Savage Prophet: A Yancy Lazarus Novel (Episode 4) (19 page)

She shuffled back a step more, then two, her knees wobbling. Her hands shook so bad I was afraid she’d accidentally dose herself with the pepper spray if she actually worked up the courage to fire.

“Yes, little rabbit,” the hooded man said, padding forward another few steps. “What you feel in your belly? It is fear, and fear is a ravenous beast, mastered only by the bold and the violent. You are neither. You are a bunny running around in a world of hawks.”

She whimpered, chin quivering, fat tears running down her cheeks.

Then she lowered the pepper spray—as though arriving at the conclusion that any resistance she might offer was pointless—and hesitantly stepped aside, eyes locked on the floor.

She gave up. Gave in.

It wasn’t an act of incompetence, but of cowardice.

Something wriggled inside me, but it wasn’t the increasingly familiar bite of anger; instead, I felt the stinging cut of disappointment. I’d never had high hopes for Darlene—she was what she was, and she sure-as-shit wasn’t a fighter—but I’d been expecting more, I guess. I’d seen flashes of something great in her during our short time together. Flashes of courage and skill. Of integrity and true grit. Still, though, as I stared at Darlene, watching her sob, body shaking as she curled in on herself, defeated, a fierce pride for the dopey, out-of-her-league Judge bloomed in me.

Yeah, so maybe she wasn’t the epitome of brave or bold, but that dickbasket didn’t have any right to talk to her like that. I wanted to go to her, to help her, to let her know that violence wasn’t a good judge of character. But I couldn’t.

“Good,” Darth-Bathrobe chided, “remember your place and you might have one yet in the new order.”

“Enough of this,” the monk said, sliding up beside Darlene, his shadow hanging over her like a guardian angel. “My dear child,” he said, bending at the waist, ignoring the robed man, “there is no cause for tears. What will be, will be, and you too will be what you must be—there is no shame in this. One is not called noble who harms living beings, rather by not harming living beings one is called noble. Remember this and do not lose yourself to hate. Now, get behind me, child.”

The abbot stood, stern-faced, glaring at Darth-Bathrobe. “You’ve come for me,” he said, “and here I am.”

“Willing to cooperate, then?” he asked, voice buzzing.

“No,” the abbot said, shaking his head, “but neither shall I stand by while you do such bloody work in my home.” He slipped a hammer of carved wood, topped with a padded cloth head, from a length of orange cloth wrapped about his waist. A gong mallet. “This temple is a place of peace and meditation,” he said gravely, “yet you have come here seeking neither wisdom nor truth, but with violence and murderous intent in your hearts. Though I seek the middle path, the way of peace, this sacrilege cannot stand.”

He moved, a blur of orange streaking
away
from Darth-Bathrobe and toward the huge bell hanging by the Buddha statue. He struck the suspended brass bell, bringing down his padded mallet with a whisper of power.

You couldn’t kill a fly with a flyswatter using the same amount of force, but a peal of golden music burst outward nonetheless. Waves of brilliant illumination and resonating sound rippled into the room, washing over us, through us, then slammed into the host of bells decorating the room. Those bells picked up the clarion knell and, in turn, resounded with a bright call of their own. It took only seconds before golden light, thrumming with an unshakable, steadfast power, floated through the air like a thousand dancing stars.

FOURTEEN:

Kung Fu Fighting

In that moment, everyone stopped.

Frozen by the crystalline sound of a thousand bells all singing in perfect resonance, all crying out golden light in a thousand little streams of tears. In that moment, the frenzied violence ceased, and the chaotic maneuvering was temporarily forgotten as we all watched the otherworldly spectacle, which I didn’t understand. The light ran over me in a warm trickle, pinpricks of refreshing energy filling my limbs with new purpose and renewed strength. Felt like I’d just slugged a cup of trucker joe after getting a solid night’s sleep. My back still hurt something fierce, but the ability to move was suddenly back on the table.

A swirl of violent motion followed as the soft light settled over the Prophet and Darth-Bathrobe. One moment they were still, captivated like the rest of us by the light show extravaganza; the next, they were flying through the air, swept up on currents of gold, only to be smashed against the far wall near the entrance with a sickening
thud
that shook the room. Both men slid down into dual heaps as pinpricks of golden brilliance pulsed and shifted before eventually settling into the walls, which began to glow with a dull luminescence like polished bronze.

“You three”—the monk turned toward me, then shifted his gaze to Darlene and Ferraro in turn—“though our time together was short, it was a most welcome blessing. You know where you must go. What you must do.” His gaze shifted to me and stayed there.
Take the Seal
, that look seemed to command.

With muffled groans, the Prophet and Darth-Bathrobe gained their feet, and boy oh boy did they look
pissed
. Like someone had smashed them in the face with a pie, then pushed them down an -up-escalator. It was in the way they stood—backs arched, arms flexing, fists curled—their body language screaming
I’m-about-to-feed-you-to-a-pack-of-hungry-hyenas.

Despite his obvious anger, the Prophet ignored us for a moment, turning to regard the wide open entryway door, looking out onto the streets of Little Bangkok. Except now there was also a thin sheen of light standing guard between him and the exit. Carefully he extended his hand, pressing his fingers against the barrier, which didn’t give an inch. He exerted a hairsbreadth more pressure and suddenly there was a
sizzle-crack
like bacon frying in hot grease and he withdrew his digits with a muttered curse.

“Cute,” he said, voice low and cold, which was somehow more threatening, more ominous, than his boisterous posturing had been. “But it’s not gonna stop me from ripping your limbs from your body, Abbot, and beating you to death with them.”

“Perhaps not,” the monk replied, face calm, voice serene. “But it will prevent you from leaving for a time, I think, and that will serve my purpose.” He folded his hands behind his back and strode forward, placing himself squarely between the baddies and us. “This barrier is the temple’s defense system. Once triggered, no enemy of the temple may enter from without. Or leave, if they should find themselves within these walls. It will not last forever, but it will last long enough for these three to escape.”

“You really mean to stop us, monk?” the Prophet spat. “I can be lenient, just give me what I want and you can walk away from here.” A crackle of energy, noxious and purple, seeped from his palm, tendrils of power crawling up his limb until his whole arm was wreathed in cool, purple flame.

“Young man,” the abbot said, “Do not be naïve. Both of us know this encounter is destined to end in bloodshed. All is as it must be. Lachesis has allotted us this moment and Atropos waits, shears ready to clip my string, which you must surely see.” He tapped his nose and offered the kid a wink as though they shared some secret conspiracy. Oddly, the Prophet nodded in cryptic understanding, a slight inclination of his head.

“Your death won’t stop me from getting what I want,” the Prophet replied, his voice dropping a few octaves into a guttural rasp as his skin waned, his eyes glowing with a soft violet light. “My associate can harvest the information we need directly from your corpse if it comes down to it.” His eyes flared brighter and brighter, casting his face in harsh, flickering shadow.

“Last chance, abbot,” he said. “You don’t need to die here—Lady Fate or no. Contrary to what you may have been led to believe, fate is fluid. An ever flowing river with many branches. You’re going to throw your life away, and it won’t do a thing to stop me. Nothing. Your interference won’t even be a speed bump. Your death doesn’t serve me, so I’ll let you live unless you give me no other option. Don’t be a fool, Abbot, choose a different branch. Give me another option.”

The monk shrugged, an unworried smile spreading across his lined face. “To some, young man—like the decrepit fae being dwelling in your body—death is a ravaging enemy to be feared, but
that
is foolishness. To one with wisdom, death is but another step on the road to enlightenment. Everything is mutable, everything appears and disappears as the ocean tide swells and recedes in turn.

“There is no blissful peace until one passes beyond the agony of life and death. Perhaps today I will pass into the next world, but death cannot rob me of my good deeds.” He crouched, feet planted wide, legs nearly parallel with the deck, hands raised, palms open. A royally badass martial artist preparing to unleash Fists of friggin’ Fury. “I have stood watch over this temple for a thousand years,” he said, “and I shall watch over it one day longer—one last good deed to see me into the afterlife. And I think you will find a little fight left in these old bones.

“There is a concealed door behind the Buddha statue,” the abbot said, speaking to me, eyes still firmly fixed on the intruders. “It leads to my living quarters. There, you will find a set of stairs descending to a prayer garden on the ground level. Go with the blessing of the Naga riding at your back. Go and do what you must. Save my master from himself. Take the Seal.”

The abbot roared into abrupt motion as the final word left his mouth, charging forward so quickly it was hard to follow.

As he moved, he changed.

His human body, a masterfully crafted flesh-mask, evaporated as his true form bubbled up and out. Slim human arms gave way to thick muscled limbs, covered in bronze scales, and hands tipped with black claws. His torso expanded and lengthened, a massive barrel chest tapering down to a serpentine trunk, long as a city bus from head to whipping tail. His kind, grandfatherly face also disappeared, traded in for a velociraptor’s reptilian mug, framed by a thick leathery hood of multicolored scales—shimmering copper and gold, glittering ruby, brilliant sapphire.

I knew we needed to go—the monk had made it clear that if we didn’t amscray, we’d all be dead—but my legs still weren’t fully operational, so I was having one helluva time getting to my feet. Plus, I’ll admit, there was some part of me that wanted to stay, to watch, to bear witness to the last stand of the Abbot of Wat Naga Thong. Who knew how long he’d walked the face of the earth? He’d overseen this temple for a thousand years. And today? Today was his last day.

There was a sadness in that.

This was the death of an institution, and with it came a profound truth: That everything ends in time. That everyone, one day or another, will face the gleaming steel of the Reaper’s blade. That the only real legacy you’ll have is the relationships and good deeds you filled those too-few days up with. It seemed wrong that no one should bear witness to the monk’s last stand, his last noble act.

Not to mention, how often do you get to see a badass monk-monster go kung fu apeshit on a bunch of well-deserving baddies?

The Naga-monk collided with the Prophet, feinting left, then ducking low and right, whipping around and smashing his tail into the Prophet’s stomach. The kid took the blow hard to the gut and flew backward, as though blasted from the barrel of a circus cannon, on a crash course with Darth-Bathrobe. The hooded asshole, however, was already moving, darting out of the way while he called up a vibrant green shield to buffer the Prophet’s meteoric fall.

Then Darth-Bathrobe was throwing everything plus the kitchen sink at the abbot: gouts of flame, walls of force, huge chunks of stone floor, ripped away and hurled with contemptuous ease. The two magi should’ve swatted the monk down like a pesky gnat. But they didn’t. Couldn’t. Because the monk moved like greased lightning, slithering this way then that, dodging each attack in a fluid, graceful tango. The Prophet gained his feet—skin now a deep cobalt, his eyes glimmering chips of glacier ice—but it didn’t matter. The monk simply slithered among them, evading devastating attack after devastating attack while he rained down a flurry of blows.

Brutal strikes with his tail slapped against legs and ankles.

Powerful hammer fists and knife-hand strikes battered shoulders and faces and torsos.

Conjured balls of golden light beat at the pair of invaders.

A hand fell on my shoulder, grabbing the fabric of my jacket, hauling me upright with a sharp tug. Finally, I tore my eyes from the battle as Ferraro slipped beneath my shoulder, drawing my weight onto her. We limped our way over to the massive Buddha statue and found Darlene standing guard over a narrow door recessed into the wall. I glanced back once more, but couldn’t see anything, not with the statue blocking my line of sight, then let Ferraro guide me down a dark passageway of stone with Darlene at our backs, guided by a pinprick of amber light at the far end.