Black Dog Short Stories II

by Rachel Neumeier

  Ethan glanced at him, surprised. And then, after a second, not surprised at all. “It’s a lot like dealing with the Master of an allied house,” he said, keeping his voice low, pitched for black dog hearing. “He’s a tough bastard, and we want to be polite and not burn any bridges Grayson might want to cross later, but we don’t owe him obedience and we don’t trust him too far.”

  Thaddeus tilted his head to show he understood, but what he said, grimly, in the same low tone, was, “You think it’s a trap?”

  “If it is, we’re in it and Grayson is going to be seriously irritated. But I don’t think so. Or he wouldn’t let us keep coming, would he?” Because they’d almost reached the colonel, and once they were close enough, all the silver bullets in the world couldn’t keep a black dog from ripping the head right off an ordinary human. And they were damned near in arm’s reach right now. Thaddeus huffed a laugh, and Ethan stopped, met the colonel’s eyes because that was polite when you were talking to a human, and said formally, “Colonel Herrod. We understand you have a little problem here.”

  “These men are werewolves, Colonel,” one of the men, not the cop, put in sharply. He glowered at Thaddeus suspiciously. Not at Ethan, unsurprisingly. With his size and attitude, Thaddeus was the one who looked dangerous. And his face was just a little distorted already, which the man must have noticed—his shadow must be fighting to rise, or else he truly did not trust the colonel or the situation one bit. Well, Ethan had already known the other black dog was not a fool.

  But Herrod only said, without any particular emphasis, “They are independent consultants.” He nodded to Thaddeus, gripped Ethan’s arm, and led them both right past the still-protesting man and a whole wave of police officers, into the midst of his own men. The special forces people opened ranks to let their colonel and the black dogs through and closed again behind them, and suddenly no one was anywhere near except Herrod’s own men.

  Ethan let this happen. He was mainly just glad the colonel hadn’t tried to take Thaddeus’s arm—though Thaddeus had very good control, for a stray raised outside Dimilioc. Ethan would be embarrassed if his own control wasn’t at least that good. He strenuously put down his first impulse to tear off the colonel’s hand, instead allowing himself to be guided right into the middle of the special forces group. His shadow, too, was pressing him hard. It knew they were surrounded by enemies—by enemies with silver—by a huge number of enemies and a whole lot of silver. It took the colonel’s grip as a threat. As a stupid threat, from an ordinary weak human. It wanted to answer that threat with violence and blood.

  Ethan smiled without showing his teeth, drew back half a step when Colonel Herrod let him go in order to discourage the man from trying that again, and said diplomatically, “A hostage situation, I believe? That’s very unusual, for black dogs. Perhaps you’d lay out the problem a little more clearly and explain what you’d like us to do.”

  “Yes,” said Herrod. “One moment.” He turned to one of his men. “Handle the mayor’s aide. Say friendly, reassuring things until he seems happier.” Then, to someone else, a woman: “Get with Lieutenant Burke and make certain the police do absolutely nothing without orders from us.”

  “Harris is already sitting on Burke,” said the woman. She didn’t look at her commander, but watched Ethan and Thaddeus steadily—sensible, Ethan thought.

  “Go help Harris,” Herrod told her. Then, as she nodded and vanished, he turned back to his...consultants. Not prisoners, apparently. At least, if this was a trap, he was taking a very roundabout route toward springing it. He said briskly, “What we have here, it seems, is a bank robbery gone...sideways. We have the security feed, so I think I can tell you with some certainty that there were five men in the gang that attempted the robbery. We believe they’re all dead. So is a security guard and one of the bank tellers. There are twenty-seven people still in the main lobby area, not including two black dogs. They’ve been in there for going on three hours now. The black dogs do not seem to be allowing anyone to move. But nor have they killed any of the hostages, yet.” He didn’t say werewolves. He used the correct term as though he knew what it meant. In fact he didn’t, quite, or he would never have touched Ethan. This was probably not the time to discuss black dog sensibilities.

  “Who killed the guard and the teller?” Ethan asked.

  Herrod smiled thinly, not at all surprised by the question. “The bank robbers shot the guard when they made their initial move. They shot the teller to compel everyone else to cooperate with their demands. The black dogs then shifted form and killed the bank robbers Since that time, we have seen a quite astonishing lack of excitement in the lobby. It therefore seemed best to avoid any precipitous action that might...create excitement.”

  Ethan nodded. “Those aren’t ordinary strays. Or you’d already have had an ordinary bloodbath. All right, Colonel, exactly what do you want from us?”

  “Our first priority is ensuring the safety of the hostages. Our second priority is getting your people out of the bank. Since the bank is, as you can see, built to withstand attack, and since we have no way to talk to the black dogs, who do not seem inclined to pick up a ringing phone, both objectives present practical difficulties.”

  Yeah, Ethan wouldn’t want to try to storm that building unless he had a tank. The whole thing really did look pretty much like one solid vault. Sure, there were windows, but they were small as well as barred. Probably the glass was bulletproof, too. He studied Herrod, whose dark face was impenetrably calm. If the colonel had a third priority, he clearly wasn’t going to mention it to Ethan. Ethan nodded again, soberly, just as though he had no memory of the colonel trying to take him and Alejandro prisoner that other time. Just as though the possibility of a trap had never occurred to him. He said, “From your account, those black dogs are not perpetrators. They’ve simply defended themselves. In fact, they may have saved everyone in there from your trigger-happy bank robbers. We want custody of them.”

  “We can agree to that.”

  No argument, no debate. Right. But Ethan only asked, “Is the mayor’s aide going to agree?”

  “I have jurisdiction,” Colonel Herrod assured him smoothly, and smiled.

  Yeah, that was reassuring. Well, it actually was, in some ways. Not so much, in others. Ethan said, striving for his blandest tone, “Then there’s no problem. This shouldn’t take long. Ten minutes, maybe.” Then he said to Thaddeus, “Come on,” and led the way toward the bank. The special forces people moved out of the way, and closed again at their backs.

  “He said he could agree to that, not that he did agree to it,” Thaddeus muttered as they crossed the street.

  “Yeah, I noticed that.” Ethan laid a hand on the bank door and added, “Listen, I’m not going to shift unless I have to. I’m going to deal with the hostages. I want you to handle the black dogs. Don’t kill them. Force them into human shape so we can get a look at them. I want to know who they are.”

  Thaddeus nodded, his face and hands distorting further. He was already bulking up, and if they didn’t get through the door pretty damn soon, he wasn’t going to fit. Ethan turned, shoved the door open, and just walked into the bank lobby. No hesitation, no pause for reflection, just straight in, except that the very first thing Ethan did once they were inside was look at the door, find the set of quite impressive deadbolts, and lock the door tight behind them. Luckily it didn’t take a key, just physically flipping the levers. There. No one would be coming in at their backs now, at least not very damn easily.

  Like any bank lobby at a main branch, it was big, mostly empty space broken here and there with pseudo-Greek pillars, small groups of plush chairs around low tables, or higher tables where people could stand for a minute to sign checks or whatever. The floor was marble, or it looked like marble to Ethan’s inexpert eye. A high ceiling, dotted with those black glass bubbles that hid security cameras. Undoubtedly the images from those cameras had a rapt audience; that was something to keep in mind. Flowers on the desks, p
aintings on the walls, all that kind of thing. Semi-private cubicles to one side, the row of teller’s windows to the other side, a couple doors leading into the interior of the bank. The doors were closed.

  And, at the moment, a lot of scared people, tucked singly or in small groups behind desks and partitions and overturned chairs. The dead ones weren’t tucked away, of course; they were mostly sprawled out in the open. There was a whole lot of blood, mostly puddled on the floor, but some of it spattered across walls and cubicle partitions. Guns, too, mostly lying near the dead men, and a damn good thing none of the hostages had tried to get one and shoot the black dogs because Ethan could tell even through the scent of the blood that none of the guns were loaded with silver. Shoot a black dog with normal ammunition and you’d probably just make him mad.

  The two black dogs were at the far end of the lobby. They had both pivoted toward the big main doors when Ethan had opened them. Now one of them made a sound between a cough and a roar, and everyone in the room flinched and cowered. The scents of fear and blood were powerful, intoxicating. Ethan’s opinion of those two black dogs went up a notch. They must have very good control, or they wouldn’t have been able to resist killing everyone in the lobby. Ethan felt the urge to do that himself, and he was Dimilioc. These two black dogs had fought back that bloodlust for hours, even when penned up and surrounded by enemies—they had to be aware of all those cops and special forces people out there, that was why they were still in here. No black dog was born with control as good as that. No. This kind of control was the result of rigorous training. And he was almost certain both of those black dogs must also have had the Beschwichtigand, the Calming.

  He called to them, “Hey, you want to do this the easy way or the hard way? Shift to human, right now, you hear me?” But he was pretty sure neither of the black dogs was going to be able to follow that order. He guessed, just looking at them, that they were scared and furious and had both probably lost language. A lot of black dogs lost human speech when they shifted, especially when were upset. No matter how good their control was, they were probably going to break –

  Then one of them did break, and charged him. The second lunged after the first, joining in or trying to stop his partner, it wasn’t clear.

  Thaddeus shouldered past him, and Ethan said sharply, “Don’t kill them!”, repeating his earlier order because it was going to be hard to remember when the fun started. Then, affecting nonchalance as Thaddeus met the strangers’ attack, he looked around at all the hostages. Ignoring the fight, he said in a loud voice, just as polite as could be, “It’s been a tough couple of hours, I know, but if all you ladies and gentlemen will just stay calm and quiet for a few more minutes, we’ll get this taken care of and you can all go home and have dinner with your families tonight, okay?”

  There, that sounded reassuring, didn’t it? If none of the hostages had panicked so far, maybe none would. Most of the ones he could see were peeking around or over furniture. One man, a distinguished-looking older guy in a gray suit with a muted-pink shirt, was sitting in the doorway of a cubicle, blocking the doorway. Ethan could see several young women, probably bank employees, hiding in that cubicle. The guy was a white knight, apparently, but not stupid about it or he’d probably have tried to get one of the guns long before this. That would have been a disaster, but if it hadn’t happened yet, probably it’d be okay –

  There was a roar and a crash behind him, which Ethan pretended not to notice. A covert glance was reassuring. Thaddeus had bodily picking up one of the other black dogs and thrown him twenty feet—not in the direction of any of the hostages, fortunately—to slam into a big desk. The desk must have been super heavy, or maybe bolted to the floor, because it didn’t skid under that blow. Most of the hostages had flinched and gasped at the crash, but none of them broke for the door, so that was all right, for now. Ethan began collecting all the fallen guns, though, because he didn’t want to risk anybody trying to grab one now that all the black dogs seemed to be occupied. Letting himself or Thaddeus get shot at the last minute by one of the hostages would be ridiculous. Besides, even ordinary bullets could kill a black dog if he was hit just right. Ethan unloaded each gun and set them all aside on one of the tables, keeping half an eye on the fight going on across the lobby.

  It wasn’t really a fair fight, even though it was two on one. Ethan had seen Thaddeus fight before, but never when he had been in human form himself and staying out of it. Now he had a ringside seat, so he could really see how, compared to the other two black dogs...there just was no comparison. Fully transformed, Thaddeus was bigger than any other black dog Ethan had ever seen—even bigger than Ethan’s father had been, and Harrison Lanning had been massive. Thaddeus must be half a ton if he was an ounce, except that he carried a lot of his weight in his shadow, so he was also superbly light on his feet. Superbly fast. Not as fast as Ezekiel, but no one was that fast. Thaddeus was certainly faster than either of those strangers.

  On the other hand, the two unknown black dogs fought as a team—Ethan wasn’t at all surprised, though working together didn’t come naturally to black dogs. Even so, they wouldn’t have been any kind of match for Thaddeus, except they were trying to kill him, and he was trying not to kill them. That could be a problem. Ethan thoughtfully looked over the last of the guns, lifted it, and shot one of the two black dogs in the gut when he reared up. Just once. He didn’t want to kill him; that would be embarrassing after he’d told Thaddeus to restrain himself.

  The gut-shot black dog screamed and lunged toward Ethan, and Thaddeus took the chance to rip claws across his side and belly, and that did it—the black dog was down, contorting helplessly into human form, his shadow taking the injuries that would otherwise have killed him. The other one, silent and furious, got between the first and Thaddeus, who simply bulled forward, drove his opponent down with his overwhelming weight, snapped powerful jaws just once, and flung him aside. That one, too, was already mostly in human form when he smashed into a pillar and collapsed to the floor.

  Thaddeus backed away from his two opponents, snarling but not pressing for the kill. Good for him. Ethan watched carefully, but everything looked fine. The two black dogs were trying to get up, but they were both still in human form, unable to shift back yet. If either of them took a serious injury now, their shadows might not be able to take it away. They were vulnerable, desperately vulnerable, and when Thaddeus snarled, a low deadly sound, one of them flattened down in submission. The other gripped a nearby desk and hauled himself up, rubbing a shaking hand across his mouth, probably trying to recover human speech. That one would be the leader of the pair, then.

  Ethan was surprised Thaddeus could restrain himself well enough not to smash that one back to the floor, but he tried to look like nothing had ever surprised him in his life. He said briskly, “Good job.” Then he glanced around at the hostages, who were still, astonishingly, behaving like good little hostages and not tempting fate. He pointed to the man in the pink shirt, who definitely seemed one of the steadiest. “You,” he said. And remembered to add, “Sir.”

  The man straightened, tensing, his hand shifting before he wisely stopped all movement. He met Ethan’s eyes, but he didn’t mean anything by it, probably, and anyway he was still sitting on the floor.

  “Time for everyone to leave. Get that organized, please,” Ethan told him. “One of those doors over there, not the main door, you understand? Fine, then. No screaming, shouting, or running. One little group at a time. Have everyone walk quietly, single file. See to that, please. Not you, though. You’re a bank official, aren’t you?”

  “I’m the manager. Brian McNamara.”

  “Great. That’s perfect. Then you stick around in case we need anything else, okay, Mr. McNamara? Thank you for your cooperation.”

  The manager didn’t ask any questions. He got to his feet slowly, plainly stiff after sitting on the floor that long. He glanced from Ethan to Thaddeus and back again as he moved, and kept an eye on the other two bl
ack dogs as well, especially the one on his feet. Thaddeus was the only one in black dog form now, but clearly the man didn’t take any of them lightly, which was another reason to respect his good sense.

  Then something about the way the man moved and stood struck Ethan, and he asked sharply, “Sir, are you armed?”

  At this question, Thaddeus turned his head, so he hadn’t lost language after all, or else he’d gotten it back when the situation had started to calm down. His eyes glowed with lambent fire, and he curled a lip to show jet-black fangs.

  McNamara stood very still. “Yes,” he said, in a voice that was admirably steady.

  “Well, you’ve been very sensible so far,” Ethan said calmly. “Let’s keep that going, sir. Everyone’s safe now. Take your weapon out, unload it, and put it back in your pocket...just drop the clip, if you don’t mind...good,” he added, as the bank manager obeyed.

  It was a small gun and Ethan could tell the bullets weren’t silver, but everything was under control now and he definitely did not want to tempt fate by letting anybody get shot unexpectedly. Definitely not. He would never be able to explain to Grayson if he let things go to hell now. “Very good. All right. Go on. Those nearest the door first, please. No hurry. Everything’s fine. No hurry at all.” He shoved his hands in his pockets in order to look more nearly harmless and pretended to pay no attention as McNamara started quietly directing the other hostages out of the lobby through one of the smaller interior doors. He had to unlock it first, but that was no problem, since naturally he had a key. McNamara made no move to get out himself, at least not yet. He’d had been making all the right moves so far. He was clearly a very brave man, and clearly he kept his head in a crisis. So far he seemed exactly what Ethan would have hoped for if he’d thought the scenario through for an hour before walking into this bank.

  Pretending to pay no attention to the slow retreat of the hostages, Ethan walked across the lobby toward the nearer black dog, the one on his feet.