Tom Piccirilli - Emerald Hell

Butting a log, the skiff jolted and shook, and the corpse flopped sideways away from Jester as if scrambling toward freedom. "I remember you now," said Plume Wallace's spirit. "I sat in on one of your gospel sings when I was no more than twelve, thirteen. You had a voice come straight from on high. You done good for folks, healed my mama's bunions, cured Daddy of a cyst in his eye. How'd you come to this?"

Smiling, his sorrow and madness entwined, jester said, "I loved and I trusted."

Feathered shadows tugged at Plume Wallace's soul and Jester's hand ignited with his fury. He pressed his palm on the corpse's chest, shoving out the ghost but binding it to him. A thin silver strand no mortal could see connected them, and would until Jester decided to sever it and let Plume leave this world.

"Go on ahead and seek out my enemy. Find my daughter if you can, and return to me again with whatever you glean."

"I ain't got no choice, so I'll be back, and hope when I do I find you burnin' from your own malicious deeds."

"I already am," Jester said.

Lament scanned the trees. "I don't see nothin'."

"I'm telling you, she was there," Hellboy said. "She waved to me."

"I ain't doubtin' you, son. If you say it's so, then I believe it."

"You don't sound like you believe it."

"Now don't you go gettin' all defensive on me."

"Christ, I'm not getting defensive!"

Tupelo, laurel, and titi shook in the breeze, and the swamp went silent except for distant murmurs that sounded like a man whispering sweet-talk to a loved one. Granny Lewt's ears didn't tell him it was any kind of a bird or rodent or reptile that only sounded like a man, so maybe it was Megan Dodd's husband Jorry or somebody else lost out there. He swung the skiff in that direction and came up against a thicket with dead hollowed-out trees jutting everywhere.

Lament froze and sucked air through his teeth.

"What is it?" Hellboy asked.

"Thought I felt somethin' for a second. Hold on."

Cocking an ear, Lament seemed to be listening intently to the wind, his curly hair wafting about his face. Hellboy saw that beneath the white streak was a large, old scar twisting across Lament's scalp. He thought about what that wound must've looked like on an eight-year-old boy and was shocked that Lament had managed to live through Jester's attack with a hatchet.

As if speaking quietly to someone nowhere in sight, Lament said into the breeze, "Plume Wallace, that you? This your silver thread?"

Then he made as if he heard some unheard voice. He frowned, nodded and grunted assent. "Uh yuh, yuh." Rubbed his beard stubble and listened a bit more."I'm sorry to hear that, you was a pretty good ole boy, way I remember it. You done all that you could, don't fret none about that. You got my prayers to help ease your burden. No man should die crawlin' in the mud. And they stole your shotgun too? Sonsabitches."

Hellboy said, "Hey, I'm right here, why don't you tell me what's going on?"

Lament held a hand up and gestured for him to wait. After another minute the hillbilly's face reddened and he tightened his fists. "Goddamn them Ferris brothers. They such handsome boys they got near everybody beguiled. I shoulda killed them when I had the chance. You tell Mrs. Hoopkins she gonna rest easy, I'll see to her girls. Bliss Nail owes us all a little somethin' for settin' us on this damn course, he got the money to keep her home and peanut farm runnin'. Maybe he can get his own six daughters out helpin' folks, leadin' their lives again. I'll make sure he finds the good Samaritan in himself and becomes a fine and charitable person, you got my word."

He faced Hellboy and said, "Jester's onto us. Got hisself a couple of bad ole boys, too, name'a the Ferris brothers. Killers born and bred, though they're golden-haired and beautiful to gaze on. They cut down Mrs. Hoopkins a short time after you left last night."

"Damn it."

"And this morning they stole the skiff from a fella name'a Plume Wallace. Worse than that, Jester's put his soul in service to learn what he can about us. He ain't seen Sarah or the girl you spotted in the trees a'drape in flowers, but the dead are sensitive and he knows we comin' up to a bad area of the blackwater."

"Seems that's all we've been doing. Is there a good area in this swamp? I don't like being chased. I'm the one who does the chasing."

But Lament turned away to dialogue with the ghost again. Hellboy checked the cypress and the sycamore and pine trees once more. A naked girl with flowers wreathed around her body wouldn't have been nearly as unsettling if she hadn't been forty feet in the air and had eyes black and empty as a shark's.

"Let me see if there's anything I can do," Lament said to the dead.

With the poise and fluidity of performing a well-practiced ritual, Lament moved his hands into the proper positioning for casting a spell. Interlaced, with the tips of index fingers together in a this-is-the-steeple fashion, his thumbs pointed over his heart. Hellboy could feel the straining effort of Lament's will in his perfectly conducted actions.

Bursts of blue and black sparks crackled in his hands. The hillbilly drew hexagons in the air, followed by a seal of Solomon, pentacles, representations of the Sephiroth and Sephirah angels, and Kabbalistic symbols.

Hellboy recognized the Rite of Release, which set free bewildered souls that still thought they were alive. But he'd studied for decades reading ancient grimoires and tomes in the finest paranormal libraries of the world. Where could an Appalachian-wandering, mouth-harp-plucking, former-child evangelist, backwoods drifter learn all this?

Visibly weakened and shaken, Lament wavered and sat heavily in the skiff. "I'm sorry, Plume Wallace. His whipcord is too tight upon your soul. He's a long row of bad, but liar ain't among his evils. Iffun he said he'd let you go, he will. I promise to tend your grave least once a year, no man deserves less than that."

The breeze rose and shook leaves down on them, and then it fell away and the swamp was silent and still again. For an instant Hellboy thought he saw a reflection of silver in Lament's eyes like a trail of mercury floating by, and then it was gone.

He didn't mind following his instincts and going along blindly with a situation when there was no other way to approach it. But he didn't like being in the dark when someone else knew a hell of a lot more about things than he did.

"I've had it with you," he said."Who taught you that Rite of Release and those other magic practices? Where did you learn them?"

"I ain't never learned no such thing," Lament told him. He pulled the small jug of moonshine from his rucksack and took a sip, screwing his face up at the taste. "They learned me."

"That doesn't make any sense."

"Mayhap not, but it's still the truth."

Hellboy took up the pole and pointed it at Lament's chest. "I want some answers from you, pal."

"If I had 'em to share, then share 'em I would."

"That sounds pretty, but I'm not buying it. I've seen a lot of strange things in my time, but you're starting to make me really antsy."

"Well, boy, I done told you that none of this is your burden, and iffun you wanted out, I'd point you the way any time you like." Lament replaced the jug and took hold of the stobpole with one hand, pointed into the jungle with the other. "That's how you leave, 'cept you'll have to swim and crawl and walk to get out, 'cause I still have need of this boat. But you'll make it, I'm sure of that. You ready to be on your way?"

"I'll see this thing through to the end," Hellboy said.

"Well, you follow your heart as you see fit, son."