A/N: Sequestered with the devious djiniri in her underground retreat, Hellboy contends with her bribes and manipulations, and invents some of his own.

Hellboy took stock of his transformed dog-woman companion, and waited to see how her newly revealed visibility would affect their interactions. He was soon to find out that her need to be the one in the right hadn't changed.

"Don't think me sheltered and naive," she began, her vertical eyelids shutting tight as she then found it necessary to tend to an itch behind one upright ear. Her neck adornments, arm bangles and earrings jangled to the rhythm of her vigorous scratching. Completing that self-attention, she brought her white paw to eye level to inspect the manicured points of four elongated fingers and an opposable thumb claw. "A quest to gain only admiration and love carries little worth." Hellboy looked on without answer as she primped and arranged her cowl in a drape low on her forehead. "You must agree."

"Never had a reason to quest for it."

"Therefore, such things come easily to you," she assumed, showing him a coy canine head tilt. He gave her the merest of sly smiles. She lolled a playful curling tongue tip between her parted jaws. In the moment, a contented bitch.

"Come, now." She nose-pointed to a separate tunnel which forked away from the chamber of their initial entry. The hyena clan roused from its state of torpor and gathered to surround her. She let fall her cowl and floor sweeping kaftan, and looked down at the bulging purse belted around her belly, and the skin sheath holding a curved dagger. "You see?" she alerted, stroking the ornate grip. "I hold you under my protection, as when I am joined with my Lion, you will be also my brother."

"Small, but mighty." Hellboy arched a brow ridge at her pretty little knife and the juvenile hubris of her declaration before she too, dropped to a four-footed stance among the hyenas. Subdued white firelight began to cast at middle height along the walls leading ahead of her intended way. "This I do, for the benefit of your vision."

"Works fine."

Her Anung un Rama figure picked up eerie movement to glide along with them. Except for the smaller falcon male swooping above them and disappearing into the far ahead darkness, there was nothing else to see beyond the members of their own gray, white and red procession. What he needed to find had yet to come within reach – and he stayed on guard to separate her realities from his, as they entered a part of the tunnel that spread out to double the width.

"I've been inside way bigger caves than this, in Tennessee and Kentucky," he told her. "They were carved out over ages by underground rivers."

She paused her steps. "I have heard these names you speak, within a New World wartime tale collected by my brother." Her envy crept out. " Do you wander often and far, at will?"

"As far and whenever I want."

An outside brash voice cut in on them. "Wartime tales! Sister, have you my ability to relate accurately to the Red?" Gray's politely inquisitive tone was laden with doubting sarcasm.

"Your tales, I have heard to distraction!" Djiniri flung back. "A plague be upon you, and your interference!" A chorus of yipping chatter rose up around her.

"Should it not be my continuing source of humiliation, that my sibling prefers the society of carrion gorging, filth-ridden canids to scholarly pursuits?"

"My societies exclude you happily," she sassed, "as without me, your own come seldom and are paltry few!"

"And I say to the Red, that my misguided sister belittles me unfairly."

"We together, Brother, are no less reduced to inglorious scavenging!"

Hellboy filed to memory their exchanged barbs, and figured that his expectations of possible ambush by rock rubble avalanche, stalagmite spearing or another sinkhole surprise, now seemed just too ordinary.

Djiniri pranced up to Hellboy, hopped to her hind legs and curled her paws over his arm. "Let us proceed now, on my desired path," she cajoled.

Instead, Hellboy called to the djinni. "Getting lonely out there?"

"I enjoy a depth of background which you have been given no opportunity to discover," he answered. "Exit her influence. Let us meet, away from her."

"Right now, I like where I am." Hellboy's desired reply visibly pleased her. "But go for it," he invited. "Knock yourself out."

Interpretation escaping her, she stiffened her forelegs and scolded, "Will you not speak plain?! He needs no encouragement to laud himself as at the pinnacle of military historians." Ignored, she slinked to her underbelly and lowered her muzzle to rest on her paws. Her eyes stayed fixed on him, her white tail scribing a sulky crescent through the dust layer.

"Historian!" Hellboy called back. "How long will this take?"

"Unappreciated, solitary Brother," Djiniri provoked with exaggerated pity, "Do regale the red mauler with the tedium of your past."

In the tactless manner he shared with his sister, he asked of no one in particular, "Where shall I make introduction, to instruct a brute so shamelessly uncultured?"

Decided to take in the lecture, Red settled with his back to a wall as Diniri turned tail and trotted away.

"I go to pray," she snapped. Followed by her entourage, she passed into concealing darkness.
.

Having bested his sister for the time being, Gray lifted his voice. "This I decry; that methods of combat have steadily evolved a remoteness which has contrived to rob me of the richness that formerly knew no end. Throughout eons past, when infantry and cavalry of all nations clashed in hand to hand savagery, and lifeblood freely drenched the ground, I formed the sentient layer beneath the fields of death. I bathed, I fed and revelled in its red bounty -"

"I heard you sniffed around the American Civil War." Hellboy couldn't resist the mischievous prod of an interruption. "It was plenty bloody."

"Stumbling western dogs!" Gray huffed back. "Sully me no longer with such recall. Now, to the exalted heroism of the warrior statesman and general far greater in daring and courage than the Macedonian and the Carthaginian. High above the preening Caesars and Frankish kings. Ultimately to become Sultan of Egypt and of Syria; the revered liberator, Salah al-Din!"

Gushing admiration, Gray narrated the events of his star's early political education by way of military expeditions in support of allied rulers against the common enemy; the crusader knight legions who maintained areas of occupation in the lands, and wanted more. Of how the young man had matured to survive every confrontation, and rise to the summit of power. The djinni sounded hungry for this chance to shine. Lonely was right, Hellboy thought, like he'd been waiting decades for someone new to hear him.

"When the high leader of Christendom fomented and unleashed upon our heads, the first attack of the unholy crusades, I bore witness and joined with my massacred faithful in the depths of mourning. I do not now concern myself with those dynastic founders, appointed viziers and emirs ruling before the great Salah al-Din. At his shoulder, I whispered of my devotion to his cause and thereafter, accompanied his campaigns. Watching over his sleep, I gratefully thwarted the Assassins' attempts upon his life." He stopped then to hail, "Red infidel, do you heed with learning?"

"You bet," Hellboy returned. "Heeding and learning." The djinni's absorption in his prideful oration supplied what he wanted to know. Nobody else had arrived up there for Gray to toy with.

"Now, to my Sultan's siege to win the Citadel of Tiberias, where he was to face as well, an incoming avenging Frankish force of twenty thousand. As before, I made full surveillance of the open terrain and deemed two stalwart hillsides as needful for me to occupy. I became those Horns of Hattin, drained all wells and instructed strategy to ensure my Sultan's triumph. I smoothed the paths of his cavalry charges, and the arrows of his mounted archers flew true and numbered as many as storms of locusts. His superior blessed horses, fleet and intelligent, carried his warriors to harrying attacks and retreat. I likewise unbalanced the lumbering beasts of many a heavily armoured knight, toppling the enemy to be dispatched on the swords of my infantrymen. The heat of our lands has ever been our ally, and together with the denial of water, the susceptible foreigners suffered and weakened greatly. And more still, under burning torment as my archers volleyed flaming arrows throughout their fading ranks."

"And your Sultan won again," Hellboy concluded.

"To his glory," he went on, "I chanted verses -"

"Look – I understand what you see in him. Take a break."

"There is more," Gray insisted, the windy braggart. "Much more!"

"Later. You can brush me up on Alexander."

Djiniri scrambled back out into the open to face Hellboy with an intent stare, and bounced on her front paws; a dog-woman anxious to resume her leadership.

"Where to, now?" he asked.

"You will see."

. . . . .

"Ahhh-ha-haa..." The rumbling soft laughter of an unseen stranger broke the silence, floating about the scorching invisibility of the lone djinni. "Historian! How self-aggrandizing in perspective; how biased are your selected renderings. You would convince that campaigns to preserve your Sultan's territories could not have seen victory, save for your participation."

"Who be you?" Gray hissed, flying upward. "My Lord?"

"Who speaks," obliged the voice, "is not your Iblis of the burning sands. A sire of princes, I am."

"Name yourself, and lay down tribute!"

"Contracts have been struck to settle your requests of my ancient house. My beloved son, the desire of your sister, prepares to arrive."

"I requested nothing of infidel dark forces!" Gray protested. "Explain!"

"I myself have heard you declare a pact of alliance with the heir to my hell region's crown. Heard your boast of a meeting and accord, with him. No matter that you neglected to present to me on that occasion. The fitting dowry tribute of your entire holdings has been decided."

"I said as much to affront, to drive off the red dog of a lesser demon," he argued, apprehension speeding his words, "The impostor here present – who cannot have true connection to your house!"

"My esteemed second son, here present," replied Azzael smoothly, "will govern his own considered actions with regard to you."

"Infernal, noble sire...you are mistaken!"

"Compound fallacies and derision as you will, Historian – to no effect."

"Let us negotiate!" Gray awaited reply, then shouted his unheeded demand again and again as he darted his furious fire through searching spirals of higher and widening circles.

. . . . .

"And so, in your prayers," Djiniri inquired as they headed through her stifling, half lit cavern, "what more of blessings do you seek?"

"I dunno." Hellboy shrugged and looked down to meet her expectant, vertical-eyed gaze. "Maybe..world peace."

"How very incongruous a request, for your kind." But she immediately backed off her tone of critical judgement. "I myself, pray for freedom to wander at will, as you do."

"You're ready to trade off your home property. Makes me think you can go where you want."

She turned up her muzzle, giving him a brief flirt of dismissive superiority. "Your limited capacity will not permit understanding."

Red preferred those impulsive, rude utterances to any attempt at phony simpering manners. "Suit yourself, girl."

The side lighting was abruptly cut off and with his next forward step, he crashed his chest into a barrier of something smooth and tautly resistant. Under his palm, it had the feel of satin laid over a wide expanse of firm surface. He heard rhythmic light panting as Djiniri passed him by and instantly, a sliver of light appeared when her body parted the obstruction. A tent flap was drawn up high and beyond it, rows of braziers stood lit with white fire. The clearance accommodated as she drew her statuesque love object into the new ambiance. From no source that Red could see, sultry tribal music played softly within. The sinuous rhythm of measured drumbeats under the strains of flutes, strings, and tinkling cymbals drew his mind to images of snakes sidewinding over desert sands, and veiled dancers' undulating torsos.

Her tail wagged as she glanced back from the shelter's interior. "And you," she invited.

Hellboy walked inside ahead of the lagging hyenas and surveyed high above him, the sloped drape of a silken ceiling embroidered with patterns of stellar constellations and moons in phase. This heavily perfumed atmosphere, he found obnoxious to breathe. As Djiniri bounded up to the surface of a spacious elevated dais sumptuously covered with fluffy white sheepskins, he contemplated her dusty hyenas; fewer now, and dragging themselves along to flop down around the base of where she reposed.

"I await the appropriate compliment," she said bluntly, twitching her whiskers.

Hellboy scanned far down the tent's enclosure. Decorated and furnished in Arabian splendour, it appeared endlessly deep. Here, the dust covered floors were behind them. He strolled across the rich brocade carpet to examine a sidewall hanging; one of a continuous series of fringed tapestries illuminated with panoramas of palm trees and plentiful water flowing through shady oases. Panels of idealized paradise. Most looked shot through with an ostentatious amount of gold thread, but any resplendence was again muted by the absence of colour. Below them, crystalline quartz decanters and transparent etched bowls of sparkling gemstones stood displayed on pedestals carved from unblemished cedar. He studied the stately giant painted porcelain urns and mystical statuary placed to alternate between the fiery braziers.

Hellboy made a cigar search inside his coat and winked over at Djiniri, who had sprung up to perform a giddy play bow. Letting her die of impatience, he flipped open his lighter and kept his distance while the tobacco caught fire. He drew in a couple of slow drags, then returned to her.

"Your Lion tells me...that to know he'll soon lie here with you, leaves him swollen, again and again."

Djiniri flipped onto her back and ecstatically wriggled her shoulders and hindquarters from side to side, kicking her legs in all directions. He smirked at her exhibition of doggy joy as his exhaled smoke temporarily relieved him of the cloaking perfume.

She rolled upright to her belly again, her tail wagging at chipper speed. "Now," she beamed, "it pleases me to provide you with food and drink. I possess wild honey, and a cache of rare spices – ginger, black pepper, saffron and cinnamon among them."

"Don't need any." None of what she offered was in sight. Aside from their dance of distrust being well in play, he was strangely not hungry.

She perused the coverage of his coat, her muzzle wrinkling as she snuffed the air. "Assuredly, you conceal no sweet dates, wild hare, or flank of goat on your person."

"And you need to know," he coughed, his hand fanning his face, "that your perfume is way too thick." He frowned and shifted irritably.

She would allow no pall of discontent to interfere with her bliss. "All things of delight exist here!" she exclaimed, and stared away into the far reaches of the tent. Between the double rows of braziers, large shadowy bodies approached in silence; their gait ambling and unhurried. Djiniri sat up tall on her bed of pelts and grunted pleasured sounds of greeting to the new arrivals – an amazing trio of placid dromedary camels.

"Heed and appreciate." She beckoned Hellboy to her side. "She is Zinaida," she introduced, as a doe eyed gray calf came within reach. "Bless her. And her mother, Fatima. Bless her." The third and largest camel kept a dignified watch over them through long-lashed mild eyes. "The sire, Shadhan. Bless him. From these honoured creatures, much sustenance flows."

"This is true," Hellboy agreed, as he watched the baby nuzzle her mother's near transparent belly.

"Shadhan the Swift, I have created as tribute to join my Lion's champions."

"Camel races. Impressive. In the short time since you fell for the prince, you've whipped up brand new animals."

"My prayers have been rewarded so."

"What about your brother? Does he make anything of his own?"

"To an elementary and clumsy degree. His efforts have been shabbily incomplete." She sat up to proud attention. "As I am the steward of life, he is the keeper of death."

"Lonely, jealous guy." He grinned. "Not even a piece of camel."

Agreeably in her element, Djiniri uttered a gleeful yap and whirled into a frolic of chasing her tail, then jumped down to scamper at speed toward the rear of the tent. She soon returned on the run, with a trim white Arabian horse trotting behind. It halted at the sight of Hellboy, stamped the rug and reared into a stand of defiance, cycling its front hooves. Djiniri hopped in front of the stallion to feed something swiftly extracted from her purse, mumbling endearments. It calmed and nickered as she licked its velvety nose.

"You may approach," she advised. "Nizar, bless him, now sees that you mean no harm to his mares. Here stand Fairuza and Azizah. Bless them."

"No problem." Hellboy reached to feel the sweeping mane. "It's a guy thing." Djiniri seemed not to notice that his hand dropped down through the horse's filmy neck. It happened again as he tried to stroke the ears and elegant dished face with his flesh hand.

"A racer of matchless spirit, is Nizar."

"My brother asks now," he said, "If this magnificent stallion is meant for him."

"He is also for my Lion," she rejoiced, "to assure him of my devotion."

As real as she believed her creations to be – or not, he wanted answers. "I haven't seen a water source anywhere, or one blade of grass. Nothing for horses and camels – or hyenas to live on."

"I admonished my sibling," she professed, "that he ought not have expended such energy in taking only the largest of your servants, which did yield a supply of prized nourishment. It will please you to know that due to his immediate foolish wager, the lot was forfeit to my exclusive use, and there has been no waste." She was so practically dispassionate that he wanted to punch out her lights. "I had urged him to more efficiently take all four of your number."

"Your predator instincts," he answered tightly, "are pure logic."

She brightened. "And now that we two are again well met, how advantageous!" Then she let loose an injurious curiosity. "Why do you employ such weak beings? Are there no better resilient creatures to serve you? And, you have appeared to care for their welfare."

He didn't want the conversation, but had to improvise. "It keeps them loyal."

"Sound thrashings ensure loyalty," she corrected. "It is unseemly, and beneath your kind to adapt to preserving such commonly populous individuals."

Hellboy had to look away as she settled down to a demure sphinx-like posture between the stallion's hooves, and he showed the hardened flare of his eyes only to the beyond of where they had not yet been. When he turned back to her, he gave her nothing to see but his impatient composure. Obliging, she got up and lingered a moment to trade nose rubs with the mares, then took her place beside the figure of her Big Beloved.

"This way."

The camels and horses joined ranks to follow in obedient order. Hellboy watched Djiniri's gaily waving tail with an irresistible urge to drop-kick her fuzzy white ass, and grew more annoyed by the endless music looping again into an energetic tempo of frenzied celebration.

She brought him to the dead end of the tent where the braziers cast flickering light on something ghoulish stuck high on a wall of pitted rock. And it hit him full in the face – the overweening perfume could no longer mask the stink of a decay obscenely much worse.

Down from the ceiling line, an expulsion of rusty dry blood was spread wide and long. As he strode up close to inspect the mounted carnage, he bitterly recognized the make of a sturdy fabric crusted with the desiccated slime of burst entrails. Fragments of a crushed pelvis and shattered rib cage poked through the gore. Both legs, their splintered long bones nearly stripped of flesh, had been torn from the corpse and lay dumped on the fancy rug. Underneath one, he found a thoroughly destroyed Glock pistol. Hellboy's memory flashed back through every second of Ben's agony, and the one mercy to take from this devastation was the fact that he had managed to save his agent's heart and head from being part of this monstrous exhibit.

"Soraya...my jewel." Djiniri's crooning growl alerted him to the falcon gliding in silently over their heads. He saw the feathered legs outstretched in an unerring strike at the wall, to snatch away a fragment of flesh. Impaled in the clutch of talons, the scrap transformed into the shape of a small lizard, and the raptor wheeled on a powerful wing beat and flew off as swiftly as it had come.

"Know that a replication is within my ability. I insist that you appear pleased," she dictated, coldly final. Her jewellery was again tossed into jingling motion as she fluffed her coat with a shake from head to tail, then proceeded straight into her next proposal. "Since you will accept nothing else, I would extend to you a measure of hospitable comfort. For instance, an acquiescent maiden created in any image you wish; to perform compliantly all that you desire, and be entirely free of pox."

He shot back an icy yellow glare. "Huh? What kind of place are you running here?" It wracked him to hold down his livid rage; but now that the end was close, he'd reel out all the rope she could take.

Should she have been anticipating a lusty response, his puzzling bite of moral indignation caused Djiniri to wobble her ears and blink in confusion. But she immediately seized the substance of her remaining hyenas, and combined them into a new form already known to her. He should have expected it. Liz. It was no time for a reminder of how much he wanted her love. And he made no sign of approval. No move to approach.

"Perhaps," she attempted, "this one has become too familiar? One you have tired of?" He continued to seethe in silence as Djiniri performed a flourish of reshaping.

"Here is your female featured counterpart," she presented with smug satisfaction. "Only give her your blood, and she will come alive to your control for a useful interval." She unsheathed her dagger and helpfully offered it.

Staring the djiniri down, Hellboy snatched an edged charm from his belt and sliced the palm of his flesh hand. Drool dripped from her tongue as he closed his fingers to keep the appetizing red trickle in place. She had formed the horned female likeness as a full breasted body of the kind to appeal to a man, and he felt its minute tremor when he applied his bleeding palm to its gray head. Revolving it to face away from the maker, he saw through its fluctuating transparency how eagerly the seated white dog watched him. He searched the naked figure's unresponsive dull eyes while he took hold of its arms to manipulate through ranges of movement. It was worth a lot more than his small wound to test Djiniri's hint at her restorative powers. Satisfying in promise and acceptable in her view, they landed way short of the human mark. At most, this was all Ben Hart would be. Brainless and soulless. The pliable mannequin, he'd seen as he walked away from its vacant presence, was anatomically equipped to receive whatever the user might choose to inflict upon it.

Djiniri spewed her slighted backlash at his apparent refusal to take any pleasure from it. "Are you so immovable as a male? Another incarnation may suit you."

"Not a chance. It's not my way to get sticky with the dead."

"It is unthinkable," she huffed, "that my Lion should bear any semblance of your passionless faults!"

Hellboy regarded her gravely. "He's heard your insults," he reported, "and you've gone too far."

Her ear points shivered and splayed limply down the sides of her skull. She whined a woeful, "A gift in amends!" And in panicky haste, she transfigured the rejected demon female into one more effigy – one so haggard and savaged, it was barely recognizable as Ben.

"It fails due to fatigue of the matrix," she excused. "Follow me back, and I will make new of your servant. Fueled by nourishment of blood, he will come in time, to perform simple tasks."

"No. Now that your starved hyenas are all used up, take it from him."He jerked a nod toward her precious Beast figure.

She scurried to stand guard over it, gnashing her jaws at his bold dare. "I will not!"

"Poor, gullible child." At the address of this fluid new male voice, Djiniri flashed an accusing look at Hellboy. "The newest diversion of my crown prince." Its condescending sympathy came not from the mouth of her red companion.

"A name!" she barked, her neck fur standing on end.

"One called Father," the voice replied. "My whelpish daughter in law."

"What is this intent?" Her lips peeled back above her clenched fangs. "Why has he come?"

"Welcome to the family." Hellboy shrugged. "Ignore him. He's just messing with you." And he looked to the ceiling with a nod of acknowledgement that not at all placated her. Next up, he warned, "You'd better move fast now, to hide and protect anything you want saved."

She startled with a leap to her full height. "Saved!" she cried. "What danger encroaches?"

"First ahead, his packs of dragon dogs will come to exterminate all vermin. Like your menagerie."

"Why must such indiscriminate cruelty befall?"

"Standard operating. His quarters have to be set up to order. His legions will raise their barracks and a little palace, and after that's finished -"

She wilted, curling her tail between her hind legs. "My Lion...has such requirements? But I wish him to provide for me as well, in his home of imperial origin."

"In time. You'll serve probation here, and he'll visit if he gets the urge."

"His terms are grossly unequal!"

"I thought you were used to the likes of princes. Comforts in every port."

"Prevail upon his most Dread Highness," she wheedled, "to place me highest in his heart. My Lion exists as my faultless intuition has divined, from the vault of your own knowledge."

Hellboy glanced to reappraise her handiwork. "You've got him right – nailed how he looks on his best day. Sharpen up those lady wiles and do whatever you can," he counseled, his mouth twisting in a smirk, "to be the best he ever had."

"Do you doubt me, while showing mirth at my expense?!"

"Arguing!" he retorted. "And I want out of your deadly funk of perfume – in case you haven't noticed."

She gave his horn stumps a bristly glare. "Why are you damaged so? My Lion is crowned with innately majestic weaponry!"

"His choice."

"I believe you are shorn to bear a sign of punishment!"

"My choice...you little snot."

"I will lose nothing to the purge!" She bounded off in dismay to sprint a herding circle around her cherished animals.

"Listen!" he ordered. "Pick up that I'm finished here. One – I've delivered you your jackpot. You get to marry for power. The prince says he looks forward to 'taming the tempests of your spirit'. Two – We're fireproof."

She stretched her lip taut above the thrust of her curved canines. "It is my right that you entrust immediately, the true name of my betrothed!"

"Not by me."

As her infuriated charge reached him, there was less of the snarling dog to see. "Beware...the mercy of my brother awaits you!"

"And mine knows where to find you." He goaded beyond her bearing with, "You could have run your own life and property, just fine. There's nothing you can do about it, now."

She swirled her outrage into a cyclone of white fire and blasted him as he pressed back against the wall of death. In mere seconds, her attack boiled off the contaminated blood packs he carried, and the consumed shards of iron set off sparking explosions within her blazing form.

"Tickles, huh?" he muttered into the engulfing chaos of her shrieks and howls.

Heaving violent lurches to retch out the poisons, she battered him all the harder in the swell of her fury. He did nothing to resist and held there, until the dignity of cremation took the last of Ben Hart's remains out of her hands.

What she did next – he felt his back being mashed against a developing new recess, and he ducked under the guard of his indestructible arm just as she jammed him head-first into the cavity of a tight fitting rock shaft. And he went forced through the rough encasement like the chisel of a slow jackhammer. He chuckled at how it suddenly put him in mind of the birth process. The first life trauma of being squeezed through a little hole – except for this getting skinned up along the way. He snugged his tail down as flat as possible. She was making this delivery hard with hurt, and if she intended to leave him buried, he knew he could count on his stone fingers to gouge through anything. The hand grip of his old pal the Samaritan was uncomfortably squashed up into his groin. Being sprung from her retreat was shaping up to be a lot worse than coming in, but he welcomed every hostile shove of progress to wherever he was going. And he had a good idea, where.

"Crap! Uuuhh..."

But he wasn't alone. A whisper of caution followed him. "Pain and hazard, my Son."