Hellboy: Unnatural Selection(60)

"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.