Savage Prophet: A Yancy Lazarus Novel (Episode 4) Read Online Free PDF Page A

toward me. He held a stout glass of scotch in either hand; a fat cigar hung from the corner of his mouth.
    He extended one turquoise-tinged hand, offering me the second glass as he drew near me.
    I took it with a thankful grunt and a nod, then pulled a long slug as I regarded the man. Cassius Aquinas. An Undine—a creature of water and spirit, permanently grafted into a piece of my soul. He was the very embodiment of my subconscious mind.
    I’d saved the shifty bastard way back while working an off-the-books job for one of the high lords of Glimmer-Tir , the home of the Summer Fae. Our strange living arrangement was never meant to be a long-term thing, but needless to say things hadn’t quite worked out as planned, since I was still hauling his watery ass around inside my head. Considering all the other poor life decisions I’ve made, however, this one worked out pretty well in retrospect.
    Guy was crazy helpful, like a DVR for my life—enabling me to remember things I’d forgotten, pointing out details my waking mind might overlook, helping me to find connections the more rational part of my brain would never make. And since that asshole demon Azazel the Purros moved in, he’d stepped up his game big time. Now, he acted as my inner warden, working his ass off to keep Azazel from jumping into the driver’s seat.
    Ignoring the blue skin, he looked just like me: an average guy of maybe forty with short-cropped, dark hair and an unremarkable height and build. Usually, Cassius dressed a helluva lot better than me—silk pajamas or fancy Italian suits, for example, to my jeans and T-shirt combo—but not so much these days. Nope, these days he’d traded in his lounge wear for something a bit more practical: Night-dark BDUs with heavy-duty tactical riot gear strapped in place.
    Instead of having “POLICE” stenciled across the chest, though, he had “WARDEN” written in glowing letters the color of hot coals. More glowing runes and sigils, each offering a small inferno of light, ran over his shoulder pads, forearm protectors, and down his shin guards. The runes pulsed in time to the beating of his heart. A tactical shotgun, glowing with spectral-green light, was slung across his back, while an otherworldly handgun—an ethereal mirror of my own Frankenstein pistol—sat in a holster on his hip.
    On the opposite hip was a K-Bar, also like the one I wore on assignment or, you know, whenever—because let’s face it, you never know when you’re gonna need to shank someone in the kidney.
    The change in clothing wasn’t the only difference, either. He also looked tired and too thin, which was new. His face was pale, almost gaunt, with pronounced purple bags under his seaweed colored eyes. Somehow, he seemed less substantial than his usual self.
    He pulled the thick cigar from his mouth and drained his drink, which miraculously refilled as he lowered it from his lips. In this place, thought was as powerful as the Vis; you could conjure anything with a flick of the wrist and a glimmer of creativity. “Ready for the nightly tour?” he asked, before shoving the cigar back in place, inhaling deeply.
    I nodded.
    “Alright, let’s do this thing.” He placed one hand on my shoulder, fingers digging down, then wheeled around, dragging me with him.
    With a single step, we shifted , leaving behind the comfort of the French Quarter, manifesting before a chain-link fence with curled rows of military-grade razor wire— concertina wire—running along the top and bottom. Brass and silver placards dotted the fence at twenty foot intervals, each bearing a glimmering containment seal, meant to hold even the most stalwart demonic beings in check.
    On the other side of the fence loomed the Dome.
    A half-oval, big as a McMansion, protruding from the ground, surrounded on all sides by fencing and swamplands. That swamp was as nasty as a Bangkok gutter. Damp, muggy, and chock-full of brackish bog water teeming with mean ol’ crocodiles,