The Bones of Giants

by Christopher Golden

  Again, the thing rambled on quickly in that fluid language, but now Caypor began to move again. It danced around Hellboy, yellow eyes staring in fascination, trying to figure him out, to understand why Hellboy could see him. Hellboy couldn’t speak the language, but he understood enough to get the gist of what the demon was saying. And, according to the file he’d been given on the creature, Caypor was a demon. A Brazilian forest demon, to be exact. It was a sort of bogeyman there who fright­ened children away from the forests.

  If what the ugly bastard was saying was true, though, it had always been a servant of the parents of those children. It kept the children safe, scaring them away from the forests. Now it had been summoned here by a group of Brazilian mothers whose families had settled in the United States. If Hellboy understood Caypor correctly, the mothers had grown concerned that American popular culture had somehow worked an insidious dark magic on their children’s minds, and would obliterate any interest in their own culture and heritage.

  A breeze kicked up and Hellboy’s duster flapped behind him. He scratched at the bristle on his chin and stared at the demon. “Let me get this straight. These women raised a demon to scare their kids away from an amusement park, probably giving ‘em years’ worth of nightmares, hoping it would make them more interested in their homeland? So you wrecked some kiddie rides and terrified the crap out of a whole bunch of other kids who aren’t Brazilian and did not ask you to come here?”

  Slowly, Caypor did a pirouette, limbs fluttering. Then it bowed, as though proud of what it had done.

  “Jeez,” Hellboy said, sighing. “That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard.”

  Caypor froze, narrowed its feral yellow eyes, and shook back its long, matted hair. Hellboy realized he probably should have been more diplomatic, but he’d never been able to master diplomacy, believing it most frequently the province of liars and idiots.

  “All right,” Hellboy said, offering a small shrug. “I guess you were just doing the job. They called you, right? But you oughtta go now. Grab a brew and some Peking ravioli or something.”

  A flurry of angry words rolled off Caypor’s tongue and it pointed a long, bony finger at Hellboy.

  Hellboy crossed his arms and glared sternly at the demon. “I’m not kidding, schmoe. Cut this crap out. Get gone.”

  Caypor threw his hands up and the ground rumbled as a thick tree trunk shattered the pavement beneath Hellboy’s hooves and shot up from the earth beneath him. It knocked him backward, but already its branches spread, and it grew up around him, lifting him off his feet. The carousel’s lights blinked and the music sounded suddenly warped. A branch twisted around Hellboy’s torso.

  He raised his enormous right hand, and brought the stone appendage down in a blow that splintered wood and snapped branches all around. He tumbled to the ground, landed on the pavement on his stomach, and struck his chin. His teeth clacked together and he bit his tongue, tasting his own blood.

  “Always gotta choose the hard way,” he mumbled as he rose. His gun was heavy in its holster at his hip, but he didn’t bother taking the time to retrieve it.

  Caypor pranced around like a court jester, but there was nothing merry about the way it moved. It swung fluidly through the air, danced in near Hellboy and planted its hands on the ground, then whipped its legs around. Taloned feet slashed at Hellboy’s chest. His hide was tough, durable, and so the attack did not draw blood. But it stung.

  “Hey!” Hellboy shouted. He swung a left hook at the demon, but it cartwheeled away from him. “Hold still!”

  With a gesture, the demon called forth another gnarled, haunted tree from the trembling ground. It burst through the sundered pavement and shot at Hellboy. But he was ready this time. The upper limbs of the tree stretched toward him, sap-scented tentacles whose bark rippled in the light of the moon and the colorful glow of the flickering carousel bulbs. They tried to wrap themselves around him, but Hellboy dodged, snapping off smaller branches, and brought his heavy right hand down in a splintering blow that sheared off the top ten feet of the tree.

  The demonic bogeyman did a little crab-like scuttling, arms flying around him as it moved behind Hellboy. Caypor flew at Hellboy again, lashing out with its feet. With a grunt, moving faster than most would think him capable of, considering his size, Hellboy bent and lifted the shattered trunk of the tree. He spun, swung the tree trunk, and struck Caypor with such force that the demon screamed—the sound like wood shrieking, about to break. The blow sent Caypor tumbling to the ground between the carousel and the gazebo that housed the bumper-cars.

  The demon tried to rise and Hellboy struck him again. Caypor slammed into one of the posts that held up the roof of the bumper-car gazebo, and the post snapped in half. The corner of the roof sagged there but did not collapse.

  “I told you to cut it out,” Hellboy reminded him.

  There were cracks in the demon’s bark-like flesh, and a dark brown substance that might have been its blood had begun to ooze out. Caypor’s shaggy hair fell across its eyes as it struggled to stand. Yellow, bestial eyes blossomed with rage and then plant-like shoots of new growth appeared in its wounds. Like flower petals, they spread over the injuries and began to heal that red bark skin. In his archaic Portuguese, Caypor snarled a quick ballet of words that Hellboy only half-understood. The meaning was clear, though. Caypor wasn’t going to leave, and it could heal itself fast enough that Hellboy wasn’t going to be able to destroy it by hand.

  Then Caypor spit on him.

  “All right,” Hellboy said, jaw clenched. “Now I’m ticked.” They had restored the lost spider scene to King Kong, and it was showing that night on cable. Hellboy could have been watching it with Abe back in their hotel room if not for Caypor.

  The demon lunged at him, a flurry of limbs and wicked claws. Hellboy ignored them, felt the scraping at his skin and just waded right into it. He brought down his right hand again and it shattered the demon’s left arm. Caypor shrieked. Hellboy slugged it with a quick left to the jaw, breaking some of those mossy teeth and shutting the demon up.

  Then he lifted Caypor with both hands and tossed it into the bumper-car gazebo. The demon landed, sprawling, on the sheet-metal floor. Hellboy strode grimly to the operator’s platform, still buzzing with electricity, and ripped the control box off its moorings. It trailed a thick tangle of high-voltage cable. Hellboy crushed the metal and plastic box in his hand and it sparked, exposed wiring crackling. He hauled on the cables, ripped them loose, then dropped them over the side of the gazebo and onto the sheet-metal floor.

  Caypor was just getting up again when the electrical current surged through the floor. The demon froze, then began to jitter in an obscene pantomime of the prancing it had done moments before. Hellboy could hear the sizzle and pop as electricity coursed through it, and the lights in the park were slightly dimmed by the power drain. The smell of a woodstove or chimney smoke filled the air, and reminded Hellboy of autumn. Then Caypor’s eyes popped, one after the other, and fire began to lick from the empty sockets. The demon’s chest began to glow orange, and gray flakes formed at the edge of that burning ember. Its skin split, and fire spat from the wounds and began to consume it. There would be no new growth now, no sprouts of life.

  The breeze that had blown steadily suddenly ceased, as if pausing for breath, and the fire that consumed the demon hesitated as well. The sizzle of electricity filled the air. Then the wind kicked up again and the fire engulfed the demon completely, shooting toward the ceiling, catching there, and beginning to spread.

  At length, Hellboy shook his head in disgust and turned to go. “Always gotta be the hard way.”

  The cops kept their distance as he walked out. Jeez, what, do I smell? Hellboy thought in annoyance. Virginia was so close to D.C. that between the politicians and the FBI headquarters over in Langley he figured people down here would be used to weird crap happening all the time. But Hollis was just a little podunk town like a million other places in America. The people there prob
ably wouldn’t have known what to say to Julia Roberts either. Not that she was ever going to kill a demon in Hollis, but still…

  One of the policemen stepped out to meet him as he walked toward the limousine.

  “Hellboy,” the portly cop said, as if tasting the word. “I’m Sergeant Bob Wilkie. Did you find anything in there?”

  “Yep.” Hellboy scratched at the back of his neck, where what little hair he had was tied in a tight knot.

  Wilkie’s eyes widened. “What is it?”

  “It’s on fire. Probably wanna call someone to put it out.”

  With that, Hellboy strode to the limousine, opened the door, and carefully climbed into the back. The car tilted low as he slid onto the seat. When he glanced up, just before closing the door, he saw Sergeant Wilkie barking orders at a few of the other cops. That was good. Hopefully they’d get the fire out before it could spread.

  He pulled the door shut and settled in beside Dr. Tom Manning, the director of the Bureau, who was on the cell phone. Dr. Manning held up a finger to indicate that he’d be just a moment longer on his call, so Hellboy just stared out the window as the limousine started to roll. The director had brought Hellboy and several other operatives for the BPRD to Washington to testify in front of the committee that would decide how much money the U.S. government would contribute to the Bureau’s budget. Hellboy hadn’t testified yet, and he had no clue what he was supposed to say.

  “Sorry about that,” Dr. Manning said as he slid the phone back inside his suit jacket. He regarded Hellboy intently, eyes narrowed. “So, how did it go?”

  “Research boys were right. It was Caypor.”

  “Really?” Dr. Manning asked, fascinated. “What was he like?”

  “Stubborn. Look, how long before we get back to the hotel? I’m gonna have a heck of a time falling asleep as it is with this testimony thing tomorrow.”

  “Ah, that,” the director said. The expression on his face was all professional then. “Well, you’ll be pleased to know you won’t be testifying tomorrow. You’re leaving first thing in the morning for Sweden.”

  “Sweden?” Hellboy turned as best he could in the cramped confines of the limousine and stared at Dr. Manning. “What the hell’s in Sweden?”

  Manning’s features were grave, but there was a kind of awe in his voice. “Even with all you’ve seen, even with what you are, I don’t think you’d believe me if I told you.”

  Chapter Two

  In a suite in the Fitzgerald Grand Hotel just outside of Washington, D.C., Abe Sapien did his best to relax and avoid thinking about the testimony he was meant to give in the morning. The air conditioning hummed soothingly and the room was a cool sixty-six degrees, but he wore only pants and a white cotton undershirt.

  When he shifted, his rough skin slid across the sheets and made a sort of rasping noise, but he did not hear it. Abe wore headphones connected to a portable CD player and he tried his best to focus on the book in his hands while Sting’s Ten Summoner’s Tales played.

  The book was called Streets of Laredo, a western by Larry McMurtry that concerned the last days of an aging Texas lawman. It was just about the saddest, most mournful thing Abe had ever read, and Sting wasn’t helping. The music and the book combined to nurture a sort of melancholy in him, but at least they were a distraction from fretting about the morning. Yet they had another effect as well. Though it was not quite ten o’clock, Abe was quite drowsy. The book kept sagging in his hands, his chin bobbing onto his chest every few minutes or so. He had read the same paragraph several times.

  When the book actually fell out of his hands, Abe snapped awake, startled, and removed his headphones while rising from bed. He sighed and flipped a few pages until he found where he had left off and then folded down the page. There were people, he knew, who thought it nothing short of blasphemy to fold the page instead of using a bookmark. Book­mark zealots. Paperback fascists. Abe ignored them.

  Restless now, he wandered the suite. He did not feel confined in that small space—with his amphi­bious appearance he was used to retreating from public view—but he felt unsettled. The mirror over the bureau drew his attention and Abe stared at his own reflection for several seconds. He had no idea why Dr. Manning had brought him. No way the Congressional committee was going to pay attention to what he had to tell them when even in their internal correspondence they had referred to him as “that fish guy.”

  Idiots, Abe thought. Fish guy. Don’t they even read their own files?

  He felt thirsty suddenly and wandered to the mini-bar. Still preoccupied, he opened it and glanced within. Three-dollar bottled water. Four-dollar Sprite and Coke. Two-dollar candy bars. Macadamia nuts, cookies, and trail mix. Even though Abe would not have to foot the bill himself, he still thought the prices outrageous. But he missed his room, missed his things, and worst of all, he had missed the Red Sox game on television that afternoon. Living at Bureau headquarters in Connecticut, Abe had grown to be a devoted Red Sox fan, intrigued by the legendary curse that popular wisdom said had haunted the team for nearly a century.

  After a few more seconds’ hesitation, Abe took the Macadamia nuts and a Sprite out of the mini-bar and closed the door with a rattle of tiny liquor bottles.

  A beep sounded in the suite. As Abe glanced toward the door, it swung inward. Hellboy blocked out nearly all the light from the corridor and he was momentarily silhouetted as he entered. Then Abe saw the tears in his jacket and the already healing scratches on his chest.

  “Guess you found what you were looking for,” the amphibian said.

  Hellboy shrugged out of his jacket and threw it on the couch in the outer room of the suite. “Ruined another coat,” he said as he unsnapped the holster from his waist and slipped it off. Then he paused and gazed at Abe, narrowing his eyes. “What’s with the Macadamia nuts?”

  Abe stood with the soda in one hand and the nuts in the other. A bit sheepish, he smiled and held the can out to Hellboy. “Want some?”

  “Nah. Macadamias don’t have any flavor. They’re like those stupid white things they put in Chinese food. Whaddaya call ‘em? Water chestnuts. Might as well eat tofu.”

  For a second, Abe considered putting the nuts back. Instead, he sat on the edge of his bed, set his soda on the night table, and defiantly popped the top of the can of nuts with a hiss of the freshness seal. Idly, he scooped out a few nuts and tossed them into his mouth. They were sort of chewy, maybe a little stale, and truth be told they didn’t have very much flavor. But he wasn’t going to tell Hellboy that.

  “So?” he prodded.

  Hellboy snatched up the cable television guide the hotel had provided and then went to sit on his own bed, tail curled up behind him. The bed sagged deeply under his bulk, but he did not seem to notice.

  “Wanna watch a movie?”

  Something in his tone alerted Abe, who studied his best friend more closely. Hellboy was tired and annoyed by both his scratches and ruined coat, but there was more to it than that.

  “What?” Abe pressed him.

  “I asked if you wanted to watch a movie,” Hellboy replied. With his hard, angular features and dark red skin, most people did not notice when he smiled. When he smirked, though, as he did now, only a few people in the world would have recognized the facial expression for what it was.

  Abe glared at him, the gills on his neck fluttering.

  “What?” Hellboy asked innocently.

  “You tell me. Did the bogeyman turn out to be an attractive Hellgirl or something?”

  Hellboy scowled. “With that attitude, I’ll just go by myself.”

  “Go where?” Abe demanded.

  Hellboy lay back on the bed, arms under his head, and gazed at the ceiling. “Sweden.”

  “Sweden? What’s in Sweden? I don’t want to go to Sweden. It’s cold there. I interrupted my chess game with Kate to come here, and I’m still rearranging my books. They’re all over the place.”

  When Hellboy sat up again, the bed springs squealed i
n protest. He stared at Abe, disappointment plain. “Kate doesn’t even like chess. She only plays because you won’t leave her alone about it. And your books will still be there when you get back.”

  Abe took another handful of Macadamia nuts and popped the top on his soda. He took a sip, then picked up Streets of Laredo again and lay back while Hellboy stared at him.

  “Kate loves chess.”

  “Not what she said,” Hellboy replied calmly.

  “Only because she doesn’t like to lose.”

  “Abe.”

  The amphibian glanced up from his book with a sigh. “I don’t want to go to Sweden. Remember our last trip to Scandinavia?”

  Hellboy nodded. “Of course. But there aren’t gonna be any lunatic shapeshifting seals this trip.”

  “How do you know?”

  “You don’t want to go? Be that way,” Hellboy said with some finality. “I just fig­ured you’d be glad you didn’t have to testify in front of that committee tomorrow.”

  “They weren’t seals.”

  “Whatever.”

  “I don’t like the cold.”

  But Hellboy must have heard the wavering in Abe’s voice, for he sat forward a bit further, his enormous stone hand hanging nearly to the floor.

  “Y’know, I heard Swedish chicks dig fish guys. It’s a well-known fact.”

  Abe rolled his eyes, closed his book and stared at Hellboy. “Pick a movie.”

  Stiff, nervous Swedish government types met Hellboy and Abe at the airport in Stockholm. The mouthpiece—the only one among them who was either capable or willing to speak English—was a man named Fredrik Klar. He wore thick, rimless eyeglasses and had his blond hair cut short and swept back in a style that struck Hellboy as just a little too Aryan for comfort.

  Stockholm was a picturesque city, combining the elegance of the Old World with the sophistication of a new century. Though cool, the weather was beautiful this time of year, the sky a crystal blue that seemed to hang lower than it did elsewhere in the world. As though the heavens were closer there, somehow.