“No.”
“Good. Let me have the kid. You go get a blanket or something from the house, wrap up all the knives, stow them in the car. Then get me the black bag.”
Alejandro shoved the boy toward Ezekiel – the verdugo wouldn’t hurt him, surely, not if he wanted to use the child as a rehén, a hostage. But even so, Alejandro hurried.
The interior of the trailer was surprisingly cheerful, very much a home made by a Pure woman, with none of the grim atmosphere of a black dog lair. The furniture was cheap, but covered with bright throws; there were equally bright rag rugs on the floor. The walls were lined with brick-and-board shelves, which were stuffed with paperbacks and the occasional hardcover – all kinds of books: mysteries and thrillers shoved in alongside romances and a battered copy of Don Quixote. Again, Alejandro felt an unexpected surge of homesickness: Mamá had loved books. He thrust it down, grabbed a red throw off a chair, and ran outside again to gather up the silver knives.
Ezekiel’s black bag proved to contain, among other things, first aid supplies and half a dozen broad silver bracelets lined with black leather. Someone Pure must have blooded the bracelets for Ezekiel, because he handled them without hesitation, although Alejandro and the little boy both winced away from their bright, clear fire.
“You planning to fight me over this?” Ezekiel asked Thaddeus, holding up the bracelets. “Because if you fight, you’d better win, or I’ll beat the hell out of you and then I’ll gut your pup like a fish. And you won’t win.”
Thaddeus looked at his wife. She shook her head, a swift, urgent gesture. He slumped, a subtle change, more of attitude than posture. “No,” he said to Ezekiel, not looking at him. “No, you bastard. I won’t fight you.”
“Good.” Ezekiel dropped all but two of the silver bracelets back into his bag, and said over his shoulder to Alejandro, “If he starts to change, stop him.”
“Yes,” Alejandro agreed. He did not know whether he could do it again if he needed to. But he did not need to try, because Thaddeus, true to his word, did not fight. He held out one arm and then the other, allowing Ezekiel to bend a silver band tight around each of his thick wrists. The wide bracelets looked like the proper sort of jewelry for such a big man, showing bright against his dark skin. But, of course, they were not meant as jewelry.
Thaddeus did not even wince from the silver, which had to be pride – the silver was vivid enough in the evening to make Alejandro flinch, and no one was forcing him to wear it. At least the leather backing ought to keep the bracelets from burning Thaddeus. Probably. If he did not wear them for too long.
Ezekiel stepped back, not precisely relaxing, but seeming less edgy. “Alright,” he said to Alejandro, tossed him the first aid kit, and shrugged out of his shirt. The long cut from the silver knife gaped wide, deeper than Alejandro had guessed; blood ran sluggishly down Ezekiel’s arm. The verdugo craned his neck to survey the damage, which, inflicted by a silver weapon, would heal almost human-slowly. Then he gave Thaddeus a cold look. The black dog turned his head away.
“It could use stitches,” Ezekiel told Alejandro. “You ever stitched somebody up? Hell, just tape it up for now and we’ll get moving. I’ll drive. The pup will ride shotgun–” that was a threat, because it would keep the boy within Ezekiel’s reach “–the woman behind me, Williams beside her, you behind him. Move.”
They all moved. Alejandro more than half expected to find policia on the road as they drove toward the highway, but there was nothing. And there had never been any outcry from the neighbors. Maybe they were too far away to have heard anything, or maybe this was one of those neighborhoods where no one wanted to run toward trouble. He guessed that the neighbors might specifically not want to run toward any trouble Thaddeus Williams got into. Even if they knew nothing about black dogs, they probably knew he was dangerous and escalofriante – uncanny, was that the word? Eerie, unnatural.
It seemed a long way back to the airport. No one spoke. Traffic was not as maddening on this return drive, but with the sun down, the streets became even more confusing. Alejandro could feel the pull of the moon even through the brilliance of the city lights – it dragged at his shadow, tinted his vision with the crimson of bloodlust, made him want to surrender to his shadow and leap out of the car into the wild hunting ground this immense city would provide.
Alejandro kept a wary eye on Thaddeus, but maybe the silver bracelets countered the moon’s influence, for he seemed indifferent to its tidal pull. Alejandro set his teeth against the forceful, dangerous drag of the moon until the long drive at last returned them to the airport. Alejandro was almost as glad to see the planes raking their paths of light through the sky as he would have been to come home after a dangerous, difficult hunt.