The Dragon Pool: The Dragon Pool by Christopher Golden Read Free Book Online

the lager he'd already spilled on himself. His companion loomed on the left side of the booth, broad and ugly. Black Vaughan was the brains of the partnership, according to what Hellboy had learned from pressuring a water bogey called Shellycoat down at the docks. The morons had stolen a shipment of mystically active Egyptian relics being returned to the British Museum after an exhibition tour.
    "Evening, boys," Hellboy said.
    Vaughan shook his head and sneered at Burch. "Stupid git. You were followed."
    "Like hell I was," Burch replied, crossing his arms like a petulant child.
    Black Vaughan turned and glared up at Hellboy from beneath his prominent brow. "How'd you find us?"
    Hellboy shrugged. "No offense. It wasn't hard. You guys aren't the sharpest knives in the drawer. First mistake was trying to sell the relics you stole back to the museum. Some private buyer would've paid you pretty much whatever you want, and wouldn't have called in help."
    Vindicated, Burch gave a superior sniff and picked up his pint of lager. His head swayed a bit, and he had trouble finding his mouth with the glass. Drunken goblins looked like fools, but they weren't any more compliant than the sober kind.
    "Think you're so bloody clever," Vaughan sneered. "I know who you are."
    "Yeah," Hellboy replied with a sigh. "Fame's a bitch."
    Burch lurched to his feet and cocked the glass back, spilling golden lager across the table. Drunk as he was, he telegraphed the move badly, and Hellboy grabbed his wrist before the blow could land. The glass fell from his grip and shattered on the table. Whimpering in pain, putting his all into the old, helpless man act, Blue Burches slid back into the booth, shaking as he began to sob.
    Then he snarled, baring fangs and those little curved tusks. He slid as far back into the booth as he could, and began to vanish, dissipating into a swirl of blue smoke like some stage magician's bad illusion. In seconds, he'd mix with the cigarette fog and be gone.
    Hellboy flicked the switch on the vacuum and it moaned to life, droning loudly. Then he reached out with the vacuum hose and sucked that blue smoke into the canister, before flicking the power off and turning to set the vacuum on a barstool.
    "One down," he said, giving Black Vaughan a hard look.
    The brawny goblin laughed, and that low rasp insinuated itself under Hellboy's skin, actually gave him a shiver. The goblin shook his head as though in disdain, but as he did, his flesh changed. With the sound of his skull cracking, two enormous horns burst from the side of his head, then his face elongated painfully, so that now he looked like a bull--or at least like the Minotaur.
    The goblin-thing erupted from his seat with such force that the table shattered into half a dozen long shards. Black Vaughan started to bellow some threat or another, but Hellboy had lost patience.
    "Sit down!" he shouted, and he brought the stone fist of his colossal right hand down on Vaughan's head, snapping one of the bull's horns.
    The blow hammered the goblin back into his seat, and, with his left hand, Hellboy drew the heavy cannon from its holster and pointed it at the creature's skull.
    "No, no, wait," Vaughan said, wheezing as he tried to calm himself. He held up both hands in surrender. "I can tell you where we've got the stash. All the stuff we nicked. Not a piece missing."
    Hellboy holstered the gun. "Found it already. We've got one of those psychics who can touch stuff and learn from it, track it. Psychometry, it's called. Comes in handy. No pun intended."
    Vaughan stared at him. "You already have the relics?"
    "Yeah."
    The look of sadness on the goblin's face would have been heartbreaking if Hellboy didn't still want to beat the crap out of him for being such a cocky bastard.
    "What do you want with us, then?"
    Hellboy stared at him. "We want you not to give us trouble in the future. Your pal Burch is out of the game. Now it's your turn."
    He reached into his pocket. Vaughan shrank