Black Dog(117)

Miguel’s eyes widened. “Pearson’s car. That’s the one she’d take.”

“I’ll find out,” Alejandro said grimly. “If she took that car, I’ll follow it.”

“She took it,” said Miguel.

Alejandro was sure his brother was right.

The window was not locked, but it was frozen shut. Alejandro cracked the frame forcing it open, but at least the glass did not shatter. He could scent the icy night wind through the gap. He wanted to leap out into the dark, surrender to the cambio de cuerpo, and stretch out in a long lope across the snow. But he paused, gathered his will and what he could of his wide-scattered human thoughts, and turned instead back to Miguel.

He could not make his tone gentle, but he said, “Who would guess what she would do? Have we ever guessed from one moment to the next what she will do? This isn’t your fault. No me habría enfedado tanto si…” He realized he had shifted into Spanish, could almost hear Natividad’s scolding command: “Speak Gringo!” He shook his head and said carefully, in English, “I would not be so angry if my shadow did not press me so hard. I will find her. This cold air holds scent well. I will find her. Arreglaré las cosas – I mean, I will make this right.”

“Lo prometes?” said Miguel: do you promise? Like the child he so seldom seemed.

“Lo prometo,” said Alejandro. He gripped his brother’s shoulder, shook him gently. “Now, you. Maybe she has not gotten far. She is not a good driver, and the road is bad, and she does not know it well. I will go through the forest and try to catch her before she reaches the town. But if I do not return with her in half an hour, forty minutes, then you must go to Grayson – hush! You must.” He shook his brother again, not so gently. “Yes, I know he will be angry, but you must tell him anyway.”

He was surprised, dimly, that he cared about Dimilioc enough himself to make this demand of his brother; more surprised that he trusted Grayson not to harm Miguel no matter how furious the Master was at what had happened. He did not think about this, it was too hard to think anyway, but he said harshly, “If Natividad gets to Vonhausel and she does some clever thing and destroys him, that is well. But if he takes her, she will either be dead or she will be a weapon in his hand. If I do not bring her back, you must warn Grayson so he will know. Comprendes?”

Miguel nodded, but so unwillingly that Alejandro shook him again, not quite so gently. “Harás lo que yo te diga,” he demanded. “Prometeme que obedecerás!”

“Sí,” Miguel said in a low voice, and Alejandro let him go and at last pushed the window wide, taking a deep breath of the winter-scented air.

“Ten cuidado!” Miguel called after him, hopelessly. But Alejandro did not turn. He had already leaped out into the night; he had at last let his shadow rise; he fell into the cambio de cuerpo and already, with the change barely on him, had almost forgotten his human form. He did not look back.



The forest was empty of everything but dark and cold and the moonlight that shivered through the naked branches. In better times, probably Dimilioc wolves had run out on many full-moon nights such as this – to hunt the deer or merely to run until dawn, dreaming of fire, the snow melting from the faint tracks they left behind them.

On this night, the forest was empty. He saw nothing, felt nothing running in the forest save for himself.

He did not really think in words, in language. He thought about his sister, about her scent, which was faint but mingled with the distinctive scent of Pearson’s car. He thought about the music of their mother’s little wooden flute, which Natividad had insisted on bringing away with them after the destruction of the village. He had not, at the time, asked, “Why that?” Now he wished he had been more curious.

At first Alejandro followed the road, but then, once he was sure he had truly found his sister’s trail, he went through the forest, straight as a flung spear toward Lewis.

For some reason, when he tried to picture her there in his mind’s eye, he saw instead fleeting glimpses of the ruined church in the center of the town, of its cracked stones and splintered beams, and of Vonhausel poised atop those ruins, in black dog shape, his head tilted back, singing a terrible song to a moon that was tangled and gripped in the angular grasp of leafless branches. It was like the song of a wolf, only it was not merely wild; it contained a terrible darkness that was born of rage and hatred. It was not merely sound, for it cracked stone and burned bone and brought everything that lived to ruin; it made the simple darkness of the night into the fell dark that burned at its heart with black-edged fire.