Liz beckoned him from inside the chopper. Abe lifted his hand in a wave of greeting. Professor Bruttenholm said nothing, made no beckoning gesture, but he smiled warmly.
They were waiting for him.
“Hey,” Anastasia said, and he turned his attention back to her. Looked at her tan face, her fine, proud features. The smile that reached her eyes.
“I’m going to miss you,” he confessed. “Even more than before, I think.”
“Me too,” she said. “But I’m sure we’ll see each other again soon.”
Hellboy smiled. “Okay. But next time, I’d settle for dinner and a movie.”
Anastasia grinned, reached up, and pulled his head down toward her. She kissed him firmly on the mouth, let her lips linger over his, a memory for both of them.
“I love you, big guy,” she said. “Always will. In all the ways that matter, you’re my best friend.”
“And you’re mine,” he told her. “Why else would I keep saving your life?”
She punched him in the shoulder, and he squeezed her hand once, then turned and walked toward the helicopter. His tail swung in the air behind him, and as his hooves slid in the sand he realized how happy he was going to be to get away from the desert. To get home.
“What’s that?” Professor Bruttenholm asked as Hellboy approached the chopper. The old man was pointing at Hellboy’s right hand. He glanced down and saw that he was still clutching the tablet he had pulled out of the tunnel under the lake. He’d completely forgotten.
“Sorry,” he said. “Give me one more second.”
Hellboy trudged several steps away from the chopper, and waved the tablet above his head to get the attention of the U.N. investigative team. One of the investigators trotted over to him.
“What is it?” the man shouted to be heard over the helicopter’s rotors.
“Found it in the lake,” he replied. “It might be the only artifact not destroyed by the cave-in. Other than the weapons and stuff.”
The man looked at it, squinting as he stared at the glyphs inscribed on the stone.
“What’s it say?” he asked.
Hellboy smiled. “No swimming,” he replied.
He turned and climbed into the helicopter. When it lifted off, carrying him away from the oasis, his smile was bittersweet.
—
BIOGRAPHIES
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CHRISTOPHER GOLDEN is the author of eleven novels, including the vampire epics Of Saints and Shadows and Angel Souls and Devil Hearts, the upcoming Battlestar Galactica: Armageddon, and the best-selling trilogy, X-Men: Mutant Empire. Golden’s comic-book work includes The Crow: Waking Nightmares, Daredevil/Shi, the upcoming Shi: Masquerade, and the creator-owned series Thundergod.
Golden and his family live in Massachusetts, where he is currently at work on the third novel in his vampiric Shadow saga, Of Masques and Martyrs.
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MIKE MIGNOLA, the Eisner and Harvey-award winning creator of Hellboy, has worked in comics for fourteen years. He’s done illustration work for books and magazines, and design work for television and film, including Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula.
He lives in Portland, Oregon with his wife and daughter.
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