Read Poison Tongue for Free Online

yellow tinge of a bruise already beginning to form around the edges.
    When he looked up, the lights played tricks. His eyes were so clear, I thought I might’ve been wrong about him—about his soul. There was something that flickered there, something golden and lovely—something that was crying out to be set free.
    But then I saw it—the snake. Its head came from the darkness behind him. It slinked over his shoulder, across his blood-covered chest, around his arm, and back up to his throat.
    I stumbled backward, and whatever gold I’d seen in his eyes vanished, leaving nothing but ash in its place.
    “You should go,” he said quietly as he looked back down at the gravel he sat on.
    “What are you?” I whispered without daring to go a fraction closer.
    “Just a man,” he said. “A bleeding man, a broken man, a cursed man. But if you ask anyone around here, they’ll say I’m a murderer, a fiend, a monster.” Again his gaze met mine. “Some say I’m the devil.”
    My hands shook and my teeth chattered despite the heat. “Are you?”
    Long, loaded moments passed before he spoke again. “Maybe.”
    Unable to stop myself, I turned away from him and closed my eyes. Even the sight of him coated my sanity in something unnatural. His boots slid against the pavement as he stood.
    In the distance, under the streetlight, was Ward standing, waiting, watching. I wrapped my arms around myself, fighting against the chill that didn’t exist, and began walking toward my oldest friend.
    “You got a name?” a deep voice called out from behind me.
    My gran’s old warning about the devil played like a recording in my ears.
    “Levi,” I said over my shoulder, regretting it the moment it slipped past my lips.
    “You might’ve saved my life tonight, Levi.”
    “I won’t make that mistake again,” I yelled in reply.
    When I reached Ward, he looked down at me, a weariness in his eyes. I walked past him, knowing he’d turn and walk beside me.
    “There is something wrong about that man,” Ward said.
    “I know.” I couldn’t meet his eye.
    “You can feel it too.” It was a statement, not a question.
    “It would be hard not to. His eyes—his soul—they’re covered in soot and tar. They’re molten and poisonous.”
    “He is just a man, Levi. There is something deeply wrong with him, but he is just a man.”
    I looked up into the sky. Starlight twinkled above my head, flecks of glitter tossed across an impossible black canvas. As I ran my hands up and down my arms, I thought of the snake that crept from that man’s darkness, the way it slithered and crawled across his body like it was part of his whole. Maybe it was.
    As we walked home in silence, I wondered what a person could’ve done to have that kind of taint on their soul.

Chapter 4
     
     
    MAMA STOPPED cold. “Poirier, you said?” There was a flicker of unease in her voice.
    “Yes,” I replied.
    “Then he must be….” She sat across from me in the living room, her slender frame rigid on the old plaid sofa, her eyes staring up at nothing above my head. Her brows furrowed as she wrung her hands in her lap and squeezed her knees together tightly. Tension radiated off her.
    “Mama?”
    “You can’t go near him, Levi. He’s a bad man.”
    It was rare that I’d ever seen her look—and sound—so worried. Her voice shook when she spoke, and if I didn’t know any better, I would’ve said she was frightened.
    Ward stood in the wood-framed doorway between the kitchen and the living room, his arms folded across his chest. He remained silent, but his eyes were focused with intent.
    “Who is he?” I leaned forward in the old reclining chair I perched in.
    “Monroe,” she said. “Monroe Poirier. He’s a bad man—a wicked, dangerous man. Promise me you won’t go near him.”
    “Poirier—like the old Poirier house down on the edge of the swamp?” Even talking about that house, thinking of its rickety shingles and its dark, empty doorways sent