“Whole again. Complete, meat-monkey.” He closed his eyes, a look of rapture sliding over his face as his skin changed, taking on a frosty blue hue, his beard lengthened into shaggy hoarfrost, and his nails grew into gleaming, black-tipped talons. “And now, your presence is no longer required.” When he opened his eyes again, the irises were ice chips and the normally white sclera was a sea of pale purple.
“I don’t care what she wants,” he hissed, apparently arguing with himself. “I want him dead. Gone. Besides, imagine the power that we’ll have with him out of the way. With Azazel subjected to our rule.”
Then he nodded, as though coming to some internal consensus, and raised the crook. “Die,” he said, pulsing golden veins lancing up his forearms as he gathered writhing Nox and flows of frozen water in the crescent of the crook. He leveled the weapon, training it on my chest, and I knew I was dead. I couldn’t breathe, could hardly move, much less stop the deposed King of Winter, who also happened to be consorting with a fallen angel.
I sighed, gritting my teeth, curling into a ball. I’d given it my all and it hadn’t been enough—
Dizzying light flashed past my face, a wave of green, the color of lime Jell-O, streaking by, smacking directly into the Prophet. I blinked in surprise as the Prophet staggered back a step then two, the crook whipping around him in manic motion, before he finally dropped to a knee. The green wave of goop congealed, morphing into a soupy slime, further hardening into a shell of green concrete.
What the hell?
I glanced right, absolutely stupefied to find Darlene—squat, plump, paper-pushing Darlene—step free from a masterful veil of her own. And yes, the awesomesauce irony was sweet as sugared honey. She’d upgraded her wardrobe a bit since I’d seen her last, exchanging her office-casual attire for tactical black BDUs and a black cloak draped across her shoulders, trailing down her back. On her, the ensemble should’ve looked goofy as hell. Instead she looked like a major-league hard charger even though I knew she was a cat lady who probably sold Mary Kay products in her off time.
Then, before saying anything, she lifted a glove-clad hand, clutching a small bottle of military-grade pepper spray—the same bottle Ferraro had given her back in at Wat Naga Thong. “It sure is good to see you again,” she said, offering the Prophet a fierce smile. “When you see your friend Jack, kindly tell him you got your rear end kicked by a paper pusher.” She pressed down the actuator and unleashed a stream of clear liquid directly into the Prophet’s stupid, magnificently bearded face.
The Prophet let out a bellowing roar as the OC spray splashed across his skin and gnawed at his eyes. I’ve been sprayed with that shit more than once, and it sucks. It’s like getting your eyeballs tattooed or maybe having your face flayed with a dull knife while your lungs are scraped away by a belt sander. You can’t breathe or see or think, and any exposed flesh swells and distorts; it feels like drowning and burning all at once.
It’s genuinely awful. Horrendous.
Not that I felt bad for the Prophet. No one deserved it more than him. If I could, I’d force that bearded bro-hole to bathe in a vat of OC every day, three times a day, for the rest of his unnaturally long life.
The Prophet fought, thrashed, and howled, impotent to break free from the strange green insta-dry prison Darlene had laid on him. And though I had no doubt he’d be able to touch the Vis and even the Nox, pain has a funny way of keeping you from thinking clearly. Especially the blinding, skin-flaying, eye-tattooing level of pain he was currently enduring. Damn hard to be calm and levelheaded in the midst of that kind of experience, and even more so if you weren’t prepared for it.
Darlene took one long hard look at the man, who was screaming and cursing—swearing unending death and torment—gave him a cool sniff, then lobbed another blob of green goop, which splattered against his face, tendrils of the stuff wrapping around his mouth like some amorphous green squid, gagging the asshole, cutting off his colorful threats.
“That’s quite enough out of you,” she mumbled. Then, before I could do anything—like laugh my jolly old ass off—Darlene was at my side, extending me a hand, which I gladly clasped. With a grunt and an awkward shuffle, she hauled me to my feet and pulled me into a huge mama-bear hug, her arms slipping beneath mine, encircling my chest and squeezing tight. “I’m so glad to see you,” she said, speaking the words into my chest.
Instead of pulling away from the overt display of uncalled for gushiness, I slipped my arms around her and returned the hug, though only briefly. “I’m glad to see you too,” I whispered before pulling away and fighting my way free of her arms. “How in the hell did you get here?” I asked. “There’s no entry point from the Hub, not anywhere near here—closest one’s an hour south.”
“I know”—she gave me a smug grin, then tapped a finger to her head—“which is why I did a little research before coming. There’s no entry point from the Hub, but there is an exit from the Chamber of Doors, though it was one heck of a slog to get here. Thankfully, I didn’t have to make the trip alone.” She gestured behind me.
I glanced back and watched, awestruck, as a handful of men and women in matching tactical BDUs with thick cloaks trailing behind them emerged from thin air, rushing off to join the fray. Judges. Holy shit, she’d done it. She’d somehow managed to infiltrate Moorchester and liberate some friggin’ help.
Another Judge materialized from the air, slicing through from another reality, but this one had a mass of silver hair trailing all the way down her back. She turned as though sensing my gaze, and her bright green eyes lingered on me for a spell before she wheeled around and headed for the battle proper.
Holy shit. The arch-mage in the flesh. Whoever would’ve thought I’d be fighting against Black Jack Engelbrecht with the arch-mage at my six? The world is so friggin’ wonky sometimes.
“You rock harder than actual rocks,” I said to Darlene, who immediately blushed, then slapped at my shoulder.
“I bet you say that to all the exceptionally beautiful woman who rescue you from certain death.”
“No,” I said, with a shake of my head, “just you. Now, as much as I’d love to get hammered drunk and perform an Irish victory jig in celebration, this fight isn’t over, and I got shit to do. I need to find Ferraro, and I need to find the axis mundi leading to the Ong’s personal hangout. Can you and your pals hold this lot off?” I asked, hooking a thumb toward the brown-robed goons.
“Gosh, we’ll do our darndest,” she replied.
“Awesome,” I said, wheeling around, searching for Ferraro. “Then I’ll see you on the other side.”
THIRTY-THREE:
Big Guns
Ferraro lay fifteen feet away, bound on the ground, awake, alert, mostly uninjured, wrestling at her restraints. Her arms pumped, shoulders fruitlessly working to free themselves from the gobs and gobs of silver tape. I broke into an uneven stride, jumping over a shrub and back onto the paved pathway, staying in a low, wary crouch as I moved. Didn’t want to tangle with any more of those damn concrete guardians if I didn’t have to—wanted to conserve my strength for Ong, who sure as shit wasn’t gonna be some low-level pushover.
I pulled my razor-edged K-Bar as I drew up to Ferraro, dropping to a knee and instantly going to town on her restraints. The knife, gleaming silver in brilliant starlight, massacred the duct tape, parting the strips of gray in a few clean slashes. “You okay?” I asked, moving from her hands to her feet while she carefully peeled away the tape covering her mouth.
“Fine,” she said the second she could speak. “Well, not fine, but alive. And I need a gun. Please tell me you have an extra gun?”
“Yeah, here.” I slipped the Baby Glock from the holster at my back and passed her the petite pistol. “Not much, but it’s better than nothing.”
She took the piece with a grateful nod, canting the pistol to the side and dragging back the slide, performing a quick press-check, ensuring there was a round in the chamber. “Won’t be long before those magi start m
aking problems for us,” she said. “So we’d better get moving. Where’s Ong?”
“Not here,” I replied curtly, surveying the shrine-turned-war-zone. “There’s a portal around here somewhere, and we need to find it before the bad guys manage to beat back this ambush.”
“This place is huge,” she replied. “Where do we start?”
“Follow me.” I stowed my K-Bar, turned, and hoofed it toward my bike still idling ten feet away, casting a wide swath of light over the garden. “If I can get close enough to the axis mundi, I’ll feel the weak spot.” I slipped onto the bike, then scooted back. “So we just need to cruise around until I can get a bead on the thing. You know how to drive one of these?” I patted the seat purring beneath me.
“That,” she replied, straight-faced, though with a ghost of smile tracing her lips, “I can do.” She slid on in front of me, grinding up into me in a way that immediately got me thinking about what kinda crazy victory celebration we’d have when this whole shitstorm finally blew over. Then, because I couldn’t afford any sexy distractions, I conjured a picture of Black Jack in a two-piece, which killed my libido outright.
“Hang on tight,” she said, slipping the Glock into her waistband, then cranking the accelerator, rocketing the cruiser forward with a growl.
I slipped my left arm around her waist while simultaneously preparing the weaves for a flame lance in my right hand—
An explosion flashed like a bomb blast, a wave of hot air washing over us, and a moment later a hulking Buddha statue stumbled directly into our path, his arms absent, half his face missing, huge chunks of stone torso gone.
“Hold on,” she yelled, shifting the clutch and banking hard right, squealing from the path and through a patch of grass.
The fat rear tire spit up a wash of dirt, and we narrowly avoided the lumbering statue before connecting with another path, which zigged and zagged, meandering away from the center of the pitched battle raging behind us. I glanced back over my shoulder and caught sight of the Brown-Robes duking it out against both the stone guardians and Darlene’s squad of Judges. Unfortunately, the Brown-Robes were doing pretty damn good, despite the forces arrayed against them.
We had a few minutes, tops, before they’d be on our heels.
The sounds of combat continued to pursue us as Ferraro drove, flying along narrow walkways, maneuvering the cruiser to avoid lurching statues dashing through the park. Eventually, though, those noises became distant things, muffled by the leafy vegetation of the jungle surrounding us.
We cruised aimlessly for a handful of minutes, following one path, then another, chosen mostly at random—hoping a little of Fortuna’s good luck would miraculously rub off on me and guide us to where we needed to be. Not my best plan, admittedly, but certainly not my worst either.
The ride was strange, surreal.
Less than a day ago, I’d been strapped down to a table in Haiti while some psycho uber-zombie scooped one of my eyes out with a friggin’ melon baller. And now I was riding bitch while Ferraro took us on an impromptu sightseeing tour through a Thai sculpture park filled with stone monsters. Sometimes life is so unpredictable, the only thing you can do is enjoy the ride. And, surprisingly, the bizarre experience was actually enjoyable, in a weird the-world-might-end-any-minute sort of way.
Then—because all nice things are only brief interludes between the potent dysentery typhoon of my life—the spell broke, shattering as I spotted what had to be the portal:
A massive circular monument, forty or fifty feet across, with a stone wall maybe five feet high running around the structure. Inside the monument was a giant Buddha head with a host of arms protruding from its neck in every direction—intricately carved lotus flowers adorned each of the open palms. Arrayed around the massive Buddha head was an assortment of sculptures—these, thankfully, immobile—each depicting a man and woman as they passed through the various stages of life:
A pair of concrete babies, smiling and fat-cheeked, swaddled in gigantic stone cradles.
Two youngsters, a boy and a girl, running hand in hand, carefree and unburdened in their youth. Unworried about adulthood looming just around the next bend.
Then, a middle-aged couple cuddling a stone baby of their own, the youngster sandwiched between them. Their carefully carved faces looked tired but content: a couple struggling to make a home for themselves, but happy in their work.
An elderly couple came next. The pair ancient and wrinkled, shuffling along, supported by stone canes, their gazes distant—maybe searching for the family they’d raised so long ago.
Finally, a duo of grinning skeletons sat on a park bench, side by side, their bony fingers entwined as they held hands even in death.
The Circle of Life. A fitting portal entrance for a death god.
Although the interior of the monument was walled off, there was a single opening in the wall: a huge concrete tunnel, its entryway fashioned to resemble a monstrous mouth with crushing teeth, the tunnel itself a massive gullet leading inward. Even from sixty feet out, I knew that morbid tunnel was the axis mundi, the thin spot connecting to Bhogavati, the city of the Nagas. I could feel it in my soul.
Unfortunately, the entrance was guarded.
I sighed.
Flanking the huge mouth-tunnel were a score of monkey-faced guardians; squat creatures, eight feet tall, hunkered down on their haunches, cold concrete eyes staring at me and Ferraro, hostility radiating off ’em in waves. They shifted and swayed on simian appendages, occasionally sniffing at the air, but they didn’t charge us outright—probably had some sort of instructions not to leave their post. I had no doubt, though, that they’d engage if we edged too close. Every line of their bodies spoke of attack dogs, barely restrained.
“That’s where we’re going, isn’t it?” Ferraro asked, bringing the bike to a rumbling stop, turning her body to look at me.
“What gave it away?” I asked.
“Gee.” She pressed her lips into a thin line. “I wonder.”
“Don’t worry,” I replied. “I’ve got a surprise for these shitheels. Just give me a second.” I craned around, digging into one of my saddlebags, liberating the present I’d snagged from Lady Fate’s personal armory. I’d been hoping to save this bad boy for Ong, but if I didn’t get through that damned portal, I’d never have a chance to use it anyway.
The weapon—a sleek, modern, ultra-high-tech piece of absolute mayhem—looked surprisingly similar to an M4, save it had a fat, short barrel and was colored in shades of matte tan and dull black. Even at a glance, it was clear this piece of gear was related to the military assault rifle, but instead of your typical rifle bolt, it possessed a giant six-shot cylinder, big as a small drum, right where the magazine should’ve been.
But it didn’t fire bullets.
Nope. The Mk14 Mod-0 MGL was a handheld, semi-automatic, six-shot grenade launcher for those times when superior firepower was an absolute must. She could fire six 40mm high-explosive rounds in less than three seconds. Maybe these concrete assholes were resilient against Vis-conjured constructs, but I was bettin’ they wouldn’t stand up so well against the awesomely terrifying power of the Mk14.
“Che figata,” Ferraro uttered, eyes wide, voice low as she regarded the sleek death-machine. “Is that what I think it is?”
“I only come with the best,” I replied, affectionately running one hand over the monster revolver cylinder.
“Where’d you get it?” she asked, tentatively reaching toward the weapon, fingers outstretched. I smiled a little wider. I love a girl who can appreciate the finer things in life.
“Little gift from the Boss Lady. You ready to see it in action?”
She nodded, bobbing her head up and down, eagerness gleaming in her eyes. “What do you want me to do?”
“Keep it simple, stupid,” I said as much for my sake as hers. “That giant, gaping mouth right there is the axis mundi, and it’ll lead us to Ong. So I want to you gun it, and make for that tunnel—drive straight
at it. I’ll do the rest. Cool?”
She pursed her lips, then rubbed at one temple before finally sighing. “Either you’re getting better as a tactician or I’m getting worse, because I like this plan. Let’s bring the fire,” she said, turning around, readjusting her grip on the handlebars. “Just let me know when you’re ready.”
I brought the buttstock firmly into my shoulder, then carefully adjusted my position so my line of fire was clear and unobstructed. “Do it.”
She cranked the accelerator and the bike jumped forward, quickly eating up ground as we closed on the tunnel and the portal to Bhogavati.
It only took a handful of seconds for the stone monkey-men to spring into action, a horde of snarling statues suddenly charging our position, running on all fours with the rolling gait of gorillas. I squeezed the trigger, and a dull thump broke the air followed by the roar of an explosion. A billowing ball of light and heat split the dark. Chunks of concrete blasted outward in a rain of dust and stone debris as the H.E. rounds turned a creature into rubble.
When the dust cleared one of the guardians was gone, obliterated, only heaps of jagged stone remaining. A second was critically wounded—one leg missing below the knee, the other leg gone at the hip.
Nice.
I sighted in on a cluster of encroaching targets and squeezed the trigger, thump, thump, thump, thump, the weapon kicking back against my shoulder. Four more rounds blasted the mass of incoming stone bodies, ripping through them like garden shears through leafy hedges. Explosions coated the air with flame and heat and stone body parts.
We were close now, Ferraro and I, just ten feet out from the portal entryway, and I could feel the strangeness of the place beating against my senses, pressing down on my mind. Though the Mk14 had far outperformed even my wildest expectations, one stone monkey-man remained, and this one stood firmly in our path, barring the way with his broad body. Thankfully, I had one round left. I leveled the barrel, squeezed the trigger, and watched as the final obstacle went up in a spray of shrapnel.
Savage Prophet: A Yancy Lazarus Novel (Episode 4) Page 30
