Seismic Semester: Cover Revel and Sneak Peek

So I felt kinda bored by the idea of another King Henry cover and being as what a large role Heinrich Welf plays as our antagonist in this novel, felt like a good time to start adding some variety.  As all covers before, it's a digital manipulated stock photo cover by Deranged Doctor Designs.

And what you're really after...

All rights reserved, copyrighted by me, Richard Raley.  Please do not copy and paste elsewhere, instead link back to here.

*not the final version, some changes might be made before release, has not been copyedited, WILL still contain typos/brain farts, etc*

*we're hoping release will be Feb/March, as long as my back is a good boy, or at least a better boy than it has been*

Session 81

Anyone still listening out there?

Cuz I’m still yacking this big ol’ foul mouth of mine.

King.  Fucking.  Henry.  Fucking.  Price.

Seventh year.

Hep.

Guess you could say I’m more a King than ever before.

Seventh year and the last year.

Almost finished, kiddies.

Almost free of this piece of shit recorder.

Almost free of YOU.

Get back to my shop.

Been months and months now, ain’t it?

Months.

Months of talking, you spoiled fucktards need yourself a bedtime story before you think about joining the Institution of Elements, Learning Academy and Nature Camp.  Special bunch of jackasses, ain’t ya?

Seriously, which one of you fuckers out there still doubting about joining up with the Asylum Assimilation Plan?  Want to go Mad that damn bad, do ya?  Want to eat your own toenails for snack time?  Want to rave with the fairies in the neon moonlight?  Want to off yourself with a spoon you named Gary?  Or worse, maybe pull an Isabel Soto and make your best friend’s brainpan go crush, leak all that nasty gray goo out on your pretty, clean corpusmancer colors?

Need fucking more?  Really?!?

Just the special one percent, ain’t ya?  Not the good one percent.  Don’t got no yacht with television C-list actresses all over your dick.  I’m almost thirty and they’re gonna cancel this pure shit CW show soon, I need to trap my ass a billionaire!  Nah, talking testing scores, not wealth.  Test scores go backwards.  Ninety-ninth percentile:  best colleges in the country.  Ya know, the ones with all the Asians in ‘em.  First percentile:  don’t let ‘em breed or it might have three eyes!  One percent only gets points when it accidentally manages to write its name down on the paper.  Sure, Derek’s ‘D’ is backwards, but maybe he’s being artistic.  Such a fuck-up, dipshit, mouth-breather, guess randomly on a multiple-choice test and still don’t get a single question correct.  So fucking stupid you defy odds and chance and the Bitch-Queen Fate herself.

Tell me ya just listening cuz I’m funny.

Please.

Cock jokes make me pee my panties, King Henry!  I can’t help myself!  Look at that, it’s leaking like a Super Soaker!

Or I killed Magic Hitler, and this is historical record about how big my badass magic cock is.

Cuz…if you still need convincing—well, tell ya what?

Hope you fucking die.

Yup.

You need to die.

Giant Fucking Needle to the neck on Aisle Deep Six.

Dumb motherfucker like you don’t need anima in your life.

World can’t trust you with earthquakes.

World shouldn’t even trust me with this shit.  Even if I did kill Magic Hitler with my six-inch cock.  FYI.  Six inches.  Very respectable.  And I’m totally five-foot-eight.  Anyone else says otherwise and they’re lying.  I rigged the tape measure twice just to make sure.

So all you dumb shits click off the tape, go eat some crayons.  Great idea, King Henry, I bet the blue ones taste like berries!

For the rest think I’m funny…and for the Magic Hitler slayer historians… 

There is still a hefty sliver to be told, I must admit.

Blah fucking blah for months and still it ain’t all told.

Almost though.

Close, so close.

One year left.

Two good stories left to tell and both of ‘em all linked together.

This here is the penultimate performance.  Spread your arms in front of you and say it with me, kiddies.  The penultimate performance.   Leading up to the crowning glory of King Henry Price’s legacy at the Asylum as the greatest troublemaker and schemer and BAMF the school seen in its whole single century.  Got some sentimental graduation all touchy-feely shit wrapped up in both stories too, but…that’s not the good shit!

Since we already clarified you’re attending and you’re just here for the chuckles to flow, gotta go out with the good shit.

Seventh year.  Hep.  Swan song.  Last ride, last dance, and last hoo-fucking-rah all rolled up into one!

Ending with…the War to End All Wars.

But beginning with—and your here and now flowing into them earholes—a truly Seismic Semester.

Jazz hands, motherfuckers!

Transitional year for the most part.  Like that for all students, ain’t it?  College or high school variety.  Want to graduate and move on once you reach your last year.  Normal school you can maybe even kick back, take a few less credits and get a part-time job, all that Full Growing Modern House of Middle Pains sitcom shit.  College too, start thinking about job offers, whether you gonna sell your firstborn’s left nut to pay for a doctorate, or maybe even you’ll go wageless intern slave for some Hollywood producer, work as the replacement chode tickler when his favorite actress is out of town.  Hey…someone got to do it.  Producer chode don’t get tickled then we don’t get awesome comic book movies, so fucking get in there and tickle it like a superhero, champ! 

Asylum has some of that…well, not so much the tickleage as the life decisions.  Doesn’t slow down to let you give yourself over into rumination or contemplation though.  Full fucking steam ahead at magic school.  Not that you’ll ever be totally free, Mancy being a life sentence.

For whatever reason, during your last year, they load you down with all these new responsibilities.

Cuz when you think King Henry Price…you think responsible.

Especially if an unexpected bathroom queue formed quick like after them pancakes tasted awful chalky.

See, wasn’t just the year I graduated from the Asylum.  Was also the year that the Asylum faculty—in all their glorious wisdom, upholding the traditions of the past—decided that, yeah, go ahead and let Class ‘09 be student-advisors.

What could possibly go wrong?

That’s a bad idea, kiddies.  Asking Mary O’Connell to scrub out your pee-hole kind of bad idea.  Oh, sweet Jesus!  How did the water tentacle work its way out to my asshole?!?  Is there even a direct connection between those two holes?!?  What foul magic is this!!!

Kind of bad idea that—after Class ‘09 inhabited the place for six eventful years—should’ve made someone think.

But Tradition is just such a thicc bitch, how you gonna take your eyes off that curvy, plump booty?

See, this is a story about generational conflict.

About maybe the greatest year the Asylum ever produced and a new generation rising behind them, trying to snatch that crown away before Class 2009 can even ride off into the distance.

New generation filled with familial links, brothers, sisters, cousins all three.

And…a story of rivals.  Old rivals.  New rivals.  Oh, yes, a story of rivals most of all.

A story of competition, of gossip, of betting, and of tradition, all the shit makes that school well and lubricated, able to ignore its crazy.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

Don’t start with the action scene, do ya?

Only hack bastards do that type of shit.

Nah, told enough of these to know the key is in the buildup.

Slow buildup.

Like a woman biting her bottom lip.

Ooohhh, saucy!

What ya gonna bite next, baby?

Why we saving the War to End All Wars for last.  Nah, we starting all the way back five months before battle joined.

Starting before I even knew about the shit coming at me like an extra moist heat-seeking missile.

Starting when I still thought there was no fucking way the Asylum could possibly be that obtuse.

Starting before I had my proof that tradition is an insanity beyond all other insanities.

When the ground was quiet under my feet.

 

[CLICK]

Vacation.

One of them words I only associate with other fucktards.  Also one of them words separates a person from the so-called Good Life, ain’t it?  Carrot keeps the cogs turning them wheels, hour after hour, bunch of good little wage slaves.

Okay, okay, since we are so nice, we’ll give you paid vacation four…nah, you ain’t worth that, make it three weeks out of the year.  How ‘bout that, champ?

Really?  That’s totally tubular, Corporate Suit Guy living in a mansion…with your own personal chef, maid, trainer, gardener, and hot pool guy likely fucking your wife and/or teenage daughter behind your back!  Can I go to the cool places and special clubs you frequent during my vacation?

Of course not, dumb…uh, champ!  But, for real, it’s bad enough we see your ugly face when we’re bossing you around.  So—maybe—I mean, have you heard about Disneyland?

Disneyland!  What’s that?

Yeah, it’s the most magical place on earth.  No coke and no thirteen-year-old, gender-negotiable Thai hookers, but…they got spinning teacups and shit.

Really?!?

Can make your own lightsaber too.

Everyone loves lightsabers!

Sure, they do, champ.  Sure, they do.

Fucking vacation.

I know it not.

The word, know that at least.  Got the word in my over-educated vocabulary, along with the other useless V’s like ‘vociferous’ and ‘verisimilitude’ and ‘vasectomy.’

Not this boy’s…actually, what exactly do they snip?

.

.

.

But the feeling vacation represents?  The experiences surrounding it?  Don’t got that in me and over-education only goes so far simulating life experiences.

Suppose that might be true for some of you too, kiddies.

No Disneyland for you with them spinning teacups?  No getting robbed at Six Flags?  No Knott’s Berry Farm with Snoopy banging Peppermint Patty in the bushes?  No Lego Land with its life-size Lego cows or whatever the fuck nerds do there?  What a cruel fucking world!  No fucking Lego Land?  How the fuck you gonna keep on living?!?

Somehow…I did.

Whole life, Dad was busy cogging and Mom…Mom did all her Anima Mad shit.  Not that I blame them—for that at least—looking back on it.  Even if we had—by some miracle—been middle-class enough to afford it, you want to be locked up in a car with King Henry Price for six hours?  Shit, worse than that.  Locked up in a car with JoJo Price too!  At the same time!  Susan…she’d do some trying-to-pretend-to-be-socially-adjusted shit, like reading.  But me and JoJo?  Would’ve killed each other before we reached Bakersfield.

Dying in Bakersfield…the one thing better than living in Bakersfield.

Even after Shithole Price got left in the rearview and Ceinwyn Dale kidnapped me, it was the same story.  Vacation for thee, but not for me.

Single exception being the time Ceinwyn took me on that recruiting trip.  Just as much work as fun, but boredom was slain.  Still no Disneyland, but ya know…saw Hunting CryoTech, danced with Vicky Welf, macked on Sally Two from Oregon, had a water fairy drag my ass into the Mississippi, witnessed Maxwell Fucking Lamont being a spoiled rich brat, and…kinda caught the Hillbilly crabs.

Eventful, but not relaxing.

And no fucking teacups, spinning or to spit in.

Did spit in the hillbilly’s cooter.

Should’ve used turpentine too.

…What?

Already with the side-eye, kiddies?

Only been a few minutes!

Outside of Ceinwyn’s pity, wasn’t nothing close to resembling a vacation for the whole fucking seven long years.

Just a month straight stuck at the Asylum while everyone else abandons poor ol’ innocent, adorable, so respectful, and civilized King Henry Price.  Banished.  Exiled.  Lonely.  Bored out of his mind.  Forget voted off the island, voted to stay on the island while everyone else fucks off for mai tais!

Not even a nice month like April or October.

Fucking August.

Worst fucking month!  Ain’t even no holidays in it.  Not even one of the shitty ones like Columbus Rape, Pillage, and Decimate the Locals Day.  Fuck, not even a fake holiday like Labor Day wants to be in August, that’s how fucking pathetic August is.  Heard there’s some talk about recognizing a new holiday called Juneteenth.  Obviously not in fucking August either.  Supposed to solve racism though, so cross your fingers…

August at the Asylum ain’t quite as bad as Visalia, but still plenty hot.  Might have been up in the mountains and near that grand temperature regulating body of water in the form of Lake Tahoe, but not like they’d let me leave the campus and go boating, is it?  2015 was the last time I had to survive said boredom and that truth helped.  Last time, just get through it and you’re done.  Every fucking morning, I woke up and had that exact thought.  Last time, just get through it and you’re done.

Counted down the days too.

Ten more to go.  Nine more to go.  Eight more to go.

One after another, slipping away in twenty-four-hour bursts like days are infamously known to do.

Felt lonelier than before, that August.  At the start of my Asylum incarceration other kids from Class ‘09 stayed on occasion.  Jason Jackson.  Jesus Valencia.  Naomi Gullick lived at the Asylum, of course.  Didn’t always hang, but they were around.  Best was Christmas during Tri, whole of 2009 in trouble for brawling and punished to join purgatory.  Sucked for them, but for me…best Christmas of my life.

But this year they were all gone, Jackson and the Goatfucker too, leaving the school especially abandoned.

Internships were the main excuse.  Everyone preparing for when they graduated next July.  Jackson had his eyes on the Recruiters, so Ceinwyn hooked him up with a month interning at the Heartland Recruiting Office in St. Louis, under Alfred Pemberton.  Good luck, Big Man.  Hope you like bugs, cuz the man gives a new meaning to Super Fly!

As for Jesus, he signed up to spend his August with a bullshit outfit called FIND.  Sometimes they’re supernatural bounty hunters—which sounds acceptably badass—but mostly they’re just supernatural search and rescue—which sounds extra weak sauce, maybe even diet olive oil mayo.  Don’t think I’d enjoy it, seeing as wilderness and me don’t mix, but both Jesus and Pocket went for the beta test.

Others in my class had their internships too.  ESLED and the Recruiters being the most coveted, of course.  Estefan Ramirez was down in the Southwestern ESLED office—ignore the fact his daddy is Deputy Agent in Charge down there, no nepotism here, no sir!  Boomworm was busy surviving the same trip with Ceinwyn I did, granted with different kiddies, since most I met had arrived by now, or would this year, I suppose.  Speaking of Max Fucking Lamont, made me dive in that water with my clothes on, didn’t ya, Max?

Miranda, Naomi, and Debra—who are all on track to be Asylum teachers, due to their massive derangement syndromes about wanting to make the world a better place—couldn’t teach that month for the obvious reason of there being no school in session, so they decamped for a two-week mini foreign-exchange trip to Japan at their Genso no Daigaku.

Cuz when you think waifu…you think Miranda Daniels.

Technically, did get two offers…neither of which I accepted.  One was the obvious:  the Guild of Artificers.  Come forth Guild Member No. 62523 and claim your own ceremonial, personally engraved skullcap!

Plutarch wanted me to go.  Got extra cantankerous for weeks, to the point where every other word out his mouth was ‘dumbass.’   A personal best!  Thought I might finally give the guy a stroke, but…guess his empty eyeball socket acts as an emergency relief valve.

 Guild headquarters was in London, which…they let you drink beer at like twelve years old—six for Scotland—so how bad can they be?  But…fuck Massey.  Fuck everything he represents.  Like I’m supposed to be honored meeting with him…being plugged into the machine.  Lucky you, King Henry Price, an unworthy First-Gen allowed to join the Guild!  Now make your sugar daddy some snazzy bling or however you ungrateful youths are talking these days!  Fuck Massey.  Double fuck any organization that puts a cocksucker like Massey in charge.

Rather be a teacher alongside Miranda-chan than end up Guild cog.

Other offer was from Hunting CryoTech.  Bit of a shocker and I ain’t talking pinky.  Considered it for a couple days max, but my main mad scientist Boris freaks me out.  What with the whole genetically engineered his kids with anima manipulation shit.  Boris swipe my cells and clone my ass.  Behold Prince Charming von Price, my greatest creation!  It speaks only in complete sentences and the worst profanity it ever uses is ‘golly-gee.’

Boris, you maniac!

It is also six-foot-two, blond, fantasizes about gingers, and only has sex in the missionary position after obtaining a signed affidavit of consent.

Fucking blasphemous, kiddies!

Internships:  rejected.

Vacation:  not for me.

King Henry Price: all alone, with only a few people to entertain him.

But…did have one big advantage over all the other years in my battle against boredom.

Get this shit:  when you’re a graduate student…people start respecting you.

I know!

And even better, get this shit:  when you’re a Hep…people start trusting you.

FUCKING CRAZY PILLS.

Start giving you access to the previously forbidden.  Don’t even have to pick the locks, since you already have the keys.  That’s right, kiddies:  they give you the fucking keys.  I have keys!  Gave King Henry Price keys.  Maybe not all the keys.  Maybe there’s doors marked Staff Only I’d still have to pick and maybe there’s also doors with no lock in the first place, just a big, burly corpusmancer guard on it twenty-four hours a day, scowling at everyone passes by.  Doors only ESLED agents or the like get to walk through.  Doors that go down, down, down some stairs…to more stairs and doors and…just a big bunch of hassle.

Don’t ever want to have access to them doors.

But the above average uncommon door?

Got keys for those.

Keys, so many glorious keys!

First and foremost, got me a key to Plutarch’s house.  I mean, I spend almost every day of the school year with Pappy anyway, why not my off-month solitude too?  Yeah, he’s still alive.  Despite his best efforts otherwise at ignobly wasting away.  Still watching Murder, She Wrote.  Still calling me ‘Junior.’  Still stanning for the Guild like a twelve-year-old girl whose only goal in life is to take a One Direction splooge bath.  Still locking his doors even though he never leaves the fucking house and who gonna steal from him at the Asylum anyway?

Me!

I’m the only one who would steal from him, and he gave me a fucking key!

Not sure when I acclimated to it all.  Or to him.  But it happened.  Another fucking string.  Frayed string just ready to snap, inescapable pain when it goes.  Never had a proper grandpa, so…Plutarch’s the closest.  Old ass, cranky hermit recluse, spends his whole day watching detective shows or spying on the student body with his army of specially trained fairies.

Which…let’s hope mundane authorities don’t require an explanation, since it sounds really fucking bad, don’t it?

Plutarch ain’t what anyone would pick for a role model, but the man did teach me artificing, taught me the very meaning of being an Ultra too, so…suppose the least I could do is make sure he’s eating and like, he hasn’t fallen down the stairs and broken his hip or some other old person crap.  Although, speaking of old person crap…yeah, I don’t care what he’s done for me, if he’s ever bedridden then I ain’t wiping the man’s ass for him.

EVER.

There are limits.

Let the fairies do it.

But suffering some enforced camaraderie a few hours each day?  Can do that.  Watching the Murder, She Wrote episodes where Jessica Fletcher visits Ireland for the twelfth time in the last two years.

“How many people you think she’s killed just by being in their vicinity?  Got to be at least two hundred, right?  Even Dexter didn’t rack up them numbers and he was trying to kill ‘em.”

Plutarch sighed from his favorite reclining chair, but didn’t take the bait.  Poor chair looked older than he was.  I mean, it wasn’t.  Cuz nothing is older than Pappy.  Except the Lady.  Who is older than the idea of chairs.  And Fines Samson.  Who stabbed the first guy sat in a chair.

“Think about it.  Ireland probably hasn’t had this many murders since she left.  Especially if you exclude back-alley abortions.  Granted, Irish specialize in those…”

Another sigh and a grumbled, “Damn it, Junior, look it up on one of your stupid computers already and stop pestering me!”

The chair had this weird green-brown color to it.  No one would choose that chair, right?  Had to be a gift.  Joke gift and he was too stubborn to recognize the joke, so he just sat in it for decades.  Had to be older than me.  Older than my parents.  60s?  50s?  Older than Murder, She Wrote too.  “I’d have to remember to do that.  Luckily, I forget all about this stupid show the minute I walk out your door.”

Me…I was on a couch, flipping through a book.  Not one of Plutarch’s.  Finished his collection by the end of Pent.  Or at least the collection he kept in the house proper.  Sure there was better stuff out in his work shed.  A work shed I did not have keys for and did not get to enter.

EVER.

Probably has a statue of Angela Lansbury in there he does unspeakable things with.

Nah, this book I got from the Ultra graduate library.  Had a key to that one too.  Was also this tough-looking assistant librarian lurked nearby, at least during the school year.  But she disappeared along with the teachers and the lunch ladies.

Probably spinning around in a fucking teacup right about now.

Or down in Cancun, 69ing a Mexican bartender named Felipe with a tequila bottle stuck up her ass.

“You’re welcome to leave now,” Plutarch complained my way.  Few things besides complaining made him happier.  Me actually leaving?  He didn’t want that either.  If I did take off?  Complain about it.  Especially if I didn’t shut the door exactly how it had to be shut if you wanted to avoid the wooden monstrosity slamming with the concussive force of a howitzer.  “Not going anywhere then?”

Flicked a page.  “And miss the murder reveal being the mean nun likes to choke teenage girls with her favorite rosary?”

Plutarch grunted, happy to have won.  “After it’s over, we’ll take down the midday report.”

No, he’ll take down the midday report, and I’ll stand there trying to decide if he’s just fucking with me or if he actually can understand fairy vibrations.  Or whatever he calls them.  Anima concentration resonating frequencies or the like.  Turns out I’m a damn fine Artificer, but when it came to Plutarch’s specialty of working with fairies…not so much.

Fairies.

Learned one thing from these tapes, kiddies, I hope it’s…well, probably don’t fuck hillbillies, right?  But if you learned two things from ‘em…well, probably don’t motorboat one of your classmates in the Park.  But if you learned three things from ‘em…don’t trust fairies!  Big ones, little ones, all in between, assholes each and every!

There was a commercial.

 “What you reading, Junior?” Plutarch queried, the bored one now.

“Same as yesterday.”

Plutarch considered this.  Remarkable memory for an octogenarian, but you fill that much gray matter up and it takes a moment to sort it all, even if you’re heavy on the brain wrinkles.  “Something to do with aeromancers, wasn’t it?”

“Compression and Storage of Aero-manipulated Vapor for the Purpose of Mass Use.  Ain’t that just the catchiest fucking title you ever heard?  Got my tip all glistening the moment I picked it up.”

Plutarch just shook his head in that disapproving manner he affected so well.  “Geomancer showing interest in Aeromancy, it’s unnatural!”

“Really never had a problem with ‘em,” I muttered, flicking another page.  Even Catherine Hayes and me had some weird ass hate-chemistry thing going on before her not-quite-expulsion-but-get-her-the-fuck-out-of-here.

Hate-chemistry or not, preferred Kitty Cat elsewhere, since last year had been damn right pleasant without the Three Queens prowling.  Just Welf occasionally being a douchebag, Hope’s usual mean girl impersonation, and some underclassmen needed their attitudes readjusted about the fine line between pranking and bullying.

Know it’s a fine line, crossed it plenty to check.

“You miss the Dale girl that badly?” Plutarch kept goading.

“Not like it’s the first time she’s disappeared.”  Disappearing was Ceinwyn Dale’s standard operating procedure.

Plutarch had a much more standardized view on anima personalization than I did, means the ‘Dale girl’ and him had been waging a shadow war over my future for about two years now.  Maybe longer, I just wasn’t aware of it.  Wish I still wasn’t aware of it.  Recruiters or Guild…both are shit choices, sprinkles or cherry on top.

Didn’t want to pump out copycat artifacts or trudge around in the mosquito-infested bayou searching for the next chosen one raised by his Mommy-Aunt cuz his Daddy-Uncle got ate by a catfish during last year’s noodling season.  Make artifacts his way, that’s what King Henry Price wanted.  Like the Cold Cuffs.  Like some other ideas already fermenting away inside my demented mind.

Case in point:  the book Plutarch was so quick to bash.  “Has nothing to do with Miss Dale anyway.  I had this wild idea for a sort off…anima reactor.  Can anima hold its nature-based equivalent?  Searched for the answer; found none, cuz I don’t think anyone asked.  No point figuring it out for geo-anima, since the natural equivalent is generally dense and unmovable.  But air?  Or flame?  Even sunshine?  Some utility there, I know it.”

Plutarch flipped his eyepatch up and scratched absently at the edge of his skin-covered eye socket.  Far as gross personal tics went it was only a step behind pulling out your own ass hairs and sniffing.  “Even if you could, which means you’d have to do enough math to make your nose bleed, what would be the purpose?  Anima stores naturally inside of artifact channels already, it’s more easily manipulated, and the end result is more accurate and powerful.  You’re a nuclear physicist sniffing around in piles of black powder, Junior!”

“Anima is better.  Anima is also more expensive.  This would be plentiful,” I pointed out.  “Thus cheaper.”  Which meant I could maybe—just maybe—do the experiments and make the artifacts without the Guild’s financial backing.  Which meant a possibility of Artificing and freedom.  Didn’t say that aloud.  Had to hear the virtues of Guild Hall life one more time, I’d kick over at least a half dozen stone statues in retaliation.

Then there’s the beer hall, Junior, whatever will wet your palette from the top breweries across Europe.  I hear they even started letting women in last spring!  You’ll like that, won’t you?  Not sure a proper geomancer woman would be caught drinking in public, but even an improper geomancer woman would be preferable to your usual tastes, wouldn’t it?

Lowering his eyepatch back in place, Plutarch clicked off the television.  Luckily, he was still musing about the anima reactors and not where my mind had strayed.  “Won’t ever discourage experimentation, but you could do better with your time.  Also, if that’s your target, then you need a more easily transmitted and stored element.”

“Like gas, hence Aeromancy.”

“Like electricity,” Plutarch countered.

Huh.  Some merit there.  Batteries were cheap, readily available, and so were the instruments I’d need for measurements.  Still, couldn’t say that shit either.  Had to play it off like I’d already discarded the idea, or Pappy would never let me hear the end of it. “Saying you’d trust me to not electrocute myself?”

Plutarch’s expression said he saw through the bravado.  That…or he was constipated.  “Put your damn book down and yank me up.  Been sitting too long and my legs are numb.”

 

[CLICK]

Midday report—as usual—was equal amounts of tedium and frustration, mixed with a heaping spoonful of puke pudding for flavor.  Not enjoyable…at all.  Catching half the conversation, all in the hopes I’d spontaneously gain the ability to hear—much less understand—weird ass fairy frequencies?  Take me back to the mind-numbing Murder, She Wrote episodes, Pap.  Or being forced to read Compression and Storage of Aero-manipulated Vapor for the Purpose of Mass Use a second time.  Hell, even a third time.

I might listen to a Heinrich Fucking Von Fucking Welf leadership seminar over this shit.

Wasn’t like I got the juicy details worth mega gossip points either, since Plutarch carefully worded his questions for his little kompromat collectors.  All in fairy lingo, us mancers as code names and our actions described in the vague mystical ass-backwards terms fairies grok with.  If more clarity was needed, Plutarch had dutifully taught them a modified Morse Code and they’d slither along the sand in a string of gibberish.

Learn that easily enough, I suppose.  If I’d had the inclination.  New language to curse in.  Does the flick go here or there for ‘up your ass, unclefucker’?  Idea does tickle me looking back on it, kiddies.  Think fairies have their own special curse words?  Statue-hogger?  Anima-leaker?  Maybe I’ll give Plutarch a call and ask…

Or maybe not…don’t feel like getting yelled at.  Put an end to this madness and join the Guild already, Junior!  You’ve had your fun.  The Dale girl made her point.  Let’s all come together, and you can follow the right and proper way.  You’re too important to sit in a hellhole like Fresno!  What if a vampire comes along and pokes you in your butthole, what then, huh?  You ever bleed from your butthole, Junior?  Let me tell you, if I don’t take MiraLAX every other day I know all about it!

Man, did I hate midday session bullshit.

Pappy expected way too damn much.  Even ignoring the Morse Code and going straight at the anima beeps and boops; my Anima Awareness ain’t exactly at Vicky Welf God-Tier levels, is it?  Generally pleased just to be able to feel the occasional fairy flirting about beneath.  Felt like a little crunchy bit of geo-anima sliding along.  Not pleasant at all, knowing they’re down there …especially the big, deep motherfucker seemed to take such a special interest in me.  Meteyos.  Hadn’t heard from it in years now and was just fine and dandy being ghosted.

Nah, just Pappy’s little brood fluttering around like a pack of sharks waiting for the first drop of butthole blood.

As has previously been established in the other classical heartwarming tales I’ve put forth, them fairies don’t feed from blood but from the stone statues littering Plutarch’s yard.  Them statues suck up and collect anima, provide a feast for the naturally inclined.  Also help keep the fairy in one piece.  Or let the fairy not have to spend consciousness keeping itself in one piece.  It’s half Zen bullshit and really wasn’t paying attention, okay?  Want to learn Fairy 101 then you drop by Plutarch’s hermitage.

Don’t think even his fairies like being there.

Statues are the only reason they put up with his grumpy ass.  Mancy only knows when he built them, maybe back in his Guild days.  Maybe even when he had two eyes, all his teeth, and no scars all over his body from whichever vampire ran the torture chamber.  Long time ago and a galaxy far away, I’m betting.  Laced through with geo-anima, the statues still looked like they’d been out in the elements for decades.  Them mountain winters will do some work, even on stone.

Why couldn’t he put up hummingbird feeders like other old people?

“Hear anything, Junior?”

I’m not a total asshole—just ninety-ninth percentile—so I did tilt my head and listen, on the off chance the worlds aligned.  Felt some crunchy.  A fairy sitting there at our feet alright.  Solid though, no pulse whatsoever.

“Beep.  Boop.  Go suck the Lady’s favorite Bad Dragon dildo?” I attempted.

Plutarch didn’t even flinch.  Means either my cursing is getting stale, or we spend way too much fucking time together.  “If one considers Jethro Smith a dildo—I do—then you at least hit the subject.  Not exactly Maudette’s favorite though…”

Next fairy slid into place and no doubt said something so eloquent would’ve made Bill’s spear shake with jealousy.

Warm out, with no breeze.  September now that school was about to start again.  Couple more days, all you got to survive is a couple more days.  No idea what ‘two’ is in the Morse Code version of Fairy Speak.  Anima concentrations don’t seem big on community from what I’ve gleaned.  Selfish little shits, always stealing anima for themselves and fuck all the rest.  Part of me can relate.

Smoke tickled my nose, breeze or no breeze.  Wonder if Keith Gullick had a barbeque roaring for lunch?  Floromancers do love eating meat, weirdly enough.  Could head over and lurk in the bushes…wait for my moment to beg his wife Natalie for scraps.  But the bushes would probably snitch on me…

Plutarch raised a white eyebrow in my direction.

Right, fairies.

So important.

Focus.

Civilized or primal, neither half of me could hear the beat.

Plutarch’s brow furrowed dangerously.

Still nothing.  Damn near queefed out my pee-hole from concentrating so hard.

Glancing at his workshop hut looked like a Jawa should live in it, I was seized with inspiration.  “Utinni?”

“It’s not a joke, Junior!  You need to actually try.  Concentrate on the spot.  You can feel the fairy at least?  Nod.  Okay.  Feel more than the fairy.  Feel how it flows through the dirt and feel that same vibration in your chest.  Deeper, even.  It’s inside of your soul, just waiting there.  Open yourself to it.  Don’t think in words.  Sentences.  Paragraphs.  That’s wrong.  You’re not listening, you’re feeling.  It’s a binding, between you and the concentrate, becoming one.  Bring the fairy to the anima inside of you, surround it with who you are and feel every inch of it.”

You get that, kiddies?

Yeah, me neither.

Zen as all fuck, thought again while feeling absolute null void.

Feel.

Harder.

HARDER.

SO FUCKING HARD.

…and the Almond Joy jingle went through my head.

“I can’t hear shit today, Pap!”  Couldn’t most days.  No clue why I occasionally did.  Using too much anima?  Saving up anima?  If Plutarch knew, he hadn’t explained either.  Just more Zen, that’s all I got.  Feel!  Wax on, wax off!  What ya know, got yourself a Brazilian Wax now!  Balls so smooth they slip right out your underwear.

Plutarch ordered the next concentration to present itself.

Had about as much of my own ineptitude as I could take without my pride being permanently wounded, so I gave some lame excuses and finally took off.

Tried to ignore the judgment and frustration at war on Plutarch’s face.

 

[CLICK]

On my way out—given the drooling over smoke earlier—I stole a takeout bag filled with food.  Looked like Plutarch hadn’t touched it once in the last couple days, so I considered it fair game under scavenger law.  Couldn’t let food go to waste on account of Plutarch’s spotty appetite.

He really should eat more…

Not that I like…worry about him or anything.

Just…he should eat more.

Grabbed a spare can of Dr. Pepper to go with the food.  The cans were from my stash and transplanted over, wasn’t even scavenge.  About the only thing Pappy drank was coffee—which I chugged an unhealthy amount of already—and beer—which he wouldn’t let me drink unless he was at his wits end and needed to keep my foul mouth busy.  Really shouldn’t reward me for being difficult, should he?

Not that I usually had to try to be difficult…

At all.

Kind of like…my natural state of existence, ain’t it?

Being difficult, finding trouble, and having a big mouth.

Accomplished all three in one go, not long after my relocation.

And the architect of my troubles?

Well, I helped.  I always help.

Mostly though, the honor went to the Lady of the Lake.

Maudette Lynch.

The Dean of the Institution of Elements.

Princeps Scholae Elementa?

World’s Pot Brownie Champion Eighty-Two Years Running, not that the judges are in any state to vote after the taste test.

Ol’ Saggy Tits.

Maybe Isaac Newton did watch an apple fall from a tree or maybe he took one look at them knee knockers and thought:  yeah, got to be something to explain that shit other than just screaming ‘demon.’

Rumor has it the Lady is one of the most powerful mancers on the planet.  Me…I’ve never seen it.  Seen her do the occasional spot healing and had her flick some water around, but nothing close to BAMF or Badass Bitch levels.  Ceinwyn Dale walked through a fucking wall.  That is BAMF.  Plutarch threw me into a hole in the ground.  Mordecai Root—much as I dislike him—does control about a billion fucking Constructs.  Fines Samson has snuck up on me about a hundred damn times.  Including last year when I was having sex with Eva in a handy utility closet.

The Lady?  Nothing like that.  No BAMF.  No Badass Bitch.  Just… a cackling crazy great grandma everyone listened to for some reason.  Even me.  Maybe she puts mind-control water in the pipes.

The Lady especially didn’t look BAMF as I moseyed by her place that afternoon, two days before my seventh year officially kicked off.

Two more days.

Instead, she looked…fuck me, my eyes are still burning from that shit.

If I live to fifty, by some miracle, they will still ache with regret as the anniversary of that summer day rolls around.

Memory will pass to my children and my children’s children, haunting their dreams.

Don’t worry, kiddies, she was clothed.  We dodged that bullet.  Would’ve died on the spot if I saw her naked.  No tapes for you.  No teapots from King Henry’s Hidden Treasures.  Nothing.  Over that day.  Turned into fucking ash like Lot’s slutty wife.

Least the Lady was clothed.

If you can call that clothed…

The Lady had on…a one-piece swimsuit.

Just…fuck me!

Or the complete opposite of ‘fuck me.’  Like…how did I not puke for half an hour straight?  Like…Prince Henry might never rise again.  I mean, he did, cuz…I’m me, but that is definitely the image used when I’m with some college hunny for a one-night stand and I’m trying to keep Prince Henry from getting too excited before we all had our cookies.

Then…not only did the Lady have on a one-piece swimsuit, she was also lounging in one of them portable above-ground pools.  Far as above-ground pools go, it was a decent one.  Kind costs a few grand—so you can convince yourself you’re frugal and that life is temporary and if you really wanted a pool, of course you could afford a real one.  Still better than the kind you spend ten bucks on to test if your three-year-old can survive a foot of standing water or if maybe you bred one gonna be eating the berry-flavored crayons for lunch.

Thank the Mancy it was a pool, not her usual pond—still looking like a mosquito factory beside the new pool—and the water level at least came up to her chest or I might have stabbed my eyes out with my thumbs then and there.  Crinkly, saggy, vein-infested Lady armpit skin was bad enough, if I’d seen her vagina flaps sneaking out the side of the one-piece…ain’t ever been a better reason for blinding yourself in the entire history of the planet, kiddies.

To make the scene extra special, she also had on a plastic see-through poker visor to hold her silver hair back—if you know anything about old ladies, you best know YOU DO NOT mess with their perms, they will get their hair done every Friday OR ELSE.

Real cherry on top, even better than the poker visor, was that the Lady had one of them as-seen-on-TV floating ice-chests lazily twisting about beside her.  Which was left open and filled with a platoon of amber Bud Light bottles…

Beer.

BEER!!!

“Didn’t know your family tree bled redneck,” I called from behind the white picket fence ringed her yard, where I would hopefully be safe from the dementia.

The Lady let loose a shrill laugh.  Not saying she’s full-on Anima Mad, but ain’t no one normal after one hundred years devouring Fate’s bullshit.  Grandma’s wearing her tricorn hat and braiding her armpit hair into Celtic knots again, Daddy!  “All Mr. Samson’s idea,” she gave far too much information, “though I think he was more likely angling for a hot tub in our backyard, especially if it was shaded by our bushes.”

And somehow the horrifying mental images buzzing through my brain managed to multiply.  Still…alcohol right there for the taking, so…I would prevail!  “Is hot out.  Don’t suppose I can bum a drink?”

The Lady’s expression under her visor went heavy on the condemnation.  Also glanced at the obvious can bulge in my pocket.  Has to be a can, ain’t no one bulged near the Lady in four decades minimum.

“If I recall your file, King Henry, you still aren’t of age, so ‘no.’  Even if you were of age, I’m your teacher and it would be quite unethical of me to share an intoxicant with you, school out of session or not.  Illegal as well.  So double ‘no’ all around.  And yes, I am aware of Paul’s habit of bribing your silence with beer when you drive him up the wall.  I can hardly judge the man, since he deals with you every day, but seeing as you only entertain me maybe once a week…triple ‘no.’”

Matter firmly decided, the Lady casually splashed some water on her arms and rearranged her skin flippers.

“That reasoning is serious on the bullshit!  Even if you gave me some coke straight from Pablo Escobar’s perpetually powdered pubes, who the fuck is gonna arrest the Dean at this school?”

She cackled extra at that idea.  “Oh, they’ve tried more than a few times.  Though I do admit the last attempt was just around when you were born.  1995 was a memorable year for all the wrong reasons.  They found it easier then, before Ceinwyn was established enough to rise in my stead.  Now, that outcome scares them a great deal more than me rotting on the throne.”

“People coming after your job ain’t the same as locking you up,” I pointed out, “and I doubt they’d do either over something this small.  Just one little bottle…all you got to do is turn your head and I’ll do the rest…”

She shook said head vigorously, eyes fully attentive to my every movement.  “Job?  Life?  One and the same!  One and the same!  If they ever get desperate enough to offer it to you, Mr. Price, remember before you accept.”

Face showed horror of even greater amounts than catching sight of her moldy, gangrenous vagina flaps.  “Never.  Fucking longer than never!  Reincarnated as some butterfly and still a no go!  Ain’t nothing on this planet could ever fucking make it happen, trust me.”

The Lady sipped at her own beer, chuckling.

Mocking me.

Had a look in her eyes said:  “I thought the same once upon a time.”

And that amber bottle…swigging away.

Cruel, cruel woman.

It looked really tasty.

Beer on a summer day.  Ever have beer on a summer day before?  Tequila out of a stripper’s glittery navel, surely—make the best bachelor parties, yes, I fucking do—but not beer on a summer day…

If you could call Bud Light proper beer.

I mean, you could if it was the only beer available and it was the only beer currently available…

“Can’t hide from responsibility forever, King Henry,” the Lady warned, likely about the coming school year.

“Can accept a slice just fine,” I admitted, “but student-advising some Intras ain’t the same as being Dean, is it?”

She took a second quick swig.  So cruel!  “You might think not, but it’s by far the most important step in your education.  Truly!  Congealing all you’ve so far learned.  Investing you in your peers.  Clarifying our connection in this struggle.”

“Struggle against what?  Boredom?  Beer do a better job ending that…”

Her brows waggled mysteriously.  “What else?  Chaos.  Magic.  Madness.  Death.  The true points on this world’s compass.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, we’ve lost her to the Zen,” I growled aloud.

The Lady’s dark eyes twinkled, sloshing pool water reflecting deep inside.  “You have been a struggle like none other, King Henry Price, but I am quite proud of our craftsmanship.  Calm your trepidations.  This I promise:  you will conquer the next step as you have all others that came before.”

Shrugged away any emotion.  Stupid praise.  Been a lot of fucking steps, some of them mighty treacherous, especially for someone whose first reaction to any situation was still to stomp balls.  “If you say so.”

“I do say so.”

Another shrug.  “Just the cost of being a mancer, I guess, all this schooling shit.  So…pay the toll and move on quick like.  Even that cost is leagues from agreeing to your gig.  And the way Miss Dale complains about the Council…nah, never.  Plus, you wise bastards gone and stacked seats with my hate club.  Dingle, Root, Mama Welf to name a few.  All yours, Lady!  All Miss Dale’s after…then some other poor fucker following.  Let Welf have it.  Imagine I’ll be dead by then anyway…”

“I hope not.  Very much so.  You do dine on danger far too often, especially for a student, but…”  Her expression went completely Merlin-mystical.  “The price to civilize you is almost paid, it would be a shame to guzzle your bottle down before you’re fully fermented, wouldn’t it?”

“Ain’t joining the fucking Guild,” I reflexively snapped.

Those watery eyes rolled with the waves.  “You do keep threatening so.”

“Could side with me if you really gave a shit about my future.”

No answer in that regard, so I took it for a ‘no’ just like with the beer. Instead, she glanced at the brown paper bag I carried.  “Did you steal Paul’s lunch?”

“Dinner from a couple days ago.  You send him way too much.”

Her mouth pursed at that, vexed more by Plutarch than me, I think.  “Lasagna and parmesan bread sticks, if I remember correctly.”

“Not a calzone, but it’ll do.  Be better with a beer…”

Shook her head, eyes flashing with a change of subject sure to send me running for the hills.  “No beer, dear boy, but you are welcome to wade into my waters.  You are wearing underwear, yes?  We wouldn’t want you to get your geomancer’s coat wet…”

“Don’t say shit like that when I’m about to eat!”

She’d have doubled over from laughing, head right into the water, if her tits hadn’t been floating in front of her like a pair of flabby boa constrictors just chowed down on their daily bunny rabbit.  “I’ll miss your reactions after this year is over…”

Glanced back at Plutarch’s house down the street, then the other way off to the east.  You could see the bulk of Admin towering there, with the Mound stretching even taller behind it.  Next to the Mound was the Field, where graduation ceremonies were held.  At the end of the year, it would be packed and then…no more Asylum.  “Eleven months and two days, Lady.  Promise I’ll make each one extra special.”

Her expression shifted to a grandmother’s kind regard for once.  Seen it before, just usually aimed at others—Val or Miranda, even Pocket.  Not often or even ever with me, but there it was.  “And I counter-promise that I will pick an extra special class for you to advise.”

“May we live in interesting times all around then.”

Lady nodded with a quick cackle.  “Cursed proper!”

“Quad class filled with thirty Intra girls that are turning eighteen in a week and want to please senpai?” I proposed my desire.

Grandma smile evaporated.  Water immediately spouted out of the pool, arched in my direction, and smashed across my chest.  No chance to dodge it.  Wasn’t slow or languid at all.  Maybe one whole second between the spray and me getting soaked straight through.  Say what about my geomancer’s coat staying dry?  Hit damn hard too.  Enough water and it’ll smack you good, especially the stuff guided by hydro-anima.

Not that I registered pain.  Was surprise rattling away.  Did the Lady just…just slap a bitch?  More importantly:  was I the bitch?  Yes, I was the bitch!  Couldn’t even say anything.  Just stood there feeling like a wet fool.

Cuz I was a wet fool.

“My baptism conjuration,” the Lady cackled with pleasure.  “Quite useful on sleeping students, once upon a time.  Though one usually employs a water bottle and not a pool, but I just couldn’t resist the temptation.  Senpai?  Really!”

Spit water out of my mouth, nodding.  “Okay.  Mean that interesting or extra special shit in a whole other way.  We gonna throw down with the psychological warfare.”

She found this perhaps the most amusing thing I’d ever said.  “Will you spend all year trying to prank me now?”

“Considering it.”

“The everlasting, irremovable Dean?”

Snorted water out of my nose.  How the fuck did it get all the way up there?  “Oh yeah, the Dean.”

The Lady’s face lit up with joy.  “Haven’t you learned to pick your enemies more carefully in these last six years?  And don’t think you can steal the Staff of Rebirth again; we keep it locked up tight in the vaults nowadays.”

“That was never proven,” I kept up the party line.

Earned another cackle.

“Watch your back, Old Bat,” I threatened with a pointing finger, still not sure if I was serious, but very sure I was wet and that I didn’t fucking like it.  “When you least expect it…no idea how, no idea when, but it’s gonna happen!”

More water flew at me.  Half-hearted and with not nearly as much force, so this time I managed a dodge.  Still splashed over my shoes as I hopped away.  The Lady cackled deeper as a third bit of baptismal blessing flew in my direction.  “Are you fleeing?”

I…was.  “You’re lucky there’s no metal on that pool or I’d get even right now!  Damn you, plastic!”

A fourth waterspout flew at my head.  Fuck me, I hope no one is taping this shit.  And how the fuck is she pooling that quick?

Maybe she was a BAMF.

“I’ll see you tomorrow morning then, don’t be late!” she yelled after me. “Enjoy your lasagna! Promise I’ll finish the beers all by myself!”