Flashback: The Morrigan: A Yancy Lazarus Novella (Yancy Lazarus Series)

by James Hunter

  “Ollam?” I asked.

  He waved his free hand through the air as though the title were of no consequence. “Just a fancy word for poet. I’m basically one-part court bard, one-part court jester, and one-part court Casanova.” His manic grin widened a hair and he waggled his eyebrows at us. “Speaking of which. Who is this vision?” He sauntered over to Ailia—who, being the proper lady that she was, extended a polite hand, which he took without a thought.

  “A pleasure to make your acquaintance,” she said, offering the spare man a neutral, professional smile and a respectful nod of the head. “I am Ailia Levchenko, Judge of the Guild.”

  “The pleasure is mine, of course,” he replied, voice rich, his words slick as a pad of butter in a hot skillet. “Many beautiful women have graced these halls, but rarely one with such beauty and such talent.” He bent at the waist, offering her a graceful bow, before gently brushing the back of her hand with his lips in a kiss that lingered too long. Eventually, he straightened. “Perhaps, when our business is concluded, I could treat you to a night the likes of which you’ll never forget.”

  “Hey Casanova,” I said, hands balling into fists as I instinctively reached for the Vis, ready to roast this turd-monkey to a crisp on principle. “How’s about you pick your friggin’ tongue up off the floor before I decide to bury my boot ankle deep in your piehole. She’s with me.”

  James slid next to me and planted a hard elbow in my ribs. “Court decorum,” he whispered, voice harsh and unamused. “I’m warning you, now is not the time and these are not the people. Understand me?”

  I hesitated for a split second before nodding in reply, a curt bob of my head.

  Douchebag Lugh regarded me over the top of Ailia’s hand, head canted to the side, curiosity and amusement warring for control over his chiseled features.

  “My deepest apologies, Lord Lugh,” James said, voice suddenly light and jovial. A good ol’ boy extending a warm greeting to an old friend. “My associate here is a rough fellow by nature. Not accustomed to fine society, I’m afraid. Still, he wishes to offer an apology.” He gave me another sharp prod in the ribs with his elbow. “Isn’t that right?”

  I sighed, tracing one boot toe along the ground. “Please forgive me, Lord Lugh,” I finally said after an uncomfortably long pause. “I’ve just been informed my courtly manner is a bit rusty. You have my apologies. What I meant to say was, pick your friggin’ tongue up off the floor before I decide to bury my boot ankle deep in your piehole. She’s with me, my Lord.”

  The lanky man dropped Ailia’s hand and shuffled back a step, regarding me with a twinkle in his emerald eyes. “What a silver tongue you have,” he said, mocking. “You must be Yancy Lazarus. Your reputation for jest is not exaggerated I see. And that must make you”—he carefully regarded James—“Lieutenant Commander James Sullivan. Truly a pleasure. As a mischief deity by nature, I must confess I am extremely interested to see how this all plays out. Already, you three are more entertaining than the dusty old farts the Guild usually sends our way.

  “Now, I do so hate to cut this short, but I’m afraid we must be going. The esteemed members of the Royal Court have convened. Your petition has been presented, and His Majesty has graciously agreed to submit to your questioning. As a rule of thumb, gods detest waiting—especially on mortals. So, if it pleases you, follow me.” He gave us a wink, wheeled about, and glided back the way he’d come on silent feet, not bothering to see if we followed. James simply nodded, his faced hardened with resolve, then moved into action, back to his usual form.

  Ailia waited just long enough to grab my arm. “I expect you to behave, Yancy,” she scolded before stepping after James, leaving me to bring up the rear.

  We made our way down a short hall as opulent as the antechamber. Ridiculously gaudy wall-mounted lamps of filigreed gold and silver lit the way with more green firelight. Nooks and crannies dotted the hall, each filled with priceless artwork or sculptures, while elaborate paintings and tapestries decorated the stone walls.

  Lugh hooked a left at an intersection of connected passageways and marched on, taking turns seemingly at random from there. It only took a handful of minutes for me to be completely lost in the sauce. There was no rhyme or reason to his leading; more than once I found us trudging through hallways that we’d already passed through—the custom, one-of-a-kind art was a dead giveaway that something was seriously off.

  I mean at one point we passed a seven-foot-tall marble giraffe statue, which upon closer inspection, actually turned out to be a giant dick—literally—with legs. So inhumanly gross, I don’t even have words for it. Then, three turns later, I shit you not, we passed the same walking shlong. How many giraffe-themed wongs could one place possibly have?

  After fifteen minutes of hiking—and it was a hike, since our tour guide moved at a near-jog—Lugh paused in midstride, his foot hanging in the air, as though some invisible barrier prevented him from going a single step further. He carefully set his foot back down and executed a smart pivot, turning to face us.

  “We have arrived,” he said matter-of-factly.

  Except that was impossible since we were still standing in an empty hall. A hallway exactly like all the others. In fact, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say we were in the exact hallway we’d first started in after leaving the waiting room. Lugh smirked, smug and self-satisfied, as though reading my thoughts, and waved behind us. Slowly, I turned and found myself staring at a set of double doors, big enough to accommodate a visiting T. rex. Shit, big enough to accommodate an oversized tour bus full of visiting T. rex.

  “The hell is going on here?” I asked, glancing back over my shoulder at our guide.

  Lord Lugh padded forward without a mark of concern marring his face. “A quick word of caution, friends,” he replied as he neared the door. “You must not venture into these halls without an escort. His Majesty’s palace is ever changing. Without a proper guide—either one of the High Nobles or one of the lesser blood—you will find yourself hopelessly lost. Stranded for all eternity, which would really be a spot of rotten luck.”

  Without further word, the cocky little shit strode forward and rapped on the door three times, the noise booming out like a series of thunderclaps. The sound hung in the air for a tense moment, lingering, waiting, and then the doors swung inward of their own accord, moving with a stealthy, silent grace.

  While we waited, Lord Lugh slid up beside me and clamped one hand over my elbow, his grip snug, almost painful. “A quick proverb for you,” he muttered into my ear, “one I think a man of your skills and inclination will understand and take to heart. A wolf in any other shape is still a wolf. Nothing more, nothing less. Deal with it like a wolf.” He released my arm and patted my shoulder. “Deal with it like a wolf, Mr. Lazarus.”

  FIVE:

  Introductions

  A red carpet—so embroidered with gold even Scrooge McDuck would’ve found it tacky—stretched out before us, beckoning us into the room beyond the doors. Except room wasn’t exactly the right word.

  Hell, I wasn’t sure there was a word for what I was looking at. We were in a circular clearing of sorts: the ground covered with grass so vibrant it looked spray-painted on. A riot of flowers ran amok, their petals so pristine and colorful it hurt the eyes. A small, slow moving stream meandered on the right. A handful of short trees, elegant slender things which seemed to mimic the form of dancing humans, dotted the space and bore luscious fruits studded with actual gems—rubies, diamonds, emeralds, sapphires—and glowed with warm amber light.

  Around the clearing loomed giant stones, hulking gray slabs propped upright with yet another huge gray slab of rock running across the top like some sort of monstrously oversized doorway. Could be I was way off, but if I didn’t know any better, I’d say we were standing inside Stonehenge. Obviously not the Stonehenge nestled in the rolling hills of Wiltshire, but certainly some Outworld equivalent. A primal nexus.

  Stranger still, each gray-stone archway
peered onto a different landscape.

  One looked over a beautiful coast, the sky overhead stormy and dark, the waves battering against some forgotten, rocky shoreline. Another led to a forest filled with towering oaks and wild apple trees, a tangle of dense vegetation blanketing the ground—a wild place, as ancient as they come. A forest untouched by humanity. A third peered onto arid badlands chock-full of stunted trees, rolling dunes, and dusty bleached bones jutting out like skeletal fingers clawing at the sky.

  At the far end of the red-and gold-covered carpet, which cut through the clearing like a knife blade, sprawled a throne of ancient granite and twisted tree roots—almost a natural formation, which the massive archways had been painstakingly built around. Its simplicity was shocking, as was the man occupying the seat.

  The guy was a giant—like literally gigantic, maybe nine or ten feet tall—and so broad and muscled he looked deformed. His skin was rough and gray like the stone around him, his facial features crude and malformed, like an artist had started carving a humanoid statue, then got bored halfway through and said screw this, I’ve got better shit to do. He wore a man dress just like Lord Lugh—though white instead of Lugh’s green—and rested one thick-knuckled hand on a gnarled wooden club, which must’ve weighed in at half a ton. The only thing that screamed “king” was the circlet of gold wrapped around his lumpy, lopsided brow.

  Besides the king, I counted nine guests occupying the unnatural clearing. A few looked more or less human, but there were also some outright weirdos.

  A scantily clad woman with neon-blue hair and an honest-to-goodness fishtail lounged in the slow-moving stream. She had a furry brown otter with oddly thoughtful eyes wrapped around her neck like a living scarf. Beside her stood a man with skin the color of a restless, wind-tossed ocean, both feet planted firmly in the stream, as though he didn’t dare leave the trickling brook.

  Another lady had wings, covered with metallic-silver feathers, instead of arms, while a third—surrounded by a nimbus of gold and so beautiful it physically hurt to look at her—had lacey butterfly wings poking out of her back.

  Their outfits ranged from elegant silks and furs covered in embroidery, to simple clerical robes, to … well, not much by way of anything, as was the case of madam butterfly. Though my gaze didn’t loiter, I can say the lady did au naturale like a champ. One and all, though, exuded an air of outright snobbery. Pompous jackasses, sitting on pedestals, looking down their friggin’ noses at us. And they were looking down on us—it was in the way they stood: chins raised, arms crossed or hands planted on hips, slight sneers curling lips. They thought they were better than us. They expected us to bow and scrape for ’em, like their shit didn’t stink.

  James, intuitively sensing my immediate and intense annoyance for the high and mighty douches assembled before us, rapped me on the shin with his cane. Just a quick tap—hard enough to get my attention, soft enough not to seriously hurt—which said everything that needed saying.

  Keep your attitude in check.

  I nodded my understanding. And I really would try to keep myself in line. Yes, they were snobs, but they were also terrifying, otherworldly beings that had existed for eons and could likely crush me on a whim.

  Ailia, clearly feeling the same sense of trepidation, stole a handful of deep, calming breaths, steeling her resolve, before gliding several paces into the room. A few feet away from the sprawling throne of marble and wood, she paused, offered a deep curtsy—despite the fact that she was wearing a no-nonsense suit—then dropped to one knee before ol’ stone face, head bowed.

  “High King Dagda,” she said, eyes downcast. “I thank ye for the hospitality of your court and for agreeing to indulge our investigation into the disappearance of the Guild ambassador, Scott Hoehner.” Her language was awfully formal and held the ring of an old world ceremonial greeting. Just the kind of fine attention to detail she excelled at.

  The king inclined his stony mug a fraction of an inch. “Rise and be welcome, Judge Ailia Levchenko. I take great pleasure to see the Guild has dispatched their finest.” He smiled, an unnatural gesture revealing blunt, crooked teeth. “And you’ve brought companions, no less.” He paused, studying us coolly, his awkward smile transforming into a pucker. “James Sullivan, Lieutenant Commander”—he dipped his head a fraction of an inch toward my partner—“and Yancy Lazarus. The Fixer.” He said my unofficial title with more than a little distaste, his lips curling down at the corners as if he’d just swallowed something particularly revolting. No polite head nod for me, I noticed.

  Well, screw him and the giant, ugly horse he rode in on.

  I knew damned well how things were, and I knew how folks—both inside and outside the Guild—viewed me. I was an unavoidable, distasteful evil. But a necessary one. Guild muscle: a gun-toting, power-slinging thug with an enchanted garrote. A walking bomb. A knife in the dark, waiting for a turned back. James often played the part of the diplomat, while I only ever played the part of demolition man.

  “You must expect a great deal of trouble to drag along these two,” the king continued, “but your worry is needless. Though my people are known for their guile, I can assure you my court is innocent in this matter. Things are not as they once were. With the rise of humanity, the world has changed much. I speak on behalf of all my nobles when I say we see the tremendous value in our partnership with the Guild of the Staff. And, I personally vow that if there is some clear evidence of wrongdoing uncovered, we will ensure the guilty party is disciplined appropriately.”

  His cadence was slow, regal, and he spoke with the surety of old mountains—an unwavering strength of conviction. I wanted to believe him. But once again, I reminded myself that the more someone protested their innocence the guiltier they likely were. Especially among this lot of jackals. Maybe I was just one big, cynical, pessimistic jackass, but I couldn’t believe ol’ King Dagda had kept his throne for so long without being the craftiest of the craftiest. That, or he simply beat people into lumpy piles of paste with that ginormous club.

  Either way, he was someone to keep an eye on.

  “On behalf of the Guild,” Ailia said, rising from her knee, “I thank you for your openness. Now, if you wouldn’t mind, Your Grace, I’d like to make my way among your nobles and introduce myself, then I’d like to see Ambassador Hoehner’s personal quarters.” She glanced around, scrutinizing and parceling up each of the assembled nobles in turn. “Is this everyone, Your Excellency?”

  The giant frowned, eyes drifting for a moment, before slowly waving one hand through the air. “No. Our kind have been around for a long time, and the court has grown. Many of the lesser blood roam these corridors and more still roam the world. But, I can assure you, no one in the court of the Tuatha De Danann do anything without one of these esteemed lords and ladies knowing of it. If there is wrongdoing afoot, you will find the overseer of such mischief here,” he said. “Since you are new to these halls, Judge Levchenko, please permit me to make a round of introductions.”

  James and I took up a position near the entryway, standing shoulder to shoulder as we watched on, silent but alert. Though a round of introductions might seem innocuous enough, they were anything but. Being an empath had a lot of drawbacks, but it also made my blonde-haired girl the perfect sleuth and the best Judge the Guild had at its disposal.

  Just a brief touch and a slight probe of power and Ailia could pick up a myriad of hidden emotion, even among creatures as old and powerful as the Danann. Sure, she wouldn’t be able to ferret out the hidden thoughts of every one of these fancy folks, but if someone was hiding some major league deception, she’d pick up at least a whiff of it with her enhanced senses. A living lie detector.

  Which also made her a dangerous liability.

  The king swept one massive, malformed hand toward our guide, who’d taken up a position on the king’s right. “I trust you have already met Lord Lugh, our Chief Ollam.” It wasn’t a question. “He is brother to me and, I am sure beyond doubt, blameless an
d above reproach in this matter.” Lord Lugh bowed at the praise. “He will assist you while you sojourn among us, just as he assisted your ambassador.”

  “Indeed we have had the pleasure of his company, Your Highness,” Ailia replied, glancing at the spear-wielding crap-basket. “He has been most helpful.”

  Lugh leered like he’d just won the first-place prize at the county fair. Everything about that guy rubbed me the wrong way, but despite my desire to punch him in the mouth, I said and did nothing. Maybe I’m not the best with impulse control, but when the heat’s on, I know how to bite my tongue and stay my fist, regardless of what anyone else says.

  King Dagda grunted in acknowledgement, one hand tightening around the handle of his skull-crushing club. “And there,” he said, motioning toward a shirtless meathead with glimmering, iridescent tattoos running over his shoulders and arms in elaborate swirls, “is Oghma. He too is brother to me, and champion at arms of the court.”

  I sized him up as the king yapped. Big ol’ son of a bitch and definitely a card carrying member at Thugs-R-Us. The meathead held a beefy battle-axe—flared steel head on one side and a monstrous railroad spike of hurt on the other—so enormous I wouldn’t have been able to pick the sucker up off the floor. Champion at arms meant one thing: enforcer. He was my counterpart. The Tuatha De Danann version of a fix-it man. If things went south with these goons, there was a good chance Oghma was the guy I’d have to dance with, which was unfortunate since it looked like his favorite dance was the Eviscerate-Your-Foe Boogie.

  “Again,” Dagda intoned, rubbing thoughtfully at his craggy chin, “I would trust my life to Oghma. You have my personal assurance that he is above reproach in this affair. He would never act without my express permission.”