by Tim Lebbon
“I’m more sure every hour I spend here that it is,” Liz said. “That’s the thing. The woman who called us up here is suddenly denying she even made the call. She can’t refute ownership of the yacht, but she says she hardly uses it. She won’t let me on board, but I’m staying close by. Sat on the jetty yesterday evening for a few hours, and I saw some very weird things.”
“So the woman’s happy with a ghost ship, leave her to it.”
“I should, shouldn’t I?” she asked, and for a beat the old Liz was there.
“Any nasty stuff going on?”
“That’s just it, H.B. I’m sure there is. I think this woman’s being tortured somehow, and how can I just let that go?”
“Hmm.” Hellboy looked across at Adamo, feeling the old man’s forehead to make sure he wasn’t too hot. A brief, tiny trickle of flame flowed from the old man’s nose and broke across his lip, fading to the air like a breath of smoke. “Hang on, Liz,” he said. He propped the phone in the door handle, opened a bottle of water and poured it into Adamo’s throat.
The steam came again, and the old body shook and convulsed. But once again, by the time the bottle was half empty, the water simply filled Adamo’s mouth and poured out over his chin.
“Gotta keep an eye on this one,” Hellboy muttered to no one.
“What’s happening?” Mario asked.
“Sorry, I’ll warn you next time.” Hellboy picked up the phone.
“That sounded interesting,” Liz said.
“That’s one word for it. Another word is ‘screwed’. It’s all gone bad here, Liz. Really bad. Wish I’d taken you up on that offer to come over.”
“I still can.”
“Too late.”
“Vesuvius?”
“Oh, you’ve seen that.”
“You’re kidding? It’s all over the news. Half a dozen really bad Pompeii films are probably on right now, if I could be bothered to surf the channels.”
“Yeah. Well. There’s more than one fire wolf. A dozen at least, but I’ve got their head honcho with me right now.”
“How did you manage that?”
“Lots of water. The Mediterranean.”
“What form’s he in?”
“Human.” Hellboy looked Adamo over; gray skin, sallow flesh covered with the beach blanket, those blank eyes. “Ish.”
“Wow,” Liz said.
“It’s from the volcano,” Hellboy said. “Got something else with me as well, something that remembers. I think it’ll help. It was there when the first fire wolf came up out of Vesuvius just before Pompeii was destroyed, and as far as I can figure, it’s been out ever since. The others . . . maybe they followed after they realized this one had escaped. But this is the main man.”
“So let me guess: you’re heading back to the volcano to throw it back in.”
“That’s the plan.”
“You think that will end it all?”
“No,” Hellboy said without pause, and he experienced a depressing, sinking feeling in his gut. “Not for good, at least. But maybe for now, yeah.”
“So the family that called you over?”
“He was their patriarch. And every now and then, he arranged for one of them to be sacrificed to the volcano.”
“And that prevented Vesuvius from erupting?”
“Seems that way.”
“So you stopped the sacrifice and started the eruption.”
“Thank you, Liz,” Hellboy said. He’d already realized the truth of things himself, and Liz was anything but subtle. There was no blame in her voice, nor condemnation, just a statement of fact.
“Just saying,” she said.
“So you’re getting on that yacht tonight, Liz?” Hellboy asked.
Liz did not answer for a while, and he heard the gentle hush of fire as she lit a cigarette. It made him crave one. “Yeah,” she said. “On the yacht tonight.”
“Have you got anything?”
“The charm knot you gave me from Spain. And the vial of Belladonna extract and horse blood.”
“That wasn’t horse blood.”
“I know, Hellboy. I just don’t like to think about what it really is.”
“Well . . .” he said, trailing off.
“You take care, H.B.,” she said, her voice suddenly very soft. “I know you’re a big tough guy and punch before asking questions, but . . .”
“Yeah. But this is a volcano.”
“I mean it. Take care.”
“You too.”
Liz inhaled sharply, and he could imagine her laughing silently in a haze of cigarette smoke. “Pah! It’s a ghost, Hellboy. On a boat. Dream job.”
“Speak to you soon, Liz.”
“Betcha.” And Liz broke the connection.
Hellboy glanced at Adamo and rested his head back against the seat, staring up at the car’s ceiling and yearning for a smoke. His had been soaked, and he’d not seen Mario smoking. Franca entered his mind once again, and he wondered where she was now, what they were doing to her.
She’ll be safe in the car, he thought. They need her, so they’ll keep her safe.
He only hoped that were true.
—
They were being nice to her. Exposed now, they did not attempt to play on familial concerns or their supposed humanity. But they made sure she was comfortable in the back of the car, offered her food and bottled water, and generally fawned over her.
And she wanted to kill them all.
For the first few minutes in the car, Franca had pulled away from the Elders, hugging herself in the rear seat, pressed against the door and regarding them only with terror. One of the men drove, another sat in the front seat, and beside her sat her Great Aunt Sophia. The old woman smiled and purred at Franca, and every now and then fire glittered in her dark eyes, lighting up their unnatural blackness and depths with fearful conflagrations. Sophia whispered, and her voice hissed like burning paper. When she breathed, smoke left her mouth. And when she reached out to placate Franca, her hand was hot, skin bubbled with weeping blisters.
Franca tried the door handle yet again, but the driver controlled the master lock.
“Even if you did open it and jump,” Sophia said, sounding far from human, “you’d die on the road.”
“Better than die in the volcano.”
“Whatever gave you the idea that we wish that for you?” Sophia said. But her expression could not be read.
“I’m not stupid!” Franca said. “And I won’t be easy. I’ll do everything I can to make Vesuvius rage at all of you.”
“And in doing so, you’ll doom thousands to death,” Sophia said.
“Jump in yourself, bitch.”
Sophia blanched and turned away, her skin growing pale and her eyes watering. For a few beats she looked utterly terrified, and Franca would have given an arm to know what Sophia was thinking right then. But then the fire dog in old woman’s clothing turned to her again, and smiled, and said nothing in response.
Franca glanced behind them. Another car followed close containing more Elders, and ahead of them was the third car. A convoy, though they drove with other cars between them sometimes, trying not to give the impression that they were all together.
With every mile that passed beneath their wheels, she felt Hellboy growing farther away. Even now he could be dead, burnt to death by Adamo.
Perhaps she would never know.
She closed her eyes and reinforced the promise she had made herself a dozen times already: they won’t get me.
If it meant killing herself to take from them what they needed, then so be it.
She tried the door handle yet again, looked across at Sophia’s smile, and flicked the old lady the finger.
CHAPTER 15
—
The Road to Vesuvius
—
Adamo woke up as they left the outskirts of Amalfi. Hellboy waited with a bottle of water, but the man’s eyes opened without any sign of fire. He looked around, fixed on Hellboy, and when he
sighed and adjusted his position he looked just like a human being.
“Be warned,” Hellboy said, tipping a splash of water onto the man’s face. Adamo winced back, but there was no steam, and no sizzle. Hellboy reached out and touched his face, and he was merely warm.
Adamo smiled. It twisted his face up, wrinkling the already leathery skin.
“I’ve got plenty of questions for you,” Hellboy said.
Adamo glanced at the driver. “You’re consorting with demons now, Mario?” He spoke in English so that Hellboy could understand, but Mario did not respond.
Good boy, Hellboy thought. Don’t let him suck you in. He had met a hundred demons—though none quite like this—and however cruel, however twisted, they all had a weakness for the sound of their own voices.
Hellboy splashed more water over Adamo’s face. The old man winced again, closing his eyes and breathing deeply as if to calm himself. “Leave him alone,” Hellboy said. “He knows what you are.”
“He might think he knows.”
“And he knows what you’ve done at La Casa Fredda.”
Adamo looked from the window, a strange smile on his face. He seemed almost sad.
“So we’re off to Vesuvius to give you back,” Hellboy said.
Adamo turned to him, trying to feign puzzlement with a face that was no longer quite human. “What makes you think I have anything to do with Vesuvius?”
“The volcano fires up, and so do you. You and all your pets.”
Adamo shrugged, shaking his head. “Strange way to think, Demon.”
“My name’s Hellboy. And I have someone here who’s been waiting to meet you again.”
Monster! the ghost hissed.
Adamo frowned, glanced at the bone tied around Hellboy’s neck. “You actually found the old bitch?”
This time, monster, the spirit whispered, and Hellboy wondered if Adamo heard her words.
“She knows plenty,” Hellboy said. “And now she’s got muscle.”
“And that is meant to concern me?” Adamo laughed.
“You killed Carlotta,” Mario said. His voice was soft, deferential. Hellboy knew that there was still danger here.
“I remember the day she was born,” Adamo said, sounding genuinely nostalgic. He looked from the window as if seeing into the past, and Hellboy wished he could observe the bastard’s expression. “A time for celebration for the whole Esposito family, as any new child is. Or was.” He glanced at Mario in the mirror. Mario kept driving.
“So how soon after birth did you write her name in your book?” Hellboy asked.
“Book?” Mario said. The car’s speed dropped, and Hellboy tapped the back of the driver’s seat.
“Keep going,” he said.
“You have no idea,” Adamo said, and Hellboy hated the way the fire wolf was looking at him.
“I’ve seen more than you can know,” he said, leaning close to Adamo and breathing in his smoky breath. “You? You don’t scare me. I’ve had worse than you for breakfast, then taken the rest of the day off.”
Adamo shrugged—an incredibly human gesture—and then he coughed a blast of fire from his mouth.
Hellboy pressed the fire wolf’s face against the window so that the fire did not touch Mario. The passenger seat’s head rest melted in a cloud of stinging smoke.
“Drive!” Hellboy said, emptying a bottle of water across Adamo’s head. Adamo hissed, the fire retreated, and Hellboy snatched up another water bottle. Without relieving the pressure on Adamo’s head, he crushed the bottle in his right hand and let another litre pour into the fire wolf’s mouth.
Adamo swallowed, and Hellboy felt the fight go out for him for a while.
“Mario,” Hellboy said, “break the speed limit. If they’re driving fast, we need to go faster.”
“We’ll be on the 366 soon. We’ll move quicker then.”
Hellboy nodded.
“What book, Hellboy?”
“Your patriarch here kept a list of the Espositos he’d sacrificed to Vesuvius.”
“This isn’t happening,” Mario whispered. He shook his head, knocking down a gear to negotiate a sharp bend. The road was winding up from the coast now, zig-zagging up the steep hillside, and when Hellboy did not reply, Mario fell silent.
He and all his monsters, the ghost said. I understand, now. They always knew that Vesuvius would need satiating. Merging with humans must have been essential for them to survive, and it was a way to make offspring with fire wolf essence. And that offspring would be . . .
“Sacrificial objects,” Hellboy said. “Just enough of the bloodline to fool the old god, or whatever’s really down there under the volcano.”
Adamo rested his head against the window. The blanket splayed across him had been scorched by his fiery outburst, but he seemed unconcerned at covering this human form. He blinked slowly, calmly, and Hellboy could not decide whether it was complacency or resignation.
Hellboy kept a bottle of water in his right hand, his left holding the unholstered gun. If Adamo tried anything funny again he’d blast his head apart first, then shove the water bottle down his throat and squeeze. That should give them more time.
And he was very conscious that they only had four bottles left.
“Don’t take me there,” Adamo whispered.
“What was that?” Hellboy asked. He’d heard well enough, but this was the first instance of Adamo sounding weak. Hellboy wanted to hear it again, and needed to make sure that Mario also heard. The boy was still too much in thrall to the patriarch, and that could be dangerous if there was trouble.
“Don’t take me to Vesuvius,” the old man said.
“Why not?”
“Vesuvius is pain.”
Hah! the spirit laughed.
“And you?” Mario asked. “Just what the hell are you?”
“I’m nothing! Vesuvius is torture, agony, fury and damnation!”
Hellboy shrugged casually. “I’ve met worse.”
Adamo glared at him, and Hellboy thought he was going to go again. And deep down, that was when Hellboy realized that they would never make it as far as the volcano. The fire wolf was recovering from its long soaking in the sea, the water bottles were only effective for so long, and soon it would change again, killing Mario and exploding the car.
It’s so strong, the voice Hellboy carried with him said. Stronger than ever before. And I can sense its determination, and its fear.
“It’s your fear that will kill you,” Hellboy said. Adamo only smiled, and steam came from his mouth. “Faster,” Hellboy said to Mario. “Go faster.”
The car revved, their speed increased.
And then Adamo sat up straight, sniffed at the air like a wolf seeking its pack. And grinned.
—
Sophia continued trying to talk with her, but Franca turned away, staring from the window at the real world outside. Inside the vehicle was a world of pain that she had no wish to dwell upon; the reality of her family, and the doom that had been visited upon it. There was so much that she did not understand, but she refused to lessen herself by asking.
Outside, people continued with their lives in blissful ignorance of the terrible things among them.
“I’ll tell you,” Sophia said.
Franca shrugged.
“You must want to know. Don’t you? We’re not bad. Not evil. We’re only trying to survive, and that’s not wrong, is it?”
It is if you kill to do it, Franca thought, but she would not be lured into conversation with this thing.
“Adamo was the first,” Sophia said, and Franca closed her eyes, hating herself for wanting to know more. But she could not prevent herself from hearing. I’ll never feel sorry for them, she thought. I’ll never believe they’re anything other than evil.
“He was the first to escape, up out of Vesuvius like the volcano’s own breath, but it didn’t know! And when he didn’t come back, we others went after him. He was the savior, the rescuer, the founder of our new lives. And we
liked what we found. Bound together forever by fire, cursed to live in flame and molten rock forever, we liked the coolness of our escape, the sea, the air . . . and we liked living beneath the skin of humanity.”
Franca glanced at her, questions burning. But she cooled them and looked away. “You think I give a shit?”
“We took the flesh of the family that would become Esposito,” Sophia continued. “Esposito was great because of us. A powerful family, but not too powerful. A strong family, but not so strong that it would draw attention. Each generation, we moved from one dying elder to one with many years left. Our fire, buried in your flesh. Simple. And not evil.”
“You’re killers!” Franca shouted, turning and lunging for Sophia. Her nails caught the old woman across the face and drew blood, and in that red trickle were tiny, quivering flames.
Sophia put a hand to her face and looked at the blood. “We’re survivors,” she whispered.
“You won’t survive Hellboy!” Franca said, grinning, trying to project a confidence she no longer felt. “He’ll kill Adamo, hunt you down one by one, and send you back to where you belong.”
“Hellboy?” Sophia said, still looking at the blood on her fingertips. She smiled. “He’ll bleed too, Franca.”
Franca glanced forward at the car ahead of them, and one of the Elders was looking back. Then she turned in her seat . . . and the Elders’ car that had been following was no longer in sight.
“He will bleed,” Sophia growled, and fire danced across her teeth. There was a tone in her voice that denied everything she had been trying to convey.
Right then, she sounded pure evil.
—
The car came from out of nowhere.
It struck them side-on, sending their vehicle skewing across the road, over the rough curb and sideways down an embankment. Mario shouted as the steering wheel spun in his hands, twisting his arms and jarring his shoulders. Hellboy grabbed Adamo and crushed a water bottle across his head, shattered glass from the side windows mixing in with the water, speckling his face and ricocheting around the car’s interior. And the fire wolf roared.
The car came to rest at the base of the embankment. Its windows were smashed, steam hissed from the crushed radiator, and Hellboy could smell leaking fuel.
