Alaska
Hellboy rolled over groggily, falling out of the too small bed and onto the floor of the too small cabin. He groaned. He had spent last night getting drunk, which had become his schedule for the last few weeks. There wasn't much to do up here, and what little you could do was only good for a few tries before it got stale. Plenty of time outdoors, appreciating the wild, untamed countryside. He was thinking of starting that novel he had always wanted to write.
Yes, it was boring, but that was the intention. It was the only place he'd found where he could just kick back and let everything drift past. Africa had allowed him to vanish, but was far from empty, and Asia was even worse. He hadn't even tried South America, he knew better than anyone the types of people already hiding out there. Besides, the whole continent was practically ruled by the Red Court. But here, in Alaska, there was peace. No monsters that he'd met, if there were they kept to themselves as much as he did. No demons. No ghosts, witches, fairies, or primordial night goddesses giving him crap or trying to get him to do things he had no interest in doing. No ancient men sustained on dark magic who had apparently waited all this time for the chance to tell him about his destiny, whether he wanted to learn or not. And after more than fifty five years of all that, Hellboy was fine with the quiet. Taking it easy was under appreciated.
He didn't even mind being alone. Sure, he'd missed Liz and Abe and the rest at first, but he got over it pretty fast. He still took the occasional call or sent the odd postcard, but once Abe left too he stopped getting replies and eventually he stopped.
Now his only human contact was limited to the store he visited on a monthly basis to buy supplies, sometimes a few lost hikers. The former he cut as tight as possible, the latter he avoided or ignored. All in all, good system. Lonely, but he was fine with his own company. His friends often made him focus on things he shouldn't.
No, he'd fallen into a routine of sorts, one that suited the life he was leading. He spent most of his time indoors, he fed the cats, he drunk more then he should, and he generally took it easy.
Leaving the BPRD had been the easiest decision that Hellboy had probably ever made. He'd pressed his locator belt into Dr Manning's arms as the man stuttered in incomprehension, retrieved his gun, and then turned his back on the life he'd lived for sixty years and the only home he'd ever known. Simple.
But it hadn't been really. Home, that is. Since Father died, it had just been something he did. No meaning, no purpose. He'd only stayed out of habit. It was, after all, the only life he'd ever known.
But he was sick of it. Sick of fighting, sick of giving for people who didn't care, or didn't even notice. So let it be someone else's burden. Once a demon, Whistler, had told him there was more evil in the world then good. He had been wrong. There was always another hero, always another savior. That's the beauty of it. His fighting was over, and the BPRD stopped calling, and here he was, at peace.
So he was very surprised when he awoke to find a big brown package tied with string on his door. How it got there was a mystery.
I mean I have to be the only living soul for miles around, it's not like a mailman made his rounds this far North, and anyway, he'd have heard a truck or whatever. So unless it dropped out of the sky… He looked up just in case. No plane, helicopter or the like. Whoever left it here was long gone.
He looked down at it for a long time. Part of him, a considerable part, wanted to take his big boot and stomp on it, then go back to doing nothing. But he couldn't, much to his own self-disgust. A combination of curiosity, boredom (much as he told himself it was a good thing) and loyalty made him take the package and open it carefully.
Inside the box were six things. A plane ticket, to Washington. A page torn from a street directory, with the town 'Forks' circled. He'd heard something about that place once, but it had slipped his memory. A photo of eight figures who could have passed for fey in the right light, all looking like they just stepped from the cover of Vogue to give "their tips for a trendier you." As though autographed, a spidery hand had written names below each of the figures. A photocopy from some ancient book or another, written in a time when spelling was more or less optional. A vial of some strange substance, that reminded him of blood. It wasn't, because it didn't smell like blood, and he had plenty of experience with what blood smells like. And a newspaper article, about disappearances throughout Washington, none of which occurred in said town.
A mystery. Whoever sent this didn't actually know him very well, or they would have told him upfront what they wanted instead of this sort of crap. An endless stream of supernatural's that felt obliged to drop hints about his destiny or heritage -which he hadn't cared about to begin with- had long since obliterated any interest in puzzles he might have once possessed.
He looked at the torn page anyway, putting the rest aside. Most of it assumed you'd read the rest of the book, which he hadn't, and talked about a ritual, awakening something called 'that which was taken.' There were symbols that were probably significant to someone, but to him just so many lines. Like some glorified barcode.
Then he found the sheet of printed paper. Ah. Someone had done all the investigating after all, and needed him for the heavy lifting. He scan read it, and grumbled to himself as he did so. He had met no shortage of vampires in his line of work. Vampires were one of those supernatural's that couldn't just sit down, shut up, and leave the humans alone. They always had to do something stupid and get him involved.
He scanned the paper again, taking note of key words. Vampires. Prophesied coming. Ritual. Kidnapping. Sacrifice. It was all he needed to read.
Despite the talk of bloodlines, and Courts, and rubbish like that, none of the ones he'd ever met had seemed particularly unified or organized. The Courts seemed to just be a paper thing, in his (admittedly somewhat specialized) experience. But apparently these ones were. They were registered on the Unseelie Accords, and had a whole lot of the supernatural world's big names supporting them. Why said beings, most of whom were completely mad, evil, or both, would support this was question enough, but he had bigger problems to worry about.
Apparently, they had spent considerable resources doing what a paranoid person might identify as building an army of the supernatural acquired from a variety of long established powers. Now that got his attention.
There were a lot of vampires. More than could be counted, ranging for the Red Court serfs you could find in every city to the true ancestors who were recognized by hell, some even granted honory demon status. And they didn't get on. Some hokey ritual wasn't going to get them to work together if they didn't want to…
The overwhelming majority of Hellboy's mind said to put the box down, or punt it into a snow drift, go back inside, sleep off the hangover. But then he went through his cases. This was always how crap started: naga, skinwalkers, strix, kappa, whatever. Something small. Next thing you know, BAM, a dragon is eating children raw just to use their hair to line its nest, a bunch of Nazis are trying to restart the Third Reich or bring back Hitler's brain in a jar, or an army of frog people is on the rampage. Again.
If he was going to get involved anyway, for once it would be nice to deal with the problem before it got out of hand. And if he wasn't, well then he wouldn't have picked up the box if he wasn't going to get involved.
"Damnit." He mutters. There doesn't really seem much more to say.
He'd recovered his long coat, beat the dust from it and hunted down the 'Good Samaritan', on the conclusion that he'd almost never complained of bringing too much fire power to kill something. He dressed, shaved his horns, and felt like himself again.
He had taken a truck to the nearest airport, which felt like days ago.
Most people thought he was a character in pulp novels like Lobster Johnson, or an urban myth, if they even knew he existed. Getting back in the country legally would be needlessly difficult. Most demons snuck on by hiding in the cargo hold. He saw no reason to break tradition here. He hadn't been found, and made himself somewhat comfortable for the long flight. Fortunately there wasn't turbulence.
From there, he got to Seattle, and it was in the back of another truck to Forks, again unnoticed as he stowed away amongst the stationary and housewares all neatly stacked and packed in boxes that were more comfortable then they looked. He was quiet. Working for the Beareu had made him good at waiting.
And All the waiting had the benefit of giving him plenty of time to think. Why was he doing this? Really? He still didn't know. He wasn't Bureau anymore, but that was hardly an excuse to leave it alone. They didn't seem to be doing anything about it.
Admittedly, somebody was trying to end the world, but so what. Someone was always trying to end the world. From what he'd seen people had been trying to end the world since day one, and hadn't had much in the way of concrete results yet.
But then, to quote the well known parable about the starfish, while the world would probably keep on turning, it mattered to the twenty or so who'd inevitably not make it through the attempt. And a large part of him didn't want to go back and get in touch with his softer side. He'd had enough of his soft side, and it had about had enough of him.
Besides, the main reason, more important then any of the others, came to the forefront and stuck. He wanted to do this.
He sat back, having done all the soul searching and introspection he was equipped to do without alcohol. It was settled. He'd be there soon. And when he got to the town, there would be hell to pay.
