Tom Piccirilli - Emerald Hell

The mad preacher caught Hellboy's wrist in his own thin, frail hand, and stopped it cold. He brushed over the knuckles gently with his fingers, almost lovingly, the same way that piece of shadow had.

"Hey now," Hellboy said, "that's just not possible-" and watched as Brother Jester's own pale fist began to turn red and grow thicker and change into a great stone hand of doom.

In seconds it was no different from Hellboy's fist, which Jester drew back with a crazed leer, his teeth turning black and crackling with energy as he began to laugh, and then punched Hellboy through the nearest shack.

It hurt like hell.

Shadows rose from Brother Jester and slid forward, racing around Hellboy, veiling him, and entering him.

This was a different kind of darkness. It was his nightmare come alive. He felt his own history being drawn up from him and dispersed. His memories, his hurts, his knowledge, anger, the lessons learned, his love, even the confusion. And everything else that made him what he was.

He struggled to grab the forbidding wraiths, feeling them beat and flap against his chest like wings. But they were insubstantial, ethereal, and he couldn't grab bold despite what they bled from him.

Luckily the shanty was empty. He was on his back in a child's bed. The frame, made from cut logs and lashed together with twine, had been crushed to kindling beneath his weight. A smiling rag doll with pearl-button eyes had flopped off a shelf into his face. On the floor lay a smashed chalkboard slate covered with a kid's drawings. A Hellboy-sized hole had been torn through the front wall.

He reached for the shadows again and said, "Hold it, you're not taking any pieces of me away with you-"

They slid across the floor and ceiling, the grand forms of archangels turning their faces toward him, nodding, their lips moving to speak words he couldn't hear. Divinity taking a cheap shot at you for no reason you could name. Didn't everybody already have to put up with that enough?

When the shadows receded back to Jester, who stood just outside the hole in the wall, the preacher almost seemed frightened for a moment before he began to laugh. Hellboy clambered out of the kid's busted bed thinking how awful it could have been. A child dead by his own hand. He clenched his teeth and climbed out of the wreckage.

"Let's try that again," Hellboy said, rushing from the shack and swinging his fist once more at the dark preacher.

Jester caught him by the throat in one super/humanly quick movement, then yanked Hellboy off his feet until they were nose to nose. The boiling motes of energy leaking from Jester's eyes burned into Hellboy's brain. Blood leaked from his nose and mouth. Hellboy clubbed at Jester but he couldn't move the emaciated codger an inch. Not only was he in trouble, but considering Jester weighed about eighty-two pounds, this situation was damn degrading. About the best he could do was knock the hat off. It didn't make him feel any better.

"We are both similar creatures, you and I," Jester said.

Hellboy gasped, "Now you're just… being… mean."

"We were set on our courses long before our births, game pieces of God. Slaves to Heaven and Hell."

"Go take… a flying jump, pal."

"We have walked both paths, the left and the right. We're closer than you think. Almost brothers."

Fighting the pain, swallowing back screams, Hellboy tried to kick out, but he couldn't get any purchase with his hooves.

The mad preacher said, "You are full of sin and that sin gives me strength."

"Screw you, you son of a-"

The whispering shadows swarmed over Hellboy until they covered him completely, within and without, as he stood in the dim moonlight with shimmers of lightning cracking the heavens. He felt the feathered darkness prying into every crevice of his mind and soul, sweeping back through his life. Reveling in certain memories, almost soothing him during others, and finding his most unbearable moments and pitying him for them. He set his lips and blood ran down his chin and flicked among the winged shades. He could almost see eyes there, peering at him forlornly.

Hellboy tried to raise himself against them, and tore again at jester's hand on his throat. The frail white fingers dug in with even more furious strength. It would've been funny if he wasn't being throttled.

He kicked out, planted his hooves on Jester's chest, and finally managed to fling himself away. He landed hard, rolling in the mud, hacking and sucking air. He stood and turned, ready for the next attack.

Except there wasn't one.

Brother Jester's arms were thrown open, his head forced back. His mouth grew wide and flaming motes of arcane power drifted from his lips and nostrils. Something nasty was happening but Jester appeared happy about it. He climbed into the air, inch by inch.

Hellboy watched and shook his head and sighed. He had no idea what was happening but it couldn't be good. Jester laughed although he was clearly in agony, one of those penitents who can do incredible feats because their faith carried them through.

Ma'am McCulver said Jester had performed miracles and brought God to the swamp. So what did this guy believe in now?

"You want to tell me why you're so interested in this one pregnant girl?" Hellboy shouted at the levitating form. "Just because Bliss Nail and your wife played hanky panky once upon a time? You really think that's worth all this grief you've been causing for twenty years? You know she's not your daughter. You know we can't let you take her baby. You're acting like an idiot." jester came down fast, still laughing, but his eyes were pin-wheeling. Good, it meant the guy had his weak spot.

"You've no right to judge me, demon. Your secret heart is so much worse than mine."

"Thought you were going to show it to me,"

"I have."

"So far I just see a trickster playing games."

"You're blind to yourself. Which is how you wish it to be. But I'll give you the boon of sight."

For some reason Hellboy didn't like the sound of that. The shadows reared and swarmed forward again, like a crowd of helpful people moving to lend a hand, who only wind up suffocating the person they're trying to help. He could feel them now, within him again, and he realized they weren't evil and weren't truly a part of Jester.

Hellboy sensed they were as immature, unknowing, naive, adventuresome, and curious as the swamp kids.

He realized then that the crying children he'd been hearing for two days were these angels. Perhaps the lost offspring of God. Or perhaps the lost scion of mankind.

He looked at the preacher and said, "Okay, playtime's over, pal."

"This has never been a game or joy. It's duty and blessing."

Jester stood over him now, his forehead bulging with nubby horns. They grew larger and curved and jutted higher. The old man's face grew broad and flat. His rail-thin body thickened and turned red until Hellboy faced another version himself, damn near exactly the same except for the eyes.

"I know your true nature."

"You don't know squat about me, pal."

He reached out and grabbed Jester's horns, the ones that had grown merely to taunt him, he figured. As he'd done with his own, be snapped them off and held them like curved blades, feeling the damnation and power they represented. He hated to admit it but this was a good feeling, a familiar one. He thrust them through Jester's heart.

"Suck on that,buddy!"he shouted.

But nothing happened.

"We are destroyers," the dark preacher said, "and we are the destroyed."

The stone fist swung out again.

And all Hellboy had time to say was, "Oh crap."

Then he couldn't say or think of anything because his mind and body were composed of nothing but agony. He hurtled high into the cypresses, and the land where jester had brought God sailed away far beneath him.