Chapter Three: A Shadow of a Doubt

Disclaimer: Hellboy characters do not belong to me. However, Erica is mine.

Author's Notes: Thanks again for the review Psycho Llama! Poor Erica, her nightmares won't leave her alone, but soon she'll have to face the reality of what she can do. Also, some minor humor at Kroenen's expense. Please Review!

Erica was walking through dark corridors, completely disoriented. This place is like a maze! she thought. She came to a long hall with a high ceiling, at the other end, was a huge widow. Through it, she could see a raging thunderstorm outside.

Something's wrong, Erica thought, And this is sort of…familiar. Have I been here before?

Erica stopped halfway down the hall. I have a very bad feeling about this, she thought nervously. Despite the storm outside, the hall was quiet. So quiet that she could hear a soft, ticking sound, as if there was a clock somewhere nearby. But the hallway was empty, she was the only thing in it. Despite this, the ticking continued very softly, seeming to come from near the window.

Erica approached the window slowly, feeling drawn to it somehow. As if, when she came to it, something important was going to happen.

The air turned bitterly cold, and the ticking got louder the closer she walked to the window. The back of her neck prickled. Someone was behind her! She spun around to face the hall — but no one was there. She looked around uneasily. A bolt of lightning flashed outside the window, lighting the hall with an eerie, electric blue light. Thunder crashed behind her, startling her, and Erica spun around.

Someone was standing in front of her!

He was silhouetted against the storm outside the window, dressed in black, his face covered by a mask. The soft ticking was coming from him. He stared intently at her, his invisible gaze piercing her heart. He was searching for something, he was determined to find it. Then she realized the terrible truth: He was looking for her. He was looking for what she refused to believe she could do. And in that moment of realization, she was terrified of him. He stood still, watching her, his terrible gaze slicing into her.

Then he moved, ever so slightly, so his eyes, hidden by his mask, were looking directly into her face.

"Erica…" he hissed softly.

He had found what he was looking for.

Erica's eyes widened in fear.

"Erica…" he whispered. Slowly, he held out his hand. "Erica, come with me…"

"NO!" she shrieked.

Erica turned and ran, feeling his relentless gaze, that penetrating, dark stare on her back, pursuing her as she ran. She had to get away, she couldn't let him catch her—

"You can run," his voice hissed after her, "but you cannot escape."

The shadows in the hall swirled around her. And there were voices in the shadows.

"She must be found!" one man's voice demanded. "We must find her!"

"Have no fear, we are close, so very close to finding her. By each passing moment she is closer." said another man, his voice full of confidence and authority.

The voices surrounded her, even as the shadows closed in around her.

"She has been found!" hissed one voice triumphantly.

His words echoed in the darkness.

"She has been found!"

She ran, gasping for breath, trying to escape—

The shadows were reaching out with shapeless claws to catch her—

"She has been found!"

—Trying to catch her, capture her—

"She has been found!"

Erica couldn't let the darkness catch her, couldn't—

— it was all around her, there was no where to go, she couldn't escape—

BUUUUUUUZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!

Erica woke up screaming.

She suddenly realized what she was doing and stopped, praying she hadn't woken up everyone in the house. Everything was quiet, no one had heard her.

Automatically, she reached over and turned her alarm off.

Thank God for alarm clocks! she thought.

But she had the strangest feeling that it wasn't going to save her again.

She lay there for a moment, trying to calm down. Her sheets and pajamas were soaked with sweat, and she had knocked her pillow off the bed. Her heart was racing, and her throat was raw. Probably from screaming like that, she thought. I have got to get rid of this nightmare!

She shuddered, remembering the dark hall and the strange man's words. How had he known her name? Why was he looking for her? And what did he mean that she couldn't escape? And those other voices, were they talking about her? And what did that one mean, saying she had been found?

Stop it, she scolded herself, it's only a nightmare, and you're treating it as if it were real.

That was the problem, it was so real. Sort of like how real it had seemed when she had almost sworn her sister was hit by a — No! I will not think about that! This isn't anything like that, it's just a nightmare, not a—

Compulsively, she got up and went into the bathroom, where she took a cold shower, hoping it would clear her head.

Opera music from a phonograph played softly in the background of the study. Kroenen stood, facing the barrier floating in the middle of the darkened room. He supposed he should be pleased, at least the girl was intelligent enough not to be tricked into coming through the barrier. But now he was going to have to forcibly pull her through, and that meant waiting until the barrier shattered.

About a half an hour ago he had informed Grigory that the girl would be in Germany soon, and Ilsa had gone off to organize the search and to contact various members of the Occult. Kroenen watched the barrier. It was covered in so many holes, cracks, and rips that it was amazing that it managed to hold together at all, and he knew it wouldn't for much longer. He estimated that within an hour's time, Erica would find herself in Germany. He turned, reaching for a small clock on his desk, and in the process, nearly tripped over a heap of books. Kroenen cursed in irritation. While he was waiting, and since they were going to have a "guest" soon, he supposed he should clean up his study.

Erica's shower helped, but not much. She was still preoccupied, something was bothering her, but what?

"I probably forgot to pack something," she lied to herself as she got dressed. For today she had picked out flared jeans, and a form fitting purple T-shirt. She put her hair in a ponytail, put on her silver cross necklace that she always wore, and then headed downstairs to breakfast.

The rest of her family was already in the kitchen, just about to sit down to enjoy a pile of hot, steaming pancakes heaped on a plate in the center of the table.

"Good morning," Erica said, sitting down, "Those look really good!"

"I thought I'd make a good breakfast so you wouldn't get hungry on train ride." her mom said. "By the way, did you know that they've finished restoring the train station? It's supposed to look exactly the way it did before WWII, and I've heard that it's absolutely beautiful."

"No, I didn't know that," Erica said, bolting down her pancakes.

"Don't eat so fast, you'll make yourself sick." scolded Brittany, smiling.

"As if you have any room to talk, little sister." said Erica, laughing.

"When you finish your breakfast," said her dad, "I'll dive you to the train station."

Just as they were about to leave, her mom stopped them at the door.

"Here, Erica. I bought your ticket ahead of time so you wouldn't have to wait in line."

"Thanks!" said Erica, turning to leave.

"Have fun!" her mom called after them.

"Bye!" yelled Brittany.

"Bye! See you soon!" Erica yelled back.

But what Erica didn't know, was that she wasn't going to see them soon, let alone ever again.

Erica said goodbye to her dad, and then got out of the car, carrying her suitcase. Her dad drove away as Erica looked up at the outside of the train station. Wow, she thought, they've done a lovely job of restoring it. I can't wait to see what it looks like inside.

She walked toward the doors. Suddenly, her foot caught on something, and she tripped. She didn't go very far. She had barely fallen an inch before she crashed into what felt like a wall, then toppled through it to land in a heap on the ground.

"Ow." she mumbled.

"Are you alright, Miss?" asked a heavily accented voice.

She looked up to see a young man looking down at her. The wall it felt like she had fallen into was nowhere in sight.

"Yes, I just tripped, that's all." she said, blushing in embarrassment as she stood up.

He handed her suitcase to her, smiling. "Just be more careful in the future," he said. "Have a nice day!"

Erica stared after him as the young man walked away. He was dressed very oddly, in the kind of clothes you saw people wearing in WWII films. And what was with his accent? She shrugged it off, maybe the train station had hired people to pretend they were from the era when the station was originally built. After all, she knew they did that in colonial Williamsburg, so why not here?

Kroenen was just putting the last books on the shelves, when he heard an ominous creaking come from the barrier behind him. He turned to face it, the firelight glistening on the barrier's glassy surface. He watched as it appeared to vibrate in place, the creaking becoming even louder as sections of the barrier twisted. Within it, he saw the shadowy form of the girl trip and fall against the side of the barrier that was in her time. The barrier, stretched and twisted to the breaking point, couldn't take the strain anymore. It shattered.

The pieces exploded outward in a perfect sphere shape, and for a second, Kroenen could see the shadowy form of the girl falling. Then the pieces of the sphere flew backwards to reform the barrier. It floated bubble-like above the floor, completely whole. And through it, Kroenen could see that the girl was gone, she had disappeared from her time. He turned to his desk where he picked up a chunk of polished black crystal. He threw it at the barrier, and both promptly disappeared. He walked over to a mirror hanging nearby on the wall. Instead of seeing his reflection, he saw Erica standing up and talking to a young man outside a train station. She didn't look the least bit startled or worried, just a little embarrassed at falling. Which could mean only one thing: she hadn't even noticed that anything had happened.

Kroenen laughed wickedly. This was just too perfect.

Erica entered the train station, still a little flustered about falling down. I feel like such an idiot, she thought, tripping over nothing and then falling flat on my face. And on top of that, she couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong. It's nothing, she told herself, And I am not going to think about that—

Her train of thought halted as her eyes fell on the interior of the station.

Wow, she thought, completely in awe, they did an absolutely perfect job at restoring this place.

Erica briefly glanced at the train schedule. Her train was on time. She got out her train ticket and checked the platform number printed on it, then headed off in the direction of platform three.

As she walked, she couldn't help but notice that all the people she passed were staring at her, as if they had never seen a teenage girl before. And all of them were dressed funny, just like the young man that had helped her outside the station.

This is really weird. she thought, looking around nervously. The bad feeling she had got stronger.

Once she reached the platform, she sat down on a bench to wait for the train, putting her suitcase down next to her. As she sat down, she noticed a small group of people standing nearby, staring at her and talking to each other in some other language.

Trying to ignore them, Erica took out a book from a pocket on the outside of her suitcase, and tried to read. But it was almost impossible. Other people were showing up on the platform to wait, and all of them started whispering and pointing at her when they saw her. It was extremely disconcerting.

Erica shifted nervously on the bench, self consciously tucking a piece of hair behind her ear, looking forward to getting on the train so she could get away from these people. Something moved nearby, and her gray eyes flicked toward it. There were two men standing a short distance away, both of them in uniforms.

Just then, the train rolled into the platform, catching her attention and she dismissed the men as security personnel for the station. She put her book away and picked up her suitcase, admiring the train and she walked towards it. Even the train fit the station, it was a steam engine. Erica smiled. Despite the people on the platform that had been whispering and pointing at her, this was kind of cool.

She climbed the stairs and entered one of the train cars, appreciative of the hard work it must have taken to restore its interior. She found a seat and flopped down on the cushions, took her book out of her suitcase and settled down comfortably in her seat. But here again she was interrupted by voices whispering in another language that sounded like German. She looked up from her book to find that the other people on the train were staring at her. And they were dressed just like the people in the station. Erica swallowed hard as she felt her stomach turn. She couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong, very wrong here. She forced herself to look back down and read, just as the train left the station.

The sound of the door of the train car opening made her look up again. Three men entered the train car, and judging by their uniforms they were probably more security personnel, or maybe in some branch of the military. Erica went back to reading, she wasn't doing anything wrong, so she didn't have to worry about it. Besides, they were probably passengers anyway.

She heard the men asking several of the passengers questions in multiple languages, sometimes French, other times German. Despite the feeling in her stomach that told her something just wasn't right, she tried to ignore the men, even as they made their way up the aisle towards her, talking among themselves in German. As she turned the page in her book, she heard a man clear his throat and she looked up, the three men were standing in the aisle right next to her seat. The instant she looked up, the man that looked to be in charge, or an officer of some sort, proceeded to spout off a sentence of, what sounded to her at least, absolute gibberish.

"I'm sorry," Erica said politely, "But I don't speak German."

"Don't speak German?" the man asked, this time in heavily accented English. He sounded surprised.

"No," she said, "Only English, like most people in the United States."

At her words the uniformed men scowled and looked at her suspiciously. Just as she was wondering what she had said to make them scowl, the officer shot another question at her.

"May I see your passport, Miss?"

"What?" said Erica, feeling very confused.

"Passport. Your papers."

"Papers? What papers?" she said.

"Your identification papers." he said, as if he was talking to someone incredibly stupid.

"I don't — wait," she said reaching into her pants pocket. She pulled out her ID card from her high school and handed it to the officer.

He took it, and glanced at it briefly. The other two men muttered something in German. Vaguely, Erica noticed that the other passengers were watching them intently.

"Erica Schwarz?" the officer asked, smirking in a way that unnervingly reminded Erica of a cat that has a mouse trapped.

"Yes, that's right." she said, hoping he was satisfied and would go away.

"I don't know if Erica Schwarz is or is not your real name, but you're under arrest."

"What!" Erica said, shocked. "But I haven't done anything!"

"You are under arrest for being a potential informant on our country, as well as for not traveling with your identification papers, and for faking a poor excuse for a passport."

"You think I'm a spy?" Erica said incredulously, "You're out of your mind! And since when have people in the United States had to carry around ID papers or passports for just traveling a state away!"

"You are also under arrest for being affiliated with the Americans." added the officer.

"What?" Erica said in disbelief, too shocked to come up with something else.

"Now, if you will come with us, when we reach the next train station we will escort you to the nearest prison."

She was just about to argue with him, when she saw an embroidered patch on the officer's military uniform. It was a swastika. Horrified, she looked at the other men's uniforms. They were wearing the same symbol. At that moment, a sort of realization began to dawn on her, making her blood run cold.

"Get up, Miss." the officer said.

Slowly, she stood up, her heart racing.

"Follow me." he said, leading the way to an empty train car.

Erica walked with the air of a condemned person. The two other Nazi soldiers followed behind her, as if to make sure she wouldn't escape. As if I could go anywhere on a moving train, she thought. As she left with the soldiers, she could see the other people on the train staring at her with knowing looks.

When they entered the empty train car, the officer took a seat and indicated that she should sit in the seat across from him. Slowly, as if she were moving through frozen mud, she sat down, despite the fact that every fiber of her being was screaming at her to run before it was too late. She knew that to run would be a certain death sentence. She had nowhere to go, and she knew that the soldiers wouldn't hesitate to shoot her, especially since they thought she was a spy. Once she sat down, the other two soldiers took the seats across the aisle where they could keep an eye on her. Not a word was spoken, leaving her plenty of time to think and to try to figure out what had happened.

All the people speaking German, she thought, the train, the train station, the men in uniforms—It all came to one conclusion. She was somehow, someway, in WWII Germany. Could I really be? she thought, And if I am, how did I get here? I've heard of time travel, but this is unreal! And how did this happen to begin with?

A sudden thought occurred to her. WWII Germany was not a good place for an American to be, especially one suspected of being a spy. Her eyes shot over to the officer. He was watching her, his blue eyes glinting in an expression somewhere between victory and menace. Quickly, she looked away, her thoughts still racing to make sense of her situation.

The last time she knew for sure that she had been in her correct time, was as her father drove away in the car, right before she tripped. It had been after she tripped that the strangely dressed young man had spoken to her. And because her mother had told her that the train station had been restored, she hadn't suspected anything until it was too late. So whatever had happened to bring her here must have happened at the exact moment she tripped. And just what had she tripped over? The sidewalk had been clear. And then there was the issue of the wall she thought she had fallen into, and then had gone through it—

The train went over a bump, jarring her out of her thoughts. The scenery flashed by outside the windows, and the train rocked back and forth as it went along. Erica suddenly noticed that one of the soldiers had brought her suitcase with him. The scenery outside the windows changed. They were coming up on a German town, and therefore, a train station. Erica sat up stiffly in her seat, her apprehension doubling. Absentmindedly, she fiddled with her cross necklace, unable to do anything but pray that she'd be safe.

At the prison, Erica sat on a bench outside a pair of enormous wood doors, waiting apprehensively. The military officer had gone through the doors to talk to someone, taking her suitcase with him, presumably to search it. This left her in the company of the two soldiers, who were smirking.

The doors swung open silently.

"Get up." one of the soldiers said.

Erica stood up, her heart racing, and walked through the doors accompanied by the two soldiers. The doors led into a room that was, like the rest of the prison, built of gray stone. The entire feel of the place gave her the feeling that it hadn't originally been a prison, but had been converted to that use. Inside the room, was a big desk, made of a dark wood that was nearly black. And seated at that desk, was a man who was clearly of a high rank in the military. The man's eyes glittered dangerously. He was obviously not someone you wanted to piss off.

Behind her, the doors swung shut in a very final sounding thud that echoed in the stone room. Once the echo died away, the man sitting at the desk spoke in accented English.

"I am Hans Schenck. I have been told that you are an American spy. Spies are being shot."

"But I'm not a spy!" Erica burst out. "America doesn't hire 15 year old girls as spies!"

He smiled unpleasantly. "I too thought that was an unreasonable assumption. But that leaves several questions to which, at the present, are very lacking in answers. Questions such as: Who are you? And what are you doing in Germany if you are American? You are clearly not German."

Erica nearly sighed with relief when she heard that he didn't think she was a spy, and that she was, for the present, out of danger of being shot. She hesitated to answer him. But then again, the only way she was going to figure things out would be through talking. Desperately hoping she wasn't making a serious mistake, she answered him.

"I'm Erica Schwarz. And I am German. Well, at least I'm half German, half Irish."

"Obviously the Irish half is more dominate." he said, his icy eyes never leaving her. "But you still haven't answered the other question. What are you doing in Germany?"

Erica's mind froze. What can I say? I don't even know how I got here, let alone explain to him what I'm doing here! she thought.

"I'm waiting." he said, "What are you doing here?" This time when he said it, there was a dangerous tone in his voice.

What can I say? If I lie I'm sure he'll find out! And if I don't say anything—! In her chest her heart was racing as fast as her mind. There was nothing she could say. He would never believe the truth. But staying silent would be nearly as bad as lying!

He seemed to sense her inner turmoil, and grinned cruelly, his ice blue eyes glinting. Erica knew she had to say something—

"I don't know." she said at last.

He was just opening his mouth to speak, when Erica suddenly got a sharp sinking feeling in her stomach like she was going to throw up. But she knew that she wasn't sick, and she was nowhere near enough upset enough to feel nauseous. That left one possibility, the one she had been running from, refusing to face. It was going to happen, again.

Oh no, Erica thought. Of all the places for it to happen, it has to be now? I really can't deal with this right now. Regardless of that, her symptoms showed no signs of going away, but got even worse to the point where she swayed involuntarily, feeling lightheaded and dizzy. Schenck looked at her and said something, but she couldn't hear him. Her head was spinning, the entire room was rocking crazily, and she was so nauseous she was amazed that she hadn't thrown up yet. Everything blurred around the edges, and then something seemed to split, reality was torn to shreds around her with terrible wrenching sounds that threatened to burst her eardrums. The stone room with the desk was gone. Flames shot up around her, and she threw her arms up to protect herself from the searing blasts of heat that threatened to knock her over. Billowing, oily black smoke from the blazing fire made her eyes water uncontrollably as it roiled upwards like a living thing. Something made her look up, and when she did, she saw a blasted, desolate city engulfed in flames. The overcast sky was burning too, the hellish red and orange clouds streaked with black smoke. And coming through the clouds were huge, monstrous tentacles. Despite the fact that the intense heat was singeing her skin, Erica stared, open mouthed, frozen in place by fear and awe. The tentacles waved overhead, and one of them seemed to sense she was there. As she gazed upwards in terror, it swung towards her as if to pick her up. Just as it was about to reach her, everything started spinning, and the ground buckled and flipped, knocking her off her feet—

— and she was reaching out for Schenck's desk. Erica grabbed the edge, trying to steady herself on legs that were shaking uncontrollably. Her heart was racing in her chest, and she could hear herself gasping for breath. Somehow she forced herself to look up, and saw Schenck staring back at her, shaken and visibly taken aback. But even more frightening was that Erica could see her face reflected in his eyes, and her black pupils were huge and full of flickering, dying flames. Just as she looked away, she smelled something burning, and released her death-grip on the edge of his desk. Where she had touched the wood, she had left behind perfect impressions of her hands, burned deep into the surface of the desk.

Erica backed up shakily, staring at the burn marks, then at her hands. Her palms were red and scalded looking, as if she had touched the burner on a stove.

She looked up, and saw Schenck looking from her, to his desk, to her burned hands. After a long pause, in which he seemed to be gathering his thoughts, he directed a question at her. This time his voice was more polite, but there was something else hidden in it that almost sounded like excitement.

"Miss, is there by any chance, a scar on the inside of your left arm?"

"Yes." Erica said, confused about what her scar had to do with anything.

"May I see it, please?"

She held out her arm. The dim light fell on her crescent shaped scar, making it glisten. Then she dropped her arm back down to her side.

"Ahh." was all he said.

He sat back in his chair, and seemed to be thinking about something. At last, he spoke.

"Escort her to a cell for the present." he said to a nearby soldier.

As the soldier led her towards the doors, Schenck called after the soldier.

"And if she is harmed in anyway, or escapes, your fate will be most…regrettable."

The soldier seemed to get the hint, and he proceeded to lead her down a maze of stone corridors. He finally stopped in front of a small, wooden door. He opened it and Erica shakily walked in, hearing the lock click into place as the door closed. She looked around. Golden sunlight streamed in through a small, iron barred window close to the ceiling. Besides the walls, ceiling, floor, and herself, the cell was completely empty.

Wearily, she slid down the wall and sat on the floor with her back to it. Carefully, she placed her hands palm down on the cold stone floor. The cold felt good on her burned skin.

I wonder what my scar has to do with this? she thought. In any case, it might have just saved my life, along with my vision— she drew in a sharp breath. There it was. She had finally confronted it. The bad feelings she got, the things she saw that weren't happening in reality—they were visions of the future. Well, if that's true, what did the one I just have mean? If it comes true—she couldn't bear to think about that. If it came true, there would be Hell on Earth. I wonder how I burned the desk? And how did my hands get burned? Things that have happened in my visions have never physically affected me before. Another thought occurred to her. If I can see the future in visions and dreams, is my recurring nightmare going to come true? she shuddered, she hoped she was wrong about what she could do, because—if it really happened—

The moment the girl had left the room, Schenck turned to another soldier standing nearby.

"Contact Ilsa Haupstien," he ordered, "Tell her I've found the girl she's looking for."