“He’s dead, Tulku,” Dorje said, placing a sympathetic hand on Tsarong’s shoulder.
Tsarong brushed away the fat lama’s hand as he walked deeper into the snow-covered expanse. It had been nearly five days since he had sent Dumont into the frozen wilderness. Five days of constant vigilance, prayer, and waiting. The other monks had given up on the American three days ago, believing him lost to the ice and mountains—but despite the protests of his students, Tsarong refused to lose faith, sitting by the entrance of the Temple of the Clouds from sunrise to sunset. On the fifth day, Tsarong finally stood, opened the great and massive doors, and stepped out onto the mountains. Dorje alone had followed, if for no other reason than to try and bring his ancient master in from the cold. They had been marching through the frozen land for several hours now, finding nothing more than rocks and snow, but Tsarong kept moving, kept searching.
“Do you remember, Dorje, when I went out into the frost for ten days?”
“Yes, but Tulku, even if the Jade Tablet has chosen the American, he does not have your skill—your training. He has only been with us a few short months. You cannot expect him to survive such conditions!”
“If I did not expect it, Dorje, I would have not sent him out.”
“Even you have said the prophecy was vague, open to interpretation. How can we be sure we understood it? That we understood its true meaning? Maybe he was brought to us to remove the Tablet from human hands. By dying—by taking the Tablet from us—he has brought balance to Dharma once again.”
Tsarong waved this away. “Were that even a consideration, do you not think I would have done so myself when the Tablet was mine?”
Dorje swallowed his protest.
“There is a cave not too far from here,” Tsarong said, indicating a small black speck several yards away. “He might have sought shelter there.”
“Om! Lama kyeno!” Dorje sighed three times before following after his master.
It was nearly an hour before they made it to the cave. Tsarong knocked away the loose snow from above the entrance with his walking stick, revealing the opening to be only large enough to fit a thin man crouching on his knees. He glanced back at Dorje. “I suppose you will have to wait outside,” he said with the slightest hint of a smile before crouching down and climbing inside.
There was little light to be found, though the air was noticeably warmer than outside. Lifting his hand above his head, Tsarong discovered the roof of the cave rose quickly and was able to stand after only a few steps. He reached into his furs, bringing out the small cigarette lighter he had found amongst Dumont’s personal effects, the letters JPD engraved on one side. Clumsily lighting the flint he was able to make out scant details around him. There were bones scattered around the ground, most were of local fauna, but some Tsarong recognized as distinctly human. He continued to move deeper until he came upon a snow leopard and her two cubs. Blood coated their muzzles, their eyes staring intently at Tsarong’s minimal frame.
“Om! Tare Tuttare Ture Soha!” Tsarong whispered. “Please, no!”
“You have nothing to fear, Tulku,” Jethro Dumont said as he stepped into the light. Dumont was bare chested, unaffected by the cold. “The old girl won’t hurt you. Sorry, I didn’t come back sooner, but her cubs were sick and I thought it best I stay behind and take care of them.”
“Are you injured?” Tsarong asked.
Dumont unconsciously touched the black bruise on his side. “Only a little. We had a misunderstanding before, but I’m fine now.”
“Come back with me to the Temple of the Clouds, we have been quite concerned.”
Dumont looked wistfully at the snow leopard. “Tayata Om Muni Muni Maha Munaye Soha,” he recited. “Yes. I suppose I should.”
“Dorje has some extra furs for you.”
“That was thoughtful. Thank you. But, Tulku…”
“Yes?”
“When we return to the Temple, I think its about time you start explaining what exactly this is,” he said, holding up his right hand, the rainbow ring glowing in jade.
• • •
The sun had arched past it apex and was making its way beneath the horizon when Jean and Aïas finally made camp beneath a small overhang roughly a quarter of the way up the mountain. They had been climbing for most of the day, and while hunger and exhaustion never found them, Jean couldn’t shake the sense that something was wrong. His gaze kept falling to her leg, though she never knew why. It didn’t hurt, it wasn’t even sore, but a part of her, a buzzing in the back of her mind knew it should be. She pinched her eyes shut and leaned her head back against the rocky wall.
“You all right, Jean?” Aïas asked as he kindled the campfire.
Jean rubbed her eyes. “Just this damn headache. I dunno, maybe its ’cause the air’s thin, but it’s getting worse.”
“What’s it feel like?”
Jean closed her eyes. “Like a jar full of bees and someone decided to shake it.”
“Probably just the altitude,” he said after a moment.
“Mm,” she sounded, furrowing her brow in a vain effort to fight back the sensation. “You ever hear of the Green Lama?” she asked after a moment.
Aïas nodded. “I have, and some of the others. Men and women dressing up in costumes…” He chuckled. “You Americans certainly have flair.”
Jean smiled weakly. “I once guessed his secret identity.”
“Did you, now?” Aïas said with a subtle arch of his eyebrow. “How did he take it?”
“Oddly nonplussed,” she admitted with a frown. “I thought he was Jethro Dumont. You ever hear of him?”
“Everyone has heard of Jethro Dumont, Jean.” He poked at the fire. “Why did you think they were the same person?”
She shrugged. “I always had my suspicions, it just made too much sense to be otherwise. Most people seem to think the Lama’s alter ego is Dr. Pali, but Pali’s clearly just theatrical greasepaint and a halfway decent accent. Not many people notice that. But I did. Maybe because I work in movies and the theater or maybe I’m just that impressive,” she said with mock arrogance. “It wasn’t until I saw Dumont stand up against these… demons a few months ago that I was certain. So, one night after one of our adventures—I can never remember which, they all blur together—I followed the Lama to one of his hideouts and Dumont walked out shortly after. I never said anything. Why would I? It was too much fun to have a secret, to simply know something no one else did. At least until that Nazi von Kultz came to town and I had a chance to rub it in his face. I was so damn proud of myself, too. He just shrugged it off, like I was telling him the weather, because… I was wrong. The next day both the Green Lama and Jethro Dumont showed up at my apartment together. I was sure it was a trick, just another way to keep me on my toes, but then I saw them both fighting atop the Brooklyn Bridge. And… that was that. The thing is Dumont’s as much a hero as the Lama. Heck, more so, really.”
“How? Because he has slept with every woman in Hollywood?”
“No.” Jean shifted uncomfortably. “No. I mean… I know that’s what everyone thinks of him—I’ve seen the newsreels—but there’s something more to him. Deeper. There’s a spark to him; this caring for everyone he comes in contact with, and me—Maybe it’s his Buddhism, maybe he’s just a decent man, but for all the gossip they like to sling around, Dumont is the most grounded man I have ever met. And when he talks to you, it’s almost like you’re the first person he’s spoken to in years.” She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Not that long ago we were kidnapped by these demons—or something like that—and Dumont, the man the tabloids treat like a mindless Casanova, risked his life to save mine… Perhaps I just wanted Dumont to be the Green Lama. There was always just something about him—Dumont, I mean—something that made me feel—” She caught herself.
“Made you feel?”
She shook her head and ignored the question. “It’s just that when I learned Dumont and the Green Lama were different people, it felt
like someone had cut something out of my memory, as if everything I thought I knew was wrong.” She curled her legs to her chest and wrapped her arms around her knees. There was something on the edge of her memory, something she had said, a word she could almost remember. Something so simple and powerful… “I feel like that again, only worse.”
Aïas looked up from the fire. “How so?”
“It feels like missing time, as if the world around me was changed without my knowing. At least with the Green Lama and Dumont, I saw them together. It was real and right in front of me. But now… I keep trying to remember something, but all I can see is a big white blank.”
Aïas regarded her for several moments before he tentatively asked, “And how long have you been feeling like this?”
Jean shrugged. “Day? Day and half?” She ran her hands up and down her legs in an effort to warm her limbs when her finger caught a small hole in her right boot. She glanced and saw the bullet hole torn through the leather. When had that happened? Shifting her body, she glanced at the inside of her leg, finding another hole directly across from the first. The buzzing in her head suddenly worsened. She pressed the heels of her hands against her temples, trying to fight back the pain. She screamed in agony as images flashed past her eyelids and she began to remember.
“I was shot,” she mumbled, then saying it louder. “I was shot! Wasn’t I?”
Aïas stiffened, his eyes wide.
“My leg. They shot me in the leg.” More memories burst to life in terrifying, painful clarity. “And then—Oh, God.”
Aïas stood up and looked directly at Jean, his black irises once again a blazing jade. His voice shook the world around them. “You can’t remember that.”
Jean gritted her teeth. “What did you do to me?”
“Jean, calm down,” Aïas commanded, the ground cracking beneath him. Jean’s heart skipped a beat when she realized he wasn’t casting a shadow.
Jean jumped to her feet and drew her gun. Tears streamed down her face, but she kept the pistol level, her sights on Aïas’s glowing eyes. “What did you do to me?” she screamed.
“You don’t understand the role you have yet to play,” he said as he stepped through the fire, his voice resonating from the mountain.
Jean pulled down on the trigger, firing every last bullet at his chest. The shots echoed out into the night as the bullets passed harmlessly through him. Aïas glanced down at his unwounded chest and then back at Jean, his eyes ablaze.
Suddenly, the world was enveloped in light. A howling wind came down upon them and beneath it Jean could hear voices, ancient, inhuman but somehow familiar.
Then, all was silent.
• • •
Caraway adjusted the slab of frozen meat over his black eye, grimacing as the pain radiated into his skull. Lying down across the bar, left arm wrapped behind his head, he glanced at the deserted war zone that was once a pub, a no-man’s land of spilt liquor, broken glass, smashed wood, and a fair share of blood.
Sotiria appeared from behind the bar, a half broken bottle of whiskey in one hand and a shot glass in the other.
“Pretty brave, huh?” Caraway said proudly, a small grin curling the corner of his lips.
“Stupid is another word for brave, no?” Sotiria asked as she poured herself whiskey, picking out the glass shards with her fingers.
“Yeah… Stupid is another word for brave,” Ken interjected from a table nearby, heavily resting his head on his hands.
Sotiria threw back her shot and quickly poured herself another. “You did not think,” she said between drinks, “that maybe I might have been able to handle him on my own?”
Caraway removed the slab of meat and shifted up onto his elbows so he could face the raven-haired woman. “Sweetheart, the look you gave me didn’t exactly say ‘Step back while I take care of this guy.’”
Sotiria raised an eyebrow. “Nicholaos Adrian is a hothead, a drunk, and a very, very brave man,” she said pointedly to Caraway, eliciting a chuckle from Ken. “Had you given me a moment, I would have distracted him with a simple math equation.”
Caraway rolled his eyes and smirked, at once enchanted and exasperated. “Listen, dame, if you—”
“No!” Sotiria exclaimed as she slapped him hard, intentionally hitting a massive welt on the back of his head. Caraway grunted in pain. “You do not call me ‘dame.’ My name is Sotiria, and if you call me ‘dame’ again I will shove this bottle into a place you would not enjoy,” she said, raising the broken bottle to pontificate her statement.
“Jeez, woman,” Caraway grumbled as he rubbed the wound. “I just fought a whole friggin’ bar of really big, really violent men for you and you’re hittin’ me.”
“Hey, I fought them, too,” Ken added meekly.
Sotiria leaned her face inches away from Caraway’s. “And you were both very brave. And what did you get out of it?”
Ken showed off a large wound on his right arm. “I think someone shot me.”
“I am not impressed,” Sotiria said to Caraway.
“I think someone shot me with a gun,” Ken added.
“Well, you boys impressed me,” Petros said from within a cloud of smoke at the other side of the establishment, nursing a bottle of ouzo. “Once the boss gets back, he will be hearing how well you two fight.”
“It’s only a graze, but it still hurts.”
Petros raised his glass. “Welcome to the club, limey.”
Caraway swung his legs over the bar and sat upright. “Fantastic, does that mean we got ourselves a job?” he asked, no longer satisfied with being monosyllabic.
Petros shrugged noncommittally.
The front door burst open as a tower of a man walked in, all muscle and height; followed shortly by an older, slender man. Call it policeman’s intuition, but Caraway knew instantly the old man was in charge, probably the local Al Capone; the tower was a bruiser, probably the old man’s second-in-command or at the very least his bodyguard. These were the guys they needed to meet, and from the way the old man was eyeing him, Caraway oddly felt as if this audience had been expected.
The bruiser’s jaw fell open at the sight of the destroyed tavern while the old man seemed unfazed—or possibly, too preoccupied to care. The bruiser looked over at Petros and asked him a single question in Greek, which Caraway rightfully assumed was, “What the hell happened?”
Petros pointed a thumb over at Caraway and Ken.
The bruiser turned to them and repeated the question in Greek. Caraway and Ken shared a mystified look, but before they could respond Sotiria spoke up, arguing their case—or at least Caraway hoped she was. The bruiser listened for a moment before glancing over to the old man who simply nodded. Looking back at the Americans, the bruiser began to speak before Petros quickly interrupted him.
“English,” he said, tapping his ear.
The bruiser grimaced while he translated in his head. “Who are you?” he eventually asked with a significant accent.
“William Shakespeare,” Ken said in his own strained British accent.
“John Caraway,” he said with a slight wave. “And as to what happened, I figured Sotiria already covered that. Not that I understood any of it, but it sounded like an explanation.”
The bruiser glanced over at Sotiria. Caraway caught a familiar glint in the other man’s eyes—it was the same way he looked at Francesca. “She only said you were very brave.”
A soft smirk curled the corner of Sotiria’s lips.
“Oh, Lord,” Ken groaned, burying his face in his hands.
“We were just defending the dame’s honor,” Caraway replied, a soft smirk curling the corner of his lips as Sotiria’s expression quickly soured.
“Took on a good thirty or more on their own,” Petros said in English for Ken and Caraway’s benefit. “I have not seen fighting like that since the War.”
The bruiser’s eyes shot between Ken and Caraway. “And you two just came to my town looking for fights?”
“W
ork,” Caraway said, and then gestured to Petros. “He said you could probably give us some.”
“I can’t give you anything,” the bruiser replied.
Caraway nodded to the old man. “What about Al Capone over there? Can he give us anything? He looks like the type of guy who can.”
The old man measured the two foreigners and licked his dry lips. He leaned over and whispered something to the bruiser in Greek.
The bruiser shrugged and began walking toward the other end of the tavern. “All right, come with us,” he said with a beckoning wave. He opened the door at the back, letting the old man step through with Petros following after.
Caraway jumped off the bar, wincing slightly as his various bruises all throbbed at once. “You comin’ with?” he asked Sotiria, tossing a thumb toward the door.
She shook her head. “No, you enjoy your boys’ club. I’ll work on finishing this,” she said, jingling her glass.
“What do you think he’ll have us do?” Ken whispered to Caraway as they walked toward the other room.
“As long as they don’t make me wear anything frilly I think I’ll be fine, Shakespeare,” Caraway whispered through the side of his mouth.
Ken squinted at his compatriot. “Oh, shut up.”
• • •
Vasili didn’t like the way Sotiria looked at the American, but then he didn’t like the way Sotiria looked at anyone. Ultimately it didn’t matter once Alexei gave the newcomers the okay, and after today Vasili was not going to start questioning the old man’s judgment. Alexei sat down behind his desk and laced his fingers together, eyeing the two foreigners.
“So, you boys are good in a fight?” Alexei said in Greek to the two foreigners, which Vasili quickly translated. Alexei was fluent in German, Turkish, Egyptian, even Italian, but knew only a little English, so it was up to Vasili to act as translator.
“Yeah, we’re not so bad,” the mustached man named Caraway said with a self-satisfied shrug.
“Good, as it happens I am in need of some help,” Alexei said through Vasili. “If you are as good as Petros says you are, then you may be of some use to me.”
The Green Lama: Unbound (The Green Lama Legacy Book 3) Page 10
