It’d been years and years since I’d seen one of those ass-ugly suckers, and my last memory of ’em wasn’t exactly fond. “Those bastards mean trouble,” I replied in the same hushed tone, preparing the waves for a friction shield or a flame javelin. “Just stay close to me—don’t fall behind. And stay away from the water line.”
We picked up the pace, trekking ahead, though the sand hampered our movements, fighting against us, sucking at our feet with every step.
The gulls shrilled again, and though we’d made good progress, they still lingered above us. Shadowing us. Marking our position. A half-second later a foamy wave crashed off to the left, and as the water pulled back into the sea, something dragged its way onto the shore; thin pale arms towed a sinuous body with a shark’s tail where legs should’ve been.
Wherever there were Spotters, there were friggin’ Jiaoren. Like smoke and fire. Like two rancid, stomach-churning peas in a pod. Hopefully, it’d only end up being the one.
Jiaoren were a type of mermaid, but we’re not talking Disney, here. No cute redheaded princesses longing to walk the shores, making calf eyes at some dashing prince while singing a jaunty tune. Nope. Not even close. Imagine if the Little Mermaid were a genetics experiment gone horribly awry, who then stumbled into a bathtub full of meth, and you’ll be close to the mark.
Deformed, barbaric creatures, they dwelled in the darkest oceans of Outworld and considered human flesh the rarest delicacy. Occasionally they’d steal into Inworld, hell-bent on capturing unwary sailors or unlucky swimmers, dragging them into the deeps with their golden nets of mermaid silk, called jiaoxiao.
From there, things got graphic. I won’t go into detail. You’re welcome.
The mermaid’s body—and it was obviously a her, the full breasts and stringy black hair told me as much—was lean and strong, but, despite the legends, this certainly wasn’t the kind of lady any sailor would fall for. Not with her mug. She had a flat, noseless face with a long lipless gash of a mouth filled with rows of jagged shark-teeth. She also had eight spidery eyes, identical to the gulls soaring above, except hers were milky white like pearls, which is where they earned their nickname:
“Pearl-Weepers. Shit. There’s no way this is gonna turn out well,” I muttered to no one in particular.
They were blind as bats and usually hunted in the dark waters where sight was useless, but when they did stalk the surface, the Spotters above saw for them. They had a strange symbiotic relationship—the gulls searched out prey, the Pearl-Weepers did the heavy lifting, and the birds got to clean up the scraps. Clumps of skin. Pieces of stringy gristle. The odd finger or toe or hand.
So, unbelievably disgusting.
“Oh my God,” Darlene said, her hand shooting out, grabbing my good shoulder, fingers sinking down in panic. “There,” she whispered, “there’s a-a”—she fumbled for a word—“a thing on the beach. Coming toward us.”
Another body rolled up onto the shore, close to the first. Followed in quick succession by a third, fourth, fifth, and sixth. A school of Pearl-Weepers, because life can never cut me a break. Ever.
I turned to Darlene. “Okay, don’t panic,” I said even though the gnawing edge of hysteria was already bubbling up inside me like a geyser preparing to burst. “Everything is gonna be fine. I’ve dealt with these things before. But”—I paused, swallowed hard as three more Jiaoren crawled onto the sand, milky eyes swiveling toward us, their heads canted to one side—“maybe we should get moving. Fast. Follow the tether to the next door and go through. Wait for me at the junction, but don’t stay on this beach. I’ll catch up.”
She shifted from foot to foot as her eyes restlessly ran over the school of Pearl-Weepers pulling their bodies through the sand, eating up the distance between us far quicker than seemed possible. I dislodged her hand and gave her a soft shove, then turned toward the charging sea-freaks gibbering at me in crazed mer-speak. I ignored them, instead turning my attention on the gulls above. Pearl-Weepers were damned hard to kill, and if we’d been in the water, we wouldn’t have stood a chance.
But on the shore? They were fast, but I knew I could outrun ’em, even on the sand. Especially if they couldn’t track my movements with the gulls.
I thrust my right hand up, fingers splayed out, palm pointing toward the wheeling birds. With a primal roar, a war cry, I let loose a blast of flame as thick as my wrist, which carved its way through the center of the feathery formation cruising above. The beam slashed through their numbers, carving the nasty scavengers. Slicing off wings or legs, burning through outstretched necks, or shearing ’em in half.
Blackened feathers rained down while charred bodies tumbled, thudding into the sand with faint puffs of white dust.
The Pearl-Weepers behind issued bloodcurdling shrieks of rage, but never ceased their frenzied hunt.
I didn’t wait for them to catch up with me. Instead I broke into a sprint, legs pumping and churning, adrenaline racing through me like Olympic speed skaters. I ran for everything I was worth, not bothering to look back. The sounds of pursuit followed hard on my heels: the angry chattering of the merfolk mixing in with the slosh-splat-flump of scaly bodies sliding and flopping along the water-slick shore. I pushed everything from my mind as I ran, scanning the waves on my left while keeping the thin golden line of energy always before me.
A series of squawks filled the air only a minute before a new batch of gulls descended on me, wings beating at the air while their pinprick beaks jabbed at me. I ducked my head, bringing my chin down and my good arm up, protecting my eyes from the sudden flurry of violence. Each peck was more annoying than painful, but they were slowing me down, which was no bueno.
“Duck,” came Darlene’s voice, a timid shout with all the authority and confidence of a field mouse. I glanced up, peeking over the top of my arm. She stood before a freestanding black slab jutting from the sand fifteen feet ahead. Her feet were planted shoulder width apart, her brow furrowed in concentration, both hands out in front of her. I couldn’t help but think of my burned shoulder, couldn’t help but think she was about to blast me full-on in the face with another beam of fire.
But I pushed my sudden anxiety away and stole a hasty look at my six—there was a Pearl-Weeper only a few arm lengths away and closing the distance with every slosh-splat-flump.
Darlene let out a holler, and a wave of shimmering green exploded out from her palms.
“Holy shitballs!” I screamed, throwing myself forward, stretching out and tucking into a tight front roll, shoulder blades slapping against the gritty earth. The wave swept over me—close enough to brush the top of my head—before smacking into the encroaching Pearl-Weeper. The green wave congealed, morphing into a soupy mush which further hardened into a blob of lime-colored Jell-O.
The shark-tailed creature howled and thrashed, throwing its weight side to side, trying fruitlessly to dislodge itself from the construct. I gained my feet with a grimace, clutching my maimed left arm to my body, and ran the last few feet to Darlene, promptly pulling her through the black stone doorway. Leaving behind the asstastic beach with its murderous gulls and flesh-eating sea-people.
And good riddance, I say.
Icy power hit me like a splash of cold water to the face as we stumbled our way through the portal and into a chamber identical to the Cubiculi ex Ostia. As with most things in my circles, however, looks can be quite deceiving. Despite being a mirror image down to the last detail, this was a shadow room, a perfect replica that existed in a pocket dimension. This room also had a completely different set of doors, which led to a new set of strange and bizarre locales.
“Wow,” I said, huffing and puffing from my beachside jog, “that was actually pretty good.” I eyed Darlene askew. “Surprisingly competent. The green blob thing, I mean. Haven’t seen that before. And the timing? Great timing.”
The winded Judge smiled deeply, twirling one strand of loose hair around her finger. “Thank you,” she replied. “It’s a nonlethal construct. Dissolves
in about five minutes, disappears like a bad stain. I call it Insta-Stop. Just a little something I’ve been working on in my free time.”
I snorted. “Insta-Stop? Well, it was good work, even if it does have a goofy-ass name. Quick. Smart. Really saved my ass. Still”—I gave the new set of doors a once-over, knowing each could be a potential bomb—“let’s just hope things get easier from here. I’ve walked the doors enough to know all the Ways can’t possibly be that bad.”
“Gosh,” she replied, grabbing the edge of her blouse in white-knuckled fists, “I sure hope not. I’m not sure my poor heart can handle it. All that running. Those monsters.” She shivered, shuddered. “No. I hope that’s the end of it.”
“Hang in there, kid. Just take things one step at a time and we’ll get through this in one piece.” I eyed my achy arm. “Well, more or less in one piece,” I amended. “And speaking of one step at a time, what’s our next door?”
She sighed, then turned, crossing her arms and tapping her bottom lip thoughtfully with one plump finger. “There,” she said after a beat, “door eleven. There are only six doors in the sequence to DC, and eleven is the next in line.”
Once more we headed over to the slab of unmarred onyx, stepping through a sheet of frozen power and into a tropic jungle, which didn’t belong to Inworld. No way in hell.
A small footpath of barren earth zigzagged through a dense tangle of leafy green vegetation. Trees—squat palms, wild ferns, and other nameless behemoths towering eighty feet or more—surrounded us, covering us in perpetual shade. The air was hot, heavy, muggy. Instantly my jeans felt constricting, the fabric rubbing uncomfortably on the inside of my thighs, while my shirt clung to my chest.
The place reminded me of my days in Vietnam, but there were plenty of telltale signs that this wasn’t just some overgrown jungle in Southeast Asia. Giant viridian pods—each the size of a large child—covered with barbed spikes, hung from the branches of the colossal trees. They were chitinous looking things that vaguely resembled an oversized butterfly’s cocoon. I’d never seen a pod like that, but if it was a cocoon—which, let’s face it, how could it not be a friggin’ cocoon—I’d bet whatever emerged wasn’t some peaceful, oversized butterfly interested only in frolicking from flower to flower, pollinating things and shit.
Nope, I’d wager an El Camino worth of delicious burritos that whatever came out of those pods would be covered in claws and spikes and teeth. Moreover, I was fairly confident that said jungle-horror would, in all likelihood, try to dissolve us in acid. That or something equally horrible. You know, strangle us with fleshy tentacles. Barf fungus spores into our faces, which would drive us into gibbering, mouth-frothing insanity. Carve us open and suck out our entrails with one of those novelty crazy straws—the kind with the plastic red lips on the end. Something awful.
Thankfully, the golden tether cut through the woods for only a mere hundred feet before depositing us at another free-standing stone, which led us into yet another Chamber of Doors.
From there it was a matter of lather, rinse, repeat …
Door seven: We trudged through a gloomy world, the earth scorched and blackened beneath our feet, a cloud of ash lingering overhead. Dark mountains tore and slashed their way across the skyline before us …
Door four: We waded through a marshy swamp; huge trees, with droopy branches and vines trailing down to the water, surrounded us like a violent mob. Something big, with a trio of thick, sucker-clad tentacles, broke the surface of the water not far off before disappearing back into the fetid bog …
Door fifteen: We meandered down a dark alleyway that might’ve belonged in New York—towering buildings stretched high on either side of us, walls tagged with ample amounts of colorful graffiti. It could’ve been New York, except the landscape seemed to shift and blur and bleed on the edges, concealing half-seen shadow-folk who coolly regarded us with invisible eyes …
Despite the odd and often foreboding locations—each filled with enough high-octane nightmare fuel to power a terror-themed amusement park—we actually did alright until the last junction.
“Oh no. Oh no. Oh no,” Darlene mumbled as we stood in the center of the final Cubiculi. “I can’t remember if it’s six or sixteen.” She shifted her gaze back and forth between the two identical doorways, one plump hand rubbing constantly at her face. One of those Ways would lead to Washington DC, while the other could take us literally anywhere, and getting lost in the Doors would suck more than an Oklahoma Twister.
Take the wrong door and we’d be forced to fight our way from terrible dimension to terrible dimension until we eventually stumbled upon some location one of us recognized or were murdered and disemboweled. You know, whichever came first.
Probably that second one.
She stopped rubbing at her face and laced her hands behind her neck, squeezing her eyes shut. After a time she shook her head, mouth screwing up in a grimace. “I’m sorry—I just can’t remember. It’s a coin toss.” She seemed to fold in on herself at the words.
I shrugged.
Fifty-fifty wasn’t bad odds, not in my line of work.
And hell, I’ve always been one lucky son of a bitch—all magi are. Besides, we were due a break. So far we’d gotten the shit end of the stick over and again, so things had to even out eventually, right? I pulled a quarter from my pocket.
Heads, door six. Tails, door sixteen.
I flicked the coin into the air, letting it tumble and spin lazily before catching it with my hand, fingers folding around the cool metal. I opened my palm. George Washington stared at me in profile—noble, honest George Washington, who could never tell a lie. Could there possibly be a better omen, considering we were headed to Washington, DC? Door six, then.
I slid the quarter back into my pocket and made for our exit—
I came to a herky-jerky halt after only a few steps. Scrawled across the surface of the door in soft glowing purple was a single word: No.
Suddenly, my mouth was dry—the moisture seemed to have migrated to my palms, which were slick with perspiration. I glanced toward Darlene, searching for any sign that she saw the ghostly lettering. But no. She was staring at door six, hands still intertwined behind her neck, and it was clear she noticed nothing out of the ordinary.
That way lies death, disciple. The words floated up from my subconscious like a faint echo.
This is bullshit, I thought. I never gave you permission, Azazel.
I need no permission. You are my host—and, for my purposes a good host—so I will not see you lost. Not yet …
The voice faded, died, leaving me alone with my thoughts.
“So which way?” Darlene asked, sounding utterly defeated and forlorn.
I hesitated a moment more.
I hated to trust the advice of a friggin’ demon, but Kong—a Sasquatch and the former Guardian of the Seal—had told me in no uncertain terms that the demonic essence was bound to protect the host from mortal danger. Some kind of divine mandate that ensured the Seal’s safety. I cleared my throat and jabbed at the other door, sixteen. “Let’s try that one,” I said, banishing the uncertainty from my voice.
She nodded and followed after me as I stepped through the ominous black slab of stone …
I stumbled onto the grassy shore of a wide river. Off to the right a hulking bridge of arched stone, studded with lamp posts, stretched across the wide, meandering river. The Arlington Memorial Bridge. In the distance was a spike of white stone, thrusting toward the purple sky, which was quickly dwindling to black as sunset gave way to true night. The George Washington Monument.
Holy shit, we’d made it. Somehow, impossibly, we’d made it.
The golden tether trailed away from me, tracing its way across the Potomac, though stopping midway. The next door hung suspended over the surface of the water, waiting for us. I dismissed the door, though. We were here. In a few minutes the trail would dissipate and vanish, taking the door—which only Darlene and I could see—with it. Gone.
&
nbsp; Thank God. I let out a deep sigh of relief, then flopped down onto my ass, the green grass soft beneath me.
For now, at least, we were safe. Away from the Guild, away from the assassin, away from the Cubiculi ex Ostia with its shadow worlds. Still, I felt a pang of unease in my gut as Azazel’s words rang in my head, I need no permission. Yeah, we’d escaped, but would I ever really be safe with that dickhead demon hanging out in my head? For that, I had no answer.
NINE:
Safe Haven
I hammered at the mahogany door marked with a brass 7C, the number placard polished to a low gleam; the thud, thud, thud reverberated down the wide hallway. The place was devoid of life. Not that I expected to see anyone, not past 10:00 PM in a nice, respectable place like this. And it was a respectable place, that much you could tell even at a glance: Clean beige carpet, trimmed in muted green. White columns spaced at ten-foot intervals, holding fashionable wall lamps shedding warm caramel light. Boring corporate artwork dotted the hallway, illuminated by recessed lighting buried in the wall panels.
The third floor of an upscale condominium complex in Dumfries—just a few minutes outside Quantico.
I looked as out of place here as a dirt-caked hobo marching through the fancy-pants door of Saks on Fifth Ave. I mean, these condos had to run three hundred thousand dollars each, and were home to mostly white collar types. Professionals. Business folk. The upwardly mobile. I, by contrast, was a delinquent gambler, blues-hound, and former wet-works man who basically lived in the back of an El Camino with a camper shell. I was leaving a damp puddle of brackish swamp water on the carpet and trying not to bleed on everything.
I’m pretty sure my very presence in the building was actually causing the property value to depreciate.
Hell, if it wasn’t for the amped-up glamour I was holding in place—making sure any curious residents didn’t notice my unsavory presence—I’m sure a squad of police officers would already be descending on us in full SWAT gear with shotguns drawn.
Savage Prophet: A Yancy Lazarus Novel (Episode 4) Page 8
