Savage Prophet: A Yancy Lazarus Novel (Episode 4) by James A. Hunter Read Free Book Online

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