That was certainly clear enough, and maybe it was why Grayson gave Keziah and not Ezekiel charge of the prisoners on the way back. They were all bound in silver, and if it burned them, no one much cared. They wouldn’t have to wear it long, at least. They rode in a bus, but not the one Natividad and everybody else occupied. The townspeople Grayson had brought to the battle mostly did not come back to Dimilioc at all, now that it was so much safer in town, but Sheriff Pearson rode back with them, to be near his daughter. Cassie had changed again, which was too bad. The shadows of the undead black dogs were all the way gone, Natividad was sure of that, but the shifter’s corrupted shadow had come back up to its living body when Natividad had let go of her magic. Thaddeus sat next to Cassie, one broad hand gripping the back of her neck, preventing her from attacking her father or anyone else. But she seemed less vicious now, perhaps because she had fought enough to satiate even her shadow, or perhaps because of the brief respite from it that Natividad’s magic had given her.
Natividad sat between her twin and Alejandro. She was still shivering with reaction to everything. It was hard to believe that they were really safe and that this time no black dogs would run out of the forest to attack them. The bright sun and cloudless sky helped with that. So did Miguel. Her twin didn’t ask her any questions or try to say anything comforting. He told her instead about the way it felt to cling to a black dog as it raced through the forest, the rushing dark and cold wind, the bunch and spring of muscles under him, so much more fluid and strange than the feel of riding a saddled pony. The bulk and heat of the black dog and the way he’d clung so tight to Thaddeus’s shaggy pelt that his fingers had cramped.
That was what Natividad wanted: harmless chatter that didn’t grate along nerves still raw from… from everything. She could see the flow of Miguel’s talk working on Alejandro, too, so that he could slowly relax. The sharp whiplash changes he’d undergone, from black dog to nearly human and then back again, had obviously confused and upset him.
And she almost thought… She wasn’t sure, but she almost thought maybe a tiny bit of her Pure magic might have been tangled and caught in his shadow. That would confuse any black dog. She didn’t say anything about it. She wasn’t sure, anyway. What she had done to him must be hard enough for a black dog to cope with all by itself, and anyway, she really wasn’t sure. At last he managed to smile. Not a very good smile, but something to start with. So, she felt better after that.
She had been so glad her use of his shadow hadn’t killed Alejandro that she hadn’t worried about what other effects her magic might have caused until now, when she finally saw the hidden confusion in his eyes. Now she worried, but now it was too late, and anyway she had no idea what she might have done differently. At least now everyone was safe. Alejandro could rest and recover. He was safe. She was sure that even a trace of Pure magic left behind in his shadow wouldn’t actually hurt him. Almost sure.
So, he was fine. Everyone was fine. So, that was reason to be really glad. And she was. Mostly. She never thought about killing Vonhausel. Killing him twice, seeing him fall – she didn’t think about it. Though refusing to think about things… She kind of realized now how that had stopped her remembering what Mamá had taught her there at the… at the end. About black dog shadows and Pure magic. She wasn’t sure now how much of that she sort of remembered and how much she had figured out on her own.
Once they were finally back at Dimilioc – she seemed always to be coming back to Dimilioc, usually after something awful had happened – once the black dog strays were safely locked up in that awful prison room of old Thos Korte’s and everyone else cleaned up and been fed breakfast, lots of good things happened. Cass Pearson, released at last from the moon’s grip as the new day dawned, woke up in her proper human body, so she could go back to her father for a little while. She would have to begin learning how to control her shadow, so Natividad supposed she would be around Dimilioc a lot for the next few weeks.
And Lewis might have suffered a lot of damage, but now all the black dogs were gone, the townspeople could go back and start fixing everything. Father McClanahan hugged Natividad before he climbed on the bus to leave and promised her they’d even rebuild the church, reconsecrating every stone as it was laid back in place. So, that was alright.
And, yes, a lot of people had died, but not as many as they’d all thought because it turned out a lot of people had managed to hide in basements and things, and now the final battle of the war really was over. They all hoped it was the final battle, anyway. They thought it was. Sheriff Pearson said they had special equipment to dig graves even in the frozen ground. The people of Lewis could lay their dead properly to rest and then go home and know it was over.