Okay ladies and gents, this is my first attempt at a fanfic of any type. It is a work in progress so please don't blast me too much about any prolonged absences, (I work a pretty relentless schedule.) and enjoy! Constructive Criticism is more than welcome.
Oh yeah... I don't own HB or any of the BPRD posse,(Mad props to Mike Mignola.)This is just for fun guys... I'm not after your revenues and I don't have any cash, so DON'T SUE ME! My finances can't handle it!
Abe trudged to the shore of the frozen lake and stood beside Hellboy. The moon's crescent cast enough light for him to see the stumps of Hellboy's filed horns and the stone set of his face. Hellboy made no motion to show that he was aware of Abe's presence. He continued to stare out over the lake and into the forest on the opposite side.
"What are you staring at?" Abe asked, pulling the hood of his heavy black parka more tightly around his head. He despised the cold weather and longed to be back at headquarters in his nice warm tank. He adjusted his goggles and was about to repeat his question when Hellboy shook his head as if to clear it and turned away from the lake with his left hand in the pocket of his worn brown duster and his massive, brick-like right hand hanging at his side.
Abe sighed as he watched him go, but he was used to Hellboy's periods of solemnity. He turned back to the lake and stared out in the direction that Hellboy had seemed to be watching, trying to see or sense what had brought the mood about this time.
Abe's breath plumed out before him in little white puffs, reminding him yet again that it was the middle of winter. Six slow minutes passed this way and he was not enlightened. "Well there's no point in me hanging out here freezing my gills off." He mumbled, putting his back to the lake.
Had he stayed a minute longer, he would have seen the glimmer of eyes that watched him as he walked away.
J.C. waited, taking slow even breaths, willing the beast to move. From her place in the trees, she could see much of the forest, but her sharp green eyes were focused only on her quarry.
"Get up, damn it." She whispered, bringing her bow up into position. "Let's see how we did."
The mass of green and brown scales opened one reptilian eye, then the other. It slowly lumbered to its clawed feet with obvious effort. The telltale feather at the end of the shaft let her know that she had indeed pierced the tender, unprotected flesh of the beast's belly with her first arrow.
"Yes!" She whispered triumphantly. Just then, the unexpected happened. The beast raised one of its hind legs and used a foot to kick at the arrow until it dropped onto the snow-covered leaves beneath it. "Damn," She exclaimed and lowered her bow. "I forgot that you're intelligent." She slung her bow onto her back across her shoulder.
Once the hindering arrow had been removed, the beast ran off further into the dense forest, causing J.C. to give chase once more. She leapt nimbly from limb to limb, tree to tree, following closely enough the beast's tail to keep it in her line of fire, but far enough to keep from being dinner if she fell. She looked ahead to see where the next leap would land her and was dismayed to see that the forest had ended abruptly at a frozen lake. She and the beast stopped at precisely the same moment, her in the middle branches of a snow-laden oak, the beast just behind a dense patch of shrubbery.
"What are the odds?" She thought to herself, looking past the beast and over the lake.
On the opposite shore, there was a man in a long coat with large, goggle-like protrusions on his forehead. He seemed to be holding a great stone in his right hand.
"Shit, people. Don't move you scaly bastard. Just stay fuckin' put. Please!" She whispered, but the beast seemed to be interested in keeping itself out of sight without J.C.'s urgings further solidifying the beast's sentience. The figure on the fare side of the lake seemed to be staring in J.C.'s direction. She froze, immediately knowing how deer felt when the high beams of headlights hit them. "Crap." She thought. "Don't see me. Don't see me." She chanted silently as she squeezed her eyes shut and tried to be as still as possible, just another limb on the tree.
When she felt his gaze shift away, she opened her eyes just a crack and peered below to where the beast had stopped. It was sitting as still as she was. Good. She chanced a look across the lake once more and her heart dropped into her stomach. Now there were TWO people standing on the opposite shore. This person was dressed in a thick black parka with the hood pulled tightly around his head, revealing only his goggles. What were people doing up here at this hour?
The wind picked up and brought her the scents of warm cinnamon, tobacco, something with the slightly earthy smell of a pond, and a snatch of conversation.
"…Are you staring at?" She heard one of the people say. Had the first person seen her? She hoped not. The LAST thing that she needed was to end up in the morning edition. She could almost see the headline: Feral Femme Stalks Local Forest. Cringing slightly at the thought, J.C. watched the opposite shore through slightly cracked eyelids, trying to monitor the beast's hiding spot as well.
One of the people turned away from the lake and slowly walked back in the direction from which he had come. The second just stood where he was for a few moments, staring out over the lake, missing the beast, and J.C. at every pass of his gaze. Finally, the second person moved on as well.
"Thank the Gods!" J.C. muttered and opened her eyes all the way. The moonlight caught in them and bounced it back in a feline glow. She was about to pull her bow from her back when the beast bounded out from the shrubbery it had sheltered in. "Fuck!" J.C. yelled in disbelief. The time they had spent immobile must have been ample for the beast to heal more completely, as it no longer seemed slowed by its previous wound at all.
It bounded onto the ice just as J.C. leaped from the oak. She hit the ground with barely a pause, not stopping to wonder if the ice had frozen solid enough to support both her weight and the weight of the beast.
Abe caught up with Hellboy halfway back the path and fell into step beside him. Hellboy looked at his friend with clear golden eyes. "I was wonderin' if you were gonna stay out there all night." He said jokingly, with his stone-like features in what passed for a smile.
Abe was relieved to see that the mood hadn't lasted as long as he had expected. The revelation brought with it a new worry. If it wasn't a mood, then what was it? "You seem a bit better." He said, testing Hellboy's temperament a bit to be sure.
"What do you mean?" Hellboy asked, slightly puzzled by Abe's statement.
"Well you were a little distant back there." He gestured toward the lake with the thumb of a webbed hand.
"Oh, I just thought I saw somethin'". Hellboy said. He wasn't lying, not exactly. He HAD seen something. TWO somethings in fact, but as he tried to comprehend what he saw, he kept having the contradictory thought that he saw only shadows and trees. Despite his joke with Abe, he was starting to get irritated. He hated having his head messed with.
"Uh-huh." Abe said casually, noting the angry scowl developing on his friend's face.
"Ya know something? I could feel 'em, but I couldn't see 'em or I COULD see 'em but not really…" He trailed off. His head was starting to hurt. Abe blinked at him and raised an 'eyebrow'. Hellboy knew that what he had said made absolutely no sense, so he gave up trying to convey what was on his mind. He tried refocusing his attention on getting back to headquarters and making his report so that he and Abe could get some rest for a little while. He was beginning to sympathize with Abe in his dislike of cold weather.
From behind them, there came a loud crack. It was the sound of ice breaking. Abe looked at Hellboy, who pivoted on his hooves so swiftly that Abe feared he'd give himself whiplash. They still had a clear view of the lake's shore, but not much of the lake itself.
Pulling his titan of a gun from its holster, Hellboy hurried back in the direction of the lake. Left with no other choice, Abe followed, drawing his own gun as well.
The beast hit the ice with the conviction of a seasoned skater. Obviously aware that J.C. was still pursuing it, it zigzagged across the ice attempting to elude her, but also trying desperately not to fall.
J.C. reached behind her for her bow, and then changed her mind. "I can do better than that." She thought. Her feet touched the frozen surface of the lake, and to her relief, she didn't slip. She focused her attention on the section of ice that the beast was headed for. "Come on, crack damn you!" J.C. urged the ice as she sent out a powerful blast of kinetic energy. With the sound like a tree smashing to the ground, the ice fell away into the dark waters of the lake leaving a jagged black scar on the surface that was nearly nine feet in width.
When the beast got to the shattered ice, it leaped, its powerful hind legs breaking another chunk of ice from the edge of the hole.
"No!" J.C. shouted, snatching her bow from her back and picking up speed. Unfortunately for the beast, its weight was too much for the already weakened ice and when it came down on the other side of the hole, the hole widened by as much of the beast's body as connected with it.
J.C. slid to a halt and stared at the beast, which was now thrashing wildly about in the water. "Score one for mother-nature." She whispered between breaths. Slowly, with the lightness and caution of a cat, she crept as close as she dared, lest she end up in the same predicament as the beast she hunted. J.C. placed an arrow in the notch of her bow and took aim. Her concentration was demolished by a voice from the opposite shore of the lake.
"What the hell?" The voice asked.
J.C. shifted her aim and loosed the arrow. It sank deep into the snow directly in front of the voice's owner. "Don't make another move!" She shouted. She grabbed another arrow and readied her bow, returning her focus to the now more slowly thrashing beast. As she watched and waited for another shot at its belly, the beast suddenly stopped its mad attempt to stay afloat and succumbed to the lake's icy depths. "Uh-oh. That can't be good." J.C. said and edged a bit closer to the hole. She stopped within four feet of it and reached out with her mind, her head cocked to the side as was her habit when she was listening for something whether it be a sound or a thought wave. She 'listened' intently, hoping that the job had been completed by the joint forces of nature and physics, but knowing from the dark hum she was 'hearing' that it was not so.
The lake came clearly into Hellboy and Abe's view; what they saw stopped them dead in their tracks. The moon, while sitting low in the sky, very well on its way to setting, gave off enough light to illuminate a dark scaly being leaping over a large, jagged tear in the ice.
Hellboy took aim as the beast came down, but didn't get the shot off as he lost his target to the waters of the lake. "What the hell?" He exclaimed. Seconds later an arrow hit the snow, just inches from his feet. Hellboy stepped back in surprise and heard a female voice order him not to make another move. He scowled. What the hell was going on here and why weren't he and Abe in on it? He watched tentatively as the girl in the black jumpsuit coveralls aimed her bow at the thing in the water. When it slipped beneath the surface, Hellboy started for the ice ready for anything because, hey, it's what he did, right? "Here we go, Brother Blue." He said to Abe who nodded briefly at his side.
They got to the end of the snow-covered shore and were about to step onto the ice when another crack shattered the silence that had resettled over the lake.
From BEHIND the girl in black, even as she whirled around to look, the beast emerged with the power of an orca whale, showering her with chunks of ice and freezing water. She loosed her arrow and both Hellboy and Abe fired simultaneously. The beast roared in pain on its way back down to the lake's surface; all projectiles had hit their mark.
At the exact moment the arrow left her bow, J.C. hurled herself sideways, out of the way of the mound of scales, bone, and muscle plummeting back to the very spot she had been standing in. She felt the ice give way again as the beast collided with it, but she could not react fast enough. The ice beneath her creaked its disapproval and she was plunged into the frigid water.
Darkness surrounded J.C. suddenly and in her confusion, she could not tell which way was up until the dying moonlight touched her retinas. She pushed with her arms and tried to kick with her feet, but the sensation of something holding tightly to her right boot stopped her. She didn't need her telepathy to know what had grabbed her. She lashed out fiercely with a telekinetic blast from her mind, but the beast held tight. She hadn't had a proper breath before she entered the water and as a result, she now had to contend with the incessant burning in her lungs. Reaching down into her left boot, she withdrew a dagger and at the same time reversed direction, down to face the beast head on.
Abe gasped in disbelief, his wide, dark eyes blinking rapidly as he watched the girl sink beneath the water. "That's not a good thing. That water is beyond freezing…she could go hypothermic in only a few minutes."
"Yeah, but we're not gonna let that happen." Hellboy said, shedding his duster.
"Great, ice cold water, the last thing I need." Abe complained internally, but he slid out of his heavy parka as well. Aloud, he asked, "Girl or monster?"
"You get the girl, let me deal with Scaly." Hellboy said. He walked as carefully as he could, his hooves difficult to work with, toward the damaged ice. He looked at Abe who appeared by his side wearing his cold-water wetsuit. "Where does he keep those things?" He wondered to himself. "Ready?" He asked his friend.
Abe gave him the thumbs up sign, and then pointed to his wrist indicating that time was wasting. Hellboy took a deep breath and dove into the water, with Abe close behind him.
J.C. was a fighter by nature. She could endure much and HAD over the years, but this was by fare the shittiest situation in which she had ever found herself. Holding the dagger tightly in her hand she lunged sideways and tried to break away again. The burning in her chest increased and that was bad, but the cold was starting to eat away at her as well, which was worse. She wanted to end this NOW. Her anger surged and overpowered her survival instinct for the moment. The dagger cut through the water, losing only a fraction of the force she had put behind it, and found the beast's left eye. She twisted and shoved the blade deeper and the warmth of the blood that oozed from the eye socket chased away the chill that threatened to take her down.
The beast let go of her foot, and she shoved off its face with a powerful kick. As she neared the surface, she felt an arm around her waist. Her oxygen-starved brain swam away from her and she fought for a few seconds before passing out.
Abe wasn't about to let her go, even though her furious punches and kicks hurt. He knew that it was the beast she was fighting, and not he. He swam to the surface with the quickness only achieved by someone with an amphibious nature, such as himself. Abe broke the surface and hauled both him and the girl from the water. He carried her a few feet from the hole, set her down, and immediately began to try to resuscitate her. "Come on!" He shouted in his head as he alternated between chest compressions and forcing air into her lungs through her mouth at a steady, even pace. "Breathe!" He shouted aloud. "Please, breathe!" To his relief, she opened her eyes and started coughing up water. Abe turned her on her side and held her as steady as he could as she convulsed with each cough. Finally, she started taking slow, rasping breaths with her hand clutched at he chest.
J.C. tried to sit up on her own, and he lit her, but sat cautiously close by. "You know, for a moment there, I was certain that I had lost you." He said, smiling as much as his amphibian features would allow.
J.C. opened her eyes and surveyed her 'rescuer'. Her dully-glowing eyes took in his gills, his wide, almond shaped dark eyes, his blue skin and markings. She then sucked in a slow breath and said as best as she could, "Thanks." She immediately went into another coughing fit.
Abe waited patiently for it to subside. When it did he replied, "Welcome." He stood and went to the shore to retrieve his parka. Once back at her side, he wrapped it generously about J.C.'s shoulders and helped her to her feet.
When she was finally standing, she rasped, "I can make it on my own from here."
Abe looked at her doubtfully, but he let go of her hands and stood at his safe distance again, ready to catch her if her legs decided not to hold her.
J.C. looked about her slowly, and then focused on the hole from which they had come. Her mind replayed the events that had transpired. She saw the dagger sliding through the water toward the beast, the connection, and the beast's reaction. "I wounded it. I got it in the eye." She said absently. Her hands slipped under the parka and around to her back where she felt her quiver, but the weight told her that all the arrows were gone. "Hmm…" She muttered. "I must have lost the rest in the fall." Her keen eyes searched the ice for her bow. It lay a few feet away from the hole she had fallen into previously. She crept over slowly and gingerly picked it up, examining it for damage.
Abe blinked at her curiously. "What exactly are you planning to do with that? Beat it to death?" Her head swung around violently and the look in her eyes made Abe regret his words immediately.
J.C. shrugged out of the parka, tossed it to Abe, and started searching her person for any weapons that had survived the plunge. As she did so, she felt the ice shift once again as something slammed into it from below. "Not again!" She cried and more wisely, both she and Abe raced for the shore. After they had reached safety, they returned their attention to the lake, Abe with is gun drawn from who-knows-where and J.C. with twin short swords that she had drawn from the sheaths made into the sides of her quiver.
Hellboy had no trouble finding the beast, absolutely none at all. Actually, the beast found HIM. It swam up from behind and grabbed his tail, pulling him further down. Hellboy allowed himself to be dragged this way, lulling the beast into a false sense of control. The second he felt the beast's grip loosen Hellboy took advantage.
He gave his tail a mighty flick and kicked backward up into the beast's arm. In its surprise, the beast let go and swam a little distance away. It treaded there, glaring at Hellboy through the one reptilian eye it had left. Hellboy noted the hilt of a dagger sticking out of the other side of its head. "Hey…" He thought, "Maybe this chick can handle herself after all." He faked right, then changed direction when the beast reacted, ending up on its blind side. Moving quickly, Hellboy took hold of the dagger in his left hand and yanked it from the beast's eye. More blood oozed from the wound, clouding the water in a dark, reddish haze.
The beast lashed out a Hellboy, who barrel rolled and swam under it. He forced the dagger up and into its belly, grabbing one of its legs with his much stronger right hand to prevent it from escaping into the blackness below them. He thrust the dagger upward repeatedly, ripping through the beast's flesh and tearing up the delicate organs behind it. Blood and tissue polluted the water in a sick cloud of flotsam.
The beast took a final swipe at Hellboy with its claws, and then it moved no more.
"…'Bout time." Hellboy complained in his mind as he stuck the dagger down in his belt. A few strong flicks of his tail combined the force of his kicks brought Hellboy to the thick ice of the lake's surface. "GREAT!" He shouted internally. He switched the beast's still form to his left hand so that his right was free and commenced to pounding away at the ice until he had created yet another hole. Hellboy hauled himself out one-handed and yanked the beast out behind him.
Hellboy walked slowly to the shore to the very spot Abe and J.C. were standing in, leaving a dark red trail on the ice that was still intact as he dragged the beast along with him. When he reached them, he dropped the corpse into the snow on the bank, and then he walked over and retrieved his duster. He put it on and rummaged through the pockets until he found the stubby remains of a cigar. From another pocket, he produced a box of matches. "Monsters…" He declared in a low grumble as he lit up.
Abe and J.C. lowered their weapons at the appearance of Hellboy. They watched him drag the beast's body to the shore and leave it at their feet. J.C. frowned as he lit his cigar and narrowed her eyes at the corpse.
"Glad to see you made out alright." Abe said to Hellboy. "I was beginning to think you'd finally met a monster you couldn't kill."
"Ha." Hellboy scoffed, the word slightly distorted by the protruding cigar.
J.C. looked at the corpse of the beast, and then at Hellboy. "You did that?" She bent down to examine more closely. "With what?"
Hellboy reached under his duster and retrieved the dagger. "Ya know it's the weirdest thing. Somebody left this stuck in its head." He said jokingly as he turned the blade over in his hands.
J.C. returned her focus to Hellboy. She smiled brightly at the sight of the dagger, giving him and Abe a brief glimpse of her small feline incisors. "I thought that I had lost that thing. "I thought that I had lost that thing for good."
"It would have been a shame; it's pretty good work." He held it out to her. She stuck one of he swords down into the frosty earth and her smile got bigger as she reached for the dagger, causing Hellboy to smile himself. He took another pull off his cigar.
Abe stared at the two of them thoughtfully. The sight of the small fangs in the girl's mouth caused him to wonder more intently about this strange, monster hunting young woman.
He slid back into his parka, zipped and buttoned it up and replaced its hood to its position snugly around his head. He then proceeded to examine the young lady currently laughing with his best friend.
From what he could see, she was about five feet and perhaps seven inches tall. Her still wet hair had come partially loose from the braid that hung down to her shoulders and stuck to her face, giving the appearance of deep, red cuts along her forehead and chin, cheeks and neck. He had already noticed the glow that came from her eyes whenever the light was just right, but without it, they seemed to be a light green. The closest he could come to a color comparison was the semiprecious stone called peridot, which made the young woman's eye color that much unusual. Her black jumpsuit appeared to be made of a thin, non-insulated material, which made him wonder why she was not currently freezing her butt off,
He looked at the short sword she stuck in the ground beside her and recalled the arrow that had nearly plugged Hellboy's foot. "…Curiouser and curiouser." He commented absently to himself. He looked down at the beast's body. Who was she? How did she come to be hunting this creature? Questions floated about in his head. He was tempted to read her psychically, but held off for the moment as his attention was called by the inquiring of her name by Hellboy. At least he would learn that much without difficulty.
"You got a name, kid?" Hellboy asked her, his golden eyes snagging her green ones. "I'm Hellboy, that's Abe." He stated, pointing to Abe with his left hand.
She stood silent for a moment, absently tapping one darkly clad thigh with the blade of her sword. The smile had disappeared from her face. Out of habit, she scanned him, 'listening' for any thoughts that would immediately put him on the foe side of the fence. She received none, so obliged them with her own name. "Jacqueline Chelsea Harland. I know it's a mouthful; you can just call me J.C."
Beside her, Abe felt the wave she sent to touch Hellboy's mind and he issued a small gasp. "Telepath?" He whispered thoughtfully.
J.C. turned her head and looked at him, her eyes growing wide and casting their glimmer again. She locked her mind down immediately and pulled back in defense. "What did you say?" She asked reflexively, though she had clearly heard his words.
Abe's face took on an expression reminiscent of a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar. "You're a telepath, aren't you?" He asked. Better to get it out in the open rather then pretend that he hadn't said anything. He remembered all of the times that Hellboy had tried to keep things from him that it was difficult to hide anything from anyone with his, and apparently her unique abilities.
"…Hmm." J.C. articulated, suddenly interested in her sword.
"Are you or aren't you?" Hellboy inquired, but he had a feeling what the answer was going to be. He took one final drag off the cigar and let if fall to the ground. The smoldering butt went out with a near silent hiss as it encountered the snow.
J.C. felt both Hellboy and Abe's eyes on her, waiting for her answer. Well, they didn't know for sure, so she could tell them anything, right? Wrong. She felt as if someone were tapping on her forehead with a feather, knocking on the door to her mind so to speak. Her eyes lifted and she found herself staring right into Abe's face. "You want the ugly truth, or a pretty lie?" She heard herself say.
"The truth…please." Abe said quietly.
"Then I don't need to say anything else. You both have already made up your minds that I'm a telepath."
"Hellboy had no clue. Well, I didn't either until a few moments ago."
"How did you know?" Hellboy asked frowning at Abe.
Abe smiled sheepishly at his friend. "I felt it when she reached into your mind."
"When she reached…and you didn't tell me?" Hellboy growled.
"Sorry, I didn't mean any harm. It's just a habit of mine to scan people I meet. It lets me know who I should be wary of and who it's alright to trust." J. C. said, her frustration apparent. She slid her dagger into her left boot and yanked her other sword from the ground. Now, things were starting to fall apart. Though she sensed no hostility from Abe, she could feel Hellboy's irritation building.
"I don't like people messin' with my head!" Hellboy shouted.
"She said she was sorry, Red. Calm down." Abe chided. To J.C. he asked, "Which have you decided we are?'
"Well since you saved my ass from drowning, and he killed the beast; I would say that qualifies you as okay to trust."
"Now we need to worry about whether or not we can trust YOU." Hellboy said gruffly, his eyes burning into her. "I mean, how do we know that you didn't unleash this monster?"
J.C. bristled at the question. "HELLO! Did we not see me trying to bring the fucker down?"
"That doesn't mean anything! We don't know anything about you! What are you? I've seen the way your eyes glow! That isn't human!"
"Apparently neither is either of you! And for your information I WAS born human!" She tightened her grip on her swords.
"This is ridiculous!" Abe exclaimed. "Shouting at one another is not improving this situation, and I'm starting to get cold again."
J.C. let out a growl of her own and lashed out the ice mentally as she had before. Obligingly it shattered all the way up to the shore. Hellboy's eyes swung to the lake and his left hand went for his gun, as if he was expecting yet another beast to surface.
Again, Abe followed suit, but stopped short when he heard J.C.'s laughter. "What's funny?" He asked.
"Nothing's coming out of there." Her anger had dissipated.
"How do you know?" Hellboy queried.
"Because I did that…" She gestured with the point of a sword to the recent blemish in the lake's icy visage.
"You did…"Abe began. "Telepathic and Telekinetic?" He said as he realized what she was getting at.
"…Among other things." J.C. said, shrugging her shoulders.
"Other things, like what?" Hellboy had lighted another cigar, still visibly upset that she had attempted to enter his mind unbidden. He took a pull and let the tobacco work its magic on the nerves that J.C. had rattled.
"That is not something that I wish to discuss at present." She stated bluntly. Now that she wasn't boiling mad anymore, the bite of the winter air started to seep back into her cheeks and head. She touched her damp hair and wished she had a hat.
"If you want us to trust you, you have to give us something to go on." Abe said kindly.
J.C. thought on this for a little bit. "Well you already alluded to my inhumanity. I take offense at that. As I said, I was born human. I was made this way."
"And what way is that?" Hellboy asked cynically, crossing his arms as best he could between the burning cigar he held with his left and his large right hand.
"How's this? If you guys get me somewhere warm, I'll tell you whatever you want to know." She smirked and then quickly added, "…within reason, that is."
"Done." Abe said. He was more than happy to oblige the request as he was starting to get annoyed at the cold again.
Hellboy doused the cigar and walked over to the beast's body. He hefted it onto his shoulders and started up the path.
The heavy-duty van reflected the bright amber of the single arc sodium light that illuminated the parking area in its inky black paint.
"Here, you drive." Hellboy grunted. He shifted the beast's carcass on his shoulders and tossed Abe the keys as their feet hit the asphalt. Abe caught them soundlessly. He pressed a button and the doors unlocked. Hellboy moved to the back of the vehicle and opened up its cargo hold. He dumped the body of the beast inside and slammed the doors unceremoniously, and then moved to the passenger side.
Hellboy opened the door, but stopped short of climbing in and looked behind him. "You comin' or what?" He asked the trees.
J.C. cautiously scanned the parking area before she stepped out of the shadows. Her eyes glimmered brightly as the light hit them. "Nice ride." She said. She opened one of the rear passenger doors and slipped in.
Abe slid the key into the ignition and turned it. Despite the van's size, it issued only a brief growl as it came to life. The engine settled into a low rumble as it idled. Hellboy reached for the control knobs on the panel in the center of the dash and cranked the heat up to its maximum level.
"You should at least let the engine warm up a bit." Abe said. He rolled his eyes sarcastically.
"Just drive. It'll heat up on the way." Hellboy answered.
"Excuse me, but on the way to where?" J.C. asked as she laid her bow and quiver complete with sheathed short swords on the seat beside her.
"We have a suite at a hotel in town." Hellboy answered.
"Are you serious?" J.C. asked, looking out the window into the night that was starting to show the first threads of morning.
"Actually, he his." Abe stated. With a soft chuckle he added, "He's always serious."
Hellboy frowned at him. "No I'm not." He stated solemnly, which caused Abe to laugh jovially.
After Abe had settled down, the trio was on their way. The scenery moving past the windows entranced J.C., and she was pleased when the vents switched from their annoying chilly air to soothing warmth. After a while, it had warmed up so much that she started to nod off intermittently. No one spoke the rest of the trip, but that seemed to suit him or her each just fine.