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.
The dog's howl turned to a whine, and Hellboy shoved it up and away. It flipped onto its back and landed with a thump that shook the deck, legs pawing at the air, head falling to the side as if keen to observe the pool of blood already spreading beneath it.
"Stay," Hellboy said. He spat, looked at the helicopter. The last dog was fully inside now, head turned to the right, chewing at something as Liz's flames began eating into it from behind. And there she was, crushed against the inside of the Lynx by the monster's huge body, eyes blazing and hands melting their way into the black dogs flanks. It seemed not to notice. Its head was out of sight, but Hellboy could see the swaths of blood that had splashed the inside of the pilot's cabin, and something in there was throwing red shadows as it thrashed.
He grabbed at one of the dogs rear legs and pulled. Nothing happened.
"Hellboy!" Liz said. When she spoke she breathed fire. "Jims gone. He's just gone. It bit him in half."
"Hicks?"
Liz glanced toward the cabin then back at Hellboy, eyes aflame. She pursed her lips and battered harder at the dog, each impact scorching its skin and spreading more fire through its fur. It started to whine beneath the terrible chewing sounds. "I can see bits of him," she said.
"Crap! Liz, can you get out?"
"My legs are crushed against the fuselage."
Hellboy grabbed the dogs leg again, pulled it straight, and brought his fist down, crushing the bone. The leg went to jelly in his hands and flopped down. The dog squealed. It rocked the helicopter as it struggled to back up. Hellboy hauled on the broken leg and shifted the things body, just enough so that Liz could free herself and climb out. She was grimacing, hands dripping flames like lengths of colorful cloth. She crawled over the hound's body, and wherever she touched, its fur burst alight. The stink was terrible.
Liz tumbled to the deck, looking around at the twitching remains of the other two black dogs, and turned back to the helicopter. "Poor Jim," she said. "Poor Hicks."
"That's no way to go," Hellboy said. He held Liz's arm, and they retreated. A few more seconds, and the dog would work itself free of the chopper. Hellboy had no desire to see its bloody head decorated with the remains of his ghost-hunting friend and the helicopter pilot. "Fry it."