Animal Instincts

Psycho Llama

Disclaimer: Mike Mignola owns all but mousy. Yes, that does mean Mike Mignola owns the world. Flee; flee for your lives!

Abe waited in the kitchen of the unit by the door, carefully assembling his dry-suit gear and keeping Melissa in deep sleep with the other part of his mind. He could hear the agents bringing Hellboy up in the lift, running about and making sure no one had so much as a chance to look at the daemon. Hellboy's resonating voice was hardly muffled by the heavy walls separating them.

Abe knew he needed time to talk to Hellboy before Melissa started on him.

'Red, keep it down, Melissa is trying to sleep in the other room,' Abe projected sharply into Hellboy's mind as the demon-hunter reached for the doorknob. Hellboy turned the knob with all the silence he could muster, motioning for everyone following him to keep the noise minimal also.

The other agents went about moving luggage into different rooms on the same floor; Liz and Myers followed Hellboy into Abe's suite.

"She alright?" Hellboy murmured softly.

"She is fine. Are you three?" Abe inquired with concern, seeing the state of Hellboy's roughly shaved horns.

"Peachy," Hellboy answered, "I'm almost getting bored; saving the Earth every other damn week."

"We thought Ms… Melissa was somewhere in the mausoleum. Spent hours looking for her," Myers sighed.

"What happened to her?" Liz asked, walking over to stand beside Hellboy.

"Kroenen did stab her with the sedative, but she managed to escape unscathed."

Hellboy frowned, "Drugged up?"

"No. She woke up after the sedative had worn off, then escaped," Abe replied, tactfully leaving out how Melissa had failed to find Hellboy at the time.

"What is she doing in Germany, anyway?" Myers questioned, looking around the expensive suite.

"Looking for her family, her past," Abe switched his attention to Hellboy, "She discovered who she was… and who Kroenen was to her," the two exchanged meaningful looks.

Liz looked between the two sceptically, "What do you mean, 'who Kroenen was to her'?"

"You didn't tell her?"

"I was planning to…" Hellboy trailed off.

"He told me," Myers added, a bit unwisely.

"Tell me," Liz ordered; mock-whacking Hellboy on the arm.

"Mousy grew up with the Pin-head."

"What?"

"Melissa and Karl Kroenen both attended the same schools as children, and were consequently quite good friends. When Melissa's father, the mad Nazi scientist, turned Melissa into what she is now, he put her in stasis. Over the years Melissa did not age a year until she somehow escaped the laboratory and ended up in the hospital with complete amnesia."

"That's just wrong. How could you operate on your own daughter?"

"Nazi."

"Figures."

"Red, Melissa wanted to be told the moment you arrived. When she found out about who Kroenen was, it—it made finding out that you had just ended his life a… a little hard."

Hellboy nodded, "I'll go talk to her."

"And after you have finished talking—" Abe turned his respirator on, "We have to go to the cemetery and uncover an old Nazi scientist's secret laboratory, which will be filled with unnamed horrors and gore, and find out if there is any more information relating to Melissa down there."

"Great," Hellboy muttered, "More Nazis."

'Melissa?'

'Uh… Abe?'

Abe smiled slightly at the adorably fuzzy state of the shape-shifter's mind, 'Hellboy just arrived. I have sent him in to talk to you.'

Melissa's mind buzzed without focus, then settled, 'I don't want to see him.'

Abe's arm shot out, barring Hellboy from moving further into the hotel unit. The ichthyoid bent closer to Hellboy to whisper; "She doesn't want to see you."

"I thought you just said she wanted to talk. What gives?"

Abe shrugged, "I don't know. She isn't thinking clearly."

Hellboy took his unlit cigar from his mouth and hissed, "What do you mean she isn't thinking clearly? Wait a minute… She actually liked that Nazi pin-head?"

Abe's expression gave it all away; "She is trying to avoid you, but yes, she did present certain… very clear implications… when we were up in what used to be her attic… of, um, a certain concern relating to Kroenen's… most recent death."

"You mean when I nailed him with that giant gear?" Hellboy growled. The odd lighting of the room illuminating his yellow eyes and making him look even more imposing.

Abe did not notice. He leaned backwards, rubbing his chin thoughtfully; "Do you really think he is dead?"

"If not, I don't see him getting out of that pit any time soon… How could Mousy give a damn whether he died or not after what he did to her?"

"A sudden onslaught of memories and past emotions could have altered her perspective slightly—for the moment," Abe added hastily at Hellboy's apprehensive look.

"Maybe they were in love," Liz pointed out from the other side of the room, causing the two to look at her. Liz shrugged, "It happens."

"It couldn't have," Abe replied indignantly, "He was a—oh."

"Oh?" Hellboy echoed with a hint of concern, "Oh-oh?"

"No, no. I just need to do more research," Abe smiled, a hand resting on the photos he and Pipes had found earlier.

"First Mousy, then evil Nazi laboratory, then research," Hellboy announced. He turned down the corridor and proceeded to Melissa's temporary room. Hellboy knocked loudly on the wooden door with his 'normal' hand, which still caused the door to shake and buckle.

The hotel unit fell silent. The sound of someone slipping off a bed and walking quietly to the door could just be heard. Melissa opened the door, coming face to face with Hellboy's large frame. Liz, Myers and Abe were in the lounge area not a few steps away, considering the size of the small unit, all looking slightly uncomfortable.

"You wanted to see me?" Melissa asked timidly.

"You wanted to see me," Hellboy stated.

"Oh."

"About Pin-head."

"Who?"

"Kroenen," Hellboy grated the name out, as if it were something foul lodged between his teeth.

Melissa blinked; "I knew him."

"I knew that."

"…You killed him," Melissa murmured, lowering her gaze to the carpet.

"He killed my father."

"He was the only one I had left…"

Hellboy made a surprised grunting sound, motioning to himself and the other three, "We're right here."

"Yes, but he's the only one from the before."

"Mousy; we're at now, now. The before doesn't matter, it's good that you can remember it, but you've got to move on," Hellboy explained with punctuating, sweeping hand gestures.

'That was beautiful, Red,' Abe projected mockingly, barely concealing a chuckle.

"Shut up; I'm not the word-guy here," Hellboy scowled over his shoulder.

"Word-smith."

"Shh!" Hellboy waved him off. He turned back to Melissa; "You okay?"

Melissa stared at the daemon's red face for a long while, her own pale features blank. She looked away, "Yeah."

"Good. Now, let's go find your Dad's old place."

"Alter Südfriedhof," Hellboy sighed, "Why oh why do they always build their secret laboratories in the middle of cemeteries?"

"Easy access to extra bodies?" Abe suggested, a little too coolly.

"There wouldn't have been that many good bodies around here. Alter Südfriedhof was where they buried many of the deceased during the plague," Melissa quipped.

"Hey, how 'bout you two go and find that lab and Melissa, John and I will keep wandering through the cemetery… in case we find anything interesting," Liz suggested.

"I'm not incapable of managing—" Melissa started hotly.

"Mousy, you're with Liz and Myers. You three split up and search the grounds for anything… interesting," Hellboy finished lamely.

"And next time," Manning added in a dead-pan, "Maybe I can give the orders. For once."

"Maybe, maybe," Hellboy smirked cheerfully.

Melissa grumbled to herself, dejectedly walking down the path she was assigned to explore and sending a barrage of negative thoughts in Abe's direction.

Abe and Hellboy continued walking in the other direction to the three that had split off to search the grounds, agents following to help. Abe led the way confidently, having already memorised the route to the opening of the laboratory.

"It should be obvious how we enter. The last time it was opened had to have only been a few years ago, when Melissa escaped. …I wonder why it released her then," Abe mused aloud.

"Things rust, batteries run out—"

"But Dr Schnitt told Melissa that someone had broken in and deposited her body in the hospital, which means that someone had already found her. They either found her inside of the laboratory or close to it."

"Is that it?"

Abe turned abruptly; "Oh yes, there it is."

The two, Manning and a handful of other agents still catching up, stood before a low-set family tomb. The build was cheap, simple and made of concrete. No fancy engravings or gold trimmings, simply the family name set boldly into the front of the tomb above the wrought-iron doors, which had been recently re-sealed with a new chain and padlock that did not match the rusty doors. Before Manning or anyone else could stop him, Hellboy had wrenched the iron doors off their hinges and was making his way into the tomb.

"Deserted tomb that nobody cares about, what do they do?" Hellboy's voice echoed up from the tomb.

"Turn it into an evil Nazi laboratory," Abe and Hellboy said together, spooking Manning and the other agents walking in between.

"Oh, this is disgusting," Manning muttered, wiping a smear of mossy sludge off of his designer jacket as they descended into the bowels of the tomb, "Oh, and it stinks too. Great, just great…"

Hellboy paced his way through the tomb most calmly, cracking a light-tube every now and then and tossing it behind him to light the way for the rest to follow. After descending two floors and passing several potent graves, the team came to a dead end.

"Hidden entrance?" Manning suggested dryly.

"No, you just missed it," Abe smiled, standing over a man-hole in the ground, "This is the entrance. It's right beneath us."

"Well done, Blue" Hellboy smirked. The daemon wasted little time waltzing over and hauling the lid of the laboratory off.

The agents, Manning and Hellboy peered down into the hole. Surprisingly, the opening was illuminated from below.

"Here comes the monkey!" Hellboy grunted in a singsong tone, jumping down through the hole.

"After you, Dr Manning," Abe smiled pleasantly.

"Gee, thanks," Manning mumbled with a face very much more pale than it had been before.

Melissa drifted aimlessly from one narrow path to the next, muttering to herself about what Abe and Hellboy had done to her, 'Not allow me to go into my own father's laboratory,' she mused resentfully, 'I have witnessed the horrors in there, not them. I know what to expect, they don't. No, they leave me out here like a child…' she huffed, crossing her arms, 'He killed Karl…'

The shape-shifter walked down the pathway between the winding rows of tombstones and graves, pausing occasionally to read the names of the dead or to admire the stone angels atop some of the more ornate gravestones. She could hear the distant footsteps of the agents, walking around equally as bored as she was with the task of 'finding something interesting'.

'I need to be down there! A clue, any clue… What was I going to tell Karl Kroenen?' Melissa raked her tender brain, searching for a memory. One of the gravestones caught her eye. Melissa wandered curiously over to the clean, marble stone. Apart from a few chips, it was in very good condition, especially for its age. "Lisa Schnitt… died February, 1984," Melissa murmured reverently, "Wife of Dr Eugen Schnitt." 'Dr Schnitt?'

"Hmm," Melissa trudged down to the next row of gravestones, trying to find any of Dr Schnitt's other relatives. She found none, walking up and down the row of graves several times. Sighing in boredom, she continued round the corner. The noises around her had quietened. The agents' footsteps sounding very distant where she stood. Melissa strode casually over to a bench situated under an old tree, completely fed up with the cemetery, 'Nothing at all.'

She stared straight ahead, resting her chin on her hands. After a while began to take interest in what she was staring at. Another gravestone. It was old and worn, moss starting to grow around the base of the stone, but Melissa was most intrigued by the name. 'Christine'.

In fact, the more she stared at it, the more she started to make out of the last name as well. 'Fie—' Melissa jumped to her feet, dashing over to the stone with a familiar dizziness making itself present in her head.

"Christine Fielding," Melissa whispered, "Born 1897, died… 1973?"

"Blue, you'd better check this out. Someone got here before us," Hellboy muttered, pacing the trashed laboratory. Unnamed chemicals were spilled across the floor over older stains and red streaks. Rusted cages lined one of the walls, rotten piles of bones and remains strewn throughout. In the middle of the room lay what looked like an empty iron maiden filled with tubes and strange devices in the place of metal spikes. Hellboy was glad that Mousy wasn't here to see what she had been imprisoned in for the greater part of her life—or death.

Tables had been over turned, devices of glass and metal shattered beyond repair, everything rendered useless, and it all looked fairly recent. Hellboy frowned.

"Oh my…" Abe murmured in horror behind him. Abe looked up at the wall of cages and cringed with the pain of their memories.

"Who did it?"

Abe snapped back to reality, turning his head to Hellboy inquisitively. His large blue eyes shifted to the mess before them and he cautiously approached it. Abe stretched out a webbed hand, fingers hyper-extended to better receive the psychic signals. Crouching down, Abe rested his palm on a broken pair of sinister-looking metal tongs on the laboratory floor.

Hellboy watched his comrade at work, waiting for an answer. Abe gasped and withdrew his hand, "R-Red—"

"What?"

Melissa staggered back from the gravestone in shock. She read the rest of the stone, which only confirmed that it had been her; the name of her father and mother etched in stone, glaring up at her. 'I wasn't there, I couldn't have died…'

Melissa was almost in tears, 'What am I…? Who is this Christine? W-why… Abe…' She had to find Abe. She had to find him, and he had to explain to her that this was… wrong, that the stone was wrong and she had not died just over thirty years ago. She turned to run back in the direction of her father's laboratory.

Melissa's feet faltered, her shaking body freezing up as she saw him; "Karl—" the shape-shifter gasped.

Kroenen was standing at the side of the vacated bench, slightly hunched; the twin glass lenses of his mask swallowing all light and pointed directly at Melissa. With cold determination he began to stride purposefully towards the girl, his blades drawn.

"Wait," Melissa called, holding up a shaking hand. Kroenen stilled. Melissa's voice hitched in her throat, "Please, I-I'm not going to run. I know who you are, now. I remembered," Melissa smiled sadly, the emotion in her voice almost breaking through. "I had amnesia—but I remember," tears glinted in her eyes, "I do, I do. Karl!" she cried, running up to the assassin and throwing her arms around him. She held him tightly, feeling that not even the heavens could rip Karl Kroenen and all her memories from her again. She had found him, her blue-eyed boy.

"I'm sorry I ran—I thought," Melissa laughed, pulling back to look up at him, "I thought you were trying to k—" Melissa choked on her words. She uttered a small gasp, the colour draining from her face. Her hand went to her side; her fingers felt the cold metal blade wedged into her side and the warm, sticky blood gushing out of the wound.

Kroenen drew the blade back and swung his other around. Melissa reflexively pulled her arms up to protect herself. The blade sliced through skin, flesh and bone. Melissa screamed all she could, blood now pouring from her side and the stump of her right arm. The world rushed past her eyes and darkness swallowed her.

Kroenen aimed the blade that had first pierced Christine's side to her neck, aiming to strike. An unearthly yell sounded from behind him and Kroenen was jolted violently into the air, flying backwards from the force of Hellboy's massive punch. Kroenen landed on his back, bouncing with the force. Knowing the red ape was only a few lunges behind; Kroenen whisked himself away, hoping that the injuries he had given the shape-shifter had been fatal.

Abe let out a silent scream when he saw Melissa, lying in a pool of blood with several agents crowded around her, preforming first aid and one on a cell phone demanding the fastest ambulance team the near-by hospital had. Another agent was wrapping what remained of Melissa's right arm in gauze to prevent the blood from streaming out. There was so much blood… One agent had Melissa's severed arm in a bag. 'So much blood…'

Abe reached out with his mind to Melissa, doing everything within his power to keep her brain alive while her body lost even more blood. Abe felt two pairs of hands grab his arms and lead him quickly away from the site before the ambulance team arrived. Abe tried to protest against the agents, but knew he and Hellboy could not be seen. The ambulance crew did not need any distractions from saving Melissa's life.

Abe, Hellboy and Liz were shepherded back to the tomb that led to Dr Fielding's old laboratory. Abe stumbled along beside his friends, his mouth gaping like a goldfish stranded on land. Hellboy didn't say a word, even as Liz desperately asked them both what was going on, his crimson features contorted into a frown. Agent Myers followed them into the tomb, closing the iron gates behind the four.

"What happened to Melissa?" Liz demanded, "They were calling ambulances, what happened? Abe?"

Liz and Myers looked to the ichthyoid for answers, but Abe only shook his head sadly. He didn't want to bring those images up into his mind again. His mind's eye strained to see how Melissa's mangled form was faring.

"Kroenen got here before us," Hellboy hissed, "He trashed the lab, Blue here saw it from the broken glass down there. We didn't get back to Mousy in time; Pin-head attacked her."

'It would have been a lot worse if we were any later,' Abe consoled the daemon, 'You saved her life.'

"How bad was it?" Liz asked, deeply concerned.

"Pretty bad. She lost an arm…" Hellboy looked away from Liz's terrified face, "And a lot of blood."

Abe watched despondently as Hellboy embraced Liz tightly, himself worrying his scales off for the life of his dear friend. 'Others have died of lesser injuries, what's to say she will survive the night?'

Hellboy sighed; "I hope they know her blood type; she's gonna need it."

"She doesn't have a blood type," Abe half-wailed, "Her blood is what controls what shape she takes… if they give her blood that is not her own it could possibly damage her even further."

"…Blue?" Hellboy murmured. Abe turned his head. "How is she?"

"Alive, scarcely. They have her in the ambulance… they're driving her over to the emergency entrance of the hospital."

"Is there anyone else in the cemetery?"

"…No, only the agents. Kroenen has vanished."

"Come on," Hellboy grunted, "Back to the hotel."

"But Melissa—"

"Abe, you know we can't go into that hospital like this. Manning would kill us both. C'mon, we've gotta get outta here before the police come."

"Yeah," Myers murmured numbly, turning on his walkie-talkie, "I'll call the truck."

A/N: Hang on to your cliffs, ladies and gentlemen! This one's a hanger!

boogalaga: I know! You just want to sit there and spend hours explaining the, (ahem) clockwork of it all! I just can't resist sticking a logical working order to my freaks, hehe. Do you wish them all luck? Because really, what is going on with these characters? ;) Hope you enjoyed, thanks for the review!

ToTaKeKe13: Kroenen and Mousy… they would have been just so cute together! Sigh. If only, if only. Thanks for the review!

epalladino: Wow, thank you! Writing Kroenen is always fun, all those gory details: ) Oh dear, was I setting you all up to believe Kroenen to be not so bad, then giving you that wonderful scene where he attacks poor Mousy? What a bad llama I've been: D And it's so fun! I'm glad you enjoyed yourself; that five hours of rehearsing sounds hard!

blade assassin: OH YEAH: ) thanks so much; that's made my day! See, I updated quickly!

blade assassin: Good! Commenting on what happened in the story makes llama happy: D! Thank you kindly!

theshadowcat: Hehe, thanks! I most definitely will, there's only a couple of chapters left to write!

Jonesy E.: YAY, a new reviewer: D that was such a wonderful review, thank you so much! It's reviews like that that really keep authors going, you're so flattering! Great ego-feed and incredible fuel for the writing! Danke!