Black Dog(108)

Looking away from the black dog girl, Natividad found herself meeting Ezekiel’s cool gaze and felt herself blush. She looked quickly away again.

The Master lifted a hand for their attention. Then, turning to Miguel, he asked abruptly, “Why did Vonhausel attack Edward Toland and his family after the war was ended, rather than coming directly after Dimilioc, which he should have considered his strongest enemy? If he hated your father so much, why did he wait twenty years before hunting him down? Once your father was dead, why did he trouble to follow his children – not merely to the next village, but across an entire continent?” He paused.

Miguel cleared his throat, but he didn’t actually look surprised. Alejandro began to speak, but the Master pinned him with a long, slow stare and said, “Not you. I want your young brother to answer me.” Natividad wasn’t sure Alejandro would obey, but Ezekiel shifted his weight and gave her brother a sharp, impatient glance, and Alejandro lowered his gaze.

“Moon-bound shifters are easy enough to acquire,” rumbled Grayson, “but where is Vonhausel finding his black dogs? Why did he bring down the church? Why did he rush to break your sister’s mandala and then press forward into Lewis rather than attacking us here?”

“I don’t know, sir,” Miguel said. Then he added, “But I can guess.”

The Master lifted his heavy eyebrows in ironic inquiry.

“Well,” Miguel said rapidly, “You know, I wasn’t there for everything, but from what I’ve heard, Vonhausel really does have too many black dogs. Like, about thirty when he attacked this house, right? And you – we – killed about half of those, but then there were about forty black dogs involved in attacking Lewis, isn’t that right? And you fought them there, but even so there were lots left after Vonhausel broke Natividad’s mandala and brought down the church. Like, still at least thirty. Which is impossible, from what everyone says, but isn’t that right?” He paused, looking at Grayson.

“Go on,” the Master said quietly.

Miguel cleared his throat again. “Well, he’s not… He’s… Look, this is only a guess. But I think he’s cracking open the gates of Hell. I mean, literally. I think you kill his black dogs and send their shadows into the fell dark, but Vonhausel catches them before they’re gone. I think he’s found a way to put the shadows back again even after their bodies are dead.”

“No,” said Keziah. Her beautiful, slightly rasgados – slanted – eyes had narrowed, giving her the look more of a fragile Oriental cat than a powerful black dog. She said, “Such a thing is not possible. One cannot bring back the dead! Once the body dies, it is dead. Once the shadow is gone into the fell dark, it is gone.”

Miguel hesitated, thrown off balance by this challenge. Natividad wondered whom Keziah had killed that she needed to stay gone. But Grayson looked steadily at the girl for a long moment, until she suddenly lowered her fine lashes over her dark eyes and bowed her graceful neck. Her hair, straight and crisp and black as the long nights of this frozen country, fell forward to hide her face.

Grayson shifted his attention back to Miguel. “How would one do that? How would one gather up a departed shadow? Or put it back into the body from which it had departed?”

“I don’t know, sir,” Miguel answered. “But it wasn’t just my father Vonhausel was afraid of. Vonhausel had allies – all that time, he did. I mean, blood kin. My father couldn’t have protected us from them. It was my mother who hid us. She was the one Vonhausel most wanted to kill – her and Natividad. Mamá said Natividad is special. That she did something to give Natividad a special sympathy for the right kind of darkness. That Natividad should have a gift for making darkness cooperate with light–”

“What?” Natividad stared at her twin in surprise. She didn’t know what he was talking about. She thought in just a moment she would be shocked and frightened and maybe even angry. Mamá had worked magic on her and not even said what she was doing? She had made up special kinds of magic to give her a sympathy for darkness? She had talked to Miguel about all those things and about Pure magic, and not to her?

Her twin turned to her, raising his chin, uncomfortable but stubborn. “It’s true. I don’t know… I don’t know exactly what she meant. She said you have to be Pure to understand Pure magic. Only she couldn’t talk to you about it. She said if you knew too much about the wrong things you’d be scared and – and being frightened would be bad for you. I’m sorry, gemela. That’s what she said.”