"I ask you each to present your gift from our master," Absolom said, reaching into the pocket of his waistcoat and removing the crystalline cylinder he had been carrying since the day Mr. Donaldson disappeared.
The other mediums--Wickham, Arden, Standish, and Udell--followed suit, producing similar objects and placing them on the table before them.
"What are those?" Mary Hudnell asked. "Where can I get one?"
Ignoring her, Absolom rose from his seat and carefully collected the glass cylinders. A strange light burned in the center of each, as if something alive was trapped within the murky, colored crystals. And as her husband gathered them together, Sally could see them glow all the brighter, throbbing with an eerie luminescence.
He inserted the five crystals into the machine, in a compartment specifically designed, it appeared, to contain the cylindrical objects, and as the last of the crystals fell into place, the device began to hum, the mechanical innards to move, suddenly brought to life.
Sally watched as Absolom grinned, obviously proud of his accomplishment. Whatever it was that he had built, it appeared to be working as planned.
"Now take the hand of the one beside you," he instructed. "We must form a complete circuit if the machine is to function as intended."
"What...what does it do?" Tyler Arden asked, taking first the hand of his lover, then that of Silas Udell.
The young man appeared nervous, and Sally couldn't help but share his feelings. Even with her disgust at the feeling of Mr. Wickham's sweaty hand in hers, she knew that there was something else that didn't feel right.
"It will open a door," Absolom said, staring at the contraption in the center of the dining room table. "Now close your eyes and clear your thoughts."
Almost immediately Sally felt a change in the temperature of the room. Not only was it incredibly stuffy, it was now uncomfortably cold, as if the season had changed in the wink of an eye, and they were now in the midst of winter. She opened her eyes a crack to peer at the others. They seemed to be in the grip of a trance, similar to ones she had witnessed her husband experience on numerous occasions while communicating with the afterlife.
The machine grew louder, a low, vibrating hum that made it seem the machine was moving across the table of its own accord.
"It's not enough," Absolom gasped, his face twisted in deep concentration, beads of sweat dappling his brow. His voice was louder, more frantic. "It needs more...more if we are to breach the veil."
The machine continued to dance about the tabletop, the sound of its internal emanations making the hair on the back of Sally's neck stand on end. The expressions upon the faces of the others were pained as well, and for a moment she felt a slight twinge of jealousy not to be part of the bigger picture. Even Mary Hudnell seemed somehow connected to what was happening at the table.
And then Sally seemed to be punished for her moment of envy. A sudden, searing pain, the likes of which she had never known before, tore through her body. She gasped aloud, the agony seeming to enter through her hands, gripped painfully tight by Wickham on one side, and Standish on the other. It traveled up her arms and into her chest, where it nestled, pulsing with the beat of her heart, every throb more excruciating than the last. She fought to pull her hands away, but it was impossible. The pain continued to grow, flowing through her body, filling her stomach and branching to her legs. Within seconds her entire body was in the grip of unbearable torture, and she cried out, rallying her strength, pushing past the paralyzing sensation to find her voice, to call her husband's name; he would know what to do, he would help her.
But her screams did not break the spell, and the torment churning inside her continued to grow unabated. Like a wild animal, she thrashed, but they wouldn't wake up, they wouldn't let go.
And when Sally believed it wasn't possible to hurt any worse, she saw that her husband's eyes, all of their eyes, were open. They were watching her pain, and they did nothing to stop it.
It was becoming more and more difficult to breathe. She tried to speak, to beg for help, but they just continued to stare.
"It's not enough," Absolom repeated, looking directly into her pain-moistened eyes.
Why won't he help me? Her frenzied mind wanted to know. Why won't the man I love help me?
"To show our commitment, there must be more," he bellowed over the sounds of the machine, which had grown steadily louder since her agony had begun.
There was a plaintive sound to his voice, as if Absolom was trying to explain something to her. But she didn't want his explanations; all she wanted was for the pain to stop. And then it became terrifyingly clear as her flesh began to bubble and smoke, the inner fire that she could feel seething inside her, was eating its way out.
"There must be sacrifice," he said, his eyes riveted to hers. "You are the one he chose."
Her nostrils filled with the sickening smell of roasting meat, and her sight began to dim as the fluid within her eyes started to boil.
"I'm so sorry," she heard her husband say, just as the inner fire erupted from her body with a ferocious roar, the last of the pale, delicate flesh that Absolom had once so loved to caress, charred black.
"The sacrifice is you."
Tom Manning stood at the window of his office, lost somewhere in the corridors of the past. It had been snowing since early morning and a good three or four inches had already accumulated in the parking lot and on the cars below. But it really didn't register.
He hadn't gone home last night, choosing instead to stay in his office at BPRD headquarters, and though he'd tried to distract himself with work, he'd found his thoughts drifting on more than one occasion.
It was amazing how much he still remembered. He could almost hear the sounds of the nurses' rubber-soled shoes as they squeaked upon the waxed linoleum floors of the institution, smell the overwhelming odor of antiseptic that filled the air in an attempt to cover the reek of sickness, that hint of something gone sour beneath the stink of industrial-strength cleaning products.
I'm going home soon, right, Tommy?
Tom shuddered and pulled himself from the past. He was actually startled to see how much more snow had fallen while he'd been lost in thought. His phone rang, and he picked up the receiver, placing it to his ear with a quiet sigh of relief.
"Yes."
"Hellboy and Liz are back," Kate said. "They're waiting for you in R and D."
The two agents had called in a report on their way back from Waldoboro, and Tom was anxious to see the specimens they had gathered.
"Good, I'll be along shortly," he replied, and hung up the phone.
But memories again forced their way into the forefront of his thoughts.
"Are you two close?" a pretty nurse had asked as he'd completed the paperwork to commit the old man to the institution.
"Excuse me?" he'd responded, flustered.
"You and your uncle, are you close?"
The image of the old man--his uncle, lying restrained on a hospital bed, withered and frail--imposed itself upon his mind's eye, and no matter what he did, Tom could not make it go away.
Uncle Steve.
Manning drifted back to the window, the knowledge of what he had done tender, a wound that refused to heal.
He died alone.
Hellboy dumped the Indian blanket filled with the remains of zombie robots onto the steel examination table with a loud clatter.
"Take a look at this, guys," he said, stepping back so that the three techs could inspect the remains.
He called them the Stooges: Curly, Larry and Moe. He had no idea what their real names were, although he was sure that they had told him at least a dozen times over the years. It was just easier to call them by their Stooges' monikers. They said nothing, slipping on rubber gloves and protective eye gear as they converged on the table.
"Pardon the stink," he said, waving a hand in front of his face. "There are real corpses at their chewy centers."
Abe rolled his shiny dark eyes and shook his hea
d. "So these things actually attacked you?" he asked, craning his neck to see between the bustling bodies of the techs. The three were muttering among themselves now, excited by their findings.
"Yep, this one and a whole bunch of others," he said. "But one got away with the bag."
Abe looked at him, head tilted to one side. "Bag?"
"Medicine bag of some powerful Indian mystic dude," Hellboy explained. "Another pilfered item of worship to add to the list."
The amphibious man had to sidestep quickly to avoid a collision with Curly as the tech moved around the table to approach his investigation from another angle. "And how's Liz?" he asked.
"She's at the infirmary now. Got a little cut up by the mechanical zombie birds."
"Mechanical zombie birds," Abe repeated, voice a bit hollow.
Hellboy moved toward the table, reaching down to pluck one of the broken, mechanical sparrows from the remains. The Stooges let out a strange, hissing sound as he took the object away.
"Don't get your tighty-whities in a twist, I'll bring it right back," he assured them. "Man, it's like they've never seen reanimated corpses before."
He showed the mechanical bird to Abe.
"Would you look at that," Abe said, reaching out a long, delicate finger to touch the edge of one of its wings and drew it back quickly. "It's sharp!"
"No kidding," Hellboy said, tossing the sparrow back onto the tabletop. "You should try dealing with a whole flock of these things." He opened his arms to show off the hundreds of tiny gashes that had been made in his red flesh. "It's a good thing I don't scar easy."
Moe stepped away from the table, as if looking at the remains of the robotic monstrosity from a distance would give him some new perspective; the others followed suit.
"So what's the verdict, guys?" Hellboy asked them.
"Nope," Moe said with a shake of his head. "There isn't any conceivable way that this device functioned on any level."
"Never mind engaging you and Miss Sherman in combat," added Larry. He too was shaking is head in disbelief.
"Look at it," Curly chimed in, pointing to specific areas on the automaton. "It's just a corpse with pieces of wood and metal bolted to it." He removed one of his rubber gloves. "Its belly is stuffed with wire, for God's sake. There's no way this thing would have been able to walk around."
Hellboy sighed, slowly nodding, as if finally understanding. "Yeah, you guys are totally right," he said. "I musta just imagined getting attacked by an army of these things. Thanks for setting me straight. Hey, Abe, would you mind going down to the infirmary and telling Liz that she doesn't have to worry about getting those cuts looked at. After all, they were only made by figments of our friggin' imaginations."
Moe looked flustered. "We're not saying you weren't attacked," he attempted to explain.
"It's just that we can't imagine how and..." Larry seemed suddenly at a loss for words.
Moe was at the pile again, poking around inside the corpse's stomach cavity. "Well, well, what do we have here?" he muttered as he snatched a funky-looking tool from a stainless-steel tray nearby and spread the creature's stomach wider. His hands disappeared inside the corpse and withdrew a cylindrical object. "Come to poppa," he said, his protective eye gear reflecting the glow from the object.
"What'd you find?" Hellboy asked, craning his neck for a look. He'd always felt a bit left out around these science guys.
"Looks like some kind of crude storage cell," Larry said, adjusting his safety glasses.
"But for what kind of energy?" Curly asked, reaching out to tap at the thick glass body of the cylinder. "I've never seen anything like it."
The energy inside the battery moved around like something alive--like a puppy in a pet store window, responding to the lab technicians' attentions.
Wires dripping with moisture trailed from the bottom of the cylinder, leading back into the body. Moe reached behind him, feeling the tray for another tool. "I'll disconnect these wires and we can begin our analysis on..."
The body bolted upright upon the table.
"Yaaggh!" Hellboy yelled, jumping back.
The Stooges stared in awe, watching as the reanimated corpse turned its dead eyes upon them. It lashed out at the technicians with one of its razor-fingered hands. All but Moe managed to get away. The creature slashed his face, and he stumbled, letting the glowing cylinder fall from his grasp.
Hellboy grimaced as he grabbed the dead thing, restraining it. "Sorry about that, guys. I thought they were pretty much dead."
The creature bucked Hellboy off and pushed away, falling from the table, scattering various pieces of zombie robot in its wake.
"It's getting away!" Moe screamed, a towel pressed to the wounds on his face.
"Hey, get back here!" Hellboy snapped, moving around the table in pursuit.
Missing its left arm and right leg, the creature skittered across the linoleum floor, heading toward the open door.
"Oh no you don't," Abe said. He ran forward and threw his body against the door, slamming it shut.
The mechanized corpse reared back like a cobra ready to strike, looking frantically around the basement lab for another means of escape.
"Got anything I can use to kill this thing for good?" Hellboy shouted at the lab techs.
Larry and Curly rummaged through drawers and open cabinets.
The zombie robot fixed its gaze upon an upper window. In a flash, the creature crawled across the floor and scaled the cinder-block wall like some sort of twisted insect.
"Anytime now," Hellboy said, running to the wall.
The creature was pulling on the black metal screen that covered the window, removing the bottom screws from the frame with its razor claws.
"Here!" Curly called, and Hellboy turned.
He caught the glinting metal object and gazed down into his hand with disbelief. "What the hell am I supposed to do with this?" he asked, waving a scalpel around in the air. It looked ridiculously small in his large hand.
The third screw broke free from the window frame, and the zombie robot lashed out, smashing the window behind it. It started to wiggle its body through the opening.
Tossing the scalpel aside, Hellboy leaped and grabbed hold of the automaton's ankle, giving it a good yank.
"Where do you think you're going?"
The creature tumbled from its perch, and he threw it violently to the floor.
The zombie robot lay there, its power source pulsing at the end of a braid of multicolored wires, almost convincing Hellboy that this time it was down for the count.
But then the animated corpse sprang up from the floor, propelled by its one good leg, its mouth open in a silent scream of rage as it attached itself to him. Hellboy stumbled backward, almost knocked off his feet, and crashed into a desk in the corner of the room.
"God damn it!" he growled, peeling the thrashing creature away, its clawed hand raking ineffectually down his chest.
Abe stood over by the Stooges, checking the lacerations on Moe's face. "Need some help with that?" he called to Hellboy.
"I got it," Hellboy snapped, again throwing the zombie to the floor. It tried to get away again, but he brought his hoof down upon its ankle, pinning it. "Not so fast, Stinky."
It clawed at the ground with its single hand. Hellboy grabbed an office chair out from beneath the desk and used it like a club, bringing it down upon the thrashing corpse, once, twice. When he hit the struggling creature for the third time a flash of emerald radiance temporarily blinded him. Hellboy stumbled away from the clockwork zombie, letting the chair fall from his grasp.
"What the hell did you do?" Larry asked, as they all rubbed at their eyes.
"Guess I broke him," Hellboy replied, shielding his eyes from the steadily increasing flow of energy from within the corpse. "Actually, I think I broke the battery."
Strange, almost human shapes began to form in the crackling discharge, many of them dissipating like so much smoke, while others seemed to look around, examining t
heir surroundings before suddenly departing in a blink, as if drawn away by some silent siren call.
Abe came to stand beside him, a clinical spectator. "Ghosts?"
"Yeah," Hellboy replied. "I guess our robot zombies run on spook power. Didn't see that one coming."
Most of the ghosts simply vanished, sucked off into the ether. But the last of the spectral residue lingered, hanging in the air above the corpse. It expanded and began to take on shape.
"Come on! What now?" Hellboy muttered, and grabbed for his chair again.
Like an amoeba, the ghostly energy divided, splitting into two separate forms, each of them gradually becoming more and more defined. One of the shapes became a woman clothed in a pretty, high-collared dress from an earlier era. Her flesh was charred and blackened, making the cause of her death obvious. The second of the amorphous energies coalesced into an older man with thick, black-framed glasses and a balding head. Strands of ghostly hair wafted in the air where they had been placed in a pathetic attempt at a comb-over. The ghost wore a button-down shirt, oversize cardigan sweater, and sagging wool trousers.
The ghostly old man brought a hand up, adjusted the glasses on his face and smiled.
"Hey, Sally, look who it is," he said to the horribly burned woman floating by his side. "It's Hellboy."
The ghost rubbed his hands together as if in anticipation.
"I always wanted to meet this guy."
Chapter 6
A bsolom Spearz was not happy.
Eight of his mechanical agents had been sent to Maine to retrieve the latest item from his list, but only one had returned. It stood before him now, swaying on its reinforced legs of metal and wood, the ornate Indian medicine bag clutched tightly in one of its spindly hands.
"Give it to me," he ordered, and the drone held the bag out to him.
Absolom carefully pried the Indian artifact from its rigid fingers, and brought it to his workstation. He felt his followers' eyes upon him. They were a nervous lot, and could he blame them? The last time they had attempted this task the result had been the demise of their corporeal forms. Now that they were once again flesh and blood, they did not want to risk losing their coveted physical shapes.
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