Free Hellboy: On Earth as It Is in Hell by Brian Hodge

been keeping an eye on things below, as well, Hellboy sweeping a pair of Carl Zeiss binoculars over the grounds, and especially the piazza of St. Peter's Square. When a familiar shape caught his eye, he slapped Abe on the shoulder and pointed, handed over the binoculars.
    "Who's that look like down there to you?"
    "Where?" said Abe. "There's a lot of there down there."
    "This side and to the right of the obelisk," he said, referring to the ancient stone spire that had been brought over from Egypt when it was still freshly carved. "Firing up a cigarette."
    Abe gave it a game try but shook his head. "Sorry. I'm still not finding..."
    Hellboy took another peek. Maybe it was his imagination, but he could swear the man was staring straight up at the lantern tower.
    "Well, I see somebody I'd like to have a talk with," he said, and gave the railing an experimental shove with his normal hand, to see how much weight it might hold.
    "Hellboy, no," Abe said. "Don't do this..."
    On the dangerous side of the railing, the great gray dome of St. Peter's swelled outward and sloped sharply down and away from them, like a waterfall of stone. At even intervals, it was braced by vaulted ribs that helped support the immense weight of Michelangelo's design, and centered between them, small portals let the light of day stream inside the cupola like rays from a benevolent Heaven.
    He braced his hand on the railing and flexed his legs.
    "No--we're supposed to be keeping a low profile," Abe tried.
    Hellboy glanced behind them, past the twinned pairs of columns that held up the tower's roof, and gave a wave to their guard. Poor guy, standing there with his halberd and knowing there was nothing he could do.
    "Sorry, Bertrand," Hellboy called out with a wave of his big right hand. "I'll put in a good word for you, tell them you did a great job."
    With that, he shoved up and over, vaulting the railing in one fluid move, clearing the platform and landing astride the nearest rib. At first he took it like a playground sliding board, guided by the indentation of the shallow trough down the middle of the rib. But the slope quickly turned so sharp it was almost like a freefall, the air whistling up past his face and the back of his coat skimming along the stone beneath him, as the striated junctures of the dome's individual sections whizzed past in a blur.
    He braced for the landing, touching down for a moment atop a small platform at the bottom of the rib and springing forward, in true freefall now as he hit first one elevated section of roof, then bounded onto the main flat roof over the basilica's long central nave, absorbing the shock of each landing with a flexing of his legs. Had to give it up for Baroque architecture. You could never do this with today's glass and steel towers.
    He sprinted along the roof toward one end of the portico, its front edge lined with statues of Jesus and his disciples carrying crosses and swords. From here Hellboy launched out over the roof of Bernini's colonnade. One final bounce and touchdown later and he was standing on the stones of the piazza, ignoring the murmuring of onlookers and the rapid-fire click of camera shutters. Mostly he wished Abe could've been up there timing him with a stopwatch. He'd just put the world's express elevators to shame.
    He crossed the rest of the distance at a leisurely jog until he reached the man in the smartly tailored black suit, who'd barely had time to smoke enough of his cigarette so that you'd notice.
    "Monsignor," Hellboy said.
    From beneath the wide brim of his hat, Burke, the sole American who had been at this morning's subterranean council, gave him a tight smile. "I've heard you have a knack for flamboyant entrances."
    "Me?" Hellboy demurred. "Most of the time I creep around on cat feet."
    "Really. Which I might even believe if cats' feet were"--with an arch glance downward--"cloven."
    Hellboy still wasn't sure if he liked this guy. He just couldn't imagine Burke, with his cropped