Pure Magic (Black Dog Book 3)

by Rachel Neumeier

  “They know exactly where we are,” said Justin, not quite asking.

  “They scent living blood,” Keziah said matter-of-factly. “They will eat rats or dogs, but they prefer human meat, and they eat their prey alive. And they hunt the Pure before any other prey.”

  “Nice.”

  Natividad came out of the other room, looking younger and smaller than ever in one of Justin’s extra tee shirts and her own jeans. She had not had quite an hour of rest, and she still looked bruised with exhaustion. Her eyes were huge and scared, but she held her long silver knife in one hand and a hand mirror in the other. Pale light glimmered in the mirror, as though she had captured the light of the full moon and held it there.

  “It’s so quiet,” she said, her voice hushed.

  “They have not yet tried your mandala,” said Keziah. She spoke in a normal voice, not a whisper. “They are cowards, like all blood kin. They are waiting for their master.”

  “They aren’t really cowards, exactly. I mean, maybe they are, but they don’t really have a lot of, of, you know, volición,” Natividad explained to Justin. Her own voice was stronger this time, as though she had drawn courage from Keziah’s example. “Even a lesser vampire can make them. It steals their will and their heart and makes them into its creatures. I hope there’s nothing left of the people they used to be, because can you imagine? But I don’t know.” She peered cautiously out the window. “Only four?”

  “So far,” said Keziah. “There will be more.” More were arriving even as she spoke: two spidery emaciated shapes slunk across the street, moving like nothing human; and another crept along the line of the mandala from the other direction, slipping up and over the neighbor’s fence with inhuman agility.

  “Can they get in?” Justin asked. “Uh, maybe I should have asked this before, but do you have an extra knife or something?” He felt stupid asking now. Like he knew how to fight monsters, with a knife or without.

  Natividad shook her head to both questions. “I’m sorry, Justin, I didn’t expect . . . anyway, I’m sorry, I don’t. But they can’t get in, not yet. Pure magic works really well against blood kin. They’re just waiting—” she stopped.

  “For that,” finished Justin. He stared, fascinated even as he flinched in gut-wrenching aversion. Everyone had seen artists’ renditions of blood kin. But he didn’t remember ever seeing any kind of picture of a vampire. It was probably hard to capture that . . . sort of . . . unjointed puppet quality. “So that’s a vampire. God.” He turned his face away. “Those things really start off human?”

  “They begin as empty corpses,” Keziah said. Her lip was curled in disgust, but this time her disgust wasn’t just a show and it definitely wasn’t directed at him. “That is one of the lesser vampires. You see how it seems small. You must remember, it is much stronger than it appears. The master vampire will be no larger, but it will seem—” she gestured, illustrating how huge the master vampire would seem.

  “Yeah,” said Justin, still staring. Even this vampire looked pretty strong, actually. And fast. It looked a little like . . . he wasn’t sure how to frame its strange, skeletal movement. It was more horrible than anything natural.

  He wanted more than anything to look away from it, but he couldn’t. He felt a strong, horrified conviction that if he looked away, it would instantly leap through the air, through all Natividad’s protective magic, and rip off his face. He could almost see it above him, that strange skeletal jaw gaping, its fangs slashing toward him—he flinched back hard, stumbling

  Keziah caught him. “Fool!” she said sharply. “Don’t look at its eyes. Do that with a master vampire and it would have you, if you were not Pure.”

  “Should have warned you,” Natividad said apologetically. “Even for us, that’s not a good thing to do.”

  “It can’t get in,” Justin asked her. “Can it?” He knew he was really begging Natividad to promise him it couldn’t, he knew both she and Keziah must hear the tremble in his voice, but he didn’t even care. What he cared about was that neither of them was answering him. “Didn’t you say Pure magic works against that?” he asked, his voice rising.

  “Yes,” Natividad said. “For a while. But its magic works against us, too.” She shivered, edging back from the window, and looked at Keziah.

  Keziah was looking back at her steadily, her expression curious and a little amused, narrow eyebrows arched over her black-amber eyes.

  Natividad nodded to her. “You think you can take it? And get back with my knife?”

  Keziah smiled, a wicked, deadly smile. “Oh, yes.”

  “Oh, God,” muttered Justin. “Seriously?” He knew it was the plan, but couldn’t imagine Keziah fighting that—that thing and surviving. He said under his breath, “New plan: let’s all cower in the closet.”

  “That is a new vampire,” said Keziah, ignoring him, every word precise and cool, “It will not yet have learned it can be hurt. It will not know it can die. I will teach it to fear black dogs. Make me a weapon, Pure girl.”

  Natividad took a deep breath, set the edge of her silver knife against her forearm, and drew it down, a sharp, short motion. Then, as blood welled, she turned the blade to catch the blood. She looked at Justin, clearly meaning he should pay attention. He had flinched, but now stared intently at her face and cut arm and the silver knife. If this was something that would help against a vampire, he definitely wanted to know about it.

  Natividad looked at Keziah, who, without changing expression, ran one black claw across the back of her own wrist. Her blood was, Justin was almost surprised to see, just as red and human as Natividad’s blood. Then he wasn’t sure why he should have been surprised, because except for the sudden glint of claws at her fingertips, she was still in human form.

  Natividad ran her fingers across Keziah’s bloody hand.

  “Mi sangre con la suya, mi sombra con la suya, mi vida con la suya,” Natividad said, and then repeated it rapidly in English, “My blood with yours, my shadow with yours, my life with yours, Keziah! This blood is mine, but it is also yours. This silver is mine, but also yours!” She ran her hand along the knife’s blade, smearing blood down its length, and dabbed her bloody fingers along its hilt. Then she offered it, cautiously, to the black dog girl.

  Keziah touched the knife warily, just with her fingertips. Then she smiled, a slow savage smile, and took the knife into her own hand, and turned toward the door. “Don’t let anyone in,” she said over her shoulder, clearly a joke. Black dog humor was, Justin decided, definitely weird. Or maybe that was Keziah’s own peculiar sense of humor.

  “Remember I want it back,” Natividad said quickly. “I want it back after you kill that vampire! Don’t forget and lose it, Keziah! I need it!” But by the time she’d added that last phrase, Keziah was gone. Natividad stared after her for a second, then edged cautiously toward the window.

  “She’s going to fight that thing and the blood kin, all by herself,” said Justin, and knew he deserved the look Natividad gave him. “I know, I know, there isn’t anybody else. I just mean . . . can she do that?”

  “She’s really good. But, no. Not for long. Dimilioc black wolves never fought vampires one on one. Not even new vampires like that one. That’s why they used to win. And, you know, even so . . .” She stopped without saying Most of them died in the war, but Justin thought he heard that anyway.

  Natividad pressed her hands against the windowpane. “That’s why she took the knife, though,” she added, in a low voice. “She doesn’t have to kill it. She just needs to blood that knife in it . . .” she imagined working with vampire blood, and shuddered. It was going to be awful. But she thought it might work.

  “You’ve done this before?” Justin asked warily. “Or something like this?”

  Natividad wanted to lie and say Sure, every day, it’s something every Pure girl learns from her mother right along with drawing pentagrams. She wanted to take that doubt away from his eyes and give him confidence. But it would be wrong, and w
orse if he tried himself to do anything like what she meant to do. She said reluctantly, “It’s awful, it’s a terrible idea, taking vampire magic and trying to get it to work with Pure magic. I’ve done something like this with black dog magic, but . . .” But she had used Alejandro’s shadow, and he was her brother and loved her and had given her his shadow willingly.

  And black dogs were not vampires. Black dogs were partly human. Vampires only used bodies that had once been human. They were not really human at all. Everything they were was completely antithetical to Pure magic.

  Justin came up behind her and put his hands on her shoulders. “You can do this.”

  “Sí. Right. Yes.” Natividad rubbed her face, which he now knew was an attempt to make herself think. He hoped it worked. But she said, her voice faint and desperate, “Pure magic is for defense. Pure magic alone isn’t enough. Keziah has to bring me that knife. She has to draw that vampire’s blood and bring me the knife . . . I can do something with that. Maybe. Maybe. I don’t know. I think I can. Without that . . .” she shook her head. “I don’t know.” It was a long time until dawn. And even if they made it to the coming dawn and were saved by the rising sun, even if they managed to get past the blood kin and get away . . . after the day, there was always another night. And it was a long, long way back to Dimilioc. She asked, “You never got Grayson?”

  “We never got anyone,” Justin admitted.

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Natividad, her voice small and scared, like she was trying to convince herself of that. “It doesn’t matter. I’m sure they’re fine. They have to be. He couldn’t help anyway. And we can’t help them, either. We’re all too far away from each other.”

  Justin put an arm around her shoulders. “Keziah will kill the bad vampire and bring you that knife,” he told her. “And you’ll do amazing magic and save us all. That’s how it works: the creepy evil vampires get killed and the good guys win.”

  “. . . right,” whispered Natividad. “That’s how it works.”

  “Absolutely. Every time.”

  Justin held her and didn’t say, And then the actual master vampire arrives and slaughters us all. He didn’t want to think about how things worked in the real world, where they had all learned that sometimes the monsters just won. He didn’t want to even look out that window. If he didn’t look, maybe all those blood kin and that horrible, stomach-twisting vampire wouldn’t be there. Maybe none of this would be happening. Maybe he could just believe that none of this had ever happened, that he had never faced a werewolf or known he should call them black dogs or seen a vampire. Maybe he could just believe there were no monsters in the world at all.

  Then Natividad took a deep breath and pulled away from him, going to the window. So he had to follow her, and look out after all.

  -13-

  The Master of Dimilioc came alone into the territory of the Chernaya Volchitza, the Black Wolf of Russia. If one could call a single stinking warehouse and half a mile of harbor a territory, and Alejandro hoped Ethan was right that this was all she truly held. He wished fervently that Zinaida Kologrivova faced not only Grayson Lanning, but also Harrison Lanning and Zachariah Korte. Alejandro would have liked to see her take her mere dozen Russian wolves against that triumvirate and Ezekiel. Then let her declare that Dimilioc was weak.

  He was bitterly aware that Dimilioc was weak, now. Weaker than it had ever been. And Grayson had not only lost Harrison and Zachariah, now he did not even have Ezekiel to guard his back. He might even be as completely alone as he looked, driving ostentatiously right through the open warehouse doors in Dimilioc’s most flamboyant and expensive vehicle, a long black Cadillac.

  Natividad was not with him, of course, despite the Black Wolf’s demands. Whatever Zinaida Kologrivova wanted Alejandro’s sister for, she could not touch her. That was not a comfort. Alejandro flinched from thinking of his sister. Natividad’s fear was like many razors of ice, cutting at his heart from within. But he could not help her—and he could not think of her and pay attention to his own danger. He stared at Grayson instead, behind the wheel of that massive Cadillac.

  Grayson drove the car directly into the empty center of the warehouse, the smooth rumble of its engine echoing from the metal walls and the high metal roof. Then he turned off the engine and got out of the car. So far as Alejandro could tell, he was entirely alone. He did not want to believe that could be true. The slam of the car door closing sounded like a gunshot in the sudden quiet. The sound seemed to take a long time to die away completely, and in all that time no one moved or spoke, save that Grayson turned his head slowly, scanning the entire warehouse and everything and everyone in it with thorough deliberation.

  Alejandro was not used to thinking of Grayson Lanning as young. He could not be so many years younger than forty. He had the heaviness of build, the breadth of shoulder, that Ethan had not yet begun to grow into. His shadow was dense with age and power; it pooled on the cement floor at his feet as though it had its own physical form and depth, and its eyes burned.

  But surrounded by the Chernaya Volchitza and her Russian wolves, Grayson did look young. Both Zinaida and Valentin Kologrivov were probably half again his age. One or two of the other Russian wolves also looked older than Grayson. Alejandro could tell, now that they were all in the same room, that Grayson was not as strong as the Russian woman. He did not want to think Valentin Kologrivov might also be stronger than the Dimilioc Master, but he suspected that was so as well.

  “Oh, we are so fregamos,” Ethan muttered under his breath, and Alejandro glanced at him in surprise, stifling a laugh.

  “The famous Master of Dimilioc,” said Zinaida, striding forward. “So you have come. But alone, I see. Hiding the girl away in the heart of your territory will avail nothing, you understand. I will find her there. You would be wise not to defy me. But then, I see you are not inclined to be wise.”

  Grayson, his back straight and his shoulders square, fixed her with his most direct, autocratic stare. “You have made alliance with the enemy, Zinaida Alexandrovna. With the vampire. Have you not? And you call me unwise?”

  “Indeed, I do find you most unwise, Grayson Lanning—”

  “It is the one in the south, is it not?” Grayson demanded, cutting her off. “The one in the El Paso region? Is that the one with which you have bargained, or is there another? What has it promised you, in return for feeding it the Pure? And why would you be so foolish as to believe its promises?”

  Zinaida Kologrivova tilted her head to one side, plainly intrigued. “How did you learn of the upyr, I wonder? It has been quiet. You taught it to respect us, at least. But it is stronger now. Perhaps it has moved openly against Dimilioc after all? Or . . . did that Dimilioc outcast of yours tell you of it, before you killed him? That, at least, was well done, Grayson Lanning. He had made himself into an abomination, I surmise.”

  “So he had. I gather your intentions are otherwise, then.”

  “Indeed. Indeed. You need not fear what I will do. Nothing in that line, assuredly. Nor will I give away the strength of my house. I will give that creature only one of the Pure. One only. And not one any of us should value. An eretich, corrupted. You know too little, here in the West, of the peril an eretich carries with her. If you knew what she will become, you would have killed her already.”

  Grayson’s eyes narrowed. “Perhaps I do not fear the eretich as you do because I know more of the Pure than any black dog of The Dacha. Dimilioc knows that the Pure are always an asset and a strength to any civilized house, whatever minor traces of black dog magic they may take up.”

  Zinaida Kologrivova laughed harshly. “Are you truly such as fool as to believe that? You will discover—” Then she paused. Alejandro thought she had realized at last—at exactly the wrong moment—how Grayson had drawn her out. He longed to know what the woman thought had happened to Natividad, what his sister might have done to herself when she borrowed his shadow. He tried to think of something to say that would make her finish the th
ought she had almost put into words.

  Before he could, the Black Wolf said, “No. No, it is better you do not know. Why should I take the knife from your hand if you are determined to turn its edge against your own throat? No. And you may not find out, if you are fortunate. I will take her quickly, and then I will be able to force the upyr to offer many concessions for her.” She glanced down at Alejandro. “And for this little wolf, too, perhaps, though I do not know what to call a black dog who has been eretich-touched. In the East, we know better than to permit this to happen. But you are fools in the West.”

  Grayson shook his head. “Zinaida Alexandrovna, whatever else, you are a fool to look for concessions and accommodation with the vampire. What has it promised you? Territory? And you believe its promises?”

  “It is not in a position to set itself against me,” the woman snapped. “Nor will it be, if I am swift to consolidate my hold on—”

  “– on territory that is not and never will be yours, Zinaida Alexandrovna,” Grayson interrupted her. “You are twice a fool to lay your hand upon Dimilioc property.”

  The Black Wolf glanced swiftly at Ethan and Alejandro and gave a small, satisfied nod. “Those lost pups. The other claims he is your nephew. You declare you will yield nothing for his life. I offer you one more chance to reconsider your stance.”

  Grayson had not even glanced at Ethan or Alejandro. He stared directly at the Black Wolf instead, the sort of hard, straight stare that was, from a black dog, an unmistakable threat. “I was actually referring,” he said harshly, “to Boston. You have been extremely, even excessively bold, Zinaida Alexandrovna. Venturing into my country, interfering with my cities, threatening Pure women who belong to me.” He stepped toward her, aggressively confident, and his shadow rose up before him and around him. He did not go into the cambio de cuerpo. Nor did anything in the warehouse burst into flame. But Alejandro braced himself hard, without thought or conscious volition, as the implicit threat flared into an open challenge. He saw Zinaida Kologrivova take a step back before she caught herself, saw her flush with fury, felt her own shadow gather itself.