CHAPTER 11: HELLBOY IN TROUBLE
Several months had passed since the terrorist attack on the Freedom Tower, and it was business as usual at the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense.
"Hey, Manny."
Dr. Thomas Manning turned around to see Hellboy with a smug look on his face. In truth, Red had happened upon a juicy nugget of gossip and couldn't restrain himself from sharing it.
"Yes?" Tom answered with a chill. He had never forgotten nor forgiven his agent's not-so-subtle sabotage of his efforts to maintain secrecy within the Bureau, not to mention his humiliation outside of the hidden city of Bethmoora. Dr. Manning – like the fabled elephant – did not forget. If his tone was any icier, his nose would have frozen right on his face.
"Friends of mine at the NYPD have – "
"You have friends at the NYPD? You should be lucky that they don't toss you in a holding cell for busting up their city."
"Come on, buddy; just trying to have a conversation here."
"Spill it then. Walk with me. I have a meeting."
"Cop friends of mine have told me that no less than forty-eight men have been found dead at various locations in the City, mostly on rooftops and fire escapes. They all died of massive internal injuries and they all died with loaded firearms in their hands."
"And?"
"The popular rumor downtown is that Angel Sweetie Lips is somehow involved."
Manning fixed Red with his most intimidating stare. His voice was doom. "Are you accusing my wife of murder?"
Hellboy broke into a halfhearted grin. "No way, Manny," he said.
Tom continued his relentless stare. "How dare you bring this up to me after what Lucine has done for you. Saving your miserable life; protecting you; dragging your sorry carcass out of Hell -"
"I know, I know. Lucine hasn't killed anybody other than those mooks down at the Freedom Tower, and they had it coming."
"Well, perhaps others 'had it coming' as well," Tom replied.
"What do you mean, boss?" Red said. "I won't tell anyone."
"Damned straight you won't," Tom replied. "You're as bound by the secrecy laws governing this agency as anybody else who works here. Let's just say that – well, are you familiar with the term 'smiting'?"
"Smiting? Nope."
Tom spoke to him more quietly as the two continued down the hall. "It's written that those who transgress against the will of God are smitten, which means struck down. Follow?"
Hellboy's eyes widened. "The dead guys were trying to shoot down Lucine as she flew overhead, weren't they?"
"Those are vicious rumors and I deny them -"
"I'm sure you do, ya cagy so-and-so," Red thought but did not say.
"– but an attempt on the life of one of Heaven's handmaidens might be looked upon unfavorably by forces on high, if you catch my meaning."
"Holy crow," Hellboy whispered. "But forty-eight guys?"
"Get this straight, agent. I had nothing to do with it. Lucine had nothing to do with it. Both of us have been interviewed and cleared repeatedly by the NYPD. Are you insane?" Tom stopped dead in his tracks, turning suddenly to face Hellboy."Good Lord, I'm career FBI! If either of us had known anything about these attempts, we would have made arrests at once and prosecuted those creeps for attempted murder."
Red was silent.
"Not to mention the fact that before Lucine came here, all I had to look forward to was my pension." He jammed his index finger squarely into Hellboy's chest. "If you do anything to hurt the woman I love in any way, I will end your career right now – today – and you can spend the rest of your sad, sorry life standing at the corner of Broadway and Seventh Avenue holding a tin cup and wearing a cardboard sign that says, "I am a Demon who Pissed off Heaven."
"Don't hold back, boss," Hellboy returned. "Tell me how you really feel!"
"Listen, pal. The fact that those creeps dropped dead on their own makes life easier for everyone involved – Lucine, me, the cops," Tom replied. "Done and done. Just have your buddies ask the Coroner's office just exactly how those dirtbags imploded. In human experience, it's pretty much impossible for your guts to turn to guacamole without evidence of any outside trauma."
Red nodded.
Manning began to walk down the corridor. "Of course, you'd know all about divine vengeance if you'd studied the Talmud."
Hellboy grinned. "Talmud, eh? I didn't know Manning was a Jewish name."
"It isn't. My old man changed it from Mandelbaum when I was born. Actually, it worked out well for me; I never would have gotten into the FBI Academy as Mandelbaum. Hoover hated Jews." He continued his hurried pace down the hall. "Loose lips sink ships, Agent Hellboy. Don't forget it."
He was already late for his meeting.
XXXXX
Red was taking his break with Abe and Liz in the lunchroom later that afternoon when Lucine Mal'akha Manning swept into the room, all shiny black leather and shinier black boots. She was short of breath, having just flown from the top of One World Trade Center in response to a call from Tom.
She saw Hellboy and froze. Her wing-eyes stared and blinked at him as she fixed him with her icy gaze.
"Methinks you're dead meat, Red," Abe murmured.
"Duck and cover," whispered Liz.
"Jeez, stop that, Lucine," Hellboy said to her. "That creeps me out."
Lucine took off her trench coat and threw it onto a nearby table, causing the three B.P.R.D. employees sitting there to scatter.
"It is my job to creep you out, Anung Un Rama," she hissed, approaching him. "To creep you out is the very essence of my being. I understand that you had a little conversation with my Tom earlier. He was. Very. Upset. You more or less implied that we are guilty of snuffing out the lives of a pack of murderous jackals who managed to turn up dead."
Red eyed her with trepidation. He was secretly terrified of the little woman standing before him. She reached over and, grabbing him by the earlobe, dragged him over to a vacant table nearby. He swatted halfheartedly at her hand, knowing that it would do no good. Abe and Liz tittered in spite of themselves; Lucine frequently schooled Hellboy and didn't care who saw it, and this particular class might prove to be an entertaining one.
"Ouch, dammit, Lucine!" he growled.
"Do not swear oaths at me, Anung un Rama. Sit down before I knock you into the Pine Barrens."
"Yes ma'am," Hellboy replied, sitting heavily and rubbing his ear.
"I want you to clearly understand that I had nothing to do with the deaths you mentioned."
"I never said – "
"Silence."
Red's jaw snapped shut. He looked up in time to see both Liz and Abe turn their backs to them so that he would not see their faces. "Hey, what's so funny over there?" he cried.
"You," Lucine snapped, pointing to her own face. "Right here. Now."
Hellboy grimaced. "Okay, I get it. Scary Angel of Death Lucine is about to rip my heart and liver out because Manny ratted me out."
"Right you are," she replied, sitting down. "I need to explain a few things to you, Anung un Rama. There are certain immutable laws by which Heaven and Hell are governed. For example, I made numerous attempts to liberate you from Hell by storming the gates myself, as angels are occasionally allowed to do. Strict laws govern such interference with the natural order. An ordinary person would have been instantly burned to a cinder."
Abe and Liz began to sidle closer to overhear what they expected to be a great story.
"Is that right?" Red muttered, interested but not wanting to act like it in front of her.
"Indeed. I told you that I got you out of Hell twice. Of course – as is the way with souls – no sooner did I snatch you away than they snatched you back. We had some pretty nasty tussles over you. I was practically torn to ribbons on numerous occasions. My superiors threatened to restrain me, feeling that my preoccupation with a demon child was unseemly for an angel."
Red was dying to reply but feared for his immortal soul.
"One of my unsuccessful attempts happened when you were only a few years old. I had found a hell-gate right in the middle of Siberia, where a mine had collapsed. I made my way all the way in and had actually grabbed onto you with both hands when they hit me a lick with a blast of energy that nearly split my poor head in half. It hurt – well, like the very devil."
"That explains why your face was cracked when we met you," Liz mused.
Lucine patted her forehead, relieved that it was still there and unmarred. "To me, those scars were badges of shame that I wore from that day on. My self-declared mission was to save you and I considered myself a failure since you were still in Hell and far from the healing light of God. Even angels can be failures, Anung un Rama."
"Sorry I was so much trouble," Red said.
"Our fates were linked long ago," Lucine continued, waving a black-gloved hand resignedly. "My struggles for your redemption were very hard on me. It came as a comfort that my efforts were ultimately rewarded. Of course, on that occasion I was not stupid enough to march back into Hell myself. Once burned, twice shy."
"Then who did?" Abe asked, too interested to notice that he was interjecting himself into the conversation.
"Well, now, my dear friend, that is a very interesting question," Lucine answered, looking up at him with a weary smile. She extended her hand to him and he took it. She looked at Red.
"Even though that fool Rasputin conjured you out of Hell himself, it was I who alerted the American forces to your presence."
Hellboy's eyes widened. "No kidding!"
"What Rasputin didn't know is that once you commune with demons, they will pester you forever. I care not; his soul is damned and consigned to the Pit. What I am trying to tell you, Anung un Rama, is that the forces of Heaven ultimately prevailed. My ploy worked, and here you are."
"On the side of the angels," Liz added quietly.
There was silence in the room for a few moments as Lucine stopped to wipe away some eyeliner which had somehow migrated under her eyes.
"Thank you," Hellboy replied. "The Nazis would have dissected me until there was nothing left. I never would have had this job - " He waved around the room - "my friends -" He nodded at Abe - "and my Liz. Not to mention the kids." He looked into Lucine's golden eyes with some trepidation, earnestly hoping that if she had bothered to help rescue him in the past, she wouldn't kill him now.
"Indeed," she hissed, once again all business. "Now answer me this, you stinker. Does all of that sound to you like the behavior of someone who would wantonly slay forty-eight humans?" She slapped him across the top of his head with a crack.
"Ouch! Listen to me Lucine! I didn't mean that - "
"If some hellbound maniac chooses to discharge firearms at me, he must face the consequences," she interrupted. "Heavenly wrath is not unlike a barrier of unclean air or a wash of radiation that a tomb-robber would likely encounter during his misdeeds. In other words, he assumes the risk that instead of killing an angel, he kills himself. Even the demons say that if you curse someone, it can come back on you threefold."
Red rubbed his head. It hurt as badly as his earlobe.
Lucine suddenly stood, her chair falling backward and hitting the floor behind her with a bang. The rest of the lunchroom hangers-on immediately fled. "In other words, headstrong and wicked fools are damned to Hell, Anung un Rama, and it is none of my doing. So, no more of this loose talk if you please. Now you listen to me," she hissed, leaning forward.
"Listening."
"What people generally do when they see someone like me is run the other way or start saying their prayers. I accept that."
She reached across an adjacent table and seized a stray apple with her silver spade-shaped fingernails.
"There has been exactly one human in all of my earthly experience who did neither. Instead, he loves me. Do you know what someone like him means to someone like me, Anung un Rama?"
"Actually, I think I do. I don't know why Liz puts up with me."
"Then you will understand me perfectly well when I tell you that I will not stand by and see him upset, not for the world." She fixed Hellboy with yet another glare and lowered her voice. "Upset my Tom again and I will personally pitch you into Hell so fast that your head will spin." She straightened. "And I'm done."
Hellboy stood. "I'm really sorry. About everything."
She walked around and wrapped her arms around him. He flinched.
"I love you, you know," she said quietly, patting his back. "I have since I first laid eyes – all of them – on you when you were a mere babe. Angels do not love in the same way as humans, of course, but care about your welfare I certainly did. Fight the devils for your soul I certainly did. And as long as you need me to defend you, I will be there, as I always have been."
Red returned the hug, awkwardly putting his hands around the roots of her black wings. "Love you too, um, Lucine," he said. "Aw hell. Did I really say that? Now don't cry, Liz. I hate all this sloppy stuff. Abe, help me out here. I'm surrounded by sappy women."
"You will be surrounded by hellfire if you do not watch yourself," Lucine smirked, giving Red a shove and then picking up her leather coat. "Come to dinner Saturday, all of you. The children too. I am going to try to make Tom's mother's recipe for something called fahdreiteh chicken. I hope it is not terrible."
"Yummy," Hellboy returned as Liz punched him on the arm. "Enjoy your apple."
"If I do not ram it down your throat first," Lucine the Messenger replied, making her exit with a swirl of leather and the snap of feathered wings embellished with glittering golden eyes.
"Never, ever piss off the Mannings," Red muttered to no one in particular, bending down to pick up Lucine's chair. "Oh, man. I would have rather gone a hundred rounds with Mr. Wink."
XXXXXX
The three agents spent the next few minutes setting the place to rights. It surprised none of them that Tom Manning walked in.
"Oh, kill me now," Hellboy groaned. "Manny, just take out your service pistol and pop me right through the solar plexus."
"I'm warning you, Tom," Liz said. "He's had quite enough for today, so if you have any verbal punching and slugging to do, save it for later."
"Tomorrow might be a better time," Abe said, laying a hand on the chief's shoulder.
"No worries, Fishstick," Tom said. "I came to apologize. I tend to – well, lose it when it comes to Lucine. When there's – unkind gossip – I tend to overreact. For that, I'm sorry, Agent Hellboy."
"Don't sweat it," Red replied. "I was a bit of a jerk to even mention that rumor to you. I suppose I had it coming."
Tom wiped his forehead with his handkerchief. He sat down and took a deep breath. The others, alarmed, waited for him to speak. He looked terrible.
"My Lucine is a funny little thing, you know," he said. "She has an awful time understanding the ways of our world. I really work hard at looking after her – to make sure it doesn't just totally overwhelm her. I live in fear that one of these days she's just going to fly off into the sunset and I'll never see her again."
Liz put a hand on his shoulder. "Oh, I wouldn't worry about that," she said. "She adores you. She wouldn't leave you in ten million years. Is she still here, or did she head back to the Freedom Tower?"
Tom sighed again. "No, she's still here. She's in my office right now, sitting in the closet."
"What?" cried Hellboy. "She hasn't done that since her first week at the Bureau."
"Whatever for?" Abe asked, alarmed. "It's sort of a regression, isn't it?"
"It's quiet and dark in there, and she feels safe. Sort of like her temple in Bethmoora. She was down there a long, long time, you know, and no one bothered her much."
Tom shrugged.
"New York is different. It is bright, it is frantic, and of course when you can see into everybody's souls it can be far more than you can tolerate. When it is all too much, she just heads for the nearest closet. She just sits in there among the galoshes and overcoats until she calms down."
"Holy crow, Manny," Red remarked.
"Tom, when she gets like that, please call me," Liz said. "I would be so happy to cheer her up. We all love her, you know."
"As would I," Abe said quietly. "Lucine is very good to me."
Tom's shoulders sagged. "I wish it was that easy. Lucine's not like us. Not like us at all. It staggers my mind that she saw the early days of the human race; that she saw the retreat of the glaciers during the last Ice Age. Unfortunately, she's also witnessed the descent of the human race into commotion, squalor, corruption and self-centeredness – you should have seen her when she learned about Nine-Eleven. She just lost it. I'm sorry I told her but it turned out to be possibly the best decision I ever made, considering what happened."
"She was a hero that day, Tom," Liz said.
"She paid one hell of a price for it later," Tom said. "Hell of a price. And it was because of me that she paid it."
"What happened, Tom?" Abe asked, worried.
Remember the gala they held at Lincoln Center for the families of those who died? And Lucine was the guest of honor?"
"Yeah, although my invite must have gotten lost in the mail," Red remarked. Liz cuffed him.
Tom sighed again. "Chanel loaned her this spangly silver number from their spring-summer haute couture show. It was actually redesigned to accommodate her wings. She looked gorgeous. Anyway, at about the time the limo was supposed to pick us up, into the coat closet went Lucine, Chanel haute couture and all. I could not for the life of me coax her out."
"I wish you'd called me," Liz sighed.
"I should have, as it happened. I acted like an ass. The governor called to find out where we were. Man, was he pissed. I just reached in, dragged her out, and carried her out to the limo. She was so terrified of the mobs of people that were going to be staring at her all night that she mashed her poor face into my tux coat and howled."
"What did you do?" said Abe, the pain evident on his face.
"I grabbed my phone and had them cancel the on-stage presentation and speech. I think she would have died from fear if I'd lugged her up there."
"Here, have a beer," said Hellboy, opening his backpack and handing the old man a can. "What a fricking horror show."
Tom shuddered and took a long swig. It wasn't cold but it was exactly what he needed. "We sat in a private box up high. I managed to wave for the both of us, so that was all right. I called in a lot of favors, having the photographers deep-six the pictures of us coming in. I told them she wasn't feeling well."
He blinked hard.
"I have yet to forgive myself, you understand. I had no idea that any creature of any kind could feel that level of fear. But that's my poor Lucine. The terrorist incident made her worse, you see. A whole lot worse." The old man dropped his head into his hands. "Oh well. Tell the truth and shame the devil. And the truth is that she'd probably be better off sitting in that dirty cave in Bethmoora than being here in this craphole of a city with me."
"Oh no, Tom," Liz said, near tears. "You can't imagine how much she loves you. Please believe me."
"Liz can tell you what a pain I can be," Red shrugged. "We all have our moments, boss. Some better than others."
Tom looked up at him. "Oh, and you! Anung un Rama! You're all I hear about! God yes! You're her baby, so to speak! The thought of you becoming the King of Hell and destroying Earth consumes her. It has for years. I know she lit into you today. She was in my office crying about it. I just hope that you can understand that this is why she's so hard on you."
Hellboy nodded and dug in the backpack to fetch Abe and himself a couple of cans of beer. "Like I said when she saved eight million New Yorkers a while back – she's a good gal."
"She is," Tom said, standing up. "She is indeed. God, this is such a weird place. We're surrounded by weird here. And we're all weird too, I suppose. But one of the advantages of being weird is that we understand each other a lot better than ordinary folk."
"True dat," Red echoed, slapping Manning a great whack between the shoulder blades.
"Ouch, that actually hurt, Agent Hellboy. Understanding one another - like this - is a blessing, you know. I'm grateful for it. Don't forget that you're an asset here. And you, Liz. Fishstick too. Hell, what would I do without you weird people?"
"Talk, talk, talk," Red declared, heading for the corridor. "Let's go get Angel Sweetie Lips out of the broom closet."