Black Dog

by Rachel Neumeier

  After the blankets were hung, Natividad managed something of a bath in the sink – “Cold water!” she declared, splashing. “I thought water this cold was ice!” But she looked refreshed and even cheerful when she pulled the blankets aside and rejoined them. “No television, no books, not even a deck of cards,” she said, looking around at the blank cell. “Not very good service! I don’t know if this is a hotel I’d care to patronize next time we’re wandering through the wilds of Northern Gringolandia.”

  “Half-civilized barbarians,” Miguel said solemnly. “Be glad they have running water.” Natividad grinned. Papá had had a great deal to say about the lack of running water at home in Potosi, and, when the twins were six, had at last put in a pipe from the spring. “I think–” Miguel went on, but stopped as the door at the head of the stairs opened at last. For one moment, he looked as frightened as any ordinary fifteen year-old boy. Then he hid the fear behind the calm mask he had learned through living with a black dog father and brother.

  Alejandro found his own anger and fear almost impossible to hide. If the Dimilioc lobos decided to kill him, kill Miguel, keep Natividad as their prisoner – if they decided to do that, he would not be able to stop them. The vivid awareness of his own helplessness was almost unendurable. How had this seemed the best among all possible risks?

  It was Ezekiel who came down the stairs. Ezekiel alone. Should they find this reassuring? Or was the presence of the Dimilioc executioner alone a bad sign?

  Ezekiel gave Alejandro a cool stare, forcing him to lower his eyes; he did not trouble to make any such show of authority with Miguel. Was that a good sign? He gave Natividad an unsmiling little nod as he unlocked the cell door – she met his gaze, and he didn’t seem to mind. That was surely good? Then the verdugo gave them all an economical little jerk of his head: Come on out.

  Alejandro kept himself between Ezekiel and his brother and sister as they went up the stairs. He knew this could not possibly make any difference; he even knew that he might better put Natividad nearest Ezekiel, forcing the verdugo to get around her before he could attack either Miguel or himself. The extra seconds this might buy them could be invaluable if Ezekiel did attack. But he could not help himself. He could not possibly put his sister so close to the Dimilioc verdugo. And Ezekiel knew it, and laughed. Not out loud. But Alejandro knew he was laughing inside.

  He took them to the same big room Alejandro had seen the previous night. The view was even more spectacular in the clear morning light. The forest looked… wild. Dangerous. It might have stretched on forever. The naked trees ought to have looked dead, ugly. Instead, the black branches drew lines across the white snow and the brilliant sky in a stark, unexpected beauty. Alejandro longed, suddenly and fiercely, to be outside this house, free in that winter forest, far away from any other black dog who might threaten or challenge him. From Miguel’s wistful glance at the window, he likely felt some human version of the same longing. But Natividad’s attention, hopeful and hesitant, was all for Grayson Lanning.

  The Dimilioc Master occupied his customary chair. This time all the other black wolves were seated, their chairs drawn into a semicircle. Only Ezekiel stayed on his feet, leaning his hip on the arm of a chair as he had done the previous evening. Alejandro and his brother and sister stood before the Dimilioc wolves like prisoners brought into a court, only a court where everyone besides themselves was a judge.

  Grayson Lanning let his glance pass over Miguel and Natividad, but met Alejandro’s eyes. Alejandro immediately dropped his gaze to the floor. He could still make out the marks of his claws in the wool of the rug. He did not know what to say, and so said nothing. Even Natividad was silent, amazingly enough.

  Grayson said without preliminary, “Dimilioc has seven wolves, not five. Two are away just now on an errand for me.”

  Alejandro understood what Grayson was saying: we are not as weak as you supposed. He said nothing.

  “I will tell you,” Grayson continued after a moment, “I am astonished at what Edward Toland accomplished. I am astonished that Edward found a Pure woman, that he lived with her for something like two decades, that he raised a human son without killing him and a black dog son without losing him to bloodlust. I do not expect black dogs outside one of the civilized Houses to do such things – or to wish to do them. Even a Toland raised in Dimilioc. Those who are cast out do not find it an easy matter to retain such civilized behavior. Even with the Beschwichtigend to help them.” He paused.

  Alejandro thought the Dimilioc Master was going to say, But… – and then go on to order his death, and maybe Miguel’s. He tried to steady himself against fear and anger, tried to think what he might do or say to persuade Grayson to spare at least Miguel.

  Then the Master went on, instead, “You might say, seven wolves is still weak. This is true. You assure me that you and your human brother and Pure sister are capable of loyalty, that you are worthy of some degree of trust, that you will all, in the long term, be an asset. I am inclined to take you at your word – at least so far as to try you.”

  Alejandro, braced for a different decision, looked up at him in surprise and mistrust.

  “Well?” said Grayson. “Even if Vonhausel’s grudge against your father drove him to follow Edward south, I doubt he will trouble overmuch, now, to seek Edward’s children here in the north. But if he should follow you, well, after all that we have faced and fought and overcome, I hardly think we need to fear Malvern Vonhausel.”

  “If he dares come against us at all, him and whatever shadow pack of strays he might have compelled to follow him,” added Zachariah, his lip curling. “Which I doubt. I never cared for him, myself; give Edward credit for choosing his enemies.”

  “Not wisely,” Harrison rumbled.

  “If not wisely, at least well,” Zachariah said smoothly.

  “Sir…” Alejandro said, in some confusion, glancing from one of them to the other. He stopped, made himself take a breath, and said to Grayson, “Sir, you won’t regret it–”

  “Of course not,” muttered Ethan.

  Harrison snorted. “Why should you complain?” he growled to his son. “You’ll have a black wolf younger than you in the pack. How is that bad?”

  Ezekiel was a few years younger than Ethan, Alejandro was fairly sure, but of course the verdugo did not count. Ethan grunted, giving Alejandro an assessing stare. Alejandro looked away, but a long beat too late to appease the young Dimilioc wolf, who glowered. Ezekiel grinned, clearly amused by this byplay.

  “You’ll find your own level in Dimilioc,” Grayson said to Alejandro. Then he said to Miguel, “But humans don’t fight wolves. Remember that.”

  “No, sir, I know,” Miguel assured him earnestly. “I mean, yes, sir.”

  “Now, you,” Grayson said to Natividad. “Dimilioc needs the strong black dog sons and Pure daughters you can give us. You’re not a whore, but you are a valuable commodity. You understand that?”

  “Yes,” Natividad said, in her most submissive manner. “I mean, yes, sir. We knew I would be.” She did not look frightened, but her heartbeat had picked up. Alejandro prepared to intervene, if Grayson tried to do anything with her that she couldn’t tolerate. Though he did not know what he could do–

  Grayson gave Natividad a long, assessing stare. “You are also a child, and never mind telling me about your married cousins. Fifteen, are you? When is your birthday?”

  Natividad said cautiously, “April seventh, sir.”

  “April. Nearly four months. So. When you turn sixteen, you may choose any Dimilioc wolf you wish. Until April seventh, I’ll not have any black dog touch you.” He looked deliberately across the half circle of chairs, at Ezekiel. “That includes you.”

  That did not seem to amuse Ezekiel. His mouth set hard. He straightened, shoving himself away from the chair on which he’d been leaning.

  “Well?” growled the Master.

  Ezekiel did not even glance at Natividad. He said, “April is alright. I can wait. I don’t car
e about that. But if she doesn’t choose me, I’ll kill any other black dog who touches her.” Holding Grayson’s eyes, he added deliberately, “That includes you.”

  There was a long pause, heavy with tension. No one moved or spoke; all the black dogs looked down or away, except for Grayson and Ezekiel, whose gazes had locked.

  Then Grayson, though he did not look away, grunted and moved a hand dismissively. “In April, maybe. And today?”

  Ezekiel dropped gracefully to one knee and bowed his head. “Master,” he said formally.

  “Then that will do,” said Grayson, with no sign of concern.

  Natividad, frightened or perhaps only shocked, leaned against Alejandro. He put an arm around her shoulders and wished she had thought to claim a November birthday instead. Four months did not seem long. It did not seem like any time at all.

  4

  It was strange that such a cold world could be so beautiful.

  The light was the key to the beauty of winter, Alejandro decided. Natividad had been joking when she’d said it was a different sun here, but she had been right, too. The light here was different. Pale, fragile… purer, somehow, than the southern sun.

  He stood with his hands on the sill of a window in his sister’s room. It was a large, airy, cluttered, pink, frilly room that Natividad clearly loved, although she pretended to scorn pink as girlish. The room boasted pretty tables and chairs and a nice couch, and a bed with pink muslin curtains onto which Natividad’s whole room from home would almost have fitted. Alejandro wondered whose room it had been last year, and how that unknown girl had died.

  Miguel had immediately claimed the larger of the adjoining rooms. It was much plainer than Natividad’s, with a narrow bed tucked into one corner next to an equally narrow window – no curtains around that bed – and, in the opposite corner, a big sturdy desk with one chair. The computer on the desk was the thing that had caught Miguel’s eye. He had gone to it immediately and was now scrolling through the news, calling out the most interesting headlines. “‘Vampires in retreat’?” he quoted, and laughed, looking over his shoulder into Natividad’s room through the adjoining door. “Well, more or less! If being all dead and burned counts as ‘in retreat’. But, here, here’s somebody who’s figured out the war’s over. It’s Fernandez, you know, that tipo from New Zealand. He says he thinks the fighting now is all infighting between ‘werewolf’ rivals. That’s pretty good, for a human.”

  “You think he’s really un perro negro?” Alejandro asked.

  “No, no.” Miguel’s eyes were back on the screen. He pulled the chair around and dropped into it, clicking rapidly as he followed one link after another. He said absently, “Fernandez is no black dog. He writes all from his head, you know? I think he’s just a sharp guy who puts things together. He was one of the first to figure out about the vampires, I mean about what their magic had been doing to ordinary humans all along, and then last August he worked out some good tactics for clearing vampires out of inner city slums without firebombs. You remember what happened in Russia.”

  Natividad groaned. “How can you stand to read about things like that?” She lay flat on her bed and put a pillow over her head.

  “Oh, now he’s just writing this great series of articles about possible vampire influence in the Ottoman Empire and France during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Anyway,” Miguel added, a little apologetically, “he’s human, alright, and I’m not surprised he’s also one of the first to figure out the war’s over.”

  “The first war,” Alejandro said.

  “What we have now, this isn’t a war. Except it’s kind of a war of all against all, I guess. And Vonhausel against us – but I guess we’ve left him behind now, alright.”

  Miguel sounded very satisfied about that. Alejandro wasn’t so confident they’d traded the greater danger for a lesser. Though… Natividad had. Miguel, too, probably. That, at least, they had achieved with their flight.

  But it had been a flight. A defeat. When they had been attacked, Alejandro had abandoned the battle and run. He closed his eyes, hearing Papá shout in memory, Run, ‘Jandro! Lead those bastards off us! He had obeyed, the raw desperation in Papá’s voice overwhelming his shadow’s bloodlust. Maybe that had done some good. Some of Vonhausel’s black dogs had pursued him. He had run and dodged all night and all the next day, fighting when he was brought to bay amid the broken country at the base of the mountains; he had killed one and another of Vonhausel’s black dogs and broken away and run again and never known whether Mamá had succeeded in hiding his younger brother and sister, whether Papá had managed to win time for Mamá herself to run.

  When he had at last made his way back to the burned village, he had believed at first that everyone was dead. Everyone. That everything was lost. He had longed to scream out his rage and grief, to let his shadow rise and never try again to chain it. Only then he had found Miguel, pale with shock and fear, hiding in the hole beneath the root cellar, his scent masked by the stench of charred coffee and chilies. And then Natividad had crept out of the ring of burned pine-stubs which were all that remained of Mamá’s circle, covered with ash and blistered where burning pitch had rained down on her. She had been shaking, unable to speak at all for days, but she had hidden there somehow, by some trick of Pure magic, and was not hurt.

  But Mamá was dead. And Papá. Both dead. They had found pieces… Alejandro flinched from the memory. If he had stayed… If he had disobeyed Papá and stayed to fight… He knew there was no logic to those doubts. Vonhausel had brought too many black dogs against them. If he had stayed, he would be dead, too. But… if he had fought, maybe he and Papá together could have won enough breathing room for them all to run. If Edward Toland had brought them here himself… if he had brought his Pure wife… obviously Grayson would have welcomed them all.

  No way to know. He had obeyed Papá’s desperate command; Papá and Mamá had died, and he and Miguel and Natividad had lived. No way to know what else might have happened…

  “Could we please talk about something else?” Natividad asked plaintively, probably aware of his rising rage and grief. She put the pillow aside and propped herself up on one elbow to look at him. “‘Jandro, is your room alright? It’s awfully small.”

  “It’s fine,” Alejandro said. Natividad was exaggerating the plaintiveness of her tone, but behind her teasing he could tell she was worried. She thought he couldn’t tell when she was worried about him, but he could. Deliberately shaking off memory and grief, he said, “I like it small. I like the windows.” This was true. His room, on the other side of Natividad’s, was tiny. But the windows were huge, taking up almost all of two walls, so that the room seemed suspended in the air. From the scars on the window sills, this room had belonged to black dogs before him. He wondered who had lived in this set of connecting rooms last year: siblings, friends, lovers? It was horrifying, how much space had been abandoned in this house, how many rooms waited for new tenants to move in.

  The sense of dead ghosts whispering around the edges of perception was very strong in the whole suite. But these were the rooms Grayson Lanning had told them they could have. In a strange way, Alejandro was even glad of the sorrow that clung to these rooms, this house: he could not help but feel that the whole world should share his own grief. He wondered whether Natividad also felt that, and thought she did. He thanked God and the Virgin every hour, every minute, for Natividad. He was sure that only her presence had persuaded the Dimilioc lobos to accept her human brother, far less a stray black dog pup.

  Alejandro only wished he thought it a good bargain for Natividad herself. But the back of his neck and his spine pricked when he thought of Ezekiel Korte’s cool, uninflected voice: If she doesn’t choose me… He wondered whether he should begin planning now for some kind of ambush, some ataque sorprendió, a surprise attack that might let him kill Ezekiel and free Natividad from his threat.

  Papá had taught him about that when he was still a pequeño, a kid. “You won’t alwa
ys be the strongest,” Papá had said. “Right now, if you had to fight a stray, he’d probably tear you up, right? So, you’d need to be tricky about it. For example, you could use Natividad or your mother as bait, right? Because we know callejeros haven’t got much sense, especially not when they’re chasing down a Pure woman, right? Only you don’t want to risk Mamá really, but you could bait a trap with her blanket or blouse and maybe a little of her blood.”

  Alejandro had grinned. He could envision perfectly a stray black dog rushing down a game trail toward the scent of a Pure woman, completely missing a black dog hidden and waiting in ambush.

  “Only you have to keep your shadow all the way down until the right time to let it up,” Papá had added. “Or ninety-nine callejeros in a hundred will scent you hiding! So, let’s play it out, right? I’ll be the stray, and you’ve baited a trap right outside the village; that’s all good, but how are you going to make sure I come along this trail and not a different one? Or right through the forest and not on a trail at all?”

  Traps and ambushes and tricks, and hunting, and straight-up battle, and always, always control, because a black dog who couldn’t control his shadow was just a callejero, a stray, to be put down like a rabid dog. Alejandro had been so proud the day a trap of his own making had made it possible for him and Papá to ambush and kill a pack of five black dogs. One had got past them, but Alejandro had set up the trail to lead the callejero right in between a pentagram and the cliff face, and Miguel had shot him with one of the special silver bullets that Tío Fernando had shown him how to make. Alejandro had been even prouder of the forceful control that had let him walk out of the forest in human form to congratulate his young brother.

  And now Ezekiel Korte had shown him how little control he really had.

  Probably Ezekiel guessed he was thinking about ambushes. Ezekiel was hardly a callejero. Probably the Dimilioc executioner would prove, in practice, impossible to surprise.