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

power in the air, an unseen force that rejected our intrusion into this place, as though our presence was somehow profane, sacrilegious.
    I pulled up next to Drukiski and cleared my throat, the sound unnaturally loud, echoing off the walls. “That was crazy-good work out there,” I said, hooking a thumb back toward the sealed doors. “With the guards. Like some kind of paperwork, red-tape ninjutsu.” I shook my head, the rueful grin still plastered on my face. “And here I thought all those stupid standard operating procedure manuals weren’t worth the paper they’re printed on.”
    She blushed a little, bright spots of red growing on her cheeks. “Oh gosh, that was nothing, really. Besides, everything I said was more or less the truth. The general lockdown really shouldn’t have pertained to us anyway.” She fell silent, the confident administrator from a moment ago suddenly gone as the heaviness of the room settled over us.
    She paced nervously, moving with the stiff shamble of a recent car-wreck victim, arms folded across her chest as though she were trying to physically hold herself together. That’s what shock looks like.
    “You okay?” I asked hesitantly, not really sure if I wanted an answer.
    She paused her restless shuffling and regarded me for a beat. “Honestly?” she asked, then shook her head, lips drawn tight. “I didn’t think it would be like this,” she said, pacing back and forth once more.
    “Being a real field agent. Going on missions. I don’t know what I was expecting, but not this. I thought it would be an adventure. Exciting. Like in a cozy mystery. A little sleuthing, a little travel, some interesting stories. My husband, he tried to tell me. He said, Darlene, this is just a midlife crisis. Buy a corvette, he told me, let’s go on a cruise. Take a vacation. Anything but this. He was right,” she said, “because this isn’t exciting. It’s scary.” She paused, rubbing hands along her shoulders as her gaze roamed over the chamber, taking in all the cold gray marble.
    The room itself was fifty or sixty feet long, all weathered granite and ancient marble, filled with an unnatural gloom that seemed to radiate from the walls. A living murk that pressed at us, fighting to submerge us into darkness. Marble columns, like those positioned out front, lined the room on either side.
    The columns offered a feeble illumination to fight against the pervasive darkness—each pillar was inscribed with a single long, looping line of text, running from the top of the column to its bottom, circling down in a tight spiral. The scrawl—flowing letters here, sharp angular text there—glowed with a watery opalescent light that didn’t offer much warmth or comfort.
    The weak glow from the script did allow me to see the doors, however. Thirteen of the suckers running up each side of the room. Hulking sentinels of black obsidian with no markings, no hinges, no handles. More like polished stone than actual doorways.
    “I’ve read so many reports.” Darlene limped over to a stone column near the entryway and sat, legs folded beneath her. “The other Judges, the real ones, they come back with their stories. Fighting off a school of nanaue ”—terrifying sharklike creatures that could swim through dirt and earth the way a great white could swim through choppy ocean waves—“in the Samoan islands. Hunting a rogue enenra in Shimamaki.” She sighed fondly. “The way they tell those stories …” She faded into awkward silence. “They just make it sound so exotic,” she finished weakly.
    “I suppose I just wanted a story like that. Just one. All day, every day I listen to their stories, rubber stamp their reports, then go home, cook for my family, wash dishes, and watch an hour of TV before bed. I’m lucky if I get to a yoga class once a week. The most exciting place I’ve ever been is the Brokers of Iskdarla Shopping Emporium , over Hub-side. And I only did that once. Ate at a falafel stand