Michael van Rossum eyed the non-distinct grey building marked as 'Waste Management' with a measure of scorn. The current headquarters for the B.P.R.D it had been, for many months now, a persistent thorn in his side but only now was he seeing it in person. When one had an impending apocalypse threatening one had to consider all the potential resources at hand.

Once his retinas were successfully scanned the iron gates finally creaked open to grant Michael entry into a world where demonology met bureaucracy in an unhealthy mix. He knew it as a failed attempt to keep Hellboy and Abe Sapien from the public eye as well as downplaying all things supernatural. Now, according to his sources, one of its own agents had a sibling with the gift to raise the dead who had been showing as much subtly as Hellboy. Michael sneered slightly at the thought, raising the dead was anything but a gift. It was unnatural and unholy, evil even and he couldn't fathom how a seemingly ordinary human could do it. He had already decided that she had to have more in common with Hellboy than one of the bureau's own agents.

Michael stopped at the main doors, flashing his ID tiredly at the guards on duty. They both gave the six feet tall blonde the same look of awe and fear before nodding him into the building where the fumbling director stood waiting to greet him. Michael looked at Director Manning with a barely concealed disgust, his steely grey eyes almost piercing right through the balding man as he looked him up and down.

"Welcome Mr van Rossum," Thomas Manning greeted politely as he extended out a hand.

Michael accepted the hand with an empty smile before giving it a firm shake. "Afternoon Mr. Manning."

Manning had not even been given a day's notice about the government agent's arrival. The claim had been that he had important information to share but Manning was quite certain the agent had come to scorn as well. Michal van Rossum was high up in the shadowy side of the government, high above the B.P.R.D and its director, and Manning knew if Michael felt the need to lower himself to granting the bureau his presence it was for no good reason.

"Is there somewhere we can talk?" Michael queried in a clipped, cold voice.

Manning nodded before gesturing for the taller man to follow him. He led the way down the secret dropping floor into the thick of the bureau where he hoped against hope that he might get his superior safely to his office without a run in with the likes of Hellboy. It took ten minutes and bustling past a few agents but to his relief they managed it.

"Can I get you anything to drink?" Manning quipped politely as he stepped behind his desk and took a seat on the aged, black, leather chair.

Michael shook his head as he eyed the office with the same measure of distaste he had looked at Manning with. "Let's just get to the point," Manning said wearily as he refrained from sitting. "There has been a development in Peru, a rather disturbing find in an Incan temple."

Manning knew better than to look intrigued and it was all he could do to avoid showing his unease before Michael. Instead he looked up to the blonde attentively, silently willing him to continue.

"It seems this particular temple really was used to house something not quite mortal," Michael confessed. "Honestly Manning if I had any other choice I wouldn't be here but the supernatural is the bureau's field of expertise and my superiors are convinced your members are possibly the only ones who might be able to control this. Admittedly the success with Rasputin and preventing the emerging of the Ogdru Jahad does go in your favour but matters of late concerning the public eye and now a girl who can raise the dead does not." He arched a blonde eyebrow as he looked down at Manning with the same disapproval of a general who had caught his soldier failing to clean his gun properly. "I trust the girl is contained?"

"Woman," Manning corrected with a slightly defensive look, "Embry Myers and she is with the bureau, our own Agent Clay brought her in four days ago." He neglected to say that Embry had left on several occasions since to run errands and refused to sleep in the bureau although she claimed to be contemplating the offer of a room.

"Is she contained?" Michael repeated.

"She's not a prisoner," Manning said, still defensive, "but she is proving to be a useful agent."

Michael's frown deepened. "She raised the dead in a public park and it does not sound like it was intentional, that is not someone we want as an agent, that is someone we want kept from the public eye permanently. It is a dangerous power to have, bad enough I still hear reports of Elizabeth Sherman not being fully integrated as an agent. We let that slide but no more Manning. Our latest problem is too serious to be left in incapable hands, which is why I will be staying to supervise our response to it."

"Response to what?" Manning queried impatiently as he stood up.

"The wolves in the park were a hint of it," Michael explained calmly, "Marchosias is their leader, a demon described as a Marquis as Hell. Seems your friend Hellboy isn't the only thing the other side has seen fit to curse us with. The wolves are not unique, there have been reports all over the area, minor incidents that if unconnected just seem like unusual bouts of supernatural activity, something I know you're getting quite used to but connect the dots and a terrifying picture begins to form. Sounds of trumpets no one can explain, earthquakes beginning with the sound a terrible crack as if something was broken and it echoed across the land, as if more than the earth itself was torn asunder. Now a temple in Peru where the inner walls were painted in blood and the giant body of a horse mummified in time was found, the huge tomb of its rider now bones of bronze and one name carved there- War. For it is a name you see Manning, the name of a horseman but something was missing from the temple, something taken or unleashed."

"What do you mean?" Manning queried warily as his fear finally slipped into his voice.

"A secret known to a very rare few of us, handed down through the centuries, a terrible knowledge to have and protect that has evidently become known to the worst kind of people. The four horsemen are not just metaphors in a book but very real beings, kept separate for centuries, they were defeated one by one for united they would have been invincible. Once defeated their spirits were severed from their bodies and imprisoned. One in the north, one south, one east and one west, the burden of all four corners of the earth with the knowledge that should they ever be freed and united the end of the world would be upon us."

"And now one is free?" Manning queried shakily, doubting every word of it as he did.

Michael nodded sombrely. "Free and seeking a host if he has not already got one, they need hosts you see."

"So you want our help on this then?" Manning asked weakly. "What lead do you have?"

"I have agents seeking out the other temples but it does not look good," Michael confessed. "Something drew the wolves here and the other demons, I do not know if it is Hellboy they seek or another or something else entirely but there is something in the area they want and I intend to find it first. I will utilise Hellboy, Abraham Sapien and Elizabeth Sherman to this end, and the agents. First though I would meet with this Miss Myers and evaluate her skills and potential danger."

"Right, well er...when would you like that arranged for?" Manning queried with a nervous look.

"Right now," Michael answered icily.

Manning sighed; of course it would be right now when he was unsure where she was. "Let me find her then," he offered as he headed round to the door. He was unsurprised when Michael followed after him.


Embry Myers was out on duty with the entire crew, heading to the swimming pool of all places where some kids who had sneaked in had supposedly met a grisly end. She sat up front in one of the waste management vans beside the driver, her brother John.

"So have you thought anymore about staying in the bureau?" John pried. "You know it's okay if you don't, I don't." John hadn't spoken much with Embry since the incident in the park mainly because she wouldn't speak to him and because it was hard to get her alone in the bureau. She had played civil with Manning and the bureau for four days now though it was obvious she was losing her patience with Agent Marble watching her like a hawk.

When Embry failed to answer John glanced over at her. She was sitting staring out the window at the dark brown sky whilst fidgeting with her pendants with her right hand, wrapping the chains about her fingers repeatedly. In that instance John was reminded of Liz's therapeutic rubber bands and how she twanged them against her wrist as a form of relaxation. "You know," he said softly, "you should talk to Liz more she...well she's had similar experiences to you." He gave a faint smile that vanished at the cold glare his sister gave him.

"Did her father beat and abuse her because he thought she was possessed by the devil?" Embry queried sarcastically. "And did her family abandon her to a mental asylum that favoured illegal practices such as shock therapy because they thought she was mad?" she continued in a voice purposely light and cheerful.

"Not quite," John murmured with a sorrowful expression before he turned his stare back to the road. "Her family died in a fire she caused unintentionally, she went to the asylum after. She went in and out of it voluntarily for a while; she wanted to find a way to control the fire."

"Are you suggesting I go back to the asylum to learn how to control my special talent?" Embry queried bitingly. "You know, the talent you didn't even believe in?"

"No," John protested as the large swimming pool complex loomed into view. Two storeys tall it was an old, brick building that had survived for decades now, barely changing on the outside John imagined its business came from being the only swimming pool in town.

"Good because it burned down," she snarled.

John sighed. "I just thought it would be good for you to speak to someone who could understand a little of what you went through."

"Ease your conscience would it if I found a girlfriend to plait hair and share mental problems with?"

"No," John confessed as he finally stopped the van, "nothing is ever going to ease my conscience. I didn't believe what you were going through and I screwed up as a brother, badly. Now I have you back in my life I'm going to try to make amends whether you think I can or not."

Embry did not bother with a reply; instead she opened the door and slipped out of the van. John got out of his side and opened the side door of the van to release Hellboy who was trying a little too hard to pretend he hadn't heard anything. There was another waste management van already parked outside the place and vacant, its occupants- Agent Marble, Liz, and Abe- had evidently already entered the building.

They entered the main doors, which had already been opened with the alarm silenced. Agent Marble and the others stood inside waiting at the reception desk under the green glow of the emergency exit lights.

"Any chance we're getting to ride the slides?" Hellboy queried hopefully as he glanced to the left where the slides were visible, silent and still in the darkness.

"No chance Red," Liz chided as she readied her Glock 22.

"Do you really need extra firepower?" Embry queried dryly as she eyed the gun curiously.

Liz nodded calmly. "My fire comes with a cost, I tend to black out after I use it," she confessed. She and Abe were dressed all in black blending into the shadows even more; Liz was also wearing a bulletproof vest with B.P.R.D on the right breast pocket in white letters. She eyed Embry's less than appropriate torn jeans, sky blue vest top and long, open, chunky, cream cardigan with mild amusement. She understood it, having your toes dipped in but never fully submerging yourself, she had been the same way with the bureau for a long time herself after all but it hadn't helped her and she could see that it wasn't helping Embry much.

"Let's go," Agent Marble ordered as he gave Embry an open look of scorn, "main pool according to the one survivor."

"There's always one," Hellboy mused with a smile as they started walking.

As they rounded a corner Embry felt her head tingle and she shut her eyes and winced before raising her fingertips to her temples.

"Something wrong?" John queried as he gave his sister a look of concern.

Embry opened her eyes, fixing her stare just to the right of Marble. "A few people have drowned here over the years," she murmured dryly.

Marble grumbled a curse as his eyes darted about with unease. Of course he couldn't see anything but now the shadows had a more sinister quality to him and he was certain the air had turned colder.

"You're kinda freaky sometimes girl Myers," Hellboy joked as he grinned down at her.

"Can I please have a new nickname?" she retorted woefully as they started to walk down the stairs.

"I was thinking of zombie girl," Hellboy confessed, "but Clay said that was unfair."

"It is a little bit," Embry murmured.

Abe held up a webbed hand, halting the party as they reached the doors leading to the main pool. "Allow me," he insisted as he stepped up to the doors and pressed his palm against the right one.

The group waited impatiently for a couple of minutes as Abe tried to sense things within.

"There's a presence," he informed them, "powerful, quick and old, very old, it's hard for me to get a read."

"And the kids?" Marble asked gruffly.

"Five," Embry answered frostily as she gave the doors a serious stare, "and they're all dead."

Marble suppressed a shudder whilst Hellboy nudged John and jested, "your sister got all the cool genes of the family squirt."

John just rolled his eyes and raised his gun in preparation.

"That's all I can get," Abe confessed forlornly as he lowered his palm and reached for the metal handle. "Everyone ready?"

"Let's get on with it," Hellboy answered impatiently.

Abe pushed down the handle and pushed the door inwards. There were two pools- the diving pool and the main swimming pool, both lit by the white glow from the full moon seeping in through the windows that lined the top of the walls. The diving pool was perfectly still whilst the main pool had a few ripples all from one area near the deep end where the water had a dark mist about it and several forms bobbing in it.

"I guess I'd better find our friend," Abe mused as he unfastened his breathing apparatus and pushed up the goggles before discarding both on the floor. "I do hate chlorine though," he lamented as he stepped in the shallows of the pool.

"Be careful," Liz cautioned as she scanned the pool warily.

It was as Abe moved to the deeper end of the pool and started to swim that John saw the shadow rising up and moving fast towards the aquatic man. "Shit that's big!" he shouted as he readied his gun.

"Abe watch out!" Hellboy yelled as he took aim with the Samaritan and fired.

Everything became a chaotic and terrifying blur as the water churned and bubbled as if boiling before several dark, jagged tentacles shot out of it. One grabbed Marble by his ankles pulling him screaming to the water whilst another seized Hellboy about his waist and a third just missed John.

BANG! BANG! Hellboy shot the tentacle about him clean through, severing it in two resulting in an inky blood splashing everywhere before the limp, stubbed tentacle sank back into the water.

BANG! BANG! Liz and John both concentrated at shooting on the shadowy body beneath the waters whilst glancing about every so often for tentacles.

There was a loud splash as Marble hit the water before his screams became gargles. Embry ran to the edge of the pool with a look of horror, her mouth parting in an o shape as she paled and jerked back. Her head immediately started pounding at the sight below the waters. Down there were victims of all ages from over the years of this pool, unknowing and unwitting sacrifices to the water demon that gnashed its teeth at Abe as it tried and failed to grasp him in its tentacles.

Marble was going to drown or be eaten, Embry knew it and she also knew that she could not deal with being haunted by his angry spirit. She sucked in a breath and sank to her knees at the edge of the deep end of the pool before reaching her palms down to the waters.

John shouted a protest at his sister before a tentacle distracted him.

BANG! BANG!

The creature squealed in pain under the water as one of Hellboy's bullets cut through its torso. Abe watched it writhe with a fascinated horror even as he searched for a way through its tentacles to get to Marble. He had only one weapon to use against it, a grenade, and he knew he couldn't as it would mean the death of Marble.

The hands came without warning, at least twenty pairs of ghostly hands that almost seemed to glow green in the water, they came out of nothingness to grasp at the beast. Marble almost lost his sanity when he saw them through a watery vision, they weren't attached to anything!

"Shoot it now!" Embry yelled just as a tentacle upset her balance and sent her splashing into the pool.

For a moment the woman drifted, limp in the water as she sank, bypassing ghostly hands and tentacles before she became level with Marble and their gazes locked. His brown eyes burned with hate for her as she sank past him, down and down to the ghostly figures at the bottom reaching through the dark waters not for the beast but for her, the one who could see them properly, the only one who had noticed them for years. Her head pounded as a full blown migraine surged through it and she almost blacked out.

BANG! BANG! Two bullets went clean through the demon's skull. The demon, a monstrosity part fish, part octopus and part human finally died with several screams of pain. Its tentacles became limp and Marble was free to swim for the surface just as Abe grabbed Embry, pulling her up and away from the ghostly forms he couldn't see. Abe had seen the ghostly hands, now mercifully gone, but that was it, he had no idea of the drowned figures below howling up at Embry's fading form in frustration.

Marble waved off Hellboy's hand with a snarl before struggling out of the pool himself. Hellboy just shrugged before turning back and plucking Embry's damp form out with ease. John rushed to her side in a panic as she started coughing up water.

"I'm fine," Embry grumbled at her brother as she pushed him back with one hand whilst her other clutched at her skull.

John looked at her in relief as he continued to kneel beside her.

"So what did we kill?" Hellboy queried curiously as he eyed the large carcass now floating on the surface of the pool.

"Ugh let the experts have fun dissecting that," Liz murmured.

"I'll call them in," Marble snapped. He was on his knees spitting up water whilst trying to banish the image of ghost hands repeating over and over in his head.


BANG! BANG! Embry turned to her door accusingly before giving a roll of her eyes. She glanced at the clock on her wall but it had stopped ticking and her vision was too blurred for her to make its number out anyway. BANG! BANG! She moved with a grunt and opened the door at last, taking care to keep the useless chain on.

"Oh God really?" she groaned up at Agent Clay. "I haven't even got a shower yet. What did you do, teleport here?"

"Well ghostly children made an impact on our latest superior," Agent Clay retorted sardonically. He gave her a small, sardonic smile before quipping, "did you enjoy your late night swim?"

Embry was still soaked from head to toe and an odour of chlorine clung to her. She had insisted on being dropped off near her house instead of going to the bureau and had John stop two blocks away from her apartment, refusing to give him her full address. It had taken her half an hour to actually reach her apartment floor as her migraine had caused several brief blackouts prompting her to stop every floor for ten minutes at a time. Once inside the safety of her squalid home she had managed to strip down to her vest top and had been in the process of taking off her jeans when Clay had arrived. Her belt was on the floor beside her soaked cardigan and boots but mercifully the jeans remained on.

Embry reached up to her still pounding skull with her right hand before waving him off with her left. "I'm sorry I have an awesome gift," she retorted sarcastically, "but can you bother me about it in the morning?"

"You assume I'm here in the middle of the night out of choice?"

Embry winced and her other hand reached up to her skull before a sigh escaped her. "No, I assume Marble made me out to be some kind of bogeyman and Manning went into his usual hysterics."

"You know as fun as these through the doorway chats are your neighbour is probably only two minutes away from calling the police, can I come in?" Clay queried calmly as he tried and failed to hide his tired impatience from his eyes.

Embry dropped her left hand to her side before looking up at Clay curiously through heavy lidded eyes. "Part of me would like to see that," she confessed with a sly smile. She lowered her right hand and pressed the door shut before unhooking the chain and reopening the door. "Welcome back to the damp and rat faeces," she murmured as she turned away and hastened over to the kitchen area. She paused as her vision flickered to black momentarily before another gasp of pain escaped her. As the pain continued to spark through her skull she gritted her teeth and forced herself to pick up the pace.

Clay watched as the woman suddenly slammed her hands against the worktop surface and doubled over with a curse. Her right hand just as quickly reached up to clutch at her brow whilst her left fumbled with the cupboard door above her. She yanked it open and looked up; squinting as she tried to spy the bottle of pills she was seeking through her blurred vision. Everything seemed edged in a golden light and was doubled in her gaze. She yanked down several boxes and bottles before discarding them carelessly. At last she found the one she wanted and started struggling with its white lid with both hands.

A sharp sensation of agony tore through Embry's skull and her vision flashed red without warning. Embry fell backwards with the shock, hitting off the breakfast bar that separated her kitchen from her living room. She slid down against it with a grunt as the lid finally came free and red and yellow pills spilled out everywhere. "Shit," she grumbled as she grasped at two and swallowed them hastily. They went down rough without water but she didn't care, she needed them now.

Clay just waited, stoic and quiet, trying not to look as awkward as he felt. He felt a small tinge of relief when Embry's fingers reached to grasp the surface of the breakfast bar before she pulled herself to her feet once more. "Don't help," she grumbled before she dragged herself round it and staggered wobbly towards her grey, lumpy couch.

"Wouldn't want to undermine you," he retorted calmly.

"Wouldn't want to risk a flashback you mean," she replied hotly, "stay away from the witch, she conjures ghosts."

"Well according to Marble you do and Abe didn't really dispute it either but I'm wearing my gloves so at least it won't be mine you conjure."

"Those ghosts helped Marble, should've just let the asshole die but then knowing my luck I'd have to suffer his asshole ghost," Embry lamented.

"Are your headaches connected to the ghosts?" Clay pried as he watched her curiously

Embry shrugged at the question. "Maybe," she retorted guardedly. "Anyway, can you tell Manning I won't go Charles Dickens on him so he can calm the hell down and leave me in peace."

"I could but I'm trying to get back in the good books, remember? Besides, it's not Manning who wants you back at the bureau, it's his superior."

"New sheriff in town huh? Well good for him but I don't care, my skull is pounding and I just want to sleep, in my own place."

"I'm sure the bureau could offer you a nice, comfortable bed."

Embry looked up at Clay and shook her head as she swung her legs round on the sofa and stretched out on it. "It's not happening."

"You know Mr van Rossum didn't exactly ask, in fact he was more for the send a team to drag you back approach."

"And Manning talked him out of it for PR reasons?" Embry queried sardonically as she rested her head back against a cushion. "How sweet."

"Me and Myers did actually," Clay pointed out defensively. "Myers got quite angry about it, first time I've heard that kid raise his voice, doesn't really suit him."

"And what did you say?" Embry demanded.

"That if you were going to be defensive better they lost just me than a whole team."

Embry turned so that her chin was now resting on the arm of the sofa and she was facing Clay. "And they didn't count you as a loss?"

"Don't get cute," Clay replied with a frown.

"How about I get defensive?" she retorted tauntingly.

"I'd like to believe you really trust me and won't for that reason but you're lying on your couch clutching at your skull like it's about to implode, I don't think you can get defensive."

Embry frowned at him even as she winced with pain. "You got me pizza so I don't hate you but you are trying to get me to go back to a bureau I don't really like to get yelled at when I have a migraine, so I also think you're a prick."

"Thanks, can I remind you that this isn't personal, I'm just doing my job."

Embry didn't retort, instead she rolled over and shut her eyes with another groan of pain. Hearing footsteps, her eyes snapped open and her watery vision rolled up to Agent Clay, now standing over her.

"Do you need help?" Clay queried politely.

"No, it'll pass," she murmured.

"Can I stay until it does? Since I have no desire to get yelled at until morning."

"Long as you don't invite anyone else over."

"I won't but will you come back to the bureau when your headache passes?"

Embry smiled up at him. "It must be terrible having your job, running after me with the constant threat of unemployment. What did you do to get the shit?"

"I died," he answered flatly. "Between the time I had to take off to recover and the experience being considered traumatic there is a feeling that perhaps I can't be a field agent anymore."

"Well that's unfair, if John can do it anyone can."

Clay glanced behind him before occupying a wooden chair half-buried beneath colourful cushions with tassels and a tie-dye rug with small silver discs on its edges. "So will you come back to the bureau?"

"Sure," Embry grumbled as she shut her eyes, "but remember your promise, I won't be a prisoner."