Savage Prophet: A Yancy Lazarus Novel (Episode 4) (31 page)

“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 way 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 some 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.

Probably the leftovers from my earlier tussle.

Surprisingly, the band was still playing, and it took only a glance to explain why: the musicians were pale, waxy, and glassy-eyed. Several were shirtless and even with only one eye, I could see the black ritual tattoos festooning their emaciated forms. They were zombies. Living zombies. People, just like me, who’d been tortured, then enslaved to the service of an utterly vile example of a human being. Even worse, for these folks to receive such treatment meant they’d probably resisted Beauvoir and his criminal enterprise at some point.

They’d probably been dissidents, freedom fighters, and now they were forced to participate in the corrupt system they’d likely clashed against. The irony was a bitter pill in my mouth.

Nothing I could do about them, though. Not now. Nothing except to get to Beauvoir and make him pay. My strength was returning piece by piece with every passing minute, and with it my access to both the Vis and the Nox grew, but I didn’t want to burn myself out before the real party got started. Especially not when I had damn near fifty rounds of 5.56 just waiting to turn some shamblers into pink mist. My finger squeezed down on the trigger, and the weapon kicked ever so slightly against my shoulder as the gun belched thunder and fire.

And this wasn’t pray-and-spray, Rambo-style shooting.

In a firefight, it can be easy to get caught up in the moment—to see the targets, the enemies, and go on a rampage. Blasting away wildly, indiscriminately, pumping an unnecessary number of rounds into each target. But a firefight was a bad place for passion, a bad place to be caught up in the moment, because passion, anger, and hate can cause you to make stupid decisions. And stupid decisions can cost you—or someone in your squad—their life. So, despite my wrath and my sudden insatiable thirst for murdering evil assholes, I fought smart.

I picked my targets carefully, aiming for those closest to me, working out in a half circle. Clearing the wall to my left, then slowly swiveling outward. I also took my time. Not a lot of time, mind you, but enough to practice the essentials of combat marksmanship and fire discipline. I only had so many rounds, after all, so I lined up each shot and waited for the rifle barrel to come to a natural rest as I exhaled before squeezing the trigger.
Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.

Each enemy got two shots to the head—no more, no less—then I was moving on. Assaulting forward.