has been expecting him since the Dagda's funeral and takes him to a hillside to meet Fairy Queen Mab. Meanwhile, the Queen of Blood accepts a delegation from the witches, punishing several who were responsible for betraying and killing her centuries previously out of fear. She then begins to assemble her full army. Back in Ireland, Alice and Hellboy wait for Queen Mab, discussing their responsibility for the brewing war. Mab, arriving, not only agrees, predicting that Hellboy's good deeds only doomed the world and his demonic savagery has begun consuming, as evidenced by his ruthlessness in fighting the giants. Before vanishing, she tells him his one hope is to inherit his mother's crown and lead an army against the army of the Queen of Blood. Once she is gone they find an odd little fairy waiting to guide them. Hellboy flashes back to his brutal combat with the giants and then confronts his new guide, who he assumes is working for Queen Mab, and who repeatedly insists Hellboy is an Englishman despite Hellboy's protests to the contrary, as Hellboy and Alice follow him through a suddenly unearthly landscape. The two discuss Hellboy's recent death and resurrection (in short story "The Island") until their guide announces that, in revenge for all the faerie creatures Hellboy has killed in his career, he has led them into an ambush. Hellboy and Alice are besieged by a horde of pygmy fairy savages wielding poison-tipped weapons. Alice is struck and fatally poisoned, when three bird-women arrive, killing or scaring off Hellboy's attackers. They tell Hellboy that "their mistress" has medicine for Alice's poisoning and then transport him to a hill overlooking their castle, which is wreathed in flame. Awaiting her own army, the Queen of Blood comforts Gruagach and promises to restore him to his prime to have his revenge on Hellboy. Meanwhile, Hellboy, outside the flame-ringed castle, is told that he's been brought to it in order to defeat Eligos, a duke of Hell commanding a troop of demons who besiege it. The demon batters Hellboy unstoppably until, in return for a promise of favor should he claim his throne, Hellboy learns from a nearby imp the secret of Eligos' one weakness, an insignia worn as a ring. Hellboy destroys the ring and kills the weakened demon, ignoring his pleas for mercy, before racing Alice into the castle to be immediately and successfully