Hellboy: Unnatural Selection(74)

"Here we are," he said at last, panting and sweating.

"There should be a stone slab in the base of the ditch. It'll be well fitted, might need to break it instead of lift it."

Gal set about prodding through the hardened silt along the bottom of the ditch with the crowbar, and right at the edge of the patch they had cleared, he uncovered a straight stone edge.

Fear and awe prevented Richard from saying anything. What in the name of hell are we doing? he thought, but it was too late for that now. Perhaps it had already been too late fourteen years ago, when they had uncovered the phoenix feather in Egypt. He often wondered when their lives had changed, and sometimes he marked a moment in case he thought the same way ten years down the line. Now, he thought. This could be the most important moment of my life. He looked up at the sinking sun and hoped he would remember.

It took Gal half an hour to expose enough of the stone slab for them to see what was written on it. "That's old Hebrew," Richard said. " 'Here lies chaos'."

"Comforting," Gal said. He hefted the lump hammer from his rucksack and started knocking the crowbar down beside the slab.

The sun was setting by the time Gal broke the stone. Richard had sat on the sloping side of the ditch, looking up now and then to see whether the noise of their efforts had finally attracted attention. All he saw was sky, birds, clouds smeared red by the setting sun. He thought it grew suddenly cooler, and then Gal gasped and said, "I'm through."

The slab fell away into the darkness below, a darkness untouched by light for many centuries. There was a heavy, long sigh as air pressures equalized — it seemed that a breath came out of the chamber rather than going in — and then Gal looked up and smiled. "Almost there," he said. "Rich, don't be scared. Father will be thrilled."

"I hope so," Richard said. Together, he and his brother descended into the long-forgotten tomb of a demon.



* * *



Its name was Leh. Zahid de Lainree called it 'the sham Voice of God', an exhalation from hell made flesh. It had been put down by Jesus Christ himself, its remains left belowground, smoldering in a fire that would never go out. It was destined to be forgotten forever, cast from the minds of humankind just as the story of its defeat at Christ's hand was purged from any history of his time on earth. De Lainree had written of the words that would guide the searcher to Leh's underground prison and the chant that would serve to extinguish its restraining fire. Richard had never wanted to believe everything he read, but all other prophecies in the Book of Ways had proven to be true, and he had no real reason to doubt this one.

"I smell burning," Gal said. They were walking along a narrow tunnel, their route lit by the wavering light of Gal's powerful flashlight. This was a prison, carved for one purpose only, and there were no warnings scratched into the walls, no barriers across their way. This was always meant to be a forgotten place that would never be touched by light again.

And yes, Richard could smell the burning as well. "Maybe its an old smell," he said. Admitting that this was the tang of smoke ... that would be saying that all this was true. That there was a demon down here, once flesh and blood but now just a memory. And memories were what they had been chasing for years.

"It's new," Gal said. "It's the endless fire, keeping Leh down. You know that." He was whispering, his words returning from the dark as sibilant echoes.

"Gal, lets get out of here," Richard said. "This isn't right. It doesn't belong! We've brought back things of myth and legend, and things that once were, but never anything like this. This thing was never natural! Who knows what it'll do if Father brings it back?"

"I send it to Father, and the choice is his," Gal said. "You trust him, don't you?"

"Of course," Richard said. I haven't even seen him for fifteen years.

"And you know why we're doing this? For Mother and what they did to her?"

"Yes." He may have changed, he may be nothing like our father anymore. We really have no idea what he's going to do.

"Then let's go." Gal moved on, expecting no reply.

Richard followed, sniffing, smelling the fire, and after a couple of minutes a glow seeped into the tunnel ahead of them. A minute later the walls opened up, the floor sloped down, and they were in a circular room twenty feet across. Theirs was the only way in and out. Again there were no signs of decoration of any sort. The only thing contained in the room was a hollowed pit at its center, within which lay something black and burning.