Unnatural Selection

by Tim Lebbon

  But Abe saw what he was looking for straight away, and he could not believe what Mary had missed.

  "Thanks, Mary," he said. He turned to leave, and the mortician called after him.

  "Is that it? So what did you find?"

  "Something not there," Abe said. The cops parted and let him walk between them. "Guys," he said. The morgue doors closed with a secretive whisper, and Abe made his way quickly from the building. It was dark and raining outside. He stood with his head up and his mouth open, refreshed.

  He has no navel, he thought. The werewolf was never born.

  In the single, confused, intimate moment he and Abby had shared, the first thing that had struck him about her — beyond her beauty and grace — had been her lack of a belly button.

  Abe sat in his car and spent a long time wondering what this meant.

  * * *

  Somewhere below the North Sea — 1997

  THE SERPENT BLINKED the rush of tainted salt water from its eyes, felt the seas acidity working at its scales, snorted out the stench of unnatural filth and rot that permeated the ocean, and yet still it reveled in this wonderful new existence. Where it had come from the floating had been of a different kind, and the simple pleasure of life had been absent for so long. Existence had been of a moment, a space between heartbeats, a point of potential rather than the endless sea of sensation it was now experiencing. It had no memory of that place other than a long, blank eternity, and each instant that passed by now was the richest it had ever known. It swooped deep and startled a school of small fish; it rose up and felt the alien heat of the sun on its slick spine. It had been back for years, yet life was as exquisite as ever.

  There were other things with it down here in the ocean. It had sensed the huge shadows deep down, and occasionally it sank lower to feel their weight. Deeper than light could go, they floated in ocean currents of their own making, great masses of life that seemed to carry their own gravity with them. The serpent saw and understood, sensed their common source, and yet still it feared these things. They went beyond the scope of its senses. They were as big as the world, and the one thing the serpent's father had communicated before setting it free was that the world was something to fear. The serpent knew that the world would poison it, eat it, kill it, and forget it. Scared by these thoughts — angered as well — it was happy that the vast shadows were doing their own thing. Its father had created them as well; they were on its side.

  Something bade it rise. It cut through the water and broke surface to sunlight. It swam that way for a while, dipping in and out of the waves and playing with them. To its side swam other things, with tentacles and suckers and faces it had never known before. To its other side ... Father. He stood on the huge ship and stared down at his creations, smiling, talking, setting the air aflame with words that lit on the serpent's skin and burned their way inside. It was a gentle sensation, as if something warm were pressing itself in through its scales, and as it sank below the waves again, it began to make sense of what its father was saying.

  And it prepared.

  * * *

  The shape closed in later that day.

  The serpent sensed it from a great distance. It was a solid, dark presence in the ocean, something unnatural and clumsy that hacked at the sea instead of stroking it, slashed it apart to move instead of shifting with the water. This thing traveled with a confidence that was unfounded. It sent probing tendrils of sounds ahead, and the serpent and other shadows swallowed them up. It exuded other signs as well, scents and signals that marked it as something definitely not of the ocean but rather something here to destroy.

  Unclean, the serpent's father had said. Poison ... filth ... rancid ...

  When the visitors sounding struck the fathers ship and became confused — echoes, spiralling back and forth and casting the sea in a less friendly tune — the serpent knew that it was time to act.

  It rose to the surface and leaped, arching through the air and landing back with a huge splash. It thrashed its tail, flexed its body, and twisted and turned, creating a great disturbance in the ocean that it hoped its father would see. And then it dove deep and swam hard.

  The water parted silently around the serpents head. The creature sliced the ocean as if it were only a shadow, and it set fish and other sea life spinning in its wake, confused and startled at what had just passed by yet ignorant of its shape. It felt the distance growing between it and its father's ship, and that was uncomfortable. But its course was plainly set. The serpent was here because of its father, it was here for a reason, and today it would express its gratitude in one of the greatest ways.

  The soundings from the invader came strong and hard, parting around the serpent and being swallowed. The closer it came, the more it hurt the serpent's innards every time one of these echoes sounded. Anger grew, rage wallowed in the creatures guts, and by the time it reached the huge metal invader, it was alight with violence.

  Too late, the invader noted its presence. With a pathetic cough it unleashed a defense against the serpent. The creature twisted and evaded the torpedo, then darted in at the vessels hull. The submarine — home to the killers of memory, the serpent's father had said — roared on through the depths, but now there were sounds coming from it that the serpent relished. Breaking sounds, creaking, moaning.

  It took the submarine deeper.

  Another torpedo fired, and the ocean caught fire.

  Stunned, confused, the serpent parted from the submarine and sank quickly, trying to escape the pounding impact of the explosion that had ripped its skin and shattered its insides. But above, the invader was also in trouble. The metallic creaks and groans had increased into a drawn-out squeal, and another, smaller explosion sent a wave of heat through the water. The serpent halted its descent and rose again, pained but exhilarated.

  The submarine had all but stopped moving, and it now hung still in the water. Great streams of bubbles rose from its nose, and in those streams were other things that smelled bad, felt worse. Even in death, this thing was dirtying the sea.

  Enemies of memory, the serpent's father had said.

  Killers of wonder.

  Enraged, the serpent rose quickly and struck the submarine again.

  And then — sensing a great shadow rising from below, feeling the rush of displaced water, hearing the thumping impacts of the things mind as it turned over those same words from Father — the serpent darted away, happy to let another forgotten memory finish the task it had begun.

  Soon it was in free water again, untouched by the noises and impacts of the submarine's demise. It swam back to the ship, ignorant of its wounds. The main thought in its mind was, Killers of memory, memories themselves.

  In the serpent's mind, Father smiled.

  * * *

  Baltimore International Airport — 1997

  ABBY PARIS SAT AT A coffee shop table in BWI, absently stroking her smooth stomach as she noted and doodled in a writing pad. Her mug of coffee had grown cold on the table before her, and the bustle of passengers lining up to pass through security had faded away to a background murmur. All her concentration was on her pen, the paper in front of her, and the shapes that were appearing there. Her hand moved, but she was not doing the drawing. She was remembering the Memory and the voice of the thing that had spoken to her in there. She was certain it had given her information. No matter how old it claimed to be, how awful, how faded and alone now that Blake had passed it by, she thought it had given her something of value before she withdrew. Trouble was, she had no idea what.

  She closed her eyes, hoping that complete disassociation would aid her automatic drawing.

  "Hey, nice picture."

  Abby opened her eyes. A young man was sitting across the table, smiling at her as he sipped from a cup of coffee. He was fit, attractive, and evidently untroubled by deeper things.

  "Get lost," Abby said.

  "Hey now, no need to be like that!" He leaned forward, glancing left and right as if about to impart
a secret. "How about we get lost together?"

  Abby dropped the pencil, leaned across the table, and hissed. She felt the power coming to the fore, the lack of control that gave her such dreadful freedom, and she tasted the tang of blood in her mouth. Whatever the boy saw or smelled scared the hell out of him. He stood, knocked his coffee across the table, and ran. He didn't make a sound.

  Abby sat back and snatched up her writing pad before the coffee could stain it. Her heart had not skipped a beat. But inside, where nobody ever saw, she could feel the change coming over her. Why the hell did I run two days before a full moon? she thought. But it had been an impulse, and there was no way she could have controlled what happened. Perhaps she had no control. The birthing at the hands of Blake, escape from the New Ark, being rescued by Abe, the BPRD, killing that werewolf in Baltimore ... her whole life had the feel of being preordained, and the more she fought against it, the more she felt steered by something way beyond her ken.

  "Shit." She opened her eyes, glanced down at the pad, and saw yet another signature of fate.

  Growling at the boy had split her gums, and blood had sprayed across the table and pattered down onto her writing pad. It was smudged now, already drying, and it had smeared into a pattern she recognized.

  A place she recognized.

  How can something from the Memory make that happen? she thought. That wasn't me, not my hand, not my subconscious. That was ...

  But it would not do to think about this too much.

  She tore off the sheet of paper and screwed it up. She had seen enough maps of Great Britain to recognize this impromptu bloody sketch. And the one place where her dripped blood had remained in a raised bubble instead of being smeared into coastlines was London.

  Abby went to buy a ticket, hoping that she would not see the boy on her flight. She had caught a whiff of his blood, and it smelled good.

  * * *

  Private airfield, Bridgeport, Connecticut — 1997

  LIZ SAT IN THE DRIVER's seat of the Humvee and watched Hellboy inspect the Lear jet. He'd told her to sit and wait while he gave it the once-over. Don't want any little green men ripping the engine apart when we're at twenty thousand feet. Said he'd be using a particularly probing talisman, and her presence could mess up the balance. Got this from a demon in Marrakech, and it's not a girl-friendly spell. Liz had smiled at him and nodded, and she sat watching him stride around the aircraft. Maybe he just wanted to impress her. She didn't know. Lots of stuff about Hellboy impressed her, and lots of stuff was still a mystery as well. For someone so open and unencumbered by ego, sometimes he wasn't only a closed book, he was a book yet to be written.

  Maybe his real time's still to come, Liz thought. It was an idea she'd had a few times before: that Hellboy was here for some specific purpose, and all this BPRD demon-chasing, ghost-hunting, paranormal-investigating stuff was just practice for the real job to come. And that troubled her more than anything. Because she knew that Hellboy was far from normal, and his eventual fate would be far from normal as well. She dreaded that. He was the best friend she'd ever had, and she never wanted to lose him.

  * * *

  Hellboy was nervous. The Lear sat proud and magnificent on the concrete, waiting for the crew to board and wind her up, waiting to jet him and Liz off to London, and it was all so damn normal and easy and convenient that he couldn't help but feel jumpy about the whole thing. Usually he preferred the simple explanation — and a lot of times he'd found it to be the correct one — but this time the simple explanation left a lot unsaid.

  Then there was Kate's little lecture about Zahid de Lainree and the Memory. That had really set Hellboy's teeth on edge. The Memory sounded too much like places he'd been to before. And this de Lainree character, though dead a long time, must have known far too much for his own good.

  Arcane knowledge sometimes scared Hellboy, because there was so much he didn't know. About himself, for instance, and where he'd come from, and why he was here. He could gloss over those questions as much as he liked, avoid their implications, but they still needed to be answered.

  He walked around the aircraft, peering into the two jets, stooping to go underneath and check out the landing gear, running his fingers around the window rims, checking that the flaps were clear and the fueling points were shut and locked. He fished around in his belt while he went, fingers brushing against talismans and wards, precious stones and dust from distant deserts, until he found what he wanted. In fact, it found him, pricking his finger and drawing blood.

  "Ouch!" He pulled out the demon's hair and held it at arm's length, narrowing one eye and making sure its tip was clear of blood. He didn't know whether that would affect any readings, but demons were devious creatures, and any excuse would do.

  The hair clear, he rested it in the palm of his huge right hand and gently blew on it. It spun like a compass needle and nestled along a crease in his hand, like a line of dirt ground into his lifeline. "OK, here we go. Ready, demon?" There was no answer, but the hair twitched slightly. "Now, what were those damn words ... ?" Hellboy closed his eyes, concentrating on his time in Marrakech back in '71. He pictured the scene with the demon and the tea shop, the rancid pipe smoke filling the room and outlining the fiend as an invisible space of clear air. Ironic, as that demon had been as dirty as they come. The imp and Hellboy had cut a deal, and the payment was a single hair from the creature's head. Unable to lie — most couldn't with Hellboy's fist down their throats — the demon had nodded a promise, and when Hellboy let it go, it made good on its vow. Strange behavior for a demon, but he guessed he'd scared it. "Those damn words!" he muttered, frowning hard in concentration. And then a small breeze blew across the airport concrete and set the hair tickling his palm, and the words came back to him.

  "Ystrad bwlch, penperlleni mynach fwnynw." The hair rose above his palm and spun in the air, a compass gone mad. "Ahh, my memory's not as bad as I thought." Hellboy smiled, the hair flopped back into his hand, and the smile slipped from his face. "Damn."

  "What's up with you?" Liz called. Obviously bored with sitting in the Humvee, she'd come to investigate. He could hardly be angry with her.

  "Nothing really," he said. He shook the demon hair, threw it into the air, and caught it again. It did nothing of its own volition. "The reading says the jet's all clear."

  "Then why is that bad?"

  "It's not, it's just that I don't trust it."

  "Then why use whatever it is you re holding there in the first place?"

  "Er ... " Hellboy shrugged, slipped the hair back into a belt pocket, and started inspecting the aircraft again.

  Liz tapped his shoulder. "What are we looking for, exactly?"

  Hellboy turned. His shoulders slumped as tension lifted — a little — and Liz's dry smile lit him up. Hellboy had a lot of friends, but they were mainly people he could call on when he needed help. Liz was someone who knew to call on him. "Well," he said, "anything that doesn't belong on a plane. Or anything that does belong but looks like it doesn't. Or something that should but looks like it shouldn't."

  Liz frowned. "Oh, my God," she said. "Look! Hellboy, there!" She pointed over his shoulder.

  He spun around, fisting both hands and squinting against a possible impact. "What? Where?"

  "It's a wing!"

  He lowered his head. Yeah, Liz was a good friend, and she knew she could get away with more than most. Hellboy turned quickly and slung her over his shoulder.

  "Damn ape!" she said. "Unhand me! Let go! You're a Neanderthal!"

  "I'm just looking after you while I check the plane over," he said, and he did. Liz struggled and kicked for a couple of minutes, then just lay there having a rest while Hellboy did another circuit of the aircraft. He tried to hold in the laughter that was brewing. At first he passed it off as a burp, much to Liz's disgust. Then another rumble he put down to hunger. And then, just as his laugh burst out to deny explanation, Liz started laughing as well.

  They boarded the Lear jet, holdin
g on to each other as they climbed the steps.

  * * *

  "So we're going to London," Liz said.

  "Yep. Back to good old Britain. Been there a lot, you know. Ireland, Scotland, Wales ... the place is steeped in history. Rich in mythology."

  "Dripping with ghosts," Liz said.

  "Awash with apparitions."

  The Lear's jets roared, they accelerated down the runway, and Liz grasped his hand. "Swarming with specters," she mumbled.

  The jet lifted clear of the runway, and Hellboy looked out the window. As always he was amazed at how quickly the ground fell away. Dawn was just rising out of the Atlantic, and down below, the freeways were starting to clog with rush-hour traffic. The low sunlight cast long shadows of houses and woods, and he wondered what hid within those shadows today. It seemed the world had changed a lot over the past twenty-four hours. For Hellboy it had never been a safe place — he had seen too much to believe that — but there had always been a balance, a natural equilibrium that had seemed to right wrongs, calm chaos, and set normality back in its place. Admittedly he often had a hand in that, but he was not arrogant enough to believe that he alone was responsible. Today, watching the land fall away below and not knowing what was to come, he felt more unsettled than he ever had before.

  "Hey, HB," Liz said. "Dinner's served."

  They sat and ate in companionable silence, swapping bits of food that one or the other did not like. Hellboy had a beer, and Liz took advantage of the well-stocked single-malts cabinet on the Lear. They both knew that the journey would take a few hours, so there was time to relax a little, drink a little, and reflect on what the next few days might bring.