An explosion of sound and light hit us as a subway train passed through a dank tunnel. Then, light beams swept the encrusted walls and steel columns. Clay and some B.P.R.D. agents held flashlights. Two of them - Moss and Quarry – carried flamethrowers as Red, Abe and I brought up the rear. We entered a store room piled high with filing cabinets, typewriters and school desks. A turn-of-the-century mural depicted happy boys doing charitable acts. A Latin phrase ("VIRILITER AGE") encouraged them to behave like men.
"We're in the cellar of the Benjamin Institute. Turn-of-the-century orphanage. Closed since they moved the sewers in '51." Quarry told us reading the map.
"Hence the school supplies." I said looking at the objects. Abe removed his gloves, hyperextended his palm, and sensed the air followed by the surface of the water.
"There's a pulse. And it's coming from there –" we pointed our flashlights where he told us to see a bulkhead. "Cistern on the other side. Most of the eggs are there –" the guys moved some filing cabinets and stared at a black concrete wall.
"No way in." Quarry told us.
"We should go back and request permission to –" Clay started saying before Red cracked the concrete with his stone hand. He continued pounding, again and again, like a jack hammer before the wall collapsed.
"Are you coming or not?" Red asked us.
"Or we could do it that way." I said before we moved in.
"It was quicker." He told me as we moved in.
"You two, check this dump, then join us." Clay told Moss and Quarry. We entered a large oval room full of rusting metal, with pipes spilling water through a large grate on the floor. Abe studied it, sensed something, and nodded to us. With superhuman effort, Red lifted it causing hundreds of roaches to pour out.
"I'm glad I'm not human. This place would be an embarrassment." Abe said.
"They never expect anyone to have to come down here so they don't care what this place looks like." I told him as he dropped two chemical flares through the grate into a cistern. Abe pulled off his breathing apparatus and activated the locator on his belt as Red and I did the same. Once the devices synchronized, Red extended a metal reliquary containing a small bone.
"There you go, Doctor. This should cover your tailfin - On loan from the Vatican, a bone from Saint Dionysius. Ugh. Looks like a pinky." Red told Abe as he took the and tied it around his hand.
"Remind me why I keep doing this." Abe told us.
"Rotten eggs and the safety of mankind." Red said.
"Oh, right –" and with that said, Abe dived into the cistern alone. As we waited we poked around the large room, Red eating a Baby Ruth. We found a pile of children's shoes covering some yellowing albums. I opened one to see a myriad of sad faces. The orphans from the past no doubt. Some of the faces had been cut out. There was an unfinished letter to Santa, dated 1866.
"See? It's thicker. Isn't it? It's not that doll-hair thing –" Clay asked and I turned to see him messing with his implants.
"It looks fine, Clay. Promise." I told him. Out of the corner of my eye I saw something moved. I motioned for Red to shine his light into an adjoining tunnel and we saw Kroenen standing there, like a deer caught in headlights.
"Son of a -!" Kroenen darted away with Red and I tearing after him, weapons in hand.
"Red, White, wait!" Clay called after us. "Red and White are on the move! I'll cover them!" We continued running before stopping, disoriented by all the twists and turns. My eyes changed and I tried to see Kroenen. Nothing. Red sniffed the air before stepping through something. I followed him to see a furnace room. I moved further into the room to see an array of gas masks dangling from ducts overhead. Glued on the walls were dozens of old photos of children.
"Mom." I rejoined Red to see an engraving of Sammael. ""Sammael: seed of destruction. Death becomes the fertile ground."" he read before drool dropped from above. We looked up to see Sammael hanging from a beam. "Didn't I kill you already?" Red asked him and he lunged, hurling us through an open service shaft, and it was a long way down. I groaned before Sammael leapt for us again. Red grabbed him and threw him over the edge. Red helped me up before being pulled over the side. I held onto his arm, trying to keep him up before being pulled down myself. We crashed through pipes, wiring and ducts before sliding off a final duct and into another passage. We bounced off dripping water pipes and jutting steel beams, until we finally broke through a mesh ceiling and directly into a subway platform full of people. We landed on the ticket booth in an explosion of coins, glass and steel. As the dust cleared, Sammael hit Red sending him to a line of turnstiles, uprooting them all. I climbed on Sammael and used a sheath from one of my swords to try and choke him. He tried grabbing me and pulling me off him, but he couldn't reach. He ran to a wall and turned in time to crash me into the wall. I held on for as long as I could as he continued going that before I dropped. Sammael came back towards me, unfolding its bone scythe. I pulled out my sword before he got to me and blocked him. I glanced behind him and pushed him back as Red joined me. He swung his bone scythe and we dodged it making it break off a large portion of a concrete column. "You missed!" Red said before a portion of the ceiling fell on us. Well, fell on Red since he covered me with his body. Sammael roared as we uncovered ourselves and Red threw a desk at him. "Hey, Chunk-face!" Red called to him as we climbed out of the crater with Sammael growling. "You can do better than that. Big monster like you."
"I think you're enjoying yourself a little too much, son." I told him.
"Been a while since we had a good fight." He told me as he ripped off one of the turnstile bars and hit Sammael again and again. "See? It hurts! You shouldn't hit people!" Red told him. Sammael blocked the last hit and threw the bar away, embedding it in the tile wall. Sammael punched Red, a hard uppercut, making him fly up and crash through a second mezzanine above the platform. I looked up in time for Sammael to knock me through glass and onto the tracks below where we were fighting. I quickly got onto the platform and ran back up the stairs in time to see Sammael's tongue shoot out. Hellboy threw a box in the air and trapped the tongue with his stone hand. "Second date. No tongue!" he caught the box before using the tongue to throw Sammael out the glass window I'd just crashed through. Red held on as Sammael pulled him towards the jagged glass. I hurried to him and pulled him away from the glass edges and the ledge itself. Sammael pulled harder on us as Red fought to free us. All seemed lost when a train appeared out of nowhere and the tongue when slack. "I hope that hurt."
"You're not the only one." I told him. "What's in the box?" he showed me the contents and I couldn't help but laugh lightly. Kittens, of course. He gave the cats to a young girl.
"Thank you –a" she said with a smile on her face.
"My job." Red told her, petting the kittens. Once the train was gone I made my way to Sammael's remained. They were wreathed in black flames.
"This time. Stay dead." I said before getting up and going back to Red who was waiting for me on the platform. As we made our way back to where we left Clay our locater belts crackled to life. Blue.
"Abe -?" We ran, following the locater belts, to find Abe in an abandoned shower room, bleeding but alive. He was leaning against the tile, blue blood all around him. Red tried his walkie as I tried turning on my locator. It sparked signaling that it was busted, therefore unusable. "We need an ambulance. Now! Over!" Red tried, but all we got was static. "Who's there? Clay? Come in, someone."
"Clay, Code 30, this is Clay, over..." Suddenly, we heard gunfire and shared a look. We picked up Abe and placed him on Red's back before running to where Clay was only to find him on the ground next to Kroenen. I checked for a pulse and looked up at Red sadly. I checked Kroenen. Nothing. What the hell happened down here?