Love for the Cold-Blooded (53 page)

“Yeah, well.” He hadn’t thought to expect anything, really. He’d just thought the cardboard boxes were cooler, was all. “Whatever, dude, I’m not fussy. Ask me what passed for dinner at The Shark’s abandoned underwater jellyfish research station sometime. Sometime we’re not eating, though.” Pat had been so glad when Mr. Liberty had finally dragged The Shark into that handy pocket dimension. (Of course it would have been nice if somebody had thought to pick up the minions, too, but they’d made it back to dry land in the end, so whatever.)

Man, Pat was starving, and Nick’s weirdo mix of ingredients actually turned out to be pretty damn tasty. Not that he was ever going to say as much to Nick, of course. It was a matter of principle.

By the time his stomach was no longer about to gnaw its way straight out of his body, the giant pizza had been completely demolished, with the only remains being some loose slivers of truffle and a single lone shrimp that must have tumbled off someone’s slice. Pat was already reaching for it when Nick snagged it and popped it into his mouth, grinning at Pat in triumph.

Pat rolled his eyes. He didn’t smile in any way at all, let alone fondly, because that would have been dumb. And then, he just opened his mouth and came out with it, with no forethought involved to mess him up. “Are you ever gonna say anything more about the Serpentissima thing? Cause I gotta warn you, dude, it’s now or never. Tonight’s the night. You let it slide now and it is done. History. Over and, forgiven and forgotten kind of thing, you catch my meaning? So. You better go ahead. Don’t make me wait.”

Nick’s gaze didn’t waver. He took his time unwrapping the hot lemon-water soaked napkin, and thought his response over carefully as he wiped his fingers.

“I’m not going to berate you, if that’s what you’re waiting for. You’re right — I was complicit in the fact your family was not discussed earlier. We both put it off too long. Given the choice, I would not have chosen to be confronted with the whole truth in quite the way I was, but…” He shrugged again, folding the napkin to toss it on the empty platter. “In all honesty, at this point I’ve almost grown to expect such surprises from you. I’ve weathered them thus far, so why stop now?”

The embarrassing thing was: Pat almost fell for it. Nick was a lousy liar and an amateur schemer at best, and even so, he almost got away with pulling the wool over Pat’s eyes.

It was understandable, of course. Pat could hardly be expected to object to being let off the hook. Quite the contrary, he could be expected to be incredibly relieved, which was exactly what he was. He wasn’t particularly inclined to question his good fortune, either. Gift snakes, and all that. It wasn’t like he
wanted
Nick to resent the fact he’d kept his mom’s identity quiet. The fact that he was being so understanding about Pat’s strategic omission of information was great; super amazing, even.

So yeah. It would have worked, if Nick hadn’t decided to crown his deception with a winsome smile and a flirtatious batting of the lashes.

The effect was bizarre, and somewhat scary. Nick’s face just wasn’t built for that kind of thing. Heroic indignation, sure; rampant arrogance and fierce determination, absolutely. Lust, too, just like the full spectrum of interest and thoughtfulness and affection and amusement and any number of other emotions. But fey, whimsical charm? That was a big fat
no,
go directly to ‘what the fuck’, do not collect a hundred thalers. It was so wrong it seemed almost physically painful, like Star Knight trying to solve basic logic puzzles, or Nexus cracking a friendly smile.

Even Pat was better at this kind of thing than Nick was, and Pat’s greatest success with winsome eyelash-batting so far had been to send a biology major into a laughing fit that ended with her lemonade spurting from her nose.

“Yeah, no, what the fuck.” Despite this concise and fitting commentary, Nick failed to react, although at least he stopped the horrifying attempt to be cute. “Man, you suck. What gives?”

Nick rolled his eyes in a manner that would have been cool to see under different circumstances (associating with Pat was definitely loosening the guy up some). In this context, though, it was totally inappropriate. “If you prefer, I can be angry. I just assumed —”

Pat punched him lightly in the side. “Wrong answer. Something’s up, I can tell. I’m not stupid either, and there’s more to this than you being all zen and forgiving. Spill, dude.”

The dude didn’t spill, but he did give a noncommittal grunt, which was as good as admitting Pat was right and there was indeed something to spill. Seemed that a little more prodding was required before Nick could allow himself to open up, though. Fine, Pat could prod like a champion… or, more to the point, like someone who’d grown up with three older siblings. “You might as well tell me now, because I’m not gonna shut up until you do. We’ve had enough of the non-disclosure thing. You know my sister Hell — Helena? Yeah, of course you do, you’ve fought her several times now. Anyway, she likes her peace and quiet, you know. Kinda like you, come to think. Anyway, once, when we were kids, she got hold of my chemistry set. I think she’d already used up her own and she wanted to make some lock-dissolving stun smoke or whatever, but that’s not important right now. Point is, I sat outside her locked door and talked and talked and
talked
until —”

“I’m going to sponsor Serpentissima into the Hero Corps,” Nick blurted. It was clear he’d been dying to say the words — he fairly lit up with gleeful anticipation as he spoke. As it happened, that particular kind of enthusiasm was very familiar to Pat. Every single ‘twisted scheming mastermind’-type challenger he’d minioned for got that exact same glowy look when contemplating their twisted mastermindy scheme. “I’m going to redeem the most notorious supervillain of them all.”

Holy mother of fuck.

Nick was only getting started. He sat up straighter as he went on, fairly crackling with intensity. The man probably had this scheme totally planned out already, neatly laid out in his head complete with footnotes, bar graphs, pie charts and shit. “She gave up her plans to conquer the world because of you and me. She’s invited me to family dinner! It’s the best opening anyone could ask for. Serpentissima has already taken the first step, whether she realizes it or not. We will slowly and gradually draw her further and further to our side, and in the end —”

“Holy mother of fuck!” Also:
Our
side? Holy mother of fuck on a
cracker
.

“Crude, but to the point.” Nick smiled a smile Pat had never seen on him before. This smile had teeth, and a knife, and some wicked martial arts skills, and was very satisfied with the amount of damage it could inflict. Pat wouldn’t have thought that kind of expression would work on Nick’s features, but it really, really did. (Turned out the heroic mastermind look was kinda hot on Nick. No surprise.) “Imagine the signal her change of allegiance will send out into the world. Serpentissima, the Dread Serpent herself. If Serpentissima gives up her wicked ways —”

“Dude! This is so messed up.” Pat frantically signed a ‘time out’ T at Nick. Sadly, it didn’t help with the way his own thoughts were tumbling over each other. “Mom’s doing the exact same thing! She’s trying to turn you. She hasn’t given up her plans at all, she’s just biding her time until you become her right hand. I’m supposed to be using my wiles on you right this second. You know, my wiles that are going to seduce you into changing sides. I don’t even
have
any wiles, what the fuck.”

The unfamiliar predatory smile conquered some more territory on Nick’s face. “Of course she’s trying to turn me, Patrick. That’s obvious. It gives us the perfect opening.”

Great, it was one of those things where both challenger and hero knew what the other was planning, and that their opponent knew they knew what the other one was planning, and that they knew the other one knew they knew, and so forth and so on. Pat hated those things. They made him feel like he needed to find a way to stretch out his brain to prevent cramps.

“There’s one thing I need to stress,” Nick said. And suddenly he was right there, all up in Pat’s face, all fierce dark gaze and mad intensity. Pat almost forgot to breathe for a moment, and then gulped in an audible lungful of air in a way that might have been embarrassing, if not for the fact that it was pretty much impossible to feel embarrassed when Nick was staring at you like you were the only thing in the universe worth looking at. “It will be an incredible victory when Serpentissima turns from ev— from… her ways. But don’t make the mistake of believing yourself to be a pawn or a prize, Patrick. You’re not the means. You’re not the end, either. You are the reason.”

How had he known that was exactly what Pat had needed to hear? Pat himself hadn’t even known — not really. But… yeah.

“Do you understand?”

“Yeah,” Pat said, wondering. “Yeah, I think I do.”

Looked like Pat had severely underestimated his wiles all these years. They seemed to work fine on Nick, anyway, and really, who cared if they worked on anyone else? Wasn’t exactly relevant, was it.

“Lock-dissolving stun smoke?” Nick asked somewhat muzzily, quite a while later.

Basically, no matter what happened from here on out, it was pretty much guaranteed to be epic. Pat could hardly wait.