The God Machine Page 0,6

one of his fingernails like he hadn't eaten in a week.

Hellboy glanced at the clipboard in his hand. "We are talking about a rock, right?"

The man nodded eagerly. "Yes, a boulder. Been there forever. It separated my property from the woods behind it."

Alarm bells had gone off at the BPRD headquarters in Fairfield when some desk jockey at the Plymouth, Massachusetts, Police Department keyed Kramer's case into their computers. The Bureau had a deal with most of the police departments in the U.S., and hundreds of locations abroad; if anything out of the ordinary was reported, it raised a flag and a copy of the file was sent to the BPRD. Most of the stuff was junk, but every once in a while something piqued their curiosity. Lately, that had been happening more often than usual. The brain trust at the BPRD had noticed a pattern. Things were being reported missing--odd things.

The BPRD didn't like patterns.

"Was there anything unusual about this boulder?" Hellboy asked.

"No," Kramer answered sharply. "It was just a rock--a big rock. Why?"

Hellboy scratched the back of his head, unsure how to explain. This particular "big rock" had been cataloged in the Bureau's informational database as an object of religious significance, something worshipped by a primitive people long ago. The cheat sheet Hellboy had on his clipboard didn't give him much more information than that, but he knew that it was only the latest in a long list of similar items that had disappeared throughout the region over the past month or so.

"No reason." Hellboy shrugged his large shoulders. "Just covering all the bases." He placed the clipboard under his arm. "Can I take a look at the scene of the crime?"

A twitch had developed at the corner of Kramer's right eye. "A crime? Do you think a crime's been committed?"

Hellboy sighed. "It's just an expression. So can I take a look?"

"Certainly," the man replied after breathing a sigh of relief. "It's through here." He turned toward a room behind him.

Yep, definitely squirrelly.

Kramer led Hellboy into a room filled with books, floor to ceiling, on shelves and in piles on the floor.

"Do a lot of reading, huh?" Hellboy was careful not to disturb any of the precariously balanced stacks.

The man stopped halfway across the room and turned. "Yes, yes I do. For my work. I'm a writer. This is my reference library."

From the corner of his eye, Hellboy saw something dart around one of the piles to disappear behind a heavy-looking, floor-to-ceiling bookcase. It was bigger than a mouse, maybe a rat, but he couldn't be sure.

"Do you read much, Mister...Boy?"

Hellboy looked quickly back at Kramer to find the man glaring at the bookcase. He had seen it as well.

"Not as much as I'd like. I read a little Louis L'Amour, some Spillane, and I really like that Mc-Murtry guy."

"Yes," Kramer nodded, obviously humoring him. "I hear he's quite good."

"Wish I had more time," Hellboy said. "But you know how it is, slave to minimum wage and all."

The man nodded--smile way too friendly for an ordinary suburban guy having a conversation with someone big and red, with hooves and a tail. Hellboy normally made ordinary citizens nervous at first, and as squirrelly as Kramer was, he didn't think he was the cause.

Kramer continued on across the room. "I know what you mean."

Hellboy followed, searching for anything else out of the ordinary. "So what kind of writing do you do?"

An arched doorway at the end of the room opened into another hall. A large, winding staircase on the right led up to the second level, and the hallway straight ahead would take them to the kitchen.

"Fantasy mostly," Kramer said, turning back to face Hellboy. "I have a best-selling series about a wandering knight who--"

"You got dragons in those books, Don?" Hellboy interrupted. "I can tell you some stuff about those babies that'll curl your toenails." He winked conspiratorially.

Kramer forced a smile. "That...that would be wonderful. Maybe after you find out who took my stone..."

Something crashed to the floor in the room above them. Hellboy's gaze darted to the ceiling and then the stairs.

The writer laughed uneasily, moving to the staircase. "It's nothing," he said. "Probably just the cat getting into something he shouldn't."

"Yeah, they're like that," Hellboy said.

Kramer gestured down the hallway. "The back door is right down there."

There was another, louder crash, followed by the sound of breaking glass. The look on Kramer's face was one of absolute terror. He shrieked, frantically starting up the stairs on his