Love for the Cold-Blooded (44 page)

“Don’t lecture me, Martin! Do you think I’ve forgotten? I’m the one who created the position. I’m also the one who appointed the man to fill it, and in case
you
have somehow forgotten, that man is
you
.
You’re
my Slut Leader. You always have been!”

Dad sighed, and slid the bathrobe off his shoulders. He was wearing the same outfit Pat and the other Sluts were, but… well. The impression wasn’t quite the same. Dad was in pretty good shape for a middle-aged suburban accountant with four grown kids and an SUV, but, yeah. He jogged and did some cardio on the equipment in the cellar, and that was pretty much it. His fondness for croissants, pasta and burnt sugar almonds could not be denied.

“I’m not twenty-five anymore, Tissa.”

Pat had seen a bunch of pictures of his parents when they’d been young — pictures, and also news programs, feature films, online video clips, and what had to be several decades in airtime of footage from Serpentissima’s legendary showdowns (one with Lightning and Owlet, one with Vindicator and his posse). It was always a little weird to see his parents so changed by youth: Mom’s serpent form short, slim and predominantly green and umber, Dad fresh-faced, built like a brick outhouse and sporting a full head of wild golden curls. Weird, and also vaguely embarrassing, at least when it came to his dad. There was a reason Serpentissima had dubbed her eye-candy minions the Serpent Sluts, and seeing his own father in the uniform had always been kinda odd. But whatever, back then Dad hadn’t been much older than Pat was now, and he’d obviously worked out a lot. Even Pat had to admit that he’d looked as good in the costume as any dad could be expected to look.

Today, black leather and body oil just weren’t Martin West’s best look anymore. And Pat was pretty sure he didn’t just think so because he basically never wanted to see his dad (or his mom, or his sisters for that matter) wear skin-tight leather and oiled bare skin
ever
, okay, thank you very much.

“You look ravishing, as always,” Pat’s mom stated heatedly. Her voice slithered along the high ceiling and hissed silently in the nooks and crannies of the cavern. “You will always be my only true Slut Leader.”

Awwww,
Zen mouthed at Pat. Sappy parents being sappy… yeah, that was kinda cute. Still in love after all these years, not to mention all the scheming, mayhem and terrorizing of superheroes.

Still, cute or not cute, one thing was for sure. “I’m not taking off the uniform,” Pat announced darkly. Dad was right, he couldn’t be Slut Leader anymore, no matter how much oil he applied to his croissant belly. That was Pat’s job now, and he was going to do it. He wasn’t going to abandon the Sluts; they had not been chosen for their degree of independence or their ability to think on their feet. Someone needed to take care of them, and Pat was not going to make a fool of himself by wearing jeans and a BadMadRad t-shirt while he did.

His mom failed to protest, probably because she was too busy smiling at Dad to pay attention. And then, they all had other things to worry about as the melodic chime of an incoming transmission was almost drowned out by the hero alarm.

“Phase Three achieved,” Hell’s voice cut through the noise of the wailing siren, as cool and even as a glacier. “ETA: ten seconds. I repeat, Phase Three achieved. Subject Star Knight positively identified. Other subjects lagging by six to seven minutes.”

“Heroes incoming!” Serpentissima boomed. “Places, everyone! It is time to triumph!”

Pat slid neatly onto the large cushion at the base of the throne, picked up the waiting bottle of body oil, and began defiantly oiling up. Dad faded strategically into the background, and then there was no more time for discussion over Sluts, because the ceiling was caving in.

~~~~~

M
ost of what happened next took place too quickly for a human brain to follow. Pat’s brain couldn’t keep up, at any rate; he caught glimpses here and there, nonsensical and disconnected like the fragments of an old, badly reconstructed silent movie. A blur of motion right in front of him. A flash of electric blue. An avalanche of dust, soil and rubble loosed from the ruined ceiling, sheeting down into the center of the lair like a solid waterfall. A small bush, branches torn and roots dangling naked in the air. A white sun, emblazoned on a broad chest.

The floor lurched. The bottle of oil fell from Pat’s fumbling fingers, a golden arc of droplets escaping to spread through the air as if in slow motion. Light sluiced down where no light had been before, casting a warm glow over a crescent of polished stone floor and irregular mounds of soil and rocks. Electric blue boots slammed down right in front of Pat — so close he could have reached out and touched the attached legs, had he been completely suicidal, not to mention cursed with terminal lack of taste.

Events stitched together into a more sensical narrative again then, the key facts leaping into Pat’s awareness all at once. A large hole had been broken through the several meters of solid rock that formed the cavern’s ceiling. An irregular trickle of rocks, earth and small plants was raining from the edges of the hole. Rays of sunlight lanced down to illuminate the lone hero who stood in the midst of the destruction, legs planted firmly apart, chest thrown out with both fists stemmed into his sides.

Star Knight in all his dubious glory. Seriously, the man was like a parody of himself. If the term ‘man’ applied to an alien, which Pat still wasn’t prepared to judge.

The dude was absurdly predictable, too. He’d come crashing in exactly where Hell and Cea had predicted he would. Like,
exactly
— they’d even marked out a cross on the stone floor with red tape, just for fun. Star Knight stood squarely on top of it like the big, oblivious, predictable lug he was.

Star Knight’s mouth was moving, but the silence in the lair was absolute. It was hilarious to watch him blink and frown, obviously flabbergasted by this unprecedented phenomenon. Pat struggled with an unsuitable urge to laugh as he arranged himself on his slightly oil-spattered cushion, quickly helping a fed-up Millie to the ground before arching his back in what he hoped was a languidly attractive fashion. Serpentissima had installed the aural shield to save everyone’s hearing (and of course the recording equipment) from the ruckus Star Knight’s entry had been bound to cause, and it looked like Cea was having a little fun with it, just because she could.

Abruptly, the sound of Star Knight clearing his throat rent the silence. His brow had creased very slightly in puzzlement, but smoothed out immediately as soon as he once again heard the sound of his own voice. “Aha!”

He grinned triumphantly before once more assuming a suitably wrathful expression, pointing an accusing finger at Serpentissima. “So it is you, vile villain! Serpentissima has crawled out of her foul den to once again poison the earth with her stench. I should have known.” The hoagie’s voice rang out with sonorous gravity, melodrama and indignation wafting around him like a particularly ridiculous cloak.

Pat made a stifled sound, but was pretty sure nobody heard him. If the hoagie went on like this, though, Pat was doomed. How was he supposed to keep a straight face? Maybe if he thought of sad, unfunny things as hard as he could… A quick glance at the other Sluts reassured him that they, at least, were doing a great job at keeping their cool and doing their slutty thing. Most of them even managed the requisite blank-faced obliviousness of their surroundings that Zen had insisted was the best tack for a Slut to take.

“Yes, Child of Argon. It is I, Serpentissima… the Serpent Rising.”

The Dread Serpent’s voice slithered and hissed and wound into all the dark spaces of his mind. It was the cold between the stars, a hopeless void devoid of all life; it was nameless terror, whispering of the darkest fears of all who had ever lived. The hair stood up on the back of Pat’s neck, laughter draining from him so completely it might never have existed at all.

Damn, his mom was awesome.

Serpentissima spoke on, but Pat was so caught up in the terrifying harmonics of her voice that he missed the actual meaning of her words. He did not miss Star Knight’s underwhelmed reaction, though. The dude seemed entirely unfazed, even a little impatient, idly tapping the toe of one boot against the crumbling stone floor. His genuine lack of fear in the face of a supernatural threat — a threat that could actually hurt him, when most things on this planet could not — would probably have impressed Pat, if he hadn’t been utterly sure it was rooted in stupidity rather than courage.

“Your reign of terror ends now,” the hero declared finally. His form seemed to shift oddly, and Pat blinked several times before he realized Star Knight was lifting off, feet leaving the ground to hover a hand’s breadth above the red tape cross. An aura of power began to gather around him… not a glow so much as a thrumming in the air. “Never again shall your rank shadow fall upon —
you!
”

The harsh gasp of genuine shock shattered Star Knight’s practiced ‘heroic savior’ facade. Unfortunately, Pat was in no position to savor the hoagie’s gape-mouthed, astonished expression; he was too busy mirroring the look, gaping up at the electric blue forefinger the dude was stabbing at Pat’s face. Behind the accusing finger, the near-fluorescent blue eyes fixed on Pat were as wide and empty as the cloudless sky.

“Did you think I wouldn’t recognize you without a mask?” Star Knight shouted. Rage sat strangely on his too-smooth, too-symmetrical features, distorting them into something even more disturbingly mask-like than usual.

Pat blinked. He’d heard that phrase before, pretty much verbatim. Did hoagies all use the same hackneyed phrase book or something?

Lameness had never yet stopped Star Knight, of course. If it had, he could never have embarked upon his career in the first place. “You’re Sir Toby’s minion. I saw your picture on the infoweb! You’re one of the heinous creatures who stole my cape and disfigured me!”

Disfigured, seriously? But fine, if that was what this was about, then Pat knew what the appropriate reaction was — namely, rolling his eyes scornfully. “Way to be a total drama queen, dude. We drew on your face with a marker, which was totally on you for falling asleep in the midst of your enemies. What did you expect, that we’d throw you a tea party?”

Pat never saw him move. One moment, Pat was reclining sluttily on his cushion, Star Knight assuming a hyper-dramatic pose of accusation before him; the next, Pat was dangling in mid-air, choking as Star Knight lifted him by his leather Serpent Slut collar.

A sudden commotion erupted all around, but Pat couldn’t spare much attention just then. He was entirely occupied with desperately scrabbling at his neck, Star Knight’s hand, anything he could reach. His only clear thought was that he was glad Millie had decided to find a quieter spot. Had she still been wound around his neck, Star Knight would have crushed her like a bug, and never even noticed.

“Unhand him at once, you fiend,” hissed Serpentissima. Out of the corner of his eye, Pat could see her massive bulk darting forward with serpent speed, energy crackling around her in a nimbus of power. He’d never heard his mother sound as vicious, he reflected dimly. He’d have been scared, if he were Star Knight.

Pat wasn’t scared. He had neither the time nor the attention for it. Instead, his world had become very bright and very clear, narrowed down to a few razor-edged facts and factors.

He tried to hook his fingers into the Slut collar to relieve the pressure on his neck, but there was no room — wrapped both hands around Star Knight’s steel-hard wrist instead, pulling himself up in the most desperate and fucked-up pull-up ever. It worked, thank all the gods. The relief of not having his entire body weight trying to strangle him was the sweetest thing Pat had ever felt. He gulped down a greedy lungful of easy air, two; waited out the sparks and dull grayness that had begun to creep in at the edges of his vision.

By the time he had a sliver of attention to spare, Star Knight was moving in the air, turning. It made Pat’s grip on his gloved wrist slide, made him clutch it so hard he might have broken a human man’s bones.

A wash of green-white energy passed through Pat and made him gasp, made the inside of his skull light up and every bone and tendon ache with a sudden, intense ague; made his mouth taste bitter like ash and salt. Star Knight froze where he hovered, his strained grimace showing blindingly white teeth. A pale green nimbus shimmered around him, and barely visible tendrils slithered over his form, hissing faintly. Only his right hand was free of the shimmer; the drifting tendrils stopped just short of where Pat clutched the hoagie’s wrist.

The Serpent Scourge. Wow, that one took serious mojo. Mom wasn’t playing around.

This was his chance. Star Knight was momentarily indisposed, so Pat took a deep breath and made himself loosen one hand from his grip on the hero’s wrist; kept his body weight off his neck with a single arm (sending a quick mental thank you to his coach and his inexplicable love of the one-armed pull-up) while he felt for the collar with his free hand.

Two alien fingers were hooked into the D-ring at the front of Pat’s collar. Beneath the thin covering of the glove, the inhuman tendons and muscles were like stone. Pat would never be able to break Star Knight’s hold; nothing on this world was as strong as that damned hoagie. But he was only holding Pat by the Slut collar. If Pat could open the collar before the Serpent Scourge wore off —

Right there. There, that was the collar’s buckle, immobile and uncooperative beneath Pat’s oil-slick, fumbling fingertips. Damn it, this wasn’t going to work — the collar was still pulled too taut by Pat’s weight. He couldn’t get the buckle open like this… wouldn’t have been able to even if his fingers hadn’t been half-numb, clumsy and oily.

Which was the moment when the buckle — never designed for this kind of abuse — gave by itself.

Pat let out a startled gasp as he fell backwards, the sharp tongue of the broken buckle scraping a line of fire along the side of his neck. In the half-instant before his grip on the hoagie’s wrist brought him up with a sharp jerk and a painful wrench of his shoulder, he caught confused glimpses of the floor (too far below), the hole in the ceiling (too close and at a weird angle), and his mother’s imposing serpentine shape raised to its full height, both arms spread wide with twin venom-green suns gleaming in her palms.