The Fire Wolves

by Tim Lebbon

Oh hell, that’s not good!

  “Can’t I just shoot this thing until—”

  Fool, idiot, I told you it has to go back in alive!

  “Fine!” He kicked out at Adamo, pressing him against his buckled door, and reached across the front seats for Mario. He felt movement, and that was enough.

  “Okay,” Hellboy shouted, “Mario, get out and run!”

  He must have been shaken, and he was repeating something rapidly in Italian, forgetting in his panic that Hellboy would not understand. But through all that he listened: Mario kicked his rumpled door open, took one look up the gentle slope at the front of the Elders’ car stopped up there, and ran.

  “Good!” Hellboy said, and he broke another bottle of water.

  Adamo flamed. Wherever the water touched, the hint of flesh appeared again, but the fire quickly took control once more. He seemed to expand as he changed, fiery limbs stretching to fill the car, head jarring against the roof and blackening the lining. His eyes bore into Hellboy, and flame teeth scorched the air when he opened his mouth in a wide grin.

  Hellboy snapped up the final bottle of water and threw it at the fire wolf. Its plastic skin melted and water flowed, but this time there was not even the hint of flesh where the water touched. However weakened it had become after its submersion in the sea, it’s strength was now back.

  Hellboy pushed backwards with both legs, knocking his door open and falling onto the embankment above the car. He kicked the door closed again, still smelling spilled fuel, scrabbling up the bank on hands and knees. Behind me! he thought, and he turned just in time to see three Elders appearing over the head of the embankment. Pistol still gripped in his left hand, he twisted and fired, letting off several shots in the hope that they would be confused. But even though one of them went down with a hole in her chest—and fire licking around the hole, like animated blood—the other two skidded down the slope, changing as they came.

  He could hear other cars passing by on the road above, but none of them stopped to see what was happening.

  The car behind him exploded. Adamo’s fire wolf must have opened the door and ignited the spilled fuel, and the resultant explosion consumed the vehicle, a billowing ball of fire and smoke rising above the crash site.

  Someone’s got to stop now, he thought. A Samaritan could do no good, but at least it might distract—

  One of the Elders—the one he’d shot in the chest—loped along the bank after Mario. She was completely transformed now, rippling fire fur throwing glowing sparks at the stony ground as her flame feet burnt dark patches in the scrub.

  “Run, Mario!” Hellboy shouted. He could see the figure farther along the base of the bank, and Mario turned to look at the fire wolf bearing down upon him.

  Below Hellboy, the Adamo fire wolf emerged from the conflagration that had taken the car, stretching upright on its legs and waving its burning arms at the sky. It roared a throaty laugh. And then it fell on all fours again and shook, shrinking, going from lighter to darker as flames flickered out all across its body.

  Adamo appeared from the flames, naked and shrunken and grinning at Hellboy like a madman.

  Hellboy lifted his gun and shot Adamo in the face. He knew it would have no effect, but it was out of frustration and anger. And spite, perhaps. “Son of a bitch!” Hellboy whispered when he realized his gun was now empty. He must be changing back to say something to me.

  Adamo shook his head, flames licking out from his wound and sending tendrils across his bald scalp. His shattered cheekbone and ruptured eye filled in and healed, as if sutured with threads of fire.

  “Run, Mario!” Adamo mimicked, and Hellboy looked along the bank once more.

  The fire wolf was worrying at a small pool, dipping in, jerking back, exposed damp flesh quickly bursting into flame once again. He’s down in there, Hellboy thought, seeing clouds of steam rise around the fire wolf. How long can he hold his breath?

  Adamo advanced up the bank on all fours, as though regressing to a more primitive state in his human form. Sparks dropped from him, and fire emerged from his nose when he breathed. “You do seem to think—” he began.

  “I’ve had more than enough of this,” Hellboy said. He put every shred of strength he could muster into the punch, his right hand rising from where he’d propped himself against the bank, swinging in an arc to gain momentum and then connecting with the side of Adamo’s head.

  The old man’s head broke. His body flipped to the side and his skull came apart, spewing gray wet insides that burst alight even before they spattered across the ground.

  Hellboy was on his feet and running, not bothering to look back at Adamo. If he was lucky, he might have inconvenienced the bastard for a few moments, but that was all. Flesh was a vessel to them, and it seemed they’d had many centuries to master its form and control.

  Hellboy hated shapeshifters. Give him a frog monster or dream witch any day.

  He heard the other two fire wolves coming after him, but he did not look back. That would only slow him down, and from what he could observe, Mario’s life might depend upon Hellboy reaching him in the next few seconds.

  The fire wolf trying to get at Mario was becoming more and more frustrated, its flames spurting out into the air and licking at the ground. The small pool Mario had taken shelter in was clogged with weeds and refuse, but he must have gone deep, clinging to something to hold himself down there even while natural buoyancy would be doing its best to lift him to the surface.

  If did break surface, the fire wolf would take him into its grasp, and he would be another Esposito statistic.

  “Hey, ugly!” Hellboy shouted. The fire wolf spun around and he hit it at full speed, digging his right hand inside and grasping at its semi-solid innards. He squeezed his eyes shut and pushed the fire wolf down ahead of him, and as they tipped into the small pool with Hellboy on top, he hoped Mario could see what was coming.

  Steam hissed and water boiled, and when Hellboy opened his eyes, there was an old woman thrashing beneath him. Her mouth was open, and the flickering of flames in there gave way to bubbles. Her eyes went wide, hands scrabbling at his face, but a few scratches didn’t faze him. He bore down on her, glancing left and right in the murky water but unable to see Mario.

  The old bitch seemed to be weakening.

  Then Hellboy had an idea.

  He stood quickly in the center of the pool, gasping in a big breath and stomping down on the old woman’s head. There was little strength to her continuing struggles.

  The other two fire wolves stood just out of reach, and by the burning car, Adamo was firing up again.

  “Come and get her,” he said to the two flaming demons.

  Something broke surface behind him, and Hellboy crouched and turned, not shifting his feet from the old woman. Mario gasped, spitting water and looking around with wide eyes.

  Something changed in the pool. All movement ceased, and Hellboy frowned as he felt something rise around him, leaving the pool with a steamy gasp. It was like a heat-haze, and behind it reality shimmered like the thin veil it was. Mario fell quiet, the pool grew still, and the two fire wolves drew back from its edge, their flames lessening almost to the point of being extinguished.

  And Hellboy was chilled, because the heat haze was cold as the void.

  “Oh,” he said, and he reached down into the pool. Grabbing the corpse of the old woman, dragging it upright, he stared into her face, lifting her eyelids and seeing nothing remotely alive. “That’s it for you,” he muttered, and then he lifted the corpse to show the other fire wolves. “One down!” he shouted. “So decide amongst you who’s next.”

  She was a weak one, the ghost voice said. Not the prime fire wolf. It was useful knowledge, and it gave him a spark of hope.

  Adamo was aflame again, shaking his head and blazing rage.

  A couple of cars pulled up next to the Elders’ car, and when several people jumped out Adamo screamed, sending arcs of fire up the slope and bubbling paintwork on the
vehicles. The people leapt back into the cars, and wheels span as they made their getaway.

  Hellboy knew that he had only a shaky advantage at best. The two fire wolves close to the pool seemed hesitant and shocked, their flames laid low like a cowed dog’s ears. But there was still Adamo, and he thought that old wolf would have fewer qualms about what must happen next.

  As the head wolf charged, it changed back into a human once again. But now Adamo’s head was misshapen, and he walked with the uncertain gait of an old man who’d misplaced his walker.

  “I got to him,” Hellboy said.

  “Is that one dead?” Mario asked.

  “Dead.”

  “She used to cut my hair when I was a little boy.”

  Hellboy glanced back at the terrified man. “Grow it long.”

  Adamo was there then, crouched beside the pool, hissing and clicking sounds at the fire wolves that sounded distinctly alien coming from a human-shaped mouth and throat. The two others ran back to their car, changing as they went.

  “You’ve been noticed,” Hellboy said. “You’ve been seen.” He held up the old woman’s sad corpse, so light that it felt like little more than a suit of skin. “And now I know you can die.”

  “And when the emergency services come, they’ll find you holding a dead old woman,” Adamo sneered. “You’re a fool, Hellboy. You’re trying to stop us from preventing the volcano’s eruption? Who’ll thank you for that?”

  “You’ve spent two thousand years fooling Vesuvius. Sacrificing Espositos. Why?”

  Adamo stared at him. “If it erupts, its full fury is unleashed. It’ll find us and draw us back in. And after what we’ve tasted in the human world, we can never return there.” He shuddered and looked away, ashamed of showing his weakness. “Never.”

  “I’m going to put you back, Adamo. Either that, or I’ll kill you all.”

  “No,” the old man said, and his confidence was chilling. “But you!” he pointed at Mario.

  The young man, still in the pool, stepped back, almost tripping and going under again.

  “I’ll be seeing you,” Adamo hissed.

  Then he turned and went back up to their car, a naked, worn old man whose legs were too thin and whose head still bore an impact-mark from Hellboy’s fist.

  “That’s it?” Mario asked, watching the car start and pull away. It disappeared back over the lip of the embankment, and they heard gravel spit and wheels spin as it powered away. “It’s over?”

  “Nowhere near,” Hellboy said. He dropped the old woman’s body back in the pool, and as it sank away, Hellboy felt his confidence and fight sinking away with it. A great weight pushed down on him, and he staggered to the edge of the pool before it crushed him down.

  There is the alternative, the voice whispered. Let them put her in, the volcano will be appeased, and then you can chase them down. You know them now, and I have marked them. We will find them together!

  “Shut the hell up, lady!” Hellboy said. Mario glanced at him, unnerved, but as Hellboy was about to say something more, a booming echo rolled across the landscape from the north.

  The ground moved.

  CHAPTER 16

  —

  The Road to Vesuvius

  —

  Franca rested her head against the window and watched the columns of humanity fleeing Vesuvius. The closer they drew to Castellammare, the heavier the traffic on the opposite side of the road. They were not the only vehicles going north, but they were among the few, while the southbound lanes were clogged with cars, trucks, trailers, and all types of vehicles towing laden trailers. Naples would evacuate northward, but all the coastal towns south of Vesuvius would come south, aiming for the Amalfi coast and placing the high mountains between them and the volcano. It was a massive, unprecedented movement of people, but mostly it seemed to be occurring with good cheer and few problems. She saw an occasional vehicle broken down beside the road, but more often than not the occupants were not present, probably already picked up by someone else. Some of the faces she caught sight of were smiling and excited, and a few cars even fluttered various scarves and flags from their windows and aerials.

  I’m going to stop your fun, she thought, and were she not so exhausted, she would have laughed. Franca felt jealous of these people; they were saving their families. Hers was already beyond saving, and its remnants had been revealed as monsters.

  “You’ll be helping,” Sophia said. “You’ll be saving many lives.”

  “Is that what all the other Espositos you’ve sacrificed over the years have done?” she asked, too tired to turn angry now. Too resigned.

  “Yes,” Sophia said. She sounded very sure of herself.

  “But if you all step back in, the volcano will go to sleep?”

  Sophia looked at her, as if she was examining a creature in a cage. “Wouldn’t you do anything to survive?” she asked.

  “No,” Franca said, pleased at the speed and conviction of her answer. “Not anything, no. Not what you’ve done. I’d rather give myself back than have to murder. All those murders!”

  Sophia frowned, as if perturbed at Franca’s answer. “Your chance is coming,” she said.

  Franca nodded against the window. “I’m ready.” They slowed behind a military wagon, and across the road she saw a car packed with children. One of them saw her and waved, and Franca waved back.

  “How sweet,” Sophia said, and she sounded like she had all the years Franca had known her; an Elder, caring and experienced.

  Franca hated her right then. She hated all of them. But with Hellboy nowhere to be seen, she knew that they were driving her towards an inevitable outcome, and one which she could not fight against.

  Franca closed her eyes and tried to consider how her death would feel.

  —

  The car was still burning, and soon the police would arrive. Adamo and the other two elders were escaping. And somewhere north of them, Franca was being driven towards the hungry maw of Vesuvius.

  “Hellboy!” Mario called again. He was circling where Hellboy sat, helpless and desperate. Hellboy could sense the hopelessness in the young man. “We can’t just wait here. The police will come, and what do we tell them?”

  “We tell them we crashed.” He looked down at the ground between his knees. He could still see the folds of soil where he’d grabbed at the ground, and through which he had felt one of the largest explosions yet from Vesuvius. There was still nothing visible to the north, but whatever was happening there was still sheltered by the folds in the land and the haze of distance.

  He wondered whether Franca could see the eruption yet.

  “I’m not just waiting!” Mario said.

  “Then you’re brave, and you’ll die.”

  “What the hell is this?” The young man still circled, never coming closer than six feet. Hellboy liked that just fine.

  He was thinking of what the ghost had said, and how fighting against the inevitable would actually be putting lives at risk. He was also dwelling on defeat . . . and though he hated himself for thinking this way, it was that more than the eruption that plagued his thoughts.

  If the fire wolves won, there was a good chance the volcano would go back to sleep. If he succeeded in stealing Franca away from their grasp, then Vesuvius would remain enraged, and the eruption would kill innocents. There was no way a million people could be moved in time, and some would not wish to be moved. In his arrogance, he would have doomed many to death. And perhaps the fire wolves would be drawn back into Vesuvius by the eruption, returned to their rightful place forever . . . or perhaps not. There was the possibility that some of them would survive, melting away into the land, ready to merge their fire with the flesh of another family for their survival.

  One to save many, he thought, and Franca’s face appeared in his mind, smiling uncertainly and offering him a coy glance. Had there ever been anything there, really? He liked to think there had been, certainly in his mind, and perhaps in hers as well.

&
nbsp; “And I’m going to let her die?” he whispered.

  Goooood . . . the ghost voice soothed.

  “No!” Mario said. He was gasping with frustration, feet slipping across the gravely ground, and then he fell silent.

  The moment was a held breath.

  “No!” Mario shouted, “you are not!” He was on Hellboy then, shoving him over onto his side and straddling his right forearm, raining blows down on his shoulder and chest. “You are not letting her die, because I won’t let you!” He struck Hellboy in the face, one small fisted hand glancing from his cheek and across his nose.

  “Ow!” Hellboy said, but surprise had stolen his strength. Mario pummelled him, then stood and kicked him in the ribs. “Ow!” Hellboy shouted. He stood and grabbed Mario’s shirt, lifting him from his feet and swinging him above the ground.

  Mario kept punching, his fists now connecting only with fresh air. But he was so furious that he could not see.

  “Hey,” Hellboy said. “Hey.”

  Mario stopped punching and hung limp from Hellboy’s hand. Their eyes locked, and Mario’s were angry and determined.

  Hellboy felt a rush of something bracing and positive, as if hope had been injected like a drug. It galvanized his muscles and drove away the aches, and even the burns on his skin felt lively instead of painful.

  “You’re right,” he said, “I’m not letting her die. However much that might change things that have gone bad, it’s just wrong. And I won’t have those things beat me.”

  Mario grinned as Hellboy dropped him. The man staggered a little, and then started up towards the road.

  “Where are you going?” Hellboy asked.

  Mario glanced at the burning wreck along the embankment from them. “We’re going to need another car.”

  Hellboy pulled the pistol from its holster. “Allow me.”

  —

  They walked along the road, trying to distance themselves from the burning wreck and the questions it would inevitably attract. As they climbed the hillside, they heard a siren behind them, and knew that the emergency services had arrived at last. Hellboy hoped they did not look too far; the dead old woman needed to stay lost in the pool, for now.