Hellboy, Vol. 2: The All-Seeing Eye (15 page)

Casually Wormley said, “Oh yeah? And who told you that?”

Proctor winked. “I have my sources, Sergeant.”

“I’m sure you do,” Wormley said, “but if I were you, I wouldn’t believe everything they tell you.”

Proctor grinned again, as if he were enjoying the game. “Ah, but I have very
good
sources. I doubt there’s anything you can tell me, Sergeant, that I don’t already know.”

“So why are you bothering to talk to me?” asked Wormley blandly.

“Well, the thing is,” said Proctor, “I know
what
the old lady did, but I don’t know
why
she did it. And people like a motive. It makes everything neat and tidy. And you were there, Sergeant. So I thought maybe you could shed some light. Scotch the rumors, as it were.”

“And what rumors would those be?”

“
Wild
rumors, Sergeant. People round here are saying that this place is cursed. They’re saying that there’s something evil here, something which affects people and sends them into a murderous frenzy.”

“That’s what they’re saying, is it?” said Wormley, deadpan.

“It is,” Proctor said.

Wormley leaned forward. “Look into my eyes, Mr. Proctor. Do
I
look as though I’ve been driven into a murderous frenzy?”

“I’d say you’re showing admirable restraint, Sergeant,” Proctor said.

Wormley nodded. “I think there’s only one thing that would send me into a murderous frenzy.”

Proctor held up a hand. “Is it damn fool reporters and their ridiculous questions?”

“Do you know,”Wormley said, “I think it is.”

“Thought so,” said Proctor. “But that still doesn’t disguise the facts, does it, Sergeant?”

“Does it not?” said Wormley. “And which facts would those be, Mr. Proctor?”

“Well, the fact that violent crime in the vicinity of all four murder sites has spiked dramatically in the space of a single day; the fact that a middle-aged secretary in BMA House stabbed a work colleague in the face with a pair of scissors this afternoon; the fact that reports of supernatural incidents across the city have increased a hundredfold in the past thirty-six hours; the fact that several top B.P.R.D. agents, including Hellboy himself, have been secretly flown to London to conduct an as-yet undisclosed investigation.”

The reporter smiled smugly and stepped back, in the manner of a man who has jabbed a tiger with a stick through the bars of its cage.

Wormley tried not to react, despite the fact that some of what Proctor had just disclosed was news to him.

“Just tell me this, Sergeant,” Proctor continued, “is anyone looking at the big picture here? Or is everyone on this case as lost and scared as you?”

Almost unconsciously Wormley felt the plastic cup crumpling in his fist. Head and heart thumping, he said, “Good night, Mr. Proctor.” Stiffly he turned back towards the house and lifted the yellow-and-black tape that marked the police cordon. He slipped underneath and forced his legs to move one in front of the other, up the path to the innocuous front door. As he reached for the handle, he realized his hand was trembling badly. He tried to tell himself that it was due to nothing but the coldness of the rain.

———

“So what do you think, HB? We all batting in the same ballpark here or what?”

Liz was sprawled on the sofa in Hellboy’s hotel suite, boots off, a large glass of Merlot within easy reach on the mahogany coffee table beside her. Hellboy, freshly showered, was reclining on his bed, wolfing down a steak sandwich.

“How should I know?” he said. “I’m just a grunt. It’s not my job to ask questions.”

“Yeah, right,” said Liz. “Because you’ve never had to use your initiative or intelligence before.”

He fixed her with his golden eyes and allowed his jaw to drop slackly open, revealing the chewed meat and bread in his mouth. “Duh ... intelligence? Wassat?” he mumbled.

She threw a cushion at him. He caught it neatly and tucked it behind his thick neck with a sigh.

“Come on, though,” she said. “What’s your gut instinct?”

“What’s yours?” he asked.

She took a sip of her wine before replying, her brow creasing as she pondered over what she had learned that evening, both directly and after comparing notes with Hellboy when she had arrived back at the Old Bloomsbury.

It had been around midnight when a sombre and troubled Richard had dropped her off outside. Not surprisingly the two of them had foregone their proposed nightcap, the dead chicken having dampened the relaxed mood somewhat. Before getting out of the car, Liz had reached across and briefly clasped his hand. “Try not to worry,” she said. “I don’t think anything’s going to happen. Trust me, I know. I’ve been threatened by experts.”

He offered her a thin smile. “That’s very comforting. I’ll try to remember that when they’re kicking down my door at four in the morning.”

She felt a momentary flash of irritation, but managed to keep her teeth clamped over her instinctive, acerbic response. Reminding herself that most folks didn’t face Armageddon on a weekly basis, she tried to arrange her features into a look of sympathy.

“You’ll be fine,” she reassured him. “Just keep your door locked and your phone close to hand — not that you’ll need it.”

She gave his hand a final squeeze and wished him good night. As she headed across the hotel lobby to the lift, she was hailed by the night-duty receptionist, a plump girl with dyed red hair and bad skin.

“Mr. Hellboy said to let you know he’s back,” she said. She looked at Liz as if she were some curious and unknown specimen. Perhaps, Liz thought, she was trying to decide what would compel such an apparently ordinary girl to keep such fearsome company.

“Thanks,” Liz said, and went straight up to Hellboy’s room.

He answered the door in the silk dressing gown that had been presented to him by a group of Tibetan monks after he had cleared their monastery of salt demons one time. He looked oddly sweet, she thought. Almost vulnerable.

“No Abe?” she asked.

He shook his head. “A cop dropped off some of his stuff, together with a note saying he’d gone for a swim in the sewer.”

“Nice,” said Liz.

They ordered some room service and spent the next twenty minutes catching up, and then Liz asked Hellboy what his gut instinct was and he bounced the question right back at her.

She had been quiet now for some moments.

“You giving me the silent treatment?” he grumbled.

“Sorry,” she said, “just thinking.”

“Yeah, I thought I could smell burning.”

She narrowed her eyes at him and said, “Tell me what your buddy in the underground said again. That thing about the eye.”

Hellboy shrugged. “It didn’t make a whole lot of sense. Something about the all-seeing eye beginning to open. The usual mystical crap.”

“The all-seeing eye,” Liz mused. “There was an eye symbol above the bird nailed to Richard’s door. That would suggest a connection, wouldn’t you say?”

Hellboy shrugged and ripped the cap off another beer with his teeth. “Maybe. I guess we’ll know more when our guys speak to the rock monster, or whatever he is, in the tunnels.”

“You called them?”

“Well, yeah,” said Hellboy, as if she were insulting his intelligence. “Rachel Turner’s posted some guards, so that the big guy doesn’t go walkabout. Plus, she’s arranged for some people to go down there to talk to him. Communications experts. I’m not too good at that whole talking thing.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Liz. “I’ve always found you scintillating company.”

“Get outta here,” he said.

She grinned, then stood up and stretched. “I’m beat. Think I’ll call it a night. You gonna turn in?”

“I’ll watch some TV and wait for Abe.”

“You worried about him?”

“Nah. You know Abe. He’s more careful than the two of us put together. All the same ...”

“All the same, you’d like to make sure he arrives back safe and sound.” She crossed the room and kissed him on the bridge of his nose. “At heart you’re just a big mother hen.”

“Didn’t I tell you to get outta here?”

———

Abe opened his eyes. He had heard something. Not the distant drone of traffic this time, or the ambient sounds of the city, but something inside the building ... the scrape-bump-scuff of movement.

He had been sitting in the same position, eyes closed, for more than two hours. But the instant he heard the sound he was rising fluidly to his feet, his mind clear and his muscles tensed and ready. His previous weariness had drained away — which didn’t mean that, once his day was over, he wouldn’t lay his head on the pillow of his hotel bed and be instantly, deeply asleep. Whether by design or training — and it was almost certainly some of both — Abe’s body was a finely attuned machine. He might not have Hellboy’s sheer brute strength, or Liz’s awesome destructive capabilities, but his speed, agility, and perception were second to none.

Silently, he slipped out of the office and stood in the corridor, listening. There was definitely someone in the building. Abe estimated they were three or four floors below, but heading up towards him. He hovered a moment, wondering whether it would be best to wait here or go down and meet them halfway.

He decided on the former. His priority was to get answers to some of the many questions pertaining to the investigation, and to do that he needed to apprehend the new arrival. Without his belt he had no handcuffs, no twine, no charms, no talismans, no gun. He would therefore have to improvise with what he
did
have: clothes, sleeping bags, pillows. Slipping back down the corridor, he reentered the makeshift dormitory and stepped into the darkest of the shadows behind the half-open door.

He was motionless, his breathing so shallow it was all but silent — yet he suddenly became aware that below him the newcomer had come to a halt. Surely Abe hadn’t been found out? How could the newcomer possibly have detected his presence? A few seconds later, however, Abe’s suspicions were confirmed. From somewhere below came the sudden thump of rapidly retreating footsteps.

Instantly Abe was out the door and flowing down the corridor in pursuit. His quarry was at least a floor below him, which meant that he (or she) had a good twenty to thirty seconds, head start. But Abe was fast and his senses highly attuned. So unless his quarry managed to lose himself in crowds of people or a maze of streets outside the building, Abe was confident he had a good chance of making up the distance.

It was on the ground floor when he got his first look at his quarry. Abe was only a couple of flights above the newcomer when he heard the bang of the double doors on the level below and footsteps pounding across the wide expanse of wooden floor. Abe leaped down the stairs, wormed out through the doors, which were still swinging shut on rusty hinges — and suddenly there he was.

On the far side of the room was the fleeing form of a tall, skinny black man wearing a tight-fitting jacket and slightly ragged trousers a little too short for him. By contrast, his white Nikes were top of the range and looked brand new. They appeared to glow white in the gloom.

“Hey!”Abe shouted, and was delighted to see the man flinch and half turn, which caused him to stumble. Abe fixed his gaze on the oily whites of the man’s frightened eyes and flowed across the floor towards him, halving the distance between them in less than four seconds.

The man clambered to his feet. But this time, instead of running, he turned and raised his arms. Then, using both hands, he formed his long fingers into the shape of an eye.

Thrashing, crackling serpents of yellow light instantly filled the space between Abe and the tall man. Abe barely had time to turn away before the light hit him with the force of a dozen electric shocks. Blinded and disoriented, he staggered and almost fell. He felt the light tearing into his mind, trying to rip away his consciousness. He fought it, momentarily aware of nothing but the need to wrest his thoughts from the force that was trying to expunge them. He felt like a drowning man fighting to keep his head above water, while tentacles coiled around his ankles beneath the surface, inexorably dragging him down.

Just as he was beginning to think he would have no choice but to succumb to the force, Abe abruptly felt it start to ebb. To his relief and astonishment, it dispersed quickly, like fog, enabling him to drag himself back into the real world. Although unscathed, his body felt sore and tender, as if he had been repeatedly stung by a school of angry jellyfish. Recovering his senses, he looked across the dusty, cavernous room.

The tall man was gone — but how long ago? Encased within the energy bubble, Abe had had no real sense of time passing. It had
seemed
like seconds, a minute at most, but it may have been longer.

Cursing loudly, he ran across the room, to a door which led into a narrow corridor, and then to a fire exit at the far end. The fire-exit door was standing ajar, creaking slightly. The cool breeze that curled in through the gap was like a balm on Abe’s stinging skin.

He exited the building and found himself on the bank of the Thames. Beyond a wide tow path, the river flowed by, timeless and implacable, its surface rippling like sleek, muscled skin. Abe paused a moment, listening for signs of the fleeing man. There was nothing. He scanned the tow path in both directions, considering his options.

Which direction would
he
have gone if he had been trying to escape a pursuer? Or rather, which direction would he have gone if he
didn’t
have the option of plunging into the Thames? Right towards Hammersmith Bridge and the bustle of Hammersmith itself? Or left around the outskirts of Fulham, past what looked like another half mile or so of warehouses?

Abe stood poised in the relentless London drizzle for a couple more seconds, then turned right on a hunch. Hammersmith Bridge, stretching across the river a quarter of a mile ahead, resembled the knobbly vertebrae of some vast creature. Now that he had made the decision Abe moved fast, his body cutting through the stiff headwind, spatters of rain sliding off his skin like oil. He was aware that his efforts might be futile, but urgency remained his watchword, because even if he didn’t catch the man he still needed to find a phone to call Hellboy, to tell him about the factory and what he had found in the waters below.