Whether Keziah had recruited Benedict on purpose or otherwise, her team was cutting through their gathered enemies almost as efficiently as Grayson’s triumvirate. Keziah had been right about her little sister, for Amira, though so small, was blindingly fast – and, amazingly, fearless and savage in battle. She and Benedict drove one enemy after another into Keziah’s slashing claws, for Keziah, not at all to Alejandro’s surprise, was the killer for her team. She was not so very much larger than her sister, but just as fast, and she seemed to have a real instinct for the killing blow. She cut down one enemy after another, tearing them to ribbons, leaving them to twist, dying, back into human shape. Keziah’s deadliness made Alejandro’s black dog even more furious, though he was also savagely pleased by Dimilioc’s superiority.
Grayson had said that, about demonstrating Dimilioc’s superiority, but Alejandro had not understood. He understood it now. No wonder Grayson had not been worried about facing forty black dogs with only ten. He was sure now that they would win, would crush their enemies, would spill their blood out on the snow and howl after their dispersing shadows – part of that was his black dog’s arrogant blood lust, but part of it was his own growing confidence.
Of all the Dimilioc wolves, only Ezekiel fought alone, in a deadly whirl of blood and ichor, with a clear space always around him because the enemy black dogs tried to keep away from him.
And Ezekiel did take them down. For the first time, Alejandro really understood that the Dimilioc verdugo had never for a moment been at risk from Thaddeus, silver blade or no. He was as brutally strong as Thaddeus himself and as fast as Keziah, and so profoundly in control of his shadow that, as long as he was not killed outright, he could let his black dog carry his injuries away and then instantly bring it back – and somehow no blow he took ever seemed to be a killing blow. Twice in ten seconds Alejandro saw one of Ezekiel’s opponents lunge into a blow that should have torn him in half, but Ezekiel flicked into his much smaller human shape and ducked low to let the strike go over his head, then pulled himself instantly into his black dog form to strike his enemy from an unexpected direction. Both times, Ezekiel dealt so ferocious a blow that he left his enemy struggling and dying in human form, the freed shadow shredding away on the wind.
Ezekiel had claimed right from the beginning that he might kill all the black dogs in the world by himself. Watching him now, Alejandro almost believed he might.
All this Alejandro saw before the intensifying press of battle claimed his attention and he lost track of the other Dimilioc wolves.
He did not know how many black dogs and moon-bound shifters had been destroyed in the first clash – a great many, it seemed to him. And a great many more died after that first attack. Many of those were Vonhausel’s true black dogs, which he would surely find impossible to replace.
The enemy should not have been taken so thoroughly by surprise. That occurred to Alejandro during a pause in the battle. He was contemptuous of Dimilioc’s enemies – those enemies deserved nothing but contempt. If Vonhausel had not been so entirely focused on destroying Natividad’s mandala that he forgot to watch for enemies; if he had realized someone might lead the Dimilioc wolves through the light of the anchoring cross; if the black dogs of his shadow pack had worked together against the Dimilioc wolves, especially Ezekiel – they might have won already instead of fighting and dying, each alone, right in the midst of their fellows.
But because of the mistakes their enemies had made, the Dimilioc wolves were going to destroy the shadow pack. Alejandro knew it, he felt it, he was swept along in a wild triumphant murderous fury that carried them all with it like a spring flood pouring down an arroyo…
Then Natividad’s mandala cracked straight through. The magic infused in the mandala trembled and gave, and the mandala itself cracked, and the rest of the magic poured out of it into the air – gone, lost, and every house and shop that lay along its line burst into flames. The earth itself cracked open, burning, along the line where it had run.
Alejandro heard his own high, piercing shriek of terror, which slid down and down in pitch until it became a roar of rage before he understood that he was the one shrieking. Only the lifeblood of a Pure woman could have shattered Natividad’s mandala so abruptly, and he knew, he knew, as soon as it broke, that Vonhausel had somehow gotten to Dimilioc and stolen Natividad out of its shelter and brought her here and poured her blood out in the snow so that it would run out across the mandala, y prender fuego a la sangre, he had called up his shadow and set her blood afire, and the mandala had broken because she was dead…