Black Dog(72)

Deputy Harris brought her the cross. Natividad showed him where it needed to go, and he knelt earnestly to fit it exactly where she showed him. She touched his shoulder in thanks and he looked up and smiled at her, then got to his feet and steadied the cross as she stroked her fingers across the carved letters and smooth wood. She drew a breath and touched the top of it, reaching for the clean gift of magic to seal the cross into her mandala, and Harris suddenly staggered and fell into her. His gun spun away, into the air, lost instantly in the blowing white, which was suddenly spattered with red. Blood was on her hands, on the cross – Natividad could smell it, like meat and hot metal. A dark, hot magic swirled by her, so strong it shoved at her with almost physical weight. Natividad staggered, and the cross toppled over, threads of light from her shredding magic trailing after it.

Natividad tried to catch the cross as it fell, tried to catch the shreds of her light and magic before they could dissolve into the air, but the cross was too heavy or the light too delicate, and she fell instead, floundering in the snow. She was, she found, more outraged than terrified. Her cross, thrown down in the snow! And poor Deputy Harris was dead, there was death and violence all around her – someone was screaming, one of the other deputies, a male voice pitched high as a girl’s, and she couldn’t even get her cross set. She was furious.

Natividad gripped the smooth wood of the cross in both hands, heaved it up and whirled it around with an effort she felt all through her back and stomach and shoulders – it was a lot heavier than she’d guessed – then she staggered and fell to one knee when a shotgun blast crashed next to her. But, once kneeling, she could brace the cross against the ground, haul it upright, embrace it with both arms to hold it steady. She called light into the silver-limned letters carved into the wood, and a net of light spilled down and around the arms of the cross. She expected all the time to feel claws tear into her back, powerful jaws clamp down on the back of her neck. There was another shotgun blast followed by a heavy, coughing roar then a huge dark shape loomed at her out of the snow, and she screamed…

Sheriff Pearson strode out of the blowing snow, leveled a shotgun at the black dog, and pulled the trigger twice in quick succession: pump, boom, pump, boom. The black dog staggered back a step, but his shadow writhed thickly as it carried away injuries that ought to have killed any natural creature, that would have killed even most black dogs. He didn’t even seem to need to shift to human form and back again to shed his wounds, which seemed strange, but Natividad had no attention to spare for that. The light from her cross had tangled with the black dog’s trailing shadow, that was what she was worried about, but she couldn’t see anything she could do about it now. Lunging to her feet, she hauled the cross up as straight as possible, drew a pentagram where the crosspiece met the upright, and cried, “May the strength of God fill this cross! May this cross guard Lewis and all within against any who come with ill intent! And against the fell dark! And against all manner of evil things!”

She did not know whether she was shouting in Spanish or English, did not think the words in whatever language were exactly the ones her mother had taught her, but light followed her hands, running swiftly up and down the length of the cross. The light knotted where the blood spatters contaminated the wood, and everywhere it tangled up with the black dog’s shadow, but it gathered strength despite that and exploded outward. Light, intertwined with blood and shadows, spilled out across the snow, reached left and right along the circle, and speared back along the cross that centered her mandala, rushing away toward the heart of the town. The power of the circle smashed out into the night as it closed, much greater than Natividad had expected; the force of it sent her staggering sideways and then she lost her balance and fell – away from the mandala, exactly the wrong way. Though she tried to scramble back toward safety, the black dog was too close and she ducked the other way even though she knew she shouldn’t. But all her muscles spasmed with magic, and she fell again and then found she could not get back to her feet, couldn’t even scramble away on her hands and knees, though she tried. The mandala was doing something, very strongly, but not the way she’d meant it to – even if she could get to it, it might not work to keep the black dog away, but she couldn’t even move, she was helpless, and the black dog was going to kill her…

The black dog had taken several steps away from the mandala, but he had not fled from it. He was in human form now, laughing and cursing at the same time. The laughter and the curses sounded the same: aggressive and furious and savage, with nothing of humor, not even cruel humor. His human shape was tall, blunt-featured, angry. Natividad cowered down. She was sure he was going to kill her, but Sheriff Pearson stepped in front of her. His hands moved quickly to reload the shotgun.