Hellboy: Unnatural Selection(98)

Its claws, though. He soon found that the bird could easily twist its claws.

They had landed on the remains of Abby's car, crushing it down into the deck. Explode! Hellboy thought, but of course that only happened in movies. As he concentrated on pummelling the creature's throat and sending it back to the Memory where it belonged, he did not see the claw reaching up for him. But he felt it, curling into the flesh of his thigh and meeting in the middle.

"Damn crap shit!" Hellboy screamed. He was tired of being hurt. He wanted to sit down with a beer and a cigarette and kick back, relax, have nothing to worry about for a few minutes. This just was not fun. Fifty miles away the leaders of the world were maybe even now being wiped out by cryptids, and here he was fighting a giant bird instead of beating the life out of the mad mastermind of all this weirdness.

Sometimes he wished weirdness would take a break. Maybe he should just chase thieves and murderers, a much more understandable class of villain.

"Hellboy!" Liz shouted. Looking up, Hellboy could see her head and shoulders silhouetted against the fading daylight. "Close your eyes!"

Cooking again, Hellboy thought, and he squeezed his eyes shut. A blast of heat, a scream from the rukh, the stench of singed feathers, and the claws ripped from his body as the bird retreated to a shadowy corner of the hold.

Hellboy rolled from the ruined car's hood and slumped to the floor, slipping in his own blood. That was never a good sign. He shook his head, felt around in his coat pocket for a cigarette stub, and when he found one, his fingers closed around it like an old friend. The rukh squealed in the corner, and he told it to shut up.

"You OK, HB?"

"Just dandy, Liz." He looked around the hold, hidden in shadow though much of it was, and tried to imagine what had happened to Abby down here. What had held her. Where she had gone. He glanced up again, and past the shape of Liz's head he could see the ghost of the moon forming in the dusky sky. "Abby won't be Abby for much longer," he said. "And the longer we leave Blake, the worse all this could turn out. Time's running out, Liz, and we need to move on. Jump. I'll catch you."

Liz launched herself into space. Hellboy held out his arms to catch her. Such trust, he thought, And that's why we'll win. He caught Liz and gave her a kiss on the forehead. "Bet Blake doesn't have anyone who'd catch him," he said.

"My hero."

Liz and Hellboy ran from the hold, leaving the squealing rukh behind them. The pain in the bird's voice set them on edge, but they hoped to be able to silence it soon.

If were right about all this, Hellboy thought. If Blake really is the center of things. If not ... hello, new world order.



* * *



The demon stood at the center of the birthing chamber, looking up at the great vat suspended from the ceiling. Abby hung back and watched. It looked very human, yet it exuded something inexpressible, an alien aura that human senses would never understand. She was aware that Leh knew she was there, but there was something about this moment that was very private, very much owned by Leh and Leh alone.

Now I'm being thoughtful toward a demon, she thought, shaking her head. She even smiled. It was a long time since she had done that.

"This is where I was brought through," Leh said. "And this is where I'll leave again. But not alone."

This had once been one of the tankers great oil cells, and even after so long, there was still a hint of oil on the air. Abby guessed it would never be cleaned away. Behind that, too, the tang of something else, something much more mysterious and distant. She looked up at the vat and the dried, salty crust around its lip. Unused now, perhaps for several years, but like the oil, its presence would always be apparent. The taint of the Memory would never wash away.

"How do you know he'll be here?"

The demon closed its eyes. "Blake is being chased here even now. An old man, a fool, a lamb to the slaughter." It opened its eyes again. "Lamb. I was once an enemy of sheep, but the shepherd put me down. Do I have the taint, Abby? Can you see his mark upon me?" It turned to her, this demon that was her friendly Voice, and she tried to look at its face without falling into its eyes once again. But she could not. She averted her gaze, looked down at her hands, noting how long her nails were now and how badly her body was shaking. She could not fight off the change for much longer. She was going to lose control very soon, and the last thing she wished for — the very last thing she wanted to see — was Blake taken apart. She wanted to do it herself, desperately ... and yet if fate had decided that a demon would be his end, so be it. Abby had argued with fate many times before, and it was ironic that now, at her strongest moment, she suddenly felt so weak. She could almost feel the puppet strings buried in her mind and soul, guiding her every movement since she had first fled the New Ark and leading her back here, now, to this exact moment, with Leh standing before her, blood coursing a monstrous change through her body, and Blake being chased toward them ...