“You’re wrong about one thing:” Edgar said, wobbling closer to Master.
As he got in wing’s length of the reptile, Patrick saw something shine in the bat’s foot.
“I’m not going to be there for it.”
Edgar raised his foot, plunging Samuel’s bowie knife into Master’s chest. The creature hunched over, clutching the knife with its claws. Several thick drops of black fluid dripped from his chest.
“You’re expendable.” Master choked as he spoke. “You might have seemed important, but I didn’t need to wait for you. It could have been anyone…else. Gllk…you just happened to get lucky…”
“I know…I know…” Edgar said. “This whole thing has been a fluke. Out of all the creatures living, I was the one that happened to be turned into a monster. But I fought back. I rebelled. And I think I won in the end. And I was so angry…so angry that I was made to be something that kills…but Gordon Buchanan saw something else in me. He saw a protector. He saw a guardian. And for a dying man’s wish, I intend to fulfill that role. He saw a better purpose in me.”
Edgar twisted the knife around, turning the monster’s insides into slush. The dead blood had done its work.
Master moved forward with a chomp to Edgar’s shoulder. Behind him, Eagle Eye darted forward to restrain the reptile.
“Dad!” Lindsey cried.
The bird-man tried pulling the crocodile’s jaws out of Edgar’s shoulder. But they were too strong.
The crocodile bit down on the bat’s head, inhibiting him from seeing what his claws were doing. Master unsheathed the knife from his drying chest and slashed it through Eagle Eye’s wings, continuing to swipe it until he let go.
John Hunter fought through the pain, he knew what would happen if he ignored his better instincts. He kept a hold on Master’s neck until there was no more breath in him, and the blood had done its job.
“Dad!”
Eagle Eye turned back, in a daze. Edgar was there to hold him from falling. The bat held onto his sides until he knew that the detective would be able to stand on his own.
“Thank you,” the bat said.
“It was the right thing to do.” John said with a smile.
Eagle Eye clutched his side. An awful gash from the blade had blood pouring out from his sides.
Lindsey and Rita rushed forward as he fell to the ground. John’s eyes were opened wide. He was in shock from the pain and from what the dead blood was slowly doing to his insides.
“Stay with me, dad,” Lindsey’s nose began to run. “Not like this. It can’t end like this!”
“I’m so so sorry.” Edgar bowed, clutching his heart.
She burst forward, closing the bat in with a vigorous hug as her tears fell onto his fur.
Rita dapped the corners of her eyes with her sleeve.
“Lindsey…” his voice croaked.
She turned back from Edgar, crouching down at her father’s side. Blood continued to ooze from his side, slowly settling in a thick black pool.
“I love you so much.”
She couldn’t hold her tears back anymore. They burst out like two balloons. “I love you too! You died a hero, dad! You died saving the world!”
“And I was happy too.” His beak-like mouth made a smile. “Most importantly, I did it as I was happy. So very happy for the world I’ve helped all the years, and with the knowledge that it would still be helped, since you and your friends are in it.”
She held his hand the rest of the time, consoling him and sharing a couple last laughs before the black blood took over, and Eagle Eye breathed no more.
The bat stepped back from his lifeless enemy. He looked to the skies. The birds were still circling. From all around the empty island, he could hear the prowling of hostile creatures.
“It’s too late to stop them.” he said.
Patrick shook his head. “There’s got to be a way!”
“There is. There is one thing left to do.”
The bat turned from them, to the fallen BJ. She was still lying on the ground. Not far from where Samuel lay. Her breathing was slowing down.
Edgar lowered to all fours, inspecting her injury.
“She’ll be okay. Her wound is not as bad as it looks.” he told them
“What about doctor Elder?” Johnny asked.
The bat walked over to Samuel. He was conscious, but the wounds given to him by the bat himself were much more severe.
Edgar lowered his ears, shaking his head at Johnny.
“Edgar…” Gary covered his eyes.
“I’m sorry, friends,” he said. “but this is the only thing left to do. An unthinkable amount of blood has been unleashed upon the world.” He put a wing to his chest, starting to take slow breaths. “There needs to be someone to counteract it. The League has made me the most powerful creature on earth. I’m the only one who can survive with the dead blood long enough to put an end to this.”
Edgar picked up the jar of dead blood by Samuel’s body, and instantly downed it like water. A shudder went through his body as he drank the last of it. The feeling of it in his body was quick.
Silence fell among the souls of the gang. Gary’s hands were still over his face. Lindsey’s grasp was still on her father, and no one else knew what to do with themselves.
“No, this is my fault.” Patrick said, holding back his tears. “I saw this coming, back when we were hiding in the Bronstrom Building. During one of my episodes I saw this coming, and I didn’t even say anything. I could have said something, I could have-”
The bat approached him. Gary didn’t want to lower his hands from his eyes, so Edgar grabbed his back with his wing, clutching both humans against his shoulders.
“I love you guys.” He said. “But I didn’t love you enough to trust you. To trust how you could have changed the world to help me.
“Something is coming,” his tone grew graver. “there was something that Master didn’t want us to know. Probably many things. But I don’t think he was a liar. There was a reason he didn’t fight, and there was a reason they were so concerned about the ‘willing’. Don’t let this end without learning something from this. Love each other. Love every creature in this world. You can never know the kind of potential that lies inside them. Be kind. With all my anger, that was something I could never do. There won’t be any more tears from me. All the guns have left the saloon. I’ve done my good now, and it’ll be better once I’m gone.”
“Please, there must be something else you can do.” Gary wiped the warm tears off his cheeks. “It doesn’t have to end like this. You don’t deserve to die.”
“I know. But it’s not about who deserves what. It’s just about who has to do what. Who has to face the choices they made. I need to undo as much as I can. I only hope that, whatever residue there is of the League among life, that it be used for the betterment of everyone.”
Edgar turned from his friends, down into his mind. He felt the dead blood surging through his body, washing over every organ and slowly killing them. He had told his friends what he had to do, but there were thousands of other creatures he owed words to.
I’m afraid I need to take back everything I promised. It wasn’t mine to promise.
Don’t go. Came a plea from an animal.
His abilities were already waning. He couldn’t even tell what kind of animal the plea had come from.
It was a mistake. This whole thing was a mistake. It was only death and terror and nothing else. It wouldn’t have ended as I promised. You would have been under a brutal leadership. Worse yet, I would have become the tyrant.
His last words went out to all the creatures of the earth. They all heard him, and before he could hear any cheers or protests from any of them, the part of his body that allowed him to connect with the minds of animals was taken out by the dead blood.
“I love you all so much.” he said, turning to the gang. “You made me a less broken animal.”
One of the gryphons approached him. It was the fe
male one he had gotten to know.
“I killed Inas.” She said.
“I figured that would happen somehow.”
“This thing you’re going to do…it’s too much for one animal to bear, even if it is the great King Delta.”
The remainder of the gryphons surrounded Edgar. They all stared at him, not as if they still viewed him as their fearful leader, but now as a friend.
“We will take his sacrifice with you.” she said. “You’ll need the help. And it is the right thing to do, as the bird-human had said.”
Edgar nodded, feeling a warmth of compassion flowing through him. There were eight gryphons surrounding him, and he went one by one through them, biting them on the necks and giving them each doses of his dying blood.
The first few shook, feeling the full effect of their undoing right away. The others showed it less, having seen from the others what it does to their bodies.
“There’s no going back from this.” the bat said. “This ends it. The presence of the Serpent League ends tonight.”
With a leap, Edgar turned to all the humans below him. Gary was standing next to Patrick, and they both clutched each other as tears ran down their eyes. The pain that they gave him made him not want to look at the others, but he had to. Lindsey still knelt at her father’s body, at Rita’s side, as Edgar took off. They looked up at him, eyes full of sadness.
Slate, Johnny, and Jane watched too. He could feel the unhappiness among them. He could feel them fighting back the urge to turn away, to make what was happening seem less real. But it was the only thing they could do right now.
He never looked away from all of them, and they didn’t look away from him.
A rushing of feet came from the side. Laura had just gotten off her gryphon, and she was darting to her son, capturing him in a strong embrace.
“What’s happening?” she begged.
“It’s not good, mom.” he replied. “John Hunter…Sam Elder…”
She turned from him, looking at the downed figure of Samuel Elder. His daughter was at his side. It looked as if the effects of the blood were coming out of her, and her father was the only living victim left.
“Sam!” she knelt at his side, taking his hand.
Patrick followed her, taking a spot between her and BJ. “Doctor Elder…I’m so sorry.”
“No,” he coughed up a spurt of black spots. “I deserved it. Edgar didn’t mean to do it, but there is justice here.” He raised his hand to his daughter’s cheek, brushing her tears away. “All I needed to know was that my daughter was okay.”
“Dad…” she blubbered. “We were going to live better. We were going to be happy. None of that was a lie, I need you to know that!”
“I do. And I never in my happiest dreams would have imagined that I would get to see you in my final moments.”
Turning to Patrick, his smile disappeared. “Gordon’s son, I’m the last of that old group of young souls who tried to change the world. To think I died trying to reverse some things I caused.” He laughed. “I’m the last one. There will no more in your life…I think in that way, you’re more free now than you’ve ever been.”
Samuel leaned up, putting his arms under his daughter’s. He held her until the warmth of his touch went away, cold.
From the safety of the White House emergency room President Gregory Gear watched the footage.
News cameras, through helicopter surveillance, captured the rise of Edgar and the gryphons as they took to the skies, intercepting the massive ring of black birds that had been dripping Serpent League blood around the radius. The bat and the gryphons merged with the mutant creatures, biting and pecking at each other to merge both the living and the dead blood.
With the actions of the sacrificial animals, the radius spread even faster. With Edgar and the gryphons being the fastest creatures on earth, they zoomed from zone to zone, spinning around as they dripped the dead blood from their wounds, hoping to counteract all the living blood that had spread all across the country.
It would be a long-shot, and the blood would always be there in some form, but it was the only thing to do to minimize the damage.
The cameras were capturing the action for hours. The president was getting feed from all the major cities across the country. Los Angeles, San Francisco, Dallas, Austin, Philadelphia, Chicago, and New York. They were all saying that the influence of the bat and his friends’ actions were starting to have a noticeable effect there. Mutant creatures that had been terrorizing the streets were gone. Some of them taken out with the help of enemy mutant animals, and some of them that simply went away, probably no longer wishing to fight without the voice of King Delta in their heads.
The president was stuck in the safe news room for hours after Edgar took to the sky to finish what he started before being told it was now safe to go back upstairs.
“They did it.” Gear nodded. “The Raven Gang managed to save the day again.”
“But it wasn’t just them.” said his horn-rimmed glasses-wearing advisor. She took her glasses off to wipe her eyes. “Those creatures changed their minds. They sacrificed themselves to stop this.”
The President sighed. “I know…can you get me my glass of water? I haven’t had a sip in hours.”
She turned around, reaching to the table to pick his glass up. She lowered it to the table between them, putting a coaster under it.
“I’ll be right back.” she told him. “I’m going to check on a few things before being perfectly sure it’s okay for you to come up.”
With her leaving, he was alone in the room, except for two secret service agents guarding the door. He picked his glass up, then reeled back in pain.
“Gah,” he yipped softly.
He hadn’t noticed the chip on the rim of his glass. It was mostly a dull cut, but he put his thumb in just the sharpest spot. He dropped the glass onto the floor, where the carpet absorbed his drink.
Gregory Gear stared at the cut on his thumb. He hadn’t seen his blood in a while, but, in this case, it was almost like seeing an old friend.
The president picked his glass up. There was still some water that hadn’t spilled out. He wiped his bleeding thumb along the rim and watched the clear, colorless liquid slide into the glass.
The clear blood made it look as if it were just water in the cup, and he drank it.
“Where are you going?” Patrick asked.
Gary walked several paces ahead of him, wearing nothing but his pair of jeans. His bare skin had returned to normal, as it seemed everything had, now with the absence of the League.
“I’m going to get a drink.”
“There are many problems with that goal.” Patrick replied. “First, you’re not old enough to buy it legally, and there is not one bar on this island that’s open.”
“I don’t care. I’m going to keep walking and walking until I find one. Besides, now that I don’t have fur, I think a drink would warm me up nicely.”
Patrick sighed, putting his hands in his pocket. “Gary, you’re our friend. Lindsey’s father died just an hour ago. We need to be there for her.”
“I’m sorry, Patrick.” Gary turned away from him, starting to walk in the other direction. “but I’m not in a position to be there for someone right now. I’m a wreck, and I’ll only wreck other people.”
“You don’t even have to say anything.” Patrick paused, biting his lip to hold back tears. “Just be there for them.”
“I think you’ll get on fine without me. Johnny’s family is safe thanks to the gryphon, who can’t even talk now because the League’s blood is gone. I guess that means that all the dead blood in the world has done away with all the shapeshifters too. Makes me happy. If I’m going to lose my cool powers, I’m glad I’m not the only one.”
“Gary!” Patrick shouted, as he began to walk away again. “There’s still more we need to figure out. My powers make no sense. Why am I the only one without animal abilities? There aren’t telepathic animals, so why the hell do
I have these? Don’t you remember what Edgar said? The blood never completely goes away. There might still be mutant creatures around, something might be coming! We need to keep the Master’s dying words in mind.”
“It was a lie. That’s just what the League wants. They just want to scare us in the end. He was a wounded animal, and that’s how wounded animals fight.”
And Gary rounded the corner, leaving Patrick standing in the street.
Epilogue
Three Years Later
The clinking of a glass got everyone’s attention.
Everyone in the Auberge Flora hotel in Paris turned their heads. On this particular night, everyone was there for the same reason. It was humble, but it was a literary celebration.
“Everyone. Everyone.” The young man clinked his spoon against his glass one more time, earning the attention of the final two heads in the hotel restaurant. “I know this may mark the last stop of my book tour. I hear that Shakespeare and CO. is going to be putting chairs in the street to make room for my reading.”
The crowd laughed. Some people took the moment to take another sip of their beers or another bite of their fries with sweet ketchup.
“And I’m pleased to add that I just heard today that Weller College has decided to add me to their alumni hall of fame.” He lifted his arms in celebration. “I know, it is a humble honor, but an honor nonetheless, considering what was happening during the time I was a junior at that school.”
The patrons nodded silently. They knew what he was referring to.
“But, even with that adversity, I was still able to complete the first draft of this novel before the end of the first semester, and that was no easy feat, considering the length of the thesis Weller always has their juniors complete in their first semester.”
“Ugh…why is this guy still talking?”
The author turned to the far table, on the other side of the help counter. It was way in the back, near where the stairs led to the rooms on the second floor.
The Serpent League Page 27
