The Dragon Pool: The Dragon Pool

by Christopher Golden

  "You're sure the museum's not going to pull you off the project?" he asked.

  Anastasia had her hands thrust deeply into the pockets of a lamb's wool jacket. Her New York Yankees cap was nowhere to be seen. Her strawberry blond hair seemed golden orange in the moonlight. Hellboy took short strides as they went down the slope together, his long jacket flapping in the light wind. He kept his hands at his sides.

  When Anastasia shrugged, she kept her hands in her pockets. He wondered if she sensed the charge of the space between them the way that he did, and guessed that she did.

  "Once they've read the BPRD report and the statements of my staff, they won't pull me. They'll send an additional team including someone to replace Mark Conrad--probably Tott Peck, who's a decent bloke--and the newcomers'll have orders to keep an eye on me. Once all the excavation is done and it comes down to nothing but cataloging and photographing, they'll call me home. Which is fine, really. You know the initial discovery and interpretation is my real love. Then I like to move on."

  Hellboy glanced at her in time to see her frown at her words and her eyes narrow with wrinkles of worry. She shot him a sidelong look, almost guilty, and he realized she was reconsidering her words, wondering if he would read any deeper implication into them.

  "Tott Peck?"

  She blinked, careful as she picked her way down a tumble of stones. "Hmm?"

  "That's someone's name? Seriously? Tott Peck?"

  Anastasia laughed a bit too much. "His name's Tottenham. Apparently where his parents conceived him. Some apartment on Tottenham Court Road. The sort of precious thing Americans do all the time, giving their children such names. Tott's parents are from Boston, but moved to London before he was born. If they've got to send someone to watchdog me, I hope it's him."

  Off to the right, Hellboy saw Abe walking between two of the tents the BPRD had set up beside the archaeologists' camp. But here, in the shadow of the ridge where the city of the Dragon King was being excavated, no one was around. Everyone was either up at the dig or in camp. Hellboy and Anastasia walked together down to the shore of the lake, undisturbed.

  At the water, they paused to stare out toward the far shore. Until now, they'd been talking about the horrid events of the morning and the deaths of Sima, Rafe, and Dr. Conrad. Professor Kyichu would be leaving the expedition, apparently. He wanted to take Kora home. Hellboy couldn't blame him. Anastasia was sad to see him go, but she understood.

  Now, though, all discussion of work came to an end.

  The space between them fairly crackled. The lake's surface rippled in the night breeze.

  "How long before the BPRD sends someone to deal with Nakchu village?" she asked.

  Hellboy glanced away from her, the moonlight on the lake suddenly fascinating beyond its beauty. "I don't know. Haven't spoken to the professor about it. A few days, I'd guess. Probably BPRD and United Nations."

  "And then you'll be going?"

  Her voice sounded small and faraway.

  "Yeah. Our job's done."

  Hellboy felt strangely warm. He glanced at Anastasia and saw that she seemed not to notice all the beauty around her, focusing on her feet.

  "Your father would be pretty upset with me, but...are you sure you have to go?"

  The moment seemed eternal, and eventually Hellboy became aware he had remained silent for far too long. His lack of answer would have stung her. He knew that, and couldn't do anything about it.

  "I shouldn't have said anything--" Anastasia began.

  "Why would he be upset?" he asked.

  Anastasia laughed softly, hollowly. "Professor Bruttenholm basically warned me off an hour or so ago."

  "He what?" He was often frustrated with his father, but he'd never felt anger like this at the old man before. The feeling didn't sit well with him. It seemed to sizzle inside him, like he'd been electrocuted.

  "Stop. Wait," Stasia said, shaking her head. "He was fine. Respectful. He's just your father, and he worries for you."

  "I'm not a child," Hellboy growled.

  "We should all be so fortunate as to have someone who loves us as much as he loves you," she told him. It felt like an admonishment.

  "What'd he say, exactly?"

  Anastasia turned toward him. She didn't reach for his hands or slide into his arms or any of the things that would have felt so natural for them, so comfortable.

  "It's absurd, you know. This is only the second time we've seen one another in ten years. I go all this time thinking I'm set. I miss you, right enough, but I don't remember why I miss you. Then here you are, and it all comes back, and ten years seems like ten days. So here I am, saying all these things I know I shouldn't say, because I'm a selfish bitch, I suppose. I'm not asking you to be in love with me, or to travel around the world with me, or to make things as they were, once upon a time. I would never presume. I know it can never be that way again.

  "But I feel better with you here. Better about myself. Better about the world. And I'm just...I'm having trouble with the idea of you going home in a few days. It's too quick. So, I just wondered if you might be able to stay on for a little while...."

  A horrified expression crossed her face. "And now I've bollixed it up entirely, haven't I? Made a damn fool of myself."

  Hellboy reached out his right hand, that huge destructive bit of him, and she lay her head against it, so gently. Anastasia was the only person in the world who'd never shied away from that hand.

  "I'll always be here when you need me," he said. "I couldn't not come when you call. But you only think you want me to stay. Bad things happen when we're together."

  A flicker of pain went through her eyes. "That's not...you're right, of course. You're right. I'm sorry. I know it isn't easy for you. I told you I was being a selfish bitch, and--"

  "Yeah, no. Not what I meant," Hellboy interrupted. "I'm talking about the monsters, and the black magic, and the zombies and giant spiders and talking severed heads. Dragon-men are kind of a vacation compared to all that crap. But you know what my life is. You're sick with the horror of what happened this morning. You don't want that to be your daily routine."

  Anastasia's gaze hardened. "That was never why it ended for us."

  She didn't have to say any more. They both knew why it had really ended. Stasia had been courageous in the presence of darkness and evil, willing to stand with him no matter what kind of horror reared its head. It wasn't the monsters that had been the end of them, it had been the people--the looks and the whispers.

  "So what happens if I stay, then?" Hellboy asked, surprised to hear his own voice. "How long are we talking about? A week? Two? 'Cause you know that's the problem, Stasia. I'm here now because you needed my help--the BPRD's help. The minute I'm sticking around just to be with you and not because there's something big and evil I need to hit, that changes things."

  Seconds passed. The moonlight played across the night-cloaked lake. They stared at one another, standing on the shore, everyone else so far away.

  "I didn't hear a 'no' in there," Anastasia said.

  Hellboy hesitated. She was right. He hadn't actually said no. Was what she was asking so terrible? They were old friends who still cared deeply for one another. They were both adults, and they knew how things stood and what the parameters were between them.

  He reached out his other hand, and she twined her fingers with his.

  Beneath his hooves, the ground began to tremble. Hellboy frowned. He'd felt something before, when they were coming down the hill, but it had been so slight he had thought he'd imagined it or that it had just been loose earth shifting under him.

  Stasia's eyes went wide. The shore of the lake shifted and bucked. She let out a scream, and had she not gripped his arm just then, she would have fallen. Hellboy pulled her into his arms and held her as the earth began to shake, and rocks tumbled down the hillside toward them. The surface of the lake churned like an ocean storm. Shouts of pain and terror rang out from the ridge as parts of the dig collapsed. The se
conds passed like hours as the whole world tilted, and still Hellboy kept his footing, and held tight to Stasia.

  As quickly as it had begun, it passed.

  "Bloody hell," Stasia rasped, looking around frightfully. "Earthquakes--what next?"

  Even as she spoke, Hellboy stepped away from her, turning to stare out at the lake. The quake had subsided, but the water still churned. And underneath the maelstrom, it glowed a bright orange.

  "You had to ask."

  The lake exploded in a gigantic fountain of water and fire, and the Dragon King hurtled skyward, erupting through a cloud of his own flames. The serpent had no wings, but still it flew. Its long body was covered with yellow scales, though its belly was a wide red stripe. Its snout opened wide, fire blossoming from its gullet as it twisted and squirmed across the sky above their heads. Upon its skull were the antlers of a stag, and its tiny limbs ended in talons like those of eagles.

  "It doesn't make any sense," Anastasia whispered, so close to him.

  Hellboy stared into the night sky as the worm wiggled through the air, fire streaming along its body, snorting from its nostrils. He figured it was over a hundred feet long, but told himself that he could kill it, if he could just get close to it. The inability to fly posed a problem.

  "What doesn't?" he said, not tearing his eyes from the Dragon King as it twisted and coiled in upon itself, either exulting in its freedom or chasing its tail like a savage dog on a cocaine high. "This is exactly what the legend said would happen. We oughta believe legends more often."

  "Legends are usually symbolic. They mean something beyond the words."

  "Yeah, this one means we're screwed."

  "You don't understand. It doesn't make sense that the Dragon King is here when we've found no trace of the temple."

  Hellboy tore his gaze away from the worm snaking across the sky and stared at her. "I don't think not finding the temple is your team's biggest concern right now."

  Anastasia's eyes were wide. Hellboy saw reflected in them the yellow-and-red dragon swimming in the sky above them, trailing fire. But then among the shouts and cries from the camp and from the dig up on the ridge, he heard a kind of low whistle. It came from the Dragon King. When Hellboy looked up again, he saw that the fire had ceased to trail from its snout.

  Scales and antlers reflecting moonlight, the Dragon King slithered across the sky, then descended upon the archaeological dig.

  "Son of a bitch," Hellboy muttered.

  He pulled his gun, wondering what good it would do, and started up the rocky slope toward the dig as fast as he could. Someone screamed. The dragon landed on the ridge, talons gripping mounds of excavated earth and fish tail whipping around. Someone shrieked, and Hellboy saw a man clutched in the dragon's rear talon. The shriek cut off as the digger was crushed, bones snapping, limbs splayed from the dragon's grip.

  The worm tossed its body around madly, tearing down scaffolding and collapsing the mounds that had been unearthed onto the parts of the city that had been revealed. Several people leaped off of the top of the ridge and struck hard, knees bending, tumbling end over end into a painful roll.

  Hellboy was almost at the top. He paused and leveled his hand cannon.

  The Dragon King slithered into the air, darting almost too fast for him to follow with the barrel of his gun. He squeezed off a round and it boomed across the sky, but the way the worm twisted, the bullet didn't even come close.

  It seemed about to head north, toward distant mountain peaks, but then abruptly coiled in upon itself. A yellow-and-red blur, it snaked down from the sky toward the camp. Hellboy froze a single instant, then he ran, hooves pounding as he hurled himself down the slope, shouting warnings in words he didn't even hear coming out of his mouth. The gun dangled uselessly in his hand.

  The dragon opened its maw, and the night lit up with fire once again. The tents set up by the archaeologists and by his fellow BPRD agents caught fire, and the blaze roared, licking at the night sky. Black smoke raced up from the camp. Holes circled in burning black widened as the fire consumed two out of every three tents.

  Hellboy gritted his teeth and glared at the dragon as it slunk away across the sky. He did not call out his father's name, or Abe's, or anyone's. He simply ran toward the burning tents. As he reached the camp he saw a woman on fire staggering out of a tent. Hellboy pulled her to the ground and started to roll her roughly on the dirt, clawing up handfuls of soil to throw onto her. He doused the flames. She screamed in terror, though she was not badly injured. As he rose, he whipped aside the flap of the burning tent, checked to make sure no one else was inside, then he tore it down. Safer if it burns on the ground.

  But he didn't slow down.

  People shouted all around him. He saw a burning man run toward the lake, his hair ablaze.

  Two of the BPRD tents were on fire.

  Silhouetted against them, Hellboy saw Abe Sapien standing with his legs apart, holding the slender, white-haired figure of Professor Bruttenholm in his arms.

  He heard Anastasia calling out to others somewhere nearby. She was seeing to her people, calming them down, getting them organized and seeing who was injured. Hellboy felt a vague, distant relief. With Anastasia there, he didn't need to worry about saving everyone. All he needed to worry about was his father.

  "He'll be all right," Abe said.

  Hellboy took the old man from Abe and carried him away from the burning tents, away from the camp, and set him down at the bottom of the slope that led up toward the dig. His father murmured something, and his eyelids fluttered. Parts of his white goatee had been singed. A portion of his jacket had been burned along one arm, but Hellboy put off trying to remove it. The flesh would be burned under there, and he didn't want to look just yet.

  "What happened to him?"

  "I went into the tent to get him. Pinborough kept the flap clear, but when we came out, the professor was on fire. He kept swiping at his eyes, the smoke stung him, I think. When he dropped to try to put the flames out, he simply passed out. He may have struck his head."

  But Professor Bruttenholm was already coming around. He blinked several times, opening his eyes wide as though clearing his vision. For a moment he seemed disoriented, but then dark understanding etched a grim expression upon his face.

  "What happened to you?" Hellboy asked.

  "Too much smoke and excitement, I suppose," the professor replied, touching the side of his head. "Got a bit of a bump, that's all. I'll be fine. Look to the rest of them, now. There'll be a lot of wounded. And where's the damned dragon gotten off to?"

  Hellboy stared at his father, then looked up into the sky.

  The dragon had headed north, toward Nakchu village. It crossed his mind that he'd promised that he would keep the village safe after stopping them from sacrificing Kora. So much for that.

  "North," was all he said.

  "Damn it," Professor Bruttenholm whispered. He tried to rise, but swayed and lay back down. "Help the rest. I'll be all right here."

  "You're sure?"

  The old man fixed him with a determined stare. Hellboy nodded and pulled Abe away from him. "Where's Pinborough, now? Where are the others?"

  Abe gestured toward the burning tents. "Neil went to help them. Sarah and Meaney were up at the dig."

  Hellboy felt a cold knot in his gut. "Take care of the professor. Work with Stasia and Pinborough to coordinate down here. I'm going up on the ridge. Anyone sees the dragon, they should start screaming."

  A visible shudder went through Abe. "Somehow, I don't think that's going to be a problem."

  Koh crouched just inside the mouth of the tunnel that led into the burial cavern of his people. Twenty feet away his father's body lay burning, flesh flaking like black parchment, charred bones still on fire. Koh wept tears of fire. Behind him, deeper inside the tunnel, dozens of men, women, and children of his village huddled together in grief and fear.

  "Is it still out there?" asked a little girl, a daughter of his cousin.

>   He could only nod, staring at the figure slithering across the sky in flames. It seemed as though the heavens themselves were burning. Nakchu village crackled and raged with fire, all of the beautifully constructed wooden huts swallowed by orange flame and black smoke. The winding river disappeared into the rolling smoke. He could see only the arch of the bridge, on fire.

  In the sky, the Dragon King seemed to grow bored with them. It slid lower and glided, twisting, above the village in search of anything that might be moving--might still be alive. And then it whipped up toward the heavens again and turned southward, slithering away over the hills, toward the lake.

  But Koh knew that the Dragon King would return. Its reign had begun anew.

  Chapter 9

  All of the archaeologists' work had been destroyed. Almost nothing remained undamaged. Areas that had been cordoned off and sectioned with rope and stakes had been churned up by a combination of the earth tremor and the Dragon King's arrival. Mounds of earth had been spread back across excavations as though no digging had ever occurred. The hole in front of the preparatory room had collapsed in upon itself or been torn asunder by one of the dragon's talons. The steep hillside above the entrance had caved in, sealing the chamber with the corpses of Sima, Rafe Mattei, and Dr. Conrad inside.

  Two more people were dead--a digger named Kufs and one of Danovich's men--and the archaeologist that Professor Bruttenholm had befriended, Dorian Trent, was missing. It seemed obvious Trent had been buried in one of the cave-ins, but Hellboy couldn't be sure.

  Hellboy had sent Sarah Rhys-Howard, the BPRD medic, down to help at the camp. She was rounding up supplies and helping Ellie Morris treat the burns of those at the camp. They were priority one right now. That, and getting Kora Kyichu away from this place, just in case there was some way for the Dragon King to sense her--to sense that she had been intended as a sacrifice to him.

  Danovich stood beside Hellboy, his arm in a sling made of torn strips of his shirt. The engineer's arm was broken, but the man was tough as nails. He and Hellboy had been checking on everyone else for nearly half an hour. Hellboy was amazed that the death toll had not been worse. There were injuries, people with scrapes and bumps from tumbling rocks and earth, but mostly they were not serious.