The Dimilioc Master turned his powerful stare on Alejandro, who instantly dropped his gaze. It had not occurred to him that Grayson Lanning might not welcome a demonstration of that particular skill from any other black dog. If that had occurred to him at the time… he had no idea what else he might have done besides what he had done. He knew he would have lost control of his shadow if he hadn’t managed to use it to force the boy’s black dog down and back. He did not dare say that. So he said nothing.
Before Grayson could respond to Ezekiel’s comment, however, the front door of the house opened and Natividad stepped out onto the porch. All the Dimilioc wolves turned toward her, a powerful reordering of their interest that sent alarm of an entirely different kind down Alejandro’s spine. Only Ezekiel kept his attention tightly focused on Thaddeus. The black dog knew it, staying very still under the young verdugo’s cool gaze.
Grayson, obviously displeased, began, “Natividad–”
“I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “Really I am, I didn’t mean to disobey you, Grayson, only there’s a phone call. It’s Sheriff Pearson, you know?”
Grayson’s lip curled. “You may inform–”
“Yes, of course, only I think you should talk to him, I really do,” Natividad said with earnest rapidity. “I’m so glad you’re back,” she said to Alejandro, and added to Ezekiel, “You’re hurt, aren’t you? I’m sorry.” Alejandro gathered from her tone that there was some sort of trouble and that she was sorry for very practical reasons that the Dimilioc verdugo was injured. He saw Ezekiel catch this subtext too, and, a heartbeat later, Grayson, whose scowl deepened. The Master’s hard gaze went to Ezekiel, judging the extent to which he might have been impaired by injury and hard traveling.
“I’m perfectly fine,” Ezekiel assured him. He sounded fine: his voice was light and amused, edged with cutting scorn for anyone who might for even a moment think otherwise. He looked fine, too. It was hard for even Alejandro to guess how much the verdugo might be concealing, and he had seen the injury dealt and heard Ezekiel admit to being tired and in pain. As a tactic, yes, but he had admitted it.
Grayson grunted, said shortly, “Come with me, then. All of you, come with me.” He stepped toward the door, pausing only to jerk his head toward Thaddeus and add to Zachariah, “He’ll have to wait. You and Benedict may take him downstairs. All three of these can go in the main cage. Put Cass Pearson in one of the small cells.”
Alejandro found it impossible to get a clear picture of whatever the trouble was from overhearing Grayson’s conversation with the sheriff. In fact, Grayson’s side of the conversation consisted mostly of wordless mutters of annoyance. Alejandro wanted to ask Natividad for details, but his sister had vanished. That was unlike her; usually she and Miguel would both be hovering at the edges of any excitement. But neither of the twins was in evidence.
Easing away from the crowd of Dimilioc wolves was simple enough. No one called after him as he backed away, tucked himself through a doorway, and ran up the stairs three at a time to find his brother and sister.
They were, of course, in Natividad’s room, Natividad cross-legged on her bed and Miguel perched on the windowsill. That was fine. But they both looked up at Alejandro with guilty expressions. While unexpected, this was not actually a surprise. He glared at them both. “Well?”
“Well, I’m grounded, so you’re not supposed to be here,” Natividad said rapidly. “But–”
“Grounded!” He did not know whether to laugh or be angry. “What did you do?”
Natividad made an exasperated sound. “Ahora no es el tiempo para armar un escándalo, ‘Jandro! If Grayson agreed with Harrison grounding me, he ought to have left somebody else to answer the phone. Now things are happening, so I can’t still be grounded!”
Exasperating, stupid, foolish – she always thought she could get away with anything, that no one would ever really be angry with her. Alejandro said harshly, “You cannot defy–”
Miguel, holding up his hands, said quickly, “There’s trouble in Lewis, ‘Jandro, trouble with the black dogs, Vonhausel is attacking there and not here, they’re attacking right now. Listen, listen now: yesterday Natividad laid out a big mandala around half the town. It should have stopped any stray black dog from attacking Lewis, but–”
“I should probably tell you…” Natividad began tentatively.
“But surprise!” said Miguel, too focused on Alejandro to pay attention to her. “The attack there isn’t just some random black dog stray, right? The mandala’s holding them for the moment, Pearson says, but from what we hear, the black dogs are really serious about killing everybody. Maybe for fun, maybe for practice, maybe to hurt Dimilioc, we don’t know, but it’s bad. And it’s worse than it should be, because… Look, after that attack earlier, you’d think Vonhausel would have maybe twenty black dogs with him, right? Or not even so many if they got scared, which they should have been because we killed so many of them and they didn’t kill even one of us. Me entiendes?”