Savage Prophet: A Yancy Lazarus Novel (Episode 4) by James A. Hunter

think she was about to blast me full-on in the face with another beam of fire.
    But I pushed my sudden anxiety away and stole a hasty look at my six—there was a Pearl-Weeper only a few arm lengths away and closing the distance with every slosh-splat-flump.
    Darlene let out a holler, and a wave of shimmering green exploded out from her palms.
    “Holy shitballs!” I screamed, throwing myself forward, stretching out and tucking into a tight front roll, shoulder blades slapping against the gritty earth. The wave swept over me—close enough to brush the top of my head—before smacking into the encroaching Pearl-Weeper. The green wave congealed, morphing into a soupy mush which further hardened into a blob of lime-colored Jell-O.
    The shark-tailed creature howled and thrashed, throwing its weight side to side, trying fruitlessly to dislodge itself from the construct. I gained my feet with a grimace, clutching my maimed left arm to my body, and ran the last few feet to Darlene, promptly pulling her through the black stone doorway. Leaving behind the asstastic beach with its murderous gulls and flesh-eating sea-people.
    And good riddance, I say.
    Icy power hit me like a splash of cold water to the face as we stumbled our way through the portal and into a chamber identical to the Cubiculi ex Ostia . As with most things in my circles, however, looks can be quite deceiving. Despite being a mirror image down to the last detail, this was a shadow room, a perfect replica that existed in a pocket dimension. This room also had a completely different set of doors, which led to a new set of strange and bizarre locales.
    “Wow,” I said, huffing and puffing from my beachside jog, “that was actually pretty good.” I eyed Darlene askew. “Surprisingly competent. The green blob thing, I mean. Haven’t seen that before. And the timing? Great timing.”
    The winded Judge smiled deeply, twirling one strand of loose hair around her finger. “Thank you,” she replied. “It’s a nonlethal construct. Dissolves in about five minutes, disappears like a bad stain. I call it Insta-Stop. Just a little something I’ve been working on in my free time.”
    I snorted. “Insta-Stop? Well, it was good work, even if it does have a goofy-ass name. Quick. Smart. Really saved my ass. Still”—I gave the new set of doors a once-over, knowing each could be a potential bomb—“let’s just hope things get easier from here. I’ve walked the doors enough to know all the Ways can’t possibly be that bad.”
    “Gosh,” she replied, grabbing the edge of her blouse in white-knuckled fists, “I sure hope not. I’m not sure my poor heart can handle it. All that running. Those monsters.” She shivered, shuddered. “No. I hope that’s the end of it.”
    “Hang in there, kid. Just take things one step at a time and we’ll get through this in one piece.” I eyed my achy arm. “Well, more or less in one piece,” I amended. “And speaking of one step at a time, what’s our next door?”
    She sighed, then turned, crossing her arms and tapping her bottom lip thoughtfully with one plump finger. “There,” she said after a beat, “door eleven. There are only six doors in the sequence to DC, and eleven is the next in line.”
    Once more we headed over to the slab of unmarred onyx, stepping through a sheet of frozen power and into a tropic jungle, which didn’t belong to Inworld. No way in hell.
    A small footpath of barren earth zigzagged through a dense tangle of leafy green vegetation. Trees—squat palms, wild ferns, and other nameless behemoths towering eighty feet or more—surrounded us, covering us in perpetual shade. The air was hot, heavy, muggy. Instantly my jeans felt constricting, the fabric rubbing uncomfortably on the inside of my thighs, while my shirt clung to my chest.
    The place reminded me of my days in Vietnam, but there were plenty of telltale signs that this wasn’t just some overgrown jungle in Southeast Asia. Giant viridian