Hellboy: Unnatural Selection(47)

Kate Corrigan had changed her clothes since their meeting the day before, but her eyes held the same tiredness. If she had slept, Hellboy thought, it had been a rest troubled by dreams and images that would haunt her for a long time.

The footage of that ocean liner being taken apart was enough to disturb anyone's sleep.

"Hellboy, Liz," she said in greeting. "Have a coffee."

"Caffeine," Liz said. She stood at the coffee machine in the corner of the conference room, poured and drank a cup, then prepared another one.

"Are you all right?" Kate asked. She had evidently seen the scratches and scrapes across Liz's face and forearms, evidence of her scuffle with the New York banshee.

"Just dandy."

"How was the banshee?" Kate asked.

"Old, ugly, and pissed," Hellboy said. "And smelly."

Kate frowned, Tom walked in, and Liz took a seat beside Hellboy. He leaned toward her and sniffed, then smiled. "But you'll be pleased to know that its scent doesn't linger."

"London," Tom said. "You sure that's what it was saying?"

Hellboy looked steadily at Tom. "Well, it had my fist down its throat at the time, but yeah, I think that's what it said."

"Sorry," Tom said, shaking his head. "Look at these." He slid some photographs across the table to Liz and Hellboy and sat back with his hands on his head and his eyes closed. Hellboy thought he looked exhausted. There was only so much stress a man could take.

"So what new delights do we have here?" Hellboy said. He separated the pictures on the table and leaned over them. "Oh, nice."

The first picture showed a sea of bodies bobbing against a boat's hull. They were broken, ruptured, and leaking. Hellboy guessed there were more than a hundred dead people there, bloated and pathetic. "Another kraken?"

"Sea serpent, off the coast of Gibraltar," Kate said. "A sergeant from the Gibraltar police contacted us, but we've had to put him on standby. He's not happy. The serpent has sunk several pleasure boats and a police launch. It seems to kill people for pleasure, no reports of any eating yet."

"Charming," Liz said. She was scanning the picture closely, as if looking for someone familiar. Hellboy knew she took this all so seriously, making herself a part of each tragedy instead of just coming in from the outside. She claimed that being able to empathize gave her an edge. He thought that sometimes it just gave her a head full of grief.

"It capsizes boats and thrashes around until all the passengers are dead, either drowned or ... "

"Torn up," Tom said. He leaned across the table. "This one was taken in the Egyptian desert: fire dogs, scorching everything they come across. Dozens dead so far, but the death toll's probably a lot higher because of all the Bedouin settlements that haven't been reached yet."

"Fire dogs," Hellboy said. "Damn!"

"There's lots more," Kate said. She nodded at the pictures. "Lots more cryptids, so many more dead people. Hundreds. Thousands. You can look at them all if you want, but it all amounts to the same thing."

"Were under attack," Hellboy said.

The room fell silent. Liz was still studying the photographs, but Hellboy knew she was still listening, waiting for someone to speak.

"What?" Hellboy said. "You don't agree with me?"

"I'm not sure what I think," Kate said. "We've been asked for help from more than forty places across the globe, and most of them we've put on hold. The military of several countries have had contact with cryptids, and mostly they've come out worse. Jets weren't designed to fight dragons; machine guns can't harm wraiths. This is technology versus mythology, and the unknown has always been stronger."

"Well, dammit, let's go! Liz and I can leave right now, and I'm in the mood for a fight. That banshee pissed me off."

"London," Tom said. "Don't you want to hear about that?"

"So what's tearing up London?"

"Nothing." Tom flicked through the papers he still clasped in his hand. "Nothing yet. But there's a meeting being held there day after tomorrow, a conference of world leaders spending a week talking about environmental issues. The plan is, at the end of the week they'd have come up with an action plan to save our planet." He smiled grimly.

"Yeah, right," Hellboy said. "So long as it doesn't cost too much, eh?"