The Dragon Pool: The Dragon Pool Read Free

ground.
    Then it was too late. Hellboy burst from the woods with the Chonchonyi darting all around him, their dark wings slapping the air, jaws gnashing, shrieking in fury and alarm.
    The village lay ahead, a pretty little settlement on a lake. But the dwellings were quiet, empty. The villagers had other plans today. As Hellboy tromped into the clearing with the leeches flying around him, chanting filled the air. The words were an ancient spell, passed down through generations of Araucanians. Hellboy kept running until he'd passed the Seal of Solomon that he and the village elders had drawn in the dirt in the middle of the clearing.
    The chant grew louder. The creatures began to falter in the air, flying in strange, wandering patterns, disoriented by the spell; then one by one they flew shakily toward the Seal of Solomon. Several fell to the ground and had to flop there, dragging themselves toward the Seal, scuttling like crabs on the ridges of their wings.
    The villagers looked on in amazement and horror. One little boy screamed, and his mother covered his eyes. Several other children turned and fled toward their homes. But most of the people remained, mesmerized by the sight, chanting and watching as the malevolent, bloodthirsty things that had preyed upon them throughout the ages gathered in the air and on the ground above the Seal of Solomon.
    Hellboy looked around for the rest of his team, two professorial types and a pretty, red-haired young woman with her arms crossed and a look of defiance etched upon her features.
    "Liz," he said, "come on. It's time."
    "You know I can't do this," she said, with an insouciant toss of her hair, glaring at him as though damning him for his expectations. "Did you not notice the village, all the people, and oh, maybe the nice, flammable forest?"
    Hellboy stretched, bones popping. His shins ached. He yawned as he plucked leaves from his jacket.
    "You're fine," he replied. "We're in a clearing, hundreds of yards from the village. All the people are behind you, out of the way. Scorched earth policy, Liz. You don't have to control the power of the burn, only direction."
    Something in her face gave way, and he saw in her again the little girl she'd been when they'd first met--the little firestarter who'd accidentally roasted her family and neighbors alive. The tough facade was gone, and all that remained was the fear of the fire inside her. It'd been years since the last time the flames had gotten the better of her, burning uncontrollably, but she could never forget. The fire was the enemy, even when she needed it--especially when she needed it. He hoped she'd make peace with it someday, but for now--"Liz..."
    She tucked a lock of red hair behind her ear and peered past him at the abhorrent, absurd creatures flying in drunken circles above the Seal of Solomon. More of them were dragging themselves on the ground; they would remain disoriented as long as the villagers continued their chant.
    Gnawing her upper lip, Liz raised her right hand. White flames danced on her fingers and began to spread to her wrist. The fire blossomed from her hand, a churning inferno that rolled across the ground and engulfed the creatures.
    The chant grew louder, so that the villagers could hear one another over the roar of the fire and the screaming of the burning demons. Liz closed her hand, snuffing the flames on her fingers and palm, then put her hands over her ears. Hellboy turned her around and led her back toward the village, wishing he had never come to Chile.
    "Flying heads," he muttered. "My life's a circus."

    Professor Trevor Bruttenholm sat at his enormous cherrywood desk among shelves upon shelves of scrolls and manuscripts and leather-bound tomes of arcane lore. Most of the books ought to have been stored in the archives of the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense, along with the artifacts and magical talismans that lay on his desk and on the mantel of the fireplace, gathering dust. But