'Then let him on in, Luther,' an ancient, but oddly powerful voice, called.''Fore he get up to any mischief out there.'
'Come on in, O Lucifer, Son of the Morning!'
Well, Hellboy thought, this is going to be fun.
Lit from the glow of a blazing fire within, Luther's eyes burned a strange bronze. He stood nearly seven feet tall and went at least three hundred pounds of hard muscle. His enormous head was crowned by a small tuft of wispy yellow hair. In his left hand he held two dead rabbits, and hooked on his huge pinky was a jug of moonshine.
'Satan,' Luther said, 'don't stir no strife in this here house.'
'Luther, if you don't start any crud with me, I won't with you. Deal?'
'I reckon that's as fair an offer as I'm likely to get from the Devil.'
'Probably,' Hellboy admitted. 'At least today.'
Luther moved aside and Hellboy stepped in, bis upper lip curling in response to the overwhelming stink of cooked meat.
Tucked into her small wooden wheelchair a crone sat, smoking a corncob pipe. She was missing both legs, her left arm, right eye, and both ears. Long white hair grew in crazed clumps, some braided, some knotted into a pattern he recognized as a Litany Web. Powerful mojo.
Behind her, against a shack wall abundant with cracks stuffed full of mud and sawgrass, he saw numerous jars filled with amber fluid and dark floating matter. Labeled in a childlike scrawl were: Granny's Left Thumb, Granny's Right Big Toe, Granny's Shinbones, Luther's Wisdom Teeth, Boysenberry Jam, Granny's Anterior Margin of Pancreas, Granny's Celiac Ganglia with the Sympathetic Plexuses of the Abdominal Viscera, Luther's Kidney Stones, Peaches.
'I'm Granny Lewt,' the woman said.'We got business together, you and me.'
'We do?'
'Tha's right.'
Drinking his moonshine, the hulking Luther tossed the rabbits onto a broad wooden kitchen table and began to skin them. He was very adept with the thick cutting blade, and Hellboy didn't want to think about what that might imply, considering the old woman's current state.
'Let me hear what's on your mind, lady.'
'You showin' up like this only gonna make bad matters come together that much faster.'
'Usually does.'
'Ayup. You put fear into the things that ain't afraid'a much in this world or the next.' She plucked out her pipe and pointed the end at Hellboy. 'Wish there were more like you around.'
'Be careful saying things like that,' Hellboy said. 'You never know who might be listening.'
In the center of the stone hearth a black pot of stew bubbled. Luther gutted the rabbits, chopped the meat and some vegetables, several of which Hellboy didn't recognize, and threw it all into the cauldron. Some of the liquid boiled over and splashed the inside of the fireplace. The flames heaved. A heavy draft swept by, moaning and wheezing through the perforated walls and up the chimney.
'You heard tell'a Brother Jester?' Granny Lewt asked.
'Yeah, him I heard about already. Can I go now?'
'Don't you shrug that one off too lightly.'
Holding onto the pipe with her remaining two fingers, Granny Lewt snaked her right hand-her only hand- through the air for emphasis. Then she sat back and puffed deeply, enjoying her smoke.
The old woman said, 'He's out there in Enigma right now. I don't know his meaning. He's got power, and he's sly.'
'They all are. Don't worry about me, I've been doing this a long time.'
'I pray tell that's so. But you don't know these swamps, and these here black waters is different than anything you ever known before.'
He'd been in Jerusalem when the Whore of Babylon crept out of the olive trees at the Garden of Gethsemane. He'd fought off goblins and trolls and African tribal demons that possessed snakes sixty feet long. He'd gone head to head with the Japanese Lord of War called Aragami, the fury of wild violence, the God of Battle, slayer of 8,888 men, and Hellboy had trounced him. He hadn't been so damn tough.
So Hellboy figured that a little moss and slime, a few thorny patches and a lot of mud, some guy who took his troubles out on a bunch of girls… well, he could handle it.
Granny Lewt said, 'There's someone else out there you gotta watch out for.'
'There always is,' Hellboy sighed. 'Would that be this Lament character?'
As she nodded, Granny's blanket slid from around her shoulders and he saw the clean edge of scar tissue to her amputated arm. 'He got power, that boy, but he been away in the world a long time. He used Co preach the gospel in a golden voice dazzling as the rising sun. But I don't know which side'a this thing he likely to come down upon. He got
Hellboy wondered why anybody ever tried to give him advice when, in the end, nobody knew a goddamn thing anyway.
'You know where this village is supposed to be?'
'Nobody knows except them that's got to know.'
'Well, that's helpful. So, any idea where I should start?'
'You walk southeast to the bottoms,' Granny said. 'Follow the road, bear to the left. You'll find a skiff and stobpole there.'
'A what and a what?'
'A boat and a pole to push it yonder into the sweet blackwater.' Granny Lewt appraised him and said, 'For a worldly-for a beyond the worldly-big critter like you, you ain't so well-versed in our ways.'
'Lady this place isn't all that special except it's a lot greener and more humid than most.' He peered into her withered face, as deep as he figured he could go, and asked, 'You think those girls and their babies will be all right?'
'I pray so, but there ain't no way to know until it's their time for the chillun to come out in the world. I tell you this though, that Brother Jester get to whisperin' at 'em, or he toss out a shadow upon 'em, he gonna cuss 'em fer sure. They be born in some bad way. There's a thousand years'a half-gnawed bones hidden in them briar patches and under that morass. You go in alone with no guide, you ain't gonna ever come home again.'
'You people are starting to freak me out a little,' Hellboy admitted. 'How about if you save the creepy speeches for the next guy who comes down the road and just let me get on with it?'
'I'd tell you to wait until mornin'-a lotta men been lost in that slough at high noon, much less at night-but we both know the minutes is melting away like a slivered candlestick. You gonna need somethin' to help you on your way.'
She rooted around in her blankets for a moment and he expected her to come up with a charm or amulet, the way the witches usually did. But instead she just got out a pouch of tobacco and started to clean and refill her pipe with her one hand. Her wrinkled, liver-spotted fingers were still extremely nimble. She tamped the tobacco in, stuck the pipe between her teeth again, lit a match against the underside of her chair, and set to smoking once more. Hellboy waited.
Granny Lewt wheeled herself to the fire and filled a wooden bowl of stew. It steamed and hissed and popped, and Hellboy wondered how anybody could eat such a meal. He was hungry and started to wonder if he was ever going to get any edible chow this side of the Mason-Dixon line.
'Here,' she said, 'have some supper.'
'Thanks anyway.'
'You gotta eat it.'
'What do you mean?'
'You gotta get some into you so's you can git about in the bog with my eyes and ears.' She placed it on her lap and rutted about for a spoon. Stuck it in the bowl and proffered it to him.
He blinked at her. 'Your eyes and ears?'
'It'll help you in your hour of need.'
'Lady, the only need I've got right now is to get the hell out of here.'
