Jigsaw

Stephen R. Bissette

Oh, she loved to touch him, especially when he was asleep in the early morning. Guy had labored through the night shift at one job or another as long as she had known him. He came home as the night faded, quietly shedding his clothes to slide into bed, stirring Francine as he fell into sleep. This was his ritual, their ritual, and it had been so for the five years they had been living together. She was his touchstone, his vacation, his salvation, and they shared their fleeting waking hours and Sundays with no one.

That was just as she liked it. Though she tolerated his complaints whenever necessary, it gave their time together an urgency she reveled in. They had struck a unique rhythm together, apart from everyone and anyone around them, and his work schedule was instrumental in keeping the world at bay.

And when Guy slept, it was bliss.

Her bliss.

Hers alone, with him.

His scent always carried his current employment home, like a bee carrying pollen to the hive. Of late, Francine and Guy shared the musk of the hospice where they had met, stealing away from the dusk-to-dawn caverns of the ward. The hospice was their shared workplace, an easy walk from their appartement. Its patients were their surrogate children to care for and commiserate over, its odors theirs to cling to. The scents of their world and their bodies mingled amid the bedclothes like a shared kiss after coffee, tongues heavy with the earthy aftertaste of the waking hours.

This morning, the familiar tang of his own sweat was tinged with an unfamiliar melange of dust, detergents, and dampness she was becoming accustomed to, the clinging remnants of his janitorial duties at the Faculté de Médecine. It was a commute on the Metro, a weekend addition to his duties at the hospice, but they needed the money, and Guy had welcomed the additional income.

Though he bemoaned their lack of waking time together because of his work schedule, she secretly savored the dawn hour. As he lay still as a sleeping infant, it was her hour with him, alone, and no one ever disturbed it. It was her anchor and her pleasure, and it reminded her of the morning she'd first fallen for him.

Sunday mornings let her drink him in at her own pace: softly, slowly, without feeling like a thief stealing glances. She savored the glow that filtered into the bedroom, gradually illuminated his close-cropped bristle of blond hair, the smooth curve of his brow and sculpted slopes of his child-like nose, the softness of his eyelashes, his thin lips, the gentle pulsing of his throat, the rise and fall of his hairless chest. He still looked like a teenage boy.

The touch of dawn's rays invited her fingers to follow their lead.

"Chéri ... "

At times, he would sleep soundly despite her whispers and gentle caress; at times, she would rouse him, and the morning would be theirs. That was wonderful, too — but when sleep veiled her touch, the hands of the clock ceased to move, he remained oblivious to Sunday church bells and the stirring of the Boulevard Richard'lenoir outside, and he was hers.

Hers, as ever, it seemed.

And as ever, she wondered what he was dreaming.

He could barely see the outline of the tall man who plucked his face to pieces. Blood filled his eyes, and try as he might to blink and clear them, it did no good. Without eyelids, the urge to blink only pained him. Part of him didn't care to see, really. He could feel the heat of the blood, taste it in his mouth. How could he help it, now that his lips were gone?

Despite the chanting and the crying of the infants, he could hear the music of the cutting tools and the insistent slushy whispers of the incisions. There was a metallic sting across his hairline, the furrow of the blade gliding into his brow and deep into his remaining cheek. The cutting seemed endless, though he knew there had to be an end to it soon. How much more could they remove before his skull was picked clean?

Then he heard the cold clang of a saw, and felt its blade rest against his jaw.

The chanting faded as if on cue, followed by the inviting gurgle of running water. Its cold bite spilled over and into his wounds, across his flayed rictus grin and between his remaining teeth. He instinctively gulped at it, embraced it with the stump of his tongue, straining his neck to move toward its source until the stream of water lifted and poured into his lidless eyes, washing his vision clear for a moment.

The tall, gowned man still stood over him, bonesaw in hand, now held ceremoniously aloft.

The gown was adorned with arcane symbols, their patterns confused by the spots of dark blood and bits of flesh. Among them, though, one stood out: an arc within a square, bisected by a sword.

There were other figures behind and above him, and the sound of shrieking birds and yowling children, but only the surgeon was visible, methodically disassembling him, skin from muscle, tendon from bone, molar by molar.

The surgeon leaned in close, and muttered in a low, almost inaudible Teutonic voice:

"I will tell you of your father ... "

He bolted awake, slamming the stumps of his horns against the headboard, inadvertently splintering it a second later as his outsized right fist flailed out. The stony knuckles shattered the dried wood like pasteboard. His tail lashed out from under the blankets, slamming against the night table, spilling lamp, phone, and note pad across the rug.

"The BPRD isn't going to keep covering the damage deposit," said the cold man reading in the chair across the room.

"Jeez," Hellboy whispered, clamping his left hand over his eyes.

"You all right?" the cold man inquired, glancing up from his book.

Hellboy touched his face tentatively, savoring the feel of bristle, brow, and the ridge of his pug nose. He shook his head to clear his mind, wincing at the vivid authenticity of the nightmare.

His tongue slid over his teeth — all in place — and lips, blessedly intact. He leaned forward, head still in hand, and cleared his throat.

"Yeah, Abe," he said, "I'm peachy."

Abraham's gills fluttered as they always did before speaking.

"Can it," Hellboy muttered, "They're just dreams — "

"Of your head being methodically flayed and sectioned."

As he placed his book in his lap, Abraham's amphibian gaze betrayed none of the concern that resonated in his voice.

"I'll call the Bureau for you," Abe offered. "Could you make out anything more this time?"

Hellboy sat up in the bed, dropping his hooves to the floor. He fumbled for the phone, pushing aside the torn lamp shade to retrieve the receiver. He busied himself for a moment tidying up the mess, twisting the bulb of the righted lamp and grunting with pleasure when the light flickered on. Turning his attention to the shattered headboard, he traced the center of impact with a blackened fingernail.

The silence hung between them, eased only by the wet suction of Abraham's breathing.

"I still can almost make out the symbols on his robe," Hellboy whispered. "But there's too much blood obscuring things. They're alchemical in nature, I'm sure. And — "

Abe's sticky breath: In. Out.

Hellboy reached down to pick up the hotel stationery pad. The ornate masthead of the Hotel de la Cathédrale graced the top of each sheet of paper, framed with leering gargoyles.

Hellboy paused a moment, pen poised at the thatch of hair under his lip, then drew the symbol he recalled from the gown in the dream: an arc, within a square, split by a single sword, point down. The blade was curved, disrupting the crucifixion symbol of most European inverted swords: this was not a cross. He handed it to Abe and walked to the window.

Outside, the gargoyles of the Notre Dame Cathedral met his gaze.

"There was something else. He spoke to me this time. German."

The gargoyles' eyes expressed nothing, just as Abe's lidless glare betrayed nothing.

"Big promises about ... my father."

Abe looked away, as if pondering the curtains or the bidet.

"We're about done with the Cocteau manifestation. Manning said there was something else here in Paris," Abe stated flatly, "but he said nothing about its link to you. You're picking up more and more information, the closer we get to the source."

"There's nothing psychic about it," Hellboy grumbled. "What a pain in the ass ... "

"Liz disagrees. So does Manning."

Hellboy glared at Abe. "And you?"

That fishy grin, betraying nothing. "Anything else you can recall?"

Hellboy touched his face again, unconsciously tracing the line of his jaw with his fingers.

"A bonesaw, the bastard had a bonesaw. Was going to take my jaw off this time."

"Watch some television," Abe said soothingly. "I'll call the BPRD once you've settled down. I'll scan and fax your drawing over, too."

Hellboy abandoned the window and moved to the bed. Kicking off the blankets, he leaned back into his pillow, his jaw clenched.

"Yeah, great, French TV," he muttered. "TF1, FR2, M6, Le Cinque — nothing but mindless variétés this time of night. The novelty has worn off. You know, I miss the British news programs Liz had us watching last weekend. They had an amusing attitude about the French."

"Until we wrap up loose ends on the Cocteau visitation, we're stuck here," Abe reminded him. "The locale has intensified your nightmares, too, which has given the Bureau reason to drag their feet a bit longer. Better start learning French, or find some SECAM videos."

"Ducky. Go soak in the tub, would you?"

"There's always the music videos I picked up in London," Abe grinned. "This Magnetoscope plays PAL as well as SECAM."

"Spare me," Hellboy muttered. Reaching for the remote, he punched the play button and resumed watching the SECAM conversions Liz had sent along of the medical channel from the satellite at home. A retinal operation, by the look of things, filmed with clinical detachment. The blessedly English-speaking narrator purred professionally, her explanations lost on Hellboy.

"Suit yourself," Abe grunted, returning to his book.

Hellboy packed his pillows against the ruined headboard and leaned back, awash in the cool light of the screen.

When it was someone else's problem, there was a certain fascination in seeing an eye so neatly breached, a perverse pleasure to be savored in the precision of the arc of the cut.

"I've still one good eye," the old man cackled. "Your petite belle is a saint, so mind your manners about her, Guy."

"Thomas, I meant no insult." Guy grinned.

"Don't speak of your chéri that way," Thomas grimaced. "I won't hear of it."

Guy and Francine each had their favorites among the patients, but Thomas was Guy's only friend among them. The old man was approaching a century in age, but few people offered him the respect his tenacity had earned. Guy was one of the few who seemed undisturbed by the old man's gruff manner, barely coherent speech, and disfigured visage. When he grimaced like this, it emphasized the puckered ridge of scar tissue where his nose had once been.

"Pardon!" Guy laughed, "Never again!"

It was rumored that Thomas was the last surviving fossil of the Union des Gueles Cassees, World War I veterans who had lost limbs and faces in the trenches, but Guy had never bothered to ask Thomas. It seemed possible; surely, teenagers had fought there, too, and the hospice bedded many veterans of later wars. Thomas never spoke of the war, any war, or the cause of his mutilation, so Guy never inquired. It seemed unimportant.

Thomas was his own man, and Guy felt a great affinity with him.

Thomas's voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper.

"How is the new job going at the Faculté de Médecine?" he asked.

Guy pulled his chair closer to Thomas's bedside and leaned in to speak softly. Fraternizing so with the patients was discouraged, of course, as death was a frequent visitor to the home. Francine and Guy had been repeatedly warned not to grow too close to any of their wards. They acknowledged the cold logic of the rules, given the high mortality rate, but neither could maintain the aloof stoicism of the older nurses or the callous disregard of their more cynical workmates.

"Fine, I think," Guy whispered. "I can't tell yet if they're giving me all the shit details as an initiation, or if that's what they hired me for."

"What did you find last week sweeping up the bibliothèque?" Thomas asked, his finger crooked to urge Guy closer with his reply. "Anything of interest?"

"Nothing much," Guy whispered back. "A cloth bookmark for Francine. No one will ever miss it. Very ornate, she loves it. But you could hide anything in some of the nooks and crannies of that library."

Thomas grunted and nodded, though he couldn't hide his disappointment. Guy leaned in closer with the promise of treasure yet to be found.

"They've got me assigned to the medical archives for the rest of the season. Some rooms haven't been touched in decades, I'm told."

"Ah!" Thomas grunted with satisfaction. "If you find my arm there, bring it back for me, will you?"

There was much to despise about the hospice job — long hours, low pay; bedpans, bedsores, and constant illness; accusations and abuse from suspicious relatives or uncaring visitors vainly asserting their regard for discarded lives; the thieving of greedy siblings, adult children, and untrustworthy caregivers; the tenants' bottomless sorrow, depression, and despair; the merciless dimming of eyes, hearts, and lives. All there was to love in it were the people like Thomas who somehow retained their dignity and heart amid the remnants of so many dwindling sparks.

"Go on with you," Thomas croaked. "Steal some dinner with your belle before you head off to your new job. Long, long night ahead of you, mon frère."

Guy squeezed Thomas's lone hand, and bid him adieu. There were others to attend to within the remaining hour, and the long Metro ride to the Faculté ahead of him.

But between the two, there was a fleeting meal with Francine at the cafe on the corner, right by the Metro Richard'lenoir entrance. He had enough to cover their dinner and his round trip on the Metro.

Tomorrow, he would have something for Thomas.

To Abraham, the soft green of the hotel phone looked like a bar of soap perched on the expanse of Hellboy's blazing-red palm.

When Abe held the phone, it disappeared against his skin, as if he were made of the same wet-looking plastic — the same color and contours of the bathroom tub, sink, commode, and the bidet. Having memorized the visage of every Notre Dame gargoyle facing their windows, and unable to leave the room without wrapping himself up like the Invisible Man, Abe had taken to finding small pleasures in the textures of the room itself. It was a meditative art lost on his travel partner.

"Like a fish in a fish bowl," Hellboy had chuckled when Abe had tried to share his observations earlier that morning. "We're gonna kill each other if we stay cooped up in this shoe box much longer."

Hellboy's flat, stony hand was cupped around the phone like a monstrous soap dish, enhancing the illusion. His normal hand held the phone to his ear, jade within fire, as Elizabeth Sherman drove the final nail into her arguments for them to stay put in Paris another week.

"Listen, HB, Kate's on her way over to you in a day or two," Liz concluded. "That drawing from your most recent dream kicked up some dust for her, and she believes you're onto something."

"Pah," he scoffed. Abe recognized the slow sagging of Hellboy's shoulders: they would be staying longer, floundering in the fish bowl.

"All right. If the Bureau can justify the expense, there must be something to all this. When's Katie arriving?"

Abe savored the shifting of green on red, emerald plastic on flame-baked skin, as Hellboy shifted the phone to the crook of his neck and struggled with pen and pad to take down Liz's instructions.

"Yes, I'll have her call you," he growled. "No, we're not far at all from the Palais de Justice, and the prefecture de police is right down the boulevard. Later, Liz."

He hung up, returning the receiver to its cradle.

There was an inexplicably delicious completion in the coupling of smooth green on green between the sinewy scarlet left and the hammered red right hand. Abe's gaze drifted up to Hellboy's brooding brow.

"What the hell are you grinning at, fish face?"

Weary from the day at the hospice and the Metro ride, Guy shuffled his way through the halls of the Faculté de Médecine. He'd already lost his way twice this evening, and hoped he was finally cleaning the right room.

It was a storage room, of that there could be no doubt. He just hoped it was the correct one. He double-checked the number on the Directeur's note against the faded numbers on the door, and went to work.

It had perhaps once been used for classes, but the desks and chairs were stacked against the far wall, shrouded in cobwebs and dust. The other two walls were nothing but shelves, piled high with books, boxes, files, dirt-opaqued jars and instruments, and all manner of paraphernalia.

The high windows were blocked with crusty curtains, and partially obscured by expansive shelving that stretched from floor to ceiling. Nevertheless, the moonlight filtered through here and there, back-lighting the various beakers, scales, and specimen jars. Moonlit, the contents of some of the jars gleamed through the decades of dust that buried them, casting pale shadows and reflecting the odd glimmer of long-dead eyes, wings, teeth, fins, and embryos.

Guy fumbled for the lights, finding the switch just as the distant ringing of a church bell deepened the gloom.

Even with the lights on, the room seemed dark. Nevertheless, he had to start somewhere. The ceiling lights illuminated the topmost shelves best; besides, the scattered dirt and dust would settle onto everything. It just made sense to start with the uppermost levels and work his way down. Two step-ladders were braced together at the bottom of the window shelving. He separated them and propped the sturdiest of the pair alongside the shelving, and climbed as far up as he felt safe.

In time, he had cleared two shelves. Their contents were strewn across the floor in roughly defined categories: paper, files, cardboard, instruments, and specimen jars. The latter were of some interest, though the glass was too filthy to clearly see what they contained. That would take some time, which he could indulge during another shift, after the sorting and disposal detail was further underway.

As Guy dragged the step-ladder to a new location, he tipped it to avoid a clutch of specimen jars he'd just placed at the foot of the shelves. The top step clipped a box of files on the third shelf down and sent it tumbling. Guy steadied the ladder, preventing it from falling, but it was too late. Everything to the right of the toppled box of files went with it. Guy winced as something bulky hit the tiles, and glass shattered, scattering into the settling papers and files.

Something that looked like oversized escargot and black purses slid over the floor, pooling in formaldehyde that soaked into one stack of papers. Hopefully, the documents weren't too important.

Grumbling to himself, he set the ladder aside and hunkered down to pick up the mess.

A half hour later, he had the spill in order, save for the spilled specimen jar that had shattered and scattered a potpourri of shark embryos and skate egg cases in one corner, and an odd collection of gray, desiccated pieces of what appeared to be metal, rock, or some painted substance he simply couldn't identify. They were unusually lightweight, despite their appearance. Their edges were irregular, though they seemed to have been precision cut, not broken, into their odd variety of shapes.

Guy gathered the gray blocks and shards into a single corner of the floor and began to toy with them. There were well over two dozen in all, .some as big as his fist, others small and smooth as marbles. Only their color was uniform, indicating their relation to one another.

Holding them up to each other to compare their contours, he found two of them seemed to fit together. With a flex of his wrist, he snapped them into place as they seemed designed to do. To his surprise, the fit was snug. He sorted through the rest and found a third which fit into place, too.

And a fourth ...

A fifth ...

By the tenth piece — a large marble which slipped smoothly into a rounded socket — Guy became uneasy as he began to recognize the pattern of the puzzle.

He held one of the unassembled pieces in one hand, the partially assembled mass in the other, and felt a cold shiver ripple up his neck.

The piece in his hand was a nose.

He dropped it as if it were a spider that had just landed on his palm.

He nervously gazed at the mass he held in his other hand, and let the wave of recognition wash over him: the odd, disarticulated object was a human head, somehow mummified, preserved, and jig-sawed into pieces.

As his realization reeled into revulsion, he impulsively snapped his fingers open, dropping the object.

It hit the floor. One of the assembled pieces broke free, but the impact was felt in another way.

The rounded marble — an eye — opened in the dusty relic, suddenly warm with color.

It was alive.

Guy scrambled to his feet as if stung by a bee. He stood frozen at an odd angle, legs akimbo, arms outstretched, as if to flee or fight. As the minutes ticked by, though, and the object simply lay still, Guy began to relax.

A head. A human head, preserved and jig-sawed into pieces.

As revulsion gave way to reason, he decided it was safe to sit back down next to the object. Surely, it was some kind of teaching tool, designed to instruct anatomy students. Why else would a medical university have such an obscenity in storage?

Perhaps it was a game, a puzzle. A three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle. But the detail, the sculpting — no, it seemed to be a genuine human head. No artist could craft such an object complete with bristling brows, whiskers, and hair stubble.

Mesmerized, Guy returned to the puzzle. He fondled the strangely weightless pieces and convinced himself it was just a trick of the light that the eye seemed to glower from within.

Under the watchful gaze of the single, open orb, Guy continued to fit the metallic pieces together, solving the puzzle until the jaw and a portion of the tongue snapped into place.

There was an impossible stirring beneath his hand, and then the head began to speak to him in a soft, barely audible whisper.

"I will make of you a king ... "

His hands spasmed open, dropping the gray mass to the floor. His every instinct was to flee, or to bring his foot down upon the dust ball and stomp it into oblivion.

Still, it whispered, with a voice dry as wasp paper.

"Restore me," it beckoned, "and I will make of you a king."

Guy closed his eyes and threw the cleaning rag over the damned thing. He sat still, praying under his breath, finally daring to take a peek once more.

The filthy rag completely covered the head. He was afraid to hold his gaze; if the rag should stir, drawn in by a breath, he would surely break down.

Holding his breath, Guy scrambled towards it on his hands and knees and looked away as he tightened the wrap. Mercifully, it made no further sound. If he heard it speak again, he knew he would scream.

Streaming with sweat, he frantically gathered up the various unassembled pieces and stuffed them into an unlabeled manila envelope among the paper debris he had thrown to the floor from the top shelf. He began to feel lightheaded, then remembered to take a breath.

He shuddered when his nervous breathing was echoed from within the rag.

Driven by fear — of staying, of discovery, of the damned thing beneath the wrap — Guy scrambled to his feet and grabbed the largest broom propped against the door.

The urge to jab at the object or just smash it swept over him again, but he instead used the broom to keep the thing as far from reach as possible as he jammed it and the unlabeled manila envelope into the far corner beneath the towers of desks and chairs.

Once it was out of sight, Guy began to calm down. He broke down the cardboard and stacked the flats against the corner where the damned thing was now hidden, as if to blot it out. Regaining some clarity of mind, he swept up the broken glass and the shark embryos, consigned them to the trash bag, and then proceeded to mop the floor.

The pungent aroma of the spilled formaldehyde should have overwhelmed everything, but all he could smell was the head, a dry odor ripe with age, mold, and spores. He coughed and gagged, shook his head, and finished the mopping.

Whenever possible, he averted his gaze from the end of the room dominated by the stacked desks and chairs. He jumped at the occasional echoes of his own breathing, couldn't put out the light or slam the door quickly enough.

He had somehow finished the cleanup, though he couldn't remember the final minutes. He continued to sweat as he left the Faculté, entered the Metro, and started the long ride home. As he got off at Richard'lenoir, he still felt anxious and afraid.

What would he say to Francine? What would he tell himself?

His heart sank as their appartement window came into view. The light was on inside — Francine had waited up for him. He could not simply slip into the bed and close his eyes. She would see something was wrong. He'd never kept any secrets from her. How, where would he begin?

For the first time, he noticed how badly he smelled. The stench of his sweat and the cleaning fluids was bad enough, but he could smell something else. He sniffed his hands, and shivered:

He could still smell the thing.

He was rubbing his hands against his pant legs when he staggered into the appartement, afraid of what he might say.

Francine looked up at him from her perch at the edge of the bed, her eyes red and swollen.

"Guy," she whispered, "Thomas is dead."

"Welcome to La Table D'or. And your friend would be — ?"

"Abraham Sapien," Hellboy responded to the maître d'. "Dr. Kate Corrigan is expecting us. Private salon."

"Bonjour," Abe managed between the coils of his scarf. The flustered maître d' gazed for only a moment, as if to penetrate the opaque shielding of Abe's mirror shades; he had no way of knowing the opacity of the lidless eyes beneath the lenses. If anything, the starched guardian of the restaurant's sanctuary seemed more disturbed by Abraham's guise in such muggy weather than he had been by Hellboy's trench-coated stature. They cut a mean rug, he and Abe, no doubt about it.

"Yes, of course," the maître d' chirped, regaining his composure. "Your private salon is right this way — we wouldn't want to disrupt the clientele. Dr. Corrigan had requested special attention be given, and I apologize we weren't quicker to recognize your arrival."

"Lead on," Hellboy gestured, sorry he couldn't milk their entrance for a little more juice.

Abe kept his gloved hand to his face as they were led into a separate dining chamber. Kate stood to greet them, brow cocked at the maître d'.

"What's the soup de jour?" Hellboy asked.

"I've ordered for us," Kate replied. "The food and wine is already here."

"Thank you, madam. If I could be of any more service — "

The evident relief on his face coaxed a smile from Hellboy, who turned to close the salon door behind the efficient clicking of the maître d's polished shoes. Abe gasped as he slung the scarf away from his neck, quick to exchange greetings with Corrigan as he finished stripping away his disguise. Hellboy claimed his seat and managed a sip of wine before Abe was ready to join them.

"You're looking good, Kate," Hellboy cooed. He rarely saw Corrigan dressed up for dinner, every dirty-blond hair brushed into place.

Kate smiled at Hellboy and turned to Abraham. "Room comfortable at the Hotel de la Cathédrale?"

Abe nodded. "Your choice? Very nice. Like the big bathtub. Good color, too."

"Matches his eyes," Hellboy snorted. "Thanks for getting us out of there tonight."

"Let's get to it, shall we?" Kate began. "Was this the symbol you saw in your dream?"

"Yeah, huh," Hellboy grunted, cradling his wine goblet in his left hand. "Told you I wasn't much of an artist."

"On the contrary," Kate whispered, "I found it with nary a blind alley."

The rough arc, within a square, split by a single sword, point down: but the arc was, in the old woodcut reproductions, a serpent, split by the curving blade.

"I've traced this back to a group of alchemists who made their mark in Southern France during the late sixteenth, early seventeenth century. I need more to go on, but it's a start, and you seem to be suffering more vivid dreams the closer you've come to the source: vague memories in Connecticut, more vivid dreams en route to the U.K. and in London, a narrative pattern to the dreams and increasing specifics now that you're in Paris."

Hellboy shifted his glare to Abe. "Tattle-tale."

Abe shrugged, sipping his bottled water. Kate leaned across the table toward Hellboy, gingerly placing her pale hand on his rough stone fingers.

"You've had more nightmares since you've been here, haven't you?"

Abe looked away as Hellboy cleared his throat, turning his slitted eyes from the amphibian's averted gaze to Kate's open, imploring look. He swished his wine thoughtfully and then swallowed it down in a single gulp.

Bad form. No matter.

"You both know how I hate this psychic stuff," he muttered. "It's worse when it's scrambling your own noggin."

Kate closed her other hand over his massive paw.

"Tell her about the head," Abe insisted.

"I thought it was happening to you — "

"Yeah," he managed. "I've been completely sliced and diced and brazed. But now there's more. I can hear rug-rats wailing, men chanting. Latin, French, Spanish, Italian. I see babies cut from throat to crotch. I smell blood."

Kate pulled a notebook from her bag and began writing.

"I can see something else," Hellboy concluded. "A head, not mine, but jig-sawed, like what they've done to me there in the dream. It's been turned to stone or something. Last night it opened its eyes and spoke to me. German."

"Did it speak of your father again?" Abe asked.

Hellboy nodded, and poured a fresh glass of wine.

The morning after Thomas's death, Guy quit the invalid's hospice. He made his apologies, and fled the building. For Francine, it was a loss upon a loss, with no time to catch her breath.

Francine flinched when the Monsieur le Directeur used Guy as an example to all at the monthly staff meeting. He had grown too attached to one of the patients, the Directeur explained, an intimacy ill-advised in the medical and nursing profession. The Directeur gazed meaningfully at Francine, no doubt misinterpreting the tears she brushed away from her cheek.

She missed Thomas, too — but she missed Guy's attachment to the hospice even more. It created a sudden, irreparable vacuum that frightened her. For the first time, there were fissures in their life together.

Days later, he still would not speak of what had happened in the medical lab the evening that Thomas had died. He never explained the odd smell, or what had already shaken him so, before he'd learned of Thomas's passing. She had laundered the uneasy stink of that night from the bedclothes, but Guy's sleep was still restless and punctuated with inexplicable shivers.

That she planned to clock extra hours at the hospice only aggravated the unspoken rift. As if goaded to match her distance, Guy secured extra evenings at the Faculté de Médecine, claiming he needed to make up for the loss of once-dependable income and had to cover the additional Metro fees necessary to the longer commute.

She didn't like it; the Faculté was a mystery to her. She'd never laid eyes on its doors, much less its expansive halls and cluttered rooms. He'd made no friends there as yet to speak of, and rarely had any anecdotes to share. He hardly ever spoke about the university, really, dismissing it to ask instead after her favorite patients at the hospice.

It was as if her job meant more to him than his own, and she enjoyed the attention, though that attention quickly waned in the days after Thomas's death.

Through it all, a week — just a week! — passed without their sharing a waking moment together.

Ah, but Sunday remained their own. She still had him that Sunday morning. She roused him, and they made love, and he finally cried and spoke of Thomas, and she eased him back into the slumber where he was hers and hers alone, if only for a few hours.

Come Monday, they returned to work again, and the gulf between them widened.

Guy had avoided the room all week, despite the notes from the Faculté Directeur urging him to at least start with the cleanup of the archives.

He had dreamt of the thing in the corner all week; horrible, unspeakable dreams, in which it was his own head being cut into sections, while birds and babies cried around him. He had never dreamed of blood before in his short life. Never. Ever.

Playing the radio wherever he worked in the Faculté, Guy braced himself to go back.

He would go there, as soon as he was finished in the offices.

Once the bibliothèque was clean.

After he had swept the hall, he would do it.

He would open the door.

He would go in.

He would switch on the light.

Moving stiffly, carefully keeping his back to the wall stacked with the desks and chairs, Guy slid the more dependable looking of the two ladders over to the shelves. He was about to lift it up to brace it against the shelving supports when he heard the willowy rasping from the far corner.

Paper thin, dry as dust, a breath.

A half hour later, he re-entered the room. Soaked in sweat, he stared balefully at the flats of cardboard he had stacked over the hollow beneath the desks, where he had hidden the damned object.

Again, the breath, unmistakable.

Guy began to tremble. He rubbed his face and eyes, then steeled himself for the worst. Hesitantly, he shuffled to the cardboard and carefully set it aside. He bent down, sobbing, and forced himself to reach into the darkness beneath the desk.

It was still there, beneath the filthy wrap. Guy tenderly picked the bits of dust and dirt away, and slowly peeled back the rag. Its lone eye fixed him, a reservoir of unspeakable sorrow.

Is this all he had feared?

He held it just so for a long, long time. Gradually, his breathing steadied, and he continued to unwrap the thing.

Guy cradled the head in his arms, studying its features. It was handsome, in its way, he thought. There was a coppery burnish to the skin that made it seem strong, ageless.

The eye held its gaze, and Guy met it, now unafraid.

This time, when it spoke, he did not drop it or flee.

He listened.

It promised him much he'd never had, many things he'd always wanted.

It promised him things he'd never dreamed of. Never. Ever.

It wanted so little in exchange.

As if in a dream, Guy reached for the unlabeled manila envelope he had hidden away with the object that fateful night of discovery. He reached inside, and as the head whispered to him, Guy methodically coaxed each one of the remaining gray pieces into place. As he felt the round gray piece shift into position in the socket opposite the single eye, sliding between calloused lids with a satisfying pop, he looked down with pride on his work.

The gray orb swelled into the socket and gradually moistened and glowed with the same baleful gold of the other eye.

It promised him more, and more. It needed so little.

"Feed me," it begged, "and I will make of you a king."

As it whispered, Guy nestled the head into the crook of his arm. It wanted such a trifle, and promised him so much. What could it hurt to try?

Guy unbuttoned his shirt, and lifted the head toward his chest. He tilted his own head back as he felt the desiccated lips slide over his nipple and begin to suck.

He felt weak as he stepped off at the Richard'lenoir. The Metro had nearly rocked him to sleep, and he felt tired, so tired. He stepped off the train and had to hold onto the pillar as the doors slid shut and the train raced on to its next destination. Fumbling with his buttons, his wrist accidentally brushed against his chest and a bolt of agony cleared his mind for a moment.

His nipples were sore, terribly sore. He dared a peek at the pinkish stains on his undershirt. He peeled one side back to wince at the raw blotchy skin beneath. Band-Aids, he needed two Band-Aids.

Suddenly aware of his surroundings again, Guy buttoned up his shirt and made his way off the platform and up the stairs to the boulevard. The morning air was crisp and helped him to focus. Above, the dawn breeze stirred the leaves of the trees. Guy took a deep breath and closed his eyes. The soft wind felt good, and the rustling leaves were soothing. He would make it to the appartemente, and he would be all right. Guy's head lolled, bringing his gaze to rest on the sidewalk.

There, amid the fallen leaves, was a twenty-franc note.

Guy chuckled, and bent to pick it up. Twenty francs! He stood up and admired it for a moment before folding it with care and tucking it into his shirt pocket. He patted the pocket and moved on. His step was a little surer now, and he was smiling.

As the dawn light asserted itself, something else caught Guy's eye on the sidewalk. Another note — another twenty-franc note. And another.

He nervously looked up the boulevard. Surely, there was some mistake. Finding one note was an occasion, but three was unlikely. He strained to see if someone were walking up ahead, someone the notes belonged to. Or a bank car, with its back doors swinging open. But there was no one, nothing.

Guy furtively bent down to pick up the notes. He inspected them carefully, held them up to be sure of what he was seeing. One was indeed a twenty-franc note, but the other was fifty francs. Perhaps he could take Francine out for coffee this morning, if he could stay awake, if she had time.

Further up the street, at the base of the stairway to their appartement, Guy found another fifty, and a one-hundred-franc note. His stride assured, he bound up the steps two at a time and made his way to bed, deciding not to disturb Francine's slumber.

Tomorrow. He would share the good news tomorrow.

"Moro — his name was Moro," Kate began. "Some sources link his name with a series of ominous events recorded in two illustrated broadsheets published here in Paris around 1650."

One slide followed another, each woodcut image executed with a primitive vigor. Hellboy stroked his sideburns, drinking in the spectacle.

"Grave robbing, necrophilia, cannibalism," Kate continued, "but no evidence of the authorities capturing or executing him, though as you can see in this second one, his accomplices were broken on La Roue, beheaded, and their remains were burned."

"Bummer," Hellboy whispered. "The Wheel."

Kate held the slide on screen, bringing up the room lights. Abraham was already combing through the papers she had laid on the table, thankful for the diversion from the countless hours of quarantine.

"The thread picks up in a number of Dutch texts," she said, pointing to the documents in Abe's webbed hands. "The Dutch were particularly infuriated by the Catholic persecution of the Protestants which drove a group referred to as 'the Waldenses' from the south of France to seek sanctuary in the Alps, into the valleys of Piemont which were later renamed Vaudois. Repeated attempts to exterminate this group over quite a span of time culminated in the massacre of an entire village in the mid-seventeenth century."

Kate clicked the remote on the slide projector, bringing a new image into view. The illustration was of its time, not as crude as the woodcuts they'd been looking at a moment ago. These were more accomplished drawings, still vivid with an uncanny sense of immediacy. A clutch of women and children clinging to their belongings were crowded to the left of the panel, as two soldiers brandishing swords dominated the center, directing the hapless innocents out of the frame.

"This is one of many Dutch broadsheets depicting the atrocities. Apparently the Jesuits turned up the heat, coercing village children into the Catholic fold. The alleged murder of a Catholic priest at Fenile and unspecified insults to Catholic rituals in Torre prompted more heat, with dissenters being forced out of their homes in January of 1655. When the Church authorities were informed that the exiled Waldenses had returned to their homes, orders were given and the villages were purged in April of that same year."

Abe set aside the papers to share Hellboy's careful scrutiny of the horrific images. Rape and plunder gave way to more monstrous extremes: women and children put to the sword; nude bodies roasting over raging fires with soldiers at rest alongside, eating the flesh; infants thrown onto rocks as their mothers were split with axes; children split asunder, their bodies stuffed with gunpowder; steaming objects and liquids poured into every bodily orifice; a grisly bowling match played with tiny heads before a wailing parent, bound hand and foot.

"The soldiers were a ragtag pack of mercenaries from all over Europe. French, Hungarians, Bavarians, Irish, and Spanish. Catholics one and all, promised indulgence for their efforts."

Hellboy's unflinching gaze drank it all in. "Okay, but what's Moro got to do with all this?"

"A local priest named Jean Leger survived and escaped," Kate explained, "and he was the primary source for news of the atrocities. He carefully gathered evidence from any and all eyewitnesses and survivors he could find, including prisoners released after the Treaty of Pignerol and soldiers stupid enough to boast of their crimes. The documentation is impressive, drawn from statements sworn before public notaries of the time. His work bore fruit, firing up the Dutch and Cromwell's England. John Milton wrote a passionate poem protesting the outrage ... "

Abe read from a page of Kate's papers. His flinty, flat voice lent a strange weight to the text. " 'Avenge O Lord thy slaughter'd Saints, whose bones Lie scatter'd on the Alpine mountains cold ... ' "

Hellboy turned to Kate. "And Moro?"

"Leger's diary chronicles his search for Moro. Leger claimed Moro was an alchemist, though his use of the term is tainted. I'm sure Moro was into something far, far more extreme. Leger wrote that it was Moro who had methodically conspired against the Catholics to perform blood rituals. Leger maintained Moro had murdered the Catholic priest at Fenile, and it was one of Moro's foul rituals that had sullied the Catholic church in Torre, though he could find nothing to document his claims."

Abe droned on. " 'Forget not: in thy book record their groanes ... ' "

Hellboy turned from Kate to stare again at the horrors on the screen.

" ' ... Who were thy Sheep and in their ancient Fold, Slayn by the bloody Piemontese that roll'd Mother with Infant down the rocks ... ' "

A soldier pulled a fetus from a woman's womb, while two other mercenaries slid their blades down the stomachs of two other infants.

"Later entries assert that Moro conspired with the Jesuits," Kate continued, "and in fact had a hand in the hiring of the mercenaries involved in these crimes. Leger believed Moro orchestrated the atrocities — that the atrocities were rituals in and of themselves, requiring the blood of infants in vast quantities."

Abe had dropped his voice, but continued reading the Milton poem. Neither Kate or Hellboy stopped him.

" ' ... Their moans The Vales redoubled to the Hills, and they to Heaven. Their martyred blood and ashes sow O'er all the Italian fields where still doth sway the triple Tyrant ... ' "

"Blood, ashes, fire," Hellboy murmured. "Moro was up to something."

" ' ... that from these may grow A hunder'd fold, who having learnt thy way ... ' "

"Leger's diary is inconclusive," Kate said. "I found a trio of Dutch texts that claimed Moro was ultimately brought to justice on French soil under peculiar circumstances."

Abe dropped his voice even lower. " ' ... Early may fly the Babylonian wo'."

As Abe returned the paper to the desk, Hellboy turned back to face Kate. The room's air conditioner came on as a fan in the slide projector whirred. The screen caught the subtle breezes, and the bisected infants on screen seemed to wriggle.

"How peculiar?" Hellboy asked.

Kate changed the slide, motioning to the screen. "The Catholic church apparently conspired with some unusual bedfellows, a group of alchemists associated with this symbol."

There, on the screen, was the serpent within a square, split by a crescent sword, point down.

"The Church had Moro drawn and quartered in a public place, but his head would not bum. One of the texts claimed it still lived, and spoke, promising earthly gain for any who would salvage it."

Hellboy and Abe exchanged glances and grunted.

"Moro's head was turned over to the alchemists, who apparently sectioned the head and transmuted the elements to stone before the Church tidied up by burning the alchemists alive for heresy and scattering the pieces of the head to the four corners of France."

Hellboy mustered a grim smile. "Ah, the benevolent gratitude of the Church."

Abe read Kate's features. "There's more, I see."

"Yes. Ragna Rok."

Hellboy flinched for the first time. "Great. Another kraut spook squad."

"No. The spook squad. World War II, Pre-Ragna Rok, our old circle of friends in the service of der Fuehrer: Klaus Werner Von Krupt, Kurtz, Haupstein — and two others who never made the cut to the big time. They believed Moro's head was an arcane artifact of great power."

"Huh. More kraut head cheese, like Von Klempt."

"Two contemporary scholars claim the Third Reich sought and found the sections of the transmuted head during the Occupation. Reportedly, Von Krupt and company converged here in Paris to collect the pieces, intent on reassembling it when the French Resistance inadvertently broke up the operation."

"Hmph," Hellboy grunted. "Probably had no idea what kind of party they crashed. Probably for the better."

Kate shut off the slide projector, shook her head, and closed her eyes, tired of talking. "There are no further records to work from yet, but I've only begun to check the local bibliothèques. But your dreams suggest — "

"What?" Hellboy grumbled. "We've still seen no manifestation outside of my nightmares. Nothing to put our hands on."

"Seems fair to assume something is still here," Abe concluded.

Hellboy tapped his finger to his temple. "Or here."

The head spoke to him even in his sleep now. Gone were the dreams of dissection, babies howling, and blood; the head was bathed in an ethereal light, as if it were the vision at Fatima. It spoke slowly, eloquently, of all that Guy would have and do. And as it spoke, he felt a deepening calm wash over him.

He would have no more need of money, of mortal love, of flesh. Gone forever was hunger, pain, want, work. As he listened, he heard the new truth; as he watched, its lips spoke the words, but they began to form other thoughts, other things.

Though his sleep had been restless, Guy had not touched her all morning. As Francine leaned over him tenderly and brought her hand up to his chest, he flinched. Taken aback, she rolled away from him, and slowly pulled the sheets up, careful not to wake him.

The white gauze bandages were wrapped double-layer around his chest and back. There was no tape at the back, as a doctor would do it. The wrap was uneven, favoring his right side. She could smell no disinfectant, none of the odors of a doctor's office. What had he done to himself? She felt hot tears build and spill from the corners of her eyes, slipping down into her pillow. She brought her hand to her mouth to suppress a sob, and Guy stirred and rolled over onto his back.

As she saw the blood stains, soaking into the gauze from beneath, she bit her hand.

Outside, the Sunday morning stirrings of Boulevard Richard'lenoir began.

He woke and left without comment. The more she had pressed him about his injuries, the more sullen and withdrawn he had become. He lied about having seen a doctor, claiming the Faculté doctor on duty for the night shift was drunk and had done a poor job of bandaging him up. When she asked the doctor's name, he pulled a clean pair of pants from the armoire drawers, put them on, and dashed out of the appartement without another word.

Francine sat at the edge of the bed — their bed — and fought back the tears. She busied herself with making the bed, gathering their clothes for the laundry — anything — to keep the tears at bay, though the ache inside grew more and more unbearable.

His clothes stank of the Faculté labs. They smelled old, dry, dead. It smelled like Thomas had that morning that they'd found him, so still in his bed. Guy had smelled like that, too, ever since that night. The tears spilled anew.

She folded his work shirt over her arm. As she picked up his work pants off the floor, something drifted from his pocket and settled onto the carpet.

A leaf, neatly folded.

She picked up the leaf and turned it over curiously. It was creased and folded like a franc note, and even felt like one. Francine sat back down on the edge of the bed and set Guy's work pants in her lap. His pockets were bulging; she had to empty them to do the wash anyway.

She gingerly reached into each pocket and pulled out leaf after leaf, carefully folded. She set them down beside her on the bed, and fought the urge to count them.

"I found them this morning on the boulevard," Guy explained. "I've been finding them all week, every night."

Startled, she jumped, dropping his pants and shirt to the floor. When had he come in?

"They were everywhere on the boulevard," Guy stammered, "a-and I made sure they belonged to no one. They're mine. Ours."

She couldn't bear to look at him. Her own shame at being caught mingled with her confusion and growing dread.

"They're ours. I thought I could treat us to dinner tonight, before my shift begins," he continued.

Her eyes drifted to the floor — anywhere to avoid looking at his face, his imploring eyes — and settled on his shirt pocket. Five or six carefully folded leaves jutted up from the pocket.

He had his hand out now, with another leaf on his palm.

"See, there are still a few outside," Guy exclaimed. "I just found another, as I was going. I brought it back for you."

She absentmindedly plucked it from his hand, like the gift it was meant to be, and placed it on the bed with the others. And she began to laugh.

Now she understood: it was a joke, to make up for their moods. She began to laugh, looking to his eyes for the shared twinkle, and the laugh caught in her throat when she saw the pain and rage on his reddened face.

His words came like a torrent, slapping her time and again.

And then he was gone, leaving her alone once more.

He had hidden the head in the library. With the new attention being given to the archives since he had begun the cleanup, he was terrified someone would find his treasure, his savior. That someone would take it from him.

There were so many places to hide things in the library. Places only he went.

He unwrapped it lovingly. No more rags: he had wrapped it in one of his own shirts, his white shirt, his Sunday shirt.

As always, the eyes lolled in his direction, the mouth gaped like a fish gasping out of water. It spoke to him, showered him with promises, with predictions, with kisses. It suckled at his breast — thankfully, he could feel nothing any longer — but today it wriggled like an unhappy infant.

Guy pulled it away from his withered nipple. The skin was forever raw, but it bled no longer. The head smacked its lips, and looked up at Guy with hunger.

It spoke to him, slowly. At first, its words sickened him, he began to feel the way he had that first night. But the drone of its words, its wisdom, centered him anew, and Guy complied with its wishes. He took off his shirt and unbuttoned his trousers.

Again, it began to suckle. He guided it slowly down, down, lower ...

The head glowered at him, and began to rise. And as it rose, the babies howled and the crows shrieked and the sky darkened. The head rose from a lake of unborn children, barely formed fetal shapes that writhed like maggots in the dirt.

From beneath the head's ragged, abbreviated throat, veins and nerves extended themselves with startling speed. They spiralled around one another like string, intertwining and swelling into rope-like limbs. The ridged protrusion of the esophagus distended itself at the center of this tapestry of extremities, thrusting down like some obscene caterpillar until the webbing of nerves, veins, and soft cartilage orchestrated itself into two arms and two legs jutting from the virgin trunk of the body.

As he managed to back away from the looming growth, one of the tendrils rippled out from the fetal torso and seized him. He struggled, but already the veins had swollen into powerful talons, digging into his red flesh. He raised his right hand to smash the grip, but another tendril entangled that arm, and another had his left.

Behind the lattice work of coalescing limbs, he could see a line of sprouts erupting from the ground. They, too, grew heads and limbs, bristling with armor, and they began to march —

The ringing of the phone mercifully cut the nightmare procession off. Hellboy fumbled for the receiver and dragged it to his pillow.

"Yeah?"

He could hear Abe stirring in the bed across from him.

"Call to Search Team One from the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense in Fairfield — "

"Yeah, yeah, put them on," Hellboy stammered impatiently.

Elizabeth Shermans voice changed his mood. "HB, you all right?"

"Since it's you, Liz, I'm fine. Why the wake-up call?"

"Kate couldn't reach you earlier, contacted us with some new information on an old university not far from you, the Faculté de Médecine. Could you meet her there tomorrow?"

Hellboy fumbled for the pen and reached for the light. Abe groaned as he turned it on and buried his head in the sheets. Tough having no eyelids at this time of morning. Hellboy scrawled down the specs, underlining the time and street address.

"Right, the Latin Quarter. Got it. Thanks, baby."

"HB, you all right? Manning wants to know if you need any assistance — "

"Just more bad dreams, Liz. Still nothing physical. It'll be over soon." He dropped his voice as he clicked off the light and leaned back against his pillow and the shattered headboard.

"This isn't Cavendish Hall. In. Out. No one gets hurt, right?"

At the mention of Cavendish Hall, Abe pulled the sheets down and turned to look at Hellboy.

Abe kept his gaze fixed on his partner long after the call had concluded, and the steady heaving of his rusty barrel chest had slowed into the even rise and fall of slumber.

Francine waited until she saw Guy shuffle down the stairs at the Metro Richard'lenoir. He was on his way back to the Faculté; she had time, finally, to visit the appartement one more time and get her things out of there.

Sobbing, she timidly used her key, climbed the stairs, and entered what had been until a week ago her — their — home.

The stench was terrible. It was the same odor that had clung to him that night that Thomas had died, magnified one hundredfold. She choked and rushed to the cistern to wet her handkerchief. She held the damp cloth to her nose, taking shallow breaths.

She went to the closets, pulling out her travel bags. When she turned to the armoire, her heart sank to see her clothes and belongings already out of the drawers, rudely piled atop it.

Did he want her gone so badly?

The tears were streaming down her cheeks as she took the wet handkerchief away from her nostrils. The stink was overwhelming, but this was worse. Sobs racked her body as she struggled to refold her clothing. As she did so, she realized all of Guy's clothing was scattered here, too, and more of it was strewn on the floor and crammed behind the armoire.

Regaining her composure, she gingerly slid what was hers into the travel bags, pausing to slide open the top drawer and check if she had everything. She gasped and drew back.

The drawer was filled with leaves, precisely arranged and stacked like banknotes.

Shivering, she closed her bags and rushed out into the darkness.

Guy furtively glanced down the hall. What was the Faculté Directeur doing here this time of morning? It was barely three o'clock.

Catching sight of Guy, the Directeur waved. Guy nervously waved back, and turned to return to the archives.

He had to reach the bibliothèque. He had to get the head — his head — out of here.

As he continued down the hall, adjusting the empty backpack he'd brought to take the head home, he heard the Directeur's voice. Turning, terrified the old man was following him and wanted to engage in some small talk, Guy was further alarmed when he heard other voices.

Sweating, he stole his way back to the end of the corridor.

The Directeur's voice was raised now, boisterous: his public voice, representative of the institution. A woman responded, followed by a deep, guttural growl, like that of a mastiff, and a soft, barely audible gurgling voice.

Guy quietly lay flat on the floor, and slowly, ever so slowly stole a glance around the corner.

There were three figures standing with the Directeur, who seemed somewhat intimidated while checking identification papers the woman had in her hand. No wonder he was intimidated: the two men with her were strange. The one looked normal enough, but wore a hat, sunglasses, a scarf, and gloves, baring not a fraction of his skin.

The other wore a trench coat, but that was his least impressive aspect. He was gigantic, fiery red, like some sort of demon. He dwarfed the Directeur completely.

As Guy stole a final look, he could have sworn the red man had hooves.

They didn't see him, not even when he scraped himself away from the corner and stood on shaky legs, his hands at his face.

They were here for the head, he knew it. They were here for his treasure, with an entourage of demons to spirit it away.

As the Directeur's voice raised anew and their collective footsteps reverberated through the hall, nearing the labs, Guy darted away. He could hear the distinctive tap of the Directeur's cane as he walked, and something else:

Hooves.

He had to get to the bibliothèque. He had to rescue his savior, and be off, but they were between him and the library. He wasn't thinking straight; all he could think of was getting to the archival lab before they did.

He would think of something there.

"What's in the backpack, Guy?" the Directeur inquired. He gently prodded the pack with his cane.

"I brought some books. To read. Later," Guy stammered. The Directeur seemed satisfied and left the pack alone, resting there by the door.

"We like to hire readers," the Directeur explained. "Even our janitors are educated men, you see?"

The woman had been eyeing Guy ever since she'd set foot in the room. Guy busied himself with sorting the files, arranging the stacks from the middle sections of shelves, but he couldn't stop sweating.

The red giant eyed the shelves opposite Guy, while the man in the hat, scarf, glasses, and gloves simply stood in the doorway.

"And you say all you've found so far seems in order?" the Directeur asked. "Nothing unusual?"

"Well, the shark embryos gave me a start the first night," Guy chuckled. And sweated.

He furtively glanced over his shoulder at the woman, who stood her ground and held her implacable glare.

The Directeur seemed satisfied, but the woman touched the old man's sleeve.

"May I?" she asked, still pinning Guy with her gaze.

Ever affable, the Directeur said, "But, of course."

Guy looked away. Sweating. He could feel her staring as she moved behind him and took a position between himself and the far door, where the muffled man still stood.

"Guy, I'm Dr. Kate Corrigan — "

"Doctor of?" he stammered, afraid to face her, still stooping over the files he uselessly shuffled. The Directeur's cane tapped Guy's elbow.

"Guy, you are to fully cooperate. We have nothing to hide, have we?"

"Guy," she continued, her voice flat and dark as slate, "we are investigating some archival materials we have reason to believe found their way here over fifty years ago."

Guy finally turned and glanced at her legs. He was sweating, sweating still. The demon turned its attention from the odd collection on the shelves to him, now. The muffled man was facing him. The Directeur looked stern, his brow furrowed over his wire rim glasses.

"What is it, then, can you tell me?" Guy shakily asked, gathering the nerve to look her in the eye. "Can't you tell me what it is?"

The demon spoke, his bass voice causing Guy to flinch.

"We're not sure. It was a head, but made of stone or metal, and — "

"In pieces, it was in pieces, oui?" Guy stammered, stepping over to the shelves behind him, the shelves that led to the doorway where the muffled man stood. The muffled man was stepping into the room now. Guy had their rapt interest, all eyes were on him.

"You know of such a thing, Guy?" the Directeur whispered. "Why didn't you bring it to someone's attention?"

He stumbled over to the shelves, running his hand along the upper ridge of the highest shelf he could reach. The shelves by the door weren't attached to the wall, they were free standing; if he could reach them —

Kate stepped between Guy and the doorway as the muffled man moved in closer. Guy stole a glance at the red giant, who seemed less interested in Guy than what might be up on the shelves Guy seemed to be motioning to.

"I — I thought it was a puzzle, just a puzzle," Guy blurted out, finally gaining hold of the edge of the free-standing shelves. "I thought it was just a teaching tool, or a puzzle."

"Where did you put it," the woman named Corrigan said without inflection.

"Here, up here, right up here by these — "

For a moment, all eyes moved to the shelf above Guy.

Stealing his chance, he pulled with all his might on the free-standing shelving unit, and suddenly the woman, the muffled man, and the Directeur were lost in a shower of paper and cardboard and jars and fetuses and glass.

As the heavy shelving toppled onto them, Guy leapt over the racks. The red demon took a swipe at Guy, but he was clear of the monster's reach with the shelving taking up almost half the floor space now. Guy snatched up his empty backpack and darted out of the archives and down the corridor.

Hellboy rushed to lift the shelving unit off the trio. Free of its decades-old burdens, the shelving was light and lifted easily, but the contents had buried all but Kate's head and Abe's legs. Kate was coughing, but Abe was making a horrible sound.

"Katie! Abe — are you all right?"

"The Directeur," Kate managed to sputter, "help the Directeur — "

Abe was in trouble. All around him was broken glass, some of it jutting from oversized jar lids. A tangle of fins and fur and tentacles lay over his coat and head, and the one gloved hand Hellboy could see was twitching in agony. The smell of formaldehyde was pungent and ever-present.

"Jeez, Abe," Hellboy muttered as he lifted his friend up from the debris with one arm, and spun the other to unwrap the scarf from his throat. The formaldehyde had saturated the scarf, Abe's clothes, and his gills were making a wrenching sucking sound.

"Christ, help the Directeur," Kate shouted, pulling herself free of the wreckage.

"We're losing Abe," Hellboy insisted, prompting Kate to take her first look at their partner since they'd entered the Faculté. Hellboy had succeeded in getting the wraps and headgear off Abe's head and neck, but he was clearly in trouble.

Kate rushed to Hellboy's side. "There were some bathroom showers down the corridor," she recalled, "I'll get him to them. Help the Directeur, find out where that miserable little bastard lives."

With an exchange of looks and Abe's trembling self, Kate and Hellboy switched places. By the time Kate had managed to hustle Abe out of the room, Hellboy had uncovered the Directeur. Shards of broken glass pierced the old man's face and there was blood everywhere, but the cuts seemed superficial. The state of shock the old man was in, however, was deepening.

Hellboy didn't try to lift the old man. He swept the debris laying on and around him aside, clearing a space for the Directeur. Hellboy took off his trench coat and draped it over the old man. It looked huge over the frail fellow, covering him completely like a blanket.

"Try not to move, Directeur," Hellboy whispered. "We'll have a doctor here in no time."

"Guy — " the old man whispered back.

"I'm after him. Do you know where he lives?"

The Directeur swallowed once, twice, then raised his voice.

"He takes the Metro — to Boulevard Richard'lenoir — a second floor appartement — the number — "

Guy cradled the head in his lap. Thankfully, no one else was on the Metro this morning, so he could pull the edge of his backpack down and look at it now and again. Even when it was covered, it spoke to him, soothed him, comforted him.

It whispered fortune and infamy, purges and pyres, and chuckled at the threat of women and demons. They were nothing to fret over, it assured him.

It offered more predictions, and told Guy of the armies they would sire together. But first, it was hungry.

He made his way to the door, which was partially open. He could see the backpack, empty on the rug, and heard something crooning inside. Hellboy eased to the door of the appartement, hoping to get a look at whatever was inside. There was a light on, and Guy sat in an odd position in the middle of the bed at the far side of the room. He was still sweating like a pig and moaning softly, and seemed to be cradling something in his lap.

The fellow remained oblivious to Hellboy's presence as he stole further over the threshold to gain a better vantage point. Now he could make out the bandages across Guy's chest, blood-stained in the front; some of the stains were fresh, shiny wet amid broader expanses of dried rusty hues.

Guy was rocking gently and groaning like an idiot, one arm bent back and braced against the bed to support him, the other cupping something that looked like a pink-tinged bowling ball at his crotch. Coiled around his legs were more bandages, stained with blood.

"Guy?" Hellboy whispered.

The spell was broken. The emaciated young fellow cocked his head in Hellboy's direction, his eyes narrowing in fear and rage.

"Get owwwwwwwwt!" Guy hissed, leaning protectively over the thing at his crotch, throwing both of his spindly arms over it.

His brow furrowing, Hellboy strode into the appartement, straining to get a look at the object Guy was so protective of. Whatever it was, it seemed to struggle against Guy's grasp, turning of its own volition to face Hellboy. Startled, Guy let it go and shuddered as the head sought a new position on his lap.

Hellboy bared his teeth at the sight of the thing.

"You sick freak," Hellboy gagged. "How dumb can you get? You fed the damned thing blood and — "

" — unborn infants," the head exulted, licking its bruised lips, "man's milk."

Guy bent over as if he'd been kicked in the groin. He began wailing like a baby and tumbled off the bed, spilling the head from its precarious perch in his lap.

Hellboy hunkered to follow its progress, and in two steps was standing over the reddish ball as it came to rest in the center of the dingy room.

"Moro?" Hellboy rasped.

The swollen lids pulled back from the glowing orbs as it gazed at Hellboy. The widening eyes flickered with recognition, then flared with renewed hunger.

"You've come to feed me!" it spat. "Demon ssssssseed — "

Suddenly all that mattered to the creature was gaining some attachment to this new, much more powerful host. This was the key to mastering stronger men, stealing souls, forging armies. It measured its need, the hook, the influence it might command.

A word, just a word, would do it ...

The pulpy lips bared veined gums, bursting with an ivory stubble of new teeth. The purple tongue slid over the enamel white heads, licking away the froth of fresh blood and semen before curving with the word — just a word, the word —

"Father," it whispered. "I will tell you of your father — "

Without hesitation, Hellboy brought his hoof back and punted the thing across the floor.

As the engorged head spun across the room, the sinewy tendrils dangling from its throat seemed to congeal into extremities: knotted vestigial limbs, a threadlike weave suggesting arms and legs, hair-like fingers and toes.

For a second, it arced gracefully, its minute parody of a body seeking balance like an acrobat; then it hit the wall, and the delicate tapestry evaporated in a splash of snot and blood and bone.

Guy bolted up from his fetal position on the floor and screamed. His eyes were distended, unable to believe this fresh turn of events. For a moment Hellboy hesitated, preparing to take the emaciated boy out with one controlled blow if he tried anything. But Guy was beyond attack; he had lost everything, living like a ferret, sucked dry, and he certainly didn't dare to take on this new monster. It was so terrifying, its skin the color of flame, its right fist so huge, clad in armor that could crush him in an instant.

But the head, its promise —

Grunting with satisfaction as Guy stayed clear, Hellboy returned his attention to the head. He strode over to its resting place and stared down at it.

So monstrous an evil; so fragile a vessel.

"Professor Trevor Bruttenholm was my father. All I need to know."

The head was split from crown to the stump of its throat. A dank tar seethed from the uneven network of fissures, pooling in the broken cup of its lower jaw. Tiny arms and fingers wriggled in the stain spreading beneath.

Still, its streaming eyes drifted to Hellboy's own. Its blackened tongue arched, straining against the fragmented jaw as its torn lips vainly struggled to form the word.

"Had your say, Moro," Hellboy grunted. "Don't care to hear any more."

He brought his hoof down on the pathetic object. At the sound of it, Guy shrieked and slammed his own head against the wall.

Moro leered up at Hellboy, his eyes still brimming with hunger. Moro could feel the cheated heat of centuries-past pyres building within his skull. Even as his skin began to blister and smoke, his essence was seeping into the rug. It could not end this way, his minions and armies forever stilled here, at the threshold of their rebirth. There was still a chance, if he could only find a way to —

Hellboy brought his hoof down again, and the jig-sawed sections of the head shattered apart, prompting another wail from Guy. Intent on his task, Hellboy ignored the man's cries and pulverized the damned thing, bringing his hoof down time and time again, smashing it into shards that smoked and began to spark.

Still, the pulped orbs simmered in their baking brine, the seared lips stretched like worms on a hot brick.

With every blow, Guy dashed his own skull against the wall.

Something gave inside, and he felt his face go utterly numb. He slammed his head against the mirror — Francine's mirror — until it, too, shattered.

His cries stopped after he'd broken his own jaw and his bleeding tongue had nearly swollen the back of his throat closed. He mewed like a kitten instead.

Still, the hoof pounded down.

When he could stand no longer, Guy slammed his face against the iron posts of the bed, the edge of the dresser, until he was on his knees grinding his ruined face against the chair, the bed frame, the floor. He crawled to the scattered remnants of the head and kissed them, though they were now glowering like coals.

As Hellboy's hoof dealt the decisive blow, all that remained of Moro burst into flames.

Groveling amid the shards, stuffing them in his mouth, Guy's hair and skin caught fire. Blind, he couldn't see the red demon as it turned from the detritus on the floor to seize a cistern of water and rush to Guy.

Having rammed his ears against the knob of the bedpost, he couldn't hear the demon as it implored him to stop, though he felt the cooling splash of water.

Softly banging his head against the floor still, he felt strong hands and arms slide beneath him. He felt the weight of his nights lift and drift off as he was cradled and carried by his savior, and for a moment, just a moment, he thought he heard the Sunday morning stirring of the Boulevard Richard'lenoir outside his window.

He imagined he heard Francine's voice, felt her touch on his lips, his eyelashes, his brow.

Francine came to call twice a week at the most unusual hours. She looked like an angel, but many feared her nonetheless.

Her nursing credentials were impeccable, so it was said, and the hospice authorities never questioned her presence, whatever the time of night or day. There seemed to be some long-standing attachment between them, and the Monsieur le Directeur demonstrated an uncharacteristic reverence in her company. In fact, it seemed she had her own key, given the ease of her comings and goings in the pre- and post-dawn hours, usually calculated to coincide with the shift change.

No surprise, then, that none of those who worked at the home seemed to know anything about her. One shift saw her coming, another saw her going, and she never lingered long enough for either to engage her attention, though she clearly galvanized theirs, like a phantom. She was unfailingly courteous, but she never fraternized with the staff, nor answered even the most tentative queries about herself or the center of her attention.

The rumors circled but never clung. She was a pauper, it was whispered, pouring all she earned into her loved one's care. She was wealthy, it was said, through a recent marriage, and her husband tolerated her eccentricities linked with the invalid home visitations out of Christian regard for her prior affections for one long gone.

No, no, she was widowed, others said, and she came to visit her only surviving family member (who might be either her father or brother, depending on who spoke of the matter).

He was a patient here at the home, the old man they called 'Puzzle'.

Puzzle's identity remained equally cloaked in mystery. His records were sealed and kept under lock and key, as more than one curious staff member had discovered. He never spoke clearly or loudly enough to ascertain any accent or origin, and bore no mark to provide any clue as to who he might have once been.

Old, withered, and emaciated, his scarred visage ruined beyond repair, he steadfastly avoided eye contact, and indeed seemed to harbor a dread of seeing anyone's face or of being seen.

Those who tended him did so reluctantly, respecting his silence and distance while unable to avoid stolen glances at his single eye, his ravaged scalp and tattered brow, his crater of a nose. He screamed at whispers overheard, and sobbed uncontrollably at times for no apparent reason. His bed was bolted to the floor without any clearance beneath, and his terror of what might lurk beneath other beds, tables, chairs, or cabinets was self-evident. He shunned books and shelves, and could not be forced to even pass the door to the hospice's meager bibliothèque.

Puzzle stared out at the trees in the spring as their buds swelled into leaves, enchanted by the spectacle. He was at his calmest and most childlike behavior throughout the summers, counting on his fingers as he blissfully gazed up at the leaves shimmering in all manner of weather; his daytime attendants vigilantly moved his wheelchair throughout the afternoons so he would never be looking up into the sun, a reasonable concern given the constant intensity of his lone eye's upward gaze.

He was at his absolute worst in the autumn weeks, fretting over the fall colors and weeping pitifully as the leaves that fell outside were raked into piles and burned. He sobbed as he frantically counted his fingers, as if calculating some eternal, unfathomable loss.

Rumors that he was thus because of the Great War and perhaps the last surviving member of le Union des Gueules Cassees seemed unlikely, though he looked nearly a century old. This lent some credence to the belief that Puzzle was father to the mystery woman, though the tale of his barely audible reply to a nurse who had once pressed him on the matter — "I had her as often as I wished, my chérie." — sparked gossip of incest, prompting many to give Puzzle and his female visitor an even wider berth.

So, too, did the persistent asides about her arriving with a strange man bundled up like a burn victim and wearing sunglasses in the dead of night, and an unnaturally tall, bearded 'red man' who accompanied them — an Indian, perhaps? They had never seen an Indian from America, except in the movies. Could they grow to such size in America? The red giant supposedly had called him 'Jigsaw', and had words with Puzzle that seemed to bring him some comfort.

Francine clearly brought him comfort, too.

His fear of faces and being looked upon evaporated only in her thrall. Like an infant, he gazed upon her as if she alone were his world — the world — and nothing else had or would ever matter.

She tended to him faithfully, and at times her singing could be heard lilting, ever so softly, from his cramped chamber.

"Guy," she whispered, so softly that none but he could hear, "chéri."

And, oh, she loved to touch him, especially when he was asleep in the very early morning, and the dawn light played upon his face.

This one is to Marj. Special thanks to two excellent friends: Jean-Marc Lofficier, for considerable assistance and inspiration, and John Totleben, for sweeping up and finding the original head. I owe a great debt to the work of David Kunzle, comics' greatest historian, from which I drew all the material on Jean Leger and the Piemont atrocities. Last, but never least: merci, Mike, Chris, and Scott.