Hellboy: Unnatural Selection(92)

The burning dog's howl was like the whole day screaming in pain. It streaked back across the deck, leaving oily smoke in its wake. Flames slithered across its skin. It struck one of the open hold doors with a meaty thud, rolled onto its back, and fell out of sight into the bowels of the ship.

Hellboy had taken the opportunity to reload. He jumped from the chopper, stood with his legs braced, and fired at the other three dogs, one bullet each. He saw one take out a dog's eye, wasn't sure what happened to the other shots, and then the second hound pounced.

It stood as tall as him. Its mouth was the width of his head. Each tooth was the length of his pistol's barrel, and the eyes were featureless black pits, no soul there, no hope, only a pledge of pain and a promise of death. As it came at him, claws reaching, mouth wide open, bloody saliva streaking back from its teeth, Hellboy swung his right fist to connect with its snout.

The dog's howl turned into a whimper as it struck the deck and rolled onto its side.

"Play dead!" Hellboy shouted. He leaped after the black dog, fist crashing down onto one of its back legs. He felt the bone crumble. The dog howled, jerking its head back and gnashing its jaws at him. He pulled back, and the dogs teeth snapped shut an inch from his hand, its fleshy lips smacking around his arm. Hellboy stood and brushed the sticky mess of saliva and blood from his skin.

The dog tried to stand. Its leg crumpled, so it dragged itself forward instead, jaws working at the air as if it were chewing its way to Hellboy. He backed away slowly, teasing the dog, until the angle was right for Hicks to fill its head with lead.

Six rounds sent the monster back to the Memory.

"Two down," Hellboy said, and then Liz shouted, Hicks gasped, and the two remaining dogs landed on Hellboy's back.

He was forced to the deck, smashing his face into the salty metal. They knocked the breath from him, the impact dulled his senses, and if the dogs hadn't chosen that moment to snap at each other — fighting over their share of dinner, Hellboy guessed — things might have ended up much worse. As it was, their bickering gave him a precious few seconds to gather himself, tense his muscles, and push upward from the deck. One dog tumbled away toward the helicopter, the other stayed right there on his back, its claws curling through his coat and piercing his skin, scraping against bone, its slavering jaws closing on the back of his neck and grinding together. His own warm blood mixed with the disgusting flow of saliva and foam down his back.

"No you don't," Hellboy whispered. He rolled, pushing hard from the ship's deck and flipping his head around. The stumps of his horns struck the dogs bloody teeth and knocked one out, its shards pattering down onto Hellboy's face. The dog reared up on its hind legs, shaking its head at the sky, and for a second Hellboy could not help but be impressed at the brute strength of the thing.

But it was an old legend, a memory, not something that belonged here in the fading sunlight of what could be a very bad day.

"Hicks?" Hellboy said, inviting the pilot to put the thing down. There was no response. He glanced at the helicopter and discovered what had happened to the fourth dog.

It was buried face-first in the Lynx, back legs scrambling to push its body further inside, and suddenly there was screaming, blood spurted, somebody shouted in agony, and Hellboy tried to stand.

The dog fell back down on him, the jagged remnants of its shattered tooth connecting squarely with his face. Hellboy shouted, punched upward with both hands, but the dog had been driven into a rage. It seemed immune to pain. The harder he thumped it, the more it raked at his chest and throat with its front legs and the more it bit at his face. Hellboy shifted his head from side to side. That prevented the dog from gaining good purchase, but it meant that its teeth slashed his face, left to right and up and down.

Hellboy felt around for his pistol, but it had fallen somewhere beyond his reach.

"Liz!" he shouted, but the screams from the helicopter told him she had more than enough on her plate. Fight fire with fire, he thought. He waited until the dog reared up again, then he raised his head and buried his teeth in the hound's throat.

The dog howled. Hellboy shook his head, ripping into its skin, tasting the meat of it on his tongue. It was awful, the tang of raw meat, the trickle of blood down his throat ... so basic and animalistic. He hated it, but he knew that this could be his last chance to gain the upper hand. He knew also that something very bad was happening in the helicopter, because the screaming had suddenly ceased.

He bit harder, shoving his whole head forward into the yawning wound in the dog's throat, and then he felt the rich gush of a major artery opening under his teeth.