Black Dog(89)

One of the crosses Natividad had used to anchor her mandala stood in sight, some distance away to the right of the black forest where the Dimilioc wolves crouched, hidden, to observe. The cross burned with the same pale light so that Alejandro, in his black dog shape, hated to look at it. He didn’t even like looking anywhere in its general direction.

Some of the townspeople had foolishly not bothered to come into the circle of protection, or had not come in quickly enough. Human bodies lay sprawled here and there amid wide spatters of blood that were now freezing into crimson drops in the violent cold. One of the bodies, a young woman, lay in a huge pool of crystallized blood near the outside edge of the mandala. Her hands were stretched out toward it, the tips of her fingers only inches away from its protection: too far. She had been torn nearly in half by some terrible blow that had come down on her from behind.

No human townspeople were visible inside the mandala. They had retreated into their church, Alejandro assumed. A good stone church, Natividad had said. The sort of church made to withstand not only the intangible hatred emanating from the fell dark, but also the more physical threats of hellfire and the deadly influence of demon-souled vampires.

Vonhausel’s black dogs pressed against the mandala with the intangible weight of their shadows, the smoke of their breath rising in dark wisps through the gusts of snow. There were at least twenty of them, larger and far more tightly controlled than those that ran back and forth. The others, the ones that ran along the curve of the mandala, waiting for it to fail, paused sometimes to cry aloud to the blank sky and blowing snow. Those would be weaker black dogs and the moon-bound shifters.

Keziah had been partly right, because though there were many black dogs, there were more of those little shifters. They were small compared to true black dogs, no larger than their human forms, but they were fast and savage. Their mad cries were filled with murder-lust. For the three nights and two days of the full moon, the shifters would run in black dog form. For Vonhausel’s purpose, shifters – nearly mindless, burning with hatred and bloodlust, devoted to slaughter for the sheer love of slaughter and utterly heedless of their own survival – must be even better than true black dogs.

Against all those black dogs and those that had been moon-bound, ten Dimilioc wolves. Counting even little Amira. And counting Thaddeus. Alejandro swung his head around to stare at the newest wolf.

So did Grayson.

Thaddeus stared back just long enough to demonstrate his strength, then turned his head aside in deliberate submission. He straightened, the bones of his limbs lengthening, his powerful clawed paws becoming hands that could grip. He dropped his silver knife from between jet black fangs, caught it, threw the sheath aside, and stood in his half-man half-beast shape, his shadow gathered thickly about him, his eyes glowing with hellfire and bloodlust. If Thaddeus was afraid of the odds they faced, of what would happen to his family if Dimilioc lost here, Alejandro could see no sign of it. If he meant to betray Dimilioc and use that silver blade of his to finish what he had begun with Ezekiel… Alejandro could see no sign of that, either.

Grayson looked at each Dimilioc wolf in turn. They met his powerful gaze for one burning moment and then turned to stare out at the enemy. They would run out to attack; should they attack the moon-bound shifters first, because they would be easier prey; or the strongest of the black dogs, because they were the most dangerous? Either way, Alejandro saw no way they could enter such a battle with any hope of victory.

Grayson gave a low snarling croon to make them all look at him. Then he led the way, all of his wolves falling in behind him. But he did not lead them straight out to battle as Alejandro had expected, but rather in a path that curved back and around through the woods and came out at last from the precise east – from exactly behind Natividad’s cross, Alejandro understood at last. From the direction that repelled the gaze and the attention of any black dog; the one direction in which Vonhausel’s pack was blind.

Alejandro was ashamed he had not thought of that himself. But his black dog shadow had not wanted to look at or think about the cross anchoring this quarter of Natividad’s mandala. Besides that, his shadow was fully absorbed in the lust for battle, in the longing for blood and death. It would have preferred to hunt among a crowd of weak humans, it would have liked prey better than strong adversaries – but if faced with real opponents, it was glad enough to fight. It did not press against Alejandro’s control, it did not really want to turn against the Dimilioc wolves; it agreed that the time for that was past.

Alejandro’s black dog also thought that maybe Thaddeus would betray them. It did not mind that, either; it thought the huge black dog would turn first against Ezekiel and then, if Alejandro was watchful, he could attack him from behind and tear out his spine and cast him into the fell dark, and thus be rid of a strong rival while putting Ezekiel and all Dimilioc in his debt. Alejandro looked forward to the moment Thaddeus turned – at least, his shadow looked forward to it. He pulled his own awareness apart from his black dog’s enough to be able to find Grayson, watch the Dimilioc Master for the cue to attack.