CRESCENT OF STEEL AND DARKNESS

Chapter 9

The first step in the new combined investigation, all had agreed, was to return to the crime scene. The Missing Persons and Crime Scene units followed in their own cars closely behind the heavily shielded BPRD van. Fortunately the Metropolitan Museum had already closed for the evening, and the Arms and Armor galleries had been kept off-limits to the public since the robbery and murder. It was easier than expected for Dr. Manning to bring his two primary investigators into the area without being seen. The museum staff had been more than cooperative with his request for strict privacy during the investigation once he had mentioned the "potentially extremely hazardous materials" they planned to use for analysis of the site.

Agent Johnson had been dispatched to the apartments of the vanished Derek Shaftoe and Agent Martin Fitzgerald to recover items to be used in the process of psychometric reading Manning had described. The others, three federal agents and three NYPD detectives, were with Manning and his oddly assorted team in the dark galleries. The search was to begin at the violated case and the outline marking the victim's fall.

Abe Sapien was the point man on the search. He started at the case, placing flippered hands in and around the hole in the glass, his deep eyes lost in concentration and seemingly blind to immediate surroundings. Sam leaned over to John and whispered, "What's he doing?"

"Feeling for vibrations," John explained. "This is how he can re-create a scene. And if al-Ghul, or whoever he sent, left a strong enough trace, we can track him down."

After thoroughly pawing the sword case all over, Sapien stepped gingerly over to the body outline and suddenly dropped to all fours, his face barely an inch from the floor, as if scrutinizing its woodwork. "So what is this guy?" Detective Don Flack muttered. "Half fish, or half dog?"

The piscine's head snapped up; his onyx eyes looked right at Flack. "Very interesting that you should put it that way, Detective," Sapien said mildly. "In both modern and biblical Hebrew, the word for 'fish' is, in fact, 'dog,' which is merely an interesting coincidence…"

A once-horned red head atop massive shoulders loomed over the blue mutant. "Yeah, it's interesting, Abe, but don't let Detective Elvis here knock you off your game, OK?" Hellboy shot an intimidating glare at Flack.

"Sorry, Red," said Sapien as he returned his concentration to the floor.

"Sorry here, too," Flack echoed, quietly and almost too sincerely.

Within two minutes Sapien had completed his eccentric appraisal of the crime scene. He stood up and declared, "It appears that our initial reconstruction of the event was largely correct. It was al-Ghul who breached the case. He had already removed the sword when the guard entered the gallery from the direction of the American Wing. The unfortunate fellow had not even seen the intruder when al-Ghul cut him down at a distance of almost four meters."

"Great. Got it," Danny replied skeptically. "Now where do we go from here?"

That seemed to deflate the other a little. He shrugged helplessly. "Unfortunately, we have almost nothing left here that the thief touched. He took the cut section of glass with him, and the sword, of course. His brief contact with the remaining glass of the case was nowhere near enough to leave a trace strong enough to connect with his present whereabouts."

That gave Jack Malone an idea. "How about the floor itself? He had to be in contact with the spot beside the case long enough to cut his way in."

Sapien sighed. "It doesn't work that way, Agent Malone. I'm afraid that shoes act as effective insulators. Unmediated contact is necessary. What was that, Detective Bonasera?"

"Nothing; I just said 'Crap,' that's all."

"Couldn't have put it better myself." The scarlet giant folded his arms. "Like the kid said before, Abe, where do we go from here?"

His blue colleague shrugged again. "We'll need more evidence. With your permission, Dr. Manning, Agent Malone, Detective Taylor," he nodded to each unit commander in turn, "I'd like to make a sweep of these galleries, to see if I can pick up anything more that might help us."

No one objected, and Sapien set out to explore the rest of the room. He moved rapidly yet precisely, bent over in a half-crouch that neither Flack nor Danny dared say reminded them of Groucho Marx. It was not long before he had made his way through all the Arms and Armor galleries on one side of the great central court. "Anything yet, Abe?" John Myers asked almost timidly.

Sapien straightened up and cast a last look around at the roomful of samurai swords and armor where he had ended up. "Not exactly, John…but I think I'm picking something up in this direction." He quickly turned and hurried toward the central area, passing between wall cases of samurai helmet masks and ornamental arrowheads without a glance.

The group found themselves almost at the rear of the section, behind the immense Ionic columns that separated the Equestrian Court from the small displays of weapons of the American Revolution. Hellboy glanced downcourt between the columns. "Sometimes you look into the distance and you see mostly horses' asses."

Some of the humans took his cue and looked towards the central displays of mounted knights, all with their backs to the investigators, but Sapien did not. Indeed, it seemed as if the piscine had not even heard him; the big black eyes had swung towards several cases of brightly polished sabres. Within a few seconds, his gaze focused on one in particular: a tall glass box isolating a single fine example, with keen blade and silver-and-ivory hilt.

Sapien hurried to the case, clamping his claws to either side of it as if eager to give it a hug. The sword seemed to fill his field of vision. "This," he breathed, his normally calm voice hushed with banked excitement. "We've got to have this." He turned to Manning, his eyes pleading. "Talk to the curators, the Director, the Mayor, whatever it takes, sir! We must bring this piece with us!"

Hellboy turned from the rear view of the knights on display. "Why don't you tell us what the hell it is first?" he rumbled.

The finned hands withdrew; Sapien took a short step back. "I – I don't know. But it's essential!"

Bonasera was the first to do the obvious: read the wall caption. "Sabre, American, circa 1780…" She went silent for a moment, then resumed. "Guys…this is the presentation sword of George Washington."

"You have got to be kidding." Malone swept in beside her to read the mounted text and instantly take back his statement. "You're not kidding."

"Please, Dr. Manning," Sapien repeated, "we have to bring it with us."

"Now you're kidding," Manning replied to his psychic agent. "Have you any idea what kind of rigmarole they'll put us through if we requisition anything in this collection?"

"In that case," his huge red agent said crisply, "we'd better take the direct approach." With that, he gave Sapien a gentle nudge out of the way, swaggered up to the case and locked a hand on either side.

Manning turned chalk white. "Oh no, no, no…he's not going to – listen Hellboy, you can't do that!"

A deep breath, a long grunt, and the sound of glass breaking free from the floor-level wooden case frame. "Sorry, Manning. Already have." Gently the giant raised the almost-intact glass box above the sword it had protected, then placed it on the floor. As all the humans stared incredulously, he announced, "Time to give this sucker a try!" First he reached for the sabre with his right hand, then quickly switched for the left once he realized the hilt was too small for the stone limb.

As he took up the weapon, raising it from the metal armature that had held it up, a wide grin glowed on Hellboy's face. "Looks like you called it, Abe! I don't know what it is, but this thing's got some serious mojo to it." He stepped away from the group to try a practice swing, then another. "Man, it just lifts the hair on your neck. I feel like I could join the Three Musketeers!"

"It's the wrong blade pattern for the period…" Sapien began.

"But the right one for right now!" The scarlet agent flourished the sword again.

Once sure that his subordinate was no longer swinging the blade wide and high, Manning approached carefully, a hand extended. "Give it to me."

Hellboy turned to him resentfully, pulling the sabre in close as if to protect it. "Why? So you can go tattle to the nearest museum drone?"

"Not at all." He grinned. "So I can try it myself!"

Jaws dropped to left and right, none lower than Hellboy's. "Uh – did I hear you right, sir?"

"You did, Agent Hellboy." The director's hand was still reaching out in request. "The sword of George Washington – who wouldn't want to hold it?"

Golden eyes looked at the sword uncertainly, possessively…then Hellboy smartly turned the hilt around in his hand and extended it to his boss. "Sure, have a try."

"Thank you." Manning's tone was all sincerity. His fingers closed around the hilt carefully, reverently, and slowly he weighed in in his hand. "I – I feel it too!" Deliberately he lifted it toward the ceiling high above. "My God, this is amazing…'I speak the pass-word primeval, I give the sign of democracy'!" He paused, staring at the gleaming thing he held, then slowly lowered it and returned it hilt-first to the warrior agent. "There's power here, Agent. Use it wisely."

"No problem, boss."

The others had been watching in many shades of wonder, incredulity, and bewilderment. It was Malone who broke the spell by declaring, "Yes, but the question remains: Where is he going to use it? We still have no clues as to where our suspects and our agent are!"

And as if on cue, Vivian Johnson showed up at the grand entrance of the Equestrian Court and hurried to meet them. She held two small plastic bags in her latex-gloved hand; without fuss or ceremony she presented them to Manning.

"Thank you, Agent Johnson," he said crisply. Carefully the BPRD director broke the zippered seals and dropped the contents into Sapien's webbed and clawed fingers.

Sapien took them gingerly, one in each hand as if weighing them; again, nothing crossed his nearly expressionless face as he considered the evidence in his unique way. The others gathered around to watch.

That was when most of them finally registered exactly what Johnson had brought. In the piscine detective's right hand lay a pair of blue cotton men's briefs; his left held a black satin thong. "Oh my God," Sam intoned slowly. From behind Hellboy's great right hand came a throaty rumble everyone recognized as a giggle.

A huge grin split Danny's face as he made an exaggerated lean in toward Sapien and the evidence, and probed waggishly, "Interesting. Which are Martin's?"

"Shut up, Danny!" Sam snarled.

"Sorry." The grin stayed.

"But really, Agent Johnson." Detective Bonasera was smiling too, almost in spite of herself. "Underwear?"

Johnson didn't miss a beat. "Supposedly the longer and closer the contact with something, the stronger the psychic imprint. Right, Agent Sapien?" The mutant nodded. "So, try to do better than this."

"Good job, Viv," Malone declared. "Are you getting anything, Agent Sapien?"

Now the immense eyes had rolled up toward the ceiling, but seemed to see nothing. In a matter of seconds that felt like minutes, Sapien relaxed, his intense concentration dissipating, and his deep black gaze went to his own hands, back and forth from left to right. "Yes, I am. Unfortunately, both signals are rather less precise than I would like." He looked to Malone. "I'm sorry to have to say that my fears are confirmed. There's some sort of interference that I believe indicates that the actual location is indeed warded."

Taylor stepped in closer, skepticism set aside. "But there are signals. How close can you get?"

"Under these circumstances, Detective, not very close at all. I'm getting a northeasterly direction and a range of about fifty miles, and I'm afraid that's the best I can do. With some of the equipment back at home, though, we might be able to refine the search."

"All right, then." Hellboy had taken command. "We're going back to do just that. I'll take a little practice with this thing, see what it can do." He hefted the saber in his left hand, then addressed the humans. "There's not much the rest of you can do at this point. Might as well go home and get some sleep."

John Myers nodded in agreement. "We'll contact all of you as soon as we have something."

Cool little golden eyes turned to him. "I meant you too, Boy Scout."

"I know you did, Red."

XXXX

It was fully dark outside, and the clock in Mac Taylor's office registered long after shift's end. He and Bonasera still lingered after returning from the Metropolitan Museum, but were not planning to linger further. "Quite a day, Stella," he observed in ironic understatement.

"You might say that," she replied wryly. In her seat before his desk, she made a feline stretch and went on, "If we never have one like it again, it'll be too soon."

"Amen. I just hope that Agent Sapien learns enough to track down those maniacs." He smiled a little. "Actually, I wouldn't mind a chance to work with him again. Whatever else he is, he's fascinating."

Bonasera nodded, but the wryness stayed. "Fascinating, all right, and in his way very sweet…but hard to relax around. Every time he looked at me with those – those endless eyes, they seemed to be asking Walt Whitman's question: 'Who are you? And what are you secretly guilty of all your life?' Although I'm sure he didn't mean to have that effect."

Taylor's little smile stretched. "We saw a lot of outlandish things today, but nothing as impossible as Stella Bonasera without a clean conscience!"

"Oh, you'd be surprised!" she teased, grinning.

"Yes, I would," he teased back. Then he stifled a sudden yawn. "God, I'm tired. I can barely believe what we went through today…" his voice dropped, "and the worst part was having to lie to Sheldon."

She nodded sympathetically. "Maybe someday you'll be able to tell him the whole truth, but what you did tell him – that the victim was killed with a stolen experimental weapon that the FBI is trying to recover – really isn't far from it."

"I guess not," he conceded. "And at least James Abbott's body could finally be released to his family." The next yawn could not be held back.

"Oh, Mac, I've never seen you so exhausted. We'd both better go home."

"At least get out of here," he said, rubbing his temples and breathing in a rushed pant. "It got so warm in here all of a sudden…and do you hear anything strange?"

"Hear anything strange?" The criminalist peered at her partner and commander. "Like what?"

"Some kind of gurgling like you hear in old pipes." His eyes were squeezed shut, and he rubbed his temples again. "It's giving me a headache."

"I don't hear anything. Are you sure?" Bonasera turned and rose, going to the office window to raise the blind blocking the view of the lab. "Nothing seems to be going on. What do you think it is, Mac – Mac!" She turned back toward the desk and froze at the sight of the empty office.

Detective Don Flack had been considering whether or not to drop by the crime lab before going home. The shriek that ripped down the corridor made up his mind for him. Racing to the lab, he caught sight of Bonasera at the window of Taylor's office, staring at nothing; he burst into the office and took her into his arms to calm her. "Stella! Stella, what happened?"

"Flack – oh, God…" She gripped him hard, screams turning to sobs as she struggled to control herself, finally able to blurt out the story. He listened silently, the color draining from his face as he understood. The hissing clumps of acidic spittle and mucus on the desk corroborated her story all too well. When he'd heard it all, the detective declared, almost too calmly, "We've got to call the BPRD and get over there ASAP…and we'd better bring this." He darted behind the desk, drew a penknife and cut a patch of upholstery from the seat of Taylor's chair. "Looks like we've got another job for Agent Sapien."

Bonasera came to herself rapidly now that the challenge was shared. She snapped on gloves and snatched a glass vial to preserve the slime the invader had left behind. "Make that two, Flack. I'm bringing the physical traces of both abductions."

TO BE CONTINUED