Hellboy: Unnatural Selection (23 page)

"I hope that was empty," Liz whispered. All this fire ... all this destruction ... if she closed her eyes she was somewhere a long time ago and a long way away. She hated to think on that, yet she concentrated her thoughts and wallowed in those terrible memories. They fed the rage. They fueled the thing inside her, the fire that was cool to her but so deadly to others. And when she opened her eyes again, she viewed everything through a wavering curtain of heat.

She held her arms straight out from her sides, breathed deeply, and then forced her breath out like a rampaging dragon. A burst of fire poured from her, and she caught it in both hands, working it, twisting the ball of flame, and making it bigger with every touch.
Go,
she thought.
Go higher, grow bigger. Call the bastards in.

With a sound like a jet taking off, a mass of fire engulfed Liz and poured skyward.
So rich,
she thought.
So pure. If this keeps going it'll part the clouds!

She looked across the airport and was shocked to see how close the dragons already were.

The first lizard was flying just above ground level, looking like a bottom feeder in clear water. It was using its claws to guide its way across the concrete, while still beating its wings to keep it truly afloat. Its mouth trailed streamers of meat, clothing, and skin. Its eyes were black. Just as it reached the wheeled steps Liz was standing on, it skirted sideways, performing a full circle around her, its head tilted up and its black eyes reflecting her flames.

The other two dragons from Terminal Three followed close behind. One flew in high, the other copied the first, flying clockwise around Liz instead of counterclockwise. All three of them stared at her and her fire, perhaps impressed, perhaps hypnotized by this alien creature that could perform their own incredible trick.

But Liz knew it would not last for long.

Come on, Hellboy,
she thought.
Don't screw around. Shoot the damn things!

One dragon roared a mouthful of flame at Liz. Her own fire consumed it and cast it skyward. The dragon paused and roared again, but this time only the sound came out. It looked up at the tower of flame, back down at Liz, and as it opened its mouth for the third time, several holes appeared in its neck, and its head flicked sideways.

Liz could not help staring.
This is when it
—

The dragons neck exploded, sending its severed head spinning thirty feet into the air. Blood and flickering flames trailed behind it. Its body slumped to the ground. Dead, it was no longer immune to fire.

The other two dragons screeched, and Hellboy and the policemen moved out from cover to open fire. Hellboy had been hiding up on the terminal roof, and Liz saw him from the corner of her eye. His big cannon was blasting holes in the air, but not every bullet was finding its mark. The policemen emerged from a line of loaded luggage carts, and their marksmanship left no questions. Bullets raked the beasts' flanks, wings, and stomachs, and when a slew of slugs hit the second dragons neck, it screeched like a wounded baby, spun down to the ground, and clawed at its throat. It was still hissing when a chunk of its head was blown off by gases erupting from its torn hide. It crawled across the ground, aimless in death, and flames began to eat it from the inside out.

"Crap!" Liz heard Hellboy snap open his pistol and lock in another load, but it was as if the third dragon had instantly sensed his weakness. It darted past Liz and aimed for Hellboy.

She turned and threw a punch at the dragon. Even though it was twenty feet away, it took the blow hard in the side, Liz's bluish flames knocking it out of the sky. They did not burn the beast, but the flames of her wrath obviously carried weight. Startled, winded, the dragon was an easy target for the policemen. While his colleague was reloading, the sergeant stepped forward and emptied a magazine into the things neck. He ducked back as the lizard burst open and caught fire.

Liz threw a ball of fire at the gaping wound and smiled in satisfaction as she saw it settle into the creatures still-leaking flesh.

"Still one more!" the sergeant yelled, scanning the skies. His colleague, wide-eyed and stunned, finished reloading with shaking hands.

Liz looked up at Hellboy. He stood smiling on the roof's edge, hands on hips as if surveying a job well done, and as he opened his mouth to say something, a shadow fell over him. The dragon powered in from behind, plucked Hellboy from the parapet, and rose quickly into the sky.

Liz threw a ball of flame after it, but the dragon was rising too quickly, and the fire spluttered out after a hundred feet.

Hellboy twisted in the monsters claws, looked down at Liz, and she saw him raise his gun. She did not hear what he said next, but she could imagine it:
This is going to hurt
...

Shocked for a few seconds, by the time he gathered his wits, Hellboy had been hauled several hundred feet into the air. The dragon drove upward, trying to escape the field of fire from the policemen below and probably never believing that the man in its claws would usher in its own demise.

But Hellboy was more than a man, and more determined than that. He was also very, very pissed; this was the second time he'd been carried off by a dragon. But now that he knew their weakness, he had no intention of letting this one get away with it as well. It stank, for a start, like a car exhaust stuffed with dead fish. And its claws were slick with the remains of fresh kills.

Hellboy looked down at Liz receding below him, blue flames still dancing about her like frolicking ghosts. "This," he said, "is gonna hurt." Then he aimed the gun and fired six shots in quick succession.

The dragon veered across the sky, hissing, wings flapping faster as if trying to maintain altitude. Flames flitted past Hellboy, ejected like blood from the fresh wounds on the dragons neck, and then a heavy thud was followed by a gush of fire, enveloping Hellboy and accompanying him on his long journey down. He managed to turn so that he could see where he was going to fall ... and his impact site did not look good. One of the dead dragons lay below him, opened up and burning out. Above him, still squealing even with only half a throat, his abductor followed him down.

He struck hot, wet flesh, and immediately the lights went out. To add insult to injury, there was another explosion as the dead dragons met, and Hellboy felt the sense knocked from him. For once, he welcomed the darkness as it took him away.

"There's no way he's alive in there!" the policeman said.

"Shut your trap," said the sergeant. He was looking at Liz, not the mass of burning dragons.

"He's been through worse than that," Liz said, but she was trying to convince herself as much as the cops.
He has,
she thought.
Much worse. He's just been shot and got better. This won't touch him. Sore in the morning ... that's all.

The Tornados roared overhead once more, and looking up, Liz could actually see their pilots staring down at the flaming mass of dead dragon meat. She felt a sudden, unaccountable sense of emptiness and sadness, and she thought,
Is this what we really do? Is this why I'm really here?
Myths lay dead at her feet, and in some way she was mourning the loss of mystery once again.

"Hellboy?" she called.

He stood, dripping with blood, fire erupting all around him, dragon meat sliding from his body, horn stumps glimmering with blood and flame, and he looked both magnificent and terrifying. Liz caught her breath and tried to look away, but she could not. Hellboy's eyes were dark pits in that firelit mess, and as he twisted his head to one side, she heard the distinct click of bones snapping together.

"Hellboy. You still with us?"

"Sure," he said. "Just enjoying the barbecue." He struggled out of the mess of dead dragon, kicking aside the burning fat and trying to wipe the stuff from him as he went.

I can see why they're scared of him,
Liz thought. She had known Hellboy for so long that she looked at him as her friend, little else. She rarely saw him with a strangers eyes. He was Hellboy to her, not some demon that had risen out of hell.
I can see very well.
She looked at the sergeant and his colleague, still nursing their machine guns with obvious intent.

"They're all dead now, Sergeant," Liz said. "Good shooting."

He grunted, glanced at Liz, looked back at Hellboy. His gun did not lower. He was scared and shell-shocked, and she would have to keep her eye on him.

And then Hellboy plucked the stub of an old cigarette from his coat pocket, flicked a bit of fluff from the end, and the sergeant stepped forward with a light. "Thanks," Hellboy said.

"Welcome."

And in that human gesture, any tension remaining evaporated.

"Hellboy," Liz said, "we need to meet the embassy guys. Now more than ever! We need — "

"We need a drink," Hellboy said. "My mouth tastes like a butchers slop bucket."

"There'll be a drink at the embassy."

"You think?" He shrugged, turned around, and looked across the airport. "Damn, those bastards made short work of this place. Sergeant, I guess you and your buddy will be wanting to get off."

"I think so," the sergeant said. "I've got a lot of friends who work in Terminal Three, and ... " He looked across at the wrecks of the passenger jets, unable to say any more. But nothing needed saying. Now was the time for clearing up and helping, not sitting down and weeping. The weeping would always come later. Right now, shock still had these men in its grasp, and it was the buffer they needed against the awful truth.

Hellboy and Liz went back through Terminal Four to the arrivals lounge. The place was almost deserted, except for a man lying across three seats, snoring. "There's always one," Liz said.

"Lucky guy."

Outside, police had sealed off the pickup area, but Liz spotted the embassy guys standing behind the makeshift barrier, waving a large red card as arranged.

"Hey," Hellboy said, "they're playing my song."

"Are you OK?" Liz asked.

"Sure. Why?"

"No reason." Liz looked at Hellboy, and he would not meet her gaze. His eyes were distant. His quips were automatic, and he kept wiping at the blood even now drying to a crisp across his skin. They walked on in silence.

"Hellboy," the taller of the two men said as they approached. He held out his hand. "It's been a long time."

"Jim, good to see you again. I had no idea you were working for our embassy out here now!"

"Just an adviser." He glanced at Liz and smiled, but she could see that he was a haunted man. He looked so tired, his eyes deep and brown, the skin of his face sallow and seemingly hanging from his bones. Even what had just happened to Heathrow Airport seemed not to have shocked him.

"Liz Sherman," she said, holding out her hand. Jim Sugg shook, his own hand cool and damp.

"Pleased to meet you, Miss Sherman."

"Call me Liz."

"This is Peter Fray. He works at the embassy." The man with Sugg smiled and nodded, but he did not offer his hand.

He's the sensitive,
Liz thought.
Maybe he's scared of what he'd see if he touched us.
Fray was looking at Hellboy constantly, but he did not seem able to keep his attention on him for more than a couple of seconds without looking away again. Hellboy seemed not to notice.

"We need to get away from here," Sugg said. "Much as I hate to mess with the law, they'll be wanting to talk with you about all this, and once they've got you, they'll quiz you forever. And from what Tom Manning told me, there's a lot more to discuss."

"Oh yeah," Hellboy said, nodding. "So much more."

"Well get to the embassy, you two can get cleaned up, then we'll do our best to organize a meeting with the minister of defense." Suggs voice was a tired monotone. He actually sounded bored, but Liz knew it was a lot more than that. Either he was guarded and protective of his thoughts, or he had seen so much that nothing surprised him anymore.

"You're the ghost hunter," she said. Hie words came out without her thinking. She supposed she was testing him.

Sugg looked at her, and for the first time she saw the flicker of amusement in his eyes. It suited him, and she was glad. "That's a term I prefer not to use, but yes. I look for ghosts."

"Why?"

"To prevent them from coming to look for me. Shall we go?" Sugg turned and walked quickly toward a big black Mercedes, Fray following.

Liz glanced at Hellboy and raised an eyebrow. Hellboy only shrugged. They walked to the car together, sat in the back, and were glad when Sugg's security card seemed to get them past the dozens of police roadblocks already set up in the area.

"Get attacked by dragons, set up roadblocks," Liz muttered.

"Hey, kid, what else are they going to do? It's not something they're used to dealing with every day."

"I guess not." Liz closed her eyes and surprised herself by dozing.

"S
OMETHING ABOUT A
disturbance at Heathrow," the man said. "They've had to divert us to Manchester. Bloody idiots, I don't know, they can't do anything right nowadays, always something causing problems, leaves on the runway or bloody air traffic controllers on strike. Don't know their arses from their elbows. I've got a meeting to go to, you know?"

Me too,
Abby thought. She had just woken from a deep slumber to find the guy next to her blathering on. "What sort of disturbance?" she asked.

"I don't know, maybe a luggage cart broke down or something. Please excuse my Britishness, young lady. We're the country where everything grinds to a halt at the slightest provocation. An inch of snow in winter? Close the schools, panic, buy bread and milk, barricade yourself in your house. Really, you'd think we were under siege by the rest of the world."

Maybe you will be soon,
she thought, but saying it would have achieved little. "I'm sure they have their reasons."

"Whatever." The man had turned on his mobile phone, and his annoyance found new direction when a flight attendant requested that he turn it off until they landed.