Tom Piccirilli: Emerald Hell

"I did no such thing. His children suffer for his sins, not mine!"

"Who suffers for yours then?"

That seemed to stop Brother Jester for a moment, his eyes puzzled but fierce, as though he'd never stopped to ponder the question before. "I only want my daughter and grandchild."

"She's not your daughter" Hellboy said, gearing up and angling to move on the Ferris boys. He could probably handle a shotgun blast, but he had to protect the girl and the baby. He'd have to be fast.

"Of course she is. She was born from my wife. What else could she be. but my daughter?"

"Her father is Bliss Nail."

"He did nothing but spend a night of lies with a woman not his. His house was too crowded with their voices, that's why he left." As Jester spoke, he rubbed his hands together as if he wanted to clasp his palms in prayer. "And when he returned, their laughter and voices were gone. He called the Word down on himself."

Hellboy said, "I've seen some guys in deep denial, but you, pal, you take the whole freakin' cake."

"I have had wrong done to me!"

"Everyone has. What makes you so special?"

"I am a vessel for the Lord. My enemies called down the whirlwind upon themselves… my wife and Bliss Nail. He suffers through his daughters the way I suffer through mine."

"You don't have a daughter," Lament said.

"Mock me no more! I only wish to hold my grandchild!"

The Ferris boys tightened their ring around Sarah, their knives very close to her throat now. As Jester moved, Lament dogged his step, closing the space between them.

"You do this!" Jester screamed. "You blind her to the truth. You're jealous and hoard your child!"

"Me?" Lament said, then added casually, "but I'm not the father."

The grin never left his face but something lurking within him, an inescapable pain, began to bleed out. Hellboy's chin snapped up.

"I was raped," Sarah said, also speaking with an easygoing manner, but the seething anger was barely contained within her. Her long brown hair flowed in the wind, and the silver edging seemed molten beneath the moon. She pointed to the Ferris boys. "By them two right there. Your minions. Your servants. Your lackeys. They done raped me."

Jester's face became wreathed in black sparks. "What?"

Duffy scratched his head. "What's that you say?When'd we do that?"

Deeter said, "I'm havin' trouble recallin' that myself."

Gliding forward, Sarah balled her fist and cracked Duffy in the face. Blood burst and flew from his nostrils.

"Goddamn!You broke my nose, girl!"

"You two morons were drunk on moon. You caught me out at the cemetery, where I was putting flowers on the graves of my parents. You chased me near a mile through the woods."

"We must've had more than a couple'a jugs iffun we didn't take you out to a woolly patch afterward," Deeter said, scratching his chin. "We hardly ever let a gal go."

"Told the sheriff, I did. He dragged them in the next day, hung over, with no memory. They weren't even lyin' when they said they didn't do it, 'cause they couldn't truly recall. And what evidence did I have? A gutter girl with no family, with no man in town, no husband."

"My daughter?" Jester said, trembling, throwing flames. "You two… savaged my daughter?"

Sarah stood her ground, shaking her head. "I'm not your daughter."

"Yeah," Deeter said, "She ain't even your kin. Why you makin' such a fuss, preacher? As for savagin', well, we couldn't have done much since we don't remember."

"I suspect it weren't no fun at'all," Duffy mused, "otherwise we'd recollect."

Sorrowfully, Jester said, "You beautiful brothers know nothing of grace."

"Grace Sagamore of the Sag clan?" Deeter asked."I known her since she was just a little bitty chile."

The acrid stink of burning ozone wafted among them, and heat flashes of ball lightning lit the area. Lament drew Sarah to him, covering the baby. Hellboy had been hit by lightning three times in his life and he really didn't want to go through it again. Jester's hands burned once more and his mouth fell open so that the black fire dropped from his tongue. He smiled at Deeter.

Deeter shrieked, "Reverend, no!" He held onto his Bowie knife unsure of what to do with it, who to threaten, who to stab.

"I am not a preacher!"Jester screamed with his mangled voice. "Defame me no longer!"

Now they were into it.

Knowing what was coming next, Hellboy reached out and tried to get a hand on Jester, but it was already too late. The living lightning inside of Jester framed his body for an instant before it began to leap from him. Duffy screamed and turned tail. Deeter tried to follow but just wasn't as quick. He only got four steps away before the rage erupted from the dark preacher in a brilliant flash of consuming darkness that swept out and blasted the Ferris boy like a thousand frenzied snakes of fire.

The shotgun in Deeter's hand, pointed down, blew his toe off, the same way he'd blown off his father's toe the day he and his brother had murdered the man. It was his final thought before his brain boiled inside his skull and fell out of his ears.

The blazing, biting power snapped at Hellboy and skittered along his flesh. With his right hand he tried to push Lament and Sarah out of the way, but Lament was gone and Sarah and the kid were already huddled in the recess of a nearby shanty doorway.

"You're wrong to hate so much," Hellboy said.

Jester spread his arms wide in a welcoming embrace. "Broker."

"I'm not your brother."

"You're my brother in pain and loneliness, in confusion over intent and purpose. You're broken and cleaved."

"Somebody's got to do it."

"You and I are the same."

"Get stuffed!"

" You cannot hurt me, brother !"

"I'm not your brother," Hellboy told him. He raised his great stone fist that had shattered mountains and abolished behemoths. And, knowing it would do no good if he tried to crush, smash, slug, or bash the rail-thin dead man with it now, he opened his fist and laid his hand against Jester's chest, and felt the childish angels and human weakness within. "And I don't want to hurt you."

After sprinting a couple hundred yards after Duffy Ferris, with his wounds seeping and broken ribs grating together, Lament dove and tackled him in some laurels. They rolled through a patch of wet scrub oak and came up together knee-deep in mire, facing one another in the night that had brightened with star shine.

Duffy held out a cutting blade and said,"I'm'a gonna skin you like a gator."

"You're gonna take the beatin' of your life, is what you're about to do."

"I reckon I'll bleed you some first, boy."

"You'll bleed, all right."

Duffy Ferris had wrestled gators, killed them, and stripped their heavy skins away. His muscles bulged and he was fast as a striking cottonmouth. He stabbed forward with the knife fully expecting to feel it sliding through flesh.

But there was only empty space. He didn't anticipate Lament being so quick on his feet. Duffy tried again, slashing now and hoping to open up Lament's belly, watch him seep and try to hold his goods in with his hands.

But again, Lament moved too swiftly for him, and Duffy overextended himself and lost his footing.

He slid in the muck and felt a subtle pressure on his wrist just before hearing a loud snap like a rotted branch breaking. He turned, watched a bright piece of metal fly by, and only hazily noted that it was Mrs. Hoopkins's knife. It landed with a splash in the swamp water while he wondered how the hell he'd dropped it.

Lament stood before him, arms crossed against his chest. Duffy went to throw a fist but an oddly shaped child's arm moved before his eyes. A regular limb bent about halfway in the middle, with the fingers gnarled and wriggling about a bit.