Hellboy: On Earth as It Is in Hell (6 page)

"Question?" he said as she was boxing things up.

"Sure."

"What was it like with you? How'd it start?" he asked. "I mean, I overheard a couple of things, something about an accident, but..."

"Yeah. An accident. A really
bad
accident." And she wanted a cigarette, a really
big
cigarette, as she usually did when this subject came up. "Why not just leave it at that?"

"Because you've got just about the saddest eyes I've ever seen, and I'd like to know what made them that way, is all."

She snickered. "It might help get you somewhere if that didn't sound like the world's lamest pickup line."

He blushed, actually blushed. "I'll know sooner or later, you have to realize that. You'll leave a pen around, or your lighter, or something, and then I'll have it. Or I'll ask somebody else. I just thought it would be more upfront to ask
you."

"Can't fault you there," she said, and reached for the Tibetan prayer bell, let it toll in the room, so delicate, like air condensed to a chiming note. Nothing at all like the clanging of fire bells. "I was eleven years old when it started. I was just playing in our yard and minding my own business. Then the neighbor boy came over from next door. He was a hateful little turd whose mission in life was making other people miserable. It's been more than twenty years and I should probably stop speaking about him that way, and if he was the only one who'd gotten hurt that day, then yeah, I'd probably be eulogizing him by now. But he wasn't the only one, so to me he's still a hateful little turd, because I haven't been able to forgive him for what he goaded out of me that day."

She set the prayer bell down, too sharply, metal on wood.

"I had my hair in ponytails, and he seemed to think that was the funniest thing he'd ever seen. He told me I looked like the ass-end of two horses. He started yanking on one and wouldn't stop. And I was
so mad,
you know? Something stupid like that, as an adult, it's just an annoyance--you tell the guy to piss off, you throw a drink in his face. But when you're eleven, all that anger and humiliation...they're so pure. So consuming. It feels like your world's coming to an end. So I guess what must've happened is, on some level, I decided to take the rest of the world with me...

"He started to burn," Liz went on, and could still hear the kid screaming, a climbing note, up up up, until it could've ruptured the eardrums of dogs. "It only took a couple of seconds before he was engulfed. Then he was running. A couple of seconds later his front door started to burn...then the rest of their house...and then
my
family's house...and it just kept going. I was standing in the middle of all this chaos and didn't know what to do, because no matter which way I turned, the chaos spread that direction, too. It was feeding on itself by that point. Because of me, the entire block looked like a jet crashed into it. Thirty-two people were dead before it was over. Twenty-five neighbors, three firemen...plus my mom and dad and brother. And one hateful little turd, too, I guess we have to count him."

She gauged the look on Cam's face, pale on his best days and now somewhere near the color of a mild cheese.

"Sorry you asked?"

He shook his head and mouthed the word no.

"Good. Don't be. And another thing: Understanding is fine out of someone, I
appreciate
understanding. But no pity. That's another thing you can eat up when you're eleven or twelve, but it's been a long time since pity does anything other than bug me."

"You don't have to worry," he said, and stuttered out a laugh. "I haven't quite gotten over the
self
-pity part yet, so it's not like I've got any to spare right now."

He really could be an asset here. A lot of potential, and it seemed almost irrationally important that she play a role in helping him realize it. For most of the twenty-three years since her childhood went up in flames, keeping her own head straight had been a full-time job. It felt good to be directing those intentions elsewhere for a change, toward someone who needed the same kind of salvage operation. You didn't have to be a firestarter to self-immolate.

"Is that wrong?" he asked then.

"Feeling sorry for yourself? Sometimes no, sometimes yes. I can't tell you when the transition should happen. The things inside us that make us so different, they take an adjustment period, and that can last years, because it seems like we never start out in a place that's conducive to it. But just going from personal experience...? If you're at a point where it even occurs to you to ask if it's wrong to feel sorry for yourself, then, yeah, maybe now it is."

He was resting both forearms on the table. Two arms, two wrists, one hand. She tried to imagine the resolve it must have taken to line up the hatchet in that space between the bones and perform the amputation--it had required more than one blow. And she wondered how it felt to him after the point of no return, when he saw that his orphaned hand and his bleeding stump had parted company at last. If it felt as though half a curse had been lifted.

The most hopeful thing about it, which no one seemed to have recognized? Before making the cut, he'd improvised a tourniquet out of a canvas strap from a leaf bagger, and used it to cinch off his forearm.
He'd wanted to live.
He joked about it later, saying that if he hadn't been so drunk, he would've held out for a table saw so he could've sliced off both hands. But still, even at his lowest, he had wanted to live.

"Used to be, I was the only freak I knew," he said. "In a weird way, that was convenient. It meant I had an excuse for just about anything I did to try to get away from it, and whenever I told somebody that they didn't understand, that they
couldn't
understand, I really got to mean it. Then I come here..."

"And it's a freak factory, right?" Liz finished for him.

He nodded. "So all the old excuses, they don't cut it anymore. Especially after I hear a story like yours. Or if I see somebody like Hellboy, or Abe, because then I start wondering what it must be like to look so obviously different--the two of them, they can't hide it for a second. It makes me feel selfish. Like, 'Okay, maybe life's been a bitch, but at least
that
didn't happen to me.' "

"Whenever my knack would get the better of me, it could be a genuine danger to anyone around me," she said, and thought of the year-plus spent shuffled among foster homes before the BPRD had found her, taken her in, helped her get control. The flare-ups under strange roofs, the bad dreams that could set the quilts aflame. Never an episode as serious as the first time--no one ever died--but enough to get her branded as a jailbait pyromaniac. "When yours gets the better of you, you're the only one that suffers. I don't think you could say one's any more isolating than the other. Bottom line? Okay, maybe somebody has a worse story than yours, but so what? You're the one that's got to live your own, and it's the first time you've done it, and most of the time you have to make it up as you go. I won't tell you it's easy, but if it couldn't be done, I wouldn't be here now."

And since he'd brought them up, what of Hellboy, of Abe? She too had often wondered what it was like to exist in such a different body. Although a breed apart, she was human, no different to the eye or in behavior than most any other woman. She had a smile that often left men wondering what she was thinking, and enjoyed that subtle control; had a habit of wearing a velvet choker and cross even though she wasn't a bona fide believer; had her periods with almost calendrical regularity. She could pass for normal any day of the week.

Not so, her closest friends.

But maybe, in some respects, it was easier that way. They had no footsteps to walk in, no molds to fill. They were strange pioneers, not so much defying expectations as writing the book on what those expectations could be, and if they were not strictly human, they could nevertheless give lessons on
being
human to those who were, yet who fell so very short of its ideals.

There was a soft knock at the door then, and she called for whoever was there to enter. The door opened just wide enough for a head to poke through, a big smooth dome that shone under the fluorescents like burnished walnut.

"You got a call. It's our man in Rome."

She wrapped up the pep talk with Campbell, then stepped out into the hallway.

"Here's your whistle back," she told Agent Garrett, and put it into his hand. "Thanks."

Dion grinned. "So now he knows all my shameful secrets, huh?"

"Yep. And he expects that first check by the end of the day," Liz said, then winked. "Take care of that knee, by the way..."

Down the hallway, she ducked into the wing's main office and picked up the waiting landline.

"H.B.? That you?"

"Pack a bag. You're on the next flight to Rome," he said, in that
basso profundo
voice that could soothe infants or rattle windows, depending on his mood. "And don't forget to bring your sea legs."

C
oming up with a secure way to transport the Masada Scroll halfway around the world...that was the
easy
part.

It wasn't as though Hellboy had never transported sensitive documents before. Several years ago, prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall, he'd played the role of courier to get a crumbling fourteenth-century alchemical text out of East Germany and into the southwest of England. In the port city of Bristol, at the site of a mass burial pit--six centuries old but newly discovered--members of the British Paranormal Society had used the text to stop a virulent incursion of plague-spreading revenants.

If not for the Vatican's initial reluctance to fully admit what the situation was here, that an ancient manuscript was involved, he could have shown up prepared for the same kind of duty.

The custom-made case he had used before was right where he'd left it after the Bristol run: back at BPRD headquarters in Connecticut. Liz would be bringing it, but she was no errand girl. She was going to be every bit as important as the case in transporting the scroll safely.

"I'd rather be moving," Hellboy said. "I hate sitting here waiting to see if the same thing's gonna happen all over again."

Although, as Abe pointed out, while they may not have been on the move, they were hardly hunkering down in hiding. There was boldness, honor, and more than a little recklessness in that, wasn't there?

At the moment they were keeping a vigil at the very pinnacle of the Vatican, strolling around the railed parapet of the lantern tower that crowned the enormous dome of St. Peter's. It would prove to be either the cleverest of their limited options or go up in flames as a fool's gambit: They had the scroll up here with them, locked in a steel storage drawer, similar to a bank's safe deposit box, and resting on the floor of the tower. Nearby stood Bertrand, their ever-present Swiss Guard, doing a yeoman's job of trying not to look worried that he could be just feet away from an incendiary time bomb.

Not an ideal solution, but it would suffice for the hours it was taking Liz to cross the Atlantic, and it was born of need: no more hiding for the scroll. By now they had to assume that, with the confusion of the fire having died down, the scroll's would-be destroyers knew it had survived. Stashing it in the museum complex, or even in the hideaways and passages that honeycombed the old thick walls, could be an invitation to another inferno. No hiding place, however short-term, could be entirely safe, because you never knew who might be a spy.

Instead, they had chosen to hide it in plain sight--Abe's idea, a chess-player's stratagem. The first fire had been publicly explained as an explosion from improperly stored chemicals used in the cleaning and restoration of artifacts. A tragic accident, and easy enough to accept at face value. Conceivably, though, whoever had summoned the fires of Heaven, in defense of Church tradition, might feel bold enough to try it once more, so long as the fire was again confined inside the walls.

But would they go so far as to instigate the destruction of the top of St. Peter's Basilica? In front of Rome and the world?

For Hellboy and Abe, it was defense by bluff:
They wouldn't dare.

Although once the scroll left this place, all bets were off. Maybe all restraint, too.

"You don't think she'll change her mind, do you?" Hellboy said.

"Liz?" Abe sounded incredulous that he would even ask. "Of course not. She's never left in the middle of anything before."

"But she does leave. That's the point." Standing at the railing, he tipped his chin, jutting and spotted with a patch of beard, at the city that sprawled below. At the vibrant streets and the red-tile roofs and the winding murky ribbon of the Tiber. "That's Rome down there. These people know how to live. Suppose she just decides to get lost in the crowd."

Again,
he almost said, but didn't, because they both knew that if Liz walked, it wouldn't be the first time. Twenty-two years with the bureau--her entire adult life and adolescence, plus a big chunk of childhood too--and in that span, she had quit twelve times. On average, once every year and ten months. She always came back into the fold, and made the best of it once she had. Always committed, always competent. Yet she always seemed to come back not because she really wanted to, but because the world wasn't as welcoming as she'd hoped, or she didn't fit, or normality was either an illusion or just plain not all it was cracked up to be.

But one day it might be.
It might be.
After so many false starts, the restlessness inside could finally drive her in the right direction so that the pieces of her life's puzzle might one day click, and that would be it--no coming back.

Hellboy supposed he could conquer any fear but that one.

How could he presume to tell her she belonged in only one place?

"She'll
be
here," Abe said. "She wouldn't let either of us down."

Hellboy shrugged. "For all she knows, she's just delivering a souped-up briefcase. She could've changed her mind and sent somebody else."

"Ah," said Abe. "You didn't tell her about the rest?"

"That she'd be our secret weapon in case we need to fight fire with fire? I thought I'd cover that once she was here." He looked sideways at Abe. "Mistake?"

Abe thrust out his chin. " 'Oh, by the way--I may need you to flambe some angels, if they don't fry you first'? I think she might've appreciated an earlier heads-up than she'll be getting."

Hellboy scowled. "Been meaning to tell you. Of all you guys who do imitations of me? Yours is the worst."

Abe looked unfazed. With his features, it took a lot for him to look any other way. "Bad as it was, what about the rest?"

"I'll make it up to her, all right?"

And he couldn't have the opportunity to do so any too soon. Most times, a job was a job, and that was about it. Some bit of percolating weirdness needed a looking into by someone who understood the terrain better than most? He did it. And if, in the course of events, something rude needed squashing? He did that too. It kept life interesting, and left him feeling that he was earning his keep in a world that would otherwise have no place for him.

Most times, whatever came up, he rolled with it. A job took as long as it took, and he spared little thought for how long that might be. He had time, and reserves of energy--plenty of both.

But this one...this one was an affront on so many levels.

He had no illusions about where he was. Not even the most fawning apologist could deny that the Church's history had its share of dark, dark episodes. They were a small minority, to be sure, but there had lived popes who'd been among history's most wicked men. They'd raised armies, they'd waged wars, they'd robbed and cheated, they'd condemned the innocent for the sake of expediency and made allies of tyrants for the sake of power.

But not lately.

And through it all, faith had endured. Somewhere, out in those streets, there were people who in the name of the Church and its Christ were at this moment bringing food and clothing and comfort, hoping for no more than that they be accepted in the same loving spirit in which they were delivered.

Because the faith had endured. Look at them all down there, walking upon the stones of St. Peter's Square. Even on the most secular day, they couldn't all be tourists. Embraced by the great curving arms of Bernini's colonnade, the piazza was big enough to hold the population of a good-sized city, and even though there was nowhere near that this afternoon, it would fill again soon enough.

For the faith had endured. He respected that about this place above all, more than its longevity, and in spite of the terrible plots that had sometimes been hatched under its gilded ceilings. It gave strength, that faith, and if it wasn't the whole picture--which he knew from experiences both bitter and sweet--it was plenty big enough for those who needed it to make their way in a world that seemed to do everything it could to crush them. It kindled warmth here on the fragile side of the void.

How dare someone hide inside its walls, summoning down a fire that burned as deadly as any that Hell had to offer.

As they'd been scanning the sky, they'd been keeping an eye on things below, as well, Hellboy sweeping a pair of Carl Zeiss binoculars over the grounds, and especially the piazza of St. Peter's Square. When a familiar shape caught his eye, he slapped Abe on the shoulder and pointed, handed over the binoculars.

"Who's that look like down there to you?"

"Where?" said Abe. "There's a lot of
there
down there."

"This side and to the right of the obelisk," he said, referring to the ancient stone spire that had been brought over from Egypt when it was still freshly carved. "Firing up a cigarette."

Abe gave it a game try but shook his head. "Sorry. I'm still not finding..."

Hellboy took another peek. Maybe it was his imagination, but he could swear the man was staring straight up at the lantern tower.

"Well,
I
see somebody I'd like to have a talk with," he said, and gave the railing an experimental shove with his normal hand, to see how much weight it might hold.

"Hellboy,
no,"
Abe said. "Don't do this..."

On the dangerous side of the railing, the great gray dome of St. Peter's swelled outward and sloped sharply down and away from them, like a waterfall of stone. At even intervals, it was braced by vaulted ribs that helped support the immense weight of Michelangelo's design, and centered between them, small portals let the light of day stream inside the cupola like rays from a benevolent Heaven.

He braced his hand on the railing and flexed his legs.

"No--we're supposed to be keeping a low profile," Abe tried.

Hellboy glanced behind them, past the twinned pairs of columns that held up the tower's roof, and gave a wave to their guard. Poor guy, standing there with his halberd and knowing there was nothing he could do.

"Sorry, Bertrand," Hellboy called out with a wave of his big right hand. "I'll put in a good word for you, tell them you did a great job."

With that, he shoved up and over, vaulting the railing in one fluid move, clearing the platform and landing astride the nearest rib. At first he took it like a playground sliding board, guided by the indentation of the shallow trough down the middle of the rib. But the slope quickly turned so sharp it was almost like a freefall, the air whistling up past his face and the back of his coat skimming along the stone beneath him, as the striated junctures of the dome's individual sections whizzed past in a blur.

He braced for the landing, touching down for a moment atop a small platform at the bottom of the rib and springing forward, in true freefall now as he hit first one elevated section of roof, then bounded onto the main flat roof over the basilica's long central nave, absorbing the shock of each landing with a flexing of his legs. Had to give it up for Baroque architecture. You could
never
do this with today's glass and steel towers.

He sprinted along the roof toward one end of the portico, its front edge lined with statues of Jesus and his disciples carrying crosses and swords. From here Hellboy launched out over the roof of Bernini's colonnade. One final bounce and touchdown later and he was standing on the stones of the piazza, ignoring the murmuring of onlookers and the rapid-fire click of camera shutters. Mostly he wished Abe could've been up there timing him with a stopwatch. He'd just put the world's express elevators to shame.

He crossed the rest of the distance at a leisurely jog until he reached the man in the smartly tailored black suit, who'd barely had time to smoke enough of his cigarette so that you'd notice.

"Monsignor," Hellboy said.

From beneath the wide brim of his hat, Burke, the sole American who had been at this morning's subterranean council, gave him a tight smile. "I've heard you have a knack for flamboyant entrances."

"Me?" Hellboy demurred. "Most of the time I creep around on cat feet."

"Really. Which I might even believe if cats' feet were"--with an arch glance downward--"cloven."

Hellboy still wasn't sure if he liked this guy. He just couldn't imagine Burke, with his cropped steel gray hair and ice blue eyes and chiseled skull, bringing
comfort
to people. Personal prejudice, probably, that priests should be these doughy guys with marshmallow hands and eyes that twinkled. He could imagine Burke boxing in his younger days, and even now running marathons, and above all, shrewdly holding his own at the conference table in a boardroom. But hearing confession, sending the person off motivated to go and sin no more? Restoring peace to an anxious deathbed? No. He couldn't picture it.

Still, Hellboy supposed he could forgive Burke all that. Like it or not, the Church needed men like this too. Mystics, on the whole, made lousy administrators.

"I heard you were up there on top of the world," Burke said. "And I'm glad you spotted me. Saves me the trouble of tracking you down. Although...I would've thought you'd be looking after the scroll now."

"It's in good hands."

"In transit?"

"Something like this, it's not like you can just take it to FedEx, now, is it?" Hellboy said. "I've done what I can for now. It'll be a few more hours before all the pieces are in place."