Black Dog

by Rachel Neumeier

  Above him, having never stirred from his place, Grayson’s heavy voice asked, “Well?”

  Alejandro fixed his gaze on the gray and red pattern of the rug. His shadow’s claws had scored heavy lines through the wool. He stared at his own hands. Human again. They looked like anyone’s hands. He said nothing.

  “Alejandro,” said Grayson, and waited.

  Alejandro did not want to look at the Dimilioc Master. But at last, having no choice, he straightened his back and forced himself to meet Grayson Lanning’s eyes. To his surprise, he did not find contempt there. There was even a kind of sympathy in that dark stare.

  “Ezekiel can break anyone’s control,” Grayson told him quietly. “I would have been amazed if he had not broken yours. Did you think otherwise?”

  Alejandro stared at him. He felt young and stupid, and violently resented being made to feel that way. His shadow snarled in the back of his mind. He set himself to hold his human form and mind against it.

  But Grayson said, “I am not holding you now. Let your shadow rise. Let it up, boy, and let us have a look at your black dog. Ezekiel – loose your shadow as well, if you please. I would not like to have to replace the furniture in this room.”

  Ezekiel tilted an amused eyebrow at the Master of Dimilioc and melted into his shadow, so swiftly and cleanly that Alejandro could not keep from staring.

  Ezekiel’s black dog form was shaggy, huge, with massive bones and powerful shoulders. Its skull was broad, its muzzle blunt, its wide-set yellow eyes gleaming with fire as well as with vicious intelligence. Alejandro would have said that there was nothing of Ezekiel Korte in that malevolent stare, and yet he would never have mistaken this black dog for any other man’s shadow.

  Alejandro had seen his father’s shadow form. He had worn his own like a mask that had seemed at times more real than his own body. He had wrapped himself in his shadow to run or hunt or to fight stray black dogs and the moon-bound curs they had made. But Ezekiel’s black dog was more frightening than any other he had ever seen. It was not larger than his father’s shadow body. But it seemed somehow more solid, more auténtico. More real. When Ezekiel dropped his jaw in a terrible black-dog laugh, the contained heat of his fiery eyes seemed to burn out across the entire room, until Alejandro was amazed the rug and the chairs did not catch fire.

  “Now,” said Grayson Lanning said to him, “let your own shadow rise.”

  Alejandro had almost forgotten the Dimilioc Master. His gaze jerked that way, startled, when the Master spoke. He felt the blood rise into his face, and told himself the heat there was anger and not shame. His shadow was ready to be angry. It rose, hot and fast, and the shame fell away. The uncertainty burned like dry grass in a fire as his body molded itself to his shadow. He stretched and yawned, enjoying the deadly, confident strength of the black dog. He stared around the room looking for someone to kill… Grayson Lanning met his eyes with a complete absence of fear that made him pause despite his confidence.

  But he thought he could kill Ethan Lanning, perhaps. He was eager to try. He stared at the youngest of the Dimilioc wolves, looking for any sign of fear, of uncertainty. When Ethan met his gaze without showing either, he whined, disappointed – then snarled, a long singing snarl, trying to make the other flinch. He eased forward a pace, flexing a broad foot, thinking about the brutal rake of claws, the spilling blood, the scents of burning and ash and death.

  Ezekiel stood up and looked at him, only that, and he stopped, recognizing that the other was stronger. Where Alejandro in his human form might have been angry or frightened or ashamed, his black dog only acknowledged the other’s strength, accepted it, found no urgent reason to challenge it, and turned away from the fight.

  He found himself looking again at Grayson Lanning. Grayson looked fearlessly into his fiery eyes and said, “Now put down your shadow, Alejandro, do you hear? Come back up.”

  For a long, long moment these words did not make any sense. Alejandro heard the Dimilioc Master, but Grayson might as well have snarled like an animal rather than spoken in any human language. Then the Master patiently repeated, “Come back up,” and suddenly the sounds reordered themselves into understandable speech – into a command.

  The black-dog shadow did not want to yield to any command. It recognized Grayson’s strength, but not his authority. Besides, it did not want to subside back into shadow, to give way to the human form – not so soon after rising, not while the night waited outside this house. It stared out the wide window, at the darkness that filled the world. Even if it could not kill any Dimilioc wolf, maybe it could crash through the glass and fall into the night. It could run across the snow, find some living creature with sweet blood to hunt… Run all the way back to that town… A house crowded with ordinary humans would provide an exciting hunt…

  This, at least, was a familiar urge. Alejandro blocked it with the forceful skill of long practice. He locked his gaze on Grayson’s, caught at the dim memory of his human body, knocked his black dog off balance while it was momentarily checked by its awareness of the Dimilioc Master’s strength, and struck out of the shadow that enfolded him, back toward his human form, as a swimmer might strike for the surface of a lake far above.

  It felt like that, coming out of the shadow, sliding from the black dog back into his human body. Like coming into air when he might have drowned. Like pulling free of gripping hands.

  In another way, reclaiming his human body felt like accepting a prison, or like drowning.

  It had made him sick, that change, when he was a child – the difference between the shadow and his own body. Eventually he had learned to step from one shape to the other, from one mind to the other, from black dog to human and back again, with reasonable ease. But it was always harder to come back through his shadow than it was to let the shadow rise. He held very still for a long moment, his eyes closed, one hand gripping the back of a chair for balance, waiting for his body and his soul to accept human shape once more.

  Then he opened his eyes and looked at Grayson Lanning.

  The Master of Dimilioc turned his head to meet the fiery gaze of Ezekiel’s black wolf. “And would you call that control?”

  Ezekiel laughed silently, black fangs gleaming, and straightened easily, with flawless control, back into his human form. His smile held no less malice in human form. He said smoothly, looking at Alejandro and not at Grayson, “Who could fail to be impressed?”

  Alejandro could not quite keep from flinching, could not quite force himself to meet Ezekiel’s mocking stare. He told himself that was only sensible, that he must be careful, that the moment after the cambio de cuerpo was a dangerous time to meet any black dog’s gaze. That was all true. But he knew that was not why he lowered his gaze.

  “Take him down,” ordered Grayson. “Bring the human boy.”

  Alejandro wanted to protest, which was stupid. He wanted to ask for reassurance, which was childish. He lowered his eyes and obeyed Ezekiel’s gesture. It was hard to walk past the American, hard to leave the Dimilioc executioner at his back – he did not like to do that even though the rational part of his mind knew it made no difference. His black dog liked it even less. It trembled as the shadow of a leaf might tremble. A dying leaf, as the leaves must come down in the autumn, cuando se caen las hojas, in this land of winter. He told himself that Ezekiel would not see his shadow tremble. But he knew the verdugo would in fact see it. He did not look into the young American’s face. It might have been dangerous to look at him, but that was not why Alejandro avoided his gaze, and he knew Ezekiel would know that also.

  Miguel got to his feet as they came down the stairs. He had been sitting, not in the chair, but on the floor next to the cot, his head tilted back against its frame – listening, probably, in case he might hear anything of what passed upstairs. Or maybe just listening to Natividad’s breathing as she slept. To the reassuring steadiness of her heartbeat. Alejandro could hear both her easy breaths and her heartbeat from the stairs, and found the proof of
his sister’s peace easing past the edge of his own longing for violence.

  He met Miguel’s eyes. He did not know what to say – anyway Ezekiel was listening. In the end, after the verdugo unlocked and opened the cage door, he stepped into the cage without saying anything at all. Neither he nor his shadow liked being forced to pass so close to Ezekiel, and the silver on the bars made the feeling of being cornered worse still. He tried not to flinch.

  Miguel’s too-perceptive gaze flicked from the Dimilioc verdugo to Alejandro’s face. “Te hizo daño?” he asked in Spanish. Did he hurt you? He did not whisper, but he spoke quietly, and the soft, even rhythm of Natividad’s breathing did not change.

  Alejandro shrugged. He wanted to say, “Be careful.” He wanted to remind Miguel that lots of Americans understood Spanish – not so many this far into the frozen north, but still, one should be careful. But after all, what did it matter? After that first hesitation, he said, “Estoy bien. Lo sé–”

  Ezekiel said briskly, “That’s enough! You, out you come. Let’s go.”

  Alejandro moved aside so that his brother could pass by. He wanted to say to his brother, “You’ll do well, you’ll be alright; watch out for anger, he will use your anger as a weapon against you.” But he did not know what test or interrogation Grayson Lanning might have in mind for his human brother, and anyway, he did not dare offer any advice or reassurance after Ezekiel had ordered him silent.

  And Miguel saw that he did not dare. A wary anger came into his eyes. His mouth tightened, and he glanced sidelong at Ezekiel’s face.

  Ezekiel, of course, saw both the wariness and the anger. “Save it till it might do you some good,” he told Miguel, clearly amused, and shut the cage door behind the boy. He did not slam the door, but even so, metal rang against metal as the door swung to. Even then, however, Natividad did not wake.

  Alejandro looked down at his sister, at the hollows of her face – last year she had not had those hollows; last year her wrists had not been so thin nor her bones so prominent. She had lost too much of her strength in the grief and terror of their flight from Mexico. And she was thinner now than even those few days ago.

  Looking up, he said abruptly to Ezekiel, who had just turned to follow Miguel up the stairs, “She’s tired. She ought to be left alone tonight.”

  Ezekiel turned back, one eyebrow rising. Alejandro looked aside. But he also said stubbornly, “You should leave her alone until morning.”

  The Dimilioc executioner glanced past him at the slight figure on the cot. Then he shrugged. It was a wry shrug with more than a touch of mockery to it, but it was not unfriendly. “I agree with you. But it’s not my decision.”

  Alejandro said nothing. He watched Ezekiel turn and follow Miguel up the stairs and through the door at the top. That door shut, quietly. Then there was only silence, and the dark, and the quiet sound of his sister’s breath. He knelt down on the floor by her cot, drawing comfort from that sound.

  Alejandro was sure that the Dimilioc wolves would not kill Miguel. Not now, not tonight – not at all, if they wanted to keep Natividad. He was sure of it.

  He had told Grayson that he had persuaded his brother and sister to trespass into the very heart of Dimilioc territory. But who knew what Miguel would say if Grayson asked him about that? Alejandro should have claimed responsibility again, should have made the Dimilioc wolves all believe that the offense was his fault. He had been frightened, like a child. He had forgotten he needed to protect Miguel. How could he have forgotten?

  He rested his forehead against the wool of the blankets that covered Natividad, listening. He heard nothing but his sister’s even breaths, her heartbeat. His own, muffled by his shadow. Which, cowed by this silent cell with its silver-bound bars, was tenuous and very quiet. He was not even sure he could get his black dog to rise if he called it… He remembered Papá teaching him to call his black dog up. At first it came up whether he called it or not, whenever he was angry or frightened or upset… When he had been very little, his shadow rose when it chose and went down when it chose. He had had no control over it at all. Or he had not understood he might win control over it.

  One of his earliest memories: he must have been about three, he knew that, because he had just begun to talk; like many black dogs he had been late to talk. The black dog did not understand language, and it had pulled at him all the time then, so that a lot of the time he had not really been separate from it. And the twins had been born that year.

  At first Alejandro had not been allowed to come near the new babies. But one day – Alejandro remembered this vividly – one day when Mamá had gone out to the garden, Papá had taken him to see the two infants, tucked together in the little crib they shared. They had been sleeping, but woke when Alejandro leaned over the crib. Little Miguel had screwed up his face and cried, which had given Alejandro a pleasant little thrill of power and excitement as though he was hunting. His shadow had pushed at him, tipping his chubby baby fingers with claws and filling his mouth with the tastes of ash and blood. But Natividad had stretched out her hands to him and cooed and laughed, and he had liked that in a different way.

  “Cut her,” Papá had suggested to him. He had lifted Miguel out of the crib and tucked him against his shoulder, but he left Natividad lying where she was. “Go ahead,” he said. “It’s alright. Rip her up. Spill her blood. Look how little she is! You could kill her so easily. Don’t you want to?”

  Alejandro sort of did. He leaned forward eagerly, his mouth distorting toward the muzzle of the black dog, the bones of his shoulders and arms shifting. But his baby sister smiled and cooed, not at all afraid, and another part of him wanted her happy just like that, wanted to protect her and was horrified at the idea he might hurt her, that anybody might ever hurt her.

  “Part of you wants to hurt her,” said Papá. “But a different part of you would destroy anybody who tried to hurt her. That part stops the other. Isn’t that so?”

  Alejandro hadn’t been astonished that Papá understood so well. Papá understood everything; he knew that already. He had nodded and waited for Papá to explain things.

  “The part of you that wants to hurt your sister, that isn’t you, Alejandro. That’s the black dog. That’s your shadow. The part of you that stops it, that is you. You always need to know which one wants something: your shadow or you. And sometimes you can let your shadow have what it wants, like when we go hunting in the forest, but mostly you have to stop it. You will always be able to stop it, though, if you want to. Understand?”

  Alejandro couldn’t remember now how well he’d understood his father, then. How well could any little black dog pup really understand where his shadow stopped and he started? But he reached out now as he had reached out then and touched his sister’s cheek gently with fingers that were human right to the tips of the blunt nails. He had protected her from that moment, protected her all her life. Until he had brought her here, where he could not protect her from anything.

  He couldn’t fight the verdugo, anyway. He told himself firmly that it didn’t matter: Dimilioc would not kill a Pure girl. He told himself that, and tried to believe it.

  They had all thought themselves very brave, when they had decided to come to Grayson Lanning and ask Dimilioc to take them in. Papá might have said that Grayson was an honorable man and a good Master for Dimilioc, but he had also said, all their lives, Dimilioc does not tolerate strays, remember that. You never want to catch Dimilioc’s attention. They all knew it was a desperate thing to do.

  Alejandro had wanted the twins to run east instead, to Japan maybe, or China. To some country where Natividad would not need to fear Vonhausel’s pursuit or the violence of perros negros. But she had refused. Because she did not want to go to so foreign a country, she had said. Really, he knew, she had refused for his sake. The Chinese dragons loathed black dogs almost as much as they had loathed vampires. Black dogs could not go into the Far East, and so Natividad would not go.

  For himself, he was glad she had
refused. He would have gone with them, guarded them along the way despite the danger. In the Far East, his brother and sister would have been safe from every demonic threat, certainly safe from Vonhausel. But Miguel had said no, who knew if the Chinese dragons would hate the Pure as they hated black dogs, the magic was all tied together after all, they should come to Dimilioc instead. Now Alejandro wondered how his human brother had made this sound like such a good idea. He thought of Ezekiel’s dispassionate contempt, of Grayson’s massive strength, and running north no longer seemed so clever. He wished very much for Papá, for his strength and his confidence – but even Papá’s strength had not been enough, and his confidence had been misplaced, and he was dead. No one but Alejandro was left to protect Natividad and Miguel, and how could he do that here?

  He wanted to get up, to pace. That might disturb Natividad. He did not want to wake her. They had pushed her too hard today, too hard for many days before this one. She was tired – she was exhausted still with grief, though she would never admit it, and then Alejandro had pushed her to keep up with the killing pace a black dog did not even feel. Miguel could keep up, more or less, for a while. But Natividad?

  He wanted to break the chairs, tear the blankets, hurl himself at the bars of the cell. He did not move, except to stare restlessly up the stairs.

  How long could it take, for Grayson Lanning to question Miguel? It seemed a very long time, but was probably not even an hour, before the stairway door clicked open. Alejandro was on his feet at once, all his muscles tight. He saw Ezekiel first, and for a moment no one else. His breath caught.