Savage Prophet: A Yancy Lazarus Novel (Episode 4)

by James A. Hunter

  Smart strategy, I had to begrudgingly admit.

  “Enough,” Ong roared. “I tire of this futile game. Feel the power of Buné the Chloros. Taste death.” Each of Ong’s many mouths opened wide, the jaws distending, straining, cracking, then filling with a terrible light—an orb of power, cancer-green and laced with dirty streaks of violet. The light expanded, swelling in size and intensity, until I couldn’t look without risking the loss of my good eye. Staring at those lights was like staring into the sun at noonday.

  With a hollow BOOM, awful power erupted in a foul geyser.

  Seven beams of raw, freezing force slashed through the ranks of the assembled Garuda, massacring ’em indiscriminately in an attempt to hit me or the Prophet. And it was a massacre. A messy one. Wherever that cold light touched, the Garuda came apart: flesh burning, smoldering, then rotting in a blink. That rot—black tinged with rancid green—spread from the point of contact, crawling and consuming as it moved until nothing remained untouched. Brutal.

  Feathery bodies dropped, raining from the skies as Ong’s sickly light did its grim work. One of those beams flashed my way, and without a thought, I pushed my Garuda into another steep dive.

  Not fast enough.

  My mount swerved as the deadly construct washed over its hindquarters, throwing us off course. I stole a panicked look back, watching as black rot gnawed its way forward, eating as it went, murdering my ride an inch at a time. Crap. We were flying fast—crashing fast, at this point—and the desperate dive had brought us within ten feet of the stony temple roof. Quickly, I swung one leg over the beast’s neck, balancing precariously on my ass as the Garuda hurtled toward the side of temple, crash imminent.

  Then, because I was screwed no matter how you sliced it, I jumped.

  Just hurled my body forward, arms pinwheeling, legs flapping and kicking uselessly as I prayed for the best.

  My feet slammed into unforgiving stone with a sharp crack-snap, knees buckling beneath me, a scream tearing its way from my throat. My left shin folded beneath me, not something a shin is supposed to do, and a shard of bone stabbed through my jeans, its edge ragged and streaked with red. The Garuda crash-landed six or seven feet away with a thunderous rumble, already dead, its body black and twisted with decay.

  Not that I really cared.

  Sure, in our few brief moments together, I’d grown a certain affinity for the Garuda, but I had other things to worry about. Like Ong. And the Prophet. Oh, and that piece of bone pointing at me like an accusatory finger. I fell onto my back and screamed again, tears streaking from my good eye as I shook and trembled from the pain cavorting up from my busted leg. On the plus side, the industrial-grade laser light show had ceased, and the nightmare flock of Garuda had thinned considerably. But it didn’t take me long to spot the Prophet.

  That flying douche-waffle had somehow weathered the storm.

  Which is when it dawned on me:

  I’d lost. Really lost. Epically lost.

  I couldn’t salvage this mess. No way. The Prophet was up there while I was down here, without a ride, completely exhausted, and sporting a busted leg to boot. I couldn’t walk. Sure as shit couldn’t fight. And without a Garuda to haul me around, I was about as useless as a trapdoor on a lifeboat.

  I lay back against the stone, letting the harsh reality of my situation settle over me. Then, I saw Ferraro.

  She was down on the main road with Darlene and the arch-mage in tow. The three of them were steadily retreating, their backs pressed against the first few levels of the temple. Coming for them were the Brown-Robes. I counted six of ’em. The good guys were outnumbered two to one, and against Black Jack and his crew that meant game over.

  Fuck. We’d lost big time.

  Everyone was gonna die. Me, Ferraro, Darlene, even the arch-mage, that coldhearted bitch—no great loss there, I suppose. We were gonna die and Black Jack was gonna win, which meant the Morrigan and the Prophet would win, too.

  It was end game, and there wasn’t jack-shit I could do to stop it.

  Nothing.

  Not nothing, a voice whispered, insidious. A broken leg is nothing to me. Nothing. I could give you the power you need to win, to save your friends. Such terrible power, the likes of which you’ve never dreamed. Of all my brothers and sisters, bound to the Seals, there is none more terrible than I.

  Azazel. Of course.

  Yeah, and what’s that gonna run me? I thought.

  A dry, raspy grunt, the sound of breaking bones, of ancient stone crumbling, filled my head. You know the price.

  My eyes landed on Ong looming overhead, still battling against the Prophet. Despite Ong’s hideous appearance, he hadn’t always been a monster, not like he was now. He’d been noble once. Now he was a meat puppet, home to a primal evil. That’d be me—that was the price.

  I’d be the next Ong.

  My mind conjured another scene, almost against my will:

  Ailia dangling from the end of the Morrigan’s scythe blade: back arched, legs limp, arms splayed out, face a portrait of shock and pain. Her wide blue eyes—both fading and frantic—searching for me, finally ceasing their mad hunt when they found me. She held my gaze for only a moment, then a horrible cough racked her body, and dark crimson frothed at her lips and poured down her chin and neck.

  She died because you were weak, Azazel said, voice a pitiless, uncaring growl. His tone implied only the strong deserved life. Will you be weak again? Will you let them die for principle? For misguided morality? Or justice? Is Ferraro worth so little to you, disciple?

  The words were a barbed arrow stabbing into my heart over and over again.

  I had the power to stop this. Had the power to save them and beat the Prophet, if only I had the strength to say yes. Had the backbone to accept the power.

  Power could turn people into monsters, I knew—just look at what the pursuit of power had done to Trisha, what it’d done to Black Jack, to Ong—but I was willing to be a monster if it meant Ferraro walked away. If it meant Darlene got to see her kids and husband again. I’d become a friggin’ demon and deal with the fallout if it meant that the bearded bro-hole on the Garuda above me didn’t win.

  A Pyrrhic victory, maybe, but a victory nonetheless. Besides, I wasn’t without some small measure of hope. True, Ong had lost himself to his demon, but Kong—Azazel’s former warden—had lost control, and had found himself again. Maybe I could too. A small hope, but a hope my mind could cling to.

  “Done,” I whispered. The word felt like a death sentence. I pressed my eyes closed as a demonic roar filled my head and power infused my body.

  THIRTY-SEVEN:

  Devil in Me

  Pain came from my gut, exploding from my center and radiating outward, surpassing the agony of my broken leg. I screamed, the sound lost in the cacophony of noise around me—the squawking of the Garuda, the howling of Ong, the resonating blasts of the mage battle below—but thunderous in my own head. I curled into a ball, clutching my belly as something so hot it was almost frigid pumped through my veins.

  It felt like I’d swallowed an angry badger, which had then given birth to a million cell-sized micro-badgers who were currently mauling my insides.

  Even through the horrendous pain I watched as black tendrils rippled beneath my flesh, turning my skin blister-burn red in their passing. I rolled onto my side and dry-heaved, my body desperate to purge whatever this awful toxin was coursing through me, changing me. My muscles—all of ’em—began to shiver, then to twitch furiously as they bulged and strained against my clothing. My fingers cracked, snapping apart at the joints as they stretched and elongated, my fingernails falling away as heinous claws erupted.

  I threw back my head and howled, my too-long hands ripping at my shirt and jacket, shredding my clothes as I wriggled and rolled on the ground. It wasn’t long before I was shirtless—just in time for the spikes to work their way free from my skin. Slick black bone, covered in wet crimson, protruded from my shoulders and forearms; more marched
down my spinal column like the rigid spikes along an alligator’s back. Horns burst from my forehead—two railroad spikes, driven into my temples—and then the pain receded, diminished, vanished almost as abruptly as it’d come.

  In its wake came knowledge, information blooming in the back of my head like a garden, followed in short succession by emotion, hot and vicious: a killing rage that could only be satiated by blood, oceans and oceans of it. I gained my feet with ease, my body strong and hale, my broken leg miraculously healed in the transformation, though my missing eye remained missing. Still, that hardly mattered. I saw the world through a haze of purple light and even with only one eye I saw better, further, more clearly than I ever had with two. I could see life. Could see Vim and Vis coursing beneath everything like the pounding of some colossal heart, driving creation along.

  My gaze swiveled to Ferraro, Darlene, and the arch-mage battling their way up the steps of the temple, desperately holding back the encroaching Brown-Robes.

  For a fleeting moment I thought about leaving them to die, to suffer the fate of the weak and unfit—that cold, conniving bitch Borgstrom certainly deserved it. In many ways, this mess was of her making, so it seemed fitting she should perish as a result of her feebleness, her failure. But I dismissed the thought. Sure, watching Black Jack skewer her like a luau pig would be sweet, but saving her would be far more advantageous in the long term. A pragmatic, tactical decision.

  Likewise, Ferraro was a skilled fighter and loyal—traits that would serve me well in the months to come—while Darlene had proven herself to be surprisingly resourceful.

  I pulled in corrupt Nox, and a dome of purple enveloped me, lifting me from the ground, holding me aloft on conjured bands of gravitational force.

  I pushed off from the steps of the pyramid, shooting skyward, carried upward by a tremendous gust of conjured wind. I slammed into the belly of a low-flying Garuda and used my talons to hook into its side, pulling myself to its back with a lazy, contemptuous grace. The beast fought and bucked, throwing its great head about in protest, but a surge of Nox changed all that, quickly co-opting the controls, bringing the stupid beast under my influence.

  I smiled—my mouth too wide and filled with wicked teeth—and regarded the beast below me. Powerful creatures, were the Garuda, but not so powerful that they couldn’t be supercharged with a little demonic energy. Azazel’s seemingly endless knowledge burned in the back of my head and I acted on instinct, sinking the talons of my left hand into the creature’s flesh, anchoring myself fast, imparting a bit of my newfound nature into the beast. The Garuda shivered, muscles jolting in spastic waves as Azazel’s essence spread, transforming the creature.

  Thick black spikes exploded from its legs. Muscles bulged, expanded. Its feathers burst into a halo of pale purple flame.

  Perfect.

  A glance up revealed the Prophet swooping and wheeling around Ong’s head, harrying the Naga King, staging lightning-fast assaults before retreating out of reach. Classic guerrilla tactics—effective but time consuming.

  Which meant I had time. All the time I needed.

  With a growl, I compelled my new mount to wheel and dive. Its wings folded in as we abandoned the temple, shooting like a missile toward Ferraro, Darlene, and the arch-mage—a streak of deathly light cutting through the sky.

  I held out my right hand, calling Nox and fine weaves of air to me as we fell, bending them to my will, forming them into a weapon, which took shape in my palm: not the normal single-edged katana I typically used, but rather a burning violet warhammer. Its long haft was topped by a wicked hammer head on one side and a cruel spike on the other. Azazel’s favored weapon, I knew in an instant. Perfect for dealing with an adversary in heavy armor—smashing in a helm with the blunt head or penetrating a breastplate with the razor-edged spike, piercing the chest cavity below.

  A brutal, efficient weapon, much like Azazel himself.

  I banked hard, turning around, calling up a cloak of illusion as I came in from behind. The Brown-Robes were preoccupied, pushing Ferraro and the others, herding ’em, but they still posed a threat. Magi were dangerous creatures, even against a being like Azazel, especially in numbers. And the Brown-Robes not only had numbers, they had skill. A deadly combination. I had surprise on my side, though. They were too focused on the arch-mage, so focused they didn’t see me coming until I damn near barreled right into ’em.

  Ten feet out, I unleashed the power roaring through me, lashing out with my crushing warhammer, using the weapon as a conduit, channeling a brutal wave of Nox. The construct rushed free like a battering ram, colliding with the assembled Brown-Robes, scattering them like bowling pins. Brown-Robes let out bellows of surprise as their bodies flipped and spun through the air, sailing every which way from the precision strike. Not a killing blow, but certainly one that’d leave the bastards reeling for a while.

  Certainly long enough for me to evacuate Ferraro and Darlene.

  Then I saw Black Jack, cowl thrown back, already fighting his way upright, and all I could think of was murder.

  My mount dropped to the ground, grass withering beneath his feet, dying a swift death as the Nox swirling around me ate at its life force, consumed its vibrant vitality. I leapt from the Garuda’s back, throwing myself at Jack, hitting him around the waist and dropping him to the ground with a thud. I gained my feet, straddling him, staring down at his tired face as I twirled the warhammer in my hands, feeling the comforting weight of the weapon.

  “You don’t have to do this,” Jack said, words hard.

  “We’re far beyond that, Jack,” I replied, raising the weapon high overhead.

  He grimaced, nodded as though he knew what was coming, and I brought the hammer down in a sickening blow. Nox surged on impact, and by the time the angry purple light faded, there wasn’t anything left of Jack’s head. Not even blood or gore—everything was gone from the neck up. Eaten. I surveyed the rest of the Brown-Robes, still down for the count, then turned and started for Ferraro, Darlene, and the arch-mage.

  The three women continued to back away from me, fear evident on each of their faces. I knew exactly how I must look—like a bona fide monster, a demon—but it still hurt a little, a knife wound to my already shattered heart.

  “Yancy?” Ferraro called out, taking point, the grenade launcher aimed squarely at me, tracking my movements. “Talk to me, Yancy,” she said, finger inching toward the trigger. “You still in there?”

  I nodded, the motion strange with the added weight of the horns bulging from my brow. “Still me,” I said, voice hard, guttural, hardly my own, “but not for long. You three need to leave,” I said, forging on. “I’ll deal with Ong and the Prophet.”

  “Oh, Yancy,” Darlene said, edging around Ferraro on the right, “we can’t leave you here to face all of this on your own—”

  I held up a hand, cutting her off with a harsh glance. “It’s not a request.”

  I swept out the warhammer, summoning huge flows of energy—twisted things of earth and air and Nox, bound with the life force of this place, stolen from the ground, the forest, ripped away from Black Jack’s lifeless body. The construct that snapped into place was an impossibly dense thing, so dense it punched through the fabric of this place: a rip in reality. A ragged hole six feet by six feet materialized behind them, bleeding violet at the edges. Beyond the portal, wavering and shimmering like a desert mirage, were ruins:

  Dusty white blocks of stone outlined the base of some ancient building, nestled among dirt, sparse yellow grass, and a few scraggly trees which were scattered across the barren landscape. More stone—great blocks of granite, jagged bricks of sandstone, chunks of marble—littered the surrounding area. The sparse remains of Hierapolis, in southern Turkey. A once thriving city, back when Azazel had last walked freely across the face of the earth. The ancient building, little more than a foundation, was the final remains of the Plutonium: an axis mundi itself, and one of several gateways to Hell.

  Before Darlene
or Ferraro could protest further, I conjured a tremendous gust of wind, a force construct that slapped against the three women, hurling them through the portal and into the Turkish countryside. A look of shock and hurt seemed to flicker across Ferraro’s face for a moment, but then the portal snapped closed, leaving me alone. With them gone and safe, the only thing left was to deal with the Prophet and claim the Fourth Seal for myself.

  I spun and remounted my Garuda, booting the thing into motion. With a shriek, my mount broke into a trot and leapt back into the air, wings beating as we soared up, leaving the remaining Brown-Robes to their own devices, focusing instead on the Prophet above.

  He was totally fixated on Ong, swooping around the Snake King like a buzzing fly, refusing to be swatted down. In many ways Orobas—the demon essence within the Prophet—was like a bug: a spider, a weaver of webs who preferred to work from the shadows whenever possible, using his prophetic talents to arrange the deck in his favor. In open combat, though, he was no match for Azazel and he was often oblivious to the real world. That had always been Orobas’s weakness: overconfidence. He relied too heavily on those visions of his, to the exclusion of everything else.

  With a whisper of will I conjured a cloak of illusion around myself, disappearing in a blink as I hurtled in from directly below him. He’d dodged this same move before, but this time he didn’t see me coming. I raised one hand and unleashed a ball of flame that smacked into the Garuda’s belly, roaring up around the creature, setting its wings on fire all at once. I swooped past the flaming creature, dismissing the illusion as I flew. I caught the Prophet’s face, both shocked and pained, as his mount dropped.

  I flipped him the bird as he fell.

  Spiraling down and down and down. Apparently, he hadn’t seen that coming. With the Prophet gone—though not dead I was sure—there was only Ong left to deal with. I circled back toward the Naga King, twirling my hammer, baiting him.