The God Machine Page 17

  Hellboy emerged from the craft with Uncle Steve floating behind him like a child's balloon. He couldn't quite remember when it was he had last made a delivery to the Depot, although looking around, he knew it had been sometime ago.

  Gosnolt had originally been established as a radar station by the Air Force during World War II. It had been a tiny island community set up for the officers and their families, but was decommissioned in the mid-sixties. It remained abandoned until 1974, when Trevor Bruttenholm found the perfect use for it. The storage vaults at the BPRD were becoming filled to the brim with all manner of ancient arcanum and artifact. Gosnolt had proved to be just what they needed to solve their storage problems--a place far away from prying eyes where they could quietly catalog their finds.

  "Nice place," Steve said. "Quiet."

  Hellboy grunted in agreement as four other BPRD field agents joined them on the makeshift landing field. He would have preferred to deal with this threat by himself, but Manning had insisted on a backup team--just in case. He had to admit they did assign him some good people, up-and-comers within the ranks of the Bureau. He'd worked with most of them at one time or another: Wendell Holmes, Chuck Delaney, Adam Feig; the only one not familiar to him was the lone woman on the team, Katherine Dexter.

  "So what now?" Steve asked, rubbing his spectral hands together in excitement. "We head on over to this Depot and make sure that all the magical doodads are where they're supposed to be?"

  Hellboy nodded. "Eventually, but first we gotta wait for somebody." He looked over toward the elementary school as two figures rounded the brick building, slowly moving toward them.

  Agent Dexter lifted the machine gun hanging around her neck, and Hellboy reached over and pushed the barrel down.

  "It's okay," he said. "It's just the Whipples."

  "Who are they?" Steve asked. "Are they with the Bureau?"

  The ghost was partially right. Hellboy watched the pair of heavily clothed people slowly crossing the playground. The two were holding gloved hands, wearing heavy winter jackets, their heads adorned with colorful ski caps. The only exposed parts of their bodies were their bespectacled eyes, peeking out from beneath heavy woolen scarves.

  "Hellboy!" one of the figures bellowed, the sound of his voice muffled by the scarf, as he waved.

  Baxter and Aubrey Whipple were two of the Bureau's most dedicated agents, a husband and wife team who had served the agency for well over thirty years. They continued to serve even after their retirement by taking up permanent residence on Gosnolt, dedicating the remainder of their lives to what they loved most.

  Hellboy waved, strolling up to meet the old couple.

  "So good to see you," Baxter said, slapping him on the arm. "You're getting so big. What are they feeding you back at the Bureau?" Then the old man laughed and removed one of his gloves. "I think I have something for you," he said as he dug into his trouser pockets and removed a silver dollar, which he placed into the palm of Hellboy's hand. "That's for you, my boy, don't spend it all at once."

  "Baxter, you don't have to..."

  "I know I don't have to, but I want to," the old man said. "How's your father?" he asked. "Haven't heard from him in a dog's age."

  Hellboy felt a pang of sadness wash over him with the mention of his adoptive father, Professor Trevor Bruttenholm, who had passed away the year before. He remembered visiting the Whipples with Bruttenholm as a young demon--Baxter had given him a silver dollar each time. But what really concerned Hellboy was the fact that Baxter Whipple had been a pallbearer at the funeral.

  Aubrey took hold of her husband's arm and leaned in close to speak quietly in his ear. "Trevor's gone, Baxter," she said to him. "You remember; he left us last spring."

  The old-timer's posture seemed to slump. "You're right," he said, putting his glove back on. "May God rest his soul."

  She patted his arm affectionately, the twinkling blue eyes behind her glasses connecting with his. "He's been a bit forgetful of late," she said, directing her attention to Hellboy. "How have you been, dear?" She stepped toward him, standing on tiptoes and pulling down her scarf to give him a kiss on the cheek.

  "I'm good, Aubrey. How are things here?"

  "We're good," the woman said, tugging her scarf back over her mouth. "We received some lovely Nemidian scrolls last week. We're thoroughly enjoying them."

  "I love the smell of scrolls," Baxter interjected. "Makes me think of fresh bread."

  Things got suddenly quiet, until Hellboy changed the subject. "Have you noticed anything out of the ordinary lately?" he asked them. "Anything missing?"

  Aubrey thought for a moment. "No, nothing that I can think of. How about you, Baxter? Anything missing?"

  "My left slipper," he spit. "Can't find the damn thing for the life of me. Took it off yesterday when I went to bed, and I couldn't find the damn thing this morning."

  The old woman hooked her husband's arm in hers and pulled him closer. "Like I said, he's getting a little forgetful, but no, everything's accounted for as far as we know."

  Baxter pointed to the ghostly visage of Steve standing silently beside him. "Who are you?" the old paranormal investigator asked.

  "Steve Maitland," the ghost said, holding out his hand. "I'm Tom Manning's uncle--well I was."

  "You're a ghost, aren't you?" Baxter questioned.

  "Yes, sir."

  "No sense in shaking hands then," the old man grumbled. "Nothing to hold on to really, so what's the point?"

  "Guess you're right," Steve said with a shrug, and lowered his hand.

  "Will you and your friends come up to the house for some breakfast?" Aubrey asked. "I've got some lovely sausages I can cook up, and a big pot of coffee already brewing."

  "Maybe later," Hellboy humored her. "Why don't you two go and get out of the cold. I think we're going to go over to the Depot and check on some things first."

  The old couple tottered off, heading for their home not far from the school. Hellboy gestured for the group to follow him and walked from the school playground onto the sidewalk that would take them to their destination.

  "Seem like a nice couple," Steve said. "Getting up there in years, but nice."

  "That's why we had to come here and check things out for ourselves," he said, bothered by how old the couple had seemed. "But those are two of the best researchers the Bureau's got."

  Has it really been that long since I last saw them? he wondered. Time certainly had a way of sneaking by him.

  They passed a row of boarded-up administrative buildings on their left, and were about to enter Gosnolt's small downtown when he noticed something odd.

  "That ain't right," he growled, speeding up to reach McMaster's Department Store across the square.

  "Hey, Hellboy, what's the rush?" Agent Holmes called to him. "They having a sale on delicates?"

  He heard the other agents laugh at their comrade's joke, and he probably would've been laughing too if he didn't have the sneaking suspicion that things were about to get bad.

  "Eyes open, guys. I think we got trouble," Hellboy said, drawing his weapon as he stopped to study the pile of stuff that had been stacked outside the front door of the store. Leather-bound grimoires and scrolls littered the sidewalk along with a variety of other ancient artifacts that had been collected by the Bureau and its operatives over the organization's years of existence.

  "Is this it?" the ghost asked, his voice a whisper. "Is this the Depot?"

  "Yeah," Hellboy answered.

  "So let me guess, this stuff here--not supposed to be out on the curb."

  "You got it."

  Gun at the ready, Hellboy motioned for the others to follow and stepped through the open doorway into the store.

  The place was a mess, but that was how it was supposed to appear. After acquiring the abandoned military installation from the government, Professor Bruttenholm had seen no reason to change any of the structures, deciding to keep everything exactly as it was. He had said it was a good cover if anybod
y decided to get nosy about what was kept on the island--nothing there but a bunch of old, abandoned buildings.

  Hellboy knew otherwise.

  There was a racket coming from the far end of the store, beyond the doorway with the yellowed appliances sign hanging above it. He raised a hand, motioning for the others to follow. Carefully, they made their way through the store, avoiding the obstacles of collapsed shelving units and dilapidated displays--and the bodies of the robot zombies.

  "What the heck happened here?" Hellboy asked in a whisper, about to step over shattered remains, when he suddenly found himself face-to-face with a living statue carrying a wooden crate filled with what looked like crystal frogs.

  Something that could have been surprise registered on the stone beast's face, and Hellboy reacted instinctively, aiming his weapon and firing three consecutive shots. The gunfire sounded like thunder in the confined space of the abandoned department store as the rock creature hurtled backward through the doorway, the crate of crystal frogs shattering as it dropped from its carrier's arms.

  "Hope that was nothing important," Hellboy, already on the move into the room, heard Steve say from somewhere behind him.

  The area called the Depot was the biggest room in the store. Some walls had been knocked down over the years to increase the size of the storage facility, and it appeared that they just might have to put on an addition if things kept going the way they were--there was stuff everywhere--but that was a worry for another time.

  The great stone statue, carved to resemble some sort of armored warrior, surged at them, and the team reacted, their machine guns spraying their attacker but doing little to slow it down.

  It was then that Hellboy remembered the last time he had seen the Whipples--the last time he had paid a visit to Gosnolt and the Depot.

  It had been to deliver this statue.

  Six years before he had been called to Lebanon, to what had once, four thousand years ago, been the fertile Cedar Mountain forest located in the coastal mountains of Syria. It wasn't so much a forest now as a barren dryland with patchy areas of growth, a mere shadow of what had once grown there. They'd been having a bit of a problem after a series of earthquakes. It seemed that something nasty had been released; a demonic entity called Huwawa had possessed a stone statue carved in honor of the Sumerian god Enlil, and it was really getting a kick out of laying waste to the villages and terrifying the locals.

  After a bit of a scuffle in a section of forest called Jabal el-Barouk where the cedars still managed to grow, Hellboy had defeated the entity and was about to finish it off for good, when it started to beg, swearing allegiance to the BPRD. Hellboy must have been feeling particularly soft that day, because he had remembered a conversation that he and his father had had earlier that month about the Depot's needing a better security system. He had suggested a good watchdog might be just the thing, and this demon Huwawa seemed to fit the bill nicely.

  The demon had eagerly accepted his offer, swearing his loyalty to a new master in exchange for his continued existence within the stone body. There had been little problem getting the necessary clearances to import the statue to the United States, for Syrian officials were eager to be rid of the troublesome creature. As far as Hellboy knew, Huwawa had been doing just fine in his new line of employment as security guard for the Depot, but that was before today's shenanigans.

  Huwawa moved much faster than it had a right to, pounding Holmes into paste with its boulder-sized fists before turning its attentions to Feig, Delaney and Dexter.

  The BPRD agents didn't have a chance.

  Hellboy cursed, firing his gun into the rock demon's ugly face. "Thought we had a deal, you two-faced son of a bitch!"

  The gunfire did little damage to the stone, but it did distract the demon, who now turned its attentions to Hellboy.

  "That was a bargain of the past, red one," Huwawa croaked, charging at him. "A new agreement has been forged this day!"

  His gun empty, Hellboy threw the pistol with all his might, hitting the advancing demon on the top of its head before throwing himself at his attacker.

  "What the hell was I thinking?" he asked himself as he brought his large right hand down on top of Huwawa's head like a sledgehammer. "That's why you never make a deal with the demonic; they'll always find a way to screw ya raw."

  "Enlil is no more," Huwawa bellowed, recovering from the blow to the head with ease and socking Hellboy a good one on the jaw. "Fealty to my ancient master gone the way of the storm god's worshippers."

  Hellboy's ears were ringing something awful from the blow and the floor seemed to pitch to one side as he tried to clear his head. The demon saw his opportunity and took it, wrapping his stone hands around Hellboy's throat, yanking him up from the ground and hurling his body across the room.

  "And my allegiance to you and your masters?"

  Hellboy collided with a shelving unit of burial urns, the fragile containers exploding as his hurtling body made contact. The air became choked with the remains of ancient people who had not walked the Earth in millennia.

  The stone demon laughed.

  "Like so much dust in the wind."

  This guy was starting to really piss him off.

  As near as Steve could figure, the living statue used to work for the BPRD, but had apparently double-crossed them by choosing to join up with the Electricizers.

  The ghost hung in the air, stunned as he watched the powerful stone creature get the better of Hellboy. He had to do something to help, but he wasn't quite sure what.

  "My new masters have promised me a place in their young empire," Huwawa explained, crossing the room to continue the beating he was dishing out. "What did you and your masters promise me? The remainder of my eternal existence spent within this depressing structure, guarding the baubles and trinkets of civilizations long extinct."

  Hellboy managed to get to his feet, coughing and waving his hands in front of his face as he tried to disperse the cloud of ash and dust that choked the air.

  "Needless to say," Huwawa continued, bringing his arm back to deliver another blow. "I accepted the better offer."

  The punch fell, but Hellboy had managed to get out of the way, moving in alongside the stone demon and driving his fist into the statue's face.

  "Doesn't change the fact that you weaseled out on a deal," Hellboy said, grabbing hold of a wooden crate and smashing it over his opponent's head. Ancient maps spilled to the floor like confetti.

  From the corner of his eye, Steve glimpsed movement. He looked across the room to see a little girl and boy, whom he immediately recognized from the farmhouse in Lynn, peering out from behind a stack of crates piled high in a corner.

  Electricizers.

  Steve didn't know what he should do, but did know that if he was going to do something, it had to be fast. He looked back at the fight in time to see another area of storage decimated in the struggle between the two behemoths.

  The ghost drifted over to where the BPRD agents had been struck down, sensing life emanating from at least two of them. Hovering over the body of the agent named Delaney, Steve scoped out the operative's weapons belt and found what he thought could be useful to Hellboy.

  He hated to do it, not having asked permission and all, but he didn't have a choice. Steve drifted down to the man's body, allowing his spectral essence to merge with that of the unconscious BPRD agent. It was kind of like stealing a car, getting behind the wheel to hot-wire the ignition, only this time it was a brain being turned over instead of an engine.

  Steve experienced a bit of a rush, being flesh again, feeling again, as he struggled to stand. He felt a razor-sharp pain streak down from the top of the skull to the lower neck, and knew it was likely that Agent Delaney had some kind of damage, probably a concussion, but it didn't seem as though the injuries were any worse than that. Ignoring the pain, he steadied himself, getting used to the sensation of mass, and crossed the storage room toward Hellboy and Huwawa, still locked in combat.

&nbs
p; The stone sentry had once again gained the upper hand, sitting astride Hellboy and raining down continuous blows.

  "Hey!" Steve yelled, a bit taken aback by the sensation of vibrating vocal cords.

  Huwawa stopped in midpunch and turned its rock head slowly around to look at him.

  "There will be time for you later, little human," the statue said. "Just as soon as I am done with the red-skinned spawn of Hell."

  Steve ignored the demon, reaching for an item attached to his belt as he spoke to Hellboy. "Had enough of this?" he asked, and held up the grenade.

  "More than enough," Hellboy replied.

  Steve pulled the pin and rolled it across the floor toward him.

  Huwawa watched as Hellboy snatched up the grenade from the floor.

  "What is that?" the demon demanded.

  "Payback for welchin' on a deal, you sorry son of a bitch," Hellboy barked, sitting up just enough to cram the grenade into the statue's rocky maw, using his powerful right hand to pound the explosive in good and tight.

  The demon barely had time to react before its square head was obliterated in an explosion of rocky debris.

  "That you, Steve?" Hellboy asked, pushing the now motionless--and headless--body of Huwawa from atop him and climbing to his feet.

  "Yeah," the ghost replied with Agent Delaney's voice.

  "Thanks for the grenade." Hellboy brushed the rock dust from his trench coat. "Who knows how long that business would'a gone on for."

  "Thought I should probably do something before you two ended up wrecking everything in the Depot."

  Hellboy moved past Steve to approach the fallen agents.

  "How are the others?" he asked, kneeling beside Agent Dexter. She seemed to be recovering; a nasty purple bruise was blossoming on her forehead. The woman moaned as she sat up, holding her head in her hands.

  "This guy should be fine," Steve said, making reference to the body he currently inhabited.

  Hellboy watched as Steve checked out the other two.

  "Feig is good, but I'm afraid the same can't be said for Holmes."