An Assortment of Horrors - Mike Mignola Read online

“You should start with my parents.” The resentment in Malak’s voice was genuine. He truly believed his mother and father played some part in this. “Interrogate them. Find out which kichiimul they employed. Then go to Api Tua and bring back my wife.”

  “I’ll do it my way if I do it at all,” Hellboy said.

  “I’ll pay you handsomely,” Malak said. “And I’ll make regular donations to the BPRD.” He looked at Hellboy, then at Dr. Corrigan, then at me. “It’ll be a routine investigation. You have my word. There’s nothing to be concerned about.”

  “Yeah, I bet it’ll be a walk in the park,” Hellboy said. “As for your money, you can keep it. That’s not how we run things around here.”

  “We’re a government agency, here as a courtesy,” Dr. Corrigan said. “You’re aware of that. You contacted us—”

  “Because the BPRD are the best at what they do,” Malak interrupted. He then leaned forward in his seat and pointed a neatly manicured finger at Hellboy. “More importantly, you’re not human, so the things on that island might not perceive you as a threat. That gives you a huge edge over any investigator I could bring in.”

  “An interesting theory,” Dr. Corrigan said.

  “The kichiimul are unpredictable, and don’t always respond favorably to outsiders,” Malak added. “But they wouldn’t dare hex a demon.”

  Hellboy narrowed his eyes. He didn’t seem so sure about that.

  “They’ll smell the underworld in you.” Malak looked at Hellboy and curled his upper lip. If it was a smile, it was an ugly one. “Trust me, you’ll walk on and off that island unscathed.”

  Two miles—maybe—into the journey and the waves increase their vigor. The boatman moans and makes a gesture to turn back. As he does so, a vehement swell strikes the hull port side and throws him to the deck. We pitch wildly for a moment. I hold on to the gunwale with both hands, fearing for my life, then Hellboy stands and takes the tiller. He holds it in his right hand and hunches his shoulders against the storm. The sampan shudders from prow to stern as the waves crash, but we keep going. The boatman huddles and cries. I look at Hellboy, his jacket rippling, his tail snapping in the wind, and in that moment I believe every story I have heard about him. If this assignment had been left to a red shirt like me—with my kendo and book smarts—I would be halfway to drowned by now.

  At last the waves relent. Or perhaps they concede. Have it your way, they appear to say. Don’t say we didn’t try to warn you. The wind drops and the sampan’s motion becomes less violent. I’m wet through and as green in the face as I am in experience. Hellboy looks at me and the lowly boatman. He grunts, adjusts his jacket, and takes his seat.

  “Plain sailing from here,” he says.

  The boatman whimpers and takes the tiller. The sampan chugs onward and the island expands before us. I can make out sheer rock face, palm trees, banyans. The denser foliage is perhaps mangrove. I look for birds circling above the island but see none. Except for the dense vegetation, it appears dead.

  The crossing is quicker. The boat picks up speed. Even the boatman has a lighter spirit about him. Overhead, the sun streams through a break in the cloud, offering a vista that might have been imagined.

  “Nari po,” the boatman says. I have no idea what this means but he is almost smiling.

  The sea remains calm, but the boatman’s good humor doesn’t last. We get to within half a mile of the island when he kills the motor and says, “No more, no more,” in perfect English.

  “Closer,” Hellboy growls.

  “No more,” the boatman insists. He folds his arms and stands his ground. He comes all the way up to Hellboy’s belt line.

  “C’mon, old man. Crank that motor. Let’s go.”

  “You swim. Here is good. Swim like big red fish.”

  As they argue I look at the island and see the first sign of life. It almost knocks me off my feet: a vast, ropy thing rising above the treetops, bunched with muscle and slick. A green eye opens across its flank. I catch a flash of scissor-like teeth and then it’s gone. I have no idea what it is. For all my knowledge of Asian mythology, I have never come across anything like this.

  “Umm . . .” I say.

  “What is it?” Hellboy growls, looking at me through a narrowed eye.

  This is the point where I can say to Hellboy that it might be wise to turn back—that there is absolutely nothing routine about this assignment.

  And what then?

  I lower my eyes. I know exactly what: I’d return to the BPRD without my wings, with my red shirt neatly buttoned, just another generic field agent who may never get another chance to step into the limelight. I recall my mother telling me that I should be an author, speaking so animatedly that her curls bounce and her hooked hand trembles against her chest, and I remember my response—that I would rather live the story than make it up.

  “Nothing,” I say, and dive into the water.

  Hellboy didn’t interrogate Malak’s parents, and he was right not to. Despite having enough money to solve world debt and forever feed the poor, and despite bringing an entitled asshole like Cleveland Malak into the world, they were generally sweet and helpful. The mother—small enough to nestle inside an ostrich’s egg, I thought—was quite charmed by Hellboy. The father said little but displayed the kind of smile that made me question that old adage about money not being able to buy happiness.

  They know nothing about their daughter-in-law’s disappearance, and scoffed at the idea of hiring the services of a kichiimul. There’s clearly no love lost for the young bride, but I got the feeling their son isn’t exactly on their list of favorite people. If they were going to have a vamakan abduct anybody, it might have been him.

  “Somebody’s not telling the truth,” I said as we left the Malak estate. Mrs. Malak insisted an aide sprinkle our route out with lotus blossoms. They swirled beautifully in our wake as Hellboy worked his tail.

  “A vamakan is a bounty hunter, right?” Hellboy asked.

  “Right.”

  “So they only take people who owe some kind of debt.”

  “I, umm. Well, I—”

  “Maybe the lovely wife is hiding something from her peasant days.”

  My mouth snapped closed. This was something I hadn’t considered. We left the ground in a cloud of pinkish blossoms. Hellboy tried hailing a ricksha but the diminutive riders took one look at him and kept cycling.

  “So what do we do?” I asked.

  “We go to the island,” Hellboy said.

  Hellboy powers through the water, working his impressive body and ruddering with his tail. He overtakes me even though I had quite the head start on him. I’m exhausted after a quarter of a mile and doggy-paddle the rest of the way, letting the tide do most of the work. Hellboy is mostly dry by the time I stagger, spluttering and wheezing, onto the beach.

  Api Tua is twenty-eight acres of granite and vegetation jutting from the South China Sea. Its sand is ash gray but glitters in a beguiling way—mica deposits, I assume, flushed into the North Pacific from some distant mountain. Boulders stand in jags and flash as brightly as glass. The flora is mostly banyan and mangrove, punctuated by regal palms that are rarely still. They bow and sway and always whisper. There are other trees I have no name for, almost skeletal in appearance. Obscurely, they flower with the most vivid, wild flowers, that almost seem to hum as you pass.

  You can’t see the shacks and cabins from the beach. Indeed, you have to venture some distance onto the island proper before they become apparent, and even then they are hard to find, camouflaged as they are by the foliage. Some are built high into the treetops. The kichiimul who occupy these descend the trunks like spiders as we approach.

  “Let me do the talking,” Hellboy says.

  In moments we are surrounded. This breed of kichiimul is spindly and hideous. Their mouths are torn rags and their hair is clotted with moss and fungus. The same fungus grows on their throats. I can’t determine if they are threatening or curious. I spy a good-sized stick that
I can use for a shinai at a push.

  “We’re looking for a woman,” Hellboy says.

  One of the witches creeps closer. Her long limbs move slowly, as if feeling the way. She knows a rudiment of English. It is broken, harsh, spoken around—or through—hacking, cough-like sounds. “A woman. Kah. Fleshy ripe. For eating? Whah.” She laughs and the others join her. The sound lifts my skin into tough little bumps.

  “Not for eating,” Hellboy says. “The vamakan brought her here.”

  “Kah.”

  “Where is she?”

  “Chomp her like a happle. Whugh.”

  “She’s not for eating.”

  “Jooooosy and—whah—sticky sweet.”

  Hellboy groans. His body stiffens beneath his jacket, as if every muscle tenses at once. The witch—showing off in front of her spindly coven—has made the mistake of venturing too close. Perhaps she thinks she’s safe, but Hellboy’s wingspan is disproportionate to his body. He lunges with incalculable speed and seizes the crone by the throat.

  “Bleeuuurgggh.” Her eyes brighten comically. Fungus oozes between Hellboy’s fingers. “Not gladsome. Whah. Hateful boy.”

  “Where is she?”

  “Kah.”

  She twists and squeals. Her sisters, meanwhile, have scattered, spidering over the ground and up the trees, out of sight within moments. Leaves spiral around us, the color of burned pages.

  “Where?”

  The kichiimul screeches and points frantically at her throat. Hellboy loosens his grip. She draws in breath with a sound like an old gate opening, then flails a hand behind her, where the trees are broader and sometimes the darkness moves.

  “Middlewise,” she blurts. “Kah. Look for the vainsome one.”

  “Vainsome?” Hellboy regards her curiously.

  “She of the newish smile.” One more screech, then she goes limp, hanging from Hellboy’s fist like a rag. “Whugh. She’s the one that called the taker.”

  “The taker,” I say. “The vamakan.”

  Hellboy opens his fist. The kichiimul hits the ground uncomfortably, all stiff limbs and wheeze, like a set of discarded bagpipes. Within moments, though, she is right side up, clawing her way up the nearest tree. She swears at her ugly sisters. They hiss like swans.

  Hellboy looks to where the kichiimul flapped a desperate hand. His mouth is a firm line. I follow his gaze and see something coil through the gloom.

  “Go back to the beach, rookie,” he says to me. “Wait for me there.”

  “I’ll be safer with you.”

  He glares at me, orange eyes shining, the muscles in his shoulders and neck stacked like bricks. I think he’s going to insist, but perhaps he sees the logic in my response.

  “Fine.”

  He lowers his head and walks middlewise.

  I follow.

  The light comes through the canopy in blades. The urge to step around them is strong. Hellboy is three or four paces ahead. He walks slightly crouched and alert. I can’t see his eyes but I imagine them switching from left to right, analyzing the environment for threat.

  There’s constant movement; the foliage rattles with unseen things and what I believe to be a tree trunk lifts all at once, like the leg of some giant flamingo. At one point we pass through a haze of fist-sized pods that puff through the air like jellyfish and glow. Horned snakes drip from trees and regard us hatefully.

  “Don’t make eye contact,” Hellboy says.

  We pass a sprite-like kichiimul the size of Hellboy’s finger. She hops onto his shoulder and offers to make a light spell that he can scatter onto the pathway before him like hen feed.

  “Izz darkawayz,” she warns.

  “I can handle the dark,” he says. “Just point me toward the vainsome one.”

  “Izz middlewize.”

  “Which way?”

  She points a tiny finger. “Thata. Go click-click and pazz the Nine Shy.”

  We tromp on. The smell is deep and sweet and the darkness thickens. Narrow eyes flare throughout. Vines unfurl. The jungle chorus is mad and varied: hoots, howls, ticking, shrieking. I keep my eyes—as much as I can—on the point of Hellboy’s tail. I want to grab it, tie it to my belt so that we won’t be separated. The thought of being on this island alone (or rather, not at all alone) sends floodwater panic through my skull.

  The Nine Shy are tall and pale, slender as reeds. Black hair hangs almost to their knees. It covers their faces. They turn away as we approach and whisper in their own language. It’s such an exotic, birdsong sound that I wonder what harm they can possibly do. It’s only when Hellboy grabs my arm that I realize I have been drawn toward them.

  “Stay close.”

  “But I . . . I . . .”

  He points into the trees above the Nine Shy. Bodies hang from the branches like garlands. Some appear to be human. Many are animal. I see half a pig and several thick-tailed lizards and the remains of what might have been a horse. I imagine them all lured by the Nine Shy’s exotic whispering, then set upon, stripped for ingredients. It occurs to me then that I’m not ready for this, and may never be ready. Without Hellboy, I would be witch food by now. My bones would be used in spells that raise the dead and bring rain. My brain would be divided nine ways.

  My imagination conjures a telephone call between me and my mother, in which I sheepishly tell her that I’m no longer a BPRD field agent, and that I have begun work on my first novel.

  “C’mon,” Hellboy says.

  He turns. He tromps. I follow. Closely.

  “How many witches live here, do you think?” I ask a moment later.

  “Too many,” Hellboy replies, and almost cracks a smile. “But I haven’t seen a chicken-leg house yet, so that’s a good thing.”

  It isn’t a chicken-leg house, but we soon come across a curious shack built into the bole of a thick, sprawling tree with reddish bark and low-hanging branches. These enclose the entrance to the shack like many hands. The most curious thing is not that they appear to protect the shack, but that they are strung with mirrors. There must be a thousand of them, hanging from the branches, spinning and catching the light from a dozen flickering torches. Some mirrors are long, complete. Others are jags and shards.

  As we approach, we see ourselves a thousand times. The effect is dazzling, disorienting.

  “Vainsome,” I whisper.

  We get to within ten steps of the door, then the branches shift protectively. Some curl into fists. Others are clawed. The mirrors tinkle like chimes.

  Hellboy stops, takes a backward step, calls to her once.

  “Kichiimul.”

  She comes with her newish smile.

  It has been stitched into the lower half of her face—a mouth graft, of sorts. And yes, newish: the stitches are raw and some of them bleed. The skin is pale and smooth and the lips full. A beautiful smile, no doubt.

  The witch sashays toward us, pausing at every mirror, blowing kisses to the face reflected there. Her eyes and nose are covered by a shawl that she obviously has no problem seeing through.

  She steps—almost dances—up to Hellboy. Her pretty mouth hovers close to his jaw.

  “Kissy?”

  “Not in the mood,” Hellboy snarls.

  “You?” She turns to me. Her lips form a movie-star pout and in a moment she is pressed against me. I see her eyes glittering through the shawl and wonder what the rest of her face is like. I step away from her. Yes, her mouth is pretty but the smell inside it is dank and dead-like.

  “I’ll pass.”

  “You summoned a vamakan,” Hellboy says. “It brought a girl here. Aidra Malak. Where is she?”

  “Hiding,” the kichiimul responds. “Rightly. An ugly little thing, but flashy eyes.”

  “Hiding where?”

  “Under moss. Under rock.” She shrugs. “Doesn’t matter. She’ll not go with you. A rotface now. A hag.”

  “You took her smile,” I say.

  “She owed it.” The kichiimul howls at me, spittle bursting from
between those pretty lips. I feel a tiny drop on my face and it burns. “A deal’s a deal, you stringy whelp. She’s lucky I left her with any face at all.”

  I back away, catching my reflection in the many mirrors. My face is pale and harried. This is how I look to Hellboy, I think. Like a child.

  He isn’t looking at me, though. He looks at the kichiimul, eyes narrowed beneath his solid brow.

  “She was younger,” the kichiimul continues, licking her lips. “Fourteen, maybe. A peasant girl—a dirthand—but comely, still. She watched her mother die of the scourge and her papi went soon after, him with a woebegone ticker. So she came to me, oh so brave, over water and through the woods, and begged I remove her from those fields. ‘You must have some witchery,’ she says, ‘that will grant me riches and romance and a bed that isn’t damp with horse piss.’ And I says to her, ‘Maybe, girlie . . . but what can you offer me?’ ”

  “She offered her smile?” Hellboy asks.

  “Not first away,” the kichiimul responds. “I put her to working—had her gather herbs and bleed out the critters, but to her it was worse than peasantry. So she offered money, which she didn’t have at that time. Nay, not a copper to scratch her peachy rump with. ‘When I have it,’ she says. But what good is money to me here? I’d sooner see a basket o’ beans.”

  There is movement in the gloom to my left. I assume it’s another foul creature, or perhaps the damp breeze through the foliage. I look only briefly, see something pale shrink away, then turn my attention back to the kichiimul.

  “I wanted her soul but she said she still had use for it. Bah! So I asked for her smile. Maybe she thought I meant her happiness, instead of her mouth, but she made the deal and went on her way. She likely figured that happiness and money don’t always go hand in hand.”

  The kichiimul is distracted, for a moment, by one of the mirrors. She looks at herself and shapes her lips, giggling coquettishly, blowing kisses. It’s as if she’s forgotten we’re there. Hellboy makes an impatient sound from deep inside his chest and she drags her gaze away from the mirror. Her new mouth forms a wide sneer. She continues.