The Dragon Pool: The Dragon Pool (3 page)

"I have a predilection for dark wood and heavy drapes, Tom. You know this. It's very British of me, or so you've told me a dozen times."

Manning actually smiled, not a common occurrence. His hair was thinning, and the twenty-five extra pounds he carried around depressed him almost as much as the bureaucracy he had to deal with every day. One day, he would make a fine old curmudgeon, if a heart attack did not take him first. In truth, Bruttenholm thought that one day, Tom Manning would make a fine director for the Bureau--far better than the politicians who had served in the role for so long. He had a "buck stops here" mentality that was more than necessary for such a job, and for the Field Operations post he currently held.

"Good morning, Professor," Dr. Manning said, beginning again.

"And to you, Tom. To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"I have a field assignment that I'd like you to take the lead on."

Bruttenholm raised both eyebrows this time. The BPRD usually tried to discourage his work as a field agent these days, putting his value as a researcher and occult expert far above his value as an active agent.

"Go on."

Dr. Manning stepped farther into the room and handed him the case file. "We've received a joint request from the British and Chinese governments to conduct an investigation in Tibet. The British ambassador describes the situation as 'urgent.'"

"And the Chinese?" Bruttenholm asked, taking the proffered file.

"You know the Chinese government," Manning replied. "They've signed off on the formal request, but they act as though they're doing it as a favor to London. They'd never admit they need our help."

"Why is London involved at all?"

Manning sighed impatiently. "It's all in the file, Professor. Hellboy and Agent Sherman are due back in a few hours. We'll have a briefing this afternoon, and you'll leave tomorrow."

Curious, Bruttenholm opened the folder and glanced at the first couple of pages, smoothing his white goatee. Dr. Manning hesitated a moment, then turned to go.

"Tom," the professor said. "Stop."

Manning froze in the doorway and turned back to face him with obvious reluctance.

Bruttenholm stared at him. Dr. Manning might have been the Director of Field Operations and, thus, his superior, but they both knew the BPRD would not have existed without Bruttenholm and Hellboy, whom he called his son. Most of the time, the professor allowed Manning the illusion that he was in charge.

"It's an archaeological dig," Bruttenholm said.

"Yes."

"Run by the British Museum."

"Yes."

"And they've specifically requested Hellboy?"

Dr. Manning shrugged. "You know how highly the Brits regard him, particularly since the Egyptian incident in '86."

"One Brit in particular."

"As it may be," Manning replied, opening his hands in surrender. "Trevor, they think they've unearthed part of something called the Dragon King's temple, which is associated with just the sort of legend that has a tendency to cause trouble when the past is disturbed. There's been sabotage at the dig, and sightings of individuals who might not be entirely human. There's also the matter of a missing child, the eleven-year-old daughter of one of the archaeologists."

Bruttenholm shook his head. "We don't know there's anything supernatural involved here at all."

Manning crossed his arms. "What do your instincts tell you?"

The professor sighed. He ran his hands through his unruly white hair, understanding, now, why Tom Manning had wanted him to lead the investigation. He wanted to make sure that whoever was doing the thinking for the BPRD in the field had his head in the game.

"You already know what the project's leader thinks," Manning said. "She's had more than a few brushes with our sort of business over the years, as you know. Her instincts have always proved reliable."

Professor Bruttenholm returned his attention to the contents of the folder. It was precisely the sort of incident that the BPRD had been created to investigate. Research and defense were the stated purposes of the group, but the defense element often meant attempting to prevent supernatural forces from wreaking havoc upon the world. Such prevention did not need to be global to warrant their attention. When evil made its presence known, they had a duty to extinguish it. And, in this case, with a formal request from the British and Chinese governments, they couldn't refuse without creating a diplomatic incident. No matter what Bruttenholm would have preferred.

"It isn't Dr. Bransfield's instincts that concern me," the professor said, without looking up. "Hellboy claims his feelings for her are a thing of the past, but you saw how distracted he was the last time their paths crossed. For weeks, his mind was somewhere else. It isn't healthy for him."

Manning cocked his head. "It happens to the best of us, Professor."

Bruttenholm blinked and looked up, wondering if Manning understood what he'd just said. Love. The frailty of the heart. It happened to everyone at some point in their lives, if they were fortunate. It was human. If the bittersweet distraction of a former love was part of being human, what right did he have to prevent it?

Again, he stroked his goatee, staring at Anastasia Bransfield's signature on the documents in the folder. He was an old man who only wanted to save his son from heartache, as any parent would. But Hellboy hadn't been a child for a very long time. And Bruttenholm knew that his son would want to see Anastasia, now that the invitation had come.

But the professor didn't have to like it.

He'd set his pipe down, and now he picked it up again. He relit the pipe and drew in a lungful of sweet smoke.

"You know, you're really not supposed to smoke in here," Manning said.

Bruttenholm tapped the folder on his desk. "Tibet it is, then."

Hellboy always liked coming home to the BPRD headquarters. It was tucked away on a hillside in Fairfield, Connecticut, up a wooded, winding drive. The building was all glass and concrete, and yet its designer had created it to become a part of the landscape. It was built partially into the hillside and surrounded with trees and shrubs that seemed to bring life to the place. Hellboy had lived in far less pleasant circumstances. Despite the politicians and scientists who passed through its corridors every day, it still felt like home to him most of the time.

Of course, he knew that was due in large part to the fact that Liz Sherman and Abe Sapien, his closest friends, lived there. Their world existed, like his, within that glass-and-concrete building. And, of course, the man Hellboy thought of as his father was there as well.

On a day like today, when he was numbed by the journey from Chile to the United States, BPRD headquarters seemed particularly welcoming. He sat in the backseat of a truck and looked out the window as they emerged from the trees and the building came in sight. The engine rumbled as the vehicle labored up the hill. Liz had balled up her jacket and lay sleeping with her head upon his lap. The woman could sleep anywhere, especially if she'd recently summoned fire.

The truck shuddered to a stop at the entrance.

"Liz," Hellboy said, giving her a gentle shake. "We're home."

Her eyes fluttered open. "Home," she repeated.

The word didn't mean the same thing to her. Since the fire had first manifested in her at eleven years old, burning her life and family down around her, the BPRD had been more like self-imposed prison for her. She was not a captive, of course. She had run away many times as a child, and since she had reached adulthood and joined the Bureau as a field agent, she'd quit more than a few times. Abe and Hellboy were comfortable living in a place where they weren't constantly reminded how different they were. Liz was the opposite. She looked ordinary--even pretty--on the outside, but living at BPRD headquarters was a daily admission that she wasn't like other people, that she was a danger to them all, a freak.

It got under her skin.

Liz sat up, reached into the back of the truck for her duffel bag, and popped open the door. She slid out, then paused to glance back at Hellboy.

"Going back to sleep. Thanks for watching my back."

Hellboy nodded. "Sleep well."

Liz shut the door and headed for the building entrance without waiting for him. As tired as she was, he wouldn't have expected it. Tonight, or maybe tomorrow, they'd all sit in his room and watch a movie and eat bad Chinese food and everything would be fine. Liz just needed some down time.

Hellboy grabbed his own duffel and disembarked. He tapped the truck's roof with his left hand.

"Thanks for the pickup."

The driver waved out the window and pulled away, and the truck returned down the road, where the driver would leave it in the garage near the front gates. Hellboy shouldered his bag and went inside. By the time he stepped through the entrance and into the buzz of the Bureau offices, Liz was nowhere to be seen. Agents and researchers and coffee-carrying assistants moved through the corridors. Phones rang. Hellboy waved to several people as he strode through the midst of the BPRD's operations. It always fascinated him, the spectrum of reactions he got from people--even those he worked with on a regular basis. Some of them treated him like a celebrity, others like a monster. The ones he liked the best treated him like just another coworker, or somebody to talk movies with over a beer.

When he entered the residential wing of the complex, and the door closed behind him, he exhaled. It had been nice to come home, but now he could truly relax, maybe make up a batch of nachos with all the fixings, guacamole and all.

He passed Abe's door. As usual, he could hear music from within. Abe would be curled up with a book, or sitting on the floor surrounded by piles of books like Burgess Meredith in that classic
Twilight Zone
episode. But, always, there was the music. Today it was
The Notting Hillbillies,
a quirky little album if ever there was one. Not Hellboy's thing, but Abe had forced him to listen one day while they were playing Scrabble.

When he unlocked the door to his own room and pushed it open, the first thing he saw was the manila envelope that lay on the floor just inside. Someone had slid it under the door. Interoffice mail. But this one had a red
CONFIDENTIAL
stamp on it, so it wasn't a memo about Bureau staffers wasting too many paper clips or budget cuts forcing them to take the free coffee out of the break rooms.

"This can't be anything good," Hellboy said.

He closed the door behind him and dumped the duffel bag to one side. As he went into his apartment, listening to the comforting hum of the refrigerator and gazing lovingly at the huge sofa that sprawled in front of the television, he tried to ignore the manila envelope. He went to the fridge and stood in the open door, drinking a quart of orange juice right from the carton. When he closed the refrigerator, he glanced at the envelope, as though it might have done him the favor of vanishing.

Lamenting the nachos he'd promised himself, Hellboy grumbled as he crossed the room and snatched the envelope off the floor. He tore it open, ignoring the
PLEASE RECYCLE
message printed on the front, and slipped out the memo.

Hellboy glanced at the clock on the wall. It was a quarter after two already. He crumpled the memo in his fist and went back out into the corridor, leaving his door open. Still grumbling, he went down and knocked on Abe's door, his massive right fist shaking the wood in its frame. Normally he showed more courtesy, but he wasn't in a courteous mood.

The music paused, and a moment later, the door swung inward. Abe stood just inside, a kind of dim golden light filling his living room. His vision was extraordinary, and he favored gloom over brightness, even when reading. All that time underwater, Hellboy figured.

"Welcome home," Abe said, but his words had an inquisitive tone. There was very little that looked human about the amphibious man's appearance. His mottled, greenish skin had dark markings that only increased his resemblance to many forms of ocean life, not to mention the gills and finlike ridges. But his mannerisms were almost entirely human.

Hellboy held the crumpled memo out to him. "Yeah. Some welcome. I was going to make nachos. You know anything about this?"

Abe cocked his head to one side. "If that's the note from Dr. Manning about our three o'clock briefing, then, yes."

Hellboy waited, but Abe did not continue.

"Okay," he prodded. "Are you going to make me play twenty questions?"

"Of course not. I'd been thinking about charades, though," Abe said straight-faced.

Hellboy shook his head, unable to keep up the intensity of his annoyance with Manning when Abe was cracking wise.

"Are you trying to be funny?"

"Succeeding, actually," Abe replied.

"Says who?"