Savage Prophet: A Yancy Lazarus Novel (Episode 4) (40 page)

Another Brown-Robe stood to the Prophet’s left, tall and blocky, his face likewise buried beneath a deep hood, covered with unnatural shadow. He wore a silver gauntlet, though, which I recognized from my tussle with Darth-Bathrobe. Black Jack, then. Ferraro was on the ground in front of him, conscious, but bound and gagged with strips of duct tape. Bruises and thin cuts decorated her face; Jack had her black hair clutched in his metal-clad fist.

I stopped the bike, letting it idle—its light illuminating the scene against the growing night—and climbed off. Then, with a sniff and a grimace, I hocked a loogie, spit staining the ground, and pulled out the crook, which I’d cinched down beneath the left saddlebag. I hefted the stick, solemnly regarding it as its cold power reached for me, yearning to be free. To kill. To freeze. To blanket the world in icy cold and endless frost. To do my bidding, until I grew tired of the dreary mortal world and consigned the planet to winter paradise. Another Ice Age.

Once more I bludgeoned the thoughts into submission as I moved forward, my shadow stretching out in the amber glow from the headlight. “What do we have here?” I said, my boots rapping on the stone walkway. “The Savage Prophet,” I said with a mock bow, “and the entire Legion of Doom. All the backstabbing Guild asswipes, in one convenient place.”

“Give me the staff,” the Prophet said without preamble, eyeing the crook in my hand.

“We’ll get to business in a minute, Beardy McGee, so just cool it. Now, who else we got here?” I asked, fixing my gaze on Darth-Bathrobe. “Wait, I got it, the Bathrobe Bandits. Not sure if you guys got the memo, but the Spanish Inquisition called and they want you to get the hell outta their century. Besides, who you all trying to fool anyway? It’s just me here. And I already know you’re under that hood, Black Jack, so how’s about we cut it with the cloak and dagger, melodramatic bullshit, huh?”

There was a distorted chuckle as the hooded figure towering behind Ferraro inclined his head. He reached up and pulled back the cowl, revealing beyond any shadow of a doubt the man beneath. Black Jack Engelbrecht. I shook my head in disbelief all the same.

“You always were cleverer than anyone gave you credit for,” Jack said, his voice no longer garbled. His grandfatherly gaze lingered on my face, noting the golden eye patch, then meticulously cataloguing the fresh scars, still raw and red, littering my cheek and running onto my forehead.

“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry about your experience with Beauvoir. That kind of thing? Always bad.” A frown of distaste creased his face as his eyes took on the hazy cast of remembrance. “I’ve been tortured a number of times,” he said almost casually, “but the first always sticks with you. The Xhosa tribe took me prisoner during the Kaffir wars, in 1811, this was, and I still have nightmares.”

He paused for a beat, adjusting the voluminous sleeves of his robe. “How did you know about me?” he finally asked. “That I was the man behind the hood?”

“A tattoo,” I replied with a shrug, not willing to look at him or take his measure. Jack had done a lot of bad things, and he’d been in the game a helluva lot longer than me. He had a lifetime of war, killing, and torture tucked away under his belt, and I had to wonder what that’d done to his mind. Was he a vision of what I would be like in another two hundred years, assuming I lived that long? I didn’t know. “I caught a peek during our fight,” I said. “Didn’t take Darlene long to find it listed in your personnel file.”

He sighed, frowned, then tightened his grip on Ferraro’s hair, pulling her head back further until she winced in pain. For the briefest moment, I thought about just roasting the lying bastard on the spot, turning his ass into a heap of human barbeque, but then dismissed the notion as a thought exercise in poor decision-making. I could do that, sure, but no way would Ferraro walk away in one piece, and that was unacceptable.

“It’s the little things that always trip you up in the end,” Black Jack said. “Though I suppose it doesn’t really matter now. I was hoping to keep my identity hidden until after things were settled back in Moorchester, but the last wall of resistance has fallen, so I suppose it’s something of an unnecessary precaution now.”

“And what about the rest of you?” I asked, cool and calm on the surface though seething underneath. “The rest of you dirty sons a bitches wanna come clean?” I eyed each of the Brown-Robes in turn.

“No, I think not,” Black Jack interjected, then chuckled, rocking on his heels. “Knowledge is power, young Lazarus, and without names, you have no targets. Without targets, we will be able to work free from reprisals as we consolidate our power base.”

“Yeah, bunch of chickenshits,” I said. “Just like I thought.”

“Not at all,” Jack countered, “just prudent and pragmatic—not so different from yourself.”

“Shut your fucking mouth,” I snarled, eye narrowing, all semblance of composure suddenly flying out the window. Lady Fate’s words tickled at the back of my mind:
A world under your thumb, Yancy Lazarus … And a cruel thumb it shall be.
“We’re nothing alike. You’re a power hungry, murdering monster, and that’s not me. It’s not me and never will be.”

A small smile broke over the planes of Jack’s hard-worn face. “I don’t imagine I will be able to change your mind, you are a stubborn man, but you should know the truth behind our revolt.”

“Jack,” the Prophet said, shifting his body so he could eyeball the old warhorse, “this, this spiel of yours, it’s not going to make a difference anyway—nothing you say is going to change anything”—he tapped a finger at his temple—“so let’s not waste our time.”

“That hardly matters,” Jack replied, a scowl marring his face. “He deserves to know, ehh? What he does with that information is up to him, but he deserves to know. He may oppose us, Prophet, but that does not make him our enemy.”

The Prophet grunted and refocused his attention on the crook in my hand, damn near salivating over the thing like a junkie eyeing his next fix. “Whatever. Just make it quick.”

“No,” I interjected, glowering at Jack. “He’s right, asshole. Nothing you say is gonna change jack-shit, so why don’t you save your breath? Let’s just get to the explosions.”

“Be that as it may,” he said, nodding his blocky head. “But I feel obliged to tell you, because intentions matter. You have only seen the aftermath of our planning, but the
why
is important. The truth is, Yancy, you inspired our movement eighteen years ago when you walked away from the Guild. This, all of this”—he swept a thick hand toward the robed men, toward the shrine and the statues—“was all indirectly set into motion by you, so you can understand the irony that it should be you who stands so firmly in our path to victory.”

I squinted, canted my head to one side, and cleared my throat. “You might wanna head over to Costco and pick up a family-sized pack of toilet paper,” I said evenly, straight-faced, “cause your mouth just turned into a giant, gaping asshole and it’s vomiting an absolute fountain of bullshit right now.”

He laughed, remarkably good-natured considering the circumstances. “No bullshit, as you say. I’ve had my reservations about the Guild since they elevated me to Elder back in ’57,” he said offhandedly. “Even then it was growing too soft. But when you called for war, that changed everything. Decided me. The Council abandoned you, which was disgraceful. They abandoned Ailia, who I loved like a daughter. An unforgivable act of cowardice and, in so doing, they also abandoned me and the principles the Guild was founded upon. That, well that was simply intolerable.

“The Guild had become a weak, spineless beast. A sick animal far too feeble to defend its members. An institution controlled by corporate ladder climbers and political insiders concerned only with their own best interests. You left the Guild in protest. I started planning my coup in protest. And, after eighteen years of diligent planning and careful maneuvering, the fruits of my labor are almost within reach. After years of weakness, I am on the cusp of fashioning a new Guild. A united Guild. One free from red tape. One that stands for something again. One that stands for its members and its principles.”

I paused, a terrible heat bubbling up inside me. “You’re really gonna stand there and justify yourself to me? You’re gonna try to pass the buck and pin this on what happened to me eighteen years ago? You’re full of shit, Jack, you and all your hooded cronies. Save your lies for someone else, ’cause we both know that you’re only in it for power like every other asshole monster out there in the big wide world.”

He shrugged one shoulder, indifferent to my accusation. “Given your track record and experience, I can see why you might think that, but I’m doing this for the good of our people.”

“Oh yeah, Jack? Well, if you’re so fucking altruistic”—I was screaming now, face red, neck hot—“then why in the hell are you working with the fucking Morrigan? Huh, Jack?”

He clucked his tongue softly, a bemused father correcting an ignorant child. “Your emotion is such a strength, but it has always been your weakness, too. A double-edged sword.” He paused, lips pursed, regarding me with somber eyes. “I am working with her because she is powerful and capable. I’m working with her because she understands that the strong should lead, instead of allowing soft men and women to hold the reins of power, leaving folk like us to carry out their dirty work. And she is not as unreasonable as you—we have even discussed the possibility of Ailia’s release. A concession and measure of good will.”

Ailia’s release.

The thought hit my heart like a hammer blow, bruising my already battered soul. Could Jack really convince the Morrigan to give her back? To let Ailia go after all this time? I’d spent years trying to find a way to undo what the Morrigan had done, scouring old tomes for powerful exorcism rituals. Tracking down rogue priests and other dusty principalities, only to come up empty-handed. What would I give for Jack to be right?

The world?

Yeah, maybe.

But then Ferraro grunted and shifted her weight, drawing my lone eye back to her, bound and captive on the ground, hair twined about Jack’s fist. Her face, though marked by violence, seemed to plead with me, to remind me of why I was doing this, what was at stake.

Maybe I’d let the world burn for Ailia, but could I let Ferraro burn, too?

No.

That, I wasn’t willing to do.

And even
if
I gave up, gave in, and somehow got Ailia back, could she live with the price I’d paid to save her? I didn’t think so.

Shit, maybe Jack had good intentions—the things he said
did
make a certain sense to me, they were even thoughts I’d entertained a time or two—but I could never be on board with the shit he’d done. Killing bad guys was one thing. Killing a bunch of innocent people for some nebulous “greater good” was another entirely.

I raised a hand, palm out. “Enough, Jack,” I said, the anger raging in me, making it next to impossible to think. “I’m done listening to you. I trusted you, believed in you, and you shot me in the back, so I’m done with you. Done. Say one more word and our deal’s off—I’ll embrace the power of this crook”—my hand clenched down on the wooden shaft until it groaned under the pressure—“then I’ll do my damnedest to murder you and every one of your flunkies. So just shut your shit-spewing mouth.”

Disappointment seemed to dash across his face, then he dipped his head in resignation.

I turned my attention on the Prophet. On Ferraro. I was gonna save her and I’d do it without betraying the last sliver of decency I had left in me.

“Let’s get this over with already, huh?”

“Fine by me,” the Prophet replied, folding his thick arms. “Though for what it’s worth, I’m glad you didn’t switch sides—I’m looking forward to killing you. Now, here’s how this is going to happen. Elder Engelbrecht will bring you the girl, you’ll give him the crook. Once the exchange is complete, I’ll graciously give you a five-minute window to get on your cruiser, there”—he nodded at the bike—“and go. If I see you after that five minutes, I will execute you, eat the heart from your chest, reclaim Ferraro, and hand her over to the tender mercies of Fast Hands Steve.”

I nodded my agreement to his terms. “For what it’s worth,” I replied, dropping my hand to the butt of my pistol, a not-so-subtle threat, “even if I had switched sides, I still would’ve caved your head in with a rock and pitched your body into a vat of acid. On principle.”

He bobbed his head, a fencer acknowledging a touch. “Elder Engelbrecht”—the Prophet jerked his head toward the no-goodnik traitor—“please retrieve my crook.”

Without comment, Black Jack bent over, picked Ferraro up, and casually tossed her over his shoulder like a sack of concrete. He didn’t struggle under her weight as he strode toward me, confidence marking his steps.

Black Jack was only a few feet out when a host of bulky stone statues exploded onto the pathway: A whirlwind of movement, accompanied by the heavy clomp of mammoth feet against the walkways, as monstrous figurines of concrete and stone swarmed our position like killer bees attacking intruders too close to the hive. A trio of creatures—a female Naga, a massive earthen toad, and a thick muscled demon with a mouth full of wicked fangs—collided with the Brown-Robe posse behind the Prophet, unleashing absolute savagery.

In the same instant, another creature—the enormous body of a man sporting a loincloth, but with the broad head of an elephant—charged in from the dense brush, barreling into a very confused looking Black Jack. Huge fists like a pair of meaty hams lashed out, swatting both the treacherous Elder and Ferraro into the air like pop flies, their bodies tumbling end over end.