Black Dog (46 page)

 The pentagram came alight as she drew it. Natividad could feel the power in it before she even sent the light pressing outward against the surrounding darkness. The power felt strange, as the power of her mandala had felt strange: not weaker, but different. Its light was strange, too, dabbed and mottled with patches of shadow.

She almost thought she
did
remember Mamá making a pentagram sort of like this, or, well, not a
pentagram
. A spiral or a helix, something to draw the eyes of enemies inward. Mamá would have made a spiral to keep Vonhausel's attention focused on her and Papá, away from her children. But what else… What else might Mamá have meant her spiral to collect? Black dog shadows? Natividad almost thought Mamá had done something…
Papá
had helped her. Right at the last. When fighting wasn't enough, when a black dog couldn't do anything, Papá had done something else, or he'd tried to. Mamá had done something, something with Pure magic and
Papá's
shadow… Fire, fire in the dark, and the earth cracking open, and then blood, so much blood…

Alejandro crowded close to Natividad's pentagram, jostling her, putting the mottled light at his back. He snarled his defiance at them all, and Natividad lost the memory she had almost captured, and was glad. She felt sick with dread and grief.

Vonhausel shook his head, like a chiding adult faced with annoying children.
He
didn't seem afraid of the moonlight or the pentagram or the
aparato
Natividad had made or anything. He didn't even bother to slide into his black dog form, but walked forward in his human shape. The dull crimson glow from the smoldering fires and the broken earth surrounded him, clung to him, filled his eyes, and dripped from his fingers when he reached out toward Natividad. She cringed. She couldn't help it. Vonhausel was going to reach right through her pentagram, she knew it: nothing she'd done would even begin to slow him down. Alejandro was crouched, preparing to lunge at him, and he would kill her brother and then he'd do whatever he wanted to her. He'd said she would be
useful
to him…

Then a long, resonant howl that was almost a roar echoed and re-echoed through the night, and all of Vonhausel's black dogs lifted their heads, listening. Natividad, listening also, couldn't believe what she was sure she heard. But the howl echoed again, undeniable, until she had to believe it. Grayson Lanning and all the Dimilioc wolves had come after all.

16

 

Alejandro was astonished by the arrival of the Dimilioc wolves. He didn't understand it, but he didn't wait for the Dimilioc wolves to close with the black dogs of the shadow pack, either. He hurled himself straight at Vonhausel, who in his arrogance was still in his vulnerable human form. But Vonhausel only gave way before his first raking blow, and though Alejandro's claws ripped right across his belly, his shadow roiled around him and his wounds closed immediately. Vonhausel did not have to use the
cambio de cuerpo
to get his shadow to carry away his injuries; his shadow could just take them away as they were dealt. Alejandro had never fought anything that could not be wounded. It was like fighting a vampire, only worse. Even the strongest of the vampires and their blood kin had been vulnerable to a black dog's determined attack.

Nor was Vonhausel going to stop at merely showing off his control over his shadow: he was now allowing himself to slide into the
cambio
after all. His change was almost as swift and effortless as Ezekiel's, and from the vicious ferocity of his smile as he changed, he intended to enjoy the blood and death of the Dimilioc wolves, and then enjoy putting their shadows back in their dead bodies. That terrible smile lingered longest, because Vonhausel's head and face changed last. It was utterly grotesque, that human head and face, changing but still recognizable, on the brutal black dog body. He lunged forward even before he was all the way changed, his jaw lengthening into a muzzle as he leaped, jet-black fangs glinting in the ruddy light of the low-smoldering fires. Alejandro leaped away.

Shots cracked out, one-two-three and then two more in quick succession, and Vonhausel staggered, fell, rolled, and was up on his feet again at once, and rushing now at Natividad. Alejandro lunged, crashed into him, bore him to the ground with weight and speed. He slashed, trying to tear out Vonhausel's throat – surely that would at least slow him down – but his fangs only raked his enemy's shoulder, and Vonhausel was both stronger and faster. His jaws closed on Alejandro's foreleg, crushing as well as tearing, and his claws ripped across Alejandro's side and flank. Now Alejandro only wanted to get away, get clear – his shadow, furious, wanted to press the attack but did not dare. Under the pressure of that conflict, all Alejandro's rage and fear was transmuted to a furious desire for murder and destruction. Alejandro fought to break away from Vonhausel, but he also had to fight his own shadow, and knew all the time that he was losing both battles.

Then Keziah dropped from above as though she had simply appeared out of air and darkness. She pounced like a great cat on Vonhausel, ripping with fangs and claws at his neck and face and shoulders. He whirled, trying to shake her loose, but she had her claws set fast and did not lose her grip. She had leaped down from the remnants of the church; Alejandro understood that after the first instant. He could not imagine how she had got around all the enemy black dogs and up onto the jumbled timbers and stones, but he was desperately glad for her appearance. He had forgotten that she would be here, hidden; that she must have come here before Natividad had even arrived; that she could call Dimilioc with the phone he himself had given her. Though he was still astonished Grayson had brought his wolves against Vonhausel.

Natividad, ducking low, darted from the relative safety of her pentagram to throw her arms around his neck. Straightening into human form, half blind and nearly wordless from the
cambio
,
he put his arm around his sister's shoulders and let her guide him, as quickly as he could move, back toward the pentagram. His arm ached even after the change, so he knew the bone had been badly broken; no guessing how long the limb would be weak. His side hurt, too, where Vonhausel's claws had torn at him.

Once safe – safer – in Natividad's pentagram, it was possible to understand a little more of the ongoing battle. Like any black dog, Alejandro loved to fight and kill – but not in a battle like this one, against creatures that weren't exactly black dogs and couldn't be killed. All the Dimilioc wolves were battling such creatures.

Grayson Lanning fought the dead corpse of his brother, but could neither injure him nor force down the shadow possessing the corpse. But he held his own, and at least he faced no other immediate enemies. This was not the case for Ezekiel, fighting the shadow-creature who had been Zachariah. The
verdugo
was hard pressed by several other black dogs also, including another of the undead creatures who could not be wounded.

Ezekiel flickered back and forth between human and black dog forms with his usual fluidity. If facing his dead uncle horrified him, the horror didn't translate to any loss of speed or deadliness: as Alejandro watched, the
verdugo
ducked his head and chopped sideways, catching and crushing his opponent's foot in his powerful jaws and nearly wrenching off the whole limb with a powerful shake of his head. Not even the shadow-possessed Zachariah could ignore so serious an injury, withdrawing step by lame step. But there were more of Vonhausel's black dogs to prevent Ezekiel from pressing his advantage against Zachariah or attacking Vonhausel.

Ethan hurtled out of the dark to slash left and right at Ezekiel's living enemies, then fell back to defend the
verdugo
's
left flank from a shadow-possessed black dog who had not, thankfully, ever been a Dimilioc wolf. But even with that support Ezekiel could press forward only slowly toward his target – clearly he was trying to reach Vonhausel and just as clearly, embattled as he was, he was not going to be able to close with the master of the shadow pack unless Vonhausel allowed it. Which he was not going to.

Vonhausel had thrown Keziah from his back and stalked her, now; Keziah evaded his attack by retreating toward Ezekiel, then whirled to face black dogs pressing the
verdugo
from the right – at least those seemed to be ordinary black dogs who could be killed. Alejandro hadn't seen Amira anywhere near when Keziah had struck at Vonhausel, but the little female black dog was with Keziah now, and no enemy seemed able to get through their defense. For the first time, it seemed possible that Ezekiel might reach Vonhausel – but Vonhausel was not staying to meet him, but racing away, back up onto the tumbled wreckage of the church.

Thaddeus Williams, half changed, his silver blade in one clawed hand, huge even among the crowd of ordinarily massive black dogs, had meanwhile been fighting half a dozen enemies, not quite on his own: the Dimilioc wolves had brought Cass Pearson along with them. The slim little shifter seemed no match for the much bigger black dogs, but she was wickedly quick and savage, and entirely fearless – Alejandro saw her slice her claws across the throat of an enemy black dog twice her size, then spin to snap at the face of another. She leaped away from her enemy's return strike and darted forward to slash at the rear legs of one of Thaddeus's opponents, trying to hamstring him.
That
injury would certainly challenge a black dog's healing ability, but her attack was even more effective than Alejandro had expected, because when the black dog whirled to face her, Thaddeus lunged forward, ripped his knife across the black dog's throat, tore his head off and threw it like a missile, thirty feet or more, to smash into one of the shadow black dogs fighting Ezekiel. Alejandro was certain – almost certain – that actual beheading was something that not even Vonhausel could repair.

And all the time, the
crack-crack-crack
of rifle fire went on: how Grayson had got humans here from the Dimilioc house so fast was a mystery, but however he had managed it, the gunmen were firing all the time. Dimilioc might almost have brought twice the number of black wolves to this battle – Alejandro couldn't believe how
enorme
a difference the gunmen made. One after another of Vonhausel's black dogs went down howling, the silver bullets leaving smoking tracks through their bodies.

If all the enemies had been ordinary black dogs, that would have surely been enough to shift the battle in Dimilioc's favor. But the silver didn't work as it should have on Vonhausel's dead-shadow black dogs. Alejandro saw one bullet after another strike Zachariah, strike Harrison, strike another of the shadow-possessed black dogs. But the undead black dogs did not fall. They might stumble or hesitate. But then they pressed forward again. Black dogs couldn't do that; vampires could not have done that. But these creatures could.

Alejandro wished that the Dimilioc Master or the executioner would do what Thaddeus had done: tear off their enemies' heads, or at least limbs – inflict damage which would actually
count
. But the press of fighting was too intense and they couldn't. It amazed Alejandro that the Dimilioc wolves continued to fight, that they had come here at all – that they did not retreat. They must have recognized now that they would all die here. Unless they could kill Vonhausel before they were all overwhelmed and dragged down. And Vonhausel was staying far away from any enemy who might kill him.

“I'll go,” Alejandro said, barely aware he'd spoken aloud. “I'll help Ethan, help them all get Ezekiel clear. If the rest of us can just get him clear of those black dogs and let him reach Vonhausel–”

“No!” Natividad said sharply. She was up on her toes, her eyes brilliant with shock and terror. She was staring at Vonhausel, who had bent to do something to one of his freshly killed black dogs. It shook its head and rolled to its feet. So fast. Vonhausel had caught a shadow to possess that dead black dog so
fast
. Alejandro started to leave the pentagram, heading toward the wild tangle of combat surrounding Ezekiel.

Natividad gripped Alejandro's arm hard. Alejandro hesitated. He was losing language; he couldn't frame an argument in either English or Spanish. But he
had
to go; obviously Dimilioc needed all its black wolves for this battle. He shook himself free of his sister's grip, calling his shadow up, inviting the
cambio
.
The lingering weakness of his recently broken limb was not good, but if Ezekiel could still fight, so could he–

“No!” Natividad said again. She caught Alejandro's arm again, this time with both her hands. “Alejandro, no, you'll just get killed and it won't make any difference anyway!”

Her words went past Alejandro like wind in the leaves. He heard her and knew she was upset, but he would have had to stop and think hard to make sense of what she had said. And there was no time for that. He could see another of the undead black dogs closing on Ezekiel, and now another undead black dog had joined Harrison, and what if
Grayson
was killed? It didn't bear thinking on, and yet it could happen, and Alejandro just stood here like an ordinary helpless human…

Vonhausel himself, in black dog form, was standing over the body of yet another of his own black dogs. He merely beckoned to it, and that dead black dog got to its feet, looking around with burning eyes that contained no trace of humanity. It shook itself and headed for Ezekiel. Worse, toward the periphery of the battle, Alejandro could see black dogs heading out into the night – going, he was sure, to stalk the men with the guns. If Dimilioc lost the supporting fire of the gunmen, the battle would be over, the slaughter of the remaining Dimilioc wolves merely a formality.