The Dragon Pool: The Dragon Pool

by Christopher Golden

  TO: Prof. T. Bruttenholm, Abraham Sapien, Hellboy

  FR: Dr. Thomas Manning, Dir. Field Ops

  RE: Dragon Pool

  Gentlemen, please convene in my office at 3 pm today to discuss Dragon Pool investigation. Due to the urgent nature of this case, the team will depart BPRD HQ for air transport at 9:20 pm.

  Hellboy glanced at the clock on the wall. It was a quarter after two already. He crumpled the memo in his fist and went back out into the corridor, leaving his door open. Still grumbling, he went down and knocked on Abe's door, his massive right fist shaking the wood in its frame. Normally he showed more courtesy, but he wasn't in a courteous mood.

  The music paused, and a moment later, the door swung inward. Abe stood just inside, a kind of dim golden light filling his living room. His vision was extraordinary, and he favored gloom over brightness, even when reading. All that time underwater, Hellboy figured.

  "Welcome home," Abe said, but his words had an inquisitive tone. There was very little that looked human about the amphibious man's appearance. His mottled, greenish skin had dark markings that only increased his resemblance to many forms of ocean life, not to mention the gills and finlike ridges. But his mannerisms were almost entirely human.

  Hellboy held the crumpled memo out to him. "Yeah. Some welcome. I was going to make nachos. You know anything about this?"

  Abe cocked his head to one side. "If that's the note from Dr. Manning about our three o'clock briefing, then, yes."

  Hellboy waited, but Abe did not continue.

  "Okay," he prodded. "Are you going to make me play twenty questions?"

  "Of course not. I'd been thinking about charades, though," Abe said straight-faced.

  Hellboy shook his head, unable to keep up the intensity of his annoyance with Manning when Abe was cracking wise.

  "Are you trying to be funny?"

  "Succeeding, actually," Abe replied.

  "Says who?"

  "Well, I can't expect you to be an unbiased judge. You'd have to have a sense of humor."

  Hellboy glared. "I've got a great sense of humor."

  Abe pointed at him. "See how I just did that again? I've been practicing."

  Unable to help himself, Hellboy laughed softly. He reached up to fiddle with the little knot of hair at the back of his head.

  "You're a riot, Abe. Seriously. But, the memo?"

  "Yes. The Dragon Pool. A mythological site discovered in Tibet. There's been trouble, apparently caused by something inhuman. A girl's gone missing."

  Hellboy straightened up, filling the doorway of Abe's apartment. "All right. I get the urgency. Why isn't Liz on the team?"

  The amphibian shifted with agitation. Most people would never have noticed, but Hellboy knew him too well.

  "She didn't tell you?" Abe asked.

  "Tell me what?" Hellboy growled.

  "She's taking a leave of absence. Several weeks, I think."

  Hellboy leaned against the doorframe, disappointment spreading through him. "Why? And how come she told you but not me? I just spent a week with her in Chile. You'd think she'd mention something like that."

  Abe shrugged. "Maybe she thought you'd be annoyed and didn't want to have to discuss it with you. As for why she's going, I can only guess she's gotten claustrophobic here again. To be honest, I thought it was an improvement. At least it's an officially sanctioned leave of absence and not another resignation."

  "There's that," Hellboy allowed. He threw up his hands in surrender. "Okay, so, any idea what the case is about? What's in Tibet, aside from llamas?"

  Dark eyes wide, Abe cocked his head like a curious bird.

  "Anastasia Bransfield."

  All of the frustration and cantankerousness left Hellboy at the utterance of her name. A myriad of reactions swept through him, but all he could do was blink and stare at Abe.

  "Oh."

  Chapter 2

  Anastasia woke with a start. A sound echoed in her mind--a loud, abrupt noise--but she wasn't certain if it had been real or a dream.

  When the second gunshot came, she had her answer.

  "Bloody hell," she whispered, climbing from her bedroll. She'd been raised a proper English girl with a disdain for guns, but that hadn't stopped her from learning how to use one. Quick as she could, she slipped on her boots. Given the events of the past thirty-six hours, she'd slept in her jeans and tank top, just in case. Day before yesterday, they'd spent hours scouring the lakeshore and the mountainside and every part of the dig--every ditch and dirt pile--searching for Kora Kyichu. Then, last night, the entrance to the Dragon King's temple had been caved in and the saboteur chased from the camp.

  Frank Danovich and Ellie Morris had both gotten a half-decent look at the culprit in the moonlight, and what they described was a nightmare. Leathery face, protruding jaw, long teeth, and eyes that flickered with weird light when they'd cornered him. Danovich had been the one to call it "weird light," actually.

  Ellie had said he had fire leaking from his eyes.

  This confirmed the basic description Anastasia had gotten from Xin, who supervised the project's diggers. By then, she'd already used the wireless to call in her report and demand they contact the BPRD. Apparently her request had been passed along the appropriate channels, but there was no telling how long it would take to reach the Bureau or when help might be forthcoming.

  For now, they were on their own.

  At sunrise yesterday, half the camp had been put to work on the careful reexcavation of the entrance to the temple, and the rest of them had broadened their search for Kora. Kyichu had lost his wife a number of years before, and though he kept his wits about him as he directed the search, Anastasia had seen the haunted look in his eyes. His gaze strayed again and again toward the lake. His thoughts obviously mirrored her own. If the girl had wandered off, and they hadn't found her in a day and a half, the most likely solution was that she had somehow swum too far out into the lake and drowned.

  Perhaps under other circumstances, they would have assumed that was precisely what had happened and simply mourned the girl. But there was at least one mysterious saboteur plaguing the dig, and the thought that he might be responsible weighed heavily on them all.

  Tonight, Anastasia had posted guards around the camp, and at the entrance to the temple, which had been freshly cleared just before sundown. In the morning, she'd planned to take a small detachment from the camp and travel to the nearby village to see if the locals could tell them anything about who might want to sabotage their dig and find out what they knew about a little girl gone missing.

  But morning hadn't arrived yet. Gunshots could only mean one thing: The saboteur had returned.

  She slid her pistol from the holster she'd hung on a hook jutting from the tent pole and stepped out into the chilly night air, the gun's weight a comfort in her hand. The crescent moon cast an otherworldly glow upon the land, and the surface of the lake glinted with a million points of light. The mountain loomed to her right, cranes and pulleys silhouetted mantislike against the night sky. For a moment, she heard nothing but the wind.

  Then another shot came, the crack of a rifle. Anastasia bolted in the direction of the shooter, boots kicking up dirt. She didn't want to end up with a bullet in the face, but if the bastard who'd been causing them so much trouble was in her camp, she wasn't going to hide from him.

  Voices carried on the wind ahead of her. Someone was shouting.

  "That way!" she heard. "Son of a bitch went that way!"

  Danovich. Chances were he was the shooter as well. Frank was a dead shot with a rifle. Other people had begun to emerge from their tents at the base of the mountain, but she ignored them, starting up the slope, pistol clutched in her right hand. The dig sprawled across the face of the mountain just above her, excavations gaping shadowlike craters on the moon. None of the machinery ran. Not a single engine rumbled. There wasn't even the sound of buckets being filled, shovels turning soil, or pulleys turning. That was to be expected in the m
iddle of the night, but with the knowledge that someone or something prowled the abandoned dig site, looking to do them harm, the quiet made her shiver.

  Her grip on the gun tightened.

  More shouts sounded. She heard boots pounding dirt and saw several figures crest an outcropping of rock above her. They were familiar shadows, and one of them could only have been Han Kyichu. The moonlight made a halo of his white hair, though the rest of him was in darkness.

  "Han!" Anastasia shouted, more to make sure that Danovich didn't shoot her than anything else.

  "Dr. Bransfield!" Kyichu called down to her. "He's there with you! We just saw him!"

  Anastasia stopped and lowered herself into a half crouch. She gripped the pistol in both hands and spun around, scanning the slope around her. Shadows loomed beneath jagged outcroppings and behind rows of low, stunted bushes. Nothing moved. From up on the ridge she heard the cocking of a rifle and knew Danovich must have run up to join the others. A spark of panic ignited in her.

  Her chest rose and fell, and she could feel the throb of her pulse in her temple. Anastasia listened to the wind and her own breath, and she hated this silent, invisible figure more than she'd ever hated anyone in her life. She hated him for making her afraid, and she hated him for the way her finger tightened even further on the trigger, for making her willing to shoot him.

  "Stacie, there!" Danovich shouted from above.

  The rifle cracked. A divot of earth erupted twenty feet to her right, behind a scree of low, tangled brush. A shadow lunged away. The moonlight seemed to slip around him, as though he existed just beyond its reach, but the silhouette was real enough. His running footfalls were heavy on dirt and stone--as though his weight was far greater than the thin, wiry figure ought to have carried. Again, Danovich took a shot, and again, the bullet struck the rocky slope.

  Fast, Anastasia thought. The bastard's fast.

  But he wasn't heading for camp. Why would he? Too many people, too much attention. Sabotage was about sneaking around. He'd been trying to ruin the dig, not kill the archaeological team.

  Anastasia took off after him. The terrain was rough, and she nearly stumbled but gave herself over to the downhill momentum of the slope. The shore of the lake was below. The water rippled in the moonlight, giving her an even better silhouette of the slender intruder. He ran so quickly that it was breathtaking to see, but it also meant there was no way in hell she was going to catch up to him.

  No way.

  She stopped, leveled the pistol in her right hand, sighted on his retreating back as he crossed the last few yards toward the water, and pulled the trigger. The gun bucked in her hand. The saboteur grunted as the bullet punched through his upper right shoulder, spinning him around. For just an instant she caught a glimpse of his face--of teeth like diamond shards and eyes that flickered with flames--then his momentum carried him into the lake. He hit the water in a tangle of limbs and went under.

  "Oh, well done, Stasia," she whispered to herself, staring at the water as it closed over him. "Silly sod."

  The gun did not waver as she raced down to the water's edge. Behind her, she could hear Danovich cheering for her and other voices calling out in alarm or triumph. People ran up toward her from camp and down from the mountain ridge, but Anastasia paid them no attention. Her entire focus was on the water. A dark spot formed on the water, then dissipated, and she figured it was blood. But the bullet had only struck him in the shoulder. So where was he? Why wasn't he coming up?

  "Dr. Bransfield?" a voice said behind her. "Stacie?"

  A hand touched her shoulder, and she shook it off. Weren't these people paying attention? Didn't they understand that this wasn't some local trying to drive them off or a rival hoping to scare them so he could move in and claim their work for himself?

  Of course they didn't. They hadn't lived through the things she'd lived through. To read about the supernatural in the newspaper was a far different thing from experiencing it firsthand. Half of them probably still thought Hellboy was an urban legend, even though he'd been on magazine covers and the evening news.

  Frank Danovich came up beside her, rifle clutched in his hands.

  "Nice shooting, Doc," the engineer said.

  Anastasia still felt the ache of the gun's recoil, and it made her want to throw up. Danovich's lightheartedness did nothing to soothe her, nor did the knowledge that the man she'd shot might not be human. She hated guns and hated even more how often in her life they had been necessary.

  She did not look up at Danovich, instead continuing to watch the surface of the lake. The concentric ripples of the saboteur's plunge had smoothed.

  "What are you staring at?" the engineer asked.

  "Bubbles."

  Danovich cleared his throat. "No offense, Stacie, but what the hell are you talking about?"

  At last she tore her gaze away. She glanced around and saw clusters of diggers and techs and specialists whispering among themselves. Ellie Morris stood by Professor Kyichu, one hand on the back of his neck, sorrow and sympathy on her face. Ellie was a medical doctor, so perhaps she was just expressing an interest in the man's health, but Anastasia wondered if there was more than a collegial relationship between them. For Han Kyichu's sake, she hoped so.

  Professor Kyichu stared at the gun in her hand. Unsettled, Anastasia clicked on the safety and slipped it into the rear waistband of her jeans as she walked toward him. Danovich dogged her steps.

  "Stacie," he said in a bad stage whisper.

  She frowned and looked at him. The wind whipped her hair across her face, and she put up a hand to push it aside. The late-September night was frigid, and she shivered.

  "What is it?" Danovich asked. "What were you looking at in the water?"

  Anastasia didn't want to speak of it with so many people around, but she understood the fear in Professor Kyichu's eyes. If this man had been both saboteur and kidnapper, if he had Kora trapped in a cave or hut somewhere--and Anastasia had just shot him--then the girl was as good as dead.

  Danovich stayed beside her as she went up to Ellie and Professor Kyichu. The four of them huddled together, and though other members of the team were milling around, the chatter was enough to distract most of them from a few quiet words.

  "I don't know if Kora was abducted or not," she whispered, gaze locked with Kyichu's. "But she's a smart girl, Han, so--like you--I can't believe she just drowned. We also don't know if the man I just shot was her kidnapper."

  "And now we'll never know," Ellie said, despair in her voice.

  "We will," Anastasia replied sharply. "I hit him. He's bleeding. But he's alive. I saw air bubbles on the surface and tracked him as far as I could. He swam out about fifty yards and turned east."

  Professor Kyichu stared at her. Their friendship was strained by his fear for his daughter. She could not hold that against him, and yet the grim doubt in his eyes and his voice hurt her.

  "Nobody can hold their breath for that long," Kyichu said.

  Anastasia held his gaze. "Nobody human."

  Professor Kyichu nodded. They'd all heard Xin and the others who'd seen the saboteur describe him.

  "You got a good look?" Ellie asked.

  "Good enough. Did he do any damage?"

  Danovich slung his rifle over his shoulder. "Not this time. I spotted him as he was slinking up toward the temple entrance excavation. He took off at the first shot. Can't believe I missed him. It's not like me."

  "He's damned quick," Ellie said.

  None of them wanted to follow that train of thought. At length, Danovich spoke again. "So, what now?"

  Anastasia turned to look out over the lake. "Help is on the way, I hope. Meanwhile, we keep one team working while the rest of us search for Kora. In the morning, we head for the village, just as we planned. And we stay on guard."

  A shout of alarm came from behind her, and she heard the sound of boots pounding the rocky ground. Anastasia turned, snatching the gun from the small of her back at the same time. Before
she could even raise the pistol to take aim, she saw lanky, handsome Rafe Mattei running toward them. Several people moved aside to let him pass. One of the other students on the dig tried to reach for him, but Rafe shook his head and kept moving until he stood in front of the half circle made by Anastasia, Professor Kyichu, Danovich, and Ellie Morris. Others gathered around, now, all of them doubtless fearing the worst.

  Rafe had confusion in his eyes.

  "What's wrong?" Anastasia demanded. "More sabotage? Did he cave in one of the digs?"

  The young man struggled to catch his breath, but shook his head. "No, no. Nothing like that."

  "What is it, then?" Professor Kyichu asked. "Kora?"

  The apology in Rafe's eyes was enough to dispel that hope. Again he shook his head, and then he turned to Anastasia.

  "Dr. Bransfield, you asked us to keep working once the temple entrance was cleared," he said. "We've been at it all night."

  "All night," Anastasia said, frowning. "I never asked anyone to--"

  "No, you didn't. Dr. Conrad did. We've been photographing and cataloging everything in situ, while he's been translating the paintings and writing on the walls and the objects in the foyer room."

  A flicker of anger went through her. A specialist in ancient languages--among other things--Mark Conrad was essentially her second-in-command on this project, but not by her choice. He was talented and knowledgeable, but also an arrogant brown noser who pandered to their employers at the British Museum and romanced government ministers at museum events, jockeying for her position. Anastasia might be a hero to some in the British archaeological community, but some of the older, more proper members of the museum's board did not like the publicity she'd received over the years; they found it unseemly. On the other hand, they received all sorts of outside funding because of Anastasia's reputation, public image, and connections. So, while there were those who disliked her maverick nature, no one was willing to hand Mark Conrad her job just yet.