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

pods—each the size of a large child—covered with barbed spikes, hung from the branches of the colossal trees. They were chitinous looking things that vaguely resembled an oversized butterfly’s cocoon. I’d never seen a pod like that, but if it was a cocoon—which, let’s face it, how could it not be a friggin’ cocoon—I’d bet whatever emerged wasn’t some peaceful, oversized butterfly interested only in frolicking from flower to flower, pollinating things and shit.
    Nope, I’d wager an El Camino worth of delicious burritos that whatever came out of those pods would be covered in claws and spikes and teeth. Moreover, I was fairly confident that said jungle-horror would, in all likelihood, try to dissolve us in acid. That or something equally horrible. You know, strangle us with fleshy tentacles. Barf fungus spores into our faces, which would drive us into gibbering, mouth-frothing insanity. Carve us open and suck out our entrails with one of those novelty crazy straws—the kind with the plastic red lips on the end. Something awful.
    Thankfully, the golden tether cut through the woods for only a mere hundred feet before depositing us at another free-standing stone, which led us into yet another Chamber of Doors.
    From there it was a matter of lather, rinse, repeat …
    Door seven: We trudged through a gloomy world, the earth scorched and blackened beneath our feet, a cloud of ash lingering overhead. Dark mountains tore and slashed their way across the skyline before us …
    Door four: We waded through a marshy swamp; huge trees, with droopy branches and vines trailing down to the water, surrounded us like a violent mob. Something big, with a trio of thick, sucker-clad tentacles, broke the surface of the water not far off before disappearing back into the fetid bog …
    Door fifteen: We meandered down a dark alleyway that might’ve belonged in New York—towering buildings stretched high on either side of us, walls tagged with ample amounts of colorful graffiti. It could’ve been New York, except the landscape seemed to shift and blur and bleed on the edges, concealing half-seen shadow-folk who coolly regarded us with invisible eyes …
    Despite the odd and often foreboding locations—each filled with enough high-octane nightmare fuel to power a terror-themed amusement park—we actually did alright until the last junction.
    “Oh no. Oh no. Oh no,” Darlene mumbled as we stood in the center of the final Cubiculi . “I can’t remember if it’s six or sixteen.” She shifted her gaze back and forth between the two identical doorways, one plump hand rubbing constantly at her face. One of those Ways would lead to Washington DC, while the other could take us literally anywhere, and getting lost in the Doors would suck more than an Oklahoma Twister.
    Take the wrong door and we’d be forced to fight our way from terrible dimension to terrible dimension until we eventually stumbled upon some location one of us recognized or were murdered and disemboweled. You know, whichever came first.
    Probably that second one.
    She stopped rubbing at her face and laced her hands behind her neck, squeezing her eyes shut. After a time she shook her head, mouth screwing up in a grimace. “I’m sorry—I just can’t remember. It’s a coin toss.” She seemed to fold in on herself at the words.
    I shrugged.
    Fifty-fifty wasn’t bad odds, not in my line of work.
    And hell, I’ve always been one lucky son of a bitch—all magi are. Besides, we were due a break. So far we’d gotten the shit end of the stick over and again, so things had to even out eventually, right? I pulled a quarter from my pocket.
    Heads , door six. Tails , door sixteen.
    I flicked the coin into the air, letting it tumble and spin lazily before catching it with my hand, fingers folding around the cool metal. I opened my palm. George Washington stared at me in profile—noble, honest George Washington, who could never tell a lie. Could there possibly be a