The Ice Wolves (20 page)

“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.