“Might as well,” Gary said with a shrug as if he’d been asked to paint the walls.
Evangl unconsciously stroked his arm. “Baby, are you sure you—?”
“Whatever this thing is, it killed my mother, right?” Gary said quietly to the floor. “There’s no way in hell I’m sitting this one out.”
“Wait, wait, wait,” Woods interjected with a sudden, unearned sense of command. “Lieutenant Caraway, neither of them are police officers.” He pointed at Evangl. “And she’s a woman.”
“Thank you for noticing.”
Caraway gave Evangl a stern look that told her to let him steer the conversation. “Is there going to be a problem, Commissioner?”
Woods’s face grew crimson. ’“Is there going to be a problem?! ’You can’t just take civilians along with you just because you feel like it!”
“Oh, there’s nothing civilized about any of the men I work with, especially Heidelberger. But, outside my parents, these folks are the bravest couple I’ve ever met. I trust them with my life. Well, with her, at least, him, maybe. You know my history with the Big Green Buddhist; these two have been around for most of it, so I can tell you they’ve got more backbone than anyone I ever met. And more to the point, he just lost his mother to this mess, so I wouldn’t stand in his way. And I definitely wouldn’t stand in mine.”
Woods thrust his chin forward. “That’s insubordination, Lieutenant.”
“If this was the military, you’d be right, Sir,” Caraway calmly replied as he walked out the door. “But last I checked this isn’t the army. There’s a giant explosion blasting out from downtown and, between the two of us, only you pissed yourself. So, unless you have anything to add, I’m going try and save the day.”
“Jesus, John,” Evangl whispered once they were out of earshot. “How are you so calm?”
Caraway furrowed his brow as the voices sang. “Calm? I’m goddamn terrified.”
• • •
Betty jumped from her seat as the fireball punched through the clouds. She stepped toward the window in awe, the tiny hairs on her arm standing on end. It didn’t take an award-winning reporter to figure something big was happening, but her gut told it was deeper than that. She could feel it in her bones, like an oncoming storm, threatening the very fabric of the world.
“What the hell is that?” she whispered.
Tsarong walked up beside her, his face a slate of virgin stone. “The beginning, coming too soon. Where are you going, Miss Dale?”
“Giant fireball in the middle of downtown?” she said as she raced toward the elevator. “There’s no way I’m not going to go find out what it is. And while you’re clearly in the know, you’re dead set on keeping cliché and playing mysterious assistant, so I’ll solve this one on my own.”
“Are you sure that’s wise?” Tsarong said levelly
“Look, buddy, I appreciate what you’re trying to do, keeping me here so I can’t reveal your boss’s big, equally clichéd secret. But, if you were going to kill me, let’s be honest, you would have already. Right now, there’s a—” She threw an irritated gesture at the window. “A crisis and it’s my job as a reporter to make sure the people get all the facts. As to your green robed friend, well, that will have to wait for the time being, and when the time comes for me to write the words ‘Jethro Dumont is the Green Lama,’ and I will, we’ll talk then. Sound fair?”
Tsarong took her measure and walked over to the golden Buddha tucked into the far bookshelf. He reached over the statue and Betty heard a small click. A low whirring sound emanated from the wall as the statue swung away to reveal a hidden safe. Tsarong dialed in a set of six numbers, opened the safe, and handed her a small vial of greenish-white crystals.
“What is this?”
“Ordinary table salt,” Tsarong replied.
“Ordinary table salt?”
“Irradiated with a host of particles,” he added as he closed up the safe and replaced the statue. “That is just his typical batch, his enhanced selection… He’ll need those for another day.”
“You realize everything you just said sounds insane,” she said, incredulous.
“Insane is outside, Miss Dale. This will help even the odds.”
“You expect me to believe that salt will help Dumont fight whatever it is that’s happening.”
Tsarong nodded. “That is my hope.”
“And you trust me… Why?”
“You are not the only one who enjoys investigation, Miss Dale…” He placed his hands behind his back and walked deliberately toward her. “Nor am I the only one who keeps the company of those who work in shadows and masks.”
Betty suddenly felt incredibly small. No one knew about him, he was a secret. An agent for the Hidden… “How could you know?”
Tsarong gave her a cryptic grin. “Pardon me for keeping cliche, but we all have secrets Miss Dale, and unfortunately, I know yours.”
“Fine.” She wrapped her fingers around the vial. “I’ll help Dumont, but just this once. And don’t be mistaken, this isn’t over.”
“I wouldn’t imagine it,” Tsarong replied, bowing his head. “Now, don’t you have somewhere to be?”
Betty was out the door before he could say otherwise. He turned back to the window and sighed. “If it isn’t too late already.”
• • •
Ken ducked into a passageway as the explosion blasted through the sewer. He shielded his eyes with his arm and tried not to scream as the fire rushed past like an illuminated wind. He felt his skin begin to bum when the fire snapped away like rubber, sucking the air from his lungs.
“What the hell was that?” he swore to himself, gasping for breath. The edges of his jacket were singed and steaming, while bits of his hair were cracked and burnt, crinkling between his fingers.
Sweat beaded his forehead, threatening to trickle into his eyes. It had been hours since he had climbed into the sewers and he was still no closer to finding Jean. He had heard screams and laughter echo through the tunnels, throwing him around in circles as he tried to trace their origin. The concussion flamed in the back of his mind, begging him for rest, but Ken fought his way to his feet. Jean needed him and it would take a lot more than a crack to the head or an explosion to stop him from saving her.
There was a part of him that loved the thrill of it, but that didn’t stop the nightmares, the midnight hours where he woke up screaming. Forget about the impossible, Ken had begun to deal with the implausible on a daily basis. He was Dorothy in the tornado, or some other literary analogy he couldn’t remember. He didn’t belong here; he was supposed to be—
Footsteps echoed from around the corner and his doubts melted away. An ancient part of his mind, the part that still feared the dark, stormed in protest, begging him to scamper away and hide. But he tightened his grip while his finger kissed the trigger. He steeled his face, another performance for another stage; the only applause would be the satisfaction of survival. He’d call it the literal performance of his life if it weren’t so damn cliché.
The curtain was rising and the shadows closing in.
Time to play hero.
He rushed forward when a bullet whistled past his head. Instinctually dropping to the ground, Ken twisted mid-fall and fired at his shadowed assailant as he splashed into the putrid water. But the bullet went wild, raining bits of brick into the air. His fingers slick, his vision blurred, he struggled to cock back the hammer when his attacker shouted: “What the hell, Clayton?!”
Ken wiped the sludge from his eyes as Jean Farrell stepped into view. Like him, her clothes and hair were singed from the explosion, but despite some cuts and bruises, she seemed, thankfully, unharmed.
“I think that’s pretty obvious!” Ken shouted back.
“You’re pointing a gun at me!”
“And you’re pointing one at me!” he retorted, indicating the pistol still aimed at his head.
“Like you’ve never had a gun pointed at you,” she commented dryly as she lo
wered her weapon. “I could’ve killed you.”
“Yeah, well, I could have killed you.”
“You keep telling yourself that,” she said without bravado as she helped him out of the filth.
Before Jean could react, Ken pulled her into his arms and pressed her close until he was certain she was real. “I was worried sick about you.”
“Never worry about a redhead in danger, Blondie,” she said, returning the embrace. “We’re vicious when cornered, deadly when threatened, and vaguely witty in conversation.”
“You promise you’re all right?”
“Far as I can tell,” she shrugged. “You followed me all the way to the sewer?”
“Your kidnapper was bleeding pretty profusely.”
“We do make a ruckus don’t we?” she chuckled sardonically. “Have you seen Dumont?”
“Dumont? The first thing you ask me about is Jethro Dumont. Look at me!” He puffed out his chest defiantly. “Women would pay top dollar to see me doing something this impressive!”
“And you are Oscar worthy,” she said, patting him on the shoulder before explaining Dumont’s capture and their eventual escape. Ken felt dizzy listening to her story, less from the concussion and more from that pervasive sense of spinning in the tornado. He had seen the bullet slice through the man’s stomach, had felt his strength firsthand, but even as Jean detailed the horror of the bloody couple, Ken couldn’t fight the feeling that he had somehow been unseated from reality and found his way into fiction.
“They kidnapped Jethro Dumont,” he said once Jean had finished. “Why the hell would they kidnap Jethro Dumont?”
“Got me. Though color me impressed that Lothario decided to go hero. Brave son of a bitch,” Jean added under her breath as she gazed back the way she came. She looked to Ken. “He won’t be able to last too long without our help.
What do you say, Clayton, want to go to fight some monsters?”
“Isn’t that why we’re here?” he said nonchalantly, sounding braver than he felt.
“That’s my boy,” Jean said proudly, raising her diminutive gun. “Come on, let’s go save the day.”
• • •
“I know it’s terrifying, but that doesn’t mean you can’t drive me downtown!” Betty angrily slammed her palm against the roof of the taxi. “I’m a paying customer, dammit! You see this? It’s a cool twenty, you barely make that in a day!”
“Lady, the only place I’m heading is off this goddamn island,” the cabbie said gruffly his eyes glassy with panic.
“Jerk!” she shouted, futilely kicking at the cab’s bumper as he sped off. Overhead the clouds began to shift back to normal, though the pinprick hole was still visible, like the aftermath of a storm. Around her, small streams of frightened people flowed uptown encumbered by large jetties of slack-jawed gawkers waiting for another performance. Maybe city living simply made you jaded, she wondered. After surviving countless near devastations, most people simply stopped caring, grabbed the popcorn, and waited for the fireworks to start.
“Such a crazy thing, n’est-ce pas?” a dark-skinned man calmly said to her. He was leaning against the lamppost, his French accent oddly more disconcerting than the explosion downtown. He was wearing a dark blue pea coat and a knit cap on his head. A simple curved piped clamped between his teeth. He was handsome, his eyes narrow and piercing in their subtlety. “Almost feels like the end of the world.”
“Oh, it’s never that bad” she said dismissively “Sure, we’ll say it in the paper—nothing looks better than ’End of the World’ in big block letters—but this city? This is just a normal Tuesday. Or Wednesday… Actually, I’m not sure what day it is.”
He puffed his pipe thoughtfully. “We like to pretend we let it roll off our shoulders, but perhaps there are breaking points, even for New York. I met a boy this morning, found him swimming in the Hudson, no memory of how he got there, then something inside him snapped. He ran, where I do not know. Then, I see this,” he gestured to the clouds, “and my gut says, perhaps this is all part of one thing, part of something much larger, like a story with many parts, told out of order and cobbled together as an afterthought. I start wondering where we all fit in, if we ever make a difference or if we’re simply ants watching children burn us beneath the magnifying glass.”
“Probably just another rich boy playing the game of gods,” she said. “That’s what it usually is. Mystery men who think they can help decide our fates, especially when we don’t ask.”
“Well, based on your argument with the cabbie, I guess you need a ride downtown, oui?”
“You have a car?”
The man smiled. “Is that so strange?”
• • •
“You wanna tell me why I can’t send my boys down there?” Fire Chief Langer asked as Caraway approached, tossing a thumb over to the still smoldering crater a few yards away.
“It’s a crime scene, Danny. That puts it under my jurisdiction for the time being.”
“That’s a load of horseshit and you know it, Caraway. Fire before crime, that’s how it goes. It’s simple damn luck the explosion didn’t hit the gas line and blow up some damn orphanage. For all we know it could happen at any time. So, unless you plan on arresting the busted gas main, you should leave this to the boys who actually fight fires.”
“So far as I see, there’s nothing on fire at the moment, which means you’ve got nothing to do.”
“Eat me, Lieutenant.”
Caraway sighed. “Look, I can’t get into specifics, this being an ongoing investigation, but we have reason to believe this is tied to the Bartlett.”
Langer’s walrus mustache bristled and shifted over his ruddy, bloated face. “How the hell you figure that?”
“Like I said, ongoing investigation. But,” he placed a hand on Langer’s shoulder, “if you boys wanna head down there and see what’s going on…”
Langer held up his hands in defeat. “All right, all right, I get your point. You wanna play hero with your gang of merry men, be my guest. Come on, boys, let’s give the Lieutenant some room.”
Unable to climb down the small crater, Caraway waved Sergeant Wayland over and the two lifted a manhole cover aside. A plume of smoke wafted up, but Caraway ignored the slight burning in his lungs. He was listening to the voices from the Bartlett humming in his ear, telling him he was close, not too far now… She was down there. The Keystone, right there for the taking… The now familiar sensation of something climbing up his back inched higher. Caraway clamped his jaw shut to stop the chattering, feeling everything freeze inside him. He gazed down at the darkness and idly scratched at the wound on his cheek.
He heard Evangl in the distance. “John?”
“What is it, Evangl?” Caraway asked drowsily.
“Your cheek…”
Caraway’s eyes fluttered as he touched his face and was numbly shocked to find the tip of his finger coated with blood. “Hm,” he sounded, wiping the wound with his handkerchief.
“John, are you—” she said, unable to hide her concern.
“Wayland, I want at least five men round the clock, guns ready. I don’t want anyone not wearing a uniform within ten feet of this place. And if something big and scary comes out, I want you to turn it into a pencil. Unless it’s us, in which case I want five bars of soap, ten buckets of hot water, and at least six towels on hand.” He turned to Gary and Evangl and let the man beneath the bravado briefly appear. “You ready for this?”
“Oh, yeah. It’s just like old times,” Gary said, his gaze burning down into the sewer.
“But a bit more scary and smelly,” Evangl added, holding her hand over her nose.
Caraway wanted to give them a reassuring smile, but even that seemed difficult. He took off his fedora instead. “As long as we’re on the same page then.”
They climbed in one after another until Caraway was left above ground once again staring down at the abyss. The murmurs grew louder, until they were almost screams; while the cold
grip on his spine began to scratch against the inside of his ribs. The Keystone. They wanted the Keystone… His vision tunneled and his body swayed forward, preparing to take the leap—
“Everything all right, Sir?”
Caraway blinked as if he had been caught dozing off in class and saw Wayland and the remaining collection of the Special Crime Squad staring at him with concern. He cleared his throat and gave Wayland a reassuring slap on the shoulder and a broad smile. “Perfectly fine, Evan. Just another day at the office.”
Wayland risked an apprehensive smile. “Of course, Boss. Just another day.”
After Caraway dropped down into the sewer Wayland looked to Heidelberger and asked, “Is it me or did his eyes seem really black all of the sudden?”
Chapter 7
TERROR UNDERGROUND
“FREEDOM OF THE PRESS!” Sergeant Wayland slowly shook his giant ball of a head left then right. “Sorry, Miss Dale. Orders are orders. No one gets within two yards of this thing by order of Lieutenant Caraway of the Special Crime Squad. See, this is a Special Crime,” he said, capitalizing the words. “The sort that don’t make no sense.”
“Like I haven’t had my share of those? Come on, Wayland, you know me! Just tell me what the hell is going on!”
Wayland crossed his arms with finality. “Like I said, ’don’t make no sense.’”
“What is it? Robots? Mad scientist with a ray gun? The Fifth Column? I’ll keep rattling them off, blink when I get it right.”
“You keep asking, I’ll keep shaking my head.”
“Sounds dizzy.”
Frankie took her by the arm. “Come, Miss Dale. Clearly the officer’s hands are tied. Let’s not be a bother.”
“Biggest story of the damn year and I’m sidelined,” Betty cursed once they were down the block. “Jesus, now I know how Din feels over at the Planet” She could use a drink, even that bitter Manhattan she had at the Cafe Society seemed suddenly appealing. Instead, she stuffed her notebook into her purse and pulled out a cigarette in its place. “Thanks, Mr. Annor, but I’ll take it from here.”
The Green Lama: Scions (The Green Lama Legacy Book 1) Page 9