Ezekiel made an awful sound somewhere between a scream of pain and a roar of outrage, and the black stuff poured out of him. Not just out of his mouth: out of him everywhere, his eyes, his skin, like it was oozing rapidly out of every pore. Not exactly like liquid now; more like smoke, or mist, or...yes, like shadow and darkness. It rose up, taking on solidity like a shadow given body and form, only it was no form Natividad had ever imagined. It wasn’t like a vampire, it wasn’t like a black dog, it wasn’t like anything in the world. It looked a little like a person and a little like a heron, all height and stabbing beak. It didn’t have eyes, but somehow it stared at her. It didn’t have a mouth, but it had that vicious beak. It reared up like a monster, it rippled like liquid and billowed like smoke, and it stank of despair, of fear, of rot and ruination.
The shadow adhering to Natividad’s hands and wrists boiled away to join the greater bulk of the thing, which was great, she was really glad to be rid of it, except the shadowy blackness took in those little traces of inky, smoky blackness and grew. Way more than made sense, there couldn’t be that much of the tarry stuff, but the shadow thing just grew and grew, man-sized and then taller still. It condensed out of oily darkness, tall and thin and strangely jointed in all kinds of impossible ways; it twisted around and reached out, not with hands or claws or tentacles, but with many-jointed limbs sort of like all of those.
Alejandro flung Ezekiel away, seized Natividad, and leaped backward, shoving Grayson back as well. And the demon-thing seized Stéphanie instead, brushing past Théo Callot as though he weren’t there, stabbing and stabbing. Its beak, its claws, its touch did no damage at all as far as Natividad could see. No physical damage. But it shrank. It was going into her. Stéphanie collapsed, screaming. She should have been immune—she was Pure, nothing demonic should have touched her—except, Natividad realized, horrified, that destruction was not the same thing as corruption. But what it meant to be destroyed by a demon—she didn’t know. And definitely didn’t want to find out.
She caught the mirror aparato as Stéphanie dropped it. Théo tore at the demon, Alejandro flung Natividad staggering back before she could get Stéphanie to look into the mirror. Alejandro ripped at the demon from the other side, but their attacks only raked through inky black tar and greasy black smoke.
A snarl ripped from Alejandro’s throat, furious and terrified. Natividad had never heard her big brother actually sound terrified before, but she heard it now. He retreated from the demon-thing, shaking black tarry stuff like ichor from his claws. It clung to him, horribly persistent, and Natividad fell to her knees and drew the fastest circle of her life, using both hands, crying her brother’s name.
Alejandro bolted into her circle, and Théo Callot grimly dragged Stéphanie into it, and Natividad held up the mirror before her and cried, “¡Sea libre de él, sea libre de él!”
Whether because of the mirror or the circle, the black stuff boiled off Stéphanie and away from the black dogs, streaming out of Natividad’s circle, condensing once more into that horrible birdlike shape. The demon thing looked at Natividad. It had no eyes, but it looked at her where she crouched, shaking, inside her circle.
Then it turned and stalked away, turning its blind head back and forth, a strange bird-like motion. It settled on the witches, stalking that way.
Natividad wanted, she really wanted, the demon thing to attack the witches. But the oldest of the witches was chanting, his hands raised, and the demon thing shied away and picked its way instead, with horrible delicacy, toward the central star and the dead man.
Ezekiel rolled over, making a low, gritty sound that was neither a groan nor a growl. He pried himself up, shifting into black dog form as he moved, and started toward the witches, murderous intent in every line of his body. One of the younger witches had fallen to the floor; Natividad had no idea what had happened to him. She hadn’t seen anybody touch him. The other two younger witches broke and ran as Ezekiel headed their way, which was a little bit satisfying even though Natividad should have been too frightened to feel good about how fast they ran away.
The older man was on his feet, standing still, not looking very afraid at all. He wasn’t a particularly tall man, not especially impressive, kind of round with shortish arms and legs and a plump face, older but not really old. His hands were raised and he was chanting, but Natividad was so distracted that she wasn’t sure if he was speaking Latin or English or maybe some other language, she just knew it wasn’t Spanish. Ezekiel was heading straight for that witch, but he didn’t look like he was going to run. That frightened Natividad, because if the man wasn’t scared, she had to guess that he had some way to stop Ezekiel, maybe take control of him again.
In the central star, right over the dead man’s chest, a ball of greasy black smoke appeared and grew. A thin shrieking cut through the air, and the demon-thing entered the black star and disappeared. The ball of oily smoke settled down and sank first onto and then into the dead man. Who sat up, his blank dead eyes unblinking.
Of course he did. Natividad wasn’t even surprised. Horrified, but not surprised. Of course that was the way vampires were made. Not by witches, but by demons possessing corpses. She knew that. Everyone knew that.
Whatever the dead man was now, vampire or something else, he was getting to his feet. Stepping out of the black star. And he was focusing on Ezekiel. Who was going to have to get through him—it—before he could attack the witch. Only if he got in reach of the dead man, something horrible was going to happen. Natividad was sure of it. But she had no way to stop any of it.
Grayson, in control, and absolutely focused, must have had the same idea. He tried to roll Ezekiel’s shadow down again. Natividad knew that was what he tried to do. She couldn’t see it, she couldn’t exactly feel it, but she could tell.
Immediately Ezekiel whirled back around and surged into fluid, deadly motion, heading now at a dead run straight for Grayson. Who wasn’t going to be able to stop him this time. Ezekiel’s black dog form distorted, but it didn’t yield to the human shape. Because—Natividad ought to have understood this at once but only now caught up—that was hardly Ezekiel any more at all. That was his shadow; that was almost all it was. It was his black dog, and it was ascendant. The black dog that shared Ezekiel’s body had shoved Ezekiel himself out of its way.
When they lost control, black dogs always went first after anybody who threatened them and after that they went after the ones they loved the most. By trying to roll Ezekiel’s shadow, Grayson had put himself into both categories.
Ezekiel had always kept his black dog under tight control, but now that he was free of the horrible demon-thing, his shadow was ascendant and free and it was going to kill Grayson. And after that, probably her. Grayson couldn’t stop it. Nothing was going to stop it now.
Someone behind Natividad shouted in Latin. Her first thought was that it was an enemy, another witch, and she flinched and ducked away, but Grayson let the newcomer past and then she saw that the man was a priest. The white collar showed at his throat, he had a tonsure, he was a priest for sure, and behind him crowded a lot of other men, all in black, all with guns and other weapons, all wearing the American eagle patch of the Special Forces on their shoulders.
“Don’t shoot any—” she cried, horrified, but Grayson picked her up and swept her bodily out of the way and she lost half the last word in an oof of breath. For a second Natividad was sure everybody was going to get shot: Ezekiel, Alejandro, everyone. She tried to pull free of Grayson, who unexpectedly let her go, but the Master shoved her toward Miguel, who wrapped his arms around her and held tight when she would have broken away from him. She had actually lost track of her twin in all the rushing confusion, but now here he was. Natividad was glad of that, around the edges of her terror.
Grayson gripped Alejandro’s arm and stepped forward, deliberately, right across the pentagram at the spot where Natividad’s magic had cut through it. Alejandro stayed close behind him. Ezekiel rushed directly toward them,
but Alejandro didn’t even flinch, though his shaggy pelt bristled all along his spine.
Beside Natividad there was a short, coughing crump of sound, and another just like it. Two fine silver nets arced out, flared open, and closed around—empty air. Ezekiel had dodged both, but he hadn’t shifted to human form and back to do it. He couldn’t shift, not now, she realized. Not unless his shadow gave way to his human soul. Of course it wouldn’t do that, not now that it had finally taken control. Ezekiel was special, she knew he was special, but she couldn’t believe that part would be different for him. No, once his shadow had overcome him, it wouldn’t willingly yield again.
Natividad couldn’t think of any way to help him. And she didn’t believe the ordinary human people of the Special Forces would be able to stop him, either.
Miguel said loudly and surprisingly calmly, “It’s all right! Todo está bien. It’s all right. Be quiet. Just watch. Let’s see what happens.”
Natividad craned her neck and stood on tiptoe, trying to see what was happening with Ezekiel, with the horrible black thing, with the witches, with everyone. But she wasn’t tall enough to see over the heads of all the Special Forces people. She tried to shake herself free. “¡Suéltame!”
“Sure, I’ll let go. When you’re quiet.” Miguel shook her a little, not angrily, but making her listen to him.
They had been exactly the same height as children, and then Natividad had been taller for a year or so, but now, at nearly seventeen, Miguel was half a foot taller and half again her weight and, even though he was only human, much stronger than she was. He definitely was not going to let her go until she showed she was listening to him.
Anyway, he was probably right. Natividad had kind of lost track of everything around the edges. She was sure her twin had never lost track of anything.
Special Forces people hurried past on either side, big men and one tall woman, all in black, all armed, all quick and assured and confident. It seemed like a crowd, but as they spread out along the edge of the black pentagram, Natividad realized there actually might be only a dozen, maybe even fewer. It didn’t seem like enough, not to deal with Ezekiel and the demon-thing that had gone into the dead man.
There was only the one witch left now. His friends or students or whatever had scrambled away but he still just watched.
But it only took one, apparently.
Natividad broke her mirror-aparato in half, caught the key that fell out of the burst of light that was released, closed her hands around the key, turned the key into light, and let it go.
Across the room, the dead man collapsed. Grayson staggered, too, though, and Alejandro. Neither actually collapsed, but something happened to them...something that she’d done by making an aparato of opening and reflecting and separating, and then breaking that aparato.
Natividad didn’t have time to think about it, because the black dogs were all right, they seemed to be all right, but the demon-thing was flowing out of the dead man, condensing into its horrible birdlike shape, tilting its blind, eyeless head one way and then another...looking for her, Natividad knew that. Looking just for her.
But the black witch took a step back, and then another step. Quelled at last. Natividad thought that probably meant he couldn’t stop the demon thing anymore, either. Right, because the dead man had served as some kind of anchor in the black star and now he didn’t. Making the demon into a problem for the witch was fine, except then he snapped his fingers at the nearest black dog—it was Absolon—then turned and strode away, through a door on the other side of the building. Horrifyingly, Absolon went at his heel like a dog. He was getting away, the master of the witches was getting away and taking Absolon with him. It was awful. And there wasn’t a thing she could do about that, either.
“Is it safe for my people to cross into that pentagram?” someone asked in a surprisingly calm tone, right beside her.
“Oh, I hope so!” Natividad said fervently. This was a Special Forces man, she assumed, though he wasn’t wearing the black uniform. He was wearing a nice suit, but he had the eagle badge clipped to his belt, so maybe he was a Special Forces guy after all. He was a black man, not young but not really old either. Neither too tall nor too broad, but with an attitude of totally being in control. Him being in control didn’t seem exactly likely, but Natividad would be so happy to be wrong about that.
“The pentagram’s broken,” she told him. “I cut through it. But it’s not—I don’t think it’s safe. Not for anybody. Especially not—I think letting the dead man out of the black star might have been a mistake. And Ezekiel’s still trapped in black dog form. You mustn’t shoot him!” She tried and failed to match the man’s calmness; her voice rose sharply on the last few words.“ Ezekiel Korte is the most important,” Miguel put in. “Definitely the most important. Get him under control and we can handle the rest of them. Which we’d better get that taken care of right this minute, Colonel, because you probably noticed the witches got away—unless you had people stationed outside this building, and in that case I hope they stopped them, but we don’t know what those witches might be able to do—do you?”
So this was Colonel Herrod himself. That explained his attitude of being in control. Actually, it was a lot like Grayson’s attitude. “It does seem essential to tie up one situation before dealing with the next,” he said calmly.
“Wait—take care of how?” Natividad demanded.
But just at that moment, Grayson and Alejandro put themselves in Ezekiel’s way and made him veer and re-angle his attack. Théo Callot was useless, bending over his wife, which Natividad understood but it was so useless. Stéphanie looked like she was unconscious, and the others could have used his help. Or if he’d gone after the witch even, maybe he could have gotten Absolon back.
Carter and Rip and Ian were forcing the female black dog toward the edge of the pentagram, though not easily; she was really fast and Natividad thought she could have taken any of the males alone.
But she didn’t have a chance. Colonel Herrod lifted a hand, signaling his people. They’d spread out along the edge of the pentagram, not quite crossing its outer line. Now, almost before their colonel’s signal, two of them fired strangely bulky guns, simultaneously so both reports blended into one deafening crump. Nets spread out, glittering. Ezekiel leaped away, but they hadn’t been aimed at him: those nets settled over the female black dog.
Almost at once she began a horrible jerking shift back into human form. That surprised Natividad even though it shouldn’t have. She understood what was happening as soon as she saw it. The silver in those nets were forcing the girl out of her black dog form and back into her human shape. That was...actually, that was a fantastic idea. She was so grateful for whoever had thought of making nets like that. She ought to have thought of it herself. How stupid she never had. Except she’d always been used to depending on Alejandro and Grayson to force other black dogs into human shape. But those nets were a lot more convenient, except no one seemed able to capture Ezekiel with one. Jim Gotz was still free, too. The two of them were circling in opposite directions, avoiding Grayson and angling to get to the Special Forces people. Who would surely shoot them with real bullets rather than nets if they had to protect themselves—Natividad started to say something to Colonel Herrod, she didn’t know what—
And the nasty demon-thing suddenly bent down low, spreading out into an amorphous cloud, engulfing Jim Gotz, thickening around him like greasy black fog, only with all kinds of half-visible teeth or stabbing beaks or spines or something. It rose again, taking Jim with it. It was awful, even worse than when it had attacked Stéphanie. Jim was screaming—screaming in a human voice, he must have been forced back into human form—screaming and cursing, loudly at first and then not so loudly.
Then the screaming thinned into whimpers and the cursing faded into unintelligibility, and Jim dropped suddenly out of the cloud as it condensed once more into its horrible person-heron-monster shape. He hit the floor hard and just lay there, making
horrible little sounds, like—just like the other man, the one who had been crumpled at the witches’ feet when Dimilioc’s wolves had first arrived. Even though the witches had all fled, the other man was still there. Quiet now, at least. Maybe alive, maybe dead, Natividad couldn’t tell.
The demon thing twisted around and looked right at Natividad, and she flinched back. She could feel the intensity of its attention, even though it didn’t exactly have eyes. It was stalking toward her…she only realized she was backing up when she bumped into Colonel Herrod. He set one hand on her shoulder. His very presence was steadying, somehow. Natividad managed to stop panting in terror, even though it was not only looking at her, it was laughing. She couldn’t hear it, not exactly, but she knew it was laughing at her.
And it wasn’t heading for her, either, not exactly. It was heading for the gap she’d cut through the black pentagram.
“It’ll get out!” she said, horrified. “It will get out through the gap I made—” She stared at the silvery gap, wondering if she could re-draw the black pentagram. Except she knew she couldn’t. That wasn’t her kind of magic at all, and even if she could have repaired the black pentagram, she was pretty sure she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Not even to stop the demon-thing.
She couldn’t tell whether anyone else could hear the demon or guess its intentions—feel it, perceive it, whatever—but suddenly everyone was moving all at once.
The Special Forces people swung up their guns and fired at the demon, but bullets and nets alike went right through it. It didn’t seem affected at all, despite the silver. If anything, it was coming more quickly now. Its shape was still something like a tall heron kind of thing, but more like a...a praying mantis, maybe. Something poisonous, with lots of spines.
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