“I think we will find—” began the colonel.
Not far away, the motor of some large vehicle revved loudly and then caught, rumbling. Everyone moved, human men and Dimilioc black dogs reorienting their attention toward the sound, wary of the noise and even more wary of one another. One of the men began, sounding both astonished and outraged, “Colonel, that’s one of our—”
A van appeared, racing toward them and then braking suddenly. Everyone stared at it, guns coming up everywhere, but then behind the colonel, directly north of the startled gathering, a three-story house and its attached garage and the three huge cottonwoods in its yard simultaneously exploded into violent flames. Even at that moment, Justin was aware that adobe shouldn’t have been able to burn like that, but the concussion sent him staggering and the sudden leap of fiery light blinded him. Keziah caught him, half in her black dog form, and leaped away. He wrapped his arms around her massive, muscled, nonhuman body and clung, dazed but trying to cooperate. Behind them, the flames thundered; before them, the growl of the van’s engine was almost inaudible in comparison. Then the van was right here, right in front of them, the bloody light of the fire turning its black paint crimson, shiny as blood. Ezekiel was already tearing open its back doors and half lifting, half throwing Natividad inside; Alejandro was presumably behind them somewhere; Keziah shoved Justin forward and leaped up into the truck herself, far too big for the space but dwindling back toward her human shape. The truck was already moving, lurching forward, turning to bump over the curb and into a crossroad, its engine roaring.
“They’ll follow us!” Justin said urgently, although surely everyone else knew this, too. “My God, this is one of their own vans! My God, they’ll have helicopters up in ten minutes, roadblocks in twenty!”
Keziah was nodding, nervous and angry; but Alejandro was shaking his head and Ezekiel gave Natividad a flashing, fiercely possessive smile and moved quickly to steady her when she swayed with the violent motion of the van. She was doing something—making something, though Justin couldn’t see what. She had jerked out a dozen strands of her own hair and her fingers flew as she wove them into something—well, he did almost seem to recognize that; it was a little like the net he had made of silver and blood in that other place, though he flinched from the memory of that place and found it hard to remember exactly what it was he had made there. Not exactly the same kind of thing Natividad was making, he was almost sure.
“A maraña, you know,” Natividad said, glancing up at Justin, her tone almost apologetic. “A tangle-you-up spell. I did mean to teach it to you, Justin.”
He stared at her. “I guess you didn’t really have time.” Then the van bounced over another curb or something, so that they were all flung to the left and then back to the right, hard enough that Justin bit his tongue and swore. “Who the hell is driving this thing?” he demanded.
“An excellent question, though I believe with a strictly limited number of possible answers,” Ezekiel said smoothly, and hit the door between the driver and the rear compartment where they all variously tried to brace themselves. The van swerved violently, juddered and skidded, and finally began to slow.
“Someone too young to really know how to drive, at a guess,” Ezekiel said, his tone now rather dry.
The van swerved left and then right and then came to a cautious stop. Justin wondered how far that careening ride had taken them, and just how effectively Natividad’s spell would tangle up the no doubt furious men who were unquestionably already pursuing them, and whether stopping was actually as insane as it seemed. Though, no question, he thought someone else should be driving—someone other than—yes, Ezekiel had been perfectly right, he saw, as one bolt and then another shot back and the door was flung open. It was a kid, even younger than Natividad, maybe fourteen or fifteen, with dark eyes and dark hair and a kind of sharp-set pared-down face that made him look like a street urchin right out of Oliver Twist. He was a black dog, unmistakably surrounded by that sharp-edged obsidian darkness.
“Ezekiel Korte, sir,” the kid said, sounding at once sharp and angry and intense and scared. “We need to drive fast, we really do, we can’t just stop—”
“Nicholas Hammond, I think,” said Ezekiel. And added, almost kindly, “Natividad will take care of that for us, but I think I had better drive.”
“Yes, please,” said Natividad. “And in a straight line, if you can, and shout when you’re about to turn, right?” She held up the tangled web she’d made and looked around at them all. “It’s fine. It really is. Nobody will follow us!” She smiled suddenly at Justin, a swift flashing grin. “I’ll show you how to make these,” she said. “Don’t look like that—after what you did to get us out of the fell dark? You’ll learn this really fast.”
Justin looked at the shimmering net she held between her hands, like the string of some complicated cat’s cradle game, and almost thought he might.
-17-
They stopped almost a full day later, at a small, dingy hotel on the outskirts of Cleveland, in the dark, with a cold drizzle dampening the air and the desert so far behind them it was almost impossible to believe in wide skies and warmth.
Natividad was not only chilled through, but also bitterly tired, even though she’d napped a lot of the way. The van was not very nice to nap in, and she’d needed to keep waking up to make both marañas and telerañas—nets and tangled webs, to confuse the eye and turn pursuit aside. She made them out of her hair and out of thread Nicholas and Alejandro had unraveled for her from a frayed shirt Nicholas donated. Once she’d showed him how, Justin had made four more telerañas, two out of strands of Keziah’s hair and two out of thread. He had a knack for those. By the time he made his third, he was actually faster at it than Natividad, which didn’t surprise her at all after that weird impossible things he’d already done. She was a little surprised he couldn’t just snap his fingers and have a perfect teleraña appear, made out of light and air. Maybe he could, but he just hadn’t figured out quite how, yet. She suspected his telerañas were stronger than hers, too.
They dropped the marañas behind the van, and stretched the telerañas right across the roof of the van and across its rear and sides. And the first time they stopped, to get food and gas and to try again to call Dimilioc, Natividad drew spirals on each tire so that anyone trying to follow them would turn aside and wander in circles.
“They won’t last,” she explained to Justin. “And nothing works against ordinary people as well as it would work against black dogs or especially vampires. But it should help, you know? If someone is following you, things like this make it easy for them to look away. Sometimes that’s all you need. There are supposed to be a lot of really big, complicated telerañas all around Dimilioc and Lewis and the whole Kingdom Forest and everything, that lots of Dimilioc Pure women worked on, oh, a long time ago. Those can’t turn anybody who knows for sure where they’re going—I wish, right? Though,” she added, struck by an idea, “Maybe you and I ought to look at all those, because I bet you might make them so much better. But even the way they are now, if you don’t know where Dimilioc is, you have a hard time thinking to look anywhere near there. Otherwise I bet we’d find those special forces people waiting for us when we got home, right?”
Justin nodded, looking a little happier. “You mean we won’t? Good to know. But I don’t know if I could really . . .” he shrugged. “You know. Do anything.”
He looked kind of lost and even more exhausted than she felt. Natividad patted him on the knee. “We’ll figure it out.”
One kind of magic or another had worked, because they never saw any sign of pursuit. And they could drive fast, because no cop noticed them running through a speed trap anywhere along the way.
Ezekiel drove fast even though they had called ahead, very briefly, just to find out if any horrible disaster had befallen Dimilioc. He’d been very tense making that call. Everyone had been, but him more than anyone. But he wouldn’t let anyone else do it. Natividad had heard
his end of it, though, not being a black dog, she hadn’t been able to hear the person on the other end of the line.
“You’re secure, there?” Ezekiel had asked first, sharply. “You’re all well?” And then a pause, but some of the rigid control eased out of his face. He said more easily, “Alejandro is with me. I hear he added a unique twist to our problem with Zinaida Alexandrovna Kologrivov? Getting rid of Valentin spiked her good, did it?” Another pause. “Good. Well, that’s too bad, but I don’t supposed we could have expected better. Yes. Tell Grayson I’m bringing them home. Yes, all of them. Yes. No. Yes, I’m sure he is, but it makes no difference.” He had had explained a little bit, but then he had hung up without, apparently, waiting for a response.
“Miguel,” he had told Natividad. And to Alejandro, “It appears your little stunt took the fire right out of those Dacha wolves.” He smiled then, a wry little crook of his mouth. “Imagine Zinaida Kologrivov’s shock! She must have thought Grayson had come up with quite a trick. A ruthless trick, too, if he’d sacrifice his own people to take away her strongest allies. She’s ruthless herself, though, so I doubt she’d think anyone would hesitate.”
“She . . . fled?” Alejandro asked, warily, as though he weren’t quite sure he should believe this piece of unexpected good news.
Ezekiel lifted one shoulder in a minimal shrug. “She retreated in good order, let’s say. But she certainly did retreat. I doubt we’ll see much trouble from that direction until she decides what it is she thinks she saw.” He eyed Alejandro. “I wonder what she’ll think if we make it obvious you survived. Our wolves can take hers into the fell dark and ours come back! If she believes that, she’ll certainly think twice about challenging us again. With luck, she’ll clear right out of the Americas.” He paused, then added thoughtfully, “Maybe we can hope that word of your little stunt gets passed around. Maybe we can arrange for it to. Let all our enemies go fight for territory in Europe and get shot, like so many rabid dogs. Or they can try Africa, if they’re desperate enough to risk the Dark Continent. Anything that gets them away from us.”
So they could all be glad about that, and a whole lot less worried. Though Natividad thought everyone was even more tired once they were finally less scared about what might have happened at home.
They’d propped open the narrow door between the driver’s cab and the body of the van so that everyone could hear everyone else’s stories. Ezekiel and Keziah didn’t know what Justin had done in the fell dark—Natividad was not a hundred percent sure she actually understood that herself, but she tried to explain it. Then everyone wanted to hear Nicholas Hammond’s story. Which was truly awful. The vampire had taken this black dog named Marshall, Marshall Crippen, who was a Lanning on his mother’s side, and that had been bad enough. The others had run, but not fast enough, and the vampire had taken them too, all but Nicholas and maybe Carissa Hammond—Nicholas didn’t know for sure what had happened to his sister.
“I don’t think it made her into one of those . . . those . . .”
“Hell hounds,” Justin offered.
“Right, yeah.” Nicholas rubbed a hand over his face, looking older than his fourteen years. “I mean, I don’t think it did. It took her, but it hadn’t done that to her, yet, that I saw. I thought it was maybe kind of saving her for later or something. Or it couldn’t do too many at once. Or . . . her mother was Pure, I thought maybe that made a difference. But that’s . . . I mean, that’s why I . . .” he glanced guiltily forward, where Ezekiel, at the wheel, listened. “I know I should have tried to help,” he muttered. “But I thought maybe I’d be able to find Carissa, get her away.”
“Far better for you to stay clear and free to act,” Ezekiel told him, coolly approving, with a brief glance over his shoulder. “If you’d come in too early, either you’d have been killed or at best taken at a disadvantage like the rest of us. No, you came in exactly when you could make a real difference. Good job.”
Nicholas let his breath out and nodded.
“But you never saw your sister?” Justin said, looking at Nicholas with intense sympathy. “You don’t know if she got away, or if she’s dead, or what? That’s awful.”
Natividad agreed. “That’s really awful. I’m so sorry. But maybe she got away. Maybe it’s better not to know, if she might have gotten away, right?”
Looking down, Nicholas nodded again, though Natividad wasn’t sure he believed it.
But even Nicholas’ story was not as hair-raising as Alejandro’s account of that thing in Boston, because after all Natividad had never met any of those El Paso black dogs, but Alejandro—she couldn’t have stood it if anything had happened to her big brother. Ezekiel had gone very quiet when Alejandro had finally explained everything that had happened. Of course Ezekiel thought it was all his fault, which it sort of was, not that it was fair to look at it that way, but Natividad wished she knew how Grayson would look at it. She thought and thought about that, in between making marañas magicás to toss across the road behind them every time they took a new exit. But she couldn’t decide. Her uncertainty scared her. She couldn’t quite decide whether Ezekiel was afraid, too, but he wouldn’t let anyone else take a turn driving. He stayed at the wheel all day and way into the night. That kind of control-freak thing was normal for a black dog, but worse when the black dog was feeling inquieto. She just bet Ezekiel was feeling extremadamente inquieto right now.
At least that meant everyone else could nap, after sharing all their stories. Nicholas, now shirtless and wearing a too-big black leather jacket with the special forces patch on it, tucked himself actually under one of the benches lining the two sides of the van and lost himself in exhausted sleep, looking even younger and skinnier and more urchin-like than he had when he’d first poked his head through the door.
Natividad also went to sleep, curled against Alejandro, trusting his arm around her to keep her from slipping off the bench. She woke once, stiff and still tired, but Alejandro held her, and Ezekiel was driving. She was worried about Ezekiel, but even though she was worried, she knew he could take care of anything. She knew she was safe, they were all safe at last. So she went back to sleep despite the discomfort.
But she was so glad Ezekiel decided, late that night, that they could stop at a hotel. She was sure it was a good idea to take some time to clean up and get real food to eat instead of just chips and things, and then sleep in a real bed. That way they could arrive back in Dimilioc looking less like refugees from disaster. And Ezekiel must be totally exhausted. Though Natividad thought he really mostly wanted to stop because he needed to gather his nerve before facing Grayson.
The hotel wasn’t very nice, but it was convenient and clean enough and the person at the desk didn’t seem curious. Ezekiel got them three rooms in a row, on the second floor in the back.
“I want a black dog with each of the Pure, and I don’t want anyone alone,” Ezekiel said, coming back with a jingling handful of keys. “Natividad, you’ll share with Keziah. Justin, you can come in with me. Alejandro, I trust you have no objection to sharing with Nicholas.”
Alejandro’s eyebrows rose as he gave Keziah a highly skeptical look. Keziah’s lip curled, her shoulders going back aggressively. Before either of them could say anything, though, Natividad cleared her throat. She found herself acutely aware of Ezekiel, of his beautiful hands and his tight-set mouth. Of the way he was so carefully not looking at her.
She had been vividly aware of him through this whole long day’s drive. She had napped a lot, of course. But she thought she had been aware of him even in her sleep. The memory of his kiss rose up in her belly, along with an unfamiliar kind of heat that made her blood fizz. He might not be willing to look at her, but she couldn’t look away from him. She didn’t want to look away. She was afraid that if she looked away, he might somehow be snatched from her. Or she might be snatched away from him. She understood, she thought for the first time in her life, why people said that Latin thing about seizing the day. Because if you didn’t
seize it, the day would be gone, and what if something happened? Because bad things could happen. And did. To anyone.
And she knew he cared about her. She knew he did. Because of that kiss, right there in the middle of that horrible fight when he couldn’t possibly have been thinking about seducción or manipulación or even black dog posesivo. No. That kiss had been filled with an intensity of feeling that stood outside all that. She still felt the astonishment of that awareness. It ran through her like fire, even now.
She said, still looking at Ezekiel, not at anyone else, “I’ll share with you. I’m sure everyone else will be able to sort out what they want to do.”
Alejandro twitched, and she put a calming hand on his arm, but she didn’t move her gaze from Ezekiel’s face.
Ezekiel’s head had gone back a little, as though Natividad had hit him. “Natividad—”
“I know,” she said. “But what does that matter now? It’s different, now. Anyway, my birthday is only a few weeks away. I’m not too young. I have—had—married cousins as young as me. Almost as young, anyway.” Then she hesitated. “I mean . . . I know it’s important for you and Grayson . . . I know you can’t challenge him, it would be terrible for Dimilioc. But Grayson . . . he won’t punish you for . . . being with me? I mean, he won’t, will he? After all—” she opened her hands in vague all this kind of gesture.
“I don’t imagine he could possibly be more angry with me than he already is. Being with you can hardly make it worse.” Ezekiel paused. “He will certainly punish me. But he won’t kill me. He can’t. He needs me too much.”
Pure Magic (Black Dog Book 3) Page 34
