The God Machine Page 7

  "So do you think this is what's been stealing that stuff?" Liz asked with a shiver, wrapping her arms around herself as the artificial rain continued to fall.

  "Sort of makes sense. They're pretty strong for corpses filled with wires and junk..." he trailed off.

  Over the din of the still-clanging alarm, he caught the sound of an engine revving up outside and went over to look through the window set into the door. "Must be the Waldoboro Fire Department," he said, swiping away a swath of thick condensation. "This oughta be good."

  He was getting ready to pull open the door when he realized the engine was growing louder and the headlights closer.

  "Crap!" he managed, scrambling to get himself and Liz out of the way as the front of a vehicle came crashing through the doors into the museum.

  Both front doors came open and two more of the watch-capped, coat-wearing zombies spilled out into the museum to stand beside the vehicle, watching them with milky white eyes--dead eyes.

  "They drive a minivan," Hellboy growled in disgust, climbing to his feet. "It just keeps gettin' worse."

  Liz came to stand beside him.

  "Ready for round two?" he asked.

  "They don't seem all that interested in attacking," she said.

  One of the pair turned and reached inside the van, and Hellboy wished that he could have found his gun. Stepping in front of Liz, he watched as the creature pulled out a large burlap sack tied with a length of rope.

  "What, they bring their laundry?" he muttered as the mechanical man cut the rope with one of his knifelike fingers and pulled open the sack.

  With a buzz, the air filled with a swirling maelstrom of tiny bodies, high-pitched calls, and the flapping of metallic wings.

  Birds, Hellboy thought.

  Freakin' mechanical birds.

  It's like being in the middle of a tornado. Hellboy raised his hands to shield his face. Hundreds of screaming, mechanical sparrows with razor-sharp beaks and wings swirled around him. He reached out for Liz.

  "Get over here," he growled, pulling her toward him.

  She was a mess, her shirt in tatters. Blood spattered her face and arms where she had been cut by the frenzied birds. His skin was tough, but even he was beginning to feel the razor-thin gashes in his leathery hide.

  Hellboy pulled open his coat and shoved her inside. It wasn't much, but at least it offered some protection.

  "What are they doing?" Liz screamed over the deafening sounds of the birds and the fire alarm, her face pressed close to his chest.

  He held his massive right hand in front of his eyes, attempting to see through the maelstrom of birds and into the museum. He could just about make out the shapes of their latest attackers skulking back to the van.

  "I think they got the medicine bag," he bellowed. "Walk with me."

  He started toward the vehicle. Liz stayed close, moving as he did.

  "Damn it," he cursed, as he heard the van's engine grinding to life over the museum clamor. "They're getting away."

  Hellboy tried to move faster, swinging his stonelike hand, plucking the fragile mechanical birds from the air and dashing them to the floor. Tiny springs and cogs exploded from their bodies as they hit the ground.

  "This is going to take you forever," Liz said, and pulled away from him.

  "No!" he yelled, trying to drag her back to the relative shelter of his coat, but she fought him.

  "It's my turn," she said, and he felt the air around them grow stiflingly warm, then suddenly so hot he could barely breathe.

  A blast of intense heat drove the birds back, shattering them against the wall as their dead flesh and feathers burst into flames. With the storm of birds diminished, Hellboy could see again, just as the minivan began to back out of the hole it had smashed in the front of the building.

  "Oh, no you don't," he shouted, springing at the vehicle and grabbing hold of the bumper. He tried to get his footing as he was dragged from the museum, but it had been snowing, and a good two inches of the powdery stuff coated the ground.

  Holding on tightly with his left hand, Hellboy drew back the oversize fist of his right, preparing to punch his way through the van's radiator and into the engine block. The windshield of the vehicle suddenly exploded outward, showering him with a rain of safety glass. A clockwork zombie slid down the short expanse of hood toward him, grabbing hold of him, razor fingers slashing as the van came to a sudden stop and skidded on the slick surface of the parking lot.

  Hellboy heard the squeal of screws and the snap of heavy-duty plastic as the bumper tore away from the vehicle, sending him and his attacker across the lot in a tumbling heap.

  "Get off me!" Hellboy yelled, trying to throw his attacker from him, but the zombie hung on tight. Its knifelike fingers jabbed for his eyes, and he barely had time to move his head as the blades descended.

  "That's it," Hellboy roared, grabbing hold of one of the zombie's wood-and-metal-splinted arms and wrenching it from the socket. "Bet you didn't see this comin'," he yelled, using the arm as a weapon to thrash his attacker. He managed to kick the zombie robot away, just in time to see the van picking up speed and heading for the exit.

  He started to run, wildly hoping he could catch it, but an explosion of pain in his leg stopped him. He looked down to see the one he'd just torn apart holding tight to his leg with its remaining arm, sinking its teeth into his thigh.

  "You've gotta be kidding me!" He hammered his fist down at the thing, breaking its neck and driving it to the ground. "Thanks, freak. Now I'm probably gonna need a tetanus shot."

  He examined the wound, rubbing at his thigh where the skin had been broken.

  "Hey, Red," Liz called, and he looked up to see her coming across the lot. She was still giving off a lot of heat, leaving a clear path through the snow as she made her way toward him.

  Hellboy gazed down at the horrific thing writhing in the snow: an arm torn off, its head flopping unnaturally upon a broken neck. In their struggle, its stomach had been torn open and a faint glow of something green radiated from inside.

  "The van got away, huh?" Liz stood beside him, clothes in tatters, face and arms covered with lacerations.

  He nodded. "Mr. Twisty here kept me from stopping it."

  In the distance, a ghostly wail filled the air. The Waldoboro Fire Department was near.

  "So, what now?" Liz asked, hugging herself, starting to shiver.

  Hellboy removed his tattered coat and threw it over her shoulders, then prodded the wreckage of the mechanical monstrosity with a hoof.

  "We take them home and see what makes 'em tick."

  Chapter 5

  Lynn, Massachusetts, Spring 1901

  S ally Spearz carefully made her way through the kitchen of a house she had yet to accept as her home. She carried a serving tray, upon which rested a crystal pitcher of freshly squeezed lemonade and six of her finest glasses. Only two weeks had passed since Sally and her husband, Absolom, had settled here upon their arrival from Baltimore, and she had not yet developed a level of comfort in the new farmhouse.

  She used her hip to push open the swinging kitchen door and went through the dining room to the parlor, where her husband entertained his guests. He paced about the room in front of his captivated audience of five, who were seated in chairs taken from the dining room.

  Sally was still in awe of how much her husband had changed over the last two years. Gone was the man who used his unique talents sparingly, replaced by another who seemed almost driven to share his gift. He'd begun to develop quite a name for himself, and with that celebrity came some financial security. Without his sudden transformation, they would never have been able to afford to buy this land--land his own family had once lived on--or build this farmhouse, or any of the other wondrous inventions Absolom had started to tinker with in the months since the Donaldson reading. Sally recalled the sad old man, his image replaced with the memory of a thick, chalky dust that had taken her weeks to clean away properly. Absolom had never fully explained
what happened to the old gentleman, and she had come to believe that was probably for the best.

  Her husband fell silent as she entered the parlor, turning to give her his most charming smile, a smile very much like the one he had used to ensnare her in a bookshop on North Avenue back in Baltimore.

  "Ah, some refreshment," Absolom said to his audience. "And just in time. I do have a tendency to drone on, as my darling wife can attest."

  They all laughed politely.

  "Quite the contrary, Absolom," said a heavyset, older gentleman, his back twisted with some unknown malady. "I find your assertions absolutely fascinating."

  Sally felt momentarily sorry for the man. At his size he must have been quite uncomfortable. They'd not had enough funds remaining from their move to buy the parlor furniture she'd wanted, and were forced to make do with the chairs from the dining room set her parents had given them for a wedding present.

  "Lemonade, Mr. Wickham?" she offered the man with a polite smile.

  He fixed her in his gaze with a leer snaking across his jowly features. "Call me Geoffrey, my dear, and yes, I would love some."

  This was the first time Sally was actually meeting her husband's...she really had no idea what to call them. They were business associates, she imagined, sharing the same esoteric profession and spiritual beliefs, having begun their correspondence around the time of Mr. Donaldson's disappearance.

  Sally handed Wickham his glass, and he caressed her hand as it passed from hers to his. Suddenly she wasn't quite as sorry for the uncomfortable furniture. Quickly, she moved on to the next two guests. They were obviously a couple, their chairs pushed scandalously close together. The woman's name was Annabel Standish, and the handsome young man was Tyler Arden.

  Annabel poured two glasses of the lemonade herself, handing the first to Tyler, then taking her own with a polite thank-you. Sally had to admit that the two made quite a fetching pair.

  "I wonder if you might have something with a bit more of kick?" inquired a thin gentleman with slicked jet-black hair and a handlebar mustache that he constantly played with.

  Sally raised her eyebrows disapprovingly but kept her tone polite. "I'm sorry, Mr. Udell, but we do not partake of spirits in this house."

  Silas Udell laughed and stood to take one of the crystal glasses of lemonade. "Kind of ironic, isn't it?" he asked, looking around the room. "A gathering of mediums, and not a spirit to be found."

  He returned to his seat, a swagger in his walk. According to Absolom, Mr. Udell fancied himself quite the ladies' man, and these lecherous urgings had been his downfall in a number of cities.

  Serves him right, Sally thought, and turned toward Absolom and their final guest. The two were standing across the room in the midst of a whispered conver-sation. She did not care for Mary Hudnell, and hadn't since first meeting the woman on their arrival in Lynn. She had found Miss Hudnell to be arrogant and brash, thinking herself superior because of her father's great wealth. The Hudnells owned one of Massachusetts's larger shipping enterprises, and Mary was their only child.

  She was not a spiritualist like the others, but was instead a true believer of Absolom's theories of a higher plane of existence. And at the moment, Sally was convinced that Miss Hudnell was interested in something more than just her husband's teachings.

  Clearing her throat loudly, she approached them with the tray of refreshment. "Lemonade, darling?" she asked her husband, then offered the same to their guest. "Miss Hudnell?"

  "No, thank you, dear," Mary snapped, clearly annoyed by the interruption.

  Her husband helped himself, leaning in to give his wife a peck on the cheek before taking a sip from his glass. "Thank you so much, my love," he said, and she could practically feel the daggers shooting from Mary Hudnell's eyes. Sally smiled sweetly and headed back to the kitchen.

  She set the tray carefully upon a small, makeshift kitchen table. It had been an enormous risk leaving Baltimore, abandoning paying clients who depended on her husband's ability to communicate with the spirit world to guide them through life. But something of a higher nature had called him here, and it was a request that Absolom could not ignore. Sally didn't understand it exactly, but something had reached out to her husband--to all of them gathered in her parlor.

  Her reverie was interrupted as she heard Absolom call her name. She left the kitchen and found the small group seated around the dining room table. "Join us, my dear," Absolom said, standing behind a chair at the head of the table.

  Normally she would have declined, but at once she noticed that Mary Hudnell had taken the chair directly across from Absolom and thought better. Instead, Sally took a seat in the only available chair, between Mr. Wickham and Miss Standish. Almost immediately she felt the hunched old man's leg brush suggestively against hers.

  "And now the reason we are all here," Absolom began, leaving his chair momentarily to retrieve something he had placed upon the windowsill.

  It was covered with a sheet, but Sally already knew what was about to be revealed. He'd said that its design had come to him in a dream. She wasn't entirely sure why it required that they travel to Massachusetts, but he had said that it had something to do with the lines of communication being more apt to flow in this region.

  Absolom gently placed the object down in the center of the table. He pulled the covering away with a flourish, and Sally watched the expressions on the faces of those gathered. They weren't too far removed from the look she'd given him when it was first revealed to her. He had always been good with his hands, but she had never known him to become so obsessed with the building of anything, forgoing meals and sleep in order to tinker with the strange contraption. It was a bizarre box with three sides, its mechanical innards exposed for all to see.

  "What is it?" Geoffrey Wickham asked, reaching out a liver-spotted hand to touch it.

  Her husband reached across the table to swat away the old man's hand. "This, my brothers and sisters, will enable us to communicate more easily with our otherworldly benefactor."

  Sally remembered Absolom telling her that there were others like him, chosen to represent the power that could very well change the world. It was all very thrilling, and she had allowed herself to be caught up in the wave of her husband's excitement. She looked about the table. These were the chosen ones--the Electricizers as he liked to call them.

  "This is all so exciting," Mary Hudnell said breathlessly, her eyes riveted upon the machine.

  Sally scowled. She knew why Miss Hudnell had been invited to the gathering, her copious funds being partially responsible for the new inventions Absolom was presently toiling over. Mary Hudnell had once paid a visit to her husband's place of business while visiting relatives in Baltimore and had become smitten with his talents, starting a correspondence that had lasted until their arrival in Lynn two weeks ago.

  "Each of us has been touched by this power, and promised a part in its plans to reshape the world," Absolom said in a compelling voice.

  The others nodded, their eyes glassy as they stared at him, hanging upon his every word.

  "This will be a momentous occasion, my brothers and sisters, as our minds and hearts are opened to the ideas of a being beyond our comprehension. A god that plans to entrust us with the sacred duty of helping him change the world as we know it."

  Sally grew uneasy as she listened to her husband and started to stand. Wickham's hand dropped firmly upon her thigh, holding her in place.

  "Isn't it exciting?" he whispered, his foul breath nearly making her gag.

  "Yes, of course," Sally replied, quickly removing his hand and rising to her feet. "But if you'll excuse me"--she looked directly at her husband--" I'll leave you all to matters of a spiritual nature while I attend to things in the kitchen that better suit my talents."

  "Wait," Absolom protested, raising his hand. "You must partake of the ceremony as well."

  She smiled, hands fluttering to play with the lace collar that suddenly seemed too tight about her throat. "Surely I
can add nothing to this gathering..."

  Absolom's face grew very serious.

  "Please, my love," he said, in a voice flat and strangely devoid of emotion. "We have need of you."

  She started to protest, but stopped as she found herself slowly sitting back down. Something didn't feel right. The atmosphere in the room seemed suddenly cloying, as if all air circulation had suddenly come to a stop.

  Absolom swayed upon his feet and reached out to grip the front of his chair. His eyes were closed now, and his brow furrowed as if deep in concentration--or is it pain? Sally had seen this happen to him before, when a particularly overzealous spirit was eager to establish communication.

  The room grew deathly quiet, and all eyes were upon him when he suddenly gasped, his body falling limp. If he hadn't been gripping his chair, Sally was certain that he would have collapsed to the floor.

  She stood again, making a move toward him, but he raised his hand, stopping her in her tracks.

  "No," he said firmly. "Return to your seat. It is time."

  He looked at her, and for a moment, she did not recognize him. Gone was the perpetual twinkle in his eyes, which was present even in the most depressing of times. It had been replaced with something altogether different, something that seemed visibly to weigh upon him. In that brief instant, even though it seemed mad to her, Absolom was suddenly much older.

  "I'm fine," he responded to the question that was just about to leave her lips.

  She sat back down, watching the man she loved with growing concern. He had been pushing himself for quite some time, and she worried that the strain was becoming too much for him.

  "Was it the spirit--the one from our dreams?" Mary asked breathlessly, and Absolom nodded, pulling out his chair and sitting down.

  "The god is aware of our gathering, eager for us to hear what he has to say."

  Sally tried to catch his eye, but he refused to look at her. His strange aloofness wasn't doing anything to ease her growing fear.