The Serpent League

by Brendan Walsh

  “I know you know this already,” No longer human, her voice like an oxygen pump, slow and garbled. “so why am I telling you this, you think? Because you don’t act like you know this. You act like you’re just one of the humans.”

  “I do not!” the bat roared. “With everything I do, I reflect upon my own condition as a freak of a creature. I can’t help it!”

  “I understand that,” the amphibian woman’s snout was expanding.

  “Do you? Do you have any idea what it’s like to be me? Probably not, since you surround yourself with a legion of those just like you!”

  “And therein lies your problem. Those humans you hang with, do you think that they think of you as a bat, or as just another friend?”

  “What difference does it make with altruism, or at least the aim of it? As long as they’re good to me they can treat me as whatever they want.”

  The woman was no longer a woman. Beige scales lined where her breast was, and dark green dominated the rest. She had several teeth jutting out of her mouth, which was long with a massive snout at the end. “Because,” said the bipedal alligator, with the voice of a life-long smoker. “they can never understand you, not like how many of my recruits can understand you. You said it there. Altruism. As if altruism and all your other unnaturally-given traits could only be human traits. You’re not a bat to them. You’re a human, and in this view of you they will always suppress your real identity, thus, suppressing the rest of all life that doesn’t adhere to their anthropocentric tastes. So let me ask you again, why do you protect their society?”

  Edgar could feel a knot in this throat. Suddenly his head felt heavy.

  “Because I love them.”

  The thing’s teeth moved faster than his mind could perceive. He felt his wings tear like tissue paper.

  Edgar fell to the floor. Even the tips of his wings were in too much pain for his to stand up. He let out a grunt, as he looked up at his attacker. The alligator-thing was chewing on a piece of his wing.

  There was no blood. His wings were only skin, so the only mess was the open area in his right wing.

  The thing swallowed. “That’s incorrect. How far are we going to have to go with this before we make progress? Why do you protect them?”

  “Because I love life.” If the bat could cry, his eyes would be soaked, from emotion and pain. “They’re all gifts.”

  The new reptile let out a throaty grunt, so Edgar knew another blow was coming. This time it was its claws, which were longer and sharper than its teeth.

  All five clawed-fingers ripped into his chest like a knife through water. Dark brown blood spurted out of the new cavity in his chest. What didn’t immediately hit the floor dripped like leaking water down his fur and his legs.

  Even with his new ability to telepathically speak, his cries were still animal. He screeched and fell down on his chest, where the monster proceeded to reign two more slashes along his back.

  “No. You. Don’t!” it screamed. “Don’t give me that answer again.”

  The bat whimpered, struggling to get back on its arms. It had minor success before the reptile kicked it across the jaw.

  “I know how quickly you heal.” it said. “You won’t die from these wounds. If I haven’t gotten a good answer from you in a few more blows, we’ll have to continue another time.”

  “Oh, what’s the goddam point?” Edgar cried. “I’m dead anyway! The device in my head is slowly killing me. I’ll be dead in two days, so I have nothing to lose!”

  The thing snickered. The bat could hardly believe the alligator-thing used to resemble a human. It took a few steps forward, Edgar getting terrified that the thing’s heavy scaled feet would crush one of his bones. As he braced for another blow, it put a humanoid-hand on his head once more, burying it in his fur.

  A whole new sensation came over him, like a stream running through a rusty pipe. His wounds were alien to him now, and a mental clarity came to him like nothing he could ever remember feeling.

  “There, you poor thing.” It stood up straight and let out a sigh. “I hope you’re happy. I gave you one less thing to be so moody about.”

  Despite the pain and the blood still pouring from his chest, Edgar had the strength to look up. “What did you do to me?”

  “I worked my little Serpent League magic on you.” Despite it being inhuman, the bat could tell it was smiling. “Fixed you up a bit again. You don’t need to worry about dying anymore, for now.”

  With his head now cleared, he felt he didn’t even need the thing’s confirmation. A weight had lifted from him, and he felt as if he could fly despite his chewed-up wing.

  “What are you?” he asked.

  “You will know, and I will tell you.” It took a few steps closer to his head again. This time, Edgar didn’t flinch. “I think I did more damage to you than I intended, so I’ll give you a break for now so you can recover.

  “But I’ll leave you with this: Your humans might care about you, and they might care for you for who you really are, but they can be better. When our mission is complete, humans won’t be destroyed. Of course not. They’ll simply fade into their proper role in the universe, and they’ll be naturally engineered to care for things like you, and all life, as they should. We’re going to give things like you a fair chance. This is going to be the first real chance for true peace.”

  The humanoid alligator headed for a door on the other side of the room. It gave Edgar some time to catch his breath and to try make sense of the cocktail of emotions swirling within him.

  He looked down at his chest. He had stopped bleeding.

  13

  Scientist and Novelist

  Twelve Years Ago

  Elder slammed his phone down on the receiver.

  “Asinine management!” he shouted.

  The doctor heard the creaking of his front door. He grunted. His friend always came in at the most inopportune times.

  “Gordon!” he shouted.

  The man had heard him, as was evident by the sound of footsteps approaching his office.

  He appeared in his doorway. His friend was a tall man with combed back black hair behind his ears. He wore a black corduroy coat and carried a brown sac with folders sticking out.

  Elder rose up from behind his desk. “Now where the hell have you been?”

  “I was finishing my second draft.” he replied, patting the sac under his arm. “I left you a voicemail this morning. Did you forget to check again?”

  The Doctor knew the answer to that but didn’t dignify it with a response.

  Sensing his friend was waiting for him to ask the big question, Gordon Buchanan approached Elder’s desk.

  “Did they contact you?”

  From Elder’s lack of expression, he knew that was what he was waiting for.

  “No. They haven’t in a while. I think they want me to stew in this silence.”

  “Awful considerate of them.” Gordon replied. “But… that must be a good sign, correct? They’re not giving you those ominous warnings anymore.”

  The doctor threw up his arms. “The Serpent League can do whatever the Serpent League goddam pleases. They fooled me once, and they’re not as bright as they think they are if they think they’re going to get me again.”

  His friend went silent. He knew exactly what he was referring to. He suddenly missed his son.

  “You know that I’m not going to leave you.” Gordon said. “All this worrying about where I am all the time isn’t going to get you anywhere.”

  “It’s not just that…”

  “And the League isn’t going to get me either.” he added. “Us and the whole team have been careful. Besides…” He patted the sac at his side once more. “I have our little miracle with me.”

  Elder stood with a start, eyeing the files as if they had just grown tails. “In…you have it in there?”

  “Tucked away in an envelope. I rocked it to sleep on the way here, so don’t take it out just yet. It’s just starting to ge
t friendly with me. It survived the necessary injections and preliminary tests. The guys in the lab think they have a winner.”

  The creaking of the front door sounded again. For a second they both paused, and then a woman stepped into the office. She was a couple years shy of Gordon, but looked more than five and her hair was tied behind her head and over her ears, as if she were trying to pick up secrets.

  Elder wanted to grab the files from his friend, but then remembered how wise Gordon’s wife was to his real work.

  “Did you tell him?” Laura asked her husband.

  Gordon nodded. “I just did.”

  She turned away from her husband, now facing the doctor. “Well now, Samuel, it looks like you just took a big leap to your magnum opus.” She turned to a small shelf adjacent to his desk, picking up a bottle of Jameson and pouring herself a couple ounces. “Tell me, will the completion of this thing come before or after you assemble a human army?”

  Elder shrugged. “Afterwards, ideally. This whole thing has been about ideas and faith and belief.” He gestured to Gordon. “Your husband has been almost a mentor to me, Laura. I hope you realize that.” He leaned against his desk, following Laura’s example and filling a glass with whiskey. “Belief will be our biggest bullet against the Serpent League. I believe their goal is to turn faith into something under the conscious, like a tiny organism in constant evolution. If I can help humanity in one monumental stroke before they strike, I think I can render their plans pointless.”

  Laura frowned. She wrapped her arm around her husband’s neck. For some reason, that bothered him. “And you think you’re going to accomplish that by using this tiny creature?” Gordon gave her a look. It was well known that she was no longer one of Samuel Elder’s biggest fans.

  “Somebody has got to die. By God, I have the means, I have the brains to start on operation like this, I just need a bigger team. I need people who I can trust, who will believe me when I do evil that I do it because it will save us, I need…” He paused, considering the weight of his words. “More subjects to experiment on.”

  He softly took the case of folders from Gordon. His friend was about to protest, but then thought better of it. Tucked under several crumpled-up pages of yellow notebook paper was an envelope. There was a bulge on the side, where the see-through slit was.

  Elder raised it to his head and peered his eye through. Inside was what looked like a brown lump of fur with small skin protrusions on the sides. On the corner, a pair of curious ears were folded against the paper, and it had its eyes closed.

  The vampire bat was sleeping.

  “Beautiful.” whispered the doctor. “To think that damn congressman Gregory Gear didn’t want anything to do with this. His business connections would have facilitated all this.” Gordon and Laura nodded. “No matter. There will be others, others more loyal than that little man.”

  He lifted his glass once more, taking out a gold object from his pocket and raising it with his other hand.

  “This calls for a toast. Gordon, take yours out. This is a moment to remember.”

  His friend obeyed and, borrowing his wife’s glass, picked out his version of the watch Elder had. The only difference was the one that Gordon held actually had his own last name engraved on the back.

  He saw it as his friend lifted it up. Buchanan.

  And on his own was a friend that they had lost years before. Frost. In memory of James Frost.

  “I so deeply regret that James couldn’t be here to see what we now have.” Gordon looked down, away from his drink.

  “As am I, but that is in the past. We were more aimless back then. He would certainly be happy with what he now sees of us.”

  “I’ll drink to that,” Gordon replied. “And to his poor son Gary. I don’t even know where that boy is now.”

  Elder didn’t reply. He didn’t want to think about it. “Cheers.” was all he said. Then downed the whole drink in one take.

  “Do you think I’m lying?” asked Elder.

  Patrick turned away. At the entrance of his mother into the story, he didn’t know what to think. “No. I think you’re telling the truth. But to what end?”

  To his side, Gary and Johnny had also gone silent. Gary more so, after the mention of his own long-dead parent. “To help us, Patrick. I know it hardly seems like we can trust him, but after what he’s told us, including the part about how he killed his own daughter,” No one exchanged looks at BJ’s mention. They didn’t want to give her secret away. “he definitely wants to beat these guys as much as we do.”

  “And we now heard it from himself that his connection to the current president goes that far back.” Johnny said. “And I guess Gear hasn’t yet forgotten, considering he’s been keeping tabs on him this whole time.” Elder looked amused at hearing that. “Not very well though. Doc, you should have seen how little information he had on you.”

  His friend nodded, looking back up at the doctor, who still looked like a canary-fed cat. “The watches… they’re Serpent League technology?”

  “Correct.” Elder said. “I’m not going to pretend to have any idea how that group’s science works, but I figured out just enough of it to put power into those old things.”

  “How did you do it?” asked Johnny. “how did you make the watches have the teleportation power?”

  Elder laughed. “Lots and lots of hours in the lab, working with my colleagues, and embezzling government and university funding to my own pursuits. The solution I injected into my daughter that turned her into a monster; I didn’t use all of it. In one experiment, I noticed that the solution with the League’s blood reacted strongly to gold. When my own fingers interacted with the substances, I noticed that the results of the chemical reactions would change depending on how much I willed it to react.”

  Only three pairs of glazed eyes looked back at Elder.

  “That’s right, as if I had a psychic control on what would happen. Think about it,” Elder crossed his arms again, deep in thought. “the Serpent League does everything by will. They can transform and sometimes even teleport at will, just like any normal activity like blinking or stretching your jaw. Sometimes I think the answer to this whole mess lies simply in primal animal will. Once I saw what could happen, I gathered enough gold and I made the two watches, with the help of other brilliant men and women, many of whom no longer live, and then I gave them to James and Gordon, the two people I believed so passionately shared my vision, for use in emergencies.”

  Gary shook his head. “But both our fathers told us that the watches had been in our families for many years.”

  “Untrue. I can only guess that James didn’t want you to have any business in this.”

  “And what about what’s been happening to me?” Patrick’s voice was softer, almost older. “The psychic business with the watch, how did I get connected to it? What is it that this old watch wills for me to do?”

  “Yours…’” Elder hesitated. “Is a little bit of a different story.” He looked away from Patrick. “See, your father knew about what happened to my daughter and what I had to do to her. But he thought he knew better than what me and my scientists were doing. One day, when our cold war against the League was getting tough, your father took you…”

  “…and had experiments done on you.”

  All four heads turned to the doorway behind the bookcase. Even Elder was surprised to see the woman standing there, who was looking at her son with tears in her eyes.

  Patrick shot out of his seat, speechless.

  “You didn’t have to come up here, Laura,” Elder said. “I told you that.”

  She came into the room, sheepishly. “I know, but our secret has been hidden for so long, and now that it’s threatening all our lives it must be let out.”

  As she approached her son, all eyes turned to Patrick. “Mom, what are you talking about? What are you both talking about?”

  “Everything that’s been happening to you has been your father’s doing.” Elder lowered
his head again. “Do you want to tell him, Laura? He was your husband.”

  “Yes, Samuel.” She wrapped her arms around Patrick’s shoulders as if they were reuniting after years apart and rested her head against his shoulders and began to sob.

  “Please, please.” Patrick whispered. Behind him Johnny and Gary were standing up too. ‘It’s okay. I’ve…I’ve done a lot of living since last seeing you, mom. Whatever you think you did to me or for whatever dad might have done to me, it’s okay.”

  “No. No. It isn’t.” She wiped her eyes against her sleeve. “It was shortly after we first acquired that bat, the one you all are so familiar with. Gordon started to grow paranoid. He was turning to fantasy more than science, as if he were sinking into his own stories. He became more and more sure that the Serpent League was watching us, and that they would strike any moment and take away what he loved most, as they did with Samuel. So, in his warped state, he thought that the only way to beat the League was to defeat them from the inside out.”

  “What does that mean?” Patrick asked. “What did he want of me?”

  Gary let out a child-like gasp. He turned to Johnny, whispering something in his ear. Johnny’s jaw dropped. “That makes so much sense.”

  “Gordon Buchanan wanted to turn Patrick into one of the creatures, didn’t he?” asked Gary.

  Laura’s head was still buried in her son’s shoulder, so Elder nodded for her.

  “And what happened?” Patrick asked. “I don’t even remember that happening. I mean, he must not have succeeded, right? A lot of weird stuff is happening to me, but I’m not ‘one of them’ now. What went wrong?”

  His mother wiped her eyes again, standing up straight. “We don’t know. He locked the door to Samuel’s laboratory when he did it. Oh God, I banged and banged on the door, but he wouldn’t let me in…” It didn’t look like she was finished talking, but Elder ushered her to his side. She would likely have burst into tears if she said more.