Unnatural Selection

by Tim Lebbon

  "Disappeared?" Abe said.

  "Vanished. Nobody knew where he was or what he was doing. And in many ways, nobody really cared. His wife and two boys went with him. There was no big hoo-ha, no fuss. A few people here and there wondered where he was and what he was doing, but he soon just faded away. Another nutty professor. Those few who cared thought he'd probably had enough of the mockery and ridicule and found himself a quiet place in South America to continue his research.

  "But then something happened. In 1970 certain U.S. government agencies started trying to track him down — nothing official, all covert. I've collected files and letters over the years, all of them pointing to the fact that, suddenly, the government wanted him. There are few hints about why, but one of the main reasons seems to be something to do with what he left behind. Someone took an interest in his research, broke into his home, and found something there that scared them."

  "Who broke in?" Hellboy asked.

  "I don't know."

  "What did they find?"

  "Again, I don't know. But there seems to have been a tremendous amount of energy and resources expended in an effort to track down Blake and his family. They didn't find him."

  "So that's it?" Hellboy said. "It's hardly conclusive."

  "That's not all," Kate said. "The best is yet to come. Blake came back of his own accord, and he'd changed. He set up home in New York, but he never seemed to go back to work. Instead he launched a bitter series of verbal assaults on the world's governments' disregard of the environment. He warned of the end of the world being brought about through pollution and climate change. He predicted holes in the ozone layer, dead seas, and the air being denuded of oxygen because of deforestation. He was raving, expounding all sorts of apocalyptic theories that most people ignored or just laughed at. On the surface he became something of an object of ridicule." She tapped her finger on the table and stared down at Blake's image on her computer.

  "On the surface?" Abe said. "What about underneath?"

  "Beneath the surface certain people were very scared. Blake was scorned by his peers and vilified by governments, but he kept on ranting through every possible public forum. He went from delivering lectures on TV to standing on street corners, raging about the death we were bringing down on ourselves, claiming that humanity had already wiped out most of the wonder in the world and now was ready to destroy what was left. 'Slow suffocation' is the phrase he used. He claimed that we had destroyed all that was good in the world, and now we were suffocating."

  "He wasn't far off on some points," Hellboy said. "The pollution stuff, at least."

  "It wasn't something that governments wanted to hear."

  "Still isn't now. Too much money involved in saving the planet. So what's all this building up to? What happened to Blake?"

  "Official version first," said Kate. "He killed his wife and children, burned down his house, and went off somewhere to commit suicide." She opened another computer file and showed them all the image of the blackened house, the framework a charred skeleton.

  "And the true version?"

  "Conjecture on my part, but I'm pretty certain that his wife was killed in a state-sanctioned hit that went wrong."

  "Oh crap." Hellboy leaned forward and looked closer at the ruins of the house. "Not very subtle."

  "You said they killed his wife?" Abe said. "What about his children, and Blake himself?"

  "Back underground," Kate said. "So far as I can tell, nothing has been heard or seen of them since. They've gone. Where, when, or why I was never able to find out."

  "So," said Hellboy, "why does this guy leap to mind for you now?"

  "Your comment about magic and myth," she said. "And the fact that Blake's last real lecture was entitled 'When There Were Dragons in the World'."

  "Right," Hellboy said. "Dragons."

  "As I said, he believed that humankind had purged the earth of all that was good. Drove away the wonder. And he spoke of the Memory, using the exact same terminology as the legendary book by Zahid de Lainree."

  "And you think what, Kate?" Abe said.

  "I think that when he disappeared in 1969, he went to find the book."

  The room was silent for a while, all thinking their own thoughts. When there were dragons in the world, Hellboy thought. Damn, that's now! He flexed his arms and tensed his neck, feeling the stiffness settling in there from his fight with the Firedrake.

  "Aren't we adding two and two to get five?" Tom said. "I mean, there's nothing here to say it's anything to do with Blake, is there? And this all happened ... when exactly?"

  "His wife died in 1973. If Blake were still alive now, he'd be almost ninety, and his boys would be in their late forties."

  "And you think this is all revenge?"

  Kate shrugged. "I never knew the man. But yes, vengeance for his wife. And to prove that he was right."

  "Maybe he's just mad."

  "That too."

  "It leaves so much unexplained," Abe said. "Where are these creatures coming from? How are they suddenly appearing again?"

  "If he has the book, he has a map to the Memory."

  Abe shook his head. "It's all too woolly for me," he said. "And even if it were true, it gives us nothing. Hellboy? What do you think?"

  "I think we have to find where this butthead is and have a chat with him."

  "He's been missing for almost twenty-five years," Kate said. "How do you expect to find him?"

  "Ask. Tom, do you have a list of recent sightings of these things?"

  "Cryptids," Kate said.

  "Huh?"

  "I call them cryptids. Cryptozoological creatures."

  Hellboy nodded his head sagely. "Classy," he said.

  Tom slid a computer printout across the table in Hellboy's direction. "What do you mean, ask?" he said.

  "I have my ways," Hellboy said. He used one finger to position the paper in front of him and started scanning down the list. "Cryptids," he muttered. "Classy."

  "Hellboy ... " Abe said.

  "Hey, buddy, I know. You need to go after Abby. Tom knows that too, though he didn't say anything. Just keep in touch. I'm here if you need me."

  Abe nodded his thanks and stroked the flared gills on his neck.

  They were standing in the entrance foyer of BPRD headquarters, waiting for Liz Sherman to arrive. She had called in from the airport to say she was on her way, and Hellboy had not liked the tone in her voice. She was vulnerable at the best of times, but today she had sounded defeated. He wanted to see her, talk to her, take her with him. The way she sounded, being alone would be the worst thing for her.

  "I'm afraid for Abby," Abe said. "She doesn't belong out there any more than we do, not really. But we've adjusted. We've accepted, I still don't think she has."

  "Accepted what?"

  "That we're different. Abby's a werewolf, Hellboy. Ninety-nine people out of a hundred would call her a monster, and that's never likely to change. She hasn't come to terms with it yet. Her being out there on her own ... I'm scared of what will happen."

  Hellboy nodded, looked up through the atrium's glass roof at the night drawing in.

  "Full moon in two days," Abe said.

  "Right."

  They stood in silence for a while, two friends feeling the weight of worlds on their shoulders. Hellboy flexed his huge right hand, flicked his tail at the floor, shrugged his shoulders to twist away some of the stiffness. Kate's ideas were still sinking in, but at least now he had an aim and a purpose in mind. Sitting around was fine, but as far as he was concerned, it never got anything done. He needed to be out there. And as soon as Liz arrived, he would be. "You have any idea where she might have gone?" he asked.

  "I'm not sure," Abe said. "I'm thinking maybe Paris."

  Hellboy knew what had happened there, how Abe had rescued her from suicide, and he did not like the tone of dread in his friends voice. But there was little he could say that would be of comfort. "You go," he said. "Find Abby. Hell, we need her now mor
e than ever."

  "Tom — "

  "Tom will live with it!" Hellboy said. "And if he's got a problem, he can talk to me."

  Abe smiled. "Yeah, I can see that. But things are really kicking off, and my place is here."

  Hellboy squeezed his friends arm. "Abe, after what we saw in there, I'm not sure where our place is anymore. That dragon wiped the floor with me in Rio, and that damn kraken ... you really see yourself being any good up against that?"

  Abe shook his head. "It's all so much," he said. "What are we going to do? What if all this gets worse?"

  "Guns," Hellboy said. "Lots of very big guns." The front doors opened, and Liz walked in. "Oh crap. She looks worse than I feel."

  "HB, Abe," Liz Sherman said. "I really need a drink."

  * * *

  They took one of the Bureau's Humvees. Liz drove. For the first few minutes she had been annoyed at not being able to stop, freshen up, and take that drink she so craved. "There's a bottle of Jamesons with my name on it in my room, dammit!" she had said. But then Hellboy had filled her in on their chat and what they had seen, and Liz had fallen silent.

  "Made me sick to the stomach just watching it," Hellboy said. "It wasn't the size of that thing, though that was bad enough. It wasn't even the dread we all felt when we watched it happening. It was the specks of color in the sea, the splashes of red on the deck. The people, all of them dying. There are a lot of grieving people in the world tonight."

  "I met up with a policeman in Zakynthos," Liz said. "He was a nice guy. I think he wanted to buy me a meal, you know? When the phoenix set itself aflame, it took him with it. It melted him, and now I'll never know what his favorite childhood memory is, or whether he has a scar, or what meal he wanted to buy me that evening. Every death matters so much, HB. We've got to do our best to make sure the grieving doesn't spread."

  "You all right, Liz?"

  She nodded, and in the dusky light he saw her break a smile. "I'll be fine. Now tell me where the hell we're going and what we're going to do there. I've already assumed that this will end up with you beating the crap out of something."

  "Don't prejudge," Hellboy said, affecting a wounded tone. "It is my intention to drive to New York, capture the banshee in Central Park, and have a friendly chat with it."

  "Yeah, right, a chat. And if it doesn't want to chat?"

  "Then I beat the crap out of it."

  Liz turned up a ramp onto the freeway and took the Humvee up to ninety.

  * * *

  New York, New York — 1997

  NEW YORK IS THE CITY that never sleeps, and Hellboy had never felt so awake. There was so much going on that his thoughts were darting all over. He wished he could have just one problem to dwell on, not a million. He wished he had a better idea of what was happening in the world tonight. He wished he could hit something.

  They went south and drove in over the Queensboro Bridge, and New York slapped Hellboy in the face as hard as ever. He knew of no other city that was just so damn visible. It was a great wall of civilization, reaching up for the sky and peppering the night with lights. Darkness never truly fell here, not completely, and the city itself never went to sleep. It did have its dark areas, that was for sure, places down narrow alleys that were haunted by death, and deeper mysteries beneath the city: abandoned subway stations, collapsed drains, the guts of the old city, still grinding and churning but blocked with effluent, human and otherwise. Hellboy had visited a few times over the years, the episode with those giant insects that mimicked humans being the most recent. That was bad. But he'd been able to hit something, at least.

  "Damn, this place gets to me," he said. "So many people."

  "Behind every light is a person," Liz said.

  "And for every person there's a hundred rats."

  "Charming."

  "I'm in a mood. I feel like I need to punch in every direction at once, but I won't hit anything."

  "Take it in steps, HB. Just think about this job for now. Don't worry about things you can't do anything about."

  "But Abby, and Abe, and that madman Blake — "

  "Abe's a big boy, he 'll look after Abby. And Blake may not exist. I know I wasn't there, but Kate's reasoning sounds full of holes."

  "Maybe."

  They crossed the bridge and passed between the first of the towering buildings. The streets were alive, people flowing in both directions and painting the sidewalks every color imaginable. Manhattan was the whole world condensed into one area, its good and its bad. A car horn blared, and a boy helped an old woman cross the road. A man slumped in a doorway with blood running from his nose, and an old beggar with no legs counted up the generous dollars that would pay for his meal that night.

  "Will you look at that guy," Liz said, and Hellboy looked. The man was standing on a street corner juggling flaming sticks. A small crowd had built up around him, kids clapping and adults looking suitably impressed, and the crowd gasped in unison as he plucked a stick from the air and swallowed its burning end. Liz parked at a red light and watched, and Hellboy saw the spinning flames reflected in her eyes. For a few seconds she seemed to forget that he was there. He let her.

  The light changed, and they drove on.

  "How do we find this banshee?" Liz said.

  Hellboy shrugged. "Met one in Ireland once," he said. "Far as I can tell, they only visit families of Celtic or Gaelic descent. That pretty much rules me out, but the report Tom had said that everyone who lives within two blocks of Central Park can hear it at night."

  "I'll bet it's zeroed the crime problem in the park, at least."

  "Maybe the NYPD will sign it up."

  "You think it'll talk?"

  "We can but try. Trouble is, I figure if Kate's idea does hold any shred of truth, and this thing is from Blake, it won't be too keen to reveal the fact."

  "Banshees are spirits, right? Not flesh and blood?"

  "You're asking me?"

  Liz smiled. "You re not as dumb as you make out sometimes. "

  "Actually I am, and now you've hurt my feelings."

  "Big red jerk."

  "Done it again."

  Liz laughed, Hellboy back at her. He and Liz worked well together, and they were good in each other's company. He sometimes thought it was because they distracted each other from too much introverted misery. Occasionally he believed it could be something else. But they'd known each other too long, and been through too much, to do anything that would risk such a precious friendship.

  The traffic stopped and started, worming its way north and south, east and west. Hellboy wanted to start at the bottom and work up, and it was almost midnight by the time they reached the southern extreme of Central Park. The roads and sidewalks were just as busy here, but as Liz parked and turned off the engine, they noticed how quiet the crowds were. So many people, so little noise.

  "They're like zombies," Liz said quietly.

  Hellboy opened his window and looked at the faces of those passing by. A couple of people glanced up, most did not. Many held hands or had their arms around each other, a comfort for both. "They're scared," he said. And then he realized why.

  The wail rose in the distance, growing louder and louder as if the wailer were drawing closer. It was an appalling sound — a wolf in pain or a child screeching for its lost mother. It changed from a wail to a scream, lessened to a sob, rose again, and it echoed between the buildings and along the streets and avenues, giving the impression that its source was everywhere. Hellboy looked into Central Park, and it seemed much darker than normal.

  "Oh shit!" Liz said. "What the hell is that?"

  "That's the voice of the banshee," he said. People were hurrying from the streets now, trying to lose themselves inside or behind buildings in the hope that the wail would not find them there. They were crying, but their sobs were merely human. "Let's go," he said.

  "Out there? Into that?"

  "It's what we came for. Easier to find it if we can hear it crying. Once it falls silent, it'll be
just another shadow."

  Liz frowned across the front seat at Hellboy, then reached out for his hand. She closed her fingers around two of the big fingers on his right hand, squeezed, and he loved her then because he knew there was no awkwardness in the gesture, He smiled, nodded. Then they left; the Humvee, and the banshee's wail rose to a piercing shriek.

  Liz covered her ears. Hellboy bit his lip. They crossed the street together, not needing to look out for cars because no one was driving here anymore. Those who were still in their cars were covering their ears, burying their heads in their hands, or shouting in an effort to drown out the dreadful noise.

  "Why isn't someone doing anything about this?" Liz shouted.

  "We are," Hellboy said. "Someone in the know at the NYPD called the Bureau a day ago, and I guess we just put them on hold for a while."

  They walked into the park. Hellboy turned his head left and right to try to make out where the banshee shriek emanated from, but echoes confounded him. Liz held on to his arm, cringing toward the ground as they walked. Darkness nestled beneath the trees and strove to reach out against the streetlights, and it felt as though they were leaving the whole city behind them. Hellboy had been in Central Park once before, and it had felt like a whole new world within a world, a place totally separate from Manhattan. Now, as the darkness was split by the wails and the lights of the city receded behind them, he was more nervous than ever about what they would find.

  They passed a fenced baseball area, and more fencing enclosing a basketball court and a kids' play area. The pale concrete path curved away from them, catching some of the sparse starlight and showing them the way.

  The wail died down into a moan. She's giving birth to pain, a woman in Ireland had told Hellboy the last time he'd heard a banshee. She's pregnant with agony, and it births itself, so it's never ending for that poor spirit.