The Green Lama: Unbound (The Green Lama Legacy Book 3) (25 page)

Jethro knelt down beside Gan and bowed his head. “
Om! Amitabha Hri.”

Gan gave Jethro a small nod of thanks but kept his eyes focused on the sea.

Jean looked over to Jethro and their eyes met. Her cheeks warmed. She had looked into those blue-grey eyes so many times, but it was the first time she ever felt them truly looking back. It was the first time she ever knew what was sitting behind them. She at once felt captivated by him and repulsed. He was two men and one, both whom she had respected, had even found herself drawn to, but neither of whom had ever told her the truth. For all the justice they—he—claimed to be fighting for, never once was veracity considered to play a role for those who would fight alongside him. Her face fell and she shook her head, there were more pressing issues. “We’re all in trouble, Dumont. Everyone and everything.” She reached into her satchel and brought out the Third Jade Tablet, glowing with green light.

“
Mein Gott
, that is it,” Gan breathed, his eyes wide, his skin sickly in the emerald fluorescence. He struggled not to reach out and grab the cracked crystal egg in front of him. “That is the final Tablet.”

“Yup, number Three.” There was no mistaking the capital she placed in front of the word.

Jethro tried to control his breathing. He could feel the Third Tablet’s power radiate through the air, buzzing in his head, a sensation at once familiar and foreign. “Jean, where did you find this?”

“Apark, for all that matters,” she said quietly. With a short nod toward Jethro’s hand, she added: “Your ring’s glowing.” Risking a glance, Jethro felt his stomach drop in realization. He looked hesitantly over to Jean, who gave him a knowing eyebrow. The corner of her lips curled. “What do ya say, Tulku? Want to go and save the world?”

C
HAPTER 13

WRAITH

“It’s a little anticlimactic,” Jethro confessed to Tsarong. He turned over the vial of salt, watching the plain white grains tumble over one another like in an hourglass, spilling away the days. He had half expected— hoped—that they would have substantiated in a multitude of colors or, at the very least, a vibrant green. “Thousands of years for food seasoning.”

“
Do not base decisions on appearances,” Tsarong said, tugging at his beard, appreciating the irony in his statement. It was not so long ago that he had written the
Bodhisattva
off as a wayward American hedonist. Over the past few weeks Tsarong had watched in awe as Dumont created the salts from scratch, piecing together its chemical properties from the Jade Tablet’s cryptic directions. He was becoming more and more certain that Dumont was indeed the scion of prophecy, a realization that at once excited and terrified him. Dumont’s accession meant the time of reckoning was close at hand.

Turning over the vial again, Dumont watched the granules pour over each other. “There
has
to be something more to these. That the ingredients were kept secret for so long…”

“I confess,” Tsarong said as he read over Dumont’s copious notes, books filled with graphs, translations, and chemical formulas,” y understanding of chemistry is limited, yet I wonder, how
different
are these from what we put in our food?”

“Chemically speaking, they are completely unique,” Dumont said as Tsarong handed him his notebook, turning to the diagram of the salt’s molecular structure. “Honestly, if I hadn’t created them myself, I wouldn’t believe they existed. These molecular bonds have never been documented, let alone imagined, they’re incredibly complex. In fact, I—” he cut himself off, his eyes darting over the diagram. His eyes narrowed as he tapped the page. “‘Do not base decisions on appearances, ’” he repeated. “The molecular bonds. If they were rearranged, it could release…” He looked to Tsarong excitedly. “There’s something I want to try.”

• • •

Vasili paced the deck, holding the book to his chest, feeling his heart jangle through the pages. He tried to ignore the pain echoing out from his skull, threatening to explode. Visions and sounds rolled through his head like a broken strip of film, skipping and blurred.

“He has you,” he said aloud. Tears streamed down his cheeks. He stared down into the rushing waters, watching the inhuman shadows swim beneath—people, fish, both—following the boat. “Close. Keeps you close and you don’t even realize you’re being played. A chess piece moved off the board. Insignificant yet so important. One to rise. Three to sleep. One is lost. One in time. One to die. Nyarlathotep has you.”

“You okay?”

“What?” Vasili wiped his eyes with the back of his sleeve.

“Just me,” Ken said, holding his hands up defensively, a cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth. “Needed to get away from our stiff.”

Vasili laughed manically. “This accent you have is not fooling anyone, ‘Shakes.’”

Ken swallowed the lump in his throat. “ Vasili, I don’t understand,” he asked.

“Εσείς ηλίθιοι λίγο άτοµο!” Vasili shouted, gesticulating wildly. “I
know
you are not British. I
know
your friend has two eyes. I
know
you are here because of the American girl.”

“I—” Ken stuttered, nervously removing the cigarette from his mouth. His hands were shaking.

“Ken Clayton,” Vasili said, his eyes sealed shut. “That is your real name, is it not? Kenneth Andrew Clayton. Born and raised in San Jose, California. Third child. Two older sisters, Karen and Darcy. God’s gift to autograph hounds. The only man who will admit he looks like Robert Taylor, but wants to be Paul Muni. And how is Benn, by the way?”

“How could you—?”

“Have you two spoken since you parted ways?”

Ken shuddered as gooseflesh ran across his arms and neck. He could feel his heart slam into ribs. “N—no… We haven’t…” he whispered. “We thought it best—Safer that way.”

A manic grin spread across Vasili’s face. “Your father knew. He always knew. And you always knew he did; you saw it in his eyes. How it must have killed you…”

“Stop it,” Ken whispered, dropping his faux British accent.

“He gets all your checks.” Vasili fluttered his fingers like bits of paper in the wind. “The ones you sent to help him along. He gets every single one. And you know what he does with them? He puts them in a drawer just left of the kitchen and lets them pile up, one by one, until he can’t pull it open anymore. Now he just tosses them in the trash and he never says your name.”

“Stop it!” Ken shouted. Tears poured down his cheeks, his eyes bloodshot. “Just stop it! You have no idea what it’s like!”

Vasili blinked, looking at Ken as if he had seen him for the time. He shook his head. “I do not—I cannot understand how I know these things, but I do,” he gasped. “They are true, yes?”

Ken took a half step back, eyeing Vasili and the book suspiciously. He had curled his hands into fists, crushing his cigarette between his fingers. He opened his hands and let the flecks of tobacco tumble away. “Yes. They are,” he croaked after a moment. He cleared his throat and ran the back of his hand across his nose. He took a tentative step forward. “ Vasili, listen, I think I know—”

“Do not come any closer,” Vasili hissed, hugging the book closer to his chest.

“I think—I think I know what might be happening to you. You’re getting flashes of images in your head. Stuff you recognize, and stuff you don’t? Hearing voices like they’re talking from the back of your head.”

Vasili nodded furiously, his face red. “How could you know that?”

“I spend most of my time around some very interesting people,” Ken said hoarsely, taking another step forward. “But I bet you five American dollars that the answers you need are in that book you got there.”

Vasili glanced down at the
Necronomicon
. “Yes,” he breathed like a man repenting. “Yes, they are.” He looked Ken in the eye. “That is what is so terrifying.”

“Herr Oberführer! Sir, are you down there?” Hirsch called as he and a contingent of soldiers made their way down the hill. Hours had passed since the storm ripped through the base, leaving it in ruins. The injuries were numerous, and though there were thankfully no fatalities, neither the Oberführer nor the American Jethro Dumont had yet to reappear. Fearing the worst, Gottschalk had sent out search parties in all directions, with no success. “Herr Oberführer Gan! Are you here?”

“
Ja
.
Ja
, I am here,” Gan called back weakly.

“
Gott sei Dank
!” Hirsch exclaimed, feeling the knot in his stomach unwind. He ran down the hill toward the cliff edge, where he found Gan nursing his ankle. “We thought we had lost you. Are you injured?”

Gan nodded. “My ankle.”

“Where is Dumont and Johann?”

Gan’s gaze fell and he shook his head. “Our car fell off the cliff during the storm. They died on impact,” he said as two solders lifted him off the ground. “How is the camp?”

“Demolished,” Hirsch replied, walking close to Gan. “We were lucky none of ours were killed.” He then added, under his breath, “Herr Doktor Hammond returned. He is unhurt.”

“That is… unfortunate.”

“He says we are ready for the next step needed to obtain the Jade Tablet.”

Gan raised an eyebrow and Hirsch thought he saw a hit of a smile. “Did he, now?”

“Some sort of ritual,” Hirsch said, picking at his cheek, “Tonight, out by the ruins.”

“A ritual,” Gan reiterated.

“Yes, sir.” Hirsch lowered his voice,” don’t like the sound of it.”

“No, Herr Sturmbannführer,” Gan said, glancing over his shoulder into the brush. “I don’t like the sound of it either.”

• • •

“So,” Jean said once she and Jethro were well out of earshot. They had snuck into the brush and left Gan alone at the cliffside in order to create Jethro’s cover story—an untimely death. She could only imagine what the newsreels would say. “Looks like you’ve been having a lot of fun since I last saw you,”

“‘Fun’ is a
relative
term, Miss Farrell.”

“‘Miss Farrell’!” she exclaimed in mock surprise. “Aren’t we
proper
today? Crazy as it sounds, Tulku, I’d much prefer you call me Jean, or at the very least, Ne-tso-hbum.”

Jethro paused. “How long have you known?” he asked without facing her.

“That Jethro Dumont is the Green Lama? Well, if you discount the first time I figured it out, technically over twenty years from now, but in reality, only about an hour.”

“Jean,” he said as he turned to face her, but unable to look her in the eye. “I
wanted
to tell you.”

Jean let out a harsh laugh. “That’s a load if I ever heard one,
Smug
. If you wanted to tell me, you would have. Instead, you just pranced around pretending to be several different people, making me and everyone else who cared about you look like a whole bunch of idiots. Tell me something, who was that who visited my apartment, who fought atop the Brooklyn Bridge? Was it your little buddy Tsarong or was it Magga? Silly as it sounds, but I’m putting my money on Magga.”

“I—That was never my intention,” he said, finding himself unusually nervous. “Keeping my identity a mystery allows me to work outside the system, beyond corruption, to be where others cannot. And if my enemies were to ever discover, the people I—”

“You think we couldn’t handle it?” Jean asked sharply. “It’s not like you never put us into dangerous situations every other day! How many times have I been shot at? Kidnapped? Least you could have done is been
honest
with us. Besides, you wear a goddamn hood. Hate to break it to ya, buddy, but that doesn’t exactly cover your face—no matter how much you disguise it.” She stormed off.

Jethro sighed. She was right. “What do you want me to say?” he asked timidly, his heart pounding against his chest, his stomach twisting.

“Honestly?” she said over her shoulder. “Nothing.”

Jethro grimaced, running a hand through his hair. “And what about you and me?” he asked, barely a whisper.

Jean spun back around, steaming. “Look, Dumont, ‘you and me, ’ in the grand scheme of things,
we
don’t really matter. Right now, you and I need to do everything we can to stop them or else—” Jean choked as tears formed in her eyes. “Or else everything and everyone we ever
loved
will be destroyed. So, the only thing I want us to talk about is how we’re going to make sure that doesn’t happen, okay?”

Jethro looked her in the eyes and nodded. “Okay.”

• • •

“So, you gonna tell me the story of you and our boy Vasili?” Caraway asked as he walked into the cockpit, lighting a cigarette. Sotiria jumped and unconsciously placed her hand on her chest in surprise. “Sorry, didn’t mean to startle ya.”