Black Dog(95)

Grayson bounded down the rubble of the church amid a cascade of burning fragments of wood and shards of stone and glass, skidding to a halt a few feet from the bus. Amazingly, no one shot at him. The humans called back and forth to one another, but Alejandro had lost nearly all his capacity for human language and could not work out what they said.

A small man with fine features, a tight-set mouth, and eyes the hard clear gray of granite, leaned out the window of the car. He held a pistol in one hand, but he was not pointing the weapon at Grayson. He must have recognized the Dimilioc Master, because he said slowly and formally, in a loud voice, “We ask Dimilioc for shelter from the fell dark.”

The words sorted themselves out only gradually for Alejandro, but Grayson must have worked out the meaning more quickly, or never lost his understanding of human speech, because rather than tearing the man apart for his temerity, he tipped his broad head down in something like a nod. The sound he made was savage, angry – but not hostile. It was a sound of agreement.

The human looked into the Master’s face, ill-advisedly. So, the man was not so very experienced – he did not seem afraid, nor did he lower his gaze as he should have. He only went on, a good deal less formally but with considerable practicality, “Yours is the only road open. The road to Brighton’s blocked, they’ve thrown trees down across it, but we hope the road to Dimilioc is clear.”

Even speaking to the Master of Dimilioc in his black dog form, the man possessed a formidable composure. And despite his lack of proper submissive manners, he was obviously right. Because Alejandro had more or less understood the human’s words, he was not surprised when Grayson turned his head to glare at his remaining wolves, then jerked his head at the buses.

The Dimilioc wolves did not ride on the buses, of course – not even on their roofs – except for Ezekiel, who lay stretched out on the flat-topped yellow bus and sank deadly claws right through the metal to brace himself on the curves. Alejandro did not want to think about the verdugo’s temper at being forced to show the world his weakness; he avoided even the briefest glance up at that bus.

The rest of the Dimilioc wolves, even Amira who was still injured, ran alongside the buses and car, keeping to the slow pace that was the best such cumbersome vehicles could manage. Vonhausel had apparently decided to let them go. He knew, of course, where they were going. Apparently he saw no need to risk his black dogs to stop them getting there. Anyway, he had made himself uncontested master in Lewis. If that had been his aim, he had succeeded.

If his aim had been, as Miguel had guessed, to give his shadow pack a victory, he had succeeded at that, too. If he had wished to defeat Dimilioc in battle and thus recover the pride his earlier defeat had cost him… he had also succeeded in that.



Dimilioc itself proved undisturbed. Alejandro had been haunted all during the run by the idea that Vonhausel’s black dogs, not constrained to escort buses along the road, might make the shorter cross-country journey and be at the house long before the Dimilioc black wolves could return. However much silver ammunition Miguel might have made, however good his aim, or Natividad’s, or Thaddeus’s wife’s, Alejandro was more than half convinced that the Dimilioc wolves would come back to find the house in flames and their vulnerable brothers and sisters and wives and children all dead. Or hostages, if Vonhausel was clever enough to take hostages, and had the control necessary to keep hostages alive. Alejandro thought the black dog was certainly that clever, but could not guess whether he had that kind of control.

But the house was fine. Whatever Vonhausel intended, apparently it did not include tearing down the house that was Dimilioc’s heart. At least, not yet.

Natividad and DeAnn, and DeAnn’s little boy ran out to meet the vehicles, which made Alejandro nervous and angry. What if someone from the buses shot at them? There was no reason anybody should, but what if somebody did? But Miguel had stayed above on the balcony with a rifle, so they were not so careless.

Natividad ran to the car leading the first bus and put her hands up to greet the man who swung quickly down from the bus – the human leader who had spoken to Grayson and who now said something to Natividad with similar familiarity.

Alejandro fought down a surge of black dog possessiveness that made him want to rip the human’s guts out. He should be glad that Natividad knew the man, that she approved him; he must be a decent man as well as a brave one. But Alejandro resented him, almost hated him – or maybe his shadow resented the man; it was harder even than usual to tell where his black dog’s thoughts and feelings left off and his own began. Alejandro, suddenly weary beyond belief of that confusion, struck out of his shadow, back toward the clearer thought and cleaner emotions of his human self.