Abe did not attempt to get Hellboy's attention, reluctant to interrupt. Instead, he continued toward the tents that had been set up for the BPRD operatives at the edge of the archaeologists' camp. Voices carried, some of them hushed with worry and grief, but others filled with the enthusiasm an endeavor such as this always created.
He passed between two tents and emerged at the center of the camp, where the entrances to most of the tents opened. In front of the nearest of the BPRD tents, Neil Pinborough smoked a filterless cigarette, gaze roving as always, gun slung across his shoulder. His dark skin seemed almost blue in the early evening gloom.
"Hello, Abe," the man said, amiably enough. They'd worked together only once before, and didn't know each other well, but it seemed as though everyone felt comfortable calling Abe by his first name.
He'd never been sure how he felt about such intimacy from acquaintances.
"Agent Pinborough," Abe replied. "Evening. Has Professor Bruttenholm heard anything further from Dr. Manning, do you know?"
Pinborough nodded, drawing another lungful of smoke. When he spoke, it ghosted from his mouth like hot breath on a winter morning. "He did, yeah. It's all sorted. Manning's sending a cadre of our people and the U.N. have struck a deal with Beijing. Joint mission between U.N. and Chinese military. Couple of hundred, if I heard it right. They'll deal with Nakchu. Part of the reason Redfield's flown Lao down to Lhasa."
Abe sighed. "I almost feel bad for them."
"Yeah?" Pinborough said, glancing around again, his eyes always in motion, watching for more incursions from the dragon-men. He plucked his cigarette from his mouth, wet his thumb and forefinger on his lips, then snuffed the burning tip with a pinch before slipping it into the breast pocket of his military jacket.
That was the kind of operative Neil Pinborough was--he wouldn't leave a trace of his presence behind if he could help it. When dealing with such men and women, Abe often wondered why the Bureau put up with its more unique agents. He and Hellboy and Liz had been trained, of course. But none of them had ever been very skilled at the espionage sort of tactics that were standard fare for other BPRD field agents.
Then again, Pinborough and the others couldn't light fires with their mind, breathe under water, or pummel a Hydra into submission with their bare hands, so maybe there had to be a give-and-take.
"Did Professor Bruttenholm say how long before they would arrive?" Abe asked.
Pinborough spoke as though to himself, all of his attention focused on the nighttime landscape around them. "Two or three days. After that, the rest of us go home and leave the grunt work to the grunts."
"A lot of things can happen in three days," Abe replied.
A troubled expression crossed Pinborough's face. He turned to Abe as though he were about to ask a question. The moment was interrupted by Professor Bruttenholm, who appeared from within the largest of their tents.
"Ah, good evening, Abe," the old man said.
Abe nodded. "Professor. I have troubling news."
Bruttenholm smiled. "Of course. Nothing is simple here. Do come in." He stood back and held the flap of the tent aside.
As Abe started toward him, he heard a low sound like distant thunder and felt the ground tremble, just slightly, beneath his feet.
His stomach lurched. He stared down at the ground, then quickly looked up at the professor. "Did you feel that?"
Bruttenholm frowned. "Feel what?"
It happened again, the slightest tremor.
Abe glanced back and forth between Agent Pinborough and Professor Bruttenholm. "We don't have three days."
Inches. Maybe a foot. Hellboy had never been so aware of distance as he was of the small space separating him from Stasia as they started down the hillside toward the shore of Lake Tashi. That gap between them seemed somehow charged to him, like the air heavy with moisture and electricity right before a storm. Anastasia had seemed awkward when he'd run into her, just a few minutes before, and she'd been acting skittish ever since. Her gaze shifted away from him, and she seemed constantly on the verge of putting into words whatever troubled her.
But Hellboy didn't push. He wasn't the type. And truth to tell, he had a feeling it might be dangerous for Anastasia to say out loud what troubled her.
"You're sure the museum's not going to pull you off the project?" he asked.
Anastasia had her hands thrust deeply into the pockets of a lamb's wool jacket. Her New York Yankees cap was nowhere to be seen. Her strawberry blond hair seemed golden orange in the moonlight. Hellboy took short strides as they went down the slope together, his long jacket flapping in the light wind. He kept his hands at his sides.
When Anastasia shrugged, she kept her hands in her pockets. He wondered if she sensed the charge of the space between them the way that he did, and guessed that she did.
"Once they've read the BPRD report and the statements of my staff, they won't pull me. They'll send an additional team including someone to replace Mark Conrad--probably Tott Peck, who's a decent bloke--and the newcomers'll have orders to keep an eye on me. Once all the excavation is done and it comes down to nothing but cataloging and photographing, they'll call me home. Which is fine, really. You know the initial discovery and interpretation is my real love. Then I like to move on."
Hellboy glanced at her in time to see her frown at her words and her eyes narrow with wrinkles of worry. She shot him a sidelong look, almost guilty, and he realized she was reconsidering her words, wondering if he would read any deeper implication into them.
"Tott Peck?"
She blinked, careful as she picked her way down a tumble of stones. "Hmm?"
"That's someone's name? Seriously? Tott Peck?"
Anastasia laughed a bit too much. "His name's Tottenham. Apparently where his parents conceived him. Some apartment on Tottenham Court Road. The sort of precious thing Americans do all the time, giving their children such names. Tott's parents are from Boston, but moved to London before he was born. If they've got to send someone to watchdog me, I hope it's him."
Off to the right, Hellboy saw Abe walking between two of the tents the BPRD had set up beside the archaeologists' camp. But here, in the shadow of the ridge where the city of the Dragon King was being excavated, no one was around. Everyone was either up at the dig or in camp. Hellboy and Anastasia walked together down to the shore of the lake, undisturbed.
At the water, they paused to stare out toward the far shore. Until now, they'd been talking about the horrid events of the morning and the deaths of Sima, Rafe, and Dr. Conrad. Professor Kyichu would be leaving the expedition, apparently. He wanted to take Kora home. Hellboy couldn't blame him. Anastasia was sad to see him go, but she understood.
Now, though, all discussion of work came to an end.
The space between them fairly crackled. The lake's surface rippled in the night breeze.
"How long before the BPRD sends someone to deal with Nakchu village?" she asked.
Hellboy glanced away from her, the moonlight on the lake suddenly fascinating beyond its beauty. "I don't know. Haven't spoken to the professor about it. A few days, I'd guess. Probably BPRD and United Nations."
"And then you'll be going?"
Her voice sounded small and faraway.
"Yeah. Our job's done."
Hellboy felt strangely warm. He glanced at Anastasia and saw that she seemed not to notice all the beauty around her, focusing on her feet.
"Your father would be pretty upset with me, but...are you sure you have to go?"
The moment seemed eternal, and eventually Hellboy became aware he had remained silent for far too long. His lack of answer would have stung her. He knew that, and couldn't do anything about it.
"I shouldn't have said anything--" Anastasia began.
"Why would he be upset?" he asked.
Anastasia laughed softly, hollowly. "Professor Bruttenholm basically warned me off an hour or so ago."
"He what?" He was often frustrated with his father, but he'd never felt anger like this at the old man before. The feeling didn't sit well with him. It seemed to sizzle inside him, like he'd been electrocuted.
"Stop. Wait," Stasia said, shaking her head. "He was fine. Respectful. He's just your father, and he worries for you."
"I'm not a child," Hellboy growled.
"We should all be so fortunate as to have someone who loves us as much as he loves you," she told him. It felt like an admonishment.
"What'd he say, exactly?"
Anastasia turned toward him. She didn't reach for his hands or slide into his arms or any of the things that would have felt so natural for them, so comfortable.
"It's absurd, you know. This is only the second time we've seen one another in ten years. I go all this time thinking I'm set. I miss you, right enough, but I don't remember why I miss you. Then here you are, and it all comes back, and ten years seems like ten days. So here I am, saying all these things I know I shouldn't say, because I'm a selfish bitch, I suppose. I'm not asking you to be in love with me, or to travel around the world with me, or to make things as they were, once upon a time. I would never presume. I know it can never be that way again.
"But I feel better with you here. Better about myself. Better about the world. And I'm just...I'm having trouble with the idea of you going home in a few days. It's too quick. So, I just wondered if you might be able to stay on for a little while...."
A horrified expression crossed her face. "And now I've bollixed it up entirely, haven't I? Made a damn fool of myself."
Hellboy reached out his right hand, that huge destructive bit of him, and she lay her head against it, so gently. Anastasia was the only person in the world who'd never shied away from that hand.
"I'll always be here when you need me," he said. "I couldn't not come when you call. But you only think you want me to stay. Bad things happen when we're together."
A flicker of pain went through her eyes. "That's not...you're right, of course. You're right. I'm sorry. I know it isn't easy for you. I told you I was being a selfish bitch, and--"
"Yeah, no. Not what I meant," Hellboy interrupted. "I'm talking about the monsters, and the black magic, and the zombies and giant spiders and talking severed heads. Dragon-men are kind of a vacation compared to all that crap. But you know what my life is. You're sick with the horror of what happened this morning. You don't want that to be your daily routine."
Anastasia's gaze hardened. "That was never why it ended for us."
She didn't have to say any more. They both knew why it had really ended. Stasia had been courageous in the presence of darkness and evil, willing to stand with him no matter what kind of horror reared its head. It wasn't the monsters that had been the end of them, it had been the people--the looks and the whispers.
"So what happens if I stay, then?" Hellboy asked, surprised to hear his own voice. "How long are we talking about? A week? Two? 'Cause you know that's the problem, Stasia. I'm here now because you needed my help--the BPRD's help. The minute I'm sticking around just to be with you and not because there's something big and evil I need to hit, that changes things."
Seconds passed. The moonlight played across the night-cloaked lake. They stared at one another, standing on the shore, everyone else so far away.
"I didn't hear a 'no' in there," Anastasia said.
Hellboy hesitated. She was right. He hadn't actually said no. Was what she was asking so terrible? They were old friends who still cared deeply for one another. They were both adults, and they knew how things stood and what the parameters were between them.
He reached out his other hand, and she twined her fingers with his.
Beneath his hooves, the ground began to tremble. Hellboy frowned. He'd felt something before, when they were coming down the hill, but it had been so slight he had thought he'd imagined it or that it had just been loose earth shifting under him.
Stasia's eyes went wide. The shore of the lake shifted and bucked. She let out a scream, and had she not gripped his arm just then, she would have fallen. Hellboy pulled her into his arms and held her as the earth began to shake, and rocks tumbled down the hillside toward them. The surface of the lake churned like an ocean storm. Shouts of pain and terror rang out from the ridge as parts of the dig collapsed. The seconds passed like hours as the whole world tilted, and still Hellboy kept his footing, and held tight to Stasia.
As quickly as it had begun, it passed.
"Bloody hell," Stasia rasped, looking around frightfully. "Earthquakes--what next?"
Even as she spoke, Hellboy stepped away from her, turning to stare out at the lake. The quake had subsided, but the water still churned. And underneath the maelstrom, it glowed a bright orange.
"You had to ask."
The lake exploded in a gigantic fountain of water and fire, and the Dragon King hurtled skyward, erupting through a cloud of his own flames. The serpent had no wings, but still it flew. Its long body was covered with yellow scales, though its belly was a wide red stripe. Its snout opened wide, fire blossoming from its gullet as it twisted and squirmed across the sky above their heads. Upon its skull were the antlers of a stag, and its tiny limbs ended in talons like those of eagles.
"It doesn't make any sense," Anastasia whispered, so close to him.
Hellboy stared into the night sky as the worm wiggled through the air, fire streaming along its body, snorting from its nostrils. He figured it was over a hundred feet long, but told himself that he could kill it, if he could just get close to it. The inability to fly posed a problem.
"What doesn't?" he said, not tearing his eyes from the Dragon King as it twisted and coiled in upon itself, either exulting in its freedom or chasing its tail like a savage dog on a cocaine high. "This is exactly what the legend said would happen. We oughta believe legends more often."
"Legends are usually symbolic. They mean something beyond the words."
"Yeah, this one means we're screwed."
"You don't understand. It doesn't make sense that the Dragon King is here when we've found no trace of the temple."