The Green Lama: Horror in Clay (The Green Lama Legacy Book 2) (11 page)

“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!”