Hellboy shrugged off the husks still attached to his arms and chest and watched them flit away. 'Guess that's Big Mama.'
'I reckon so. Can you make out the web around her?'
Hellboy squinted and thought he saw, thanks to Granny Lewt's eyes, some kind of burning white filament about the Mother Tree. 'That's a web? What kind of web?'
'A net of spells, set there by Granny Dodd,l s'pect. She knew enough to try to contain it and keep it from growing too wild. But when she died, the charms floundered. I still wonder if this was an entity she found here a'growin' or if she nurtured it for her own reasons.'
'Does it matter?'
'I suppose not.'
'I'm going to hit it.'
Lament turned and looked at him. 'Mayhap that's not the best course.'
'And mayhap it is,' Hellboy said. 'That's what I do. I hit things and I hit them hard. If they get up I hit them some more. There's not much finesse, but it usually works.' He tightened his hand into a fist, but that ethereal web glimmered again. 'Unless you think you can strengthen the spells? Might give us an edge.'
Palming away some blood on his neck, Lament shook his head. 'Me? I done told you already, I don't know any magics.'
'Right, I forgot. The magics know you.'
'Say it with mistrust if you must, but it's the truth.'
'I believe you,' Hellboy said. 'I don't understand it, but I believe you.'
'Well, son, you're the one got yourself splinters of saints and all manners of inscribed silver trinkets. Can't you wield no enchantments?'
'No.' Hellboy sighed and tried to figure out what the best way to go clobber a big sleeping tree woman might be.
The wind shifted and Lament covered his nose with his forearm, trying not to gag. Hellboy smelled it too, the narcotic perfume coming on strong. He turned away and got the smelling salts out again. He jammed them tightly to his nostrils and sniffed until tears squirted from his eyes.
When he spun back, Lament had gone down to one knee and was muttering to himself. 'That fragrance again-urging free my dreams-I have dreams, you know, wonderful and plain, my wife on the porch, my child learning to sing-'
'Here, take the…'
'Wondrous, the places Mother takes you-'
'… smelling salts. Sniff them!'
Shaking his head to clear it, gritting his teeth and groaning, Lament managed to climb to his feet. 'You keep them. I have something else.'
From his pocket he drew out what looked like dried flowers. Again with the flowers, everywhere down here with the flowers.
All things being equal he'd rather be at the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens. Enough with the flowers. And the damn catfish.
Hellboy remembered Lament reaching for his pocket when they'd first come upon the nest. Lament placed the petals in his mouth and started to chew.
'What're those?'
'Roses. Held out to a woman who died a minute later, then placed on her grave in the sunrise.'
'How are they supposed to help?'
'They've got power.' He swept back his dirty wet hair, that scar on his scalp even more noticeable than before. It appeared to be much redder now, like a recent branding. 'They were strewn on the floor and stained with her blood, so they're mighty bitter. They'll keep me focused.'
Hellboy was going to ask more questions but figured it wasn't worth it. He just let the guy chow down. Besides, he couldn't argue with results. Lament's voice had lost that vacuous quality.
'So,' Hellboy asked. 'Where should I hit it? How do you kill a weed?'
'You scorch the earth,' Lament said, and right then Mama opened her eyes.
Chapter 16
At least it appeared as if the mammoth Mother Tree opened an eye on its great feminine-like face, to now gaze at the intruders. Maybe it was just the shifting of leaves, but it sure looked like a seam in the bark had parted like an eyelid rising. The marionettes crowded around the massive trunk, dangling and waiting with the patience of the dead.
Lament said, 'All right now, give me your lighter.'
'How do you know I have a lighter? You're the one who fries turtle eggs.'
'I only use wooden matches, and they're the very definition of soggified at the moment, son.' He pointed at Hellboy's belt. 'Looks like you got compartments a'plenty there. Ain't you got no fire?'
'I've always got fire,' Hellboy said.
The girlies started to laugh and Lament turned, anxiety more deeply etched in his features.
'What is it?' Hellboy asked.
'The web is snapping loose. I don't know what's gonna happen next but it looks like Mama is waking up. We ain't got much time.'
Hellboy grunted. They always started waking up right about at this point. The Goliath of Gol. The Baleside Behemoth. They'd be sleeping for millennia and twenty minutes after Hellboy showed up they'd be ail quarrelsome and looking for trouble. It got a little depressing sometimes.
He reached into his belt and produced his Zippo. Its casing was dented from a couple of high-caliber bullets he'd taken in the chest a long time ago. He kept it mostly for sentimental reasons nowadays but it still worked. At least it had when he'd taken the skiff out and lit the lantern last night, before he'd spent the day fumbling around in all this muck.
'They say these things never fail. Let's see.'
He snapped the Zippo open, sparked it by whipping it across the thigh that hadn't been mauled. It flamed immediately.
The girlies lifted on their vines and reeled away, mimicking human voices and making their chatter, waving their hands about their faces.
'They know to fear it,' Lament said. 'I reckon some of them moonshiners held
Hellboy grabbed hold for the nearest cluster of branches but the recent rains had wet them down too much. He pulled at the grass, grabbed hold of some of the thatching of briar. He pressed the lighter to it all but couldn't get anything other than a few puffs of smoke.
'The flame won't take, it's too
Hanging by their tendrils, the marionettes ceased their human-like activities at the same moment and froze in place. Limbs completely limp, eyes shut. Chins to their chests. At once they were all drawn to the top of the great Mother Tree's head, and lay flat against the bark, unmoving and forming a canopy of cover.
The earth began to stir and rumble, and the hummocks and thorny bushes swayed and then surged for the sky, the ground quaking and heaving.
'Aw crap, it can walk.'
'Now that is a damn sight to behold.'
Replacing the Zippo in his belt, Hellboy snarled, rushed forward, picked up speed, drew back his stone fist, and threw every- thing he had into punching big ole Mama in the knee. He connected powerfully and shouted,'How
