Free Hellboy: Unnatural Selection by Tim Lebbon Page A

squirm their way back and forth, and she does not seem to attract any undue attention. Yet intent is there, and she hopes it will not mark out this particular running woman as something different.
    At last, at the giant ship's stern, with the cold night pressing in and the promise of colder water already tingling her skin, she hears the voice she has wished to never hear again.
    "You can't leave me," Blake says.
    Abby pauses, panting, and turns to face her father. "I can. I am. I'm not like you, not like any of them ." She waves her hand back the way she has come. She is terrified. She has no idea how he got here before her — the last she saw of him, he was bending over the black dog back in the birthing chamber — but there is still so much she does not understand.
    "No, you're not," Blake says. "You're unique. Every one of you is unique."
    "I'm not a monster."
    Blake steps forward, and a light on the bulkhead stutters on. He is unruffled and calm, though he looks older than she has ever remembered. "What is a monster?" he says.
    "Something ... something that ... "
    "Yes?" He moves closer still, and she sees what he is trying to do. Shadows flit at the extremes of her vision, and though she cannot see them, she can sense the drones creeping into position. Soon they will grab her, and then she will find herself imprisoned until freedom is Blake's choice, not her own.
    She steps to the rail and curves one leg over. The cool metal sits across the underside of her thigh, and she realizes this is the first time even a part of her has been beyond the ship.
    "Full moon soon!" Blake says, glancing at the sky. "The hunger will be upon you. The griffin will come in with your food, and you'll rip and tear and thank me. But if you go ... what then? What will a werewolf eat in a world she doesn't know?"
    "Stay away from me!" she says, holding up a hand. The nails are longer, fingers more muscled. Full moon tomorrow, yes, but tonight the tides are already at war in her blood, and her flesh is weak.
    "Look at me," Blake says. "I'm no monster. I bring my children back to the world simply because they've been forgotten, allowed to fade away. That's no way to treat a child."
    "They're not children!" she snaps.
    Blake shrugs, and she sees a glimmer in his eyes — amusement. She is amusing him. He's talking to her, biding time while his drones prepare to grab her, and he's finding this humorous.
    "You're mad," she whispers.
    Blake raises his eyebrows and holds up one hand. "Ahh," he says. And then he nods.
    Abby falls sideways to the deck, and the first drone passes over her, crashing into the railing. She kicks out and sends it shrieking into the sea. The second drone grabs her arm, but she twists away, snapping at its throat and ripping flesh and sinew. She spits. The blood is rank, like old oil, and the flesh tastes bland and insipid. There is nothing to these things. Two more drones attach themselves to her, Blake laughs ... and instead of fighting them off, Abby goes for the old man.
    The next few seconds are a confusion in her memory. Blood and screams, the impact of flesh on flesh, her teeth crunching together, and a long, desperate howl that can only be her own as she falls from the ship and splashes into the water. She swims hard, kicking against the flow, pulling with her hands, knocking aside the drones that fell with her, and hearing their panicked squeals as they are sucked into the giant propellers. Seconds stretch into minutes, and at last she floats on her back, riding the swell and surprised that she can swim. She looks up at the shadow of her father, standing at the railing high above and staring down at Abby. Believing, perhaps, that she is dead. He says nothing. He does not move. Abby floats, staring up past her father at the waxing moon, and even as the tanker moves quickly away, she sees him standing there, looking back at her with mad eyes she hopes she will never see again.
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    Abby sat in the shade of a huge,