The front door was open, but guarded by two more men, this time with Lee-Enfield rifles, who looked familiar and were almost certainly some of my father's former military colleagues.
There were a lot more men inside the house, dozens of them in the reception rooms, all armed to the teeth, with rifles, submachine guns, and even a couple of Bren light machine guns. They stopped talking as I was led through to the kitchen.
My father was there, tall and authoritarian-looking as ever, though I had never before seen him as he was now, with his face painted in strange whorls of a blue so dark it was almost black and a wreath of holly in his silver hair. He was also wearing a long white robe with the hood pushed back.
He was waving a green stick, a branch recently torn from a tree, over a pile of .303 ball ammunition boxes on the kitchen table, tapping the boxes as he chanted something in what was not exactly Gaelic. There was also a pile of what looked like gilded pruning hooks under the table, thirty or forty of them, and every third tap he bent down to wave the stick over them as well.
I started to go in, but Strahan held me back and emphasized his grip on my arm with an urgent whisper.
"Wait! Not until he puts the rod down."
I opened my mouth, but shut it again before anyone needed to tell me. I suppose I was in mild shock, the kind of dissonance you experience when you see your extremely proper, military father wearing a white robe while he performed something that could only be described as a rite or spell of some kind.
Then I really did go into shock, as I took in the figure at the far end of the room. A man, or a manlike humanoid, whose skin was as red as a boiled lobster, and his head a strange confabulation of angular lines, with two circular growths sprouting from his forehead like opaque goggles of that same red flesh. He wore a khaki trenchcoat, and I was further staggered when I saw a tail twist out behind the coat, a tail that could only be described as demonic.
I must have gasped, for Strahan pulled me back, and the strange red creature looked at me. He put down his pewter mug and waved, shocking me still further, as his right hand was a massive, oversized fist that apart from being the same color as his flesh, would have been more in keeping on a mighty statue of some medieval hero.
My father finished his chant, and laid the wand upon the ammunition boxes. The branch withered as he did so, and crumbled into a light ash, which he bent down to blow off with three carefully controlled breaths. Then he turned to see who had almost interrupted him, controlled anger on his painted face, which eased as he saw me staring, the hamper clutched to my chest almost like a shield.
"Malcolm! What are you doing here?"
"I ... I got some days off," I stammered. "Spur of the moment — "
I was looking past him at the creature. I couldn't think of him as a man, for he looked to be so far beyond the physical norm. In fact I didn't know what to think, and a good part of my previously extremely secure worldview was crumbling.
My father saw me looking, and clearly understood.
"Let me introduce you to a colleague," he said. "Hellboy, may I present my son, Doctor Malcolm MacAndrew. A medical doctor, not one of those philosophers."
"Hi," growled the apparition. He sounded human enough, with the hint of an American accent. "How ya doing, doc?"
"Fine, thank you," I said automatically. Then I dropped the hamper. I heard the wine bottles break, but it didn't really register.
"But I don't understand what is going on," I added, and suddenly felt ten years old again, and not at all a well-qualified professional with a grasp of every situation, which was how I liked to perceive myself. "Why is your face painted? And why are you wearing a ... a robe?"
"It's not the right time to tell you," said my father slowly.
"Got to tell the kid sometime, Mac," said the red apparition, this Hellboy. "Must be a shock to see your father wearing a dress."
"It's not a dress, it's a druidical robe," said my father. "As you very well know, Hellboy. But I wasn't initiated into the mysteries until I was thirty-three, that is the proper age — "
"What mysteries?" I interjected. "Just tell me what is going on, please!"
"We might need a doctor to come along," said Hellboy.
"We have a doctor," replied my father.
"Doc Hendricks is a bit old to be wandering across the bottom of the loch," said Hellboy. He looked at me and winked. "What say you come along, Doc?"
"The bottom of the loch?"
"Oh very well, I suppose I don't have much choice," grumbled my father. "You B.P.R.D. types just don't respect tradition sometimes. Strahan, issue the blessed ammunition and the sickles to the men. You come upstairs with me, Malcolm, and I'll fill you in. Hellboy ... I don't suppose there's any point giving you any orders, is there?"
"Nope," said Hellboy. He finished whatever he was drinking from the silver flagon and took a cigarette from an inside pocket of his trench coat and lit it up. "I might take a walk along the water's edge, see if anything pops up."
"Nothing will happen till the moon is high," said my father.
"The Russians might not know that," replied Hellboy. He bit down on his cigarette and talked through a clenched jaw, while he busied himself checking the most oversized handgun I'd ever seen, at least outside the picture of a medieval hand-cannon that had adorned the cover of one of my childhood books.
"The Russians?"
I felt like I'd inadvertently taken some delirium-inducing drug. My father was apparently a druid in charge of some paramilitary organization in league with an American semihuman ... I felt a strong urge to get out my medical bag and take my own temperature, except that I knew it would not indicate a fever. I had stumbled into a hidden world, but I knew it was a real one, as real as the discovery of my father's secret relationship with my cousin Susan, after my mother died. That had been a shock too, but to some degree it had prepared me for this, the realization that my father had a number of layers to his life, many of them hidden to me.
I followed him upstairs to his study, which was as orderly as ever, his books of military and natural history arrayed in alphabetical order by author behind the glass doors of the bookshelves, his desk devoid of paper, several pens lined up on the green baize top in order of size.
We sat in his studded leather armchairs, and he looked at me with an expression I knew well, that of a gentleman of a certain age uncertain how to impart to his son the facts of life. He took a breath to start, stopped, let it out, took another breath and started off, all while not really looking me in the eye.
"We come from a long line of what many people call druids, Malcolm. Uncle Andrew, your great-uncle, was in fact the Arch-Druid of Britain until his death and in due course I will probably succeed him. At present I hold the post of Sentinel of the West and the Isles, and it is in that capacity that I have gathered the lesser druids and deodars here and sought the help of the B.P.R.D. — "
"Deodars? B.P.R.D.?"
"Deodars are sworn laymen in our service. The Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense is an organization that has a lot of experience in dealing with the kind of situation we're facing. Particularly Hellboy, who is their chief operative — "
"What situation? And what is Hellboy anyway?"
"Hellboy is a fine young man," replied my father stiffly. "Just think of him as having a different background. Like a Gurkha or a chap from Africa. I met him in Malaya during the Emergency, got a lot of respect for the fellow."
"He's not a Gurkha," I protested weakly. "He's got a tail, and he's red — "
"Hellboy is an absolutely essential ally in the fight we face tonight," interrupted my father grimly. "I expect you to show him the respect you would accord one of my brother officers."
"I don't understand, but of course I will behave properly toward him," I said. "What exactly is the situation? What fight?"
My father walked to the window and drew back the curtain. Beyond the floodlights, the surface of the loch glimmered silver, catching the light of the full moon which had begun to climb up, half its disc now visible.
"This house has been here a very long time," he said. "It is not called the Owtwauch for nothing, for it is indeed a sentry post, from where we druids have watched over the sacred circle of Maponos since time immemorial."
He gestured out toward the water.
"When the moon is full, there is a silver road to the stone circle that now lies at the bottom of the loch. A silver road that we guard against those who would attempt to use the circle for evil ends. Hellboy has brought us word that just such evildoers will seek to enter the circle tonight, and we must prevent them."
"Russian evildoers?"
"Their nationality is not their primary identification. They serve a Russian master, and have bent the power of the Soviets to their own ends. Now, there is little time, and I must prepare you. We cannot do the full initiation of course, but Maponos will need to know you as one of his own."
"I've heard that name before," I said. "I vaguely remember ... when I was a child ..."
"Aye, I'd forgotten you'd met a presence of the god," said my father, as matter-of-fact as if he were talking about the village grocer. "That will help. You were eight or nine at the time, it would have been 1946, when we were last all here."
"I thought he was a fisherman," I said. I had forgotten the name, but I remembered the occasion very well. There was a stream that ran into the loch not far away, and I had been paddling in it. A man had come out of the water, and given me a very large and splendid sea trout, which I'd taken back to my mother, who had not been as thrilled as I was to receive it.
"Well, he might remember you anyway, but we shall paint your face to make sure, and you can wear one of my spare robes."
I acquiesced to this without protest. It didn't even feel particularly strange to have my father smear the curiously sweet-smelling dye upon my cheeks. He'd painted my face before, when I was a child. Perhaps those occasions had been more significant than I thought.
The robe was slightly more troublesome, since it was extremely reminiscent of a large, loose dress. But if my battle-veteran father could wear one, I supposed I could too, and when we went downstairs I was not that surprised to see several others also wearing the white robes, though most of the younger men were not. I supposed they were the deodars.
Hellboy was back inside too. A man wearing a similar trench coat was talking to him, reading from a clipboard. Hellboy nodded as the man spoke. When he'd finished, he stood up and raised that strange clublike fist. Everyone fell silent and looked at him.
"Okay guys, the sonar buoy says there's a sub in the loch. Gotta be the Russians. Mac, what's the deal with the silver road?"
My father looked out the window.
"The road is forming. They will be able to enter it, from the mouth of the loch, as will you. We had best deploy."
"Yeah, we'd best," said Hellboy. "Remember, you hold 'em off from the circle, while I come at them from behind."
"They will not reach the keystone," said my father grimly. "Not alive, at any rate."
"That's what I'm worried about," growled Hellboy. "I don't want any of them reaching the keystone dead, either."
"None of the unworthy will gain a boon from Maponos," added my father. "Dead or alive."
"They'd better not or we'll all be into some serious regretting time. Those old gods ought to be more choosy who they dish the goods out to. I'll see you later. Good luck, guys."
Pausing only to throw his cigarette butt into the fireplace, Hellboy left. He moved very swiftly, I noted, weaving through the men with deft, precise movements that belied his bulky chest and that massive fist. I thought then that he would be a very interesting subject to examine more closely, before I even knew about his immense strength and durability.
We all left the house soon after Hellboy. I carried my doctor's bag, and one of the gilded pruning hooks. I had declined the offer of a Browning Hi-Power pistol, having a somewhat romantic notion of being true to my Hippocratic oath. I wished I had taken it soon enough.
The moon had not quite completely risen, but its light was bright enough to cast shadows. By virtue of the surrounding mountains or some meteorological phenomenon it did shine most brightly on the surface of the loch, lighting a silver trail that extended from the sheltered waters far out to sea.
"The silver road is present," pronounced my father, and he added something in Gaelic that I didn't catch, but was repeated by the men around me.
We marched down to the water's edge. I had no idea what was to happen next, but given the earlier events of the night, I was not overly surprised when we just kept going into what should have been water, but was not. My father gestured, and the men spread out into a skirmish line and I followed them into the strange, silver-lit atmosphere that was neither air nor water.
After a few yards I noted that though I could see a membrane above my head that was where the water level should be, and the ground beneath my feet was by turns both weeded and stony, there were no fish sharing this temporary environment we had entered. The water had not been made breathable to us; it had been transformed entirely, and that transformation had also removed the usual inhabitants of the loch's waters.
We continued down the slope of the loch floor for several minutes, in watchful silence. I found it both frightening and wonderful, that I should be walking deeper and deeper into the heart of the sea. But even this strange experience could not hide the underlying fear I felt, that soon I would be under fire, that I would be taking part in a battle and my father would see that I had not chosen a medical career because of some deep calling to the profession, but because it represented a respectable way for me not to become a soldier like him. It had even allowed me to avoid National Service, and I had fully expected that my occupation would keep me safe even in the event of another world war.
