Hellboy: Unnatural Selection(82)

But now Father said there would be fighting and war. And it was ready.

The rukh performed a long, wide circle around the New Ark, and when it faced west again, it saw a spot on the horizon that did not belong there. The spot grew quickly, manifesting itself into a machine that had no right to be in the sky. The rukh could smell it from miles away, stinking up the air and slashing at it with spinning slices of metal. The giant bird rose into the clouds, drifted for a while, and then came back down, falling onto the noisy machine and smashing it from the heavens. It came apart as it fell, disgorging several waving shapes that screamed as they tumbled into the sea. The rukh watched them fall down, saw the splashes as they hit the surface, then the larger eruptions as things rose to feed.

The boats had left the sides of the New Ark and were powering toward land. There were six in total, containing all manner of its father's creations, all ready to serve and fulfill the purpose they had been given. "Find life," Father had told them all as he rescued them from Memory. "Find life, but first there will be death to mete out."

More shapes rose from the Ark and took flight. More shadows swam from underneath. It was as if the ship were bleeding itself into the water and the air, and by venting life it was giving it as well.

The rukh called out loudly, thrilled and excited and proud, and when the last shadow had left and the ship was still in the water, it turned westward and followed its cousins toward land. It had its own mission that Father had whispered in its mind that morning.

It could see its proud father on the bow of the ship. It knew that it was leaving him behind. But it knew also that it would see him again.



* * *



They were leaving their home, and the memory of the Memory, to find a new home out in the world. Their father had promised them this, and now the time had come. His thoughts followed them all, and in each alien mind he was saying something slightly different. But the messages amounted to the same thing: Now is your time.



* * *





Motorway approaching London — 1997



IT WAS ONLY AS SHE neared London that Abby began to worry about Blake sending something to stop her.

She had touched something there in the Memory, or been touched, and if she could do that, then so could he. She had hurt him on the day she escaped, both physically and mentally. The physical hurt would heal, but the mental hurt — the betrayal he must have felt — would be paining him still.

The thing that had given her the hints that led her here was unknowable. She could not trust it, appreciate it, understand it, and yet she was following its lead, rushing headlong into something about which she had no idea. She did not know what to expect, and she had foolishly believed that the thing had spoken only to her. But what if it had spoken to Blake as well? What if that thing had motives more convoluted and obscure than she could possibly imagine? Blake had deserted it there in the Memory, so it said, but perhaps it wanted Blake for its own. Maybe it would haul him into the Memory as well, thereby finding its own way out.

Maybe, perhaps, who knew ... there was too much going on in her head for her to insulate one problem from the next. She had been driving hard and was running out of fuel — one problem. She had no idea how she would get back onto the New Ark and confront Blake — another problem. And it was full moon tonight — there was another problem, the biggest of them all, and the one she would likely have to confront first.

She swerved back into the outside lane and overtook a line of buses. She kept speeding without realizing, glancing in her mirror to make sure the police weren't chasing her. She was driving against the clock, she knew that, and as the minutes ticked by, she was beginning to realize that there was less and less chance of her actually making it to London in time. And even if she did, she had no idea where the New Ark was or exactly what Blake had planned. It was hopeless. This whole journey was hopeless, desperate, and by fleeing the BPRD she had exposed herself to a danger that had been kept down for so long.

But I'm sick of the taste of deer!

Abby hissed and shook her head, trying to clear the thought from her mind.

That bastard I killed in Baltimore, so mocking, so full of life.

"Dammit, just drive. Drive!"

Maybe it's because of what he eats.

Sometime back in the darkness of her past, after the Memory but before her real life began with the BPRD, there were the years she had spent on the ship. She had consciously cast them from her mind the moment Abe found her and dragged her kicking and screaming out of the Seine. Something had changed for her that day. To begin with, she thought it was recognizing the strangeness of Abe's existence and realizing that people — things — like him could exist without having any link to Benedict Blake. But she had eventually come to understand that it was nothing to do with Blake, or what he meant, or what he had done. It was Abe, and the look of concern in his eyes. People could care for her, she had realized then. The world was much larger than she had ever believed.