Hellboy: Odd Jobs by Christopher Golden, Mike Mignola Page A

chamber.
    Malcolm MacDougal lay on a bed of leaves beside an underground pool the size of a goldfish pond. His eyes were glazed, feverishly delirious. His left leg was broken and lay at a painful angle. How had he come to be here? Had she carried him?
    "Mother," he said. "Don't leave me. Stay with me. I don't feel well."
    She said nothing, but a strange smile crept across his dirt-smeared features. He had his father's mouth, his mother's eyes. I sensed something pass between them.
    "I'm here to take you home," I said.
    The smile faded.
    "Yes, Mother said it's time to go now," he mumbled.
    I scooped him up as carefully as possible, and, as La Llorona led, we made our way back.
    His head felt hot, his body thin and fragile. The water had kept him alive, but the boy was famished and the fever had drained him. As I navigated my way through the trees, I sensed she was no longer with us. Turning, I saw she had faded into the night like breath on a cold day. She had done her part, and now I had to finish mine. I hoped my luck would continue; perhaps we'd run across a passing motorist who wouldn't crash at the sight of a large red creature carrying the body of a small boy.
    Malcolm murmured in his delirium.
    "Mother ... don't leave ... me ... "
    His condition was worse than I first thought.
    I wanted to run. I needed to get him to the Los Alamos hospital. Every step seemed to rattle his bones.
    Sudden movement was out of the question. I hoped for a car or truck. Otherwise, all I could do was take it one step at a time. His breath came in a short dry wheeze.
    One step became another. Keeping my eyes on the ground, my mind wandered. Halfway across the meadow, I realized I had left the forest behind.
    And realized Malcolm was dead.
    Tears of frustration spilled from my eyes. I lowered myself to the grass, cradling the small corpse. Too late. I had failed.
    "We're cursed," Oppenheimer had said as we drove to Los Alamos. "I believe those of us who made the bomb, or continue to work on the program, will never be forgiven for what we've done. Whatever your faith, whichever God you believe in ... it doesn't matter. We're cursed. We committed the greatest sin against life.
    Men create to destroy. Women create. They create life. We only destroy it."
    Those words echoing in my mind, I looked down on Malcolm's urchin-like face. In death, his features more resembled those of his father. Poor Jamie. What could I say to him? In helping to father weapons of destruction he had lost sight of the life he had helped create, unintentionally pushing the boy towards the arms of a delusion.
    A tear fell from my face and ran across Malcolm's cheek, wiping away a smudge of dirt. It looked like he, too, was crying. A tear of joy, for I hoped he was with his mother now.
    And I wondered, in that unguarded moment, who would mourn for me?
    From deep in the woods, I heard La Llorona let loose her painful lament.
    Delivered
    Greg Rucka
    Way I figure it, I'm kinda a citizen of the world, you know? Which I suppose is a healthy attitude for an individual who was summoned more than born. I've got allegiances, of course, and as far as I'm concerned I'm absolutely Red, White, and Blue, an American through and through, but if citizenship is birth, well, I'm most likely British. And let's not even talk about my mother.
    Speaking as an American, I've got a fondness for New York City, for its vitality and roaring energy, for the way that it just never can slow down, even for a second, even if it's heading for a cliff which, more often
    than not, it is. Liz puts it best: she says, "New York City, the place where you can get anything you want, any time, day or night. And you can get it delivered."
    Says it all, really. I know the city pretty well, having hoofed it through town on more than one occasion.
    That's another reason I like NYC
    I get marginally fewer stares wandering through the Village than elsewhere. Not like red with a tail and lumpy doesn't raise eyebrows, but down