The God Machine

by Thomas E. Sniegoski

  "Oh but there is, Franklin," Spearz said, moving back to his side. "As I have done for myself, and those who listen to my good words--I can do for you."

  Spearz threw his arm around Franklin's shoulders, and the mortician's body pulsed with a strength he hadn't felt in years. And then he realized that his pain was gone. The man's touch had taken away his suffering.

  "Think of it, a vitality you have not felt since adolescence," Spearz whispered in his ear. "Do you remember those days, Franklin?"

  He nodded fiercely. "I...I used to run," he said, squeezing his eyes closed, remembering how good the wind felt upon his face as he sprinted home from school.

  "And you will run again," Spearz said reassuringly, squeezing him closer. "Give me what I ask, and it will be as if time has been reversed, the hands of the clock forced to give back what they have taken away."

  Tears streamed down Franklin Massie's face. He wanted to believe. He wanted to feel alive again, and he knew he was willing to pay the price. "What do you want? What could I possibly have that you..."

  Still gripping his shoulders, Spearz slowly turned him, pointing him toward the doorway that led downstairs.

  "I ask of you what I asked of your father," Spearz said, as they shuffled toward the stairway. "I must have certain raw materials in order to create the tools by which I may best serve my God."

  "Raw materials?" Franklin asked, allowing himself to be guided down the steps to the embalming room below.

  "The dead, Franklin. I have need of the dead."

  Chapter 3

  "L ook at this friggin' mess," Hellboy grumbled as he stood amid the rubble that was his videotape collection. Two shelves on the plastic unit that held the multiple tapes had collapsed, spilling the contents all over the floor. "Must be a million tapes here," he said, shaking his head with exasperation.

  "At least," Abe replied, keeping his distance. "Want some help?"

  Hellboy dropped to his knees. "Naw, that's all right. I had them in a specific order. Maybe if I'm lucky, they won't be too messed up." He reached for a tape, picked it up, frowned and tossed it back where he'd found it. "But then again."

  Abe sat on the overstuffed sofa. "I'm surprised how many tapes you have." He plucked a magazine from the end table and started to flip through it. "Have you heard about this new thing? DVD, they call it."

  "Smart-ass." Hellboy began piling the tapes behind him. "Nope, they're not gonna get me this time."

  "Who?" Abe asked, looking up from last month's copy of Bon Appetit.

  "The tech monkeys--you know, the guys who decide what's going to be the next big thing to replace the thing that we already got that works perfectly fine? Well, I ain't fallin' for it this time."

  Hellboy leaned across the pile, reaching for a particular tape. He nearly lost his balance and as he recovered, his tail swished to one side and knocked over the pile he'd started behind him.

  "Damn."

  Abe closed the magazine and studied its cover. "So you think DVD is just a way for big business to separate you from your money."

  "Exactly," he said. "It's just like what happened with eight tracks. Remember eight tracks?"

  Abe tilted his head to one side. "Certainly, they were eventually replaced with cassette tapes."

  "Bingo!" Hellboy jabbed the air with his finger. "That's what I'm talking about." He paused. "You know, I really loved that eight track player. I think I might still have it around here someplace."

  Abe nodded. "I'm sure you do."

  Hellboy leaned back on his haunches. "Let's say I buckle and convert to this DVD business. You know they're only going to come up with some new technology--an even smaller doohickey that they screw directly into your brain or somethin'--and then I've got to start all over again."

  "Sounds exhausting. I think I'll stick with books," Abe said, putting the magazine back where he had found it.

  Hellboy climbed to his feet, the pile of tapes in front of him looking no smaller. "Think I might have to tackle this later, maybe after some lunch. You in?"

  Abe stood. "I'm not all that hungry from breakfast, but I could eat a salad."

  "I think they're having Sloppy Joes in the cafeteria today. Put down a few of them babies, and I'll be rarin' to get back to work...or a nap. A nap might be good."

  They both headed for the door.

  "Remember, you promised Kate that you'd..."

  "Yeah, it's the next thing on my list." Hellboy reached for the doorknob just as a knock sounded from the other side. He shot a dark look at Abe. "Crap, you jinxed me."

  He knew who was on the other side even before he pulled the door open. "What's going on, Kate?"

  "How'd you know it was me?" she asked.

  "I know your knock. Abe and I were just leaving to grab..."

  "What happened here?" she interrupted, pushing past him, attracted to the mess in the corner of the room.

  "Shelves gave way. Like I was saying, we're going to get lunch. You want to come?" He didn't want her messing up his stuff any more than it already was.

  Kate squatted down and began looking through the tapes. "Man, you certainly have a lot of crap here," she said with a chuckle. "Why would you even want to keep most of this stuff?"

  "Look, my tastes are more on the..." He couldn't think of the word he wanted, and looked to Abe for help.

  "Esoteric?"

  "Yeah, esoteric side."

  "Esoteric?" she said with a laugh. "I guess Caltiki the Immortal Monster certainly fits that bill." She held up the plastic case with its garish cover art depicting a giant, bloblike creature battling tanks.

  Hellboy snatched it away from her. "Look, are you coming to lunch or not?"

  "Nope, and you're not going, either," Kate told him. "Manning wants to see you and Liz in his office pronto."

  "I thought he wasn't coming in until later. Can't he wait until--?"

  "Nope, he wants you now." Kate walked back to the open door. "Oh yeah, and I need your report on the Graken Spriggin by tomorrow morning. Talk to you guys later," she said, and disappeared out the door with a backhanded wave.

  "Sometimes she can be a real pain in the neck," Hellboy muttered, then noticed Abe staring at him. "What?"

  "Caltiki the Immortal Monster?"

  Hellboy looked down at the cassette case still in his hand.

  "It's a classic."

  Baltimore, Maryland, 1898

  Peter Donaldson had come to Absolom Spearz so that the medium could help him communicate with his dear, departed mother, but instead, he appeared to be dying before Absolom's eyes.

  Absolom tried to break the man's grip upon him with little success. They had clasped hands at the beginning of the seance, and now it seemed that the fates had turned the tables on poor Mr. Donaldson, triggering a seizure of some kind. No spirits had manifested themselves or inhabited Absolom's body to speak through his mouth. Instead, Mr. Donaldson had begun to shake uncontrollably. Now a thick trickle of froth dripped from the side of his grimacing lips.

  "Mr. Donaldson, can you hear me?" Absolom asked, hoping to break the spell. "I want you to try and relax."

  He'd heard of such things happening to other mediums, but had never experienced it for himself. Evidently, it had something to do with the spiritual energies amassed within the room triggering fits in the overly sensitive.

  Absolom stood and was about to call for his wife. There were only five rooms in the apartment they rented in this working-class neighborhood on Durant Street, and she would surely hear him and go to fetch a doctor.

  But then Mr. Donaldson spoke. Or, rather, something spoke through Donaldson, as if the grief-stricken man himself was the medium, rather than Absolom.

  "I can feel you there, Absolom Spearz," said a voice that sounded nothing like the kindly old man. His mouth did not move, remaining agape, as if frozen in a scream, but the voice issued from between his lips. "I can see you, out in the light. Listen now, and well. I am the god, Qemu'el, harbinger of a new age, and you have been ch
osen."

  All Absolom could do was stare, held in a grip equal parts terror and wonder. He had heard this voice before, as a child. But it had gone strangely silent after the death of his mother, perhaps sensing the anger and bitterness young Absolom felt toward it for failing to provide the last piece of information that would have allowed the boy to save her life.

  Donaldson's body trembled, as if attempting to contain some powerful force. The old man's skin had taken on a sickly pallor, an unhealthy yellow made all the more unappealing by the muted light of the gas lamps hanging from gold sconces on the wall.

  "It has been too long, Absolom Spearz," the voice continued. "But at last, the time has come."

  He knew exactly what the voice was talking about and felt his brain begin to tingle in anticipation. He still yearned for what had been denied to him so long ago.

  "I have called to you--and four others of your ilk," the god explained, "you, who have the abilities and fortitude to help humanity achieve its highest aspirations."

  Donaldson's body had started to wither, as if the moisture was somehow being drawn from his body. Absolom gasped as he watched the old man's yellowing flesh grow tighter to the bone, giving him a cadaverous appearance.

  "My time is short, for this poor soul is already nearly expended. The others will become your new family, and together, you will be the priests of a new faith, able to achieve the greatest of things."

  Absolom wanted to look away from the nightmarish visage before him, but couldn't.

  "The world will soon be as this body--old, and tired, withering away until it is nothing more than a pale shadow of what it once was, never realizing what it could have been."

  The flesh of the man was now like ancient parchment, cracking and falling from the bone to reveal the skeleton beneath.

  "What would you have us do?" Absolom whispered, filled with anticipation. "What can we, mere mortals, do to stop the world's decline?"

  Donaldson's eyes shrank beneath paper-thin lids, and fell back into the skull, leaving two holes filled with darkness.

  "Open your mind to me," the god demanded, and Absolom Spearz obeyed.

  Once again he felt the presence of something totally alien blossom within his mind, and then he knew what had to be done. At long last, he'd been given the answer.

  "It's wonderful," he whispered. His body trembled with a new sense of purpose as he began to understand the ways in which he would bring the world that much closer to Heaven.

  "For these wonders to occur, I must be more than just a voice speaking from the beyond," Qemu'el continued from within its withered conduit. "My divinity must be made corporeal--I must be born into the world that I will deliver unto greatness."

  Absolom nodded furiously. "We will do this, oh god. With the knowledge you have given me, I and these others shall bring you from the beyond so that you may heal this ailing world."

  "Yes," the god hissed. The old man's skin had withered away, leaving behind the blanched remains of a skeleton in a threadbare suit--but that too was starting to disintegrate. "Only one power will be able to tear asunder the ebony veil that separates me from the world that craves my touch--the power of belief."

  Absolom felt warm tears fill his eyes. "I believe," he told the deity, his lips trembling with an adoration he'd never felt before. It was almost more than he could bear.

  "That is not enough," the god replied, Peter Donaldson's skull slowly shaking from side to side upon the segmented spinal column. "No matter how true your faith, one man's belief is not enough. It will take the passionate faith of dozens. Hundreds. Thousands. The beliefs of others must be collected, harnessed as the source of strength that will enable me to walk in your world."

  The spiritualist searched his newly invigorated mind for the means with which to collect this power, but found nothing that would allow him to do as his god was asking.

  "How will we achieve this?" he asked the skeletal remains, whose dry, bony hands were still clasped in his. "What will we use to gather and to contain this power?"

  "I shall give to you and to the others with whom I have communicated a precious gift," the god explained, "a vessel in which to store the energies needed to transform the world."

  Donaldson's cadaver pitched forward. Absolom recoiled, pulling back his hands as the skull struck the middle of the circular table and exploded into dust. The bone cloud filled his lungs and he gagged, coughing wildly as he leaped up from his seat, stumbling away from the choking cloud.

  A precious gift, the final words of a god echoed in his ears. A vessel in which to store the energies needed to transform the world.

  As the bone dust settled, Absolom cautiously approached the table. In its center, among the powdery remains, was a single object, a strange cylinder.

  The clock upon the wall chimed the hour as the medium reached down into the chalky mess and removed the cylinder. It was no more than six inches long, perhaps an inch and a half wide, and appeared to be composed of some kind of opaque glass. He studied the object, wiping away the white dust that covered it. He could feel it feeding, drawing upon his strength--his belief in this most holy of missions. The vessel came to life, pulsing with a faint, eerie inner glow.

  But more energy would be needed, so much more.

  There came a gentle knock upon the study door, and Sally stepped into the room. "Absolom," she said cheerfully, a smile upon her attractive features. "Mr. Donaldson's time is over, and we must prepare for..."

  She stopped in midsentence, staring first at her husband and the glowing object he held in his hand, then at the mess of chalky white powder that covered the tabletop, the chair, and the rug beneath them.

  "What on earth has happened?" she asked.

  He wasn't sure how much he should tell her, and decided that he would wait to explain how dramatically their lives were about to change.

  "Nothing to trouble yourself with, dearest," he told her, slipping the glowing cylinder into the pocket of his vest, close to his heart. "Something wonderful has occurred and that's all you really need to know right now."

  "But where's Mr. Donaldson?" She looked around. "I was sitting outside the door and would have seen him leave if--"

  "Mr. Donaldson has served his purpose." He walked across the thick dust to slip his arm about her shoulder. "We won't be seeing him anymore."

  "Oh, how sad," she said, allowing him to lead her from the room. "I quite liked him."

  "Yes, he was a kind soul," Absolom agreed. "But there are still so many others in need of my help, desperate for my talents to communicate with the world beyond ours."

  So many others hungry to believe.

  He felt the god Qemu'el's gift to him vibrate against his chest in anticipation.

  "You're a kind man, Absolom Spearz," his wife said, as she gave him a loving peck upon the cheek. "Always concerned with the needs of others."

  "Yes," he agreed. "Now, let's find a broom and clean up that mess before our next appointment arrives."

  Tom Manning sat at his desk and took the crumpled piece of notepaper from his briefcase, a sickly feeling of foreboding churning in the pit of his stomach. He'd thought about staying home, but it just didn't seem like a place he really wanted to be. Now here he was in the neatly appointed office he'd had ever since becoming Director of Field Operations for the BPRD. The view outside the window revealed a gorgeous Connecticut landscape, but inside all was drab and practical.

  He felt cold and alone, and wondered if he was going a bit crazy. It ran in the family, after all.

  The minutes from the morning's staff meeting had been left on his desk, and he placed the mysterious note down beside them. When he'd come awake earlier that morning, lying upon the floor of his office at home, he'd felt disturbed--violated--but now he was beginning to entertain a creeping suspicion that there could be much more at stake here than just the intrusion on his bizarre-free zone.

  He glanced at Kate's notes--reviewing the unique items that had been reported missing, then c
ompared those to what had been written in his note.

  ...King's cup...stone Queen...Virgin wall.

  Manning felt the uncomfortable prickle of perspiration upon his balding scalp and lifted a hand to wipe it away.

  It was clearly a warning. Something--or is it someone--was attempting to alert him to some kind of threat involving these thefts.

  Don't take any wooden nickels.

  He read the odd phrase again. All morning, memories buried deeply by the passage of time had slowly forced their way to the surface. In his mind's eye he could still see the man, healthy, vibrant, full of life, a sly smile upon his face as if he were the keeper of a secret that could rock the world to its very foundation.

  Manning found himself smiling, warmed by the recollection, but the image was instantly replaced by another; the same man--older, frailer, restrained in a hospital bed, begging to go home.

  "Are you okay?"

  Kate Corrigan stood in the doorway to his office, frowning at him in concern. From the position of her hand, he presumed she'd knocked on the doorframe, but he hadn't heard her until she'd spoken aloud.

  He welcomed the intrusion. Kate had chased away painful memories with things of a more immediate nature.

  "Sure," he said, covering the note on his desk with his hands. "I'm fine."

  "Hellboy and Liz should be up shortly," she informed him. "Do you want me to sit in on this one or...?"

  "No, no, that's all right. I can handle it."

  She nodded and started to leave, but paused. "Are you sure everything's all right?"

  Tom felt a sudden urge to share what had happened to him earlier in the morning, but it wasn't time. There was still too much he didn't know.

  "I'm fine," he said again, forcing a smile.

  She left then, and Manning was alone with the nagging remnants of his past. Wouldn't it be just like him?

  Hellboy and Liz arrived soon after and took seats at his small conference table while he gathered his materials for the briefing. He didn't yet have his answers, but it did not change the fact that something had used him as a conduit to get across a message--a warning of some impending threat.