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

away from him, but he was trapped by the back wall of the pub and the bench he was sitting on. There was nowhere for him to go as Hellboy drew the silver snuffbox out of his pocket. A groan of utter despair escaped the goblin's throat when he saw the pretty little box. He'd spent centuries trapped in that little box thanks to an occultist in Herefordshire and had escaped only twice. The last time had been twenty-seven years before.
    "How did you find it?" the goblin asked in a very small voice.
    "Private collector. He loaned it to us on condition that we give it back, with its original occupant inside."
    Terror in his eyes, the goblin looked up at him. "It was just a bit of mischief. You're a bloke's got up to some mischief, I'm sure. You don't know what it's like, trapped in there. Drove me mad. Never a moment of comfort. We didn't harm a soul."
    Hellboy blinked. "Other than the three people you gutted on the docks when you were stealing all of this. Not to mention the thousands that might have died if you'd unleashed the spells in some of those relics."
    "This is a bit of a laugh for you, is it? You find all this funny?" Vaughan demanded.
    Shifting guiltily, Hellboy took the cover off the silver snuffbox.
    "A little," he confessed, as Black Vaughan's essence was drawn, screaming, into the box, his body deflating as he was sucked in. The goblin's clothes were left behind on the bench in the wrecked booth.
    Hellboy took out a small silver key, locked the snuffbox, and slipped it back into his coat pocket. Then he picked up the vacuum and turned away from the ruin of the booth, trying to ignore the eyes of every patron in the pub. The old-timers who were regulars wore bemused expressions. This wasn't the weirdest thing they'd seen in this place. But the students and museum people gaped wider than ever.
    "Oy!" the bartender shouted as he walked by. "Who's going to pay for the damage?"
    Hellboy shot him a hard look, but on this subject, the bartender wasn't nearly as easily cowed. "British Museum. Ask for Dr. Paul Campbell."
    "I'm just supposed to take your word on that, let you walk out of here?"
    Not sure he'd heard the man properly, and giving the bartender a moment to rethink his wording, Hellboy turned to face him. But before either of them could speak again, Hellboy saw the reflection in the mirror of the redheaded woman he'd noticed earlier. She had risen from her table, to the panicked whispers of her friends, and was walking toward him.
    "Hellboy?" she ventured.
    He loved the lilt in her voice. Before he turned, he examined her in the mirror. Young, maybe late twenties, with the most perfect skin he had ever seen and straight, dark red hair that she tied back without bow or ribbon. Nothing fancy about her. Just porcelain features and bright, intelligent eyes, not to mention the confidence to approach him.
    When he turned, she smiled, and when she spoke, her hands fluttered around like birds. "Hi. Right, hello. I'm Anastasia Bransfield. I work with Dr. Campbell. Well, sort of. I'm an archaeologist with the...never mind."
    She offered a self-deprecating grin at her fumbling. "I'm not very good at this," Anastasia said, before looking past him at the bartender. "Martin, don't get your knickers in a twist, mate. The museum's just across the street. We're in here all the time, yeah? I'll vouch for Hellboy, and if Dr. Campbell won't replace that table from his budget, I'll cover it myself. No worries, all right?"
    Soothed by her voice and mere presence, Martin gave a small shrug. "Just don't like trouble in 'ere, Stacie. You know that."
    "Bollocks," Anastasia said, grinning. "You just don't like trouble you didn't start."
    "Cheeky thing," the bartender said.
    But by then Anastasia's attention was on Hellboy again. She gestured to the vacuum cleaner full of Blue Burches. "You in a rush to bring that back to wherever?"
    Hellboy thought he caught something in her inflection, and the glint of her gaze--a pleasant curiosity that he