Unnatural Selection

by Tim Lebbon

  "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.

  Hellboy had unclipped his pistol and thrown aside the box. He made sure the chambers were loaded, aimed up at the dragons, and fired.

  "You won't hit them at that height!" Liz said.

  "But it makes me feel better." He emptied every chamber, seeing no evidence of the dragons' even noticing him all the way down here. But he was wrong. It did not make him feel better. If anything, he only felt more useless, so he nodded at the huge terminal building and started running again.

  "Why are they doing this?
" Liz said beside him. "It's a concerted attack, not random. Five of them, and they know what they're doing."

  "Knocking out the airport?" Hellboy suggested. "You heard what Tom said ... we're at war."

  The constant roar of aircraft surrounding the airport had changed in tone. Planes that had been circling or lining up to land powered up to pull away, veering left and right away from the runway and climbing over London, seeking new heights and fresh, safe airports. Hellboy only hoped they would get away in time. The dragons were still circling Heathrow in a tight spiral, and now they had started screaming.

  Around Terminal Four there was panic. Emergency vehicles were tearing across the concrete, most of their crews looking up instead of across at the burning wreckage. Passengers from a couple of smaller aircraft had rushed down the steps and were now running for the building, casting fearful glances over their shoulders, faces white and eyes wide. Old people stumbled, children cried, and Hellboy and Liz stopped to help people to their feet. A woman stared at Hellboy and screamed, saw the pistol in his hand, and screamed again. Someone else shouted his name, but Hellboy could not tell who had recognized him. He looked up at the building and saw faces and hands pressed against the glass wall, bearing silent witness to the atrocity.

  "Hellboy, this can't be over," Liz said.

  "It isn't." He grabbed Liz's arm and pulled her to one side of an entrance to the terminal. "Look." The dragons had stopped circling and were now hovering in place, infrequent wing beats apparently enough to hold them aloft. They were turning their heads, scanning the ground below and the air around them, looking for a new target. When they found one, they screamed and converged quickly on the helicopter.

  "What the hell are those idiots doing?" Liz said, aghast. The helicopter was flying toward the dragons, not away from them.

  "Press? Politicians?" Hellboy shrugged his shoulders and thought, At least it'll give all these people time to get inside, "Liz, let's get inside," he said. "Uh-oh, here comes the cavalry."

  Several policemen in body armor burst out of the terminal, machine guns in both hands. They skidded to a halt on the concrete, staring up at the dragons. The lizards were converging on the lonely helicopter, circling it, casting brief bursts of fire against its fuselage. Playing with it. One of them drifted in and swiped the helicopter with its tail, sending it into a dangerous spin. The pilot recovered, only to be knocked again from the other side. Then all five dragons spat fire, and the helicopter exploded. The policemen opened fire.

  "Now they'll come down here," Hellboy said. He pushed Liz inside and followed.

  From outside came the sounds of machine-gun fire, and Hellboy had a sense of being closed in from all sides; it felt as though the heavens were falling, and when he glanced from the next available window, he saw that was true. He could hardly see any sky. All he saw were dragons' wings, and all he heard were the cries of dying men. The gunfire lessened, then stopped, and all fell silent.

  "Go!" Hellboy said. He was pushing people ahead of him up the staircase, desperate to reach the first level, where they could go deeper into the building. Here they were protected only by a thin layer of blockwork and metal siding, and the more walls there were between these people and the dragons, the better he'd feel.

  The sense of being enclosed lessened. He glanced at Liz, and she said, "They're moving away." Hellboy nodded grimly. Good news for them, bad for someone else.

  They made it up into the departures concourse. The crowd hurried through toward the huge departure lounge, but Hellboy and Liz held back, waiting by the wide spread of windows and looking out over the airport. The downed aircraft was belching clouds of rolling black smoke at the sky, forced aloft by towering flames. Hellboy tried not to think about what was feeding that fire and giving the smoke a definite oily texture; he could smell the conflagration from here, and that was bad enough. There were several emergency crews vainly pumping foam, many of them scanning the skies as they did so.

  Of the dragons there was no sign.

  "Those bastards!" Liz said. "That's plain murder. Damn Blake. Whatever his mad gripes, there's no justification for something like this."

  "None at all," Hellboy said quietly. The anger was building in him. He needed to hit something, and soon.

  "We can't just leave this," Liz said. "We can't just go." The huge fire outside was reflected in her eyes, and Hellboy thought he saw the ice blue of her own personal inferno in there as well.

  "We won't," he said. "I fought one of these things — though that one looked bigger than these damn worms — and got my butt kicked. But five ... that's another thing altogether."

  "Yeah, but now you've got me," Liz said. "And you've got that new cannon."

  Hellboy held up his pistol and rested it in his big right hand. "Isn't she a beauty?" he said. "This'll put a hole in a tank."

  "And a dragon?"

  He nodded. "Oh, I really want to see what this'll do to a dragon."

  Liz took a deep breath and turned away from the window, and when she looked at Hellboy, her eyes were still aflame. "Then let's go," she said.

  But they did not have to go. The fight came to them.

  * * *

  Even above the screaming, they heard the roar of fire belching from a dragons mouth.

  "That's coming from inside!" Liz said.

  "Departure lounge," Hellboy said. Then he ran. He pounded onto the moving walkways, nudging people aside and apologizing as he went. He heard Liz behind him doing the same. The pistol was a reassuring weight in his left hand, and he made sure he had a perfect grip. They were getting closer.

  Another roar, and something exploded at the heart of the terminal, setting ceiling tiles vibrating and advertisement frames falling from walls. Hellboy vaulted the handrail of the moving walkway and ran for a fire exit, shouldering his way through and crashing across the corridor into another door. It had been a guess, and a good one. He burst through and stumbled into a display of perfume and moisturizing cream, dropping to his knees, smashing the shelving away from his face, and bringing the gun up in one smooth movement. Someone screamed — a sales clerk, he guessed — but he ignored her, standing and forcing his way through the shop and out onto the concourse. People were running left to right. Some of them looked fearfully over their shoulders, most simply ran, terrified and determined. Children screamed as parents squeezed their arms. Hold tighter, Hellboy thought. These kids need to grow up to tell the story. He turned left and ran against the flow. Most people moved out of his way.

  "You there, Liz?" he yelled.

  "Right behind you."

  "I thought I'd lose you in the perfume shop."

  "Sexist ape."

  Skidding around a corner, Hellboy saw what had caused the explosion. There was a dragon thrashing and twisting amid the ruins of a car display stand. The car itself — once a polished and curvaceous totem of materialism — had been kicked aside into a tie shop, and was now a burning wreck. Several bodies were scattered around its broken chassis. They too were burning.

  "Son of a bitch!" Hellboy yelled. The dragon stopped its orgy of destruction and turned to face him. It grew quiet for a moment, perhaps confused at this big red man. Then it growled. "Oh yeah," Hellboy said. "Your cousin was an ugly mother too."

  The dragon darted forward, surprisingly nimble despite its size. It coughed fire at the same time, and Hellboy and Liz rolled to the side. They ended up in a coffee shop — spilled coffee sheening the floor, discarded bags and magazines pushed against walls like snowdrifts — and they had to duck again when the dragon drew level and let out another gush of flames. The fire consumed the air around them and stole their breath, blazing across the counter and bursting bags and cans. As it receded the pleasing smell of roasted coffee filled the air.

  "Now I'm getting very pissed," Hellboy said. "Liz?"

  "I'll give you first shot," she said, smiling.

  "So considerate." Hellboy stood, brought the gun up, and fired. The dragon seemed to dodge, flexing its neck a
nd body as if it knew where the bullet was aimed. Then it lunged with its heavy front claws, dashing him aside, dragging him out, holding him down so that it could twist its body and stand on his chest. Hellboy aimed again and fired, but the bullet glanced from the thing's skull and took out the display window of a sports shop. Sneakers and footballs tumbled out, and the dragon snapped its head to one side and fried them.

  Hellboy squirmed against the weight of the beast, taking in a huge breath and smashing at its foot with his right hand. The dragon screeched and lifted its foot ... and then brought it down again, hard. Hellboy's breath was forced from his lungs, and he felt the tiles beneath him shatter from the impact. He kept hold of his gun.

  From his left he felt the livid simmering of a different fire.

  The dragon turned its foot left and right, crunching Hellboy down into the floor. The sharp edges of broken tiles scraped his skin, the beasts claws bit into his chest and abdomen, and Hellboy looked up and saw a security camera turn toward him, flashing red. Great, he thought. Ass kicked on film for the second time. He turned the gun, pressed the barrel against the dragons foot, and pulled the trigger. Blood exploded in his face, and the dragon fell to one side, howling like a puppy left on its own.

  Hellboy rolled toward Liz, and as he knelt and brought the pistol up, he felt the hairs on the back of his neck singed. A roar of flame curved over his head and struck the dragon on the face.

  "Burn," Liz said. Her voice sent a shiver through Hellboy. He would trust Liz to death and beyond, but hell, she had hidden depths.

  The dragon reared up and flapped its huge wings. They scraped walls, smashed doors, and scored the tiled floor. When it opened its mouth to inhale Liz's fire, Hellboy knew they were in trouble.

  He aimed the pistol. "One good shot," he said. "That's all I ask. One ... good ... shot." He pulled the trigger and suddenly believed in the power of prayer. The bullet hit home in the dragons throat.