Greg Cox - Loose ends

"No," Max declared, unleashing the destructive energy he had been saving for Morton. His outstretched ringers glowed with an unearthly radiance and a bolt of incandescent heat and fury flashed between Max and the attacking serpent. The hiss of burning meat replaced the diamondback's own sibilant vocalizations, and the angry rattling ceased abruptly Startled by the strobelike flash, Michael yelped and scrambled away from the zapped rattler on his hands and knees, not looking back until he had put many yards between himself and his former location. "Whew!" he exclaimed, forcefully expelling all the air from his lungs. His chest rose and fell irregularly as he looked back in surprise at what was left of the snake.

Thin white tendrils of smoke rose from a blackened lump of charred bones and skin. The volcanic heat of Max's psychic blast had even scorched the earth around the smoking snake skeleton, leaving a crust of gray-black ash atop the soil. Climbing onto his feet, Michael nudged the cremated remains with the toe of his sneaker. Nothing rattled, since the fiery mental thunderbolt had fused the rattler's natural noisemaker into a single, inert mass of smoldering cartilage. Michael pushed the barbecued snake parts farther aside, revealing a patch of once-gritty sand that had been transformed by die extreme heat into a thin sheet of cracked and discolored glass, like the epicenter of a miniature atomic explosion. The glazed sand reflected silvery fragments of die moonlit sky overhead.

"Yo, Max," Michael said, shaking his head in disbelief, "you have really got to work on your control." Rescuing his bottle of Tabasco sauce from the ground where it had fallen, he took a deep gulp from the bottle, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "Not that I'm not grateful for the timely save, mind you, but, if you don't watch out, you really are going to kill somebody one day."Max contemplated the smoking debris with a sense of grim satisfaction. It occurred to him, belatedly, that he hadn't needed to incinerate the rattler, that he could have just projected a force field instead, but he had few regrets at the way the scene had played out. One snake down, he thought. One more to go.

"Boy, what is it about us and creatures that like to shed their skin?" Michael asked rhetorically, continuing to inspect leftover pieces of rattlesnake. Wired by his near brush with terminal snakebite, he stretched his limbs and gazed past Max's brooding form, out over the canyon. His eyes widened suddenly, and he dropped to the ground, throwing up a cloud of dust and sand. Max started to sneeze, but Michael hastily placed a finger beneath his friend's nose, then raised another finger over his own lips, signaling him to silence. "Sssh!" he hushed Max, tilting his head toward the canyon below. "Look."Crouching lower, onto his hands and knees, Max cautiously lifted his head until he could just peer over the tops of the jutting rocks. He sucked air through his clenched teeth as he spotted what Michael had seen only seconds before.

While they'd both been distracted, understandably, by the overly territorial rattler, Joe Morton had come trudging up the steep desert trail to the entrance of Slaughter Canyon Cave. Brandishing a flashlight in one hand, a pistol in the other, and carrying a canvas backpack upon his beefy shoulders, Morton was breathing heavily by the time he reached the top of the trail, just outside the shadowy gap in the hillside. Posted signs warned hikers not to explore the hazardous cavern except in the company of an experienced guide, but the burly gunman did not look like he was planning any unauthorized spelunking; arriving at the end of the trail, he slipped the backpack off his shoulders, planted his hefty butt on a conveniently flat-topped boulder, and settled down to wait for Lieutenant Ramirez. The night was quiet enough that Max could hear him muttering grumpily about the steepness of the climb, the lieutenant's lack of punctuality, and the general crappi-ness of life in general. He spit a mouthful of chewing tobacco at the base of a sign listing general park regulations. "Lousy, stinkin' nature," he groused. "Who needs all this nothing anyway? Ought to build a casino here or something."Squatting behind the craggy ridge, Michael stared at Morton in disgust. "A real class act, this guy," he whispered softly to Max, his voice filled with contempt. "Reminds me of my absent-and-unlamented foster dad, Hank."Given that Michael's former legal guardian, now happily missing for many months, had been an abusive, bad-tempered drunk, Max knew just what Michael meant. He could readily imagine an irate Hank shooting up the Crashdown the way Morton had, the way Morton had nearly taken Liz away from him forever. Blood soaking through her goofy, adorable space-waitress uniform, her brown eyes glazing over, staring blankly into the void…

The very sight of Morton brought Max's simmering rage to a frothing boil once more, throwing him back mentally to all the anger and fear of that terrible day at the diner. Adrenaline flooded his system and every muscle in his body felt primed to explode into action. Veins throbbed at his temples, the rapid, arrhythmic pulse making him slightly queasy. He felt an overpowering compulsion to smash Mortons piglike face in, to wipe him off the face of the Earth and any other planet he could think of. Without thinking, he started to rise up from behind the ridge, his clenched fist emitting an eerie silver glow.

"Max! What are you doing?" Michael frantically grabbed onto Max's arm, tugging him back down behind the rough concealment of the rocky ridge. "Have you lost your mind?"Michael's blurted words hit Max like a splash of cold water. What was he doing? Morton hadn't even met up with the lieutenant yet, let alone revealed the secret of his nefarious scheming, yet he had almost given away his and Michael's position in a moment of unthinking hatred. Max blinked in confusion, staring in shock and disbelief at his own glowing fingers. Resting his back against the stone outcropping, he struggled to regain command of his temper and higher faculties. He panted raggedly, hyperventilating, and Michael worriedly clasped a hand over Max's mouth, forcing him to breath through his nose. Max felt light- headed, out of control, and, for the first time since Liz spotted Morton in the caverns, he wondered if Michael had been right all along, if there really was something wrong with him.

Gradually, though sheer willpower, Max forced himself to come to his senses. His breathing slowed, and the pounding in his veins and temples diminished to a dull throb. He held his hand up before his eyes and watched as the silver glow slowly dimmed until it disappeared entirely. Michael sighed in relief as the eldritch light faded, and he looked quizzically into Max's eyes. Reassured by the re- stored sanity he found there, he withdrew the hand covering Maxs mouth. "Sorry about that, pal," he apologized, "but you looked like you were losing it."I was," Max confessed. "Thanks."Michael smirked and shrugged his shoulders. "No problem, you crazy kid. I dimly recall you've done the same for me."Many, many times," Max reminded his impetuous pod-brother. Michael had been a loose cannon for as long as he could remember.

"Hey, who's counting?" Michael said with a grin. Confident that Max wasn't going to go berserk in the next few minutes, he raised his head to check on events over by the cave entrance. "Heads up," he alerted Max in a low voice. "Looks like it's show time."Although anxious to see what was happening in the canyon, Max took a couple of deep breaths first. His temporary mania appalled and disturbed him, and he didn't want to risk losing control again at the sight of Morton. Keep cool, he counseled himself, trying to remain focused on tonight's primary objective. This is a fact-finding mission, not a rumble or assassination attempt. I need to stay cool, keep quiet, and find out what Morton's up to. He could always stage a showdown with Morton later, after they all had a better idea of what was at stake.