The Incubus
Chapter 1: Boneless Chicken

When I first saw her in the church yard, she looked like a boneless chicken. Not exactly Dickens, I know, but it was the truth. Her right leg, paler in the moonlight, was bent up behind her and one arm was stretched towards the stone steps of the church in what looked like a last ditch effort.

Oh, she was alive. Beaten, battered and unconscious so as not to feel the war her body had been through. Still, her chest rose and fell with breath. She'd be swearing in the morning. Advil ain't no miracle drug. Abe reached out to pull her white nightgown down, covering her naked stomach and hips and..well, everything else. I stopped him.

"Hellboy, have some decency," he said, his lidless eyes admonishing me.

"Cool it, Aquaman. Do me a favor, check the ribs."

Hey, what do you know, but my hunch was right. Across her breasts was the worst injury, a deep cut X made by two sets of razor sharp claws. Neat cut, quick cut, like the mark of Zorro. But this wasn't the work of no Antonio Banderas.

"Incubus," I said. "And not the band. He's been torturing her in her dreams for weeks I suspect. At least a month. Tonight he decided to make his final move and she tried hers. Betcha a shiny dollar she was trying to get to the church for sanctuary."

"Hospital?" Abe asks, at last covering her naked form. I took off my coat and wrapped it around her thin frame. Her skin was like ice. I didn't want her to wake up in my arms. I didn't want her to see the red skin, the square jaw, the sawed off horns. I didn't want to scare her. Sort of like out of the frying pan, into the fire sort of thing.

"Bureau," I said. "Gotta look a little closer at those scratches and..." I coughed and looked away from her, down the lane to the car. "And we have to see if anything was left inside."

Liz met us at the door. She stayed up late a lot, no matter how many times we told her to go to bed. She was an insomniac. I worried for her.

"What's this HB?" She asked, crushing out her cigarette. The light from the sitting room behind her illuminated the outline of her body through her pajamas. I shouldered past her to the clinic room, laying the girl down.

"Liz, uh, listen. This girl was attacked by an incubus. You know what that is?"

She snorted at me. "How long have I worked in this goofy house, HB? Demon lover right?

"Demon rapist," I correct. "She didn't love what happened to her."

Liz walked over and brushed the girl's hair from her eyes. She couldn't have been more than twenty, thin arms. sort of coppery hair. Her jaw was slack. When Liz touched her stomach, she stirred and mumbled.

"I don't want her to see me, Liz. She'll freak out. Can you...clean her up...run a few tests...a..."

Liz frowned in concern. "A rape kit? We aren't a hospital here. I can let you get your evidence but then she needs to go to the hospital. On the off chance it wasn't a demon she needs emergency contraception."

"It won't work on demon seed anyway," I said. I swore Liz blushed. I was going to throw up. Why couldn't this just be NAZIs again? "The things they test in the hospital have no bearing on this. Have a doctor check her..."

"Vaginal area?" Liz said, smirking. I fiddled with something on the wall.

"Yeah, that. It'll be...torn, I'm sure. And we need to clean her out with vinegar. Check it for traces of iron. Shavings, a smell. That's what his dick was made of...if it's who I think it is. "

"An iron dick," Liz said, going to the cabinet for some equipment. "Sounds like every girl's dream."

I waved Liz off and stomped out of the room before she and Abe could undress her. I needed a beer or seven. This case wasn't really my thing. Women weren't really my thing. And women getting hurt really fucks up my mood.

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