He clambered out and shaded his eyes against the painful white of the snow. “Sebastian Plackba #16,” he said, when he could finally get a clear view of the nineteenth-century cemetery in which they’d parked. He let his gaze roam over their surroundings, taking in everything from the broken, spiked fences covered in rust and dead vines to the rows of crypts and tomb-stones that meandered through the deeply piled snow and the wild, winter-dormant foliage. There were thick-branched trees everywhere, their limbs spidery and leafless, like twisted fingers grasping for something out of reach in the cold sky.
Beside them, Agents Lime and Stone geared up, strapping on their backpacks and grenade belts, then equipping themselves with a flashlight in one hand and a weapon in the other. With determined expressions on their faces, they picked one of the lanes leading into the labyrinthine lanes of the dead and headed into it, trudging gamely through the deep snow. After a moment, Hellboy, Liz, Myers, and Manning followed, letting the rest of the agents bring up the rear.
Was it only an hour later that they stopped searching? No, it had to be three hours, or a day, or maybe it was a damned week. Who knew? They were all frustrated, irritated, and incredibly cold, stomping around in circles and crossing their own tracks, and they were probably lucky to find their way back to where they’d started before they all froze to death.
Exhaling slowly, Myers looked around again, trying to get some kind of clue as to how the addresses of the dead worked in this place. Even loaded down with two grenade belts—his own and Hellboy’s—he was game for going back and trying again, but clearly Manning had reached his limit.
“Forget it,” Manning said. His mouth was a thin, aggravated slash against skin gone red from the cold and a nose that was as wet and runny as a sled dog’s. He’d been stomping through the snow and rubbing his hands together in an effort to stay warm for the last half hour. “This is practically a city. It stinks, and it’s muddy. We’ll go back, check into a hotel, and regroup after breakfast. We’ll have to make a grid, go by quadrants. Maybe satellite photography.” He gestured toward the vehicles and the other agents turned to go.
Hellboy folded his arms. “Let me ask for directions.”
Manning and most of the others looked at Hellboy in amazement as he strode away, watching as he picked one of the nearby crypt entrances, peered at the writing for no particular reason, then shoved the stone top of it to the side. He waited patiently for the others to join him so they could see the rotting coffin about ten feet below, then dropped into the crypt. He landed to the side of the coffin and the already crumbling top broke away and exposed its contents—a mummified corpse dressed in a miserably tattered and mildew-stained suit.
Hellboy bowed his head for a moment, giving the body at his feet a modicum of respect. Then he dug around in one of his deep overcoat pockets until he found and pulled out a carved metal amulet. With precise movements, he leaned over and pressed the odd-shaped piece of metal hard to the cadaver’s forehead as he whispered, “Animan edere, animus corpus.”
For a long moment, nothing happened. Then, just as Manning was about to remind Hellboy and the rest of them that he’d prohibited supernatural crap like this, the body spasmed and twisted. Incredibly, the jaw opened and the sunken, dried-out cheeks sucked in air to fill the dead thing’s decayed lungs. One inhalation, then two, and the tongueless corpse managed to mutter a low string of Russian words:
“Shto khochesh?” (“What do you want?”)
Manning gasped and stepped back from the opening as Hellboy lifted the body from its resting place and swung it up and onto his shoulders like it was nothing more out of the ordinary than a camping bag. He climbed out of the crypt, proudly showing off the prize to the rest of the gawking team. When he spoke, he sounded absurdly cheerful, considering he was toting around a dead man as baggage. “Sixty feet farther, comrades, and three rows in.”
Liz’s hand went to her mouth and her eyes widened as the corpse Hellboy was carrying twitched, then fought to briefly raise one weak hand. “This here is Ivan Klimentovich,” Hellboy announced. “Say ‘hi,’ Ivan.”
Once again, the corpse mumbled something in Russian. “Idti tuda, krasnaya obizyanka.” (“Go that way, red monkey.”)
Hellboy obeyed, heading off easily through the drifting snow while the others followed with more difficulty. He went the requisite thirty yards, then turned left. One row, two, then three, and there it was.
Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin’s mausoleum was impossible to miss…provided, of course, you’d been able to find it in the first place. Flashy in life, Rasputin had gone the same route in death. Marking the entrance to his final resting place—or at least to what the general populace thought was such—was a miniature black marble castle, complete with turrets and parapets, spires and fancy stonework around the entrance and the small, fake windows. It was pretty unbelievable that they’d missed it, but then the cold could do weird things to your sense of direction and time, not to mention body thermometer.
Hellboy stood back and let Myers go after the sealed entrance with a crowbar, and for all its postmortem pomp and glory, the agent was able to beat off the lock on the old steel door and get it open in less than a minute. Hellboy, still carrying the desiccated corpse of Ivan Klimentovich, led the way inside.
And, as such things always seemed to be, the inside of Rasputin’s tomb was a hell of a lot bigger than the outside.
21
MANNING HAD ASSIGNED A COUPLE OF THE LARGER-FRAMED agents to stand guard at the entrance to the mausoleum while Hellboy and the rest of the group carefully descended a narrow flight of wet, curving stone steps. It was an eerie and unsettling place, where the damp walls were lined with yellowed skulls and a sort of dim under-lighting that wasn’t quite enough to let them actually see where they were going without their flashlights—even their feet were shrouded in blackness. The rest of them didn’t notice, but Liz had slipped off her gloves and was enjoying running her fingers along the stone walls, relishing the feel of the icy moisture that coated her always-hot fingertips. She disliked the darkness in here—it was too much like perpetual nightfall—but the slick stonework smelled like wet concrete sidewalks after a good rain, and that was always high on her list of favorites. As long it didn’t end up mixed with the scent of decomposing corpses, they’d be in good shape.
A few feet in front of Liz, Myers wasn’t nearly so happy. He’d never had anything in particular against cold, damp, dark places—well, other than they reminded him of tombs, which was exactly what this was—but so far, every time he’d ended up somewhere underground with Hellboy things had gone rapidly to hell. Apparently this was becoming a habit, because now his damned flashlight was acting wonky, flickering in and out, and he knew the thing had fresh batteries, he had put them in himself. The beam would flicker and he would shake the flashlight and then it would be fine…then twenty seconds later he’d have to do it all over again. By the fourth time, he was ready to start banging the thing against the stone wall.
Finally reaching the bottom of the staircase, they all paused. What had looked like a small tomb at ground level had turned into an underground labyrinth—now three corridors branched off in different directions, and of course, none of them were particularly well lit. As Hellboy carefully deposited the talking corpse amid a pile of moldering coffins against the wall, the rest of the group stopped and looked around uncertainly. “We’ll be all right as long as we don’t separate,” Hellboy began. “We—”
Wham!
With a clang of locking metal, a line of heavy steel plates shot upward from the floor. Each was covered in long spikes sharpened to a razor point, and in the space of only a heartbeat the staircase behind them was demolished and Hellboy, Manning, and Agent Stone were cut off from Myers and Liz.
And Agent Stone, who hadn’t even had time to grunt in surprise, was dead.
For a long moment, Stone’s corpse simply stood there, eyes blank and seeing an eternity that the others had yet to visit. Then blood gu
shed out of his mouth and eyes and he fell forward, exposing the shoulder-to-hip slashes along his back, wounds that went all the way through to the bone. When he flashed his light downward, Hellboy saw a scarlet puddle had surrounded the agent almost instantly, leaking between the barrier of metal plates. Hellboy heard Liz gasp and jerked his light back up, hoping she hadn’t seen what was had happened to the man before the plates had come up.
Hellboy hammered on the plates, his blows barely falling in the dubious safety zone between the wicked, spike-studded surface. It was no good—the plates separating them had to be steel and were at least six inches thick. Surrendering, Hellboy thumbed the speaker on his walkie-talkie. “Okay, someone’s expecting us,” he said. “Turn on your locators. If anyone sees anything—”
“Marco,” Liz’s voice came back.
Hellboy smiled a little. “Polo.”
There was a static-filled pause, then Myers’s voice came over the speaker. “Are you sure about this?”
Hellboy hesitated. “On a scale of one to ten? Two.” He glanced at the steel wall again, just to reaffirm that he couldn’t break through. Given the choice, he’d go it alone; rehashing that choice with Liz along as company, he’d turn back. This time, however, their path had been predetermined. “But she’ll take care of you, Myers. She’s a tough one.”
Myers didn’t answer, but as Hellboy listened, he could hear their footsteps fading on the other side. Turning away reluctantly, Hellboy swung the beam of his flashlight, and headed down the tunnel on the left. Manning followed as Agent Lime dubiously eyed Ivan’s corpse reclining on the pile of coffins. After a moment, he picked it up and brought up the rear, trying not to break any of the dead man’s fragile bones or breathe in the dust of the thing’s disintegrating burial suit.
It felt like it took forever to get down this tunnel. No one talked, even though the going was pretty easy: a downward slope but not enough so that they stumbled, more skulls on the walls but by now they’d become used to that sight. Then the tunnel curved and ended abruptly, widening into a vast, underground chamber. Slavic motifs were etched into the archways spaced throughout, as well as around the rugged stone pillars that ran from the ground up to the faraway ceiling. Water, probably snowmelt, trickled down the rough walls and pooled on the uneven floor.
A few feet in front of them was a small, stone bridge, the only access from their location to a small hexagonal structure from which light poured. Hellboy glanced at it, then at Manning; without another word, the three of them stepped onto the bridge.
Something clanged, and they all jerked and looked upward. They could barely see the source, a heavy door far overhead that had released and dropped open. Now it was just hanging up there, like a big, hungry mouth.
Instinctively they surged forward on the bridge.
And from somewhere else…
Tick tick tick tick tick tick…
The sound of a massive clock? Unsure, Manning asked, “What’s that?”
Hellboy gestured sharply for silence, trying to figure it out. Even so, the corpse muttered, “Eto shto-to bol’shoye.” (“It’s something big.”)
Straining uselessly, they stared into the darkness that spread beyond the feeble beams of their flashlights. “We should go back,” Manning said finally. “You,” he nodded in Hellboy’s direction, “you could tear that door apart.”
Tick tick tick tick tick tick…
Hellboy stood where he was, still listening, his immense frame stopping them from going any farther. “Don’t move,” he said. “We—”
“—should go back,” Manning finished for him. “Now.”
But Hellboy wasn’t moving. “No,” he said stubbornly. “Don’t—”
“I’m in charge,” Manning snapped. “We go back.”
Before he could continue, Hellboy reached out and yanked Manning forward. Manning squawked in surprise, then—
Ssssshhhhhhsssssssshhhhh
—wheezed as a gigantic metal pendulum swung right through the space in which he’d been standing only a second before. The honed bottom edge of it sliced through the stone bridge as though the structure were made of butter, demolishing nearly everything on the other side of it. The deceptively fragile stonework crumbled into oblivion, taking Agent Lime and Ivan’s corpse with it; the corpse went silently, but Agent Lime’s scream as he fell into the darkness seemed like it would last forever. Maybe, in their memories, it would.
Except for one minor thing.
On the far end of the bridge in front of them, something else clanged in the darkness. The faintest glimmer of movement caught their eye—another overhead steel door, this one shuddering downward on a direct line to block their escape.
Hellboy grimaced. “Son of a—”
Ssssshhhhhhsssssssshhhhh
The two of them heard the pendulum start its reverse swing. They sprinted toward the lowering door, barely managing to get out of the way of the slightly altered arc of the massive blade. More of the crude stone bridge shattered, and there sure wasn’t a whole lot left to stand on. Hellboy gave Manning a little bit of a shove to send him in front and Manning took advantage of the momentum to launch himself on all fours through the rapidly shrinking entryway. Hellboy followed, then tripped and nearly went down as the stone pathway fell apart beneath each of his heavy footfalls.
Ssssshhhhhhsssssssshhhhh
The pendulum’s final swing took out the last bit of bridge on which Hellboy was standing—
—but he was in midair by then, leaping as hard and long as he could—
—and just making it through the opening into the hexagonal building.
For a few tense moments, all Hellboy and Manning could do was stand in the nearly complete darkness and hold their breath. They had left behind certain death, but what waited for them now? Ultimately, they had no choice but to go forward and find out.
Wary of any more ambushes, Hellboy let the beam of his flashlight dance around them, thwacking his hand on both sides when he swung too wide. Apparently they were in some kind of an extremely narrow, arched corridor constructed of the same stone material as the bridge outside had been. The light they’d seen while on the bridge must have been some kind of an illusion, a lure to get them in here, because now it was gone. Instead of the seemingly endless nothing that had surrounded them out there, this section’s walls were lined with endless rows of rusty steel blades. While not very well taken care of, this was obviously the compilation of a very serious collector.
From somewhere past the dark tunnel came the faintest traces of music—Wagner, “Liebestod” from Tristan und Isolde. Stepping cautiously, they moved toward the sound, listening to the notes getting louder and louder as they progressed, at last getting a glimpse at the growing source of illumination farther down the line. Finally, they could just make out Kroenen, bathed in yellow gaslight and nodding attentively to the music while above him a series of deadly-looking ropes, hooks, and pulleys swayed to an underground breeze. The sight of Kroenen made Hellboy’s jaw grind. He remembered the last time he’d seen the guy—lying dead, or so he’d assumed, in the tunnel next to the badly injured Agent Clay. He should’ve made sure then, should’ve rearranged the dust-filled body into so many pieces that it couldn’t be put back together.
They crept forward, with Hellboy leading the way. It was hard to see, and the darkness at their feet made it all the more treacherous, making it seem as if they were losing their balance at any given time. Every time they looked at the spot of brightness, it would blind them for a moment, leave them with nothing in front of their eyes but dancing nightspots. As luck would have it, at one point, Manning did stumble; instinctively, he threw out a hand to catch himself and his fingers found the wall…and the sharp edge of one of the blades hanging there.
“Ouch!”
The word—that single, small utterance—bounced through the narrow tunnel as though Manning had brayed it into a megaphone. They were still hidden by the darkness of the tunnel, but up ahead they both saw Kr
oenen sit up, his skeletal, mask-covered head swiveling as he tried to pinpoint the location of the noise. Without moving any other part of his body, he lifted a hand and quietly began to wind up the gears on his chest.
Great.
They were almost to the end of the tunnel and Hellboy shot Manning a dirty look. Manning at least had the good grace to look sheepish, but when Hellboy looked back—
Kroenen was gone.
“Crap,” Hellboy muttered over his shoulder. “This guy moves like a cockroach.”
Just to be ready, Hellboy drew his gun and crept forward with Manning close on his heels. They left the tunnel behind almost reluctantly; at least in there they’d had an overhead surface providing cover; out here they were in a sort of lab, with lots of shadowy areas up by the ceiling and way too many objets d’pain that could drop onto their heads at any moment. To add to the aggravation, the floor was made of decrepit, squeaky, wooden planks—masking their footsteps was damned near impossible. The Wagner piece stopped as the needle ran to the end of the old vinyl record and the room dropped into sudden, unnerving silence.
Both Hellboy and Manning jerked at the sound of blades slicing through the air. They tried to dodge, but Manning simply didn’t make it in time; he cried out as one of Kroenen’s short swords ripped deeply into the meat of his arm. Manning staggered backward as blood swelled from the wound and he automatically clutched at it, too shocked to try to block Kroenen’s next strike. The skeletal man went in for the kill—
And Hellboy thrust his stone hand between the blade and Manning’s throat.
Sparks danced off the edge of the sword, and Kroenen struck again, and then again. Each time Hellboy blocked, moving forward until he was a protective shield for Manning, forcing Kroenen backward. There was no way to tell what was going on behind Kroenen’s mask, but finally the zombie-Nazi tossed his two short swords aside in frustration, then unsheathed the longer, more vicious-looking one strapped at his waist.
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