The Green Lama: Crimson Circle

by Adam Lance Garcia

  His mind had wandered again. It was doing that too often these days. He looked back down at the files. They were filled with handwritten notes, typed logs and dozens of gruesome images, but they all told the same tale: Failure.

  “Tell me, Frank,” Gamma said, closing the files and dropping it onto the lab table. “How are the field tests coming along?”

  The scientist looked up from his microscope and stared at Gamma with his beady, angry eyes. He leaned back and cracked his knuckles, all ten, one after another, before he replied. “There has been some progress made. The latest batch has proven to be more… cooperative than the previous experiments, due, in part, to the latest compound. Though, it is not without its imperfections.”

  “Yes, it seems this batch is just as starved for attention as the previous,” Gamma commented, pulling the day’s newspaper from the file and tossing it at Frank. In block letters, the headline read: “CANNIBAL KILLER STRIKES AGAIN!” Just beneath that, in smaller, bold letters: “Twelfth Victim in two weeks.” A dark, blurry photograph of uniformed officers standing around a shrouded flattened body sat in the center of the page. “We do not mind some collateral damage, Frank, such is the nature of our work. But these…” Gamma gestured toward the newspaper, “are far too public for comfort.”

  Frank lifted up the corner of the paper and read over the headline with detached amusement. “As I’ve mentioned before, the hunger side effect is connected with the base material,” he said with a shrug. “It could never have been anticipated, there was no precedence for such a reaction. However, I insist with further testing and additional compounds, I am sure we will eventually be able to control it. I find it interesting, though, that they always seek out their homes and families… At least, most of them. The first was a vagrant returning to his favorite alleyway. Hm. Peculiar.” He frowned in thought. “Conflicting impulses. Sanctuary and hunger. Good thing we’re so efficient at cleaning up after ourselves.”

  “What about Harrison Valco?” Gamma asked, keeping his gaze set on Frank, curious to see his reaction. He had been so volatile when he first came here. “Do you think his Delta Liquid Ray may be of some use to of us?”

  Frank grimaced, his coal-like eyes burning as he fought back his rage. “Valco could…” He cleared his throat before he continued. “The Delta Liquid Ray may have some… applications, though I doubt any of them will be effective. And even if they are, we do not need Valco for that, as I asserted before. I have an extensive history with the Ray, need I remind you of the E.Y.E.?”

  “You are too proud, Frank,” Gamma interposed. “Among the litany, that is ever your greatest flaw. Despite your experience with the Delta Liquid Ray, chemistry was never your strength. Do not try to fool yourself otherwise. We need you working with the test subjects; no one can manipulate a mind like you. Let Valco and the others figure out the right compound, that is their task, focus on yours.” His mouth twisted as he added: “Do not worry, Frank, we have… faith in you.”

  “As you damn well should! I was the doctor who trepanned the Archduke of Sylvania! Not Valco. And need I remind you that it was you and your bald retriever that pursued me, by God! So if anyone’s word should be law, it should be mine! I still contend if I had my requested subject,” Frank said, crossing his arms, “we would be able to work around all of these issues.”

  Gamma sighed. He had grown tired of this argument. “Yes, Frank, we’ve read your thesis.”

  The scientist slapped his hand against the table, his anger beginning to boil over. “I need him dammit!” he said, choking back a scream. His face was turning red. To be so intelligent, yet still a prisoner of one’s own emotions. Pitiful.

  Gamma’s right eyebrow lifted subtly, but he kept his voice even. “I recall your experiences with the subject were less than successful, no? Or do you not remember how you came to us?”

  Frank gnawed at his lower lip and resumed cracking his knuckles. When that proved less than satisfactory he went about rotating his right wrist until it clicked like a phone dial. “I was caught… unawares,” he eventually admitted. “No one could have anticipated he would—”

  “Anticipation is why you are here, Frank. Anticipation is what drives this Collective. If you cannot anticipate what needs to be done, we must question your worth.” Gamma paused, waiting for a retort, but Frank remained silent, his lips quivering into a snarl. “You are lucky the subject is considered a potential threat or else I would not have been so inclined to explore your line of thinking. Our operative is working to obtain him as we speak, though we anticipate some difficultly. It has been our experience that vigilantes are a difficult breed to control.”

  “Ah, yes, I forgot,” Frank said with a pleasant sigh, a Cheshire grin twisting his features. “One of you went rogue. The face changer… Chi was it? I can never remember the Greek alphabet.”

  Gamma took a slow, deep breath, reminding himself the scientist was only trying to rile him up. Frank seemed to thrive on conflict. “There was a shooting at a Roosevelt rally,” he said seemingly changing the subject. “Did you hear about that?”

  Frank waved his hands. “Because I get out so much.”

  “It was in my weekly report. There was a guest of some interest…” He drifted off and hummed to himself thoughtfully. “It is only a matter of time before we will find him. Once our operative finds his weakness, the Green Lama will be ours.”

  “Has our guest given you any more information?” Frank asked emboldened, hissing the word “guest.” “Or is he still spouting out witticisms like some vaudevillian prancing about the stage?

  “Slowly,” Gamma replied. “He is stronger than most. More than likely, he was trained to withstand interrogation techniques such as ours.”

  “Didn’t anticipate that, did you?”

  Gamma ignored Frank’s slight. “Should he continue to prove uncooperative, we may need use of your talents.”

  “Of course,” Frank said with a warm smile that made Gamma feel instantly unnerved. “Nothing would please me more than to see my old friend Gary Brown.”

  • • •

  DAWN CREPT through the grey clouds like a fading dream, rain pattering against the tall windows, drowning out the sounds of the city. It had been raining for days, but then again, it seemed like it was always raining. Evangl leaned her head against the window, her breath fogging the cool glass. She felt numb, covered in gauze, injected with Novocain, dropped in a bucket of ice and forgotten. Marie was finally slumbering in her arms, her only center of warmth, and Gary… All she could think about was Gary.

  Jean Farrell and Ken Clayton had been the only ones at Dumont’s penthouse when she arrived, the study in shambles. At first she had feared the worse until Farrell explained their disastrous experiment. Jean had been kind enough to give Evangl one of her dresses, but Jean had a few inches on her, so the hem pooled over her feet. They put Marie to sleep in Dumont’s bed, a king size mattress so massive it made Marie look like a thumb-sized doll. Dumont’s manservant, Tsarong, arrived a short time later. With a calm smile and warm hand, he took care to make everyone tea before setting to work at cleaning Farrell and Clayton’s mess. If he was perturbed by the task he didn’t show it, though Evangl couldn’t help but think how sad his eyes looked. Dumont arrived an hour later—or maybe it was two, she couldn’t remember anymore—entering through a secret back entrance. Accompanied by Lieutenant John Caraway, Dumont was dressed in his verdant robes, his face hidden despite his subtly glowing eyes. He took one look at her, pulled off his hood, seeming to have aged decades since she last saw him. He gave her a solemn nod, as if he already knew what had happened. And then, in perhaps the most bizarre moment of her life, the Green Lama took Evangl into his arms, and broke into tears.

  A short time later, emotions still raw, Dumont, removed of his robes, brought her and the others into the parlor, which, while rattled, had been relatively undamaged from Farrell and Clayton’s experiment. The room was a dark mahogany; artifacts from Dumont’s many travels
lined the walls. A colorful tapestry of an illustrated wheel surrounded by deities Evangl had never heard of hung off one wall while sepia-toned photographs covered another. They were images of Dumont in distant parts of the world, alongside world leaders, as well as several of his associates. Evangl noticed at the center of them all was an intimate photo of Farrell and Dumont, something she found at once heartening and, strangely, incredibly sad. Dumont sat alone in large leather reading chair, while the others found places to sit, stand or lean, around the parlor, save for Farrell who paced like a caged tiger. Someone took Evangl’s hand and she realized it was Clayton. He smiled at her, a soft, thin smile, not the one that lit up the movie screens, but one that could still melt hearts. Evangl tried to smile back, though the effort only seemed to hurt her cheeks. For a time they all sat in silence, Tsarong quietly handing out small cakes and more cups of tea, though no one dared touch them. Evangl told her tale in fits and spurts, pausing at long intervals before rattling off facts like a Gatling gun.

  “What did he look like?” Dumont asked gently once she had finished.

  Evangl shook her head, trying not to break out into tears once again. She wasn’t sure she even could cry anymore, her eyes stung so much. “We never saw his face,” she admitted, hating herself. She should have been able to know that. She had worked with the Lama for so long, had she learned nothing? “He was bald, I know that for certain, but his face was… It never left the shadows.”

  Dumont’s jaw clenched, as if he had been struck hard in the gut. “It was an illusion,” he said. “A relatively simple one, but an illusion nonetheless.”

  Evangl heard someone ask: “How can you be sure?”

  Dumont looked toward Clayton. “I learned it while studying under Sardo the Great. A trick of light and movement,” he replied. He turned back to Evangl again, his blue-grey eyes piercing but unreadable. “Did this man say why he was there?”

  Evangl dropped her gaze to her lap, her fingers playing with the dress’s fine material. Oddly, she had felt the urge to count the threads. She had tried to avoid this topic, though she didn’t know why. “He wanted to know who you are,” she admitted eventually, her voice quavering, barely above a whisper. “The Green Lama, I mean. You’d think someone like that would’ve been able to piece it together himself.”

  Dumont’s gaze briefly shifted over Evangl’s shoulder to where Farrell was standing before moving back to Evangl. “Was there anything identifiable about him? A scar? Something he was wearing?”

  “He had this silver ring with a golden symbol on it… It looked like a Greek letter, but I don’t know which one. Like an ‘O’ but split and flat at the bottom.” Then she added with a sardonic smirk: “He called himself our ‘guest.’”

  “Omega,” Jean said, remembering what little Greek she had learned island hopping just before the world almost ended. “That was the symbol on his ring.”

  Silence soaked the air, dripping down until everyone began to shift uncomfortably.

  “There’s something familiar about this,” Caraway grumbled, the first to break the silence, startling Evangl. “Not too long before the Green Lama started making a name for himself I had to investigate the train derailment at Grand Central. It was a damn mess of a thing, but despite all the destruction it was mostly a lot of bruises and broken bones, except for this couple… Both of ’em shot in the head. Based on the witness’s account—and he was something of a predecessor to you, Jethro—the killer sounds a lot like this bald kidnapper of ours. But, I’m not sure what bothers me more… The fact this man found you…” He nodded to Evangl. “Or that he knew to look for you.”

  “How the hell could he even know that?” Farrell asked. “Last I checked, aside from things like ‘Jethro Dumont and Jean Parker’s’ phantom nuptials, our names never came up in the papers—or police reports for that matter, thank you, John. Even if someone might have thought Jethro was the Lama, his little fisticuffs with von Kultz atop the Brooklyn Bridge would’ve set that debate to rest.”

  “The bigger question is why?” Caraway asked. “Sure, the Green Lama’s stacked up plenty of enemies over the last few years, that goes without saying. Hell, I put half of ’em away myself. But why now and to what end? If this was a simple revenge plot they could draw out Jethro the old fashioned way. This, though, this seems almost methodical.”

  “Theodor…” Dumont sighed to himself, though the whole room took notice. His eyes were shut in pain, and Evangl saw his right hand beginning to glow. “He was the one who killed Theodor… Looking for me…” His gaze drifted out to the ether. What he had been thinking was anyone’s guess, but Evangl knew whatever it was, it wasn’t good. He opened and closed his hand, the energy dissipated like smoke. “Whoever this man is he isn’t just after me, he’s after you, all of you. One by one, until he finds me.”

  “So we find him first,” Farrell said, her hands on her hips. Evangl guessed if there were a gun strapped to her side, Farrell would be resting a hand on its holster. She was so unlike Dumont, but perhaps, that was why he loved her. Dumont met Farrell’s gaze. A small, somber smile hinted at the corner of his lips and he nodded.

  “Is this the point where we shout, ‘All for One and One for All?’” Clayton asked with a crooked grin on his face. Now there was the smile that lit up movie screens.

  “Shut up, Clayton,” Caraway growled, then to Dumont: “How do we go about that. If this is the same monster that killed Harrin and stuffed two innocent people into an icebox—” Evangl’s heart jumped at the thought. “—what makes you think we’ll be able to find him?”

  Dumont shot Caraway a look and simply said: “Because we must.”

  Since that night, Evangl hadn’t taken one step outside the penthouse. The days crept by slowly, hours like glaciers, becoming a week, then two. At night, she woke up screaming, sopped with sweat. Her dreams were filled with smiling shadows reaching out with tentacled arms, wrenching Marie from her grasp, before smothering her into the darkness. She used to be brave, she told herself, but now she couldn’t stop herself from shaking. She thought back to when she and Gary had been kidnapped by the Crimson Hand, tied up, a glowing hot poker inches from her face. She could still remember the heat of it kissing her. Even then, in that most desperate hour she wasn’t as terrified, as helpless as she was now. Gary had been there, as had Dr. Harrison Valco, both tied to chairs and helpless. And, yes, while she screamed, she somehow knew everything would all right simply because Gary was there. But now he was gone, stolen from her by a demon in the night and she was alone.

  No.

  Her eyes steeled over. She wasn’t some prissy little girl locked in a tower, in need of a hero. She looked over at Marie, still slumbering, her thin blonde hair shining despite the gloom of the morning. What sort of woman did she want her daughter to be? More to the point, what kind of example was she setting? Evangl thought of all those adventure films Gary always dragged her to, with the women swooning over the men, screeching as the shrew, or screaming for help while the villain twirled his mustache. Marie deserved better than that, Evangl decided as she stroked her child’s fine hair. She deserved strength.

  Evangl looked back out the window into the dark grey skies, a storm brewing inside her. Come hellfire and brimstone, she was going to find the man who took her love from her, and then she was going to make him suffer.

  • • •

  IT WAS still early, as far as Valco could tell. Sleep had become a bastion of the past, worn and weathered until it was ultimately forgotten. He had been at the facility a little over two weeks now and still hadn’t become accustomed to waking up miles beneath the hilltop, the sound of massive fans constantly whirring overhead. There was no sun, no moon; simply the pale and even yellow light of hundreds of incandescent bulbs. Had it only been that, Valco would have endured it pleasantly enough, but unfortunately that was not the end of his discomforts. Instead, they seemed to grow in number every day. Everything vibrated, a low thrum that rattled his teeth when he clenc
hed his jaw. Armed guards stood outside nearly every doorway, their faces expressionless and the bodies unmoving, reminding Valco of the guards at Buckingham Palace. His movements were limited to specific areas and, as far he could determine, monitored as well, guards seeming to manifest out of thin air whenever he attempted to explore other sections of the facility. He understood the need for precaution, a facility such as this practically screamed for its necessity, but it still made him feel ill at ease.

  Yet, Valco did his best to ignore his misgivings, focusing instead on the task at hand. It would have been a lie to say his research into the Substance had moved at leaps and bounds—trips and stumbles would be more apt—but his discoveries were nonetheless undeniably fascinating. Walking through the laboratory, Valco pressed his hand against the ice-cold container marked OBS-001. Goose pimples formed along his arm, his hair standing on end as if electrified. There was power inside, raw and unbridled. It was as terrifying as it was intoxicating. The Substance was, in a word, improbable, defying every law of nature, every scientific hypothesis ever posited to the workings of the universe. It seemed to exist outside this world, so unique that Valco was tempted to use the “m” word, but he wasn’t so foolish as to actually say it aloud.

  All the things he could do with the Substance; he didn’t even know where to begin, all the lives he could save… But what was most thrilling, what truly set his mind aflame, was what he had discovered by injecting the Delta Liquid Ray. Impossible as it seemed, he had discovered that the two materials were somehow intrinsically—