Red, Blue and I were in the back of our transport which looked like a garbage truck to the outside world but on the inside it was a fully-equipped crime lab, crammed with hi-tech gear and low-tech talisman. There was a small shielded off area for me to change into my black outfit. The black pants clung to my legs but also allowed free movement, my black tank was made of the same material as my pants a black belt held everything I'd need; my guns, my locator a few knives and my sword was sheathed down my spine. Abe was fitting a respirator over his face as I stepped out of my little corner. His respirator looked like a mechanized Elizabethan collar with valves bubbling and hissing as he inhaled liquid through his mouth and out his gills.
"Look at them ugly suckers. One sheet of glass between them and us." Red said.
"Story of my life." Blue reminded him.
"I break it, they see us, Happy Halloween. No more hiding." Red said.
"No." I said and he turned to me almost pleading. "I'm not going to fill out all that damn paperwork just for you to have your 15 minutes of fame."
"Outside. I could be outside –" Red said getting nostalgic.
"You mean, outside... with her." Abe corrected him as Red strapped on a huge utility belt heavy with amulets, rosaries and horseshoes. From an ashtray he grabbed a handful of stogie stubs and lit one before putting the rest in a pouch.
"Don't get psychic with me." Red told him.
"Nothing psychic about it. You're easy." Blue told him and I smiled as Red unlocked a steel box and extracted the meanest-looking, custom-built, double-barrel, blue-finished, handgun ever made. The Good Samaritan was a veritable cannon.
"How am I ever gonna get a girl? I drive around in a garbage truck." Red groaned.
"Liz left us, Red. Take the hint." Blue reminded him.
"We don't take hints." Red said hefting the gun up.
"No." I agreed putting my coat on (Think Selene from Underworld). "We deliver them." We felt the truck backing and prepared to get out as the back of the truck lowered like a drawbridge in front of us.
"Okay, boys and girls, let's synch up our locators." Clay said and the humans turned on their locators which turned on a very light blue, Blue's was a very bright blue, Red's was a bright red and mine was a luminescent white. "Seal the doors. Red, Blue and White are coming in." We then started walking to the main lobby. "At nineteen hundred hours an alarm tripped. B&E. Robbery. Six guards dead –"
"Hold on - hold on - I thought we checked this place. Fakes, and reproductions." Red said.
"We did." I confirmed.
"Apparently not everything was fake." We turned to see Trever standing at the base of a marble staircase.
"Father...?" Red asked surprised to see him. I placed my hand on Red's arm as he sheepishly averted his gaze from his father. We turned and approached an oversized set of brass doors. Blue removed a leather glove from his hand and placed it on the door spreading his webbed fingers. He closed his three eyelids and concentrated as two agents came in with a rolling munitions case. Red opened it and looked over a potpourri of bullets of all colors and shapes.
"A 16th century statue was destroyed. Saint Dionysius the Aeropagite." Trever told us.
"Who wards off demons." Red said and Trever nodded.
"Smuggled into this country by an overzealous curator. The statue, however, was hollow –" Trever told him and I looked at him slightly confused.
"Reliquary?" Red asked him and Trever shook his head with a small smile on his face.
"A prison." He revealed. "The Vatican deemed its contents dangerous enough to include it on the List of Avignon. Of which we hold a copy."
"Then we should start checking places more often. Make sure that we're covering all new acquisitions as well as keeping track of the old." I suggested as Red selected a clip full of bullets and a speed loader.
"Would'ya look at this babies? Made 'em myself. Holy water, silver shavings, white oak: the works." Red told Myers as Blue pulled his hand away from the door.
"Behind this door. A dark entity - Evil, ancient and hungry." He told us before moving to another steel case more agents had brought in and started scanning a few of the leather-bound volumes of ancient magic.
"Oh, well. Lemme go in and say "hi"." Red said before opening the big doors and walking inside with us closing the doors behind him.
"I love how we get all suited up and don't get to fight." I sighed to Blue before looking something things over in the lobby.
"Blue: It stinks in here - Finely aged roadkill." Red said over the comms.
"Nummy." I said sarcastically.
"We're gonna definitely need more info on this one Brother Blue." Red told him.
"Hey, no one goes with him?" Myers asked. "Jesus."
"Mm, no. He likes it that way." Blue told him. "The whole lonely hero thing."
"He's been like that since he was a kid. Running around base fighting invisible monsters." I sad smiling at the memory.
"So, are you two…" Myers said looking between Trever and I.
"Are we what?" I asked him.
"Are you two married or something?" he finally asked.
"More like or something." I told him. "I've only ever loved one man my entire life. If you're lucky you won't meet him." I said.
"Why?" he asked me.
"Because he'd kill you." I said smiling at him.
"Red, I found something –" Blue said. I moved next to him to see him looking at a small, medieval engraving of a creature. "There's not much here: the entity's name is Sammael, the desolate one, son of Nergal –"
"Hold it –" Red told him before he turned his radio off for a short time before turning it back on.
"Red - you need to hear the rest of the information –" Blue told him.
"Nah - he's taken care of." Red said.
"No, listen this: Sammael, the desolate one, lord of the shadows, son of Nergal, hound of resurrection –" Abe red.
"See? I don't like that –" Red said.
"- Hound of resurrection?" Blue asked him before he continued reading. "Harbinger of pestilence, seed of destruction –"
"Skip to the end, willya? How do I kill it?" Red asked.
"It doesn't say." Blue told him. Suddenly the doors bulged and cracked under something being thrown into them causing everyone to backpedal fast. The Agents around us immediately prepared for something to come through the door except Myers who started looking for another way in.
"You chose well Trever." I told him as we watched him. After we were sure Red and Sammael were out of the room we moved inside so we could look around and a few hours later Myers came back and informed us that Red had gone off the grid. A short time later, Manning joined us and he, Trever and I walked through the mess as a crew was cleaning. and Broom walk through the mess.
"Every time the media get a look at him, they come to me. I'm running out of lies, Trevor." Manning told him.
"I thought you liked being on TV." Trever said.
"I do." Manning said before pausing a beat. "How many escapes? This year alone: five!"
"Tom – he, like Rose and the others, are our guest, not a prisoner." Trever told him and I rolled my eyes. We were here first but I wasn't about to remind Manning of that, not yet.
"Your "guest" happens to be six foot five, bright red, and is government funded." Manning said referring to Red.
"He's just going through a phase." Trever told Manning as the younger man moistened and lit a fine cigar using a kitchen match unlike Red who used a Zippo.
"A "phase"? What do you think this is, "The Brady Bunch?" These... freaks –a" Manning paused in his words and looked to Blue who was pacing the exhibition hall, palm open and listening to every word we'd said. "These freaks, Trevor, they give me the creeps. And I'm not the only one. You're up for review. You and your petting zoo."
"As speaker for the petting zoo I take offense to that." I said with a smile on my face.
"I know where to find him. I'll get him back." Trever told him as Manning watched Blue stare at a sharp dagger embedded in the floor.
"Hey, fishstick - don't touch anything." Manning told him.
"I need to touch it to "see"." Blue told him.
"See what?" he asked.
"The past, the future, whatever this object holds." Blue explained.
"Is he serious?" Manning asked us.
"Of course he is." I answered.
"Don't worry about fingerprints. I never had any." Blue told him before holding the dagger in his are hand. He saw something and quickly turned his head to us. "They were over here, Professor, Rose."
"Oooh! Who was here? Nixon? Houdini? You mind sharing your mystic insights?" Manning asked as Trever and I made our way to Blue. I examined the dagger in his hands and saw a Ragnarok symbol crowning the hilt. The dragon and swastika adorning the hilt.
"Show us, Abe... show us." Trever said as he solemnly extended his hand as I did mine. As soon as Blue took them, the room morphed to hours earlier: the place is intact. A guard checked an alarm monitoring unit. We heard a ticking sound and he shone his light into a dark corner but no one was there. After the guard moved on, a spidery form emerged from the pool of shadows on the floor. The form stepped into the light to reveal Kroenen encased in shiny black latex from head to toe. On his chest was a close-fitting harness comprised of softly ticking gears. He approached a glass case which held an ancient wooden statue of an Eastern Orthodox Saint. He ran his hand over the glass keeping him from the statue and the red beams that set the alarm.
"Move." A women commanded. Korenen moved and the woman from all those years ago walked to the case and used the hammer she held to destroy it setting off the alarms. Kroenen pulled out a double-ended blade and spun it around like a giant bone saw, slicing across the statue. Their was no apparent damage until a diagonal line appeared and the top half fell. Kroenen reached for a small crank embedded in his chest and wound himself up as the woman reached into a hollow portion in the wooden statue and removed a large reliquary jar containing golden sand. Six guards hurried in and they pointed their flashlights and guns at the two intruders.
"You! Don't move! Hands up!" one of the guards called out. Kroenen then started shaking, as if in a seizure as he readied two twin blades. The guards fired and bullets tore into Kroenen's arm, spewing forth an explosion of dust. He turned to them as they continued to shoot at him. Kroenen maneuvered the steel, deflecting the bullets which ricocheted wildly and finally hit three of the guards and they fell silently to the floor. Kroenen moved to two other guards and dispatched them in a flurry of knives. The last guard rose his gun to the two.
"Don't –" he started to order but something was clearly stopping him. Suddenly his hand broke, twisted by an unseen force. The flesh on his neck pushed upwards, held by an invisible force before he started floating in midair. The blinking lights of the arriving police cars tinted the windows red and amber. They outlined a figure formerly submerged in shadows. Grigory. He gestured with both hands, as if holding an imaginary doll. His arm muscles twitched under his skin, shifting, changing, gaining strength. With a quick gesture Grigory twisted the lower and upper parts of the guard's body in opposite directions and with a wet crunch, the guard goes limp.
"Ready the welcome, my love." Grigory told the woman. She opened the reliquary jar and poured a circle of sand onto the floor. "Salt. Gathered from the tears of a thousand martyrs. Restraining the essence of Sammael, the hell hound, the seed of destruction." Grigory sliced the air with his open hand, creating fleeting glyphs and a small black flame danced on his open palm. He deposited it in mid-air, and the center of the circle. Then, the sand began to move, like liquid mercury. Lines fused into a pile. It melted and bubbled, growing and foaming. Bones were formed, tendons and ligaments joined together, growing into Sammael. Blue snapped us out of the vision and Trever stepped away, pale and wincing as he endured a bolt of pain in his side. Blue and I held him up and I motioned for the others to stay back. Blue extended his open palm and felt the air near Trever's back.
"Professor..? You - are very sick." Blue said.
"I don't want Hellboy to know." Trever told him as he gently turned and pushed our hands away. "Sixty years ago Abe, they tried to destroy the world. And they are back - in my lifetime, they are back. To finish the job."