The Green Lama: Scions (The Green Lama Legacy Book 1) (7 page)

“This is bad, ship crashing into ol’ Lady Liberty like that,” a dockworker commented, pipe clenched in his teeth. He was seated across from another man, plates piled high with eggs, bacon, and toast between them. “They’re gonna start asking questions about the docks, just you wait and see.

“The hell that ship have to do with us?” the other man asked, his mouth full of bacon.

“That ain’t the point, man,” the pipe smoking man said, slamming his palm onto the table. “You know how they are.”

“Who’s ’they?’”

“Them! The people on top, the crazies in masks. Them! They’re like sharks, they smell blood in the water and it’s a feedin’ frenzy.”

“You ever actually seen a shark?” the other man scoffed.

“How’s that coffee?” Frankie said. Wilfred jumped in his seat, almost knocking over his cup. “Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you.”

Wilfred shook his head, unconsciously scratching at the scar on his neck. “No, it’s fine. Coffee’s great, thank you.”

“Piss is what it is, but I appreciate the sentiment all the same,” Frankie chuckled. He scooped up a forkful of eggs and chewed thoughtfully. “It’s good to see you talking though. For a while there you seemed like you were in another world. You remember anything else?”

Wilfred’s eyes dropped to the floor. “Blurs,” he lied. “You know, nothing but colors and shapes. And screams.”

“Hmm,” Frankie sounded, his mouth full of food. He gestured to the men seated by the window. “You hear what they were saying? About the boat that hit Lady Liberty’s island? Rumor has it was screaming when it did. Screaming like the devil himself was onboard. Think it might be that you’re remembering?”

Wilfred frowned in reply, his head aching. He wouldn’t look outside, couldn’t. The ship made the hairs on his neck stand on end, made him sweat and shiver all at once; just the thought of it—

He put down his coffee and grimaced. His body began to tremble, from his chest out to his arms and legs, the scar on his neck throbbing. Bile rose in his gut. He could hear someone whispering to him in the distance, calling him, pulling him away.

“Where’s the bathroom?” he heard himself ask.

Frankie gave him a wary look. ’“Round back.”

Wilfred stumbled from his stool, knocking his coffee off the counter, black liquid and porcelain scattering over the floor. He mumbled an apology and staggered into the narrow restroom, locking the door behind him. He turned on the faucet and threw water on his face. He started coughing, at first a soft tickle in the back of his throat, growing more and more violent until blood started speckling the sink. He looked at the grime covered mirror and saw the scar on his neck turn a deep crimson, squirming beneath his skin like a worm struggling to burst free. A sharp pain stabbed at the center of his forehead as if his skull were threatening to cleave itself in half. He pressed the heels of his hands against his temples in hopes of containing it, but it was no use. He could feel something climb up inside him, latching onto his bones and pulling itself up from the darkest pits. Wilfred’s eyes rolled back in his head and turned black.

“Ph’nglui mglw’nafh!”
he screamed through crimson lined teeth.

Between visions of blood and violence, Wilfred saw a twisted, drowned city grow around him. A thousand voices living and dead called his name, begging for release. And at the very center, he could see a creature looming over it all, waiting and dreaming. Its wings stretched out, its tentacled face writhing as its eyes opened and saw straight through him to the monster he was.

“Ul’prah”
he screamed.
“Iä! Iä! Nroac shrnek!”

His eyes suddenly cleared and his legs gave way as he slumped to the ground, shivering. “God, oh God.” He pulled himself up on the sink and tossed handfuls of water over his face to wash away the blood.

Someone knocked at the door. “You okay, son?”

In a moment of panic, Wilfred rushed out of the bathroom and crashed into Frankie, knocking the older man to the ground.

“Sorry, sorry,” Wilfred murmured before running out of the diner, his feet moving as fast as they could. Voices began to whisper in the back of his mind, calling his name, telling him to find “her,” to find the “Keystone.” He swatted around his head, desperate for relief. He pinched his eyes shut, the voices growing louder, the visions becoming more and more—

“Hey, watch it!” a woman shouted as Wilfred nearly rammed into her.

Wilfred skidded to a stop and gazed at the woman, her hair red like fire. There was a sharp buzzing in the back of his head. He stumbled back, unable to look away.

“There a problem, buddy?” the woman’s blond friend asked.

“No… No,” Wilfred mumbled as he dropped his gaze to the ground and walked away.

“What the hell was his problem?” he heard the woman ask.

“Probably on reefer.”

The voices in Wilfred’s head grew louder, screaming at him. He dropped to the floor as something latched onto his mind and burrowed in. His eyes grew black and a smile curled his lips. “Jean Farrell…” he whispered with another’s voice.
“The Keystone.”

Chapter 4

SURVIVOR’S GUILT

KEN WATCHED the seagulls circle overhead; their screeching calls sounding like screams. The docks smelled of oil, liquor, trash, and sweat, a pungent mixture that nested deep in his nostrils. He lit himself a cigarette, his sixth of the day, which—considering the hour—was a feat that would make a lesser man proud. All around him burly, unwashed men worked, cursed, and argued, though at times it was difficult to distinguish one from the other. A sharp wind cut through and Ken buttoned up his jacket. Despite the distance, the
Bartlett
seemed to fill his vision, towering up and extending out, a bruise in the water. It made him nervous. Hell, it made the whole city nervous. He could feel it in the air, like a cold snap before a storm.
Dark days ahead,
he thought, though he wasn’t sure why. He supposed he’d call it a premonition, if he believed in that stuff.. .and after working with the Lama so long, he was beginning to.

“I’s donno mo tha whatcha see thr,” a dockhand said in a cacophony of slurs before spitting out a wad of phlegm into the water.

“Big damn ship hits the biggest damn landmark in the city,” Jean said, waving a vexed a hand toward Liberty Island, “and you don’t know anything?”

The dockworker shook his head and returned to wrapping rope. “Didn’ hit the Empi’ Sta’, di it?”

Jean sighed and looked to a hunchback grizzled thing that claimed to be a man. “And you? You know nothing too?”

“Just work ’ere,” he said, tossing aside a crate.

“But the
Bartlett
was supposed to dock here,” Jean said, pointing down as if it proved her point. “Someone has to know something!”

The second man shook his head like a man fighting with his wife. “All I know, Miss, is whatever happened ain’t good and I want no part.”

“Useless,” Jean huffed as she pounded past Ken.

‘You know what I want to say,” he said following after her.

“Then don’t.” She walked for a few feet before angrily kicking a pile of rope. “Dammit! He makes it look so damn easy.”

“Vigilanting?” he asked, rubbing his eyes in a vain effort to push away the exhaustion.

Jean frowned. “Is that a word?”

“Sounds like one,” Ken shrugged. “Don’t be too hard on yourself. We’re still technically apprenticing the trade. Besides, he has that whole crazy green costume and that red belt… thing.” He puffed at his cigarette thoughtfully. “You ever realize how many times we say green?”

“I try to say jade every so often to mix things up,” Jean said, though her mind was elsewhere. “Dammit, I need a drink.”

“It’s not even eleven in the morning and you’re looking for a drink. There’s a name for that.”

“I didn’t really sleep,” she retorted as she snaked her way through the unending bustle, “so technically, for me, this has all been one long, wild night.”

Ken raised an eyebrow. “Aren’t they all?”

She looked back at him and smiled. “Only when you’re around, Blondie.”

Something caught the corner of his eye, a shadow shifting besides a pyramid of crates. “You know some of us actually like sleep,” he said absently as he looked closer. He could just make it out, a man hunched over, watching them like a savage in a Tarzan film. Ken felt his hair stand on end.

“What’s the hold up, movie star?” Jean asked when she realized Ken had fallen behind.

He waved her over and pointed his cigarette at the man.

“You think we’re being followed?” Jean whispered with more excitement than Ken cared for.

“That or I’m just jumpy.”

“God, I hope so. Means we’re on to something, whatever it is we’re on to.” She hooked her arm with his and pulled him along, careful not to look back over her shoulder. She slipped her free hand into her jacket and unhooked the clasp on her holster. “Come on, let’s see if he stays on us.”

Ken’s eyebrows pinched together. “Who talks like that?”

Jean scoffed. “Redheads who save the world, obviously.”

“You’ve never saved the world,” he retorted.

“Saved your ass more than a few times.”

Ken rolled his eyes. “You just like to keep pouring salt on the wound, don’t you?

“It’s why I always carry a salt shaker,” she said with a nod.

“You frighten me, Farrell.”

“At least I’m consistent. He still on us?”

Ken glanced over his shoulder as they turned a corner. He could just make the man’s face out. Besides a long branched scar in his neck, he looked nondescript, though there was something unsettling about his eyes. “Like a mosquito.”

“Good. This way,” she said, pulling him into an alleyway.

Ken tossed his cigarette and grabbed his sidearm. Such an odd thing, a gun, he reflected, that something so small could decide the course of events with a single bit of metal. He had grown so accustomed to them since joining up with the Lama, he sometimes forgot there had been a time when the only weapons he handled shot blanks. The question he kept coming back to was whether he was playacting the hero or the actor. But now was not the time for woolgathering. He pressed himself up against the wall while Jean moved against the opposite side, the hammer of her gun already cocked. Through the shadows he could see the slight curl of a smile on her lips. She enjoyed this too much for it to be healthy.

“You’re sure he was following us, Clayton?” she whispered.

Ken ignored her and kept his eyes on the street when he heard something move behind them. He turned around to find the hunched silhouette of their stalker watching them from the other end of the alleyway.

“What the hell? How did he—?” Ken breathed. He looked to Jean, her face steeled over. He held up a hand for her to stay back, which Jean pointedly ignored.

“Hey! Hey, buddy!” Jean shouted, stepping forward, her gun raised. “It ain’t polite to follow a guy and his gal, especially when they’re armed.”

The man’s head cocked unnaturally to the side, a puppet whose string had been cut. Ken could hear him breathing; short rattling, phlegm filled gasps of a drowned man. Unconsciously raising his own gun, Ken moved closer, his muscles twitching.

“You didn’t answer my question, pal. Don’t make me ask—” Jean let out a gasp as the man turned to face her.

A low-pitched growl rolled from the man’s throat as a manic smile stretched across his tattered visage. Bloody bits of flesh hung off his face in long strips, his eyes pitch black. Large chunks of skin hung from beneath his nails while the branched scar on his neck throbbed violently.

“Keystone…” he hissed, his breath misting in the air. He let out an undulating scream and rushed at her. Jean tried to jump aside, but the man was faster and was on her before she could break away. She managed to fire off a shot, the bullet slicing through the man’s side. Unaffected, he grabbed her wrist and twisted violently. She screamed as the gun fell from her hand.

“Jean!” Ken shouted. She was too damned impulsive, too damn in love with the thrill of it all. He aimed his gun at the man’s head. “Let her go, dammit!”

“And what will you do, Ken Clayton?” the man growled, his voice modulating with each word. Jean let out a small whimper as the man twisted her wrist further.

A thunderstorm cracked open in Ken’s chest. “How—?”

The man turned his obsidian eyes to Ken, blood dripping down his face like tears. “Nothing is hidden from the eyes of the Old Ones… Even the secret you keep.”

Ken’s hands began to shiver. He glanced at the bullet wound in the man’s side, spilling blood like a broken fire hydrant. “What are you?”

The man’s smile stretched wide into a terrifying Steeplechase grin. “That is not dead which can eternal lie. And with strange aeons even death may die!”

In a flash of motion the man clamped his hand around Ken’s throat before slamming him against the brick wall. Stars exploded behind Ken’s eyes as a galaxy of pain came to life. He could hear Jean scream his name through the encroaching darkness, growing farther away as his mind tumbled down the tunnel of consciousness until he heard nothing at all.