Perhaps thirty black dogs were scattered across the open ground that lay between the edge of the forest and the Dimilioc mansion, some of them leaping forward toward the house like great cats, some of them stalking low to the ground, some even creeping on their bellies. They panted, coal-black fangs gleaming in hot red mouths, smoke wreathing into the air from their breath, the snow melting where they passed.
They were Vonhausel’s black dogs. Vonhausel’s shadow pack. They were here. They had come all the way north after all, right into the heart of Dimilioc territory. Alejandro could not believe they had done such a thing. He did not believe it. He told himself they must be merely a clutter of American strays, bold and stupid with the waxing moon, temporarily gathered together by some black dog stronger and more ambitious than they. But then he saw Vonhausel himself, unmistakable, huge and flame-eyed, behind the rest, and after that he could not tell himself comforting lies.
He saw Vonhausel’s black dogs through a fiery haze of bloodlust and anger, so that they seemed to cast bloody shadows and the snow itself was tinted crimson. The enemy black dogs approached in a ragged half circle. A dark miasma of smoke and evil followed them and clung to them and reached out before them. It was hard to see how many they were or exactly pinpoint their locations, but Alejandro thought that those at the edges were racing ahead while those at the center approached more cautiously. That was reasonable because, thirty feet from the front door, Ezekiel Korte anchored the center of the defense, with Grayson Lanning supporting him on one side and Ethan on the other.
Harrison was beyond Ethan, well out to the left, facing half a dozen black dogs. To the right, Zachariah had been the first to actually close with enemies, and now one of his opponents was rolling on the ground, screaming, half his face torn away. Blood and black ichor splashed madly across the snow as Zachariah used his weight to bear down another of the intruders and tore at his throat and chest, but in the next moment another of the invaders hit the oldest of the Dimilioc wolves and knocked him away from his writhing enemy. The wounded black dog, neither dead nor dying, twisted into his human form, letting his shadow carry away his terrible injuries. In far too little time, his shadow would rise around him once more and then he would attack again.
Five Dimilioc wolves were far too few; Alejandro had said so, and he had been right. Six was not much better, and for an instant he hesitated. He might find the twins and run, let the Dimilioc wolves cover their flight. But if Vonhausel won here, he would win everything, and then he would come after them again and kill them all, and he knew they would never get away.
His black dog, if it was not free to abandon the Dimilioc wolves, was perfectly happy to attack the invaders. Desire and counter desire fused, and with almost no perceptible hesitation, Alejandro hurled himself against the cluster of black dogs that surrounded Zachariah. There were four of them now, heavy and massively muscled. One faced Zachariah directly, fangs snapping, while two others closed in from his flanks, claws sharpening to needle points as they reared up to grapple, while the fourth swung wide to come around from the rear. Zachariah whirled in a tight circle, threatening them all.
Concentrating on their enemy, the strangers did not realize they faced another attacker until Alejandro slammed into one of them as he reared upright. Unprepared for the brutal impact, the stranger went down, but he twisted as he fell, striking at Alejandro’s face with savage claws that lengthened as they slashed up at him. Alejandro jerked his head to the side, neatly evading the blow, and darted his head forward, closed his jaws on the invader’s foreleg. Yes! howled his black dog, and Alejandro shook his head violently, knocked his opponent’s attempted return strike aside with one forefoot, extended the shadow claws on the other, and ripped him across the belly, and then upward across the chest to tear through ribs and crush his heart.
More blood and ichor sprayed across the snow; his enemy’s shadow writhed and howled and his body began to twist back into human form as he died. Alejandro also howled, but with savage pleasure, as he whirled around to look for another enemy; Zachariah was still battling furiously with two of the invaders. The third, his forelimb wrenched nearly off and his intestines spread in gory loops across the trampled snow, stared in glaze-eyed shock; the great, smoky cloud of his shadow struggled and failed to retain purchase in his dying body as he shifted piecemeal toward death and his human form.
But ichor and red-tinged smoke also poured from Zachariah’s side where one of his opponents had torn him open. The two that were left harried him hard, and two more black dogs had cut away from the main force to come against him and Alejandro. Beyond them, in the midst of the wild twisting knot of battle, Alejandro could see Ezekiel Korte tearing into a cluster of enemies. He belatedly realized that the heave and surge of black dogs there marked Grayson’s position – the enemy black dogs had pulled the Master down and now worked to finish him. But even while Alejandro watched, Ezekiel shifted fluidly from black dog to human and back, twice, impossibly fast, hardly a flicker between forms. The verdugo was using his shadow to clear away any injury even while eviscerating his enemies, and now Alejandro half believed Ezekiel alone truly might destroy a dozen enemies, or more.