Chapter 3

Ra-Ra-Research

I look up; suddenly I am in a cave. Rasputin stands before a huge altar. I can see chains in the center of the room, obviously designed for Hellboy. Rasputin doesn't even turn around.

"Ah, you're back. There is no need for worry. There is no way you can change the outcome of this. The events are already in motion. Kroenen even now is preparing to bring the child to me. He will overpower him and kill his companions."

I laugh softly to myself at the man's cockiness. I walk up to him and grabbed him by his arm.

'Kroenen' I think with all my strength, and suddenly we are there.

Rasputin gasps and turns to me.

"You should not have the power to do that. You are no red!"

I laughed again. It still shocks me how this supposed mastermind can be such a fool.

"Who told you I was red?"

Rasputin waved me aside. "Whatever colour you may be, the Ogdru-Jihad will crush you."

Org-what?

I used my power to project a yellowish orange flame. I'm actually much more powerful, a deep indigo, but I still don't like people to know my limits, it's always safer this way.

Rasputin smirked. He was fooled. In the spectrum of colors green was higher than orange, but much lower than indigo. Fool.

I watched, sitting quietly on a table as Kroenen fought Hellboy. Hellboy crushed him, of course.

Rasputin watches Hellboy throw a gigantic cog onto Kroenen's pinned body, and gives a strangled cry. With a pop he disappears, and I laugh again.

Hellboy looks up, hearing a ghostly sound. Manning throws a few cogs onto Kroenen, a gesture of victory. This is the man who wants me to take over the bureau. This paunchy bureaucrat wants me to have a position of power. His letter to me reeks of distaste, and I know that it wasn't his decision. What was it, popularity? No, of course not. Professor Broom? Hellboy turns to Manning, and I see him losing the sound of my laughter, dismissing it as an echo. His power must be improving.

I leave.

I opened my eyes again and began to type. I was researching. I customarily use Google, it's straightforward, and the results are generally what I have in mind. It's a trick of asking the right questions.

Google search-

Rasputin 1;

Rasputin was the occult advisor to the Russian tsar and tsarina. He was the doctor for the heir, the oldest son, a hemophiliac, and one of the reasons the people hated the tsarina.

Interesting, of course, but not very helpful.

Rasputin 2;

Rasputin was the head of an order of monks who believed that the true path to heaven was through sin. He and his monks held various...

Again, more of the same useless information.

Rasputin 3;

Rasputin

Boney M.

Produced by Frank Farian

There was an audio button so I clicked it.

Almost immediately disco music cued in.

Hey, hey hey...

There was a certain man, in Russia long ago

He was big and strong in his eyes a flaming glow

Most people saw him with terror and with fear

But to Moscow chicks he was such a lovely dear

He preached the bible like a preacher

Full of ecstasy and fire

But he also was the kind of teacher

Women would desire

Ra-Ra-Rasputin lover of the Russian queen

Lad de da de da

Ra-Ra-Rasputin Russia's famous love machine...

At this I laugh so hard I skew my vital signs, and a nurse comes running, thinking I am losing blood. I wave her away, and close my eyes.

My chest is twinging; the stretching of the still tender scar material is now being paid for.

So researching that on the Internet had proved to be a bust.

I try to remember the name of what Rasputin had mentioned, the orgu whatsit. I try all the spellings of the word I could come up with, finding junk, junk, more junk, and a commercial for the latest Dune novel, which I bookmarked, to be researched at a later date. Finally I try the spelling- the Ogdru-Jihad

I find one site. I was a prophecy thing, some conspiracy nut or other.

In the coldest regions of space...

No one can hear you scream, I interrupt my reading, speaking in a dramatic voice. Sighing to myself, I continue.

In the coldest regions of space, the monstrous entities of the Ogdru-Jihad- the seven gods of chaos- slumber in their crystal prison, waiting to reclaim earth and... burn the heavens.

The seven gods of chaos?

That can't be all that good. I close my eyes and get a vague image.

A large crystalline form is floating at a starry back ground. The night rips opens, and a small light flies in. It crashes against the structure, and an eye, slitted and yellow, opens inside the crystal.

I blink again. How did I get that image? Now I know what the crystal prison is. The next question is, now that they're awake, obviously, how are they going to get to earth.

And who woke them up. Three guesses. Rasputin, BINGO! And you have won an apocalypse.

I cross search this with Rasputin, and find a prophecy he made.

And I looked and I beheld an Angel, and in his right hand the key to the bottomless pit.

His right hand?

Hellboy: It has to be. The coincidence is impossible.

Hellboy is the key to the bottomless pit, the place where the Ogdru-Jihad are imprisoned.

The seven gods of chaos.

But the god that lives in Rasputin? Is that another god, one of the seven, or was it the eighth, that 'left before they became famous'?

A puzzle, to be sure; I know this now, of course, with no way of telling them. Suddenly, on a whim, I research the great believers in the Ogdru-Jihad. Among them is, not surprisingly, Karl Ruprecht Kroenen. The man Hellboy crushed just a few minutes ago.

An- can I start a review vote as to whether or not I should include a third piece, which will include the fabled Marina Sapiens? Oh, and the coldest region of space joke is from my brother Js,or. (that's our code. Don't laugh.) it comes from the trailer for Alien.