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Incendiary Rounds by akire [Reviews - 0] 
The oak door smashed into the floor, throwing up a cloud of dust from the thick layer laid down in the centuries since feet last crossed this threshold. Myers turned to Liz with a raised eyebrow. “Effective.” Liz rolled her eyes and moved ahead of Myers in a breach of protocol and standard procedure. From the set of her shoulders, he could tell it was deliberate. Beyond her, he saw Abe half-turn, a look of concern, not unmixed with amusement, clear on his alien features. Great. It was one thing to have a fight with your… co-worker. It was another thing to have Abe catching your thoughts about said co-worker. Definitely co-worker. Theirs was a strictly professional relationship, as he had repeatedly assured their new director. And from the way Liz was stalking through the doorway after H, flames already burning patterns in the air as they chased each other around her fingers, it was going to stay that way. Wrinkling his nose against the dust, he switched to a two-handed grip and took the rear-guard without comment as their unorthodox quartet proceeded deeper into the belly of the beast. The dusty floor turned gritty beneath his boots as the ground began to slope, first gently and then more steeply, into the earth. His fingers stretched and tightened around the butt of his weapon as he considered whether or not he needed his torch. As if responding to his thoughts, the light grew brighter, extending the shadows. He glanced over his shoulder as Liz raised her hand, the flames she generated moving in an orbit around her fingers so fast it made a torus of blue energy. From his position on point, Hellboy rumbled his approval. “Nice. You’re getting good at that.” “Thanks,” Liz said flatly, and for a moment Myers wondered what H had done to join him on Liz’s mental shitlist. Then a crossbow bolt hissed past his head close enough to ruffle his hair. Before he could draw breath to yell a warning to his friends, a ball of ethereal blue fire passed over his shoulder so neatly he could feel it draw the oxygen out of the air. Then, and only then, did Hell let loose. He dove to the left, seeking the mythical cover of a flat, featureless wall. Abe stumbled into him, the slap of the webbed hand on his back identifying him as friend. Over the roar of Liz’s fire, and the answering boom of what his mind automatically tracked as a double-barrel shotgun, he could hear Abe’s voice yelling something urgently. Fire. Abe was amphibian, and the air in the narrow tunnel was already dangerously hot and dry. Choking for breathable air, Myers pushed off the wall, forcing himself to override every instinct that was screaming for him to run away. “Liz! LIZ! STOP!” Hellboy got to her first, his giant fist looping under her raised arms and pulling her back and down against the other wall. She slumped against him, eyes still glowing. She turned her face into Hellboy’s chest, heaving for breathe, as the two of them melded into the shadows. Myers dropped into a crouch against the wall, scouring the gloom back down the passage, willing his night vision to return. But all he could see was the corona after-affects from Liz’s firey display. But in the sudden silence, his ears seemed attuned to every sound, from the murmur of Hellboy reassuring Liz, to the burble of Abe’s respirator. Then he heard it. The slide and click of someone trying, quietly, stealthily, to eject a shotgun shell. Myers stood up, gun in hand and trained on the source of the sound. “FBI. Come out with your hands up,” he ordered. The silence dragged out for a momentary eternity. Then he heard a sigh. “Shit.” Everyone froze. Whatever reaction he had expected, that wasn’t it. “Toss down the shotgun, and come out.” “And that crossbow,” H added from behind him. Myers shifted his stance and nodded. Crossbow and a shotgun. Who would carry both? As the weapons clattered onto the floor, it turned out that the question wasn’t who but whom. The two men who moved into view, hands on head, wouldn’t have looked out of place on a college campus, if it wasn’t for the weaponry. If there was one thing this job had taught Myers, it was that appearances could be deceiving. “Identify yourself.” The stockier one on the left grinned at him. “Hi. I’m Tom Scholz, this here is Brad Delp.” He was obviously lying — ‘Brad’s’ scowl confirmed that — but before Myers could call him on that, ‘Tom’ shifted stance, hands on head sliding back until he was lounging in place, hands laced casually around the back of his neck. “And who might you be, cos last I heard the FBI wasn’t in the habit of carrying flamethrowers.” The scowler shifted target, mapping Myers face with his eyes before looking over his shoulder at his companion. Myers wondered whether it was the sight of Red or Blue who knocked the scowl off his face. Either way, he pressed his advantage. “Who we are is none of your business. But you are impinging on a Federal investigation, and you have fired on Federal officers.” “You’re kidding me, right?” The scowl had shifted to a look of disbelief. “The Government is hiring Demons and Frog-men now?” His companion smirked, hands dropping to his sides. “Would have loved to have seen that recruitment drive.” Myers opened his mouth to regain control of this impromptu meeting. Then he was gasping to desperately draw some air into his lungs, torso crumpled against the wall, legs pinned under the rubble which was still falling from the fractured ceiling. Around him, the shadows roiled in unnatural ways as the spirit they were hunting, the one which had been preying on the dilapidated town at the base of the hill, started hunting them. Desperately, Myers scrabbled at the section of passage wall under which is legs were pinned as around him the shadows boiled up the walls and began flowing together, coalescing into a form both familiar and horrifyingly alien. His nails tore and his blood smeared the dirt in streaky patterns of desperation as the shape turned. Blank darkness where a face should have been, yet even so Myers knew this thing was staring at him. Fire ripped through the air between the two of them, shattering the awe-full connection this creature was trying to create. Freed from its thrall, Myers desperately tried to squirm out from under the rubble as another burst of fire was hurled in a futile attempt to distract or drive off the shadows. But instead of shying back, like some many others had before, this monster flowed with the fire, almost as if it was drawing energy from the bursts. Myers tried to yell her name, but the dust in his throat, in his lungs, choked off his warning. But others had found voice. In a disjointed kind of harmony, two, then three, then four distinct threads of words wound together. Through the haze and dust, Myers would have sworn he saw the words take on form, roping together to bind the creature of shadows. With an inarticulate shriek, the creature struggled, but the words held tight, dragging the creature away from Myers and towards Liz. She smiled, palms held out against her sides as the blue flames around her fingers grew darker, hotter, fiercer than anything Myers had seen her produce before. The shadows shrieked in pain as the dark fire billowed out of Liz. Myers felt the hit slam into his skin, and after that he knew no more. He woke slowly, groggily, to the subdued beep of the medical equipment that monitored his vital signs. “Welcome back, sleepyhead.” Myers groaned as he rubbed the bridge of his nose. “How long was I out.” Soft, warm hands helped him to sit up, moving the pillows until he was comfortable. “Only a day or so,” Liz said as she settled back down on the chair drawn up to his bedside. “Doc said you could probably use the sleep.” Myers blinked sleep from his eyes as he assessed how he was feeling. Bruised was far and away the dominant attribute, which all in all was a good thing. It meant that nothing worse than a few purple splotches was lurking under the white bed sheet. A cotton ball was taped to the inside of his forearm, and he raised an eyebrow in query. “We had an IV in you overnight. Fluids, saline, mostly.” Liz blushed and looked away, abashed. “I kinda roasted you. I’m sorry.” Myers waved her down. “As long as you didn’t stick an apple in my mouth too, I think we can call it even.” He tilted his head as more memories of what had happened came rushing back in. “Hey, you made black fire…” Liz nodded again, a faint look of pride on her face. “Yeah. I kinda did.” She laughed as Myers cheered. “Stop that. I didn’t control it very well.” “But you made it. That’s awesome.” Like everyone else at the BPRD, he knew that Liz was experimenting with different types of flame. Unlike most people, he also knew how frustrated she had been with her lack of progress…most people. The memory of two strangers made him sit up straighter. “Hey, what happened to those two kids who were there…” Even as he spoke, the questions he had for them began to pile up in his brain. “Abe let them go,” Liz said simply. “What?!” Myers jerked up quickly, wincing as his bruises protested the movement. Liz was on her feet, her hand pressing him gently but firmly back into the pillows. “They helped Abe conjure the binding spell which let me toast the shadow creature,” she explained calmly. “They knew the spell already. And they knew what they were doing, too.” Myers shook his head angrily. “That’s no reason to let them go. Fuck, that’s a reason to lock ‘em down, at least until we know what they are.” Liz refused to rise to his ire. “Abe said he knew what they were, and that we should let them go.” She met his eye and winked. “And demons usually don’t go for such a sweet ride as that old Impala.” She bit her lip, trying to smother a huge grin. “License number KAZ 2YR.” With a sway of her hips, she stepped backwards from the bed. “Do you want to come run the plate down with me, or would you rather catch up on your beauty sleep?” Myers grinned back and reached for his robe. He doubted that the plates would turn up anything. Anyone packing both magical and conventional firepower like that had probably spelled the plates. But one good thing was that he was no longer on Liz’s shitlist. That counted as a win. And if their private little search turned up anything on those two, that would be nice as well. |
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