#hellboyxoc

Her hair, buffeted free from the plastic clip by the pitiless wind, lashed around her face and she slowly descended, hand over hand, while his pulse pounded in his ears. After what seemed like an eternity and also no time at all she had plucked the lantern off the narrow outcropping and started making her way back up to him. It was awkward and difficult now that she had to hold onto the lantern as well as keep her grip on the rough stone. “Here, pass it,” he said, extending his tail down once she was close enough. She held it out to him and he looped the tip of his tail through the handle and lifted it out of her grasp, reaching for her with his left hand. The relief he felt when he had ahold of her again expanded in his chest like an inflating hot air balloon until he thought he might explode, and he let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.   

With Claire clutching onto his back like a baby koala he climbed back up the crevice wall, the lantern held secure in the coil of his tail. As soon as both their feet were on solid ground again they were running, hurrying further down the passage and hopefully away from the unstable ground. Finally they stopped to catch their breath, leaning against the tunnel walls. Hellboy slid the respirator up to rest jauntily over one horn, wiping his grimy and sweaty face against the sleeve of his jacket. Likewise, Claire was blotting her forehead and the back of her neck with her handkerchief. “All things considered, I thought that went pretty well,” she said with a weak, shaky laugh. Hellboy chuckled and nodded. “You did good,” he told her. “Maybe when this is all said and done you could come and work with us at the Bureau.”   

She snorted, smoothing her tangled hair back with both hands while holding the clip between her teeth. Twisting it up into a bun she clipped it back into place and laid her hands on her hips, fixing him with an appraising look. “Maybe,” she echoed with a grin. “Hey, HB, do you copy?” “Loud and clear, Alice,” he replied. “Everything all right down there? We registered some massive temperature spikes around your beacon.” He raised his brow at Claire, who was still grinning at him, and then they were both laughing. Hellboy chalked it up to the instant adrenaline high of escaping a near-death situation. “Yeah, we’re good,” he answered when he was able. “Got a little dicey for a minute, but we’re good.” “There’s another hot-spot just over three kliks to the northwest of your location,” Daimio added. “Looks different from what we’ve seen so far. And it’s moving; could be our target.”  

Hellboy mumbled a vague acknowledgement back, turning to give Claire a protracted sidelong glance. “Last chance to bow out,” he told her, his tone low and grave. “I can still getcha back up top, but if you stay then I can’t promise you won’t get hurt or worse.” All the laughter and levity of just a few moments ago appeared to have left them, and her face was just as set and stern as his. “I’ll be just fine,” she said firmly, a grim, wild smile playing about her lips. “It’s you I’m worried about.” He chuckled humorlessly, dipping his head in acquiescence and turning to lead the way with the lantern illuminating their path. 

“You seem pretty sure of yourself,” he muttered as they tread cautiously in the direction Daimio had indicated. “I get the feeling this ain’t your first rodeo.” Claire didn’t answer, and he resigned himself to the unsociable silence from the beginning of their joint venture. “It’s not,” she replied, surprising him with her sudden forthrightness. “I’ve had my fair share of run-ins with the paranormal. You know how it is; once you’ve had one, more tend to follow.” Hellboy grunted in agreement. “Tell me about it. Haven’t had a real vacation in years. I don’t count that three-month bender in Mexico, on account of this thing with a grave-robbing demon that turned me into a chimp. At least I think there was a grave-robbing demon… either way I woke up with no pants.”  

Claire laughed out loud at that and the sound made him smile. Here they were, heading toward certain danger, cracking jokes like they were the protagonist duo in a blockbuster action movie. “Sounds like you lead a charmed life,” she teased. “I might have to give real consideration to that job offer you mentioned earlier.” “You should,” Hellboy replied in all seriousness. “I think you’d be a real asset to the Bureau, long as you don’t get killed down here.” She scoffed, shooting him a shrewd look. “Hmm, asset?” she purred sardonically. “You do know how to charm a lady.”  

He cleared his throat, bringing up his stone hand to scratch at the base of his skull so he wouldn’t have to meet her eyes. They lapsed into silence as they drew closer to the hot-spot ahead. Consulting his IR thermometer, Hellboy noted that the temperature was jumping up considerably. Whatever was in the tunnels, they were coming up on it fast. “Hang back while I check it out,” Hellboy murmured to Claire. Wyrms didn’t have particularly keen hearing, but they were very perceptive of even subtle vibrations. If he and Claire both came marching down the tunnel, it might get nasty.  

He handed her the lantern and went on ahead into the blackness, pacing slowly with every sense tuned in to detect any movement or noise. The very tips of his flesh fingers traced along the wall to keep him oriented as his eyes picked out a faint, warm light emanating from what looked like the mouth of another tunnel branching off the passage. Hellboy let out a long, slow breath and pressed onward with caution, the illumination brightening the closer he got to it. As he reached the opening he stood with his back flush against the wall, peering around the corner to find the source of the light. “Well crap,” he muttered under his breath.  

This had to be the thing digging all the tunnels, it was large and wide enough that the size of the tunnels was just sufficient to allow it passage. If it needed to turn around, it would have to back out or plow forward to create a new tunnel. And, despite Kraus’s intel, it was most definitely not a wyrm.  

“Whoa…” Hellboy bit his tongue to keep from swearing out loud and alerting the creature, jumping at the sudden remark and spinning around to see Claire leaning out to look past him at what was hulking in the tunnel. She grinned up at him, looking not the least bit apologetic for scaring the shit out of him. “What are you doing?!” he hissed vehemently. “Backing you up!” she whispered back, leaning slightly further out to get a better look at their tunneling culprit. “What is that?” He glowered at her for a beat, pinching the bridge of his nose and exhaling softly through pursed lips before turning his attention back to the occupied tunnel. “Not real sure, but it’s probably an erdgeist.” Claire’s brow furrowed curiously, so he went on to explain. 

“Erdgeist, it’s German: means ‘earth spirit’,” he said. “A sort of aggregate monster made of rock or soil. They’re related to earth elementals, but erdgeist tend to be smaller, weaker, less intelligent. Mostly they just burrow in somewhere dark and quiet and sleep, sometimes for decades without moving.” He frowned, surveying the enormous bulk of the one in the tunnel. “That one, though, somethin’s strange. It’s way bigger than normal.” And so it was. Typically erdgeist would top out at around four feet tall, but this one towered over him at nine feet in height, wide and long as a pickup truck. It had assumed a quadrupedal form, though Hellboy couldn’t tell much about it since it faced away from them. It was slowly swinging its low-slung head methodically left and right as though trying to shake off an irksome fly, fresh dirt and crushed rock piling at its feet as it did so.  

“Erdgeist are made of whatever kind of earth is around in their habitat,” he went on in a low murmur. “They can get bigger by layering more rock and soil onto their bodies, but this one’s huge. It must’ve been down here for a really long time.” Claire watched the erdgeist with wide round eyes, seemingly awestruck. “Wow… I’d bet he’s the real reason they stopped mining here, even before the fire.”  

Talking of the fire, the source of the illumination appeared to be the erdgeist itself. Gleaming through gaps and fissures in its hard, stony body Hellboy could see bright flares of orange and yellow. It flickered and pulsed in a very distinctive manner and he narrowed his eyes in thought. “Damn… of course,” he said to himself, figuring it out. “What?” asked Claire urgently. Hellboy laid an arm around her shoulders and steered her away from the tunnel entrance, retreating as well. “If you’re right,” he answered. “And that erdgeist has been down here since before the fire, then we can guess this has been its home for awhile. Which means it’d be made mostly of coal. The fire started in ’62, burning deeper and deeper into the mountain, feeding on the coal seams.” Claire gasped quietly as she worked out the conclusion of his theory. “It must’ve burned into his lair while he was asleep,” she said. “And if he’s made of coal, he’s been on fire for who knows how long. Poor thing…”

Hellboy grunted to himself. Yeah, he thought, not unsympathetically. Poor thing. Burning from the inside but unable to die, driven mad by pain and rage, the erdgeist had been plowing through the ravaged mines and doing serious damage to the structural integrity of the ground above. The highly unusual size might have been an attempt on its part to smother the fire, or else an unintended result of its frantic tunneling. Either way, something had to be done before the whole mountain sank in on itself or the fire spread to neighboring towns.  

Out of sheer muscle memory he swept aside his duster and reached for the Samaritan with his left hand, halfway through pulling it from the holster before he remembered the extenuating circumstances. Right… he thought sullenly. Gas-plus-gun-equals-boom. With a sigh he tucked the oversized revolver away, patting the grip affectionately. “Next time,” he mumbled. “Plan B.” Claire looked on in interest as Hellboy began to rifle through the dozen-odd pouches on his belts where he stored all manner of trinkets, tools and tinctures. Packets of powders, bunches of herbs tied with twine, sterling silver amulets and blessed medallions, shell casings and small bones, and his trusty iron horseshoe. 

None of which would be of any particular help against a living bulldozer made of burning rock. 

At length he produced what looked, at first glance, like an empty wooden spool hanging from a leather lanyard. Claire eyed it and then him doubtfully, casting a pointed glance at the behemoth erdgeist filling the tunnel. Hellboy flashed her a cocky smirk which she couldn’t see through his respirator. “Hey, it may not look like much, but just watch.” He paused, pointing at a spot on the other side of the tunnel opening, well away from where he’d be standing when he got the erdgeist’s attention. “From over there,” he added sternly. Claire scowled at him, but shuffled out of harm’s way while Hellboy himself stepped forward until he stood in the center of the opening. 

He took the lanyard in his left hand, letting the wooden charm swing freely. It had been carved from holly wood, reputed to assist in connection with animals and associated with healing and purity. Along the sides a collection of different sized holes had been carefully punched in a strategic pattern. Hellboy had also rubbed the wood with lavender oil, a strong-smelling fragrance proven to promote calm. “Knock knock, big fella,” he called in to the erdgeist, who abruptly stopped its back and forth head swaying. “I hate to be a hardass here, but I’m gonna have to evict ya.” 

Despite the tight squeeze, the erdgeist began to turn around in the tunnel, it’s stony hide grinding against the tunnel walls with a sound like rocks in a tumbler. Hellboy winced against the grating, rumbling din, sucking in a breath as the monster finally faced him. A ridge of jagged black stone spikes ran up the broad, sloping back; two sets of pointed tusks, each about the length of his forearm from elbow to fingertip, jutted from the flat, boar-like muzzle. The eyes resembled a pair of burning braziers, glowing fiery orange with tongues of flame licking out of them as they fixed on him.   

For several long moments they simply stood there, watching one another. The erdgeist appeared almost confused by the presence of another creature in its territory. The reprieve didn’t last. It stamped the ground with a rough stone hoof the size of a column footing, sending sparks flying. The mouth opened in a terrible roar, and Hellboy could see straight down into a gullet that shone white-hot from the furnace that raged within the erdgeist’s body. It pawed the ground, snorting and shooting plumes of cinders out of its mouth like sparklers on the Fourth of July. 

It was going to charge. 

Quickly Hellboy began to twirl the wooden charm by the lanyard in rapid circles, spinning it faster and faster until it began to emit sound as air rushed through and over the holes. As the hypnotic tone resounded through the tunnel, at the same time the scent of lavender filled the air. Hellboy could smell it faintly even with the respirator, so hopefully it was pungent enough to tranquilize the erdgeist. It seemed to be working for the moment, or at least it had distracted the erdgeist from running him down. “That’s it,” he droned softly as the erdgeist let out a low rumble, giving its head a little shake. “We’re gonna take this nice and slow.” Hellboy took one small step backward, the erdgeist copying him, compelled by the musical resonance of the holly wood flute. 

All he had to do now was figure out what to do with the bad-tempered fire pig… 

He was just thinking that if he could somehow get it out of the tunnels and up to the surface, where they could possibly find a way to put out the fire when, with a clatter of stones and a geyser of soot and cinders, an abbess somewhere in it’s burning body collapsed. As fresher air rushed in to fill the newly empty spaces flames erupted from every crack and crevice in its glowing sides and back, reaching like grasping claws, and the erdgeist let out another earsplitting roar. Hellboy withdrew, raising an arm to shield his face and eyes from the sudden onslaught of searing heat. The flute’s mesmeric melody was interrupted as Hellboy backed off from the agitated creature, and in that short time the erdgeist appeared to fully recover from the fragile enchantment. And it looked none-too-happy. 

“C’mon now, Pumbaa, let’s just do this the easy way!” Hellboy coaxed it, hastily getting the charm whistling again in hopes that it would inspire a little civility or at least discourage a violent trampling. Unfortunately the erdgeist did not appear to be receptive to any friendly overtures. With another teeth-rattling bellow it charged at him, a locomotive of fire and ash and stone. Hellboy backed his way quickly out of the tunnel entrance and cut to his left, keeping the erdgeist in sight and hopefully keeping it focused on him so it wouldn’t notice Claire, hunkered where he’d told her to be on the other side of the opening.

The erdgeist slammed into the corner of the aperture and wheeled, swinging those foot-long smoldering tusks at him and forcing him to take large steps aside and away to avoid them. It was surprisingly quick for its size. “Claire, move!” he shouted to her, drawing the erdgeist’s attention by ducking and rolling beneath it while she hustled into the vacated dead-end tunnel and out of the line of fire. Laying flat on his back under the beast, he twisted side to side as it turned around over him, trying to stomp down on him with its massive feet.

He rolled again and came out on its left side, standing quickly. “You wanna play hard ball, huh?” he snarled. “Have it your way!” Baring his teeth he reared back and let fly with a right hook to the side of the huge stone head, sending out a spray of cinders and chips of coal. The erdgeist didn’t really seem to notice the impact, but it appeared to be displeased with his proximity. It lunged forward, catching his torso against its massive shoulder and nearly shoving him right on his ass. Keeping his footing he dodged the tusks again and brought both fists down together on the crown of its head. There was a terrific crack! as a new fracture split open in the stone, the orangeish glow of the internal inferno now visible.

Enraged, the erdgeist barreled forward, pushing Hellboy in front of it while he gripped the tusks in both hands, his feet sliding along the ground and it drove him like an antique hand plow. Digging his heels in and finally finding purchase, Hellboy slung the erdgeist’s head aside and into the side of the tunnel, pinning it there. They grappled for control, and Hellboy suddenly lost his footing as the erdgeist paced backward. Sensing his imbalance it plunged forward again, knocking him flat over its wide, slanted muzzle and hurling him with a fiery snarl against the opposite wall. The impact itself wasn’t too bad, but before he had the chance to right himself the erdgeist charged for him. Hellboy brought up both arms to protect his head and torso, curling his shoulders inward as the tusks tore at his jacket sleeves and the flesh beneath.

It tossed its head again and flung him back up the tunnel where they’d started. Hellboy gasped, hissing through gritted teeth at the shredded jacket sleeves and the blood seeping from a dozen minor gashes to his arms and shoulders. At some point he’d lost his respirator, spying it lying in the dirt between the erdgeist’s legs. He’d have to get it back, and soon.

A sudden sound drew his attention sharply behind them, the erdgeist going still as it too looked past him to find the source of the noise. Hellboy’s heart have a tremendous stutter when he saw Claire approaching them at a slow, calm pace, the holly wood charm spinning from its lanyard in her grip. It felt like a bucket of ice had been upended into his stomach, but he didn’t dare move or speak. For the moment, the erdgeist appeared lulled once more by the rhythmic music of the flute and he was afraid to do anything that might break its focus.

Claire stared it down, her footsteps unfaltering as she continued her slow and methodical approach. “Easy, there,” she said gently, her free hand raising slowly from her side to proffer her palm to the erdgeist for its inspection, like greeting a strange dog. She drew level with Hellboy still sitting on the ground, moved past him, and he made a quick grab at her ankle, trying to stop her going any closer but she shook him off without breaking stride. Something was happening to the erdgeist; the flickering internal glow of the fire inside it appeared to be dimming. The brilliant gleaming fire in its eyes had been reduced to a faint orange gleam, as though the fire were dying. Hellboy held his breath, feeling his heartbeat slamming against his ribs as Claire drew close enough to the erdgeist to lay her hand lightly on the pitted, flat expanse of its muzzle. “There now,” she crooned to it. “See? Nobody wants to hurt you. We’re here to help.”

Hellboy levered himself slowly upright, his eyes glued to the woman and the aggregate monster before him as he rose to his feet. He had just enough time to experience a moment of extremely cautious optimism before a thin drizzle of loose dirt and small rocks began falling from the ceiling overhead and drew his gaze upwards. The tunnel, already somewhat unstable, hadn’t taken well to the recent scuffle that had taken place, and looked in danger of collapsing. “Watch out!” he called to Claire as large chunks of stone fell from the weakened roof. Softball sized rocks slammed the pair of them, striking Claire in the shoulder and causing her to stumble. Another hit the erdgeist on the top of its head, managing to land square on the new crack Hellboy’s hammer fist had made and breaking the rock open.

The weakening fire abruptly flared back to life as though doused with lighter fluid, flames bursting suddenly through every crack and crevice they could find in the erdgeist’s body, and its mouth gaped open into an anguished roar of pain and frenzy. It slung its heavy head and threw Claire forcefully against the wall, ramming into her before Hellboy could reach them in time to pull it off her. As it backed off she crumpled to the ground and tucked into a tight ball before the erdgeist lunged for her a second time, sending her skidding through the dirt for a couple feet before Hellboy charged at it with a bellow, slamming his stone fist right between its eyes.

The erdgeist staggered back, stunned, and Hellboy stooped by Claire’s side as she slowly, painstakingly uncurled to lie on her back. Her face was drawn and pale, pinched in obvious pain as she looked up at him with pupils blown wide. Both hands were pressed hard against her middle, but Hellboy was still able to see the scarlet stain spreading rapidly across her clothes, gushing up through her fingers. Heart sinking, he reached out and pulled her bandana from around her face, her skin already feeling clammy to his touch. “Keep it as tight as you can,” he murmured, swatting her hands away to lay the folded over handkerchief over the slick, shiny crimson mess and pushing her hands back down on top of it, wincing at the wet gasp of pain that escaped her. “Just try to hold on, I’m gonna get you out of here.”

Hellboy lifted her gently into his arms and carried her back to the entrance to the dead-end tunnel as the erdgeist gave its head one final shake, recovering from the earlier blow. He laid her down as carefully as he could, propping her up against the wall before glaring furiously over his shoulder at the earth spirit for a second, turning to look back to Claire. “I’ll be back as quick as I can,” he promised. “Stay with me, kid.” Her face pale, her eyes shining, Claire smiled weakly at him. “I’ll be fine,” she rasped. “Like I said, I’m more worried about you.”

Behind him the erdgeist gouged furrows into the ground with hooves that spat embers, preparing to run at them. Hellboy stood, his pulse pounding in his ears, fury coursing in his blood. He still couldn’t risk shooting the damned monster, but he had a better idea. He stepped away from Claire, waving his arms to make sure the erdgeist would notice him and not her. “Hey, Porky!” he roared. “Why don’t ya try that shit again? I’m right here!” His gambit worked, and the erdgeist came hurtling down the tunnel towards him. Not wanting to get too far ahead of it, Hellboy waited until the last possible second before turning and running back up the tunnel the way they had come.

That’s right, you ugly bastard! He thought savagely. Come and get me! I got just the thing for you!

------

Thanks for reading! Reviews are, of course, greatly appreciated!

“Would you just wait a second?! I’m not gonna hurt ya!”  

Another curve, and he lost sight of her. He cursed under his breath and he sped up, wondering how she could have gotten so far ahead of him so fast that he couldn’t even see the glow of her flashlight anymore. He was so intent upon catching up to her that he nearly ran her over. She was stooped on the ground, her hands outstretched as though searching for something. Her head jerked back to look at him as he came charging around the curve, her eyes wide and round as she let out a yelp of surprise and ducked. Hellboy swore again and backpedaled ineffectively, ending up taking two gigantic steps sort of over and around her to avoid a painful collision. 

“Je-SUS!” he gasped out, staggering to an ungainly stop before turning to face her. “Why the hell are you on the floor?” The bottom of his long trench coat had swept over the top of her and mussed her hair into almost comical disarray, his tail accidentally whacking her in the head. “Accidentally”. She reached up with one hand and snatched the handkerchief down to her neck, her face livid and her breathing just as elevated as his after the near trampling. “I tripped and dropped my flashlight!” she snapped, glaring daggers at him. “I didn’t know you were gonna come barreling down the tunnel like a Japanese bullet train!”  

“I was trying to stop you!” he barked back. “You need to get outta here, pronto! It’s dangerous, you could die!” He sighed harshly, glancing up and down the tunnel as he realized that if her flashlight was gone, there was no way she could get back out of the tunnels on her own: he’d have to go with her and then come back. “Son of a bitch,” he growled to himself. This ‘easy-peasy’ mission was proving to be much more of a pain in the ass than he had anticipated. “Ah-ha!” cheered the strange woman and he looked around to see that she’d found her light. Kneeling on the ground she clicked it again and again, shaking it, smacking it with an open palm, but all to no avail. “Crap… must’ve broken the bulb…” Hellboy let his head fall back, groaning in exasperation, the sound echoing up and down the corridor. “Come on, get up,” he said. “I’ll take you back, but we gotta be fast.” 

She whipped around again, scowling up at him from the ground. “What? No, I’m not leaving.” He clenched his teeth, growing more irate by the second as he stepped very deliberately closer and glowered down the length of his nose at her, casting extreme emphasis on his much larger frame and build. “That was not a request,” he said lowly, his voice rumbling from deep in his chest. “One way or another, you are leaving; either on your own two feet or, so help me, over my damn shoulder.” Hellboy saw her hand tighten around the handle of her flashlight as she rose smoothly and slowly to her feet, unflinching as she stared him down. Or rather up. 

Before she could open her mouth to deliver whatever retort she’d prepared, his LED lantern winked out without a sound, leaving them both standing in complete and impenetrable blackness. Hellboy sighed loudly. Sure, he thought, fuming quietly. Why not? “Alllllllllllliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice…..” he called on the radio. “What is it?” she replied, her voice crackling slightly as though the signal were weakening. “Did you find whoever it is you saw?” “Yes I did, but I can’t do anything about it since I can’t see my hand in front of my own face,” Hellboy replied. “The lantern just went out.” 

“Oh, bollocks,” Alice answered. Not a promising response. “The batteries must be dead! Sorry, HB.” “Fantastic,” he said. “Do you have a cell phone?” asked the woman, and he jumped slightly, having almost forgotten how close she was to him. “I don’t think Amazon delivers underground.” 

He couldn’t see her expression but he could practically feel the irritation coming off her like heat. “Not for the phone, smartass, for the light,” she said crossly. Grumbling to himself, Hellboy withdrew his phone from an interior pocket, feeling for the power button in the dark. “For all the good it’ll do,” he said pessimistically. “It’s not gonna last us very long.” They were bathed in faint, cool light as the home screen opened and he navigated to the flashlight feature. “It doesn’t need to,” replied the woman. “I’ve got an idea.” He watched her flip her own defunct flashlight around and unscrew the bottom of the cylinder, getting the gist of where she was going as she dumped the batteries out into her palm. 

“Give me your light,” she said, and he handed it to her. She turned it over and over for a moment or two, looking for the battery compartment. “Keep your fingers crossed,” she added, sliding the plastic cover back. Hellboy saw her grin triumphantly in the beam of light from his phone. “C’s. We’re back in business.” She quickly replaced his batteries with her own and the tunnel was again illuminated with bright, LED light. “We’ll just have to share,” she said matter-of-factly, shrugging a backpack off one shoulder and stowing the now useless flashlight inside it. 

“Um, no? Absolutely not,” Hellboy protested, simultaneously frustrated and a little bit impressed by her total disregard for the peril she was in. “Did you hear anything I’ve been saying? Lemme repeat, and I’ll go slow and use small words for you: danger? Not safe? Excruciating death?”  The woman rolled her eyes as she set her backpack securely over both shoulders again. “Are you always this cheerful?” 

He scowled darkly at her, snatching the lantern back with his stone hand. “Hey, I’ll still carry you outta here like a sack of potatoes,” he threatened. “How did you even get down here?” She frowned in annoyance, reaching for the light as she answered, “I found an opening and I went down it. Probably the same way you did.” Hellboy raised his arm, holding the lantern out of her reach. “Also, how are you not dying of hypoxia? This tunnel’s full of toxic gas, even I can’t breathe this air without a respirator; so how’s a human with a cops-and-robbers hanky even conscious right now?” 

“Well, you know how camels can store water in their humps and survive without drinking for months at a time?” she replied with a sardonic smile, straining to reach the lantern. “It’s like that, but with air.” He exhaled slowly through his nose, his jaw tightening impatiently at her flippant dismissal as she pulled at his elbow, trying to bring it low enough to get ahold of the lantern. “Look, miss, I got a job to do. In my line of work, humans don’t last all that long so you need to leave,” he said, appealing once again to her seemingly miniscule sense of self-preservation. “I’ll help you get back to the surface, but we gotta go now.” 

“Give me back my batteries, then,” she demanded, hands fisted on her hips. Hellboy scoffed incredulously. “What? Why? Your flashlight’s busted, they won’t do you any good!” “Your lantern’s dead without them, so they won’t do you any good!” she fired right back. “Either we can work together, or we can both go stumbling around in the dark.” What was the deal with this crazy chick? Hellboy could only stare at her, the aggravation draining out of him to be replaced by amused befuddlement. She hadn’t budged an inch when he loomed over her, and he knew for a fact that he could look downright terrifying even when he wasn’t trying. She acted utterly unconcerned about the mortal danger he had warned her about, repeatedly. 

“What are you doing down here at all? What’s the attraction?” he asked, hoping for but not expecting a straight answer as he transferred the lantern to his other hand and held it behind his back, turning in place as she tried to circle him. She looked just as frustrated as he felt, strands of her hair fallen loose from the clip at the back of her head and fluttering down into her face before she blew them harshly away. He had to admire her dogged determination, she kept trying to get the lantern back from him no matter which way he held it but finally she seemed to have had enough. 

“To find whatever’s tear-assing around down here and stop it!” she burst out at last. “Before it lets the fire spread! Same reason you’re here, right?” That certainly piqued his curiosity. There were, of course, other organizations in the world in the same vein as the BPRD, so it was very possible that someone else was aware of the infestation under Centralia. It was equally possible that other paranormal monitoring entities would send an agent out to assess the situation. However, any of the organizations Hellboy could think of would definitely not send a human agent underground into a toxic environment with a handkerchief and a cheap backpack for equipment. “How do you know about that?” he asked, all the ire and acerbic edge gone from his voice, genuinely intrigued. “Who are you?” 

She huffed angrily at him, dropping her arms to her sides and fixing him with a piercing glare. “No one,” she bit out and he chuckled. “No one? Are you Arya Stark?” Grinning now he held up his right index finger and tilted his head playfully to one side, mimicking the pose of Game of Thrones’ famed fictional fencing instructor. “What do we say to the god of death?” he teased. If he got her riled up enough, she might let something slip. “Are we about done?” she seethed, deadpan and uncooperative as ever. Hellboy sighed again, weighing his options before coming to a begrudging compromise. “All right, look,” he began. “Against my better judgement, I’ll let ya tag along, but on two conditions: number one, you have to do what I say, because whatever I tell you to do, like run or hide or get behind me, is to make sure you get outta here alive. Capiche?” She sullenly crossed her arms over her chest and surveyed him with a look of deep misgiving, but finally gave a curt nod. “And number two?” 

“Tell me what I’m ‘sposed to call you,” he said. “If you agreed to the first one, the second one’s even easier. Just give me a name.” She didn’t appear to concur, however, and he watched her chew her lip thoughtfully. He was tempted to point out that they were wasting a lot of time, but they’d finally gotten at least a little bit of traction and he didn’t want to say something to piss her off and make her clam back up again. At length, with a deep sigh, she extended her right hand to him with an expression of resignation. “Claire,” she told him at last, and he gently took her right hand in his own and shook it once. “There, that wasn’t so hard, was it?” he drawled with a smirk that made her roll her eyes. “I’m Hellboy.” 

“Yeah, I kinda figured that,” Claire replied with a cynical half-smile of her own. “You’re sort of famous. There’s even a comic book series about you.” He chuckled and ducked his head, making a show of scratching his sideburn so he wouldn’t have to look at her. “Stardom doesn’t suit me,” he admitted. “Hard enough going out looking like this.” Claire’s smile widened a bit at his weak joke. “Saw you on TV not long ago, in fact. Something about bear attacks in Canada?” Hellboy nodded, remembering the assignment of the previous month. “Oh yeah, volkolak. Shapeshifter; right pissy old bastard who liked to dress in a bearskin that turned him into a monster so he could hunt and eat his neighbors.” 

Claire hummed absently then squared her shoulders like an eager soldier. “Well let’s get to work,” she said, turning to head back the way they’d come. “Our best bet’s gonna be that room back there with the other tunnels connecting to it. This is the way I came, there’s nothing down there.” Hellboy stood where he was a beat longer, shaking his head after her. “Hellboy, do you copy?” asked Daimio. “Yeah?” Hellboy answered, still bemusedly wondering where Claire thought she was going when he still had the only light. “Do you have a visual on the subject?” 

He snickered to himself. “More or less. Says her name’s Claire and she’s lookin’ for the wyrms, too. That’s all I’ve got for now, but she’s sticking with me for the time being. Somethin’s up, but I dunno what yet. I’ll keep you posted.” With that he followed after her. 

They pressed onward in near silence, returning to the hub and choosing a path that seemed to delve further down into the ground. Hellboy made a few valiant stabs at friendly conversation, but Claire consistently gave vague or monosyllabic answers and made it very clear she wasn’t up to sharing. As they descended deeper and closer to the burning coal seams the temperature continued to rise. Hellboy checked his IR thermometer, which now read in the triple digits. He spared a glance at Claire, who had replaced her handkerchief over her nose and mouth but appeared otherwise unbothered by the growing heat. 

“Y’know you’re hardly the first spookchaser I’ve ever dealt with,” he told her, trying again to engage her in a way that might reveal more about her. Seemingly despite herself, she looked at him with furrowed brows. “The first what?” Hellboy shrugged. “Like stormchasers, only with monsters and ghosts and stuff. They show up every now and then on our missions. Most get scared off pretty quick, some aren’t that lucky. And one or two we’ve actually hired at the BPRD.” 

“That so?” Claire replied, casual as if they were talking about the weather. “Are you offering me a job?” “Might be,” he said, watching her out of the corner of his eye. “We’ll have to see how the interview goes.” Even with half her face covered he could tell that he’d made her smile. “I’m flattered,” she laughed. “But I already have a job.” “Oh yeah? What do you do?” 

Claire scoffed then and eyed him with exaggerated suspicion. “Are we really still on the ‘getting to know you’ part of the mission?” He grinned, but the next moment he was on high alert as the ground and walls around them began to gently tremble. Loose dirt started drizzling down on them from the ceiling, quickly intensifying into a cascade while the trembling grew to full on quaking. The tunnel was collapsing. “Move!” Hellboy bellowed, grabbing Claire by the top of her backpack and all but throwing her ahead of him. They sprinted down the passage, the ground lurching under their feet as they dodged falling debris and struggled to see through the dense rain of earth. Hellboy’s heart leapt into his throat as the entire ceiling began to give in to gravity and crash down on top of them with a thunderous clamor, but at the same moment the floor of the tunnel split open beneath them and they found themselves falling.

For several interminably long moments the world was a disorienting whirl of deafening noise, pitch darkness and blinding light blurring together like a yin-yang as the lantern slipped from his grip and tumbled away. After an unforgiving impact with hard ground that knocked the wind out of him and set his ears to ringing, Hellboy took a beat to assess the situation. Everything hurt, which was a pretty good sign that he was still alive. It had gotten quieter, which meant that for now at least the tunnel collapse had stopped. Also, it was significantly hotter now than it had been only minutes before. With a reasonable amount of pained grunting, Hellboy raised himself up onto his hands and knees to see where they’d landed, half buried in loose rock and dirt from the cave in. “Oh boy…”

They had dropped down into what was clearly a former passage of the abandoned coal mine. He could still see timber support beams along the walls and ceiling. The remains of electrical lighting and cables still hung from one side of the tunnel, though there’d been no power to them in decades. There was also very visible steam rising from the ground and the walls around them. The fire must be very close now. Unearthing the lantern, Hellboy searched his immediate surroundings for his unexpected sidekick. “Claire?” he called, setting the lantern down to begin sifting through the remains of the collapsed tunnel with both hands. “Claire, you okay?”

Dirt and rocks shifted as something moved beneath them, and next minute Claire was heaving herself upright, sitting in the rubble and sputtering on dirt and grit. She patted her hands against her jacket, sending clouds of particles swirling into the air. “Awesome,” she coughed, turning to look up at him. She tugged off her handkerchief and mopped at the grayish brown dust coating her face and her head and everything else. “You don’t think they’ll charge extra for that ride, do you?” she asked with a grin. He chuckled at the cheesy battle humor, checking his IR thermometer and the gas detector. The temperature had climbed substantially following their plummet into the mine tunnel. In addition, the levels of toxic gasses in the air had skyrocketed. Hellboy eyed Claire’s dirty handkerchief grimly as she tied it back in place, glancing up at the hole in the ceiling they had fallen through. Somehow or another he had to get them back up there. It wasn’t exactly oxygen-rich, but it would be better than down here, where he fully expected his human companion to keel over any second.

Just as he was wondering how in the Hell he was going to pull that off an ominous cracking sounded from somewhere under his feet and steam started rising around them in alarmingly thick columns. He and Claire both froze in place, sharing a wide-eyed glance. “Ahhhh dammit,” he grumbled as the ground began to crack and the fallen dirt to seep through the fractures like sand in an hourglass. “Go, go!!” Claire spun and started to run but they didn’t make it far before they were falling again. Hellboy reached out and grabbed Claire’s wrist in his left hand, his stone fingers scrabbling against the side of the crevice opening up beneath them in search of a handhold. A blast of scorching air shot up through the fissure, hot enough to make even Hellboy wince. He finally found purchase, grunting in pain as momentum slammed him against the rough, rocky side of the crevasse. “Oh my God!” Claire exclaimed in horror, reaching up to grasp his wrist with her free hand. Gritting his teeth, Hellboy glanced down into the chasm below them.

, maneuvering the chopper lower towards a small clearing off of a dirt access road. The fuselage gave a little shudder as the landing skids met the ground, brown scrub grass dancing in the downdraft. While Daimio switched off the engine, Alice and Hellboy were making last checks on their equipment. “I got something,” said Alice, scrutinizing the LCD monitor of an infrared thermometer. “There’s a spot less than a klick from here that’s reading significantly warmer than the area around it. Could be one of those new tunnels Kraus mentioned.” Hellboy fiddled with the fit of his radio’s earpiece, clipping the transceiver to his belt next to a handheld gas detector.

He then drew the Samaritan, snapped open the cylinder with a flick of his wrist to double check each chamber before snapping it back into place and returning it to the holster. “We don’t know for sure if it’s underground,” he said as Daimio exited the cockpit to join them, checking over his own weapon and earpiece. “If it’s a wyrm, and if it’s a female with eggs, she ain’t gonna be happy to see us, so watch your backs.” Alice passed him an IR thermometer and his respirator with a half grin. “Don’t worry about us, we’ve got the easy job. You just make sure you don’t fall down a sinkhole or something.”

Hellboy led the way out of the clearing, following the downward sloping dirt path into the trees. In between the trunks he kept catching glimpses of what he saw from the air, and in just a couple minutes they found themselves standing on the remnants of an asphalt highway. Deep cracks and fissures full of dirt and weeds split the road, and every inch of pavement was covered in graffiti. Words and designs, pictures and names in every color imaginable, most of it faded, all layered over top of one another over the decades, sprawling up and down the highway all the way to its end on their left and as far as they could see to the right. “Wicked!” Alice breathed, grinning as she turned in place to take it all in.  “Looks like they closed this section of road off,” said Daimio, checking the temperature on his IR thermometer. “According to the burn map one of the fronts is right below us.”

They trekked to the end of the graffiti highway, and Hellboy chuckled to himself at the large words spray painted in white: “End of the road!” Up ahead down a narrow dirt path he could see the real road, apparently empty. He went still as he emerged from the dirt path, catching the sound of movement close by. “Company,” he called low over his shoulder to Daimio and Alice, reaching to brush aside his coat and laying his hand on the grip of the Samaritan while the others moved to either side of him. They all stood frozen, listening, waiting, as the sounds grew louder. Hellboy tensed and then immediately relaxed as three college-age young men came into view, talking and laughing together. Each of them carried a plastic shopping bag that clattered and clinked in such a way that he felt sure they were full of aerosol paint cans.

One of them spotted the three agents and went still and quiet, alerting the other two. Both parties stood a short distance apart, awkwardly gaping at one another. Well, the three young men mostly just stared at Hellboy with wide, round eyes and slightly open mouths. Daimio recovered first, all business as he called to the three taggers, “Official BPRD business, return to your vehicles and vacate the premises. This area isn’t safe.” He didn’t deign to repeat himself and continued forward, followed by Alice and Hellboy.

The taggers hadn’t moved other than to turn and keep them in sight as they passed by. “Hey!” one of them exclaimed, snapping abruptly out of his stupor, pointing to them and beaming excitedly at his friends. “You’re Hellboy!” “Nah, I’m Cliff Burton,” he joked. “I’m not actually dead, but don’t tell anybody.”

Using the IR thermometers, they followed the temperature irregularities in search of the tunnel entrance. Hellboy began to notice dead vegetation, more and more of it as they went on. Killed by the underground fire, he knew. “There it is,” said Alice, looking up from her screen. Twenty or so yards ahead at the top of the hill was a flat, square patch of grass surrounded by a wrought iron fence. Inside were rows of headstones, the granite and marble markers glinting in the sun. At the back of the graveyard, just outside the iron fence, a large black hole opened up in the earth. The trio shared a knowing look and approached it with caution.

It looked as though the hole had occurred naturally, probably started out as a sinkhole like the others in town. As the fire burned its way through underground coal pillars, the unsupported ground above it would collapse; a large part of the reason why the town had been abandoned. The hole might have been a result of normal mine subversion, but around the edges Hellboy could see where something had dug it out into a larger opening. “Guess this is the way in,” he grunted unenthusiastically, taking a small flashlight from his belt and shining the beam into the blackness. Alice wrinkled her nose and pressed the cuff of her sleeve against the lower half of her face. “Smells like matches and spoiled eggs.” Daimio was studying the gas detector, a furrow between his brows. “That’ll be the sulfur dioxide and hydrogen sulfide,” he said grimly. “CO1 and CO2, methane, all in small quantities. If those gases are escaping through this hole, it must connect to a mine tunnel.”

Hellboy jerked around to face Daimio. “Methane?” he repeated. “What, like what comes out of the sewer? Doesn’t that stuff explode?” “Yes, quite” Daimio replied sardonically, fixing him with a smirk. “If I were you, I’d go easy with the peashooter down there.” He nodded meaningfully at the Samaritan on Hellboy’s hip. Hellboy sighed again, stretching the headband of the respirator around his head and over his horns before placing it snuggly over his nose and mouth. “If I blow myself up, Alice, delete my browser history,” he joked, edging closer to the hole and peering down to try and see how deep the drop would be. Alice didn’t laugh at his jape, looking rather concerned. He glanced momentarily toward the cemetery only a few yards behind them, wondering what she might be picking up. “Just be careful,” she said, smiling tightly. He grinned at her before remembering that his mouth was now covered and she couldn’t see it, making a mocking, dramatic salute instead. “Relax, it’ll be fine,” he assured her, sitting on the edge of the hole and carefully lowering himself into the earth. “Flushing out a bunch of wyrms? Easy-peasy, SHIT!”

The ground gave suddenly under him and he lost his grip on the crumbling edge before he could find a secure foothold. He heard Alice shout his name in alarm as he dropped out of sight, skidding down the side of the tunnel while his fingers scrabbled against the damp earth, trying to catch himself. Luckily the bottom was only about twelve feet down. He staggered upon landing on the uneven floor that sloped sharply further downward, his heart thumping a little after the surprise. “I’m okay!” he called back up to the others, hearing them sigh in unison. His front and head and palms were covered in dark, loamy soil and he shook himself, clapping his hands against his legs to knock some of it off. As he brushed dirt off his shirt and shoulders he squinted in the near darkness, trying to get a look at what was around him. “Can’t see worth a crap!” he said. “Got just the thing!” came Alice’s voice from above, followed by the sounds of her rummaging in her bag. “Heads up!” Craning his head back he watched her drop a relatively small object down the hole, catching it easily and bringing it closer to his face to see what it was: an LED camping lantern.

He pressed the power button and the tunnel was awash in white light, a second press of the button dimmed it to a more comfortable brightness level. “Thanks!” he called up to her. “If you run into trouble, we won’t be much help other than to call in for back up,” Daimio called back. “Keep your tracker on, stay in radio contact, and try not to run into trouble.” Hellboy laughed humorlessly to himself, “Yeah, yeah,” holding the lantern aloft to get a better look at what lay ahead.

The earthen tunnel was roughly six feet wide and high enough that he wouldn’t have to walk stooped over. It was also noticeably warmer here, even with the above ground world only twelve feet away. Before him the floor of the entrance tunnel sloped downward, beyond the reach of the lantern’s light. He wasn’t going to find anything just standing here… With one last look up at the circle of light over his head, Hellboy cracked his neck and set off down the tunnel. “Heigh-ho, heigh-ho, it’s off to work I go,” he mumbled to himself, giving a snort of derisive laughter that seemed abnormally loud and faded unusually fast.

In no time at all it fell completely silent save for the sound of his own footsteps and breathing. It pressed stiflingly against his ears. The darkness outside the lantern light seemed almost tangible, as though it were watching and waiting for a chance to reach out and grab him. Hellboy began to tense at the creeping sensation of foreboding but didn’t slow his pace. He had a job to do here in Hell’s basement, and the sooner he got it over with the sooner they’d be out of here.

As he delved deeper and the oppressive silence persisted, Hellboy found himself wishing that Alice or Daimio would say something over the radio, anything to break up the God-awful quiet. It was leaving him far too much time to think. Hellboy prided himself on his ability to simply get on with it and not dwell on the myriad of horrifying aspects that came along with his job. In all the time he’d worked with the BPRD he’d shaken off more than his fair share of terrible experiences, but he was having a hard time moving on from his most recent venture in Britain.

How were you supposed to come back from finding out that you were destined to usher in the end of the world?

His eyes were on the ground, on the toes of his boots as he plodded along down the tunnel, but he wasn’t seeing that. He was back in the church, the hilt of an ancient sword grasped in his flesh hand while flames licked up and down the blade, dazzling him, stirring something inside him that he’d always been a least a little aware of but was buried so deep down he barely noticed it. It was almost like anger but different, sharper, deeper and more focused. It felt like power, and, worst of all, it felt damn good. All his life, Hellboy had been acutely conscious of just how different he was from the humans around him. Sometimes it bothered him, sometimes it didn’t so much, but in that moment with the sword in hand and the crown of fire on his head it was the furthest thing from his mind, inconsequential. The Blood Queen had said this was what he was meant to be, it was his truest self: Anung un Rama. The Osiris Club assholes, Ruiz, hell, even his own father had made various efforts to kill him before he could light the whole damn world on fire and wipe out humanity. With the flaming Excalibur, the crown, with Nimue the Blood Queen kneeling at his feet, offering him the world, offering him herself, for one horrible moment he accepted her words as truth.

Then the very next moment he had thought to himself “Screw that!” and taken her head off with one swing of the burning sword. As quickly as it had come that feeling, that other self, had receded back where it came from, vanished with the crown of fire and his broken off horns. He still felt it, though. And like a missing tooth he kept catching himself poking tentatively at it, hoping it was gone for good while also ominously certain that it was not.

“Come in, HB, do you copy?”

He jumped a little, startled out of his brooding by Alice’s voice crackling over the comms. “I gotcha, Alice,” he replied, his voice steady as he forcibly pulled himself back to the task at hand. “We’re picking up some underground movement ahead of you,” Alice informed him. “And the locals are getting tetchy.” Given the fact that all but five of the locals were dead and buried, Hellboy took that to mean that she was feeling some unsettling vibes from the nearby cemetery. “What’s it looking like down there? Any sign of our target?” asked Daimio. “Nothin’ yet,” he answered, consulting his IR thermometer. “Must be near the fire, though, this thing’s really heating up.” 

Up ahead, something was different. He could feel a shifting in the air and he proceeded with caution. “Ah crap,” he sighed. The tunnel had come to a sort of hub, a large relatively circular space with a higher ceiling and four new passageways facing him that seemed to branch out into four different directions. “What is it?” Alice asked. “Intersection,” he grunted back. “And the GPS don’t exactly work down here.”  

“Movement detected to the northwest of your position,” said Daimio. “Take the left-most passage, keep a sharp eye.” “The sharpest,” Hellboy shot back lowly. “And remember not to fire your gun in the gas-filled tunnel or you’ll blast us all to kingdom come,” Alice added brightly. He chuckled. “Right. Just for future reference: what exactly am I supposed to do when I find this thing?” “Teach it to sing ‘God Save the Queen’ for all I care,” growled Daimio. “Just get it the hell out of there without blowing anything up.” 

Smirking to himself at the impatient snarl in Daimio’s voice, Hellboy started down the tunnel to the far left. The temperature was slowly rising, he could feel that much, but it wasn’t uncomfortable yet. He checked the gas detector, which was reading higher concentrations of the noxious cocktail of gases Daimio had registered up top. As the heat rose and the air grew fouler, there was an increasing likelihood of finding the wyrm. With any luck at all, she hadn’t laid her eggs yet, and just his presence in her chosen den ought to be enough to run her off. She wouldn’t want to leave her clutch in a place she didn’t feel safe.  

But then, considering his so-called “luck”, she’d come and gone and there were a half dozen five foot long hatchlings slithering around underground. Like certain species of snakes, newly hatched wyrms had extremely venomous bites as a defensive compensation for their smaller size and vulnerability. The venom wouldn’t kill him, he knew, but it would hurt like hell.  

Hellboy felt a sort of tingle that made the hair on his forearms and the back of his neck prickle, like a static charge. He slowed, stopped, listening hard. Nothing looked amiss in the circle of light given off by the lantern and it was quiet as the grave, but he was certain that he was not alone. Ahead of him the passageway disappeared around a long curve. Studying it carefully, Hellboy switched off his lantern and moved to stand against the wall. There was no residual light for his eyes to adjust to, so he simply waited and listened.  

Unlike him, the wyrm(s) were suited for life underground. They were perfectly capable of navigating in total darkness, but a sudden blast of bright LED light might buy him time to subdue it. He could hear something moving in the dark, growing closer and closer. Hellboy shut his eyes so he wouldn’t blind himself when he switched the lantern back on. He tensed, his finger on the power button as the movement drew nearer. When it was only feet away Hellboy stepped away from the wall, held the lantern out in front of him and pressed the button.  

The loud, surprisingly un-monstery cry of shock and pain was enough to make him open his eyes, wincing against the sudden luminance and squinting through watering eyes at the silhouetted form. 

Tall, though shorter than him, two-legged and distinctly not a serpentine dragon-like creature, with an arm raised against the brilliant light. Hellboy lowered the lantern and dimmed it, blinking owlishly at what was now very clearly a human in tennis shoes, jeans and a beat-up moto-jacket, with a handkerchief tied around their mouth and nose. “What the hell….?” he muttered. “You find something?” asked Daimio over the comms. Now that his eyes had adjusted, Hellboy realized it was a woman standing there and that she looked as surprised to see him and he was to see her.  

“You could say that…” 

Sorry it took so long! Work has been crazy and lunch breaks are about the only time I get to write.