“You see,” said Master, a giant rabbit. “there is a little bit of everything in our blood. Every living thing that walks and creeps upon the earth or that ever did.” The rabbit grew a long tail and its arms receded as it grew longer teeth. “Like what you see?” asked a velociraptor.
“And what does this mean?” asked Delta.
“It means,” replied the frog. “that because there is a little bit of everything in us, we can understand everything. And isn’t that a quality that makes a great ruler? For so long I’ve been alone. Others of my kind have power like this, as you’ve seen, but nothing as strong as mine. And now, friend, I have given you my blood, and with it, you too can now get in the heads of everything.”
“I was talking to animals?” the bat blinked.
Master nodded. “A simple way to put it, but yes, you were communicating with them.”
“Where did you come from?” The bat folded his wings across his chest, feeling himself as if he were doing so for the first time. “What are you? What really is The Serpent League?”
“Heck, I’m not even sure what the correct answer to that is.” Master replied.
The bat tilted his head. “How is that possible?”
“It’s not for me to say what our history is. That doesn’t matter. It only matters what we do next.”
“You really don’t care? It doesn’t haunt you?”
“The memories of our past, of my past, would only serve to my detriment.” Master exhaled. “I have one purpose here and I intend to finish it.”
Delta raised his brow. “You make it sound like you’re a slave. Like you’re no different from the creatures you saved and recruited.”
“Indeed. That is my intention. You see, memories are shackles. They can prevent you from defining yourself because you’ll always be chained by your past. In my mission, there is no room for doubt, no room for second thoughts. All other memories have been taken, and all I have now are all the memories that motivate me to complete my purpose.”
“Who did that to you?” asked Delta.
“Consider them my bosses.” Master smiled. “Did you think I was the top dog here? Far from it. I’m just a unique animal with a purpose, as are you, Delta.
“But I pity you,” he continued. “I don’t have the power to eliminate memories, so you will be stuck with your conflicts, your loyalties. I trust you, but no doubt ushering in the new world will leave you feeling rather bad.”
“I’ll feel nothing.” the bat growled.
“Good. Good.” The massive reptile turned his back to the bat and started for the others. “Shortly, I’ll be calling forward the ‘shapeshifters’ as your friends call them, and we’ll spring into action. Get to know your subjects. Keep talking to them. Get in their heads! If your friends are as resourceful as I think, we’re going to need all the soldiers we can get!”
17
Christmas Eve
Lindsey’s jaw dropped. “How did-?”
“That’s the form she first took.” Elder replied. All the color was gone from his face. “I always thought it was because Mary and I would read her The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. I never got to ask her though, since I thought-”
The lioness approached Samuel, crouching down timidly. She stopped within arm’s length of him and stared into his eyes. She began to melt out of her feline form, a process that Elder had seen a number of times before, and grew into a human. When all the features finished molding she was just a few inches shorter than her father, but a hair or two taller than her mother.
“I hate what you’ve become.” BJ said to him.
No one in the observing gang knew what to say. It was a tender moment, and the future of their goals rested on what would happen in the following seconds.
Elder’s hands trembled. He tucked them into his underarms, so his daughter wouldn’t see.
“I hate what you’ve become too.” he replied.
Silence followed. To everyone’s surprise, BJ made the first move. Patrick recoiled. From the speed in which her arm wrapped around her father’s neck it looked like she was building an attack. But her other arm followed more gently.
Samuel accepted her. He dug his arms under hers and held her. His glasses fell to the ground as he put his face against her shoulders. His upper body began to shake as his hands dug into her clothing, and the sound of weeping followed.
“I thought you were gone.” her father cried. “The League…they told me they had taken your body away.”
“The League has said a lot of things.” she replied, sounding like she was fighting back tears herself. “They wanted me in my place. They wanted me out among the animals, so when the time came I would be theirs. But I said no, Daddy. I told them no.”
Samuel wiped his eyes with his sleeve, sniffling. “You were such a strong kid. Mary and I knew you’d grow up to be something special. And you have. But…ohh…I missed the whole thing.”
“We have time. We have time.” she told him. “We have all of us here now. I think with all of us put together, we have a chance against them.”
The doctor lifted his head from his daughter’s shoulder, turning to face the gang. “How did you do this? How did you find her?”
“She found us.” Patrick replied. “When you had Edgar in the cage, she’s the one that broke him out. Afterwards, she simply brought him back to our compound.”
“Oh, you brave girl.” he kissed her cheek. “What made you do it? What made you give up your peace to join them against the League?”
BJ brushed the corners of her eyes. “Call it a feeling. An instinct. I…was aware of everything you were doing. All the people you killed, Daddy. But I didn’t do anything. I didn’t think anything I did would be of consequence. I thought it was too late for you. Too late for me. But…something got me to meet the gang.”
“Probably the Serpent League trying to call her.” Gary commented.
“Regardless, it worked.” Jane said.
Samuel held his mouth open, looking at her face as if he were trying to take a photo. “This is too much. I…”
Patrick noticed that his mother had shrunk out of view. Her eyes had become red.
Despite anything that had been revealed that would keep them apart, she was his mother. And she had always been a good one to him.
“This must be weird for you.” Patrick said, trying a smile.
His mother coughed. “The night he lost his daughter changed him. We all remember it, at least…I remember it, since I’m the only one of that group left alive.”
“Do you think this is a good thing? I mean, a father is reuniting with his daughter! This’ll work to help us, don’t you think?”
His mother wrapped her arm around him. He hoped she would offer a smile or some kind of gesture to express a relief, but she didn’t.
“I didn’t want to come back.” BJ continued to her father. “When I was a child, just after it happened. I didn’t go back because I thought you didn’t love me anymore, and I was afraid you’d attack me again. As I got older, I never returned because I knew you would never look at me the same after what I had done.”
“It wasn’t your fault.” her father replied.
“I know,” she sniffed. “but the fact remains, I was the thing that did it. I didn’t think we would ever have a relationship again.”
“It’s okay.” Samuel wrapped his arms around her again. “Now that you’re here, we have an opportunity to try.”
“But first,” BJ turned to face everyone present. “we have serious work to do. We need to face the Serpent League, and there is a massive obstacle in our way.”
“Edgar?” Slate asked.
“Well, yes,” she replied. “but even before him is something more jarring. We have no idea where they’re going to be for their big takeover.”
“Right. Right.” Slate nodded. “How do we figure that out?”
Johnny stepped forward, grabbing Patrick by the arm. “Well, one of our boys here is a bit of a psyc
hic apparently.”
Slate and Lindsey cocked their heads in recognition, but the detectives didn’t look very in-the-know.
“What are you talking about?” Rita asked.
“Oh, I guess we forgot to fill you in on that.” Johnny replied. “Elder helped us get to the bottom of Patrick’s problem with the watch.”
Patrick shook his head. “Elder told us that he was the one who gave the watches their power. They have the League’s blood in them.”
The doctor approached them, crossing his arms over his chest. “The League did most of the work with the technology. I just tried to replicate it. I’d be hard pressed to give you the exact schematics of the science.”
“But you know more than any of us?” Gary said.
“True. Quite so.”
“Tell them, then.” Gary urged. All the talking seemed like it was making Gary testy. Patrick figured he was restless to face Edgar again.
Elder paced the length of the group, explaining that, while he was no expert in the seemingly alien tech and talents of the League, that his conclusions led him to believe that will was the League’s greatest tool. And if they could, they would have to use it against them. Somehow in Patrick’s development into an adult, all-the-while having the watch in his possession. The watch had slowly become in tune with his mind.
“We need to make him afraid?” Slate asked.
Jane smiled. “If it’s fear you want, give him a gun and tell him to fire it. He was always too afraid to do that when we were kids, when his dad took us to the range.”
“Are we seriously doing this again?” Patrick stammered.
“What else are we supposed to do?” asked Gary. “We need answers, and we need them now. Patrick, you’re going to have to get worked up again.”
Patrick shook his head. “No. No. No. It’s different this time. Last time this was done to me, I didn’t know that I was being intentionally worked up. Now that I’m aware of what your plan is, how am I supposed to-?”
UHHHEERRRRHHEERRRRRR!
Patrick felt himself fall onto his back, where he was being towered over by a massive elephant. The behemoth was standing on two feet with its forelegs hovering over his body. Its eyes were focused on him, looking vaguely amused as its trunk swung about as if trying to swat invisible flies.
He felt his mind sink again.
He was no longer outside the cabin. There were no trees about, and no sign of people either, except for the countless rows of giant buildings lining the sides of the streets. The only light around came from the few streetlights that still had the audacity to shine. There was no moon out. And even if it had been out, the dense purple clouds would have barred all of its glow.
Something was different about this one. Not since his very first strange vision, the one he had sitting outside the Weller campus fountain with Johnny and the one just before losing his watch, thinking Gary had stolen it, had one felt so bleak.
It felt part of the same world. Like there was finally some continuity. Though that revelation didn’t help much, since he didn’t know what the hell he was supposed to be looking at.
But he knew where he was. He had been here on vacation with his parents before. To his left was the Crowne Plaza Hotel where they had stayed. With all the vacancy, without even a single abandoned car or other vehicle, he could nearly see the Time Square, and far enough away, NBC Studios and even the Nintendo Store that he had spent hours browsing.
With a blink, it all vanished, and his mind felt like it was being rushed to the surface of a sinking ship.
When he opened his eyes again BJ was standing above him. One hand was stretched out to him, and the other was covering her mouth, and what Patrick assumed was a smile. The amusement in her eyes was the same that had been in the elephant’s.
“Somebody please tell me they got that on video!” Lindsey laughed.
“Sorry,” Rita said as she put her phone back in her pocket. “I wasn’t quick enough.”
Patrick accepted BJ’s hand, clutching his head as he got back on his feet.
“Clever.” he told her.
“What else was I supposed to do?” BJ laughed. “You were making a good case. I had to surprise you.”
“And it worked, didn’t it?” Elder asked. “You were out for a few seconds, stuck with a glazed look in your eye like a baby chick.”
“Yes. Yes.” Patrick rubbed his temples. “I wasn’t sure what I was looking at, but I know where I was. I think we need to go to New York.”
“New York?” several of his friends exclaimed.
Elder nodded. “There is a logic to that. It’s Christmas Eve. Everywhere in that city is going to be bustling.”
“Christmas Eve!” Slate shouted. “Damn, I completely forgot.”
Lindsey took his hand in hers. “I guess we all did, with all the action. Sorry I forgot to get you something, Slate.”
“Likewise.” he replied. “But there’ll be plenty of time for that later.”
“An optimistic way of thinking.” Gary frowned. “Regardless, we need to get over there now. The more time we stand here, the more the League moves forward.”
Patrick dug into his pocket. He and Gary had gotten used to the watches, but they had yet to go somewhere so far away with so many other passengers.
To his side, Gary did the same, brushing the head of the clock clean.
“I don’t know if this is going to work.” Patrick looked to everyone. “Gary and I have never transported so many people before.”
“If it doesn’t work.” Eagle Eye said. “You guys can make two trips, can’t you?”
“Maybe…” Gary scratched his arm. “But doing this takes a lot of energy out of us. It takes even more out of Patrick, given his condition.”
“Let’s just do our best.”
Patrick grabbed Gary’s hand in his, holding it up as if they were about to start arm wrestling. He extended his other hand out, and his mother followed suit, taking hold of Samuel as well as Jane.
On Gary’s side Johnny and the detectives grabbed on, with Slate, Lindsey, and BJ taking him from the back.
“I’ll carry more weight.” Gary told him. “If anything happens, we’re going to need you with all the energy you have to do your psychic stuff again.”
“Thanks.” Patrick replied, tightening his grip on his mother.
The arms of the clock spun and spun like a centrifuge, slowly creating a light that made everyone shut their eyes.
Before it got too bright, Patrick saw Gary turn his head away. He had no doubt he knew what his friend was thinking about.
“He’s not lost, Gary. We’ll find him, and we’ll save him from the League.”
He couldn’t see his friend’s face, as the light took over and then their feet were no longer on the ground.
What are you going to do? asked a new voice.
I’m going to make things better, replied the bat. I’m going to lead the League to a new world. If I’m successful, then everything like you will be happier. Some of you might even attain higher forms. The League can do incredible things. Our mission is noble that way.
Delta had been at it for hours. Talking to millions of animals through his new telepathic link didn’t start easily. It was giving him awful headaches, but now the worst was over. In the time since he started he was now reaching more creatures at one time and their communication path was stronger. He wasn’t even sure what type of animal he was talking to, but based on its quickness to accept his communication, it might not have been too bright. Or maybe that was a sign of intelligence?
So…I might get bigger arms and a bigger chest and bigger teeth to ward off my enemies?
I can promise nothing. But even if you don’t change, the League’s blood will spread all over the Earth. Others like you will be made superior, and they will protect you from threats.
What will you have me do so I can do my part?
Fight, if you need to. I’m not pleased about it, but I suspect that we will be fac
ing opposition. If need be, I will alert you to our adversaries, and I want you to attack, and get all your brothers and sisters to attack.
Thank you, bat.
The voice ended. That was just one of the thousands of conversations Delta was having at that second. In the past hours he had been in link with millions of animals of millions of species. Many of them welcomed his voice into their heads and liked what he had to say about the League. Others seemed indifferent, others uncomprehending. Just as many were hostile from the start, even after Delta had explained himself. But, considering the mounting supporters he was earning, some massive animals like whales, elephants, tigers, and bears, if there was a time all of them came to blows over the voice of a bat in their heads, things could be good for the League.
And not so good for the Raven Gang.
Delta shook his head.
It was too late for anything anyway. He was already well into his work. If he had any second thoughts, it would be a herculean effort to try to undue all the madness he and the League had already wrecked upon the animal world.
“Making friends?”
Delta looked over to see Master approaching him, still donning his massive reptilian form.
“In a matter of speaking.” the bat replied. “I’ve been what you call an ‘animal’ for my whole life, and I’m just discovering how insufferable some of them can be.”
Master released a deep chuckle, patting the bat by the tuffs of his neck. “Yes, I know what you mean. In our whole existence, we’ve communicated with every species multiple times, so I know what you mean.”
“But it comes easier to me now.” Delta replied. “Now that I have your blood, it’s as if I have a little of every creature in me as well.”
“Correct.” Master nodded.
“If only that meant that I would be able to make friends with them without fail.” he sighed. “I don’t know how this is going to go down, and we’re going to need everything we have.”
“I wouldn’t worry about it.”
The Serpent League Page 19
