Read Online Hellboy, Vol. 2: The All-Seeing Eye by Mark Morris - Free Book Online

Africa, but muti encompasses so many different rituals and beliefs that often murders which could be attributed to it are simply swept up within the general melee of lawlessness. Even in South Africa, which has a more centralized system of policing, there are no solid statistics. Muti murder estimates vary from one a month to several hundred a year. There was, however, a recent high-profile case in Grahamstown in the Eastern Cape Provinces. Nine men belonging to a Yoruban cult were convicted of a woman’s murder, in which the victim had her facial skin removed with a scalpel, following which her genitalia, breasts, hands, and feet were hacked off while she was still alive. The reason they didn’t kill her first is because the screams of the butchered victim are said to enhance the power of the medicine. In this case the woman’s body parts were used as the ingredients for a get-rich-quick spell called ukutwalela ubutyebi . The men apparently smeared the woman’s blood over themselves and then ate the parts they had hacked off.”
    “What a sweet little bedtime story,” Hellboy said from the front of the car.
    Grim faced, Liz asked, “And now you think one of these Yoruban cults has come to London?”
    Again, Richard shrugged. “I think they’ve been here a long time, perhaps even years. I think they’ve established a whole subculture which operates beneath the law.”
    “Is that possible?” asked Abe. Liz and Hellboy looked at him as if they couldn’t believe his naivete. “In such a small and highly civilized country, I mean, where almost every murder becomes a national headline?”
    “I think the Yoruba, if that’s who they are, have become experts at covering their tracks,” Richard said. “Many of their victims are illegal immigrants, children who are bought in African cities like Kinshasa for as little as five or ten pounds and then smuggled into the country. A police inspector recently told me that out of three hundred black children from ethnic backgrounds reported missing from London schools in the first three months of this year, only two have been traced. And these are just the children who are enrolled in British schools. Many more slip through the net and have no official existence in this country.”
    In her line of work, Liz had encountered hundreds of demonic entities, had frequently come face to face with evil, and had witnessed death on a grand scale ... and yet she had still never quite come to terms with the appalling depravity of man’s inhumanity to man.
    “It’s what makes you strong,” Hellboy had told her once when she had been weeping in his arms after a particularly harrowing mission. “Lose that and you stop being human.”
    “That’s sickening,” she said now, quietly, looking at Richard.
    He nodded slowly. “It’s certainly that.”
    “I don’t know, Richard,” said Abe. “These current killings don’t really follow the MO I’ve seen in previous muti activities.”
    “You’re right, of course,” said Richard, “and that’s what makes these deaths so ... well, intriguing . Firstly all the victims are adults, secondly all the victims are white, and thirdly the placing of the remains has meant that the killings have become extremely high profile.”
    “Plus there’s the occult element to consider,” Abe said.
    Richard looked quizzical. “I don’t follow.”
    Abe quickly filled Richard in on the occult significance of each of the murder sites.
    “Interesting,” the lecturer said quietly.
    “I still think we could be dealing with nothing more than a psycho here,” Hellboy chipped in. “These guys, they read this stuff and think they’re on Earth to do the devil’s work or some such crap.”
    “You could be right,” said Richard.
    The talk turned to more general matters. As Abe questioned Richard further about his particular field of expertise, Hellboy closed his eyes and phased out the conversation. Although he was a quick healer, he was tired from