Black Dog

by Rachel Neumeier

  It finally occurred to Natividad that she should actually get back in the car, that she could even try to drive away. Probably the black dogs wouldn’t let her go, but she ought to try. She slid a covert glance sideways, toward the open door of the car. So near. She took a small step that way, trying to slide along unobtrusively.

  Every moon-bound shifter and black dog in the whole crowd swung its heavy head around to stare at her, even the dead ones. Natividad stopped as though physically pinned in place by the weight of all those fiery eyes. Heat pounded around her until she half expected to see flames flickering out of the pavement, melting the shattered blacktop to molten tar. When she drew a breath, the air tasted of smoke and bitter ash. It choked her. She stifled a cough, afraid that if she made a sound they would all be on her at once.

  She had not really expected to survive the night, but she realized now that she had never really believed, not even for a second, that she would actually die. Not until she had seen Vonhausel and the undead black dogs that followed him. And really not until now, when the brutal attention of dozens of black dogs came down on her like the weight of the darkness given substance and heft. Now she believed it. These black dogs were going to tear her apart before they turned on each other. She stood helpless and horrified before them, not so much afraid, now – although she was afraid – but stricken at the thought of Miguel, of Alejandro, of how her brothers would feel when they knew…

  A blur of black through the darkness, hot and furious, and Alejandro hurtled straight over the top of Sheriff Pearson’s huge car and came down in front of Natividad with a controlled lightness that seemed impossible for a creature his size. Every black dog in the crowd surrounding her gave way, wary and astonished, maybe expecting all the Dimilioc wolves to come over the car in his wake. Natividad thought they might – she hoped they would – but they didn’t. Alejandro had come alone.

  15

  Natividad was sure her brother was going to die. He crouched in front of her, snarling around at all the gathered black dogs with furious loathing. He would fight, but how could he win? Vonhausel’s black dogs would tear him apart and then – much easier – they would tear her apart, too.

  Would the Dimilioc wolves come here, later, find the marks of the fight and guess what had happened? Would Miguel ever know? It would be worst of all if he didn’t know, if he had to guess and wonder and imagine – if he wasn’t even sure whether she and Alejandro were dead or not, that would be the worst – but Keziah was supposed to be out here somewhere. She would be watching. She could tell everyone what had happened. It was almost a relief to remember that.

  Several of Vonhausel’s black dogs edged forward, their eyes burning with fire and the savage joy of killing. The shadow-wolf that had been Harrison stalked toward her as well, and that was even worse, because there was nothing recognizable in those dead eyes. She felt she was being stared at by death itself, only it was really something worse than death, because death was just death but this thing was really evil.

  Alejandro swiveled around to face first one and then another of their enemies, trying not to leave Natividad exposed. She looked with longing at the open car door only steps away, but was afraid to move.

  Alejandro had crouched low, readying himself to lunge for the nearest of the enemy black dogs. He was still snarling, a vicious thread of sound that was strangely high-pitched and almost inaudible… In fact, it was not a snarl at all, nor any sound a black dog might produce. Nor was it actually coming from Alejandro. This was a new sound, one which had started as a thin, bodiless whine, and was now rapidly turning into a bright hum scattered with piercing phrases of music. This was not the same music that had wrapped Vonhausel up in fog, though. This was something else, something related but not the same… Natividad looked from side to side, searching for its source. The hum was darkening, thickening, swallowing up the musical phrases until those were wholly subsumed, like the sparks of a fire extinguished by too great a darkness. All the black dogs had drawn back, which was good, but Natividad could not feel relief at this apparent reprieve. She felt it wasn’t a reprieve at all.

  The dark hum coalesced above Vonhausel’s body, like a swarm of insubstantial black bees made out of shadows and smoke, scattered with crimson glints like reflected fire and silver flickers like flashes of moonlit silver. This strange cloud settled on the body, and sank in, and disappeared. The hum ceased. The silence that followed was deeply shocking, though Natividad could not have explained why. Alejandro shifted to put his bulk between her and the body, and she put an arm across his shoulders both to brace herself and to hold him back.

  Vonhausel took a breath and closed his eyes. The silver net of her aparato reappeared, seeming almost to rise out of his body – it was really rising out of his shadow, Natividad realized. It clung to him for another moment, then slid aside as he took another breath. He opened his eyes again, and then moved to get up. He made it to one knee first and stayed there, head down, panting, as her aparato condensed rapidly back into a misty object of light and silver – dimmer than it had been, and smaller, and mottled here and there by indistinct blotches like bruises. It had been corrupted by its fall into the fell dark, that was obvious, but it hadn’t been destroyed. Natividad wondered if she dared run out and get it back – it might still be useful; her mandala had still been useful, and that had been corrupted, too – but then Vonhausel shook his head and got to his feet, and the opportunity was lost.

  Vonhausel stood for a long moment, breathing slowly and deeply, his head down. Though he ought to have looked terribly vulnerable, somehow he did not. If Alejandro tried to attack him, Natividad knew she would try her best to stop him. She was terrified of what might happen if her brother attacked Vonhausel, and she didn’t even know why.

  Then Vonhausel took one more deep breath, lifted his head, and looked at Natividad. Right at her. And his eyes were exactly the same as they’d been before he’d died – before she’d killed him. Exactly the same. She saw now that the smoky appearance of Vonhausel’s eyes was because he was dead, he was dead, she hadn’t killed him at all because he’d been dead long before she’d ever come here with her special weapon. What was strange was that this realization was kind of a relief even though it also terrified her: she hadn’t killed him, she hadn’t killed anybody. She was glad of that almost as much as she was sorry for it, and the confusion of feeling that resulted made her shudder. She closed her hand tightly on the shaggy pelt of Alejandro’s neck and told herself she shivered only because of the cold.

  Vonhausel smiled, a tight smile that suggested she had hurt him somehow even though she hadn’t killed him. Killed him more. She thought she could see, now that she looked for it, that his skin had the kind of waxy appearance that she’d seen in dead people. But he wasn’t like those awful dead things he’d made out of Zachariah and Harrison. Nothing was left, as far as she could tell, of the people they’d been: they were pure shadow now. But Vonhausel… His shadow might have come back out of the fell dark to reclaim his body, but his soul had come with it. She was sure this was true.

  “Stupid little girl,” Vonhausel said to her. He ignored Alejandro contemptuously, speaking only to Natividad. He shifted a foot as though to kick at her aparato, but then did not touch it after all. Maybe he was nervous about touching it, though as far as she could see he had no reason to be. She wished she had it back in her hands, but she didn’t know what in the world she could do with it anyway.

  Vonhausel smiled at her. “Stupid little Pure bitch. Nothing can kill me. If you’d been paying attention, you might have realized that before using some ridiculous Pure weapon made of light and good intentions. Don’t you know what they say about good intentions?”

  Natividad did. Given… Given everything, that saying seemed entirely too applicable. She said nothing.

  Vonhausel looked slowly around at the crowd of black dogs. The dead ones stood stolidly and looked back at him without fear, but the ordinary black dogs cowered low and turned their
heads aside and tucked their tails… They were terrified of him, which Natividad hadn’t exactly understood before. Now she did. She was sure they were afraid he would kill them and then bring their shadows back to possess their bodies. No wonder he could control them so much better than he should have been able to.

  Turning back to Natividad, Vonhausel said, “Now, I believe…”

  Alejandro shifted away from her a step and straightened away from his black dog form, his body seeming partly to shrink and partly to dissolve into smoke as he slid into the change. It was not as smooth as he usually managed. He was afraid, that was why, Natividad thought. Fear made a black dog angry, and anger made the black-dog-to-human change harder. And the full moon made it harder, too. But at last Alejandro dragged his human body back out of the darkness and the smoke and stood there in human form, facing Vonhausel, still between him and Natividad. He said, his voice low and husky with the change, “I’ll join you. I want that.”

  Natividad stared at him in astonishment. Then she blinked, trying to get control of her face, though she couldn’t decide whether it was better for Vonhausel to know she was surprised or to believe she’d seen that coming.

  Alejandro didn’t look at her. All his attention was on Vonhausel. He jerked his head northward, toward Dimilioc. “They can’t win. Anybody can see it. Esos dearriba estan locos, completamente locos – they’re all crazy up there. You’re going to win and they’re going to lose. Only I figure they can lose hard or easy. I’ll tell you all about the house, where everybody sleeps, where you’re likely to find Grayson Lanning, where you’ll find Ezekiel Korte. He’s been recently injured – a silver injury, not fully healed: I can tell you exactly what that injury is.”

  “Ah, treason, sweet as blood in the mouth,” said Vonhausel. He was frowning, but he was also listening. “Is that what you want?”

  Alejandro angled his head to show the undead black dog his throat. “Maybe you’ve meant to go in, kill them all, or maybe you’ve meant to leave them there, because what difference does it make, now, they’re nothing, you can ignore them and hunt someplace else. But I can make it easy for you to destroy them all. The blood of your enemies is the sweetest blood.” He glanced over toward the unnaturally still black dogs that had been Zachariah and Harrison. “You can do that to all of them. I’ll do everything I can to help you–”

  “In the hope I won’t do it to you, pup?” Vonhausel was beginning to sound amused again.

  Alejandro reached back without seeming to look, catching Natividad’s arm and pulling her forward, steadying her with a hand under her elbow, though he still didn’t look at her. “To keep her safe,” he said to Vonhausel.

  The black dog leader smiled slowly. “Your sister, is it? Are you another of Concepción’s get? Or is this your pretty little bitch? Black dogs should stay with their own kind. Humans are only prey, and the Pure are only human.”

  “She’s my sister. The Dimilioc wolves, they want to make her a puta. It’s a whitebread operation up there: they say they value the Pure, but they don’t mean Mexican girls, you know? Lanning promises – they’re worth that!” He spat on the pavement, then went on with savage passion, “No one will ever be part of Dimilioc unless their ancestors came right off the Mayflower, and that’s the truth. And now it’s obvious Dimilioc is going to lose anyway. The Lanning Master…” He spat again. “Aquél pedazo de basura! He doesn’t have a clue.”

  “And so you came here to me.” Vonhausel seemed to find this, too, amusing.

  “You’re clever, everyone says, and it’s obvious, anyway. I want to be on the winning side – and I want my sister safe.”

  Vonhausel laughed. His laugh somehow managed to be even more horrible than his smile, which Natividad wouldn’t have thought possible until she heard it. She tried not to look at him. She focused on her brother instead. He sounded so sincere. Was it possible he could make Vonhausel actually believe all that nonsense?

  “You offer me Dimilioc for your sister’s safety,” said Vonhausel to Alejandro. It wasn’t a question, but a statement, and there was something nasty about the way he said it. Then it got worse, because he went on, “But I don’t care about Dimilioc. Grayson Lanning is nothing. His executioner is less than nothing. The long history of Dimilioc, that I value, but…” and he leaned forward, holding out a hand, which he closed slowly into a fist, “I will begin a new history.”

  “But…” said Alejandro, but then stopped. Natividad knew that this response was not what he had expected and so he floundered, trying to think of a new tactic. She put her hand over his where he held her arm, trying to be supportive, but subtle.

  Vonhausel straightened, relaxing. He opened his hand again in a wave that encompassed the dead black dogs that had been Zachariah and Harrison. “I have what I need from Dimilioc: Concepción’s brat, and those. Look at them! They will serve to tear out Dimilioc’s throat. They can’t die – and there are so few true Dimilioc wolves left. Harrison Lanning will hunt his brother, and Zachariah Korte his nephew. It’s a pity I can’t send Benedict Mallory against his brother, but this will do. It will do.” He paused, contemplating this vision with a small smile.

  Natividad contemplated it, too. The idea made her want to vomit. She slid a covert glance up at her brother. His grip on her arm tightened until it bruised. She was pretty sure he was as horrified as she, but nothing showed in his expression.

  “But if Dimilioc… If you… If they…” Alejandro began, but stopped in confusion.

  Natividad said for her brother, “But if you don’t move against Dimilioc yourself, if you just send your… your zombie black dogs against them, what will you be doing?” She was proud that this question came out in an almost steady voice. But she couldn’t keep from flinching when Vonhausel turned his attention to her.

  The master of the shadow pack moved his shoulders in a small shrug, glancing around at the broken pavement and up at the ruined church smoldering behind him. “This has been my proving ground. Do you know, I believe there’s no black dog shadow that’s truly beyond reach, if I have the right tools to hand?” He glanced significantly at Natividad. “I hadn’t expected that, but it is so. It opens up so many possibilities.”

  He didn’t elaborate, but Alejandro looked down at Natividad. She met his eyes, sure they’d both made the same guess about what Vonhausel meant. If he’d discovered a way to do more than just catch the shadows of fresh-killed black dogs, if he could recall the shadows of the long dead, then everybody had been wrong about a possible war between black dogs and humans. If Vonhausel couldn’t be killed, if his black dogs couldn’t be killed after he brought them back as shadow revenants… maybe he might actually win that war. Or at least, and this was what was important, Vonhausel might really think he could. If he thought that, he wouldn’t hesitate to start it. Could that be possible?

  It wasn’t. Surely it wasn’t. Natividad stared at Alejandro, hoping for some sign he didn’t believe it. But her brother’s expression was so carefully blank that to Natividad he looked… not only disturbed, but sick and afraid. Alejandro never looked like that, even when he was sick and afraid.

  “You’ll be useful to me,” Vonhausel said to Natividad. “A gift from your mother to me, from beyond the grave. Pure magic to braid into shadow magic: she owes me that for the trouble she caused me. She escaped me, unfortunately, but here you are, in my hand after all! I’m so pleased she taught you how to weave light with shadows before she died.”

  Natividad stared at him. He thought she’d made her aparato deliberately to weave together with his shadow? He thought… What did he think? Had Mamá ever let black dog shadows contaminate her work? At the last, had she done something… What had she done? Natividad had tried so hard not to remember, and now she couldn’t, except for brutal flashes of memory: pine trees burning, a towering circle of flames all around her. Oak leaves floating through the air, burning. Screaming, screaming in the dark… Someone had been screaming… Mamá had done something, Papá had fought, but
there were too many, he could not reach Mamá, and Mamá had done something… But braiding light with shadows? Natividad couldn’t remember…

  Vonhausel added to Alejandro, “You’ll be useful as well, to be sure. Though not in the same way.” He sent a long, measuring look around at his gathered black dogs. All of the living ones crouched down a little lower when their master’s glance fell on them. The undead ones simply stared back with fiery, unreadable eyes. When he lifted a hand, half a dozen of his black dogs began to edge forward.

  Alejandro, snarling with incredulous fury, melted into the change, and only then did Natividad understand that Vonhausel meant to kill him right now, right this moment: Vonhausel meant to kill him and then call his shadow back and put it back in the body. He was going to kill Alejandro, but he wasn’t going to leave him dead. She darted forward and sideways and snatched up her aparato from where it had lain, disregarded, since Vonhausel’s return from the fell dark.

  No one stopped her, maybe because they were distracted by Alejandro or maybe just because they didn’t care what she did. She might not remember everything the way she should, but she was Mamá’s daughter, and she bent and drew a pentagram right in the ash with the tip of the aparato. It felt strange in her hands; she thought she could feel each of the mottled dark patches that had altered it, patches of rough warmth scattered across its cold smoothness. But she poured its remaining power into her pentagram anyway because the moonlight and starlight were so weak, here where the fires of the fell dark were so close to the ordinary world.

  The pentagram came alight as she drew it. Natividad could feel the power in it before she even sent the light pressing outward against the surrounding darkness. The power felt strange, as the power of her mandala had felt strange: not weaker, but different. Its light was strange, too, dabbed and mottled with patches of shadow.