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

susceptible to corruption."
    "You believe that?"
    "I suppose it would depend on the individual Inquisitors. For the true believers, it probably wouldn't have made any difference. But we have to assume that their line of work also attracted men who may have preached a good game, but were first and foremost sadists...deeply disturbed men who found an accepted outlet for their worst perversions. Naturally they're going to focus their attentions on the most helpless."
    "And what's the other theory?"
    "That they were extremely effective at maintaining their status as a secret society. They wouldn't have been the kind of group you could infiltrate, while having another agenda, or gain information about from outsiders. Supposedly their initiation rites contained activities that someone uncommitted to this unorthodox path would never have been able to bring himself to commit. Not that they regarded it as devil worship, by any means...but that's the only way it could've been regarded by someone who didn't share their views."
    "And no guilty consciences within the ranks? Nobody broke down and ratted out the others?"
    "I'd be surprised if there weren't feelings of guilt in some of them. But it seems that new recruits were indoctrinated to indulge those feelings with self-mortification of the flesh. Hair shirts, that kind of thing."
    Burke wandered amid the free-hanging tools, the group's grim reminders of who they were, where they'd come from. He gave a flick to the collection of thumbscrews and watched them spin, clicking together with a disconcerting sense of dormant purpose.
    "So they survived. Replenished their order from generation to generation..."
    "And by the looks of it," Hellboy said, "survived for centuries after torture was abolished."
    "They were never about torture in the first place. Not that they were any different from the rest about it in the early days...but if that's all they'd been about, there never would've been a secret society, because they already had torture at their disposal. No, these weren't the perverts. And their ultimate objectives don't seem to have varied over the centuries. They may have trafficked with lesser spirits, even evil spirits, but their highest aim has always been embodied in their name: Opus Angelorum ...'The Work of Angels.' "
    "And they don't seem to lean toward the cuddly image."
    "No. None of that saccharine New Age pabulum. Avengers and slayers all the way. Divine wrath, that's what they're really after. The outlook is primordial."
    "So were the results, based on what I saw at the Archives," Hellboy said. "Have they ever pulled off this kind of thing before?"
    "Not that I know of. But this was a very high profile success. They're obviously antagonized by the implications of giving the Masada Scroll any kind of credence at all. Regardless of what it was called at any given time, the Inquisition was put in place to defend doctrines. These men tolerated no rivals to the Church, not even in thought. Is it reasonable to assume that those kind of hardliners are extinct?"
    "Probably not."
    "The Opus Angelorum is just the last remnant of those type of extremists. And after all this time, they finally let something drive them aboveground."
    "Intentionally?" Hellboy asked. "Or did somebody slip up?"
    Burke didn't answer, but his expression seemed to favor the latter.
    "So why are we here? Why are you showing me this?"
    "To introduce this group to you in a way that words alone could never depict. You've already seen their handiwork. Now take a look around at their soul. Because somebody needs to stamp them out. But I'm afraid that men like Father Laurenti, however much they may be opposed to the Opus Angelorum, are neither equipped nor prepared to do it in the way it needs to be done. And I think you know what I mean."
    Hellboy was sure he'd seen shrewder looking men, but at the moment, he couldn't think of any.
    "I know you don't want to meddle in Church business--fine, fine. But I don't see