“Well, that’s an interesting reaction, isn’t it? Something you care to share with us, Mr. Dumont?” Pelham asked before he quickly held up his gloved hand. “Actually, no. Don’t. I want to be surprised. Please, continue, Dr. Metchnikoff.”
The Russian doctor waved his assistants over to the glass containers, but kept his distance as they carefully moved the containers on a short lift and placed them into the side of the machine.
“I think my comment on karma was incorrect, wasn’t it?” Pelham mused as he retrieved a leather head restraint from a nearby stainless steel table. “My apologies. I haven’t exactly been keeping up with my Buddhism recently.”
“Why are you doing this?” Jethro asked, his voice less than a whisper.
Pelham leaned in closer; his breath was hot, smelling of tobacco and whiskey. “Why? Why? Well, I thought that was obvious… Don’t you understand, Mr. Dumont… We’re the good guys.”
Pelham paused for effect, giving Jethro a wolfish grin.
“You see, there’s a man in Germany who wants to take over the world, Mr. Dumont, and our government—well, our secret government—really doesn’t like the sound of that,” Pelham continued as he slipped the leather restraint over Jethro’s head. “So, they recruited us, Dr. Metchnikoff, myself, and others like us; all us ‘mad scientists.’ They brought us here and put us all to work in this big think-tank, if that’s what you want to call it. This is just one part of a larger effort, one so massive, even I, with all my genius, can barely comprehend it.” He tightened the restraint, pulling Jethro’s head back against the table. “You’ll come to see, as I have, that the world isn’t made of people. It’s made of numbers, simple math. You might even call it physics. A push and pull, action and reaction; at least that’s how my employers have explained it me. They say to me, ‘Franklin, once you see the equation, you can understand how to solve the problem.’ Well, that’s all well and good, but with my curious mind, I asked them, what was the problem? They told me—of the many—that after the end of the Great War they saw that the world was already moving toward another. The League of Nations and other such entities all meant well, but you know what I say about old habits…” Pelham tittered to himself, enjoying his private joke. “Governments fall and new ones take their place promising a New Deal, elbow room, or whatever catchphrase you’d like and they start blaming someone for all their problems and pretty soon you’ve filled your cask with enough gunpowder to light up the world. So, my employers decided to push things in the direction they wanted. An American Century, they call it. How lovely does that sound? Now, mind you, the math was already there, but if they had let it all run its course America’s dominance in the world wouldn’t happen for another few decades and my employers are impatient men. So, how can we get the numbers in our favor? The answer is simple.” Pelham tapped his fingers against Jethro’s forehead. “Strength of arms. That’s what we believe the Substance will give us. That’s what you will give us.”
Jethro tried to swallow the lump that had formed in his throat. “And to achieve your goals you would do all this,” he looked to the machine, “to your fellow citizens?”
“Of course not!” Pelham said, pressing his gloved hand against his chest in feigned hurt. “We’re not monsters. Vagrants. Immigrants. Non-people. Cracked eggs, Mr. Dumont. Cracked eggs.”
“And the victims you sent out into the city…”
“Field Tests. See how the subjects reacted to the world on their own. At least, that’s what I told my employers,” Pelham said under his breath. “In truth, I was just having a little fun. Of course, we did our best to mop up, pick up the test subjects before the authorities arrived. I hear there are newspaper articles. The Cannibal Killer! Nice to know our lovely yellowed presses haven’t lost their flare for the dramatic since I went away.”
“Dr. Pelham,” Metchnikoff said. “We’re ready.”
Pelham looked to his diminutive colleague and smiled. “Very good, Doctor. Thank you.”
The two technicians left the room along with the emptied cart, leaving Pelham and Metchnikoff alone with their subject.
Pelham reached over to the stainless steel table and retrieved a small scalpel. “The effects of the Epsilon Mist haven’t worn off completely, have they?” he asked as he sliced Jethro across the chest. Jethro kept his face immovable as blood spilled down his body. Pelham nodded in satisfaction while he pinched the blood off the blade with his gloved forefinger and thumb. “Excellent. I don’t want to break the machine if I don’t have to.”
He walked over to a large control panel at the far left of the machine where Metchnikoff was already working. Jethro could make out a few levers, dials, switches, and knobs protruding up from the console, looking like something from a Saturday morning serial.
“Now, Mr. Dumont, I would very much appreciate it if you struggled a little,” Pelham said as he began to work the controls. The machine rumbled to life and the glowing Substance emptied out of their canisters into the machine. “It would make this so much more fun.”
“I will stop you, Pelham.”
“Yes…” Pelham sighed. “That’s the spirit.”
Jethro closed his eyes and took a long, calming breath. He tried to focus what little energy was flowing through his body, but something was wrong, a distortion, like a solar flare, cutting him off from his abilities. Jethro could almost see it in his mind’s eye, shifting between a jagged wave and a sphere of light—at once black and green—flowing out from the Substance.
“Om! Ma-ni Pad-me Hum!” he quietly chanted as the needle pressed up against his forehead. There was the sound of mechanics clicking into place as four cold, jagged blades bit into Jethro’s skin. “Om! Ma-ni Pad-me Hum!”
“Oh, one last thing before we proceed, Mr. Dumont,” Pelham said. “I’ve been meaning to congratulate you. I hear tell you’ve taken on a mistress. A Miss Jean Farrell, if I’m not mistaken? How lovely. Our men are bringing her now. I’m looking forward to meeting her.”
Jethro looked over to Pelham, his eyes blazing. “Don’t you dare.”
“Oh… Mr. Dumont,” Pelham hissed as he twisted the dial. “I dare.”
Three of the four blades sliced into Jethro’s forehead at an angle, forming a ragged triangle, while the fourth rotated around the others, cutting out a perfect circle. Through the deluge of pain, Jethro felt the needle adjust to the center of the circle before it began drilling into his skull. Blood spilled down his face as skin and bone were dug away, but it wasn’t until the needle bore through the frontal lobe and the thalamus before injecting the Substance into his cerebellum that Jethro finally screamed. His voice resonated through the air like the shattering of worlds; even the mountain around them seemed to quake with his cries, threatening to collapse. Every molecule, every atom, everything around them was Jethro’s voice. Metchnikoff pressed his hands to his temples, while Pelham clasped his ears, their screams mixing with Jethro’s.
As the Substance flooded his body, Jethro could feel something enter his mind. It had no form, no eyes, it was only black, an unending sea of shadow. It sang to him, called to him with the voices of the dead. It knew his name, all his names; the ones he had been given and the secret names that sat in the center of his being. It knew him and saw him. In an instant, Jethro was once again atop the Empire State Building as the E.Y.E. exploded; in Brickman’s study at the hands of the golem; in his own study suffocating from von Kultz’s Epsilon Mist; outside the sewers of New York as the Bartlett burned; inside the cloud over Kamariotissa; in the den of Cthulhu; at the mercy of the succubus. It had all been leading him here.
And so he screamed, and screamed, and screamed, until the darkness took hold.
Chapter 17: Reaping
THE SEDAN screeched to stop outside the still smoldering remains of 823½ Park Avenue. Police barricades cordoned off the block, while uniformed officers redirected traffic down East 76th to the north and East 75th Street to the south. Jean had ignored the officers’ protests, knocking o
ver the wooden roadblocks as she drove up the avenue, bits of debris crunching beneath her tires.
Jean propped herself against the driver side door as she fell out of the car, the engine stuttering to a halt. “Oh, Jethro,” she sighed. “I leave you alone for five minutes and you burn down the apartment.”
“Uh, excuse me, miss,” one of the uniformed officers said as he tentatively approached. “You can’t be here.”
Jean scoffed as she staggered toward the ruined apartment. She had to get up there she decided, had to check in and make sure Jethro was okay. He was probably very upset he had melted his Buddha. “Like hell I can’t.”
“Miss, why is there blood on your car?” another officer asked. Jean couldn’t make out his face besides the vague suggestion of eyes, nose, and mouth.
“It’s been a hell of a day.”
“Miss, please. It’s an active crime scene.” The first officer tried to grab her by the arm but Jean half-dodged, half-stumbled out of reach.
“I can see that, thank you, but this my apartment.” She weakly waved a hand at the fire-gutted structure.
“Your apart—” The first officer’s mouth fell open. “Are you—Are you Jean Farrell?”
Jean smiled drunkenly. “Last I checked.”
“Can someone get Evan?” the first officer called to the others. “Get Evan right now! Miss, why don’t you come with me and sit down. I don’t think you’re well.”
Jean blinked twice and shook her head. “I wasn’t on the lease but I kept my stuff here. Which I know isn’t exactly proper, but maybe I’m just not the marrying type.”
“Miss Farrell?”
“Oh, hey, Wayland.” Jean smiled, recognizing the voice as the two-ton sphere of policeman rotated into view. She patted his stomach. “You know what you need? An apocalypse. It’ll melt the weight right off.”
Wayland ignored Jean’s comment and placed a hand on her shoulder. “Miss Farrell, you’re bleeding.”
Jean looked down at her feet and frowned. “Yeah, that happens when you step on glass. Hey, have you seen my boyfriend?”
“Excuse me?”
“It’s okay if you’re not sure. He might be dressed up like a color blind Santa Claus. But, I let him walk out the door like that… I must really love him.” Her eyes fluttered, her head swam, and everything began to grow cloudy like a London fog. She tried to keep her head up but she was home, so it was okay if she slept, even for a little while… Just a few minutes…
“Miss Farrell—Jean, I’m afraid I don’t—Whoa there!” Wayland cried as he caught Jean in his arms. “Someone call an ambulance!”
• • •
“DAVID, I’VE GOT a long distance crazy looking for Caraway.”
Heidelberger sighed and fought the urge to hang up the phone. “Another one?”
“This one’s a mouth breather,” the operator said with ice-tinged mirth. “He keeps whispering in my ear like he wants to go steady.”
“Do I have to talk to him, Francine? Isn’t that what we pay you girls for? Making sure only the important stuff comes in?”
“I can throw him up the chain to Woods. I’m sure the commissioner will love that. You know how understanding he can be.”
“Jesus, Francine…” Heidelberger ran a hand over his face. “Send it through.” There was a click and electric pop as the call was transferred over, though Heidelberger swore he heard Francine laughing in the background before the mouth breather came on. “Hello, this is Officer David Heidelberger.”
A long, stuttered breath came through over the wire. “I need Lieutenant Caraway.”
“Who is this?”
Heidelberger heard a muffled conversation, the caller speaking to another man on the other side of the line, probably with a hand over the receiver. Heidelberger was ready to drop the handset back on the cradle when the caller came back. “Harrison Valco. This is Harrison Valco.”
Heidelberger shot out of his chair. “Valco? Dr. Valco, the man who created the Delta Liquid Ray?”
“Please, it is urgent I speak to Lieutenant Caraway right away. I tried to call the Tulku… But the phone… Please. I need to speak to the lieutenant before it’s too late.”
He was talking to Dr. Harrison Valco. The Dr. Valco. The Green Lama’s Valco. It could only mean one thing, and considering recent events, it wasn’t a good thing. “He’s at the hospital, Dr. Valco,” Heidelberger whispered, though he wasn’t exactly sure why. He suddenly realized he needed a pen and paper. He glanced down at his desk and saw piles of papers, used paper cups, and crumb-filled wax paper wrapping, but not a single pen. “Where are you?”
“Upstate. Black Rock. In a facility beneath South Grand.”
“South Grand?” Heidelberger asked as he leaned over to a nearby desk and fumbled for a pen. “What’s the intersection?”
“It’s a mountain outside of town—” Heidelberger heard the other man whisper to Valco. “Officer, please stay on the line. I’m going to hand the phone over to my associate, Dr. Murdoch. He will explain everything.”
There was a momentary jostling of the phone. Heidelberger shook his legs nervously.
“Officer, I need you to listen very carefully,” Murdoch said as he came on, his voice distinctly younger than Valco’s, but like Valco, Murdoch spoke in halting whispers, pausing frequently as he gave Heidelberger meticulous instructions. Using several scraps of paper, Heidelberger wrote, in increasingly sloppy script, the near implausible details of the facility beneath the mountain; secret entryways hidden within a cabin, coded keypads alongside armored doors, levels upon levels of machinery and scientific equipment; a veritable city hidden from the world. “And no matter what,” Murdoch said in conclusion, “bring an army.”
“An army?” Heidelberger balked as he looked over his notes.
“It is vital that you—”
Murdoch was cut off by a deafening lion’s roar before the phone burst with static. Heidelberger instinctually threw the handset away, the base clattering to the floor. He might have screamed, and by the reactions of his fellow officers, he probably did. He felt something warm trickle down from his ear. He wiped it away and his fingers came back red.
• • •
THE EMERGENCY WARD was painted in cold green, the tiles and ceilings an unholy pea soup that made Crevier feel sick just being there. He idly massaged his old scar, the week-old bristles lining the edge of the white and pink wound brushed against his thumb. Not for the first time he debated his decision not to tell Fulton about Dumont’s alter ego. There shouldn’t be any secrets between partners, they were cancerous things, but Crevier’s gut told him to keep this one. It wasn’t that Crevier particularly cared for the vigilante types running around the city—they often made things messier and got more people killed in their search for “justice”—but something about this case silenced him.
Because it was like Caraway said, this wasn’t just a case, not in the way he once understood them. There was nothing that he could solve, no one to slap cuffs on. This was bigger than that, flowing underneath the surface, like poison in the water.
The entrance to the emergency ward burst open and Caraway stormed in, reminding Crevier of the giant that lived in the land above the beanstalk. “Where the hell was she?”
Crevier looked over the small gang that had come in with the Lieutenant. He recognized the actor Ken Clayton from the other night and Betty Dale from the fire, but the old Oriental man was something of a surprise. Well, not that big of a surprise. “So is this the Green Lama Club?”
“Yeah, we just got our membership cards and an Escapo Trick Kit in the mail,” Clayton said. He glanced over at Caraway. “You told him?”
“Ah, he figured it out on his own.” Caraway said in reply. He looked to Crevier. “Ignore Clayton, he thinks he’s the funny one.”
“Is Jean going to be okay?” Clayton asked.
Crevier nodded at Dale. “You sure you want the press here?”
Dale held up her hands. “I’m off
the clock. Consider me a concerned private citizen who happens to cavort with costumed vigilantes.”
Crevier looked to Caraway, who gave him a silent nod. Crevier shrugged. Guess it wasn’t that big a secret after all.
“Farrell showed up at Dumont’s a couple of hours ago, what’s left of it anyway,” Crevier said. “Pretty badly banged up by the looks of it and a bit delirious to boot. Officer Wayland recognized her before she passed out and got her an ambulance. Good thing he did, she lost a lot of blood. Her feet were cut up pretty bad. Glass from the theatre, probably. Looks like a lot of it was dug in pretty deep, but they can get it all out. What bothers me more is that someone beat the living hell out of her and broke most of the fingers on her right hand. And, mind you, that’s just what I saw. She’ll be fine… eventually. At least that’s what the doctors say and I tend not to question them.”
Caraway stroked the ends of his mustache as he looked down the hall. “I want to talk to her.”
Crevier touched Caraway’s arm. “I know you do, and Lord knows I tried myself, but the doctors wouldn’t let me near her.” He glanced uncomfortably over at the others and pulled Caraway over to the opposite side of the room. “Listen, I didn’t want to say this in front of the others, but there was a lot of blood on the front of that car. A lot of blood. Now normally, I’d call that a hit-and-run and bring her in for some questioning, but considering the circumstances, I’ve got a feeling it’s something I should overlook.”
“Sounds like you’re learning how this ridiculousness works,” Caraway said without a bit of irony.
The Green Lama: Crimson Circle Page 29
