"You've no right to judge me, demon. Your secret heart is so much worse than mine."
"Thought you were going to show it to me,"
"I have."
"So far I just see a trickster playing games."
"You're blind to yourself. Which is how you wish it to be. But I'll give you the boon of sight."
For some reason Hellboy didn't like the sound of that. The shadows reared and swarmed forward again, like a crowd of helpful people moving to lend a hand, who only wind up suffocating the person they're trying to help. He could feel them now, within him again, and he realized they weren't evil and weren't truly a part of Jester.
Hellboy sensed they were as immature, unknowing, naive, adventuresome, and curious as the swamp kids.
He realized then that the crying children he'd been hearing for two days were these angels. Perhaps the lost offspring of God. Or perhaps the lost scion of mankind.
He looked at the preacher and said, "Okay, playtime's over, pal."
"This has never been a game or joy. It's duty and blessing."
Jester stood over him now, his forehead bulging with nubby horns. They grew larger and curved and jutted higher. The old man's face grew broad and flat. His rail-thin body thickened and turned red until Hellboy faced another version himself, damn near exactly the same except for the eyes.
"I know your true nature."
"You don't know squat about me, pal."
He reached out and grabbed Jester's horns, the ones that had grown merely to taunt him, he figured. As he'd done with his own, be snapped them off and held them like curved blades, feeling the damnation and power they represented. He hated to admit it but this was a good feeling, a familiar one. He thrust them through Jester's heart.
"Suck on that,buddy!"he shouted.
But nothing happened.
"We are destroyers," the dark preacher said, "and we are the destroyed."
The stone fist swung out again.
And all Hellboy had time to say was, "Oh crap."
Then he couldn't say or think of anything because his mind and body were composed of nothing but agony. He hurtled high into the cypresses, and the land where jester had brought God sailed away far beneath him.
The shadow children, the great seraphim, cried and crooned.
Clinging to the dark brush, with Duffy's hand squeezing her arm roughly, the three-eyed girl pointed to Ma'am McCulver's house and said,"There.The girl you want is inside. She's just had a baby."
"What's that place?" Duffy asked.
"It's the granny witch's home."
"You people and all your hag houses."
"Looks like Jester's a granddaddy," Deeter said. He held up the shotgun, looking for trouble, but didn't see anybody. "This young'un got himself an extra leg or nose or ear? He got a chin on his forehead? He got a red tail?"
"Its a baby girl," the three-eyed woman told him,"and no, she's what the world calls normal."
"What I'd call normal then too, honeypie."
"You're a cruel malignancy." The woman turned away, as if unable to witness the awful sight of the beautiful Ferris boys. "You'll die tonight with your brother."
"Yeah, how so?"
"By your own misdeeds. By the hand of your master."
"Ain't got no master, missy," Deeter told her. "I'm my own man, and don't you forget it none 'lest I carve out your liver for you."
"Aw, forget her ranting," Duffy said. "She does go on and on, just like Ma if you recall."
"I do recollect."
"This one here, she got the brain damage, I s'pect, from that third eye growing out her head. It affects the noggin."
"Don't see how it couldn't."
The door to Ma'am McCulver's home, the witchy palace, opened and out came Doc Wayburn, who trundled off across town muttering to himself.
A minute later, out came John Lament, not so full of his usual vim but still looking strong and a touch larger than he should. The Ferris boys ducked down and dragged the girl with them, watching through the brush. In the moonlight Lament's, white streak burned bright, and so did his eyes, filled with-well, the Ferris brothers couldn't quite tell what they were filled with. Whether it was joy or fear or a combination of both. Duffy and Deeter had run afoul of John Lament plenty of times over the years, and mostly they wound up with bleeding heads, cracked bones, and bruised egos. They'd been wanting to kill him for a month of blue Sundays, but it never seemed the right time.
"Should I put two shells in his back?" Deeter asked.
"I don't like his look of conviction. Let Jester handle him too. Makes our night a little less complicated. We're just here to get the girl and hand her over. Then we steal what we can pocket and get the hell back to Enigma, free of that crazy preacher."
"No-need to play coy," Deeter said. "Iffun that granny wants trouble we'll give it to her. Otherwise, we march up and kick in the door, take the girl, and we're off."
Thanks to the rain the town was brimming with puddles. They started toward the house but before they'd gotten to the porch, the door opened. Sarah stepped out holding her newborn daughter wrapped in a yellow Easter blanket.
Behind her came Ma'am McCulver and the pumpkin-headed boy who glowered and tried to look mean but just couldn't do much. Especially considering his little tuft of hair was swaying so humorously back and forth in the breeze. The boy moved out in front and met the Ferris brothers at the foot of the steps.
"What you want, jughead?" Duffy asked.
The pumpkin-headed boy hauled off and socked Duffy in the face. It was the first punch he'd ever thrown, and he seemed sad and stupefied to have thrown it at all, but at least Duffy let go of the three-eyed woman. Or at least he did so after Fishboy Lenny swam out from a mud puddle and sank his teeth back into Duffy's ankle.
Duffy yowled, looked down, and saw the godamnedest sight he'd ever seen. There was a kid down there gnawing on his foot, flapping his flipper hands around and keeping afloat in the puddle. Duffy started dancing around but the boy just looked up and his mouth was red in the porch light and his needle-sharp tiny teeth were strung with bits of Duffy's flesh.
Deeter shouted, "Hellfire!" He aimed the ten-gauge but couldn't draw a bead with all the sudden activity. The pumpkin-headed kid dove for him, grabbed the barrel of the shotgun, and tried to grapple it loose. Deeter held onto the stock with one hand and pummelled the boy to his knees with the other.
The weirdo fish kid went, "Fweep."
"This ain't no gator, girl!"
"No," the three-eyed woman said, "that's Lenny."
"Fweep mwash," went Fishboy Lenny.
"He done chewed up my foot!"
Deeter said, "I'm gonna have to shotgun him into next Sunday now. Seen that before, did you?"
"No, it was new to me."
"Reckon you need a fourth eye for that, huh?"
"Enough," Ma'am McCulver said, stepping into the moonlight, the pale silver illumination embracing and enhancing her beauty. Her presence was both calming and fearsome. Her black hair was a mass of wild curls that rose and reached. Fishboy Lenny tugged at the nearly unconscious pumpkin-headed boy and drew him away through the mud.
Ma'am McCulver scowled, and the wind grew louder and the storm suddenly seemed closer. The Ferris brothers didn't know what to make of any of this witchy business and simply stood there, wondering who to kill next.
Sarah said, "Please, Ma'am, this is a family argument. It's my fight and no one else's. Only I can do anythin' about it and put a stop to all the fuss."
"I know you," Duffy said to Sarah, "least I almost reckon I do. We seen you about."
"You have," she told them.
Deeter said, "You're Sarah, the girl been causin' us so much trouble."
"Deeter Ferris," she said, "you're one rotten soul, through and through. And how is it I've caused you any bother?"
"Well, the bother really started a bit before you was even mentioned, when we were takin' care of the lady saleswoman in the swamp, but anyways a bother you've become all right, thanks to Jester."
Duffy released the three-eyed woman and grabbed Sarah's arm instead. Her sleeping baby sighed loudly. He held his cutting blade to Sarah's cheek, turned to Ma'am McCulver and said, "Now that's it, no more trouble! You gonna raise a hand to me, you gorgeous piece of love?"