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Somewhere Between	By : AceMaxwell Category: G through L > Hellboy Views: 13422 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Hellboy, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 10
- 11
- 12
- John

The Society's administrator (Buford Westfield, as it says on the plaque perched at the edge of his desk) is looking over the file Lazarus dragged up with an intense frown on his face. I think he's trying to sort things out, trying to find a loophole or hitch we haven't seen yet. After what seems like forever, he drops the file onto the order forms for the bakery that litters his desk. Apparently, he actually runs the bakery as well as the Society. It's not only a cover-up, but also the Society's only source of income.

Eon scoops up the file (she joined us immediately upon our arrival, scowling at me thoroughly for taking off without a word) and pours over it. Her input in this will be helpful, since she's far more likely to spot a problem.

"So, this worm hasn't been a particular threat, but you want to make the BPRD think that it is," Mr. Westfield sums up easily.

Lazarus nods, "Right. We can only credit a handful of human deaths to it, but our sources say it's incredibly large. If we play it up, we can request assistance from the American bureau."

"And get John home in the process," the administrator concludes.

"Exactly, and I bet we can have it handled by the time they even get here."

It seems relatively foolproof, but I'm not so sure Manning will buy into it. We don't work with other bureaus, mostly because Manning has an incredible fear of PR leakage. While the BPRD has strict gag orders on anyone we bring into the bureau or come into contact with on missions, that doesn't mean other agencies have the same policy.

There's a soft tug on my jacket sleeve as Eon tries to get my attention. Her brow's all scrunched up, like something's bothering her. I crouch to her level, "What's wrong sweetie?"

She signs slowly to me. I've learned a lot since she started teaching me, but she still can't go at the same speed as she does with everyone else. I still only catch three-quarters of what she's trying to say.

"What do you mean 'its spelled wrong'? What's spelled wrong?" I ask.

Eon turns the file around and taps the word 'wyrm'. It is weird. I take the file and look over it. There's no description of the creature, other than the fact that it's large, so there's no particular reasoning for the misspelling.

I meet her bright green eyes, "Does this mean anything to you?"

She nods vigorously, scampering off. Lazarus and Mr. Westfield are still discussing the 'how' of our plan, so I follow Eon. She leads me back to her room and starts pulling books off her shelves. It's extremely frantic behavior. It worries me.

"Eon," I start, reaching out to touch her shoulder.

She yanks out a book and opens it up to the image of a dragon-like creature, shoving it towards my nose. 'This is a wyrm', she spells out 'wyrm', emphasizing the 'y'.

I look down at the image. The beast is serpentine, curled up around what appears to be the destroyed remains of a tower. Even for an artist's rendition, it's kind of terrifying. Dozens of curved teeth gleam from its gaping mouth and my mind immediately tells me what those could do to me. I shut the book.

"We need to show the others."

Eon snatches it from me and runs back to Mr. Westfield's office. All I can do is charge down the hall after her. When I get through the doorway, the book is in Lazarus's hands and Eon is explaining. Both men are watching her intently, occasionally glancing down at the picture during her non-verbal dialog.

The administrator takes the book from Lazarus with a smile, "Eon, this is a fairytale. I appreciate your concern, but I doubt this story has accurate information about it."

I frown without realizing. Considering how brilliant Eon is, they don't think twice about dismissing her concerns as the boogieman. I realize that she's a child and kids tend to have more irrelevant fears than adults, but I think they need to give her a little more credit. Lazarus looks like he's deep in thought. Hopefully he's considering the possibility of Eon's idea. Mr. Westfield seems like a nice man, but I get the feeling that he just views Eon as a child, while the others better understand what she's capable of.

He ruffles her beautiful, curly hair and goes around his desk to sit down, "I believe I can get this arranged by the end of the week." He directs his next sentence at me, "You should be home very soon."

Why do I get the feeling that this just isn't going to end well? I glance down at Eon's fretting pout and slip my hand into hers. Her little fist closes around my index and middle fingers. I hope Mr. Westfield is right and this wyrm has only been blown out of proportion by Eon's imagination, but part of me doubts it.

- HB

I haven't seen Ellis all damn day. I was thinking I could pester, or maybe threaten him into lending me his phone again. Donegal was the one to bring me breakfast. When I asked him what was going on, he got this nervous expression and said that Ellis requested the day off.

I swear, no matter how long this guy works with me, he still acts like I'm going to rip his arms off. He probably looks at my liaison's vacation days as a death sentence. You never know when I'll lose my temper and randomly disembowel someone, like all the other agents I've killed for no apparent reason, note sarcasm…

It was a long, boring day. I'm still locked in my fucking room (but I have had time to pick up some) and neither Abe nor Liz have come by to give me an update. When I'm not watching TV, I'm pumping iron, until my door opens about an hour after dinner. Ellis slips in like he's trying to hide, looking around thoroughly before he pulls the door almost shut. It's really weird seeing him so shifty.

"Get your shirt on, we don't have a lot of time to get out of here."

I don't ask why, or what for, or anything, because I'm hanging on the fact that he said we're leaving. I drop the barbell and grab my shirt off the chair. I'm more than willing to jump at the chance to get out of this place. I'll figure out where we're going later. Maybe I can ditch Ellis and get over to the airport. I need to catch a cargo bay headed to England.

We move through the bureau cautiously. I wonder if Ellis realizes that this place is rigged with cameras. I don't tell him, because it's damn funny to watch him peer around corners like he's being sneaky. It makes me think of an old cartoon. After awhile though, I know we're wasting time.

"Ellis, are we playing hide-and-go-seek with the other agents, or are we trying to get out of here?"

"Would you rather just plow through anybody…" he tapers off, looking at me. After a second, he straightens up, "Yeah, okay."

We continue like we were just taking a stroll through the bureau. A couple of agents pass us in the hall, most of them not giving us any more attention than a nod 'hello', but I have to knock one guy out. He gives us a glance at first, and then turns back to me with his mouth open. He barely get's past, "Aren't you supposed-" before I punch his lights out.

Ellis raises his eyebrow.

"What?" I snap.

He shakes his head, not saying anything.

There are two guys standing at the door to the garage (the door's been replaced since I broke out) and they start getting real nervous as I get close.

"Evening gentlemen," Ellis starts, a big, fake grin on his face. "I've been authorized to take agent Hellboy to get his teeth cleaned."

Huh? I'm going to assume that he's lying, because I've never had my teeth cleaned in my life, and I haven't had a single problem. Demon enamel, what can I say?

The guard's don't look anymore convinced than I am. "We're going to need to see signed papers stating that."

Ellis's smile get's kind of strained. Man, Abe thinks my poker face is bad, but Ellis really sucks at bluffing. I was going to just start busting heads, but I get this idea.

"You forgot the damn papers?" I yell at Ellis. It takes him a split second to start playing along.

"I'm sorry, I must have left them in my office," he mutters, searching through his pockets.

I kick it up. My status with the security is legendary. Nine out of ten of them are scared shitless of me, so if I start getting really pissed, maybe we'll get some results out of this farce.

"I've got the fucking cavity from hell and you forgot the god DAMN PAPERS?"

Both of them flinch back when I start screaming. The guy on the right opens his mouth like he's going to let us through, but the other one jabs him in the ribs, "I'm sorry, but we need written clearance."

I walk a little ways away, ranting, and let Ellis play the distressed liaison. "Please, his appointment is in twenty minutes, can't I get you the paperwork when we get back? You gave no idea how hard it is to arrange for someone to see him."

They exchange looks and I make sure to toss in a few more curse words for good measure. The guy on the left is halfway though his 'alright' when his radio crackles and the chief of security comes on, "Don't let them out. None of this has been authorized."

Well, it was worth a go. I really thought we could save these two from concussions. Their guns come up to hold Ellis and me (mostly me) at bay.

"Okay," Ellis sighs, holding his hands up. Out of the fucking blue, he pulls the oldest trick in the book. And what's really sad is that the goons at the door actually fall for it. "How did that slime demon get in here?" he exclaims, pointed dramatically down the hall.

Their heads and guns turn and Ellis takes them both down with what I think might have been tae kwon do. He's probably going to get fired when this is all said and done. Ellis swipes his card through the security lock and leads me to one of the Lincolns with tinted windows.

"You know, eventually I'm going to need to know what the hell we're doing," I say as I jump into the back.

Ellis doesn't answer me until we've made it through the bureau's gates and we're on open highway. "There's someone who needs to meet with you and we didn't want to bring him to the BPRD"

"'Scout?" I ask immediately. I don't know why it would be him. When I talked to him yesterday, he was still in England and didn't give off any hints that he was coming back soon.

"Regretfully, no," Ellis says. "But it's really important."

We don't go far, about five or six miles, before we park in a back alley. It almost feels like we should be making some kind of drug deal, considering the setting.

"Who the hell are we waiting for?" I grumble when I start getting bored.

Ellis sits back and kills the engine, "He should be here any minute. Chill out."

I want a cigar, but I didn't bring one with me. "Hey, we passed a cigar shop two or three blocks from here, could we just-"

He cuts me off, "No. We have to be here when he arrives."

My tail twists angrily at being interrupted. I'm thinking about reaming him for it, but a limo pulls up behind us. The guy that gets out of the back is high military. His uniform has more of those little colored badges than I've ever seen before. I think I recognize him, maybe from TV… "Is that?" I can't think of his name.

Ellis fills in the blank for me. "The Secretary of Defense, so be on your best behavior," he says as he hops out of the car to salute.

The Secretary of Defense as in THE Secretary of Defense? As in the President's right hand man in the military? Either something really nasty is going down and they need some help or… Actually, I have no idea what the alternative would be.

Ellis opens the door for the Secretary and stands aside. No surprises here, but he jumps when he first sees me.

"Sorry, I should have been more prepared for your appearance," he apologizes as he slides in the car.

"I know I'm ugly."

He doesn't respond to that. Instead, he reaches into the briefcase he has with him and pulls out a box that I immediately recognize as cigars. He's probably just trying to butter me up for something, but he's already shot up about two places in my book.

"I heard you like cigars," he says, holding out the box. "I don't smoke myself, but I thought I'd bring you some."

I take the box, pulling one out to smell. It's a good Cuban, good brand too. He probably dropped a pretty penny for a box of them. I stick it in the corner of my mouth and dig out my matches, "So, what's the occasion, Mr. Secretary?"

"Please, call me Allen. That whole 'Mr. Secretary' thing get's old real fast."

"Alright, Allen," I say around my first drag of smoke. It's a damn good cigar, better than I usually have. "What threat to national security did you come to me about? You people don't normally come see us in person, so it's got to be pretty big, right?"

"Actually, I'm here to ask you a few questions. I'd really rather hear your answers in person than through second-hand reporting." He gets a pad of paper out of his briefcase and looks up at me, "It's been brought to my attention that Director Manning has broken a number of different policies over the last few weeks. What do you know about that?"

I arch my brow. This is about getting Manning in deep shit with a higher authority? Hell yes, I'm so on top of that idea. Somebody must have told him about this or he wouldn't be here. "Who told you?" I ask.

"I'm sorry?"

"Who told you how fucked up the bureau's gotten?"

Allen pulls the cap off a very expensive lookin' pen and jots down a few notes. "He's asked to remain anonymous for the time being."

"Oh." I lean back in the seat, glancing out at Ellis. He's standing next to the car with his hands folded behind his back. I don't need to guess twice about where he's been all day. "Manning is an asshole," is how I start.

"Do you care to elaborate on that?"

I tell him everything, from the tranquilizers, to John (leaving out the little bits as to why he got transferred), to the way we freaks are treated. He writes everything down, occasionally cutting in to ask for more info. When I'm finally out of complaints, he puts his pen away and glances over his notes.

"So, most of your anger with him centers around him removing John. I do have to ask, who is John? Is he another agent, or like yourself?"

"John was brought into our bureau from the FBI and then got bit by a werewolf, so he's both. What you need to know about him is that he's a nice guy, my favorite agent, and Manning had no fucking right to send him off."

Allen stares at me for a minute, then finally nods, "Fair enough. I've gotten similar answers from the others."

That sparks my interest. "What others?"

"Elizabeth and Abraham. And Ellis, of course. Abe is quite a charming fellow, isn't he?" he asks as he closes up his briefcase.

"Charming is not what we normally call him."

The Secretary laughs, "Well, I've only met him once so I guess my judgment could be wrong. It was a pleasure meeting you, Hellboy. You'll be hearing from me about this matter very soon." With that, he gets out of the car.

I tap the ash off the end of my cigar while Ellis and the Secretary of Defense talk. Ellis salutes and Allen walks back to his limo. Things are actually in motion. Ellis must have been the one to go to the Secretary, there's no other way this could have happened.

Quite frankly, I didn't realize that the Secretary knew about the BPRD and I don't think anybody else did either. To us, Manning was the top of the food chain and there wasn't a damn thing we could do about it. I guess we just needed somebody from outside the bureau to see otherwise. For the first time in a while, I feel I smile spreading on my face.

Ellis gets in the front and cranks the engine to life, "That seems to have gone well."

"Ellis."

"Yeah?"

"You can stay."

He twists around in the seat so he can look back at me, "What's that mean?"

I finish off the last of my cigar, putting out the stub on my stone arm. "Exactly what it sounds like. You can stay."

- John

I'm not entirely sure what inspired me to cook dinner for the Society, but I told Ralph to take the evening off and I'm taking a stab at it. I used to watch the bureau's chef mix up an incredible amount of food for HB every few hours with relative ease, but it's definitely not as easy as it looks. I like cooking, but I usually don't prepare a meal for so many mouths, or for an endless stomach like Torque's.

Then again, the bureau's chef used to be a short order cook in a ridiculously successful restaurant, so he can handle quite a crowd. I have no such experience. All I can do is make stuff in bigger pots and hope for the best. Fortunately, for the sake of my sanity, I did think to make spaghetti, one of the easiest things I could come up with. Premade pasta, sauce out of jars, what could go wrong?

I found the answer to that: everything. The sauce is burning to the bottom of the pot and the pasta is boiling over, and I have no idea where anything is in this kitchen and I burned the shit out of my hand… I could go on, but it seems pointless. Clearly, I can't cook for a crowd of more than one.

Eon wanders in about the time that I'm trying to the garlic toast ready. She stands at the entrance to the kitchen, taking in the mess I've made with some amusement. I give her a sheepish grin. Eon shakes her head at me as if I was a little kid trying to make dinner for my parents and making more of a disaster than it was worth. Armed with a stepstool, she turns down the pasta, transfers the sauce to another pan, and whips up a ridiculous amount of garlic toast to put in the oven. All I can do is stare at her in awe.

"You usually help Ralph make meals, don't you?" I ask as she stirs the sauce.

She nods, a big, proud grin on her face. 'This doesn't have meat in it, right?' Eon motions at the sauce with her question.

"No, I know Torque's a vegetarian," I answer, checking on the toast. It doesn't have to boil long. While I'm not that savvy in the kitchen, I know that it'll burn if I don't watch it.

Eon works a single noodle out of the boiling water and, instead of tasting it like I thought she would, she flings it against the wall. The noodle sticks, staying in place.

"Eon!" I scold. She was a perfect little lady a minute ago, why is she throwing stuff?

She grins at me, completely unabashed by my reprimand. 'When it sticks, it's done,' she tells me with her hands. While she explains, Rex materializes and gets on his hind legs to slurp the noodle off the wall. He falls back onto all fours and disappears immediately.

Alright, it's probably the most unorthodox way to test spaghetti, but it is kind of funny. I laugh, despite the fact that she really shouldn't be throwing food. "Go tell the others that dinner's ready," I say, still chuckling.

I catch the faintest whiff of burning. Shit, the toast! It's just barely getting too brown along the edges, so I'm able to save it. I highly doubt anyone will turn their nose up to it.

It takes quite a balancing act to get all of the food to the table before the team comes barreling down the hall. Well, Torque and Lazarus come barreling, Yvette just strolls in while finishing up her cigarette and Eon skips in after her. I'm sure Rex is around here somewhere. I've almost mastered being able to spot him while he's camouflaged. There's always this tiny variation between the spot he's in and the surrounding area, but it's so miniscule that it's easy to miss.

What does he eat? For the days I've been here, I haven't seen the creature have a single meal.

"Should I make something for Rex?" I ask as I sit down.

Lazarus looks up from spooning out a massive helping of spaghetti, "Rex doesn't need to eat, but I'm sure he'd be content to gobble up whatever you made for him."

"He doesn't eat?" That's a little hard for me to grasp. If he doesn't eat, then where does he get his energy from? He has to get it from somewhere or he'd die.

"Nope. We don't know why. I mean, he can eat anything, from metal to rock to organics, but he never leaves any," he pauses, like he's trying to pick the appropriate word, "droppings."

"Is this really suitable dinner conversation?" Yvette grumps, a piece of bread halfway to her mouth.

Out of the corner of my eye, I spot Torque's massive hand sneaking towards Eon's plate. I swat it with the back of my fork and point the utensil at him, warning him without words. Torque really is just a big kid and he can't help but pick on his little sister. Somehow, I ended up becoming the peacekeeper between the two of them. Torque rubs his hand with a prolonged 'ow'. Eon sticks her tongue out at him and I give her a warning look too.

"Anyway," Lazarus continues. "Eon found him as an egg, so we don't really know what he is. For a long time we thought she had an imaginary friend, since nobody could see him, but he eventually felt the need to protect her, and there wasn't any doubting it after that."

A pointed tongue flops onto the table next to Eon and she drops a noodle onto it. Rex inhales it. For not needing to eat, he sure does it a lot.

"Rex, get away from the table," Yvette snaps.

He slinks over to the far wall and disappears against it. I highly doubt he'll stay over there. Eon gives Yvette a droopy-eyed look for banishing Rex. The Russian seems to be completely unaffected by the puppy expression, but she finally breaks.

"Alright, he can sit near the table, but stop feeding him!" As tough as Yvette would like to be, she's got a really soft heart.

Eon grins and makes a motion at the wall. The only sign of Rex coming back is the sound of his claws clacking across the tile. Eon reaches out to scratch his head, which looks kind of strange since he's not visible. I can hear his pleased clicking even over the sound of Torque slurping up his meal.

Since everyone else has been served, I grab the pot and scoop out a helping. I'm not incredibly hungry, but I know it's just because I miss HB. I don't want to shrivel away because nothing looks appetizing anymore. It'll get better once I'm home.

The food in the middle of the table disappears quickly. As soon as the others are done, Torque scrapes together what's left and fills his plate one last time. I'm thinking his nickname could be 'The Garbage Disposal'. Every meal, this is what he does, so there's never any leftovers. The Society probably pours more money into feeding Torque than they do into any other outlet. I do wonder if he eats more or less than a real rhinoceros.

Near the end of the meal, Dr. Andrews comes in with a file held out and a smile creasing his face, "We heard back from John's bureau. They've agreed to assist us and are flying out in the morning. You're going home John."

"Really?" I exclaim.

I can't keep the excitement out of my voice. As thrilled as I am though, it kind of comes tumbling down when Eon pushes away from the table with a crushed look and runs out.

"Oh dear," Dr. Andrews mutters in the silence that follows.

"Should I go after her?" I ask no one in particular.

The answer comes from Yvette, her words are hard and angry, "I think you've done enough, wolf boy." She goes after Eon, but not before giving me the most ireful glare I've ever been stuck with. I can't help but wince.

"I didn't mean to make everyone so upset…" I mumble.

"Not everybody, just the women-folk," Lazarus tries to joke, but it falls flat. "We're all going to miss you, though."

Torque nods, his bottom lip trembling slightly. "You're family."

His statement twists my heart up into a knot. I won't cry, I never do before I actually have to leave someone, but I feel like I could. "I wish I could stay, I really do, but…" I trail off, not sure how to say it.

"But you need to be with your mate," Dr. Andrews fills in.

"Yeah, you've got somebody you love. Just remember to come visit us, yeah?" Lazarus says with a smile. He leaves the discussion there, getting up to clear the table.

I try not to laugh bitterly at the idea of visiting. The likelihood that Manning would let me come back here for a cursory visit without there being something maniacal behind it is slim to none. That is, if he doesn't ship me off the minute I get home. It's a very real possibility.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

I wake up in the dead of the night in a cold sweat. The nightmare I was having slips away in foggy snatches before I can really grasp what was happening. There was something about a thick wall between Red and I and we could get close, but couldn't touch. There was something on my side, and Red was yelling and pounding on the wall, but he couldn't break it… I can't remember the rest.

I pull HB's jacket up around my shoulders. I've taken to sleeping with it in hopes that his smell would help me rest, but it only worked the first night. At this point, I'm almost tempted to take pills to knock me cold until the morning. When I'm not tossing and turning because I can't drift off, I'm having some kind of horrendous nightmare that inevitably snaps me out of sleep an hour or two into the night.

I lean over to check the bedside clock. The absurdly bright digital numbers read 4:20 AM. No point in staying in bed, I'll be up in an hour anyway. I toss my feet over the side and sit there for a while. I'm not really awake enough to just hop up, I'd probably run into something in my groggy state, but I'm pretty sound after a couple minutes.

A very faint voice perks my ears. Someone else is up. I slip my arms into HB's coat and wander down the hall. As I get closer to the source of the sound, it starts to clear up. It sounds like an infomercial, "Buy now and we'll send you, not one, but two!" The announcer's canned excitement is mildly catching, but that's what they pay him for. Why anyone needs two of something that's only available through a TV offer is beyond me.

I vaguely remember my Grandmother ordering anything and everything that the TV claimed 'you couldn't live without'. My Dad would always grumble that she was wasting her retirement fund, but there wasn't any arguing with her. She was a stubborn as he was.

The sharp glow of the TV is spilling out of the recreation room, so I shamble that direction. Lazarus is sitting on the couch, watching the infomercial with minimal interest, with Eon curled up on his chest. She's got her thumb in her mouth, showing her age while she sleeps.

"She had a nightmare that the mimes came and took you away," Lazarus says quietly.

I come across the room and fall onto the couch next to him, asking, "She's afraid of mimes?"

"Always has been."

"Well, I guess some kids are afraid of clowns, so why not mimes."

"Oh, don't even bring up clowns."

I glance over at him, "She afraid of both?"

"Yep."

We're both quiet for a time, watching some washed up British star talking enthusiastically about an exercise machine. He gets on it and the cameraman spends way too much time filming his legs and ass.

"That makes me want one," I comment sarcastically. I get a slight chuckle out of Lazarus.

"For that price, it had better have the voice of God giving me a pep-talk from the control panel."

"Maybe not the voice of God, wouldn't Jesus be better?"

"How so?"

"Well, he's had a human body, so he's got to know how hard it is to work your ass off. You'd think the voice of God would just be kind of hypocritical. I doubt he spends his time in heaven on an elliptical."

"True."

I'm fairly certain that strange conversation was based off the fact that I've gotten about six hours of sleep all week. I remind myself that I'll be home by tomorrow, but it's a bittersweet fact. I look down at Eon, muttering, "No offense to the rest of you, but I'm going to miss her most. She's the closest thing I've ever had to a little sister."

Lazarus pets her curly hair, "She'd probably be a lot more bad-tempered with you if you were her brother. She causes just as much trouble as Torque."

"I noticed, but she doesn't get in trouble as much as he does. She gives you the most innocent look when you catch her red-handed."

"You fell for it, didn't you?"

I smile, "Yeah." She'd been painting cutesy designs all over Torque while he was napping. After that look though, I couldn't get mad at her for it. It wasn't like she was doing anything truly harmful.

"You're just lucky she didn't pull the crocodile tears. She starts those up and she can get away with murder."

We both watch her sleep quietly, thinking our separate thoughts.

"You mind if I hold her for awhile?" I ask, reaching out my arms.

Lazarus transfers her to me as gently as possible, trying not to jar her awake. She squirms a little, but otherwise doesn't notice the transition. When she shifts and gets settled against my chest, she's asleep again instantly.

"Wish I could sleep like that," I whisper.

Lazarus smiles, "Don't we all?"

A new infomercial comes on and there's a woman with a massive gap in her teeth selling a food processor. She's got a lilt to her accent, like she's from a different part of England. I don't pay it too much attention.

"Why are you watching this crap? Isn't there something better on?"

"No. We can't afford any more channels, so this is all that's on after about midnight," Lazarus sighs.

They really need better funding. "When I get home, I'm putting a check in the mail. Use it to get cable," I say, half-joking, half-serious. The poor guy never sleeps and this is what he does? It's got to be rotting his brain.

We zone for a minute, watching the lady grind up vegetable after vegetable to make some funky-looking sauce. Every time she smiles, all I can see is that massive gap between her teeth. My brain finally kicks in and I look away from the TV.

"I appreciate what you've done for me, but I have to tell you that I'll probably get shipped out again almost immediately. If Manning doesn't want me there, there's not much I can do about it," I admit regretfully. Eon shifts in my arms. I wait until she settles back down to kiss the top of her head. "I doubt he'll send me back here."

Lazarus pushes off the couch. "You know what, if he sends you somewhere crappy, we'll come pick you up. You just give us a call, anytime." He pats my shoulder and I know he truly means it.

"Can I get you a coffee?" he asks, walking for the door.

"Yeah," I return. I'm already tired and it's going to be a long day; I could use the caffeine.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

I want to say that I'm not nervous, but I am. I'm sitting in the back of the bakery van, fooling with a pair of six-shooters that Mr. Westfield gave to me. I feel like a wannabe cowboy. They didn't have anything newer and I really didn't want to go into the mission unarmed, but I may as well be unarmed, considering how unfamiliar I am with guns this old.

Mr. Westfield showed me how to open the chamber so I can load them, but a pocketful of bullets isn't as comforting as an automatic pistol and an easy-load clip. I slide them back into their holsters and glance up at the others. It's the first time I've actually seen them decked out in battle gear.

Torque doesn't wear much more than he normally does, but he has a massive mace strapped to his back. I feel bad that he has to be crammed in the back of the van. His head slams into the ceiling with every pothole we encounter.

Yvette doesn't bring anything into battle apparently, since she is a living weapon. Eon isn't armed, for which I'm grateful. When I spoke to Lazarus about it, he confirmed that Eon doesn't do any fighting. She comes to the missions purely as a problem solver.

I think Lazarus's gear surprises me the most. I don't know what I was expecting, since he doesn't really strike me as a violent man, but duel-wielding swords was pretty far from anything I could have imagined.

I pull out one of the six-shooters again, rotating the ammo-cylinder slowly. I've never handled a weapon so ancient. I hope they work. I guess, if it backfired, I would be okay. Chalk that up to another plus for being a wolf.

Lazarus goes over the final plans as we get close, "The BPRD should be arriving any minute, so we'll be unloading at the location and Eon will go with Ralph-"

Eon shakes her head and crosses her arms over her chest, a pout immediately dominating her face. It was a very obvious, 'You're not leaving me behind.'

"Eon, I need you to brief the others on what to expect when they arrive," Lazarus explains easily.

Red and the others have probably already received their brief and Lazarus knows that, but this mission might be too dangerous for Eon. We'd rather have the others with us to help wrangle the wyrm.

She finally resigns to the idea with a nod.

"Good," Lazarus sighs. I think he was expecting more of a fight from her. "Your whiteboard is behind the seats."

We stop rather abruptly and Rex slides across the aluminum flooring. He flares a few frustrated colors before he vanishes again. Yvette creaks open the back door to see where we're at. We don't want to pile out into an intersection if Ralph just hit a red light.

"We're here," she says, shoving the door open the rest of the way.

The first thing Yvette does outside the van is light up a cigarette. She sort of glares at me when she does it. I'd asked her to put out her cigarette in the van because I was choking on the smoke in the tiny space. I've never liked the smell of smoke, but between my wolf's nose and the fact that she only smokes black-paper Russian's (which have stronger EVERYTHING in them, and are illegal in most countries) I just couldn't take it.

Yvette takes a long drag on her cigarette and blows several smoke rings, still glaring at me. I'm not entirely sure whether she's pissed that I told her to put her out of her cigarette or because I'm going home. Maybe it's a little bit of both.

"Just let them know what they're up against, okay?" Lazarus gives Eon her last minute instructions. When she nods, he gives her a tight hug and sends her to sit in the front with Ralph.

"We could use Rex to find the wyrm," Yvette mentions offhandedly. "These catacombs are always like a maze."

I peer at the castle ruins. It's ironic that a dragon-like creature would take refuge in a castle. Or is it expected? Hell, I don't know, we're just here to kill it.

"I can find it," I say. At least I think I can. I haven't tracked something with my new senses, but I have to start somewhere. "Rex can help the others find us." I load the six-shooters and slam them shut.

"Then let's go," Torque says, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

He's getting anxious to jump into a fight; I know that kind of behavior from HB. Calm one minute and looking to bust heads the next. It's what they live for, I guess.

We head into the ruins slowly, Lazarus in the lead. The team is armed with flashlights for now, but I stay out of the light. My eyes seem to work much better without the glare. I sniff the air, feeling slightly foolish and like I'm pretending to be Wolverine.

I don't smell anything at first, just stale air and Yvette's cigarette, but I catch a whiff of something as we pass by a dark chamber. It smells like meat and old leather. It might be a dead cow for all I know, but I cut into the chamber.

"Hey, wolf-boy, tell us when you leave the group," Yvette yells after me.

"Hang on, I'm just checking something," I yell back, stepping over a large piece of stone.

My foot encounters an object that crunches. I wince when I look down to see that I'm standing in what's left of someone's ribcage. The rest of him is laying nearby, but in multiple pieces. As often as I see human carnage in this job, I never get used to it. My heart leaps into jackrabbit mode, but I'm not really scared. The wolf sort of pulses beneath my skin, comforting me. I'm mildly thankful that all that's left of him is bone.

"I think we should be heading this way," I shout back at the group.

Lazarus flicks his light in my direction and I shield my eyes against it. "Did you pick up his trail?"

"No, just his leftovers, but I smell something pretty strong."

I follow the scent across the chamber to a deep, twisting set of stairs. The meat and leather is heavily masked by the smell of decomposing flesh. It's so strong that I nearly gag.

"It's definitely coming from down here," I say, putting the sleeve of HB's jacket over my nose. "How many people did you say this thing killed?"

Lazarus and Yvette are picking their way across the bone-littered chamber, but Torque just stomps through it, not really caring what he steps on. He gets to me before they do.

"Not too many, as far as we know. They tried to open up this castle for tourists, but the group they hired to restore the place went missing," Lazarus says as he kneels to pick up a skull.

He turns to Yvette with a smile, the skull held aloft, and she grumbles at him, "You start making Hamlet jokes, I'll kill you myself."

"Aw, where's your sense of humor? I'll have you know that I saw Hamlet the first night it opened. Shakespeare came out and announced the players, it was pretty incredible," he lays the skull where he found it.

"Knowing you and your culture, you fell asleep during the first act."

I roll my eyes at their banter, heading down the stairwell. I don't get past three or four steps before someone grabs my shoulder.

"Why don't you let me go first, John?" Lazarus offers. "If there is something down there, I'd rather be the one to find it. I can come back – you can't."

I nod and let him pass, trailing after him. Torque doesn't fit well in the narrow staircase, and I hear him grunting and complaining as he squeezes down sideways. I try not to snicker at his plight. "You doing okay back there, Torque?" I toss at him, knowing exactly what kind of answer I'll get.

"Shut up," he grumps at me.

The stairwell opens up into a massive room that was not made by man. It's almost cavern-like, except the rock looks like it was carved away with a multi-faceted tool. Jagged gouges spatter the wall, in no particular order or pattern. The lines almost remind me of scales and I get the image of the wyrm sliding its body against the cavern walls to carve out its den. I don't know if that's how it was done, but that's my theory.

The stench of death is heavier here, so much so that I retch, but there's nothing in my stomach to toss. I guess the right word for that would be dry-heave.

"You okay, wolf-boy?"

"Yeah," I gasp, propping one hand against the wall. "The smell's a bit much."

The smell of fresh meat would probably make me hungry, but this stench is old and foul. Whatever's making it has been dead for days. We're close to it now though, I can hear the flies. After a minute, the nausea passes.

"Let's go," I say, pushing off the wall.

Lazarus makes his light dance over the floor in front of us, illuminating dark stains, "I wouldn't say it smells that bad."

"You spend a few minutes with my nose and say that."

"Good point."

I spot the masses on the floor just before Lazarus's light flashes over them. I don't need the light to know what they are.

"Sheep," I note.

There's not much left of them, just fragments and bits. If you put the pieces together, it might make up one sheep, but there's got to be the remains of about twelve bodies here. Lazarus's flashlight catches on a face, frozen in terror. I can see the maggots wriggling in its gaping mouth and feel another swell of nausea.

"Why are we still standing here? It's disgusting," Yvette asks after a moment.

"Train wreck syndrome," Lazarus mumbles, continuing to shine the light over the mangled limbs and appendages.

Yvette slaps his shoulder and we finally break out of our collective trance so we can move around the carnage. I trip over something, but I don't look down to see what it was. I don't think I want to know.

The cavern floor dips sharply a few yards later, becoming a large, almost perfectly round tunnel. There's a similar tunnel to the far left of us and another straight ahead. This is definitely the cross-center of its maze. The tunnels are almost twenty feet in diameter and I find myself hoping that the wyrm isn't the same width. If it is, this thing is a lot bigger than we were expecting.

Low rumbling echoes from the tunnel to the left, something I know the others can't hear yet. It sounds like a subway train heading towards us.

"Where to next, John?" Lazarus asks, looking from one tunnel to another.

I slowly draw the six-shooters out of their holsters, "I don't think we're going to have to go anywhere; I think it's coming to us."

Torque's long ears flick towards the tunnel. His hearing is better than a human's, so I'm willing to bet that he's picked up the noise too. "It's big," he says, yanking the mace off his back.

It's getting much louder, a scratching, scraping sound moving damn fast, like hundreds of rock drillers moving at breakneck speed towards us. I think Eon might have been right; I think we underestimated this thing.

The creature's face swarms out of the dark tunnel first, its mouth cracked open in a long hiss, and its snake-like body follows. It arches up as high as the cavern roof will allow, the massive scales pulling away from its body like a puff adder. I unload my guns into it. The bullets ricochet every which direction. Only one of them pierces the wyrm's skin, inside its mouth. The scales are going to be a problem.

As I'm reloading, the wyrm arches back and opens its mouth. It inhales sharply and Lazarus yells, "Scatter!"

Fire explodes from the wyrm's mouth, licking the rocks where we were standing seconds before. It brightens the cavern, especially when it catches the sheep remains. I thought the stench was bad before, but it's ten times worse when they start burning.

"I think the fact that it breathes fire is a NEED-TO-KNOW THING!" I scream at the others, popping a few more rounds into its open mouth. "How did that not make it to the file?"

Torque paws the ground twice before barreling towards the wyrm. It slaps him away with the side of its head before he can get close enough to do any damage. His back slams into the wall, but it doesn't slow him down any. He gets up and charges again.

I go one way; Yvette and Lazarus head the other. The wyrm focuses on them, giving Torque a chance to slam his mace into its side. He dents a few of the scales and gets slapped away again. The wyrm pulls back its head, drawing in a hiss of air with the intention of burning Yvette to a crisp. She's got her hands extended, though, drawing energy from the wyrm. I don't think she knows she's in its sights.

I open my mouth to scream, to warn her somehow, but the wyrm's fire is coming faster than my words. Lazarus darts towards her and I hear her yelp of surprise, but fire engulfs the place where they were standing and I can't tell what happened.

We can't keep this up.

I spot the perfect target. I take aim, putting a bullet in the dead center of the wyrm's eye. Ha! I got it! It screeches and throws its head back, but immediately turns its attention to me. Out of my peripheral vision, I see Yvette back at work, but now I'm the one in trouble.

I empty my guns on it, without much effect, and the last thought I have as it darts towards me is, 'oh crap.'

- HB

If I have to go on another transatlantic flight in next decade, it'll be too soon. I hate being stuck in a fucking plane without anything to do. Good news is, I'm now on the RIGHT continent to find John and we didn't bring any agents with us except Ellis. Don't know how we managed to get away with so few babysitters, maybe because the mission is supposed to be 'difficult'. As soon as we're done screwing around with this worm, thing, I know what I'll be doing. Though, this did come at a really convenient time, I wonder if there's more to it?

Blue's voice breaks into my thoughts, "There is." I look up at him, about to give him the usual gripe about being in my brain, but he interrupts me, "The team we are meeting with is the team that John was transferred to. They arranged this meeting by finding an appropriate mission that would need our incorporation."

"Really?"

"Indeed."

Well, I still know what I'll be doing once we're done dealing with the worm. I guess everybody was planning this while I was locked up. It would figure that I had no idea what the hell was going on.

"Did you know about that?" I ask Liz.

She gives me a light shrug as she pulls on her boots. "Yeah, but I only found out about it before we got on the plane."

"And in the eighteen hours we've been on the damn plane, you couldn't have brought this up?"

Liz smirks, "What fun would it have been if you weren't sulking?"

"Like you don't sulk all the time," I grump.

It's the worst damn comeback EVER, but I can't think of anything else to say. It doesn't bother me that much, 'cause I'm going to see 'Scout tonight. And I know exactly what I want to do to him, with him hot and sexy beneath me, making those noises I love. Shit, if I keep that up, I'm going to have a boner before we get off the plane. Mmm… but damn it's a nice thought.

Should be reality soon enough.

The back of the plane cranks open and I check the Samaritan's rounds before shoving it into its holster, "Showtime."

I lead the team out, raising my eyebrow at the little kid that greets us. She holding a dry-erase board with 'BPRD' on it, like she would run into somebody else coming off a cargo plane on an abandoned airstrip.

Liz has a very girly moment (for her) and squeals, "She is so adorable!"

The kid gets a wide-eyed look when Liz picks her up and hugs her. Can't really blame her from being in shock. We're people she barely knows and one of us is already cuddling her like she's a relative.

"What's with the kindergarten brigade?" I ask, sticking a cigar in my mouth.

Liz and the little girl both glare at me.

"HB, be nice," Liz scolds me.

"What? I was just asking."

The kid wipes her board clean and scribbles something else on it, turning it around so everybody can see it, 'I'm Eon. I was sent to give you your final brief.'

Why the hell doesn't she talk? Speaking of, Blue's being awful quiet. I glance over my shoulder at him. He's just standing there, studying the little girl. There's definitely something off about her if he's trying so hard to figure it out.

"So you're part of the team?" I hear Liz ask her. There's a pause, then Liz again, "Wow, you're the tactician? You must be very smart."

"She is," Blue perks up. "She's the most intelligent human I have ever come in contact with. At this very moment, she's solving the theory of light relative to time travel in her head." There's something else that he closes his mouth on, something I guess he didn't want to bring up.

That's… pretty impressive for a five-year-old. It's no wonder Abe's trying to figure her out. Eon squirms a little and Liz sets her down, she makes a beeline for Abe.

She gestures at him with her hands and Blue nods at her, "I do understand sign language." She grins and signs something that makes him chuckle. "Is that so?" he asks.

A guy climbs out of what I thought was an abandoned truck and yells at us, "We should probably get going. Why don't you continue your chit-chat in the van?"

Looking at the run-down bakery van, it's the first time I have EVER missed riding around in the garbage truck. It's not even like it has a high-tech interior that's hidden by the crappy exterior, it's about the same inside. It looks like they just gutted a regular bakery van and bolted some benches against the walls. There are holes in the roof and claw marks on the floor.

We pile in uncomfortably, the little girl scooting about as close as she can get to Abe.

"It looks like she's got a crush on you Abe," Liz teases, smiling.

"So, are we going to get briefed, or what?" I ask, taking a long drag on my cigar. As cute as it all is (note sarcasm), I'd really rather get down to business.

Eon signs to Abe, giving me a look while she's at it, and Abe chuckles again, "That's true."

I'm getting sick of only hearing half of this conversation, especially since I know they're talking about me. She picks up her board before I can say anything.

'We're fighting a wyrm,' she writes, underlining the letter 'y'. It's a non-traditional spelling that I've seen somewhere else. I'm sure Blue'll recognize it. Wait, I think it was from a medieval text, something about it being a relative of a dragon.

"With the 'y', doesn't that mean," I start, prompting Blue.

He picks it up immediately, filling in what I couldn't remember, "The 'y' in the spelling dictates that it is a very large, scaled creature that was often mistaken for a dragon. In reality, it is much longer than a dragon, but has no wings or legs. It's more like a snake, actually. They were thought to be extinct."

"We've fought a lot of things that are 'extinct'. Hell, we don't even exist, right?" I comment.

Blue shrugs, "True, but there is the fact that, even in our field, a wyrm sighting hasn't been documented in over a century."

I look back at the little kid, "That everything?"

She wipes her board clean and writes, 'You summed up what I was going to tell you.'

We take a sharp curve and this thing appears out of nowhere, sliding across the floor. It's an ugly son of a gun, with huge claws and way too many teeth for my liking. "Whoa!" I yell, pulling out the Samaritan.

Eon motions at me frantically, but hell if I know what she's saying.

Blue translates before I can pop a cap in the ugly bastard, "Wait Red. It's her pet."

"Pet?" I ask skeptically. It looks more like something drudged from the deepest level of hell. It growls at me and I very nearly shoot it anyway. "She should get a cat," I grumble, putting my gun away.

"You just think that because you have a million cats," Liz says dryly.

"So?"

"So what? You're a crazy old cat lady HB, in demonic form."

"Am not!"

"Can you even tell me how many you have now?"

I start a tally in my head, but I lose track at about twenty-seven. She does have a point… Maybe I should get somebody to take them to get fixed. Every time one of them has kittens, it means another bag of cat food every month. I already feed them in nine by twelve baking pans. Not that I'm going to give her the satisfaction of knowing that she's right.

"I have enough."

"Crazy old cat lady," she proclaims triumphantly.

"Yeah, shut up." I flop back against the wall, letting them laugh about it for a while. If I keep arguing with her, she'll just make it worse. Liz can turn anything I say against me, but she's always been like that, since day one.

My gut starts to knot up. 'Scout and the others are already fighting this thing, but the impression I'm getting from Abe and Eon is that they really should've waited for us. What if things are already going downhill? Fuck, I wish the driver would step on it. I know 'Scout can take care of himself, but if I lose him… hell…

It takes WAY too damn long to get there. Blue says it was 'only' twenty minutes, it felt longer. I jump out as soon as we stop, "Come on, let's go."

The kid makes a motion and that weird, color-changing thing scrabbles out of the back of the van and darts around me. It (or is it a he?) stops to lick the dirt. No, I didn't say that wrong, he licked the dirt. He does it a couple times and takes off again.

Abe comes up behind me, "Apparently that is how Rex tracks. He follows scent trails with his tongue. It's very fascinating."

"I would lean more towards gross."

Blue hums a little, but doesn't say anything else. Fascinating or gross, Rex does lead us right to them, only stopping once to check out a human skull (which he then ate). He turns to a flight of stairs, but I can hear the fight now, I don't wait for him to finish his snack.

I'm coming John. I hate feeling like something's wrong, like I'm too late. He's fine, he's gotta' be… But, if he's not, there's going to be some serious trouble.

Before I can even get a good look around the cave at the end of the stairs, something big and heavy hits me. I fall back on my ass like that time I got hit by a fucking train. Whatever it is gets off pretty quick and I realize that it's a freak like us. What the hell is he smashin' into me for?

"Watch where you're going," I yell as I climb to my feet.

He stops, turning back to me with a glare. There's a big horn in the smack-middle of his face, like a rhino. A second after I yell at him, he's charging at me. I don't think twice about fighting back. We slam together, more grappling than fighting. He's bigger than me, but I've fought bigger and it doesn't mean he's stronger.

I use his weight to toss him over my shoulder. He only stays down an instant, jumping up immediately to drive an arm into my stomach. Son of a bitch! I grab his arm and push him back into the wall.

Liz is shouting at us, but we ignore her. We don't stop fighting until this other chick screams at us in Russian. The rhino guy freezes and stares past me as the chick keeps hollering, "Torque, why am I the only one fighting? Get your ass over here!"

Torque (I guess he's called) charges around me, giving me a glare as he passes. I follow after him. Time to get back to business. The wyrm is pretty big, probably fifty or sixty feet long, but half of it's still hidden in a tunnel.

I glance down at a body near my foot. The guy's a crispy critter. I'm trying to figure out how he got that way when he sits up. "Holy!" I shoot him point blank. He didn't scare me, I swear, but corpses don't just get up for no apparent reason. Well, whether he was an undead or not quite deceased, my special-made bullets will put him out of his misery.

I step over him and scour the room for any sign of 'Scout. There's a lot going on: Torque's on the wyrm's back trying to peel a scale off, and the angry Russian chick is throwing some kind of energy at it, and that dog thing is chewing through its side, but I don't see John anywhere.

Behind me, I hear, "Who shot me?"

Abe answers… wait, who the hell is he talking to, the corpse? "You must be agent Lazarus."

I turn around to see him talking with Crispy. If Abe isn't bothered by the fact that Crispy won't DIE, then he knows something I don't. Whatever. I unload a couple bullets on the wyrm, but its scales are too thick. I thought that'd be the case.

"Where's John?" I shout at the Russian.

She doesn't look at me when she answers, "The bitch ate him whole. If we kill it soon, maybe he'll still be alive."

"Ate him?" I sound like an idiot repeating her, but I have to be sure I heard that right. There's no fucking way 'Scout got eaten. He's quick enough to avoid that, isn't he? I think back to the first day he worked with us, when he got nicked by a car, then nearly pancaked by another… My stomach drops somewhere into my feet.

"Da, eaten! You going to do-" she shuts up halfway through her sentence as the wyrm pulls its head back and inhales, "Fuck, move!"

She darts away, but I head straight for the son of a bitch, right through the fire it spits at me. It'll have to do a hell of a lot better than that if it expects to stop me. I jump up on one of the curves of its body, rip back a scale, and unload my gun into the wyrm. It thrashes pretty good, but it doesn't get rid of me. Problem is, I have to let go to reload.

"Red," Abe yells, except Abe isn't too loud and I'm not paying too much attention.

"RED!" Liz this time, more of a screech.

I look up from trying to balance a new set of bullets and my hold on the wyrm, "What?"

It tosses me off the second I'm not paying attention. I should've ignored them. I roll and ugly hits me with another blast of fire. I'm pretty sure that my shirt is officially cinders. I liked this shirt…

"What?" I shout again. They've already screwed up my position, so I might as well hear what they want to say. There's a reason I like to work alone. Ugly makes matters worse by swatting me a couple feet through the air. I land on my knees. It hurts, but I've had worse, lot's worse. I grumble and dust myself off.

Crispy's up now, standing with Abe and Eon. He's got a pair of swords, which seems kind of archaic to me, but whatever gets him off.

"The wyrm secretes fire using two glands-"

I butt into Blue's speech. 'Scout doesn't have time to waste on technical shit. "Cut to the chase, what do I do?"

"A large force must be applied to the sides of his jaw to destroy the-"

"Great," I interrupt again. He can explain later, we need to take this thing out.

I make a motion at Torque so he'll stop charging blindly, "You want to do something useful?" He's about the same size as me. If we do this together, maybe we can get it right the first time.

A flare of energy flies past me, making the wyrm pretty pissed. It snaps at the Russian, but she gets backup from Crispy. He takes a chunk out of its nose with his sword. While they keep ugly busy, Torque and I figure out what the fuck the plan is.

"Look, I'm fireproof, so I'll bring ugly down to our level, but you've got to be ready to jump in. Got it?"

"Got it," he answers.

"Alright. Crispy, Russian, get your asses back."

The chick starts to say something to me, but Crispy pulls her out of the way. I'm getting the feeling that chick has a serious problem with anyone telling her what to do, like Liz, but worse. She give Crispy a good smack for dragging her off too, shouting at him while he gets her out of the line of fire (literally.)

When everybody is at the edge of the cave except me and Torque, the wyrm focuses on us.

"As soon as it's close enough, you nail it," I tell the rhino, getting a snort in response. "Hey ugly!" I yell up at it, waving my arms.

First thing it does it spit fire at me, but, when I don't turn into a piece of charcoal, it hisses. I'm hoping it gets pissed enough to try and take a chunk out of me.

"That all you got? Come on, you bastard!"

It arches back, eyeing me. What, is he weighing his options; do I look like I won't taste good? Let's go, ugly. I really hope this isn't a smart monster and he's figured out what's going on. That would suck. John can't have long left (if he isn't dead already) so I'm going to have to change tactics if this fucker doesn't cooperate.

John better not be dead… If he is, I'm going to hold Manning personally responsible and mount his ass on my wall as a trophy. He may have had more pressing things to do than come on this excursion, but I'm still going to blame him.

"Come on you son of a-" I don't finish my sentence before it lunges at me. Holy hell, it's fast! A lot faster than I thought it was going to be. I jump out of the way, but I can feel scales scrape across my side.

I don't waste any time checking to see if I'm wounded. Instead, I slam my stone fist against the edge of the wyrm's jaw. The bone crunches under my hit. Right on cue, Toque hammers the other side of it.

When it snaps its head out of our reach, its jaw is just hanging there. There's spit, or something coming out of his mouth in a waterfall. Well, maybe more of a drizzle than a waterfall. The wyrm screeches, which sounds like nails on a chalkboard, and shakes its head around.

"Nice moves," I shoot at Torque. "Now let's kill this thing."

He nods. We both charge at it, going different directions to keep from getting taken out at the same time. Ugly doesn't take long to decide which one of use is a bigger threat and it comes down on me. Since it can't bite me anymore, it uses its head like a sledgehammer, smashing into me.

I grab one of the bony ridges on top of its head, mostly because I can't think of anything else to do. It sits up, trying to shake me off. I hang on with my stone hand and grab my gun with the other. If I pump lead into it this close, maybe I can destroy its brain.

I get one shot off before it slams me into a wall. My gun flies out of my hand, dropping somewhere on the cave floor. The wyrm slides me around a little, like somebody trying to scrape something nasty off their shoe. I curl my tail out of the way to avoid losing it on a sharp edge. Pain shoots across my back.

"Ow."

When this is all said and done, I'm going to need some aspirin and a beer.

"Nice try," I grunt, hooking my foot up into the bloody eye-socket for leverage. He must've lost the eye earlier in the fight, but the socket makes the perfect step. I shove my weight forward the minute I'm not being crushed against the wall, climbing on top of the wyrm's head.

It's like riding a bucking bronco, not that I've ever been at a rodeo, let alone participated in one, but I'm going to go with that. I hold onto one of its horns and slam my fist against the crown of its skull. I do it again, and again, making a real good dent.

"Gimme. Back. John!" I punctuate each word with another brutal hit.

It can't be too late to save him. It can't be.

- John

I gasp for air where I can, but my lungs are filled with an acidic fog that burns more than it helps. Walls of flesh press against me, crushing me and forcing me along. I dig my fingers into the thick tissue, desperately trying to claw my way back up this thing's throat. My heart is pounding in my ears. Maybe it's the wyrm's heart, but I can't be sure. It's so hard to tell what anything is through the panic that grips my body in a stranglehold.

I finally fall into a thick pool of liquid. The fumes coming off of it burn my eyes, but the smell is twenty times worse than that. I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to stop the mind-numbing pain, but there's no way for me to block the atrocious stench of gore. My skin that's submerged in the disgusting liquid starts to sting slightly.

Oh shit, I'm in its stomach!

I try to scramble to my feet, to get as much of my body out of the acid as I can, but every time I get up, the wall of the stomach shifts and I fall back to my hands and knees. I attempt to steady my nerves (it's a relatively useless attempt) and try to focus on the change. As a wolf, I should be able to rip my way out of this. Heat floods my senses and my skin starts to tingle.

A roar shakes me to the core of my being, breaking my concentration. The fleshy walls contract around me and force me down into the acid. God, I burn! The pain is so far beyond a sting now that I'm certain I'll be scarred beyond recognition if I do get out of here.

If…

I try not to laugh wildly at that word. There's no way I'm getting out of here. In a few days, there won't be anything left of me but wyrm shit.

The stomach walls relax and I manage to sit back on my knees, coughing and sputtering. Every breath of the acrid air sends stars flashing behind my eyelids, but not the good kind. A sob escapes before I can stop it. I can't cry.

Then again, who's here to see me? What's it matter if I break down in the last few minutes of my existence, no one would care. No one would even know. I never expected to die alone… I never expected to die like this… but I didn't expect a lot of the turns my life took.

They say that life flashes before your eyes when you die, but my life doesn't really flash, I just think about it. When I was a kid, I wanted to be a banker when I grew up, like my dad. What the hell kind of kid wants to be a banker? All the other boys wanted to be firemen, or astronauts, or police officers, but I was always the odd one out.

I scream, but no sound comes out. My throat must be burned raw from the air.

Honestly, I became an FBI agent because I never believed that my parents' deaths were an accident. They died when I was eight and nobody could convince me that my dad just fell asleep at the wheel. I was so influenced by the idea that it had to be foul play that I spent the next ten years of my life studying law and criminology in my spare time.

I probably had enough knowledge to become a lawyer, but I got a letter from the government saying that my test scores were very interesting and that I could have immediate entrance into a federal training facility. I sat through three years of college before I accepted their invitation.

In all my years, I never, NEVER thought I would be involved with something like the BPRD and I definitely didn't imagine that I would become a werewolf and take a demon mate. Funny, I think if I was presented with these ideas as a kid, or a teenager, I would've… I don't know what I would've done, but I wouldn't have believed that any of it was possible.

But I wouldn't change a single decision I made. As weird as my life has been, I think things were the very best after I met HB.

I cough and taste blood in my mouth. Doesn't really surprise me. Your lungs can only take so much damage before they start shutting down. I'm not as scared as I was. Isn't that something that can happen, acceptance? I think it has something to do with understanding that death is inevitable and knowing that panicking won't change anything.

Either that or the fumes are starting to affect my brain. I might have to vote for the latter.

Soft light catches the edge of my vision. I have to admit, the first thing that entered my mind when I saw it was the whole 'light at the end of the tunnel' thing, but I realize a second later that its real light, light from outside. It flashes through the skin walls, making my hellish prison deep red.

'I'm here!' I try to yell, but I still can't make my voice work.

Instead, I press my hands against the flesh, hoping to make my presence known. I curl my fingers against it and grow claws. I don't change completely, but I'm surprised how easily it comes to me now when I couldn't even call on my wolf before.

I grab onto that light like a beacon of hope, saying a silent prayer of thanks to whatever deity that might be guarding my back, and crawl from the wyrm's stomach. I brush past Rex and recognize him instantly. He's munching happily on the wyrm's insides. He pauses to lick some of the grime from my face and continues to eat, even after I've clawed my way through the hole he's made.

I fall onto the stone floor, gasping the clean air desperately. The breaths rip through my ragged lungs with a massive amount of pain, but it gets better with every minute that passes. When I'm breathing normally, I weakly push myself into a sitting position so I can survey the battleground.

I can't see too much, since I'm surrounded by curls of the wyrm's body. I stumble to my feet and navigate my way out slowly. Just being this close to a monster would have scared the hell out of me in the past, but I guess things would change after being eaten. One of the coils shifts closer to me as the wyrm does god knows what. I adjust my path a little to keep from getting knocked over. I'm wobbly enough that someone could sneeze on me and I'd probably collapse, so I'm not going anywhere near that thing.

When I get out into the open, I almost burst into hysterics. My team! Abe is crouched down next to Eon, discussing weak points, and Liz is on fire from head to toe with Yvette drawing energy off of her, and… I have to look around for HB, but I spot him way up on the wyrm's head. He's hammering on it with his stone fist.

His words float down to me, "Gimme back John!"

"Should we warn him?" I hear Yvette say. I look back at them, at the fact that Yvette now looks like she's the fire starter because she's covered in Liz's energy.

Liz shakes her head, "He'll be fine, throw it."

It takes me a split second to realize what they're doing. Liz can cause an explosion that could clear out the cave, but it would kill everyone here. Yvette has an immense amount of control over the energy she steals, so she can do things with Liz's fire that Liz can't even begin to consider.

But the wyrm breathes fire, isn't he fireproof too?

Yvette gathers the energy into her hands and chunks it with a shout. As the fireball gets close, the fluid seeping from the wyrm's mouth catches just before it hits. The fluid must have been how the wyrm created its fire, because the impact with the ball of flame is catastrophic. There's a massive explosion that tosses Red several dozen feet and leaves the wyrm wavering without much skull left. The body seems to collapse in slow motion.

I make my way over to Red, picking over the wyrm's twitching body. Before I can get to him, HB has grabbed one of Lazarus's swords and started carving into the wyrm.

"Hang on John, I'm coming!"

He makes a hole big enough to stick his arm in and yanks out Rex in a morbid version of a magic trick. He must have seen Rex moving and assumed it was me. HB drops him, "Get outta' here!"

Rex clicks at him unhappily and goes right back to feasting on the corpse.

"That was like a scene out of Alien," HB mutters and keeps digging around frantically.

When I think I've let him sweat enough (actually, I'm just too exhausted to climb up to him) I call out, "What are you doing?"

Red stops and looks around, right over my head at first. When he spots me, the biggest grin I have ever seen cuts across his face, "John!" He scrambles off the wyrm and I'm really expecting a bear hug. Instead, he curls his stone hand around my back and gently wipes some of the gunk off my face.

"You're a mess, kid," he murmurs softly.

I practically collapse in his arms as the weight of the past few weeks catches up to me, pressing my lips to his as best I can. I realized that I needed to be held by him, but I was underestimating how much I needed it. I needed him as much as I needed air, and food, and water.

Red kisses me slowly and sensually, taking his time with me. He almost handles me like I'm breakable, and, considering the state I'm in, that's probably not far from the truth.

My legs get a little stronger as we stand there, as do my advances. I wrap my arms around his neck and open my mouth to his. He accepts the invitation eagerly. As his hands travel over my skin, I'm expecting some kind of pain from the burns I know I have, but there's nothing but pleasure.

I thank my new ability to heal for that. Maybe there are more perks to being a wolf than I thought. Increased appetite and stamina for sex, being able to heal quickly and survive more than a human can, plus heightened senses. Yeah, I really think I'm going to get used to this.

"Hey, why don't you two save that for later?" Liz yells at us, breaking the moment.

I pull away from my mate with a smile that he echoes. Once I'm not focused intently on HB's body pressed against mine, I realize that I reek. Considering what all I'm covered in, I should've passed out from the smell.

"Maybe we can get back to it after a bath," I say sheepishly.

Red rubs his thumb along my cheekbone and leans in to steal another kiss. "Maybe during," he suggests.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

TBC…

Well, I only expected this to be one more chapter, but this chapter was already sooooo long that I decided to split it up. (For those of you keeping track, this chapter is almost 12 pages longer than any other chapter.)

Anyway, but the rest of it should be well earned sex and a conclusion with Manning. He'll get what's coming to him.
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