The demon stood at the center of the birthing chamber, looking up at the great vat suspended from the ceiling. Abby hung back and watched. It looked very human, yet it exuded something inexpressible, an alien aura that human senses would never understand. She was aware that Leh knew she was there, but there was something about this moment that was very private, very much owned by Leh and Leh alone.
Now I'm being thoughtful toward a demon, she thought, shaking her head. She even smiled. It was a long time since she had done that.
"This is where I was brought through," Leh said. "And this is where I'll leave again. But not alone."
This had once been one of the tankers great oil cells, and even after so long, there was still a hint of oil on the air. Abby guessed it would never be cleaned away. Behind that, too, the tang of something else, something much more mysterious and distant. She looked up at the vat and the dried, salty crust around its lip. Unused now, perhaps for several years, but like the oil, its presence would always be apparent. The taint of the Memory would never wash away.
"How do you know he'll be here?"
The demon closed its eyes. "Blake is being chased here even now. An old man, a fool, a lamb to the slaughter." It opened its eyes again. "Lamb. I was once an enemy of sheep, but the shepherd put me down. Do I have the taint, Abby? Can you see his mark upon me?" It turned to her, this demon that was her friendly Voice, and she tried to look at its face without falling into its eyes once again. But she could not. She averted her gaze, looked down at her hands, noting how long her nails were now and how badly her body was shaking. She could not fight off the change for much longer. She was going to lose control very soon, and the last thing she wished for — the very last thing she wanted to see — was Blake taken apart. She wanted to do it herself, desperately ... and yet if fate had decided that a demon would be his end, so be it. Abby had argued with fate many times before, and it was ironic that now, at her strongest moment, she suddenly felt so weak. She could almost feel the puppet strings buried in her mind and soul, guiding her every movement since she had first fled the New Ark and leading her back here, now, to this exact moment, with Leh standing before her, blood coursing a monstrous change through her body, and Blake being chased toward them ...
But chased by whom?
"Who's chasing?" she asked, but her yoke crackled from the phlegm suddenly flooding her throat. Saliva dripped from her lips, pink from the blood of her wounded gums.
"Oh, I think you'll know them when you see them," Leh said.
Abe, Abby thought. Oh, Abe, I never wanted you to see me like this.
"Not Abe," the demon said. "But close enough."
Abby changed. The world retreated from her for a while, and despite the intense physical pain, this was the one moment when she found true mental peace. She was nowhere for a while, a place without dream or nightmare, with no Memory or reality. Simply a blank.
When she woke up, the world was a very different place.
* * *
"I can smell him," Hellboy said. "An old man. A fading man. He's almost passed into Memory, but we can't let him get away. Come on, Liz, run!" They pelted headlong along corridors, passing through huge rooms that had once held creatures of untold size and power. Maybe we've come up against some of them already, Hellboy thought. Maybe some we have yet to meet. But if we catch Blake soon, instead of letting him escape into this maze of rooms and corridors, we can hope we'll never have to meet them at all.