Hellboy, Vol. 2: The All-Seeing Eye (3 page)

A door opened to the right of the front door, and then quickly closed again behind the man who emerged from it. This was Mr. Saxilby senior, portly and bespectacled, a streak of gray in the swept-back fringe of his otherwise black hair. He was wearing a maroon waistcoat over a white shirt and crisply ironed black trousers. He looked pale but composed, as he glanced first at Arthur and then at Flo.

“Oh dear,” he said. “I’m most awfully sorry about this, Mrs. Jackson. It’s an unprecedented event, believe me.”

“I’m sure it’s not your fault, Mr. Saxilby,” Flo replied. She glanced back at Nigel, who was hovering behind her, and couldn’t help adding, “My Arthur’s not doing anyone any harm, as you can see. He just seems to want to ... go for a little walk.”

“As does the late Mr. Hayes,” said Mr. Saxilby, indicating a door on the opposite side of the corridor, from behind which could clearly be heard the blundering thump of movement.

“What’s making them do it, do you think?” Flo asked, but Mr. Saxilby shook his head.

“I’ve no idea, Mrs. Jackson.”

His attempt at a reassuring smile emerged as a ghastly grimace, and in that instant Flo knew exactly what the undertaker was thinking.

He was wondering, as she was, what would happen if
all
the dead people in the world had suddenly come alive and started walking about. The police or the army would have to go out and round them all up, she supposed. But where would they put them? In prison? In hospitals?

Her mind boggled at the prospect of it. It was terrifying to consider what a world where the dead refused to lie down would be like.

“What — “ she began, and then Arthur collapsed, simply fell to the floor like a dead weight. Flo cried out as he landed on his face, his head hitting the floorboards with a crack. In the room across the corridor she heard a thump as Mr. Hayes presumably hit the deck, too.

For several seconds she, Mr. Saxilby senior, and Nigel simply stood, looking down at Arthur, half expecting him to twitch back into life.

But he didn’t. He just lay there, looking as dead as could be, his limbs floppy as a rag doll’s, his face flat against the floorboards.

“Is he ...” Flo began, and then found she couldn’t choke the rest of the sentence past the obstruction in her throat.

“I hope so,” Mr. Saxilby murmured, then realized what he had said and hastily added, “Beg your pardon, Mrs. Jackson. No offense intended.”

Flo cleared her throat. “None taken,” she said firmly. “What just happened ... well, it wasn’t right, was it? The dead should stay dead.”

“Amen to that,” Nigel said fervently.

———

Bartle Road, Notting Hill,
London, England
Monday, October 22nd, 11:20 a.m.

“That’s it, son. Get it all up. Better out than in.”

Sergeant Wormley stepped back smartly as PC Firth’s retching finally resulted in an almighty fountain of vomit. He glanced around to make sure he and the rookie weren’t being observed by the knot of curious onlookers gathered outside the unassuming semidetached house on Bartle Road. Wormley was an old-school copper, and had always had great faith and pride in the integrity and professionalism of the London bobby. In his opinion it wouldn’t do to have the city’s finest looking anything other than calm and capable.

Not that he blamed the lad. First time he’d seen a bad ‘un to match this he’d chucked his guts up too. Dead junkie his had been, whose remains had lain undiscovered in his filthy flat for nearly a week. The body had been bloated, the flesh black and slimy like old banana skins. Worse, though, had been the stench and the teeming maggots. Wormley had thrown up so violently he’d thought his stomach was about to turn inside out. He’d barely been able to sleep for the next week. Every time he’d closed his eyes he’d seen maggots writhing in the dead man’s empty eye sockets and in the gaping cavity of his mouth.

He patted the back of the young lad, who was bent over double beside him. Having puked into the bushes which screened them, Firth was now spitting out the remainder of his regurgitated breakfast. Finally he straightened up, sniffing, his face pale and sweaty.

“Sorry about that, sarge,” he said. “I feel a right numpty.”

“Nothing to apologize for, son. Happens to the best of us.”

“Bet it’s never happened to you,” Firth said ruefully.

“Oh yes it has. Man who doesn’t react like you did the first time ... well, there’s something wrong with him, I reckon. Human nature, isn’t it? Shows you care.
You
might think it’s a sign of weakness, but
I
think it’s the sign of a good copper.”

“The lads’ll still take the piss out of me when I get back,” Firth said.

“Let ‘em. That’s part of the process too. Bit of ribbing, bit of humor ... it’s a release valve, isn’t it? It’s how we cope.”

Firth took a deep breath. He was recovering now, a little color seeping back into his cheeks.

“Feeling better?”

The young PC nodded.

“Good lad,” said Wormley.

“So what do you reckon about this one, sarge? Gangland killing?”

Wormley shrugged. “Could be. Though it’s a bit over the top taking the arms and legs as well as the head. Usually it’s just head and hands.”

“Maybe the victim had tattoos or scars. Something easily identifiable.”

Wormley smiled. The boy was smart. He was always asking questions, always offering ideas.

“Why dump the body in a suburban garden, though? No attempt at concealment?”

Firth frowned. “Maybe the killers panicked? Maybe they thought someone was on to them? Or maybe they wanted the body found — as a warning to others, something like that.”

“All possible,”Wormley said noncommittally.

“But you don’t believe it?”

Wormley smiled. “Now, I didn’t say that, did I?”

“I can tell by your face,” Firth said, smiling back.

Wormley chuckled. “Let’s just say I’ve got access to the bigger picture.”

“So what bigger picture’s that then, sarge?” Firth asked. “Or is it privileged information?”

“Maybe it
is
privileged information,” Wormley said blandly, “but as far as you and I are concerned, I haven’t been
told
it’s privileged. Which don’t mean to say you can go blabbing it to all and sundry.”

Firth mimed pulling a zip across his mouth. “My lips are sealed.”

Wormley nodded in the vague direction of the taped-off house, which in the past hour had become a hive of police activity. “What if I were to tell you that headless Harry over there is not the first torso found today?”

Firth raised his eyebrows. “I’d say ... how many we talking about here, sarge?”

“Three,”Wormley said. “All different locations.”

“Close by?”

“Relatively. The other two were Fleet Street and Tavistock Square.”

“All north of the river then,” said Firth, “and in a rough line.”

Wormley said nothing. He could see that the lad was thinking it through. He wanted to see what Firth came up with before he dropped his bombshell.

“Busy public places,” Firth mused,”not suburban like this. Were the other bodies out in the open, sarge?”

Wormley felt like applauding. “Good question, son.
Excellent
question. Because that’s the thing, you see. The bodies
weren’t
out in the open. Not like this one. They were found in unlikely places. Impossible places.”

“Impossible how?”

“Secure establishments. Locked offices. The one in Tavistock Square was in the headquarters of the British Medical Association.”

Firth raised his eyebrows. “And the other one?”

“Inside the premises of the
Dundee Courier
. And get this — it was a woman’s body.”

“A woman?” Firth blanched.

“Which makes the gangland theory a bit less likely, wouldn’t you say?”

“Hmm.” Again Wormley could almost see the cogs whirring in the younger man’s head. Finally Firth said, “Less likely, but still not impossible.”

“Not impossible, no,”Wormley agreed.

Firth sighed. “So what’s
your
theory, sarge? What have we got here? Gang war or serial killer?”

“What
I
think we’ve got,”Wormley said, “is a hell of a bleedin’ mystery.”

“Options open, eh?” Firth said.

“Always,” said Wormley.

Firth glanced over towards the cordoned-off house and fortified himself with another deep breath. “Shall we rejoin the party?” he suggested.

Wormley nodded. “Why not?”

Chapter 1

“Damn fire-worm,” muttered Hellboy, shifting in his seat.

“Still hurts, does it?” asked Liz, keeping a straight face.

The scowl he turned on her had caused lesser men to dissolve into quivering mounds of jelly, but Liz was unmoved. In fact, her lips squirmed as she fought a losing battle to keep her humor contained. If his butt hadn’t been stinging so damn much, Hellboy would have relished her childlike glee. A part of him still did, despite the fact it was at the expense of his own comfort.

It was a constant weight in his big old heart that Liz, one of the few people he cared about most in the world, smiled about as much as she slept — which was hardly ever. Amazing then that her face remained remarkably unlined for a woman in her thirties. What stopped her from looking truly young, though, were her haunted eyes, and the great dark crescents beneath them. Hellboy had seen men cast admiring glances towards Liz’s trim, athletic figure, only to flinch when she turned the bruised intensity of her gaze on them.

Now, however, she
was
smiling, and it transformed her. Hellboy had to employ all his willpower to stop himself smiling back. Maintaining his frown with an effort, he growled, “I’ll live.”

“Maybe there’s some kind of cream you can use? A scorched-butt ointment?” she suggested innocently.

“You’re walking a thin line, Liz,” Hellboy said, though he couldn’t
quite
make it sound convincing.

Liz laughed and reached up to pinch a great slab of his red cheek between her dainty thumb and forefinger. “Aw, you’re so cute when your pride is wounded,” she said.

“And it’s getting thinner all the time,” he muttered.

Liz was about the only person in the world whom he’d allow to treat him like that. Damn, she was the only person in the world who would
dare
to treat him like that.

Sitting a few seats in front of them on the private jet, working his way conscientiously through the information dossier Kate Corrigan had presented them with after last night’s meeting at B.P.R.D. headquarters in Connecticut, Abe Sapien turned around. To anyone not used to him, Abe was a startling sight. He was a humanoid amphibian of unknown origin, his skin a shimmering blue-green, albeit etched with striking markings that resembled jagged black lightning bolts. Although his face was expressionless and his large, globular eyes unsettling, his cultured voice was full of warmth, humor, and intelligence.

“How you two doing back there?” he asked.

“Don’t
you
start,” grumbled Hellboy.

If Abe had had eyebrows he would have raised them. “I was only — “

“I know what you were
only
doing,” Hellboy said. “You were mocking the afflicted. Hey, you try getting stung by a Sumatran fire-worm, see how
you
like it.”

Shielding her mouth with her hand, Liz confided loudly to Abe,”HB’s a little sensitive about his swollen butt.”

“It didn’t sting me on my butt!” Hellboy protested. Less convincingly he added, “It was my ... lower back area.”

“Burned a hole right through his shorts,” Liz said breezily.

“Can we talk about something else?”

“Gladly,” said Abe, and held up the dossier. “How about the particulars of our current mission?”

Hellboy groaned. “Jeez, you sure know how to kick a guy when he’s down. We went through all this at the meeting!”

“Did you actually listen?” Liz asked.

“ ‘Course I did. Every word.” His golden eyes flickered away from her almost-black ones. “Well ... all the important ones,” he amended.

Abe and Liz exchanged a knowing glance. The only time Hell-boy had come alive throughout the debriefing had been right at the end, when their boss, Tom Manning, had glibly informed the three field operatives that they were to fly to London right away. The big red guy had still been smarting from a particularly bruising encounter with a Sumatran fire-worm, which had been unwittingly invoked by a bunch of college boys in Milwaukee. Eight of the thirteen amateur cabalists had been barbecued by the worm by the time Hellboy arrived, and although it had been a pretty routine stomping on his part, it had been messy and he had been knocked around pretty bad. He had arrived home wanting only three things: a big dish of paella, a hot bath, and a long sleep. But he had literally stepped off the chopper and straight into a full-blown meeting, which hadn’t put him in the best of moods.

“I’m not flying anywhere right now unless it’s in comfort,” he had said. “No way am I getting back into one of those damn choppers. The seats
chafe
. And you can forget your Lear jets too. They’re cramped and smelly and there’s no tail room.”

Tom Manning had sighed. “Hellboy, our helicopters are top of the line — “