick string of the deepest
red you could ever imagine spurted from the wound, like a container
too full had ripped a seam. It hung, crimson goo, until Anne’s hand
rose to it, touched it, pulled it out to stretch over her fingers,
and out until she could study it with her eye.

The . . .
blood
. . . moved.

It curled itself around a finger, finding
its way like some snail out of its shell. It twisted on itself,
Annie B’s hand guiding it back to her cheek. Damned if it didn’t go
worm its way right back into the hole and disappear, the only hint
of its existence the trail of what looked like red slime more than
blood left on Annie B’s hand.

Her eyes wandered back to me. I wasn’t alone
in the darkness any longer. “I haven’t been forcibly damaged by a
human in years,” she whispered, both amazed and excited.

“Maybe you need practice at it.” I couldn’t
help myself. Nerve was about the only thing holding me up. My back
ached. My fist was sore. Punching her is like punching concrete
with a layer of padding, not a human. My anima was built up again,
ready for something small, but nothing small was going to save my
ass from whatever she wanted to do to it. I needed to buy time.

My thumb touched my static ring. Yeah, that
would help. So would some of my other artifacts maybe. Of course .
. . they were in my shop behind the front, not out here with
me.

All I had out there with me and the vampire
were antiques. Antiques . . . I stood next to my teapot display.
They had to weigh . . . what? Five pounds each? Made of ceramic?
Round enough to cup them in a hand . . .