That, or destroy it.
The afternoon was scorching. She sat beside Poe's grave, wearing black trousers and a black T-shirt, and she guessed she looked similar to a lot of visitors this particular graveyard attracted. At least for once she wouldn't stand out from the crowd. Traffic hustled by and stank up the air, but the iron fence seemed to have a calming effect on the noise, as if the somber atmosphere of the churchyard were thick enough to soothe it. Abby watched a big dump truck pull up at the traffic lights down the street and belch brown coughs of exhaust fumes into the air. She wished she could avoid breathing for an hour or two. Then she thought of some of those dead things she had seen on her last mission with Hellboy, and she drew in a thankful breath. Stinking air was better than no air at all.
This was her first time out on her own, and she was nervous. Tom Manning, the head of the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense, had been hesitant about sending her out for a solo job, especially as this was such a personal assignment for her. "Send a monster to catch one!" she had said perkily, but Tom had frowned, and she had seen the troubled mind ever present behind his gruff exterior. Hellboy, Liz Sherman, and Abe Sapien were all out of the country on separate missions, and the significance of this had not been lost on Abby. There was a lot of stuff going on in the world right now. Weird stuff. BPRD stuff. Tom hated sending his agents out on their own.
But she had insisted, and he had relented, and now here she was sitting on Poe's grave waiting for a werewolf. She would recognize it when she saw it. She looked in the mirror every morning, after all.
Two young men entered the graveyard sporting identical black T-shirts, bald heads, and goatees. One was taller than the other, but other than that, they were peas in a Gothic pod. They even had the same look of reverence on their faces.
"Cool," one of them said. At first Abby thought he was staring at her, but then she realized it was the stone edifice behind her.
"She's pretty hot, too," the other one said.
"Well, boys, it is a bloody hot day." Abby smiled as she saw the effect her voice had on the men. The shorter one even stepped back a couple of paces as her throaty, sultry words faded into the street noise. She laughed quietly, knew the sound reached them, and she remembered howling at the moon and how that made her throat sore in the morning. But how wonderful it felt every single time.
She stood, stretched, looked around. Cant let my guard down! But there was no sign of the werewolf, and playing with these two would be fun.
The taller man was braver than his mate. "So you're hanging out with Edgar, too, huh?"
"Just somewhere cool to park my ass."
"Yeah, too cool."
The small guy asked, "Can you take our picture?"
Abby smiled and nodded. "Sure."
He stepped forward, probably totally unaware of the expression on his face: naked lust crossed with animal fear. He handed the camera to Abby. The taller man blinked at the length of her nails and the tattoos of claws along the lengths of her fingers. Self-parody, she wanted to say, but it would be lost on them.
The men skirted around Abby and positioned themselves on either side of Poe's tombstone. They looked nervous, their smiles forced, and Abby shook her head and turned away.
"Get yourselves natural, guys," she said. "Tell a joke. Ogle my ass. Remember the last time you got drunk together. I'll take your picture when you look like yourselves." She heard giggles behind her and took the opportunity to scan the street. Still no werewolf. Men and women, boys and girls, walking to and fro along the pavement. Abby sniffed. Smog, heat, sweat, but nothing like the wild musk she would recognize. Other than her own, of course. She could never shake that, however many baths or showers she took. She wondered whether the boys could smell her.