Black Dog(90)

Grayson gave that signal by the simple expedient of bounding out of the uncomfortable light of the cross and falling on the strongest of the nearby black dogs like a puma on a rat. He bowled the black dog over with his weight and the shock of the attack, ripping through his belly with scything black claws, tearing out his guts and shattering his spine in that same ferocious blow. The black dog died without returning even a single blow of his own. His body writhed and twisted back toward his human shape as his shadow, struggling furiously, pulled free and dispersed back into the fell dark. Grayson did not watch, but flung himself onto a second enemy.

Though no one had talked over the tactics they would use, Alejandro saw that Harrison first, and then Zachariah, and finally Ezekiel, raced past Grayson. Each in turn lunged to attack the next closest enemy black dog, and the one after that, and the one after that – Harrison took his opponent almost as much by surprise as Grayson had and tore him up almost as quickly; Zachariah’s opponent, immediately on the defensive, also went down. Only Ezekiel’s enemy had time to fully brace himself for the attack, but Alejandro saw that it didn’t matter – the black dog might as well have been a puppy in his first cambio de cuerpo. Ezekiel feinted twice and then slid through the black dog’s defenses with an attack that looked at first like another feint, but wasn’t.

Then Alejandro lost track of Ezekiel’s battle because he leaped into one of his own: Ethan had flung himself into a struggle with a black dog who overmatched him, so Alejandro lunged to take the black dog from behind, and then Thaddeus, though already battling an enemy of his own, crouched and spun and slashed his silver blade at their opponent, casually, in passing, opening a huge wound from his belly to halfway up his chest. The black dog screamed and scrambled backward, black ichor streaming from the slash, and then scarlet blood as the shock of the injury forced him into human form. But his human shape, though brawny for a human, was easy prey: before he could reclaim his shadow, Ethan tore his head off. The shadow writhed, crying voicelessly, then diffused like smoke in the cold air. Thaddeus dispatched his own opponent and freed that shadow as well before the first had altogether dispersed.

Alejandro, triumphant, wanted to laugh – he wanted to lift his head and howl challenge and threat across all this frozen country. His black dog, exultant and sly, smug in the confidence of its own strength, was happy now to fight alongside Ethan and thought it was clever to use Thaddeus’s blooded knife against their enemies. When Ethan spun to face a new enemy, Alejandro separated from him only so that they could take the black dog from both sides and drive him onto Thaddeus’s silver knife.

Another kill, and another, and then suddenly shifters crowded everywhere. Not one could be over two hundred pounds, most much less, but they were all mad with bloodlust, and there were so many of them. There were true black dogs among them, too, some of those heavier and stronger than either Ethan or Alejandro. Everything dissolved into a whirling confusion of slashing coal-black fangs and terrible claws, furnace heat beating through the air.

If not for Thaddeus and Ethan, Alejandro might not have survived that first wild struggle. Alejandro did not recognize this at once; he had little attention to spare for anything but battle and blood and death. But he and Ethan and Thaddeus found themselves continuing to fight as a team, foreign though that notion was to any normal black dog. Over and over, Ethan and Alejandro attacked to draw a black dog’s attention, Thaddeus ripped him up with his silver blade, and then one of them finished the enemy without difficulty.

Several times Alejandro took serious wounds, or Ethan did, or once an enemy black dog even tore claws across Thaddeus’s back and smashed all his ribs on one side. But when any of the Dimilioc wolves was injured, he could fall out of his shadow, let his black dog carry away his wounds while his team protected him. Then he could call up his shadow again, shift through the cambio de cuerpo, and leap again for the throat of an enemy.

Alejandro was aware, dimly, at a remove, that Grayson and Harrison and Zachariah had formed a similar team. Even though he knew how formidable the three oldest Dimilioc wolves must be, even though he would never have expected to match them, he was furiously jealous that they were destroying enemies faster than his team. But Grayson could force black dogs into their human forms, Alejandro saw him do that again and again, and though he tried to do that himself, he couldn’t now find the trick of it or else these enemies were too strong. His failure fed his jealousy, but that was alright; his rage only made him fight more ferociously.

Keziah and Amira also fought together, which did not surprise Alejandro, except that Benedict had somehow become a part of their team. Maybe Keziah was smart enough to realize that having a third black dog for her team might keep them all alive, and pragmatic enough to ally with the only Dimilioc wolf available to fill the role.