by Mark Morris
They came for him, grinding and creaking, slowly at first but moving more easily with each step. Knowing he had no choice, Hellboy stomped forward to meet them. He had fought big guys before, and knew that he could punch a lot harder than most of them. Problem here, though, was sheer weight of numbers. Lumbering brutes though they were, there was no way of dodging all the sledgehammer blows that he felt sure Leith’s followers would throw in his direction.
As soon as the stone giants came within range, Hellboy started swinging. He took a few of them out — he drove his fist right through the chest of one, shattering the creature’s ossified heart, and smashed the jaw clean off another — but the rest surrounded him like a gang in a schoolyard and methodically began to pummel his already tenderized body.
He fought bravely, but little by little the guardians bore him down. He took blow after blow, and eventually his legs buckled under the incessant barrage and he hit the deck. Even then, however, he continued to fight. As the guardians crowded round him, he struck out at the forest of legs, attempting to break kneecaps, splinter shin bones. But as the blows continued to rain down on his head and shoulders, his thoughts began to swim. He tried to concentrate on what mattered — avenging Cassie, saving the world — but at last a particularly savage blow caught him behind the ear and he slumped forward onto his hands and knees. He roared his defiance, but it was not enough to prevent his arms giving way, his face hitting the rock floor.
He thought again of Liz, of Abe, of Cassie. He thought of all the people he was letting down. He couldn’t lose now. He couldn’t. But even as that thought burned fiercely inside him, he was aware of consciousness slipping away, of everything going black ...
And then suddenly he realized that the blows had stopped. He blinked as consciousness slowly returned. Yes, it was true. The blows really had stopped. And yet somewhere he could still hear the fight continuing, could still hear the clash of blows, the sharp crunch of rock on rock.
With an enormous effort he raised his head. It felt massive and misshapen, and far too heavy for his neck muscles. He looked around, but at first he could see nothing except a confused shimmer; the vague impression of massive black shapes moving in front of him; a wavering light, like a blue ghost in the darkness.
He focused on the ghost, and little by little the glow from it seemed to expand, to illuminate and clarify its surroundings. He realized that the “ghost” was in fact the Devil’s Eye, which blazed in the center of Leith’s forehead. But what was astonishing was not that Leith had creaked into life like his followers, but that he was currently caroming his way through them, shattering heads and crushing limbs, sending huge black bodies careering and collapsing this way and that.
He had help too. Another of the rock creatures was standing shoulder to shoulder with Leith, battling his fellow guardians. Hell-boy peered hard at the creature. Was it the same one he had spoken to in the tube tunnel, the one that had first told him about the All-Seeing Eye? He wasn’t absolutely certain, but he thought that perhaps it was.
Through sheer force of will, his teeth clenched against the pain, Hellboy pushed himself first into a sitting position, and then into a standing one. He swayed a moment, his vision blurring. He might hurt more than he could remember hurting before, but as long as he could stand and move and punch, he would do whatever he could to carry out his mission. And so he let out a battle cry that seemed — temporarily, at least — to make the pain and stiffness flow out of his limbs, and he plunged into the fray once more, his stone fist pistoning forward, smashing into black rock that had once been sinew and flesh.
Side by side, Hellboy, Leith, and the tube creature battered their opponents to defeat. They made a good team, Leith and his acolyte providing the brawn, Hellboy moving in to finish off combatants that were already reeling from his unlikely partners’ demolition-ball blows. Though Hellboy was quick and lithe compared to his opponents, he was aware that he was operating purely on adrenaline. Tough as he was, if he came out of this one alive he doubted he’d be able to move for at least a week afterwards.
What quickly became apparent was that the stone figures were reluctant to fight their leader with the same relentless force that they had defended the Eye against Hellboy. Evidently they were torn between defending themselves against an outright aggressor and protecting the very artifact that had imprisoned them. As a consequence, Hellboy, Leith, and the tube creature were able to press home their advantage, to cut a swathe through the guardians. Hellboy might almost have felt sorry for his opponents if they hadn’t already inflicted so much pain on him, and if there hadn’t been so much at stake.
Although the guardians were reluctant to inflict damage on their leader, the same could not be said of their fellow guardian, who had briefly found himself back in the world from which he had been plucked a century before, and who as a result of that had perhaps rediscovered a little of his humanity. Peripherally Hellboy was aware of the tube creature suddenly crashing to the ground under a rain of blows, and of subsequently being smashed into fragments until he stopped moving. He silently wished his fallen comrade farewell even as he himself continued to wade forward, following up the groundwork established by Leith. Using this tactic, Hellboy and Leith slowly, methodically overcame their opponents, the massive stone figures falling away until finally Hellboy and his unlikely ally were the only ones left standing.
In the sudden silence that marked the aftermath of battle, Hellboy looked round at the fallen enemy, their broken bodies strewn across the floor of the chamber. It was only now that he had a chance to wonder why Leith had helped him, and what would happen next. Because despite their alliance, Hellboy’s objective had not changed — he was still determined to smash the Eye and destroy the energy that even now could be tearing London apart.
He stepped back from Leith, and once again looked into the tortured, skeletal face. As his eyes met the shriveled eyes of the creature, he grunted in surprise. Just for a moment something had leaped across the mental divide between Hellboy and the massive stone figure. Like an intense but fleeting flash of light, Hellboy had the distinct sensation of a mind trying to communicate, of a soul touching his. He saw a confused jumble of faces in his mind’s eye, some of which he recognized from grainy, photocopied mug shots that had been attached to the forensic reports of the murder victims. Then one particular face rose to the fore — green eyed and beautiful — and a voice softly spoke his name. He blinked and stared up into the unmoving face more avidly. The blue light in the Devil’s Eye swirled like luminous mist.
“Cassie?” Hellboy murmured. “Is that you in there?”
The Leith creature didn’t speak, but slowly it raised a hand in an oddly touching gesture of supplication. Hellboy hesitated a moment, then he took the hand in his own.
And suddenly he knew it was true. Unwillingly, Cassie and the others had given their blood, their lives, to open the Eye. Yet, it seemed that although the Eye had consumed their lives, it had not consumed their souls. Somehow Cassie’s spirit, young and fresh and full of rage and goodness, had joined with the other souls trapped within the lodestone and had used the channels created by the final sacrifice to flood into Leith and overwhelm him. Or perhaps Leith himself, resentful of being betrayed and trapped, or weary and wanting nothing but release, had drawn Cassie and the others to him, opened himself up to them willingly.
All at once the massive, twisted shape that had once been Maximus Leith slipped its hand from his and crashed down onto its knees. Hellboy jumped back, thinking it was about to topple forward and crush him, but it remained on its knees, head bowed, as if in an attitude of prayer.
At first Hellboy thought that it was slipping back into its decades-long sleep, that the spirits of Cassie and the others were vacating it or perhaps losing their influence over the vast stone body. But then he realized that in fact Leith or whoever inhabited him was simply offering himself- — or more specifically, it was offering Hellboy the Eye, to do with as he wished.
H
ellboy had no idea what would happen to Cassie and the others if he destroyed the Eye, but he knew he had no choice. He looked down at the floor, saw a curled fist that had been smashed clean off the wrist of one of the stone guardians, and picked it up, hefting it in his hand. It was heavy, and it would make a decent bludgeon. The Leith creature was still motionless, but the blue lights within the Devil’s Eye were flickering madly, as if anticipating its fate. Hellboy drew back his arm and swung the stone fist right into the center of the Eye.
The Eye exploded with an eruption of blue-white energy, which blew Hellboy off his feet and halfway across the chamber. Here we go again, he thought, as he hurtled backwards through the air. Then he landed, crashing down onto hard, jagged rocks, and the world grayed out for a while.
He came to a couple of minutes later, groaning and shaking his head. Was it really possible to add any more pain to that which he’d already accumulated? Not for the first time that day, he staggered to his feet and stood swaying for a moment. When the walls stopped spinning, he looked across to where the Leith creature had fallen.
It too had been blown backwards when the Eye had been destroyed, and was now lying on its back, twisted and broken, some distance away. Most of the top of its head had shattered into fragments when the Eye had exploded, but despite this it was still moving feebly, like a beached fish in its last stages of suffocation.
Hellboy limped across to it and dropped to his knees. He looked into its dead eyes once again, but there was no flash of recognition now, no indication as to whether Cassie still inhabited the twisted, crystalline form. All the same, Hellboy shuffled forward and gently lifted the shattered head into his lap.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled simply.
In the cold gloom of the underground cavern, he sat with her a while, silent and alone.
Epilogue
“So all this muti stuff was just a red herring, then?” Liz said.
Abe shook his head. “Not at all. It was just Richard’s area of expertise, which he adapted to open the Eye. I guess he stumbled across references to the Eye through his research, and found out that London had been built on a vast reservoir of energy which he thought was his for the taking.”
“Energy that was already leaking through the cracks,” said Liz.
“Yes, and which he was able to use to a limited degree.”
“Like in Olusanya’s flat, you mean? He was pretending to be scared when all that stuff was flying at me, but it was him all along, wasn’t it?”
Abe nodded.
Liz looked disgusted. “That creep. I hate the fact that I didn’t see through the guy. I hate the fact that I even liked him.”
“We all did,” Abe said. “You shouldn’t blame yourself.”
“I still should’ve seen it.”
Liz walked across the hotel room and looked broodingly out of the window. Two days on from the chaos, and superficially London hardly seemed affected by what had happened.
“I’m not sure Hellboy ever liked him that much,” she murmured.
“Hellboy never likes anybody that much,” Abe said with just the barest suggestion of humor.
A tiny smile flickered across Liz’s face. “That’s what makes him such a good judge of character.”
There was a short pause, then Abe asked, “How is Hellboy? Have you spoken to him this morning?”
“Only through the door. He grunted at me a couple times.”
Abe nodded. Since Hellboy had emerged in a shocking state yesterday, having apparently spent the past twenty-four hours climbing an underground mountain several miles high, the two of them had had only a sketchy account of what had happened down in the bowels of the earth. All they knew for sure was that it had involved both Cassie and Maximus Leith, and that it had effectively killed the Eye energy stone dead.
When Abe and Liz had fled the house in Ranskill Gardens the night before last, the consequences of the final ceremony were already starting to be felt throughout London. The “eyes” which had opened up earlier that day had quickly begun to proliferate and widen, to run one into another, as the malign energy had poured through them. Within an hour, people affected by the energy had started to flood from the buildings in which they had earlier taken refuge and rampage through the streets, tearing frenziedly at each other like wild animals. Cars had been wrecked, buildings had been set on fire, and police and army personnel, who had been similarly affected, had added to the carnage by firing their weapons gleefully and indiscriminately into the crazed mob.
Casualties had been high. Even now, bodies were still being cleared from the streets and carried from houses and municipal buildings. It was thought that the death toll from the two hours of chaos that had swept through the city would eventually number in the thousands, and that criminal damage to property would run to millions of pounds.
“You knew Hellboy would come through for us, didn’t you?” Liz said.
“I didn’t know, but I hoped,” Abe replied.
“And what if he hadn’t stopped it? What would you have done then?”
“I would have done exactly the same as you.”
“Which is?”
“Whatever was necessary.”
Liz saw a black cab drive past the front of the hotel, a child walking hand in hand with its mother on the far side of the street. London had been devastated but life went on. What was it the Brits called it? The Dunkirk spirit.
There was a rap on the door. Not timid but respectful, mindful of the fact that the occupant might be sleeping. Liz expected it to be a hotel employee — one of the handful who had been fit enough, or desperate enough for money, to come back to work so soon after the terrible events of Wednesday night, when a pitched battle in the foyer had left five people dead and a dozen hospitalized — to let them know that their car was here to take them to the airport.
But then a voice, low and weary, said, “Guys?”
Liz ran across the room and yanked the door open almost hard enough to give herself whiplash.
“HB!” she cried.
He appeared a little taken aback by the enthusiasm of her greeting. There was a moment of uncharacteristically awkward silence, and then he muttered, “Mind if I come in?”
“Do you really need to ask?” said Liz, and dragged the door open wider, flattening herself against the wall to give him room to pass.
He ducked under the lintel and entered. He’d been in his room for the best part of the last twelve hours. Liz had assumed he was sleeping, but he might just have been brooding on events, running them over and over in his head. He still looked utterly beat, that was for sure. His shoulders were slumped, his lantern-jawed face was drawn, and every visible part of him aside from his stone hand was covered in cuts and bruises, bumps and lumps. He looked, in short, like a heavyweight boxer after a particularly bad mauling. The bridge of his nose was one huge scab and his left eye was a yellow slit within a swollen pouch of blackened flesh.
“How you guys doing?” he asked, looking around. “All packed up, I see.”
Liz nodded. “How about you? Don’t tell me you need me to close your suitcase again?”
He smiled a little at that. “Actually, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”
His words gave Liz a sudden hollow feeling in her stomach. “Oh?”
“Yeah, I ... er ... I think I’m gonna duck out for a while. Take a break.”
“You mean you’re not coming back with us?” Liz said, trying not to sound disappointed.
“Not just yet. I’ll get a later flight. Coupla weeks, maybe.”
“Where will you go?” Liz asked.
“Somewhere peaceful. The Cotswolds, maybe. I got friends there.”
“The Finches?”
He nodded.
Liz put a hand on his arm. “We’ll miss you,” she said.
Hellboy looked embarrassed, awkward. “Yeah.”
Abe had sat through the exchange silently. Now he said, “I think it’s a good idea. Do you want us to let To
m know where you are?”
“Uh-uh,” Hellboy said, shaking his head. “In fact...” He delved into the pocket of his duster and pulled out his satellite phone. “Take this back for me, willya?”
Liz took it off him almost reluctantly.” You won’t stay away long, I hope.”
Hellboy chuckled. “Nah, just when you least expect it, I’ll turn up again like the proverbial bad penny. Always have, always will.”
Then the laughter faded. His voice became gruff, somber.
“After all,” he added, “what else can I do?”