“About? Hm.” The Rabbi leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers together. “It’s not strictly a narrative, such as we see in the Torah,” he said after a moment, “if that’s what you’re asking. It’s more of a … speculation on Hashem, angels, and creation.”
Pali considered this. “Basically, trying to understand who we are and why,” he said as he returned to the book.
The Rabbi tilted his head up in thought, running a hand through his lengthy white beard, the flecks of red shimmering. “That is one way of looking at it, though it’s a bit more, hm… mystical than that.”
“Mystical?” Pali looked over at the Rabbi with subdued enthusiasm. “Like hocus pocus, you mean?”
The Rabbi clapped his hands together in amusement. “Heh, you have a sense of humor, Dr. Pali! I would not have guessed that. When I say mystical, I mean that the Sefer Yetzirah, in part, works to find meaning in numbers and words to fully understand the truth of creation. No, there is no hocus pocus, nor is there any abracadabra … per se.”
Pali leaned forward. “What do you mean by ‘per se’?”
The Rabbi hesitated, tilting his head toward the hallway door, as if he were listening to a distant sound of thunder in the distance. “Hm. Sounds like rain….” He cleared his throat and folded his hands in his lap before continuing. “There are those who believe that within the Book of Creation lies the secret to not only understand the power of Hashem—of God Himself—but to mimic it as well.”
“How do you mean?”
“Hm… Let me tell you the story of the Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel and the Avenger of Vltava.”
• • •
The last person they brought into the line-up had to crouch down just to make it through the door. As Caraway watched Officer Heidelberger—sporting an impressive shiner on his left eye—bring the last suspect over, he couldn’t help but notice how very small the uniformed officer really was; or at least how very, very tall their suspects were, all of whom stood well above the six-foot marker, save for “Wits” Pomatto, who had to sit in a small desk chair, a cast covering his foot.
“Buncha big suckers ya got there, Boss,” Sergeant Wayland said with a smirk, jowls jiggling as he walked into the room. “Hope ya didn’t have to work too… hard…” he trailed off as Caraway and Gan turned to face him and he saw the extent of their wounds. His eyes went wide and his gelatinous jaw hung open as he fumbled for an apology.
“Shut up, Wayland,” Caraway commanded.
“Uh, uh… Yes. Yes, sir,” Wayland mumbled into his hand, trying to cover his embarrassment with a cough or sneeze, unable to decide which, before finally deciding to stumble over into a darkened corner and remain silent.
Caraway looked over to Gan. “Your man ready?”
Gan glanced over his shoulder into an adjacent room. Johann sat silently at a small table, staring at his hands as he slowly rubbed them together. His eyes were vacant and lost.
“I hope so,” Gan said after some consideration. He turned to Caraway and lowered his voice. “I would prefer it if you would treat this a bit more delicately, Herr Leutnant. The young man has been through quite a bit these past few days.”
“Yeah, so have we.” Caraway gave Gan a meaningful look. “Look, I was there, you were there”—Caraway indicated the members of his Special Crime Squad—“we all were there: Horrors beyond belief. The sorta stuff they won’t even put in the funny books, and I personally don’t want to see them happening again in my lifetime. And after the crap we’ve had to put up with this week, I’d much rather get this over with as soon as possible. Don’t you agree? Bring your boy in,” Caraway said, gesturing for Gan to walk over.
Gan gave Caraway a stiff nod, and walked over to the young German officer in the other room. The officer—Caraway realized now, just a boy in a man’s uniform—almost jumped out of his chair when Gan placed a hand on his shoulder.
“Sind Sie bereit?” Gan said softly, with a gesture toward the door.
The boy nodded, slowly stood up, and walked over into the viewing room with Gan following a few steps behind. Johann stepped up to Caraway, puffed out his chest, and attempted to look him directly in the eye.
“I am ready, Sir,” Johann said with a heavy accent.
Caraway gave the boy a supportive nod. He had to admire Johann’s attempt at bravery. According to Gan, the boy’s survival was more than miraculous. Though they had found him hiding in the storage closet, pants soaked with urine, he had apparently fought bravely against the killer, firing every last bullet at him, to no avail. The killer had walked right up to Johann, stared at him with “empty eye sockets glowing green around the edges,” shoved him aside, and then tore the soldier standing next to him in half. Caraway considered this for a moment, wondering why he never thought about that before. Johann watched his friends get ripped in half right before his eyes. He tried to imagine living through that… The fact that the boy made it out with his mind intact was nothing short of a wonder.
“Do you understand what we need you to do now?” Caraway asked.
The boy nodded.
“Good.” Caraway looked to Gan, who led the boy over to the two-way mirror.
Johann stared at the line-up for few a moments before Gan leaned over and asked: “Ist einer hier der Angreifer des Konsulats?”
Johann turned to Gan, his face at once nervous, confused, and disappointed. “Nein,” he said quietly then turned to Caraway. “Nein.”
• • •
“The important thing to remember,” the Rabbi began, “is that Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel was a real person. What I’m about to tell you isn’t some fairy tale told to the young about fictional heroes and monsters like Dracula or Frankenstein—though I suppose it is close to the latter. What you have to remember is that while some facts do get lost or aggrandized over the long life of a legend, at the heart of it there is truth. Whether you choose to believe the story or not is inconsequential, as long as you acknowledge that in some abstract sense, this story did happen.
“Rabbi Loew lived in Prague during the late sixteenth century, when the Holy Roman Empire was under the rule of Emperor Rudolf the Second. While obsessed with the occult—he spent his whole life searching for the Philosopher’s Stone—Rudolf the Second was an anti-Semite… not too unlike Germany’s current ruler.” The Rabbi said with venom before trailing off. He stared into the distance, lost in thought.
“Sir?” Dr. Pali said uncertainly.
“I am sorry, Doctor. I’m afraid I lost myself for a moment,” the Rabbi said with a smile. “Such is the price of age. As I was saying, Rudolf was an anti-Semite and, in the spring of 1580, decreed that all the Jews in Prague were to be either expelled or killed. To protect the Jewish citizenry, Rabbi Loew looked into to the Sefer Yetzirah and found the instructions to do just that.”
“And what was that?”
“Life, Dr. Pali,” the Rabbi said, holding up a hand as if he were clutching an invisible orb. “Rabbi Loew created life.”
Chapter 8
A HORROR IN CLAY
“How in high holy hell can he not recognize any of them!?” Caraway slammed his fist onto his desk. “Not a single one!!!”
“I do not know what to tell you, Herr Leutnant. He said none of the suspects looked anything like the perpetrator. Even if the killer was, as you said, in disguise, we have no way of proving it was any of the men we arrested.”
Caraway massaged his throbbing, wounded head, readjusting the bandages as he did. Most of the Special Crime Squad had already trickled out to their respective homes. The remaining officers were carting off their numerous suspects to jail, using outstanding warrants and any number of legal loopholes to keep the criminals behind bars in the interim, just in case. The squad’s headquarters were left in near darkness, the sole illumination coming from the shuttered window of Caraway’s private office.
“I just don’t get it. Everyone we brought in—in one way or more—matched your boy’s description of the killer
. The height, the scarring—every single criminal more dangerous than the next.”
Gan nodded in affirmation and leaned back in his chair. He considered the mountain of files Caraway had his men draft up in a vain effort to find new suspects. “But what about the clay?” Gan asked after a moment. “The substance your associate the Green Lama stole from the crime scene?”
Caraway stared down at the ground, unconsciously rubbing his scarred forefinger. “What about it?”
“Just thinking aloud, if that is the right phrase.” Gan shrugged. “If the substance seemed important enough for the vigilante to abscond with it, I would have imagined you would be a bit more concerned about its origins. Have you heard from the man recently?” When Caraway refused to reply, Gan continued. “Hm. Clay that burns to the touch but gives off no heat. Have you ever heard of such a thing before?”
Caraway growled as he flopped down in his chair and threw his feet onto the table, but refused to reply.
“It seems almost … supernatural, don’t you think?”
“Supernatural,” Caraway grumbled as he pulled out a flask and two glasses from his desk drawer. He poured whiskey into each glass and slid one over to Gan. “You’re not gonna start talking about ghosts and vampires, are ya? I carry a pistol, not a wooden stake. Leave that sorta crap for the Old Country.”
“Heh,” Gan laughed softly, taking a sip of his whiskey. “No, nothing like that, Herr Leutnant. It’s just that … now that I think about it, there’s something about the clay that reminds me of a story I heard as a child—”
Caraway suddenly jumped out of his chair, his right hand falling to his holster, his eyes alert. “Shh!” he hissed, pressing a finger to his lips. “Did you hear that?”
“Hear what?”
“Sounded like thunder…”
• • •
Jean’s head throbbed, a kettledrum in her cerebellum. She stumbled out of the bedroom Chaim had provided. Something had roused her, climbing up from below, escaping out into the world. She needed to leave, get back to the city and the Green Lama. She would have called him, but by the time they had reached Chaim’s home she found herself overcome with exhaustion, barely able to stand. Chaim brought Jean up to the bedroom, where she promptly collapsed onto the mattress and instantly fell asleep. But her sleep had been restless, lasting no more than an hour or two, her dreams filled with a city larger on the inside than the outside, the silhouetted man whispering: “…From the empty void He made the solid earth, and from the non-existent He brought forth Life.” And there was the other, glowing in jade, hissing, in a voice like sandpaper over and over again the words: Truth. Death.
And then there was a third man, somewhere in the shadows, his voice like a scream, “For that is not dead which can eternal lie. And with strange aeons even death may die.”
She clutched at her temples. Truth. Death. Words she had unknowingly scrawled across the shore with her bare hands. If she could just find her way back to the Green Lama… She took a step down the stairs and her heart froze, hearing the words “truth” and “death” emanate from the study down the hall.
• • •
“Life?” Dr. Pali leaned forward in his chair, enthralled and amazed. “What do you mean?”
“Exactly that! Rabbi Loew found within the Book of Creation the prayers and invocations needed to do as Hashem did to create Adam! He dug out clay—virgin clay from the banks of the river Vltava, never before touched by human hands. He then molded out the shape of a man,” the Rabbi said excitedly, “crude, and ill-formed, but a man. He gave him hands and arms, feet and legs! He drew on his head eyes to see, ears to listen, and even a mouth to talk.”
“But… how was he… How did he…” Pali gesticulated frantically, struggling to find the words. “How did he bring it to life?”
The Rabbi ran a thumb against his forehead as he spoke. “He wrote into the clay figure’s forehead three Hebrew letters, which spelled the word Emes, breathing life into the clay, creating a golem.” The Rabbi couldn’t help but smile as Pali mouthed the word Emes like a schoolboy enraptured by a circus magician. “Rabbi Loew commanded the golem to seek out the Jewish people’s enemies and destroy them. And the golem did, saving thousands of Jews from certain death or exile. But… the golem was too effective, and soon…” Rabbi Brickman hesitated for a moment before continuing. “Soon, it began killing indiscriminately, and Rabbi Loew realized… he realized that although he had been hailed as one of the great holy men of his time, he was not Hashem. Only Hashem can create life from nothing. Regaining control of the golem one last time, Rabbi Loew reached up to the creature’s forehead and wiped away a single letter, alef, turning Emes into Mes. The golem crumbled to dust instantly, lifeless once again.”
“Emes… Mes… What do they mean?”
“‘Truth,’ and ‘death.’”
Suddenly, Jean Farrell, the young woman Rabbi Chaim Brickman had helped earlier that evening, burst through the hallway door. Pale, sweating, and breathing heavily, she stared at the Rabbi—through him—almost as if she saw his very soul. The Rabbi felt his body quake with fear when he looked into her green eyes, recognizing something deep within. Jean raced forward to him, grabbing his shoulders, and whispered in a husky, drained voice, “It was you! You’ve thrown it all off balance!”
“Jean!” Dr. Pali shouted, jumping up from his chair.
Jean turned to Dr. Pali, as if noticing him for the first time. Her eyebrows scrunched together quizzically. “Ken…? Why are you dressed up like Dr. Pali?”
Caraway pulled out his sidearm as he whipped around his desk toward the entrance to his office. “Tell me you didn’t hear that,” he said under his breath, checking to make sure the gun was fully loaded. “My ears have been ringing after the last couple of days, but even I heard that.”
“Heard what?” Gan whispered again, mystified at Caraway’s sudden paranoia. “There is nothing, Herr Leutnant!”
Caraway held his hand up at Gan, signaling him to be quiet. He cocked his head to the side. He was certain he heard it. He wasn’t sure what it was, but he knew what it sounded like, a voice like a whisper on sandpaper…. He closed his eyes and listened through the silence of the squad room into the hallways and in the echoes of the building. Outside he could hear a subway train rattle by in the distance, rattling the windows with a distinctive Thump THUMP! Thump THUMP THUMP!
Wait, Caraway thought as he started to lower his gun. The trains don’t run this late.
Caraway’s eyes went wide in realization. He turned to Gan, who had risen from his chair, Luger in hand.
“What is it, Herr Leutnant?”
“He’s here,” Caraway said as the world exploded around them.
• • •
“Calm down, Jean! You’re going to give yourself a heart attack!” Ken shouted, the faux mustache falling loose as he struggled to keep Jean away from Rabbi Brickman.
“You don’t understand, Ken!” she shrieked, pointing an accusatory finger at the Rabbi. “He’s behind it! He’s behind everything!”
“Miss Farrell, please, calm down—” Rabbi Brickman said, doing his best to mollify her.
Jean grabbed Ken by the lapels. “Where is he, Ken? We need the Green Lama, Ken. We need him now.”
“I don’t know, where he… He just—just sent me here to ask a couple of questions and report back…” He pried her hands loose and held them tightly in his own. “Jean, what do you mean the Rabbi’s behind everything? Everything what? What do you mean?”
The Rabbi tried to interject. “Miss Farrell, please calm—”
“The attack on the German consulate… The burning clay… That thing at the factory. It was him! He’s behind it all!”
“Jean, I—I don’t understand what you’re talking about… How do you know all this?”
She shook her head and fought back tears. Ken could feel her body shiver. “I don’t know…! I just… I just do. You have to believe me.”
“Okay, okay. I believe you
. We’ll call the Lama. It’ll be all—“
Click.
“Now, if we could all just calm down for a moment,” the Rabbi said evenly.
Jean and Ken turned in unison to find the Rabbi standing beside them, gun in hand.
“Aw… Crap,” Ken moaned.
• • •
Beneath the ringing in his ears Caraway could hear the slow, thumping footsteps of the killer. Half buried in rubble, he blinked through the darkness and shadows of a concussion and debris to finally see, with his own eyes, the man they had been hunting… Except it wasn’t a man, or at least, not in any way human.
Standing well over seven feet tall with barrel-like shoulders, it looked like a giant hand sculpted clay figurine. Everything about the creature was wrong, disproportionate, as if made by unskilled hands. The feet balanced the massive body, but even they were too large, too rounded and fat, reminding Caraway of gigantic hooves. The legs were thick and stubby compared to the immense upper body and long sequoia-like arms. The face was rudimentary, the mouth nothing more than a slit; a nose was there in shape but not function, the nasal cavities nothing more than dents. On the forehead were three symbols dug deep into the “flesh,” as if a child had written his name in wet cement with a finger. Its eyes, however, were horrifying. Caraway bit back a scream. The eyes were vacant holes of darkness, impossibly glowing a deep shade of green.
A terrible gash ran down the side of Gan’s face, blood streaming down his neck as he lay unconscious at the creature’s feet.
“The children of Abraham and Sarah have been wronged,” it whispered with its dark sandpaper voice as it grabbed Gan with its massive hand. The slit moved in sync with the words, but there were neither teeth nor tongue behind those lips. “Those who wear the crooked cross shall pay for their crimes.”
The creature lifted Gan up to its disproportionate head, its vacant eyes glowing an even deeper green, radiating the room with a deathly hue, burning Caraway’s skin like the desert sun. He shut his eyes and turned away, gritting his teeth at the pain. The light quickly subsided, and Caraway risked a glance back at the creature, which was examining Gan like a fly on a pin. “I see inside you and know you.” It dropped Gan to the ground like a rag doll. “And you are not guilty.”
The Green Lama: Horror in Clay (The Green Lama Legacy Book 2) Page 8