Then she knelt down by Alejandro, her hand warm on his cheek. She was weeping, he realized. She thought maybe she had killed him, and he wanted to tell her he was alright, but though the words were there on his tongue, he could not make his numb mouth make the sounds. But he was shaking with cold, so she must have realized he still lived. She put one slim arm around him, helping him sit. So then they sat together, shaking with cold and fear, and watching to see what exactly would happen.
Natividad’s magic did not seem, in that first moment, to touch the true black dogs. But all across the battleground, the moon-bound shifters were suddenly forced into human shape. Alejandro saw it with Cass Pearson first: the little shifter was fighting with Keziah and Amira, the trio supported by Thaddeus on one side and Ethan on the other. Cassie held her place in the trio with silent, vicious intensity, the tight teamwork keeping her alive when so many other shifters had been killed. But when her corrupted shadow was torn out of her by the shadowed circle Natividad had flung around them all, she staggered abruptly into human form and stood, fragile and dazed and helpless, in the midst of the battling black dogs.
With a kindness that Alejandro would never have expected, and with startling aplomb, as though shifters that suddenly turned human during the full moon were perfectly ordinary, Keziah caught the girl’s arm and flung her out of the way, against the shelter of a broken wall. Many of the other shifters were immediately killed by the black dogs who surrounded them. Only the black dogs were then distracted by the collapse of one shadow-possessed undead black dog, and then another. And another.
The shifters were just an accident. Something about the magic that corrupted their shadows must be like the horror Vonhausel had made of dead black dogs, because really those undead black dogs had been Natividad’s target all along. Alejandro understood this at last, and then was ashamed it had taken him so long to grasp it. She had woven her aparato with his shadow and made both together into a literal tool for catching shadows. The shadows of the living black dogs must be too much a part of them to be torn away, but somehow Natividad’s aparato was ripping the shadows away from Vonhausel’s dead black dogs. The Zachariah-creature collapsed almost last, a heartbeat before it might have finally torn Ezekiel in half, and Ezekiel, at that moment in human form, stared down at his uncle’s body without expression. Everything had paused, all the combatants hesitating in wary disbelief as they tried to understand what had happened and what it meant.
Vonhausel himself, in human form, turned in a circle, staring around in outraged dismay. Alejandro saw the exact moment when he realized who had done this to him. He turned to stare across the broken ruins of the town at Natividad, who straightened her shoulders and returned his stare. Alejandro was briefly afraid Vonhausel would rush across the field of battle and attack her.
But Vonhausel did not come. He could not. He, like all the black dogs in which he had invested shadows, was actually dead. Alejandro saw him realize this, too, and what it meant. He flung back his head and stretched out his hands to the dark, to the crimson fires that still smoldered through the town and in the depths of the shattered earth. He might have done something, worked some corrupted magic, if he had had time. But he did not have time. He lost his shadow last of all the dead black dogs. But he lost it. Alejandro almost thought he could see the shadow tear itself free and disappear, or dissolve into the darkness – or maybe fall into the glowing chasm that gaped at Vonhausel’s feet; he could not exactly tell. It almost seemed to somehow do all of those things at once. Vonhausel’s body, left untenanted, collapsed slowly. There was no question about what happened to it. It fell into the break in the street and disappeared without a sound. The ruddy glow from the fires below flared up, dully crimson, and then went out, leaving only darkness.
Or not quite only darkness. In the east, beyond the ruined church, the first pale glimmer of the dawn shone across the winter sky, magically transmuting the smoke and ash of burning to silver and pearl.
Once they lost the unkillable shadow-possessed black dogs, and especially once they no longer had Malvern Vonhausel to drive and rule them, the remaining black dogs were after all nothing but strays. Alejandro was surprised, despite everything, to see how utterly overmatched they were by the Dimilioc wolves.
All of Vonhausel’s black dogs now gave back, and back again, searching from side to side for a way to flee. But the circle Natividad had flung around them, of moonlight and silver and magic and Alejandro’s black dog shadow, closed off all lines of retreat.
Alejandro sat on a half-burned timber, his arm around his sister’s shoulders, and watched as the black dogs of Vonhausel’s shadow pack forgot their advantage of numbers. As before, if they had supported one another, if they had fought together, then they might still have been able to defeat the Dimilioc wolves, especially as it seemed that the gunmen could not shoot through the shadowed circle. But fighting together clearly didn’t occur to them at all. Alejandro watched, fascinated and disturbed, as the uncontrolled violence and treacherous nature of the black dogs drove them instead to turn on one another. Though he had been a black dog all his life, he could not at this moment exactly remember the way black dog instincts felt. He was uneasily conscious of the locura, the madness, to which those instincts now drove Vonhausel’s strays.
Furious and panicked, one black dog would turn and fight to clear a way past his neighbors, even though there was no point to his efforts because no line of retreat existed. Even so, he would snap left and right, until a black dog stronger and more brutal than he drove him back – and then half the time this small fight would spark a savage melee that spread right through half the remaining black dogs.
Ezekiel drove all this violence. He deliberately threatened the remaining strays, one and then another, touching off small, vicious conflicts within each group. They were too afraid of him to face him, even all of them together, and so Ezekiel shaped the violence and more or less directed it, prodding the black dogs to defeat themselves. To be fair, Ezekiel did look very dangerous, even now. He showed no sign of weakness save for a very slight catch in his gait when he turned to the left. Even so, Alejandro would have been ashamed to let anyone manipulate him that way. He would have been ashamed of that when he was a child. But only a few of these black dog strays resisted the verdugo’s threats, staying quiet and still and well away from their fellows, refusing to meet any threat or return any insult, only waiting to see what chance might come to escape. Alejandro did not expect they would find such a chance, but at least they showed decent control.
It was very strange to watch all this and feel only weariness. He was not possessed by burning rage, nor furious contempt, nor a hot desire for blood and violence. He felt empty. Peaceful. This must be the part of himself that was real, that was him. The part that was still here when the black dog shadow was gone. He had fought all his life to get a space narrow as a knife-blade between himself and his shadow, to understand what he was. All his life, he had wished to know what it would be like to be ordinary, to be human.
Now his shadow was gone, and he was human and ordinary, and he found he hated the cold and empty peace that had replaced his shadow. There was nothing in it to fight against, and without that struggle, he couldn’t catch his balance. He kept reaching after the anger he ought to feel, and there was nothing there. He felt as though some power had reached into his mind and heart and soul and pithed him like a hollow reed. It felt like the winter wind could blow right through him. Anger was hot. He had never in his life really felt the cold. Now he felt as though he might never be warm again.
Alejandro slid a glance at his sister. She leaned against his side. Her head rested against his shoulder. He wondered what it would be like when she let go of her shadowed circle, released her light and magic. Would his shadow force itself back into his mind and heart and soul, or would it disappear into the fell dark after all the other freed shadows? And if it was lost into the dark, what would that do to him? He thought most likely if that happened he w
ould either cease to be a black dog or die, and he wasn’t sure which of those possibilities seemed worse.
Grayson came back toward the center of the shadowed circle, toward Natividad. He did not even glance at Ezekiel. But his verdugo nevertheless left off fomenting violence among the thinned ranks of the enemy and came to join him. Behind him, the remaining black dogs gradually settled. Even now there were at least a dozen left, but they seemed very few after the outnumbered hopelessness of the battle.
Thaddeus, now fully in his black dog form, had been resting quietly beside the unconscious Cass Pearson, but turned his head to watch the Master. Ethan limped slowly after Grayson, too lame to conceal his injury. Keziah, who had been lying on the rubble of the church, glanced at Amira, who was clearly hurt but unable, at the moment, to drive back her shadow and force it to carry away her injuries. Then Keziah abruptly got to her feet and slid down toward her little sister. Jagged fragments of stone and brick and splinters of broken timbers showered around her, then she allowed Amira to lean on her as they came down to join the others.
Grayson came to Natividad, shifting out of his black dog form so that when he reached her he was once again in his fully human shape. The Master showed no trace of injury, though he had not entirely shed the black aura of violence or the scents of smoke and burning. He gazed at Alejandro for a long, thoughtful moment. Alejandro, shivering with cold like any ordinary human, stared back at him for a beat before he remembered to look down. It felt very strange to have to remember to look away. He had never really understood how ordinary humans could be so dangerously slow to respond to black dog threats. It was strange and unpleasant, like a kind of blindness.
Grayson removed his jacket and handed it to Alejandro without comment. Surprised – he had not expected the Master to realize that he was cold, far less to care – Alejandro took the jacket and shrugged it on. The jacket, or maybe the unexpected kindness, made the cold a little more bearable. Maybe in time – in a lot of time – he could learn to tolerate the cold emptiness inside too, even if he never got his shadow back. He shuddered, and could not tell whether it was from the cold outside or the cold within.
“This is not precisely what I expected, when Keziah told me what Vonhausel had done with our dead,” Grayson said to Natividad. “Nor when she told me what you had done to Vonhausel, nor when she warned me your magic had failed. I see that last warning was mistaken.” He paused, then asked, “You can release this magic you have made here? You can undo it?”
The Master’s heavy voice had a dark-edged resonance to it that seemed more than weariness or anger. Alejandro involuntarily glanced up at him again. Was this how ordinary humans heard black dogs all the time? Maybe not, maybe it was something else, something about this night or the shadowed circle or about Grayson himself: if this was how black dogs sounded to humans, how could a black dog ever pass unnoticed among them?
“Yes,” Natividad answered. Her voice was small and weary and did not echo with any surprising resonance. She didn’t avoid looking the Master in the face; it obviously didn’t occur to her that she ought to. “Yes. I think so. I’m pretty sure. Whenever you like.”
Grayson nodded. There was a world of weariness in that nod, but no visible anger. Turning, the Master crossed his arms over his chest and stared around at the black dogs enclosed in Natividad’s circle. Now, at last, with so few enemies remaining and all of those defeated and afraid, Grayson could use the weight of his powerful shadow to roll all of theirs at once under and down. He did that. Alejandro didn’t – couldn’t – feel it. Not now. But he knew what the Master had done because all around the circle, Vonhausel’s black dogs shuddered and cried out, their bodies contorting and twisting as they were forced back into human shape.
Most of the Dimilioc wolves shifted as well, but smoothly: Grayson wasn’t forcing any of his own wolves into the cambio de cuerpo, only helping those who wanted to change. Even Ezekiel shifted, which from him was probably an expression of disdain for all their remaining enemies. He was looking at Natividad, his expression odd. After a moment, he said, “Brave little kitten, aren’t you? Don’t you know daring single-handed assassinations are my job?”
Natividad blinked at him, wordless. But after a moment, she smiled.
Only Keziah did not change. She leaped up to stretch out, contemptuously relaxed, along a broad timber above Grayson’s head – as disdainful, and nearly as dangerous, as Ezekiel. Thaddeus pulled himself gradually into human form, seeming nearly as big as a man as he was as a black dog. He lifted Cass Pearson in his arms with no sign of effort and came to lay her down near Natividad’s feet. In her proper shape, the girl was fine boned and fragile, with corn-silk hair. Alejandro stared at her. Her exquisite delicacy was an entirely different order of beauty from Keziah’s burning splendor. The human girl was unconscious, but her breathing looked steady. Alejandro couldn’t tell about her shadow. Maybe she would be alright.
All but one of Vonhausel’s black dogs threw themselves to their knees or all the way down to their bellies, pressing their faces against the broken pavement. The man who stayed on his feet had been the quietest black dog, one with good control even after Vonhausel’s death and the turn of the battle. He had accepted the forced change without resistance. Now he was a tall man with slender hands, a high-boned face, and close-cropped dark hair outlining his skull. He stood very still for a long moment, then walked slowly toward Grayson.
No. Not toward Grayson. Toward Natividad. She pulled herself away from Alejandro and stared at the stranger, not exactly alarmed, but wary. But then she glanced up at Grayson, then at Ezekiel, and relaxed again.
The black dog dropped to one knee a few feet from them, but he spoke to Natividad rather than the Master. “Good job killing that bastard. That’s one good thing to come out of all this.” His tone was light and almost conversational. He even ignored Ezekiel, who had stepped around behind him. He spoke quietly, his vowels soft and round in an accent Alejandro did not recognize. He paused, then shrugged. “I just wanted to say that.”
“It wasn’t just me–” said Natividad.
The black dog shrugged again. “Near enough.”
“Étienne Lumondiere,” said Grayson.
The black dog turned to Grayson. He did not seem surprised to be addressed by name. Lumondiere… Alejandro had thought all the Lumondiere black wolves gone into the fell dark, but this one obviously had lived through the war. Only to come, somehow, into Vonhausel’s grip, until Natividad had freed him. Now the Frenchman lowered his gaze and waited to hear what the Dimilioc Master would say.
“You are far out of your usual territory,” Grayson observed.
“Yes,” said the black dog, in a calm, amused tone which Alejandro couldn’t help but admire. “Yes, and little enough profit I’ve had from my travels. If I were, by some remarkable chance, able to go home, I think I would never again leave.” He bowed his head low, fixing his gaze on the broken pavement at Grayson’s feet.
“You did not come here intending to join Malvern Vonhausel?”
The black dog shrugged. “I came to America to try to find the scattered remnants of my House – several Lumondiere wolves came here during the war. I cannot say what became of the others, but I…” He opened his hands. “As you see. Joining Vonhausel was… Actually, that was a surprise to me.”
Grayson’s expression didn’t change, yet he somehow looked faintly amused. He looked at Ezekiel, lifting one eyebrow in query.
Ezekiel glanced at Natividad, a look Alejandro couldn’t interpret. Then he shrugged. “Spare them all, if you like. It doesn’t make any difference to me. I can always kill them later.”
“Let go of your magic,” Grayson told Natividad. “Let it go, and we will all go home.”
“Oh, yes, please!” Natividad said longingly. But then she looked anxiously at Alejandro, reaching to pat his arm. “I can… I have to… But you – I never wanted to take away your shadow, ‘Jandro, and then put it back. That’s awful. I’m sorry…”<
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Alejandro touched her cheek. “It’s alright. Either way. Verdaderamente.”
She gazed into his face for another moment. Then at last she tried to smile, closed her eyes and did something to the shadowed circle that surrounded them all. It dissolved into the air, silver moonlight and black shadow and little flickers of crimson fire. Alejandro threw his head back as the darkness came across his sight; fire-edged shadows smothered him, he could not breathe, he was falling, he would die… His sister’s hand gripped his, one point of reference in the dark. Another hand, painfully strong, closed on his shoulder… The darkness shifted around him and snapped into focus with a shock that was almost but not quite physical. He drew a breath filled with familiar heat and anger, and recognized himself at last, his self defined by the constant need to draw the border between himself and his shadow, and more clearly than ever by his shadow’s absence.
Grayson looked at him closely. Then, frowning, he let him go and stepped back, his expression closed and neutral. “Good,” he said to Natividad, and walked away.
“Alejandro…” Natividad said tentatively, not quite a question.
“Yes,” said Alejandro. He got to his feet, and lifted his sister to hers with easy, familiar strength.
17
Natividad didn’t know which surprised her more: that Grayson should think for one minute about sparing the rest of Vonhausel’s black dogs or that Ezekiel shouldn’t care one way or the other. She had time to think about it during the long ride back to the Dimilioc house, though, and she decided that really neither reaction should have surprised her. Grayson had already made it very clear that he wanted to recruit a lot more black dogs, and probably Ezekiel thought she wouldn’t like watching him slaughter them. Or maybe he was just too tired to care. Anyway, he was totally right: he really could kill them all later. Probably he would kill some of them. They couldn’t all be from a civilized House like Étienne Lumondiere.
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