Hellboy: Odd Jobs (29 page)

blaze

and around the windows on the outer wall. Clan MacCrimmon came to life on those walls, in the deep hues and swirls of each portrait, but none of them was more vibrantly powerful than the one at the center of the outer wall. It hung between two enormous, drafty, rattling windows, and seemed, almost, a window itself. A window onto another time, and another shade of humanity. For the figure in the portrait was a warrior, that much was clear.

"Clan MacCrimmon?" Hellboy asked, glancing at the other portraits on the wall.

The old man seemed reluctant even to look at the portraits, but he nodded his assent as he handed Hellboy a cigar. With wooden matches, they lit the sweet-smelling things and began to smoke. After a short while in which nothing was spoken between them, the old man looked up at the portrait of the warrior that hung between the windows.

"That'd be William MacCrimmon. A warrior, he was, and fierce enough to survive that calling. Old William lost his closest friend in battle in 1453, and promised to care for the other warrior's daughter, Margaret."

Hellboy took a long puff on the cigar, then let the smoke out in a huff as he studied the old man.

MacCrimmon was warming to the story of his ancestor, clinging to it as though it were a life preserver. It might only have been a way to pass the time, but Hellboy wondered if, in some way, it was the old man's way to keep his fears at bay, just for a while.

"Though already quite old for his time, William fell in love with Margaret, and married her. It was a sensible thing, perhaps the best way to care for the girl. Trouble was, Margaret was a Christian. William had to make some changes. He wasn't from the mainland, ye see. But from the isle of Malleen. Margaret wouldn't hear of living on the island, for there were stories, even then, of the things which thrived on Malleen."

Hellboy raised an eyebrow and scratched the stubble on his chin. "Things?"

For the first time since he began the story, MacCrimmon looked at him. The old man grinned madly.

"Why, the fuathan, o' course. Ye've never heard of them?"

Hellboy didn't respond. Considering the job, he didn't study nearly as much as he should have. The old man didn't seem to notice, his attention drawn back to the portrait of his warrior ancestor.

"Old William had known the people, the fuathan, since he was a bairn, ye ken. Shaggy little beasts that might be men if not for the way nature twisted their bodies. The legends say they hated men, but not so, not so.

They were the servants and allies of the islanders, and held malice only for those from the mainland.

"Still, when William married Margaret, and chose to remain here in the north country, rather than return to the island, the fuathan had no choice. They came along. It were they who built the original keep, and that pile out in the river bed. It were they who made the river run, so the legend goes, for the fuathan were ever in control of the water.

"What it was built to house, the legends dinna say, but the story has it that they raised it in a day, and the keep itself in a week, all the while, making certain Margaret MacCrimmon would never see them. There's a circle of stones in the wood over the hill that were used for worship. The fuathan lived there, in the wood around the circle, and the clan grew with both the new religion and the old faith."

Hellboy shivered. He'd heard similar stories dozens of times, about the encroachment of Christianity into pagan territories, one family at a time. But in this case, with the results crumbling and gloomy around him, it seemed far more tangible. Honestly, it gave him the creeps. The clash of old and new faiths could not have been a healthy one. He had to wonder what it had done to the offspring of that union, down across the centuries.

The old man seemed to have run out of steam, though he still stared at the portrait of the warrior. And there was something odd about that portrait, something that held the eye. Hellboy tore his gaze away, took a puff of his cigar, and turned his attention on the old man again.

"So you live here alone, now? I mean, except for the servants who ran off?"

"Last of the clan," MacCrimmon agreed, apparently forgetting that he'd told Hellboy that already. "Alone here since my brother died."

With the fat cigar clenched in his teeth, the old man moved to the stone fireplace, the blazing light flickering over his features. There were faded photographs in silver frames on the mantel, and MacCrimmon pulled one of them down and handed it to Hellboy. In the corner, a dusty grandfather clock ticked the seconds by, its pendulum glinting with the light of the fire as it swung back and forth.

In the photograph, two young men flanked a beautiful girl, whose raven hair and fine-china features reminded Hellboy of a woman he had once known. He pushed the thought away. The two men were obviously MacCrimmon and his brother. Though Andrew had grown old now, though his face was wrinkled and bearded, the eyes staring out of that photograph were the same.

Wild, even then. And Hellboy had to wonder if the man had ever been sane.

He handed the photograph back to the old man. "Who's the girl?"

MacCrimmon set his cigar on the stone mantel, and stared at the photo, a dreamy look relaxing his features for the first time since Hellboy had arrived.

"That'd be Sarah Kirkwall. She was here all that long summer. This photo was taken the day before me brother Robert announced that they were to be engaged." The old man frowned, and rubbed distractedly at his forehead. When he spoke again, his voice was lost and far away. "They lived here, with me, until Robert

... died. I told Sarah she could stay, that I'd care for her, just as Old William MacCrimmon had taken care of Margaret five hundred years ago. That she could ... marry me."

The anguish in the old man's voice was horrible to hear, and Hellboy felt the sadness in that old stone dwelling creeping into his bones.

"So you married?"

The old man shook his head, still stating at the photo. "It were Robert she loved. When he died, she ... went away. I never did marry. Sarah was the girl for me. There never were anyone else."

MacCrimmon looked even older now, shrunken, staring down at the photograph as though trapped, now, in that other time, back when. Hellboy thought again of the portrait of the warrior on the wall, how it looked almost like a window on another time, and seemed to draw you in. The photograph in the silver frame had the same effect on the old man.

Hellboy scratched the back of his neck, where what hair he had was tied back in a knot. "How did Robert die?" he asked.

The frame tumbled from the old man's hands and shattered on the stone in front of the fireplace. Hellboy prepared to catch MacCrimmon, thinking he must be about to collapse, but the old man just stared at his hands, the spot where the frame had been. Slowly, he reached out and took his cigar from the mantel, and pulled a long puff on it.

"Ten years ago, this very night," MacCrimmon said.

He seemed almost calm, and then a shudder ran through him and he turned and looked at the grandfather clock. When he spoke again, his voice cracked with a panic he could no longer hide.

"Ten years ago tonight," he repeated. "He died at three minutes past nine."

Hellboy glanced at the clock. It was only a few minutes before nine then, half a dozen minutes to go before the dreadful anniversary.

With that edge of panic still in his voice, the old man continued. "He was three days sick, dying, before he went at last. Just as the river was three days, drying up. Now it's almost time. The last trickle will run through the dry bed out there, and he'll come for me."

Minutes ticked by, and Hellboy just watched the old man in silence. The cigar burned in MacCrimmon's hand, but he made no effort to smoke it. Then, suddenly, the old man glanced at the burning weed in his hand, and he narrowed his gaze, as if seeing it for the first time. With a tremor of disgust, he threw the cigar into the fire, which by now had begun to burn low. The flames flared up inexplicably, tendrils of fire lashing out at the stone masonry, then dying down again.

The grandfather clock chimed nine.

Andrew MacCrimmon dropped to his knees before Hellboy, tears beginning to slip down his craggy features.

"Save me!" he pleaded.

Hellboy only looked at him dubiously.

The clock continued to chime.

As if he'd been startled by some sudden noise, the old man turned his head and glanced about, eyes more wild than ever, hands on his head as though he might hide himself away.

"Did ye not hear that? It's the doom of the MacCrimmons!"

"It's just the clock," Hellboy told him.

The old man rushed to one of the wind-rattled windows and threw it open. He leaned out, but Hellboy knew that from that angle, there was no way MacCrimmon could see what he was looking for the river bed, of

course, and that little stone building the man had insisted was built by horrid little fairy creatures.

"Not the clock! Don't you see? It's him. It's
it.
The stream's gone dry, and it's coming out. Battering down that door. It's coming up the lawn now, coming for me!"

The old man turned from the window and fell again at Hellboy's feet.

He clutched the bottom of Hellboy's duster and buried his face in it, whimpering, muttering.

Hellboy frowned. "Did you bury your brother in that little building out there?"

"You saw that place," the old man stammered. "There's no way to open it from the outside, but ... from the inside ... no. Robert's cremated and his ashes are in a niche at St. Brendan's, where they ought to be. But ... "

MacCrimmon gripped his jacket even more tightly, his voice barely a whisper. "There, you
must
hear it. It's coming for me. His ghost has set it free. There! It's broken down the door. Can't you hear it on the stairs?"

Hellboy heard nothing. He looked down at the old man and felt a little sorry for him, though he had a strong suspicion what had driven him so completely mad.

"You killed him."

The old man wailed. "Robert has loosed the doom of the MacCrimmons on me for murderin' him. I fed him poison and sat by those three days while it killed him. I did it for her, I did it for the girl, and it wasn't ever me that she wanted ... "

His voice trailed off after that. He fell quiet, listening. Then the old man jerked, suddenly, as if he'd been pinched.

"It's there now!" he screamed, voice raspy and hoarse. "In the hall, just outside the door. Please, help me.

Take me with you. Kill me! Anything. Just don't let that thing take me!"

Despite the old man's mad cries, however, the room was silent save for his blubbering and the ticking of the clock. On the face of that antique timekeeper, the long hand had moved inexorably along so that it was now four or five minutes after nine o'clock. The anniversary of Robert MacCrimmon's death had come and gone.

"Don't have a heart attack or anything," Hellboy said. "Look, I'll show you."

He reached for the doorknob, shaking his head ruefully. But just as his fingers touched it, the door came crashing down at him, tearing off its hinges and slamming Hellboy to the floor.

"Jeez!" he shouted in surprise.

As he tried to get out from under the heavy door, a sudden and tremendous weight was put on it from above, pinning him there. Hellboy grunted in pain, struggled to move, and could not. There was a horrid stench, like nothing he had ever smelled before, death and rot and fecal matter, blood and sweat and urine, matted horse hair and putrefying fish, and something else, something worse than all of those disgusting odors combined.

Then, without warning, the weight was removed. Something stepped off the door and into the room. Hellboy summoned his strength and his anger, and tossed the shattered door off him. He glanced around, and then he saw it, one of the most horrifying monstrosities he had ever laid eyes on. It was like a huge, equine creature that might have been a horse if it had any skin. Instead, there was only naked, purple muscle, and white tendons, and swollen, black veins. Growing out of its back was a human torso, also stripped of skin, with a head that swung about wildly as if there were no bones in its neck. Its huge mouths, both human and horse, gaped open and that stink poured out, almost visible, like breath in winter.

Its long arms snaked out and grabbed hold of old man MacCrimmon, and hauled him up onto the back of its horse segment. Hellboy started to roar, started to lunge for it, but a hoof lashed out and cracked against his skull, and he went down hard on the floor of the library, not far from the blazing fire.

By the time he shook off the blow, the creature was gone, the old man's screams echoing through the house and down the hillside. Hellboy rose, ready to give chase, but the fire flared again, and he turned to see that it was blue now. Tendrils of blue flame shot out of the blaze and seemed to touch each of the portraits in turn, ending with that of William MacCrimmon, founder of the clan.

Blue fire seemed to seep into the portrait, becoming paint, becoming one with the history in that window on that past. It truly was a window now, and through it, Hellboy could see the old warrior moving, turning to glare into the library with a stern countenance, cold and cruel in judgment. Tendrils of blue flame jumped from portrait to portrait, and the painted images of the warrior's descendants were somehow erased from their own frames, to appear behind the original, the founder. That portrait seemed to grow, with all of them standing therein, arms crossed before them, glaring down like inquisitors.

Then the portrait burst into flame, and Hellboy heard an enormous crack. The keep, the part of the MacCrimmon homestead that had been built so long ago by the fuathan, began to fall, to collapse down into the remainder of the house. The shelves and books in the library were set aflame, but the flame was nearly snuffed out as the walls collapsed, tumbling toward Hellboy.

He ran for one of the huge windows, not daring to look at the burning, living painting, at the ghosts of the clan MacCrimmon, for fear he might be sucked into that collective past. Hellboy crashed out through the window and fell twenty feet to the hillside below. The walls were crumbling in on themselves, but several stones came falling after him, and he rushed to avoid being crushed or buried.