The God Machine Page 0,9

"Why has a crimson spawn from the fiery pits come to your domicile?"

Hellboy started to speak.

"Silence!" King Seamus bellowed as he raised a dismissive hand. "I have not given you permission to speak."

It was all Hellboy could do not to stomp the rodent-sized monarch into the ground. Diplomacy had never been his strong suit.

Kramer stepped closer. "This is Hellboy--of the BPRD, he's come to help."

The tiny king crossed his arms over his chest and studied Hellboy with an unwavering eye.

"Can I talk now?" Hellboy asked.

The Graken soldiers moved closer.

Hellboy squinted down the barrel of his pistol. "I'd step back if I were you," he warned. "Big gun, big bullets, big mess."

The soldiers scowled but stepped back.

"You may speak, Hellspawn," King Seamus pronounced.

"It's Hellboy," he said, holstering his weapon. "Appreciate it. Look, Skipper, what your boy Kramer here said is right. I've come about the stone, so maybe you could explain why it's so freakin' important?"

There was an uneasy silence in the backyard as the king seemed to consider his response. He returned to his mount and climbed back into the saddle. Taking hold of the reins, and making an odd, clucking sound, he steered the rabbit toward the Graken women. "You will follow me."

Kramer at his side, Hellboy did, careful not to step on any of the little creatures swarming around his feet. "What's your connection to these guys?" he asked the writer.

Kramer vigorously rubbed at his arms, trying to warm them against the December chill. "Years ago, when my career had kind of stalled, I made a deal with them. In exchange for certain items--bread, alcohol, an occasional candy bar--they would assist me."

The wound near his eye had started to itch, and Hellboy rubbed at it as Kramer's words started to sink in. "These guys help you with your books?"

Kramer fixed him in an icy stare. "Would it be easier to accept if they were helping me make shoes?"

Hellboy shrugged. "Just never figured the little buggers as writers. See, even in my line of work I can still be surprised."

King Seamus had again climbed down from his bunny mount and was standing with the grief-stricken Graken Spriggin women. Hellboy could see where the stone had sat, the soil dark and rich, the area around it overturned by activity.

"And you didn't hear a thing?" Hellboy asked the man standing beside him.

Kramer shook his head. "Nothing. I woke up, and it was gone."

"This is where she rested," the king said, falling to his knees and reaching down to sink his tiny hands into the earth.

"You keep making reference to she," Hellboy commented. "No offense, I'm just saying, but, she's a rock."

Seamus rose, wiping the dirt from his hands. "She was our queen, the first of us all, Sheela-Na Gig, and from her blessed womb we sprang."

The female Graken began to wail again, throwing themselves in the earth and burying their faces. Most of the soldiers were crying now.

The king continued. "Those lesser races that came after us--the Gathan, the Goblin, the Fittletot and the Whoopity Stoorie--they was all jealous of our mother's love fer us, and us fer her, and joining their evil magicks together, they cursed her to stone."

"Bastards!" screeched one of the soldiers, inciting a fit of cursing among the gathered.

"But even as cold and lifeless stone, our mother's love was strong, and she continued to bless us, allowing our kind to grow in number over the centuries even as those who had turned her to rock dwindled and eventually were dust."

King Seamus reached over to gently stroke the brindle-colored fur of his rabbit mount as it nibbled on what remained of the late-fall grass. "But now she is gone, and already I see signs that our days are short."

A female Graken approached the king, hands upon her stomach. "A babe grew inside me, but now 'tis gone," she cried in a tiny, pathetic voice. One of the soldiers, the husband, Hellboy guessed, came to her then, taking her in his arms. They cried inconsolably.

"This is why we are enraged, Hellspawn," King Seamus said, voice rising in anger. "This is why we are moved to war, for without our Sheela-Na Gig, we will soon be no more, going the way of the Gathan, the Goblin..."

"Yeah, yeah, the Fittletot and the Whoopity Stoorie," Hellboy finished for him, moving closer to where the sacred stone had lain. "I get the picture. Without the rock, little Graken production goes belly-up."

He knelt in the dirt, after making sure that none of the Graken