Hellboy: Unnatural Selection(8)

The dragon dropped him. They must have been a quarter of a mile up.

Hellboy wanted to scream, but then he'd lose the crushed cigarette in his mouth. He wanted to shoot, but his arms were pinwheeling in an attempt to keep himself upright as he fell. And he wanted, so much, to reach the water. Because he knew exactly what was coming next.

The dragon swept down at him and belched fire. Hellboy grimaced as the flames engulfed him, singeing his hair and goatee, stretching his skin, igniting his utility belt. When the flames guttered out, the dragon was already diminishing into the distance.

Hellboy had time to draw one puff on his newly lit cigarette before he struck the surface of the bay.



* * *





Venice, Italy — 1997



ABE SAPIEN LOVED Europe. He loved the variety of the place, the mix of races and religions, food and drink, custom and tradition. He loved the fact that everywhere he went was different, and every place he visited gave him unique memories and distinct experiences to take back home. The differences spanned from east to west, country to country, and in some cases valley to valley. Some countries were as different from one side to the other as America was from north to south, and some cities were like microcosms of the whole world. In London he had been fascinated with its network of hidden streets, in Barcelona the architecture almost knocked him flat, and in Paris he had discovered a werewolf, and she had taken the name Abby Paris for herself.

Abby. He hoped she was all right. After today was over, he would get in touch with HQ and see how she had done. He'd had to rush away without really telling her to take care, or wishing her luck, and even after several years he still felt very protective toward her. And maybe a little more.

If Abe loved Europe, he adored Italy. Art was all here, and that was nowhere more evident than in the thrilling history of this place. Every building had a story to tell; most were older than him. And here art and science had truly come together in the form of one of his true heroes, Leonardo da Vinci.

And Abe's favourite Italian city ... Venice. A paradise of one hundred and twenty islands linked by canals and lagoons. A city of romance and splendor, and so bound in with a watery existence that Abe had once thought to call it home. Maybe one day he would. Perhaps, if the time ever came when he found his own true history, he could begin creating a new future for himself here.

He only wished they could do something about their drainage.

And today the water did not seem quite so inviting as normal. Not with a thirty-foot alligator prowling the city.

Abe was riding in a police motor launch, crossing the choppy waters of the Grand Canal, and trying to ignore the stares of the two uniformed policemen accompanying him. The detective, Marini, was different. He could accept Abe's peculiarities, having already worked with another strange guy — Hellboy — on a case back in 1992. "Yeah, the old 'feces in the floor' case," Hellboy had said when Abe mentioned the detectives name. "That was a fun one. Never did catch that ghost." He had warned Abe to watch out for Marini's bad jokes, but so far the detective had been very quiet and subdued.

Abe stared unblinking at the two young officers until they looked away. He could always beat a human in a staring contest.

"And how many times has it been seen?" he asked.

"At least twenty times before yesterday," Marini said. "And then yesterday the incident near the Rialto Bridge, and there were dozens of witnesses. That poor woman ... the German ambassador is already turning it into a diplomatic incident."

"He's blaming your government for a giant alligator?"

"The woman was his niece. At present, he only has an arm to send home for his sister to bury. I can understand the man's heightened emotions."

"Hmm," Abe said. "Quite."

The boat skipped from wave to wave, hull thudding with each impact, and Abe suddenly wondered how easy it would be for an alligator thirty feet long to tip them over. But this was a city built on water, it survived through water, and the first thing he had noticed upon his arrival was that the canals were as busy with traffic as ever. They could let this freak occurrence cripple them as a city, or they could defy it. So far, defiance seemed to be working.

"How is Hellboy?" Marini asked.

"Moody as ever," Abe said.

Marini lit up. "Ahh, not moody, Mr. Sapien. Deep. That's a very different thing. Hellboy has depths, I'm sure you know, and he frequently spends time trying to plumb them. That's where his moodiness comes from. That and the fact that there are no Italian shoes that fit him." He laughed at his own joke.