Black Dog(135)

The black dog dropped to one knee a few feet from them, but he spoke to Natividad rather than the Master. “Good job killing that bastard. That’s one good thing to come out of all this.” His tone was light and almost conversational. He even ignored Ezekiel, who had stepped around behind him. He spoke quietly, his vowels soft and round in an accent Alejandro did not recognize. He paused, then shrugged. “I just wanted to say that.”

“It wasn’t just me–” said Natividad.

The black dog shrugged again. “Near enough.”

“Étienne Lumondiere,” said Grayson.

The black dog turned to Grayson. He did not seem surprised to be addressed by name. Lumondiere… Alejandro had thought all the Lumondiere black wolves gone into the fell dark, but this one obviously had lived through the war. Only to come, somehow, into Vonhausel’s grip, until Natividad had freed him. Now the Frenchman lowered his gaze and waited to hear what the Dimilioc Master would say.

“You are far out of your usual territory,” Grayson observed.

“Yes,” said the black dog, in a calm, amused tone which Alejandro couldn’t help but admire. “Yes, and little enough profit I’ve had from my travels. If I were, by some remarkable chance, able to go home, I think I would never again leave.” He bowed his head low, fixing his gaze on the broken pavement at Grayson’s feet.

“You did not come here intending to join Malvern Vonhausel?”

The black dog shrugged. “I came to America to try to find the scattered remnants of my House – several Lumondiere wolves came here during the war. I cannot say what became of the others, but I…” He opened his hands. “As you see. Joining Vonhausel was… Actually, that was a surprise to me.”

Grayson’s expression didn’t change, yet he somehow looked faintly amused. He looked at Ezekiel, lifting one eyebrow in query.

Ezekiel glanced at Natividad, a look Alejandro couldn’t interpret. Then he shrugged. “Spare them all, if you like. It doesn’t make any difference to me. I can always kill them later.”

“Let go of your magic,” Grayson told Natividad. “Let it go, and we will all go home.”

“Oh, yes, please!” Natividad said longingly. But then she looked anxiously at Alejandro, reaching to pat his arm. “I can… I have to… But you – I never wanted to take away your shadow, ‘Jandro, and then put it back. That’s awful. I’m sorry…”

Alejandro touched her cheek. “It’s alright. Either way. Verdaderamente.”

She gazed into his face for another moment. Then at last she tried to smile, closed her eyes and did something to the shadowed circle that surrounded them all. It dissolved into the air, silver moonlight and black shadow and little flickers of crimson fire. Alejandro threw his head back as the darkness came across his sight; fire-edged shadows smothered him, he could not breathe, he was falling, he would die… His sister’s hand gripped his, one point of reference in the dark. Another hand, painfully strong, closed on his shoulder… The darkness shifted around him and snapped into focus with a shock that was almost but not quite physical. He drew a breath filled with familiar heat and anger, and recognized himself at last, his self defined by the constant need to draw the border between himself and his shadow, and more clearly than ever by his shadow’s absence.

Grayson looked at him closely. Then, frowning, he let him go and stepped back, his expression closed and neutral. “Good,” he said to Natividad, and walked away.

“Alejandro…” Natividad said tentatively, not quite a question.

“Yes,” said Alejandro. He got to his feet, and lifted his sister to hers with easy, familiar strength.





17



Natividad didn’t know which surprised her more: that Grayson should think for one minute about sparing the rest of Vonhausel’s black dogs or that Ezekiel shouldn’t care one way or the other. She had time to think about it during the long ride back to the Dimilioc house, though, and she decided that really neither reaction should have surprised her. Grayson had already made it very clear that he wanted to recruit a lot more black dogs, and probably Ezekiel thought she wouldn’t like watching him slaughter them. Or maybe he was just too tired to care. Anyway, he was totally right: he really could kill them all later. Probably he would kill some of them. They couldn’t all be from a civilized House like Étienne Lumondiere.

Of the rest, she suspected that Thaddeus approved of Grayson’s decision, but Keziah definitely did not. She had said so straight out, which, Natividad had decided, was one thing Grayson actually liked about the Saudi girl – that she would argue with him. She said that guarding prisoners was stupid, they were all tired; what was the point of slaughtering their enemies at Dimilioc where they would have to actually dig graves, or else build a huge bonfire and either way it was too much trouble; they should kill them all now and throw the bodies into the chasm Vonhausel had opened in the earth, that was a fitting end for the strays he’d ruled. But Grayson didn’t change his mind, and at last Keziah shrugged angrily and said why should she care, as long as she didn’t have to bury the corpses later, but if any of the black dogs gave her a moment’s trouble on the way back to Dimilioc, she’d just kill him right then and throw his body into the snow and it could wait for spring to rot.