Shadows of Shambhala Read online

  “Surely, he was aware of Blavatsky’s drawing and —”

  “No. It has been kept in the Black 23 archives for almost forty years.”

  I must have grimaced at her mention of Black 23, as she shot an angry glare my way for a hot second. I knew little about the organization, but I’d been told they played some part in the Romanian affair that took my brother’s life last year.

  “Only a handful of people even knew it existed, and I am one of them,” Dunwich continued. Her jaw dropped, as if she suddenly apprehended something that had eluded her. “Dr. Amelia Sind may also know of it. She was a student of Blavatsky’s work, and this would be especially relevant to her interest in an occult revolution.”

  The name meant nothing to me, but I saw Argo’s eyes narrow and I filed it for future reference. He finished his drink. I glanced up to catch Johnny-D watching Argo and swallowing in sudden thirst. The younger man had been sober now for little more than a week. Johnny looked away.

  “Why would I go on a dangerous expedition to a lost, mythical city on the word of a rubbish soothsayer?” Argo asked Dunwich. “We have work to do here in the real world.”

  “And Bullshark said you were smart,” the lady growled. She straightened her satchel, returned her helmet to its perch beside her. When she looked up, frustration broiled in her eyes. “Alan Kenston. Mean anything to you?”

  Argo nodded. He recalled Kenston, as he would tell the Zombies when we gathered later. Though both of them were Americans who flew biplanes against the Germans on behalf of France, they never met. Kenston was an ace pilot with a record of kills second only to — well, to Argo’s own. He’d heard that Kenston turned mercenary after the war, used a series of aliases, and did jobs for criminal organizations in Europe, China, and South America — where he died in 1930.

  “In 1927,” Dunwich said, “Charles Lindberg reported spotting a gleaming ‘white city’ while flying over the jungles of Honduras. His report reignited the interest of treasure hunters and adventurers who’ve been looking for the place since the time of Hernan Cortez. My research indicates there’s an entrance to Shambhala in ‘La Cuidad Blanca.’ I believe Kenston found it.”

  Argo didn’t ask her how that could be. Rather, he spoke to me as if he were actually talking to himself.

  “Doc, you need to read up on ancient myths to understand Shambhala. It was believed to exist outside of space and time — accessible from any number of hidden doorways scattered across the planet,” he said. “That a man like Kenston would seek it seems queer, though. It wasn’t known as a source of wealth or worldly power, which is all he seemed to value.”

  I leaned toward Dunwich. “I’m still missing the ‘why.’”

  Argo’s eyes widened. He waited for her response.

  “Kenston was a comrade-at-arms, yes? Shell-shocked and broken by the war,” she said. “And if that’s not enough, then you should know Black 23 dispatched a strike team to Honduras last week, reporting to your friend, Colonel Anton Horatio.”

  Argo stiffened. Dunwich stilled her tongue, and Johnny-D put a hand inside his jacket. Argo gave Johnny a slow shake of his head, and he relaxed.

  “You’re much too loose with the word ‘friend,’” Argo said. “Horatio is the iron fist of Black 23 in the East. I wouldn’t think he oversaw any activity in the Western Hemisphere.”

  Horatio and Argo had struck a truce the previous autumn, during the same deadly expedition in Romania where my brother fell. Strange bedfellows, and all that. But if Horatio saw something of interest in Shambhala, then I could be sure Argo was determined to get there first. The Colonel’s sudden attentiveness couldn’t be benevolent.

  Argo gestured for Johnny-D to join us. He made introductions, and Johnny slid in beside Dunwich.

  “What does the ‘D’ stand for?” Dunwich asked him.

  “Drunkard,” Johnny said. “But not lately.”

  Argo ignored him, keeping the focus on the mission. “Tell us everything you know about Shambhala.”

  She frowned. “We should order food. This will take a while.”

  ***

  CHAPTER TWO

  Under the Earth

  23 September 1932

  Sanskrit Month of Asvina, Buddhist Year 2475

  “C

  an you see the darkness retreating yet?” Kenston asked. “No? My eyes have learned to adjust rather quickly down here. Another minute, and we can go.”

  “We need weapons,” Argo said. “Then I need to find my people.”

  “No, we need to reach the temple first. Put Dr. Alla down,” Kenston said. “My sources say he’s planning a human sacrifice to convince his gods to restore the Vril.”

  Argo clenched his teeth. “Then we’ll need my crew.”

  “If they’re alive, then they’re being held in the old pilgrims’ quarters. Dr. Alla had the rooms converted to hold prisoners.”

  A cold light seeped into the cave as the crystals embedded in the rock walls of the tunnel outside began to glow dim and blue. The ghost light flickered like a wick guttering, and Kenston helped Argo to his feet. While Argo waited, Kenston stripped the guard and slipped into his pants.

  “Who is this Dr. Alla?” Argo asked.

  “No one knows,” Kenston said, bunching the waistband of the oversized pants in one fist. He unwrapped a leather strap from the guard’s hand and used it to tie off the waist. “He appeared one day several months ago, already a master of the Vril. Many of the brothers fought him — and died. Many more joined him in his vision of a world ruled by Kalki, the prophesized ‘destroyer of filth’ that is supposed to appear in the end of days.”

  Kenston gestured for Argo to follow as he entered the passageway outside the cave. “I’ve never actually set eyes on him, which may explain how I escaped becoming a thrall. I’ve been running a sort of one-man resistance for months, but they caught me when those Black 23 boys showed up and I tried to help them.”

  Argo stumbled. Kenston took his elbow, leading him along dim corridors.

  “The man you seek was full of darkness, Argo,” Kenston whispered as they turned down another twisting passage. “Every man has some shade of anger, bitterness, regret. And those shadows don’t fade under the light of Shambhala. It shines truth on all things, revealing secrets, exposing lies, dispelling illusion.”

  “I’m familiar with the analogy,” Argo said. “I’m no saint, either. But the darkness we carry is part of what makes us who we are. I would be of no use as a fighter without it.”

  Kenston nodded, pointed along a diverging shaft, and Argo followed. “The thing about light, though, is that it also casts shadows when it meets a solid object,” Kenston said. “The brighter the light, the deeper and more pronounced the shadows. The light of the eternal sun here allows one to see his darkness clearly defined. Recognize the shape of it. Accept it, reclaim it, and learn to employ it.”

  Argo nearly toppled over when Kenston suddenly stopped moving. The man put a finger to his lips in warning, then crouched and peeked around the next turn. Argo mimicked him, crawling forward to see what Kenston was studying.

  Not ten yards away, a guard sat cross-legged on the ground in front of a locked door. A curved sword balanced across his knees, and a pistol protruded from a hip holster. His head hung forward and he snored. Argo wondered if he’d fallen asleep waiting for the light to return.

  Argo squinted. He whispered, “That’s my Webley he’s wearing.”

  Kenston again gestured for quiet, then he stood and flattened against the wall. Argo brought his knees under him, prepared to run at the guard. Kenston slipped around the corner as the crystals stopped flickering and the dull, blue glow increased to a brighter yellow. Argo looked up—

  Kenston was gone.

  Argo choked back a gasp. The man had been right beside him, but was now nowhere to be seen.

  Something moved on Argo’s periphery, and he glanced aside. Nothing was there. Now a shadow slithered overhead — a trick of the weird light? — then it dri
fted down the other wall, a silhouette of a man that settled into the recessed doorway beside the guard.

  Kenston stepped out of the doorway and snatched the guard’s sword off his lap. Startled awake, the man looked up — and Kenston stabbed the swordpoint through the guard’s gaping mouth, out the back of his neck. The guard’s last breath hissed from his throat as he slipped sideways, eyes rolling back into his skull.

  Argo sprinted to Kenston’s side. The man worked at the guard’s gun belt, then handed Argo his Webley, still in its holster. Stripping a key ring from the belt, Kenston soon had the door unlocked and open. Argo stepped over the corpse and trailed Kenston into the chamber.

  “Armory,” Kenston said, striding past racks of spears, shields, and swords from dozens of different eras and tribal designs. In the back of the room, shelves held more modern weapons, including the standard-issue Black 23 field rifles and Bowie knives.

  “Where are the Black 23 operatives?” Argo asked, taking a rifle and checking its ammunition.

  “Dead,” Kenston said. He grabbed something off a dusty shelf in the back, then turned suddenly and snapped his arms to their length, elbows flat. In both hands, he hoisted a pair of nickel-plated 1911 Colt .45s that gleamed in the crystal light.

  “That feels right,” he said. “I haven’t held my guns since I arrived. It’s the first thing you have to give up before they’ll allow you to stay.” Kenston’s eyes caught the ambient glow and locked with Argo’s. His lips curled up, showing a toothy grin. “Let’s go kill some bad guys.”

  ***

  The Foothills of Mount Meru, the Tibetan Himalayas

  One month earlier

  From Doc Riley’s Journal:

  I accompanied Captain Argo and Johnny-D into the village, leaving Zed and the other Zombies to tend to Shadow, our airship command center, which we’d landed at a plateau below the settlement. Between wind shear, rarified air, and threatening storm clouds, Shadow couldn’t dare a greater altitude; our pilot, Wings, was lashing her ship to the earth and draining the helium bags into tanks as we sought guides. The rest of the journey would require experienced Sherpas to keep us safe on treacherous snow-covered paths.

  We passed women sitting in front of hovels built into the mountainside, many wearing long woolen dresses with colorful aprons and bright silver buckles. Argo spoke to one elderly woman tending a fire pit, but she didn’t understand him. He tried a different dialect, and I think a third before she nodded and pointed us toward the upper slope. He bowed to her, and we followed as he strode past.

  A younger woman sitting by the pit glared at us. She was dressed differently from the others, in a sheepskin robe over white trousers and heavy boots wrapped in furs. Her fine, black hair showed beneath the hood of her cloak, outlining smooth cheeks. She turned away when she caught me studying her.

  “Keep up, Doc,” Johnny-D said.

  I hurried to catch up. Argo had forged ahead, and I didn’t want him to think I wasn’t as intent upon our mission as the rest of the crew; I had only joined them a few weeks before his Paris rendezvous, and had yet to prove myself in a combat situation. Though my skills as a medic were unneeded at the aircraft right now, Argo only begrudgingly acquiesced to me joining him and Johnny-D in the village. He assured me I would stay with Shadow when he and some of the crew climbed the mountain. I hoped his decision was rooted in guilt over my brother’s demise — that he felt a need to protect me — rather than a lack of trust in my abilities.

  Outside a large structure that smelled of cook fires and exotic herbs, several men in attire like that of the young woman I’d seen sat drinking from ceramic bottles. Argo spoke to them, and they put on sober faces, nodding at his words.

  One of the men stood. “I speak some English,” he said.

  “Excellent. We need a Sherpa to lead us up Meru,” Argo said.

  “Not this month,” the man said. “Snow coming. Never get to peak.”

  “I don’t need to make the peak,” Argo said. He reached in his field coat and produced a map, pointed at a location. “There’s a cave on the eastern face with a sun symbol—”

  The man chuckled and pointed at the map. He took it from Argo’s hand and showed it to another of the men. They laughed. Others gathered around, glancing at the map, shoving each other, and crying with laughter. I looked around us, noticing other villagers gathering to assess the uproar.

  “You looking for Shambhala!” the man said, returning the map to Argo. He offered Argo the ceramic bottle in his other hand. “Better you look in this. Fermented yak’s milk. You find Shambhala at bottom.”

  Argo took a breath and straightened his back, looming over the smaller men. Some of them stepped away, but the spokesman just shook his head.

  “Germans come searching,” the man said. “Russians, English. You notice Chinese don’t look for Shambhala? We know difference between dreaming and waking.”

  I turned to eye the crowd as it closed ranks. Men and women laughed at us. Children pointed and danced. Then I spotted the young woman from the fire pit standing quietly among the others. Her face pinched as if considering a terrible decision.

  While Argo tried speaking over the laughter, I drifted aside. Children jumped around me, the language of begging for treats being international. I reached in my pocket and found some coins, which I scattered on the ground for them. Several of the adults tried to grab for the change as well, opening a gap in the crowd that I slipped through to reach the quiet woman.

  “Hello,” I said. “Do you speak—”

  “I can take you to Shambhala,” she said, her dark eyes soupy with unshed tears. “I’ve been there. I know the path.”

  I offered her my hand, and she took it. Her fingers were warm, her grip strong. Turning back, I saw Argo standing with his fists on his hips and anger in his eyes, staring in my direction. Johnny-D frowned.

  “Let me introduce you to my boss,” I told the woman. “I’m called ‘Doc.’ And your name?”

  “I am Lhamu Pasang of the Valley of the Eternal Sun.”

  ***

  CHAPTER THREE

  Under the Earth

  23 September 1932

  Sanskrit Month of Asvina, Buddhist Year 2475

  A

  rgo waited in a tunnel near the pilgrims’ quarters, where Kenston had left him. He squatted with his back to the wall and held the mirrored side of a cigarette box near the floor, tilting it so he could see around the corner. He watched the four guards in the other corridor, standing at silent attention like the Beefeaters of Buckingham Palace. They held swords in one hand and pistols in the other, ready to do battle. At their backs was a barred cage, but Argo couldn’t see what it held.

  When the eerie sound of distant laughter echoed in the hall, the four men glanced at each other and cast nervous stares in both directions.

  “What the bloody hell is that?” demanded a voice Argo recognized — Zed was behind those bars.

  “Shadow-man,” a guard growled.

  The laughter rose an octave, becoming a maniacal cackle. Two of the guards shifted their weight. One shook his sword. Another faced away from Argo, seeking the source of the laughter.

  Argo gripped his Webley, sliding his finger inside the trigger guard.

  The crystals in the wall flickered. The guards crouched into defensive stances, legs wide. Two of them faced in Argo’s direction.

  The laughter climbed to a banshee’s wail.

  “Hit the floor!” Argo shouted.

  The lights flared, then dimmed and started strobing off and on. Argo rounded the corner, his revolver raised and firing. The guards returned fire, thunder roared in the stone corridor, and muzzle flashes added to the spectacle of flickering light. The darkness seemed to move. There were too many people in the corridor — more bodies and shadows in motion than the six Argo expected.

  He saw Kenston now, standing opposite him in a black cloak and slouch hat he’d gathered at the armory. Kenston trained his roaring .45s on the shadow wraiths writ
hing on walls, floor, and jagged ceiling. Men screamed. Argo fell, saw a dark apparition overhead and fired in the direction he would expect to see the form casting the shadow. His last rounds spent, he rolled up against the wall.

  The lights failed completely. Argo popped open his revolver and expelled spent cartridges, grabbed fresh ammo from his pocket, and reloaded blindly. From out of the dark came the sound of a scuffle. Footfalls in retreat. A muzzle flash and bang in the connecting corridor. Then nothing.

  Argo called out, “Zombies report in.”

  “Johnny-D here, Captain. I think we’re solid.”

  “Zed. No injuries.”

  “Tally. No injuries.”

  “Doc here. I’m A-1. Pasang is all together, too.”

  Argo waited. “Kenston?” he called, not expecting an answer. He suspected Kenston had led the other wraiths far away by now. “Kenston?”

  No answer. He decided to risk the electric lamp. He placed it on the floor, stepped away from it, and used his toe to toggle the switch, thinking anyone lying in wait would first look at the light before aiming at a target.

  No one fired a shot. The light revealed five bodies sprawled in the corridor — the four guards and a fifth that he hadn’t seen, perhaps one of the wraiths he and Kenston targeted. A sixth limp corpse lay crumpled at the intersection where that last gunshot sounded. Argo picked up the lantern and checked the bodies to ensure Kenston wasn’t among them.

  He took a key off the belt of one body and unlocked the cage door. Johnny, Tally, and Zed gathered by him. Lhamu Pasang waited at Tally’s elbow. Argo waved off Doc’s attempt to assess his bruises and cuts.

  “Grab the guns and swords from the guards, and check them for ammunition,” Argo said. As the others hurried to comply, he added, “Kenston freed me — that was his laughter you heard.”

  “Spooky git,” Zed said, rolling a body and reaching in the dead man’s pockets.