Disclaimer: I do not own nor do I claim to own any characters or concepts related to Hellboy. This is a nonprofit work of fanfiction.
This is set a few months after the first film. Obviously, it's a movieverse fic, so if that bugs you, you should probably bail out now.
The Thing with Teeth
She knocked twice at the door of the third house and waited in the dark. The night air was swollen with the promise of rain; she felt it like a weight on her shoulders. Left of her feet, a puddle winked up at her.
The door creaked. She lifted her head. A woman peered out at her through the crack, her fingers on the door.
"Hi," said Liz. "I'm Agent Sherman with the F.B.I. I'm here about your daughter?"
The woman hesitated, her eyes flickering from Liz to the darkness behind her.
"Would you like to see my badge?" Liz prompted, gently.
She passed it to the woman, who took it from her and stared down at the leather folds: the gold crest here and beside it a trashy headshot, four years out of date.
The wind rustled down between the narrow houses, arranged so close together along that narrow street. Liz hunched her shoulders, her coat fluttering against her thighs.
"Come in," said the woman at last, in a rasping voice. "Come in. Please." She slid the chain off the door.
Liz smiled, a little stiff, at her. She stepped into the small entryway, beneath the dull yellow light, and waited as the woman closed the door, latched it, and locked it twice. The deadbolt thunked home.
"It does no good," said the woman. "But we try."
Liz followed her through the house.
"A few months ago, she meets a man," the woman told her. "Tall man, very handsome. He wears a rich coat, a green coat, and he likes her very much. Her father says, No, no. You are going to marry this nice boy, John. And she says, Okay."
Liz listened, silent, as they passed through the rooms of the house, from darkness into light and back again.
"But," said the woman, "she does not mean it. He comes around again when we are gone. She invites him in." The woman waved her hand, bowing, in demonstration. Her round face was thick with lines.
"She gets sick," she said. "We don't know what's wrong. No one knows what's wrong. Doctor says, Not enough iron. She gets sicker. She tells us she's running away with this man. Her father shouts at her, tells her she cannot, he beats her, but she says she is leaving, she is going away from us. We put up the garlic and the crosses, and the iron, and she takes them down when we sleep.
"She is going away from us," said the woman again, flat.
They stopped at a door at the end of the hall.
"Can I talk to her?" said Liz.
"Maybe," said the woman. "If she listens."
The woman tried the handle: it turned, clicking. The room beyond it was dark, with only a small lamp flickering in the corner. The window was opened to the night; the room was chill with it.
"She will not listen," said the woman, quiet.
Liz stepped over the threshold. At the window, the curtains fluttered, delicate, white lace like gauze. In the bed beneath it, a girl stirred: a young girl. She opened her dark, dark eyes, heavy with lashes.
"Oh," said the girl. She closed her eyes again, her lashes black against her thin cheeks.
"Hi," said Liz. "I'm Liz."
The girl said nothing. Her breath came out as a sigh. At her throat, a bandage showed white through the neck of her nightgown. The bones in her face showed through her skin.
Liz looked to the door where the mother stood, her face in shadow.
The girl sighed again. "I won't tell you where he is," she said.
"Where who is?" said Liz. "Your boyfriend?"
The girl smiled. Her lips were pale. "My husband," she said. In a dreamy voice she said, "He comes to me, you know. He lays with me. He drinks from me. That's what we do, husbands and wives."
"What else does he do to you?" said Liz.
"He loves me," she said simply.
"Is that what he calls it," said Liz. She smoothed her hands out over her thighs. "And what does he look like? Your husband?"
"He is very beautiful," said the girl. "He says I'm beautiful, too. The most beautiful girl."
She opened her eyes again, nearly black in her white, white face. She looked at a place beyond Liz: to the door, where her mother waited. She smiled again at Liz.
"He says he will take me away from here."
"Where?" said Liz. "Where is he taking you?"
The girl turned away. Her lashes swept her cheeks. At her throat, her pulse trembled, weak. She smiled still.
Liz waited. The girl said nothing else.
In the hallway, the woman turned to Liz. Her eyes were wet; they gleamed in the shadows. She touched Liz's arm.
She said, "She was going to marry a nice boy," and her voice scraped in her throat.
Liz popped the door and hauled herself back into the truck. She slammed the door shut behind her, hard enough the frame whined. Her skin itched, too hot. Her knuckles hummed.
In the shadows he waited, hulking, too big for the confines of the cab. His cigar shone, red in the dark; it bobbled.
"So," said Hellboy. "What's the skinny?"
"You need to stop watching war movies," said Liz, to which he snorted.
She folded her arms across the steering wheel and leaned forward into that cradle. She flexed her sore fingers again and again, calming.
"Same basic description," she said. "Tall, dark hair, strong cheekbones. Green velvet coat."
"How much you think he spends on dry-cleaning?" said Hellboy, then, "How's the girl?"
"She'll live," said Liz, "but you should've seen her, Red. The way she talked about him."
The girl's dark eyes shining as she whispered, He says he will take me from here, her hands tightening weakly on the bedspread.
"She thinks he's going to rescue her," said Liz, "her knight in green velvet."
Hellboy dragged hard on his cigar, his teeth flashing. "Christ. I hate bloodsuckers. Goddamn predators."
"Well, he'll be dust by morning," said Liz. "What did the guys give us?"
"Box's in the back," said Hellboy. He jabbed his thumb over his shoulder, his head bent to accomodate the roof.
She turned, rising on to her knees. Hellboy shifted, pressing closer to the near door. The truck rocked with him. She leaned over the seat, his shoulder hard against her hip.
"Jesus," said Liz. She sat back down, box in hand. "What is all this stuff?"
"Standard vamp-dusting kit," said Hellboy. "Boys changed a few things while you were, uh, gone. Big mess in Ottawa. I got a scar." He tapped his thigh.
Liz sorted through the blocks: garlic, a stack of rosaries, one-two-three-four Bibles on end. "How many vampires are we supposed to be fighting?"
"Wiped out a nest in Ottawa," he said. "Big one. Fifteen, twenty suckers. Report said two, tops." He was silent a moment, the light from his cigar flickering. Smoke obscured his fingers. He flicked his cigar. "What's that Boy Scout motto? Myers'd know."
Liz smiled down at the box. "'Be Prepared,'" she said.
"There you go," said Hellboy. He stubbed the cigar out in a tray on the dash.
He reached into the box, nicking a clear pouch, its contents black in the dark. He shook it and it gleamed red, a dark red: blood. His thumb creased over the label.
"Looks like A negative."
"Mm," said Liz. "My favorite."
"'October 2004.' Good year."
He flipped the pouch over, then tossed it to her. It squished in her hand, blood rolling between her fingers, warm in its pouch.
"There's a cemetery a couple minutes outside of town," he said. "An old one, not too big on the Christ, our Father. I'm gonna check it out."
She eyed him across the cab. "You know if you get caught, Manning's going to have a fit."
"Manning's always having fits," he said. "But I'm not gonna get caught."
"I'm sure you'll be very discreet," she said dryly.
"I can do discretion," he said.
Liz filched two vials of holy water and a rosary, which she wrapped twice around her arm, mirroring Bruttenholm's rosary at Hellboy's wrist. The cross dropped into her palm. Smooth wood: hawthorn. She remembered that. She closed her fingers over the cross.
"I'm going to hit the town," she said.
"Don't have too much fun," said Hellboy. "You know what these small towns are like."
She smiled at him. In the shadows, beneath the heavy ridge of his brow, his eyes were black. She set her hand on his cheek and rose off the seat, to drop a dry kiss on his mouth. His skin was rough against her palm. He touched a finger to her jaw, stone cool on her skin.
"You know," said Hellboy against her lips, "one of these days we're gonna have ourselves a real date."
"I'd like that," she said.
"Yeah?" he said.
She smoothed her hand over his cheek. She smiled. "Yeah," she said.
She kissed him again, firmly, briefly, then settled back, checking her holster, the rosary, the packets of blood in her coat.
"Don't stay up too late," she said.
"I'll leave the porch light on," he said.
Liz popped the door.
The clouds wandered across the moon again, throwing the town into deeper shadows, a thicker darkness that settled upon the wet streets. Liz walked out, out from the center of the town where the artificial lamps lit the way, to the silent places where the old buildings pressed close together and no lights showed in the dark. Her heels sounded on the stones.
At the mouth of a shallow alley, she picked out the cork of one of the packets of blood and squeezed it so the blood spurted; it gleamed, even in the dark. She walked ten steps and pinched out another heavy splash, then again further down, and again.
"Chum in the water," Red had said, the first time she'd done this. Abe had fluttered his gills, revulsed.
Liz smiled and emptied the pouch at the end of a long and crooked street. At her ear, a whisper. She turned sharply on her heel, her hand at her holster. The cross beat against her palm. Across the street a wet newspaper, or part of it, rustled, unsettled by the wind. Between the clouds, the moon peeked, a thin light, now vanishing again. Her boot scraped across the stones.
She pocketed the pouch and pulled out another. There was an abandoned townhouse at the end of the next street, with a brick edifice and a reinforced cellar thick with dust and small spiders. She'd checked it in the afternoon, before the sun had fallen, as the rain drummed against the roof, muffled by distance. She shook out the last of the second pouch halfway down that street.
Her earpiece crackled: "Hey, Liz," said Hellboy. "Think I found something."
"Our fine, fanged friend?" she said as she worked at the third packet.
"Naw, but looks like I found his pad." He whistled: a flat sound, dull between his teeth. "Guy's got a real thing for velvet. If I find an Elvis painting, I'll let you know."
"You're not putting up a Velvet Elvis," said Liz.
"C'mon, Liz," he said, grin a heavy rumble in his voice. "It'd class the place up."
"Your room already has enough class," she muttered.
"That's personality."
"Whatever you call it," she said, "you don't need more of it."
"Damn," he said, "you are on fire."
"Not yet," she said.
"Gotcha," he said. He switched tacks: "Let me know if you find anything. I'm about ready to call this place quits. All this rotting lace is giving me the heebie-jeebies."
"Now you know how I feel," she said. He made a noise, not really a snort, then the channel lapsed into silence.
At the stoop of the empty house, Liz sprinkled blood across the lone step. The tips of her fingers were red, sticky with blood. She considered the weight of the pouch, then stoppered it and folded it into her coat.
She pressed her shoulder against the door and jimmied the knob. The lock, melted earlier, gave way. The blackness yawned before her. Liz held out her hand and thought of late spring, dry, the first heat of summer rolling up from the south. Her fingertips flickered and caught, blue fire searing away the traces of blood from her skin. In the light she cast, she saw nothing.
Liz turned to the door, still open, and the street which stretched wet and dark beyond it.
"Well," she said. "What're you waiting for? Come on in."
She waited a moment at the threshold. Outside the wind rippled between the houses, through the eaves; it rattled against the windows. The silver cross at her throat was heavy on her collar. The rosary pulled on her wrist.
She drew the packet out of her coat and descended into the cellar, dripping blood on the steps behind her.
In the dark she waited, her earpiece silent, the emptied packets lined up on the floor by her feet. One, two, three. She toed the packet farthest to the left and looked to the far wall, black as the rest of the cellar.
She heard rain, again, rendered faint by the distance and the layers of plaster, earth, wood, and stone. Nearer, her heart beat steady in her chest. She flexed her fingers. The cross lay still on her palm.
In the dark, a soft breath, like a hiss. Three even steps whispered through the dust.
"Virgin's blood," it sighed, "and an invitation. How very tempting. Well. I would not want to disappoint."
"I'm a lucky girl," said Liz. She listened for another step, a breath, the sound of cloth whispering across cloth.
"My darling, lovely girl," it said, so soft, its voice like a kiss rolling over her skin, "you are so fortunate. More fortunate than you can know."
"I've got an idea," she said.
Its eyes gleamed, green, then white, flashing out of the dark. It was close, closer than she'd thought.
"Such a generous young woman," it said. "You must allow me to return your offer. Kindness for kindness. Bliss for bliss."
A hand brushed her cheek; it cupped her jaw: long, cold fingers, the skin dry and thin as paper.
"I followed you," it murmured in her ear, its fingers stroking slowly down her throat, "your scent, the small presents you left me. I heard your voice, calling to me. My beautiful girl—" Its lips touched her cheek.
"I'm not your girl," said Liz.
She lashed out, striking the creature hard in the throat with the heel of her hand. The hawthorn cross punched into its skin. Flesh gave; it gurgled, a rattling sound. It fell back and she struck again, catching it in the chest with her fist. The skin between her fingers itched; her knuckles ached.
Like a match struck on stone, her hand flared, hot with fire, licking up her arm. She breathed out fire; she tasted it on her tongue. Liz turned on the vampire.
She saw it in the harsh light, a tall thing like and not a man, in a beautiful green coat which fluttered like wings from its shoulders. Its eyes spun, horrid. Burn marks traced across its throat.
"What manner of thing are you?" said the vampire, in a voice like a nail dragged over stone. Its eyes spun and spun.
"Wouldn't you like to know," said Liz. The fire spilled off her fingers; it twisted in waves off her skin. She felt the cross burning in her hand, ash now on her skin.
"Girl," it screamed at her, "girl, I have lived one thousand years—"
"By murdering women," said Liz, over the rising roar of flame, "by preying on girls! Lonely girls— Telling them you love them, that you'll save them—"
"I love them still," it whined, its eyes shining, green and horrible, "I carry them with me always within me, my darling girls, so loved, so protected, safe with me—"
"Liar," said Liz.
Its lips peeled back; it snarled, showing its teeth: needled and hooked, slender and too many. Its skin rippled, crawling over its bones. It said, "Girl—"
"Why don't you save yourself?" said Liz.
Fire flooded the cellar.
In the wake of it: ash and silence. She toed the pile of soot where the bones of the vampire had crumpled into dust: flesh burnt away, bones warping, then cracking, then splitting, then crumbling. A small lump of silver shone in the ashes: a ring, melted into itself. Her skin flickered.
Liz sucked in a breath, heavy with smoke. She curled her fingers and pulled at the fire, drawing it back inside of herself, where it could rest and be still. The fire whispered through her, then was silent.
In the dark, she tipped her head back, closed her eyes, and rolled her shoulders once. The crucifix at her throat hissed, cooling.
A foot on the step behind her. She turned, reaching to her holster. Fire rolled in her gut.
"Damn," said Hellboy. He ducked beneath the overhang. A dull, grey light filled the stairwell behind him: morning. "Looks like I missed the party."
Dust and ash swirled up beneath his feet as he crossed to her. He'd lost his coat somewhere and most of a sleeve, the hem at the shoulder ragged. Blood dripped from a gash in his brow. He stood beside her.
"Oh, Red," said Liz. Gently she touched the corner of his brow, slick beneath her fingertips. "What happened to you?"
"Surprise party," he said. "Fun story. We can trade later. Sun's coming up," he said.
Liz cupped his cheek, her fingers still on the thick ridge of bone.
"C'mon," she said. "Let's go. This place is depressing."
She looked over her shoulder at the cellar, dark and brimming with smoke. Her skin itched, dirty.
"And," she said, "I need a shower. I've got vampire all over me. In my mouth—" She made a face, rolling her tongue against her teeth.
Hellboy grinned up at her. The corner of his mouth was bruised, his lip split. She didn't think it'd last the day.
"Need any help with that shower?" he said.
"Not really," she said. She touched that corner of his mouth, lightly. "But you might."
Liz took the steps one by one, jogging quickly up them. Hellboy followed, slower, but covering more ground. The steps shuddered beneath him.
They emerged into the thin morning light, the clouds outside still thick in the sky. Rain drip-drip-dripped from the doorframe against the stoop, which shone, rain-soaked, the blood washed away by the passing storm.
"Hey," said Hellboy. He touched her shoulder. "You okay?"
"Yeah," she said. "I'm good."
He tipped his head, studying her. His fingers slid down, light on her arm. "Nasty didn't try anything with you?"
She quirked her eyebrows at him: really? He had the decency to shrug one massive shoulder, acquiescent.
"Nothing I couldn't handle," she said. "Now come on, Red, before someone sees you."
"Jeez," he said, "all right. Keep your shirt on." He grinned, a little battered, a little bloodied, and Jesus, she hated when he did that. "Least till we get in the shower."
"Oh, my God, Red," said Liz, "I have vampire in my teeth. Will you just come on already?"
She took his hand in her own and pulled, leading him out of the shivering, dust-filled house and into the coming dawn.
This story was originally posted at livejournal on 02/25/2010. Reformatted 11/30/2010.