Shadow Twin

by Rachel Neumeier

  “Out of the question,” Ezekiel said flatly. “These are enemies.”

  Natividad, tucked against his side and leaning against him, said as though this made perfect sense, “No, it’s okay, I think. The colonel doesn’t want to fight. Neither do we. He can fly the helicopter—let’s go get the helicopter.” She looked from Ezekiel to Miguel and back again, shrugging her shoulders. “What? We need it, he can fly it, let’s go!”

  Getting away from the military base wasn’t quite that easy, of course. But it was a lot easier than it could have been. Miguel took Colonel Herrod’s phone and tossed it to Lieutenant Santibañez. Then he took the colonel’s gun, a little snub-nosed number that had been tucked away somewhere invisible. He held it in his hand because Herrod was supposed to be a hostage—he was a hostage, never mind that he had basically volunteered for the role. Miguel had absolutely no intention of shooting him whatever happened, but it was probably best no one else be quite sure about that.

  Well, Herrod was probably pretty clear about it. But as long as no one else was sure, that didn’t matter.

  It was a pretty big building, which they’d already known, but word must have spread, the colonel’s orders must have been passed along, because the hallways and stairwells were clear and all the heavy doors were unlocked. Ezekiel went in front, and then Natividad after him, and Miguel brought up the rear with their putative hostage. Ezekiel was in full black-dog mode even if he was in mostly human shape; he was more stalking than striding, and Miguel kind of had an idea that he would be absolutely delighted, if it hadn’t been for Natividad, to fight his way through a thousand enemies. Natividad was braiding several strands of her own hair around a twisted bit of silver that had probably come from the chain Ezekiel had broken; she wasn’t paying attention to anything else, obviously trusting Ezekiel to deal with a thousand enemies if they suddenly appeared.

  Miguel couldn’t be quite so sanguine about this. He kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, for a sudden violent ambush or for them to run into a locked door and the stairwell to abruptly fill with some kind of gas, something like that. But nothing happened. Every door opened, and they never met any kind of attack. There were people in front of them and behind them the whole way, not quite in sight, but Miguel could hear them, and if he could, then every whisper and movement must be clear to Ezekiel. But the black dog didn’t look like he was worried about that. Of course, he wouldn’t be.

  Then the roof door, and it wasn’t locked either, and out onto the roof, which must be heavily reinforced because there were actually two helicopters up here, one in each landing circle.

  The Special Forces people had had plenty of time to screw around with those machines, of course, and Miguel wouldn’t have been a bit surprised to find important engine parts missing or something. But Colonel Herrod swung wordlessly up into the pilot’s seat of the nearest and went neatly through some sort of pre-flight sequence without paying any apparent attention to his passengers, and the rotors started going whump...whump...whump without any sign of trouble.

  Ezekiel took a place right behind the pilot’s seat, which was a threat although Herrod didn’t seem to realize it. Of course Natividad climbed in next to Ezekiel, which left the copilot’s seat for Miguel, which was fine.

  “Maybe we ought to disable the other helicopter?” he suggested. There was probably some kind of tracking device in this one, but he didn’t know what they could do about that...

  “No hay necesidad,” Natividad said absently, not looking up from her creation of hair and silver.

  Miguel nodded, relieved, figuring out that it must be some kind of maraña mágica. He hadn’t thought anything like that could be used on a helicopter, but if anybody could make it work, it’d be his sister. “Silver to stabilize the maraña?”

  A distracted nod. “No solo a estabilizarse, para hacerlo, sabes, más ancho. Debe funcionar, pienso.”

  That sounded okay. Stabilize, broaden the effects...and if Natividad thought it would work, probably it would. Miguel nodded, then grabbed for support as the helicopter lurched, lifted up an inch or so, tilted, and shot forward, abruptly enough to practically cause whiplash. He glared at Colonel Herrod.

  “I haven’t had much chance to practice lately,” Herrod said, not looking around.

  “If we’re in the air, that’s good enough,” Natividad said, and tossed her maraña mágica out the open door of the helicopter, where it didn’t fall away, but somehow bobbed along in their wake, the silver glinting in the sunlight. “Oh, good,” said Natividad, sounding faintly relieved. “I thought that would work.”

  “You have to explain that to me some time,” Miguel told her, twisting around to peer out the window at the glittering maraña. The military base was already behind them, the mountains opening up all around them. The other helicopter was in the air, but, just as Natividad had implied might happen, it was sweeping in a wide circle, apparently with no idea where the first helicopter had gone.

  “There’s probably a tracker in this helicopter, though,” Miguel pointed out, in case Natividad hadn’t thought of this.

  But his sister only shook her head absently, meaning it wouldn’t matter, and began to take sandwiches out of her handbag.

  “North,” Miguel said to Colonel Herrod, who hadn’t asked. “Toward Denver.” He accepted a sandwich and started to unwrap it.

  Herrod adjusted the helicopter’s course, but he also said quietly, “We don’t have enough fuel to get to Denver. Maybe halfway.”

  “Then that’ll have to do,” Miguel told him, and bit into the sandwich. He was so hungry it actually tasted pretty good. Natividad was pressing several more of the sandwiches on Ezekiel, which was definitely a good idea. Anything to restore the strength and control of a black dog crammed into a helicopter with you.

  Some time later, Colonel Herrod brought the helicopter down on a flattish spot in the mountains where a little creek came down across the face of a small cliff, trickled down a rocky bed, and dwindled away downhill. It was as good a place as any and, considering the stream, better than most. Miguel supposed they were lucky it was December because, chilly as it might be, they didn’t have any water with them and that stream probably dried up in summer. Snow streaked the rocky glade, and the quieter pools of the creek glittered with a fragile rime of ice.

  The land all around this glade was forested, which at least helped block the wind, but of course there was only so much one could do to tuck a helicopter in under trees. There was no way to avoid leaving it sitting right out in the open in front of God and everybody. But a few minutes after they landed, Natividad’s maraña mágica settled gently down out of the air, came to rest on top of the helicopter right behind the main rotor, and stayed there, gleaming in the noon sunlight. Miguel looked at Natividad, who shrugged to indicate that she wasn’t worried about the maraña’s magic fading anytime soon.

  “Somebody will probably find el helicóptero in the spring,” she said. “Or, wait, if there’s a tracking device and they keep looking, maybe sooner. But I think not today or tonight or any time this week.” She stretched, yawned, shuddered at some unspoken thought or memory, and went to Ezekiel, who was standing quite still, no doubt inspecting their surroundings with some kind of spooky black dog sixth sense.

  Ezekiel wrapped an arm around her shoulders as though not quite aware she was there, but a moment later he blinked, glanced down at her, and smiled. It was a tight, grim kind of smile, but a lot better than his scary-killer look. And his eyes were ice blue for a second before they went yellow again. It was the burns, Miguel suspected, that were keeping him wound so tight he couldn’t altogether dismiss his shadow. His wrists looked pretty bad, even after he had shifted back and forth half a dozen times. The rings of flesh where the silver had touched him was definitely charred in the middle and sort of...oozing all around the edges. Very ugly, and very stupid to keep a black dog chained up like that.

  “What now?” Colonel Herrod asked quietly. He spoke to Miguel, not Eze
kiel or Natividad, which was either smart of him or just lucky. The realization that it might be luck, that Herrod might not have any idea that right at the moment he’d better not speak directly to either Ezekiel or Natividad, was kind of alarming. Teaching Herrod basic black dog manners was definitely getting up toward the top of Miguel’s to-do list.

  Miguel met Herrod’s eyes, touched a finger to his lips, then said to Ezekiel, carefully deferential, “Maybe this would be a good time for you to hunt? We’d be safe here, don’t you think? I mean, Natividad can draw a mandala, and I have this nice gun.” He touched the pocket where he’d stashed the colonel’s gun.

  Ezekiel gave him a hard look, either resenting Miguel’s interruption of his tender moment with Natividad or just generally in a really bad mood. Miguel dropped his gaze, then knelt down on the gritty soil for good measure. He said apologetically, “I just think maybe you ought to be in the best shape possible, in case you have to defend us. We still have a long way to go and who knows what we might meet on the way? Or what might be happening with everyone else? It’s not just these black witches. I mean, someone has to make sure Grayson’s got everything under control. There’s this new black dog, you haven’t met him, Carter Lethridge, he’s kind of ambitious and I think he thinks he’s pretty tough—”

  Ezekiel’s lip curled. “He hasn’t met me.”

  “Exactly! That’s what I mean,” Miguel agreed. “Anyway, I’m sure Étienne will help Grayson keep him in line.” Unless Étienne saw a chance to use a newcomer like Carter as a stalking horse, get him to soften Grayson up and then see if he himself and those loyal to him might be able to take Grayson after that. Miguel didn’t actually say any of that, but it would take someone a lot slower than Ezekiel to miss the implications.

  Natividad rubbed her hand slowly up and down Ezekiel’s arm. “Maybe you should go hunt, if you think it’s safe,” she told him gently. “Those sandwiches weren’t much. We’re all going to be hungry soon. You could get food for us all.” She pushed herself away from Ezekiel and looked around the level glade where they’d landed. “This place seems safe to me. Cold, brr! But we can make a fire, so that will be better. I can put a circle around this whole place. We’ll be fine. We’ll be careful.”

  “You need a coat,” Ezekiel told her. He walked a short distance away, to the edge of the trees. He kicked the trunk of one fallen tree, shuddered, and glared at it hard.

  Colonel Herrod caught his breath when the downed tree burst into flames. Miguel took the time to give the colonel a significant look and lay a finger against his lips again before jumping to his feet and hastily heading across the clearing to gather more wood.

  Ezekiel crossed his arms over his chest, careful of his burned wrists and hands, and waited, with stark patience, for Miguel to build up the fire and Natividad to draw the wide crossed-circle of her mandala. The moment it glimmered to life, he turned and took a step away. Then he spun back around and glared at Herrod, then at Miguel, his eyes bright yellow, completely inhuman. “You have the gun. If he makes any difficulty, kill him,” he ordered, every word clipped off short.

  “Of course,” Miguel promised in his most sincere tone.

  Ezekiel’s mouth twisted. “If he harms Natividad in any way, I won’t be happy with him, but I will blame you.”

  Miguel dropped his gaze. “Nothing like that will happen. He wouldn’t anyway. But I’ll be careful.”

  “You’d better be.” Ezekiel gave the colonel one last hard look, pivoted away toward the noontime forest, shifted to his black dog form between one step and the next, and loped into the woods. He was out of sight in moments.

  Herrod cleared his throat, gave Natividad a little nod, and said to Miguel, “Just to be clear, even were circumstances different, I would not permit harm to be done to prisoners in my custody.” Then he took a breath and conceded, “Further harm. Once the senator was allowed to enter our base and establish his legal authority, my people’s position admittedly became...awkward. However, I did not realize how Korte was being treated, or I would have ordered my people to intervene regardless of the...legal complications. I apologize, for myself and for the Special Forces.”

  Despite being as blood-spattered and cold as any of them, despite being stuck in the mountains miles outside of any town with a girl he thought was a witch and a kid armed with his own gun, and most importantly with an angry black dog who might come back any time and rip his head off...despite all that, Herrod somehow hadn’t lost a bit of his usual self-possession. He did look a little tired, which only made sense because he was pretty old; he had to be over fifty. But even that trace of weariness might have been Miguel’s imagination.

  “Hold that thought,” Miguel told him. “But, you know, it would be best if you didn’t bring your people in just yet, even if you did have a way to signal them. Unless you want to risk a bloodbath. Another bloodbath.” He flashed for a second on the thick smell of blood, and Senator Connelly’s ripped-off head smashing through the one-way glass, and all the screaming. He had to take a quick breath to steady his voice before he could add, “Senator Connelly was a total fool. You don’t want to compound his mistakes.” He couldn’t decide if he thought Herrod probably did have a way to signal for back up, or probably didn’t. He definitely thought it would be best to discourage any such idea, just in case.

  “I fear Senator Connelly may not have quite thought through the implication of his actions.” Herrod said this with no sign of sarcasm, and added, as Miguel raised his eyebrows, “Torturing powerful supernatural creatures, and creatures who have not, moreover, quite decided whether to become your allies or your enemies...the senator’s actions might not have been entirely well-considered.”

  Miguel had had a lot of practice, but he wasn’t sure he could have pulled off a statement like that quite so smoothly. He said, “Yeah, it wasn’t just that. Though I’m sure things might have worked out better if the senator’s mother had taught him basic manners and maybe that threatening a black dog’s fiancée is a lot like playing Russian roulette with nothing but live rounds.” He noted the slight rise of Herrod’s eyebrows and added, “Yep, they’re pretty much engaged, so you can see that was never going to end well. I guess most decent people would consider it self-defense, killing thugs who tortured you and threatened your helpless, innocent fiancée.”

  “The senator—”

  “A rich, well-connected thug, who sidestepped appropriate procedures in order to seize control of prisoners over whom he did not have proper jurisdiction, in an attempt to enslave a werewolf as a personal assassin,” suggested Miguel. He shrugged at the colonel’s raised eyebrows. “Would you describe what happened differently?”

  “Senator Connelly, as Chair of the Committee—”

  “—For the Management of Supernatural Threats, I know, so maybe he did have jurisdiction. Sort of, anyway. Maybe somebody should revisit that notion of putting senators in something like the military chain of command, you think? Or fold you guys back into the regular military, whatever would be simpler. I know things got pretty crazy after all the supernatural stuff blew up everywhere, but I’d have thought mixing senators into the military would be kind of a problem, what with the whole separation of powers thing. But no, I know, technically Senator Supervillain had some kind of authority. That doesn’t mean he didn’t overstep.” Miguel didn’t add, Does it? even though he wasn’t exactly sure. He said instead, “I get that werewolves aren’t legally human and aren’t citizens and don’t have legal rights, but everybody and his cousin’s seen that video of Ezekiel saving all those people last year. Put that video next to him looking like a Dachau victim, show poor little Natividad sobbing—she’s human and an American citizen, you know.” He didn’t mention that their father, while born in the US, had been a black dog and thus by definition not a citizen, if anybody had known it. There was a legal question no one had asked yet.

  No reason to complicate things right now. He said instead, before Colonel Herrod could ask any inconvenient qu
estions about parentage and citizenship, “Besides, I just bet there’s all kinds of incriminating material making it clear Connelly was after his own personal pet werewolf assassin and stepped over all kinds of lines to get one. Don’t tell me your people let him erase all the evidence cause I won’t buy it. Put all that together and how do you think it’d play?”

  “It might be a useful way to frame the situation,” Herrod conceded. “May I ask how old you are, young man?”

  Miguel grinned. “On the internet, no one can tell how old you are.”

  “Hmm.”

  “I’ve been acting as an adult online since before I turned fourteen. Someone had to; people were making a lot of bad assumptions about what was going on at the end of the war.” Miguel paused for a beat and then added cheerfully, “I did okay at the time, but I’m better at it now.”

  “I see.” Herrod looked Miguel up and down, sighed, and said, “I’m sure we all do sincerely wish to avoid another bloodbath. I’m certain Ezekiel Korte is not going to kill anyone out there today.” He nodded toward the forested mountain slopes, with just the slightest rise in tone to suggest that this was actually a question.

  “He won’t,” Natividad promised the colonel, coming back to the fire. She had spent a few minutes at the creek, scrubbing off the blood that had dried on her face and hands, but there was nothing she could do about the blood on her jeans or her torn blouse and Miguel knew how much she must hate that. Huddling over the fire, she held out her hands to its warmth and added, perfectly matter-of-fact, “Killing random people just to steal stuff is against Dimilioc law. But I hope he does get me a coat, even if he has to steal it. I could pay for it later, and I’m freezing.” This last was obviously true. Now that Ezekiel was gone, she looked smaller and colder and far more doleful.

  Miguel patted her shoulder. “He’ll be fine,” he promised, answering the fear he knew must be uppermost in her mind. “I mean, Ezekiel, right? Nothing can keep him down for long! He’ll have a good run and a big meal and he’ll be a whole lot better when he comes back. Snagging those sandwiches was brilliant, by the way.”