Black Dog(97)

“I’m going down,” Natividad said, and barely waited for her twin to nod agreement before ducking through the sliding door that led back into the house and heading for the stairs. Little Con jumped off the railing at last, and DeAnn swung around and ran for the stairs with a rough urgency that showed how much she wanted to get out of the house, get out there to meet those buses with her son.

Sheriff Pearson leaped down from the first bus just as DeAnn and Natividad came down the steps. Natividad headed for him, took his hands, and looked quickly into his face. The sheriff didn’t seem to have been injured, but he had been badly hurt, she thought, in ways that did not show. She took a breath, dreading to ask, to know…

“I don’t think anyone could have done better,” he told her.

Natividad stared urgently at his face, trying to be sure he meant this. “You’re sure? The mandala did help you, didn’t it? I didn’t make it… wrong?”

“Oh, yes,” Pearson assured her wearily. “It held. Without it, we’d never have lasted long enough for Dimilioc to come.”

Natividad nodded. It did help, a little, despite knowing a Pure woman had probably died, to know that at least the darkness she’d let tangle into her mandala hadn’t hurt the town. That the mandala had held as long as any protective circle could. She asked, “The church?”

“Burned.”

Natividad closed her eyes. “I’m sorry.”

“Most everybody got out.” The sheriff hesitated, then added, “Grayson didn’t abandon us. I thought he would. That your doing?”

“No. I don’t think so. A little, maybe.”

“Ah.” Sheriff Pearson glanced over his shoulder at the Dimilioc wolves. He was afraid of them, Natividad saw, but not nearly afraid enough. The shadows around the wolves were not merely dense but darker than they should have been. Deeper, like each shadow was really a crack in the world that led straight down to Hell. Natividad thought the sheriff did not see this. He said wearily, “Grayson’s here, I know. I can’t tell the rest of them…”

Natividad looked at the Dimilioc wolves, wincing from the absence of those she could not find. “Alejandro,” she said, nodding toward her brother, who was straightening slowly back into his human shape. “Gracias a Jesús, Maria y José,” she muttered, not really meaning for Sheriff Pearson to hear her, though she could see he did. She didn’t explain that she was not only glad to see her brother alive, but also to see him reach for his human form. The darkness of his shadow was really scary.

“Your brother, of course,” said the sheriff.

“Sí. And there’s Ethan, and that’s Ezekiel, of course… That’s Thaddeus Williams over there, and Amira and Keziah over on the other side of that bus. They’re new wolves–”

“New wolves? New to Dimilioc?”

It was too complicated to explain. Natividad shrugged. Other townspeople were coming down from the bus, hesitating uncertainly in the snow. Lots of old people and women and kids. They hugged themselves against the cold, cast indecisive looks toward the house and frightened glances toward the Dimilioc wolves. Alejandro was all the way back to his human shape. His shadow must have carried away any injuries he’d taken: he stood with his shoulders slumped and moved with a dragging step when he walked to meet her, but there was no sign he’d been hurt. Only he looked really tired and angry and, she thought, maybe… maybe kind of heartsick.

The sheriff reached to touch her shoulder, then stopped, wary of the quick lift of Alejandro’s head. But he asked, “Do you know what we should do, where we should go?” He hesitated. “My daughter?” But then he glanced over at Grayson, who was sitting on the high porch, staring out at the forest. The Master showed no signs of taking on human form. Pearson added reluctantly, “I should get these people inside, someplace… that is, maybe someplace…”

“Out of sight,” said Natividad. “Yes.”

Ezekiel, also still in black dog form, had disappeared into the house, trailed at a respectful distance by Ethan. Amira and Keziah had taken back their human shapes, but ignored the buses and the gathered townspeople as though they were all invisible. They walked slowly around the house, side by side but not touching one another, heading for a side door that would not risk any encounter with Ezekiel. Amira limped, but Keziah seemed almost untouched by the injuries or exhaustion of hard fighting – of course, no one important to her had died.

DeAnn had tucked herself against Thaddeus’s left side, managing to look almost petite against her husband’s bulk, not easy for a woman her size. Thaddeus had reclaimed his wholly human form. He’d swung his son up to perch on his shoulder, but he still held his silver blade. He held it casually, though, not as though he expected to use it again right away. His left arm was tight around his wife’s waist, his head tilted down against hers as they, too, walked slowly back toward the house. Neither of them seemed at all concerned with the human townspeople or the Dimilioc wolves or anything.