Hellboy: Unnatural Selection(66)

One dragon took off, strafed the fleeing crowds with fire, then went back to its attack on the building.

"Bastard!" the sergeant yelled. He stepped back and fired at the window before them, shielding his face as the glass shattered outward and fell to the concrete thirty feet below. Then he braced the machine gun against his shoulder, aimed, and cried out in frustration when he realized how foolish his gesture had been.

His cry turned from anger to triumph when several war planes passed overhead.

"Oh, tell me they're not ... " Liz said, but she did not have time to finish. The missiles flew, the dragons moved out of their way almost lazily, and the west fa?ade of Terminal Three erupted outward in a ball of smoke and flame.

"Get me the hell out of here," Hellboy said. "Liz, we need to make contact with the embassy, and fast. I want to stay here, but we'll be more help talking to someone who can affect this."

"That way, five hundred yards, turn right," the sergeant said. Then he and the other officer ran for a staircase that led down to the runway level.

Liz wanted to shout after them, tell them not to be so stupid, but she knew they would not listen. Not today, when madness had come and taken them away. They were hardly themselves anymore; angry, yes, raging at the dragons, but barely themselves. They were people in their own dreams, fighting the stuff of nightmares.

"Will this ever end?" Liz said.

"Yes," Hellboy said. "One way or another, it'll end."

That should have been something of a comfort, Liz knew. But the tone of Hellboy's voice brought no peace at all.

They moved away from the window and set off at a run. Hellboy seemed to have shrugged off his terrible wounds — sometimes, love him as she did, he terrified Liz — but he was frowning, disconnected, distracted. She glanced at him several times as they ran, and the last time she saw something in his face that she recognized from a hundred times before.

"Oh now, HB," she said, "come on. Come on!"

"Liz, I can't just run away from this," he said. "Those turds in suits from the embassy can wait." Thoughts vocalized, he suddenly seemed more sure of himself. He scratched at his bullet holes and smiled at her. "I've got a plan."

Liz closed her eyes and sighed. But inside, where anger always simmered, she felt her own desire for vengeance heating up.



* * *



"Guys!" Hellboy shouted. A breeze came through the bullet-shattered window and kissed the blood on his chest. The wounds were healing already, but the three holes had left deep, heavy aches in his flesh, like fists of stone melded with his body. They itched. "Guys!"

The two policemen running away from the terminal turned around. Hellboy waved at them, gesturing them back. The sergeant shook his head and carried on, but then he paused again and shouted back. "Tell me you have a plan!"

Hellboy glanced at Liz and smiled. "He may have shot me, but I think I like this guy."

Liz shook her head. "Male bonding. Always did go way over my head."

The policemen ran back to the building and waited below the smashed window. Hellboy held on to the frame and leaned out, looking left and right, trying to make out the lay of the land. He glanced across at Terminal Three. It was a ruin now, fire belching from the shattered east wall, the three dragons still dipping in and out to add to the conflagration. The Tornado jets roared by overhead, but they did not fire any more missiles. Packing state-of-the-art firepower, faster than a bullet, they were all but helpless against their flesh-and-blood foe. Hellboy was glad their pilots did not have itchy trigger fingers.

"Wait there!" he shouted down. He ducked back in and turned to Liz. She was twisting her hands in front of her as if nervous, but her eyes were as cool as cut steel. "Liz, I've got an idea. It's crazy, and it'll probably get us all killed. But I'm not doing much else today. What do you say?"

"I say tell me the idea."

"Right. OK." He looked around: up at the ceiling, back at the burning mess of the dead dragon, out the broken window at the ruins of the jets and airport buildings. The Tornados roared overhead again, as if an angry noise would scare the dragons away. "Liz, I want to fight fire with fire."

"How do you mean? They duck in and out of fire without a touch. Just like me. I can't do much against them — "

"But you can distract them!" The idea was rolling now, and Hellboy liked the way it was going. It was simple, that was the key. Simple ... though dangerous as dragon shit after a spicy chili.