“If that is so, Heydrich, then how do you plan on controlling them?”
“It will not be a matter of control. Rather, it will be a matter of common goals.”
“And what goals are those?”
“Conquer the world, of course,” Heydrich said.
“With the Führer on the throne, of course.”
Heydrich’s smile thinned. “Of course.”
“Ironic isn’t it, then, that Hirsch wanted the same thing?”
The Nazi mystic eyed Gan suspiciously. “Yes. I suppose it is. It is unfortunate that he did not share our vision.”
“Mein Gott,” Gottschalk said moments later, watching the spectacle above. “We are living in a fantasy. This is not possible.”
“Oh, it is quite possible, sir,” Heydrich said. “Just because you do not see the seams in the world does not mean they do not exist.”
An explosion sounded from the sky, and the silver plane lost its right propeller in a flash of fire. Two small dots flew away from the damaged plane. His heart racing, Gan knew what it meant.
Heydrich smiled broadly, black ooze leaking through his teeth. “It seems we won’t have to worry about our friends much longer.”
Smoke trailed out from the ship’s engine as it dove toward the ocean. Creatures of all shapes and horrors came at it from every angle, ruining the once proud machine. Gan followed its descent until it fell behind the towers of R’lyeh, wincing at the explosion that echoed out seconds later.
A shadow fell over them. Looking up, they watched Nyarlathotep descend, tossing a pile of green cloths before them. “Gentlemen,” the ancient creature said with relish, his new face cracked like old paint. “I present to you, Jethro Dumont, the Green Lama.”
Gan knelt down and pulled aside the hood, his stomach dropping as he revealed Dumont’s face.
“Is he alive?” Gottschalk asked.
“For now,” Heydrich answered wickedly.
• • •
Pain. White, searing pain.
Someone was shouting. “Move, move, move!!”
“She’s bleeding, she’s bleeding!”
Water, knee deep and rising.
“Wake up, come on! Wake up!”
Someone grabbed her, lifted her out of her seat.
“Toss the raft out! Quickly!”
She could hear whispers, voices beneath the shouting, familiar, almost human.
“Caraway! Come on, dammit!”
“I ain’t goin’ in there unarmed!”
“You wait any longer you’re gonna be stayin’ here!”
Her vision was blurred and red. “What…?” she groaned.
“Ken! Ken, you got her?”
“I got her. Christmas, how does someone so thin weigh so much?”
“Prometheus,” she murmured.
“Hang in there, Jean. We’re almost out of here.”
She was floating, the sun above her, the blue sky littered with black swarms. A sharp shadow fell over her. Tilting her head up she gazed up at the monolith and murmured, “R’lyeh.”
• • •
“This thing just keeps going from bad to worse,” Caraway said, as they paddled away from the crash. Bits of flaming wreckage floated by while the plane gurgled down to a watery grave.
Rick let out a gruff laugh as he paddled forward. “You think this is bad, you shoulda seen what me and Twin Eagle went through in India. The Thugee are no joke. How’s our girl doing?” he asked Ken.
Her head resting in his lap, Ken cleaned the wound on Jean’s forehead with a torn handkerchief. Frowning, he said: “In and out. I can hear her murmur something every so often, but other than that…” He shook his head.
“Jean’s a tough girl. She’ll pull through,” Caraway said. He shielded his eyes as he looked up at the walled structure floating in front of them. “Hopefully, before we get inside the city.”
“And how do we plan on doing that exactly?” Rick asked.
“The Gates,” Jean groaned, her voice monotone. “Through the Gates, with the broken key.”
“Oh, boy,” Rick sighed. “She’s talking crazy.”
Her eyes fluttered open as she shook her head, tentatively placing a hand on the wound on her forehead. “You’re all heart, Masters,” she said groggily as she propped herself up on her elbows.
“You okay, Red?” Ken asked.
“Head’s killing me,” she said, rubbing her temples. “Not sure if it’s the gash, the voices running around inside my skull, the Tablets, or all of the above.” She leaned forward and brought out the two glowing Jade Tablets from their respective bags. Her brow furrowed as she lifted the Tablets and looked over their engraved surfaces. “I’m gonna vote all of the above.”
Ken bit his lip nervously. “This like the time you heard the voices at the Rabbi’s?”
Jean nodded slowly. “Kinda, except it’s a bit more… refined. I can sorta understand them a bit better.”
Rick raised an eyebrow. “You’re hearing voices?”
“Something like that,” Jean replied. “Call ’em visions.”
“Because that’s better?”
“Listen, buddy, I’ve been to the future and back. I’ve seen how bad things get if we screw the pooch. This precognition—or whatever you wanna call it—might be the only thing we have to win this,” she shot back.
Rick rolled his eyes. “No offense, lady, I’ve been up and down this globe, but hokey religions and weird visions are no match for a good pistol at your side.”
“You’d think, by now, you’d take a leap of faith,” Ken said sharply. “Talk to us, Red, how do we get in?”
Jean shrugged. “How do you think? The front entrance.”
• • •
By his count there were a little over a hundred Nazis on the narrow coral platform before the immense black gates; a U-Boat docked nearby. Nyarlathotep and Heydrich stood closest to the entrance, the Green Lama unconscious at their feet. Moving back around the corner, Ken related this to the others.
“Do you see Vasili?” Caraway asked.
Ken shook his head. “If he’s there, they’re hiding him pretty good.”
“Probably in the U-boat,” Jean observed. “Keeping him close to the vest, so to speak. What about Gan?”
“Looks like he’s got a bad limp,” Ken nodded. “But, other than that, he’s seems okay.”
Caraway huffed, his fingers finding his pistol. “Give me a clear shot and he won’t be much longer.”
Jean eyed Caraway. “John, if it weren’t for him, none of us would have made it out of the ruins alive.”
“Tell that to Sotiria,” Caraway bit back.
“Let’s see if we can get closer,” Rick said. “Maybe we can do something to stop them before they get inside.”
Jean shook her head. “We’re outnumbered at least five to one, not counting the creatures up there,” she said pointing her pistol to the sky. “We make any kinda fuss, we’re dead. But some more reconnaissance won’t hurt, that way if anything goes down we’ll be ready for it.”
“What do you think is gonna happen?” Ken asked Jean.
“Hopefully not the end of the world.”
• • •
“The Gates of R’lyeh,” Nyarlathotep breathed. He pressed his hand against the cold black coral. “How many millennia have passed since I last gazed upon you? So much power within, begging to be released.” He half-turned to Heydrich and extended his other hand. “Karl, the Shard, if you will.”
Heydrich removed the Shard from its scabbard. Bowing his head, he silently handed it to Nyarlathotep.
Looking at the Nazi forces, Nyarlathotep smiled. “My friends! In my previous form I promised you power unimaginable. I promised you the keys to the kingdom. I promised you the world. And though my face has changed, I fully intend to stand by my word.” Nyarlathotep drove the Shard into a hidden keyhole, sliding the crystalline blade all the way in up to the hilt. A loud hum echoed through the air as the gateway began to open inwards an
d inhuman screams echoed out. Several Nazi soldiers inched back toward the U-boat, shooting into the shadowed innards of the city out of instinct. Gan could feel his heart hammer against his chest. His hands shook uncontrollably.
Nyarlathotep removed the Shard and handed it back to Heydrich. Throwing his arms out he turned to the Nazis. “Now, my friends, come and see the power that is Cthulhu.”
• • •
“Plan,” Ken whispered as they watched Nyarlathotep drag the Green Lama into the city, closely followed by Heydrich and a large contingent of Nazis. “Please tell me someone has a plan.”
“Jean,” Caraway said, chewing the inside of his cheek. “You’re our local prophet, what do we do now?”
“What’ve we got to work with?” she asked, gesturing at the small stash of weaponry they had freed from the plane.
“Six pistols, some additional ammo, two grenades,” Caraway enumerated. “Not enough to stop Armageddon, but enough to keep us fighting.”
Nodding, Jean quickly devised a plan. “Okay. We’ll do this in teams of two and split everything up evenly, three guns per pair, one grenade each. John, you and Rick take the raft and the Second Tablet around to get inside the U-boat, see if you can find Vasili,” she said as she checked her pistols. “He’s the last piece of the puzzle. We get him, we’ve got a shot at stopping this thing.”
“What about you and Clayton?” Rick asked.
“Ken and I are taking the Third Tablet and going after Jethro,” she replied.
“Flip that around,” Rick said. “It’ll be safer for you out here.”
“’Fraid I can’t handle it ’cause I’m a woman? That what you’re trying to get at, Masters? Don’t forget you’re still new to this dance and you still don’t know the steps. Follow my lead and you might make it out of this alive.” Jean said quietly and evenly. “And the next time you even insinuate I can’t handle something ’cause I’m a woman, you’ll be two balls short. We clear?”
Rick blinked and quickly nodded in understanding.
“Good,” Jean said before briskly turning away.
“Wow,” Rick whispered. “Bit of a pistol, isn’t she?”
Ken smiled. “That’s why we love her.”
“And where do we find you?” Caraway asked after Jean.
“Follow the sound of gunfire,” she said without looking back. “We’ll probably be at the center of it.”
• • •
Jethro awoke in darkness. It wasn’t just the absence of light—he couldn’t open his eyes. Nor could he hear, smell, taste or even speak, as though his mind was cut off from most of his body. He could still feel, however, the one sense that refused to be dampened. Pain radiated out from his bones, his muscles rang in agony. This sensation, more than anything, assured him that he was, at least for the moment, still alive, which meant there was still time however brief. He was being dragged, that much he could determine, his body scraped against the jagged yet slimy ground, the harsh surface ripping into his skin.
The last thing he remembered was seeing the plane’s propellers explode. Had the others survived? And if they had, what then? While he didn’t doubt Rick’s capabilities, what would they do once they landed? Discounting R’lyeh, they were near the Pacific pole of inaccessibility, over a thousand miles from the nearest landmass. They couldn’t escape, which meant they had only one option.
They were going to try and save him.
Though it filled him with dread, he was admittedly unsurprised. He had allied himself with Caraway, Ken, Rick and especially Jean because of their heart and strength of will. All of them had chosen to risk their lives, despite all logic time and time again, simply to do what was right. He still recalled, with some amusement, watching Jean run into a room full of mobsters without hesitation, guns blazing. She would no doubt be leading the charge into R’lyeh.
In fact, she always would, Jethro realized. No matter what would happen, Jean Farrell would always be there, not just for him, but also for anyone who might need her. She was brash and bullheaded, but she always aimed true. It was in part why he loved her, her inherent selflessness, a trait many Buddhists spent decades working to achieve.
And yet… What would that mean should they survive this? What sort of life would they have together? What sort of sacrifices would they be forced to make?
Before his mind could go any further, he felt something suddenly dig into the skin of his right hand, trying to pry the Jade Tablet loose. As flesh was ripped from bone, even his thoughts were screams.
• • •
“Where do you think they’re taking him?” Ken asked Jean as they moved through the city’s dark, narrow, and ever curving streets. The streets and the towers around them were silent, seemingly devoid of any recognizable form of life, but Jean and Ken were no less wary.
“To the temple,” Jean whispered. “Where Cthulhu sleeps.”
“And where will that be?”
“If you were an ancient alien god and the leader of a million year old cult where would you want your house to be?”
“The center.”
“Exactly. That way everything’s leading to you,” she said peeking around a corner. “Quick, head into that alleyway.” She indicated the shadowed passage to their right, the walls of the surrounding buildings curling over like frozen waves.
“What is this place made of?” Ken asked once they were undercover. He peered closely at the strange material that made up the textured walls around them. He tentatively ran his fingers over the undulating surface, brining them back coated in slime. “It’s like some kind of color out of space. It doesn’t even look like this stuff was even built. More like it was grown. And crazy as it sounds, I think this city is bigger on the inside than it was from the outside. It took us, what, five minutes to circle it in the raft? We’ve been running through this maze for almost thirty minutes now. How can that be— ”
Jean pressed her hand over his mouth. “Ken,” she whispered. “As much I love your musings, I really need you to stop talking.”
Ken nodded in understanding. Pointing their pistols at the entrance to the alleyway, they waited in silence as something large slithered closer. Sweat trickled down Ken’s forehead while Jean carefully cocked her pistols.
A long, faintly luminescent protoplasmic tentacle rounded the corner, the end of which bubbled out and split open to reveal a hateful green and yellow eye.
“Aw hell,” Ken groaned. “More monsters.”
“Go go go!” Jean shouted, pulling Ken away from the entrance as a fifteen foot amorphous creature flowed into the alleyway, multiple eyes forming and un-forming as it rushed toward them. Two mandibles extended out from the gelatinous mass, striking at their heels, shattering the ground.
“I’m going back into acting,” Ken screamed as they ran. “No more of this adventure shit ever again, I swear to God!”
“Ken,” Jean shouted, vainly firing behind her. “Shut up!”
• • •
“Wo ist der Bank, bitte?” someone called from the entryway.
The soldier walked up to the ladder and looked up through the portal. “Was hast Du gerade gesagt?”Aloud pop! echoed down as a bloody hole appeared in the soldier’s forehead. He dropped to the ground, dead.
“What did you ask him?” Rick asked Caraway as they slid down the ladder.
“I wanted to know where I could find the bank. I think,” Caraway replied as he stole a Lüger off the dead trooper. “One of my officers taught me a little German while I was working with Gan, but he didn’t know that much.”
“I know some French, but I doubt that’ll be any help right now.”
Caraway shrugged. “Eh, try it out. Might throw them into a tizzy.”
“Heh,” Rick chuckled. “Why the hell not? Je pars chez les Boches me taper leurs putes!” he shouted.
Instantly, two German soldiers appeared in the narrow hallway, both of whom Rick and Caraway quickly dispatched.
“That was easy,” Caraway laughe
d. “What did you say?”
“It’s not exactly a sentence if I clean it up,” Rick smiled wickedly.
Caraway raised a quizzical eyebrow; then, when Rick translated, “Jeez, if I was them I would have wanted to kill you, too.”
“Huh, yeah,” Rick chuckled. “I get that a lot. Come on, let’s find your boy.”
• • •
“I don’t care what you smell, just get in there!” Jean shouted as she kicked Ken into a large shaft.
Glancing back over her shoulder she saw the gelatinous creature slither around the corner, its glowing green eyes staring at her. A mouth formed, a gaping hole filled with garish, razor sharp teeth, chomping down. As it lunged toward her, it howled, “Shhhhoggggooooth!”
Without hesitating, Jean fired, one of its eyes exploding in a mess of greenish-black goo. She jumped down the shaft backwards, her pistol trained on the opening as she slid into darkness. Seconds later, the creature burst into the narrow tube after her. Shooting the beast had proven futile, and with her bullets running low, her options were limited. Eyeing a small crack running down the ceiling of the pipe’s coral-like structure, Jean fired a single shot at the fracture. The break quickly spread, crumbling up before ultimately crashing down onto the amorphous monster.
“Woo!” she exclaimed with a cocked grin as the creature exploded beneath shattered rock. Her expression quickly changed as the ceiling continued to crumble, huge chunks of coral tumbling down after her. “Aw, shit.”
• • •
“Come on, wake up,” Caraway said, lightly slapping Vasili on the cheeks while Rick undid his bindings.
“John?” Vasili groaned. “John, is that you?”
Caraway smiled sadly, remembering how much this man had recently lost. “Yup, it’s me, in the flesh.”
“My head…” Vasili squeezed his eyes shut, visibly in pain. “…Where am I?”
Caraway glanced up at the low ceiling. “A German U-Boat. Submarine, as we Yanks like to call ’em.”
“All right, he’s good,” Rick said as he removed the last of the bindings before moving to guard the exit.
The Green Lama: Unbound (The Green Lama Legacy Book 3) Page 26