Their enemy shifted again to his black dog shape. He showed no sign of any wounds, no fear of the sheriff’s gun. He was enormous, the largest black dog Natividad had ever seen, with heavy shoulders and a thick neck and powerful jaws. His eyes were crimson, his breath black smoke that wreathed around his huge head; the snow melted away from his tracks. The cold air smelled of sulfur and blood.
Sheriff Pearson’s movements were economical and quick – he had a shell in the chamber, he was lifting the gun – but even so it was perfectly clear to Natividad that the black dog would tear him apart before he could shoot again. She knew the moment the sheriff was out of the way, the black dog would tear her apart, too, but she still couldn’t move.
Another black dog flung himself out of the blinding snow, trailing smoke and a hot gust of sulfurous air. He slammed into the first with such force that both were hurled backward and disappeared. A shattering roar tore through the blind snow-filled light. Natividad put her hands over her ears and tucked herself down as small as she could, like a little mouse trying to hide from a very big cat. But nothing lunged out of the snow to grab her, and after a moment she couldn’t help but open her eyes and straighten cautiously, trying to see. She could still smell blood – she was sure she could still smell the blood, mixed with smoke and sulfur. But there was no sound, no movement except the blowing snow.
The sheriff stood over her, his gun ready but no enemy now to shoot at. He asked her, sharp and tense, “Can you get up?”
Natividad thought she could stand, maybe, now. She tried, cautiously, and found the power of her mandala had… not faded, exactly, but it had become less… less immediate. Less intense. Less something. If she couldn’t get up, she could now at least crawl. The dubious protection of the mandala, whatever the contamination of the black dog’s shadow had done to it, would almost certainly be a lot better than staying where she was.
The sheriff was not exactly illuminated by the light that radiated from the cross and the mandala, because that kind of light didn’t exactly illuminate anything, but Natividad could see that raking claws had shredded his coat, that bruises were darkening on his face. But he seemed to be alright, mostly. He turned his head slowly back and forth, listening as he waited for her to do her part, to at least try to save herself. Nothing could be heard, now, but the wind.
Natividad staggered to her feet. She could get to her feet, now, barely, and looked for her mandala. She moved stiffly in that direction. Sheriff Pearson backed up beside her, watching not her, but everything else. The cross stood straight and firm, only a little way away. Natividad limped toward it. Neither her light, nor the black dog shadow tangled with it, were visible, now. Not exactly visible but she knew that both were still there.
Natividad didn’t understand what she had made. Black dog magic and Pure magic shouldn’t mix, though it was a little like blooding silver for a black dog. Well, not really. Had Mamá ever said anything about contaminating Pure magic with black dog magic? She couldn’t remember anything like that, but everything near the end had happened so fast and she had been so scared and her memories of those last days were all in bits and pieces. She wanted to study what she’d done; she wanted to figure it out; she wanted to be able to tell the townspeople what kind of circle she’d put around them. But she was sure that she wouldn’t get the chance to figure out anything – any moment, that huge black dog would lunge out of the blind white snow surrounding them and kill first Sheriff Pearson and then her.
Deputy Denoux lay, crumpled and still, just near enough to be visible. The dark heap of his eviscerated body was already disappearing under the snow, which seemed a mercy, like throwing a blanket over the dead. All the blood, too, was already chilling and being covered over by the snow. She could see part of another leg that probably belonged to Belliveau. Natividad shivered, and then couldn’t stop. They were all dead, those three deputies who had come to protect her: bad-tempered suspicious Belliveau and polite Denoux and young Harris. All three of them had protected her, with their lives. Would they feel like that was fair? She didn’t. She put a hand out. The cross was only a step away, now, and she could feel the magic in it like a physical pressure against her skin: not exactly Pure, but she couldn’t decide whether the difference felt bad or actually sort of OK. She knew it felt strange. It felt powerful, though.
The snow parted like a veil, revealing a black dog who loped toward them, fluid as a lion and a lot more dangerous. The black dog moved very fast, out of the blowing snow and past the dead man. He straightened toward human form as he moved forward, and he hardly seemed less massive in his human form than as a black dog. It wasn’t the same one as before. Sheriff Pearson aimed his shotgun at the newcomer’s chest, but didn’t fire, and at first Natividad didn’t understand why, but then she saw that the black dog had caught the barrel. He twisted the gun out of the sheriff’s grip, and closed his other hand, nearly human now, around Pearson’s throat.