Savage Prophet: A Yancy Lazarus Novel (Episode 4)

by James A. Hunter

  How did I know her? She seemed so familiar. Her name lingered on the tip of my tongue, like a word I couldn’t quite conjure.

  “We don’t have much time,” a man replied, his voice gruff, cool, distracted. He too sounded vaguely familiar. “Shit,” the man said after a beat, his voice suddenly much closer, as though he were standing over me.

  “Can you do anything for him?” the woman asked, her voice clearer now. Much closer.

  “Not with something like that. Healing can only do so much, and the damage”—he paused as if surveying something—“it’s too extensive. This isn’t a cut you can slap a Band-Aid on, whore—”

  “I told you not to call me that. Do it again and I’m going to castrate you with a dull knife.”

  “The eye’s a complex organ,” the man continued without hardly a pause. “And, even if I could do something, which I can’t, we don’t have time for it. Put a dressing on it—I’ll carry him out. After that, we’ll regroup. Come up with a better plan.”

  “Yancy.” The woman’s voice came again, now booming like a riot cop hollering through a blow horn. “If you can hear me, I’m gonna get you out of here, but this is probably going to hurt.” Then, before I could fully understand the meaning behind her words, a fresh outbreak of anguish exploded in my face, as if someone had just shoved a branding iron into my left eye.

  I sat up with a scream, groping at my face with numb hands, fingers brushing over congealing blood and deep gouges in my skin, then grazing over gauze, which had been pressed over my unsightly injury. Ferraro was there, crouching down beside me, a first aid kit out and open, lying next to her shotgun on the concrete not far away. She looked worn and tired, bags under her eyes, dirt and grime generously coating her bronzed skin and staining her clothes. One of her eyes was swollen, a nasty shiner forming on her cheek.

  Seeing that eye, that bruise, brought everything back in a single terrible flash: the zombie powder, the carved voodoo sigils, the removal of my …

  I couldn’t finish the thought. Couldn’t bring myself to admit what had happened. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

  Then I noticed the other person in the room, standing five or six feet away, cradling a boxy, black MAC-10 in one hand, with a M4 slung across his back. He was scanning the room, gaze shifting from me to the stairway leading back up to the club. “Fuck, the Prophet,” I shouted, fighting to gain my feet, only to tumble back onto my ass—my legs too weak to support my weight.

  “Relax, Yancy,” Ferraro said, talking slowly, calmly, placing a comforting hand on my shoulder. “You’re okay. Safe. And he’s working with us. For now.” She glanced at the man, her face tightening in concern, but she didn’t say anything else.

  “What the holy hell are you talking about?” I asked, frantic, scooting back, staring at the man with my one good eye.

  “We don’t have time for this,” the Prophet replied, rounding on me. “We’ve got a handful of minutes before the Baron returns, and we don’t want to be stuck in this basement, meat-monkey.”

  “It’s a long story,” Ferraro said, then gave the man a hard, ferocious glare. “But the short part is we ran into each other and decided it was in our mutual best interest to temporarily work together. He wants Ong’s location as bad as we do, and we have a better chance of surviving if we work together than we do apart. But we need to go. Now. Right now. While the Baron is distracted. Can you walk?”

  I glanced between Ferraro and the Prophet—the Savage-friggin’-Prophet, I reminded myself—disoriented and unsure what to do. That asshole with the MAC-10 was the bad guy, dammit, no two ways about it. In at least one timeline he was personally responsible for knocking me off this mortal coil.

  I trusted him the way dogs trust mailmen.

  But, I also probably wouldn’t walk away from here without help.

  I grunted, nodded, too tired to care. Whatever.

  Once more I tried to push myself upright—this time, using the wall behind me for support. My legs were steadier, stronger, surer beneath me, which meant my system was burning off the last of Beauvoir’s zombie powder. I opened myself up to the Vis, reaching out for raw power, and received a trickle of energy like the drip from a leaky faucet. A wicked, angry snarl broke across my scarred face, thoughts of revenge suddenly occupying my thoughts—

  Ferraro recoiled from me on instinct, as if she couldn’t stand to see what I’d become since we parted ways.

  I tried to put her horrified look from my mind. I was a monster now, my outside finally matching my insides—it was written all over her face. I shoved that thought away too. Couldn’t worry about it now.

  I was still weak, but I had enough energy to reach down, drawing on the steadfast power of the earth below me: pulling in strength and wrapping my senses in a cloak of unshakable bedrock, deadening my nerves against the hurt rampaging through me, drawing upon the rock-steady strength to survive. To continue on, whatever the cost. It was a temporary construct that allowed me to push past my body’s physical limits. That in itself could cause a boatload of long-term damage down the road, but I was way the hell past giving any shits about anything.

  Once more, I reached up toward my face, but dropped my hand before actually touching the irrevocably maimed carnage. Surviving was the only thing that mattered now.

  No, screw that shit sideways with a rake.

  Survival wasn’t even all that important. The only thing that really mattered was getting Ferraro out of this shit hole and making Beauvoir pay for what he’d done to me. Pay for what he’d done to those poor kids he’d enslaved and pressed into service. That son of a bitch wasn’t going to walk away, even if it meant I didn’t walk away either.

  Some things were worth dying for.

  The Vis surged in me, growing incrementally stronger with every second, and as it did my legs stabilized beneath me. With Ferraro and the Prophet watching on—regarding me the way you might a mentally unstable gorilla—I reached down and grabbed a long piece of fabric from the floor. A strip from my shirt, torn away during my torture session. I wrapped it around my head, hiding my empty eye socket, then tied a snug knot at the back of my skull. I glanced at the hand mirror: not a great eye patch, but better than nothing.

  Stiffly, I reached over and snagged my jacket from the floor, shrugging into it.

  “You good?” the Prophet asked, giving me a long, thorough once-over.

  “I’ll be better when you give me that M4,” I replied, nodding toward the weapon hugging his back. My powers were recovering, but right now most of the juice I had was directed squarely at keeping me upright. With my hand cannon gone, I needed something to slay bodies with.

  The man hesitated, lips tight in consideration, then shrugged and pulled the weapon from his body, holding it out to me. “The mag’s full … well, twenty-eight rounds. The M4 always seems to jam up on me with a full thirty.”

  I hobbled over, moving slowly, deliberately.

  True, Beauvoir hadn’t done anything to my legs, but he’d sliced my abs up pretty good, and that wreaked absolute havoc when it came to walking. Greedily, I snatched up the gun, slipped the tactical, three-point sling around my shoulders—wincing as the rough nylon fabric rubbed against the carvings on my chest—then canted the gun onto its side, ensuring a round was chambered, the weapon ready.

  The Prophet reached into his back pocket and liberated an additional curved magazine, brass shell casings lining the top. “Another twenty-eight, here,” he said. I took it with a grunted “thanks” and slipped the thing into my coat pocket, its weight reassuring. Victory through superior firepower.

  “Here’s the plan, meat-monkey,” the Prophet said, eyes still fixed on the stairwell. “There’s a service entrance through the kitchen, and we’ve already removed the guards. I’m gonna take point, you, my crippled friend”—he turned and caught my eye—“will take middle, and your whore will bring up the rear. Let’s shoot for minimal contact with the Baron and his forces. Once we’re clear, we can regroup and figure out a w
ay to get the info we need. Maybe head back and put a little more pressure on that boneman, what’s his face”—he twirled his free hand through the air, then snapped his fingers—“Pierre-Francois. Yeah, that’s it.”

  “No.” I said, limping over to the stairs. “I’m not leaving here until that colossal French shit-swizzler, Beauvoir, is pushing up daisies for good. So, I’m gonna take point, you’re gonna take middle, Ferraro is gonna cover our six, and if you dick around at all, she’s gonna put two rounds into your brainpan—save us all kinds of problems down the road.”

  He snorted and shook his head. “Give me a break,” he said with a roll of his pale, icy eyes. “You can barely stay upright. Right now, if I wanted to kill you, I could take you out with both hands tied behind my back. Wouldn’t even be fair, not that I care about fairness. A Girl Scout could club you to death with a box of Thin Mints, and you wouldn’t be able to stop her.”

  “Then why don’t you?” I growled, snugging the M4’s buttstock into my shoulder pocket.

  “Because it benefits me and my boss not to.”

  “Yeah? And where is Darth-Bathrobe?”

  “God, she’s right, you really are clueless. I assume you’re referring to my business associate from the temple? He’s off doing nefarious and evil things, obviously.”

  She? Was he referring to the Morrigan? I wasn’t sure and my brain was just too fuzzy to make heads or tails of the comment, so I let it go. “Well at least I don’t have to worry about him popping in and causing me trouble while I’m roasting Beauvoir like a luau pig.”

  “God, not that again.” The Prophet faltered, some internal war momentarily playing out across his face. “It’s suicide to go after Beauvoir right now, so tell me why. Why would we do that? Why do something so absolutely stupid?”

  “I’m going because that asshole needs killing,” I said, offering him my back. “And it’s not a suicide mission.” I thought back to the hint Azazel had offered me before the torture session had commenced in earnest. “I think I know how to stop him. And how to get the info we need. So, I’m going after that Voodoo dickhead. The way I see it, you’ve got three options: you can come with me, you can tuck your tail between your legs and scamper off, or you can kill me. But no matter what you decide, I’m going after Beauvoir. Period. End of story. So either get in line and shut your friggin’ mouth, or leave.”

  I turned, the motion painful even through all the buffers I had working for me, and caught Ferraro’s eye. “You with me on this?” I asked.

  She sighed, ran a hand through her hair. “This isn’t just about revenge?”

  I shook my head, then regretted it because wow did that hurt something fierce. “I wouldn’t risk your life like that. We need that info, Ferraro, we need to stop this douchey beard-hole”—I jabbed a finger at the Prophet—“and his friends from getting the Fourth Seal. We came here to do a job, and I know how to get ’er done, alright?”

  She glowered, checked her shotgun, then nodded her agreement. “I trust you.”

  Without waiting for a response from the Prophet, I set off, hoofing it up the stairs, the M4 at the low ready.

  The door at the top of the stairway stood closed, but I hardly paused. Instead, I conjured a hammer of raw force, which blew the wooden door from its hinges, small splinters of wood flying out as the door toppled forward with a loud smack. “Moving,” I shouted out, then buttonhooked left, performing a quick sweep of the kitchen, searching for potential threats. Anything that needed killing.

  No movement. No bodies.

  I moved forward, slow and steady, then paused at the swinging door that connected to the club beyond. I pressed my back up against the wall on the right—occasionally glancing toward the kitchen in case some threat decided to pop out—lowering my rifle muzzle, before glancing back to find the Prophet stalking up behind me with Ferraro behind him.

  “You know how to clear a room?” I asked him.

  He rolled his eyes, then made a little shooing gesture with his hand, let’s get this show on the road. I grunted, then—not wanting to waste time or the element of surprise—surged forward, kicking the door open and darting through, hooking right as I swept my muzzle around. This was the room filled with affluent club-goers puffing at elaborate hookahs as zombie-strippers danced, ripping away chunks of skin and muscle for the entertainment of the onlookers.

  Despite the explosion out front, the people in this room hadn’t moved. Didn’t look concerned in the least.

  Shit, most of the club-goers before me, lounging in their padded leather chairs, didn’t even turn to regard me as I stormed in, gun in hand. They were too absorbed in the unnatural spectacle surrounding them. Too absorbed in the blood and smoke and the thumping music streaming in from the other room. They were completely lost in their addiction. And I hated them for it. Hated them for what had been done to me. Hated them because somehow I knew they were complicit in the shady dealings of Pa Beauvoir.

  These men and women were all well dressed, were wealthy and powerful. They were the aristocrats of Cité Soleil: the land barons, the slum lords, the politicians, the drug kingpins.

  And I hated them.

  There was no threat here, no zombies, other than the strippers, and no gun-toting goons waiting to punch my ticket, but that didn’t matter. Not in the light of my burning, agonized fury. Something dark and powerful swelled inside me as I searched the faces of those eagerly consuming the awful carnival this god-forsaken place had to offer. A deep loathing, so red hot it burned my insides, pulsed in time with my heart, and before I could think or stop myself, I found the M4 raised and my finger pressing the trigger.

  The muzzle spat out bright bursts of fire, chewing into the zombies, dropping them in bloody heaps, freeing them from a grisly fate no one should’ve had to endure. Living eyes finally began to flicker toward me as I killed. It took me less than a minute to put down the spattering of undead in the room. I was doing them a service—like that kid who put down Old Yeller. They didn’t even fight back.

  Then, I found the muzzle of my gun trained on a lighter-skinned man wearing a fashionable and expensive suit, a fat gold ring on one finger, a Rolex around his wrist. He looked clean, cultured, educated. He was also unarmed—all of these people were—but he was evil, he and everyone else in this exclusive VIP lounge from hell. Maybe he wasn’t as evil as Beauvoir, but this cultured assclown was certainly culpable for the misery and suffering that went on here. He stared at me, eyes flat, demeanor placid—a man who wasn’t especially concerned with life or death. Only entertainment.

  They all looked at me, not with fear in their eyes, but lusty hunger. What new spectacle is this? those looks seemed to say. What fresh atrocity is being served up for our viewing pleasure? It was that disregard, that affluent apathy toward evil and suffering, that made me want to murder them all with a spray of gunfire. Those looks were like tossing kerosene onto an already blazing bonfire.

  Blood pounded in my head, throbbing behind my missing eye, while white-knuckled adrenaline moved into my limbs like unwelcome houseguests. My finger tensed on the trigger and though I should’ve felt sick, I found myself excited instead. Thinking about blasting all those sickos in their faces felt good. Right. Six pounds of pressure, give or take, and that guy’s brain matter would decorate the floor.

  But, much as I wanted to, my finger refused to budge, a conscientious objector to the massacre, which was exactly what it would be if I pulled that trigger. They’re unarmed, my rebellious digit argued. They’re not trying to kill you. I forced and fought the little bastard down, a hairsbreadth at a time, fueled by righteous indignation.

  Ferraro’s hand landed on the barrel a moment before I squeezed off a shot. “Yancy,” she said, putting a slight but steady pressure on the barrel, pushing it down. “I know you’re hurt”—she moved the hand to my undamaged cheek while looking at me—“but this isn’t you. Killing these people won’t help anything. It’s wrong. I know you’re a hard man, I know you’ve had to do som
e tough things, but not this.”

  “They’re evil,” I hissed through clenched teeth. “They’re complicit in this whole thing.” With one hand I gestured toward the club around us. “They deserve to die.”

  “Maybe,” she said, then glanced around, surveying the crowd staring at us with equal parts amusement and horror. “Probably,” she amended. “But that’s not why we’re here. We’re here to do a job and to get answers, to save people, not to dispense vigilante justice upon an unarmed group of civilians.”

  I didn’t respond, but neither did I press down further on the trigger.

  True, most of ’em probably deserved a death sentence—they were here, in this awful place, after all—but that wasn’t for me to decide. Wasn’t for me to judge. Ferraro was right, I was a hard man, a bad man even, and though I often did things of a morally ambiguous nature, I had a line. A standard. And gunning down unarmed people, even bad ones, qualified as being on the wrong side of that line. There was a part of me still yearning to blast those shit heads into a thousand tiny pieces, but I managed by brute force of will to pry my finger from the trigger.

  “Okay?” she asked, her concern evident.

  “Yeah, okay,” I replied sullenly.

  “Hate to break up you two lovebirds,” came the Prophet’s voice, “but I’ve got an even better reason for you not to shoot these sadomasochistic gore junkies. Zombies. In the next room. A lot of them. So if you intend to get Beauvoir, I’d recommend you practice a little fire discipline and save the rounds you’ve got. You’re gonna need them.”

  TWENTY-FIVE:

  Game Changer

  I burst into the next room, the Prophet tucked behind me, Ferraro covering our asses, making sure those unarmed shit-geckos from the other room didn’t change their minds and come after us. The room, which had been a large dance hall when they’d carted me through the first time, was now a den of the living dead. The dancers, moving and grooving, were gone, driven away by the explosion, replaced by at least three or four dozen zombies, many tattered and charred.