The Serpent's Kiss

52

Michael Church was fuming. Back in his car, he cranked the stereo, an MP3 of J Slim rattling the windows. He guessed he was going home. He didn’t want to go home. He didn’t actually know what he wanted to do. The day had been so full of revelations his head was spinning.

His father had been a spy!

He felt something that might have been pride. His mom had never wanted to talk about his dad, never wanted to talk about how he died. Just that they had both worked at the embassy in Tanzania and he had died in a terrorist attack. Everything about her attitude when he brought up the subject had indicated to him that she didn’t want to talk about it. Maybe didn’t want to think about it.

A part of Michael, the more grown-up part, realized that to his mother, those must have been hideously bad memories. You couldn’t have your husband die in a terrorist bomb attack, leaving you to be a single parent to raise a son, and not be messed up by the trauma in some way.

But Michael was a sixteen-year-old male, which meant he was largely addled by hormones and self-involved to an unhealthy degree. His physicality and size made him look like an adult, but his judgement and hormones hadn’t caught up yet.

He sort of knew that, too. Sometimes Michael felt like he did things his body wanted to do, while his brain told him not to. It was like there was a gremlin living inside his head, or a poltergeist.

And right now, the poltergeist was dancing up a storm. Michael kept flashing on the body of that woman, the one who’d suffocated on her own bed because this guy, The Serpent, had duct-taped her nose and mouth shut.

He shivered, thinking about it. What kind of person would do that?

J Slim screamed profanities, talking about the unfairness of the world, about giving the world back some of that unfairness, living with attitude.

Michael bobbed his head in time to the rap, trying to take his thoughts away from the dead woman.

Away from the little bit of fear he felt for his mom, about her chasing The Serpent, someone who would suffocate someone on purpose.

And he felt a glow of pride about the way Derek Stillwater had treated him. Stillwater had treated him like an adult. Had been straight with him. Honest with him. Asking for his help, even if it was acting as a watchdog in case something went wrong, which it had. Handing him that injector thing, telling him to read it, just in case. Stillwater had acted like he was up to the task, up to the responsibility.

Michael swung by Ray Moretti’s house, figuring Ray would probably be home now. He parked out front of Ray’s house, a big two-story modern thing with a small, well-manicured yard. Ray’s sister, Ann, was home. She was two years older than Ray and Michael, and though Michael would never admit it to Ray, she was hot. Long black hair, big eyes, and those tight cropped T-shirts and low-rise jeans. Man, she made him sizzle.

“Hey,” he said, when she answered the door.

Ann smiled. She was a senior, planning on going to U of M next year, pre-med. A serious student, on the National Honors Society, on the track team and she played flute in the band. “Hi Michael. Ray’s upstairs.”

“Hey,” he said again, avoiding her eyes. “Uh, how’s it goin’?”

“Okay. You hear about this guy, The Serpent?”

He smiled at her. Man, he got a rush just looking at her. She watched him, her expression serious. God, she was hot.

“Yeah,” he said. “Psycho.”

“Is your mom working that?”

Michael blinked. “Uh, yeah, but, you know, I can’t talk about it.”

“Ray said you ditched him, went to pick her up. Did she tell you what was going on?”

He froze. He wanted to tell her everything, to try and impress her. But he couldn’t, could he? He really wanted to. He knew his mom wouldn’t approve, and he could live with that. But he thought Derek Stillwater wouldn’t approve, and for some reason he didn’t want to disappoint Stillwater. Michael took a deep breath. He wondered how Derek Stillwater would handle this situation. Stillwater seemed like a cool guy, someone who had a handle on things. What would he say? Probably something funny and charming.

“Only a bit,” Michael said, feeling a little flood of confidence. “It’s important… you know, it’s important that rumors don’t go around, I mean, I know more than I can talk about.” His face burned, especially at the way Ann was watching him.

“That’s so cool,” Ann said. “Your mom is so cool. An FBI agent. Not like my parents. I mean, mom’s a banker and dad’s, you know, he works at Chrysler.”

“Hey, your parents are okay. Mom’s just… she’s just Mom.”

Ann blinked, then smiled. “Well… Ray’s upstairs.” She walked back to the couch, where she had been sitting with a notebook and chemistry textbook in her lap.

He watched her as she sat down and curled on the sofa. He watched the curve of her thigh in the tight jeans, the way the pink T-shirt rode up, the soft flatness of her stomach. He wanted to say something to her, make her see him as somebody besides her dummy brother’s buddy. He opened his mouth and was surprised to hear himself say, “You know anything about sarin gas? I mean, you’re real smart and you want to be a doctor.”

Ann’s face burned a little pink and she smiled at Michael. “Thanks. Um, no, not really. We could look it up. On the computer. I bet there’s a lot there, though. That’s what The Serpent’s using, isn’t he?”

“Yeah. In gas canisters that he sets off using a cell phone.”

“Wow! That’s… your mom tell you that? Wow, that’s really scary.”

Michael shrugged.

“C’mon,” Ann said, jumping up. She waved him to follow her. “C’mon, let’s check that out on the computer.”

He followed her up the stairs, unable to keep his eyes off her ass. She was so hot. She looked over her shoulder and saw him watching her. She flushed a little darker. “The computer in my room. C’mon, Michael. This is exciting.”

Her room was across the hall from Ray’s. He’d never been in there, though he’d seen her room before. It was kind of a girly room. The drapes had big sunflowers on them, as did the comforter on her bed. Dark blue with big bright cheerful sunflowers on it. There were photographs in frames on her wall. It kind of surprised him. He’d expected her to have posters of rock bands or something. He studied one of the photographs while she booted up her computer.

It was of a sunset reflected across the glass panels of Chrysler World Headquarters. It was shot at an odd angle, so the big Chrysler star was isolated, refracting colors in a thousand shades.

“That’s pretty cool,” he said.

“You like that? I took it myself.”

“Cool.”

“I like photography. For a while I thought I wanted to be a photographer, but I think I’d rather be a doctor. What about you?”

“Huh? I like it.”

She turned to him, brushing her hair over her shoulder. “What do you like?”

He mind went blank. “What?”

“You don’t seem much like Ray. I think Ray’s smoking dope. If mom and dad catch him they’ll kill him. But Ray’s really not into anything. Video games, I guess. How ‘bout you?”

“I… I like karate,” he said. He hoped she’d be impressed.

Her eyes grew big. “Really? Are you a black belt?”

“Yeah,” he said automatically.

“Are you any good?”

He nodded, knowing that he was.

“Do you, like, break boards and stuff?”

He smiled. “Better to use a saw. Most people don’t get in fights with boards. We don’t do that in the style I study, Sanchin-ryu.”

“Wow. Have you, ever, like gotten in a fight or anything?”

“Just in class. We call it kumite. It’s like sparring. You know, fighting, but you don’t hurt each other.”

“Cool.”

Ray’s door opened and he sauntered across the hallway. “Hey, what’s going on? You finished bein’ taxi driver for your mommy?”

“Shut up, Ray,” Ann said.

“Shut up yourself. C’mon, dude. Tell me what happened. Shit man, lucky you missed history. Binks jus’ ‘bout put us all to sleep.”

Michael stayed rooted to his spot, not wanting to leave. “I… Ann and I are checking something.”

Ray rolled his eyes. “Jesus, you boner. Get a fuckin’ life.” With a shrug he wandered back to his room and slammed the door.

Ann looked at him. “You can go on.”

Michael shook his head, jaw locking into a stubborn expression. “Nah, he’s bein’ a jerk. Hey, can you, you know…”

“What?”

“There’s something else I want to check, once you’re online.”

“Sure.” She clicked on the Internet icon. “What’s that?”

He leaned over to the computer, very conscious of how close he was to her, how shiny and soft her hair was, how she smelled, which was wonderful. “Um… well, let’s google Tanzania and U.S. Embassy. There’s some stuff I want…”

She leaned back, looking at him up close. She had such big eyes. And her mouth looked so…

“Michael?”

“Huh?”

“What’s this about? You look a little…”

He turned to her. “I, uh, lived there when I was a kid.”

“Really? In Tanzania?”

“Yeah.”

“I didn’t know that.”

He shrugged.

“Was this an FBI thing? I mean… maybe you can’t talk about it and stuff.”

“Mom was with the FBI then, yeah.”

She turned and typed it into the computer. When the entries came up, he pointed to one. CNN.com — Embassy Bombings. News reports of the terrorism bombings that killed eleven. “That one,” he said.

She rested her hand on his arm. “You okay?”

He nodded. “Yeah. I’m okay.”