Chapter 26
"The results of the tests speak for themselves. What the Elemental's ichor achieved with the adenocarcinoma biopsy of Loreto Clair in seconds, the sap of its descendants does it in a matter of days. Five, to be precise. The forest demigods possess in their DNA the cure for cancer."
The human specialist in the medicine of his kind spoke with confidence and enthusiasm in his voice. He searched for support in his peers and all nodded at the same time. Agents Krauss and Sapien neared the Prince and Princess.
"We could make more tests if we get more and different types of carcinogenic tissue but we're positive the results will be the same," Abraham said and gestured his emphasis with his web-footed hands.
"If Your Highnesses agree, we'll inform Washington and begin conversations. Doctor Manning and I offer ourselves to mediate the negotiations in Your best interest," Agent Krauss said and clicked the heels of his metal boots with solemnity.
Nuada searched Loreto with his gaze in the medicine department of the B.P.R.D. They looked at each other for what seemed like a whole five seconds. Everyone noticed the weight of their connection. The Prince focused then on his sister. They took each other's hands and closed their eyes. Doctor Manning, the Elven druids, human doctors, Agents Hellboy, Krauss, Sapien, Shermann and Loreto Clair watched in suspense and with fascination.
Only today after five days of the discovery that the Elemental's ichor could cure cancer, like it had showed the complete eradication of Loreto Clair's metastasis, one of its descendants, the forest demigods were extracted from the small and dense Elven underground garden, showed equal result on carcinogenic tissue. The doctors had then asked Agent Sapien to telepathically communicate the news to Princess Nuala. Agents Hellboy and Sherman went to pick them up in the feigned garbage truck to the abandoned warehouse at Brooklyn bridge. The human doctors had also required the presence of the Elven druids to verify the results.
Since the cancer eradication procedure on Loreto Clair was done in the agency's medical department, the singer had been staying in the private chambers of Prince Nuada in Bethmoora beneath New York. The singer's situation after her recovery didn't look hopeful at all. Headlines of written press as well as reports on news shows declared her as missing after having been briefly seen in the early morning a few days before in the surroundings of her residence in the Upper East Side in the company of Prince Nuada. For a lot of journalists and detectives investigating her whereabouts, the Prince was the first suspect of her disappearance. Photographs of the Prince among fans of the singer at the side entrance of the Grand Theater after her first residence concert more than a month ago had managed to filter to the mainstream media linking the enigmatic man with her mysterious absence. Next to this, the fact that in the last days a bunch of pictures circulating the Internet of the Prince carrying Loreto Clair in his arms with a bleeding bullet wound in the surroundings of Connecticut had increased the hysteria and the conspiratorial aura about her disappearance. The talk was about a kidnapping for reasons so far not clarified. The world reaction was unanimous. Both her fans as also her music colleagues demanded justice and feared the worst. An army of paparazzi were filming and taking photographs nonstop day and night around the residence of Loreto Clair's parents in Los Angeles. Hundreds of flower bouquets and pictures of the singer decorated the entrance of her building in the Upper East Side of New York and fans gathered in its surroundings, singing her songs in tears.
The Elven twins separated and opened their eyes. The Princess produced from the pocket of her long tunic the cylinder containing the map with the location of the Golden Army. She opened the lid and took out a rusty-looking piece of paper. The vanished colors barely drew the borders, creating an empty circular space. Puzzled, she saw it against the halogen lights of the roof, but she only saw stains similar to those produced by humidity. The Prince took the cylinder from her hands and threw it to Agent Sherman.
"Look at the engravings. You know what to do," he said.
The agent activated the fire of her hands. Within seconds the cylinder was glowing incandescent red. She threw it back to the Prince, and he caught it midair. He took the piece of paper from his sister's hands, supported it on the wall and rolled the cylinder on it, still burning. The drawing that was revealed made everyone gasp in surprise. A small mappa mundi with three moons and a sun in each of the cardinal directions. Around it there was an inscription in goblin language. The printing fitted perfectly in the piece of paper.
"Here is the Golden Army," the Prince said and pointed at the symbol of Bethmoora's royal chamber's aperture in the middle of the upper half of the map.
"What does the Golden Army have to do with this all? You can't awaken it anymore, Prince!," doctor Manning shouted and looked in desperation to everyone in the room.
"There we'll move our Elemental's descendants forest away from human claws," Nuada said in defence and placed himself in between his sister and the agency's director.
"Before speaking with the human leaders, we must ensure our last reserve of millenary forest is protected against misappropriation," the Princess added and took a step aside away from the Prince. She neared doctor Manning. "My brother and I wish to live in peace with you, humans. Please, in the name of Bethmoora, I ask your help as director of his agency to move the Elemental's descendants to our original home. The forest demigods must survive the trip and transplantation whatever it takes."
The coordinates of the cylinder showed the location of the Golden Army in the County of Antrim in Northern Ireland. The operation required a special permission from the Townhall of New York to demolish the pavement just above the small dense Elven forest. Tom Manning justified the action to the community and the media as a deep cleaning of New York's sewers and distracted the press with similar statements during the days the excavation required. When they managed to reach the forest, B.P.R.D. special and human agents closed the perimeter to curious eyes with tall walls and a protective roof. They built an access gate for the agency's transportation and necessary machinery to begin the transplantation. Trucks came and went, transporting the delicate trees to the agency until they moved the last specimen. Each tree was between fifteen and thirty meters tall and their roots extended a few meters in diameter. The only way to move them and ensure their integrity was to use trucks with the largest and longest hopper possible. They could move the trees of middle and small size in groups by the trucks, however the large ones, only one at a time which caused the operation to take a little over two months to be completed. In the sewers, the perimeters around the druid's chamber where the forest was, was covered completely with a thick canvas of dense tissue to stop the passing of sunlight. The Prince and Princess informed the magical inhabitants of Bethmoora the origin and reason for such a procedure. The reactions were varied. The least happy with the news were the Trolls who claimed not wanting to leave an urban area so rich in missing children as New York, for that was their main diet. The royal twins argued then, that what they were agreeing with the humans would benefit the entire clan. Slowly the faces showed the hope for eons oppressed to return to the surface.
Prince Nuada and Princess Nuala flew to Antrim in a private jet of the agency specially conditioned for them in company of Agents Hellboy, Sherman and the Elven druids. The windows were hermetically sealed to prevent the sunlight to filter through. Even though they made sure to fly at night, the almost ten-hour flight touched the runway of the private airdrome in Belfast well passed early morning, so they waited the entire day inside the aircraft parked in the hangar until sunset. With the map in hand and under the moonlight they found the entrance to the royal chamber of Bethmoora in the wasteland at meters from the dramatic cliff towards the sea. The goblin master engineer creator of the Golden Army recognized His and Her Royal Highnesses and the group of druids at meters of distance, and slowly he neared, limping his rudimentary transportation with a smile on his face. Prince Nuada ordered the goblin to open the door and introduced the special agents as friends of Bethmoora. The stone giant rose from the ground and revealed in its center the threshold entrance. The Princess explained to the master goblin why they were there and what would happen in the following weeks. Agent Hellboy introduced himself with his real name, Anung Un Rama, and acknowledged the place along with his partner Agent Sherman. Her slender frame already showed a shy yet unmistakable three-months pregnancy belly. Her partner Red tried to talk her out of doing the trip to Northern Ireland fearing it might alter her health and the gestation of his firstborns but the agent insisted, arguing she couldn't nor wanted to stay in New York without taking an active part in the return of Bethmoora to the surface. The agents stayed in Antrim to ensure the entrance to the transportation that would start flying the Elemental's descendants from New York. The Elven druids remained in the royal chamber awaiting the specimens to ensure the transplantation and adaptation to their new environment. The goblin master engineer managed his people to begin moving the dormant soldiers of the Golden Army to make room for the future millenary forest in the organic soil of the royal chamber.
Meanwhile, in New York, due to the different conspiratorial theories that circulated the media trying to explain the whereabouts of Loreto Clair and the reason for her disappearance, the B.P.R.D. Director Tom Manning, decided the most sensible thing was for the singer to move in to the agency's facilities indefinitely until the logistic and strategic operation of Bethmoora's return to the surface would have taken place. Loreto would be then pivotal to explain her successful case of cancer eradication thanks to Elven medicine that would clean Prince Nuada's wrecked image seen with her and caught in pictures and, for the first time, would tell the truth about her disappearance. To protect the safety of the royal Elven Prince and Princess from the possible effects of the excavation in the New York sewers and to save them from attacks or future public siege by the media, doctor Manning also invited them to move in to the agency until they had a definitive place to call home.
Once back in New York, Agent Krauss and doctor Manning arranged an interview with the President of the United States of America, the director WHO, the general secretary of the UN, the President of the European Commission, Prince Nuada and Princess Nuala. The authorities arrived incognito to the agency under a strict protocol of confidentiality. The director of the agency and leader of the special agents introduced the case of the Elven kingdom of Bethmoora and their demand for a just and peaceful return to the surface after eons forced to live underground. They also presented the successful case of Loreto Clair's cancerous metastasis, which was completely eradicated thanks to the DNA belonging to one of the deities of the Elven and magical clan. They carried on inviting in the team of doctors, scientists and Agent Sapien along with the singer who enlightened the world leaders about the experiments done on biopsy of carcinogenic tissue exposed to the influence of the forest demigods ichor on the magical millenary flora under the control of the elves. For the U.S. President the existence of Bethmoora was no news, for he was aware of the underground world beneath New York after decades of close relationship with the B.P.R.D. However, for the rest of the authorities the meeting turned out to be revealing and mind-blowing. The presence of Agents Krauss and Sapien disturbed the world leaders, not really knowing what they were nor how they could exist in the world without their knowledge. Doctor Manning and Agent Krauss lead most of the conversation, explaining the demands of the Bethmoora clan. Prince Nuada hadn't accepted to surrender his lance nor his sword, which he had on himself. He watched everything in silence, with a hardened demeanor and growing impatience. At his right, Princess Nuala studied each and every one of the human leaders, unsure whether they would be able to aid them in their fight. Each authority observed them with a mixture of fascination, dread and curiosity. In contrast to them, the royal Elven twins looked even more distant in their timeless age and race.
Agent Krauss began explaining the historical context of the kingdom of Bethmoora and the damage thousands of years of forced life underground had caused to their organisms. Suddenly, the Prince pushed himself off the chair producing it to screech its metal legs on the tiled floor. The humans leaped in fear and contemplated with horror in their faces his proud height and the sharp blades he carried along.
"By command of the leader of this country, Agent Krauss kept me prisoner under torture for almost four complete weeks in order to obtain the crown of Bethmoora, the key to awaken the Golden Army, our armed line of defense," he said with authority in his voice and pierced the German agent and the U.S.A. President with his eyes. He spoke to the latter. "Human, you allowed torture to get yet another army for your headquarters. What will you be able to do to provide your fellow people with the definitive cure to the disease that kills most humans in the world?"
The room rendered in total silence. The authorities lost all colors from their faces. Princess Nuala touched her brother's arm, but he barely acknowledged the gesture with a quick glance in her direction. She stood up and held her hands on her golden diamond-shaped corset.
"This is a unique opportunity to live in peace with one another on Earth," she said with her soft tone of voice. She spoke to each of the leaders. "We need time and space to heal just like humans who survive cancer need to recover their organisms after the invasive chemotherapy procedure. We do not wish war. We're the Sons Of The Earth, we were created to protect life and the planet. Our roads have already crossed in the past and much blood has been spilled due to the lack of understanding. Please, do not make the same mistake your ancestors did. We have seen with our own eyes generations of human leaders like you fail to their word and disrespect the truce our father, King Balor, offered you." The Princess took the Prince's hand before the authorities' astonished faces. "Immortal life is a solitary and cruel one. Every hope to live in peace and return to the surface has been destroyed over and over again. I beg you to understand my brother's animosity."
The Prince let go of her hand abruptly and walked in front of the meeting table. As a reflection, doctor Manning and Agent Krauss made way for him. The group of doctors and scientists walked towards the back of the room as if not wanting to have anything to do with the negotiation. Agent Sapien and Loreto Clair retracted to the corner one step away from the door. Nuada held his sword still holstered at his waist. The authorities looked even more anxious with the second.
"This isn't charity, Nuala," he said cuttingly. He focused on the leaders before him. "The source of the cure which healed Loreto Clair is very well kept from human claws, for there where it now takes roots only those of noble blood may enter. The thing is simple: will you allow your fellow humans to suffer and die of cancer as long as you keep on profiting from intentionally poor medical procedures or will you for once in history do the right thing?"