It Doesn't Even Matter
"You know, people are creepy," Hellboy muttered as he crept along a dark corridor under an ancient mansion. Hellboy and the team were investigating reports of an ancient cult doing horrible things to the locals.
"It's not always the people," Abe said thoughtfully extending his hand to the wall. "There are other things here too."
"Oh joy," Hellboy muttered. They then proceeded to step right into a booby-trap.
A few hours and several undead disciples of the cult later, Hellboy and Abe stumbled into the main room of the anti-chambers where the cult had held its prisoners. They were able to free several of the local villagers that were still being held there by Mitchel Gerana, the cult's leader. Mitchel Gerana fought harder than the undead did, but in time, Hellboy and Abe defeated him as well. The backup from the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense arrived and took Mitchel Gerana into custody and began cleaning up.
Hellboy walked away from the crowd of people lighting a cigar. That was when he heard it, a soft whimper, like air rushing across broken glass. He paused with his cigar hanging from his mouth.
"What is it Red?" Abe asked.
"Shh…" He replied putting a finger to his lips. The sighing sound came again, accompanied by a damp rustle. "Did you hear that?" He said stepping over a crushed mound of marble to get to a semi-hidden hallway.
"Um…Red?" Abe called, struggling to clamor over the ruble to follow him. "Wait!" Abe called but Hellboy was already hurrying towards the rustling and fragile whimpers, too far ahead to heed him.
What Hellboy came across when he entered the anteroom at the end of that dingy hall, stopped him dead in his tracks. He was unsure if the whimpers and sighs had been long past echoes or not, but the creature that hung on the wall as some grisly tapestry appeared to be beyond movement. Her chest didn't rise and fall, the feathers that were splayed on either side of her didn't rustles. Her eyes were closed.
"Oh dear," Abe said when he entered the room.
"What is she?" Hellboy asked.
"I'm not sure; she could be a harpy, or a siren. But normally they aren't so…" Abe searched for the word.
"Pretty?" Hellboy asked, entranced.
"Well…yes." Abe said stepping up to the creature hanging there.
"Is she alive?" Hellboy asked.
"I don't know…" Abe responded peering up at the face that hung there hiding behind tattered grayish-brown hair. He held his hand out searching for signs of life. "She seems to have a heartbeat," Abe said.
"What are those?" Hellboy asked reaching for a strange silver stud that was sticking from her one of her ankles with his left hand. His finger brushed it and the creature moved with a whimper. Hellboy paused.
"They appear to be through her flesh," Abe said studying the spikes. Hellboy stepped back and grimaced.
"Crap. Abe, she's pinned to the wall like a bug with them," He said motioning to the spikes that pinned her wings to the stone. "Can we remove them?" He asked.
"They seem to have special carvings on them…probably a spell." Abe touched the spike closest to him and the creature whispered again, wings rustling like shards of broken blades.
Hellboy put his cigar out on his stone arm and stuck the remaining piece in his pocket. He then grabbed the spike in her left ankle and pulled it out with one swift jerk. The creature barely stirred.
"Be careful…she could be dangerous," Abe warned. Hellboy laughed.
"Maybe…but she doesn't look much like a fighter," Hellboy climbed onto a rock that sat near her feet and began removing the spikes from her wings. He didn't notice that the creature's eyes were stirring from their slumber.
Hellboy reached for the cuffs that held the creature's arms aloft above her head and easily unhooked the chain that held her up. When her weight was off of her hands, gravity took over.
Unfortunately, Hellboy had missed one spike that was hiding in her feathers and she screeched as her weight ripped the spike from her flesh the hard way. But before her bare and bloody feet could touch the floor, she swung the cuffs back up and lofted herself above the very surprised Hellboy and Abe. She balanced there on her cuffs, growling with exposed fangs, wings outspread to help her keep her balance.
"We mean you no harm," Abe tried to assure her. She snapped her teeth at him.
"'We mean you, no, harm'." She mocked, her vowels longer than Abe's and accented. "'No harm'." Her wings twitched in the air, helping to keep her aloft. They seemed to pain her, but she was afraid of the red monkey and the blue fish man. She was in no state to fight.
"You're bleeding," Hellboy pointed out. She glared at him for speaking to her. She knew she was bleeding, she could feel the blood slithering through her feathers and down from her legs.
"You harm-ed me," She accused.
"Actually…I freed you," Hellboy replied watching the dark eyes that watched him warily.
"Free-eed me?" She questioned still poised above them, balancing on her cuffs. Her accent caused extra syllables in her words.
"I unpinned you," He said. She growled at him, baring fangs that could very easily shred a normal man's skin. She debated Hellboy's words for a moment.
"What is your name?" Abe asked. She turned to him but didn't speak again. Her face was pale and her blood was beginning to drip onto the stones at Hellboy's feet. Her eyes suddenly closed and her balance faltered.
She fell with the sound of crumpling feathers and breaking glass. She lay flat against the stone floor.
Hellboy called for assistance and they took the limp creature out of the anterooms and out into the growing morning light. Her feathers shimmered eerily in the half-light as they settled her into the back of one of the helicopters.
She awoke, strapped down to a metal table, each wing wrapped partially in thick gauze. She didn't like being strapped down. Even less since she had no idea where she was.
"Her heartbeat is growing weaker..." a human voice said. "Should we call someone?"
"Na, her heartbeat has been cycling like that since she got here. We don't have to worry unless she wakes up. She's awful pretty for a monster," Another human voice replied. She turned her head towards the voices and screeched at them, bearing her fangs as she tried to break free of the thick straps that bound her to the table.
The two men jumped back in shock and fear as she continued to bellow. Her thrashing reopened wounds that had half healed while she was unconscious, and the pain only made her panic more. The men ran away when the first strap broke and her left arm became free. She clawed at the other straps with wicked fingers, suddenly claws, but they only tore at her skin because she was scared and didn't know what to do.
The humans called for help as she thrashed against the straps with a renewed vigor as another strap gave way under her claws.
"What the hell is going on in here?" This was Hellboy's voice. She turned her dark angry eyes on him and stilled because he was familiar. Her fangs were still bared but she no longer clawed at herself nor screamed.
"Free-ee may," She commanded in her thick, ancient accent. "Free may!"
"No. You need to calm down first," Hellboy replied haughtily. Her eyes flashed and she snapped at him. "Don't be snapping at me," He snapped his teeth back at her. "You look foolish," He said. She paused and looked at him oddly.
"Free-ee me," She said in a calmer, clearer voice. Her fangs seemingly fading from her mouth.
"That's better," Hellboy said reaching for the remaining straps. The creature on the table watched him like a caged bird. The first strap came off and her wing fluttered under his hands with a sound not unlike a waterfall.
"What are you doing?" This was Abe reprimanding Hellboy. The creature looked at him now.
"He free me," She said simply.
"Red are you sure that's a good idea?" He directed the comment away from the dark eyes watching him.
"What? You afraid of a harpy?" Hellboy laughed at his friend. The creature looked at him in confusion, but said nothing as he unstrapped her other wing.
Just like that, the creature was free.
She moved quickly to get her legs under her and she spread her wings, still partly wrapped in gauze, out to either side. This made her look more menacing and larger than she felt although she bristled with anger.
"Strap me a-down again, and I will rip the flesh from your bownes." She said with her ancient accent. Hellboy smiled at her then looked to Abe.
"Does she sound Scottish to you? I didn't know there were harpies in Scotland," He was having fun because she was interesting and new.
"I am non a hah-pee." She said, annoyed with the word not fitting in her mouth right.
"Harpy," Hellboy corrected.
"Hah-pee?" She tried.
"Har-py." He said again. "It's not that hard."
"Har. Pee?" She smiled to herself then glowered at the red monkey. "I am non a Harpee."
"Then what, may I ask, are you?" Abe asked. She looked at him and her stance faltered. She brought her wings back in towards her body, thought they would not lie flat due her injuries. She was still rather weak.
"What are you?" She echoed back.
"I... I don't know actually." Abe replied candidly. She tipped her head at him, her hair shifting to one side.
"How can you ask what I am, when you non know what you ah?" She asked wrinkling her forehead at him.
"I..." Abe tried to speak but she cut him off with a metallic flutter of her wings.
"It doesn't matter what you ah Abe Sapien," She spoke coolly now. "It only matters that you ah."
"What do you mean? How did you know my name?" Abe questioned.
"What the hell lady, one minute ago you..." Hellboy started but she cut him off with a snap of her fangs that disappeared as quickly as they had appeared.
"Silence, red one. You climbed out of hell, a prince among mongrels." She blinked at him mildly confused by herself.
"What the hell do you know?" He shot defensively.
"I know no thing you can name, but I know a great deal moor as well," The creature looked pleased with herself as she sat cross-legged on the table. She wore a makeshift top and skirt that were little more than torn bed cloths, but she wore them as finery.
"Do you have a name?" Abe asked. She looked at him again and he almost shivered from the solidness of that look.
"Who I am? What I am?" She questioned, her h's stronger than normal.
"Both." Hellboy said before Abe could recover.
"Who I am? I am me. What I am? I am they Only One."
"The Only One? Never heard of it," Hellboy said flippantly. She wiggled with her wings, momentarily filling the air with sounds that feathers do not make.
"I am they Only One. There is Only One, and I am," She began to play with her wing tips then. Each time she stroked the feathers, they seemed to shimmer a little brighter as they whispered like metal.
"So what? You're Tigger?" Hellboy asked.
"No, she's the Only One. Red, this is bad," Abe said.
"I am non bad," The creature said annoyed.
"How is this bad?" Hellboy asked.
"The Only One has never been seen before. She heralds the end of all time," Abe said looking at her in fear. She sat up on her knees, angry.
"I do non!" She cried. "I will non hurt this whorld, not ever!" The last two words were in crystalline English and she covered her mouth because for her, speaking in a perfect language was profane. When she spoke again it was softer. "Just because someone tell you tha thay whorld needs to end...tha awl of time needs to end...does non mean tha it does," She looked up at Hellboy because she knew he would understand.
"Why did Mitchel Gerana have you pinned to that wall?" Abe asked moving her attention to him.
"He thought time shood end. He wan'ed me to end it." The creature was brisling with anger. "I will non end this whorld."
"What was on those spikes?" Abe asked. "We couldn't decipher it."
"So many questions." The creature snorted. "Ancient magick. Magick tha bind me," She frowned. "I do non know where he find it. No one should know it any mo," She shook her head and looked at the two creatures looking at her, her eyes seemed more civil now than angry, and oh so very curious. "No one said where we ah..." Hellboy moved towards the door.
"Come on then." Hellboy said motioning for her to follow him. She grinned, with an evil sort of chuckle and followed him out into the large hallway outside the door. The creature stopped and looked around, her wings brushing lightly along the floor.
"Is so…big." She wondered to herself. Hellboy cast her a slight grin, amused at her sudden change in demeanor.
"And this is just the hallway." Hellboy said. The creature cast her age-old eyes at him and smiled again. She hadn't seen the inside of a building in ages, not since things were made mostly of just wood.
"Show me." She commanded Hellboy with her sharp, dark eyes boring into his. Now he openly grinned at her. There was something so exciting about this creature, he couldn't say no.
"Wha is tha way?" The Only One asked when they passed a long hallway, but didn't go down it. Hellboy paused.
"My room is down there," He said carefully.
"Can I see?" She asked with a solid, happy look up at him. The longer he took her around the happier and more normal she became. Hellboy thought about her request for a moment before he shrugged.
"Why not?"
She grinned again and she followed him on impossibly light feet. Her wings tinkling like the wind through glass shards every time she moved.
The creature marveled at the big door Hellboy opened, and marveled more at its thickness as it swung past them. She opened her mouth to make a comment on the door when she saw the televisions for the first time.
An odd squeal came from her as she shot past Hellboy to peer into the televisions. She had never seen such a thing before. She touched the first screen before her, making another noise of wonder and terror as the screen buzzed against her fingers as they danced across the glass. She moved impossibly fast to another and another television and touched each screen, peering into the strange little boxes.
The creature smiled broadly as she hopped up onto a table and leaned over yet another television.
"Careful or you'll knock them down," Hellboy said steadying the one that she was perched on. She giggled at him, sounding strangely like some animal calling in the night, and jumped to another table, balancing with her wings partly spread. She looked impressive perched there.
She turned away from him suddenly and bounded off to the bathroom. Hellboy sighed and followed her, wondering what the manic creature was up to now.
"Is this only fo you?" She asked. They had seen other bathrooms, for she wouldn't let him overlook any door.
"It is, we've got more to see. Come on." Hellboy tried to get her to leave the bathroom. She instead stepped into the bathtub and ogled at the showerhead. Then she noticed the knobs on the wall and before he could stop her, she turned the knobs and started the shower.
Hellboy covered his ears when she screeched this time. Her terror quickly turned to awe as she realized it wasn't hurting her. She laughed with her face to the water, her wings rustling as the water cleaned her feathers.
"You're making a mess," Hellboy sighed, but she was so happy, he couldn't really bother her.
"It rains on co-mand!" She cooed. "It rains!"
"It's called a shower," Hellboy said. She smiled at him and laughed again playing with the knobs making the water hotter and colder. "Come on now," He reached over and turned the shower off. She frowned at him and shook the water drops from her wings, soaking Hellboy in the process. "Only One!" He snorted because calling her that was as ridiculous as his current predicament.
"You can call me E-on-a." She said, standing straighter, her wings folding tighter than they had before.
"Eana?" Hellboy asked with a quirked eyebrow. Eana smiled at him with a nod.
"I like you now. You can 'ave my name," Her teeth shone at him, just a little too sharp. Eana darted past him then with a growl and dove under Hellboy's bed. Then came the sound of screaming cats as she pulled one out by its tail.
"Hey! Put that down!" Hellboy said as she dropped the cat that clawed her.
"Can I eat?" She turned her strange dark eyes on him hopefully.
"No!" He scoffed at her going to check on the other cats, all of which were hiding under his bed. "It's ok guys, I won't let the mean lady hurt you," He muttered peering under the bed.
"I am non mean," Eana crossed her arms. "Why can I non eat?" She asked.
"NO! They're pets, not dinner. If you're hungry, we can find you some food later," Hellboy said grabbing her arm and dragging her from the room. She looked mournfully at those wonderful televisions as she was taken out into the hall.
"Where ah we going?" Eana asked.
"We're gonna visit Abe." Hellboy smirked at her. She grinned.
"He is a fish." Eana wrinkled her nose again. "I 'ave never seen a fish like tha."
Shortly thereafter Hellboy opened the doors to the library and Eana made that happy screeching sound again.
"You really should stop making that noise," He muttered but she was already looking at all the books.
"You 'ave so many book!" Eana cooed. "You 'ave book on my brovers!" She was climbing on the bookshelves now, touching each spine for a moment before continuing on, her wings keeping her aloft as she held onto the edge of each shelf.
"I thought you were the Only One." Hellboy said watching as Abe joined them amongst the books.
"I wasn't awl ways ay lone." She said, still touching every book. "You 'ave many book on my brovers." She hopped to another shelf and frowned. "Do you non have book with my sisters?" She looked down at them sadly.
"Who were they?" Hellboy snorted, hands on his hips, as he peered up at her. Eana snorted back with a shake of her head, her hair moved as if it weren't real, back and forth, but not up and down, still an odd grayish brown.
"Here." She said tossing a book over her shoulder. "Here." Another book found itself falling through the air. "Here." A few more books fell on Hellboy's head.
"Please stop throwing those," Abe said, concerned. She hung from the shelf with one hand and peered down at him and Hellboy with very large, very ancient, dark eyes.
"So who were your brothers?" Hellboy asked picking a book up from the floor. He flipped through it until he saw a diagram of a man, drawn in Da Vinci style, four arms and legs and a large set of wings.
"Is this what I think it is?" Hellboy asked Abe.
"I think it is," Abe said in surprise. Eana jumped down suddenly.
"You're an angel?" Hellboy asked. Eana shrugged.
"We had many name," She said with a roll of her shoulders and wings. The sound echoed against the bookshelves like rain on a tin rooftop.
"You're an angel," Hellboy said again, shocked.
"Some call us tha, ya," Eana nodded. "We were We, need no name," She shrugged again, looking sad.
"You miss them don't you?" Abe asked, hand extended to her. She growled at him, but didn't deny it. She hadn't thought of her family in many, many years. "What happened to them?" Abe asked, more curious than he sounded.
"They fade." Eana frowned. "Turn human, die." She shook her head, hating that she was remembering her family dying. "Non me." She shook her head again, almost proudly. "I live."
"Why would they do that?" Hellboy asked.
"We spent time watching. Waiting. Each with ay job to wait for," Her accent was somewhat weaker now, she'd been around them for too long already. She didn't like that she was changing because it reminded her of why she had stayed away from people, even after all these years.
"Like what?" Abe asked. Eana shook her head and shrugged him off.
"Any, thing," She said carefully. "Deada left for the sake of child that was going to die without her. Veda left for a country at wor. Geana left for sake of a forest. Slrylliel made a new race," Eana waved her hand. "Each had ay job. Each left. Non me." She shook her head again and again. "Never me. Now I the Only One."
"Didn't you have a job?" Abe asked.
"I stay." Eana gave a definitive nod. "I stay so We still here," She almost sounded angry.
"So your job was to stay here, alone, forever?" Hellboy asked. "Geeze, that's rough." Eana shrugged again and was quite.
It only took a few more days with these new people for Eana to come to a terrible realization. After what happened with the cult, she was dangerous to the world alive forever. Her brothers and sisters had told her that there was no reason to live forever, but she had never believed them. She thought that they were selfish for fading to human and dying human deaths, but now she saw what they really did. They freed themselves, and the world, from the terrible power they had held over time and the world they lived in. If they were all dead and gone, no one could use them to end the world. If she faded like her family, the world would be safe from whatever wrath she might have held against the beings of the earth given the right push. Maybe it was time for her to fade now, finally, after all these years.
And that hurt somehow.
Eana was listless for the next few days, and Hellboy couldn't help but notice.
"What's with you?" He asked as she sat perched on the edge of a table where Hellboy was studying some old book.
"I want to see tha sky," Eana replied, brushing her fingers along the table around her toes. Her wings rustled with the sound of her heart breaking. Maybe today was the day after all.
"Well, I think we can sneak out." He winked at her, trying to make her smile. She nodded, attempting at the smile she knew he looked for.
"Oh kay," She nodded, her accent was almost gone now and it just reminded her that it was her time to go.
It didn't take much to get out of the Bureau, Hellboy's stone hand helped a lot, and Eana scared most of the humans anyways. The two wound up on top of a building in the nearby city, Eana watching the darkening sky as the breeze ruffled her feathers.
"You've been weird the last few days, what's up?" Hellboy asked, leaning against the edge of the building. Eana made a whispering sound that sounded very sad as she sat perched on the edge of the building looking down.
"Is time," Eana said looking over at Hellboy with her chin in her shoulder.
"Time for what?" Suddenly Hellboy was worried.
"Time for me to be human. Like my brovers and my sisters. Time to fay-d." She smiled at him now, a little happier that she saw he was worried.
"Why?"
"You show me, remind me, the whorld does non need me to be alone. Not any mo," Eana looked up at the sky then, knowing she'd never fly again.
"How'd did I show you that?" He asked, sounding like she had accused him of something terrible. She shook her head. It wasn't as terrible as she had feared.
"I have non been with pee-pole in very long time," Eana told him, feeling the wind run its fingers through the glass of her feathers, knowing it would be for the last time.
"But why now? You said you've been here for ages…" Hellboy was trying to wrap his mind around it. Trying to keep her as she was. He liked what she was. She was interesting…she was his friend.
"I 'ave." Eana nodded. "But it is time. I know that now," She ran a hand through her hair and took a deep breath. "Maybe I'll like being human." Her accent was fading even faster as she let herself become human, like flipping a switch. Hellboy could only watch as she smiled and all that was a beast in her turned to the softer edges of a human. Her eyes became a bit rounder, her hair, less airy, her skin didn't quite look so perfect.
"What's happening?" He asked, stepping back.
"I'm becoming human. I'll forget everything else that came before," She straightened into the standing position and smiled at him again, her teeth held no sharpness now. "I have to go now." Her wings hung limply from her back and the feathers began to fall like heavy glass shards upon the roof. Hellboy could only watch.
"Will you be ok?" Hellboy asked, unsure of what else to say. Eana smiled again, but more sadly.
"I don't know," Eana shrugged. "One day, you'll have to choose between the first love you ever had and the one you have now." She blinked as if she hadn't heard herself correctly. More feathers broke from her back.
"What?" Hellboy asked as the last of her feathers tinged as they hit the roof. She looked at him oddly.
"The one toy you could never break," The woman said as if it were obvious, smiling.
"Eana!" Hellboy cried, as if it could bring back the angel he had brought to the roof.
"That's a pretty name," The woman said. Then she turned and walked back the way the two creatures had come. "Maybe I'll write a book about my sisters…" Hellboy heard her mumble as she closed the door and disappeared forever.
Hellboy could only stare after her, confused by what had just happened, worried about Eana, and intrigued, because he hadn't thought of Betty in many, many years.