“So we won’t be forced to haunt the place when we go?” Lisa asked hopefully.
“No. I’ll get the B.P.R.D. in to impound all those occult artifacts and turn the place over from top to bottom, just to be on the safe side.”
Shielding his eyes from the sun, Brad looked the house up and down, emotions playing out on his face.
“Thinking of your father?” Lisa asked.
He nodded. “I wish I’d had the chance to say goodbye to him. In the end, we were a lot alike. Both trying to survive something that kicked a hole in our lives, both failing.”
“In the end, both doing the right thing for the sake of others,” Hellboy noted.
“Where is he now?” Brad mused sadly. “I mean, in one sense, he’s probably been dead a long time. But in that time period he walked into, is he surviving, doing all right?”
“It’s probably best not to think about it.” Lisa gave Brad’s hand a reassuring squeeze. “He made the sacrifice to save you. And me, and everybody. And that’s what we need to remember.”
Dropping his head, Brad urged her to continue walking. “It’s tough. I spent years beating myself up feeling sad about how he left me hanging when I was a kid, and then years trying to hate him. And now I don’t get a chance to put it right.”
They continued to Charles Street, where Hellboy led them to a small coffee shop, dark and enticing. At that time, there were only one or two customers, so they took a seat next to the window where they could look out onto the busy street.
“Why did Dad want me to come here?” Brad eased himself into a chair with a wince.
“Maybe he just liked the coffee,” Hellboy said.
Brad looked around the sedate interior, and took a deep breath of the rich coffee scents. “Yeah, I could imagine Dad here. He always loved his cup of joe.”
They ordered their drinks and indulged in quiet conversation for a while, as Hellboy and Lisa tried to raise Brad’s spirits. Not long after, the jangling bell above the door signaled the arrival of a bald man with a short, snowy beard. He was wearing a dark suit and carrying a briefcase. Pausing on the threshold, he looked around in a faintly bemused manner before his attention alighted on Hellboy.
“Ah, yes. The large-boned red man,” he said with a satisfied nod. “Thank goodness I’m not too late.”
“Too late for what?” Hellboy asked.
“For our assignation.”
“Huh?”
The man placed his briefcase on the table and clicked it open. “You must be Mr. Lynch,” he said to Brad. “I have a letter from your father.”
Stunned, Brad’s mouth gaped for a second or two.
“Yes, I thought that might be your reaction. My name is Mr. Helmley. I’m an attorney with the Foster Group in town. When I first joined the business around twenty years ago, your father came into the office with this letter.” He plucked a white envelope from his briefcase and handed it to Brad. “He left strict instructions that it had to be delivered to you here, on this day. It caused a great deal of amusement around the office—quite how he could know you would be attending this coffee house on that day . . . ” He shrugged. “Yet here you are.”
His work done, Helmley nodded and left. Tentatively, Brad examined the envelope, which had his name on the front in his father’s script. “The early nineties,” he repeated quietly.
Hellboy grinned. “That’s a damn sight better than medieval Europe. At least they had deodorant then.”
Brad opened the envelope and took out the letter. There were several pages. Reading aloud, he began, “ ‘Dear Brad, I know this will come as some surprise to you. It’s a surprise to me that things worked out as I’d hoped. I’d lost any belief in hopes coming true. Firstly, you should know that I am well, and, God willing, will continue to be well. I plan to travel to Europe tomorrow to indulge in some of the things I never got around to over the last twenty years. I don’t want you to be sad. I’m happy now, and happier than I have been for a very long time.
“ ‘Now, the reason I’m writing is to pass on to you an extremely valuable gift down the years—a gift, I hope, that will free you from the prison you made for yourself, and allow you to start the new life I always hoped for you. Brad, I want to tell you about your mother and what happened to her . . . ’ ”
The words died in Brad’s throat. He quickly scanned a few lines ahead, and while tears sparked in his eyes, the sad smile that spread across his lips gave both Hellboy and Lisa hope.
Hellboy indicated to Lisa that they should step outside. “Give him a few moments,” he said, once they were standing on the sidewalk, eyeing Brad through the window as he read his letter.
“I wonder what happened to his mother?” Lisa said.
“It doesn’t matter. We all knew there wasn’t going to be a magical reunion in a situation like that. The important thing is that now Brad is going to be able to put it all behind him, finally. That’s a helluva gift.” He nodded thoughtfully. William came through in the end. Everybody got a slice of redemption.
“Looks like we’ve put a lot of ghosts to rest today,” Lisa said.
“Yeah, this is some kind of business,” Hellboy noted. “Just when you think it’s all about making the world safe, you get a result like that. You and Brad—?”
She nodded, smiled. “Yeah. I’ll make it work. You?”
“I’ve got a date with a castle in Spain, and the ghost of a horse that predicts the future.” He looked up at the blue sky and nodded appreciatively. “Should be warm this time of year.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
—
A two-time winner of the celebrated British Fantasy Award, Mark Chadbourn is the author of several dark fantasy novels. His current sequence, Kingdom of the Serpent, concluded with Destroyer of Worlds in July 2009. A former journalist, he is now a screenwriter for BBC television drama. His other jobs have included running an independent record company, managing rock bands, and working on a production line. He lives in a forest in the English Midlands.
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