Unnatural Selection

by Tim Lebbon

  * * *

  "Hellboy!" a voice said. "Long time."

  "I've never met you, demon."

  Leh shrugged. "Have it your own way." It was standing on the rim of the huge vat, twenty feet above the deck, and it held Benedict Blake in one hand. Hellboy could see the demons fingers clasped inside the man's throat, as if Blake were becoming transparent.

  Hellboy and Liz had rounded the vat just in time to see the demon grab Blake and leap, landing on the vats rim with uncanny balance. Hellboy had seen a shape slink back into the shadows at the corner of the room, but he wasn't sure Liz had seen, and he did not want to make Abby the center of this. Not yet. Not unless he had to.

  "I came here for him, not you," Hellboy said.

  "Him?" The demon went to drop Blake into the vat. "He'd make a fine brew, I'm sure."

  "Who are you?"

  "Leh."

  "Leh is dead."

  "Really, Hellboy ... you know better than that. Old demons don't die, they just retire disgracefully." The demon in human form smiled, and its teeth glimmered in the vague light. "Oh, and haven't you seen Abby yet? What a girl she's grown into! Although she's a trifle hirsute, I must say. I prefer my females shaved. Saves on the fur balls." He coughed and spat, his saliva sizzling on the deck.

  "What are you doing here, Leh?"

  "So you admit I'm Leh?"

  "I admit nothing." Word games pissed Hellboy off. He clenched his fist, wanting to punch something. The vat. Maybe that would do.

  "I'm here because this idiot's charming sons found me," Leh said. "Simple, really. He brought me back, and now I'm ... well, I'm not going to tell you."

  "You're going to drop Blake into the vat to open a passage to the Memory," Hellboy said.

  The demon shrugged. "Good guess."

  "I've had a lot of practice. Is this all your doing?"

  The demon shook its head, looked around at the grubby walls and ceiling of the old oil tank. "I suppose you could just call me lucky," it said. "I've no concern at all about what this little man is doing, but he serves a purpose. And now, if you don't mind — "

  "You don't want to go back there," Hellboy growled. "I know demons."

  "As well you should," Leh said. "No, I'm not going back to the Memory. Awful place, so boring, and no ass to be had for love or money."

  "So you're inviting something through."

  The demon turned to Blake, pressed its pale visage into the old man's face, and growled. "You left a friend of mine in there, when it could have made you a god."

  Hellboy shook his head, stepped forward, and then the room shook as though kicked from all sides by something with size infinity boots.

  For a second Leh's eyes opened in wonder, and the demon turned and looked down into the vat. But Hellboy knew that the impact was from a more earthly source, and the second explosion that followed quickly on the first confirmed it. The New Ark was under attack.

  Abe must have told them about the ship, Hellboy thought. Hellboy jumped at the vat, clawing his way to the top and reaching for Leh's ankles. The demon sidestepped his grasp with ease and laughed — Hellboy hated demon laughter — before letting Blake go.

  A shadow leaped from the other lip of the vat, grasped Blake in its jaws, and tumbled to the deck, rolling into shadow and taking the screaming man with it.

  "No!" Leh yelled, and the ship shook again. "Abby!" All the demon received in response was a long, low howl, a haunting noise that filled the room and gave an alternative accompaniment to the sound of continuous explosions.

  "Liz!" Hellboy shouted, but he needn't have bothered. Liz was already running after Abby, fire springing alight in her palm to light the way.

  "And you," Hellboy said, turning, "can go back — "

  Leh was on him, grabbing hold of his right fist and pulling him up onto the lip of the vat. They stood there, demon and man-demon, facing each other as the ship shook and shuddered around them. On Hellboy's left was a drop to the deck. On his right something different. He glanced down, but he could not see the bottom of the vat. It was too dark.

  "Like what you've done with your horns," Leh said.

  "Thanks."

  Leh kept glancing past Hellboy at the doorway Liz had disappeared through. He needs Blake, Hellboy thought.

  Needs the old man's magic and science to keep the route open from the Memory, But for what? He glanced down again, and the depth of the darkness made him woozy. Something with tentacles, I'll bet.

  "Hows life?" Leh said.

  "Just dandy."

  "You know I'm going to get him, don't you?"

  "I can't let you."

  "Think you can stop me?"

  Hellboy shrugged. "It's been one of those days. I figure I can give it a shot."

  "Oh, by the way," Leh said, then the demon stepped from the lip of the vat.

  Hellboy was quick. He grabbed the demon's leg and squeezed, crushing flesh and bone and feeling the warm burst of blood. The demon shouted, but Hellboy was not fooled; this was just a shell. He almost lost balance. Leh suddenly gained weight and tipped them down toward the deck, but then there was a huge explosion from somewhere nearby, the ship tipped, and Hellboy swung his fist behind him, tilting the balance and falling back.

  "No!" Leh said.

  Hellboy let himself fall into the vat, grabbing on to its lip with his free hand.

  "No!"

  Hellboy dragged the demon up over the lip and swung it above his head, letting go and watching as Leh fell, and fell, and fell, twisting down into the darkness of the Memory, its screams dying out just as its falling body finally faded from sight.

  "Back where you belong," Hellboy said. He groaned. Blood was pulsing from his fresh wounds. And below him something waited. Usually he didn't mind heights, but that endless darkness scared the crap out of him.

  He hauled himself back over and fell to the deck, wiping blood from his eyes before taking off after Liz.

  He'd only had a fleeting look at Abby — the fur, the muscle, and the teeth — but he knew that he didn't want Liz facing that on her own.

  The ship shook again, and he felt the first waft of heat from distant fires.

  Damn, he thought, they sit around doing nothing, and when they do act, they're too damn efficient.

  Hellboy figured he had a few minutes before he became fish food.

  * * *

  Liz found him huddled in a small room with a broken door, bleeding to death. His throat had been ripped out, and chunks of meat were torn from his stomach, legs, and back. Nothing had been swallowed. The werewolf had spat the chunks of Benedict Blake across the floor, as if leaving them as a sacrifice or an offering. To what, Liz did not know. She stood and watched the old man staring at bits of himself as the life slowly bled from him, and when Hellboy arrived, she turned and walked away.

  * * *

  Hellboy took one look into the room and saw that the man was dead. More than dead, he was fading. Becoming transparent. Slipping away into Memory. He should be famous, but he had been shut away in this old ship for so long that, ironically, no one would ever remember him.

  "Maybe Leh will have use of you yet," Hellboy said. It was a pretty uncharitable thought, he supposed, but that's just the way he was feeling.

  He ran after Liz, and together they made their way up on deck.

  * * *

  The New Ark was sinking. It listed badly to port, the bridge had been all but blown away, and a great slick of debris and fuel had spread across the ocean from the holes in its hull. Several parts of it were on fire, and smoke billowed skyward and merged with that already there from the destroyed helicopter.

  The sun was sinking into the land visible to the west.

  From the south, two Tornados were streaking across the waves on an attack run.

  "I think we should jump," Liz said.

  Hellboy shook his head. "I think we'll be OK. Look." There was a helicopter hovering a hundred yards off the bow, and in its open doorway stood Abe Sapien. He waved once
at Hellboy and Liz, but he was looking elsewhere, scanning the deck, searching the waves.

  Hellboy's satellite phone went off. "Hellboy, where is she?"

  "She's still inside, buddy."

  "You didn't bring her out? You didn't stay to find her?"

  "Abe, I really don't think she wants to be found."

  A pause. "That's what she said last time," Abe said. They watched him drop the phone back into the helicopter and dive into the sea. He went in with hardly a splash.

  "This baby's sinking," Hellboy said. The sea was now swelling up over the deck, and the sounds of ripping metal and rupturing bulkheads were deafening. He was very tired.

  His wounds had begun to hurt for real. Liz held him up and waved the helicopter in, and as the deck vanished below them, they were winched up into its cabin.

  * * *

  Below the surface, the sea was in chaos. Bubbles and wreckage from the ship obscured Abe's view, and the water stank from the ruptured fuel tanks. He pulled himself past floating debris and headed for the sinking vessel, and he did not even hesitate before diving deep and finding his way in. It was suicide, he knew that. But he had found Abby through her own suicide attempt, and there was no option but to try to save her again.

  The ship swallowed him up, and he started to feel his way through its ruined corridors and water-filled holds.

  Some lights were still working. They cast strange shadows in such turbulent waters. Several times Abe thought something was swimming right at him, but it always resolved itself into nothing more than another surge, another gush of fuel-tainted water being forced along passageways by the pressures of sinking. He forged on, smelling blood here and there and trying to follow its trail. He lost it, found it again, went deeper. The ship was turning as it sank, and he was almost deafened by the sounds of metal twisting and breaking apart. The thumps of distant explosions crushed him against bulkheads. Doors swung open and blocked his way. Something soft and warm grabbed at him, and he kicked out, feeling his feet connect with a slippery thing. By the time he'd turned around, whatever had reached for him had vanished into the chaotic shadows.

  He went deeper, sometimes swimming, sometimes rushing through trapped air pockets, always dodging destruction. He looked for Abby. But he found nothing.

  The broken ship was way below the surface now, and he could feel pressures building without and within. The sounds of buckling metal grew almost unbearable. And he thought, Perhaps there's still time.

  * * *

  They waited while the ship sank, waited some more until Abe finally surfaced, then they winched him up.

  "Did you find her?" Liz asked.

  "No," Abe said. "But that doesn't mean she's dead." He sat wrapped in a blanket and stared out over the sea. Hellboy sat next to him, scanning the assorted floating wreckage silvered by the full moon. None of it moved except to the rhythm of the waves.

  * * *

  Rio de Janeiro, Brazil — 1997

  "WHEN WE GOT BACK TO London, we landed right beside what was left of the Anderson Hotel. The SAS were leading the politicians out onto the forecourt and loading them into helicopters. Couple of the presidents saw me and panicked, but I think most of them knew who I was. Big red guy. Easy to identify. But with some of the things they'd seen that day, I'm not surprised I unnerved them. To most people I'm just not natural.

  "We reckon that just about the time Abby killed Blake, the cryptids broke off their attack. Went from trained kill-creatures to ... well, animals. Some of the more vicious ones kept going, but it was much more random. Lots of them escaped into London and caused chaos on the streets, in the Tube, and beyond. Lots of people died. Even after it was all over and Blake was dead, lots of people died." Hellboy took a long draw on his cigarette and let the smoke out slowly, watching the shapes it made. Occasionally he thought he saw things in there, but most of the time he guessed he was imagining it all.

  "But you saved so many more," Amelia said.

  Hellboy raised his eyebrows. "We did? I'm not sure. I'm not entirely sure we did much at all. It was Abby who killed Blake in the end. If it weren't for her, Leh would have sent him into the Memory and maybe opened it up. And who knows what else would have come through then?"

  "Do you know, Hellboy?"

  He puffed again on the cigarette, watched the smoke, saw something writhing in there until someone opened the bar door and the breeze blew it away. "I have a few ideas," he said.

  "And what of his sons? You saw nothing of them?"

  "Nothing on the New Ark at least," Hellboy said. "But I think they're out there somewhere. Always have been. Kate Corrigan is the authority on Blake and de Lainree's Book of Ways, and she reckons there's no way Blake could just conjure the cryptids. He must have had some trace, some physical evidence of their existence, to bring them up out of the Memory. She thinks his sons had the book, not him, and they were out there finding the evidence for him."

  "What sort of evidence? DNA?"

  Hellboy shrugged. "Maybe that's the science part of it, at least."

  Amelia finished her beer and ordered two more. "I saw it all on TV," she said. "It looked like a movie. The coverage of the attack was so complete that a lot of people I know still think it really was a movie."

  "Good," Hellboy said. "It'll help them sleep at night." The new beers came, and they drank in silence.

  "So," Amelia said after a while. "Abe?"

  Hellboy sighed and shrugged. "Blames himself, of course. But me ... I think it was inevitable from the start. Abby is one of those people who has a course set in life, and there's nothing anyone can do about it."

  "I never feel like that," Amelia said. "Life's what you make it. Living to fate's song ... that must be awful."

  Hellboy drained the new bottle of beer to avoid looking at Amelia. Yeah, he thought. Tell me about it.

  * * *

  Later they stood together looking up at the statue of Christ the Redeemer. The waning moon hung just over his left shoulder. Strange, Hellboy thought. It all started here for me, and finished with Leh, and Leh was supposedly put down by Christ, Sometimes the turning wheels are just too damn oiled.

  "What now?" Amelia asked.

  "Well, Britain's got a lot of new creatures roaming its countryside, and there are those that Blake released around the world as diversions. They'll spread, maybe mate. We've had reports of something huge in the Indian Ocean, bigger than anything ever seen before. So I guess BPRD is going to be busy. In some ways Blake's new world might just come about, only nothing like he imagined. And who knows, maybe people can learn to live with dragons and banshees."

  "Hmm," Amelia said. "OK, but ... I sort of meant, what now?'"

  Hellboy looked down and returned her smile. "Oh," he said. "I see. Well ... is there a place around here we can get a good meal?"

  "Plenty."

  "Good. It's on me."

  * * *

  Amalfi, Italy — 2005

  RICHARD VISITED HIS brother's grave every month for those first couple of years. As time went by the visits grew less frequent, partly because the grief had lessened and partly because Richard had found a new life. He was living in a leaky old house with a beautiful Italian woman, someone who loved him for what she said he would be rather than what he had been. He adored that idea of falling in love with the future. In a way he supposed his father and brother had done just that, but in very different ways. They had been mad.

  He liked to think that through time he had discovered sanity.

  But still he sometimes went back to that little graveyard, sat by his brother's unmarked grave, and thought of everything that might have been. Occasionally he read of sightings of strange creatures around the globe, leviathans in the deep, and now and then he would see photographs or grainy footage on TV. As time moved on, he was able to disassociate himself from these things. In a way, he supposed, there was wonder in the world again.

  And he thought of that most of all. Not all the people who had died, or those who had bee
n maimed or orphaned. The wonder. That's what kept him going.

  That and the knowledge that if he ever needed it again, the Book of Ways was safe and sound in his dead brother's folded arms.

  * * *

  About the Author

  * * *

  Tim Lebbon lives in South Wales with his wife and two children. His books include Dusk, Face, The Nature of Balance, Changing of Faces, Exorcising Angels (with Simon Clark), Dead Man's Hand, Pieces of Hate, Fears Unnamed, White and Other Tales of Ruin, Desolation, and Berserk. Future publications include Dawn from Bantam Spectra and more books with Cemetery Dance, Night Shade Books, and Necessary Evil Press, among others. He has won two British Fantasy Awards, a Bram Stoker Award, and a Tombstone Award; and he has been a finalist for International Horror Guild and World Fantasy Awards. Several of his novels and novellas are currently under option in the United States and the United Kingdom. Find out more about Tim at his websites: www.timlebbon.net and www.noreela.com.