The Foul Mouth and the Troubled Boomworm (The King Henry Tapes) Read online

  The Foul Mouth and the Troubled Boomworm

  The King Henry Tapes #3

  By Richard Raley

  Copyright © 2013 by Richard Raley

  http://richardraley.blogspot.com

  www.twitter.com/richardraley

  [email protected]

  Edition: 2013

  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 (forthcoming)

  STANDALONE NOVELS

  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

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

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

  Table of Contents

  List of Mancy Types

  King Henry’s Class

  Session 122

  Session 25

  Session 123

  Session 26

  Session 124

  Session 27

  Session 125

  Session 28

  Session 126

  Session 127

  Session 29

  Session 128

  Session 30

  Session 129

  Session 31

  Session 130

  Session 32

  Session 131

  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 122

  July 2018

  July in Fresno, California is one of the most miserable existences on the planet. One-hundred plus degrees for each of those lovely thirty-one days. Unending. Never stopping. Oppressive as any dystopian future. I’d eat that Soylent Green shit, no matter what it’s made out of, just as long as it makes me cool for a few minutes. Yummy, yummy concentrated people mix . . . my favorite flavor.

  July in Fresno is so fucking hot that you can cook up dinner with a bit of tin-foil, just rip a piece off your crazy hat and crispy bacon is incoming. Rip off a little bit more and there’s a side of eggs, sunny side up.

  Even inside, even with glorious AC, even with a cryomancer girlfriend, even with your cock in Hope Hunting’s frozen twat, even then . . . never would get cool, you poor son-of-a-bitch.

  A whole city in the heat.

  Closed off in their little boxes.

  The predators don’t give a shit, they’re smart enough to have skipped town months back. Easier prey up north. Migration in reverse.

  Take away the heat, take away those baking shoes ready to leave a bit of rubber behind and roasting car doors that will sizzle those plump little fingers up into some red sausages. Take it all away . . . still ain’t but an inch from the hell it was before. Ain’t been a bit of wind for weeks. All them cars people love so much been pumping out the fumes, fumes with nowhere to go in a bowl of stone. Fog, that evil beast of a god ain’t to be seen, but brother Smog, he’s in town. Layering the sky in brown. Make you cough and keep coughing.

  Damn kills the wheezy fuckers.

  Good thing my old classmate Curt Chambers ain’t around.

  Smog . . . heat . . . both do their duties, both lock Fresno up, keep the cogs in the houses or in the malls and the commercial districts, running up fake numbers on those plastic cards. Fresno in July . . . you think other months been bad? You ain’t seen nothing yet, motherfucker, got a long journey to go on, best prepare.

  Just like you listening in.

  Ain’t heard nothing yet. Don’t know nothing yet. Got a long journey. A twisting, turning, fucked-up-bedtime-story of a journey.

  Best prepare, be you Boy Scout or Girl Scout.

  Best prepare for the end of the beginning.

  In one part of Fresno, a commercial district among many commercial districts, there was a store pretending to be something it wasn’t. That particular district was known for its small shops, its artsy cliental, and for a burger joint that had been open for over sixty years and was good enough to fight off fast-food chains. The shop fit right in . . . unless you knew better.

  Sometimes to know a secret, you need to know a secret exists in the first place.

  The King Henry Clothing Company. It was on the sign, a sign personally painted by the owner using toxic lead-based paints but not painted with a brush. Another way is quicker.

  To the many college kids and hipsters who wandered in, it was a clothing store with on-demand printing machines. It was run by a guy their age who also owned the place, just him, six days a week, ten to five, don’t go around lunch, he takes an hour off. He seems to hate his life, or at least the fact he’s running a clothing store, and will even let you run the machines yourself if you’ll just give him peace and quiet.

  His language was coarse, even vulgar, and he doesn’t have any hold on it at all, not caring how many customers are in the room with him or how often they complain. He’d say, “Leave then
, what the fuck do I care about your fourteen-ninety-nine?” If you don’t mind the cursing however, if you don’t make him work, he was good at conversation, with a quick mind and some fine little quips that could earn a chuckle.

  Tables ran along the front of the shop, with a pair of vending machines pushed into a corner, and anyone could come in, sit down, have a conversation, and a bite to eat. Some local high school kids had taken to coming in and playing card games on the tables after school and though the owner scowled, he never told them to leave.

  He wasn’t tall, short actually, with close-cut brown hair and common brown eyes. Not handsome, but men don’t need to be handsome to be attractive. He had well-muscled arms, his shoulders and chest stocky for as short as he was. Scars marked his face and hands, especially around his knuckles. He wore odd clothes, jeans and tennis-shoes, but over a white shirt he wore a brown coat of thick fabric, even in July, like the coat proved something worth more to him than comfort. He never took the brown coat off; it hung, unbuttoned, always.

  There was a leashed quality about him, like he held back a great many parts of himself. Smiles were tight, eyes were hooded. What he showed was the edge of anger, and many of the young women who came in quite liked it, and would let him know they quite liked it. He was more than happy to satisfy their curiosity on the subject.

  His name was King Henry Price and he’d flashed his driver’s license more than a few times to prove it to his customers.

  His shop was just a modern clothing printing business with a hands-off approach trying to keep afloat in a digital storefront kind of world.

  But then . . . that’s all bullshit.

  Sometimes to know a secret, you got to know the secret exists, got to be clued in, or you’d never expect some clandestine shit to be going down. So much clandestine going on with my little shop, surprised I don’t have some Area 51 whack-jobs lined up outside the place looking for green alien blowjobs.

  Five dolla’, earthling, two tongues extra.

  About the only part that’s real is my name, King Henry Price. It’s my name and I still can’t believe it twenty-three years into my life. That’s right, twenty-three, had a birthday couple weeks back. Didn’t really feel it. As far as life-changing events in my life, one number ticking over ain’t exactly high on the scale.

  Vampires showing up: fucking high.

  Coyotes machinegunning me: fucking even higher.

  Posting an actual profit in my real business last month: fucking Everest high. Everest . . . always gets the glory. Never met the guy, but I hear from the Anima Concentration chain he’s a real pompous asshole.

  Year number ticking to twenty-three: not a big deal.

  I celebrated the occasion by driving down to Pismo Beach, meeting up with my three Asylum buddies Pocket, Jesus, and Raj; then Pocket tried to teach us to surf. Me, the geomancer, surfing. Brilliant idea.

  Least I didn’t sink . . .

  Lest I be the laughing stock . . .

  Tell ya the truth . . . I liked the surfer girls a whole lot more than the surfboards. Them’s some free spirits . . . just the kind I go for.

  What’s my real business, you ask? You should already know it. But for the fucktards who started with the tape labeled #3 instead of the one labeled #1, or the old and senile and going demented among you: it’s an Artificer shop. The only free-owned Artificer shop, unconnected with the Guild of Artificers, in the entire United States. Even the polar bear humpers in Alaska.

  That’s it, that’s all you old senile bastards get. Your mind revved up? Ready to move on with this shit? Go re-listen to my other tapes if you can’t remember. Waste your own time, not mine. Cuz on goes the pain train.

  Pain.

  Paine.

  Not much pain in my life at the moment.

  Not to say there hasn’t been pain before. Mom and Dad, dished out some serious fuck-up-your-child pain. Bully’s I beat up over the years and the ones that beat on me, yeah there was pain. Took a punch from Welf and his muscle Jason Jackson a few times. Girls . . . women . . . different kind of pain there.

  Annie B and Horatio Vega, Vamps and the Coyote Nation, pain at the time, but not so much now. I haven’t seen Annie B since our little weekend chasing after the Shaky Stick and the Annie B that’s not around is the best kind of Annie B. Better that way, let’s me think of her dark velvet eyes so sad and her sculpted body so sweet. When she’s with me . . . well, why the woman have to keep eating on people in front of me?

  Total boner killer.

  Horatio Vega, El Presidente Coyote himself, transformed from an enemy I planned to punch to death into my brother-in-law. I don’t trust the bastard at all, slimier than any vamp I’ve ever met. Haven’t been to his home or den or wherever the Coyotes stay, but . . . he kept his side of the deal, so I kept mine. JoJo visits me every other week, calls every day to check in. Don’t think we’ve been this friendly since we hit puberty. Sisters . . . it’s weird to have one again.

  Annie B . . . out of sight, out of mind.

  Horatio Vega . . . not my enemy . . . yet.

  My shop? Never been better. The King Henry Clothing Company. Fucking genius, I’ll tell you. Not mine, T-Bone came up with the idea. Hey, I promised him I wouldn’t call him ‘T-Bone’ aloud, doesn’t mean I can’t think of him that way.

  On-demand printing. Genius. Perfect cover to rebuild my shop as. Best part: no fucking teapots. The machines gave me plenty of excuse to keep the back room where I did my Artificer work and they also provided an excuse for a lot of the noise the other shop owners hear from time to time.

  The store looked better than ever too. No pieced together antique store now. It was clean, efficient, and even styling and profiling. The two-thousand something bullet holes had forced the insurance company to pay for a complete refit. Nothing was the same. The walls had been repainted, tile flooring had been put in, and the front glass windows replaced, though Ceinwyn did force me to upgrade to bulletproof.

  Clothing doesn’t take up as much room as antiques so my new countertop was moved further back into the store. There was a pair of computer stands next to it, where the customers could design whatever shirt they wanted or pick from some presets that got emailed from some kinda database thinga-ma-jigger. I don’t know the exact binary of it, T-Bone set it up.

  Other than an equal pair of printing machines and a sample table to show off the shirts, hoodies, sweatpants, and all the other odd and ends we sell . . . lots of space left over. Hence the tables and the vending machines.

  It’s awesome

  Just one tiny problem with it: I’m busy.

  I don’t mind the teenagers hanging out at my tables. They’re usually pretty geeky, either playing cards or portable video games or just reading. They’re quiet and scared I’m going to kick them out and then they’ll have to stop hiding from homework, family, and all that lovely real world shit that video games and books and Ursula the Elf Maiden, 3/3, 2G, tap to steal a geek’s unused cock, takes you away from.

  It’s the hipsters, man, the hipsters and the college kids. They won’t go away. They keep buying my clothing. The college kids . . . alright, my shirts are cheap, easy to make a cool design, and I’ll laugh if you put cursing on them, not tell you I can’t sell that to you. You wouldn’t believe the amount of shirts I’ve sold with hand-drawn cocks and balls on them.

  Hipsters, fucking hipsters have me make up designs for them and think they’re avant garde or street or some shit. They keep telling their friends about them and I keep making stupider and stupider, worse-designed clothing . . . and they keep eating it up. This has got to be what Banksy felt like when people started buying his graffiti . . . except he’s talented and I’m just doodling in awe at the praise. I just want to grab them and yell at them, “I’m mocking you, idiot! See! Get it! Fucking ha ha!”

  But no . . . the requests continue for the Foul Mouth brand . . .

  I don’t have time for this shit . . . I really don’t . . .

  Maybe I should
get an assistant.

  There’s an idea.

  Not one of the college girls who come into the store. I’ve slept with too many of them. Bad enough when a couple of them are in at the same time . . . also an opportunity for a threesome but that conversation has yet to go my way. Maybe I’ll ask Ceinwyn if there are any Intras in town who could use the job . . .

  But then I can’t sleep with my assistant, of course. Problems . . .

  The clothing shop breaking even is nice, but the real jewel of my year is that my Artificer shop is finally up and running. It’s also kicking ass, taking names, and in the great words of honored thespian Sean Connery: it goes home and fucks the prom queen.

  Static Defense Rings, baby. Fucking money. I’m making so many of them that T-Bone can’t even supply me with enough electro-anima. Ceinwyn showed off the one I gave her as a birthday present at some high muckety-muck Elementalist get together and now I get orders from as far away as Russia. Estefan Ramirez helped out too, giving a demonstration to some bossman at ESLED and even though the Cocksucking Guild objected and had themselves a hissy fit, I’ve got me an Asylum-approved contract to supply five SDRs a month for the next five years.

  Life’s grand, what could possibly go wrong?

  . . . what could possibly shit on my parade?

  Tangle, tangle.

  Door bell was the only thing that made it through all the chaos and machinegunning, believe that shit?

  Tangle, tangle.

  Still fucking broke.

  People coming into my store has gotten regular, gotten to the point where even hyper-alert, always-expecting-trouble King Henry Price don’t raise his head for every tangle. I’m busy making SDRs for ESLED, floro-seeders for Vega, means I got to steal what time I can for my experimentations and my anima conversion formulas.

  Still should have known something was up when both the teenage boys chatting at one of my tables whispered, ‘whoa’, under their breath at the exact same time. I know that whoa. That’s the whoa of a stunningly hot woman entering a room.

  But I kept my head down, trying to finish before I dealt with another order of tee-shirts or armbands or whatever-the-fucks. Sex later, GOB Mark 2 finalization formulas now, I told myself . . . then paused, did I really just put work before sex? Life altering question asked or not, I still found myself doing math, muttering aloud, “Be with you in a minute.”