Black Dog(65)
“I gather you had a fight here?” said Sheriff Pearson. He glanced sidelong at Natividad. “Miss…?”
She shrugged. “Natividad. Natividad Toland.”
“Ah,” said the sheriff, obviously recognizing the name of one of Dimilioc’s bloodlines.
“My mother was Mexican,” Natividad volunteered, although this was no doubt obvious.
“Ah,” the sheriff said again. He gave her a sharp look, but didn’t ask any other questions. Not about her family, anyway. He gestured out at the blood-spattered snow. “What happened?”
“Oh. It could’ve been way worse. Nobody got killed. None of us, I mean.” Natividad wondered whether she would still be able to say the same in twenty-four hours, in a week. She didn’t want to think about that. Surely in a week it would be all over? She said unhappily, “I guess maybe it’ll get worse before it gets better.”
“Um.” The sheriff gave a nod of grim agreement. “We thought… In town, we thought we were done with these damned vampire wars.”
“Oh, yes,” Natividad agreed. “Yes.” She remembered those days. “We thought how much safer we would be after the vampires were all gone, how much better everything would be. Maybe soon everything will really be over.” She hoped that would be true. She put all that hope into words: “Dimilioc will kill Vonhausel and his black dogs, and build back its own strength, and everything will be better. Your daughter will be alright, you know; I’m sure Grayson wouldn’t lie about that. What’s her name? Your daughter?”
“Cassandra. Cassie.” The sheriff was silent for a while. Natividad did not press him to speak, but tried to make her silence as supportive as possible. At last he went on, “She’s no one you’d think… no one who ought to be a… a…” He didn’t seem able to complete this sentence.
“We don’t say werewolf,” Natividad told him. “Maybe you know that? That’s Hollywood and the TV noticieros informativos, what do you say in English? The talking heads?” It was a good term. She said, not hiding her scorn: “They pretend they’ve figured everything out, but they don’t know anything. Not even now, when it’s been months and months since the vampire magic stopped clouding their minds.”
“Yes,” said the sheriff. “We…” He stopped.
“They don’t know about black dogs except bits and pieces. And lots of the pieces are wrong, anyway. Them, they only know about the bitten ones. They say werewolf when they mean moon-bound, and then they think that’s all there is.” She glanced sidelong at the sheriff. “It’s different for you, I guess, since you’re right here, almost part of Dimilioc. Isn’t that right?”
“Yes. More or less. But I don’t…” the sheriff’s voice shook a little. He looked at her, a quick glance, and away again. “I don’t know, I don’t think I ever… No one I knew was ever bitten, Dimilioc wolves don’t do that…”
“Oh, well…” Natividad tried to think what she could say that would be both true and reassuring. “It’s not like in the movies, you know?” It was both better and worse than movies made it seem. There was a lot she didn’t want to say. “You can have a good life after you’ve been bitten, if you have a black dog to help you.” It wasn’t really that simple, and hardly any moon-bound shifter could trust a black dog to actually help her, but what good would it be to say that? Besides, she was sure Sheriff Pearson and his daughter really could trust Grayson Lanning.
The sheriff glanced at her, then back at the snowy road. After a moment of silence, he said, his tone once again controlled, “Grayson had to search hard to find you, I suppose. I expect he’ll be angry when he discovers you came with me.”
He would be. Natividad knew she was safe, but she looked at the sheriff in sudden concern. “Will you be alright? It’s all my fault,” she added, thinking aloud. “I’m the one who disobeyed him…” Even to her, this argument seemed disturbingly weak. If Grayson lost his temper with the sheriff… She frowned, worried.
“It’s you I’m thinking of, Miss Toland.”
“Oh, me? You don’t have to worry about me.” Natividad put her hands together in a pose of angelic innocence, then pretended to remove and polish an invisible halo. “You said it yourself: I’m Pure.” Dropping the pose, she leaned an elbow on the armrest and studied the sheriff. He didn’t look afraid. He ought to. She said, “But you’re not. If Grayson is very angry with you – if he loses control of his black dog…”