Once they lost the unkillable shadow-possessed black dogs, and especially once they no longer had Malvern Vonhausel to drive and rule them, the remaining black dogs were after all nothing but strays. Alejandro was surprised, despite everything, to see how utterly overmatched they were by the Dimilioc wolves.
All of Vonhausel’s black dogs now gave back, and back again, searching from side to side for a way to flee. But the circle Natividad had flung around them, of moonlight and silver and magic and Alejandro’s black dog shadow, closed off all lines of retreat.
Alejandro sat on a half-burned timber, his arm around his sister’s shoulders, and watched as the black dogs of Vonhausel’s shadow pack forgot their advantage of numbers. As before, if they had supported one another, if they had fought together, then they might still have been able to defeat the Dimilioc wolves, especially as it seemed that the gunmen could not shoot through the shadowed circle. But fighting together clearly didn’t occur to them at all. Alejandro watched, fascinated and disturbed, as the uncontrolled violence and treacherous nature of the black dogs drove them instead to turn on one another. Though he had been a black dog all his life, he could not at this moment exactly remember the way black dog instincts felt. He was uneasily conscious of the locura, the madness, to which those instincts now drove Vonhausel’s strays.
Furious and panicked, one black dog would turn and fight to clear a way past his neighbors, even though there was no point to his efforts because no line of retreat existed. Even so, he would snap left and right, until a black dog stronger and more brutal than he drove him back – and then half the time this small fight would spark a savage melee that spread right through half the remaining black dogs.
Ezekiel drove all this violence. He deliberately threatened the remaining strays, one and then another, touching off small, vicious conflicts within each group. They were too afraid of him to face him, even all of them together, and so Ezekiel shaped the violence and more or less directed it, prodding the black dogs to defeat themselves. To be fair, Ezekiel did look very dangerous, even now. He showed no sign of weakness save for a very slight catch in his gait when he turned to the left. Even so, Alejandro would have been ashamed to let anyone manipulate him that way. He would have been ashamed of that when he was a child. But only a few of these black dog strays resisted the verdugo’s threats, staying quiet and still and well away from their fellows, refusing to meet any threat or return any insult, only waiting to see what chance might come to escape. Alejandro did not expect they would find such a chance, but at least they showed decent control.
It was very strange to watch all this and feel only weariness. He was not possessed by burning rage, nor furious contempt, nor a hot desire for blood and violence. He felt empty. Peaceful. This must be the part of himself that was real, that was him. The part that was still here when the black dog shadow was gone. He had fought all his life to get a space narrow as a knife-blade between himself and his shadow, to understand what he was. All his life, he had wished to know what it would be like to be ordinary, to be human.
Now his shadow was gone, and he was human and ordinary, and he found he hated the cold and empty peace that had replaced his shadow. There was nothing in it to fight against, and without that struggle, he couldn’t catch his balance. He kept reaching after the anger he ought to feel, and there was nothing there. He felt as though some power had reached into his mind and heart and soul and pithed him like a hollow reed. It felt like the winter wind could blow right through him. Anger was hot. He had never in his life really felt the cold. Now he felt as though he might never be warm again.
Alejandro slid a glance at his sister. She leaned against his side. Her head rested against his shoulder. He wondered what it would be like when she let go of her shadowed circle, released her light and magic. Would his shadow force itself back into his mind and heart and soul, or would it disappear into the fell dark after all the other freed shadows? And if it was lost into the dark, what would that do to him? He thought most likely if that happened he would either cease to be a black dog or die, and he wasn’t sure which of those possibilities seemed worse.
Grayson came back toward the center of the shadowed circle, toward Natividad. He did not even glance at Ezekiel. But his verdugo nevertheless left off fomenting violence among the thinned ranks of the enemy and came to join him. Behind him, the remaining black dogs gradually settled. Even now there were at least a dozen left, but they seemed very few after the outnumbered hopelessness of the battle.
Thaddeus, now fully in his black dog form, had been resting quietly beside the unconscious Cass Pearson, but turned his head to watch the Master. Ethan limped slowly after Grayson, too lame to conceal his injury. Keziah, who had been lying on the rubble of the church, glanced at Amira, who was clearly hurt but unable, at the moment, to drive back her shadow and force it to carry away her injuries. Then Keziah abruptly got to her feet and slid down toward her little sister. Jagged fragments of stone and brick and splinters of broken timbers showered around her, then she allowed Amira to lean on her as they came down to join the others.