Savage Prophet: A Yancy Lazarus Novel (Episode 4)

by James A. Hunter

  “Hold on!” Ferraro yelled, zipping through the dusty cloud loitering before us. Chips of stone bit at my face as we careened into the yawning stone mouth.

  I couldn’t see, not a damned thing, not with all the flying debris obscuring my good eye, but I felt a wash of power run over my skin, time stretching and distorting, all at once, and I knew we’d made it through. Past the magi, past the guardians, and into the home of Ong, the Naga King.

  THIRTY-FOUR:

  Speed Bumps

  We lurched through the portal, transported in an eyeblink from the Thai statue garden into what I assumed was Bhogavati. The bike dropped several feet upon entrance, fat wheels hitting loose dirt and gravel, then skittering, bobbing, slipping away from us. I’d sorta assumed this side of the portal would be a continuation of the tunnel on the other side, so I wasn’t prepared for the drop or the abrupt change in terrain. My jaw snapped shut from the jarring impact, teeth clamping down on the tip of my tongue, which hurt a helluva lot more than you’d probably think.

  I mean sure, biting your tongue isn’t like getting shot in the guts or having an eye carved out, but it still sucks.

  Worse, the impact popped the buttstock of my newly acquired grenade launcher from my shoulder. Before I could do anything, the gun bounced from my grip, flying off and clattering to the ground just as the rear wheel of the cruiser fishtailed, sliding left and bucking me right. I was already precariously perched, so I did what I could and instinctively groped at Ferraro’s waist, throwing my arms around her to keep my seat, but it was no use. She fought to correct our course, but we were going too fast, and now we were maneuvering over uneven terrain.

  She swore and hit the front brake, which promptly locked up—

  The locked brake combined with my sudden, shifting weight and the loose scree under the wheels was a recipe for disaster. One of the crash-and-burn-horribly variety.

  The front wheel jackknifed as Ferraro tried to readjust, and the bike leaned drunkenly right for a long pause before smashing down, tossing me into the air for a moment before I hit dirt and skipped along—turning, rolling, floundering—like an uneven stone over the surface of a pond. My face slapped against moist ground, my head bounced off small stones, and dirt bit into my sweaty skin and coated my lips with its pungent taste. There was no asphalt, so my jeans, coat, and flak jacket did a commendable job of keeping my skin attached to my body, which was a small mercy.

  I ended up sprawled on my back, body achy, head pounding, vision blurry, the world spinning. Wasn’t sure where the bike had gone, or how Ferraro had managed, but for the moment I didn’t have the strength or will to get up and dust off, even though I knew I needed to be moving. So instead, I lay there, breathing heavily, mentally examining my body—cataloging my bits and pieces to make sure everything was present and accounted for—as my vision adjusted to the gloom. The statue garden had been dark, true, but the moon and stars had done an admirable job of lending me light.

  This place was also night-dark, but without the benefit of diamond light looming above, illuminating the ground below. Instead a huge moon, purple and spoiled—an overripe plum hanging in a starless sky—offered only a feeble glow. Still, I could tell we were in a forest. One that I recognized almost instantly, even though I’d never actually been here before. This was the same forest—or one nearly identical—as the prehistoric paradise the abbot had shown us during his brief history lesson on Ong.

  A wide path, the size of a highway, cut straight through the lush vegetation peppering the landscape, leading straight as an arrow for a massive tree rising high above the rest of the forest line. A Bodhi tree. Probably the same tree the Buddha had taken shelter under all those years ago. And rising up behind the tree, shooting even higher into the air than the elegant and ancient tree, was a temple.

  A giant pyramid.

  And atop the stone pyramid lurked a statue that could’ve been twin to the one I’d seen in the statue park. A huge stone Buddha resting within the coils of a monstrous slumbering snake. Except the snake lurking atop the monument didn’t look like stone or concrete. Its scales—polished onyx, blood-red ruby, shimmering gold and copper—gleamed under the light of the purple moon.

  Within a few heartbeats a cloud of black began to boil from the towering temple, pouring out like dense smoke from cavernous holes scattered throughout the different levels of the pyramid, streaking into the air. I wasn’t sure what I was looking at precisely—the combination of poor lighting and distance made it impossible to be sure—but it reminded me of a swarm of wasps mobilizing after someone had unwisely kicked their hive. I should’ve done something then, jumped into action, called up a whirlwind of power—pretty much anything, really—but I just lay there like a moron.

  Lay there and stared at the swarm with my mouth hanging open.

  Yep, I didn’t know what that was, but I was reasonably sure it was going to be worse than getting kicked in the teeth by an enraged rodeo bull.

  A skull-shattering, blood-boiling inhuman shriek rent the air and clawed at my ears, instantly drawing my eyes away from the temple and toward the sky directly overhead. I caught a flutter of massive wings and a flash of talons as something giant hurtled toward me, descending like a hunting falcon on a wary field mouse.

  Oh my God. The hell is that thing?

  I rolled left as it crashed into the earth, talons raking at the patch of grass and dirt I’d occupied a moment before, while its huge, tearing beak lashed out. I unleashed raw, unformed will directly into the underside of the creature’s maw, a massive uppercut of force that slammed the creature into the air, causing it to momentarily take flight. Great rushes of air beat against my face and plastered my clothes to my body. That asshole monster generated the downdraft of a small helicopter.

  I didn’t give it a chance to regain its bearings, though. I thrust both hands out, unleashing a swirling cloud of silver fog, stretching and curling outward, tendrils of power looping around the creature’s muscled legs and its talon-tipped feet, then wrapping around its wings like snares. The fog was a force construct, usually reserved for flipping shit over or ripping things apart, but this time I simply used it to bind the creature. Restraining it, pulling it earthward. Unable to pump its feathered wings, the weird whatever-the-hell-it-was lost altitude, tottering for a long beat before hitting the ground with a meaty thwack.

  It lay there, thrashing against the metaphysical bonds of energy constraining it, its huge beak tearing uselessly at the silver mist, its great wings pushing and straining for freedom. I wouldn’t be able to hold it for much longer, too damned powerful for that. Now that it was more or less still and not trying to disembowel me, however, I finally got my first real look at the thing.

  Its body was thick and heavy with muscle, built using the African lion as a template, though its proportions were far larger than any lion that’d ever strutted its stuff across the Serengeti plains. Brown eagle wings, with a span easily thirty feet across, jutted from beef-slab shoulder blades. Nestled in between those wings was a gigantic shaggy head, flat and hominid, save for the razor-sharp beak where the mouth should’ve been. I’d seen griffins before, and this could’ve passed muster as a close relative, but the build and proportions were all wrong, not to mention that ass-ugly face.

  If I had my mythology right, this firecracker-of-murder could only be one of the Garuda—a fabled race of creatures that’d vanished from the Outworld well before I kicked my way into the world as a squealing newborn. Legend held, they were natural enemies to the Naga, so I had to wonder what in the world this thing was doing here. Even stranger still, I could feel Nox in this creature’s system, pumping through it like lifeblood, strings of power pulsing in every limb, every feather.

  After my time down in Haiti, I was almost willing to say this thing was a friggin’ zombie, not unlike the undead minions Beauvoir had employed.

  But that couldn’t be. Couldn’t.

  Most creatures of Outworld were far too powerful to reanimate i
n such a way, not to mention they were mostly beings of spirit, not flesh, and flesh was an intrinsic part in the whole zombie-making process. Right? Zombies were basically undead meat suits, and most powerhouse beings from Outworld didn’t leave behind corpses, assuming they could be truly killed at all. I suppose, though, if anyone was gonna have an army of undead nightmares doing their bidding, it was sure to be Ong, the master of death.

  And what better minions to enslave than former enemies, like the Garuda?

  Shit, that was the very same thing Beauvoir had tried to do to me. Could be, Ong and Beauvoir were operating out of the same friggin’ playbook.

  More screeches echoed around me.

  I glanced up and saw a whirlwind of the creatures now swooping and soaring high overhead, hundreds of ’em, while even more poured from the temple. An army of nightmare birds. An unstoppable force of mythical monsters who were supposed to be extinct, or so close it made no difference. Then—because it seemed like the entire universe hated me and was actively out to murder me—the ground began to tremble and shake.

  Quivers of frantic motion ran up my legs and vibrated in my teeth.

  “Who enters my domain unbidden?” boomed a terrible voice, the sound shaking the leaves on nearby trees. “Who dares to face me here, in the seat of my power?” That voice was thunder, an earthquake, an avalanche, and a hurricane all rolled into one. It was the sound of a force of nature given life and dark purpose. Since Ong was literally death made manifest, I’d say he qualified as an act of God.

  The Naga King reared up, uncoiling his sinuous frame and stretching out his formidable set of heads, plural, which was exactly the moment I wanted to crawl into some deep, dank hole and call it quits on life.

  His trunk was as thick as a coal train and just as long. Each of his seven necks were as large as California Redwoods, and each of those necks held a head the size of a VW Beetle, dotted with enormous eyes that burned with purple fire. Even though I’d seen a glimpse of this creature during the abbot’s fancy-pants slideshow, the reality was something far more impressive. Not to mention, utterly, mind-blowingly terrifying.

  What in the hell did Lady Fate expect me to do against a monster like that?

  Seriously, how could I fight that? How could anyone?

  The damn thing was a hundred feet tall, at least.

  I couldn’t even dream about getting close enough to do that colossal asshat any serious damage. Its scales were probably tough as old tires and just as thick, so the only possible points of vulnerability were its eyes or mouth. Sensitive places not protected by its scaly armor. So without access to a high-powered .50 caliber sniper rifle with armor piercing rounds, I’d never get close enough to poke that scaly bastard in one of his vulnerable eyes.

  Not unless I got him to slither around on his belly or …

  The thought trailed off as I eyed my winged friend, captive and bucking frantically against the silver force pinning him to the earth. Sure Ong was a tall drink of water, but if I had wings, what would that matter? And if this winged fleabag really was a zombie, even a souped-up one, then maybe I could hot-wire it and take it for a spin?

  No, that was dumb. No way would it work.

  Ong let out a roar, the sound of a nuclear blast funneled into my ears through a pair of bullhorns, and I shrugged.

  What the hell else was I gonna do?

  At least this was a plan, and it cost me nothing to try … Well, that wasn’t exactly true, since I’d have to actively call on Azazel, which I wasn’t so keen on doing since his prison was basically made of toothpicks and chewing gum at this point, but deep down I’d known it would come to this eventually. After all, I needed an edge, and against a demon-possessed Snake King, what better edge was there than a demon like Azazel? So I cleared my mind and embraced the Nox, drawing that deadly power into myself, feeling its oily presence hit my stomach like a shot of bad hooch, and not caring.

  Liking it even.

  Then, before I could stop myself from thinking through all of the myriad of possible consequences, I edged forward and placed an outstretched hand on the back of the beastie still bucking and slavering on the ground.

  After my time in Haiti and my showdown with Beauvoir, I knew exactly what to look for, so it took less than a handful of seconds to locate the node of dark energy animating this creature. It was a zombie, one far more complex than Beauvoir’s pets, but it operated along the same general principles. I knew I could cut off Ong’s flow of power to this particular creature, sending it back to the grave in an instant, but instead of doing that, I slipped into its mind by adding my own subtle flows of Nox to the mix.

  The snarling doom-beast immediately fell still, its blank, dead eyes locked on me with adoration and absolute obedience. An awareness of its presence blossomed in the back of my head—not the presence of a living, thinking creature exactly, but more like stumbling across some new limb. An extra arm or leg, which had suddenly been grafted in. Carefully I dismissed the silver force fog, its groping tendrils dissipating, then disappearing completely.

  The beast calmly gained its feet, giving its great shaggy head a shake, stretching out its massive feathered wings, then lowering its bulky head to the ground. I am yours to command.

  With only a little hesitation, I moved around to its side, tracing my fingers over the thick fur covering its neck and upper body, then hoisted myself onto its back, sitting forward of the wings, straddling the base of its beefy neck. I grabbed a fistful of hair in both hands and willed the creature into an odd loping trot, its head dipping and swaying as it moved.

  I gotta say—aside from the swarm of monsters overhead, the unholy demonic snake ready to obliterate me, and the rogue mage assault squad looking to murder me—this was cool. Like supremely badass. I was riding a friggin’ griffin. Well, Garuda, but that’s just semantics, right?

  All that was left to do now was take this baby for a test-drive.

  THIRTY-FIVE:

  Hell Ride

  With a cluck of my tongue, I guided the beast toward the downed motorcycle, scanning the ground for Ferraro. She was nowhere to be seen. There was a crumpled swatch of jungle greenery smeared with bit of red, which suggested her likely landing spot after the crash, but she wasn’t there anymore. Splattered droplets of blood led from the crash site and deeper into the dense jungle growth beyond. She couldn’t have gotten far, though, not in the few scant minutes we’d been here, and not with any kind of serious injury.

  A flash of movement near the tree line caught my eye.

  I let out a pent-up breath as Ferraro’s face, chalky and pale, appeared between a pair of squat palms. She had a nasty gash on her forehead, bleeding liberally, but other than that she seemed okay. I was also glad to see she had my grenade launcher cradled in her hands and the satchel of ammo from my saddlebag slung across her body.

  “Yancy?” she called, creeping forward, though not breaking from tree cover. “You good?”

  “As good as can be expected,” I shouted back.

  “What’s that thing you’re on?” she asked, eyeing the Garuda beneath me with supreme suspicion.

  “This?” I patted the creature’s thick broad shoulder. “This guy’s our ri—”

  The Garuda below me shrieked in surprise and surged forward with a mind of its own, lurching into a stumbling run, then launching itself into the air; its great wings thrusting, pummeling the air, lifting us up. I fell forward, arms encircling the creature’s neck in a shaky-handed death grip, doing my damnedest not to slip off and plummet to the ground below, which would’ve been awfully embarrassing.

  A bolt of angry red light, a sizzling glob of Vis, streaked past me as the ground dropped away, and another quickly followed in its wake. I glanced down as the Garuda banked hard left, circling away from the sudden assault, and caught sight of the Brown-Robes pouring in through the axis mundi, led by Black Jack and the Savage Prophet. The Prophet’s eyes were still red and swollen from the OC spray, probably would be for a good long whi
le, which made me absurdly and inexplicably happy.

  The incoming assault squad immediately fell into a tactical defensive formation, while simultaneously opening fire on little ol’ me.

  I stole a peek toward the tree line, looking for Ferraro, but she was gone. Vanished back into the deep shadow of the jungle.

  Good.

  I put her from mind as streaks of light and lances of flame flew at me. With a whisper of will, I tossed up a hasty defensive shield, a semi-translucent wall of blue, just in time to deflect several of the blasts, then willed the Garuda higher into the skies, out of their effective firing range. The bird-guardian heeded my command in an instant, great wings stretching back to give us more lift. It took us all of a few blinks before we leveled out, cruising along eighty or ninety feet above the ground, well out of the Brown-Robes’ reach.

  With a nasty grin, I snagged a frag grenade from one of the pouches on my vest and popped the pin, keeping my hand clamped down on the spoon as I ordered the Garuda to circle back around. Once we were positioned more or less overhead, I dropped the grenade, letting gravity take over and deliver a little death from above. Maybe the Brown-Robes couldn’t reach me, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t reach them. A five count later a rattling boom and a ball of fire billowed up from where the Brown Robes had been, followed by strings of muted cursing.

  I was watching the unfolding scene below so intently, I didn’t notice the second Garuda until it veered into the side of my mount, its broad, furry head bashing into us, knocking us hard left. My body swayed from the hit, hands scrambling to maintain their tenuous grip on my ride’s thick fur. For one long horrifying second, the scene of Ferraro and me careening through the portal only to be thrown from the bike flashed through my head. This was that all over again, only now if I toppled there’d be no getting back up.