Demon Chang'ur: Nasty. Hellboy takes him to the BPRD for investigation.
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Hellboy's blazing eyes glowered, and he shook off the shock of hearing that name, with a brash indignation. "I ask the questions!"
He straightened up on the bench and leaned his stone arm across his thigh, inwardly cursing that he had been recognized by someone familiar with his Hell-region origin. It was never predictable if or when any investigation could become a dredge into his own oppressive demonic 'destiny' as bringer of the apocalypse. Whenever he came under target for it, nothing else could fill him with more troubling dread.
"You'll answer to your file name," he said to the captive. "Rider."
Losing the will to argue, the shackled demon went limp.
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Hellboy opened transmission to driver Leach. "Take us to Plan B. I'm about to wake up Manning, and tell him to meet us there."
He heard Leach yawn. "10-4, Red. I'm sure looking forward to that. Thanks a lot!"
"I'm in for my share of it, Bud."
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Plan B, the outbuilding reserved for locking down threats that shouldn't be exposed to the main headquarters, was only half as well equipped. Leach drove the truck inside the entry bay, and cut the engine. After the door had slid down to shut them in, he activated controls to open the rear hatch and let down the ramp.
He went around back to inform Hellboy. "Manning's car is here."
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Tom Manning soon came up for a cautious look inside, wearing his suit coat over a pyjama top.
His mouth curled at the sight of Hellboy's latest find. Red put his finger to his lips and crouched down in front of Manning at the top of the shallow ramp.
"What in hell have you dragged back here?!" Manning spat in a hoarse whisper. "What kind of animal is that?"
"I'm holding him for interrogation."
"That half dead thing can talk?"
"I want the doc to treat him, but so far, he's too strong to die. Nobody outside but a cross-eyed drunk saw him. This is a research unit, so bring me in some staff, and authorize the expenses!"
"You brought that man-rug – you stick with him!" Manning's finger stabbed downward. "Right here! For as long as it takes."
Next to Hellboy, Leach watched Manning stomp away to his own comfy car. "You're stuck here?"
"Yeah. Price of the party. Get the bones and stuff to the lab, and call Abe to come look them over."
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Hellboy went back inside to guard his captive. It took awhile, but he saw that he'd been granted the attendance of medics, with the appearance of two white coats bringing a gurney up to the truck.
Rider struggled against his backboard straps as he was loaded onto the conveyance. Being rolled away to examination, he blearily watched Hellboy walking alongside.
"You, a high-born demon," he bit out, "a protector of inferior humankind!"
The party entered a brightly lit examination room – the last thing he saw before an infusion of sedative gave him peace. Hellboy made a call to assign a forensic technician to cast moulds of his paws and teeth.
. . .
He stood guard throughout the surgery, and later in the recovery room, waited for the attending surgeon's further remarks.
"It's my first time setting fractures on a paranormal vertebrate," said Dr. O'Neal, passing him the X-ray images. "He's tolerated anaesthesia well. Good thing he didn't need blood. What's his age?"
"Don't know, Doc, but I think he's way beyond a kid. Check out his teeth."
He held the jaws apart while Dr. O'Neal made the appraisal.
"Not being a veterinarian, I'd have to say he's in his prime."
"If he's anything like me, he could heal in days."
"I can't tell you if he's a fast healer. His pelvis was in pieces. Likewise several ribs and one shoulder cup."
"I'm just learning about him myself, Doc. Should be interesting to see how he reacts to waking up in a body cast."
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Three hours later, exhausted agents Sutton and Elder appeared at Plan B to lay out their report to Red.
"The cops were satisfied that we were just conscientious citizens who can't be expected to know procedure," said Elder. "They seized the drunk's vehicle and had us show them the empty collision scene. There was enough fur stuck in the grille to suspect that the victim was some kind of animal. They'll search farther around to make sure, but-"
"We took the problem off their hands," Red concluded for him.
"They wrote up our witness depositions." Sutton stepped up for a closer look at the bound furry. "Unless the prosecutor cuts a deal, we could be called in for the DUI trial."
"You'd better get some sleep, guys. Thanks for playing along."
. . .
Hellboy was bored out of his mind by the next day's crack of noon. Though Rider was shackled to floor rings and encased in body and shoulder casts in a barred cell, it was Red's duty to keep on-site watch. Upon his return to consciousness, Rider proved not to be completely helpless. Watching him eat by filling one padded palm with food and mashing it into his muzzle, was the only amusement about him. He so wildly protested having the smears, chunks and dribbles hosed out of his fur, that the staff left him alone with his repulsive ripeness, to groom himself as well as he could with his own tongue.
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A visit from Abe Sapien early in the afternoon was welcome and informative. Together, they viewed the interior of Rider's cell via closed circuit.
"Red, I've studied the skeletal structure and furnishings of the horse, especially the blanket. It carries no goetic seal within the embroidery. It seems this demon won't be easily identified."
"He's clammed up," said Hellboy, "after calling me the name I never wanted to hear again."
"It's disturbing that he knows you," Abe empathized, "but also, this. I've found that the 'seeker horse' had been in its present state for some eons. It and Rider roamed this area, leaving signs of large kills – and taking portions of them to the Pine Barrens."
"Our own Pine Barrens," Red mused. "It's a lot of ground to cover."
"He was responsible for the alarming number of animals found torn apart during that series of days, but his retreat from the activity is a mystery. And now on return, he descended from the thermosphere near the approach of agents Sutton and Elder, where you had earlier passed. He apparently couldn't avoid collision with the rogue vehicle."
"He was looking for me."
"And," Abe continued, "the bones of the Seeker have since crumbled to ash in the laboratory."
"If he wanted us to notice him," granted Hellboy. "He's got it."
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"Beyumé!" A sudden delirious cry ripped out of Rider, accompanied by the weak rattling of his chains.
"Abe, stay here. Watch and listen." Red left him to go around the corner. He unlocked the cell and went inside. Rider flattened down his triangular ears at his captor's approach.
"What's the yelling about?"
Rider rasped through rapid breaths, "St-starvation..."
"That wasn't it. And you, starving? You've never had it so good."
Rider frowned with failed comprehension. "When..will you kill me?"
"It won't be now."
"Your answer, my Prince, is no good to me."
"Don't call me that. If you go dangerous on my people, you'll get your wish."
Rider wrinkled his bulbous brow. "Your people? I've seen no one, like you. Not one is your equal."
"Too bad, if you don't like it."
Rider bent a look of suffering down the encasement of his body cast. "I offer no danger. I tell you – I've had the strength since the last turn of the sun, to shatter my chains and the shell imprisoning me. I would gain your trust."
"What for?"
"An age ago, I tried to follow your escape through a portal to this dimension. You were much too young to know me, to understand. I was slave to jealous Andros, and failed his command to drag you back. In the torment of my low-caste captivity, I heard talk of your freedom and fame and I envied, hated you."
.
Hellboy let him talk. Andros. The despised name of another prince of Sheol.
"But no longer," Rider continued. "Andros committed me to this foul body, and before he banished me to my own devices in the Dark Energy, I hid away his Seeker. I stole my mate back from him, and it's our shame that she carries the new spawn of Andros. The Seeker, the companion of my hunting, has been lost to me."
"Your hell-horse found a golf course in the dark."
Again, Rider looked bemused. "It succeeded in bringing you to my side," he said. "I divined a true sense at coming upon the humans on their way to you. I was intent to follow, and in the next instant, felt myself smashed to the ground."
Hellboy crossed his arms. "Sad story. What do you want from me?"
"My wife is helpless, and about to give birth," Rider choked. "I beg your help to ensure that we never suffer under the Master again."
.
He'd heard enough of Rider's suspicious mourning drama, and turned for the cell door.
"Have you – wives?" Rider asked, clearly fishing for a friendly common ground.
"Gonna leave you, now."
"No!" he cried. "I need only a way to save Beyumé!"
As Hellboy let himself out and locked the bars, Rider raised his plea more urgently. "She is alone in a vastness. I, Chang'ur, would serve you as a brother! Help us!"
"Chang'ur, I'll think about it. Later."
"I will prove myself," he persisted, "I will serve you!"
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Rejoining Abe, Red grinned. "I've got a stinking two hundred pound hyena-cat on my hands. And now, there could be two of the same."
"I have the sense of an advance spy," Abe offered. "He's tasking you to find his wife, but seems to already know her general location."
"And he thinks he'd like to hang out with me."
"How does the demon prince Andros figure into this?" Abe asked.
"He's – kind of my uncle."
"Red," he entreated, "please don't ever be alone with this creature."
. . .
All Red had with Liz were video chats, while he was forced to live at Plan B.
"I don't want to waste our time just talking about this Chang'ur," he had told her on their first contact, "and I've got my reasons why I can't let you near him. No curiosity is worth it. You'll have to settle for photos."
"I believe you," she sighed, "and I'll stay away. But I miss you."
And on the latest, she planted a hot rush in him when she closed with, "The minute you get back here, you'd better be ready for me!"
.
Not long after Abe's departure, Hellboy appeared outside the bars with a slab of raw meat clutched in his stone hand.
"Brother!" Chang'ur's wandering liquid pupils glittered as he relished the scent. He thrust his free arm high, flapping an impatient paw to demand immediate delivery.
Hellboy snorted at his conceit of familiarity. "You want it?" He delayed at the lock, backing Chang'ur down to a frustrated sulk.
.
He came inside and again took his time locking them in together, then turned and tossed the meat to his drooling captive. Chang'ur's unsheathed claws snagged it from its arc of flight over his bed. He seized it in his hyena jaws, and tore off a ragged mouthful.
Hellboy stood by the bars, studying his improved condition. Then broke his silence with a blunt accusation. "You abandoned your wife in the Barrens."
Chang'ur abruptly stopped crunching bones. His spotted muzzle, bloodstained clear up to his eyes, twitched with irritation. He threw back a mouthful and barked, "You have only to follow the lightning by the water!" Catching his own less than subservient tone, he jumped to amend. "Pardon! As bearer of the Right Hand, my Prince, nothing is beyond you."
"That's got nothing to do with it."
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Chang'ur let the remains of his meal drop to his chest. "Andros schemes that his own newborn spawn will honour the sacred mission of the Beast, and I will have the ransom to ensure it will never be so. For this, a rival prince will grant me the life of a noble."
"Is that so?" Hellboy's light sarcasm seemed lost on Chang'ur. "When's the last time you fed your wife, and the spawn?"
Chang'ur clenched his jaws shut, and rolled his wandering eyeballs far up in their sockets.
"I'll wait for you to get loose." Hellboy leaned back against the bars. "The son of Andros could be dead by now, and his daddy will know what you did. You can get mighty hurt," he taunted, "playing those princes against each other."
.
Chang'ur pulled back his lips to show off his deadly bite, and with his cuffed wrist, smashed apart his shoulder cast. But his chains held as he jerked, beat, lashed and dragged at them, until his rage exhausted him.
Hellboy looked him up and down. "You talk. You almost cry. You're not any good to serve and show me the way to your wife, when you can't even get out of bed."
.
Howls vibrated the bars as Chang'ur strained to flex every muscle, and with each wildly grunted breath, he grotesquely bloated himself to overload and break the body cast. The heavy chain links, exploded into jagged needles of shrapnel, split the air in all directions, pinging off the bars and concrete block walls, and tearing into Hellboy's skin. His feline agility freed, he bounded off the bed and touched down on all fours, bunching his hindquarters for the charge.
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Hellboy held up his stone fist and faced him with a broad smile. "I know it – if you could get what you want without her, you'd leave her stranded."
"Your Right Hand," Chang'ur panted through his fiercely arched muzzle, "is mine..."
"Up close and personal." Red's stone fingers waved him onward, his bring-it-on scowl seething for the fight. "That's what I do."
.
The combatants hardly noticed the four men who raced up outside the wall of bars, yelling to Red; one scrabbling to unlock the door.
"Stay back! No fire!" Hellboy ordered, holding off Chang'ur's head, and his blinding-fast snapping at the muscle above his stone arm. Flung hard to the wall, the swift hyena-cat rolled upright and shot straight back to Hellboy. Aiming for a claw hold, he sprang high. As the sharp tips stung his shoulders, Hellboy smashed his right arm down and stunned the lift of the hind claws cycling in the attempt to disembowel him.
.
He grabbed Chang'ur clear off the floor by the scruff of his neck.
"Had enough?"
Held at arm's length by immovable stone, Chang'ur erupted in a frenzy of kicking, twisting and slinging his claws – until he had to concede his loss to Hellboy's game of keep-away, and hung dangling.
"Kill the Andros spawn," he panted. "Kill it!"
He again flailed his limbs in a fury of ineffective strikes. Through the blur of frantic motion and chaos of animal screams, no one realized the exact moment of Chang'ur turning his claws on his own throat. Not until the first spurts of blood squirted far. As the flow dribbled down the chest of his pelt and his head drooped forward, Hellboy let him go. He stepped away from the collapse of the corpse, and watched until the final jerks and pulses died away.
.
He turned to the men at his back. "What do you need us to do?" Blake asked. "You're bleeding, man..."
"I want him unloaded at HQ Pathology."
Cole looked in at the mess. "What is that thing?"
"A two hundred pound hyena-cat with woman trouble."
Agent Olsen drew down his brows. "You need to get a lot of metal dug out of you."
Hellboy glanced down at his body's collection of bristly punctures. "I saw the limit of what he really had. Made him give up what I could use. I was getting real tired of his company."