The Green Lama: Crimson Circle (50 page)

“Om! Ma-ni! Pad-me! Hum!”

The Green Lama’s arms flew open as the emerald light exploded out from within him. Jean covered her face, the light singeing her skin. A howling wind came down as if they were suddenly sucked into the vortex of a hurricane. Beneath it all, Jean heard the eerily familiar voices, but couldn’t make out the words.

One thing she knew for certain; had always known: They weren’t human.

And then, all was silent.

• • •

JETHRO GASPED awake. Air flooded his lungs as his eyes fluttered open, the morning light blinding, filled with colors and blurred shapes. He felt his heart beat with the old feeling of the radioactive salts running through his veins, working like an antibody fighting off an infection. He moved his fingers, his skin crackling as if covered in burned paper. He tried to sit up but found he was too weak to move. Above him he saw the steel rivets of the elevated railway on one side, brick and glass on the other. A tower of smoke plumed into the sky, like a black blade cutting through the cold deep blue. In the distance he could hear cries of pain and the distant warble of police sirens approaching.

“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 damp 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.