Hellboy: Unnatural Selection(94)

If she were to kill Blake, it would have to be within the next couple of hours. After that she would change, he would see, and Blake would claim his victory by killing her at last.

I wish I'd finished him instead of just running away, she thought for the thousandth time.

Lost, she suddenly felt found. She was taking action to deepen her new life, not sitting back and letting her friends at BPRD do it for her. Abe had been her angel — he still was — but now, here, she was carving her own future from the potential of the present, not letting others guide her through it. Through these corridors that all looked the same, through the huge rooms where birthing vats now hung cracked and dry and unused, through the stalls and rooms and tanks where other creations from the Memory had spent their new lives waiting to fulfill Blake's desires — all of these places in darkness, all unseen — Abby ran, searching for the one door she knew she would recognize. She listened for the Voice that would welcome her back like an old friend. The one aspect from her time here that she enjoyed remembering was her conversations with the Voice and her growing realization that he was imprisoned, a conjuring that Blake had lived to regret long ago.

Now, Abby hoped he would regret it some more. The Voice must have a body, and the body must have a desire to be free. She would give it that freedom. In return, all she would ask for was help.

She rounded a corner in the corridor, skidded to a stop, and stared at the thing facing her.

It blinked. Snorted. Stamped one cloven hoof, shook its head, the ring in its nose swinging. Its furry head seemed too huge for its body, but it was muscled and wiry, and its naked man's torso was sheened with sweat.

"You know the maze of this place," she whispered. "Tell me the way to the Voice." She wondered why the minotaur had not joined in with Blake's attack and thought that maybe it preferred to remain within this labyrinth. Perhaps it liked being lost. She looked into its eyes and saw little to recognize there — no empathy, no understanding. She hoped it could hear the animal power in her voice, projected out from the change that even now was starting within her.

The minotaur roared at her, breath steaming in the cool atmosphere, and then it turned and ran. There was no way she could keep up — it disappeared too quickly — but she heard its hoof steps echoing back at her for several moments.

Abby went down another flight of steps to a lower level. The stink of animal was richer down here, as was the smell of stagnant water and old oil. She felt closer than ever to the junction between worlds. She did not believe that the sun could be shining thirty feet above her, could not comprehend the nearness of the ocean just a few wall thicknesses away. If she closed her eyes, she could imagine the Memory lurking just beyond her outstretched fingers, its cool emptiness drawing her closer, closer ... and in that emptiness the memory of that old dead thing, the sleeping god so ancient and awful that Blake had left it behind.

Abby's eyes snapped open, and she looked around, seeing only rusting metal and the familiar haunt of shadows. "That thing didn't help me," she said, but she knew that was a lie. "That thing has no part in my being here." But that was untrue, and she could almost hear its appalling chuckle in her mind as she ran on.

At last, she found somewhere she recognized. The corridor was like a hundred others, but the door spacing was right, a scratch along one wall, the way light from an unguarded bulb spread itself across the decaying metal. She paused and walked on, experiencing a chill of deja vu as she trailed her fingers along one wall.

Running, panting, sweating, a certain aim in mind, the smell of shit wafting from some lower level, heat emanating from the wall to her right, and a voice, the Voice, calling her on with whispers that started as a tickle somewhere deep in her imagination.

"I'm here," she said, drawing close to a door that looked as though it had never, ever been opened.

"Have you returned with a name?" the Voice asked. It was gruff from lack of use.

"Abby."

"Abby ... " The Voice faded away into a smile. "Abby, you escape and choose to return. If only there was time to sit and listen to your reasons."

"There's never been time," Abby said. "Blake has always been mad. You have to help me. There's one thing I have to do before ... before ... "

"Ahh, the change is coming," the Voice said. Abby wondered whether the humor had always been there, just below its words, and whether she could only recognize it now after so long in the real world.

"It won't be long," she said. "Blake endangers the world."