Disclaimer: Hellboy doesn't belong to us *^_^*

Rating: M just to be safe because eventually we'll have some scene of violence and because eventually we'll be dealing with mature subject matter.

Oh! And before I forget, this is "talking", this is 'thinking' and this is talking in foreign language. Have a pleasant read.

Hellboy - A place to belong

Chapter 6

Hellboy was staring at the same fallen metal gate he had seen when he was at the construction site earlier this evening, but now he recognized it for what it was. Earlier he was standing near the same graffiti covered wall and did not even bother to check on the other side. It would not have been difficult either, the wall made of round stone held together with concrete and was about as height as his waist.

The way the Fays had to keep their hideout secret was strange. The more anyone went near the place they want to keep secret the more they got distracted. The hill was there, in plain view but ones thought automatically classed it as unimportant and their mind came up with something else to distract them and their gaze slide on the view like oil on a glass ball. It would take a big amount of concentration to ignore the spell put on this place and find it on its own. But why would a company want to exploit the terrain? Or more like, how?

The reason is simple, that peculiar way to hide thing doesn't really work on pictures and maps, or maybe just enough for people to overlook it, but with enough exposure or if one had never seen the place in person they could bypass the first layer of defence. This is what happened for the construction site.

Falman explained on the way back to the site that the plan was to turn the mansion on top of the hill into a luxurious hotel in the first step of a project to change the slum neighbourhood into a posh one. Most of the promoters and investors probably never saw this place, only a terrain unused for years on maps. Money was invested and the construction company was pushed to begin the project creating a need to approach the hill strong enough to overcome the repulsing effect placed on the terrain.

It all came down to a clash of wills. But there is the expression 'seeing is believing'. Whatever the Fays are doing is stopping people from recognising and remembering something. It's hard to gather the will to go somewhere you don't even remember it existed. A perfect disguise by hiding in plain sight.

But what about peoples like Lt Falman or the other resident of the area? They seem to know about the big house on the hill. They live nearby and they know there is a hill with a house on top. The kids of the neighbourhood see it but never used the woody hill as a playground. Why the peoples living nearby weren't affected the same way strangers seem to be. If he had a theory about it, Hellboy would say overexposure.

There are two case figures here. First, there are the people who lived here before the 'spell' was put in place. They knew it existed but the new effect would make them avoid the place like a smelly dump and, as time would go by, they would have all died and the house on the hill would have faded from memory.

Second, they are people like Falman who moved around here some years ago and still know there is a hill. How? At first they probably didn't even realise there was such a thing in town, but even with the 'spell' in full effect they still caught glimpses of it, go near it, hear or read about it. So, it seems that this 'spell' isn't such a perfect defence after all.

Bits by bits the brain begin to erode the 'spell' and they became able to 'see' through it gradually without the big "punch in the face" realisation Hellboy and the other BPRD personnel add earlier. That way, they realise there is an hill, but human logic refuse to admit something this big could not be seen, so the human consciousness convince itself that they already knew about it all along. So the only parts of the 'spell' left in them are the need to ignore and avoid the place at all cost.

Just like Lt Falman was doing just before. The more Hellboy, Havoc and Falman were approaching the construction site, this time with the intention to go beyond it, the more the police man was getting distracted. Hellboy and Havoc were feeling it a little too, like they really had to do something else somewhere else even if they did not know what and the hill, in particular the house on top of it, was particularly hard to focus on but they managed to do it.

Poor Lt Falman wanted to go check something he thought he saw in an alleyway or had trouble following a conversation on the subject of that mansion like before when Hellboy was questioning him back at the kidnaping house. The more they approached, the more Falman became fidgety, nervous and distracted, even forgetting what they were supposed to do. Hellboy and Havoc had to keep reeling him in before he unconsciously fled the premise.

At the construction site, the policeman was sweating and even tried to convince them to abandon the idea even if he did not have a good reason and that even he admitted that there was a good chance that the children could be there. The very idea of climbing that hill was so averse to his conditioning that walking became more of a stiff intricate dance with too many steps made him barely advance forward. His mind was a jumbled mess of incoherent thoughts and his will was running of fumes made out of sense of duty as an agent of the law, worries about the children and not passing for a chicken in front of two other grown men.

Hellboy and Havoc took pity on him, asked him to stay at the construction site to wait for the others and make sure to report anything suspicious to the BPRD. It wasn't necessary, but if he accompanied them, he would suffer from a nervous stroke or brain melt down. The effect the news had on Falman was immediate and all the tension escaped from him in relief like vapour from a pressure cooker.

As Hellboy and Havoc stepped over the fallen rusted gate, Hellboy pondered Falman behaviour and very physical reaction to a psychologically induced effect and concluded that it could not be healthy to live too long around here. So much exposure could probably give brain cancer.

The dirt path up the hill was overthrown by vegetation long ago; weeds, thorn and foliage ruled as uncontested master of the road, making the trek up the hill slower than previously anticipated. You can add to that the steepness of the trail that snaked up the hill, combined with darkness and vegetation, made the travel up the pseudo-mountain… a pain.

Before this road lost its battle with nature, it was probably large enough to accommodate a large car with plenty of leeway, but now the forest on both sides was so thick that it formed a wall that arched over the road, forming a cathedral roof that let practically no light through. Tall and tick tree fought the few space left with their younger fellows that would want nothing more than pick up the axe themselves and bring down those old scrooges that monopolised the sun for so long and below them were bushes so dense and thorny that they could shave a warthog.

So Hellboy and Havoc each trekked in the ancient tire tracks to reach their goal. The 'spell' that repelled everybody to climb up the path was still in place but subdued at this point and growing weaker with every steps. A dozen feet from the gate below, they felt like they got over the worst part of it and by the time they would reach the house, they assume they shouldn't feel it anymore.

They eventually made it to the top and found a clearing in the forest barely lighted by the sparse light from the moon and stars that managed to pierce the clouds. And beyond that clearing was the… Havoc would have called it a small castle in ruin, but Hellboy being well-traveled has he was, would say that it looked more like a decrepit 19th century mansion. Being in the middle of the night did not help, but the duo could see that the building had seen better day.

They could see broken windows, damaged stone walls, caved in roofs, partial collapse of the turrets and half of one of the chimney was missing. Havoc would say that the place was a wreck; Hellboy would say that is was run-down.

Hellboy saw a lot of ruin in his career, from all over the world and all epoch and could say by estimating the style, apparent age of the structure that this place survived the passage of time pretty well; after all the walls were still standing and parts of the roofs were still holding. That place was from a time when the mentality was that if you build something to impose, you build solid. A principle applied to place of cults, castles, political symbols and prisons from around the world.

The only point Hellboy and Havoc would totally agree on was the total lack of taste.

Blocking their way into the mansion was a high stone wall covered in vine that was obscuring most of their view. The wall was higher than the one at the foot of the hill and there was no way to see what was over it without Havoc sitting on Hellboy shoulders. A situation that both agent would like to avoid if possible. (Because while the opposite would be funny to watch but would be impossible without Havoc slipping a disk or something.)

There was a couple of other differences from the wall below, like this one was devoid of graffiti and at some interval there was a column in the wall that had a stone statue of an animal on top. Each statue represented something different; there was a frog, a dog, a rabbit, a fish, different kind of birds, even an alligator standing up. A collection of misshapen animals with no relation between each other than being poorly chosen ornaments without a pattern.

But the masterpiece was probably the front gate. It was a poem about an unappealing front door that has taken form. It consisted of a double, heavy and sturdy, metal gate completely obscured by vine and other climbing plan that made impossible to see beyond it. The problem lay in the massive sculpted stone arch in which was encased the gate. It looked like an ancient Greek temple but someone decided to replace the sculpture of gods and Olympus by horrid gothic gargoyles and even more animal statues and bas-relief too. The whole thing was a mishmash of ideas that didn't belong together and looked like that the sole concept behind it was a failed attempt at scarring away peddler and Jehovah's Witnesses.

Speaking of small animals… They couldn't hear any, or anything else for what it maters. The air was devoid of the sounds normally associated with natural nightlife. They weren't even bothered by mosquitoes or moths, which should have flocked around them by now. For a while now, Havoc and Hellboy only eared their own heartbeat, like the place was holding it's breath in their presence. Both BPRD agents noticed that detail and were on alert. Was it because what was hiding here was scared or because the two agents were walking into a trap? They had to continue because their goal was right in front of them.

They approached the gate and found it slightly open. There was a "keep out" sign lying on the ground. There was also a broken chain hanging from the gate. It looked quite rusty but it wasn't the cause of the break. It had been torn, not cut, and without damaging the gate. It was like the damage seen in the construction site, where multitude of mechanical parts and other objects seemed to have been torn and bent by something of considerable strength.

Even more than before, Hellboy knew they were on the right track.

The gate opened with little resistance coming from the rust and the vegetation and they stepped into the inner courtyard. At that moment, by every cinematic convention, the cloud parted way to let the full moon light reveal one of the most unsuspected scene the two agents had in their respective career. In between the mansion and the wall behind them was one of the loveliest gardens they ever saw.

It was magnificent. The perfect example of what you could accomplish with gardening. It was huge garden, maybe the size of four or five tennis court put together, but it was filled with patches of colourful flowers complementing each other's, perfectly trimmed green grass, small trees and topiaries. Lot of them in all kinds of shapes and sizes; one was an impressive sea serpent undulating in grass, another was shaped like a jumping squirrel, this one like a proud stag and others were shaped like birds of many kinds. All of them screamed a lifelikeness that spoke of all the efforts and cares put into them.

But the masterpiece was surely the one shaped like a human right hand, palm up toward the sky, fingers bend like it was ready to grab something… the details, the angles of the fingers, the proportion… is looked like it was going to move any minute now.

The moon light shined on every part of the garden giving it a magical glow that left the two men breathless. It even matched with the castle despite its disrepair state with green moss growing out of the walls and flowery vines climbing up window. Sure the windows were broken and the walls had crack with pieces of mortar missing in places, but it didn't matter, because everything matched like it was in a pretty painting that surrounded them in 360 degree.

After the wild invasive vegetation and the ass ugly front gate, the contrast left them speechless. They advanced slowly, looking all around them not believing that such a piece of heaven could be hiding there.

But even if it was enchanting, it left Hellboy even more perplex. A lot of fay and spirit liked their habitat to be surrounded by nature, but very few preferred man made garden like this one. Some are known to help farmers to keep their crops healthy and free of parasite in exchange of some type of offering. There are some stories about fay living in garden made by human with lots of flowers but here… He wouldn't be surprised if some help maintains this garden in shape, but the base work was done by something else.

Every detail said that it was a human that have made this. Hellboy had seen arts done by the fare folks before and it didn't look like that. Was there a human living here, in the middle of a human repelling mountain? Was he stuck here? Where the fares folks keeping him here or it was that person that was responsible for what was happening in town?

So far, coming here gave him even more questions than answers. Hellboy and Havoc made it to the other side of the garden at the door of the building that was situated atop of a small flight of stairs. The door was old as expected, but it was made of wood shaped like an ark at the top with even ticker metal hinge that extended over the door plus a handle that looked like it belonged on a manual water pump. It fitted with the Victorian aspect of the house but looked like it could withstand medieval time too, which mean that it was tick, solid and short of a battering ram, nobody get pass through when its closed. Hellboy could probably break it being the modern walking equivalent of a siege weapon. But having decided to use gentler method to enter, after all nobody likes having his front door demolished, it generally made everybody inside tense and more trigger happy. And his experience also teaches him that you never know when you will need a good thick and durable door between you and the thing that want to use your skull as a tea-cup.

Next solution was the lock. No luck here, it was rusted shut, so forget about a lock pick it's a crowbar that's needed. The lock was built like the rest of the door with the principle of 'if you can force me open, it means that the whole place heard you by now bitch'. So it left Hellboy with one of the tactic he used frequently: twist the handle until something gives and pretend it was already broken when he found it. A tactic that was used more than once on his father candy stash when he was younger and on Manning liquors cabinet in later years.

So that's why he felt a little silly when the door moved without any resistance as he was reading himself to put his weight into it. Mentally face palming themselves, it seemed that none of them thought to check if the door was actually locked.

So they were ready to enter the building guns and flashlight in hands, they gently push the door wider and enter the building, senses in alert for any sign of danger but unknown to them a dark figure was observing them from the window two stories above the doors that over looked the garden. Once it could not see the two intruders anymore, it retreated into the darkness.

The two agents wondered what they would find after such a wonderful garden. And what they saw stopped them right in their tracks, dumbstruck. It was Hellboy who resumed the situation perfectly after a minute of being flabbergasted.

"... Wow. Keep the gardener but ditch the maid."

And unknown to those three, a fourth pair of eyes watched the whole thing. One of the horrible gargoyle stone statues that were perched on one of the many pillars surrounding the garden began losing cohesion. It looked like it was melting upward, its colors changing from mouldy pigeon feces stained rock to white skin and bright cloths. The horrible grimacing gargoyle was transforming into a grinning Calliban. But the psychotic look on his handsome angelic face was as frightening as the expression he was bearing as a statue.

All that rushing around to get those extra snot nosed kids up here was a pain and making sure that it was only the demon that climbed the hills didn't worked as planed but he could easily deal with the human. And if everything goes wrong, he still had a plan as a last resort.

The changeling was cackling as his scheme was coming together and soon he would be rid of this hulking red giant and that horrible nuisance that stained his air for far too long now. With them gone, it will be a synch to get rid of those humans and the rest of the inhabitants of the manor will finally answer only to him.

He morphed into an owl and flew toward the top of the mansion where he knew the rest of his plans will unfold.

And the moon in the sky, once again responding to the law of drama, shrouded itself in black stormy cloud.

You could say a lot about the situation but none would fit better than having too much expectation make life throw you a curve ball. Make sense? Not really? Good then because that is exactly how Hellboy was interpreting the place. How could someone that got such a lovely patch of grass outside, so organise and clean, live in such a dump? No, dump is not the appropriate term for it. You expect a dump to be messy with mountain of garbage and the smell of a thousand public bathrooms, but here it was just dirty.

It was huge, to say the least, cavernous even, with the roof of the room disappearing in the darkness of the rafter about three stories higher, the giant windows they have seen from the outside were on the wall to their right and a big curvy stair to their left. The walls and the floor were made of stone and concrete with a sharp but functional looks, all in square angles with wide flat surfaces and the ever impression that this place was built to withstand a siege.

It was a strange room, everything that you would normally find a room was replaced by machinery, dusty, full of spider webs and rats dropping. It looked like everything that wasn't nailed to the floor or useless had been taken away.

It was probably a ballroom that had been converted into some kind of factory straight from a steampunk novel. Gears of all sizes covered the far end wall and extended to the roof and turned the corner to cover the last wall of the room. To that you add boilers, pipes, valves, leveller and every other mechanical knick-knack you could think of. Closer to the center of the room, there was a long workbench with some tools and unachieved projects that were left collecting dust and cobwebs. There was also a metal rack in the middle of the room that was empty but upon closer inspection Hellboy found out that until recently it was holding several objects. The dust had been perturbed on the rack and the cobwebs were broken. But the stranger part was that there was no foot print in the dust beside his and Havoc.

Further in the room was a treadmill with a lot of mobile parts hanging over it, with what looked like an oven at the end. Hellboy walked around the contraption, illuminating it with his flashlight to determine what it was for. The design didn't look like anything he ever saw, with some parts looking like oddly shaped automatons that were equipped with kitchen utensils.

The setting was really different than what they expected after the garden… Like the garden was different from what they were expecting after climb the mountain and seeing the exterior of the manor. It was to wonder what they will find next and Havoc wouldn't be really surprised if the next thing they found was a wax museum or an ice rink.

They continued to walk around the room, trying to not leave out anything uninspected before going to the next room in hope to find some clues about this place, when they heard a loud creak coming from the ceiling, like someone stepped on the wrong plank when trying to not make any noises. Both agents looked up and pointed their flashlight toward the noise discovering something they didn't see from the entrance. There was a gaping hole in the floor of the attic; almost a quarter of the ceiling was missing. They both looked at each other from across the room and Havoc tilted his head toward the stairs to ask if they're going to go to search for what made that sound, while he was removing the safety of his weapon. There was a saying in the BPRD: "An agent who is ready for anything is an agent that will live longer", but the part they never say aloud is: "Even if it's only for two more minutes".

Hellboy made sign to wait while he contacted the others, it was time for the periodic report and it wouldn't hurt to have some back up… for Havoc's sake.

The horned detective took his radio and said in the quieter voice he could: "Hughes, this is Red, do you read me? We made it to the mansion and we think there's someone here. We need back up."

The radio only gave static as response.

"Hughes, do you read me? ... Hughes?"

The BPRD car was speeding toward its next destination, grilling a red light in the process. Armstrong was in the driver seat, but being the tall and huge man that he is, that the wheel was almost brushing his moustache. Armstrong looked like a cow that manage to squeeze itself into an air duct, driving the much too small for him car like he was doing the Paris-Dakar rally in the suburban road. Abe, in the passenger seat, was rocking from the speed bump that did nothing to slow the speeding bullet at all. He was mulling over every details of this case while holding on the handle bar in their car as it was making a tire squealing turn for the next house. Time was of the essence.

After the prompt leave from Hellboy for the manor, Abe and his partner wrapped the inspection at the house and departed for the construction site to compare what Hellboy and he respectively saw. Arriving a little after Hellboy team, (he wondered how that was possible with the way Armstrong was driving while Hellboy was on foot) he and Armstrong found a sheepish looking Lt Falman who was left behind. He tried to be useful and give them a quick tour of the place and, while there, they received a call from Schiezka informing them that there was another household that had a missing kid and a vandalized room.

He told Schiezka the he would visit this new house after he was done with the site and the other house and would keep investigating them in the order they've been hit. This way he would not miss anything that could help them solve this. So they rushed to the first house where they found, well… more like didn't found, a kid. Once there, he confirmed with the psychic trace left behind, that the last two kidnappings were indeed done by the same individual but the vandalism was done by a group of individual. The traces were older and to numerous there, contaminated by all the people that passed there after the actual crime. Even if the style of vandalism looks the same, he couldn't confirm that the one who's kidnapping children right now was at the construction site when it happens. But he would bet his left foot that he was there. Abe guts instinct was telling him this.

Abe was beginning to wonder if Armstrong was not going a little bit too fast from the twelve foots long rubber mark they left behind at every turn and the strong smell of burning tires. Armstrong had always been an enthusiastic man, even in his driving; you could see the sparkles in his eyes.

The radio ringed as Armstrong veered left to dodge a cat crossing the street, got on the side walk, missed a mail box, gave the lady in the oncoming traffic the scare of her life and made an impressive drift, that produced way too many G's for such a tiny car. They were heading toward the main avenue where Armstrong was assuring him was a short cut. Abe prayed that it wasn't them that were going to cut short and once he was sure that his stomach was nowhere near his gills, answered the radio.

"This is Abe, what going oOoOoOoOoOn" tried to say Abe as Armstrong somehow found a small flight of stair to pass through a park. Abe could swear he saw a guy flying into a tree to escape the rampaging car. Maybe his arms and legs moved too fast for the eyes to see.

"We got a couple of info for you Abe, so you want the good news or the bad news?"

"The bad one, IT COULDN'T BE WORSE THAN ME RIGHT NOW!" replied Abe fearing for his life.

They re-joined the traffic once more, in a one way street. In the wrong way, of course, still full of vehicles despite the hour. This time Armstrong didn't bother to dodge and figured that if he pressed on the klaxon hard enough while rolling dead set ahead the others would do it for him.

"The first one is, we got another case. There's another kid who's gone missing."

"OH MY GOD!" Said Abe as the one way lead to a four lanes boulevard where Armstrong was back to avoiding the other cars by himself… By slaloming the four lanes, even the two going the opposite way.

"Yeah, I know what you mean Abe, that bastard work fast. What do you think is going to happen to those kids?" carried on an oblivious Hughes.

"Gonnadiegonnadiegonnadie!"

"Now, now Abe, let's stay positive. We are going to bring those kids back safe and sound. The next bad news is that we lost contact with Hellboy's team, we were waiting for their call and when they did not do their periodic report, we tried to reach them. No answer. I think something is jamming the signal. I just sent the Cyclops and Mustang's team to the hills."

"Aaaaaaargh." The traffic was slowing down (not them) because there was another construction site ahead of them that reduced the four lanes to two. And on that site was a big pile of gravel with two mysteriously well placed planks transforming it into a make shift ramp.

A tibit of information about Armstrong that most people ignore is that he is a fan of the series The Dukes of Hazzard. He shifted the gears up and gunned the motor.

Hughes continued. "For the good news, we have progress on the research about that guy with the freaky hands." If he heard the big *TUT-THUMP* over the radio he did not comment on it. "Archer and Tucker found in the police archives who was the policeman of the case at the time and they managed to give him a call. They did not get anything new about the freak from the guy but he gave the name of the family who were the most implicated with him at the time. There is still one of the relative living around here. I will forward you the address on your laptop."

Hughes was about to conclude his report when Schiezka handed him a piece of paper.

"One last thing guys, the police is pursuing a guy going 120 mph in town doing all sort of crazy shit. The guy is a maniac behind the wheels so be careful on the road. "

"…" Abe was leaning heavily on the left almost onto Armstrong, his body completely limp, a big lump on top of his head. It was mostly due to the fact that the car was rolling only on two tires on the driver side as it stayed in equilibrium and Armstrong making use of it by passing in the incredibly tight space between two cars.

Foam was accumulating inside Abe respirator.

The radio wasn't working and that meant no back up for a while. Hellboy didn't know if he was glad for that or if he was worried for Havoc. He always prefer going in these situations alone, because he knew he could take it. More or less.

Damn, he had to play nice because the three of them came back, it meant that someone else had to be in danger when he could be the only one at risk.

The BPRD proved that they could handle things without him, Abe or Liz. Ok, they had over four time the mortality rate compare to when he was handling things, but they were doing good on their own… sort of.

And what about Liz and the kids? Can he really just jump back in the fray like before, doing is lone hero routine? Does having someone watching your back, even if you are marching to the gate of hell, is a good thing? But if something happened to Havoc he would feel responsible. And if something happened to him…

'Arrrrrgh! Now is not the time to have doubts about our return to the Bureau and beside that kind of thinking get you nowhere. I got to pull it together and figure this out after me and Havoc are out of this overgrown horror playhouse.' Hellboy signed Havoc that the radio was dead who in turn, promptly checked his own with no result. No choice they will have to do this alone.

Hellboy opened the march with Havoc behind and they began their search for their mysterious observer. They went back toward the entrance where the massive stone stairway, with artfully forged banisters, began. It was large enough that four persons the size Hellboy could walk side by side and it was curving sharply to the left before reaching the next floor that was about two and a half stories high by today standards.

Once they reached the end of the stairway they found to their right a small staircase and to their left a corridor leading toward another part of the house. With their flashlight they could see through the dusty air multiple wooden doors along the corridor. It looked like the residential area of the manor. Not seeing the end of it, they guessed they would have more to explore afterwards, not counting the rest of the ground floor. But the noise came from higher and right above the ball room, so it meant that they would have to take the staircase.

In the service staircase the only source of light came from their flashlights and this time the stairs were too narrow, they could barely go two at a time under normal circumstance… Hellboy not being a normal circumstance. A dangerous setting by any standards; there's not much space to manoeuvre if something decided to jump at them in this tight place. So Hellboy once again began to climb the stair, gun in one hand and lamp in the other, both pointing upward while Havoc climbed the stair close behind, his back against the wall so he could keep watch on their six.

Half-way up, the stair made a U-turn to their right and by the end of it Hellboy could taste that the air became fresher and see some light coming from a door way at the end of the stairs. He made it to the top and turned toward what was surely the attic. The room was vast and empty except for the wall's frames and the roof's rafters … or what was left of it. The right wall had caved in a long time ago making one hell of a light well for the room which explained the whiff of fresh air he gotten climbing here. The night was too cloudy to let much light in but it was enough for Hellboy who had a great night vision.

His eyes accustomed to the new light setting, he took another look around to get in more detail. The walls behind him, to his left and at the end of the room were made of stones. As for the right wall, who was also the roof, was made of ruff wood planks like the floor.

Annnnd that was it… a big freaky empty space. Oh! There was the huge missing part of the ceiling they didn't saw earlier. The hole on the floor was just to their right and devoured most of the right corner of the room, which left only a relatively small section one the left side to access the rest of the place.

Hellboy lowered his gun and finally stepped into the room and made sure that Havoc saw the wide hole. Neither said a word as they slowly advanced earing noting but the planks of the floor creaking under their weight. It was probably not a good idea to be there, since one part of the floor had already collapsed and the rest could follow at any time. But alas, no sign of whatever made the noise before.

Havoc made his way toward the 'natural' light well to see if anything might be hiding outside, while being very mindful of the black abyss in the floor.

Hellboy in his case spotted something about halfway into the room in the stone wall, well pass the gaping hole and about right in front of the missing part of the roof/wall, was what looked like a fireplace that had been converted into a sleeping place. There was a bunch of old dirty shredded sheets and drapes spread in the small alcove to sleep on.

But that was not all. The walls of the fireplace were completely covered in newspapers and magazine clips. There was no real pattern to them; it was a random gathering of animal photos, landscapes and various articles like that one about a kid being born without hand or eyes. Some of the papers he found on that wall were pretty old and the ink had faded away on many of them, but there were also more recent ones. And judging by the state of the nest, someone slept there recently. They came to the right place after all.

Havoc came to see what Hellboy found because his search for outside threat came out empty beside a small curious owl.

Hellboy was about to ask Havoc something when he perceived a movement at the border of his vision in the darkest corner of the room.

Hellboy had two reasons why he did not turn around in a flash to pepper whatever was in the shadow in cold iron bullets. One, he sensed no danger from the presence in the room, but the fact that he did not perceive it until now was worrisome. Two, he didn't know of a creature that live on bed and had scrapbooking as a hobby. It was something human does, or at least something with a human like mind. And who says human, says weapon and who says human plus weapon have a great chance to equal guns. Hellboy not wanting to alarm their would-be suspect and get crowned with a shotgun, began to straighten himself from the fire place and slowly turned to look.

There, in the far opposite corner, was a silhouette crouching in the shadows. Even now that he knew that he was there, he still could not see any details. It was too far and the sparse light coming from outside tricked their eyes and made a zone of darkness that Hellboy wasn't sure that Havoc still open flashlight could pierce. He tapped gently Havoc's shoulder and point to the figure in the small corner.

"Come out."

Just outside of the room, perched on the ledge of the building, looking at the scene before him, was a small owl that was jubilant. The shapeshifted Calliban was beside himself at the idea of being rid of that nuisance in his reign. Any ornithologists who would be looking at him would be greatly weirded-out. He was squirming in place like someone who really had to go relief himself but did not want to miss the good part of the show and was chanting softly to himself, not to loud to be located: "Yes! Yes! YES! YES! YES!"

But being and owl at the moment sounded like: "Hoot! Hoot! HOOT! HOOT! HOOT!"

"We just want to talk." continued Hellboy, earing no response from the hiding figure. He was about to call out to it once more when it apparently decided to move. The figure slowly got up revealing a fairly tall and slim man, who slowly advanced toward them. They could see that his outfit was as dark as the shadows that were hiding him. He was walking with his arms at his sides, slightly away from his body. Further into the light and the two agents caught a gleam of light reflecting on something metallic near his left hands.

The suspect had a knife! Multiple knives! He was holding a bunch of them!

The agents discreetly reaffirmed the grip on their gun and readied themselves to face off any possible attacks.

A final step forward and a pearly white face but full of small scars framed by a mane of black hair with an astounded look on it asked them: "Are you Miss Avon?"

Outside, a small owl face planted.

Author note: Hell yeah, we manage to publish this chapter. Many thing got in the way but, such as 'real life', video game and plain lack of time. But we did it. This chapter was one big experiment in how I describe scenery or rooms. I also let myself go in some part of the story and made it less serious and more humoristic. Some part are plain silly but I could'nt get around them because I find that they fit in the whole just as they are. Beside I thought the last chapter was way to serious to my taste. So Hellboy and our mysterious figures finaly meet. For those who gessed it, this is Edward from the movie Edward Scissorshands directed by Tim Burton. The whole fic began with this idea: What would happen if Hellboy and Edward met? I hope I manage to make that possible in a belivable way. Since then, many more idea have been added and we are nowhere near done, so expect a lot more. I would like some feed back on this chapter to help me see what I could do to make the next one better.

I hope you liked it, and I will try to publish the next one sooner (no promise there.)Oh! And I need to say thank to my co-author and beta who have done a wonderfull job of hammering this story in something that is readable.

Thank and see ya!