Harrison flung the shotgun aside, bore the sheriff straight through the circle of the mandala right down to the ground and pinned him flat, all in the same silent rush.
“It wasn’t his fault!” Natividad cried. “It was mine!”
Harrison released Pearson, came to his feet, and swung around to confront Natividad. He was fully in his human form now, except for his fiery eyes. Behind him, Pearson came up on one elbow, not hurt at all. To Natividad’s relief, he didn’t get all the way up, and Harrison didn’t whirl back to strike him down to the ground. Natividad realized at last – she was ashamed she hadn’t understood it from the first – that Harrison had thrown the sheriff to the ground not as an attack nor even as the precursor for an attack, but as a way to prevent an attack. Not the sheriff’s, but his own. He hadn’t trusted Sheriff Pearson to know he needed to show submission, hadn’t trusted himself to tolerate any show of defiance, so he’d knocked the sheriff down with enough force to remind him to be prudent. That was actually clever. Even kind, sort of. As kind as a black dog in a raging temper was likely able to manage.
It was also a reminder Natividad should not need. Not that Harrison would hit her, she was pretty sure, but she crouched down in the snow anyway. Well, sort of collapsed, really. It was very easy to just let her legs fold up. It might be harder to get up again. She asked, “Was that Vonhausel? Is he dead?” Her voice shook. She couldn’t help that.
Harrison answered grimly, not shouting, “Of course it was Vonhausel. Of course he’s not dead. But if Grayson hadn’t sent me after you, you would be dead! We would have lost you! Reckless, irresponsible child!” Turning his head, he glared down at Pearson. “You brought her into this danger, when Grayson explicitly forbade it!” Harrison’s black dog still showed in his eyes, a powerful echo behind his human form.
Sheriff Pearson didn’t try to stand up. And he remembered not to look directly into Harrison’s face, so that was alright. He stayed propped up his elbow – his other arm was hurt, Natividad was almost sure – and said, “I lost good men protecting Natividad. Is the circle she drew for us worth it? You crossed it.”
Harrison Lanning glowered down at him. “Of course it was worth it – to you. It’s a good, strong circle. It’s blazing like a bonfire.”
“It’s supposed to shut out those who come with ill intent,” Natividad said. Her voice was not quite steady. She wanted to explain that black dog magic had gotten tangled up with her work, but didn’t know how. Instead, she took a deep breath and tried to calm her nerves. She said, “I told it to shut out evil things. I didn’t mean it to work against Dimilioc wolves. But…”
“It’s fine,” snapped Harrison. “Anybody could feel its strength, but it’s not directing that strength at me. Worth your men?” he added to Pearson, still glowering. “How not? Worth losing the only Pure girl we have? How could it be?” He transferred his glare to Natividad. “Reckless, self-indulgent, childish, disobedient–”
“Lewis needed help.” Natividad was still trembling. “Si una persona pide ayuda, hay que ayudarle – if somebody asks you for help, of course you should help them! If Grayson had sent you with me in the first place, it wouldn’t have been so dangerous…”
“I am here now,” Harrison said harshly, “and so if anyone attacks Dimilioc now, there will be one less wolf there to fight. That is your fault.”
He was still furious, but there was a lot less of the black dog in his voice now. Even his eyes were almost human again. When he held an impatient hand down to Natividad, she took it and let him lift her to her feet. She could stand up. For a shaky moment she had not been sure. “Are they dead? All those men?”
“Of course. How else? That you are not shows either violent luck or the direct favor of God, neither of which you deserve.” He took her arm in a hard grip, though not hard enough to bruise, which under the circumstances showed a lot of restraint.
Natividad bowed her head, meek as a black dog puppy.
“I will consider your punishment as we drive back to Dimilioc.” Harrison transferred his glare back to Sheriff Pearson, who looked down almost as meekly as Natividad, and, she was sure, with no more sincerity. “I will need a vehicle.” He held out a broad hand. “Your keys.”
Pearson tossed over his car keys without a murmur of protest.
“It’s as well you have your circle to show for your stupidity,” Harrison told the sheriff. If he was not mollified, at least he had not been further provoked. His tone, if not exactly gentle, was no longer so savage. But he added, “If you find it insufficient, don’t call on Dimilioc. Dimilioc will not be interested in your troubles.” He shoved Natividad back toward town.
Natividad walked meekly the way Harrison pushed her, but she also turned her head to meet the sheriff’s eyes. He was gathering himself to his feet at last, moving as though it hurt, but he paused questioningly as she caught his gaze.
She winked. Harrison might have said, “Don’t call on Dimilioc,” but in that wink, Natividad hoped she communicated a different message. If that mandala doesn’t work, she meant to convey, or if it’s not enough, call on me.
Pearson nodded back, and if the movement looked like it hurt, it nevertheless carried reassuring determination.
Natividad waited to speak again until they had found the car. The bulky, broad-shouldered Harrison looked exactly like the kind of man who ought to drive such a big vehicle. He had to put the seat back several notches and even then he had to slouch down so that he could keep an eye on the rearview mirror.
Natividad did not object to anything. She pulled herself slowly into the passenger seat, the effort showing her how stiff she was. As soon as Harrison started the car, she turned the heater all the way up. She hadn’t realized exactly how tired and cold and frightened she had been until she was in this nice car with its wonderful roomy seats and excellent heater. Though she wished the car could also do something about the fear. She wished they were already back at Dimilioc, safe in the house. If that was safe. Well, it would be safer than this car…
“You’re tired,” Harrison said to her, his rough tone almost a growl on the words. Yet, he did not seem angry any longer. Not very angry. He looked at her closely, his attention probably caught by her slow movements. “But you are not hurt.”
“I don’t think so,” Natividad said. Though she was very tired. She didn’t want to make the black wolf angry, not again, not now when he seemed so much calmer. But she said tentatively, “My mandala… I should explain… Vonhausel…”
“You can explain to Grayson,” Harrison growled. “But Vonhausel will not challenge any Dimilioc wolf again until he can bring overwhelming force to bear. So, not today nor tonight.” Then he ruined the certainty of this statement by adding, “Or I think not.”
Natividad did not want to think about what might happen if he was wrong. If overwhelming force came against them on the road, when she and Harrison were alone… She wished, suddenly and intensely, that Ezekiel was already back from Chicago. And Alejandro. She wanted to be safe in her room at Dimilioc, she and Miguel and Alejandro, all safe.
No, that wasn’t what she wanted at all. What she really wanted was a cup of hot chocolate, very strong and dark, the way her mother had made it. She wanted a hot bath and a soft bed and some silly light romance to read… She wanted, fiercely and suddenly, to go home. Tears prickled at the backs of her eyes.
“Though it’s true you will have a great deal of time to rest once we are home,” Harrison added, in counterpoint to Natividad’s sudden melancolia. “You’re grounded.”
“Grounded?” He’d said he would consider her punishment, but this was so unexpected that Natividad found herself shocked out of her homesickness and grief and the remnants of her fear, and actually struggling not to laugh. She hadn’t known that Harrison had a sense of humor at all, and then he came out with something like that!
The black wolf gave her a look that was not exactly a scowl. Or if it was a scowl, it wasn’t exactly bad temper behind it. H
e said, his tone still harsh but no longer angry, “Grayson cannot order his executioner to beat you. Ezekiel would not obey. Besides, you aren’t a young black dog, to be beaten into submission. You’re too thin to be refused supper. So. You are grounded. I believe girls your age consider this a significant punishment. You will stay in your room until I release you.”
“I’m not a baby–”
“You are very young,” Harrison growled, in a tone of finality.
Natividad looked at him uncertainly. “Grayson…”
Harrison turned his head to glower at her, heavy brows drawn down over dark eyes. “What? Will you go to my brother asking for a lighter punishment?”
This wasn’t what Natividad had meant. She said, “No, alright,” in her meekest tone.
For some time, Harrison drove in silence. He glanced at her now and then, sideways glances that she could not read. He tapped his fingers on the gear shift. He adjusted and readjusted the angle of the steering wheel. And at last he said, “Grayson told me about the pentagrams you put on the living room windows. For him, you did that.”
Natividad, still mostly thinking about the strange mandala she had made, wondered why this was a problem. “Yes?”
The big black dog glowered out at the falling snow. He handled Sheriff Pearson’s big vehicle with a casual skill that Natividad found didn’t surprise her at all. But he evidently found talking a harder task. Eventually he said, “Grayson was married. His wife was a black dog woman. Of course they did not have children. Except one that was stillborn.”
Natividad said nothing, but her stomach clenched with sympathy. It was even worse for two black dogs to have children than for a black dog woman to have a child by a human man. The children of two black dogs, inheriting the shadow from both parents, would inevitably be eaten by their shadows way before they could grow up – all the boys, and most of the girls. Sometimes those infants really were stillborn, but black dogs who strove for basic human decency might also say stillborn when they meant they had killed such a child at birth. She found that she wasn’t at all surprised that Grayson Lanning had loved a fierce, angry, strong black dog woman, the sort of woman who could match his own ferocity and strength. But it also wouldn’t have surprised her, either, if he had spared such a woman as much as he could by taking on himself the worst duty that could face a black dog.
“She was killed early in the war,” Harrison said, and stopped.
“I’m sorry,” Natividad whispered. She was. That was terrible.
Harrison gave her a quick sideways scowl. “Grayson was going to come after you himself. I said I would come.” He stopped again.
Whatever he wanted to say was apparently hard for him to put into words. Natividad looked away from him, out her window, at the blowing snow and the naked trees, so that he might find it easier.
“You could hurt my brother badly,” Harrison said abruptly. “Especially if you thought he could not be hurt. He wants you to think he’s impervious. He wants everyone to think he’s impervious to everything. He is not. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” Natividad said softly.
“When he looks at you, he sees every Dimilioc woman who died in the war. His wife, his baby daughter, he sees them both in you. All his hope for Dimilioc’s future. You are not to kill yourself by some stupidity, do you understand? Your death would hurt him. Or if you just do not care for Dimilioc, you could hurt him that way. Do you understand that?”
“Yes,” Natividad repeated. She found herself liking Harrison Lanning much more than she had expected she ever would. She said earnestly, “I understand you. I do. I want Dimilioc to prosper. I really do. I want everyone of Dimilioc to do well, to be happy.”
Harrison made a wordless sound, a sort of grunt. After a while he said curtly, “You’re still grounded. No straying from your room. No visitors.”
“Yes, but my brothers–”
“You will not need to speak to them. I will tell them so.” But at Natividad’s dismayed silence, Harrison relented enough to add, “Though your brother Alejandro may come to see you when he returns. For one minute.”
Even one minute was enough to make sure he was alright – enough for him to assure himself that she was alright. Natividad said, “Thank you,” in her very politest tone.
9
Alejandro stared into the freezing wind. He could see nothing useful in the blinding confusion of snow. He had no idea how Ezekiel had landed their plane in this weather and less how the verdugo could drive in it so casually. There were chains on the tires, he said. Alejandro wondered whether these were literal chains, and why they made it easier to drive. By improving the tires’ grip on the packed snow? Could the rounded links of chains actually help that way? But if the links were sharp, would they not destroy the tires?
Despite the special tires, Ezekiel had to constantly correct for the car sliding. All the way between Newport and Brighton, they passed trucks fitted with shovels to push the snow to the side of the road and other trucks throwing out what Ezekiel said was salt. Alejandro had no idea why salt was supposed to be helpful. Certainly neither salt nor shovel really cleared the road. Maybe nothing would clear it until spring.
Alejandro supposed that driving in the snow was something Americans naturally learned. Por otre parte, there were not many other cars on the road, so maybe even those who lived here didn’t like driving in this bad weather. He was glad he did not need to drive. If Ezekiel collapsed in exhaustion… but the verdugo provided proof against weariness or pain. He drove and moved exactly as though he had never been injured with Thaddeus’s silver knife. Alejandro could smell the blood and knew the cut had opened again, but neither the injury nor the hours of travel seemed to affect Ezekiel in the least.
If Alejandro could smell the blood, though, so could Thaddeus. The black dog was chained in the back. The steel chains might not ordinarily hold a black dog, except he was still wearing those silver bands. Those bound him, and so the chains did, too. Ezekiel was confident enough that he had allowed the little boy, Con, to go back to his mother, where she sat next to her husband. DeAnn cradled him on her lap, her head bent over his. The boy, too afraid of Ezekiel to close his eyes in the plane, had tucked himself down against his mother and slept at last. Alejandro tried not to resent the boy’s ability to find comfort in the arms of his Pure mother. A decent man would not resent such things… But it was hard. And harder, without Papá to remind him what he should feel and think and do. Alejandro tried to think only of the moment, of the immediate dangers they faced.
There were assuredly enough dangers, both outside the car and inside. Alejandro tried to stay constantly ready for Thaddeus to attempt some desperate last-minute defiance. He was tired and on edge himself, and so if there was violence, the hardest part might be to stop himself from going after DeAnn or little Con or both. Thaddeus probably guessed this. Maybe the fear of what might go wrong during a violent escape attempt was as good as another chain.
“Stop fretting,” Ezekiel said, his voice light and mocking and absolutely impervious to any ordinary weakness. “Thaddeus knows perfectly well that even if he got himself and his family away, his woman couldn’t possibly survive out there in that snow. Around here, anyone they asked for help would help them – and then call Dimilioc. Thad there couldn’t stop them – a Pure wife isn’t always an unmixed blessing.”
Alejandro glanced at Thaddeus again, this time perceiving the knowledge of defeat that dragged the black dog down more heavily than the chains. So, Ezekiel was right. Bueno. Alejandro faced forward again and tried to relax.
They turned north from Brighton and reached Lewis at only a little past seven in the morning, exactly as Ezekiel had predicted. It should have been light by then, but the sun rose late in this frozen country, even if it had not been hidden behind a thick overcast.
Ezekiel grunted suddenly, lifting his head. Alejandro felt it a heartbeat later: a sharp astringent hum in the air, with a low undertone that buzzed in the back of the skull
. Though one could not exactly hear it because it was not exactly sound. Nor feel it, as it was not exactly painful.
“Natividad’s been busy,” Ezekiel said, sounding surprised and pleased and worried and angry all at the same time. “What was Grayson thinking, bringing her out this far from Dimilioc? Asking her to draw a circle around a whole town. At her age! If Vonhausel…” He stopped short, shrugging, and glanced back at Thaddeus. “Keep an eye on him,” he told Alejandro. “We may need to go around. That’d be a problem, in this weather.”
Alejandro nodded, understanding. Natividad had never done a circle so big, but if Grayson had asked her to do it, of course she would try. And she would do it right; that wasn’t a surprise at all. That was why he and Ezekiel could pass through it: Natividad’s circle wouldn’t be meant to keep either of them out. But Thaddeus might be exactly the kind of black dog it was meant to stop.
Thaddeus certainly felt the circle. His head was up, his lips drawn back in a grimace that was half a snarl. His wife put a hand on his arm and leaned her head against his shoulder, cradling her son with her other arm. Alejandro could see the tension run out of Thaddeus like anger, or strength. The boy stirred but did not wake.
“I think it will be alright,” Alejandro said to Ezekiel. “DeAnn is protecting them.”
“Just watch him,” Ezekiel said shortly. “Watch them all.” He eased the SUV forward.
Whatever Natividad had done, they felt the pressure of it all the way through Lewis. Then they drove out of it, with a sharp little “pop!” like going up too fast in a plane. Ezekiel only shook his head like a man shaking away a cobweb he had walked through, but Thaddeus shuddered all over and leaned his cheek against the top of his wife’s head.
The road was rougher and narrower once they were through the town. Alejandro found that he could not reliably make out the edges of the road, could barely see the black trees that lined the way, could not begin to guess whether the darkness under those trees was thick with black dogs just waiting for their chance to run out, batter the SUV off the road, tip it over, haul them out to their deaths… His shadow pressed him, wanting to rise. Alejandro would not give way to it, but he wished they were already back at Dimilioc.
Black Dog Page 20
