by Tim Lebbon
"Hey!" Hellboy called. "Hicks!"
Their headpieces crackled, then started whispering, "Holy shit holy shit holy shit ... "
Hellboy pulled himself up the steps into the cockpit. It was red. One side of the windscreen had shattered, the copilot was dead, and the bloody remains of part of the griffin were splashed all over the instrument panel, the floor, and the pilot's flying suit. His face was as red as Hellboy's but for his stark, staring eyes.
"Hicks!" Hellboy said. "We're going to crash!"
Stuff slid down the window on the outside, a feathery, fleshy mess.
"Hicks!"
The rotors were making a strange sound.
"Dammit!" Hellboy leaned forward and tapped the pilot's helmet, knocking his head to the side.
Hicks turned and stared at Hellboy, eyes wide, mouth falling open. He glanced at his copilot, then turned back and started fighting with the controls.
Hellboy waited, watching, realizing that Hicks was now doing his best to right the helicopter and assess the damage. He gave him a full minute before he asked.
"Well," Hicks said, "I could beat around the bush and give you all the reasons, but I'd say we're buggered."
"How long before you have to put us down?"
"Well ... now!"
"Not now," Hellboy said. "Keep us in the air as long as you can. Follow the river."
"A thing the size of my family's car has just been diced by our rotors," Hicks said. "I don't think it would be safe to just — "
"You think we'd be safer down there, on the ground, with all that we've seen?"
Hicks looked away, fought against the shuddering controls. "I'll keep us up as long as I can," he said.
Hellboy touched his arm. "Good man. And good flying. I thought we were screwed for sure."
Back in the cabin Jim still had his eyes closed, and Liz had succeeded in lighting a cigarette. Her hand shook so much that she could barely take a drag. "I am never, ever, ever going onboard an aircraft with you again," she said.
"Me?" Hellboy said. "You blame me?"
"Got to blame someone." She concentrated on the cigarette, got it between her lips, and left it there.
"Well, let's hope there's nothing else between us and Blake," Hellboy said.
Liz stared through a haze of smoke. "You think?"
Hellboy looked away, down, back the way they had come. In the distance he could see a swath of smoke rising above the London Docklands. He hoped he was not yet looking at the ashes of world leaders.
* * *
Thames Estuary — 1997
TO BEGIN WITH, SHE opened the passenger door and thought about jumping.
The giant bird's claws had ripped through the car roof and were now curled against its underside, and Abby had to squeeze past them. The driver's door was buckled and bent, but the passenger-side door swung open easily enough. The car shuddered as it opened, and the bird carrying her looked down to see what its catch was doing.
This is from him, Abby thought. He's sent it to get me. He knows I'm coming. I've lost the initiative, and now he's totally in control again. It won't harm me now. He'll leave that till later.
She wished she had a gun to test that theory.
The bird had flown fast. London was below them now, an untidy map of streets and river, houses and tower blocks, parks and parking lots. They were a mile up, maybe more, and the air up here was freezing. She could jump, she supposed. But if Blake was that keen to have her, the bird would likely drop the car and pluck her from the sky. And she'd rather spend the journey in relative comfort than clasped in the creature's rough claws.
She almost went anyway, seeing the Thames far below and remembering how she'd tried to end things in a similar river in another city. But since then she had grown and developed, become a person, and with the help of Abe she had started to make a life for herself. She had made herself better than Blake had made her, and that counted for something. Terrified though she was at what the night was yet to bring, she would not let desperation defeat her.
And besides, with this bird's help she was going exactly where she had intended. She thought of the New Ark and its inhabitants, the dark places deep within its holds where things that should never be had been resurrected ... and she was one of those things. She thought of the Voice locked in the room in the depths of the ship and Blake striding through his domain with the arrogance of a father believing himself perfect. She wished, more than anything, that she had stayed behind to kill him.
London soon passed away below them, and she realized that the bird was following the course of the river. Over the Docklands area they passed above a stain of smoke and fire, and she wondered whether it had anything to do with what was going on today. She thought so. The world was a changing place, and with change came chaos.
The river widened as it approached the sea. Abby glanced at her watch. It was almost four o'clock. The bird began to drop, spiralling down as if to disorient her, losing altitude at a startling rate. She tried to look out the windows but saw only sea and land, sea and land, juggling position as if the bird could not decide upon its final destination.
It was only as they were preparing to land that she saw the New Ark, dilapidated and rusting, adrift and seemingly empty. All holds were open, all doors ajar, and there was no activity at all on deck.
The great bird lowered the car into one of the open holds, and Abby was home.
* * *
"So what the hell is that?" Liz asked.
Hellboy looked where she was pointing. A huge bird was flying high overhead, a bulky shape suspended beneath it. "It's a rukh carrying a car," he said matter-of-factly.
"Oh, like I'm supposed to know that."
He watched the bird move downriver. It was going faster than them, following the Thames, as if it had a purpose. "Hey, Hicks, look up and to your right. See it?"
"Jesus."
"Follow that bird, Hicks."
Liz smiled. "Bet you've been waiting to say that all your life."
"Didn't think I'd ever get the chance."
"What are we going to do?" Jim asked.
Hellboy looked at him and frowned.
"I mean when we get there," the ghost hunter said. "Wherever there is. What are we going to do?"
"Kick some ass."
"But this Blake character, surely he'll be protected? We've seen some of the things he's let loose on the world ... he won't have left himself open to attack, will he? If he's the puppet master you're suggesting, he'll want to ensure that he can continue holding the strings."
"Maybe, maybe not," Hellboy said. "Depends on how long he thinks all this will take."
"He's been building up to this for years," Liz said. "If what our adviser back at BPRD says is true, the guy's probably nine parts mad. There's no rationality in this, no single sane reason to do what he's doing."
"Dunno," Hellboy said.
"What?"
He shrugged. Sat down. The helicopter juddered briefly, shook to the sound of grinding metal, then flew on. It would soon be giving up the ghost.
"HB, what do you mean, 'dunno'?"
"Well ... " He scratched his goatee and looked anywhere but at Liz. "The guy's wife was killed. His research was trashed, even though it seems it was way ahead of its time. He was accused of murder. He and his sons had to go on the run, hide, disappear from the world. He's trying to restore the earth to its natural order, stop mankind from going down the route it's taken, a route that will destroy the planet soon. Ask any scientist. It's just that Blake has magic as an ally. He has knowledge. He's a genius, and madness and genius sleep well together."
"You almost sound as if you support this maniac."
"Not at all. I'm going to kick his ass. But I can empathize."
"You're a big softie."
Hellboy glared at Liz for a second, then away again. Anyone but you, he thought, but then he shook his head. Things were getting to him. He should loosen up. There was a fight coming — a big one — and he had to
be at his best.
"Hey," Liz said.
"Yeah." He smiled at her, aware that Jim Sugg had looked away from their private moment. I'm a lucky man, Hellboy thought. I'm a very lucky man, I have friends, people who care for me. Blake? He has revenge. With nothing but that driving him, madness is inevitable.
"Blake won't be far away," Liz said. "This is his moment. Even if he can't see it, he'll want to be close."
"Not far away at all," Hellboy agreed. "Hey, Hicks, you still see that bird carrying the car?"
"Er ... yeah. But we won't be following it for very much longer. That other giant bird thing we hit did something nasty to the motor. It's overheating, and something's broken in there. I can hear it grinding. I want to take us lower just incase — "
"We fly on," Hellboy said. "I thought helicopters either flew or crashed?"
"Yeah, no gliding in this baby."
"So what's the point in going lower? We fly."
"Whatever you say," Hicks said. He mumbled something else, but Hellboy missed it. Probably a prayer.
* * *
Hicks nursed the Lynx onward, still keeping the bird and the flying car in sight. Hellboy, Liz, and Jim sat in the back, staring from the open door — Hellboy's fist had crushed the jamb so that it would no longer shut — and using the noise as an excuse not to talk. Just as Hellboy noticed he could no longer see land to the south, Hicks called through their headphones, "Oh, screw me."
"What is it?"
"Come see for yourself."
Hellboy climbed into the cockpit again, doing his best to ignore the worsening shuddering of the helicopter. They wouldn't be up for much longer, and —
And there it was. The ship. He'd guessed it would be a ship, but not one like this, not one as big as this.
"It's an old oil tanker," Hicks said. "I just saw that bird dip down into one of those open doors on its deck. Car and all."
I wonder why it took the car, Hellboy thought. I wonder who's in it. "Can you land us on that thing?"
"Are you out of your — ?"
"Hicks." Hellboy stared at the pilot. He gave him the glare. He hated doing it, but sometimes kind words just weren't enough.
"I can land on it," Hicks said. "And yes, you scare me. But all you had to do was say please."
Hellboy laughed briefly and went back into the cabin. "This is it," he said. He clenched his fist, checked his pistol, and wondered why he suddenly felt far from ready.
* * *
They landed on the wide bow of the old tanker, wondering why they had been allowed to descend uninterrupted.
It was only as the rotors wound down and the things came at them from behind the splayed hold doors that they began to understand.
* * *
The New Ark, English Channel — 1997
AS SOON AS THE CAR bumped onto the deck, Abby was out, running for the shadows, hating the stink and feel and sound of this familiar, terrible place, yet desperate to hide and escape as quickly as possible. Lost, at least she would stand a chance. And there was still one place where she thought she could find help.
"Always in a rush," a voice said. "Always so keen to leave, when there's unfinished business behind you."
Abby spun around, searching the hold for Blake. All she could see were the wrecked car and the bird, flapping its immense wings and trying to loosen its claws from the buckled metal. Elsewhere were only shadows, nudged by sunlight slanting through the open hold doors.
"You rushed away from me," Blake said. "But now you're back, and at the most opportune moment. What am I to you now, werewolf? Am I unfinished business?"
"I should have killed you that night I escaped," Abby said. "And I have a name: Abby. I'm not one of your monsters anymore."
"Of course you are," Blake said, and he stepped from the shadows. He looked ancient. Slight. Weary. And Abby had to blink, because for a second he was almost not there. "And you always will be." Blake looked up through the hold at the deep blue sky, marred here and there by loose, wispy clouds. "It'll be dusk soon ... Abby. And then night, and the full moon will be out. Ready to taste flesh?" He darted closer, his coat stroking the air.
"Stay away!" she said.
"Ready to taste human flesh again?"
"I eat cattle," she said.
"Now maybe. But not always. Don't you remember the first one, the boy from Hawaii? The rukh brought him to you, and you tore him to shreds, ate his heart, drank blood from his tattered throat. And I treated you like royalty. A whole hold of your own."
Abby closed her eyes and shook her head, trying to deny the images that Blake's words conjured. They were circling her like memories, but she tried to shove them away, make them lies. She put them on a screen and called them a film. But she had never tasted a movie or felt its skin split beneath her teeth —
"You're next!" she said, lunging at Blake.
He stepped aside and laughed. Her hands, tattooed fingers already clawed, slid from his chest and throat as though coated in oil. She pounced again, and again Blake brushed her off. She hardly felt him.
"You must be starving," Blake said. "No true flesh for so long."
"I'm a person, Blake. I have a place in the world, memories, a life." She stood back from him, spooked by the way he had felt. She squinted. Could she really see through him? Or was that simply the weird light down here, strobed by the rukh's wings as it struggled to flap itself free of the car?
"You're something I brought back!" he said, and she heard wounded pride in his voice. Good. She could use that.
"Are you so proud of everything you brought back? What about him? Is he still locked away down there?"
Blake's smile did not falter, but the humor dropped from his face.
"He's going to have you," Abby said. "And you know that, don't you? He was always going to have you in the end."
"Once the end is here, I'll no longer care," Blake said. "Not long now. They're probably dying already, those pompous bastards pumped up with their own self-importance. They have no idea what's important! Money, oil, status ... their place in the scheme of things has gone. It'll be a cleaner world, werewolf, the second blood from the first of them touches the ground."
Abby looked for a way out. She could see movement in the shadows: drones. They were small and weak, but enough of them could easily subdue her, should Blake command them to do so.
"No way out," he said.
"Why did you bring me here?"
"To kill you," Blake said. "You're my failure. I'll grant you your last meal, though." He smiled, and behind that grin she saw his downfall.
Abby smiled as well. "So even after all this grand talk of morals and responsibility, you still let pride bring you down," she said.
Blake shrugged. "It's tidiness, not pride. You'd be a loose end."
There was the sudden sound of gunfire from somewhere far away. Blake glanced around — just for a second — and Abby took her chance. She screeched loudly, startling the rukh into agitated motion, and ran the opposite way, ducking into shadows and hoping she would find a wall with a door. Several drones blocked her path, and when Blake screamed they turned on her with their stunted arms raised. She kicked one aside, batted another from her face when it launched itself at her, and then she was through a door and around the corner, running, trusting to instinct rather than trying to plan a route. Her senses were already heightened by the impending full moon. She smelled her way down, deeper into the ship, and within a few minutes she could no longer hear Blake raging behind her.
She got lost. Corridors and doors, stairways and open rooms, shadows and light, old pens and cooling birthing vats. She shut doors behind her, opened those that were closed, backtracked here and there, covering her path in the hope that she would buy enough time to do what she had to do. There was somewhere to visit and one final door to open at last.
After that, the future would be in very different hands.
* * *
"What the hell are they?" Hicks shouted.
"Yo
u have a sidearm?" Hellboy asked.
"Of course, but — "
"Get ready to use it."
Hellboy and Liz knelt in the doorway of the Lynx's cabin, facing the things scampering across the deck. Jim, pale and shaking, sat behind them. There was little he could do to help. Hicks was still in his pilot's seat, side window opened, the muzzle of his pistol resting on the glass lip.
"Black dogs," Liz said.
"They're the size of cows!" Hellboy said.
"How many do you see? I count four. Hicks?"
"I can't see, they're too fast."
Hellboy growled. "Let them have it." His pistol roared, and a shower of sparks erupted from the deck before two of the running hounds. They did not even turn aside.
The black dogs were huge, heavily muscled, their long claws clicking on the metal deck as they ran. They made no effort to hide themselves or creep up on the helicopter. They were too large for one thing, and the setting sun washed their shadows far across the deck. By the time the first dog reached the long shadow of the helicopter, its jaws were dripping pink foam, teeth glinting, eyes narrowed as the vicious growl distorted its face.
Hellboy fired again, and Hicks' pistol added its own voice. Bullets thudded into the lead dog, catching it in the shoulder and mouth, and it skidded across the deck, shaking its head. It glanced over its shoulder and quickly ran again, obviously keen to keep the lead.
"Shit," Hicks muttered. He fired again. Red spots erupted on the fur of the dog's face, but the bullets did not faze it.
"Liz?" Hellboy said. He squeezed off another couple of shots. The large-caliber bullets struck home in the creature's front legs, delaying it for a few precious seconds. "Liz, I need help here. There won't be a second chance."
"I know, I know!"
Hellboy glanced at Liz. Her eyes were squeezed shut, concentration creased her face, and her arms rose on either side as fire flickered between her fingers. He could feel the power brewing in her, so alien and strange because it seemed to come from nowhere. He could sense its heat, its wrath, and not for the first time he was glad to be her friend. Pretty tough he may be, but he'd hate to be on the receiving end of Liz's fury.