The Foul Mouth and the Headless Hunny (The King Henry Tapes) Read online

  The Foul Mouth and the Headless Hunny

  The King Henry Tapes #4

  By Richard Raley

  Copyright © 2014 by Richard Raley

  http://richardraley.blogspot.com

  www.twitter.com/richardraley

  [email protected]

  Edition: 2014

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and events are fictitious and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, places or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  All rights are reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author.

  NOVELS BY RICHARD RALEY

  THE KING HENRY TAPES

  The Foul Mouth and the Fanged Lady

  The Foul Mouth and the Cat Killing Coyotes

  The Foul Mouth and the Troubled Boomworm

  The Foul Mouth and the Headless Hunny

  The Foul Mouth and the Mancy Martial Artist (forthcoming)

  STANDALONE NOVELS

  Sky-Island 1827-E (forthcoming)

  The Betrothal: Or How I Saved Alan Edwards from 40 Years of Hell

  NOVELLAS AND SHORTS

  Prime Pickings: An Eater Short

  Little King Henry: A KH Short

  Conquering Hero: A KH Short

  Friendship is Madness: A KH Short

  Second Take: A KH Short

  Griefing: A KH Short

  As always, a toast to Jeff, Josh, Matt, and Brandon

  Who taught me so many wonderful new words in high school.

  Table of Contents

  Table of Contents

  List of Mancy Types

  King Henry’s Class

  Session 132

  Session 41

  Session 133

  Session 134

  Session 42

  Session 135

  Session 43

  Session 136

  Session 137

  Session 44

  Session 138

  Session 45

  Session 139

  Session 140

  Session 46

  Session 141

  Session 47

  Session 142

  Session 143

  Session 48

  Session 144

  Sky-Island 1827-E Sample

  About the Author

  List of Mancy Types

  Mancy Type – Element (Ultra Title)

  Necromancy – Death (Bonegrinder)

  Pyromancy – Fire (Firestarter)

  Geomancy – Earth (Artificer)

  Aeromancy – Air (Winddancer)

  Hydromancy – Water (Riftwalker)

  Electromancy – Lightning (Stormcaller)

  Cryomancy – Ice (Winterwarden)

  Sciomancy – Shadow (Shadeshifter)

  Spectromancy – Light (Beaconkeeper)

  Floromancy – Plant (Forestplanter)

  Faunamancy – Animal (Beasttalker)

  Mentimancy – Mind (Mindmaster)

  Corpusmancy – Body (Facechanger)

  King Henry’s Class

  Child’s Name (Mancy Type)

  King Henry Price (Geomancer)

  Heinrich Welf (Necromancer)

  Valentine “Boomworm” Ward (Pyromancer)

  Asa Kayode (Hydromancer)

  Miranda Daniels (Aeromancer)

  Estefan Ramirez (Electromancer)

  Debra Diaz (Electromancer)

  Curt Chambers (Spectromancer)

  Malaya Mabanaagan (Spectromancer)

  Quinn Walden (Spectromancer)

  Ronaldo Silva (Cryomancer)

  Raj Malik (Cryomancer)

  Hope Hunting (Cryomancer)

  Miles Hun Pak (Sciomancer)

  Eva Reti (Sciomancer)

  Naomi Gullick (Floromancer)

  Preston “Pocket” Landry (Floromancer)

  Tamiko Lewis (Floromancer)

  Nicholas Hanson (Floromancer)

  Sandra Kemp (Floromancer)

  Patrick “Rick” Brown (Faunamancer)

  Jesus Valencia (Faunamancer)

  Jessica Edwards (Faunamancer)

  Robin White (Faunamancer)

  Athir Al-Qasimi (Mentimancer)

  Isabel Soto (Corpusmancer)

  Samuel Bird (Corpusmancer)

  Yvette Reynolds (Corpusmancer)

  Jason Jackson (Corpusmancer)

  Nizhoni Sherman (Corpusmancer)

  Session 132

  Some days you get lucky.

  Some days you wake up next to the girl of your dreams.

  Valentine Ward.

  Boomworm.

  I had it bad for the chick. Especially now. When you’ve literally been through hell with a person and find love on the other side . . . well . . . I was fucked. Nights of college girls and one night stands were over until Val said otherwise. Shit, I might even get mopey and emo when Val inevitably breaks up with me, due to me doing something incredibly, mind-numbingly stupid no doubt.

  Feels.

  I had them.

  Didn’t help at all that it was a perfect summer morning in the mountains. Know even a little about me and you know I hate all parts of summer, but damned if the fucking sunlight coming in from the window wasn’t just perfect looking. Temperature was just cool enough that the sheets felt good at my back, just warm enough that Val lying against me was too hot . . . which I liked. Pyromancer and all, of course she should be a furnace in bed. Even if it was uncomfortable, it was pleasant too . . . let me enjoy the fact that I could feel her there beside me.

  Told you.

  Got.

  It.

  Bad.

  I thought about waking her and getting back to what we’d been getting damn good at all night long. I’m King Henry Price, of course I thought about the grunting and humping first. But I decided against it. Val looked too peaceful asleep like that. Shit, I even smiled over the little bit of drool at the corner of her mouth.

  Star ain’t perfect after all . . . but close enough.

  I slipped out from beside her without waking her—one of the mastered arts of one-night college girl relationships—before I stopped at the edge of the bed, did myself some ruminating.

  I was still alive.

  Fought the Curator . . . but still alive.

  Knew his name.

  Oh.

  Ba.

  Die.

  Uh.

  Paine.

  Faced Meteyos twice . . . but still alive.

  Knew some truth.

  Dragon.

  Sawaephim.

  Couldn’t talk about it with anyone except Val.

  And the way she snuggled her pillow was too damn cute to interrupt.

  Got it worse than bad, Price, got it worse than bad.

  From what I understood, I’d been almost dead for the last few days. Convalescence and all that. Only Val and Miranda had seen me. Meant Ceinwyn and the Lady would be after me as soon as I stepped outside. Ain’t no way around it. I was at the Asylum. I was trapped until I could bum a car from someone to get back home.

  Home?

  I really thought of my shop as home. How about that? Wanted to get back to it. Wanted to walk before my wall of anima vials. Wanted to tap my fingers across them and dream of the wonders I could create.

  Had some new ideas I needed to test out.

  How did you do all that, Paine?

  How far behind you am I?

  How quickly can I catch up?

  Val mumbled something about mushroom trees.

  Talks in her sleep too.

&nbs
p; Isabel hadn’t. Quick in and quick out. Reordering all my memories would take awhile.

  It made me feel violated. I suppose if the sexes were reversed you’d call it rape. Reverse the sexes and you’ve got some Uther and Igraine, bring down some kingdoms type shit. But it also made me feel relieved too. Val was Val. Psycho Val was Psycho Isabel. Not like you didn’t enjoy it over the years.

  But . . . Isabel had used me, used Val, broken trusts all around. One day, I’d have a talk with her.

  One day I’d have to visit her prison cell.

  I got up from the bed, searched around for some suitable clothes without feeling like I was snooping. Val loved to read, so there was a bookshelf. All kinds of space ships and hobbit shit. Guess T-Bone and Val would have something to talk about. LED TV . . . collection of TV shows in a basket. She apparently liked True Blood since she had every season—if there’s bigger proof a person ain’t perfect, I don’t know what it could be.

  Least the Vamps don’t sparkle in it.

  Dresser with various pieces of clothing I’d get in trouble for rummaging through. Bedside table. Old-fashioned hard-line phone.

  Still no clothes.

  My luck lately was such that if I left the room naked, I’d one-hundred percent get caught out by Miranda. Not sure either of us would be able to go on living with that predicament being reality.

  Never say King Henry Price ain’t considerate of green-eyed ginger sensibilities.

  There we go.

  I found my usual outfit in the bathroom. Same one I fought Paine in and arrived at the Asylum almost dead in, I’m pretty sure. Looked like someone washed it. I smelled my geomancer’s coat. Maybe twice. They even tried to take out the blood stains.

  I dressed quickly. Underwear. Jeans. Undershirt. Coat. All of it was beat up, torn, and stained at least pink, if not crimson. Testament to the last few days of my life.

  Next, I looked for my artifacts. Val had mentioned putting them in her drawer.

  I stared at the dresser for a bit.

  I stared at Val sleeping . . . naked, beautiful, peaceful.

  Back at the dresser.

  Back at Val.

  If I start searching and she catches me in her panty drawer, how much trouble will I be in?

  Normally, I’d be worrying about coming across twelve-inch black vibrators too . . . but given Val’s sexual status before last night and the proof of it I’d witnessed . . .

  I still found it hard to believe. So scared of hurting people with the Mancy that she’d let herself stay alone and untouched for twenty-two years. Valentine Ward . . . virgin. I just met a dragon, discovered a lost species of legend, and found out an Artificer built an insane asylum to use as an anima bank, but Val’s virginity seemed the most outlandish of it all.

  All those years, all those years we lost to misunderstanding!

  Fucking Isabel!

  Yup, done that. Probably more than I thought.

  Made me question every woman I’d ever been with.

  Isabel was gone by Pent, so Eva had been Eva. My little fling with Naomi though? All the Intra girls over the years? That time Vicky Welf came on to me and I turned her down and then she acted like it never happened?

  Holy fuckballs!

  I had to chance the dresser. I needed to walk and think about things. Geomancer I might be, but I was born in a valley and live in a valley. Sometimes a guy just needs some sky over his head.

  I lucked out.

  First drawer.

  Shirts, no panties.

  No twelve-inch vibrators.

  Artifacts.

  Way fewer of them than I had a few days ago.

  But the Shaky Stick . . . and Poug’s dagger.

  They were still left. The big guns.

  The ones that could alter history.

  Proof there’s no God, only that Bitch-Queen Fate.

  No kind, loving God would ever give King Henry Price something called a World-Breaker.

  [CLICK]

  July 2018

  Sure enough, Miranda was waiting for me in the kitchen. Thank the Mancy, both of us had clothes on.

  She was already dressed for the day. Guess Val and me slept in.

  The dress was yellow, not a color I usually associated with Miranda. Cut off at the knee and with skinny straps at the top, it completely surprised me. It was a dress that softened her and teachers at the Asylum ain’t soft. No place for soft when your students can use anima.

  Her hair was long and wavy and as red as always. Pale green eyes. Sweet, heart-shaped face. She kind of looked . . . cute.

  I must be in a really good mood.

  She smirked my way, reminded me she was still the Ginger Nemesis who had hounded me from Single to Hep. “Had a busy night, did we?” she mocked.

  I sat down at the kitchen counter across from her.

  She placed a cup of coffee in front of me. Black. So strong it could dissolve a metal spoon. Just like I liked it. “You remember what I drink?”

  “I’m considerate like that,” she sniffed.

  Miranda was always . . . bitchy. Sorry, ladies, it’s the best way to put it! Sexism, misogyny, rabble, rabble! Hiss! Boo!

  But underneath the bitchiness was a deep kindness. It’s too bad it only came out when no one else was around or someone was really hurt. I didn’t mind Miranda too much when she was kind.

  “So . . .” I said.

  “Yes?” she smirked again.

  “How much did you hear?” I muttered, grumpy about it.

  “All of it,” Miranda admitted, “too much of it, actually. Did the two of you really have to keep going round after round? The walls aren’t that thick, you know.”

  Anyone else would have been shy, me . . . never. “Who knew Val’s a screamer?”

  Miranda rolled her eyes and shook her head at me, just like always. At least she wasn’t calling me ‘gross’ though. Guess she’d gotten enough years on her that sex and body parts wasn’t talk for the commoners.

  Can’t even tell she’s a rich, Old Mancy kid nowadays. Wonder what Welf and Hope and all the others were like? Not teaching at the Asylum, that’s for sure.

  Miranda poured her own coffee in a cup, then added a bunch of cream and enough sugar to kill an elephant. Aeromancers . . . sweet-tooths all around. Sweet-teeth? Sweet-teeths? Fuck it. “So . . . just so I’m sure I heard correctly—”

  “Yeah, walls ain’t thick, but ears pressed against them can’t be completely accurate,” I growled.

  She smirked again. She enjoyed my discomfort far too much. “—you thought you and Valentine have been . . . skoodilypooping . . . since . . . ?”

  “The Winter Ball during Bi was the first time.”

  “Well, well,” just way too smug, I tell ya, “That does explain why Valentine was so upset you disappeared that night. I suppose you and Isabel were just—”

  “That’s enough from you,” I growled some more.

  I don’t know where she got the doll from, but it appeared from under the counter. “Can you show me on the doll where she touched you?”

  Miranda would have burst into pieces if my gaze alone had the power. If we were still kids, I might have even pooled to break her glasses, but she wore contacts now. Who knew she was hiding such large eyes and fine eyelashes?

  The better to look down on me with!

  “It hurt Val too,” I reminded her.

  Some of the old Miranda appeared. That temper I knew. “I realize that . . . and if Isabel wasn’t in a psych ward, I might find her and cut her into little pieces one slice at a time.”

  I drank my coffee some.

  Miranda pointed at the doll’s lips and raised her eyebrows in askance. She moved her finger down to between the doll’s legs and raised her eyebrows again.

  I drank my coffee some more, glowering at her.

  Eventually, Miranda let out a long sigh. “I suppose we have to be friends now that you and Val . . . consummated.”

  “Fucked,” I said, “all night long. Come on,
prude, you can say it.”

  “I sure heard it,” she whispered under her breath, pouring me a second cup of coffee.

  “Did you know that . . . she, uh, no bangy bangy?”

  “I’m her best friend, of course I knew.”

  “Never thought of pushing her on some guy?”

  “We’ve double dated a few times. I’ve tried, believe me.”

  “Miranda Daniels, you sound almost experienced. Consider me shocked.”

  She might have grown up, but she still blushed crimson when she was embarrassed. And no one’s better at embarrassing her than I am. “Val’s more fragile than most think. She’s very powerful with the Mancy. She’s scared of it.”

  “I know.”

  “But I suppose you’re very powerful too.”

  I grinned, completely lecherous. “I got enough to do the job.”

  “I’ve seen your tool and you’re overselling it.”

  My grin disappeared.

  “Guess I should thank you for saving my life,” I eventually said.

  Miranda’s blush deepened, even more embarrassed. “I would have done the same for anyone. It was just applying some H.I.A.M.S.”

  I left unsaid how much more than that it was. “Thanks.”

  She couldn’t look up from the countertop. “I’ve never seen that much blood, even during Winter War. All those broken bones . . . and you dragged yourself to my door?”

  “I wanted to live. So I did what I had to.”

  “You had splinters in all of your fingers.”

  “Did what I had to,” I repeated.

  “Did Val do what she had to?” Miranda asked.

  “Yeah, but when Val does it, it’s to other people.”

  “Be careful with her, King Henry.”

  “I’d never hurt her,” I said defensively.

  Miranda didn’t say any more, but the expression on her face made me think it wasn’t Val she was worried about.

  [CLICK]

  I stepped outside to take care of a problem that had been plaguing Val and Miranda for the last few days.

  A geo-anima concentrate appeared during my . . . Got Knocked the Fuck Out . . . to protect me. It attacked Ceinwyn, Miss Strange, even the Lady. Nothing very violent, just throwing up bits of dirt at them. Fairies—the non-dragon variety—ain’t that dangerous most the time. Takes years and years, even centuries for them to work up enough anima to really be a threat.