Black Dog

by Rachel Neumeier

He looked carefully at Alejandro, and then at Miguel. To Miguel, Grayson said, “You also want to come into Dimilioc? Human as you are?”

  Miguel gave Alejandro a wary glance. “It was the only thing any of us could think of to do, after Vonhausel killed our parents. We… We hid. Papá wouldn’t let us fight…” he cut that thought off.

  “If you had fought, you would be dead, too,” Grayson said, his deep voice quiet. “Especially you, boy. Our human kin don’t belong in black dog battles.” He paused. Then he said to Ezekiel, much more curtly, “Take them downstairs. When they have been secured, come up, and we will talk about this. Ethan, go get their car. If you can’t get it up the road, at least get it out of sight.” The Master himself went back into the house without a backward look. Zachariah Korte and Harrison Lanning followed him, and Ethan shot them a contemptuous look and strode away toward the forest. Then only Ezekiel remained, watching them where they still knelt. He was smiling, but his pale eyes were cool and watchful.

  “That was not precisely what I expected, when I brought you here,” he commented.

  Miguel looked Ezekiel in the face as he got to his feet. “Why not?” he asked. “I’d have thought it was obvious.”

  Even if Miguel had been careful not to meet the young executioner’s eyes, he might have put that better. There was no challenge in his tone: as always, he was simply curious. Nevertheless, Natividad wasn’t surprised when Alejandro stood up quickly, in case the Dimilioc executioner took offense at Miguel’s familiarity.

  But Ezekiel showed no sign of affront. He said merely, his tone dry, “Perhaps it should have been.” Then he offered Natividad a hand to help her rise. Alejandro moved to stop her taking it, then caught himself. She smiled tiredly at her brother, but she took Ezekiel’s hand without hesitation. His thin smile as he offered it told her that he expected her to be afraid of him and she wanted to show him she wasn’t. And she wasn’t, really. Not really.

  Ezekiel’s hand was warm and firm, his grip strong. He met her gaze as he lifted her to her feet. He was not smiling now. She could not read the expression in his eyes.

  Alejandro put a hand under her elbow, easing her back, away from the Dimilioc executioner. “You’re tired…”

  Natividad let go of Ezekiel’s hand, allowing her brother to draw her back. She knew Alejandro had been pushed far enough already, so she agreed cheerfully, “Tired and stiff! I think every muscle I own is going to be stiff.” But then she looked straight up into Ezekiel’s eyes, not smiling, and asked, because she thought he might answer, “What’s downstairs?”

  “Nothing too alarming,” Ezekiel said, still dry. “You can relax.” She could tell he was telling the truth, though there was a slight emphasis on the you that she wasn’t sure she liked. But when he stepped back, waving them all up the porch stairs so they had to go past him and let him come at their backs, she went. Especially because, under the circumstances, she didn’t think they had much choice.

  3

  Alejandro found “downstairs” more than a little alarming. The term turned out to refer to a big, half-finished basement, with brick walls, tiles on the floor, exposed pipes reaching across the unpainted ceiling, and – this was the part he didn’t like – a huge, heavily barred cage taking up fully two-thirds of the available room. The cage bars were wrapped top to bottom with silver wire. The lock itself didn’t have silver on it, but Alejandro could see it would be out of reach from inside the cage. There were plumbing attachments in the cage, as well as a single cheap plastic chair and a narrow cot. Outside the cage was a small table.

  Ezekiel tipped his head toward the cage. “It’s plain, I know, but amenities tend to get destroyed.” He looked thoughtfully at Natividad. “You’ll leave your little knife on that table.”

  Alejandro didn’t like that either, and his black dog liked it less. Losing that silver knife, stepping into that silver cage… His black dog pressed at him, wanting to fight now, while fighting was still possible. He closed his eyes, breathing carefully. Natividad’s attention was on him, not Ezekiel. She had the knife in her hand, waiting for his nod. He couldn’t make himself give it, but he took the knife out of her hand himself and, without looking at the verdugo set it carefully on the table outside the cage.

  The young verdugo, evidently satisfied, gestured toward the cage door. Alejandro lowered his gaze, put one hand on Miguel’s shoulder and the other on Natividad’s, and guided the twins into the cage, because whatever his black dog thought, there were no other options.

  “Good,” said Ezekiel. But he made no move to shove the door closed. He said instead, “Of course, the cage is for black dogs. A nice little Pure girl could have a room upstairs.”

  Alejandro stiffened. He set his hands protectively on Natividad’s shoulders, glaring a warning at the young Dimilioc verdugo. The cage door was still open. He wanted to explode out of the cage, fight the verdugo, kill him. He longed to tear that mocking expression off his face, rip through his spine, send his shadow screaming into the fell dark, leave his body bleeding on the concrete floor. Impossible, stupid urges. Papá would have said, “Is that what you want to do, or is that your black dog?” He would have said, “You call up your shadow and you put it down, don’t let it start going the other way.” Alejandro took one slow breath after another and did not move. Natividad would be safe here. Alejandro clung to that conviction, blocking his shadow’s longing for blood and violence with the solid refusal of a lifetime’s practice.

  But he would not let anyone take his sister away from his protection, either. They would have to kill him first. He stared at the young verdugo, letting him see that.

  Ezekiel Korte met his eyes, smiling.

  “No, thank you,” Natividad said, in her meekest tone, the one she used on Alejandro when he was angry. It was all show, that tone, but it helped calm his black dog.

  Ezekiel shifted his gaze to her, and his smile changed, the mockery in it giving way to genuine appreciation. “A private room,” he told her.

  “Thank you,” Natividad repeated. “But no. I’ll stay with my brothers.” She patted one of Alejandro’s hands, where he gripped her shoulder. But she also smiled at the verdugo and added, “Some extra blankets would be nice, though. And a cord. So we can hang blankets across the middle,” she added, when the young man lifted an eyebrow.

  “Of course,” Ezekiel murmured. He shoved the door closed behind them with his foot. It swung against its iron frame with an echoing crash, a disturbingly final sort of sound. When he walked away up the stairs and closed the door on the landing as well, the silence that folded down around them was even more disturbing.

  Natividad sat on the cot and sighed, then groaned dismally as she looked at her boots. “I don’t think I can bend down that far!”

  Without a word, Alejandro knelt and began to unlace the boots for her.

  “I think that went well,” Miguel said tentatively. “Didn’t you think that went well?”

  “Compared to what?” Alejandro asked, managing to keep most of the growl out of his tone. He pulled Natividad’s first boot off, then the second, set them aside and helped his sister swing her legs up on the cot.

  Natividad lay down slowly, groaning, and closed her eyes. “Oh, I’m going to be stiff tomorrow.”

  “Your coat,” Alejandro reminded her.

  “Cold down here,” she said, not opening her eyes.

  Of course. He should have realized. Alejandro took off his jacket and draped it across his sister’s feet. She wiggled her toes in weary gratitude. Alejandro dropped down to the floor beside the cot, leaning back against its edge. He looked at his brother with lifted eyebrows, then shook his head. “How did you talk us into this?”

  “You did well,” Miguel told him, ignoring this question. “It did go well. Grayson listened to you. No wonder, with so few black wolves left here. Maybe some we haven’t seen yet, though.” Since Alejandro was sitting on the floor next to the cot, Miguel sat gingerly in the single chair. It didn’t collapse, so he
leaned back and sighed.

  “Or maybe not. You think six black dogs are enough to face Vonhausel, if he comes?” Natividad asked. “You think so, really?”

  “Better than one,” growled Alejandro. But he hated to think how slender a protection Dimilioc might prove, weakened as it clearly was.

  “Lots better! Remember what Papá said about the Dimilioc executioner,” added Miguel. “And I bet Grayson is one tough hombre.” He pretended to shudder, then added more seriously, “No, Natividad, I still think this was the best place to come. I really do.”

  Alejandro said absolutely nothing.

  Natividad, no doubt aware of his temper, said quickly, “Lots of silver on those bars. How long do you think we’ll be left alone? Do you think it’d be long enough for me to–” She stopped as the door at the head of the stairs opened.

  Alejandro immediately got to his feet, taking an aggressive stance between his siblings and the door – then caught himself. Stupid, stupid, he knew better – stupid to challenge when you could not fight. He could not bring himself to sit down or even step back, but he forced himself to look at the floor.

  Ezekiel came down the stairs with a stack of blankets. He surveyed them all for a moment, then unlocked the door and toed it open. He tossed the blankets to Miguel, said, “Someone will bring food,” to Natividad, and added, “You come with me,” to Alejandro.

  Alejandro’s stomach clenched. Natividad had come up to one elbow. Her eyes were wide, but she was trying to smile. “That was fast. We’ll leave you the crumbs, if there are any.”

  “Bueno,” Alejandro said, and in English, “Right, you do that.” He stepped out of the cage, not looking at the verdugo’s face. He knew Ezekiel Korte must be aware of his anger and fear and he hated that, but there was nothing he could do about it, either – along with so many other things he could do nothing about. But the verdugo offered no insult, only stepped aside and gestured Alejandro up the stairs before him.

  The room to which Ezekiel brought him was much larger, much warmer, and much more richly furnished than the basement. A massive granite fireplace occupied most of one wall, huge logs burning within it. A wide window took up most of another wall. The sunset was already streaking the sky over the mountains with carmine; below the mountains, the forest was shadowed with lavender and indigo.

  Before the window, on a thick wool rug, stood a grouping of chairs with heavy carved frames and thick cushions. Grayson Lanning occupied one of the chairs, Zachariah Korte another. Their shadows stretched across the floor, flickering around the edges in the uncertain light, but palpably dark.

  Harrison Lanning, his shadow not quite so dense, was leaning on the back of another chair on the other side of his brother. Ethan Lanning stood behind Harrison, his arms crossed, frowning, nakedly hostile. But at least his shadow was no darker than that of any ordinary black dog. Alejandro was not afraid of him. It was nice to have one Dimilioc black dog he did not have to be afraid of.

  Ezekiel Korte drifted across the room, trailing, despite his youth, a shadow almost as heavy as Grayson’s. He perched with negligent grace on the broad arm of a chair. Even that was a threat, in a way, because he was so ostentatiously poised to move fast from that position.

  Since no one had told him what he should do, Alejandro walked the little distance necessary to stand before Grayson’s chair. He glanced up briefly into the Master’s face, then dropped his gaze and stood still.

  “Your father raised you,” Grayson said without any preliminary. “Edward Toland. He trained you. Taught you control. You lived as a family – you and your brother and your sister and your mother. And your father. All in the same house. Is that right? Don’t lie to me.”

  “Yes, sir,” Alejandro answered. “No, sir. That is the truth.”

  “Edward showed you how to deal with stray black dogs and those damned blood kin… Did he teach you to kill them or avoid them?”

  “Both, sir. Either. Whatever would be safest for our family.”

  “So, he taught you to keep quiet,” Grayson Lanning said thoughtfully. It was not a question. “To live quietly and hunt quietly.” He paused, then said at last, without any change in his deep, calm voice, “I remember your father. We were not precisely contemporaries; I was a boy when he left Dimilioc. But I remember him quite clearly. Edward was a strong man. A decent man. I’ll tell you a truth: I much preferred him to Vonhausel. Thos did not agree, of course.”

  Ezekiel said lightly, “Thos was always partial to black wolves of Gehorsam descent. No accounting for taste.”

  Alejandro said nothing. He had no idea what response either of them expected.

  “Your father had a great deal of control,” the Master continued after a moment. He had paid no attention to Ezekiel’s interruption at all.

  Alejandro said, “Papá had to keep tight control over his shadow,” but then stopped abruptly. His grief made it impossible to keep his tone steady.

  “Not merely because he feared enemies. Because you and he would have killed everyone in your neighborhood. Is that what you mean?”

  Alejandro nodded.

  Zachariah Korte said quietly, “Your mother helped with that, I suppose.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Of course,” said Grayson. “Only a Pure woman could have given your father both a black dog son and a Pure daughter. How fortunate for your family she should have produced a Pure daughter. I imagine that by the time you had grown into a dangerous little puppy, your sister was already old enough to help your control. Is that so?”

  Alejandro controlled a strong impulse to ask Grayson what he would do with Natividad. He longed to beg for reassurance. He knew it was a stupid impulse, which made very little difference. He said, “Yes, sir,” and waited again.

  “And your control when you do not have your sister by your side? I wonder about that.” Grayson glanced at Ezekiel, who straightened.

  Alejandro turned to face the verdugo. He knew very well what was coming. His father had trained him for this. He had expected it. But he found his stomach clenching with fear anyway. He had trusted his father. It was not the same, to face Ezekiel Korte. He did not know how far Ezekiel would go. How far Grayson Lanning would let him go.

  Ezekiel came around the chair and walked forward. He was not smiling now. His shadow did not rise, but it gathered around him, dense and heavy. As soon as Ezekiel was close enough, without any apparent emotion, he hit Alejandro across the face. It was an open-handed blow, but hard enough that Alejandro staggered. And it was fast.

  Alejandro found himself struggling, to his shame, with a sudden visceral fear of the Dimilioc executioner. The shame was worse because of the verdugo’s youth. He knew he did not have Papá’s strength, he knew he might never be so strong, but he had never expected to be afraid of a black dog his own age. But he was afraid of Ezekiel Korte, with a primitive instinct-driven terror that made everything hard – holding to any shred of control was abruptly ten times more difficult than it should have been. He knew Ezekiel could see that fear in him and he hated that, but even so it was all he could do, when the verdugo hit him a second time, to take the blow without attempting to attack in turn.

  He could feel his shadow rise through him, trying to take on shape and substance, trying to force him into the cambio de cuerpo. He knew his face was distorting, his hands, his feet; his shoulders hunched as his body tried to twist itself into the shape that ought to cast its shadow. A thin snarl crept from his throat. It was not a human sound. Alejandro set his teeth against that sound, forcing his shadow down, holding grimly onto human form. He took a third blow, this one to the stomach – if Ezekiel had been using claws, that blow would have had his guts out, and for an instant he was not sure the Dimilioc verdugo had not done it. His terror gave the executioner’s shadow sharp teeth, not only metaphorically.

  When Ezekiel Korte tried once more to hit him across the face, he blocked the blow – then found the Dimilioc executioner gripping his arm instead, shoving him back, pinn
ing him against one of the heavy chairs. Ezekiel was strong, stronger than Alejandro, and there was a terrifying ruthlessness in his cold eyes, something harder and more deliberate than ordinary black-dog savagery. Alejandro wanted to change… He needed to change… He would not. He fought his shadow instead, struggling to hold to human shape. His shadow began to yield, began to sink down once more.

  Then Ezekiel said, with deadly, unemotional contempt. “This is what you call control?” His grip tightened, close to crushing Alejandro’s arm. “If you had been there when black dogs attacked your mother, would you have fought them? I don’t think you would. I think you would have yielded to the scent of death and joined them instead. I think you would have fought the rest, but only for the chance to spill her blood yourself–”

  Alejandro’s shadow flooded abruptly upward as rage jolted his control and the change took him. He snapped at Ezekiel’s wrist with savage fangs, slashed at his belly with ebony claws. But Ezekiel was not there to meet his attack. He had melted back, away from Alejandro, but he did not seem alarmed. He had not allowed his own shadow to rise, but watched Alejandro coolly from his human form, unmoved by visible fear or anger. Alejandro understood with the rational part of his mind that he was right to be afraid of Ezekiel, but his black dog, thoroughly ascendant, wanted to stalk the Dimilioc verdugo and tear his human body into bloody pieces.

  “Stop,” Grayson said calmly. The Master’s power rolled out through the room, smothering all the shadows, pressing Alejandro’s shadow down flat, forcing it back into an insubstantial darkness.

  This was not a thing that Alejandro recognized. It was not something Papá could have done, nothing Papá had ever described. But Grayson Lanning forced him back into human shape as though it was nothing, as though it took neither thought nor effort. Alejandro found himself on his hands and knees on the thick rug, hardly able to tell what shape he wore. He was trembling with reaction, which shamed him, but he could not stop.

  He did not want to look up. The flat contempt in Ezekiel’s voice still echoed in his memory, and he knew when he looked up he would find that contempt staring back at him from the eyes of all the Dimilioc wolves. Worse, he knew that if Papá were here, he would look at his son in the same way. He would say with Ezekiel, “This is what you call control?” Alejandro wanted to slink out of this room, into the gathering dark of these strange cold mountains, and run south, a shadow hardly more substantial than the natural darkness.