Unnatural Selection

by Tim Lebbon

  And she knew exactly what the New Ark contained.

  "Help us all," she sobbed. "Oh, God, whoever, help us all now that he's here!" Unable to calm herself, she gave in to the tears. Once she was cried out, she knew, she had to leave to find Blake. He was her creator — her father — and only she had an inkling of how he could be stopped.

  Having escaped, and lied, Abby Paris felt responsibility crush down upon her.

  * * *

  Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense Headquarters, Fairfield, Connecticut — 1997

  TOM MANNING, DIRECTOR of the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense, was having a very bad day.

  "Where the hell is Hellboy?"

  "I don't know, sir." The man running the Bureaus communications that day, Chris Moore, shrank down in his seat, offering Manning a smaller target.

  Manning seemed to grow, pumped up with disbelief. "You don't know? How the hell can you not know? The guys seven feet tall and red. Someone in Rio must have seen him!"

  "I've got a lecturer on the phone," Moore said. "She was with Hellboy when — "

  "Is it Amelia Francis?"

  "Yes, sir."

  Manning closed his eyes and breathed deeply. He held out his hand without looking at Moore, still breathing slow and deep. "Here. Let me." He felt the communications officer place the headset in his hand, sensed him rise and walk away, and Manning silently cursed himself for losing his cool. In this job, cool was essential. "Thank you," he said. He looked at Moore; the poor kid was pale as chalk, his shirt patched with sweat. "Do me a favor, Chris, and bring me some coffee."

  "Decaf?"

  "Full-fat. Strong as you can get. I want a bucket of coffee I can float a horseshoe in." Manning was pleased to see Moore break a smile as he left the room.

  "Amelia."

  "Tom ... " She sounded scared; bad sign number one. And number two: there was screaming in the background.

  "Amelia, what's going on there? Where's Hellboy?"

  "He's fallen into the bay," the woman said, her voice crackling with emotion and static. "The dragon just picked him up and dropped him in the bay ... horrible, it must have been a thousand feet high ... and then it flew away."

  "What's the screaming?"

  "Now that it's gone, people are starting to believe it was really here."

  Manning rubbed his eyes, frowned. "Wait a minute. You called this in more than twenty-four hours ago. You're saying that it waited till Hellboy got there, kicked his ass, then flew off into the sunset?"

  "Weil ... "

  "Amelia, get Hellboy to call me as soon as you can."

  Silence. Even the screaming had calmed down.

  Manning smiled. "He'll be fine, Amelia. He's ... hard. But really, do your best to find him and get him to call in. Something's going on."

  He clicked off the phone, re-dialed, and was grateful to hear Liz Sherman on the other end.

  "Tom?"

  "Liz, how did it go?"

  "Bad."

  One word, but it spoke volumes. Tom almost wished he could sign off, but there was so much more going on today. Abby Paris still hadn't returned from Baltimore, and Moore had not been able to track her satellite phone signal. Abe Sapien had called in to report his encounter with the giant alligator. And other BPRD agents were investigating other sightings, every report only confusing the picture and making it more terrifying. Kate Corrigan was due in soon, and for that Manning gave endless thanks, but already he could discern a purpose forming in these sightings. What he and the rest of the Bureau had to do now was find out just what that purpose was.

  "Are you all right?"

  "I am." Liz emphasised the 'I', and Manning decided not to ask.

  "Liz, do you want to come in?"

  "Should I?"

  "Not unless you really have to. Because I have to tell you, there's seven shades of shit hitting the fan at the moment, and if you can go to Madrid, I'd be most grateful. "

  "What's in Madrid?"

  "A griffin. It started carrying off horses, but now it's eating people, Liz. There's utter panic there, and the Spanish government is on the verge of calling in NATO."

  "Oh, that'll help," Liz drawled, and Manning smiled. He loved her sardonic humor, even though he knew it masked such depths.

  "So will you go?"

  "Where's HB?"

  "Just got his ass kicked by a dragon in Rio."

  "Oh. Sure, I'll go."

  "I'll e-mail you the contact details in Madrid. Thanks, Liz."

  "Don't mention it."

  Manning signed off, and Moore came in with a huge mug of steaming coffee and placed it on the desk. It looked as though it could be used to lay felt roofs, and Manning sipped and sighed luxuriantly. "Chris, do you have anything urgent to do at home in the next few days?" he asked.

  Moore smiled and shrugged. "This is my home, sir. I'm a geek for weird stuff."

  "Ha!" Manning smiled, though he could not shake the feeling of unease that had settled over him. Perhaps it was having most of the field team gone from Bureau HQ. "Well, I think your addiction is set to be well fed over the next few days."

  "Sir?"

  Manning shook his head, sipped more coffee. "Chris, just see if you can raise Abe. I need him back over here. We should follow up on that Ogopodo report from Canada." While Moore tried to contact Abe Sapien, Manning took the opportunity to finish his coffee. Looking at the map on the wall — red pins signifying recent sightings of things weird, wonderful, and deadly — he decided he was going to need some more.

  * * *

  Rio de Janeiro, Brazil — 1997

  HELLBOY LIKED fishermen. They led difficult lives, they worked hard, and they were more accepting than most people of strange things. Every fisherman he had ever had cause to speak to was full of stories about a weird catch, last week or last year. And even though most of them never managed to retain any evidence of what they had hauled up from the depths, Hellboy usually believed them. The sea hid many bizarre things — he had never forgotten that shark thing in '75 — and fishermen were witnesses to their discovery. Unlike most listeners, Hellboy was always willing to believe the story about 'the one that got away'.

  Of the four Brazilian fishermen in the boat, three sat staring at him with undisguised fascination. The only reason the fourth was not staring was that he was steering them into the busy harbor, but he glanced back every few seconds, as if to make sure the big red guy was still there. They had pulled him from the bay and sat him in the corner, and he was grateful they had not bugged him since then. The staring he was used to.

  The cigarette was a soggy mess in his mouth. Wet cigarette tasted terrible. But pride prevented him from spitting it out.

  His chest and face still ached from the impact with the water. He'd tried to turn as he fell so that he could part the water with his hands, but he'd never been particularly graceful, and the echo of his belly flop had rung in his ears even as water rushed in behind it. The impact had dazed him for a couple of minutes, though he'd been conscious enough to swim to the surface and tread water. For a while, up was down and down was up, and he had spent a confused minute trying to work out why the dragon had been flying away upside-down. Then his senses had returned, just in time for the real pain to kick in.

  His skin was redder than usual, and his belt had been scorched black in several places. One pocket had burned through, and he had placed its remaining contents elsewhere: a Peruvian life crystal on a silver chain, a concussion grenade, and a ball made of rubber bands. He'd doubtless lost something, but he had no idea what. He rarely knew what he carried in his belt, so he'd never miss it. He hoped.

  One of the fishermen had been smiling at him for ten minutes, nodding his head, muttering something Hellboy could not understand. At first Hellboy had smiled back, but the guy had cringed, averted his eyes, mumble turning to shout. So Hellboy sat out the ride looking as glum as he felt, slowly working the muscles in his neck and shoulders, trying to stretch out the aches and pains that had set
tled there.

  Damn dragon! It had whipped him, discarded him like just another turd, and that made him angry as hell. With no sign of a rematch with the dragon apparent, that anger simmered inward. His satellite phone buzzed — incredibly still working even after its immersion — but he ignored it. Let them wait. Hellboy was angry and pissed off, and whoever was on the other end would only end up getting the sharp end of his tongue. That thought took him back to the dragon, and the time he'd been called a dragon, and he had to clench his fists to prevent them from taking a swing at something.

  The smiling fisherman and his friends were starting to get on his nerves, too. They may have pulled him from the sea, but that gave them only a certain amount of license to gape. That license was rapidly running out. Hellboy stood, walked to the bow without glancing at the men, and tried to make out who'd be waiting for him at the harbor. Whoever it was, they'd know that he had messed up.

  Something nudged his hand. He spun around, and the man cringed but still offered up a small wooden box. Hellboy smiled, nodded, and the man gave him a toothless smile in return. "Sorry," Hellboy said. "Hasn't been a good day. But thank you." He took the box, opened it, selected a cigarette, and presented the open box back. The man raised his eyebrows and took a cigarette as well. "Got a light?"

  The fisherman nodded. He lit Hellboy's cigarette and his own, and the two men sat and smoked contentedly as the little trawler edged in toward the dock.

  * * *

  The harbor was a riot of activity. Hundreds of boats of all shapes, sizes, and colors bobbed against jetties and docks, and the sound of rubber rings squealing against timber bumpers provided a constant background to the hubbub. They sailed past a selection of yachts that probably cost more than Hellboy could even imagine. Scantily clad women lounged picturesquely on recliners, while muscled men swam and dived and strutted their stuff. Hellboy would have laughed, had his ribs not ached so much.

  They docked in the fishing harbor, a place filled with the smell of the sea and the sound of forklifts transporting cooler boxes to and fro. Trawlers sat two or three abreast against the dock, and fishermen bustled about, repairing nets, loading provisions, and washing down guts-strewn decks. Others sat in their boats, smoking, drinking, laughing together, or staring sadly out to sea, as if they had left a part of themselves out there.

  Hellboy thanked his rescuers again and accepted another cigarette from them for later. They seemed much more animated now that he was about to leave. He touched his horn stumps in an unconscious salute and turned quickly away as the men's eyes strayed there, and stayed.

  Along the stone dock, just before it hit the mainland in a chaos of warehouses and fish markets, he found two men rooting through a spread of containers set out across the ground. At first he thought they were sorting their catch by size or grade, but on closer inspection he realized that they were weeding out bad fish and throwing them back into the sea. Hellboy paused to watch. The two men had not yet noticed him, and he waited until one of the discarded fish was close enough for him to grab from the air.

  "What's this?" In the palm of his big right hand lay the discarded fish. It had two heads. "What the hell is this?"

  One of the two men looked up. His brief surprise at seeing Hellboy faded quickly, countered by the sadness that tainted his voice when he spoke. "Bad fish."

  "Damn right its bad," Hellboy said. "Jeez!" He looked closer, but suddenly the smell hit him. Not only was it mutated, it stank. "Why?"

  The man looked up, waved his hands at the air, and for a second Hellboy thought he was blaming God. But then the man crossed himself and shrugged. "Filthy air," he said.

  "Pollution?"

  "Yes." He turned from Hellboy and carried on with his task.

  Hellboy walked away, listening to the intermittent splash, splash, splash from behind him as bad fish were returned to the harbor to rot. As human as he tried to be, he had never been able to understand the streak of self-destruction that seemed to pass through most of humanity like a seam of crap in a gold mine. They had it all, and they were slowly but surely throwing it all away. He glanced back at the posh yachts moored farther out and thought how such riches should really lead to better things, not worse. The women preened while the men posed. The more money they had, the more inward-looking they became. He shook his head, but much as he tried to believe he was just like them, he knew that he was not. It was not superiority or moral egotism. It was a simple fact. However human he made himself inside, Hellboy knew that there was so much more to be.

  "Hellboy!"

  He stopped and scanned the bustle of the harbor front, and there, waving like a mother welcoming her son home from the sea, stood Amelia Francis. Hellboy was immensely grateful that it was she rather than anyone else. She knew how hard dragons were, and his beating by the giant worm would give her no cause to gloat. He hoped.

  He worked his way along the dock. People mostly got out of his way. He liked that. The satellite phone went off again, and he cursed, taking it from his pocket, popping its back, and ripping out the battery. It would have been simple to turn it off, but that would not have the same therapeutic value. In moments such as this, symbolism said a lot.

  "Amelia," he said when he reached her.

  She stared at him, as wide-eyed as when they had first met a few hours before. "I thought you were dead for sure," she said.

  Hellboy shrugged and winced. "I'll be sore in the morning, but I've been through worse."

  "I spoke to Tom Manning. He said to get you to call him. He said something's going on."

  "Perceptive as ever," Hellboy said. He looked around the harbor, sniffed the air, and shivered. "Mind if we get away from here? The stink of fish is starting to piss me off. It'll take forever to get it out of my coat."

  Amelia looked him up and down. "You're soaked. And burned."

  "I'll dry, and heal. Don't worry, it's my ego that's most wounded."

  "Well, it was a dragon," she said, and Hellboy could have kissed her.

  "So," he said, "is there somewhere close where we can get a decent meal and a beer?"

  Amelia stared at him, and he noticed for the first time just how pretty she was. It was an unassuming attractiveness, something that came to her naturally and didn't have to be worked at. "Aren't you going to call Tom?" she said.

  "No," Hellboy said. "He can wait. I'm in a bad mood. What I am going to do is take you for a drink."

  "Why?" Amelia's suddenly flushed cheeks suited her.

  Hellboy shook his head and looked down at his feet. Oh crap, he thought. "Because I'm in a bad mood, and I need one. And because you're an expert in mythology, and I've just had my ass kicked by a damn dragon."

  "Oh," Amelia said, glancing away.

  "And because blushing suits you."

  Amelia looked back at Hellboy, and this time she held his gaze. "Your color gives you an advantage."

  "I promise, you'll know when I'm flustered. My tail twitches."

  She smiled, but it soon slipped from her face. "A dragon!" she said. "There were paramedics going up the mountain when I saw it take you away, and ambulances lining up. I don't know how many dead there are ... "

  "Well, it's gone for now," Hellboy said. "And after we've had that drink and talked it through, I'll get some more of my guys down here to make sure it doesn't get away again."

  "You think it'll come back?"

  Hellboy shrugged, took a slow draw on his cigarette, and looked up at the sky. He blew a smoke ring and watched it disperse, adding itself to the pollution. He frowned, stomped out the cigarette. Looked down at Amelia and made her avert her eyes once again.

  "Let's go," he said. "You lead the way. We need to drink and talk."

  "Just don't make me blush," she said, turning away.

  "Me? Look at me. Do I look mischievous?"

  * * *

  The bar was called Zero's. None of its furniture matched, the main window out onto the street was hazed with decades of smoke and beer breath, the timber
floor was pitted and scarred, the bar had been built from old railway sleepers, the barmaid was three hundred pounds and almost as wide as Hellboy was tall, the clientele ranged from teenage gang members to a grizzled old man who could well have been pickling himself to save the embalmers time, and there was a signed photograph of Burt Reynolds on the wall from when he had visited in 1979.

  Hellboy loved it.

  Amelia directed him to a private table in the corner, looking as though she knew the way. A few heads turned, a couple of conversations paused for a second, but by the time they sat down, everything felt normal again. She had a small, smug smile on her face, and she tapped her fingers on the heavily marked table. Evidently she was not going to be the first to break the silence.

  "So long as they have soft toilet paper," Hellboy said. Amelia laughed out loud, and he found that he liked the sound she made — a girlish giggle, unconscious and unaffected.

  "Hellboy, they serve the best chili you'll find anywhere in Rio. As for the beer, you can take your choice: there's Budweiser in cans or a selection of stuff brewed locally. It has a bit of a kick to it, I have to say."

  "I always like to support the local economy." He caught the eye of the barmaid — not hard to do, as she was staring right at him — and raised an eyebrow. She sauntered over, a moving mountain of flesh and attitude. A cigarette hung from the corner of her mouth. By the time she reached them, the ash was almost two inches long, yet still it hung on tenaciously to its former shape.

  "Look at that," Hellboy said, quietly enough so that only Amelia heard. "Damn, I've seen some stuff, but — "

  "You're that Hellboy?" the barmaid said.

  "No, my names Kevin."