Black Dog Short Stories II

by Rachel Neumeier

  Even if that happened, they’d get the doors open again. Justin knew that. But the idea of those doors slamming shut still sent cold shudders running down his spine until they were through each one and hurrying at last through the desert sunlight spilling down the last flight of stairs, and...out into the light.

  Justin stopped, blinking through dazzling light. It seemed like they’d been down there in the dark for a lot longer than a few minutes. The sun was still high overhead, the brilliant winter sunlight pouring down around them. It seemed like it should be midnight. He was so glad it wasn’t.

  He stood with his arm around Grandmama Leushin, and behind him Father Stepan was assisting Mrs. Farris, who was showing her age at last, and probably not as an act this time. The three black dogs had gone up first. Justin knew why, though he would never have put it into words. If he’d feared the black witch getting ahead of them and locking them down in the dark, the black dogs must have been terrified at the far more rational idea that Kristoff might come up behind them and put his will on them, the way he’d done on Keziah.

  She had a vivid cross-shaped mark on her throat where that big silver crucifix had burned her. It had burned right through her shaggy black-dog pelt, leaving a red, raw mark on her human skin when she shifted back. It looked even worse in bright sunlight than it had underground. Silver-burned, that mark would take weeks to heal, probably. Keziah was pretending it didn’t hurt, thought her jaw had set tight and her eyes were narrow with anger and—Justin was sure—pain. She hadn’t said a word about it, not to Justin and certainly not to Father Stepan.

  Father Stepan hadn’t said a word about that mark, either. He and Keziah were now standing several yards apart, on opposite sides of the small group, carefully not looking at each other. Justin imagined neither one was going to be very comfortable with what had happened; neither Keziah who had been so briefly enslaved, nor the priest who had, apparently successfully, called on God to free a girl who still, inarguably, harbored a different kind of demon. It probably raised all kinds of questions about black dogs and demonic forces and God and everything. Justin was just as glad he didn’t have to offer an opinion about any of that.

  “Well,” Grandmama Leushin said, interrupting these thoughts. She pushed away from Justin, turning to gaze up into his face. She was shivering a little, even out here in the sunlight, but her voice was just as he remembered, firm and confident. “Well. Justin. I did tell you not to come. I honestly don’t know what I would have said to your mother if anything had happened to you. Heaven knows if I’d have had the nerve to visit her grave ever again.”

  Justin didn’t point out that, first, he could hardly have turned around and just left her in trouble; and second, that if he hadn’t come, his grandmother would have been lucky to wind up in a decent grave of her own. He said, keeping his voice mild, “I didn’t expect quite that much trouble. I figured my friends could handle anything. I thought probably some mundane problem, or just possibly a black dog was threatening you, something normal like that.” He paused, because it did sound a little odd when he put it that way. But he didn’t pause to think about it. He said instead, firmly, “I figured my friends and I could handle anything except finding you dead.”

  “Um.” His grandmother studied Keziah, who was looking very nearly as arrogant and assured as ever, but...not quite. And not like she would welcome anybody noticing any new trace of uncertainty that might be affecting her, either.

  After a second, Grandmama Leushin gave her a provisional nod of approval and nodded to Amira, who had tucked herself against Keziah’s side as though she needed comfort, which to Justin was pretty obviously a pretext for offering it. His grandmother’s gaze softened. She said to Justin, “I am sorry about that, Justin, but when you said you were bringing friends, this is not exactly what I imagined. Perhaps if you’d explained –”

  Keziah crossed her arms over her chest and tilted her head, her eyes narrowing dangerously. Justin said quickly, “Well, I don’t know, Grandmama, maybe if you’d warned me witches were after you, we’d have been a little better prepared. Did you know about that, Grandmama?” The silvery Escheresque curves of Pure magic were a lot brighter around her now. And around Mrs. Farris. Still not as clear as around Natividad or the other Pure girls and women he’d met, but...better. Like the muffling fog was still present, but thinning. “Did you know...what do you know? About me? About...my mother?”

  “Not as much as I thought, probably,” his grandmother admitted. “Not enough to expect you to make...this kind of friend. You needed my friends as well, I gather.” She didn’t glance toward Keziah, nor the cross-shaped burn on her throat. She only added, “ I’m so glad they were there for you, Justin. Father Stepan, it was so kind of you to help my grandson, but it was a terrible risk for you. What if you’d killed that man? He was human, you know.”

  “After the first two bullets bounced off, I was fairly certain shooting him wasn’t likely to be very effective,” Father Stepan said mildly. “I was willing to take the risk. I’m not quite certain what my confessor will say about this…incident, I admit.”

  “Demonic entities are properly a priest’s concern; that was settled years ago when the monsters appeared. And that man was definitely harboring a demonic entity.” Grandmama Leushin shook her head. “I must admit, you and Anya were quite right about carrying a gun with silver bullets. But I was right, too. Silver’s not enough, not by itself. That was poor little Yelena, you know. They fed her to their . . .” she paused.

  “Pet?” Keziah suggested, her tone soft and dry and bitter as ashes.

  “Well, that imprudent ass Kristoff certainly seems to think so,” Grandmama Leushin said tartly. “Chains break, don’t they? All chains break, in the end. It’ll be his master one of these days, and I don’t imagine he’ll enjoy that.”

  “Neither will anyone else, I fear,” Father Stepan murmured.

  “No, probably not,” Grandmama Leushin conceded. She sighed. She was looking better, though still not well. The glance she sent around the wide desert and camouflaged door and waiting car was indecisive.

  Nicholas looked up, got to his feet, and walked over to join them. “I can seal that door, probably,” he said without preamble. “Heat it up, melt it shut. The door’s metal, so’s the frame. But there have to be other doors.”

  “Young man, we must certainly recover Yelena’s body,” stated Mrs. Farris. “And inform the proper authorities. If we are to find ourselves facing witches –” her lip curled slightly on the term—“we had best be certain everyone knows it.”

  Father Stepan inclined his head. “Corruption prospers best in secret, whether it involves black magic or the old-fashioned venality of ordinary sin.”

  “Well,” said Justin, looking at Keziah, “Somebody can call the police; that’s fine. But I’m pretty sure I know who else ought to be informed about...all this. As soon as possible.”

  “Yes,” Keziah agreed, not very happily.

  “Hot chocolate,” Justin told her. “My grandmother makes it so thick you can almost stand a spoon up in it. We all need hot chocolate, in a nice comfortable kitchen where the house is surrounded by a really strong mandala. And then you can call Grayson. Or I will.”

  “I will call him,” Keziah said, and sighed. “He will be pleased you are safe, at least. Perhaps Natividad will know something to do, to protect us all against that kind of witchcraft.” She was still trying not to let anybody see her horror at what had happened to her, but nevertheless she came and put an arm around Justin’s shoulders, and let him put his own arm around her waist and hold her. “Why do these terrible things always happen when I go somewhere with you?”

  “Hey, as long as we always have friends to help us survive them,” Justin told her, and tightened his arm around Keziah, trying not to think of what might have happened.

  “Hot chocolate?” Amira reminded them all, hopefully.

  “Thick enough to stand a spoon up in it,” Grandmama Leushin promised, and patte
d Amira on the shoulder exactly like she was an ordinary grandmother, and Amira an ordinary little girl. Justin couldn’t help but laugh at that, and at the sheer pleasure and relief of being alive and out in the sunlight. It had been a terrible beginning for this visit...but maybe not a terrible introduction of his friends to his grandmother.

  Endnotes

  I hope you enjoyed this second set of short stories set in the world of Black Dog!

  The Black Dog series now includes, in internal chronological order as well as order of publication:

  1. BLACK DOG

  2. BLACK DOG SHORT STORIES

  3. PURE MAGIC

  4. BLACK DOG SHORT STORIES II

  5. SHADOW TWIN (forthcoming early 2017)

  The total series should eventually include five novels, with a set of short stories set between each novel and the one following.

  For news about the Black Dog series and about my other fantasy novels, please visit www.rachelneumeier.com. To stay informed about recent releases, subscribe to my newsletter when you drop by my website.

  If you enjoyed this or any other book of mine, I’d appreciate it if you would leave a review at Goodreads or Amazon.

  Below you’ll find an essay explaining the history and nature of witches and witchcraft in the Black Dog world. Enjoy!

  Witches and Witchcraft in the Black Dog World

  These days, there aren’t any vampires left in the natural world. Or not many. Or we hope not. But we know that vampires had a tremendous influence on human affairs for thousands of years, spinning webs of corruption and despair within human communities wherever they established a power base.

  We know, of course, that the demonic entities we call vampires invade the human world by inhabiting corrupted corpses. How exactly the corpse becomes corrupted...that’s less well known. We know that the bite of a master vampire allows the demon to infect and corrupt an ordinary person, creating lesser vampires (if the infected person dies) or blood kin (if the infected person lives). But how did the whole thing get started? How did the first vampire gain access to a human corpse in the first place?

  Black dogs and vampires have been enemies, or at least rivals, practically forever. Naturally we know that a person is born a black dog, with a demonic entity bound to him or her. When you think about it, you may not think this seems like something which is likely to happen spontaneously, even in a world filled with demonic influences and other kinds of magic.

  We know that if a black dog bites someone, the unfortunate person is at dire risk of becoming a moon-bound shifter: infected by a demon that forces its way up through the corrupted soul when the moon is full, manifesting in a monstrous form. All this is obviously grossly similar to what happens with vampires, but quite different in detail.

  The two kinds of entities are not the same. Where a vampire strives to corrupt and ruin mortal people and institutions and cities, black dogs love power and want to rule. Black dogs are vicious and sadistic and enjoy inflicting pain and fear, and societies where they gain power become brutal, but even that isn’t as bad as the slow rot and decay that afflict cities where vampires take control. We know all that, yes, but how and when did the first black dogs appear?

  The answer to both questions is the same: witches did it.

  In our world, the popular view of witchcraft has gradually changed from dire evil that involves a deal with the Devil to the modern conception of Wicca and so forth. In the world of Black Dog, there is no such thing as Wicca, and witchcraft actually does involve a deal with the Devil. Or at least with demonic entities. In exchange for power in this world, the ambitious witch allows a demon to establish a foothold in his (or her) soul.

  As you might imagine, this carries certain intrinsic risks.

  Many thousands of years ago, in southern and central regions of Africa, spiteful witches were already working secretly to harm others. Other kinds of people worked to balk them with other kinds of ceremonial magic, of course. But from the earliest days of humanity, witchcraft spread across the continent and then outward to other regions of the world, though the exact methods used by witches differed from one area to the next.

  Most witchcraft was petty stuff: curses and ill-wishes. In the Black Dog world, pettiness is in fact intrinsic to witchcraft, for two reasons. First, anybody drawn to witchcraft is probably not very good at long-term planning, a personality flaw which is highly exploitable by demonic influence. And second, the practice of witchcraft inherently tends to focus the mind and attention on day-to-day selfish concerns, rarely leaving room for large-scale ambition. However, as witches experimented and practiced and gathered knowledge, witchcraft, though still generally focused on narrow personal concerns, became stronger and darker and harder to thwart.

  There were at this time hundreds of words for witches and witchcraft; as many as there were languages. But one thing was common to all conceptions of witchcraft—that witches were always evil, and that the power of witchcraft came through possession by evil spirits, which endowed the witch with supernatural power to do harm. As humanity spread out of Africa into other continents, people carried with them their understanding of the supernatural, and of course they also carried with them all the normal human inclinations toward ill and toward healing.

  Civilizations rose and fell. Some are remembered now, though faintly; and some are entirely forgotten. In all of them, witches worked their curses and ill-wishes. Sometimes, here or there, a witch learned enough and became powerful enough to cause real harm. Every now and then, such a witch stretched that little bit too far, reached for power that was not really understood or could not be entirely controlled.

  Inviting an evil spirit to possess you, while sometimes an effective pathway to power, turned out not to be entirely safe. Somewhere, thousands of years ago—no doubt on various different occasions in various different places—a witch summoned an evil spirit, was possessed by it, lost control of the witchcraft, and became a black dog. Each time this happened, it was bad, but not end-of-the-world bad. We all know that the curse turned out to be transmissible through the generations, and transmissible in a weaker form by contagion. Nevertheless, though black dogs were certainly dangerous, they weren’t much more so than any ordinary thug. Black dogs had trouble concealing themselves among ordinary people. They tended to flee society, and when they caused too much trouble, they could be hunted down and killed. Everyone knew that silver could kill a black dog, and everywhere there were priests or shamans or other holy people who could face down black dogs. In general terms, ordinary people could cope with black dogs.

  Or they could, until a witch somewhere—maybe more than one—made a much worse mistake.

  Somewhere a witch decided that it was too dangerous to call an evil spirit to possess him (or her). Somewhere a learned and careful and ambitious witch decided it would be far better if the evil spirit was called instead to possess a corpse. Or perhaps a witch tried to prolong his own existence after death, using the demon bound to his soul to magically keep his body functioning after death. Maybe that even worked, here and there, now and then.

  Eventually, two or three thousand years ago, such an experiment created the first vampire.

  It might have happened in Egypt. Or Assyria. (Not China—there were always dragons in China, and dragons are proof against all things demonic.) But in some land where there were no natural protections against demonic influence, a corpse opened its eyes and a vampire rose.

  Once it defeated the control of its summoning witch, the first vampire made others, of course. Perhaps it forced the witch to make others. Certainly it quickly learned to make living people look away from it, look somewhere else, see something else: from the beginning, vampires could influence the minds of ordinary people. It also learned how to turn living people into blood kin—slaves it controlled by the force of its will.

  No one now knows whether the first vampire already knew or guessed that if enough vampires could be made, their ability to cloud minds and turn away the ey
es of their enemies and force obedience would spread out…and out…and finally settle as a permanent miasma across the minds of ordinary people everywhere. Perhaps the vampires worked purposefully for this, or perhaps they just made the miasma as bees make honey: mindlessly following some instinct peculiar to their kind.

  But vampires had another effect on the world, perhaps less obvious: in much of the world, they suppressed witchcraft. For hundreds—thousands—of years, the miasma prevented most people from even thinking about magic and demons. Often, the vampire miasma prevented people who might have become witches from noticing grimoires, even if one was already on a shelf in someone’s library.

  Of course some potential witches were less affected by the miasma—you will recall from the essay on black dog genetics that some people are naturally resistant to all kinds of demonic influence. In some parts of Africa and in Polynesia, witches were more common or the type of witchcraft practiced was particularly difficult for vampires to suppress, and in those regions vampires never established themselves and witchcraft continued to be practiced on a wider scale (along with many different methods of resisting and countering witchcraft).