Summary:
September 6, 2014: After yet another nasty monster run-in, Hellboy stops in at a diner and gets sucked into another assassination attempt on Jericho.
50s Diner - New York East Side
Characters
NPCs
Mood Music:
Cage the Elephant - Ain't No Rest for the Wicked
Jericho's working. He often is of course and it often doesn't look like he is. At the moment it just looks like he's seated outside Ruby's, a 50's diner not too far from the Tri, intently concentrating on a patty melt. The reality is he's wrapped up in hacking several things. He gets away with 'several' because A) He's good at multitasking and B) Even with his hyperadvanced cybernetics, a lot of hacking is still waiting for things to run. In any case hacking and patty melt it is at the moment. K'nert's keeping to the shadows, lazily watching the human he was ordered to protect. Dumb human.
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No matter how focused Jericho is on his hacking and his sandwich, it's unlikely that he'll entirely miss Hellboy's entrance. The outsized demon stoops as he goes through the entrance, then makes his way across the well-lit interior to a corner booth. There's purple goop crusted to his bare chest and the sleeves of his coat and he looks absolutely exhausted, to anyone who can look past his generally demonic appearance. Every single occupant turns to boggle, their eyes riveted to Big Red as he passes. One of the cooks even ducks behind the counter.
Ignoring all the attention, the BPRD agent seats himself gingerly, tucking his tail off to one side. Then, he very deliberately opens a menu and starts to peruse the offerings. He throws in a few demonstrative "hmm" noises and meaningless comments like "that sounds good," in case anyone misses that he is just here for a cheap meal, not to steal their souls.
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Jericho has seen Hellboy once before, enough to know that his go to move isn't, at least always, the soul reave. It may be noted that he doesn't react in quite the same way. He's surprised sure but he sees demons fairly regularly. Not always ones Hellboy's size but even that occasionally. The lack of horror may cause him to stand out. Also, you know, the fact that Hellboy's seen him once before when Rain's house dropped out of the sky.
Some distance away a group of fairly ordinary people is breaking up. Some head down the street, some toward the diner. A few up away up toward a fairly tall largely empty apartment building. A lot of them are carrying gym bags which is odd considering they're not in workout clothes.
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As Hellboy continues to harrumph his way through the menu, there's a hushed, urgent tactical discussion behind the bar.
"We can't serve that," one of the cooks insists.
"Do you want to kick it out?" one of the waitresses rejoins.
After a lot more whispery bickering, the stoutest-hearted of the waitstaff approaches, looking ready to bolt if the demon makes a sudden move. But without waiting to hear whether he's going to get server patter or the heave-ho, Hellboy rattles off his order: "Scrambled eggs — however many you can fit in a pan at once. Three side orders of toast, four of bacon, and a whole pot of coffee." He never once looks up from the menu or raises his voice above what is, for him, a murmur. His voice is so naturally inclined to thunderous pronouncements that it still carries easily across the entire diner. "Please," he adds, because Dr. Bruttenholm was very keen on manners, and after forty-some-odd years it did start to sink in.
The waiter scurries away and Hellboy glances over at Jericho. "Hi," he says to the hacker, who seems marginally less unfriendly than most of the patrons. "You don't still have that cat thing around, do you?" He's not paying attention to what's happening out on the street. He's not going to let much of anything short of a Godzilla attack get between him and those eggs.
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Jericho smiles a little and looks up from his patty melt. "He's about somewhere. He doesn't usually hang around to frighten the normals." Beat. "Much as I'm sure he'd enjoy it. But no, blending. It's a good thing." The hacker frowns as he pulls up the (incredibly sparse) file he has on the huge demon thing. "Hellboy right? How'd everything work out with that house thing." He ran into the witch whose house it was a few days ago and she seemed okay. Still, question stands.
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"Ugh." Hellboy makes a face and rubs at his chest with one hand. "Some kinda witchy family feud over the will. Zombies everywhere. And there's a trickster god crashing on the couch. Kinda leaning toward 'nuke it from orbit,' between you and me." Just in case anybody forgot that he's not the ouija-board, did-you-feel-a-draft kind of paranormal investigator.
The eight-foot-tall red person with the stone hand who is currently crammed into a booth in a diner absolutely does not comment on the advisability of demons blending with the general public. He does, however, lift his stone hand away from his chest and grimace as he realizes that the purple goo has now gotten all over that, too.
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Jericho quirks an eyebrow and takes another bite. "Huh. I was under the impression that Rain seemed like kind of a rather pleasant witch. I ran into her in a cafe last night." His attention briefly flicks elsewhere. The odd group of people is completely dispersed now. Mmmmm. Interesting. There's code to be dealt with, briefly. Okay, running again.
"Mmmm. What brings you by if I may ask?" He's leaning back in the chair now, observing the large red fellow curiously but not with the same shock and horror as most. Also, his eyes have gone nearly completely amber as opposed to mostly amber from the last meeting. "What's the goo?"
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"More pleasant than her aunt who brings dead people to life with a blood chalice," Hellboy answers flatly. "Also more pleasant than the Baba Yaga or a root canal, while we're really raising the bar. You ever dealt with a trickster myth?"
The waiter returns and gingerly sets a pot of coffee and a mug at the edge of Hellboy's table. The demon pours the coffee into the mug before drinking it black, even though his size means he has to handle the mug pretty daintily.
"Eggs brings me by. If I spend half the night getting covered in an ancient cat bug monster juice, I get to spend the rest of it eating eggs." That at least explains the goo. HB has absolutely no desire to bring up the topic of weird coloration, no matter what Jericho's eyes look like.
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"Only peripherally. Most of my magical dealings so far have been demonic and not divine…" He pauses. "Though apparently I know and Angel and an ancient Bird Computer." Jericho's life is odd. Have we mentioned that? He watches as Hellboy drinks coffee like one might expect someone else to daintily sip tea. "Huh. You don't mind being out and about, then? And your bosses don't? Whomever they are?" He'd caught something about the BPRD and done a bit of digging but there's just not that much out there. Ah well.
"I guess that seems fair. Was the ancient cat monster local or a field trip?" If things are getting weird in New York, he'd like to know about it.
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"It was local," Hellboy answers, emphasizing the past tense. "Now it's a smear on the floor." He gets a lot of flak for a lot of things, but his ability to take out eldritch pit beasts has never been called into question. "It kinda works out that way, doesn't it?" he continues. "I've been doing this for sixty years or something, and I can count the nice magical creatures I've met on my fingers. Dunno about angels. Doubt they'd be much fond of me — skin condition and all."
He takes another sip of coffee, then answers, "I don't mind being seen. It's everybody else seems to mind. I figure people just gotta get used to me a little. Everybody likes the rock guy in the Fantastic Four, right? I'm like that guy."
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"Mine's not too fond of me. Well, ish. The guy being ridden is nice enough. The Seraph itself is… mmm… hit and miss. And not prone to asking permission or things. Anyway."
Jericho pauses to deal with some active security measures. "Certainly I can think of personalities who look odd, so yes perhaps that's it. At least you're not bitter about it. That I can tell."
Jericho seems to be about to say something else when his eyes widen and he abuptly drops off his chair and under the table. Seconds later a gunshot rings out, followed by a very large hole in said table passing through where his head would have been. He's already up and moving and Hellboy can see that demon-lizard-cat thing bounding out of the shadows toward the man. "K'nert! We're leaving!"
The hacker produces a handgun and squeezes off a few rounds at a nearby rooftop but already someone's taken a second sniper shot from a different location, and, as he emerges onto the street, angling for an alley, a third from yet another place.
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"'Ridden'?" Hellboy echoes, before holding up his stone hand to forestall further explanation. "Wait. Forget I asked." Then there's a sort of 'TAK' noise, and a misshapen bullet clatters onto his table, having had the misfortune to collide with the invincible Right Hand of Doom. Hellboy sighs and stands, pointing at the kitchen staff as he moseys after Jericho. "Keep those eggs warm," he tells them.
Out on the street, he glances around to identify the rooftop nest of the nearest sniper, then takes an unbelievable leap that will bring him crashing down practically on top of them. "You interrupted my dinner!" he yells. It's… unique, as battle cries go.
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The sniper certainly wasn't expecting that. Give her credit for adapting though, she immaditely pulls a knife and tries to stick it in Hellboy's ribs. Not the best at repartee, but she knows her job.
Jericho himself knows he's got a problem. He's being herded into the alley. Fortunately for him, the alley seems to be right where K'nert is running for. This is a good thing. Unfortunately for him there were those people who scattered…
Short burst of automatic weapons fire reach Hellboy's ears, followed by the deep, staccato rhythm of a large handgun.
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"Hey!" Hellboy bellows as he's stabbed. He takes advantage of the proximity to clamp down on the sniper's rifle with his mighty stone hand. This leaves the weapon with a wasp waist and a debilitating case of scoliosis — a mixed bag, as makeovers go. He swats the woman aside, then looks down at the knife that's jabbed into him. "That hurts, ya know!" he says as he pulls the blade out and drops it onto the rooftop.
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There's a yelp and a hiss from below and Jericho appears on the rooftop, with bring amber wings sprouting from his shoulderblades, K'nert in tow. "K'nert, can we get out of here now?" The demon hisses over at the hacker and bolts toward Hellboy. "Well do you want to tell Illyana how we both got shot by very large guns?" He takes aim at the sniper on the next building as K'nert opens a stepping disk literally right at Hellboy's feet. The demonling scampers through followed by a rolling dive from the ex-commander.
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"Screw you, lady!" Hellboy shouts after the fleeing would-be assassin, shaking his proportionate fist. Now, where's that next bit of gunfire coming from…? But there's no time to worry about it, as Jericho and his demonling reappear, drawing all of the gunfire to his rooftop. High-caliber rounds bounce off his demonic hide, leaving big, painful pockmarks. "Ow. Ow! What the hell did you do to get so popular, wing guy?" But 'Illyana' — he knows that name. He's supposed to investigate that name! With a resigned sigh, he bounds through the portal after Jericho and K'nert. His holler of "You owe me eggggggggggggs…!" is cut off as the portal closes behind them.
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