“Who’s there?” he murmured, his tongue a brick in his mouth.
“How long has it been?” the man asked, stepping closer. “Two years? Three? I’ll confess time moves a bit strangely down here, so you’ll forgive me if I can’t remember.”
“I know that voice.”
“I should hope so! I would be terribly offended if you didn’t. Oh, it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. After all these years, you remembered my voice. Now that I think about it, I’m not sure you would even recognize my face… I can barely recognize yours. Though I was wearing a mask at the time and you… Well, it almost looks like you’re wearing a mask now. How have you been? No, no, don’t try and move. I doubt your legs would be much use to you now. And your arm… tsk tsk.” The man reached forward and squeezed down on the break in Gary’s arm. Gary gritted what remained of his teeth and did his best not to black out. “You must be in terrible pain, by God!” the man observed pleasantly.
“I’ve had worse,” Gary managed.
“Oh, I doubt that, Mr. Brown. I’m afraid our hosts aren’t very good ones. I would apologize on their behalf if I weren’t such a fan of their work. You almost look like a painting, a Van Gogh even, by God. You’re even missing part of an ear… Wonderful! But I digress. I do that sometimes; my mind wanders. I imagine you are very curious as to who I am. Allow me to answer your question…” The man pulled open Gary’s swollen eyelid with his forefinger and thumb.
Light poured into Gary’s eye, blinding and pure. It took a moment for his eyesight to resolve, but the angry, flabby face soon came into view. He looked different—almost normal—without his red domino mask, but Gary recognized the man nonetheless. How could he forget the man that had introduced him to Evangl, the man who had kidnapped and tortured them both. Gary’s jaw clenched, the blinding pain raging through his body the only thing preventing him from strangling the man to death. “You.”
“Yes,” the man said with a vicious smile. “Me.” He leaned forward and gently kissed Gary on the forehead. “I am so happy to see you again, Mr. Brown.” The man let go of Gary’s eyelids and plunged him back into darkness. “It seems, Mr. Brown, that we have some… mutual friends; friends who would very much like to meet our verdant vigilante. You see, Mr. Brown, we need him for… some experiments, you might say. They believe—as do I—that he can help us answer some questions we have. Mysteries, one might say. He so excels at that, solving mysteries. Now, we also believe that you know more than what you’ve confessed. Do not misunderstand me, Mr. Brown. They have their theory as to the Buddhist Bastard’s identity, a name that has been tossed around here and there, which is perhaps more plausible than the others. Based on my personal experience with the man, I tend to agree with their theory. Now my superiors could have gone on and asked you more questions to confirm their little theory, but they know, as I know, that will be a dead-end. There is no doubt in our minds that you know the Green Lama’s identity, Mr. Brown, but they came to realize that no matter how much they asked, no matter how much they tortured you, you will never let that name slip.” The man tapped Gary in the chest. “You are strong like that. And I should know, by God! I’ve tortured you before.”
There were more sounds of machinery moving into place, the hum of electricity. Gary felt beads of sweat form on his battered brow.
“I have come to understand that you and Miss Stewart have married. And a daughter, Marie! Wonderful! I like to think I had a hand in that. I never thought of myself as a matchmaker, but then again, we all have hidden talents. One day I would love to meet little Marie and break every bone in her body,” the man said, his voice gravelly and sinister.
Gary’s body quaked; an odd sound escaped his lips, something between a moan and sob. Not Evangl. Not Marie. Please anything, anything but that.
“Here is something I always wondered, however,” the man said thoughtfully, “Who does the Green Lama love?”
Gary chuckled, little bolts of pain shooting through his chest. “He’s a Buddhist,” he said, trying to sound defiant. “He loves everyone.”
“Cute, Mr. Brown,” the man chuckled. Gary heard the sound of switches being flipped. “But while the Green Lama is a Buddhist, he isn’t a very good one. If anything, his faith—if you can call it that—is a twisted version of the Buddha’s doctrine. I have done my research, you see. I like to know my enemies. A true Buddhist would never raise his hand against another; he would never ‘strike for justice.’ The Green Lama is a flawed man, but a man nonetheless. But again, I digress.”
“Is that why I’m here?” Gary croaked. “Because they want me to tell you who the Green Lama loves?”
“Oh no, no, no,” the man tutted. “They’ve already pieced that together. These are intelligent men, Mr. Brown, the builders of nations and so forth. They can read a newspaper. No, you are here so I can have some fun.” Then, pleasantly: “So, let us get to business then.”
Somewhere in the shadow and haze Gary heard the sound of a powerful drill coming to life. He could feel the ground rumble beneath him as the machine roared. He struggled against his bindings, but the effort was futile. There was no escape, not this time. He winced as the sharp end of a needle pressed up against his forehead. There was the sound of mechanics clicking into place and Gary felt four cold, jagged blades touch his skin.
“Don’t worry, Mr. Brown,” Dr. Frank Pelham, the Crimson Hand, whispered as the four metal blades began to dig into Gary’s skin. “The nightmare isn’t over yet.”
Chapter 9: Capture
THERE WERE days Franklin Murdoch found himself missing the ocean; the crash of the waves against the ship’s hull, the rush of wind in his ear as he stepped out onto the deck. At first those days had been far and few between, but they had became more frequent over the last month or so, around the same time when the trials began.
His discovery of the Substance had been purely accidental; a Eureka moment that would have made Archimedes jealous had it not been so terrifying. It was all so unprecedented, so marvelously implausible, it seemed like the laws of nature had been completely uprooted. He had shouted so loud the whole crew of the USS North Carolina had heard him. It was later, after he had stopped blubbering in fear, that he began to realize the Substance’s potential. Yet, while it was easy to sit hunched over a microscope, amazed by the Substance’s unique properties, it was something else entirely seeing them put to use. Sometimes, he could hear the screams echo through the facility, rattling him to the bone.
Murdoch drummed his fingers against his desk. He tried again to read over the letter from his superiors, but the typewritten words blurred together into a jumble of black symbols. What were they asking for, again? He massaged his eyes as he tried to remember, something about needing more test subjects, moving on to the next phase in testing, that the Project Manager was becoming impatient. It was one or all of those. Instead, he folded up the letter, slipped it back into its envelope, and dropped it into the trash. He was a naval medical officer, trained to treat the wounds of the battle-torn, the dead and the dying. It wasn’t that he didn’t understand why the Collective initially brought him on, he had discovered the Substance; what he couldn’t wrap his head around was why they kept him here.
He gazed up at the high, rocky ceiling, the light fixture dangling precariously above him, swaying every so slightly, as though it was threatening to fall. Murdoch frowned, wondering whether they would cut the cord now, or wait until their work was done.
There was a knock on the door, soft and polite, yet it put Murdoch’s nerves on edge. “Yes?” he called, hating the way his voice cracked and then hating even more that he had to hear it echo back.
The door creaked open and the weathered visage of Dr. Valco appeared.
“Harrison,” Murdoch said as pleasantly as he could. He stood up from his chair and gestured for Valco to enter. “What can I do for you? My goodness, man, you look exhausted. Well, more so than usual, at least.”
Valco smiled sheepishly, fumbling with t
he thick manila folder in his hands as he walked into the office. “It’s the lack of sunlight,” he lied. “It throws off my internal clock. Don’t even know what time it is anymore. Plus, I don’t know… The vents sometimes sound like someone screaming.”
“Mm. Yeah, I know the feeling,” Murdoch admitted, feeling the weight of his eyelids. “You’ve only been here a couple of weeks. You should see what it’s like after three months. You’ll start seeing the walls melt. As to what time it is,” he began as he checked his watch. “It’s been awhile since I’ve wound this thing, but… Half-past two. In the morning. I think.”
“Doesn’t surprise me,” Valco confessed with a shrug. He took a seat in one of the leather chairs in front of Murdoch’s desk. Valco closed his eyes for a second, exhaustion temporarily taking its hold. He shook his head and forced open his eyes, staving off sleep for a little while longer. “That Metchnikoff fellow acts like he’s been underground for years.”
“Oh! You met our Little Metty. Wonderful!” Murdoch said with a chuckle. “Yeah, Metty’s been here for about three years or so. Cat’s got a few screws loose, but he’s harmless. Just don’t ask him what he thinks of the Bolsheviks; he’ll never shut up. But you’re not here to talk about our peanut-sized Russian, are you?”
Valco shook his head and handed Murdoch his folder. “I’ve been doing some experiments with the Delta Liquid Rays recently, after hours mostly—whenever that is—and I believe I’ve made a breakthrough.”
Murdoch began leafing through Valco’s report. Here too the words began to blur together, so instead he mimed reading, flipping through the pages at regular intervals. He twirled his forefinger to urge Valco to continue.
“Well, the main problem, it seems, based on the notes you’ve given me on the previous tests, the Substance, for all its miraculous properties, is inherently unstable. Whatever the Substance is, it doesn’t play by the rules, so to speak. The fact that there is no discernable molecular structure is proof of that. That’s why your other tests failed; there was nothing for the chemicals to really latch on to,” he said excitedly.
“No molecules to bond with, you’re saying?”
“Exactly! But, the Delta Liquid Rays stabilize the Substance.”
Murdoch slowly closed the folder, laced his fingers together and looked up at Valco.
“I radiated the Substance with Delta Liquid Rays and the reaction was—Well, the reaction was instantaneous. I’ve never seen anything like it. One moment it was one thing and then the next… It was something else.”
Murdoch furrowed his brow. Perhaps it was the exhaustion, but he was having trouble following what Valco was trying to say. “What do you mean?”
Valco struggled unsuccessfully to fight back the smile of a child trying to hide a secret, grinning ear-to-ear. He reached into his coat pocket and retrieved a small glass vial and placed it carefully on the desk. It was the Substance, there was no doubt in Murdoch’s mind—he could see it move inside the vial—but the obsidian color had been leached away, replaced by a vibrant, phosphorescent green. Murdoch delicately lifted up the vial, his hands shaking. He felt his throat clenched. “How is this possible?”
Valco shook his head. “Wish I could say. There’s no way the two should be even able to bond…”
“Because, chemically speaking, the Substance doesn’t exist,” Murdoch reminded him.
“Right. Suffice to say, they bonded in a way that—again, chemically speaking—shouldn’t be possible, it was as if they became one. It’s like watching Mozart’s Symphony come alive. I ran some tests on it, the amount of energy it outputs is off the charts; a single droplet could probably run this facility for weeks. A vial like that could probably power New York for a year.”
“Energy,” Murdoch whispered in fascination. How strange that they had never considered that. He turned over the vial and watched the Substance ooze down.
“What are the next steps?” Murdoch heard Valco ask.
Murdoch sighed. “Next steps?” he mused, the sound of the drill echoing painfully in the back of his mind. “We begin testing it.”
• • •
THE REVOLVER felt heavy and foreign in her hand. Evangl was by no means unaccustomed to guns—you couldn’t work with the Green Lama and not grow acclimated to the feel of them; to the bloody effect of them—but this one belonged to Farrell. A Colt M1917; a relic that had belonged to Farrell’s father during the War, the one they called Great. It was late in the afternoon, the sun already approaching the horizon. Evangl had already been awake for an hour when Farrell and Dumont returned to Dumont’s apartment very early that morning, both of them looking worse for wear. After a long embrace, Farrell had retreated to their bedroom while Dumont stayed awake silently working in his laboratory. Evangl found herself wondering if Dumont ever actually slept—or if he even needed to. Had he simply trained his body to go without it, or had the need been leeched away by his radioactive salts? And if it was the latter, what else had they changed? Did they make him more than human? But that wasn’t what bothered her now. It was this gun. If the Green Lama, in all his power, couldn’t protect them, what could this gun do?
“What’s wrong?” Farrell asked.
Evangl unconsciously frowned and shook her head. She played out the scenario of using the M1917 to shoot the shadowed man in the head. Perhaps in the instant before the bullet tore through his skull she would see his face. She hoped there would be fear in those eyes. She would make him be afraid. “Nothing. I’m fine,” she said mechanically.
Farrell searched her face skeptically. “Are you sure?”
Evangl nodded. She rotated the gun over in her hands, watching the light reflect off the brushed metal. “Thank you for this.”
“It takes forty-fives. I left you a box,” she said, indicating a small cardboard box on top the counter. “Jethro doesn’t exactly keep spare bullets around.”
A hollow laugh escaped Evangl’s lips. “Yeah, he just has a bunch of salt shakers stashed inside his massive sleeves.”
“Don’t forget the little gold Buddhas and butter candles,” Farrell added pleasantly. “He’s got those by the barrel full.”
Evangl forced herself to smile. “I heard about last night,” she said after a moment, her gaze staying on the pistol. She couldn’t make herself look Farrell in the eye. Not yet, anyway.
“Did you?” Farrell asked quietly.
“I was awake when you both came home,” Evangl said with a nod. She didn’t say that Tsarong had later explained to her what little he knew. She had come to trust Tsarong during her time at Dumont’s and didn’t want to betray that trust now. Unlike the others, he treated her less like a grieving woman and more as an equal. And he made Marie laugh, and that meant the world.
“Hm,” Farrell sounded, glancing over at Marie, sleeping soundly in her crib. “It wasn’t fun, if that’s what you’re wondering.”
Evangl shook her head. “I doubt it would be.” She placed the gun down on the counter beside the bullets, her hand hovering over the gun handle.
“Could’ve been worse, I suppose. Caraway was able to talk the Commissioner out of dragging me to Central Booking, but I think that was because the Green Lama was there,” she said with a hollow smile, trying to make light of the situation.
“So, what does the Green—” Evangl paused to correct herself. “What does Dumont think it is? The black fluid?”
“Dunno,” Farrell admitted, stealing a sidelong glance toward the doorway, as if she could peer through the walls into Dumont’s laboratory. There was something expectant about that expression, as if she was waiting for him to suddenly appear, with all the answers in hand. “Think he’s about to find out soon.”
“Jean, could I ask you something?” Evangl asked. Her fingers brushed up against the gun’s cooling metal, sending gooseflesh up her arm and hitting her neck.
“Anything,” Farrell replied, turning back to Evangl.
“I’ve been wondering…” Evangl clasped her hands in fr
ont of her nervously. How should she phrase this? “If you and Dumont ever… Well, what I mean to say is. Gary and I, we were a part of this, we met because of this, but… We were never at the center of it, and we thought that we could step away, and it’s taken us here,” she said, flapping her arms in defeat. “But you two… What will it be like?”
Farrell thought for a moment and shrugged. “Probably a lot like this, I suppose,” she replied with a smirk, though Evangl could hear a tinge of sadness in her voice.
“Is it worth it?”
The smirk melted from Farrell’s lips and her gaze fell away. “I hope so,” she whispered.
They stood in silence for a while after that. There was nothing else to say.
• • •
TSARONG WALKED up to the naked female corpse on the impromptu dissection table and felt an unaccustomed sadness wash over him. The Dharma taught that the body was just a collection of parts that dissolve at death back into the primary elements, while the mind, with all its good or bad karma, went on to rebirth in one of the six realms of illusion—unless one was fortunate to attain liberation from the round of births and deaths. In Tibet, the body would have been given a forty-nine day ceremony, until it was eventually stripped naked, placed out on the mountains for the vultures for what Westerners termed a “sky burial.” For those who did not follow the Buddhist doctrine, the tradition would seem brutal and inhuman, but was a structural principle to the transient nature of life. The body was nothing. The mind was all.
And yet, Tsarong could not shake the feeling that there was something wrong about the remains before him, as if the mind had been tainted and trapped within, never to be reborn. Even so, he touched the top of the woman’s head and whispered: “Hri! I pray with strong devotion to master Guru Rinpoche. I pray to the glorious Buddha of Infinite Light. Please lead the consciousnesses of the dead to liberation.”
The Green Lama: Crimson Circle Page 18
