An Assortment of Horrors - Mike Mignola Read online

  Publisher Mike Richardson

  Consulting Editor Scott Allie

  Assistant Editor Katii O’Brien

  Designer Anita Magaña

  Digital Art Technician Christina McKenzie

  HELLBOY™: An Assortment of Horrors

  Text and Illustrations © 2017 Mike Mignola. All other material, unless otherwise specified, © 2017 Dark Horse Comics, Inc. Hellboy™, B.P.R.D.™, Abe Sapien™, Liz Sherman™, and all related characters are trademarks of Mike Mignola. No portion of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the express written permission of Dark Horse Comics, Inc. Names, characters, places, and incidents featured in this publication either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons (living, dead, or undead), events, institutions, or locales, without satiric intent, is entirely coincidental. Dark Horse Books® and the Dark Horse logo are registered trademarks of Dark Horse Comics, Inc. Dark Horse Comics® is a registered trademark of Dark Horse Comics, Inc., registered in various categories and countries. All rights reserved.

  Neil Hankerson Executive Vice President • Tom Weddle Chief Financial Officer • Randy Stradley Vice President of Publishing • Matt Parkinson Vice President of Marketing • David Scroggy Vice President of Product Development • Dale LaFountain Vice President of Information Technology • Cara Niece Vice President of Production and Scheduling • Nick McWhorter Vice President of Media Licensing • Mark Bernardi Vice President of Book Trade and Digital Sales • Ken Lizzi General Counsel • Dave Marshall Editor in Chief • Davey Estrada Editorial Director • Scott Allie Executive Senior Editor • Chris Warner Senior Books Editor • Cary Grazzini Director of Specialty Projects • Lia Ribacchi Art Director • Vanessa Todd Director of Print Purchasing • Matt Dryer Director of Digital Art and Prepress • Sarah Robertson Director of Product Sales • Michael Gombos Director of International Publishing and Licensing

  Published by Dark Horse Books

  A division of Dark Horse Comics, Inc.

  10956 SE Main Street

  Milwaukie, OR 97222

  DarkHorse.com

  August 2017

  First edition

  ISBN 978-1-50670-343-5

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  Printed in the United States of America

  INTRODUCTION

  Christopher Golden

  The title harkens back to the sorts of late 19th and early 20th century collections of supernatural tales, but I’ll tell you a secret—it also makes me think of Whitman’s samplers. Y’know, the little boxes of various chocolates, the ones you take out and poke to see which ones have something tasty inside and which ones are nasty? Yeah. Those.

  The temptation is strong to do a riff on Forrest Gump’s famous “box of chocolates” line. Mignola would roll his eyes, but the truth is that editing an anthology really is sort of like that—you never know what you’re going to get. Even when you choose all of your contributors, inviting them to play in a particular sandbox, you never really know how it’s going to turn out until the stories start coming in. This is the fourth Hellboy prose anthology I’ve edited—the first one after a long break—and it’s never been truer than now.

  Honestly, it’s the very best part of the job. An email arrives in your inbox with a brand-new story from an author whose fans would commit various crimes to get an early look, but you’re the only one who gets to read it. There’s something exciting about that. Even better when you read that story and you grin, thinking you’ve got something special and dark, maybe a bit funny or a little evil, or both. Both is nice. It’s such a pleasure to get those stories and know that soon you’ll be the one presenting them to readers.

  This book is full of those stories.

  Curious, isn’t it, that somehow the big red guy is the perfect vehicle for so many wonderful stories? Why is that? I have my thoughts on the subject, but I’m willing to bet that all of the authors who’ve written Hellboy stories over the years, in comics and prose, have their own. His mother was a witch and his father a demon. He’s supposed to grow up to be the Beast of the Apocalypse, but he’s a reluctant Beast of the Apocalypse at best. Hellboy came into the world as a little-boy-demon in the midst of a war that included Nazis, occultists, and Rasputin. His story is full of Hollow Earth theory and Lovecraftian cosmology. His best friends are a deeply moody pyrokinetic woman and a fish-man who was once a Victorian gentleman.

  That’s all cool stuff, right? I mean, Hellboy drinks with skeletons. He meets mermaids and fights Mexican wrestlers. He’s a descendant of King Arthur and thus is the rightful King of England. He meets the ghost of the actual pulp hero who starred in his favorite childhood stories. He tosses off vague anecdotes about cases that would boggle the minds of any dozen other supernatural detectives/adventurers. Let’s not forget, he’s got horns and hooves and a tail.

  None of that is what makes him such a great vehicle for stories. What does that—the brilliance of Mignola’s creation—is Hellboy’s humanity. It’s how much he loves his adoptive father, Professor Trevor Bruttenholm . . . how much he wants to make the old man proud, even after the professor is gone. It’s the ordinary-Joe-ness of him, the weariness of his soul as he gets older, and the joyful innocence we see in stories about his youth.

  If you asked Hellboy fans for their favorite tale, many would point to “Pancakes.” It’s only two pages long. It’s funny, even adorable. Little-kid-Hellboy is being difficult. He doesn’t want to eat the breakfast that’s been prepared for him—like millions of other kids around the world, back through the mists of time. When he finally does take a bite, he declares his love of pancakes with little-kid love familiar to us all. The story cuts to a scene in Hell, where there is much wailing in horror, because the demons there know they have lost Hellboy to the human world forever.

  There are a thousand examples of Hellboy’s humanity, but “Pancakes” is perhaps the purest distillation of the idea. He’s not one of them. He’s one of us. And so despite his origins and his outer appearance, he carries us through all of the horrors and sorrows of his story as if they are our horrors and sorrows.

  Which makes it very easy to fill an anthology like this one. Writers familiar with Hellboy are more than eager to take the character—and the other characters in his circle—out for a spin.

  When you go to the authors in this lineup, you’re tapping into the imaginations of some of the cleverest, most talented, and most creative purveyors of fantasy, horror, and crime fiction on the planet. You’re always going to get something great. But when you go to writers as skilled and as varied as these—and then you add in Hellboy—what you get is magic. I’m honored to have worked with each and every one of them.

  If you’ve picked up this volume, it won’t surprise you to learn how easy it is to find prose writers who are not only already familiar with Hellboy, but who love the big lug. The attraction for many writers is immediate. The character and world Mike Mignola has created is full of monsters, magic, and mayhem, yes . . . but it’s also filled with sorrow and friendship and humanity. All the ingredients for my favorite stories.

  They’ve done their job, crafting great stories, showcasing Hellboy, Liz, Kate, and other parts of the Mignolaverse. After keeping them to myself for so long, I’m delighted that the moment has finally come for me to share these tales with you.

  Now it’s time to turn the page, taste them all, and choose your favorites.

  Enjoy this Assortment of Horrors.

  Christopher Golden

  Bradford, MA

  23rd March, 2017

  THE PROMISED SMILE

  Rio Youers


  Even the waves try to keep us from Api Tua. They rise and strike the hull with anger, foaming and monstrous, although I have a feeling they are the least of the challenges we’ll face. Maybe it’s in the way the boatman lowers his eyes when he addresses me. Or maybe it’s Hellboy himself, sitting quietly with his head down, as if sensing that there is greater danger ahead than we were led to believe.

  It’ll be a routine investigation, Malak had said, his face still wet with tears. You have my word. There’s nothing to be concerned about.

  Cleveland Malak, heir to the Malak family fortune, named after the Ohio city where his father had built the first of his twenty-three North American hotels. Malak Jr. drips wealth and arrogance from every pore. I didn’t care for the spoiled brat from the moment I set eyes on him.

  The waves boom and bully. I shield my face from the stinging spray and point at a gray knuckle of land some six miles southeast.

  “Is that it?” I ask the boatman.

  “Api Tua,” he says, nodding, but doesn’t look at me. He rudders the boat onward, occasionally grunting and urging us to hold on. We do. Me with both hands. Hellboy with just the one—his left. I think if he uses his other hand, he might tear most of the gunwale away.

  The “boat” is a dilapidated sampan, thirty feet long and powered by a struggling outboard motor. Our boatman puts his entire body into working the tiller, trying to keep us from rolling. There are seven miles between the main island of Katamai and Api Tua, where Malak says his wife has been taken. In a more appropriate vessel we could make the crossing in minutes—twenty at the most. We have already been on the water half an hour and have gone little more than a mile. This is going to be a long trip.

  Not that we can complain. This was the only boat that would take us to Api Tua. We asked around the docks on Katamai and were met with solemn stares and rejection. Finally, when I thought we might have to swim the entire way, we stumbled upon this rail-thin fisherman who said he’d take us as far as he could (which may yet not be all the way). He made a money-money gesture with his hands and his eyes were small, desperate lights. Hellboy agreed to pay the fee and we stepped aboard.

  “Does this feel routine to you?” I asked Hellboy as he dropped into one of the narrow seats at the boat’s stern.

  He grunted something in reply and looked across the water (blue and calm then; it only turned volatile after we started out). I took a seat nearer the prow and resolved to say as little as possible until we made land.

  My father wanted me to be a lawyer, like him. I could imagine nothing worse. My mother wanted me to be an author, like her. She is a sweet, intelligent lady with a bounce of white curls and her right hand slightly hooked from holding a pen for so much of the day. What she can’t understand, though, is that I see no sense in making up stories when I get to live them out.

  My name is Casper Morrow and this is my first assignment with the BPRD. I’m a graduate of Brown University with a master’s in paranormal studies. I have published several articles on such topics as the Yamata no Orochi, Quivira and Cíbola, and the Nukekubi of Kyoto. In addition, I hold a renshi 6-dan in kendo and a black belt in kung fu. Much to my parents’ chagrin, my life’s work has been dedicated to learning about—and defeating, by whatever means—monsters.

  Needless to say, I’m equipped for this trip and whatever Api Tua has to throw at me, but Hellboy insists on treating me like the rookie that I am. I hate it when he calls me “kid” or talks over me, as if whatever I have to say holds no value. I remind myself that I’m here to learn, and that the only reason I am here is because Cleveland Malak assured us it would be a routine investigation.

  It’s impossible to study the paranormal as passionately as I have without developing a tremendous respect for Hellboy. The fact that my first assignment is with him is both exhilarating and intimidating. But there’s little point in being here if I’m just a vague shape in the background. I hope that, before we head home, he sees enough in me to at the very least call me by my given name.

  So why was I chosen for this particular assignment, and not a more experienced field agent? I put it down to a combination of clumsiness and good fortune: I was returning the Baron Konig case file to the archives (you can never do too much research) and was passing Dr. Katherine Corrigan’s office when I tripped and went stumbling through her doorway. The Konig file—some three hundred and eighty pages—flew out of my hands and scattered all over her floor.

  “Oh, God. I’m sorry. What a klutz, I’ll just . . .”

  I proceeded to pick the pages up as quickly as I could, scrabbling on my hands and knees, apologizing profusely. The last page was in Dr. Corrigan’s lap. She handed it to me with a smile.

  “Sorry,” I said for about the twentieth time. I managed a timid smile of my own. “New shoes. The soles rub on the . . . Yes, I’ll just leave now.”

  I turned around. Hellboy stood in the corner. Over eight feet of bright-red half demon and I hadn’t noticed him, such was my nervousness.

  “Oh,” I said.

  “New kid?”

  I nodded. “It’s my second week.”

  He smirked. Or maybe sneered. It was hard to tell. I lowered my eyes, started toward the door, but stopped when Dr. Corrigan said:

  “Mr. Morrow . . . what can you tell me about the vamakan?”

  I turned and looked at her, one eyebrow raised. As surprised as I was that she knew my name, I was mostly relieved that she’d asked me something I knew about. This was an opportunity to show her, and Hellboy, that there was hope for me yet.

  “A vamakan is a creature of legend from the Katamai Islands. A bounty hunter, of sorts, usually summoned to track down errant demons and humans who owe a debt to the underworld. It’s over thirty feet tall, man shaped, but it walks on all fours. Its body is armored, like a rhino, and its face is made of bone. Oh, and it can only be summoned by a sorcerer or witch.”

  “Good,” Dr. Corrigan said.

  “Kichiimul,” I added, perhaps unnecessarily, but I felt I had a point to prove. “That’s what they call witches in the Katamais. There are, by all accounts, quite a lot of them.”

  “Excellent.” Dr. Corrigan nodded. Her smile was a little wider. “Now tell me about the Katamai Islands.”

  “It’s an unrecognized state in the South China Sea,” I replied without missing a beat. “Eight small islands, midway between the Philippines and Vietnam. Three of them—including Katamai, the capital island—are owned by Indonesian billionaire Afandra T. Malak. The population isn’t huge, maybe eighty thousand people, but he’s regarded as a king there, nonetheless.”

  “How do you know all this?” Hellboy asked. His voice was just above a growl. I couldn’t determine if he was impressed or not. Probably not, I decided.

  “My master’s thesis was on Asian mythology,” I replied.

  “Very good, Casper,” Dr. Corrigan said, using my first name now. A promising sign. “You can go now. Oh, and make sure you put all those pages back in the correct order.”

  I thanked her and left, and I did put the pages back in the correct order, after which I was invited—to my huge surprise—to join Hellboy and Dr. Corrigan for their meeting with Cleveland Malak. Two days later I found myself—to my even greater surprise—en route to the Katamai Islands.

  The meeting with Malak proved tiresome, though, if only because he’s such an unlikable sap. He wept copiously, as if he were a child of four instead of a man of forty, bemoaning his beloved Aidra. No doubt he was grieving, but I found it all a little too theatrical.

  According to Malak, his new wife was stolen from her home by a vamakan. He claimed to have seen the creature retreating across their expansive garden with the young woman slung across its shoulder like a knapsack.

  “My parents are behind this,” he insisted, wringing his pudgy little hands into fists. “I know it. They never approved of our marriage and have had it in for Aidra since the day we met.”

  “What’s their beef?” Hellboy asked. I could tell
from his body language that he liked Malak about as much as I did.

  “Aidra doesn’t come from money,” Malak replied. “She’s a peasant from the Yumi Fields, and it’s a huge embarrassment to my family that she now carries the Malak name, as if we’ve been tarnished somehow. They warned me that if we were to marry, there’d be consequences.”

  I listened carefully, suspecting that he was lying—that he had in fact killed his wife and had invented this outlandish story to cover his tracks. But there appeared to be some truth to what he was saying, and asking the BPRD to investigate was hardly the action of a guilty man.

  My instinct—such as it is at this raw place in my career—told me that something was awry, though.

  “A vamakan can only be summoned,” Dr. Corrigan said. “Do your parents have access to witches and sorcerers?”

  “We have money,” Malak said. “We have access to everything.”

  “Then you don’t need us,” Hellboy said. “Find the witch your parents hired, then pay her even more money to tell you where the vamakan took your wife.”

  “You make it sound so simple,” Malak said. “Unfortunately, there are dozens of kichiimul, so finding the right one would be a long and tormenting process. As least for the more refined among us.”

  I heard Hellboy groan—or perhaps growl—from across the room.

  “The kichiimul live on Api Tua—the smallest of the Katamai Islands.” Malak shrugged. “People like me don’t go there.”

  “Why not?” Hellboy asked.

  “Because it’s full of monsters,” I said. “Isn’t that right, Mr. Malak?”

  “No, it is not.” Malak barked a dry laugh that had no humor in it at all. “You’ve been reading too many stories, my young friend. The monsters died out centuries ago. Only the kichiimul live there now.”

  “And you want me to question them?” Hellboy said.