Hellboy: Odd Jobs

by Christopher Golden

  Again, the old wound.

  And rain, red rain from emptied socket.

  Grendel bellowed into the rising day, launched himself from the branches and into the waters of the lake a

  tremendous splash, and then a rapid, rippling calm. For a moment Hellboy watched the wavelets, then retrieved his gun and waded in to follow.

  Awash in greenish murk, he swam slowly and, as any good hunter would, followed the threads of blood that swirled and eddied before him. Down and down and down, as the lake was gray-lit by the first spears of sunlight to pierce its surface, the thinning blood-trail leading to a horizontal channel dug out of rock and clay.

  The breath ached against his lungs and an inky darkness enfolded him, total now, and still he kicked onward until a faint flickering orange beckoned overhead.

  Grendel's lair. Another land, another eon, but his habits persevered.

  Hellboy broke surface, found himself treading water in a small pool ringed by stream-smoothed stones. They had been chosen and placed with obvious care. As if their simple arrangement had been something that had mattered.

  He dredged himself from the water, stood dripping in a small cavern far below the surface of the daylight world. Its earthen walls crawled with roots; the light from half a dozen torches shimmered on the moist sheen of its rocks and strobed a dance of shadows. In one corner, a heaped jumble of tooth-marked bones.

  And upon the walls, suspended from brackets of sticks, hung their swords.

  He plucked a torch from its seat of earth and back, back along a corridor where the light was loath to reach, followed the spatters of blood upon the floor. Their size shrunk every step or two, until he could clearly see what they'd led him to.

  By all the gods that ever were, he had never seen anything like this.

  At first Hellboy thought it was a body sitting propped against the cavern wall, an enormous corpse somehow half-preserved from an epoch when its kind had walked above ground. But no, it had never lived ... only its parts had.

  Bones made from branches

  the trunks of saplings for its arms and legs and spine, stout curved branches for ribs. The wool of sheep wound like muscle mass around the makeshift limbs. For a head, a bale of hay stuffed into a large grain-sack, with hair of plastered weeds and algae. And skin quilted together from the hides of at least a dozen men, fashioning from them this colossal hag's pendulous breasts, matronly belly, her atrocious face.

  It weeps, the hanging man had said. In the night, it weeps.

  Hellboy understood now whom those tears were for.

  His mother. From the only tools at hand, Grendel had remade his mother.

  The telling of his slayer's tale had come as news to Grendel. That much was apparent. Could he even know, then, that she too had fallen to Beowulf? Did he wonder, did he suspect? Or did he weep only because he had been spawned once more into a world where she no longer existed?

  Hellboy squeezed shut his eyes, able to understand that feeling, his own mother never anything more to him than an echo, a phantom glimpsed in the desecrated ruins of a church in East Bromwich. Old deluded woman at the end of a lifetime shaped by devil's lies.

  Or had he only hallucinated her to compensate for what he'd never known, making her outright from the fabric of his need?

  At his feet, there issued a turbid flow of blood from the juncture of the hag's splayed and outstretched legs.

  Hellboy reached forward and, as if opening the flap of a tent, peeled back a drape of leathery skin on the sagging kettledrum of her belly. Behind it, Grendel sat curled double within the hollow, remaining hand clamped over the ragged socket of his shoulder.

  The fight now bled from him, Grendel stared back at Hellboy over the muzzle of his gun.

  "So plain it is in your eyes ... " said Grendel. "You do not think I belong in this world or any other."

  "I'm hardly alone in that," Hellboy told him.

  "Others may look upon you and judge you the same."

  "Not if they know enough to judge me by my actions."

  "Ah, those," whispered Grendel. "Protecting the very ones who would find you a fearful thing to look upon?

  Defending them from the rawheads and the bloodybones of a darkness that could not exist if they did not feed it ... crave it in spite of their piety? Because even a hellspawn is better than their fears that there may be nothing for them beyond this life."

  Life-blood oozed over and between those trembling, spindly fingers. Surely there could not be much more left for his heart to pump. And it was said, Hellboy recalled, that the blood of Cain flowed in him, and this was why Grendel had turned against mankind. He was every man that killed his brother, no matter how loosely one defined the term.

  "Answer me one thing," Grendel said. "Will Paradise welcome you any more than it would welcome me?

  Your heart may be a good one, but will the guardians of the Gate forgive you the birth you must have had?"

  He did not know how to answer this. Knew only what he hoped.

  "I thought as much," said Grendel. "This, too, is so plain in your eyes." And then he shut his own, and murmured, "Mercy."

  Hellboy shook his head. "Even if I was inclined to give it, there's no time and nothing I could do for you."

  "You do not understand." Slowly, slowly, Grendel craned his neck forward to bring his skull within a hair's breadth of the gun. "I would not die the same ignoble death twice. So I ask you ... "

  And some part of him

  the same part which days ago, this mystery still unfolding as he walked in spirals, wondered if what the land had birthed might not in some way be his brother didn't want to do this.

  " ... all I ask you ... "

  Oh, but they all wore the mark of Cain, didn't they?

  " ... mercy."

  He obliged, and pulled the trigger.

  Hellboy waited awhile before leaving the lair. Spent some time sorting amidst the bones for any trinkets that might be recovered for a grieving widow or child, to bring them the tiniest comfort a necklace, a medallion

  but there were none to be found. So he waited until the torches burned themselves out, one by one, and stared at the ruin of this son, this surrogate mother.

  Pondering, too, his own fate, his legacy. Wondering if after long centuries anyone, anywhere, might know of him, know the least thing about him, care.

  And when the last torch remained, he touched it to those flammable parts of the mother's vast body, the kindling wood and the hay, and when at last they caught, he hoped that it would burn the rest, as any funeral pyre should. And that some of the smoke, at least, would sift its way through the soil, up, up, to be sighed by the earth into the air, spirals of breath and vapor that would rise into the sky to meet the clouds, and linger there, and someday fall back with the rain.

  Contributors

  STEPHEN R. BISSETTE has been in the comics industry for over twenty years, and writing professionally for over a decade. Along with his award-winning work as a cartoonist and illustrator, Bissette has scripted, edited, published, and co-published a variety of projects.

  Bissette is perhaps best known for the award-winning Saga of the Swamp Thing, a milestone in comics publishing. Shortly thereafter, he published the Eisner Award-winning horror comics anthology, Taboo, which was the birthplace of Alan Moore and Eddie Campbells From Hell. As an illustrator, he has worked on projects by such writers as Neil Gaiman, Joe R. Lansdale, and Douglas E. Winter. As a writer, Bissette's hundreds of interviews and articles have appeared in dozens of magazines. His original novella. Aliens: Tribes, won the Bram Stoker Award in 1992, and he has scripted numerous comics. Through his imprint, Spiderbaby Grafix, Bissette self-published S. R. Bissette's Tyrant, a rigorously researched portrait of the birth, life, and death of a Tyrannosaurus rex in late Cretaceous North America.

  He lives in southern Vermont with his teenage children, Maia and Daniel, who also write and draw their own comics and stories.

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  POPPY Z. BRITE is
the author of four novels, Lost Souls, Drawing Blood, Exquisite Corpse, and The Lazarus Heart, two short-story collections, Wormwood(a.k.a. Swamp Foetus) and Are You Loathsome Tonight? and a biography of rock diva Courtney Love. She has edited two anthologies, Love In Vein and Love in Vein 2. Her fiction and non-fiction have appeared in numerous anthologies and magazines.

  Brite's interests include Victorian hairwork and mourning jewelry, traveling, gardening, animal rescue, and gourmet dinner with her husband Christopher, a chef. She lives in New Orleans.

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  MAX ALLAN COLLINS is the Shamus Award-winning author of the Nathan Heller detective novels. He is a leading author of movie and TV tie-ins, including the NYPD Blue novels and such best sellers as In the Line of Fire, Air Force One, The Mummy, and Saving Private Ryan. With artist Terry Beatty, he co-created Ms.

  Tree, Wild Dog, and the mini-series Johnny Dynamite: Underworld, co-created Mike Danger with Mickey Spillane; and wrote the 'Dick Tracy' comic strip for fifteen years. An independent filmmaker in his native Iowa, Collins wrote and directed the cult-fave thrillers Mommy and Mommy's Day, and recently completed a documentary, Mike Hammers Mickey Spillane.

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  NANCY A. COLLINS is the author of several novels, including the award-winning Sunglasses After Dark, Walking Wolf, and Angels on Fire. She has written more than fifty short stories. Her comics credentials include a two-year stint as writer on DCs Swamp Thing, and the mini-series Predator: Hell Come A' Walkin', for Dark Horse Comics. She also wrote a comics series based on her fan-favorite character, Sonja Blue.

  Several of her novels have been optioned for film.

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  MATTHEW J. COSTELLO is the author of sixteen novels and numerous non-fiction articles and books.

  He wrote the script for The 7th Guest, the best-selling CD-ROM interactive drama of all time. His latest novel, Masque (Warner Books, 1998), has been optioned by Tom Cruises production company. His upcoming Poltergeist novel, Maelstrom (PenguinPutnam), will appear in February 2000. His novels have been published worldwide in over a dozen countries.

  For The Sci-Fi Channel, Costello co-created and scripted FTL News. He is the creator/writer for the Disney Channel's ZOOG-DISNEY, launched in August 1998, and renewed for 1999. Costello is currently writing episodes for the BBC/Disney series, Microsoap, and developing a new series for the BBC, with Douglas Adams, called The Glitch.

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  CRAIG SHAW GARDNER has spent far too much of his life around comic books. This has resulted in his management of a comic-book store (the fabulous Million Year Picnic in Cambridge, MA) and his work on a number of media tie-in projects, like the novelization Batman (a New York Times Best Seller), and Spider-Man: Wanted Dead or Alive. Craig has written a whole bunch of other books, from his first, A Malady of Magicks, to his most recent, The Magic Dead (written under another name that also starts with G).

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  CHRISTOPHER GOLDEN is the award-winning, LA. Times best-selling author of such novels as Strangewood and the three-volume Shadow Saga; Hellboy: The Lost Army, and the Body of Evidence series of teen thrillers (including Thief of Hearts and Soul Survivor), which is currently being developed for television. He has also written or co-written a great many things-from novels and non-fiction to

  comic-book series and mini-series

  based on the popular TV series, Bufjy the Vampire Slayer, and its spin-off, Angel Golden's recent comic-book work includes the Angel ongoing series; Wolverine/Punisher: Revelation; and the upcoming Batman: Real Worlds. Golden was born and raised in Massachusetts, where he still lives with his family. He graduated from Tufts University. He is currently at work on his next novel, Straight on 'Til Morning. Please visit him at www.christophergolden.com.

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  RICK HAUTALA is the author of seventeen novels (most recently The Hidden Saint, from Berkley) and more than fifty short stories (many of which are published in his new collection, Bedbugs, from CD

  Publications) along with several movie scripts (including The Jungle Vine, Nerve Center, and Star Road) which are currently under option (or they may be in production or option lapsed by the time you read this ...

  you know how Hollywood is). He lives in southern Maine, and when he isn't working on his new novel, The White Room, can usually be found reading.

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  BRIAN HODGE is the author of seven novels, the most recent of which is Wild Horses, a 1999 hardcover release from William Morrow & Company. He has also written seventy-five or so short stories and novellas, some of which have been chained like galley slaves into the highly acclaimed collections The Convulsion Factory and Falling Idols. Several times he has been a finalist for the Bram Stoker Award and World Fantasy Award, but so far always a bridesmaid, etc. He also pens book and music reviews, and other non-fiction as the spirit moves, and is currently at work on his next novel.

  Turn-ons include movies, wanderlust, Wallace and Gromit, collecting weapons (with his medieval war hammer being a particularly intimidating favorite), hearty stouts and ales, and Saint Brendan's Irish Cream.

  He plays keyboards and the Australian aboriginal didgeridoo, and has begun accumulating recording gear into a cramped but functional collective dubbed Green Man Studio.

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  NANCY HOLDER is a four-time Bram Stoker Award winner for her supernatural short stories and her novel Dead in the Water. She has sold thirty-five novels and over two hundred short stories. Her most recent novels include the science-fiction trilogy, Gambler's Star, and a great many Buffy the Vampire Slayer novels.

  Holder has also written computer-game fiction and manga and TV commercials in Japan. She lives in San Diego, California.

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  MIKE MIGNOLA, the Eisner and Harvey Award-winning creator of Hellboy, has worked in comics since 1983, on many projects, including Gotham by Gaslight, Cosmic Odyssey, and Ironwolf: Fires of the Revolution. He's done illustration work for books and magazines, and design work for television and film, including Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula and the upcoming Disney animated film, Atlantis.

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  YONNE NAVARRO has published four solo novels and three novelizations, plus a whole bunch of short stones. Two of her novels, Afterage and Deadrush, were finalists for the Bram Stoker Award, and her apocalyptic thriller. Final Impact, received two awards. Currently in bookstores is its follow-up, Red Shadows, which (as with Afterage) has generated countless requests for a sequel. Her novelizations include Species, Species II, and Aliens: Music of the Spears, and she also published a non-fiction book called The First Name Reverse Dictionary.

  Yvonne is currently completing The Willow Files, a Buffy the Vampire Slayer book, and That's Not My Name, a solo psychological thriller. She wants everyone in the world to visit her website at www.para-

  net.com/~ynavarro, where they will be bombarded with subliminal messages demanding they have loads of fun. She currently lives in the Chicago area and plans to relocate to the southwest and get a really neat dog.

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  Expatriate Englishman PHILIP NUTMAN is an award-nominated novelist, screenwriter, editor, and comic-book writer who currently resides in Atlanta. He is the author of the critically acclaimed cult novel Wet Work, the forthcoming Full Throttle, and has published more than two dozen short stories in anthologies such as Book of the Dead and Splatterpunks.

  In the comics field he has worked extensively for Chaos! penning Evil Ernie, Chastity, Suspira, and The Owen. He has also written for Marvel and Archie Comics where he produced several issues of The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for younger readers. Most recently, he was hired to work on the promotional comic for this year's Madison Scare Garden haunted house. As a screenwriter, he has written a dozen features and numerous treatments. With co-writer Daniel Farrands he recently completed a pitch for the official sequel to The Amityville Horror and an adaptation of the Jack Ketchum novel, The Girl Next Door.

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  GREG RUCKA is the author of four novels about Atticus Kodiak Keeper, Finder, Smoker, and Shoo
ting

  at Midnight. He has been writing since the age of eight, and hopefully improving with age. A long-time comics fan, his first graphic-novel series was the suspense-thriller Whiteout, published by Oni Press and nominated for three Eisner Awards in 1999. Since that time he has been a contributing writer for DC Comics and an active participant in the Batman titles in particular.

  Born and raised in California, he earned his undergraduate degree at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, and his MFA at the University of Southern California. He currently resides in Portland, Oregon. He is twenty-nine years old, has two tattoos, and rides a motorcycle.

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  CHET WILLIAMSON's latest novels are the three books in The Searchers series and The Crow. Clash by Night (HarperPrism). Next year will see his first children's book: The Pennsylvania Dutch Night Before Christmas, from Pelican Press. Nearly a hundred of his short stories have appeared in such magazines as The New Yorker, Playboy, Esquire, Twilight Zone, and many other magazines and anthologies. He has been a final nominee for the World Fantasy Award and the Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award, and a six-time final nominee for the Horror Writers Association's Stoker Award. His work has been adapted for television, radio, and recorded books. Other projects have included a four-issue Aliens mini-series entitled Music of the Spears and a six-part adaptation of Andrew Vachss and Jim Colbert's novel, Cross (both for Dark Horse Comics). He has also written the novelization of the film The Crow: City of Angels, and Hell: A Cyberpunk Thriller, based on the CD-ROM game.

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  GAHAN WILSON has produced a few graphic books, but is best known for his regular work in Playboy and The New Yorker. Something from eighteen to twenty collections of his cartoons have appeared along with a number of works for children and adults. Recently, a collection of his short stories along with his