The Bones of Giants

by Christopher Golden

  With a frown, Dr. Manning turned to find Kate Corrigan standing just inside the door. Her short, blond hair looked unkempt, as if she had just woken up, and she held a mug of coffee in one hand. Tom glanced around the office and saw paperwork spread out at the small coffee table in the far corner.

  Kate had been waiting for him. From the expression on her face, Dr. Manning knew that the weather was about to change.

  “Good morning, Tom,” she said.

  “Kate. What are you doing, getting here this early? I come in at this time, and have Penelope come in at this time, so I can get my work done before the shit starts to hit the fan.”

  She rubbed tiredly at her eyes. “Not getting here. Never left.” Kate sipped at her coffee and sighed, then walked over to slump down in one of the two chairs opposite Dr. Manning’s desk.

  Reluctantly, he moved his briefcase to the floor and slipped into his chair.

  “I was up all night working on that Crossley thing with the draco volans. Was all set to go home around 4 A.M. when I got a call from Barry.”

  Dr. Manning let out a breath and studied her curiously. There were dark circles under Kate’s eyes, and no wonder. “Barry? He’s not in Vienna?”

  “I sent him to check up on the situation in Stockholm.”

  “Oh, right,” Dr. Manning replied, a sinking feeling in his stomach. “And?”

  Kate sipped her coffee, and Tom wanted to snap at her for it. She hesitated as if trying to figure out how to put words to it.

  “It seems the Swedes haven’t been completely forthcoming with us.”

  Dr. Manning sat back in his chair, wishing his own coffee cup was full. Wondering how long Penelope was going to be and how soon he might expect caffeine. And to think he had been feeling so energized just a few minutes ago.

  “Elaborate.”

  Kate nodded. “Word is—and this is only whispers, mind you—that in addition to Karl Aronsson’s murder, and the murders of the operatives that the Prime Minister had tasked us with keeping an eye on the… remains… the remains themselves are missing. Stolen, apparently.”

  Dr. Manning cursed under his breath and sat up straighten “Hellboy didn’t mention that in his report. Or, in Abe’s report, because you know Abe wrote it.”

  “I’d say it’s safe to assume nobody told them.”

  “Damn it,” Dr. Manning said. “I wanted to have a look at those remains myself, or at least have some of our people examine them. Any word on who took them?”

  “Not a one,” Kate replied. “But the Prime Minister is apparently very un­happy. Also, Barry tells me we can expect a call from him fairly soon ourselves. Or, actually, you can.”

  “To tell me somebody stole the corpse of a god from them?”

  Kate went to take another sip of coffee, and then scowled when she found that it was empty. She set the mug down on his desk and ran both hands through her hair. Tom had rarely seen her look so exhausted.

  “Not exactly. Honestly, I doubt they’ll ever tell you that. Probably stonewall forever and then tell you it wasn’t the genuine article anyway, which is what Barry says they’re already telling each other, trying to convince themselves.”

  “Then why is the Prime Minister of Sweden calling me?”

  Kate smiled, but there was no humor in it. “You’ll love this. They had some people observing Hellboy and Abe. From a distance, of course.”

  “Spying,” Dr. Manning said.

  “Spying,” Kate agreed. “Only they’ve lost track of our guys not far north of some village where the entire population, a couple hundred people, were mas­sacred and some very strange things were found.”

  Dr. Manning sighed. “And of course they have no plans to tell us what these strange things were.”

  “Barry said something about a giant dog, but he didn’t have the particulars. Anyway, they’re getting near the Arctic circle—the terrain is less than tropical up there—and the Swedes lost track of our team. The Prime Minister is apparently up in arms after the theft of the remains and the murders of some of his operatives. He’s getting paranoid. Barry says word behind the scenes is that he’s accusing Hellboy of stealing the remains, and of trying to smuggle the hammer out of the country. It’s a national treasure, according to the Prime Minister.”

  “How can they say it’s a national treasure if they insist it isn’t what we think it is?” Dr. Manning spat, wide-eyed with frustration.

  “That’s what I said.”

  “And how can Hellboy have smuggled something out of the country when he’s still there?”

  “Again, what I said. Meanwhile, though, we may be looking at an inter­national incident. Unless of course you can sweet talk your way around it. I’d suggest trying to convince the Prime Minister that they’re right, that none of this is what we both know it is, that it’s all a hoax, and that Hellboy’s report to you indicates as much.”

  Dr. Manning shook his head. “You don’t expect the man to buy that? He’s a head of state, for God’s sake. And people saw the dead giant walking through Stockholm. A lot of people, Kate.”

  Kate got up from the chair and started for the door. “Mass hysteria? He has to have something to tell the rest of the government if all of this slips through the cracks. He’s going to need to cover his ass just as badly as we are. If you can make him realize that, maybe he’ll play along. Meanwhile, I’m going home and going to sleep.”

  As she pulled open the door and turned to smile tiredly at him, the phone began to ring. Through the half-open door, Tom could see Penelope at her desk. She picked up the phone and chirped a pleasant hello, and a moment later she swivelled in her chair to look in at him, her eyes wide, impressed. She put the call on hold.

  “Dr. Manning?”

  Inside the open door, Kate glanced at her. “The Prime Minister of Sweden?”

  “How do you do that?” Penelope demanded.

  Kate turned back to look one last time at Dr. Manning. “Have fun.” Then she walked out, headed home.

  Tom Manning sighed, thinking of the two Coronas and the lime waiting in his refrigerator at home. “Put him through, Penny,” he said with a sigh.

  He had known it was going to be one of those days. But this wasn’t the kind of thing he had in mind.

  For two days, they drove north, drawn on by the dowsing-rod pull of Mjollnir, and aided immeasurably by maps they had found in the cab of the delivery truck. Hellboy slept outside at night, swathed in blankets from the provisions they had taken from the ghost town they had left behind. There was just enough room for Abe and Pernilla to sleep in the front of the truck, though cramped, and just enough room in back for the Nidavellim to get some rest as well.

  But it was cold.

  Summer could be quite pleasant in Sweden, but once you were above the Arctic Circle, even with the long days and brief nights, the echo of winter never faded. Though they were cold inside the truck, they were at least protected from the biting chill of the Arctic wind.

  The maps helped them to divert from their path slightly in order to find villages where the truck could be gassed up. Most of the people they found there were Saami, the people of Lapland, who stared at Hellboy and Abe with a kind of fascination, but without horror. This did not surprise Abe very much. People who lived so far from what most would consider modern civilization had ties to the past, to their ancestors, that the rest of the world could never understand. Oral tradition amongst these peoples often included talk of myths, of gods and monsters. Even the most progressive among them likely still held a place in their heart where they believed such things, even if their minds and mouths denied it.

  They paid for their gas and went on their way, and the Saami watched them go with the understanding that they now had a new story to add to the old myths, about the fish-man and the huge demonic beast with thundering hooves and a hammer worthy of the gods.

  That contact was on Abe’s mind quite a bit as he drove the truck ever north­ward into the mountainous terrain, closer and clos
er to the border between Sweden and Norway. It was early afternoon on the second day out from that charnel house of a village, and all was quiet within the truck except the bang and clank of the engine. The Nidavellim were grim warriors and tended to ride in silence, not bothering to emerge at stops until it was time to camp and prepare a meal. Hellboy had Mjollnir resting on his lap, and he tried to compact his body as much as possible to allow Pernilla as much room as he could manage. But he stared out the window, eyes ever on the skies, or if they passed through a stretch of forest, peering into the wood as they drove.

  Sometimes Abe thought he saw the hammer tremble in Hellboy’s hand.

  Pernilla was tired and cold and Abe did not blame her. From time to time during the long hours in the truck she would nod off and lean her head first against Hellboy and then against Abe. He wondered when he glanced at her what sort of life she would return to. After her father’s death she had not even taken the time to put his affairs in order, nor hers either. The house awaited her, empty, filled with his books and notes. He had seen grief many times before and knew that Pernilla was probably only running away from her own, that she had not really yet begun to deal with her pain. But though he had come to care for her, he would say nothing. It was not his place; not unless she brought it up first.

  The front right tire struck a rut in the road, and Pernilla murmured in her sleep as they were all jostled. She shifted and lay her head against Hellboy again. Abe thought of the Saami and glanced at Mjollnir before returning his attention to the road ahead.

  “How much farther do you think?” he asked.

  Hellboy seemed almost not to hear him at first. Then he blinked and tore his gaze from the sky, turning to look at Abe. “I don’t know. Cant be much further. Eventually we’ll cross into Norway, and then it’s not all that far to the ocean. So it can’t be too much further or we’ll run out of land. But I think he’s a lot closer than that. The mountains are getting taller, and the air is colder. He’d feel at home here.”

  “We haven’t seen anything else,” Abe noted.

  He considered elaborating, but Hellboy nodded. He understood what Abe meant, that after Garm there had not been any other creatures, things that had survived Ragnarok and been drawn somehow, either by the hammer or by the sorcery involved in Thrym’s resurrection.

  “You know what I don’t get?” Abe asked, hands gripping the wheel tightly. “How did they all get here? The corpse with the hammer and Thrym’s body, the Svartalves and the Nidavellim and Garm. If Ragnarok happened, it didn’t happen on this plane of existence. I’m sure the Bureau would have a dozen theories, but one thing seems pretty clear. There’s no record of the kind of devas­tation Ragnarok would have caused, no record of these creatures showing up before, or their bodies being discovered. Nothing except the myths, and those are really ancient.

  “I can believe the dead might go undiscovered, but Garm just got here, and the Nidavellim and Svartalves go around unnoticed. But they don’t come from here. Not naturally. Why didn’t they just go back to where they belong?”

  Hellboy gazed at him a moment, his eyes orange in the slant of light coming through the windshield. Then he turned to look out at the sky again.

  “They couldn’t.”

  Abe frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “The nine worlds collapsed. The land of the gods and the realm of the giants, even the netherworld… they caved in like a house of cards. That’s how devastating the final battle was. Midgard… our world… was affected the least, but it depends how you look at it. Whatever was left of those other worlds, the fallout, I guess, is still here. Some of it merged with our world, other pieces are still outside this reality.”

  As he spoke, Hellboy’s voice kept changing, growing even deeper and then returning to normal. Abe glanced at him several times, but his friend did not look at him again. A chill went through Abe and he shivered.

  “You know a lot more about this stuff than you did a couple of days ago,” Abe said slowly.

  “The longer I hold the hammer and the further north we go, the clearer it all becomes in my head.”

  “Sometimes you don’t even sound like yourself anymore. And I’m not just talking about your temper.”

  “Sometimes I don’t feel like myself either.”

  “Any more hallucinations?” Abe asked.

  “They’re not hallucinations,” Hellboy replied calmly.

  As he spoke to Abe, Hellboy watched the ravens circling in the sky. The birds did not lead, now. He did not need them to, not with the pull he felt in the dense iron of the hammer.

  The truck wound along a road at the base of a mountain range. Snow blew down off the mountains, and ice crystals formed upon the windshield. On the other side of the road was a line of trees, a dense wood that was scattered with white from a brief snowfall the night before.

  Faces looked out at him from the trees.

  “Stop the truck.”

  “What?” Abe asked.

  “Stop. Please.”

  The vehicle shuddered to a stop. Pernilla woke abruptly, glancing around as though she had forgotten where she was and wondered how she came to awaken in a delivery truck in the frozen north with two such men. Hellboy ignored her as he stepped out onto the road, his hooves chipping ice. With Mjollnir raised and ready for battle, he marched across the small spread of land between the roadside and the woods, but when he reached the trees, there was no one there.

  Hellboy stopped, a kind of deep, abiding sadness coming to rest within him, along with a profound dread. He shook his head once, then again. With his left hand, he made a fist and struck himself in the temple several times.

  “Get out of my head!”

  He took a long, shuddering breath and turned to stomp back toward the truck. Abe and Pernilla had gotten out to stretch, and Hellboy felt badly for his behavior. He knew that it wasn’t fair to either of them, to his friend, or to this courageous woman he barely knew.

  “Sorry,” he muttered as he reached them.

  Abe leaned against the truck, the mountain range behind it making them all seem so tiny and insignificant. “It’s all right. We’ll get to the end of this. This was as good a time as any to stop. We would have had to do it soon. We have a little less than half a tank of gas and no sign of any place up ahead that we could fill up. I suggest we go on by foot from here.”

  Pernilla still looked sleepy as she turned to him. “Is that really necessary?”

  Abe shrugged. “We have provisions and equipment. We either go on foot now, or we don’t have a truck to drive back when we’re done.”

  Hellboy felt the heat of Mjollnir in his hand, and it pulled him toward the mountain. “It’s all right. We’re heading up now anyway.”

  They both turned to look up at the distant, snow-covered peaks. Then Abe looked at Pernilla.

  “You can go back to the last village if you want. Take the truck. We’ll make our way. It’s going to be much harder on you than it will be on us making this trek. No one’s going to fault you if you want to wait for us back there.”

  “No. I’ll manage. Like you said, we’ve got provisions and equipment. I’ll be all right.”

  “Okay,” Abe agreed. He took a moment to digest that, then glanced at Hellboy again and gestured toward the woods. “So what did you see? Svartalves? I’ve been wondering when they’d show up to try to stop us.”

  “No. Not Svartalves,” he replied.

  But he said nothing more. He was not sure how to explain to them that the faces and silhouettes he had seen in the woods belonged to Mist and her sisters, to the Valkyrie, and that they had come to claim his soul.

  They found the first corpse eighteen hours later. The foothills had been easy enough to cross, and the pull of Mjollnir drew them through a narrow valley pass between two of the higher peaks in the range. Once beyond the pass Hellboy felt lured toward an adjunct mountain range where the peaks were linked with crevasses and hidden gorges but no real valley. There was only mountain, th
en, and they camped at the base for the night, and then picked up again in the morning, leaving the world behind.

  The climb was steep and rigorous, and might have been impossible for Pernilla without proper climbing equipment had Hellboy not been along. Every few hours they paused briefly for a rest and a short meal. The snow was powdery on top, with a hard crust beneath. Even with Hellboy’s bulk, his hooves did not sink very far, and he wondered how deep it was. There were bare places on the mountainside, outcroppings of rock where the wind whistled loudly and scoured the stone clean of snow cover. At such points, Hellboy went first, blocking his companions from the wind as best he could.

  Despite the wind and the snow and the exertion of the climb, none of them complained. Pernilla’s discomfort could be read quite clearly in her face, but she said nothing, only watched Hellboy and the hammer and nodded as though satisfied that they were on the right track. Several times she made comments about her father, and her determination to see Thrym destroyed for what he had done, but these were mostly to herself, as if she needed to remind herself why she had come.

  In the early afternoon that following day it began to snow lightly. While he was aware that there was danger here, both from Thrym and from the elements, Hellboy was mesmerized by the beauty and power of nature. They were at the top of the world, almost as far divorced from human society as it was possible to get, and there was a certain wonder in that for him.

  It was shortly thereafter that they crested a rise that fell away into a basin plateau thousands of feet higher than the foothills they had been in the day before, and they came upon the bloodied corpse of a Saami man.

  “Damn,” Hellboy whispered.

  Abe and Pernilla crouched in the snow to examine him further. Hellboy narrowed his eyes and peered through the light snowfall, trying to get a sense of the landscape around them. The Nidavellim actually looked up, as well, though what they hoped to see, Hellboy could not imagine. Perhaps they imagined the corpse had been dropped from above by some great, monstrous bird. With the fresh snow, however, there was no sign as to how the man had been killed, or what had become of his killer.