Shadow Twin

by Rachel Neumeier

  “Am I arguing?”

  “You’re too smart to argue. You’d better not be late, smart boy. Grayson’s worse than my father when people are late.”

  “I’m going. I’m going.” And he was. Any minute. As soon as he could tear himself away.

  -3-

  Alejandro was angry—not an unusual state for a black dog but not comfortable on a plane, where one must be patient and wait for the plane to land. He was angry at Natividad and Miguel for being so eager to put themselves in harm’s way and angry at Grayson for allowing them to do so. Most of all Alejandro was angry with Ezekiel for getting into some mysterious kind of trouble in the first place. Witches. It sounded ridiculo. A tale for children. But Miguel was deeply absorbed in tracking down information, texting back and forth to Cassie Pearson. Clearly he did not find the idea ridiculous.

  Alejandro wanted to believe they would arrive in Colorado, immediately find Ezekiel, destroy whatever enemy had caused this trouble, and be done. He was angry because he was sure this would not happen. Nothing could ever be so sencillo, so simple.

  He sat near the back of the plane, with his sister and brother across the aisle from him and Carter and Rip in front of him. This arrangement was not accidental. Grayson himself was flying the plane; James Mallory had taken the copilot seat. That put the two older Dimilioc black wolves in the front where they could talk privately. Alejandro was in the back so he could watch Rip Jacobs and Carter Lethridge, the two newer wolves who might cause trouble.

  Rip was young and barely trained and maybe stupid, but Alejandro thought he was not so likely to cause difficulty, especially since his brother was back at the main house under Ethan Lanning’s eye. But Alejandro did not know what Carter might do. Fighting in a plane would be estúpido, but Carter was ambitious. Who knew what he might do, if his shadow pressed him and he thought he saw a chance? Grayson thought that Carter might prove useful, finalmente. Alejandro doubted this. But fine, he would sit in the back of the plane and watch over the others if the Master wished it so. Especially because it also allowed him to watch over his sister and brother as well.

  Natividad had put her seat back as far as it would go and appeared to be asleep, her hands folded around the pink sisal bag on her lap. Alejandro doubted she was really asleep. Her attention was probably turned inward, seeking Ezekiel. Alejandro didn’t let his lip curl. He knew very well his anger was unfair.

  Mountains folded up from the flatter country over which they had been flying, green and black and wide sweeps of pristine white. The plane tilted as they came around and began to sink toward the ground. Alejandro had not thought to look at a map, but obviously Denver must be close...yes, as the plane turned the city came into view, and beyond it the greater mountains that stretched out endlessly.

  Carter was staring out the window. Perhaps he wished to be out in those mountains alone, free of Dimilioc and Grayson and the constraints set on him. A black dog could disappear into those mountains and never be found...but no. No, an ambitious black dog like Carter would never be content to live quietly and alone. He would always want to gather weaker black dogs into a shadow pack and establish his rule over some town of human people. That was what ambitious black dogs always wanted.

  Such a thing was impossible now that ordinary people could see black dogs for what they were. Dimilioc offered another way to live among people. It had always offered another way. Now that was the only way possible. Perhaps Carter was intelligent enough to understand that. At least he was quiet.

  Miguel, of course, still had his iPad out. He took his responsibilities so seriously. He looked tired. Alejandro was proud of him, glad that Grayson understood what an asset Miguel could be to Dimilioc, and yet he still wanted to take his brother’s iPad away and tell him to go to sleep.

  Too late now. The plane was sinking faster, Denver spreading out below them, no longer a small city at the edge of the endless wild mountains, but a wide and busy city that asserted its own identity over the land it dominated.

  Across the aisle, Miguel glanced up. “Dimilioc’s sept is way out at the edge of the city,” he commented. “I wonder if Étienne plans to meet us here or there.”

  Alejandro grinned. His brother meant he suspected Étienne would want to face Grayson at the airport because the Master of Dimilioc would not be able to kill him while surrounded by ordinary human people. Let that first meeting take place in a crowd and give the Master’s temper time to cool. He thought Miguel was right. If he had lost Ezekiel to some enemy, he would not have wanted to face Grayson Lanning afterward.

  But it turned out neither Alejandro nor his brother credited Étienne Lumondière with sufficient bravery. Or perhaps with sufficient ego. At the place where people came from private planes and went into the airport, they met not Étienne himself, but a cousin or second cousin, Frédéric Lumondière.

  Frédéric Lumondière had come only recently to Los Estados Unidos, arriving in company with a younger Lumondière cousin. They had not known of any others of their house who might have survived in France and so they had come to America. The Americans had not risen so ferociously against Dimilioc as the peoples of other nations had against the black dogs that lived among them, and so Frédéric and his cousin had hoped to make a place to live in this broader and quieter country. Then they had been so fortunate as to encounter Ethan and Thaddeus,[4] thus gaining at a stroke both the information that their cousin Étienne Lumondière was now acting as Master of Dimilioc’s western sept, and permission to join him there.

  This was the first time Alejandro had met Frédéric, but he recognized him immediately: he had something of Étienne’s aristocratic look and something of the indefinable air that made it obvious he had been raised in a civilized black dog house. Callejeros never looked like that, not even the strongest. Not even the rare few who had found a Pure woman to do the Aplacando for them. Tighter-drawn, suspicious, wary...there was a difference that lingered. Alejandro knew that he himself, raised by a Dimilioc father but outside Dimilioc, did not project quite the confidence a Dimilioc black wolf should possess as his birthright. He resented Frédéric Lumondière at once, especially because it was not immediately obvious which of them might have the stronger shadow.

  Frédéric came forward to meet them once they were past the security checkpoint. He did not kneel to greet the Master of Dimilioc, not here in this place crowded with human people, but he kept his gaze lowered.

  “Well?” Grayson said to him, brusque but not overtly hostile.

  “Master. I have a car, if you will permit me to guide you.” Frédéric spoke quietly, deferential but not obsequious. His English was accented but precise.

  Grayson did not move. “Ezekiel?”

  Frédéric bowed his head. “I know little, Master. Also, I fear Étienne knows little more. Only your bourreau had gone south, toward Colorado Springs. That loop goes all the way to Albuquerque and then east to Dallas and back up through Oklahoma and Kansas. He did not return, though he was expected. When he was two days overdue, Étienne called you.”

  “Two days,” said Grayson, though he had already known this.

  The Lumondière black wolf turned his head, offering Grayson his throat—a symbolic gesture here in the crowded airport, but far from symbolic once they were all away from the eyes of human people. He said softly, “We did not believe Ezekiel Korte could have met any hazard so great that his own strength would not prove sufficient. Nevertheless, though our people were much occupied with a problem west and north of Denver, my cousin sent Stéphanie Callot south to seek him, with me to guard her.”

  Stéphanie Callot was the only Pure woman who currently belonged to the western sept of Dimilioc. She was the wife of Théo Callot, a black dog. They were from France, from what had been, before the war, a rival house to Lumondière. Alejandro had never met either of them, but supposed they must be more fiable...more reliable, and also better trained, than callejeros.

  “We could not find him,” Frédéric continued. “
Also, we had barely reached the outskirts of Santa Fe when we encountered a muffling of Stéphanie’s magic. Stéphanie wished to try despite this, but I thought it best to back away from this mystery. That was my decision.”

  That admission was brave. Alejandro had wished to despise this Lumondière black wolf and found now that he could not.

  Grayson’s expression was impossible to read. He said, “We’ll go to the sept house now.”

  Frédéric nodded. “All of our wolves have been gathered in close. In case an enemy should be striving to take us one by one. We have seven wolves now, as you will know, I am sure. With yours, twelve. Surely that will be sufficient to set against any enemy.” His gaze passed across Alejandro’s face and the faces of Grayson’s other companions. He nodded to James, effortlessly picking out the one among them who had been born to Dimilioc. James nodded back, similar recognition, but without a trace of friendliness. Frédéric glanced away, politely deferential.

  Grayson did not pause for introductions, but gestured for Frédéric to lead the way and then fell into place beside him. He moved as though it did not occur to him that letting the rest of them at his back might be a problem. Definitely no one crowded him. Even so, James, Alejandro noted, brought up the rear, watchful and cautious as the Master could not be.

  The Dimilioc house of this western sept occupied a good deal of land beyond the outskirts of Denver, right at the feet of sharply rising mountains. It was not really a single house, but a complex of three big log houses and four smaller ones, all arranged around a central grove of pines. Mostly pines; Alejandro could see one oak occupied the center of the grove. The pines looked old and the oak very old. All the trees would have been planted by the Pure women of Dimilioc at the same time that this sept was established. Alejandro did not know why. Miguel would know, but Alejandro did not ask him. He did not really care about the reason, and he did not want to be the one to break the general silence in the vehicle.

  The driveway was a long one. It circled around the trees and passed between tumbles of great boulders before it approached the main house, which gave Alejandro plenty of time to observe how two of the smaller houses had been partly burned and even now stood abandoned. That would have happened during the war. Étienne had not yet taken steps either to repair those houses or tear them down. There was scaffolding around part of the main house, however. It was a big, blocky thing, as much like a fort as like a house, with the lower floors all of stone and those above of wood; Alejandro marked how there were no windows at all on the first floor. No wonder it had survived.

  Étienne and all the rest of his wolves waited on the broad front porch. They had felt Grayson’s approach—at least, they had felt black dogs approaching, and with the extreme density of his shadow, Grayson could not easily be mistaken for anyone else. So Étienne had come out to meet him, as was only polite.

  Étienne Lumondière was a black dog nearing his prime: a little older than Grayson, with the depth and density to his shadow that that the passing years granted. Alejandro was not exactly afraid of him, but he respected his strength.

  With a curt gesture, Étienne ordered his people to wait and himself came down to meet Grayson. He showed no concern as he knelt and offered the Master his throat, but Alejandro, not far behind Grayson, heard his heart rate increase sharply and knew Étienne was not as calm as he strove to appear.

  Grayson set one hand on Étienne’s shoulder, closed his other hand around Étienne’s throat, and said grimly, with no preliminary, “Into what trap did you send my executioner?”

  “I did not imagine Ezekiel Korte would meet an enemy he could not defeat,” Étienne answered—without apology, but also without attempting to meet Grayson’s unforgiving stare. “Sometimes one of my people accompanied him on his travels, but sometimes he went alone. He made such choices himself, which perhaps I should not have allowed.” He did glance up then, briefly, and to Alejandro’s surprise, he said, “I apologize for my error, Master. If I had sent another of my people with him, at least we might know now what has befallen him.”

  For a long moment Grayson stared down at Étienne. Little sparks of yellow fire rose in his eyes. But then he stepped back and gestured Étienne up. “I’m fairly certain we do know what has befallen him. Though not in any sort of helpful detail, unfortunately. He’s still alive—Natividad?”

  Natividad, close beside Alejandro, cleared her throat a little nervously. “Yes, sir. He’s still the same, I think.” She nodded south, toward unpeopled country rather than back toward the greater part of Denver. “That way. Much closer now. It might not take so very long to go that far—I mean, if we could just go?” There was a slight, hopeful rise to her voice on that last, but she could not really expect Grayson to agree.

  Nor did he, but twitched a hand toward the main house and the waiting wolves. And the Pure woman, for one of those on the porch was Pure. That must be Stéphanie Callot, and the man nearest her must be Théo Callot. They appeared to be in their forties, though Alejandro could see Théo Callot was not as strong as some black dogs his age.

  Grayson said to Étienne, “We shall discuss the matter. Some of your wolves I do not recognize. You may make them known to me.”

  Étienne nodded to him and then inclined his head to Natividad, a different gesture, almost a slight bow. “You still have Ezekiel Korte in your eye, do you? Good. That is very good.” He straightened his back—he had not exactly been cowering, but the difference in his posture was perceptible. He beckoned his people down from the porch and said to Grayson, “Frédéric you know. This young one is our cousin Absolon, also Lumondière. These are our distant cousins, once of Évanouir: Théo and Stéphanie Callot.”

  Théo knelt to the Master and received a curt nod in response. Stéphanie, Pure, only bowed her head respectfully.

  The other black dogs had been recruited from among the callejeros. Two, one young and one very young, had once belonged to Malvern Vonhausel’s shadow pack and had been brought into Dimilioc at the same time as Étienne Lumondière himself. The other, who seemed both strong and quiet, Alejandro did not recognize. An older man, he had been recruited here in the west.

  “Jim Gotz,” Grayson said to one of the young men, and to the other, “And Ian Olney. I trust you have found these mountains to your taste.”

  “Better than Vermont,” Ian muttered, then ducked his head. “Master.” Jim said nothing, but Alejandro marked how he edged a little closer to Stéphanie Callot after he rose.

  “And our newest wolf, Steven Knauer,” Étienne concluded, nodding toward the older, stronger black dog. He was a black man, darker skinned than Carter but not nearly as dark as Thaddeus. He had a broad face, a muscled frame, powerful hands with the joint of one finger missing—that injury must have been dealt by silver. Certainly the look of a man who has lived a hard and violent life. His shadow was heavy, though he did not appear much older than the Callots. But he was calm in a way that Alejandro did not expect from a black dog, certainly not a callejero. When he knelt, there was no insolence to the gesture, but nor was he afraid. Alejandro watched him carefully, curious and wary. He knew the older man was stronger, but it almost felt to him like his own shadow did not really resent the fact. That was very strange.

  “You are an asset to Dimilioc, I’m certain,” Grayson said to this man as though he meant it. “Your mother was Pure?”

  “Master,” the man said in a low, rough voice. “I think she was.”

  “She did well by you. I am sorry for her death.”

  Steven Knauer looked up, meeting the Master’s hard stare for a second. He nodded abruptly. “Yeah. It was a long time ago.”

  “An old loss is an old grief, but not a smaller grief.” Grayson touched the tips of two fingers to the man’s throat, a perfunctory display of dominance, then nodded permission for him to rise and step back.

  Then Grayson nodded to Étienne and said, much more coldly, “Let us go in and discuss this situation. James, Frédéric, if you will join us. Migu
el. The rest of you, don’t kill each other.” And he strode away without another glance at anyone.

  MigTol: Hey get this: G didn’t kill EL after all

  Prophetess: Can’t have everything

  MigTol: Yet I’m always willing to try

  MigTol: EL actually kind of okay Humble pie agrees with him I guess. Aggression factor maybe a 2. Not bad rly.

  Prophetess: Give him time

  MigTol: U find anything else abt Navajo sknwlkrs?

  Prophetess: Y lots but hey it’s mostly written in Navajo go figure

  Prophetess: Turns out there’s an app for that. But it’s still slow. Sounds kinda possible tho. Like evil mind control

  Prophetess: & corpse powder, which you know what? Is powder made from corpses. Triple ugh.

  MigTol: Y but sknwkrs turn into animals right? Not the same as taking control of black dogs.

  MigTol: I’m still going w Assyrian witchcraft. Lots about witches and demonic possession and exorcism. We know exorcism is a thing right? Cause look at what happened w Justin.

  MigTol: Also Semitic exorcists sound like they might have been Pure.

  MigTol: Plus this Assyrian and Semitic stuff is mostly in English so there. I’ll send u links.

  Prophetess: Hello ur out there in the SW. That’s Navajo country my friend. Coincidence? I don’t think so. I’ll send u links back

  MigTol: Sure but I’m not the language god here

  Prophetess: Yah I’ll keep looking. Keep an eye out for ppl w red eyes.

  MigTol: Red eyes check.

  MigTol: Whoops blk dgs abt done posturing I think we’re starting. Gtg