Unnatural Selection

by Tim Lebbon

  The woman laughed, and every bit of her shook. "No, you're him. So are you really from hell?"

  Hellboy scratched the table with his big right hand, adding his own signature to a hundred others. "Do you want to find out?"

  The woman laughed again, fleshy ripples overlapping with those from her last outburst. "Fair enough!" she said. "Chili's good today."

  "Chili's good every day," Amelia said. "We need two bowls and — "

  "Four," Hellboy said. "And a large bowl of nachos, heavy on the guacamole. And a pitcher of the strongest local brew you do, which is called ... ?"

  "Old Devil." She laughed shrilly.

  Hellboy winced. "Well, I can't argue with that." He and Amelia watched the barmaid waddle back behind the bar and disappear into the kitchen. "Please cell me she doesn't do the cooking as well?"

  "Don't know who does, but it's divine."

  Hellboy made a show of looking around. "Nice joints you frequent, Ms. Francis."

  "There's an American chain pub two blocks down," she said. "There've been two murders there in the three years I've been in Rio. Here ... never even seen a fight. Most people are too drunk — or too filled with chilli — to bother."

  "Hmph." He fished the satellite phone and battery from his pocket, toyed with them both, and ended up leaving them to one side. Tom could wait another hour. Hellboy was sore and thirsty and hungry, and this was nice. Just ... nice.

  "You're sure you're all right?" Amelia asked.

  "I'm fine. Aching, but as I said, I've had worse."

  "So I imagine. Some of the things you've seen ... some of the things you've done ... "

  "I guess as a lecturer in mythology, you'd be interested, eh?"

  Amelia shrugged, then smiled. "Damn right! The reason I started advising the BPRD is that I dream of becoming a field agent. When they approached me back in — "

  "But do you believe?"

  "Huh?"

  The barmaid came with their pitcher of beer and two glasses, fired an incoherent quip at Hellboy, and left.

  "Do you believe?" he asked again. "That was a dragon back there, and you still seem a bit shaken up about that."

  Amelia poured the beers and took a long swig of hers. As she put the glass down, she was frowning, staring at Hellboy's chest but seeing right through. To the dragon, perhaps. Or back to herself, reliving her reaction to the creature's appearance. "Myth is myth," she said. "Or so I've always believed. There's always an element of truth behind every myth, but ... "

  "How much have you done with the BPRD?"

  "I've answered a few questions over the phone."

  "This is the first time you've actually seen anything?"

  She nodded. And then she smiled sadly, and Hellboy realized that he was busy trying to deconstruct the meaning of her life. Questioning her beliefs when she had just had them challenged so violently — and so comprehensively — was insensitive of him.

  "I'm sorry," he said. He touched her arm with his right hand, and she withdrew. "Hey ... sorry."

  "The thing with mythology is, it's safe," she said. She drank some more, finishing her glass and letting out a dainty burp. "It's secure. It's a land of stories and legends that affect humanity down through the ages, but for me it's always been just that: stories and legends. I can tell as many students as I like about vampires and werewolves and dragons, and how terrible they can be, and how awful they are. But when I go home at night, I'm not afraid, because the world I've been talking about doesn't really exist. It's theoretical. Some people believe, many more don't, but it's always very safe. Mythology isn't as dangerous as murder, or as immediate as pollution, or as vicious as the drug gangs that control part of this city. The ideas within it are, for sure, but when I close my books at the end of the day, that's where the ideas stay. And I avoid the places where the drug gangs rule, and I wear my smog mask, and everything is right with the world."

  Hellboy drank and watched and said nothing, because he knew the real truth. And he was watching Amelia discover it now, for herself. There was no reason for him to go in heavy-handed and smash it home for her.

  "Now I can't close my books anymore. The myths have escaped. I've seen the dragon, I've seen it kill people, and life will never be the same again." She looked up at Hellboy, and he could see the weight of realization in her eyes. "Do you see what this is?" she said. "Do you understand why today is the first day of the future?"

  "Isn't every day?"

  "Not like today." Amelia shook her head and drank more beer. "No way, not like today. Stuff like this has always been hinted at, that's all; fuzzy photos in tabloid newspapers, secondhand accounts of the supernatural. But today ... there were cameras up there. That was prime time! News companies the world over were feeding those images into people's living rooms. Kids at school in America were watching those pictures over their amazed teachers' shoulders. Adults in Europe were settling down to be numbed by another evening of soap opera, but they saw the world changing instead."

  "You think? What about the people here, in Rio? You said yourself, they could hardly believe what they saw, even when it was standing up there on Christ the Redeemer and shitting down his soapstone robes. People have a way of compartmentalizing stuff like this. It'll cause a fuss, but it'll die down. People need to eat, pay their mortgages, have affairs. Personal stuff will always take over."

  "That's so cynical," Amelia said.

  "Cynical?" Hellboy was surprised, because he'd never seen himself as a cynic. Perhaps Amelia was right. "Maybe. But didn't you know what the Bureau did when you agreed to advise?"

  "Yes, but I always thought it was a lie."

  "Why?"

  Amelia shrugged. "I thought that's what the government did. But dammit, Hellboy, dragons aren't real!"

  "You'd say magic isn't, either, but — "

  "But the two together ... " Amelia looked into her glass and swilled the beer, and Hellboy could see that she was working something through. She watched the bubbles, touched them with her finger, tasted, never really seeing or tasting the beer at all. She was miles away. Hellboy thought that when she came back, something would have changed in her life forever.

  He refilled his glass and drank, keeping his motions slow and measured. A few tables away, a young man and woman were making out, hands everywhere and too much on display, if they'd heard of the dragon, they were unconcerned. Close to the front window, there was a card game going on, three old men gambling pennies and sharing a bottle of whiskey. They couldn't have helped but notice the commotion in the streets outside, yet their game went on. The amazing happened every day, but the next day things were back to normal. Hellboy was witness to that, and he could list a dozen days in history that should have changed the world but had not. At first, back in the '50s and '60s, he'd put it down to the resilience of the human spirit. But lately, as time went on and his own spirit dwelled in as much mystery as ever, he had begun to believe it was apathy.

  "Why would a myth suddenly come to life, Hellboy? It wouldn't, unless something forced it. It's like magic. Some people believe in it, but it isn't real."

  She paused and watched Hellboy, but he said nothing. Perhaps she saw the truth behind his eyes ... but he had an idea she was getting there pretty well on her own.

  "But what if magic — an untruth — and this thing of mythology — again, untrue — were forced together?"

  "What if they were?" Hellboy considered for a moment, trying to discern Amelia's logic, but it evaded him. Perhaps it was the Old Devil, which was already going to his head. "Crap," he said.

  "Crap? Who's just been dropped into the bay by a dragon?"

  Hellboy shrugged. "Well, combining the two — magic and mythology — implies a force to do it. Cause and effect. So what's the cause?"

  Amelia looked at him brightly, raised her glass, and finished it off in one long swallow. "I have no idea," she said. "I'm a lecturer, not a preacher." She smiled.

  Hellboy sat up straighter and lit his second cigarette from th
e stub of the first. He frowned, trying to clear his head, but then he let it ride, enjoying the fuzziness of the alcohol instead of fighting against it. Because something Amelia said had struck a chord, and he suddenly wished Abe were here with him. Abe could think straighter than Hellboy. He glanced down at the satellite phone and its spilled battery, wondering what Tom Manning would have to say.

  "It's obvious, really," Hellboy said.

  "It is?"

  "Sure. If you're right, the cause is an insane megalomaniacal madman, messing with this stuff for his own ends."

  "How do you know?"

  Hellboy puffed on the cigarette and drained the pitcher. Damn, he was going to have to call. So much for his date with Amelia. "Because it always is," he said quietly. He reached for the battery and the phone and prepared to blow apathy out of the water.

  * * *

  Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic — 1984

  RICHARD BLAKE FELT sick, and the smell — drying seaweed, the rolling ocean, dead things on the beach — was making him feel worse. His stomach seemed to roll with every wave that came in, and he hoped that the old myth about every seventh wave being a big one was wrong.

  His brother, Gal, walked by his side, quiet and contemplative. His hands were clenched into fists, as if he had the relic already in his grasp.

  "I'm still not sure I really believe this," Richard said.

  "You know what the old man said."

  "Yeah, but the old man was a drunk. He's ninety if he's a day, and he's been stuck on this island for thirty years drinking moonshine rum. He's pickled his body, and his brain's fried by the sun."

  "What is it with you?" Gal paused atop a sand dune and looked at his brother.

  Richard shrugged. "I feel as sick as a dog. I'm shitting through the eye of a needle, and — "

  "Enough information!" Gal said. He squeezed his eyes shut, laughed quietly. "Damn, you're my brother, but that's just a bit too much. You want me to go alone?"

  Richard shook his head. "Hell no. What if I wait here and you really find it? I'll never forgive myself. Besides, if it really is there ... you'll need me around for when you send it."

  Gal nodded his thanks. "It's getting harder."

  Richard could think of nothing to say. Each time they found a relic and Gal sent it to their father, his brother seemed a little weaker afterward. Mentally he was just as strong — arrogant, angry, justified — but there was no hiding the physical change. Much as he tried, Richard could not simply put it down to Gal growing older. Magic was taxing, and one day it might come to a point where he could no longer send. His forays into the Memory were draining him.

  "Let's go on," Richard said.

  * * *

  Zahid de Lainree's tome was of no use in this instance. They had heard the rumors, and tracked down the rumormongers, and questioned them, and now there was a site and a target in mind. There was a good chance that it was all false, but if it were true ...

  They had already sent their father some true treasures from the Memory. Each time Richard felt there could be nothing more amazing to find — a phoenix, gremlins, a dragon, other incredible discoveries — but then they would find something else, and his wonder grew. If the rumors were true, this could be the most powerful yet.

  "There's the cave," Gal said. He unshouldered his rucksack and brought out two heavy flashlights. Their beams were strong, and, if necessary, they would double as weapons.

  "It's so exposed," Richard said. "Anyone could wander in there. How come this hasn't been found before?"

  Gal looked around, wiped sweat from his brow. Clouds were gathering in the distant hills in preparation for the regular afternoon downpour, and the air was heavy and humid. "This is off the beaten track," he said. "No tourists down this way, and the locals probably don't bother. Especially as there are rumors. Maybe kids come down here sometimes and dare each other to enter, but I doubt they go in too far. If what the old sop said was true, this cave is deep."

  "And we have to go all the way in."

  Gal smiled. "All the way, brother."

  "Damn, now I feel sick as well."

  Gal laughed and led the way. They left their heavy rucksacks just inside the cave entrance, out of the sun but still in daylight. That comforted Richard. With everything he and Gal had done over the years since their mother's murder, he was still afraid of the dark. He dreamed about that night sometimes, and when he woke up screaming, it was the darkness itself that was bearing down upon him, not what was hidden within. The darkness, the great unknown, still stalked him when he was awake. He supposed that was partly the reason he was doing his best to uncover some of what it concealed.

  That and revenge.

  Gal's flashlight beam flooded the cave when daylight faded away. Richard turned his flashlight on and combined the beams, shining them into the cracked walls and rugged ceiling. The floor here still consisted of sand; the sea must flood in here sometimes, and he hoped their calculations about the tide had been correct. Perhaps there were other ways out of there ... perhaps ... but he had no desire to find out.

  In there for three days! the old drunk had said. No light, no food, drinking my own piss. Three days! And I heard it calling to me every minute of every hour of those days.

  They worked their way into the cave, squeezing through a couple of narrow openings where the rock walls and ceiling had been scoured smooth by water being forced through at pressure. The sand floor eventually gave way to rock, and all signs of the sea — smashed shells, dried seaweed — vanished. The cave headed up, then down again, turning left and right. Cracks led off to the left, but Gal and Richard chose the easier route. The drunk had tried giving them direction, but he had been so flooded with rum by then that his words had been slurred beyond recognition. Stray un, he had said, Jus go stray un.

  It took half an hour to reach the cave. It opened up suddenly, and the space took their breath away. The flashlights were powerful, but even they could not fill the cave with light; there were always shadows evading the beams. Richard felt as though they were being stalked.

  "There," Gal said. "Do you hear that? Is that what the old fool meant?"

  Richard opened his mouth to try to calm his breathing. His beam shook, and he placed the heavy plastic flashlight on the ground, propped against a rock. "Yes," he said.

  Something was whistling at them. Gently, consistently, so low that it was almost below their level of hearing. It was sensed rather than heard; Richard felt the tiny hairs in his ears reacting to it, his skull vibrating slightly with the sound. And it seemed to be coming from all around.

  "He thought it was the kraken's ghost," Gal said. "Stupid old shit."

  "And it isn't?" Richard said. "Are you really sure of that?"

  "Were not here to find a ghost," Gal said. He walked into the center of the cave and looked around, turning a slow circle and splaying his beam across the lower walls. "There!"

  The two brothers hurried to the light patch in the dark rock wall. Something glittered in there. Like treasure seekers, they felt their excitement rising, but this was not any traditional treasure. It was evidence of the past they sought, proof of a myth. And like everything else they had spent the last ten years searching for, its discovery delighted them.

  "It's huge!" Richard said.

  "Imagine the size of the thing this came from ... "

  "How did it get in here? What's that it's buried in?"

  Gal stepped back and aimed the beam wider. "Whale," he said. "Dried, fossilized. Maybe this cave was under water. Earthquake could have closed it in, raised it, who knows? Who cares? Father will be so pleased with this. We've sent him things of the air and the land, now he'll master the sea as well."

  Richard produced his knife and set to work prizing the barb out of the hardened whale hide. The barb was as long as his hand, and it was set in a definite circular scar on the whales skin, a sucker mark. Richard could have stood within the diameter of that circle with room to spare. The size of this thing! he thoug
ht. But soon he would not have to imagine it any longer. Soon his father would bring it back from the Memory. That scared him, but it thrilled him as well. With so much power at their disposal, how could they not find the vengeance they sought?

  It was all going to be so easy.

  * * *

  Two hours later they emerged back into the sunlight. Gal had one arm slung across Richard's shoulder. The sending had tired him more than ever, and there was a small smudge of dried blood beneath his nose. Richard had pretended not to notice.

  The rains had come and gone, and the trees along the back of the beach steamed in the afternoon sun. It was hot, humid, sweaty, but they were both glad to feel the sun on their skins once again.

  As soon as Richard had removed the sucker tooth from the wall of the cave, the whistling had stopped. Gal said it had been a draft of air moving across the tooth, but Richard wondered. Perhaps it really had been the ghost of the kraken, singing into reality from the vagueness of the Memory, silenced now in anticipation of what might come next. Silenced and ready.

  * * *

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

  "A DRAGON?"

  "Yeah. A Firedrake, apparently."

  "And I thought my giant alligator was hard work." Abe Sapien sounded impressed, and Hellboy loved him for that. He hadn't yet mentioned the fact that the dragon had beaten Hellboy off, and for that he loved him more.

  "You got to see Venice, at least."

  "Hey, you went to Rio. I would have seen Lake Okanogan, too, if Tom hadn't called me in."

  "Tough on you. Hey, I found a good bar called Zero's."

  "And?"

  Hellboy raised an eyebrow. Abe could read him like a book. Maybe that's why they were such friends, though sometimes Hellboy thought they were friends in spite of that. "And ... ?"

  "Amelia Francis?" Abe smiled.

  "She's very nice. Didn't know you'd met her."

  Abe shrugged. "I haven't, but I spoke to her a couple of years back when I was looking for the Loch Ness Monster."