Love for the Cold-Blooded. Or

by Alex Gabriel

  Being a minion was a stressful job. Pat wasn’t about to turn down a relaxing massage by a nubile superhero who totally put out, too.

  “It’s the first time I’ve — had sex while, uhm. In uniform.”

  “Silver Paladin gets no tail, huh,” Pat said, now smirking openly. “That’s sad, man. That dude has got no game.”

  Nick’s snort of derision was accompanied by a deliberate once-over of Pat’s dissolute state. “I don’t know about that. He seems to be doing alright.”

  “Evil minions have no standards, well-known fact.” Pat grinned as obnoxiously as he could manage, which was plenty obnoxious. “Besides, sometimes they’re just doing their duty. You know, distracting the hero by any means at their disposal.” The other minions had definitely had plenty of time to finish their assigned clean-up tasks by now. Talk about effective distractions. Pat totally won the minion of the year award… or would have, if there had been such a thing.

  Of course, Nick had been the one who started fooling around, and the entire thing had snow-balled from there with no planning or calculation involved on Pat’s part. But Nick's entire body froze for an instant, his expression locking into stillness, and Pat knew that for one second, he was actually considering it. For the space of that one second, he was wondering if Pat had fooled him all along, and was in reality an ice-cold, cunning elite minion with the deception skills of a chameleon.

  In the next second, Nick grinned, and the strange hard distance vanished from his eyes as though it had never been. Pat had one moment to feel a surprisingly intense rush of relief. Then, Nick was looming purposefully closer, hands tightening high up on Pat’s thighs. Pat couldn’t get hard again this quickly, but there was a definite hot flutter in his gut at the feel of Nick’s hands on him… Nick’s attention focused solely on him, to the exclusion of all else.

  “Would you look at the mouthy minion. Seems like someone hasn’t learned his lesson yet, doesn’t it?”

  Seemed very much like that, yeah. Very much indeed.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Expect the expected. (Expecting the unexpected is a given.)

  When the attack came, Pat was loaded down with plastic bags, backpack hanging heavily on one shoulder. He’d been taught better than this from the time he could toddle — but he wasn’t thinking of things like challengers and heroes, monsters and minions. The need for constant vigilance had momentarily escaped his mind. Instead, he was wondering whether he’d go to the trouble of heating up his sweet and sour veggies or just scarf them down lukewarm. Rather than balancing carefully on the balls of his feet, equally ready to attack, defend or evade, Pat was shifting the slightly sticky plastic bag holding the fried bananas so he could grip it with his teeth, maneuvering his backpack forward so he could pin it in place against the wall with one knee while he fished for his keys.

  And that — the exact moment when he was most off-balance — was when the lurking monster struck.

  The blow came from nowhere, catching him entirely off guard. It landed squarely across his shoulders and knocked him into the wall, teeth clicking together painfully. All of the air left his lungs in a whoosh. Sudden heat bloomed against his chest even as something unseen whipped by behind him, brushing against his calves, his back; gripped him by the shoulders to send him reeling through the hall with the coordination of a drunken frat boy trying to dance the macarena.

  The fried banana, a distant corner of his mind announced even as the rest of him flailed in confusion, trying to catch up with what was happening. That was the source of the heat — the banana’s flimsy plastic container had been crushed, and now Pat had hot banana and honey mush all down his front.

  He finally caught himself and began to turn, catching a glimpse of light sparking off iridescent armor and a massive, looming form that filled out the entire corridor. He even spotted a blur of movement from the corners of his eyes — something was darting towards him — but it did him no good. He was nowhere near fast enough to evade it.

  A hard coil of armored muscle caught Pat around the middle, lifting him straight up in the air. Sweet and sour tofu stir-fry flew across the hall like a missile. The world shifted crazily as more and more cold, scaled coils drew tight around him, enveloping him from ankle to shoulders. He was moving, he noticed belatedly; they were moving, his assailant swinging him through the air to pop him through the suddenly open door of his apartment. Once inside, he found himself lifted so high he was momentarily afraid he’d crack his skull on the ceiling. The muscled coils holding him drew tighter until he could hardly breathe, ribs creaking from the strain.

  Pat wheezed and tried to wriggle in protest, but it was no use. He was nearly completely immobile, couldn’t even find the leverage to push at the coils properly. And he still hadn’t seen more of his assailant than confused impressions of a long, thickly muscled body covered in bronze and gold, of razor-edged scales, writhing strands of onyx hair framing a pale visage dominated by burning red eyes, and sharp bone-white fangs in a gaping black maw.

  If he strained his neck all the way to the right, he could see those same fangs at the very periphery of his vision, drawing closer. They glistened with a thick, viscous fluid that Pat was pretty sure was poison. “I could just eat you up,” whispered a harsh, sibilant voice, resonant with the terrible power of a hundred long-dead serpent gods.

  “Mo-ooommm,” whined Pat, fighting to take in another half breath in the grip of the overly tight hug.

  She let up on him at last, lowering him to the ground with no further attempt to break his ribs with her greeting. Pat turned around as soon as he could move, hugging her back with barely less enthusiasm. Her hug was still exactly the same, cool and dry and full of love. She smelled the same, too, like sunlight and earth and the perfume she always used, an incense-touched scent called Witch Summer.

  By the time he let go of his mother again, Pat was feeling embarrassingly unsteady, eyes burning. It had been so long since he’d seen her — nearly two years, now. So much had happened… so much had changed. So many things he’d wanted to share with her, so many unimportant little secrets he’d wanted the chance to guard.

  “Patpat, my darling snakelet.” His mom took him gently by the shoulders, smiling her beautiful, familiar smile. “Look at you, all grown-up and handsome! Only yesterday you were a tiny hatchling, and today you’re ready to claim your own territory. You grew up so fast.”

  Pat hadn’t thought he’d changed that much since she’d sailed off to her secret jungle hide-out on another continent, but hey, that kind of thing was always difficult to tell if you saw yourself (or whoever) every day. Maybe he really had matured. Grown as a person, like. Moms could tell that kind of thing, right?

  One thing was for sure, though: His mom had changed a lot more than he. Her serpent form was at least twice as large and powerful as it had been when she’d last worn it, back when Pat was a kid. Even coiled up so tightly it looked uncomfortable, she still filled his entire living room. He remembered her being mostly green, but now she sparked gold and bronze whenever she moved, light glancing off her jewel-like scales like cascades of sparks. Her face and torso were shining with what looked to be an entirely human youthful beauty at first glance, but a closer look revealed that this skin, as well, was covered in scales — soft, tiny skin-toned ones that formed an intricate, monochrome diamond pattern. Her casual lime-green sun dress brought out the lively metallic shade of her scales. Her eyes shone in the richest of ruby hues, and her hair was caught up in a ponytail, the ends of the more vivacious strands writhing on her shoulders and down her back.

  She was beautiful, and glorious, and terrible, and Pat had missed her so much.

  “What do you call the thing happening on your head, Patrick? We’re not medusas, unless there’s something your father isn’t telling me.”

  Pat grinned and promised to get a haircut soon. Complaints about his hair were a time-honored West family tradition; Pat himself never paid that much attention to it, and just forgo
t to get it cut when he was busy. Besides, he thought his curls looked kinda nice when they were a bit longer and actually had the chance to curl.

  He surprised himself by wondering whether Nick had an opinion on the matter. Maybe he liked Pat’s hair a little longer, too… Pat ought to check with him.

  His mom was giving him a narrow-eyed ruby look when he shook off his momentary distraction. She didn’t comment, though, just smiled warmly enough to show the tips of her fangs. “Show me your domain, my child. I would see your territory.”

  So he did. She laughed at the Jaguar cover prettying up his brand-new couch (Nick had sent a bunch of people to deliver the thing without even asking Pat, so Pat was exacting vengeance by adorning the stylish, no doubt hideously expensive sofa with Jaguar’s manly abs). She subjected Pat to a Glare of Maternal Rebuke over the contents of his fridge, which was pretty unfair, seeing as she’d just destroyed his dinner. She nodded approvingly at Pat’s new computer, monitor and printer, and seemed genuinely interested when he showed her some of his designs.

  A bit later Pat rescued the remains of his take-out from the hallway, and they shared a meal of reheated sweet and sour tofu, with a spoonful of smashed banana for dessert. He told his mom about urban design and swimming and the reading his favorite author was giving next month, and his mom told him about her plans for world domination, and that she’d taken up photography as a hobby and was old-school enough to actually develop film in a dark room.

  Pat did not mention that he’d kinda enjoyed being Sir Toby’s minion. He didn’t want to get his mom’s hopes up. He so did not need another round of that discussion — he’d only just gotten his family to accept that he wasn’t studying to construct a clever cover, but because he fully intended to be an actual urban designer.

  He also didn’t mention Nick. He couldn’t even imagine the kind of discussions they’d be having about Nick, and he didn’t want to start earlier than he had to. It wasn’t cowardice… it was prudence.

  “Your father tells me you have chosen a young man to warm your bed and stand at your side, my snakeling,” said his mother. “When will I meet him?”

  Best laid plans, and all that. “Errr,” said Pat. “I’m… not sure? He’s pretty busy.”

  “Patrick, if he has time for you, he has time for your family. Besides, do you think that world domination will leave me a lot of leisure in which to question and test your… partner? A quick meeting here and there will suffice. One will have to take place before we begin to put my plans in motion, of course. He must be made aware of the consequences should he fail to make you happy.”

  “Mo-oom,” Pat groaned. His sisters had fought this battle with Mom so often that Pat had always hoped it would be a non-issue by the time he found someone. Nobody liked to bring their date home to meet the parents only to have them terrified into incoherency or (once, in Zen’s case) immediately pack up and flee the country.

  Not that Nick would be terrified, let alone attempt to flee the country to evade Serpentissima’s wrath. Of course he wouldn’t, which — incidentally — was yet another sign that Pat had managed to strike the relationship jackpot.

  “Oh, alright, Patrick. I will refrain from threatening the boy, if it embarrasses you so. Your sisters always insisted that such talks are frightfully old-fashioned. It isn’t as though you aren’t perfectly capable of tearing him limb from limb yourself, if he makes you unhappy.”

  Protesting that he would in all likelihood have serious trouble tearing Silver Paladin limb from limb — and that he couldn’t actually imagine a situation in which he would want to — would have been counterproductive, so Pat took the high road and refrained from comment. He was proud of himself for his wisdom and moderation for almost five whole seconds. Then, his mom began pressing him for details about the mysterious Nick she’d heard so little about.

  He didn’t hold up very long before succumbing to the urge to talk about how smart Nick was, and how socially inept and clueless, and how wonderful. His mom’s tongue flicked out periodically as he spoke, scenting the air.

  Come to think… she’d been doing that a lot all through the apartment tour, too. Pat faltered a little in his take-down of Nick’s horrible taste in music, trying to remember if she’d always tasted the air so often when wearing serpent skin. She was probably searching for traces of Nick’s scent in Pat’s place, trying to get a better idea of who he was.

  There had to be a lot of scent traces of Nick here by now. Pat smiled a little, remembering. Nick standing in front of his book case reading the titles. Nick in Pat’s tiny kitchen nook, making scrambled eggs with Ay giving instructions over the phone. Nick curled up in the desk chair with Demon Heart (Nick had scoffed when Pat had talked about the book, but the joke had been on him. Pat had known nobody would be able to resist the wild romance of Pascal, the noble exiled prince, and Marguerite, the half-demon assassin sent to permanently remove him from the succession).

  Nick waking up in Pat’s bed, all mussed and grumpy, warm and pliant with sleep… sighing sweetly into Pat’s mouth.

  Suddenly Pat was glad he’d gotten rid of the old couch before his mom visited. There were some things no mother needed to know.

  ~~~~~

  “Nick, about that minion duty rotation my sisters and I have going. You never let me tell you why the West family is so wrapped up in the challenger network, but I’m gonna do that now. Seriously, dude, events are conspiring here. We need to up our level of disclosure, like, stat. So just listen for a moment, okay? Don’t interrupt and hear me out.” Pat paused to take a deep breath and let it out again slowly, evenly. Yeah, that was a good start. He could do this. It was time. It was high time, and he could so do this, because he was awesome and fearless and undaunted by the terrors of the mortal world. Even if he’d started nervously gnawing his lip at some point in the last five seconds. “It’s because of my mom. She knows everyone — every challenger who is anyone, or ever was, or ever will be. Which is because my mom is Serpentissima, the Serpent Rising.”

  Silence. Silence that practically shouted curses and accusations. The sounds of some radio interview filtering in to the bedroom through the thin walls did nothing to lower the tension. Pat cleared his throat, noticed he was still (again?) biting his lip, and went on doggedly.

  “You said you considered her the most impressive supervillain, which, yeah. She is super impressive, although remember how we talked about the wording thing? She’s a challenger, not a villain. Mom isn’t evil, she just knows that she can do a better job of running the world than the people currently making a hash of things. Hard not to agree with her there, yeah? I mean, you watch the news, right? That bullshit would make a saint want to pick up the challenger mantle. Not me, though, no worries. That is so not my thing. My parents know that too, and they’re fine with it.” Kinda… mostly. Now. But those were minor details, and would only muddy the waters.

  Almost there. One more point, and he was done. “Mom’s back, ready to rise again in terrible glory. So, yeah. Thought I should give you a heads-up. Don’t want you finding out on your own and deciding that you have to break up with me for evilly hiding pertinent info or whatever. That would suck, and also be complete nonsense. Also, you should know that the parental units really want to meet you. You my boyfriend, not you Silver Paladin. I haven’t actually told them about the part where you’re a superhero. They just want to make sure you’re not some creepy abusive lech preying on their youngest kid, so again, no worries. They even promised not to threaten you with bodily harm if you make me cry, which is good because sometimes I cry at sad movies. Also books.”

  Pat got stuck there because he hadn’t intended to talk about crying, and wasn’t sure how he’d managed to get on the subject. It was fine, though, he’d just leave that bit out. The rest was good.

  “Yeah, just wanted to disclose that, Nick,” he said softly, turning to his side to face the pillow next to him, which still bore the indentation of Nick’s head. “You’re not going to be an
ass about it, right?”

  Okay, maybe he’d better leave out that last bit, too.

  Nick was in the kitchenette, poised over Pat’s single frying pan near-motionless, with the air of a general mid-battle. He was wearing Pat’s favorite gray sweatpants and an €linore t-shirt. Both were slightly too small for him and clung enticingly to the clean lines of his body. Pat stole a look at Nick’s glorious butt, hugged lovingly by worn cotton; couldn’t resist looking again slightly more lingeringly.

  “Patrick,” Nick said, flatly. He didn’t even glance at Pat. From anyone else, it would have been a brusque greeting, even an unfriendly one. From Nick, of course, it was a sign that he was concentrating on something else, but was nevertheless willing to pay attention to and make time for Pat.

  Pat sidled a bit closer until he could see over Nick’s shoulder. He slid a hand around his middle for balance, only feeling up his abs very slightly in the process. “Hey.” It came out soft, almost a whisper.

  Heat shimmered in the air above the frying pan. Nick had unearthed a wooden spatula from gods knew where, and was rinsing it in the sink. That was one advantage of a small kitchen — everything was right next to everything else.

  “Test the temperature of the oil by introducing a drop of water into the pan,” said Ay, speaking through Nick’s mobile phone. The phone was propped up on the shelf at an angle that gave its camera (and thus Ay) a good view of the stove and work surface.

  Nick hovered the wet spatula over the oil in the pan, carefully placing a single drop of water squarely in the middle of the smooth surface. The water danced and sizzled, evaporating with a hiss that Nick acknowledged with a brisk, satisfied nod.

  “The oil has reached a level of heat sufficient for omelet frying,” announced Ay. “Reduce the heat to 3 and pour half the egg mixture into the pan.”