Hellboy: Unnatural Selection (30 page)

"Well ... " He scratched his goatee and looked anywhere but at Liz. "The guy's wife was killed. His research was trashed, even though it seems it was way ahead of its time. He was accused of murder. He and his sons had to go on the run, hide, disappear from the world. He's trying to restore the earth to its natural order, stop mankind from going down the route it's taken, a route that
will
destroy the planet soon. Ask any scientist. It's just that Blake has magic as an ally. He has knowledge. He's a genius, and madness and genius sleep well together."

"You almost sound as if you support this maniac."

"Not at all. I'm going to kick his ass. But I can empathize."

"You're a big softie."

Hellboy glared at Liz for a second, then away again.
Anyone but you,
he thought, but then he shook his head. Things were getting to him. He should loosen up. There was a fight coming — a big one — and he had to be at his best.

"Hey," Liz said.

"Yeah." He smiled at her, aware that Jim Sugg had looked away from their private moment.
I'm a lucky man,
Hellboy thought.
I'm a very lucky man, I have friends, people who care for me. Blake? He has revenge. With nothing but that driving him, madness is inevitable.

"Blake won't be far away," Liz said. "This is his moment. Even if he can't see it, he'll want to be close."

"Not far away at all," Hellboy agreed. "Hey, Hicks, you still see that bird carrying the car?"

"Er ... yeah. But we won't be following it for very much longer. That other giant bird thing we hit did something nasty to the motor. It's overheating, and something's broken in there. I can hear it grinding. I want to take us lower just incase — "

"We fly on," Hellboy said. "I thought helicopters either flew or crashed?"

"Yeah, no gliding in this baby."

"So what's the point in going lower? We fly."

"Whatever you say," Hicks said. He mumbled something else, but Hellboy missed it. Probably a prayer.

Hicks nursed the Lynx onward, still keeping the bird and the flying car in sight. Hellboy, Liz, and Jim sat in the back, staring from the open door — Hellboy's fist had crushed the jamb so that it would no longer shut — and using the noise as an excuse not to talk. Just as Hellboy noticed he could no longer see land to the south, Hicks called through their headphones, "Oh, screw me."

"What is it?"

"Come see for yourself."

Hellboy climbed into the cockpit again, doing his best to ignore the worsening shuddering of the helicopter. They wouldn't be up for much longer, and —

And there it was. The ship. He'd guessed it would be a ship, but not one like this, not one as
big
as this.

"It's an old oil tanker," Hicks said. "I just saw that bird dip down into one of those open doors on its deck. Car and all."

I wonder why it took the car,
Hellboy thought.
I wonder who's in it.
"Can you land us on that thing?"

"Are you out of your — ?"

"Hicks." Hellboy stared at the pilot. He gave him the glare. He hated doing it, but sometimes kind words just weren't enough.

"I can land on it," Hicks said. "And yes, you scare me. But all you had to do was say please."

Hellboy laughed briefly and went back into the cabin. "This is it," he said. He clenched his fist, checked his pistol, and wondered why he suddenly felt far from ready.

They landed on the wide bow of the old tanker, wondering why they had been allowed to descend uninterrupted.

It was only as the rotors wound down and the things came at them from behind the splayed hold doors that they began to understand.

A
S SOON AS THE CAR
bumped onto the deck, Abby was out, running for the shadows, hating the stink and feel and sound of this familiar, terrible place, yet desperate to hide and escape as quickly as possible. Lost, at least she would stand a chance. And there was still one place where she thought she could find help.

"Always in a rush," a voice said. "Always so keen to leave, when there's unfinished business behind you."

Abby spun around, searching the hold for Blake. All she could see were the wrecked car and the bird, flapping its immense wings and trying to loosen its claws from the buckled metal. Elsewhere were only shadows, nudged by sunlight slanting through the open hold doors.

"You rushed away from me," Blake said. "But now you're back, and at the most opportune moment. What am I to you now, werewolf? Am I unfinished business?"

"I should have killed you that night I escaped," Abby said. "And I have a name: Abby. I'm not one of your monsters anymore."

"Of course you are," Blake said, and he stepped from the shadows. He looked ancient. Slight. Weary. And Abby had to blink, because for a second he was almost
not there.
"And you always will be." Blake looked up through the hold at the deep blue sky, marred here and there by loose, wispy clouds. "It'll be dusk soon ...
Abby.
And then night, and the full moon will be out. Ready to taste flesh?" He darted closer, his coat stroking the air.

"Stay away!" she said.

"Ready to taste
human
flesh again?"

"I eat cattle," she said.

"Now maybe. But not always. Don't you remember the first one, the boy from Hawaii? The rukh brought him to you, and you tore him to shreds, ate his heart, drank blood from his tattered throat. And I treated you like royalty. A whole hold of your own."

Abby closed her eyes and shook her head, trying to deny the images that Blake's words conjured. They were circling her like memories, but she tried to shove them away, make them lies. She put them on a screen and called them a film. But she had never tasted a movie or felt its skin split beneath her teeth —

"You're next!" she said, lunging at Blake.

He stepped aside and laughed. Her hands, tattooed fingers already clawed, slid from his chest and throat as though coated in oil. She pounced again, and again Blake brushed her off. She hardly felt him.

"You must be starving," Blake said. "No true flesh for so long."

"I'm a
person,
Blake. I have a place in the world, memories, a life." She stood back from him, spooked by the way he had felt. She squinted. Could she really see through him? Or was that simply the weird light down here, strobed by the rukh's wings as it struggled to flap itself free of the car?

"You're something I brought back!" he said, and she heard wounded pride in his voice. Good. She could use that.

"Are you so proud of everything you brought back? What about
him
? Is he still locked away down there?"

Blake's smile did not falter, but the humor dropped from his face.

"He's going to have you," Abby said. "And you know that, don't you? He was always going to have you in the end."

"Once the end is here, I'll no longer care," Blake said. "Not long now. They're probably dying already, those pompous bastards pumped up with their own self-importance. They have no idea what's important! Money, oil, status ... their place in the scheme of things has gone. It'll be a cleaner world, werewolf, the second blood from the first of them touches the ground."

Abby looked for a way out. She could see movement in the shadows: drones. They were small and weak, but enough of them could easily subdue her, should Blake command them to do so.

"No way out," he said.

"Why did you bring me here?"

"To kill you," Blake said. "You're my failure. I'll grant you your last meal, though." He smiled, and behind that grin she saw his downfall.

Abby smiled as well. "So even after all this grand talk of morals and responsibility, you still let pride bring you down," she said.

Blake shrugged. "It's tidiness, not pride. You'd be a loose end."

There was the sudden sound of gunfire from somewhere far away. Blake glanced around — just for a second — and Abby took her chance. She screeched loudly, startling the rukh into agitated motion, and ran the opposite way, ducking into shadows and hoping she would find a wall with a door. Several drones blocked her path, and when Blake screamed they turned on her with their stunted arms raised. She kicked one aside, batted another from her face when it launched itself at her, and then she was through a door and around the corner, running, trusting to instinct rather than trying to plan a route. Her senses were already heightened by the impending full moon. She smelled her way down, deeper into the ship, and within a few minutes she could no longer hear Blake raging behind her.

She got lost. Corridors and doors, stairways and open rooms, shadows and light, old pens and cooling birthing vats. She shut doors behind her, opened those that were closed, backtracked here and there, covering her path in the hope that she would buy enough time to do what she had to do. There was somewhere to visit and one final door to open at last.

After that, the future would be in very different hands.

"What the hell are
they
?" Hicks shouted.

"You have a sidearm?" Hellboy asked.

"Of course, but — "

"Get ready to use it."

Hellboy and Liz knelt in the doorway of the Lynx's cabin, facing the things scampering across the deck. Jim, pale and shaking, sat behind them. There was little he could do to help. Hicks was still in his pilot's seat, side window opened, the muzzle of his pistol resting on the glass lip.

"Black dogs," Liz said.

"They're the size of cows!" Hellboy said.

"How many do you see? I count four. Hicks?"

"I can't see, they're too fast."

Hellboy growled. "Let them have it." His pistol roared, and a shower of sparks erupted from the deck before two of the running hounds. They did not even turn aside.

The black dogs were huge, heavily muscled, their long claws clicking on the metal deck as they ran. They made no effort to hide themselves or creep up on the helicopter. They were too large for one thing, and the setting sun washed their shadows far across the deck. By the time the first dog reached the long shadow of the helicopter, its jaws were dripping pink foam, teeth glinting, eyes narrowed as the vicious growl distorted its face.

Hellboy fired again, and Hicks' pistol added its own voice. Bullets thudded into the lead dog, catching it in the shoulder and mouth, and it skidded across the deck, shaking its head. It glanced over its shoulder and quickly ran again, obviously keen to keep the lead.

"Shit," Hicks muttered. He fired again. Red spots erupted on the fur of the dog's face, but the bullets did not faze it.

"Liz?" Hellboy said. He squeezed off another couple of shots. The large-caliber bullets struck home in the creature's front legs, delaying it for a few precious seconds. "Liz, I need help here. There won't be a second chance."

"I know, I know!"

Hellboy glanced at Liz. Her eyes were squeezed shut, concentration creased her face, and her arms rose on either side as fire flickered between her fingers. He could feel the power brewing in her, so alien and strange because it seemed to come from nowhere. He could sense its heat, its wrath, and not for the first time he was glad to be her friend. Pretty tough he may be, but he'd hate to be on the receiving end of Liz's fury.

"Liz ... "

The first dog was within leaping distance. Hellboy's pistol clicked empty. Hicks fired again, his own peashooter having little effect.

Liz screamed.

The dogs eyes reflected the fire that leaped from Liz's hands, mouth, and eyes. The hound launched itself from the deck, aimed at the open door of the helicopter, but it never made contact. The fire batted it aside, swarming across its foam-speckled face and burrowing into its fur. The stink of burning hair and flesh quickly permeated the inside of the Lynx, even as the second black dog barreled into the first, sending it rolling across the deck, claws screeching up curls of torn metal.

The burning dog's howl was like the whole day screaming in pain. It streaked back across the deck, leaving oily smoke in its wake. Flames slithered across its skin. It struck one of the open hold doors with a meaty thud, rolled onto its back, and fell out of sight into the bowels of the ship.

Hellboy had taken the opportunity to reload. He jumped from the chopper, stood with his legs braced, and fired at the other three dogs, one bullet each. He saw one take out a dog's eye, wasn't sure what happened to the other shots, and then the second hound pounced.

It stood as tall as him. Its mouth was the width of his head. Each tooth was the length of his pistol's barrel, and the eyes were featureless black pits, no soul there, no hope, only a pledge of pain and a promise of death. As it came at him, claws reaching, mouth wide open, bloody saliva streaking back from its teeth, Hellboy swung his right fist to connect with its snout.

The dog's howl turned into a whimper as it struck the deck and rolled onto its side.

"Play dead!" Hellboy shouted. He leaped after the black dog, fist crashing down onto one of its back legs. He felt the bone crumble. The dog howled, jerking its head back and gnashing its jaws at him. He pulled back, and the dogs teeth snapped shut an inch from his hand, its fleshy lips smacking around his arm. Hellboy stood and brushed the sticky mess of saliva and blood from his skin.

The dog tried to stand. Its leg crumpled, so it dragged itself forward instead, jaws working at the air as if it were chewing its way to Hellboy. He backed away slowly, teasing the dog, until the angle was right for Hicks to fill its head with lead.

Six rounds sent the monster back to the Memory.

"Two down," Hellboy said, and then Liz shouted, Hicks gasped, and the two remaining dogs landed on Hellboy's back.

He was forced to the deck, smashing his face into the salty metal. They knocked the breath from him, the impact dulled his senses, and if the dogs hadn't chosen that moment to snap at each other — fighting over their share of dinner, Hellboy guessed — things might have ended up much worse. As it was, their bickering gave him a precious few seconds to gather himself, tense his muscles, and push upward from the deck. One dog tumbled away toward the helicopter, the other stayed right there on his back, its claws curling through his coat and piercing his skin, scraping against bone, its slavering jaws closing on the back of his neck and grinding together. His own warm blood mixed with the disgusting flow of saliva and foam down his back.