Justin’s jaw tightened. He twisted the top off the bottle of water with savage force.
“Yeah,” said Ethan. “Thought so. Sorry to hear it.”
He actually sounded sincere about that. Justin studied him. He didn’t look exactly friendly, but he didn’t look like he was mocking Justin, either.
“She must have been Pure, right? How’d she die?” Ethan asked. “A black dog kill her?”
“Yes,” said Ezekiel’s cool, light voice, before Justin could decide if he wanted to answer. “Do tell us all about your mother.” The other young werewolf was leaning in the doorway of the cockpit, watching Justin dispassionately.
“Who’s flying the plane?” Justin asked, alarmed, trying to see around Ezekiel’s slender form and into the cockpit.
Ezekiel tilted his head. “Autopilot. Don’t worry about it. There’s an alarm if anything unexpected happens. And I’m keeping an eye on things from here.”
This sounded dangerous, but Justin was too angry and nervous to worry about it. He asked sharply, hearing the sharpness in his voice but unable to mute his own anger, “Where are we going? How long a flight? What’s Dimilioc, and who’s Grayson—Grayson Lanning, isn’t that right? Did he send you after me?” He couldn’t keep the incredulity from sharpening his voice on that last question.
Ezekiel looked Justin up and down, smiling. “Just one question after another, isn’t it? You already know we’re going to Dimilioc. You’ll find out all about everything when we get there. Tell me about your mother.”
“There’s nothing to tell! She’s dead, she died. She was alive and then she died.”
Ezekiel tilted his head to one side and asked, as Ethan had, “A black dog kill her?”
Justin stared at him. “A flash flood killed her! It was a stupid accident.”
“Could have been worse, then,” said Ezekiel.
The plane bucked and suddenly dropped several feet while Justin was still trying to catch his breath so he could answer this, and Ezekiel frowned and went back into the cockpit.
“Just in time,” Justin muttered, just a little louder than he’d meant to. “Or I’d have had to kill him.”
Ethan grinned and leaned back in his seat. “You wouldn’t be the first to want to, believe me. Can’t kill the pilot of the plane, though. Impractical.”
“Maybe when we land, then,” Justin said. He felt obscurely better, with Ethan almost friendly. He stared at Ethan, trying to see the werewolf inside him. That half-solid spiky darkness still clung to him. A darkness edged with red fire. Even Justin had never seen anything like it. Until tonight, Justin had thought he’d seen a lot.
“I am sorry about your mother,” Ethan said suddenly. “We’ve all lost family. We won’t lose anyone else.” He said this not so much to Justin as to himself, or to the universe. Like a promise, or a vow.
Justin nodded. He watched Ethan, feeling some of his anger and most of his nervousness ease toward curiosity. Maybe . . . maybe he could sympathize with these young werewolves after all. He wondered who Ethan had lost, and how long ago. Someone important, he was willing to bet. And recently. He shook his head. And tore open a packet of crackers, like accepting a peace offering.
It was still the middle of the night when Ezekiel landed the plane at a town called, Ethan said, Newport. Ethan didn’t seem to mind telling Justin the name of the town or that it was in Vermont, hard against the Canadian border. He tapped impatiently on the armrest of his seat while Ezekiel ran through some kind of necessary paperwork with the control tower. He told Justin where they were, and how much longer it would take them to get to Dimilioc, possibly just because he was bored with the wait, which did stretch out.
“Dimilioc’s east, in the Kingdom Forest, about a forty minute drive if the roads are good,” Ethan told him. “Which, granted, they’re not, this time of year.”
Justin nodded, not quite paying attention. He was thinking about Dimilioc. He was both longing to arrive and dreading it. He wanted this interminable night to be over, but he was not at all sure he wanted to meet the . . . boss, king, whatever, of the werewolves. He asked nervously, “Is everybody in this Dimi—Dimilioc thing a werewolf?”
Ethan’s heavy eyebrows went up. “Of course a lot of us in Dimilioc are black dogs, though naturally not all.” He paused, then went on, “And you, Pure as you are, honestly don’t know the right name for what we are, and can’t even pronounce ‘Dimilioc.’ What did your mother teach you?” Ethan sketched a sign in the air, a five-pointed star. “Did she teach you that?”
Justin had no idea what he meant. But . . . it was interesting that Ethan drew geometric figures at him, when he tried to explain about the Pure. Maybe . . . maybe they were right, and Justin really was Pure. Or could learn to be. Whatever that was.
Ezekiel came back, then, regarding them both with chilly amusement. “You’re the one who told me he didn’t know anything,” he said mildly. “I admit it seems unreasonable.” He lifted a pale eyebrow at Justin. “How did you survive to the age of . . . fifteen?”
Justin glared at him. “Seventeen! And, no, I never saw a werewolf before tonight, far less crowds of them trying to kill me for no reason! I can’t help it if you find that hard to believe.”
“Everyone’s going to find that hard to believe,” Ezekiel said drily. He and Ethan exchanged a look, and then Ezekiel tipped his head in invitation. “Time to go. And then Grayson can decide what to do with you.”
“Don’t let him scare you,” Ethan said.
“Good advice,” Ezekiel said, smiling. “Mostly.”
“I’m not scared,” Justin said, and straightened his shoulders, pretending it was true.
“Good for you,” said Ezekiel mildly. “This way.”
The road out of Newport was not bad, though one couldn’t actually call it good, either. Even in the dark, Justin could tell that the countryside here was nothing like the desert. The air was crisp and clean, filled with unfamiliar scents and with a trace of moisture. Not quite rain. Like driving through a cloud. Justin rolled his window down all the way and turned his face into the cold breeze.
Justin had meant to leave behind everything of his former life, everything familiar . . . but it was different when he knew he couldn’t change his mind, couldn’t go home again unless the boss of the werewolves let him go. He might have argued harder, struggled . . . screamed for help in the airport terminal. Maybe he’d been a fool to cooperate with his own abduction. Dimilioc protects the Pure. Right. Whatever the Pure were, and he was by no means sure the word applied to him, whatever the werewolves said. He stared out into the chilly dark, frowning. He wanted to ask again, So, who are you people and what do you want with me, and what gives? But neither Ezekiel nor Ethan would answer. They’d made that clear. They’d say something obscure about Grayson Lanning and Dimilioc and the Pure, but they wouldn’t explain anything.
He glanced sideways at Ethan, lounging beside him in the back seat. The young man had propped his chin on his hand, and gazed out the window, but not as though he had forgotten Justin was there. More as though he were just trying to give him space. Justin wasn’t sure about Ezekiel, but Ethan really didn’t seem so bad. For a werewolf.
Black dog. Whatever.
They went through a little town, white lamps glowing atop wrought-iron lampposts all along the streets. The light shone off white-painted wooden houses with white picket fences, very New England picturesque. Justin would have liked a better look at the town, a look at the people who lived here, so close to werewolves. He wondered what kind of situation he was heading for. Would the werewolves let him visit this town, or would they lock him in some kind of dungeon? He was afraid probably the latter was more likely than the former.
Ezekiel turned north onto an even rougher, narrower road and kept driving, leaving the town behind. They had said at home, when heading out to camp in the less-popular parks, A little bit of soil erosion and they call it a road. It had been a joke. But parts of this road were rougher than eve
n the worst-maintained park roads.
“The winters tear up the roads,” Ezekiel said casually.
Maybe he also read minds. Werewolves that could read minds: wonderful.
“The county people haven’t gotten to these little roads yet,” Ezekiel added. “We like our privacy up here, so we don’t rush to get the roads in order in the spring. But this is a little rougher than we like them. I’ll mention to Grayson that we might give the road crews a little nudge one of these days.”
Justin made a noncommittal sound.
“Nearly there,” said Ezekiel, and added lightly, “Relax. You’ll be fine. Dimilioc protects the Pure.”
He’d said it before, of course. He said it now like a motto, or a mantra. Justin glanced at him sidelong, but said nothing. Anticipation was starting to wear out nervousness. He had to admit he really wanted to know about this Pure thing. And it was harder to be nervous, when everyone kept promising he was safe. Why should they lie, after all, when they had him anyway?
Though ‘safe’ was a long way from ‘free.’ A prisoner in a dungeon could be pretty safe.
Ahead of them, the forest opened up at last. A long curving driveway led away toward a great blankness that was probably a sweeping lawn, and beyond that, a mansion that looked, in the dark, huge enough to house a hundred people. Lamps glowed on either side of the door and some of the windows were lit; enough light, along with the car’s headlights, to see that the mansion was mostly red brick lower down, with lots of white stone above and a sharply sloped red-tiled roof. A wide porch wrapped around most of the near side of the mansion.
“Welcome to Dimilioc!” Ezekiel said, his tone amused. And got out of the car, and opened Justin’s door for him, and stood there looking at him, waiting.
Justin unsnapped his seat belt, but then he just sat there for a long moment, breathing. And he’d thought he wasn’t nervous. That he wanted answers too much to be scared. How stupid. But he couldn’t help it.
“Don’t freeze up now, kid,” Ethan said. He patted Justin on the shoulder. He got out of the SUV and looked at Justin expectantly.
Justin took a deep breath and got out of the car.
Grayson Lanning, a man with heavy features and a hard, humorless face, reminded Justin very strongly of his high school principal. The man had once been a gunnery sergeant in the marines and retained a snap to his voice that could bring even the most obnoxious kid to a full stop in a fraction of a second. Grayson Lanning even looked a little like that principal: only middling tall but broad, the sort of man who could clearly punch a troublemaker right through a wall. A brick wall. Without bruising a knuckle. Justin reminded himself sternly that he’d always gotten along just fine with Principal Dupuy and that there was no reason to expect Grayson Lanning to be worse. Except, of course, that he was a werewolf. Justin was certain of it. That strange kind of sharp-edged spiky darkness surrounded him, just as it did Ezekiel and Ethan.
Ethan looked a lot like Grayson Lanning, in fact. Justin surreptitiously looked back and forth between the older man and the younger. Father and son? Uncle and nephew, maybe? Ethan didn’t have the . . . the depth of the older man. That sense of barely contained power. But Justin thought he might, someday, when he was older.
At the moment, despite the hour, Grayson Lanning was sitting behind a wide desk in an office that looked a lot like a principal’s office, only larger. More like an office crossed with a conference room, because though this end of the room held a desk and file cabinets, a long table stretched off to the right. Paperwork littered the desk, and behind Grayson a file cabinet had one of its four drawers partially pulled out. A television sat on the desk, too, to one side as though it had been hurriedly carried in and wasn’t part of the room’s normal furnishings. The television was turned so that Justin couldn’t see its screen. Its volume was off, but the light from the screen shone on the polished surface of the desk.
A broad-shouldered young man who might have been about Ezekiel’s age, and who looked Hispanic or Indian or something, stood behind Grayson Lanning. He was scowling at Justin—no, at Ezekiel. One of his hands rested possessively on the shoulder of a pretty Hispanic girl who seemed awfully young to be his girlfriend. Maybe she was older than she looked. Or maybe she was his sister. They didn’t look alike, but there was something similar about their cheekbones, maybe, or their eyes. The girl, too, was looking at Ezekiel. Justin glanced sideways, curiously, and saw that Ezekiel was gazing back at her, his expression unreadable. Even as he watched, though, Ezekiel looked deliberately away from her, bowing his head a little as he shifted his attention to Grayson Lanning.
Justin glanced back at the girl, but she, too, was now gazing at Grayson. Off to one side, a stocky boy leaned against the table. This one looked to be about the same age as the girl, and a blind man could see that he had to be her brother. He stood with his hands shoved in his pockets, staring with intent curiosity at Justin.
Justin was surprised to see no one in the room who was closer to Grayson Lanning’s age. It was like seeing students in the principal’s office, but on something like equal footing with the principal. Maybe werewolves just grew up fast. Maybe they died young, so there just weren’t a lot of grown-up werewolves.
Although Justin didn’t think the Hispanic girl or her brother were werewolves. Black dogs. Whatever. Neither of them had that spiky darkness clinging to them. The girl was looking at him again now, smiling, an open, friendly smile that he found himself returning. She was wearing blue jeans and a pink blouse. Pink crystal earrings caught the light when she turned her head. She really was pretty. Cute. There was something about her, something silvery and ethereal that became more pronounced when he tried to make sense of it. Something . . . he couldn’t quite make it out . . . it was all smooth curves that tucked away in an impossible Escherian way behind and around her. Justin blinked and shook his head.
But, when he looked past the silvery curves surrounding the girl . . . was that a faint bruise on her cheek, half-hidden by her Hispanic coloring? And if so, who had hit her? The young man with her was a werewolf, Justin was positive, and wondered again if the girl was his girlfriend and whether, if so, she was with him by choice. Surely he had not hit her? But she didn’t look at all cowed or nervous. In fact, her cheerful friendliness was deeply reassuring. She looked like she should be in high school somewhere, texting her friends about homework and boys and the latest teen-girl celebrity heartthrob, Justin Bieber or Josh Hutcherson or whoever. Justin was positive she wasn’t a werewolf.
There was another girl farther down the table. She was half hidden from Justin by everyone else, so he hadn’t seen her right away. But the moment he noticed her, he found himself unable to look away. This girl, maybe his own age or a little older, was striking. Slender and small-breasted. Tall for a girl. Exotic, with huge dark eyes set obliquely in a triangular face. It wasn’t just beauty, though. It was attitude. This was the kind of girl hardly any boy would dare talk to, if she transferred in in the middle of the year. The kind of girl who would cut the top jocks dead if she liked, and step over their bleeding bodies. If she went to school, she would wind up leading either the most popular girls, or the goths. But Justin doubted she went to school. He was sure she was a werewolf.
He thought she looked Turkish or something. Arabic, maybe. He’d known a Turkish girl who had looked a lot like that, only not as beautiful. This girl’s black hair fell in a heavy braid that reached past her waist. Tiny emerald dangles in her ears rang musically as she turned her head. She wore tight black jeans, an emerald green blouse with black lace around the neck, and a scornful expression.
It might have been the scorn that made Justin realize he was staring at her. He looked away quickly.
Ezekiel, behind him, closed a hand on his shoulder and propelled him forward a step. “This is Justin,” he said, his voice smooth and amused. “We found him in Harrisburg, barely a heartbeat before half a dozen strays got him. Isn’t he interesting?”
A pure boy,�
� said the beautiful girl, her tone contemptuous . . . but there was something else in her tone besides scorn, something harder to read, and her glance at Justin was somehow wary.
Ezekiel smiled at her. “Nice, eh? I knew you’d like him.”
Justin jerked away from Ezekiel, caught his balance, and turned to glare at him. But Ezekiel, now perfectly sober, had already turned toward Grayson Lanning. The boss werewolf. Reminded of his priorities, Justin took a deep breath and refocused his own attention.
Grayson Lanning looked like a boss werewolf. It was hard to meet his eyes, but Justin refused to look away. The man stared at him for a long moment. He said at last, speaking to Justin rather than Ezekiel, his deep voice lending weight to his words, “This is indeed unexpected. What were your parents?”
“He has no idea,” Ezekiel said. There was an edge to the amusement that Justin didn’t understand. “No one has taught him anything at all, it seems. He is perfectly ignorant.”
“Really?” said the Hispanic girl, with obvious sympathy. She shook off the hand of the young man with her, jumped to her feet, and took a step forward. “Justin?” she said. “I’m Natividad. These are my brothers: that’s Miguel and the scary one is Alejandro—”
So, he was her brother after all. Justin wondered why he was relieved. He hardly knew enough about any of these people to feel anything about any of them. Not even a cute, friendly girl. Natividad, Justin reminded himself. That was a different kind of name. He thought he might like it. He thought he might like her.
Pure Magic (Black Dog Book 3) Page 6