Cold Hearted: A Yancy Lazarus Novel (Episode Two)

by James Hunter

  Fast Hands laughed long and hard, a slithery sound like sandpaper rubbing against slick stone—the noise made my skin crawl like a basket full of snakes.

  “I don’t know how this happened, but I count myself twice blessed and thank providence,” he said as his chuck-fest finally wound down, “but I’m glad I’ll finally get the chance to kill you myself … and Ferraro, I relish the idea of killing you. Again.” He stared around at the tables, all full of his fellow freak-show cronies. “No one does anything … they are mine.” He looked hard at a bat-winged hulk nearest the throne. “Mine, Ringo—y’ hear?” Batwings—Ringo, apparently—nodded. “But I’m a benevolent ruler … so once I see this fool killt”—he pointed his pistol at me—“you can all dig in.”

  Great, if I lost, I’d be finger food for poker night. My life.

  But at least we had a chance—I was powerless, true, but I wasn’t alone. Ferraro was a sure hand and the two of us against just Fast Hands? Yeah, we could do that. Once Fast Hands was dead, we’d have the whole crowd to contend against, which didn’t seem like such good odds, but a fighting chance was a helluva lot better than no chance at all.

  “Take one bite,” I said, glancing around the room at all the assembled baddies, “and I’ll give you the worst friggin’ indigestion you’ve ever heard of. No amount of Pepto will save you. And you,” I swiveled my gun till it tracked on Fast Hands, “I’m gonna put down like Old Yeller.”

  I pulled the trigger twice. Fast Hands’s monstrous left arm, giant and deformed, whipped up almost faster than my eye could track. The rounds bloomed into the meaty flesh of his massive forearm, flattening out and clunking to the floor without so much as breaking the skin. Huh, how ‘bout that. Apparently Fast Hands, plural, was still an appropriate name for the guy.

  “Nice try.” He dropped his arm back to the floor. “Now let me learn you how it’s done.” His gun stopped spinning mid-loop and flicked into place—I dove for the counter, but not fast enough. A bullet slammed into my left kneecap, a terrible heat like Greek fire burned in my leg, tendrils of black misery crawled into my brain, circled around a couple of times and settled in like a dog ready for a long nap. I spun and toppled through the air landing on top of the bar, my left leg splayed out at a strange angle.

  “NO!” Ferraro screamed. There was a sound of more gunfire, the crack of Ferraro’s Glock. Then, the wheezy cackle of Fast Hands’s laughter.

  “Take her, hold her,” Fast Hands commanded before slithering into view. More shooting … the howl of something inhuman shrieking. “Stop being such a bitch,” Fast Hands called over his shoulder to one of the henchmen in the room. And then Fast Hands was above me, looming over me, larger than life and twice as ugly as a breathing, slithering pile of dog shit. I knew I should do something, maybe pick up my gun, try to defend myself, try to save Ferraro and stop this awful future. But I couldn’t. Couldn’t even think.

  With his left hand, he pulled aside my jacket lapel, and, with his right, pressed the pistol into the meat of my left shoulder. “The boys like it when the meat gets all juicy and tender. But don’t fret, partner, I won’t kill you—they like it when the food squirms.” He pulled the trigger, bone and muscle flew apart with a bolt of agony, a fine warm spray of pink misted my face. I screamed. Moaned. A blackness filled my mind, the agony in my knee and the agony in my shoulder beating like twin hammers against my body. Knee, throb, an inferno blaze. Shoulder, throb, a meat cleaver sinking home.

  I blinked open my eyes and looked down at my ruined arm—a gaping red hole, pulped and mashed, scorched around the edges. I was lucky he hadn’t blown the limb clean off.

  Fast Hands leaned in close, his serpentine body writhing. “Not done yet,” he whispered, his tongue flicking against my ear. “Pay back and all that.” He pulled away and smiled, his mouth a wide slash full of curved teeth. He worked the gun into the palm of my left hand, positing the muzzle just below where my ring finger connected. Oh God, I knew what was coming next. This is what Ferraro had done to him—taken his fingers, maimed him and left him ruined.

  My bladder went—not my most heroic moment, I’ll admit—urine, warm and wet, trickled down my bloodied pant leg, making the fabric heavy and warm. Undignified, that. But sometimes life is unfair and undignified, sometimes them’s the breaks and there isn’t a damn thing you can do about it.

  He pulled the trigger a third time. A bright hot sun flared in my hand, a spatter of too-hot blood ran down my wrist. I let myself cry, the tears were wet against my cheek, but words wouldn’t come. Nothing would come. Now the pain was everything, my whole world—I was pain—it was impossible to distinguish between the three burning stars; the brain can only handle so much before it eventually collapses under the weight and shock of trauma. Cold was in my limbs, radiating numb through my body. And it was a sweet relief.

  “One more, for good measure,” Fast Hands said as he watched me wriggle and moan on the bar top. “Just to make sure you don’t go anywhere before the meal starts.” The gun went into my side, a little poke I hardly felt, right below the ribs on my right side.

  I wanted to say something clever and snarky, but the pain was too much—making it hard for me to see anything else, to think about anything else. “Go fuck yourself,” I breathed out, a mere whisper, but better than nothing.

  “Not today,” he laughed. “Today I have company to keep me entertained.” A searing railroad spike of agony lanced through my skin and into my guts. I choked and sputtered, blood frothing up around my lips. The force of the impact drove me from the bar’s smooth wood surface and onto the floor behind the bar.

  TWENTY-SIX:

  Good Stuff

  I lay looking up at the glass ceiling overhead, struggling to remain conscious, knowing these were the last few minutes of my life. This was all she wrote. Maybe I could’ve survived the knee wound, the shoulder injury, and even the missing fingers. I’d be maimed and crippled for life. I’d never play piano again, never play another chord on the guitar. I’d never run again—be lucky to walk after taking damage like that. Still, I could survive it. Grit my teeth and bear that shit. Life wouldn’t be the same, and I’d have to figure out some kinda new normal. But with the gut wound? Shit, with the gut wound, I was more done than burnt toast.

  I craned my neck back. Sir Knight was not far from the end of the bar and completely unguarded. I couldn’t save myself, but maybe, maybe, I could break that joker loose. And if I broke him loose, maybe he could save Ferraro. That was the kind of thing knights did, save damsels in distress. Not that I’d ever call Ferraro a damsel in distress, at least not to her face—she seemed like the kind of lady that would kick my ass up and down the block for saying something like that. But right now it applied. So free the knight. He’d save her. Shit, he could probably even stop this shitty future from happening.

  A terrible consolation prize for me as these things go, but better than nothing.

  I posted my good right arm and, with a heave, flipped myself onto my belly. My guts screamed, jolts of pain like a good blast of lightning flared up in the back of my skull. My leg and arm shared in the protest, though my wounded hand was silent. The limb felt dead and well beyond hope. I glanced down, looking at the extent of the damage: my pinky, ring, and middle fingers were gone—I spotted one of them off to the side. Just the very tip remained whole. Oh God. I turned my head to the side and vomited a small puddle of bloody granola.

  The retch sent a renewed wave of misery skipping through my body.

  Well, at least I wouldn’t live much longer. Death was actually looking pretty good in the face of all the pain and suffering dancing and grooving through me. So many hurts—it was like my body had become a college kegger party for pain: my knee, the loudmouth drunk in boxers doing keg stands. My shoulder, the fat, shirtless guy playing beer-pong-o-pain, and winning big. My hand, that socially awkward comic-book guy lurking in the corner, staring out with creepy stalker eyes. And the gut wound … the gut wound was that crazy, mohawk sporting
, punk-rocker anarchist setting your curtains on fire and instigating a general revolt against The Man.

  I reached out my good right arm and worked my left leg up—bringing my knee toward my gut felt like having someone dig a friggin’ red-hot poker into my guts and then wiggling it around. Ignore it. Block it out. I pushed with my leg and pulled with my arm, the motion clumsy, inefficient, and about as much fun as dragging my body through a kiddie pool full of broken glass, razors, and piranhas.

  The bar was maybe fifteen feet long, but damn if it didn’t seem to stretch out like the Sahara desert. Right arm, left leg. Pull, push. Right arm, left leg, pull push. I crawled past the edge of the bar and pulled my ass around the piano—an Emerson, just like back at the Hog’s Head—thankfully devoid of its tentacled piano man.

  So tired. Breathing was a herculean effort, moving seemed like a Sisyphean task designed by the gods solely for my torture. Now that I had line of sight, I glanced back into the room proper. The mob stood circled around Ferraro, grubby, disgusting hands holding her, touching her. Fast Hands slithered back and forth, bragging about all the terrible things he would do to her.

  Ferraro fought, lashing out with legs, catching the occasional unwary monster with a fierce kick. She bucked against her captors, raking with her nails, swearing with enough passion and inventiveness that even the most salty drill instructor would blush. Damn, she was a piece of work, fighting to the end. She was also buying me time—every eye was fixed on her, leaving me free to slug my way across the floor.

  I could save her. I would save her, dammit. I’d dragged her into this mess and though she was certainly a big girl, I felt responsible. She could live. She needed to live—the world needed people like her.

  Right arm, left leg. Pull, push.

  Right arm, left leg. Pull, push.

  Over and again, until at last the knight was there, almost in front of me—one booted foot close enough that I could reach out and touch it with a bloody hand.

  “Gotta … save … her,” I sputtered, fine droplets of blood spraying against the straw floor. “Help. Her.” But as I looked up at him I noticed that there was something wrong with him too. Aside from being wrapped in coil after coil of shimmering chain, his eyes looked hazy—the look of someone sailing high as a kite on something powerful.

  “Can’t help,” the knight mumbled, the noise hard to make out over the din of the saloon goers. “The chain. Magic—clouds. Mind … He ….” The knight lazily bobbed his head toward Fast Hands. “He has key. Metal … hand.” He uttered the last word like an asthmatic blowing out a candle.

  I lay my face flat against the floor, rough straw poking at my cheek. All this for nothing. Nothing I could do. Nothing anyone could do. This knight was as good as useless and my whole body was finally going numb from shock and blood loss. I’d bleed out here, in this nightmare future. Ferraro would be tortured, tormented, murdered, and eaten. And it was all my fault. Randy would go free, kill more people, and maybe bring this horrible future to pass. I’d never eat another good meal, never play another set, never get a chance to ask Ferraro out to a nice dinner.

  Tears crept down my cheek, partly from the pain, but also from the weight of despair hammering down on me—

  I caught a twitch of movement out of the corner of my eye—the knight flopped his head over to the side, the motion seemed to take a tremendous effort of will. “Grail,” he whispered, rolling his eyes up and to the right, directing me to Fast Hands’s throne. I hadn’t seen it when I’d entered, because Fast Hands had been occupying the seat, but the Grail had been inset into the back of the chair. Right in the center amidst the red velvet padding. Fixed in place like a key in a lock.

  “Drink,” the knight finished, a slur in his words, before his eyes fluttered shut completely. Damn chain must’ve been some heavy-duty badassery to put a Knight of the friggin’ Round Table down like that.

  An ember of hope flared to life inside me, no larger than the glowing red cherry of a burning cigarette. The Grail.

  I didn’t have much left in the gas tank, and what gas I did have was currently on fire and threatening to blow up the car. But there was still something there and with that hope in my belly, I dug deep and pushed my tired, broken body along the floor. Right arm, left leg. Pull, push. So close now. I grasped one of the throne’s carved white legs with my good hand and pulled hard, dragging my chin up to the seat, using my face for leverage to climb a little further into the chair. After a few grueling seconds of agonizing, teeth-being-pulled-without-Novocain-level pain, I managed to prop my chest and bleeding gut onto the seat—probably looked like a contrite saint in prayer.

  And I was praying. For this hurt to end. For Ferraro to be all right. For Fast Hands and his crew to get some payback of epic, world-ending proportions. I yearned toward the grail with my good hand, fumbling at it with numb fingers—the blood loss taking greater effect—the edges too smooth in my blood slick hand. It took a moment of finagling, but eventually I worked the Grail free.

  I regarded it for a moment—there was power there, it thrummed and hummed beneath my hand, a mega generator of Vis. This close it felt like a pocket-nuke worth of pent-up energy. I have to admit, though, that if I were going on looks alone, it was kind of unimpressive as holy objects of unimaginable power go: a little larger than a pack of cigarettes, made of worn bronze. A little cap topped one end, and jutting from the other was a two-inch length of metal with an intricately shaped key head. Whatever, I certainly wasn’t about to judge based on appearances.

  I worked the cap free with my good hand, and pulled the little bottle to my face, a splash of thick liquid silver, like mercury, trickled onto the seat, but I paid it little mind. I got the bottle to my lips and, with a jerk, splashed some of the Grail’s contents into my mouth. I got less than a mouthful of strangely cool liquid—an itty-bitty sip really—but it was enough. Maybe too much, even. Stuff was pure rocket fuel for the soul.

  It tasted like water, but not that shitty water that comes outta the tap—every water I’d ever tasted was like oil-contaminated saltwater compared to this. This … I dunno. This was like gulping down a mouthful of water from some pristine and unspoiled mountain waterfall after being thirsty in a barren desert for a lifetime. Like drinking for the very first time. Power rolled across my tongue—the taste of pure life, free from death or suffering—dribbled down my throat and into my belly. Energy shot out to my limbs like jagged bolts of raw electricity, racing along my nerve endings and speeding through my veins and arteries like miniature NASCAR drivers of awesomeness.

  Shattered bones mended with warm bursts of pleasant heat, flesh tingled for a moment with a crackle of energy and then knit itself together again, whole and hale as though I’d never been shot. A sunburst of sensation exploded in my ruined left palm—I held up my hand and watched, my jaw literally dropped open, as silver bubbled and swirled from the stumps of my three missing digits before coalescing into brand-spanking-new fingers. Hot damn, was that a sight. Made me want to dance a jig while flipping Fast Hands the mother of all middle fingers.

  And best of all—better even than my repaired kneecap or fancy new fingers—I could touch the Vis again. The empty place that’d been in my chest, the place where the Vis filled me up … it was wide open again. And not just wide open, but more powerful than ever before, like the silver liquid had super charged my abilities well past their normal capacities, at least for now. I had a surplus of energy just waiting to do something with. And, as it turned out, I had a whole group of shitbag mutants that were in serious need of some retribution.

  I pushed myself up from the chair, the Grail still in hand. I screwed the cap back in place and slid the flask, err, Grail, into my coat pocket. A wide smile broke across my face, and it was not a nice, friendly, let’s-go-grab-a-beer smile either. It was an ass-smiting-of-doom smile if ever there was one. Probably I looked like shit, tattered clothes and bloodied garments, but damn did I feel good. I breathed out all my worries and anxieties, empty
ing my mind. I breathed in sweet, wonderful, delicious Vis.

  TWENTY-SEVEN:

  Cookout

  “Hey shitheads,” I said—not yelling, but loud enough for the room to hear me even over their hooting, catcalls, and swearing. Every eye turned to me—Ferraro still held fast, but momentarily forgotten—Fast Hands twirled last, anger flashing across his ugly grill. “Payback time and all that jazz,” I said.

  Fast Hands didn’t speak—his pistol was simply up in a flash, the thunderous roar of gunfire filling the air. Say what you will about the shifty snake-man, but at least the guy was smart enough not to waste time on stupid villain banter. Unfortunately for him, he’d shown a remarkable streak of stupidity by not finishing me off when he had the chance. Now … now it was too late.

  His bullets streaked toward me, but I wasn’t concerned—for stopping those bullets was simply a matter of thought. Now normally I’d have whipped up a quick-and-dirty friction shield—my go to construct for dissolving incoming bullets. But today? Today I was feeling good with a capital G.

  So instead I wove a delicate sphere of air, interlaced with strands of raw spirit and braided through with magnetic force—a shimmering bubble of shifting, semi-translucent quicksilver sprung to life. The bullets plowed into the shield, their forward momentum ceased, redirected, and suddenly I had five slugs circling lazily about me like little planets. I’d seen another mage do this not so long ago, and I’d worked out how to do it myself, though this was the first live fire test. Surprisingly, even with all the Vis pumping through me, it was harder than I’d anticipated—magnetic force has never been my strongest suit.

  But it did work and it was a damn cool trick—even better were the looks of terror working on to the monstrous faces still crowded around Ferraro. I flicked out my left hand, healthy again despite Fast Hands’s best efforts, and the circling bullets zipped free, colliding with a strangely rat-like creature on the far right of the monstrous pack. The rounds tore through the son of a bitch, carving great bloody wounds in his torso and face, lifting him into the air for a moment.