The Green Lama: Unbound (The Green Lama Legacy Book 3) (19 page)

“Aw, crap,” Jean groaned, massaging her eyes,” here are three of them?”

“Oh, it gets better. Karl was in league with the Deep Ones. Together they found the Third Tablet and this blade-thing the Lama called a
phurba
. The Germans called it the Shard
.
They used these to open the gates of R’lyeh, sacrificing good people to do so—including Caraway.” Ken let out a painful sigh. “Stupid bastard. He tried to save the girl and he just… They drained him like a cow in a slaughterhouse. God, I can still remember the sound of his blood, like a broken faucet.” He wiped the tears off his cheeks.

“Me and the Green Lama followed the Nazis to R’lyeh. The Lama thought—well, he hoped we could stop them before they raised Cthulhu. What we didn’t know then—
Goddammit
, we were idiots!” he cursed, slamming his hand against the table. “There was so much we could’ve
done
if only we had known what the hell was going on.”

Jean shook her head. She needed a drink, but the barrels had gone dry twenty years ago. “Shoulda, coulda, woulda.”

“We thought they were going to basically, y’know, open the doors for the bastard, let him out, go
Sieg Heil
and let him go wild, but we didn’t—” Ken cut himself short. “They
wanted
us to follow them. They had everything except the
key
to awakening Cthulhu, and that was the Green Lama.

“The city was full of Nazis, Deep Ones, and these horrors…The Lama thought we could fight our way through, but there was no way. The Tulku
,
he put up a damn good fight, but they overpowered him, dragged him up to the altar, and—”

Jean held up her hand, cutting Ken short. “That’s enough. I don’t need to hear anymore,” she breathed.

They sat in silence until Jean cleared her throat and asked,” o, what do you guys have planned for the factory?”

Valco’s eyebrow shot up. “How did you—?”

“I’m not stupid, Doc. Coincidental as it was, I know Ken wasn’t hanging around the death factory looking for yours truly, and he definitely wasn’t sightseeing. He was scouting for something, and whatever that something is, I want in.”

Ken bit back a smile, realizing, not for the first time, how much he had missed his best friend. “Besides blowing it up?”

Jean nodded. “Besides blowing it up,” she said with a smirk.

“Show her the map,” Ken said to Valco with a beckoning gesture.

Valco reached into a small cupboard and brought out a large rolled fabric. “Apologies for the crudity,” he said as he unrolled the map on the table,” t’s been nearly nineteen years since they produced paper.”

Drawn in charcoal, the layout of the factory was surprisingly detailed, showing the number of entrances, the breakdown of the rooms and floors, as well as guard and “prisoner” in-take schedules.

“Looks like you’ve been planning this for a while.”

“Too long, if you ask me,” Ken replied, eyeing Valco.

“The Lama never went in without a solid plan,” alco said as he looked over the map, feeling Ken’s stare.

“That’s a lie and you know it,” Jean commented.

Ken cleared his throat. “Either way, we know the factory is primarily used as a, um…” he hesitated, stealing a glance at Jean before continuing. “As a
crematorium
, but we have reason to believe that Nazi officials use it as a base from time to time and we think Karl is there with the Third Tablet.”

“You’re telling me the Third Tablet is
here
?” Jean asked, tapping the map. “Now?”

“We
think
so,” Valco said, nodding hesitantly. “The troop buildup in recent weeks, the abnormal climate, the subtle changes in the city’s ambient magnetics. It
must
be here.”

“
If
we can break in and
if
we can grab it”—Ken licked his chapped lips—“we can use it to turn the tide.”

“It’s a long shot at best,” Valco said with a skeptical shrug.

Jean cracked a sardonic smirk. “Long shot’s all we ever get, Doc.”

Valco and Ken laid out their plan, which was as simple as it was suicidal.

“So,” she summarized, “we’re going to bust in through the back door, shoot everything that moves until we get what we need, and try and make our way out.”

“Essentially, yes,” Valco replied.

Jean looked over the maps once again. “It’s really just a one way trip, isn’t it?” she said after a moment.

Ken crossed his arms. “Either we win this or it ends here,” he said, keeping his gaze locked on the map.

“Guess we gotta win it, then,” Jean mused.

“Guess we do.”

• • •

There were ten of them, the best of what was left. Ken and Jean took the lead, heading through the South entrance and closest to where they believed Heydrich would be. Wayland and Heidelberger’s team took the North entrance; Tom and Joe’s, the West; both teams creating diversions for Jean and Ken. Valco and the rest stood ready as reinforcements in the East near the main gate.

“Jean,” Ken whispered as they moved through the ashen brush toward the factory’s electrified fence. He laced wrinkled, leathery fingers with hers. “I need to—I never told you I went back to the Rabbi after that whole mess with the golem.”

Jean silently eyed her compatriot, unsure how to respond.

“I felt guilty about the whole, you know, dooming a whole race of people to genocide. So, I went back to apologize, I guess. Learn more about the Jewish culture, a sprinkling of Hebrew, that sorta stuff.”

“Not that this is the best time for this kinda conversation,” Jean whispered, “But how’d it go?”

Ken shrugged. He stared at the dark pillars billowing from the smokestacks. “Pretty well, for the most part. Only really got to learn the basics before everything went wrong,” he said, subtly waving his hand at the world before him. “After I returned to New York—after Cthulhu had risen—Brickman
did
tell me one thing that was really important. He told me all
this
was going to happen.”

Jean’s stomach began to twist. “What do you mean?” she asked.

“The war, you coming back twenty years later, us here now going after the Third Tablet. Everything. Truth was I
was
looking for you, have been almost every day. Still doesn’t mean it isn’t surprising to bump in to your long dead friend.” He ran his hand through his hair. His shoulders fell as tears flooded his eyes. “I didn’t believe him. But now, here at the end— how can there be any doubt?”

Jean struggled to breathe, as if something were pressing against her chest. “What else did he say?”

Ken cleared his throat. “That the only way to prevent this all from happening was to make sure we got you to the Tablet in time.”

“In time for what?”

“In time to get you
back
.”

“Back where?”

Ken looked her in the eyes. “Back
home
.”

• • •

Bullets rang around them, a symphony of gunfire. Making it into the complex, Jean and Ken found themselves quickly surrounded, Deep Ones pouring in from every corridor and stairwell. They weren’t too difficult to kill—a shot to the head or midsection took them down quick—but they kept coming without pause, rapidly exhausting Jean and Ken’s limited ammo.

“Jesus!” Jean exclaimed as she ducked behind a wall to reload her pistol. “Where the hell are these guys coming from?”

“They hatch from a massive clumps of eggs, dozens at time,” Ken shouted as he fired off several shots into the oncoming throng of fish men. “One female can produce over thirty living offspring at a time, over a thousand in her lifetime. You would know this if you had let Valco finish his lecture!”

“And I don’t need one now! Dammit, we can’t keep this up,” Jean shouted. “Where the hell is our goddamn distraction?!”

As if on cue, a deafening
Ba-THOOM
resonated through the building, rattling the walls and raining down small pieces of paint and cement. The attacking Deep Ones came to an abrupt halt, their massive, inhuman heads swiveling madly. Croaking in unison, they spun on their heels and raced out of the building, leaving the dead and injured behind.

Jean looked over at Ken and smiled. “Well,
that
was good timing.”

“Tell me about it,” Ken said as walked into the vacated hallway. “Never doubt the Special Crime Squad, eh?”

“Not for a—” Her eyes went wide and the color drained from her cheeks as one of the injured Deep Ones jumped up. “Ken, watch out!!!”

Ken drew his pistol and spun around, but it was too late. The Deep One’s powerful jaw clamped down on Ken’s neck, its serrated teeth piercing deep into his flesh, black venom dripping down.

“KEN!!!” Jean screamed as she shot the Deep One in the head. The creature’s jaw flew open. Its limp body crumpled to the ground.

“Hell.” Ken touched his wound, eyed the black bile that now coated his fingers, and fell to his knees. “Damn, damn,
damn
.”

Jean ran over, catching him in her arms. “Oh, God, Ken. I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t—Don’t apologize,” he rasped, coughing up blood. Vein-like black growths began to extend out from the wound, like wildfire in a California summer. He smiled painfully. “We both knew this was gonna be a one-way.”

“Come on, Ken. We’ve gotten outta worse,” she said bravely as tears streamed down her cheeks, lying to herself more than anything else. Ken couldn’t—wouldn’t die, she told herself. They were the big damn heroes, part of the Green Lama’s inner circle. They had gotten out of everything before; they would get out this. He would be fine. He had to be.

Ken shook his head, coughing violently. “There’s not much—much worse than this, Jean. Trust me, I kn—know how this works.” He let out a string of terrible bloody coughs as five black veins extended across his face like a hand. His breaths grew more jagged and pained as he forced himself to breathe. “Stop—Stop worryin’ ’bout me, you got a job to finish. Listen— I—if this works, if you can fix this… you… You make—make sure… make…”

His eyes rolled up and his head lopped back as if he was staring up to the sky.

“Ken… Please…”

• • •

Everything had gone wrong, but Jean was done crying, done being the little girl lost. The future might be a Nazi apocalypse, but she was going to do something about it. Taking Ken’s pistol and remaining ammo, she ran up the stairs toward the top floor where they believed Heydrich’s inner sanctum was housed. With the Deep Ones distracted by the attacks to the North and West, she faced little to no resistance, killing what few creatures she came upon with indiscriminate ferocity.

There was no door at the top of the stairs, just an entryway opening out to a massive room. Stepping forward, she began to feel a familiar buzzing echo out from the back of her mind. The room was empty, save for a single egg-shaped crystal sitting atop a short stanchion, bathed in a single column of light in the center of the room, a sizable crack running down its side.

It was the Third Jade Tablet; she knew it without needing to be told.

“Hello, Fräulein Farrell,” a voice said from the darkness, its accent thickly German. “I’ve been
dying
to meet you.”

“That’s sweet,” she said, eyeing the shadows. “Why don’t you come on out and we can chat about it?”

A silhouette formed behind the Tablet, the shape of a man, dented and twisted like a forgotten doll.

“I’m gonna guess you’re Karl Heydrich,” she said.

“What is left of him, yes.” The silhouette tilted its malformed head as it studied Jean. “Hm, I forgot. We did not meet in this timeline.”

“Lucky me.”

“Oh,
Liebchen
,
luck had nothing to do with it,” Heydrich said as he stepped into the light. Jean let out a small gasp at the sight of the man’s distorted visage. Wrapped in a tattered, bloodstained green robe, Heydrich’s face was a deformed, decaying mass, pieces of flesh hanging off his black, brittle bones. His red, lidless eyes were unwavering. There was a small rainbow ring of hair on his right hand. He gurgled a laugh at Jean’s expression. “Being
undead
for so many years does have its side effects.”

“No offense, but Freddy Dmytryk’s Mayan Mummy looked better than you.”

Heydrich smiled and bowed his rotting head. “None taken. Normally, I suppose you and I would spend some time bantering back and forth. But like our dearly departed Green Lama, you and I have reached the end of our journeys, so let us—how does one say—cut to the chase?”