Pure Magic (Black Dog Book 3)

by Rachel Neumeier

  Had that many people died, in the war?

  He knew a lot more now about the war between vampires and werewolves; or at least, he knew what Miguel had been willing to explain. It all seemed to hang together too well to be made up. He’d already known how, somehow, in the midst of the struggle, regular people had suddenly figured out that there really were monsters. That there always had been monsters, out there in the dark, hunting people. Miguel said that vampires had produced a kind of magical veil, a shadowy miasma that stopped people from noticing magical stuff, or at least demonic stuff—that master vampires could do worse things than that, they could make people think things and do things, turn them into servants and slaves. Stockholm syndrome to the nth degree. Absolutely horrifying.

  Eventually, with the war whittling down their numbers, there hadn’t been enough vampires to keep that miasma going, and it was like the veil between the real world and the dark had torn wide open. Overnight, it had seemed, hundreds of blogs and forums and discussion boards appeared, arguing about who was winning the war, and who exactly was fighting it, and whether the vampires or the werewolves were more evil, and whether normal people should take one side or the other, and what it all meant.

  Justin didn’t fool himself that he knew the truth. All he knew was what Miguel had told him, and how did he know how much the kid was slanting or spinning or just leaving out?

  But he knew that this house had been built to hold a lot of people, and that it was now nearly empty. He thought the part about the Pyrrhic victory had to be true.

  What he needed was fresh air and space. And time to think without anyone trying to get him to believe anything or do anything or be anything. Air and space and time. He saw the main door at last, and walked more quickly.

  The door swung wide on a brilliant afternoon that was astonishingly cold, on a pale-green meadow still patched here and there with snow, and on mountains that spread out forever, naked silver branches interlacing in fractals of smaller and smaller twigs. Dark green fir and pine trees were interspersed among the deciduous trees, their distribution striking him as not quite random, though he had no idea what factors might govern such patterns.

  It was nothing like home. Dimilioc was nothing like home. Nothing like a family. Or nothing like his family. Justin took a deep breath, fighting back the wave of grief and homesickness that rose up suddenly, towering, threatening to crash down and suck him under. The cold air tasted of wood smoke and pine needles and sunlight. It was hard to believe the desert even existed, breathing this air. It was hard to believe in the past. It was all gone. Everything was gone.

  One more breath, and then instead of fleeing to the solitude of his room, Justin ran down the steps and walked quickly along the verge of the drive, his shoes crunching on the gravel. There was a car, a nondescript dark green sedan, parked in the drive in front of the house, pulled up close to the steps that went up to the main door. He looked past it at first, then blinked and looked again: a car, here? He hadn’t realized anybody had . . . dropped by for a visit, or whatever. Maybe it belonged to housekeeping staff. Those girls sure weren’t walking to and from Dimilioc.

  He gave the car a longer look. Then he looked around, trying for a casual attitude that probably wouldn’t come close to fooling anyone who happened to be watching from one of the house’s blank windows. He rubbed his face. He longed to go home. He had no home. He longed to run away. But there was no away. He wasn’t at all sure he could bear to stay here. But he didn’t know where else to go.

  So the presence of that car was . . . fraught. But it was hard to decide just how fraught. He didn’t exactly intend to steal that car, even if it had a full tank and the keys in the ignition . . . but no harm just checking.

  The key wasn’t in the ignition. But it was lying on the passenger seat, right there in plain sight, like the car’s owner had never heard of grand theft auto. Or like the car’s owner was a mean bastard of a werewolf, whose car no one would ever, ever think of taking for a little joyride when his back was turned. Until some almost-not-quite-kidnapped guy happened to find it sitting here in the Dimilioc driveway, like a gift. Or a lure.

  Justin put his hands in his pockets and looked each way down the broad drive. Then back at the house. No one was in view. Probably Grayson himself was standing at one of the opaque windows, masked by the daylight, watching. That would be typical.

  Justin hesitated, unable to decide what he should do. What he wanted to do. It was like centripetal and centrifugal forces pulling him in both directions at once, equally powerful, until he spun dizzily, unmoored from any anchor yet unable to fly free. . . . If he didn’t know, maybe it would be better not to do anything impulsive. After a moment, not sure whether it was lack of nerve or good sense, he ducked his chin against the chill and walked slowly along the driveway, in and out of shadows cast by high-moving clouds, until he looked down the narrow road that sloped down through the trees and ran at last around the curve of the hill and out of sight.

  It seemed to Justin that the rough surface of the road glimmered with a faint luminescence where it ran through the deeper shadows of the dense firs. That if he looked sort of sideways and unfocused, he could see light like mist rising from the road. It wasn’t the sort of road that seemed as though it would lead to an ordinary town filled with ordinary people. It seemed as though it should lead to a gingerbread cottage or Rapunzel’s tower. Werewolves and vampires, why not witches?

  Though he supposed, if there were witches, he was one himself. Magic. Pure magic. His grandmother would probably be delighted. Although the witches she’d told stories about when he was little hadn’t been very nice. At least the magic Justin had in his hands seemed like white magic. Not that anyone seemed to use those terms. But if they did, yeah, white magic. He held out his hands, studying them, opening and closing his fingers. His hands seemed perfectly ordinary. He didn’t really believe he could draw light out of the air with a fingertip. He tried it, bending to tap one fingertip directly on the driveway and thinking about Cartesian planes and circles. Radius . . . one meter even, why not?

  A big circle glimmered to life, cutting through the gritty hard-packed dirt of the driveway and lying across the winter-yellow grasses of the lawn, centered right at his feet and curving around to enclose him completely. The bars of the x- and y-axes cut arrow-straight out from the center, dividing the circle into four perfectly even arcs. Justin straightened, blinking. The circle wasn’t exactly visible. When he looked out of the corner of his eye, though, he was almost sure he could see it. Actually, he could talk himself into and out of believing the circle was there. This was not going to help him figure out what was real. He sighed.

  “So fast! You truly did not know you were Pure?” asked an unexpected voice behind him, whisper-light, and Justin twitched, bit down on an exclamation, and turned.

  A little girl looked at him from the shadows of the trees, not too close, like a fawn poised to dash for safety. She was thin, with boney wrists and bitten nails, maybe eleven or twelve years old. She had golden skin and huge eyes and black hair cut raggedly short, but her face was dominated by a long scar that ran the length of her cheek and pulled up the corner of her mouth. Justin stared at her, and she turned her face away slightly. But she didn’t retreat into the forest. “That’s what Keziah says,” she whispered. She had a very distinctive accent, much more so than her sister.

  “You did not know you were Pure,” repeated the girl. “You did not know about yourself or about us. But you drew that mandala so fast.” She gave him a little nod that might have been cautious approval. “You do not need it, here. But it is good to know you can do that.”

  “You’re a werewolf,” Justin said. He was sure of that. “The one who’s been taking care of that little Pure girl. Miguel told me about you, but you know, I don’t think he told me your name.”

  The girl looked at him from beneath long eyelashes. “Amira,” she whispered. “I am Amira. I like the little Pure one, little Paloma, yes. I
have been taking very good care of her. But Keziah said I must run, and hunt, and not come back for one hour. Keziah is taking care of her for me.” Her small chin lifted and firmed and she declared, “But only for one hour. Then I will come back.”

  Justin nodded, though that bit about hunting made him nervous. She meant rabbits or deer or something, he hoped. She certainly hadn’t said it as though it were anything sinister. More like the way she might have said Keziah’s making me drink hot milk and take a nap. Probably she really needed a break, if she’d been looking after an orphan child for several days all by herself, which was the impression he’d gotten, and hadn’t Natividad or someone said something about another little kid in the house, a black dog kid? He wanted to think less of Grayson for forcing one child to look after littler ones, but it was too plain that Amira would have had a fit if anyone tried to keep her away from the little Pure girl for more than an hour.

  Besides, he knew girls hardly older than Amira babysat, and after all, she was right there in the house with people she could call for help. “You don’t want to wear yourself out,” he told her. “Everyone needs a break. Keziah’s right about that.” And he liked Keziah better, if she took care of her sister like this. Though he couldn’t exactly imagine Keziah looking after little kids, even for an hour.

  The little girl—Amira—looked doubtful, but she didn’t argue. She said wistfully, “One hour is not so very long.”

  Justin suppressed a smile. “Not long at all. Keziah’s your sister, isn’t that right? You look like her.” Though this child wasn’t nearly as scary as Keziah. Justin found he had a strong impulse to take care of this little girl, to protect her, to keep her safe. Which was a little bit ridiculous, since she was a werewolf, but she was so small and thin and hesitant.

  The little girl paused. “I don’t,” she said softly.

  “You do.” Justin made a show of looking her over. “I bet Keziah looked exactly like you, when she was your age. I bet you look just like her, when you grow up.” He wondered how she’d gotten that scar. It looked years old. Werewolves probably lived a pretty dangerous life, but surely they at least tried to protect little girls? He said, “You don’t look like you’d turn into a werewolf, you know. You look like you’d turn into a cat. Your sister looks like a lioness. You . . . you look like a tawny Abyssinian cat, all elegance and emerald eyes. I could see you turning into a cat.”

  A smile trembled on the girl’s mouth. “No one turns into a cat!”

  “A pity,” Justin said ruefully. He could definitely wish that the world was filled with people who turned into beautiful, elegant cats instead of huge half-demonic monsters. He held out his hand. “Hello, Amira. I’m Justin.”

  “I know who you are!” exclaimed the girl, but she edged forward. But then she stopped. “Your mandala,” she said apologetically. “You didn’t limit it enough to let me through.”

  Justin looked down at his mandala. You could limit them, somehow. To let specific people through, or maybe keep specific people out? That was useful to know. He had to get Natividad to show him how to do that—

  —there he went again, all those damned assumptions about staying here. Justin shook his head and let his breath out and, since he didn’t have any idea how to limit or redefine a circle, cautiously stepped across its arc and held out his hand again.

  Amira touched his palm lightly with hers, blushing. “I like you,” she said softly. “I never thought I would like a, a man, but you are Pure, so that is different. You will marry my sister. Unless you would rather wait and marry me. I think,” she said wistfully, “I think I might like that.”

  “I don’t think Keziah wants to marry me,” Justin said, with considerable restraint.

  “She thinks, no. She thinks she hates you. But you are Pure. She does not hate you. How could she hate you? Or if she does,” Amira added, “maybe you can wait for me. I’ll be sixteen in four years. Grayson might let you wait for me.”

  Justin blinked, wondering what about this hopeful statement should appall him the most. There were so many aspects of it that were horrifying. But he didn’t want to say anything, do anything, that even suggested he was rejecting this child. He told her gently, “You’ll be such a heartbreaker when you’re sixteen. I can’t bear to think of all the boys you’ll trail behind you. But I don’t think that I want to marry anybody, you know. Not any time soon.”

  Amira shook her head. “It does not matter what you want,” she said sadly. “It matters what Grayson Lanning wants, and he wants anything that will make Dimilioc stronger. That’s what Keziah says, and she is right.” She sighed, stepping back. And back again, with an air of relinquishment that was, given the context, rather alarming. “Grayson will not command her to marry you right away. When he does, she will know better that she does not hate you, and then she will obey.”

  “You think he’ll order that, do you? He says he won’t.”

  “He will, though,” Amira said, fixing her dark-amber eyes on his. “In a little while. When he thinks he can and no one will fight. Of course he will.”

  “I hope he won’t.” Though Amira might be right. Grayson might do exactly what she said. Justin didn’t dare fool himself about that. All those nice speeches about Let’s see what the years bring aside, if the years didn’t turn out to bring what Grayson wanted, the Master would probably not just shrug and let it go. He’d all but said that he’d do whatever it took to increase Dimilioc’s strength. The rights of any individual people be damned, Justin suspected. And never mind what Grayson had told any newly-discovered Pure male about finding a place and a home.

  Justin said firmly, “I’m not going to be told whom to marry, Amira. I’m not really part of Dimilioc. I never agreed to be. I never said I’d take orders from Grayson Lanning. And I won’t. Definitely not that one.”

  “Yes, you will,” Amira said wistfully. “Everyone does what Grayson says. Even Keziah. Even Ezekiel.” She slipped carefully forward the little distance necessary and patted his arm, a light, comforting gesture. “I do not mind, Justin. I like you, but I do not mind if Keziah marries you. Don’t be afraid. She will learn to like you, too. That will be good. You will see.” She patted his arm again, so lightly he barely felt the touch of her hand.

  Then she backed away, several quick steps. “I have to run,” she said, in almost that same wistful tone. “I have to hunt. Not you, though. I like you. Besides, we don’t hunt people anymore.” And she smiled at him, a shockingly fierce expression, and the dense shadow that surrounded her flowed suddenly upward and inward, around and through the little girl, until she melted and blurred into her own shadow. And then a night-dark shaggy-pelted form crouched before him, utterly inhuman, smaller than any other black dog he’d seen, but still larger and heavier than he was.

  Justin stood frozen, staring into fiery orange eyes that had nothing in common with the dark-amber eyes of the little girl who’d stood there a bare moment before. He couldn’t move. He didn’t know what to say—or if it would be safe to say anything.

  But the monster didn’t seem to expect him to speak. It only turned and loped easily out of the sunlight, disappearing almost at once into the shadowed forest.

  Justin let his breath out and leaned shakily against the nearest tree. That little girl! And she turned into that! He shook his head, not sure if he was appalled for her sake or just horrified on his own account. He’d known she was a werewolf. He knew this house was stuffed full of werewolves. But somehow it had been easy to forget—or not exactly forget, but sort of set aside the memory of shattering glass and snarling monsters.

  Keziah turned into a monster like that. He couldn’t even imagine it. Except he could. Get involved with that? He would rather try to make friends with a real lioness.

  And Grayson Lanning, so autocratic and yet somehow calming—Grayson Lanning had made him feel that he almost might want to be part of Dimilioc, that he might be able to make a place here, that maybe things could even work out with Keziah. But Grayson
was one of those creatures, too.

  Natividad and Miguel thought everything was fine. But their brother was one of those monsters. They’d grown up with werewolves. They thought it was normal.

  Justin felt almost physically ill.

  The car was still right there. Right in the driveway. And if anyone was watching from the house, he couldn’t see any sign of it. He stared at it for one more moment, thinking about prisoners and Stockholm syndrome and failures of nerve. Then he walked quickly back down the driveway toward the car.

  Justin half expected someone to stop him. But he didn’t think of Natividad at all, until he had the motor running and started the car rolling gently forward, and she hurtled suddenly out of the door and smacked her hands down on the hood of the car, staring at Justin through the windshield, her eyes wide and distressed.

  “Justin!” she said. “What are you doing?”

  Justin thought this was extremely obvious. Only now Natividad was going to stop him. He said, furious and a little bit relieved—which made him more furious—” What the hell is it to you, anyway? Go take a nap and when you wake up I’ll be gone and it won’t be your fault.”

  Natividad ignored this, interrupting urgently, “Keziah’s scary, I know, but she’s not so bad, really, once you get to know her—”

  “It’s not about Keziah!” snapped Justin. “You all keep telling me I’m not a prisoner here—well, if that’s true, then let me go!”

  Natividad shook her head, her pink crystal earrings swaying. It was amazing a girl so cute and pink should be able to look so immovable. She said quickly, “It’s not safe, Justin, it’s really not, especially for you, you don’t know how to protect yourself at all—”

  “And there are monsters out there?” Justin demanded. “You’re forgetting I have a special magic talent! I make instant mandalas. Right?”