Because
anotherusedpage reminded me that I hadn't posted it here and I thought I probably should in case the
original post disintegrates under the sheer weight of the crack.
Gen crossover Hellboy in London Below fic. Set pre-Neverwhere. First draft, very bitty, may contain fail. Does contain the Marquis de Caribas. You have been warned.
Hellboy had not enjoyed the flight. He’d had a lamp, a stack of magazines and almost enough nachos to keep him happy, but a packing crate was still a packing crate whichever way you looked at it. It had been a packing crate for twelve hours straight by the time he finally got out of it, at which point it abruptly stopped being a packing crate and became a large pile of splinters.
***
He barely listened to the explanation from the London BPRD agent.
‘Weird shit,’ he said, pacing up and down in front of the desk, his footsteps making the drawers rattle. ‘Down in the sewers. I get it.’
‘Big weird shit,’ said the agent. ‘There have always been things down there we don’t want to think about. But two of our agents have disappeared now. It’s… distressing.’ He passed across two photographs. One was a man in a suit, the other a woman in jeans holding an enormous axe as if it weighed nothing at all.
‘Think they’re dead?’
‘We don’t know, but we didn’t want to take any chances.’
Hellboy harrumphed, only slightly mollified to learn that he was considered the hardest hard-ass either side of the Atlantic Ocean.
***
The fact that he still stood out, even at the Floating Market, vaguely irked Hellboy. He wasn’t even nearly the weirdest thing here. Traders sold secrets, raven feathers, rat curry, personal services and magic spells, and they still gave him funny looks as he strolled by.
Suddenly a man with silver dreadlocks was dashing towards him, pushing the crowds aside with a mixture of polite erudition and judiciously applied elbows. ‘Excuse me, excuse me, coming through, please move…’ Hellboy grabbed him by the collar of his leather coat and lifted him up into the air.
‘Scuse me,’ he said. The man went limp. ‘Got a couple of questions. You answer me, I help with whatever’s chasing you.’
‘My dear… chap, who says there’s anyone chasing me?’ Hellboy looked over the crowd. Two men were pushing their way through, one short, one tall, both with terrifying smiles on their faces. The man looked back and sighed.
‘It’s a deal.’
‘Good.’ Hellboy waited until the men drew near. ‘You two. Buzz off,’ he said, holding the man out of their reach. The men looked at each other, and the smaller one shrugged.
‘Come, Mr Vandamar,’ he said. ‘I think the dear Marquis has found an ally with whom it would not be immediately wise to tangle. I wager this is a temporary arrangement, from which he shall not benefit for long. Farewell once again, Marquis - we shall meet again before long, I shouldn’t wonder.’
‘Ta-ta for now,’ said the tall one. They walked away.
‘Now,’ said Hellboy, turning his attention back to the Marquis. ‘I’m looking for a friend. I’m not from round here.’
‘No,’ said the Marquis looking him up and down, ‘I expect you’re not. It’s the accent,’ he added with a grin when Hellboy glared at him.
‘They came down here to find something big and weird. I’m thinking it’s the biggest weirdest shit you’ve got, and they came here to fight it. Didn’t come back. Ideas?’
‘The biggest, weirdest shit we’ve got lives at the bottom of Down Street. You’ll have to go through Knightsbridge. I wouldn’t, if I were you.’
‘… Knightsbridge.’ Hellboy echoed. The Marquis nodded and smiled a dazzlingly charming smile. Hellboy rolled his eyes and put him down. He saluted cockily and disappeared into the crowd.
This place was crazy. Abe was never going to believe him. Still, the rat curry was pretty good.
***
Darkness descended. Everything went utterly black. There were high-pitched noises in the dark. They might’ve been screams. Hellboy walked on, treading more heavily.
Something huge, unimaginably huge and made of night and nothingness, reared up in front of him. It had no shape, no end, he couldn’t see it or feel it but it blocked his path.
‘Huh,’ he said. ‘Night’s Bridge.’ And he punched it in its lack-of-nose. It recoiled. Hellboy walked on.
***
The Beast of London heaved itself around a corner and snorted hot, rank air through its nostrils. Hellboy winced. Its hide was matted and stinking, and it bristled with the weapons of those who had fallen while trying to defeat it. One of them was a very familiar extremely large axe.
The Beast looked as if it was about to charge, and then changed its mind. It approached Hellboy slowly, sniffing the air with nostrils bigger than Hellboy’s head. He let it get close. It stopped, and snorted again. The force of the foul stink almost knocked Hellboy over. He shivered. He’d felt that - and not just on the bits of him he could see in the mirror. He felt the demon pig bull thing’s breath on the place where his crown wasn’t.
Their eyes met, Hellboy’s small cynical red ones and the Beast’s enormous mad black ones. Hellboy slowly put his hand into his pocket and pulled something out. It was a cigar. He lit it, thoughtfully.
‘Looks to me like you’re not the one picking the fights here, pal,’ he said. The Beast snarled and clawed at the stones, and then turned and barrelled away back into the labyrinth.
Hellboy turned and looked at the stairs of Down Street and sighed.
‘I didn’t need to walk down all those for this,’ he muttered, beginning the long climb back.