Caraway grabbed Ken by the arm and stopped him in his tracks. He nodded to the canister in Valco’s arms, knowing what it was, but hoping he was wrong. “What’ve you got there, Doctor?”
Valco let out a stuttering breath. “I… I was recruited, you see… By the men behind this place.” He cleared his throat. “I thought it was going to be a way to… correct some of my mistakes, even the scales, you could say. But, I’ve only seemed to have deepened my sins.” He glanced down at the canister in his arms. “It’s the Green Lama…” he said by way of explanation.
“What about him?” Ken asked.
Valco’s gaze moved over to one of the nearby cells, a discarded axe beside the open door. “He was injected with the Substance,” Valco replied after a moment. Caraway and Ken shared a worried expression, but let Valco continue. “It was worse than what I saw in the other test subjects. The Substance turned them into mindless things, but the Lama… It’s like there’s something else inside him, something evil. He’s fighting it, I saw him break through, but only for a moment. I don’t know how long he can hold out or if we can even cure him… But, either way, I’m going to make sure that the Substance won’t be able to overtake him and that no one will ever be able to use the Substance again.”
“It’s a bomb,” Caraway managed.
Valco knelt down and carefully placed the canister on the floor. He ran a hand over the wires. “An impromptu explosive. Put together with what little material I could find.” He glanced up at the rocky ceiling. “This chamber is the lowest point in the Facility. Normally that would mean the bedrock would bury the blast, but the fools dug out half the mountain.” He patted the canister. “The contents of this cylinder have roughly the energy equal to that of one thousand tons of dynamite. I’ll send a small electrical charge through and it will ignite the contents. It doesn’t look like much, but it should take the whole place down. It will stop them…”
“All right. Well, then set it up and let’s get the hell out of here.” Caraway said, moving toward the exit.
Valco shook his head. “No, John… You don’t understand.” He looked up to Caraway, his face calm, but his eyes shaking. “This doesn’t have a timer.”
“Wait, what does he mean?” Ken asked, his voice strained. “Valco, what do you mean?”
Caraway’s jaw tightened. “Valco… You can’t… You can’t be serious.”
“It’s the only way,” Valco nodded to himself as much to the others. “There was no time for a timer. Besides… I have wrought so much pain upon this world… Maybe this way I can help make it right.”
Caraway knelt down and put his hands on Valco’s shoulders. A part of him, a large part, wanted to talk the doctor out of it, but he knew in his heart of hearts that there was nothing he could say that would dissuade him. And with all the horror he had seen in this place, it might be the only option they really had.
“Give us an hour to get all our people and any other survivors out,” he said. “Can you do that for us, Harrison?”
Valco nodded. “One hour.”
Caraway looked Valco in the eye. “Hey. No matter what happened down here, no matter what they made you do, you will always be one of us. You get me, Harrison? None of us will ever forget you.”
Valco gave Caraway a small serene smile. He closed his eyes and tears streamed down his cheeks. “Goodbye, John.”
• • •
AFTER SEVERAL YARDS of running, Caraway stopped and let out a rasping yell.
Ken fell back against the wall and slid down, shaking his head in disbelief. He had met Valco only a few times before, but like Theodor and Gary, they were all part of the Green Lama’s inner circle. This shouldn’t happen to them.
“No,” Ken said defiantly. “We have to go back for him.”
“Ken.”
“No, John, this isn’t right!” Ken cried, pointing to the ground. “Valco can’t die here. He’s supposed to survive this. He did survive. Jean met him in the future, in the other world. He survived Cthulhu. He’s going to survive this.”
“I don’t think it works like that, Ken,” Caraway said in a hoarse voice.
“Don’t tell me how it works, John!” Ken shouted back. “We’ve been into the lion’s den more times than anyone and we’ve always found our way out. Why should this time be any different for any of us?”
“Because it is!” Caraway barked. “Because maybe we broke something in R’lyeh, or this is the way it was always supposed to work out, or maybe, just maybe for once someone up high finally realized there weren’t any rules for this stuff and we’re all just fair game for the reaper.”
“We’re in uncharted waters,” Ken said quietly after a moment, meeting Caraway’s eyes. “That’s what you said. Even if we survive this, there’s no coming back. The Good Days are over.”
Caraway shook his head. “No, you’re missing the point, Clayton. The Good Days never existed; it’s just that the Bad Days finally caught up with us.” He took a deep breath. “But that doesn’t mean we stop fighting. That doesn’t mean we stop doing what’s right.” He held out his hand. “Come on, Blondie. There are people to save, many of them our friends.”
Ken glared at the floor for several seconds before taking Caraway’s hand. The former lieutenant helped the movie star off the ground and they ran to see who they could save.
• • •
THE SLOW DRIP of water echoed in the darkened hallway accompanied by Omega’s shallow breaths.
“Tell me, Mrs. Stewart-Brown, whatever do you have in mind for me?” Evangl twisted the barrel against his temple, her thumb pulling back the hammer. He choked out a laugh and leaned his head against the gun, his one good eye ogling at her. “I would have the thought the great Green Lama had taught you to be better than that.”
Her face turned to stone. “The Green Lama isn’t here.”
Omega smiled thinly. “No,” he whispered. “No, he isn’t.”
Omega snatched the gun out of her hand and with one impossible motion, clocked her across the head with the gun handle. Evangl felt the blow before she realized she was on the ground, her vision spotted in a kaleidoscope of black and whites and red. She felt something warm run down her face, over her eyebrows, and down her nose.
“After everything I’ve survived,” Omega growled as he staggered to his feet, “you think some prissy little woman could kill me?”
He grabbed her shoulders, kneed her violently in the stomach, and tossed her to the ground. She rolled to a stop, struggling to grab a breath. Evangl dug her nails into the soft earth and tried to pull herself away. She tried to scream, but her voice seemed caught in her throat.
“X couldn’t kill me. That reporter from the Planet couldn’t kill me. Even the Green Lama himself couldn’t kill me. And you have the gall to think you can execute me like some back alley thug?” Omega said as he stalked after her. He adjusted the gun in his hand, hooking his bloody finger on the trigger. “Oh no, no, no, Mrs. Evangl Stewart-Brown. You are far beyond your depths, far outside of your—”
A guttural scream filled the hallway as a pale white creature leapt atop Omega’s back, knocking away his gun before biting down and tearing off his ear. Omega let out a smothered cry as black fingernails dug into his throat and pulled him back. There was the nightmarish sound of flesh shredding. Before the creature and Omega disappeared into the shadows, Evangl caught a glimpse of the creature’s ruined visage and her heart shattered.
“Oh, Gary…” she sobbed. She reached for him, as if touching him would somehow make it all better. There was still something left of him, a ghost inside that horrible shell. Gary was still there, still fighting. “Please, no.” Gary looked at her, sorrow pouring from his milky white eyes as he dragged the screaming Omega into the shadows. She found her way to her knees and hugged her body against the sudden chill.
“Gary?” she called out meekly. “Gary? Gary, please?”
She watched the darkness and waited for him to come back.
�
� • •
A FAINT PUMPING SOUND filled the room, reminding Jean of milking cows during the early mornings on her father’s farm. Electricity—No, not electricity, something else, something older and Other—flowed through the air. She could almost see it, green and black like a bruise or smoke. For a moment she was in the New York City sewers again, captured by the demons that had ravaged the Bartlett. Then she was back in R’lyeh, running from the shoggoth. She blinked away the sensation and took in her surroundings. Clear plastic tubes ran like webbing overhead from glass barrels filled with black liquid to a small glass case recessed into the far wall. Inside the case was a pale white lump, wrapped in ragged black fabric.
“What is that?” she asked, walking toward the object in the center of the glass case.
“The Source,” Murdoch replied in an exhausted tone. “The Source of the Substance.”
It was a deformed torso, she realized, from the bottom jaw to the waist. Yellowed teeth were just visible above the pale pink lower lip. Pieces of flesh hung off black, brittle bone, while the chest—wrapped in a tattered, bloodstained robe—seemed to subtly rise and fall as if it was breathing. Jean recognized it instantly, but didn’t know from where. She reached out to press her hand against the case when she heard a thousand voices speak as one behind her.
“Jeaaaaan.”
The hair on the back of Jean’s neck stood on end, knowing who it was—what it was—without turning around. Amongst the thousand of voices, there was one she knew better than any other. She began to shiver, her finger jangling against the trigger.
She turned to face her lover and nearly collapsed at the sight.
The Green Lama looked at Jean, his black eyes spilling inky tears over his pale white skin. The bright red circle-triangle wound surrounded a smoking black puncture in the center of his forehead. The normally white cuffs of his robes were dyed a dark red, ichor dripping down his hands, while blood splatter stained the green fabric. He was suspended over the floor, his body phosphorescent beneath his ragged green robes. Murdoch was hiding in the corner, cowering like a child lost in the woods.
“Oh, God, Jethro…” she trembled. “What did they do to you?”
The Green Lama bared his black-lined teeth and let out a long phlegm ridden breath. He turned to Murdoch, his fist glowing a sickly green.
“Jethro, are you in there? We can find a way to reverse this. We can get you better.” Jean moved between them, realizing the Green Lama’s intent. “I know you didn’t mean for this to happen, that you—you wouldn’t do all of this—all those people—if it were really you inside,” she whispered. But the Lama continued to approach. Jean held out her hand as if it would hold him back. “Please, baby, we can get you help,” she said. She stole a glance at the doorway and thought of Evangl. “We can fix it, I know we can. We always do.”
The Green Lama paused and tilted his head to the side. He blinked twice, his black, inhuman eyes looking faintly childish. The Green Lama gazed down at his bloodstained hands, opening and closing them as if using them for the first time. Jean risked another step and held out her hand to him. If she could only touch him, she could make it right, make it better. Her palm moved to his cheek when there was a shock of electricity. Awoken from his stupor, the Green Lama roared in a thousand voices, unleashing a small shockwave of energy. His feet touched the ground and for a moment everything was silent.
“Jean…?” the Green Lama whispered in his own voice. He let out a violent, earth-shattering scream and stumbled back. He wrapped his hands around his head, his fingers digging into his scalp. For a brief, horrifying second, Jean thought he was going to tear open his skull. She took a half step toward him when a small burst of green exploded out from his chest. He turned to her and blinked, his black eyes fading back to his natural blue-grey with a noticeable slight jade hue. “Ne-tso-hbum?”
Jean felt a wave of relief and took another tentative step forward. “That’s right, sweetheart. We’ll make it okay. We’ll make it right.”
“Om! Ma-ni Pad-me Hum!” Jethro ran over, took her face in his hands and pressed his lips to hers. “Jean… Oh, Jean, I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay, baby. It’s going to be okay,” she whispered. She ignored the ruination of his face and kissed him again.
“No… No, it’s not.”
“Tsarong told me about the infection,” Jean said. “What it was doing to your body… I… understand why you didn’t tell me.”
Jethro let out a shuddering breath and shook his head. “No. It’s the Substance. I’m in control for now, but I don’t know for how much longer.” He winced as if in pain. “There’s—There’s someone else in here, in my mind, using my body like a puppet. He—It is feeding off my darkest impulses, making me—”
“I know,” Jean said mournfully. “I know.”
Jethro was about to respond when he caught sight of the torso in the glass case. His eyes went wide. “That’s Heydrich!” he cried, running over to the glass case. “That’s Karl Heydrich’s body!”
Jean’s stomach dropped. Karl Heydrich, the undead Nazi wizard who had tried to raise Cthulhu—and in another world had actually succeeded. Jean had watched his decapitated body tumble into the depths of R’lyeh, where he should have been lost forever, but here he was, at the heart of all they were fighting once again.
Jethro whirled around to Murdoch. “Why do you have Heydrich’s body?!”
“Heyd—” Murdoch stuttered. “I have no idea what you’re—”
Jethro ran up to Murdoch, grabbed the doctor by the collar. “What is he doing here?”
“I—I found the body floating in the Pacific!” Murdoch replied, unable to look the Green Lama in the eye. “Its heart was still beating and the blood… I didn’t know what it was, black and alive… It’s the heart… The Substance comes from the heart. We have no idea how or why, but it’s been pumping out the Substance continually since I found it. It’s impossible.”
“It’s not impossible, you idiot,” Jean grumbled. “It’s magic. Very dark magic.”
Murdoch eyed Jean. “There’s no such thing.”
Jean gave him a short, derisive laugh. “Trust me, bucko. There is. Darker than you’ll ever understand; everything that goes bump in the night. So, let me guess, you brought it to them and started playing with it?”
Murdoch shook his head. "They found me. I don’t know how, but they were waiting for me when my ship docked in New York and they brought me here…”
Jethro moved back over to Heydrich’s body and watched the black fluid—the Substance—pump out from Heydrich’s throat and arms and flow through the tubes. Heydrich’s blood, it had all been Heydrich’s blood. Of course, the radioactive salts would react so violently with Heydrich’s blood, they were two halves of the same whole, twin energies born from the same source. Jean walked up beside Jethro and pressed her palm against the glass, her fingertips faintly crackling.
“Can you hear me?” Jethro whispered to Heydrich’s ruined cadaver, his breath fogging the glass. “Can you hear me in there, you monster?”
There was a subtle twitch in Heydrich’s lip, a small wag of the tongue, and a slight working of the jaw, as if he—whatever was left of him—was trying to speak.
“Of course, I can,” Heydrich’s voice said from Jethro’s mouth. “What are the laws of science to people like us? You tried to kill me twice, Green Lama, and you failed both times.”
Jean’s heart froze and she turned to Jethro, whose face was contorted in pain.
“You’re not Heydrich,” Jethro responded in his own voice. “You’re using his voice—but you’re not him.”
A low rumbling laugh echoed from Jethro’s throat. “No, you’re right, Jethro… I’m not Heydrich. I am not the demons from the Bartlett. I am not even the Great Old One Cthulhu. I am exactly what you always feared. I am the darkness and anger that’s been boiling inside… I am you.”
“No, you’re not! Om! Ma-ni Pad-me Hum!” Jethro screamed as he punched his fi
st through the glass case and into Heydrich’s heart. Black ichor spurted out, soaking Jethro’s already stained sleeves. There was a small burst of green energy and Heydrich’s lower jaw worked as if he were writhing in pain until the torso went limp. Jethro drew his hand back and idly wiped the black blood on his robe. He gave Jean a victorious smile. “I think that—”
Jethro’s body heaved violently. His head kicked back as if struck. He stumbled backward before he collapsed to his knees.
“Jethro?!” Jean shouted.
His head lolled forward. His breathing was watery and growling. “You really thought that would destroy me, Green Lama?” the creature inside Jethro laughed. “I am so much stronger than that… So much stronger than you.”
“I—No! I—!” Jethro looked up to Jean as his blue-grey eyes once again clouded over to black. “Jean! I—!”
Obsidian tears began to spill down the Green Lama’s cheeks. A black-green aura formed around him as he slowly lifted himself off the ground until he was suspended in mid-air. He turned to Jean with a twisted Cheshire grin.
“DID YOU HEAR THAT, MISS FARRELL? I THINK HE ALMOST SAID HE LOVED YOU.”
Jean fell back and aimed her pistol at the Green Lama. Her hands shook; tears began to form in the corner of her eyes. She pulled back the hammer. She needed to hold the gun straight, needed to keep it level. She began to squeeze down on the trigger, when she hesitated. Jethro was still in there. “Don’t,” she pleaded, trying to blink away the tears. “Don’t make me do this.”
The Green Lama let out a low, demonic laugh before he struck her with a powerful backhand, sending her flying back against the wall, knocking the air out of her lungs. The Green Lama’s hand clamped around her throat before she could draw a breath. He lifted off the ground, the toes of her shoes scraping uselessly against the floor. She moved to aim her pistol, but the Green Lama caught her wrist and twisted. Jean cringed in pain and let the gun slip from her grip.
“Don’t—!” Jean pleaded, but his grip only tightened. She clawed at his hand. Black spots began to form behind her eyes, her blood thrummed in her ears. But she could feel something welling up inside her, crackling to life. She pinched her eyes shut and focused on the energy, drew upon it and brought it to the surface. Her body was on fire igniting from within. She gritted her teeth and whispered the only prayer she knew. “Om! Ma-ni Pad-me Hum!”
The Green Lama: Crimson Circle Page 34