Hellboy: Unnatural Selection (20 page)

"I
T'S GETTING WORSE,"
Tom Manning said. His voice crackling over the speakerphone was tired and jaded, and to Hellboy it sounded as though he'd already given up.

"What's happened?" Liz asked. "What have we missed?"

There was nothing for a while, and Liz glanced at Hellboy. He shrugged, smiled, tried to make light of something that was feeling heavier all the time. He had never felt so helpless. Every time he heard about another cryptid sighting, he wanted to jet off and sort it out, but he couldn't be everywhere at once. It was tearing him apart.

"Well, to start with, Kate was right. It
is
Benedict Blake. He issued a statement two hours ago, and it's set the media alight. Everyone wants to know who Benedict Blake is, and everyone wants to know whether his claims are true, and who's to blame, and what we're going to do about it."

" 'We' meaning ... ?" Hellboy asked.

"The United States. He claims his wife was killed by the government, and there are a dozen countries — the U.K. included — demanding the truth."

"And the truth is?"

"Hellboy, Kate told you what she thought, and I'm with her. But right now blame will get us nowhere. While the governments fight it out, we have to find Blake and stop whatever it is he has planned."

"You said it was getting worse," Liz said. "I think the word you used was
War
."

The speakerphone crackled again, and Hellboy had a crazy image of his boss crumpling up a piece of paper in front of his microphone and saying, "You're breaking up, sorry ... break ... " Then Tom coughed and sighed, and even electronically Hellboy could hear the directors weariness. "When you read Blake's statement, you'll see what I mean. It's like a declaration of war, reality against mythology. Several countries have already tried military attacks against these things. Spain and Portugal. Greece. North Korea."

"And what happened?" Hellboy asked, but he could guess the answer.

"Spain lost fifteen fighter aircraft against a swarm of harpies. More than a hundred Greek soldiers have drowned trying to deal with supposed mermaids, and our satellites tell us that the North Koreans lost an armored brigade."

"What were they fighting?" Liz asked.

"I don't know," Tom said. "But whatever it was, they're blaming South Korea and massing their forces along the borders."

"Oh, come on," Hellboy said. "Tom, can you send the Blake statement to us?"

"I faxed it a few minutes ago. Should be waiting for you with our people at the airport."

"Who's meeting us?"

"Two of our guys from the U.S. embassy. Don't worry, they're not diplomats or secret service. One of them is a sensitive from Boston, the other is a Brit ghost hunter we've worked with a couple of times before."

"What's his name?" Hellboy asked.

"Jim Sugg."

"Hey, I know Jim! I met him back in '84 when they had that trouble over in London."

"What was that?" Liz asked.

"They televised a supposedly dramatized haunting, turned out it was real. Double bluff. Nobody believed a word of it, of course."

"Triple bluff?"

"Er ... "

"Hellboy," Tom said, "I want you and Liz to get straight to the embassy. They're already trying to set up a meeting with the British minister of defense. This is very sensitive. I don't want you just barging into London, not with everything that's going on around the world. The Brits are a bit jumpy right now, and it's no surprise. They're the only European country where nothing untoward has happened so far."

Hellboy looked from his window at the spread of housing, factories, shopping malls, road arteries, occasional clumps of green where planners had suddenly remembered what had been here before people. "I guess that's about to change," he said. His breath misted the window and obscured the scene, but it quickly cleared again, begging him to look.

"Tom," Liz said, "any news of Abe or Abby?"

"I called Abe and told him everything we know," Tom said. "And ... " He broke off, but the connection was still open, crackling with potential.

"And what?" Hellboy asked.

"And he checked out the dead werewolf. Guys, Abe is certain that Abby is one of Blake's creations. He won't say why he thinks this is true, but — "

"I trust him with my life," Hellboy said. "If he says it's so, it's so."

"It's an added confusion," Tom said, "but it makes it even more important for Abe to find her. She's BPRD. We can't have her slaughtering a movie theater full of people come the full moon."

"Not to mention she's confused and hurting right now," Liz said.

Tom did not reply.

"We're about to land," Hellboy said. "Speak to you later, Tom."

"Best of luck," Tom said. "And Hellboy ... Liz ... "

"Yeah, we know, Tom," Liz said. "We'll do our best."

The satellite phone hissed off, Liz grabbed Hellboy's hand, and a few minutes later the Lear screeched down onto the tarmac at Heathrow Airport.

The jet taxied along a runway to a private arrivals building. Hellboy and Liz had time to freshen up before they came to a stop, the jets winding down and the aircraft structure creaking and clicking as it accustomed itself to solid ground again. The pilot came through from the cabin and glanced nervously at Hellboy.

"Customs will be along in a few minutes to escort you to the terminal," he said. "From there you'll be taken to the main Terminal Four in an airport bus, where the two guys from the embassy will be waiting for you."

"Thanks for a comfortable flight," Hellboy said.

"No problem." The pilot nodded at Hellboy and Liz, then disappeared quickly back into the cockpit.

"Feels like we've landed somewhere hot," Liz said. She had changed her blouse and trousers and tied up her hair, as if expecting summer.

"I know how you feel," Hellboy said. Seen from the window, the expanse of concrete seemed depressingly barren and empty. He wondered how much of this world would have changed by the next time he and Liz had cause to fly somewhere.

A few minutes later a small cart trundled across the concrete and parked beside the jet. The driver regarded the aircraft with the bored stare of someone Long used to celebrity and politician arrivals. Hellboy looked forward to exiting the plane and relieving the monotony of this guy's day.

He was glad to feel solid ground underfoot once more. He and Liz sat on the back of the cart while the suddenly nervous driver guided them left and right between buildings, parked aircraft, piles of luggage containers, and storage compounds.

"Ever want to get lost somewhere, come to an airport," Hellboy said.

"I'll remember that." Liz had an unlit cigarette in her mouth, ready to light it as soon as they entered the arrivals building.

At customs they were greeted with suspicion. Hellboy couldn't blame them, he supposed, but it still rankled when they asked him to empty his backpack. They checked through his clothes and toiletries, then the blank-faced customs guy nodded at his belt.

"Not that," Hellboy said.

"Sorry, sir, but I have to insist."

"Buddy, even I don't know everything that's in there."

"HB," Liz whispered. "That's probably not what they want to hear."

"Sir, there's a lot of trouble in the world today. I understand that's why you're here visiting the U.K., but I can't just let you stroll through without ensuring that you're not carrying anything — "

"Once you re finished with my belt, who's doing my internal?" Hellboy said. He reared up to his full height and swung his tail up behind him.

"Sir — "

"Just give me back my pistol and let me go kill some bad guys."

The customs man turned around to look at his colleagues, but there was no help there. He turned back, defeated. "Sign this."

Hellboy scribbled his name on a piece of paper, took the secured box containing his pistol, and went to unlock it.

"Please, sir," the man said. "Not in the airport."

Hellboy glared at him, then sighed and looked away. "Pal, you need to loosen up."

"Mr. Boy, I'm only doing my job."

"It's Hellboy," Hellboy growled. He walked away with Liz, finding guilty pleasure at the sight of tears in the customs guy's eyes.

"That was uncalled for," Liz said, but he could hear the laughter distorting her voice.

"Hey, it's been a long flight."

"Notice they didn't search me at all? You must look suspicious."

"Ha!" They exited the building, ready to board the bus that would take them to Terminal Four, when they heard the first shouts from behind them.

"Now what?" Hellboy said. He was becoming really annoyed now. But when he turned, no fingers were aimed at him.

They were all pointing up.

Hellboy looked. "Oh crap."

"Hellboy — "

"I know, Liz. You ever get the feeling trouble follows us?"

"What the
hell
?"

"Dragons. I hate dragons." He plucked quickly at the clasps on the pistol box, but already the immensity of what he was seeing had hit home. It would take more than a big gun to stop these things. It would take more than a whole damn army of big guns.

What they needed right now was a miracle.

There were five dragons, all of them concentrating on one jet. From this distance Hellboy couldn't tell which airline it was, but it did not matter. It was maybe a mile out, a few hundred feet above the ground and coming in for landing, when the first of the dragons strafed its port wing with fire.

The pilot had obviously seen the huge lizards buzzing the aircraft, but he had kept his aircraft straight up to now. To do anything else would be to put everyone onboard even more at risk; an aircraft of that size could not be swerved or swayed from side to side, and if he could not avoid the dragons, he would fly right through them.

That changed when the first dragon attacked. The jet juddered and tipped to one side, the pilot obviously panicking, and the port wing tip narrowly missed colliding with the attacking dragons. The great lizards twisted and danced in the air, their grace and natural abilities putting the aircraft's manoeuvrability to shame. The jet swung the other way, the pilot trying to come back on line with the runway, and two more dragons dove in. One of them jetted flames at the tail, the other attacked mid-fuselage. Perhaps speed aided the pilot, because ferocious though they were, the flames seemed unable to catch hold. They left black smears on the white paintwork, great smudges of soot that followed the airflow around the aircraft, and then fluttered out in the wake from the jets passing. The dragons swooped in again — three of them this time — and they grabbed on to the fuselage, securing themselves with claws or tails, concentrating their fire at one place, letting go and lifting back into the air as an explosion of pressurized air and gushing fuel jetted up out of one wing.

"No!" Liz said. "What's the point, why the hell — "

"Lets get to the terminal," Hellboy said. He grabbed Liz's hand and ran, looking back over his shoulder at the stricken airliner. The five dragons were still buzzing it, swooping in and attacking the main fuselage again, holding fast with their claws and coughing out flames like giant blowtorches.

The pilot shook the plane — left and right, wings visibly vibrating up and down under the sudden movement — and the dragons let go, one of them spinning out and down as it was struck by one of the wings. It recovered quickly, hanging motionless in the air and shaking its head. Splashes of flame flew like saliva. It flapped its wings and in an instant joined the fray once again.

"Run!" Hellboy said. "Liz, don't look back, just run!" He knew that if she saw what was about to happen, she would want to stay and help. Helpless though she would be, her instinct would allow for nothing else, and he did not want to have to carry her away from something like this. She'd never forgive him, and he'd never forgive himself. But right now there was nothing to be done ... and his main concern was where the dragons would come next.

He had to get to the terminal. If he could be of help anywhere, it was there.

At the last instant Hellboy actually thought the pilot would get the jet down. The dragons came in again and again, taking turns clamping themselves to the fuselage and wings and directing searing jets of flame onto and into the aircraft. There was a fire inside — he could see it spewing from burst windows — and he could not bear to imagine what it was like for those poor passengers. But the plane kept level, its rate of descent seemed good, and when it was a hundred feet from the ground, Hellboy believed it would make it down in one piece.

Then one of the dragons crawled forward along the jet's back, claws digging in, tail waving, and when it reached the cockpit, it twisted its head around and down and vomited a burst of fire. The cockpit glass melted and burst inward, the front of the jet erupted and split apart under the onslaught, and it struck the ground and flipped over onto its side. It would have rolled, had it not come apart. Already weakened by several holes and doomed by the fires that had been consuming its insides, it burst and exploded across the runway. Flames engulfed the tumbling mass, plane and dragons alike, and the ground shook under Hellboy's feet as he ran, threatening to topple him. The crash was half a mile away, but it shattered windows all across the airport. Wrecked metal screeching along the concrete sounded like five hundred people screaming as one.

The five dragons rose from the conflagration, shook themselves free of debris and flames, and spiralled upward to hover above the airport.

"They haven't finished yet," Hellboy said. "Damn them, they haven't finished."

He and Liz stopped running, unable to do anything but stand and stare at the burning wreck of what had once been a plane containing hundreds of people. Hellboy felt something on his cheeks and wondered if it was tears. Liz was crying freely.
At least it was quick,
he thought, but it had been almost a minute between the first attack and the crash, and in that time ... he hated to think about it.

"It was quick, at least," Liz echoing his thought, but she too sobbed as she realized the truth.