The Ice Wolves

by Mark Chadbourn

“They think we’re getting close to solving the puzzle of the house,” Lisa said.

  “Maybe we are, and we just don’t know it.”

  Lisa pondered for a moment, then said, “I’ve been thinking about the house—the way the bottom half is like this dark reflection of what lies aboveground. Maybe I’m making a leap here, but I’m thinking that what happens aboveground is echoed in the subcellars in some way.”

  “With the ghosts prowling around the lower levels, how are we supposed to protect ourselves so we can explore?” Brad asked.

  “The artifacts,” Lisa said. “William used that lamp to save me. Maybe we can use them while we try to crack the code.”

  “That’s a big risk,” Hellboy said. “Those things can blow up in your face.”

  Pulling her knees under her, Lisa snuggled into the chair and stared into the dying embers in the hearth. “I don’t think we’ve got a choice. The ghosts and whatever else is here are getting more restless—they’re not going to leave us alone until we’re dead.”

  “Yeah, this is scary,” Hellboy said. “But stick with me, we’ll get through it. I’ve been through worse.”

  “Worse than an army of wolves on the outside, and an army of ghosts on the inside?”

  “Welcome to my world,” Hellboy said. “William, we’re going to need your help. You with us?”

  William nodded.

  “You know what all the artifacts do?”

  “Not all of them. For the first few months, all I did was research them. I thought they were a key to finding the Kiss of Winter.”

  “Point us in the direction of any that can help.”

  “I don’t know if anything can help us,” William replied.

  “You said there’s something worse than Piggly Grant here,” Lisa interrupted. “I need to know what else is waiting down there.”

  “I don’t know for sure.” Turning his back on them, William strode to one of the windows that looked out across the square. “I came across it during my first few weeks in here. I was exploring the lowest reaches of the house, searching for hidden rooms or passageways. Lots of these old houses on Beacon Hill have secret wells, or bricked-up cellars. Some say there’s even a system of underground tunnels linking the oldest buildings. It’s one of those secrets the long-standing local families on Beacon Hill keep among themselves, but the author H. P. Lovecraft mentioned the tunnels in one of his stories. “Pickman’s Model.” Some of the oldest residents still haven’t forgiven him for that. There are a lot of skeletons buried down there, literally and metaphorically.”

  He scraped the frost off the inside of the window absently; Lisa was sure she saw his hand shaking.

  “I ventured down there in the second hour after sunup. That’s usually a good time. The ghosts are quiet after the night, and I knew I could get away with at least an hour without being disturbed. I’d been getting some strange responses from the walls on the landing around the door to the attic room. Sometimes they sounded hollow, sometimes not. I couldn’t understand it. While I was tapping away at the plaster, a terrible feeling of dread came over me. I can’t really explain it . . . it was like nothing I had ever experienced before, except to say I had the sensation that I was about to die, horribly. Murdered, in fact, by some hideous power standing just behind my shoulder.” He shuddered, still not looking at them. “A presence so overwhelming, so unimaginably evil, I thought my heart was going to give out there and then. I tried to get out of there. I ran blindly, and . . . whatever it was doing . . . it felt like my breath was choking in my lungs. That my life was literally being squeezed out of me.” A swallow, a silence. “It followed me. Up three flights. Only when I reached the cellar did it finally start to fall away, and when I got into the kitchen it finally stopped. I encountered it two more times, just a hint on both occasions. When I sensed it approaching, I got out of there as soon as I could.”

  “Any idea what it was?” Hellboy asked.

  “Not Abraham, or any of the others who left their spirit in this place. I don’t even know if it was human.”

  “Sounds like some kinda demon,” Hellboy mused. “Wish I knew its name—then it would be easier, maybe. As it is, we’re just going to have to look out for it. We don’t have any other choice. We can’t just stay out of the lower levels.”

  Lisa was unaccountably pale in the lamplight. “Worse than Piggly Grant? Worse than those things that dragged me under the floorboards?”

  Brad sat on the arm of her chair and gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “Remember what you said to me when you dragged me out of that pile of bodies in the Baghdad marketplace?”

  “This is different—”

  “No, it’s not. Together we’re going to get through this.”

  She looked up at him with an expression of pleasant surprise. “You seem different.”

  “I lost my way for a while. From now on, I’m going to do my best to get back on track.”

  Listening to them, William had become touched by their show of emotion. Tears glinted in his eyes. “Why did you come here?” he said. “This was my burden. I didn’t want anyone else to get dragged into it. I never wanted to see anyone else hurt . . . especially you.” When his gaze fell on Brad it was almost painful to witness. He looked quickly to Lisa and added, “You deserve so much better than what’s going to happen here.” Recognizing in their faces how he must appear, he said simply, “I’m sorry,” and turned back to the window, repeatedly running a hand through his silver hair.

  “William, if you’ve got something to tell us, now would be a good time,” Hellboy said.

  His body rigid, William remained silent for a long moment. After a while, Brad realized he was fixated on something he could see through the snow-encrusted window. He’d opened the shutters earlier to keep watch on the square.

  “What is it?” Brad asked.

  “I think our time is running out quicker than we realize,” William said quietly.

  They joined him at the window, trying to peer through the small gaps where the blasting snow had not adhered to the glass.

  “That’s something you don’t see every day,” Hellboy said.

  Across the square, in the gusting snow, stood rank upon rank of wolves, all staring at the house, eerily silent and unmoving, their eyes like black coals in their white world.

  Transfixed, Lisa had the impression she was looking at a work of art, a chiaroscuro painting, or a series of sculptures cast in iron, until she realized she was watching a wave of horror about to break.

  “What are they waiting for?” she asked, not wanting to know the answer.

  The mournful tone of a tolling bell rang out three times across the snow-muffled square.

  “Uh-oh,” Hellboy said.

  The first wolf moved.

  CHAPTER 15

  —

  A tsunami of bestial rage crashed against the house—one mind, one unstoppable desire for blood and death; the frenzy of howls and barks was deafening.

  “What are they doing?” Brad shouted. “The house is protected.”

  Shards of a shattered pane flew across the room. An arm snaked in, trying to tear away the remainder of the window.

  “Not anymore!” Hellboy retorted. “Get those shutters closed!”

  As they scrambled to close the heavy internal shutters, William bolted from the room.

  Brad cursed loudly. “Good time to run out on us, Dad.”

  More glass shattered. One wolf forced his head through the gaping pane, blood streaming from deep wounds where the glass had torn its flesh. Hellboy stepped forward and fired into the wolf’s face at point-blank range. As the beast was thrown back out into the sea of fang and claw, Hellboy slammed the shutters and bolted them. Brad and Lisa heaved the other window’s shutters into place.

  “They aren’t going to hold long,” Hellboy said grimly.

  Racing around the ground floor, they fastened all the other shutters. The windows beside the front door were broken, but too small to allow access.
Snow already swept into the hall around the lunging arms. The crashing against the door was intense.

  “How long before they break their way in?” Lisa asked.

  Gravely, Hellboy checked his rapidly diminishing ammunition. “That’s a solid door and good hinges. Those shutters are pretty secure. But with that force out there? They’ll be inside pretty soon.”

  He took the stairs two at a time. “They’ll be coming across the roof. We’ve got to protect those attic windows. No shutters up there.”

  “We could barricade ourselves in one room,” Brad suggested.

  “If it comes to that, it’s all over,” Hellboy replied. “Nobody’s coming to rescue us. And the wolves aren’t gonna give up till they’ve got what they want—which, right now, includes us being dead. Somehow we’ve gotta buy ourselves some time, so we can find the Kiss of Winter.”

  “Wait!” Brad dashed back downstairs and returned with an iron poker from the sitting-room hearth, and a cleaver and block of kitchen knives from the kitchen. “Better than bare hands, right?”

  “How did they break down the house’s protection?” Lisa asked as they burst into the attic room. It was freezing from the window she had left half open the previous night, and that realization brought a flood of memories that left her shuddering.

  “I’ll take a guess that he had something to do with it.” Hellboy pointed one red finger out of the window.

  Hunched on the pitch of the roof of the house opposite, Carnifex clutched an object that gleamed with its own inner light. The opera glasses helped Hellboy see it resembled a ship’s sextant, made of brass and glass.

  “I knew they’d be looking for some way to break through the house’s defenses,” he noted, sure the sextant, whatever it was, was responsible for the sound of the tolling bell. “They picked up the Heart of Winter from a batch of books an’ stuff stored away in a Prague cellar for hundreds of years. Guess they finally discovered they’d got something else that would help.”

  Footsteps pattered across the roof above their heads. A pile of snow fell past the window.

  Lisa took a meat knife from the block. “So is this what you call a plan?” she asked acidly.

  “It’s all I’ve got right now,” Hellboy said.

  “Stay here trying to hold them off, until they break in downstairs?”

  “We can’t just leave this window undefended,” Brad said. “They’ll be overrunning the house in no time.”

  “They come in up here or at ground level—either way it’s game over.”

  “You got a better idea?” Hellboy asked.

  “Leave me and Brad here. We’ll hold them off. You go and find the Kiss of Winter.”

  A wolf flipped over the top of the attic window and landed on the outside ledge. Before it could gain purchase, Hellboy threw the window wide and punched it hard in the face. The snarl died in its throat as it arced out into the blizzard and then plummeted down to the street. The roaring of the beasts below grew even more intense as the victim crashed into their midst.

  “Can you handle that?” Hellboy asked. “If not, you probably shouldn’t stay here on your own.”

  “Then we have to search.” Lisa put on a brave face, but Hellboy could see she was damping down her fear at venturing into the subcellars without his protection.

  Before Hellboy could respond, thunder rumbled along the roof and wolf after wolf dropped in front of the window. By the time Hellboy sent the first flying, the remainder of the windows were smashed, and three more wolves dived in.

  Brad hacked the cleaver into the center of one wolf’s head. Howling, it flailed wildly. Just managing to avoid its talons, Brad yanked the cleaver out, but then a glancing blow sent him flying back into the wall. Cracking his head, he slumped down half stunned. Lisa’s warning cry brought him to his senses, and he rolled out of the way as the wolf launched at him. Scrambling to his feet, he lashed out blindly with the cleaver into the side of the wolf’s head. Blood spurted as it staggered back, and Brad put his head down and with no regard for his own safety drove forward into the beast’s chest. It was like hitting a wall, but the wolf was off balance and careened toward the window. Brad didn’t let up until he had propelled it out into the snow.

  At the last, its talons caught into his shirt, dragging him after it. Clasping onto the shattered window frame, he was on the brink of going through the window when the material tore. Adrenaline pumping, he staggered back, only half aware of Hellboy in a vicious fistfight with two other wolves. One clung to his back, raking at him with its claws, the other attempting to duck beneath Hellboy’s punches.

  “Back off, fur ball,” he snarled. “I’m nobody’s dinner!”

  Cutting and slicing with a knife in each hand, Lisa tried to hold back a wolf with a ragged scar above its right eye, but the ferocity of its attack turned it into a blur. Several strikes hit the target, but one of the knives broke off in the beast’s ribs. It plowed into her relentlessly, crushing her against the wall. The other knife slipped from her fingers as her breath squeezed in her lungs, and then the wolf snapped one arm around her waist and bounded to the window.

  Seeing its intention, Brad leapt to intercept, swinging the cleaver at the wolf’s legs, but it caught him full in the face with a heavy backhand that smashed him to the floor. Clawing his way to his feet, he called Lisa’s name. “I’m coming!”

  As the wolf paused in the window, Lisa gasped, “Don’t, Brad. Don’t. Let it go.” And then the wolf leapt out into the gusting winds and the snow, and the last Brad saw was Lisa’s tear-streaked face.

  Racing to the window, he yelled her name impotently, and then began to climb out onto the deep snow on the roof.

  “Brad, don’t be a dumbass!” Hellboy called. His punch slammed directly into the wolf in front of him, and in a fluid motion, he crushed the wolf on his back against the wall. As it slipped from him, unconscious, he ran to the window and dragged Brad back in.

  “They’ve got Lisa!” Brad said with hot tears of desperation stinging his eyes.

  “I saw. They want to find out what we know. Stay here. I’ll get her.”

  Hellboy steadied himself on the window ledge and then stepped out into the elements. Immediately, his feet started to slip on the frozen roof tiles and he had to windmill his arms to keep his balance. “Dammit! Never was any good at winter sports,” he cursed under his breath.

  Smacking him this way and that, the wind continually threatened to tear him off the roof and fling him to the street far below. The snow stung his eyes and made it hard to see more than a few feet in any direction, but he caught a fleeting glimpse of a shadow bounding to the roof pitch. Beneath the howl of the blizzard, Lisa’s cry drifted.

  He leapt forward and skidded instantly back toward the drop, teetering for a second on the brink before launching himself up the slope with renewed drive. In the deep snow, it was easy to follow the wolf’s tracks. Through sheer determination, he kept himself upright and caught up with the wolf as it paused on the chimney before attempting a leap to the next roof. Lisa writhed furiously in its grip.

  Her eyes widened when she saw Hellboy. Frantically, he tried to wave her silent, but she was unable to restrain calling his name in relief. The wolf’s head snapped toward him, a growl emanating from deep in its throat.

  “So much for stealth,” Hellboy muttered. He went for his gun. It would be impossible to get a clear shot without the risk of hitting Lisa, but if the wolf made it to the next roof it would escape with her.

  Bracing himself with one foot on either side of the pitch, Hellboy took aim, but the howling gale stopped him from hearing the approach of a second wolf, which threw itself at his back.

  Hellboy tried to buck the beast off, but it was impossible to gain purchase on the snow-slick roof. A third wolf bounded out of the blizzard and leapt at Hellboy. Engulfed in a storm of snapping teeth, he fought furiously to keep the fangs from his throat. Through the constant whirling motion, he saw the wolf on the chimney return its attention
to the next roof.

  Its muscles bunched on the verge of leaping, and Hellboy drove himself forward with the two wolves still tearing at him, demolishing the chimney in a cloud of flying brick. Lisa and her captor were flung high into the air.

  The bone-jarring impact forced the two other beasts to lose their grip. One skidded a short way down the roof. Hellboy caught the ankle of the other as it turned over, and used its momentum to swing it at the falling wolf that still gripped Lisa. When they crashed together, Lisa flew from the wolf’s arms, and the beast careened off the edge of the roof. Hellboy continued his swing into the third wolf, which was fighting its way back up the roof. At the last, he let go of the ankle and the two wolves spun in a flurry of flailing limbs before disappearing over the lip.

  “Hellboy!”

  Lisa’s cry helped him locate her in the disorienting blizzard. Skidding at increasing speed down the slope of the roof, she’d spread out her arms and legs in a futile attempt to slow her momentum, her mouth torn wide in a silent scream.

  Hellboy hurled himself after her. In the blizzard, it would have been easy to misjudge his jump, but he came down just where he wanted: a few inches beyond the edge of the roof. With one hand, he caught hold of the gutter. It swung him hard into the side of the house, his grunt at the impact lost beneath the sound of tearing metal as the gutter’s pins ripped from the brickwork.

  “What happened to American workmanship?” he muttered.

  Buckling, the gutter swung away from the roof out over the precipitous drop. Far below, the seething sea of wolves looked up and bayed.

  Lisa flew off the edge of the roof. Straining, Hellboy reached out and just caught her in the crook of his free arm, but their combined weight was too much for the fragmenting gutter to bear.

  “Crap,” Hellboy said.

  Lisa’s wide eyes locked on his. “Was this supposed to be a rescue?”

  The end of her comment was lost beneath the sound of the protesting cast iron as it finally tore free.

  Hellboy kept his grip on the gutter and Lisa as they plummeted. Her shriek made his ears ring, but he concentrated on using the arc of the unfurling gutter to direct him toward a window on the floor below. In an explosion of glass and wooden frame, they crashed into one of the bedrooms and rolled across the floor into a heap against the far wall.