Read Online Hellboy, Vol. 2: The All-Seeing Eye by Mark Morris - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Mark Morris
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the still-throbbing wounds inflicted by the fire-worm the day before, not to mention the poison his antibodies had been fighting. He rested his stone hand in his lap and decided to catch a few more z ‘s while Abe and Richard discussed the intricacies of African tribal customs. Richard seemed like a good guy, and Hellboy had known Liz for long enough to recognize — just from the secretive little looks she had cast in the lecturer’s direction and the way she had been eager for him to accompany them to London — that she thought so too. Her interest was kinda cute, and he couldn’t blame her for it — Richard was good looking and intelligent, after all — but he couldn’t help worrying about her all the same. Despite the tough-girl exterior, Hellboy knew that Liz was a vulnerable soul and he hated seeing her get hurt.
You better treat her right, Varley , he thought, or you’ll have me to deal with .
Lulled by the murmur of the Daimler’s engine and the drone of conversation from the back seat, he drifted into sleep ...
———
Now that it appeared he’d gotten away with it, Proctor’s mind was whirring again. He was no longer merely thinking about getting back to London and delivering his story before his nine p.m. deadline, he was now starting to wonder how he might make the story even better .
An interview, he thought. An interview with Hellboy at his hotel. How amazing would that be? First, though, he had to find out which hotel Hellboy and his chums were staying at. And to get that information he needed to do a certain amount of reckless driving, and trust to an even greater amount of luck.
From his vantage point at the perimeter of the airfield, Proctor had observed the various officials arrive. Some time later he had seen a chauffeur-driven Daimler with tinted windows pull in to the small car park beside the aircraft hangar. No one had emerged from that vehicle, not even the chauffeur, which had led Proctor to assume that this was the car which would take Hellboy and his colleagues to London.
Even as he was making his bedraggled and desperate escape across the fields and through the woods to the layby where he had parked his car, a plan had been churning away in the back of the journalist’s mind. Almost subconsciously he sifted through the pros and cons of his scheme, and by the time he reached his scratched and battered little Astra — 85k on the clock, dodgy clutch and even dodgier brakes — and sank, mud spattered and exhausted, into the driver’s seat, he had pretty much decided to go for it. After all, he had thought, what had he got to lose?
His thinking was that there was no reason the Daimler wouldn’t take the most obvious route to the capital. That included going up the A229, on to the M20 and from there on to the M25. All Proctor had to do, therefore, was drive like crazy and follow the same route. Eventually, if the Daimler was sticking to the speed limit, as he suspected it might, he would catch up with it. Then it was simply a case of tucking himself in behind the vehicle — though not too close, of course — and trailing it into London.
The main drawback of the plan was not the Astra itself- — it might be a battered old wreck, whose engine rattled like dry peas in a tin, but it could really move — but the possibility of being pulled over by the police. However, on this particular score God turned out to be shining on him. The only cops Proctor saw were already parked behind a yellow Ferrari on the hard shoulder, gleefully giving the Ray-Ban-wearing driver a hard time. Proctor slowed down a little to cruise past them, but they didn’t even look up from their notebooks.
Just over half an hour later, he struck lucky.
There it was! The Daimler! Cruising along in the slow lane at a modest sixty-five. Proctor eased off on his accelerator, then indicated left, and tucked himself nicely in, a couple of cars behind.
As the heater slowly dried his wet, filthy clothes, he smiled
You better treat her right, Varley , he thought, or you’ll have me to deal with .
Lulled by the murmur of the Daimler’s engine and the drone of conversation from the back seat, he drifted into sleep ...
———
Now that it appeared he’d gotten away with it, Proctor’s mind was whirring again. He was no longer merely thinking about getting back to London and delivering his story before his nine p.m. deadline, he was now starting to wonder how he might make the story even better .
An interview, he thought. An interview with Hellboy at his hotel. How amazing would that be? First, though, he had to find out which hotel Hellboy and his chums were staying at. And to get that information he needed to do a certain amount of reckless driving, and trust to an even greater amount of luck.
From his vantage point at the perimeter of the airfield, Proctor had observed the various officials arrive. Some time later he had seen a chauffeur-driven Daimler with tinted windows pull in to the small car park beside the aircraft hangar. No one had emerged from that vehicle, not even the chauffeur, which had led Proctor to assume that this was the car which would take Hellboy and his colleagues to London.
Even as he was making his bedraggled and desperate escape across the fields and through the woods to the layby where he had parked his car, a plan had been churning away in the back of the journalist’s mind. Almost subconsciously he sifted through the pros and cons of his scheme, and by the time he reached his scratched and battered little Astra — 85k on the clock, dodgy clutch and even dodgier brakes — and sank, mud spattered and exhausted, into the driver’s seat, he had pretty much decided to go for it. After all, he had thought, what had he got to lose?
His thinking was that there was no reason the Daimler wouldn’t take the most obvious route to the capital. That included going up the A229, on to the M20 and from there on to the M25. All Proctor had to do, therefore, was drive like crazy and follow the same route. Eventually, if the Daimler was sticking to the speed limit, as he suspected it might, he would catch up with it. Then it was simply a case of tucking himself in behind the vehicle — though not too close, of course — and trailing it into London.
The main drawback of the plan was not the Astra itself- — it might be a battered old wreck, whose engine rattled like dry peas in a tin, but it could really move — but the possibility of being pulled over by the police. However, on this particular score God turned out to be shining on him. The only cops Proctor saw were already parked behind a yellow Ferrari on the hard shoulder, gleefully giving the Ray-Ban-wearing driver a hard time. Proctor slowed down a little to cruise past them, but they didn’t even look up from their notebooks.
Just over half an hour later, he struck lucky.
There it was! The Daimler! Cruising along in the slow lane at a modest sixty-five. Proctor eased off on his accelerator, then indicated left, and tucked himself nicely in, a couple of cars behind.
As the heater slowly dried his wet, filthy clothes, he smiled
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