Wendigo Rising: A Yancy Lazarus Novel (Episode Three) (Yancy Lazarus Series Book 3)

by James Hunter

  James’s hand dropped onto my arm, jerking the gun muzzle down before I could shoot.

  “They’ve stopped advancing,” he whispered, as though anything louder might startle the creatures back into their killing frenzy.

  It took me a handful of seconds to realize that not only had the horde halted—a scant five feet away, no less—but the music had also ceased, leaving only the moans and cries of the dying. I glanced at James. He pointed toward the far end of the hall, a shit-eating grin tattooed across his mug.

  Winona stood behind Peisinoe, one massive hand wrapped around her slim throat, while Ferraro and Greg each stood behind one of the other sisters, pistols tucked up under the jaw, pressed tight into creamy flesh. Winona, Ferraro, and Greg all had globs of golden wax jammed into their ears, a safeguard, which had apparently allowed them to close in on the Sirens without falling prey to their seductive song. Sometimes, when you can’t win the game, you just need to change the rules.

  “Yield or die,” Ferraro said, loudly enough for the entire court to hear, her face all hard angles that said she was hoping they would choose the “die” option.

  TWENTY-EIGHT:

  Of Monsters and Men

  We sat around a wide banquet table in a private room connected to the dance hall, which had recently been an active warzone. Ferrero and Greg sat to my left, James lounged to my right, and the Chiye-tanka squatted on their haunches against the wall behind us. There were no chairs in this particular meeting room big enough to accommodate their bulk. Not that they seemed to mind.

  Everyone, except James and me, appeared the worse for wear—evening finery slashed open in some places, stained in others with a varied lot of multi-colored fluids. The dark red splotches were certainly blood, though there were also splashes of blue, purple, green, and yellow. It kinda looked like a tie-dye shirt had barfed on everyone, though Kong was the worst casualty by far. He now actually resembled the tie-dye tree-hugger I’d always imagined him to be.

  The three Sirens sat across from us, relaxed and completely at ease, stunning as ever and, apparently, unconcerned that the people they’d tried to murder horribly were sitting so near.

  “We haven’t had such a delightful evening in a millennia,” Peisinoe said, a faint smirk gracing her lips as she spoke. “When I saw you all strut through the door, I knew tonight would be far more interesting than anything we had slated on the agenda. Delight—”

  “Look, lady”—I smacked my hand down against the hardwood table, cutting her words short—“this doesn’t change anything, not for me. Regardless of how you and your bat-shit crazy sisters feel, we’re not friends or pals.”

  “Ain’t that the daggon truth,” Greg added, his voice low and brimming with old hurt, with memories that cut as deep as surgeon’s steel. He leaned forward in his chair, carefully placing his gore covered K-Bar on the tabletop. “You killed our friends. Murdered ’em in a jungle eight thousand miles away from their families. We’ll abide by the peace of this place, ’cause we’d be fools not to. But you make no mistake, I’d cut off each of your heads if I could get away with it.”

  “Let me tell you about some real friends,” I said. “Once upon a time I had a friend named Moody—dumb, nineteen-year-old kid from Ohio—probably you’ve never heard his name, but you should. Greg and I had to hold him down while he bucked and kicked, trying to tear open our throats and gouge out our eyes. We pinned him to the ground near a moss covered log in the Vietnamese bush and watched Corporal Stanton put a round in his head. And that … well that’s on you. You and your fucking music.” I drummed my fingers against the table, the thump-thump-thump filling the air.

  “Killed Stanton, too,” Greg said, leaning further forward, bringing his elbows to rest on the table as he stared daggers and death at the sisters. “Moody, Stanton, Jackson, Cortez, Lewiston, Ox, Wrangle, Phillips. Everyone of ’em dead.” He turned and spat onto the floor, his disdain evident.

  “And Rat,” I said after a few seconds. “Can’t forget about Rat. Shit, even when I try to forget about Rat, I can’t. Him, you three might even remember. Little guy, maybe 5'4" and a buck thirty-five. He was in the throne room. Set himself on fire with a white phosphorus grenade to save me and Greg from you and that monster you were working for.” I halted for a beat, giving them time to remember.

  “You know,” I said after a time, “I told Rat’s mother about what really happened in that jungle—not the colossal pile of horseshit the higher-ups wrote down. This was months after they finally released me from Walter Reed. I told her about all of you, about what a hero her son was. I gave her his last words—‘I’m sorry, tell my mom I’m so sorry and that I love her.’”

  Tears built in the corner of my eyes, anger turning my muscles tight. Underneath the table, Ferraro slipped a hand into mine, warmth and support radiating off her. “I held the poor lady while she wept for her only son—her only child—stolen away by a bunch of fucking monsters. Those are friends. Friends Greg and I will never get back. So don’t pretend there’s anything between us. How’s about you just tell us what we want to know, before I decide seeing you bitches die is more important than walking away from here alive.”

  “Very well,” Peisinoe said, her words chilly and precise. “We will tell you what you want to know, as per the rules of the agreement—”

  “You’re such a self-righteous hypocrite,” Nell said, turning away from us, her blonde hair swinging over her face and hiding her eyes. “You call us monsters and murderers? But what does that make you? How many sons have you murdered, Yancy Lazarus? Just because a creature isn’t human, doesn’t mean it isn’t someone’s son or daughter, mother or father. You would wave your blood soaked hands at us? When you know so very little?”

  Peisinoe scooted closer to the youngest Siren, carefully draping an arm over her heaving shoulders, shushing her quietly.

  “Once we were royalty, you know,” Ivana said, her voice distant and thoughtful. “We are the last of our kind now, but once, in a time before the memory of man, the Sirens were a great nation and a proud people. We weren’t always entertainers.” She smoothed back her raven hair and in that moment she did look regal. “We were peacemakers. The great diplomats between the world of men and monsters, our music a balm to soothe the restless soul and bring healing to the nations.” She plucked at her dress as if imagining it to be a gown fit for her lofty station.

  “But, as with so many things,” she continued, “our time was cut short. We fell out of favor. Barbarian humans, seeking to enslave one another. Burning for power. So eager to profit at the death of their own kind. They cast us out. We gave them peace and they spurned it. Spurned us. Manipulators. Witches. Whores. Heathens.

  “Our kin were hunted down and slain, one by one. Killed by your kind.” She jabbed a finger at me, her lovely face twisted into a grimace of agony. “The magi—human thugs. And now?” She faltered, letting the question hang, unanswered. “Now, we are but three. The disgraced Queen”—she placed a gentle hand on Peisinoe’s shoulder—“and the fallen Princesses. Reduced to court jesters for the amusement of others.” She fell quiet, glancing away as twin streams of tears poured from her eyes, running down her flawless skin and dripping onto her sequined dress.

  “So don’t you dare speak to us of monsters,” she said, the words slightly muffled by her hand as she wiped the tears free. “We are survivors. What we have done since your kind robbed us of everything¸ is merely survive. Back in Vietnam, we were soldiers fighting in a war, no different from you. You’re no better than us, so don’t you dare lay your accusations at our feet.”

  I looked away, glancing at Greg, who was carefully surveying the golden buttons running up the front of his jacket.

  I felt about as small as a mouse turd just then. Shit, I was the guy who made monsters cry.

  “Dear Ivana, that is quite enough, I think,” Peisinoe said, offering her a small, sad smile. She turned back toward me. “We have agreed to tell you what you seek and we will abide
by the terms of the bargain. So come, tell us what you would know.”

  I cleared my throat, trying to figure out how to start, feeling like maybe I should apologize. But I couldn’t. The words caught in my mouth and refused to come.

  Granted, there might have been more to their story than I knew, and maybe even fiends could be worthy of sympathy and grace. But I wasn’t the kinda guy to give it to ’em. They were right, I’d made a lot of mistakes in my day and I’d killed more than my fair share of folks in a bid to survive, so perhaps I didn’t have any right to cast stones their way.

  But I’d also owned the consequences of my actions. I carried the guilt—carried all those deaths—around with me, forever weighing on my mind and conscience like a chain wrapped around my throat. The faces of the dead and damned often flashed through my dreams and lingered in the dark spaces of my mind. I was accountable for those lives, and someday the butcher’s bill would come due. That’s the way life works—you reap what you sow. I’d sown a helluva lot of death and chaos out into the universe. Eventually it would come home to roost, and I had a certain measure of peace in that.

  These women … well, they needed to be held accountable for the lives they’d taken, too. Their pain and suffering went a long way toward explaining all the brokenness carved into their flesh and blood and lives, but it didn’t get ’em off the hook. It didn’t wash away their sins or justify their carnage.

  In the end, I couldn’t apologize. So instead I brushed past their tale with a callous heart, laying out the dire situation before us: the Wendigo, the brainwashed Chiye-tanka, the engineered Wendigo virus, and, of course, the tiara. Kong, Winona, Ferraro, and I all spoke in turns, offering up different pieces of the tale, making sure no relevant details were left out—though, thank good God above, no one spoke about the Seals.

  For the first time, the sisters looked truly troubled, deeply worried, but also strangely hopeful.

  “This tiara does indeed belong to us, though it has been an age since last we saw it,” Peisinoe said at last. “My crown, stolen by Jason and his Argonauts—unwitting pawns of the magi. A final blow to strip us of our heritage and the last vestige of our rule. The tiara is far more powerful then anyone understands or knows. We have held close the secret of its power for fear it would bring pandemonium into the world on an unprecedented level. This Wendigo seems to know a great deal—far more than he ought.”

  She stared intently at the chief, still hunkered down against the back wall. “Lord Chankoowashtay, if you would see your people saved, it is imperative that you get the tiara away from the creature. The sooner the better. The tiara was designed and meant for my people, it was never built to compel the minds of the unwilling—not in this fashion. When used in such a manner the damage it can do … may be irreversible. Compulsion on this magnitude takes a toll on the mind. The more a freewill being is compelled to act against its essential nature, the more damage is done. The personality might be eradicated, the mind obliterated, the body driven to utter madness.”

  “Ma’am,” Greg said, far more politely than I would’ve expected out of him. “I’ve got a question. “Now I know this tiara protects this Wendigo from Yancy’s hoodoo”—he was all no-nonsense business again—“but is there anything stoppin’ me from putting a fifty caliber round right into his daggon skull? Not to toot my own horn, but I’m a fair shot.”

  Greg was better than a fair shot. He’d never qualified below expert—the highest level of marksmanship in the Corps—and he’d later gone Force Recon, the Marine Corps equivalent of Special Forces.

  “I could set up a concealed firing position a half mile out,” Greg said, “you guys could lure this thing into the open, and I could put a round right through his eye socket. Turn that son of a bitch into a cloud of pink mist.” He turned to look at me. “You and James could even build me one of those specialty rounds, inscribed with sigils and glyphs if you think it’d help.”

  He faced the Sirens once more. “So would the tiara protect him from that?”

  Ferraro nodded her head in appreciation of the straightforward, take-no-prisoners plan, and I had to admit it had real merits. Supernatural baddies often neglect and underestimate the tremendous advances in modern military tech. The Wendigo probably wouldn’t give a second thought to such a ploy—he’d be expecting some kind of big confrontation involving a lot of chest beating and shit talking. I, on the other hand, was totally fine with capping his hairy ass. Not heroic, but very pragmatic. And like I’ve said before, I’ll pick pragmatism over heroism any day of the week.

  “No, the crown would not shelter the beast from such an attack,” Peisinoe said levelly. “It is designed to protect the wearer from magi, not from mortal weaponry. Your kind, dearest Gregory, has come so far since the days when we first constructed the tiara. Who should have ever guessed how effective you would become at killing each other?” She hesitated for a moment, smoothing her flashy dress. “Sadly, your plan, Mr. Chandler, will not work—unless, of course, the fate of the Chiye-tanka is immaterial. To kill the Wendigo in such a way would mean their certain death.”

  “No,” Kong growled, “that is unacceptable. I will not allow my people to be harmed.”

  “Peace, father,” Winona said, running one hand over Kong’s arm. “Your blood is still hot from the battle. Peace. The Hand of Fate will work things out. Please, Madam Siren, continue.”

  Peisinoe nodded graciously toward Winona, a small thank you. “As I was saying, your plan will certainly kill the Wendigo—assuming such an attack can, in fact, kill it—but it will not destroy the pieces of himself he has already inserted into the minds of his victims. The tiara allows the wearer to deposit a sliver of their own subconscious into every mind it touches, a shadow linking back to the original. That is why the tiara works so well. It replicates and implants the mind of the wearer, enabling each separate host to operate with a degree of autonomy while remaining connected to the larger hive-mind.

  “If you simply kill the beast without first wrestling control of the tiara away from him—thus erasing the shadow access points—those pieces of his mind will live on. And, over time, they will grow, eroding the minds of the infected like a cancer. It may take years and years, but eventually these shadow fragments will leave behind an empty husk. A barely recognizable shell, and that is best-case scenario, I’m afraid ...” She trailed off, letting the revelation hang in the air like a dark cloud.

  “Well shit,” I said. “Why?”

  “Why, what?” Ivana asked.

  “Why the hell does everything always have to be a bajillion times more complicated than it should be? Nothing ever gets better, it always gets worse. I finally get answers, only to find out that the shitty situation is actually a thousand times shittier than I’d originally anticipated.” I threw up my hands in sheer frustration. “Fine. Whatever. So we can’t just ice this dick and be done with it. So tell me what horrible thing I’m going to have to do to break his control over the tiara.”

  “I’m so glad you asked,” Peisinoe replied, a rich, full, genuine smile blooming on her face. “There are two ways this can happen. First, the creature can willingly relinquish control of the tiara, giving it to you of his own free volition. Since you’re here, I’m assuming that is an unlikely avenue. The second option is the fun option. The tiara must be coded to the user, and it can only be bonded to a single user at any given point. So, you will need to code it to yourself. It’s an easy process, really: smear a dab of blood on the ruby at the tiara’s center whilst casting a simple weave of spirit into the stone. A link for both mind and body, you see.”

  I shook my head. “And how the hell am I supposed to get close enough to do that without having the Wendigo rip my friggin’ arms from my torso and beat me to death with ’em?”

  “That’s the fun part,” Nell said.

  “Assuming you can manage the task,” Peisinoe continued, “the tiara will only recognize one master. Since this Wendigo is already bound to the tiara, when you then e
stablish a competing claim …” She fell silent. “Well, a battle of wills shall ensue. You can invade his mind, and—if your will is strong enough, stronger than his—you can crush him. The winner will emerge victorious, master of the tiara, and the loser will summarily have their mind erased.” She leaned forward, giving me an uninvited, though not unappreciated, glance down her dress. “Catatonia is the best which can be hoped for.”

  “Gee, catatonia, you don’t say,” I replied. “Any other good news I should know going in?”

  “No, that is all. Now, I believe we have fulfilled the terms of our agreement. I will alert Lord Arawn and he shall see you out. As for us, the party goes on. Always and forever.” The last was a small, sad whisper.

  The sisters stood as one and filed off toward the door, stately and elegant, every inch of the royalty they claimed to be. Ivana and Nell both exited without a backward glance, but Peisinoe hesitated at the door, looking back at both Greg and me.

  “I know you have little love for us, but remember that this night we have spared your lives. Had we been so inclined, we could have abandoned you to the grisly, inevitable fate of the hunt. So think on that while we are apart.” She hesitated for just a moment. “And, should you succeed and recover the tiara,” she said softly, “know that I would pay a great price to have it returned to me. I’d pay more than you can imagine.” She turned and glided from the room, vanishing from sight.

  A few minutes later Lord Arawn, a pack of hellhounds, and the sorely disappointed looking Dullahan arrived to escort us from the premises. The walk back to the portal seemed to take a lifetime, mostly because one of those monstrous dogs kept rubbing up against me, digging his head into my ribs, and licking his colossal chops. A supremely disconcerting experience, all things considered.

  When we finally got back to the portal, Arawn regarded each of us with a grave stare. “Tonight,” he said in a bored drawl, “you invaded my home and my land. Tonight you waged a war against my people and won. Tonight you offered me a warning about treachery in my court. But, of even greater importance, tonight you entertained me. You gave me spectacle”—he threw a gauntleted fist into the air—“something both new and exciting. An exceedingly rare gift. And for that you have earned my gratitude. To reward you, I will give you your lives in accordance with our bargain and I also name each of you a friend of the Black Lodge.”