Hellboy: Unnatural Selection(50)

Richard closed his eyes and pointed. "There. Down into the valley. It was running faster now, and the people were terrified at what they'd seen. But there were two who followed hard on its heels: the child's mother, eager for revenge, and the werewolf's wife."

The brothers walked down the hillside into the shallow valley. Richard led the way, the Book of Ways held open before him, and Gal held back. The mist was heavier here, and soon they were enveloped, its coolness like a moist breath on their exposed skin. Shapes floated here and there, parting the mist, and they could have been wraiths. Richard ignored them, knowing that they would not trouble the two brothers.

"Here," Richard said. His brother stood by his side and waited. "This is where it made its second stand. There were still a few villagers keeping up with the child's mother and the creature's wife, and this is where it stopped to dispatch them. There, on that rock. There were scratches and cracks on the stone surface, and by the time the battle was over, they ran full of blood. They gave a message ... but no one ever knew what it said."

"I'll bet we would," Gal said, jumping onto the rock and striding across its surface. He looked down, kicking at moss here and there, trying to uncover the faults and scores talked of in the book. "This is much older than everything else around here, you can just feel it. And its been used for ... things."

Richard moved on. "Gal. Whatever was written there has been changed since the werewolf. Too much time has gone by, too much weathering, and it isn't used anymore."

"But it will be," Gal said. "When Fathers time comes, places like this will come back into the land. And we'll be there to see it happen!"

Sacrifice and murder, Richard thought. Werewolves killing children and adults becoming monsters. Father never told me it would be like this. He had never stated his burgeoning doubt to his brother, and he hoped that Gal could not sense it. Richard had no idea what his brother's madness could make him capable of.

"After that," Richard said, "there was only the wife left. The child's mother lay dead on the flat rock."

"So how did she kill it?" Gal asked. "I assume the wife killed the werewolf, otherwise why would we be here?"

Richard shrugged. "It wouldn't be the first time de Lainree's text has led us astray."

"No," Gal said. "No, the wolf died here. I can feel it. Can't you? Can't you smell its final breath on the mist, see its final visions flitting through the shadows?"

Richard kept walking, but he knew what Gal meant.

They had entered a haunted place, and the haunting was not merely human. It was something else and something more. "A marsh," Richard said. He looked down at the book and turned a page, and the mist parted to allow the moonlight access. Like blood running across the flat rock, moonlight illuminated the paths of truth between and under de Lainree's writings.

Richard stopped and pointed. "There. The werewolf fell into a marsh ... the wife saw it struggling, sinking, howling ... and when it went under, she sowed the marsh with her and her husbands lifetime savings: a handful of silver coins."

"How poetic," Gal said, but he sounded hungry.

"I'm tired," Richard said. He sat on the damp ground and dipped his head, closing the book at last. The spell of course faded quickly, and he felt the usual sense of relief at its passing. Magic had never been easy for him. "I'm exhausted. I need to rest, and you ... you ... "

Gal placed his coat around his brothers shoulders. "I'll dig," he said.



* * *



The werewolf had been preserved by the peaty ground. Much of it had reverted to the man upon death, but here and there patches of fur remained, and its lower jaw still sprouted fearsome teeth that were chipped with use. Gal had a whole body to choose from.

When he finally had the small sample to send, he drew shapes in the damp ground with his shovel and placed the werewolf's finger inside. And then he cast his spells, started chanting, and submitted himself to the Memory once again.



* * *



Both brothers woke up at daybreak. The mist was gone, the sun was up. And the moor felt just as haunted and alien as ever.



* * *





Baltimore, Maryland — 1997



KATE CORRIGAN CALLED Abe and filled him in on Blake, London, and the possibility of Abby Paris being more of a mystery than they thought. Abe listened and responded at all the appropriate places, but when Kate severed the connection, he sat staring at his satellite phone, blinking slowly and trying to digest what he had just heard. He had pulled off the freeway to answer the phone, and he watched the cars going by, taking people from here to there, the past to the future, and none of them really knowing anything about the world around them. He often envied them that.