Hellboy: Odd Jobs (16 page)

Hellboy glanced down at his own well-muscled hand, the deep-red skin halfway between the color of clay and blood. He didn't age in the same way as others. He didn't know if he would ever grow old. Now, though, he got to see those who had raised him, those who had been his childhood heroes, fade and shrivel and die one after another.

"Hope," Lipton said suddenly, the word harsh, as if torn from his throat. He looked back to Hellboy. "I had hoped it would never come to this. But it always does, doesn't it? Always."

"Senator," Hellboy replied, doing his best to get the old man to focus. "I need to know why you asked me here."

"You're the only one. I've known since the beginning. It was always you." He laughed, a brittle sound from deep in his throat. "We always surmised that your arrival among us had to do with those desperate Nazi experiments near the end of the war. They were looking for the damnation of the world. Instead, I'm hoping they gave us our salvation."

Salvation? It was Hellboy's purpose. He had a talent for rooting out evil wherever it might hide. Before he had seen Lipton's distracted manner, he had assumed that was the reason the senator had called him to his office. Now he wondered if even the senator knew why Hellboy was here.

"Excuse me, senator? Hellboy? They're waiting for you."

The senator's young assistant, Crowley, was at Hellboy's side. Hellboy had been so intent on the old man's words, he had not even noticed the younger man's arrival. Crowley smiled as he helped Lipton from his chair.

His smile held a real warmth, unlike so much in this place.

Hellboy realized he had become preoccupied. He was looking for what he couldn't quite see.

Ever since he had entered these historic corridors, Hellboy had sensed something. And he would find it.

He always did.

This was why the senator had asked him here, after all. Whether Lipton remembered it or not.

Hellboy held secrets of his own. Secrets he drew on to defeat the dark forces he was compelled to face.

Secrets even Hellboy did not want to examine too closely.

Before he had walked the earth, Hellboy had had another existence. He did not know if he could call it a life.

He remembered fire and pain, as constant as sunlight and star-filled skies. He carried the memories always.

Fire lived behind his eyes. The images were sharp, burned into his brain, always there even though he couldn't understand them, like pictures from some family album full of strangers.

The fire was in his past, his future, some part of him that existed elsewhere.

But it was only when he fought the demons that he remembered more.

Pain was everywhere. It lived within his muscles, whispered to his thoughts. He expected to hear new cries of pain at every waking moment, and wondered if those cries might come, not from his memories, but from inside himself.

Too many secrets.

Every time he faced the unknown, he learned more about what had made him, and what he would meet again. These small confrontations, someday, would lead him to a larger battle, a battle with whoever, or whatever, was lord of the fire.

The senator walked slowly, but he moved with only the assistance of a stout cane with a knob shaped like a lion. Hellboy remembered when Lipton had been given that cane, before he ever became a senator, and everyone had known him by another name.

"I see you recognize my walking stick," the senator called over his shoulder as he moved diligently ahead.

"Another time, Hellboy. It was another time."

And another country, Hellboy thought: France, toward the end of the war. They had saved a village from German mortar fire. The villagers wanted to give them something in return. Lipton had laughed and said the walking stick made him look distinguished. Maybe he would amount to something after all.

Everyone had laughed at that one.

Crowley smiled apologetically. "The meeting is just down this hallway."

Hellboy walked half a step behind Lipton, letting the old man lead the way. The senator moved with a singleness of purpose, as if he refused to give in to infirmity. His feet shuffled along the floor, barely rising above the polished hardwood, but he walked forward with a steady, stubborn rhythm.

Crowley stepped ahead of the others to open one of a pair of large, mahogany doors. "Gentlemen!" he announced. "Senator Lipton and Hellboy!"

Hellboy had to duck slightly to pass through the doorway. The new room looked much like Lipton's office, save that it was somewhat larger and dominated by a long conference table, around which close to a dozen people were already seated.

A white-haired man at the far end of the table, almost Lipton's equal in years, glared at Hellboy's entrance.

Hellboy's sense of unease grew greater with every step he took into the room. Whatever he had felt before was much stronger here. It was quiet, but far from peaceful. The room felt as though everything was hushed and waiting.

Waiting for what?

Hellboy sensed the forces gathering, getting ready to strike with all their unknown strength. He felt the muscles tense along his arms and back. When things moved quickly, Hellboy had learned to save understanding for later.

He looked back to the conference table. He realized everyone was staring at him.

"What is that creature doing here?" the other elder demanded.

"Senator Shorter!" Crowley spoke quickly. "Surely you received my memo

"

"Of course he did!" Lipton called from the doorway. "It's just that people aren't always as prepared for

Hellboy as they might think. Seven feet tall, three hundred pounds, bright red, one normal hand, one shaped like a sledgehammer

well, some people end up looking twice."

Hellboy was all those things. But he was surprised by the change in Lipton's voice. Now that he was among his fellow senators, he sounded far more like the Lipton of old.

"Senator, this creature isn't even human!" Shorter shot back. "How can we possibly

"

"Enough!" Lipton rapped his lions-head cane on the end of the table. "I would trust Hellboy as I would my own son! He and I have worked together for years. Besides, he is a specialist in certain areas I would like

to discuss."

Shorter snorted as if Lipton's words were the stuff of farce. "How dare you bring this sort in here. If I had my way

"

"Unfortunately, you don't," a woman spoke sharply from midway down the table. "This is still a democracy.

And a free country, last time I looked."

"Of course." Her words seemed to deflate Shorter. He smiled, his tone suddenly affable. "As I must remind my more extreme constituents from time to time. Very well. Excuse me if I was overly harsh. We have all been under a certain strain. Why doesn't Mr. Hellboy give us whatever information he might find pertinent.

Then, after he is gone

"

"Hellboy isn't going anywhere," Lipton snapped. "We need him right here if we are going to

"

The smile fell from Shorter's lips. "Who gave you the authority to dictate

?"

"Senators," the woman interjected. "We are aware of your differences. But we are meeting to find a solution.

If Hellboy would care to take a seat?"

She indicated an oak chair considerably larger than the others in the room. So someone Crowley most

likely

had made special arrangements for him. Hellboy sat. Even with the chair's greater size, he barely fit.

Crowley sat to his left. The woman introduced the others in the room: representatives of the armed services, the FBI and CIA, the House of Representatives, even the Supreme Court. Her name was Celia Gibbons. She was an aide to the president.

Once they were both settled, Lipton spoke again. "If I may, I will outline the situation."

This time, no one objected. The senator looked straight at Hellboy and spoke again.

"There is a cancer within our government. There have always been arguments between the political parties, and quiet power struggles between the different parts of government. But our current situation goes far beyond that."

A couple of the others in the room shifted uncomfortably as the senator continued.

"The situation has become so extreme, it is apparent that none of us can contain it. And
everyone
knows."

Lipton laughed derisively. "You have seen it on the evening news. House members, senators, special prosecutors, even the president himself, all battling over anything and everything from politics to personal lives. The Capitol looks more like a street brawl with every passing day!"

"We are beside ourselves," Ms. Gibbons added. "So much so that we are attempting to put aside our differences long enough to seek outside help. Senator Lipton suggested that there might be some solution beyond our expertise."

Hellboy nodded. Explaining what he did was not his strongest suit, but he would make an attempt for Lipton's sake.

"I already know I'm up against something out of the ordinary. I could feel it

as soon as I entered the

building. I'm sorry I can't be more specific. Sometimes I don't understand what I sense, until it confronts me directly."

"Then I was right to bring you here," Lipton's voice rose above the grumbles of a couple of the others in attendance. Hellboy nodded to his old friend as he asked those around the table to give him specifics. One after another they spoke, slowly warming to the topic.

Senator Lipton had brought him here. Hellboy imagined it was Lipton's reputation that brought the others and made them cooperate.

Hellboy glanced over at his old friend as he heard the stories of irrational anger, forbidden sex, and eruptions of violence. Lipton appeared to hang on every word, a fire deep in his eyes, a final spark, perhaps, of his energy from long ago.

He had called himself Commander Freedom.

Hellboy remembered how, as a child, he had looked up to the man in the blue costume with the silver shield.

He was very fast, very strong, and very smart. How he had gotten these more-than-human powers was never well explained. It was the war. Loose lips sink ships.

When Hellboy had been afraid, Freedom was there. That had been enough for a child.