The Green Lama: Unbound (The Green Lama Legacy Book 3) (27 page)

Alexei turned around to face him. “You were always so
impetuous
, Mr. Caraway,” he said in English, relishing Caraway and Sotiria’s surprise.

“Yeah, but we still love the big lummox, don’t we,” Ken said as he entered from the other side of the galley, pistol in hand.

“Ah, and Mr. Clayton, I was wondering when you’d be joining us,” Alexei said, his eyes locked on Caraway.

“Yeah, I’m like a bad penny,” Ken said. “Since when could he speak English?”

“Does it matter?” Caraway snapped, then to Alexei: “We want answers, slim, so start talking.”

An ugly Cheshire grin spread across Alexei’s face, showing the seams in his shell. “Oh no, John,” he growled, his voice shattering windows. “We’re done talking.”

“John!!” Sotiria screamed as a naked Ke’ta jumped onto the boat and grabbed her, digging his nails into her flesh. Seawater pooled at his feet.

Caraway spun around. “Sotiria!” he shouted, aiming his gun at the Deep One.

Alexei waved a finger and Caraway’s pistol evaporated. Then with a flick of his wrist, he lifted Caraway into the air. Caraway writhed in pain, his face blood red as if someone were pressing down on his lungs. Such fragile things, humans; cut off their air, and they break down. All he needed to do was twist a little more, maybe snap a few bones… Or if he wanted, he could just as easily wink the Lieutenant out of existence. It would be so much fun, but there was too much at stake, too many pieces in play.

“Put him down!” Ken shouted as he vainly fired several shots, the bullets vaporizing mid-air.

Obsidian cracks formed over Alexei’s face. “Tell your friends to meet us at the Sanctuary of the Great Gods if they wish to ever see these two alive again,” he said with a black tongue.

Ken shielded his eyes as the boat filled with green light. There was a gust of wind and an echo like thunder, voices in the storm. When he opened his eyes again, they were gone.

C
HAPTER 14

RITUAL

It arrived three months later, the initials H. T. C. emblazoned across all seven wooden crates. It took ten monks to pull them into the temple, and six hours to open them. It would take another week until it was fully built, a feat Dumont accomplished alone in the subterranean levels of the temple. When it was completed it filled a six hundred square foot room, a marvel of modern technology never before seen in that part of the world
.

“I must confess, Tulku, I am almost afraid to ask what this is,” Tsarong said as he watched Dumont adjust the final settings on the machine. There was something disquieting about it, though Tsarong was at loss to describe what it was about the machine that discomforted him.

“I’m surprised you didn’t ask sooner,” Dumont replied as he fiddled with the controls.

“I respect my Tulku’s privacy.”

“Have I ever told you how uncomfortable it makes me when you call me that.” Dumont paused and looked at Tsarong. “I’m your
friend
, Tsarong. Nothing more.”

Tsarong smiled and bowed his head in appreciation. “As long as you are the Green Lama, Jethro, you will always by my Tulku
—
as well as my friend.”

Dumont smiled and returned to his work. “To answer your question, it is a particle escalator, decades ahead of its time. Using electric fields, it propels subatomic particles at incredibly high speeds and contains them within a well-defined beam. Several years ago, I saw a presentation at Columbia University where a professor inundated several different kinds of minerals and substances with ions from a particle accelerator, effectively rearranging their molecular structure and releasing the untapped energy within.”

Tsarong furrowed his brow as he paced around the machine. “Pardon me, Tulku, but I must admit that sounds quite suspicious.”

“Oh, the man was a complete quack,” Dumont laughed. “They arrested him three days later for fraud. But, if my theories are correct, the molecules in these salts are arranged such that a small dose of radiation will cause them to shift, potentially unleashing an incredible amount of atomic energy.”

Tsarong raised an eyebrow. “I suppose I’ve seen stranger things happen.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“What are friends for?”

Dumont poured the salts onto a glass slide in front of the machine. “Stand behind there,” he said indicating the large panel of leaded glass across the room. “I don’t want to dose you with radioactivity.”

They moved behind the leaded glass where Dumont handed Tsarong a pair of goggles. “Can’t ever be too careful,” Dumont said, slipping on his own pair of goggles. “Ready?”

“Please don’t blow up the temple, Tulku.”

“Can’t make any promises.”

Dumont flicked a switch and the machine came to life, a low humming that echoed into the temple’s very foundation. Lights flashed, dials spun, and the machine glowed from within.

“How are you powering this?” Tsarong asked over the increasingly deafening sound.

“Patented technology,” Dumont shouted back. “It would take too long to explain. Call it magic.” He flicked several more switches, causing the accelerator to thrum even louder. Reaching over to a large knob, he said,” ell, here goes nothing.”

“
Om!Ah Hum Vajra Guru Padme Siddhi Hum!
” Tsarong whispered, instinctually covering his eyes as a beam of light shot out of the accelerator and hit the pile of salt.

“It’s okay, Tsarong,” Dumont said as he turned back the dials and began switching off the machine. “It’s done.” The lights dimmed and the room fell silent. Walking over to the machine, Dumont removed his goggles and carefully lifted up the slide of salt.

“They don’t look any different,” Tsarong said as he removed his goggles.

“Only way to be sure,” Dumont said as he brought the slide into his mouth.

Tsarong took a cautious step forward. “Tulku, are you sure that’s safe?”

“Not at all,” Dumont said as he tilted the salts into his mouth and swallowed. He let out a small cough, but otherwise remained silent.

Tsarong’s heart hammered in his chest. “How do you feel?”

Dumont opened his eyes and placed the vial back down. He walked over and knelt down beside the machine. He wormed his fingers under the bottom and—without visible any effort—lifted the two ton machine above his head. Smiling, he turned to Tsarong. “Powerful.”

• • •

Jethro ran his fingers across the Third Tablet’s surface, his nails clicking into the grooves, as he studied the multitude of symbols. His gaze fell on the three figures lined up at the top of crystalline egg and the horrifying chimera they faced.

“Can you read it?” Jean asked.

“A little,” Jethro replied, furrowing his brow. “It’s mostly ancient Greek. I recognize certain terms and phrases, but I confess I’m not exactly fluent in ancient Greek. Now, ancient Tibetan…”

“What about the hoedown up top?” she asked, indicating the top of the egg.

Despite the severity of the situation, a smile formed on Jethro’s lips. Leave it to Jean Farrell to throw out a question like that. “Besides the obvious?” he shrugged. “I think this line,” he turned the egg over and pointed at a small passage, “might relate directly to the image. ‘One to rise, three to sleep.’”

“Just vague enough to keep us guessing.”

Jethro rubbed his chin. “It’s only a guess, but it may mean we need all three Tablets to stop Cthulhu.”

“Well, we have two here,” Jean said. “Where’s Brickman’s Tablet?”

“New York,” Jethro replied sheepishly.

Jean moaned as she flopped down onto the couch. “You’d think a prophecy would be pretty clear cut. ‘At this time, this will happen. Insert Tablet here.’ Besides, it would have been nice if Prometheus would have given me a few specifics—”

“Jethro! Jethro, open up! They’re gone!” someone shouted, pounding furiously at the front door.

Jethro ran over and threw open the door to reveal a pale, sweating Ken Clayton. “Ken?” he exclaimed as Clayton rushed into the suite. “Ken, what happened?”

Ken grabbed Jethro by the collar, his eyes full of panic. “It’s Caraway. They took him. Something took him and—” He cut himself short when he saw the red headed woman walk in from the other room. “Jean!”

Jean Farrell’s eyes lit up as she rushed toward him. “Ken!” she exclaimed as she took him into her arms. “Oh, Ken. Ken, Ken, Ken. Thank God, you’re okay,” she whispered. Tears poured down her face. She squeezed him as tight as she could, if only to prove he was really there. “I thought I’d lost you.”

Smiling, Ken pulled himself free, put his hands on her cheeks, and kissed her forehead. “I thought I lost
you
, Red. We were so worried.” He looked her in the eyes. “You okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Jean shook her head, unable to remove her eyes from Ken. “Don’t worry about it. I’m fine and you’re alive.”

Ken furrowed his brow, confused. “Jean, what are you—?”

“Ken,” Jethro interrupted, in part wanting to spare Ken the knowledge of his future death. “Tell us what happened.”

“John and I were undercover, looking for you,” Ken began to explain, nodding to Jean. “We were hoping to see if anyone knew anything about you, but—”

Jethro placed a hand on Ken’s shoulder. “Something went wrong.”

Ken nodded and related the events of the last few nights and the
Necronomicon
. “He calls himself Alexei, but I don’t think that’s his real name. I’m not even sure he’s human. He took Caraway and Sotiria. He said if you wanted to see Caraway alive to meet him at the Sanctuary of the Great Gods.”

Jethro and Jean exchanged a glance. “I think that’s the ruins in the Northwest of the island. I had planned on visiting there before all this went down,” she said. “It’s some kind of temple complex dedicated to something called the chthonic gods, where they used to do a lot of—” Her eyes went wide in realization. “Aw, crap.”

“What?” Jethro asked.

“It’s where they used to practice blood sacrifice.”

• • •

Caraway woke with a start, knocking the back of his head against a stone pillar, stars exploding behind his eyes. Grunting, he tried to move his arms and found them chained to the pillar. He was dangling a few feet off the ground, his legs swaying uselessly. It was night, the sky sprinkled with stars. He strained his eyes and could just make out the silhouettes of ruins surrounding him. In the distance he could see torches moving through the trees, dozens, hundreds.

“John?” Sotiria whispered from his left. “John, are you awake?”

“Barely,” he groaned. He turned his head, but still could only see her in the corner of his eye. “You okay?”

“I think so,” she replied, her voice shaking. “Where are we?”

“Dunno,” he said, watching the procession of firelight. “But wherever we are, I’ve got a feeling it’s going to get a lot worse real quick.”

“Wait,” Sotiria whispered. “Do you hear that?”

“
Brauchen wir wirklich zwei?
” someone asked in the distance.

A second voice sounded, closer. “
Das eine Mädchen wird Opfer sein, das andere soll unseren Steinbruch herausziehen.”

“
Opfer?
” another voice asked. “
Sagen Sie mir, Doktor wollen wir jetzt mal Menschen opfern?
”

“
Warum so zimperlich, Herr Sturmbannführer?
” the second voice replied. “
Wollen wir doch Hitler’s Plan für die Jüden durchführen, nicht? Hier sehe ich keinen Unterschied?
”

“What are they saying?” Sotiria hissed.

Caraway shook his head. “I don’t know. It sounds like they’re speaking German.”

“
Hallo, da sind wir schon!
” cried a Nazi with a Van Dyke covering his scarred face, leading three other Nazi officials one of whom was—

“Gan!” Caraway shouted, unable to contain his relief. “Oh, Jesus, Gan!”

“
Kennen Sie diesen Amerikaner, Herr Oberführer?
” asked the Nazi with the pencil thin mustache.

“Yes, Herr Leutnant John Caraway,” Gan replied in English as he hobbled over to Caraway. He favored his left leg, his face placid as he stared up at Caraway’s desperate expression. “He is the policeman who assisted my investigation on the consulate attack in New York.”

“
Und das Mädchen?
” the Nazi with the pencil thin mustache asked. Gan shook his head in response and looked back to Caraway.