Hellboy: Unnatural Selection (25 page)

"Down there?" Gal said.

"Down there."

They began to dig through the rubbish, heaving it behind them and forging a path down to the base of the ditch. Richard cut himself on an old rusted baby carriage, Gal scraped his hand along the ragged mouth of a broken bottle, and they both gave blood to the land. Nobody came to see what they were doing. Whether they went unseen or people thought it best to keep to themselves, Richard was relieved.

"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.

"Oh, shit," Richard whispered.

"I second that," Gal said.

The flames were pure white. They rose only a few inches from the black mass in the pit, flitting here and there, dying down and rising somewhere else. They looked cold. Smooth plumes of smoke rose above them, swirling in the disturbed air of the underground cavern and painting ghosts in the torchlight. Shining his flashlight up, Richard could see how the ceiling of the chamber had been blackened by centuries of smoke. Directly above the smoldering demon, the ceiling was so black that it looked like a hole in reality itself.
Maybe that's where Leh went,
Richard thought.
Perhaps that's how it fled into the Memory, even though its body is still here.

"I'm going to look," Gal said. He moved forward. Richard raised his hand but did not touch his brother. He suddenly felt very much alone down here, less involved, more a product of his own thoughts and experiences than ever before. For a long time he and Gal had been one unit; now he was a man on his own.

Someone who could make his own choices.

"Rich, come and see this," Gal said. He only whispered, but the cavern caught his voice, bending it into echoes that stayed there for several seconds.

Richard walked forward and stood next to his brother. He looked down. The demon was blackened by two millennia of flames, yet its form was still apparent, curled into a fetal position within the pit, head covered by its long-fingered hands, legs drawn up, feet curled inward and folded over each other.

Richard let out a held breath, and dizziness faded away.

"That's a demon," he said. "We've found a demon."

"Leh."

He spoke its name!
Richard thought. But nothing happened. The white flames died down on the demon's shoulder and sprang up again on its arm and hip, flickering across its leathery skin like rapidly growing frost.

"Are you ready?" Gal said.

No. Not ready. I'm not ready to do this.

"Rich? Ready? Open the book. Read those words."

"I'm not sure I want to."

"That doesn't matter."

"Whose fires am I putting out if I utter these words?" Richard said. "Leh was put down by Christ himself. Whose flames will I be extinguishing?"

"If the fire can be extinguished, then surely there's a reason for that?" Gal said.

Richard did not know. Slowly, without taking his eyes from the demon, he slipped the rucksack from his shoulder and pulled out the
Book of Ways.
He closed his eyes for a few seconds and cast a spell of course, dizzied with the effort. Then he opened his eyes again and started reading de Lainree's words.

The flames flickered, touched with a breath for the first time in almost two thousand years.

Richard fell back exhausted, and Gal took over. He used his pocketknife to chip off a portion of the carbonized demon, hissing as he burned himself. He blew on his fingers and stared at them for a few seconds, as if expecting something to sprout from his skin.

Richard held his breath, then sighed again as his brother continued.

He knelt close to the firepit — a firepit no longer — and drew the required shapes on the ground with a lump of chalk from his rucksack. He glanced back at Richard, expression unreadable, and then started a quiet chanting. The echoes of his words stumbled over each other.

The air in the chamber began to move, and Richard hoped it was because of an evening breeze in the Jerusalem streets above them.

Gal's chanting grew louder, and he swayed on his knees, leaning down to the left, the right, then forward over the chunk of burned demon he was trying to send. His clothes, loose on his thin frame, shivered as his muscles tensed and untensed, and Richard could see sweat dripping from his brother's nose and chin.

"It's going," Gal said.

Richard crawled back against the wall of the circular chamber. He heard a sigh — his brother, or a breeze coming along the tunnel from the drainage ditch, or something else entirely. A wavering white flame sprang up on Gal's right shoulder, smoke rising from his jacket as the fire ate into it, and Richard almost shouted a warning to his brother. Almost. Because then the shape Gal was hunkered within was scoured from the floor of the chamber by a blast of air, and the blackened shard of demon disappeared.

"It's gone," Gal said, and he fell onto his face.

Richard stood and hurried to his brother, terrified of what he would see, certain that the white flame would have found a new home in Gals fresh flesh and that he would lie there burning for a thousand years. But the flame had disappeared, and though Gals eyes had closed, he was still breathing, fast but regular.

A blackened patch on the floor was all that remained of the portion of Leh which Gal had sent through to their father.

"I hope you know what you're doing," Richard said, talking to the man he had not seen for fifteen years. "I really hope you know."

They stayed down there until morning, and then Richard helped Gal hobble up out of the tunnel. The Jerusalem sun felt good. On Gals shoulder, beneath his singed jacket, was a wound that would never heal.

"H
EY, JIM. A BEER
would be really good about now."

"I happen to have a few bottles of Abbot Ale in my office. You two wait here, and I'll be right back. Liz? Drink?"

"Whiskey?"

Sugg smiled. "Glenlivet." He left the room, and the door swung shut behind him. Fray had already gone to try to set up a meeting with the British minister of defense.

Hellboy ached. His muscles were sore, and his bones felt abused. He wished this were the end of something, not just the beginning. He could not remember the last time his stamina had been pushed so far. "Got to say it about the Brits," he said. "They do know a good drink when they see one."

"God bless them and all who sail in them," Liz murmured. She was lying on a leather sofa, while Hellboy had taken a huge floor cushion. He was not quite sure what to call the room — entertainment suite? — but it was tastefully furnished and pleasing to the senses. He could stay here, given half the chance.

Jim came back within a couple of minutes with their drinks, and the three of them shared a few silent moments. But that was all. Hellboy knew it was coming, and he knew that Jim knew, so it was no surprise when their peace was broken.

"They're scared of you," Jim said.

"Who?"

"The British government. They don't know what to think of you. You're ... strange. Out of the ordinary. They can't trust that, especially now, today, when all this shit is going on and Heathrow has just taken a battering."

Hellboy frowned. "Any casualty figures yet?"

Jim shook his head. "Too early. It'll be four figures, for sure."

"Damn." Hellboy closed his eyes, but his mind was full of flames. It was too hot in there. He looked at Liz and smiled, wondering how she could live with what she had.

"Don't they realize we might have an answer?" Liz asked.

Jim nodded. "Of course they do. Tom Manning has been on the phone for the past couple of hours trying to find someone who'll listen. So far as I can tell, he's been promised that a couple of helicopters will scout the approaches to London on land and sea, see what they find."

"A couple of helicopters?" Hellboy said. "London is hosting a huge gathering of international leaders, its main airport is fried by dragons, and they can spare the BPRD a couple of helicopters?"

"They're scared, Hellboy. Petrified. They don't know what the hell is going on, or who's doing it, or why. And think of the responsibility ... a major disaster here could leave half the countries on the globe without a leader!"

"Yeah," Hellboy said.

"We don't have time for this," Liz said. "We — "

"Why's he killing so many people?" Hellboy said.

"What?"

"You read the message from that psycho Blake, Liz. His stated aim is to put the world to rights. Give it back to those who should really rule. Cleanse the planet. Not your average psycho raison d'etre, granted ... but think about what he's doing here. A thousand dead at Heathrow? The kraken that took that cruise ship? What possible good is all this doing him?"

Liz frowned, bit her bottom lip. "None."

"None," Hellboy said. "Maybe he's losing control of his little pets."

"They're a diversion," Liz said. "This stuff has been happening all over the world for the past few days as a diversion away from his main attack, here and now. The environmental conference. Wipe out a load of world leaders, cause chaos and anarchy, giving the world's rightful owners their chance to take control."

"Dragons and kraken?" Jim asked.

"And more," Hellboy said. "Plenty more."

"But now they've launched their first attack in Britain," Liz said, "and soon he'll go for the conference. He doesn't need the diversion anymore."

"So why do the airport?" Hellboy said.

Liz shrugged. "As you said, in a war you take out enemy airports. Jim, any reports of other attacks in the British Isles yet?"