Read Online Hellboy: On Earth as It Is in Hell by Brian Hodge - Free Book Online
Authors: Brian Hodge
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live. He joked about it later, saying that if he hadn't been so drunk, he would've held out for a table saw so he could've sliced off both hands. But still, even at his lowest, he had wanted to live.
"Used to be, I was the only freak I knew," he said. "In a weird way, that was convenient. It meant I had an excuse for just about anything I did to try to get away from it, and whenever I told somebody that they didn't understand, that they couldn't understand, I really got to mean it. Then I come here..."
"And it's a freak factory, right?" Liz finished for him.
He nodded. "So all the old excuses, they don't cut it anymore. Especially after I hear a story like yours. Or if I see somebody like Hellboy, or Abe, because then I start wondering what it must be like to look so obviously different--the two of them, they can't hide it for a second. It makes me feel selfish. Like, 'Okay, maybe life's been a bitch, but at least that didn't happen to me.' "
"Whenever my knack would get the better of me, it could be a genuine danger to anyone around me," she said, and thought of the year-plus spent shuffled among foster homes before the BPRD had found her, taken her in, helped her get control. The flare-ups under strange roofs, the bad dreams that could set the quilts aflame. Never an episode as serious as the first time--no one ever died--but enough to get her branded as a jailbait pyromaniac. "When yours gets the better of you, you're the only one that suffers. I don't think you could say one's any more isolating than the other. Bottom line? Okay, maybe somebody has a worse story than yours, but so what? You're the one that's got to live your own, and it's the first time you've done it, and most of the time you have to make it up as you go. I won't tell you it's easy, but if it couldn't be done, I wouldn't be here now."
And since he'd brought them up, what of Hellboy, of Abe? She too had often wondered what it was like to exist in such a different body. Although a breed apart, she was human, no different to the eye or in behavior than most any other woman. She had a smile that often left men wondering what she was thinking, and enjoyed that subtle control; had a habit of wearing a velvet choker and cross even though she wasn't a bona fide believer; had her periods with almost calendrical regularity. She could pass for normal any day of the week.
Not so, her closest friends.
But maybe, in some respects, it was easier that way. They had no footsteps to walk in, no molds to fill. They were strange pioneers, not so much defying expectations as writing the book on what those expectations could be, and if they were not strictly human, they could nevertheless give lessons on being human to those who were, yet who fell so very short of its ideals.
There was a soft knock at the door then, and she called for whoever was there to enter. The door opened just wide enough for a head to poke through, a big smooth dome that shone under the fluorescents like burnished walnut.
"You got a call. It's our man in Rome."
She wrapped up the pep talk with Campbell, then stepped out into the hallway.
"Here's your whistle back," she told Agent Garrett, and put it into his hand. "Thanks."
Dion grinned. "So now he knows all my shameful secrets, huh?"
"Yep. And he expects that first check by the end of the day," Liz said, then winked. "Take care of that knee, by the way..."
Down the hallway, she ducked into the wing's main office and picked up the waiting landline.
"H.B.? That you?"
"Pack a bag. You're on the next flight to Rome," he said, in that basso profundo voice that could soothe infants or rattle windows, depending on his mood. "And don't forget to bring your sea legs."
Chapter 5
C oming up with a secure way to transport the Masada Scroll halfway around the world...that was the easy part.
It wasn't as though Hellboy had never transported sensitive documents before. Several years ago, prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall, he'd played the role of
"Used to be, I was the only freak I knew," he said. "In a weird way, that was convenient. It meant I had an excuse for just about anything I did to try to get away from it, and whenever I told somebody that they didn't understand, that they couldn't understand, I really got to mean it. Then I come here..."
"And it's a freak factory, right?" Liz finished for him.
He nodded. "So all the old excuses, they don't cut it anymore. Especially after I hear a story like yours. Or if I see somebody like Hellboy, or Abe, because then I start wondering what it must be like to look so obviously different--the two of them, they can't hide it for a second. It makes me feel selfish. Like, 'Okay, maybe life's been a bitch, but at least that didn't happen to me.' "
"Whenever my knack would get the better of me, it could be a genuine danger to anyone around me," she said, and thought of the year-plus spent shuffled among foster homes before the BPRD had found her, taken her in, helped her get control. The flare-ups under strange roofs, the bad dreams that could set the quilts aflame. Never an episode as serious as the first time--no one ever died--but enough to get her branded as a jailbait pyromaniac. "When yours gets the better of you, you're the only one that suffers. I don't think you could say one's any more isolating than the other. Bottom line? Okay, maybe somebody has a worse story than yours, but so what? You're the one that's got to live your own, and it's the first time you've done it, and most of the time you have to make it up as you go. I won't tell you it's easy, but if it couldn't be done, I wouldn't be here now."
And since he'd brought them up, what of Hellboy, of Abe? She too had often wondered what it was like to exist in such a different body. Although a breed apart, she was human, no different to the eye or in behavior than most any other woman. She had a smile that often left men wondering what she was thinking, and enjoyed that subtle control; had a habit of wearing a velvet choker and cross even though she wasn't a bona fide believer; had her periods with almost calendrical regularity. She could pass for normal any day of the week.
Not so, her closest friends.
But maybe, in some respects, it was easier that way. They had no footsteps to walk in, no molds to fill. They were strange pioneers, not so much defying expectations as writing the book on what those expectations could be, and if they were not strictly human, they could nevertheless give lessons on being human to those who were, yet who fell so very short of its ideals.
There was a soft knock at the door then, and she called for whoever was there to enter. The door opened just wide enough for a head to poke through, a big smooth dome that shone under the fluorescents like burnished walnut.
"You got a call. It's our man in Rome."
She wrapped up the pep talk with Campbell, then stepped out into the hallway.
"Here's your whistle back," she told Agent Garrett, and put it into his hand. "Thanks."
Dion grinned. "So now he knows all my shameful secrets, huh?"
"Yep. And he expects that first check by the end of the day," Liz said, then winked. "Take care of that knee, by the way..."
Down the hallway, she ducked into the wing's main office and picked up the waiting landline.
"H.B.? That you?"
"Pack a bag. You're on the next flight to Rome," he said, in that basso profundo voice that could soothe infants or rattle windows, depending on his mood. "And don't forget to bring your sea legs."
Chapter 5
C oming up with a secure way to transport the Masada Scroll halfway around the world...that was the easy part.
It wasn't as though Hellboy had never transported sensitive documents before. Several years ago, prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall, he'd played the role of
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