Good Taste

(Written by Roysovitch)

**Roswell Army Air Field**

**January 19th, 1945**

The young red-skinned, half-demon child clumsily walked out of his bedroom, dragging his comparatively gargantuan hand at his side. He stepped into the hallway running down the length of the prefabricated structure of corrugated galvanized steel and followed the path to the kitchen and dining area. There he found his caretaker, Professor Trevor "Broom" Bruttenholm, speaking to a military officer.

Hellboy was still wiping the sleep from his eyes as he stumbled toward the table and clumsily climbed into an empty chair. Despite being on Earth for less than a month and arriving with an anatomy developed to the equivalent of fully human toddler of age two, Hellboy's chaotic infernally-infused physiology had a growth spurt and was now roughly equivalent to a four-year-old with an even more advanced vocabulary.

The sound of a yawn followed by the smacking of lips drew Broom's attention toward the child now seated at the table. Releasing a sigh, the professor turned back to the officer. "As you can see, general, your untimely intrusion has unduly awakened Horatio."

"Horatio?" the officer asked, raising an eyebrow. He scoffed and shifted his weight. "You mean the creature?"

Broom glared in response. "With all due respect, General Ricker, my assignment here is clearly outlined. I am to raise this child in a loving environment. Due to the need for secrecy and security, my task is already complicated by our mere presence on this military compound. If you insist on causing further interference to this objective, then perhaps I will have need to remind you that I was sent here on orders from your president and my prime minister. I trust you would not wish me to express the difficulties incurred by this facility's commander in my next weekly report?" The general did not flinch. He drew a long breath in from his nose and locked eyes with the professor. "Is that a threat?"

"Of course not," Broom said with a smirk and no hesitation. "It was merely a friendly reminder."

Ricker glanced away from the professor, eyeing the child half-asleep waiting for breakfast. He scoffed and turned his attention back to Broom. "Well, here's the deal, professor... We got another freak for you to babysit." Broom raised an eyebrow. "I beg your pardon?"

"We had a British plane make a drop-off in the middle of the night," he said, turning to the front door of the Quonset hut. He opened the door and waved his waiting men inside. "They brought us... thing." Hellboy looked up from the table to see two burly men step inside, each one holding the upper arm and forearm of a chained person, roughly the size of a human teenage girl, but it was clear by the size of her large pointed ears, silver eyes, and white hair that she was no human girl. Trying to keep pace with the tall soldiers, the inhuman girl frantically hopped on one bare foot due to the other foot and most of the leg it should be connected to being MIA, replaced by a bandaged stump.

"My goodness, what happened to this girl?" asked Broom, following the soldiers into the living room.

"Girl?" asked the general, with a scoff as he closed the door. "According to her, she's over five hundred years old."

Broom glanced briefly at the general as he grabbed a blanket off an armchair and approached the sofa where the two soldiers were lowering the restrained female. "Yes, well, I am sure that is still rather young among her people," Broom said as he advanced, unfolding the blanket. "However, that does not address my inquiry. What happened to her?" "You don't know?" asked Ricker. "She's been a guest of the British government for most of the war... according to her file."

Broom placed the blanket over the female's lap. As she struggled to adjust the blanket to her liking due to her chained wrists, Broom gave each of the soldiers a glance. "Can you remove her restraints, please?"

The soldiers gave each other a look before glancing over to their general.

Rolling his eyes, Ricker finally gave a nod. "Here's the file," he said, handing over a dossier he had kept tucked under one arm. "Maybe you can make more sense of it than I can."

Seeing the Men of Letters symbol on the dossier as he took possession, Broom nodded. "I imagine I will," he said, cracking it open and giving it a quick perusal.

"Apparently she's an elf," said Ricker.

"A Hvítálfar to be precise," Broom corrected, not taking his eyes off the documents.

"Which means what?" asked the general.

"Shining Elf," said the female, brushing some of her hair off her eyebrow as she began to look around the cylindrical residence. A moment later, she locked eyes with the half-demon child at the table and flashed a soft smile his way. "Who is this?"

Hellboy blinked at her twice before he registered she was talking to him. He grinned and waved, but did not answer her question. Instead, he asked one of his own. "Why are your ears like that?"

"I'm an elf," she replied, still smiling as her restrained were removed. "My name is Panacea. What's yours?"

"That's classified," said General Ricker, stepping between the sofa and the kitchen table, using his body to break their line-of-sight to the other.

"General," said Broom, unpleased with the base commander's behavior, "if I am to be the caretaker for Miss Panacea-"

"You can just call me Panacea," she replied with a grin.

"Right," said Broom with a quick grin and a sage nod. He turned back to the general, pausing just a moment to recall his prior train of thought. "If I am the caretaker of her as well, then I will need you to vacate this building with double haste. The presence of military personnel is highly disruptive to my work... as we have discussed multiple times."

"Look, Broom," said the general, closing the distance to the professor. "I don't like you. You don't like me. I get that. If we're being honest, I prefer it that way," he said, not batting an eye. "I don't much care for your presence on my base, particularly with all this... strangeness."

"Do not insult those under my care, general," Broom warned.

The general scoffed. "Them? I don't give two shits about them... I was talking about you."

"Me?" asked Broom, raising an eyebrow.

The general nodded. "You're a grade-A nutcase, Broom. You want to know why?"

"I doubt I would be enlightened in the slightest by such a revelation, but I am willing to be humored," Broom said with a dour expression.

"You enjoy this... nonsense," Ricker said with a cold glare. He left a lingering pause, heavy with unspoken tension. "Hellspawn, pagan creatures, dark magic, blood rituals, dusty books written by whackos from nine centuries ago..." Ricker scoffed. "It's all very... unchristian."

"Oh," said Broom, as he cleaned his glasses, paying more attention to that simple task than the military commander now standing inches from him. "Well, if that is all, would you kindly see yourself out of my heathen home? You're keeping me from my virgin sacrifice."

Ricker scoffed, rolled his eyes, and motioned his head to his men. A few seconds later, they were gone, but not before one of the soldiers left a child-sized crutch propped against the wall by the door.

Broom brought the crutch to the elf and dropped his shoulders, offering her an unspoken apology for the scene. "I hate to be a burden, but if you'll excuse me for a minute, I have need to step out for a minute. Would you mind keeping an eye on Horatio?"

"Horatio?" asked the elf.

Hellboy waved his small hand. "That's me."

Panacea smiled. "Not a problem at all," she said as she grabbed the crutch and used it to brace herself as she stood up.

"Thank you," said Broom as he made way to the door, retrieving a matchbook and pipe from the pockets of his cardigan sweater.

"Broom must be upset," said Hellboy with a slanted smile. "He smokes when he's upset."

Panacea paused as she maneuvered into the kitchen. She glanced to the door where the silhouette of Broom could be seen lighting his pipe. "Upset, you say?" she asked as she glanced to the kitchen cupboards. "I think I can help with that."

"What are you going to do?" asked the horned child, his tail swaying freely as his yellow eyes tracked the elf's graceful movements on her crutch.

"I'm making Pfannkuchen," she said as she hurried about collecting all manner of ingredients and prepping the stove and pan with dizzying prowess, made even more impressive by her disability.

"That sounds German," said the cambion, wrinkling his little nose in disgust.

"Oh," the elf paused to giggle. "Pardon me, I slipped into the wrong language. I do that from time to time... particularly when I'm distracted," she said, now stirring a bowl of batter with remarkable speed. The batter began to sizzle on the heated pan seconds later as she searched the kitchen for a spatula. "I believe the English word is 'pancakes'... Would you like some pancakes, too?" she asked, finding the spatula and holding it overhead like a celebrant treasure hunter having discovered an ancient relic of great significance.

Hellboy giggled at the silly elf, but as his smile faded, he considered her question. He weighed the thought for a moment and then frowned. "I want hot noodles."

Panacea scoffed. "For breakfast? No..." she said, flipping the contents of the pan, revealing a perfectly golden brown side. "You can't have hot noodles for breakfast... I'm making you pancakes."

Pouting, Hellboy shook his head. "No... No way! I don't like pamcakes!" he shouted, slapping his giant hand on the table with enough force to cause the table to tremble under the weight.

The elf locked her discerning silver elven eyes on the child for a moment, reading every bit of his posture, expression, and other qualities unseen by the naked eye - or at least, the human eye. She wiped a drop of splashed batter from her nose with one finger and licked it up before smiling and declaring "You've never had pancakes before!" with a voice that was nothing but absolutely certain. A few seconds later, she was dropping three perfectly round pancakes onto a plate and sliding them in front of the cambion child. "Just try them..." "They're yucky..." said Hellboy, looking away from the plate with an exposed tongue.

"One bite," said Panacea as she hopped and spun about, planting her bum on the tabletop while facing the demon child, her leg left dangling.

Hellboy scoffed and wrinkled his nose.

Panacea grabbed the fork, spun it about in her fingers with a dazzling deft display of dexterity that drew the demon's eyes back to the plate. Once she had his attention, she quickly cut through the fluffy, syrup-drenched breakfast stack, and then skewered a hearty, mouth-watering bite of pan-fried perfection. "Open..." she said as the fork made its way to Horatio's mouth.

Rolling his eyes back, realizing he could not win this argument, Hellboy reclined his head, opened his mouth, and closed his eyes. "Ahhh," he uttered as he waited the breakfast he could not whine his way out of tasting. He took the food off the fork, chewed it, and swallowed it. As the sensation went through him, his eyes popped open.

Panacea couldn't help but smile, reflecting the cambion ear-to-ear grin.

"Hey... I love it!" he said before grabbing the fork from the elf and digging in.

Panacea giggled. Though that was the reaction she believed she would get, it was still no less amusing to behold. "Just, save some for the old man, will you?"

Hellboy nodded but he did not hear a thing over the sound of his chewing what he could only describe as syrup-soaked love.

**Meanwhile... Pandaemonium, Hell**

"Gah," screeched the mouths of the formless flowing shape of the demon Azazel.

The demon prince Belphegor glanced to his side as the two were strolling down a long corridor over the Tower of Dis. "Is something the matter, m'lord?"

"It is the boy..." Azazel said with yellow eyes blinking at different intervals. "My son..."

"What is it?" asked Belphegor as he scratched the cheek of his rat-like face. "What has happened? Have you found his location?"

"No," said Azazel. "But for a moment... I felt his emotions..." Azazel said, hissing through the teeth of one of his many floating maws.

"That's great," said Belphegor. "You're connecting with him. Soon we may be able to find him."

"It's not great..." scoffed Azazel, his shapeless form advancing down the corridor.

Belphegor had to move faster to keep pace. "How is that not great news, m'lord? Once we can establish a connection long enough to track him down, we can reclaim him into our possession and put him on the path toward fulfilling his destiny."

"You don't understand, Belphegor!" barked Azazel. "In that fleeting moment of connection, it was not anger or greed that sparked such an emotional impulse in my son."

"Well, what was it?" asked the rat demon.

"It was love..." said Azazel, his shapeless mass shuttering at the utterance.

"Truly, this is our darkest hour, m'lord..." said Belphegor, hanging his head low as his hand cradled his brow and shielded his eyes in an attempt to hide his disappointment.

## Trivia and Notes

* **Author's Note:** *This scene is inspired by the "Pancakes" mini-story from the pages of Hellboy. There is a minor deviance from Panacea's timeline to make this story possible, but I felt it was too fun to not make this connection. I will make the correction to Panacea's file later to reflect this creative redirection.*
* Debut of Hellboy, Trevor Bruttenholm, Panacea, and Belphegor.