Chapter Seven

Hellboy knew he was dreaming. Knew it when he looked down to see Rex – the golden Labrador puppy – he'd had as a kid. Plus there was the plastic pistol he'd had when he played cowboys and Indians tucked into his B.P.R.D belt…which was so large he'd had to wrap it three times around his waist. He looked up into a mirror. Yep. There was is seven year old self, true to form. Buck teeth, one horn missing, the other tipped in black…a lot more…innocent than he ever remembered being –

"Hellboy? What are you doing lurking about outside?" A familiar voice called out to him and joy, pure and slightly childish, leapt in his heart.

"Pops?" He turned to see the study as it had been, back at the B.P.R.D. All forest green and dark wood, brass and exotic little trinkets scattered amongst shelf upon shelf of beautifully bound books – all of which his clever pop had read and re-read and could quote verbatim and there. Nearly in the center of the room, sat Professor Trevor Broom at his hardwood desk, a pen in one hand, a notebook and a new book open on the desk before him, half turned in his comfortable chair to look at his son. Hellboy ran forward, flinging his arms around his fathers waist as he stood up.

"Hellboy?" Professor Broom chuckled, slightly puzzled as he hugged his son back for a long moment before disentangling himself and dropping down to one knee, looking his son in the face with a slightly worried frown. "What on Earth's the matter?" Hellboy knew it was a dream so he knew it was illogical to wail that his father was dead back in the real world…it didn't seem to matter though as his mouth was already speaking for him.

"I've lost Liz. Some…guy, Hades, we think, took her. We're taking directions from this apparently sapient book and…" Hellboy shrugged, sighed and tried not to give in to how young he felt. "I don't know what to do."

"You've just got to figure out where she is." Professor Broom said with a kind, fatherly smile. "After that it should all be fairly simple. Oh. But do watch out for the dog." His father reached down to pat Rex on the head affectionately, receiving a slobbery lick for his troubles. "That could be more trouble than you bargained for." Hellboy laughed softly, rubbing his stone hand over the back of his neck.

"Hm. Now if that isn't trippy dream talk what is?" He looked up has his Father laughed, a sudden stab of grief catching him off guard. "I miss you, pop." Trevor Broom smiled sadly.

"I know, son. I miss you too." The smile broadened into a grin and he opened his mouth again. "Where is she, you bastard?"

"What?


"Where is she?!" Hellboy awoke slowly to an unfamiliar voice yelling in panic. "Where is she? What did you do with her?"

"I haven't touched her! Not since yesterday when you asked me too!" That was Abe, yelling in reply.

"Where did you last have her?" And that was Krauss.

"Here! She was right here, I went to sleep with the book under my pillow, I woke up just now and she's gone." Hellboy opened his eyes, finally recognizing Meg's voice, and sat up in a small shower of sand. The sun was starting to go down and there was the faintest breeze. A small gecko stared at him for a moment, licking it's own eyeball, before lazily deciding that taking on a mountainous red human thing wasn't worth it's time and skittered off. Hellboy looked up, still a little muggy from sleep, in time to see Meg – sun burnt and peeling – shaking out the contents of two backpacks, rooting through everything that fell out uselessly.

"It's alright-" Krauss was attempting to sound soothing.

"Alright? Alright? Without that book we're as good as dead she was giving us directions she was-" Meg started to hyperventilate. Abe turned, spotting that Hellboy was awake, and very nearly rolled his eyes at her behavior. Hellboy covered a laugh by clearing his throat and stretching out, something shiny caught his eye at the top of one of the sand dunes and it wasn't just quartz in the sand.

"There it is." He pointed, shielding his eyes with one hand from the glare of the dieing sun. He was surprised into full wakefulness when Meg dropped a dry kiss on top of his head before racing past, climbing up to the top of the dune with surprising speed for someone who was skidding about the day before.

"Excitable little thing, isn't she?" Krauss murmured as he watched her and packed up the backpacks again. Abe fanned himself with one of the napkins, watching as Meg reached the top and stooped to pick up the book, hugging the thing to her and obviously telling it off at the same time before freezing.

"Uh, guys." She called out, her voice carrying easily in the stillness.

"Y'know I'm really starting to hate it when she says that." Hellboy muttered to himself.

"You'd better come and see this." Passing the last of his water to Abe – who looked to be suffering in the rapidly cooling heat already – Hellboy started the climb upwards, leaving his pack behind.

"Hmm." He grunted in mild surprise when he reached her side. Looking down over the edge of the sloping shadowy dune, the land spread out into comparatively flat for about two miles, all around the edge dunes rose, creating a sort of bowl within which lay…planks. Planks of wood about a foot and a half wide and eight foot long, set next to each other with about three feet between them. They lay in regimented rows across the desert floor. "Abe?" Hellboy asked as he and Krauss reached the summit. The amphibian's jaw dropped as he stared out, shaking his head slightly and shrugging.

"Hey!" Meg yelped as she dropped the book, chasing after it as it slid down the side of the dune and bumped into the edge of one of the planks. The others followed on behind. "What are you- oh!" The book snapped open, it's pages bleeding pure black with a slow, high pitched whine, building to a crescendo as the ink ran off the page and onto the sand. Krauss reached out and pulled Meg back as the ink spread further before pooling into itself, slowly becoming smaller and smaller until it was a black dot no bigger than the grain of sands around it before disappearing entirely.

"Well that was-" Hellboy was interrupted as the sand where the dot had been exploded upwards, showering all of them in blinding sand. Once he'd scrubbed the stinging, salty grains from his eyes Hellboy looked up to see what the hell had happened.

"Oh man I can't tell you how good it is to get out of there." A woman, with skin the colour of the night – literally, stars moved beneath her skin in tiny flashes of ever moving light – stood before them, naked as the day she was born. "Well don't everyone rush to say hello at once." She said dryly, flipping back hair the shade of the moon over her shoulder.

"Uh. Hello." Abe managed. The woman grinned, walking over to him in a manner that would do any burlesque dancer proud before planting a soft kiss to the corner of his mouth.

"Hello Abraham." She said richly, pressing against him. "Thank you for being so kind to me."

"Y-you're most welcome." He said, slightly awkwardly with his voice at a higher pitch than usual. "And you are?"

"Oh I'm the book. Or rather, the personality that made the book sapient, some stupid mage trapped me inside a couple of million years ago. The bastard. Anyway, enough of that depressing lark, my name is Astra – first of the sex demons – wonderful to meet you." She offered a hand to shake, as if a kiss of that magnitude hadn't been enough.

"Charmed." Abe's voice had taken on a distinctly wobbly note. Astra smiled at him, almost lovingly before turning away.

"Johann." She purred, leaning up to kiss the glass bowl that made his head before turning away. "Megan. My little darling." She smiled broadly and hugged the much younger girl to her. "Thank you for taking care of me so well for so long. You must say thank you to your mother for me." She patted Megs hand kindly. "Oh and that thing you asked me about?" Meg stared to blush underneath the sun burn. "That's a sure fire winner." Astra winked before turning to Hellboy, any attempt at seduction, kindness or amusement falling away. "Oh it's you." She said flatly.

"Yep." The two stared at each other for a moment, one red, one dark.

"Good luck finding your Lady." Astra said eventually. "Now, all you need to do, Megan my dear, is raise the Library for me and I can go home." She smiled at her once protector.

"Library? What Library?"

"That library." Astra made an expansive gesture to the planks of wood. "Call it up, sweetheart, you know how…in your own time." The demon leaned against Abe, her hands winding around his arm despite how awkward he looked.

"What is she talking about?" Krauss asked. Meg cleared her throat, looking awkward and embarrassed and stepped forward slightly, raising both hands.

"Um. You might want to stand back a bit, I don't know what's going to happen." She mumbled. She made a good picture, a silhouetted figure set against a blazing orange and pink skyline. She raised both hands, as a conductor might with an orchestra and something, somewhere, seemed to hold its breath. Her hands came crashing down, overturned and slowly began to lift back up. The ground trembled beneath their feet, slowly at first before building up into great wracking judders as if the land was trying to give birth. With glacial speed the planks rose, revealing that they were, in fact, the top of bookshelves. The shelves were lined, front to back, with hundreds, thousands, millions of books, all of them older than any of them had ever seen. Meg swayed, her hands dropping, and started to fall to one side, only to be caught by Krauss before she hit the floor.

"It's the lost library of Tsu Shai." Astra said, a little smugly, as if she had been the one to raise it. "It holds all the knowledge that anyone could ever want. There's so much power, so much magic and pain and joy in those pages that it had to be hidden away from the world."

"The library of who what now?" Hellboy asked. Abe sighed in disgust.

"Tsu Shai? First century historian? Thought to be the first ever to document human history?" He tried to explain, though he was swiftly being distracted by all the books and scrolls, tomes and skins laid out before him. It was every nerds dream.

"Oh well done." Astra kissed his cheek before letting him go, stooping to pick up the book.

"I'm supposed to take that back to my-"

"Father, yes." Astra smiled at Meg. "I know. You'll only have a few seconds to get it from the shelf so be quick." The demon glanced over her shoulder at Hellboy. "You'll have to think fast when the time comes and make a choice between what you want and what must be. Make it the right choice, Anung." She said quietly before striding away, a naked star lady in a darkening desert surrounded by…bookshelves. She stopped, only a handful of feet away, and smiled brilliantly at them as she replaced the ancient book to its rightful place. With a soft sigh she…burst. The stars that had once been caged beneath her skin flew heavenward with only the slightest echo of a woman's laughter behind them. Meg started running towards the bookshelf that held the book at about the same time the ground began shaking again. The sand shifted beneath everyone's feet as the shelves began sinking once more.

"Meg!" Krauss yelled out, starting forward only to have Hellboys heavy hand land on his shoulder. Meg glanced back at him once before snatching the book from it's shelf and curling in on herself, the book held against her. Sand exploded everywhere, sending up dark choking clouds into the dusky sky and closing over the library, Meg and her book all at the same time.

"I hate sand." Hellboy growled to himself as he pulled himself upright, dusting off the stuff that clung and seemed to get everywhere.

"Meg?" Krauss had been first to his feet – unthinkingly treading on one of Abes hands – as he looked round. "Meg!" A hand burst through the sand and waved around until Hellboy reached down and pulled. Meg was still curled around the book, with the exception of one arm, until she began coughing. "You idiot!" Krauss yelled at her as she was dropped. "What were you thinking? You could have died! You could have been hurt –are you hurt?" He asked, helping her up.

"I'm fine."

"What did you do that for?" He scolded as she spat out a mouthful of grit.

"Considering this is the only direction we have on how to get to the river Styx I thought it would be useful." Meg snapped back. "Any water left?" Abe handed over his canister and took the book from her.

"Hmm…it appears the words have solidified since Astra's departure." He flipped through a couple of pages. "Do you think it would be 'E' for entrance or 'S' for Styx?" He asked the world in general.

"Try 'S' first." Hellboy suggested, leaning to look over his friends shoulder only to find the letters in the book were still illegible to him.

"How did you do that, Meg?" Krauss was asking quietly. She pulled her arm away from his grip rather fiercely, shoving her hair out of her face and glaring at the floor.

"I'm a witch, alright? Hocus pocus, black cat, abra-bloody-kadabra. There, you know the truth." She looked up at him, the anger in her expression barely covering the vulnerability that lay behind it. "We don't burn easy if that's what you're wondering." Her voice quavered. Krauss chuckled and laid a hand on her arm.

"I've never burned a friend before and I don't intend to start now."

"Why is it always in verse?" Hellboy asked incredulously after Abe had recited the passage from the book.

"What?" Meg made her way over, looking over Abes other shoulder.

"I'm not reading the whole poem again just because you missed it." He replied. "Basically we need to go that way for another hundred yards or so and speak out an incantation to get the…I think it translates as door-"

"Gateway." Meg corrected absently.

"Gateway to open."

"Am I the only one who thinks that sounds way too simple?" Meg asked. Hellboy smirked, chewing off the end of a cigar.

"Well, hundred yards that way it is." He started off in the direction Abe had pointed in, his smirk slowly giving way to a frown as he murmured to himself. "I'm coming for you, kid."