Savage Prophet: A Yancy Lazarus Novel (Episode 4) (6 page)

Some dark beast crept forth from my center, a black, burning entity extending fiery tentacles of hate through my body. Suddenly, all I wanted was to break bones and smash faces, to slay bodies by the dozens, then set this whole friggin’ cottage ablaze—just to watch it burn while I danced a victory jig around the smoldering ruins.

The door jiggled again: Judge Drukiski having trouble with the lock, which pissed me off further. True, the door was an old, creaky bastard with a helluva tricky lock—a rusty contraption obviously made by blind, unskilled monks during the Dark Ages—but that knowledge did little to appease me. All I could think about was the gall of the Guild to shackle me with some incompetent paper pusher who couldn’t even get a friggin’ door open! Why the hell didn’t she just blast the damn thing off the hinges?!

Timid incompetence, that’s why.

This was the lady I’d have to lug around with me while neck deep in the most dangerous job I’d ever worked? Utter bullshit. Her presence as my babysitter felt like a baseball bat slammed into my guts.

With that red rage pulsing in me, I turned my attention back to the Gwyllgi towering over me.

A snarl tore across my face as I used my mauled arm—still firmly lodged in the hound’s jaws—to hoist my body from the floor, drawing in toward Fido. With my free hand, I brought the pistol up to wolfie’s temple and pumped out the last three rounds in quick succession at point-blank range. Maybe these things could shrug off a couple hits to the torso and body, but getting blasted in the head sucks. Period. End of story.

And before you ask why I didn’t just shoot the first one in the head—head shots are hard, okay? Especially when you’re firing in a poorly lit room, with your pistol tucked beneath your pillow.

Fido’s head jerked left, chunks of skull and a spray of inky blood splattering the far wall as its jaws eased open, fangs sliding from my skin, which was almost as bad as having them bite down in the first place. As its maw finally opened all the way, I ripped my arm free, pulling the mangled limb to my chest, cradling it against my body, dark crimson staining my shirt, trickling off my fingertips and onto the floor in a steady drip. I glanced down during the brief reprieve and winced.

Wonderful. That arm was now effectively useless—not to mention throbbing with agonizing, bone-splintering levels of pain.

I dismissed the wound, using the Vis to draw in bedrock strength from the earth below—temporarily dulling my senses—then dropped my spent pistol. Without rounds, the gun was about as useless as that friggin’ Judge who, for the record, still hadn’t managed to get the door open …

Then, I brought my right hand to bear:

A bar of light, white and bright as the sun, ripped free from my palm, smashed into the drunkenly reeling Fido, carved a hole through its barrel-chest, then blasted out one of its rear legs. The spear of light—a powerful mix of ambient heat and braids of air—faded and died before it could punch a hole in the wall, though it did leave a brilliant purple afterimage in its wake.

Fido fell back in a stumbling retreat—bastard was getting ready to turn tail and boogie. I glanced down at my left arm, peppered with ugly puncture wounds and deep, ragged gashes, and the rage flared bright and hot in my chest. Oh no. Oh hell no. Nope to the millionth degree. I wasn’t ready to let this piece of shit limp away to lick its wounds, not after savaging my friggin’ arm.

I conjured an orb of flame above my good hand—the shimmering ball shifting from red to gold to orange before finally settling on a deep violet the color of a fresh bruise. The hound tottered back into the shadows on unsteady legs, its blue eyes locked on the flickering ball of shadow suspended above my palm. I wasn’t sure if Gwyllgi were intelligent enough to be afraid, but this one sure looked the part. And it had every right to be scared.

The floating orb, burning with cool purple light, was no regular construct.

Seepage
. That was the word Cassius had used. Seepage, like radiation, bleeding through the walls of Azazel’s prison, contaminating everything. There was another word for it, though.
Nox.

Once, what felt like a friggin’ lifetime ago, I’d fought an Indian horror called a Daitya—a subclass of demonic giant, banished from the material plane by God above for staging unholy war against mankind. During our spat, that ugly, four-armed freak had done something I’d never seen before. He’d unraveled a Vis construct with some sort of anti-Vis. Terrifying, confusing shit, believe you me.

That force? That anti-Vis?
Nox
.

If
Vis
is the power undergirding creation, order, and reality,
Nox
is the power undergirding
unCreation
: Destruction. Entropy. Chaos. Death. A dark energy, opposed to life. Demonic power—extraordinarily rare and strictly off-limits to mortal men and women. Even magi. Except now I was something a little more than human. Or maybe a little less.

As a Seal Bearer, with an honest-to-goodness demon cooling his cloven heels in my skull, Nox was leaking into everything I did. Into every working. Sometimes just a little—the continuous drip from a faulty faucet—sometimes a river, but always present. Nox was a freshly spilled oil slick, staining every working with a thin sheen of fetid corruption and death. Amping up every construct like a line of coke. Scratch that, like a brick of coke, a fifth of Jack, and a needle full of steroids.

The ball of glowing purple, lingering above my hand, was damn near pure Nox, blindly conjured in my rage against the shadow-warg. A mistake, but it’d be a helluva shame to watch that power go to waste.

With a lopsided smile I cast the deadly working into the gaping chest cavity I’d carved open with my light javelin. The ball of
not
-flame disappeared into Fido’s shadowy body, though I could see it faintly throbbing and pulsing through the creature’s dark flesh. “Eat shit and die,” I whispered with a scowl, throwing open my hand, unleashing the stored up energy currently bound by my will.

The Gwyllgi whimpered, a puppy enduring a kick to the ribs, then crumpled inward.

Bones shattered like shotgun blasts. Inky skin cracked and split. Its whole frame shrunk and diminished, folding ever inward on itself, eaten from the inside out by a monster even worse than itself. Nox wasn’t an additive force, it brought nothing to the table: rather it
consumed
, drawing its strength from the Vim, the life force stored in living things, meting out death and destruction without remorse.

The beast continued to twist and distort, to writhe in agony, drawing more tightly into itself, until only the purple orb remained, hanging lazily in the air, shimmering with unholy life before popping with a flash and a small
whoomp
of displaced air. Gone. Vanished. And Fido with it. No sign the creature had ever been here, save for its handiwork adorning my forearm.

A moment later the door to my room finally gave way, swinging open to reveal Judge Drukiski in a plaid nightgown—checkered in red, green, and blue—a tangle of unruly, sleep-tossed hair framing a confused face.

“What in the heck is going on …,” she began, the words fading away as she regarded the destruction around the room and the remaining shadow-wolf pulling itself from the floor near my demolished bed. “Oh. Oh my word,” she finished. Then, she slowly and deliberately shuffled away from the monstrous hound rounding on her. The shadow-warg, sensing a weak and easy kill, ghosted silently toward her, matching her step for step, its fangs bared in a rictus of hunger.

“Don’t move,” I whispered, pitching my voice just loud enough for her to hear.

She whimpered, eyes wide, and nodded her head a fraction of an inch, which is precisely when the Gwyllgi lunged for her exposed neck.

FIVE:

Complications

In that moment, my options were surprisingly limited.

First, I was still sprawled on the floor with only one serviceable arm, which didn’t bode well for me or for the out-of-her-league Judge. Second, since I was already treading on awfully thin ice with the Guild, I couldn’t afford to get caught doing anything illegalish—like, say, wielding infernal anti-Vis in front of my probation officer. That would be damned near begging for a one-way ticket to Shitcreek. And, last, I couldn’t risk just blasting the holy-living-shit out of the hound with a fireball, since there was a good chance I’d tag Judge Drukiski in the process.

When it comes to violence, I tend to take the scorched-earth approach, so slinging around primal power in close quarters—especially where bystanders are a concern—isn’t exactly my strong suit.

Despite my building hatred for the Guild, I didn’t want to see the lady hurt. And, believe you me, dropping a fireball on her ass—even if she wasn’t the target—would hurt like a proctology exam conducted with a golf club. Sure, I didn’t like her and yes, she was basically the antithesis to everything I am in the world, but even my brief time with her convinced me she was a legitimately good person. A good person who was also delusional and monumentally naïve, but a good person all the same.

Certainly one who deserved to live.

I scrambled to my feet as the shadow-warg flew through the air, throwing out my good hand—

The hound slammed into a blue sphere that was suddenly encompassing Drukiski: an energy shield that’d prevent bullets, knives, or claws from getting anywhere near the witless Judge.

The Gwyllgi fell back with a confused yelp of rage before promptly throwing its weight against the shield once more; a crackle of power from the impact shook a tacky picture from one of the walls in the guest room proper. Drukiski shrieked, hands flying to her mouth as the creature collided with the glimmering dome over and over again—the only thing standing between her and certain, gruesome death.

With a growl and gritted teeth, I labored to raise my left hand, hoping to roast the shadow-warg while Drukiski was covered and protected by my shield. Try as I might, though, I couldn’t get my damn arm to work. Useless son of a bitch just hung there limp and worthless like wings on an ostrich.

Then, before I could think of another plan, the hound did something I hadn’t prepared for.

It flickered and faded, its skin taking on a translucent sheen as the beast dissolved into a walking shadow—a literal shade of its former self.

It carefully extended its muzzle toward the protective barrier, which pulsed and flared, brilliant sparks of raw power flying away in a spray. Resistance built as the warg pushed inward; the blazing blue sphere began to vibrate, to shiver, from the mounting pressure. Then, in a blink, the warg’s short, snarling snout slipped through, unobstructed.

The shadow-hound continued to press its weight inward, and though the shield was clearly slowing its movements, it wasn’t stopping them. Not completely. Inch by inevitable inch, it broke through. Drukiski let out a renewed round of frantic shrieks, creeping back, only to find her flannel-clad shoulder blades pressed up against the blue shield meant to keep the warg out. She was stuck, but I didn’t dare dismiss the shield, since it was the only thing keeping her breathing.

Drukiski didn’t have long before the hound bypassed the shield completely, though, so I needed to do something. The fiery torment in my arm, however, made it a real bitch to think. To plan.

“Drukiski, you’re gonna have to defend yourself,” I finally shouted. “I’m gonna drop the shield so you can get away, but you’re gonna be vulnerable for a second, you trackin’?”

“No, no, no, no, no, gosh no,” she stammered, arms folded tight across her body, eyes huge and wild and terrified.

“It’ll only be a second. You can do this, just focus.”

Finally, she offered a curt, fearful nod of her head.

“Good,” I said, trying to sound calm and cool and collected, like this kinda thing was no big deal. Not true, of course, but as a leader in a firefight you need to convince your fresh-faced subordinates that everything is well in hand.

I gathered up columns of bedrock strength and earthen power, binding it with thick braids of will, then drawing molten flame from deep within the earth, pulling it toward the surface. “Hands up,” I called as I prepared my working, “tuck your chin—keep that thing from getting at your throat—and throw something powerful at it. Flame lance, ice-spike, force wave, something, got it?”

She nodded again, raising shaky fists in front of her face, a soft nimbus of light blooming around her like a watery halo.

“On three,” I yelled.

“One …”
I breathed out, clearing my mind.

“Two …” I put the final touches on my earth-working.

“Three …”
I released the shield enveloping her, allowing it to dissipate with a nearly inaudible pop.

Everything happened at once:

With the shield gone, the wolf surged forward, solidifying in a heartbeat, only to get a face full of fire, courtesy of the Judge. Her flame lance was pencil thin, but she aimed that little beam true, blasting the warg right in its blue eyes. Fire lapped over its blunt muzzle, and the beast, blinded, slammed gracelessly into her belly, throwing her across the room. The warg blundered about, shaking its maned head, smashing into furniture—colliding with a desk, then smashing into a lamp—as a low growl poured from its throat.