The Green Lama: Unbound (The Green Lama Legacy Book 3) (9 page)

The Oberführer stopped short as though he had been punched in the stomach.

“The First, the one Heydrich was after, is… lost to us for the time being. The Second is believed to have been destroyed sometime in the first century by the Ancient Jews.”

Hirsch snorted. “The Jews ruin everything, don’t they?”

The others chuckled briefly, and the doctor continued.

“The Third… The Third Tablet is
here
, somewhere on this island.”

“Let us pretend for a moment that these Jade Tablets really do exist,” the Oberführer postulated. “If one is here, why do we not just reach out and take it? All these theatrics, dealing with thugs and masked men, moving around in the night like criminals; a waste! And if we were to obtain it, do we even know what it does? You said that Heydrich believed the first one would give us ‘supersoldiers.’”

Hammond sighed, exasperated. “It is believed that each Tablet, though tied to the same power source, has a unique attribute. The Tibetan Tablet, also known as the ‘Sacred Colors, ’is said to alter human life. The Middle Eastern Tablet, sometimes called the ‘Tablet of Abraham,’ can give life. The Greek Tablet, the one we seek, also known as the ‘Fire from Olympus, ’is said to have the
power of the gods
.”

Hirsch snorted. “‘Power of the gods.’ Herr Doktor, you have been listening to too many fairy tales,” he said, laughing. “Herr Obergruppenführer, surely you do not believe this foolishness?”

Gottschalk hesitated before saying, “The Führer believes it, and that is good enough for me, as should it be for you, Herr Sturmbannführer. As to the Oberführer’s concerns, these are delicate times. We dare not risk playing our hand too soon. For the Führer’s plans to work, we must move under the flag of diplomacy, lest we draw unwanted attention from the Greek government, let alone the world at large. Alexei Polyxena, criminal that he is, has facilitated our entrance into the country, and given us access to the ‘masked twins.’ Strange as they are, they claim to know the location of this Third Jade Tablet and, perhaps most importantly, know how to activate it and bring about the power we need to permanently tip the scales in our favor.”

“How do we even know we can trust them?” the Oberführer asked pointedly.

“Because,” Hammond began as he reach into his scabbard, “they gave us this.”

The tent erupted with green light, glowing in the night.

Jethro opened his eyes, and all was jade.

• • •

He was standing in a massive room overlooking a chasm, a rattling wind flowing from up from the shadows. The walls were made of coral, extending out in curves, intersecting at right angles. He was bound to an altar at the center of the room. His right hand was pressed against a stone, fingers splayed, the Jade Tablet wrapped around his middle finger, glowing green. He was the sacrifice. He heard the echo of chanting: maddening, croaking, braying, inhuman sounds. They were all around him, the believers, chanting over and over again, “
Iä Iä Cthulhu fhtagn!”

Jethro looked out into the darkness before him. The shadows moved and broke open and two red, green, and yellow slits began to form. Tentacles like clouds moved out into the light, twisting and undulating around him.

Someone gripped him by the hair and pulled his head back, turning his face to the ceiling.

He looked into the face of a murderer. Karl Heydrich lived. His eyes burned with madness, grinning wildly, his teeth cracked and jagged. He held a glowing green
phurba
– no, it was a crystal shard – in his hand.

Heydrich leaned in close, breath like brimstone as he whispered, “Cthulhu rises.”

He plunged the
phurba
into Jethro’s throat and all was pain.

• • •

Jethro screamed as he lurched out of bed, dripping with sweat. He gripped at his neck, searching for the wound but finding none.

“
Om! Tare Tuttare Ture Soha!
” he whispered, hoping the mantra would arouse his own inner strength. There was part of him that wanted it to be nothing more than a terrible nightmare, but he knew better than that. It had been prophecy, a portent of events to come, much more lucid than the ones he had experienced before.

But… it couldn’t be the future, he decided. Heydrich had been dead for over five years. There was no question; he had seen Heydrich die.

Hadn’t he?

Jethro stumbled over and threw open the window. He shivered; the cold ocean breeze ice against his skin. He could still hear the chanting; still feel those massive eyes staring down on him. Cthulhu. It was like a darkness encroaching on his mind. Somehow everything he had done since those terrible days at the Temple of the Clouds all those years ago was connected to this creature. Jethro shuddered. What had he done? How many lives had he now put at risk? Caraway’s, Ken’s, and most of all Jean’s. Deep down in the pit of his stomach he knew she was at the center of this, the knot at whose center all these strings were tied.

The Keystone. They had called her the Keystone.

And if what he saw was indeed the future, could he change it? Rabbi Brickman had seen the coming holocaust of his people and had done all he could, creating a golem in hopes of altering the path of history, and even then he was unable to stop the tide.

Gazing out into the sky, Jethro couldn’t help but think how green the moon looked.

He frowned. He would not be sleeping tonight.

• • •

The Green Lama jumped down into the alleyway. Having only saved a single vial of his radioactive salts during his escape from Rick Master’s airship, he was mindful not to expend his energy too quickly. He had left his enhanced salts onboard the airship in an unconscious effort to prove to himself—and to Jean—that Jethro Dumont was as much a hero as the Green Lama. But old habits die hard, and Jethro once again found his face hidden beneath a viridian hood. And while his new robes fit him well, he found the lack of furred cuffs and the more monastic cut slightly uncomfortable. For now he kept to the shadows, moving silently toward the town’s police station. While he had complete faith in Ken and Caraway, he hoped to aid their efforts by learning all he could about Jean’s alleged homicide.

What he knew so far was scant. According to the shopkeeper, Jean was seen running from the mayor’s official residence shortly before his body was found with an axe blade to the head. She was arrested less than an hour later in her hotel room across town. She broke free shortly after and had been on the run ever since.

Jethro didn’t need to be a super powered detective to know something didn’t add up. Someone was framing her, he was certain, but who and for what purpose? Hopefully, he could find some clues tonight. His first stop would be the local police station, where he expected to learn more of the “official” version of the crime.

Sneaking in through an opened window, Jethro walked silently past several dozing policemen toward the record room. The door was locked, but with a quick twist of his wrist, the lock broke in two.

He found the file easily, a thin manila folder simply marked ‘.” Inside were the standard forms filled out by the investigating— and clearly inept—detectives, detailing the crime scene. Beyond the revelation that the murder weapon hadn’t been found, there was nothing in them that he didn’t already know; it was the photos, however, that took him by surprise.

There were ten of them, showing Astrapios’s corpse at a variety of angles, each more gruesome than the last. Jethro had seen some terrible things since he had taken up the mantle of the Green Lama, but he was still sickened by what he saw. Astrapios’s body lay sprawled out, naked on his bed, his bearded face split in two. Blood and brain matter was splattered against the headboard and wall. Jethro’s stomach turned as his mind attempted to imagine the sequence of events leading up to Astrapios’s demise, moments of passion and intimacy climaxing with murder. He could not decide which disturbed him more: the thought of Jean murdering a lover or of her having a lover at all.

He grimaced; of all things, was he jealous?

Jethro shook his head. No, Jean couldn’t be the killer. And if Astrapios had been her lover, then…

He moved to another photo, this one of the adjacent wall. There was a noticeable egg-shaped absence of blood splatter above a small empty table. Jethro raised an eyebrow; something had been stolen, but what? Nothing else in the room seemed to be out of place. If this was indeed a robbery, the killer—or killers—seemed to know exactly what they wanted.

Then something else caught his eye. He thought it could be a trick of light, but he began looking over the images once more, finding it in every picture. Though lost in the blood splatter to the untrained eye, Jethro had no doubt about what he saw.

Bloody footprints, walking up the wall.

• • •

Astrapios’s residence was, appropriately, a tomb. Even Jethro’s own hushed footsteps seemed to echo throughout the estate. The building, massive compared with the relatively modest homes in town, was modeled after ancient Greek architecture and sat atop a small hill overlooking the city. Subtle Astrapios was not. As Jethro made his way toward the mayor’s bedchambers, he passed no fewer than seventeen portraits and statues of the man, each more gaudy and self-aggrandizing than the last. The bedroom, twice the size of Jethro’s, had been cleaned of blood, the bed replaced, though Jethro could see, just barely visible in the glints of the moonlight, the bloodstains that had seeped into the wooden walls. Walking over to the far wall, he found the bloodless egg-shaped “shadow” he had seen in the photographs. It was possibly the size of an ostrich egg, though as he gazed closer he could see a small divot in the blood spray, which meant the egg— or whatever had been there—had been cracked or missing a shard. Jethro frowned; there was nothing more he could learn here. Turning around, he moved closer to the bed, and was able to find the foot-shaped stains climbing up the wall to the ceiling and back across the room.

Impossible
wasn’t an adjective Jethro used anymore, but he was tempted to bring it back into his lexicon as he followed the footsteps to their abrupt end against the opposite wall, the footprint cut off mid-step. Curious, he walked through the doorway to the adjacent room and found, improbably, the other half of the footprint on the ceiling. The prints continued on toward the other side of the room, where they were once again bisected by the wall.

“Walked through the walls…” Jethro breathed in disbelief.

Something clattered in the library down the hall. Jethro instinctually dove for the shadows, pulling the front of his hood down. He heard glass shatter and wood snap, heavy breathing and garbled words that seemed foreign even to his trained ears. Peeking around the doorway, he watched as someone tore through the library. The man—at least Jethro assumed it was a man—moved through the room in quick, hopping motions, as though he were unaccustomed to walking. He was completely nude, his hairless skin pale white, glistening in the moonlight. The man ripped apart books, scratched at the back wall, sifting through the remains like a mad archaeologist. He croaked, futilely cursing under his breath. Knobby joints pushed out against his oily flesh, his spine a column of pronounced ridges, the skin cracked and scaly. Three long scars traced the side of his neck. His fingers were long, the nails pointed and serrated. Jethro could only see the outline of the man’s face, his eyes massive and bulging out.

Jethro inched into the room, keeping to the shadows, as his hands unconsciously curled into fists. He suspected whatever this man was looking for had something to do with Astrapios’s murder, but there was only one way to find out…

“
Om! Ma-ni Pad-me Hum!
”

The man jumped back, dropping two halves of a book to the floor, cursing again in his guttural tongue. As Jethro stepped into the moonlight, he watched with growing horror as the man slowly turned to face him. The ridges of the man’s spine extended out to form a prodigious fin that ran up the length of his back and neck, ending at the top of his head. The scars on the sides of his neck began flapping, gills struggling in the open air. His eyes were massive unblinking black orbs.

“
Om Ah Hum!
” Jethro whispered. “What are you?”

The fish-man bared its teeth, hissing as it launched at Jethro. It let out a high-pitched warble, the ugly sound echoing off the rafters, sending a chill down Jethro’s spine. The creature swiped its claws at Jethro’s stomach, slashing his robes, narrowly missing flesh as he subtly shifted his weight to the left. But the creature was quicker than Jethro had anticipated, spinning on its heels and chomping its massive jaw down onto Jethro’s right arm. Jethro hollered in pain. He tried to pull away, succeeding only in driving the creature’s blade-like teeth into his muscles. Jethro sent a large blast of green electricity through his right arm and the fish-man’s jaw shot open, releasing Jethro’s arm from its vise-like grip. The pale creature flew across the study, smacking against the wall with a loud
thunk!

Jethro gripped his arm. The fish-man’s teeth had broken through his skin, causing blood to seep into his robes. Examining the wound, he watched in horror as black veins began to spread across his arm. The creature’s bite was poisoned.