Guys, you might want to check the Prologue of the part IV, if you've forgotten who is who. I'll be introducing a couple of new characters in this chapter, Jack Daugherty 'Myers' and Jacob Myers. (Christ, why not, there must be one hot Myers in every generation, right? Right. :D) Aaaand, please review - i need it like the air I breath.

Part IV: Streamline

Chapter: Horizon

There are two things to know about Magrat Wagner.

First - when she was born, every single person who saw her, thought that with her indigo colored skin, long tail and tiny, little horns, she was the cutest thing they had ever seen.

Second - now, 15 years later, she was still every bit as adorable, but she was also the harbinger of Apocalypse.

Not that Maggie - as she was usually called - thought much of that nonsense herself. She was far too preoccupied doing everything imaginable, that gave her pleasure, to think about dull things like the end of the world. Kat or Hellboy didn't like to dwell on that either, and one could hardly blame them. Maggie was their youngest, their little princess. To them Maggie was still that precious, innocent little thing that had turned their worlds upside down 15 years ago, and even if they knew that their firstborn Eru certainly hadn't inherited Hellboy's "I'm gonna end the world" -gift, they had hard time believing that Maggie could find that in herself either.

But the rest of them knew, alright.

To Myers, it had been obvious from the first time he had laid his eyes on Maggie. She was just too cute, too adorable. Almost like it was on purpose. Like she was just a hint too perfect for it to be real, like her cuteness was a design to lure people into her trap. A ridiculous thing to think of a baby, sure, but Maggie grew up fast - two times faster than a human would have. And the older she got, the more evident it was that there were something amiss with her. What Maggie wanted, Maggie got - one way or another, and Myers just knew she was going to be trouble. So when HB and his family disappeared to another dimension, for almost 10 years, a part of Myers had been relieved. Maggie would grow up in another reality. Maybe the end and death of all things would not come to this world after all, at least not in his lifetime.

But Red had returned home a few years ago, and brought all his family with him, including now full grown Maggie (who had reaches adulthood in the ripe age of eight).

It wasn't that Myers didn't love Maggie. Of course he did, it was impossible not to. Everyone loved Maggie. It was, that he saw very clearly, that Maggie took all that love for granted, and used it for her own purposes.

And that, combined to a destiny to bring on the Apocalypse, was a thing that made Myers worried.

It was not the first thing in his mind, though, when he faced his family and friends after six months of exile. He knew better, than to start painting visions of Apocalypse to the parents whose kid has gone missing.

They were in Broom's library - even if the professor had been dead for more than a decade by now, the library still existed and they still used it, whenever in need of a private place for conversation. That's where they had landed, after Kat had ferociously teleported Myers out of Alice Monaghan's small apartment just a few minutes ago.

They were all there now, the whole team: Kat and Hellboy, Abe and Jay, plus their newest recruit Jack 'Myers' - John's nephew, who wasn't a confused 16-year-old wannabe rocker anymore - but a highly competent 37-year-old BPRD agent instead. Just seeing them all, made Myers' chest ache in the realization of how utterly, how heart breakingly lonely he had been for these past six months. And yet, at the same time, he felt the wall between himself and the rest of them, more clearly than ever before. Even in their company, he was alone, and he knew that's how it was always going to be now.

He knew that his soul was broken, and not a thing they said, could change that. And from the way they kept their distance, Myers knew they felt it too.

He had been gone long enough, to become a stranger, to become someone they necessarily didn't immediately trust.

Kat was pacing restlessly around, twisting her arms, giving Myers sideways glances. Hellboy on the other hand was sitting in a huge armchair, looking like the weight of the world was on his shoulders, and Myers couldn't tell, if he had even noticed his arrival. Myers couldn't blame him, though. Maggie was Hellboy's soft spot. There was nothing HB wouldn't have given to his daughter, nothing he could deny her.

That made Myers turn his glance to Sean and Amy.

The twins.

The sight of them felt like a punch through his sternum. His children, his heart, his responsibility.

It was painful, bittersweet, to see Margot in them. It wasn't just the color of Sean's hair, or the shape of Amy's eyes. It was in everything the twins did, in everything they were. Margot was in the way Amy played with her curls, nervously fidgeting them in her fingers, in the way she had thrown herself in Myers' arms, crying, when he appeared in the library after six months of separation. But also Margot was in the angry line of Sean's jaw, the stubbornness in his eyes, the silence in which he greeted his father.

Seeing the twins again was excruciating. It brought it all back - all the reasons he had had to leave, to escape, but also, all the reasons he had to be here now.

The Goddess will kill all you hold dear, Margot had said, and Myers felt the frozen claws of fear gripping tight on his heart.

Everything and everyone he cared about in the whole world, was in this room now. These people were his family, they were his lifeline, his soul, his essence. They had raised him, made him the man he was.

And now - Margot was dead. Maggie was taken. How many more of his loved ones would be lost before this was over? Who would be the next one to go? Would the Goddess steal Amy and Sean from him too? Or Kat, or Hellboy?

Myers shook his head to clear his mind.

I need you sharp on this mission, not some idiot who can't keep his shit together!

"Alright." He cleared his throat. "Tell me all that's happened."

Kat looked at Myers, leaning on a bookshelf, her posture stiff and her eyes red rimmed. She was in her human form, and Myers noted how pale she was, how dark the circles under her eyes.

Like these past six months hadn't been easy for her either.

"You wouldn't have to ask, had you been here." Kat snapped. "You should have been here. If Maggie gets killed because you left us, I'll never forgive you."

Myers gave a sigh, and rubbed his tired eyes.

Like I could ever forgive myself either, if that happened.

"Kat, don't." he replied. "We'll find her, I promise. Just, please, tell me what happened."

Kat shrugged, looked away from him, to the slender girl who was sitting on the couch, looking absolutely miserable.

"You should ask Amy. She's the one who saw it all."

"It happened so fast." Amy breathed. "I… I should've done something to stop her, but I just… I…"

"It's alright." Sean cut in, taking her hand. "It wasn't your fault. There was nothing you could have done."

He glanced angrily to his father, and the look in Seans' eyes told Myers just how much he thought that this was all his fault, and Myers couldn't help but to agree. It was his fault. He knew that he had failed everyone - not just his children, not just Margot, but he had failed Kat and HB too, by allowing this to happen to Magrat.

So, the only thing he could do, was to fix this.

"Where were you when this happened." he asked, keeping his voice leveled. "You and Maggie."

"In her room." Amy replied. "We were just hanging out, you know. Just talking, nothing special."

"What were you talking about?" Myers had pulled out a pen and a notebook, scribbling down Amy's words. It made him feel more like this was just a case, something that was under his control, and not the actual end of the world.

"You know. Stuff." she blushed slightly. "Girl stuff."

"Oh." Myers said, and made the wise decision not to press on it. "I see."

He knew Amy and Maggie had bonded very soon after HB's family had returned from their 10 year long trip to alternate reality, and were now pretty much inseparable. It wasn't something Myers necessarily liked, but it had been out of his control since day one. Amy had the ADHD of her mother, and Maggie - well, she was a force of nature. Together those pretty teenagers had made a team, that had caused havoc and outrage throughout BPRD.

He tapped his pen to his notebook to gather his thoughts.

"So, you were in her room, and then…?"

"It was the weirdest thing." Amy breathed, barely audible. She looked up, met her father's eyes. "I felt this… this change in the air. Like there was… I don't know, electricity in the air? Like a thunderstorm coming."

A cold feeling spread from Myers' heart to his fingertips.

He knew, alright.

In a heartbeat he remembered a hotel suite, a hot summer night in Mexico City, Margot passionately kissing a beautiful, young man, and the air sizzling with the power of an ancient deity.

"Go on, Amy." his voice was barely audible.

Amy made a hopeless sound. "Maggie was right there, right there with me, sitting on the bed. We were talking, she was just telling me about Jacob, and how-" Amy stopped mid sentence, bit her lip. "Anyways, everything was like so normal, and the next moment… I felt this presence, this shift in the air, and… there was this woman. She was standing in the middle of the room, like she just appeared from the thin air. She was really beautiful. Black hair, maybe hispanic, I don't know… And she looked at Maggie, and… and Maggie stood up, and walked to her. She just… she just left! And before I knew it, they were gone. All that was left, was this stuff, all over the floor."

She pulled something out of her pocket, and reached out to pass it to Myers.

He reached his hand, to take the tiny item from her fingers.

There it was, on his palm. The first solid lead he'd had in these miserable six months. A frail, emerald green feather. A feather of a quetzal.

The Goddess of darkness and death, of earth and creation. The mother of quetzals, owls, spiders and jaguars.

In the mural she was pictured with her children. The quetzal birds and owls spreading their wings in her headdress, the roaring jaguars curled up at her feet.

And suddenly it was all clear in his mind. Just like Margot had said "Get your head out of your ass, and start doing your job!"

All he had to do - to get Maggie back, to kill the Goddess, to earn Sean's forgiveness, to tear down the wall between him and his family, all he had to do to save the world - it all came to him in one, swift moment of clarity, as if it was the first morning after an endless night, and he finally saw the rays of the sun in the horizon.

He raised his chin, let his glance go through all the people in the room, and suddenly he wasn't scared anymore.

"I have a plan." he said. "I know how we're going to fix this. But you're not going to like it."

"Ah." Sighed Abe. "When do we ever get to like the plan."

Myers turned his eyes at Kat.

"Kat, you have done amazing job keeping this place together while I was gone. You have been incredible. But now I need you to do as I say, and no but's. I need you to go and get Major Ben Daimio for me, he's at the M11 headquarters in London. And while you're at it, go and pick Alice Monaghan too."

"Alice Monaghan?" Kat frowned. "Care to tell me why?"

"Because I'm still wearing her slippers?" Myers noted. "What do you think, Kat. Just do it, I'll explain later."

"Fine." Kat rolled her eyes. "But this has better to be important. If Maggie gets killed while I teleport around because of your wet feet, I'll—"

"Kat, I'm sure Maggie is fine. Really." Myers interrupted Kat's angry burst. "I don't think for a moment that the Goddess took her to kill. If she wanted Maggie dead, she could have done that here. Like she killed… like she killed Margot." He paused, took a breath to be able to continue. "No, it's not revenge the Goddess wants with Maggie, it's something else. I think she plans to use her, as she used Margot back then, twenty years ago."

"Our Maggie as a priestess for that bitch?" That was Hellboy, and his dark remark brought total stillness in the room.

"Maggie - the priestess for the Goddess of death and destruction?!" That was Jay.

"No." Said Myers, dropping the bomb. "Maggie as the actual Goddess of death and destruction."

"Fuck." Said Kat.

"This is very bad." Said Abe.

"Never thought I was gonna say this, but… we're gonna need Jacob." Said Jack.

Myers blinked a few times.

"Okay?" He said. "You lost me there. Why on Earth do we need my 17-year old nephew to save the world?"

They all looked at Myers the way that made him realize he was the last one to know something, something very important, that no one was willing to tell him. It took a good half a minute of silence before Hellboy finally spoke up.

"That miserable little shrimp's been sleeping with my daughter."

That took Myers as a total surprise. Not the fact that Maggie had been having sex (if you knew Maggie at all, that was to be expected), but the fact that Jacob had been brave enough to give himself to Maggie's merciless claws.

"I'm sorry, what?"

"It's true." sighed Jack rubbing his chin. "I caught them kissing in this very room a couple of months ago."

"Wow." said Myers. "That's…"

"Don't you dare to defend Jacob." snapped Kat. "Maggie is barely 15! He should have known better."

"Okay, okay." said Myers, but couldn't help a small smile in the corner of his lips. "Yeah, maybe it was bad judgement on his part, but really, Maggie's been an adult since she turned eight. Jacob's hardly her first boyfriend-"

"Hey!" snapped Kat. "Told you not to defend Jacob!"

"- and, as I was going to say, this could really help us."

"How?" grunted Hellboy. "How's it gonna help us that… that useless skunk has his eye on my little Maggie—"

"Because." Myers said, suddenly serious. "Jay… you remember what it took for Margot to come back from the Death Realm after the goddess had taken her? Margot came back for me. So maybe… maybe Maggie will find it in herself too, if she has something to come back to."

Jay gave Myers a sideways glance.

"Yeah, I remember." he said. "But Maggie is not Margot."

"No, she's more like you." Myers admitted. "And that is why we need to hurry."