“Yeah,” the Prophet said with a nod, “I can see the fear, meat-monkey.” He shed a smug you-should-be-afraid smile, which made me want to punch him in the friggin’ teeth on general principle. Didn’t help matters one bit that I was afraid.
“Nope, not afraid,” I lied with a lazy shrug, “just thinking about what a dumb-ass name ‘Savage Prophet’ is. I mean, that’s a great handle for a pro wrestler—hell, if you had a flamboyant mask you could be an excellent luchadore—but it seems it’s sorta melodramatic. Just out of curiosity, why do they call you that anyway? You a big Macho Man Randy Savage fan?” I asked. “Maybe you’re planning to snap into a few Slim Jims in the near future?”
“Keep pushing me and you’ll find out how I earned that title,” he replied, the humor draining from his voice. “Besides, it’s better than the Fixer. Your nickname makes you sound like a drunk handyman living out of the back of a car.” He paused, folded his arms, and scoffed. “Never mind. It’s a perfect fit.”
Damn, that was a pretty solid burn actually, which pissed me off something fierce. I’m supposed to be the one who creatively dumps on the opposition—it’s like my calling card and security blanket all wrapped up into one. Cavalierly insulting terrifying monsters far more powerful than me made those creatures a little less terrifying in my mind. Names are powerful things, and it was far harder to be scared of a being you just nicknamed dicknoodle. Yet here I was on the receiving end, in desperate need of a State Farm agent, ’cause he’d just burned my ass to the ground.
Disgruntled, I shifted my gazed to Darth-Bathrobe, who was still lingering behind, silent. “What’s the deal with your boyfriend there? He got a name? Or is he too chicken shit to put it all on the table?”
“We have no time for this, boy,” Darth-Bathrobe boomed, his voice deep and no-nonsense, but terribly distorted by whatever veil masked his face. “Tempus Fugit. Prophet,” he said, casting a glance at the bearded asshole, “please proceed with extreme prejudice.”
“Well,” the Prophet said, one hand going toward the pistol tucked under his arm, “you heard the man. We’ve got places to be, gods to murder, demons to master. So get out of the way or you’re gonna learn what your spleen tastes like.”
Ferraro was next to me in a flash, shottie drawn, trained on the Savage Prophet. “If you’re the reincarnated version of Old Man Winter,” she said, “then I’m sure you remember what happened last time we met.” She pointed the barrel of her gun at his groin.
“Oh, I remember you, whore. Hard not to. You blasted me with a shotgun, right here.” He reached down and tapped at his knee, a ghost of a snarl tracing his lips. “I haven’t forgotten. I’ve got a long, long memory, and I keep my promises. I told you you’d pay, and you’re going to. I have a friend, fella by the name of Fast Hands Steve. Despite your best attempts to kill him, that snake in the grass is still kicking around. Well, slithering around, these days. Had to have his legs genetically altered after you stabbed him in the femoral artery. When this is over, I’m going to give you to him as a gift.”
She paled a little, but kept the gun steady. What can I say, Ferraro is one badass lady who doesn’t screw around and doesn’t rattle. Not ever. “I keep my promises too.” Ferraro spoke softly, not yelling or screaming. She spoke with the same clinical authority as an exterminator explaining the best way to get rid of a roach infestation.
“And here’s my promise to you,” she said. “If you screw around with us or get in our way, I. Will. Bury. You. You and your boss have a laundry list of crimes to pay for. You’ve kidnapped countless people, experimented on them in that nightmare mill in Montana. You’ve murdered cops, unleashed monsters, and are actively trying to end the world as we know it. Suffice it to say I don’t have much patience for you. So you’ve got two options: One, tell me who your boss is so I know exactly who to gun for, then turn around and run away. Two, we can rewind and repeat the way things went last time we chatted.”
“Oh,” he replied, a glimmer of fury in his frosty eyes, “I think we both know how this is gonna play—”
Boom.
True to Ferraro’s nature, she didn’t even let him finish the sentence before pulling the trigger: a belch of light and a harsh crack shattered the fleeting truce. Smashed it apart like taking a sledgehammer to a plate-glass window.
Madness erupted—
Light flashed all around us.
Bodies were suddenly in motion.
Shouts rang through the room, bouncing off the walls.
It was like a bomb going off in a city subway. A plane crashing to the earth in a blaze of glory and fire. Everything was anarchy and frenzied violence.
“No,” the monk shouted, his voice reedy and weak against the overwhelming commotion. “This is a place of worship,” he yelled, but no one paid him heed.
Ferraro darted right, positioning herself in front of the abbot, working her shotgun with quick, methodical precision, aiming rounds at the Prophet, who now had a blazing blue shield in place and was displacing the shots without much effort. In a blink he whipped out his hand, unleashing a barrage of ice-spears—sleek, razor-tipped projectiles—which sliced through the air, heading for Ferraro like a volley of arrows.
With a wave, I conjured a gale of unseen force, broadsiding the frozen projectiles, swatting them up and away. They narrowly missed Ferraro, slamming instead into the golden Buddha behind us, turning the statue into a giant pincushion.
I didn’t have time to linger, though, since Darth-Bathrobe was on the move, swinging out left, trying to slip around me and get to the abbot. Nope. Screw that jazz sideways. Not on my watch. I turned on him, hands upraised, and unleashed a flood of orange fire, thick as a telephone pole, ready to turn this asshole into a pile of charred meat and burnt burlap—
He was faster, though.
One hand flashed out, voluminous robe slipping back to reveal a silver gauntlet, old, worn, and covered with loops of indecipherable golden lettering and runes. Wasn’t sure what that mystical doodad was, but I had a sinking feeling it was trouble. If this guy was indeed the Shot-Caller, he’d proven himself more than willing to use dangerous and powerful artifacts to advance his cause. He’d supplied Randy Shelton with a mystical ring—containing the essence of Koschei the Deathless, the mage Lich—and later slipped a greater Wendigo a mind-altering tiara.
The spear of flame crashed into the hooded bastard, surging around him, coating him in a nimbus of red and yellow, and I watched with smug satisfaction as his voluminous sleeve went up in a blaze.
But instead of the fire spreading, flash-frying the bastard, that friggin’ gauntlet of his kicked into action. The golden script encircling the bizarre artifact flared to brilliant life, and a black void, the size of a tennis ball, appeared in the center of Darth-Bathrobe’s gauntleted hand. Looking into the void was like staring into the vastness of space: just deep, cold, unending darkness all the way down. Then, I shit you not, my fire vanished as that void vacuumed up the construct like a bad stain. Presto-change-o, gone. Disappeared.
Well, if that wasn’t a complete bunch of bullshit I didn’t know what was.
He paused for a moment, considering me. “You don’t need to do this, Yancy.” His voice was masked and unknowable, but he spoke my name with friendly familiarity. “We don’t need to be enemies, there is much you do not understand, and our values are not so different—”
“Save the sales pitch,” I cut him off, “because I’m not buying.”
“Very well,” he said simply, throwing out both hands as he spoke the words. In an instant, an eyeblink, a tremendous blast of force slammed into me like some monstrous unseen golf club, sweeping me from my feet and hurling me ass over teakettle through the air. The impact felt like getting sideswiped by a Charger doing twenty-five or thirty.
Let me just say: holy shit did Darth-Bathrobe have a mean right hook.
THIRTEEN:
Smackdown
I caught a brief glimpse of the hooded figure from the corner of my e
ye as the world spun: his hands held aloft, a silver mist sweeping along the floor. I noticed something in that instant—a tattoo, previously covered by his now missing sleeve, riding high on his shoulder: A roaring lion, bordered by a pair of somber feline heads in profile, all contained in a golden octagon with a washed-out red background. Some sort of insignia, if I had to guess. Had the look of a military unit seal, though I couldn’t place it.
Then, both the tattoo and Darth-Bathrobe vanished from view as I flipped and fell, speeding toward the floor with all the grace of a brain-dead crow sporting a pair of broken wings. With the ground rushing toward me at a million friggin’ miles per hour, I frantically stretched out my arms, curling into a slipshod forward dive, which hopefully would keep my brains on the inside of my skull.
My shoulders thudded into stone, and my bad arm—recently stitched and healing, though far from healed—screamed in protest as my thighs slapped and slammed against concrete. Not a pleasant experience. Still, the roll protected my vital bits and quickly brought me upright.
Ignoring the abrupt pain from my spill, I spun around to find Ferraro taking unsuccessful pop-shots at the Prophet, who seemed to be toying with her instead of trying to murder her outright. Casually deflecting her rounds, he maneuvered, slowly but surely backing her against a wall, where it would be more or less endgame. Sadistic prick.
“What do you think Fast Hands will do first?” he asked, relishing Ferraro’s fruitless attempts to hurt him. Savoring her powerlessness.
Everything about bearded douche rubbed me the wrong way—his stupid face, his stupid turtleneck, his stupid compact pistol, his stupid, awesome beard—but even more than just my general dislike, I hated the fact that he was threatening my amiga. The guy was a bully, a dangerous one, but still a bully, and I’ve never liked bullies. People who think they can walk all over everyone else and get away with it. Assholes like that always end up on my shit-list.
The Nox—twisted, cold, profane—came to me unbidden, surging around me in a whirling cloud. A blaze of purple formed a loose sphere of fluid light, which cast ever-shifting shadows against the wall. It was a mistake, conjuring that dark power, but I didn’t have two shits to give at the moment.
“Hey, shit-stain,” I said, drawing the Prophet’s frosty glare. His eyes widened in panicked shock for a brief moment as he regarded the strange construct swirling around me. Whatever else this bearded schlub was, he was also a mage of sorts, a powerful and competent one, so he’d sure as shit be able to sense the cold, creeping power wreathing me in an oily halo. “Threaten her again,” I growled, voice strangely guttural, “and I’m gonna toss your ass into a meat grinder, turn you into ground chuck, and feed you to Fast Hands Steve, comprende?”
“I’m not scared of—” he began.
He didn’t finish.
The light churning around me in tight spirals and looping circles erupted in a single violent spasm of motion: a hundred conjured bullets of swollen purple light smashed into his blue force field, temporarily burying him in a billow of cold flame. The temperature dropped even further as the Nox drew warmth and life from the room. For a second the Prophet disappeared completely, swallowed in the blast, and I thought, maybe, I’d finally caught a lucky break.
Wiped that bastard out with one well-placed shot.
But then, naturally, the cloud faded, dissipated, and vanished altogether, revealing the Prophet in a low crouch, his skin a pale blue, wisps of smoke rising from his hunched back. He stared up at me, hatred written all over his face, and I felt my heart momentarily stall in my chest. His eyes were awash with an otherworldly purple light, reminding me of Azazel’s spooky gaze.
But it was more than just some trick of the light—I could feel the tainted, twisted presence of Nox radiating off the kid like a greasy heat. Holy turd-monkeys. Was it possible this kid, this vessel of the Fae King of Winter, was also a friggin’ Seal Bearer? No. No way. Life couldn’t possibly be that unfair, could it? But, he obviously had access to the same kind of demonic mojo I had in the ol’ arsenal, which meant it was a possibility. A damn troubling one, too, since I very much doubted he would have the same inclination to keep his demonic power in check.
“You’re not the only one that can play that game,” he said, lunging toward me, lashing out with a bar of twisted Nox, raw and unshaped.
I froze. I was an old hand when it came to the Vis and all things Vis related, but I was still green as they came with Nox. Sure, I was slinging it around like a champ—mostly because I’m an idiot who doesn’t really think things through—but I didn’t really know much about it. Like where it came from or what its capabilities were, though I was reasonably sure a standard force-shield wouldn’t do much to stop it.
Which is why I stood there, staring like a wide-eyed deer in headlights as the beam of death-energy slammed into my chest, lifted me from my feet, and threw me across the room and into a wall. Remember when I said Darth-Bathrobe had a mean right hook? Well, the new and improved Winter hit even harder. My back collided with the temple wall and for a moment I couldn’t do anything. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t think or speak. My back was one giant flare of hurt, immobilizing me completely.
Even worse, as I lay slumped against the wall, I felt myself dying bit by bit, piece by piece. Nox, like little spiders made of lightning, crawled over me, sucking the vitality from my body, draining me of Vim. Thankfully the sensation didn’t last long, the violet spiders of energy fizzling and dying before they could do any long-term damage.
Even after that, though, I couldn’t get up. I didn’t think there was anything broken, but for the time being my body just sorta refused to work. So I lay there, crumpled like an empty beer can, and watched helplessly as Darth-Bathrobe angled toward the monk with only ill-equipped Darlene to bar his way. She held pepper spray in one trembling hand and a glowing orb of hazy blue light in the other. “Stop right there,” she stammered, backpedaling one step at a time, “or I’ll stop you. I will. I swear—I’m an authorized Judge with the Guild of the Staff.”
Darth-Bathrobe clucked his tongue, walking steadily forward, unconcerned. “You are a Judge in name only and we both know it,” he said in his garbled, distorted voice. “Everyone knows it. What you are in truth is a useful nitwit who can answer telephones. But”—he faltered, head canted to one side—“I’ll tell you a secret: even in the new order, we will have need of telephone answerers and clerks, so long as they know their proper place in the hierarchy.” That last bit was imbued with absolute scorn, with a distaste so profound it might’ve rivaled my own. “So stand aside and leave these concerns to your betters. To the doers. To those who should be in charge.”
She shuffled back a step more, then two, her knees wobbling. Her hands shook so bad I was afraid she’d accidentally dose herself with the pepper spray if she actually worked up the courage to fire.
“Yes, little rabbit,” the hooded man said, padding forward another few steps. “What you feel in your belly? It is fear, and fear is a ravenous beast, mastered only by the bold and the violent. You are neither. You are a bunny running around in a world of hawks.”
She whimpered, chin quivering, fat tears running down her cheeks.
Then she lowered the pepper spray—as though arriving at the conclusion that any resistance she might offer was pointless—and hesitantly stepped aside, eyes locked on the floor.
She gave up. Gave in.
It wasn’t an act of incompetence, but of cowardice.
Something wriggled inside me, but it wasn’t the increasingly familiar bite of anger; instead, I felt the stinging cut of disappointment. I’d never had high hopes for Darlene—she was what she was, and she sure-as-shit wasn’t a fighter—but I’d been expecting more, I guess. I’d seen flashes of something great in her during our short time together. Flashes of courage and skill. Of integrity and true grit. Still, though, as I stared at Darlene, watching her sob, body shaking as she curled in on herself, defeated, a fierce pride for the dopey
, out-of-her-league Judge bloomed in me.
Yeah, so maybe she wasn’t the epitome of brave or bold, but that dickbasket didn’t have any right to talk to her like that. I wanted to go to her, to help her, to let her know that violence wasn’t a good judge of character. But I couldn’t.
“Good,” Darth-Bathrobe chided, “remember your place and you might have one yet in the new order.”
“Enough of this,” the monk said, sliding up beside Darlene, his shadow hanging over her like a guardian angel. “My dear child,” he said, bending at the waist, ignoring the robed man, “there is no cause for tears. What will be, will be, and you too will be what you must be—there is no shame in this. One is not called noble who harms living beings, rather by not harming living beings one is called noble. Remember this and do not lose yourself to hate. Now, get behind me, child.”
The abbot stood, stern-faced, glaring at Darth-Bathrobe. “You’ve come for me,” he said, “and here I am.”
“Willing to cooperate, then?” he asked, voice buzzing.
“No,” the abbot said, shaking his head, “but neither shall I stand by while you do such bloody work in my home.” He slipped a hammer of carved wood, topped with a padded cloth head, from a length of orange cloth wrapped about his waist. A gong mallet. “This temple is a place of peace and meditation,” he said gravely, “yet you have come here seeking neither wisdom nor truth, but with violence and murderous intent in your hearts. Though I seek the middle path, the way of peace, this sacrilege cannot stand.”
He moved, a blur of orange streaking away from Darth-Bathrobe and toward the huge bell hanging by the Buddha statue. He struck the suspended brass bell, bringing down his padded mallet with a whisper of power.
You couldn’t kill a fly with a flyswatter using the same amount of force, but a peal of golden music burst outward nonetheless. Waves of brilliant illumination and resonating sound rippled into the room, washing over us, through us, then slammed into the host of bells decorating the room. Those bells picked up the clarion knell and, in turn, resounded with a bright call of their own. It took only seconds before golden light, thrumming with an unshakable, steadfast power, floated through the air like a thousand dancing stars.
Savage Prophet: A Yancy Lazarus Novel (Episode 4) Page 13