Hellboy: Ice Wolves
Author: Unknown
Date: 2012-07-25T07:00:00+00:00

Other Hellboy books from Dark Horse Books

—

Hellboy Graphic Novels:

Seed of Destruction (with John Byrne)

Wake the Devil

The Chained Coffin and Others

The Right Hand of Doom

Conqueror Worm

Strange Places

The Troll Witch and Others

Darkness Calls

Hellboy: Weird Tales Vol. 1

Hellboy: Weird Tales Vol. 2

Hellboy Junior

—

B.P.R.D. Graphic Novels:

Hollow Earth and Other Stories

The Soul of Venice and Other Stories

Plague of Frogs

The Dead

The Black Flame

The Universal Machine

Garden of Souls

Killing Ground

1946

The Warning

—

Novels:

Hellboy: Emerald Hell by Tom Piccirilli

Hellboy: The All-Seeing Eye by Mark Morris

Hellboy: The Fire Wolves by Tim Lebbon

—

Short Story Collections:

Hellboy: Odd Jobs
(with Brian Hodge, Poppy Z. Brite, Nancy A. Collins, Gahan Wilson, and others)

Hellboy: Odder Jobs
(with Frank Darabont, Charles de Lint, Guillermo del Toro, and others)

Hellboy: Oddest Jobs
(with Joe R. Lansdale, China Miéville, Ken Bruen, Tad Williams, and others)

MARK CHADBOURN

—

Hellboy created by Mike Mignola

—

Dark Horse Books®

Milwaukie

HELLBOY™: THE ICE WOLVES © 2009 by Mike Mignola.

Dark Horse Books® and the Dark Horse logo are registered trademarks of Dark Horse Comics, Inc. All rights reserved. No portion of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the express written permission of Dark Horse Comics, Inc. Names, characters, places, and incidents featured in this publication either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead), events, institutions, or locales, without satiric intent, is coincidental.

Book design by Krystal Hennes

Cover design by Lia Ribacchi

Cover illustration by Duncan Fegredo with Dave Stewart

Published by Dark Horse Books

A division of Dark Horse Comics, Inc.

10956 SE Main Street

Milwaukie, OR 97222

darkhorse.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Chadbourn, Mark.

Hellboy : the ice wolves / Mark Chadbourn ; Hellboy created by Mike Mignola. -- 1st Dark Horse Books ed.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-1-59582-205-5

1. Hellboy (Fictitious character : Mignola)--Fiction. 2. Demonology--Fiction. I. Mignola, Michael. II. Title.

PR6053.H23H45 2009

823’.914--dc22

2009028268

First Dark Horse Books Edition: September 2009

ISBN 978-1-59582-205-5
ePub ISBN 978-1-62115-442-6

Printed in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Dedicated to Liz, Betsy, Joe, and Eve.

“And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?”

—W. B. Yeats, “The Second Coming”

PROLOGUE

—

Breathe deeply: caught on the wind, the sour tang of blood. Listen: behind the steady rumble of modern life, the sound of ancient days and the savagery that still lurks in the lonely wilderness.

Something has woken. Turning its eyes toward the distant horizon, slowly at first, but with increasing speed, it moves.

—

Cancún, Mexico

Beneath the baking afternoon sun, the police cars race from the bumper-to-bumper airport traffic on Avenida Tulum toward the winding streets of El Centro. Blaring sirens disrupt the tranquility of the leafy roads until the four-car convoy comes to a halt outside La Casa del Sol, a whitewashed hotel the locals use for their celebrations.

Heavyset, with hooded eyes, Adulio Zaragoza strides past the officers at the door to where Osias Bustamante waits, glowering beneath his black cap, one hand on his gun for comfort. Zaragoza can already smell the blood.

“How many?” he barks.

“Forty-three.”

The number troubles Zaragoza, but he puts aside his concerns as Bustamante leads him to a large courtyard at the rear, where the swaying shadows from the trees cast shifting patterns of light and dark across the prone forms. Coming to a halt in the doorway, Zaragoza surveys the inch-deep crimson pool covering the entire courtyard.

“The wedding of Maria Jimenez and Gilbert Herrera,” Bustamante says.

Dressed in their finest clothes, the ragged bodies reflect the final moments of panic, piled near the door or at the foot of the enclosing wall. The members of a mariachi band are strewn around a low stage, their white suits splattered, their instruments shattered. Zaragoza’s attention falls briefly on the bride in her sodden dress, no longer white, and he takes small comfort that her face is covered by the mantilla veil.

Yet at the center of the courtyard, the wedding feast remains pristine, the plates of chicken and beef tortillas and jugs of sangria untouched.

“Critics of the cuisine?” Zaragoza notes with a sardonic humor that he hopes will mask his unease. “They were all fleeing that area.”

“The killer was at the table when he turned on them, as the feast was announced.”

“The bride and groom would have been first to the table.”

Bustamante nods slowly. “We have not accounted for Gilbert Herrera.”

Zaragoza’s forensic eye follows the single track of bloody footprints leading from the courtyard, through the hotel reception to the entrance, and then studies the incongruities of the crime scene. “The guests were killed so quickly that none of them escaped into the hotel.”

“That is correct.”

“I see no bullet wounds.”

“No—”

“Torn flesh. Broken bones. Dismembering. Disemboweling. A wild animal.”

Bustamante says nothing.

“A wild animal with the speed of a whirlwind.” Zaragoza laughs dismissively.

“There are bite marks.” Bustamante’s hesitant voice gives Zaragoza pause.

Kneeling down in the doorway, Zaragoza peers at what remains of the nearest body. Even the aftermath of a machete fight between drug gangs on the waterfront never looked like this.

“A wild animal,” he repeats uneasily.

—

Dublin, Ireland

Six pints of Guinness in the Foggy Dew in Temple Bar, and Jamie Donaghy still can’t take the edge off his seesawing emotions. Beside him, Carla Donlon, his girlfriend of two years, explains in her matter-of-fact, singsong voice why she had decided to sleep with Dean Brassel three nights ago while Jamie waited for her outside the Savoy Cinema.

“I was drunk,” she says. “He was drunk. And he was lonely.”

“So that homeless guy down on Wexford Street who always smells of urine stands a chance too?”

“Don’t be immature, Jamie. It’s not becoming.”

The banks of the Liffey had always seemed romantic to Jamie, with the strings of golden lights reflecting off the black, slow-moving water, and the salty aromas of the sea caught on the wind; now it makes him feel even worse.

As he leans over the wall to peer into the depths, he catches sight of a bundle of torn clothes drifting in the current, and then another, and another. It isn’t surprising; he’d glimpsed all sorts of things washing down to the ocean: a bicycle, an umbrella, even a deer carcass once.

“So do you forgive me?” Carla asks.

He counts twenty bundles in the flow, drifting from one of the party boats moored a little way upriver, but although the lights blaze on deck, and the speakers thump-thump-thump into the night, there is no sign of life.

“Don’t you even care?” Carla presses.

Before he can answer, she screams and points toward the water.

“Mary, Mother of God, you nearly gave me a heart attack,” he snaps.

But then he follows the line of her finger, and sees the trailing white hand, and the pale face drifting by, and all the other faces, and he knows the truth.

—

Nagaoka, Japan

Not long after dawn, and the station platform is already crowded with commuters waiting for their eighty-minute hop to Tokyo on the Joetsu Shinkansen. Shivering against the cold wind blowing off the Higashiyama Mountains, Isamu stands in his usual spot, briefcase tucked close to his legs like a faithful dog. Today is the day he will discover if he finally got the promotion.

Despite his anticipation, his attention is drawn by the pretty girl who always sits in his carriage. She had looked at him three times in the last week; two more times, and he thinks he might pluck up the courage to talk to her.

So engrossed is he in the sheen of her long hair that the arrival of the bullet train is just a rumble on the edge of his consciousness. He doesn’t smell the wind; he doesn’t hear the sounds behind it. His attention is only drawn when the screams rise up, rippling along the platform in pace with the train like the first signs of an earthquake.

As the train slides to a whispering halt, he sees all the windows of his carriage are drenched with blood, and when the doors hiss open more washes out onto the platform.

Amid the screams and the swooning and the panic, Isamu is still, his breath tight in his chest. The open door, like the mouth of some great beast, beckons.

Run, he thinks instinctively, not knowing why.

Within the carriage, a shadow, moving.

CHAPTER 1

—

After hours, the folklore department of New York University was a silent maze of dark corridors and tiny offices. Through the windows, the lights of Greenwich Village gleamed on a balmy, late summer night, but the displays in the glass cabinets lining Hellboy’s route were a far cry from the modern world. Skulls and athames jostled for place with tribal idols, crystals, jewels, and amulets from every corner of the globe. They told of the truth: behind the sleek lines of the twenty-first century, the chaotic, fearful darkness of the primal unconsciousness still lurked.

It had been many years since Hellboy had last visited, but he hadn’t forgotten the way. He moved quickly along the winding corridors until he located the familiar door that still bore the imprint of the long-since-removed brass nameplate and carried the aroma of lime and cardamom he recalled so well. He knocked once and entered.

Kate Corrigan sat on the floor in the middle of the room, surrounded by a jumble of cardboard boxes with papers spilling out. Her old office carried the air of absence; there was a desk and chair, but the bookcases were bare, and there were none of her personal items. One wall was filled with file boxes crudely stacked. So intent was she on an old yellow legal pad that she barely raised her head to greet him.

“Where do you get that great room freshener?”

“Hmm?” she replied, distracted. “It’s not room freshener. It’s a ritual paste from the Uxtli tribe. Fish entrails, guano, and human urine. And lime and cardamom, of course.”

“Forget I mentioned it.” He looked round. “I came.”

“So I see.” She tossed the pad back into one of the boxes and tipped the contents of another out before her. Notebooks, buff folders, envelopes, newspaper cuttings, and faded photocopies sprawled across the boards.

“I didn’t have to,” he said.

“I know. But you’ll be interested in what I have to tell you. And your help is needed.”

“By you or the Bureau?”

“By the world.” She batted a hand toward a wing-backed leather chair, but he propped himself against the empty desk.

“You know how to play on my sympathies,” he said.

“That’s not hard. You’re a sentimentalist, Hellboy. You always cry when George Bailey finds Zuzu’s petals.”

“And sometimes you’re too cynical for your own good. Why aren’t you in Connecticut?”

“Because everything I need is here.” She indicated the haphazard spread of boxes.

“The university let you keep your old office?”

“One of the perks of being special liaison to the B.P.R.D.’s Enhanced Talent Task Force. Here!” Kate pulled a dog-eared notebook out of the heap of documents and scrambled to her feet. Eagerly, she flipped through the pages.

“What’s all this stuff?”

“My research. Years and years of it. This particular load,” she kicked a muddle of boxes, “pertains to my first book.”

Hellboy looked blank.

“A study of werewolf trials in fifteenth-century France. I sent you a copy.”

“Ah.”

“You didn’t read it.”

“I’m more of a thriller sort of guy. Don’t get me wrong—it’s on my to-be-read pile. Maybe I’ll take it on my next vacation. Get into it on the beach.”

Shaking her head, Kate dumped the remaining contents of the box on the desk next to Hellboy. “Months of independent research in the archives in Paris and Chartres. Records that hadn’t been read for hundreds of years, in the original medieval French. Accounts of peasants, administrators, aristocracy . . . hundreds and hundreds of people who’d had firsthand experience of the werewolf problem. By the end of it, I’d had more than enough of damp cellars and silverfish, but the material . . . !”

Hellboy picked up a notebook, which Kate had filled with scores of drawings of werewolves. Some could have been mistaken for regular wolves, loping on all fours or sitting among trees and staring out at the viewer. Others were unmistakably human shaped, covered in fur but with a wolf’s head, incongruously wearing the clothes of their former lives. “Hang on,” he said. “Most of it was just peasants accusing their neighbors, right? Same as with the witch trials.”

“Some of it. The records suggest there was a highly localized epidemic of lycanthropy, which doesn’t make sense. Between 1520 and 1630, thirty thousand people were branded as werewolves. They were interrogated, tortured, and whether they confessed or not, most of them died at the stake.”

“Sick.”

“But where did it all start? Why did it spread? Some of the cases are famous because they’re so colorful. Jacques Rollet, the Werewolf of Caude. He was convicted of killing and eating a fifteen-year-old boy in 1598. More children were killed by Gilles Garnier in 1574, so many that the village of Dole in Franche-Comté put a price on the werewolf’s head. There was even a boy werewolf, Jean Grenier of Aquitaine, who ran off into the woods after his father beat him, and spent the next few years eating other kids. He was caught in 1603. Because of his age and his limited mental capacity, he was imprisoned in a monastery in Bordeaux. A few years later, he’d grown long canines and claws, and was gaunt, lean, and lupine.”

Hellboy always loved it when Kate got caught up in the passion of her work. It reminded him of long conversations on cold nights, their friendship slowly taking shape. “Why have you dragged me out here for a history lesson? Stories of werewolves go back nearly four thousand years.”

“Exactly.”

Hellboy eyed Kate curiously. “You’re saying we’ve got a wolf problem? Because after those fire wolves over in Amalfi recently and that business in Griart in the Balkans, I’ve had my fill for a while.”

“This is something new. You know there are all kinds of werewolves. Different origins, different causes.”

“Yeah, but they all smell the same.”

In the pile of documents, Kate located a particular sheet and fastened it to a board on the wall: a simple drawing of a black circle on a white background. “Have you seen that before?”

“Is this like one of those Rorschach tests? If you’re just looking to find out my state of mind, I can save you some time—I’m pissed off that I’m sitting here when I could be having a beer in McSorley’s.”

“The Black Sun. How about that? Ring any bells?”

Crossing the room, Hellboy saw the circle was surrounded by barely visible flames.

“I copied that from the account of a priest who gave evidence during a werewolf trial in 1525. He talked about a prophecy . . . the Time of the Black Sun.” Kate flicked through her notebook until she found the correct page. “It was mentioned again in 1541, in 1545, 1559, 1562, and . . . well, you get the picture. I didn’t mention it in my book because I couldn’t find any reference to what the prophecy actually was. But I always intended to come back to it.”

Through the office window that overlooked the campus, a movement caught Hellboy’s eye, fast and low, darting in the shadows between the pools of light. He moved over to get a better look, but all appeared still in the deserted quad.

Engrossed in her research, Kate was oblivious. “Last year, a new collection of ancient occult texts came to light in the Czech Republic,” she continued. “My work at the Bureau stopped me from giving it any attention until two months ago, when I got a call from one of my old tutors here at the university, Daniel Pleasance. Daniel specializes in occult symbolism in medieval art—”

“I bet he was fun at parties.”

Kate ignored him. “And he’d flown over to Prague to examine some paintings and sketches that formed part of the collection. Naturally, he couldn’t help having a look at the texts.”

“Yeah, who could?”

“In the codex, Daniel found a reference to the Time of the Black Sun, and it was linked to a separate account. During the Dark Ages, a plague of werewolves swept across northern Europe and disappeared into what we now know as Siberia. It was always my theory that the French werewolf trials were caused by a group of lycanthropes who got separated from that massive migration.”

“So the Time of the Black Sun has been and gone?”

“The codex Daniel found suggested it was an unfulfilled prophecy.”

“You’re telling me this prophecy could be coming to pass, right? So what exactly is it?”

“Nobody knows, exactly. But the sense of threat around it cannot be underestimated.” Kate read from her notebook. “ ‘When the Black Sun rises, the world ends,’ said Charles Benet at his trial in 1561. ‘In Benet’s grin, the Devil lurked, and the blood of all present ran cold,’ the priest who was observing the trial wrote.”

“Kate, why the sense of urgency about this?”

“Because I don’t like coincidences,” she snapped. “The texts in Prague, hidden for centuries, coming to light now, and then earlier today these reports . . . ” Kate tossed Hellboy a file stamped with the B.P.R.D. logo.

He winced when the photos within were revealed. “Gruesome. Werewolf attack?”

“Attacks. Plural. From all over the world. Iceland. Greece. Russia. Norway. Bolivia. Malaysia. Australia. Same MO, same sickening brutality. People torn to pieces while going about their day-to-day business.”

“These all happened at the same time?”

“Yes, like someone had flicked a switch.”

“With all those different time zones, some must have happened in daylight. No full moon.” Hellboy turned the photos this way and that, trying to get a correct perspective on the jumbles of bodies.

“I wasn’t joking when I talked about the switch being thrown. The suspects for the killings had shown no signs of lycanthropy. No moonlight flits. No mysterious bodies popping up here and there. All those close to them were convinced they were completely normal. And then, suddenly, that.” She motioned to the photos.

“You’re sure it’s werewolves? Maybe it’s a bunch of terrorists? Sleepers getting the call to arms? Brainwashed Manchurian Candidates programmed to trigger at a certain time on a certain day?”

“We have several eyewitness reports from Japan. They described a beast, eight feet tall, wolf’s head, red eyes, leaping from the bullet train and killing a guy and a woman on the platform before bounding away.”

Hellboy weighed this information for a moment, then asked, “How many incidents have you logged?”

“Two hundred and fifty so far. There’s more coming in all the time. Some of the killings in more isolated areas are taking time to reach us.”

“So, a plague of werewolves. You want me to go on a world tour to wipe them out. Maybe I should get T-shirts printed.”

“No need. They’re coming to you.”

“What?”

“Not you personally. America.” At the bleep of Kate’s cell phone, she checked the message and said, “That’s another one. Canada, two hundred miles from the previous Canadian killings. We’re getting new reports all the time. If you plot them on a map, you can see they’ve turned toward America. They’re coming here. All of them.”

“Why here? I know it’s the land of opportunity, but you can kill and eat anywhere.”

Kate shook her head slowly. “Hellboy, what’s going to happen when they get here?”

“Nothing more in your research?”

“I’ll keep looking.” Sighing, Kate picked up a box on the edge of the jumble. “Last one. Maybe there’s something in here.”

“What about your friend Daniel?”

Her face fell. “I can’t get any reply from his cell, and he hasn’t been back to his hotel. The collection, all the books, the paintings . . . gone. Taken out of the university basement overnight. No one saw anything.”

A shiver ran through Hellboy, and he realized the temperature in the room was plunging. Hugging her arms around her, Kate felt it too. Hellboy exhaled, watching his breath cloud. “Weird.” The window now sparkled with hoarfrost.

Kate stiffened. “Did you hear that? It sounded like someone calling my name.”

Rustling on the edge of his perception, Hellboy eventually picked up what sounded little more than a breath, dim and distant. Drawing his gun, he motioned for Kate to follow.

“Do you really need that?” she whispered.

“You’ve just shown me a bunch of photos that looked like an abattoir. I’m not taking any chances.”

At the door, the faint voice rose up again, barely more than a breeze blowing in through the keyhole. Hellboy grabbed the handle, than snatched his fingers away. “Yow! Freezing.”

Outside the office, the corridor glittered white with frost a quarter of an inch thick over all the surfaces. Hellboy slipped an arm around Kate’s shoulders to give her some of his body warmth.

“Well, I’ll be,” he said. “They didn’t mention this on the weather report.”

Once again, the voice drifted toward them over the frozen surfaces, and this time Kate’s name was clear. She clung to Hellboy tighter. “However many times I experience something like this, it never gets any easier,” she said.

Frost crunched underfoot as Hellboy edged along the corridor. Ice glimmered in Kate’s hair, and she convulsed so much that Hellboy feared she was on the brink of fainting.

Rounding the turn in the corridor, they came up sharp. At the far end stood a man, eyes cloaked in shadow, skin as white as the frozen walls, head slightly bowed and to one side. He wore a dark suit and scuffed shoes that glittered with ice particles.

“Daniel?” Kate said, her teeth chattering.

His voice, as insubstantial as the breeze: “Kate.”

Kate made to go to him, but Hellboy held her back. “He’s not looking so good.”

Tears stung Kate’s eyes. “Daniel, what’s wrong?”

“I’ve come to warn you.” He spoke louder, his voice as cold and hard as the frozen wastes. “This is difficult . . . I can’t stay much longer.”

“Warn me about what?”

“Winter comes.”

Kate looked to Hellboy, who had lowered his gun to his side. “He’s . . . he’s a ghost?”

“Something like that.”

“They have the Heart of Winter. They used my life to seal the pact that would activate it, and now I’m trapped here, in this awful white world, without any warmth, forever.”

“What’s the Heart of Winter?” Hellboy asked.

Daniel turned his hollow eyes to Hellboy. “An artifact locked away in the collection in Prague. A spell given form.” He gave a shudder. “I can’t stay here. I have to go back to the cold . . . always to the cold. Kate . . . get away from here. They need to find the Heart’s sister, the Kiss of Winter. They’re coming now! Go! Or else you’ll be joining me in the dark . . . in the cold . . . ”

As the voice faded, the shadows at the end of the corridor folded around Daniel Pleasance until he disappeared from view.

“Daniel!” Kate called.

Hellboy held her tighter. “There’s nothing you can do. He’s long gone.”

Kate blinked away a tear and tried to search for any sign of her friend, but there were only the lights from the campus reflecting off the frost. The temperature was already rising sharply. “I can’t believe he’s dead.”

Hellboy watched the shock bloom in her eyes and took her shoulders to steady her. “One thing I’ve learned is to listen to warnings like that,” he said gently. “We need to get out of here.”

Breathing deeply, Kate suppressed her grief and forced herself to focus on practical matters. “He was talking about the wolves, wasn’t he?” she asked.

“Yeah. I’m sorry—I know he was a good friend.”

A clatter on the roof tiles above their heads made them start. Before Hellboy could move, Kate broke away from him and raced back to her office. Cursing, Hellboy went after her, but she returned a second later clutching the unopened box.

“This is why they’re coming!” she said. “There’s something in here about the Kiss of Winter; I remember.”

Tiles clattered off the roof and crashed to the ground two stories below.

“Come on!” Hellboy urged. He grabbed Kate’s hand and they ran down the stairs and out into the campus where the night was reassuringly warm. Gun drawn, Hellboy prowled the area, but there was no sign of any pursuers. The roof of the folklore department was clear, with only a few broken tiles to mark the passing of whatever had been there.

“You need to get back to HQ. You’ll be safe there,” he said, keeping watch.

“They’re not after me, they’re after this.” Kate dumped the box on the trunk of her car, and rifled through it, throwing papers out haphazardly. Finally she pulled out a thick folder with “Winter’s Kiss” scrawled on the front in her loopy handwriting.

“It was mentioned in one of the werewolf trials. When I was researching the book, I had no idea what it was—I still don’t. But shortly before I joined the Bureau, I came across this.”

She handed Hellboy a clipping from an amateurishly produced magazine. Scanning it quickly, he said, “The Grant Mansion?”

“The most haunted house in America, or so the tabloids like to call it. More importantly, the biggest store of occult artifacts on this side of the Atlantic.”

“It says here the house is rumored to hold the Kiss of Winter, a powerful magical item, except no one knows exactly what it looks like, or what it does. The Grant Mansion’s in Boston, right?”

“Beacon Hill. Daniel was in my office having coffee when I clipped that piece and put it in the file. I never mentioned where the Kiss of Winter was, just that I thought I’d found it, and it’d be a good research trip to chase it up once I had a few free days. Which I never did.”

“It must have stuck in his head. Until the wolves got it out. That makes you a target—”

A nearby tree branch bowed and swished as if a large weight had leapt from it.

Kate cursed under her breath.

Holstering his gun, Hellboy watched a shadow flit into the darkness on the edge of the campus. “It overheard.”

“You think? You and your big mouth.”

“Hey, you were the one who decided to go through your top-secret research out in the open, on the back of your car.”

“It wasn’t top secret!” she snapped, then caught herself. “So, now what?”

“Now I go to Boston. Get into the house, find the Kiss of Winter, and stop the wolves getting their paws on it.”

Kate shifted uncomfortably. “Yeah. It’s not actually going to be that simple.”

CHAPTER 2

—

From the apartment window in the neat brick row house, Brad Lynch looked out over Baltimore’s Upper Fells Point, but all he saw was greasy black smoke, and sand, and blood. Instead of the brassy blare of mariachi music from the next apartment, all he could hear was the muezzin calling the faithful to prayer. He’d been months out of Iraq, but he knew a part of him would never leave.

Still in his twenties, Brad’s face carried the toughness of his long line of blue-collar Boston Irish stock, and he’d always considered himself a two-fisted kind of guy who could cope with anything life threw at him. That was kind of funny now, in a bitter, self-loathing way.

Glancing at his framed photos lining the walls, he saw only lies, not the images that had gained him recognition in publications around the globe. Proud soldiers silhouetted against the blue sky, children playing in the rubble of their home. None of the images rolling out continually across his unconscious. The German engineer chopped to bits by insurgents. The limbless kids eking out what they laughingly called a life after the bomb outside the mosque. The mass grave in the sand outside Fallujah.

Even in the stew of life on the street there was no respite, where the old-timers swapped stories and told jokes—the Italians and the Poles, the Irish, the Greeks and the Lithuanians. All Brad saw was Shia and Sunni at each other’s throats.

Iraq confirmed the one thing he’d always feared: the past never leaves you alone.

Lisa Mafrici came out of the bathroom, her long black hair wrapped up under a towel. Italian by way of Britain, Lisa was the best photojournalist Brad knew. They’d teamed up in the early days, bribing a taxi driver to take them out to the no-man’s land where the warlords fought on a daily basis, and that was how it carried on. They never talked about it; it just was. Their skills and ideas complemented each other’s, and their admiration was mutual. In every dangerous situation, she never flinched, cool as anything but without any of Brad’s recklessness. She really did cope with everything life threw at her.

There’d always seemed the possibility that their relationship would grow beyond friendship, but it had become frozen, like his emotions, locked in time by a single event. He’d never asked her how she felt. He guessed he was afraid of the answer.

“You want to go out and get breakfast?” she asked.

“Not hungry.”

“I want to thank you for the loan of your couch while I’m passing through, Brad, but I have to say, you really are a rude, unpleasant asshole.”

“What?”

“This whole brooding thing? I get it. You’ve seen some terrible things—we all have. But you can’t let it eat up your life.”

“Why not?” Bitterly, he slapped his portfolio off the coffee table and sent sheets of negatives scattering across the floor.

Lisa sighed. “If you’ve got the time, there’s a whole bunch of clichés you need to study. Life goes on. Life’s what you make it. You’ve only got one shot. Bottom line: there’s a lot of misery in the world, and it’s up to us to make it better.”

“Up to us? You and me? Right. I’ll go off and be Gandhi or something.”

“Yeah, it’s better to sit here moping, right?” Lisa sat next to him and gave his shoulder a reassuring squeeze. He found it affecting; in all their time together, there had hardly been any physical contact. They were buddies on the road, watching each other’s backs; that was how they played it.

“I’m fine,” he said.

“You’ve got posttraumatic stress or something. You need to talk this out.”

“Thanks, but I’m just having a bad day. It won’t get any worse.”

A loud knock at the door interrupted them. When he answered it, Brad was stunned for a moment.

“Yeah, I get that a lot,” Hellboy said. “Can I come in?”

Pushing past Brad before he could answer, Hellboy strode into the lounge, where Lisa surveyed him for a second before vaulting the sofa and rushing toward her bag. “Wait! Let me get my camera!”

“A mug like mine will break your lens,” Hellboy said. “Besides, I’m camera shy.”

Lisa skidded to a halt, sullenly, still casting one eye toward her camera bag. “I saw you on CNN once.”

“You were in Africa,” Brad continued.

“I’ve been all over.” Hellboy strode over to Brad and sized him up. “If you’re Brad Lynch, I need your help.”

“You need his help?” Lisa said incredulously.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Brad sniffed. “What can I do?”

“It’s about your father—”

Brad held up a hand to silence Hellboy. “Let me stop you there. I haven’t spoken to my dad in three years. I don’t want to speak to him. He doesn’t want to speak to me. We don’t hate each other. We just . . . ” He shrugged, searched for the right words. “Think it’s better if we don’t get within twenty miles of each other.”

Lisa leaned in to Brad and whispered, “Just hear the guy out, all right?”

While Hellboy inspected the framed photos lining the walls, Lisa fetched them all coffee. “Some talent,” Hellboy said.

“Thanks. Not much use at anything else, but I always had an eye for an image.”

“You only need one skill to make a go of it in the world.”

“Tell that to my dad. He never got the whole photojournalist thing. I mean, he was happy I was making a living, seeing the world, but he always thought it was a stopgap until I did something serious. Your father like that?”

“I never knew him.”

“Dad thinks men need to be making things. Houses, factories, bridges. Not observing them. He’s an engineer. Made a pretty big fortune with his business, then sold it off and retired early.”

Lisa came in with the coffee. “I wouldn’t mind meeting your dad, either.”

“You’d be disappointed.”

Still weighing how much to say, Hellboy took his coffee over to the sofa. “A year ago, after William Lynch . . . your father . . . sold his business, he bought an old Greek Revival house in Boston. The Grant Mansion on Beacon Hill.”

“Yeah? That’s a bit out of Dad’s comfort zone. I never thought he’d leave the old neighborhood.”

“Wow. A mansion,” Lisa said wryly. “You’ve been hiding your good breeding pretty well.”

“I never knew,” Brad said sharply. “I told you—we haven’t talked for three years.”

“I need to get inside that house,” Hellboy continued. “Somewhere in it there’s an important artifact. Very important. And it could save a lot of lives.”

“Tried knocking on the door?” Lisa said tartly. “Always works for me.”

“Turns out Brad’s dad has become something of a recluse over the last year. Never answers the door. No phone. Food gets delivered and deposited through a hatch next to the servants’ entrance. I tried everything. He’s got that place sealed up like a fortress.”

“And you thought I could help?” Brad laughed.

“Got a few friends to track down William’s relatives. Turns out you’re the only living one. I need you, Brad.”

“Even if I wanted to help, he’s not going to pay any attention to me. I’ll be stuck out on the sidewalk, same as you. Begging and pleading won’t work with Dad. If he wants to be alone, that’s what he gets. Dad always gets what he wants.”

“You say this thing in the house could save people’s lives?” Lisa watched Hellboy intently, judging his trustworthiness.

“Lots of lives.”

Making her decision, she nodded and turned to Brad. “You can’t stay in this place for the rest of your life. Let’s go to Boston.”

“You don’t know him, Lisa. It’s a waste of time.”

“What kind of attitude is that?” she said sharply. “In Baghdad, we tried everything.”

“This isn’t Baghdad. It’s colder.” Brad sighed. He could never turn her down, however much he dreaded seeing his father and all the terrible things it was going to dredge up. The past wouldn’t leave him alone; he’d accepted that now. Maybe it was time to stop running. “You’re not going to give up, are you?”

“You know me very well, Brad. I’ve made my mind up. Now unless you want me to slap you around a bit for good measure, we’re on our way to Boston.”

CHAPTER 3

—

“What is it with this weather?” Pulling up his collar, Brad eyed the dark clouds backing up over Boston. An unseasonably cold wind whipped off the Charles River as the temperature dropped rapidly. “It should be . . . what . . . seventy at this time of year?”

Lisa shouldered her camera bag. “Weather’s been screwy for a few years now. All that global warming . . . going to get worse before it gets better. If it gets better.”

Hellboy followed Brad’s gaze to the churning clouds, so heavy that dusk had started to fall an hour early. Lights were already sparking on the John Hancock Tower and Prudential Center, running in golden chains along the skyline. “I don’t know. Something about those clouds looks weird,” he said.

Hellboy wasn’t the only one to think that. As the cab pulled away into the heavy flow of traffic, passersby stopped to eye the clouds uneasily, their faces filled with an inexplicable apprehension that was not wholly to do with the weather.

The turbulent weather reflected his feelings since he had studied the information Kate passed on about the werewolf attacks. So much brutality and bloodshed happening at once, and it was escalating. Where was it all leading, he wondered?

His thoughts were interrupted by Lisa, who had fixed him with a cold eye. “When are you going to tell us what this is all about?”

Hellboy had already decided he liked her: she was tough, blunt, uncompromising, and sparky. But he hadn’t yet made his mind up about Brad, who was so detached it was hard to get a handle on him.

“You punted away all my questions on the plane,” Lisa continued, “and in the cab ride from Logan. I’m glad we dumped the cab when we got caught up in that traffic so I can finally get you face to face.” Lisa jabbed a finger into Hellboy’s chest.

“Get me inside the Grant Mansion, and you’ll know what I know. If we don’t get in, it’s better if you don’t know,” Hellboy replied.

“We’re not going to get in,” Brad said. “Trust me.” He headed off to a newsstand to pick up a copy of the Herald.

“Your boyfriend’s not exactly Mr. Positive,” Hellboy noted.

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Lisa snapped, eyes flashing. “He’s had a tough time recently, that’s all.”

“In Iraq?”

“He saw some pretty bad things. They’re playing on his mind. He’ll get over it.”

Hellboy watched Brad pay for the paper—the faint shake to his hand, the slight stoop as if he carried a heavy weight. “You sure?”

“I’m looking out for him.” Determined, Lisa shouldered her camera bag and walked over to talk to Brad at the newsstand.

Hellboy looked around the crowded streets. Something was wrong, although he couldn’t put his finger on quite what it was. Instincts honed by decades keeping the dark at bay were jangling out of control.

“Come on,” he called. “Let’s move out before it gets dark.”

Heading quickly through the darkening streets toward Beacon Hill, they came to Boston Common, almost fifty acres of grassland and trees crisscrossed by paths. A bitter wind blew across the open space, and people in T-shirts and light summer dresses scurried before it, heads down, arms wrapped around themselves.

Lisa shivered. “Looks like we’re in for a hell of a storm.”

“Is that—?” Brad held up a hand into the face of the wind, then examined it. “Snow? This time of year?”

The lights had come on across the Common, and they could now see flakes caught in the gusts—just a few, but increasing rapidly.

For a long moment, they watched the falling snow in incredulity before Brad and Lisa stumbled through a list of possible causes, none of which were convincing. Troubled, they turned to Hellboy for answers, but he had none. Attempts to laugh it off died quickly, and they set off again in silence, heads down, as they struggled to come to terms with events slowly skewing away from any understanding.

Within five minutes, the Common was deserted as the snow swirled in the wind and gave everything a white coating. Halfway across the open space, Brad came to a halt, his attention drawn by the black smudge of trees in the northeast corner.

“What’s up?” Hellboy asked.

“Thought I saw something,” Brad said.

Hellboy made to move on, but Lisa had joined Brad to scour the tree line.

“Out in the desert you build up a sixth sense,” Lisa told Hellboy. “All the journalists get it. Everything merges into the background in that landscape, but on some level you notice if something is out of whack, and you learn to pay attention to that feeling—it could be life or death.”

“This isn’t Iraq,” Brad said dismissively. He moved on, but Hellboy noticed he kept glancing toward the trees all the time they were crossing the Common.

As they came to Beacon Street, the south-side boundary of Beacon Hill, night had moved in. Snow fell thick and fast, and a trail of footprints now marked their passage. It was already close to freezing. Their breath clouded, and they stamped their feet to keep warm as they waited to cross the honking, steaming traffic, the drivers’ faces uniformly fixed with an incredulous expression. The sidewalk was already near deserted, the last few pedestrians fleeing home, slipping and sliding, some falling and cursing.

Hellboy kept an eye on Brad and Lisa. The freak weather troubled them deeply, questions they couldn’t begin to answer playing out across their faces, but they were coping. Their resilience comforted Hellboy, because he had a gut instinct the strange weather was linked in some way to the werewolf business; it was too much of a coincidence.

Once they had crossed Beacon Street, they felt they’d passed through an invisible boundary into a timeless place. History lay heavy over Beacon Hill, in the Federal-style row houses, ancient elms, brick sidewalks, and the narrow, winding streets where gaslights still hissed as they had for more than a hundred years. At the summit, near where the old beacon used to sit, was the grand, gilt-domed Massachusetts State House, which capped the neighborhood’s unique atmosphere.

Feeling the cold, Hellboy, Brad, and Lisa trudged into the face of a blizzard, up Charles Street, past the restaurants, classy shops, and antique joints, and when they reached the imposing façade of the Charles Street Meeting House, they turned east onto Mount Vernon Street, where some of Beacon Hill’s finest buildings spoke of wealth and privilege.

The oppressive atmosphere grew even more intense as they strode into the heart of the district. Despite the gusting snow stinging his eyes and forcing his head down, Hellboy caught sight of shadowy figures moving on the edge of his vision, at times eerily insubstantial, at others solid yet disappearing in the blink of an eye. Hellboy sensed Brad and Lisa had seen them too, for they’d grown tense and silent, their gazes continually searching the side streets and shadowy doorways.

“What’s going on?” Brad asked uneasily.

“I’m not hallucinating, right?” Lisa added, looking back and forth along the street.

Hellboy took the time to try to calm their rising anxieties. Reactions to the first intrusion of the supernatural into rational lives always varied, but he’d found that a quick, calm explanation worked wonders. “Don’t try to think it through now,” he said. “The world’s weirder than you know. I’ll give you the 101 when we get to the house.”

Lisa steeled herself. “Okay. I’m going to trust you.” The unease was still there in her face, but the rigid determination that controlled it told Hellboy how she’d survived in the Gulf.

Yet he wondered if he could explain what was happening. Where did the spectral figures come from, and what part did they have to play in what was unfolding? Whatever the answer, it was clear that things were getting weirder by the minute.

The blizzard blew so hard, progress up Mount Vernon Street was slow. Visibility was confined to just a few feet, so that the half-glimpsed figures became even more ethereal, swallowed up by the snow as soon as they coalesced out of the swirls. Hellboy was convinced he saw frock coats and stovepipe hats, crenelated dresses and parasols, but they were gone before he could be sure.

“How much further?” Brad shouted above the wind. “This damn weather—” He came to a startled halt. He had been glancing in the window of one of the large houses, where a flat-screen TV had been showing a confused weatherman trying to explain the black cloud symbols he was indicating on the map of Boston. Now there was no TV, no electric lights. A gas lamp flickered on the wall, and the furniture was not the clean lines of modern design, but heavy Victorian wood. “What the hell?” Brad exclaimed.

They glanced at each other, and when they looked back the TV glowed once more.

“Okay, now officially scared,” Lisa said. “I’m hallucinating and going crazy, or that place just looked like it did over a century ago. Either way that’s not good.” Lisa eyed Hellboy, who held up a hand. “Yeah, yeah, at the house,” she said. “I am so looking forward to this explanation.”

As the words left her mouth, the blizzard dropped briefly, and in its place there was an unsettling stillness as the snow muffled every sound. The few remaining cars on the street had now disappeared completely. Not a single person was left outdoors. It could have been the hours just before dawn, but there was something else which they all sensed on some level, and which they couldn’t quite explain. It was the same thing everybody else in the neighborhood felt, that they had seen etched on the faces of the passersby when they left the taxi and in the rapid, homeward-bound movements of the people on the edge of Beacon Hill; something was coming, something was very near indeed, and it would be best if they were not around to encounter it.

“Wait.” Hellboy held up a hand and they came to a halt.

“I heard it,” Brad said. He looked up and down the deserted street. “Footsteps crunching in the snow.”

“So somebody else is stupid enough to be out in this. Big deal,” Lisa sniffed.

They listened to the footsteps for a few more seconds until they came to a halt. No sound of a front door opening, or a car door, or the creak of a gate; just silence. Brad turned slowly, trying to identify the location. On some level he didn’t comprehend, he sensed a threat drawing near, and he saw Hellboy felt it too.

A low, rumbling growl rolled out across the quiet street. Lisa grew rigid. “What the hell was that? A dog?” she said, not believing it for a moment.

“Time to quit yakkin’ and move on,” Hellboy said.

Hellboy caught movement high on the periphery of his vision. He whirled, catching sight of a dark shape silhouetted against the darker sky as it flitted across the snow-covered rooftops before disappearing over the roof pitch. Following the line of oddly elongated prints, he saw whatever was there had followed them along the length of the street.

“You know you said your instinct in Iraq could be the difference between life and death?” Hellboy drew his gun.

Lisa was caught by movement across the rooftops on the other side of the street now. The muffled sound of padding floated down. A shower of snow slipped, and it was gone.

Circling, Hellboy thought. “Okay. Let’s move. Now!” He propelled Brad and Lisa along the street. They moved quickly, glancing around fearfully.

“What is it?” Lisa asked.

Brad shielded his eyes against the glare of the streetlights off the snow. “Some kind of animal?”

“Whatever it is, it’s after us, isn’t it?” Lisa said. “Why?” She glanced at Hellboy and knew the truth. “It’s hunting.”

As they hurried through the drifts, showers of snow fell from the roofs, keeping apace. More footsteps clattered on the tiles, no longer trying to hide.

Brad began, “At least while it’s up there—”

“Don’t say it,” Hellboy interrupted. He was right. When he glanced up, the rooftop was now empty, and as they passed West Cedar Street a dark shape kept to the shadows among the pools of light from the street lamps.

As quickly as it lifted, the blizzard began again, sweeping down the street at force, swirling the snow all around so their visibility retreated to a tight little world where threat could only be one step away.

“Nearly there now,” Hellboy shouted. “You’re doing great.”

Through the gale, they heard long, heavy steps moving around them. Hellboy slowed, trying to identify the location of their pursuer in the blizzard.

A low growl echoed behind them.

Gun leveled, Hellboy spun, dragging Lisa and Brad behind him. He’d barely moved when the growl rumbled out again, this time not far from his left shoulder.

“It’s getting ready to attack,” Lisa whispered.

“Just run,” Brad urged.

Another growl, so close Hellboy was convinced he could feel hot breath. He made to fire, but held back, afraid he would miss and plant the bullet through the window of one of the houses.

An unearthly howl rolled out and was whipped around them by the wind like a living thing. Lisa blanched, her blood chilled by the bloodlust she heard in that sound.

“Come on!” Brad yelled. Unnerved by their unseen pursuer, he grabbed Lisa’s arm and dragged her up the road.

Cursing, Hellboy propelled himself after them. He’d only gone a couple of feet when the beast hurtled out of the whirlwind of snow and hit him with the force of a truck. He went down hard, and in an instant it was on top of him in a frenzy of tearing and rending, snapping and snarling.

Ramming his forearm under the beast’s jaw, Hellboy held it at bay. The werewolf was bigger than a man, lithe and powerful, every aspect of it ruthlessly designed for slaughter. Pausing its attack, it leveled its crimson eyes at him. In them, Hellboy saw a savage, alien intelligence, not beast, not man—something that saw him only as prey. A thick glob of saliva fell from its extended canines and splattered on Hellboy’s cheek.

“Gross,” he muttered.

Deep in the wolf’s throat, the growl began, growing louder until it thundered all around. Finally it tore its jaws so wide all Hellboy could see was fangs. As it lunged for Hellboy’s throat, he rammed the gun up and fired.

The blast threw the beast up and off him. Howling, it bounded back into the blizzard, splattering blood across the pristine snow.

“Take that, Fido,” he snarled.

Within seconds, he’d caught up with Brad and Lisa, who clung to each other fearfully in the middle of the street.

“What the hell was that?” Lisa shrieked.

“Werewolf.”

“You’re kidding me.” Her eyes were wide with fright.

“Did you kill it?” Brad stuttered.

In answer, the howl rose up again, lost in the blizzard, but drawing closer. Panic gripped Brad and Lisa and they ran with Hellboy close behind, half turning to fire whenever the dark shape appeared out of the dense white. Every furious howl was a direct hit, but though the beast was thrown back on each occasion, it soon resumed the pursuit.

“What does it take to kill it?” Brad gasped.

“More than I’ve got here.” Hellboy forced them toward the sidewalk so he could check for the next intersection. Finally, he located the side street and the sign for Louisburg Square, where the grand, expensive houses loomed up out of the snow.

With the blizzard buffeting them from side to side, they scrambled and slid over the dense snow. Behind them, the howling ebbed and flowed in the gale, so it was impossible to tell how close the wolf was.

Hellboy checked the house numbers and nameplates until he came to a three-story red-brick mansion with a cast-iron gas lamp hissing next to white stone steps leading up to an oaken front door. Black shutters lined all the windows. Yet for all its expensive façade, an air of decay hung over it—paint peeled, and the panes didn’t look like they’d been cleaned in a long time. No light shone within.

“It’s deserted,” Lisa said desperately. “We’re dead!”

Anxiously, Brad peered into the blizzard, waiting for the wolf to emerge. The howling echoed off the sedate houses on the square. Blindly, he reached out and grabbed hold of Lisa’s hand.

Hellboy bounded up the steps and thundered his stone fist on the door. “Open up! We need help!” he roared.

Scared, Lisa and Brad slowly edged up the steps until their backs were pressed against the door. Hellboy pounded again, and after a moment he heard footsteps approach on the other side. They came to a stop, but the door did not open.

Lisa pressed her face against the wood. “Help us!” she cried.

The howling now drowned out the sound of the wind.

“It’s no good—he’s not going to open it,” Hellboy growled. He grabbed Brad and thrust him against the door. “Talk to him.”

“Dad, it’s me. Brad,” he shouted. “There’s something out here trying to kill us! Dad, you’ve got to help us!”

The door remained shut.

“I told you!” Brad shouted at Hellboy. “He doesn’t care! And now we’re going to die for it!”

The wolf’s thunderous roar made the glass in the windows shake; it was almost upon them now.

Placing his back against the door, Hellboy leveled his gun. Next to him, Brad and Lisa turned to face their fate.

And that was when the door swung open and they fell inside.

CHAPTER 4

—

Slamming and bolting the door, Hellboy threw himself into it as a tremendous weight crashed against the other side. The door bowed but held. A deafening snarling was accompanied by frenzied rending and tearing as razor-sharp talons tore across the oak.

“Give me a hand! We need to barricade this!” Hellboy ordered.

“It won’t be able to get in. Nothing can get in unless I allow it. This place is safe.”

The voice was calm and measured, and came from a man in his early sixties, silver hair swept back, with piercing blue eyes that appeared as cold as the snow outside. Behind him, Brad and Lisa sprawled on the wooden floor tiles.

With his words, the bestial sounds ended suddenly and a stillness descended. Peering through the window at the side of the door, Hellboy saw a dark shape disappearing into the blizzard.

“Weird,” he said. Questions flooded Hellboy’s mind: was the werewolf trying to stop him reaching the Grant Mansion, or was it simply drawn to the area near the house and hunting? And was it alone? Concerned for Brad and Lisa, he turned to check that they were okay, only for Lisa to jump to her feet and jab a finger into his face.

“You need to tell us exactly what’s going on here,” she said with annoyance that barely hid her fear. “And more importantly, how we’re going to get out of it. Is that thing going to be waiting out there for us?”

“I don’t know, but I’m guessing yes.” Hellboy glanced back into the snow roiling around the gas lamp.

“So we’re stuck here?”

“For now. I’m guessing it wants the same thing I want. Whoever finds it first, wins.”

For a long moment, everyone was silent as Brad and Lisa struggled to come to terms with their experience now the immediate threat had gone. The shock was clear in their faces, but Hellboy was impressed by how quickly it dissipated. They were tough. They still had plenty of questions, but Hellboy once again deflected them; it wasn’t the time, and he was afraid his lack of answers would only make them more scared.

Frustrated, Lisa stepped to the window and considered their options, while Brad shuffled awkwardly to his father. “Dad.”

“Brad. This is a surprise.” His hands held tightly behind his back, the man showed no emotion as he surveyed his son; until that moment, he’d made no attempt to acknowledge Brad was there. A palpable tension lay between them, and as he studied them Hellboy wondered what had driven them to such a fracture. Brad appeared to lose some of his hardness in the presence of his father, as though he were reverting to being a boy again. At the same time, a deep pain became more obvious in his face and his hunched shoulders.

Cutting through the strained atmosphere, Hellboy introduced himself with a shake of the hand. “You’re William Lynch.”

“You were hammering on my door yesterday.”

“You didn’t let me in.”

“No. I thought you would have got the message. I don’t want to be disturbed.” He eyed Hellboy curiously. “I know you. Hellboy, is that right?”

Hellboy nodded. “We need your help, Mr. Lynch.”

“Out of the question.”

Having steadied herself, Lisa stepped forward. “Mr. Lynch, I’m Brad’s friend, Lisa Mafrici. We really do apologize for intruding, but this is a serious matter. Lives are at stake. At the moment, ours.”

“I have important matters to deal with here.”

“More important than saving lives?” Brad snapped.

William fixed a forensic eye on his son and then said, “You haven’t changed, I see.”

“Yes. Still disagreeable. A . . . what was it you called me last time? ‘Constant pain in the ass’?”

Hellboy stepped in to stop the argument from escalating. “You weren’t too surprised by a werewolf trying to tear your door down.”

“Live in this house long enough and things like that become less surprising than you might think.”

Outside, the churning footprints had already been filled by the heavily falling snow. “We need to seal this place up like a fortress,” Hellboy said.

“I told you, nothing can get in.”

“We’re safe in here?” Lisa asked.

William gave a tight smile. “I wouldn’t go that far. But you’re safe from whatever’s out there. I am the master of this house now. It does whatever I want it to do.”

Hellboy eyed him curiously. “That’s a strange choice of words.”

William gave a smile, but he would not discuss the matter further. Brad and Lisa cared little for what William was saying, but Hellboy could read between the lines: some kind of supernatural protection lay across the house—William would not be so calm after the werewolf attack if that was not the case. At least that bought them some time, Hellboy decided.

As Brad watched his father, anger suddenly flared in his face. “Why are you hiding away out here? Why are you trying to keep the world at bay?”

Studiously avoiding his son, which only annoyed Brad further, William turned his attention to Hellboy. “You can stay a while, have a drink, warm up, feel free to enjoy the hospitality here. But then you have to leave.”

“You can’t send us out there with that thing!” Lisa protested.

“I’m sorry. But it would be a big mistake if I allowed you to stay.”

“Of course it would,” Brad said.

“As long as I get what I’m looking for, I’m happy,” Hellboy interjected.

Glancing around the hall, Hellboy saw it lacked the signs of a lavish lifestyle that he would have expected in such a property. The mirror, coat stand, small desk, chair, and ornaments were all antique, but had the appearance they’d been in situ since they were first made. The wallpaper was ancient, the once-vibrant pattern faded. Flickering gas lamps provided only pools of illumination so that the place appeared oppressively gloomy, and where electrical fittings had been installed, they were so archaic as to be potentially dangerous.

William escorted them to a gloomy sitting room with a heavily worn leather sofa and chairs in front of a fireplace where a few logs burned to dispel the chill. Mahogany paneling, sideboard, and small tables contributed to the sense of darkness infusing the very fabric of the building.

“Nice place. You’ve certainly gone up in the world. A long way from Tanner’s Bar and men with grease under their fingernails,” Brad said.

Hellboy saw Lisa surreptitiously dig her elbow into Brad’s ribs, but William didn’t appear to be offended. “Sometimes it’s important to leave home behind. You’d understand that, Brad.” He invited them to sit.

Once he’d brought them fresh coffee, William stood at the window, watching the snow whip against the panes. “It’s cold,” he said in such a way that he didn’t appear to be talking about the weather.

Lisa and Brad’s anxiety had subsided, but Hellboy could now see from their nervous glances outside that behind their brave faces they were still very scared.

“You knew what you were buying when you signed the contract on this place?” Hellboy asked William.

“Its reputation, you mean? The most haunted house in America? Of course.”

“You just don’t believe in spooks.”

“Oh, I believe.”

“Have you seen any?” Lisa asked wryly.

William stared at her for a long moment, his expression unreadable, and then he returned his attention to the snow. “They named the square after the Battle of Louisburg,” he said. “1745. William Pepperrell led the Massachusetts militiamen in the sack of a French fortress and was made the first American baronet for his efforts. This is where Boston’s upper class used to live in the nineteenth century; did you know? There’s irony in there somewhere. The land the square’s built upon used to be called Mount Whoredom a century before the rich moved in. Of course, the rich, talented, and famous have always gravitated toward Beacon Hill. Louisa May Alcott, the author of Little Women, was one of them. John Hancock, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sylvia Plath, Daniel Webster . . . This damned city. There’s history all over the place. You can’t get away from the past.”

“So you feel like you finally fit in with all the moneyed people?” Brad said pointedly.

“I didn’t come here to be seen. And I never forget my roots.”

“You spent enough time at night school getting an education and ironing out the accent.”

“Yes. I bettered myself.”

Brad shrugged dismissively. “How much did this place cost? Twenty million?”

“Fifteen. I got it at a knockdown price because of its history.” William gave an odd smile. “A bargain.”

While William’s back was turned, Lisa made a face at Brad and said brightly, “It’s a lovely place.”

“Why here, William?” Hellboy asked. “Over everywhere else?”

William shrugged, but Hellboy continued to press. Finally William said, “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Try me.” Hellboy watched William struggle with the secrets he had kept for so long, until a note of relief rose in the dour man’s features that he could finally unburden himself.

“Before the revolution, this entire area was pastureland, apart from a few exceptions,” he began. “The estate of John Hancock, for instance. That was demolished to make room for part of the Massachusetts State House, and in the 1790s the south slope of the hill was developed for Boston’s richest families . . . Brahmins, they were called. It was around this time that Abraham Grant came to Boston. He’d already made his fortune, and he was looking to build a home. Rumor has it he walked all over Suffolk County trying to find the right spot. Yet strangely he bypassed many of the most glorious views in the district, or the best local amenities, to come here, to this very location. Why?”

“So he could look down on the poor folk from his perch?” Brad suggested.

William kept his focus on Hellboy. “The Chinese would call this an auspicious site. There’s a peculiar quality to this few square yards, a power in the land itself. At least that’s what Abraham believed. It’s said he consulted dowsers, seers, even a local witch, which in a God-fearing community like Boston in the eighteenth century was an extremely risky thing to do. Some say those qualities beneath our feet trap the spirits of anyone who dies here. Others say it gives long life and vitality to the living.”

“What do you believe?” Hellboy asked.

“I don’t believe in anything,” William replied with a note of bitterness. Yet he was clearly warming to his visitors. Hellboy guessed he hadn’t interacted with people since he had bought the mansion. “Let me give you the tour,” he offered.

They followed him into the next room, a library, the shelves filled with ancient, leather-bound books. Beyond this was what should have been a drawing room, but it housed glass cases containing stuffed animals and birds, their beady black eyes fixed on all who passed through the room. The windows looked out onto a small but untended garden, as wild as nature intended in its tangle of brambles, overgrown hawthorns, and unruly yews, ivy sprawling across crumbling walls that separated the space from the adjoining houses. The covering of snow added a sense of peaceful order that it had not seen in a long time.

“The house was designed by Charles Bulfinch, a local architect of some renown who lived in Mount Vernon Street and created some of the finest buildings you will see on Beacon Hill,” William continued. “But the Grant Mansion is different. This one he constructed to Abraham Grant’s very specific instructions. There are several sublevels underneath the cellar that all the other houses maintain, and you will notice that some of the rooms are slightly . . . awry. The proportions not correct. Walls and ceilings out of true, with windows at the back oddly sited. Abraham demanded all these things, though they would undoubtedly serve to disturb, unconsciously, anyone who lived here for any great length. He selected the construction materials. A particular kind of brick mixed with a particular selection of minerals. Wood from only one area—a forest he had identified in Virginia, not far from the Roanoke settlement. Glass slightly thicker than normal. You can see how it distorts what is outside, and how, for external observers, it distorts what lies within.”

“So, he was eccentric,” Lisa said. “Nothing wrong with that.”

“Eccentricity is judged by other people. To the person involved, every decision taken is always rational.”

“All right, what did Abraham Grant think he was doing with this house?” Lisa asked.

“Creating a spell in bricks and mortar.”

“Somewhere protected,” Hellboy said with a nod.

“For reasons unknown, the creation of this house was Abraham Grant’s life’s work. It was more important to him than his children, his friends, his work. It was everything. And when it was completed, he simply retreated behind the door, rarely mixing with his neighbors or the incestuous society that was forming here on Beacon Hill.”

“You’ve done your research,” Brad said.

“Yes, I have. Knowing where you are is as important as knowing where you come from. Without those two things, you can’t find your way forward.”

William trailed through other rooms hung deep in shadow, the décor and furniture speaking of a time long gone. There was a kitchen and a scullery, a cold conservatory, a study, and then upstairs a range of bedrooms, a nursery, bathrooms where the pipes clanked unremittingly when the taps were turned, and finally an attic room with windows that provided a view over all of Boston. The lights of the cityscape looked a world away, as though they were being observed through a telescope. The blizzard had dropped once again, but the fierce black clouds still churned over the entire area. Heavy snow blanketed the city as far as the eye could see.

“Once he had constructed his fortress, Abraham Grant continued with the next phase of his work,” William continued. “On a handsome retainer, he employed many agents in many cities. Telegrams were dispatched, and he set them to work scouring the globe.”

“What for?” Brad was distracted by the view. His old neighborhood was framed in the panes, away on the other side of the city, the memories still haunting.

“Anything which had the whiff of the supernatural about it. Crystal balls, haunted skulls, magic mirrors, hands of glory, potions and powders, swords and knives, scrolls, books, and maps. Within a short time the neighbors reported deliveries to this house, often under cover of the night. Mysterious black carriages, men struggling with heavy, coffin-shaped boxes. The items exchanged hands quickly, and the delivery men were paid for their silence. You know how people like to talk.”

“Where are all these strange objects?” Lisa asked.

“Most of them are stored in the subcellars out of harm’s way. Out of the way of doing harm. You have passed some. They merge in quite nicely with mundane items, if you don’t know the history.”

“So Abraham Grant turned this place into a storehouse of the world’s magical artifacts,” Hellboy mused.

“And that was when the hauntings started.”

Hellboy’s attention was drawn by a row of five old portraits on the wall opposite the windows. “Who are these?”

William indicated the painting of a girl of about ten in the center. “That’s Abraham’s daughter, Sarah. The others are all descendants.”

Hellboy studied them for a moment. “Portraits always creep me out. It’s the eyes.”

Beckoning for them to follow him out of the attic, William went first down the gloomy, creaking stairs.

“Abraham’s granddaughter, Eliza Grant, suffered the night fears terribly as a child. So much so, that her mother and father took her to see a doctor. She was convinced someone hid in the wardrobe in her bedroom and peeked out at her during the night, whispering terrible things. Eventually she had to be sedated. The nightmares calmed when she reached puberty, but she was always described as a strange woman, who’d sit for hours on end in that attic room, looking out over the city with a small pair of opera glasses.”

“Spying on the neighbors?” Lisa suggested.

“More like keeping watch. Searching for something that might be coming.”

“Kids having nightmares,” Brad said. “Nothing out of the ordinary in that.”

“She stayed in the house as an adult, never marrying,” William continued. “One evening her brother was coming to visit after a business trip in Vermont. As he approached the house, he saw Eliza fleeing from room to room, her terrified face illuminated by the gas lamps. All he could say was that there was ‘a shadow’ pursuing her. He found Eliza dead, strangled, her face blue, her throat crushed, on the floor of the hall where she’d raced to get to the front door. The door, inaccessible before, had opened with her passing. The brother had heard her sickening cries as he tried to get inside. There was no sign of her attacker. Every other door and window was locked from the inside.”

“You tell a good story, Mr. Lynch.” Lisa flashed a grin at Brad, but his expression remained grave.

“That sounds pretty solid for a ghost,” Hellboy said.

“Ghosts have been reported across the years, in the room with the stuffed animals, in the cellar, the nursery, the attic room—in fact, that’s where Eliza’s ghost was sighted, looking out over the city as she did when she was alive. But other presences have been reported here too. Demonic ones. Even beasts, like the ones that chased you here.”

Hellboy perked up at this information. “A werewolf? Inside the house?”

“There’s always been talk of some strange connection between this house and the wolves, from the earliest days,” William replied.

He led them back into the library, where he carefully selected a volume off the shelves; the leather was fraying and silverfish fled from among the pages. He flicked it open until he found a pen-and-ink illustration of a wolf pack sitting in a half-moon outside a house resembling the Grant Mansion. “Local folktales talk about the night the wolves came to Beacon Hill. It was about a year after the house was completed, when Abraham was in the middle of his desperate search for occult artifacts. Under the full moon, the wolves were supposed to have visited the house and kept their vigil all night, and for the two nights after that. It was reported by several reliable witnesses.”

Unsettled by the eerie mood, they considered William’s stories for a while, until Brad pressed, “All right, Dad, you’ve played to the audience and got your kicks. Can we find what we came for and get out of here?”

“No, wait. I want to hear about this,” Hellboy said. “It might be important. What other wolfy connections have you got?”

William considered Hellboy’s request and appeared to reach some kind of decision. “At the turn of the nineteenth century, Jackson Grant, a local businessman known in the restaurants of Beacon Hill as Piggly Grant because of his great girth, claimed one night when he was drunk that whenever he looked in a mirror in the house, he saw a wolf’s head looking back. Not his reflection, mind you. He told everyone in the bar it was as though the wolf was somewhere else, but there too. A few days later he tore out his own eyes. He survived, but he would never say what drove him to it.”

Hellboy considered this for a moment, and then asked, “What happened to old Abraham Grant?”

“Good question. The stories say he fled from the house one night as if the Devil was after him, and raced on to the north slope of the hill. In the nineteenth century, the south slope was the socially desirable area, and the north slope was known as Black Beacon Hill. Slaves lived there, along with sailors, poets, and a number of criminals, and what the rich families called “malcontents.” Unlike the south side with its fine architecture, the north slope was a sprawling, cluttered mess of small houses, lean-tos, alleys, and narrow winding lanes. Abraham Grant disappeared into that maze and, so the tales say, was never seen again.”

“Or else he just died in his bed.” Brad shook his head. “This is getting us nowhere.”

“No. Clearly not. Perhaps you should go.” William continued down the stairs.

Lisa caught hold of Brad’s arm. “Okay. Wolf outside,” she reminded quietly. “Don’t you think you should try to be a little friendly with Dad? At least till the sun comes up.”

Brad sighed. “I told you what it was like.”

“You’re not giving him a chance, Brad. You’ve been at his throat ever since we got here.”

Brad made to answer back angrily, but caught himself and then trailed down the stairs after his father. Lisa rolled her eyes at Hellboy. “Like father, like son, right?”

William waited for them on the first-floor landing.

“None of the things you’ve been telling me make this joint a great buy. So what made you throw your millions on the table?” Hellboy asked.

“The house has stayed within the Grant family ever since Abraham built it. No visitor has been across the threshold since that time. And then, a year ago, the last Grant died and the house came up for auction. I’d decided to sell the business, which meant I had a lot of cash on my hands . . . a lot . . . and I wanted something to excite me again. You run a big company like I did, it takes over your life, your thoughts. And when it’s gone you feel kind of empty. I was intrigued by the house’s history. I mean, everyone in Boston had heard some stories about the Grant Mansion. Who could resist owning it?”

“Oh, just about everyone,” Lisa said.

“It’s only going to go up in value. If I get bored here, I can always put it back on the market.”

Brad had been watching his father intently. “You’re lying.”

William waved a dismissive hand. “Think what you want.”

“I always know when you’re lying,” Brad pressed. Anger flared briefly in his face. “Like right after Mom disappeared, when you said you loved her.”

William cast one cold glance Brad’s way and then set off down the final flight of stairs. In that moment of friction, Hellboy saw a hint of the cause of the tension between Brad and his father, but the emotions appeared too raw, too personal, for him to question. Lisa too appeared taken aback by this revelation. She flashed Hellboy an unsettled glance, and as Brad went after William, Lisa caught his arm and dragged him back.

“I wouldn’t ever go out like that,” she said.

“What?”

“With idiot all over you. Will you give it a rest with your dad? Okay, there’s bad blood between you, I get it. But seeing the two of you like this is about as uncomfortable as watching your parents kiss. Right, Hellboy?”

“Urm . . . ”

“Yeah, he’s just too polite to speak up. Pull yourself together.”

“If you knew what had happened between us—”

“Then talk to me about it. That’s what friends do. But you’ve had this hanging over you ever since we met and you keep it all bolted down inside. Even that time in Baghdad when we both thought we were going to die.”

Hurt stung her eyes and Brad looked away, uncomfortably. “I’m sorry. I do trust you, Lisa, it’s just—”

The noise of a solid object falling made them all jump.

“That came from this floor,” Hellboy said. At the foot of the stairs, William returned to investigate the noise.

“It was just . . . just . . . ” Lisa searched for a rational explanation, but found nothing.

Hellboy pushed past them. “It was in the nursery.”

Swinging open the door, Hellboy stepped onto the bare boards of the darkened room, the light from the landing illuminating a few abandoned toys from decades past. Against the far wall, a rocking horse moved gently backward and forward, its momentum slowly diminishing. Hellboy, Brad, and Lisa watched until it came to a halt.

In the silence that followed, Lisa’s gaze fell on an out-of-place object resting in the center of the floor. “That must be what fell, but . . . ” She looked around, but there was no obvious place from which it could have fallen.

Lisa plucked up the cool metal object and allowed it to rest in her palm. “Opera glasses.” A shadow crossed her face as she glanced uneasily toward Hellboy and Brad.

William had appeared in the doorway. “It’s started,” he said flatly.

CHAPTER 5

—

“Does it mean anything?” Lisa asked once they were back in the sitting room.

Hellboy watched her wrestle with yet another thing that shouldn’t exist as the ghostly imprint of fear rose up in her features. “Apart from the fact that Eliza Grant is restless? I hope not,” he replied.

“This is great. Werewolves on the outside, ghosts on the inside. Where do we turn?” Unnerved, Lisa wrapped her arms around herself. Her hands were shaking, Hellboy saw.

“Could be worse. At least you’re not alone,” Hellboy added, trying to raise her spirits.

“After Iraq, I thought I was ready for anything,” she said in a quiet voice.

Hellboy’s heart went out to her. Nothing ever prepared civilians for the bad stuff that lurked just beyond the skin of the real world.

“So . . . ghosts?” she said with a wan smile.

“Yeah, they’re real too.”

“Do we need to . . . exorcise her . . . or whatever you do?” She made a fist in frustration at her failure to get a grip on what was happening.

“If she’s a threat, maybe. Sometimes it’s best just to let them be.”

At the window, Brad appeared untouched by the experience. Everything about him remained locked down, and Hellboy had started to wonder if he believed he’d fall apart if he ever reflected on how he felt. He was rooted by the intensity of the snowstorm, which made the panes shake as if someone was trying to break in. “If this weather keeps up, we’re not going to be able to leave even if we want to. It must be over two foot deep out there already. All that time in Iraq with the heat and the sand, dreaming of somewhere cooler, and now this.”

“Be careful what you wish for.” Hellboy joined Brad at the window. Visibility was only a few feet. For all he knew, the square could have been swarming with werewolves.

With an armful of logs, William came in and stoked the fire. Soon the flames were leaping high and a rosy warmth spread through the room.

“I need to see those artifacts. Time’s short,” Hellboy said.

“It might help if you actually explained what you’re doing.” William brushed the dirt from his hands.

“There’s something called the Kiss of Winter—”

“You’re wasting your time,” William interrupted sharply. “The Kiss of Winter isn’t here.”

“You’ve heard of it?”

“Rumors, that’s all.” William warmed his hands in front of the fire, but his body language was defensive. “I’ve inspected all the occult items stored in the subcellars, as well as the minor ones scattered around the house. The Kiss of Winter is not among them.”

“Rumors? I’m not buying that. In the occult world, the Kiss of Winter is above top secret. The biggest expert I know on this weird stuff had no idea what it was until yesterday.”

“What is the Kiss of Winter?” Lisa asked.

“All I know is, it’s one of a pair.” He explained how the wolves had the other half, the Heart of Winter, and that they needed the Kiss to complete their plans, whatever they were. He wasn’t happy with the vagueness in his account, and he could see they didn’t find it satisfying either. “It’s tied in to some ancient prophecy called the Time of the Black Sun,” he added.

“Which is?”

“No idea.”

“You don’t know very much, do you?”

“That’s the way it goes in this business. Secrets and mysteries. The truth is hard to come by.”

“I wish I could help—” William began.

Brad stepped in forcefully and confronted his father. “You’re lying again. Why are you determined to be an obstacle? Hellboy says this is about saving lives, and I believe him.”

“Think what you will. I do not know the location of the Kiss of Winter.” With a dismissive gesture, William walked out of the room.

“He might not know exactly where it is, but it’s here somewhere,” Hellboy noted.

“So we turn this place upside down till we find it,” Brad said defiantly. “And my dad better not try to stop us.”

“First things first. I’m hungry. Let’s raid the kitchen,” Lisa said. “Your dad said enjoy the hospitality, right?”

While Hellboy lounged in a chair at the table and Brad stood sullenly against the window, Lisa searched the cupboards, but there were few luxuries. “Looks like it’s bread and cheese all round,” she sighed. “Good thing I’m not sensitive to gluten and dairy.”

Hellboy’s attention was drawn to a plain door at the back of the kitchen that was marked with a black circle.

“Hey, I’ve seen that before,” Hellboy said. “The Black Sun. We are on the right track.” Hellboy studied it thoughtfully: it was left in plain view so that it seemed like a warning to anyone who knew what it was.

Lisa traced her finger around the circle. “Looks like it’s been there a while.”

“Maybe the Kiss of Winter came in with Abraham Grant’s original stash of occult artifacts and it’s been hidden away ever since,” Hellboy mused. And maybe Abraham found out the Kiss of Winter had a dark side and carved this here himself.

The door was fastened with a sturdy iron padlock, but it had been well oiled and was clearly in regular use.

“Don’t break it,” Lisa said. “I’ll see Mr. Lynch about the key. I might be able to talk him ’round.”

“Good luck with that,” Brad muttered.

When Lisa had departed, Hellboy pulled up an old wooden chair and sat on it back to front. “Have you ever seen eye to eye with your old man?”

“It wasn’t so bad when I was a little kid. He was different then. He used to take me out in his boat fishing all the time. I remember him standing on the deck, laughing at some terrible joke. Then it all changed.” Lost to his memories, Brad chewed on his lip.

“What happened?”

Hellboy watched as Brad struggled to open up; whatever he felt was still raw. After a few moments he took a deep sigh and began tentatively, “When I was ten, my mom disappeared. One Saturday morning, she went out . . . ” He paused as the images came in a fast jumble. “It was hot, I remember, even though it was May. Unseasonal. I was out in the yard, reading a comic book, and Mom came out and asked if she could pick me anything up. I asked for some Reese’s Pieces. Couldn’t get enough of them back then. Now I can’t stand them. She said she’d bring some back . . . and that was the last time I saw her.”

“Did she run out? Or . . . what?”

Brad gave a sad shrug. “Would she have asked me what I wanted if she wasn’t planning to come back? I don’t know. Nobody knows. When Dad got home from work and she still wasn’t back, he drove around everywhere she might have been. I sat in the back, not really knowing how bad it was. Mom would be back. She always came back. Later, when I saw how white my dad looked, more worried than I’d ever seen him . . . yeah, I started to get an idea then. He called the cops, filed a missing-person report. In circumstances like that, they usually give it a couple of days before they start taking it seriously. By then, there was no trace. She might as well have been picked up by aliens.”

“That must have been pretty tough for a kid. Rough for an adult.”

“Yeah. If somebody dies, it tears you apart, but you get over it, eventually. But not knowing like that . . . I kept expecting her to walk back in the door, for years and years. I’d lie awake at night, praying that she’d roll in, coming up with all these elaborate fantasies about what we’d do when she was back.” He sighed. “She always used to ask me to go to the store with her, and I always found an excuse. I made a deal with myself that if she came back I’d go every time. I’d go with her anywhere.”

“I’m sorry. Your dad took it bad too?”

“That’s the thing. The first night, he was running around, doing whatever he could. After that, it was like he didn’t care.”

“Maybe that was just his way of coping.”

“He changed, sure. He became cold. To me. No more fishing trips. No nothing. We barely spoke. For a while, I thought he’d get over it, and I’d get my dad back. But it was like we were just sharing the same house, and there was no other connection. Imagine what that’s like for a ten-year-old kid. I kept reaching out to him. He kept pushing me away. Eventually . . . I just got on with my life. Grew up. Learned to cope on my own. The way kids do when they’ve lost both parents. I hit my teens and we started to argue. A lot. One thing I could never get was, why didn’t my dad keep looking? It was like after that first night, he gave up. I know if it was me, I’d never have stopped. I’d be out every night turning the city upside down till I tracked her down, or . . . whatever. But my dad, he just got on with his life, like he didn’t care. You know what? I don’t think he did, not really.”

“So that’s why you two fell out.”

“First chance I could, I got out. I missed Mom so much it hurt, and every time I was with him, the only thing I saw was that he didn’t care as much, and that made me feel even worse. I signed on with the Globe as an apprentice. Made coffee, ran errands, and they trained me up as a photographer. Pretty soon I was going out on assignments on my own. In some kind of stupid way, I thought Dad might have been proud, but it wasn’t the kind of job he understood. If I was an engineer, building things, yeah, he’d have got it. But a photographer . . . no. I visited less and less . . . we had nothing to talk about . . . and then I started chasing work overseas. Anywhere with a bit of excitement or danger, something that would make me feel alive. And then . . . ” He shrugged.

“You stopped talking altogether.”

“Yeah. It was tough coming back here. I see him, I still think of my mom, that last time I saw her, smiling, waving. Then I see his face—cold, cold, cold. Throwing his money away on a big, old house like this, all those rooms and just him, kicking around on his own, happy to be by himself with the life he’s made. That’s my dad.”

“You should have told me about your mom.” Lisa was standing in the door with the big iron padlock key.

“It’s not important now.”

She glared at him, the hurt in her eyes clear to Hellboy, but Brad appeared oblivious. Hellboy felt like sitting him down and giving him a good talking-to; couldn’t he see how Lisa felt about him?

“Boy, you’re going for full-grade idiot tonight,” she fumed. “You’re telling me all those years of not knowing what happened to her didn’t take their toll?”

Brad flushed. “All right. I’d do anything to find out. Anything,” he said, his voice breaking. “Just so I could finally get on with my damn life.”

Lisa hesitated, and then came over and gave him a hug. “See, I’ve got my work cut out turning you into a human being,” she said warmly. Once she broke off, she handed the key to Hellboy. “He didn’t take much persuading. He doesn’t think you’ll find it. He’s convinced it’s not here.”

“Okay, you stay here . . . ” Hellboy began.

“You’re kidding, right?” Lisa snapped.

“It could be dangerous down there.”

“And it’s not dangerous here? And out there? And every Goddamn place in the world? I, for one, am not sitting around like some frightened little girl, being protected by the big man. I want to know what’s happening, for good or bad.”

Hellboy hesitated.

“And if you say no, I’m going to follow you anyway and kick your ass when you least expect it.”

Brad shrugged. “She means it.”

“All right,” Hellboy growled. “Maybe you’re better off where I can keep an eye on you.”

“Oh, thank you,” Lisa said in a rich, mocking tone.

Hellboy shook his head wearily; she was going to be trouble. “Let’s see,” he said. Hellboy slipped the key into the padlock and turned.

And at that moment all the lights went off.

CHAPTER 6

—

Lisa screamed. “Sorry!” she apologized a moment later. “I’m like a stupid kid. The lights went out, so what? My nerves are shot.”

“I saw an old oil lamp on the side. Hang on.” In the pitch black, arms feeling ahead of him, Hellboy stumbled toward where he remembered the lamp being. A loud crash echoed as he smashed into something.

“You okay?” Brad called.

“Tell your dad I owe him for a chair.”

A moment later, Hellboy located the lamp and lit it. The darkness swooped back like a living thing, the shadows dancing as the flame flickered and settled. He saw the relief in Brad’s and Lisa’s faces and resisted the urge to discuss what had happened. He didn’t like how things were getting progressively worse: the storm, the wolf, and now the gaslights going.

“You think the wolf cut off the gas supply?” Brad went to the window where the storm had grown even more intense. The entire house appeared to be floating in white. “Can it do something like that? I mean, does it think like a human, or is it just an animal?”

Hellboy remembered the alien intelligence he saw in the red eyes. “It’s smarter than you think. If you smell gas, call out. I don’t want us going up in a fireball.” Hellboy held the lamp high to illuminate the door. The padlock hung open. “We can head down there in a while—”

“What a good idea,” Lisa interrupted sardonically. “In a haunted house, with the lights out, and the storm getting worse, go down into the subcellars where all the spooky things are. Yep, top of my list.”

“First I want to check if the gas going out is the first sign of some kind of attack,” Hellboy continued.

“I thought this place was supposed to be protected,” Lisa said. “Yeah, I get what he meant now. Some kind of . . . charm . . . or spell . . . or something. Protected from the supernatural.”

“That kind of protection’s great until somebody finds a way past the defenses.”

“Afraid the wolf’s going to huff and puff and blow the place down?” Lisa added wryly.

“Glad to see you’ve still got your sense of humor.”

The howling wind encircled the house in its grip, rattling the windows, reaching down chimneys and under doors, the cadence of its echoes sounding at times eerily human. Lisa and Brad kept close to Hellboy as he lit their way.

In the drawing room, the lamplight played off the glass cases and glittered in the black eyes of the stuffed animals so that it appeared they were alive and watchful. Lisa’s attention was drawn by an empty case.

“Something used to be in there, I’m sure,” she said.

“I don’t remember,” Brad replied, distracted.

Unsettled, Lisa inspected the case, but as she neared, Hellboy saw her attention drawn to the one next to it, in which a stoat scrambled over grass into a tangle of vegetation. Its head was half turned back toward her.

“Come on, Lisa,” Brad pressed. Hellboy had been concerned about his bottled-up emotions, but since he had spoken of his mother it was like a dam had started to crack, his mounting emotional stress manifesting as frustration.

Lisa tried to focus on the empty case—the glass had been lifted slightly, so that it lay at an angle with a gap at one side—but Hellboy saw her gaze keep returning to the stoat and its unremitting stare. Its lips were drawn back from its needle-sharp teeth, and as they watched, the lips appeared to ripple slightly and draw back further, as though the stuffed animal was snarling at Lisa. She recoiled, half stumbling against a table.

“Just a trick of the light,” Hellboy said, though he wasn’t convinced that was the case.

Lisa forced a smile, but she couldn’t resist one backward glance as they left the room.

Back in the hall, they came to a halt and listened to the still house. The noise of the wind outside was a constant distraction, but the building still felt too quiet, as though the subtle creaks of boards and hiss of water in pipes were being stifled.

“Dad?” Brad called hesitantly.

There was no response.

“He’s probably just sulking somewhere,” he added unconvincingly.

As they stood listening, a strong smell of roses crept up on them unconnected to any draft. Sickly sweet and cloying, it hung in the air, with odd notes of rotten fruit lying behind it.

“What is that?” Lisa said.

“Who knows, in an old place like this?” Brad replied.

Hellboy wrinkled his nose. “I don’t like it.”

“Roses?”

“Standard sign of a haunting. Odd smells. Apports or out-of-place objects. Unusual noises—”

A sound like a falling brick crashed a few feet away, making them all jump. There was no sign of anything that could have caused it.

“Just like that,” Hellboy continued, adding with a mutter, “Playing with us.”

“Ghosts don’t scare me,” Brad said flatly. His eyes had a frozen, faraway look as he remembered something much worse.

“They should. They’re not all wisps of smoke. And those that are can still drive you out of a window or make sure you trip down the stairs if the mood takes them.”

“Who’s haunting this place?” Lisa asked. Hellboy saw her hands were shaking again. She thrust them behind her to hide them from him. “Abraham Grant?”

“Could be anyone who’s died here. There are sites like this all over the world. People die, and then just stick around. Some are just mischievous. They like a joke at the living’s expense. Others don’t like the fact they’re dead. They’re the worst. It’s like they had a little bit of bad feeling at the time they died, but in the afterlife it just ate them up. Turned them sour from the inside out. They’ve forgotten what it’s like to be alive, or they’re jealous of the living, or they want to spread some of their misery and bitterness around. They can drive you insane, or kill you. Usually both.”

Lisa eyed the dark at the top of the stairs. “Why this house? Why not next door?”

“Some places have peculiar qualities, just like Abraham Grant believed. Points where ley lines converge, tracks of energy in the land that dowsers can follow. They’re usually pretty good places. Uplifting. But there are things called negative leys or black streams, and where they meet you get all sorts of trouble. Hauntings, murder, sickness.” Hellboy shrugged. “That’s what I’ve heard. Sometimes with this kind of stuff there aren’t any rules, or not ones that you and me get to know about. Stuff happens. We deal with it. I wouldn’t worry too much about the why of it.”

“I like to try to make sense of things,” Lisa said. “But then I never made sense of Iraq.”

She glanced at Brad, but he didn’t respond.

As they climbed the stairs, they all became aware of an unsettling quality that had descended on the house; it felt like a room that someone had only just vacated. The more they climbed, the more the lamp appeared oddly ineffectual, as if the dark was pressing tighter and tighter against them. On more than one occasion, they felt someone was standing an inch behind their shoulders, forcing them to glance repeatedly back. It only added to their mounting uneasiness.

“If the wolf had got in, we’d hear it, right?” Lisa whispered.

“Unless it was really, really quiet,” Hellboy replied.

“Thanks for putting my mind at rest,” Lisa said acidly.

Finally, they made it to the attic room where the row of windows looked out over the rooftops and down to the city. Although they had known it instinctively, they could now see there was something unnatural about the storm, in the way that it appeared denser and more intense at ground level, but at that height, visibility was much greater. Through the swirls of snow they could make out the roofs of nearby houses, and occasionally it thinned enough so they could glimpse the twinkling lights of downtown. Overhead, the clouds formed a dense, slate-gray bank.

For a while, Lisa fired questions about how the snow tied in to everything else that was happening, but when Hellboy couldn’t answer them, she only got more frustrated.

“Doesn’t look like it’s going to clear any time soon,” Hellboy noted.

“The snow makes perfect cover for the wolf.” Lisa rubbed her fingertips over the windowpane and then dragged a nail that left a line. “Wow. Frost, on the inside. The cold is really reaching in.”

“Hand me the opera glasses.” Adjusting the binoculars, Hellboy peered out into the night, scanning slowly across the roofs until he came to a halt on the house across the square. A dark bulk hunched on the edge of the roof, close to the gutter. Refocusing, he saw the wind lift the fur, the head rotate slowly until those blazing red eyes came into view. Hellboy couldn’t shake the feeling that the wolf could see him, despite the gulf between them. With eyes that could scrutinize prey at a great distance, unflagging stamina, great strength and agility, and a ferocity untrammeled by compassion, it was a machine made for killing.

“It’s out there?” Brad asked.

Hellboy nodded. “Keeping watch in case we leave the house.”

“So we really are trapped here,” Lisa said. “I’ve been in some shitty places over the last few months, surrounded by mines, guns targeted at me by snipers, but right now I’d rather be there than here.”

As Hellboy half lowered the glasses, he froze, and quickly replanted them against his head, trying to find what he thought he had glimpsed.

“What is it?” Brad asked. “Is it moving?”

“There’s another one.” On an adjoining roof, another wolf prowled along the pitch, eyes sparking in the blizzard.

“Two?” Lisa asked uneasily. She pressed against the glass, but the lamplight inside made it difficult to see anything out in the night.

A troubling thought gripped Hellboy, and he slowly moved the opera glasses across a wide arc. A third wolf sat motionless like a gargoyle on another roof. Across the tiles nearby, two other wolves stalked. He counted seven in all: a pack. How many more were there that he couldn’t see, on the roofs next to the Grant Mansion, down at street level, prowling through the dense blizzard across the square, hiding in doorways and alleys, circling the house as they waited patiently for an opportunity to attack?

“What can you see?” Lisa asked, still pressed against the glass.

“Nothing to worry about right now.” Hellboy slipped the opera glasses into his pocket.

“If it’s all clear, let’s go check that door,” Brad suggested. “The quicker we can get the job done, the quicker we can get out of here.”

“Wait,” Lisa began. “I think I can see movement out there—”

The window shattered as a heavy object crashed against it. Screaming in shock, Lisa threw herself backward against Hellboy, knocking the lamp from his hand. As it turned in an arc toward the floor, he glimpsed the wolf’s head framed in the broken glass, mouth torn wide, eyes filled with a hateful intelligence. Gripping the broken gutter, one foot on the windowsill, the beast had been above their heads all the time.

“We come with the winter.” The words were caught in a rumbling growl emanating from deep in its throat. “All of us. We come with the snows.”

And then the lamp hit the floor and the flame was extinguished, and in the engulfing darkness there was only the wind whistling through the broken window and the sound of Lisa’s scream.

CHAPTER 7

—

When the window broke and the attic room was plunged into darkness, Lisa scrambled out of the door. The vision of the wolf burned its way into Brad’s mind, but once he was aware Lisa had left the room, he was surprised how quickly the horror faded. Realizing the thing hadn’t broken into the house, his only concern was for Lisa. Brad heard the familiar sound of her shoes clacking on the bare boards outside, and then her cursing as she attempted to navigate the winding stairs without light. Afraid she would break her neck, he ran after her, calling her name.

It wasn’t like her to panic. In Fallujah, she had always kept a cooler head than he had: saving his life when the masked Shia terror squad came hunting near the border with Iran, and helping the children during the marketplace suicide bomb when everyone else had been running in fear. She’d been the rock when he felt like his own life was falling apart, and it unsettled him immensely to see the foundations of her life shifting since Hellboy had brought them to Boston. Now it was his turn to help her.

Gripping the rail, he cautiously negotiated the stairs. They were old, and hadn’t been repaired in a long time. Some of the boards were lifting, others had protruding nails, and he remembered acutely what Hellboy had said about malignant ghosts guiding people to fall out of windows. Or down stairs.

From the attic room, he heard the thunder of gunfire and more shattering glass. Hellboy was dispatching the werewolf, but Brad already knew the beast wasn’t a real threat. Not yet. He’d seen how quick and savage it had been on the journey up Beacon Hill. If it had really been able to cross the house’s protective boundary, it would have been in the room before they had known about it. The attack had been designed to create fear, and it had worked.

And somehow, for all the beast’s ferocity and sheer supernatural terror, it paled against the real terrors lurking inside him; no external danger could ever match that sucking darkness in his heart that threatened to pull him in, every waking hour, the thing he’d only managed to control by locking it down, not addressing it. But now it was all shifting.

“Lisa!” he called.

He didn’t like the way his voice echoed. The way the word came back at him didn’t sound natural; it was as if someone had simply repeated her name in his voice, but with a faint inflection of contempt.

The second time he called, the echo came back with a note of threat. He didn’t try again.

Dampening down his anxiety over why Lisa had not responded, he eased his grip on the railing as he came to the landing of the floor below. He recalled the shutters on all the windows at this level had been fastened. A sea of darkness swam all around, making it impossible to pick out even the faintest detail; there was something almost hallucinogenic about the intensity of the gloom. He had the odd sensation that he was floating in space, and had to clutch at the wall to stop himself from pitching forward.

He listened intently. All was silent. Was Lisa hiding? His heart beat faster. What if something in that place had already gotten to her? What if she was injured? What if she was dead? A pang of anxiety made him feel queasy, and although he tried to resist, for the first time he considered what life would be like without her. He found the idea devastating. She’d been such a part of his daily existence for so long, he’d started to take her for granted: her jokes, her minor irritations, her warmth, and support.

Since the marketplace bomb, most days had been a fog that he had wandered through blindly, numb, ragged emotions lost beneath gray waves. Sometimes he had thought he might not even make it through till dusk, and then, when the sun had set, he was afraid he would never see dawn. But Lisa had always been there to hold his hand—or kick his ass—to say the right words at the right time, and to give him hope without ever letting him know that that was what she was doing.

“Lisa,” he called tentatively. This time there was no echo at all.

Feeling along the wall, he found the next flight of stairs, listening all the time, hearing nothing but the wind. On the floor below, the dark was a little grayer, thanks to slivers of light making their way through the snow-caked windows, but there was still barely enough to see.

A familiar smell reached him at the top of the next flight of stairs, triggering a rush of memories that sent a convulsion through him. It went as quickly as it came, but he was already drawn by the lure of the desperate past, and he gripped the railing tightly and unsteadily made his way down.

On the first floor, the door to the nursery shone a spectral white in the soft glow of the street lamp leaking through the nearby window. It was ajar. Through the gap, he glimpsed faint movement, the fleeting sight of Lisa’s shirt. He caught the hint of her perfume. She was investigating where they had found the opera glasses, or she was hiding, retreating to childhood both literally and metaphorically.

“Hey,” he called gently.

When there was no reply, he pushed the door open and stepped inside. Instantly, he was engulfed in the sensory sweep triggered by the same smell, spice and sweat and hot canvas. He didn’t hear the door close behind him, nor was he aware of the dark sweeping in. Lisa too was forgotten. He was walking through the souk, the heat heavy on his face. It was crowded, people shouting in the local dialect, arguing over goods, laughing. Someone offered him a bolt of scarlet silk, urging him to feel the quality. He could smell meat cooking on a charcoal barbecue.

Ahead of him was the boy, ten years old, an open, smiling face, familiar, so familiar. His eyes locked on Brad’s, and their whole existences were laid out side by side. From a stall came the boy’s father, also smiling, his new purchase, an iron pan, clutched happily. He bent down to show it to his son.

Not now, Brad thought. Not now. Tears stung his eyes.

The blast happened soundlessly, or that was how he remembered it, and was living it. The boy and his father were torn apart by the shock wave, torn apart by the shrapnel. It was raining all around Brad, and he recalled thinking how strange that was, that he could get wet from a shower in the middle of a hot, dry country, and then he was turning over, still remembering the boy’s smile, remembering the past, tears burning his cheeks, then and now, turning over and over.

He must have called out, for Lisa’s arms wrapped around him and she laid her head on his back, as she had done so many times in the months since, whenever the image had come back to him of the boy and his father, of death striking in the heart of the mundane, and every time she had saved him. He would never forget how much she had saved him. His life was hers, for there was many a time when he would have ended it, many a time when he would have gone to join the boy and his father, to escape all the pain and the heartache; finally to find some peace.

She held him tight.

“Thank you,” he whispered. His cheeks burned from the tears.

As the familiar aromas faded, so did the potent, affecting images, and he was back in the dark nursery. His chest heaved, and slowly the emotions ebbed and he returned to himself.

“Don’t say anything,” he began quietly. “Just listen. I’ve never told you how much you’ve done for me. I know, I know. Shut up, Brad! You’re a friend doing what friends do. I’ve heard it all so many times. But what you do is more than friends, Lisa. You give so selflessly, and I just take, and take, and I never spare a thought for how you must feel, and what you need. I’m an idiot, like you say. But that’s going to change. I’m going to be better, and I’m going to be good for you. I’m going to be there for you, for once. And . . . and . . . ”

He struggled to put his sweeping feelings into words.

“And it’s ridiculous it’s taken a place like this, and awful things like this, to get me to see how much you mean to me. I’d never get the chance to say this to you face to face, in the light. You’d turn it into a joke. And they say men are bad with emotions. You keep it light all the time, stop it getting heavy. But the truth is, it has gotten heavy. It’s gotten really serious, without either of us seeing. It’s like it crept up on us in the dark. I’ve always felt so cold inside, and now . . . now . . . maybe I’m not. Maybe I can finally let myself . . . ” He paused. “What I’m trying to say is . . . Lisa, I—”

The door swung open loudly, and light flooded the room. Hellboy was framed in the doorway, holding the lamp high.

“Brad, who the hell are you talking to?” he said.

Brad blinked at Hellboy stupidly, and felt for the arms around him, no longer there, the head against his back, no longer there. Turning in a slow, disbelieving arc, he looked around the nursery. It was empty. His stomach churned queasily, and he thought he might be sick.

“And where’s Lisa?” Hellboy asked.

CHAPTER 8

—

Chairs crashed over in front of Lisa. Bruises flared on forearms, elbows, knees as she stumbled wildly through the impenetrable dark, bouncing off the hard edges of tables and shelves, crashing against walls and doors. Her heart thundered and her ragged breathing brought a fiery band across her chest.

All she could see was that wolf’s hideous face and the look in its glaring eyes that suggested there was no hope for her, for any of them. The terror consumed her just as that beast would when it finally caught her. What was it? Why did it even exist? The world was horrible enough already.

Finally her blind panic began to subside, and her fractured thoughts gradually coalesced. Grasping onto a doorjamb for support, she regulated her breathing. How could she be so scared, after all she’d experienced? A gun pressed against her temple. Bombs exploding all around, buffeting her with the shock waves, shrapnel flying by with only good fortune preventing her losing limbs or life. But the wolf, and the eyes, and everything it represented: a world that could not be measured or defined, that undercut everything she knew . . . it was too much.

As her primal fear of the unknown slowly dissipated, another fear rose in her: of being trapped, no place to turn, either in the house or outside. A stifling claustrophobia bound around her tightly, and she had a desperate urge to throw open a window and breathe deeply of the icy air, although she knew how foolish that would be.

Gradually, her eyes adjusted to the faint light filtering through the snow-covered windows. As shapes formed out of the gloom, she saw she was in the drawing room amid the glass cases of stuffed animals. The stoat still eyed her menacingly and next to it the empty case loomed. The house was still, no sounds of pursuit, no bestial growls.

With relief, she ran a hand through her hair and laughed quietly at her panic, but the noise sounded eerily distorted in the silence. Get back to Brad and Hellboy, she thought to herself. There’s safety in numbers, girl. What were you thinking?

Movement caught her eye, dark against dark, low, fast, behind the tables with the glass cases, and she shrieked despite herself. A cat, she thought, although she’d seen no sign of one. A rat? Too big for that.

Instinctively backing away from the center of the room, she heard claws rattle on the bare boards to her left. So fast! Not a cat, she decided. What was it?

It bounded from the floor to a table, and then onto a high shelf, disappearing before her eye could alight on it.

Edging cautiously, she suddenly broke for the door to the sitting room, but the creature bounded in front of her in the blink of an eye. Echoing from it came a low, gurgling noise deep in its throat. The sound wasn’t threatening, as such, but she couldn’t place it.

Rapidly, she changed direction and raced toward the door to the kitchen. The thing was ahead of her just as quickly, but this time sharp claws raked her as it passed. Recoiling, she cried out, her hand going to her cheek. Blood smeared her fingers.

Her heart beat faster. What was in the room with her?

At the empty grate, her hand closed around a brass poker. She took a step toward the door again, and as the thing hurled toward her, she lashed out. At the last, it turned in the air with astonishing agility. The poker came down hard, shattering one of the glass cases. A stuffed squirrel was propelled in an arc against the wall.

“Come near me again and I’m going to smear your brains on the floor,” Lisa snarled.

The creature launched itself at her head in a frenzy of spitting and thrashing of limbs. Ducking, Lisa caught it a glancing blow that sent it spinning across the room into another glass case, which crashed onto the floor.

“There you go, you bastard!” she said. “I’m in the mood to take out all this pent-up frustration.”

“Was it frustration that drove you when he came at you with the bottle?” The voice was wheedling and laced with bitter humor. A chill ran through Lisa.

“What are you?” she whispered.

“I am the cold wind of a winter’s day. I am a little girl crying in a bare room. I am the voice of guilt and anger and lost days.”

Gripping the poker with both hands, Lisa stalked toward the sound of the voice. “I know what you’re trying to do. I’m not going to listen.”

“We all have something frozen inside us, fighting to get out, something pumping with the hot blood of ancient days. Heat and ice. Ice and heat. That is the way of humanity.”

As she neared, the creature flung itself away again, onto another high shelf, to a desk, a chair, the floor, before disappearing into the dark.

“Do you think it hurt him, when you slipped the knife between his ribs?” A little chuckle that had the unsettling tone of an old man. “Did his drunkenness mute the pain, as it did the time he put his fist through your door? Nothing dulled your pain, did it, little girl?”

As all the long-buried emotions surged to the surface, Lisa flew into a rage. Wielding the poker like a sword, she crashed across the room, shattering glass, knocking over tables, hammering the iron down hard on the floorboards. But the creature was always an inch or two away, flying this way and that with a throaty laugh or a foul curse.

“You will not get to me!” she shouted, lashing out randomly. Tables and chairs cracked, shards of wood flew. For the briefest moment, she saw the man who had taken her in after her parents died, pleasant and decent until his wife left, and then something else when the drink enveloped him, something bestial, with an anger that could not be satiated, rising from someplace inside him that she could not envision.

Heat and ice. The way of humanity.

Through her own rage, she felt every blow as if it had just happened, recalled every hospital trip, every lie, the belt and the bottle and the hand, the days and nights locked in her room, pleading for food, fed only punishment for crimes she did not recall doing.

It had taken her years to escape those days. It had been her worst nightmare that they still lived inside her, waiting for the moment to surface—perhaps with her own children, conditioned to hurt like a hungry rat in a maze. And here was the proof, pulled from her in seconds by something she couldn’t see; something that could well be her corrosive imagination. No, she thought. Pulled from her by the damned spirits that lived in that place.

She shattered another glass case for no other reason than that she could; the creature was nowhere near.

“I won’t let it out!” she said, aware of the brutal irony. “I am not that person. I can beat it!”

The poker came down one more time on a table, so hard that the vibrations surged through her arms like electricity, and then she was spent. The anger faded and she felt only a mounting despair. Sagging into a chair, she covered her face, trying to force the memories back down inside, knowing it would not be that easy.

She heard the creature bound onto a table nearby, and saw it positioned itself in the only beam of light breaking through the window. It was a monkey, but the way it held its body was queasily human. The black eyes sparkled with a malicious intelligence.

Leaning toward her, it hissed, “Sad, so sad. A life forever scarred by events beyond your control. Is there any hope for you? The little girl who will never grow up, forever hurting, forever locked in that bare room.”

“Shut up,” she said flatly.

“What is the point of living like that? Forever trapped. Without hope.” The monkey leaned forward further, its voice now honeyed, its dark eyes urging Lisa to listen, to consider. “There is no hope in living.” The monkey paused. Its tongue slapped eagerly against the roof of its mouth. “Why suffer?” it added gently. “You could end it all. Find peace.”

A long silence as Lisa wrestled with the terrible memories. “Yes,” she said. “I could.”

The monkey’s voice became silky-soft. “The soft pressure of rope at your throat. A passing moment of ecstasy, and then the long, warm darkness, making you safe, erasing all your fears, all your pain.”

“I could,” Lisa replied. “But I won’t.”

Propelling herself from the chair, she rammed the poker into the monkey’s gut, continuing forward with such force that it embedded deep in the wooden paneling. Skewered, the monkey thrashed like a wild thing, shrieking with an impotent rage that made her ears hurt.

“You wait!” it screamed. “When Piggly Grant comes for you, feeling his way, with his no-eyes and his grasping, sharp fingers, then you’ll see! Then you’ll hurt!”

“Threats from a monkey kebab. Like that’s going to bother me.”

The door swung open and light flooded in. With deep concern, Hellboy and Brad rushed over when they saw her.

“Hey, are you okay?” Brad asked.

Lisa was surprised when he took her in his arms and hugged her tightly.

“I’m fine.”

Hellboy looked around at the wreckage of the cases. “So what have you got against stuffed animals?”

“Nothing, unless they speak to me.”

“Huh?” Hellboy said. He eyed the poker embedded in the wall paneling. “Jeez, you really had it in for that one.”

The monkey hung limply, all life gone from it. But its last words and the thought of Piggly Grant, his own eyes torn out, searching for her, still haunted Lisa.

CHAPTER 9

—

At the kitchen table, illuminated by a candle in a wax-coated wine bottle, William stared into the depths of his coffee mug. An air of deep despondence hung over him.

“Where were you during all that trouble?” Annoyed, Brad pushed his way past Hellboy and Lisa to confront his father.

“What trouble? I didn’t hear anything.”

“You didn’t hear Lisa trashing the drawing room with a poker?”

“That’s right, Brad. Break it to him gently,” Lisa said.

“What happened in there?” Hellboy asked to divert Brad from his clear desire to pick a fight with his father.

Hesitantly, Lisa recounted her battle, and at the end Hellboy could see her victory had given her a new strength. What was in the house still terrified her, yet now she knew she was not a passive victim. But her description of the animated stuffed monkey disturbed him.

Lisa noticed his concern. “That wasn’t a ghost?”

Hellboy shook his head slowly. “They don’t act like that. Whatever got into that monkey was something worse.”

“Worse, how?” Brad asked. “Worse than ghosts? Worse than werewolves?”

“Okay, different,” Hellboy replied. “There’s a lot of screwy stuff out there . . . things you don’t need to know about. There aren’t just ghosts here, there are other . . . entities.”

“Demons,” William interrupted.

Hellboy sighed. “You know when I said, things you don’t need to know about?”

“Demons!” Lisa said incredulously.

“Let’s just call them entities for now,” Hellboy said. Lisa fixed an eye on him and he continued, “Some kind of demon. Low level. Hard to know exactly what it is unless you know its true name.”

Lisa sagged into a chair desolately. “Demons,” she whispered.

Hellboy turned to William. “It’s this house, it’s gotta be. Something here is like a magnet, sucking in the supernatural and holding them fast. Am I right?”

William said nothing.

“Yeah, I’m right. So what else is here?”

Again, William didn’t respond. “You’re wasting your time,” Brad snapped. “I’ve seen him like this before. If he knows something, he’s not saying. You’ll never get it out of him.”

Hellboy could tell Brad was talking about more than the current conversation.

William finished his coffee. “You need to leave soon.”

“You’ve got to be kidding,” Brad said with exasperation. “You’re throwing us out, at night, in the middle of the worst snowstorm Boston’s had in years, and with a pack of wolves circling the house? What’s wrong with you?”

“You can’t stay here. You’ve stirred things up in the house. The presences don’t like what you’re doing, and they’re only going to get worse.”

“You have a hotline right to them, do you?”

Hellboy rested a hand on Brad’s shoulder and eased him away from the confrontation. “Mr. Lynch, we’re not gonna leave the house till we’ve got what we came for.”

“You’ll never find the Kiss of Winter. Believe me, I’ve tried!” In frustration, William hurled his mug across the kitchen. Stunned by his outburst, Hellboy and Brad could only stare at him, while Lisa picked up the pieces of the shattered mug.

“I’m heading down into the subcellars,” Hellboy said.

“We are,” Lisa corrected.

Hellboy saw there was no arguing with her. “The Kiss of Winter has gotta be down there somewhere,” he continued.

“Then you’ve only got yourself to blame for what happens,” William replied bitterly. “I wash my hands of you.”

“What’s wrong with him?” Lisa asked once William had stalked out of the kitchen.

Brad stared after his father. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen him like that before.”

“We’ve all got things frozen inside of us, waiting to come out,” Lisa said. She winced as she recalled what the monkey-thing had said to her.

“Your father seems pretty obsessed with getting his hands on the Kiss of Winter,” Hellboy noted. “That opens up a whole bunch of questions. Why does he want it so bad? What does he know about it? And is there any connection between his reasons and the wolves’?”

“You won’t get any answers out of him,” Brad said. “If he doesn’t want to talk, he doesn’t talk.”

“You think he bought the house because he knew the Kiss of Winter was here?” Lisa mused. “Or did he find out after he moved in? Maybe one of those things haunting the place whispered it to him.”

“A cozy fireside chat,” Brad said bitterly. “He’s happier hanging around the dead than he ever was the living.”

“We can take shots in the dark till the cows come home. Time to have a poke around in the cellar.” Hellboy went over to the door marked with the Black Sun. “Still think you oughta stay up here.”

“With the talking monkeys? No chance.”

Lisa and Brad joined Hellboy at the door. When Hellboy opened it, there was a blast of cold air, as if someone had opened a corresponding door far below.

Stone steps wide enough for one person disappeared into the dark. The walls were damp and salt encrusted, and an aroma of great age drifted up from the depths. With the flame of the lamp flickering in the slight breeze, Hellboy led the way down. The dark pressed against them heavily, and very quickly it felt like the lamplight was reaching less and less into the gloom. The temperature plummeted until it felt as cold as it had outside.

The steps ended at a cellar, a series of small, maze-like rooms cluttered with discarded household items—rugs, broken chairs, dried-up paint tins and brushes in jam jars, battered pots and pans, tea chests, wooden filing cabinets, and shelf upon shelf of tin cans, green glass bottles, pickling jars, biscuit and cake tins, rusty saws, hammers, chisels, and pots of nails and screws—interspersed with the occasional mysterious object that appeared to have some occult significance. The air was heavy with the odor of damp, dirt, and decay. Hellboy’s eye was caught by a skull with a strangely elongated brow that glowed with its own luminescence, and a sword on a shelf, rusty and shattered on first glance, but which made his consciousness squirm each time he looked, so that he thought he was examining a slowly revolving crystal, a portion of a giant machine of cogs and gears, a pure white light, and then the broken sword once more.

“It would help if we knew what the Kiss of Winter looked like,” Lisa muttered. “I’m guessing it’s probably not a big pair of lips.”

“I’m hoping I’ll know it when I see it,” Hellboy said. “If William couldn’t find it, it’s not gonna be on display. If it is so important, Abraham Grant would have locked it away out of sight. And made it really hard to find.”

“What are you saying? We need to rip this place apart?” Brad asked.

“Let’s see how the land lies first. Depending on how many subcellars there are, that could be a lot of ripping.” Hellboy picked a slow path through the debris, sometimes having to double back when the route was blocked. The cellar was so cluttered, it was difficult to see more than a few feet in either direction, and there was always a sense that they were being watched from just beyond the tight circle of light.

“I can’t imagine what it must have been like for your dad living in this place for the last year,” Lisa said. “Whatever brought that stuffed monkey to life said some horrible things . . . ” Her voice trailed off, her features growing taut.

“Like what?” Brad asked, concerned.

“It doesn’t matter. But if it was whispering the same kinds of things to your dad night after night . . . ” She shook her head. “I think I might have gone mad.”

“Yeah, well, you have feelings. A conscience,” he muttered sourly.

“You really think your father’s that bad?”

Brad didn’t reply.

The lamplight fell on a portrait in oils of a hollow-cheeked man with the saddest eyes any of them had ever seen. He was tall and thin, in a dark suit, with brown, curly hair receding severely, and a drooping moustache. At the bottom of the gilt frame was a plaque bearing the name Abraham Grant.

“So that’s what he looked like,” Hellboy said.

“I was expecting someone a little more severe,” Lisa said. “Those eyes . . . I feel so sorry for him. I wonder what it was that made him so miserable.” Once again, she thought of the words of the monkey, of things frozen inside.

“Appearances can be deceptive,” Brad said. “He might be sad because he destroyed so many lives.”

They continued on their circuitous route through the jumble until Hellboy held the lantern high to reveal a door hidden behind peeling, faded wallpaper. A ragged black line revealed where it had been opened recently by William. Tearing off some more paper, Hellboy uncovered another black circle scorched into the wood.

Another warning, Hellboy thought.

“Just like the one upstairs,” he said. “Looks like we’re going in the right direction.”

The door had been warped by the damp and was hard to open, the hinges protesting, the bottom dragging on the stone flags. More stone steps plunged into the dark.

“All set?” he asked.

“Not really,” Lisa replied, uneasily. “But I’d rather be on the move than stuck in one place waiting for something to sneak up on me.”

“Yeah, run straight into it—that’s better,” Brad said.

“Funny man.”

Hellboy led the way once more, but when they reached the next level he came to a sharp halt in the doorway. His body language unnerved Brad and Lisa.

“What is it?” Brad hissed.

“Well, this is weird.” Hellboy stepped fully into the subcellar so they could both see. Except it wasn’t a subcellar—it was the kitchen, the same old, scarred table, deep sink, and old-fashioned taps, the same range on one wall.

“But . . . but we came down,” Lisa stressed.

Baffled, Brad walked into the center of the room and looked around, eventually lighting on the windows. They appeared to look out on an endless night, but as he investigated he saw black shutters had been fastened on the other side.

“An exact copy of the kitchen upstairs,” Hellboy mused.

“As above, so below,” Lisa said. “You’re right, this is very weird.”

Cautiously, they explored, moving into the drawing room with the glass cases with stuffed animals—Lisa noted the one that had been empty upstairs now contained a stuffed monkey—and then into the library, the sitting room, and the hall. Hellboy marveled at the accurate reflection and tried to make sense of what it all meant. All the furniture was the same, the only difference that the shelves, desks, and tables were filled with occult objects. And in the hall, the stairs went down to a replica of the first floor with bedrooms and nursery, and then down again to a second-floor copy, and again. It ended in the attic room, the row of windows all black.

“Now that’s different,” Hellboy said thoughtfully. Along the wall, opposite the windows, there were only four portraits, with a space in the middle where the painting of Abraham’s daughter hung in the true attic room.

“Why is this part of the house a copy?” Lisa asked.

“Old Abraham Grant went out of his way to get this place built like this,” Hellboy said. “There’s gotta be a good reason.”

“Imagine the lengths he must have gone to keep it secret,” Brad said, amazed. “Just think, at that time, if some local lunatic was building a house that was exactly the same belowground as above, it would have been the talk of all Boston. It would be one of the big myths of America now, like the Winchester House.”

Hellboy rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Old Abe liked his mysteries. I’m going to have to think about this one.”

“Maybe he was just crazy,” Brad suggested. “How much would all this have cost?”

“Right. If you spent major cash on something like this, you wouldn’t keep it hidden away. There’s gotta be an explanation,” Hellboy said. “Come on—I want to check out some of those artifacts.”

They retraced their steps through the still, dark, upside-down house. Occasionally, they would hear bangs or creaks coming from behind closed doors along the route, but whenever they investigated there was no sign of what caused the sounds. In the nursery, they heard a clear, human sigh that made the blood drain from Brad’s face.

“The spirits are restless,” Hellboy said. “Get the feeling they don’t like us exploring down here?”

In the sitting room, Hellboy moved slowly along the artifacts tucked away in a muddle on every free space, as if they were cheap bric-a-brac, or long-forgotten family heirlooms. A silvery coating of dust lay over everything, and some were festooned with generations of cobwebs.

“Wow. I’ve heard Kate talk about some of these things,” he said.

“You know what they are?” Lisa asked.

“Yeah, some of them. They’ve been missing for generations, and here’s why. Take this one.” Hellboy indicated a pentagram constructed from human finger bones fastened together with gold wire. “It’s the Ossium Hex. Back in the Middle Ages, it was the most powerful curse generator in the world. Wars were fought over it—”

“I don’t remember that in the history books,” Lisa said.

“I’m talking about real history, not the stuff everybody gets to find out about. The Ossium Hex is supposed to have caused the Bubonic Plague. Y’know, the Black Death? Killed seventy-five million people or so? There are some people around today who’ve spent all their lives searching for the Ossium Hex.”

“So, essentially, it’s a weapon,” Brad said. “Maybe it’s best that it’s locked away here.”

“Except nothing stays locked away forever,” Hellboy replied.

While Lisa investigated the items on the mantelpiece, Hellboy moved to another item, an ebony mask with silver and gold inlays. “Is this . . . ? Yeah! The Mask of Din al-Alamein. Wear this and you can control any person you look at. They say that’s how Lucrezia Borgia rose to power. Again, all the occult guys have been searching for this for generations. The latest rumor was that it had been destroyed during World War Two.”

“What about the rest of this stuff?” Lisa asked.

Hellboy shrugged. “Not a clue. Some things stick in my head, but I’ve never been great with the homework.”

“Why would Abraham go to all the trouble and expense of bringing these things here?” Brad asked. “Power?”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Hellboy said. “If he wanted power he’d have used them, not locked them away underground. No, he had some other reason.”

“Maybe he was an altruist. Trying to make the world safe,” Lisa suggested.

“Then why didn’t he just destroy them?” Hellboy said.

Lisa’s cry was a shock in the still atmosphere. What had appeared to be an ornament, a spider carved from a block of ebony as big as the palm of her hand, now scurried up her arm. Frantically, she tried to knock it off, but it moved too fast, over her shoulder, to her neck, where it paused briefly before sinking twin fangs into Lisa’s pale flesh. A second later it fell to the floor, inanimate once again.

“Oh,” Lisa said in a daze, her hand going to her neck. Her eyes rolled up so only the whites were visible, and then she swooned.

“Holy spit!” Hellboy ran to catch Lisa and laid her out on the Arabian rug.

“What’s wrong with her?” Brad said, panicking. “Is she okay?”

“It bit her.” Hellboy quickly examined the bite, which had flared into two red holes from which black tracings were beginning to radiate.

“What’s happening to her?”

“I don’t know!”

Brad pressed two fingers against her wrist. “Pulse is thready. Her breathing’s getting shallow. Do something!”

“Any suggestions? Find that spider. Maybe it’s got a rule book attached.” Hellboy could see Lisa was deteriorating rapidly. Whatever had got into her was spreading quickly.

As Brad searched the floor where the spider fell, a gigantic shadow loomed over him. “H-Hellboy?” he said tentatively.

“Ah! Jeez!” Hellboy leapt to his feet as a giant blue-black spider towered over him, razor-sharp teeth glinting in the lamplight. Furniture cracked and flew as it shifted its bulk with alarming speed to drive Hellboy into a corner. “Could have sworn it was smaller last time.”

Brad was trapped on the far side of the room. Snatching up a piece of shattered chair, he attempted to ram it into the spider’s underside, but it caught him a glancing blow with one of its legs. He crashed into a bookcase, dazed.

“I hate spiders,” Hellboy spat. “Least you haven’t got much room to maneuver.”

The spider lunged at him. Gobs of gelatinous liquid flew from its mouth and sizzled where they struck the wall.

“Holy crap!” Ducking the snapping mouth, Hellboy attacked the spider with his fists. Its body was steely, each hammer blow ringing like a tolling bell.

Staggering to his feet, Brad called, “The artifacts? Can we use any of them?”

“No way. Unless you know what you’re doing, they’re just as likely to blow you into little pieces.”

Brute force drove the spider back, but it was fast and slippery, avoiding Hellboy’s blows with a sudden sideways skitter and then attacking ferociously. The maw snapped shut on Hellboy’s upper arm as the spider drove him back and then up to pin him against the wall. Hellboy cursed loudly as the acid began to eat into his skin.

Flinging himself onto the spider’s back, Brad drove a shard of wood against the body, but it shattered into splinters. “What’s it made of?” he yelled with frustration.

“Damn thing’s trying to digest me alive,” Hellboy said through the stink of the acid consuming his flesh. “No time for makin’ nice.”

He hammered his fist into the spider’s multifaceted eye. The orb burst as his hand went deep into the socket and through to the core of its head. A high-pitched screeching like metal on metal tore from its mouth as it flailed frantically, flinging Hellboy back and forth until its fangs released and he crashed against the wall.

As he hauled himself up from a shower of plaster, the screeching came to a sudden halt.

Brad stood in the center of the room, looking round blankly. The spider was gone. “What just happened?” he said.

Hellboy indicated the carved ebony spider lying on the floor near Brad’s feet. “It decided it was time to retreat.” He pounded one boot onto the carving, and when he removed his foot there was only a smear of dust. “That’s how you deal with spiders,” he said.

“Lisa!” Brad called.

Hellboy whirled to see Lisa was gone, the door to the hall now hanging ajar. Reclaiming the lamp, they dashed into the echoing hallway and paused at the top of the stairs leading down to the upper levels.

“She wasn’t in any fit state to walk,” Brad said.

“She is with the ghosts now.” The voice was hollow and insubstantial, hanging in the air like a cold breeze.

“What the hell was that?” Brad shouted. “One of those entities?”

“Your guess is as good as mine. This house is like a zoo for weird shit.”

Brad started to shake, but caught himself. “Jesus,” he whispered.

“Who’s there?” Hellboy called out as he sprayed the lamplight around, but the hall was empty and there was no response to his question. “Looks like we go down,” he said.

Plunging into the dark depths of the house, they paused on each level, listening intently for any sound of Lisa, throwing open doors to inspect empty, dusty rooms, but the house was as still as when they first ventured into it.

Brad was growing increasingly desperate. “Where is she?”

“Here somewhere. The ghosts are quiet now. They want us to go.”

“So they can be alone with her,” Brad added bleakly.

On the final floor before they reached the attic room, Brad finally snapped. “She can’t just have disappeared!”

“You’re right.”

“She was sick. She might be dying.”

“Brad, you need to calm down. She’s a tough kid.”

“You don’t understand. She saved my life in Iraq. She saved it more than once.” He ran frantic fingers through his hair. “I came out of there with posttraumatic stress disorder. Lisa’s the only one helping me hold it all together.”

Hellboy grabbed Brad by the shoulders to calm him. “It’s the atmosphere down here—it’s making you worse. Ghosts give off some kind of negative energy. They suck your spirits, turn your thoughts against themselves. They’re bad-luck generators. Stay focused and we’ll get Lisa out of here.”

“Okay, okay.” Steadying himself against a wall, Brad took a deep breath. A moment later, he paused, puzzled.

“What is it?”

“Vibrations. In the wall.”

Pressing his cheek against the damp plaster, Hellboy felt the subtle sensation. He traced it down the wall to the floorboards.

“Rats?” Brad asked.

“Or not.”

Resting one hand on the boards, Hellboy gave one final evaluation of the vibrations, then punched hard with his stone fist. The wood shattered, leaving a ragged hole from which cold air blew.

“The space between the floor and ceiling?” Brad kneeled down and tested the depth with his hand. “About eight inches.”

“More than enough.”

“I can’t see anything in there. Too dark.” Brad held his ear above the hole. “Nothing moving.”

“Not now that we’ve disturbed them.” Hellboy wrenched up a floorboard and dropped the lamp into the space before pressing his head into the gap.

“See anything?” Brad glanced up and down the empty landing, his flesh prickling. The sensation of eyes upon him was overpowering.

“Nothing that way.” Hellboy turned his head. “No. Nothing . . .
wait.” He shifted the lantern so the illumination spread further under the floorboards.

A few feet along the space, he could make out the soles of Lisa’s boots. In the gloom beyond, he glimpsed the whites of her fearful eyes as she strained her head toward him. A gray hand was clasped across her mouth, stifling any sound she might make. Other hands were entwined in her hair and gripping her shoulders, ready to drag her further into the dark. And just beyond, Hellboy could make out pinpricks of sickly yellow light: hateful eyes turned toward him.

In that hanging moment, Hellboy recognized the depth of the predatory nature of the entities that had been drawn to the house. They were hungry for life—and now they had Lisa.

“Is she there?” Brad asked urgently.

Suddenly the things began to drag Lisa away as quickly as they could. She fought furiously, kicking and scraping her heels on the wood, muffled cries resonating along the space.

“What’s happening to her?” Brad shouted.

Jumping up, Hellboy tore up floorboard after floorboard as he raced along the corridor, the crawling things always just ahead of him. In the cloud of shattered wood and flying nails, he drew his gun and fired one shot several feet ahead. The floorboards blasted apart. Leaping midrun, Hellboy crashed into the space he had created, directly in the path of the crawling things. He wrenched up the nearest boards to reveal Lisa, on her back, terrified. Whatever had tried to take her was already disappearing: the tips of gray fingers melted through the floor until they were gone.

Brad choked back a cry of relief. “Thank God,” he whispered. “I thought . . . ” The words died in his throat and he concentrated on helping Hellboy draw Lisa out of the tight space. His fear that he might have lost her had brought a new tenderness to him. Hellboy noticed his hand brush Lisa’s cheek, stroke her hair in relief.

For a second, she sucked in deep lungfuls of air, her eyes frozen wide as the memory of her ordeal played out across her mind, and then, gradually, she calmed.

“Thank heaven you came,” she gasped.

“We weren’t going to leave you down here,” Brad said gently. He cupped an arm around her shoulders and she fell into him.

Hellboy searched the space under the floorboards, but there was no sign of whatever had been there. It had been close; he wondered if Lisa knew how lucky she had been.

“What happened?” Hellboy asked.

“I don’t know. I remember picking up the spider in the sitting room . . . and the next thing I knew I was looking at the lamp and your head behind it.” She shuddered as she recalled the sensation of the gray fingers upon her. “In Iraq, there were times when I was terrified for my life, but nothing like that. The enemy out in the desert . . . in the end, despite the things they did, they were just people. That was real evil.” She stared uneasily at the hole in the boards. “I never believed in it before,” she said quietly. “Now the whole world looks different.”

Hellboy gave her shoulder a comforting squeeze, and she responded with a weak smile.

Brad examined the skin around her neck closely. “The bite’s gone. Looks like whatever toxin the spider pumped into her disappeared when you crushed it.”

“Mindless force. Always the best medicine.” Hellboy helped Lisa to her feet. “Come on. Let’s get you back upstairs.”

Lisa began to protest, but Brad simply swung her up into his arms. “Now you’re just going to put your back out,” she said weakly, but behind the feeble attempt at humor Hellboy sensed a deep affection, of which they were only just becoming aware.

As they moved back up through the levels, the house behind them once again came alive with distant creaks, the thud of dropped objects, and the faint moan of air passing through a small gap. All of them could have been taken for the mundane sounds of a cold house at night, but Hellboy knew the truth.

“You think they’re going to try to stop us leaving?” Brad asked quietly.

“You keep looking forward. I’ll watch your back.”

As they thundered into the sitting room amid the shattered furniture and upturned artifacts, Hellboy came to a slow halt.

“What’s wrong?” Brad called from the door.

“Nothing . . . just . . . ” Hellboy turned slowly, trying to work out what had made him uneasy.

In the corner of the room, a tall, gaunt figure stood unmoving, swathed in shadows. Hellboy raised the lamp, but though the shadows all around were dispelled, the figure itself remained cloaked in darkness as though it absorbed all light. Yet as it shifted its head slightly, Hellboy saw the outline of a balding pate and curly hair at the back, and the brief glimmer of piercing gray eyes, the saddest he had ever seen.

“Abraham Grant,” he said.

“Yes.” The voice sounded like pebbles falling on a coffin.

“You’ve built a nice house here.”

“I have built a monument to my own suffering, and the suffering of all who have lived here.”

“What’s the deal there, Abraham? Why are you suffering?” Hellboy asked.

“For the same reason that any suffer after death. For my transgressions in life.”

“What did you do wrong?”

Abraham didn’t answer. The dark shifted as he stepped forward, and his flesh glowed as pale as the moon.

“I hope you’re not here to hurt us, Abraham,” Hellboy said, casting a glance at Brad and Lisa, safe in the doorway to the library.

“I observe, and I warn. This is my house. It will always be my house.” His voice rose, and became filled with a bitterness that matched his sadness.

“You brought a lot of very special, very powerful things here.” Hellboy gestured to the scattered artifacts. “I’m interested in one in particular.”

“The Kiss of Winter.”

“Yeah. How’d you guess?”

“Everyone who is drawn to this house desires the Kiss of Winter. Once one knows of its existence, nothing else matters.”

“So it really is that powerful? You want to tell us where it is?”

“Why would I reveal its location? It is too dangerous. The house was designed to keep it hidden, and to . . . ” His voice trailed off, and for a moment there was only an uneasy silence.

Hellboy had been right: the marks of the Black Sun on the doors had been warnings. “But it is here. We just have to find it.”

“Solve the puzzle of the house, and all will be revealed. But you will never solve the puzzle.”

Hellboy considered this for a moment. “A puzzle? So there’s a reason for the upside-down house.”

“It hides, it protects. That is one of its functions.”

“It has another?”

Again Abraham remained silent.

“Why do the wolves want the Kiss of Winter?”

“They seek to unite it with its sister, the Heart of Winter. I searched for many years for the Heart, but found no sign.”

Hellboy recalled what the ghost of Daniel Pleasance had told him and Kate about the wolves finding the Heart in Prague. “What does this all have to do with the Time of the Black Sun? And what is that?”

Abraham hesitated. Concern alighted in his pale face. “The prophecy of the Time of the Black Sun has another name. It is also known as the Rise of the Wolves.”

“That doesn’t sound good.”

“The Time of the Black Sun is the end of all human life. I will warn you now, as I have tried to warn others. The Black Sun must never be allowed to rise. The Kiss of Winter should never have been brought back into the light. I will regret the part I played in that until Judgment Day.”

“Okay, warning noted. But what’s the Kiss of Winter got to do with all this?”

“Together, the Kiss and the Heart cross boundaries in a way that neither could truly achieve on their own. Past and present. Life and death. With them, there is no longer a clear defining line.”

“I need to know more—” Hellboy began.

“But I cannot tell you. Not here, not now.”

“Then when?”

“Seek in the past for the roots of the present. Outside this place, where the boundaries are already decaying. There you may find what you need, if you only have eyes to see.”

Outside this place. With a pack of prowling wolves and an Arctic storm. Hellboy didn’t like the idea of venturing out into that mess. But before he could press Abraham further, he dimly heard a resonant groan far off in the house, like a long-closed door finally being opened.

Abraham grew uneasy. “Know this: if you cannot find the solution to this place, the house will claim you, as it has claimed all who have lived here. As it has claimed me,” he said hastily.

“We’ll be out of here long before then.”

“It is already too late. You have been tainted. Whomsoever crosses the threshold of this place is cursed to spend the rest of their eternal existence within these walls. Even if they leave . . . even if they travel to the farthest corner of the world . . . at death they will be dragged back here.”

“What’s he saying?” Brad asked. “That there’s no hope? Just because we came here?”

“Your only hope is to find the Kiss of Winter,” Abraham stressed. “But you never will. The Kiss cannot fall into the hands of those who would seek to use it for evil. The Black Sun must never rise!”

From deep in the depths of the house, faint sounds began to reach Hellboy’s ears: what could have been a soft tread on a step, climbing steadily upwards, or simply the settling of ancient timbers, a juddering groan that may have been another door opening, and behind it all a constant, deep rhythm, like a drum or a heartbeat.

“What’s going on?” Hellboy asked.

“You have already been given a gift. Use it. You will see the truth,” Abraham said.

“A gift?” Hellboy thought for a long moment until his hand went tentatively to the opera glasses he had reclaimed from the nursery. “Wait here,” he said to Brad and Lisa.

Hellboy ventured back out to the hall. All was still and silent, but there was a pervasive atmosphere of apprehension that had not been there before. Peering down the stairs, Hellboy saw only darkness. He examined the opera glasses for a moment. “Use the gift, the man said,” he muttered.

With an uncertain shrug, he placed the opera glasses to his eyes and instantly flinched. Deep in the shadows, faint shapes moved relentlessly toward him, glowing faintly like bodies seen through heat-sensitive night vision goggles. He removed the opera glasses, and once again there was only the dark.

Racing back into the sitting room, he yelled, “Move!”

Abraham was already less substantial than he had been, and was fading back into the dark in the corner of the room. He seemed oblivious to Hellboy. “Poor Sarah,” he said to himself, wringing his hands. “Poor, poor Sarah.”

Hellboy urged them through to the gleaming glass cases and stuffed animals of the drawing room, and then into the kitchen. At the foot of the stairs up to the cellar, Brad cocked his head and listened. “It’s quiet. What’s wrong?”

Planting the opera glasses on his eyes again, Hellboy glanced back. The glowing shapes were already moving into the kitchen, becoming more human in shape as they neared. One near the front was huge and low, with arms outstretched.

“Just run,” Hellboy said. He drove Brad and Lisa up the stone steps and into the clutter of the cellar. As they weaved their way through the twisting maze, Hellboy used the opera glasses only once. The ghosts were only feet behind.

“What’s there?” Lisa gasped. “Something we can’t see?”

“I’ll tell you about it over a coffee,” Hellboy replied gruffly.

Pounding up the final flight of steps, they burst into the dark kitchen. Hellboy slammed the door with the Black Sun etched on it, and clanked the padlock shut. Stepping back, he watched intently with the opera glasses for long moments. Briefly, the door bowed as if a tremendous weight pressed against it. Glimmers of light flickered through the gap beneath. Whispers hummed on the edge of their hearing, the words incomprehensible but the tone filled with rage. Yet the door held, and after a while the light receded.

Crashing onto a chair, Hellboy allowed himself to relax.

“What now?” Brad asked.

“Now,” Hellboy replied, “we keep watch till dawn.”

CHAPTER 10

—

Dawn came up cold and hard behind a bank of dark clouds still filled with snow; not the fresh, crisp morning of a New England Christmas, but a brutal blast of the frozen North, of raw fingers, and hunger, and an ache that reached deep into the bones. After a while, the brittle silver light gave way to glimmers of gold here and there as an occasional shaft of sunlight gleamed off the snow-swathed rooftops and blanketed street. Even then, there was only the prospect of worse to come.

“Any sign?” A bleary-eyed Lisa brought Hellboy a mug of steaming coffee and a plate of eggs as he sat in vigil at the window beside the front door.

He thought how drained of life she looked; she was finding it hard to shake off the previous night’s ordeal. “All quiet.” Blowing on the mug, he took a warming sip. “I hate the damn cold.”

“I can see how that would be. You like it hot, right?”

He eyed her askance before seeing the hint of pale humor in her eyes. “How you doin’? You went through a lot last night.”

For a moment, she reflected, her eyes downcast. “I remember the spider biting me, then just flashes for a while. Whispering voices . . . hands on me . . . ” She gave a shudder. “Then nothing until a feeling of being dragged along in the dark and the dust. They were saying things to me. I can’t remember exactly what, just this feeling of . . . dread. That everything was over.” She tried to force a smile. “You know what I mean?”

He nodded. “You gonna be okay?”

“I’m tough. I’ll get over it.” She didn’t look convinced, but added, “I’ve been through some bad things in my life. It gives you a thick skin. I said last night about real evil, how it was different from Iraq. But . . . when I was younger . . . I came up against something evil then, and it was all human.”

Hellboy could see she didn’t want to talk about it further, so he said, “I’ve been trying to figure out what old Abraham told me, about the Time of the Black Sun and the Rise of the Wolves. Two names, same thing. It sounded to me like those werewolves out there need to get hold of the Kiss of Winter—whatever it is—to partner it up with something called the Heart of Winter, which they’ve already got.”

“And if they do that, the Rise of the Wolves happens?”

“That’s what it seemed like Old Abraham was saying.”

“So we don’t let them get the Kiss,” Lisa said defiantly.

“Easier said than done,” Hellboy grumbled. “Only we have to find the Kiss to . . . ” He paused, shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. We have to find it, that’s all.” To stop ourselves getting trapped in here, like Old Abraham and all the other ghosts, he thought. No need to tell her that.

“So how do we do that?” she asked.

“Abraham said I had to look for answers out there.” He nodded to the door.

Lisa looked at him incredulously.

“Yeah, I know. So how’s Brad doing?”

“Sleeping. He tried to talk to William . . . something about his mother . . . but they only ended up arguing, and William disappeared again.” She looked out at the frozen street. “I’m not sure if I trust him.”

“William? Hard to tell. He keeps everything buried down deep. He’s got his own agenda, that’s for sure.”

“Why would he want the Kiss of Winter if not for some kind of power grab?” Lisa asked. “You saw those artifacts down there—they’re all dangerous. And it sounds like the Kiss is worst of all.”

“But William left all those alone. He’s only interested in the Kiss of Winter.”

“Maybe summoning giant spiders and controlling people with a mask aren’t enough. Maybe he’s got his eye on the big prize.”

“What does Brad think?” Hellboy wondered.

“It’s hard to get anything good out of Brad about his dad. He’s always talked about someone cold and distant, someone who set out to build power out there in the world. You know, turning that tiny engineering company into a multimillion-dollar business through sweat and willpower. He’s a tough guy. Anybody who throws all his cash into a place like this . . . ” She shuddered. “Has got to be after something big.”

Hellboy tucked into his eggs. “I’m starved. Running from ghosts gives you an appetite.”

“Haven’t you got a big gun or something that just blows them away?”

“Who do you think I am? Bill Murray?” he said between mouthfuls. “Ghosts are the hardest things to destroy. Takes some specialist equipment and a good dose of ritual. Often you’re just better distracting them, or finding out why they’re haunting and giving them a helping hand to move on.”

Finishing his food and coffee, he stood up and stretched. “Reckon I better get going before the next snowfall.”

“You’re not really going out there?”

“Don’t see how I’ve got a choice.”

“Yes, but outside where? Canada?”

“The Kiss of Winter and the Heart are strongest when they’re brought together, Abraham said. The wolves have the Heart out there; the Kiss is in here. The two of them combined must be causing all this weirdness circling around us . . . the weather, and the time shifting an’ all . . . so I’m guessing whatever I’m going to find is gonna be somewhere within reach of this house.”

Lisa fetched his coat. “What about the wolves?”

“No tracks in the snow, so they haven’t been around for a while. I’ve been watching the roofs since first light. Nothing. I’m betting they’re playing it smart, lying low when the sun comes up. They’ve got nothing to gain being hunted by cops and the National Guard. While I’m out there, I’ll see if I can get in touch with my old gang, the Bureau, along with the cops and everybody else I can get hold of.”

“You’re still taking a risk.”

“Yeah. That’s what I do. Lock and bolt the door behind me, just in case. And be prepared to open it in a hurry if you hear me holler.”

Hellboy stepped out into the bitter cold, the deep snow crunching under his boots. It was impossible to see where the sidewalk ended and the road began. Some of the front doors around the square were buried beneath drifts. Putting his head down into the biting wind, he struggled toward Mount Vernon Street past the still-burning gas lamps. Everywhere was still. Without the rumble of cars, trains, planes, no sign of people on the street anywhere, it felt like the entire population had fled the city. Across Boston nothing moved, apart from the summer birds swooping in the gray sky, baffled as they searched for food. It looked like the power was now out citywide.

Occasionally, he glimpsed movement inside the houses and businesses that he passed, and once saw the frightened face of an old man pressed against the glass. Every house was a prison, residents afraid to venture out, afraid to stay indoors.

As he fought his way toward Charles Street, not sure what he was looking for, the snow started again, and soon he was being buffeted every which way by a blizzard. In the haze of white, he lost sight of the buildings all around and soon found his bearings were off.

When the wind dropped a little, none of the landmarks around him looked familiar. Glancing about, he tried to place his location and saw a dark shape loom out of the blizzard. It was a woman in a black dress from the antebellum period, a bonnet tied tightly, her head down against the stinging snow. She rushed past without seeing him and disappeared into the blizzard again.

“Where am I?” he muttered to himself. “Okay, when am I?” He sighed. “So much for callin’ the Bureau and the cops.”

The gusting snow shifted slightly to reveal a girl of around ten sheltering in the doorway of a milliner’s nearby, her brown curls frosted with white. She wore a blue dress and a white bonnet, scant protection against the cold. Her face, unaccountably pale, looked vaguely familiar.

“Hey, you shouldn’t be out here. You’ll catch your death.” Hellboy lurched through the gale to the girl.

The girl flashed him an open, honest smile. “I am waiting, Mister.”

“Who for?”

“Why, you.”

“Me?”

“Yes.” She held out a white, fragile hand for him to take.

“You mean, you were waiting for anyone who could get you out of this snowstorm.” He peered into her face. “You’re not scared of me?”

“What? A fine, upstanding man in his Sunday-best suit and hat?” There was an odd quality in her face when she spoke that concerned him, but maybe that was how he was perceived in this era.

“We can go now.” She urged him to move, and they struggled through the deep drifts for a few paces before Hellboy swept her up into his arms and held her close to him. She was as cold as ice. “Thank you,” she said.

“Let’s get you in front of a fire. Which way?”

She directed him down the street. It was difficult to see further than a few feet on every side, but occasionally Hellboy caught glimpses of the buildings they were passing, and he had the impression they had left behind the grand houses of the south slope.

“Where are we going?” he asked.

“Why, to Black Beacon Hill.”

Hellboy noticed the fine material of her dress. “That’s not where you’re from.”

“No. But it is where I am going.”

The force of the wind and the sharpness of the driven snow made it easier not to talk, and so Hellboy forced his way on with his head down, protecting the girl from the elements as much as he could. After a little while, she directed him off the main road and up a side street where the houses were so close together they kept the worst of the storm away.

The south slope had been carefully designed with wide avenues and large plots for the residences, but here it appeared the houses had been thrown up with little thought for any of the niceties of town planning. They jumbled against one another with ragged pitches and sagging roofs, many with tiles that were missing, broken, or hanging, and windows so tiny the interiors appeared filled with gloom. The street between the two rows wound its way like a natural feature, and on either side alleys and run-throughs plunged into a rat run of shadowy interconnecting passages barely wide enough for one person. Overflowing rain barrels, broken crates, and refuse created obstacles to any speedy progress, and often made it difficult to see what lay ahead.

The girl directed Hellboy into the depths of the dark maze, where wood smoke from fires and the smell of cooking food hung in the air. Occasional blasts of icy wind swirled past them, but the claustrophobic nature of the jumble of routes turned what would have been unsettling and gloomy at any other time into a cozy protection against the weather.

In some houses, the door lay open invitingly for any neighbors who wanted to drop in. Hellboy caught sight of groups of black servants from the big houses laughing and joking and eating around stoves. Others were filled with steam and the aroma of soap as the women worked hard with the washing they had taken in. Every now and then they would pass pale, thin men in too-large overcoats, long hair framing faces that contained the bloom of both intelligence and hard liquor, their fingers stained with ink or paint. To a person, they nodded politely to Hellboy as he passed. So maybe they do see me like a regular guy from this time, he thought. He could only guess it was some weird byproduct of the time-warping effect that made him fit the picture they expected.

Finally, the girl guided Hellboy up a cobbled walkway to a dark, secluded inn. Beneath a creaking wooden sign, the Admiral Perry was less than inviting, its windows small and dark, its door so low Hellboy had to stoop to get in. But once across the threshold, it was surprisingly inviting. On one side of the room, a fire blazed in a large grate, fed with logs from a fragrant pile at one side. Sawdust was scattered over the stone flags amid heavy wooden tables scarred with years of knife cuts and spilled beer. The ceiling was low and beamed, and beyond the bar a warren of tiny rooms sprawled so it was impossible to tell at a glance who was present. Hellboy guessed that was one of the attractions for the men who huddled in small groups, smoking and whispering as they haggled, casting quick glances toward the door at every new arrival. Many of the drinkers were sailors from ships moored on the Charles River at the foot of Beacon Hill and some appeared to be showing around samples of various items, cloth and food, that they had perhaps stolen or smuggled.

“You sure this is where you want to be?” Hellboy asked. “Doesn’t look like a place for little girls.”

“Yes. My father is here, conducting business. I need to see him.”

She jumped down and weaved a familiar path among the tables and drinkers into the back rooms. Concerned for her safety, Hellboy followed until he could be sure she had met her father.

The furthest room from the entrance was windowless and sunken a couple of feet below street level. It was gloomy, with only a small fire and a gas lamp for light. Two men were hunched around a table with glasses of beer before them. One was a sailor with a drooping moustache white with froth above his lip, his eyes hooded, still wearing his hat pulled low. The other, Hellboy recognized with surprise, was Abraham Grant, his eyes not quite as sad as in his portrait, but clearly hunted. Anxiously, he tugged at his shirtsleeve as he spoke in hushed tones.

Hellboy hung back, aware that this was more than a coincidence. The girl paused just before the small doorway, hiding half behind the jamb as if afraid to go in at the top of the three steps down. The men’s conversation was so intense that neither was aware of her.

“Do you have it?” Abraham’s whisper carried clearly in the peculiar acoustics of the low-ceilinged rooms.

The sailor eyed him coldly. “You knew what this was when you requested it? You knew what it could do?”

“I knew of its reputation,” Abraham replied hesitantly.

“Ten men have died to bring this foul thing here. Four of my own good men.”

Abraham swallowed. “I am sorry—”

“Your words are poor payment.”

“Where did you find it?”

“The reports you received from your agents in Europe were correct.”

“So. Paris.” Abraham beamed.

“I traveled along the Seine under cover of the night, and moored on one of the islands in the river, near the great cathedral of Notre Dame. The agent you had arranged to meet me, Monsieur LeClerc, waited pale and shaking . . . with excitement, I thought at first. It was only later I realized he was filled with terror, and had spent most of the day praying in the cathedral. He led me back across the river and into the city proper, which was quiet at that time of night, apart from a few sailors and soldiers making their way along the red lights on the embankment. He would tell me little, except that he had located your mysterious artifact.”

Lost to his troubled memories, the sailor sipped his beer. Hellboy noticed the knuckles on both hands were torn and scabbed.

“Paris is an old city,” he continued. “Ancient, not like our new American cities that smell of paint and new stone. There are places and things that have been there longer than we can imagine, lying in the shadows waiting to be rediscovered. The city itself is built on an abyss. Running underneath it is an extensive network of mines—the carrières de Paris—long, silent tunnels that have been quarried for five hundred years or more, they say. Much of it now lies empty and dark.

“In a trembling voice, in stumbling English, Monsieur LeClerc told me how the local people are refused entry to the mines on peril of their own lives. I know what you think. These old tunnels could collapse. There are pits hidden in the dark. Gases waiting to be ignited by an unshielded lantern flame. Yes, all of this is true. But Monsieur LeClerc told how the miners once broke through to another system of tunnels, ones much older, dating back to before the flood, when the world was young. Things live there that should never see the light of day.” He paused, began to say more, then caught himself. “Many parts of the mines allow entry to these older tunnels. Monsieur LeClerc believes they go down to the depths of hell. I do not know. I am not an educated man, but I know I would not venture into those mines again.”

Abraham Grant was barely listening to what the sailor was saying. His eager gaze continually ranged over his companion, until it eventually alighted on a small chest the sailor had tucked away on the floor beside him. Abraham chewed his lip as if he could barely contain himself from snatching the chest and racing from the inn.

“I was alone, as your orders. Monsieur LeClerc collected three other men from a tavern—rough, dangerous types with dead eyes and cold hearts—and then we crossed the river once more and made our way to the church of Saint-Germain-des-Prés. In the bowels
of that building, there is a door that leads into the mine workings. LeClerc had an old map that he would let no one else see. I presume it was the one your agent located in Krakow, yes?”

Abraham nodded. “This artifact led me on a trail across most of Europe. When it was first hidden, certain measures were taken to ensure it would not be found. One of these was the scattering across an entire continent of the signs that would point to its location, so that only someone very rich, very knowledgeable, and extremely determined would have the resources to uncover it.”

“And these steps were taken because it is so dangerous?”

“Yes.”

“And now you have brought it back into the world, where it can threaten humankind?” The sailor leveled a hateful glare at Abraham.

Unable to respond, Abraham looked away.

The sailor returned to his beer for a long moment, and then said, “The mines were dark and cold, and filled with ghosts, so that even those hard men were afraid. LeClerc told me it was my own errant thoughts making shapes out of the dark, but I have seen things at sea that would make most men quake, and I know the difference between dreams and the real world. After a while, we broke through into those older tunnels. Drawings lined the walls, beasts and things worse than beasts. There was a smell of the grave everywhere. Those hard men from the tavern wanted to turn back. Their eyes were wide and they clung together like girls. When the sounds of digging reached us, of fingernails scrabbling through the hard earth, one fell to his knees and called on God to deliver him. But we pressed on,” he spat, “LeClerc because he wanted the damnable thing off his conscience, I for the small fortune you had promised me.”

“And I have it here,” Abraham said encouragingly, tapping the breast of his jacket.

The sailor shook his head as if it no longer mattered. “There was a place along these old tunnels where some new excavations had taken place. LeClerc’s work, I suppose. He had exposed some ancient stonework that surrounded a well so deep that when I dropped a stone in it, there was no sound of it hitting the bottom. LeClerc said the artifact was hidden in the wall of the well, six feet below the surface. The men from the tavern had brought ropes and tools with them. They argued in French for many minutes about who would be the one to venture into the well, and then the poor soul was finally cajoled into accepting with the promise of more money.” The sailor spat again. “As we braced ourselves and lowered him into the dark, I thought that he might faint from the fear. For fifteen minutes or more, all we heard was the cold rhythm of his pick upon the stone lining the well, and then there was a sound of falling rubble and a cry of exultation, signaling that he had broken through into the hiding place. And then . . . and then . . . ”

Wide-eyed, the sailor chewed on his knuckle with such force, blood spattered across the table; Hellboy could now see how he had developed such wounds across his hands. Abraham tried to rest a comforting hand on the sailor’s shoulder, but the sailor threw him off roughly and gave a murderous glare. Abraham retreated into his chair uneasily.

“From the depths of the well, a terrible sound echoed loudly that made all our blood run cold. Our companion in the well shrieked in fear and urged us in his native tongue to raise him to the surface rapidly. LeClerc insisted he bring the artifact or he would be left to his fate. Sobbing, the man located the artifact as that awful sound began to rise up the well. As we hauled him up, the sounds grew wilder, as if whatever was down there could smell our scents and had grown incensed with hunger. Like a madman, LeClerc continued to insist and urge. Eventually a hand emerged from the dark of the well with an artifact. LeClerc snatched it and instantly thrust it into his bag. We continued to raise our companion until we met a sudden, concerted resistance. For the briefest moment, I saw his face illuminated by the lamplight, and I will live with that sight to my grave, however soon that may be. The hope of rescue faded as he realized hell had caught up with him, and there was an instant of terrible acceptance that what was to come was worse than anything he could imagine. Tears sparkled in his eyes and then he was wrenched back down amid a hideous cacophony of animal sounds, and our companion’s final shrieks and cries. The ropes burned through our hands. So sudden was the attack, we stood rooted for several seconds, and then a mist of blood and bone rose up.”

Abraham bowed his head as they sat in silence for a moment. His guilt was clear, Hellboy thought. They were both so engrossed in their conversation the outside world might as well not have existed.

“We ran as if hell was at our heels,” the sailor eventually continued, his voice barely more than a whisper. “And in a way, it was. One of the men from the tavern fell amid a rending and tearing as if of a wild beast, and before we reached the end of the mine tunnels, the other had gone too. I did not look back. I always thought I was a brave man, but I did nothing to help those poor souls. I ran to save my own. But in all of it, I did not forget what was coming to me back here in Boston.” He laughed bitterly. “I caught LeClerc and made him hand me the artifact as we ran, promising his recompense once we were safe. Glad to be rid of it, he passed it to me wrapped in an oily rag, and I tucked it into my jacket. And then, when we were almost at the church, he fell. I did not help him. I burst through into the crypt and locked the door behind me. I heard LeClerc’s cries and the feeding through the heavy oak. Pausing briefly at the altar, to pray for my soul, I made my way back toward the mooring. I could feel the damnable thing under my coat, even through the cloth, as cold as winter, as cold as my heart at that moment.”

“But you survived! You are here! And all those things are behind you—”

“Are they?” the sailor snapped. “In that place beneath the city, there were two things. A guardian in the well, which stayed within those old tunnels, and something else . . . something which had been waiting for the artifact to be brought to light. I am as sure of this as I am my own name. It was that which had made the sounds of digging we heard earlier, and when it realized we had the artifact, it hunted us down to get it. Did you know this would happen? Did you?” the sailor asked furiously.

“No,” Abraham lied.

“Something followed me back to the river. I heard the sounds and searched the shadows all around, but saw nothing, and then I caught a glimpse of it moving across the rooftops of Paris, silhouetted against the full moon. A beast that moved at times on two feet. It moved quickly, leaping the gaps between houses, crossing streets with ease, and however much I ran, I could not leave it behind. As I neared the boat, I heard it scramble down to the cobbles. I thought my heart might burst with the strain of my exertions, and I vowed never again to serve you, Mr. Grant, and that vow holds true today.”

“I appreciate your sacrifices. There . . . there will be a little more for you if you return with me to my house.”

“I do not want more. I want to be done with this thing.” He finished his beer. “At the river, two French sailors attempted to bar my way. They were drunk, they wanted money. Behind me, the thing raced on all fours, then on two legs, then all fours, howling. Howling! The French sailors cried out, ‘Loup-garou!’ but it was on them before they could run. They came apart in seconds. By then, I was in the boat and out into the flow. I kept my head down, rowing hard, but it kept apace along the banks. Back on the ship, I urged the crew to set sail immediately. What they saw in my face must have convinced them, for soon the sails were unfurled. But the beast had found its way to us! It clambered onto the upper deck, and had dispatched four of my men before sheer weight of numbers drove it back over the side and into the unforgiving waves. As we raised anchor and set sail for home, I prayed that was the last of it.”

“And it was.”

The sailor shook his head. “It was a clear day, and we were well into our journey, when the first mate spied a ship on the horizon. I did not recognize its colors. It had red sails marked with a black circle. What this had to do with the beast of Paris, I do not know, but I fear the worst. I fear that what we disturbed in the tunnels beneath that ancient city will not leave me alone until I am dead.” Dismally, he bowed his head until it almost touched the table.

“Let me take it from you, then, and you shall be done with it.” Abraham tried to disguise his eagerness in deference to the sailor’s gloom.

After a moment, the sailor reached down and picked up the chest, sliding it across the table in disgust. “Do not open it here.”

Abraham placed a sheaf of notes on the table next to it. The sailor did not take it, didn’t even look at it.

“I am in your debt,” Abraham said.

Taking the chest, he made to go, and then saw the little girl standing by the door. “Sarah, why are you out of bed?” Abraham said with alarm. “You should be home, in the warm! My girl, you risk everything!”

Sarah. Poor Sarah.

Hellboy realized where he had seen her: in the ancient portrait in the attic room. She backed away a step as Abraham bounded from the room and took her hand. “So cold, already!”

Sarah glanced at Hellboy and smiled. “Father, this is my friend. He brought me out of the snow and here to you.”

“Happy to help out,” Hellboy said. He eyed the girl curiously; she appeared to know much more than she was letting on. It was also weird to be meeting Abraham in the flesh, when the last time Hellboy had seen him was as a ghost, trapped by the very thing he was now bringing into the house. He seemed like a nice guy, Hellboy thought, but he looked like he’d got the weight of the world on his shoulders.

“I see you are a stranger to Boston, sir, but I thank you for caring for my daughter. Her health is fragile.” He tucked the chest inside his coat. “Now we must hurry home. It is perilous to stay out. For Sarah, and for me.”

“What’s in the chest?” Hellboy asked.

“Private business, sir, and none of your concern.”

“If it’s the Kiss of Winter, it is my concern.”

Abraham blanched. His hand went into his jacket, and Hellboy glimpsed a silver-handled revolver as the cloth folded back. “Sir, stand back.”

“Hey, I’m not going to take it off you. I just—”

Abraham pushed past him roughly, dragging Sarah in his wake. “I would rather die than lose this remarkable thing. Remember that,” he said, glaring back at Hellboy. Sarah flashed him a smile as they disappeared into the fog of tobacco smoke, the smell of beer, and the knot of bodies that peeled back as Abraham pushed his way through them.

Hellboy followed; Abraham might not be so volatile once he was out in the sedate streets near his home. But as he stepped into the main bar, he saw a man rise up from a seat in the corner and follow Abraham out. The man had long brown hair, and a purple velvet frock coat in a style that was not like that of any of the locals. There was something almost regal in his bearing, although an odd air of decay surrounded him, as though he had fallen on hard times; his white shirt was frayed at the collar, and the cuffs of his coat were ragged. He moved with a lithe power on the balls of his feet, so smooth it appeared he was floating, and his face had a strange, otherworldly beauty that was counterpointed by the fierce intensity of his eyes.

One drinker failed to get out of his way quickly enough and was thrown roughly to one side. The stranger’s action raised angry calls from those around, but he was gone before they could accost him.

Sensing danger, Hellboy followed quickly, but the stranger had already disappeared when he stepped out into the bitter cold. He’d already lost his bearings as he stepped into the dark, stifling maze of streets, and hurried back and forth among blind alleys and narrow streets that brought him back upon himself.

Worried that Abraham and Sarah would be hurt, at the very least, before he got there, he grabbed hold of a passing man with the pale, intelligent features of one of the north slope’s artistic community.

“Did you see a man go by with a girl?” Hellboy asked.

“I seen a man on his own. No girl. Abraham Grant.”

“You know him?”

“Everyone knows Abraham Grant.”

Hellboy realized the tight-knit Boston community was more like a village than an unfriendly part of the rapidly growing city. “No girl?”

The artist shook his head, but directed Hellboy to where he had seen Abraham. The jumble of streets was still confusing, but Hellboy soon reached a point where the streets were wide enough to allow the snow to reach the ground, and there he could follow the solitary tracks.

A tile slithered from a roof and crashed near his feet. Glancing up, Hellboy just glimpsed a figure disappearing behind the lip. A shower of snow followed and there was a thud, and another shower, as whoever was on the rooftops leapt across the gap between two houses. By then, Hellboy was pretty sure of the identity of the stranger who had pursued Abraham, and that only drove him on with more insistence.

The snow gusted hard in the channels between the ramshackle houses, closing off the sky overhead, and reducing visibility rapidly. Behind the bitter cold, Hellboy sensed another mood: an oppressive threat.

Rounding a corner, he spied Abraham struggling up a steep, cobbled street, the snow so thick it almost reached his knees. Despite what the artist had said, Sarah was still with him.

“Abraham!” Hellboy called, but his warning was stolen by the wind.

As he tried to break into a run in the face of the howling wind, a dark shape dropped from the rooftops. Despite the great fall, the stranger from the inn landed with a balletic grace, his frock coat billowing behind him. Instantly, he dropped low, sleekly loping in the lee of the houses.

Amid the blizzard, Abraham was oblivious to his pursuer.

“Abraham!” Hellboy yelled again, without any luck. Putting his head down, he raced up the hill through the blasting snow.

The stranger had stalked within a few feet of Abraham and Sarah when he leapt, his handsome face contorted in a bestial growl. Close enough to intercept, Hellboy threw himself with force and collided with the stranger in midair. They crashed into the deep snow. To Hellboy, it felt like he had grabbed hold of a jungle cat. He was unable to get any purchase as the stranger thrashed wildly, spitting and snarling, and eventually writhed out of his hands. With great agility, he flipped across the narrow street and landed perfectly on his feet before dropping into a crouch. His intense gaze moved from Hellboy to Abraham and back.

“Who are you?” Hellboy asked.

Abraham staggered back against the wall of a house, a protective arm thrown across Sarah. Her bright, wide eyes wouldn’t leave the stranger’s face. “Loup-garou,” Abraham whispered hoarsely.

A slow, menacing grin spread across the stranger’s face. “You know the language of my home,” he said slyly, in rich tones heavy with a French accent.

“You are the one who followed Mr. Finch from Paris,” Abraham continued. “You want . . . ” The words died in his throat.

“I want what you have in that chest beneath your coat, yes,” the stranger said. “I have searched for it all my life. And others from the line of Carnifex have hunted the Kiss of Winter long into the past. Never did I believe it would appear in my life, yet here it is. You have found it, and you have brought it out into the light, human lamb, and now you must live with the consequences.” He prowled forward a step.

“Back off, wolf boy,” Hellboy growled, drawing his gun.

Carnifex’s grin narrowed slightly, and his eyes darkened. Hellboy saw flecks of gold in their depths. “My bloodline leads the wolves,” he said. “I am now king and guide on the long, winding path to our destiny. Now the Kiss of Winter has appeared in the world again, the Time of the Black Sun is close.”

“The Rise of the Wolves,” Hellboy said.

Carnifex nodded slowly, still grinning. “The Rise of the Wolves.”

“And what does the Kiss of Winter have to do with that?”

“Everything.”

“How come you’re not in your wolf form?”

Carnifex gestured toward the slate-gray clouds. “The moon has not yet risen. But at a different time . . . soon, perhaps . . . you will see me shed these human-skin clothes even by the sun’s rays.”

“When you have the Heart of Winter,” Hellboy said.

Carnifex flinched. “You know? Who are you?”

“I’m the good guy.”

With a roar, Carnifex launched himself toward Abraham and Sarah. Hellboy fired two rapid shots that threw the wolf man in an arc to crash against the door of the house, which splintered and fell in. Abraham threw his arms around Sarah, protecting her with his body, but he was in such a state of shock, he could barely move, even when Hellboy yelled at him to run.

Carnifex climbed out of the shattered door. Blood stained the front of his white shirt, but the two shots had done less damage than Hellboy had hoped.

“Run!” Hellboy shouted again, and this time Abraham was jerked from his fearful stupor. Grabbing Sarah’s hand, he threw himself into the face of the blizzard, but each step in the deep snow was an effort.

Splattering blood across the virginal snow, Carnifex leapt toward Hellboy again. At the last, he shifted his direction, hit the ground, rolled, and bounded toward Abraham. Unable to shoot for fear of hitting the father and daughter, Hellboy ran toward them.

Carnifex sent Abraham sprawling in the deep snow. The chest fell from his coat and bounced to half bury itself in a drift next to a wall.

“Sarah!” Abraham cried, reaching out a hand toward his daughter.

Backing away into the swirling snow, she said, “Don’t worry, Father.” She cast one haunted glance at Hellboy and said in barely more than a whisper, almost lost beneath the wind, “Please help.” And then the snow closed around her and she was lost to view.

Abraham scrambled for the chest, but Carnifex was faster. The wolf man dived over Abraham’s head, hands grasping for the prize.

Wading through the snow, Hellboy fired once, flicking the chest into the air, and then again as it landed. It flew further up the street, beyond Carnifex’s grasp.

Snarling, the wolf man turned, straight into Hellboy’s haymaker.
The wolf man flew backward, blood streaming from his nose. Within a second, he had launched himself at Hellboy, snapping and tearing with the fury of a wild beast. All the unrestrained wildness wrong-footed Hellboy and they sprawled in a furious fistfight in the snow, but in human form Carnifex could cause little harm.

Finally, Hellboy got in a hefty blow with his stone fist, and Carnifex was thrown yards down the hill, slipping and sliding until he came to a halt in a drift.

“You wanna take another shot, I’m ready,” Hellboy said.

Watching Hellboy from behind the lank, wet hair falling across his face, Carnifex weighed his options for only a second before he stood and pointed one broken fingernail. Despite the blood oozing from numerous cuts and welts on his face, his grin had not abated.

“We will come with the winter,” he said. “We will come with the snow. All of us.”

The blizzard took him in its arms and drew him back, and then he was lost to the swirling white.

“Not so tough, tough guy,” Hellboy noted.

Abraham threw off Hellboy’s helping hands, quickly snatched up the chest, and tucked it beneath his coat.

“Thank the Lord,” he said. “I will take steps now to muddy the water, and make the world believe I have sold the Kiss of Winter on. That thing must not believe I still keep it here.” Another notion struck him. “Sarah?” Suddenly he was frantically running into the blizzard, falling in the snow and picking himself up before trying to run again. “Sarah!” he cried.

But his daughter was nowhere to be seen.

CHAPTER 11

—

In the daylight, the Grant Mansion was less threatening, but an unsettling air still hung over every room. William had stoked all the fires in the ground-floor rooms to try to dispel the bitter chill that leaked through the walls, and it added a homey feel to the large, empty house.

Bleary-eyed from lack of sleep, Brad trailed through the downstairs rooms, struggling to come to terms with what was happening to him. For so long, whole areas inside him had been sealed off, too raw to be examined. But since he had entered the Grant Mansion, it was as if the doors were unlocking one by one, distant memories and fragmentary emotions rising from the dark to haunt him. One loomed larger than most, a half-considered thought many years ago, now growing in dark, destructive power, however much he tried to ignore it. He told himself it couldn’t be true, but still it gnawed away at him.

He tried to distract himself by thinking of Lisa. His feelings there, too, were gaining life. What he had obliquely thought was a friendship, he now recognized as something much deeper. Seeing her dragged beneath the floorboards by the things that lurked in the lower regions of the house had made him realize he couldn’t bear to lose her, that he loved her. The churning emotions after so long being frozen made him feel like he was spinning off his axis.

Finally, he could bear it no longer and he cornered his father in the kitchen as he made a pot of coffee.

He tried to keep his tone measured, but the weight of the question waiting to be asked made the words come out rudely. “What were you thinking when you bought this place? Were you thinking?”

William ignored him for a moment as Brad paced the room, and then said, “I thought you might have changed since I saw you last.”

“What did you expect, Dad? That I’d just forget everything you did when I was a kid?”

“That would have been nice.”

Fighting with himself, Brad stared out of the snow-encrusted windows for a moment and then said, “Look, I need to get this out in the open. It was something I thought about years ago and then
. . . buried.”

“Go on.”

“When I was a kid, I heard some of the neighbors talking at McNally’s store. They said you had something to do with Mom’s disappearance.”

“That I drove her away?”

“That you killed her.”

Brad watched William intently for any sign of a reaction. But his father kept his back to him, picking up the coffeepot from the stove and pouring two mugs. After a moment, he said, “Do you believe that?”

Brad sighed. “I don’t know what to believe, Dad. A day hasn’t gone by when I haven’t turned over a new scenario about what happened to Mom. When I was young, it was different ways she could come back into my life—she’d had a knock on the head and got amnesia, she’d been abducted by aliens. When I got older, I started getting more realistic. Then I couldn’t get out of my head all the awful things that might have happened to her. The old neighborhood . . . it was changing. There wasn’t a lot of money around. Lots of shady characters. And after a while, it got so I
really hoped she’d turn up dead, and I could stop thinking about it. Stop it dominating every single thought. So I could get my life back. And then I had this thought: that’s the normal reaction in a situation like this. Only you didn’t have it.”

William stirred a large spoon of sugar into his coffee.

“You worked harder, built up the business, made a stack of cash. You had a life, Dad. You lived it to the full like I never did. I just threw myself into different forms of hell to punish myself for thinking such terrible thoughts about my mother. And then you sold up, and you bought the biggest, flashiest retirement home in the whole of Boston, so you could swap recipes with your neighbor Senator Kerry, and reaffirm what a great, big man you are. Just like you always thought when I was younger. And not only have you got a great home, you’ve got one stacked with the most powerful objects ever. You’ve got your own arsenal, Dad. You could rule the world with what you have here. And now you’re looking for this Kiss of Winter, something that both Hellboy and a pack of werewolves want because it’s so potentially devastating. Could a man like that kill my mother? I don’t know, Dad, and that’s the awful thing.”

William came over and offered a mug of coffee. After a moment, Brad took it.

“Don’t you have anything to say?”

“What can I say? My son has just accused me of murdering his mother.”

Brad searched his father’s face for any sign of the truth, for any emotion at all, but it was unreadable. “Dad, have you ever cared about anyone in your life?”

William’s stare was cold and unwavering.

“Did you ever care about me?” The question hung in the air. Brad felt sick for giving voice to it, and for stirring up the big, big question that would destroy him if the answer came in wrong. Why couldn’t he have left it to slip back into the dark?

The door crashed open as Lisa marched in; Brad had left her dozing in front of the fire in the sitting room. “I smell coffee.” She saw Brad and William facing each other and nodded approvingly. “Well, at least you two are talking.”

CHAPTER 12

—

Carnifex loomed large in Hellboy’s mind as he helped Abraham scour the narrow streets in the north-slope maze. The leader of the werewolves was a threat in that time, and Hellboy was sure his descendent would prove even more so back in his own time. His bestial nature and intelligence were a dangerous combination.

After half an hour of searching, there was no sign of Sarah. It was more an act of charity than anything, for Hellboy had already started to suspect the truth.

After a while, he had to point out the obvious. “Abraham, there aren’t any footprints.”

Baffled, Abraham examined the snow around the area where Carnifex had attacked them. The only footprints, now filling with snow, belonged to the three adults. “How can that be?” Abraham said.

“I don’t think she was really here.”

“Are you demented? We both saw her. I held her little hand.”

“Okay, forget what I said. Let’s head back to your place. She might already be there.”

Hellboy recalled how he had found Sarah in the middle of the blizzard, oblivious to the cold, with her knowing smile, her comment that she had been waiting for him. How the artist he had encountered only saw Abraham making his way back from the inn.

“She is not well. She should not be out in this unseasonal cold,” Abraham said desperately.

“What’s wrong with her?”

“Her constitution is weak, her strength fading. Many days she cannot bring herself to climb out of bed.” He swallowed, steadied himself. “The physician says there is nothing he can do. She is now in the hands of the Lord.”

Hellboy could see how Abraham’s concerns for his daughter had consumed him. The depth of his love was etched into his face beneath the lines of worry. “I’m sorry,” Hellboy said.

“We do what we can in this cruel world.”

Heads down into the gale, they trudged back toward the house in silence for a while, though Hellboy didn’t let his attention waver. Carnifex would not rest.

“Now that you’ve found the Kiss of Winter, what are you gonna do with it?” he asked.

“Use it.”

“For what?”

“I am grateful for your help, but this is a personal matter of great import. I cannot discuss it. But the Kiss of Winter has peculiar, individual qualities, apart from its relationship with the Heart.”

“So you’re not looking for the Heart as well?”

“I have no need of that. It brings only cold and death.”

Hellboy pondered this for a moment, and then asked, “And when you’re done with it?”

“If it works, I will no longer have need of it.” He smiled hopefully. “And I pray to God that it does all I have heard, and all I hope. If it does not . . . ” He fell silent for a while. “Then I will keep it safe within my house, for it is too dangerous, and too seductive, to be at large in the world.”

“Where are you going to hide it?” Hellboy pressed.

“I cannot say. No one must know, ’cept I. But my house is more secure than any bank. If I so decide, it will remain hidden for all time. For to discover it would mean knowing my mind, and when I am gone, who can possibly know it?”

A woman wrapped in a large black shawl forced her way toward them.

“Emmie?” Abraham said. The woman was clearly his servant.

“Mr. Grant, Mr. Grant, come quick,” Emmie said. “It’s little Sarah. She’s not well, Mr. Grant. Not well at all.”

“I knew she should never have been out in this cold.”

Emmie gaped for a moment. “She ain’t been out in this cold, Mr. Grant. She been in bed since you left.”

“But . . . I saw . . . ” Unnerved, Abraham glanced at Hellboy. “Then you were right, my friend. What strange things are happening here this day. I must care for my daughter.”

Hellboy caught a fleeting shadow across Emmie’s face, and realized the servant thought the little girl was dying, perhaps already dead. “Good luck, Abraham,” he said. “I hope things work out for you.”

Abraham hurried into the blizzard with Emmie struggling to keep up; Hellboy was already forgotten. It was obvious now that this wasn’t some random time slip. It was almost like he was being guided to understand the mysteries of the house. But why? Some quality of the Kiss of Winter, maybe? That didn’t matter right now; what was important was that he had seen connections between the Kiss coming to Boston, Abraham, and his daughter.

Hellboy had half a notion that he should go back to the house and try to find out where Abraham intended to hide the Kiss of Winter, but when he pursued the pair, the tracks ended suddenly and only pristine snow lay ahead.

As the blizzard dropped, there was a moment of unnatural stillness in which Hellboy saw around him the familiar landmarks of twenty-first-century Beacon Hill. He was back.

The transition was shocking, and only added to his many questions about the nature of the Kiss of Winter. On one level it felt like there was an intelligence guiding him, but on another it could be that certain points in history carried their own gravity, sucking him in and spitting him back out when the moment had passed.

Making his way toward the Grant Mansion, he reflected on what he had learned. In the experience of the time slip there were several nuggets of information he was sure he could use to locate the Kiss of Winter; he just had to sift them out.

“You did me a favor, Sarah, wherever you are,” he said.

Back on Mount Vernon Street, his attention was caught by a couple of dark forms moving across the Common toward Beacon Hill.

The wolves, he thought. Looks like they’ve given up lying low.

There was still time to get back to the house before the wolves reached the south slope. But as he began to move on, he ground to a halt once more. Three wolves loped along the rooftops of Mount Vernon Street, keeping pace with him. Glancing back, he saw four more emerge from a side street.

“Okay, they’ve definitely given up lying low,” he muttered.

He broke into a run. But he hadn’t gone far when he caught sight of a pack of ten or more wolves in the distance, sweeping into the Common from the eastern edge.

More? he thought. The pack’s gathering.

And then the floodgate opened. The wolves streamed from all the places they had been hiding in the docks and the warehouses, the shut-down factories, the back alleys and the lofts and cellars, a wave of brown and black that was going to crash against Beacon Hill.

“Holy crap!” From his vantage point, Hellboy peered down toward the Common where the expanse of white was rapidly being consumed. The undulating wave reminded him of rats he had seen pouring from a sewer that was ablaze after a chemical spill; it had been a repulsive sight, a multitude moving with one mind. There had to be hundreds. Hellboy had no idea there were that many werewolves in the entire world.

He recalled what Kate Corrigan had said about the wolves turning their eyes toward America, making their way from their hidden lives across the globe, with one mind, one purpose: to recover the Kiss of Winter and usher in the Time of the Black Sun, the Rise of the Wolves.

“One I can beat. A dozen . . . maybe,” he growled. “But an army? They wouldn’t even slow down.”

The distant rumble of bestial sounds drew closer by the second, until the whole of Boston appeared to be reverberating with the throaty hunting call. Hellboy ran. By the time Louisburg Square came into view, the wolves were flooding onto Mount Vernon Street from all sides; every rooftop seethed with their loping forms. When they saw him, their snarling and snapping became a howl of triumph.

“The question now is, who’s faster?” Hellboy said as he judged the distance between the army of wolves and the entrance to the square. Vaulting an abandoned car, he propelled himself toward the narrowing gap. Just as it appeared to be in his grasp, he skidded on the thick snow and plowed into a drift.

By the time he pulled himself out, the wolves had almost surrounded him. Drawing his gun, Hellboy fired at the edge of the snapping, snarling mass as he ran, the shots widening the gap that allowed him access to the square.

Catching sight of a falling shadow, he brought his stone fist up sharply and deflected a wolf that had thrown itself at him from the roof. More followed the same tactic, until it seemed to be raining werewolves.

“Get off me!” He sent another two flying, their fangs clashing on thin air.

The surging mass had almost closed the gap, the entire street alive with lupine bodies. Hellboy continued to fire, but he’d already accepted the futility of his actions.

Then, as he neared the corner, the thunder of a shotgun blasted a wolf flat on its back. Hellboy dived through the gap, rolled, and came up onto his hooves, still running.

Brad stood further down the square, hastily reloading a shotgun that looked like it hadn’t been used for decades.

“Don’t bother with that! Run!” Hellboy bellowed.

Brad paused with the cartridges almost loaded, then blanched as he saw the howling army of wolves racing toward him. He threw the shotgun to one side, turned, and ran.

Breathless, Hellboy caught up with him. “You’re crazy coming out here!”

“Saved your life, didn’t I?”

“Jury’s still out on that one. On your life as well.”

“Yeah. No great loss.”

The deafening roar at their backs sounded like it came from one enormous animal, and they were both convinced they could feel hot breath on their necks. Neither made the error of glancing back. Instead, they concentrated on keeping their feet on the thick snow, but every step threatened to send them plunging into the road, where the wolves would be on them in a second.

“We’re not going to have time to knock,” Hellboy said.

“Don’t worry, Lisa’s ready for us.”

“Now I’m hoping the house’s protection can stand an army of the furry freaks.”

“You think it can’t?”

“I’m thinking—” Hellboy felt the motion of talons sweeping a fraction of an inch from his head. “Talk about it later, Brad!”

Rooted with terror, Lisa stood in the open doorway. Hellboy frantically waved her out of the way. Without breaking a step, he propelled Brad into the entrance ahead of him and leapt. Brad skidded across the hall. In midflight, Hellboy felt jaws clamp on the calf of his left leg. It brought him crashing down, half across the threshold. Though winded, he rolled and fired into the face of the wolf at close range. As it blasted into the approaching throng, Hellboy slithered backward into the hall, and Lisa slammed the door shut behind him.

“Are you okay?” she said, dropping to her knees to examine his wound.

“You should see the other guy,” Hellboy said with a wince. “It’s only a little bite. It’ll heal.”

Hauling himself to his feet with a limp, he pressed himself against the glass beside the door. The wolves swarmed across the entire square, nothing but fangs and talons and rage and blood. The snow was falling again.

We come with the winter. We come with the snow.

“Tell me I’m not seeing that,” Brad said.

“You’re gonna be seeing it behind your eyes for the rest of your life,” Hellboy replied. “Jeez, I thought that little-bitty pack was bad enough.”

“The National Guard’s got to be here soon,” Lisa said. “The cops, the army, Homeland Security, the FBI . . . ”

“The city’s shut down,” Hellboy said. “You get emergency calls about generators shutting down, and people freezing, and running out of food, and roads and airports shut, and you get some about a bunch of werewolves. Which ones you gonna go for?”

Brad sagged.

“There’s some other supernatural stuff going on here too,” Hellboy said. “The Heart of Winter is screwing with everything. Maybe all the emergency services are locked down too.”

“So,” Lisa said.

“Yep. It’s us against an army of werewolves.”

CHAPTER 13

—

As the day drew on, the wolves melted away into the shadows of the houses, the streets, gardens, and alleys, behind the chimney stacks occasionally glimpsed against the skyline. The worst snowstorm yet blew in soon after, the wind lashing against the windows so hard Hellboy thought they might burst in. The temperature plunged once more, and the heavy snow turned every window into a rectangle of frosted white. As night fell, they stoked the fires and lit as many lamps as they could, but though the gloom retreated to the upper floors, they couldn’t dispel the mounting sense of unease.

Hellboy recounted his experience in old Beacon Hill and they spent more than an hour trying to figure out exactly how the Kiss of Winter worked. The proximity of the Heart was clearly amping up its power, but the connection it made across time wasn’t clear. Lisa was most interested in the ghost of Sarah, and why she had guided Hellboy to find out what he needed to know.

“Maybe all the things trapped here aren’t bad,” she suggested.

Brad wondered if Abraham had originally brought the Kiss and all the other artifacts to the house to try to save Sarah’s life, and they all agreed that made a lot of sense.

“That’s so sad,” Lisa said. “His daughter died before he got the chance to save her.”

“And then maybe he found out the Kiss was just too powerful, and screwed everything up,” Brad mused. “And by then he couldn’t get rid of it.”

“I reckon he did the right thing trying to hide it away here forever,” Hellboy said. “Once he’d made the connection with the werewolves using it to take over—the Rise of the Wolves, right?—he couldn’t risk sending it back out into the world.”

“So he ended up sacrificing himself,” Brad said. “Getting trapped in this place forever.”

They considered this in silence for a moment. Hellboy took the opportunity to study Brad and Lisa sitting close together; the change in Brad’s body language suggested a definite thawing in his emotions. Hellboy was pleased—they deserved each other.

Hugging herself for comfort, Lisa said, “I don’t think I can stand another night in this place.” Though clearly scared, she drew strength from Brad, and he from her, Hellboy noted.

“Not like we’ve got a choice,” he replied.

“Sooner or later we’re going to run out of food,” Brad noted. “I guess we could sit it out until help comes.”

“That’s not an option.” Hellboy carefully counted the rounds for his gun; he was already running low. “All those wolves out there want one thing, and they want it bad. Do you think they’re gonna sit and wait forever?”

“But the house is protected,” Lisa stressed.

“Right now they’re going to be investigating ways to get past that. And sooner or later they’re going to find one. These kinds of defenses never hold up forever. All it takes is some kinda counterspell . . . a charm . . . whatever.” He shrugged.

“Then why are we sitting round here?” Brad said. “We should be . . . ” He flailed around. “What should we be doing?”

“Finding the Kiss of Winter.” William stood in the doorway with an armful of logs. “The last of the fuel,” he added. “If it stays this cold, we’re going to have to start burning the furniture.”

“How’s the Kiss of Winter going to help us get out of here?” Hellboy asked.

“When the Heart is nearby, it can open doorways. To different times, different places. That’s why you’ve been experiencing the time shifts round here. It warps the nature of time and space.” William dumped the logs next to the stove.

Hellboy scrutinized William, wondering how much he really knew about the Kiss—and what other secrets he was keeping.

“Oh, now you want to help.” Brad shook his head sarcastically. There was a weight of emotion in his face whenever he looked at his father, and it troubled Hellboy; something had happened between them, and the last thing they all needed in their predicament was infighting.

“Let’s keep cool heads,” he cautioned.

William ignored his son and addressed Hellboy. “On its own, though, the Kiss keeps spirits trapped here. That’s what it deals with—life after death. The Kiss and the Heart are supposed to be the two keys to the mysteries of existence.”

“Life after death,” Lisa said thoughtfully. “So maybe it was useful to old Abraham even after Sarah died. Maybe . . . maybe he wanted to use the Kiss to get back in touch with her?” She looked around the room. “I can’t decide if that’s creepy or sad.”

“Why are you telling us this?” The chambers now full, Hellboy holstered his gun. “Up till now, we’ve gotten more info out of the dead people around here.”

“I didn’t want you here. But now you are, I’m not going to stand by—”

“Let’s face it, Dad, you know you’re going to be just as dead as us when those wolves find a way inside. You’re just looking for a way to save your own skin.”

“Think that if you want, Brad.”

“Can we just try to get on,” Lisa said, her voice breaking with the strain. “I’m sick of all this bickering.”

“Sorry.” Brad grabbed one of the remaining logs and thrust it into the stove. A shower of sparks flashed out.

Hellboy eyed William. “You bought this house just to get hold of the Kiss, right?”

William’s silence was an admission.

“So why do you want it?” Hellboy continued.

“That’s none of your business.”

“Something that could put the werewolves on top? Yeah, I think that’s my business.”

William turned away from him.

“We’re gonna need some answers sooner or later, William,” Hellboy pressed.

“Yeah, Dad, are you going to give us any practical help?” Brad said. “You told us you couldn’t find the Kiss of Winter. How the hell are we supposed to?”

“I’ve searched all the house aboveground, and every level below. Abraham Grant hid the Kiss well, but it’s here somewhere. Working together we can cut down the time searching. I can tell you where not to go—”

“And you let us walk off with it?” Hellboy said.

“Of course. You have the greater need.”

Hellboy could see the lie in William’s face. He couldn’t read his true motivations, but at least he knew he couldn’t trust him. They could work together until the Kiss was found, and then Hellboy knew he would have to watch William very carefully.

“Oh!” Lisa jumped in shock. “That wasn’t there a second ago.” She indicated a small china pig sitting on the side next to her.

“The ghosts like to leave little surprises sometimes,” William said. “You get used to it. Eventually.” He paused and then added, “Not all of them are nice.”

Lisa examined the pig, which was pink and comical, but when she turned it in the lamplight she saw both its eyes had been broken in. “I don’t think I like this,” she decided. She thrust it to the back of the shelf and covered it with a cloth.

As Hellboy followed Brad into the drawing room they saw all the glass cases of stuffed animals that Lisa had smashed were now whole. The stuffed monkey sat inside his case in one piece.

“Hey, look at this,” Brad said. “I thought I heard something.”

“It’s not just that. The wallpaper, the paint . . . it all looks new. The house is slipping in time,” William noted.

“Looks like the Kiss and the Heart really are getting more potent now that they’re close by each other,” Hellboy said. “I wonder what other effects we’re going to see.”

At the window, William scraped off some of the frost and peered through a gap in the snow plastering the panes. The rear was no longer overgrown and had the well-tended order of an antebellum kitchen garden. Beyond, the surrounding houses all echoed that earlier time, in the missing details of TV aerials and satellite dishes, and in the glimpses of sedate furnishings he could just make out through the windows that were lit. “The past never leaves us,” he muttered to himself in awe.

“Why do we have to explore this place at night?” Lisa asked with irritation. “We could do this at sunup.”

“You could stay here,” Hellboy said. “Seriously. It might be safer.”

“Yeah, right,” Lisa said sullenly.

“I think the Kiss is likely to be hidden in the lower levels.” William returned to the group, strangely motivated by his vision of the forgotten past. “That’s where the most dangerous artifacts are stored. But the ghosts don’t like anyone venturing down there at the best of times. Or the other things in here. I think they’re a little protective of what’s there.”

“Like Abraham Grant’s guard dogs,” Hellboy said.

“We do need to stick closely together. Some of them are very bad indeed,” William stressed.

“I think we got that,” Lisa said.

“Two things. When I met old Abraham, he let slip the key to finding out where he hid the Kiss would be knowing his mind,
whatever that means,” Hellboy mused. “And the upside-down house—that’s gotta be a part of the puzzle, otherwise there’s no point to it. We tie those two together, we’re on our way.”

They returned to the kitchen and hesitated before the cellar door. For a second or two, they thought they could hear heavy breathing just on the other side. Stepping forward, Hellboy tore the door open, but the stairs were deserted.

“You need to know, Dad, that I’m going to be watching you. I don’t trust you,” Brad said.

“Yes, you’ve made that patently clear, Brad.”

Cautiously, they descended, the heavy shadows flying back with each swing of the lamp. In the cluttered cellar, Hellboy led the way through the detritus of centuries.

“Gonna have quite a yard sale when this is all over,” he said.

With the hair on the back of their necks prickling, they all succumbed to the unmistakable sensation of eyes upon them as they edged among the discarded furniture, chests, and cracked and fading paintings. Glancing round repeatedly, they thought they snatched glimpses of faces peering at them through the stacks, but it usually turned out to be a trick of the light or a half-revealed portrait. On one occasion, though, Hellboy saw a pair of eyes peering through a gap in a pile of old dining-room chairs. He was about to dismiss them like all the rest when they blinked once before slipping back into the dark. He didn’t tell the others.

Descending the stairs into the underground kitchen, they found it was even more reminiscent of a time past. The stove was gleaming as if recently polished, and there was a smell of cooking still hanging in the air. Jars of dried food and spices filled the shelves and a cured ham hung from one of the beams.

On the counter, Lisa spotted the small china pig she had hidden in the kitchen upstairs, but here its eyes were still intact. Once again she hid it, but as they left the room, she glanced back and saw it was out on the counter again.

The drawing room smelled of beeswax polish, and in the sitting room all of the furniture broken during Hellboy’s battle with the spider was now as new. The occult artifacts were in their original places, but they too had a new life. They appeared to shine with an inner light, and when Hellboy approached any of them he felt a rustling in the back of his head, as if they were calling out to him.

Touch me. Use my power.

“Keep away from everything you see here,” Hellboy stressed.

“How many of these things have you tried to use, Dad?” Brad asked.

“I’m not interested in any of them.”

“Just the Kiss of Winter. The big one. No point wasting time with the small fish.”

William’s modulated voice grew sharper. “Abraham didn’t bring them here for power. He was after knowledge.”

Hellboy glanced at him askance. “You sure about that?”

“Over the year I’ve lived here, I’ve started to know Abraham’s mind. He was searching for something always just beyond his reach. These artifacts were part of that quest. I’m sure he felt the Kiss of Winter was the final and most valuable part of the puzzle he was trying to solve, which is why he hid it so well.”

“And the wolves want it, because with the Kiss and the Heart they can bring about the Time of the Black Sun and the Rise of the Wolves,” Hellboy said thoughtfully.

“The Rise of the Wolves,” Lisa repeated with a shiver. “Imagine if that army out there took control. We’d be the prey.”

“Okay, knowing Abraham’s mind is a good thing. We established that,” Hellboy said. “If you’re getting inside his head, where would he hide the Kiss of Winter?”

William thought for a moment, then shook his head.

They ventured out into the hall and were surprised to see gas lamps alight on opposite walls. The warm light was comforting, but it only made the rest of the house appear darker.

In the far reaches below them, they heard a sound like a ball bouncing along the bare boards of a corridor. A dim creak, and, after a long silence, a cough.

“They like their games,” Hellboy said. “Let’s go.”

Holding the lamp aloft, he led the way down the stairs. The first floor was no longer bare. Pictures hung on the walls, and there was a new carpet running down the center of the landing. Here and there an incidental table stood with ornaments, strongly scented flowers, or silver-framed cameos.

“Looks like they’ve been doing some remodeling,” Hellboy noted. “I like their style.”

“I can hear something.” Brad summoned them over to a bedroom door. Pressing his ear to the door, he silenced them. “Voices. Lots of them.”

The others could just about hear it too. “Horses?” Lisa said. “Is . . . is that a cart rolling by?”

“A whistle,” William said confidently.

“Let me.” Hellboy opened the door.

Instead of a bedroom, they were shocked to be looking out on a busy city street from a hundred or more years in the past. Horses and carriages rolled by, and men with hats and handlebar moustaches darted among them across the road or strolled on the sidewalk. An old woman in a threadbare shawl sold flowers to another in an elegant summer-blue dress. They could smell the horse manure, the heat of the sun on the sidewalk, the scent of the flowers and the trees that lined the avenue.

“Whoa,” Hellboy gaped.

The old flower seller looked directly at them, and through them.

“They can’t see us,” Lisa noted. She grabbed the handle from Hellboy and slammed the door shut. “Too weird,” she added.

Brad gaped. “That . . . that . . . ”

“Was another time,” William finished. His eyes glowed with excitement. “The door opened on another time, and another place.”

“A vision,” Hellboy stressed. “A glimpse into the past, that’s all.”

“But with sound, and smell,” Lisa added, puzzled.

William stepped by the others and eased the door open cautiously, but this time there was only a bedroom, smelling of lavender, with a mahogany wardrobe and an iron-framed bed covered in a floral quilt. William’s face fell.

“This is the work of the Kiss and Heart of Winter, right?” Lisa asked.

“It’s warping everything,” Hellboy said. He glanced at the line of doors along the landing. “I wonder.”

Moving to the nearest door, he rested a hand on the wood. “Hmm. Hot.”

“Don’t,” Brad said, his expression troubled. There was an odd note to his voice as if he knew what was to come.

“Go on,” William said, eagerly. “We have to see.”

Hellboy opened the door and was instantly assailed by a baking heat, a billowing cloud of acrid smoke, and a cacophony of shrieks and cries. The doorway opened onto a souk in a whitewashed but badly degraded Middle Eastern city; buildings were pockmarked with bullet and shrapnel holes. A bomb had just exploded somewhere in the heart of the market, and flames rushed through the jumble of stalls beneath a pall of greasy smoke. Locals ran in terror, their faces charred, their clothes bloodstained. The remnants of bodies were just visible among the wreckage.

“Close the door!” Brad yelled.

Comforting Brad, Lisa silently motioned for Hellboy to shut the door. “That was Iraq,” she said.

“It was more than that. It was something I lived through. Something awful.” The posttraumatic stress brought a convulsive shudder through Brad, but with Lisa’s help he managed to contain the attack.

“You want to go back upstairs?” Hellboy asked.

“No. I’ll deal with it. I always have. With Lisa’s help.”

Taken aback by his son’s extreme reaction, William eyed Brad curiously.

Hellboy was intrigued by the vision and how it underscored his initial impressions back in old Beacon Hill. “Interesting,” Hellboy said. “Maybe the doors don’t open to random times. That one was linked to Brad. Somehow he was connecting with whatever’s going on here.”

William grew even more excited. “Yes! Earlier this evening I’d been researching through some books about occult investigations in New York at the end of the nineteenth century.”

“That’s what we saw through the last door,” Lisa said. “So . . . do you think we can go through these doors to wherever we want?”

“Let’s try.” Going to another door, Hellboy concentrated for a moment, then opened it. A blast of icy wind tore across desolate, frozen wastes at sunset. Hellboy closed the door.

“Was that what you wanted?” Lisa asked.

“I was after December 1944, East Bromwich, England.”

“Maybe the Kiss connects with unconscious desires,” William mused. “If so, that makes it hard to control.”

“So who was thinking about that cold hell?” Hellboy asked.

Brad shrugged. “I was planning a trip to Antarctica. To take some photos for a climate-change piece.”

From the floor below came a low, rumbling sound like a note of disapproval formed deep in the throat.

Lisa took a step closer to Hellboy. “What was that?”

Raising the lamp, Hellboy illuminated the path toward the stairs. A footstep, heavy and dragging, rose up from the landing below.

“Something’s coming.” As Hellboy took a step toward the stairs, Lisa caught his arm.

“I think I know what it is. You remember the pig? With the missing eyes—”

She was interrupted by a wheezing breath sounding uncannily close in the stillness. Something heavy lumbered against the banister. A foot on the first step.

“Let’s go back,” she pleaded. “At least till this has passed.”

“No,” William snapped. “We need to explore where these doors lead.”

Brad confronted him. “If Lisa wants to go back, that’s what we do.”

The lamp flame wavered, although there was no breeze. “Uh-oh,” Hellboy said.

A second later, the light went out, and the entire landing was plunged into darkness. Instantly, Hellboy grabbed hold of Brad and Lisa before whatever was coming could get to them. “William,” he called, but there was no response.

Pressing them back against the wall, Hellboy located the nearest door and barged into the room with Brad and Lisa, hoping to go back for William. The shock of finding himself in daylight on a grassy hill gave him pause, and when he looked back, the door was gone.

“Okay, this is not good,” he said.

Brad and Lisa sprawled in the long grass where they had fallen from Hellboy’s thrust. Scrambling to her feet, Lisa looked round at a landscape that bore none of the scars of the twenty-first century—no roads, pylons, or train tracks. The air was fresh and clear without the hint of pollution. Instead, there was the scent of deep, cool forests, and wildflowers, and of the warm sun on the swaying grass.

“Okay, question,” she said. “How do we get back?”

“Doesn’t look like we’ll be hitchin’ a ride,” Hellboy replied. “This is a vision, but it feels real. Where are we?”

“No landmarks round here. Could be anywhere.” Brad brushed himself down. “Could be anywhen. Maybe over the hill?”

“When you found yourself back in old Beacon Hill with Abe Grant, you popped right back to the present,” Lisa said to Hellboy. “Maybe that’s how it works.”

“Let’s hope.”

“If we’re just visiting, we might as well enjoy the scenery . . . and work out exactly why this place is important.” Lisa saw Brad looked troubled. “What’s wrong?”

“Dad. He’s left there with . . . that thing.”

“We got out. Your father could too,” Hellboy said.

As they crested the hill, a plain revealed itself to them, with a river meandering across it, and next to it a village with medieval architecture. A jumble of houses with red-tiled roofs lay amid a maze of winding, narrow, cobbled streets. The largest building was a stone monastery with an adjoining church, and a tall bell tower. Just inside the walls, pigs and chickens roamed in a sea of mud. Behind the village, on the far side of the river plain, densely forested hills rose up to the blue sky.

“Pretty,” Lisa said. “Any clues?”

“I’m going to say . . . Eastern Europe?” Hellboy replied. “Looks like some of the places I’ve come across in my travels. Maybe Bulgaria? The Kapinovo Monastery just outside Veliko Tarnovo, maybe? I saw drawings of the old monastery and it looked just like that.”

“So if every door in the house opened onto somewhere relevant to us, why here?” Brad asked.

“I don’t know about relevant to us, but relevant, yeah,” Hellboy said.

“If this is a vision, how can we feel sensations?” Lisa asked, holding a hand up to shield her eyes from the sun.

“Who knows?” Hellboy replied. “But it makes it more real. Come on.”

They stumbled down the hillside, enjoying the warmth after the bitter chill of Boston. But by the time they had reached the foot, tremors began to run through the ground.

“What’s that?” Brad asked. “Stampede?”

“They wouldn’t have that much cattle at this time. A village this size . . . probably twenty cows at most.” Hellboy looked along the sparkling river toward the horizon for the source of the vibrations. After a moment, a blur of movement rounded one of the foothills, a wave of figures which he estimated was almost half a mile across. Their peculiar loping motion sent him flashing back to Mount Vernon Street when the army of werewolves had swept across Boston, but this time there were far more. The wolves moved into the plain and headed straight for the village.

“How many are there?” Brad said incredulously. “Looks like . . . I don’t know . . . a thousand?”

The monastery’s bell began to toll furiously, drawing men out from the houses and the surrounding fields to clamber onto the walls to view the approaching army.

“Looks to me like the villagers were expecting them,” Hellboy noted. “Let’s get inside there—see what happens.”

They broke into a run as the howls and snarls reached them on the breeze. A narrow stone bridge took them across the river, and then they were at the walls just as the villagers were dragging the sturdy gates shut. As they slipped through the gap, the gates slammed behind them and a large oak beam slid into place.

“For the sake of these people, let’s hope the wolves give this place a wide berth, because that isn’t going to keep out squat,” Hellboy said.

In the middle of the muddy square beyond the gate, where the squawking chickens ran and the women frantically gathered together the playing children, stood a priest, his face grave, his hands clasped on the front of his black robe. A man of about thirty, in dusty clothes, ran up to him and begged in English to know what was happening.

“Why are you here?” the priest replied in heavily accented English.

“You can speak English, Father?”

“A little. For a time I attended the French court before traveling east to build this monastery. I ask again, why are you here?”

“I am traveling to the east,” he said in a scared voice. “I came here looking for food. What is happening?”

Along the walls, the men called to each other as they lit burning torches and passed out farm weapons to defend themselves.

“The wolves are coming,” the priest said.

As the priest led the visitor up worn stone steps to the shaky wooden walkway around the walls, Hellboy, Lisa, and Brad followed, feeling odd to be in the middle of life, yet be unnoticed. At the top they could clearly see the wave of fang and claw rushing toward them. All around the men blanched, but attempted to put on brave faces.

“This is the third wave,” the priest said to the visitor. “The first passed a mile to the north. The second slaughtered our cattle and took the lives of three men working in the fields. This time we prepare for the worst.”

“The third wave?” Lisa said incredulously. “Look at how many there are. There’s not been any sign of them in modern times, so where did they all go?”

“I don’t know,” Hellboy replied.

The ground shook with the thunder of more than a thousand feet.

“We’re right in their path,” Brad noted. “They’re not going to miss the village this time.”

Hellboy rested his hands on the wall and peered at the advancing army. “Three waves of werewolves, all of them passing this way. Where are they going?”

“They travel east,” the priest said to the visitor, but it was almost as if he were answering Hellboy. “Toward the frozen lands, or so say the stories that have reached us from the path of slaughter they have carved across the land. For generation upon generation, the wolves have haunted the west, but now they are leaving it behind. Why? I do not know. But I thank the Lord, and pray the Devil is at their heels.”

“This is why we’re here, isn’t it?” Lisa whispered in awe to Hellboy.

The priest grew pale. “There is a prophecy in the Church: the Time of the Black Sun.”

“What is that?” the visitor asked.

“The Time of the Black Sun is the end for all humankind. The wolves will rise up in their multitude and feed upon us, like the solitary wolf feeds on the lambs in the field. They have hidden among us since we left the Garden. They carry the mark of Cain upon them, and his essence in their black hearts. All humankind will be torn apart, and feasted upon, and when the blood has finally soaked into the soil, there will only be the wolves and the never-ending forest and the moon, and our time will be done.”

“Just like we thought,” Lisa said breathlessly. “So if the wolves get the Kiss of Winter in our time, that’s what’s going to happen? It’s the end of everything. We’ll just be food.”

The wolves were less than a mile away now, and the sound they made was loud and sickening. The men grasped their paltry weapons, the recognition of the futility of their stand clear in all their faces.

The priest closed his eyes. “I pray the wolves will pass us by. Let the Lord watch over us.”

Brad mapped their path, then looked to Hellboy and shook his head. “Why are they leaving?” he asked. “Where are they going?”

“Somethin’ big’s going on.”

Hellboy, Brad, and Lisa watched until the wolves were close enough to see their black eyes glittering in the sunlight, their vast number so terrifying it was difficult to look at them. They appeared like one beast, one mind, ferocious, brutal, with no hint of compassion.

“Father, these men on the walls cannot defend against those things,” the visitor said fearfully.

“They want to protect their families, their homes, their livelihoods.”

“Would you have them standing here trying to ward off a storm?”

The priest considered the visitor’s words and then raced along the walls yelling at the villagers in their dialect. Reluctantly, they threw down their weapons, but the relief in their faces was palpable.

Quickly, the men barricaded themselves in their homes, though even then Hellboy wondered what chance they would have. It all depended on if the wolves stopped to feed.

Hellboy, Brad, and Lisa followed the priest and the visitor to the monastery, where a small band of monks knelt and prayed in Latin. Looking out of the window at the village’s paltry defenses, Hellboy felt a wave of queasiness.

“This isn’t going to be good,” he muttered.

The wolves hit the village like the storm the visitor had predicted. The gates splintered and burst in, and within seconds the livestock were dead and devoured. The wolves continued directly on their path, many of them leaping onto the walls from the ground and continuing over the roofs of the tiny houses, shattering tiles and knocking off chimney pots as they ran.

Some, though, were consumed by a hunger, and they sought to break into the homes along their route. From the window, Hellboy watched the carnage, feeling sick that he couldn’t help. He slammed his fist against the wall in angry frustration, but it didn’t help. As the terrible screams carried across the village, Lisa covered her ears and Brad sat, head in hands.

The village was a sea of fury. Whenever Hellboy thought no more wolves could enter, a new rank crashed through the gate and surged over the walls. Every square inch was alive with sinuous lupine bodies filled with a tremendous muscular power and athleticism; humans did look like sheep alongside their unstoppable killing prowess. After a while, all Hellboy could see were those snapping jaws and glittering black eyes, and in its intensity, it really did resemble the end of the world.

Finally, the storm passed, as quickly as it had come. The last wolves loped by the monastery windows, and the howls and snarls slowly disappeared like fading thunder. How many more villages would fall beneath the unstoppable plague before they reached their destination, Hellboy wondered. How much more blood, how much death?

A silence fell over the village as if the world was still coming to terms with what had taken place. No bird sang. Even the breeze had fallen. As the priest threw open the doors and ran out to check on his flock, Hellboy ventured out into the public area which was now a churned-up sea of mud, stained here and there with blood, the half-gnawed bones of pigs protruding from the ground like the wrecks of ships.

“My God,” Lisa said in terrified awe. “How do we stand a chance against that?”

One by one the surviving villagers emerged from their homes, blinking and befuddled, some crying from the shock, others fighting to hold on to sanity, driven to the edge by mortal dread. Some houses had lost half their roofs. Chimney stacks had come crashing to the ground here and there. Fences were flattened.

“The Devil has passed through here this day,” the Priest said. He knelt in the mud and uttered the Lord’s Prayer in Latin.

“Tell me we’re going to come away from this with something that can help us,” Brad said quietly.

Hellboy looked around slowly. “Up till now I was just pacing myself. But now they’ve pissed me off.”

Filled with emotion, Lisa wandered over to watch a woman trying to comfort her children. Brad’s gaze followed her. “You know, she’s really good,” he said. “I don’t think I’d have kept going without her.”

“I’ve been watching you two. I figure she needs you just as much.”

Brad was taken aback. “No, she’s strong. I’m the weak one.”

“We all need a helping hand sometimes.”

“Even you?”

“Even me.”

Lisa followed the woman and her children into her house. When she didn’t come out after a few minutes, Hellboy began to get worried. “Come on,” he said to Brad. “Let’s check it out.”

Ducking down to step through the tiny door of the cottage, they found themselves back on the cold, dark landing of the Grant Mansion. The house was silent.

“I never saw that coming,” Hellboy said.

CHAPTER 14

—

In the impenetrable dark, it took a few seconds for Lisa to orient herself. She thought she might even have let out a cry of shock when she had found herself back in the Grant Mansion, and that embarrassed her. She knew it was the house because she could smell the old wallpaper and the wood, and the subtle aromas of great age that had settled across it over the generations.

It seemed to be the act of passing through the cottage door in the village that had flung her back ahead of the others, as though she had crossed some invisible barrier now they had been shown what they needed to see. She wondered briefly if there could possibly be some kind of intelligence in the Kiss of Winter guiding them, or if it really was one of the presences in the house, influencing the Kiss. The rules were so obscure it made her head spin; perhaps they’d never find out.

As her pounding heart calmed, she realized she was alone. It was too dark to tell if she’d come back to the floor from which they’d departed, or if she was on a different floor under the house or one of the upper levels. It was too dark to tell if something awful was standing a whisper away from her, waiting to strike, or if she was completely surrounded, malignant eyes seeing where she could not. She wanted the comfort of Hellboy or Brad, but she knew she was strong enough to cope on her own, as she always had coped. Nothing defeated her; nothing hurt her.

Backing against the wall, she spread out her arms and began to edge very carefully to her right. Despite everything else, she didn’t want to allow panic to drive her to run blindly so that she fell down unseen stairs. The trick, she told herself, was staying calm.

Eventually she came to the familiar, smooth wood of the banister and the shift in air currents and resonance that told her she had reached the stairs. But did she go down, or up?

Steeling herself, she decided to gamble that she was in the subcellars and the steps would take her up toward the relative safety of the real house.

I feel like Alice in Wonderland, she thought. The world turned on its head. Or a dark reflection through the looking glass.

The thought was random, but it had an odd resonance that gave her pause. Something in it made her senses tingle. But what? It had to do with the puzzle of the house and the Kiss of Winter, she was sure.

Steadily, she climbed the stairs, hoping she would find herself in the hall. Instead, she was on another landing, just like the one she had left. Wooden floorboards, the smell of old wallpaper, dust, and echoes. Her heart fell, but she told herself she was doing fine.

Don’t think about the ghosts, don’t think about anything; just get up those stairs.

Yet the minute she told herself not to think about the ghosts, she couldn’t get out of her head the shudderingly awful sensation of coming to her senses beneath the floorboards with the light of Hellboy’s lamp glittering what seemed like miles away at the end of a long tunnel, and the sickening sensation of the gray, papery hands upon her. In her half-conscious daze, she had gradually become aware of the hate and bitterness of those that had taken her, so strong it was like an enveloping cloud. She could sense their desire to punish her for the act of being alive, to make her suffer and then to make her like them. What were they? What had they been? When her thoughts touched upon the answers, her mind seesawed wildly and panic threatened to surge through her.

Stay calm, stay calm.

She moved on to the next flight of stairs. When she had edged up three steps, a low moan rolled out from somewhere nearby, but whether ahead or behind she could not tell. Her blood ran cold and she thought her heart would burst out of her chest.

Stay calm.

And then she heard her name. It was clear and resonant, and followed by a smacking of lips that was faintly obscene. She couldn’t help herself; she scrambled up the stairs, bouncing off the walls and banister before sprawling across the landing. She threw herself to her feet quickly, but she had already lost her bearings. Ranging around, she crashed against wall after wall. Where were the stairs?

Before she could move, she caught sight of a tiny, faint light further down the long landing. It looked like a firefly hovering at chest height, hypnotic in the way it danced. Slowly, it moved toward her. Barely able to breathe, she prayed it was Hellboy or Brad come looking for her, scared to call out in case it wasn’t.

As the light neared, she saw it was a candle flame. It flared on the wall in passing, revealing a portrait, a door, but not the person who held it. It’s shielded, she thought.

Torn between staying and fleeing, Lisa was frozen. The floating light mesmerized her.

The trance was only broken when she heard the voice again: “Lisa. Come to me.” Her blood drained away.

From the dark, the figure emerged, a huge bulk lumbering from side to side, the candleholder gripped in pink, chubby hands. A long black jacket flapped behind the figure like wings, a gold and white brocade waistcoat stretched across the huge girth over a white wing-collar shirt finished with a black bow tie. On the surface, the clothes were the picture of expensive elegance, but when she looked closely she saw a smudge of mold or dirt, fraying edges and small rips, as if the owner had fallen on hard times.

And then those chubby fingers raised the candle so the face was illuminated, and Lisa screamed. It was Piggly Grant, his face grotesquely fat and apple-cheeked, his lank, greasy black hair hanging in strings. But it was the gaping sockets that made her reel, still blood-caked where the eyes had been torn out.

“Lisa,” he said, smacking his lips. “I have been waiting for you. Little girl, locked away, unloved. Spend the rest of your days with me.” He reached his fat arm toward her in an obscene mockery of a romantic gesture.

Throwing herself back, Lisa stifled a cry. Behind the specter, the stairs appeared from the gloom in the candle’s flickering light.

As Piggly Grant moved toward her, Lisa realized he was floating at least an inch above the boards, yet she still heard the heavy tread of his feet. Her head spun, unable to tell what was real and what was the spirit’s subtle manipulation of her senses.

“You will never solve the puzzle of this house,” he said sibilantly. “You cannot be allowed to remove the chain that keeps us locked here.” His voice grew harder, his features becoming filled with malice. “I am fed by my bitterness. I have suffered, and suffered, and now I do not care about my suffering. I only wish to spread it to those who live, ignorant of the darkness at the heart of all existence.”

“No!” Lisa shouted defiantly. She threw herself past Grant, ducking as his arm swung for her wildly. In passing, her skin bloomed with the coldness he radiated.

At the stairs, she grabbed the banister and propelled herself up two steps at a time, but it wasn’t long before the dark had swallowed her again and she had to slow her pace for fear of falling. As she rounded the turn in the stairs, she saw the candle flame was rising smoothly in her track. Piggly Grant’s wheezing breath echoed off the walls.

Scrambling up the remaining steps, she found herself on another
landing, but the hallway had to be the next one up. She skidded across the boards, crying out as she turned her ankle, but forcing herself up the next flight.

The shimmering candle continued to follow, a pool of light moving across the peeling wallpaper. “Here comes a candle to light you to bed,” Grant sang in a flat, hollow voice.

Here comes a chopper to chop off your head.

Racing, tripping, falling, picking herself up, Lisa made it to the next level only to be shattered by the realization that she had not been in the subcellars at all. She was now at the top of the house, outside the door to the attic room, with nowhere else to go.

Fighting back tears of frustration, Lisa ducked into the attic room and slammed the door, pressing her shoulder against it.

“Get away from me!” she yelled.

Beyond the door, Piggly Grant’s wheezing breath died away and silence descended. Lisa strained to hear, and after two minutes, she started to feel easier. But then, despite the weight she had put against it, the door began to open. Planting her feet, Lisa drove her shoulder harder into the door, but inch by inch she was forced back. Through the widening gap, she heard Piggly Grant’s snickering laughter as the light from the candle illuminated the row of portraits on the wall. Piggly Grant was there, looking back at her, alongside the girl and all the others.

Amid her fear, she had another burst of revelation, still unfocused. Something about the paintings.

Suddenly the door flew open and Lisa was propelled backward against the far wall. Briefly, she glanced at the row of snow-plastered windows, wondering if she should clamber out onto the roof. It would be suicide, she was sure; she would likely slip and fall, or the wolves would get her. But in her mounting fear, it felt like her only option. She ran to the window next to the one that William had boarded up after Carnifex had shattered it, but the handle was frozen, and it wouldn’t budge.

Candlelight flooded the attic room. The huge silhouette of Piggly Grant now filled the doorway. There was no way past him.

Frantically, Lisa rattled the handle on the window and then shoved it forcefully. The ice cracked and it eased a little. Once again she tried, and this time the window flew up, admitting a blast of freezing air. The tiles were thick with snow, and the wildly gusting wind was blasting flakes horizontally. Beneath the gale, she could hear the intermittent howls of the wolves. Thrusting her head out, she glanced around and withdrew quickly. A wolf was hunched on the pitch of the next roof, watching her. Its snarling rose up in a frenzy.

Piggly Grant drifted slowly through the doorway, the shadows sweeping away from the candle flame. Lisa put one knee on the windowsill, torn. Death one way, or the other. After a moment, she prepared to clamber out.

“Yes,” he said. “Yes! Soon you will be joining us!”

A brilliant white light suddenly flooded the attic room, and Piggly Grant shrieked like a sow in an abattoir.

“Come now! This way!” It was William, holding a lantern decorated with feathers and bones, which she recalled seeing among the artifacts in the subcellars.

Piggly Grant had become distorted, as if he were being stretched like taffy, with rays of the white light punched through his form at several points. His face was contorted by rage, his fat hands flailing impotently as he attempted to pull himself together; he was succeeding. Knowing she only had a moment, Lisa ducked beneath his grasping hands and darted out of the door. William dragged the door shut behind her, and together they scrambled down the flights of stairs until they reached the sitting room.

“Are we safe here?” Lisa gasped.

“Safe? We’re not safe anywhere.” William dumped the lantern onto a side table and slumped into a leather chair, covering his face with a hand.

It was the first time Lisa had seen him anything other than impassive; the strain was starting to tell. She was still reeling from her own encounter with Piggly Grant, and found it hard to shake her impressions of what he had planned to do to her. “What is that lamp?” she asked.

“It’s called the Spirit Lance,” he muttered, distracted. “It was developed by a Native American medicine man and a frontier guide during the Civil War. They used it to find some hidden secret in an Indian burial ground guarded by some particularly evil spirits.”

“You fetched that from the subcellar to help us?”

“Brad would have said I fetched it to help myself.”

There was a note of profound sadness in his voice that troubled her. It seemed like he was starting to come apart. “I’ve spent the last hour or so in some medieval nightmare. What happened to you?” she asked.

“When the light went out, I came as quickly as I could. I’ve seen what the ghosts can do when they’re active. But this is much worse.” He glanced toward the door as if he’d heard something. “Normally it’s just the . . . I would say friendly . . . unthreatening spirits who contact me, in this part of the house, anyway. But the things that are moving now.” He swallowed. “I heard them whispering in the walls. Moving beneath the floorboards. The things they said . . . I knew what I was letting myself into when I bought this house, but I thought I’d have been able to find what I wanted and get out before it got really bad.”

“I think they feel we’re getting close to solving the puzzle of the house. They want to stop us.”

“Are you close?” he asked forcefully.

“Not that I know.” She tried to work out what it was about the paintings that had sparked her intuition in the attic room. “The ghosts must be seeing something I can’t.”

“This place has been sleeping for a long, long time. But now the evil that’s locked inside here is waking as the house gets untethered in time.”

“Untethered. I like that.” Her smile faded when she saw his haunted expression.

“Where’s it going to end?” he said. “Now that they’re awake, they’re not going to stop. They’re going to want blood before they return to the other side.”

“You showed you could deal with Piggly Grant—”

“You know there’s something much worse than him in here.”

Falling silent, Lisa let this sink in, but decided she didn’t really want to know the answer to any of the questions that were starting to coalesce. Instead, she asked, “What’s the deal with you and Brad?”

He looked surprised by her question. “Brad walked away from me a long time ago.”

“That’s not true. He’s devastated by how things have turned out between the two of you. Ever since I’ve known him it’s cast a shadow over everything. He might not talk about it much, but I can see it in his face, hear it behind the things he says.”

His shoulders slowly sagging as he considered Lisa’s words, William finally looked his true age. “Things were ruined between Brad and me a long time ago. There’s no going back.”

“Yes, you can! He needs you, William. He’s felt alone all his life. I know how terrible it is to feel like that. We all need someone to help us through the storm.”

His expression had grown impassive once again, but that only served to irritate Lisa.

Her voice cracking with passion, she said, “If you only knew what he’s been through the last few years. What happened to him out in Iraq. It almost destroyed him. It still might. He’s hanging on . . . and I’m trying to do my best, but . . . I’m worried it’s not enough.” A pang shot through her. Giving voice to what she had unconsciously known for a long time made her realize its truth. “Everything goes back to what happened with you, and your wife, and Brad. It took the heart out of his life, and he’s never been able to get things together. And now I’m worried he’s going to use all these awful things that are happening to just . . . give up.” She couldn’t use the real word that burned in her mind.

William shook his head. “It’s too late.”

Before Lisa could plead with him, she was shocked by the door crashing open as Hellboy and Brad burst in. “Thank God,” Brad said.

“Thank God, yourself. What happened to you?” she asked.

“We came through the door straight after you,” Brad replied, baffled. “We thought the ghosts had gotten you.”

“They nearly did. Your father saved me.”

Taken aback, Brad glanced at William, but said nothing.

“Time is a screwy thing. Don’t waste energy thinking about it.” Hellboy held up the opera glasses. “The spooks are out in force. Looks like we’ve really rattled their cage.”

“They think we’re getting close to solving the puzzle of the house,” Lisa said.

“Maybe we are, and we just don’t know it.”

Lisa pondered for a moment, then said, “I’ve been thinking about the house—the way the bottom half is like this dark reflection of what lies aboveground. Maybe I’m making a leap here, but I’m thinking that what happens aboveground is echoed in the subcellars in some way.”

“With the ghosts prowling around the lower levels, how are we supposed to protect ourselves so we can explore?” Brad asked.

“The artifacts,” Lisa said. “William used that lamp to save me. Maybe we can use them while we try to crack the code.”

“That’s a big risk,” Hellboy said. “Those things can blow up in your face.”

Pulling her knees under her, Lisa snuggled into the chair and stared into the dying embers in the hearth. “I don’t think we’ve got a choice. The ghosts and whatever else is here are getting more restless—they’re not going to leave us alone until we’re dead.”

“Yeah, this is scary,” Hellboy said. “But stick with me, we’ll get through it. I’ve been through worse.”

“Worse than an army of wolves on the outside, and an army of ghosts on the inside?”

“Welcome to my world,” Hellboy said. “William, we’re going to need your help. You with us?”

William nodded.

“You know what all the artifacts do?”

“Not all of them. For the first few months, all I did was research them. I thought they were a key to finding the Kiss of Winter.”

“Point us in the direction of any that can help.”

“I don’t know if anything can help us,” William replied.

“You said there’s something worse than Piggly Grant here,” Lisa interrupted. “I need to know what else is waiting down there.”

“I don’t know for sure.” Turning his back on them, William strode to one of the windows that looked out across the square. “I came across it during my first few weeks in here. I was exploring the lowest reaches of the house, searching for hidden rooms or passageways. Lots of these old houses on Beacon Hill have secret wells, or bricked-up cellars. Some say there’s even a system of underground tunnels linking the oldest buildings. It’s one of those secrets the long-standing local families on Beacon Hill keep among themselves, but the author H. P. Lovecraft mentioned the tunnels in one of his stories. “Pickman’s Model.” Some of the oldest residents still haven’t forgiven him for that. There are a lot of skeletons buried down there, literally and metaphorically.”

He scraped the frost off the inside of the window absently; Lisa was sure she saw his hand shaking.

“I ventured down there in the second hour after sunup. That’s usually a good time. The ghosts are quiet after the night, and I knew I could get away with at least an hour without being disturbed. I’d been getting some strange responses from the walls on the landing around the door to the attic room. Sometimes they sounded hollow, sometimes not. I couldn’t understand it. While I was tapping away at the plaster, a terrible feeling of dread came over me. I can’t really explain it . . . it was like nothing I had ever experienced before, except to say I had the sensation that I was about to die, horribly. Murdered, in fact, by some hideous power standing just behind my shoulder.” He shuddered, still not looking at them. “A presence so overwhelming, so unimaginably evil, I thought my heart was going to give out there and then. I tried to get out of there. I ran blindly, and . . . whatever it was doing . . . it felt like my breath was choking in my lungs. That my life was literally being squeezed out of me.” A swallow, a silence. “It followed me. Up three flights. Only when I reached the cellar did it finally start to fall away, and when I got into the kitchen it finally stopped. I encountered it two more times, just a hint on both occasions. When I sensed it approaching, I got out of there as soon as I could.”

“Any idea what it was?” Hellboy asked.

“Not Abraham, or any of the others who left their spirit in this place. I don’t even know if it was human.”

“Sounds like some kinda demon,” Hellboy mused. “Wish I knew its name—then it would be easier, maybe. As it is, we’re just going to have to look out for it. We don’t have any other choice. We can’t just stay out of the lower levels.”

Lisa was unaccountably pale in the lamplight. “Worse than Piggly Grant? Worse than those things that dragged me under the floorboards?”

Brad sat on the arm of her chair and gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “Remember what you said to me when you dragged me out of that pile of bodies in the Baghdad marketplace?”

“This is different—”

“No, it’s not. Together we’re going to get through this.”

She looked up at him with an expression of pleasant surprise. “You seem different.”

“I lost my way for a while. From now on, I’m going to do my best to get back on track.”

Listening to them, William had become touched by their show of emotion. Tears glinted in his eyes. “Why did you come here?” he said. “This was my burden. I didn’t want anyone else to get dragged into it. I never wanted to see anyone else hurt . . . especially you.” When his gaze fell on Brad it was almost painful to witness. He looked quickly to Lisa and added, “You deserve so much better than what’s going to happen here.” Recognizing in their faces how he must appear, he said simply, “I’m sorry,” and turned back to the window, repeatedly running a hand through his silver hair.

“William, if you’ve got something to tell us, now would be a good time,” Hellboy said.

His body rigid, William remained silent for a long moment. After a while, Brad realized he was fixated on something he could see through the snow-encrusted window. He’d opened the shutters earlier to keep watch on the square.

“What is it?” Brad asked.

“I think our time is running out quicker than we realize,” William said quietly.

They joined him at the window, trying to peer through the small gaps where the blasting snow had not adhered to the glass.

“That’s something you don’t see every day,” Hellboy said.

Across the square, in the gusting snow, stood rank upon rank of wolves, all staring at the house, eerily silent and unmoving, their eyes like black coals in their white world.

Transfixed, Lisa had the impression she was looking at a work of art, a chiaroscuro painting, or a series of sculptures cast in iron, until she realized she was watching a wave of horror about to break.

“What are they waiting for?” she asked, not wanting to know the answer.

The mournful tone of a tolling bell rang out three times across the snow-muffled square.

“Uh-oh,” Hellboy said.

The first wolf moved.

CHAPTER 15

—

A tsunami of bestial rage crashed against the house—one mind, one unstoppable desire for blood and death; the frenzy of howls and barks was deafening.

“What are they doing?” Brad shouted. “The house is protected.”

Shards of a shattered pane flew across the room. An arm snaked in, trying to tear away the remainder of the window.

“Not anymore!” Hellboy retorted. “Get those shutters closed!”

As they scrambled to close the heavy internal shutters, William bolted from the room.

Brad cursed loudly. “Good time to run out on us, Dad.”

More glass shattered. One wolf forced his head through the gaping pane, blood streaming from deep wounds where the glass had torn its flesh. Hellboy stepped forward and fired into the wolf’s face at point-blank range. As the beast was thrown back out into the sea of fang and claw, Hellboy slammed the shutters and bolted them. Brad and Lisa heaved the other window’s shutters into place.

“They aren’t going to hold long,” Hellboy said grimly.

Racing around the ground floor, they fastened all the other shutters. The windows beside the front door were broken, but too small to allow access. Snow already swept into the hall around the lunging arms. The crashing against the door was intense.

“How long before they break their way in?” Lisa asked.

Gravely, Hellboy checked his rapidly diminishing ammunition. “That’s a solid door and good hinges. Those shutters are pretty secure. But with that force out there? They’ll be inside pretty soon.”

He took the stairs two at a time. “They’ll be coming across the roof. We’ve got to protect those attic windows. No shutters up there.”

“We could barricade ourselves in one room,” Brad suggested.

“If it comes to that, it’s all over,” Hellboy replied. “Nobody’s coming to rescue us. And the wolves aren’t gonna give up till they’ve got what they want—which, right now, includes us being dead. Somehow we’ve gotta buy ourselves some time, so we can find the Kiss of Winter.”

“Wait!” Brad dashed back downstairs and returned with an iron poker from the sitting-room hearth, and a cleaver and block of kitchen knives from the kitchen. “Better than bare hands, right?”

“How did they break down the house’s protection?” Lisa asked as they burst into the attic room. It was freezing from the window she had left half open the previous night, and that realization brought a flood of memories that left her shuddering.

“I’ll take a guess that he had something to do with it.” Hellboy pointed one red finger out of the window.

Hunched on the pitch of the roof of the house opposite, Carnifex clutched an object that gleamed with its own inner light. The opera glasses helped Hellboy see it resembled a ship’s sextant, made of brass and glass.

“I knew they’d be looking for some way to break through the house’s defenses,” he noted, sure the sextant, whatever it was, was responsible for the sound of the tolling bell. “They picked up the Heart of Winter from a batch of books an’ stuff stored away in a Prague cellar for hundreds of years. Guess they finally discovered they’d got something else that would help.”

Footsteps pattered across the roof above their heads. A pile of snow fell past the window.

Lisa took a meat knife from the block. “So is this what you call a plan?” she asked acidly.

“It’s all I’ve got right now,” Hellboy said.

“Stay here trying to hold them off, until they break in downstairs?”

“We can’t just leave this window undefended,” Brad said. “They’ll be overrunning the house in no time.”

“They come in up here or at ground level—either way it’s game over.”

“You got a better idea?” Hellboy asked.

“Leave me and Brad here. We’ll hold them off. You go and find the Kiss of Winter.”

A wolf flipped over the top of the attic window and landed on the outside ledge. Before it could gain purchase, Hellboy threw the window wide and punched it hard in the face. The snarl died in its throat as it arced out into the blizzard and then plummeted down to the street. The roaring of the beasts below grew even more intense as the victim crashed into their midst.

“Can you handle that?” Hellboy asked. “If not, you probably shouldn’t stay here on your own.”

“Then we have to search.” Lisa put on a brave face, but Hellboy could see she was damping down her fear at venturing into the subcellars without his protection.

Before Hellboy could respond, thunder rumbled along the roof and wolf after wolf dropped in front of the window. By the time Hellboy sent the first flying, the remainder of the windows were smashed, and three more wolves dived in.

Brad hacked the cleaver into the center of one wolf’s head. Howling, it flailed wildly. Just managing to avoid its talons, Brad yanked the cleaver out, but then a glancing blow sent him flying back into the wall. Cracking his head, he slumped down half stunned. Lisa’s warning cry brought him to his senses, and he rolled out of the way as the wolf launched at him. Scrambling to his feet, he lashed out blindly with the cleaver into the side of the wolf’s head. Blood spurted as it staggered back, and Brad put his head down and with no regard for his own safety drove forward into the beast’s chest. It was like hitting a wall, but the wolf was off balance and careened toward the window. Brad didn’t let up until he had propelled it out into the snow.

At the last, its talons caught into his shirt, dragging him after it. Clasping onto the shattered window frame, he was on the brink of going through the window when the material tore. Adrenaline pumping, he staggered back, only half aware of Hellboy in a vicious fistfight with two other wolves. One clung to his back, raking at him with its claws, the other attempting to duck beneath Hellboy’s punches.

“Back off, fur ball,” he snarled. “I’m nobody’s dinner!”

Cutting and slicing with a knife in each hand, Lisa tried to hold back a wolf with a ragged scar above its right eye, but the ferocity of its attack turned it into a blur. Several strikes hit the target, but one of the knives broke off in the beast’s ribs. It plowed into her relentlessly, crushing her against the wall. The other knife slipped from her fingers as her breath squeezed in her lungs, and then the wolf snapped one arm around her waist and bounded to the window.

Seeing its intention, Brad leapt to intercept, swinging the cleaver at the wolf’s legs, but it caught him full in the face with a heavy backhand that smashed him to the floor. Clawing his way to his feet, he called Lisa’s name. “I’m coming!”

As the wolf paused in the window, Lisa gasped, “Don’t, Brad. Don’t. Let it go.” And then the wolf leapt out into the gusting winds and the snow, and the last Brad saw was Lisa’s tear-streaked face.

Racing to the window, he yelled her name impotently, and then began to climb out onto the deep snow on the roof.

“Brad, don’t be a dumbass!” Hellboy called. His punch slammed directly into the wolf in front of him, and in a fluid motion, he crushed the wolf on his back against the wall. As it slipped from him, unconscious, he ran to the window and dragged Brad back in.

“They’ve got Lisa!” Brad said with hot tears of desperation stinging his eyes.

“I saw. They want to find out what we know. Stay here. I’ll get her.”

Hellboy steadied himself on the window ledge and then stepped out into the elements. Immediately, his feet started to slip on the frozen roof tiles and he had to windmill his arms to keep his balance. “Dammit! Never was any good at winter sports,” he cursed under his breath.

Smacking him this way and that, the wind continually threatened to tear him off the roof and fling him to the street far below. The snow stung his eyes and made it hard to see more than a few feet in any direction, but he caught a fleeting glimpse of a shadow bounding to the roof pitch. Beneath the howl of the blizzard, Lisa’s cry drifted.

He leapt forward and skidded instantly back toward the drop, teetering for a second on the brink before launching himself up the slope with renewed drive. In the deep snow, it was easy to follow the wolf’s tracks. Through sheer determination, he kept himself upright and caught up with the wolf as it paused on the chimney before attempting a leap to the next roof. Lisa writhed furiously in its grip.

Her eyes widened when she saw Hellboy. Frantically, he tried to wave her silent, but she was unable to restrain calling his name in relief. The wolf’s head snapped toward him, a growl emanating from deep in its throat.

“So much for stealth,” Hellboy muttered. He went for his gun. It would be impossible to get a clear shot without the risk of hitting Lisa, but if the wolf made it to the next roof it would escape with her.

Bracing himself with one foot on either side of the pitch, Hellboy took aim, but the howling gale stopped him from hearing the approach of a second wolf, which threw itself at his back.

Hellboy tried to buck the beast off, but it was impossible to gain purchase on the snow-slick roof. A third wolf bounded out of the blizzard and leapt at Hellboy. Engulfed in a storm of snapping teeth, he fought furiously to keep the fangs from his throat. Through the constant whirling motion, he saw the wolf on the chimney return its attention to the next roof.

Its muscles bunched on the verge of leaping, and Hellboy drove himself forward with the two wolves still tearing at him, demolishing the chimney in a cloud of flying brick. Lisa and her captor were flung high into the air.

The bone-jarring impact forced the two other beasts to lose their grip. One skidded a short way down the roof. Hellboy caught the ankle of the other as it turned over, and used its momentum to swing it at the falling wolf that still gripped Lisa. When they crashed together, Lisa flew from the wolf’s arms, and the beast careened off the edge of the roof. Hellboy continued his swing into the third wolf, which was fighting its way back up the roof. At the last, he let go of the ankle and the two wolves spun in a flurry of flailing limbs before disappearing over the lip.

“Hellboy!”

Lisa’s cry helped him locate her in the disorienting blizzard. Skidding at increasing speed down the slope of the roof, she’d spread out her arms and legs in a futile attempt to slow her momentum, her mouth torn wide in a silent scream.

Hellboy hurled himself after her. In the blizzard, it would have been easy to misjudge his jump, but he came down just where he wanted: a few inches beyond the edge of the roof. With one hand, he caught hold of the gutter. It swung him hard into the side of the house, his grunt at the impact lost beneath the sound of tearing metal as the gutter’s pins ripped from the brickwork.

“What happened to American workmanship?” he muttered.

Buckling, the gutter swung away from the roof out over the precipitous drop. Far below, the seething sea of wolves looked up and bayed.

Lisa flew off the edge of the roof. Straining, Hellboy reached out and just caught her in the crook of his free arm, but their combined weight was too much for the fragmenting gutter to bear.

“Crap,” Hellboy said.

Lisa’s wide eyes locked on his. “Was this supposed to be a rescue?”

The end of her comment was lost beneath the sound of the protesting cast iron as it finally tore free.

Hellboy kept his grip on the gutter and Lisa as they plummeted. Her shriek made his ears ring, but he concentrated on using the arc of the unfurling gutter to direct him toward a window on the floor below. In an explosion of glass and wooden frame, they crashed into one of the bedrooms and rolled across the floor into a heap against the far wall.

“You okay?” Hellboy helped Lisa to her feet, checking for wounds. Miraculously, there appeared to be none.

“No!” she replied.

“You’re alive, aren’t you?”

His comment punctured her shock and she laughed. “Takes a while for the sensations to reach the brain.” She took a deep breath, and then remembered. “Brad . . . ?”

Racing up a flight of stairs, they found him hanging half out of the window, attacking a wolf with the cleaver, his face stony with desperate determination. Hellboy barged past him and punched the wolf off the roof.

Brad gaped when he saw Lisa. “I thought you were dead!” he said, taking her in his arms with such force she was shocked by the rush of emotion.

“Hellboy saved me,” she said. “Not the smoothest rescue on record, but I’m here.”

Peering through the swirling snow toward the ground, Hellboy heard the splinter of wood as the wolves crashed against the house. “They’re breaking in,” he said. “Come on.”

The front door held firm, but in the sitting room one of the shutters had started to splinter, and the other bowed in alarmingly.

“Last stand?” Brad said.

“I’m not gonna lie . . . It’s bad,” Hellboy said. He handed his gun to Brad. “You take that window. If they come through, just keep firing.”

“What about you?” Lisa asked.

“I’ve got these.” Hellboy held up his fists. “They’ve served me well so far.”

As he moved in front of the splintering shutter, he glimpsed Brad and Lisa exchanging a glance of yearning.

A resounding crack caught his attention, and one second later the shutter shattered. Amid a hail of wood shards and a sudden blast of snow, the wolves surged forward in a snapping frenzy. Hellboy threw himself into the window to block the flow, lashing out with a constant barrage of punches. Bone crushed under his fist, and gouts of blood flew, but the wolves weren’t going to be deterred. Through the window, all he could see was a dense mass of baying wolves disappearing into the blizzard. Sooner or later he was going to be crushed by weight of numbers.

From the corner of his eye, he glimpsed Brad standing like a sentinel, gun leveled at the bowing shutter, attention fixed—scared, but resolute. Lisa clung to his side, supporting him to the last.

Then his world came down to just a few square feet of wide-open jaws and blazing eyes, meaty breath and the force of inhumanly powerful muscles. Fangs clamped on his arms. Claws raked his chest or ripped toward his throat.

Somehow he managed to hold the wave back as the wolves tried to thrust through the small gap, pounding, always pounding, every time a new head appeared in his field of vision.

Another loud crack signaled the breaking of the other shutter,
and he knew it was all over. White-faced, Brad began to pump shots into the wolves attempting to scramble through the window, but they all knew that the minute he had to reload, the beasts would be upon him.

In a desperate attempt to do something to protect Brad, Lisa gripped the cleaver with both hands and prepared to hack the first one that evaded the shots.

Brad pulled the trigger once, twice, three times, each more anxiously, but there were only echoing clicks. In frustration, he threw the gun away.

“Get out of here!” Hellboy yelled, too late.

The wolves flooded into the sitting room. Brad thrust Lisa behind him in one last desperate act as they tore toward him.

The first wolf was only inches from his throat when a sudden overpowering smell of incense filled the room. A split second later the wolf burst into flames.

Another wolf ignited in a fierce blaze, and then one by one every wolf in the room ignited. Those closest to the windows saw what was happening and pressed back against the flow, but a few were driven into the room by the weight of the ranks and flared alight the moment they crossed the threshold.

The intense heat drove Hellboy, Brad, and Lisa back to the door, but, strangely, the fire didn’t spread to the rug or any of the furnishings, nor did the thick, greasy smoke mark the ceiling. The flames turned from orange and scarlet, to gold, to white-hot, but within a few moments each blaze snuffed out. All that remained was a dusting of white ashes on the floor.

Through the window, the howls and baying died away, and once again the wolves stood in eerily silent ranks, staring at the house.

“What just happened?” Brad asked.

“The protection is back,” Hellboy replied. “Somehow.”

Outside, the blizzard became more intense. The wolves melted into the falling snow, and when the wind died down, the square was empty once again.

“Is that it?” Lisa asked, barely daring to believe. “We survived?”

“For now.” Hellboy peered out into the deserted, snowbound square. “Something’s screwy here.”

The door to the drawing room swung open to reveal William, blood streaming from a cut on his temple. “We have a few hours’ grace, that’s all,” he said.

“What happened to you?” Brad went to examine his father’s wound, but William waved him away and motioned for Hellboy to follow him.

In the drawing room, a large candle burned in the middle of the floor, the source of the strong smell of incense. “I remembered coming across this in the house belowground,” William said. “Abraham Grant had written about it in one of his journals.”

“It’s providing the protection,” Hellboy said.

William nodded. “Only till it burns down. It’s a witch candle, designed to protect witches from the attacks of malignant Puritans. Once it’s gone, the protection disappears, and the house is accessible to anyone who wishes harm on the occupants.”

“Then the wolves are back in,” Lisa noted.

Wrinkling his nose at the sickly sweet aroma, Hellboy examined the height and width of the candle. “Should give us a few hours.”

“To find something that you spent a year searching for,” Brad said to his father.

“Oh, Brad, you’re so negative,” Lisa sighed.

“Let’s get the defenses back up fast, just in case we miss the deadline,” Hellboy said.

Locating the necessary items in the cellar, they proceeded to board up the broken windows in the attic room and the sitting room. While they hammered the last planks into place, Brad said without looking at his father, “So that’s where you ran off to when the wolves attacked.”

“Perhaps I’m not wholly the monster you make me out to be,” William replied.

CHAPTER 16

—

Brad struggled to contain the cauldron of emotion bubbling away inside him. In Iraq, he’d faced threats, and suffering and pain without once letting his feelings boil over—he told himself it was strength, that nothing had ever affected him since childhood, but now he knew how much of a lie that was. His feelings for Lisa, and the slowly coalescing memories of his nightmare in the Gulf, were both destabilizing him more and more, but it was the looming specter of the tragedy that had blighted his childhood that was troubling him most. For so long there had been the questions he couldn’t answer—what really happened to his mother? And the questions he didn’t want answered—what part, if any, had his father played in the disappearance? And he’d managed to leave them lurking in the deepest recesses of his mind, unexamined, like the ghosts in the depths of the Grant Mansion. But now they demanded his attention, shrieking in the vault of his head, leaving him in no doubt that they would never rest again until he addressed them.

Even in the midst of the crisis, they would not leave him alone, and so while Hellboy and Lisa went through the house checking all the access points, he pulled his father to one side.

“Dad, we might not make it through this. I need answers. Talk to me, so I can at least put my mind at rest.”

“Do you really think that’s possible?” William replied bitterly.

“Please tell me . . . Did you have anything to do with Mom’s disappearance?”

“No,” William said unconvincingly.

Setting his jaw, Brad continued, “Why did you cut me off when I was a kid? Afraid I’d ask too many embarrassing questions?”

William weighed his words for so long, Brad thought he wasn’t going to answer. Finally, he said, “Children always expect their fathers to know everything, including their own minds and hearts. But the truth is, as you will find out one day, Brad, if we all survive this, that you don’t gain great wisdom by becoming a father. You’re still the same as you always were, flailing around trying to find solutions that are just beyond your reach, filled with the same doubts and flaws, the same insecurities, struggling to pick the best way forward of the many that present themselves. A constant, daily fight to know what is the right thing to do. And failing, over and over again. We are all human. We all fail. And I failed you.”

Brad was stunned by the restrained emotion in his father’s voice. He stared at him, agape, for a while, and then continued with a note of disbelief, “You’re saying you didn’t mean to stop loving your son. If you ever loved me at all.”

“Oh, I loved you, Brad. Very much indeed. I loved everything we had in our family. We were very happy in those early days. Do you remember?”

“Of course I do,” Brad snapped.

“I was devastated when your mother went missing. Absolutely broken.” William drove home his point with every swing of his hammer, driving in the final nail. “After she disappeared, each time I looked at you, all I could see was her. All I could remember was the happy time we used to have. And it was so painful. Emotions don’t come easy to me, and it felt like I was drowning in them. I couldn’t cope. In the end, it was easier not to look at you, so I wouldn’t remember, I wouldn’t feel.”

“You destroyed me, Dad.”

“I know. And by doing so, I destroyed myself. I wasted the rest of my life running away from what I’d done, trying to pretend it hadn’t happened, and then when I finally accepted my responsibility for my failure, it was too late. I ran away, from seeing you again, from myself. I came here. Perhaps I came here to punish myself. You get what you deserve, Brad. And I deserve a nightmarish house filled with the ghosts of the past.”

William’s emotions were so raw that Brad couldn’t help but be moved. He’d spent so long building up his own calluses and belief about his father’s actions, he didn’t know how to respond.

“If you really felt that way, why didn’t you get back in touch the last three years? Do something to make amends?”

“I know how much I’d hurt you. Getting in touch would just rub salt in the wounds. Better to keep well away so you can get on with your life.”

“You think I could get on with my life? You didn’t understand that I’d been haunted by our relationship, wondering why my father had abandoned me when I needed him the most? You really don’t understand people, do you?”

“I don’t understand anything. Especially not life.”

“So why are you talking to me about this now?”

“Because you came here, Brad. You and Lisa. It felt like I was frozen in my obsessive search for the Kiss of Winter. And then I saw you again, and how you felt about Lisa, and she about you—”

Brad was surprised even his father could see what he had been blind to for so long.

“You criticize me,” William continued, “but you’re trapped in your own lies, the ones you tell to yourself. Numb from life. We all need some warmth to wake up from that state, to start feeling again.” He tossed the hammer to one side. “And you woke something up inside me. I’m still not sure it’s a good thing. It hurts to feel things. It’s painful to rake over all those old memories and failures. In the end, what’s best—dead and frozen, or alive and hurting? I don’t know.”

Lost to his thoughts, he wandered from the room. Brad remained silent, as Lisa and Hellboy walked back into the room.
He had a feeling they’d been waiting outside for the conversation to conclude.

“Much as I hate to disturb this Oprah moment, we’ve got a job to do,” Hellboy said. “The candle’s burning down, and it’ll be night soon. Are we gonna find this Kiss of Winter or what?”

CHAPTER 17

—

For the next two hours, they searched the house from top to bottom, tracking alignments, opening and closing doors, rapping walls, and trying to make sense of how subtleties in the mirror-image houses could somehow open the path to the Kiss of Winter.

“This is driving me crazy,” Hellboy said as he glanced through the first-floor window at the fading light. “We’re close—I can feel it in my gut. But something’s not connecting.”

“It’s got to be something to do with the missing painting.” Brad tried to stifle his frustration. “Five in the attic room upstairs. Four in the attic room at the bottom of the house.”

“And the missing painting is of his daughter, Sarah,” Hellboy stressed. “That fits with the whole ‘know my mind’ clue. If you know his mind, you know how much he loved Sarah. We know she was dying, and he was worried about her. So if the painting of this girl who meant the world to him isn’t around, there’s got to be a big reason.”

“I’ve hammered all over the space between the other four paintings, till my knuckles were raw,” Brad stressed. “There’s no hidden panel or doorway. The painting is gone.”

“Then maybe the answer is to find the painting,” Lisa said.

“Except it’s not in the house. Not anywhere we can see.” Hellboy hated the cloying scent of the incense-fragrant candle smoke, which now appeared to be filling the entire building. “Maybe the painting isn’t here at all. Maybe some cook threw it out with the trash, and we’re just wasting our time. It could already be too late to solve the puzzle.”

“Nothing has left the house.” William stood at the top of the stairs.

“I wish you’d stop creeping up on us!” Brad said with irritation.

“The house is a time capsule,” William continued. “Nothing has been thrown out. Any broken furniture, anything unwanted, was stored down in the cellar—you’ve seen that. It was known and accepted by every member of the family who lived here: everything must stay. The house must be kept exactly as it was when Abraham established it.”

“We’ve turned over the whole cellar,” Hellboy said. “The painting’s not in there.”

“Not wishing to state the obvious, but we’re running out of time,” Lisa said. “We can stand here talking as long as you want, but it’s not getting us any closer to finding the Kiss of Winter. It might be quiet out there now, but the wolves will be back soon enough. They’ll smell blood once that candle burns out.”

Brad punched the wall in frustration. As he rubbed his knuckles, a notion alighted on his face. “Then we ask someone.”

“I don’t know any more than I’ve already told you,” William said, “and I know more than anyone outside this house.”

“But some people inside the house know more than you. The dead,” Brad said.

“Smart kid!” Hellboy clapped Brad on the back.

“You’re crazy!” Lisa retorted. “Ask those things that dragged me under the floorboards? Sure. Let’s get them ’round for coffee and cake!”

“Not those. That weird experience I had in the nursery. It was Eliza Grant, and she seemed . . . lonely,” Brad continued. “There was no sense of threat there. Yeah, she raked up a whole load of unpleasant stuff from my unconscious, but I just got the impression she wanted some kind of . . . ” He shrugged, embarrassed.
“Connection.”

“You’re crazy,” Lisa repeated. “Yeah, she didn’t try to tear your throat out last time. There’s no saying she won’t do it next time.”

“No,” William said firmly. “I’ve had experiences of Eliza. She is not a threat. But whether she will help is a different matter. She understood that Abraham needed to keep the Kiss of Winter hidden away from prying eyes. If she knew the secret when she was alive, she kept it to herself. Why should she reveal it now?”

“Because I’m going to ask her nicely.” Brad eyed the nursery door uneasily. “Wish me luck.”

“Here. You might need these.” Hellboy handed Brad the opera glasses. “Let me come with you.”

Brad shook his head. “She might not turn up if you’re there. Besides, Eliza and me . . . we’ve got an understanding.”

Brad hesitated outside the nursery door for a moment, and then stepped in without a backward glance, closing the door behind him.

“I hope you haven’t sent him into trouble,” Lisa said sharply, “because I’m going to make you both pay if he doesn’t come out of there in one piece.”

“We’re in trouble whichever way we turn,” Hellboy said. “He’s a brave kid. Give him credit.”

“That’s easy for you to say.” Feeling apprehensive, Lisa hugged her arms around her for security. “What he went through in Iraq really messed him up.” She glanced at William. “Messed him up more. I was sure he was a suicide risk for a while. I’ve spent every week looking out for him since we left Baghdad, picking him up when he was giving up, trying to get him to buy into life again. But he was just scared of everything, terrified to go on living. It was easier to give in to it.”

William nodded; he understood.

Lisa glanced toward the door. “It’s weird. Since he got here, despite all we’ve been through, he’s been different. I’ve started to think he might pull through, get back to being the old Brad. Maybe even better than that. I don’t want to see all that thrown away.”

“You’ve done a good job looking after him,” William said. “But you’ve got to let him make his own way now. He knows you’ve helped him. Now he wants to pay you back.”

“I don’t need paying back.”

“But he needs to do it.”

Lisa chewed a nail as she watched the closed door. “What’s going on in there?”

CHAPTER 18

—

In the darkening nursery, Brad stood quietly, letting the murmuring from outside the door slowly diminish until it disappeared completely. He didn’t know if the others had simply stopped talking, or if it was some otherworldly characteristic of the room, but it felt like he was in a bubble, enveloped in an atmosphere of tense anticipation.

“Hello?” he said tentatively. His voice was unaccountably dim, the word dropping like a pebble. In contrast, his strained breathing and the rattle of his heart sounded too loud.

For a while, he turned slowly, peering through the half-light into the corners of the room, where the sense of someone waiting was palpable.

“I want to talk,” he continued. “I’m betting it’s been a long time since you’ve spoken to anyone.”

All remained still and quiet. Just as he had decided that nothing was going to manifest, the rocking horse moved, so slightly that it could well have been in response to a draft, but in the quiet of the room the creak was like a gunshot.

“Hello,” he said.

A draft of air moved past him, tingling the hairs on the back of his neck. The temperature dropped several degrees.

His thoughts seesawed as the chill dark of the nursery receded, to be replaced by the stifling heat of the souk, the aromas of spices and incense being wiped away by the chemical stink of the explosion and the sharp bite of acrid smoke.

It’s the past that really haunts us, he thought. Ghosts are just symbols.

Overwhelming claustrophobia gripped Brad as the sensations of that day rushed back in: the suffocating pressure of canvas and wood from the blasted stalls crushing on top of him, the oven heat rising fast, the sticky, iron scent of blood; and then the gradual realization that the insurgents had struck again, laying low innocents for the labyrinthine political games and ancient rivalries that no one really understood anymore; the feeling that he might be dying, and his brain still trying to catch up with the sensations before it accounted for missing limbs or torn organs.

“Help,” he had croaked, was croaking, a feeble cry that had been slipping from his lips since he was ten, one he was sure would never be answered.

A weak response came from nearby, and another, both in the local dialect; a susurration, a whispered prayer.

Turning his head as much as he could under the pressure of the detritus, he saw, lying next to him, the boy who had been torn away from his father by the blast. The boy lay facing away from him, but Brad recognized the cut of the hair, his shirt. He wasn’t moving. Frantically, Brad struggled to shift his hand so he could check the pulse in the boy’s neck; it was thready, but still pumping.

“We need help here!” he shouted.

Dragging his fingers down, he felt around until he found the boy’s hand and held it tightly for support. In that stifling world where death pressed on every side, Brad found himself moving into a new life with new rules and hopes and aspirations; every thought process was subtly altered. He recognized there was a deep bond between him and the boy, that in some way they were the same, though he couldn’t quite grasp the mechanics of that revelation. If the boy survived, he would survive. If the boy went on to have a happy life, so would he. The two were one. And so, in his dazed state, he gave whispered voice to his hopes, and made deals with God, and when he heard loud voices drawing closer, and felt the vibrations of the rubble being torn away, he knew his prayers had been answered. The touch of the boy’s hand gave him all the hope he needed.

He called out loudly, knowing few would understand him, but hoping his urgency would draw them closer to give the boy the critical treatment he needed. Finally, a shattered stall was pulled away and the sun streamed onto his face, blinding him.

As his eyes cleared, silhouettes hovered above him, one of them familiar.

“You’re going to be all right,” Lisa whispered. “No sense, no pain, right?”

“There’s a boy here beside me,” he croaked. “He’s in a bad way. Get to him first.”

Lisa responded with urgency, tearing away the material all around him until the boy was revealed.

“I checked his pulse,” Brad said. “I’ve got his hand.”

Lisa began to work on the boy, then stopped, stepped back.

“Help him!” Brad cried.

“Brad . . . ”

A crowd of wailing men and women drove Lisa to one side as the boy was plucked out of the rubble and carried off. It took a second or two for Brad to realize he was still holding the boy’s hand. The shock rippled through him. It was reflected in Lisa’s face before being replaced by a deep pity, and then the compassion he had grown to appreciate since he had met her.

The boy’s arm lay in a pool of blood that had leaked out of him and seeped into the dust. The arm that had been reaching out for his father had been separated by the blast, as Brad had been separated from all his hopes.

He started to cry, silently at first, and then deep, racking sobs, for the boy, for himself, for everyone. Trying her best to comfort him, Lisa sat with her arm around his shoulders while the market was engulfed in rescuers and security forces. She was still by his side in the sparse hotel room later, though he remained unaware of the transition. He was aware only of looking up into her face, which showed more concern each time he examined it. And she had been there in the months that followed, listening as he told her it didn’t matter, the boy had died, and everything he hoped for had gone with him. She put her own life on hold to help lead him back to life, and even in America, when it seemed like it would never happen, she had stayed with him. His hand in hers, always.

And now they were still linked, in a desperate place with death closing in all around, but this time he had a chance to bring about a different outcome. No deals with God or whispered prayers. This was down to him.

He snapped back into the cold reality of the dark nursery.

“Yes, I’ve been like you,” he said quietly. “Alone for so long. Lost in the shadows. We understand each other. But things are changing for me now. Help me get back out into the light completely.”

Silence at first, and then a child’s ball bounced and rolled across the bare boards, coming to a halt against the wall beneath the window.

Making no sudden movements, Brad raised the opera glasses to his eyes. At first it appeared as though shadows were sweeping back and forth across the room at great speed, but eventually they coalesced into one form. A halo of dull light limned the dark figure, gradually fading as details emerged, as though a person were walking into the light from a long tunnel.

Finally, Eliza Grant stood before him, her long sable hair framing a snow-white face with eyes as filled with emotion as Abraham’s. A state of anxiety gripped her constantly; she wrung her hands in front of her, and leaned forward onto her toes before rocking back to her heels in a nervous fashion. She was still tormented, trapped in the house in life, trapped in death, too.

“Hello, Eliza,” Brad said.

Her mouth opened and closed silently a few times, and then the words finally came. “I feel your pain, like knives cutting my flesh.” Her hand-wringing paused briefly, allowing Brad to see the scars that crisscrossed her forearms.

“Help me,” he began. At first, he struggled to find the words, but when he allowed his emotions to speak, they came freely. “I don’t want to be trapped like you, Eliza. I want to escape this house—”

“And you wish to escape the prison around your soul.”

“Yes.”

“There is no escape from this house, for any who have let its essence taint them. When you die, you will be standing here with me, in the dark, forever.”

Brad shuddered. “I’m not doing this just for me. I want to help my friends. My father. I want to help you, and all the others here, if I can.”

Silence. Eliza flickered, an image breaking up under interference.

“Is there a way to free all the souls trapped in this house?” he continued.

“There is a path, but no one can ever walk it. Great evil stands in the way. Great evil, drawn to this place by the power that in another form keeps it protected. It is like a well that gives water, but also pulls in all who peer over the edge.”

“I know there’s something in the house that we haven’t encountered yet. And I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t scared. But I have to walk that path, Eliza. I have to find the Kiss of Winter, whatever lies in the way.”

The sadness in her face grew more intense. “So brave.”

“No. I just want to help people, like they’ve helped me. Tell me how to find the Kiss of Winter.”

“All who lived here were charged with keeping its location hidden, for all time. It is a mirror of the house. Both a boon, and a curse. Life giving and death dealing. Abraham does not want it found.”

“Why did Abraham bring the Kiss of Winter here?”

“That great and terrible thing has the power to transcend all barriers. Time. Space. But, most importantly, the barrier between life and death.”

Brad considered this for a moment, and then said, “Sarah.”

“His daughter,” Eliza concurred. “So ill, from the moment she was born. Clinging on to life as best she could, but eventually her grip failed. From the time he first held her, Abraham understood the inevitable, and from then on, his life was dedicated to the search for something that would keep his daughter close to him. So much love! It hurts me to think of it. He searched the world for objects charged with the power of the supernatural world, not caring if they were touched by the Devil, or witchery, or the glorious power of God. He built this house as a haven for them, so no other could take them from him, and he stored them here, and he probed their workings, and tried to understand the mysteries that plague existence. Somewhere, he knew, there was a power that would keep Sarah alive, or failing that, unlock a way for him to be at her side in death. For many years, it seemed he would be thwarted. Nothing came even close. And then, shortly before Sarah died, he found the Kiss of Winter.

“Though his heart was broken by her passing, for months after the funeral he labored on unlocking the secret of the Kiss, to no avail. Its powers were great, but the ones he really wanted—the bridge between life and death, between the present and the past where Sarah still lived, escaped him.

“And so the Kiss of Winter remained in its hiding place, and Abraham passed on, but remained, and all of us, the long, unending line of misery, became trapped in the orbit of that thing, denied our eternal rest by its unshakable bonds with life itself. A boon and a curse, then, like all magical items. Always a price to pay.” Her voice became a long sigh of pain.

For a long moment, Brad weighed what Eliza had said and gradually a deeper understanding spread through him. Stifling a pang of deep regret, he said, “It’s time to change all this. Too many people have suffered. I completely understand Abraham’s love for his daughter, and the lengths he went to, but I’m betting that price got much higher than even he imagined, and it’s going up by the year. Something has to be done.”

Eliza’s large, desperately sad eyes narrowed in thought. Her form flickered and distorted so that Brad became afraid she was leaving, but then she said, “You are correct, sir. A change must come. But are you prepared for the sacrifice that lies ahead?”

“I am.”

“Then follow the path through the house. It is clearly marked.”

“I’ve searched everywhere. I can’t find it.”

“I have already given you the eyes with which to see.”

For a moment, Brad was baffled, then slowly he removed the opera glasses and examined them. “These?”

A breeze passed him, and the rocking horse moved gently backward and forward. The nursery once again felt empty, and when he looked through the opera glasses he saw it was true. Eliza Grant was gone, and all that lingered was a faint sense of dread at what lay ahead.

CHAPTER 19

—

Pinching his nose against the sickly sweet smell, Hellboy knelt down to examine the candle in the drawing room. It had already lost half its length.

“This is burning down quicker than I expected,” he said.

His unease was amplified when he glanced at Lisa scraping the frost away from the window to peer into the garden, where the gloom now puddled in advance of the falling twilight. She grew rigid, and he quickly came to her side. Snow lay thick across the winding paths, the herbs and lavender, and it was still falling fast. There was a certain tranquility to the wintry scene, but Hellboy’s attention was immediately caught by what Lisa had seen: two burning points of red light in the thick shadow of the trees at the far end, watchful eyes ensuring there would be no escape from the rear of the house. The wolves still bided their time, awaiting the inevitable. Hellboy quietly helped her to refasten the shutters. There was no point mentioning it to the others.

Hellboy turned back to William, who prodded the ashes inside the old range. They were out of fuel, and the house was growing colder by the moment. “I never expected it would come to this,” William said absently.

“Mess with this kinda stuff, it’s gonna blow up in your face sooner or later,” Hellboy said.

Forlornly, William closed the stove door. “So long looking into the past, trapped with life in the rear view, and now I’ve forsaken the future. I’m dragging all of you down with me.”

“It’s not over yet,” Hellboy said.

Brad came in, and from his expression Hellboy could tell something had changed.

“Did you make contact?” Lisa asked. “Listen to me, I sound like some Victorian medium.”

“Yeah, I made contact.” Brad handed the opera glasses to Hellboy. “You’re going to need these. They’ll let you see the path through the house.”

“You’re telling me we had the key in our hands all the time?” Peering through the glasses, Hellboy turned slowly. “When you’ve got ghosts comin’ at you from every direction, you’re not looking for subtle signs.”

“Where do we start?” Brad glanced uneasily at the diminishing candle.

“The hall? Entrance point to the house. That seems like a good point to get into the maze,” Hellboy said.

Though there was still a thin glimmer of light outside, the boarded-up and shuttered windows made the ground floor unbearably gloomy. With the lamp to light their way, Hellboy led them to the hall.

Putting his back to the front door, Hellboy looked through the opera glasses. A brief moment of dislocation passed, and then he realized Brad had spoken the truth. Now that there were no ghosts to distract him, he could just make out a trail of sparkling blue light, like phosphorescent grains of sand.

“Okay, first problem,” he said. “There’s not one path, there’s two.” Carefully, he followed the bifurcating path. “One goes up the stairs. The other goes back into the sitting room, and I’m betting it ends up going down in the depths.”

“How are you supposed to follow two paths at once?” Lisa asked.

Hellboy shrugged. “That’s gotta be part of the puzzle.”

“Let’s go down first,” Lisa prompted. “It’s still light . . . just. Might give us time to crack the puzzle before night falls.” She tried to sound hopeful.

“You keep tellin’ yourself that.” Hellboy gave a grim smile, and then pressed the opera glasses against his eyes and set off.

The sparkling blue trail followed a precise path, sometimes heading directly between door and door, at other times veering to follow the edge of the room or making a detour into spirals and ritual patterns.

“Old Abraham must have had a good memory if he had to learn this route,” Hellboy grumbled. “It’s already making my head spin.”

“It’s a spell,” William noted thoughtfully. “A three-dimensional spell. We follow the ritual path through space, and hopefully something will happen.”

“Hoping gets us nowhere,” Hellboy replied. “We make this work, or nothin’.”

In the belowground kitchen, Hellboy felt the atmosphere was charged, as though someone had just vacated the room ahead of them. He could see the others were aware of it too. They hesitated at the door in case they encountered what may, or may not, have been there, and he had to urge them to move; there was no time to waste. On the stairs, the blue trail became even more convoluted, going up and down several times on one flight. On the landing, the path went along the entire length against both walls. As Hellboy passed the closed doors, he felt a gravity behind them, trying to draw them all in. Something wanted them to step into the rooms, but he was sure no good would come of it.

For most of the journey, Hellboy had kept his eye on Brad, who had been increasingly on edge. Hellboy was worried that the constant background threat was starting to take its toll, but as they ventured cautiously onto the second floor, Brad revealed it was something more insidious.

“Dad, I know why you came here,” he said, apparently unable to contain himself any longer.

“This isn’t the time—” William began. Hellboy wanted to agree.

“No, it has to be. You put things off and you might miss the only chance you ever get to say them. Like I should have done to Mom.” He paused. “Like you should have done.”

Hellboy watched William’s shoulders sag as his carefully maintained façade slipped.

“There’s something waiting in this house that’s going to do every-
thing it can to stop us,” Brad continued. “I need to get this out in the open now, Dad.”

“If you’ve got something to say, now’s the time,” Hellboy said. “You might not get another chance.”

“I was wrong about you. I know. I’ve been wrong all my life.” Brad choked back the hard knot of emotion that had risen in his throat. “I thought you didn’t care. Nothing seemed to touch you. Yeah, I even thought you had something to do with Mom’s disappearance. Even when I found out you’d bought this place, it all fit together. You were hiding away. Guilty, maybe. Or just the kind of person who had contempt for people. You could separate yourself from them, look down on the city from your big, old house up here. I’m sorry for thinking that. I’ve made a real mess of things.”

William’s voice was flat and dead: “I did have something to do with your mother’s disappearance.”

Hellboy saw Brad flinch, his eyes narrowing. He was ready to act if Brad lost control.

“I’m as bad as you always said I was, Brad,” he replied. “A bad husband as well as a bad father. I drove your mother away.” He saw the anger flare in Brad’s eyes and added hastily, “Not that. I never laid a hand on her. I would never hurt her. Sometimes the less dramatic things are the most damaging. I was . . . cold. Insular. I never learned how to give your mother the emotion she wanted. I never tried, if truth be told. And we argued, and fought, and I think after a while she came to hate me. At least . . . she didn’t love me anymore. And one day she’d had enough.”

“Mom left me,” Brad said, devastated.

William covered his face, suddenly looking very old. “That’s the only explanation I can find, Brad. God knows, I’ve thought about it enough. We argued that day, and then she walked out, and she never came back.”

“I don’t believe it. Mom wouldn’t have left me like that.”

“I don’t know, and that’s the thing—we’re never going to know,” he said wearily. “We’re not so different, you and I. We’ve both wasted our lives waiting for a truth that will never come. Waiting for some moment of blinding revelation. Waiting for the door to open, the bell to ring. Picking up the newspaper every morning, fearing an answer, hoping for one too. In the end, it defined every aspect of my life. The bitter, cold, not-knowing consumed everything. Somewhere deep inside was the person I used to be, but there was no way of reaching him. Finding out what happened to your mother, discovering if she was alive or dead, and escaping that torment was the only thing that mattered to me.”

Hellboy watched a connection grow between Brad and William, common ground that neither of them realized existed.

“I thought . . . I hoped . . . you’d just get on with your life if I let you be.” William’s eyes were luminous in the lamplight. “I didn’t want you poisoned by my misery.”

Brad shook his head, his own eyes gleaming. “You heard about the Kiss of Winter . . . what it could do. Breaking the barriers between life and death. You think Mom’s dead, and you thought you could get back to her.”

“That was the only hope I have of redeeming myself. Without that, there’s nothing. No point.”

“And even if you couldn’t cross that barrier, there’s always the past,” Brad continued. “You could go back to when she was alive. Maybe even follow her on that day that she disappeared.”

“And I’d find out the truth, for good or bad. And finally I’d have peace.”

“Then we can do it together!”

William shook his head forcefully. “My life is over, Brad. I’ve wasted it. You’ve still got a chance. Don’t let yourself be consumed by the past anymore. It’s like a drug, always pulling you in, always promising you answers, but disappointing at each turn while offering something else to keep striving for. Some things we’ll never know. We just have to deal with it and move on.”

“How can I do that?”

William nodded toward Lisa. “You’ve got someone who can help you now.”

Brad sighed. “I just want to know what happened to her.”

“No. You don’t. The details of what happened aren’t important. Whatever the truth, it’s not going to be good. But just knowing the question’s been answered, that’s the important thing. It’s about putting to rest the things that haunt us, and moving on.”

Hellboy felt uncomfortable amid the raw emotions, but both Brad and William were oblivious to him.

“The past always tries to sink its claws into you, dragging you back, always back,” William said. “We both have to find a way to shake it off once and for all, and look to the future.”

“So it doesn’t matter what happened, just that we know there is an answer?”

William nodded.

“I don’t know if I could live with that.”

William stared deep into Brad’s face for a moment, and then surprised him with a forceful hug. “I’m going to find a way to put things right for you,” he whispered.

Hellboy saw Lisa had come to a sudden halt at the top of the final flight of stairs down to the attic room. “Do you hear that?” she said.

At first, there was only the ringing silence, but as his ears grew accustomed to what lay behind it, he heard faint whispers echoing behind the walls. Though it didn’t appear to be a foreign language, the words were incomprehensible.

“They’re waking,” William said.

Hellboy started down the stairs. “We all know where this is ending up. We’re nearly there now.”

By the time they reached the door to the attic room at the bottom of the house, the whispers were punctuated by occasional bursts of laughter that sounded like steam escaping from a pipe.

“I don’t like the noises they’re making.” Lisa kept looking over her shoulder up the dark stairs. “It sounds like they’re happy. That can’t be good.”

“Keep moving,” Hellboy urged. “We’re too close to go back. Not that we have a choice.”

He swung the door open and marched in. The room was as empty as always, with only the four paintings hanging on the wall, illuminated in turn by Hellboy’s lamp.

“Nothing’s changed?” Lisa said.

“You’re not seeing what I’m seeing.” Hellboy adjusted the opera glasses as he followed the blue trail up the wall. It became a rectangle on the wall in the space left by the missing painting.

“What are you seeing?” Brad asked.

“A door. Or a mark where a door could be.”

“You were right, then,” Lisa said. “Know my mind. Sarah was always the key. Here, the absence of Sarah is the path to the Kiss of Winter, and, in Abraham’s head, the path back to Sarah herself.”

“Does it open?” Brad asked.

“Careful,” William cautioned. “There may be another layer of protection. That’s been the pattern for this place.”

“I can’t see a handle,” Hellboy said. “What am I supposed to do? Say, open sesame?” He paused. “Open sesame.” Nothing happened. “Okay, worth a try. Scratch that.”

“How about knocking?” Lisa said.

“When you do that, something usually answers,” Hellboy noted. “So maybe you ought to stand back.”

As he raised his right hand to hammer on the wall, a distorted face thrust its way out of the plaster.

“Whoa!” Hellboy took a step back. “Nearly hammered you on the nose.”

Appearing to be a part of the wall itself, the face resembled a Notre Dame gargoyle, with a hooked nose, pointed ears, lowering brow over shadowed eyes, and an elongated chin. “What is the word?” it said in a rasping voice.

“What . . . It wants a password?” Lisa queried.

“Could be.” Hellboy rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “What do you figure?”

“Come on—what important word would Abraham use to get to the thing he valued most?” Brad pressed. “Has to be.”

“Okay. Let’s give it a shot.” Hellboy leaned in so his nose was a few inches away from the gargoyle. “Sarah,” he intoned clearly.

“ROOOAAARGH!” The gargoyle tore open its mouth and released a furious blast that flung them back head over heels to crash against the window wall.

His head ringing, Hellboy lurched to his feet. “Got any more great ideas, Brad?”

“Uh . . . no.” Brad helped Lisa up, and then, after a second’s hesitation, offered his hand to his father.

“If that was the first refusal, I’m not sure I want to experience the next,” Lisa said.

Hellboy nodded. “If the password isn’t something obvious, we could be here all day.”

“Frankly, I’m not sure I could survive one more of those, never mind a whole day’s worth,” William said, rubbing his arms.

“Eliza Grant led us here,” Hellboy noted. “She wouldn’t have done that if it was hopeless. This is just part of the puzzle. The password’s got to be hidden somewhere else. Let’s go back to the hall and follow the second trail.”

“Thank you,” Lisa stressed with relief. “One less minute spent down here makes me happy.”

But once they had stepped through the attic-room door, Hellboy realized everything had changed. The whispering behind the walls had reached a crescendo of insane shrieking, so loud they had to clutch their ears, and behind it all there was the deep, heavy rhythm they had heard before, like the slow pound of distant machinery. Hellboy thought instantly that it sounded like a heartbeat.

LUB. DUB. LUB. DUB.

“Let’s get out of here!” he shouted.

Hellboy could sense the mood growing more intense.

Something’s coming, he thought.

He saw the others felt it too. Lisa’s hand went to her mouth as she felt the rising threat mutate into the feeling of dread she had experienced before.

“Something’s coming,” she said.

“Yep,” Hellboy replied. “Probably best not to think about that either.”

When they rounded onto the next landing, they were brought up sharp by the sight of the walls along the length of the corridor bowing out, like an inflating balloon. Specks of moisture glistened along the surface as though it were bleeding.

Hellboy scraped his fingers along the wall. “Hmm? Oily.”

The heartbeat grew louder, and the walls began to pulse in time.

Hellboy glanced back down the stairs they had just climbed, unsure if the threat lay at their backs or ahead. The shadows behind swelled with a life of their own, but as he looked up the next flight of stairs he saw the same effect, as if something were taking shape within the dark.

“Run!” he shouted.

The next landing passed in a blur of distortion and deafening noise; the heartbeat now sounded like they were in the middle of an enormous factory, with machines pounding all around.

As they raced up the final flight toward the hall, Hellboy felt something invisible sweep by and catch Brad square on. Flying backward, he crashed on the landing below, dazed.

“Brad!” Lisa scrambled back down the stairs to him. William hesitated for only a second and then followed.

“Dammit!” Hellboy snapped.

As Brad struggled to his feet, his head snapped back suddenly as though he had been struck, and then he was thrown roughly against the wall. He slumped down half conscious.

The lamplight began to dim. The flame flickered, grew smaller.

“Aww, no! Not again!” Hellboy said.

All around the dark pulsed and began to draw its arms tightly around them until it felt like some terrible presence was standing only inches away. The pounding continued; the shrieks behind the wall rose even louder.

“What’s wrong with him?” Lisa cried desperately. Blood trickled from Brad’s nose, then his ears and eyes. Involuntarily, Lisa’s hand went to her own nose and came back slick and dark. William pivoted at the waist. Blood spattered on the floorboards. “What’s happening?”

“We need to get out of here!” Hellboy searched for the threat, but it felt like it was everywhere, and nowhere. Hauling Brad onto his shoulders, he attempted to bound up the stairs, but a tremendous force swatted him back down. He crashed on the floor next to Lisa.

“That bastard doesn’t want us to get past him,” he said. “Now I’m angry.”

Climbing to his feet, he used the opera glasses to try to see what was in the dark. But as he swept round, he was surprised to see the figure of a woman along the landing, beckoning to him frantically.

Hellboy saw Brad shake his head as he started to come to his senses. Blood streamed across his lips.

“Brad! Brad!” he called. “Eliza Grant. Long black hair, pale skin, sad eyes?”

“Ye . . . yeah,” Brad muttered.

“Come on.” Hellboy herded Brad, Lisa, and William toward the shimmering apparition only he could see. Terror contorted Eliza’s face; Hellboy understood that even the ghosts were scared of what hunted them. He was sure he could hear its rasping breath at his back, even above the cacophony, and feel the awful gravity of its presence. He didn’t like to run, but his first priority was to keep the others safe.

Close now, he thought. Too damn close!

Eliza tore at her hair, her mouth in the O of a silent scream. She indicated a door next to her.

Hellboy didn’t think twice. He tore open the door and thrust the others through it. As he stumbled after them, the door slammed behind him as if the thing at their backs had wrenched it shut in a monstrous rage.

The house was gone. They were somewhere else.

CHAPTER 20

—

A freezing wind blew across a desolate landscape of jumbled, protruding rocks and thick snow falling away down a slope toward a dense, dark forest which stretched out toward the horizon, where the treetops were covered in a thin silver mist. Behind them, the mountain soared up to a row of peaks disappearing into the distance beneath a sky streaked pink and yellow, slowly turning to powder blue as the sun rose. The air was crisp, clean, and fresh, unpolluted. A new day, a new world.

Lisa, Brad, and William were wracked with shivers from the cold, the blood drying quickly on their faces. Hellboy examined them in turn, but whatever had afflicted them in the house had passed.

“What was that?” Brad asked, his teeth clattering.

“I don’t know,” Hellboy admitted. “Some kind of demon. Powerful. I’m guessing that’s the big cheese in the house, trapped there by the Kiss. Whatever it is, it’s going to be waiting for us when we get back.” He looked around at the unspoiled landscape. “Another vision. As real as the last time.”

“What’s the importance of this time and place?” Lisa asked.

“It looked to me like Eliza was guiding us through this door,” Hellboy said. “She wanted us to be here for some reason. I’m wondering if the help we’ve been getting has come from her and Sarah, the good spirits trapped in the house.”

“But do you trust Eliza?” William asked.

“I do,” Brad said.

“Pretty place. But cold. I’ve really had enough of cold. Let’s go.” Hellboy set out down the slope with big strides, the others struggling to keep up.

By the time they reached the trees the temperature had warmed enough to make their progress bearable. Rabbits scattered through the undergrowth ahead of them, and here and there deer grazed. The forest was ancient, trunks too thick for three men to encircle, gnarled and twisted, branches reaching out high over their heads. Glittering streams ran down from the mountainside along channels lined with bracken and lichen-encrusted rock. Every now and then they came to peaceful pools of dark water where silver fish swam among shafts of sunlight breaking through the leaf cover.

“Seems deserted,” Hellboy noted. “Gotta be something worth seein’ round here.”

Eventually they broke through the trees into an area of grassland broken by granite outcroppings. Beyond, the downs fell into a deep, heavily wooded valley system where the mist still drifted.

“Look at this.” William indicated low piles of rocks almost hidden among the yellow grass. They were scattered all around the area.

“Cairns,” Hellboy said. “So there are people here somewhere.”

“What are they?” Brad asked.

“Burial mounds. Prehistoric.” Hellboy considered the evidence. “So, what? Neolithic? Paleolithic?”

“A long, long time ago,” Lisa said dreamily. “Should we look for the people who built these? Maybe they’re the reason we’re here. Wouldn’t that be a rush!”

Hellboy motioned to a gray wolf loping out of the tree line towards them.

Brad flinched. “Is that—?”

“Just the regular variety,” Hellboy said. He watched it carefully, wondering if there was any relevance to its appearance.

As the wolf passed one of the cairns, a moss-covered rock rolled off it and bounced across the grass. The wolf watched it until it came to a halt.

“They need to build these things better,” Brad said.

“Yeah,” Hellboy said thoughtfully. Looking around, he tried to estimate how many cairns there were in the vicinity. Something had set his nerves jangling.

More rocks rolled off the cairn. A second later, a bony hand raked out of the hole left by the falling rocks and snapped around the wolf’s rear leg. It fought furiously to free itself.

The cairn burst open, showering rocks all around as the occupant climbed to his feet. Looming over the wolf was little more than a skeleton, tatters of flesh hanging from the yellowing bones amid the remnants of rotted leather clothing.

“Damn!” Hellboy exclaimed. “You can’t even go for a walk in the countryside without stumblin’ across something that shoulda stayed dead.”

Glancing round, Hellboy saw all the other cairns start to stir, rocks falling off as the occupants dragged themselves from their resting places, in various stages of decay. The air became heavy with the sour apple stink of decomposition.

Within seconds, the wolf was torn apart, and the dead slowly returned to their homes.

“They were still until the wolf passed the first cairn,” William noted. “So, what? The skeletons stop wolves, or all trespassers?”

“The question is: why?” Hellboy mused over the scattered remains of the wolf.

“Maybe we can get some clues from them.” Lisa pointed to the tree line beyond the rolling grassland, where figures watched before moving quickly back into the shadows.

Hellboy led the way into the forest. Sprinting, he dodged low-hanging branches and ducked around trees, trying to keep sight of the attackers, who flitted like ghosts among the shadows and the shafts of sunlight.

Hellboy skidded to a halt as the forest came to an end on a ridge. Some of the ground had fallen away and snaking roots protruded above a steep, grassy incline toward another area of dense forest. Just disappearing into the trees were the attackers, dark-haired men with suntanned skin, dressed in animal hides and carrying spears and bows.

“Why did you stop?” Brad said breathlessly, skidding to a halt beside Hellboy. Lisa and William caught up a moment later.

Hellboy pointed to a thin column of smoke trailing up into the sky from the middle of the dark forest. “Looks like that’s our destination. We can take our time getting there, and do it with a bit more stealth.”

They descended the steep slope and entered the next patch of forest, which was just as rich with wildlife. Hellboy kept his bearings and guided the others unerringly toward where he had seen the smoke, but the distance was deceptive, and the forest so dense it took them most of the day to reach their destination.

“Hey, these people are really defensive,” Hellboy said when they were close enough to smell the wood smoke on the breeze. Hidden in the undergrowth were sharpened sticks, angled so as to impale anyone who approached at speed. Further on they found pits dug at random intervals, disguised with a thin covering of branch and bracken.

“Maybe that’s how they hunt their game,” Lisa whispered hopefully.

“This looks like a long time ago. People aren’t going to be waiting for their food to come to them,” William said. “Every day would be a battle for survival.”

Hellboy decided the cairns were the outer limits of the defenses, but their devastating nature suggested a huge threat. Were the werewolves here in force too?

They continued until they stood on the edge of a small community of makeshift shelters constructed from branches and leaves among the trees. Women had emerged from some of them to greet the returning men. Other women and a small group of children scampered from the depths of the trees with hands full of forest plants. In the center of the camp, a fire was kept alive by an elderly man with long white hair.

Hellboy watched one of the men crawl into the largest shelter, built around the trunk of the biggest and oldest tree in the area. He came out a moment later, clearly troubled, and spoke in a guttural dialect to one of the guards.

“So how long are we supposed to sit here?” Brad eyed the lengthening shadows. “It’ll be getting dark soon.”

“Be patient,” Hellboy chided. “They’ve got something on their minds.” Hellboy nodded toward the men who kept flashing uncomfortable glances into the forest in all directions. Every now and then, men would return to the camp and engage in brief, intense conversations with the one who was obviously a leader, before loping back out among the trees.

Night fell quickly, the gloom that gathered among the trees sweeping in to press hard against the small circle of light from the campfire. As each moment passed, the villagers’ faces became tauter, their eyes wide and uneasy, continually searching the dark. On the perimeter of the community space, men patrolled with spears.

Then, when the dark was complete and a swollen full moon could just be glimpsed gleaming through the branches, a chilling howl rose up far off in the trees. Shudders leapt from one member of the tribe to the next, the blood draining from their faces.

“Uh-oh,” Hellboy said. “Looks like we found the connection.”

“Thanks to Eliza,” Brad said in a voice that didn’t appear to be thanking her at all.

Another howl, this time much closer.

“How can it move that fast?” Lisa asked, unnerved.

“Maybe there’s more than one,” Brad replied.

“Is that meant to reassure me?”

The one Hellboy had identified as the leader ran back into the large shelter, and emerged a moment later, the frustration clear on his face. The men edged to the point where the firelight started to die, their spears directed toward the impenetrable night. Standing behind them, Hellboy tried to see what was out there.

None of them were prepared for the terrifying roar blasting from the trees just a few feet away. Unable to prevent themselves, the men took several steps back, still leveling their spears, while the women shrieked and cried around the campfire, pulling their children to their breasts.

Seconds later, another roar erupted from far away to Hellboy’s left. The men rushed over to defend that area.

“Fast,” Hellboy said. “It’s circling.” The crack of a branch crushed underfoot, a hint of something moving, silhouetted against the greater darkness under the trees, impossibly huge. “That’s a wolf?” Hellboy muttered. “It’s some kinda giant.”

The beast continued to circle the camp, toying with the terrified tribe. The bellowing roar that made blood run cold echoed on all sides, sometimes only feet away from the edge of the light. With each explosion of sound, the tribespeople became more frantic and filled with dread as they awaited the inevitable.

Desperately wishing he could help, Hellboy watched as the beast used the dark to its advantage, circling swiftly, sometimes silently backtracking so the forest people could never be quite sure where it was. Occasionally the crack of a trunk or a falling tree gave away its terrifying size.

A ferocious roar echoed across the camp as the wolf lunged from the dark and snatched one of the men up in its jaws. His spear was futile, snapped and discarded.

As the screams resounded across the clearing, Hellboy caught a glimpse of the man disappearing into the trees: a broken doll, tossed indifferently. Of the wolf, there was only a cloud of darkness being enveloped by the shadows.

Sprinting across the camp, Hellboy hurled himself into the forest. He smelled the penetrating musk of the beast and the sickening iron scent of blood. Though it was too dark to perceive any more than impressions, he realized it was almost as big as a house, its eyes red lamps in the upstairs rooms. With a roar that made his ears ring, it snapped its jaw furiously so that body parts and gore rained down all around him. When it had emptied its mouth, it lunged toward the camp, revealing rows of stained teeth and the hot blast of meaty breath. Another victim was plucked from the camp before the wolf retreated rapidly. Crashing trees marked its passage, punctuated every now and then by a disappearing roar.

Hellboy’s shoulders slumped. It might only have been a vision, but he felt the deaths of the two men as acutely as if he had been really there. “Wish they’d invented beer back in this time,” he muttered.

Trudging back into the circle of firelight, he found the tribe waiting desolately. Lisa, Brad, and William hurried up. Lisa had tears in her eyes. “Why do we have to see things like that?” she asked.

After a moment’s thought, Hellboy decided to investigate the largest shelter. The others followed.

It was dark and smoky inside. A few hot embers glowed in one corner, casting a devilish hue over a cluttered interior of feathers, hides, and animal bones hanging all around. As they pushed through the ritual clutter, they came across a man in his forties squatting near the fire, his face streaks of ghastly colors, marked by the fruits, herbs, and clays of the forest.

“Sit,” he said.

They all jumped.

“You can see us?” Hellboy said incredulously.

“I see all the spirits that visit me, and there are many. I speak all languages that the spirits teach me.” He threw a handful of leaves onto the embers and inhaled the fragrant smoke.

“What is he? Some kind of shaman?” Lisa whispered.

The shaman waved a finger at her slowly, but said nothing. For a moment, he studied them before nodding, as if their appearance was the most normal thing.

“Shouldn’t you be out there helping your people fight that beast?” Hellboy said.

“I help them here.” He gestured to a series of ritual objects—skulls, polished stones, strangely shaped pieces of wood—carefully placed near the embers.

“What is that thing?” Hellboy asked. “It’s bigger than any wolf I’ve ever seen. Heck, it’s bigger than any animal.”

“It is more spirit than animal,” the shaman said.

“An avatar,” Hellboy said.

Understanding the concept, the shaman nodded slowly. “It escaped from the control of the gods to stalk this world, filled with a hunger for blood that cannot be quenched. It is the wildness of the storm and the brutality of the harsh mountain snows. It cannot be stopped. It can never be deterred. Its sole purpose is to hunt, and kill.”

Hellboy weighed this information, and said, “So it’s the first. The original werewolf.”

“Every night it attacks. Every night we do what we can to drive it back, and every night one of us dies. The battle never ends. We are weary, and our numbers diminish. Soon we will be gone, and there will only be the wolf, and the great forest of the night.”

“If you get together, make some traps—”

Brad was cut short by the shaman shaking his head. “It cannot be destroyed. It is not of this world. It can only be contained.”

“And that’s what you’re trying to do here?” Hellboy asked.

The shaman climbed to his feet, stretching limbs that had not moved in many hours of his ritual. “And now I am ready.”

Before Hellboy could see, he plucked up two items from next to the embers and pushed his way out of the shelter. Hellboy and the others followed into the chill night, where the tribespeople stood around, scared and disoriented. The shaman barked at them in their own language, and gradually they drew nearer, dropping into a crescent around him.

With a sense of momentousness, he revealed the items he had hidden in his hands: a sliver of pure white quartz, like a tear, that he must have recovered from the mountain, and a heart-shaped clump of the same quartz.

“That’s it,” Hellboy guessed. “The Kiss and the Heart of Winter.”

The two pieces of quartz appeared to glow with their own inner light, echoing the gleam of the full moon high overhead.

“What’s he done to the stones?” Lisa whispered.

“Empowered them through his ritual.” William’s eyes reflected the gleam of the quartz. “This is the start of it all.”

“Quiet,” Hellboy cautioned.

The shaman placed the two pieces of the quartz on the forest floor in front of him, and after a moment’s reflection began a ritual dance, slowly at first, growing more frenzied with each circuit of the stones, until he was whirling wildly, his eyes rolled back so only the whites were visible, his voice humming a strange series of notes that rose and fell in an unnerving pattern.

“Look at the stones,” Brad hissed.

The inner glow of the quartz became more intense with each circuit of the dance, until finally the shaman’s voice reached a pitch and white light burst out of the stones, lancing into the forehead of every member of the tribe. It caused them no pain, for they continued to blink, their expressions baffled, but after a while their eyes closed and their heads nodded onto their chests. At the same time, the shaman slowly crumpled to the ground and lay still.

For a few intense moments, nothing moved across the clearing, until a tremendous wind began far off in the forest, rushing toward them. It tore into the camp, sweeping around the open space, throwing the shelters up into the air and buffeting Hellboy and the others before it centered on the unmoving tribespeople, circling them repeatedly. One by one, they convulsed, their eyes snapping open, an expression of painful incomprehension on their faces. The shaman was the last, and once he had risen to his feet, the wind died away and all was still once more.

In a daze, the other tribespeople swayed from side to side where they stood, but the shaman’s head snapped around toward Hellboy, and after a moment he lurched over as if walking for the first time. When he swayed before Hellboy, he opened his eyes wide to reveal they were all black.

“We will meet again, in some distant time and place.” The shaman’s voice was a low growl, more animal than human.

“What’s happened to him?” Lisa asked in horror.

The Shaman turned his head toward her, and she flinched at the touch of that gleaming, oily gaze. “I see the unfolding pattern across the ages,” he said. “I see you in times to come. This does not end here. What your kind thought was victory has only delayed the inevitable. Has created a new path through the forest of existence.”

“The wolf’s inside him somehow,” Hellboy said.

“Inside all of them,” the shaman said. “A fragment of the fury at the heart of the night. A sliver of the boiling heat of the beast frozen in fragile humanity. You think it is a prison?” He let out a low, growling laugh.

“Doesn’t matter what you call it. You’re not going to be attacking these people night after night,” Hellboy said.

“Is it me, or is it getting cold?” Lisa whispered. Shivering, she allowed Brad to put an arm around her shoulders and pull her close for warmth. Large snowflakes began to drift down through the branches; a cold wind blew.

“Winter is coming,” the shaman-wolf said.

Around the crescent, the other tribespeople were slowly awakening from their trance, struggling to comprehend what had happened to them as they rubbed their limbs for warmth. The shaman-wolf retrieved the Kiss and Heart of Winter from the ground in front of them, and held them on his open palms. An icy cold washed off them, their glow brighter.

“The long winter is coming,” he corrected. “Soon this one’s mind will drive me further inside him. I will sleep and wait.”

Snow gusted all around the camp. Glancing nervously at the clouds sweeping across the moon, the tribespeople began to collect their weapons and children together.

“Forget it. You’re going to be stuck inside these people forever. The Kiss and the Heart of Winter will bind you to them,” Hellboy said.

The shaman-wolf’s grin was unsettling. “These people will breed, and their young will multiply, and spread across this world, until they exist in all parts of the great forest. And in each one of them will be a part of me, frozen deep in their thoughts, in their hearts. Waiting for the day when the moon will call to it.”

With a flash of insight, Hellboy realized the truth of what Kate Corrigan had told him about people turning into wolves all over the world. These tribespeople were their distant ancestors, and they had been moving through their lives without realizing the wolf was inside them. And then, one day, right across the globe, every wolf had woken as one.

The shaman-wolf saw that Hellboy understood, and nodded. “The power of these things,” he said, weighing the quartz in his hands, “waxes and wanes, like the moon. On the times when the binding power is weakest, I will break free of my bond and transform my hosts, and we will sweep through the great forests and across the mountaintops, searching for these things.”

“What we saw in Bulgaria,” Hellboy said. “The mass exodus of the wolves, on a hunt for the Kiss and the Heart.”

“And one day . . . one day . . . away in time, the power will wane, and we shall find the Winter’s Kiss and the Heart of the Cold and we will destroy them. We will never be locked away again,” the shaman-wolf stated. His eyes were starting to lose their oily quality as the human mind reasserted itself. “And on that day the wolves will rise forever, and we will usher in the Time of the Black Sun, when the moon shall rule, and our power will be so great we can shape the material world to our will. It will become a place where the pack can hunt freely, and you, and all your kind, will be our food.”

The shaman staggered back a step as the wolf slipped beneath the waves of his consciousness. As he gradually came to terms with his situation, he nodded with satisfaction, gripping the Kiss and the Heart tightly to his chest. By then, the snow was beginning to cover the ground and the tribe was preparing to move on.

“Is this the start of the Ice Age?” Brad asked. “The ritual to make the Kiss and Heart of Winter set it in motion?”

Hellboy shrugged. “It’s the start of the Wolf Age, that’s for sure. These people carried the spirit of the wolf right across the world without realizing it.”

“All those people going about their lives without knowing what was inside them, waiting to burst out,” Lisa said.

“We need to move too, before we freeze,” William said. “It’s not going to be easy staying ahead of this storm front.”

The tribe had already trailed out of the clearing, but as Hellboy and the others followed they passed between two trees with branches arching together to form a gateway. When they emerged on the other side, they were back in the house.

CHAPTER 21

—

The ground-floor kitchen was almost unbearably still. The wind outside had dropped and the snow was no longer falling, but deep in the depths of the house the steady boom-boom-boom continued to pound, dim, but always there. The noise no longer sounded like a heartbeat, or even like machinery, but like someone beating on a door, close to breaking in, and it only added to the potent sense of dread that seethed in every room.

Hellboy found another lamp and lit it, and as the light drove away the oppressive dark they all breathed a little easier. “Home sweet home,” Hellboy said.

The words of the wolf-shaman haunted him. He now knew exactly why the wolves wanted the Kiss of Winter: to destroy it along with the Heart, so the beasts would never again be bound into human form. Then they would have their time to hunt, an age that they called the Time of the Black Sun. He could now understand the symbolism in the phrase.

William steadied himself against the table, one hand on his forehead. “The wolf . . . that creature circling the camp . . . If we allow the beasts outside to find the Kiss of Winter, it will be back, here. We won’t stand a chance. The human race could never survive.”

“Then we make sure they don’t get the Kiss of Winter,” Hellboy said.

William didn’t look reassured. “All those years wrapped up in my own desire,” he began. “Before, finding out what happened to my wife was the only thing that mattered to me. Now this is about so much more.” He shook his head in disbelief that it had come to such a state, casting a troubled eye towards Brad and Lisa.

Brad rested a tentative hand on his father’s shoulder. “We stick together, we’ll get through this.”

Nodding, William absently placed his own hand on Brad’s.

Hellboy was touched by the depth of emotion he saw in Brad. Since his first meeting with Brad in his apartment, Hellboy had watched him slowly shake off the frozen emotional state that had gripped him. He deserved something better than the pain he’d struggled with all his life.

“We’ve still got that thing downstairs to get through,” Hellboy said, turning his attention to William. “You got any more occult gizmos in here that might help?”

“I don’t know,” William said. “I’ll think—”

“Look here,” Lisa called. She was at the door to the drawing room.

Crowding around her, they saw the candle had burned almost to the ground, with only an inch of stub remaining in a pool of soft wax. “I wondered how long we’d been gone,” she said. “There’s no time left at all.”

“Then we need to move fast,” Hellboy said. “We’ve still got a chance. The shaman said the Kiss’s power waxes and wanes like the moon. The wolves got free when it powered right down—it just wasn’t strong enough to keep them inside their hosts. All we’ve got to do is wait for it to start charging up again and the wolves will be locked away for another few hundred years.”

“Except we don’t know how long till it starts waxing,” Lisa replied.

In the hall, they hesitated briefly at the sounds rising up through the floor from the lower levels, and then Hellboy pressed the opera glasses to his eyes to reveal the blue trail and bounded up the stairs two at a time. The others tried to keep up.

Plaintive whispering echoed from the dark at the ends of the landings, but Hellboy didn’t slow his pace as he followed the intricate ritual path to the attic-room door. Inside, it was unbearably cold. Frost gleamed on the walls in the lamplight, and icicles hung from the bottom of the window ledge. Their breath formed clouds and they thrust their hands deep into pockets to keep warm.

Looking out of the window, Hellboy saw the wolves had returned. Across the roofs all around, and in ranks in the square, they waited, sentinel-like, watching the house. The opera glasses revealed Carnifex standing on the edge of the roof opposite, defiantly looking directly into the attic room.

Hellboy turned his attention to the row of paintings on the opposite wall. The blue trail ended at the one of Sarah. Carefully, he lifted the portrait off the hook to reveal the gleaming sapphire rectangle beneath. Within seconds, the gargoyle head pushed out of the plaster. Everyone took a step back.

After a moment, Lisa asked, “Why isn’t it asking for the password?”

Hellboy considered this, then said, “What is the word?”

“As above, so below,” the gargoyle responded.

“Is it saying that’s the password?” Brad queried.

“I don’t think so.” Hellboy considered the gargoyle’s response for a second, and then said, “How about this? The house is a mirror image above and below ground, and we have to do the same. It takes two people to finish the ritual, one in front of each gargoyle. As above, so below, get it? Once that happens, you can get the password up here, and take it down to the attic room belowground.” He paused. “Maybe.”

“While following the ritual path,” William added.

“Looks like it.”

“Wait a minute,” Lisa said. “You’re telling me we’ve got to split up? With that thing down there? Or up here? Or wherever the hell it is.”

“We haven’t got a choice,” Brad said gently. “We’ve got to help.”

“The best bet is for me to escort you downstairs, then come back up here,” Hellboy said. “At least that way you only have to make one journey through the house.”

“What if that thing comes for us while we’re in that room alone?” William asked.

“I’ll be as quick as I can,” Hellboy replied. They understood his meaning: they were on their own until then.

At the top of the stairs, Hellboy said, “Don’t stop for anything.” And with that, he led the way. In the aboveground portion of the house, the most they experienced were unnatural noises behind the walls, areas where a foul smell hung, and numerous cold spots. But once they had passed through the cellar, the haunting became more intense. Their names were whispered by half-remembered voices, people who had died long ago, loved ones or bitter enemies, seductive and threatening. Unseen hands grasped at their clothes so they thought they had snagged them on nails, but when they stopped and turned, the material fell loose. Lights glimmered away in the dark, appearing to coalesce into faces they thought they recognized; they didn’t wait to look. Blood dripped on them from the ceiling, gone the moment they examined the stains.

“Keep going,” Hellboy urged as they ran. “Don’t let them distract you.”

The deeper they progressed, the more the shrieking behind the walls grew louder. Behind it was the steady thoom-thoom-thoom of the beat, driving spikes into the pit of their stomachs.

On the lowest level, Hellboy sensed the malign presence begin to take shape, and drove the others on faster. They crashed into the lower attic room and he slammed the door behind him while he caught his breath.

“Okay,” he said, “on the bright side, it’s warmer down here.”

“Just hurry. And look after yourself.” Lisa kissed him on the cheek.

“Hey. Save that for the big guy.”

She glanced at Brad, blushed, looked away.

“I’ll be back before you know it.” He darted through the door and heard them slam it tightly behind him as he bounded up the stairs.

As the flights passed under his feet, he felt the presence drawing itself toward him, but he kept his head down and drove on, through the lower hall to the cellar, and then into the house proper. In the drawing room, he saw the candle was now little more than a wick in a puddle, the flame guttering beneath a thickening trail of fragrant smoke. In the glass cases, all of the stuffed animals appeared to have expressions of great terror, recoiling from some unseen attacker with bared teeth and wide eyes.

“Spooky,” he muttered.

Then he was through the sitting room, into the hall, and bounding up the stairs two at a time. He ignored all the distractions of whispered voices and clattered into the attic room just as a series of tremendous roars rose up from the square, shaking the panes of the window.

“Uh-oh,” he said. “Guess it’s hit the fan.”

The wolves thundered against the front door and the shutters, rending and tearing, trying to smash their way in through sheer weight of numbers. From overhead came the sound of heavy treads loping across the roof tiles.

“One chance to get this right,” he said, standing before the space where the portrait of Sarah had hung. “Why does it always come down to a last-minute thing? Just once I’d like to take my time.”

With the opera glasses, he followed the blue trail and positioned himself directly before the glowing rectangle. The footsteps on the roof drew nearer.

“Come on, come on,” he muttered.

The gargoyle forced its way out of the plaster.

“What is the word?” Hellboy asked.

“Lazarus.”

“Of course it is. Bingo.”

A fall of snow outside, a clatter, and then a thud on the window ledge. As Hellboy turned to see the wolf staring back at him, the window shattered and it thrust its way into the room. It lasted about a second before his fist smashed into its face and propelled it back through the shattered frame. Two more wolves dropped onto the ledge as he vacated the room. Pausing for a second, he snapped off the handle as the wolves crashed against the other side of the door.

“Take your time,” he said.

Wondering how long he had before the army of wolves broke in and overran the house, he gripped the opera glasses firmly against his eyes and tried to follow the ritual path at speed. It wasn’t easy, and after careening into walls a couple of times, he was forced to take it slower.

Stumbling down the stairs, he paused briefly in the hallway to listen to the furious noise and the creaking of the oak as the door strained against its hinges. In the sitting room, the planks he had hammered over the broken shutters were already coming loose.

Thundering through the drawing room and kitchen, he careered down the stairs into the cellar only to find his way blocked by the porcine apparition of Piggly Grant, eyeless in the dark, hands grasping ahead of him.

“It waits for you below,” it said with a faint sibilance. “And once you have been drawn into the dark, I will seek out that lovely young thing. She can stay with me here forever.”

Hellboy didn’t slow. “Shut up! And! Get out of the way!” He plowed through a pile of furniture, damaged paintings, rolls of carpet, and paint pots, sending the entire pile onto Piggly Grant. Not waiting to see what effect it had, he bowled down the steps into the lower kitchen. Faint, snickering laughter followed him through the dark.

Keeping one eye on the blue trail and one on any potential threat, Hellboy wound through the dining room and sitting room and into the hall. Though separated by several feet of earth and stone, the tumult at the front door still echoed loudly.

Pausing briefly at the top of the stairs, he stared into the sucking darkness below and then descended. He took the first two flights much slower. Amid the steady heartbeat sound and the shrieks and cries in the walls, he knew what lay ahead, and he wasn’t going to let it sneak up on him.

As he stepped onto the landing above the final flight of stairs, the sense of dread began to gather around him. Deep in the dark at the end of the landing, small lights twinkled and disappeared; there appeared to be movement, black against black. Concerned whatever was there might attack his back as he went down, he hesitated, only to be caught by surprise. It had all been a distraction—the true threat lay below. It swept up out of the shadows before he could face it full on.

From the corner of his eye, he glimpsed a face in the center of an amorphous cloud, features distorted, not even slightly human, with eyes that were blacker still than the cloud that surrounded them, as black as the pit. It enveloped him, wrapping tighter with each second, but it was the potent emotions that made Hellboy reel: despair, fear, hatred, so intense it felt like he was being physically assaulted. They seeped into his thoughts, trying to poison him and drag him down into a black negativity that would eventually consume him.

“Dammit! Get offa me!” he shouted, flailing at the swirling cloud.

The presence pressed in tighter until Hellboy was suffocating from the black emotions. It sapped the energy from his limbs and flooded his mind with hopeless images; he heard whispers of despair more effective than any physical blow.

“You’re not a ghost.” Hellboy tried to focus his mind to keep the psychic attack at bay. “You were never human. What are you?”

The thing redoubled its efforts, flinging Hellboy around like a leaf in a storm.

“Son of a—! This is gonna take all night.”

And he had no time at all. Any minute the wolves would be flooding into the house, heading to the lower attic room where the others waited. Finally, he got a glimpse of the true presence at the heart of the cloud. As the shape of it briefly took form, recognition struck him.

“I know you! Eurynomus, you little corpseeater! Missing from hell for all this time. So this is where you’ve been!”

Eurynomus recoiled briefly now that his true name was known, but Hellboy knew it wouldn’t be long before he renewed his attack. He was one of the most powerful of the legions of hell, capable of attacking on both a psychic and physical level, and his strength would have been slowly growing as he fed on all the death prevalent in the Grant Mansion over the years. Even knowing his true name would not be much of a defense.

Before he could consider a retreat, Eurynomus swept forward again, enclosing Hellboy in a dense black cloud of despair that sapped his strength and his resistance.

“Dammit!” he shouted, lashing out to little avail.

As he struggled, a cold hand closed on his, tugging him inexorably, and a moment later he was falling out of the dark, raging cloud onto the stairs. He couldn’t see anything, but instinctively he knew. Placing the opera glasses to his eyes, he saw the pale, sad face of Eliza Grant.

“Go,” she said. “Help the others. Help that young man. Sarah will still be here to aid you.”

He saw the yearning in her face and knew. “Eurynomus isn’t going to be happy that you helped me. You can’t stay here.”

“Let me.” Her voice faltered as she glanced toward the darkness now whirling back toward them. “Let me do something that is good. I have had enough pain, and it will give me comfort to know that, at the end, I had value.”

Before Hellboy could respond, she stepped into the dark cloud and was gone. A second later, a furious roar erupted from Eurynomus.

“I hope you find your peace, Eliza,” he said before racing down the stairs along the last of the trail. He had been right: for all the evil in the house, there had been good too—Eliza and Sarah, the invisible hands, subtly guiding him towards the answer in a way that would not have drawn the attention of Eurynomus. He’d probably been happy in the house with his own private hell to rule. Down there, he would suffer like everyone else, however powerful he was.

He hammered on the attic door, and the others let him in.

“Thank God,” Lisa said. “We heard that noise out there and thought that thing had got you.”

“It did. But thanks to Eliza, I’m here.”

Brad flinched. “Yeah?”

“Later.” Hellboy went to the gap in the paintings and waited for the gargoyle to emerge.

“What is the word?” it said.

“Lazarus.”

“You may enter.”

With a grinding noise, a door opened in the wall.

A tremendous crash echoed far above them, followed by a relentless howling.

Hellboy swore under his breath. “The wolves are in.”

CHAPTER 22

—

Before they had even stepped across the threshold, it felt like the house was coming down around their ears. The walls and ceilings shook with the thunder of hundreds of feet surging through the upper stories; streams of dust and fragments of plaster fell from the joints; and then, rising above it, came a cacophony of snapping, snarling, baying, howling, and roaring merging into one blood-chilling voice that invoked the primal fear of the uncontrollable savagery of the bestial world. So great was the sound that even the pounding of the mighty heart and the shrieking of the spirits ceased.

Lisa was ashen. “Oh, my God,” she breathed.

The torrent rushed through the house, growing ever louder as it neared, until they could barely hear each other speak.

“Move!” Hellboy bellowed. He propelled them through the doorway and attempted to drag it shut behind him, but it wouldn’t close completely. “They’re going to find us once they calm down and start searching,” he added. “We need to find the Kiss of Winter quickly.”

“That’s all well and good,” William replied. “But what do we do when we have it?”

Hellboy didn’t have an answer.

They were in an ancient, brick-lined tunnel amid an intense smell of cold damp and great age. Water dripped from the ceiling to splash in puddles on the hard-packed earth floor, and salt encrusted the walls. Hellboy took the lamp that Brad had been holding and led the way quickly. The deeper they progressed into the tunnel, the more the storm of the wolves diminished until it became just a distant background drone.

“Looks like all those rumors about secret tunnels under Beacon Hill are true,” Hellboy said.

“Let’s hope that the other rumors aren’t,” William noted. “Like the one about the race of ghouls that live deep in the most ancient parts of the tunnel network, feeding on the dead.”

“I’ve had enough ghost stories to last me a lifetime,” Lisa said. “Let’s just concentrate on the here and now.”

They came to a halt at a junction with tunnels branching off on either side. Hellboy raised the lamp to check in both directions, but there were no distinguishing features. “Which way now?”

“We haven’t got time to start wandering around down here!” Brad stressed.

“Brad, stay calm,” William said. “We’ll get out of this if we work together.”

Brad quieted, but Hellboy could see the strain was starting to tell on all their faces. As he hesitated, he felt a gentle touch on his hand, although no one was near him. The opera glasses revealed Sarah, pale-faced and frightened.

“The tunnels remain part of the house, under the spell of the Kiss of Winter,” she whispered. Hellboy looked around, but no one else appeared to have heard her. “For now I can guide you, but very soon my influence will fade, as I will fade.” She smiled wanly. “I put my faith in you.”

“We’re grateful for your help,” he whispered.

“Who are you talking to?” Lisa asked.

Hellboy explained as Sarah guided them left and along the tunnel for a little way, but true to her word, her image in the opera glasses became fractured and began to break up. She gave Hellboy one last, hopeful look and then she was gone.

“We’re on our own,” he said quietly.

Soon they came to another junction, this time with three more tunnels branching off.

“It’s a maze,” Lisa said desperately.

“There’s a logic to these,” Hellboy said. “Put your left hand against a wall and keep walking. Or is it your right hand?”

A low, desolate howl echoed dimly through the dark.

“Was that in the tunnels or still in the house?” Brad asked.

“I don’t feel like waiting to find out,” Hellboy said.

They chose one of the tunnels, but they hadn’t gone far along it when their way was blocked by a wall of rubble.

“Ceiling collapse,” Hellboy said.

“What if that’s the only way to the Kiss of Winter?” Lisa ran an anxious hand through her hair.

“You are so negative. Come on.” Hellboy led them back to the junction, where they selected another tunnel. Within a minute they came to another junction, and a minute later another, and five minutes after that they were completely lost.

“This is starting to get irritating,” Hellboy snapped.

From far behind them in the tunnel complex came the sound of a howl, followed swiftly by another, and then a sequence of roars as the wolves picked up the scent.

“No doubt about it now,” Hellboy said.

With renewed purpose, they raced along the tunnels, trying to keep away from the echoes of the wolves’ pursuit, until William brought them to a halt. Head bowed and hands on his knees as he caught his breath, he said, “I can’t carry on at this pace. You have to leave me behind.”

“No!” Brad said defiantly. “You’re coming with me, even if I have to carry you.”

“Listen to your son, William. We’re not going to leave you here,” Hellboy added.

“This isn’t fair!” They were shocked to see tears in William’s eyes. “I need to make amends, don’t you see? You’re going to die, without a chance to get the things you deserve. The things I hoped for you when you were born.” He choked back his emotion.

“You think some mindless sacrifice will make amends?” Brad said sharply. “If that’s the case, you haven’t changed at all.”

William bowed his head.

“I don’t want you dead,” Brad continued. “I want . . . Are you even listening to me?”

William had dropped to his knees and was moving his hand slowly in front of him. “Here. Can you feel this?”

Lisa and Hellboy joined him. “Yes!” Lisa responded excitedly. “A blast of cold air.”

“Very cold air,” Hellboy added. “That says to me, the Kiss of Winter. If we can follow this current—”

A howl echoed off the bricks, unnervingly close.

“If we can follow this current very, very fast,” Hellboy continued, “it should lead us right to it.”

Keeping low, they hurried along the tunnel, searching around at
junctions until they found the icy breeze and continuing to trace it back. Soon they noticed the cold was getting more intense and easier to follow.

Their hearts fell when they came to a dead end. “No!” Lisa said. “It’s not fair!”

“Doesn’t make sense,” Hellboy said. “The air current’s got to be coming from somewhere.”

He searched around until he found a gap at the base of one of the walls, which they had missed in the dark. The cold blew out of it sharply.

“You’re crazy,” Lisa said. “Crawl in there? It’s barely big enough for you to get your shoulders in. And who’s to say it doesn’t get narrower? We could get jammed down there, unable to crawl back. You want to die like that?”

“I don’t want to die at all,” Hellboy said.

“Or the wolves could crawl in after us, and eat us while we’re trying to wriggle through . . . or . . . or . . . Oh, come on! Who’s going first?”

“I don’t think I can do it,” Brad said quietly. His hands shaking, he stared at the hole, recalling the intensity of his claustrophobic experience under the debris after the bomb blast in the marketplace.

“Yes, you can,” Lisa said. She took his hands and held them till the involuntary trembling subsided. “I’ll be with you. Together we’ve got through everything you’ve faced. This isn’t going to be any different.”

“I . . . I . . . ” he stuttered.

“You can do this, Brad,” William insisted. “We’ll all be along with you.”

Looking from William to Lisa, Brad wrestled with his inner demons. The howls echoed again, closer this time.

“Okay,” he said.

Hellboy dropped to his knees and thrust his shoulders into the hole. It was a tight fit, but amid a hail of grunts and curses, he forced his way in. The others wriggled in after, Lisa first, then Brad with some cajoling, and finally William.

Pushing the lamp ahead of him, Hellboy dragged himself forward, his back scraping on the earth above, which showered down all around. On more than one occasion, he was convinced the load above was caving in, and he had to wait until the fall of soil had subsided.

They appeared to be in a much older tunnel that had been—from the marks on the walls—dug out by hand, with much of the lower part of the tunnel filled in over the years. He struggled into a section that appeared to have been used for burials at some point. Bones protruded from either side and rubbed against him as he crawled over them.

An upper torso, still clad in the remnants of clothes, almost barred his way. As he shoved it to one side, it turned its skull and whispered, “You’ll be down here with us soon.”

“Screw,” Hellboy replied.

Further on, the bones took a disturbing turn, the heads unnaturally elongated, the limbs strangely squat.

“You all right back there?” he called.

“Yes,” Lisa lied.

“Nearly there now, Brad,” Hellboy shouted back. “I’m pretty sure I can see the way out.”

Brad’s ragged breathing rasped through the dark, but it was quickly drowned out by a frantic scrabbling further back, followed by a deep, throaty snarl.

“The wolves are in here!” William shouted. “Move!”

Hellboy dragged himself at a furious pace, with the sounds of the others’ frantic calls at his back. After a minute, he was relieved to find the crawlspace opening out a little so he could move quicker, and soon after, a cold white light began to leak in.

“I can see the way out,” he shouted back. “Hang on!”

“They’re nearly on me!” William called. His voice was almost lost beneath frenzied snapping and snarling.

Hellboy burst out into a large brick chamber flooded with white light from the Kiss of Winter, which rested on a stone plinth in the center of the floor. Beyond it, a flight of steps led up.

Hellboy hauled Lisa out, then Brad, who thrust Hellboy to one side so he could drag his father from the hole. They could hear the wolves mere feet behind.

“You all right?” Brad asked anxiously.

“Yes, yes,” William said. “Don’t worry about me.” But there was a gleam of warmth in his face at Brad’s concern.

Snatching up the piece of quartz, Hellboy juggled with it for a second. “Ow, ow, cold!” He thrust it into the pouch at his belt. “Okay, let’s get outta here.”

As he ran for the steps, three wolves burst from the crawlspace one after the other. The brick chamber echoed with the sound of their roars. Brad and William were only a step behind Hellboy, but Lisa lagged, exhausted.

One of the wolves leapt the entire length of the chamber in a single bound, crashing to the ground next to Lisa and tearing her from Brad’s grasp. Dragging her back to the center of the room, its mouth tore wide above her throat.

“No!” Brad exclaimed. Without a thought for his own safety, he threw himself at the wolf, smashing it against the stone plinth. Lisa wriggled free, and as the other two wolves attacked, Hellboy jumped back into the fray.

“You’re crazy!” William shouted at him.

“Yeah. I’ve heard that before.”

Hellboy and the wolves rolled around the room in a savage battle, the beasts snapping and snarling as Hellboy lashed out repeatedly.

“No! More! Biting!” he shouted as he shattered the jaw of one and then turned his attention to the other.

In the center of the room, the third wolf raked Brad across the chest with its talons, tearing through his clothes and the flesh beneath. Brad went down amid a spurt of blood and Lisa’s shrieks. She scrambled forward, but the beast sent her flying with a backhand swipe.

As the wolf hunched down over Brad, ready to feed, William ran forward. Straining his aged muscles, he lifted the top of the stone plinth over his head and brought it down with a wheeze of pain. It crashed into the back of the wolf’s skull, smashing it open on the floor.

Hellboy dispatched the remaining wolf with a one-two to the gut and head, and then ran over to where William and Lisa clustered around Brad. Lisa was crying, and William’s face was drawn and ashen. He wiped a stray tear away with the back of his hand.

“How is he?” Hellboy asked. But as he leaned over the prone form he saw his answer. Brad was unconscious, his chest torn open and blood leaking at an alarming rate through his clothes and onto the stone flags.

“He’s dying,” William said bluntly.

CHAPTER 23

—

Racing up the stone steps from the brick chamber with Brad in his arms, Hellboy came to a large wooden trapdoor that didn’t look like it had been opened in centuries. It resisted all of William’s and Lisa’s desperate attempts to shift it, until Hellboy laid Brad on the steps and put his shoulder to the ancient wood. Straining, the trapdoor eventually burst open amid a shower of clods of turf.

Their breath billowing in clouds, they climbed out into the freezing night. Thick snow lay heavily across a flat area surrounded by clumps of trees and illuminated by a row of lamps. A frozen lake glittered nearby.

“Where the heck is this?” Hellboy barked. “The Common?”

“Next to the lagoon,” William said. All around the city’s lights blazed, but Beacon Hill rose up ahead of them in complete darkness. “Massachusetts General is on the other side of the hill, across Cambridge Street.”

Lisa and William both looked at Brad, thinking the same thing. His blood splashed on the pristine snow.

“We’ll get him there in time,” Hellboy growled.

The snow was more than two feet deep, and every lurching step seemed to take an age, but the roads were all blocked and no traffic moved anywhere. It felt strange to be out in the open after so long cooped up in the gloomy Grant Mansion. Although it was awash with light, the city was like a ghost town, and in its unbearable stillness it was easy to believe that everyone was dead, slaughtered by the wolves on their way to Beacon Hill. There probably hadn’t been such quiet—no voices, no vehicle noises—in more than a century.

“This is taking too long!” Lisa’s voice cracked with desperation.

William checked Brad’s pulse. “Still hanging on,” he said flatly, before adjusting the torn shirt they had bound across the wound. It was now sodden, but it had staunched the flow a little. “But he’s so cold. He’s going to get hypothermia if we don’t get him into the warm soon.”

“Brad’s tough,” Hellboy said. “And the cold’s actually helping to slow the blood flow—”

The words died on his lips as a loud, chilling howl rolled out across the rooftops of Beacon Hill.

“Jeez. I shoulda seen that coming,” Hellboy muttered.

Lisa looked fearfully toward the dark bulk of the hill. “Surely they’re still at the house. They can’t know we’re here.”

“I’ve got a horrible feeling they can sense the Kiss of Winter. Or maybe there’s some link with the Heart, I don’t know,” Hellboy said.

“No, not now.” Lisa stifled a sob.

“They’ve got to find us first,” Hellboy replied, “an’ if we keep moving—”

Another howl rose up, and then another, until Beacon Hill rang with the bestial rage of the wolves.

“Aw, hell. Let’s go.” He tried to break into a run, cursing as the snow turned his attempts into a cartoon gait.

The going became easier once they’d made it off the common and onto Beacon Street, where the houses and shops had minimized the drifting on the north sidewalk.

“Okay, which way?” Hellboy asked anxiously.

“Unless you want to cut through Beacon Hill . . . ” William began.

“Which we don’t.”

“The quickest way is probably along Storrow Drive by the river. It’s a good, clear road. No dark alleys, or side streets, or doorways,
no rooftops where the wolves can drop on us. You’re probably talking ten, fifteen minutes to Longfellow Bridge and then Mass. General is just a short hop from there.”

“What if they’ve evacuated the hospital because of the weather?” Lisa asked.

“Then we’ll see which of us makes the best surgeon.” Hellboy felt a pang of guilt when he saw Lisa’s face fall. “Sorry. Look, I figure the hospital is the last place they’re going to evacuate. In this storm, there’s got to be people in trouble all over the place. They’ll be ready to help.”

As they rounded onto Storrow Drive, they turned straight into a furious, icy wind blasting across the river. The deserted road stretched out straight as a die, a dividing line between the brightly lit modern world and the ancient world of shadows that clustered over Beacon Hill. A trail of abandoned vehicles sloughed at different angles into the snow here and there.

Although their instincts wanted to drive them to the line of burning streetlights along the western edge of the road, next to the river, they would have been easily seen as the only objects moving on the brightly lit white background. Instead, Hellboy chose to hide in the dark that ran along the foot of Beacon Hill.

They fell silent. Only their labored breathing marked their passing. In contrast, the sound of the wolves scouring the sedate, historic streets of Beacon Hill echoed down to them. Hellboy could tell the army of wolves was moving methodically back and forth across the district, sensing their prey was near. It wouldn’t be long before they reached the foot of the hill.

Nestling Brad in the crook of one arm, Hellboy drew his gun in anticipation.

“How much ammo have you got left?” Lisa whispered.

“Six slugs,” Hellboy replied. “And I’m gonna make every one count.” Still gripping the gun, he hooked Brad back over his arm and continued to run.

Every time they came to a street, they paused and peered around the corner to check they wouldn’t be seen before dashing across. At Chestnut, no movement was visible up the long, dark stretch. At Mount Vernon Street, they could just glimpse flitting gray shapes moving across the junction with River Street further up the slope. But when they reached Pinckney Street, the wolves were close enough to see them.

“Now what?” William asked.

“We’re gonna have to take our chances,” Hellboy replied. “Watch the rhythms of their search, and then get set to run.”

They waited as the wolves darted in and out of doorways, the vast mass of the beasts roaming further up Beacon Hill, drawing nearer all the time. When William signaled, they raced across the street and into the shadows beyond.

“That was lucky,” Hellboy said.

As the words left his lips, they saw movement ahead. A lone figure wandered out of Revere Street and turned to face them. It was Carnifex. His red eyes glowed like hot coals as he raised one hand above his head. In it was the Heart of Winter, glowing with the same white light they had experienced in the brick chamber. Hellboy felt a deep chill growing in his side, next to where the Kiss of Winter was stored, and within a second, the snow began to fall, slowly at first, but then with increasing intensity as the wind grew stronger. Within a minute, a blizzard raged across the area and visibility dropped. Carnifex put his head back and released a long howl that had a disturbing note of triumph.

Up in the dark on their right there came the sound of thunder, as the wolves moved as one down Beacon Hill toward Storrow Drive.

As they struggled against the wind and the thick snow, all around the streets began to warp, the buildings shifting between their ancient past and their modern incarnations. Ghostly figures in historic dress took on substance before becoming smoky and indistinct once more. Horses and carts left track marks in the snow that disappeared suddenly as they faded into the blizzard. The time twisting of the Heart and the Kiss united left them feeling queasy and unable to tell what was real and what was not.

Carnifex stood his ground. He knew it was already too late for them.

As they raced out into the middle of the road, the wolves began to emerge from the dark of Beacon Hill behind them, howling with uncontrollable blood lust.

“Can’t you just shoot the bastard?” Lisa said fiercely as they closed on Carnifex.

“Good idea.” Hellboy fired once and hit Carnifex directly in the center of the chest. He went down hard, but picked himself up a second later and stood defiantly once more. Hellboy repeated three more times with the same effect. He cursed loudly. “That isn’t getting us anywhere.”

Surging closer, the wolves snapped at their heels, while ahead one loped out of Charles River Square, attempting to head them off. Hellboy waited until it got close and then fired straight into its face. The skull exploded and the beast flipped backward to crash onto an abandoned car.

“One bullet left,” William said breathlessly.

“You’ve been counting.”

Carnifex waited, still holding the Heart of Winter aloft. There was a hint of dark glee in his bestial face.

“When I give the word, dive down behind that car up ahead,” Hellboy said.

Lisa and William exchanged a brief, puzzled glance, but didn’t question Hellboy’s request. Behind them, the wolves were only feet away, the meaty smell of them heavy in the air.

“Now!” Hellboy shouted.

As Lisa and William dived beneath the rear of the sedan, Hellboy whirled and fired at a gas tanker slued half onto the sidewalk. It went up like a bomb, a wave of flame washing across the street where the wolves ran. Hellboy and Brad landed in the snow next to Lisa and William, who were transfixed by the conflagration.

Thick black smoke swirled along the street in the gale, engulfing the burning wolves and Carnifex, but they could hear other wolves sweeping down from Beacon Hill to take the place of the fallen.

“Get behind me,” Hellboy said, as he kept low on the other side of the stream of abandoned vehicles. Once he had confirmed that Brad was still breathing, he broke into a run under cover of the smoke.

They could hear the frustrated roars of Carnifex as they left Storrow Drive behind them and dived into the underpass, heading toward Charles Street and the hospital.

“I guess that’s one way of making your last bullet count,” Lisa said.

William’s attention was drawn by Brad. Frantically, he grasped Brad’s hand as they ran and checked for a pulse. Hellboy saw the result on William’s face.

“We’ve lost him,” he said.

CHAPTER 24

—

The wolves had started to close in again as they raced along Fruit Street toward the entrance to the emergency room. The snow banked up in high walls on either side where it had been repeatedly cleared, but the ambulances were all backed up, unable to get out into the city at large.

“What’s the point? He’s dead,” William said hopelessly. Tears streamed down his face.

“There’s still a chance. I’m not giving up yet,” Hellboy said.

“Neither am I,” Lisa said defiantly, though her eyes had a hollow, fearful expression. She glanced back into the face of the blizzard and caught sight of the advance guards of the pack loping into the entrance to the street.

Under the covered walkway, they ran, through the electronic doors into reception, where only a couple of people waited in chairs and a doctor and nurse chatted in quiet, troubled tones at the reception desk. A security guard looked out into the snow, shock lighting on his face as he saw Hellboy and the others arrive.

“Shut the security doors!” Hellboy barked as he skidded into the reception. The security guard began to protest until Hellboy rounded on him. “Just do it! This is an emergency!”

Baffled, the security guard pressed the green panic button behind the desk and the electronic doors slid shut and sealed just as the first wolves loped up to the entrance. “They should have had blast shutters fitted after 9/11,” Hellboy shouted to William. “Make sure he seals off as much of the hospital as he can. If he has to keep everyone locked in the ER, then that’s what he’ll have to do. Go!”

William ran to the security guard, who recoiled from the doors in horror as the wolves threw themselves at the reinforced doors repeatedly. The other people in reception fled, shrieking. As William tried to communicate with the guard, Hellboy placed Brad on a gurney and turned to the doctor in his green scrubs, who was already rushing to check Brad’s vitals. He was in his late twenties, with sandy hair and freckles. His badge said his name was Cooper.

“He’s lost a lot of blood from that chest wound. Now his heart’s given out,” Hellboy said.

As white as the snow, Lisa looked on, her hands clasped in front of her.

“Crash cart room three!” the doctor barked to the nurse. “How long’s he been down?”

“A few minutes, that’s all.”

“That helps.” He eyed the wolves crashing against the glass. “What the hell—?”

“You concentrate on saving Brad’s life. I’ll deal with them.”

Dr. Cooper climbed astride Brad and gave him heart massage while two paramedics raced the gurney toward the ER surgical rooms. Hellboy called Lisa over and said calmly, “Go with the nurse. They’ll want Brad’s details. If they need any consent forms signed, get William. Otherwise, just give them all the support they need.”

Pleased to have something to do, she smiled wanly. “Hellboy
. . . thanks,” she said, and then glanced toward the swinging doors through which the gurney had just crashed. “I spent the last few years trying to convince myself we were just friends. Now I’m terrified I’m going to lose him.

“When I was a kid, my stepdad treated me pretty badly. It made me tough. It also made me pretty crap with relationships. When you’ve been locked in a bedroom for days on end, you don’t trust people very easily. Now . . . I don’t know. Do you believe
in redemption, Hellboy, or is that just something you get in books? Do people get saved? Get a second chance?”

Hellboy shrugged. “The way I figure it, every day’s another second chance.”

She gave his arm a squeeze, then headed off with the nurse toward the surgical rooms.

Once she had gone, Hellboy allowed his grim expression to surface as he turned back toward the security doors. The floodlit square outside the entrance was filled with wolves. They pressed against the reinforced glass, lashing out in impotent rage with their talons, and he knew that by now the rest of their army would be swarming all around the hospital.

Dazed and exhausted, William returned with the terrified security guard. “All the departments have been sealed off with internal security doors,” William said. “There’s not a lot of people still in the hospital, but there’s enough. Critical patients, the long-term ill, essential staff—they’re all being moved down to the ground floor so we can keep an eye on them easily on the monitors. We’ve closed off the ER too. We’re stuck here.”

“You sure the wolves can’t get in?”

William glanced back at the security guard. “If he’s right. It’s hard to get anything out of him.”

“Yeah. Stuff like this isn’t easy to swallow.” Hellboy searched the ranks of wolves for Carnifex, but there was no sign. That worried him.

“Now what? I thought all this would come to an end once you had the Kiss of Winter.”

“Yeah. I suppose I should start thinking about stage two of the mission.”

“Left it a bit late, maybe?”

“A little pressure keeps your mind on the job.”

Hellboy took out the Kiss of Winter and examined it. The white light washed out across the reception area; it was almost too cold to touch.

“I figure the power of the Kiss has already started building again, just like that shaman said it would. You see what happened when it got close to the Heart of Winter on the way here? That time slipping was more extreme than anything we’d seen before. Those wolves must be getting desperate. They know they’re close to getting locked back in their box again.” There was still no sign of Carnifex in the seething mass beyond the security door. “And that’s when they’re most dangerous.”

“Look,” William said.

In the corner of the reception, a man in a stovepipe hat and a silver-topped cane ambled. He was there only between blinks, but there was more substance to him than the flickering images Hellboy had witnessed on Storrow Drive. Two slaves with worn clothes and humble demeanors appeared near one of the examination rooms. Fright lit up their faces as they looked around, but they were gone just as quickly.

“It’s getting worse,” Hellboy said. “Just as long as it doesn’t start screwing with things here too much.”

Once he was sure the doors would hold against the onslaught, Hellboy and William went to the surgical rooms. Chewing a nail anxiously, Lisa looked through the window at the activity within.

“They’ve started Brad’s heart, but there’s a danger it might give out again,” she said gravely. “They’re giving him blood now, while they stitch up the wound.”

Through the window, Cooper’s face was taut with a troubling note of concern. He had one eye constantly fixed on the heart monitor.

There was another shimmer. For a split second, Hellboy was convinced he was standing in a corridor with gas lamps along the walls.

“Whoa. This is getting weird,” he said. “You saw that?”

Nodding, William tried the door of a storage room opposite. It opened onto the deck of a frigate on a storm-tossed sea. It was night, and lightning lit up the faces of sailors in two-hundred-year-old dress as they battled to keep their posts in the face of driving rain. William slammed the door quickly and looked to Hellboy. “That wasn’t a vision,” he said.

“We need to get all the people here together so they’re not accidentally wandering into the past.” Concerned, Hellboy could feel events start to slip away from him. “You can do that?”

William nodded. “You know the Kiss of Winter might be more of a danger to us in here than it is out there. Keeping it around might not be an option.”

“You have an idea?”

His shoulders sagged; his years were catching up with him quickly and he now looked more world weary than Hellboy had seen him. “Maybe. I need to think . . . ” He cast one eye toward Cooper and his team at work on Brad, fighting back a pang of sadness that flared briefly in his worn features, and then moved away to find the security guard.

The insistent whine of the heart monitor pierced the air. Lisa jumped, clutched onto the door jamb. Inside the room, the screen showed a flat line. Tense, determined faces matched rapid activity, as Cooper called for the defibrillator. The nurse charged it; Cooper grabbed the paddles and watched the needle rise.

“Oh, God, please,” Lisa whispered. Hellboy gave her shoulder a supportive squeeze.

“Stand back,” Cooper ordered. He drove the paddles toward Brad’s chest, and in that instant, the entire hospital shifted in time. Hellboy and Lisa stood in the corridor of what appeared to be a hotel, looking into a room where Cooper and his team gathered around Brad on the bed. Blankly, Cooper stared at his hands, where the paddles had just been, and then quickly came to himself and started CPR.

Everything skewed again and the hospital was back again, with a concerned William running toward them. In the surgical room, Cooper cursed loudly, demanding to know what was going on as he continued with CPR while the nurse recharged the defibrillator.

“This is going to kill him!” Lisa said.

“We’ve got to do something,” William began. In that instant the power went out and the hospital was plunged into darkness. It only lasted a split second before the hospital’s backup generator kicked in.

“The Kiss of Winter’s screwing everything up,” Hellboy said. “If the power goes for good . . . ” His voice trailed off as he watched the medics at work on Brad. The screen still showed a flat line.

William began to say something urgent, but they were interrupted by a cry from the security guard. Behind the desk, he was watching the screen showing feeds from the security cameras around the building and grounds.

“When the power went out, the security door on the roof blew. It’s reset now, but . . . ” The guard indicated the screen, which showed wolves loping along empty corridors.

“How many got in?” Hellboy asked.

“Hard to tell. Ten?” His hand shook as he switched to another camera; more wolves darted by. “If they get down to this level, there’ll be carnage.” He wavered. “I ought to—”

“Leave it to me. You make sure everybody down here stays safe. Keep them together.”

Nodding, the security guard’s eyes flickered toward the ranks of wolves beyond the ER entrance. No longer tearing at the doors, once again they watched, unmoving, with malignant stares that made the blood run cold.

“Why’ve they stopped?” the security guard said. “It was bad enough when they were like wild animals, but this is worse. It’s like they’re—”

“Waiting?”

He nodded. “What would they be waiting for?”

“If the power goes off again. Because then those doors will fail, and they’ll be inside.”

The guard blanched.

Hellboy leaned over the desk to peer at the screen. “Where are those wolves?”

“Three different locations.” He indicated on a map on the wall. “Here, here and here.”

“Can we keep ’em locked up there?”

“If you manually reset internal security doors. Otherwise, they’ll be down here in no time.”

“Once I’ve reset them, how do I get back?”

“You can’t until the doors have been released.”

“So I’ll be trapped up there. Great.” Hellboy took the details from the guard and ran for the stairwell. He paused at the surgical-room door, where William and Lisa were transfixed by the battle for Brad’s life.

“How’s he doing?” Hellboy asked.

“They’ve got his heart started again, but he can’t go through much more of this punishment,” Lisa replied, blinking away tears. “You need to get the Kiss of Winter away from here. Give Brad a chance.”

“The wolves are in. If they get down here to the ER, it’s all over for Brad too. And all of you.”

Lisa covered her face. Unable to say anything that would make her feel better, Hellboy headed for the stairwell, relieved the upper levels were clear of potential victims.

The moment he stepped through the door he could hear the sound of the wolves echoing across the floors above. Against his side, the Kiss of Winter had begun to throb, the cold reaching into the very heart of him. Its power was growing and spreading.

Time was running out.

CHAPTER 25

—

At the top of the stairwell, Hellboy paused at the swing door and peered into the corridor beyond. As far as he could see, it was empty. Easing open the door, he listened intently. At first there was only silence, but as he edged out into the corridor a low snarl echoed along the walls. It was impossible to tell how close it was. Quickly, he followed the guard’s instructions and reset the internal security doors on the panel next to the stairwell. There was no going back.

Cautiously, he headed in the direction of the snarl. He wished he had some ammo for his gun, or a sword. Even an ax.

There was something particularly eerie about a deserted hospital at night, even when it wasn’t populated with savage beasts. The glaring strip lights were unbearably stark, the silence in a place usually filled with noise unsettling.

Hellboy edged to the corner of the corridor. As he paused, a low growl rolled down the branching corridor. Talons clicked on the vinyl floor, drawing nearer, and the rasp of hot breath grew slowly louder.

He pressed himself against the wall and waited. The snarling drew closer with each soft pad of feet, the distorted shadow reaching past the turn in the corridor. Just as Hellboy prepared to attack, the stud wall behind him exploded, propelling him across the floor into the facing wall. Another wolf was on him in a second, leaping through the gap in the ward where it had been lurking.

Hunched on his chest, it pinned him, snapping furiously for his throat. As it lunged, he gripped the wolf’s neck with one hand and drove up into its jaw with the other. The beast sprawled across the floor away from him, but by that time the other wolf was attacking.

“So much for surprise,” Hellboy muttered. He rolled out of the way, thrusting himself up suddenly so his head rammed hard into the beast’s jaw, and he felt the bone shatter.

The brawl had attracted the attention of the other prowling wolves; he could hear their roars drawing closer from both directions. Scrambling to his feet, he half started back along the corridor only for a pack of wolves to round the corner at the far end. Behind him, three more wolves had joined the two he had fought.

They were wary of him, he could see that. Their heads lowered as they loped forward cautiously, knowing they had strength in numbers, choosing their moment to attack as a pack.

Before they could descend on him, the Kiss of Winter cycled in power again, driving a spike of ice-cold into his side. His loud curse died in his throat as the corridor skewed into a new form with such suddenness it made his head spin. The hospital was no longer there. Instead, they stood on a snowy mountainside in the middle of a blizzard. Ahead lay a bridge across a gulf that disappeared into the snow far below; and beyond it, as the direction of the wind whipped back and forth among the high peaks, he could occasionally make out buildings that appeared vaguely Tibetan.

Hellboy cursed loudly in shock, but quickly got his bearings.

Disoriented by the lurching change, the wolves howled, turned in circles, tried to make sense of what had happened. That gave Hellboy the space he needed. Head down into the wind, he ran for the bridge. The wind threw him from side to side, coating his face with freezing snow. Behind him, the howls of the wolves thundered off the mountainside as they gave pursuit.

Skidding down rough, worn flags coated with packed snow and ice that made the going treacherous, he leapt onto the bridge. It shook fiercely under his weight, but the thick ropes held. As he ran, it bounced wildly and threatened to pitch him off. The vibrations only got worse when the wolves bounded onto the bridge behind him, their howls like sirens in the roaring wind.

Gritting his teeth, he drove himself through the blizzard to the far side of the bridge. Some kind of temple loomed up before him, almost lost in the dense snowdrifts. Lamps gleamed in the windows, but all around was dark and foreboding.

Hellboy considered running for the large wooden door until another thought struck him. Bracing himself, he put his shoulder against the wooden post that supported the bridge’s guide ropes. It felt like it was set in stone, but he strained, and it began to give a little. The wolves raced onto the last stretch.

“You’re really pissing me off!” he shouted at them.

With a final burst of strength, he drove the post over. The tension from the ropes whipped it out of the ground and high into the air, and the bridge flipped on its side, pitching all the wolves into the abyss. Their howls rose up long after they had disappeared into the gusting snow.

Shivering, he yelled after them, “And stay out!”

Wondering what he was going to do next, he turned toward the temple only for the whole scene to slide rapidly away. Once again he was standing in a ward at the hospital with a pile of upturned beds on either side.

“Whoa! I am never going to get used to that,” he said, lurching back a step.

Before he could work out where the wolves had materialized, from ahead came the sound of another beast. Running through the ward, he found it ripping at a panel of exposed wires next to a security door. Beyond it, a horde of wolves roamed, and in the center of them, standing directly in front of the door, was Carnifex. The wolf’s red eyes were filled with a cold confidence that said this battle is coming to an end, and victory is within my grasp. Hateful eyes, promising slow death. In his hand, he gripped the Heart of Winter, glowing with the same increased power of the Kiss of Winter, and calling out to its sister with every white pulse. Carnifex’s hunger for the Kiss was just as apparent.

Hellboy turned his attention to the wolf raking at the box of computerized components, and realized it could trigger the opening of the door. “You’re not as dumb as you look,” he said.

At full speed, he sent the wolf sprawling along the corridor. In front of the elevator doors, they fought wildly, Hellboy’s fists buckling the metal every time the wolf avoided his blow. Soon the doors hung ragged, the dark shaft reaching down to the ground floor where the elevator had been locked in place.

Hellboy threw a punch meant to propel the wolf into the dark mouth of the shaft, but at the last second, the beast ducked his blow and lithely slipped along the wall.

“Hey! Get back here!” Hellboy shouted.

The wolf bounded away and took one more swipe at the box on the wall. Before Hellboy could move, a flash of sparks sizzled in an arc, followed a second later by a resonant grinding as the disabled door was dragged open. Carnifex strode into the corridor and faced Hellboy, the rest of the wolves flooding through behind him.

“It is the Time of the Black Sun, the long era of the moon,” he growled. “Your day has passed.” He reached out his hand for Hellboy to give up the Kiss of Winter.

“No chance, fur ball!” Hellboy dived through the torn elevator doors and gripped the cable, swinging round to slow his fall as he plummeted down toward the ground floor. He crashed onto the elevator roof, and smashed straight through inside the car. The deafening roar of the wolves rushed down the shaft to him.

Tearing open the doors, he crashed into the reception, to the shock of the security guard. The wolves still waited silently outside the ER entrance.

With William behind her, Lisa ran up to Hellboy from the surgical room, crying and laughing at the same time. “He’s all right! They think he’s going to be fine!”

“That’s great.” Hellboy glanced over his shoulder at the torn elevator-shaft door.

“What’s wrong?” Lisa asked.

“The wolves will be here any minute. Dammit. There’s nowhere left to go.” He pulled out the Kiss of Winter, pulsing so bright now they could barely look at it. “What am I going to do with this?” He looked around the ER before returning the quartz to the pouch. The cold had left a trail of frost across his palm.

“Let me take it,” William said quietly.

“What are you gonna do with it?”

“Take it away from here. A long way away.”

Hellboy weighed William’s intention for a moment, and then asked, “Can I trust you?”

“If the wolves get their hands on it, it’s all over. You’ll be able to fight them more freely if you’re not carrying it.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“I wasted my life with what-was and might-have-beens. I don’t want that for Brad or Lisa. I want them to have a good life. This is my chance to make amends.”

Hellboy wasn’t sure what William meant, but he could see the sincerity in his face. Quickly, he dipped into the pouch and removed the Kiss of Winter. Now its inner light was blinding.

“It’s getting strong,” William said. “If we can just hang on a little longer, it’ll be too powerful for the wolves, surely.”

“Careful. It’s cold.”

William wrapped the piece of quartz in a handkerchief and slipped it into his pocket. The pulse of light was still visible through the material.

“What are you going to do with it, William?” Lisa asked, puzzled. “Hellboy can go everywhere you can go.”

“No, he can’t.” William smiled sadly. “I want to see Brad.”

“He’s still out cold.”

“I know. But I need to talk to him. You’ll have to tell him what I said when he wakes up.”

“You can tell him yourself.”

William smiled again, but didn’t respond.

As they pushed open the surgical-room door, Hellboy said, “Make it quick. I can hear them coming.”

The howls could be heard clearly across the reception as the wolves made their way down the elevator shaft, not at the same speed that Hellboy descended, but relentlessly nonetheless.

In the surgical room, Brad lay still and pale, but there was an air of peace after the harsh activity of the medical emergency. His thoughts playing out on his face, William watched his son for a moment before taking his hand.

“I always wanted to be a good father, but I was let down by my own weaknesses,” he began. “But look at you—you’ve turned into a great person—better than I could have ever hoped—and you’ve done it all on your own. You’ve got a great girl here in Lisa.”

Lisa blushed.

“Just don’t throw it all away by dwelling on what’s gone,” William continued. “If there’s one gift I can give to you, it’s to live your life for now, because awful things can happen at any moment. Random, out of the blue. And they can trap you in time, and poison you, so that you can never escape their gravity. We look for answers; it’s in our nature. But sometimes we’re never going to find those answers.”

He bowed his head for a moment, letting the emotions rise. At the door, Hellboy listened intently for the first wolves to emerge from the elevator shaft. “William, come on,” he urged quietly.

William nodded. “I’m going away now, Brad. You won’t see me again. I’d like to say no great loss, but I know how great a shadow people close to us cast over our lives, even when they’re not the best, or the most loved. I don’t want you dwelling on me, or thinking of what might have been. This is my gift to you, and I want you to accept it. I’m going to try to make up for all my failures. I’m going to try to find some peace for you. And even though I won’t be around anymore, I’ll have finally found some happiness if I can do that. And there’s the key to that prison, you see. It was with me all the time, and I never saw it.” He let Brad’s hand go and turned to Lisa. “Please tell him what I said.”

“I will. But I don’t understand.”

“There’s one other thing. In Beacon Hill, on Charles Street, there’s a small coffee house. If you get out of this, take Brad there for me tomorrow.”

“William, I don’t understand. Why—”

“Just do it. Please,” he said insistently.

“Okay.”

“William, it’s time,” Hellboy said urgently.

“You know what I’m going to do?” William said to him.

“I have an idea.”

“It’s the right thing.”

“You’re a brave man,” Hellboy said. “I’m going to try to hold Carnifex and the wolves off. Leave your side of the plan till the last, just in case . . . I don’t know . . . the Kiss of Winter sparks up and blows them all back to kingdom come. It’d be a shame to make a sacrifice when you didn’t need to.”

William nodded.

They all shared a moment, and then Hellboy stepped out into the corridor and moved toward the elevator.

CHAPTER 26

—

Hellboy stood in the entrance to the corridor facing the ER reception. The handful of doctors and nurses, the security guards, and the few patients who had made it through the blizzard had barricaded themselves into the surgical room with Lisa and Brad. Hellboy knew the barricade wouldn’t last long, but it would keep them safe in the short term, and he hoped that would be enough.

William had hidden himself away at the far end of the corridor. Since he had made his decision, a strange peace had come over him, Hellboy could see. It was more than resignation; it was a sense that the troubles of a lifetime were on the brink of being resolved, and that there would finally be no more struggle.

The wolves beyond the security doors were rows of statues, silent, baleful, dusted with the snow that blew all around them. They were waiting too, sensing the end was near.

“Come on, then,” Hellboy shouted.

The clatter of the first wolf dropping into the elevator cab, then a long silence. Hellboy watched the black slash in the elevator doors; it was the mouth of a beast.

“Stop playing games,” he said. “We know what’s gonna happen.”

The wolf erupted from the gap, trailing saliva in a blur of flashing teeth and raking talons. Hellboy stepped up and punched it straight back into the elevator, and then hit it again when it tried to emerge.

“I can keep this up all night,” he said. “Nobody’s comin’ out of there.”

Another wolf scrambled into the car, and a second later both wolves attempted to thrust their way out of the door. Hellboy knocked them back in before their snouts had even stuck into reception.

“Come on—you can do better than this,” he taunted.

Shifting shadows in the gloom of the car told him both wolves had vacated the space, but he knew that wouldn’t be the end of it. After a few minutes, a strangle crackling sound echoed, and then a cobweb of frost spread across the remainder of the broken doors. Sparkling in the reception lights, it grew thick rapidly. In the dark, Hellboy glimpsed a pair of red eyes glowing, and before he had time to speak, the doors shattered out and a figure bounded past him. It was Carnifex.

“Ah, nuts. Spoke too soon,” he said. He picked himself up, and rounded on the leader of the wolves, his fists bunched.

As Carnifex drew himself up to his full height, the other wolves flooded out of the elevator, forming a tight circle around Hellboy. A second later, they had released the security doors and the other wolves emerged from the snowstorm, filling the entire reception. A maelstrom of growls and snarls moved round and round Hellboy. All the wolves’ eyes were on Carnifex, waiting for the signal to strike.

Slowly, he raised the Heart of Winter above his head, as he had on Storrow Drive. The growls became more savage, a tidal wave waiting to break. Hellboy could feel the numbing cold of the frozen wastes washing out from the quartz.

“Every time I come across you guys, you’re just tryin’ to eat people up,” Hellboy said. “What’s wrong with a burger and fries, like everybody else?”

“This is not about food.” Carnifex struggled to form human words with his bestial mouth. “This is about rival species fighting for supremacy.”

“I’m usually just punching out one of you at a time. At most, five. But this . . . ” Hellboy gestured to the vast numbers reaching out into the snow-swept night. “This must be every werewolf in the world.”

“When the Kiss of Winter wanes, we are no longer individuals. We become one being, one mind. The pure essence of the First Wolf, locked inside a few weak humans all those generations ago. We spread down the male bloodlines, for that is where the heart of the beast is truly nurtured. You thought you were imprisoning us, but you have only helped us grow.”

“Seems to me if you started out with that tribe, there should be millions of you by now. Billions.”

“Too many weaken the essence. Then men become like beasts and beasts like men, and we cannot rise from the dark forest in your heads.”

“Yeah, I know some guys like that. A few too many beers down at the local bar and they’re you without the fur.”

The Heart of Winter and the Kiss began to call to each other again as the power ramped up in another cycle. The walls of the hospital shimmered, became like glass, and beyond them Hellboy could see other places, other times, rolling out to the horizon, continually shifting.

“Those two magical objects sure do punch a big hole in reality,” he said. “I guess they have to be that powerful to keep things like you in check.”

“And once we have them both, and they are destroyed in our ritual, we can hunt freely again, for the first time in millennia.”

Hellboy eyed the clock over the reception desk, wondering how long he could hold out. “But there’s the big hole in your plan,” he said. “A shaman told me the power cycles over the centuries. You only get to act like this, as one mind, when it hits the bottom, right? The minute the power starts cycling back up over a certain level, you’ve had it. You’re locked back in the bodies you were given, until your great-great-great-and-a-load-of-other-greats-grandsons get another shot at it.”

The snarls grew louder, the beasts struggling to contain their urge to rip him into pieces.

“Only now, every sign shows we’ve passed the bottom of the cycle and the power is on its way up. You’re running out of time. Hell, it must be nearly over.”

“Except now we have everything we need. And the long hunt is finally coming to an end.”

“Only I don’t have the Kiss of Winter,” Hellboy noted blithely.

“It is in this building.”

“Sure. Somewhere. You got time to search the place from top to bottom? Or is it really that close?” Hellboy could see the answer in Carnifex’s eyes. He hoped William was staying out of sight at the end of the corridor.

Carnifex released a low growl deep in his throat; the other wolves responded in a cacophony of howls.

“Kill me now and you’ll never find it,” Hellboy said.

“Then I will tear the location from you myself!” Carnifex launched himself at Hellboy, raking across his chest with his talons and clamping his fangs deep into Hellboy’s shoulder. Cursing, Hellboy fought back furiously, and within seconds the reception was a sea of wolves surging back and forth as they attempted to subdue him.

For five minutes, the battle was brutal and bloody. Locked in a tight world of fang and claw, time appeared to slow down, and as they fought, Hellboy gradually became aware of the world around him shifting.

Briefly, they were in the middle of what appeared to be a ruined Mayan temple, lush jungle pressing in tightly all around amid the suffocating heat of the midday sun. The pulsing Kiss and Heart twisted time again, and they were fighting through the shallow blue sea against the white sand beach of a Pacific atoll. In the middle of an ochre desert reaching to the silver horizon on every side, fighting as they rolled down a sand dune. In stinking Victorian sewers beneath some great city, splashing through dank water as they careered off slimy brick walls. Brawling along the center of a freeway, where massive trucks roared by on every side.

Hellboy realized the trail of the wolves and the lives the beasts had touched reached everywhere across the planet. And now his own life would be part of this panoply, appearing behind closed doors at some point in the distant future. The Kiss and Heart of Winter tied everything together.

Finally, they crashed back into the ER reception, demolishing the desk as they tore chunks out of each other. Disoriented, Hellboy couldn’t prevent Carnifex pinning him down, one hand around Hellboy’s throat. Carnifex paused to release a ferocious howl. The other wolves understood instantly, turning as one to move out across the hospital.

At the far end of the corridor past the surgical rooms, Hellboy saw William step out from a side corridor. “Hellboy! We can’t wait any longer!” he called. Strangely calm, he came to a halt in front of the door to one of the storerooms, one hand resting easily on the handle. A halo of white light surrounded him from the gently pulsing Kiss of Winter hidden in his pocket.

Hellboy hesitated, but he knew William was right. “Go on, then! Good luck!”

Tearing open the door, William stood on the threshold for a brief moment, transfixed by what he saw beyond. It could have been the frozen wastes of Siberia, perhaps Paris two hundred years ago, the brutal realities of medieval Europe—or any place tied to any of their intricate histories. Hellboy held out hope.

Carnifex realized what William was trying to do and attempted to launch himself past Hellboy. But as he propelled himself toward the storeroom with a desperate roar, Hellboy grabbed his ankle and brought him down hard to the vinyl floor. The renewed ferocity of Carnifex’s struggle revealed that he understood everything was slipping away from his grasp.

Hellboy fought just as furiously to keep Carnifex trapped on the floor and unable to move, struggling off the fiercely snapping jaws. “It’s too late,” he said calmly. “You’ve lost.”

There was time for one brief glance toward the storeroom in the middle of the struggle. As he looked through the door, a beatific smile crossed William’s lips. He glanced briefly toward Hellboy, nodded his goodbye, and stepped through, closing the door behind him.

Carnifex’s deafening roar was filled with despair.

“That’s right,” Hellboy said. “Old Abraham Grant hid the Kiss of Winter from you in a magical labyrinth in his house, but William’s found a better hiding place: in time. A labyrinth like no other. He could be at any time, any place. You’ll never find him, or the Kiss of Winter. And this time, he’s got the Kiss with him—there’s nothing to draw him back here.”

From Carnifex’s fingers, the Heart of Winter slipped to the floor.

“The power will be back up to full charge soon, and you’ll be locked back in your human forms,” Hellboy continued. “No Black Sun. No Rise of the Wolves. It’s over.”

Accepting the truth, Carnifex grew still. All around, the wolves followed suit, the snarls dying in their throats, their heads dropping. They stayed like that for a long moment, and then one by one they drifted through the door and melted away into the gusting snow.

It took a while for the wolves to lope from the reception. Carnifex was the last to go. Pausing in the doorway, he looked back at Hellboy and said, “The wolf will never die. It will be here, alongside you, for all time, waiting to hunt and feed.”

“We’ll live with it,” Hellboy said.

Then Carnifex too was gone, and slowly the blizzard began to die away. The storm had passed.

CHAPTER 27

—

Beacon Hill basked under a balmy summer afternoon. Flowers bloomed in window boxes and clematis and honeysuckle added a sweet scent to the warm breeze blowing across the city. The snow had melted away as quickly as the threat from the wolves had receded.

Hellboy, Lisa, and Brad made their way slowly down Mount Vernon Street from the Massachusetts State House, where they had gone to enjoy a brief al fresco lunch and bask in the sun. Brad was still weak, but the hospital had discharged him under Hellboy’s care. Lisa supported him with an arm through his, and it was clear to Hellboy that there was a newfound warmth between them.

“How are the stitches?” Hellboy asked.

“Itch like hell.” Brad forced a smile, but a deep sadness lay behind his eyes.

“On the bright side, he gets a nice, long period of recuperation with lots of TLC from me,” Lisa said. “And my TLC is the best in the world.”

“Yeah, I just bet it is,” Hellboy said with a grin.

As they passed Louisburg Square, Brad paused briefly to look at the Grant Mansion at the far end, the door still hanging ragged, the boarded-up windows broken in. “I hate that place,” he said.

“You think all the ghosts have left now that the Kiss of Winter has gone?” Lisa asked. She shuddered when she recalled the evil presence lurking in the depths of the house.

“I’d guess,” Hellboy said, thinking of Sarah and Eliza. “The Kiss was the thing binding them all there. I hope they’ve all found peace.” And Eurynomus is back where he deserves.

“So we won’t be forced to haunt the place when we go?” Lisa asked hopefully.

“No. I’ll get the B.P.R.D. in to impound all those occult artifacts and turn the place over from top to bottom, just to be on the safe side.”

Shielding his eyes from the sun, Brad looked the house up and down, emotions playing out on his face.

“Thinking of your father?” Lisa asked.

He nodded. “I wish I’d had the chance to say goodbye to him. In the end, we were a lot alike. Both trying to survive something that kicked a hole in our lives, both failing.”

“In the end, both doing the right thing for the sake of others,” Hellboy noted.

“Where is he now?” Brad mused sadly. “I mean, in one sense, he’s probably been dead a long time. But in that time period he walked into, is he surviving, doing all right?”

“It’s probably best not to think about it.” Lisa gave Brad’s hand a reassuring squeeze. “He made the sacrifice to save you. And me, and everybody. And that’s what we need to remember.”

Dropping his head, Brad urged her to continue walking. “It’s tough. I spent years beating myself up feeling sad about how he left me hanging when I was a kid, and then years trying to hate him. And now I don’t get a chance to put it right.”

They continued to Charles Street, where Hellboy led them to a small coffee shop, dark and enticing. At that time, there were only one or two customers, so they took a seat next to the window where they could look out onto the busy street.

“Why did Dad want me to come here?” Brad eased himself into a chair with a wince.

“Maybe he just liked the coffee,” Hellboy said.

Brad looked around the sedate interior, and took a deep breath of the rich coffee scents. “Yeah, I could imagine Dad here. He always loved his cup of joe.”

They ordered their drinks and indulged in quiet conversation for a while, as Hellboy and Lisa tried to raise Brad’s spirits. Not long after, the jangling bell above the door signaled the arrival of a bald man with a short, snowy beard. He was wearing a dark suit and carrying a briefcase. Pausing on the threshold, he looked around in a faintly bemused manner before his attention alighted on Hellboy.

“Ah, yes. The large-boned red man,” he said with a satisfied nod. “Thank goodness I’m not too late.”

“Too late for what?” Hellboy asked.

“For our assignation.”

“Huh?”

The man placed his briefcase on the table and clicked it open. “You must be Mr. Lynch,” he said to Brad. “I have a letter from your father.”

Stunned, Brad’s mouth gaped for a second or two.

“Yes, I thought that might be your reaction. My name is Mr. Helmley. I’m an attorney with the Foster Group in town. When I first joined the business around twenty years ago, your father came into the office with this letter.” He plucked a white envelope from his briefcase and handed it to Brad. “He left strict instructions that it had to be delivered to you here, on this day. It caused a great deal of amusement around the office—quite how he could know you would be attending this coffee house on that day . . . ” He shrugged. “Yet here you are.”

His work done, Helmley nodded and left. Tentatively, Brad examined the envelope, which had his name on the front in his father’s script. “The early nineties,” he repeated quietly.

Hellboy grinned. “That’s a damn sight better than medieval Europe. At least they had deodorant then.”

Brad opened the envelope and took out the letter. There were several pages. Reading aloud, he began, “ ‘Dear Brad, I know this will come as some surprise to you. It’s a surprise to me that things worked out as I’d hoped. I’d lost any belief in hopes coming true. Firstly, you should know that I am well, and, God willing, will continue to be well. I plan to travel to Europe tomorrow to indulge in some of the things I never got around to over the last twenty years. I don’t want you to be sad. I’m happy now, and happier than I have been for a very long time.

“ ‘Now, the reason I’m writing is to pass on to you an extremely valuable gift down the years—a gift, I hope, that will free you from the prison you made for yourself, and allow you to start the new life I always hoped for you. Brad, I want to tell you about your mother and what happened to her . . . ’ ”

The words died in Brad’s throat. He quickly scanned a few lines ahead, and while tears sparked in his eyes, the sad smile that spread across his lips gave both Hellboy and Lisa hope.

Hellboy indicated to Lisa that they should step outside. “Give him a few moments,” he said, once they were standing on the sidewalk, eyeing Brad through the window as he read his letter.

“I wonder what happened to his mother?” Lisa said.

“It doesn’t matter. We all knew there wasn’t going to be a magical reunion in a situation like that. The important thing is that now Brad is going to be able to put it all behind him, finally. That’s a helluva gift.” He nodded thoughtfully. William came through in the end. Everybody got a slice of redemption.

“Looks like we’ve put a lot of ghosts to rest today,” Lisa said.

“Yeah, this is some kind of business,” Hellboy noted. “Just when you think it’s all about making the world safe, you get a result like that. You and Brad—?”

She nodded, smiled. “Yeah. I’ll make it work. You?”

“I’ve got a date with a castle in Spain, and the ghost of a horse that predicts the future.” He looked up at the blue sky and nodded appreciatively. “Should be warm this time of year.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

—

A two-time winner of the celebrated British Fantasy Award, Mark Chadbourn is the author of several dark fantasy novels. His current sequence, Kingdom of the Serpent, concluded with Destroyer of Worlds in July 2009. A former journalist, he is now a screenwriter for BBC television drama. His other jobs have included running an independent record company, managing rock bands, and working on a production line. He lives in a forest in the English Midlands.

Table of Contents

- PROLOGUE
- CHAPTER 1
- CHAPTER 2
- CHAPTER 3
- CHAPTER 4
- CHAPTER 5
- CHAPTER 6
- CHAPTER 7
- CHAPTER 8
- CHAPTER 9
- CHAPTER 10
- CHAPTER 11
- CHAPTER 12
- CHAPTER 13
- CHAPTER 14
- CHAPTER 15
- CHAPTER 16
- CHAPTER 17
- CHAPTER 18
- CHAPTER 19
- CHAPTER 20
- CHAPTER 21
- CHAPTER 22
- CHAPTER 23
- CHAPTER 24
- CHAPTER 25
- CHAPTER 26
- CHAPTER 27
- ABOUT THE AUTHOR