by Tim Lebbon
The old guy, however . . .
Hellboy had learned long ago that it was the old guys you had to watch.
“So she sent for a demon to haunt our family,” Adamo rasped.
“I’m no demon,” Hellboy growled.
“Surely that’s not for you to say?” the old man said, his English heavily accented yet precise. “Isn’t it for the people around you to decide?”
Hellboy stared at the man, refusing to rise to the bait.
Adamo laughed, like dry dead leaves on concrete. The smile left his face just as quickly, and he straightened, staring up into Hellboy’s face. “I see a big, red, ugly man before me, and so I see a demon.”
“I’m not that big.”
Adamo switched his gaze to Franca, and that let Hellboy stare at the six goons. Oh, they looked heavy enough, with their tanned faces, slick black hair, obviously fit bodies, an occasional scar, and bulges beneath their jackets. But they were hire-a-mob—Hellboy could sense that with a sniff. Guys like this paid too much attention to looking hard to actually be hard. And he took great pleasure in staring every one of them down.
It took about ten seconds, in all.
“Dear Franca,” Adamo said. “It’s been a long time. How are your studies? Still digging up the past to learn about the present?”
“Adamo, I’m well, thank you. And you look younger every day.” Hellboy could sense the tension in the young woman’s voice. They were still speaking in English, and that could only have been for his benefit.
Adamo waved a hand, dismissing her compliment, and his smile looked genuine for the first time. “You’ve grown into a fine young woman,” he said. “So sad you felt you had to leave. Your parents still miss you very much.”
“I still talk to them,” she said. “But I was . . . stifled. It’s just the way I’m made.”
Adamo shrugged and nodded his head from side to side, weighing things up. “It’s a pity, though, that you were so willing to listen to such a disturbed young girl. Don’t you understand how much damage entertaining such nonsense can do? Carlotta is . . . challenged. The whole family is having difficult times with her. Like much of the youth of today, she was drinking too much too young, and there were men.” He sighed, crouching down again as the weight of his years hung heavy. “You’ve been gone for four years, Franca. Some family business is no longer your business.”
“Forgive me, Adamo, but she came to me for help.”
“And you called this?” He waved a hand at Hellboy.
“Take a look in the mirror, granddad,” Hellboy muttered.
“I only wanted—”
“Help? Yes, I’m sure. Admirable, in a young woman such as you. But you’ve merely helped Carlotta strengthen her delusions.” He shook his head and reached out a hand. One of the goons held his arm, steadying Adamo, and Hellboy saw the show in every movement. Strong as an ox, he thought.
“There is no family curse,” Adamo said, looking at Hellboy. “We are a large family, and there are unfortunate tales in our past. But that’s just what they are: unfortunate. Curses? Pah! You believe in such things?”
Hellboy raised an eyebrow.
Adamo laughed, that grating sound again. “Yes. Of course you do. But no such superstitious drivel hangs around the Esposito family. We look after our own here, and we won’t welcome the likes of you.”
“I appreciate your feelings,” Hellboy said. “Really. But you’re not the one who called us in. And from my experience, the more someone doth protest too much, the more likelihood there’s something rotten in the state of Denmark.”
Adamo chuckled, shaking his head. “And so you never give normality a chance, is that it?”
Hellboy blinked slowly. “Your English is very good.”
“I’m old,” Adamo said. He tapped his head. “But this still feels young. My body fails me, so I fill my time with learning.”
“And research?”
“Oh, yes. I know an awful lot about you, Hellboy.”
“Huh.” Hellboy scratched his chin with one finger, swinging his big right hand by his side. “You’d be surprised how little you know.”
Adamo came closer. He was shrivelled with age, but as he looked up into Hellboy’s face there was no sense at all that he was a small man. His presence was palpable, and Hellboy could not help respecting him. For an old guy, he was full of vitality.
“Listen to me,” he said, so softly that no one else but he and Hellboy could hear over the hubbub of the airport. “The Espositos have been in Amalfi for a thousand years. We’re one of the city’s oldest families. My ancestors were one of the greatest shipping families in the Mediterranean, and we have royalty to our name. But such a large, tenacious family attracts other names as well. There are madmen, and wrongdoers. There are murderers. These times are strange, a difficult challenge to someone such as me, trying my best to keep the family name. Our youngsters . . .” He shrugged, glanced across at Franca. “They have no respect.”
Hellboy nodded, scratching his chin again. “Hmm.”
“If you come to Amalfi and start digging around, it will be our ruin. Because you will find things, Hellboy. You will find that my great-great-grandfather enjoyed the company of young men. You will discover that there was a lady bearing our name several centuries ago who plied the world’s oldest trade through the harbors and ports of the Amalfi coast. And there is Guiseppe Esposito of the seventeenth century, a murderer and defiler of little girls.”
“Nice of you to want to keep such a family name alive.” Hellboy looked down into the old man’s eyes, and for a beat he felt ashamed at the barbed comment.
“A few among many hundreds,” Adamo said, stepping back and raising his voice once again. “You bring attention with you, Hellboy. We don’t want it. There is no curse. Please, honor me and respect my family by leaving.”
Hellboy was aware of other passengers parting around their little group like river water around a rock. They were unmoving, but soon the time would come to split. The question was, should he fight against the tide, or go with the flow?
“Of course,” he said, and he felt Franca’s eyes burning into him. “Last thing the B.P.R.D. wants to do is upset an old man.”
“I’ve already arranged for you to leave on the next flight,” Adamo said, nodding his thanks.
“No need. I’ll buy my own ticket.” Hellboy glared at the goons again, amused to see their confidence return now that they thought he was going. By tomorrow, they’d have made themselves believe they’d had a hand in scaring him off. And by next week, they’d be telling their kids bedtime stories about how they’d fought Hellboy, and won. So it went.
“But—” Franca said.
“And you, my dear Franca,” Adamo said, stepping forward to kiss the woman. “Don’t leave it so long before your next visit. La Casa Fredda misses you deeply.”
“Of course,” Franca said, angry and confused.
When the old man turned to leave, his thugs casting warning glances back over their shoulders, Hellboy hefted his bag and walked back to the café. He was already sitting down when the doors closed behind the men, and the waiter left a menu with him, though Hellboy already knew what he wanted. Italy meant pizza.
Franca stood before him and cursed briefly, vehemently in Italian. “What the hell was that?” she said. “You come all this way then turn tail at the first sign of—”
“Lady,” Hellboy said, “no one tells me to leave.” He perused the menu, looked up at Franca, and grinned. And there, he thought, is one tough woman.
He’d rather take on Adamo’s goons any day.
—
They waited at the café for an hour, eating excellent pizza and drinking slightly less excellent coffee, and Hellboy only asked a few small details about Franca’s cousin. He knew it would be better to hear the tale from the girl’s own mouth, so that the story would not be so distorted in the telling. Already there had been a confrontation, and tension, and Franca’s take on things could have shifted
without her realizing. And besides, Hellboy liked her company. It was a while since he’d spent time with a good looking woman who couldn’t read minds, set fires, or talk to ghosts—or want him dead.
“So how much of a ‘family’ is the family?” he asked between mouthfuls of his third pizza. He’d been subjected to too much airline food lately, and he regarded this as cleansing his system.
“Nothing like that,” Franca replied, smiling.
“Those goons?”
“Adamo always hires security when he leaves Amalfi. As he said, it’s an old family, and it has lots of money. He’s always been afraid that the Espositos would be targeted by kidnappers or the like.”
“But none of the people who went missing were kidnapped?”
Franca shrugged. “Who’s to say?”
“Hmm.” Hellboy finished his coffee and sat back, stretching his arms over his head. His shoulders ached, his arms were sore from the workout they’d had in Iceland, and he was hoping this would be a quick, quiet one. He’d have liked a few days back at HQ before coming out again, catching up with Liz, seeing how that thing in the Kenyan lake had panned out for Abe. But hopefully this one would be done in a day or two. Get in, find out what was really going on, get out again.
No fireworks, no fights. No tentacles.
He could hope.
“I guess he’ll know we’re coming,” he said.
“I’m not so sure. Adamo likes to give the impression he has a long reach, but Amalfi is his whole world. I’ve got away from the family, and I only live here, in Naples. Not a million miles away.”
“Why get away?”
“I felt smothered.”
“You weren’t afraid of anything?”
Franca frowned. “What, like Carlotta? No, not at all. At least, I wasn’t.”
“But now?” Hellboy asked.
“Now . . .” She trailed off, pushing crumbs around her plate with her fingertip. “Well, Carlotta showed me some stuff that’s pretty hard to deny, or forget.” She shook her head, frowning.
“If it’s okay, I’d rather hear it from her. I just wanted to know where you stand.”
“It’s thanks to my boyfriend that you’re here, actually,” Franca said. “He met you a while ago in Brazil.”
Hellboy frowned, mentally rifling through memories of cases and monsters, wraith and dark places. “Ah,” he said a beat later. “Brazil.” He frowned, trying to slam the drawer that particular case file had popped up from. Damn Nazis!
“His name’s Alex Westerfield.”
“Alex,” he said, nodding. “Young guy. Cocky.”
“Well . . .” she said uncertainly.
“Oh, hey, didn’t mean to—”
“No!” she said, laughing and holding up one hand. “No, it’s okay. He was, once. His father’s influence, I think.”
“But no more?”
“I don’t like cocky men,” she said, and Hellboy grinned. He liked strong women who looked him in the eye.
“We should go,” he said, glancing at his watch. They’d waited over an hour. If Adamo and his goons were still watching to see if he really had left . . . well, let them. He was full of pizza. And he really needed a shower.
CHAPTER 3
—
Amalfi
—
Franca had not been back to Amalfi since leaving four years before, afraid that if she did return she would be caught and consumed back into the family, like a fly trapped forever in amber. All her hopes, all her ambitions and aspirations hung on a thread so long and so thin that it could easily be broken, and that realization came hard. She had promised herself that the time would come when she would go back, because she loved her family, and she missed her parents. But she’d given herself time to adjust, that time had gone on, and there was a selfish comfort in being away that had succeeded in overlying the duty she felt. They can come and see me, she thought. They can call me. But few of them ever had. Carlotta was one, and her mother, but most of the others seemed to have shunned her, as though by fleeing Amalfi she had left their world forever.
She had never believed that it would feel like coming home.
They had left the airport apparently without being spotted by anyone Adamo had left behind. She’d been aware of Hellboy glancing around as they’d walked to her car, and he’d sunk into the seat, groaning and resting his head back. He seemed to take comfort in being in the enclosed space of the vehicle, and she guessed it must be a challenge being out in the open when you were so . . . distinctive. She’d seen recognition on many people’s faces, and fear on some. By the time she’d driven past the airport perimeter, Hellboy had been snoring lightly beside her. She didn’t have the heart to wake him up.
Sitting with a stranger sleeping in her car, she made the journey alone. The reason for her return felt good and honest, but its consequences were difficult to comprehend. La Casa Fredda loomed large in her imagination, and thinking of that place made her both excited and unsettled.
She’d cast Alex aside with a phone call. He had tried to convince her not to go, of course. He knew some of her past, and the concern in his voice had given her butterflies in her stomach. It’s family, she had told him. Perhaps that was unfair.
It was only as they approached Amalfi that Hellboy came awake.
“Sorry,” he said. “I haven’t been very good company.”
“No worries.”
“Where are we?”
“Almost there.” Almost home, she’d come close to saying. And everything she saw sparked memories.
They followed the coastal road into Amalfi, hugging the cliffs, and she was as aware as ever of the sheer drop to their right. The sea looked stunning this late in the afternoon, with the sun sinking towards the horizon and casting its light across the surface like liquid fire. Familiar landmarks appeared along the road, guiding her in, and she found that she wore a melancholy smile. She had grown up here, and much as she had disassociated herself with her past, a happy childhood like her own left echoes.
“Wow,” Hellboy said as they rounded the final bend. The road dipped steeply down towards Amalfi’s harbor and small beach, and much of the city was laid out to view. The sun was catching it just right. White buildings clung to the hillside in defiance of gravity, their orange roofs faded with dust from a long, hot summer. The beach was speckled with parasols, the parking lot at the front was a riot of cars and buses, and the lemon groves on the hillsides above were a deep, luscious green.
“It’s said that Hercules founded this city,” Franca said. “He buried his wife Amalfi here. I once went out with a boy who swore he’d found the grave.”
“I’d like to meet him,” Hellboy said, chuckling.
“You’ve seen a lot of strange things,” Franca said, a question that came out as a statement.
“A few, here and there.”
“You’ll like Amalfi.” She suddenly felt fiercely protective of her birthplace. Hellboy was here because of her, partly, and because of her troubled younger cousin, and she’d do her utmost to make sure he left here with good memories. “Just through here, and we’re close.”
They passed through the tunnel onto the Via Matteo Camera, sweeping down to the seafront, and instantly they were swallowed up in the traffic. Horns blared, and drivers hung out of their windows, gesticulating wildly. A bus had bumped a big Mercedes, and the two drivers were standing beside the bonded vehicles staring at the dents. One of them said something, the other shrugged, and they continued to stare. They seemed impervious to the chaos their fender bender had caused.
“I’ve heard a lot about Italian driving,” Hellboy said.
“Hey! Remember who you’re talking to.” Franca tried mock-stern, but it didn’t work. The big red guy looked genuinely cowed. “So what’s with the hand?” she asked.
His eyebrows rose in surprise. “Pretty forthright, aren’t you?”
Franca shrugged, then leaned on her horn for a couple of seconds, adding to the cacophony.
Hellboy shifted his big right hand, flexing his fingers, turning it this way and that in his lap. Franca glanced down. It didn’t appear at all cumbersome or unwieldy.
“You tell me,” he said at last.
“You were born with it?”
“I’ve always had it, yeah.”
Franca nodded, and while the car was stationary and Hellboy’s attention was taken by two young kids squabbling in the street, she looked him over. His face was strong, his jaw square and determined, and his strange eyes were both intelligent and hard. She saw the end of his tail, curled under him and laid along the edge of his seat. He’d already slipped a huge pistol back into its holster—she’d love to know how he wrangled a licence to carry that in Italy—and his belt seemed heavy with pouches and pockets.
And, of course, he was red.
“You haven’t asked how we’re getting into the house without being seen,” she said.
“I assumed you had a plan.”
“There’s a side door that’s usually kept locked. Old servants’ entrance, when the family still employed them. I’ll call Carlotta when we’re close, and she’ll make sure that door’s unlocked.”
“If I’m seen,” he said quietly, “I’m sure your Adamo will hear about it soon enough.”
“That’s why I want to keep you in the car. I’m hoping anyone who sees you will just think you’re a sunburned tourist.”
She was aware of Hellboy turning to stare at her, and she kept her eyes forward, trying but failing to hold in a smile. Even then, she could not tell whether he was amused or offended.
The traffic jam resolved itself eventually, and Franca steered the car around the wounded Mercedes. She had walked these pavements a thousands times, browsed these shops, drunk in these cafes and eaten in these restaurants. She’d had her first kiss down on the beach, and once a rich Frenchman had taken her to his room in the Hotel Luna, where they had sat on the balcony after making love and looked down on the harbor as daylight faded and street lamps made a fairytale of Amalfi.
