Black Dog

by Rachel Neumeier

  Later, when she was an abbess at Heidenheim in Germany, St Walburga, with the first of the Pure girls who had become nuns at the abbey there, had also developed the Beschwichtigend. The Aplacando, Mamá called it, the Calming: the magic that protected a black dog from his most savage urges, especially the bloodlust that drove black dogs to hunt and kill the Pure. Very soon after that, some black dogs had realized the advantage the Pure could bring them: not merely better control over their own shadows, but also black dog sons born with superior control and, if they were lucky, Pure daughters who could bind families together and let a civilized black dog patrimony carry on from one generation to the next. Gehorsam had been founded in Heidenheim, first of the black wolf Houses; and Dimilioc in Britain; and Lumondiere in France; and much later, and not the same, the Dacha in Russia.

  But despite the Aplacando, it was no wonder that many black dog women, whose sons were always destroyed by their shadows and half of whose daughters were stillborn, hated any Pure girl they might meet. Natividad looked at the table, though she guessed it was hopeless to try to appease Keziah.

  “You knew, when James made you my offer, that Dimilioc values the Pure,” Grayson told the girl. “You knew it when you came here. I do not want to lose you. You and your sister are both valuable. But you are not more valuable to Dimilioc than Natividad Toland. You need not like one another. But you must be civil. And, preferably, not homicidal. I expect you both to permit Natividad to work the Beschwichtigend for you. I’m perfectly certain James explained that this would be a necessary condition for anyone wishing to belong to Dimilioc.”

  Amira looked away. But Keziah said, her voice smooth, beautiful, and chillingly indifferent, “Of course. We knew it anyway. Everyone knows that you Dimilioc wolves breed for Purity. You want your sons to rule their shadows and your daughters born with light in their hands. That’s well enough, for those who care about such things. Whatever Dimilioc wishes is well enough.”

  “Indeed,” Grayson said, with a slight, ironic lift of his eyebrows. He glanced around the table. “Dimilioc now numbers ten wolves. This is an improvement, but, as has recently become clear, far from adequate if we are to be challenged by a determined enemy.” He looked grimly at Alejandro. “Perhaps now is an appropriate time to hear a less condensed version of your father’s relationship with Malvern Vonhausel. And your own.”

  Natividad saw her black dog brother stop himself from glancing at Miguel. He met Grayson Lanning’s hard stare and said, carefully, “This Vonhausel, he was our father’s enemy forever, and our mother’s. Of course he has forced other black dogs into a shadow pack, or he would not have been able to kill Papá. But I did not think he would bring them and follow us here. I did not think Dimilioc would have so few black wolves to face him.”

  “And volunteered nothing, even when you saw how few Dimilioc wolves remain,” Grayson said, his tone still grim.

  Zachariah leaned back in his chair, ostentatiously relaxed, deliberately breaking the gathering tension. “Malvern Vonhausel,” he said thoughtfully. “He was a strong black wolf. Not so personally strong as to be a threat, as I recall. He couldn’t have forced so many strays to follow him. Not then. But he was ambitious. I remember that. Ambitious to find a way to harness black dog magic, codify it… make it useful, as Pure magic is useful. He wanted to work out a far more aggressive kind of magic. He quarreled with Edward about that, because he wanted to use the Pure in his studies. Just one or two, he said: a reasonable sacrifice if we could gain a better understanding of demonic magic. Edward was vehemently opposed, but Thos was interested, James, do you remember?”

  “That whole thing was before my time, a bit,” James Mallory said. “You and Harrison were Vonhausel’s contemporaries, not me. I remember the quarrel, but the reason for it, that’s something else, isn’t it?”

  Zachariah smiled, without much humor. “Well, that’s it in a nutshell: Malvern wanted to work out a useful kind of demonic magic. Thos hoped he might find a way for black dogs to gain permanent ascendance over vampires and those damned blood kin of theirs. Thos didn’t mind breaking eggs, but Edward was dead against anything that would require sacrificing the Pure, and was damned vocal about it.”

  “Indeed,” said Grayson. He tapped his fingers thoughtfully on the table. “Yes. I had forgotten the subject of that dispute, but I remember the quarrel.”

  “Oh, yes,” Zachariah agreed. “Edward could match Vonhausel, but not Thos, of course. That’s the part you remember, I’m sure. There was a huge argument, but a very short fight. After that Edward had no choice but to lower his eyes and hold his tongue.”

  “Edward Toland defied Thos, and lived?” Benedict asked, clearly incredulous. “Thos didn’t kill him?”

  “He couldn’t. Remember, this was right after Thos first took the Mastery. He hadn’t yet gained the strength he had later.” Zachariah glanced briefly at Ezekiel. His nephew gazed back at him without expression. Zachariah went on, “Edward was popular in the house, especially with the Pure. He had strong support from plenty of black dogs, too. Thos didn’t dare kill him.”

  “So, he exiled him,” James surmised. “But then, why exile Vonhausel too?”

  “You’re getting ahead of the story. No, what happened next… The way Harrison and I put it together afterward, what happened was this: Malvern murdered Linda Hammond. You remember that, of course, Grayson, though probably not the story behind it. He murdered her and used her blood somehow to capture her magic… or something. Made something, or worked out something, I don’t know. I don’t think anyone ever knew exactly what he’d done. Except Thos, perhaps. He was apparently happy enough with whatever it was that he was willing to accept Linda’s murder. Edward wasn’t.”

  “But Edward still couldn’t fight Thos,” said Benedict. “Right?”

  “Exactly. He couldn’t. As had been so recently and vividly demonstrated for us all. But immediately afterward, Edward was gone.”

  “Yes,” Grayson said slowly. “I remember that. Thos said he’d exiled Edward, and then he exiled Vonhausel as well, with some explanation or other no one believed – I don’t remember what. I thought most likely Vonhausel had killed Edward in defiance of Thos’s order, and Thos exiled him for that.”

  “That’s right, that’s what everybody thought,” agreed James. “But even at the time, you know, it didn’t make sense. I always thought Thos himself murdered Edward, then put the blame on Vonhausel and exiled him to hide what he’d done. I was damned sorry about it.”

  “But you didn’t dare challenge Thos over it,” said Zachariah, then quickly lifted a hand to forestall a hot response. “No, neither did I, and I thought the same, at first. But after Malvern left – left of his own will, mind you; he was gone before Thos gave the order of exile, and by all accounts he went in a rage and in a hurry – after that, Harrison and I came to believe that Edward had stolen something of his, and fled with it.” He glanced at Miguel, then at Alejandro. “We decided Malvern had gone after him, and Thos covered everything up after the fact with orders of exile so he’d look like he’d been in control all the time.”

  Ezekiel lifted an ironic eyebrow. He had leaned back in his chair, his legs stretched out and ankles crossed, his hands in his pockets. He said nothing, as he had said nothing to any of this account, but Natividad thought he might be trying to make it all make sense in terms of the Thos Korte he’d known. She somehow thought he might be having trouble with that, though she wasn’t exactly sure why she thought so. She was having trouble imagining what in the world Vonhausel had done with that poor Pure woman’s magic when he murdered her. Or thought he’d done, or meant to do. It ought to be impossible for a black dog to make or do anything useful with his shadow magic – but if he hadn’t, then what had Papá stolen? However, if Papá had stolen something from Vonhausel, then Mamá must have known, too, and then why hadn’t Mamá ever told her about it?

  She remembered when Mamá had explained about the blood of the Pure, about what the blood kin d
id with Pure women when they caught them. “Pure blood to break Pure working,” Mamá had said. She had been showing Natividad the pentagrams on the village church: on the windows of blue and pink glass, on the carved wooden door, and on every individual stone at a woman’s shoulder height, inside and out. Those stones were head-high for Natividad, who had been about eight. She had reached up to lay her hand on the stone nearest the door. The stone was warm under her hand, only it wasn’t really warmth, but a good feeling like warmth.

  “Grandmamá and Tía Maria drew all those stars,” Mamá explained. “And I and Tía Maria did the mandala around the church yard. This church is the safest place in Potosi. But always remember, a vampire can shatter even our protections if they pour our lifeblood out over our mandala or across the threshold of the church. You must never let the blood kin catch you alive, Natividad, because they will use your death against the innocent if they can.”

  Natividad had shivered.

  “Do not be afraid. I will show you a better place to hide if they come,” Mamá told her, and took her to the live oak standing inside the circle of young pines. “Twenty-one pines and one oak,” Mamá said. “You may not wish to hide in the church, Natividad: that is for innocent people and children, but there are some things you may do better if you are here and not in the church.” Mamá looked down at Natividad and sighed. “Someday soon I must show you…”

  Natividad didn’t understand. She was puzzled by that sigh and by something else in her mother’s tone, something she did not understand. “Mamá, are you sad?”

  “No, no, mia hija. No, I am not sad. Only… No, never mind. Put your hands on the tree. Do you feel the pentagrams I carved into the wood when you were born? Also there is a saint’s finger-bone buried among the roots. Saint Louisa’s bone, they say it was. My Great-grandmamá buried it there when she planted the oak. If you must hide quickly, come here for safety. With Alejandro. Come here with your brother if you can. A tangle of shadows can hide you from any who would do harm to you, whether your enemies are blood kin or black dogs.”

  Natividad had not understood how shadows could tangle up, or which shadows were supposed to. And when Vonhausel had come with his shadow pack to kill them all, Alejandro had not been at home: he had been miles away, hunting in the desert near Hualahuises, hunting under the moon. She had run to the oak all by herself, through the smoke rolling down the mountain from the burning village. She had tucked herself down in among the oak’s heavy roots where they heaved out of the gritty soil, and no one… no one had found her, all that night.

  She swallowed, pulling herself, with brutal effort, out of unbearable memory. She rubbing her eyes hard with the back of her hand and looked quickly around the table, trying to be subtle, hoping no one had noticed her sudden struggle with tears.

  James was looking grim, and his younger brother Benedict a little bit scared, or maybe confused, or maybe both. Ezekiel was sardonically unreadable, an expression Natividad was sure he practiced in front of a mirror. Keziah looked contemptuous and bored and sexy – she probably practiced that in front of her mirror. Every day, probably. When Natividad accidentally met her eyes, her lip curled, and she looked away again with ostentatious indifference, but at least she didn’t seem to think anything odd about Natividad’s own expression. Her little sister Amira had drawn her legs up and tucked herself back in her chair, trying to be unnoticeable. Grayson tapped one finger gently on the table, frowning with a heavy grimness he probably didn’t have to practice.

  Zachariah, oldest of them all, looked calm and a little abstracted, with a faintly self-derisive edge to his mouth – he was thinking, probably, of those difficult days: murder and secrecy and a Master he hated, or at least didn’t trust; the sort of Master who would let an ambitious Dimilioc black dog get away with killing a Pure woman. He said, “Harrison and I might have taken Thos down right then, if we’d worked together. We did think of it. It would have saved us all a good deal of grief if we’d done it. But everything calmed back down after Edward and Malvern both disappeared, and Thos consolidated his hold, and we lost the moment.”

  “If you had tried to fight him then, Thos would have killed you both,” Grayson said, dismissing this putative failure with a curt gesture.

  Ezekiel leaned back in his chair, a casual movement that nevertheless gathered all eyes. He said, “So, I’m sure this is all very interesting, but now we must wonder what light Edward’s sons might be able to shine on all this ancient history.” He lifted an eyebrow at Alejandro.

  Alejandro hesitated.

  Miguel said, calmly, “Malvern Vonhausel allied with a blood kin clique. He allied with the blood kin to get access to vampire magic. Papá tried to stop him and then tried to kill him, only he couldn’t, and Papá tried to tell Thos Korte, but Thos wouldn’t listen, and finally Papá ran south, and met Mamá, and Mamá hid us all. But Vonhausel’s making common cause with the blood kin, that was the first move in the war, twenty years before anybody realized it had even started, Papá said.”

  Everyone, including Alejandro, stared at Miguel. He shrugged apologetically, ducking his head. “Papá used to talk to me about it. But if he stole something from Vonhausel first, I don’t know about that.”

  “And then the war came,” said Grayson. “And Vonhausel came after your father. I think we may surmise that was more than a casual or personal enmity.”

  “Oh, well… Actually, he came after Mamá, not Papá,” Miguel said. He could not keep his tone level, though Natividad knew how hard he tried. “He took her sister, first, our Tía Maria…” He stopped.

  “He did not come alone,” Alejandro said. His voice was harsh with anger and grief. “Without Dimilioc to stop him, Vonhausel found a lot of black dogs to follow him. They came. I wasn’t… I wasn’t there. Natividad and Miguel hid. I found them there… later. Afterward.”

  “They killed everybody,” Natividad said. Her voice sounded small and shaky, even to her. She fixed her eyes on the smooth grain of the table between her hands and tried not to see or think about anything else. “Even the goats and the… the chickens. So, we had to go… we had to go somewhere.”

  “I said we should come here,” Alejandro said, with considerable force, not looking at Miguel. “Vonhausel had already killed our father and mother. I did not think he would follow us. There seemed no reason for him to follow us.”

  “He wants Natividad,” Miguel said apologetically. “Because she’s Mamá’s daughter, and I think there’s something about Mamá’s magic. Something she passed on to Natividad.”

  Natividad stared at him.

  “I kind of think so,” Miguel said to her, even more apologetically.

  “Well,” said Zachariah when Natividad did not say anything further, “And how excited he must be, now that he has not only found Natividad but also discovered Dimilioc’s weakness. The vampire blood kin lost the war, but I imagine Vonhausel still hopes to win it.” He looked at Grayson. “You were very right about our need to recruit. Unfortunately, this trouble is worse than I think even you expected.”

  “It seems we’ve joined Dimilioc precisely in time to watch it destroyed utterly,” Keziah said smoothly. “How delightful.”

  Grayson gave her a look. He said to the other Dimilioc wolves, “I think we must indeed recruit in greater numbers than I had anticipated. And with a little more alacrity. James, you had better go to Boston this afternoon. Ezekiel, you will fly to Chicago tomorrow morning.”

  James looked disconcerted, but Ezekiel nodded casually, as though he’d expected this order. Miguel asked, “Sir? Who are we recruiting?”

  Grayson deliberately spread fig preserves on a biscuit. Then he leaned an elbow on the table and looked at Miguel, his expression unreadable. “There is a pair of black dogs in Boston that may do well for Dimilioc. Brothers. They have never caused difficulty enough there to provoke us into killing them; now we may be glad of it. They also have two human sisters who might prove useful. I believe they will be glad to receive my inv
itation, which is why James will deliver it, using,” he glanced at Natividad, “the famous Mallory charm.”

  Miguel nodded. “And in Chicago, sir?”

  “Yes. There we have a black dog named Thaddeus Williams. I knew his father slightly: a very strong black dog with more sense and less temper than one would expect of a stray. I believe Thaddeus takes after his father. For example, he has taken a Pure wife. That’s against Dimilioc law, of course, but now it only increases his value to us. I want both Thaddeus and his wife, but I suspect they will not be inclined to cooperate. Ezekiel will bring them here for me.”

  Yes, Natividad understood that. If Grayson sent the Dimilioc executioner, it was not to deliver a suggestion, but a command. She wasn’t sure she liked the idea of… forcible recruitment.

  Miguel didn’t seem worried at all. He asked, just as though it was a matter of academic curiosity, “How many other black dogs will you ask to join Dimilioc, sir?”

  Grayson cut a slice of ham into small, neat pieces and began to eat them, one at a time. Natividad thought he was not going to answer. But after a moment he paused, his fork in the air, and said, “I had initially thought to stop with the Meade brothers and Williams. Now… I think we had better recruit to something like full strength. I think Dimilioc will need… shall we say, a minimum of thirty wolves.”

  Neither Zachariah nor Ezekiel looked surprised, and Keziah leaned back in her chair, looking suddenly both thoughtful and pleased. But Benedict and James both stared at Grayson. “Thirty?” said Benedict.

  “They’d outnumber us three to one!” James protested.