"But the two together ... " Amelia looked into her glass and swilled the beer, and Hellboy could see that she was working something through. She watched the bubbles, touched them with her finger, tasted, never really seeing or tasting the beer at all. She was miles away. Hellboy thought that when she came back, something would have changed in her life forever.
He refilled his glass and drank, keeping his motions slow and measured. A few tables away, a young man and woman were making out, hands everywhere and too much on display, if they'd heard of the dragon, they were unconcerned. Close to the front window, there was a card game going on, three old men gambling pennies and sharing a bottle of whiskey. They couldn't have helped but notice the commotion in the streets outside, yet their game went on. The amazing happened every day, but the next day things were back to normal. Hellboy was witness to that, and he could list a dozen days in history that should have changed the world but had not. At first, back in the '50s and '60s, he'd put it down to the resilience of the human spirit. But lately, as time went on and his own spirit dwelled in as much mystery as ever, he had begun to believe it was apathy.
"Why would a myth suddenly come to life, Hellboy? It wouldn't, unless something forced it. It's like magic. Some people believe in it, but it isn't real."
She paused and watched Hellboy, but he said nothing. Perhaps she saw the truth behind his eyes ... but he had an idea she was getting there pretty well on her own.
"But what if magic — an untruth — and this thing of mythology — again, untrue — were forced together?"
"What if they were?" Hellboy considered for a moment, trying to discern Amelia's logic, but it evaded him. Perhaps it was the Old Devil, which was already going to his head. "Crap," he said.
"Crap? Who's just been dropped into the bay by a dragon?"
Hellboy shrugged. "Well, combining the two — magic and mythology — implies a force to do it. Cause and effect. So what's the cause?"
Amelia looked at him brightly, raised her glass, and finished it off in one long swallow. "I have no idea," she said. "I'm a lecturer, not a preacher." She smiled.
Hellboy sat up straighter and lit his second cigarette from the stub of the first. He frowned, trying to clear his head, but then he let it ride, enjoying the fuzziness of the alcohol instead of fighting against it. Because something Amelia said had struck a chord, and he suddenly wished Abe were here with him. Abe could think straighter than Hellboy. He glanced down at the satellite phone and its spilled battery, wondering what Tom Manning would have to say.
"It's obvious, really," Hellboy said.
"It is?"
"Sure. If you're right, the cause is an insane megalomaniacal madman, messing with this stuff for his own ends."
"How do you know?"
Hellboy puffed on the cigarette and drained the pitcher. Damn, he was going to have to call. So much for his date with Amelia. "Because it always is," he said quietly. He reached for the battery and the phone and prepared to blow apathy out of the water.
* * *
Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic — 1984
RICHARD BLAKE FELT sick, and the smell — drying seaweed, the rolling ocean, dead things on the beach — was making him feel worse. His stomach seemed to roll with every wave that came in, and he hoped that the old myth about every seventh wave being a big one was wrong.
His brother, Gal, walked by his side, quiet and contemplative. His hands were clenched into fists, as if he had the relic already in his grasp.
"I'm still not sure I really believe this," Richard said.
"You know what the old man said."
"Yeah, but the old man was a drunk. He's ninety if he's a day, and he's been stuck on this island for thirty years drinking moonshine rum. He's pickled his body, and his brain's fried by the sun."
"What is it with you?" Gal paused atop a sand dune and looked at his brother.
Richard shrugged. "I feel as sick as a dog. I'm shitting through the eye of a needle, and — "