Hey again my mates, hope you like this one, its going to set the scene for the next set of chapters. And I had to give it a southwest flare, and folklore 'cause that's where I am from and what I do for a living. So cheers! And enjoy or not, the choice is yours.

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The siren was blaring again, show time was upon us. Hellboy was like a kid on Christmas morning, he really did love to kill things. Professor Broom was in the debriefing room looking grave as ever and Abe was flipping threw some old books. Nothing different from any other day when we had to kill the monsters. But I felt something heavy in the air. Red was blissfully ignorant as he sat down at the table expectantly looking at his father.

Professor Broom cleared his throat, "We have just received a call from Texas. It seems that children have been disappearing at fairly regular intervals, young children. At first it was thought that the disappearances weren't related, but now we think differently."

Abe chipped in, " There were feathers found at three of the sites where children were last seen."

Red growled, he hated it when kids were involved, " Feathers? What do feathers have to do with anything."

"There is a legend in the Southwest about a creature called la chupacabra"

Red snorted, "The goat sucker? Those guys are small time, and they have never been known to mess with people. And.. I asked what feathers had to do with it, so spill."

Abe gave a long suffering sigh then cocked his head and listed to something only he could hear. " The Chupacabra in many legends is just a small nocturnal creature with slightly vampireic tendencies. But from recent research, it is found that the creature is actually very humanoid in shape and covered in feathers with eyes that reflect green due to the mirrored retina much like cats and all other manor of nocturnal animals."

I sat quietly in my corner contemplating this Spanish myth that was a small town tabloid favorite. I had heard of the creature, but passed it off as a corny hoax, guess I was wrong.

"But why kids," Red wondered out loud, shattering my thoughts.

"Cause like ya' said, the goats suckers usually stay away from people."

Broom nodded, " That is what you two are going to find out."

Red and I looked at each other.

"Well at least we can carry our guns in public." I shrugged.

Red nodded , " and they have some great food."

Abe smirked, " Saddle up cowboy, ya'll are going to Texas."

Red smiled and whomped Abe on the back. I grinned, but still the situation just didn't sit right, but aside from the usual , I didn't know how.

Red strode back to me, " Come on kid, it won't be that hard; search, discover, kill some monsters and save the day… It'll be fun."

I nodded, "Guess it's time to pack then."

I was following Red out the door, but hesitated. " Abe, do you know any more southwest lore?"

Abe thought a moment, "Yes, I have read a decent amount."

I nodded, " Have you ever heard of the White Woman? I think she was also called the Wailing Woman. Didn't she have something to do with children?"

Abe just blinked at me, "Who?"

I just shook my head, " No one, never mind I'm just talking."

Abe was already murmuring to himself about having to look her up.

I left the room smiling, usually Abe knew everything. Nothing like folklore to screw with someone's head. And with that, I went to my room to pack and brush up on my Spanish.

An old leather backpack held everything I would need and I fairly bristled with weapons. Lucky we have our own private jet. Hellboy was swaggering down the hall with a duffle bag over his shoulder and a cigar between his teeth.

He grinned at me, " Come on Kitty, its time to go play with the monsters."

I nodded , " Lock and load honey," I reached up, grabbing his cigar taking a long drag. I savored the dark rich sweet flavor before giving it back.

Red winked at me, " I knew I had rubbed off on ya". And with that, we got on the plane and headed to Texas.

Many hours later at a small air strip some where near Laredo, Red and I stepped out in to the Texas heat. It felt about how I imagined being stuffed in to an oven might feel. The over whelming urge to strip down and jump into the nearest body of water was hard to suppress. Good thing too since there was no water in sight.

Red stretched and shed his customary leather jacket, I would have stripped down to my sports bra if my shoulder holster didn't chafe like a bitch. So I had to settle for using a knife and sawing off my sleeves and most of the bottom half of my shirt.

Red snickered when he saw me. "To hot for ya'?"

I was already dripping sweat and he looked just peachy. I growled at him and he just laughed.

A group of men in dark glasses came up to us. The bureau people all looked up tight and uncomfortable. Red could have that effect on people, I usually got the opposite reaction; closer to 'oh how cute' while Red usually got the ' what the hell?!' But the guys standing in front of us were doing a good jog of not staring at either of us.

A very official looking man with a military buzz cut came forward.

" Agents Hellboy and Cat?" He asked as if we could be any one else.

Red nodded and the Official continued. " We will take ya'll to the base and give you a bit of time to settle in before we brief you on the situation in depth. If you would follow me please…" He turned and lead us to a very large, unmarked van.

I stiffened a bit at the thought of an unmarked van with unknown people. Red just gave me a shove, he was an old hand at all this stuff. And I still didn't do so well even after all these years. Oh well. I followed Red in to the van and had nothing to worry about.

After a long uneventful drive, we turned down yet another dirt road and pulled up in front of an unremarkable building. And like most government bases, all the fun stuff was underground. Red and I were given separate modest rooms for what ever the duration of our stay might be. I took the opportunity to shed clothing and rearrange my weapons. I think Red took a nap.

An hour or so later, Red tapped on my door. "Time to go hear them spill it."

I nodded and hopped off the bed. There were three people in the briefing room, each was introduced by talent. There was a historian who doubled as a folklorist , an animal behavioralest and then there was the brains of the out fit . They told us the basics, which we already knew, and added a lot more that we didn't.

There appeared to be no patterns on the children being taken, aside from the age, all were under seven, but boys, girls and children from all races were being taken. At this point there was negative hope for survivors. That pissed me off for a few reasons, mainly because I was a survivor and if I could do it, so could some of these kids. And it also really pissed me off, that only since a rich mans kid got kidnapped was any action being taken.

Red was getting pretty pissy himself, he had hoped originally to have a general area of patrol, but the area of disappearances was so varied, that they might as well just pick a random spot and wait the bastards out.

The general pattern which has deviations( so really isn't a pattern) was that kids went missing around dusk every few weeks to a month and were usually from poor families who couldn't afford to tell the authorities or didn't have their green cards. So in short we had our work cut out for us…