Free Hellboy: Unnatural Selection by Tim Lebbon Page B

anonymous building in Baltimore and cried. She remembered swimming ashore at last and finding her way to Paris. Freedom had never tasted the way she thought, and soon the Seine served to drown her sorrows. And then Abe was there, giving her a place in the world, whereas Blake had only given her a life ... and that was too painful to dwell upon as well. Because she was about to betray Abe — him and everyone at the BPRD — simply because she could not face admitting her lie.
    Her tears were not for herself but for that girl she had been. Innocent, unknowing, ripped out of myth and given something that resembled life by Benedict Blake, all to further his own madness and feed his hate. She cried also for what was to come. Because if the werewolf she had killed really was from Blake, then the other things even now being sighted across the globe were probably his as well. And that could mean only one thing: whatever insanity he had been courting over the decades was soon to come to fruition.
    And she knew exactly what the New Ark contained.
    "Help us all," she sobbed. "Oh, God, whoever, help us all now that he's here!" Unable to calm herself, she gave in to the tears. Once she was cried out, she knew, she had to leave to find Blake. He was her creator — her father — and only she had an inkling of how he could be stopped.
    Having escaped, and lied, Abby Paris felt responsibility crush down upon her.
----

Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense Headquarters, Fairfield, Connecticut — 1997
    T OM MANNING, DIRECTOR of the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense, was having a very bad day.
    "Where the hell is Hellboy?"
    "I don't know, sir." The man running the Bureaus communications that day, Chris Moore, shrank down in his seat, offering Manning a smaller target.
    Manning seemed to grow, pumped up with disbelief. "You don't know? How the hell can you not know? The guys seven feet tall and red. Someone in Rio must have seen him!"
    "I've got a lecturer on the phone," Moore said. "She was with Hellboy when — "
    "Is it Amelia Francis?"
    "Yes, sir."
    Manning closed his eyes and breathed deeply. He held out his hand without looking at Moore, still breathing slow and deep. "Here. Let me." He felt the communications officer place the headset in his hand, sensed him rise and walk away, and Manning silently cursed himself for losing his cool. In this job, cool was essential. "Thank you," he said. He looked at Moore; the poor kid was pale as chalk, his shirt patched with sweat. "Do me a favor, Chris, and bring me some coffee."
    "Decaf?"
    "Full-fat. Strong as you can get. I want a bucket of coffee I can float a horseshoe in." Manning was pleased to see Moore break a smile as he left the room.
    "Amelia."
    "Tom ... " She sounded scared; bad sign number one. And number two: there was screaming in the background.
    "Amelia, what's going on there? Where's Hellboy?"
    "He's fallen into the bay," the woman said, her voice crackling with emotion and static. "The dragon just picked him up and dropped him in the bay ... horrible, it must have been a thousand feet high ... and then it flew away."
    "What's the screaming?"
    "Now that it's gone, people are starting to believe it was really here."
    Manning rubbed his eyes, frowned. "Wait a minute. You called this in more than twenty-four hours ago. You're saying that it waited till Hellboy got there, kicked his ass, then flew off into the sunset?"
    "Weil ... "
    "Amelia, get Hellboy to call me as soon as you can."
    Silence. Even the screaming had calmed down.
    Manning smiled. "He'll be fine, Amelia. He's ... hard. But really, do your best to find him and get him to call in. Something's going on."
    He clicked off the phone, re-dialed, and was grateful to hear Liz Sherman on the other end.
    "Tom?"
    "Liz, how did it go?"
    "Bad."
    One word, but it spoke volumes. Tom almost wished he could sign off, but there was so much more going on today. Abby Paris still hadn't returned from Baltimore, and Moore had not