Robot hand poised above the control panel switch, he waited for his signal. He turned to gaze at Absolom, who stood beside the Madonna's cot, hand upon her swollen belly.
Wagging his thick tail in anticipation, he let out a yelp of pure elation as his leader turned to him, nodding to signal that it was time.
With his new hand, the dog flipped the switch.
Absolom felt Mary's fear and sympathized with her as she trembled in anticipation. It wasn't every day that a hundred-year-old woman gave birth, never mind to a god. She was trying to tell him something, her mouth moving pitifully as she fought to speak. He laid his hand upon her brow and gave her his most loving smile, hoping to calm her. The time for words was gone, and there could be no turning back.
How he had longed for this moment. To have it at last within his grasp was almost overwhelming. Glancing over to the god-body, swaying ever so slightly in the winds coming off the Atlantic, he committed to memory the sight of it before it contained life. Now, it was little more than an elaborate armature--something that could be seen and admired as a work of art--but soon it would be so much more.
Absolom savored the moment, immersing himself in the time just before it was all about to change. A moment like this one would never come again.
With that thought fresh in his mind, he turned toward Silas and signaled for the next and final phase to begin.
Qemu'el fed.
In the darkness of limbo, the power of worship and devotion poured in around him, nourishing him--giving him the strength to pull open the breach a little wider.
Trapped between realities, his glorious essence existing on two planes, the god needed this sweet nectar of belief to allow him at last to complete his journey.
Yet he recalled the previous effort of his frail human servants, when his freedom seemed imminent only to be snatched away. Tormented by this memory, Qemu'el lashed out at his surroundings. Outside his darkness, he heard the piteous moans of the host body that had sustained him this last, tortuous century.
He would not be denied again.
Absolom Spearz had turned the key.
And now the door was swinging open.
Open wide.
The needles jutting from Mary's belly began to glow with an unearthly white light, like stars burning in the night sky. She writhed in agony on the table, and Absolom reached down, not to comfort, but to hold her in place. He couldn't allow her thrashing to dislodge any of the connections.
The flesh of her exposed stomach glowed as well, the taut skin of the protrusion pulsing with a queer light. Soon the god would at last be strong enough to leave the protection of the womb, flowing into the cables to finally merge his greatness with the body that had been built for him.
Mary convulsed, her skeletal frame pummeled by the preternatural forces that were attempting to escape her.
"That's it, my darling," he cooed, continuing to hold her in place, leaning down close so that she could hear him over the sounds of her screams. "You're doing fine."
Absolom looked into her wide, glassy eyes, remembering the first time that they had met so very long ago, and the spark of instant attraction that had passed between them. It had been nothing sexual. It had been something much deeper than that. He had known that this woman was going to play an important role in the future that he was attempting to forge.
How right he had been.
Mary arched her back violently, thrusting her stomach into the air and emitting a high-pitched, ululating scream of agony. He heard a sound very much like air rushing in to fill a vacuum, and then she fell limply upon the cot--her cries and wails suddenly silent.
Absolom released her. He noted with a furrow of his brow that the metal contacts jutting from the woman's abdomen no longer throbbed with an inner life. For a moment he was stunned by the eerie silence, broken only by the sounds of wind and surf. He looked toward the god-body, moved only by the ocean winds.
The unthinkable filled his mind. Has something gone wrong? Has the god's essence somehow been released only to dissipate into the air?
Absolom began to check all the contacts, making certain that all was as it should be. He could find nothing wrong and felt himself begin to panic.
"No, no, no!" he cried, sprinting from Mary's side to investigate the other machinery.
"Absolom?" Wickham called. "Where has he gone--where is the god?"
But he had no time for the old man's apprehension, pushing him--her--out of the way as he checked the god machines.
Diagrams and designs filled his head, each and every wire, screw, pump and gear. Everything was as it was supposed to be. He didn't understand. What has gone wrong?
Then he heard Silas begin to bark uncontrollably, the sound like a knife skewering his brain.
"Shut up!" Absolom screamed, coming out from behind one of the machines. He snatched up a stone, preparing to throw it at the baying animal, when he realized that the dog was reacting to something behind him.
Absolom slowly turned to see the god-body, no longer swaying from the caress of the ocean winds. It was moving on its own.
What has gone wrong? he asked himself.
Absolutely nothing.
Chapter 15
Q emu'el had successfully crossed over from the prison of darkness to the world of man.
But something wasn't right.
The massive metal structure that now contained his divine omnipotence was slow and sluggish to respond to his mental commands. The vessel screeched and whined with his every movement.
He could feel the energy derived from faith continuing to flow into his body. Thick cables attached to his arms, legs, neck and chest conducted the power that allowed him to transcend the pitiful existence bestowed upon him by the Creator and exist in the physical world.
Still, it was not enough.
The stolen power of worship allowed him to live, to move and to function like a thing alive, but that was all. More would be required if he were to accomplish his purpose--much more.
Through new eyes, made from glass, he gazed out over the ocean, sensing the life that thrived upon the land--beings that did not deserve the special gifts that had been given to them. He thought of this place, as it had once been, clean of life, pristine, pregnant with promise. It would be that way again, the Archon promised himself. A better world existed beyond this one and if not, that too would be destroyed, and another one after that if necessary.
Through Qemu'el's scornful destruction, the Creator would soon see the error of His ways. But in order for that to happen, the Archon must have a god-body befitting his magnificence and powerful enough to contain all of his wrath.
Qemu'el tossed back his metal head and screamed, his birth cry announcing to the world that he had arrived and that the end of their pitiful existence drew inexorably near.
A freezing rain started to fall.
He sensed the hated presence of human life and looked down to see his apostle kneeling in reverence.
"More," Qemu'el told his faithful servant in the electric voice of the massive metal god-body.
"I must have more."
Absolom staggered to his feet, held in a grip of awe by the sight before him. After all this time, he had succeeded.
"More," the giant metal man croaked, his thunderous voice causing Absolom to wince in discomfort. "I must have more."
He had been afraid of this. Without all of the items of power, there had not been enough residual energies to empower the god completely. But Absolom had a plan.
The high priest of the Band of Electricizers turned around to face his minions, finding them standing stock-still--their eyes riveted to the sight of the god.
"The batteries!" he roared.
The dog and the woman turned to him, and he could see that they were in shock. It was a day that would be long remembered, the day that mankind prepared to take its first step toward godhood.
"Now, my friends," he instructed. "The last of the spirit batteries. Attach them to the ma
chines. The energies from the collected souls will provide Qemu'el with the power he requires."
Shaken from their awe, Wickham and Udell did as they were told.
The Archon stood watching, and Absolom slowly approached him to explain.
"The energy of the dead will provide you with what you crave, my lord," Absolom said, averting his eyes. "Through those connections," he explained, pointing out the thick electrical cables that trailed down from various places on the god's mechanical body. "The spiritual residue of the departed will be drained from the vast supply of storage cells, where it has been collected to power my various inventions."
The angel tilted his head back, looking up into the steel gray sky, the snow now falling harder upon Egg Rock.
"This energy," the creature began. "It is all around us?"
"In its unrefined form, yes," Absolom said, moving closer to his deity, excited to be allowed to share something with him. "It is practically an inexhaustible source of power."
The angel looked around, as if somehow capable of seeing the energies flowing around them.
"Glorious," he growled.
The preparations on the machinery complete, Absolom went to the control panel, wanting to do the honors himself. He brushed the accumulated snow away, his hands hovering over the knob that would begin the flow, and gazed up into the hollow eyes of the god-body. Twin beacons of light burned in the darkness, looking down upon him.
"For you," he said, turning the knob. "It is all for you."
The machines hummed to life, the spirit batteries thrumming as the power of the dead flowed out from them and down the connections at the speed of light. Absolom smiled in ecstasy as the god's body went suddenly rigid, its hinged mouth agape as the energy poured into him.
"Yes," the mechanical deity screamed to the heavens. "Yesssssssssssssssssss!"
The body started to shift and change--the enormity of the power flowing through him allowing him the ability to reshape his iron visage into something more befitting a being that would change the world. With a shriek of bending metal, twin protrusions exploded from the divine entity's back, resembling the beginnings of skeletal metal wings. His iron skin was becoming more ornate. Ancient symbols that Absolom could not even begin to comprehend formed on the surface of Qemu'el's metallic flesh.
"Glory to you!" Absolom screamed.
Wickham and Udell had come to his side. Tears stained the woman's face as she gazed upon the sight of the god manifesting its true form, and the dog howled, head tossed back as if baying at the new moon.
Then there came an unfamiliar sound--something that disturbed the rhythmic pulse of the great machines that were feeding their savior the sustenance he required. Absolom stepped behind the control console, checking to make sure that everything was all right. But it wasn't. On the gauges he saw a flux in the amount of energy flowing out from the batteries into their lord and master.
"No, it can't be," he muttered, quickly going to the stockpile of containment batteries. But it was as he feared. The god's appetite was so voracious that the batteries were close to being completely drained.
He turned his attention back to the metal entity, watching as the savior reacted to the sudden end of its supply.
"More!" the Archon screamed, his metallic body on the verge of being one of the most beautiful and yet frightening things that Absolom had ever seen.
He resembled some kind of great, mechanical angel--the wings--yes, they are in fact wings--that grew from his back had actually started to sprout angular feathers that looked as sharp as the deadliest of knife blades, but they were incomplete, large vacant patches, devoid of any adornment.
"Give me more so that you may all feel my love."
Absolom cautiously approached, pulling his coat tighter about his throat to protect his exposed flesh from the cold and falling snow. "There is no more, my lord."
"What did you say?" the creature boomed.
"But that does not mean that I can't--over time--provide you with more of the sustenance that you require in order to..." Absolom continued quickly.
The figure reared back, snapping some of the connecting cables with his sudden movement.
"You dare deny me?" he growled, disengaging from the remainder of the cables. "I require this power to live--to complete the task for which I have been born."
With an awkward, clanking first step, the metal god-body moved toward those who gathered in his glory, scattering them as he charged. "I will have it all," he cried, eyeing the pyramid-shaped enclosure that contained the items of worship. "Every iota shall be mine."
He brought his fist down upon the metal structure, and the glass exploded outward as the frame collapsed beneath his onslaught.
Absolom watched, stunned, as the god picked up each of the items and shoved them into its open maw, all of the objects tumbling down his metallic gullet and into the hollow recess of his belly.
"Please, my lord," Absolom tried to calm their savior. "Allow me to return to my workshop, and I'll--"
"Silence!" Qemu'el ordered, temporarily sated by his meal of reverence. "For a century, I have waited for this moment, imprisoned within that withering bag of flesh." He pointed to the body of Mary Hudnell, lying limp upon the cot, partially covered with a light blanket of snow.
"I will not be denied." He shook his metal head from side to side and, using the energy taken from his last meal, continued to reshape his body.
"What's he doing?" Wickham asked, wiping black lines of running mascara from his face.
"I don't know," Absolom said, watching as strange protrusions erupted from the entity's armor--bulbous tips at the ends of the tapered growths crackling with an energy all their own.
And then Absolom understood.
"Sweet mystery, I know what he's doing," the high priest said, held in the grip of wonder.
The sky above the god had grown as dark as slate, and the clouds whirled around the Archon's head in a counterclockwise rotation. Crackling bursts of energy erupted from the tips of the spiny appendages--lances of power reaching up into the swirling maelstrom, extracting what he required from the atmosphere.
"He's feeding," Absolom said, watching as vague, ghostly shapes were caught up within the whirlpool and dragged down to be absorbed into the ends of the hungry metal spines. "The death energies all around us--he's changed his body to absorb them, to gather the strength he still requires."
White-hot bolts of snaking energy hungrily sought out the batteries housed within the stomachs of the worker drones. The animated corpses exploded in a shower of charred flesh, metal, wires and wood as the spirit energies that drove them were ripped away.
"Run!" Absolom screamed to his disciples as their god suddenly turned his attention upon them.
"All for me," the voice thundered.
Bolts of jagged fury continued to erupt from his body, raining down upon the rocky ground of the small island.
Wickham was the first to be struck, a javelin of unearthly power entering his body through the spine, then drawn viciously back. The woman's body fell limp to the ground, and Absolom stifled a scream as he watched the ghostly form of his friend struggling on the jagged end of the energy spear as that tendril of godly power drew Wickham's spirit toward its gaping metal maw.
Silas barked uncontrollably, baring his fangs as multiple spears of crackling energy stabbed at the ground around him.
"Do as I say!" Absolom screamed, lashing out with his foot to kick the dog into action.
Silas yelped, loping away for cover, the metal of the animal's mechanical hands clattering across the island's rocky surface.
The angel of destruction bore down upon Absolom, but he stood his ground, looking up into the beatific face sculpted with the energy of the dead, doubt whirling through his mind.
Doubt about what he had wrought.
Hellboy looked out the window, watching as Swampscott, Massachusetts, passed below them. It was snowing pretty hard, and he had to wonder if the Electricizers mig
ht have had something to do with it, but then changed his mind. It's freakin' winter in New England, he thought. What else would it be doing?
They passed out over the water, and he knew it wouldn't be long before they arrived at Egg Rock. Hellboy experienced a moment of apprehension, weird butterflies in the pit of his stomach. He didn't get them often, but this was definitely one of those cases.
"So, what's the plan?" the ghost of Uncle Steve asked, as if able to read minds.
"Same old thing," Hellboy said, looking away from the view. "We go to the island, have a look around, and beat the crap out of anything that doesn't belong there." He shrugged. "It's worked for me in the past."
The ghost shook his head. "Not very scientific."
"Nope, most of the time it's not--and if it is, I'm usually not involved."
The ghost grinned.
"What? Why are you smiling?"
Uncle Steve looked around at the inside of the chopper. "Don't know really. Maybe it's just nice finally to be a part of something--not to be the odd man out. Before I passed away, I had a reputation for being a bit..." Steve searched for the word.
"Eccentric?" Hellboy offered.
"I was actually gonna go with 'crazy,' but 'eccentric' will do fine."
"Yeah, 'loco' was gonna be my first choice, but I thought better of it."
They shared a laugh.
Hellboy was just about to ask the ghost what Tom Manning was like as a kid, certain that the Director of Field Operations had been a creep, when the craft banked suddenly to one side, nearly spilling him from his seat.
"Something tells me we might be getting warm," he said, getting up and walking across the hold toward the cockpit.
"What've we got, boys?" He ducked his head as he peered through the doorway.
"Something came at us from the island--like some kind of weird lightning bolt," the copilot explained.
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