He heard a great grinding crash followed by a much louder and more prolonged rolling, smashing sound—probably one of the machines being torn free of its bolts and flung across the room. Someone roared with rage behind him—that sounded like the Master, so he did not have to look. Grayson would handle it, whatever it was. All his fingers were blistered, but he had the net almost free, only one of the girl’s arms was still caught in its strands. He was so blazingly impatient that he half wanted to tear the girl’s arm to shreds if that would only get the net off her, but she had so clearly been badly used already. In the half of his soul that was his own and had been taught to be civilized, he cursed the witches and made himself be gentle because he did not wish to do her more harm. He almost had the silver cords off her—some of the cords were knotted around her thumb and wrist, and his fingertips were blistered so it was hard to grip them.
Once he got the net free it would be better. Then he could tear up his jacket and wrap his hands in the leather. Then he could use the net as a whip, as Grayson had, and then—he did not know. But he would be much better able to attack the demon-thing and defend everyone else. So he persisted, bending finally to grip one of the silver cords with his teeth—blunt human teeth, his shadow would not touch silver—and jerk it free.
The net came loose.
The girl opened her eyes, almost at the same instant. She snarled, rolling to get away from him, to jackknife to her feet in one savage contortion of her half-human form. But she did not let go of Natividad’s bead. Her hand clenched around that so tight her knuckles whitened with pressure.
Then she put it into her mouth. That was—Alejandro would not have dared, but it was clever as well as brave. Whatever it did, it would probably do it more strongly than if she had put it in a pocket, especially after she changed form. Her face had already distorted, her jaw becoming heavy, broadening into a blunt muzzle. Her eyes had been human brown, very briefly. Now they rapidly became a bright, vivid, burning flame-gold.
For one grim instant, Alejandro was certain he had freed this girl only to be forced to kill her. But she went right past him, moving with coiled strength and fury, snatching the silver net out of his hands as she went, leaping into the air to snap it like a whip at the smoky fanged demon as Grayson attacked it from a different angle.
She could not get high enough to strike the demon. This high-roofed building offered the demon too much space to retreat, and it retreated from the silver nets while striking downward anywhere else. The Master, fifty feet away and stalking sideways along the edge of the smoke-serpent-demon thing, seemed able to make it retreat with the sheer force of his will. Alejandro understood that suddenly and tried to do the same, tried to roll it under as he would roll the shadow of another black dog. It drew back from him, but not very far.
No one else seemed able to touch it at all. The thing only retreated a little, curling with lazy malevolence toward the others who had no silver to protect them. Especially it threatened the weaker black dogs: Rip, who did not seem able to shift into the cambio de cuerpo; and Théo, too distracted by terror and fury to pay attention to the demon. Grayson was working very hard to protect everyone else, but he could not be everywhere. Théo Callot should have been trying to help. But he crouched over his wife’s body and snarled with equal fury at his own people and at the demon. He was no good at all. Unless Stéphanie Callot was not actually dead. Then Alejandro supposed she was worth protecting. Though even then, Théo was acting like an ass.
Carter had gone back to tearing up the machines. The demon didn’t seem to care, but that destruction might be useful; at least it might discommode the witches if they tried to come back. Not that he could easily imagine that. But eventually they might try.
But his concern must be this present moment. The demon was laughing at them all. It made no sound, it had no voice, but Alejandro heard it nevertheless. Fury made it difficult to think. He made himself pause and ask himself what someone clever would do. What Miguel would do.
When he put it that way, a plan almost immediately presented itself. Without hesitation, Alejandro went after the gaunt girl he had freed from the net.
She saw or heard or felt him coming and whirled to face him, snarling, the burning silver net gripped in her left hand, the blunt fingers of her right hand tipped with long claws. Alejandro ignored her aggression. He ran past her, took a place directly underneath the demon, dropped to one knee, and offered the girl his cupped hands.
It took her a second. But she was smart. For a black dog in the grip of her shadow’s fury, she was very smart. She ran toward Alejandro with a low, slouching gait, most of her attention directed upward and only a little on him. She trusted him to do as he had implicitly promised. For a black dog, for a stranger, it was impressive trust. But she moved without hesitating at all, set her foot in the offered stirrup of his hands, and uncoiled into a high, arcing leap as he straightened and threw her upward.
That leap carried her right into the indistinctive smoky serpent form, right in among the spines and gnashing fangs and stabbing beaks and other things. But the girl slashed right and left with her net, howling with vicious fury and triumph, and the demon recoiled. This time it moved much, much faster than it had to evade Grayson. Fast as the striking heron it vaguely resembled, but it was not striking. It was fleeing at last. And it was not laughing now. It was screaming, a terrible hissing scream that filled Alejandro’s heart with violent joy.
The girl, carrying her weight in her shadow, seemed for a long lingering moment as though she would never fall back to the earth. She seemed almost to hover at the highest point of her arc, but then she took back her weight and came down after all, controlled and graceful, falling like the fall was part of her fight. Alejandro was there to meet her. He had felt more than seen where she must come down and he was there before her, ready to throw her not merely upward again but also in a long sideways arc that would take her right through the fleeing smoke-demon. He threw her with all his considerable strength, so that she almost seemed to fly.
But this time the girl barely managed to strike the demon thing at all. So fast it had fled, seeping right through the walls and ceiling of the building.
The girl struck the wall near one of the high windows, tore at the wall and windowsill with shadow claws, and scrambled through the window in pursuit.
Alejandro did not bother with a window. He went right through the wall, shattering the sheetrock and tearing the thin metal, shifting from black dog to human and back again as he forced his way out from roaring shadows and the smell of cold death into the high mountain winter.
It was still afternoon. The sun had not even begun to slide down behind the farthest mountains. That was how little time had passed. The sky was bright and cloudless, with no trace of clouds or smoke or haze. The demon was gone.
But the Special Forces people were right here. Almost, Alejandro failed to recognize them as allies. He was looking for witches, for enemies. He was ready to see anyone who was not black dog and Dimilioc as an enemy. He wasn’t even certain the Special Forces people were allies, anymore. If they ever had been. He did not trust them. He was certain he was right not to trust them. They all had their weapons out: ordinary rifles and those big, heavy guns that fired the nets and other weapons besides. One man had a knife almost as long and heavy as a sword, pale along the edge—surely silver, or as nearly pure silver as would hold an edge.
Mostly the Special Forces people looked ready to use those weapons against Alejandro himself. Or the girl. The men stood steady, nearly a dozen of them, as steady as though they were facing enemies. Maybe they were afraid of the girl, skinny as she was and in ripped, dirty jeans. The girl certainly looked ready to take them all on by herself.
That was what stopped Alejandro first; the vivid, furious awareness that the girl was going to attack the Special Forces people and that they would shoot her. They would kill her. He did not have to feel the silver in their guns to know they would not be using ordinary bu
llets.
So he flung the weight of his shadow out and rolled the girl’s shadow under. It was only partly up anyway. The girl had taken a half-human form and held it, a blended form that could fight with fire and claw but still handle tools. Almost no black dog could hold a form of that kind. Alejandro could not; he wasn’t even certain the Master could do that. He wasn’t even certain the verdugo could do it. It was a gift, and as far as he had known, only Thaddeus Williams had it. But now there was this girl.
The net had been draped across her hands, burning with vivid pale fire the way silver always burned to a black dog’s touch. But even though it burned her, she had not dropped it. That was perhaps one reason the humans had not shot her immediately, this stranger black dog who had been enslaved by the witches: because she held their silver net in both her hands and snarled not at them, but up at the sky, seeking the smoke-bird-demon thing, violently unbelieving that it was not there.
Then Alejandro shoved her shadow down and under and she was again a girl, entirely human to the eye, with short-cropped light brown hair and wide-set dark brown eyes. Far too thin, with hollow cheeks and too-sharp bones showing at collarbone and wrist and hip. Eighteen, nineteen, maybe twenty or more, but she might look older or younger than she truly was, thin like that.
She turned a furious glare on Alejandro, raked that glare across all the Special Forces people, threw down the silver net, and spat at them all, “You let it get away? And the witch, Kristoff, where is he? All this, and you let them get away?”
Then the Master was there, tearing wider the hole Alejandro had made so that he could step out. Then the others, one and then another. Théo Callot carried his wife—Alejandro still could not tell whether she was dead or alive—and Rip, surprisingly carrying the one who had been hurt by the demon. Jim Gotz. Then Carter, still partly in black dog form, either from choice or because even with Natividad’s bead-aparato he was having difficulty keeping his shadow down.
The Special Forces people were arranged in a loose half-circle, their weapons now mostly pointed at the sky. There had been a priest. Alejandro was almost certain there had been a priest. And more men. There was no sign of them now. They had gone after the witches, he guessed. Maybe they had taken Natividad and Miguel—he couldn’t see his sister or brother anywhere and he was certain they had been with the Special Forces people at one point not so long ago.
Then he had lost track of them. He could hardly believe he had lost track of them. They had better be with the rest of the Special Forces people.
Colonel Herrod was in the forefront of this group. Even he held a weapon, a handgun, not the sort of weapon a real soldier would carry. At such short range, loaded with silver, it would be dangerous enough. Alejandro didn’t like it. He didn’t like any of those guns, any of that silver. He didn’t like not knowing where his brother and sister were, or with whom, or in what possible danger.
But Grayson Lanning did not seem concerned about Herrod or about any of his people. Nor about the potential for violence between his black wolves, gathering now at his back, and the Special Forces soldiers. The Master summed up Herrod’s people with a swift glance, then turned his attention to the girl.
“Carissa,” he said, his tone matter-of-fact. “Your brother will be very pleased. I’m pleased as well. You appear to be...” he paused. Then he chose, “Adequate.”
The girl laughed bitterly. “Adequate. Yeah. I’d say I’m just about adequate, all right.”
“Yes,” the Master said, still with that strange restraint. “Under the circumstances, it seems an achievement.”
The girl shrugged angrily. But she nodded too, grudgingly recognizing the sincerity of this peculiar compliment. “Master,” she said. Grudgingly, still. But she said it, and glanced briefly down. Very briefly.
So she knew Grayson Lanning, but she seemed less intimidated by him than maybe any other black dog Alejandro had ever seen. She would not know the rest of them. But she did not seem intimidated by them, either.
Alejandro’s human awareness rose above the constant black dog anger in an almost physical blow of attention and understanding. Carissa. Sí. He finally remembered where he had heard that name. This was Carissa Hammond, Nicholas Hammond’s sister, who had vanished those months ago, just at the time the master vampire had been discovered and destroyed...yes, near this place. Alejandro did not remember just where all that had happened, but yes, here. Somewhere not so far away.
His sister and the rest had defeated the vampire, barely. Then Nicholas Hammond had joined them. Alejandro had been there for that part. The boy had explained how the master vampire had killed or taken everyone else, all the rest of the few Dimilioc black wolves who had survived in that area. He had believed his sister Carissa among those taken. Only they had not seen her among the others enslaved by the vampire, so no one of Dimilioc had ever been certain whether the vampire had killed her, or whether she had escaped its grip and fled, or what. Her brother had not known. Alejandro had found that painful uncertainty all too imaginable.
Now they knew. Here was Carissa, when no one had guessed they should look for her. Certainly not where. Nor under what circumstances.
She had escaped the vampire, or perhaps these dark witches had taken her from it. Maybe their demon had taken her somehow. Maybe they had been allies of the vampire. Or enemies. Who knew? Alejandro did not really care. The important part was that she was here, freed from the control of both vampires and witches. He looked forward to hunting down her captors and tearing them into very small pieces.
Of course Carissa would want to do that part herself. But perhaps she would not be too angry if he helped.
The last time the Master had seen her had probably been before the war had shoved every sept of Dimilioc into desperate battle. That meant Carissa Hammond was probably several years older and fifty pounds skinnier than she’d been the last time the Master had seen her. But it made no difference. Naturally, despite all that had happened to her, the Master took one look at this girl and called her by name. Of course he did. Alejandro wasn’t even surprised.
Carissa pointed accusingly at the Special Forces people, at Colonel Herrod, who even though he hadn’t yet given any orders or taken any action, was obviously in charge. “They let them get away,” she told the Master in grimly outraged tones.
“I rather hope that is not the case,” Grayson told her, and raised an eyebrow at Herrod.
Colonel Herrod did not look daunted at all. He never had, in Alejandro’s experience, which had involved few encounters but exciting ones. He said calmly, “A small but, I trust, effective team of my people is currently tracking the...witches.” He pronounced the last word with some reluctance, as though despite everything he did not quite believe in their enemies. But he went on without pausing. “Though we have a clear line on the witches, we do unfortunately appear to have lost the...demon.” He pronounced that word reluctantly too. “It seems to have departed. Perhaps fled. I would be most interested in your opinion.” He glanced from Grayson to Carissa, politely expectant.
Carissa rolled her eyes, not polite at all. “Of course it hasn’t fled. Why would it flee? It’s gotten loose. It’s free in the world. Whatever it does now, it’s not going to just leave. You know what’s worse than a demon bound by a witch? A demon that’s gotten loose! Good job with that!” She stopped, took a breath, and added, not quite as scathingly, “Easier to take that bastard Kristoff down now he’s lost it, though. It might even go after him first. That’d be something to see, whichever of ’em came out on top.” Her lip curled ferociously, like she really wanted to see the demon attack Kristoff. But she went on quickly, speaking to the Master rather than Colonel Herrod. “But, listen, I don’t know if the demon could actually leave even if it wanted to. That bastard Kristoff made a way for it to come into our world. He might need to make a way for it to go away again. Or someone like him.”
“Or possibly someone Pure?” Grayson asked her. “Or a priest?”
A sharp,
angry shrug. “I don’t know. I’ve only seen dark witches summon demons. Little ones, mostly. Not like that one that you let get away. That was a greater demon.” This, with a sharp, furious glare at Colonel Herrod, who didn’t seem to notice.
“Your priest accompanied your team as they pursued our enemies, I assume?” the Master said to Herrod. Nothing but mild curiosity was in his tone. “Am I to gather that you saw fit to send with this team, along with your priest, my wolf and the younger Tolands? I rather thought that you brought me Natividad Toland’s latest...experiment...in order to protect her. Not because she was not here. Sending her away was certainly unexpected...” he paused, considering his words, and finished in an even softer voice, “Temerity.”
Alejandro did not know that word, but he was sure he agreed. He moved a step forward without quite realizing it, checked himself, and said sharply to the colonel, “You have sent my brother and sister after our enemies?” Natividad would face these dark witches without him to protect her, without Dimilioc protection at all? With only Miguel to protect her, among all those strangers? He might have been horrified by that idea except he was too outraged to be horrified.
Then, even in his anger, he paused. Natividad did not feel afraid. Or she did, a little. But the trace of his shadow that she carried told him that though she was still upset and a little afraid, mostly she was only tired. That made the outrage seem...perhaps not so well-earned. He glared at Colonel Herrod, but without much heat.
Grayson did not rebuke Alejandro for breaking in. Ezekiel Korte was the Master’s business, but Miguel and Natividad were certainly Alejandro’s business as well as the Master’s. Grayson merely tilted his head at Alejandro’s interruption, considered the small arc of Special Forces people, and inquired in a neutral tone, “Well, Colonel? Have you sent my people with yours, in pursuit of our common enemies?”
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