Alejandro arrived first, which was good, or should have been good, but he was really angry – scarily angry. He was still mostly in his black dog form when he strode through the doorway, which wasn’t a good sign, though he was gathering himself into human form as he moved. He was dripping with ichor and blood from horrible deep slashes Natividad couldn’t bring herself to look at, but his shadow carried away his injuries as he shifted. Usually he’d clean himself up when he shifted, but this time he had been too badly wounded or else he was too angry, because even after the change blood still spattered his clothing. Black ichor smoked against his skin as it burned away, but he didn’t seem to notice. His black dog’s anger still surrounded him like choking ash. He strode forward, not even seeming to notice Natividad, and grabbed Miguel. It was a human hand that closed hard on Miguel’s arm, but when Alejandro lifted his other hand to hit him, black claws extended from the tips of broad, blunt fingers.
Natividad jumped forward to catch his hand. “Alejandro!”
Miguel flinched, but didn’t try to get away or defend himself. He bowed his head, a meek attitude both he and Natividad used to defuse black dog aggression. It was all show, and even Alejandro knew it, really, but sometimes you had to put on a show with black dogs, and they had to let you get away with it.
Alejandro, jaw clenched, shaking with rage, nevertheless lowered his hand. Natividad let him go, cautiously. Their older brother had never hit Miguel, never since they had all been children, but for a second she had really thought he might. But Alejandro only shook him once instead, hard, and let him go. Even then, though, and even with Natividad right there, it took him a moment to get rid of his claws and force his hand back into a fully human shape. When he spoke, the growl of the black dog was still in the back of his throat. “Fool! Estupide! You brought Mamá’s gun here? With silver bullets? What if the Dimilioc lobos had found it? What would they think?”
Miguel started to answer, but Grayson Lanning spoke first. “We might have thought,” the Dimilioc Master’s deep voice said from the doorway, gravelly with the echoes of his change, “that whatever pretty speeches you made, you had come here hunting black wolves.”
Grayson was in human form, but his eyes still burned a dark and fiery crimson, utterly inhuman. All his injuries were gone – well, nearly gone. One must have nearly exceeded his shadow’s ability to absorb it, for it showed even on his human body: a wide red weal that ran across his throat and disappeared beneath the collar of his shirt. His shadow clung close to him, smelling of ash and blood, but he was obviously in perfect control of himself.
Alejandro spun about at Grayson’s first words, putting himself between the Dimilioc Master and Miguel, so fast Natividad hardly saw him move. His own shadow was surging upward again in response to this new threat. His jaw began to distort into a muzzle, his bones to shorten and thicken, his back to bow with the change.
“No!” cried Natividad, darting forward to catch his wrist again, now really frightened. She tried to get between Alejandro and the Master, knowing neither of them would hurt her, but Alejandro shook her away, snarling. Natividad clung to his arm, refusing to be protected, and her brother snarled again, his rage terrifying–
“No,” said Grayson, without emphasis. The Master did not physically move, but his power slammed through the room like a soundless sledgehammer coming down. Even Natividad felt it, and Alejandro actually staggered. The Master’s power smothered her brother’s shadow, forcing it down, forcing Alejandro back into his human form.
Alejandro straightened, panting, clearly sick with the stress of too many changes coming too quickly one on another – and maybe, Natividad thought, with the knowledge of his own powerlessness. He tried to speak, but the change had made human language foreign to his tongue –and now, though he tried, he could not shape coherent words. Natividad still held his arm. She shook her head when Alejandro tried to shove her back. “No,” she went on quickly, praying it was true, “No, está bien, ‘Jandro. The Master won’t harm us.”
“You sound very confident of that,” Grayson said, his tone harsh with anger, or maybe just with the echo of his black dog. “What is this you brought us? Is this Malvern Vonhausel, with upwards of thirty black dogs under his shadow? This is a detail I do not recall you mentioning! Now he has come here and seen that we are weak, do you think he will go away again?”
When he put it like that, it did sound bad. Natividad stared at him, trying not to look frightened because it was always dangerous to be afraid of black dogs, even if they were your friends. Even if they were your family. And the Dimilioc Master was neither.