This woman was much nicer. Alejandro stood back, arms crossed over his chest, his attention on the peaceful streets, not looking at the woman because he was trying not to scare her while Miguel and Natividad handled the purchase. Buying the car took almost all the rest of their money, but it was worth it because the woman had delivered mail for twenty years and turned out to know all the roads. She was happy to go over the directions Miguel showed her.
“I’m retiring, but this was my work car. It’s old, but it’s a good one. It can handle the roads as long as the snow doesn’t get too deep. It’ll get you to Lewis, right enough. Got family there, do you?” The woman’s eyebrows went up on that last. She didn’t sound exactly doubtful, but Natividad thought that was just because she was polite.
“Papá was from there,” Natividad assured her. “He met Mamá in Mexico.”
“Of course.” The woman’s gaze lingered on Natividad’s face. “Your mama was a beautiful woman, I can see.” Then, possibly noticing Natividad suddenly blink hard, she turned briskly back to Miguel. “You’ll get to Lewis alright, I expect. Good thing you didn’t wait to come in right at Christmas, there’ll be a lot more snow by then. But it’s easy enough. You take state highway 105 east just like it says here, but then you jog south a mile or so on Derby Line Road. You’re going to skirt along the western edge of Derby Lake, then take highway 111 east and a bit south. Let me draw you a map.” She fished in her purse for a pad and pencil. “See, you’ll go right through Island Pond and Brighton, that’s all one town these days so don’t let yourselves be confused by the signs.”
“Yes, ma’am. I mean, no, ma’am,” Miguel promised. “I won’t.”
“You sure you’re old enough to drive, young man? Well, never mind. Look here, the highway goes off this way, but you’ll take McConnell Pond Road north and then keep on it. It’ll turn into Eagle Nest Road and then into Upper Tin Shack Road, but you just keep on and you’ll get to Lewis alright.” The woman hesitated, glancing at Natividad. “You know – you do know, that’s all the Kingdom Forest, really? Lewis is right on the edge of the Forest. It’s no place for…” she stopped again and finished, “Well, if you’ve family there, you’ll be alright.”
Natividad tried to guess what the woman had intended to say. No place for foreigners? Mexicans? Kids? Ordinary humans? She wondered how much a mail driver might have learned about Dimilioc in twenty years of delivering letters and packages to Lewis and Brighton and Island Pond and all those little towns and villages in Dimilioc’s territory.
“Thanks for the directions,” Miguel said, his tone bland. He opened the back door of the car and threw in their pack, then shut the door again and looked at Natividad. She began to count out the bills. Everyone was distracted by the sight of all that money. At least, Natividad thought afterward that that was why none of them, not even Alejandro, realized the black dogs were there until they attacked.
There were two of them, though in the first instant of the attack Natividad thought there were more because they took up so much space and moved so fast. They were huge, more like mastiffs than wolves, with broad heads and heavy shoulders, and blunt muzzles set with jet black fangs. To experienced eyes, they didn’t look like any natural animal at all – they were much too big, their eyes blazed fiery gold and red, and the snow exploded into steam with each bounding footfall as they rushed forward.
Black dogs usually didn’t work together very well, but these separated as they rushed forward, the larger attacking Alejandro and the smaller lunging up and over a parked car to get to Natividad. She saw, in that one frozen moment, how his long black claws, almost bearlike, left gouges and slashes not just in the paintwork, but even in the metal itself.
Without thinking, she ducked backward into the car they had just bought, slammed the door, and locked it – she knew in her mind how little protection the fragile metal and glass could provide, but it might slow the black dog down a little. She drew a pentagram on the car window with a shaking hand, whispering words of warding – that was better protection than the car itself, and the black dog veered away, screaming with frustration and hatred, his voice rising to an inhuman keen that ended in a hiss. Rearing up on his hind legs, he swayed back and forth, torn between bloodlust and the dread of Pure magic.
Miguel knew better than to stay close to Natividad during a black dog attack. He looked horrified, but he also jerked the woman who had sold them the car almost off her feet in his rush to get them both away from Natividad’s attacker and back to the dubious safety of her house. Natividad was as horrified as her twin looked: Miguel couldn’t ward the house, and that wooden door would be no protection at all. The black dog dropped back to all fours and rushed after them, and she could see he would catch them before they reached the house. He would kill Miguel and the woman, and then come back to deal with Natividad at his leisure. The other one would kill Alejandro and together they would get her out of the car somehow–
Alejandro caught the black dog before he had gone three strides. Alejandro, Natividad realized instantly, was glad to fight – fiercely glad of the chance to let go of all his hard control, all the tight-held fury and frustration of the journey, all the grief and rage he had carried from Nuevo León. His shadow had come up fast and hard, bringing with it the cambio de cuerpo, the change of body, in plenty of time to meet the attack. Alejandro was lost in the battle-lust of his black dog shadow – but he had not for an instant forgotten about his sister or brother.
He had not stayed to meet his own attacker. He must have ducked and gotten away, because now he leaped onto the hood of Natividad’s car, and then the roof – the thin metal boomed and deformed under the impact – and then flung himself from that height down upon the black dog pursuing Miguel. Alejandro did not flinch from Natividad’s magic, but their other attacker, coming after him, was forced to take precious seconds to go around the car rather than over, and in that time Alejandro tore into the smaller one, who had plainly not looked for attack from the rear. Alejandro’s claws tore across his spine, and his massive jaws crushed and tore the black dog’s neck. The creature cried out, collapsing, dying, his body contorting and twisting back into human shape, horribly piecemeal so that half his body and the lower part of his face were still black dog when the rest was human. Black ichor and red blood spattered the snow, and the black dog’s shadow, torn free from his body, shredded into the cold air, dispersing, gone.
Alejandro did not pause to roar his triumph, but whirled to meet their remaining attacker. Alejandro’s jaws dripped with ichor, fire flickered behind his black fangs, the powerful muscles of his shoulders bunched and rippled as he lowered his massive head. His snarl was a terrible, ripping sound of threat and bloodlust.
His opponent hurled himself forward, shrieking his rage and hatred.
Alejandro leaped away sideways, then pivoted and met him after all. Natividad thought she could almost feel the shock of their collision, even from inside the car. Then there was a real impact, as Alejandro flung his enemy into the side of the vehicle. The car’s back door crumped inward. Natividad screamed, a small, embarrassing sound, and pressed her hands over her mouth, shrinking back. But her magic flared as the black dog hit the warded car and the black dog shrieked again, this time in pain as well as fury. In that instant, while he struggled to get clear, Alejandro tore into him in deadly earnest. There was a fast series of blows Natividad couldn’t follow, and then black ichor sprayed, smoking, against the windows of the car. Both black dogs vanished below the level of her sight, and only one rose again.
Natividad opened the door on the opposite side of the car, very carefully and slowly. She wanted to hide in the car forever and never get out again, but of course she couldn’t. Alejandro needed her. She knew it. That was why she had the courage to get out. He snarled at her as she came around the front of the vehicle, a long ugly sound with a wicked hiss in it.
“Hush,” said Natividad. She put a hand on her brother’s massive shoulder, feeling the muscles rock-
hard under his shaggy pelt. “Hush. We’re alright. Somos bien. There aren’t any more, isn’t that right? Only the two and you killed them both. Isn’t that right? We’re safe. It’s alright now.” She thought he understood her. He lost language when his black dog came up, but she thought he understood her anyway. She looked past him, checking on Miguel. Her twin was halfway back to the car, bringing the woman with him. She didn’t try to get away from him. She looked stunned. Natividad knew how she felt.
“We’re alright,” Natividad said to Miguel, then suddenly found herself almost in tears, which was ridiculous because now everything was fine. She leaned shakily against the car, rubbing a hand hard across her mouth. The bodies crumpled in the snow looked completely human now. The black ichor had all burned away, leaving only red spatters across the snow and the car and everything.
Alejandro’s massive head turned from side to side, his nostrils flaring as he scented the air for more enemies. But at last he shifted, slowly, and with some unpleasant fits and starts, back toward his human form. It took several minutes, during which Miguel, with cool practicality, dragged both bodies away behind a hedge and began kicking snow over the worst of the blood. It was already bitterly cold. Natividad had almost forgotten, until she saw the blood freezing into crystals in the snow, how cold it was. Shivering, glad of her mittens, she got a handful of snow and began to scrub the blood off the car. She glanced at Miguel and then at the woman who had sold them the car, wondering what they could do about her. She would obviously call the police as soon as they were gone…
“Now I believe your father was from Lewis,” the woman said, her voice shaky but emphatic. She stared at the blood, cast a horrified glance at the half-concealed bodies, and didn’t look at Alejandro at all, which must have taken quite an effort. “I sure do. Oh, my God. I never… My God, in broad daylight… Jesus Christ.”
Alejandro straightened at last, looking almost entirely human. He stared at the woman. She met his gaze for a moment with horrified wonder, but looked away again before Miguel, once more at her side, needed to warn her about that. She said rapidly, “I don’t know anything, I don’t want to know anything, I don’t care what you people do, anyway they attacked you, not that it’s any of my business, alright? Take the car, just take it, that’s fine, I don’t care, somebody else can find the bodies, it won’t be the first time lately, alright?”
“Alejandro…” Natividad began.
“You won’t call the police,” said Miguel. Though he spoke to the woman, his raised-eyebrow look was for Natividad.
“No. No! I swear I won’t! I swear!”
The woman was starting to cry, which was kind of awful. Natividad said quickly, “She’s telling the truth, you know. She really is. You must be able to tell that as well as I can, ’Jandro.” That was why her twin had made the woman deny it, of course: so Natividad and Alejandro could hear the truth in her voice. She patted her brother anxiously on the arm. The human shape of his arm was reassuring, but his muscles were still hard with tension.
“We can leave right now, get out of town immediately,” Miguel put in smoothly. “Anyway, I bet the police here don’t want to interfere with Dimilioc. Whatever they know or don’t know or have figured out since the war, you know there’s got to be a long, long tradition in this town of staying way out of Dimilioc business.”
Alejandro rubbed his hands across his face. The anger was ebbing at last, or at least he was getting it under control. He dropped his hands, stared at Natividad for a moment, and then said, his voice gritty with the remnants of black dog rage, “Me de igual. Está bien.”
“Right,” said Natividad, relieved. “Right. Bien.” She patted his shoulder.
Natividad thought the woman might change her mind and call the police after all as soon as they were gone, but she didn’t say so. Anyway, Miguel was right, of course. The people of Newport, including the police, undoubtedly did have a long tradition of staying out of Dimilioc business, so probably there would be no trouble. Or not from the police. Natividad wished she knew whether those black dogs could possibly have belonged to Vonhausel. But Vonhausel shouldn’t have dared trespass on Dimilioc territory. She looked at Miguel.
“They can’t be Vonhausel’s,” her twin said, answering her exact fear. “Right on the edge of the Kingdom Forest? I don’t believe it. They were strays.” But despite his firm tone, Miguel was frowning. He said abruptly, “Dimilioc should have tighter control than this. Strays, here? I wonder how strong Dimilioc actually is, now…” But then, as Alejandro shifted his weight, Miguel fell abruptly silent.
Natividad said nothing. She didn’t want Alejandro to know how scared she still was. Then he would be angry again, and his shadow would press at him, and she didn’t dare cost him even a shred of his control. They had this good car now, and soon they would be at Dimilioc, and then her brother would need every bit of his control. So, Natividad tried to think of cheerful things – hot chocolate, say. Except then she thought of Mamá’s kitchen, and Mamá, and that was worse. So, then she tried to think of nothing at all.
2
The car finally got irretrievably stuck a few miles north of Lewis, on a nameless road that twisted up the sides of steep rocky hills and then chopped its way back down again.
Miguel was much better with cars and driving than either Alejandro or Natividad, and someone had to drive, but the road got worse and worse, and Natividad was not surprised when her twin finally lost control on one particularly steep curvy bit. When the car skidded, Alejandro put out an arm to brace her, and Miguel took his foot off the gas, and the car slid gently sideways off the road and tucked itself into a snowdrift at the base of a granite ridge. The gentle impact was little worse than when the bus had hit potholes in parking lots on their way north. Natividad uttered a small scream, mostly to tease her twin. Miguel winced, embarrassed. “Sorry,” he said to both of them. “Sorry. It’s not like normal driving. I thought I slowed down enough.”
“Está bien,” Alejandro reassured his brother. “It doesn’t matter.”
He didn’t sound angry at all. Natividad guessed her older brother might even be glad that the car had run off the road. He might not mind if there was one delay and then another, so that the moment they came to the heart of Dimilioc remained a moment in the future and not yet this moment. She would understand that. She was Pure, so she was safe – pretty safe – and Miguel was only human. But Alejandro – black dogs were so territorial. Miguel thought it would be OK, but Natividad thought her twin might be too sure of his logical analysis of what Grayson Lanning ought to do to really believe he might do something else.
“So, I guess we’ll walk the rest of the way,” Miguel said, once they were all sure the car was stuck. He patted the steering wheel wistfully. “Maybe we can get the car back later.” He reached into the back seat for their pack, glancing over his shoulder at Natividad. “It can’t be so far now. Three or four miles, maybe. And it’s not that cold.”
This was optimistic. It was very cold. No part of Nuevo León ever got so cold, not even the mountains. Here, their breath trailed white and frozen through the brilliant air, puffs of living steam against the stark black branches of the trees. And there was a great deal of snow here. Natividad could not remember snow ever falling at home in Potosi, far less at Hualahuises where Mamá’s family had lived.
They pushed their way through knee-deep snow all afternoon. The whole world was white and black: the occasional green of needled pine and the flash of red as a bird flew by only served to accent the bleakness of the winter forest. Natividad could not imagine how the bird could live in this frozen world, where there seemed neither fruit nor seed nor insect nor anything else that might sustain living creatures. She thought this must be a hard country for bird or beast. A hard country for people, too. Even for black dogs.
Yet this cold northern world was not perfectly silent. Pine needles rattled in the occasional breeze; now and then a clump of snow fell softly from a branch. Somewhere not far away
a bird called sharply, unmusically. Perhaps the red one, perhaps another; Natividad did not know the birds of this country. They had occasionally seen others through the afternoon: little ones of gray and buff and white; once a small flock of large black ones, like crows but bigger, which might have been ravens.
She stumbled over a snow-covered rock, and Alejandro touched her arm, stopping her. “You are alright?” he asked her. “Not too tired?”
“I’m fine,” Natividad said, waving away any concern, but she could tell from the way that Alejandro looked at her that he didn’t believe her. She smiled at him reassuringly, but the smile took a deliberate effort. She was tired. And the cold was awful. But she didn’t want to make her brothers stop for her sake. Miguel, hovering protectively at her elbow, looked alright, but Miguel had spent his whole life trying to keep up with their older brother. He was not tall, but he was sturdy and strong for an ordinary human, and the cold did not seem to bother him as much as it bothered her.
Alejandro himself, of course, did not really feel the cold. Black dogs didn’t. It wasn’t fair. Natividad gave Alejandro a look in which she tried to combine scornful amusement and impatience. She said, again, “I’m fine.” Her breath, like Alejandro’s, hung in the air, a visible echo of her words.
“She’s fine,” Miguel said, putting an arm around her shoulders.
Natividad leaned against her twin, her smile suddenly genuine. “See?”
Alejandro was not convinced. “We could stop, rest. We have not come very far. I think we still have a long way to walk. You should rest. We could make a fire. You have those cerillos? Matches?” He looked at Miguel. “We could boil water, have coffee. Eat something. Then you would have not so much to carry.”
Miguel grinned, a flash of white teeth in his dark face. His smile was their father’s. Just recently, as Miguel had shot up in height and lost the plump softness of childhood, Natividad had begun to see echoes of their American father’s bony features emerging in her twin’s face. “I’m fine, too,” Miguel said. “But I wouldn’t mind carrying some of this weight on the inside instead of the outside.”
Black Dog Page 2