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.The lights of Paris glittered all around them, the river sparkling with reflection.The perfect night.He'd seen such bliss a thousand times in old movies but never imagined it to be more than fiction.Even if it had been true for ordinary guys, it couldn't be real for him.Or so he'd thought.In public with Anastasia, he always felt vaguely absurd and clumsy.It helped to focus on her.The previous day, upon their arrival in Paris, she'd convinced him to shed his well-worn duster.Together they'd shopped for a new coat, and Hellboy had settled on a charcoal gray greatcoat that had a similar cut to his duster but would not be quite so out of place at the Louvre.Now the time had come.They stood hand in hand at the entrance to the sprawling museum."Excited?" Hellboy asked.Stasia turned to look at him, reached up to smooth the lapels of his wool coat.People passed them on the steps up toward the grand facade of the Louvre, a structure worthy of inclusion within its own exhibits."Aren't you?" she asked."It's your accomplishments they're celebrating tonight."She took his massive right hand in both of hers and ran her fingers over it almost as though the rough, hard texture of it was her own personal worry stone."Our accomplishments," Stasia said quietly."You're part of this.A big part."Hellboy smiled.Museum patrons entering the unveiling of the exhibit probably saw his expression and thought him angry.It was a common misconception.His features weren't made to smile.But Stasia knew his face well, and she smiled in return.They'd spent much of the winter at the Chateau de Chaumont at Loir-et-Cher, France.The castle had once been owned by Catherine de Medici, who had entertained sorcerers and astrologers there, among them the great Nostradamus.In 1613, archaeologists had discovered the skeleton of a giant buried beneath the castle, a man twenty-five and a half feet in height.Believers claimed the creature was one of the nephilim, gigantic creations that God had put on the Earth before he'd thought up mankind.Others said it was a hoax or an anomaly.When restoration at the castle had revealed a previously undiscovered chamber--in which the stones of the floor had partially collapsed--it had at first been only an interesting aside.But when several of the stones had been removed and a gigantic human skull discovered under the floor, work had been suspended while archaeologists were summoned.Eventually, Anastasia had received a call asking her to join the dig.From the moment she began to tell him of the seventeenth-century discovery, Hellboy had understood why they wanted her.There wasn't an archaeologist in the world with more experience dealing with unexplained phenomena.The skeletal remains of three giants had been discovered beneath the secret chamber under the Chateau de Chaumont.The shortest had stood at least twenty-seven feet in height during life."Interesting," Hellboy said, as they strode up to the entrance together, and stepped through the doors."What is?" Stasia asked.Hellboy gave a small shrug."The Louvre's got its rep as one of the most sophisticated places on Earth, but today it feels more like a carnival sideshow."The moment he said it, he worried that he'd offended her.The exhibit focused on her work, after all.But Stasia only laughed."This is what happens when you find physical evidence of the existence of giants."They followed signs and the gestures of finely dressed men and women positioned at intervals within the museum to point out the way to the gala.The corridors seemed endless to Hellboy, the museum a labyrinth.When they reached the exhibit hall, they found a line outside the door.A dapper-suited man stood to one side, obviously security.For a moment, Stasia stepped away to talk to him.Hellboy figured she wanted to make sure they were in the right place, that as participants in the dig, they weren't supposed to be somewhere else.Two thirtyish men were in front of him in line, silently shuffling forward as the crowd squeezed into the exhibit hall.In front of them were an older couple, both extremely well dressed.The woman wore a gown fit for a royal ball and the man an expensively tailored suit that clashed with his eccentric features, his gray-white, unruly beard, and his thick glasses."C'est elle," the woman said, nose turning up snidely as she gestured toward Anastasia.Hellboy frowned, glaring at the old couple.They didn't register his presence at all."Degout," said the old man
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