The Green Lama: Crimson Circle

by Adam Lance Garcia

  “Jean…?”

  “I’m here.” Something cold and metallic suddenly pressed against his right temple. Jethro made to turn his head, but Jean shoved the gun barrel harder against his skull. “No. Move one more inch and I swear to God I will put a bullet through your brain.”

  Jethro swallowed the dry lump in his throat. “I don’t want to argue with you, sweetheart,” he croaked, his voice strained and broken, “but I think you already shot me once today.”

  “Jethro? Is it you?” she breathed, her face covered with dirt and blood. “Please, tell me it’s you.”

  “Jean, it’s me,” Jethro said quietly. “I promise. It’s only me.”

  Jean’s hand was shaking, but she kept the gun firmly pressed against his head. “Prove it,” she whispered, her lower lip quivering. “What was I looking for when I rescued you and Ken from Zamora?”

  A tear dripped from Jethro’s blue-grey eye. “You were just looking for a mystery was all.”

  Jean’s grip on her gun loosened as she began to sob. “And I found you.” The gun fell out of her hand and clattered to the pavement. She pounded her fist against his chest. “I found you, you damn idiot. I found you.”

  Jethro caught her wrist before she struck him again and then touched her face. He looked at her like he was seeing her for the first time, more beautiful and stronger than he could have possibly imagined, so much stronger than him. “You saved me. Again.”

  Jean gave him a small, pained smile. “I tried not to make a habit of it, but you keep getting yourself into trouble.”

  He helped her to her feet. The police sirens grew closer and a crowd had begun to form around them. Jean tugged Jethro’s hood down over his face as he wrapped his arm around her. They looked at the destruction surrounding them and waited.

  Chapter 21: Succession & Legacies

  THE NEWSPAPERS had gone mad, their front pages littered with photos of the Green Lama tearing the train off its rails, details of the aftermath, the names of the dead; while rumors of an explosion on a mountain upstate kept the entire state on edge. Caraway and Crevier had done their best to keep everyone’s names out of any official police report, while Betty pulled every favor she had to make sure neither Jethro, Jean, or Ken were mentioned in any of the articles, though there was no escaping the eyewitness accounts, the rumors that had begun to spread through the city. Few made the connection to the Cannibal Killer or the Palace Theatre Massacre—both of which had, in short order, fallen into legend—but many saw the explosion at Jethro’s Park Avenue penthouse as the beginning of the Green Lama’s short, mad reign over the city. Some believed the Lama had killed Dumont—“you know how those Buddhists are,” they said to each other in a knowing, hushed tone—while others, a small minority, claimed Dumont was the Green Lama, though this assertion was often laughed away as implausible. Even so, there was no denying that something fundamental had shifted in the city as the entire populace waited for the next shoe to drop.

  Weeks passed. War had begun to engulf Europe, Axis and Allies formed up on opposite sides of the map while bullets and bombs rained over every corner of the continent. In New York, there was snow.

  Shortly after the dust had settled, Jethro had called everyone to his Dakota penthouse and related his ordeal. Ken had kept his distance, standing near the exit, his arms wrapped around his body to hide the tremors in his hands. Evangl cut him short when Jethro began to tell them of Gary’s fate, while Caraway explained Valco’s sacrifice. No one had any words for Murdoch, who detailed his involvement and penance. There was nothing they could say that he hadn’t already said himself.

  Jean and Jethro had gained an understanding no else could comprehend, and though their hands were almost constantly intertwined, Jean could feel the past few weeks weighing heavily upon Jethro’s mind. She often caught him staring into the distance, lost in thought. The world had changed for all of them, but for no one more so than Jethro. It was as if the impenetrable force that had protected them all these past few years had finally been stripped away, and Jethro was left staring into the darkness.

  Even so, it was still a great surprise when Jethro told Jean he was leaving.

  “Where are you going?” Jean asked, standing at the corner of West Seventy-Second and Central Park West. The rain had begun to patter down, at first little more than a drizzle, mist becoming droplets, the moon lost in the haze.

  Jethro smiled and shrugged. He shifted his knapsack over his shoulder. “To find out what I should do,” he replied with a sober laugh.

  Jean hooked her fingers into the fabric of his shirt as if it would prevent him from leaving. “You’re being very selfish right now. You can’t just leave.”

  “Jean… I need to find a way to repair the damage I caused.”

  “That wasn’t you though… It was the Substance, or whatever it was. You can’t blame yourself.”

  Jethro shook his head. “Yes, it wasn’t my fault, but it was my choices, all the good that I did, that led to this evil. How do I keep fighting when I have no control over what others may create from my actions?”

  Jean looked away. “Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked. “I know I said I understood… But I—”

  “Because I long ago accepted death as part of the cycle of life and rebirth,” Jethro sighed, meeting her gaze. “I was—am—prepared to die, but I knew if I told you, you would have dedicated every waking moment to trying to save me. We have had so much darkness in our lives, I didn’t want to take any moment we had together for granted. I didn’t want the little time we had left to be marred by something I thought that I—that we couldn’t change.”

  “That wasn’t fair,” Jean said quietly.

  “No. No, it wasn’t.”

  “And what about the Green Lama?”

  Jethro looked at her, his eyes penetrating. After a moment a small smile curled the corner of his lips. “I’m sure the Green Lama will be just fine.”

  “We can’t do this without you.”

  “You,” Jethro said, letting the word linger before he continued, “can do anything, Ne-tso-hbum. You used to think that the Green Lama wasn’t just one man, that he was really several different people. If the last few weeks have proven anything, it’s that you were right. The Green Lama wasn’t just one man, he was—is, all of you. Tsarong, Evangl, Gary, Caraway, Ken, Harrison, Theodor, even Betty, and especially you. There should be someone to bear the mantle, but the Green Lama is more than a person, he should be an ideal, one you all have proven more than capable of living up to.”

  Jean looked to her feet, hearing, but not yet willing to process what Jethro was saying. “You came into my life and upended everything I thought I knew about myself,” she said after a moment, “about what I wanted, what I loved. You can’t just walk away and expect me to be okay with it.” Tears began to stream down her cheeks. “What am I supposed to do?”

  He gently wiped away her tears. “Jean, we both know of the two of us, you’ve always been the strongest.”

  “Yeah,” she laughed. “Yeah. That’s pretty true.”

  Jethro gently put his hand on her arm and gave her a reassuring smile that was more hopeful than sad. “Jean, no matter what happens, we will be fine.” He moved in to embrace her when she put her hands on his cheeks and brought him in for a kiss. He placed his hands on her hips and let the moment last for as long as it could, a second, a minute, he didn’t care, all that mattered was that it happened, and too quickly, it was over.

  Jean looked him in the eyes, her own threatening more tears. “Good night, Jethro,” she said with a smile.

  Jethro smile back. “Good night, Ne-tso-hbum,” he quietly replied as she spun around and walked back toward the Dakota. Jean turned left at the entrance and disappeared behind the building. “I love you, Jean Farrell,” Jethro whispered to himself, meaning it more than he had ever before. He shifted the pack on his shoulder and started walking.

  • • •

  JEAN WALKED into the penthouse, her hair da
mp from the rain. The place looked so similar to Jethro’s Park Avenue resident, but at the same time completely different. There were the requisite golden Buddhas, butter candles, and walls and walls of books, but it was almost smaller, the layout much more winding, feeling like a maze; the carpet was a different shade of red and there was no stain glass window over the study. It felt like returning to her childhood home, only to find everything moved about, the furniture rearranged, the walls painted differently. She ran her fingers along the ornately papered wall as she walked down the hall, the golden designs feeling like Braille. Her eyes had dried—what good was there in crying now? After the past couple of months—the past few years—there was little left of the young actress from Montana who had boarded the S. S. Cathay, replaced by someone so much more… callous? No, not callous, there was too much hope, too much of the Green Lama’s influence in her to ever be callous. Maybe, she was just older.

  She found Evangl sitting with Marie in the parlor, the child cooing softly in her mother’s arms. Evangl couldn’t go back to the farm, not now, at least, and maybe not ever again. There was too much there, she had explained. Too much of him, of Omega; too much for her to ignore. All things considered, Evangl was holding up better than Jean could have expected, though there were still moments when she would retreat inside, when the pain became all too real. So they were here for now, for however long. And truth be told, Jean knew she would need the company, knowing that there was someone near who had been through it all with her, someone she could confide in and know that she was, at the very least, not mad.

  “Hey, there little lady. How are you?” Jean whispered to Marie, leaning over Evangl to tickle the baby’s feet. “Look at those little toes! You’re getting so big.”

  Jean put her hand on Evangl’s shoulder and the two women shared a melancholy smile.

  “How was he?” Evangl asked.

  “You’re welcome to stay here as long as you need,” Jean said in response.

  Evangl nodded in understanding. “I know.” She adjusted Marie’s blanket. “Tsarong was looking for you.”

  “Was he now?”

  “He’s over in the study.” Evangl nodded over to the door across the hall. “I think he’s talking to himself.”

  “Hoo boy,” Jean sighed. “Last thing we need is Tsarong of all people going senile.”

  She walked into the study, the shadows somehow deeper despite the dozen butter candles illuminating the book-lined room. Tsarong stood at the edge of the room, facing the darkness.

  “Tsarong?”

  The old Tibetan man turned to face her, the lines on his face crevices in the candlelight. He seemed to have aged a century since Jethro’s capture; his posture increasingly hunched, his skin paper-thin, his hands shaking with frailty. “How are you, Miss Farrell?”

  “I’ve been better,” Jean admitted. “You didn’t say goodbye to Jethro.”

  Tsarong took a slow breath and gave her a distant smile. “We had our moment earlier. There were some arrangements he asked me to make and I was more than happy to oblige.”

  “How old are you, Tsarong?”

  He hesitated only briefly. “Eight hundred and ninety-two. A happy side effect of a vegetarian diet and the Jade Tablet. I must confess with some pride, I look fairly good for my age. But, now…” He looked off in the distance and shrugged.

  Jean’s heart fluttered. “Does that mean Jethro will…”

  Tsarong shook his head. “After everything that’s happened, who’s to say?”

  “In the hospital, you said it was a lower dose of the radioactive salts…” Jean’s throat was impossibly dry. She stepped toward Tsarong. “You lied to me.”

  Tsarong smiled wanly. “This is true, but we had no doubt you could handle the responsibility.”

  “We?” Jean asked. It was only then that she noticed the woman standing beside her. Jean jumped back. “Magga? Jesus, it is you.”

  Another Buddhist vigilante, Magga had aided Jethro long before Jean had joined up but it had been over a year since Jean had seen her. The woman nodded, her face shifting beneath the shadows. One moment she was an old woman, another a young blonde, in the next, a beautiful brunette, and between Jean could see faint green flames, a gold crown of flowers, and skin like jade. There was something familiar about her, Jean realized, not simply from their shared history, but somewhere else, an image Jethro had shown her of a goddess seated on a throne.

  “Haven’t seen you around a lot these days,” Jean managed to say.

  “My role has always been in the shadows, but more so of late,” Magga replied, her voice shifting along with her visage. It was beautiful, like a song.

  “Did you know all of this would happen? The infection, Jethro’s possession? All the horrors we faced, you saw it all coming and did nothing?”

  Magga shook her head. “Time is a fluid thing, a lake, a river, and an ocean all at once. We can see the waves, but never know how or when they will reach the shore. As I have told Jethro so many times before, I am simply the Revealer of the Secret Paths. I am a guide, but even I do not always know the destination.”

  Jean arched an eyebrow. “So why are you here?”

  “Because now,” Magga said, stepping forward, “I’m here to guide you.”

  • • •

  KEN STOOD by the doorway of his apartment—a quaint affair in the Upper West Side—anxiously adjusting his suit, his tie, his cufflinks. Ken wasn’t sure if his guest would actually show. It had been a leap of faith in a letter, a bit of hope after so much horror. And even after Ken had received the response, he could barely hold onto the belief that it all might come true. He checked himself in the mirror four times, fixing every stray hair he could find. Or maybe he could just—

  Someone knocked at the door. Ken rolled his shoulders back and stood up straight. He ran his hands over his suit, his waistcoat, and once more over his hair. He walked over to the door, took one last breath and swung it open. A handsome man stood on the other side, hat in hand. He had short-cropped black hair, day old stubble covering his face. His custom-made suit hinted at his muscled physique.

  He was beautiful.

  Ken cleared his throat. “Hello, Benn,” he said quietly. “How have you been?”

  Without so much as a word, Benn stepped forward, wrapped his arms around Ken, and pressed their lips together. Benn’s unshaven chin scratched against Ken’s and for the first time in years, Ken was home.

  • • •

  A FEW WEEKS later, Captain John Caraway strolled into the briefing room. Captain. The title still felt odd on him, but it did feel good. Woods had brought him back on the force reluctantly, promoting him in a political move to keep Kirkpatrick happy. And far be it from Caraway to complain about seeing Woods squirm. They had even given him back the Special Crime Squad. Lord, he hadn’t realized how much he missed it. More than anything, he liked the way Helen pronounced “Captain,” when she fixed his tie in the morning. He rubbed his cheeks, feeling the warmth under his skin. Maybe Ken had been right, maybe there could be something more there, someday.

  He walked into the squad room, the men yelling at one another like kids in a locker room. Caraway slammed his folders onto the table for effect rather than anger. “All right. Sit down. Shut up. You know the way it works.” He cleared his throat. He flipped open the first folder and quickly read over the briefing. “So, word around town is Pete Barry’s old gang—you remember them—have started working under his old muscle Johnny Pomatto. You remember him, they called him ‘Wits’ for the sake of irony. They haven’t taken a name, but I’m sure they will come up with something stupid sooner rather than later, especially in this city.”

  “Good thing the Natives Mafia is already taken!” Fulton said from the other side of the room, eliciting a number of guffaws from his fellow officers.

  “Yeah, yeah, bunch of white boys dressing up in feathers and loin cloths is always funny, even if it’s incredibly offensive,” Caraway grumbled. “We also got some info
rmation on some Fifth Columnist cells in the area. Agents Greg Kenyon and Shirley Flagg might be making an appearance on behalf of the FBI. And, if I see anyone trying to get Agent Flagg’s number—again—they’ll be hearing from me.”

  Heidelberger raised his hand, looking more like himself than he had weeks ago. “Sir? There’s a rumor going around that the Green Lama’s been jumpin’ rooftops again, despite, you know, being dead.”

  Caraway raised his eyebrows in suspicion. “That so? I’ll believe it when I see it.”

  “Some of Phil Daley’s old boys say they were taken down by some guy dressed in a green hood,” Wayland added with a shrug. “Coulda been the Lama.”

  “Could also just be some guy in a hood, you ever consider that?” Detective Crevier asked, playing with the scar on his cheek. “When it comes to vigilantes, copycats are a dime a dozen. You remember how many guys we had running around with a black fedora and trench coat back in the day? Wouldn’t be surprised if this guy is using two ‘L’s’.”

  “End of the day, boy-os, costumed vigilantes are a way of life in this town. Green Lama or not, it’s just something we’re gonna have to deal with.” Something moved in the corner of his eye and Caraway looked over to the window to find a crouched, cloaked figure watching him from the fire escape. Caraway could just make out the figure’s face beneath the shadow before it disappeared. Caraway fought back a smile and turned back to his men.

  “All right, kids. What’re you waiting for? Go out there and save the day.”

  • • •

  MURDOCH was drunk; had been for weeks. With little of the Facility surviving Valco’s bomb, there was little to no evidence of Murdoch’s involvement with the Collective—which by all accounts “didn’t exist.” He had been interrogated by Dumont, by Caraway, by the government, and Murdoch told them all he knew, giving names, figures, anything they could. But that didn’t wipe the slate clean, it didn’t correct the past—time couldn’t be rewritten. Murdoch was left with the memories and the guilt, flooding his mind like a malignant black cancer.