Savage Prophet: A Yancy Lazarus Novel (Episode 4) (33 page)

Me? I had the know-how and the strength—thanks to my link with Azazel—which was bad news bears for Beauvoir.

Beauvoir was deriving his power through a link to Ong, the Fourth Seal Bearer, and had created hundreds of lesser links to each of his undead minions, turning them into a host of puppets.

Inside each zombie was a tight ball of throbbing power. That power pushed hair-thin strands of energy through the corpses like a rudimentary circulatory system. But instead of circulating blood, that network of energy conveyed the power of
un
life by providing them with stolen Vim. Life force siphoned off from other mortals and from Creation itself, slowly killing the world. That was part of the reason Cité Soleil
was such a dank, dark, awful place: because Baron Samedi and Beauvoir had been preying on it like cancer.

Now that I knew what to look for, it was simple to locate the tight knot of power, which acted as a confluence of ingoing and outgoing energy. A control center and binding point.

Assuming I’d understood Azazel correctly, it should be possible to smash the holy hell out of that knot and break Beauvoir’s control over the undead fiends. If I could do that, it’d be a game changer. And if not … Well, I was as deader than dead.

Time to roll those dice.

TWENTY-SIX:

What Goes Around …

With a weary grin, I extended a razor blade of whipping Nox toward the nearest zombie—an elderly man with a potbelly, wearing rainbow suspenders, tattered pants, and nothing else——and slashed through the knot of energy imbedded in his saggy chest, slicing it into little pieces, unraveling the construct in a blink.

For a moment, nothing happened.

My grin faltered.

Another second ticked by, snailing along slower than the line at the DMV.

Still nothing.
Well, shit.

But then,
then,
friggin’ magic:

The portly, rainbow-suspendered man shuddered, his whole body suddenly plagued by a terrible seizure—arms flailing, legs wobbling, head flapping forward and back, forward and back. Then, finally, the body dropped in a heap of twitching limbs, once more a corpse. I smiled at Beauvoir, the predatory grin of a lion seeing easy prey, then sent out a wave of power, which washed through the courtyard. The zombies, all of them, flew into similar erratic spasms, their arms and legs jerking and jolting, a school of fish suddenly out of water, before bodies starting hitting the deck by the dozens.

Thump, thump, thump, thump, thump.

One after another they fell, until the courtyard was a graveyard, a morgue, a recent battlefield filled with the dead. The music trickling from the club died, too, the outrush of power severing Beauvoir’s connection with the zombified band within.

Sudden, ominous silence reigned. The tight pause before the other shoe drops.

I regarded Beauvoir: etched across his face was fear, thick and pregnant. Around him, his few living henchmen shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot, eyes roving over the mounds of dead, hands nervously checking the safety switches on their assorted weaponry. They were right to be nervous.

“Yeah, that’s right, you asshat,” I said, voice booming, gruff, tinged with a harsh rasp that vaguely reminded me of Azazel. “I know your dirty little secret. And you know what I think?” I paused, letting the question linger and loiter like a gang of ruffians. “I think you’re not so different from those corpses on the ground, Beauvoir. I may not know everything—in the grand scheme of things, I may not even know much—but I know about killing. And you?” I jabbed a finger at him.

“You I killed. Dead. Guaranteed. Yet mystery of mysteries, here you are, even though you have a hole that runs clean through your skull. And that leaves me with a few questions. First,
what
in the shit? And second,
how
in the shit? But I’ve had a little time to kick those questions around in the ol’ noggin, and what I think is that the Fourth Seal Bearer, your Baron Samedi, brought you back from the grave. Brought you back in much the same way you brought them”—I swept one hand toward the bodies littering the street—“back from the grave.”

I reached out with the Nox, feeling the pulsing, rhythmic beat of undead power nestled inside Beauvoir’s chest, sending surge after surge of unholy power rippling through his body, giving life to his limbs. That power wasn’t in him, not like it was with me. No, it was originating from elsewhere, forming a complicated bond. One keeping Beauvoir upright and breathing. The construct animating Beauvoir was a complex piece of work, well beyond my understanding, but it was built along the same lines as the constructs that’d given life to the rest of the horde.

Even with Azazel living in my head, there was no way I could build something as complex as the mechanism powering Beauvoir, but I didn’t need to build it. I just needed to smash it up good and proper, and that? Well that wouldn’t be so hard at all. I applied a little pressure to the knot of dark energy, pressing on it with a thin scalpel of invisible Nox, feeling strands of force snap like overtight guitar strings. I cut only a few reedy strands of power, and suddenly Beauvoir was on his knees, one hand, rigid and tight, clutched to his emaciated chest.

“What are you doin’ to me?” he wheezed, voice ragged and pained.

“Oh, I think you know exactly what I’m doing to you. And if you don’t give me exactly what I want, I’m gonna do it until you’re back in the grave where you belong. But this time, I’m not just gonna kill you, I’m gonna
eradicate
you. Scorched earth. I’m gonna burn you until you’re ash, then I’m gonna burn your ashes until they’re finer ash, then I’m gonna take those ashes and toss ’em into the void between the worlds. Make sure you never, ever, ever come back again. Understand?”

He stayed hunched over, breathing hard, clutching his chest as he considered my words. “I tell you what you want and you leave me be?” he asked.

“If you tell me plainly and tell me true, I’ll leave you alive, if that’s what you’re asking,” I replied, far more calmly than I felt.

“What is it you want?” he finally asked, head bowed, voice resigned.

“Three things, dickweed. First”—I stuck a finger into the air—“I want my damn pistol back. Second”—another finger joined the first—“I want to know where your boss, Baron Samedi, is. And last”—one more finger joined the fray—“I want to know how to get outta here. I know you’re savvy enough to have a Way connecting to the Hub, and I want to know where it is. You give me those three things, and I walk away. Leave you alive … well, as alive as a dead man can get.”

“How do I know you won’t kill me after I give you what you want?”

I paused, frowned.
Dammit
.

Unfortunately, I
was
planning to kill him after he told me what I wanted—he certainly deserved no less—so this was a development I didn’t care for. Finally, I sighed. “You swear an oath of power to tell me the truth and let me go free, unhindered, and I’ll swear an oath of power not to murder you. Today. After that, I’m making no promises.”

What I was suggesting was no simple sworn promise; an oath of power was a pact, one imbued by a powerful construct of pure spirit, which would literally compel the swearer to fulfill the terms of the agreement. Once sworn, there was no way around the oath. They were words written in stone, implacable and immutable.

It took only a moment for Beauvoir to nod his assent—say what you will about him, but Beauvoir obviously knew a good deal when it was about to shoot him in the face—before conjuring the framework of spirit necessary for the oath. After he swore to my terms, I embraced the Vis and did the same, agreeing to a very
temporary
ceasefire, which still chapped my ass. Once done, Beauvoir fished my pistol from his waistband and handed it to one of the child soldiers, shooing him on with a quick flick of his wrist.

“Baron Samedi,” Beauvoir said as the boy made his way toward me, pistol in hand, “is a powerful being, but he is a creature at war with himself. It takes a great toll on him, I think, so every few months he goes away. To rest. He goes to a city.
His
city.
Bhogavati
—the city of the Nagas. Far in Outworld, beyond the borders of the Autumn Court.”

“That’s far enough,” I commanded the kid with my pistol. The boy, wearing a filthy Mickey Mouse shirt, came to a tumbling halt ten or so feet away. “Wouldn’t want you to hit me with any more of that zombie powder,” I said with a scowl. “Just toss it here.”

The kid nodded, then chucked the pistol toward me underhand; it landed on the dusty road a few feet from me with a dull
clank
. Carefully, I picked my way forward and retrieved the gun, checking the cylinder for rounds, then slid the hand cannon back into the holster where it belonged. I let out a sigh of relief. The pistol was a familiar companion that’d seen me through a lot of bullshit. Felt good having it back at my side.

“Okay,” I said, turning my focus back on Beauvoir. “So your boss is in this snake city, past the Autumn Court. That’s one helluva trek. There a quicker way? If he’s heading there every couple months, I bet there’s a quicker way. Dark gods hate commuting.”

Beauvoir seemed to war with himself for a moment, fighting to keep his lips sealed tight, unwilling to give away any piece of info he didn’t strictly need to. But he’d sworn to answer me and, at last, his mouth opened, words spilling out almost against his will.

“He is a secretive man, Baron Samedi, a secretive god.” He paused, stroking his chin. “But I have heard a rumor, whispers in the shadows, that there is an
axis mundi
, a thin spot between the worlds, connecting to Bhogavati. In Thailand, close to the Laotian border, there is a shrine called Sala Keoku. Maybe”—he shrugged noncommittally—“you go there and you find your way to the Baron? I think, though, what you gonna find is death waiting for you instead.”

“Thanks,” I said, “but I don’t need any life advice from a corpse who just cut out my eye. Now tell me how to get out of this trash-heap, rag-tag shit-hole.”

“Inside,” he said simply. “Down in the basement, where we had our fun. There is an old bookshelf. It is on hinges. You will find a portal behind. Custom built. Lets out near the Lonely Mountain. That fulfills the terms of my oath,” he said. “Now be gone from my city. And if you ever return, I’ll catch you and skin you alive.”

I was about to respond, when something buzzed in my coat pocket, the manic vibration of a cell phone. I reached down and felt the shape of an unfamiliar brick burner phone through the fabric of my jacket. Didn’t know where it had come from, or how it had gotten into my pocket. But now sure as shit wasn’t the time or place to check it. I put the mystery phone from mind as I narrowed my eyes on the Voodoo Daddy.

“I’ll only be too glad to put this place in my rearview mirror,” I replied. “But first, I’d like to leave you with a little parting gift.” Once more, I extended my invisible razor of Nox toward the knot in Beauvoir’s chest; with a few quick, economical slashes, I parted a handful of quivering strands—specifically the ones connected to his arms and legs. The cables of energy parted without any resistance, and Beauvoir dropped like a box of rocks, his limbs temporarily useless.

“What is this!” he bellowed from the ground, jerking his head left and right, but unable to get his body moving. “You promised me I would live!”

“I’m not gonna kill you,” I said, shrugging one shoulder, though the words were bristling with menace. “You’ll keep right on living—you just won’t be able to use your arms or legs for a while, a day. Maybe two. But you’ll be alright.” I eyed his henchmen, my gaze lingering on each of the child soldiers in turn.

“But I’m not gonna make any promises that your friends there”—I nodded to his goons—“won’t do something. I mean I know you said these kids belonged to you heart and soul, but I gotta wonder if they’ll feel the same way when they realize you’re as helpless as a newborn kitten. Hear that?” I shouted. “This monster who took everything from you—your lives, your families, your childhoods—he couldn’t fight his way out of a paper bag with a machine gun in one hand and a machete in the other. Might be,” I said, smiling at Beauvoir, “they’ll decide they have a score to settle with you.”

I spit at him, then wheeled around, slipping back into the club’s interior, quickly pulling the doors shut behind me.

It wasn’t but a handful of seconds before Beauvoir started to scream, his voice a shrill shriek of tortured agony. Apparently the dead man could still feel, even if he couldn’t move. I smiled. Not as good as putting the miserable bastard down myself, maybe, but still as satisfying as a cold beer on a hot day. By which I mean smashing a world-class asswad in the head with a cold beer bottle on a hot day.

Then, though, that grin slipped clean off my face. Ferraro and the Prophet were gone, nowhere to be seen.