“Someone hit you?” Ezekiel said to her, his tone unreadable. When Natividad hesitated, he looked at Grayson Lanning with narrowed eyes. “Someone hit her?”
“The situation in Boston proved complicated,” Grayson told him, his heavy voice authoritative but not annoyed. “However, as you see, she was not badly hurt. I have heard her report, and I will ask you to wait for it and make yours now. I gather you decided that bringing Justin to us was more important than completing your mission.”
Ezekiel gave the older man a small, reluctant nod. “We found ourselves facing various complications, too. It was my decision to cut our assignment short and return before visiting Philadelphia. I should probably tell you now: It was also my decision to leave an onlooker alive, though he’d heard my name and yours.”
“A priest,” Ethan put in quickly. “A Catholic priest. Besides, we figured you’d rather have Justin here willing than otherwise.” He clapped Justin on the shoulder and added approvingly, “Justin was going to defend the priest with a silver table knife, if you can believe that.”
“I see,” said Grayson. His tone was absolutely neutral.
“It will be no trouble to go back and kill the priest, if you prefer,” Ezekiel said, sounding perfectly relaxed. “I can fly back tonight, if you think that best. It’s quite likely I could get to him before he’s decided who he wants to tell about what.”
Justin stiffened.
Natividad grinned. “Oh, don’t worry!” she said to Justin. “The Master can’t say yes, do that now, in front of you, because you’d be too upset; and he can’t say no now and yes later because he’d never admit he’d change his mind like that just to keep you happy.”
Grayson Lanning gave the girl a quelling look. “I will make a carefully considered decision,” he said firmly. “As, I am sure,” he added to Ezekiel, “that all of your decisions tonight have been carefully considered.” Reaching out, Grayson turned the little television around on his desk so they could all see its screen.
The sound was still off, but they could see the little shops surrounding a cobbled square, the band stage that had been set up to one side of the fountain, the rows of metal chairs, the kiosks that had been selling beer or soft drinks or whatever. The werewolf, hunting savagely for anybody who hadn’t fled fast enough.
Huge paper lanterns hung from iron poles, casting a soft radiance over trampled artwork and growing chaos. The crowd at the art show had been big enough to create logjams at the entrances to the shops and worse jams at the entrances to the few footpaths that led away from the square, everyone struggling to get through the narrow openings. Some people had fled for safety under the stage, and a few had given up running and brandished chairs instead, or in one case a long broom, trying to defend themselves, or perhaps cover their families’ flight. Whoever was filming was brave, or maybe stupid, because the camera turned and turned again, so smoothly it was clearly still on a tripod, trying to keep the werewolf constantly in sight, with fair success.
The werewolf grabbed an old woman while Justin watched, appalled. It crushed her shoulder and arm in its powerful jaws, dropped her still alive and screaming, and lunged in pursuit of a girl carrying a baby. The girl fell, huddling over the baby, and the werewolf snapped at her without even pausing—blood was everywhere—and another werewolf shot soundlessly across the cobbles and hit the first without the slightest hesitation.
The camera juddered, but then steadied. The werewolves fought. The second was smaller than the first, but much faster. And, of course, instantly recognizable, under the circumstances. Justin turned involuntarily to stare at Ezekiel, who was standing with his arms crossed over his chest, watching the silent television with a critical eye as though prepared to make a critique of his own performance or that of his opponent.
The two werewolves closed and reared up, snapping for each other’s throats, and sprang apart again. The first one, the bad-guy werewolf, was bleeding down the side of his thick neck and holding one forelimb at an awkward angle. The blood was thick and black as molten tar, and smoked. Ezekiel stalked in a circle around him, yellow eyes lit with fury or a savage pleasure in the battle or with some other emotion Justin couldn’t recognize. He was bleeding, too; a long wound gaped on his hip. He limped, but not enough to slow him down.
Behind the werewolves, the man with the broom ran forward, snatched up the baby the girl had been carrying, and retreated. Everyone was retreating, now that Ezekiel had given them a few more seconds in which to get away. Except whoever held the camera, who really must have been suicidal. The camera stayed fixed on the combatants, who closed and broke apart once more. And a third time, and now at last Ezekiel got in a slashing throat blow that nearly decapitated his opponent, which Justin understood only after the fact, because Ezekiel sprang back and the other werewolf reared up, and then its head sort of tilted sideways and kept tilting. The shadows of the paper lanterns swung crazily around so that the very darkness seemed to writhe as the werewolf collapsed to his knees. It—he—was changing back to human as he died, changing not all at once but in a horrible jerky piece-by-piece change that looked sick and awful.
As, Justin remembered, the others had done, too. He swallowed, tasting bile in the back of his throat, determined not to throw up in front of all these people.
On the television, the werewolf that was really Ezekiel shook itself—himself—and straightened. The camera, now with a single stationary target, zoomed in on him. He knew it, too, because he turned his head and stared directly into the camera: even on a small television like that one, his flame-yellow eyes seemed to burn right though the screen and fix on the viewer. Justin just barely stopped himself from taking a step backward. The cameraman hadn’t been unaffected either; the image trembled suddenly as though someone had begun to pick it up and retreat. But then, incredibly, the image steadied again as the cameraman changed his mind.
Black blood dripped down Ezekiel’s flank and smoked on the cobbles at his feet, and his shoulder and front leg had received some raking blow that Justin had missed. The wounds were obvious enough now, gashes scored vividly through his black pelt. He took a step, limping. Then he shook himself a second time. At last he reared up, but dwindled inward upon himself at the same time so that suddenly it was Ezekiel himself who stood there. He wore black jeans and a sleeveless black tee shirt and short black boots. The blood that trickled down his arm now was red, red, red.
“A mere stray bloodied Ezekiel Korte?” said Keziah, with a raised-eyebrow look that said clearly she didn’t believe it.
“It’s a really artistic touch,” said Natividad’s brother Miguel, his tone earnest. He looked at Ezekiel. “Especially the way you keep bleeding after the change. I didn’t even know that was possible. It sure makes you look a lot less scary. Especially because you’re so young. I don’t think you got the eyes exactly right, though. You still look pretty scary—”
Grayson Lanning held up a hand, and everyone shut up.
On the television, Ezekiel limped slowly across the square straight toward the camera. The picture quivered again, but then steadied.
Grayson reached over and turned the sound up.
“I believe he—I think he’s—it looks like he wants to talk,” said a shaky voice. “I hope he wants to talk! This is, this is just an amazing development. Just a moment—let me just get the camera set—” The image trembled once more, then steadied again. The speaker came around the camera into view. He was young and earnest, red-haired, pale enough that his freckles stood out clearly. He was also holding one of the big square microphones the major media always carried. Justin wondered if he possibly thought the microphone could protect him from a homicidal werewolf. He hoped fervently that they weren’t all about to see that idiot newsman torn into little bloody pieces.
But it seemed that Ezekiel really had wanted merely to talk. He made his way straight to the newsman, but held up a hand in a sharp, forbidding gesture when the man started to ask him a question. The newsman had the
sense to shut his mouth.
In the image, Ezekiel looked straight at the camera—straight at the viewer. He said in a hard, flat voice, “Dimilioc has a message for all black dogs, in America and across the world. We are still here. Our laws still hold. And this—” his hand swept out in a gesture that encompassed the square—“will not be permitted.” He paused, pale eyes cold as winter. Then he said, “You may hunt deer in the forest. You may hunt javalinas in the desert. You may hunt as you please—but never men. Take this warning. There will be no other.”
There was a deep, silent pause. Ezekiel kept his hard gaze straight on the viewer. The newsman didn’t make a sound.
Then, at last, Ezekiel turned to the young newsman and said, in a tone only marginally less dangerous, “Dimilioc appreciates your cooperation. You may ask one question.”
“Uh,” stuttered the newsman. “Um . . .” he took a breath, visibly collected himself, and asked, “Why do you—why does, uh, Dimilioc, not permit your people to hunt, uh, men?”
That was a good question, Justin thought, surprised. He didn’t think he could have done that well, put on the spot like that. That was an important question, much better than Who are you or What is Dimilioc?
Ezekiel gave the newsman a long, level stare. He was probably deciding what to say, but it looked like he was just so badass. He answered in that same flat tone that made every word sound like it had been handed down by God on a stone tablet: “The war with the vampires is over. Now there are no more vampires. But we do not now wish a second war, this one against men. Dimilioc law has always forbidden black dogs to kill human people.” He looked back at the camera in slow, deliberate threat. “Some might have thought we have spent too much of our strength. Some might have believed we are now unable to enforce our law. Some might have thought Dimilioc destroyed entirely. Any who have entertained such opinions have, however, been seriously mistaken.” He turned with the same deliberation back to the newsman, inclining his head in grave respect. “Are you answered?”
“Uh . . . thank you, mister, um—”
Ezekiel lifted an ironic eyebrow.
“So, if you could tell our viewers—”
Ezekiel turned and strode away. He didn’t run, and he didn’t look like he was in a hurry, but he was moving fast. When he was halfway across the square, he blurred back into his werewolf form, and then he really moved, fast, bounding over tumbled chairs and a wrecked kiosk, and was out of sight in moments.
“Well—” said the newsman. He looked at the camera. The hand with which he reached to adjust the camera angle shook visibly, for which Justin couldn’t blame him. He said, “Well—this is Chris Jackson, NBG News, with the first-ever interview with a werewolf. I’m sure that will give us all something to think about, but in the meantime, I hear sirens, so I think the emergency crews—”
Grayson Lanning reached out and snapped the television set off. “They will repeat that,” he said. His deep, gritty voice was absolutely expressionless. “They have been repeating it without ceasing since eight o’clock this evening. I imagine every station in the country is doing so. Possibly every station in the world. So I am inclined to be less concerned about what one priest might have heard, or overheard. I suspect this may have also factored into your decisions tonight, Ezekiel.”
Ezekiel nodded. “Once the stray got into the crowd on camera, the situation became complicated. I judged it best to . . . put on that show. If you consider I was wrong, Master, I would prefer to discuss the matter in private.”
There was a little pause as Ezekiel met Grayson’s eyes. For a moment that stretched out, neither looked away. Then Ezekiel bowed his head, a tiny movement that mostly involved his eyes, and Grayson said, “No. No, I believe you did well. Both in addressing stray black dogs and in addressing frightened humans.”
“And you got in that bit about the vampire war!” added Miguel, clearly enthusiastic. “That was the best part, because it’s important to remind people they owe us for killing all the vampires—”
Keziah said coolly, “They will never consider that they owe us for anything.”
“Well, to be fair—” began Miguel, but Grayson glanced around the room and everyone immediately fell silent. Grayson said to Ezekiel, “You let that stray mark you. That was well done.”
“Heroes face desperate odds heroically. It wouldn’t have had the same effect if I’d taken him out in the first instant and strolled jauntily across the square.”
“Indeed. It made you look weak, however.”
“Yes, but that could be a plus, though,” said Miguel. Justin was more and more certain the boy wasn’t a werewolf, but he seemed amazingly unconcerned about all this violence. He went on now, still with that frightening enthusiasm, “I mean, anyone who sees that will underestimate Ezekiel. Which means those black dogs in Boston will underestimate him, too, I bet. That could be really helpful.”
“Precisely what, or whom, did our people encounter in Boston?” Ezekiel asked Grayson.
Justin was beginning to be interested in that himself, but before Grayson could answer, Keziah broke in, “You kept your shadow from carrying away your wounds. That was clever: blood is always riveting. But I would not have considered that it could be done.”
Justin was beginning to doubt the girl was from Turkey after all. She spoke with a slight accent which he thought was not a Turkish accent. Maybe Arabic. Or Farsi? He doubted he would be able to tell the difference
Ezekiel shrugged, looking slightly bored. Justin decided he was really starting to dislike Ezekiel’s cooler-than-thou attitude.
“What would you have done if that kid with the camera had asked a question you did not wish to answer?” asked the young Hispanic man. Alejandro. Natividad had said his name was Alejandro. He said, “I can think of many questions that would not have worked so well.”
Ezekiel shrugged again. “I’d have made that statement no matter what he’d asked. He gave me a straight intro, that’s all. But this thing in Boston—”
Grayson checked him with a raised hand. “You did well,” he stated. “Perhaps it was even as well to have such a complication arise at this time. Though we shall now be compelled to fulfill the terms of your . . . one would not wish to say rash . . . promise.”
Ezekiel tilted his head, lifting an eyebrow in wordless query.
“If people are going to find out about you black dogs, it’s important to make sure they find out the right things,” Miguel said earnestly. “So it’s good, how you handled that, only if you’re going to make a threat like that to all the strays, we have to follow it up right away. I mean, once we’ve taken care of those black dogs in Boston. They aren’t ordinary strays, that’s for sure!”
Grayson Lanning gave the boy a quelling look, but said, “Miguel is correct.” He leaned back in his chair and folded broad hands across the desk in front of him. “Alejandro?”
The Hispanic young man took a step forward, glanced at Ezekiel, then turned aside and dropped into a chair. Then he looked back at Ezekiel and said, “There was a trap in Boston. You remember how it was, or how we thought it was. Bold strays, yes, but we knew that. Only that area between Boston and Cambridge, where black dogs seemed little active, where we thought perhaps there might be a Pure woman? We found this woman, and also her Pure bebé, but the woman was dead and the child bait in a trap.”
Justin listened to this with growing alarm. Traps, and murdered women, and children used as bait? He was beginning to think he should have tried much harder to get himself clear of werewolves and anything to do with them when he’d had the chance. He half wanted to declare he was so out of here and walk out, except that he was certain they wouldn’t let him go. And he had to admit, he was also curious. Listening to this was like the reluctant fascination exerted by a highway accident: you didn’t want to see it, but you couldn’t help but stare.
“It was a trap meant for us, for me, maybe for you, we think,” the Hispanic girl said earnestly, with a sidelong look at Ezekiel. �
��There was a black dog woman there, someone old and powerful. She said something strange to me, something like Now I see why he wanted you, something about making a bargain with someone. I’m sorry! I’ve tried, but I just don’t remember exactly what she said. It was so fast and, and kind of—kind of confused, you know? But of course we’re all fine!”
Justin didn’t understand the way she looked at Ezekiel, like she was worried about him and nervous just being in the same room as him, both at once.
Ezekiel tilted his head, regarding Natividad with a sharply focused proprietary attention. “This woman hit you?” he asked, very quietly.
Justin suddenly wondered whether he might be her boyfriend. That was an uncomfortable idea, though of course he didn’t know the girl, or Ezekiel either, really, so he had no reason to have an opinion about either of them. But he stared at Natividad anyway, unable to imagine a friendly little thing like her being interested in a werewolf. Though it was easy enough to imagine a big bad werewolf being interested in a cute girl . . .
Natividad said earnestly, “You need to be careful, Ezekiel. I know you don’t think anybody can beat you, but they knew your name. And they had human people working with them. And guns!”
This didn’t seem to impress Ezekiel, but Ethan drew a sharp breath and demanded, “Silver bullets?”
“Worse,” said the Middle-Eastern girl, sounding amused. She stood up, a slow, seductive uncurling of long, long legs. She leaned back, arching her beautifully flexible back, and from a sideboard behind her lifted a . . . gun, rifle? Suddenly Justin was looking mostly at that. It was a huge, heavy-looking thing, though the girl held it as though it weighed nothing. Bigger than a rifle. And . . . at the muzzle, was that a . . .
“It’s a harpoon gun,” Natividad told Ezekiel. “With a silver-tipped harpoon! And a silver chain. Imagine being shot with one of those! Or two, and the chains pulled opposite ways so you couldn’t get free. They knew what they were doing, those people, and they weren’t just looking for me. They wanted to take a black dog alive, and they had human allies to do it. Now do you want to laugh?”
Pure Magic (Black Dog Book 3) Page 7
