by Tim Lebbon
She seemed confused, then her face sagged and she looked down at her feet.
“You bring doom!” one of the women said. “Doom and pain, red man.”
“Carlotta dies, and you come here, offend our family, our great-grandfather, and you think . . . ?” The man behind Mario could not even finish, such was his anger.
Oh, crap, Hellboy thought, they’re turning into a mob.
The kids were still whispering to each other behind their hands, but he could see by their eyes that they were no longer smiling. Even them.
“Franca?”
“Listen to him!” Franca said. “You have no idea what we’ve just been through, what we’ve seen and heard, and—”
“You left us, Franca,” Mario said. And though Hellboy saw some measure of warmth in his eyes, his voice was cold.
“I went to live my life,” Franca said. “You know that Mario. You and I talked about it before I went.”
If she had expected that to faze Mario at all, she must have been disappointed. “We did,” he said, “and I chose to stay with the family. All my heart is behind them.”
“And mine!” Franca shouted, the passion in her voice stilling all movement and muttering in the square. “I love the name Esposito as well as any of you, and the fact that I have my own life detracts nothing from that! And that’s why I’m telling you—”
Mario said something in Italian then, a fast smattering of words that Hellboy could not understand, and they killed whatever Franca had been about to say. She looked at her cousin, her family, and then back to Hellboy.
“We should leave,” she said quietly. She turned her back on her family and walked from the square.
“You’re making a big mistake,” Hellboy said to Mario.
“A threat?” Mario asked. He was strong, and he held Hellboy’s gaze. Impressive.
“The truth,” Hellboy said. “I came here to help Carlotta, and now it turns out I have to help you all.”
“We don’t need the sort of help you gave her,” a woman behind Mario said, her voice angry through hot tears.
Hellboy sighed and looked down at the little kids. They were staring at him with wide eyes, almost completely motionless, waiting for whatever came next. He gave them a weak smile, turned, and started away.
“I’ll still be here,” he said, without looking back. “When you need me, I’ll still be here.” He expected a rebuff, or a final word from the Esposito family’s younger generations gathered behind him. But only silence saw him from the square, and the heat of their stares boring into his back.
—
With Franca ahead of him, Hellboy took a moment to unbind the spirit as he walked.
Damn you damn you damn you!
“Hush,” he whispered.
You crush me, you hurt me!
“Lady, I know you don’t hurt. You wanted to come, and I’m glad to have you along for the ride, because honestly, I need the help.”
Her tone changed instantly. You want help from me, Hellboy?
He didn’t respond. Ghosts, and their damn taunts and word-games . . .
Where is the cursed monster now?
“I don’t know. After it went for us on the bridge, it vanished. Thought I’d killed it, pushing it down into the water. It sorta . . . went out for a bit, then—”
It’s taken form. Water . . . that hurts, but does not kill.
“So what will kill it?”
I never had chance to find out.
“It’s sacrificing people to Vesuvius.” He passed by an old, old man, who looked up at Hellboy apparently talking to himself. Hellboy waved at him with the finger bone.
Of course. It has no wish to return, and that is why you must take it there. It is what I was trying to do when the thing defeated me, and the volcano . . .
“That won’t happen again,” Hellboy said.
You seem sure. The voice had taken on a mocking lilt.
Hellboy started winding the cord again as he walked, twisting the two ends into the beginning of the binding knot.
Torturer, defiler! the old ghost shouted in his mind. Then gentle again, it said, You want the woman, don’t you? Of course. But if the fire wolf eludes you, she will be your last hope.
“Shut it, lady.” Hellboy pulled the knot tight and sighed when the presence left his mind. He paused for a moment and looked around, listening for Franca’s footsteps and hearing them as she fled her family once again.
—
She walked aimlessly for a while, wanting only to be away from there. If she could walk for seven days and be out of Italy completely, that would suit her. After a couple of minutes she heard Hellboy’s hooves on the stone paving behind her, following at a respectful distance, and she was grateful for the space he was giving her. He would ask her soon, she knew: ask what Mario had said to her in Italian. And hopefully by then she would be able to tell him without sobbing it out.
You bring shame on our name, and we disown you.
Franca had been an only child, and Mario and Carlotta had been as close to siblings as she could have wished for. Now one of them was dead, and the other . . .
She’d known for a long time that she was the black sheep of the family. Choosing to leave Amalfi and pursue her own life had made her such, and however wrong that was—however short-sighted and old fashioned, selfish and unreasonable—she had never shaken the idea that it was her doing something wrong. The guilt ran deep, and though she had enjoyed the years since she had been away with a carefree abandon, some nights she dreamed of the place she would always call home. And some mornings she woke with tears dried on her face, and the dark shadow of shame would haze her day.
Coming back here had crystallized that guilt and shame, but it had also reinforced her certainty that she had done the right thing. Franca was conflicted, and her frustration at not being able to help her family only went to make matters worse.
“Franca,” Hellboy said behind her. His voice was deep and mysterious, and she wondered what hidden depths he concealed; what shame and guilt, frustrations and longings. And here he was, doing his best to help.
She stopped and sagged against a wall, holding her face in her hands but fighting back the tears. He was right! She would not let them grind her down, not like this, and not after everything she had seen this night just gone. A minute of weakness now was another minute that she was not helping her family, whether they welcomed that help or not.
“What now?” she asked. Hellboy stopped behind her and put his hand on the back of her neck. It was warm and strong, and meant in the gentlest way.
“Now we play it my way,” he said.
Franca turned, anger quickly receding when he saw the big man’s face. He understood her anguish, she could see. He could empathize, and she wondered whether unconscious prejudice had made her unable to see that before. He’s human, she thought, as much as me, as much as the next person. And she could only smile, because the truth of that idea was bright in his eyes.
“We should get into the house a different way from last time,” she said. “Adamo will have the dogs out, even though he thinks we’re gone.”
“He’s the root of all this, I’m certain of it,” Hellboy said. “I absolutely have to speak with him, and I’m done trying to play nice.”
“We can’t just smash our way in there,” Franca said.
Hellboy shrugged and looked over her shoulder, further along the path.
“Hellboy—”
“The dogs I can handle,” he said. “Even if they get nasty, I was given something a long time ago by an old woman in Iceland, and if I can find it in here . . .” He patted the pouches around his belt, then looked down at Franca. “But people . . . guards, family, whatever . . . I’ve had enough of them, Franca. They get in my way, I’ll move them gently aside.”
She’d seen him fighting that fire wolf, the fury in his eyes, the power in his punches. “Gently?” she asked.
The big red man nodded, but said no more.
Franca turned an
d led the way. She was determined to be able to enter La Casa Fredda without any trouble, but the closer they drew to her old family home, the more she realized that was unlikely. Adamo was alert now, and Mario and the others had likely called ahead already to warn him that Hellboy and she were back in town.
Gently, gently, she thought, and that was the mantra that kept her going. Hellboy was here to help her family, not hurt them. If and when the trouble began, she would be there by his side.
—
Amalfi’s daytime heartbeat was thrumming by the time they reached the walls of La Casa Fredda. Scooters flitted through the winding streets and along the coastal road, tourist buses were arriving at the harbor, and a lone speedboat was chalking a line across the sea a mile from shore. Birds sang in the lemon groves across the hillsides, and in their shade, local people were moving down towards the heart of the town, to shop or work, or to meet friends for coffee.
Beyond the walls, the house’s grounds sounded silent.
Franca had taken a different approach from yesterday, climbing the zig-zag route of a path further inland and then cutting through a small cemetery and closing on the house from the east. This took them near to where one corner of the garden ended in a sheer cliff rising fifty feet, and Franca knew that the wall here was very old. It was even crumbling in places, and family talk had it that it had not been maintained for two centuries.
And below where the dilapidated wall was built into the rock of the cliff, Franca knew of a small crawlspace. It had been used by generations of Esposito teens, the secret way out to meet friends for drinks or childhood sweethearts for love on the hillsides. She had used it herself many times, and she wondered now whether her mindset at the time had been different from everyone else’s. The crawlspace was known about by the adults, of course, and most people using it did so with a sort of naïve awareness. When Franca had used it, her secrecy had been deadly serious. At the time it had been her only available route from the family, until she was old enough to make her own adult decision to leave.
Approaching the area of the crawl hole, Franca was struck by a flush of nostalgia. She had kissed her first boy just this side of the wall, after he had walked her home from a dance in one of Amalfi’s many hotels. He was a tourist, and had been returning to Britain the very next day, but he had tried nothing more than a kiss. Many times she had wondered whether he held that night in the same dreamy reverence as she.
“Here,” she said to Hellboy. “A space beneath the wall.”
“And the dogs don’t know about this?”
“Everyone knows about it. But everyone also treats it as secret. Cute family tradition.”
“Huh. Well, there’s nothing cute about tonight.”
“I know that!” she said quietly. She touched the wall and felt the damp, crumbling plaster turn to dust beneath her fingers. “I’m doing my best, Hellboy. Just hoping this place slips their minds.”
“Right,” he said, but she could see his doubt. “Well then, I’ll go first.”
Franca nodded and stepped back slightly, looking at the length of wall to her left. It led downhill towards the house, and she could see the eastern wall of the building from here. Windows were open, and a curtain billowed in the gentle sea breeze. Nothing else moved, and she heard no sign of activity.
Hellboy was pushing himself through the crawlspace. She heard muttered curses and could not help smiling. Then she saw his hooved feet and tail waving below the tattered remains of his long coat, and her smile slipped. She had forgotten to ask whether he’d found whatever he’d been looking for in his belt pouches.
His feet disappeared, and silence descended. She waited for a while, listening; she heard no movement, and no sound of confrontation. A bird landed atop the wall close to her, and she turned slowly to watch it peruse the area. It started singing, and then suddenly it flew away as if startled by a movement.
She turned around first, making sure nobody was stalking close to her from this side. Then, confident that she was alone, she turned back to the wall.
“Hellboy!” she called in a hoarse whisper.
“Wait,” she heard, and she hated that he told her no more. Damn it, I’m not waiting here like a puppy. She dropped to her stomach and started through the hole herself. For an instant she was sixteen again; she had the memory of a kiss still fresh on her lips, and in her mind’s eye the smile of a boy who could not speak her language, and whom she could barely understand. Then she felt the weight of the wall above her, remembered how little it had been maintained, and she was back to the dangerous present once again. Still crawling, she felt a melancholic regret at the loss of innocence. And then a hand clamped across her mouth.
She tried to scream in surprise, and Hellboy pressed harder, mashing her lips against her teeth. With his strange right hand he grabbed her belt and pulled her upright, staring into her eyes. When she calmed, he nodded and let her go.
“Quiet,” he whispered. Then he looked down at something on the ground.
It was a dozen feet away, and hidden slightly by some of the lush plant growth in this forgotten corner of the garden, but Franca could still make out the dead dog.
She glanced at Hellboy. He was crouched down a little so that he was no taller than her, tensed, ready for action. His left hand rested on his holster, his right fisted and heavy.
The rear of the house looked peaceful from here, just as it had on warm summer days when she used to live here. Many of the windows and doors were open, balconies bright with the reds and yellows of flower boxes. On the ground floor, the patio area that ran the length of the house was also awash with color, and several large stone tables were surrounded by metal chairs. She could see no one sitting there, and similarly the balconies appeared to be abandoned.
“What killed it?” she whispered.
Hellboy stepped forward and she followed. Even before they reached the dog, the smell was enough to give her a clue. Amazed that she had not smell it before, Franca pressed her hand over her nose and mouth, trying to shut out the rich stench of burnt meat. It only smells like that when it’s freshly cooked, she thought, and she was disgusted at the brief pang of hunger the smell inspired within her.
The dog was one of the big Dobermans, its right flank and chest burnt black. She leaned forward a little and looked into its dulled eyes, checking for movement. Definitely dead.
“It got here before us,” Hellboy said, and as Franca stood she realized the enormity of what might have happened.
It’s got here before us . . . and La Casa Fredda is silent.
Shunning her own sense of self preservation, and ignoring Hellboy’s startled cry behind her, Franca ran down the slope of the garden towards her family home, dreading what she would find.
CHAPTER 10
—
Amalfi
—
He knew that shouting after her would do no good. Caution had fled now that her family was at risk, and the only way to stop her would be to catch up. But Franca was young and fit, and she knew this garden well.
Hellboy pulled his gun and watched the house as he ran, rather than Franca’s back. He searched for movement at any of the windows and doors, hoping that if something did appear it would be human. But the house exuded a stillness that he did not like. And Franca was almost there, leaping this way and that as she negotiated her way through a garden she had known since taking her first steps as a toddler.
“Franca!” he called, risking one shout before he lost sight of her through one of the doors. A curtain swished behind her and then settled again, like the house’s skin parting to allow her entry. It won’t be so welcoming to me, he thought, but he did not slow, and did not hesitate. And that was how he ran into Franca immediately inside the doorway.
She went sprawling, gasping as the wind was knocked from her and slipping across the marble floor. Hellboy kept to his feet, just, staggering to one side and slapping his right hand against a wall to regain his balance. And then he saw why she had
stopped.
It must have been a sitting room, once. The remains of several casual chairs and a sofa were dotted around, and on the walls there were darkened oil paintings, and a selection of charred masks from around the world. In the corner, sitting on the floor and leaning against a wall, the blackened shell of a burnt human being.
Franca muttered something in Italian, but Hellboy knew the language of humans enough to know that it was an utterance of shock and grief. She knelt up and crawled forward, pausing on a rug that had had much of its surface scorched away, leaving only the bare brown thread of its underside visible.
“Keep away,” Hellboy said, and when she turned to look at him her eyes were wide, and a line of dribble stretched from her mouth. It looked as if she did not recognize him. At least we got some of them away, he thought, but it was scant comfort. And there was the very real danger that Mario and the others were on their way back here even now.
The fire wolf could still be here.
Hellboy looked away from the corpse—hollowed eyes, cracked scalp, bright grin in its blackened, shrunken face—and tilted his head to one side, listening.
“Hellboy,” Franca breathed.
“Shh!” He opened his mouth slightly, listening for anything that could give away what was happening elsewhere in the house. The utter silence promised only that something had already happened.
“Hellboy, that’s a child,” Franca said, her voice breaking on the last word.
“Yeah,” he said. Adrenaline pumped, and his anger was growing with every heartbeat. He did not look at the body again, and he closed his eyes only briefly, waiting for the whisper of a lost spirit but hearing nothing.
“Do you think—” Franca began.
“Only one way to find out.” He held out his hand to her, pleased when she took it and allowed him to help her stand. “You ready for this?”
“No,” she said, shivering. But there was a strength to her; he’d sensed it before, and he felt it now. She stood by his side and took several deep breaths. “I smell more of this,” she said.
Hellboy nodded. He’d already smelled the burning. One dog dead in the garden likely meant that all of them were dead, otherwise the others would either have attacked, or would have been eating the flesh of their dead companion. And one dead Esposito . . .
