Hellboy: Unnatural Selection(54)

A place she recognized.

How can something from the Memory make that happen? she thought. That wasn't me, not my hand, not my subconscious. That was ...

But it would not do to think about this too much.

She tore off the sheet of paper and screwed it up. She had seen enough maps of Great Britain to recognize this impromptu bloody sketch. And the one place where her dripped blood had remained in a raised bubble instead of being smeared into coastlines was London.

Abby went to buy a ticket, hoping that she would not see the boy on her flight. She had caught a whiff of his blood, and it smelled good.



* * *





Private airfield, Bridgeport, Connecticut — 1997



LIZ SAT IN THE DRIVER's seat of the Humvee and watched Hellboy inspect the Lear jet. He'd told her to sit and wait while he gave it the once-over. Don't want any little green men ripping the engine apart when we're at twenty thousand feet. Said he'd be using a particularly probing talisman, and her presence could mess up the balance. Got this from a demon in Marrakech, and it's not a girl-friendly spell. Liz had smiled at him and nodded, and she sat watching him stride around the aircraft. Maybe he just wanted to impress her. She didn't know. Lots of stuff about Hellboy impressed her, and lots of stuff was still a mystery as well. For someone so open and unencumbered by ego, sometimes he wasn't only a closed book, he was a book yet to be written.

Maybe his real time's still to come, Liz thought. It was an idea she'd had a few times before: that Hellboy was here for some specific purpose, and all this BPRD demon-chasing, ghost-hunting, paranormal-investigating stuff was just practice for the real job to come. And that troubled her more than anything. Because she knew that Hellboy was far from normal, and his eventual fate would be far from normal as well. She dreaded that. He was the best friend she'd ever had, and she never wanted to lose him.



* * *



Hellboy was nervous. The Lear sat proud and magnificent on the concrete, waiting for the crew to board and wind her up, waiting to jet him and Liz off to London, and it was all so damn normal and easy and convenient that he couldn't help but feel jumpy about the whole thing. Usually he preferred the simple explanation — and a lot of times he'd found it to be the correct one — but this time the simple explanation left a lot unsaid.

Then there was Kate's little lecture about Zahid de Lainree and the Memory. That had really set Hellboy's teeth on edge. The Memory sounded too much like places he'd been to before. And this de Lainree character, though dead a long time, must have known far too much for his own good.

Arcane knowledge sometimes scared Hellboy, because there was so much he didn't know. About himself, for instance, and where he'd come from, and why he was here. He could gloss over those questions as much as he liked, avoid their implications, but they still needed to be answered.

He walked around the aircraft, peering into the two jets, stooping to go underneath and check out the landing gear, running his fingers around the window rims, checking that the flaps were clear and the fueling points were shut and locked. He fished around in his belt while he went, fingers brushing against talismans and wards, precious stones and dust from distant deserts, until he found what he wanted. In fact, it found him, pricking his finger and drawing blood.

"Ouch!" He pulled out the demon's hair and held it at arm's length, narrowing one eye and making sure its tip was clear of blood. He didn't know whether that would affect any readings, but demons were devious creatures, and any excuse would do.

The hair clear, he rested it in the palm of his huge right hand and gently blew on it. It spun like a compass needle and nestled along a crease in his hand, like a line of dirt ground into his lifeline. "OK, here we go. Ready, demon?" There was no answer, but the hair twitched slightly. "Now, what were those damn words ... ?" Hellboy closed his eyes, concentrating on his time in Marrakech back in '71. He pictured the scene with the demon and the tea shop, the rancid pipe smoke filling the room and outlining the fiend as an invisible space of clear air. Ironic, as that demon had been as dirty as they come. The imp and Hellboy had cut a deal, and the payment was a single hair from the creature's head. Unable to lie — most couldn't with Hellboy's fist down their throats — the demon had nodded a promise, and when Hellboy let it go, it made good on its vow. Strange behavior for a demon, but he guessed he'd scared it. "Those damn words!" he muttered, frowning hard in concentration. And then a small breeze blew across the airport concrete and set the hair tickling his palm, and the words came back to him.