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I cant really tell you if they nodded their agreement. I thought they did. Anyway, they were smart enough to keep their mouths shut.
The bather looked almost innocent. Naked as Adam, he sat in the pool and splashed the cool, clean water on his face. The third time he did it I was on him. Grabbed him by the neck and shook him until he blacked out. I left him at the waters edge.
Now came the speed portion of the show. I dashed up the slanting rock and hit the first sleeper before he could wake up. The second sleeper reached for his AK but I got to it first and tossed it, the rifle clattering down the rock, metal scraping on stone. Then I tossed him.
Bullets smacked the rock around my head as the lookout came charging toward me, firing his MAC-10 from the hip. The frogs jumped off into the water. I dove right after them, but the water was shallow and provided little cover. I could feel the rounds zipping into the pool beside me and then I got my hooves under me, pushed, and drove up and out of the water.
He panicked.
Hell, Id panic too if Id never seen me before. There are times I catch my image in the mirror, or a store window, and . . .
Never mind.
Anyway, I was a species hed never seen and he panicked and ran and that was all I needed. I didnt enjoy running him down, even though I knew the immense evil he was here to perpetrate. There was something nasty about it, something atavistic, primordial, if you will; a battle for a nuclear weapon reduced to a chase of one species by another.
He couldnt win.
It wasnt a matter of will, or skill. It was just physical — I had the superior construction for this. He outpaced me at first, but then he came against a boulder and that was that. He tried to climb it, but I was on him even as he had a desperate, futile hand-grip on the top.
I swung my hammer fist.
The hawk cried.
I looked up and saw it land in a palm tree. Then I saw the vultures tightening their circle, dropping in a spiral, descending for that promised meal that meant another day of life.
Bon appetit, I thought.
The water tasted good. I knelt beside a pool and drank myself full. It was clear and cold and clean. After I drank my fill I jumped into the water and washed myself clean.
Well, not dean.
The suitcase was lying in the shade under a palm. I picked it up and started down the canyon. Good golden retriever. Good Hellboy.
They came from the sky. I should have known it, foreseen it, sensed it, but I heard their cry and then looked back to the oasis and the men were gone, their crumpled bodies lifted up and changed into the super-sized vultures that were now starting into their dives, sharp beaks and razor talons aimed for my eyes. Of course they morphed, I thought. It was the desert. You change, you evolve, or you go extinct.
I broke into a run down the canyon, balancing myself against a fall that would be fatal. If I went down theyd be on me. Hell, even if I stayed on my feet theyd be on me.
The hawk saved me.
It plunged from the sky in a headlong dive into the first vulture, a clash that exploded in a mushroom cloud of feathers, and then a mutual death spiral as, locked together, they spun and plummeted to the ground. The other three just gave it up — it took the heart right out of them. Soon they were just specks in the sky.
I kept moving, wanted to get out of the canyon before they recovered their morale and decided to take another shot. The sun pounded on my head like a hammer and wedge, as if it was trying to split my skull in half, leave me here with the scattered mineral detritus of the Pleistocene temper tantrum. It hurt like hell, but this was Hellhole Canyon and I was Hellboy, so what the hell could I expect? I wasnt going to let it stop me.
Ditto the snake.
It met me on the way down in the same spot it stopped me on my way up. This time it was spread out, relaxed, absorbing the heat it would need to survive the frigid desert night.
"Surprised to see me?" I asked.
"No," it said. Then, "A little, maybe. "
Its strike came out of nowhere. I never had a chance to move. It struck me in the leg, then looked up in surprise and horror when its fangs didnt penetrate.
Part of me wanted to step on it, crush it under my weight. Or pick it up and fling it, send it helicoptering against a rock, make it a blood smudge like a painting. The worse part of me wanted to do that, the better part of me decided that there had been enough — more than enough — death for one day.
I stepped over it and walked down the canyon.
I guess you could say Id evolved.
Bigger, maybe.
* * *
A Room of Ones Own
China Mieville
* * *
"Dont you ever wish it could be different?" Liz Sherman sat with her knees up on her bed, like a teenager waiting for a phone call. "Nope," Hellboy said. "Sure, if you didnt sometimes think about that stuff you wouldnt be human . . . " He paused as if for an unheard laugh track. "Theres stuff all of us would like. Wish you could have a few days off. Wish you had a few more damn choices than Shoot at the giant caterpillar and/or Bash the werewolf biting your ass. Sure, might be nice, but none of us gets much in the way of choice, you got to make do, got to have your breakfast and smile. "
Liz stared at him. She waved her hand at her B. P. R. D. quarters.
"The walls," she said. "Beige. This decor. Dont you ever wish it could be different?"
"I knew you meant that," Hellboy said. "I was kidding. "
"Sure. " Liz stood and swiped her fingers at the paint. "Who picks these colors? Youre never tempted to do stuff to yours, make it more homey?"
"I did. "
"When you got rid of the Babar the Elephant wallpaper? It took you forty-some years, and you only did it because me and Abe were calling you Zephir the monkey. "
"And now its how I like it. "
"Yeah?" Liz turned, hands on hips. "What color are your walls?" Seconds of silence. "You dont know what color your own room is. "
"Thats how I like it. "
Liz shook her head. "Im bored of home being an office catalog. Ive got plans. " She turned in the center of the room, looking slowly at every aspect.
Back outside his own rooms, Hellboy paused and scratched his chin.
"Brown," he said. "Gray? Brown. "
"What are you doing?"
"Hey Kate," Hellboy said. "What colors your room?"
"Here?" Kate Corrigan leaned against the wall. "Light brown. In my apartment? Blue. "
"What colors my room?"
"Oxblood. "
"What the hells oxblood?"
"The color of your room. Oh, youve been talking to Liz. Its good shes decorating, isnt it?"
"It is?"
"You know what its been like for her. She was like a lab rat here. " She glanced around. "There are people in the Bureau whod still rather she was kept in a fireproof cell. Its Manning who insisted she got a proper room. So if shes doing her place up, shes decided its home. So yeah, its good. Im helping her out. Said Id help her pick furniture and paint. Shes looking through stuff from the licensed suppliers. "
"Licensed?"
"Anyone who does decoration here has to have clearance, because theyre going to see stuff. Therere three interior-decorating companies licensed by the B. P. R. D. Tell us if you want to do your place up. "
"Nah. Im good. With the . . . " He opened the door and peered. "Thats oxblood? Doesnt that clash with my skin?"
Thar night Hellboy got called on a mission. Ten days later he returned, tired and crotchety, with his coat still smoldering. His bed was reinforced but it made its usual panicked noise when he sat on it and threw his bits and pieces onto the floor.
"You stink," Kate said. "How was France?"
"Dont you knock? France was nice, except for the zombies. Hows it been here?"
"Fine. Come see Lizs room. "
"You finished it?
"
"Pretty much. " She led him through the hallways. "This one decorator, turns out theyre the ones who did Professor Bruttenholms apartments in the center, back in the day The woman who runs it now just took over. Anyway her pops pop, who started the business, was friends with the professor from way back. Maybe you remember him? They used to sit around and talk literature and interior design. "
"Design? Professor Bruttenholm?"
"Said she overheard. Mr. Margolyse? Any bells? She remembers them arguing what color the front door of Wuthering Heights would be. Thats one of their schticks, theyll print up stuff from old stories, pictures, whatever. Sirbilex Designs does lots of the olde worlde stuff. " She said it oldee worldee.
"Liz likes that? Would think shed want something a bit more . . . "
"Funky town? Yeah. Turns out shes got time for a bit of old-style stuff, found some cool old designs there. Furnitures more Ikea though. Be nice, Hellboy Shes mixing it up a bit. "
She was.
"Hey Liz," Hellboy said. "Wow. "
"Im not taking any home-furnishing advice from you, Hellboy," Liz said, turning up the little stereo on her desk. Liz sat in an uncomfortable but expensive-looking plastic molded chair. The desk she leaned on was some chrome-legged thing, the sea scenes and landscapes that had come with the room were replaced with old movie posters, and there were new garish greenish-orangish-reddish curtains (all the colors that went into them were -ish, like they were loath to commit). Surrounding the whole thing was a jaundice-colored wallpaper printed with flouncy scribbled designs.
"Holy . . . ," Hellboy said.
"Too kind," Liz said. She grinned.
"If it cooks your potatoes, Im happy for you. " Hellboy prodded the wall with his stone forefinger. "That is impressively ugly. "
"Isnt it?" said Liz. She touched it herself. "How are you supposed to walk away from that?" she said. "I like all the little paths. " She traced one of the pee-coloured curlicues with her fingertip, almost dreamily, getting it lost in the designs maze.
"Big seller?" Hellboy said.
"Custom job," Kate said, when Liz didnt respond. Hellboy shook his head as he retreated from the sickly buttery walls.
Even in a slow period the B. P. R. D. had regular briefings — somewhere someone was always hearing a banshee, finding their crops flattened in a mandala, getting their goats sucked.
"Still no word on what that thing in Bodmin in England is," Manning said, flicking through his papers. "Were hearing some weird stuff coming out of the Ivory Coast. . . Wheres Agent Sherman?" Everyone looked around. The corner of the table where Liz usually slouched was empty.
"Maybe she overslept. Shes been working hard fixing up her quarters," Abe said with a riffle of his gills.
"On it," said Hellboy. "Quick look at that room should shock me awake, at least. " Manning folded his arms impatiently. "Back in a minute," shouted Hellboy without turning.
The silence dragged out. When Liz walked in she stopped.
"Whoa," she said. "Did I win a prize or something?"
"Good of you to join us," Manning said. "Wheres Hellboy?"
"How should I know?"
"Isnt he with you?"
Liz stared. "Im not in the habit of bringing Hellboy with me to the John. "
"He went to find you in your room," Abe said. "I dont know whats taking him so long . . . "
"Ill go get him," Liz said. "Whats the point of me calling meetings if. . . ," Manning started. "Amen," muttered Liz as she went.
The door to her quarters was ajar, but there was no sound from inside. Liz thought Hellboy must have gone. But there he was, standing in the middle of her room, lit up by the morning, staring at nothing. She waited several seconds. She whispered: "Hellboy. "
"Yeah," he said, immediately. "Hey Liz. " He did not stop staring at whatever nothing it was that held his attention. "You are here. I thought so. "
"Im here now," she said. "What are you doing?"
". . . Thought I . . . " Hellboy hesitated. Looked at her at last. That big jaw and brow and those red stubs made his expressions hard to read. "Thought I saw you. Or heard you or something. It doesnt matter. Come on. Where were you anyway?"
"Jeez, since when is everyone so concerned with my bladder?"
Everyone was still waiting and staring in silence when they returned to the room.
"Liz, Hellboy, this isnt for my own pleasure, you understand?" Manning said. "I need to know youre going to do as ordered. So would you please sit down and listen to the damn briefing. "
Kate watched Hellboy sit, grumpily obedient. In a place like this, even someone like Hellboy chose to do what he was told, most of the time.
Something woke Liz, in the pit of the night. For several seconds she sat still in her new bed. She stared at the curtains, all colorless in the dark, at their lumpy shadowy shapes. Stared at one particularly large shape, a massive presence of black which she realized, scrabbling upright, was not on the curtains, was something standing at the foot of her bed.
The surge of adrenaline made her occult fire-muscles twitch, and Lizs clawed hands ignited, ready to burn. In the sudden, guttering light, the looming figure was visible, and it was Hellboy.
"What are you doing?" she gasped at him. "Are you out of your mind?"
Hellboy was in his boxers. He was facing the wall. He did not move.
Liz could not extinguish her flaming hands, and would melt the light switch if she tried to flick it now, so she watched him in the light of her unnatural combustion.
"Hellboy," she said. "Whats going on?"
"I needed to check," he said abruptly.
"What?"
"Look. " He traced one of the coils on the wallpaper. "Eyes," he said. Pointed to one, two, nubs at the end of the shape. They did look a bit like eyes. "Like I thought. You were in there. I was trying to help. "
Liz stood, and shook her hands, and clenched her innards until the fires went out.
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