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Prologue
1 OCTOBER 1944 HOT AND HUMID AND CROWDED, ALL AWASH IN RED—the inside of the submarine was like some sort of devil’s festival on a southern Alabama night at the height of summer. Add a few mosquitoes and the illusion might have been complete…well, except for the clanking of the pipes and the hiss of steam, the constant low sound of metal groaning under untold pounds of water pressure. Matlin had three 35mm cameras hung around his neck, and he would have added another—a good photographer can never have enough equipment—except it would have made the narrow pathways even more impossible to navigate. His cameras were already taking a beating every time someone squeezed by him in the passageway. As if they’d been reading his mind, a squad of Special Ops soldiers hustled past him as they loaded their weapons, oblivious to the thumps and bumps they layered on the young photographer and certainly paying no attention to his equipment or the seamen who ran the sub and watched them suspiciously a
2 SAFE BEHIND HIS MASK, KARL KROENEN GAVE A WIDE, dark grin, then wrapped one dry-skinned hand around a lever in front of him. He ran his tongue over the inside of his teeth for good measure, then threw the stiff switch on the huge machine. An untold number of gears churned to life and steam pistons thrust bright copper rails upright. As two metal rings were lifted high into the air and gyroscoped outward, Kroenen signaled excitedly for more lights. Illumination flooded the expanse of an ancient sacristy lined with eroded stone saints. Their dark, eyeless faces gazed blankly at a tall, gaunt, and nearly naked man with his arms fully extended who was standing in the center of the room. He stared hard at a woman coming toward him, and when he spoke, his voice was stern and his breath plumed outward in a freezing temperature that seemed to have no effect on him. “No matter what happens to me, Ilsa, you must carry on with the work.” Beneath tightly drawn blond hair, there was no smile on I
3 SIXTY YEARS LATER SITTING ON AN EXTREMELY UNCOMFORTABLE CHAIR ON the wide stage, Tom Manning told himself for the tenth time that he was on national television, he would not lose patience, nor would he insult the over-made-up host of this so-called television talk show. From his position, Manning couldn’t see much beyond the lights focused at him and the host; megawattage spotlights that were so bright he was vaguely surprised that the people who had to stare into them day after day didn’t go blind—it was like looking into a dozen suns all at the same time. He’d always loved being on television, but these things were hot; he’d gotten out his best Armani suit for this fiasco, and all he’d ended up feeling like was a bacon-wrapped hot dog under a broiler. The show’s host gave him a bright, plasticized smile that was obviously phony, then gestured for Manning to turn and look over his shoulder. When he did so, a screen behind them flashed to bright life. A cascade of tabloid covers and
4 BUREAU FOR PARANORMAL RESEARCH ANDDEFENSE, NEWARK, NEW JERSEY SITUATED HIGH ON A THICKLY WOODED HILL AT THE edge of a bluff, the building complex was low-slung and very high-tech. As if the forest wasn’t enough, it was camouflaged by colors that blended perfectly with its surroundings—even the building foundations seemed fused with the very rock on which they’d been constructed. That same camouflage coloration was etched onto the seven-foot walls that ran around the entire compound, and if that weren’t enough, triple rounds of ultrathin razor wire, visible only if one were specifically looking for it, ensured that not even the birds would land on the wall. A massive gate, closed tightly against the outside world, guaranteed that nothing passed through the entrance without advance scrutiny. John Myers brought his flashy red moped to a stop with the front tire just about touching the barrier. He’d thought it was wood, but on closer inspection, he realized it was metal—colored steel cri
5 THE MACHEN LIBRARY, MANHATTAN THE MACHEN LIBRARY WAS AN IMPOSING, FOUR-STORY structure comprised of mortared-together massive stone blocks and held up by pillars and pediments on all sides. Suspended from four wires across its grand entrance was a long banner, oversized and gaudy in the orange-and-black colors of the season— MAGICK: THE ANCIENT POWER Peering through the one-way glass, Hellboy could see the entrance and the overabundance of people crammed into the area in front of it. Halloween or not, it should have been nothing more than a normal afternoon filled with college students, tourists, folks grabbing a quick tour of the new exhibition on their lunch breaks. Instead, outside was complete chaos; in addition to the people who, willingly or unwillingly, had gotten trapped in the melee, there were policemen, television reporters, even mounted police. The numbers were too great to count, the noise solid enough to make it through the glass and into Hellboy’s ears. Dozens of repor
6 HELLBOY FOUND OUT FOR SURE THAT SAMMAEL WAS still alive when the hound-creature hit him so hard that he sailed through the air and crashed into the brass doors. As the thick metal doors bulged and cracked, he wasn’t so stunned that he couldn’t imagine Abe and Father backpedaling, as well they should. If that new guy, Myers, had any salt in him, he’d please Father by pulling out his piece and trying to find a way in to help Hellboy…not that his fragile human frame could take the kind of pummeling it was clear Hellboy was going to get. As if to attest to that, before Hellboy could find his way upright again, Sammael was back, lashing out with another massive and extremely painful punch. Hellboy went up and up and up, taking out at least six of the surrounding glass cabinets before he hit one of the big reinforced windows. Some reinforcement—he crashed through it and kept going— falling —a full two stories through the darkness outside the building, the extra high stories that only hundr
7 HELLBOY SAW THAT SAMMAEL PUT THE LITTLE CARNIVAL into the been-there, done-that category quickly, and he was grateful for this. Still, the hound creature was leaving a bright green trail. He didn’t need more wrist-slapping from Father for being seen and making the Bureau have to come up with yet another denial…in addition to the Halloween stories they were going to have to make up to cover tonight’s fiasco. The trail led him quickly into an adjacent alley, poorly lit and full of overflowing trash bins, half-crushed boxes, and old tires. The roadway was cracked and crumbling with disuse, poked with holes worn into it by thousands of cars and trucks. Way down at the end, Hellboy could see the twisted remains of a metal grate; when he got there, he found it’d been ripped free from the front of a large, round opening in the ground. The smell wafting upward was one of dampness and dark, undercut by mildew and, of course, Sammael’s meaty slaughterhouse scent. From somewhere far away, Hellb
8 THE LIBRARY WAS A MESS. Professor Broom walked slowly through the rubble, looking for anything and everything that might help them get to the bottom of this attack. When Dr. Manning came striding up behind him—no doubt he’d made his grand entrance in his usual slick black limousine—Broom made it a point not to jump. He just would not give the younger, already power-drunk man the satisfaction. Crews with classified-level clearances were cleaning up all around him, sweeping up the debris, picking through the imitation artifacts, carrying out what pieces remained of the bodies and partially-eaten clothing worn by the guards. “Every time the media gets a look at him,” Manning said in an overly loud voice from directly behind Broom’s shoulder, “they come to me. I’m running out of lies, Trevor.” Broom turned around to face him and raised one eyebrow, fighting not to aim a sarcastic smile toward him. “I thought you liked being on TV.” “I do,” Manning said. He looked like he wanted to talk a
9 TONIGHT, CENTRAL PARK WAS AN OKAY PLACE TO BE. Hellboy knew that normally folks would stay away from the place, wisely avoiding the muggers, rapists, and murderers that often prowled there after dark. It was only on special occasions, such as the warmer weather and the little Halloween celebration currently set up, that New Yorkers were free to enjoy—within reason—the greenery and outside area without fearing for their lives. Right now, there was plenty of light to help keep things livable; lines of tiny, sparkling orange lights, Halloween cousins of Christmas decorations, crisscrossed from tree to tree, waving cheerfully in the mild October breeze along with abundant paper lanterns. The weather was perfect—no rain, cool enough for snuggling but not so cold that people ended up shivering instead of enjoying the festivities. Children ran and teased one another, making comically scary faces around their rubber masks, their high-pitched laughter winding through the small crowd milling a
10 HELLBOY WATCHED LIZ WALK AWAY…AGAIN. There was a lump in his throat the size of the Brooklyn Bridge, but he’d be damned if he’d be left standing here like some moke who’d just been dumped, even if that was pretty much what had just happened. Every self-respecting guy knew that the least he could do was try to get the last word in. Hellboy cleared his throat, but his voice still sounded like driveway gravel when he spoke. “Yeah,” Hellboy said, a little too loudly. “I gotta go, too. Lots to do.” His head was spinning a little—funny how being around Liz could do that to him—but he stood up anyway. He registered a sort of splooshing sound and felt the fabric of his overcoat drag, like he’d been standing in the rain; when he looked down at the bench, he was vaguely surprised to see an actual puddle of blood on the bench, enough so that it was dripping down the front of the stone seat into a pool at his feet. Hellboy ignored it and looked up as Agent Myers tentatively approached. “What to
11 “QUIET NIGHT, HUH?” BRAD NUDGED TERRENCE, HIS coworker and best buddy, in the arm, then paused and pushed open the next door in line just enough to shine his flashlight inside the room. The patient in there was sound asleep, nothing more than a covered lump on the bed. “Wanna play poker after we finish up rounds? I brought change.” Terrence shrugged, then veered to the left to check the next room on his side of the hallway. “Why? So I can end up owing you another five or six bucks until payday? You know I’m lousy at cards.” “You’ll learn.” “I’ll go broke before that,” Terrence retorted. Brad grinned, then pushed open the door to the last room. He shone his light around the inside, slowing as it played over several hundred photos taped to a white bulletin board. Layer upon layer, but as far as Brad could tell, they were nothing special, just scenes of everyday life, everyday people, and a lot of the patients in here. Who knew why the woman kept taking them? Like the other rooms, the
12 HIS NERVES SINGING, MYERS TRUNDLED HELLBOY’S breakfast cart quickly forward. Even through his anxiety, the agent had to admit it smelled pretty good—three dozen steaming pancakes, a mound of hot bacon, and buttered toast. Myers hadn’t eaten since his marathon learning session last night but he was much too wired to think about breakfast right now. The news of Liz Sherman’s latest conflagration had spread like wildfire—pun intended—through the grapevine of those agents who, like him, for one reason or another had the need to know. Based on what Myers understood was currently going down back at Bellamie Mental Hospital, Hellboy ought to be in quite the mood right about now. Myers wasn’t stupid enough to think the big guy hadn’t already found out. Almost shaking with anticipation, Myers pushed open the door to Hellboy’s bachelor den. Inside, Professor Broom was sitting on the edge of the truck bed that served as Hellboy’s couch. His thin arms were folded and his expression was implacab
13 THE LIGHT AND SOUND OF THE SUBWAY TRAIN SCREAMING past was more like an explosion than anything else. It roared through the tunnel with a blast of high beams, and then it was gone, leaving behind a sudden, teeth-jittering emptiness and a ringing in the ears. Circles of light abruptly swept the space, revealing walls encrusted with mildew and rusting steel columns dripping with moisture and stains. Here and there rats chittered and scurried through the filthy, trash-filled puddles in the center of the tracks, their clawed feet making erratic trails among the debris. Agent Clay swung his own flashlight from side to side, occasionally kicking out at a rodent that dared to get too close; another half dozen agents followed behind him with two of them, Moss and Quarry, armed with heavy-duty flamethrowers. Trailing to the rear and taking in the not-so-touristy sights in companionable silence, were Hellboy and Abe. Finally they turned off the main subway tunnel and filed into a side tunnel
14 HE HATED NOT KNOWING WHAT WAS GOING ON DOWN there. Pacing around the shower room, Hellboy chewed on a Baby Ruth bar and stomped on a few roaches. The other bugs ran for cover, leaving him bored, so he stuffed the rest of the candy into his mouth, then climbed through the broken concrete hole and back into the orphanage’s storage room. He poked around the rubble curiously, trying to pass the time with what he could find by the not-so-helpful beam of his flashlight. The place was full of weird stuff, like a pile of battered, mismatched children’s shoes, under which Hellboy found a bunch of yellowing photo albums. These he pulled out and flipped open, and for his trouble he got a couple dozen fleeing silverfish and myriad sad-eyed faces, the orphans of a hundred years past. Strangely, some of the faces had been cut from the photos, while others had been left intact. Tucked into the back of one of the books was a yellowing, unfinished letter to Father Christmas, dated 1866, a sad testam
15 IN THE DARKNESS, THE BRACKISH WATER WAS SUDDENLY disturbed by two small circles of movement. The water rippled outward, barely discernible above the two unhatched eggs. The amber tone within them was lost to a bright inner glow of purple that grew to twin halos of hellish black light. So small…but then their diaphanous surface began to bulge and twist, starting their fantastic metamorphosis. It was only a matter of seconds until the embryos burst free, twisting and spinning like tiny pieces of agonized flesh. The barely born creatures swelled, each one’s parts distending and growing faster than the last. Around the edge of a stack of water-eroded concrete piling, out of sight of the two hatchlings, Abe finally peered from his cramped hiding spot. There was no sign of Sammael, and Abe was badly wounded, far too much so to stay put and continue to play dead. He had to risk trying to get to the top or he was just going to stay wedged down here and bleed to death. Sucking in water at th
16 NEWARK THE MUSIC BLARING FROM THE CAB’S RADIO WAS AT eardrum-shattering levels, Janet Jackson screaming about what someone had done or not done for her lately. In the backseat, Myers watched Liz Sherman poke her head out of the window on her side of the cab, scan the passing scenery for a moment, then bring up her Polaroid and snap off a shot. Without so much as looking at it, she passed it over to Myers to hold while it developed. “It feels good to be outside!” She had to practically shout to be heard over the singing. “It’s been so long!” Myers heard her, but just barely. This was ridiculous—Jesus, he really hated overly loud music. Leaning forward, he rapped on the bullet-proof piece of acrylic that separated the front from the backseat. The driver glanced at him in the rearview mirror and gave the agent what was probably intended as a congenial smile; Myers just thought it looked sharp and full of teeth badly in need of a brushing. “Hey!” he shouted. “The music—turn down the mus
17 BACK IN ONE OF THE MEDICAL BAYS, PROFESSOR BROOM stood in front of the stainless steel autopsy table on which lay Kroenen’s cold, naked body. Eyeing the corpse impassively, Broom raised a tape recorder and depressed the Record button. “The subject, Karl Ruprecht Kroenen.” The old man stopped for a moment and scanned the body critically. Except for a neatly folded sheet across the hip and genital area, Kroenen was naked. It was anything but an attractive sight, but it was certainly intriguing. Broom depressed the button and spoke again as he examined the intricate silver hand and harness lying on a smaller table off to the side. “The subject suffered a masochistic compulsion known as surgical addiction. Both eyelids were surgically removed along with his upper and lower lips, making it difficult for him to speak and even more challenging for others to understand him. I would presume he stopped talking shortly after the surgery was performed. The blood in his veins dried up decades ag
18 WHITE WALLS, WHITE CABINETS, WHITE LIGHTS, A white tile floor; sterility and silence, except for the faint ticking of the industrial clock on the wall over the door. Not a bit of warmth or movement in the room, and the gray-skinned, lipless, lidless cadaver of Kroenen on the table went right along with everything else. Until his chest began a slow, rhythmic rise and fall, air filling dried-up lung cavities and sending oxygen to the desiccated limbs. Until he sat up. Kroenen turned his head, bulging eyes searching until he spotted the object he wanted on the table a few feet away. Ah, yes…there it was. He stood and made his way over to the table, letting the sheet fall carelessly to the floor. He shoved his arm stump into place against the prosthetic hand; there was a click as the mechanical parts automatically tightened around the scarred end of his arm, making it throb with delightful pain. He flexed the shiny fingers, watching each of them work perfectly. Yes, that was much, much
19 THERE WERE AT LEAST TWENTY PEOPLE BETWEEN HIM and Broom’s office, but Hellboy didn’t notice; he shouldered roughly through the crowd, making no apologies, meeting no resistance. The B.P.R.D. cars had beat him back to headquarters, of course, so it hadn’t been until he’d arrived a full twenty minutes later that Hellboy had found out what the big deal was. Now his mind and heart were all jumbled up with self-loathing, guilt, grief, regret, and anger—how stupid of him to be out there following Liz around and worried about his own emotions when he should have been back here, should have stayed here where Father had put him, should have been protecting his own. If he’d done that, maybe Father would still be alive and his attacker might be a very small pile of broken bone fragments. But recrimination was free and hindsight was just as cheap; right now Hellboy had plenty of both and no doubt there would be more to come. The old man’s office was wall-to-wall people, and to Hellboy’s eyes, i
20 TOPOCKBA STEEL MILLS, MOSCOW MOVING SLOWLY, THE LIMO AND MOTORCYCLE CARAVAN wound its way through the wasteland of rust and decay that was all that remained of the Topockba Steel Mills. Times were hard and had been for a very long time. Likewise, money was—at least to the average man—scarce, and political favoritism was reserved for the select few. The economics of it all could be seen in the rotting warehouses that lined the litter-filled streets like dead, steel watchdogs, black-windowed buildings with twisted metal supports and broken-out glass. The only movement in this land of frigid desolation was a few lonely and heavily dressed sentries who, until they saw the limo, stood miserable and shivering in the cold and were clearly less than enthused about their lot in life. The limo pulled up in front of a warehouse no more or less significant-looking than any other, easing to a halt like a predatory black snake. A tiny guardhouse stood to the left of its heavy metal door, and the
21 MANNING HAD ASSIGNED A COUPLE OF THE LARGER-FRAMED agents to stand guard at the entrance to the mausoleum while Hellboy and the rest of the group carefully descended a narrow flight of wet, curving stone steps. It was an eerie and unsettling place, where the damp walls were lined with yellowed skulls and a sort of dim under-lighting that wasn’t quite enough to let them actually see where they were going without their flashlights—even their feet were shrouded in blackness. The rest of them didn’t notice, but Liz had slipped off her gloves and was enjoying running her fingers along the stone walls, relishing the feel of the icy moisture that coated her always-hot fingertips. She disliked the darkness in here—it was too much like perpetual nightfall—but the slick stonework smelled like wet concrete sidewalks after a good rain, and that was always high on her list of favorites. As long it didn’t end up mixed with the scent of decomposing corpses, they’d be in good shape. A few feet in f
22 LIZ AND MYERS PICKED THEIR WAY FORWARD IN ANOTHER narrow, stone-and-earth-walled tunnel in a different part of the underground tomb. Littered with rocks and bits of the crumbling stone walls, this one wasn’t nearly as smooth-sailing as the one that Hellboy and Manning had headed off in. To make sure that things stayed on the challenging side, it wasn’t long before the two of them came face-to-face with a cave-in that made them eye the ceiling and walls nervously, then compare it with the bits of ceiling, rocks, timber, coffins, and corpses that formed the chaotic barrier that now blocked their way. After a moment of hesitation, they decided to squeeze past the debris, taking advantage of a thin opening on one side of the pile. “So,” Myers said as he led the way, “he thinks that you and I…” He hesitated, then decided to skip over the details. He rushed on. “That’s why he’s mad at me.” Moving sideways, Myers slid a few inches farther through the space next to the cave-in. Liz was righ
23 HELLBOY LIFTED HIS HEAD— Headache. —slowly. His skull felt like a big old piece of lead balanced on his neck, and there was a certain spot right in the top center that was throbbing worse than the rest of it. What the hell had happened? Oh yeah…that walking blond iceberg had smacked him with something hard. A hammer, that was it. Being hit with a hammer…now that ticked him off. Hellboy started to raise a hand to his head, then found he couldn’t. He moved his head a little too quickly as he tried to see why and got a significant stab of discomfort across the crown of his scalp; painful but not debilitating, and it was lessening as the seconds passed. But why couldn’t he move? His eyes were still squeezed shut and he forced them open and tried to blink away the double dose of grogginess caused by Liz’s firestorm and Ilsa’s blow. Man, he was learning he really had to watch out for the women in his life. A few more seconds and feeling was coming back to his limbs. Until now he hadn’t re
24 DARK. Wet. Burning. And then— Noise filled Hellboy’s ears, a massive, strange gur-gle. Like Jonah in the belly of the whale, he was surrounded, smothered, and enveloped. But even that wasn’t as consuming as the white-orange light that abruptly boiled through the Behemoth’s body system when the grenades began to ignite in a marvelously hot chain reaction. It lit up the creature from the inside, silhouetting internal organs that until a millisecond ago had still been growing. Alien body parts and twisted structures, a massive, shuddering throat, the huge, hanging sack that functioned as its gut, swinging free within its body cavity with Hellboy’s form, curled like a fetus, silhouetted within it and looking small and insignificant in relation to what had eaten him. The Behemoth burned from the inside out, screaming hellishly and thrashing as explosion after explosion pounded its center, and section by painful section completely and utterly ripped it apart. The final trio sent fire, sti
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