Bruttenholm gestured with his free hand for them to leave the excavation, and they began to climb out, leaving Sima's corpse where it lay.
"How did they get through the camp without anyone seeing them?" Danovich asked quietly as he reached down a hand to help Bruttenholm out of the pit.
The professor glanced upward at the sheer, treacherous ridge above the excavation. "They didn't come through the camp. They came down."
"Climbed down that?" Dorian Trent said, coming up beside him. "What are these people?"
Bruttenholm held the pistol in front of him, barrel pointed toward the chamber entrance, the rosary of Pope Joan digging into his palm. A silent circle followed suit, waiting breathlessly to see what would happen next.
"I'm not certain they're people at all," Professor Bruttenholm said.
In the quiet that followed, he thought he heard a sound from within the chamber, the sobbing of a little girl. Professor Kyichu covered his ears and shot a hateful glance at him. Bruttenholm understood. Better to be with his child and die than endure this.
Still, they waited.
Kora thought Dr. Conrad might be dead.
She wept, her eyes tightly closed, and tried to be quiet. Not being quiet, that's what made them kill Dr. Conrad. He'd shouted at them, asked them what they were going to do to her. He'd even tried to grab one of them, but that wasn't why they killed him. Kora was certain of it. When the dragon-man had rushed at Dr. Conrad, grabbed him by the face and smashed his head against the rock wall, it had been only to shut him up.
Ellie Morris wasn't saying a word. She was a doctor, too, but the medical kind. Still, she was so kind that Kora couldn't think of her as anything but Ellie. She'd whispered to Kora a couple of times when the three dragon-men had first carried her into the chamber. But once they killed Dr. Conrad for not being quiet, Ellie stopped talking. Every time Kora opened her eyes, Ellie looked at her with wide, hopeful eyes, maybe trying to tell her everything was going to be okay, or just hoping that Kora would keep quiet.
If Kora hadn't been afraid to talk, she would have told Ellie it wasn't going to be okay at all. She didn't understand a word the dragon-men said, but she knew that much. They were monsters, with their long claws and their snouts and their scaly flesh, and fire burned in their eyes. When one of them carried her, Kora could feel the heat from inside it, from those eyes.
Sima and Rafe were dead, too. She'd seen them murdered.
One of the dragon-men hissed at her. Kora just kept her eyes closed. She could feel them pulling at her, tearing at her clothes. They poured warm water over her, and she smelled something awful, some weird, earthy stink like rotting plants, before one of them started to smear some gristly goop on her forehead and cheeks, on her throat and arms and legs.
Kora cried harder, thinking that rough hand, that stinking smear, would be used to cover her body. They all hissed at her, and she knew they wanted her to be quiet--knew if she didn't, she might end up like Dr. Conrad--but she could not help it. The tears came. The sobs came up out of her, and she couldn't stop them.
But then the hands went away, and she let out a breath of relief. She tried to get hold of herself, to slow her tears. Her chest rose and fell in even breaths.
The dragon-men began to chant in a language that was not what she had heard them speaking before. Language was her specialty. Her father loved language--old, dead languages especially. Kora was only eleven, but she found the different tongues people spoke around the world fascinating, and spoke half a dozen languages passably well. But she only liked the languages people still used.
This wasn't what they were speaking before. This tongue was harder, uglier, with little howls and yelps that made it seem as though it wasn't a human language at all.
A little sob escaped her. Of course it wasn't a human language.
Her eyes opened. The three dragon-men stood around her, one at either shoulder and the third at her feet. She lay atop some kind of altar. Dr. Conrad's corpse was sprawled on the ground beneath the streak of his blood on the wall. Only a few feet from him, in the light from the lamps that had been rigged in the chamber, Ellie stared at Kora, still trying to communicate some hopeful message without speaking.
The dragon-men weren't even looking at her. They had their heads thrown back, weird, crocodile jaws moving with that chant, and the flames danced up from their eyes.
Tears still spilled down Kora's face, but she was catching her breath at last. She glanced quickly around the chamber. In the light she could make out some of the images on the walls that illustrated the ancient purpose of that room...she saw the lake, and a group of people carrying a child toward the water, hung upside down. The child had designs on her skin and a red cloth tied around her waist.
A red cloth, just like the one she'd seen around the neck of one of the dragon-men.
Kora stared at the ancient, faded images on the wall, studying them.
A child, painted with designs and tied with that red cloth, plunging into the lake...and up from beneath her, jaws opening wide, and fire raging upward, scorching the drowning girl.
Kora's tears stopped, and she began to scream.
Outside the preparatory chamber, Professor Bruttenholm heard the terrible sound emerging from the doorway--the terrified cry of that girl--and for a moment he couldn't breathe. That scream would drive Kora's father into a frenzy, would surely make some of the others want to rush into the chamber. These people had no history with crisis situations. They would not be thinking rationally.
He glanced down at the gun in his hand. What precisely do you know about rational thinking, Trevor?
The girl's screams were drowned out by a sudden roar from above. Professor Bruttenholm threw back his head and watched as the helicopter came slowly over the ridge. Redfield was jockeying it into a holding pattern just above their position.
Two hundred feet above their heads, the side door rattled open. When Hellboy thrust his head out and looked down, Professor Bruttenholm laughed out loud in joyful relief.
"That's my boy," he whispered.
Hellboy turned to shout something back to the others inside the chopper. He braced himself a moment, then leaped out of the helicopter. The chopper swayed badly from the sudden release of ballast, but Redfield knew what he was doing. The pilot got the helicopter under control even as Hellboy careened through the air and struck the face of the ridge above them. He hit the sheer, rocky surface with hands and hooves thrust forward, but the impact slammed him hard. His heavy, arcane hand caught a grip, the fingers plunged into rock and earth, and he dangled there a moment.
Then he started to try to climb down, and the ridge gave way.
"Move!" Professor Bruttenholm shouted.
Guns and shovels clattering, the archaeologists and diggers scrambled to get out of the way as Hellboy slid down the ridge amid a small avalanche of stone and dirt. He hit the lip of the ridge above them and plummeted to the ground, landing right in the hole that had been excavated to enter the preparatory chamber.
"Ah, crap!" he barked, as bits of stone and dirt hailed down upon him.
Professor Bruttenholm was only glad that he seemed unharmed and hadn't completely caved in the entrance.
The helicopter roared toward the lakeshore, hovering a moment before beginning to set down.
"Hello, sir," Hellboy said.
"You're all right?" the professor asked.
Hellboy stood and brushed off his long jacket, then twisted his head to stretch the muscles in his neck.
"Ambush. Sort of. We're fine. We were on the way back when Redfield picked us up." He looked around at the guns and other brandished weapons, then at the corpses of Sima and Rafe Mattei. "Guess it's not news that the dragon guys are bringing the girl here."
Professor Bruttenholm stared at him. "Dragon guys?"
Hellboy drew his gun and turned toward the entrance to the preparatory chamber. He walked two steps toward it before glancing back.
"Yeah. Nakchu village. Dragon-h
uman half-breeds. All of 'em. They think opening this chamber's gonna make the Dragon King rise, and he's gonna want breakfast. Some of them figure since it was this crew that woke him up, it should be one of theirs that gets sacrificed. Others disagree."
He gestured toward the chamber with the barrel of the gun. "Is anyone else in there?"
"Eleanor Morris and Mark Conrad, we believe," Professor Bruttenholm replied.
"All right. When Abe and Stasia and the others get up here, you hold them back. Nobody comes into that room but Tenzin and Koh."
Professor Bruttenholm held the pistol down at his side, his fingers still wreathed with the rosary of Pope Joan. He had been studying the supernatural for most of his life, had been in dire circumstances more times than he could recall, and now he wracked his brain for some solution that would not require Hellboy to enter that chamber.
He had none.
"You do realize I'm field leader on this investigation?" he said.
Hellboy gave him a look of exhaustion only sons could ever give their fathers. "Do you not want me to go in and save the cute little human sacrifice?"
Bruttenholm fixed him with a withering stare. "We have the only exit surrounded."
"If we wait until they come out, there's going to be shooting. Guaranteed. We have a better chance if someone tries to talk to them."
"And you think you're best suited for that? That you won't startle them? You've already drawn your gun, and you can't even speak their language."
Hellboy shook his head in frustration and set the gun down on the edge of the pit. "Did you notice me jumping out of the friggin' helicopter? We're kind of in a hurry, here. I don't need to speak the language. That's what Tenzin and Koh are for."
"Who is this Koh?" Bruttenholm snapped.
"Dragon guy. He's on our side."
"What?" the professor began, but Hellboy was already disappearing into the chamber, tail bobbing behind him.
Conversation started all around the excavation, mutterings about the girl, about Professor Kyichu, who stood next to Frank Danovich with his arms crossed, rocking a bit, lips moving wordlessly, perhaps in prayer. Professor Bruttenholm turned to watch Abe and Dr. Bransfield hurry up the slope toward the dig with the three other field agents he'd brought along, for all the good they'd done so far. He supposed that was the intention of backup--they were there in case the lead agents failed. The guide and translator, Tenzin, ran alongside, accompanied by a man dressed in the mountain garb particular to the region.
Bruttenholm raised an eyebrow. If this was Koh, he didn't look much like a dragon.
Hellboy made his way through the corridor that led into the preparatory chamber, ducking his head to avoid the lights the archaeologists had hung. They were bright enough to piss him off. The place was lit up like a night game at Fenway.
He tried his best to tread lightly, but his hooves crunched on the stone floor, and his jacket made a kind of shushing noise when he walked, like the nylons of the old German lady who ran the library at BPRD headquarters and was so ancient and militant she'd probably been Hitler's nanny.
The corridor took a little jog to the right ahead and opened into the chamber. A low chant whispered around him, echoing off the walls. Some kind of prayer to the Dragon King, he figured. Hellboy tried to count the voices, but all the echoing made it impossible. Not too many of them, though. Two or three, maybe four. Above the sound of the chanting, he could hear the little girl whimpering, and it set his teeth on edge and his fingers to flexing. The flexing wasn't good. It usually led to him breaking things--likes bones. So he put his hands up in a gesture of surrender and stepped around the corner into the chamber.
He saw Kora first. Her shirtsleeves and the legs of her jeans were torn open, and weird sigils had been painted on the skin there, and on her face. Her eyes were squeezed shut and three of the dragon-men surrounded her, one at each shoulder and one by her feet. Beyond them, he saw Ellie Morris, kneeling beside the corpse of Mark Conrad. Hellboy figured he was dead because of the bloody streak on the wall and the way his head didn't look quite round anymore.
Keeping his hands up in that peaceful gesture was just about the hardest thing he had ever done.
"You boys should just go home, now," he said, in as reasonable a tone as possible.
The chanting stopped. All three of the dragon-men twisted toward him, crocodile jaws opening in a hissing chorus. The fire that flickered up from their eyes didn't seem very bright amid the spotlights set up in that chamber, but that didn't make it any less freaky.
He raised his hands a few more inches, and their wary eyes followed the motion. The chamber was fifteen or sixteen feet high, but he couldn't put his hands up any farther. Hellboy wanted to make sure they didn't see him as threatening.
It didn't seem to be working. The two at the girl's shoulders gathered closer to her, putting protective hands on her. The third, at her feet and nearest to Hellboy, took a slithering kind of step toward him.
"Don't do it, Puff. I left my gun outside and everything. This doesn't need to get messy."
Which was when Kora spoke. Her eyes were still squeezed tightly closed.
"Who's there?" the little girl asked, her voice breaking with hope and despair in equal parts.
"A friend," he said. "Don't be afraid, Kora."
"I don't know how to not be afraid," she said.
"Hellboy--" Ellie Morris said.
A bad idea. One of the dragon-men twisted around, reached out, and grabbed Ellie by the hair, and hauled her, screaming, toward the altar where they'd been preparing Kora for sacrifice. Ellie screamed as her scalp tore, her shriek ragged in her throat.
"Son of a--" Hellboy began.
Kora opened her eyes. Maybe she'd been expecting the Dragon King to come and claim her, to eat her, to kill her...when she saw Hellboy, her eyes filled with such terror that she began to shake all over, her arms and legs trembling so hard on the altar that she seemed almost to be having some kind of fit.
Ellie was talking, maybe begging the dragon-man to let her go, or telling Kora that Hellboy really was a friend, even though maybe he didn't look like one. Either way, Hellboy didn't hear more than a muttering jumble of words, because he was otherwise occupied.
The dragon-man who'd slunk closer to him lunged, hissing.
Hellboy hissed back. It sounded and felt foolish, but he'd lost patience. The dragon-man reached hooked talons out to grab him, wide jaws opening. Hellboy didn't even try to avoid the thing's hands. The talons gripped him with enough strength to make small punctures in his thick hide. He didn't even feel it. In the same moment, he grabbed the dragon-man by the throat, raised his right fist, and hit him as hard as he could.
Bones broke in the dragon-man's face. His eyes rolled in his head, he let go of Hellboy and staggered backward, then fell down, either unconscious or dead.
The other two stayed on their side of the chamber. Hellboy figured they were having second thoughts about how to proceed. Ellie was kneeling beside the altar, bent over and whispering to Kora. A trickle of blood ran down the woman's face from where her scalp had torn. The dragon-man who'd grabbed her, a big, ugly bastard with yellow-and-red flesh and very little fire in his tiny, black eyes, held one of her shoulders. The second stood on Kora's other side, one hand closed over the girl's biceps.
He started talking to Hellboy.
"Sorry," Hellboy said, spreading his arms. "No comprendo." He pointed to the girl. "But I know you comprendo this. They're coming with me."
He tapped his chest, pointed at Kora and Ellie again, then repeated the gestures several times.
The dragon-man who'd tried to speak with him hissed.
Which was when Tenzin and Koh stepped into the chamber behind him. He could tell by their footsteps, but also by the spark of hope that flared in the eyes of the two dragon-men who weren't lying on the ground with a broken face. The guy on the floor twitched a little, so maybe he was also feeling hopeful, though Hellboy didn't think so.
T
he one holding Ellie's shoulder starting shouting at Koh, who immediately starting shouting back even louder. Koh was the son of the village elder, so Hellboy hoped he had some kind of authority over these guys. From his tone and the commanding hand gestures he made, Hellboy figured Koh at least thought he did, which was a start.
"How's he doing?" Hellboy asked, taking a quick sidelong glance at Tenzin.
The guide stepped up beside Hellboy, face grim. "Not well. They keep insisting that the sacrifice must be made or the Dragon King will rise."
"Has Koh mentioned all the people with guns waiting to kill them if they try leaving this room with the girl?"
Tenzin shrugged. "No one will shoot if they have the girl."
Hellboy frowned. "Whose side are you on? There are too many guns for them just to walk out there. Someone will get a bead on the backs of their skulls. They'll never make it down to the water alive. Tell them."
His voice shook when he translated what Hellboy had said. Then the dragon-men started screaming at Tenzin, too.
"I'm going to be very disappointed in you if you get me killed," the guide said.
"Me too. What are they saying now?"
Hellboy watched Ellie and Kora, ignoring the dragon-men now. He tried to nod to the girl, give her some kind of reassurance, but she only whimpered and twisted on the altar to bury her face against Ellie.
"I'm quite the charmer," Hellboy muttered.
"Still no good. Koh's arguing with them, but they just keep saying the sacrifice has to be made, and they'll die to save their village if they have to."
Hellboy sighed. Zealots were the worst.
"Look, Koh," he said.
All of them fell silent at his use of the name. Koh turned to look at him.
"Tell them that they're right," Hellboy said, and Tenzin translated. "If us opening up this chamber brings the Dragon King back, it's our fault. Tell them I'll take the blame. I'll make sure the village is safe."
The Dragon Pool: The Dragon Pool Page 11
