She bit fiercely into a biscuit and thought about Justin instead, because that seemed safer and more comfortable than thinking about Ezekiel.
She liked his voice, she decided. It was a very human voice: sort of warm. A little husky, but in a good way. He looked warm, too: honey-warm skin toasted by the sun and hair the color of dolce con leche and those beautiful eyes, brown with a little gold. He looked very human and very American. And he had that weird math thing, so he could make instant mandalas. That was really cool.
“Not just magic,” said Miguel, taking a stool on the other side of Natividad and filching a biscuit off the platter. “I’ve been explaining manners, because, you know, black dogs.” He rolled his eyes. “And about black dogs and moon-bound cambiadors and why they’re completely different, you know. History. The hidden kind of history, right?”
Natividad made a face, adding a squeeze of lime to her beans and rice. “Poor Justin. Like being in school.”
Justin shrugged. “It’s interesting, actually. All this stuff no one ever knew about, vampires clouding men’s minds like The Shadow, black dogs taking over towns or even whole countries in secret.” He made a face. “I guess it explains a lot, half the Middle East being ruled by families of sociopathic demon werewolves. And it explains why Lebanon and Tunisia and some of those other countries weren’t like that, since Miguel says the black dogs there were more like Dimilioc. I mean, protecting the Pure and like that. But Keziah’s from Saudi Arabia?”
“Yeah, not a nice place,” Miguel said in a judicious tone. “The Saudis were pretty upset when the miasma faded and they found out all their princes were black dogs. I’m sure Keziah’s from the royal bloodline. She doesn’t talk about it, but she’s sure not any untrained stray.”
“So she’s, like, a princess or something.”
Justin seemed taken with that idea. Natividad could see why. It was all very romantic. Or it seemed that way, if you didn’t know much about how women were treated in uncivilized black dog houses. She said warningly, “I wouldn’t say anything like that to her. A girl black dog didn’t used to be a good thing to be, in Saudi Arabia.”
“I expect she took advantage of the war to get herself and Amira out,” agreed Miguel. “Probably the very first chance they had. Through Lebanon, probably, since Keziah had to find one of the Pure to work the Aplacando for them, and I expect Israel’s too hard for a stray black dog to get in and out of. Nurullah in Lebanon used to be a powerful, civilized house. She probably found one of their Pure women.”
“But she didn’t stay there. She brought her sister here.”
“Well, black dogs are pretty territorial, usually. Grayson’s unusual, bringing in new blood. Besides, you know, we’re about as far away from Saudi Arabia as you can get, here. I doubt Keziah wants to bump into anybody from home. Or at least,” Miguel added drily, “She might really enjoy running into someone from home, if she had them outnumbered.”
Justin shrugged, a little uneasily. “I have to admit, it sounds to me like China and India got lucky in the magic-entity lottery.”
“Yeah, dragons and qirin to keep away vampires and black dogs.” Miguel sounded a little wistful. “Though I’m not a hundred percent sure I’d want to have dragons in the Río Bravo or Chapala Lake, or up at the tops of God knows how many mountains. That might cause almost as much trouble as vampires, I guess. Or more trouble, even, maybe.”
“Not the same kind of trouble,” Natividad commented.
“Storms, rain, droughts, floods. No dams. A lot fewer bridges. No roads across the Rockies? Or else I guess everyone would have to learn to be very polite when they wanted to build anything like that.” Miguel sounded like he might find a country with more dragons interesting after all. He took a biscuit off the platter and juggled it gently in from hand to hand until it was cool enough to break open and drizzle with honey.
“Dragons really do all that?” asked Justin.
“Yes, but they’re a lot less scary than vampires,” Natividad pointed out. “A dragon might cause a flood or storm or something, but it wouldn’t do things with so much, I don’t know. Malicia. Malice. I mean, at least dragons aren’t demonic.”
Miguel shrugged agreement. “The Chinese don’t really talk about it, but if you look at their history and what they do and don’t do with tech today, you get—” he sketched a vague shape in the air with his biscuit. “Kind of the shape of dragon influence. Qirin influence is harder to pin down. And don’t ask me what’s going on in Africa. Everything south of the Sahara is just spooky, different kinds of spooky depending on where you are. Dimilioc’s got these notes about witches with demonic shadows. Not black dogs, but not vampires, either. Those witches got their claws into west Africa way back, that’s what we think. They were right there when the Ashanti Empire was conquering all their neighbors. Seriously not nice. Not just the thing with turning slavery into an institution, they were into human sacrifice, you ever hear about that in school?” He bit into his biscuit at last, dripping honey on the counter.
Justin was eyeing Miguel. “Yeah, no, not that I remember. You read this stuff in your free time, do you?”
“It’s interesting,” Miguel said easily. “East Africa’s got something else, not even Dimilioc’s got a clue what, something that kept the witches out, lucky for them.”
“Huh. But mostly everybody got demons except the Far East,” said Justin. “How nice for us, getting such nice, friendly black dogs.”
He said this last in a dry tone that made Natividad look at him sharply. She asked, “So, you’ve met Keziah?”
“Not today,” Miguel said smoothly, by which Natividad gathered that Justin had indeed met Keziah and wasn’t supposed to meet her again.
“Miguel’s done a great job protecting me from all the beautiful demonic girl werewolves,” Justin agreed, his tone very dry. He slid off his stool. “Don’t bother,” he said to Miguel, when Natividad’s twin jumped to his feet. “I can find my way just fine.”
“Right,” said Miguel, a beat too slowly.
“Seriously, don’t trouble yourself,” Justin snapped, and walked out.
“Es un poco se disgustado,” Miguel said to Natividad apologetically. “I don’t think—that is, I guess he won’t actually do anything stupid . . .”
“All the car keys are in Grayson’s office, right?”
“Yeah . . .”
Natividad shrugged and ate another biscuit. “Then what can he do? You wouldn’t like being hovered over and, I don’t know, no te gustaria ser tratado como niño, tampoco. You have told him how to behave and what to do, right? Let him go.”
Miguel nodded, but he looked after Justin, too, his expression worried. “I tried not to be too scary . . .”
“You were probably too logical. People don’t always like being told what their most logical, rational choices are.” Natividad pointed her fork at him for emphasis. “People want to be reassured, they want to hear everything’s fine, they want to believe you like them—”
“I do like Justin, but he’s—” A phone rang before Miguel could finish his protest. Natividad sat up in surprise, reaching automatically for her cell phone before remembering that she’d left it in her room. But Miguel looked immediately toward the landline phone, which was on its own little shelf at the far end of the counter. “Junk phone call?” he said, because of course few people called using the landline.
Any of the Dimilioc wolves would call Grayson’s cell if they were in serious trouble. If it weren’t serious, they wouldn’t call at all, they’d just deal with it, whatever it was. Black dogs had lots of faults, but indecisiveness or hesitancy weren’t usually among them.
“Sheriff Pearson?” suggested Natividad. That would mean something was wrong and he wanted Dimilioc help. It might be Father McClanahan instead, wanting Natividad’s help with something. Catholic priests who knew anything about the Pure always thought of lots of ways Pure magic could help their parishioners. This would have been fine with Natividad last week
, but she found that now she wasn’t sure anymore if she really understood her own magic. She almost hoped it was Sheriff Pearson. She said, as the phone rang again, persistently, “I don’t think anybody else is going to pick up. You better get it.”
“Right.” Miguel scooted his chair back and loped easily across the kitchen, scooped the phone out of its charger, and said briskly, “Dimilioc.” Then he paused, listening. His expression changed. “Who? Yeah, really? No me chingues?
“What?” said Natividad. She couldn’t make out a single word of the other end of the conversation; all she could tell was that the person speaking had an unfamiliar rapid, light tenor voice. The voice sounded young to her, sort of rushed and hesitant at the same time.
Miguel said, “Just a minute,” to the other person and then said to Natividad, “Says he’s Christopher Toland.”
Natividad was so startled she actually swayed backward. She caught the edge of the counter to steady herself. “Oh, de lengue me como un taco. Papá didn’t have any brothers!”
“Yeah, no, seriously. I guess he did have cousins, huh? This is somebody young. A second cousin, I bet. Says he’s calling from El Paso, that Dimilioc wolves from the Colorado sept were there during the war, working to break the back of a blood kin clique down there. I remember something about that. Only a handful of them survived, but they thought we were gone, only then they saw Ezekiel going all Dimilioc is still here on national TV—hang on.” He said to the person on the other end of the line, “I’m going to put you on hold, right? And get Grayson Lanning. Yeah. Yes. Don’t hang up, hear me? Comprende?” He looked at Natividad. “You know how to put this thing on hold?”
They just left it off the hook, in the end, and went together to find Grayson.
Grayson was in his study, flicking rapidly through internet sites, a task he generally left to Miguel. When he glanced up and saw Natividad and Miguel, his expression was grim. But then that was often true, especially when anybody was off handling risky missions, which these days was all missions all the time, or so it seemed to Natividad. Everything had gotten so complicated and dangerous, with unguessable consequences that spun away downstream.
And Thaddeus’ team wasn’t back yet, either. Natividad sort of had the impression, looking at Grayson now, that they should have been.
And besides all that, Grayson now had a little Pure girl to look after, with no idea what her mamá had taught her or why she clung so hard to Amira.
At the moment, though, Grayson seemed completely focused on Natividad. He leaned back in his chair and rested his elbows on the chair’s arms, steepled his hands, and gazed autocratically at Natividad over the tips of his fingers. “Should you be up?” he inquired, meaning, clearly, that she shouldn’t be.
“Well, yes, but we got this phone call . . . ” Natividad began, and stopped, not sure what to say.
Miguel walked across Grayson’s study, picked up the phone on his desk, hit the talk button, and held it out to the Master. “Christopher Toland,” he said, very simply.
Grayson’s eyebrows rose. He took the phone from Miguel and said flatly into it, “Grayson Lanning.” Then he listened. He grunted, a wordless sound that combined disapproval and surprise. He tapped his heavy fingers on the surface of his desk and grunted again. At last he said, “Christopher. Stop.” Reaching out, he flipped the phone to its speaker function, said, “Start again. From the beginning.” He set the phone down in the middle of his desk so they could all listen.
“Uh, right. Yes, sir. We’re just very glad to hear the Northeast Kingdom’s still intact after all,” said a rapid tenor, a little uncertainly. Natividad tried to remember if she knew anything about Papá’s cousins, how old they might have been, how old their children might be now. Christopher sounded young. She was positive he was a black dog and not a human, though she couldn’t have said exactly how she could tell. He said, so quickly that the words tumbled over one another, “None of us even hoped for that, we’ve just tried to hold on here, but thank God now we might actually manage to roll this bastard backward, push him and all his damned blood kin clear back to the coast if we can’t destroy him outright. And Ezekiel Korte has survived, thank God, we had no idea; we’ve got to have him down here; if you’ll send him, that’ll set this vampire bastard back by the heels right enough—”
“A vampire?” Miguel said sharply, and Natividad also drew in a quick breath, though she didn’t make a sound.
“From the beginning,” growled Grayson, and said to Miguel and Natividad, “This is a young wolf from Dimilioc’s western sept. Black wolves went south late in the war, to break the vampire grip on El Paso. We had not believed any of them survived.”
Natividad nodded, wanting to ask who had survived, but aware that if this cousin of hers enumerated the survivors, he would by that also be numbering the dead. It seemed hard to ask him to do that before he had to.
“Um, yes,” said Christopher. “We were—I mean, we did lose a lot of people, not just to the vampires and blood kin, but to a black wolf. A Dimilioc exile, Marshall said, but the name sounded more Gehorsam to me. Marshall knew him. He—we—there was a fight, I guess, I wasn’t there, but this exile had his own pack—”
“Malvern Vonhausel,” Grayson growled. His deep voice had dropped into an even lower register than usual, making him sound as though he were on the edge of losing his temper. Maybe he was. His eyes had taken on a fiery tint that suggested his shadow was pressing him hard.
“Yes, that was it,” agreed Christopher, nervously. “He, um, he went south first, but then just a few months ago he came back and went on up north, we thought into a power vacuum, because we thought you were gone. I’m sorry, sir, but that’s what we thought!”
Vonhausel. Natividad shared a look with Miguel. Then she moved forward to perch on the edge of his desk, laying her hand on his arm. There was dangerous tension in the muscles under her hand, but after a moment that tension eased, and Grayson blinked, and blinked again. He said at last in a voice that was still deep and angry, but no longer possessed that dangerous, inhuman edge, “You were wrong, boy. You were right not to take on Vonhausel. He would have destroyed you. But you were wrong not to contact me.”
“Yes, sir,” said Christopher. “Only we tried, we did try, and no one answered—”
“Indeed,” rumbled Grayson, his voice falling dangerously.
“Maybe . . . Marshall,” said Christopher, speaking with clear reluctance. “Marshall said—he was the one who tried to call you and said you weren’t there. He said we could build up our strength here, establish a restored Dimilioc in Texas, that the loss of the north could be an opportunity in the south—”
“Indeed,” repeated Grayson with more than a hint of thunder in the word.
“He’s dead now anyway,” the younger black dog said quickly. “The vampire got him, we think, anyway he’s gone, and we didn’t know what to do, only then we saw that thing on the news, Ezekiel Korte, and we knew Dimilioc was still there after all—”
“And you believe you have a vampire there, who has come across the border,” Grayson said. “A true vampire, a master vampire we missed in the war.”
“It must be,” said the young voice earnestly. “To get Marshall? What else could it be? But if it got hold of his mind, it could just take him and there’d be nothing he could do! And it’s still out there.”
His voice rose sharply on this last. Natividad couldn’t blame him. The idea of a true master vampire rising was horrifying. Even black dogs weren’t proof against the blindness that wrapped around master vampires. For ordinary humans it was worse. No human would be able to perceive a master vampire, not directly, though people who knew enough about vampires might be able to guess where it was and what it was doing by the things that suddenly started going wrong in the city, the things people started to do that didn’t make any sense.
And anyone, human or black dog, who got too close to a master vampire . . . if they didn’t have someone Pure to protect them, they cou
ld find themselves wrapped right up in the vampire miasma, too. They could suddenly find themselves just wanting to do whatever the vampire wanted them to do, and they wouldn’t even know it was the miasma.
It was the worst thing that could happen. The very worst. And this cousin she didn’t even know was right there, in that kind of danger. Natividad didn’t want to think about what might happen to him or to the other black dogs there.
Christopher said, his tone more subdued now, “There’re blood kin in El Paso again, we can smell them, but we can’t track them, not well enough, we don’t have any Pure women. But they must have been made by a vampire, and they must have been made recently, right?”
“Enough,” growled Grayson. Christopher’s voice cut off instantly. Grayson said, “Begin again. Begin at the beginning. Think this through, and tell me everything in proper order. Then we shall see what we may do.”
There were only four real Dimilioc black wolves left in El Paso, it turned out: Christopher Toland; and a Lanning cousin, Jonathan Lanning; and two youngsters of the Hammond line. That was especially good, because Grayson had believed the Hammond bloodline lost entirely, and now here were these two Hammonds after all, Nicholas Hammond and his sister Carissa. Natividad had mixed feelings about that last. Keziah was kind of not so bad, these days, at least mostly. But black dog girls were so often really, really touchy. Maybe a Hammond, raised securely as part of Dimilioc, would be different.
The Lanning cousin and the Hammonds were even younger than Christopher, barely more than children—about her own age. Natividad guessed that was why they had survived: the adults had fought and died to protect their children, and in the end only the young ones had been left. And this Marshall, who had been the oldest of the survivors and whose loyalty to the main Dimilioc house seemed to have been seriously questionable. But he had been killed. Now the oldest black dog was a recent recruit, a black dog named Rubio who had been a stray. That was probably causing a lot of tension: the oldest and probably strongest black dog being a stray and not born to a proper Dimilioc bloodline.
Pure Magic (Black Dog Book 3) Page 14