Emerald Hell

Chapter 7

The dark lake glistened with star shine, the rim of the water a searing white as if slabs of light had been laid end to end around its edge.

It took him over an hour to reach the camp, and by the time he got there he was exhausted, half-drowned, completely covered in mud and rotting vegetation, and he was sick to his stomach from swallowing so much swamp water. Or maybe it was the old lady's Celiac Ganglia with the Sympathetic Plexuses of the Abdominal Viscera, but he really didn't want to think about that.

A skiff had been beached in white sand, and nearby a young man sat playing a mouth-harp. The guy had a campfire going with something freshly killed cooking on a spit. Thankfully the old lady hadn't given Hellboy her nose too. He didn't want to know what it was he was watching sizzle in the flames.

He figured this had to be John Lament. A deep calm seemed to settle around and within the guy. He was maybe twenty-five, but with a shock of white right up front in his otherwise wavy brown hair. Dressed in jeans, suspenders, and a light white linen shirt rolled up to the middle of his muscular forearms.

Lament quit his twanging, looked up, and said, "Well son, you look like you've had a hell of a time of it out in these black waters." He drew a blanket from a rucksack. "Dry off and come sit by the fire 'fore you catch your death."

Hellboy nodded his thanks, yanked off his belt and ragged coat, and dried himself, doing his best to clean off the mud. His ankle was chewed up pretty bad and he had deep lacerations across his thigh. He tore off a couple of lengthy strips from his coat and bound his wounds, then put his belt back on.

Lament offered a small jug. "You want a tap of moon to kill the pain?"

Might as well make sure he was dealing with the right person. "You're Lament?"

"Yessir. John Lament. Pleased to make your acquaintance."

Lament made as if to shake hands. Hellboy held out his right fist. Lament's face broke into a wide grin. Hellboy put his hand down.

As good a time as any to get the ball rolling. Hellboy opened a compartment on his belt and tossed the Dome of the Rock charm, expecting some real action this time. Lament caught it in his left hand, turned the medallion over, and checked the ancient inscription.

His lips quivered as if he was fighting to frame unfamiliar words. Then he said, '"I invoke the protection of the Green One,Tamuz, Aradia, and Anu-Sais. I command evil and death to disperse and the moon to appear in my hand.'"

That got Hellboy's notice. He scratched between the stubs of his horns. "You read Sumerian?"

"No," Lament told him, "but it speaks to me. You go 'round throwin' this thing at every stranger you run across?"

"Lately," Hellboy admitted, "it seems that I have."

"Not very civilized."

Lament threw the charm back and Hellboy pocketed it once again. The old lady had been right. The swamps were like nowhere else he'd ever visited.

"Listen," Hellboy said as Lament twanged another tune. "I've had a kind of bad day so far. So if you want to rumble let's do it now and get it out of the way."

Lament quit picking at his mouth-harp and looked up. "Rumble?"

"Fight."

"Why we gonna do a foolish thing like that?"

"I didn't say we should, I just said if you wanted to I'd oblige you."

"Right neighborly that is." Sitting up, Lament checked the meat on the spit. "You hungry?"

Hellboy said, "Considering I just drank half the damn swamp, and before that I got a spoonful of a granny witch's stew jammed down my throat, and before that a big catfish stared at me like he'd scream if I stuck a fork in him, I don't think I'll ever be hungry again."

That got Lament chuckling. It was an easy, honest laughter. He lifted his chin and squinted at Hellboy. "Yep, now I recognize them eyes. You been suppin' with Granny Lewt tonight. She's a right fine lady but her manners could use some polish. She did what she done to help you, so be at ease about the rest of it." He tapped the meat on the spit with a stick and said, "No worries 'bout this food right here."

"What is it?"

"Gray squirrel."

Hellboy turned aside in disgust. "I think I'll pass anyway."

"Iffun you say."

Lament ate the meat directly off the spit, tearing at it with his teeth and occasionally drinking from his jug. He kind of hummed and sang as he ate, fully enjoying his meal. Hellboy watched, a little dismayed. He'd been edgy and waiting for a fight, and the ruckus with the gators hadn't gotten the tension out of his system yet. The smell of his own drying blood made him anxious, and his tail kept twitching at mosquitoes.

Stepping up, he loomed over Lament and decided to brace him. "What are you doing out here?"

Swallowing a bite of food, Lament said, "Same thing as you, I reckon."

"You have no idea what I'm about."

"That ain't rightly true, son."

"How about if you lay it on the line? You people talk pretty but you take up a lot of air before you actually get around to saying anything much. I'm in a hurry."

"Are you?"

Thinking about the time he'd killed on his way down south, hitching and brooding, alone with his thoughts and his bad mood, Hellboy realized he hadn't been in a rush to do much of anything. It had been okay to put all the miles behind him, wet in the rain. But now it was different. There were teenage girls lost out there, and he wanted to make certain they were safe before he called it a day.

"Yeah," he said. "I am. So how about you answer my question. What are you doing out here?"

"I did answer. You just ain't in the mind to hear."

Lament finished the meat on the spit and threw the remainder into the fire. He lifted his mouth-harp to his lips and played a bit more, somehow making the song sound pretty. Hellboy wouldn't have thought it possible, strumming a rubber band and making music.

When Lament finished he sighed hard enough to fan the fire. "I'm here to save my Sarah from harm, and them other girls swole with children too. Same as you, ain't that the case? 'Cept none of this is your burden."

"You need help, so I'm here."

"Well, if you're of a like mind and want in with my task and purpose, I could use a friend. You want out, I can point you the way any time you like, Fair 'nuff?"

Hellboy decided it was. "Fair enough." He sat at the fire and looked around, then spotted a rucksack. "I don't suppose you have a candy bar or a bag of pretzels you could share, now do you?"

"Caught some catfish earlier, if you want a taste."

Hellboy grimaced. "Christ, not with the catfish again."

Bull gators roared in the distance, the loons cried into the night. Reflections from a dozen peering eyes made Hellboy turn and turn again. The tension rose within him once more and the muscles in his back tightened. "Shouldn't we keep going, make sure Sarah and the others are all right out there?"

Lament said, "There ain't a critter anywhere in this swamp that can get the drop on her. She been out in these marsh prairies since she was baptized. In fact, it happened right here, on this basin. The holy spirit visitin' her."

"How do you know?"

"How do you think, son? Because I was there." He then pointed to a patch of flattened weeds and a few strewn rocks nearby. "They made camp here a day or so ago."

"For someone who claims he wants to save those girls, you don't seem too worried about them."

"I am," Lament said. "But it's a loser's game to stumble about in the dark on the blackwater."

Hellboy thought, Did he just call me a loser? "Hey, pal-"

"You already shovin' your luck just by not already bein' gator bait. You travel any farther at night and ain't nobody ever gonna see your princely face again. Like I said, Sarah knows these waters better than damn near anybody in Enigma. The man who raised her wrassled gators out in these parts, and used to head up the swamp tent revivals and the all-night gospel sings."

"You're from here."

"I been adrift all over."

"But you know Enigma."

"I know Enigma."

"There's someone else after her. Sarah and the girls."

"Ayup."

"You know him?"

"I know him."

"What if that guy doesn't camp tonight?"

"Then he'll probably be knockin' on the pearly gates by mornin' and we won't have to worry about it Vail. Sometimes, problems have a way of rightin' themselves." He gestured vaguely. "There's a swamp shanty town yonder. We'll make for it come sunup."

"You know where it is?"

"You sure are a curious fella, ain't ya. I know where it is."

"Where's yonder?"

"Well, when we find it we'll know for sure. Now, lay in on that blanket and let's get some sleep."

Hellboy laid down. He wasn't sure that he could trust this guy, and said, "I'm not sure I can trust you."

But Lament merely turned away from the fire, drew his blanket over his shoulder, and soon was softly snoring.

It had been a hell of a day all right.

As Hellboy fell asleep he saw the shadows lengthening, thickening around the campsite, easing toward him to clutch at his clothes and face. They spoke in an infantile and inhuman language that he couldn't name but could still understand. They told him he would find remorse and pain in the marsh, but he should be true to his own secret heart. He brushed the shadows from his nose as he settled in to dream, hearing the children calling him.