Hellboy: Unnatural Selection(29)

"Now I can't close my books anymore. The myths have escaped. I've seen the dragon, I've seen it kill people, and life will never be the same again." She looked up at Hellboy, and he could see the weight of realization in her eyes. "Do you see what this is?" she said. "Do you understand why today is the first day of the future?"

"Isn't every day?"

"Not like today." Amelia shook her head and drank more beer. "No way, not like today. Stuff like this has always been hinted at, that's all; fuzzy photos in tabloid newspapers, secondhand accounts of the supernatural. But today ... there were cameras up there. That was prime time! News companies the world over were feeding those images into people's living rooms. Kids at school in America were watching those pictures over their amazed teachers' shoulders. Adults in Europe were settling down to be numbed by another evening of soap opera, but they saw the world changing instead."

"You think? What about the people here, in Rio? You said yourself, they could hardly believe what they saw, even when it was standing up there on Christ the Redeemer and shitting down his soapstone robes. People have a way of compartmentalizing stuff like this. It'll cause a fuss, but it'll die down. People need to eat, pay their mortgages, have affairs. Personal stuff will always take over."

"That's so cynical," Amelia said.

"Cynical?" Hellboy was surprised, because he'd never seen himself as a cynic. Perhaps Amelia was right. "Maybe. But didn't you know what the Bureau did when you agreed to advise?"

"Yes, but I always thought it was a lie."

"Why?"

Amelia shrugged. "I thought that's what the government did. But dammit, Hellboy, dragons aren't real!"

"You'd say magic isn't, either, but — "

"But the two together ... " Amelia looked into her glass and swilled the beer, and Hellboy could see that she was working something through. She watched the bubbles, touched them with her finger, tasted, never really seeing or tasting the beer at all. She was miles away. Hellboy thought that when she came back, something would have changed in her life forever.

He refilled his glass and drank, keeping his motions slow and measured. A few tables away, a young man and woman were making out, hands everywhere and too much on display, if they'd heard of the dragon, they were unconcerned. Close to the front window, there was a card game going on, three old men gambling pennies and sharing a bottle of whiskey. They couldn't have helped but notice the commotion in the streets outside, yet their game went on. The amazing happened every day, but the next day things were back to normal. Hellboy was witness to that, and he could list a dozen days in history that should have changed the world but had not. At first, back in the '50s and '60s, he'd put it down to the resilience of the human spirit. But lately, as time went on and his own spirit dwelled in as much mystery as ever, he had begun to believe it was apathy.

"Why would a myth suddenly come to life, Hellboy? It wouldn't, unless something forced it. It's like magic. Some people believe in it, but it isn't real."

She paused and watched Hellboy, but he said nothing. Perhaps she saw the truth behind his eyes ... but he had an idea she was getting there pretty well on her own.

"But what if magic — an untruth — and this thing of mythology — again, untrue — were forced together?"

"What if they were?" Hellboy considered for a moment, trying to discern Amelia's logic, but it evaded him. Perhaps it was the Old Devil, which was already going to his head. "Crap," he said.

"Crap? Who's just been dropped into the bay by a dragon?"

Hellboy shrugged. "Well, combining the two — magic and mythology — implies a force to do it. Cause and effect. So what's the cause?"

Amelia looked at him brightly, raised her glass, and finished it off in one long swallow. "I have no idea," she said. "I'm a lecturer, not a preacher." She smiled.

Hellboy sat up straighter and lit his second cigarette from the stub of the first. He frowned, trying to clear his head, but then he let it ride, enjoying the fuzziness of the alcohol instead of fighting against it. Because something Amelia said had struck a chord, and he suddenly wished Abe were here with him. Abe could think straighter than Hellboy. He glanced down at the satellite phone and its spilled battery, wondering what Tom Manning would have to say.

"It's obvious, really," Hellboy said.