SHADOW TWIN

Black Dog Volume 5

Rachel Neumeier

Published by Anara Publishing 2018

Cover art and design Midnight Coffee 2020

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to real people, places, or events is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2018 Rachel Neumeier

Contents

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Endnotes

Also by Rachel Neumeier

Praise for Rachel Neumeier’s Books

Acknowledgements

-1-

Natividad began to feel strange during the last part of the service. The choir led the congregation in “Holy, Holy, Holy,” but she found herself unable to listen.

She knew all the words, even in English. She had learned them over the past year. Maker of Heaven and Earth...she knew the words, but she couldn’t voice them. She found she couldn’t quite hear the organ or the choir or the congregation, nor even DeAnn, who had a beautiful alto voice and was standing right next to her. Not even Grayson, whose gritty bass laid down the deep foundation of the melody.

She heard something else. Or not exactly heard. It wasn’t a real sound. In fact, it wasn’t actually much like sound at all. It was more like...it was like a lingering silence where sound ought to have been. It was as though some long note of music, a humming she felt in her bones and her blood, had suddenly stopped.

She didn’t understand what it was, that stiff, empty silence that was both like and unlike sound. But she knew it frightened her. She blinked, gripping the back of the pew in front of her, dizzy. Or not exactly dizzy, her balance was all right, but something was off.

Alejandro took her elbow, always the attentive older brother. Sometimes she found his close attention a tiny bit asfixiante, but this time she was grateful for his concern. She wondered if she had actually swayed after all.

But then the strange sensation ebbed, and the music came back, all the massed voices: Heaven and Earth are filled with your glory. Straightening her shoulders, Natividad took a breath and smiled reassuringly at her brother, though she did not yet try to sing. He was studying her, his concern edged with anger because for a black dog almost everything was tinted with anger. He tilted his head at her smile, clearly doubting her reassurance. She offered him a firm little nod and shaped words under her breath: Estoy bien.

Alejandro didn’t believe her; she could tell. But he returned her nod, pretending he accepted her assurance. He would ask later what had happened to her, though. And she did not know.

She looked for Grayson. The Master of Dimilioc was blocked from her view by the massive form of Thaddeus, who was on the other side of DeAnn. DeAnn had one arm around each of her children—her black dog son Conway, and the little Pure girl they called Paloma. Paloma still did not talk, only a word now and then, but she followed Conway around, a little blonde shadow. Con pretended he didn’t care, but he had kind of started looking over his shoulder to make sure she was there. Of course a Pure sister was a very good thing for a black dog boy.

Beyond Thaddeus and DeAnn and the children, Grayson stood right by the aisle at the left-hand side of the pew, here at the back of the church, in the rearmost pew of the three reserved, unofficially, for the Dimilioc wolves.

Black dogs didn’t like people behind them. Black dogs never liked people behind them. Not even their own people in their own town. These were their own people: the whole town was practically part of Dimilioc. Many of the people here were Dimilioc connections: cousins of one degree or another. The church, the new one, built on consecrated ground across town from where the old church had stood, had protections layered into its foundation and set into every stone of its walls. It did not seem a likely place for violence. But even here, the Dimilioc wolves did not like to have anyone behind them. So these pews in the back were theirs, by long custom unspoken but understood. The people of the town knew it and made sure that not even occasional visitors trespassed.

Grayson Lanning, Master of Dimilioc, did not actually insist that all the black dogs of Dimilioc attend services every week. He permitted alternatives, all of which were also designed to build patience, self-control, and tolerance of the human community. A Dimilioc black wolf might choose instead to attend the local town hall meetings, or join the school board, or even hold an actual job like an ordinary person—though it was understood that Dimilioc duties came first.

In practice, everyone came to mass. It was simple and not too demanding, and there were doughnuts afterward. Even Keziah and Amira usually came, though they weren’t Christian. Keziah was allowing Father McClanahan to teach her about Christ and the church, in pure spite of the memory of her family—Natividad was almost sure about that motivation—and Amira, as always, followed her sister’s lead. Except both Keziah and Amira were away right now, guarding Justin as he visited his grandmamá for Christmas. Keziah and Amira and Nicholas Hammond, so that Justin would have a team of three black dogs to protect him while he was away from Dimilioc, even if two of them were kids.

Nicholas had lost his older sister to a really horrifying master vampire, and almost worse, they still didn’t know absolutely for sure whether his sister Carissa had truly been killed by the vampire. She might have gotten away. Probably she was dead, but they couldn’t be sure. Nicholas was kind of hard to get along with, but Natividad couldn’t blame him. That kind of uncertainty must be almost worse than knowing that someone you loved was dead.

Natividad missed Justin a lot more than Nicholas. He was so restful, a Pure boy among all these black dogs. She missed Amira, too. She’d grown kind of used to telling the younger girl bedtime stories. She even missed Keziah. Keziah could be hard to get along with, arrogant and sarcastic and with a cutting sense of humor, but Natividad had kind of learned to get along with her. Besides, she trusted Keziah, in a way that she didn’t trust most of the newer black dogs of Dimilioc.

Russell and Andrew Meade probably didn’t truly accept Dimilioc law, but at least they had a human sister, Liz. She’d told Natividad that she’d never imagined living somewhere among normal people who knew about black dogs so that she didn’t have to hide everything about her life. So Andrew and Russell were probably all right, because of their sister.

But the other newer wolves, Carter Lethridge and Max Smith and Don and Rip Jacobs—Rip was really Richard, though only Grayson called him that. Naturalmente Grayson would never use a nickname like Rip. Natividad didn’t trust any of them a bit.

Grayson had brought them all into Dimilioc from a small shadow pack in Tennessee. Carter Lethridge had ruled that little pack. He’d held no fewer than eight other black dogs together and established a territory that encompassed parts of three states before Grayson had personally broken up his pack and brought him in, and the others that had survived. So now they all had to deal with Carter. Natividad was almost certain he was going to be trouble. She thought he was going to challenge Grayson eventually. She didn’t trust him. She would have been even more worried except she did trust Grayson to handle whatever Carter eventually tried.

Natividad guessed, though she did not know, that Grayson mostly wanted his wolves to attend mass because so many of the Dimilioc black wolves were new—new to Dimilioc, new to being around ordinary people. He probably thought all his wolves needed structure and ceremony and reasons to really feel like they had joined something bigger than themselves. He was probably right. He usually was.

So every Sunday morning, all the wolves of Dimilioc who were at home came to services and then joined the townspeople for doughnuts and café in the parish hall. It wasn’t only doughnuts, although that was what people said. Natividad made besos and cuernos and cinnamon rolls. DeAnn made pies, with canned pie filling. Until coming to Dimilioc, Natividad had never imagined pie filling in cans, but it was actually pretty good, especially the cherry kind. Miguel, who could sometimes surprise even his twin, made scones. Before coming to Dimilioc, Natividad had not imagined her twin learning to bake, but he said it was nice to stop thinking about big things and just think about whether to make scones with chocolate chips or coconut or lemon.

Miguel wasn’t next to Natividad this morning; he was up in the front, with Cassie Pearson and her father. Natividad knew Alejandro was uneasy having their brother pasa tiempo, hang out with, Cassie Pearson, who was a cambiadora, a moon-bound shifter, and dangerous when the moon forced her into the cambio de cuerpo. The moon-bound could not control their shadows, and when the shadow came up, it always first tried to kill those the shifter loved most. That was all true, and Cassie really was dangerous when she shifted, but Natividad had been working and working to figure out ways to help her control her shadow better. Eventually she was sure Cassie would truly master her shadow and prove that cambiadors could learn to do that and didn’t have to be killed. That would be wonderful.

Besides, Natividad just liked Cassie, and she was glad Miguel liked her, too. Cassie was the right kind of girl for her twin: Miguel thought he knew everything and he did know a lot, and he could sometimes pasa por encima...walk all over, an excellent phrase...yes, her twin could walk all over someone without even noticing he was doing it. But it was impossible for him to do that to Cassie Pearson, who was just as smart as he was and just as used to being right about everything.

But right now, she kind of wished her twin was right next to her, instead of Alejandro. Miguel would have noticed that something was wrong, too, but he would help her try to figure it out, not just get all suspicious and protective.

In the pew in front of them stood James Mallory, now the only remaining black dog to carry the Mallory name. James had lost his younger brother in that terrible fight with Vonhausel. He had changed after that. He had been loud and effusive, but Natividad had barely known him at all before his brother had died. He was quieter now. Or maybe it was because Grayson had lost Zachariah and Harrison and now had so little support; maybe that was why James had become serious and quiet.

Next to James Mallory stood Ethan Lanning—Ethan stood with his arms crossed, only marginalmente more patient than Conway for all he was more than twenty instead of just six. But Ethan was Grayson’s nephew. Natividad knew he probably thought he shouldn’t have to follow the rules as closely as the new black wolves.

Theodora and Maddie and Rebecca, the three women Ezekiel had brought to Dimilioc a month ago, were all over there with Liz, surrounded by ordinary people. They had only been at Dimilioc for a little while and preferred to stay in town.

Those women had very good reason to hate black dogs. But despite his father, Theodora loved her son. Soon she would have to move into the Dimilioc house. Even that she would do for her bebé. It was too hard for a human woman to raise a black dog child without help, even a child who had had the Aplacando done for him before he was born and again when he was a day old so that he would have better control over his shadow.

No one could tell about Maddie’s bebé yet, but everyone could tell Rebecca’s would be a black dog also. That was why Ezekiel had brought the three women to Dimilioc, of course, and why Grayson had accepted them. But Grayson hadn’t let Ezekiel stay even a single night. Natividad hadn’t seen him at all. In a way it had been good just to know he was so near. In another way, it had been very hard, so she had been almost glad he had gone away again so quickly. Except that she would have felt completely safe from all the newer black dogs if Ezekiel had been nearby.

But it wasn’t any of the newer black dogs who had made her feel suddenly uneasy a minute ago. Black dog magic couldn’t make sound fade out and come back. That hadn’t been anything familiar from Pure magic, either. She didn’t understand what had happened. Whatever it was, she thought it was actually still going on, too, because there was still that feeling of something missing, something that should have been there. She didn’t remember ever feeling anything quite like this, except at the same time it seemed almost like she did remember feeling this way before. She frowned, puzzled.

Grayson’s phone vibrated. Natividad couldn’t hear it, but despite the last dwindling notes of the organ music, every black dog turned his head. Grayson took his phone out and held it up, frowning, to look at the number. Then, instead of rejecting the call, he stepped quietly out of the pew and left the church. And he didn’t come back.

Of course, the service was nearly over, so it made sense that Grayson wouldn’t want to disturb everyone by coming and going. There was no reason at all to para preocuparse...to fret. To fidget and wish Father McClanahan would hurry through his closing. Natividad tried to wait patiently, but she was surrounded by all these impatient black dogs, so it wasn’t her fault that she kept catching herself shifting her weight and twisting the reminder sheet and trying to look over her shoulder without being too obvious about it. And she definitely didn’t suggest going over to the parish hall for doughnuts. No one did, not even Miguel, who usually liked that part of Sunday services best. Even though he’d been close to the front, her twin almost beat her out the door and into the chilly sunshine.

Grayson was standing a little way from the church, listening to someone on his phone. Natividad could see nothing of the ordinary give and take of conversation. It looked more like he was listening to someone report. He wasn’t saying anything himself, just occasionally nodding, the way you did on the phone even though the other person couldn’t see you. And he was frowning. Grayson seldom looked cheerful. But surely his expression now was more forbidding than usual?

The feeling came back to her, or maybe just the memory of the feeling. Of something missing, a spreading silence where there ought to be...she didn’t know. Not exactly sound. But something sort of like sound. She took a step toward Grayson, found her balance uncertain, and caught Alejandro’s arm quickly. Her brother steadied her. “Natividad—”

“Espera,” she said to him. “Wait.”

Alejandro was paying more attention to Natividad than to Grayson, but most of the other black dogs were gathering, moving slowly, giving each other plenty of space but all watching Grayson attentively. They knew something was wrong, too. Thaddeus had his back straight and his arms crossed over his broad chest; a dominant posture that sent all the other black dogs wide of him. He was scowling, as always when he felt uncertain. DeAnn had her hand on her husband’s back, rubbing gently, nudging him and everyone else toward calm and peace. She’d let Con and Paloma run away to burn off the impatient tension of staying still for an hour, which was probably as well, but she’d stayed by Thaddeus and Natividad was glad of it. Just having the other Pure woman nearby made Natividad feel better. Especially when she saw how intently Carter was watching the Master.

Miguel, as curious as any of them and probably more than most, had edged forward, bringing Cassie with him. Plainly aware that something was happening, Cassie’s father, Sheriff Pearson, also joined them.

Grayson said finally, in a flat tone that did not invite argument, “Yes, I understand. I will come myself.” Then he thumbed the phone off. He stood still for a long moment, looking at nothing. At last he turned, scanned the gathered Dimilioc wolves and everyone else, and met Natividad’s gaze.

“Oh,” said Natividad, somehow surprised and not surprised, both at once. “Something’s happened to Ezekiel.” She knew it was true. Something was wrong with Ezekiel. Since they’d fought the vampire together, she’d held a tiny bit of his shadow, just a trace, less even than she’d kept of Alejandro’s. But it was enough to spin a thread of awareness between them. It wasn’t much. She hadn’t even realized it was there until Grayson had sent Ezekiel away, and then she’d found it was just enough to let her kind of tell where he was, even when he was a thousand miles away. It also let her know, even more vaguely, that he was all right. That thread of awareness was a comfort to her, even though she also worried about it sometimes—about what that trace of black dog magic might be doing to her own proper Pure magic.

At least, it had been a comfort until now all of a sudden it wasn’t.

A sharp silence had spread out around her, around all of them. Natividad blinked, becoming aware of it, realizing only when it was too late that it was a silence that had teeth in it. Then suddenly half the black dogs in the gathering were moving, aggression flaring in the air. She froze, understanding what she’d said.

Grayson himself only lifted his head and squared his shoulders, but Ethan and James both swung around to put their backs to him, facing the rest of the black dogs. Ethan’s attention was on Russell Meade, and, as though they’d sorted out their priorities by some unspoken black dog telepathy, James was staring straight at Carter Lethridge.

The other black dogs realized this, too. Russell’s lip curled in silent contempt: he knew he was stronger than Ethan. But he glanced away despite this, declining any challenge. His brother stood behind him, but he stood still, he wasn’t moving either, at least not yet.

But Carter stared back at James, deliberately holding his gaze. He was a light-skinned black man of thirty or so, trim and good looking. More importantly, he had, for his age, a dense, powerful shadow and surprisingly good control. When he glanced around at the rest of the newer black dogs, the ones who hadn’t been born into Dimilioc, they all looked away, wary and deferential.

Max backed away, not strong enough to put himself into the middle of a challenge, if there was going to be a fight. Alejandro, stronger and with better control than most of the other newcomers, stared at Carter, his eyes taking on a fiery tinge. Of course Alejandro would understand that Carter was the most dangerous of the new ones. Natividad gripped her brother’s wrist, not that she could stop him if he moved, but she thought she’d better remind him she was here, and Miguel, and lots of other people. This would be a terrible place for a fight.

Sheriff Pearson had backed away, too. His hand rested on the butt of his gun, but he didn’t draw it, being too sensible to step unthinkingly into this situation. Though Natividad seriously suspected the sheriff would get involved if he thought it would help and never mind Dimilioc law that said ordinary humans weren’t to involve themselves in black dog quarrels.

Then Thaddeus caught Carter’s eye, raised his eyebrows, and said in his deep, deep voice, “Well, that’s too bad, something happening to Ezekiel.”

Suddenly everyone’s attention was focused on Thaddeus, who was unquestionably the strongest black dog here, except just possibly for Grayson himself.

Thaddeus took one step toward the Master, and turned, putting Grayson at his back, the clearest possible statement of his allegiance. Immediately Natividad was ashamed of the instant of doubt she’d felt, because of course Thaddeus would side with the Master, she should have known he would—she had known, really, because obviously DeAnn would never even think of siding with a cabrón like Carter Lethridge.

“Ah,” said Carter, and shrugged. “Well, that is too bad. About Ezekiel, I mean.”

“Indeed,” said Grayson, his tone dry.

Carter turned his head to the side, a gesture of submission, but not a very strong one. Natividad didn’t always understand how black dogs worked out all their dominance issues, but she couldn’t see how that would be enough, especially when Carter said, in a light, easy tone, “Master.”

Grayson walked forward. Carter tensed...and stepped aside. The Master brushed past him and came to Natividad. He said to her, ignoring the rest of them, “That was Étienne Lumondière. He has encountered something peculiar, it seems. Peculiar and troubling. He has evidently not been able to determine precisely what has happened to Ezekiel. It appears that Ezekiel has been out of touch for some days. Yet you only just now felt something happen?”

Natividad stared at him. She said after a moment, “I don’t know  if I’d have felt anything until it became serious. But whatever’s happened, he’s alive. I know that.”

“You are confident?”

Natividad nodded.

Grayson’s eyes half closed. Other than that, he didn’t show any visible reaction, but she knew she’d better be right. She nodded again. The connection might be thin and the feeling it gave her might be hard to interpret, but she was positive she could tell that much. She looked away, west. “He’s...something’s happened. He’s not...right. Or...maybe it’s not him. Maybe it’s the...” she gestured helplessly. “The connection. It’s like it’s...faded. No, that isn’t right, not faded. Muffled.”

“Muffled,” said Miguel, coming up beside her.

Natividad nodded. “Sí. Yes, muffled. It’s like hearing something, only there’s a wall in the way. Or like you’re down a well, or buried in blankets, or something.” She made a frustrated gesture. “It’s not like any of those things, really. I know he’s alive. I don’t even think he’s hurt, exactly. I don’t think so! But there’s something wrong anyway. Something strange. I think—I think he’s angry. Very angry. But that is muffled also.”

Grayson considered this. After a moment he glanced around. “I shall see all of you back at the house,” he told them. “James, if you would join me?” He walked away, without, so far as Natividad could tell, even a flicker of extra attention for Carter Lethridge.

Natividad stared after him. He was going to Colorado. He’d said that, to Étienne. The Master of Dimilioc was going to leave Dimilioc. That idea gave Natividad a thoroughly uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach.

Even so, she was determined he would take her, too. If Ezekiel was in trouble, she was not going to be left behind.

Natividad didn’t wait to talk to Grayson before packing. She had a nice little suitcase on wheels. Justin had bought it for her, last April, when they’d gone off so suddenly together. She hadn’t had a chance to pack that time. This time was better. At least, she hoped it was better. At least she could start off better. As long as Grayson didn’t argue with her.

She put in underthings and another pair of jeans and several shirts, rolling them up tight so they wouldn’t wrinkle.

But she wanted more than that. She never again wanted to be in trouble and not have anything she could use. So she also got out a little palm-sized mirror with a protective cloth case. Then she found a little bag of glass beads. Two light chains of nearly pure silver, and the small wooden flute that was almost the only thing she still had of Mamá’s. To keep all these things safe, she rolled them into a t-shirt. Then she put the shirt in her pink sisal handbag, carefully, where she could get to it without searching.

Then she looked around, thinking. She had had a knife of Ezekiel’s, once. He had given it to her. But she had used it up, and he’d never had a chance to give her another.

After a moment, she left her room and went, boldly, down the hall and around to Ezekiel’s suite.

The door wasn’t locked. She had known it wouldn’t be. People didn’t generally lock their doors in this house, and anyway, Natividad had carefully laid a mandala around Ezekiel’s living room to bar his door against anyone who intended him harm or harbored ill will against him. Probably it had been completely unnecessary effort. Nobody would dare intrude into the Dimilioc executioner’s private space, even if he had been exiled for a year. But she had wanted to do it and she’d done it. Maybe someday it would turn out to be useful. You never knew.

But since the door wasn’t locked, it was no trouble to just walk right in.

When she’d first seen Ezekiel’s suite, she’d been surprised by its plainness and simplicity. Now she knew it was just right for him. She liked it. She liked the muted grays and charcoal of the first room, what the Norteamericanos called the living room as though the rest of the apartment or house weren’t where people lived. Natividad could imagine Ezekiel living in this room, though. She liked the painting on one wall, all washes of soft gray and charcoal, that looked first like it was abstract and then started to suggest a mountain and trees and water. But there was nothing in this room that she could use, and she crossed to the bedroom.

Of course there was nothing she could use here, either. Or hardly anything. But there was a statue on the table by the bed. She liked it. At first she’d thought it was a Buddha statue, even though Buddha statues were usually fat and comfortable and this figure was tall and thin and holding a spear. Later, Ezekiel had told her it was really a statue of Bishamonten, the Guardian of the North. But Bishamonten was a Buddhist deity, so she hadn’t been so wrong.

The statue itself was no use, but a scattering of shiny black pebbles lay at its foot. Hematite. She knew that too, because Ezekiel had told her the name. She took one, because it was something he had touched and because a pebble was a lot easier to carry than an eighteen-inch-high statue of Bishamonten. Then she looked around, frowning. She didn’t want to search in Ezekiel’s closets...there must be a desk and things in the other room, which she hadn’t ever seen. Leaving the bedroom, she went back out to the living room and opened the other door.

It wasn’t locked either, and yes, there was a desk, with a computer on the top and lots of drawers down the front. And a filing cabinet. And a shelf above the desk, with a set of three-ring binders—black, of course, with no labels on them, which didn’t matter. That wasn’t the kind of thing she was looking for. There wasn’t anything else in the room, which was not large. Except another painting, not as big as the one in the living room, but similar: washes of misty gray and darker gray. At first she thought maybe the painting was of a river winding between mountains, and then she thought it might be a dragon winding between clouds. There were dragons in China, everyone knew that. They hated black dogs; they hated everything demonic. Somehow it didn’t surprise her that Ezekiel had this painting that might be of a dragon. She looked at it for a while, feeling oddly homesick, even though nothing about this painting and this room was like home. But the feeling was like homesickness. She missed Ezekiel, that was the trouble.

He was alive. She knew that. He was far away, and there was something more than distance between them, but he was alive and she was going to find him.

Crossing the room, she opened the top desk drawer, hoping for something he had touched and held and cherished. A knife. Though probably he had taken all his knives with him. But there was nothing. Paperclips and things. Nothing at all useful. She opened the next drawer, and the next.

In the bottom drawer, she found nothing at all, except one small glass bowl, and in the bowl, a fine gold chain. Hardly thicker than sewing thread. Fine and elegant and fragile...and gold. Gold wasn’t at all useful in magic. It was only pretty. This was a bracelet; it had a fastening like a necklace, but it was small, sized for a wrist. A slender wrist.

But this bracelet had been tucked away in Ezekiel’s desk, out of sight, but important enough that he had kept it safe and never put anything else in that drawer.

It wasn’t anything Natividad had looked for. She couldn’t imagine how she could use it. But it was important to Ezekiel. There had been another girl, once. She knew that. She didn’t know anything else. Just that there had been another girl, and she had died. Natividad didn’t know that this bracelet had belonged to that girl. But it was important to Ezekiel. She thought maybe it had been that girl’s.

That might be useful. She couldn’t quite think how, but she had a feeling. Natividad put the bracelet on her own wrist, fastening it carefully, because something so delicate wouldn’t be safe even tucked in a little box and rolled up in her special t-shirt. She couldn’t think of any way to make sure it was safe except to wear it. And she had better be careful never to catch it on anything. She could just imagine trying to explain to Ezekiel how she had managed to lose his special bracelet.

But no knife. Nothing silver. She looked around the room once more, shook her head, and went to find Grayson. She was going with him; she hoped he wouldn’t argue but she was going. And that being so, maybe he would give her a knife.

He didn’t give her a chance to ask him, not immediately. She tapped on the open door of his study, and Grayson glanced up from the papers he was arranging, gave her an absent-minded nod, and said, “Natividad, how very timely. Come in, by all means. I don’t expect to need you, but one never knows.”

Trying not to frown or look confused, Natividad stepped into the study and looked around for a chair that didn’t have papers or books piled on it. There seemed to be more papers on the chairs than on the long table—certainly more than on Grayson’s actual desk. There was a letter opener on the desk, though. She could tell it was silver, or more likely an alloy, but silver enough. Maybe he wouldn’t mind if she borrowed that. She moved a stack of papers from the nearest chair to the table and perched on the edge of the chair. “Grayson—”

The Master held up one hand, meaning Wait, and said, “Thaddeus. Come in. Ethan will be—ah, yes, good. If you would join us.”

Thaddeus was big and tough. His size and strength made him an asset to Dimilioc, especially because DeAnn helped him keep his head straight even when things got scary. Right now, though, he was plainly suspicious and wary, which wasn’t so good. He took an aggressive stance not too far from Grayson’s desk, standing with his feet apart, his back straight and his powerful arms folded across his chest.

Compared to Thaddeus, Ethan looked like a kid, though he was several years older than Natividad—a couple years older than Alejandro, even. Though Ethan was a Lanning and Grayson’s nephew and could trace his bloodlines all the way back to Dimilioc’s founding, his shadow wasn’t very strong. Natividad understood how hard that must be for him, and she sympathized, she really did. But Ethan was hard to like. He was so annoyingly desdeñoso, worse with the newer black dogs, but a little bit even with Natividad and her brothers. He moved now to clear a seat for himself with only the briefest nod for his uncle.

Grayson said without preamble, “You understand, I am going to Colorado.”

“Yeah, you said so,” Ethan agreed, and Thaddeus gave a short little nod, looking more suspicious than ever.

Grayson didn’t actually take a deep breath or visibly brace himself, though Natividad had the impression he wanted to do both. He said, his tone flat, “James will accompany me. Also Alejandro, Carter, and Richard Jacobs—”

“Rip?” Ethan asked. “Not Don?”

“I believe you may find Donald’s ability to roll down other black dogs’ shadows useful here, as neither Alejandro nor I will be available. I believe he will prove trustworthy. Especially since Richard will be with me.”

Ethan raised his eyebrows skeptically, but he nodded.

Grayson turned to Thaddeus. “While I’m gone, I will need someone to act as Master here. As you will be without question the strongest Dimilioc wolf remaining here, Thaddeus, that will be you.”

Well, now it was perfectly clear why Grayson had been pleased when Natividad had showed up in time for this interview. She laid both her hands flat on the cool wood of the table and wished fervently for peace, peace, peace.

Grayson was going on in that same flat tone, “Ethan, I will expect you to support Thaddeus. I will be very disappointed if—”

Ethan had raised his chin, his lip curling haughtily. But, surprising Natividad, it was Thaddeus who said abruptly and a little too loudly, “No.”

Grayson stopped, tilting his head. “No?”

Thaddeus glowered at him. “No. It wouldn’t work. How do I know how to do any of the things the Master does?” He jerked his head at Ethan. “He can do it. He can do it well. Give it to him.”

There was a short silence. Grayson’s heavy brows had gone up. He said, his tone neutral, “Ethan doesn’t have even a third of your strength.”

“Doesn’t matter, does it, if I support him.” The way Thaddeus said this, it wasn’t a question. He turned his glower on Ethan, who glared back. But though Natividad could see more than a trace of outrage in the line of the younger black dog’s back and the tension in his shoulders, Ethan didn’t say a word. If Thaddeus had taken him by surprise, it had only been for a second.

Turning back to face the Master, Thaddeus growled, “Yeah, I’m stronger. Most of us are stronger. Russell for sure. Maybe Don. But Ethan knows Dimilioc. Hell, he is Dimilioc, as much as you—a lot more than me. You want to leave somebody in charge, it’s gotta be him. That won’t surprise anybody. It won’t offend anybody either. Leave me in charge and everybody will figure it’s cause I’m strong, but they’ll think maybe two against one, three against one, maybe they could take me down. Leave Ethan in charge and me at his back and everybody’ll feel Dimilioc’s still solid.” He shrugged. “I’m not saying it right. DeAnn could explain it better.”

“Hm. No, I think you are quite clear.” Grayson swiveled his chair around and said to Ethan, “And do you also feel that you would be a more appropriate choice for Dimilioc Master than Thaddeus?”

“Yes,” Ethan answered, his voice level. “He’s right. If you were leaving James here, it’d be different. But you need him to watch your back. And if James goes with you, then it should be me. If Thaddeus is okay with it, I’m okay with it.”

Grayson studied his nephew for another long moment. Eventually he said, “It’s not easy to hold power when one must depend upon a stronger black dog to reinforce one’s position. Such an arrangement can work. But it will inevitably present certain difficulties.”

“I know. I can do it.”

“It would require you to trust Thaddeus.”

Ethan only shrugged. “That won’t be a problem.”

Grayson leaned back in his chair, considering them. “Well. Good, then. If you both agree, we shall arrange matters just so.” He gave Thaddeus a slight nod. “Dimilioc will be strengthened by this arrangement.”

Thaddeus scowled uncomfortably, but Ethan said, “You sure you don’t want to reconsider taking Carter with you? We can handle him, if you don’t want him at your back.”

“If I left him here, you would almost certainly be required to kill him. I believe he is significantly more likely to survive if he is with me. I remain confident that he could be an asset to Dimilioc.”

“As if,” muttered Ethan.

Grayson pretended not to hear him. “In any case, I think you may indeed trust James to watch my back.”

“And Alejandro!” put in Natividad. “But, look, Master, you need to take me with you, too! How else will we find Ezekiel, if—well, if someone needs to find him?” She touched her breast over her heart as though the gesture might let her listen a little more closely to the muted awareness of Ezekiel’s life, to the faint trace of his shadow tied to her magic.

“Indeed. Both you, and, as you say, Alejandro,” agreed Grayson. “Alejandro’s primary duty, however, will be to watch your back. How else will we find you, if we suddenly discover that you have been lost? You must admit, Natividad, that you have in the past shown a regrettable tendency to...” he paused.

“Leap before you look?” suggested Ethan, not quite kindly.

“Bite off a mouthful that’s a little too big for you,” said Thaddeus, but with more sympathy. He liked her, or at least he approved of her because DeAnn liked her.

“Need to be found,” concluded Grayson, only a touch drily.

Natividad suppressed an urge to declare that this wasn’t her fault. She had to admit it kind of was. She said instead, “Can Miguel come too? He might be useful if we find anything, well, raro. Peculiar. I mean, he knows things. And we don’t know yet what’s happened to Ezekiel...”

“Nothing too dramatic, I trust.” Grayson sounded calmly confident of this. “However, yes, I think it might be as well if both your brothers accompanied us. I shall have a little talk with Miguel about his role on this expedition.”

Of course, it was the Master’s job to sound calm and confident, but Natividad was pretty certain he didn’t feel nearly as confident as he sounded. But she only nodded meekly, glad that he’d agreed so easily, wondering what role he had in mind for Miguel—the only ordinary human who would be going, probably. Maybe that was Grayson’s idea right there: that a human might see things a black dog would miss, come up with ideas a black dog wouldn’t think of. Maintain an emotional steadiness out of reach for a black dog.

No wonder Grayson hadn’t said any of that, if that was what he had in mind. Black dogs didn’t like to admit that ordinary people were better than them at anything.

Or maybe he just agreed with her that Miguel knew a lot about black dogs and magic and things. He knew Mamá and Papá had taught Miguel something about history and magic and theory while Natividad had mostly been learning to do things.

She didn’t ask him. She asked instead, “Since I’m going with you, I wondered if maybe you had a silver knife I could borrow? Just in case I...” get into trouble didn’t sound like quite the right way to put it...“need something to use in magic, or something to protect myself,” she finished, and carefully didn’t specify against whom or what she might need defense.

Grayson frowned at her. But his phone chimed just then and he picked it up, glanced at the number, thumbed the talk button, and handed her the silver-alloy letter opener with the air of a man disposing of a not very important distraction.

Natividad gratefully tucked the letter opener away as Grayson waved Ethan toward a nearby chair, cast Thaddeus a look of dismissal, and said into the phone, “Justin, yes. You’ve arrived, I presume. I trust your drive was uneventful and that you have found your grandmother in good health?”

Natividad paused—she too wanted to know how things were going with Justin’s grandmother; she wanted to know how the woman had reacted to her grandson keeping company with Keziah and two more young Dimilioc black wolves. On the other hand, she didn’t want to delay in case the Master changed his mind about the knife. After a second’s indecision, she headed for the door after all. Justin would be too busy with his grandmother to talk to her now anyway. She could text him later.

In the meantime she could finish packing. A letter opener was close enough to a knife. A silver knife, a gold bracelet, a pebble of hematite. A mirror, a bag of glass beads, two silver chains, and Mamá’s little wooden flute. And both her brothers. She couldn’t think of anything else she might need.

Natividad couldn’t argue about maybe biting off more than a mouthful once or twice in the past. But this time would be different. This time, she was prepared.

-2-

When the Master sent for him specifically, Miguel was afraid he might intend to explain in person that he was leaving Miguel behind. It would be tough to argue the Master around if he’d already made up his mind. He was therefore relieved to be told instead that Grayson had decided he should join the group headed for Colorado. But he was unhappy to leave Cassie Pearson behind. When Grayson informed him that he, Miguel, would go, it seemed a natural extension of the idea to ask whether it wouldn’t make sense for Cassie to come along too.

“She might be useful to us if we stay in Denver any length of time,” he pointed out. “The full moon’s only a few days away. She could probably shift pretty soon, if we turned out to need more firepower. So to speak. I mean, I know if there’s any fighting, James and Alejandro will have your back, but obviously Carter and Don would be a stronger team with a third. Cassie would be a good choice for it: a deadly fighter, but no use at all to Carter if he wants to play dominance games. Or if it turns out you don’t need her to fight, I’m sure the Denver sept has a perfectly adequate cage that could keep a shifter contained.”

“It does. Still, if we are too distracted to deal adequately with a moon-bound shifter, she would present a hazard to every human in the vicinity. Particularly you.” Grayson regarded Miguel thoughtfully. “Am I to understand that you wouldn’t fear for Cassandra’s safety? Even during the height of the full moon, she will never be the equal of any but the weakest black dog.”

“She’s smart. Even when she’s shifted, she’s smart. She’s really improved her control, as you know, sir, and she hates her shadow. She’d be pleased if you forced it to help us, I’m pretty sure.”

This was all true. Well, it was sort of true. He and Cassie had talked, carefully, about how a moon-bound shifter might become an asset to Dimilioc instead of a liability. Actually, she’d mostly argued that a shifter would inevitably prove to be a liability and rationally ought to be killed. Miguel totally disagreed. He wanted the Dimilioc Master to come down publicly on his side, but he didn’t want to come right out and explain any of this.

“I see.” Grayson sounded merely thoughtful, though in fact Miguel thought he might have just figured out the whole situation right at that moment, if he hadn’t before. The Master was really sharp; you couldn’t necessarily depend on him failing to pick up the subtext as well as the text. The sub-subtext too, sometimes.

Grayson tapped the tip of a pen thoughtfully against the pad of paper on his desk. “In fact, Miguel, I intend to specifically ask Cassandra to remain here.”

He came down with just enough emphasis on here that Miguel realized he meant here-here, at Dimilioc house instead of with her father in town. That was peculiar enough that he paused rather than arguing. “The full moon’s not that close,” he said after a moment. “She’s only forced to shift right around the actual full moon now, so it’s not safety you’re thinking about. You’ve got something you want her to do for you here.” It was pretty clear what this ought to be and he went on almost at once. “Some kind of research project that I’d usually do?”

Grayson lifted a tolerant eyebrow. “In fact, precisely the sort of research project I would normally ask Cassandra to do. However, I will expect you to communicate with her about this project, yes. How much do you know about witches, Miguel?”

This change of topic was so completely unexpected that for a second Miguel could only stare. “Uh, not much, sir. There are references to witches of some kind in some of our—Dimilioc’s—older histories.”

“Our histories, certainly. Yours as much as anyone’s.”

“Uh, right. Yes, sir. Our histories. Anyway, there’re notes that go way back, mostly notes about the Ashanti Empire when it was just a little thing, before the Ashantis conquered half of Mali and part of Nigeria and everything west nearly to Senegal—you probably know all this, sir.”

Grayson rested his elbows on his desk, steepled his hands, and gazed at Miguel over the tips of his fingers. “Go on.”

“Yes, sir. Well, most of the references describe some kind of supernatural influence, we presume demonic, that helped the Ashantis take over so much of West Africa. Curses, human sacrifice, lots of ugly stuff, more in the sixteen and seventeen hundreds than now. I think. That stuff is supposed to be witchcraft. I don’t know exactly what anybody writing those notes meant by witchcraft or witches, though. They weren’t always big on defining their terms, whoever wrote up those histories. References to the supernatural in Central and East Africa are even more vague and spooky, except whatever’s in East Africa, it seems to have kept that whole region mostly free of Ashanti witches and vampires and black dogs. I could find the references for you if you want.”

“Human sacrifice,” Grayson murmured, directing Miguel to the specific area in which he was interested. “Particularly human sacrifice of the Pure. Also, the control and use of black dogs by witches.”

Miguel had to shake his head. This all seemed pretty fraught. “You think whatever’s happened in Colorado has to do with witches somehow? What exactly did Étienne tell you happened?” He was wildly curious now about exactly what Grayson thought might have happened to Ezekiel, and why he thought so. But when the Master only flicked an impatient hand, he went on quickly. “I don’t know much more. I always thought it could be important—if we ever figured out enough about how all the different demonic entities work maybe we could really do something useful. But I never actually dug into this. There used to be witchcraft in a lot of the ancient world, I guess, like three thousand years ago or like that. After that either vampires wiped out the witches or their miasma stopped people from noticing witchcraft. Or both. Not even we—Dimilioc—know much about witches. As far as I’ve seen, but I haven’t gotten very far in the histories. The handwriting’s hard, and some of the early records are in German. Does Cassie read German, by any chance, sir?”

“Somewhat, I believe.”

And was Miguel surprised? He was not. “Right. So you’re going to ask her to do the primary research and pass on what she finds out to me? I can start looking online. There are people who’ve gotten interested in this kind of thing since the miasma faded. But you know all the really important discussions will be happening offline. Nobody’s stupid enough to put a live video stream of a real human sacrifice on YouTube.” He added prudently, “Probably.”

“If someone has been so foolish, I trust you will discover the video. We will leave for the airport in two hours. Prior to our departure, please make time to chat with Justin. It seems he and Keziah have had an interesting experience in New Mexico.”

“Justin!” This was news to Miguel. “He put you onto this witch thing, not Étienne? Did Justin and them run into a witch? Is everyone all right?”

Grayson inclined his head slightly. “Yes, and yes, and fortunately yes. Though victorious, our people did not avoid a certain amount of excitement. Chat with Justin. He will be expecting your call. Also see if you can persuade Keziah to describe her experience. She may be reluctant. In that case perhaps she may be more willing to describe it to Cassandra. Or possibly to Natividad. In either case, I will ask you to discuss the matter with Cassandra and help her organize a proper review of the Dimilioc histories. Please pursue the matter with some alacrity.”

“Yes, sir.” Miguel was already trying to haul everything he’d ever read about witches and witchcraft out of the dusty stacks of his memory. He really wanted to know every detail about whatever had happened in New Mexico. Nevertheless, he delayed just a second. Just long enough to ask, “But you do think whatever’s happened to Ezekiel involves witches?”

Grayson only regarded Miguel in silence for a long stretched-out moment. But then, before Miguel could either figure out another way to ask or give up, he said, “Yes, I think that likely.” He held up one finger. “Ezekiel is still alive.” A second finger. “But muffled. That is the word Natividad used. Justin’s experience seems to have included a similar perception related to his own magic in the region immediately surrounding the enemies he encountered, whom he termed ‘witches.’ So did the wolves Étienne sent seeking Ezekiel. That would be more than sufficient to raise suspicion, but—” A third finger. “No black dog enemy would be so foolish as to attempt to hold Ezekiel prisoner rather than kill him. I doubt very much whether this enemy whom Ezekiel has evidently encountered is a black dog. Nor does anything about this situation suggest a vampire.” Grayson lowered his hands to the surface of his desk and added, “Also, the timing and placement of all these events is suggestive. It strains credibility to consider that inexplicable events in Colorado are unrelated to a peculiar situation simultaneously arising in New Mexico.”

Lay everything out that way and the Master’s guess did seem likely. Miguel turned it all over in his mind. Then he said, “We still don’t actually know, though. It would be dangerous to focus too much on one possibility, no matter how likely it seems, and miss preparing for something else that we ought to have considered.”

“Obviously.” From his dry tone, Grayson didn’t think he needed advice about the obvious from Miguel. He said, “I shall consider other possibilities, I assure you. I want you to focus on this possibility.”

“Right,” said Miguel. “Right. Sure, good. I mean, yes, sir.”

Grayson lifted an ironic eyebrow, and Miguel flushed, nodded, turned the nod into a little bow, and retreated before he said anything else stupid.

Witches. Witchcraft. It wasn’t exactly hard to believe, especially not after Miguel talked to Justin. It all sounded very creepy: white candles and finger bones and yes, human sacrifice. At least Justin’s grandmother was all right, and Justin. But it sounded like it had been pretty bad for everyone for a little while. And what had happened to Keziah was worse. Tactically speaking. Obviously Keziah had recovered once the witches had been chased off or killed, which you couldn’t say about anybody who’d actually been sacrificed, so in that sense what had happened to Keziah wasn’t so bad

Tactically, though, it was just about as bad as it could be.

“Imagine if some witch has some kind of magical leash on Ezekiel,” Miguel said to Cassie.

Cassie nodded, rolling her eyes expressively.

She was perched above him, on top of a short ladder, a heavy tome shedding bits of yellowing paper into the air as she carefully turned pages. She was wearing an artfully shredded gray tank top over a black t-shirt, pale blue jeans with the knees out, and boots that laced all the way up her calves. Miguel had never thought of ripped jeans as sexy before he met Cassie. He was really sorry she wasn’t coming with the rest of them to Colorado. Or, turning it around, that he wasn’t staying in Dimilioc house himself, even though he honestly did want to go and even though he was pretty sure if there was anything useful in those early histories, Cassie would be the one to find it. He wondered how long it would take to learn enough German to get by.

“I don’t think there’s much chance of finding anything in this one,” she said, tapping the book she held. “It’s all accounts of bloodlines and some old Dimilioc Master allying with a Spanish house to bring in blood that would yield more Pure births. Just like breeding cows or something. Or not quite, because it looks like some soap opera idiocy started right after that, which led to someone else becoming Master. Anyway, I don’t think it’s going anywhere useful.” Closing the volume, she set it back on the shelf and ran her hand along the leather bindings of the others next to it.

“You think anything useful’s in any of them?”

Cassie shrugged, which did interesting things to her shredded tank top. Her near-white feathery hair was streaked pink today, contributing to her fey look. “Most Dimilioc Masters like to keep track of threats. Or rivals. Or useful tools. I figure witches and witchcraft might be any of the above. Probably somebody in here looked into it and wrote things down. I think I saw something like that somewhere in here once.” She looked thoughtfully down the row of heavy volumes.

Miguel had glanced into his share of those histories, but he didn’t remember anything about witches. Or nothing aside from an occasional brief reference in an entry focused on other things. Nothing useful. “I guess Grayson wouldn’t let me take a couple of these along.”

Cassie grinned, a swift there-and-gone expression. “You could ask him.”

Meaning No way. Miguel nodded. He knew that. They were probably heading into trouble. Grayson was all about keeping as much of Dimilioc alive as possible, including its memories. “Those ought to be scanned,” he commented. “Especially since for all we know you might have trouble here anyway. Who knows who might notice the Master kiting off with half his black wolves?”

“Full moon’s coming up pretty soon.”

She meant any black dog trouble was likely to peak at that point, either within the house or from outside. Obviously this was true.

“Apparently Ethan’s going to be in charge,” Miguel told her. “I figure he’s worked something out with Thaddeus, so even though it might be awkward, I expect they’ll cope. But you know, if I were Zinaida, I might have someone watching Dimilioc.” Zinaida Alexandrovna Kologrivova was the Black Wolf of Russia, one of the surviving black dogs connected to the destroyed Dacha that had once strongly influenced Russian affairs. She was also Dimilioc’s enemy, and had already made one serious attempt to crush Dimilioc and establish herself as the ruling black wolf in the Americas. She had failed, but Miguel didn’t doubt she would try again if she saw a chance.

“Lewis is a very small town. A stranger would be noticed. But if I were Zinaida, you’d be right.” Cassie carefully lifted another heavy book off the shelf and opened it. “If Zinaida does make a move, I won’t be real happy depending on Ethan to handle her. Especially not when most of the black dogs left here aren’t really Dimilioc wolves.”

“You’d better not say so to Ethan. Not to Grayson either. Especially not in that tone.” Not that Miguel disagreed. “Anyway, I bet Grayson’s arranged something, just in case. Worked out a plan and talked it over with Ethan. I bet he has.” He might just see if he could make sure of that. Discreetly. Natividad might know. Or if she didn’t, she could probably find out.

“I think I’ll make sure of it,” Cassie said, turning one fragile page and then another. “Discreetly, of course. I’ll ask my father. He’ll probably know—or Grayson won’t be mad if my father’s the one to ask him.”

Miguel grinned. Great minds worked alike, right? He said impulsively, “Anyway, I do wish you were coming with us.”

Cassie glanced down at him. Then she smiled. “I’ll be more use here. You’ll be useful there, I expect. We can text—we’ll have to, I expect—and trade the real stories afterward. Exciting stories, but not too exciting, right? And then write everything up ourselves. And scan these, like you said. And type up an index too, so next time people won’t have to deal with all these. Unless they’re too stupid to know what an index is. People these days, I swear, if Google can’t find it, they think it’s not there.” She patted the book she held. “These babies definitely need an index.”

“Am I arguing?”

“You’re too smart to argue. You’d better not be late, smart boy. Grayson’s worse than my father when people are late.”

“I’m going. I’m going.” And he was. Any minute. As soon as he could tear himself away.

-3-

Alejandro was angry—not an unusual state for a black dog but not comfortable on a plane, where one must be patient and wait for the plane to land. He was angry at Natividad and Miguel for being so eager to put themselves in harm’s way and angry at Grayson for allowing them to do so. Most of all Alejandro was angry with Ezekiel for getting into some mysterious kind of trouble in the first place. Witches. It sounded ridiculo. A tale for children. But Miguel was deeply absorbed in tracking down information, texting back and forth to Cassie Pearson. Clearly he did not find the idea ridiculous.

Alejandro wanted to believe they would arrive in Colorado, immediately find Ezekiel, destroy whatever enemy had caused this trouble, and be done. He was angry because he was sure this would not happen. Nothing could ever be so sencillo, so simple.

He sat near the back of the plane, with his sister and brother across the aisle from him and Carter and Rip in front of him. This arrangement was not accidental. Grayson himself was flying the plane; James Mallory had taken the copilot seat. That put the two older Dimilioc black wolves in the front where they could talk privately. Alejandro was in the back so he could watch Rip Jacobs and Carter Lethridge, the two newer wolves who might cause trouble.

Rip was young and barely trained and maybe stupid, but Alejandro thought he was not so likely to cause difficulty, especially since his brother was back at the main house under Ethan Lanning’s eye. But Alejandro did not know what Carter might do. Fighting in a plane would be estúpido, but Carter was ambitious. Who knew what he might do, if his shadow pressed him and he thought he saw a chance? Grayson thought that Carter might prove useful, finalmente. Alejandro doubted this. But fine, he would sit in the back of the plane and watch over the others if the Master wished it so. Especially because it also allowed him to watch over his sister and brother as well.

Natividad had put her seat back as far as it would go and appeared to be asleep, her hands folded around the pink sisal bag on her lap. Alejandro doubted she was really asleep. Her attention was probably turned inward, seeking Ezekiel. Alejandro didn’t let his lip curl. He knew very well his anger was unfair.

Mountains folded up from the flatter country over which they had been flying, green and black and wide sweeps of pristine white. The plane tilted as they came  around and began to sink toward the ground. Alejandro had not thought to look at a map, but obviously Denver must be close...yes, as the plane turned the city came into view, and beyond it the greater mountains that stretched out endlessly.

Carter was staring out the window. Perhaps he wished to be out in those mountains alone, free of Dimilioc and Grayson and the constraints set on him. A black dog could disappear into those mountains and never be found...but no. No, an ambitious black dog like Carter would never be content to live quietly and alone. He would always want to gather weaker black dogs into a shadow pack and establish his rule over some town of human people. That was what ambitious black dogs always wanted.

Such a thing was impossible now that ordinary people could see black dogs for what they were. Dimilioc offered another way to live among people. It had always offered another way. Now that was the only way possible. Perhaps Carter was intelligent enough to understand that. At least he was quiet.

Miguel, of course, still had his iPad out. He took his responsibilities so seriously. He looked tired. Alejandro was proud of him, glad that Grayson understood what an asset Miguel could be to Dimilioc, and yet he still wanted to take his brother’s iPad away and tell him to go to sleep.

Too late now. The plane was sinking faster, Denver spreading out below them, no longer a small city at the edge of the endless wild mountains, but a wide and busy city that asserted its own identity over the land it dominated.

Across the aisle, Miguel glanced up. “Dimilioc’s sept is way out at the edge of the city,” he commented. “I wonder if Étienne plans to meet us here or there.”

Alejandro grinned. His brother meant he suspected Étienne would want to face Grayson at the airport because the Master of Dimilioc would not be able to kill him while surrounded by ordinary human people. Let that first meeting take place in a crowd and give the Master’s temper time to cool. He thought Miguel was right. If he had lost Ezekiel to some enemy, he would not have wanted to face Grayson Lanning afterward.

But it turned out neither Alejandro nor his brother credited Étienne Lumondière with sufficient bravery. Or perhaps with sufficient ego. At the place where people came from private planes and went into the airport, they met not Étienne himself, but a cousin or second cousin, Frédéric Lumondière.

Frédéric Lumondière had come only recently to Los Estados Unidos, arriving in company with a younger Lumondière cousin. They had not known of any others of their house who might have survived in France and so they had come to America. The Americans had not risen so ferociously against Dimilioc as the peoples of other nations had against the black dogs that lived among them, and so Frédéric and his cousin had hoped to make a place to live in this broader and quieter country. Then they had been so fortunate as to encounter Ethan and Thaddeus, thus gaining at a stroke both the information that their cousin Étienne Lumondière was now acting as Master of Dimilioc’s western sept, and permission to join him there.

This was the first time Alejandro had met Frédéric, but he recognized him immediately: he had something of Étienne’s aristocratic look and something of the indefinable air that made it obvious he had been raised in a civilized black dog house. Callejeros never looked like that, not even the strongest. Not even the rare few who had found a Pure woman to do the Aplacando for them. Tighter-drawn, suspicious, wary...there was a difference that lingered. Alejandro knew that he himself, raised by a Dimilioc father but outside Dimilioc, did not project quite the confidence a Dimilioc black wolf should possess as his birthright. He resented Frédéric Lumondière at once, especially because it was not immediately obvious which of them might have the stronger shadow.

Frédéric came forward to meet them once they were past the security checkpoint. He did not kneel to greet the Master of Dimilioc, not here in this place crowded with human people, but he kept his gaze lowered.

“Well?” Grayson said to him, brusque but not overtly hostile.

“Master. I have a car, if you will permit me to guide you.” Frédéric spoke quietly, deferential but not obsequious. His English was accented but precise.

Grayson did not move. “Ezekiel?”

Frédéric bowed his head. “I know little, Master. Also, I fear Étienne knows little more. Only your bourreau had gone south, toward Colorado Springs. That loop goes all the way to Albuquerque and then east to Dallas and back up through Oklahoma and Kansas. He did not return, though he was expected. When he was two days overdue, Étienne called you.”

“Two days,” said Grayson, though he had already known this.

The Lumondière black wolf turned his head, offering Grayson his throat—a symbolic gesture here in the crowded airport, but far from symbolic once they were all away from the eyes of human people. He said softly, “We did not believe Ezekiel Korte could have met any hazard so great that his own strength would not prove sufficient. Nevertheless, though our people were much occupied with a problem west and north of Denver, my cousin sent Stéphanie Callot south to seek him, with me to guard her.”

Stéphanie Callot was the only Pure woman who currently belonged to the western sept of Dimilioc. She was the wife of Théo Callot, a black dog. They were from France, from what had been, before the war, a rival house to Lumondière. Alejandro had never met either of them, but supposed they must be more fiable...more reliable, and also better trained, than callejeros.

“We could not find him,” Frédéric continued. “Also, we had barely reached the outskirts of Santa Fe when we encountered a muffling of Stéphanie’s magic. Stéphanie wished to try despite this, but I thought it best to back away from this mystery. That was my decision.”

That admission was brave. Alejandro had wished to despise this Lumondière black wolf and found now that he could not.

Grayson’s expression was impossible to read. He said, “We’ll go to the sept house now.”

Frédéric nodded. “All of our wolves have been gathered in close. In case an enemy should be striving to take us one by one. We have seven wolves now, as you will know, I am sure. With yours, twelve. Surely that will be sufficient to set against any enemy.” His gaze passed across Alejandro’s face and the faces of Grayson’s other companions. He nodded to James, effortlessly picking out the one among them who had been born to Dimilioc. James nodded back, similar recognition, but without a trace of friendliness. Frédéric glanced away, politely deferential.

Grayson did not pause for introductions, but gestured for Frédéric to lead the way and then fell into place beside him. He moved as though it did not occur to him that letting the rest of them at his back might be a problem. Definitely no one crowded him. Even so, James, Alejandro noted, brought up the rear, watchful and cautious as the Master could not be.

The Dimilioc house of this western sept occupied a good deal of land beyond the outskirts of Denver, right at the feet of sharply rising mountains. It was not really a single house, but a complex of three big log houses and four smaller ones, all arranged around a central grove of pines. Mostly pines; Alejandro could see one oak occupied the center of the grove. The pines looked old and the oak very old. All the trees would have been planted by the Pure women of Dimilioc at the same time that this sept was established. Alejandro did not know why. Miguel would know, but Alejandro did not ask him. He did not really care about the reason, and he did not want to be the one to break the general silence in the vehicle.

The driveway was a long one. It circled around the trees and passed between tumbles of great boulders before it approached the main house, which gave Alejandro plenty of time to observe how two of the smaller houses had been partly burned and even now stood abandoned. That would have happened during the war. Étienne had not yet taken steps either to repair those houses or tear them down. There was scaffolding around part of the main house, however. It was a big, blocky thing, as much like a fort as like a house, with the lower floors all of stone and those above of wood; Alejandro marked how there were no windows at all on the first floor. No wonder it had survived.

Étienne and all the rest of his wolves waited on the broad front porch. They had felt Grayson’s approach—at least, they had felt black dogs approaching, and with the extreme density of his shadow, Grayson could not easily be mistaken for anyone else. So Étienne had come out to meet him, as was only polite.

Étienne Lumondière was a black dog nearing his prime: a little older than Grayson, with the depth and density to his shadow that that the passing years granted. Alejandro was not exactly afraid of him, but he respected his strength.

With a curt gesture, Étienne ordered his people to wait and himself came down to meet Grayson. He showed no concern as he knelt and offered the Master his throat, but Alejandro, not far behind Grayson, heard his heart rate increase sharply and knew Étienne was not as calm as he strove to appear.

Grayson set one hand on Étienne’s shoulder, closed his other hand around Étienne’s throat, and said grimly, with no preliminary, “Into what trap did you send my executioner?”

“I did not imagine Ezekiel Korte would meet an enemy he could not defeat,” Étienne answered—without apology, but also without attempting to meet Grayson’s unforgiving stare. “Sometimes one of my people accompanied him on his travels, but sometimes he went alone. He made such choices himself, which perhaps I should not have allowed.” He did glance up then, briefly, and to Alejandro’s surprise, he said, “I apologize for my error, Master. If I had sent another of my people with him, at least we might know now what has befallen him.”

For a long moment Grayson stared down at Étienne. Little sparks of yellow fire rose in his eyes. But then he stepped back and gestured Étienne up. “I’m fairly certain we do know what has befallen him. Though not in any sort of helpful detail, unfortunately. He’s still alive—Natividad?”

Natividad, close beside Alejandro, cleared her throat a little nervously. “Yes, sir. He’s still the same, I think.” She nodded south, toward unpeopled country rather than back toward the greater part of Denver. “That way. Much closer now. It might not take so very long to go that far—I mean, if we could just go?” There was a slight, hopeful rise to her voice on that last, but she could not really expect Grayson to agree.

Nor did he, but twitched a hand toward the main house and the waiting wolves. And the Pure woman, for one of those on the porch was Pure. That must be Stéphanie Callot, and the man nearest her must be Théo Callot. They appeared to be in their forties, though Alejandro could see Théo Callot was not as strong as some black dogs his age.

Grayson said to Étienne, “We shall discuss the matter. Some of your wolves I do not recognize. You may make them known to me.”

Étienne nodded to him and then inclined his head to Natividad, a different gesture, almost a slight bow. “You still have Ezekiel Korte in your eye, do you? Good. That is very good.” He straightened his back—he had not exactly been cowering, but the difference in his posture was perceptible. He beckoned his people down from the porch and said to Grayson, “Frédéric you know. This young one is our cousin Absolon, also Lumondière. These are our distant cousins, once of Évanouir: Théo and Stéphanie Callot.”

Théo knelt to the Master and received a curt nod in response. Stéphanie, Pure, only bowed her head respectfully.

The other black dogs had been recruited from among the callejeros. Two, one young and one very young, had once belonged to Malvern Vonhausel’s shadow pack and had been brought into Dimilioc at the same time as Étienne Lumondière himself. The other, who seemed both strong and quiet, Alejandro did not recognize. An older man, he had been recruited here in the west.

“Jim Gotz,” Grayson said to one of the young men, and to the other, “And Ian Olney. I trust you have found these mountains to your taste.”

“Better than Vermont,” Ian muttered, then ducked his head. “Master.” Jim said nothing, but Alejandro marked how he edged a little closer to Stéphanie Callot after he rose.

“And our newest wolf, Steven Knauer,” Étienne concluded, nodding toward the older, stronger black dog. He was a black man, darker skinned than Carter but not nearly as dark as Thaddeus. He had a broad face, a muscled frame, powerful hands with the joint of one finger missing—that injury must have been dealt by silver. Certainly the look of a man who has lived a hard and violent life. His shadow was heavy, though he did not appear much older than the Callots. But he was calm in a way that Alejandro did not expect from a black dog, certainly not a callejero. When he knelt, there was no insolence to the gesture, but nor was he afraid. Alejandro watched him carefully, curious and wary. He knew the older man was stronger, but it almost felt to him like his own shadow did not really resent the fact. That was very strange.

“You are an asset to Dimilioc, I’m certain,” Grayson said to this man as though he meant it. “Your mother was Pure?”

“Master,” the man said in a low, rough voice. “I think she was.”

“She did well by you. I am sorry for her death.”

Steven Knauer looked up, meeting the Master’s hard stare for a second. He nodded abruptly. “Yeah. It was a long time ago.”

“An old loss is an old grief, but not a smaller grief.” Grayson touched the tips of two fingers to the man’s throat, a perfunctory display of dominance, then nodded permission for him to rise and step back.

Then Grayson nodded to Étienne and said, much more coldly, “Let us go in and discuss this situation. James, Frédéric, if you will join us. Miguel. The rest of you, don’t kill each other.” And he strode away without another glance at anyone.

MigTol: Hey get this: G didn’t kill EL after all

Prophetess: Can’t have everything

MigTol: Yet I’m always willing to try

MigTol: EL actually kind of okay Humble pie agrees with him I guess. Aggression factor maybe a 2. Not bad rly.

Prophetess: Give him time

MigTol: U find anything else abt Navajo sknwlkrs?

Prophetess: Y lots but hey it’s mostly written in Navajo go figure

Prophetess: Turns out there’s an app for that. But it’s still slow. Sounds kinda possible tho. Like evil mind control

Prophetess: & corpse powder, which you know what? Is powder made from corpses. Triple ugh.

MigTol: Y but sknwkrs turn into animals right? Not the same as taking control of black dogs.

MigTol: I’m still going w Assyrian witchcraft. Lots about witches and demonic possession and exorcism. We know exorcism is a thing right? Cause look at what happened w Justin.

MigTol: Also Semitic exorcists sound like they might have been Pure.

MigTol: Plus this Assyrian and Semitic stuff is mostly in English so there. I’ll send u links.

Prophetess: Hello ur out there in the SW. That’s Navajo country my friend. Coincidence? I don’t think so. I’ll send u links back

MigTol: Sure but I’m not the language god here

Prophetess: Yah I’ll keep looking.  Keep an eye out for ppl w red eyes.

MigTol: Red eyes check.

MigTol: Whoops blk dgs abt done posturing I think we’re starting.  Gtg

Prophetess: L8R  KIT

-4-

Natividad knew where Ezekiel was—all right, not exactly where he was, but at least she knew in which direction she had to go to find him. And she knew he was not so very far away. Distances were hard, but he was not so very far away. She thought they should just go.

Except she could practically hear Miguel lay out all the reasons why too much haste now would be a bad idea. If Ezekiel truly had run into a witch, maybe more than one...if a witch had caught him the same way the one in Roswell had briefly caught Keziah...obviously it would be really dangerous to just throw a lot more black dogs after Ezekiel and hope it would be different for them. Obviously Grayson and Étienne had to work out something more sensible.

But she still hated waiting.

Also, she didn’t really feel safe left here outside the main house with so many black dogs she didn’t know. And she was a little bit worried about Alejandro, despite Grayson’s last order. Grayson hadn’t seemed worried when he took all the trustworthy older black dogs away with him. Maybe that casual confidence was supposed to be kind of a message: I am too strong to worry about any of you disobeying me.

Or maybe the Master just intended to let the lower-ranking black dogs sort things out without the seniors looking over their shoulders. Usually no one from a civilized house died in dominance fights, even without an explicit order. Not that Carter, say, really believed he belonged to a civilized house. Or actually knew what civilized even meant. Also, she was pretty sure he was the strongest of everyone here. Carter was turning his head slowly, meeting the eyes of one black dog after another; and one after another they all looked away. Except Théo Callot. There was going to be a fight, she was pretty sure.

Alejandro didn’t look worried. He was leaning against one of the boulders arranged along the driveway, his arms crossed over his chest and an assured, half-disinterested expression on his face like he didn’t expect to be challenged but wouldn’t mind if he was. She knew a lot of that air of assurance was faked—actualmente, she was pretty sure her brother had deliberately copied that attitude from Ezekiel, which he probably wouldn’t want her to notice. But he did look intimidating. And she knew his shadow was strong for a black dog his age.

Absolon Lumondière and Ian Olney had already headed away. They would probably run, probably hunt, kill some little rabbit or something. Then they’d come back when the older black dogs had sorted things out. Even as she watched, the quiet one, Steven Knauer, turned his back on the rest of them and strode back toward the house, jumped up on the porch and leaned against the railing, watching but uninvolved. That left Théo Callot and maybe Jim Gotz against Carter and maybe Rip.

Though he had once belonged to Carter’s shadow pack, Rip now pretended he didn’t notice the look Carter shot him. Rip just turned his shoulder and walked away around the house, which was a way of rejecting any suggestion of alliance before Carter could even make one.

Carter was smiling, but Natividad thought he was pretty mad about that. When he took a step toward Théo Callot, he moved with direct aggression and a hard stare. Théo Callot had never been a callejero. Of course Carter resented him. Natividad could tell that without any trouble at all. A rock could have told that. She caught Stéphanie’s eye. The woman returned a little nod and, as Théo Callot and Carter began circling, Natividad edged around the outskirts of the tense little group to join her.

“That one of yours is trouble,” Stéphanie murmured to Natividad as she came close.

Natividad rolled her eyes expressively. “Your Théo, he might not be as strong, do you think?”

Stéphanie answered elliptically, “That is the difficulty with these black dogs who trace their blood back a hundred years, two hundred years. Even when they are not the strongest, they are proud. You are Toland, are you not? Toland is a bloodline I know, and your mother must have owned strength of her own or your brother would not have so dense a shadow at his age. He is stronger than my Théo, do you think, your brother?”

“Strong enough.” She wouldn’t admit Alejandro wasn’t up to Carter’s strength. She said instead, “Also, he can put another black dog’s shadow down.”

“Ah! Yes, that is useful.” Stéphanie looked appraisingly at Alejandro.

Alejandro was standing back, watching Carter square off against Théo Callot. Jim Gotz took a step toward Alejandro, but Alejandro only looked at him and Gotz spat on the ground, turned and strode away as though he’d never intended to fight.

Meanwhile Carter was stalking around Théo Callot, who stared at him with eyes that had gone bright gold. Théo suddenly lunged, shifting in mid-leap almost as smoothly as Ezekiel, though not nearly as fast. He was only halfway in black dog form when he struck Carter. By that time Carter himself was mostly through the cambio de cuerpo and way too big for Théo Callot to just crush the way he might have wanted. Carter’s black dog was bigger than average, bigger than anybody would expect considering Carter himself was slim and neat-bodied rather than bulky. Stéphanie hissed something in French under her breath. Natividad raised her eyebrows at Alejandro, who smiled rather grimly back at her and then glared hard at the snarling, grappling black dogs.

Suddenly they were both snarling, grappling men. Alejandro was good at this. Their Papá had taught Alejandro to practice hard things, had taught him patience and perseverancia, so difficult for a black dog to learn on his own. Then Grayson had taken over where Edward Toland had left off. Grayson was very strict and very patient himself, and so now Alejandro was good at rolling other black dogs’ shadows under. Natividad knew that. But even she was surprised at how fast it was, the cambio de cuerpo that left both Carter and Théo Callot fighting with bare hands and blunt human teeth.

They broke apart, Théo cursing in French and Carter swearing furiously in English, and for a second Natividad thought they might both turn on her brother. He grinned fiercely at them both. His eyes were no longer human. The bones of his face were distorting, his shoulders broadening, subtle changes so far but very obvious to a black dog who might be thinking of attacking him. Human form against black dog: that would be stupid.

Théo Callot turned away first, though with poor grace. If he wasn’t stupid, he must realize Alejandro had intervened mostly to help him. He just didn’t like it. Stéphanie patted Natividad’s arm, though, to show she understood and was pleased.

Carter did not look exactly like he meant to back down. But Alejandro said shortly to him, “Estás siendo un estúpido.”

Carter swore again, but he pivoted and stalked away, into the house.

“So, everything is settled,” Stéphanie said in a low voice to Natividad. “Fortunately your troublemaker is not strong enough to take two at once, not when your Toland brother is one of the two. And your brother will support anyone against him, yes?” She nodded in satisfaction. “That should go far to keep the peace. Your Grayson Lanning left everyone to discover that. Subtle. We had heard that. That your Dimilioc Master is subtle.”

“Your Master too,” Natividad answered, a little nettled. She wasn’t sure she liked Stéphanie Callot very much. How peculiar not to like another Pure woman. She could see now she might have been a little bit stupid, thinking that all Pure woman would just naturally like every other. No doubt Stéphanie was nice enough. Just nice in a engreida kind of way. There was a good American phrase...stuck up. That was how Stéphanie seemed to her.

“So. Yes. Now he is.” Stéphanie patted Natividad on the arm. “We don’t mind. Better to be Dimilioc than Lumondière. Étienne Lumondière would be too proud to be a good Master if he were not required to bend his head before Grayson Lanning.”

This was close enough to what Natividad had been thinking about Stéphanie herself that she blinked.

Alejandro, coming up to them, said to Stéphanie abruptly, “Your husband will never rival Étienne’s strength.”

Stéphanie shrugged, not surprised by this comment. It was the sort of thing a black dog would say. She said, “Oui. But until Frédéric Lumondière came to this place, Étienne depended on my Théo for support. Now Étienne sets Théo back and listens to Frédéric. He prefers closer kin for everything important.”

“Frédéric is stronger.”

“Oui. But that is not why Étienne prefers him. You should speak to your Master about this. Théo is a good man. He understands how to be loyal. He must be given the trust he deserves. We are so few. All of us who were raised properly must be raised up or we will lose the traditions of our houses.”

“Dimilioc will change,” Natividad pointed out. “It has already. Every other house is gone, and Dimilioc cannot be as it was.”

“We must hold to what we were,” Stéphanie declared passionately. “If we do not try, it will all be lost. It would be a terrible thing to allow that to happen.”

Natividad said, “Grayson will give anyone the trust he is due.”

“Will he? Then that is well.” Stéphanie did not sound convinced.

Théo Callot came up beside his wife. He took her hand, careful to keep her between himself and Natividad to avoid offending Alejandro. He touched the fingertips of one hand to his chest, glancing aside, though not down. “Théo Callot, once of Évanouir, now of Lumondière and Dimilioc. You are a Toland, yes?”

“We no longer ask such things in Dimilioc,” Alejandro said shortly.

“Still, everyone knows them. This Carter of yours is presumptuous, but strong. Too strong for a cur who should know his place. Your Master should kill him.”

“Perhaps he will,” Alejandro returned. “Perhaps you should advise him.”

Théo made a little touché gesture, though he did not quite smile. “Perhaps I will not be so unwise. You are strong for one so young. But it is your skill with, what is the term, the dispossession of the shadow, that makes you a dangerous enemy. Or desirable ally.”

Alejandro shrugged.

“Stéphanie and I wish to be your allies, and allies of Grayson Lanning. You may tell him that, young black wolf, if you will.”

Alejandro shrugged again, but Natividad thought he was pleased. She wasn’t sure she was. She didn’t think she liked Théo Callot any better than his wife. Way too focused on bloodlines and who ought to be privileged. Probably he would truly be loyal to Grayson and Dimilioc, but he would also try to shape Dimilioc into something that always remembered who had which name and bloodline.

The entry here was generous: three stories high and wide enough to practically hold a footrace across it. The walls were all exposed log, though some of the logs nearest the door did not match exactly and a few had been charred around the edges. Natividad didn’t want to imagine different ways the defenses of this house might have failed. But she couldn’t help but picture how it might have been: black dogs and their Pure and human kin sheltering here while vampires and their blood kin hissed in the dark outside...way too easy to picture. The memory of the vampire she had faced last spring came back to her. The sickening dread, the terror...Ezekiel had been there that time. He had saved them then, or he had made it possible for them to all save each other.

Where was Ezekiel now? What if it wasn’t possible to save him? What if they had come all this way and got there just too late?

Natividad clenched her teeth shut hard and blinked, making herself look around at the high-ceilinged hall, deliberately trying to guess where the various doorways led so that she would not have to think about fear and death and grief. About the fear of more death and more grief...if anything happened to Ezekiel, she didn’t think she could stand it.

“You are cold.” Alejandro put an arm around her and pulled her gently against his side. He looked forcefully at Théo Callot, who raised his eyebrows at his wife.

Natividad did not deny this. Yes, she was cold, though not from the chill in the air. Her brother was warm, of course. Black dogs were always warm. And confident. Sometimes unreasonably. She wished she could feel some of that confidence now. She leaned against Alejandro and tried to believe everything would be fine.

Stéphanie must have guessed some of what Natividad felt, for she patted her hand and said kindly, “It’s a long journey you have had. I’ll show you the rooms across from ours. There is great depth of peace in those rooms, from generations of the Pure women who have lived in this house. You will be warm there.”

“Yes,” Natividad agreed, but she couldn’t help but look over her shoulder, south and a little west, the direction where she knew they had to go to find Ezekiel.

“My husband and your brother can bring us something to eat, if they will be so kind, and you can tell us about this witch your people encountered in New Mexico,” Stéphanie said. She looked at her husband and said something quickly and softly in French, which Natividad could not understand. Then she added in English, speaking now to Alejandro, “I am a little bit afraid of what those other black dogs may find to do in our house. But perhaps you will say I am foolish to be worried. Surely they will not dare rouse Étienne to anger. Nor Grayson Lanning.”

“I think they will not,” Alejandro agreed, in the confident tone that Natividad knew meant he was not quite certain. “But perhaps it would be wise to keep an eye on them.” He looked Théo Callot up and down, a slow, assessing stare.

Théo returned that measuring gaze, not giving way by so much as an inch. “Shall we fight, you and I?”

“Later, perhaps,” Alejandro said, unsmiling. “After we have recovered Ezekiel Korte and torn out the hearts of our enemies. Until then...” he shrugged slightly.

“Allies, then,” Théo agreed. “Good. Toland has always been a line known for good sense as well as strength. Come, if you wish. I shall show you the house, and we shall find out also where your companions have gone and what they are doing and whether they are fighting. You and I together surely have such strength as none of those can challenge. They have seen this already, but perhaps we shall find a chance to show them again.”

Alejandro inclined his head, not lowering his gaze. Natividad could tell he was pleased to be taken as an equal by Théo Callot of Évanouir, though of course he would hardly say so.

Stéphanie added something else, brief and crisp and in French.

“Oui,” Théo Callot answered, and a few words more in the same language. Then he guided Alejandro away.

Natividad looked after her brother and tried not to feel at all nervous or bereft. Stéphanie was Pure and this house was, after all, as much a part of Dimilioc as the one in Vermont. Alejandro thought it was safe or he would never have left her. It was safe. She knew that.

“Your suite is just along here,” Stéphanie said, leading Natividad up another flight of stairs and down a short hallway. “Of course we knew you would wish to share a suite with your brothers. So protective, black dog brothers. This one has four rooms, so you can each choose the one you like best.” She pushed open the first door they came to, stepped back to allow Natividad to go first, and added, “And perhaps now that we may speak freely, one Pure woman to another, you might explain to me what you have done to yourself and your magic, Natividad Toland, for I see you have done something.”

Natividad hesitated in mid-step, startled. She met the older woman’s knowing gaze. Stéphanie Callot was the first trained Pure woman Natividad had met since...since Mamá.

The sharpest edges of that long grief had worn away, but she still flinched from the thought. But almost worse, she suddenly wondered, for the very first time, what Mamá might have thought about what Natividad had done to herself and her magic.

Taking a tiny bit of Alejandro’s shadow...it had been an accident. But she had not tried very hard to clean that trace of her brother’s magic out of hers. She had been too glad of the awareness it gave her, the confidence that she could always find Alejandro, that he could always find her. Later, taking a tiny bit of Ezekiel’s shadow, that had not been entirely an accident. And she had not even thought of trying to give it back or get rid of it. Which was good, it was excellent, because how else could she have hoped to find Ezekiel when no one else could? But now Natividad was sure she saw both caution and disapproval in Stéphanie Callot’s gaze.

“Perhaps this is something that allows you to know where Ezekiel Korte is, and that he lives, though he is far away and impossible for me to find,” the woman said now. “This must be reassuring to you. But also disturbing, yes? A trace of black dog shadow winds through your magic, is this not so? I would not have believed such a thing was possible for one of us. I wonder whether this is...disturbing for you.”

Despite the woman’s too-neutral tone, what Natividad ought to feel was relieved. She should be glad to finally meet someone who could help her understand what exactly she’d done to herself and to her magic, what it meant, what she ought to do about it now.

What she actually felt was...espuesta. Exposed. She could tell Stéphanie Callot disapproved of her, or at least disapproved of what she had done. She wanted to explain, But it was an accident. She wanted to tuck herself away in Dimilioc house—in the real Dimilioc house, the oldest one, the one in Vermont—where everyone knew her and no one wondered if she’d made a mistake, letting a drop or two of shadow from the black dogs she loved most wind into and through her own magic. Where no one made her feel like she might have done something wrong when she’d accepted those little dashes of black dog magic and didn’t question why she’d never even tried to clear them out of her own magic.

What she said, stepping past Stéphanie and looking around, was, “Oh, is this our suite? It’s beautiful, and you’re right, it’s so warm! Look at that fireplace! So big! And what a beautiful fire screen.” The iron of the screen had been formed into shapes that suggested wolves and deer and trees. It really was beautiful. Natividad went to kneel by the hearth, holding out her hands to the leaping flames. The pine logs burned clean and bright, with a pleasant scent of resin; someone had lit this fire with an ordinary match, not a flick of black dog fire. If Stéphanie Callot had thought of this to make them feel welcome, maybe Natividad might like her after all.

Then Stéphanie said, “It is, isn’t it? Why don’t we sit right here where the fire is so warm and pleasant and you can tell me everything and we can think about what you’ve done and what you ought to do now.”

Por otro lado, maybe Natividad didn’t like her a bit. She could see Stéphanie was used to getting her own way. “It is complicated,” she said evasively. “And I want to know about Ezekiel. That is more important. I want to know about Ezekiel and about what has been happening here this fall as the nights have lengthened and the winds have grown bitter. You say you have sought Ezekiel. With a trouvez, you mean? A mirror? Yet you could not find him? How could this be?”

For a moment she wasn’t sure the older woman was going to accept this change of topic. She could tell by the way Stéphanie looked at her, her eyes narrowed and her mouth a straight line, that this was not a woman who let go of things easily.

Though Stéphanie was right about the layers of peace layered across and through this suite. Natividad found the room’s depth of peace comforting, and she didn’t even want to be comforted. Maybe the same was true for Stéphanie, for finally she nodded and knelt down on the floor beside Natividad. She brought out a small oval mirror, opened the case, and turned the mirror over in her fingers so that it caught the light. “I will show you why I have not been able to find Ezekiel,” she told Natividad. “But then you must show me what you have done to yourself so that you can. Yes?”

Natividad widened her eyes at Stéphanie. “Yes, of course, if you wish. But Ezekiel?”

A trouvez was a mirror enspelled so that it would show you someone you sought, or at least show you where that person was. Or had been, sometimes.

Usually a trouvez was a mirror. Using light alone was more difficult and slippery, but that could also work.

Neither method worked now, when Stéphanie tried to find Ezekiel. Her mirror was a good one, set into a little tortoiseshell case that you could open and close to protect the mirror itself. The mirror had a mother-of-pearl rim, which was pretty, and little crystals set in each compass direction, which was practical because of course that would help show you the direction of the one you tried to find. Also, the mirror had been used as a trouvez for a long time, so the mirror kind of had an understanding about what it was supposed to do.

Despite all that, when Stéphanie tried to find Ezekiel with her mirror, the glass clouded and misted and would not hold light; the direction shifted and shifted again and would not settle. So then Natividad tried using her own mirror, but it was the same for her. Even when she delicately arranged one of her little silver chains around the rim of her mirror, it was the same.

“You see,” said Stéphanie.

“This is very strange,” admitted Natividad. It did not really matter so very much because after all she could find Ezekiel without a trouvez. But it was strange. And disquieting.

“The silver chain is a clever idea. You are experienced despite your youth.”

Natividad glanced up, faintly surprised. “Mamá began teaching me before I could even talk properly. Didn’t your mamá begin teaching you when you were very little?”

“Yes...but ma mère was Évanouir. Your mother did not belong to any house, did she? She was Mexican, was she not? That is what we understood to be so.”

Now Natividad was annoyed. “You think no one in Mexico understands Pure magic? There are no old black dog houses in Mexico, but that doesn’t mean everybody is stupid and ignorant! My Mamá and my Tía Maria and my Tía Louisa and my Grandmamá, they were all Pure. Some of their sons were black dogs and some of their daughters were Pure and they learned very much and taught their daughters everything they learned, even if they did not write everything down in heavy books like Dimilioc!”

Stéphanie leaned back a little, grimacing in apology. Or maybe just in embarrassment. “I meant—what you have done to yourself—no one of Évanouir or Lumondière, no one who truly understands Pure magic would have done such a thing, made such a mistake—”

Natividad jumped up. “Then no one of Évanouir or Lumondière would be able to find one of their people who had been captured as Ezekiel has been captured, hidden as Ezekiel has been hidden! You have your pretty mirror, and when it does not work, you have nothing! Would it be better if I also had nothing?” She stopped abruptly, lifting one hand to press against her breastbone uncertainly. “Something is happening to Ezekiel now,” she said, and left the fire and the warmth and the room, forgetting Stéphanie Callot completely.

-5-

Alejandro did not like Théo Callot very much. This was not the same as distrust. After all, he was married to a Pure woman. Nevertheless, Alejandro would be pleased to find Ezekiel, tear Dimilioc’s enemies into small bloody pieces and then go back to Vermont and leave Théo Callot and all Étienne Lumondière’s people here in the west.

Still, the other black dog’s knowledge of this sept and its people was useful.

“All the younger black dogs have their rooms on the second floor,” Théo explained, gesturing toward a stairway as they passed. “Thus they may easily go out through the windows. There are no windows on the first floor, as you will have seen. Young ones that age fight often, and Étienne strictly forbids they should damage the house’s furnishing.” He added, sounding indulgent, “Absolon is not the strongest of the young ones, but of course his early training was far better. He will do well, I think. I work with him.” His voice took on a note of disapproval. “Of course Frédéric works with him a good deal, but Frédéric works with all the young ones.”

“For the good of Dimilioc,” Alejandro observed. “It is important that all the young wolves learn all they can, no matter their antecedentes and early family. Grayson himself works with all those brought into Dimilioc, especially Conway. That is a child, born a callejero—a stray, and son of a stray. But he will be very strong one day. An asset to Dimilioc.”

Théo looked at him sidelong. “Of course,” he agreed. “Of course. Along here we will find the kitchen, and beyond that, the garages. We have few servants as yet, but Gotz has some reasonable skill with our vehicles. The weather here is very difficult for vehicles. Sometimes I miss France. Still, these mountains offer a great deal of space to run and hunt. One must stay wary, for humans do go into the mountains. But few; fewer even than we of Évanouir used to see in the Pyrenees. We have far, far more freedom here than in France, even before the secrecy of the vampires failed.”

“Vermont is very empty and wild also, especially in the winter.”

“I have no doubt. That is a cold country, I believe, and of course human people feel the cold.” Another sidelong glance. “You must have long been accustomed to hunting as you pleased, as Dimilioc law has never extended into Mexico.”

Alejandro said stiffly, “My father always kept Dimilioc law.”

“Ah, of course! I meant no offense. Let me show you the kitchen. We do have human servants to cook for us, though one must be patient as they learn to cook properly. Americans do not really know how to cook, do they? Always reaching for a can or a box. But some of them can learn.”

Alejandro glanced around the kitchens without much interest. Natividad might like this room. Actually, it was two rooms connected by a doorway and a step. Both rooms were open, airy, light, clean, and fragrant with the scent of half a dozen mangos piled in a glazed pottery bowl and chicken soup simmering on the nearer stove. The mangos were a surprise. Alejandro took one and began to open cupboards, looking for a knife, and for bowls and bread. Natividad would like soup, perhaps. Probably she would like a mango. Unless it reminded her too much of home. Of home before Dimilioc. He glanced down uneasily at the mango he held, uncertain whether to slice it for his sister or not.

Somewhere, not far away, came the sound of a shout, followed by the vicious snarl of a furious black dog. Alejandro set the mango aside and strode for the door.

Probably there was no reason for Alejandro to concern himself. Interfering with the arguments of lesser black dogs was beneath one who would be stronger....Then he turned sharply around a corner and found himself entering a room with a wide fireplace, heavy wooden couches upholstered in red, many shelves crowded with books and statues and other such clutter, and Rip Jacobs facing off against not only Carter, but also Absolon Lumondière and Jim Gotz and the young one, Ian whatever his name was, Alejandro did not remember and did not care.

Carter, dominant and ambitious and powerful, had had no difficulty forcing Ian and Jim and even Absolon into...not an alliance. Into subordinación.

A surge of temper shook Alejandro. He wanted to tear straight into Carter—how dare this stupid, half-trained, arrogant callejero compel Étienne’s black wolves into this mockery of coalition? And for so stupid a reason: merely for vengeance against another black dog who had rejected his demand for alliance. Carter frightened people; he did it on purpose; Alejandro understood that. But then he was a fool to be surprised when those he dominated turned away from him once they felt themselves safe.

Alejandro flung his will across the room. Three at once might have been difficult, but Absolon and Ian shifted at once, not resisting as Alejandro compelled them both through the cambio. Jim Gotz was more difficult: older and more stubborn, or more willing to ally with Carter, or just resenting Alejandro’s assertion of will and dominance. But with the other two out of the way, Alejandro had the strength to force Jim, too, into human form. So in not very long at all everyone in the large room was in human form except for Rip.

“Estás siendo un estúpido,” Alejandro said to Carter. He heard his own words and frowned, reaching for English. His brother and sister spoke English very easily, almost without an accent now, but it was harder for a black dog. He sorted through human words and language and at last said harshly, “You are a fool. Fight here in this house and Étienne will be angry. Force his wolves to your will and he will kill you. No está bien tartar así a la gente—it’s not right to compel young wolves to your will. You are not Dimilioc’s Master. Grayson will kill you for your presunción if Étienne does not. Pendejo.”

Carter’s lip curled. “He’ll kill me anyway. Cannon fodder against his enemies if he can, kill me himself if that’s more convenient, you think I don’t know why he brought me along on this little jaunt?” He didn’t look afraid, though. He didn’t look submissive. He looked cabreado. Pissed off.

“Behave like a fool and he will, truly,” Alejandro snapped.

Behind him, Rip made a low, grinding sound and stalked forward, plainly meaning to do it himself.

“No!” Alejandro snapped again, even more forcefully. And, when Rip did not stop, “No me chingues. Stupid! Did you not hear Grayson’s command? We are not to kill one another! Continue, and I will gut you both and we will see if you recover quickly enough to be useful. If not, it will be little loss! Absolon, support me!”

Almost at once, he realized he had called on Absolon because of the lot of them, he expected decent control and better sense from a Lumondière. He did not like Théo Callot, but he was beginning to have more sympathy for his assumption of superiority, of the superiority of black dogs who had been born to civilized bloodlines and properly trained.

Especially because Absolon immediately obeyed, shifting rapidly to his black dog form and swinging around to threaten Rip so that Alejandro could keep his attention mostly on Carter. That was satisfying. Ian shifted as well, joining Absolon without being commanded. That was even better. With the young ones backing him up, Alejandro had no fear of any lesser black dogs with their arrogance and their stupid short-sightedness. He could kill both Carter and Rip, and Jim Gotz as well if he would not get out of Alejandro’s way. Then everything would be easier. Although Grayson would not like it. Even though they all deserved to die, challenging his authority—Théo Callot’s views about callejeros actually made more and more sense—

Alejandro cut off this train of thought with an effort. He was aware that his shadow was pressing him hard, that his own anger was giving it license. These wretched black dogs deserved his anger, but he would not give way to it. He knew better. He said to Absolon, “Estáte trucha,” and strode toward Carter, who had started all this trouble.

Carter tried to shift.

Alejandro blocked him. He shifted, not all the way, but gaining bulk and heft with every stride. Carter backed up a step, another, found his back against a wall, and turned in a small, hopeless circle, looking for a way out. But there was no way out, and he could not shift; Alejandro would not permit him. With a low, furious sound of balked rage, he sank down to one knee, turning his face aside in reluctant surrender. His heart raced, but that was plainly fury as much as fear. He was shaking, but Alejandro was certain that was mostly the effort of submission. The black dog knew he must submit or die, but the man was still more than half inclined to fight. So he trembled. It was very satisfying.

Alejandro closed one broad hand around Carter’s throat. Tiny drops of blood beaded up around the sharp tips of his shadow claws, shocking crimson against the light brown skin.

Carter did not move. His eyes, bright gold, revealed all his fury, but he did not say a word. If he spoke, likely he would say too much, or the wrong thing, and then perhaps Alejandro would kill him after all. He was not so stupid he did not know this. So he did not speak.

Alejandro stepped back, gesturing contemptuously for Carter to get up. “Go,” he said curtly. “Go away by yourself if you cannot behave decently around others. Run away into the mountains if you prefer to be an animal. Maybe Grayson will let you go.”

Grayson Lanning would never let him go. The Master of Dimilioc would never let any of his black wolves run away by themselves and behave like animals. If Carter left the house and ran into the mountains, then eventually the Master would certainly track him down and kill him. Sooner rather than later, given a black dog as strong and descontrolarse as Carter would have shown himself to be. What Alejandro was really saying was Give us an excuse to kill you.

Carter knew it. Everyone knew it. Absolon grinned fiercely. Rip said with obvious satisfaction, “You’re not in charge. You aren’t going to be in charge. Figure it out.”

Carter’s jaw clenched, but he had enough sense to stay quiet. Nor did he get to his feet, even when Alejandro stepped back to give him room. He kept his furious gaze fixed on the floor.

Alejandro could see why Grayson wanted to keep this black dog if he could. He could sort of see it. Carter was strong—and he did have adequate control, when he was adequately motivated. Alejandro still wanted to kill him, but maybe he understood why the Master did not. He glowered down at Carter. He wanted to punish him, make him suffer. But he knew the Master would not want that. Though he could not frame that awareness clearly enough to really understand it, he knew it was true.

“You are not only cannon fodder,” he said abruptly. “Even though you are stupid and arrogant. You could be better than this. That is why the Master has not killed you.” Then he looked around at the others. “Enough quarreling. Everyone should be quiet. Soon the Master will decide what we will do next. Then probably we will find an enemy we can all face.”

Little glances aside. No one argued. Alejandro was tired of them all. He turned and walked away. He would forget the stupid posturing of black dogs....

But between one step and the next, before quite reaching the doorway, he became suddenly and sharply aware of Natividad—she was upset—she was alarmed—she was not quite frightened, but maybe she would soon be afraid.

Alejandro had no sense of what might be wrong. Only of that upset and alarm. It was more than enough. Forgetting the other black dogs immediately, he headed unerringly toward his little sister.

-6-

“We need a priest,” Étienne said in a reasonable tone. “Of this we can be certain. Perhaps your little Natividad can free Ezekiel and perhaps she cannot, but if this is a witch and he is the same as the one your Justin encountered, then we know the hand of a priest can break this witch’s hold. Orthodox would perhaps be best, as that is the denomination we are certain has this efficacy.”

“Orthodox priests object very strongly to killing,” Grayson observed. “Even in self-defense; even in defense of the innocent.”

“Oui. Yes. It is a limitation with any priest, but oui, Orthodox more than any. Catholic, then, if you prefer. Or Lutheran. Unfortunately, the priests here with whom we have good relations are old. Father Evan is not well. Father Snyder is recovering from surgery on his knee.” Étienne paused, perhaps to gauge Grayson’s mood.

Miguel could have told Étienne not to bother, not that he liked him well enough to care. But Grayson didn’t have moods, not when he was intently focused on an important mission. Unwavering, that was Grayson Lanning in pursuit of a goal.

On the other hand, Miguel might not like the man, but he had to acknowledge, Étienne was right. Everyone knew it. Grayson definitely knew it.

James Mallory knew it too, judging from the patient little shrug he gave when Miguel glanced at him. James was seated in a deep chair a little way from the others. Bookshelves lined one wall and a whiteboard stood against another wall. A map of Colorado and surrounding states sprawled across the largest table, not quite in the center of the room. Most of the chairs were near this table, but James had drawn his chair off to one side and now lounged in it quietly, not drawing attention to himself.

He had a knack for sinking into the background, did James. Miguel wouldn’t have guessed it, but it turned out that now they were in not-quite-friendly territory, you could almost forget he was there. Miguel guessed James could probably also pass for human better than most other black dogs. No doubt that ability to stay unobtrusive came in handy from time to time.

Frédéric Lumondière leaned in the doorway, keeping half an ear out for sounds of trouble elsewhere, Miguel guessed. So far it seemed quiet. Miguel hoped that meant that Natividad and the other Pure woman, the Évanouir woman, were managing to keep things calm out there. Not that he was too worried about Alejandro. Not really. His brother could take care of himself. Even so, Miguel was still glad that no violence seemed yet to have broken the quiet of this house.

He cleared his throat. “Whether our enemy is a witch or, like, a whole coven of witches, or if it turns out to be something else, there’d still be no harm making sure we had a really solid kickass servant of God with us anyway. Since we didn’t think to ask Father McClanahan if he’d mind a little trip out west, and since from what Étienne says the priests here don’t seem up to it, maybe we could delay just long enough to swing down to Roswell and recruit that Orthodox priest who helped Justin out. That guy sounds perfect. He’s got guts.”

“Unfortunately, he seems disinclined to leave his congregation unprotected just at the moment,” Grayson said calmly, and raised an eyebrow at Miguel’s not-quite-hidden surprise. “I did inquire. I am perfectly well aware of this flaw in our defenses. Regrettably, recruiting a priest for something of this nature is not a simple matter. I would prefer a man with something of a background in matters having to do with the demonic. Acquiring the willing, and preferably enthusiastic, support of such a person is not trivial.”

He meant, no doubt, that he would be perfectly all right with abducting some elderly priest who’d just had knee surgery if one could be made to serve. Miguel had to concede that kidnapping a priest would be tempting if it were only possible.

“Fortunately,” added Grayson, “We do have access to precisely the correct sort of priestly assistance.”

Étienne tilted his head. “You have arranged this already? You relieve my mind. Are we to understand that you can produce this paragon among priests in short order? I admit I am impressed by your capability.”

So was Miguel. In fact, if Grayson had arranged something like that and not even Étienne knew about it...Miguel put together a reasonable scenario and nodded. “You asked Colonel Herrod to lend a hand? That could be complicated. Have we—have you—ever worked directly with the Special Forces before?”

Grayson didn’t seem surprised that he’d figured it out, though Étienne raised his eyebrows. The Master merely answered, “We have not. There is some potential for complications to arise, I agree. However—”

“Wait,” said Étienne. “Special Forces? Can this be wise? These are not allies. Master,” he amended, at the heavy-lidded glance Grayson gave him. But he was too concerned to make any greater concession to Grayson’s authority. He had leaned forward, gripping the arms of his chair tightly enough that the wood actually creaked audibly.

In contrast, Grayson leaned back in his chair, steepled his hands before him, and paused for a beat to gather his thoughts. Or maybe just for effect. He appeared completely unconcerned about the spiking tension in the room.

“We are fairly certain that a witch—or witches—has taken control of Dimilioc’s executioner,” he said eventually, his tone measured. “We are aware that witches possess this capacity. We do not know the limits, if any, on this sort of control. Can Ezekiel be forced to act against us, to divulge information about Dimilioc? If this witch had seized a random stray, it would matter little. If he had seized one of our new black wolves, the matter might not present such urgency. But Ezekiel Korte? That is a disaster.”

Étienne made a gesture conceding this.

“Natividad should be able to find Ezekiel. Where we find him, we will no doubt find our enemy. We must deal with him, with them, in such a manner that no one ever dares such an attack against us again. Of course there is risk in recruiting the Special Forces. Every plan now carries risk. We could go now, today, depending on our own strength alone. But we must assume all our people are at substantial risk if they approach one of these witches.” He paused.

“A more than adequate enemy, without inviting others into our vicinity,” agreed Étienne. “A priest would be an asset because he could not be a threat. The Special Forces—”

“—inevitably present a threat. Indeed. However, less so than these putative witches. I think this is inarguable.”

Meaning he didn’t intend to argue and Étienne had better shut up. Time for a change of topic. Miguel cleared his throat. “Cassie tells me Navajo skinwalkers were supposed to be able to take control of ordinary people. Exactly the way that dude took control of Keziah.” He held up his iPad. “Skinwalkers turn into animals and murder people and are just really unpleasant—kind of like stories about black dogs and vampires and witches all got glommed together. Now, it looks to me like fear of skinwalkers hasn’t really been a practical, everyday kind of thing for, I don’t know, call it a hundred years or so, maybe longer. But when you google around, you start to turn up a lot—relatively speaking—of stories about skinwalkers starting around just a few years ago.” He paused.

Grayson flicked a hand, Go on.

“Right,” said Miguel. “Well, googling ‘witchcraft’ gets you lots of hits on Ashanti witchcraft first, but we know practically nothing about that even though you’d think, I mean, the Ashantis are kind of right there, but you know they don’t really talk to Anglos much. Or other Africans either. But once you scroll past all the stuff explaining how we don’t know anything about Ashanti witchcraft, you get into these really old legends about ancient Assyrians. I’m sort of leaning toward that myself. It’s a lot more ritualistic than the skinwalker thing and there were complicated rules about demonic possession and exorcism. Some of that sounds almost kind of familiar from what Justin talked about. Justin said the witches his group ran into used ash or dust or something. But then, skinwalkers use corpse powder, which would also look like ash or dust. Nasty stuff, corpse powder, apparently.”

Grayson was tapping one finger on the arm of his chair. He said, “If I may trouble you to amplify on an earlier point. Are we to understand that these stories regarding skinwalkers reappeared during the period in which the vampires lost their miasma?”

“Right. Yes, sir. Just about then.”

“You think our enemies are Navajo skinwalkers.” Étienne sounded skeptical.

“Miguel?”

Miguel shook his head. “I don’t, sir. Or I don’t necessarily think so. That’s Cassie’s theory. Justin’s witches looked Anglo and went by Anglo names, and the rituals he described, that kind of thing sounds more Assyrian or Semitic or Babylonian or something to me. On the other hand, this is pretty close to the right part of the country for Navajo witches, and nothing says somebody couldn’t turn to the dark side using Navajo traditions as easily as Assyrian. For all we know it’s some wild kind of combo black magic, here in the great melting pot of the world.” He spread his hands, shrugging.

“I believe you will agree that testing our suppositions carries a significant risk and that we cannot accurately estimate this risk,” Grayson said to Étienne.

“Oui, of course. But—”

“We must delineate the danger these witches pose to us. We must destroy them if we can. Above all, if a witch has acted against us, we dare not retreat and make no answer. Nor dare we leave Ezekiel, of all our people, under the control of an enemy. Yet we do not and cannot know precisely what we will face. These witches, whatever tradition or history has brought them forth, surely fall within the purview of the Special Forces.”

“Oui. Of course. So do we, as I am certain you will acknowledge.”

“True,” Grayson conceded. “However, Dimilioc has from time to time worked with Colonel Herrod. Generally at a certain remove, yes,” he added to Miguel. “But I believe we shall be able to come to a reasonable agreement under these circumstances. I believe Herrod can be trusted to keep an agreement he makes. Within certain reasonable parameters.”

Miguel had never met Colonel Herrod. Not exactly met. But from everything he knew of the man, he wasn’t sure he thought taking that kind of risk was such a great idea. Besides, Herrod was only a colonel. Maybe he actually could be trusted. But suppose a general or something came along, then what? Though the Special Forces were kind of outside the ordinary military, so maybe it was different. But still under the authority of someone, some civilian authority if he remembered right. Yeah, an important senatorial committee of some kind. He could just bet there’d been a lot of quick hair-splitting when that got set up, everybody involved pretending it was legal when it was actually pretty iffy.

He said mildly, careful not to sound the least bit challenging, “Yes sir. Natividad might be able to work out some way to protect us from a witch. This black witchcraft stuff just about has to be demonic. But Herrod’s people won’t be demonic at all. I don’t know if she can protect us from them. You really think we can work with them, sir?”

“I think we shall have to try. We are not intrinsically enemies. Also, we shall take precautions. Étienne, you will remain here, with Frédéric and that interesting wolf of yours. Steven Knauer. If Herrod betrays us, the response will be up to you. Or if we are destroyed by our enemies, again, you must decide how to proceed.”

There was a pause. Étienne leaned back in his chair, turning his face away as he considered this. He said at last, not looking at Grayson, “Frédéric and Steven are my strongest and most trustworthy wolves and I would be glad to have them with me in such a case. But if you and yours were defeated, I would never approach our enemies with so little in reserve. I would go east and north, establish myself at the main sept, and then from that stronger position consider our next approach.”

Miguel wasn’t sure what response that might get from Grayson, but the Master merely nodded. “My brother’s son is acting as Master there. He does not personally approach your strength. But he will have far more strength available to draw on than you will. Also, the only remaining Pure woman. Also, he is Dimilioc born and bred. I recommend diplomacy.”

Étienne raised one ironic eyebrow. But he said merely, “As I am not skilled in diplomacy, I shall hope not to face that contingency. Dimilioc cannot afford the loss of so many wolves. Certainly not the loss of two Pure women. Still less your loss, Master.”

This was pretty diplomatic, in Miguel’s opinion. He looked at Grayson, but the Master only nodded to James, who stood up unhurriedly and stepped to the whiteboard, swinging it out so everyone could see it. He hadn’t shown the faintest sign of surprise at anything the Master had said. Miguel supposed it was just as well Grayson was confiding in someone.

“We don’t know whether we’re facing one enemy or several enemies or lots of enemies,” James said matter-of-factly. “We’ll hope for the first, and we don’t think the last is likely, but we can’t be sure. But we don’t have to track down our enemies. We’re going to track Ezekiel, of course. He can only be in one location, so that makes the job a bit more straightforward.” He drew a little circle in the middle of the whiteboard.

“This is Ezekiel,” he said. Then he drew a square around the little circle. “This is the building where we find him. Lots of ways we could play this, mostly pretty stupid ways, but we think we’ve come up with a method that might be a bit less stupid than most. We’ll send the weakest black wolves first, starting with Absolon and Ian and Jim.”

Frédéric, still standing by the door, tilted his head and said, “I cannot be pleased to see Absolon sacrificed.”

James nodded to him. “Well, see, we’re kinda hoping we won’t be sacrificing anyone. We’ll get Natividad and Stéphanie to fit everyone out with whatever they can come up with that might protect us, we’ll get Colonel Herrod’s priest to do the same, and in we’ll go. Ideally, the young wolves will be able to kill the witches and we’re done. We tie up the situation with a nice big bow and give Herrod’s people a present for Christmas. Hopefully they won’t mind getting the bodies dead and a little torn up.”

“Less ideally?” Étienne asked.

“Our backup scenario—scenarios—are a little more complicated. Assuming the witches grab control of some or all of the wolves we’ve sent in, we’ll hope our enemies’ mojo—corpse powder, whatever—will run out, cause if they can’t control more than a few black dogs, no problem. We’re kinda assuming that once the witches are dead, their spell or whatever will break. We’re pretty sure we can get our people free one way or another regardless.”

“We have many things to hope for here. But go on.”

James nodded. “Right. So after the three youngest wolves, there’s Rip—Richard Jacobs—and Carter. If the witches have got the young ones, that will, we hope, swamp the witches’ capacity. Those three won’t be able to stop Richard and Carter. On the other hand, if the witches grab those two as well, that will tell us something.”

“Something bad,” murmured Frédéric.

“Yeah, but we’ll need to know it. The whole time, we’ll be working out safe distances and all like that. If they can get close enough but not too close, Grayson and Alejandro should be able to force all the captive black dogs into human form. Including Ezekiel if necessary. This will clear the way for whoever’s not too busy to kill the witches.” He raised an eyebrow at Étienne. “That will be your Théo Callot and me. We will go in last, ready to improvise, with every form of protection we can put together.”

Miguel could sort of see all this, but there were some pretty obvious flaws to this plan. If you could call it a plan. He asked, “And what if there’s no limit to the witches’ mojo and they grab you and Théo too?” But almost at once he figured out what Grayson must have in mind for that contingency. “Oh, never mind: I guess that’s when we will be very happy to have a priest waiting in the wings, plus a lot of Special Forces guys.”

Étienne frowned, but James gave a short little nod. “Exactly,” he agreed. “In that case, Herrod’s people will shoot the witches with lots and lots of silver bullets. According to Keziah’s report, bullets, even silver bullets, are not necessarily a cure for all ills. But we know a priest can free a black dog from a witch’s control.”

“Right,” agreed Miguel, not really listening. “Listen, have you run any of this past Colonel Herrod yet?” Then he shook his head, because it had been a stupid question. Obviously the Master must have. “Yeah, I guess you must’ve already got this ball rolling, right? Cause otherwise, starting from scratch, getting this organized would take practically forever.”

Étienne frowned, but the Master inclined his head. “Indeed. Colonel Herrod seems generally receptive to the proposal.”

“Well, he would, though, even if what he had in mind was to trap a lot of black dogs and not worry too much about witches that we’re not even sure exist, exactly, or at least we don’t know what they are and what they can do...” Miguel nodded again. “Neither does he; that’s why you think he’s in for real. Because he’ll want to find out if there’s something new, same as us. Yeah, I bet he’s been looking up all kinds of witchcraft. And, same as me, finding out we don’t know nearly enough about it, even if this is related to stuff we’ve dug up, which maybe it is and maybe it isn’t.”

Now the Master smiled faintly. “Indeed. Quite so. I suspect you can anticipate your role in this scenario, Miguel.”

“Um. You want me to share what Cassie and I have so far. You do know, mostly what we have so far is a bunch of wild-ass guesses.”

“No doubt. I want you to make sure the Special Forces people reciprocate. Perhaps they will prove to know something useful. You and Natividad will stay back from the fighting, if there is fighting. You will observe, focusing your attention both on our enemies and on Herrod’s people. Colonel Herrod has assured me—” and now Grayson’s tone took on a certain irony—“that his people will protect you both.”

“Naturally we trust this human colonel,” murmured Étienne. “Very well, I see that we must. To some degree. Do we have a timeline for this...exercise in optimism?”

“We will leave at dawn. We have no clear idea how long it will take Natividad to track Ezekiel, and then we shall still need to coordinate with Colonel Herrod’s people—” He broke off as Natividad herself suddenly opened the door, ducked past Frédéric, looked urgently around, found the Master, and caught her balance against the back of a chair.

“Ezekiel?” Grayson inquired after the slightest pause. His deep, gravelly voice did not change, but that pause betrayed his concern.

“Alive!” Natividad assured him. She was hardly paying attention to anyone else in the room, even Miguel. “But something’s changed. He’s worse. Stronger, angrier. Or it’s not exactly him that’s angrier. I think it’s his shadow, I think it is stronger, or more, I don’t know, more itself and less, less—”

“Ezekiel’s shadow is becoming ascendant?” Now Grayson’s tone was grim. “Or—it has not already consumed him? It is not entirely ascendant? Can you tell?”

Étienne had gone very still, but he said nothing. It was James who spoke, making no effort to conceal his worry, “If there’s another of our people I’d like less to see lose control of his shadow, there’s not two. You think our enemy has any idea what kind of wolf he’s holding on his chain?”

“Ezekiel would never lose control!” Natividad said hotly. “But—” she met Grayson’s eyes. “He’s so angry. I think—I think he might give way to his shadow, if he thought he had a better chance of breaking free that way. I don’t—I don’t know what that would be like, I don’t know if he could take back control after getting free—if he does get free—”

“Once the shadow consumes a black dog...” Étienne began, but cut that off on a look from Grayson.

“He’s not gone!” Natividad declared. “I could tell! Anyway, this is Ezekiel, not just some other black dog!” She turned to Miguel, slipping into Spanish. “No podemos esperar más tiempo. I think we should go now, today, this hour—”

Alejandro strode abruptly into the room with several others trailing a respectful distance behind. Alejandro’s attention was fixed on Natividad, so that it took him a second to realize he’d intruded on the Master’s private conference. Even then he did not halt immediately, but came forward quickly to grip Natividad’s shoulders, giving her a little shake and a concerned look before he faced Grayson.

The Master merely raised his eyebrows.

Alejandro said defensively, “Natividad is upset.”

Grayson sighed. “She is,” he conceded. “Perhaps with cause, though we shall hope not. Come in, Alejandro.” He considered the others who clustered warily in the doorway: Absolon and Ian and Rip Jacobs—an interesting little group, Miguel thought. They seemed pretty tolerant of one another, considering.

“Grayson—” Natividad began, and broke off. “Master—”

Grayson held up a hand, stopping her. He said, “We will leave as soon as seems practicable. Not immediately, but soon. We shall work out the remaining details with all due haste. Since haste does appear to be an issue...” he nodded toward the door. “Miguel, please explain the basic outline of our intentions to your brother and sister. James, Frédéric, please see to arranging matters with our wolves. Étienne, if you would please remain.”

And that would seem to be that, at least for now. Miguel grabbed his twin by the arm, patted Alejandro’s arm, and said to them both, “We’ve got a plan, come on, I’ll tell you all about it, you might even like it. Parts of it. Gemela, have you had a chance to see what Stéphanie Callot might have around, maybe already set up? Let’s find out. Toma lo que te haga falta.”

“I already have all kinds of stuff—I brought lots of things with me—”

“Yeah, but take anything you want, if you suddenly decide you need something it’ll be tricky to come back for it—”

“Puede que tengas razón,” Natividad said, in the kind of earnest tone that meant Stop trying to tell me my business.

“Right,” said Miguel, lifting a pacific hand. “Right.” He just wished he could be a fly on the wall when Grayson called Colonel Herrod with an update. He was sure that phone call was going through right now. With Étienne to advise Grayson. Yeah, Miguel just hoped that worked out.

“So, tell us this plan we will like parts of,” Alejandro ordered, and Miguel dragged his brain back to the actual moment.

MigTol:  Hey Prophetess u awake?

Prophetess: Ok lay it on me. What clever plan have you all dreamed up?

MigTol:  … Looks like G wants to hop into bed w C Herrod

Prophetess: Ew stop not an image I need

MigTol: Ur mind, it is in the gutter.

Prophetess: U started it. U think H is really on board or setting u up?

MigTol: That’s the q. I guess it’s worked out bf? ??? G’s not likely to be overtrusting u think? Not a blk dg kind of mistake. I figure probably we’re really teaming up. U should know in case it turns out 2B a bad bad bad idea.

MigTol: I told G abt skinwalkers. Also abt Assyrian witchcraft

Prophetess: It’s sknwkrs

MigTol: Kristoff’s still not a Navajo.

Prophetess: I know u don’t agree. Lotsa || tho.

MigTol: More || w Assyrians. And God knows about Ashanti witchcraft cause we still don’t. U find anything else?

Prophetess: No but hey give me time. U have time to look in records there?

MigTol: Sure if all the records were scanned! No. Paucum.

Prophetess: stop w the Latin

MigTol: U started it

Prophetess: That was a long time ago and hey I didn’t know u were so easily influenced. Try to get into the records. U can skim real fast.

MigTol: I’ll do my best but damn records go back alllll the way & we’re leaving RSN. U keep looking? I’ll keep googling.

MigTol: G is leaving Etienne in charge, if we don’t come back he will be on ur doorstep w cousin + 1 more

Prophetess: I’ll pass that on  Don’t u let that happen

MigTol: Absit

-7-

Everything was taking so long. Natividad wanted to lean forward and say Go faster to Grayson, who was driving. Of course she couldn’t.

Well, she could. She was directly behind Grayson. She could easily lean forward and urge greater speed. But he would not welcome advice about his driving.

Also, more important, Natividad was not supposed to be worrying about things like how fast they were going. She was just supposed to make sure they kept heading toward Ezekiel, and at the same time make some kind of aparato that would protect Dimilioc’s black wolves from the witch that had caught him.

Stéphanie and Natividad were each supposed to think about this problem separately, and make the best aparatos they could think of, then share ideas and see what else they could make. Making something that would do exactly what they needed it to do, when they didn’t even know for certain what that would be . . it seemed impossible. But important.

Natividad had let Miguel tell her all about every kind of witch he and Cassie had learned about and besides that she had spent time talking to Justin and Keziah and Amira and Nicholas and even Justin’s grandmother. Who seemed like a nice woman. Luckily she was perfectly all right, or she would be once she’d had a little more time to recover from all the terrible things that had happened. Also, the way she’d met Keziah and the others, at least she wasn’t too upset about Justin joining Dimilioc and being friends with black dogs.

They were so lucky Justin’s grandmother turned out to be the kind of old woman who was really sharp, who paid attention to everything and remembered details, even when the details were awful. So Natividad knew about human sacrifice and banefires and white candles, and she knew witches used horrible things like finger bones in their magic. She couldn’t see how it would be helpful to know about things like finger bones, but maybe it would turn out to be good to know such things.

None of that awful witchcraft sounded anything like Pure magic. Except it sort of did in some ways. Circles might be important. Maybe some kinds of witchcraft might be deliberate perversions of Pure magic, the same way a Black Mass was a deliberate perversion of the real mass. Not that Natividad knew much about the details of a Black Mass. Miguel had looked up stuff about that, but she hadn’t let him tell her much about it.

She wished Justin was with her now. And Keziah, because after last summer Natividad knew that when things got really bad, Keziah was exactly the person you wanted on your side. But Keziah hadn’t been able to protect herself from the witches that had kidnapped Justin’s grandmother.

Of course it was Natividad’s job to fix that little problem.

Although they weren’t even certain the enemies they were heading toward were witches. Natividad had to be careful to remind herself of that, because she was actually pretty sure. Everybody was pretty sure. Otherwise it was a huge coincidence that Justin and everyone had run into trouble at about the same time as Ezekiel.

Besides, Natividad knew how angry and actually just completely consternado Ezekiel was. Maybe it was just Justin and Keziah putting the idea in her head, but she couldn’t think of one single thing that could upset Ezekiel so much, other than falling into a witch’s trap.

So probably their enemies were witches. Unfortunately, Mamá hadn’t taught her about witches or witchcraft. Even Dimilioc just didn’t know very much about witches. Yet she and Stéphanie Callot were supposed to come up with aparatos of some new kind, something that could protect black dogs from witches. And free them, because Natividad definitely wasn’t going to leave Ezekiel trapped like he was right now. Definitivamente, no.

She and Stéphanie had brought along everything they could think of that might help. For Natividad, that meant a couple more silver chains and a brass doorknob and a palm-sized silver locket with a tiny silver-alloy key.

Natividad was proud of herself for thinking of the doorknob. That was a thing-that-opens-other-things, symbolism she hoped would prove useful. But the locket had been Stéphanie’s idea. “Because it locks,” Stéphanie had said, showing it to Natividad. “Because it has a key.” Stéphanie was smart, even if Natividad didn’t like her. The locket was a clever idea. They’d each taken one. Stéphanie had the one with a flower engraved on the front and a pearl inside because the lockets had been her idea. Natividad’s was plain, and she was pretty sure from the feel that it had a lower silver content. But the key was the part she really thought was important anyway.

A crowded van was a stupid place to try to work out some new aparata mágica. But Natividad couldn’t complain about that because she had argued so hard for haste. Now she had to come up with something.

Silver chains and silver keys and glass beads...silver and light were what you needed to draw the right kind of protective circles and pentagrams and other figures. Witches used some kind of dust or ash.

When you worked the Aplacando, the Calming, what the Dimilioc black wolves called the Beschwichtigung, you used sunlight or moonlight to draw a pentagram around the black dog. Or if nothing brighter was available, starlight or firelight, but that was harder. You had to braid light into a cord to bind the black dog’s shadow, and brighter light was easier to work with. The Aplacando was very important to help a black dog rule his shadow, to help him separate his own self from the monster that shared his soul. But if the Aplacando was all about enhancing a black dog’s control, maybe what a witch did was something like that, too. Only it gave someone else control. How would you set up the Aplacando if that was what you wanted?

Natividad could not quite imagine.

Well, but the kind of witch Justin and the others had run into was evil. Miguel said mostly witches were supposed to call on demonic powers to curse rivals and things like that. The demonic entity, that was the one with the power. The witch was just the person directing the demon to do things. Which still sounded just awful, but never mind, what that meant was that Pure magic ought to be able to protect someone from a witch because defending against demonic influence was exactly what the Pure did. It was what they were for.

Except that Justin had described how his own magic had gotten muffled or blurred or suppressed when he’d come too close to the witches’ hideout. How his grandmother’s magic had been muffled as well. Justin had said he wondered if that muffling was why his grandmother and her friends didn’t know much about their own magic or what it meant to be Pure; he said maybe witches had actually been doing stuff in that part of the country for a long time, interfering with Pure magic somehow and maybe that was why his family hadn’t known enough to tell he was Pure himself or warn him what that meant.

None of that suggested in any way that Pure magic could be very effective against this new kind of witchcraft. Or this old kind, whatever it was. No one knew. That was the problem.

Still, assume witchcraft used dark things, opposite things. Ash instead of fire, darkness instead of light.

Natividad balanced her pink sisal handbag on her knee and took out a silver chain, poured a couple glass beads out of their bag, and then found her new locket with its little key. She frowned at it, thinking. Things that could be shut tight...things that could be opened and freed. A locket, a mind, a heart.

The locket wasn’t magic. Not yet. But it could be. Lots of things could be made into magic if you did it right. Silver was already adverso to demonic influence. There was enough silver in the alloy that had made this locket and key that they would easily take up a little bit of magic.

When you did the Aplacando, you made a cord of light to bind the darkness of the black dog’s shadow. You could say that was locking away the shadow. Or you could say you were opening the person’s soul to the light. Really you were doing both. Or either. You could look at it either way. Natividad held up the locket by its chain—that was also silver, of course—and studied it.

She needed a flat place where she could set down the locket and then draw a pentagram around it. A van didn’t offer a lot of possibilities...she shuffled through her bag, looking for inspiration...of course. Her mirror. It wasn’t very big. Only about three inches across. But the locket was only about as long as Natividad’s thumb, and the key was tiny. Also, silver-backed glass was a good surface to draw on. Very amenable to magic. She’d used this mirror as a trouvez lots of times, but that should be all right...it might even be helpful. A trouvez was for finding people. If a witch had taken control of Ezekiel, couldn’t he be said to have been lost? In a way? And setting him free was kind of like finding him. She was pretty sure that if the mirror remembered having been a trouvez, that would be fine.

Finding someone who was lost, freeing someone who was bound, unlocking someone who had been locked up tight...Natividad took the silver chain off the locket and dropped it in her bag. Then she put the key into the locket—it just fit—and shut it. It locked automatically, so that was kind of an interesting structure: the key closed away inside the locket that it ought to unlock. Yes. That felt right.

Setting the locket in the center of the mirror, she drew a pentagram around it. It was hard to fit a pentagram on so small a surface. Justin could have just made any size pentagram as one whole shape, but Justin was special. Natividad had to draw hers with the tip of her finger, which was tricky because the locket took up so much space. The motion of the van didn’t help either.

At least the mirror was round. Round was good. Round was like a protective circle. Though protection was not exactly what Natividad had in mind. Or maybe...maybe a really aggressive kind of protection.

She finished drawing the pentagram, leaned back, and looked at it critically. It was all right. The locket had jiggled a little off-center, but it didn’t lie across the lines of the pentagram. So she gathered a handful of sunlight and poured the light into the pentagram and into the mirror and across the locket.

“Sea libre,” she murmured. Justin said the priest had said some words from an exorcism. Natividad wasn’t a priest and didn’t know those words. But she knew what she wanted. She knew what an exorcism was for. She murmured, “Que el mal salga. Que el mal sea expulsado. Que el demonio sea frustrado. Que lo sea expulsado. Que ésta persona sea libre de él.” It did seem a little peculiar to say May the demon be thwarted, may it depart, may this person be free of it, because after all a person was only a black dog at all because a demon had attached itself to his soul. But a different kind of demon or attached a different way or something.

She added, “Que Dios ponga su mano entre la alma de ésta person y el mal.” But that still wasn’t quite right. She didn’t exactly want to ask God to set his hand between Ezekiel and evil; not all evil. She didn’t want to put any kind of barrier between Ezekiel and his own shadow. She said instead, still in Spanish, “May God guard this person’s soul from the witch’s demon.” There, that was better. That was what she wanted the aparato she was making to do. An aparato for the casting out of demonic influence, but only the influence of the witch’s demon. Now that she had framed her wish properly she could pour that wish into her new aparato.

She tilted the mirror so that the light she’d poured into it pooled and gathered and ran back and forth across its surface, across the locket. Which was part of the mirror now. It had melted into it, kind of. Yet the mirror hadn’t become convex. Rather, the edge had risen up a little all around the mirror, so that its overall shape had become a little bit concave. The better for gathering light, maybe. The better for catching an image, or a shadow, or a soul.

Natividad tilted her new-made aparato again, considering the flow and ebb of light, the heft and warmth of it in her hand. Maybe it would work. She thought it might.

“A key’s in it, right?” Miguel said, looking over her shoulder. “Yeah, that’s clever. I see what you did there.”

“Sí,” Natividad said. “Yes. I think this may be right. Mostly right.” She turned her new aparato para expulsar los demonios over in her hands. “I think it will work. I think it should work. Only I’m not sure how to use it.” It wasn’t like a knife, or an aparato made from a knife. It was always obvious how to use something that started out as a knife. But you didn’t stab someone with a mirror. She said, “I think he needs to look into it, so he will find himself and the demon’s hold will be broken. But I think it might take a minute. I mean, if anybody holds it up he will look into it. But just for a second, probably. I don’t know how to make him look into it for long enough.”

“I will see to that myself, if necessary,” Grayson told her. His voice had deepened to a flat-toned growl.

Natividad nodded. She was sure he would. “I don’t know it will work,” she reminded him. She wondered what Stéphanie Callot had come up with. Something very different, she hoped. She liked this new aparato of hers. But she would feel better if they had several different things they could try, just in case her creation didn’t work, or didn’t work well enough, or didn’t work exactly the way she had intended.

Miguel nodded. “If our enemy isn’t a witch after all this, I for one am going to be seriously disappointed.”

Natividad poked him, but she knew exactly what he meant. If she’d made an aparato that was all wrong for the enemy they actually faced, that would be bad.

Then she shivered, blinked, and leaned forward to pat Grayson urgently on the shoulder. “That way, that way, I think this exit, can we take this exit?”

Grayson braked, signaled, and slid into the exit lane at the last moment. The sign said Walsenburg, which meant nothing to Natividad. The Master met her eyes in the rear view mirror. “Which way shall we turn? West?”

Natividad pointed to their right. “That way. Is that west? Where are we?”

Grayson didn’t answer, but her twin tapped his phone and held the map over for Natividad to see. “Nowhere,” he said. “The middle of lots and lots of nowhere. We’re heading toward Fort Garland. There’s not much else over this way. Mountains and national parks and stuff, that’s all there is out here.”

“Empty country,” muttered Alejandro behind them. “Good for a person who wishes to stay unnoticed.”

“A little bitty town in the middle of nowhere is just the kind of place a black dog might set up to rule,” put in James unexpectedly. “Perhaps a witch might be inclined the same way.”

Miguel nodded, but he said, “Those Justin encountered seemed to want to stay out of sight, and they seemed to need a place to work, equipment, all kinds of stuff. I don’t know what kind of place like that might be out here, but we might expect a witch to set up some kind of home base near a bigger town. Fort Garland’s pretty big.”

Grayson tapped his thick, powerful fingers on the steering wheel, thoughtfully. “The nearest Special Forces unit is stationed in Albuquerque. That is where Colonel Herrod is currently waiting for an update. I believe it would be best to inform him of our new direction even though we do not yet have a solid destination in mind.” He took out his phone. “Natividad, if you feel a change in direction or any muffling of your magic, inform us at once.”

Natividad nodded. She peeked over Miguel’s shoulder as her twin adjusted the scale of the map on his phone. Albuquerque was not very far away. Not if they had a plane. And someplace to land. Maybe helicopters. She didn’t want to have to wait for them any longer than absolutely necessary. Ezekiel was so close. She knew it. She could feel it.

James said, “Reconnaissance first, that’s what I suggest. Head west until the direction clearly changes, narrow it down, maybe circle around until we get a pretty good notion just where we’re heading. Then we can get everything arranged. We’ll be in place well before Herrod’s people; that’s an advantage we ought to be prepared to use. I can liaise with the colonel, keep an eye on the situation as it unfolds.”

Grayson merely nodded, but Natividad was pretty sure he’d worked out that strategy with James ahead of time, that nothing James had suggested was the least bit new to the Master. As a plan, it sounded...slow. But she couldn’t argue that it didn’t make sense. She said nothing.

Alejandro rested a hand on Natividad’s shoulder. “It will be well,” he told her quietly. “We will tear out the hearts of our enemies.”

Natividad didn’t answer, but she had to admit that she found this comforting.

West, west...the sun slid through the sky, but it was hours yet till nightfall. No way of guessing whether that was good or bad, but she would be happier if they found Ezekiel before dusk. Unlike the black dogs, she couldn’t see in the dark.

Mountains rose up before them, the kind of rugged, arid mountains that made her think of home. Not Vermont, not Dimilioc, but Nuevo León, where she and her brothers had grown up. Of Potosi, before...before. There were fewer trees here, fewer of the oaks and limber pines, yews and chaparro prieto. Here was mostly brush and rock, all dusted lightly with snow. There were few signs of people. Only very occasionally a rundown shack near the little highway, with a hand-painted sign advertising eggs or something. Those were closed now, probably. Hens would not likely be laying in this cold season, and certainly all the land here seemed entirely deserted. No other cars were in sight.

“There’s La Veta, I think,” Miguel said, nodding toward a slightly larger collection of shacks and a few larger buildings. He made a little gesture with his phone. “Over there, that’s Silver Mountain, it says.”

Natividad shrugged. “West. Still west.”

-8-

Natividad didn’t change her mind about the direction until they were actually through Fort Garland. Then she finally pointed north, toward the mountains that rose up near the town. Miguel was a little surprised about that. His personal bet had been that they’d find their enemies actually in the town, where they’d have access to power and water and the general amenities of civilization. Though the witches Justin and Keziah had encountered had found a place outside Roswell to set up generators and stuff, Miguel had guessed that in general anybody who needed infrastructure like that would find it easier to use a place where power hookups and things were already available. Anyway, according to Google, Fort Garland was an artsy kind of town, full of painters and writers and so on. If you wanted to find somebody interested in ancient Assyrian witchcraft or Egyptian death rituals or whatever, it seemed like Fort Garland might be a pretty good place to look.

Nevertheless here they were, heading toward those mountains. Google said there were campgrounds and stuff up there. Miguel’s new bet was that the witches had set up in one of those. He also figured it would be practically impossible to drive right up into any campground or whatever without being noticed. He thought they might as well paint WITCHES BEWARE: DIMILIOC IS COMING TO KILL YOU in big letters on the sides of the van; that would probably draw no more attention than just driving up in the first place. He hadn’t made any comment about this because Grayson was not likely to welcome comments from any backseat driver. Also, Grayson wasn’t stupid. He had surely realized how screamingly obvious they were.

Miguel wondered whether maybe some kind of witchcraft would spot them before they got near enough to be sure of their destination. It was hard to guess. They just knew too little about witchcraft and what it could do and what its limitations might be.

As far as Miguel could tell from the kind of sources he’d found so far, black magic and witchcraft seemed mostly concerned with cursing rivals and enemies and random people who annoyed you. Making somebody’s cattle sicken, that was a big one. Cattle had always been a marker of wealth and status in those old civilizations. Making someone’s crops rot before they ripened, making their business ventures fall through. Everything he and Cassie had learned suggested that witchcraft was a pretty ugly business, but kind of...petty.

The human sacrifice Justin had described hadn’t sounded petty. Enslaving a black dog...hard to imagine doing something like that for just some petty little feud with a neighbor.

When the Ashantis had expanded explosively out of their little coastal kingdom and taken over half of West Africa, that hadn’t been petty. Or before that, way back, when the Assyrians had suddenly turned from tribal barbarians to unstoppable conquerors, that hadn’t been petty, either.

He started to text, Can we find info on Nigerian experiences when fighting against Ashantis, why did Ashantis stop expanding? But before he could hit Send, a sharp, thudding jolt interrupted him, the van skidded and swerved, slowed, swerved again, and bumped to a halt at the side of the road.

“Flat tire,” James said, unnecessarily.

The Master was so expressionless that Miguel bit back an impulse to say Gosh, what bad luck. He said instead, in his meekest tone, “Natividad? You’re all right? Not...muffled?”

“No,” his twin answered. She hesitated, looking nervous. Then she said more firmly, “No, it seems to me I am still Pure. Not muffled at all.”

“Definitely not,” agreed Grayson, studying her. “Interesting.”

It was interesting. And surprising, because Stéphanie was holding her hands out, palm up, staring at them. “This is not right!” she declared. She scowled at Natividad. “It is not right! Why should my magic fade and not yours?”

Natividad spread her hands in mute protest that she did not know. Miguel figured it might be the threads of black dog shadows that his sister held and the Évanouir woman did not, because that was the most obvious difference between them. He didn’t put this idea into words because it also occurred to him for the first time that if black dogs were especially susceptible to witchcraft, maybe Natividad shared that susceptibility. That...would be bad. He should have thought of it earlier. He should have asked Stéphanie all about what happened when a Pure girl carried traces of black dog magic. Stéphanie Callot was older, trained out of a different tradition; she might know something useful.

Too late now. He couldn’t think what else they might do about the possibility right at this moment. If those witches got Natividad, he’d be close to her. He sure would. Yeah, he’d make absolutely sure he stayed close enough to his sister to snatch the mirror aparato and try it out. Just in case.

Poor Stéphanie was pale and angry and scared. Miguel didn’t blame her one bit. Théo Callot gripped his wife’s arm, glowering north at the looming mountain as though he were tempted to charge off, find some witches, and tear them to pieces all by himself.

Natividad was gazing off, toward the mountain that was now very near. “Close,” she said. “We are very close.” They were practically on its lowest slopes of that mountain. Still a mile or so from the campground, according to the map, but the snow-streaked peaks loomed over them.

“Carter, change the tire,” ordered Grayson. “Alejandro, guard your sister. Natividad, confirm our direction. Théo, guard Stéphanie. James, appraise Étienne. We shall return to Fort Garland and consider our approach.” Getting out of the car, the Master strode a short distance away, already lifting his phone. He didn’t say Stay alert or Watch for danger. That was too obvious to need an order.

Calling Colonel Herrod actually seemed like a pretty good idea. Just in case. Probably pretty important to make sure Dimilioc and the Special Forces were on the same page. As backup went, the Special Forces were pretty...intimidating, actually. In a couple of different ways.

Still, Grayson had a longstanding relationship with Herrod. If he thought the colonel would be trustworthy in the ways that mattered most, at the time it mattered most, Miguel wasn’t going to argue. This whole thing would feel less risky with Herrod’s people backing them up.

Carter about had the tire changed. He hadn’t shown any sign of resenting the order to change it, and his attention now seemed fixed on the task. He was spooked, Miguel guessed. He wanted to get out of this place as much as anyone. Kind of ironic, setting up a situation where black dogs felt spooked. On the other hand, Miguel couldn’t have agreed more. If another tire went flat, that’d be unfortunate.

Grayson’s attention seemed to be mostly on the sloping land that stretched out and up before them toward Blanco Mountain, though he would probably notice anything moving in any direction because he was just like that. Stéphanie Callot had sat down cross-legged on a more-or-less flat rock, looking kind of huddled and upset. Her husband stood over her, his attention directed outward, watching for enemies. Natividad was looked toward the mountain, nervous and wistful. Miguel let his attention be drawn north, too.

Nothing. Nothing nothing nothing. No movement anywhere, except the wind skirling up a miniature whirlwind of snow over by a tumble of loose rocks and a few forlorn leaves skidding through the air. The sky was deep blue; the land taupe and rust and gray streaked with white; the distances vast and empty. No other cars, no billboards, no sign of people. Not even any birds in the sky. Except for the road scrolling out before them and behind, Miguel might have thought this country utterly deserted.

Alejandro arrived back at the van, moving faster as he covered the last little distance, eager to get moving, get away. Miguel felt the same way. He headed back to the car himself, paused to let Natividad get in first, and swung in after her. “They’re up there,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

“Sí,” his twin agreed. “Ezekiel is up there.”

Miguel nodded and glanced at Grayson, wanting to ask Herrod’s ETA? but not wanting to antagonize the Master with pointless questions. He figured Grayson would tell them if Herrod was right behind them or way too far back for any hope of backup, either way.

“Back to Fort Garland,” Grayson said curtly. He swept a hard stare across the landscape, which continued to look empty and unpromising. Then he demanded, “Where is Absolon?”

Miguel couldn’t help but look around as though he might spot the young Lumondière wolf under some nearby shrub. There was no sign of Absolon. Of course not.

Nobody said anything. All the young black wolves had moved around a little, glad to be out of the close confines of the van, hopeful of catching an unsuspecting enemy. It was abundantly obvious now that they should have stayed closer together, kept a careful eye out for problems...black dogs weren’t much for working on the buddy system, usually. Miguel should have thought of it. He hadn’t.

“What about the rest of us?” Carter said uneasily. He slanted a sideways look at Grayson. “If the rest of us follow him...what about us, huh?”

That was a really good question, unfortunately.

“Let’s find out,” Grayson said after a moment. “Ian. A hundred yards or so, please. Straight along the road. Then come back.”

It was the plan. Kind of the plan. Feed the youngest, weakest black dogs to the witches and see if and when the witches ran out of mojo. Even though this did seem like kind of an ideal situation to make that kind of test, somehow Miguel hadn’t expected the Master to go on with that plan quite so cold-bloodedly.

Ian Olney was just a kid, really. Not much older than Miguel and Natividad. Eighteen or nineteen, something like that, probably. Not as muscled up as Alejandro, not as broad in the shoulder. Sandy-colored hair, freckles across his nose. Though at the moment, his face was a little distorted, unease and anger bringing his shadow up.

Miguel expected him to argue. But after a second, Ian just turned and jogged up the road.

Twenty yards. Fifty. Eighty or so. At about that distance, the road curved around an outcropping of reddish rock and disappeared from view. Ian didn’t go quite that far. He reached the outcropping, slowed, stopped. Stood there for a long moment. Then he turned and jogged back.

“Nothing,” he said to Grayson. He ducked his head a little, knowing he hadn’t gone quite as far as ordered. “Nothing I could feel.”

The Master frowned, but he didn’t order Ian to try again, or anybody else. He said instead, “It seems a trap. But a trap that has been sprung. Perhaps our enemy can get a leash on only one black dog at a time. Or has not realized more than one at a time might come against him.”

James said softly, “A big assumption.”

Grayson nodded. But he said, “When will our chances be better? Taking Absolon may well distract our enemy.”

Suddenly Miguel found the absence of the Special Forces people a really, seriously unfortunate circumstance. He would have been delighted now to risk trusting Colonel Herrod. He would have been quite happy to have any kind of allies coming up that road behind them, in fact. Not that Grayson was wrong. That was the problem. Grayson was probably right. But mierda, the potential for disaster suddenly seemed huge.

Grayson glanced around at them all. Everyone waited. Miguel waited too. He was sure no one was the least bit surprised when the Master spoke in a flat, hard voice. “We will go up. Natividad, your newest creation: have it ready. Stéphanie, what have you made?”

The woman jerked, her attention pulled outward. “A thing to turn attention,” she said after a second. “A thing I hope will turn the attention of a witch. Of all witches.” She held it out: a tangle of silver thread stretched in a wicker frame. “It is not...these enemies may be human, but their magic is probably demonic. This is meant to turn the attention of an ordinary person who has been contaminated by contact with a demon. I do not...I do not know if it will work. Or if it will work for me when I am...like this.”

Grayson nodded curtly. “Give it to Natividad.”

Stéphanie hesitated for a long moment, frowning. But at last she turned to Natividad, holding out the thing she had made. “This will spread out before us, not behind us. It is meant to confuse the eyes of our enemies as we approach, not our allies as they follow. You see, it is this tracery of light that will make the mist come down before us.”

Miguel wasn’t certain whether she meant a physical mist or not, but he was mostly reassured by his twin’s nod of understanding and agreement. Natividad held out the aparato she had made out of her mirror and the locket and key. “This thing I made should be an aparato for casting out demons. For freeing a black dog from a witch’s spell. I think that is what it is.”

She sounded a little tentative, as though she was a little bit worried what the Évanouir woman would say or think about her work. Miguel said immediately, “The theory seems sound. All Natividad’s aparatos are powerful.”

Stéphanie frowned at him as though not quite approving of an ordinary human offering an opinion about any kind of Pure magic. Then she peered at the mirror aparato without touching it. Then she transferred her frown to Natividad. “It may work. I do not know. I have never heard of such a thing. Only, it is contaminated. I see you have allowed a very tiny tracery of black dog shadow to enter...I do not mean enter...to braid itself into this working.” Her frown deepened. “I think you were very unwise to allow your magic to be contaminated in this way. You see how everything you make is also likely to be contaminated.”

“It is his shadow,” Alejandro said sharply. “It is part of the aparato.”

Miguel added, “It’s not contamination if it enhances the work. If it’s got a trace of Ezekiel’s shadow in it, then it might work better for him than for other black dogs and I wouldn’t call that a flaw because if there’s one black dog we want to get free, it’s definitely Ezekiel.” He hoped that would be true; that Grayson, for example, was not captured. He wasn’t sure it would be a great idea to use an aparato made for Ezekiel on somebody else.

Natividad had flinched a little from Stéphanie Callot’s judgmental tone, but her back straightened as her brothers defended her. “I think it is true, I think I did make this for Ezekiel,” she agreed. She peered down out the glimmering mirror. “It is only a very little thread of shadow, and only braided in at the end. I think it might work for somebody else. I think it will. If I had really meant it for Ezekiel only, I would have made it...a little bit differently.” She sounded like she might regret that lost chance now.

“I may be prevented from touching my birthright, but I know what I see—” Stéphanie began.

Grayson held up a hand, halting the woman in midsentence. “We shall endeavor to require the use of this tool on no one but Ezekiel. Once our enemies are dead, we should have leisure to experiment. Ian, you understand what you are to do? Jim? It would be excellent if you killed our enemies. But do not put yourself in Ezekiel’s way if you can in any way avoid it.”

The younger black dogs nodded. Ian looked sullen, Jim Gotz resigned. But both of them turned and loped away, straight up the road, melting into their black dog forms as they moved, making no effort to conceal themselves.

Grayson signaled James back and Carter and Rip out before them. James strode away in human form, almost jauntily, which was all an act; he couldn’t possibly like taking the rear position. But obviously Grayson had no one else he could trust to come last, keep out of it, and if necessary get out and back to Étienne with the tale. Or Herrod. Or both. Yeah, good idea keeping James out of it. Miguel had to agree about that.

The other two flowed through the afternoon sunlight in their black dog forms, dark and smoldering and vicious. Miguel wouldn’t have wanted to face them. It was hard to imagine anyone human, witch or not, withstanding this many black dogs.

Grayson hadn’t shifted. Alejandro hadn’t either, though his face and hands and shoulders were a little distorted and his eyes fiery and inhuman. His control was pretty good, better than it had been a couple years ago; he would not shift the rest of the way unless he decided to.

Théo Callot was still fully in his human form, except for his crimson eyes. He stayed close to Stéphanie, as Alejandro stayed close to Natividad. Miguel reached under his jacket to touch the small handgun he carried. The feel of it was reassuring. The knowledge of the silver bullets with which it was loaded. Even though he knew guns and silver bullets weren’t necessarily all that useful against the kind of witch Justin and Keziah had run into.

He hoped he wouldn’t have a chance to use it. But he was pretty sure that their plan, such as it was, would get more and more disarranged, because plans always did. So, yeah, a gun was a pretty reassuring thing to have.

It wasn’t quite a campground after all. It also wasn’t nearly as close as Miguel might have wished. A mile or two was all very well for a black dog, but for a normal person like Miguel—or a Pure girl like his twin—a mile or two uphill was tedious. Four or five miles was worse than tedious; it was exhausting and way too slow. After the first little bit, Alejandro carried Natividad, and Théo Callot carried his wife. What surprised Miguel was that Grayson himself proved willing to carry Miguel, without apparent offense. Miguel certainly didn’t comment. It was the best he could do: pretend to not really notice that the Master of Dimilioc had picked him up and carried him like a man carrying a child.

So it didn’t take very long at all to cover those last miles.

Miguel had half expected more bad luck. Twisted ankles—though that wouldn’t be a problem for a black dog. They wouldn’t twist their ankles, and if they did, they could let their shadows take away the injury. Black dogs were really lucky in some ways. Not so lucky at all in other ways, sure, but magical healing would be pretty cool.

But not even black dogs would be immune to other kinds of bad luck. Rockslides, for example. Explosives. Bear traps.

Yeah, he was getting a little too nervous, obviously, because that one was just silly.

It wasn’t silly at all to worry about snipers and silver bullets, though. Miguel tried to guess whether Grayson was considering that possibility. It was impossible to tell. The Master’s calm was unbreakable as ever.

That might be one reason he’d had his black dogs spread out, though. And a reason he’d kept Natividad and Stéphanie back here near him. Black dog senses were acute. If anything happened, if anyone sprang some kind of trap, Grayson’s little group ought to know about it practically as soon as it happened.

But nothing happened. Nothing that Miguel could sense. Broken stone and sand along the road; that might be a quarry. Another, smaller road, hardly more than an impression, which Miguel wouldn’t have noticed if not for the dusting of snow lying more smoothly along the road. A couple scrubby trees. Nothing nothing nothing, and finally the road curved around a tumble of broken reddish stone and opened up into a wide, nearly flat parking lot. A couple hundred feet farther on, the mountain itself loomed upright; off to one side the ground fell away in a sharp arroyo. And crammed back against the cliffs, a scattering of ugly buildings, looking totally out of place and totally deserted.

Natividad was staring not at the nearest building, but beyond it, toward a larger, flat-roofed building at the far end of the parking area. The building on which she focused looked more like a warehouse than anything else. Maybe it contained some of the more expensive equipment used to work the quarry they’d passed. There was a loading dock in the front. The metal stairs leading up the loading dock looked half rusted through. The door had a dent in it, visible even from this distance, where it looked like someone had pounded for admittance with a hammer. It had also been torn practically off its hinges and left hanging, but Miguel was pretty sure that was more recent. As in, minutes old. That was the kind of damage an impatient black dog would do, and Ian, and Jim were no longer in sight. He couldn’t think where else they might have gone. None of the other ugly prefab buildings seemed a likely target.

This was certainly no campground. It looked more like some kind of industrial park or something, and not very inviting even for that. The buildings were mostly set right back against the mountain, which came down here in a series of short, broken, near-vertical cliffs before falling away in a gentler slope to the south. The short alleys between the buildings were cluttered with trash, broken furniture, rusted machinery and a dumpster that had somehow been knocked over on its side. The whole appearance of the place was slovenly. Certainly nothing about the scene added much to the view.

But he immediately spotted the black dog tracks. Not much like animal tracks. A little like the tracks of a giant wolf, but broad and blurred and with the impression of much more impressive claws.

None of those buildings, including the one those tracks headed for, offered an obvious back door. Built right up against the mountain like that, as far as Miguel could tell, it would be pretty tricky to cut around and come in some sneakier way. If sneakiness was even necessary. To a first glance all the buildings seemed abandoned. The one the tracks pointed to had half its high windows boarded up and the other half broken out. But now that Miguel looked, he could see, along with the tracks of the black dogs, tire tracks that led up to the delivery entrance in a confusing coming-and-going snarl. The snow had been coming down in light flurries most of the day and all day yesterday, but to Miguel some of those tracks looked recent. Also, the snow over near that building was dirty, streaked with gray and black as though someone had thrown ashes and dirt across it. Maybe someone had.

Other than the black dog tracks and the torn-up door, there was no sign of Ian or Jim. Not Carter or Rip either. No human footprints. Miguel assumed they had all headed for that building because of the tire tracks and the dirt, but he couldn’t guess what they might have found inside. There was no sound of fighting. No sound at all, to Miguel’s human ears, except the wind. Even that had died down now. The heavy overcast was breaking up; afternoon sunlight lanced down through ragged openings in the clouds. The light turned the cliffs a muddy pink and mercilessly picked out the ugliness of the buildings.

“I think—” Miguel began. But before he could actually say anything, a black dog’s angry roar cut through the fraught quiet. Miguel couldn’t tell whose voice it was; it didn’t sound like anyone he knew. Higher pitched than most, almost more a scream than a roar.

Grayson nodded to Stéphanie, who took her maraña and cast it into the air in front of them, where it spread out and dissipated, a lot like mist burning off in bright sunlight. This produced no effect that Miguel could see, but he supposed it probably did something, hopefully useful. Grayson seemed satisfied. He drew the rest of them off to one side, toward the dubious shelter of the nearest building, a smaller one whose corrugated roof had been torn loose along one side and clattered in the rising breeze. The noise set Miguel’s teeth on edge. He tried to ignore it. Beside him, Alejandro was tense and edgy. He gripped Natividad’s arm with one hand, but Natividad tugged herself free, found a silver knife—it looked more like a letter opener to Miguel—and rapidly began to draw a protective circle around them all.

“We are most unlikely to stay here in this exact place,” Stéphanie told her sharply. “And we do not even know such things will discommode a witch.”

Natividad didn’t pause. “We don’t know they won’t, and we can always draw another circle somewhere else, and another one after that. And maybe we’ll be happy to have circles we can run back to.” She completed the circle, straightened up, and looked at Grayson. “I still have my aparato.”

“Hold it ready,” the Master told her grimly.

Another roar, this one rising to a real scream as someone, Miguel guessed, was forced into human form. Someone was shouting...someone was chanting, in Latin, it sounded like...he held hard to Alejandro’s arm, not to try to restrain his brother—that would be impossible—but for simple comfort. In front of Miguel, Natividad was trembling. The back of Miguel’s neck prickled with plain animal fear, and he couldn’t seem to catch his breath. And he couldn’t think. He didn’t have enough information, there was nothing to think about.

Another screaming roar, and this time Natividad jerked back, her eyes widening. “¡Eso es Ezekiel!”

It didn’t sound like Ezekiel to Miguel, but he took her word for it. He also grabbed her hand in case she ran out of the circle and toward whatever was going on in that building. He said urgently to Grayson, “Listen, Master, if Ezekiel kills everybody in there except the bad guys, I bet we’ll feel pretty stupid for waiting out here with everyone who might be able to force him into human shape!” Immediately he knew he’d handled it badly; he should have said the same thing, but in different words and a much meeker tone; he should have made it sound like a question somehow. He didn’t look at Grayson, didn’t dare. He flinched when the Master raised a hand, ducking his head, except he knew, he knew, they had to go in. They should have backed out of this place the moment the tires had gone flat, that had been the moment to retreat and regroup and wait for reinforcements. Now it was too late and forward was the only way left.

But Grayson only snatched Natividad into the curve of one thickening arm, collected Alejandro with a fiery glance, and ran, yes, forward. Leaving Théo Callot to protect his wife and, presumably, Miguel. Which was all very well, but no. Miguel headed out without waiting to see if the other two would follow. Scared as he was, there was just no choice anymore, because he could not possibly retreat without knowing what was going on. “Just a peek through the door,” he muttered, to no one. That was the sensible strategy now. See if he could get a look at what was happening in there, and if it looked like the bad guys were winning, he could try to get away with enough information that Herrod and his people might be able to do something actually useful. With no black dogs to help. Except maybe Théo Callot, if he stayed out here with his wife, which was probably the sensible thing to do; and James, of course, figuring he was still out there somewhere.

He was pretty sure they could have come up with a better plan. If he’d tried harder, he could surely have come up with something better. And made Grayson listen. Somehow.

He ducked forward, hurrying toward the loading dock and the torn-up entrance. Since it was a little late to try for sneaky, he went with fast. Until he got to the door. Sneaky would probably be a lot more important once he was inside. From the sound of it, a lot was going on in there now; black dogs were roaring and snarling and someone was shouting in Latin, which he ought to have learned, and someone in English but not clearly enough for Miguel to understand his words.

Then someone started screaming, a horrible thin sound that made Miguel flinch and hesitate.

It was curiosity that drove him on as much as terror for his twin and for Alejandro and for the rest of them. Maybe no one would even notice him at all if he was careful. Though careful sounded a ridiculous idea when he thought of going in there.

Dropping to his knees, Miguel threw himself through the doorway and to the side, getting out of the way as well as he could, trying to get some idea of what was going on without being spotted himself.

-9-

Natividad clung to Grayson’s shaggy forelimb as he leaped forward. She refused to close her eyes even for a second in case she missed spotting Ezekiel. She clenched one hand around her new espejo and her other hand around the roughness of her sisal handbag and held tight to Grayson with her arms and legs.

The Master carried her as though she weighed nothing. He ran on three legs almost as fast and smoothly as he could have on four. She felt every footfall like a drumbeat, like her own heartbeat. Her heart thudded, her mouth was dry, but she felt oddly separate from her terror. She couldn’t really believe any of this was actually happening, though she knew it was. Even though part of her was terrified, she knew Grayson would keep her safe, keep them all safe. Somewhere, very close now, Ezekiel was desperate and furious and hating everything and everyone. His hatred beat through her like her a separate heartbeat. She felt sick with it, she had felt sick with hatred and despair ever since the tires had blown, but she wouldn’t admit it.

The Master hadn’t saved Ezekiel. Yet. But he would. She had faith that he would. She had to have faith. Grayson would save him, or she would, and they would kill all their enemies, and everything would be back the way it was supposed to be.

She had never actually wanted to kill anybody since Malvern Vonhausel. Well, except vampires and blood kin, but they didn’t count. Anyway, she did now. She wanted to kill whoever had done such terrible things to Ezekiel, whoever had hurt him, whoever had made him feel like this. She wanted to throw that person and all his allies and friends out beyond the world, into the fell dark where the demons dwelled. She wanted to close the way behind them so they could never get out. The depth of her own hatred and fury stunned her, only it wasn’t hers, not all hers, some of it was Ezekiel’s, but she couldn’t tell what part belonged to her and what was his. Alejandro was also furious, but her brother’s fury was more familiar, more his own, and she clung to that because it was better than what came to her from Ezekiel.

All this went through her mind and heart in one burning instant. Then they were through the door—Alejandro hit it first and sent the whole heavy door spinning aside with a scream of tearing metal—Natividad ducked her face against Grayson’s chest as he leaped over the wreckage in the doorway, through another interior doorway, down a short flight of stairs, and into a great roaring space of lancing light and tangled shadows.

At first Natividad had no idea what was happening or who was present, except she knew when Alejandro came up beside Grayson. They paused there, so she guessed this place was almost as confusing to the black dogs as it was to her.

It was confusing. It was all one big space inside this building. Light spilled through shadows from bare bulbs swinging overhead and brighter, cleaner sunlight streamed in through broken windows and through a big opening torn through the metal wall on the other side of the building, probably just now by Dimilioc wolves because there were an awful lot of black dogs here and surely most of them must be their friends and not enemies. No, both friends and enemies, because they were fighting. That was some of the roaring and some of the screaming and a lot of the confusion.

Between the swaying lights and the battling black dogs and the deafening steady roaring underlying all the rest of the clamor, it took way too long for Natividad to gain any clear idea of what kind of place they had come to. The steady roaring was machinery, she realized at last; blocky mysterious machines loomed, four of them, taller than she was, not far away. Their rumbling engine noise was punctuated by excited human shouts and the snarling of black dogs and, farther away, the barely audible but horrible sound of choked-off screaming.

Black dogs seemed to be everywhere, though mostly not too close. There could not really be so many. She couldn’t tell one from another by eye, but she knew Ezekiel was out there somewhere, only it seemed impossible she should not recognize him. But all the black dogs were struggling and snarling. Black ichor was spattered here and there, smoking; and far too much red blood marked where someone had been injured while in human form.

Rip was in human form, in fact, just trying to get to his feet—he looked all right, but he was probably the source of the blood. He must have been hurt badly in his other shape to be forced to shift in the middle of all this raging violence. That was probably Carter standing over him, protecting him, which was better than she would have thought of Carter, but she thought that was who it was. The smaller black dog trying to get past Carter and finish off Rip was poor Absolon. That made sense, in an awful way.

Though if it hadn’t been Absolon, the witches might have gotten their claws in someone tougher instead, Carter or someone, even Grayson himself, and that would be so much worse.

Even as she watched, appalled, Rip’s shadow came up again and he shook himself back into black dog form and surged past Carter to fight Absolon. There was another black dog, bigger and stronger, attacking them now and she was pretty sure someone was going to get killed.

Then flames blazed up between and around the black dogs, and she lost sight of that particular struggle before she could see how it came out. Smaller fires flickered here and there, except this place was all concrete and metal and almost nothing to burn. But many of the black dogs must be trying to summon fire, because the very air smelled singed. Behind the smell of sulfur and burning, Natividad flinched from the stench of blood and rot. It was a little like the smell of vampires, but that was a dry and withered smell. This was...not worse, exactly. But it was not nice at all. She looked for the source of that nasty stench, though she was afraid of what might be producing it.

On the concrete floor in front of Grayson, not far away, someone had drawn an arc and a couple of lines. No, it was part of a pentagram, Natividad realized; a big one that probably encompassed most of the floor space in this building. She could see only this little bit of it from their position. But it wasn’t like the pentagram a Pure woman would draw, of light channeled through silver and the clear intention of the maker. This one had been drawn in...in black ink, or something worse than ink. It looked shiny and wet, and it looked deep, like the shape had been incised into the concrete and then filled with ink or tar or something. She knew it was the source of the stench of rot and sulfur. Or one source, anyway. It felt wrong, too. It felt like something meant to imprison rather than protect whatever it contained. But it was strong. She could tell that, too.

In the exact center of the black pentagram, inside a much smaller five-pointed black star, was a single body. The dead man—Natividad thought it was a man—had been laid out on his back, spread-eagled, his limbs and head arranged according to the points on the star.

It was an ugly thing. Miguel didn’t have to explain what it was for, that black star anchored by the dead body of a man, for her to know it was ugly and terrible.

Everyone but them was inside the outer pentagram, though nobody was too close to that central star. Natividad wanted to shout a warning: Don’t go in the pentagram, but it was too late. She hoped no one touched or entered the black star because she was pretty sure that was worse.

She could glimpse three or four people on the far side of the building. Human, or at least in human form. Three of them looked young, gangly, like boys who hadn’t yet filled out. But she was pretty sure the other one was older. She couldn’t see him clearly, but he was pesado, with a plump body and thick arms and a round face. More than that, he stood solidly, confidently, like someone used to being important. He was a witch, she was positive, though really she could not be entirely certain. The others, she didn’t know. Students or servants or discipulos or something, maybe. One of them was laughing. She might not be able to see him plainly at this distance, but she could hear him. His laughter was as horrible as the pentagram, filled with contempt and a nasty kind of gloating good cheer.

The whimpering person was over there also, not on his feet. Sitting slumped over, right there with the witches. She couldn’t tell whether he was a black dog or an ordinary human. Either way, he didn’t seem to be trying to escape, or even stand up. Maybe he couldn’t. He—or she, Natividad couldn’t tell—wasn’t exactly screaming any longer. The sound was more like...whimpering. It was a thin, hopeless sound, worse than all the clamor of black dog fury. She couldn’t imagine what had been done to him to make him sound like that. She didn’t want to know.

The knot of struggling black dogs poured one way and then another within the pentagram, and suddenly Grayson shifted, setting Natividad on her feet as he took human form. His change was fast and precise, even under such circumstances as these. Reaching out, he seized Alejandro’s arm in a hard grip, shadow claws piercing through shaggy pelt so that Alejandro jerked back and snapped at the Master before remembering who he was and sinking down to listen.

“You see Ezekiel,” Grayson said grimly to Alejandro, nodding out toward the pentagram. “If we force him back to human shape, he’ll be torn to pieces immediately. If we don’t, we’ll lose too many of the rest. We need to separate him from the others, then force his shadow down. Do you understand me, Alejandro?”

Alejandro snarled in answer, but Natividad wasn’t paying attention to either of them, not any more. Suddenly the battle out there within the pentagram made sense to her. It mostly hadn’t until Grayson had explained what was going on, but now it did. As if by magic, the struggle resolved from confusion into clarity, and she recognized Ezekiel at last. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t known him at once, but he had been lost in all the noise and fury. She knew him now, and understood what was happening. She hadn’t realized that the greater battle was between the black dogs who had come with them and Ezekiel, but it was. Carter and Rip and two others, surely Ian and Jim Gotz, were trying to fight their way past not just Absolon, but also another smaller black dog and Ezekiel.

They could not possibly do it. Of course they couldn’t. Ezekiel Korte had been made Dimilioc’s executioner for very good reason, not just to gratify Thos Korte’s whim. Even just on his own, Ezekiel could probably have killed all four of his opponents.

Natividad didn’t recognize the other black dog who, along with Absolon, was supporting Ezekiel. Someone else bound under the witches’ control, but Natividad couldn’t tell who it was. She sort of thought she’d accounted for everyone who had come with them. That wasn’t James, definitely not, and Théo Callot could not have gotten in front of them and would surely be bigger as well. In black dog form, that stranger was not too big, but blazingly quick. If Natividad hadn’t known Keziah was far south with Justin and Amira and Nicholas Hammond, she might have thought that was Keziah. The speed and viciousness was a lot like Keziah. But this black dog was a little bit smaller, perhaps.

Ian suddenly staggered into human form. He had tried to attack Ezekiel from the rear, not a good idea. Now he was injured badly enough that his shadow had to carry his wounds away, so she forgot about the other black dog in her sudden terror for him—she didn’t know Ian, but he was practically a child. She didn’t want to see him torn to pieces before her eyes.

But Carter got in the way before Ezekiel could finish Ian. She knew Alejandro considered Carter a threat. Now she saw why. It was obvious he was larger and more powerful than any of the others except Ezekiel himself. Carter was older and a lot more focused, and Rip was supporting him, that was also obvious now. Ezekiel had no choice but to turn from Ian to attack Carter instead.

Carter definitely couldn’t match Dimilioc’s executioner for long. He was already bleeding from long slashing injuries across his face and side, black ichor that dripped and smoked. If he shifted to human form, he would be dead in an instant, but if he refused to shift he would not be able to shed the wounds he took.

And the smaller black dog with Ezekiel was driving in against Rip, who was plainly not a match for him. Her. Natividad was starting to think that one was a girl—it could be hard to tell, but she was starting to think so. The black dog seemed so much like Keziah: not as fast, maybe, and un poco bigger, but just as fierce.

Jim Gotz came in hard and fast, attacking Ezekiel from the rear, or trying to. Naturally Ezekiel twisted, agile as a cat, and sent Jim reeling back almost immediately, forced into human form by wounds too great to survive unless his shadow carried them away.

But Ezekiel didn’t follow up against Jim. He turned back to Carter.

Ezekiel was going to kill Carter, Natividad could see he was. She didn’t like or trust Carter, but he was one of theirs, and there was nothing she could do to stop Ezekiel from killing him—nothing any of them could do to stop him.

Then Grayson made a low, harsh sound and even way over there Ezekiel stumbled and went down hard. He was up again instantly, but his attention was now focused right across the room, right on Grayson. Natividad realized Grayson had tried to roll his shadow after all—no, not that exactly—but he had interfered somehow, but not so much that Carter or anyone else could drive in and kill Ezekiel.

If Grayson were careful, maybe this fight would last long enough that Natividad would be able to end it herself. She took a tentative step forward, glancing back to make sure Alejandro was right with her. Of course he was, so that was fine.

If she could get to Ezekiel—if Grayson could hold him just long enough—if she could make him look into her altered mirror—she would make him look and it would work. It would free him from those horrible witches and then he would kill them and everything would be fine after all.

Except she couldn’t cross the pentagram. She had never imagined what it would be like to be on the outside of a pentagram and unable to cross it. Pentagrams were to keep out evil things, creatures of ill intent. They were not meant to restrict the Pure.

But this one was different. Of course it was different. She had known that, but she hadn’t realized what it meant. And what it meant, obviously, was that she was stuck out here while Ezekiel killed or died in there.

Way on the other side of the building, the older witch said something to the others and they all laughed, that ugly, nasty laugh. They knew she couldn’t do anything to help anybody. They thought they were going to win.

Sick with fury and dismay, Natividad fell to her knees, reached out, set her hands flat on the concrete floor, and shoved the palms of both her hands straight across the black pentagram.

It hurt. Or it didn’t exactly hurt, but the nasty shiny blackness of it crawled up her hands and wrists. It wasn’t exactly like a physical substance, it wasn’t like liquid that you had to shove your way through. It definitely wasn’t alive, that shiny blackness, but it felt like it was alive. Natividad jerked involuntarily backward, but her touch had already damaged the pentagram—her palms had left silvery gaps in it, her fingers had traced trails of light through it. Traces of the inky blackness clung to her skin. That didn’t hurt either, but it felt just...really disturbing. Filthy. Hot, thick, slimy. The blackness clung. Even when she rubbed her hands hard against the floor and then on her jeans, it felt like she only rubbed it in deeper. And even so, she hadn’t cut all the way through it the outer circle of the pentagram. It wasn’t all the way broken. She knew she could break that pentagram, but she would have put her hands on it again and she wasn’t sure she could bear its touch a second time.

The witches now knew she could break their pentagram, though. None of them was laughing any longer. One of the boys was cursing, and the older man was shouting in Latin—from the sound of it, he might actually be cursing too, only in Latin—and suddenly Ezekiel tore himself away from his opponents and headed straight toward her. Alejandro put himself in between them, which was not much of an improvement. But Natividad trusted Grayson not to let either of them kill the other, not now, not when she was surely going to be able to rescue Ezekiel any second—he would be right here any second.

She wasn’t afraid. She was angry, mostly. Enraged for Ezekiel’s sake and her own. Her rage let her slap one hand down against the pentagram a second time, her fury let her keep her palm flat against the slimy blackness and shove or push or cut her way through it.

Then, scrambling to her feet, she stepped right across the gap she’d made and held up her mirror. She didn’t look over her shoulder, but she was dimly aware of Grayson and Alejandro, one on either side of her.

She was vividly, physically, aware of Ezekiel. He was coming so fast, no hesitation at all, crimson flames flickering up where his claws raked the concrete floor, fangs jet black against the fire that filled his mouth. She didn’t move.

She didn’t feel it when her brother and the Master forced Ezekiel’s shadow down and under. Alejandro had told her that rolling down another black dog’s shadow felt to him like rolling a boulder over a spring where water wanted to bubble up: the water still wanted to rise, but the weight of the boulder kept it down. Of course the boulder had to be heavy enough and the rising water not too powerful. Alone, her brother could never have forced down Ezekiel’s shadow. Not even Grayson could do it alone. But together they could. They did.

Natividad wasn’t a black dog; she couldn’t directly feel the contest. But she could see it happen. When Ezekiel shifted on his own, the change was not only smooth but also very fast, complete in less than a second, sometimes a lot less. But when Grayson and Alejandro forced his shadow down, the change was fitful, jagged, erratic, and much slower. Painful to watch, except she was so relieved to see the change cut away Ezekiel’s shadow and roll it under. Except in human form, he horrified her for a different reason. He was thin, thinner than she’d ever seen him. But that wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was the flatness of his eyes, the total absence of expression.

Even in human form, Ezekiel didn’t stop, though he staggered as the uneven change jolted through him. His human face was blank, but even after his body was completely human, his eyes were a bright pale gold, nothing of himself in them, nothing human. And he was still coming, still trying to get to Natividad. He could kill her almost as easily in human form as in his black dog shape. She didn’t move, not because she was brave but because she just couldn’t.

Then Alejandro surged past Natividad and bore Ezekiel down to the floor not ten steps away. He could never have stood against Dimilioc’s executioner ordinarily. But Grayson pinned Ezekiel in human form and Alejandro flung that human body to the concrete floor and held Ezekiel immobile, and just as if they’d practiced it a hundred times, as if she weren’t frightened at all, Natividad stepped around her brother, knelt down, and held her espejo in front of Ezekiel’s inhuman yellow eyes.

“¡Que el mal salga!” she said, then repeated it in English and went on: “May evil depart, may evil be cast out, may the demon be cast out, may you be free of it!”

When Justin’s grandmother’s priest had done this, he had saved not only himself but everyone else as well. Natividad wasn’t a priest. But she was Pure, and her espejo had both a lock and a key embedded in it, and she knew just what she wanted it to do, which was important for more complicated kinds of magic.

But the slimy darkness that had clung to her hands now writhed up her fingers and curled around the espejo.

That, she hadn’t expected at all. If had been finished properly, if it had been blessed, she was pretty sure that wouldn’t have happened. But now it was just a mess. She tried to shake the clinging darkness away, but of course that didn’t work. She tried to hold the espejo, the mirror, between the palms of her hands without touching it with her fingers, but that didn’t work either because the darkness oozed and dripped from her fingers toward the glass and metal and light. She wanted to drop the espejo, she wanted to hold it fast, most of all she wanted to make Ezekiel look into it, but she was positive the contaminating demon-magic would do something dreadful to her magic and she couldn’t think how to make that not happen—

Stéphanie Callot reached past her, took the espejo out of Natividad’s hands, and held it firm before Ezekiel’s face. She spoke a few emphatic words, not in English. French, Natividad assumed.

Despite Stéphanie’s muffled, inhibited magic, the aparato must have at least sort of worked, because Ezekiel’s face suddenly took on expression. Stark, blazing fury; horror; desperation. He had been snarling, even in human form. Now he stopped fighting Alejandro, stopped fighting Grayson. He held still. Not relaxed. Every muscle was taut. But unmoving. His eyes turned pale human blue. Yellow again. Blue. Fiery yellow. It was hard to tell what he was thinking, feeling...even seeing, with his eyes shifting back and forth like that.

Théo Callot closed his hands on his wife’s shoulders and lifted her smoothly out of the way, putting her behind him. Ezekiel showed no signs of noticing either of them; no signs of noticing any of them. Natividad longed to touch him, but didn’t dare, not with the black shadow still clinging to her hands. She wanted desperately to help him, to say something comforting to him, but she had no idea what she could possibly say or do.

Ezekiel’s head went back hard, his back arching. His mouth opened, and Natividad saw with dismay and revulsion that though his jaw and teeth were human, his mouth was filled with the same horrible black tarry stuff that the pentagram had been made out of—something very like it, anyway. Turning his head, he spat. Stéphanie made a disgusted sound, jumping back farther. Natividad couldn’t even blame her, that black goo was horrible. But Ezekiel’s back arched again—he was choking on inky blackness. On black magic. On whatever nasty black witchery held him. He struggled against Alejandro’s hold—he was struggling to breathe, but Alejandro didn’t let him go and Natividad knew he couldn’t, that even if Ezekiel suffocated right here, her brother wouldn’t dare let him up with that black stuff in him.

She first thought of her silver-alloy letter opener, but she was afraid to touch anything silver in case it might get contaminated. She was afraid to touch anything, afraid the stuff clinging to her hands would get everywhere, get anywhere, though so far it stuck to her skin and didn’t seem to contaminate her bag. But there had to be something she could do, something she could use...she looked around once more. Then she remembered one more thing she had, one thing that was right here. She tore the gold bracelet off her wrist with her teeth, as carefully as she could, and dropped it into her hand, cupping it in her palm and letting the sticky black stuff roll over it. But as she had more or less expected, the contamination fell away from the bracelet rather than clinging.

“What are you doing?” Stéphanie demanded behind her. “Gold is no use in magic!”

Gold was no use in magic, that was true. It wouldn’t hold or channel any kind of magic, but that seemed exactly what Natividad needed. If she could only tangle her own magic kind of around it. It might work, she thought she could see how it could work, it was like the way traces of her brother’s shadow, and Ezekiel’s, wove through and around her own magic without ever quite touching. She had to use something physical to channel her intention. She wasn’t Justin, to bring patterns of light and magic to life all of an instant just by holding their equations in her mind.

Gold, then, and forget Stéphanie’s disbelief. And light. There was plenty of light here, so that was good. Clean sunlight, pouring in through the broken windows. Natividad was used to catching light in her cupped palms, braiding it with her fingers. But that was just the way a Pure woman imagined magic. Obviously no one actually touched light. So she held up the gold bracelet, stared with narrowed eyes into the sunlight, braided light and gold together with a breath, with an intention, with a feeling about what ought to work. Without ever letting the nasty black magic stuff get involved in her working at all.

Then, grabbing Ezekiel’s chin, she dropped light and gold together directly into his mouth and cried forcefully, “¡Que el mal sea expulsado, que el demonio sea expulsado, que usted sea libre de él! ¡Reclame tú mismo y sea que sea destinado ser!”

Ezekiel made an awful sound somewhere between a scream of pain and a roar of outrage, and the black stuff poured out of him. Not just out of his mouth: out of him everywhere, his eyes, his skin, like it was oozing rapidly out of every pore. Not exactly like liquid now; more like smoke, or mist, or...yes, like shadow and darkness. It rose up, taking on solidity like a shadow given body and form, only it was no form Natividad had ever imagined. It wasn’t like a vampire, it wasn’t like a black dog, it wasn’t like anything in the world. It looked a little like a person and a little like a heron, all height and stabbing beak. It didn’t have eyes, but somehow it stared at her. It didn’t have a mouth, but it had that vicious beak. It reared up like a monster, it rippled like liquid and billowed like smoke, and it stank of despair, of fear, of rot and ruination.

The shadow adhering to Natividad’s hands and wrists boiled away to join the greater bulk of the thing, which was great, she was really glad to be rid of it, except the shadowy blackness took in those little traces of inky, smoky blackness and grew. Way more than made sense, there couldn’t be that much of the tarry stuff, but the shadow thing just grew and grew, man-sized and then taller still. It condensed out of oily darkness, tall and thin and strangely jointed in all kinds of impossible ways; it twisted around and reached out, not with hands or claws or tentacles, but with many-jointed limbs sort of like all of those.

Alejandro flung Ezekiel away, seized Natividad, and leaped backward, shoving Grayson back as well. And the demon-thing seized Stéphanie instead, brushing past Théo Callot as though he weren’t there, stabbing and stabbing. Its beak, its claws, its touch did no damage at all as far as Natividad could see. No physical damage. But it shrank. It was going into her. Stéphanie collapsed, screaming. She should have been immune—she was Pure, nothing demonic should have touched her—except, Natividad realized, horrified, that destruction was not the same thing as corruption. But what it meant to be destroyed by a demon—she didn’t know. And definitely didn’t want to find out.

She caught the mirror aparato as Stéphanie dropped it. Théo tore at the demon, Alejandro flung Natividad staggering back before she could get Stéphanie to look into the mirror. Alejandro ripped at the demon from the other side, but their attacks only raked through inky black tar and greasy black smoke.

A snarl ripped from Alejandro’s throat, furious and terrified. Natividad had never heard her big brother actually sound terrified before, but she heard it now. He retreated from the demon-thing, shaking black tarry stuff like ichor from his claws. It clung to him, horribly persistent, and Natividad fell to her knees and drew the fastest circle of her life, using both hands, crying her brother’s name.

Alejandro bolted into her circle, and Théo Callot grimly dragged Stéphanie into it, and Natividad held up the mirror before her and cried, “¡Sea libre de él, sea libre de él!”

Whether because of the mirror or the circle, the black stuff boiled off Stéphanie and away from the black dogs, streaming out of Natividad’s circle, condensing once more into that horrible birdlike shape. The demon thing looked at Natividad. It had no eyes, but it looked at her where she crouched, shaking, inside her circle.

Then it turned and stalked away, turning its blind head back and forth, a strange bird-like motion. It settled on the witches, stalking that way.

Natividad wanted, she really wanted, the demon thing to attack the witches. But the oldest of the witches was chanting, his hands raised, and the demon thing shied away and picked its way instead, with horrible delicacy, toward the central star and the dead man.

Ezekiel rolled over, making a low, gritty sound that was neither a groan nor a growl. He pried himself up, shifting into black dog form as he moved, and started toward the witches, murderous intent in every line of his body. One of the younger witches had fallen to the floor; Natividad had no idea what had happened to him. She hadn’t seen anybody touch him. The other two younger witches broke and ran as Ezekiel headed their way, which was a little bit satisfying even though Natividad should have been too frightened to feel good about how fast they ran away.

The older man was on his feet, standing still, not looking very afraid at all. He wasn’t a particularly tall man, not especially impressive, kind of round with shortish arms and legs and a plump face, older but not really old. His hands were raised and he was chanting, but Natividad was so distracted that she wasn’t sure if he was speaking Latin or English or maybe some other language, she just knew it wasn’t Spanish. Ezekiel was heading straight for that witch, but he didn’t look like he was going to run. That frightened Natividad, because if the man wasn’t scared, she had to guess that he had some way to stop Ezekiel, maybe take control of him again.

In the central star, right over the dead man’s chest, a ball of greasy black smoke appeared and grew. A thin shrieking cut through the air, and the demon-thing entered the black star and disappeared. The ball of oily smoke settled down and sank first onto and then into the dead man. Who sat up, his blank dead eyes unblinking.

Of course he did. Natividad wasn’t even surprised. Horrified, but not surprised. Of course that was the way vampires were made. Not by witches, but by demons possessing corpses. She knew that. Everyone knew that.

Whatever the dead man was now, vampire or something else, he was getting to his feet. Stepping out of the black star. And he was focusing on Ezekiel. Who was going to have to get through him—it—before he could attack the witch. Only if he got in reach of the dead man, something horrible was going to happen. Natividad was sure of it. But she had no way to stop any of it.

Grayson, in control, and absolutely focused, must have had the same idea. He tried to roll Ezekiel’s shadow down again. Natividad knew that was what he tried to do. She couldn’t see it, she couldn’t exactly feel it, but she could tell.

Immediately Ezekiel whirled back around and surged into fluid, deadly motion, heading now at a dead run straight for Grayson. Who wasn’t going to be able to stop him this time. Ezekiel’s black dog form distorted, but it didn’t yield to the human shape. Because—Natividad ought to have understood this at once but only now caught up—that was hardly Ezekiel any more at all. That was his shadow; that was almost all it was. It was his black dog, and it was ascendant. The black dog that shared Ezekiel’s body had shoved Ezekiel himself out of its way.

When they lost control, black dogs always went first after anybody who threatened them and after that they went after the ones they loved the most. By trying to roll Ezekiel’s shadow, Grayson had put himself into both categories.

Ezekiel had always kept his black dog under tight control, but now that he was free of the horrible demon-thing, his shadow was ascendant and free and it was going to kill Grayson. And after that, probably her. Grayson couldn’t stop it. Nothing was going to stop it now.

Someone behind Natividad shouted in Latin. Her first thought was that it was an enemy, another witch, and she flinched and ducked away, but Grayson let the newcomer past and then she saw that the man was a priest. The white collar showed at his throat, he had a tonsure, he was a priest for sure, and behind him crowded a lot of other men, all in black, all with guns and other weapons, all wearing the American eagle patch of the Special Forces on their shoulders.

“Don’t shoot any—” she cried, horrified, but Grayson picked her up and swept her bodily out of the way and she lost half the last word in an oof of breath. For a second Natividad was sure everybody was going to get shot: Ezekiel, Alejandro, everyone. She tried to pull free of Grayson, who unexpectedly let her go, but the Master shoved her toward Miguel, who wrapped his arms around her and held tight when she would have broken away from him. She had actually lost track of her twin in all the rushing confusion, but now here he was. Natividad was glad of that, around the edges of her terror.

Grayson gripped Alejandro’s arm and stepped forward, deliberately, right across the pentagram at the spot where Natividad’s magic had cut through it. Alejandro stayed close behind him. Ezekiel rushed directly toward them, but Alejandro didn’t even flinch, though his shaggy pelt bristled all along his spine.

Beside Natividad there was a short, coughing crump of sound, and another just like it. Two fine silver nets arced out, flared open, and closed around—empty air. Ezekiel had dodged both, but he hadn’t shifted to human form and back to do it. He couldn’t shift, not now, she realized. Not unless his shadow gave way to his human soul. Of course it wouldn’t do that, not now that it had finally taken control. Ezekiel was special, she knew he was special, but she couldn’t believe that part would be different for him. No, once his shadow had overcome him, it wouldn’t willingly yield again.

Natividad couldn’t think of any way to help him. And she didn’t believe the ordinary human people of the Special Forces would be able to stop him, either.

Miguel said loudly and surprisingly calmly, “It’s all right! Todo está bien. It’s all right. Be quiet. Just watch. Let’s see what happens.”

Natividad craned her neck and stood on tiptoe, trying to see what was happening with Ezekiel, with the horrible black thing, with the witches, with everyone. But she wasn’t tall enough to see over the heads of all the Special Forces people. She tried to shake herself free. “¡Suéltame!”

“Sure, I’ll let go. When you’re quiet.” Miguel shook her a little, not angrily, but making her listen to him.

They had been exactly the same height as children, and then Natividad had been taller for a year or so, but now, at nearly seventeen, Miguel was half a foot taller and half again her weight and, even though he was only human, much stronger than she was. He definitely was not going to let her go until she showed she was listening to him.

Anyway, he was probably right. Natividad had kind of lost track of everything around the edges. She was sure her twin had never lost track of anything.

Special Forces people hurried past on either side, big men and one tall woman, all in black, all armed, all quick and assured and confident. It seemed like a crowd, but as they spread out along the edge of the black pentagram, Natividad realized there actually might be only a dozen, maybe even fewer. It didn’t seem like enough, not to deal with Ezekiel and the demon-thing that had gone into the dead man.

There was only the one witch left now. His friends or students or whatever had scrambled away but he still just watched.

But it only took one, apparently.

Natividad broke her mirror-aparato in half, caught the key that fell out of the burst of light that was released, closed her hands around the key, turned the key into light, and let it go.

Across the room, the dead man collapsed. Grayson staggered, too, though, and Alejandro. Neither actually collapsed, but something happened to them...something that she’d done by making an aparato of opening and reflecting and separating, and then breaking that aparato.

Natividad didn’t have time to think about it, because the black dogs were all right, they seemed to be all right, but the demon-thing was flowing out of the dead man, condensing into its horrible birdlike shape, tilting its blind, eyeless head one way and then another...looking for her, Natividad knew that. Looking just for her.

But the black witch took a step back, and then another step. Quelled at last. Natividad thought that probably meant he couldn’t stop the demon thing anymore, either. Right, because the dead man had served as some kind of anchor in the black star and now he didn’t. Making the demon into a problem for the witch was fine, except then he snapped his fingers at the nearest black dog—it was Absolon—then turned and strode away, through a door on the other side of the building. Horrifyingly, Absolon went at his heel like a dog. He was getting away, the master of the witches was getting away and taking Absolon with him. It was awful. And there wasn’t a thing she could do about that, either.

“Is it safe for my people to cross into that pentagram?” someone asked in a surprisingly calm tone, right beside her.

“Oh, I hope so!” Natividad said fervently. This was a Special Forces man, she assumed, though he wasn’t wearing the black uniform. He was wearing a nice suit, but he had the eagle badge clipped to his belt, so maybe he was a Special Forces guy after all. He was a black man, not young but not really old either. Neither too tall nor too broad, but with an attitude of totally being in control. Him being in control didn’t seem exactly likely, but Natividad would be so happy to be wrong about that.

“The pentagram’s broken,” she told him. “I cut through it. But it’s not—I don’t think it’s safe. Not for anybody. Especially not—I think letting the dead man out of the black star might have been a mistake. And Ezekiel’s still trapped in black dog form. You mustn’t shoot him!” She tried and failed to match the man’s calmness; her voice rose sharply on the last few words.”

Ezekiel Korte is the most important,” Miguel put in. “Definitely the most important. Get him under control and we can handle the rest of them. Which we’d better get that taken care of right this minute, Colonel, because you probably noticed the witches got away—unless you had people stationed outside this building, and in that case I hope they stopped them, but we don’t know what those witches might be able to do—do you?”

So this was Colonel Herrod himself. That explained his attitude of being in control. Actually, it was a lot like Grayson’s attitude. “It does seem essential to tie up one situation before dealing with the next,” he said calmly.

“Wait—take care of how?” Natividad demanded.

But just at that moment, Grayson and Alejandro put themselves in Ezekiel’s way and made him veer and re-angle his attack. Théo Callot was useless, bending over his wife, which Natividad understood but it was so useless. Stéphanie looked like she was unconscious, and the others could have used his help. Or if he’d gone after the witch even, maybe he could have gotten Absolon back.

Carter and Rip and Ian were forcing the female black dog toward the edge of the pentagram, though not easily; she was really fast and Natividad thought she could have taken any of the males alone.

But she didn’t have a chance. Colonel Herrod lifted a hand, signaling his people. They’d spread out along the edge of the pentagram, not quite crossing its outer line. Now, almost before their colonel’s signal, two of them fired strangely bulky guns, simultaneously so both reports blended into one deafening crump. Nets spread out, glittering. Ezekiel leaped away, but they hadn’t been aimed at him: those nets settled over the female black dog.

Almost at once she began a horrible jerking shift back into human form. That surprised Natividad even though it shouldn’t have. She understood what was happening as soon as she saw it. The silver in those nets were forcing the girl out of her black dog form and back into her human shape. That was...actually, that was a fantastic idea. She was so grateful for whoever had thought of making nets like that. She ought to have thought of it herself. How stupid she never had. Except she’d always been used to depending on Alejandro and Grayson to force other black dogs into human shape. But those nets were a lot more convenient, except no one seemed able to capture Ezekiel with one. Jim Gotz was still free, too. The two of them were circling in opposite directions, avoiding Grayson and angling to get to the Special Forces people. Who would surely shoot them with real bullets rather than nets if they had to protect themselves—Natividad started to say something to Colonel Herrod, she didn’t know what—

And the nasty demon-thing suddenly bent down low, spreading out into an amorphous cloud, engulfing Jim Gotz, thickening around him like greasy black fog, only with all kinds of half-visible teeth or stabbing beaks or spines or something. It rose again, taking Jim with it. It was awful, even worse than when it had attacked Stéphanie. Jim was screaming—screaming in a human voice, he must have been forced back into human form—screaming and cursing, loudly at first and then not so loudly.

Then the screaming thinned into whimpers and the cursing faded into unintelligibility, and Jim dropped suddenly out of the cloud as it condensed once more into its horrible person-heron-monster shape. He hit the floor hard and just lay there, making horrible little sounds, like—just like the other man, the one who had been crumpled at the witches’ feet when Dimilioc’s wolves had first arrived. Even though the witches had all fled, the other man was still there. Quiet now, at least. Maybe alive, maybe dead, Natividad couldn’t tell.

The demon thing twisted around and looked right at Natividad, and she flinched back. She could feel the intensity of its attention, even though it didn’t exactly have eyes. It was stalking toward her…she only realized she was backing up when she bumped into Colonel Herrod. He set one hand on her shoulder. His very presence was steadying, somehow. Natividad managed to stop panting in terror, even though it was not only looking at her, it was laughing. She couldn’t hear it, not exactly, but she knew it was laughing at her.

And it wasn’t heading for her, either, not exactly. It was heading for the gap she’d cut through the black pentagram.

“It’ll get out!” she said, horrified. “It will get out through the gap I made—” She stared at the silvery gap, wondering if she could re-draw the black pentagram. Except she knew she couldn’t. That wasn’t her kind of magic at all, and even if she could have repaired the black pentagram, she was pretty sure she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Not even to stop the demon-thing.

She couldn’t tell whether anyone else could hear the demon or guess its intentions—feel it, perceive it, whatever—but suddenly everyone was moving all at once.

The Special Forces people swung up their guns and fired at the demon, but bullets and nets alike went right through it. It didn’t seem affected at all, despite the silver. If anything, it was coming more quickly now. Its shape was still something like a tall heron kind of thing, but more like a...a praying mantis, maybe. Something poisonous, with lots of spines.

Ezekiel attacked Grayson, who grappled with him. Alejandro visibly tore his attention away from the demon to help.

Then there was a huge violent tearing, crashing sound—Natividad jumped, her heart pounding, but that turned out to be Carter, tearing into one of the big roaring machines. Metal screamed as he tore into it, peeled the casing open and attacked the engine within.

“I should have thought of that,” Miguel muttered beside her. “Not a stupid guy, Carter.”

“Yeah, I still don’t like him,” Natividad muttered in Spanish. “What are those things even for?”

Her twin shrugged, answering in English. “Who knows? If the witches want them running, I bet we don’t.”

“The demon-thing doesn’t seem to care.” It truly didn’t, unfortunately, though Natividad watched it anxiously, hoping it would retreat or get smaller or something. Nothing like that happened.

The priest shouted again, indistinct but probably Latin. Natividad was pretty sure she knew what he was saying; it was probably something like Get out, demon! The problem was, the demon was out. Out of Ezekiel. But that didn’t mean it was harmless. At all. It was still right here, and unfortunately, despite the priest’s efforts, it showed no signs of going. It seemed to be getting larger every time it attacked somebody. And the light in this place seemed to be dimming. She didn’t think that this was an illusion. She felt that the dimming light was kind of like the sunlight itself filtered through the smoky presence of the demon and was weakened, or changed into something that wasn’t exactly light anymore.

Natividad pulled away from Miguel and dropped to her knees. She drew a pentagram about a foot across right onto the concrete floor, right at the gap where she’d broken the great black pentagram. Hers was made of light and clear intention. It glimmered on the concrete like moonlight on water; its light trickled sideways into the wide black line of the black witch’s pentagram, producing rivulets of sparks that ran across the floor like tears.

“You sure that’s a good idea?” Miguel’s tone was diffident. He knew when Natividad tried to work out something new, she relied mainly on impulse and instinct and what felt right, not on actual theory or careful planning. “It might fix up the black pentagram, do you think? Which in some ways might be good, right, I know that,” he added, glancing over at the demon-thing. “On the other hand, we can be pretty sure this is one nasty pentagram.”

Natividad shook her head, not disagreeing. She didn’t know. But she pressed her palm and outspread fingers into the center of her pentagram and looked first left and then right along the wide outer circle of the black pentagram. The nasty pentagram couldn’t touch her now. Her own small pentagram protected her.

Could she put the big one to use? It was magic. Not Pure magic, but she’d already proved that she could touch it, affect it, make it react. The idea of trying to use it turned her stomach, but if she could figure out something that might contain the witch’s demon...shouldn’t she try? She’d never imagined anything like this demon thing. Nobody seemed able to attack it. She had no idea how to protect herself or anybody else against it, except by keeping it away from everyone.

Another crump, and another after that, told her that the Special Forces people were still trying to capture Ezekiel alive. But someone fired a regular gun, too, deafeningly close. Natividad couldn’t help but look up quickly, afraid to see who might have gotten shot. Nobody screamed, she didn’t see anybody fall, but anything could have happened, could be happening right now. She looked for Ezekiel, needing to see that he was all right, or at least that he hadn’t been shot.

She knew just where he was. That hadn’t changed, at least. She always knew, and just at the moment he was way too close for a black dog with an ascendant shadow, hardly thirty feet away. He felt so different, so distant, so...out of reach, even though he was right over there. But the Special Forces people had him at last. She was so glad. The Special Forces people had wrapped him up in a net, so he was safe, or at least not hurt, or at least not dead. And Grayson was safe and Alejandro was safe. She could deal with anything else, so long as that were true.

Actually Ezekiel was wrapped up in two nets, each bound to a slender cord, each gripped by a couple different Special Forces guys who wound the lines around their hands and leaned back hard to keep pressure on the nets. Even all of them together seemed just barely capable of holding Ezekiel right there in that exact spot, even though he was now almost completely back in human shape.

Those nets were like something a Pure woman might make, though Natividad had never heard of anybody Pure working for the Special Forces. But still, those nets were like that. The cords were thin, hardly thicker than fishing line, but of course silver provided more than a physical constraint. Besides, fishing line was actually much harder to break than it looked. As far as she could tell, Ezekiel wasn’t going to be able to break those cords. Not without considerable effort and some time to work at it.

She couldn’t imagine how any ordinary human could have had the reflexes to shoot that net around Ezekiel, but she was so glad somebody had managed it. Especially since Grayson was looking just grim. Probably he’d helped the Special Forces people capture Ezekiel. That made sense—

Then the demon bent down again.

Without thinking about it Natividad jumped to her feet and stepped across the small pentagram she’d drawn into the giant black pentagram. Immediately she felt stifled, like the air inside the black pentagram was...thick, or polluted. Hard to breathe. She hesitated.

Miguel caught her arm, pulled her back. She was aware of her twin exclaiming, but she paid no attention. She couldn’t let the demon-thing touch anyone else. Definitely not Grayson. Definitely not Ezekiel. But everything was all wrong inside this pentagram and she didn’t know what to do.

All around her, within the black pentagram, the light dimmed and dimmed. Shadows thickened, and the air stank of rot and rust and something worse than either, and...Grayson shifted into human form. Natividad didn’t understand that. Alejandro had shifted as well...every black dog in the pentagram seemed to be shifting...Grayson, only a few strides from Ezekiel, went heavily to his knees, every muscle in his back and shoulders visibly straining, neck corded with effort. His shadow stretched out along the concrete floor, not the shadow of a man. Bigger, shaggier, with fiery eyes.

It was the demon. Natividad understood that suddenly. The witch’s demon was doing something horrible to the black dogs. Maybe her mirror had started it, in fact she knew her mirror had started it, sending a crack between the human soul of each black dog and his shadow. But now the demon was taking advantage of that crack. Forcing them all into human shape, but that wasn’t the only thing it was doing to them, she was sure of that, she could feel it. It was pulling their shadows out of them. Forcing their shadows into ascendance? She didn’t know, but something terrible. Alejandro was down, too...everyone was down. Ezekiel, wrapped up in those silver nets, was making an awful sound. Not screaming. Too much like the sounds those other victims of the demon made. The Special Forces men were dragging him toward the edge of the pentagram, toward Natividad, as fast as they could. She didn’t know what she would do to protect any of them, even if they reached her, but she definitely had to try.

There was no time to think, no time to try one thing and then if that didn’t work try something else. Natividad flung herself down by her little pentagram. She buried her hands in what seemed the only clean light in the whole building. It cleared her mind, or she thought it did. But she could hear the demon better, too. It was laughing.

Fumbling in her bag, Natividad found the silver letter opener, jabbed its blunt tip into her left palm, dragged it along the meaty part of her thumb, said rapidly in Spanish, “Let blood and life be light!” and flung her own blood to the right and to the left along the broad curve of the black pentagram’s outer circle.

Her blood spattered the darkness, and every drop of blood was light and the memory of light. The black pentagram tried to smother the light; she could feel it choking her, choking her magic. But her blood glimmered with sunlight, with moonlight, with clean firelight, and the light sort of...reached out...along the black lines of the pentagram. The pentagram was on fire. Where the fire burned out, the concrete was clean, unmarked by ash or tarry blackness or light or anything. Just plain concrete, with no sign that magic of any kind had ever been laid across it.

Which should have been good. Natividad thought it should have been fine. She knew destroying the black pentagram had been a good thing to do. Except the demon was...stretching. Unconstrained, she realized that. Now that the black pentagram had been destroyed, it was totally free. It had turned away from her, and seemed to be measuring the light coming through the windows. It picked up one...limb, and another, picking its way through the space where the black pentagram had lain.

Her fault, whatever it did now that it was free, but what else had she been supposed to do? Everything about this had just involved stumbling from one impulse to another and she had never yet known what she was actually doing. And now she was out of inspiration.

Maybe she could draw another pentagram, a better one, and stop the demon again. She looked frantically for Grayson, for Alejandro, but she couldn’t tell if they had been freed from the demon’s influence or not. Grayson was shaking himself, first of all the Dimilioc wolves to get to his feet, but his eyes burned and his shadow was still the shadow of the monster. Alejandro was feeling...stretched, drawn apart, afraid. Natividad scrambled up and took one step toward her older brother.

Miguel grabbed her hand and pulled her back. “It’s not over, they’re not all right,” he said urgently. “Look at Grayson.”

The Master had turned to stare at his own shadow, which as far as Natividad could tell, had nearly pulled free of him. It was almost its own creature, almost free. If it got all the way free—she didn’t want to even imagine what might happen then. “Oh, not good!” she exclaimed, and looked urgently at her bag. “I can make something for that—I’m sure I can make something for that—a little like the Aplacando, but different—”

Miguel continued to pull her backward, rapidly.

The demon took one more step and shredded into greasy smoke or fog, drifting away, up. Way too much greasy black smoke.

“A prudent retreat seems in order,” Colonel Herrod agreed with Miguel, his manner unhurried despite the urgency of his gesture waving his people back and out. His wary glance moved from the insubstantial demon to the besieged black dogs. “Until we have, or make, an opportunity to assess the outcome of these startling events.”

Despite the colonel’s deliberate manner, his people moved with decisive haste, and Natividad found herself bundled along between two black-uniformed men without ever deciding whether she ought to go with them or not. She might have protested even then, except that Miguel was right beside her, and Ezekiel, wrapped in silver netting and now seeming unconscious, was being carried along by two of the other men. So she cast one more desperate glance back, at Grayson facing his monster and Alejandro just struggling to his feet in human form, at the others, at the demon shadowing them all. She was torn, she didn’t know what to do, but the Special Forces people weren’t going to let her go, and there was Ezekiel, right here, and in the end she caught his hand through the silver netting, cooperating because she just did not know what else to do and Ezekiel was the one who seemed to need her the most.

-10-

Once they were outside, in the clean air, heading out and away from all the weird black magic stuff, Miguel finally felt as though he could get a breath. It was about time he pulled himself together and started to figure things out. He had hardly been able to think at all in there. He hadn’t been any help at all. It was embarrassing, now. He’d been too stifled to be embarrassed before. Or, be honest, too frightened.

It was all definitely interesting, though, at least now that he could think about it without a revolting demon-thing stalking around, ready to pounce in any direction, with who knew what horrible effects on its victims. Stéphanie—that had been bad. And Jim Gotz had been worse. And any demonic creature that could attack both the Pure and black dogs was serious bad news. No one had to explain that to Miguel.

If everybody else had been out here and safe too, that would’ve been even better. Unless their shadows all broke free. Then it’d be dire. Away seemed like a real good idea, at least until they figured out what else was going to happen to all the black dogs and got some general indication of who was going to win. Or at least who was going to be fighting on which side.

He truly did not want to think about what would happen if all the Dimilioc black dogs turned into poor little whimpering puppies. Or worse, turned into puppets with the demon pulling intact strings.

Whatever happened to the black dogs, it didn’t seem likely at this point to still be happening to Ezekiel. That was surely a good sign. Though if you had to wrap a black dog up in a silver net to force his shadow under, that definitely wasn’t ideal. And they still didn’t know what would happen when they let Ezekiel up. If he were still under the control of a black witch, would he try to kill everyone or, not having orders, just freeze up? Would he regain control of his shadow or...yeah, Miguel was back to picturing Ezekiel trying to kill everyone.

Though he didn’t intend to say so to Natividad, he hoped no one would let Ezekiel loose from that net until they were a little bit better situated to cope with a crazy-killer evil-twin version. Just in case.

He was going to have to figure out some way to stop witches taking control of black dogs. Or Natividad was going to have to figure it out. Maybe they could get Ezekiel to explain how it had worked from the point of view of someone trapped inside the spell, and figure it out together. Not that Ezekiel was likely to be keen on sharing. If he’d talk about his experiences with anybody, though, Natividad would definitely be the one he’d open up to.

Were black witches born to magic, like black dogs, or was that stuff something anybody could learn? That seemed like a pretty urgent question considering they really needed to know just how many witches they might be facing, and how fast the numbers of enemies might increase. From the quick-and-dirty research he and Cassie had been doing, she thought witches were probably born instead of made, but Miguel suspected it might be the other way around. That would sure be different: magic ordinary people could understand and use and practice.

Not a very nice type of magic, true.

Now that they were out of that place, him and Natividad and the Special Forces guys, and Ezekiel dragged along like a casualty, Miguel felt he could finally start to figure out more about how that kind of magic actually worked. He ought to have seen enough to get some kind of impression of black witchcraft’s rules and limitations.

That black circle, for example. Natividad had been able to interfere with it. The magic that had made it must be like her magic in some ways, then, but very different in others. He wanted to talk to her about it, but the way she was hovering over the unconscious Ezekiel, he might not have much luck with that for the next few minutes.

Probably a few more minutes to pull himself together would be better anyway.

He felt like they had all just come up from the sticky mud at the bottom of a lake. Except mud that had deliberately tried to drag them down and drown them. He felt they’d all barely escaped death—or worse than death. That demonic entity, whatever it had done to its victims, yeah, actually he did not want to know what it had done. At least, he sure didn’t want to learn about that first-hand.

Though probably he wouldn’t have. Probably none of the humans in that place would have been attacked by the demon. They wouldn’t have survived long enough, because if they’d stuck around, the black dogs would have killed them all first. Or not the black dogs, exactly. Their freed shadows, after the demon pried them loose from their human hosts.

He went back over those last moments in his mind and came to the same conclusion: that had been exactly what was happening. Whether the demon had managed it, or was going to manage it, they wouldn’t be able to tell for sure until the Dimilioc wolves came out into the light and were either themselves again or...not.

What a thing that was: loosen the bond between possessed human and demonic shadow, let the shadow loose to kill. Witchcraft was all about calling up and controlling demonic entities; he and Cassie agreed on that one and Miguel sure hadn’t seen anything to suggest they were wrong. Too bad neither of them had put that idea together with the way they knew a witch could take over and control a black dog. Neither of them had even suspected witchcraft might pull the shadow right out of a black dog. They should have suspected it. He should have, for sure.

And because he hadn’t guessed what might happen, hadn’t figured out a way to prepare for the sorts of things witches might do, they’d been forced to abandon all the black dogs in their rush to escape. Well, all except Ezekiel. Who looked terrible, not just because he was all wrapped up in those nets. But at least he was out of there. Unlike the others.

Somehow Miguel always seemed to be doing this—running away and leaving someone else to do the fighting. The dying. First Mamá and Papá. Now Alejandro. He could hardly believe he’d abandoned his older brother. Except there’d been no choice. Sometimes you had to retreat and regroup and figure out what you’d learned and come up with a better plan for next time.

At least Natividad was safe. Pretty safe. Safe-ish. That was one good thing. These Special Forces guys weren’t a bit likely to let anything happen to her. If they could stop it, which that demon hadn’t seemed just real easy to deal with, unfortunately. Still. A dozen men, fifteen or so in fact. And a couple women. And Colonel Herrod, who was not, Miguel was sure, the sort to spend a lot of time regrouping before he came up with a definite plan. Yeah. Calling Herrod in as backup had definitely been a really good idea.

Miguel was even more sure of that when the colonel held up a hand, bringing all his people to a halt, including the guys lugging Ezekiel between them. Herrod didn’t look the least bit panicky. He had that turned-inward look of someone thinking hard, but at the same time Miguel had the impression the colonel was keeping close track of everything going on right here and now.

The two guys who had been carrying Ezekiel lowered him to the ground. He was pale and still, skin blistering wherever the silver cords of the net touched him. Not great, but even so, Miguel wasn’t going to vote for letting him loose just yet. Natividad pressed forward, though, patting Ezekiel’s hands through the net, murmuring under her breath. Spanish. Not blooding the silver; she was scared of what he might do if he got loose too, then. Or scared of what might happen to him, probably. She was doing her best to wake Ezekiel up or ease the bright burn of the silver or...from the few words he caught, maybe just try to make him understand he was out of that place and no longer alone.

Probably that was the best thing she could do, actually. He should have thought of it himself.

They hadn’t actually been running, in this retreat. More a fast, cautious walking pace, with guys out front and off to the sides and bringing up the rear; different guys hustling along with Ezekiel and guarding Natividad and Miguel. Everybody disciplined, everybody watchful, nobody panicky. That was great. It helped Miguel not get panicky himself.

Before stopping, they had approached a couple of black vans that had been parked back out of line of sight of the witches’ base of operations. Probably the Special Forces had serious ordnance in those vans, medical supplies, wooden stakes and silver chains and vials of holy water, why not? A couple of men waited with the vans. They didn’t look remotely surprised to see Herrod’s party—right, of course they had phones, they probably had constant updates on what was going on. Maybe a couple Special Forces guys had stayed back there in case the main team ran into problems.

Colonel Herrod had turned to study the building from which they’d escaped. There was not yet the slightest sign of any black dogs coming after them. Nor the demon. Probably they were all killing each other in there. Or hopefully all the dying was on the demon’s side. If it could be killed. Miguel didn’t even know that much. Thankfully there was no screaming or roaring or yelling. Yet.

The colonel spoke briefly and quietly with one of his people, a woman close to his own age who looked maybe Middle Eastern-ish but could probably have any background from Greek to Israeli. Black hair cut short, not like a military guy’s buzz, but a little above shoulder length. Face like a hatchet, strong cheekbones, determined nose, not at all pretty but totally confident. She looked deadly calm and rational; Miguel figured she was second in command after Herrod himself and guessed she was good at it. Whatever the colonel said to her, she barely spoke two words in response. She only nodded, a quick curt gesture. Then she flicked a glance across the rest of the Special Forces people, picked out four plus the priest, and they all jogged off, making a wide circle around to the north.

Going after the escaped witches. Of course. If Miguel had been quicker on the uptake, he might have asked to go with that group. But they were practically out of sight before he figured it out.

Colonel Herrod gave Miguel a sharp look, as though he had picked this thought right out of his head. Then he beckoned to one of his remaining people and strode toward Miguel and Natividad. He paused, studying Ezekiel briefly. “I’m sending him back to Albuquerque,” he informed them. His tone was not exactly impatient. More curt, as though he meant to deal with one thing at a time, briskly, until every single thing was sewn up exactly the way he wanted it. “It’s not far, and it’s secure. I think you should go with him.”

Indeed, Ezekiel’s handlers were already loading him in one of the vans. Natividad, plainly torn between running after him and running back to help the other Dimilioc wolves, tried to say several things at once and got stuck. Since the most important things she wanted to say were totally obvious, Miguel jumped in. “Getting Ezekiel way, way far away from witches and demons and any possible remnants of black magic seems like a real good idea. Right, Natividad? And you totally need to go with him. If anybody can calm him down and fix him up and make sure he’s okay and, most important, find out exactly what happened to him, you can. Plus getting you way far away from witches and demons—”

“Oh, stop.” Natividad exasperated, took a step back toward the building..

Miguel grabbed her arm. “You know it’s true. If that demon goes after anybody in particular, I bet it’s you. And if—when Ezekiel wakes up, you’d better be there with him, right? I am not going to explain to him we let a demon eat you.”

She said stubbornly, “Grayson—and Alejandro—and poor Stéphanie, I need to try to help her—”

“Black dogs are muy fuerte. They are not the ones I’m worried about right now.” Which was not entirely true, but he said as firmly as possible, “That demon’s likely to go after you first. Or Ezekiel. You’re probably it’s favorite little snack—and it’s already had a taste of him.”

This made her pause. “Puede que tengas razón,” she said reluctantly.

“Of course I’m right.”

Natividad shook her head, not exactly disagreeing. That stuff in there must have scared her half to death—it sure had him. But she had plenty of guts, which is why she said earnestly to Colonel Herrod, “But that will leave you here without anybody Pure! A priest is one thing, it’s good he’s with you, but he’s not Pure.”

“And, listen,” Miguel put in. “You’re going to need Dimilioc as a functioning organization and that means you need Grayson Lanning. And his people. Listen, you’re right about Ezekiel and Natividad, but I’d better stay here. We have to make sure the black dogs are okay, or anyway, that they’re not—” he paused, not sure he wanted to finish that sentence.

Colonel Herrod bent a quick, assessing look at Miguel. “I do agree Dimilioc is an asset, generally. We will endeavor to see that our retreat today is not a rout and does not come with too great a cost. Neither to your Dimilioc nor my people. But at the moment, I believe our common purposes are best served by a tactical retrenchment.” He turned to Natividad, courteous but inflexible. “Miss Toland, I think you had better go with Mr. Korte.”

“I know! I have to! But—” Natividad began, then only shrugged helplessly and said quickly to Miguel, “I should make something first! Something to defend black dogs against demons—no just against a witch’s demon. Or I don’t know, something.” she looked around as though the naked mountainside might offer materials apt for magic. Or maybe inspiration.

“Something fast,” suggested Miguel, one eye on the colonel, who did not look especially patient. He glanced around himself, though, trying to see the mountains as his sister might. As a Pure woman might.. Chilly air and gritty soil, dried grasses and pebbles and sunlight—sunlight. He said thoughtfully, “Didn’t you bring Mamá’s flute? Some of these pebbles are probably quartz...” His heart sank at the thought of taking time to search for the right kind of pebbles among all the rest.

But his twin fished triumphantly in her bag. “I don’t need pebbles! I brought glass beads. You’re thinking of an aparato para parar las luz, aren’t you? That won’t work, not all by itself, but—I need another mirror.”

Natividad turned to Colonel Herrod, Miguel was fascinated to see, as though just knowing instinctively that he was the one who could furnish whatever she needed. Not very much to his surprise, the colonel merely nodded to one of his men, who solemnly produced a tiny mirror and handed it over. Miguel couldn’t quite imagine what the Special Forces might do with little tiny mirrors in ordinary operations—signaling? Starting fires? Peering around corners when they expected snipers?—no, right, this was Special Forces after all. They probably knew about mirrors catching the true reflection of vampires and blood kin. Not real useful with all the vampires gone but hey, in their place he’d probably have kept a little mirror in his kit, too, because honestly, you just never knew.

“Something fast would indeed be preferable,” murmured the colonel.

“What do you have in mind?” Miguel asked his sister. “Reflections would kind of tend to separate soul from soul, wouldn’t they?” He knew that couldn’t be what she had in mind, but he could hardly see what else a mirror could be used for.

“No reflexión. Refuerzo,” Natividad answered, which wasn’t all that clear. Probably she was vague because she was distracted, but it was frustrating when Miguel honestly knew he understood the theory behind Pure magic better than she did. He wasn’t sure he got how this was supposed to work at all, even when she added, now in English, “It will be fast to make because looking in a mirror always does reinforce your idea of your self anyway. The mirror to set the pattern, light to provide the...the empujón, the thrust; glass marbles to carry the magic because glass is the same as a mirror, sort of. Enough the same. And a tiny little bit of black dog shadow to remind them what to hold onto.... They’re beads, a thread is just what they want anyway. It will work.... I think it will work. And it will be fast.”

She was already cupping her left hand to gather sunlight, bright and clear and nearly without warmth in this mountain winter. She held the mirror in her left palm so that the light pooled there, brighter and clearer and gathering in intensity as Natividad poured it into the mirror.

In her right hand, she held the cloth bag of small glass marbles, or maybe large beads. The glass was clear, colorless as water.

“Let the mirror remind any black dog of his good heart—or hers,” Natividad said rapidly in Spanish. “Let it recall the will and the heart. Let it repel evil. All these beads, these are echoes of the mirror, they are also mirrors, let them all recall and remind and reinforce the one who holds them of his proper self. Or hers.” She poured the beads from her right hand into her left and closed both hands around the light and the mirror and the beads. Then she brought both hands to her lips and breathed into them. Her eyes were closed. She looked...calm, the way the Pure looked when something of theirs was working the way it was supposed to. Mamá had looked like that when she was working with magic.

Miguel swallowed a familiar lump of jealousy. It wasn’t right to be jealous of Natividad, only it was harder now that Justin had proven boys could be born Pure.

Stupid. Stupid and pointless and futile. He should just be grateful he hadn’t been born a black dog. He was grateful. Just sometimes he couldn’t help but wish—

“There!” Natividad said, thrusting the handful of beads at Colonel Herrod, who let her pour them into his hands with only the faintest hesitation. She said rapidly, “Give a bead to every black dog—give the mirror to Grayson. It’s very important you give it to Grayson—maybe I better do it myself—” Natividad turned uncertainly toward the building.

Miguel thought he had better forestall anything like that, but Colonel Herrod poured the beads into his pocket and lifted the shining mirror aparato neatly out of Natividad’s hands before Miguel could do it. “I shall do so, Miss Toland. Without fail. As long as Mr. Lanning is in reasonable shape to receive this, ah, tool.”

Obviously torn, Natividad hesitated. Then the Special Forces man designated to drive the van leaned out to wave impatiently, a clear If you’re coming signal, and she turned and ran to climb in the back with Ezekiel.

“It would probably be best if you accompanied your sister, Miguel,” Colonel Herrod said, perfectly inflexible, and nodded firmly toward the van.

“You will need Grayson,” Miguel told him forcefully, but he didn’t resist when one of the Special Forces guys took his arm and shoved him, not too gently, after his sister.

“I agree that is quite likely, if he survives,” the colonel said, but absently, no longer focused on Miguel. “I did promise, you know.” His formidable attention was already back on the other problem he faced here. Miguel wanted very much to be right here when the Dimilioc wolves reappeared, or when the colonel took a team back into that building, whichever came first. But the Special Forces guy was already guiding him firmly toward the vans, and he could tell there was just no way even to argue.

The van was indeed impressively fitted out, though not with much regard for actual comfort. Lots of safety webbing, though. Which could easily be converted to restraints, in Ezekiel’s case. He was still wrapped up in that net, but Natividad was on it; she was quickly blooding the silver to keep it from burning him, as discreetly as possible, though there was no way to hide the fact she was doing something from the Special Forces people. But of course she’d never have been dissuaded from doing it; she was not happy about the blisters and red lines already scoring Ezekiel’s skin where the silver cords had pressed longest.

Of course blooding the silver meant Ezekiel might break the cords and get free, but the Special Forces people had webbed him in tight on his side of the van and Miguel suspected the webbing probably had silver wire inside and was made to be tough and hard to break anyway. Also, perhaps fortunately, Ezekiel still seemed completely unconscious; unresponsive to both the net and Natividad’s presence. Albuquerque, which was where Miguel guessed they were probably heading, was hours away. He wondered if there were any chance Ezekiel would stay unconscious long enough to get there. All things considered, it was tough to decide whether him waking up would be a good thing or a bad thing.

Four of Herrod’s people had come with them. Just four. That seemed way too few, until Miguel thought about what the rest of them might be facing back there, and then it seemed too many. He tried asking the Special Forces lieutenant what Colonel Herrod was likely to do, but first of course the guy wouldn’t speculate and second Miguel knew perfectly well it was impossible to guess. Way too many unknowns, and probably lots of them were unknown-unknowns. It wasn’t like he hadn’t already figured that out. It was just a really tough situation.

The senior Special Forces lieutenant was a Hispanic dude who looked pretty young for a lieutenant but was definitely decisive. He’d been polite enough to tell Miguel his name was Santibañez, but other than that he was seriously closed-mouthed. The other Special Forces guys were even younger and even less chatty. So it took Miguel by surprise when the van pulled up sharply only twenty minutes or so after booking away from the witches’ base and they turned out to have a couple big helicopters waiting at a tiny little airstrip outside San Luis. Not even a real airstrip; more just a flattish smoothish stretch of gravelly soil with a shed to one side, mountains going up to the sky all around. One of the Special Forces guys loped over to start a flight check while two others manhandled Ezekiel out of the back of the van and Santibañez strode off to look for a spot he could get enough of a signal to call in.

Santibañez seemed worried when he came back, tight-mouthed and grim, but all business and not letting himself be distracted as his people heaved Ezekiel into the helicopter and strapped him in again. Santibañez and one of the others had weapons at the ready for that part, but Ezekiel didn’t wake up. That seemed a really, really good thing because the idea of being stuck in a helicopter with an Ezekiel Korte driven crazy by black witchcraft was pretty much completely horrifying.

“Two copters,” Miguel observed, not quite asking because he figured asking questions was a way to shut these guys up, but just making comments might not hit their keep-it-buttoned training as hard. Besides, that was the single fact that surprised him the most.

“The colonel always likes to make sure he has options,” the nearest Special Forces guy said absently. His head was up; he was scanning the surrounding hills as though he expected enemies to pour over the horizon at any moment. Miguel approved. It paid to expect the worst.

Natividad was already settled in the back of the plane, right next to Ezekiel. She was holding his hand, awkward because of the straps, and gazing anxiously into his face. But she wasn’t actually trying to wake him up. Upset, but not stupid. Miguel obeyed a glance from Santibañez and moved to join his sister. But he also asked, “Everything okay?” meaning, What’s going on?

“Don’t know. Situation’s unpredictable,” Santibañez said. “Get in.”

“Unpredictable” seemed an understatement and as a report this definitely lacked details, but was still more of an answer than Miguel had expected. He jumped into the plane and hurried to belt in next to his sister while the lieutenant sorted out whatever else.

Hours by car turned into minutes by copter. Too many minutes when a guy was desperate to find out what was going on back on the ground, but still, just minutes. He had plenty of time to text Cassie, though. If the Special Forces people didn’t object. Pulling out his phone got him a thoughtful look from Santibañez, but the lieutenant didn’t actually try to stop him, so that was all right. Miguel tapped rapidly.

MigTol:  Hey Prophetess I got good news and bad news.

MigTol:  The good news is we found E and got him back and the witches r on the run. The bad news is E’s in rough shape and the witches got away and they had a pet demon and last I saw the whole situation was totally FUBARed.

MigTol: Don’t pass that on till we know more! !!!  Probably too pessimistic!

MigTol: Cassie? RYT?

Prophetess: Sorry busy AFK

Prophetess: FUBARed how? Can you please try for a rational description of the situation? WTF is a pet demon? Did you get any pictures?

Prophetess: Please tell me evrbdy is alive

MigTol: DKFS

MigTol: FU from the beginning. Maybe a deliberate trap. Probably knew we were coming. H’s people saved our asses. N and me w them now.  Also E.  Evbdy else still back there. W most of Colonel H’s people. Don’t know what’s happening. H is as bad as G.  Wouldn’t let N and me stay. Mind you getting E out of there probably a RGI. N too probably

Prophetess: And u wanted 2 stay so u could get ur face eaten by the witch’s pet demon? Ur an idiot.

MigTol: Nolo contendere.  Check this out. And this.

Prophetess: Nasty looking circle What’s it made of.

Prophetess: That’s a demon huh.  Ugly bstd

MigTol: Not arguing w u there. Don’t know. Black magic?  Blood?  Demon ooze?  N cut through it. Demon got out. That could be not-good. Looks like demons & blk dgs don’t mix well

Prophetess: Oil and water?

MigTol: More like a spark under an O2 tent …

Prophetess: Oh good

MigTol: Another picture

Prophetess: That silver net thing is brilliant  E doesn’t look too good tho

MigTol: Yeah

Prophetess: So u and N r with SF people and E is all tied up and out of it & other SF back w G and evbdy & demon is loose and witches got away?

MigTol...kind of sums it up YMMV but u may want to keep mum till u find out more.  Maybe get better news l8r.  Get news anyway. I’ll get these SF guys to keep me in the loop

Prophetess: Y

Prophetess: Ur right. I think I won’t pass this on immediately.

MigTol: Y

MigTol: Wait  Evytng all right there?   U all right?

MitTol: Cassie?

Prophetess: We’re good. It’s fine. A little busy.

MigTol: Really. Zup? Ethan a problem?

Prophetess: No no. Actually Ethan’s ok.

MigTol: Where is Cassie and what have you done with her?

Prophetess: *rolling my eyes*

MigTol: If there’s anything I can do lmk

Prophetess: U tend to ur knitting. We got this here.

Prophetess: U got other things to worry abt. U get those guys to listen to u.  We can’t lose G.  Not too keen on losing anybody.

MigTol: Y but still if there’s a problem u should tell me. Should I get in touch with Etienne?

Prophetess: Hell no we got this

MigTol: I better not find out ur BSing me

Prophetess: YYSSW

Prophetess: Keep me ITL. Don’t want to find out ur dead from somebody sometime u hear? U go down, u text me w your last breath.

MigTol:  Ea cui oboediendum est

The helicopter didn’t actually land in Albuquerque, of course; it landed at the military base north of the city, a mostly-new complex of squat, square buildings and dusty roads. The largest building, a couple stories of ugly brick surrounded by a huge gravel lot and two high fences, had a helipad on the roof, so naturally that was where they landed. Miguel decided he could not have designed a less inviting place if he’d tried for an hour. Even the roof was ugly. And the building would be seriously difficult to get out of, that was obvious the moment Santibañez opened the roof door. Thick walls and metal doors, and code pads beside every door.

Natividad clearly didn’t like this. Miguel wasn’t too happy about it himself, but there was not a whole lot either of them could do about it.

“Maximum security,” Santibañez said, jerking his head illustratively toward Ezekiel. “Don’t worry, it’s not the Chateau d’If or anything. Pretty posh accommodations, in fact. This way.” He nodded firmly down the corridor in the other direction.

Natividad still didn’t look happy. But when Miguel nudged her, after one unhappy moment she nodded and let the Special Forces lieutenant lead them down the hall and to an elevator, just glancing over her shoulder to make sure the others were bringing Ezekiel along. Lot of buttons in the elevator; way more than Miguel would have guessed just from looking at these buildings from the air. Six floors that had numbers, and six unmarked buttons. You probably weren’t supposed to push those unless you knew what they were for.

Santibañez pressed one of those.

Down...hard to guess how far; elevators could move at pretty different speeds. The buttons didn’t light up, so no hint that way.

Then the elevator doors slid open, and they were in a place that seemed for all the world like some ordinary office building somewhere in the middle of an ordinary city. Even the air smelled boring: characterless and chilly, with no hint of the desert.

And busy. People were everywhere. Suits. Lots of suits. Not a black Special Forces uniform anywhere to be seen, no regular military uniforms either. That seemed odd. Santibañez paused. He’d set a hand on Miguel’s arm to guide him forward, but now his grip tightened. Miguel gave the lieutenant a questioning look. The lieutenant had never been exactly forthcoming, but he suddenly looked about expressive as a blank wall.

“Ah!” said a man in a suit, suddenly coming toward them, smiling as he examined the scene they made. He looked carefully at Ezekiel and then nodded, turning to Santibañez. “Very good, ah, Lieutenant, and what do we have here?”

This was a smooth, cool-voiced, soft-handed man with a slim briefcase in one hand and an air of authority very different from Santibañez’s or the colonel’s. Something about his attitude made it clear that he knew he was thoroughly superior to those he condescended to address. Definitely more important than a Special Forces lieutenant. Certainly vastly superior to a couple of grimy kids.

“Colonel Herrod—” began Lieutenant Santibañez.

“Seems to be absent,” interrupted the smooth-voiced man, still smiling. “Not that his presence or absence is of practical importance. Senator Connelly, as the Chairman of the Committee for the Management of Supernatural Threats, does hold authority over Special Forces units in the absence of military personnel under the rank of lieutenant general. As I’m sure you know, Lieutenant, though if you would care to peruse the relevant statute I can provide you with a copy immediately.” He lifted the briefcase an illustrative inch.

“I’m familiar with the statute in question,” Santibañez said, his tone flat.

“Good, good. Senator Connelly will be very interested in where Colonel Herrod is, and about what business. Your report will be most interesting, I’m sure. If you would care to come with me, Lieutenant? Our people will be quite capable of interviewing these...” he inspected Miguel and Natividad with fastidious interest, like a man presented with a couple of dirty stray dogs. “Young people,” he finished, in a tone that just missed disdainful by way of not being quite interested enough to get there.

Disdain was the kind of thing Miguel might be able to grab hold of. Which was good, because this situation was, he was pretty sure, pretty well jodido. If Santibañez had planned to object to this senator dude sweeping in and taking over, he seemed to have re-thought that. Which, yeah, Miguel recalled something about the Committee for Supernatural Shit, which was pretty important for a committee that had existed less than a decade. Yeah, civilian oversight of the Special Forces blah blah blah, naturally all the politicians had mostly agreed it’d be a great idea to give some senator authority over their brand-new sorta-kinda branch of the military. Yeah, this was just wonderful.

He kicked Natividad lightly on the ankle. She didn’t even look at him, but took a step toward Ezekiel, still bound and unconscious, and exclaimed, “Did he move? Did anybody see him move just then?”

Good job, that was perfect. During the heartbeat that everybody’s attention was focused on Ezekiel, Miguel sidled back behind Santibañez, whipped out his phone, triggered the password lock—for all the good it would do, but what else could he do?—and slid it into Santibañez’s back pocket.

The lieutenant didn’t turn around or say What the hell? or even twitch. So, yeah. Miguel was pretty sure he wasn’t wrong about what kind of thing this was.

It was a hijacking. And this smooth-voiced lawyerly dude who was so sure he was going to have everything his own way probably was.

Grayson needed to know. Hell, Colonel Herrod needed to know. Without his phone, Miguel had no way to warn either of them. But he figured that was Lieutenant Santibañez’s problem now.

-11-

Alejandro was glad when the Special Forces people took Natividad and Miguel out of the witches’ stronghold. More than almost anything else, he wanted his brother and sister clear of this place. Clear and out and away, a long way away, nowhere any place that this demon had ever touched.

But his satisfaction at his brother’s and sister’s escape was muted by his fury and horror at all the other things that were happening.

He was losing his shadow. He was losing control of it. It was all but free of him. He had never felt anything like this. Even when his sister had temporarily stripped his shadow out of him to stop Malvern Vonhausel, for some minutes leaving him something close to human, he had not felt like this.

He knew very well what was happening. Even if he hadn’t felt his black dog pull away from him, he would have figured it out when his shadow shook itself free and stood up on its own, looming, enormous, wavering halfway between smoky insubstantiality and shaggy black solidity. It was savagely pleased with itself. But afraid of the other demon, the smoke-bird-scorpion-demon thing with all the teeth. Alejandro felt both its pleasure and its fear.

The pleasure was stronger than the fear. The witch’s terrible demon pried at everyone, forcing all their shadows free of them, and Alejandro’s black dog was more pleased than afraid. It was a stupid thing. He had never really understood that, but he knew it now. Any thinking creature would have been terrified of the demon, would have realized anything the demon did to them would be horrible. But Alejandro’s black dog hadn’t figured that out. Yet. It would, eventually, but probably that would be too late.

It had never occurred to Alejandro that he might ever feel toward his own shadow anything like the exasperated protectiveness he often felt toward his brother and sister. But it was a little bit the same.

He was also terrified for himself, of course. That terror provided urgency to his struggle to roll his own shadow down and under.

It was almost like trying to force another black dog’s shadow under. It was a lot like that, actually. Except he used the weight of his own shadow to press someone else’s down, and here he was trying to use something else. The weight of his own soul, maybe, that was bound to his shadow...a prisoner, sometimes. Or more like a jailer. Or right now, something like an anchor. A weight. Heavy, dragging...he stared into his own fiery-eyed shadow and thought of his soul that way. Like an anchor. Like a heavy iron chain.

Alejandro had lost track of everything else, everything but himself and his black dog shadow and his own struggle, so the blow that knocked him sprawling took him completely by surprise. He hit the floor hard and skidded, struck one of the groaning torn-up machines with enough force to drive all the breath from his lungs, scrabbled awkwardly for a handhold among twisted metal debris, flung himself to his feet to tear apart whatever had attacked him—

Grayson was there, where Alejandro had been standing a second ago, glaring with hot-eyed intensity at the demon-thing that leaned down over him, surrounded him, reached for him with things that were like spines and things that were like claws and things that were like fangs. It reached down and then flinched back, reached down and flinched back. In one almost-human hand the Master held something little and shining, something obviously made by and of Pure magic—so Natividad had made something; that was good, muy bien. In his other hand, the Master held a silver net, which he sent striking upward like a whip to drive back the demon.

The Master’s shadow was his own. Of course it was. If anyone would fight off the demon’s attempt to pull his black dog free and make it ascendant, of course it would be Grayson Lanning. With or without some special thing Natividad had made for him. Grayson had recovered himself fast enough and thoroughly enough to see Alejandro’s danger, and had instantly snatched up a burning net of silver cord to use as a weapon, hurled Alejandro out of the way, and faced the threat himself. Of course he had. Alejandro was sure it wasn’t just Natividad’s little shining aparato or the silver cords keeping the demon off him. It was the Master’s fury and strength.

Just seeing that Grayson had mastered his own shadow somehow made it easier for Alejandro to force his own down and under, and then while he still struggled the Master threw him a whole bag of little cosas brillantes—more of these things Natividad had made, obviously. He spilled one out into his hand, fumbling a little in his haste. The thing was small and cold to the touch, like glass but colder. Only it was threaded right through with a tiny, vivid, burning trace of black dog shadow. Only Natividad could have made such a thing.

Despite its size, it was heavy. Heavy in a peculiar way. Heavy in a way that let it somehow serve as an anchor for Alejandro’s shadow, securing it solidly once more within his own soul—strange how in a way both the shadow and his own soul seemed to act as anchors, one for the other. However it was, he finally reclaimed his own ascendancy. He laughed, furious and triumphant, and thrust the little aparato into his pocket while he held human form. Only then did he let his shadow rise up through him, burning and furious and tightly bound, possessed and not possessing.

He wanted to attack the demon thing: how dare it threaten him, how dare it try to divide him from his own demonic shadow, to which he was accustomed and which he needed? How dare it strike against Dimilioc? Fury burned through him, hot and satisfying. He wanted to tear Dimilioc’s enemy to shreds, burn it to ash, consume its strength...he wanted that, his black dog wanted that, it was difficult to tell which was which when they agreed so closely. But when his shadow would have attacked blindly, Alejandro was the one with the sense to leave the demon to the Master and turn himself to help Dimilioc’s beleaguered wolves.

He found Théo Callot almost at once, in human form, standing rigid and intent above Stéphanie, fighting his own shadow with silent willpower. He was losing that battle, Alejandro thought. He put one of Natividad’s new shadow-threaded aparatos into Théo’s hand and turned to look for the next...the young one, Ian, had already lost his own struggle; his shadow stalked him like prey and now tore him down, shrieking first with satisfied hatred and then with shrill dismay as, without a human soul to use as an anchor, it shredded into the air. Stupid thing, but its stupidity had not helped Ian.

That was infuriating.

A little farther away, Carter still struggled. Alejandro could see that his shadow had torn almost entirely free of him. It was still wavering and insubstantial, but more solid with every second that passed. Alejandro flung the weight of his shadow across it, forcing it down. “¡Lo tenga! ¡Lo posea! Cómo se atreve a desafiarte?” he snarled at Carter—then realized he had spoken in Spanish, but he could not remember the English.

From his wild-eyed look, Carter might not remember English either. But it did not matter. He saw that Alejandro had mastered his shadow, he saw that Théo had mastered his, he saw that Grayson had not only achieved so much but also protected the rest of them while they fought. When Alejandro threw a glimmering bead to him, he was intelligent enough to snatch it out of the air. Anger or pride drove him to greater ferocity, and besides, his shadow could not rise, not while Alejandro held it down. With the anchor of the shadow-threaded bead, Carter finally shrugged into his black dog form—then forced it under again and turned, snarling, to look for other enemies.

There were few enemies now, except the demon. With an insubstantial sound like wind through dry grasses, the thing had drawn back from Grayson—and now struck toward someone else. Rip. It was Rip, who had once belonged to Carter’s own small pack. Backing away from his own shadow, Rip had not even realized his danger. Carter started that way. Alejandro followed, swiftly. There were more beads, surely enough for everyone. But just helping Rip regain control of his shadow was not enough, because there was still the demon. It did not seem tangible enough to rip apart with claws and teeth, and Alejandro feared to touch it anyway—feared to let it touch him. But he was too angry to let it strike at Rip without trying to drive it back. Rip’s shadow, suddenly realizing its peril, melted down and fled to hide within Rip’s human body, no longer seeking ascendance, cowed by the greater demon.

Then Grayson was there. He strode forward, slashing out with the silver cords at the insubstantial demon that stooped over Rip. It was satisfying, seeing the demon-thing draw back, evading Grayson’s attack. But it was not satisfying enough. Whirling, Alejandro flung himself toward the net-wrapped black dog, the one whom he did not know. He had not recognized him during the short, savage battle. Her, he saw, now that the net had forced her into her human shape. She was a stranger. A girl, maybe not so much older or younger than his own age, but so gaunt it was hard to judge. Starvation had sharpened her bones and exaggerated the angles of her face; it was hard to guess what she would look like at a proper weight.

Her hair was light brown, hacked off short as with a blunt knife. Her skin was pale, shadowed by bruises along both her arms and by thin lines of blisters where the silver lay against her skin. The bruises were very visible because she wore a sleeveless t-shirt. The t-shirt had been white, a long time ago. Now, where it wasn’t sodden with blood it was gray, dingy with ash or dirt. Her jeans had both knees out, not in the artistic way girls sometimes liked but in a way that made it clear they were just worn and hard-used.

Alejandro started to tear the girl free of the net, but found it burned his hands. Nor could the strands be easily broken or cut through by shadow claws, even when he set himself to endure its touch. Silver drove his shadow deep and ruined its strength. Alejandro snarled furiously, but he put a shadow-threaded bead into her hand in case it might help. He folded her fingers around it and began the frustratingly slow work of untangling the girl from the net one little bit at a time, concentrating on that because if he allowed his attention to be drawn in six different directions he would never be able to get the net off her. He wanted the net, he wanted to use it as a weapon, because from the sounds of battle around him he knew the demon-thing had not yet fled or been destroyed

He heard a great grinding crash followed by a much louder and more prolonged rolling, smashing sound—probably one of the machines being torn free of its bolts and flung across the room. Someone roared with rage behind him—that sounded like the Master, so he did not have to look. Grayson would handle it, whatever it was. All his fingers were blistered, but he had the net almost free, only one of the girl’s arms was still caught in its strands. He was so blazingly impatient that he half wanted to tear the girl’s arm to shreds if that would only get the net off her, but she had so clearly been badly used already. In the half of his soul that was his own and had been taught to be civilized, he cursed the witches and made himself be gentle because he did not wish to do her more harm. He almost had the silver cords off her—some of the cords were knotted around her thumb and wrist, and his fingertips were blistered so it was hard to grip them.

Once he got the net free it would be better. Then he could tear up his jacket and wrap his hands in the leather. Then he could use the net as a whip, as Grayson had, and then—he did not know. But he would be much better able to attack the demon-thing and defend everyone else. So he persisted, bending finally to grip one of the silver cords with his teeth—blunt human teeth, his shadow would not touch silver—and jerk it free.

The net came loose.

The girl opened her eyes, almost at the same instant. She snarled, rolling to get away from him, to jackknife to her feet in one savage contortion of her half-human form. But she did not let go of Natividad’s bead. Her hand clenched around that so tight her knuckles whitened with pressure.

Then she put it into her mouth. That was—Alejandro would not have dared, but it was clever as well as brave. Whatever it did, it would probably do it more strongly than if she had put it in a pocket, especially after she changed form. Her face had already distorted, her jaw becoming heavy, broadening into a blunt muzzle. Her eyes had been human brown, very briefly. Now they rapidly became a bright, vivid, burning flame-gold.

For one grim instant, Alejandro was certain he had freed this girl only to be forced to kill her. But she went right past him, moving with coiled strength and fury, snatching the silver net out of his hands as she went, leaping into the air to snap it like a whip at the smoky fanged demon as Grayson attacked it from a different angle.

She could not get high enough to strike the demon. This high-roofed building offered the demon too much space to retreat, and it retreated from the silver nets while striking downward anywhere else. The Master, fifty feet away and stalking sideways along the edge of the smoke-serpent-demon thing, seemed able to make it retreat with the sheer force of his will. Alejandro understood that suddenly and tried to do the same, tried to roll it under as he would roll the shadow of another black dog. It drew back from him, but not very far.

No one else seemed able to touch it at all. The thing only retreated a little, curling with lazy malevolence toward the others who had no silver to protect them. Especially it threatened the weaker black dogs: Rip, who did not seem able to shift into the cambio de cuerpo; and Théo, too distracted by terror and fury to pay attention to the demon. Grayson was working very hard to protect everyone else, but he could not be everywhere. Théo Callot should have been trying to help. But he crouched over his wife’s body and snarled with equal fury at his own people and at the demon. He was no good at all. Unless Stéphanie Callot was not actually dead. Then Alejandro supposed she was worth protecting. Though even then, Théo was acting like an ass.

Carter had gone back to tearing up the machines. The demon didn’t seem to care, but that destruction might be useful; at least it might discommode the witches if they tried to come back. Not that he could easily imagine that. But eventually they might try.

But his concern must be this present moment. The demon was laughing at them all. It made no sound, it had no voice, but Alejandro heard it nevertheless. Fury made it difficult to think. He made himself pause and ask himself what someone clever would do. What Miguel would do.

When he put it that way, a plan almost immediately presented itself. Without hesitation, Alejandro went after the gaunt girl he had freed from the net.

She saw or heard or felt him coming and whirled to face him, snarling, the burning silver net gripped in her left hand, the blunt fingers of her right hand tipped with long claws. Alejandro ignored her aggression. He ran past her, took a place directly underneath the demon, dropped to one knee, and offered the girl his cupped hands.

It took her a second. But she was smart. For a black dog in the grip of her shadow’s fury, she was very smart. She ran toward Alejandro with a low, slouching gait, most of her attention directed upward and only a little on him. She trusted him to do as he had implicitly promised. For a black dog, for a stranger, it was impressive trust. But she moved without hesitating at all, set her foot in the offered stirrup of his hands, and uncoiled into a high, arcing leap as he straightened and threw her upward.

That leap carried her right into the indistinctive smoky serpent form, right in among the spines and gnashing fangs and stabbing beaks and other things. But the girl slashed right and left with her net, howling with vicious fury and triumph, and the demon recoiled. This time it moved much, much faster than it had to evade Grayson. Fast as the striking heron it vaguely resembled, but it was not striking. It was fleeing at last. And it was not laughing now. It was screaming, a terrible hissing scream that filled Alejandro’s heart with violent joy.

The girl, carrying her weight in her shadow, seemed for a long lingering moment as though she would never fall back to the earth. She seemed almost to hover at the highest point of her arc, but then she took back her weight and came down after all, controlled and graceful, falling like the fall was part of her fight. Alejandro was there to meet her. He had felt more than seen where she must come down and he was there before her, ready to throw her not merely upward again but also in a long sideways arc that would take her right through the fleeing smoke-demon. He threw her with all his considerable strength, so that she almost seemed to fly.

But this time the girl barely managed to strike the demon thing at all. So fast it had fled, seeping right through the walls and ceiling of the building.

The girl struck the wall near one of the high windows, tore at the wall and windowsill with shadow claws, and scrambled through the window in pursuit.

Alejandro did not bother with a window. He went right through the wall, shattering the sheetrock and tearing the thin metal, shifting from black dog to human and back again as he forced his way out from roaring shadows and the smell of cold death into the high mountain winter.

It was still afternoon. The sun had not even begun to slide down behind the farthest mountains. That was how little time had passed. The sky was bright and cloudless, with no trace of clouds or smoke or haze. The demon was gone.

But the Special Forces people were right here. Almost, Alejandro failed to recognize them as allies. He was looking for witches, for enemies. He was ready to see anyone who was not black dog and Dimilioc as an enemy. He wasn’t even certain the Special Forces people were allies, anymore. If they ever had been. He did not trust them. He was certain he was right not to trust them. They all had their weapons out: ordinary rifles and those big, heavy guns that fired the nets and other weapons besides. One man had a knife almost as long and heavy as a sword, pale along the edge—surely silver, or as nearly pure silver as would hold an edge.

Mostly the Special Forces people looked ready to use those weapons against Alejandro himself. Or the girl. The men stood steady, nearly a dozen of them, as steady as though they were facing enemies. Maybe they were afraid of the girl, skinny as she was and in ripped, dirty jeans. The girl certainly looked ready to take them all on by herself.

That was what stopped Alejandro first; the vivid, furious awareness that the girl was going to attack the Special Forces people and that they would shoot her. They would kill her. He did not have to feel the silver in their guns to know they would not be using ordinary bullets.

So he flung the weight of his shadow out and rolled the girl’s shadow under. It was only partly up anyway. The girl had taken a half-human form and held it, a blended form that could fight with fire and claw but still handle tools. Almost no black dog could hold a form of that kind. Alejandro could not; he wasn’t even certain the Master could do that. He wasn’t even certain the verdugo could do it. It was a gift, and as far as he had known, only Thaddeus Williams had it. But now there was this girl.

The net had been draped across her hands, burning with vivid pale fire the way silver always burned to a black dog’s touch. But even though it burned her, she had not dropped it. That was perhaps one reason the humans had not shot her immediately, this stranger black dog who had been enslaved by the witches: because she held their silver net in both her hands and snarled not at them, but up at the sky, seeking the smoke-bird-demon thing, violently unbelieving that it was not there.

Then Alejandro shoved her shadow down and under and she was again a girl, entirely human to the eye, with short-cropped light brown hair and wide-set dark brown eyes. Far too thin, with hollow cheeks and too-sharp bones showing at collarbone and wrist and hip. Eighteen, nineteen, maybe twenty or more, but she might look older or younger than she truly was, thin like that.

She turned a furious glare on Alejandro, raked that glare across all the Special Forces people, threw down the silver net, and spat at them all, “You let it get away? And the witch, Kristoff, where is he? All this, and you let them get away?”

Then the Master was there, tearing wider the hole Alejandro had made so that he could step out. Then the others, one and then another. Théo Callot carried his wife—Alejandro still could not tell whether she was dead or alive—and Rip, surprisingly carrying the one who had been hurt by the demon. Jim Gotz. Then Carter, still partly in black dog form, either from choice or because even with Natividad’s bead-aparato he was having difficulty keeping his shadow down.

The Special Forces people were arranged in a loose half-circle, their weapons now mostly pointed at the sky. There had been a priest. Alejandro was almost certain there had been a priest. And more men. There was no sign of them now. They had gone after the witches, he guessed. Maybe they had taken Natividad and Miguel—he couldn’t see his sister or brother anywhere and he was certain they had been with the Special Forces people at one point not so long ago.

Then he had lost track of them. He could hardly believe he had lost track of them. They had better be with the rest of the Special Forces people.

Colonel Herrod was in the forefront of this group. Even he held a weapon, a handgun, not the sort of weapon a real soldier would carry. At such short range, loaded with silver, it would be dangerous enough. Alejandro didn’t like it. He didn’t like any of those guns, any of that silver. He didn’t like not knowing where his brother and sister were, or with whom, or in what possible danger.

But Grayson Lanning did not seem concerned about Herrod or about any of his people. Nor about the potential for violence between his black wolves, gathering now at his back, and the Special Forces soldiers. The Master summed up Herrod’s people with a swift glance, then turned his attention to the girl.

“Carissa,” he said, his tone matter-of-fact. “Your brother will be very pleased. I’m pleased as well. You appear to be...” he paused. Then he chose, “Adequate.”

The girl laughed bitterly. “Adequate. Yeah. I’d say I’m just about adequate, all right.”

“Yes,” the Master said, still with that strange restraint. “Under the circumstances, it seems an achievement.”

The girl shrugged angrily. But she nodded too, grudgingly recognizing the sincerity of this peculiar compliment. “Master,” she said. Grudgingly, still. But she said it, and glanced briefly down. Very briefly.

So she knew Grayson Lanning, but she seemed less intimidated by him than maybe any other black dog Alejandro had ever seen. She would not know the rest of them. But she did not seem intimidated by them, either.

Alejandro’s human awareness rose above the constant black dog anger in an almost physical blow of attention and understanding. Carissa. Sí. He finally remembered where he had heard that name. This was Carissa Hammond, Nicholas Hammond’s sister, who had vanished those months ago, just at the time the master vampire had been discovered and destroyed...yes, near this place. Alejandro did not remember just where all that had happened, but yes, here. Somewhere not so far away.

His sister and the rest had defeated the vampire, barely. Then Nicholas Hammond had joined them. Alejandro had been there for that part. The boy had explained how the master vampire had killed or taken everyone else, all the rest of the few Dimilioc black wolves who had survived in that area. He had believed his sister Carissa among those taken. Only they had not seen her among the others enslaved by the vampire, so no one of Dimilioc had ever been certain whether the vampire had killed her, or whether she had escaped its grip and fled, or what. Her brother had not known. Alejandro had found that painful uncertainty all too imaginable.

Now they knew. Here was Carissa, when no one had guessed they should look for her. Certainly not where. Nor under what circumstances.

She had escaped the vampire, or perhaps these dark witches had taken her from it. Maybe their demon had taken her somehow. Maybe they had been allies of the vampire. Or enemies. Who knew? Alejandro did not really care. The important part was that she was here, freed from the control of both vampires and witches. He looked forward to hunting down her captors and tearing them into very small pieces.

Of course Carissa would want to do that part herself. But perhaps she would not be too angry if he helped.

The last time the Master had seen her had probably been before the war had shoved every sept of Dimilioc into desperate battle. That meant Carissa Hammond was probably several years older and fifty pounds skinnier than she’d been the last time the Master had seen her. But it made no difference. Naturally, despite all that had happened to her, the Master took one look at this girl and called her by name. Of course he did. Alejandro wasn’t even surprised.

Carissa pointed accusingly at the Special Forces people, at Colonel Herrod, who even though he hadn’t yet given any orders or taken any action, was obviously in charge. “They let them get away,” she told the Master in grimly outraged tones.

“I rather hope that is not the case,” Grayson told her, and raised an eyebrow at Herrod.

Colonel Herrod did not look daunted at all. He never had, in Alejandro’s experience, which had involved few encounters but exciting ones. He said calmly, “A small but, I trust, effective team of my people is currently tracking the...witches.” He pronounced the last word with some reluctance, as though despite everything he did not quite believe in their enemies. But he went on without pausing. “Though we have a clear line on the witches, we do unfortunately appear to have lost the...demon.” He pronounced that word reluctantly too. “It seems to have departed. Perhaps fled. I would be most interested in your opinion.” He glanced from Grayson to Carissa, politely expectant.

Carissa rolled her eyes, not polite at all. “Of course it hasn’t fled. Why would it flee? It’s gotten loose. It’s free in the world. Whatever it does now, it’s not going to just leave. You know what’s worse than a demon bound by a witch? A demon that’s gotten loose! Good job with that!” She stopped, took a breath, and added, not quite as scathingly, “Easier to take that bastard Kristoff down now he’s lost it, though. It might even go after him first. That’d be something to see, whichever of ’em came out on top.” Her lip curled ferociously, like she really wanted to see the demon attack Kristoff. But she went on quickly, speaking to the Master rather than Colonel Herrod. “But, listen, I don’t know if the demon could actually leave even if it wanted to. That bastard Kristoff made a way for it to come into our world. He might need to make a way for it to go away again. Or someone like him.”

“Or possibly someone Pure?” Grayson asked her. “Or a priest?”

A sharp, angry shrug. “I don’t know. I’ve only seen dark witches summon demons. Little ones, mostly. Not like that one that you let get away. That was a greater demon.” This, with a sharp, furious glare at Colonel Herrod, who didn’t seem to notice.

“Your priest accompanied your team as they pursued our enemies, I assume?” the Master said to Herrod. Nothing but mild curiosity was in his tone. “Am I to gather that you saw fit to send with this team, along with your priest, my wolf and the younger Tolands? I rather thought that you brought me Natividad Toland’s latest...experiment...in order to protect her. Not because she was not here. Sending her away was certainly unexpected...” he paused, considering his words, and finished in an even softer voice, “Temerity.”

Alejandro did not know that word, but he was sure he agreed. He moved a step forward without quite realizing it, checked himself, and said sharply to the colonel, “You have sent my brother and sister after our enemies?” Natividad would face these dark witches without him to protect her, without Dimilioc protection at all? With only Miguel to protect her, among all those strangers? He might have been horrified by that idea except he was too outraged to be horrified.

Then, even in his anger, he paused. Natividad did not feel afraid. Or she did, a little. But the trace of his shadow that she carried told him that though she was still upset and a little afraid, mostly she was only tired. That made the outrage seem...perhaps not so well-earned. He glared at Colonel Herrod, but without much heat.

Grayson did not rebuke Alejandro for breaking in. Ezekiel Korte was the Master’s business, but Miguel and Natividad were certainly Alejandro’s business as well as the Master’s. Grayson merely tilted his head at Alejandro’s interruption, considered the small arc of Special Forces people, and inquired in a neutral tone, “Well, Colonel? Have you sent my people with yours, in pursuit of our common enemies?”

This was as much a threat as a query, though Colonel Herrod might not have realized it. If he did, he handled it exactly as he should, answering calmly and with no trace of evasiveness. “In fact, I sent your injured black dog and your human children entirely out of the way of all our enemies, with a couple of my men to see them safe.”

The Master regarded him, narrow-eyed. “Your people will of course return mine to me immediately.”

“I strongly suggest you leave those children in safety.”

“In safety? Among your personnel?” Grayson said. This time he did nothing to disguise the threat.

Colonel Herrod answered carefully, “You may trust that your people will come to no harm from mine. Your Ezekiel Korte was clearly not in remotely adequate condition for any kind of operation, even if I were persuaded it would be safe to free him. I promise you, whether he’s free of these...witches...or not, he will be well cared for by my people. The young lady insisted on accompanying him. It seemed wise to accommodate her wishes. I can promise you that they will not be harmed. All of your people can be returned to you when it’s safe, after the conclusion of this operation.”

Grayson considered the colonel. His expression was hard to read, but tension and violence continued to gather in the air like the threat of thunder. “Can be?”

“Will be,” Colonel Herrod amended. “That is a promise as well, Mr. Lanning.” He paused, then added, “I believe you were correct in your initial assessment of our priorities. I think it would be best to focus our efforts on finding and stopping these...witches. Which we cannot do if we instead turn on each other. I have not set aside our understanding, Mr. Lanning.”

“Merely redefined it?” the Master said grimly.

“To a very limited extent. It seemed advisable given Mr. Korte’s condition when we recovered him.” He paused, then went on, “Ms. Raichlen took a most competent team with her, including Father Petros. But I would strongly prefer to pursue our...targets of interest...with all available forces. We do have some advantages in that regard. Drones. Access to useful databases. Though unfortunately cell signals, among other items, often appear unreliable in the vicinity of our...” he paused, then chose, “Quarry.”

Prey, thought Alejandro, and from the sudden yellow glint in Carissa Hammond’s eyes, he knew she thought the same. He curled a lip, wanting to tear into the enemies who had dared offend Dimilioc, who had forced Dimilioc black wolves to their will, who murdered the Pure and endangered Natividad. He did not want these soldiers to track and find the black witches. He wanted to find them himself, tear out their throats, rip the still-beating hearts from their chests.

But the Master appeared unmoved. He merely said in a level voice, “Your priest cannot replace our Pure women. As you have surely seen. Those beads could not have been made by a priest.”

“I’m sure you’re right, Mr. Lanning. However, Father Petros is a most competent and experienced man. Though not, of course, experienced with these...witches. He will no doubt gain experience shortly. I believe we should focus for the moment on the witches rather than the creature they made. This Kristoff seems the greater threat, as he can presumably make another if he has lost this one.” His tone flattened slightly: “It might have helped if we had known further in advance that these witches even existed.”

Alejandro half expected Grayson Lanning to answer this implied rebuke with violence. But the Master only said curtly, “Indeed, Colonel. We might all have wished to know more of this new enemy far in advance of any confrontation. They are new to us as well.”

Colonel Herrod raised both eyebrows at this.

It was obvious to Alejandro who among them ought to know the most about the witches. He said to Carissa, not quite looking directly at her because he did not want his comments to be taken as a challenge, “Perhaps you might know more of our enemy. Perhaps you might know where they came from. They gain power from the murder of the Pure, is this so?”

She glared at him. “They get power from demons.” She transferred that glare to Colonel Herrod. “Which they don’t make. They summon them. They summon them into circles and get them to do things. Curse people. Stupid little curses, half the time. Might as well poison some guy’s dog as have a demon eat it. Total waste of power.” She glanced sidelong toward Grayson but turned back to Alejandro, speaking to him as though to distance herself from the Master. “They murder people to get blood. Especially the Pure. Demons feed on corruption. Using Pure blood for evil ends is seriously corrupt.”

Grayson said quietly, “Vampires also delighted in corruption.”

Carissa nodded, turning to the Master with a certain relief, maybe reassured by his quiet tone. She spoke more quietly herself now, more earnestly, with less anger. “Yeah. They’re demons too. Different kind, or...maybe exactly the same kind, only entering our world in a different way. I think vampires used to hunt witches, used to force them to keep quiet and hidden. Alistair and that bastard Kristoff said things about Now that we don’t need to worry about vampires. He gloated about it. I think the vampires hated witches, which would make sense if a witch could summon a vampire, keep it from investing itself in a corpse, call it to come or go and make it jump through hoops. But then we...” she faltered and stopped.

“Killed all the vampires,” Alejandro finished for her.

“And Kristoff wasn’t worried about black dogs at all,” Carissa said. Her eyes went briefly bright gold before reverting to human brown.

“Indeed.” The Master rubbed his forehead, looking not precisely tired, but grimly resigned.

“The law of unforeseen consequences,” muttered Colonel Herrod. He began to say something else, but then James emerged from the shadows within the building.

Wherever James had been, however cautious he had been, he had obviously decided the battle was over and there was no longer any point to hanging back. He might have gone into the building just because he was curious, or more likely because he hoped to learn something about their enemies. Now he was mostly carrying a living man, one arm around the stranger’s waist, guiding the man’s stumbling steps. James was also dragging a dead man by the ankle with his other hand. The living man seemed...blind, or stunned, or something more disturbing than either. The dead man, of course, was just dead.

When they all turned to watch, James dropped the dead man in their midst with something of a flourish, then eased the stranger down to the gritty soil, where he crouched, aimless and passive. He made a thin sound when James let go of him: not exactly a whimper. Nothing so mindful as that.

Carissa, her breath coming short, turned her back on the living man and spat on the dead one’s body.

That one had been of middling years, taller than average, handsome. Now he was dead, his eyes open and blank. His hands and feet had been pierced through. Of course those small wounds had not killed him. His belly had been torn open, all his guts spilled out. That had not killed him either, if Alejandro could judge. His throat had been slashed. Blood still clotted there, curdled and black. Probably that had been the death wound.

“An enemy, I guess,” James said mildly.

“Alistair Burton,” she said, and spat on the body again. “Kristoff used his new pet to get by me. Best fight I ever lost. I could’ve told Alistair it’d take more than me and Enrique together to stop Ezekiel Korte. Arrogant son of a bitch didn’t ask, which is why he wound up staked out in a black star with a demon drinking his blood. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy, let me tell you.”

“Kristoff killed this man,” Grayson said softly.

Carissa nodded, not looking up. “Yeah. Too damn bad we couldn’t have returned the favor for Ezekiel, take out Kristoff for him too. Too damn bad Kristoff was quick enough to get his chains on Enrique and me.” Now she looked around at all of them, one slow measuring glare that took in the Special Forces people and Dimilioc wolves alike and ended, finally, on the living man crouched at James’ feet. “Too damn bad you didn’t find us a couple months ago. Or a couple weeks ago. Or fucking yesterday.”

Alejandro winced. But Grayson let her disrespect pass. The Master only said softly, “He was your friend? Then I am sorry he was injured. Perhaps he may recover.”

Carissa only shrugged, a fragile pretense of indifference that surely anyone could see through. “He’s demon-struck. There’s no saving him now. His soul’s shredded. When the moon rises full, it’ll pull his shadow up and he’ll be gone. Nothing left.”

“Has anyone tried to save such persons?”

Her eyes came up, fiery gold with the force of her passionate rage. “There’s nothing left to save! You think I haven’t seen this before? He’s worse than a shifter. Even when the moon wanes, he’ll stay in the other form. There’s not enough of his soul left to hold back any kind of shadow.” She took a step, wary of James as she crouched down by the man who had been her friend. Or a companion in la mala fortuna, perhaps. Sometimes shared misfortune made someone enough like a friend.

The man was still breathing. He was even making very faint whimpering sounds. His eyes were squeezed shut, not open and blank like the eyes of a corpse. But truly, there seemed nothing much left to him.

Moving almost gently, Carissa cut her friend’s throat. She swayed to the side to avoid the blood, but some of the spray caught her arm and shoulder. She did not seem to care. She had not looked at the Master for permission, either.

Grayson could have stopped her, of course. That he hadn’t...that said something too.

It was Théo Callot who, his attention dragged away from his stricken wife, snarled something in French and began to surge to his feet, the cambio de cuerpo taking him fast and hard, utter denial in every line of his body.

He took Alejandro by surprise. But not James, nor Grayson. It was James who blocked the Évanouir wolf. The Master rolled his shadow under and James kicked his feet out from under him and pinned him.

“We need him,” Grayson said mildly.

“I know.” James closed his hand on the other black wolf’s arm and hauled him up, shadow claws drawing enough blood to make the threat clear. “Get a grip, man! No one is suggesting we deal so with Stéphanie. Whatever happens to a demon-struck black dog, a Pure woman will be different.” He looked sharply at Carissa. “Right?”

“Different,” the girl said. “Yeah.” She hadn’t flinched from Théo Callot’s attack. Now she rose in one graceful movement and looked at Grayson, turning her shoulder pointedly to the Évanouir wolf. “You might as well cut their throats too. Not hers, if you don’t want to. But him.” She indicated Jim Gotz. “There’s no point leaving him to suffer. You’ll just have to do it later anyway.”

To make sure the Master did not immediately rebuke her for this unsolicited and not very respectful advice, Alejandro asked quietly, “What was his name? Your friend?”

“Enrique Rubio.” Carissa answered without looking at him, but a tiny bit of the tension seemed to go out of her. “Alistair caught him at the same time as me.” Lifting her gaze, she glared at the Master. “He was never Dimilioc. He was a stray. But we didn’t have enough wolves, not after—after everything. We thought Dimilioc was gone. You let us think so. We thought we were all that was left, and we weren’t enough, so we had to look for the kind of black dog who could be all right. We’re not the only ones who did that, are we?” She waved a hand, taking in the gathered black dogs near at hand, ending with a sharp little gesture at Alejandro. “That’s no Lanning, is it? He sure doesn’t look like he’s from any Dimilioc bloodline.” She swept a comprehensive glance around the gathered black dogs and said in sharp accusation, “You let in strays too. Half these here must have been strays once. If we’d known—” She broke that off short, breathing hard.

If they’d known, then what? They’d have headed north earlier, before the vampire had found them. They would have sought the remnants of the main sept of Dimilioc and hoped to find something was left after all. That seemed more than likely. But they hadn’t, because this Enrique Rubio had been a random-bred stray and no one had guessed he might be welcome anyway. And that had mattered. At least, it had mattered to Carissa Hammond.

Alejandro wanted to snap at Carissa, My father was Edward Toland! But somehow he didn’t want to embarrass this girl by declaring his Dimilioc bloodlines. He didn’t understand why he should care whether she was embarrassed, but still he was silent. His father’s name made no difference to her point anyway. She was right, after all. Probably she recognized James, if not by name than at least as a Mallory, and if she had picked anyone else but Alejandro she would have been right.

Carissa could see that Carter and Rip and some of the others had been born callejeros. Of course she could. Facing the Master, she insisted passionately, “Enrique was all right. He was born with strength. Too much strength, but he was learning decent control. He was. He came after me when—when the vampire came. We got away from it. But that just meant Alistair got us both. There was nothing I could do.”

Grayson had listened to her attentively. Now he nodded, voicing no objection to anything she had said. Instead he promised, “You will have your revenge, Carissa Hammond. You will have your fill of it. Enough for you, and for your friend, as well.”

“There will never be enough vengeance for what they did!” Carissa stood rigid for a heartbeat, glaring directly at the Master’s face.

Most of the black wolves were distracted—Théo Callot by his injured and unconscious wife, the rest by the potential threat offered by the Special Forces people. But Alejandro was aware that James was watching Carissa with close attention. He might move fast and violently if Carissa did not back down, especially if she attacked the Master, as in her rage and distress she seemed possibly about to do.

Worse, Carter Lethridge was watching too. In his case, maybe he was watching to see what this girl might get away with. Or maybe he was watching for his own chance, if she distracted everyone else.

Alejandro, nearest to Carissa, shifted his weight. It was a subtle suggestion of aggression that snapped Carissa’s attention to him instead, forcing her to look away from Grayson Lanning. But the instant she turned fiercely toward him, he glanced away, giving her no target for her fury, watching with satisfaction from the corner of his eye as she began to refocus her attention on Grayson, then suddenly realized whom she’d been addressing and with what dangerous disrespect.

Carissa took a breath, and another breath, mastering her fury. She bowed her head, stiffly.

“That will do,” Grayson murmured.

The Master’s gaze crossed Alejandro’s; he knew exactly what Alejandro had done. His tiny nod of approval took Alejandro by surprise. Warmth flushed through Alejandro, straightening his shoulders and calming his shadow’s continual anger, its wariness of Carissa and its hatred of the Special Forces people.

The Master turned to Colonel Herrod, so smoothly he might have intended all along to do so; the move might have had nothing to do with allowing Carissa a moment to get herself more solidly under control. But Alejandro, more than usually aware of the layers of intention contained in everything Grayson Lanning did, was certain the Master had meant exactly that.

“Your intention now is to continue pursuit of our enemies?” he said.

Colonel Herrod answered with measured calm, “This seems the prudent course, under the circumstances. This Kristoff has lost control of his demon; he has been forced out of this base of operations and is now on the run. It hardly seems wise to offer him a chance to recoup his strength or rebuild his resources. I believe we must continue to work together if we are to pursue our common enemies and bring this operation to a satisfactory conclusion. Those...items Miss Toland made for you seem useful. If we delay, this black witch may find a way to counter them. I would prefer not to afford him the chance.” He paused and added, “Whatever that demon may be, whatever its abilities, I think we can be certain we don’t want these...witches...creating them or summoning them or in any other way acquiring them. More than once you’ve stated that you believe Dimilioc a natural ally of humanity against darker entities. As you know, I am inclined to agree. My people are good. Father Petros is a useful ally. But I suspect none of my people have quite Dimilioc’s kind of strengths, nor your depth of background knowledge regarding the...demonic.”

The modern Special Forces had been created especially to handle supernatural threats, but the colonel’s distaste for the whole idea of demons was obvious from his slight hesitation on the word. But he went on with hardly a pause, “I think we would be well advised to combine all our best resources in the hope that we’ll be able to contain this latest threat before we are forced to discover its full extent. I fear this won’t be an appropriate mission for...injured soldiers. Nor for children.” His gaze flickered toward Carissa on that last, clearly taking her for both injured and a child.

Carissa rolled her eyes. Alejandro was both amused and offended on her behalf. Children. None of them were that. Certainly Carissa Hammond was not. Eighteen, nineteen, twenty, he did not know exactly. But even at eighteen, Carissa would not be a child. Black dogs grew up very fast. Colonel Herrod knew less about black dogs and Dimilioc than he realized, or he would know that.

The Master said softly, “Carissa Hammond is not a child. She may well be our only source of reliable information about these black witches, this Kristoff and his companions and his pet demon.” He raised an eyebrow at Carissa.

She shrugged, pretending an indifference Alejandro knew she did not feel. She said, “You have a priest. This is good. Prayer is good, if you have faith. I saw a human woman—the demon Alistair tried to summon couldn’t touch her. How much good that did, I don’t know. I mean, he shot her. But she had a rosary and the demon couldn’t touch her.”

“Blessed water,” murmured Colonel Herrod.

“You have blessed water?” Grayson asked him.

The colonel lifted one shoulder fractionally, not quite a shrug. “It seemed a reasonable precaution. Such things were always useful against vampires.”

Not so useful for black dogs, much, but the master did not say so. Alejandro thought perhaps it was as well that the Special Forces had vials of holy water.

Colonel Herrod said, “I don’t argue that Miss Hammond should be sent away, especially since she seems to have...recovered herself. But I would suggest leaving the younger children out of this. Any encounter with this...witch and his cohorts...seems likely to prove both unpredictable and violent. Also, my latest report is that your Ezekiel Korte remains unconscious.” He touched an earbud Alejandro had not previously noticed, indicating the source of his information. “I’ll inform you, of course, if his condition should change.”

“Of course you will,” Grayson said, just a little ironically, and paused, considering. All his black wolves waited, probably more than half expecting a signal to tear Herrod and all his people into pieces for their temerity in taking Ezekiel into their keeping.

Alejandro was certain the Master would not give any such signal. He believed Colonel Herrod was telling the truth, but he also suspected that the colonel, wary of Dimilioc, had deliberately taken hostages. He was certain that thought had also occurred to Grayson. But at the same time, he guessed that the Master was probably just as pleased to have Ezekiel out of danger and somewhere safe—very glad as well that he was not yet required to decide whether Ezekiel could recover from what had been done to him. Carissa Hammond had killed her friend. Grayson would not want to discover he would be required to do the same with Ezekiel. He would probably rather leave him with Colonel Herrod’s people than that.

Alejandro was pleased enough to have his brother and sister out of it. He thought that, of them all, Miguel probably had about the best and most comprehensive grasp of background knowledge about the supernatural—but now there was Carissa, who certainly knew more about their particular enemies. Alejandro might wish to have Miguel’s ruthlessly clear intelligence to support them, and he wished very much to have Natividad’s Pure magic for their defense and protection. But he was also glad his brother and sister had been sent away from this dangerous pursuit of witches and demons. He was glad Miguel and Natividad were safe.

Seconds ticked past and the Master did not renew his demand to have his people returned immediately.

Alejandro certainly would not say the word hostage aloud. Nor would he say a word about what might happen if Ezekiel, unlike Carissa, could not recover his self-will and once more master his own shadow. Some of the others probably also had guessed why the Master did not make that demand. James certainly would have thought of all that. Maybe everyone.

But none of them interrupted the moment. They all waited to see what Grayson Lanning would decide.

The tension stretched out. Colonel Herrod also did not move or speak. He stood still, his gaze steady on the Master’s face—a mistake, but clearly he did not know that. Sweat beaded lightly along his hairline. His heart rate had quickened. So Alejandro knew the colonel was not unaware of the swelling potential for violence. Human-blind, Herrod did not know he should look down, or at least away. He did not know he should say something conciliatoria. The sheer weight of the Master’s regard should have informed him of all this. But of course he would not be used to dealing at close quarters or on equal terms with black dogs.

But the colonel did not do anything else wrong. If he did not lower his gaze, at least his posture remained open. Relaxed. His manner was steady, but not aggressive. That was important. At some point he had put away his little gun, which was also good. Also, that gesture was probably keeping his people from openly readying themselves for violence. That was very important, or they would very likely save the witches a great deal of trouble by killing each other.

And if this moment were not broken, perhaps that might yet happen. Alejandro said, though he had not been consciously aware of the decision to speak, “We will regret Natividad’s absence, I think. But after all, she had made these aparatos for us.” He touched his pocket. “Also, it is good she is safe.” He said to Carissa, “Is it not so, that these black witches wish most of all to murder the Pure?”

Carissa flicked a wary glance from him to the Master and back again. But she answered only a little grudgingly. “They want to crush their enemies, anyone who opposes them. They are small people who take pleasure in small cruelties. More than anything, they wish to have power to do harm as they please. They don’t care about the Pure. But they get power from killing, and more power from killing someone Pure. They use the blood of the Pure in their magic. No one else’s is as good. Or that’s what they believe. I think they just like killing them. She’s your sister, that Pure girl?”

“My sister, sí,” Alejandro agreed. “The other, my brother.”

“Was there another? I didn’t notice.”

She meant she had not noticed an ordinary human boy among all the rest. Alejandro warned her, “It is a mistake not to notice Miguel. He will certainly have noticed you.”

Carissa rolled her eyes and turned her shoulder to Alejandro, which he did not regard. This was not the time. Besides, he thought he would like to fight Carissa Hammond later, when she was at her full strength. If she treated his brother with disregard then, he would be happy to fight her.

If they all survived so long, of course.

Grayson undoubtedly knew exactly what Alejandro had done, breaking in that way. But he allowed the tension to ebb anyway. He said curtly to Colonel Herrod, “I’m confident you will ensure that my people are indeed returned when I require it. For the moment, perhaps they may do well enough where they are. You have a report from your Ms. Raichlen? We know where our enemies have gone? Then I agree we should pursue immediately. Your vehicles are sound?”

The colonel showed no sign of open relief, but his heartbeat slowed, gradually. “They should be. They’re difficult to put out of commission. They’re made to be robust.” He trusted the Master’s assurance; at least he trusted Grayson enough to turn and gesture courteously toward the two black vans. “You are welcome to borrow either one. There should be room for all your people, if you don’t mind a little crowding—and if you are willing to leave your injured here, with a couple of my men to guard them.” A slight hesitation, and then the colonel added smoothly, “Or if you prefer, of course, without my men.”

The Master said, with considerable restraint, “I think such a guard could not possibly be either necessary or advisable. Théo, you will return to the Denver house with your wife. And with Jim.” His manner gentled when he spoke to Théo Callot, when he addressed all those he was sending away. “We shall hope your wife and our wolf may yet recover, Théo.”

Carissa opened her mouth. The Master shot her a hard look and she closed it again. He said softly, still speaking to Théo, “Perhaps another of the Pure may find a way to help them. I don’t imagine our enemies tried a wide range of remedies for this...malady.”

Théo nodded, not looking up.

“Very well. For the moment, you will take charge here. I am sorry to leave you with this. But I am confident you will manage.”

Théo Callot nodded again, though he still did not look away from his wife.

“Then we will go on,” the Master declared, collected the rest of his Dimilioc wolves with one comprehensive glance, and strode toward one of the black vans. The Special Forces people, at a lift of their colonel’s hand, cleared out of his way.

Alejandro followed with the others, in a broad, broken formation that clearly showed where lines of trust and loyalty ran. Carter Lethridge and Rip Jacobs also stayed together, their mutual mistrust temporarily drowned by wariness of so many other potential enemies. James Mallory, the only one besides Grayson himself to have been born within Dimilioc’s shelter and law, came behind the others. Alejandro understood that James would be at the rear. He did not object to having the older black wolf at his back, though he held back until Carter and Rip had gone on before him.

Carissa, he was not quite surprised to see, hung back near him and stayed beside him when he moved, not quite within arm’s reach, but not far out of it. Most of her distrust would be for the Special Forces people. But she would not trust any black dog she did not know, either. Except perhaps Grayson Lanning himself, and maybe James Mallory...and, it seemed, possibly Alejandro, even though she might not yet know he was a Toland by birth and more or less by upbringing as well.

He did not mind her presence either. When going among enemies, a strong, resourceful black dog like Carissa Hammond seemed like the right kind of ally to have at your side—even if he did not yet know her well enough to let her at his back.

-12-

Miguel wasn’t happy with how things were going. Yeah, this wasn’t good. In fact, as the hours crawled past and turned into a very damn tedious day and started working toward a day and a half, he got to be pretty certain the situation had gone well past unfortunate and straight on to putrid. Colonel Herrod might not necessarily be the easiest guy to work with, or work around, whatever. But Herrod could be trusted. At least, his competence could be trusted, and once you understood what he wanted, he made sense. His priorities made sense, too. In fact, Miguel kind of thought Colonel Herrod was a lot like Grayson in some ways, which was why the two of them could work together when they had to. Even when they had different goals, they could understand each other’s goals. That was the important thing.

They both figured stomping on the real monsters was a high priority. That was the other important thing.

This new guy, this politico, Miguel wasn’t so sure about him. He hadn’t met him yet. Compared to a black dog and a Pure girl, apparently Miguel didn’t rate a lot of attention. Those smooth-talking flunkies had taken Natividad off to be interviewed specially, which was not great even though Miguel could hardly imagine they’d actually hurt her.

They’d better not hurt her.

Certainly they had barely questioned him at all, yet. Still, just from the few questions the flunkies asked—or actually more the way they asked them and just their general attitude—he pretty much got the idea that this Senator Connelly dude thought he was way more important than everybody else. And way smarter. That part came through loud and clear. He thought he was in charge and he thought he deserved to be. Miguel had that figured all right. Yeah, whoever that guy was, he thought he was the big man, that was why he had all those flunkies sucking up to him. Big man, big ego, a real cabrón for sure, the kind of guy who liked to throw his weight around. Grayson might be the ultimate control freak, but you wouldn’t catch him surrounding himself with yes-men. This dude seemed to be a lot like a Mexican señor de la guerra, a warlord who got to be a little pocket dictator of his own little provincia. It wasn’t supposed to be like that in the United States, but maybe this guy was ambitious.

The problem was, the guy was a big man. Chair of the Spooky Shit Committee! Mierda, a military base ought to be hard to steamroll, but maybe that was why Colonel Herrod was only a colonel, because the politicos wanted their boy to be able to ride right over the top of pretty much the whole Special Forces and held back on putting higher brass in charge of the Special Forces. He’d already guessed someone higher up held back from committing the full force that ought to be available; a colonel ought to have a full regiment and Miguel was pretty sure Herrod didn’t have nearly that many men at his disposal. Herrod ought to have, what, eight hundred men or so, with majors and captains and stuff. If Miguel were guessing, he’d bet on maybe a quarter that number of men. Or fewer.

Though drawing down the Special Forces might have made sense once the vampires were all gone—or mostly all gone. Maybe that was the basic idea.

No matter how the chain of command ran on paper, though, Miguel was pretty sure Colonel Herrod could have stopped this damned politico. Through sheer force of will if nothing else. Maybe clever political footwork. Who knew, maybe blackmail; Miguel wouldn’t have been surprised. But Herrod wasn’t here, and as the hours ticked away Miguel started to wonder when, or even if, the colonel might come back. Those black witches were scary; he’d seen plenty to establish that little fact. Not even Miguel could guess just what the witches might be able to do; them and their pet demon. What if they had more than one? There was a nightmare thought: more than one horrible snakey, smokey demon thing. God knew what things like that could actually do. Miguel wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to try to imagine.

What if something had gone wrong, bad wrong? What if the Dimilioc wolves hadn’t recovered from whatever had happened to them? There could have been the worst kind of confrontation outside the witches’ hideout; the kind that ended up with all the good guys slaughtering each other while the bad guys got clean away.

Surely nothing like that had happened. Grayson Lanning was not the kind of man to let that happen. Neither was Herrod, Miguel was pretty sure.

Still. What if Herrod was dead and nobody here knew it yet? What if he didn’t come back at all? What if nobody strolled in who had the sheer cojones to deal with this jackass politico and his pet goons?

Miguel wasn’t even sure the Dimilioc wolves were alive. He wasn’t even sure Alejandro was alive. But even if Alejandro were fine, even if he could track Natividad through that strange link they shared, having his brother trying to break into a military base to rescue them, with or without Grayson and all the rest of the Dimilioc black wolves backing him up...that wasn’t anything Miguel wanted to contemplate. Nope, nope, nope. That scenario could only end in bloody disaster, emphasis on the bloody and the disaster both.

But until somebody turned up to stop him, Senator Connelly looked like he was going to have a pretty free hand. Looked like he was planning to have a party. Do anything he wanted. Miguel worried what he’d do with Ezekiel. His own special black dog, way stronger than any callejero, he probably had ideas already. For sure, an ambitious politico would want to use Ezekiel somehow, and not just for research in a secret lab. The idea of some human who thought he was a big dog butting up against Ezekiel Korte might have been almost funny, except there was nothing funny about it.

Worse, the bastard obviously knew something about Natividad, about the Pure, or why hustle her away for special treatment? He might not know, probably didn’t know, exactly what the Pure were or what they could do. But most likely he knew she could work some kind of magic.

On the other hand, if he wanted to use Natividad somehow, at least that’d mean he wouldn’t just have his people take her apart to see if they could find magic in her blood or bones. So it could be worse.

Miguel was sure any guy with an ego would believe he could use Natividad—a girl, a nice innocent girl, that’s what a man like that would see when he looked at Natividad. A trainable little pet: give her compliments and pretty dresses and she’d work magic for you, something like that.

It also hadn’t escaped Miguel that his own special use might be as a hostage and a threat. They knew he was Natividad’s brother. He could imagine the ideas an arrogant politico with more brains than were good for him and no moral sense at all might come up with, to control Natividad. Not a good situation at all. Pretty much todo jodido, actually.

Natividad was smart, though. She would totally understand what she should do: pretend to be pretty and ignorant and stupid, so that Miguel would have free rein to make up whatever story would do them all the most good. If his sister kept quiet, and if Ezekiel just refused to cooperate out of sheer bloody-minded obstinacy, which seemed pretty likely—well. Then Miguel might have just enough maneuvering room to work this situation around to something that offered a few more options.

He didn’t want to think about the situation he and Natividad would be in if Ezekiel were dead. That situation would offer a lot fewer places to grab hold of.

It would be pretty bad for Dimilioc, too.

If Ezekiel was all right and Natividad played stupid, Miguel was pretty sure he could work these people, once they just got around to talking to him. He was pretty sure he could guess just what the senator must be like. The sort of guy who was sure he must be right because he was too smart to be wrong...that would be a handle Miguel could get hold of. A guy like that would be too busy burnishing his pet theories to actually notice when real people didn’t conform. Figure out what those pet theories were, and you could make that guy see anything you wanted by matching it up to what he thought he ought to see. Get him to see Natividad as a helpless little girl...maybe he wouldn’t figure out she could do more than pretty tricks.

How Miguel could actually get them all free, well, the details weren’t clear yet, but if he could only get those smooth goons talking to him, Miguel was sure he would think of something. Pretty sure.

On the other hand, if Colonel Herrod actually made it back, Miguel would be happy enough to let him do the heavy lifting. Sure, it’d be inconvenient to try to shake free of this place if the colonel wanted them to stay put. But basically Miguel would’ve been happy to face that problem. He’d have been way past happy and well into ecstatic to see the colonel step through the door right this minute. He wanted real bad to watch Herrod cut that damned politico and his flunkies off way below the knees.

But the colonel didn’t come back, not so far as Miguel could tell. Santibañez and a couple of the other Special Forces people were around, they brought food and coffee and bottled water, but they didn’t answer questions. They didn’t talk at all. Ordered not to, apparently. It was damn frustrating. Best case and he hoped not unlikely, maybe they were doing useful stuff to get the colonel back and ditch the senator, but just didn’t feel they needed to explain anything about it to Miguel.

Finally, at last, the door opened and there was Senator Connelly his own special self. Instantly recognizable just from his big-dog attitude, though he didn’t say a word. Talking to grungy kids was what flunkies were for, probably.

Miguel made a note to be careful not to underestimate the senator out of sheer dislike.

The flunkies—there were three of them—hovered like dogs waiting for their master to throw a stick for them to fetch. Santibañez was one of the Special Forces guys who came in with the senator’s people. He looked wooden and blank and Miguel was positive he wasn’t real happy with the situation. But he didn’t dare assume that meant the lieutenant would make a move to stop the senator doing whatever he wanted, though at least for the moment all he wanted seemed to be just to interrogate Miguel, which was great since at last Miguel had some hope of getting a hold on this situation.

Pity the senator wasn’t likely to make some helpfully revealing speech, the way bad guys did in movies. Now that I have you in my power, Mr. Bond, let me explain my evil plan...yeah, no, probably that kind of idiotic monologue was too much to hope for. Though he could try to get these people talking and just see what he could get out of them.

The senator was too important to say a word himself. He sat in a chair against the wall, one ankle resting on the opposite knee, his cold gaze on Miguel, and let a flunky rap out questions and demands for him.

“You work with these creatures, these black dogs,” snapped the flunky, whose name Miguel didn’t know. It wasn’t a question, it wasn’t even a statement. In his mouth, it was more an accusation.

The flunky was on his feet, across the narrow table from Miguel, leaning forward aggressively. At least, he probably thought he was radiating aggression. A real tough guy in his own mind. To someone who had grown up around black dogs, the poor guy’s efforts to be all scary were kind of sad.

The flunky was a young guy, maybe ten years older than Miguel. Weedy-looking, pale-skinned, the kind of desk jockey who’d probably never walked farther than from his desk to his boss’s office in his life. Small mouth, thin little mustache. Nice shirt, though. With a tie. Probably ties were a required component of the official flunky uniform. The tie was red, the shirt white, the rest of the suit black—probably the outfit was also supposed to work for the tough-guy look.

It was important to remember that the flunky might be smarter than he looked. It was important to remember that Senator Bad Guy was almost certainly smarter than would’ve been convenient.

“Well, yeah?” Miguel tried to imagine what politico types might think about Mexican kids—Mexico, torn by a hundred years of black dog territorial battles and with its government even more corrupted by vampires than Norteamérica, hardly had a real government at all. Things were getting better, but it’d be a job, building a real country out of what was left of Mexico. Miguel could pretty well guess that an American politician would assume any Mexican kid had to be an ignorant punk. He played to that assumption by aiming for the sweet spot somewhere between sarcastic and scared.

He was sitting where he’d been put, in an uncomfortable plastic chair on the other side of the table, lower than the Senator’s chair. Really, these people were so transparent it was almost funny. Not quite, though. One of his wrists was handcuffed to the narrow metal arm of the chair, as though they thought he was dangerous. Why they thought they needed the Special Forces guys in the room when Miguel was handcuffed to the chair, that was just one of life’s little mysteries. Unless they were using the Special Forces dudes to try to intimidate Miguel. Or maybe using Miguel to demonstrate to the Special Forces that Senator Bad Guy was in control. On reflection, Miguel wouldn’t have put that past Connelly. Important to keep in mind that the senator was probably pretty smart.

He said, kind of hastily like he was definitely intimidated, “I mean, monsters? Anybody would work with ’em and do just what they said. They would’ve torn out my guts.”  Leaning forward, he lowered his voice to a more confidential tone, like he was nervous of being overheard. “They do that, you know? To ordinary people. If you get in their way. You ever seen somebody with their guts torn out? They’d’ve done it to me first time I stepped on somebody’s toe except Natividad’s my sister and she wouldn’t like it. They don’t like to waste girls like her, you know?”

“Girls like her,” said the flunky, with a quick, not very subtle glance at Senator Connelly. “Tell us about girls like your sister.”

Miguel didn’t have to work hard to look intimidated and young. He did have to work at looking kind of dim. Scared and not too bright, a kid who wouldn’t have the nerve to lie even if he had the brains: that was the kind of impression Miguel wanted to give. He said in his most earnest tone, “It’s not like she can help it, you know? She’s just a girl, what’s she supposed to do? Listen, she’s okay, right? You’ve got the black dog in a separate cell, right? You’re keeping him away from her?”

“He really, really wants to see your sister,” the flunky told Miguel.

He said it like a threat—like he enjoyed making threats. Big man’s lackey, throwing borrowed weight around like it was his, even uglier than the senator doing it himself. But he’d just told Miguel that Ezekiel was alive, probably on his feet, and almost certainly in his right mind. Miguel ducked his head and tried not to look like he’d figured any of that out.

The flunky went on, “He really wants your sister with him. Why is that? What is she? A witch, isn’t she? What exactly can she do?”

Miguel blinked at him, pretending to be confused by this line of questioning. “She’s not exactly a witch. She’s Pura. Pure. You know about the Pure, right? I mean, people do.”  He was fairly certain these people must already know that term. He tried to sound earnest, but not too earnest. Like he wasn’t so scared now and wanted to be helpful, but not so helpful he’d make up mierda just to have something to say. “It’s not so much what she does. She can’t do much, a chica like her. It’s what she is. She can make one black dog do what another one says. That’s what makes a master black dog, you know. Black dogs are really hard to keep down. They fight all the time. They fight each other and they fight the master and they kill ordinary people like me, I mean all the time, there’s no stopping them.”

He’d got that just right. He could see it go home. Yeah, he bet these politico goons had worked enough with callejero black dogs to believe that one. Miguel was pretty sure Ezekiel wouldn’t do anything to change their minds about black dog obstinacy and violence, either. He went on in the same tone, “A master black dog uses a mujer Pura like my sister to make the others obey. Like a muzzle on a dog that bites, you know? That way the dog can’t bite you.”

Senator Connelly was leaning forward now. Miguel pretended not to notice. He blinked at the flunky and put a little bit of a whine into his voice, “She’s okay, right? Listen, she’s kind of a blandengue, my sister, but she’s been taught to be that way, you know how it is with a girl, she thinks she’s in love with him.”  He lowered his voice confidingly, meeting the flunky’s gaze, one guy to another. “They like girls to think they’re in love. That way a girl will do just what you ask her to do. You know how it is, right?”

“Sure, yeah, I know.”  The flunky, too, lowered his voice. “And what does Ezekiel Korte think of her, Miguel?”

Now Miguel leaned back, an abrupt little move, flipping a hand dismissively. “Oh, he’s just using her. You know. He thinks she’s something special, all right. Sure he does. Her and any other chica Pura. It’s all the same to him as long as a girl does what she’s told. He turns it on and off. She’s nothing to him really.”

He thought they might buy that much, buy it at least part way, enough that maybe the first thing they’d try when Ezekiel proved recalcitrant wouldn’t be threatening Natividad. He had to hope they hadn’t already tried that, or that if they had, they hadn’t seen anything that’d contradict Miguel’s line.

Santibañez had raised his eyebrows, but he didn’t say a word. Miguel pretended not to notice. He gazed earnestly at the flunky, like he’d forgotten Senator Connelly was the guy in charge, but a covert glance let him see intensity in the senator’s eyes, in the set of his mouth. Yeah. Miguel thought—he hoped—he might have set the right kind of hook. Maybe. Or at least gotten the first interested nibble.

The flunky straightened up and looked over his shoulder at the senator, got the curt wave of a hand, nodded, and said to Miguel, “So, Ezekiel Korte. Tell us about him. He’s not just an ordinary black dog, is he, Miguel?”

“Ezekiel Korte?” Miguel let the incredulity show in his voice. “I mean, you don’t know who he is?”  He leaned forward again conspiratorially. “He’s their assassin. He’s their executioner. The black dog boogie monster, that’s him. You gotta be careful with him. You are being careful, right?”

“Silver seems to work on him just like on any of them—” began the flunky.

“You’d think he’d be a little young to be anybody’s assassin,” Senator Connelly broke in.

His voice was deep and smooth, with an unexpected warmth to it. It was the voice of a preacher or a demagogue. Or a serious bad guy in a James Bond movie. Miguel blinked at him as though surprised to be reminded that the senator was even in the room. He tried to look kind of awed that the Great Man would speak directly to him, but wasn’t sure he pulled it off—he’d better keep it subtle anyway, pile it on too deep and Connelly might figure out Miguel was playing him. That wouldn’t be good.

So Miguel met the senator’s gaze, cold compared to the warmth of his voice. He let his own eyes widen just slightly, careful not to overdo it, subtle was better when your enemy was intelligent. He said quickly, “Yeah, he’s young, but he was born that way, I guess. Real strong black dog shadow. Real strong. The old Master of Dimilioc picked him right out of the kiddie pack and trained him personally, that’s what people say.”  Enough people that these bastards had probably already heard the story, and if they hadn’t, so what, they weren’t likely to figure out anything important about Ezekiel or Dimilioc just from that. He added, “Ezekiel’s a punk, and he treats my sister like mierda, but he’s the black dog’s assassin all right. Have you ever seen him fight? Cause I have. Usually he holds back a little bit cause he likes to play, you know, but he’s something else when he lets go, believe me.”

Lieutenant Santibañez still didn’t say a word, though the corner of his mouth twitched. The other Special Forces guy had figured out Miguel was laying down a line of bullshit, too, judging from his particularly stone-faced lack of expression. Miguel carefully didn’t look at either of the Special Forces dudes. He shoved himself back from the table, shrugging his shoulders and avoiding Connelly’s gaze, as though he feared he’d been too disrespectful and might be in trouble for it. Young, he reminded himself. Play young and ignorant, a punk kid who’d been raised by werewolves, hardly literate, probably eats with his fingers.

“Have you?” said the senator, a touch too thoughtfully for comfort. He got to his feet, jerked his head at the flunky—whose name Miguel still didn’t know—and walked out. The Special Forces guys pivoted and followed the politicos, Santibañez closing the door behind them. Not slamming it. Just a gentle little click, and a second click as the lock engaged. As though it mattered whether the door was locked, when Miguel was still handcuffed to the chair. Maybe that was on purpose: Soften up the stupid kid by making him sit for hours in a stupid plastic chair. Miguel could believe it of the senator. Not of Santibañez, so much.

He leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes, re-thinking that whole little conversation: who’d said what and in what tone, how he’d answered and the bait he’d tried to throw out there. He couldn’t decide whether Senator Connelly might have taken that bait—whether he might still. The flunky, call him Igor, was probably smarter than he looked, no matter how easy he’d been to lead. Or he’d seemed easy to lead; Miguel had to watch out he wasn’t being played himself. The senator...hard to guess.

Then, remembering the cameras in this room, Miguel opened his eyes again and fidgeted restlessly, drummed his fingers on the table, pulled at his shirt, tried to shove the chair back from the table like he’d forgotten it was bolted to the floor. He hoped somebody was watching him, because playing for the cameras was making it hard to think and it would be really annoying if the effort was totally wasted.

He’d have to play this mostly by ear. Push the senator and see what he did, push again and see where it led. He was shaking, his hands were actually shaking. He hadn’t been like that during the actual interview, but now he was, and he couldn’t seem to stop. How stupid. Nothing was happening now. He gripped his hands together hard, but that didn’t help the shakes. At least if somebody was watching, they’d definitely think he was a scared kid. So, fine.

Silver seems to work on him just like on any of them. Igor had said that. They’d got Ezekiel imprisoned behind silver, then. Well, of course they knew about silver and black dogs. Everyone knew that much. Miguel couldn’t have hoped for anybody to put Ezekiel behind plain steel. Anybody would’ve laced prison bars with silver. Or the lock on the door, or whatever.

But this senator and his people, he was pretty sure they hardly knew anything about the Pure. Unless they were playing Miguel, but on a second thought and a third, why bother? He was a kid and cuffed to a damn chair and it just didn’t seem likely they’d think of him as a serious opponent.

No, most likely they were just as ignorant as they seemed. Or almost. Or close enough. So probably they knew silver could restrain a black dog, but they didn’t know para maldita cosa about the Pure. Miguel turned that over in his mind, feeling the first glimmerings of a real idea trying to take shape.

Yeah. Not much yet. But it was a start.

-13-

One of the Special Forces men accompanied the Dimilioc black wolves. A liaison. That was not a word Alejandro had known, in either Spanish or English, until Colonel Herrod used it. Grayson gave the young man a hard, assessing stare, then nodded and jerked his head toward the van the Dimilioc wolves were taking. Alejandro thought the man was a hostage, offered by Herrod in balance or apology for taking Ezekiel and Natividad, or perhaps for some obscure human reason of his own. He had not truly realized how he depended on Miguel to interpret such gestures for him. Now, without his younger brother to explain what a liaison was and what Herrod meant by offering one to the master, he found he had very little idea what the human motivation might be for such a gesture.

It was Carter who explained what the term actually meant, impatiently, when Rip asked. Alejandro was surprised twice, first that Carter knew the word and then that Rip did not seem to mind showing his own ignorance. Maybe because he was obviously the weakest of the black dogs left and so it did not matter. Grayson and James, Carter and Rip, and Alejandro himself. And Carissa, so that was one they had gained. But that was all their wolves now. Jim Gotz, lost to the demon; Ian Olney, killed by his own shadow. Like something from a nightmare, each of them.

Théo Callot, useless because his wife had been injured. Alejandro could not actually hold him too much to blame for that. It was a different kind of nightmare. If it had been Natividad...Alejandro did not let himself imagine his own response if the demon had struck his sister rather than Stéphanie.

And Absolon Lumondière, taken by the witch. That might be worse than any of the others.

But, no. They would get Absolon back. They had recovered Carissa and Ezekiel...Alejandro assumed they had recovered Ezekiel. Or would. Or he would recover himself. Whatever had happened to him, Natividad would do something. She would make it work. And the rest of them would find Absolon and kill that witch.

They had better. That would at least mean no one needed to explain to Étienne Lumondière how they had lost three of his four wolves, including Étienne’s own young cousin, not to mention Stéphanie Callot, and none of their own people. Alejandro was not sure how Grayson could explain that to Étienne. Not without fighting him. Which he would not want to do, probably.

It was likely going to be a problem. Especially if Stéphanie Callot did not recover. Or if Théo Callot decided that his wife’s condition was Grayson’s fault and attacked the Master. Then Grayson would probably kill him, and after that Étienne would probably fight Grayson...it would be much better if Stéphanie recovered. Better still if Ezekiel was with Grayson when they finally returned to Denver. Perhaps he would be. Perhaps Grayson would insist on it. If Alejandro were Master, he would insist on it.

But at the moment, no one was here for this second pursuit of their enemies except those from the main sept. That might have been why Rip was willing to ask. Or maybe because of them all, he was now the least strong and so did not have to care whether anyone saw his ignorancia.

Or else because Rip had belonged to Carter’s own small pack once and was used to turning to him for explanations. Carter had also been the one to tear up los grupos electrógenos. Alejandro thought maybe he should have realized before that Carter was intelligent as well as ambitious and dangerous. It made more sense now that Grayson did not want to kill him.

Rip’s question was useful. It meant they all learned the word liaison was French. Apparently a liaison was not exactly the same as a hostage. One was not supposed to kill a liaison. That was the most important difference, in Alejandro’s opinion. If the Master had offered any assurances, Alejandro had not noticed. He wondered if Grayson agreed about that rule. If Colonel Herrod did not return the Dimilioc people he had taken, Alejandro was certain the Master would forget about the difference between a liaison and a hostage. Surely Herrod knew that too. Herrod’s motivation was still obscure, even after Alejandro understood this. Human motivations often seemed strange to a black dog. Alejandro had always depended on Miguel to interpret the things human people did.

If anything happened to Natividad or to Miguel, he would tear out this liaison’s heart himself, even if the man was not supposed to be a hostage.

The liaison’s name was Josiah. Josiah Brown. He was a little darker-skinned than Carter, with a broad face. Wide-set eyes, a wide nose, a wide mouth...wide all over. Bajo y fornido. Broad shoulders, powerful hands. As strongly built as the Master. Maybe more.

Not that it mattered. Any black dog could take a human man apart in a heartbeat. The Special Forces man must know it. But he did not appear to truly believe it, because he was not afraid. A little bit nervous but not actually afraid, so far as Alejandro could tell. His heart rate was a little fast, but not so much as might be expected for a man pulled aside from his trusted companions and set alone in the hands of...not quite enemies. But allies who might soon enough become enemies.

He must know Grayson would kill him if things went seriously wrong between his colonel and the Master of Dimilioc.

Maybe he did not know. Maybe that was why he stayed so calm.

He sat on one of the long benches in the back of the van, not too near any black dog. Grayson was the nearest, setting himself between the human man and the less-certain tempers of Carter and Rip. Or perhaps he stayed nearest the liaison in case he suddenly decided to kill him after all. But the Master was not going out of his way to frighten Josiah. He had even asked his name, which was how Alejandro had learned it.

Grayson was not driving, which was unusual, but he had told James to drive. The Master himself was in the back with the rest of them, opposite the Special Forces man. No one had the temerity to crowd the Master, so then there was a wide space. Alejandro himself had taken the end of Grayson’s bench, near the rear doors of the van. He had been pleased when Carissa, perhaps distrusting him a little less than she distrusted the rest, had warily settled between him and Grayson.

Carter and Rip had the opposite bench. They did not sit very close to each other, but neither so much as looked at the Special Forces liaison. Nor at Carissa. That was wise. Grayson would probably be offended if either of them killed the human man—and Carissa certainly did not seem inclined to let any offense pass.

Alejandro liked her. He didn’t mind her knowing it. He knew she was agresiva and espabilada—quick-witted—and encarnizada. Fierce-natured. Sí. When she was in better condition, he was sure she would be a match for any black dog near her own age. He looked forward to fighting her. He was sure he would win. But not too sure. The slight uncertainty was exciting.

That was for later. Right now he wished he knew where they were going and how long it would take to get there and whether they would find themselves a match for their enemies when they finally arrived. They were driving north, back toward Denver. Not directly. They had gone through a town called Alamosa and then one called Villa Grove and now mountains lay to both sides of the highway, which was little and sometimes wound about more than was convenient. If they kept on this route, they would wind up deep in the mountains west of Denver.

The liaison was good for that much: he could tell them where they were and where they seemed to be going. They would have known already that they were heading mostly north, but the Special Forces man could tell them that Raichlen’s team had tracked their quarry into the mountains. Without Raichlen’s team running before them, they would have no way to track their enemies, except slowly, going by scent and a general impression that these witches liked deserted lands near towns. They would have had to make Colonel Herrod bring Natividad back so she could track their enemies or track Absolon, and that would surely have taken longer.

Tracking the witches more closely, that was probably worth allying with Herrod and his people.

Especially because if Natividad were here, she would be in much more danger. Alejandro wanted his sister near him, where he could protect her himself. But when he made himself think, he still came to the conclusion that against these barely-known enemies, she must be better off far away and under the protection of the Special Forces.

Also, when Ezekiel recovered...if, but Alejandro preferred to think when...he could protect Natividad. Against anything except perhaps these black witches. So, yes, perhaps it was better she was not with Alejandro now. Even though he could tell she was getting farther away with every mile either of them traveled.

She was not afraid. Or a little. But tired and worried more than afraid. Alejandro knew she would be much more upset if Miguel were not with her, if Ezekiel had been taken away somewhere. So he knew they must both remain close to Natividad. That was reassuring as well.

He wished she were here.

Perhaps they would find these witches, this Kristoff and his companions, and the Master would consider the situation and demand Natividad be sent for.

Alejandro glanced sidelong at Carissa. She was eating a sandwich the liaison Josiah Brown had found for her. There was a cooler built into the van, beneath one of the benches. So that was one use the human man had: to point out such things. Otherwise they would have had to stop somewhere, to take or buy food. No one else was desperate, but obviously those black witches had half-starved the black dogs they had enslaved.

He said, “This man. This witch, Kristoff. He is the master of those witches? They are all witches, or some are...servants, maybe?”

Carissa ripped off a large bite of her sandwich with strong teeth, swallowed it almost whole, and lifted one shoulder in a pose of indifference. “Gregor Kristoff. He’s one of the masters. Maybe the only one now that Alistair is dead.” She couldn’t pretend indifference there: her voice went hard on that name. “Alistair was the one who...owned us. Enrique and me. Kristoff hated him, and envied him, I’m pretty sure. I’m not sure witches ever have friends, only rivals and enemies, and I think they were both. Kristoff knows more about witchcraft, I think, but Alistair had us. Kristoff went off somewhere, I don’t know where or what he was trying to do, but whatever it was went wrong. He took a disciple with him, but I think he got him killed, or maybe killed him himself, I don’t know, but he came back alone and furious and had a big fight with Alistair.”

Grayson nodded slightly. “I think we might know what happened with this Kristoff. I think he encountered some of my wolves. And one of my Pure, and a priest. I am not surprised he was angry when he returned.”

Carissa’s expression had tightened. “They’re lucky. Your people were lucky. Or tougher than we were. Enrique and me. Or maybe Kristoff isn’t as big a hotshot witch as I thought. Whatever happened, he didn’t get what he wanted and he came back mad. Enrique said maybe he and Alistair would kill each other, but I said we couldn’t be so lucky.” She balled up the sandwich wrapper and threw it neatly back into the cooler. “I was right.”

“How did he snare the famous Ezekiel Korte?” Carter asked, his voice faintly mocking.

Carissa shrugged. “I think Ezekiel might have been tracking me. Or Enrique. But probably me. He might have recognized me. As a Hammond, I mean, probably not by name.”

“He knew you had survived the war, and he knew you were missing,” Grayson told her.

A sharp nod. “From Nicholas. Right. You said. Good. That’s good Nick got away and got to you. That’s good. I didn’t think the vampire got him, but he wouldn’t be okay on his own. He’s all right, isn’t he?” She nodded again at Grayson’s reassurance, took a breath, let it out, and went on. “So, yeah, then probably your Ezekiel recognized me. He tracked me...by feel, probably, or smell. I don’t think I would have missed him otherwise. I don’t know. He’s Dimilioc’s executioner, isn’t he, that hasn’t changed? Yeah, I bet he tracked me. Just like he’d track a stray, except he probably knew I was a Hammond. Only it was unlucky for him he spotted me, because Kristoff got him. He had things set up all ready to snag a black dog, I guess. So then he turned right around and used him to get past us. Your Ezekiel, he can really fight, can’t he?” Her tone was grudgingly admiring. “Kristoff didn’t order him to kill us, so he didn’t. He could have. Tore me up pretty good, but he never went for a killing blow. Didn’t kill Enrique either, and he definitely could have. Enrique never had real training.” Her voice tightened again. “Probably would have been better for him to die right then than live to get demon-struck.”

“We will avenge him,” Alejandro promised her.

Her eyebrows lifting in open skepticism, Carissa went on with her story without replying to this. “So Kristoff used Ezekiel to get Alistair. Fine so far, I thought maybe Enrique and I could get away but he grabbed us fast. Then...well, you saw. He used Alistair to summon that big demon. I think he had that planned, too, cause that’s not the kind of demon you summon on, like, a whim. Don’t know what he had in mind for it, cause then you all showed up right in the middle and messed everything up.” Her chin tipped up on that last, her eyes glinting golden for a second in mingled pleasure and hatred.

“Not quite sufficiently,” Grayson said, half in a growl. “Well, this Kristoff will not live long now. I would prefer to pull him down without further casualties, however. How powerful is he? What will he do?”

“Well, I know he says he’s the biggest, baddest witch around. He’s a braggart and a liar, but it could actually be true. He’s quick, he’s always prepared; and he’s damn sure he can handle anything. Alistair hated him, but he was scared of him too. Or I bet he would have used me and Enrique to kill him ages ago. I wish he had. I bet we could have done it. If Alistair didn’t—hadn’t—he always wanted to micromanage every little thing.” Her teeth bared. “Really into controlling every little thing, that bastard.”

Grayson tapped his fingertips on the edge of the bench. “This black witchcraft, it seems very different from Pure magic. I would prefer to know what limits these black witches. There are always limitations. Weaknesses. No creature is untouchable.”

Carissa answered promptly. “The power of the demon the witch summons. That’s a limitation. Lots of them are pretty weak. The one back there was a strong one.” She threw a scornful glance toward Herrod’s human liaison. “They’ll be sorry they let it get away, I bet. Yeah, the power of the demon, and whether the witch has really mastered it or just kind of halfway has a grip. I don’t know what else. Just how much a witch knows, I guess, or can figure out. Alistair did know a lot of stuff. He had books. He studied practically his whole life, even though he never had a chance to practice until we killed all the vampires. They used to kill witches whenever they could, you know. A guy like Alistair, I guess he was always a witch, but he had to keep a damn low profile.”

“And then we killed the vampires. Most recently, the master vampire not far from here.”

Carissa nodded. “I guess the miasma might have affected some of them. I mean some of the witches. Not Alistair, at least not completely. Probably not Kristoff either. Then the miasma lifted, and then a little while after that there weren’t any more vampires at all. Or hardly any. I figure the real witches, the ones who’d been reading grimoires and collecting finger bones, they’d been practically panting at the starting gate, just dying to find a bunch of stupid kids to be their acolytes, murder someone, draw a blood circle, and summon their very first demon.”

“I see,” said the Master. “I gather, then, that at the time we destroyed the master vampire, last spring, you were already...in position to observe Alistair Burton.”

“Observe him. Yeah. He was all set to get a leash on a couple black dogs, I guess.” Carissa’s voice had gone tight and hostile again. She had taken a second sandwich, but she had mostly been talking rather than eating. Now she gave the rest of the sandwich a look like she couldn’t imagine why she was holding it and began to wrap it up in the remnants of plastic.

The Master moved a hand, catching her attention. “No. Finish it.”

Carissa stared at him for a second. Then she unwrapped the sandwich again, slowly.

“The witch didn’t feed you?” Alejandro asked her.

“He...didn’t always remember to make us eat.”

And without orders to eat, she, at least, had chosen to starve. Yes. Ezekiel, too, had been thin when he’d been forced into human form. Obviously he, too, had refused to eat...or maybe this Gregor Kristoff had not been able to make so strong and furious a black dog eat.

No. That was a childish wish. Obviously Kristoff had been able to make Ezekiel do anything he wished. Until his control had finally been broken. And even then, Ezekiel had not been restored to himself.

Carissa Hammond had obviously recovered herself. She had been held much longer than Ezekiel, so surely that was a sign of hope for him. And Natividad was with Ezekiel. That should be good.

“I will need, eventually, to know exactly what he did make you do,” the Master warned Carissa. At her silent, subtle, flinch, he amended this. “Perhaps not everything. But I will need to know what use this man—these witches—makes of captive black dogs.”

“He uses us against his enemies,” Carissa told him bitterly. “He uses us to terrify his disciples. I’d say he uses us to impress his friends, except like I said, I don’t think he has friends: only followers and rivals. But he sure liked to use us to impress them.” Her eyes, golden and angry, rose to meet the Master’s calm stare. “You want to know exactly what he did to us, what he made us do? Fucking use your imagination.”

Alejandro stood up. The van’s roof was high, but not high enough to let him entirely straighten. But his movement was more than enough to draw everyone’s attention. Even Carissa’s. Only the Master did not appear to notice. He had turned his shoulder to them all, leaning forward instead to speak to James through the little panel between the front of the van and the rear compartment.

Carissa’s shadow started to rise. Alejandro forced it down. All the way down, flat, so even her eyes were human. First narrow with rage; then widening as she realized she was helpless. She did not cower, even then. But she dropped her gaze and stayed very still.

Alejandro set a hand on her shoulder, close by her neck. She had a long, graceful neck. Too thin; her clavículas too prominent. She was not especially small-built, but he could still span her whole throat with one hand. It would be very easy to tear her throat out. He let her feel that.

She did not move. Her heart rate had increased, but she took slow, careful breaths and did not move at all.

“The Master has been patient,” Alejandro told her. He spoke quietly. The van was too confined; it was impossible to speak privately. Maybe the human man would not be able to make out exactly what Alejandro said. The others, they would all hear. He chose his words carefully. He did not want to shame Carissa Hammond. He wanted her to live through the day and many days to come.

He continued, “The Master is trying not to notice your insolencia. Your lack of respect, yes? Grayson is the most patient of Masters, but he cannot disregard everything. You have been apart from Dimilioc a long time. But you are a fool to forget what he is. A fool to throw away what you should be. When you speak so, anyone would take you for a stray’s child. Do you wish to eat the hearts of your enemies? Do you wish to have vengeance for yourself and your friend? Then you must show the Master that you are not a fool or a child or a carga.” He did not know the English word for liability, so he amended that last. “You must show him you are not more a danger to yourself and to Dimilioc than to our enemies.”

He let her go, slowly, first physically and then her shadow as well, easing warily back in case she tried to shift and attack. If he judged accurately, this girl was probably as strong as he was. Probably she was not used to any black dog close to her age making such a show of dominance. But he was right. She had been raised within Dimilioc. She must know he was right and she had been acting like a fool.

Now that she had her shadow back, her eyes had gone bright gold. Her hands distorted subtly, broadening and shortening as jet-black claws slid from her fingertips. She watched Alejandro steadily, her eyes on his face...

...and then she lowered her gaze, deliberately. The claws disappeared, and her fingers lengthened as her hands became fully human once more. Looking up again, she said, “When our enemies are dead, I’ll fight you. And I’ll win. As long as you don’t cheat.”

She might win. She was certain to have been well trained. And she was determined. Alejandro grinned at her, fiercely. He very much wanted to fight her. He had been well trained also. He was sure he would win, no matter Carissa’s strength and determination. Almost sure.

“I believe,” Grayson said calmly, turning back to them all as though he had noticed nothing of the exchange, “that our quarry may have gone to ground. The advance group believes so. They are wisely waiting for us before pressing the attack. We may have as much as forty minutes before we arrive. Carissa, if you could explain for us as much as you know about what we will be facing. A witch can enslave black dogs, but not invariably, not all of us at once; we have established that. He took Absolon, no one else. If he prepared for more, could he take more at one time? He can summon a demon, which may pry a black dog’s shadow away from his human soul—that, too, has unfortunately been established. What else? Concisely, if you please.”

Carissa met the Master’s eyes...but briefly. Looking aside, she nodded. She took a moment to gather her thoughts. Everyone watched her, the black dogs sidelong and through their lashes because no one knew her well enough to look at her directly without her taking it as a threat or a challenge. The Special Forces man looked at her face in the human manner, which everyone of Dimilioc had learned to tolerate. Carissa did not appear to notice the man, very much as Grayson Lanning had appeared not to notice her own disrespect. She had been well trained, and now she seemed to have recovered enough control to show it.

Eventually, glancing up, she said, “Witchcraft used to be very common. Alistair said. I don’t know if that’s true. I wouldn’t believe anything out of his mouth: he used to lie all the time. And brag all the time. Mostly about petty stuff. Lots of the things he described were stupid. Making a tree fall on someone’s car because she cut him off in traffic. Or making someone’s house burn down because his dog messed in his yard. I mean, why would you even bother? Stupid to risk summoning a demon when you could just stick a nail in someone’s tire or splash kerosene around his house or whatever. But that’s how witches get power. Summoning demons, I mean. That’s the only way they get power. They aren’t like the Pure. If they want to do something, they have to summon a demon. That’s what witchcraft is all about. Summoning demons and then making them do what you want. A witch calls a demon into a circle. Then he invites the demon into himself, into his own soul. Or he gets a disciple to let him use him to host the demon. Or her. A couple of Alistair’s disciples were girls. Kristoff prefers boys, I think. At least, he didn’t seem to have any girls for disciples. Either way, there’s danger there if the disciple is ambitious and turns out to know more than you thought. They all hate their masters. Or I think they do. I would if I were them.”

“Inviting a demon into your soul. It is a little like making yourself into a black dog,” Alejandro observed.

“It’s a lot like making yourself into a black dog. And it can be seriously dangerous. That’s exactly how black dogs got created in the first place. Alistair said,” she added quickly, as the Master raised a skeptical eyebrow. “He liked to brag, I said. He liked to be important. That’d make witches pretty seriously important, if they made themselves into black dogs, even if they did it by accident. The girl I saw try it would have made a terrible black dog. Sniveling little cowardly thing. She didn’t have any control at all once the demon was in her. More like a moon-bound shifter than a black dog.”

“What happened to her?” Alejandro was both disgusted and interested in this whole idea. He had never for a moment wondered where black dogs might have originally come from, how they might have first been created. Maybe it wasn’t true. Carissa did say this witch would lie to make himself seem more important. But it sounded like it might be true, if this weak human girl had made herself into a shifter, even just one of the moon-bound.

“Alistair got it out of her. It was just a little demon. A black dog would have eaten her for lunch. She wasn’t like—” Carissa gestured up and down, meaning the kind of huge, shaggy, fire-ridden creature they themselves turned into. “She was smaller, weaker. Like I said, more like a shifter, only maybe not moon-bound, I don’t know.” Her lip curled. “You know why the stupid little thing made herself into a shifter? She wanted to change into an animal to scare her boyfriend after he dumped her for another girl. She said she’d make him sorry.” She smiled, a tight savage smile of contempt, as the Master raised an eyebrow. “Yeah. I told you, they’re petty. Selfish, small...I think she killed her boyfriend, but she didn’t say so. I think Alistair goaded her into it on purpose so he’d have something to hold over her. Then he got the demon out of her so he’d have a sniveling little coward to follow him around and beg him to teach her how to do it for herself. That’s how he is. Was. He liked awed disciples who followed him like puppies, not anybody who might be a rival.”

“Disciples,” said Grayson, his heavy voice thoughtful. “Is that the term he used himself?”

Carissa nodded. “Yes, one of the words. Disciples, acolytes, students...maybe there’s some reason it’s easier to teach young people, but I think a master witch just likes to be admired and doesn’t want anybody who might challenge him. The master teaches them...but not everything.” She paused, shrugging. “He used us to keep them afraid.”

“You and Enrique Rubio?” asked Carter, but in a surprisingly quiet and undemanding manner so that Carissa would not take the question as an attempt to wound. Alejandro was surprised again. He had not thought the other black dog capable of such subtlety.

Carissa glanced at Carter and nodded again. “He was so proud of us. Or maybe he was proud of getting black dogs of his very own before Kristoff did. He showed us off. And then Kristoff got Ezekiel Korte, so you can see how well that worked out.”

“Korte is supposed to be so strong,” murmured Carter. “But Kristoff had no trouble taking him, did he?” He was careful not to glance at Grayson.

Carissa shrugged. “I think they can do it to any black dog. But I think black dogs that have undergone the Calming are especially vulnerable.”

Grayson said thoughtfully, “I believe Natividad should be able to find a way to ameliorate that particular weakness. We shall certainly see that she, and our other Pure, make the attempt.” With a flicker of attention toward the liaison, who had been listening silently to all this.

Josiah Brown nodded soberly and agreed, “Yes, sir, just as soon as we’re done here.”

Carissa paused for a second in case either of them wanted to say something else. Then she shrugged again. “Maybe. I don’t know. Black witches can kind of muffle the Pure, cripple them, steal power from them.  But they can’t enspell them or control them, and I don’t think they can even curse them, not the way they curse other people. Which makes sense, you know, because the Pure are immune to everything demonic. I mean, that’s kind of the definition, right? But maybe the other way around works too. Maybe black magic is immune to Pure magic. I never heard Alistair say anything about, like, being worried about the Pure. I don’t know if the Pure can break a witch’s grip on a black dog. I never...I never saw anyone have a chance to try.”

“A priest can break a black witch’s spell on someone,” Grayson said thoughtfully. “Priests aren’t magic and don’t appear to be muffled like the Pure. We may be able to use that.”

Carissa shrugged. “Maybe. They kill priests, too. But they don’t use their bones in rituals.”

Grayson asked, his tone matter of fact, “Did your Alistair Burton use black dogs in his rituals?”

The girl flinched. “Not exactly. He caught another black dog after Enrique and me. A young untrained cur stray, useless to anyone. He didn’t use him in a ritual. But he fed him to his demon. He did that to keep everyone afraid, too.” She was silent for a moment before she added, “It worked.”

“He summoned the demon how long ago?”

“The big one? I think Kristoff did that because he figured you would be coming, Master.” She shrugged at Grayson’s expression. “He knew he’d caught someone important when he snagged Ezekiel. He knows about Dimilioc.” A pause. Then, “Ezekiel told him.”

Grayson merely nodded, but under his hand, the edge of the metal bench crumpled.

“Kristoff has ambitions. That’s what I think. We got rid of the vampires, but the war left us weaker than we’ve ever been and he knows that. He says men like him created the first black dogs and the first vampires. I think, now the vampires are gone, he wants to rule black dogs and be first again.”

The Master growled, “He did not rid the world of vampires.”

“But he’s the one who’s going to benefit from their destruction. Especially now he’s killed Alistair. Those disciples, they’re nothing. The real witches offer them power, but only teach them a little. But they must be useful for something or why would Kristoff have cared when he lost that one recently? This loser who called himself Crowley. No loss there, believe me.”

Her lip curled again. Alejandro was pleased this so-unpleasant disciple was dead.

Carissa hadn’t paused. She said, “Kristoff came back spitting mad. Then almost immediately he caught Ezekiel. That cheered him right up, you bet. I figure he knew from the first second exactly what he wanted to use him for. Get rid of Alistair, take everything for himself. All the grimoires, all the disciples...Enrique and me. Everything. I figure that was the plan.”

Everyone was listening to Carissa’s bitter words. The black dogs were mostly not looking directly at her, though Grayson was. He was frowning. Not at her, probably. She was being respectful enough now. At something in his own thoughts. There seemed many possible things that would make him scowl.

Grayson leaned back against the wall of the van. “Finish that sandwich. Have another. Everyone should eat something now. Lieutenant Brown.”

The human man jerked slightly as the Master spoke his name. Alejandro had nearly forgotten about him, or at least had come to disregard him. Everyone had been paying close attention to Carissa and hardly any to him. Now the combined weight of their attention fell on him. No wonder he flinched. But he said, politely for a human, “Sir?”

“What do your people know about these black witches? Alistair Burton. Gregor Kristoff. Do you know those names?”

The man shook his head. “You can bet I’ll be passing them along to our intel crew, but I’ve never heard either. This black witchcraft stuff, this is new to us. At least, it’s new to me. I couldn’t answer one way or the other for the Colonel.” He paused, then took advantage of the opportunity to ask, “Your Pure, do you consider them, like, white witches?”

Grayson said with finality, “The Pure have nothing in common with the black witches Carissa describes. Nothing.”

This did not seem exactly true to Alejandro. Murdering people and drawing a circle with their blood, that was something Natividad would find revolting. Any of the Pure would recoil. But they did draw circles, and other shapes. Sometimes they used their own blood. The circles black witches drew might be some kind of perversion of Pure magic. If Natividad were only here, they could ask her.

Carissa clearly didn’t think there was anything to ask about. “Witches use the bones of the Pure,” she said, biting off each word. She stared directly at the Special Forces liaison.

Josiah Brown did not recognize this as a threat or he would not have looked back so steadily. Alejandro tried to think of some way to break the moment, but he didn’t have to, because Carter asked smoothly, “Finger bones?”

Carissa’s gaze slide sideways to him and away again. Her shoulders, drawn up and tense, relaxed a little. “Yeah, finger bones. Other bones, too. Not just from the Pure. Not even just human bones. Alistair used to use the bones of children and dogs to do some kinds of magic.”

“Murdered children?” Grayson asked grimly.

“I don’t think necessarily. They rob graves, I know that. They collect graveyard dust—they call it dust.” She tossed her head, contemptuous. “It’s just dirt. But they like the dirt that was actually lying right on the coffin, and I know once they dig down that deep, sometimes they open coffins and steal...parts. But I think the bones of the Pure are used for...special kinds of magic.”

Special kinds of magic she did not want to describe in front of the Special Forces man, Alejandro guessed. Or maybe she did not want to explain more clearly to black dogs she did not know. Or maybe she just did not know as much about the witches’ magic as she pretended.

But he thought otherwise. He thought Carissa Hammond knew far more about black magic than any decent person ought to. Far more than any decent person would want to.

He was right, too. She glanced around uneasily at everyone and then settled on looking steadily at her hands. “They pour magic into finger bones. Black magic. There’s a ritual...maybe more than one. Witches’ magic is all about ritual. They use rituals to get a demon to do what they want, to shape the magic they get from a demon, to keep themselves safe from the demons they summon.”

“Ah. Yes. That is a weakness,” observed Grayson, his deep voice soft. “Disrupt or prevent these rituals and presumably the witch will be rendered vulnerable to the demon he has summoned.”

“Yeah, along with everybody else for, like, miles around,” Carissa shot back. “Letting demons loose might not be the best way to deal with witches.” The corners of her mouth crooked upward, though. “Might be worth it though, if you get to watch the demon eat the witch.”

“This is what you mean by demon-struck,” said Grayson. “Can you explain this term a little more fully? You have explained what happens to a demon-struck black dog. What happens to a human?”

Carissa shrugged, pretending an insouciance Alejandro was sure she did not really feel. “Mostly they die. Usually not right at once. The soul is gone, so they...just stop living. Same with disciples I think. I think disciples are ordinary humans. Alistair talked about recruiting—he always sounded like he could recruit anybody he wanted, like anybody could become a witch.” She spread her hands, the fingers just a little shorter than human fingers would have been, the hands just a little distorted. But all she said was, “He lied a lot. Maybe he was lying about that, too.” She paused and then went on, “This Stéphanie, she’s Pure, right? I don’t know what will happen to her. I don’t think a witch would ever let a demon strike one of the Pure. They’d say it was a waste. You’d think a Pure woman would be immune to being demon-struck. But obviously it hurt her. I don’t know.”

“And a demon-struck black dog is reduced to a moon-bound shifter,” murmured Grayson. “Or worse? You said they do not recover themselves when the moon wanes?”

Carissa met his eyes for a moment before she looked away. She said steadily, “The human part dies, I think. The human soul. The shadow is still there, so the—the body lives. They can’t change form until the moon pulls their shadows up, and then their shadows are ascendant. But, yeah, they aren’t like moon-bound shifters because they don’t change back as the moon wanes.”

This sounded even worse than Alejandro had expected. He didn’t say anything. He wasn’t sure he wanted to think about this at all.

Now they meant to face this powerful black witch and very likely another demon. Or the same one, perhaps, which had already proven strong and unpredictable and difficult to handle. And they would face witch and demon without Natividad’s protective magic, only what she had already made. Well, her little shadow-threaded beads were clever, and useful. But still. He felt certain they would need something else. And she would not be there to make anything. Impatient though he was to tear Dimilioc’s enemies to pieces, Alejandro nearly suggested reconsidering this plan of close pursuit.

From the front of the van, a light rap caught everyone’s attention. James said in a tense, wary tone, “Heads up, people. I think we’re going to get wherever we’re going pretty damn soon.”

-14-

Five minutes later, as the van came over one last ridge and around the curve of one of the endless bends in the rutted road, they all had a chance to see the place their enemies had gone to earth. They were in the Arapaho National Forest west of Denver, not too far west. Near a place called Copper Mountain, the Special Forces man said. This was not a town, but something called a ski resort. Alejandro had not heard the term before. He gathered it meant the place was small, with few people, more like a village than a town. That was probably good. Fewer human people meant fewer people to get in the way. Though they had not actually gone to this Copper Mountain, but only near it, off on a rutted, gravelly road that threw the van about roughly and sometimes felt very steep.

The rear part of the van did not have normal windows, but it had high, narrow viewing ports along both sides. The glass in those was shaded, gray, half opaque. It must be impossible to see into the van through them; it was difficult enough to see out. But after a moment the idling motor cut off, and a moment after that Grayson gestured impatiently for Alejandro, near the rear of the van, to open the doors.

Alejandro was on his feet immediately, flinging the door wide, jumping out and down with swift, decisive aggression in case enemies might be waiting. But there was no one. And nothing. He moved a few steps farther from the van, scanning the landscape with slow disquiet as everyone else emerged into the high desert sunlight.

It had snowed here: a few inches of clean white snow lay over everything. This was marked by a few different sets of tire tracks besides their own, so it was very plain where their enemies had gone, and that the Special Forces people, following, had come here before them.

Here was no deserted clutter of ugly, boxy buildings surrounded by gritty leveled parking areas. It was just as ugly, though, and somehow a lot more disturbing. The surrounding mountains were fine: lots of wild country, good for hunting deer or wild pigs. Or enemies. But the land just here was...torn. Broken.

Alejandro neither knew nor cared what kind of mining or industry had left these great gouges cut back into the steep, exposed hillside. The whole region looked a little like a quarry and a little like it had been strip mined and a lot like it had been ruined for living things. Here in this high country, forests rolled out where there was enough water, pines clung to the poor soils above the forests, and despite the season, even the poorest land in this country possessed tough wiry grasses and scrubby trees. But there was nothing here in this place. Only rocky land roughly leveled and the torn mountainside, as though great claws had ripped through the stone.

The whole area had been closed off behind a high chain-link fence. The fence hardly seemed necessary. He couldn’t imagine anyone actually wanting to go farther. No black dog would have trusted the land on the other side of the fence even without the a warning signs posted along its length. He did not necessarily believe the signs. Nuclear waste, one said. Radiation danger, said another. Perhaps such things might be found beyond that fence, but Alejandro suspected not. He thought it unlikely that those sorts of dangers would be merely fenced and abandoned.

The fence turned into a sturdy-looking gate right across the road. The gate had once been chained shut. Now the ends of the chain dangled, cut through, and the gate stood open. Alejandro didn’t trust the apparent vulnerability. He looked with misgiving through the fence and up at the barren, scraped-clean mountainside.

No buildings were in sight. Maybe they were back farther, or hidden inside the gouged-out regions. The road itself ran straight back into one deeply shadowed crevice. Despite the absence of obvious buildings, the air was tainted faintly by the scent of smoke. Not woodsmoke. Or not woodsmoke alone. This was something else, or something more. Burning plastic, maybe. Or burning paint.

The liaison, Josiah Brown, had swung himself down from the van with the rest of them and now raised a hand to his earbud and looked at Grayson, a request for attention. He said, sounding faintly apologetic, “The colonel suggests you all come in on foot from here.”

The Master tilted his head consideringly. “And his van? And Ms. Raichlen’s?”

“We’ll pass them a bit farther on, sir, I think, and find everyone waiting for us.

Josiah Brown was only partly right. They found the vans, but deserted. Both vans, the first parked neatly only a little way farther along the...it wasn’t truly a road any longer. The flattish cut they followed. It was hardly out of sight from the gate. The liaison didn’t spare it a glance. “Raichlen’s team,” he told them in a low voice. “The colonel’s waiting up ahead.” He spoke in a low voice, for a human. Probably he did not realize how acute black dog hearing was.

The second van, its engine pinging as it gradually cooled in the chill air, was parked farther up, where a rocky slope ran up toward the jagged, broken cliffs of blasted stone and scree. This was where Herrod and his people were waiting. Not the woman or her team. Just Colonel Herrod and his eight remaining men.

“Your Ms. Raichlen went on without us,” Grayson said with heavy disgust.

“It seems so,” Herrod admitted. He had come forward a few steps to meet them, waving his people back impatiently when a couple of them moved to cover him. The colonel did not have a weapon drawn. “We have lost contact with her team, unfortunately. I think we had better take time for reconnaissance. Perhaps one of your people might be particularly well-suited for—”

“They didn’t go,” Carissa broke in, studying the ground ahead of them. “A demon got them.” She glanced up at Herrod’s sudden stillness. “Or it might not have gotten them. Maybe it just drove them ahead so they couldn’t wait. Look there, see those burn marks? You get marks like that where a demon strikes with its...claws, or spines, or whips. Or whatever. That place over there, it looks to me like somebody shot at those rocks. See how light-colored the stone is where those pieces broke and fell? I think somebody was shooting, only you can’t shoot demons. They’re not...they’re too...”

“Insustancial,” said Alejandro, thinking of the greasy-looking smoky form of the demon.

Carissa didn’t glance at him. “Incorporeal,” she said.

It was not a word Alejandro knew. But then he did not know insustancial in English. He guessed they probably meant the same kind of thing. A creature, an ente, that was not physical enough to wound with ordinary physical means.

Herrod said grimly, “Silver bullets work on everything supernatural.” This was not quite a question. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe Carissa, Alejandro thought. More as though he didn’t want to think she might be right.

“Yeah, demons, not so much. Bullets, even silver ones, go right through a demon, in and out before they have time to do much damage. Didn’t you notice with the other one?” Carissa spoke absently, frowning as she studied the way ahead.

“Yeah, I think she’s right, sir,” muttered one of the men. “I shot at the other one and that’s just what happened. Thought I must’ve missed, but yeah, I bet it was just like she says.”

The colonel didn’t answer, but he gave a small nod. It seemed he hadn’t realized until this moment that silver bullets might not work on demons. Alejandro hadn’t noticed this either. Yes, now he vaguely remembered some of the Special Forces people shooting at it. Everything had been fast-moving and hard to track, but he was not human. He had no good excuse for not realizing bullets didn’t work on demons. He was, he realized, too used to depending on Miguel to notice things for him. After the brief, peculiar battle with the witches and the demon, his brother would have found a chance to slip important information to Alejandro and the rest of them in some subtle way, as though just happening to mention something everyone had naturally observed already.

He missed Miguel more and more. Maybe he should have insisted the Master demand Herrod return them. And Ezekiel.

Though then Ezekiel would either be here, with his uncertain temper and sanity, or back there with Théo Callot, whom Alejandro certainly would not trust to care for him. No, still it seemed better that Ezekiel and Natividad and maybe even Miguel were not here—

—his breath caught in his throat, and he turned sharply, half crouching in response to a threat that was not here, not a threat to him. It was somewhere far south. Much too far.

“Natividad,” Grayson said, his tone grim. After one sharp glance at Alejandro, the Master had leveled a steady gaze at Colonel Herrod.

“That hardly seems—” the colonel broke off without finishing that foolish statement. He said instead, “Whatever might possibly be happening in Albuquerque, I promise you, Lanning, my people will handle it.” He jerked his head at one of his men, who without a word brought out a small, flat black phone and hit a button.

“She is upset,” Alejandro snapped at the colonel. “She is afraid! Whatever is happening, your people are not handling it!”

“Ah, I’m not getting an answer,” the man with the phone said uneasily. “I—just the generic message. No one’s picking up.”

“Well?” growled Grayson. His shadow gathered around him, dense and heavy, infusing his still-human voice with low and threatening thunder. He must have felt how near Alejandro was to letting his own shadow rise because the heavy weight of the Master’s shadow filled the air, forcing all black dogs down. Or nearly all. James had melted back a few steps, effacing himself in that way he had, seeming less powerful and far less dangerous than he actually was. If there were a fight, no one would focus on him first. Then someone would find out ignoring him was a mistake.

Herrod nodded. He took a second to gather his thoughts. Then he said, “Albuquerque is hours to the south. It is inconceivable that my people will allow anything to happen to yours. I promise you, Mr. Lanning. We are here. Gregor Kristoff is here. Right here. We need to finish this. We can finish it.  I believe we can. We have holy water; we have silver knives and nets as well as bullets. Your people have those little beads Miss Toland made. We can’t go back now. When will we have a better chance than we have this moment? We must go on.”

“You are concerned for your missing people. I am concerned for mine.”

“You’re right, and that’s perfectly understandable, sir. I give you my word that my people will not allow yours to come to harm.”

Grayson looked at Alejandro.

“She is afraid and angry and upset,” he told the Master. Some of the first urgency of Natividad’s fear was easing, though, and he added reluctantly, “She is not hurt, I think.”

Carter had edged forward, past the van, flanking the Special Forces people—they must be aware of this, but they hadn’t tried to prevent him, or Rip, who had followed. Now it was Rip who said suddenly and sharply, “Could there be caves here? I kinda think I hear something underground?”

Everyone paused. The Master said nothing, merely strode ahead, wary and intense, his shadow gathered around him, so dense it nearly seemed to have physical body. The air wavered around him with banked heat, ready to set something on fire at the least provocation. He brushed past Colonel Herrod without acknowledging him, and the man shifted back a step without apparent offense.

Alejandro thought James would follow close behind the Master. Instead, frowning, James gestured to Alejandro himself: Go on. That made sense; of course James meant to bring up the rear. He would stay well behind, watchful and wary of their putative allies as well as their enemies. Of course he would want someone else trustworthy at Grayson’s back. Alejandro had no choice but to force down his anger and fear for his sister. He strode forward, bringing Carissa with him with a glance and a sharp little jerk of his head, His shadow rose around him, wanting the cuerpo, wanting battle and blood, screaming and death. He was so angry. His shadow would have been satisfied to attack Carissa; it was always glad to take advantage of a rival’s poor condition. It pushed for attack and crushing victory, now, before the girl had any chance to recover from these past months of enslavement.

Alejandro fixed his own attention forward, concentrating ferociously on finding their actual enemies. Tearing those black witches to pieces would satisfy both his shadow’s bloodthirst and his own desire for vengeance on Carissa’s behalf. Then he would go south. No one would argue. He would go south, the Master would go south, and if Herrod’s people had not protected Natividad—and Miguel, and Ezekiel—they would kill them all.

It was hard to focus on the moment, but he tried.

Underground. It wasn’t even surprising. Deep places out of sight of decent people...places where enemies had to come in from one direction rather than tear their way in from a hundred different directions. If you thought you were strong and held the dominant position, if you thought you could defeat whatever came at you as long as you knew it was coming, if an underground place seemed to offer shelter rather than a trap...sí the witches’ choice to go literally to ground in this place seemed unsurprising, given they’d known the place existed at all.

The entrance was an narrow tunnel-like opening, blocked by a door that probably would have looked much like the rest of this barren stone except it had been not merely left open, but torn completely off its hinges. Twisted, jagged metal shards thrust like daggers out into the opening.

“No human did that,” Carter said darkly from behind Alejandro. “A demon did it, I bet.”

“Explosives?” one of the Special Forces man murmured, not arguing, but just pointing out that damage like this was not beyond the reach of human strength after all.

Alejandro ignored them both, edging forward after the Master, who strode ahead as though it did not occur to him that he might find any danger too great for his strength.

A sharp turn, and another. The sunlight fell behind them and there were no artificial lights here. Human eyes could not manage in such dim light, or should not have been able to manage. But the Special Forces men had already pulled some kind of glasses or goggles over their eyes. They kept up with the black dogs, with similar aggressive haste. It made sense. Those were their people missing, their people down here somewhere in the dark. With a demon, and Kristoff.

They would tear Kristoff’s head off his body and rip out his belly and this time no demon would stop them.

A slope, steeply downward. Another heavy door, this one torn as badly and left lying so that they had to clamber over it. Grayson shifted in the space of three or four strides and leaped over the wreckage, his shadow taking his weight so that he landed light and soundless on the other side. There was light now, flickering and yellow, visible around the Master’s shaggy bulk. This was not firelight despite the flicker. Electric lights, but fed with insufficient and uncertain power. The strengthening and now-familiar roar of machinery hid any subtle sounds that might have come from the place before them. But the machine-noise could not hide the sharp report of a single gunshot, nor the high and wavering scream that followed.

Alejandro permitted his shadow to rise at last. It streamed forward and up, the change of body coming fast and hard, the fierce joy in battle and blood and killing urging him to run, to press past the Master, to rend and kill whomever he found in the unseen places ahead. Only habit and a cautious awareness of the Master’s strength and dominance kept him from trying to rush ahead—and Carissa’s caution. She was still beside him, mostly in her black dog shape now, smaller than most, but quick and savage. In her, he could tell, fear battled with eagerness to kill and gave rise to a caution he felt was not inborn in her. Her caution was more than enough to remind him that their enemies were unpredictable and not to be taken lightly. That, too, kept him from rushing ahead.

A circle, black and tarry, hardly a step inside the room so that anyone entering would have to go into the circle. Roaring machines and a wide stage raised half a step above the floor, with on the stage a smaller but still broad circle. This one was made of grayish powder, black ash and white grit—salt, maybe. The powder looked like it ought to blow away in any breeze or be scuffed aside by any careless foot. But the outline of the circle was completely smooth.

Inside this ash circle, up in the middle of the platform or stage, accompanied by three young people who must be disciples, stood Gregor Kristoff. Outside the ash circle, contained by the black tarry circle, crouched a demon.

“The same one? Or a different one?” he asked Carissa. He could not tell. The thing was so changeable, so unsettled. It looked different with every beat of the heart.

Carissa’s lip curled. “The first one got away. I think this one’s smaller. Probably it’s smaller. That bastard probably didn’t have anybody like Alistair to sacrifice this time. Those punks with him wouldn’t be enough, I bet, plus if he killed one of ’em the others wouldn’t be stupid enough to stick around. Vicious little baby witches, I bet they wish they were black dogs. They wouldn’t survive a week if they were. Or a day, if they met me.”

Alejandro grinned. Natividad’s fear still pressed at him. He wanted very badly to kill someone. He wanted to help Carissa rip those three little witches to pieces.

Still, despite the fast, aggressive entrance of six black dogs and eight—nine, counting Herrod—Special Forces people, Kristoff seemed disturbingly unintimidated. Soft-handed and soft-bodied, nevertheless Gregor Kristoff stood right in the middle of the circle with the arrogance of someone so dominant he knew he would not have to fight any challengers. The young ones were afraid. They hardly knew where to look, they obviously thought they were threatened from every direction: by the Special Forces people, by the demon that Kristoff had called up, and now by the Dimilioc wolves. Alejandro liked their fear. He snarled, a low deadly sound that he tried to direct just toward the nearest disciple. The young man flinched and cowered. Alejandro wanted to laugh. He wanted to snarl. He wanted to give voice to his shadow’s rage, to his own rage.

Kristoff’s arrogance made him wary. That arrogance said he knew no one would dare challenge him, that if they did, he would have the advantage and destroy them all. He did not seem afraid, not of the Special Forces people nor of the Dimilioc wolves.

Maybe that was because he had already proven he could handle the Special Forces. Because here was Raichlen’s team—four men and Raichlen herself, and the priest, not in very good positions. They had plainly gotten the worst of whatever had been happening.

Only one of the four men was on his feet. Something had happened to the other three: something that left two of them on their knees, weapons canted aside, and another sprawled and helpless. Raichlen herself stood over them, her own long-barreled marksman’s automatic pistol braced in a two-handed grip. The priest—Father Petros—stood braced, his heavy cross held out before him with both hands. The demon had obviously been attacking them, though it seemed to have left them now to threaten the newcomers.

This demon was smaller than the other one, or maybe just more tightly condensed. It was more like a serpent and less like a bird, more like a scorpion and less like a cloud, more like a man and less like a faceless, featureless creature of fangs and poison. It felt different somehow. Just as ugly. Malice might as well have dripped from it in poisonous droplets. But different, the way Étienne Lumondière felt different from Grayson Lanning.

Herrod’s men spread out, moving quickly to reinforce Raichlen’s team. Two held those fine-corded silver nets. All of them had broad-bladed silver knives. They all had guns, too, but they had listened to Carissa and mostly had knives at the ready.

Kristoff gestured. The demon turned, stooped low, and sprang or flowed forward. The silver nets, flung out and wide, drove it back, but not far. And probably not for long. And if the men got close enough to use those knives, they would be in the demon’s reach. This put Herrod’s men in a bad position. Indeed, the demon struck suddenly, so fast no human could have evaded it, and one of the men collapsed, screaming thinly.

Herrod looked straight to the Master and said with hard-held calm, “A little help would be appreciated, Mr. Lanning.”

Grayson was not in human form, but his burning, inhuman gaze met the colonel’s and he rumbled, low and aggressive and powerful and confident.

Beside Alejandro, Carissa snarled, not at the human colonel nor even at the demon but past them both, straight at Kristoff. The sound started deep in her throat and ratcheted harshly upward in pitch as it rose in volume. Alejandro snarled with her, filled with fury and hatred and impatience and a hot, violent delight in battle. He wanted to hurl himself forward. He wanted to find a way to hurt the demon. He wanted to rip it to smoky shreds and force it to flee back to the fell dark that had birthed it. He wanted to fling Gregor Kristoff after the demon, into the fell dark, where if he lived he might come to know such creatures much, much better. He wanted to tear out the still-beating hearts of all those helpless young disciples and see the life go out of them.

But he stayed exactly where he was. He watched the Master, while the other Dimilioc wolves padded softly out of the tunnel behind them and spread out in a line. Everyone was in black dog form now. Little enough in this place seemed burnable, but scorch marks scored the concrete where the black wolves stepped, and small flames rippled in Carter’s shaggy mane and flickered between the Master’s jaws as he snarled.

Wood was easier and less complicated, but if there was nothing else, people would burn just fine. Alejandro could see the thought in Carter’s hot gaze. The witches thought they were untouchable in their dust-and-grit circle. Fire wasn’t Alejandro’s strength, but he tried to summon fire then. So did Carter, he saw that. But fire only guttered around the edges of the gray-dust circle. Their ugly magic was good enough for that, unfortunately. But if the witches were not vulnerable to fire, it only became so, so tempting to summon fire right into the human soldiers just as the demon pounced and see what the demon made of that, how it liked consuming hellfire.

That would probably complicate things with Herrod. Alejandro didn’t care, not now, not with his shadow high and savage around him, not when Herrod’s people had failed to protect Natividad—she was still afraid—still alive, that was better than it might have been. But Alejandro might not mind calling fire out of the air right at Herrod’s feet.

Grayson might disapprove. Besides, Natividad was alive. She and Miguel and probably Ezekiel might still depend on Colonel Herrod’s good will. Alejandro ought to have asked earlier: what would happen to his sister and brother and to Dimilioc’s executioner if Colonel Herrod died. If every human with him died.

He had not asked and did not know. Better if the colonel survived, and not as an enemy.

Setting people on fire would be wrong, of course, anyway. Maybe the demon would burn. It would be fine to enjoy burning that.

The demon had swiveled to observe the five black wolves. It did not exactly have a head, it didn’t exactly even have a front end, but when its attention fell on them, maybe because his thoughts were filled with fire, Alejandro felt it as a kind of burning. Not truly like fire, but like acid, like poison. The demon did not make a sound, but its fanged mouth—mouths—opened in a gaping, silent threat.

Or maybe it was laughing. Alejandro felt that it might be laughing.

Carissa whirled to the side and loped away at a deliberate pace, to the right. Grayson swept a forceful glance along the row of Dimilioc wolves and went after Carissa. Alejandro followed him immediately. A little to Alejandro’s surprise, Carter went the other way, with Rip. James, if he had come down at all, had stayed in the tunnel, unobserved and quiet.

Carissa slowed her pace, letting Grayson and Alejandro come up close behind her. In moments, they were near the ash circle and there she paused. One of the young witches yelled in alarm. Gregor Kristoff grabbed the young man by the shoulder and shook him hard. He also started to chant in a low voice, indistinct words that might have been Latin. The demon swung away from its stalking of the Special Forces people and started across the width of the circle toward Carissa. Now it reminded Alejandro more of the other one. It was a little like a bird and a little like an insect and a little like a vampire, but not exactly like any of those things. It seemed to half dissolve with every step and then re-condense, as though it occupied one place and then another but hardly passed through the space in between.

The witch was shouting now, nothing Alejandro understood, but he had lost English anyway and was not sure he would have understood even Spanish. He did not remember the witch’s name, and did not care. Carter and Rip had come up on the other side of Herrod’s team, threatening the witches from that side. No one had actually formed a plan, but now everyone was in place to work together: Herrod’s team to relieve Raichlen’s and recover the priest; the black dogs threatening the witches too closely to let the witches attack the humans.

Alejandro reared up, wanting to leap to the attack—why did the Master not give the signal—how long were they to hold back—they should rend the demon and crush it and get past it to do the same to the witches—

The demon shifted its position and condensed, things like eyes glittering, flicking from one of them to the next, picking a target.

Then it turned and struck instead, in its strange way that covered ground far too fast, through and past all the human soldiers, straight at the priest.

Carissa whipped around and sprang to meet it. She snatched the gun right out of one man’s hand and slammed heavily into the demon, coming down with all her weight—small for a black dog was not small. She bore the demon down effortlessly. But she did not tear with teeth or claws. Instead, as the demon-thing snapped at her with fangs it surely hadn’t possessed the instant before, Carissa dropped the gun from between her jaws and rammed it forward with one powerful forelimb. She forced it deep in the demon’s...it wasn’t exactly a mouth. Or the chest. But call it the chest, though it snapped at Carissa with many mouths, striking mostly her heavy pelt.

The gun didn’t fire. In Carissa’s black dog form, she didn’t have fingers that fit inside the trigger guard. But as she forced the gun into the demon, she crushed and twisted the metal, spilling the silver bullets out of the weapon, scattering them through the peculiar, half-physical body of their enemy.

The demon shrieked and...shrank, somehow. Condensing, but at the same time becoming less substantial. But then it swelled up again, flinging Carissa aside with one peculiar half-clawed limb—astonishing strength. But she twisted her body and raked with her hind legs, converting what might have been an uncoordinated sprawl into an awkward but controlled leap.

“¡Orale!” Alejandro did not shout the word aloud. But it was there, vivid, in his wordless snarl of satisfied hatred. He lunged forward, not waiting for a signal. Suddenly everyone was moving. Alejandro lost track of everything but the demon; that was his immediate enemy. He was past Carissa before she hit the floor. The demon was reaching after her, clutching with some of its...limbs, snapping with some of its...mouths. But he hurled himself into it with all his weight, trying to throw it back bodily, tearing at it.

Yet he hardly knocked it back at all, not because it matched his strength or weight, but because it gave like liquid before his attack. And then almost at once flowed together again, slashing with claws or spines or some other kind of razor-edged weapons that he was sure hadn’t even been there a moment before. The slashes were shallow, barely cutting through the shaggy pelt that protected his throat and chest, but they burned almost as badly as silver. He tried to get away from the demon, furiously aware that his own attack seemed barely to have hurt it. He should have realized. Of course if an ordinary attack would wound it, Carissa would not have used silver. He had realized, but he had not cared. Now he knew he should have held back.

The demon clung to him like cobweb, cutting and burning and impossible to shed. It was reaching for his mind; he felt it. Or maybe for his soul. The human part of his soul, the human part of his mind. It was going to tear that part of him free of his shadow and...he didn’t know, he couldn’t tell, he didn’t want to find out. For that instant, not finding out was the most important thing in the world. Some part of him wanted to panic—some part of him did panic. He flung himself back toward the edge of the black circle, rolling in a vain attempt to crush the demon or force it to let go. Like cobweb, like clinging mist, like poisoned malice, it followed and clung and tightened its grip.

Human instinct or terror made him force his shadow down, the change of body as sudden and forceful as he could make it. As he took his smaller human shape, he snatched Natividad’s bead from his pocket and tucked himself down around it.

The demon seemed to lose its grip, or perhaps its sense of its prey. It drew back. But it was still trying to force the change. He could tell that was what it wanted. The black dog form would be no protection against the demon; worse than no protection; this terrible demon understood things born of shadows. It was trying to pry his shadow out of him and...consume it, use it, master it, he didn’t know. Natividad’s bead helped, but it was not enough.

Then the human woman, Raichlen, stepped coolly past him, thrust her bare hand past Alejandro’s face, and scattered a handful of silver bullets straight into the half-solid demon as though sowing corn in good earth.

It recoiled, and Alejandro scrambled clear. He was entirely in human form now, and staggered as he came to his feet, not sure whether it was safe yet to shift again. The bead was still clenched in his hand, warm, threaded with a more violent heat.

The woman put herself between Alejandro and the demon. She had a tiny knife in her hand, not one of the long weapons, but hardly finger-length. He could feel the burn of it even at a distance: if it was not pure silver, it was close.

Raichlen was an older woman, maybe the Master’s age, maybe older than that. Maybe that was why she could stay so calm. Her expression was intent, as though she faced any trivial human enemy, as though the demon was nothing special, as though it didn’t worry her at all. Alejandro was outraged that a mere human woman would try to protect him—grateful that she had protected him, but outraged at the same time. Taking Carissa’s strategy, he put Natividad’s little aparato in his mouth and forced his shadow up, reluctant though it suddenly seemed.

The demon was on Raichlen before he could finish the cuerpo. It unfolded many-jointed limbs that a second before it had not possessed, closing them around its prey from every direction at once. Its attack was only a little bit physical, though suddenly the woman was bleeding from many narrow little slashing cuts on her face and throat and hands. But that was not why she recoiled, or dropped the knife. Those little cuts were not what contorted her face and drove her to her knees. Demon-struck. Alejandro was seeing it happen, and this time at very close range. He didn’t like it at all.

Carissa hurtled in from one side in mostly human form, caught Raichlen’s knife with one almost human hand before it hit the floor, and ripped the little silver blade right across half the demon’s limbs.

Alejandro leaped also, half-shifted as he was, at one of the human soldiers. The man saw him coming and shouted, wordless and hoarse. Another almost managed to face him, almost managed to bring his long, heavy knife up into a defensive position. In another time and place, Alejandro would have laughed at that hopelessly slow attempt at defense. Now he just snatched the knife from the soldier as though the man had meant to offer it to him. He gripped it with a partly human hand, clumsy with his half-shifted form and with the instant bright burn of the silver. Clumsiness didn’t matter either. If Carissa could endure the touch of silver, he could. He could force his fingers closed around this big knife for the small space of necessary time. Whirling, he lunged back toward the demon.

Silver was an assault against the dark. It burned, a cold kind of burning, rapidly becoming vivid agony. He endured it. If he had been fully in his black dog form, he could have covered the distance much faster. He did not let himself shift the rest of the way because then he could not have gripped the knife. His shadow pressed hard, wanting to rise, wanting him to drop the weapon. He refused it, forced it down, and hit the demon from the rear...it did not exactly have a rear, but he hit it from the opposite side as Carissa.

Hissing like a kettle, black smoke pouring out like steam, the demon flinched and retreated, flinched again and retreated farther. It had released the Special Forces woman...it had mostly released her. Most of it was retreating, but traces of it clung to her, like a contagion. Yet the larger part of the demon fled before them. The taste of its fear was sweet, even though long lines of white blisters were rising on Alejandro’s palm.

At least Alejandro’s knife was long and heavy and had a hilt that fit his hand properly, burn though it might. Carissa’s tiny knife hardly had a hilt. But her expression was savagely exultant as she drove the demon away from its intended prey.

The demon was retreating. It was flowing away, faster now. Away from their combined attack, toward the inner circle of ash and grit that protected the witch and his disciples. That was where the other, broader battle was still unfolding, the Master’s black wolves and Herrod’s people pitting all their cleverness and strength against the witch and his amigotes. Alejandro had missed everything that had been happening here. But the inner circle had been cut through in four different places, scored through by silver and scoured away with, by the scent of it, blessed wine.

Even now, neither black dog nor human seemed able to cross that circle. Silver bullets could, but shooting Gregor Kristoff seemed to do little harm; silver glinted all around him but he was still on his feet. One of his disciples had been shot, though, from the way he sat on the floor clutching his leg. Another had panicked and fled across the circle. A black wolf had gotten that one, obviously. Parts of the body was strewn across half the room.

Beyond the circle, Carter and Rip were tearing up the machines, ripping the cords out of the walls, crushing the engines. As the generators failed, the lights flickered and died, but the Special Forces people were throwing chemical lights down here and there and one of the black wolves—probably Carter again, Alejandro thought—had found a container of gasoline, tipped it over, and set it on fire. It burned hot, with sullen dark-red flames, threatening to become a danger to all the human people in this underground place. A thin trickle of gasoline had cut across the inner circle, too, and soon the fire would burn across the circle as well. That was clever. Maybe it would finally break the circle’s protection.

From Gregor Kristoff’s expression, that circle might already no longer stop a demon. Because that was exactly where the demon was heading, hissing with all the mouths it sometimes seemed to have. Alejandro understood suddenly: that was the source of Carissa’s violent pleasure. She too had seen that the inner circle had been breached. She was driving the demon that way on purpose. For her, the demon had become a weapon and an instrument of vengeance.

That was very satisfying. Alejandro took a firmer grip on his silver-edged knife and threw himself into helping Carissa drive the demon toward the only people who deserved to feed its appetites. All around the ash circle, the Special Forces people gave back. They held up silver knives or handfuls of silver bullets to help force the demon toward the circle. The priest, his eyes narrowed and his expression grimly determined, held up a heavy silver cross in each hand. Grayson himself had circled around to the other side of the circle, cutting off any chance of retreat that way as the demon stalked toward the witches, its half-physical body leaking off into greasy black smoke around the edges where silver had cut it.

Then Kristoff cried out, a short angry phrase in Latin, and the demon shied back, twisted sideways, and struck the priest.

Its movement was so sudden Alejandro could not even try to prevent it. Carissa seemed to have seen that attack coming, for she had lunged into its path and tried to drive it away from the priest and on toward the circle, but her little knife was too small and though the demon flinched, it poured itself past her and closed around the priest.

Then it recoiled at once as he slammed both silver crosses into its...not exactly its face, but a part of its body that seemed sometimes a little like a face. But the witch cried out again, and the demon, hissing and keening, snapped at the priest with mouths that suddenly formed, closed throttling tendrils around his throat, and tore his chest open with something like a nest of spines that surely it had not possessed an instant before.

Then it wrenched itself away, bleeding great clouds of smoke where the silver crosses had touched it and burned it, where Carissa’s knife had torn it, where Alejandro’s bigger blade had cut into it. Special Forces soldiers slashed at it as well, which was good although they were only human-fast. The demon might have tried to strike Carissa if not for all the human soldiers suddenly backing her up, all their silver burning in the dark. One threw a glass vial of holy water at the concrete floor beneath the demon; the glass shattered like a bomb. It jerked back and turned away, and Alejandro forced it again toward the inner circle. Toward Kristoff, whom he truly wanted to see get eaten by a demon.

But it was too late for the priest. He was sprawled on the concrete floor with all the graceless abandon of death, surrounded by blood and the smell of death. That was infuriating—he had been a Dimilioc ally, at a remove. Certainly he had been useful. Alejandro wanted Kristoff to very soon also be torn and bloody.

The demon, crouching low and still making that creaking hiss, bent to touch the circle of dust and ashes with a limb that was sort of like a hand and sort of like a claw. Then it bent lower still, licking or tasting the ashes...that was what it seemed to do. Carissa put out a hand, restraining Alejandro when he would have tried to force it onward. She was right, because then the demon raised itself up, glared at the witches with eyes that came and went and were not exactly eyes anyway, and lunged forward into the circle.

The remaining disciples screamed. Kristoff did not. He made a fast gesture, spoke one word, and the demon shrieked—or cried out in exaltation, it almost seemed both at once—and fled. It took time only to snatch up the disciple who had been shot. The young man’s horrified scream was cut off short as the demon carried him away, racing up and out. Stone exploded above, and the demon was gone. Shards of stone rained down all around. Alejandro knocked a car-sized piece of stone out of his way before it could crush a man—Josiah, he saw, but he would have done as much for anyone.

“I can’t believe we let another one get away,” Carissa said viciously, from beside him.

Alejandro stared at her. He understood only after a second. It had not fled exactly. Or not from the world into the fell dark. It had gone into the world. Like the first demon, it had been freed and now it went where it would, to do as it pleased.

That was too bad, but really Alejandro was only disappointed the demon hadn’t taken Gregor Kristoff instead of the young witch. He would have liked to hear Kristoff screaming as he was carried away.

If that was not to happen, at least he wanted to see Kristoff brought low and helpless. Arrested was not really what he had in mind. But it was Colonel Herrod who took charge now, walking forward with an air of calm certainty to stand directly outside the circle, exactly where the demon had crossed it. The colonel looked thoughtfully across the circle at Kristoff. Then he brushed the ash and dust and salt out of his way fastidiously with his foot and said, “Well. Would you care to surrender to my people? Your alternative choices seem limited. I don’t imagine you would rather surrender to the Master of Dimilioc.”

Not far away, the fire reached the circle as well, flickered, and burned right through it. On the other side, behind the witches, Grayson reared up, appearing more massive than ever in the firelight. Then he pulled himself smoothly most of the way back into human form. His expression was unmoved, but his eyes were fiery and the bones of his face still subtly distorted. He said in his deep, harsh voice, his level tone all the more frightening for its juxtaposition with his crimson eyes, “For what he has done, he will die screaming. They will all die. My wolves will eat their hearts. Carissa may have Kristoff’s. She has earned it. The rest of us will content ourselves with the...student.”

“Uh, look, no, we totally surrender!” the remaining disciple cried with gratifying urgency. “To, like, the real human!” He edged away from Gregor Kristoff, holding up his hands in token of submission. Kristoff glanced at him with open contempt but didn’t speak to him.

Carissa had discarded the little knife at last. Like the Master, she was almost entirely in human form. Like him, her eyes were still very much not human. Her hands, blistered and burned, were almost human, but every foreshortened finger bore a jet-black claw. She was not smiling. Nor scowling. Her attention was entirely on Kristoff. She said suddenly, “Shoot him!”

The nearest Special Forces people twitched, but looked at their colonel, who did not give that order.

Kristoff brought up a hand filled with gray dust, facing sharply around toward, not Carissa, but Grayson. Carissa lunged forward, claws lengthening. Alejandro moved as well, quite happy to tear out the witch’s throat with his blunt-nailed human hands if he couldn’t shift his hands fast enough to use claws. But as he moved, he realized that even with their speed, neither of them would reach Kristoff in time to stop him. It was Carter, astonishingly, who closed a hand on the Master’s arm and wrenched him back and to the side—

—and Colonel Herrod shot Kristoff twice in the chest and once in the head with a gun Alejandro hadn’t even realized he had in his hand—

—which did not kill the witch, but knocked him back and sent his breath whooshing out of him in an uncontrolled gasp, his hands flying up in involuntary reaction—

The gray powder spattered everywhere, some across Carter’s chest and some across the concrete floor and some into the fire, now burning out for lack of fuel. The fire flared up again where the dust fell into it. Kristoff, fighting to draw breath, made a fast, broad gesture in the air with both hands. Carter stiffened, his eyes widening.

Carissa barely touched the floor and leaped again, her snarl ripping through the air, and instead of taking command of Carter, Kristoff fell back a pace, spoke two words, and vanished, leaving behind his startled disciple, who cried “Hey!” and straightened indignantly, but obviously could not do the same.

Alejandro had a glimpse of some ordinary place behind and around the witch as he disappeared: a library or study or some such, many books on shelves and piled on the floor. Someplace regrettably peaceful and safe. Wherever it was, he only got that one glimpse. Kristoff was gone.

Carissa ripped at the floor where he had been, enraged. But it was too late. The witch was out of her reach, out of anyone’s reach. The disciple, prudently, retreated to the safety of Special Forces custody. They certainly could not have stopped her if she had been determined to kill him, but luckily for him Carissa seemed, in her fury, to have completely forgotten about his existence.

“We’ll find the cabrón,” Alejandro promised her. “We will surely find him. We will tear out his guts and set fire to burn in his belly. We will eat his beating heart as the life goes out of his eyes.”

Carissa only snarled and tore huge gouges in the floor.

Carter hadn’t moved so much as a step. His expression was blank—not unaware, Alejandro thought, but horrified and trying not to show it. Grayson stepped close and gripped Carter’s arm in a hard hold. That could have been at least as much threat as support, and Carter flinched. But then his breathing steadied and his heart rate slowed. He looked up in surprise, met the Master’s eyes...let out his breath and bowed his head.

“You will do perfectly well,” Grayson told him, flat and angry and somehow reassuring. “Breathe. Settle yourself. I need you.”

Carter flicked a startled glance upward, but he also straightened. After a moment, he nodded. The Master let him go, returning the nod with the kind of assurance that helped calm any black dog.

So that seemed well enough. Better than Alejandro had expected, in several ways.

But a glance the other way showed him that the Special Forces woman had collapsed. Raichlen had come to help him at risk to herself, and she had taken hurt because of it. The worst kind of hurt: she had been demon-struck, or nearly, or partly. Any decent person would wish to aid her now if he could.

Her own people were about her, though. They would surely do better for her than a black dog, especially a stranger. He left them to it...or he would have, save that the Master, again almost completely in human form, gave that whole situation a summing glance and strode in that direction.

One of the men stood up and stepped in between them, resolute, gun in his hand. Not threatening, not yet, but not happy to have Grayson Lanning head toward one of his people with such purpose. Behind the Master, Colonel Herrod suddenly turned as though pulled by a sixth sense for potential trouble. Assessing the situation instantly, he held up a pacific hand and followed in Grayson’s wake.

The Master seemed to notice neither the protective soldier nor the colonel. Passing by the soldier without paying him any heed, he knelt and gazed intently at the woman’s face. Taking her chin in one hand, he forced her head up and studied her eyes, open and moving but blind to the ordinary world, locked into whatever terrible internal vision the demon had imposed on her. He said to Alejandro, “It’s still in her. Some part of it. Let’s keep in mind they can do this: leave parts of themselves behind as weapons and torments.” He paused. Then he added, “It may be necessary for you to assist me. If it is, do not hesitate.”

What he meant was, he wouldn’t be offended if Alejandro stepped in without any explicit invitation. Alejandro bowed his head, acknowledging this.

The Master set a small glimmering aparato against the woman’s throat, one of Natividad’s little aparatos. The Master pressed this object between his palm and the woman’s throat. Then he rolled her shadow. Or, not hers, of course. It wasn’t attached to her, it wasn’t part of her, it wasn’t threaded through her soul. But it was in her. Alejandro saw it as soon as Grayson forced it down. It wasn’t like seeing something physical. But he knew it was there. He perceived it himself, when a moment ago he had merely taken the Master’s word for its presence.

What Grayson was doing was not exactly like rolling another black dog’s shadow. He was forcing it down, yes, not that the word was exact, but it felt like down. But, for this kind of shadow, unlike for the kind that made a black dog, that meant out as well. The Master forced this remnant of the demon out with Natividad’s little aparato and with the weight of his own shadow and with sheer force of will. It came out of the woman through her eyes, running down her cheeks in inky tears; it came out of her mouth and ran down her chin. Her back arched, her head tipped back, every muscle going tight in a spasm so sudden and complete it nearly wrenched her out of the Master’s hold. Grayson obviously needed no help forcing the demon out of her, but Alejandro moved behind her and gripped her shoulders, partly support but mostly restraint.

The demon-fragment left no trace of itself on her skin, which was surely good. It dripped like water except it did not leave wet tracks behind. Grayson pulled his hand from the woman’s throat and caught the inky liquid in one palm—that seemed dangerous to Alejandro, but on contact with the little aparato, the liquid boiled up into greasy black smoke and then, though everyone flinched from it, slowly dissipated. Gone. Or maybe gone. Alejandro hoped it was truly gone and not merely dispersed, to condense later into...what? A fragment of a demon? A tiny demon, individual and complete in itself?

“Hannah,” said Colonel Herrod, going to one knee and leaning forward to study the woman with open concern. Alejandro still held her, though now more intending support than restraint. He looked at the Master to see whether he should let go. The colonel made a move as though to lay a hand on her arm, but Grayson stopped him with a gesture.

“Hannah Raichlen,” the Master said, in an entirely different tone. Not more authoritative, but infused with power and will. “Hannah!”

The woman blinked and shook her head. She didn’t try to shake herself free of Alejandro’s hold, but she turned her head and spat. Normal spittle, not black. But the taste of the demon must have still been in her mouth, or maybe the remembered taste. She spat again, shook her head once more, and looked around. She seemed calm, but Alejandro could feel her starting to shiver. She remembered where she was, Alejandro thought. He wasn’t certain she remembered who she was, though obviously Grayson was trying to remind her. Only a little bit of the demon had been in her, and only for a few moments. But who knew how long it took to do mortal damage to the soul of a human person?

Alejandro looked for Carissa, to ask her. She was not nearby. She was watching the one remaining young witch, the disciple. She was in human form, but her smile was a black dog’s smile: filled with gratified cruelty. The young man had tucked himself half behind the Special Forces people who guarded him, plainly—and wisely—preferring human captors to a black dog girl who had excellent reason to hate him and all his kind.

Raichlen’s shivering was easing now. She had focused first on Grayson, but now looked at Colonel Herrod. “I’m fine,” she said. Her voice was low and husky, but steady. “I’m fine.”

“Of course you are,” Herrod agreed. He glanced at Alejandro, who, on a nod from the Master, let her go. The colonel rose, offering the woman a hand. She hesitated. Then, letting her breath out, she let him help her to her feet.

Grayson watched narrowly. He said to her, “It’s possible you’ll discover you’re not entirely free of the demon.”

The colonel drew in a breath to speak, but then said only, “Hannah?”

She shook her head, looking at Grayson rather than the colonel. “You think it’s not gone,” she said, not quite a question.

“I think it is gone. But I’m not entirely certain. Are you?”

She put a hand to her temple, rubbed her lips, and spat once more. Then she looked up and met the Master’s impassive stare. “I think it’s gone. But...”

“You can’t afford to be mistaken,” Grayson completed this observation without effort.

“If it’s still there—if part of it is still there—can you—” she broke off, unwilling to ask for help. Unwilling to ask Grayson Lanning for help. Even though she wasn’t Dimilioc, this almost seemed stupid to Alejandro. Ignorant human woman, she didn’t realize that Grayson Lanning was exactly the one to whom she should turn.

Grayson said with calm assurance, “Should that be so, should you have the slightest suspicion it may be so, you may come to me. I will do whatever is possible for you as though you were one of my own people.”

The woman hesitated, but Colonel Herrod said smoothly, “We would be grateful for your assistance in that matter. If it proves necessary.”

The Master gave him a short nod. “Though if I have failed to clear it out completely, I may not be able to do so at all,” he said bluntly. His hard gaze returned to the woman’s face. “I will try, however, if necessary.” Back to Herrod. “As we are, after all, allies.”

Herrod met his gaze steadily. “I have every intention of returning immediately to Albuquerque and taking care of whatever problem our people have encountered there. I promise you, my people will have seen to it that yours come to no harm.”

The Master glanced at Alejandro.

Alejandro considered. “Natividad is upset,” he said at last. “But I think not so much afraid. But, sí, upset. Whatever was wrong, it is wrong still.”

The Master nodded to Herrod, provisional trust. Very provisional. “My people will regroup and then see what we can do to locate Kristoff. This encounter was not satisfactory. We must find a more effective approach.” He paused. “You wish to take our remaining enemy with you? This is not acceptable to me. This black magic seems to constitute a particular threat to my people.”

“I’m happy to support an ally against a common threat. But the Special Forces are not subordinate to Dimilioc, Mr. Lanning. He’s in our hands. He’ll stay in our hands.”

There was a tense pause.

“Let’s not quarrel,” Colonel Herrod said softly.

He should have looked down, looked aside. But at least he spoke quietly. At least he phrased this as a request. Even so, Alejandro tensed, half expecting a sudden explosion into violence from one side or the other.

Instead, Grayson looked straight across at the young disciple. “You,” he said. Growled. “Little enemy. Student of my enemy. What magic do you possess? Have you the knowledge of the way to force your will on one of mine? Answer with the truth.” His voice dropped low and the force of his will came down like a hammer. “Answer.”

“No!” squeaked the young man. “No! He wouldn’t tell me! He never told me! That’s the truth!”

The Master of Dimilioc was silent for a moment, regarding him. It was not a comfortable silence. There was blood in it. The moment poised on the thin edge of violence.

Herrod cleared his throat. “We are allies. I promise you.”

The Master turned his head. His power was still close-gathered, so dense it almost had physical heft. Even a human must have felt it. Alejandro was certain Herrod felt it, by the way the man set himself as though against physical weight.

But then Grayson let the power ebb. He said, still half a growl, “Then I will expect your questioning on all other matters to be effective, Colonel. I will find any other outcome unacceptable, so if you entertain any doubts in that direction, leave him with us.”

“No doubts at all, Mr. Lanning, I assure you.”

Grayson lifted one heavy shoulder. “Our next attempt must and will be definitive. I will anticipate your informed comments regarding our tactical approach.”

The disciple, guarded between two of the Special Forces men, laughed. His laughter was tinged with hysteria, but he seemed genuinely to think this was funny. When everyone looked at him, he laughed again. “Your tactical approach!” he said derisively. He straightened his shoulders as though to throw off his moment of humiliation “Against Gregor Kristoff! Alistair was nothing, he was a poseur. Gregor is the real thing, he’s the real deal, you better believe it! But he’s not your problem. Don’t you get it? Your problem is the greater demon. You’ve made one, not us! What it does now is on you, not us.”

“Explain,” Colonel Herrod ordered tersely.

The young man sneered at him. “Gregor had a real good leash on the first demon, but you let it go, didn’t you? And then he had a leash on the second demon and you let that one go too, and what do you figure? Demons eat each other, don’t you know that? They eat each other and get bigger. You’re supposed to dismiss them, not let them go! You’ve gone and made a greater demon and man, now the shit really hits the fan. It’s not going to stop now. It’s gonna come down on some town around here someplace, batten on whoever it finds, encyst somewhere, and when it comes out again, whoa! You think you can stop it? Not a chance! You find Gregor, go right on and find him.” He laughed again, shrilly. “Yeah, and don’t bother asking me how to get rid of it cause I don’t know! Gregor’s the only one who knows that stuff! When you do find him, if you do, you’re going to have to get down on your knees and beg him to get his pet back under control.”

Shrugging herself back into fully human form right down to her eyes, Carissa said contemptuously, “Shut up, baby witch! Followed Kristoff around like a lot of little ducklings, you and your buddies, too scared to even ask him questions in your little peeping voices. We all know what use Gregor really had for his disciples!”

The young man flinched, but protected by the Special Forces soldiers, he answered with almost as much scorn, “We all sure knew what use Alistair had for a bitch puppy, you bet. Gregor wouldn’t touch a bitch like you.”

Carissa took a step forward. Grayson stopped her with a look, and Colonel Herrod cleared his throat. “Get him out of here,” he told his men. Before she guts him like a pig, he didn’t say. That part was too obvious to need to be put into words.

Since the Master didn’t object as the Special Forces people took away the young witch, Alejandro made no move to prevent them. But he had a bad feeling that, despite Carissa’s scorn for the disciples, maybe the young man did know more about those demons and about Gregor Kristoff than any of the rest of them. Even Carissa.

-15-

Alejandro wanted to go find Natividad. He wanted this very badly. He had to remind himself that he should be worried about Miguel as well, even about Ezekiel, because for him his sister’s fear and distress were palpable. Her fear had eased, but she was still muy molesta.

He turned his head aside, looking away, across the snow-streaked rugged landscape that folded up into mountains to the north and down into flat valleys to the south. The six black dogs—at least they had not lost any more of their people—had gathered in a not-too-compact group outside the witches’ underground hiding place, out in the open air, where the snow hid the worst of the ravages that had cut the earth and broken open the mountain. Carter was carefully wiping the remnants of ashes from his chest and arms with clean snow. Carissa was watching him, her gaze hooded and hard to read. James was watching him as well—pretending not to, but watching. Obviously he was wondering what influence the witch might have over him now, even though the ashes had been wiped away. Maybe Kristoff might suddenly reach out from wherever he was now and take control of Carter.

Probably Carter was wondering about that too. He was pretending not to notice that he was the center of attention, though he could hardly have not known it. He asked abruptly, not quite looking at Carissa, “How about it, huh? What’s it take for that bastard to get his leash on one of us?”

“More than that,” Carissa said after a second. “I think.”

“Huh,” said Carter, and glared at James. Rip drifted a few steps away and turned to gaze out across the landscape, subtly declaring his intention not to get between the two stronger black dogs if there were a fight. That seemed sensible.

James looked away, casually, as though he hadn’t quite noticed Carter’s hard stare. If there were to be a fight, Alejandro was certain James would win it. But there wouldn’t be. The Master would never allow it. Not now.

Carefully not looking at Grayson, Alejandro spoke quietly. Stubbornly. “We should go. Or me, I should go, just by myself. This enemy of Herrod’s, he should learn it is not wise to be Dimilioc’s enemy. I could show him that. Natividad is not so far, I think. I could reach there in not so many hours. Tonight, I think. Late in the night.” He would not mind arriving at that place during the moonlit hours. Daylight and sunlight were not a black dog’s enemies—black dogs were not vampires—but darkness was a black dog’s friend. He would enjoy finding whomever had frightened Natividad and hunting that person down in the dark.

Grayson did not answer at once. Controlling anger at Alejandro’s careful not-quite challenge, or considering what he had suggested, or thinking about Carter and whether the witch might somehow take control of him even now...maybe all of those things.

The Master said at last, “You would most likely find a hardened military installation. You would not be able to enter. If you tried, you would probably be shot. Or captured. Either way, you would very likely have positioned Dimilioc as an enemy of the Special Forces. Worse: as an enemy of ordinary humans. Any effort to extract our people by force could be so construed.” He paused.

Alejandro said nothing. He could see this was all probably true. He just didn’t think it was very important. Certainly not nearly as important as getting his sister and brother back safe.

But the Master went on, “I think we must allow Herrod to take his own people in hand and handle this situation. I believe he can be trusted to do so. I think it most unlikely he will actually harm them, or allow harm to be done to them. If I am wrong, if Ezekiel or Natividad—or Miguel—if any of our people come to harm in his keeping, then he is our enemy and we shall deal with him and his in that understanding. But I think we must allow him time to sort out this human dominance struggle. We shall trust him to do so. Provisionally.”

Carissa said without preliminary, “The Master’s right. Or I think we better hope so. Cause getting our people back from the Special Forces, that’s not the problem we ought to be focusing on. Finding Gregor Kristoff, that’s our problem. Gutting every witch and baby witch in this state and this country and the whole world, that’s what we should focus on.”

Hunting down every witch in the world, tearing out their insides and leaving the bodies to rot, that part sounded good. But the rest of it...Alejandro didn’t like it. Grayson trusted that Colonel Herrod would resolve whatever problem this political rival was causing in Albuquerque, and that the colonel would protect Dimilioc’s people from harm, and that he would return them to Dimilioc’s care. The Master trusted that Colonel Herrod would do all things as he had promised rather than throw away the cautious alliance that he and Grayson had forged between his people and Dimilioc.

The Master knew Colonel Herrod much better than Alejandro did. Even so, Alejandro was not so certain.

Then the Master asked, “Tell me, Alejandro: is your sister angry or merely afraid? She is not...grieving?”

Alejandro glanced back at him, surprised. If Grayson feared what answer he might give, nothing of that fear showed in his expression. Maybe in the heavy, close-gathered density of his shadow. He was angry, and very likely worried. Good. the Master should be angry and, in Alejandro’s opinion, he should also be worried.

He thought about his answer. “I think there is no grief in Natividad’s aflicción. Her distress. I think she is afraid for Ezekiel, and for herself, and probably for Miguel. I think she is afraid of what might happen. I do not think this is anger and grief at what has already come to pass.”

If anything actually did happen to them, Alejandro would certainly teach someone all about anger and grief. This enemy of Herrod’s, perhaps. Or Herrod himself. Whichever seemed appropriate.

If anything happened to them, Grayson would do that himself. But Alejandro would certainly help.

Far better if nothing happened to them. Nothing worse. Nothing deadly.

He knew where Natividad was. Not exactly, of course. But roughly. He would be able to find her. If he went across country, he could go straight toward her. If he kept human form and drove a car, he would not be able to take so direct a path, but it might be faster. Except he could not drive. It was not a skill he had ever learned. Miguel had been the one who liked cars and liked driving. Alejandro had never felt it important to learn. Now he thought seriously about deserting Grayson and Dimilioc and running south and west until he found his sister, wherever she might be and surrounded by however many possible enemies and guns.

Many of the others could drive a car. Maybe everyone. Carissa Hammond, probably she could drive a car. But Carissa would not agree to go find Natividad and the others. She was too focused on her own enemies. She was staring off into the distance, nostrils flaring as she scented the breeze. For demons, maybe, if not witches. That sulfur-and-rot stench was distinctive. He could smell it still, but only from the abandoned place underground, not on the cleaner wind out here on these broken slopes.

Even if Alejandro could get Carissa to agree to go with him, by the time they found Natividad and the others, Colonel Herrod would surely have had time to deal with whatever threat this enemy posed. Probably Grayson was right. Let Herrod handle his human enemies and let Dimilioc decide how best to pursue the supernatural ones.

But he didn’t like it.

The Master had taken out his phone, obviously considering the matter settled. Now he said into it, “Étienne. Have the others arrived? Good. How is Stéphanie? How are the others?”

Alejandro drifted a step closer, listening.

Étienne’s voice answered, grim with worry. “Sometimes Stéphanie wakes up. Then she starts screaming. Théo cannot comfort her. Nor can I.”

The Master nodded, though of course Étienne couldn’t see him. He said, “Generations of Pure women have set peace and safety into that land and that house. Perhaps Stéphanie may recover herself now that she is there. We must see if another Pure woman might assist her directly. Natividad, or if necessary you must send for DeAnn.”

“Of course,” Étienne assented. “Of course, Master.”

From his tone, he had more to say. Grayson heard it too, and waited. At last the Lumondière wolf said, careful and precise with his English, “I should inform you, Master: Jim Gotz is dead.”

Carter grunted as though he had been struck. Carissa turned her head sharply and drifted a step nearer, listening. The others came closer as well. James was frowning, but he said nothing.

Étienne was going on. “Jim attacked Stéphanie, but I do not believe he meant to harm her. He wanted Théo to kill him, I think. Either the demon reversed the Beschwichtigung or Jim meant to die. He would never have imagined he could challenge Théo. Nor was he the kind to lose himself in his sombra. He was an asset to Dimilioc. Now he is dead. I set his death at the feet of this witch.”

That last was a kind of subtle assurance: Not at Grayson’s feet. Good. Alejandro would not have been surprised if Étienne fought Grayson because of the deaths of his people. Now that seemed less likely.

“Indeed. So do I,” Grayson answered. “After this, we shall see to it that no witch dares touch our people—if any are left in the world. Théo?”

“Much distressed, but his wife’s need reinforces his control, I believe. I think he will do well enough.”

“Good. Well. I believe we must return to your sept. Briefly. Our enemy is still loose. Somewhere. Finding him is important. Being certain of our ability to kill him when we find him is even more important.”

“Oui. Indeed.” There was slight pause. Then Étienne said in a level voice, “And Absolon? I had hoped for news of my young cousin, Master.”

Alejandro was surprised to realize he had not thought once of Absolon since coming to this place. He should have. They all should have. No doubt the Master had thought of him, looked for him. But he had not been there. The witch had taken Absolon. So where was he now? Not in that torn place underground. But then where? And why?

Maybe Gregor Kristoff had fed the young wolf to a demon already. Maybe he had done something worse.

Alejandro looked at Carissa, wanting to ask. Her expression was closed. She did not look like she would welcome questions.

Grayson said only, “Yes, I had hoped for that as well. I rather expected to recover him, one way or another, once we found Kristoff. There was no trace of him here. But I doubt very much that our enemy would lightly dispose of such an asset. I suspect he wished to forestall any chance of my reclaiming Absolon. If he hasn’t realized yet that I can force other black dogs into human form, he is both stupid and unobservant, which unfortunately does not seem to be the case. He must realize that Carissa has been freed from his control. He may have wished to keep Absolon away from me, lest he lose him as well.”

“Then how are we to recover him?” Étienne asked grimly. But he did not seem to expect an answer, but went on in the same grim tone. “Well. Yes. I shall expect your return, then. I shall hope to greet you with news that Stéphanie has recovered.”

“Indeed.” Grayson thumbed off the phone and glanced around at the small number of black wolves gathered around him. “Very well. I believe we must now—” He broke off, his attention sharpening. Everyone else shifted to follow the direction of his gaze. Away to the east, not very far, a dust cloud was rising. A very large dust cloud. The dust rose up and up, spreading out as it came to the faster-moving winds high above, trailing away in a lengthening plume to the east as those winds carried it. Red streaked with charcoal gray, like ashes stirred into blood and then turned into dust and flung into the sky.

“This resort,” Grayson said thoughtfully. “Copper Mountain. How far are we from that?”

“About so far, I think,” James answered in a dry tone. “It looks a good deal like a bomb, doesn’t it? Although I believe a bomb would not throw up so diffuse a cloud of dust. I wonder what a greater demon looks like?”

“I don’t think we need to wonder,” Carissa said. Her words were unobjectionable, but her tone was not very respectful.

Alejandro kicked her discreetly on the ankle and she flicked a brief, hot glare his way but bowed her head a little and amended this with a grudging, “Sir.”

Both James and Grayson pretended not to notice either Carissa’s tone or Alejandro’s intervention. Each had tilted his head back, studying the sky.  The Master asked, “Carissa, can you explain what we might expect from this phenomenon?”

The girl shrugged. “Something bad, probably.”

“Something bad,” Carter repeated, a shade derisively, but not as though he thought she were wrong.

The silent rising of the dust, the slow spreading of its haze across the distant sky, was somehow as disturbing as anything else Alejandro had seen during this long day.

“Yeah,” said Carissa. “Something bad.”

“That these witches have laid their hands on anyone or anything in Dimilioc territory is an insult and a challenge,” said James. “But this may be the greater threat.”

“And we’ll answer it,” agreed Grayson. “We have driven our enemies into disarray and flight on each of our meetings today. But not without cost. Too high a cost, so far. I believe we must take time to recoup our strength and consider our approach. The thing is said to...encyst, was that not the word? We need not be precipitous in pursuit, I think. The witch himself and not the demon must remain our primary concern. Carter. How are you...feeling?”

Carter Lethridge rubbed a hand across his chest where the gray dust had spattered across him. “Fine. I feel just fine. But who knows? Maybe the next time we meet that witch, he’ll grab me.” His sullen glance said This is your fault.

There was enough truth in this that the Master did not rebuke him. He said, “You have been very useful today. Tearing up the generators was clever. Several times you have intervened to protect another of our people.” He didn’t mention that during the last and most important of those moments, Carter had moved to protect him. He said merely, “You’ve done well. But I think you will stay at the sept house next time. I would prefer you not risk yourself in the third and final confrontation.”

“Huh,” muttered Carter. But his expression lightened.

It was good to be acknowledged. Good to be acknowledged for more than strength and aggression. Praise freely offered by the Master was better than, at least entirely different from, fear wrung from a weaker black dog. Alejandro knew all about that, but this was the first time he realized Grayson did it deliberately. Carter was smart. Maybe he realized it too. But it would still work, because it was true.

James shook his head. “Yeah, well. We keep winning and driving our enemies before us. But too many victories like this and we may hand the war to Kristoff.”

“Indeed,” agreed the Master. “That is unacceptable, obviously. We must force a decisive engagement and end this on our terms: with the bodies of our enemies scattered across the earth. This will require an effective protection against the power of these witches. More than we have now. We need one of the Pure. Stéphanie, if she recovers sufficiently. Natividad, if not. If I must send for DeAnn, I will, but I would prefer a Dimilioc—or Évanouir—trained woman if possible. A woman who has glimpsed these enemies of ours.”

“Yeah, I’m definitely not arguing,” said James.

He had undoubtedly understood all that already. Alejandro knew the two of them, James and the Master, had laid it all out like that for the rest of them. Certainly it all seemed true to him as well.

Grayson took out his phone and turned it over in his hand, frowning. Thinking about getting Natividad back from Herrod’s people, Alejandro guessed. Thinking about how Herrod had better not make any difficulties about that.

“We should have kept that woman as a hostage,” commented Carter, just a little wary about speaking up, but bolder now, after the Master’s praise. “Raichlen. We could have said we needed to keep an eye on her until after the full moon’s come and gone. That would have made sure the Special Forces stayed on our side till this is over.”

Carter’s tone on this had been light, ironic. Not the tone of a black dog inclined to challenge the Master. Alejandro noticed that he had not said You should have kept that woman, which would have been accusatory. He had said, We should have kept that woman, which included himself among the other Dimilioc wolves. So he was becoming more confident of his place within Dimilioc. Yes. Again it seemed the Master had been right about his ability to successfully bring a troublesome stray into Dimilioc.

Grayson’s gaze met Carter’s, not an expression of dominance, but recognition. “I considered it. I am still considering it. This time Herrod did not offer me a liaison, did you mark that? He was reluctant to set a hostage into my hands. I did not insist. If I am not fully satisfied on our next encounter, I will take a hostage whether he offers one or not. Raichlen would do well, I think.”

Mildly nonplused by this serious, respectful response, Carter ducked his head and muttered, “Yeah.”

“I’m intrigued by those generators you destroyed. I noticed at least one turned on and running, but with its power cord still coiled on hooks at the back.”

Carter glanced up, surprised and impressed—he hadn’t realized the Master had been paying so much attention, Alejandro knew. It was hard at first to believe that the Master noticed everything, even when he seemed fully engaged somewhere else.

“Yeah,” Carter said. “I noticed that. I was going to say something about it.”

“Power generated from ordinary technology, directed into magic,” muttered James. “How special.” He raised an eyebrow at Carissa.

She only shrugged, bristling, embarrassed and angry. “I don’t know. How would I know? I don’t know anything about generators. Nobody sat down and explained stuff to me. They don’t explain much to anybody, the master witches. I’m sure you’ve figured out they like their disciples fawning and ignorant.”

“Well, we shall consider the matter,” said Grayson. “James, the van, please. Carter, Rip, go back down. Burn everything that will burn, melt everything that will melt. Leave nothing for our enemies to reclaim. Nothing for our...putative allies...to find.” He left them to it, flipping his phone over and tapping it to dial.

Alejandro heard it ring. Any black dog within ten strides would have heard it ring. But there was no response except a recorded invitation to leave a message. Frowning, Grayson put his phone away again. He didn’t leave a message. Probably the fact that he had attempted to call was message enough. Don’t cross me. That was the message Alejandro thought Herrod ought to understand. I am running low on patience. You had better not betray me.

That was what he would have understood, were he in Herrod’s place.

Fifteen minutes later they passed through the Copper Mountain resort. A resort was a kind of very fancy guest house for vacationers, Alejandro gathered. The buildings and grounds spoke clearly of wealth and leisure. There were said to be estates like this near Monterrey, but nothing near where his family had lived. He had never seen any place like it.

All the people who had been here at this resort also seemed to have been wealthy and beautiful too. But they were all dead.

Two or three cars had slewed across the main driveway and run off into the snow. The nearest still had its motor running; Alejandro heard it clearly when James, who was driving, stopped the van so that they could all look at the dead resort. The driver was still in the vehicle, slumped over the wheel, dead.

The smell of death mingled with woodsmoke and the scent of grilling meat. Beef and chicken—there was a place to eat not far from where James had stopped. There was no smell of fresh blood except a little from the beef. No blood had been spilled in all this killing. But death in plenty, yes, blood or no. The air tasted of death and ashes, sulfur and rot. Overhead, the dust-streaked sky seemed to have been painted red and gray and black: the colors of blood and bruises.

A small group of women in bright coats had fallen on the porch of the main house; on the porch and down the stairs. One, at the bottom of the stairs, had been carrying a child, maybe four or five years old. The child now lay just beyond the reach of her outstretched arms and fingers. Not so much as though she had died reaching for him, but as though mother and child had died together and then fallen and now lay where they had happened to fall.

At this hour, with the sinking sun coming through the dust to paint the snow-streaked mountains in fiery rose, with the shadows stretching out long and violet below the western slopes, hardly anyone had been skiing. But a train of little cars on wires was still running overhead, carrying a scattering of slumped figures down to the buildings and then, when they did not get out, up again to the heights. A man and two teenage boys lay closer to hand, where they had been coming back from the place where people were supposed to get out of the little cars.

No one suggested getting out of the van to make a closer inspection of this place. No black dog minded violent death or murder. This was different. No one wanted to get out here, or look more closely at the bloodless slaughter.

“Kristoff?” Grayson asked Carissa as James re-started the van and swung it in an unhurried turn toward the road.

The girl was frowning, uneasy more than angry. “Maybe. Probably. I guess it must have been. I mean, what else? Except I don’t think even Kristoff would have done all that on purpose. I think...”

“We released two demons from Kristoff’s control and they combined into one greater demon,” Grayson said flatly. “Just as the acolyte said.”

The Master’s tone had been matter-of-fact, but Alejandro winced. Death and murder were one thing. But he could just imagine how Natividad would feel if she found out the demons she had helped free had dealt out all this death and murder.

She had seen whole villages torn apart before. She had seen everyone she knew killed, murdered by her own family’s enemies, right down to the dogs and the goats and the chickens. That was what she would think of when she heard about this. Even though she could never have guessed what demons might do if they slipped a witch’s control. How could any of them have guessed?

He wanted Natividad so badly it was nearly a physical pain, though at the same time he was very glad she had not seen the dead resort.

Grayson probably thought the same thing. He was putting his phone away again—once more he had tried to call Herrod. Once more there had been no answer. No one made any comment about this. The Master’s expression was forbidding. Probably Colonel Herrod was still on his way to deal with this political problem of his. Or still in the process of dealing with it. But he had better deal with it. Very soon.

The sun had gone down behind the mountains now, so they drove down and down in the dark. James had not yet turned on the van’s headlights; black dog eyes had no difficulty  seeing by the light of the blood-streaked moon. The road turned and turned again, snaking down out of the mountains, heading east toward Denver. Alejandro wished he thought they would be safe there. He did not know which he feared and hated more, the witch or this demon. Though if he guessed right, encyst meant something like sleep. Perhaps the demon had been sated and would sleep.

He was very certain Gregor Kristoff would not be sleeping. He would be in that safe and hidden place of his, planning vengeance and a decisive blow against Dimilioc. He had no choice, now. He must know that unless he were very stupid. Unfortunately Alejandro did not think that very likely.

If Stéphanie could not recover herself, or if she died, they would need Natividad. Even if Stéphanie recovered, Alejandro did not trust her as he trusted his sister. Without Natividad, he had no idea how would they ever find a way to guard themselves against the witch or find a way to destroy the demon.

They needed Natividad. And Colonel Herrod was not answering his phone.

-16-

They left Miguel handcuffed to that damned chair even after the senator left the room. He couldn’t really judge the time. He just sat there getting madder and madder, his butt getting sore from the hard plastic and his neck getting sore because the back of chair was too straight. He stood up sometimes, but he couldn’t pace because of the damned handcuff. No one brought a sandwich or coke or anything. He was getting pretty hungry, but what he really wanted was that coke. Or coffee would be fine. Or plain water. Anything. Except he already needed a toilet, and a coke or coffee or water would only have made that worse.

You’re not important. That was the message, either intentional or otherwise: You don’t matter. Basically that was fine, even if it was also uncomfortable. Except that he knew that those cabrones must think Natividad was important, and he was afraid of what a bunch of politicos and who knows what lab types might do with her, or to her, trying to figure her out. Though surely if they believed she was their key to controlling Ezekiel, controlling black dogs generally, they’d want to treat her with kid gloves. Senator Connelly would probably try to get her on his side, persuade her he was a good guy. He’d think she was stupid, the kind of girl who’d fall in love with a black dog bad boy who batted his seductive eyelashes at her. Miguel sure hoped the senator would think so. Surely he’d read the senator more or less right, set him up just right. This would definitely not be a good time to be wrong.

The senator would probably be a lot rougher with Ezekiel. That wasn’t great, but Dimilioc’s executioner could handle whatever that pedazo de basura dished out.

Miguel could handle the senator, too. He could get the damned politico to dish out just the right stuff, if he was careful, and if could only get the senator thinking that Miguel himself was their best source of information about black dogs and about the Pure. Natividad would understand that she shouldn’t admit anything or explain anything, or actually say anything at all. The senator would have to come back to Miguel if he wanted to get anything coherent out of Natividad. He’d surely think of using Miguel that way. Of course he would, that was exactly the kind of guy he was. Miguel could handle him.

Or if he couldn’t, surely Colonel Herrod would come back eventually. Miguel was sure Herrod would be seriously pissed off when he found out the senator had taken custody of...what had the colonel meant them to be? Special prisoners, hostages, hard to say. Lab specimens. But important. The colonel’s people would have been polite. Miguel was sure about that.

He wished he could be as sure that Senator Connelly cared about Colonel Herrod’s opinion. The senator was probably so arrogant it hadn’t crossed his mind he ought to care about a mere colonel. That was sure to be a mistake. Miguel wouldn’t mind watching the two of them clash. Like the proverbial immovable force and irresistible object. Except he was pretty sure the senator would turn out to be a lot more movable than he expected. Not that any of that would help if Senator Connelly had already dissected Ezekiel or whatever.

Anyway, Herrod still hadn’t come back as far as Miguel knew, and that meant he and Natividad and Ezekiel were on their own. Miguel wished there was a clock in this place. Or that he had his phone. Or even a watch. Anything. It was just impossible to guess how much time had passed. A couple hours probably seemed like forever when you were bored and hungry and irritated and, he had no problem admitting, scared.

And there was no way for Miguel to find out what was happening. He couldn’t even pound on the door and shout, because he was still handcuffed to this stupid plastic chair. Jerking to his feet again, he kicked the chair hard. At least tantrums were perfectly in character.

It didn’t make any difference, though. The chair was still bolted to the floor, he was still handcuffed to it, the door was still shut and presumably locked, and that damned senator and all his flunkies were still out there doing God knew what. Miguel glared at the door. “Pedazo de basura,” he muttered. That was in character, too, if anybody was listening.

But nothing happened, and then more nothing, and he threw himself back into the chair, rubbing his face and wishing for aspirina.

A lot of handcuffs were supposed to open for the same key, hadn’t he read that somewhere? If he had a paperclip, maybe he could pick the lock, if he knew how to pick locks. If he were Pure, he could wish really hard for the lock to spring open, if the Pure could open locks, which he’d have at least tried to do if he’d been Pure. He’d have to get with Natividad, figure out if there were ways for her to open locks, most particularly figure out if she could make him something that would let him do it.

He carefully didn’t allow himself to think, If I ever get the chance to ask her.

He really wished for aspirin. That didn’t do any good, either.

Folding his arms on the table, he rested his head on the backs of his hands and closed his eyes. It wasn’t comfortable. Not at all. But he could at least rest his eyes for a few minutes. Just a few minutes, maybe. And then he’d think about the senator and the lab guys and just how to work things so the next steps in the dance came out the way he wanted them to...have to be quick about it. He was more and more afraid that if they didn’t escape pretty soon, Dimilioc would show up, Alejandro in the front, pointing the way to Natividad, and who knew what would happen then. Anybody might get shot if it came to that...he had to make sure it didn’t come to that...

Though the sound wasn’t loud, Miguel jerked awake as the door clicked open. His back and neck hurt as he straightened, and his tail bone. And the headache was worse. And he really needed to get to a toilet.

But it was Lieutenant Santibañez, with a large, steaming Styrofoam cup in his hand. The cup instantly captured Miguel’s full attention.

“Tell me that’s coffee,” he said, before remembering the kid he was supposed to be probably wouldn’t say something like that to a Special Forces man, at least not in that tone. He’d forgotten to sound like a smart-ass; that had come out more like they were kind of on the same side. He rubbed his face hard, trying to wake up, trying to remember what exactly he’d had in his head last night. Or whenever. “Look, Lieutenant, I really need to piss,” he added, and that didn’t come out quite as whiny as he’d meant it to, either. The back of his brain really didn’t seem to think playacting was necessary with Santibañez. Probably the back of his brain was an idiot.

“I bet you do. Down the hall,” said Santibañez, and produced a key, which he tossed across the several feet between him and Miguel.

Miguel snagged the key out of the air. “Oh, yeah.” It took him a couple of tries to get the handcuff unlocked; that was how tired and out of it he was. Coffee, yeah. Maybe the caffeine would even help with the damn headache. He grabbed the cup as Santibañez handed it over, popped off the lid, and slugged half of it down like medicine. It was just about hot enough to burn the lining off the back of his throat, but he didn’t even care.

“Senator Connelly wants you to talk sense into your sister,” volunteered Santibañez. “He’s been trying to talk to her himself. Yesterday evening and again this morning—it’s eight, by the way—but he’s not getting very far. She’s kind of...upset.”

Miguel gave the lieutenant a sharp look, pretty sure that this was way more than he’d been supposed to say. He bet if Colonel Herrod ever said Go get the other prisoner, Santibañez would just go get the other prisoner, not get all chatty. “Yeah, she gets like that,” he said, figuring that could mean anything. He wondered just how Natividad had been acting, to get Santibañez to put that kind of super-neutral tone on upset. Crying, maybe. Crying might be a good excuse for being incoherent. Maybe she’d worked herself right up into hysteria. He couldn’t quite imagine Natividad hysterical, but maybe she’d found new acting ability, under the circumstances.

Or maybe she really was just that upset. Miguel flinched from imagining what that damned cabrón senator might have done to his sister, tossed the empty cup into a trashcan, and said, “Okay, let’s go, right?”

Natividad didn’t exactly look hysterical, when Santibañez conducted Miguel down the hall—first to the toilet, thank God—and around a corner and up a flight of stairs. Then down another hall and finally he opened another metal security door, and waved Miguel through. And there was Natividad. At last. She wasn’t even crying, at least not at the moment. But she sure didn’t look happy.

This was a bigger room than the one Miguel had been stuck in all night. One whole wall was a black mirror—one-way glass, obviously, and no telling how many men might behind it, or whether they were Special Forces men or belonged to the senator, or whether they were armed.

You could tell this room was for way more important prisoners than Miguel. Besides the mirrored wall, this room had nicer chairs, with cushions. They weren’t even bolted to the floor. Senator Connelly sat in one, which at least meant he wasn’t behind the one-way glass. Probably better to know where he was, like keeping a snake under your eye.

The senator was leaning back comfortably in his nice chair, his legs crossed and his hands folded on his knee. Though he was a big man, his hands were surprisingly graceful, with the long fingers of an artist. They didn’t quite seem to go with his broad shoulders or heavy-boned features. When he looked at Miguel and raised an eyebrow, he smiled patiently, but his lips were pressed just a little bit tight. Miguel thought behind the pose of patience and tolerance, he was furious. Two of his flunkies hovered near at hand, on their feet, looking ineffectual and nervous. Igor and someone else—Igor Two, Miguel decided. They looked a lot alike, actually. Maybe the senator ordered them in pairs from some kind of flunky supply company. There was probably a market for flunkies, among politicos who thought they were supervillains.

Natividad wasn’t in any of the chairs. She was tucked into a tight little knot in one of the corners, her arms wrapped around her drawn-up legs and her face hidden against her knees. Her wrists were handcuffed together with what looked an awful lot like silver handcuffs, which sure suggested Senator Connelly and his people knew a lot less about the Pure than they thought they did. That might be useful, though it took Miguel a heartbeat to realize this because he was seriously distracted by how bad his sister looked.

Besides the handcuffs, Natividad’s hair was tangled and one sleeve of her blouse was torn. She looked little and scared and helpless, and Miguel had to breathe carefully against the rush of anger and dread that had surged through him at the sight of her, that made his hands tremble and his heart race. Maybe he wasn’t a black dog, but for this one moment he thought he understood what it must be like, to have fury burning behind your conscious thoughts every moment. Or maybe this was different, because it cleared his head even better than the coffee. He’d never noticed that anger helped black dogs think better.

Then Natividad peeked up at him, blinking her long lashes, and even though her eyes were swollen and her face tear-streaked, he was suddenly sure that she was, after all, putting on a show. She was very convincing. He didn’t know how he could tell. But he was positive. The relief was almost as staggering as the rage had been. Though actually, he was still really angry. But the dismay mostly drained away, replaced by satisfaction. Good for Natividad. His sister was brave. And she knew him really, really well.

“Get her talking,” Senator Connelly ordered Miguel. “Get her talking, or I will. Make her understand that, you hear me?”

Miguel nodded, trying to look sullen and submissive at the same time. It wasn’t an attitude he had practiced much. He thought of punks and gang kids from tv shows and tried to look like those kids. The senator was even more out of patience than he had guessed, obviously. How long could the man have been trying to coax Natividad into speaking? A while, apparently, even if it was only eight in the morning right now. Miguel looked around, trying to make it look like a helpless search for inspiration for how to deal with a hysterical girl instead of a careful survey of possibilities.

Off to one side stood a big, heavy table instead of one of those flimsy folding things. A plate of individually wrapped sandwiches and a pitcher of water were on the table, along with a couple of glasses. Also Natividad’s pink handbag and a scattering of her things: a little palm-sized mirror and a little bag of glass beads, a couple short silver chains. Their mother’s small wooden flute. Miguel hadn’t realized Natividad had brought so much. Good for her, but none of it was any use now that the senator’s people had taken everything—and rage shook him again at the thought of a bunch of nasty politicos handling Mamá’s flute.

He didn’t show his anger. He tried not to.

Those sandwiches weren’t what Americans thought of as breakfast food; probably they’d been sitting there since last night. It looked like they hadn’t been touched, which was quite an act, if Natividad was as hungry as he was. Which Miguel was positive she was. Stepping away from Santibañez, he collected a couple of the sandwiches. He unwrapped one and took a bite. The bread was squashed and tasteless, and he wasn’t sure whether the meat was supposed to be turkey or chicken or what, and the cheese was that horrible plastic-y American kind, but at the moment Miguel wasn’t disposed to complain about any food, no matter how bad.

He unwrapped the other sandwich, crossed the room, and knelt by Natividad. “Tienes que comer,” he said in Spanish, and then repeated it in English, “You have to eat.” He wanted Senator Connelly used to him speaking in Spanish, not suspecting anything much when he did, not guessing he might say something less innocent than You have to eat. Though he supposed it wouldn’t be safe to assume none of their enemies spoke Spanish. Lieutenant Santibañez might, for one thing, though whether he’d volunteer to translate for the senator was, Miguel thought, kind of an open question.

Probably safest to act like there was no hope of help from Santibañez, though. And like everybody spoke Spanish. “Come on,” he coaxed his sister. “You must be starving.”  He took another bite of his own sandwich by way of demonstration.

Natividad took the sandwich, but she whispered, “They’re not feeding Ezekiel.”  She whispered it in English, and Miguel knew even though this might be true—probably was, considering no one had brought him anything to eat—the statement was also part of the act Natividad was putting on.

“Does it help him if you starve?” Miguel asked reasonably. “Don’t be a silly girl.”  Naturally Natividad would know he meant Do act like a silly little idiot, so he didn’t have to give her a significant look that might signal the senator or his people. He patted her on the shoulder, awkwardly, like a brother who wasn’t comfortable with a weepy sister and didn’t really know how to cope with her. “Come on, get up and sit in a chair and eat that. Come on. Be good for the senator and he’ll be good to you. Take off those handcuffs, treat you nice. Look, eat the sandwich. You’ll feel a lot better.”  He held out his hand, urging her to her feet.

Natividad dropped the sandwich, which under the circumstances was quite a sacrifice even with a sandwich like that one. She buried her face in her hands, sobbing. That was laying the silly girl thing on a little thick, but she made it look real. Maybe she actually was crying. Throwing away food was reason enough for tears, and he was sure she really was worried about Ezekiel. Black dogs needed a lot of food. If it were anyone but Ezekiel, if they hadn’t fed him, he might be starting to lose control of his shadow. Even Ezekiel might be having trouble, given the shape he’d been in last Miguel had seen him. Especially since he had to be practically wild with fury by now.

Miguel straightened and turned back to Senator Connelly, shrugging helplessly. “She gets like this. I can’t help it. She’s worried about Ezekiel. If you brought him here so she could see him, maybe she’d calm down.”

The senator drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair, looking far from convinced. Natividad sobbed louder.

“And you know, black dogs do need a lot of food,” Miguel said earnestly. “Or they get really tough to handle.”

The senator flicked a hand impatiently. “Anything that reacts that violently to silver can be handled. But I want to see her handle him. If you think you can manage her? If you can’t...”  he let that trail off ominously. His voice was still smooth and beautiful, but he looked at Natividad with enough visible contempt that Miguel longed to hit him. Really, the senator was trying to be a supervillain. It would have been funny if they hadn’t all been his prisoners.

“Sure,” Miguel said. It wasn’t hard to sound cowed. “Sure. Absolutely.”  He took another hasty bite of his sandwich as though afraid the senator might order all the food taken away, punishment for his prisoners being annoying so early in the morning. Actually, that did seem like just the kind of thing he’d do.

Natividad had quieted again. It was probably hard to keep that up, if she’d been at it all night. She was trembling. Exhausted or hungry or scared, or maybe struggling not to hope too much that Miguel had a plan. He sure hoped he did know what he was doing.

He said earnestly to the senator, “Look, don’t be mad at her! It doesn’t really matter if she’s crying. You don’t need her to try to control a black dog, you know? It’s not what she does, it’s what she is.”  He hesitated, like someone with a weak hand trying to decide how many cards to turn over. “I could show you,” he offered at last, as though reluctantly. He thought hard about how he’d feel if there was no hope of escape, if his life and Natividad’s depended on what the senator might do if, say, he decided he’d learned enough from Miguel that he didn’t need him. Or if he decided he’d had enough of crying girls and decided to chain Natividad up without food until she stopped acting like such a baby.

Actually, it wasn’t hard at all to imagine the senator acting like that. Though maybe not in this military base, surrounded by people who weren’t his. Miguel didn’t look at Lieutenant Santibañez. He was sure Senator Connelly didn’t want to be reminded he didn’t have a completely free hand here, plus Miguel wanted to feel as scared and helpless as possible, to help him act scared and helpless. So Miguel kept his attention on the senator instead, flinchingly, as though he were thoroughly cowed. From the covert satisfaction in the senator’s expression, the man liked prisoners to cower. Yeah, big man, bullying punk kids.

No matter how pathetic Senator Supervillain was, though, if Miguel hadn’t been focused on getting away, he would have been sincerely terrified of him. If they failed to get away...they wouldn’t fail. They didn’t dare fail.

“Look,” he offered again, “I’ll show you. And then you can let me go, right? You don’t need me. I’m not Pura.”  Be contemptuous of me, he willed the senator. I’m willing to leave my sister in your hands as long as you let me go. I’m a coward and not very bright and you don’t have to worry about me at all.

He didn’t dare glance at Lieutenant Santibañez. Skepticism could spread, if the senator noticed somebody else doubted Miguel’s act.

Senator Connelly didn’t look at the Special Forces lieutenant. Nor did he make any promises to Miguel. Probably figured he didn’t have to. He said abruptly to Igor Two, “Go get the black dog.”  Then he said to Miguel, “Have another sandwich. If you can’t show me how to get that black dog under control, it’ll be the last one you get.”

Miguel nodded quickly. “It won’t be any problem,” he promised. “Those black dogs, they think they’re so tough, but they can’t say no to the Pure.”  Then he bent over Natividad and said in a lower tone, but still loud enough to be overheard, “Look, don’t be stupid. Eat something while you got the chance, hear me? And don’t worry about Ezekiel. He’s not one of us anyway.”

Natividad turned her head away and snuffled. Maybe she really did feel awful.

But they both twitched around when the flunky and a couple of other men brought in Ezekiel. These were all the senator’s men—no, there was one Special Forces guy, but they were mostly flunkies. Trained little lapdogs; they’d probably all applaud if Senator Supervillain tortured a black dog to death and then started biting the heads off kittens for an encore.

Because Ezekiel looked awful. Burningly furious, sure, but awful: so thin he was practically pared down to bone and with terrible charred burns on his wrists and hands. He’d looked bad after the black witches had got him, but he looked a lot worse now.

They had him cuffed and chained with silver, no surprise, of course they did, but somehow Miguel had never once imagined they’d use silver cuffs without a heavy leather backing. If there was any backing at all on those cuffs, it was way too thin. He bit down hard on the urge to protest, trying to decide if it’d be in character to point out that if they wanted to use Ezekiel as their own special pet assassin, just a guess, but maybe they’d find it helpful if he weren’t crippled by burns and starved half to death.

Ezekiel’s eyes were the eyes of a black dog, pale burning yellow. His gaze went first to Natividad, flicked back and forth to evaluate the whole room, took in Miguel, and snagged for just a second on the senator—who looked, to Miguel’s quick glance, cautiously satisfied and not nearly as frightened as he should have been. Then his attention went back to Natividad, because of course he hadn’t gotten the memo that he wasn’t supposed to really care about her.

Maybe Miguel could spin it as pure possessiveness. If he had to. But what he really wanted was to get them all free in the next thirty seconds or so and give Senator Supervillain a whole different opinion of black dogs.

Then Natividad jumped to her feet, so silently furious that she’d totally forgotten her hysterical-little-girl act. Miguel lunged up after her, grabbed her arm, and spun her around. The moment wasn’t going to get any better, so he slapped her hard across the mouth, trying not to wince visibly. “Ezekiel doesn’t care about you!” he yelled at her, which would be news to Ezekiel and maybe helpful if the rest of this went wrong.

Natividad was standing stock-still, blinking at Miguel, which was fine, it looked just right actually. Her lip was split, blood welling up, not much blood, but the senator was starting to speak and whatever he said, if he interfered now the chance might be lost forever.

Miguel dabbed the tips of two fingers in his sister’s blood, whirled around, and glared at Ezekiel. He declared furiously, “You don’t care about my sister at all! Just so long as you can use her blood! That’s what you want, isn’t it? The blood of the Pure!”  He stomped angrily across the room toward Ezekiel, his bloody fingers held up like a threat or a warning. Ezekiel stood very still, the deadly stillness of a furious predator who sees his prey almost in reach.

And from the doorway, a familiar voice inquired in a cutting tone, “What is going on here? Senator Connelly, I’m sure you have an explanation for this...unbelievable folly.”

It was Colonel Herrod at last, and for an instant Miguel hesitated. But it honestly seemed too late. Too late to revise the plan, too late to try to scrape Ezekiel’s fury back into a box and get him to deal rationally with their enemies. Even if Miguel had been completely, totally, one hundred percent sure that Herrod truly could crush Senator Supervillain like a bug. He was ninety-eight percent sure, but that wasn’t good enough.

Besides, if there was one thing Miguel believed, it was that the senator was a serious enemy, and that serious enemies were better dead than merely defeated.

He took the two remaining steps, reached out, and smeared Natividad’s blood across Ezekiel’s handcuffs and down the silver chain that linked them.

It was only a little, tiny bit of blood. A few drops. Miguel didn’t know that it would be enough, but he knew quite a bit about the theory behind Pure magic and he thought it would.

The senator was saying something, blustering, his voice raised. Colonel Herrod was being freezingly polite back at him. Miguel couldn’t spare attention for either of them. Natividad was whispering, her hurried words tumbling over each other, impossible to overhear except that Miguel knew exactly what she was saying: “Mi sangre con la suya, my sombra con la suya, mi vida con la suya!” By that time one of the men holding Ezekiel had seized Miguel’s arm and pushed him back, which showed good instincts but he was too late, it didn’t matter. Except one of the Igors, not as stupid as he looked, was heading for Natividad, obviously to shut her up. That might have been bad, but that man was also too late. Natividad cried in Spanish, all on one breath, “¡Esta plata es mía pero también es tuyo!”

Ezekiel jerked his wrists apart, the silver practically exploding as he surged into his black dog form. All three men within reach, including the guy who’d grabbed Miguel, were dead a heartbeat later. Blood sprayed across Miguel’s face, hot and coppery, and he stumbled backward, caught himself, whirled, and grabbed Colonel Herrod’s arm in a hard two-handed grip before the colonel had a chance to do more than take a step back and reach for a weapon.

“Stop!” Miguel ordered, not shouting, but packing his voice with all the urgency he could manage. “Stand still!”

By some miracle—Miguel was not in any doubt about whether he could physically stop him—Herrod actually listened. He even rapped out a short phrase that made his own men fall back.

By that time, on the other side of the room, Senator Connelly’s body was collapsing in a horrifying welter of blood, and then the senator’s head, flung like a missile, smashed through the one-way glass, which was probably supposed to be shatterproof but turned out not to be that shatterproof, and a lot of people were screaming. Somebody’s guts were spread out over a surprisingly large area and somebody else’s throat had been torn out. Both the Igors were dead, almost everyone was dead. Not quite; in the room behind the glass someone scrambled up from behind a chair and fired at Ezekiel, deafening repeated gunfire, too fast to hear the individual shots.

Ezekiel flicked into human form to evade this attack, leaping across the shattered glass and rolling, then burst back into his black dog form, snatched the shooter up and tore him nearly in half, crushed the gun, and whirled in a tight circle, snapping powerful jaws in threat or warning. The sharp sound of black fangs meeting was more terrifying than a gunshot, but all the bad guys seemed to be dead. The smell of blood and butchery was thick, worse than a hog butchering.

It had all been so fast. Miguel seemed to have missed most of that action, somehow. He held on to Herrod’s arm, trying to impress on him the great need to be still through sheer physical urgency. The colonel seemed to have understood this, because he was standing still, though how long his restraint would last was anybody’s guess. The colonel was looking, eyes wide and lips tight, at Miguel. If he’d drawn a gun, it might have been impossible to stop Ezekiel from killing him, but he hadn’t.

Then Ezekiel leaped back through the broken window and pivoted toward Lieutenant Santibañez, who had his weapon out—God, this could be bad—Miguel shouted, “Ezekiel, no! Not him!”

Ezekiel was all looming black monster and blazing yellow eyes, and Santibañez jerked his weapon in line and took one step forward, bracing himself.

“Don’t!” cried Natividad, and Herrod rapped out at the same moment, “Don’t shoot!” and Santibañez actually didn’t, and Ezekiel didn’t kill him, each of which probably involved another miracle direct from God.

Miguel let go of the colonel’s arm and stepped forward, spreading his hands, careful not to meet the monster’s eyes. “Ezekiel,” he said urgently. “Listen, we don’t want to make the wrong enemies, you hear me? The senator was one thing, he was vicious, he was an enemy, he thought he could torture you and bully Natividad and now he’s dead and that’s fine, but we have to have a hostage, you understand? I know you could fight your way out through a thousand enemies, but what if Natividad catches a stray bullet, right? We don’t want to fight our way out! Are you listening to me?”

Natividad said in Spanish, her voice shaky but clear, “He is listening. He hears what you say.”  She had made her way to the table, which was not only on its side but crushed to splinters at one end. She was picking through the bits of shattered wood, awkward with the handcuffs she still wore, but patiently collecting her things. Plus some fragments of the silver that had bound Ezekiel. Miguel, reminded of their mother’s flute, nodded as she tucked it away in a pocket. It was splattered with blood, which she didn’t take time to wipe off. Miguel wasn’t sure what the blood and death in this room might do to it, but he was fiercely glad to have it back just for its own sake.

God knew, there was enough blood and death in this room to interfere with Pure magic. The whole room seemed filled with bodies, and parts of bodies. Miguel was fine with that in principle, but it was pretty brutal to be surrounded by...all this. He’d lost track of practically everything in there somewhere, but he hoped very, very hard that none of the Special Forces people were scattered in little pieces around this room. “Ezekiel?” he said again, letting himself sound shaky now, like someone vulnerable, someone who needed to be protected. It probably wouldn’t help—he wasn’t Natividad—but it couldn’t hurt. And it was not at all difficult.

Ezekiel reared up, huge amid the carnage, and...dwindled, and poured away into shadow, and became himself again. He was so thin in his human form, all his bones seemed to press against his pale skin. Those vicious burns encircled both wrists, reaching halfway down the back of his right hand—his shadow couldn’t carry away silver burns as it could other kinds of injuries. It might have been pain that gave Ezekiel a stark, otherworldly appearance, but he had the look of someone who has been purified by fire, who has found unstoppable reserves of will and resolve. His eyes were entirely inhuman, pale yellow, blazing like living fire.

“Stand down,” Colonel Herrod ordered quietly. “Stand down.”

He wasn’t speaking to Ezekiel, Miguel understood after a second. He was speaking to his own men. There were three of them in sight, two in the room and one in the doorway, all with weapons in their hands, but none shooting. No one was shooting. That was...that was more than enough to go on with, Miguel hoped.

Ezekiel stared at Miguel for a long, burning moment. Then he transferred that scorching stare to Colonel Herrod.

Miguel kicked Herrod discreetly on the ankle and hissed at him, and after a second the colonel actually lowered his gaze. Curling his lip, Ezekiel turned to examine Natividad.

She had picked up her handbag and was carefully tucking all her things back into it. Then, practical as though she hadn’t had to pick her way through blood and body parts to retrieve it, she collected the plate of wrapped sandwiches and dumped the whole plate into her handbag before slinging it over her shoulder. Then she started to go to Ezekiel. One of the Special Forces people caught her eye with a cautious raised hand and mutely held out a key. Then, with a wary glance at Ezekiel and being careful not to touch Natividad’s hands more than necessary, he unlocked her handcuffs when she held her wrists out to him. Natividad sighed, dropping the silver cuffs into her handbag and rubbing her wrists.

Then she finally went to Ezekiel and put her arms around him, letting her breath out in a much longer, deeper sigh. Ezekiel tucked her against his side and bowed his face over her hair, and he sighed, too, though in his case that might be more of a threatening hiss than an expression of relief.

Natividad rubbed her hand up and down Ezekiel’s back, but she looked expectantly at Miguel. Because he was supposed to know what to do next, of course.

He did know what to do next, actually. In broad terms.

“We have to get out of here,” he told them. “With an important enough hostage nobody will try to crowd us too close or shoot us off the road or anything. I figured the senator would do, but,” he added hastily as Ezekiel lifted his head and turned that inhuman stare back his way, “it’s definitely better this way. Much, much better. A car, if we have to, but you know, there’s probably a helicopter on the roof.”  He looked hopefully at Ezekiel.

Ezekiel continued to stare at him. He said at last, “I can’t fly a helicopter.”  His voice, like the rest of him, had a pared-down quality to it. Like a whetted knife, except a lot more dangerous. But he was speaking clear English, which at least proved he truly was in control of himself.

Miguel took a breath. “Then, a car—” he began.

“I can fly a helicopter,” Colonel Herrod stated quietly.

Everyone stared at him, his own people no less than Miguel and Natividad.

“Goddam, no way, sir,” Santibañez protested. “I mean, look, I can fly the damn helicopter—”

“Of course you could. But there’s no need.” Herrod gave Lieutenant Santibañez a cool look.

The lieutenant shook his head, but, as Herrod raised his eyebrows, he swallowed any additional objections.

Miguel wasn’t sure what he thought of this idea. It seemed totally brave and probably stupid and possibly insane, except Herrod wasn’t stupid or insane, so what the hell? He opened his mouth. Then, despite his hopes for Herrod, he found too many suspicions and doubts and fears crowding to the forefront of his mind to give voice to any and just shook his head.

“Out of the question,” Ezekiel said flatly. “These are enemies.”

Natividad, tucked against his side and leaning against him, said as though this made perfect sense, “No, it’s okay, I think. The colonel doesn’t want to fight. Neither do we. He can fly the helicopter—let’s go get the helicopter.”  She looked from Ezekiel to Miguel and back again, shrugging her shoulders. “What? We need it, he can fly it, let’s go!”

Getting away from the military base wasn’t quite that easy, of course. But it was a lot easier than it could have been. Miguel took Colonel Herrod’s phone and tossed it to Lieutenant Santibañez. Then he took the colonel’s gun, a little snub-nosed number that had been tucked away somewhere invisible. He held it in his hand because Herrod was supposed to be a hostage—he was a hostage, never mind that he had basically volunteered for the role. Miguel had absolutely no intention of shooting him whatever happened, but it was probably best no one else be quite sure about that.

Well, Herrod was probably pretty clear about it. But as long as no one else was sure, that didn’t matter.

It was a pretty big building, which they’d already known, but word must have spread, the colonel’s orders must have been passed along, because the hallways and stairwells were clear and all the heavy doors were unlocked. Ezekiel went in front, and then Natividad after him, and Miguel brought up the rear with their putative hostage. Ezekiel was in full black-dog mode even if he was in mostly human shape; he was more stalking than striding, and Miguel kind of had an idea that he would be absolutely delighted, if it hadn’t been for Natividad, to fight his way through a thousand enemies. Natividad was braiding several strands of her own hair around a twisted bit of silver that had probably come from the chain Ezekiel had broken; she wasn’t paying attention to anything else, obviously trusting Ezekiel to deal with a thousand enemies if they suddenly appeared.

Miguel couldn’t be quite so sanguine about this. He kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, for a sudden violent ambush or for them to run into a locked door and the stairwell to abruptly fill with some kind of gas, something like that. But nothing happened. Every door opened, and they never met any kind of attack. There were people in front of them and behind them the whole way, not quite in sight, but Miguel could hear them, and if he could, then every whisper and movement must be clear to Ezekiel. But the black dog didn’t look like he was worried about that. Of course, he wouldn’t be.

Then the roof door, and it wasn’t locked either, and out onto the roof, which must be heavily reinforced because there were actually two helicopters up here, one in each landing circle.

The Special Forces people had had plenty of time to screw around with those machines, of course, and Miguel wouldn’t have been a bit surprised to find important engine parts missing or something. But Colonel Herrod swung wordlessly up into the pilot’s seat of the nearest and went neatly through some sort of pre-flight sequence without paying any apparent attention to his passengers, and the rotors started going whump...whump...whump without any sign of trouble.

Ezekiel took a place right behind the pilot’s seat, which was a threat although Herrod didn’t seem to realize it. Of course Natividad climbed in next to Ezekiel, which left the copilot’s seat for Miguel, which was fine.

“Maybe we ought to disable the other helicopter?” he suggested. There was probably some kind of tracking device in this one, but he didn’t know what they could do about that...

“No hay necesidad,” Natividad said absently, not looking up from her creation of hair and silver.

Miguel nodded, relieved, figuring out that it must be some kind of maraña mágica. He hadn’t thought anything like that could be used on a helicopter, but if anybody could make it work, it’d be his sister. “Silver to stabilize the maraña?”

A distracted nod. “No solo a estabilizarse, para hacerlo, sabes, más ancho. Debe funcionar, pienso.”

That sounded okay. Stabilize, broaden the effects...and if Natividad thought it would work, probably it would. Miguel nodded, then grabbed for support as the helicopter lurched, lifted up an inch or so, tilted, and shot forward, abruptly enough to practically cause whiplash. He glared at Colonel Herrod.

“I haven’t had much chance to practice lately,” Herrod said, not looking around.

“If we’re in the air, that’s good enough,” Natividad said, and tossed her maraña mágica out the open door of the helicopter, where it didn’t fall away, but somehow bobbed along in their wake, the silver glinting in the sunlight. “Oh, good,” said Natividad, sounding faintly relieved. “I thought that would work.”

“You have to explain that to me some time,” Miguel told her, twisting around to peer out the window at the glittering maraña. The military base was already behind them, the mountains opening up all around them. The other helicopter was in the air, but, just as Natividad had implied might happen, it was sweeping in a wide circle, apparently with no idea where the first helicopter had gone.

“There’s probably a tracker in this helicopter, though,” Miguel pointed out, in case Natividad hadn’t thought of this.

But his sister only shook her head absently, meaning it wouldn’t matter, and began to take sandwiches out of her handbag.

“North,” Miguel said to Colonel Herrod, who hadn’t asked. “Toward Denver.”  He accepted a sandwich and started to unwrap it.

Herrod adjusted the helicopter’s course, but he also said quietly, “We don’t have enough fuel to get to Denver. Maybe halfway.”

“Then that’ll have to do,” Miguel told him, and bit into the sandwich. He was so hungry it actually tasted pretty good. Natividad was pressing several more of the sandwiches on Ezekiel, which was definitely a good idea. Anything to restore the strength and control of a black dog crammed into a helicopter with you.

Some time later, Colonel Herrod brought the helicopter down on a flattish spot in the mountains where a little creek came down across the face of a small cliff, trickled down a rocky bed, and dwindled away downhill. It was as good a place as any and, considering the stream, better than most. Miguel supposed they were lucky it was December because, chilly as it might be, they didn’t have any water with them and that stream probably dried up in summer. Snow streaked the rocky glade, and the quieter pools of the creek glittered with a fragile rime of ice.

The land all around this glade was forested, which at least helped block the wind, but of course there was only so much one could do to tuck a helicopter in under trees. There was no way to avoid leaving it sitting right out in the open in front of God and everybody. But a few minutes after they landed, Natividad’s maraña mágica settled gently down out of the air, came to rest on top of the helicopter right behind the main rotor, and stayed there, gleaming in the noon sunlight. Miguel looked at Natividad, who shrugged to indicate that she wasn’t worried about the maraña’s magic fading anytime soon.

“Somebody will probably find el helicóptero in the spring,” she said. “Or, wait, if there’s a tracking device and they keep looking, maybe sooner. But I think not today or tonight or any time this week.”  She stretched, yawned, shuddered at some unspoken thought or memory, and went to Ezekiel, who was standing quite still, no doubt inspecting their surroundings with some kind of spooky black dog sixth sense.

Ezekiel wrapped an arm around her shoulders as though not quite aware she was there, but a moment later he blinked, glanced down at her, and smiled. It was a tight, grim kind of smile, but a lot better than his scary-killer look. And his eyes were ice blue for a second before they went yellow again. It was the burns, Miguel suspected, that were keeping him wound so tight he couldn’t altogether dismiss his shadow. His wrists looked pretty bad, even after he had shifted back and forth half a dozen times. The rings of flesh where the silver had touched him was definitely charred in the middle and sort of...oozing all around the edges. Very ugly, and very stupid to keep a black dog chained up like that.

“What now?” Colonel Herrod asked quietly. He spoke to Miguel, not Ezekiel or Natividad, which was either smart of him or just lucky. The realization that it might be luck, that Herrod might not have any idea that right at the moment he’d better not speak directly to either Ezekiel or Natividad, was kind of alarming. Teaching Herrod basic black dog manners was definitely getting up toward the top of Miguel’s to-do list.

Miguel met Herrod’s eyes, touched a finger to his lips, then said to Ezekiel, carefully deferential, “Maybe this would be a good time for you to hunt? We’d be safe here, don’t you think? I mean, Natividad can draw a mandala, and I have this nice gun.”  He touched the pocket where he’d stashed the colonel’s gun.

Ezekiel gave him a hard look, either resenting Miguel’s interruption of his tender moment with Natividad or just generally in a really bad mood. Miguel dropped his gaze, then knelt down on the gritty soil for good measure. He said apologetically, “I just think maybe you ought to be in the best shape possible, in case you have to defend us. We still have a long way to go and who knows what we might meet on the way? Or what might be happening with everyone else? It’s not just these black witches. I mean, someone has to make sure Grayson’s got everything under control. There’s this new black dog, you haven’t met him, Carter Lethridge, he’s kind of ambitious and I think he thinks he’s pretty tough—”

Ezekiel’s lip curled. “He hasn’t met me.”

“Exactly! That’s what I mean,” Miguel agreed. “Anyway, I’m sure Étienne will help Grayson keep him in line.”  Unless Étienne saw a chance to use a newcomer like Carter as a stalking horse, get him to soften Grayson up and then see if he himself and those loyal to him might be able to take Grayson after that. Miguel didn’t actually say any of that, but it would take someone a lot slower than Ezekiel to miss the implications.

Natividad rubbed her hand slowly up and down Ezekiel’s arm. “Maybe you should go hunt, if you think it’s safe,” she told him gently. “Those sandwiches weren’t much. We’re all going to be hungry soon. You could get food for us all.”  She pushed herself away from Ezekiel and looked around the level glade where they’d landed. “This place seems safe to me. Cold, brr! But we can make a fire, so that will be better. I can put a circle around this whole place. We’ll be fine. We’ll be careful.”

“You need a coat,” Ezekiel told her. He walked a short distance away, to the edge of the trees. He kicked the trunk of one fallen tree, shuddered, and glared at it hard.

Colonel Herrod caught his breath when the downed tree burst into flames. Miguel took the time to give the colonel a significant look and lay a finger against his lips again before jumping to his feet and hastily heading across the clearing to gather more wood.

Ezekiel crossed his arms over his chest, careful of his burned wrists and hands, and waited, with stark patience, for Miguel to build up the fire and Natividad to draw the wide crossed-circle of her mandala. The moment it glimmered to life, he turned and took a step away. Then he spun back around and glared at Herrod, then at Miguel, his eyes bright yellow, completely inhuman. “You have the gun. If he makes any difficulty, kill him,” he ordered, every word clipped off short.

“Of course,” Miguel promised in his most sincere tone.

Ezekiel’s mouth twisted. “If he harms Natividad in any way, I won’t be happy with him, but I will blame you.”

Miguel dropped his gaze. “Nothing like that will happen. He wouldn’t anyway. But I’ll be careful.”

“You’d better be.”  Ezekiel gave the colonel one last hard look, pivoted away toward the noontime forest, shifted to his black dog form between one step and the next, and loped into the woods. He was out of sight in moments.

Herrod cleared his throat, gave Natividad a little nod, and said to Miguel, “Just to be clear, even were circumstances different, I would not permit harm to be done to prisoners in my custody.”  Then he took a breath and conceded, “Further harm. Once the senator was allowed to enter our base and establish his legal authority, my people’s position admittedly became...awkward. However, I did not realize how Korte was being treated, or I would have ordered my people to intervene regardless of the...legal complications. I apologize, for myself and for the Special Forces.”

Despite being as blood-spattered and cold as any of them, despite being stuck in the mountains miles outside of any town with a girl he thought was a witch and a kid armed with his own gun, and most importantly with an angry black dog who might come back any time and rip his head off...despite all that, Herrod somehow hadn’t lost a bit of his usual self-possession. He did look a little tired, which only made sense because he was pretty old; he had to be over fifty. But even that trace of weariness might have been Miguel’s imagination.

“Hold that thought,” Miguel told him. “But, you know, it would be best if you didn’t bring your people in just yet, even if you did have a way to signal them. Unless you want to risk a bloodbath. Another bloodbath.”  He flashed for a second on the thick smell of blood, and Senator Connelly’s ripped-off head smashing through the one-way glass, and all the screaming. He had to take a quick breath to steady his voice before he could add, “Senator Connelly was a total fool. You don’t want to compound his mistakes.”  He couldn’t decide if he thought Herrod probably did have a way to signal for back up, or probably didn’t. He definitely thought it would be best to discourage any such idea, just in case.

“I fear Senator Connelly may not have quite thought through the implication of his actions.”  Herrod said this with no sign of sarcasm, and added, as Miguel raised his eyebrows, “Torturing powerful supernatural creatures, and creatures who have not, moreover, quite decided whether to become your allies or your enemies...the senator’s actions might not have been entirely well-considered.”

Miguel had had a lot of practice, but he wasn’t sure he could have pulled off a statement like that quite so smoothly. He said, “Yeah, it wasn’t just that. Though I’m sure things might have worked out better if the senator’s mother had taught him basic manners and maybe that threatening a black dog’s fiancée is a lot like playing Russian roulette with nothing but live rounds.”  He noted the slight rise of Herrod’s eyebrows and added, “Yep, they’re pretty much engaged, so you can see that was never going to end well. I guess most decent people would consider it self-defense, killing thugs who tortured you and threatened your helpless, innocent fiancée.”

“The senator—”

“A rich, well-connected thug, who sidestepped appropriate procedures in order to seize control of prisoners over whom he did not have proper jurisdiction, in an attempt to enslave a werewolf as a personal assassin,” suggested Miguel. He shrugged at the colonel’s raised eyebrows. “Would you describe what happened differently?”

“Senator Connelly, as Chair of the Committee—”

“—For the Management of Supernatural Threats, I know, so maybe he did have jurisdiction. Sort of, anyway. Maybe somebody should revisit that notion of putting senators in something like the military chain of command, you think? Or fold you guys back into the regular military, whatever would be simpler. I know things got pretty crazy after all the supernatural stuff blew up everywhere, but I’d have thought mixing senators into the military would be kind of a problem, what with the whole separation of powers thing. But no, I know, technically Senator Supervillain had some kind of authority. That doesn’t mean he didn’t overstep.” Miguel didn’t add, Does it? even though he wasn’t exactly sure. He said instead, “I get that werewolves aren’t legally human and aren’t citizens and don’t have legal rights, but everybody and his cousin’s seen that video of Ezekiel saving all those people last year. Put that video next to him looking like a Dachau victim, show poor little Natividad sobbing—she’s human and an American citizen, you know.” He didn’t mention that their father, while born in the US, had been a black dog and thus by definition not a citizen, if anybody had known it. There was a legal question no one had asked yet.

No reason to complicate things right now. He said instead, before Colonel Herrod could ask any inconvenient questions about parentage and citizenship, “Besides, I just bet there’s all kinds of incriminating material making it clear Connelly was after his own personal pet werewolf assassin and stepped over all kinds of lines to get one. Don’t tell me your people let him erase all the evidence cause I won’t buy it. Put all that together and how do you think it’d play?”

“It might be a useful way to frame the situation,” Herrod conceded. “May I ask how old you are, young man?”

Miguel grinned. “On the internet, no one can tell how old you are.”

“Hmm.”

“I’ve been acting as an adult online since before I turned fourteen. Someone had to; people were making a lot of bad assumptions about what was going on at the end of the war.”  Miguel paused for a beat and then added cheerfully, “I did okay at the time, but I’m better at it now.”

“I see.”  Herrod looked Miguel up and down, sighed, and said, “I’m sure we all do sincerely wish to avoid another bloodbath. I’m certain Ezekiel Korte is not going to kill anyone out there today.”  He nodded toward the forested mountain slopes, with just the slightest rise in tone to suggest that this was actually a question.

“He won’t,” Natividad promised the colonel, coming back to the fire. She had spent a few minutes at the creek, scrubbing off the blood that had dried on her face and hands, but there was nothing she could do about the blood on her jeans or her torn blouse and Miguel knew how much she must hate that. Huddling over the fire, she held out her hands to its warmth and added, perfectly matter-of-fact, “Killing random people just to steal stuff is against Dimilioc law. But I hope he does get me a coat, even if he has to steal it. I could pay for it later, and I’m freezing.”  This last was obviously true. Now that Ezekiel was gone, she looked smaller and colder and far more doleful.

Miguel patted her shoulder. “He’ll be fine,” he promised, answering the fear he knew must be uppermost in her mind. “I mean, Ezekiel, right? Nothing can keep him down for long! He’ll have a good run and a big meal and he’ll be a whole lot better when he comes back. Snagging those sandwiches was brilliant, by the way.”

Natividad tried to smile up at him. It wasn’t a very good smile, and she quickly went back to huddling by the fire, feeding twigs into its heart.

Miguel let her worry. It wasn’t like her worry was misplaced, anyway. He wasn’t actually sure himself that Ezekiel would recover as fast as he’d suggested. What had happened to him at the black witch’s hands had been terrible enough, and then that pendejo Connelly, and really, Miguel didn’t know.

But he was pretty sure Ezekiel would find a coat for Natividad somewhere. He was substantially less confident the black dog would bother with coats for anyone else. And it definitely did seem colder, now they were out of the helicopter and no longer moving. He wanted to clean himself up, too, but the water of that creek must be like ice. He could wash his hands, anyway. In a bit, once he’d warmed up a little. He fed another branch into the fire and commented, “Either way, we’ll need a lot more wood before long.”

“I can help with that,” Colonel Herrod offered.

“Yeah?”  Miguel looked Herrod up and down. “We do need wood. But, listen, Colonel, the first thing we need to do is to make sure Ezekiel doesn’t lose his temper and rip your head off before we get to Dimilioc.”

Natividad rolled her eyes. “Ay, no mames, gamelo.”

“Yeah, you think he’s feeling forgiving right now?” Miguel asked her. “Cause I don’t. That black witch tore him up one way and then that pendejo politico worked him over a whole different way, and I’m betting he’s going to be feeling pretty murderous for a good long time. Killing Senator Sonofabitch must’ve taken the edge off, but you know he’s going to blame Colonel Herrod for letting the senator get his hands on him, not to mention on you.”

“That’s just silly—”

“No,” said Herrod, still in that quiet tone. “It was my fault.”

“It sure was, Colonel,” Miguel agreed, keeping his own voice as matter-of-fact as he could. “I kept thinking, if you’d just come back, you’d get control of the situation and squash Connelly like a bug. Only you didn’t come back. And I also thought, if you hadn’t left Santibañez unsupported in the first place, Connelly couldn’t have even gotten started. Anybody want to bet that Ezekiel wasn’t having those same thoughts the whole time? In between planning out how he was going to eviscerate everyone in that whole place the moment he got the chance? Gemela?”

Natividad gave an unhappy little shrug.

“Exactly,” said Miguel. “So, all right, wood—gemela, I think there’s some broken wood over that way. And you, Colonel, sir, if you want to make anything up to anybody, that’s great, you can start by listening to me, right? And I’ll tell you the rules. Or enough of the rules so you don’t push Ezekiel right over the edge accidentally, okay?”

“Indeed,” Herrod agreed politely. “Please do.”  He dusted snow off a nearby rock with finicky care, sat down on it, folded his hands on his knee and looked at Miguel expectantly, for all the world like a teacher waiting for a student to recite.

“Right, good.”  Miguel stared at him for a long moment, trying to think how to begin. Growing up with black dogs, it wasn’t the same. You just figured this stuff out. Sure, he’d explained some of this stuff to those women Ezekiel had rescued last summer, but mostly DeAnn had taught them how to manage. And besides, none of them had been a Special Forces colonel. Plus if Miguel had ever had to handle a black dog as close to the killing edge as Ezekiel was right now, he could not remember it. He said eventually, “All right, listen. Ordinarily this stuff isn’t so important. But right now, for you, under these particular circumstances, it’s absolutely crucial. Do not look Ezekiel in the face. Meeting his eyes is fine for Natividad no matter what, normally okay for me, iffy for me right now, and definitely a really bad idea for you. When he looks at you, look away, look down. Especially if he stares at you.”

“Meeting his eyes is a challenge. I understand that.”

“Sure,” Miguel said easily, though that wasn’t exactly right. From Herrod right now, it would be more like insolence, but he didn’t think explaining that would go over so well. “You can meet his eyes for a second if you want to kind of impress him with your sincerity. But then you look down unless you want to impress him with your death wish. And listen, you have to be careful the way you talk to Ezekiel, or any black dog who’s on the edge. I know you’re a colonel and that’s great and all, but don’t ever try to give a black dog an order. Especially not you, especially not Ezekiel, especially not today. He will rip your head right off.”

“He wouldn’t,” protested Natividad, coming back with an armful of broken branches.

Miguel shrugged, meaning If you say so. He said to Colonel Herrod, “Again, this isn’t such a big deal all the time or for everybody, but right now, you don’t speak before he does. You let him know you have something to say, but you don’t open your mouth until you get at least a nod. Like everything else, that doesn’t apply to Natividad, not as much to me as most people, but it applies to you bigtime, especially right now. My advice, my really strong advice, is just keep it buttoned. Don’t talk to Natividad at all. Black dogs are always total control freaks and possessive as hell, but pissed-off black dogs are way worse. If you have to talk to Ezekiel, keep your eyes down and be really, really careful. Everything’s a suggestion, right? A respectful suggestion.”  Or a desperate plea, but he didn’t say that, either.

“Something like the way a sergeant deals with a new second lieutenant.”

That...sounded like a pretty good analogy, actually, from what little Miguel thought he understood about the way the military worked. Probably close enough, anyway. He nodded. “And another thing, don’t touch a black dog. Never. Almost any touch is wrong: too familiar, too pushy, too threatening. It’s different for Natividad obviously, but that one is a good general rule for almost everyone to follow almost all the time. It’s nearly as true for me as for everyone else. You shouldn’t ever touch a black dog. You’ve got way too much…” attitude, but Miguel didn’t say that. He said instead, “Too much of an air of authority. You don’t want to bet on any black dog taking that from you, but definitely Ezekiel won’t. And listen, if a black dog puts a hand on you, it’s probably a threat. But just look down, don’t step back, or if you do, move slowly. If you jerk away, he’ll want to grab. If you run, he’ll want to chase you.”

Colonel Herrod said politely, “I assure you, Miguel, I have no intention of running away from any black dog.”

“Yeah, I bet you don’t,” Miguel muttered. Attitude, right. Yeah, that right there was pretty likely to be a problem and he wasn’t sure what to do about it. He studied the colonel. All right, try something tough. He said, “If you think a black dog is close to losing it, that’s definitely not the time to push him. You want to help him get a grip, look down. More than that, get down, right down on the floor or, you know, out here like this, the ground. I don’t care if you think it hurts your pride, get down anyway. It’s not a question of who’s the tough guy. It’s a question of helping the black dog keep control.”

“Ezekiel never loses control,” Natividad put in, kneeling to feed some branches into the fire. “Well, almost never. I mean...Miguel’s right, Colonel. Especially since...look, I’ve never seen him like this.”  She looked away into the woods, frowning, worried. “His poor wrists. Black dogs don’t have a lot of experience with pain, usually.”

“Because they can heal themselves by shifting shape,” Colonel Herrod said, not quite a question.

“Yeah, usually,” agreed Miguel, and added to his sister, “Thos Korte was not a very nice person, by everything I’ve heard. I think maybe Ezekiel learned to deal with pain better than, like, Alejandro or somebody. I bet he can handle it.”

“Guau, eso es tan reconfortante.”  But it plainly was comforting, because Natividad’s expression lightened. She said to the colonel, “Listen, what Miguel said, about it’s not a question of what hurts your pride. It’s important you understand, black dogs don’t think exactly like ordinary people. It’s kind of hard to explain. It doesn’t hurt your pride to recognize a black dog is stronger than you. I mean, they just are.”

Miguel nodded. “And it’s just grosero—I mean, rude—to pretend that isn’t true. That’s dangerous with a black dog in a temper.”

Colonel Herrod nodded thoughtfully. “So you think I should get down on my knees to speak to Ezekiel Korte.”  Again, a perfectly neutral tone.

Miguel sighed. He said patiently, letting the patience show clearly in his tone, “Listen. This is not Ezekiel on a good day. This is not the time to play chicken. This is the time to be super extra careful and polite. It’s not like you’re swearing fealty or surrendering your sword. It’s not a human thing at all. I told you: It’s about helping a black dog keep control when he’s right smack dab on the edge of losing it. If it gets bad, if things get dicey, you want to ask yourself, do you want your head ripped off your stiff neck? Is the world better off with you dead or alive? Besides,” he added, “I’m not saying you have to kneel the minute Ezekiel looks at you. I’m saying it’s a tactic you want in your repertoire, just in case. Especially because I figure you’re probably going to be meeting Grayson later today. He’s going to be royally pissed off when he gets a look at Ezekiel, is what I’m saying. It’s a tactic you might want, that’s all.”

“I see.”

“Down on one knee means you’re ready to jump up. It means you’re reserving the option of fighting or, you know, running. It’s a gesture, but not all that dramatic. You don’t want to get all wound up in knots about it. Down on both knees might mean, like, a really sincere apology, but it can also just mean you’re acknowledging you don’t have any other options. You’re conceding you can’t protect yourself or your dependents.”  He carefully didn’t say, It’s a gesture of submission. There had to be another way to explain that, a way that wouldn’t put the colonel’s back up. He said, almost without pausing, “It’s a way of acknowledging the black dog’s holding all the cards. If that’s the way it is, pretending otherwise isn’t seen as pride. It’s seen as arrogance.”

“Hmm.”

Miguel assessed the colonel’s tone and expression and couldn’t quite come up with a nice phrase that would let him add, Flat down on the ground is for when you need to beg for your life. Anyway, he was pretty sure it wouldn’t come to that. If he handled things right, it shouldn’t come to that.

“Supongo que necesitamos más leña,” Natividad said unhappily, looking at the fire, which was indeed burning lower again. Plainly she was not enthusiastic about finding more firewood, but she was right; they probably should.

There was a loud cracking, tearing sound from the woods and Ezekiel walked back out into the little clearing carrying a bundle tied to a stick over his shoulder and dragging half a dead tree with the other hand. It wasn’t a huge dead tree, but on the other hand it would probably have taken three guys like Miguel to haul it around like that. Colonel Herrod, Miguel was pleased to see, gave Ezekiel only one brief glance and then studied the snow-dusted ground. He’d tightened up a little, Miguel could see tension in his shoulders and neck, but honestly he was doing pretty good for a normal man who wasn’t used to black dogs in close company.

The bundle was two pairs of men’s overalls, too big for Miguel and ludicrously oversized for Natividad.

The stick turned out to be an axe.

Ezekiel dropped half the dead tree on top of the fire, tossed the bundle to Natividad, and handed the axe to Miguel.

“Uh,” Miguel said, hefting it. It was a good, heavy axe. And it was unfortunately pretty clear what Ezekiel had in mind for it. Miguel ran his thumb gently across the edge, not quite looking at the black dog. It was sharp. “You’re sure this will work, right?”

“Obviously,” Ezekiel snapped. His tone was curt, but he didn’t bite Miguel’s head off, literally or figuratively. He hadn’t even glanced at Colonel Herrod, and still didn’t. He said, “These burns are too God-damned distracting. I don’t even have full use of my left hand.”

At that point both Colonel Herrod and Natividad figured out what he meant. Herrod’s eyes widened and then narrowed. His mouth tightened, and he crossed his arms protectively over his chest and leaned back on his rock, though he didn’t get up or even say anything—more restraint than Miguel would have bet on. Natividad looked up from pulling on her pair of overalls. “Oh, no, Ezekiel—are you sure that will work?”

Ezekiel gave her a burning look. “Oh, yes. It will work. That bastard Connelly tested the theory.”  He jerked his head impatiently at Miguel, Come on. “You, make damn sure you get way up above the silver burns or it won’t, and you’ll have to do it again.”

Miguel stared at him for a heartbeat. Actually, this explained a lot. It sure explained why the senator hadn’t seemed to care how much damage his vicious silver chains did to his prisoner. That hadn’t made sense, but Miguel hadn’t figured it out. He should have, he saw that now. The senator could burn Ezekiel’s hands right off, make him regrow them. Mierda, he could do that over and over. Maybe he had. That was ugly enough, but, yeah, actually it would make more sense if he’d done it to some other black dog first just to make sure. Wouldn’t want to risk maiming his prize black dog, right? Oh, yeah, Miguel just bet Connelly had done it to some other black dog first and let Ezekiel watch. Work for me...or else. Insert evil cackle.

And Miguel had thought he’d been joking with that Senator Supervillain thing. He didn’t even want to imagine what other kinds of fun experiments Connelly might have gotten up to while Miguel was sitting chained to a hard plastic chair feeling sorry for himself.

Miguel swallowed. “Well, now I’m extra glad that bastard’s dead.” Colonel Herrod took a breath but didn’t say a word. Miguel raised an eyebrow at him and swung the axe experimentally back and forth. It felt familiar in his hand. A little heavier than he was used to. Heavy was good, though. You could let the axe do the work.

Chopping firewood for Mamá had never been his favorite thing as a kid, but now he was grateful for every log he’d ever split. Hit a log wrong and you’d make it jump, not to mention wrench your shoulder and back. Do this thing wrong and, well, that didn’t bear considering.

Ezekiel dropped to one knee, laid his left arm on the thick base of the tree he’d dragged up, and braced himself. He wasn’t looking at Miguel. He’d turned his head away. Either he was staring into the empty woods or he’d closed his eyes. Natividad pressed her hands over her eyes. Colonel Herrod watched Miguel steadily. But Ezekiel wasn’t watching Miguel at all.

Jésu, that was trust. It was practically impossible to believe Ezekiel would put himself in this position for anything, with anyone. But probably he couldn’t look at Miguel, probably if he tried his shadow would see the blow coming and surge up and everything would go right to hell. But still. Miguel could take his head off and it’d be the end of a legend and not even the famous Ezekiel Korte had a prayer of stopping him if he did it. Obviously he wasn’t going to do anything of the kind, obviously that would be crazy and wrong for all kinds of reasons, but he could. He’d had no idea a black dog even could trust him that much. Well, his brother, sure. But another black dog? He’d never have believed it.

“Do it!” snapped Ezekiel, not turning his head.

Miguel shifted his weight, swung the axe up, and brought it down, a smooth fast cut, midway between the hand and the elbow, four inches or so above the silver burns. The blade was good and sharp, too sharp to feel the whole thing. He felt the axe go through the bone, though, and bite into the wood below, a good clean blow. There wasn’t as much blood as he’d expected, just the feel of the axe stroke and the dull thump, a low coughing sound from Ezekiel that changed halfway through to a heavy snarling grunt. For a long wavering moment, there was a black dog there, furious and way, way too close.

But before Miguel could even drop to the ground, it was Ezekiel again, back in his human form, opening and closing the fingers of his new left hand and smiling. It was not a nice smile. He picked up the completely horrible amputated hand and threw it into the fire, which flared up in its own special completely horrible way. Natividad had picked the wrong second to peek and made a small, revolted sound. Herrod raised an eyebrow and didn’t move.

“Far better,” Ezekiel said, and stared at Miguel with bright golden eyes. “Now do the other one.”

No one said a word about the axe or Senator Connelly or much of anything while they walked down from the mountain. There was a road. Ezekiel had stolen somebody’s pickup and left it as close to the helicopter’s position as he could get it. Not too far, he’d said, which to a black dog could mean anything from less than a mile to thirty miles or more. He wouldn’t expect Natividad to walk thirty miles, though, which was reassuring.

Fast work, that truck, considering he’d also found the coveralls and the axe, not to mention undoubtedly killing a deer or something. Or actually, now that Miguel thought about it, probably somebody’s horse or cow. Like one-stop shopping, picking up everything at the first farm he’d come to. If people had farms in these dry, rocky, scrubby mountains, which didn’t actually seem likely. Bad country for cows, come to that. Not that Miguel cared. He didn’t ask, considering that Natividad was near enough to overhear any answer. Natividad liked horses. Better not to ask about the details.

Nobody asked about the truck when they finally got to it, either, sometime toward noon, though that was more just because Ezekiel was still plainly not in the mood to chat.

The truck was white, like basically every other pickup truck in the United States. Not new, not in great shape, not honestly large enough to accommodate four people, even if one of them was little like Natividad. Ezekiel plainly came within an inch of ordering Colonel Herrod to ride in the truck bed. Miguel hurriedly pointed out that if the Colonel drove, then Natividad could sit on Ezekiel’s lap and Miguel could scrunch up in the middle.

This suggestion produced a long pause.

Black dogs were all completamente obsesivos parcos and in the whole history of the world probably not one had ever let somebody else drive if he had a choice. Ezekiel sure didn’t, generally. But even he was going to have to admit that putting Herrod behind the wheel was the only arrangement that would put someone between Herrod and Natividad, which Miguel knew was probably going to feel like even more of a priority to him right at this moment.

The colonel contributed to the non-argument by standing there with his hands at his sides, gazing studiously off into the trees across the road, looking unruffled and capable and not saying a word. Ezekiel stared at him, hostile and dangerous, and Colonel Herrod just stood there in his nice suit and his nice shoes, looking for all the world like a high-powered lawyer or maybe a judge, someone at home in an extravagant high-rise office building in some big city somewhere. There was a word for it...something French and a little fancy. Debonair, that was it. Even after the bloody morning and the helicopter and the hike down the mountain, even in the face of Ezekiel’s hostility, Colonel Herrod still managed to look debonair. The road here was hardly more than a rough hiking track, but it was impossible to imagine Herrod letting a truck skid off even a terrible road.

“Drive, then,” Ezekiel ordered him, grimly, and threw Herrod the keys. The colonel might not know everything he ought to about black dogs, but he had the sense to keep his gaze down and his mouth shut as he slid behind the wheel.

Then it was a long, not very comfortable drive down from the mountains. Miguel sort of tucked himself between the seats, almost on top of the gearshift. As Miguel had suggested, Natividad perched on Ezekiel’s lap and put her arms around him and her head down on his shoulder and shut her eyes, and Ezekiel put one arm around her and lost a little of his stiffness.

The rough track came out on a slightly better road, still rutted and uneven, but not quite so narrow or overgrown. Miguel would have been amazed if anybody knew where they were, but Herrod just turned downhill, and downhill again the next chance he got, and the road dead-ended on a halfway decent gravel road, and at last they came out on a road, a real one, that was still narrow but actually paved.

“Denver, I think you said,” Herrod said quietly, the first words any of them had spoken in the last hour, and pointed the pickup north.

-17-

Alejandro was very nearly ready to disregard Grayson’s orders and go after Natividad and Miguel by himself, except that if he left this house, he would be abandoning the Master to rivals and enemies with no one but James to watch his back.

He wanted to believe this would not matter. He wanted to believe that Grayson Lanning could handle any threat, that James would be enough support for him, that there would be no internal conflict in the face of the danger they all faced from Gregor Kristoff.

He could not completely believe this. The Master trusted Étienne, but Alejandro did not. He still half expected Étienne to challenge Grayson, though so far Étienne had shown no such inclination. He certainly did not trust the others. If there were a challenge, Frédéric would undoubtedly side with Étienne. Probably Steven Knauer as well. Surely Théo Callot, who would blame Grayson for what had happened to his wife.

The others, Carter and Rip, he did not know what they would do. He was even uncertain about Carissa. She was so very angry. She had every right and reason to be angry, but he did not wish to find out that she blamed Grayson for what had happened to her. And to her friend Enrique Rubio. Her brother would have been the one to help her become part of Dimilioc again, and Nicholas Hammond was not here.

If he had been Master, Alejandro would have called them in—Nicholas and Keziah and Amira and Justin. Their presence here would strengthen him, counter any ambition Étienne might harbor, and perhaps Justin would be able to help Stéphanie. But in fact Grayson had called Keziah and warned her to keep away, keep all her small team away. He was reserving them for disaster, Alejandro understood that. In case Kristoff won and everyone here was killed or leashed. He did understand that. Keziah was very strong and entirely ruthless; Nicholas was a Hammond, born to Dimilioc; and Justin, unique among the Pure in several ways, might find a way to tear down the witch even if everyone else had failed. Especially if Ezekiel and Natividad and Miguel joined that small group. Then Dimilioc’s enemies would find out they still had much to fear.

But he would still have called them in. He would have called them all in.

And he would have gone himself to find Natividad if he could.

If he had not known Ezekiel was with his sister and brother, he might have gone anyway. He knew the direction: south. The distance he did not know so well, but it felt like not so very far. Surely it would be no farther than he could run.

He knew Natividad was still afraid and upset. Last night had been bad and now it was worse. He would have been very willing to tear apart whatever person was making her afraid. Grayson said let Colonel Herrod handle the problem, but it had been a long time, and now Natividad was more afraid and upset than before. Alejandro was very nearly ready to forget every other concern and go find her. His shadow wanted that. It hated waiting, and it did not understand Alejandro’s fear for Dimilioc and for Grayson. It thought the fall of the Master of Dimilioc would be a fine thing; it owned no master, not willingly, and did not understand human loyalties. It urged him to go; it would kill anyone who got in his way. Alejandro himself liked that idea well enough. He would enjoy killing anyone who had frightened Natividad.

And if he could not do that because of these stupid untrustworthy perros negros who did not understand they should support Grayson Lanning, who complicated Dimilioc and made it impossible for him to leave this place and find his sister...well, then, maybe he would kill a few of them first. He would start with that pedazo de basura Carter, tear his head off, leave the head in Étienne’s room, maybe. That should be clear. That should be very clear to everyone. His shadow thought that was a fine idea, too. It was difficult to remember that he should not necessarily agree.

Except Carter seemed not so bad, now. Also, later Alejandro would have to face Grayson and explain what he had done and why. Except he would not have to explain it, because it would be very clear to the Master. As well as everyone else. That knowledge held him back.

He set his teeth hard, feeling Natividad’s fear reach a higher peak, and decided he did not care. He would go. He must go. He could speak once more to Grayson; he would make the Master understand they must both go. Grayson Lanning and James Mallory and he himself, they could very well tear apart whatever enemy was frightening Natividad. Let Étienne stay here and wait. They would go and come back very fast and then they could deal with the witch. He turned sharply, and stopped, and stood very still for a long moment and another long moment after that.

Then he went to find the Master after all.

Grayson Lanning was, as Alejandro might have guessed, in some kind of close consultation with Étienne and James. Étienne expected to be consulted in everything, as though he were Master of an allied house; and James never left Grayson’s side unless Alejandro was present. Seldom even then.

“Alejandro,” Grayson said. His tone was neutral, but his shadow seemed to stir and pool more heavily around him.

“Master,” Alejandro said, and paused.

Grayson straightened, his eyes narrowing. He lifted a hand for silence when Étienne would have spoken. Étienne obeyed that curt gesture; Alejandro noticed that even at this moment, and even at this moment wondered whether that would have been so if James had not been a quiet presence at the Master’s back. But Étienne was silent, and Grayson waited patiently, and after a moment Alejandro blinked and shrugged, feeling his shadow subside more quietly and easily than it had in days. He started to speak, realized the words on his tongue were Spanish, paused, and said at last, “She is coming this way.”

“Your sister,” said Grayson, not a question.

“Sí. Yes. Natividad. She was afraid. Then very afraid. Then her fear quieted a little. Now she is almost not afraid at all. She is tired. She is coming this way.”  Alejandro hesitated, considering this inward certainty. Then he met the Master’s eyes. “Sí. Yes. She is much less afraid now. And every moment brings her closer.”

Grayson inclined his head without the slightest sign of surprise. “Very good. How long?”

This was harder to answer. Alejandro struggled to put the sense of direction and distance in ordinary terms, and found it impossible now, as it was always impossible. “Today?” he said, shrugging to show he was not sure. “Tomorrow, maybe.”

“Ezekiel?”

“I do not know. Nor about Miguel. Natividad—if she were alone, I think she would be more afraid than this. She is...she is almost happy. I am sure Ezekiel must be with her. Miguel...I think Miguel also.”

“We shall take Natividad’s content as a promising sign, certainly,” murmured the Master. He glanced dismissively at Étienne. “Thank you, Étienne. We shall consider these other matters in good time.”

Étienne Lumondière gathered himself up without a word and retired from the room, with a slight, quiet bow.

“Let’s hope he takes it as a promising sign, too,” James muttered. He looked tired and grim, now that the Lumondière black wolf was gone—he would not ordinarily have allowed any weariness or grief to show. Grayson turned and set a hand on his arm, a brief hard grip, the kind of gesture that was only possible between black dogs that truly trusted one another. Alejandro would not have ventured such a gesture with anyone; not since Papá had died. He looked away, not to intrude, and thought about other things. About Natividad. Surely Miguel was with her. Surely she would be more unhappy if Miguel were not with her.

“Étienne isn’t the problem. He won’t challenge me today,” Grayson said calmly to James. “Nor tomorrow, even if Ezekiel is not escorting Natividad. He won’t challenge me at all. I grant you, he’s angry. He has every right to be. But that isn’t what he wants.”

James’ mouth crooked upward. “Nice that one of us is sure of that.”

“I am. You should be, too.” Grayson glanced at Alejandro. “Keep me informed.”

“Yes,” Alejandro agreed, and since that was a dismissal, headed for the door. It had been a puzzling exchange; he couldn’t understand Grayson’s confidence in Étienne.

But he did not really care, not now. He did not wish to speak to anyone, and went outside to wait for his sister—and for Miguel, surely Miguel was with Natividad—and for Ezekiel, if all were to fall out as he hoped. “Ay, Dios mío,” he muttered. “Jesús, Maria y José.” He hardly realized he spoke out loud until he heard the words. But he said it again, in his heart, though black dogs rarely gave voice to any prayer.

He would go out. Not far. Just to run a little, and hunt a little. No one would cause trouble now, not with Ezekiel almost certainly on his way back, with Natividad. Yes, he would go out and run. He would stay close, but he could not now stay still.

The Denver house was not really a single house. It was a sprawling set of several big log houses, all set back against the mountains and arranged around a central grove of pines. Or not really a grove. A circle of pines, with one oak in the center. The trees were for the Pure; Alejandro knew that, although he did not understand why the Pure would plant trees. A circle was good, a circle was strong, he knew that. But a circle of pine trees...well, it was a thing for the Pure. Black dogs did not care about trees except for forests to hunt in. He knew very little about Pure magic, and did not really care to know. But when he came back, he passed deliberately through that circle and tried to feel the peace and stillness that were so much part of Pure magic. He could not tell whether he felt it. Natividad was much closer now and mostly he felt that.

He shifted as he came out of the circle of pines and walked the last little distance in human form, ran up the steps with a pleasant feeling of tiredness. He did not want to go in, not now. His sister was so close; he thought she might come at any moment. He lingered on the porch instead, leaning on the railing as he looked out over the trees and waited.

The driveway that passed in front of the main house was almost more a road than a mere driveway. It wound all the way around the circle of pines and then curved around before coming to the house, which let those waiting get a good look at anyone driving in. It also ensured, if conditions were truly bad, that any vehicle coming to the house had to pass through a crossfire before approaching the main house. Boulders were placed to stop anyone driving off the road, and also placed where a strong push might topple some of the boulders across the road before and behind enemies. The black dogs here had armed their human kin with guns and silver bullets, here in this western sept of Dimilioc, before the end. But even that had not saved them when the end came.

Miguel had told Alejandro that. It was the sort of thing Miguel would know.

The war had not been kind to this sept. Most of the black dogs here had died, and most of their human kin, and all their Pure. The main house was half of logs and half of stone, with thick walls and no windows on the first floor; it had survived mostly intact, and during this past year Étienne Lumondière had restored what had been damaged. Two of the smaller houses had been partly burned and these were still not repaired. Étienne had only brought four black dogs with him when Grayson had sent him west. Later he had gained three more—those from France, plus Stéphanie Callot. He had never found any other Pure woman...well, of course, now they knew why there were so few Pure here in the west. That had been undoubtedly due to those dark witches.

Now Étienne was down to three black dogs again. Add in those from the main sept, they still had only ten. Still, ten was enough to face most enemies. As long as no witch could reach out his hand and jerk on an invisible leash...or no demon could fall down on them with silent invisible death. Alejandro would rather have faced vampires. At least he understood vampires.

The main house might be safe now, though. Safe enough. Safe for Natividad if she could only come here. The house had a great many protections layered on it and around it, many of them visible only to the Pure, others perceptible to a black dog. To Alejandro, the house felt warm. Welcoming. To a callejero, it would be different. To a black witch...it would be better if a black witch could not even tell this house existed. Enemies were supposed to turn away blindly. That was one thing the Pure did. But witches had their own magic, obviously sometimes stronger than Pure magic.... He could not help but worry.

A foot scuffed behind Alejandro, deliberately. Alejandro turned his head just as deliberately.

It was Carissa. Even before he had looked around, Alejandro had known that. Her anger filled the air around her, unmistakable.

“Yes?” Alejandro said. It was a small assertion of dominance, to speak first. They had not fought, not even yet, so neither of them knew which was stronger. The difference was not enough to be obvious without a fight. Maybe more than one fight. He wanted to fight her. But she was still recovering from being a captive of the witches. And anyway, he did not want to fight anyone right now, with Natividad so close.

Carissa did not react to his taking the lead. She merely said, “Your sister’s coming, I hear. Is she close?”

Alejandro touched his hand to his chest, over his heart, which was where he seemed to feel his sister. “Yes. Very close.”

“You have a bond to her.” Carissa hesitated. Then she said, “I might wish for such a bond to my brother. I didn’t know...after Alistair got me and Enrique, I didn’t know what had happened to Nick. I thought the vampires got him. He thought the vampires got me. A bond like the one you have with your sister...I suppose you can only do that with someone Pure.”

Alejandro was sorry to have to agree. He shrugged, pretending it was no big deal either way. “I think, yes. It is the Pure girl who makes such a bond. That is not what my sister meant to do. It was a peculiar chance that led to the bond, I think.”

“She took your shadow.” At Alejandro’s sharp look, Carissa glanced aside and added, “I asked the Master. I know she took your shadow as a means of defeating your enemies. And gave it back. I thought probably only a Pure girl could do something like that, but I...after I spoke to Nick, I thought of it. It was good to hear his voice. But I’d like to feel him here.” She touched her chest as he had, over her heart. “Maybe your sister could do that to both of us. If Nick wanted to. Then we could find each other, or know if there was some kind of trouble.” She didn’t sound like she doubted that her brother would want it.

“When Natividad comes, you can ask her. Perhaps she will think of a way. Or Miguel, he might think of a way. He is human,” he added at her sidelong look. “But our Mamá taught him, and he knows a lot about Pure magic.”

“We never had a human brother. Or a Pure sister. It was just Nick and me after our mother died.” Carissa came forward a step to lean on the porch railing beside Alejandro, not too near, looking out across the sept grounds and the forests and mountains beyond.

“She died in the war?”

“You’d think so, wouldn’t you? God knows, everyone else died in the war. No, our mother was killed before that. There were these strays, black dogs who had established a little shadow pack in LA. Well, near LA; there were too many vampires there for black dog strays to make too much noise. Since they were so quiet, we didn’t realize how many there were and sent too few of our Dimilioc wolves. My mother died defending the others from the first ambush. The others avenged her,” Carissa added. “But she was still dead. I don’t remember her very well. I was only seven. Nick was just two. He doesn’t remember her at all.”

There was nothing much to say to this. Alejandro nodded.

“The Master here then was also a Hammond. My uncle, my mother’s brother. He helped my father raise us.”

“Your father was human, of course.” If their father had been a black dog like their mother, it was not likely either of them would have survived—especially the boy. Children with two black dog parents often had shadows that were too strong to be controlled. Especially boys. Despite anything the Pure could do, their shadows consumed them. Such children were killed, at birth if possible, and said to be stillborn. It was the Master’s duty. No doubt this uncle of Carissa’s had been glad his sister had chosen a human man.

“He was never afraid of her,” Carissa said fiercely. “He was never afraid of us either. He died in the war, defending us. He died making a chance for Nick and me to get away.”

“He was a brave man. I am sure of that. I am also sure your mother had excellent control over her shadow,” Alejandro said softly. “I know she must have been a strong-minded and beautiful woman.”

Carissa turned her head and met his eyes.

Then Grayson came out onto the porch, and others with him—everyone, it seemed. Yes, Alejandro could feel it too now that he paid attention: the approach not only of his sister, but of a black dog. A very strong black dog. Very strong and very angry.

Ezekiel. Of course it was. So close now that ordinary black dog senses knew he was coming.

Alejandro moved aside for the Master, giving way to Étienne and James and Frédéric, but no farther than that. He took his place deliberately, and was pleased to find Carissa shifting her position to stay near him. Between him and Frédéric. That was a subtle claim of dominance, but he did not mind it, not from her. It amused and pleased him. He did want to fight her. Not yet. It was something to look forward to, later.

At last a white pickup came around the last curve and Alejandro could actually see his sister—and Ezekiel, yes, she was either sitting really close to him or actually on his lap, which was very surprising because anyone would have expected Ezekiel to be driving.

Miguel was beside them, in the middle, and in the driver’s seat...in the driver’s seat, to Alejandro’s complete astonishment, was Colonel Herrod.

For a long moment he did not believe it. Then he turned to look at Grayson, and saw the slight tilt of his head, the hardening of the line of his jaw, and knew the Master had also recognized Herrod.

“Well, I guess he’s kept his promise himself,” said James. His tone was light, but his eyes had narrowed. At this distance, any black dog could feel the anger pouring off Ezekiel. Something was wrong.

Especially if Ezekiel was permitting any other man to drive, far less a man who might be an ally or might be an opponent but who certainly was not trusted. Though...when Alejandro thought about it, in a way it made sense, because this arrangement put Miguel between the colonel and Natividad. Certainly Ezekiel would hardly have let her sit on Herrod’s lap. He would surely have killed the man first. Maybe that had been the choice. Maybe Miguel had talked both of them around...Alejandro found he could believe that. It would have been exactly like Miguel.

The pickup coasted to a stop near the porch, and for a moment Alejandro found himself meeting Colonel Herrod’s eyes. It was him. He looked...he looked exactly as he had before: self-assured, unruffled, competent. His skin was too dark to show either a flush or pallor. But the colonel’s mouth tightened a little as he looked past Alejandro at Grayson, at the gathered black dogs, none of them troubling to hide what they were.

That was satisfying.

Ezekiel slid out of that truck, lifting Natividad down, both of them clearly perfectly all right, and if anyone were fool enough to challenge Grayson now...no one would be fool enough. That was even more satisfying.

Or...perhaps, on a second look, Ezekiel might not be perfectly well. Alejandro remembered how he had looked in the witch’s stronghold, after he had finally been forced into human form: fiery-eyed and all but mad with fury. He had been angry, so angry, and because he could not show his anger, it had burned beneath his skin and behind his eyes. Alejandro had thought then that the witch was a fool. Powerful, but a fool.

But even then, Ezekiel had not looked like this. Thin, worse than thin: starving-thin, all his bones shoving nearly through his skin, his humanity pared away so that the fire underneath almost blazed through, his shadow so tight and close to him that even in human form he did not truly look human.

The Master’s expression did not change. He did not move at all. Even so, Alejandro lowered his gaze and eased a step farther from him. Everyone else was doing the same, edging just a little farther from Grayson, giving him space and more space. Alejandro had seen the Master angry before. He had never seen the wide, brutal fury he felt now.

Perhaps Herrod felt that, too, because even after the truck had come to a complete stop, the man stayed exactly where he was for a long moment, gripping the steering wheel with both hands. Then Miguel tapped Herrod on the arm and said, audible to black dog hearing, “Come on, you know there’s no turning back now, right?”  His tone was unexpected: lightly mocking and sympathetic at the same time. It was the way he might have spoken to a friend. It was definitely not the way he would have spoken to an enemy. When the colonel got out of the truck, Miguel got out right with him and stayed close by his side.

All of that might mean very little in the face of the Master’s fury.

Alejandro jumped over the railing, down to the ground below. Ezekiel, plainly believing him impatient to see that his sister was well, handed Natividad into Alejandro’s arms without pausing and strode straight up the steps toward Grayson. Alejandro did want to be sure Natividad was well, but after all he was sure of it; he could feel that she was well, only worried and a little frightened. He was not concerned with Natividad, but with Miguel. Alejandro tucked his sister against his side and eased a step or two aside, watching Ezekiel and Grayson, and Miguel and the human colonel.

The whip-thin verdugo was as tightly focused as a white-hot flame and every single black dog up on that porch gave back another step or three, looking anywhere but at him—if Alejandro had been up there, he would have done the same—except for Grayson, who moved forward to meet him, his expression grim.

Ezekiel locked eyes with the Master for a second. Then he lowered his gaze and started to kneel, really just a formality, Alejandro knew that Ezekiel would not challenge Grayson, but this gesture of submission was important when a black wolf as dangerous as Ezekiel came to the Master after any kind of absence or trouble.

But Grayson took one more step forward and seized Ezekiel by the arms, not letting him kneel. Ezekiel’s head jerked up. His hands came up to close around Grayson’s forearms, and the Master of Dimilioc pulled him into a brief, hard embrace. Ezekiel bowed his head against the Master’s shoulder, and Grayson gripped the back of Ezekiel’s neck briefly; token submission and token dominance, but there was far more to this than deference and authority.

Then Grayson pushed Ezekiel back to arm’s length and looked at him, really looked, like he was making a careful note of every too-sharp bone, like he saw right through Ezekiel’s burning self-possession to all the damage that had been done to him, everything since they’d torn him free from the witch and seen him taken by Herrod’s people. And then the Master turned his head and looked at Colonel Herrod. By his expression, he planned to hold him to account for every single bit of it.

Herrod was standing very still beside Miguel, as composed as ever, but his gaze was on the Master’s face and his heart was beating fast. Miguel leaned closer to the colonel and murmured, in a very quiet, casual tone, just audible from where Alejandro was standing: “So, Colonel, did I happen to mention that not only is Ezekiel the cornerstone of the Master’s position in Dimilioc, but also Grayson loves him like a son? Pretty tough for Grayson to hold onto his temper when Ezekiel comes back from your people looking worse than he did when the witches had him.”

Herrod slanted an unreadable look toward Miguel. But when Grayson released Ezekiel and started down the steps, the colonel lowered his gaze immediately and, with hardly any perceptible hesitation, went to his knees.

Miguel had done that, Alejandro understood. He’d known Grayson was going to be furious when he saw Ezekiel. Miguel had expected a moment like this and he’d told Herrod how to handle it. He’d probably demonstrated. Jesú, he’d probably done just that.

No matter what had happened between them, no matter what had happened to Ezekiel, Miguel obviously still hoped the colonel would survive. And not as an enemy. Miguel set his hand on the colonel’s shoulder and looked Grayson in the face. He said, “Master,” drawing Grayson’s attention to himself.

Grayson came down two more steps, putting Ezekiel not only at his back but above him, a very deliberate move that Alejandro felt in his bones. No black dog would ever forget this moment, or think for one second that maybe he could move against Grayson without Ezekiel taking vengeance for it—nor the other way around.

Ezekiel was pretending to ignore all the other black dogs, but he was smiling, that dangerous killing smile that he wore when he wanted to frighten people. He spared a slight nod for James Mallory, an invitation for James to drift forward, not quite within touching distance, but closer than anybody else would dare come. He didn’t glance at Alejandro...of course, as Natividad’s brother, Alejandro had a little more laxitud than the rest. Even so, Alejandro would not have dared approach him when he looked like that.

Grayson was just as dangerous, maybe not to a casual glance, but every black dog knew it, and Miguel knew it, and maybe even Colonel Herrod knew it. And the Master was striding right toward Miguel, who was still on his feet.

Alejandro glanced down at Natividad, but she was watching Ezekiel with concern. If she had noticed Grayson’s fury...he was fairly certain she hadn’t. She wasn’t a black dog, to feel it directly, like thunder in her bones. Alejandro could draw her attention to Grayson, but then Natividad would worry about that. Alejandro thought she had been worried enough.

So he scowled, drew himself up, and stalked forward as though he had been too caught up in assuring himself that his sister and brother were safe to notice the Master’s unforgiving fury. He stood with his back to the Master and glared hard at Herrod. “What did he do?” he demanded of Miguel, in a good loud voice.

And, as Alejandro had known he would, Miguel picked up this cue and answered briskly, even cheerfully, “Saved our lives, probably. It’s kind of a long story.”  At last his brother stepped away from the colonel, offering Alejandro his hand, a little tentative because touch was always a problem for black dogs.

The Master had paused. Alejandro didn’t have to look. He felt it. He pulled his brother into a swift, brief embrace, much as Grayson had done with Ezekiel. Miguel clearly hadn’t expected this, but he hugged Alejandro hard. He was trembling, not something anybody else would be able to tell. Alejandro gripped his shoulders hard and then let him go, and Miguel straightened, shrugged, cleared his throat and said, “Yeah, I’m glad to see you, too. For a little while there I wasn’t totally sure, you know? Thank God you didn’t come after us.”

“I would have,” Alejandro admitted. “I wanted to.”

“Thank God you didn’t,” Miguel repeated fervently. “We were not exactly having a good time, but having you mixed in would have made it nothing but worse.”  At last he turned to meet Grayson’s forbidding stare. “Thank God you didn’t come, sir,” he said, and this time bowed his head.

“Miguel—” Grayson began, grimly. And stopped, and took a breath, and held out his hand, not to Miguel but to Natividad, who smiled tiredly and went to join him. She took the Master’s hand, stepped close, and hugged him—so much of that right now, but from the Pure, it was different. Grayson set his other hand on her shoulder and bent his head over hers, just breathing in the calm she brought with her.

“We’re so glad to be home,” she whispered to him.

“This is not your home,” he told her grimly. “There is no safety for you here.”

Natividad shook her head. “Where you are, is Dimilioc. This is my home. I know you’ll keep us safe.”

Grayson’s eyes slid from burning crimson to human dark.

Natividad didn’t let go of his hand. “I’m so glad to be here. I was so scared. Miguel was so clever. Ezekiel was...he would have gotten us out anyway. I’m sure he would. But Colonel Herrod flew the helicopter, so he didn’t have to fight to get us out after all.”  She sounded so tired. It was impossible to doubt her, even though this made little immediate sense. Grayson seemed to think so, too. He glared once more at Miguel, and at Colonel Herrod. But then he only said to Alejandro, “Deal with this.”

Then the Master wrapped an arm around Natividad’s shoulders and turned back toward the porch. He went up the stairs with Alejandro’s sister at his side, gathered in Ezekiel and James with a single glance, and the four of them disappeared into the house. Natividad looked back, once. Ezekiel did not.

All the other black dogs held very still for several more seconds. Then, as the force of the Master’s shadow drew farther away, everyone suddenly stirred and looked at one another and began to drift away in various directions. It was extremely obvious that no one moved an inch toward Alejandro or Miguel or Colonel Herrod.

Miguel took a deep breath, let it out, and offered Herrod a hand up. “All right. Well, it’s probably not totally all right, I wouldn’t want to go that far, but it’s a lot better than it could have been. Good job.”

The colonel’s mouth crooked, but he accepted Miguel’s hand and climbed slowly to his feet. He said mildly, “That was exciting.”

“A little more so than I hoped,” Miguel admitted. “I wonder if you ever promised Grayson anything specific. About getting Ezekiel back to him unharmed, for example.”

The colonel said nothing, but Miguel nodded as though he’d answered. “You should have told me. I get that it was between you and Grayson, but play your cards too close to the chest here and I can’t give you the best advice.”

“Is that your purpose?”

“Partly,” Miguel answered in a matter-of-fact tone. “For now. I knew he’d be angry. I didn’t know he’d come within a hair of tearing your throat out without even talking to you first. I think I better tell you, if it comes to it, going right down flat might at least make him think twice. If Grayson intended to kill you and there was nothing else you could do, that might work. Maybe. If you could bring yourself to do it.”  He paused and then added, “You want to remember, it’s not actually about you. You want to ask yourself, how important is it that you not die?”

This got a reserved nod. Then Colonel Herrod looked around curiously and changed the subject. “This is Dimilioc?”

“Part of it, part of it,” Miguel assured him, his tone now relaxed, exactly as though there were a hundred such places scattered around North America, all populated by crowds of black dogs. Alejandro doubted Herrod was fooled, but he said nothing.

Then, turning to Alejandro, Miguel added, “God, I need a bath. And a big cup of coffee.”

Alejandro frowned at him. “You need twelve hours’ sleep and the hearts of your enemies on a plate.”  He jerked his head toward Herrod and demanded in Spanish, “Dime la verdad: ¿debe su corazón está con los ostros?”

“No, no, he’s all right,” Miguel answered in English. “I’d love twelve hours to get caught up on current events, never mind sleep, but I’m not going to get ’em. Grayson’s going to get the bare bones of the story from Ezekiel and Natividad and then he’s going to want to talk to me, I’m betting on an hour or less.”  He jerked a thumb at the house. “Any trouble waiting in there? Other than a seriously pissed off Master? You’re okay?”

Alejandro gave him a look. “There is no trouble.”

“Yeah, you mean nothing your human brother needs to get involved in. All right, that’s fine, I don’t care about your black dog dominance issues—well, I do, actually; you beat up that cabrón Carter Lethridge yet?”

Alejandro was amused, even though he was thoroughly disgusted that his own strength did not match Carter’s and that he was probably never going to be able to match the other black dog. “No. One on one, he is difficult. But he defers to me because I can force his shadow down far enough to let any other black dog take him. He has learned that.”

“As long as he doesn’t get you alone, then.”  Miguel nodded toward the house, but waited until Alejandro started that way before moving to follow, with a little twitch of his hand that brought Herrod with them. “I doubt Carter’s stupid enough to challenge Ezekiel.”

“I think Carter is maybe not so bad now. But no one who saw Ezekiel today will ever challenge him,” Alejandro said, with considerable certainty.

“Probably not,” Miguel agreed regretfully. “Too bad. You know, I would kill for coffee. Especially I would kill Carter.”

Alejandro laughed. Everything was still difficult. There was still the black witch, still the great demon out there loose. But Natividad was back and safe, Ezekiel was finally rescued and back where he should be, and Miguel...Miguel had not changed at all.

Miguel nabbed the shower in Alejandro’s room first, leaving Herrod to settle thoughtfully into the room’s only truly comfortable chair, a roomy leather recliner with an adjustable back. Alejandro sat on the arm of a less good couch, took out his phone, and called down to the kitchen for coffee. Herrod leaned his head against the back of the chair and closed his eyes, as imperturbable as ever, but with, Alejandro thought, a few more lines at the corners of his eyes than he remembered.

A few minutes later Frédéric brought the coffee, and a basket of dark rolls stuffed with ham and fig jam. He nodded casually to Alejandro, neither asserting his own dominance nor deferring particularly. He merely set the tray and basket down on a table next to the couch, peered at Herrod for a moment, and glanced toward the sound of the shower.

“Your brother’s all right, I gather?”

There seemed nothing to this inquiry but quiet, unaggressive concern. Alejandro answered warily, “He seems so. I think so.”

“Good. Good. I gather even Étienne thinks your brother should be an asset in dealing with demons of mysterious capabilities.”

Pleased, Alejandro inclined his head. “He will be.”

“Good,” Frédéric said again. And to Herrod, “I hope you and your people are also planning to make yourselves useful. Have you heard what happened at Copper Mountain?”

“Yes,” the human said quietly. “Word of that...event...reached me just as I arrived at Albuquerque. It’s what persuaded me of the absolute necessity of our alliance.”

Miguel came out of the bathroom just in time to catch this, wearing pants but no shirt and with his hair still dripping, a towel around his shoulders. He said lightly, “Well, it was a great time to arrive at that particular conviction. But what happened at Copper Mountain?”

“Your brother saw it. He will tell you,” Frédéric said gravely. He gave Alejandro a slight, respectful nod, and went out, shutting the door gently behind him.

“I like him,” said Miguel. “Grayson should pull that one into the Vermont sept. We could use another calm, mature black dog. Give Étienne, I don’t know, Don Jacobs. Étienne could probably use a black dog who can roll somebody’s shadow, and if Grayson kept Rip Jacobs in Vermont, he wouldn’t have to worry about Don getting coopted into Étienne’s crowd. Especially if he had Frédéric under his eye. That’d keep Étienne polite, I bet.”

“So clever,” Alejandro said drily. “You should explain all this to Grayson.”

Miguel laughed and threw the towel back through the bathroom door. “Coffee, chido,” he said fervently, picking up one of the mugs and inhaling the steam. He nodded to Herrod, who had listened with interest to this exchange. “Bathroom’s all yours,” he told him. “You’ll want to clean up, get rid of those clothes. Shoes, too. Dried blood is not a good look when you’re chatting with black dogs. Especially black dogs who are already pissed off. Makes ’em want to spill more blood. You don’t want that. I’ll find you something else to wear.”  He added in exactly the same casual tone, “If you’re wearing some kind of tracker, don’t worry about it. Any signal it puts out will be totally scrambled here. Magic, you know.”  He picked up one of the little rolls and took a bite. “Mm. Way better than those stale plastic sandwiches in the helicopter. You should have one.”

After a slight pause, the colonel said, “Thank you, Miguel. A shower and fresh clothing would be welcome.”  He got to his feet, collected a couple of rolls, went into the bathroom, and shut the door gently behind him.

“Rip’s about his size. Maybe he’d be willing to find the colonel a change of clothes,” Miguel said to Alejandro in a clear, loud voice, as though he had no other concern in the world. But the moment the shower started, he added much more quietly, “Listen, ’Jandro, I do want to know about this event thing, whatever that was, but I really do think Grayson’s going to send for me soon, and truly, it’s very important that no one touch or, you know, interfere with Colonel Herrod. ¿Me entiendes?”

Alejandro raised his eyebrows. “Menos mal que me lo dijiste. If you had not said so, I would certainly have let Frédéric walk away with him and hand him over to Étienne. No, of course I will keep him safe for you and for Grayson. I think perhaps Grayson will kill him, no matter his talk of an alliance. But I will make certain no one else does so first.”  He eyed his human brother. Miguel was nodding, but to Alejandro’s experienced eye, he still looked worried. He added, “Lo prometo.”

Miguel let his breath out. “Right. Right. Great. Thanks.”

Alejandro shook his head, picked up one of the other mugs of coffee. “Is it true he saved your lives? What is this about el helicóptero?”

“Yeah, that was a stroke of luck. We might have pulled it off anyway, but as a getaway vehicle, honestly, a helicopter has it all over a car. Way over a pickup with a mierda gearshift sticking up between the seats. And there would’ve been no way to keep Ezekiel tearing up Senator Sonofabitch, so God knows who we could have used as a really high-powered hostage if Herrod hadn’t kind of offered.”  Miguel sat down cross-legged on the bed and stared at Alejandro over the rim of his mug, looking tired and worried and young. “Ezekiel had a rough time.”

Alejandro sketched astonishment. “¡Voítelas! Really?”

“Yeah, I guess it kind of shows.”  Miguel drank some coffee, looked down at the mug, and made a face—Frédéric had brought it black, and Miguel liked his with plenty of sugar.

“We must trade stories, Miguel.”

Alejandro’s brother nodded, drank some more coffee, and asked, “Is there aspirin?”

“In the bathroom.”

“Ah. All right.”  Miguel glanced at the bathroom door. “I’ll get some later, I guess. Okay, what happened to your lot?”

“We freed too many demons from that Kristoff. It seems one consumed the other and became a very big demon. It killed a lot of people.”

“Copper Mountain?”

“This was a place like a rich estate. Everyone was dead there.”

“Ah. Yeah. I bet hearing about that would be, like, a come-to-Jesus moment for a stupider man than Herrod.” Miguel paused, probably thinking about demons that ate each other and turned into bigger demons.

He could think about things for a long time, so Alejandro said firmly, “And you? What happened to Ezekiel?”

“All kinds of scary-bad crap, I guess.” Miguel paused again. Then he went on in a lower voice, “He wasn’t there, see. Herrod, I mean. That was the problem. What I think happened is, this total cabrón walked in almost the minute Herrod was gone and took over. This politico. A senator. Chairman of this important committee, that’s the trouble, because they put that position directly over the Special Forces something like five, six years ago. So. Not sure that was just a wonderful idea, but that’s how they set it up, so this guy had a lot of weight to throw around. That’s what happened to us. Without Herrod there, no one else had the authority to stop him. It wasn’t so bad for me, I guess not so bad for Natividad, but plenty bad for Ezekiel.”

It had been plenty bad for Miguel, too. He thought he was hiding that under his despreocupación, but Alejandro had seen him like this before. After Papá and Mamá had been killed, he had seen his human brother act just like this: a layer of nonchalance over lingering shock and terror. He held out one hand. “Ven aqui.”

Miguel hardly hesitated before gulping the rest of the coffee, putting the mug down, and coming over to drop onto the couch beside his brother.

Alejandro put a hand on his shoulder and pulled him in gently, the way Papá would have done when both brothers had been little. It was difficult to keep his touch gentle, but he set himself against his shadow and did not allow his hand to tighten. Miguel leaned against him, his head against Alejandro’s chest. Let his breath out, relaxing trustfully.

It was a rare moment, and Alejandro had to suppress a growl when his phone buzzed.

It was Grayson, just as Miguel had said.

“Sí,” Miguel. “Sí. I will come there. Tell him I am coming.”  He was a little pale, a little slow to get to his feet. “I do want twelve hours sleep,” he muttered, and then added hastily, “No, I’m joking, I’m fine.”

“I will come with you—”

“That might irritate Grayson, do you think? Anyway, I don’t know who else I could trust to keep an eye on the colonel. Please, ’Jandro. Get him to believe you about black dogs, we don’t want Grayson tearing his head off, not now. Make him understand it could still happen—”

“I think you explained this already.”

“He thinks I’m just a kid—”

“I think this is not likely. Estás preocupado—you are worrying. Stop. Todo está bien.”

Miguel closed his mouth, looking surprised. “All right,” he said at last, meekly. He hesitated one more moment, but then only ran a hand through his still-damp hair, straightened his shoulders, and went out.

Alejandro, suppressing an urge to follow him, instead called Rip Jacobs and ordered the other black dog to bring clothing and shoes. He could not quite imagine Colonel Herrod wearing ordinary clothing like an ordinary person. But Miguel was right about the blood. He was usually right, of course. Not always, though he thought so. But often enough.

In an ordinary shirt and blue jeans and boots, Colonel Herrod looked exactly like himself. No less self-possessed. Perhaps not so entirely authoritative, which might be as well.

He did look older. Tired. One could guess he had been battling witches and flying helicopters and all such things.

Alejandro asked him abruptly, “Do you wish to live?”

A slight pause. Then the colonel met Alejandro’s eyes, let out a breath and lifted his shoulders. “That would be better for all of us, I believe.”

“I do not care whether the Master kills you.” This was not quite true, but Alejandro made sure it sounded true. He wanted the man to understand he was in danger so he would listen to advice. He said, “But my brother cares. He thinks it would be better for you to live. For his sake, I will help you if I can. But I cannot if you will be stupid. Do not look at me. Did Miguel not explain this? Should I hit you so that you will remember?”

One long breath, and another, and the colonel dropped his gaze.

“Está bien. Better. It is not so important for you to remember with me. But the Master is very angry. Practice with me so you survive his anger. Do you speak Spanish?”

“Not fluently. A little.”

Alejandro had suspected it. “Learn to speak to black dogs. Think of it so. Except if you make a mistake with the Master, I think he will not forgive it. Later, perhaps. Not now. ¿Me entiendes?”

“I understand.”

A slight hesitation, a lift of the gaze, halted by an evident effort of will. This was not a man accustomed to lowering his eyes before anyone. Alejandro had known that. He said softly, “You are not among your own kind. Learn that now. It is more different than Mexico and norteamerica. I am not human. Not merely human. The black dog presses me. It is angry. It wishes to kill you. Perhaps I wish this also. Perhaps I should wish it. What did your people do to my brother? He says nothing important. I think this is not wholly true.”

The colonel looked up, considered Alejandro for a second, and remembered again to look down. “Very little happened to Miguel, in fact. I watched part of that interview before I moved to regain control. He’s an accomplished actor. Especially for someone his age. He played Senator Connelly exactly right, on roughly five minutes acquaintance.”

“Sí. I’m sure he did. And you, are you a good actor, Colonel Herrod?”

No answer to that. A stillness that was patience, owing nothing to genuine submission. Patience would do, if the man could play a role. Alejandro had severe doubts about that. He said, “Miguel asked me to protect you. I will do that. I will give you advice: be a good actor. Do not challenge the Master. He will not tolerate this, not now, not from you. Be polite. Do not be the first to speak, and when you must speak, speak quietly. Lower your eyes. This is good advice, Colonel.”

Herrod said calmly, “Then I’m grateful for it.”

“You should be. Sí, you should be. You should be recatada. You should be quiet. I will give you more good advice. Do not lie to Grayson Lanning. He will know.”

The colonel’s gaze rose sharply. “I saw him question Kristoff’s student. I thought then...very well. I believe you. Is this because he’s a black dog? This is something black dogs can do?”

“Sí, sometimes. Not always. Sometimes. But Grayson Lanning will know because he is the Master of Dimilioc. No one can lie to him. He always knows. Sometimes he is patient. But he will not be patient with you. Not today.”

“I’m sure that’s true,” the colonel admitted, a touch ruefully. He added with more intensity, “He needs to listen to me. He needs to understand, it would not be helpful for Dimilioc if he killed me. That’s not why I came here.”

“You came here because of Copper Mountain. I know. The witch is bad, but worse for us than for you. But this big demon, that is a problem for us all. Grayson will know this. He is speaking with Miguel now. I think my brother is saying to him, it would not help Dimilioc to kill you. I think he is saying, we must still be allies. I think he is saying the Master would be wise to listen to you.”

“Grayson Lanning does in fact care for your brother’s opinion? How old is Miguel?”

Alejandro nearly smiled. “Seventeen, soon. In the spring. Our father taught him, our mother taught him. Miguel understands black dogs and he understands human people. Grayson is wise to care for my brother’s opinion.”

The colonel nodded thoughtfully.

Alejandro said softly, “You wish to win back the Master’s good opinion. That will be dificil. My advice is, be swift to offer an apology. You promised him our people would come to no harm with yours. Apologize. That is my advice. Sincerely, if this is possible.”

“That won’t be a problem.”

He seemed to mean it. Alejandro nodded. “Good. You are in a very bad position here. Very bad. The Master is very angry and you can do nothing to protect yourself. Show that you understand this. Be modest. Call the Master by his title—he is the Master of Dimilioc. Forget your hesitation. To call him so does not mean he is your master. When he calls you colonel, he does not mean you are his colonel, yes? Forget your hesitation. Call him by his title. This is good advice.”

Herrod said nothing.

Alejandro shrugged. He added, “Do not put yourself forward. Trust Miguel to explain about this helicopter. Do not make much of that. Acknowledge where you were wrong. If you seek a way to ask for alliance, remind the Master of Absolon Lumondière.”

“Absolon Lumondière,” Herrod repeated. He paused, then asked, “The young black dog who was taken by Kristoff?”

The man was quick. Alejandro nearly smiled. “Yes. Grayson will want to recover him, more than almost anything else. For several very good reasons. He will care more about Absolon than about Copper Mountain, I think. There is my advice, Colonel Herrod. Frame this alliance as a means by which your people will aid Dimilioc against this enemy that has done harm to us; a means by which we may recover the one who is lost. That will carry weight with the Master.”

“It’s good advice,” the colonel acknowledged. “Thank you.”

Alejandro nodded. “Bueno. You are tired. You will not wish to be so tired when Grayson sends for you. You should rest.” He nodded toward the bedroom door. Then, considering the colonel’s reserved expression, he added, “You will be safe. I will be attentive. You will be quite safe.”  But, as the colonel began to turn, he said suddenly, “Colonel Herrod—”

The colonel turned back, one eyebrow rising. He had forgotten that he was speaking to a black dog. Alejandro felt an urge to reprimand the human’s insolence, remind him sharply. He set aside this urge and asked, though he was not quite certain why he wanted to know. “What is your first name?”

After a moment, the colonel smiled faintly. “Jemison. Jemison Abednego Herrod. Jemison is a family name. Very few people call me that.”

Alejandro was sure this was true. It helped him understand why he had asked in the first place. He said, “You should tell your name to Miguel. Though probably he already knows it.”

“Probablemente,” the colonel said gravely, and went into the bedroom.

Miguel returned hardly an hour later. It was not yet dusk, but he looked utterly exhausted. Alejandro did not ask any questions or demand any explanations. He said, “The colonel took your bed. You may take mine. Where is Natividad?”

Miguel glanced around as though he might expect to find their sister hovering at his elbow. “With Ezekiel,” he said vaguely. “Grayson gave them some of those rolls—are there any left?—and put them both to bed in his room. I don’t think he wants to let Ezekiel out from under his eye. At least, not until he’s back up on his feet.”

“He was on his feet when he came here,” Alejandro pointed out.

“Yeah,” Miguel said, and rubbed his face. “Right. Sort of. When he’s really and truly back on his feet, I think that’s when Grayson’s going to want to talk to Colonel Herrod.”  Lowering his hands, he looked around the room and then blinked at Alejandro. “Where did you say he is?”

“In your bed.”

“Oh. Good.”  Miguel blinked at Alejandro. “I’m going to take your bed? Where are you going to sleep?”

“I will not sleep now,” Alejandro told his brother patiently. “However, you will sleep. I think you are nearly asleep now.”  He handed Miguel a roll. “Eat this and go to bed.”

-18-

Natividad woke slowly and comfortably, feeling warm and safe and happy. She felt warm and safe and happy long before she remembered where she was, or what terrible events had brought them to this place. But she knew whom she was with as soon as she stirred into the first drowsy murmurs of wakefulness.

She was tucked against Ezekiel, her head against his chest. He smelled of pine-scented soap and mint toothpaste, and of himself. He was putting out heat like an iron stove. Natividad couldn’t help but smile. No wonder she was so warm.

For some moments she only watched Ezekiel sleep. His skin was so pale next to hers. She was so close she could make out the tracery of bluish veins in his eyelids. His lips were slightly parted. She liked how young that made him look. She liked the angle of his cheekbones...not so much the sharpness of those bones. He needed to gain a lot of weight. As thin as he was, deeply asleep, he looked almost ethereal. Like when he shifted, it would not be to a black dog, but to a creature of fire and air, something with hollow bones and great sweeping feathery wings.

She smiled at her fancy and traced the line of one cheekbone with the merest tip of her finger. Not quite a touch. Almost a touch, a whisper of air along his skin. He did not wake, even then. She knew he wouldn’t have let himself fall so far asleep except that she was here, in his arms, tucked against him.

One of his hands curled around her waist. His other hand was tucked under her cheek. Even in his sleep he was possessive. That made her smile. He was so vulnerable, and he didn’t even know it...or he knew it and he didn’t care. He let himself be vulnerable to her as he was to no one else. Not even Grayson.

This was Grayson’s bed. She remembered that now. Grayson’s bed in Grayson’s room in the Denver sept of Dimilioc. He’d flatly ordered Ezekiel to take this bed after getting just the bare bones of Ezekiel’s report, and hers. Hers had been very short, since she hadn’t done anything while a prisoner except pretend to be too frightened and stupid to put two words together while she waited for Ezekiel to kill everybody or for Miguel to think of a clever plan. Or in the end, of course, kind of both.

Ezekiel’s report had been hardly longer. Just, This jumped-up bastard of a senator thought he could make me into his pet. He was wrong. Hardly more than that, and certainly no details. I might not have been thinking too clearly by the time Natividad freed me. That was giving her far too much credit, which she’d tried to explain, but she’d been so tired she probably hadn’t been making much sense by then. They’d both been so tired.

So Grayson had ordered Ezekiel to go to bed and declared flatly that no one would disturb his rest. Grayson hadn’t actually ordered her to go with Ezekiel, but then probably that was because it hadn’t occurred to any of them that she might do anything else.

He also hadn’t said he was personally going to watch over them while they slept. He hadn’t needed to say that, either. No wonder Ezekiel had collapsed so fast and so completely. He wouldn’t have trusted anyone else, but Grayson he trusted completely. Even after Grayson had sent him away for a year. Well, not quite a year after all, but the sentence of exile had been meant to last for a year. She’d been afraid Ezekiel might resent that, or might have come to resent it. She’d resented it, a little. Then they’d finally arrived here, together, safe after all that horror, and she’d seen immediately that nothing Grayson had done had ever even dented the trust Ezekiel had in him.

Yes, no wonder Ezekiel had collapsed. He finally could. They’d just taken time for a shower. Together because he wouldn’t let her out of his sight, though neither of them had had energy to spare for anything but to curl together and pull the blankets up and sleep.

No wonder she felt so safe, tucked up against Ezekiel, with Grayson on guard nearby. Natividad smiled. Then her smile faded as memory began to return...Ezekiel as he had been after only a little more than a day in Senator Connelly’s care: emaciated, burning with rage. Miguel, hitting her hard enough to split her lip...he was so clever. She would not have thought of that. But it had been so obvious once he’d tricked those horrible people into letting him walk right up to Ezekiel with her blood on his fingers.

That terrible senator, his head smashing through the glass. So much blood. Picking her silver chains and Mamá’s flute out of spattered blood...her heart rate speeded up. Not fear, but the memory of fear. The memory of horror.

That was enough to open Ezekiel’s eyes.

His eyes were blue again. Human eyes, warm with concern for her instead of fiery with hatred and rage. His arms tightened. Gently. He had always been so careful with her.

She had never been frightened of him. Never. If she had, she couldn’t remember it.

“You’re safe,” he told her, just a low whisper of his voice.

“I know,” Natividad answered.

“I’ll never let you go.”

Now she let her expression grow doubtful. “Never? I’m starving. And I need to, you know.”

He laughed, as she’d meant him to. “I’ll let you go that far,” he conceded. He ran a hand across her waist and belly, and then he let her go, rolled over on his back, and half-shut his eyes. “Grayson’s out there,” he told her, faintly regretful. “I hear him.”

Meaning Grayson could perfectly well hear them, too. Hence the regret. Natividad laughed at him. “Good, then you can tell him I’m starving.”  She dashed for the bathroom before he could answer.

She was wearing a t-shirt that came down nearly to her knees, a black one with a snakey red dragon on the front. It actually belonged to Ezekiel; she wouldn’t have thought of dragons for herself. Ezekiel had slept in loose black sweatpants—too loose for him, but she assumed they were his. He’d lost so much weight. His shadow had burned it off so fast, while he’d survived both the witch and then the senator.

She was determined, no matter what crisis might be waiting for them, Ezekiel was definitely going to have a real breakfast. Steak and eggs, not fancy pastry or whatever. She ought to go find the kitchen.

She came out of the bathroom to find clothing laid out on the bed for her and Ezekiel nearly dressed. That was actually kind of disappointing. She’d thought, maybe breakfast in bed and then...maybe other things. In bed.

Or, well, perhaps not in Grayson’s bed, though, on second thought. Safe, yes, but not exactly...well, no. Just no.

Ezekiel pulled a black t-shirt over his head—no dragon, just plain black. He smiled, immediately looking less thin and far more dangerous.

“Are we intimidating someone this morning?” Natividad asked.

“This afternoon, probably.”  He said it casually, but his smile warmed and grew real. “It’s too late to intimidate anything other than an enormous breakfast this morning. Grayson assures me one will be promptly delivered.”

Natividad considered this. “He’s having breakfast, too, right?”

“For him, I think it’s more like lunch. It’s nearly eleven.”

“We slept for...what, something like fifteen hours? Really?”  Natividad’s sense of time seemed to have gone all peculiar. Though that did explain why she was so hungry.

Ezekiel was laughing at her. Not really laughing...but, sí, he was laughing. “I was up for a while in the middle. You didn’t wake up. I think Grayson was happy to know exactly where you were for fifteen hours.”

“Me, and not you?”  But Natividad figured it out then. “Oh, he knew where you were too, because you were explaining everything. That’s not fair! I don’t even know everything.”  And from the suddenly serious look in his eyes, she wasn’t ever going to. Well. Maybe she didn’t actually want to know just everything. Closing the distance between them, she slid her hands around his waist and dropped her head against his chest.

Once he might have hesitated, but now he drew her close and just held her for a long, long moment. She could feel his heart beating. Steady. Reassuring. Proof that he was alive. His breath that stirred her hair was proof that he was himself, and she was really holding him, and they were both safe.

Safe for the moment, at least.

“What now?” she asked against his chest, and immediately urgent problems began to line up in her mind. “Stéphanie...poor Stéphanie, is she all right? I should see if I can help her. And maybe there were others the demon hurt—”

“Yes. She’s quieter, I understand. That’s important, but it will wait until after breakfast. You can’t have forgotten breakfast. You need to keep your strength up if you’re going to be working with any new kind of magic. Remember the time you collapsed?”

“That won’t happen again—”

“It won’t. Because you will take care of yourself.” Picking her up with no discernable effort, he strode to the door, hitting the latch with his elbow and shouldering the door open so he didn’t have to put her down.

Grayson, who had been laying dishes out on a long table, made no comment. He merely raised his eyebrows. That was embarrassing enough. Natividad squirmed and whacked Ezekiel on the shoulder, and he swung her to her feet and pulled a chair out for her without the faintest sign that he might feel the least bit embarrassed.

Grayson regarded them both with his customary equanimity, but his shadow seemed extraordinariamente dense and heavy this morning. If she had to guess, Natividad would guess that his black dog was only just under the surface. Even now, fifteen hours or however long since they’d come back. Slipping into her seat, Natividad drew a pentagram on the table and whispered under her breath, “Que haya paz en esta casa.”

“Generally greatly to be desired,” the Master agreed drily. He set a small stack of plates down on the table, not quite directly in front of her.

Natividad smiled at him, took a plate off the stack, looked at the table, and blinked. She’d expected eggs and biscuits or some other American breakfast, but this was actually a real almuerzo. There were eggs, but they were on top of chilaquiles. And more eggs in another dish, but those were in huevos divorciados. A bowl of refried beans sat next to a cloth-covered plate of...she peeked. Sí, tortillas.

And though she could smell coffee in one pot, her mug was full of chocolate con leche, fragrant with vanilla and cinnamon, and right beside her plate was a basket of pan de yema, obviously meant for dunking in the chocolate.

“Miguel made all this?” she asked. Her voice came out soft and small. She didn’t need to hear the answer to know it must be true. Her twin had learned so much about good Mexican cooking in the past year and a half.

“He was up at dawn,” Grayson told her, his deep, gritty voice almost gentle. “I believe he wanted to stay busy after he discovered I could not be drawn into a discussion of strategy or policy.”

Natividad didn’t know what to say. She knew Miguel hadn’t exactly made all this because he was bored. He’d made it because he felt...out of place, lost. Because he was trying to make himself feel more at home. She guessed he had also made this for her, because he was worried for her and wanted to make her feel more at home. Maybe as an apology to Alejandro because they had both been in so much trouble and their older brother had been so worried. Or for all those reasons. He would not thank her for explaining any of that, probably.

The chilaquiles were particularly good, especially with the eggs on top. So was the pan de yema, which she had always loved, with or without the chocolate. There was a lot of food. Though not too much, as Ezekiel seemed methodically determined to eat all of it. Natividad approved. She kept nibbling a little of this and a little of that long after she’d really had plenty just to encourage him. He was so thin, but she thought he already looked much better. Black dogs needed lots of food and she was pretty sure his shadow had drawn on his reserves when he’d been starved, but now that he was finally getting enough, maybe his shadow was also helping him recover the weight he had lost.

“Where is Miguel?” she asked suddenly. “Alejandro is well?”

Grayson’s eyes glinted. He, too, looked much better this morning. This afternoon. For him that was a thing of the spirit. He seemed much calmer and in far better humor. She was almost as glad about that as about Ezekiel’s recovery.

The Master said, “They both had breakfast some time ago, I believe. With Colonel Herrod. I imagine they discussed strategy and policy over their huevos rancheros.”

“Huevos divorciados,” Natividad corrected automatically, and then blushed.

Grayson merely continued, undisturbed by the interruption, “Your older brother was naturally upset when we lost the two of you, and more upset when we failed to go after you. I assured him we need not fear for your safety and that Colonel Herrod would insure you were returned to Dimilioc unharmed. As he had promised me.”

“Oh.”  No wonder Grayson had been so angry. Natividad set her mug of chocolate down, understanding what the Master hadn’t quite said. “Alejandro probably told you we weren’t safe at all. Because he would have known. Not why or what...or who...”

“But the fact of your distress. Just so. A most upsetting time for us all.”

Ezekiel paused halfway through a third serving of chilaquiles. He said incredulously, “Alejandro could not possibly have challenged you.”

“No, no. Nothing that need concern you. Everything of that sort is well in hand.”  Grayson absentmindedly tore a tortilla in half, then in half again. “I am aware other problems may concern you.”  Those deep-set eyes lifted to regard Ezekiel.

What problems? Natividad did not ask. She was pretty sure she knew. “Colonel Herrod did save our lives, you know,” she reminded them both.

“I understand that is one possible interpretation of events,” Grayson agreed.

His mild tone, Natividad knew, meant he intended to be particularly intractable. She asked, “Just what kind of strategy and policy do you think my brothers were talking about over breakfast?”

“I imagine we’ll find that out shortly. If you’ve finished your breakfast? Ezekiel, you’re certain you wouldn’t care to finish the rest of this excellent egg dish? Very well. Natividad, do you wish to attend the coming...” A slight pause before the Master chose, “Interview? You need not. You might visit Stéphanie instead. I understand she is resting more quietly, but I do want your assessment. But I would also value your input on this other matter.”

Natividad had a vivid image of the Master of Dimilioc tearing Colonel Herrod’s head right off and throwing it through a window. “I’ll attend,” she said quietly.

“Your presence is always welcome. But you need not. It may be unpleasant.”

Natividad met his eyes, nodding to show she understood his warning. It was surely a lot less likely to be unpleasant if she were there. “It’s all right. I’ll come. Who else will be there? Étienne, James...”

“Étienne and James. I see no benefit in crowding everyone’s temper. Though Carter may feel his exclusion as an affront.”  Grayson glanced at Ezekiel, who shrugged lightly, smiling. “I think we need not be specifically concerned about Carter’s feelings,” the Master concluded, and shoved back his chair.

The...interview...took place in Étienne’s study, which Natividad had to acknowledge was a good place if you wanted to intimidate someone. The room itself was impressive, with high ceilings and rich paneling, dark woodwork and a lot of heavy, ornate furniture. The desk was big enough to dominate the whole room, its chair big enough to be nearly a throne. An enormous globe in a tall stand occupied the space to one side of the desk, and a dark bookcase filled with leather-bound books the other. An ornate, old-fashioned rotary phone rested at one corner of the desk, beside a set of fancy pens. A framed map of the Denver area decorated the wall behind the desk. There were no windows in this interior room, but elaborate bronze lamps stood beside each chair and a chandelier occupied the middle of the ceiling.

It was exactly the kind of room Natividad would have expected Étienne Lumondière to prefer, which probably wasn’t fair, because as far as she knew this room had been decorated just like this for a hundred years or however long it had belonged to the western sept of Dimilioc. Nevertheless, Étienne looked at home here. Elegant and aristocratic, but evidently too wise to challenge Grayson’s authority, Étienne made no move to claim the chair behind the desk, even though it must be, in the ordinary course of events, his desk. Ceded to him, of course, by Grayson, who was Master here as everywhere that could remotely be considered Dimilioc territory. Étienne settled instead on an expensive-looking chair well to one side of the room.

James, assuming a place at a small desk set at right angles to the big one, took a fancy pen of copper and bronze out of its holder and opened a notebook as though he planned to take notes. Maybe he actually was going to take notes, but Natividad was pretty sure the notebook and fancy pen were mostly props. She hadn’t realized until this trip to the west, under such uncertain circumstances, that James was so skilled at pretending to be much less powerful than he actually was. Usually he was kind of...brash. Loud. Talkative. Maybe that was a different kind of concealment. But now even his shadow seemed dim and quiet and not particularly dense, at least the first time you looked at it. If you looked again, you might start to glimpse something of its hidden strength. Natividad wondered how James had learned to conceal his strength like that, but wasn’t sure she would ever have the nerve to ask such an insolente question.

Miguel might know how a black dog could do that. Just as Miguel would know exactly how far back the Mallory bloodline went, and the names and histories of all the important Mallory black wolves, and the same for all the other important bloodlines of all the important houses. Natividad had never understood how he could keep all that straight, but he always seemed to have any random chisme of history on the tip of his tongue.

She wasn’t so sure her twin should try to involve himself with current black wolf politics, though. She was almost completely sure he shouldn’t try to put anything over on Grayson Lanning. All that about strategy and policy worried her a little bit.

Grayson, of course, claimed the chair behind the desk. This room suited Grayson even better than Étienne, Natividad had to admit. He looked at home behind that desk. He was big enough, powerful enough, that the heavy chair and the heavy desk and the heavy room just all added together to accent his power. In this room, the Master of Dimilioc didn’t look like someone who would watch over you as you slept and then feed you breakfast. He looked solid, yes. But he also looked peligroso.

Grayson Lanning and James Mallory and Étienne Lumondière...and Ezekiel, of course. Ezekiel did not sit down. He seldom did, in any gathering, Natividad had noticed. If anyone could lounge comfortably in a chair one moment and aniquila an attacker the next, it was Ezekiel. Standing was more a habit...not of being prepared for violence, but of being seen to be prepared for violence. It went with the attitude created by his chilly smile and opaque eyes.

It was a little strange to see Ezekiel in his scary-killer mode and just...not find him scary. At least, not until Alejandro led in Colonel Herrod. When Ezekiel looked at the colonel, Natividad thought she might be afraid of him after all. Not on her own account, of course. But for Colonel Herrod, and maybe...maybe for her twin, who had made it so clear he wanted Herrod for an ally.

Alejandro held the colonel’s arm in a firm grip, which from a black dog was a threat, or at least a statement. But Natividad could tell her brother was uneasy, and she immediately guessed that he was uneasy on the colonel’s behalf. He didn’t need to be worried on his own account, but she thought maybe he might be worried for Miguel. Alejandro was simple. He would protect his brother and sister, and he would be loyal to Grayson Lanning and to Dimilioc. When he was worried that maybe what Miguel wanted might be at odds with what Grayson wanted, his uneasiness showed.

Miguel was a lot more complicated. He wanted Alejandro and her to be safe and happy, that much was easy. But beyond that...he wanted Dimilioc to rebuild its power. She was almost sure her twin wanted that. But she wasn’t sure his ideas for how to do that, or his idea of power and what it was for, or even his definition of Dimilioc...she wasn’t sure any of her twin’s ideas for those things totally matched up with Grayson’s. That worried her.

When Grayson nodded to him, Alejandro let go of Herrod’s arm, but hesitated for a stretched moment. It took another, less patient nod before he withdrew. When the door shut behind him, the tension in the room only ratcheted up. Natividad looked at Grayson, but his hard gaze was fixed on Colonel Herrod.

The colonel looked exactly like himself. Even under these circumstances, even facing Grayson, his self-possessed composure didn’t tremble at all. He wore his own excellent suit. Everything had been cleaned and pressed, so somebody must have done that for him just so he could look like this now. Natividad was sure it had been Miguel; who else could it have been? It was the sort of detail that Miguel paid attention to.

If Colonel Herrod was afraid of Grayson, of all the gathered black dogs, that didn’t show either. If the colonel had gone pale, the darkness of his skin disguised it. Perhaps he looked a little ashen, his skin not such a warm brown as it should be, but the difference was subtle. Of course, Natividad couldn’t hear his heartbeat. It was harder to pretend to a black dog about things like that. She thought only a great fool would not be afraid in the colonel’s place.

She wondered what the colonel thought about power and the use of power, and how much he knew about Dimilioc’s role in controlling callejeros and—before the war—keeping down vampires and their horrible blood kin. Colonel Herrod might possibly know more about those things now than he had a few days ago—if Miguel had told him about Dimilioc, and if her twin had told the colonel the truth.

If Grayson also wondered how much the colonel knew about Dimilioc and black dogs, she couldn’t exactly tell it. But she was fairly certain he must.

“Colonel,” Grayson said. His tone was flat, heavy, censorious. Natividad had never heard him sound exactly like that. Not even when he was really angry. Actually, she sort of thought maybe she might never before have seen him when he was really angry, until the other day when he’d seen how badly Ezekiel had been treated by the Special Forces people. He was much quieter about it than a normal black dog. In a way...in a way, he was actually scarier than Ezekiel. She quietly traced a row of pentagrams down the arm of her chair with the tip of her finger, framing the wish for peace only in her mind. Grayson did not appear to notice. The corner of Ezekiel’s mouth crooked up, but he made no comment.

Herrod met the Master’s gaze for just a second. Then he came forward several steps and knelt, deliberately, down on both knees, and bowed his head. He stayed there like that, not speaking or moving. Natividad suspected Miguel had persuaded him actually to practice, because it was almost exactly the way a black dog would have done it. And her twin had made the colonel understand he must wait for permission to speak. That was almost the most astonishing thing: that a man like Colonel Herrod would listen to a boy like Miguel and respect his advice. Natividad discovered that she actually liked the colonel a good deal. It was too bad, because immediately she worried about him even more.

“Well?” Grayson said at last, in the same flat tone. “I had believed my people safe in your hands. I believed I could trust your repeated, explicit assurances. Evidently I was mistaken.”

The colonel lifted his head. “Yes. I deeply regret the harm that was done to your people when, as you say, they should have been safe. The fault was entirely mine.”

Grayson steepled his hands on the desk, regarding the colonel over the tips of his fingers. “Indeed. That was certainly my impression. Well. Explain to me how your mistakes led to this.”

Herrod nodded. He took a moment, maybe to organize his thoughts or maybe just to gather his nerve—though he still did not seem afraid. He had forgotten about not looking the Master in the face, but there was no challenge in his face or posture. After that little hesitation, he nodded again and said, “I had no reason to expect civilian interference at that particular time, but I suspected Connelly intended to move at some point. I should have anticipated the possibility that he would do so as soon as both Hannah Raichlen and I were out in the field. When I sent the children and your executioner to Albuquerque, I should have sent Ms. Raichlen with that party as well as Lieutenant Santibañez. She could have prevented Senator Connelly from maintaining control even if he had already gained entry to the compound.”

“I gather the senator was the Chair for the Committee for Management of Supernatural Threats, and thus in authority over all remaining Special Forces units. Yet Raichlen could have stopped him?”

Herrod’s tone was perfectly neutral. “As a civilian, Ms. Raichlen is outside the chain of command and would not have been subject to the senator’s authority. She would have found a way to derail the senator.”

“Given that he was in fact the Chairman of—”

“Ms. Raichlen is a remarkably resourceful individual.”

Natividad could not quite imagine how anyone could have stopped Connelly. Blackmail? Simply shooting him? She didn’t dare interrupt to ask.

“However, she was not there,” the colonel continued. “Once we knew some sort of problem had arisen, I should have sent her at that point. However, I chose to retain my greatest assets for the anticipated encounter with Gregor Kristoff. It did not occur to me that Senator Connelly could not only gain access to our base but also pursue such destructive personal ambitions so far in so brief a time. I was wrong.”  He paused. Then he added in a level tone, “In the event that it becomes necessary for Dimilioc to seek a new ally in the Special Forces, I urge you to contact Ms. Raichlen. Her status as a civilian advisor to the Special Forces affords her certain advantages when dealing with the...awkward situations...that occasionally arise.”

“An advisor.”

“When necessary, Ms. Raichlen offers quite forceful advice. Particularly to civilian authorities who might otherwise get in my—our—way. Despite her civilian status, you would find her able to coordinate an alliance between Dimilioc and the Special Forces. She was Major Raichlen not so long ago. At the time when a good many of our personnel were reassigned, after the hot phase of our operations to eliminate vampires ended, we determined she might make better use of her particular talents in a civilian capacity.”

“I see. Your military superiors cannot command this woman.”

“No one can command Hannah Raichlen. Not even me. Because she is a civilian, and entirely outside the ordinary chain of command. However, if you find it necessary to restructure Dimilioc’s relationship with the Special Forces, I think you’ll find that my unit is...unconventional, and rather more likely to accept guidance from a civilian authority than is generally the case for military units.”

“For them, she is still Major Raichlen.”

“Not at all. Certainly not. No one salutes her or addresses her as ‘Major.’ Naturally that would be inappropriate.”

Grayson considered this.

“Ms. Raichlen is a practical woman who is entirely capable of dealing with the world as it is rather than as she would prefer it to be. You will need my people, Mr. Lanning.” Herrod took a breath. “Master.” He was a little stiff on the word, but he got it out. Natividad was impressed. He went on, “You will need the Special Forces. Admittedly, my people need yours: the demon that’s now been loosed on the world may well turn out to be a very serious problem; indeed, the forerunner of a very serious problem, as I think we may expect to find ourselves dealing with additional witches and demons in the near future. Ms. Raichlen will be aware that we need Dimilioc’s expertise. However, you need us as well. Kristoff is still out there, and I’m sure you wish very much to get your young wolf away from him and prevent any others of your people from falling under his sway. Dimilioc and the Special Forces are still natural allies. I urge you to work with Ms. Raichlen if necessary.”

Natividad understood. The colonel meant this woman would deal with Dimilioc even if Grayson tore his head off right now and threw it through a window. She hoped that wasn’t going to happen. But she couldn’t tell what Grayson was thinking.

Probably Colonel Herrod couldn’t either. But after a slight pause, he turned to speak directly to Ezekiel. “Lieutenant Santibañez understood I had committed to protect Dimilioc’s people. But he was under Senator Connelly’s orders the moment the senator stepped into our base. This put him in a difficult position. However, I’m sure it didn’t immediately occur to Santibañez that he would find himself standing by while the senator’s people actively tortured our prisoners. I must point out, in my lieutenant’s defense, that there is no such thing as an illegal order when it comes to black dogs. Nevertheless, I’m still astonished the senator would take such action under the witness of Special Forces personnel. He ought to have known I...well. He may have wished to demonstrate his authority over me. In any case, I’m certain that Lieutenant Santibañez followed the senator’s orders—legal though they were—only because in his estimation you were not actually in danger of death. If Senator Connelly had shown any inclination to kill you, I’m quite sure he would have taken action.”

Ezekiel tilted his head, cool acknowledgement of the colonel’s opinion, but with no suggestion he accepted it.

The colonel drew a slow breath, let it out, and turned back to the Master. “The senator must have been aware my people were recording everything. Plainly that did not concern him. I strongly suspect he meant to goad me into an actionable response, then arrest me—I could speculate upon the exact charge, but it’s not of practical importance. He would then have seized entire control of the base and created his own modified record of events. However, I was outside the response loop at the time, and that possibility simply did not occur to me. My failure of imagination subjected your people to hazard, discomfort, and, in one case, actual torture. I regret this extremely. Tell me what I can do to make amends.”

The Master considered him for a long moment. Then he said to Ezekiel, “You are the one owed. This man is yours. I will not limit your actions in any way, save that if you kill him, I would prefer the body remain recognizable. Other than that, you may do whatever you wish.”

Natividad hastily drew another pentagram on the other arm of her chair. Ezekiel was smiling. His scary smile. It was a role he played, but...it wasn’t only a role. She looked at Colonel Herrod. His expression hadn’t changed, but his breathing quickened. Though he didn’t move or speak, she could tell he was definitely afraid now. Anyone would be. She would have been terrified.

But Ezekiel did not immediately move. He said to the Master, “His death would complicate things for Dimilioc, I imagine.”

“If it is widely believed that Dimilioc may be taken lightly, our people tormented and abused without hazard, that will also complicate matters for us,” the Master told him. “I am quite willing to make the strongest possible statement on the matter. You may therefore take whatever vengeance you wish. You may feel quite free, in Thos Korte’s memorable phrase, to make this man an example for the ages.”

Natividad had believed that was Ezekiel’s own special phrase. Certainly he used it now and then, and she’d never heard it from anyone else. She was positive that the Master meant something by his reminding Ezekiel of the phrase, but she couldn’t guess what. Grayson practically never mentioned the unlamented former Dimilioc Master; certainly he never held him up as an example anybody should follow.

She knew it was Thos Korte who had first made Ezekiel into Dimilioc’s executioner, and into his personal killer. His personal torturer. And she knew Ezekiel had, in the end, killed Thos Korte himself, allowing Grayson to step into the Master’s place. That name had to have some deeper meaning for them both. But she couldn’t tell what either of them were thinking.

Ezekiel straightened and stepped forward.

Colonel Herrod got quickly to his feet—neither to retreat nor to fight; Natividad saw that immediately. But refusing to meet Ezekiel on his knees. He stared the Dimilioc Executioner directly in the face, but he folded his hands together and didn’t say a word.

Stopping a pace or two in front of the colonel, Ezekiel looked him up and down, a slow, measuring look. He wasn’t smiling now. Not even Natividad could guess whether that was a good sign or a bad one.

Sweat gleamed on the colonel’s forehead, but he didn’t back away. He was still looking directly at Ezekiel, but Natividad didn’t dare warn him to stop that. She didn’t dare make a sound. If Ezekiel actually...surely he wouldn’t...if he did, he wouldn’t do it here in this room. If he started to take the colonel somewhere else, she would have to say something—

“You’re mine,” Ezekiel told Herrod softly. “I can do anything to you I wish. Anything. I can be very creative, believe me.”

Herrod gave him a small nod of acknowledgment.

Ezekiel said in that same soft voice, “I want an apology.”

The colonel stared at him.

Ezekiel said in a level tone, “None of that should have happened. You should have prevented it. I want an apology.”

Colonel Herrod cleared his throat. He said, “You’re entirely correct. You were harmed because of my actions and because of my failures to act. I am sorry for the harm that was done you, and I apologize and beg your pardon.”  He glanced at Natividad. “And yours as well, Miss Toland; and your brother’s.”  He turned his attention back to Ezekiel. “Shortly before I arrived back at the base, Lieutenant Santibañez finally found a chance to tell me what Senator Connelly had been doing to you. I should have ordered him to take the senator into custody at that time. I intended to do it myself rather than put the task on Santibañez. But I could have—should have—ordered Santibañez to do it, then found a way to protect him from the consequences of that act. I did not do so. The cost of that decision fell on you. I most sincerely apologize.”  And, in a gesture Miguel must have taught him, he carefully, deliberately, turned his head and tipped his chin up, offering Ezekiel his throat.

Natividad pressed a hand over her mouth and didn’t make a sound. Grayson lifted one sardonic eyebrow, but said nothing.

Ezekiel didn’t look at either of them. His attention seemed entirely focused on Herrod. For a long moment, he didn’t move at all.

Finally he reached out and touched the colonel’s throat lightly, just with the tips of his thumb and fingers. His hand was almost entirely human, but shadow claws glittered like jet at the tips of every finger. The skin of Herrod’s throat dimpled under the pressure of those claws, and a single drop of blood showed suddenly, shockingly crimson against his walnut-dark skin.

The colonel stood perfectly still, seeming not even to breathe.

Ezekiel lifted his hand, claws vanishing. He said to Herrod, without smiling, “I accept your apology.”  Then he stepped back and nodded to Grayson. “I’m satisfied, Master.”

Herrod half shut his eyes. He showed no other visible reaction, but Natividad was pretty sure that meant he was profoundly relieved. And maybe a little surprised.

It was impossible to tell whether the Master was relieved or surprised. He said in a neutral tone, “You’re certain? I think you are due considerably more than that.”

Ezekiel smiled, but this time not his scary-killer smile. He shrugged, a small, light gesture. “He did fly the helicopter, Grayson. He volunteered to. I might have gotten us all out of there anyway. But I might not, and even if I had, the cost might have been...high. My memory is a trifle uncertain right through there, but I’m sure there were a lot of guns and silver bullets between us and the exit.”  He shrugged again. “Senator Connelly was the one to make an example of. I tore his head off, if memory serves. That should do as a statement that Dimilioc should not be taken lightly. Yes, I’m satisfied.”

Grayson nodded. “Very well. That will do, then.”  But he added to Herrod, not much less grimly than before, “I don’t know that I am satisfied, however.”

Herrod faced him. “In your place, I wouldn’t be. Tell me what I can do to make this right between us.”

Grayson began to answer him...and his phone, lying on the corner of the wide desk, rang. The sound wasn’t loud, but it was startling enough to make Natividad jump. Frowning, not looking away from Herrod, the Master picked it up and thumbed it on. “Yes?” His voice was a low rumble of displeasure.

Natividad was the only one in the room who couldn’t hear the person on the other end of the phone. Well, and Colonel Herrod, of course. But Grayson’s expression changed from grim disapproval to studiedly neutral. Who could it be?

Sometimes Natividad really wished being Pure gave a person those really acute black dog senses. Also black dog strength. And the ability to ignore heat and cold, and walk on top of the snow, and heal injuries.

Well, maybe not that last, considering how they did it. Not any of it, considering that. But she would have liked to be able to hear the person on the other end of Grayson’s phone. Every black dog in the room had straightened, looking offended—that was Étienne—or amused—that was Ezekiel, naturally. James, an eye on Grayson, pursed his lips, leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms over his chest, and just waited. Colonel Herrod was waiting too, of course. His attitude was one of polite patience. It was hard to guess what he might really be thinking or feeling. Maybe he was just kind of glad of the interruption.

The Master wasn’t saying much, not nearly enough for Natividad to figure out who the call was from or what it was about. He said, “I see,” first. Then he said, “Indeed. I commend your efficiency. No. In fact your arrival is quite timely. One moment, please.” Then, muting the phone, he said to Colonel Herrod, “It is your Ms. Raichlen. She would like to know whether this is a convenient moment for a visit. I gather your people have made advances in tracking devices. Though I would not have expected quite this level of performance. Where is yours?”

Natividad was deeply grateful that phone call hadn’t come two minutes earlier. She was pretty sure that would have been the exact straw that broke Grayson’s patience. As it was...the Master didn’t seem too upset.

Colonel Herrod’s politely patient expression didn’t change. “My hip. One can fit a larger device in a hip than in a tooth. Though they are getting smaller, these days. I have them upgraded for my people every time there is a significant advance in the technology. Also, blessed by a priest before installation. I don’t know whether that improves efficacy, but it seems worth the effort.”

“I see.” Grayson glanced at Natividad.

Tracking device or not, blessed by a priest or not, she was also puzzled about how Herrod’s people had found him. A blessing surely wouldn’t do anything to interfere with Pure magic, so that couldn’t be it. She wanted to talk to Miguel about it, but since the Master obviously wanted an answer now, she tried to think. She would have sworn that all the layers of circles and spirals and look-away spells and everything laid down by generations of Pure women around this Dimilioc territory ought to have kept any kind of tracking device from working.

Miguel would have been able to figure this out. She tried to think about the problem like her twin.

“Oh!” she said. “I mean, I think I get it. I think after we left the helicopter, maybe the colonel’s tracker got easier for his people to find. I mean, I didn’t try to make such a strong look-away maraña after that. I didn’t think...I mean, I should have thought of it, but I didn’t. And then we just drove straight here. So I guess it wouldn’t have been too hard—”

“To extrapolate the colonel’s direction. Indeed.” The Master’s tone was completely neutral, but Natividad was willing to bet he was pretty irritated. She had to admit he had every right to be. She should have thought of that possibility. Actually, she was kind of surprised Miguel hadn’t thought of it. Then she wondered if maybe he had, and had actually wanted Herrod’s people to track him down.

She hoped Grayson didn’t think of that.

“I should have—” began Ezekiel

Grayson lifted a hand. “You were all tired. Fortunately the situation does not appear irrecoverable.” He looked thoughtfully at Colonel Herrod.

Herrod said quietly, “I’m sure with a modicum of good will on both sides, it’s very recoverable. May I speak to Ms. Raichlen?”

Grayson considered him. Then he offered the colonel his phone.

Herrod stepped forward, took it with a nod, unmuted it, and said, calmly, “Good afternoon, Hannah. Your timing is very nearly impeccable. I believe the Master of Dimilioc and I were about to reach a practicable understanding regarding our best approach to the continuing problem posed by these witches and their demon. Whom did you leave in charge of our people at the Albuquerque base?...No, that will do admirably, I believe. Raymond is certainly capable of, shall we say, forceful diplomacy when that is required. I have every confidence in his ability to handle the...repercussions of recent events. Is Lieutenant Santibañez with you? Excellent. I imagine you would prefer some reasonable guarantee of amicability before you bring our people any nearer the house? Yes. I will endeavor to meet you. Send Lieutenant Santibañez up to the house now, please.” He touched the button to hang up the phone, set it gently on the edge of the desk, folded his hands, and looked at Grayson.

Then he bowed his head and waited. Natividad knew he couldn’t possibly mean the submission he implied, but she was impressed he was willing to bend his head to Grayson.

After a moment, Grayson said in a level tone, “Well. What is it you propose?”

The colonel straightened and met Grayson’s eyes. Then looked slightly aside. “I’m aware the trust between us has been strained. Through my fault, but not through my intention. If we’re to work together, we must each be able to exercise a modicum of trust. If you’re skeptical now, I can’t blame you. I propose you accept one of my men as a liaison—”

“A hostage.”

“Frankly, a hostage, yes. Santibañez is a steady young man; one of my steadiest. Also, his uncle is a United States senator. Depending on circumstances, that may offer certain advantages. However, as we agree that the fault for the situation in Albuquerque was mine, I will ask you not to punish him for anything that took place there.”

“Is that what you ask? It does not constitute a guarantee regarding the young man’s safety.”

“The wellbeing of a hostage is contingent. I understand that.”

Grayson studied the colonel for a moment. Then he glanced at Étienne. “The alarms we set in place seem to lack efficacy.”

Étienne shrugged, a more elegant gesture from him than from anybody else Natividad knew. He glanced down, cautious of the Master’s displeasure, but said merely, “Perhaps these military persons remain outside our perimeter. Or perhaps they have disabled one or more of the sensors. They are more than usually competent, I presume. Also, we had in mind a different manner of threat.”

“Make a note: we should broaden our perimeter as we create—or as Natividad creates—a less vulnerable warning system. We wouldn’t wish to allow another enemy to approach so near this house without warning.”

Like Kristoff, maybe. That was what Grayson meant. It had not occurred to Natividad till this moment that the witch might. She flinched at the idea, but she should have thought of it herself. Of course Kristoff had Absolon Lumondière under his control. All he had to do was ask the right questions and Absolon might lead him right here.

That was truly an appalling idea. Though obviously Grayson and Étienne had thought of it too, and taken precautions. So they should be safe. Mostly safe. Anyway, Kristoff would be a fool to come within reach of so many black dogs. He couldn’t possibly take control of so many. Surely he couldn’t. Natividad tried to relax.

Grayson had turned to James. “For the moment, as we are evidently about to have guests, you had better disable the system, unless our...allies...have already done so. You may meet Lieutenant Santibañez, confirm he is alone, and escort him here.”

James smiled, got lazily to his feet, and strolled out. Natividad didn’t imagine Lieutenant Santibañez would find him a very reassuring escort. She didn’t quite dare ask how the lieutenant was going to feel about his colonel handing him over to the Master of Dimilioc as a hostage. Surely Colonel Herrod would be pretty upset if Grayson actually did anything bad to Lieutenant Santibañez. Surely Grayson wouldn’t. Though he hadn’t actually responded to Colonel Herrod’s request. Probably the colonel had noticed that too, though he wasn’t saying anything about it.

It wouldn’t be good for anyone to do anything that would start a real war between the Special Forces and Dimilioc. Right? Especially not now, when things looked like they were actually going pretty well. Everyone surely understood that. Surely they did.

The Master stated, just as calm and controlled as ever, “I gather you and I were about to reach a practicable understanding about our best approach to the continuing problem posed by Kristoff. And the demon.”

Herrod inclined his head. “That was my hope, certainly. I feel—” He broke off as James returned, escorting, yes, Lieutenant Santibañez. With Miguel trailing along, trying to be unobtrusive but way too interested not to try to crash the party. And Alejandro behind Miguel, because naturally when Natividad’s twin started pushing black dog patience, their older brother started hovering protectively. Of course he did. She was a little surprised not to see absolutely everyone else crowding along too, just to get in on whatever happened.

Well, not Théo Callot. Of course he didn’t care about anything right now except Stéphanie. She really had to go see how Stéphanie was doing.

A black dog girl Natividad didn’t know followed Alejandro, a little closer than her brother would normally have let another black dog come to him. And he let her behind him. Obviously her brother must like this girl. Natividad looked at her again. She was thin in a way Natividad recognized. Freed from the witches...yes, she remembered the one black dog she hadn’t recognized, the one she’d guessed might be female. Well, it was very good the girl had been freed, but Natividad wasn’t sure she really liked Alejandro letting her at his back.

Carter trailed behind the others, far enough back not to be taken as a threat. That was interesting. He had his hands shoved in his pockets, probably an attempt to look casual and kind of unconcerned. He hadn’t quite pulled it off. The tightness of his jaw and the look in his eyes betrayed his wariness.

Lieutenant Santibañez didn’t seem nervous. But he was a little pale. On him, it showed. Natividad didn’t blame him a bit. Maybe he knew he was going to get to be a hostage. Who wouldn’t be scared if he guessed something like that? His gaze flicked around the room, noticing and cataloging everything and everyone, snagging for an instant on Ezekiel’s face. His expression didn’t change, but that little pause showed that he’d recognized Ezekiel’s lounging pose and slight smile as the danger signals they were.

But it was to Herrod he spoke. “Good to see you, sir.” That was all. Then he waited. Patient. Even stolid.

He’d seemed pretty stolid all that time in the Albuquerque base, too. While Senator Connelly and his people took everything over and caused so much trouble and tortured Ezekiel. The sardonic twist to Ezekiel’s mouth as he considered this newcomer was another danger signal He hadn’t said a word about the colonel offering Santibañez as a hostage. Because he agreed with Herrod that the man was steady? Or because Santibañez was exactly the one Ezekiel would like to have at his mercy?

Ezekiel was not exactly known for mercy. Natividad had not been able to avoid hearing some of the stories. Of course part of that was just image. But part of it was real. She knew that. It wasn’t like she didn’t know that.

“Yes, Lieutenant, I’m gratified to see you as well.” Herrod had forgotten all about being polite and deferential. His smile was thin and razor sharp, actually a bit like Ezekiel’s killer’s smile. “A very solid field test of both our equipment and our ingenuity. I suspect the tracker’s signal failed at some point?”

“At every damn point, sir.” A slight pause as Santibañez queried his colonel with a silent widening of his eyes. Natividad read this as You want me to explain about this here, sir?

“Please go on,” Herrod said politely.

“Yes, sir. It wasn’t just the receiver. That cut in and out, but it was mostly our attention, cutting in and out too. We drove around in circles and tried our damned best to triangulate based on objective measures because our intuition was shot to hell.”

The colonel nodded approvingly. “And here you are. Very good.” He glanced at Grayson. “A method that I hope may prove useful again. I understand that the skills of the Pure can manage something of the sort, allowing you to locate enemies.”

“Indeed. You have then become acquainted with the skills of the Pure?”

Neither Grayson nor Colonel Herrod looked at Natividad, but she winced slightly anyway, unable to stop herself from glancing at Miguel, where he leaned casually in the doorway. She and her twin had been pretty open about Pure magic, tossing ideas around during that long drive from the place they had abandoned the helicopter. It had seemed all right at the time. Somehow Natividad had kind of forgotten about the colonel’s presence even though he’d been right there, driving the truck. Miguel probably had not forgotten. It was not the sort of thing he would forget. She guessed her twin had wanted Colonel Herrod to understand more about Pure magic. Now she wanted to ask him what he had been thinking. But maybe not in front of the Master.

“Not in any great depth,” the colonel said smoothly. “In fact, that constitutes nearly the entirety of my understanding of the methods in question. However, I hope Miss Toland’s gifts will prove useful in framing our approach to our common problem. Copper Mountain worries me a good deal. Certainly I am far more concerned about these witches and this demon than I am about your people...Master.”

Lieutenant Santibañez’s breath caught at that use of Grayson’s title. Only a little. But if Natividad noticed, everyone noticed.

“You have a suggestion,” Grayson said to the colonel. “You may offer it now.”

The colonel inclined his head. “The demon appears to be the greatest threat to us all. We need to take Gregor Kristoff alive. He must be induced to divulge some useful means by which the...entity can be destroyed, or at least sent back to wherever it came from, or at the very least gotten under some measure of control. If there are no means by which we can handle the demon, then Kristoff himself must control the creature. Obviously he cannot be allowed to use it in any way.” Herrod paused, then added carefully, “No one can be allowed to use it. Perhaps that goes without saying.”

The colonel had forgotten to look down or suggest things rather than state them straight out. Grayson showed no sign of offense. Natividad wondered whether the colonel had used the Master’s title deliberately, to buy extra tolerance for himself or, maybe more likely, Santibañez. Probably. And look, it was useful right away.

Grayson tapped his fingers thoughtfully on the surface of the desk. “On that, we concur.”

“Good. Very well, then. I’m confident my people will be able to locate Kristoff, eventually. I’m quite certain my people would be able to kill Kristoff; fairly certain they would be able to take him alive. I’m substantially less certain about our ability to find him quickly or hold him safely. If he lies to us, or if he must be allowed to summon or control that demon, I fear we might prove unable to detect incipient betrayal until too late. If your people were to contribute your understanding and resources to this...project, I would feel more confident of a rapid and positive outcome. To this end—”

“You offer me this man as a hostage.”

Natividad looked quickly at Lieutenant Santibañez, but he didn’t look surprised. Resigned, maybe. Miguel, in the doorway, frowned. She widened her eyes at her twin: Cállate, gemelo. A little to her surprise, Miguel didn’t make any effort to break in.

Colonel Herrod said quietly, “I want him back. Unharmed. It’s very important to me that I get Lieutenant Santibañez back unharmed. I merely wish to demonstrate...” A pause, as he evidently hunted for a way to complete that sentence.

“A commitment to being worthy of trust?” Grayson suggested.

“To promoting a spirit of cooperation and mutual trust, certainly,” the colonel provided smoothly. “I have been assured Dimilioc desires this as well.”

“Have you? Well, perhaps it is true.” Grayson considered Herrod for some time. At last he said in a level tone, “I think you may go out to your people now. You may assure Ms. Raichlen that we are indeed engaged in reaching a practicable understanding regarding our mutual effort to resolve the danger posed to both our peoples by Gregor Kristoff and those of his kind. If you wish, you and she are invited to return to this house in the morning, whereupon we will discuss the details of our approach.”

“Waiting until tomorrow—”

“Will place us at the edge of the full moon, to Dimilioc’s advantage. Also, we must have time to consider our approach. Unless you wish to repeat the methods we have already tried?”

“Not in exact detail, no,” Colonel Herrod conceded. “Something a good deal more decisive and substantially less risky does seem desirable. Very well.” He cleared his throat and added, “Master.” It still sounded awkward, but he said it. Then he went on smoothly, “In the morning, then. Early. Seven?”

“That will do,” Grayson agreed. “James will see you out.”

A tiny hesitation. A small nod to Lieutenant Santibañez, who nodded back and said not a word about being left behind. Then Herrod just turned and walked out, James following. Probably to make sure everything went as it was supposed to and nobody started shooting. If all this was some complicated kind of trap and Santibañez an awful kind of sacrifice, James would probably figure it out. Or Natividad guessed that was James’ immediate role in this escort duty.

The whole thing made her nervous. It seemed like there was just so much that could go wrong. She almost wanted to suggest just leaving the Special Forces out of everything and dealing with the witches on their own, except that the Special Forces knew about this place now. They’d gotten right past all the defenses generations of Pure women had woven all around the heart of this western sept, they’d avoided triggering whatever other kinds of alarm systems Grayson and Étienne had arranged, and now they were right out there, guns and cars and maybe helicopters, right out of sight.

No wonder Grayson had agreed to take a hostage. He had realized they needed one. They really did. Natividad thought they could trust Herrod now...probably...as long as they didn’t trust him too far or for the wrong things. But, sí, she understood why Grayson had let the colonel give him a hostage. Santibañez was supposed to keep things from going wrong.

Pretty uncomfortable for him, though. She thought he must be pretty brave. Well, Special Forces, it figured he was brave. But she guessed it probably took something else to walk into the main house of Dimilioc’s western sept and not say a word when your boss told you that you were going to be a hostage. Especially with Ezekiel Korte looking at you like he remembered you real well.

She wanted to promise him everything would be all right. But honestly, she didn’t think she had better say a word.

-19-

Santibañez had come into the house unarmed, or nearly. He had a knife in his boot; he might have another one tucked away somewhere. But no guns. Miguel was actually kind of impressed. A gun wouldn’t have made a lot of difference; once a man was in arm’s reach of any black dog, he was toast if a black dog decided to twist off his head. Still, coming in practically unarmed must have taken guts. And amazingly good sense. Or really impressive faith that Herrod had a decent understanding of the situation. Especially if Santibañez had also realized that he was going to get to be a hostage. Most especially if he’d guessed ahead of time that Ezekiel was going to remember him.

Because Ezekiel definitely remembered him, judging from the chilly look in his eye. Black dogs ran hot, generally. Not Ezekiel. Not right now. Right at this moment, he was practically radiating cold dislike.

Miguel really hoped that wasn’t going to be a problem. Killing Senator Supervillain was one thing. If Colonel Herrod couldn’t spin that little episode right around and stand it on its head in front of any congressional committee ever convened, Miguel would eat a Special Forces badge. But if Santibañez was actually a senator’s nephew, well, Miguel would have had to be pretty dim not to have a good idea why Herrod thought that might be a plus. And stupider than that not to understand that Ezekiel had better not tear him up. The question was whether Ezekiel realized that. Or cared. Or whether Grayson did.

Grayson looked the Special Forces man up and down after Herrod was gone, a slow, thoughtful look that even Miguel found hard to read. Did the Master have this kind of fraught hostage thing figured or not? Miguel wouldn’t bet against Grayson Lanning figuring every angle up, down, and sideways, but he was still a black dog. You had to keep in mind that for him it’d be dominance issues first and rationality second. Yeah, hard to tell for sure.

Lieutenant Santibañez met the Master’s gaze—Madre de Dios, lately it seemed like Miguel was always having to explain about that to one macho guy or another. Maybe he should write a book. But at least Santibañez didn’t say a word. He stood with his back straight and his arms folded over his chest, which could be taken as defiance, but then on the other hand he’d come into this house practically naked, nothing but that knife in his boot. That wasn’t a bad start, dealing with the Master of Dimilioc.

Grayson said abruptly, to Ezekiel, not Santibañez, “Come with me,” nodded to Miguel as well, beckoned to Natividad, and walked out. That left the Special Forces lieutenant in there alone with Étienne, which ought to be all right. Étienne might be a bastard, but, yeah, it should be all right.

So, though he cast a worried glance back, Miguel obeyed Grayson’s signal and followed the Master out. Grayson ignored him at first. Instead he said to Carter, “Please find James—I believe you will locate him in the room directly above the front door—and assist in keeping an eye on our visitors.” Then he turned to Natividad. “It seems likely we will shortly be attempting once more to track and destroy our enemies. I do not want to take undue risks in this exercise. Given her unique experience, Stéphanie might well be able to assist in designing some sort of tool which might serve us well. If you would look in on her, I have some hope your presence alone may aid in her recovery. If not, I suggest you might consider rituals related to the Beschwichtigan. I suspect something of that kind might help Stéphanie. Please consult with Théo Callot and see what you can do. Haste may possibly be important, but I strictly warn you not to endanger yourself.”

Natividad nodded, looking determined. Miguel cleared his throat, but before he could speak, Grayson added to Alejandro, “If you would accompany your sister and ensure she does not attempt anything remotely dangerous.”

“Yes,” agreed Alejandro, dropping a possessive hand on Natividad’s wrist when she started to protest. “Of course I will do that.” He gave her a stern look. So did Grayson. So did Ezekiel. Natividad muttered under her breath, nothing Miguel could quite overhear—probably everyone else did—and stalked away down the hall, her back very straight, ignoring Alejandro’s escort.

Miguel grinned.

Then the Master unexpectedly stepped close and gripped his shoulder with one broad hand. Miguel looked up, startled, but they were already moving, Grayson and Ezekiel with Miguel hauled inexorably along into the adjoining room—a much more generic type of office. Grayson nodded to Ezekiel to shut the door, tightened his grip on Miguel’s arm, and demanded, moderately grim, “Did you anticipate that? Raichlen’s arrival? Did you by any remote chance set that up?”

Miguel just stared for a heartbeat. Then the Master’s demand snapped into place and he said forcefully, “No!” Then he amended that hastily. “No, sir. Definitely not. Nothing like that even occurred to me. I figured he had to have some kind of tracking device, but I thought Natividad’s maraña magica would take care of it. I totally didn’t expect the cavalry to come charging over the hill—and neither did he. I mean, I don’t think he expected that. Did he?”

Grayson eased back a touch, thankfully. “I believe the colonel was honestly surprised. And not entirely pleased, I think, until he’d had a chance to consider. Ezekiel?”

“That’s how I read him, Master. First alarmed. Then cautious. Then pleased.”

Grayson nodded. His lips were pressed tight, he was still glowering, but he seemed to have pulled back from the edge of fury. He asked Miguel, “So, then, is this young men a hostage offered to me in good faith, or bait in a trap? Or does he constitute a trap himself? Your opinion?”

Miguel had a brief, vivid image of himself pounding his head against a wall to wake up his brain. He ought to have been the one suggesting those possibilities to the Master. The bait in a trap thing hadn’t even occurred to him, although now it was an obvious possibility. He said, “Maybe kind of all three? He’s definitely a real hostage, right? I mean, he’s right here and you could totally rip him into pieces any time you wanted. Bait in a trap, maybe not exactly. I bet he really is a test, though. ’Cause if anything happens to him, I don’t think Dimilioc’s going to be working hand-in-glove with the Special Forces again any time soon. Yeah, I bet if that happened we’d find out we had another dedicated enemy, which we definitely don’t need—” he realized he was probably sounding too authoritative about that and hastily dialed it back a notch. “I mean, sir, unless you think we can’t work with them anyway and want to send a really unmistakable message, but—”

Grayson twitched an impatient hand. “Go on, Miguel.”

“Um. Yes. Right. Okay, a trap in himself, well, he is a senator’s nephew. I even remember that now. I mean, I remember there is a Senator Santibañez. From Florida. A pretty smart guy, I guess. Yeah, he’s got fingers in a lot of military pies, I can see he’d probably be pretty okay seeing a nephew of his in the Special Forces. Especially on Herrod’s team. Huh. Yeah, I can see that. I figure Lieutenant Santibañez is kind of a trap that could close either way. I mean, we kill him, we get his uncle down on us along with Herrod, so there’s that. But obviously nobody’s going to do a burn order on us either, not with him right here.”

The room had been quiet before, but now the quality of the quiet changed. Miguel looked at the Master, swallowing. He had kind of thought Grayson had figured that out. The Master had sounded like he’d figured it out. He said cautiously, “I mean, they know sometimes you can’t take out the creepy awful demonic stuff without dropping a bunker-buster or a little micro nuke in just the right spot. I mean, right at the end of the war, that master vampire in Havana...I mean, nobody could have gotten to it any other way. Obviously that was way before I got into your—our—Dimilioc’s records, but I always assumed you’d deliberately passed that vampire’s location off to the Special Forces...”

“I did,” Grayson said, his tone grim. “It was the only way to be sure of sending it and all its lesser vampires and blood kin into the fell dark.”

Miguel nodded. “Right. I mean...yeah. It’s the only good way of getting a whole nest of vampires all at once, if you want to be sure. And if you know just exactly where the nest is. Which, I guess, by now somebody’s got to have this place right here neatly circled on a map somewhere, right? There’s no way they haven’t.”

That obvious truth sat there for a moment, heavy in the quiet.

“No one would drop even a micro nuke this close to Denver,” Ezekiel said, but he didn’t say it with a lot of confidence.

“Well, probably not an actual nuke,” Miguel agreed, carefully deferential. “But something big that goes boom, who knows? Only I don’t think anybody will do anything like that with Senator Santibañez’s nephew right smack in the middle of that circle. Do you figure? No matter how upset they are about Copper Mountain and all that, or whether somebody’s got us conflated with Kristoff and his lot and that demon of his. Which I expect someone has. You know how people are when they’re not too familiar with supernatural stuff: it all looks the same, right? Or,” he added, “I think that’s what Colonel Herrod had in mind. One thing he had in mind. I’m just guessing, though.”

The Master looked at Ezekiel. “Find out,” he ordered flatly, opened the door, and walked out.

Ezekiel raised one pale eyebrow at Miguel.

“Um, if you don’t mind...”

“Not at all,” Ezekiel said politely, and nodded for Miguel to proceed him out the door.

But now Miguel held back. “Lieutenant Santibañez...” he wasn’t sure how to finish that sentence and asked finally, “If you don’t mind me asking, does the lieutenant have any extra karma to work off? I mean, I wondered if you have any reason for, uh, a personal grudge?”

Ezekiel regarded him with a kind of heavy patience that Miguel was pretty sure he’d deliberately borrowed from Grayson’s repertoire. “Not excessively.”

Yeah. Miguel wasn’t sure whether that was a Yes, but he suspected it wasn’t entirely a No. He doubted the situation was going to get any less fraught for waiting, though. Ezekiel was looking a whole lot better, at least. A couple good meals, a good night’s rest—well, a night and half a day—most of all being back among his own people, with Natividad, and with Grayson keeping an eye on things so he could let himself relax. Ezekiel kind of gave the impression he never relaxed and never needed to, but Miguel was pretty sure a lot of that was an act. So, yeah, it was definitely good to see him looking a lot better. Surely he was no longer quite so likely to snap and kill everybody in sight. Though it’d still probably be better to stick around and keep an eye on things.

And, damn, he was just going to have to find a chance to teach Santibañez something about edgy, tense, pissed-off black dogs, enough to make sure he didn’t accidentally set off an explosion. That was getting pretty tiresome. He should definitely write a book.

But all he said, in his meekest tone, was, “All right.”

Lieutenant Santibañez didn’t seem to have moved a muscle since everybody else had trooped out and left him alone with Étienne. Who wasn’t looking very friendly. But he wasn’t going out of his way to be unfriendly, either, which was about the best you could expect from Étienne Lumondière when he was dealing with a human man. Especially a human who thought he was tough, like say the Special Forces guys.

Étienne had taken a bound set of maps over to the desk. He was paging slowly through them, probably asking himself where he’d build a secret hideout in Denver if he were a witch, or maybe where he’d go next to kill a lot of people and steal their souls if he were a freed demon. He didn’t seem to be paying any attention to Santibañez.

Lieutenant Santibañez was still on his feet, his hands clasped lightly together, studying those maps, upside-down though they must be from his point of view. Or maybe studying Étienne. Covertly, though, if so. That was good. He glanced over when the door opened, nodded to Miguel, and met Ezekiel’s stare. That wasn’t good. Ezekiel was beginning to get that lazy, amused look in his eyes that meant his temper was waking up. It probably hadn’t been very thoroughly asleep.

Miguel said without pausing, “Lieutenant! How was your trip? You made pretty good time, I guess, considering that you probably had a lot to deal with back in Albuquerque.”

Lieutenant Santibañez let his attention be drawn away from Ezekiel and the maps. “Hey, Miguel. Yeah, no, that part’s not on me, which is a damn good thing since I have no doubt those camera feeds are going to leak. Sooner rather than later, I’m sure. Lotta hasty damage control in all directions, you bet, which is not exactly my specialty. Good thing the colonel’s all right, since it’ll be way better to have him right there pointing out the highlights to the kiddies during show and tell. He does it right, he probably won’t have too much trouble persuading everybody Connolly got just what he had coming. Nearly everybody. Enough of everybody.”

“Yeah?”

“Probably, yeah. I think so.”

“Good. That sounds pretty good.”

Santibañez nodded. “I’ve got something for you.” Moving slowly enough not to trigger even a black dog into violence, he took Miguel’s cell phone out of his back pocket and held it out to Miguel.

Miguel looked at it, and then at the lieutenant. He hadn’t really expected to get it back. He wasn’t at all sure he ought to take it now. “I figure it probably took you guys ten minutes to break my lock, right?”

“Nobody touched it but me. I didn’t happen to mention I had it. Your lock’s intact. I didn’t try to get in. No tricks, I swear. No tracking devices, no spyware, nothing.”

Miguel raised his eyebrows. “No me chingues?”

“I mean it. Lo prometo. I figured I owed you that.” Santibañez made a little take it gesture with the phone. “You can always get rid of it. But you don’t need to. I swear.”

Well. This was a surprise. But Miguel almost thought he believed him. He looked at Ezekiel, not exactly for permission. Well, yeah, for permission. But also to check his own feeling against the Dimilioc executioner’s much keener senses and honed cynicism.

Ezekiel raised one eyebrow, way more sardonic and cool than anything Miguel could manage. “He’s telling the truth. So far. Go ahead and take it.”

Miguel nodded. He took the phone gingerly, touched it on. Looked at the icons. Blanked the screen again and looked at Santibañez. “Thanks, man.”

The lieutenant shrugged. “Like I said, I figured I owed you. I didn’t break any orders. These days the only person I’d have to report something like that to is the Colonel. And he wasn’t there.” He sighed, theatrically gloomy. “I’ll have to report it to him now, of course. When I get a chance. He’ll scientifically rip me up one side and down the other, I expect. But I don’t think he’ll say I was wrong.”

“Yeah?” Miguel stuck his phone in his pocket. “Well, thanks. Debt’s totally paid.”

“That one, maybe.” Santibañez turned deliberately back to Ezekiel. “I owe you too. I’m sorry as hell you got to be one of the highlights of Connelly’s show. It’s not what I would have chosen. Good job tearing off that bastard’s head. Once that tape gets edited, it’ll make a great instructional video.”

There was a slight pause as Ezekiel considered this.

Étienne Lumondière had leaned back in his chair, watching with focused attention. Miguel realized he probably should have said something to Étienne before opening up a little chat with the Special Forces lieutenant, but he hadn’t thought of it and now it was too late. Maybe Étienne hadn’t even noticed that, though, or hadn’t taken it as a snub; at least he didn’t seem inclined to make any sarcastic comments about Miguel’s disrespect. Yet, anyway.

Ezekiel, unsurprisingly, didn’t seem to care two bits for Étienne Lumondière’s opinion. His attention was all for Santibañez. Not in an entirely reassuring way.

He said finally, “I imagine a good many young soldiers will find a real-time view of black dog speed and strength instructive.”

Yeah, that was way too polite. Miguel tried to figure out how to get this conversation heading somewhere better before it got worse, but before he could, Santibañez shook his head.

“No, that’s not what I meant. I mean, yeah, definitely, that too. But what I meant was, as long as they don’t panic like a whole flock of headless chickens, everybody in DC will probably benefit from a reminder about the dangers of messing with supernatural monsters who’ll rip off your head without the slightest hesitation, no matter how important you think you are. I did warn him,” the lieutenant added. “But the senator was sure he knew what he was doing. He figured he had the legal right, or could make it look like he did, close enough anyway, so to hell with decency. Lots of people like that in Washington. Fewer after seeing that clip, though, probably.”

“Warned him, did you?”

Santibañez nodded firmly, not looking away. “Right after the first time his goons did the thing with the fingers. You might have missed that part. You were a little distracted right then. But, yeah, I warned him. I thought it was just possible he’d listen to me.”

“Because you are a senator’s nephew yourself.”

Santibañez didn’t pretend not to know what Ezekiel meant. He opened a hand, allowing the point. “He had that kind of attitude, yeah. Soldiers are just stupid meat-puppets, pull their strings and they jump, but a guy with the right family isn’t just a soldier, right? So I figured he might at least take half a minute to think about what he was doing, and that’d give the colonel a chance to get back and take care of things. You know how that turned out. I wanted to shoot him right then. Would’ve saved you the trouble of tearing off his head. Maybe I should have.”

“You were under orders, of course. I gather the senator actually did have authority over you and your people.”

Another short, crisp nod. “Yeah, technically. After this maybe we’ll see another shakeup in how the Special Forces are handled. God knows Connelly was like a walking, talking demo for why you don’t want to turn military units into some damned senator’s private palace guard. But if I’d moved, I think I could have carried everybody else along with me. Only then we’d have had a little miniature war on our hands right there on base, and legally not a leg to stand on whether we won or lost. But still. I probably should’ve just done it and then dealt with the political fallout later. I didn’t, and that’s on me. I figure that’s why the colonel picked me for this gig.” He stopped then, and waited, meeting Ezekiel’s level gaze.

Ezekiel stared back with more than a tinge of that lazy, amused killer’s attitude.

“One reason,” Miguel put in quickly. Both Ezekiel and Santibañez looked at him. So did Étienne Lumondière, not with any great favor, which Miguel might have anticipated, but on the other hand, annoying Étienne was not his biggest concern right at this moment. Ducking his head, he looked at Santibañez so he wouldn’t have to look at either black dog. He said, careful to keep his tone apologetic, “I sort of figure Colonel Herrod’s the type to have more than one thing in mind. And, I mean, you are Senator Santibañez’s nephew. Which he mentioned, Lieutenant, before he tossed you to the wolves. I’m pretty sure it matters. Because quite a few people are likely to think it does, aren’t they?”

A slight pause. Then Ezekiel ordered softly, “Answer the question.”

Lieutenant Santibañez looked back at Ezekiel. Too directly, but then he rubbed a hand across his mouth, shrugged, and said, “Yeah, the kid’s right. Some people might think it makes a difference. If the wrong video clip leaks to the wrong people at the wrong time, if certain kinds of actions are proposed, you can bet my uncle will get a phone call. He’s probably getting one now, actually. And yeah, it might make a difference. So there’s that.”

Ezekiel gave Miguel an ironic look. Then he said to Lieutenant Santibañez, “If Connelly had kept on as he was going, he’d have killed me.”

“I would’ve stopped it before it went that far.”

Ezekiel’s look became, if possible, more ironic.

The lieutenant shrugged. “Well, I would’ve. But you’re one tough bastard. I don’t think he got all that close. Not that he didn’t go pretty far, I grant you. Sorry about that. Seriously.”

Ezekiel let that stand there for a moment that seemed to stretch out for a long time. He said at last, with no particular emphasis, “Maybe I’ll accept that apology and maybe I won’t. I’m not happy with you, Santibañez. You may want to keep that in mind.”

“Yes, sir,” the lieutenant said quietly. Not looking down, but his quiet, respectful tone pretty much did the job.

Still, Miguel cleared his throat and moved a step closer to the desk, ostentatiously studying the map in order to give Ezekiel a way to break off the encounter. He was relieved when Ezekiel took the opportunity, shifting his attention away from the lieutenant to the map.

Also willing to take this as a signal, Étienne Lumondière said in his dry, accented English, “If you young men have got that settled, possibly we might turn our thoughts for a moment to a topic of almost equal importance.” He turned the book of maps about on the desk, inviting the rest of them to look. Even Miguel, for whom he spared a brief, caustic glance that wasn’t exactly friendly, but wasn’t actually hostile either.

Miguel edged forward, contriving to get between Ezekiel and Lieutenant Santibañez so he could edge the lieutenant a few steps farther away from Dimilioc’s executioner. He wished some convenient opportunity would present itself so that he could explain a few items of basic black dog manners to Santibañez, but it was hard to think of any subtle way to get the lieutenant off by himself. The best he could do was just make sure the man didn’t accidentally crowd Ezekiel. Who, from the half amused, half exasperated look he turned on Miguel, knew very well what he was doing and thought it was unnecessary and maybe ridiculous.

Well, maybe. Miguel had very definite opinions about taking basic precautions and not borrowing trouble.

The map was interesting, though, so he almost forgot about the potential for trouble.

“These witches like deserted areas, but they need a certain infrastructure for their work, I gather,” said Étienne. “They favor underground locales where possible. If you will kindly observe the area I have marked. This is the Denver international airport. Many rumors have surrounded this airport since its construction Many people believe there are secret tunnels or installations beneath the airport. These rumors were widely mocked before the war. But you may recall that in the later part of the war, it was in fact revealed that a master vampire had made a place for itself beneath the lower levels of Concourse B, and that a underground government installation indeed existed northeast of the Jeppesen Terminal.” As he named these locations, he tapped the exact spots on the map with the tip of a pencil.

Startled into tactlessness, Miguel said, “You know all that?”

Étienne tilted his head. “I have been head of this sept for longer than a year, Miguel.”

“Right. Uh, I mean, of course. Yes, sir. Okay, uh, anyway, that seems plausible. It looks like kind of a big area...”

“More than fifty square miles. It is admittedly a good deal of area. I would imagine your sister should be able to narrow it down.”

“Fifty-three,” said Lieutenant Santibañez, peering at the map with interest. “It’s fifty-three square miles, give or take. The vampire lair got blocked off for study and I don’t offhand think anybody’s likely to have set up housekeeping there because being anywhere near it has got to give any normal person the creeps. But the government installation’s still a going concern, as far as I know. It’s DOD—Department of Defense—that’s not our guys. But you know who used to have plenty of buddies there? Three guesses, first two don’t count.”

“Not Senator Supervillain?” Miguel asked, startled again.

Lieutenant Santibañez grinned. “That’s good. Senator Supervillain. Also, yeah, got it in one. They’re political as hell, that lot. Whatever they get their hands on, it gets politicized up the wazoo. You probably figure, the colonel’s not the kind to get distracted by politics. A do-the-job type, the colonel. He’s gone around with those guys once or twice.”

“Yeah? Who won?”

“Come on, you don’t have to ask, right? The colonel knows how to play that game too. He’s got some pretty competent people in his corner who are right up at the top.”

“That’ll come in handy when those tapes get out.”

“You bet, Miguel.”

Ezekiel was leaning one hip against the edge of the heavy desk, far enough from Étienne that his stance there couldn’t be seen as a threat. His posture was relaxed, his arms were crossed over his chest, but when he shifted his weight everyone just naturally focused on him.

“Names,” said Ezekiel.

Lieutenant Santibañez hesitated for just a second. Then he nodded. “You know the names, I bet. Mostly I’m talking about the people who got it done when the vampires appeared. General Matias, he’s one. General Katsouflakis.”

“Your uncle, for another,” said Miguel. “His crowd.” He added deliberately, “Which would be pretty much the same crowd that’s pushing to go after black dogs now the vampires are not a problem. Which Colonel Herrod realizes is a bad idea, right? Because without Dimilioc, you’d be kind of screwed when you suddenly found out about things like black witches and demons, right? You do realize that no black dogs would mean no Pure? And then you’d have a real problem when you discovered anything demonic had started eating people, cause as far as I know only the Pure are totally immune to demonic influence. Not to mention, any of those guys figured out yet they might not want to open the whole country up to dragons and stuff?”

Santibañez ran a hand through his hair. “Yeah, you know, that stuff is kind of above my pay grade—”

“Speculate,” ordered Ezekiel.

There was a pause, Ezekiel inflexible and Santibañez caught between talking out of turn and maybe breaking right through the thin ice he was skating on with Dimilioc’s executioner. Miguel felt sort of bad about putting the lieutenant on the spot like that, but on the other hand, he really wanted to know if the Special Forces had been thinking along that kind of path. And if they hadn’t, it was pretty important to give them a good shove in the right direction. And if Lieutenant Santibañez happened to be in position sometime to drop a word or two in his uncle’s ear—yeah.

“I can’t speak for Colonel Herrod,” Santibañez said at last. He met Ezekiel’s eyes—Miguel really had to find a chance to talk to him about that—and added, “This is guesswork, right? I don’t know what’s in the colonel’s head. But I don’t think he would have stepped up about the helicopter if he didn’t figure it pretty much the way Miguel just laid it out. I definitely don’t think he’d have ordered me in here if he weren’t pretty damn sure he wants your people as allies.” Then he looked at Miguel. “Dragons, seriously?”

“Not on this continent,” Miguel assured him smoothly. “Probably. Yet.”

“China?”

“Sure. And Korea. Why do you think they’ve built up so slowly? If the dragon of the Yangtze doesn’t want you building a dam anywhere on its river, well, there you go. Take a good look at how and where China’s industrialized, which technology has caught on and which hasn’t. You can figure out a lot about dragons that way. I’ll tell you one thing you’ll figure out right away: dragons didn’t like vampires one little bit. Everything demonic steers clear of the Far East. And vice versa: where the demonic gets a solid foothold, dragons stay away. Which has its downside, but on the other hand, we can dam any river we want, so there’s that.”

Miguel explained all this as smoothly and quickly as he could because he didn’t expect Étienne Lumondière to be patient for very long, maybe not Ezekiel either, and he wanted to get it out there. No black dogs means you get to deal with other things that are really powerful and that you don’t understand at all. Yeah, that was the basic idea he wanted Santibañez to pass on.

The lieutenant paid close attention to Miguel’s little speech, so that was gratifying. But when Ezekiel stirred, his attention snapped right back that way.  Which made perfect sense and was no problem. Santibañez was a smart guy. He’d pass along Miguel’s warning when and where it counted. Miguel was pretty sure about that.

If they all survived long enough, of course.

Because whatever Ezekiel had meant to say or do, he had stopped short, pivoting sharply to his right—to the south, toward the main driveway. So had Étienne Lumondière: Miguel hadn’t even seen him move, but the older black wolf was on his feet and facing the some way. Both of them were alert, heads up, faces starting to deform, eyes changing from human blue or brown to fiery yellow and orange.

The Special Forces people were doing something, maybe. But Miguel didn’t think anything they would—or could—do would get a reaction like this.

Or maybe some really powerful black dog enemy had suddenly made a move. But that would be quite a coincidence.

Yeah. It was Gregor Kristoff, or his demon. Or both. Miguel wasn’t a black dog and didn’t have any kind of superpowers, but he was pretty clear about that.

Ezekiel said to Étienne Lumondière, “Oh, this is wonderful. And we took the alarms down ourselves. Because the damned Special Forces are allies.”

“Oui. It seems this was not clever of us,” Étienne agreed.

“Yeah, well, this time he’s on our ground, and this time the bastard is dead.” Ezekiel gave Miguel a flashing look, jerked his head at Santibañez—Take care of him—and headed for the door, Étienne right behind him. The first gunshot came before the two black dogs were all the way out of the room, and then the first shout, blurred by distance.

Miguel grabbed the lieutenant’s arm when he would have followed the black dogs. “Nope! We don’t go that way.”

Santibañez probably outweighed him by eighty pounds and was muscled up besides, but he showed his good sense yet again by taking advice. Once Miguel was sure the lieutenant was following him, he headed the other way, for the nearest staircase. “We go this way,” he explained over his shoulder, “because there’s always someplace at the front of any sept house, second or third floor, good view, tough to get into from the outside, easy to get out of if you’re a black dog, shoot out of if you’re human—mierda, you don’t have a gun!”

“Yeah, that seemed like a good idea at the time—”

“Every stupid idea seems like a great idea at the time!” In Dimilioc’s Vermont house, Miguel would have known just where to grab a decent weapon and a dozen clips of silver ammo. He didn’t even know if Étienne Lumondière had that kind of gun safe in this house. Étienne was pretty old-fashioned about arming human kin, not to mention there weren’t any surviving Lumondière human kin anymore. He could just bet Étienne wasn’t in any damn rush to arm anybody else.

Better figure no guns and no ammo except what Miguel had on him. Which had started life as Colonel Herrod’s gun, actually, so maybe by rights he should pass it back to Santibañez.

Not far enough away, someone screamed. The high-pitched sound cut right through the house, way better than a deeper-toned man’s shout. Whatever was going on, it didn’t sound great—Miguel caught the bannister at the top of the stairs and swung himself around, heading for the lookout room where, surely, James had been. And Carter, hadn’t Grayson sent Carter up here? Miguel was sure he had.

The room was big, all windows along the front, balcony built to be tough to swing over, front wall made to be tough to climb, great field of view right out across the curve of the driveway and the circle of pines beyond. The Special Forces people were out there, but, yep, they were not the problem. They were backing up, toward the house, a whole knot of them, fifteen or sixteen men—well, fifteen or sixteen people, Miguel spotted not just Hannah Raichlen but a couple other women as well. But all of ’em backing up.

He could see why. Because stalking right through the middle of the pine circle came...something. Something...not good. Not a demon, or he didn’t think so. At least, not the kind of demon they’d all run into before. This...it was like a person, sort of. It was like a person, except...distorted. Not the same kind of distortion you’d see when a black dog shifted from one form to the other, not like that. This was like you took some normal guy and then...twisted every single feature in a different direction.

“Now, that’s just really disturbing,” muttered Santibañez.

“Yeah,” Miguel agreed.

“That thing it’s doing is even worse.”

“Yeah,” Miguel said again. Because it totally was. The thing it was doing...it reached out as they watched and laid a hand, a hand-like body part, on the trunk of one of the pine trees. The tree twisted and warped beneath that touch. It didn’t die. That was the worst part. It writhed in a horrible fluid way into something tree-like that wasn’t right, that was all wrong, and it stayed that way when the...creature...moved on. The earth where it stepped twisted and gaped open and writhed shut and...yeah, it was pretty horrible.

Behind it, on the other side of the circle of pines, were worse things than misshapen earth and pines.

“That was our outer perimeter,” Santibañez said, his tone hushed and horrified. “That’s—I recognize those...those guys.”

Yeah, Miguel had kind of thought the scattering of...sort of...semi-human creatures the monster had left behind might be some of the Special Forces people. Those, what was left of them, yeah, they were pretty ghastly. Two of them. No, three. Or maybe four, depending on whether that one farthest back had ever been a person. They sort of didn’t have actual faces left. Or not in the normal position on the body. Not that they exactly had bodies, either, anymore. Not in any ordinary sense. They were sort of...melted into the distorted ground. Parts of them.

How Santibañez could recognize them from the misshapen things the monster had left...maybe from the bits that hadn’t changed as much, like clothing and stuff. Miguel didn’t doubt him, though.

No wonder the rest of the Special Forces people were getting out of the way. A ragged semicircle of tough guys and a couple tough women, backing slowly toward the house. Miguel could see Colonel Herrod...right, there was the putative civilian-who-wasn’t-a-major, Hannah Raichlen, anchoring the other end of that line. Yeah, they didn’t have a clue how to handle something like that monster. Not that Miguel had any idea either. He hadn’t come across anything like this when he’d read about Navajo skinwalkers or Ashanti witches or Assyrian demon-callers. He needed a year to do the background research, not a couple really busy days.

Shooting the thing definitely wasn’t doing much. Herrod’s people were shooting at it. Shooting it, not like any of them were missing. Careful directed fire at the thing’s...face. It was a pretty easy target, big as it was and getting closer every second. It screamed and kind of oozed around the entrance hole whenever a bullet struck it, but otherwise, yeah, not much effect. Obviously Kristoff would have hardly have made a monster that could be stopped by bullets, even silver bullets. Which was bad. Really disturbing the way the earth malformed under it. Nobody was going to want to set foot on that ground any time in the near future. Maybe bulldoze the whole area and see if grass would grow over it before anybody touched it.

If they all survived long enough to care about long-term effects, that’d be great.

Grayson came into view, down the steps from the porch underneath the balcony. He walked slowly out toward Herrod’s people. The Master had obviously taken his time to assess the situation. Not one to rush blindly into some weird mierda, no, not the Master. But there he was at last, and the others with him. Most of the others. Étienne and Ezekiel, both in human form. Carter and Rip, Frédéric and Steven Knauer, all mostly in black dog form, though only Rip had shifted all the way yet. And yeah, there was Théo Callot, that was a little surprising. Prying Théo away from his wife must’ve been a trick, except maybe Natividad had actually found a way to help her. That would be one little point in favor of the good guys.

No Alejandro. And Miguel didn’t see James, either. Or Carissa Hammond. Yeah, okay, so Grayson was keeping another string to his bow, at least one more. That was good. Even distracted by the monster, Miguel couldn’t help but notice the Master had put Carissa with Alejandro. Not something to worry about just yet, but it would sure be better if a couple Pure girls Alejandro’s age turned up. If he got involved with a black dog girl, that could be tough on both of them later on.

If there was a later to worry about, of course.

Eight black dogs out there right now. That was lots and lots of firepower. Probably Rip was the weakest black dog of the lot and he was smack dab in the medium range. But Grayson wasn’t in any hurry. He reached Colonel Herrod and paused for a word. Probably they were each saying things like My God that thing is weird, and Oh look, bullets aren’t stopping it. Miguel figured in a minute Grayson would take action. He’d have to, since the Special Forces people so far looked pretty damn helpless. He wanted to yell down, Don’t touch it! Except that was so totally obvious he might as well save his breath.

The monster was coming on steadily, but not too fast. It didn’t honestly look like it needed to move all that fast, since so far it seemed pretty unstoppable. Miguel took a picture, sent it to Cassie. Got one of the tortured pine tree and sent that as well. Maybe she’d suddenly figure out a link to something she’d read a year ago. It could happen. He took a second to take another quick picture and sent it with a text: So screwed gtg. Tucked the phone away safe and said to Santibañez, “You’ve got a pretty good throwing arm, I guess? Grew up playing baseball, maybe?”

“Sure, now and then. Fair, I guess. You don’t figure throwing baseballs or rocks or stuff at the thing would help, right? Sorry to tell you, I don’t have any grenades.”

“No, no. I mean, too bad, but I was thinking of—wait right here, don’t let anything happen, be right back!”

He ran. Powdered sugar in the kitchen, he knew exactly where that was after spending the whole morning cooking. Citronella oil, also in the kitchen, he’d just happened to notice that because powdered sugar, citronella, not like he’d ever once figured on using it, but there you go, you never could tell. Empty jar, no shortage of those, lots of jars, well, depending on how much sugar he could lay his hands on.

Moving too fast to stop, Miguel grabbed the doorframe and swung into the kitchen. “Powdered sugar, powdered sugar...” he muttered. Right in this drawer with the flour and stuff, exactly where it should be. Citronella oil, over there in the cabinet above the desk, practically a full quart, what in the world had anybody planned to do with that much citronella? Jars, yeah, the pantry had rows of empty canning jars with flats and lids, no problem. Mostly pint jars. That was fine, a pint jar probably had about the same heft as a baseball, give or take. He tore open the bag of sugar. Not quite a half and half mixture, was it? More sugar than oil, not too much more. A wooden spoon to stir. Ought to look like whipped cream. Well, this one was a little thick but it would probably do.

The next jar, a little less sugar. Yeah, that looked about right. And the next. Two more, that was all the oil and anyway all he dared take time for. He slung the jars into several plastic bags to make a manageable load and ran again.

Down the hall and up the stairs and down the other hall, and he skidded back onto the balcony and caught himself on the railing, panting. “Anything happen?”

“Yeah, the monster killed everybody, and where were you?” Santibañez peered with interest at the bags Miguel was clutching. “Shaving cream? Crème fraîche?”

“Poor man’s napalm,” Miguel told him, peering out at the action below. He’d sort of hoped everything would just wait for him to get ready, but of course Grayson hadn’t gotten the memo. The Master had changed form—all the black dogs had shifted. Grayson and Ezekiel had circled the monster one way, Étienne and Frédéric the other; they had the monster bracketed, which wouldn’t do much good if they couldn’t touch it. Théo and Steven had cut in between the monster and Herrod’s people, getting the humans out of the way—that was good. Carter and Rip were moving out in a long curving path that would take them along a forty-foot arc, avoiding the monster entirely. Going to find Kristoff, Miguel figured. Maybe their special black dog senses told them he was somewhere along the monster’s backtrail. Or maybe that was just a reasonable guess.

“Don’t touch that thing,” Miguel muttered under his breath, more to relieve his feelings than because he thought Grayson or Ezekiel or anybody would be stupid enough to take that kind of risk. Nor did they. But he was totally relieved for more than one reason when the fires started, the nearest young pines going up like torches, big whooshes of flame. Oh, yeah.

“This stuff burns hot, huh?” Santibañez took one of the bags and pulled out the jar, hefting it thoughtfully. “Not bad. I might be able to throw it...just about that far. Maybe. What if it doesn’t hit anything that’s already burning?”

“I’ll see if I can shoot it in the air.” He had his gun in his hand now. Well, Colonel Herrod’s gun, but hey. It was a good weapon. Smallish, but not bad. Probably kicked pretty hard. He wished he’d had a chance to practice with it, but he figured any gun the colonel carried was probably in great condition.

“You that good a shot?”

“Fair,” Miguel told him. “Wait, though. Let that thing get a little closer.” He added, watching the action below, “You never know, maybe the black dogs’ll be able to stop it.”

The monster hadn’t even seem to notice the pines going up in flames, that was disappointing. But now Grayson braced himself, tore at the base of one fifteen-foot-tall blazing pine, broke it off and picked it up in one half-shifted hand, pivoted, and whipped it around to slam into the main bulk of the monster’s body just as Ezekiel did the same from the other side.

“Yay, team,” muttered Miguel, leaning forward as the horrible misshapen thing came completely apart under that attack. Maybe they wouldn’t need improvised pseudo-napalm after all. He was perfectly willing to give up the chance to use his clever jars if it meant they could all spend a boring afternoon telling each other monster stories.

The other two black dogs, Étienne and Frédéric, called up more fire from the creature itself, which exploded into flames and great billows of greasy black smoke. It ought to have been so very dead, but it made a horrible sound as it burned, nothing that could have come out of a human throat. The screaming of a monster that had maybe once been human and knew what it had become and yet still fought against death.

Miguel grimaced. “Ay, eso es repugnante.” Then he leaned farther forward. “Huh. Um.”

“You thinking what I’m thinking?” said Santibañez.

A cloud of black dust had exploded out of the monster, half hidden at first by the flames and smoke, but spreading rapidly, flung out by the force of the explosion. Black dust, black ash, lots of it. Miguel was pretty sure that was not good. Yeah, he was pretty sure it was really, really bad. Beside him, Lieutenant Santibañez took a deep breath, plainly on exactly the same page.

Miguel whispered, “Get back. Get back.” He tried to reach out with sheer willpower and pull the black dogs out of the way. They were already leaping back, thank God. Ezekiel had moved first and fastest, but slower than he might have been because he took time to hit Grayson, a full-body tackle that flung the Master back twenty feet. Then they both ran. Étienne and Frédéric headed the other way, fast.

It wasn’t enough. It just wasn’t going to be enough, and Miguel watched, horrified, as the spreading cloud of dust overtook all four black dogs and kept going. The leading edge had already reached the retreating humans, and seconds later spattered across Théo and Steven. It seemed harmless to the humans, but the black dogs snarled, brutal and furious and, Miguel feared, totally unprepared for what it would do to them.

Out of the circle of pines, across the distorted earth, past the deformed pines, walked Gregor Kristoff. With Absolon by his side. Poor Absolon, qué lastima. Not great for the rest of them either.

Absolon was in black dog form. But he didn’t have anything like the strength it would take to stop Carter and Rip. Except Absolon didn’t have to fight them, because Carter turned suddenly on Rip—Carter, who of course had been exposed to that damn dust days ago. Well, now they could see what that meant. Absolon just went right on past, not even breaking stride, totally unconcerned.

Miguel couldn’t see the leading edge of the dust released from the monster anymore, certainly not that far away. He didn’t have to see the dust, though. No one could have missed the effects as Carter suddenly broke away from Rip, and then both black dogs crouched down, and waited, their eyes fixed on Kristoff. Like dogs waiting for a command from their master. That was just exactly what it looked like.

Kristoff was walking toward them, talking. Impossible to hear what he said, but Miguel figured it was probably something like Obey me, defend me, kill all your friends for me. When the black dogs—all three of them, pivoted and started back, their goal was clearly Herrod’s people. Who were all clumped together, unable to retreat into the house because now Théo and Steven blocked that way out. At first Miguel didn’t understand that. But, right, black dog hearing was really good. Yeah, if Kristoff gave them orders, even from way back there, they could probably hear him.

Well, they could definitely hear him, considering they had plainly set themselves against the Special Forces. So had the others, Grayson and Ezekiel and everyone—all eight of the black dogs out here were now obviously under Kristoff’s control. And he obviously knew it. The bastard was smiling so wide Miguel could see it from here. The Special Forces guys were shooting at him. Careful, aimed fire. They couldn’t possibly be missing. But nothing much was happening, either. Kristoff’s hair wasn’t even mussed.

“Oh, this is so not good,” breathed Santibañez. “Sus armas están atascando—their guns are jamming. Is he doing that? I mean, mierda, obviously he’s doing that. Somos tan jodidos.”

“Yeah, what was your first clue?” Miguel heard his own voice rise and made himself stop to take a deep breath. The air even this far probably contained traces of dust and ash. He thought he could taste it, bitter on the tongue. Probably that was his imagination. He felt nothing. But then he wouldn’t. He had never in his whole life been happier to have been born human and not black dog.

He said finally, “The good thing is, he obviously hasn’t ordered the Dimilioc wolves to kill your guys.” Yet, but he didn’t say that. He said instead, “And Herrod’s keeping your guys from shooting the black dogs. I guess he realizes it’s pretty likely that the second someone shoots one of them, everyone dies.” More than likely everyone would include some or all of the black dogs. Maybe not Ezekiel. But probably Grayson.

He really didn’t want to imagine a world where Grayson was dead and Dimilioc fell to pieces or disappeared. Actually he wasn’t all that thrilled at the idea of an immediate future where Grayson got killed and Ezekiel didn’t.

Though even that would be better than having them both enslaved by a black witch with delusions of grandeur. If you could call it delusions when he was obviously mondo tough.

He didn’t say any of that, either. He said, “Figuring he keeps on straight, I figure maybe a guy with a decent throwing arm might hit him with a jar of napalm in about ninety seconds.”

“That’s damn optimistic.” Santibañez paused, studying the scene. “Yeah,” he allowed at last. “All right. I can probably do that.” He turned a searching, serious look on Miguel. “This stuff is really, truly some kind of napalm?”

“It really is,” Miguel promised him just as seriously. “It’s not as good as the stuff you make with gasoline and Styrofoam. But it’s quick, it’s easy, it’s fairly sticky and it burns pretty damn hot. It was the best I could think of right off—since you don’t have any grenades.”

“Yeah, next time I’ll come loaded for bear,” muttered Santibañez.

“That’d be better, yeah. Okay, you ready?”

Santibañez took a couple steps back from the balcony railing, hefting the jar. He glanced at Miguel—Ready?—then took two fast steps forward and threw.

Miguel didn’t watch him. He watched the arc the jar ought to follow, especially the end of that arc, right at Kristoff’s chest. His gaze was steady and slightly unfocused, and when the jar passed through that point—a little higher than he’d anticipated, but not bad—he fired twice.

The jar exploded, white cream blazing into yellow-white flames, but too far away, spattering Kristoff with only little dollops of incandescent fire. The witch staggered back, his shout muffled and incoherent.

Santibañez threw another jar. This one Miguel missed—stupid, he hadn’t been ready, he’d been watching Kristoff, totally stupid—the jar hit Kristoff in the chest and shattered, but not much of it caught and all the white goo in the world wouldn’t help if it wasn’t on fire. Miguel swore viciously in Spanish.

“Ready?” asked Santibañez, his voice rock steady, not a shred of blame. He waited half a second to be sure and threw the third jar. This time Miguel hit it high up at the top of its arc and had all the time in the world to watch the incandescent clot of burning sugar fall. But this time Kristoff was also expecting it and lunged aside, sprawling full length and rolling, trying to put out the spatters of fire that clung to him before the rest of the goo caught. That wouldn’t work; it might be poor man’s napalm and not the real thing, but it was damn hard to put out. But Kristoff was already whipping off his jacket, a much better idea. Miguel wanted to curse, but didn’t dare lose his focus as he waited for another jar.

Santibañez had the fourth jar in his hand, but before he could throw it, Kristoff flung his jacket to one side, stabbed his hand toward the balcony, and shouted. And way over to the side, from where he’d been circling Herrod’s guys like a wolf herding sheep, Ezekiel wheeled around and leaped into a dead run, straight toward the house and the balcony.

Miguel grabbed Santibañez’s arm. “Whoops! Time to run!” He dragged the Special Forces man toward the doorway.

“I could have hit him—”

“Fire’s no good against a black dog! Move!” Miguel dragged harder. He could think of just one possible safe place to run to. If they could reach it. If Ezekiel didn’t catch up to them first. Put like that it seemed a long shot.

“We’ve got a plan B?” Santibañez asked. “Just checking.”

He was keeping up with Miguel now, no problem. If it were a real foot race, he’d definitely win. But he was holding back a little, half his attention behind them. What he’d do if Ezekiel appeared wasn’t clear; he didn’t have the gun and Miguel definitely wasn’t giving it to him. And it only had two bullets left anyway. Two bullets against Ezekiel, yeah, no, that would not be Miguel’s first choice. Or second, or third.

Might be his fourth, if nothing better turned up.

“This way!” Miguel flung himself onto the back stairway, taking the stairs two at a time, hit the wall at the landing and hurled himself down the next flight. Santibañez still brought up the rear. Miguel hit the next landing and tried to figure out how many flights down it probably was. He hadn’t checked it out himself, not even when he’d had all the time in the world. Stupid. If he’d guessed wrong, if this stairwell didn’t even go all the way down, if the design of this house were too different from the main sept house—last landing, last door, standing open, light on inside, should the light be on?—too late to change his mind now, he was pretty sure he could hear Ezekiel on the stairs above them.

Right through the door without slowing and Miguel spun in a tight circle, getting the fastest possible picture of what was down here.

Ceiling-high cage of silver-laced steel mesh, check. Three cages, actually, each with basic plumbing and a cot and a single chair. Lights were bare lightbulbs, no luxury here, not that Miguel cared. The padlocks on the cage doors were what mattered. Locks with plenty of silver in the alloy. All of that was just as he’d expected.

What he hadn’t expected was to find Natividad already tucked safe in the nearest cage, padlock fastened tight, the key in her hand, her bag over her shoulder. His twin was standing straight. She was pale, but her eyes were bright with terror and determination. And—even more surprising—Stéphanie Callot was huddling on the cot behind her.

-20-

After the first second, Natividad realized she should totally have expected to find her brother right on her heels. In fact, it had been such a struggle to get Stéphanie down all those stairs that it was really surprising Miguel hadn’t beaten her here. She guessed he and Lieutenant Santibañez had been watching the fight, same as she had. Only apparently for a little bit longer, which had slowed them down.

She hadn’t dared delay. Poor Stéphanie was kind of better, but she was in terrible shape still. She seemed barely aware of anybody or anything. Except she knew Kristoff was out there. That terrified her. Natividad couldn’t blame her, but it had been so hard getting her here.

Every sept house had to have a place like this and since Dimilioc’s was in the basement, she’d pulled and pushed and guided Stéphanie down all the stairs she could find right to the bottom. And then figured she was heading the right way when the other woman stopped trying to pull away and started pulling Natividad forward instead.

So now here they were, and she’d even beaten Miguel.

“Great minds think alike,” he said, beckoning with some urgency to the Special Forces lieutenant. He asked her, “You saw what happened?”

Natividad hurried to unlock the door of the cage. “Part of it. Who’s behind you?”

“Uh,” her brother began, and to Natividad’s horror, Ezekiel stalked through the doorway. Not hurrying. Moving at a smooth, lounging pace. In human form at the moment, but this was Ezekiel, so that could change in a heartbeat. Besides, he could kill them all without changing shape, with his bare hands, without breathing hard.

“Don’t unlock the door!” Miguel ordered her, which was just like him. He leveled his gun straight at Ezekiel.

Who met his eyes, and kept coming. His mouth was twisted in a bitter smile and his eyes were bright fiery yellow, and he definitely wasn’t stopping. The smile was awful. It told Natividad he knew what he was doing and couldn’t stop himself.

Lieutenant Santibañez eased back, keeping out of Miguel’s line of fire. He had a knife in one hand now. A little one. Silver alloy, obviously. About as much use as a peacock feather against Ezekiel. To him. It might be more use to her, if he’d give it to her.

Natividad stepped forward, unlocked the cage door, and shoved it open.

“¡Eres una perfecta idiota!” Miguel snapped at her, not taking his eyes off Ezekiel.

But Ezekiel stopped, just stopped where he was for one instant. Natividad had almost thought he might, almost hoped he might. She leaned out of the cage and threw a tangle of dark, shining thread on the floor between him and everyone else

Ezekiel hesitated, shaking his head. Then he said grimly, his fiery gaze steady on her face. “Not enough. That’s not enough.” He turned his head the tiniest bit, to Miguel. “Shoot me,” he ordered. “Damn you, shoot!” His face was distorting, his shoulders, his chest. Jet-black claws slid out of broadening hands. He took a step forward, slow and smooth.

“Don’t you dare!” cried Natividad. Ezekiel was fighting, obviously. That was why he was so slow. He was not fighting the cambio de cuerpo. Not fighting his shadow. He was fighting the witch’s control. Before, Natividad had not seen the slightest sign that he could resist Kristoff’s control. But he was fighting it hard now. And losing. But he was giving them time. There was no way out, no way to get past him and nowhere to run if they could. But he was giving Miguel all the time in the world to shoot him.

Except Miguel didn’t. Whether because of Natividad’s cry or because he just couldn’t bring himself to or because he had some other plan; she couldn’t tell and barely cared. Her brother edged toward the cage door instead, keeping his gun aimed at Ezekiel’s chest, never looking away from the black dog.

Lieutenant Santibañez slid past Miguel and into the cage, pushing Natividad back, getting ready to slam the door shut. “Miguel!” he said, hard and urgent.

Her brother edged another step closer. He could make it. He could get to the cage and they could lock the door and then they’d be so, so safe while they waited for Kristoff to come down here and find them. Natividad could just imagine how that would go. She looked at Miguel, waiting for her brother to have a better idea.

“Miguel!” snapped Santibañez. “Shoot him!”

“¡Gemelo!” cried Natividad, meaning Don’t do that! Do something smart!

But for once, at just the wrong time, Miguel seemed to be all out of clever ideas.

Natividad looked into Ezekiel’s face. Not much of his human self visible there now. Except the ruthless will that slowed his steps and gave her twin time to shoot. If he would. If he had to. If he couldn’t think of anything else. Miguel was backing up very slowly, but if he had any other ideas, Natividad couldn’t tell.

Then Carissa plunged through the doorway and hit Ezekiel from behind.

Whipping around, Ezekiel hurled her off, shifting fast, fully black dog and then fully human, effortlessly evading Carissa’s second lunge. Miguel jumped back through the cage door and let Santibañez slam it closed, but blocked the man when he tried to take the key from Natividad. She closed her fist around it tightly and backed away, because now she almost hoped she might have a chance to do something clever—not that Carissa could stop Ezekiel by herself, but—

Yes, here was Alejandro, slipping into the room behind Carissa. Not attacking Ezekiel, no. He was in human form, mostly. Guarding his ability to think and speak, that was good, that was great, because straight-up aggression was never going to work, not here, not this time. Natividad leaned forward, both her fists clenched, hoping.

“Good,” Miguel whispered beside her. “Good, do it!”

Alejandro was already trying, obviously. Suddenly Ezekiel’s shifts of body were much slower, much heavier. ’Jandro didn’t have the sheer strength to force him into human form and keep him there, nothing like it, but he could do this much: slow him down. Interfere with every move he made. It was like Ezekiel was suddenly wading through invisible molasses, while Carissa was still light and quick.

Also, he wasn’t trying to kill her. She wasn’t trying to kill him either, though it took a moment for Natividad to figure that out because she sure looked vicious enough. But Carissa managed to deal a serious enough wound that Ezekiel had to yield to Alejandro’s will, had to shift to human form, and she didn’t follow that up with a deadly blow. She slid back out of the way and Ezekiel stayed where he was, half kneeling and half crouching, his arm pressed against his stomach where she’d torn him up. Natividad peered through the silver-laced mesh anxiously, but no, there was no injury there anymore. His shadow had taken it. But now Ezekiel was caught in human form. Not for long, probably, but for a few seconds he was trapped. Or he was letting himself be trapped. It wouldn’t last, she was sure of that.

So she shoved open the door and ran out. She left her handbag behind, but snatched Lieutenant Santibañez’s knife right out of his hand and luckily he let her have it. It was a good knife, not big but sharp, just right for drawing a really fast, really clean pentagram around Ezekiel. She had neither sunlight nor moonlight, not here, but she cut her hand and used her own blood and the memory of light. Ezekiel didn’t try to stop her or leave the pentagram, and the instant she closed the last line, she looked up and said rapidly in Spanish, “Mi sangre con la suya, my sombra con la suya, mi vida con la suya.” Then she laid the knife down on the floor and drew a spiral around it with the tip of one finger. Spirals to pull, spirals to catch. She shook out a cobweb-fine net of light she’d meant to use as a maraña but now redefined in her mind as a teleraña, wound this around the whole, and said forcefully, “Para parar las sombras!”

She ought to have had sunlight or moonlight or at least starlight. What she actually had was her blood and her will and her memory of having made this exact kind of tool before. And she had a thin, tiny connection to Ezekiel’s shadow already. She used that, she poured it into her working where she ought to have used light and music. She drove the magic with memory and will and blood, and threaded it through and through again with the tiny fragment of Ezekiel’s shadow that belonged to her.

She knew when Alejandro figured it out from the way the heavy force of his will faltered the least little bit, the way her brother shied back like a startled animal. She knew Ezekiel figured it out from the way his head jerked up, his eyes pure gold, and the way he seized her wrist.

But though he grabbed her hard enough to bruise, he caught her left wrist, and she was holding the knife—the new aparato, which was both like and unlike the knife that was buried at its heart—in her right hand. He didn’t stop her. She couldn’t do anything against his speed and strength, but he didn’t stop her.

So she leaned forward and drove the aparato para parar las sombras into his chest.

Somewhere behind her, Santibañez made a sound of startled horror. She paid no attention, only twisted her aparato and jerked it out again. Choking, Ezekiel let her go and sank back, one hand going to his chest and the other to his face.

Though she looked him over anxiously, there was no obvious wound—no physical wound at all. She had known there wouldn’t be; of course she had. It was just a scary thing to do with something that only seconds ago had been a knife, meant to deal out injury and death. It wasn’t a knife anymore, her aparato. It was an aparato para parar las sombras, a tool for catching and holding the shadow of a black dog, and it cut Ezekiel in two in a spiritual sense, not a physical sense. The body that fell back in the pentagram was entirely human, now. Ezekiel seemed...smaller, diminished. He was diminished. All the inhuman force that made him so terrible was caught, trapped, in the aparato Natividad now held in both her hands.

What he had left was his own will and his own soul. That was enough to make him lower his hands, straighten his shoulders, lift his head, and meet her eyes.

She stared back at him. His eyes were blue. Blue as the summer sky. Completely human, in a way they never had been, even when they seemed human. He didn’t speak. He didn’t have to speak. She knew everything he would have said.

Her hands were shaking.

Miguel came to join her. He put a hand on her shoulder and she leaned against him gratefully. He said softly, “Me lo podías haber dicho, gemela.”

“There wasn’t exactly time to tell you,” Natividad pointed out. It was true, obviously. Everything had happened so fast, he couldn’t really think she should have stopped to explain. She said, “But now you have to help me figure out how to clean up his shadow and put it back.”

“Put it back?” demanded Lieutenant Santibañez, figuring it out with impressive speed and accuracy. “You turned him human and now you want to undo that?”

Ezekiel didn’t seem to hear him, but both Alejandro and Carissa turned to glare, with anger and heat and barely-leashed violence.

“Don’t say things like that,” Natividad said quickly. “It would be totally wrong to leave him like this. For one thing, it would probably kill him pretty soon, and for another, he’d never forgive me.”

Ezekiel made a low, inarticulate sound that after a second she realized was meant to be a laugh. It didn’t hold much humor. She looked at him quickly, and away again at once. It was just very disturbing to see him like that, with her aparato lying on the floor in front of him, the two parts of his soul divided.

“Also, if you try to prevent her, I will kill you,” Alejandro told the lieutenant, flat and grim. “It is a terrible thing, losing your shadow. Even when it is someone you love who takes it. Even if she takes it for a very good reason.”

“Yeah,” put in Miguel. “Plus I don’t want to try to explain to Colonel Herrod why ’Jandro killed you.”

Slightly to Natividad’s surprise, Lieutenant Santibañez opened a hand in a sort of on-your-heads-be-it gesture and closed his mouth.

“Why explain anything?” said Carissa, not mollified. “With the enemies we’ve got, who’d question one more death? If she really took his shadow, are you sure you want him telling anybody else about it?”

Natividad could tell Santibañez didn’t take this threat too seriously. She was pretty sure he ought to. She gathered the shreds of her good sense and patience. “Please, let’s not fight,” she said firmly. “Nobody is going to murder anybody else. We’re all on the same side, you know!”

Her twin put in quickly, in the meek tone he used for dealing with black dogs in a temper, “Anyway, Grayson might not approve, do you think? He’s almost got this thing between him and the colonel cooled off, so let’s not go fanning those flames, okay?”

Natividad added, “Of course I have to put it back. Es lo que hay que haser. But anyway, we still need a way to take out that witch, right? If he still thinks Ezekiel’s on his chain, only he’s not, well, there you go.”

Everyone looked at her.

“Smart girl, my sister,” Miguel declared, with a look at Santibañez that dared him to argue. “You just stay over there, okay? No te acerques demasiado. You’re not Dimilioc, so just stay out of the way and don’t tempt anybody, right? Let me and Natividad figure this out and you and ’Jandro and Carissa keep watch.”

The Special Forces lieutenant drew in a slow breath, let it out even more slowly, shook his head, grimaced, and went to lean against a nearby wall. He was probably paying more attention to Natividad and Ezekiel than to anything outside this room, but that was fine with her as long as he didn’t try to argue or get in the way. Alejandro and Carissa would hear anyone coming long before any ordinary human.

Miguel came to kneel beside Natividad. “Can you see what’s wrong with it? Can you see how to clean it up again?”

She frowned, holding her aparato up and studying it and the shadow that clung to it. “There’s nothing wrong with it, I don’t think. I mean, not exactly. Last time that demon had part of itself in him, but there’s nothing like that here...that I can see...Ezekiel! Is this different than last time?”

He barely looked at her. He was closed down inside himself now, his eyes shut. Shuddering. Probably not with cold. Or maybe he was cold, without the heat of his black dog shadow. She longed to put her arms around him, make him feel better.

Probably there was just one way to make him feel better, and just sitting here wasn’t the way to do it.

Natividad asked again, more gently, “Ezekiel. Amorcito. Mi tesoro. Is there a demon in you still, one I have not caught? Is there a demon woven into your shadow that I do not see?”

Now his eyes rose to meet hers. They were blue. Blue as the sky. Not a trace of fire.

“Mi cielo,” she said to him.

“No,” he said. His voice was husky, as though he hadn’t spoken for a long time. Or as though he had been screaming. She was pretty sure he hadn’t been. Not out loud. “No, that was...he needs more time to do that. There’s a ritual...he needs time and space and...blood.” His voice tightened. “Yours would do perfectly. Mi querida.”

“You’ve been learning Spanish?” Natividad knew she was blushing.

“Just a little. A few words.” One hand moved, brushing this away as though it weren’t important. It was important to her, but she didn’t interrupt. He went on, “The dust alone—it’s quick, but it’s not as strong.” He looked away. “I should have been able to break it.”

“Grayson hadn’t broken free, last I saw,” Natividad reminded him. “You let us trap and hold you. Don’t tell me you couldn’t have killed everybody if you’d tried.” She held up her aparato again, not letting him argue. “I can put it back? Will you be free if I put it back now? Isn’t there anything else I need to do to make it safe?”

But Ezekiel didn’t know. She could see that now. She didn’t know why she’d thought he would know such things. She looked at Miguel instead.

But it was Stéphanie Callot who spoke. Stéphanie, on her feet and moving of herself for the first time since Natividad had woken her, upstairs—could that be so little as an hour ago? It seemed impossible.

But now she was up. She looked drawn and tired and sick, but she was on her feet. She leaned on the silver-laced mesh of the cage and said impatiently, “Pure. You’re Pure. So be Pure, and purify that shadow before you return it.” She added disapprovingly, “You know you’re certain to pick up a little more of it yourself, yes? You are so careless.” Then she stopped and said more quietly, “Or maybe only desperate. I think maybe that is so.”

Miguel started to say something, probably something cutting. Natividad punched him on the arm and answered herself, careful to be gentle. “Si, yes, a little desperate maybe. So then how would you purify it, if it were you? A priest would do an exorcism, but I don’t know the words for that...”

Stéphanie raised her eyebrows. “Are you a priest? Then do not try to do it that way. You’re Pure. Ask for what you want. But don’t wish for peace. Wish for purity, and for Ezekiel Korte to be what he ought to be. If I were his lover, I think I would use an open star instead of a pentagram, but you should do what feels right to you.”

An open star. Natividad immediately saw how that should work. A pentagram gathered peace and held it and poured it slowly back into the world. An open star would reach outward more. Sí. It would reach out, not hold firm.

A wish for purity rather than peace. For Ezekiel to be what he should be, not what anybody else wanted him to be. That was freedom; of course it was. Sí. Yes. She could see how that might work. A wish for freedom and for things to be right. She could do that. Maybe it would be so simple.

Her twin expected her to make this work. She looked at Alejandro and saw that he, too, thought she ought to be able to do this.

Natividad drew a star on the floor around Ezekiel, outside the pentagram, with the aparato on the inside of the star. Then she erased the pentagram. That felt odd. She’d never tried to lift a pentagram, to pull its magic back into herself. But it wasn’t actually hard. Just strange.

Ezekiel’s shadow was all tangled up in and with and around the aparato. That was as it should be, as she had meant it to be. But not as she meant it to be forever. She could see nothing wrong with the shadow—it was demonic, of course, so that was certainly wrong in that sense. But she couldn’t see anything unusually wrong, or wrong for Ezekiel.

Whatever Kristoff had done to him, it was something that affected only black dogs. And so it was surely the shadow that was affected. But she could see nothing.

But she didn’t need to see it or understand it. She just needed to fix it. She said, softly and clearly, “Que sea como deberia. Let Ezekiel be as he should be. Que no otro dicta que debe ser libre.” This reminded her a little of blooding silver suddenly, for no clear reason, and she added, “Esta libertad de voluntad es mía, pero este es tuyo también.” It was just like giving silver to a black dog, except it was not silver she was giving him this time. This freedom of will is mine, but it is also yours.

Then she opened the aparato she had made and let all the pieces fall back where they belonged.

This, she had done once before. So she was not surprised at how fast it unraveled. The knife fell onto the cement of the floor with a ringing clatter; the teleraña rippled to the floor in a fine tangle of silk; and Ezekiel’s shadow whipped away, returning to him with a force that nearly pulled her over even though she had expected it.

Within the pattern of the open star, Ezekiel put one hand over his face, bowing his head. He stayed like that, perfectly still, for a long moment.

Then he lowered his hand, and straightened. And got to his feet, unhurriedly. Before he was all the way up, Alejandro reached out and lifted Natividad neatly back and away. Carissa slid to one side, where she could move in any direction without being crowded. Miguel had his hand on the butt of his gun. Stéphanie stepped back into the protection of the silver cage. Lieutenant Santibañez didn’t move, only watched narrowly.

Ezekiel looked at Natividad. He just looked at her.

“Bienvenidos,” she said softly. “Welcome back. Welcome back to yourself.”

-21-

It was a simple plan, really. Keeping things simple seemed like a good idea to Miguel.

The plan depended completely on Ezekiel’s ability to fool Gregor Kristoff into thinking he, Ezekiel, was still under the witch’s control. One of the items that didn’t seem like such a fantastic idea was pinning everything on Ezekiel Korte’s acting ability, but Miguel hadn’t been able to think of anything better. Especially not in the time available. They were all pretty sure that Kristoff expected Ezekiel back in minutes, not hours, and they’d burned through kind of a lot of minutes already.

Miguel knew all that. He kept trying to think of something better, though. But he just kept coming up empty.

Then he looked up and found Ezekiel’s steady gaze on him. Yeah, Dimilioc’s executioner knew exactly what he was thinking. He cleared his throat, but then found nothing to say.

“I understand deception,” Ezekiel told him quietly, with no sign of offense. He touched one hand to his chest, his expression faintly abstracted, as though not quite certain even yet that the other half of his soul was back where it was supposed to be. But he said, “We both do. This isn’t even the first time we—I—have used this exact tactic.”

“Oh,” said Miguel. And then blinked as he realized what Ezekiel must mean. “Oh. Um. Right.”

“Right,” Ezekiel said. One side of his mouth crooked upward. He might not be entirely recovered, but he was putting on a good act.

Which was kind of the point, come to think of it.

“Oh, that,” said Carissa said, getting it a second after Miguel. “Yeah.”

Miguel figured that just like him, she probably didn’t know the full story about Thos Korte’s death. But everyone born into Dimilioc probably knew the basic outline: The previous Master had made Ezekiel his executioner, the youngest ever to hold that position. Then a few years later Ezekiel had killed the Master and thrown his support behind Grayson.

Thos Korte had, by all reports, been a pretty scary guy. But Miguel hadn’t ever guessed before that Ezekiel might have had to go with deceit and strategy when he’d decided to play kingmaker. That . . actually, that made Thos Korte seem even scarier. He wondered if Carissa were old enough to remember the old Master. She looked to him like she was about Ezekiel’s age, maybe a little younger. From her expression, she might remember Thos pretty well.

Carissa was leaning in the doorway, keeping an ear out for anybody—or anything, such as weird shambling monsters that exploded into corpse powder—that might appear. Alejandro hovered near her. Miguel didn’t know whether his brother understood how plainly he was showing his feelings, but was pretty sure Alejandro wouldn’t appreciate his pointing that out.

Natividad was tucked against Ezekiel’s side. She was busy making something from thread, probably a maraña in case it seemed useful to turn aside the gaze of an enemy. Ezekiel’s arm was around her waist and she leaned against his chest, seeming perfectly happy to rest her cheek against him even though he’d been taken over by a crazy evil witch dude just, like, twenty minutes ago. Or so.

It seemed longer.

Stéphanie Callot had retreated into the farthest cage from the door, locked herself in, and drawn the best pentagram and the strongest circle and the most thorough look-away spell she could manage. Miguel didn’t blame her, especially because with all those protections she’d drawn, he had a hard time even remembering she was there.

Lieutenant Santibañez had taken up position a little way from Miguel. Like Carissa and Alejandro, he was on his feet. Who knew, he might even be fast enough to do something useful if a monster of some kind—or Kristoff himself—suddenly appeared. He had his knife back. In Miguel’s opinion, Natividad ought to have kept it. He figured weapons belonged with whomever could use them most effectively. But she’d given the knife back, so he guessed she didn’t think she was real likely to need it again.

Maybe she was right. He hoped she was right.

He said, “So, are we doing this?” He looked at Santibañez, who could still throw a great big spanner in the works if he decided not to go along. He and Miguel were the two Kristoff had gotten a look at. They were the ones who’d get to play bait, unavoidably. Miguel was pretty confident of his own acting ability, and he was pretty sure Santibañez could pull it off. If he chose.

“Something I should know?” Santibañez asked.

The Special Forces lieutenant asked Ezekiel directly rather than Miguel. But Ezekiel, what with one thing and another and with Natividad tucked in the curve of his arm, seemed in firm control of his temper, his control-freak tendencies, and his black dog instincts. Plus he had probably also figured out that Santibañez had to go along.

Though as far as that went, Miguel guessed Ezekiel could probably just claim he’d killed the lieutenant. He couldn’t see why Kristoff wouldn’t believe that. The bastard probably wouldn’t care one way or the other.

He wouldn’t exactly mind if Ezekiel went back out there all by himself and said he’d killed them both. Except on the other hand, he kind of wanted to be in on the end of the play. Just in case he happened to find something useful to do.

Stupid to feel like he’d make the difference between success and failure. But, yeah. He did feel that way.

“Nothing that matters now,” Ezekiel answered Santibañez, and rose smoothly to his feet, lifting Natividad effortlessly up with him. He frowned at her. “You’ve got that finished? It looks strong. Lay that on top of Stéphanie’s—”

“No,” Natividad said flatly. “I’m coming with you.”

Ezekiel picked her up and stepped toward the nearest cage.

“No!” repeated Natividad. “I mean, not with you! Stop it! I’m going upstairs to watch. I’ll stay out of sight, but what if you need me? Alejandro and Carissa can come with me—”

Carissa snapped, “Speak for your brother if you want and if he lets you! Not for me. No way I’m going out there. No way.”

“Uh, we might not really have time to argue about this,” Miguel mentioned, just in case anyone lost track of what was important. “Just how long is Kristoff going to think is plausible for Ezekiel’s little errand?”

As though he hadn’t spoken, Ezekiel said to Natividad, “You are absolutely not going anywhere near Gregor Kristoff.”

Since Natividad looked like she was going to hit him rather than say anything useful, Miguel looked away and commented, “You know, taking people’s choices away is kind of what a witch does to a black dog, isn’t it?”

He didn’t even have time to blink before Ezekiel closed a hand around his throat and shoved him back against the wall. He hadn’t actually expected that and hadn’t seen it coming, and so he couldn’t help but flinch and gasp. Then he caught himself and held still. He could tell Ezekiel hadn’t actually forgotten himself—there was no prick of claws and anyway Natividad wasn’t screaming. Or even protesting. She probably thought he’d asked for it. He kind of had, actually. He thought about apologizing. He was right, obviously, but maybe he better apologize anyway.

Then Ezekiel let him go. He said, short and fierce, to Natividad, “Stay the hell out of sight.” Then he stalked toward to the door, jerking his head at Santibañez in an order to come. He assumed Miguel would come too, of course.

Which, of course, he would. He had to. Up all those stairs and out to face a worse monster than any black dog, and suddenly Miguel found himself dragging his feet a little, in no hurry at all to get where they were going.

MigTol: Hey you know what happens when you fill a disposable monster up with corpse powder and get black dogs to rip it apart so it explodes?

Prophetess:...

Prophetess:...

MigTol:  Cass?

Prophetess: Just being consumed by horror. Guess ur ok?

MigTol: Y so far

Prophetess: How many of them did Kristoff get?

MigTol: All of them ex Jandro and Carissa but we got E free. N pulled his shadow out, purified it, and put it back. Pretty intense. I think like blooding silver only different—free will is mine and also yours, like that. Let DeAnn know she better work on that just in case

MigTol: Herrod’s people right here too. Think Kristoff’s got smthg in mind for them cause last I saw they weren’t dead. Blk dgs got em penned up lk sheep. I don’t think K can control human ppl like blk dgs cause so far no.

Prophetess: H’s people there? U mean right there? At sept house?

MigTol: long story

MigTol: BTW how good an actor do you think E is? Kristoff doesn’t know he’s free...we think.

Prophetess: OMG  AYS

MigTol: Yeah, seemed like a good idea at the time. We’ve got to get Kristoff smhw

Prophetess: Found this thing, says might work betr 2 shoot a witch in the throat, but it says that’s for skinwkrs in animal form so maybe conflated with blk dog, kinda sorta true for them if ur using regular bullets. But also shooting a witch in the throat probably interferes w him giving anybody orders. Anyway I’m thinking probably E tearing K into little pieces also good—uh, hey, where exactly r u in this clever plan?

MigTol: YDWTK

Prophetess: U know what happens to the bait when a trout takes the hook?

MigTol: Still got to get Kristoff smhw

Prophetess: ur crazy

MigTol: I know but ^^

MigTol: Figure U better know. U don’t hear from me again, try something else when it’s ur turn.

MigTol: Morituri te salutant.

Prophetess: Benediximus

The two of them, Lieutenant Santibañez and Miguel, had to go in front of Ezekiel as they got close to the outside door. Not just black dog manners; they were supposed to be prisoners and that meant going in front. Miguel let Santibañez lead, though, while he let Cassie know what was going on. Only as they got near the door did he put his phone away and concentrate on looking like a scared kid surrounded by monsters.

This got really easy the moment they stepped outside.

Kristoff was sitting on the top step of the porch, carefully raking white goo off his pants legs, wincing a little now and then when he accidentally hit a raw spot on his hands. There were burns on his arms, too, but unfortunately nothing serious. A scrape on his chin, when he looked up.  Apparently he’d gotten a little torn up when he’d hit the ground and rolled.

Too bad he hadn’t hit his head good and hard. Or broken his neck. Or had white sugar napalm eat his face. Damn, that had been a good idea, but nothing had come of it but those stupid little burns and ruined trousers. And a black smear of ashes in the driveway, which was probably all that was left of the jacket.

Off beyond the streak of ashes, the Special Forces people knelt on the gravel, their hands behind their heads, mostly either expressionless or murderous. Three rows of nine. Herrod was at one end of the front line. He was one of the expressionless ones, not to Miguel’s surprise. He had been watching Kristoff, but his gaze lifted as Ezekiel brought Santibañez and Miguel out onto the porch. His impenetrable calm didn’t falter even then, but his eyes closed just for a second.

Yeah, Miguel didn’t want to imagine what Colonel Herrod must be feeling right now. Especially if he’d hoped Santibañez would pull off something clever and heroic. Or even just get away and clear.

A couple of the Special Forces people looked a little the worse for wear, but mostly they seemed okay. Their guns and other weapons were in a pile off to one side. Five of the black dogs guarded them, which seemed like overkill, except probably Kristoff didn’t want to have to slaughter them just yet. Not until he was prepared to do whatever he planned to do and could use their deaths somehow. That was how Miguel figured it, anyway.

Grayson, Carter, and Absolon all lay at the foot of the steps, in black dog form. Like dogs bidden by their master to stay off the porch. Grayson lifted his heavy, blunt-muzzled head and stared at Miguel with crimson eyes.

Miguel carefully avoided meeting those burning eyes. If he didn’t want to imagine Colonel Herrod’s feelings, he definitely didn’t want to imagine Grayson’s. He didn’t want to give anything away, either. Who knew what the Master might see in Miguel’s expression—or what orders he might have been given by the witch? Much better to look anywhere else.

He also didn’t turn to glance at Ezekiel. He didn’t dare. For a whole bunch of reasons.

He didn’t want Gregor Kristoff taking a good look at Ezekiel either. The whole point was that the trout was supposed to pay attention to the bait, not the hook.

Plus Kristoff was studying Santibañez with the kind of expression that suggested he was considering which piece to cut off first. Pretty clearly he thought Santibañez was the dude responsible for those burns on his hands and arms. And the Lieutenant was staring straight back at Kristoff, letting him think that—even encouraging him to think it.

Not a great idea, in Miguel’s opinion. Kristoff had so many Special Forces guys, he might perfectly well decide to make an example of one who’d managed to land a blow.

So Miguel looked straight at the witch and said, “A really clever idea and all that work, and nothing but a few little burns? That’s just damn disappointing, is what that is. ”

Santibañez blinked, startled. But Kristoff was the one Miguel wanted. The witch’s eyes had narrowed, but he looked...yeah, he looked more dubious than was really convenient. Miguel added, glancing briefly over the Special Forces people, and then nodding toward the black dogs lying on the ground, “I can’t believe not one of them managed to take advantage of the opportunity I gave them. What a total waste.”

“The opportunity you gave them,” Kristoff repeated. He stood up, slowly. He wasn’t very tall. Not especially short, either. A little plump, the way a guy might get if he spent all his time inside sitting down, never outdoors standing up. His hands were small and soft, with smooth pale skin and neat nails—he’d never picked up a hammer or an axe in his life, Miguel guessed. Or if he had, he sure wanted people to forget about that now that he was an important guy who hired menial laborers to drive nails and chop wood.

The burns on those smooth hands were not very satisfying considering how much hope Miguel had pinned on his fake napalm. Also, the look in Kristoff’s eyes and the little twist to his mouth were not exactly reassuring.

But the witch merely looked Miguel up and down and asked—of course—“How old are you?”

“Why does everybody always ask that?” Miguel met the witch’s eyes. “Can you control, like, any number of black dogs all at once? How does that even work? Is that corpse powder, like Navajo skinwalkers?” He paused.

There was no answer, unfortunately. He’d really hoped Kristoff might be the kind who liked his own voice enough he’d deliver a little lecture about black witchcraft. But there was only that measuring gaze, so he went on. “I figure maybe skinwalker legends kind of hit on the truth a little bit sideways. Like maybe skinwalkers don’t turn into animals and do all this crazy mind-control on regular people. Maybe those legends got all mixed up with the truth about black dogs. You can take them over and make them shift whenever you want. I figure you do that by taking over the demon that shares their soul, right?”

“Is that what you figure?”

Such a smooth, soft voice. Miguel could easily find this man terrifying. He pretended to a cool assurance he was far from feeling. “Am I wrong? Except then sometimes you put an extra demon in them. But not all the time, right? How do you do that? Why do you do that? Does it make them more powerful? More obedient? Kind of like vampires as well as black dogs? You know, you really wouldn’t want something like that getting loose, would you? Like how you lost that demon you called up. Both demons.”

What exactly was Ezekiel doing? Miguel could feel his own heart pounding, half flying on adrenalin from matching wits with Kristoff and half sheer blinding terror. He’d given Dimilioc’s executioner all the time in the world to fillet Kristoff like a fish, but nope, so far nothing. He was scared he’d run out of inspiration, lose the witch’s attention, and then God knew what would happen.

Kristoff’s gaze shifted, fixing on Ezekiel. He opened his mouth, and Santibañez, mostly forgotten by now, started to move, a shift of his weight that Miguel felt more than saw, and then Santibañez gave a muffled grunt as Ezekiel suddenly shoved him hard. The man went sprawling down the steps, hands outflung, but way too far off his balance to catch himself. Grayson caught him instead, cushioned Santibañez’s headlong fall against his heavy-pelted shoulder, and pinned him to the ground with one powerful clawed forelimb and a rumbled threat that froze him like a rabbit pinned by a wolf. Grayson’s heavy head swung around, his eyes burning crimson as he looked to Kristoff.

For orders, Miguel realized, and gritted his teeth. The Master of Dimilioc was overbearing, high-handed, authoritative, and a total control freak. Somehow it was not at all satisfying to see him humbled. Especially not by a guy with eyes as cold and calculating as Kristoff.

“Sometimes someone just begs to be made into an example,” Kristoff said softly, and started to lift a hand.

To make some dramatic gesture when he pronounced Santibañez’s doom, Miguel guessed, and said quickly, “You know, that guy’s uncle’s a US senator.”

Kristoff paused.

Miguel shrugged. “I just thought maybe you’d like to know.”

The witch nodded. “You are a sharp one, aren’t you? What is your name?”

Miguel thought about lying, but he couldn’t really see the point. “Miguel Toland.”

“Ah!” The witch sounded like he’d found more enlightenment in that name than Miguel had really expected. And proved it by adding, “You are actually related to these brute animals. Well, that does clear up one or two points of confusion.”

Miguel said nothing. Obviously he should have lied after all. But it was too late now.

Kristoff shrugged, smiling, and ordered Grayson, “Put the senator’s nephew at the end of the last row. You can make room by taking the one that’s there now and gutting him like a fish.”

Miguel took an involuntary step forward. Ezekiel caught his arm, stopping him in his tracks, and oh, God, suddenly it was just impossible to tell whose side Dimilioc’s executioner was on except it didn’t actually seem to be the side of the angels. Miguel was conscious of sharp, bitter anger, plus regret that he wasn’t going to get a chance to text Cassie about what had gone wrong, because it sure seemed like something the rest of Dimilioc needed to know.

Except it wouldn’t matter very much. Because if the witch had Ezekiel back, and kept control of Grayson and the rest...yeah. Ethan and the rest of them wouldn’t stand even a faint, fragile chance.

And there was nothing he could do but watch Grayson force Lieutenant Santibañez into place in the third row of prisoners. There was nothing Santibañez could do, not against black dog strength. There was nothing Colonel Herrod could do, except turn his head to watch with his face set like stone.

There was nothing the young man at the end of the row could do except try hopelessly to defend himself as Grayson hauled him to his feet, ripped vicious three-inch claws across his belly, and dropped him to gasp and writhe and bleed out his life on the frozen gravel. Gut him like a fish. Right. Miguel had no idea how long it would take a man to die of that kind of injury. Way, way too long. He turned his face away—and jerked back around at Kristoff’s sharp, annoyed grunt.

It took him about half a second to realize that Grayson had done more than gut the poor guy from the end of the row. As he’d turned away, the Master of Dimilioc had also torn out the man’s throat.

Right. Because Kristoff hadn’t forbidden a mercy blow.

The witch crooked a finger at Grayson: Come here. The Master lowered his head and came, like a dog, like a slave. But he was neither. He’d just shown that.

Miguel was not at all eager to see him pay for it. He said softly, “That guy might have been somebody’s nephew too, you know.”

Kristoff turned. His expression was fleetingly ugly, but then he smiled. “They’re nothing,” he said, dismissing that point with a flick of one hand, like a man waving away a gnat. “Except for what they can give to someone who matters. Their blood is useful. Their pain. Their fear. But in themselves—nothing. You should learn that. You must learn that, if you want to seize power.” His voice lowered. “And you do want power, don’t you? You want that more than anything. A sharp young man like you. Of course you do. You’re a Toland. That’s a name I recognize. You’re a son or brother or cousin to these animals, yes? Of course you are. You could be so much more. So few people rise more than half a step above the brute. But a young man like you...And it would take so little. Which of these black dogs is closest kin?”

For a long moment, Miguel didn’t answer. He couldn’t think of a single thing to say.

“One or another will have to be sacrificed. A good many of the humans, but definitely at least one black dog. I do hope one is adequate to summon and bind a greater demon. I’ve never seen one as big as the demon your friends here accidentally created—never having been careless enough to do what you did. I presume it was accidental? You did not, for example, discover the possible result of freeing two lesser demons in close proximity and letting one consume the other? You didn’t cause that deliberately?”

Miguel still couldn’t say anything.

“I hate to give up even one of my beautiful new pets,” Kristoff said regretfully. “But there’s no help for it. Still, if I do the sacrifice, it won’t mean anything to you. Whereas if your hand is on the knife, it could mean everything. Sacrifice is the gateway to power, true power...and after all, he will die anyway, so why not get as much use out of his death as you can?”

Despite everything, Miguel couldn’t quite conceal his reaction to this suggestion.

Kristoff smiled slowly and ran his tongue over his lips, disturbingly sensual. “Especially since I will kill you if you refuse,” he said softly. “But I would prefer not. I like you, Miguel Toland. I think I might come to like you very much. I could teach you...so much. Maybe someday you could rival me for power. You would like that, wouldn’t you?”

Miguel said, a little too sincerely, “It’s an idea that could grow on me.”

Kristoff smiled again. “You are impudent. A very little impudence is charming, from time to time. But not that much. Ezekiel, punish the young man for me.”

Before Miguel could even flinch, Ezekiel closed a hand on his shoulder, swept his feet out from under him, and slammed him down on his back on the porch. But he also grabbed Miguel’s hair on the way down, preventing him from cracking his head. Miguel, even startled and breathless and scared, even as fast as Ezekiel had moved, realized how careful the black dog had been. Was still being. The hand that seized his throat and pinned him down was gentle, nearly all the violence of that grip an illusion. When Ezekiel ran his other hand down Miguel’s arm, finding and pressing vulnerable nerves with scientific accuracy and total ruthlessness, Miguel couldn’t suppress a cry of pain—but he also realized it was his left arm, and that though the pain radiated right down to his fingertips, it was nothing that would leave him crippled.

Ezekiel was obeying the witch. But no more than he had to.

But had to because Kristoff owned him after all? Or had to because he didn’t want to give away his own freedom?...Just how much of that damned corpse powder did it take to master a black dog, and how much might still be in the air out here? Or what else had they missed? If Natividad were out here, she’d figure out what had gone wrong and find a way to fix it—God, he was so glad Natividad was not out here!

The situation was honestly not very conducive to rational thought.

Ezekiel let him go. “More?” he asked Kristoff, his tone flat. “I could break him.”

Miguel thought that Ezekiel didn’t sound nearly reluctant enough about that prospect. He sat up slowly, pressing his right hand to his aching left arm.

“Oh, I know. You could do...so many things.” Kristoff ran his tongue slowly over his lips, studying Miguel as though trying to decide what to have Ezekiel do first. “But I don’t think so. Not yet,” he said at last, regretfully. His eyes were a little wide. His tongue flicked out again to lick his lips. He’d enjoyed that. In a really disturbing way, Miguel was pretty sure. Sick, sadistic son of a bitch. Not that Miguel would dare say so. Which was probably the point. Part of the point.

Also to keep him off balance. Keep him from thinking. That seemed possible. Or if Kristoff weren’t so subtle as to have that in mind, it was still the effect. Or could be, if Miguel let that happen.

All right. Humble. Meek. He was good at that; he’d sure had enough practice. Ezekiel could do a lot worse than hit a nerve cluster and Miguel could still pull off meek and tap dance too. He looked up at Kristoff, then let his gaze fall when the other man caught his eye. “Can I stand up?”

“May I,” the witch told him. “When you handle demons, precision is everything. Or it is if you forget it. You should learn that now.”

The cabrón imagined he was going to be Miguel’s teacher. He was going to make Miguel kill somebody and own him through guilt as well as fear. He sure thought so.

Right, then. Miguel said, painstakingly deferential, “May I stand up, please?”

“Much better. Yes, you may. Now—where was I? Oh yes.” Turning slightly, Kristoff ordered in a completely different tone, preemptory and dismissive at once, “Absolon! Go fetch my supplies.”

Below the porch, the smallest of the black dogs rose to his feet, shook himself like a dog, and padded softly away without looking at anyone else.

“What kind of supplies?” Miguel asked. “If you don’t mind my asking, sir.” He got to his feet. His arm still hurt. Actually, it hurt quite a bit. But he was trying not to think about that. There were several other more important things to think about. For example, Ezekiel had moved several steps closer to Kristoff during that sick little demonstration of power. He wasn’t looking at the witch at all. He was staring away, out at the ruined pines and the untouched mountains beyond, his expression blank and his attention, as far as Miguel could tell, far away. His eyes were blue. Not a trace of yellow. Was that a good sign or a bad one? Miguel said almost at random, “Candles? I’ve heard witches use candles. What are those made of anyway?”

“Curiosity and intelligence are excellent qualities,” Kristoff said mildly. “In moderation.”

Miguel let himself flinch visibly. “Right. Sir.”

“Tell me your relationship to all these black dogs, Miguel. Are any of them also Toland?” Then before Miguel could answer, he turned to Ezekiel and said blandly, “I bet you know exactly who in the vicinity is most closely related to Miguel Toland, don’t you?”

Impossible not to stiffen. Equally impossible for Gregor Kristoff to miss that reaction. The witch was vicious and sadistic and a complete, total bastard, but he was also smart and perceptive. He smiled at Miguel as Ezekiel nodded. “Oh, now. That’s promising. Go on, Ezekiel. Tell me.”

“His brother, Alejandro Toland,” Ezekiel said after about one second of struggle. “And his sister, Natividad Toland.”

And that pretty much completely answered the question about whether Ezekiel were really under the witch’s control. Miguel tried not to sag visibly. Whose idea had this plan been, anyway? He had a sinking feeling it had been his. What a totally stupid idea. He made a mental note: next time just run for the hills and let Grayson and Herrod and all their people get killed.

Yeah, even after all this, that still sounded even worse. But he should have come up with a solid Plan B.

Except he kind of had, when he’d made sure Natividad would be somewhere watching. She was somewhere nearby, he knew that. Alejandro too. He had no doubt of it. Knowing that was kind of a mixed blessing. Especially now.

“Mexican mother?” murmured Kristoff. “Well, I suppose it doesn’t matter. And they’re here? Both of them?” He looked around as though he half expected to find Alejandro and Natividad hiding behind furniture on the porch or pine trees below. Then he looked at Ezekiel. “Ezekiel...fetch.”

Ezekiel turned and took one step toward the house.

“No need,” Natividad said from just inside the house. “I’m right here.” She stepped out, pale but composed, patted Ezekiel on the arm, stood up on her toes and kissed his cheek, and then stepped past him and faced Kristoff.

Miguel didn’t dare look at Ezekiel. Not after all that business. He held up his right hand in a gesture of harmlessness, of surrender—his left arm wasn’t working quite yet—and said quickly, “Look, don’t hurt her! I’ll do whatever you want. Anything you want. You want me to sacrifice a black dog? No problem. All the Special Forces guys one after another? I can do that. Just, listen, can’t you just let her go?”

Kristoff looked from Miguel to Natividad and back again with real delight. He actually rubbed his hands together. “Oh, but this is wonderful. You’re actually twins, aren’t you? Wonderful. Perfect. You know, this is just perfect. You have no idea how powerful a demon you’re going to bind for me when you sacrifice your sister.”

Miguel took a step forward. “Not gonna—”

Kristoff faced Miguel, and Natividad took advantage of the moment to brush by them both, running lightly down the steps to hug first Grayson and then, surprisingly, Carter. Absolon was coming back, in human form now, a heavy leather satchel over one shoulder, and Natividad turned toward him and then hesitated, looking over at all the black dogs guarding Herrod’s people.

“Ezekiel,” Kristoff said in his soft, smooth voice. “Fetch.”

And Ezekiel turned like an automaton and went after Natividad. Except to go down the steps, he passed just within arm’s reach of Kristoff. And as he passed him, one hand flashed out, sharp and vicious as a striking snake, and left Kristoff staggering, hands to his face, his lower jaw maimed and crushed.

Miguel got it after a second. Yeah. Gregor Kristoff was not going to be giving anybody orders now. Not with his jaw and mouth destroyed.

Ezekiel was already long gone, heading straight for Herrod’s people, where they still knelt, helpless and threatened by five Dimilioc black wolves.

“¡Sea libre!” Natividad said urgently to Grayson. “Be free of him and all his works!” She flung her hands out, gathering sunlight in both palms, and Alejandro came around the corner of the house with a long aggressive stride, and threw a handful of something, silver shot maybe, to the right and to the left, little beads that, thrown with black dog strength, scattered a long way. Definitely to the far edge of the driveway, well out beyond the place where Herrod and his people knelt, guarded by enslaved black dogs. Those black dogs had already moved to attack the humans—it had to be some kind of standing order—but Ezekiel was there on one side, and Carter almost as fast, that was a surprise, and suddenly James was there, right there, and where in God’s name he had come from was a total mystery. But with James and Carter backing up Ezekiel, there was no way any black dog was going to murder those guys. Plus the humans were up on their feet now, although that might get ugly if they got their weapons back and other things weren’t totally, obviously under control.

Miguel ran down the stairs, caught up the leather satchel Absolon had dropped, slung it over his own shoulder, and ducked for shelter—toward the Master, for lack of any better ideas. He didn’t take time to glance in the satchel, not yet, but it was pretty heavy. More in there than just candles—

Grayson roared, a sound that slammed across the mountainside with physical force. It staggered Miguel, definitely. Every single black dog except for Ezekiel shifted instantly into human form, so abruptly that Miguel knew Grayson had forced them into and through the change.

“Fiat lux!” Natividad cried, the first time Miguel had ever heard her use Latin instead of Spanish for magic. Every glittering bead kindled in the sun and burst into bright, blazing light.

Kristoff, his hands to his ruined face, made a garbled sound. Every single Dimilioc wolf turned and looked at him, all of them, despite their human shapes, with fiery eyes and predatory expressions.

And Carissa dropped from above, mostly in black dog form. She landed just beyond the porch and sprang forward, low and deadly, struck twice and then threw Kristoff from the porch. He fell hard and clumsily, catching himself as best he could. No one moved to break his fall. Grayson, back in human form, his shadow so closely gathered and dense even Miguel could almost see it, leaned down, took the witch by the back of the neck, and lifted him to his knees. Where he stayed, making helpless, voiceless noises that were nothing like words.

He couldn’t stand, Miguel realized. Carissa had hamstrung both legs. She was mostly human now, and mostly laughing, except that her laughter sounded a lot like a snarl of rage.

“We need him alive!” called Herrod. He left his people to sort themselves out and strode urgently toward Grayson. “We need him alive,” he repeated, this time more quietly. “That demon is still out there. This man is our only resource for dealing with it. Who else knows what it is or how to find it, control it, get rid of it? I understand if you’re reluctant. I truly do. But we have to have him alive.”

Grayson looked at him. Then he looked at Ezekiel. And nodded. Just once.

For a second Miguel thought he was ordering Ezekiel to back off, and tried to muster sensible arguments the other way, which was tough because Herrod was so obviously right, except for being totally wrong.

Then Ezekiel smiled his killer’s smile and Miguel took a breath and almost, sort of, relaxed.

Ezekiel strolled to where Gregor Kristoff knelt, with his ruined face raised and his hands up, trying to surrender or cast a spell or whatever. Miguel backed away.

Dimilioc’s executioner didn’t seem to notice Miguel at all. His attention was all for the black witch. “Tell me again about my beautiful eyes,” Ezekiel murmured, bending low to speak into Kristoff’s ear.

Miguel made a mental vow never to reveal he’d heard that.

Kristoff just stared up at Ezekiel. He wasn’t trying to speak anymore. He didn’t move at all.

Ezekiel slid one hand lightly across the witch’s belly, a languid, almost gentle movement. He straightened with grayish rubbery intestines looped around his fingers.

There wasn’t much blood, really. Not even when Ezekiel pulled out most of the witch’s guts, dumped them on the ground in front of him, and set fire to them with a single look from burning yellow eyes.

Natividad didn’t stay to watch.

Miguel did. He’d seen worse. And he wanted to be really, truly, totally sure the witch was dead.

-22-

MigTol: R U there?

MigTol: We came we saw we totally kicked ass You have no idea It’s over TGIO

MigTol: U there?

Prophetess: M! Ur still alive! Sorry Got distracted. AFK. I’m here now

Prophetess:  Ding Dong The Witch is Dead?  Tell me he’s dead They’re all dead All of them Say yes

MigTol: So so soooo dead.  Very yes

Prophetess: You BAMF.  WTG!   

MigTol: Yeah not me. E. I never saw The Executioner execute B4. That’s one badass dude. Remind me never get him mad at me.

Prophetess: Yeah that’s what I hear. Mad at big bad witch is much better.

Prophetess: U r all OK? Srsly? Everyone? HRU? ???

MigTol: Yep Well mostly. Mostly we’re good. I got a neat new book. A grimoire I guess. Lotsa v disturbing drawings.

Prophetess: Also maybe words?

MigTol: Yeah but I’m illiterate. I think maybe Greek? I’ll send you a picture. U read Greek?

Prophetess: LDO. If it’s not Greek I’ll help u figure it out. Colonel H know u have that?

MigTol: Yeah one more thing he’s not happy about. G and Colonel H might not be bff anymore. H also wanted the witch arrested and alive and in his hands.

Prophetess: Like that was going to happen. LMAO.

MigTol: LOLH

Prophetess: ROTFLUTS

Prophetess: So what’s the bad news?

MigTol: R u psychic? Yeah ur right. Not xctly bad but complicated. He offered me a job

Prophetess:...wut?

MigTol: ikr?

Prophetess: Colonel Herrod offered u a job? He knows ur just 16 right?

MigTol: Almost 17 Don’t think he cares FWIW he can probably pull strings

Prophetess: I can just c u in the Special Forces...

MigTol: Independent consultant.

MigTol: I told him G wouldn’t go for it

MigTol: I don’t think he’s the type to give up easy tho. He’s sending us an...independent consultant. SF lieutenant. A nephew of Senator Santibanez.

Prophetess: Srsly? Sending this guy to us here? In Vermont? The main house? G ok w this? Wait I take that back. G cannot b ok with this. Not possible. DNC.

Prophetess: I mean YGTBKM. A spy? Y/N?

MigTol: N.  A “liaison.” Y of course totally a spy.  N zapped his tracker we’re pretty sure. Not the removable kind but now he’s got this rad brand over the place. N made a look-away marana out of nylon & E set it on fire

Prophetess: Poor dude must have been totes thrilled about that

MigTol: Yeah well he volunteered  Or Colonel H volunteered him   Not totally sure

Prophetess: Wait wait wait where exactly is this brand? ???

MigTol: … thigh

Prophetess: Thigh, riiiiight. Your little sister branded a hot ripped dude on the butt. ROTFL

MigTol:  E was right there

Prophetess: Flexing his abs every second I bet. ROTFLMAO

Prophetess: This dude know he just stomped all over E’s toes?

MigTol:  Not like he could have missed it

MigTol: There r Reasons he agreed. Reasons all the way around, for G too. He kinda had to agree. He was one up over H but then G killed this SF dude

Prophetess: Totally shocked. This is my shocked face.

MigTol: Don’t joke, it was not ok. Tell u l8r.

Prophetess: Sorry 

MigTol: Yeah nvrmd

MigTol: FWIW Santibanez is a good guy. In for some culture shock tho.

MigTol: U can help me show him around

Prophetess: “Show him around?” Yeah right.  U got a *plan*

MigTol: I always got a plan. U can prob guess the broad idea.

Prophetess: Maaayyybe I mgt have a guess.

MigTol: I gotta talk it over w u when I get back

MigTol: U can punch holes in it all until it’s solid

Prophetess: Lookin forward to hearing all abt ur plan. B glad 2 help hole punch.

Prophetess: Hey r u in the air? Tell G do not pass Go do not collect $200 just get your butts in the air.

MigTol: Not yet but soon

Prophetess: Well then c u when you get here What’s your ETA? ???

Prophetess: I gotta tell evbdy & dance a happy dance & bake a cake

MigTol: Tomorrow morning VDE. Cake for breakfast works for me. BG2CU

Prophetess: Back atcha I’ll be waiting. U had a rough time. But it’s done now.

MigTol: The demon’s still out there. It’s still out there and we don’t know any damn thing about it or how to deal with it

Prophetess: Shh. We’ll figure it out.

Prophetess: Transit umbra, lux permanet

MigTol: Yeah …

MigTol: Ur right

MigTol: How do u always know what to say? <3  Can’t wait to get home

Prophetess: Of course cause home is where I am

MigTol: That too

MigTol: Cor domi iacet.

-23-

Natividad couldn’t really believe it was over until the plane taxied down the runway, slowly gathered speed, and lifted at last into the darkness. As the plane climbed, everything that had happened seemed to fade into...not a dream, not even a nightmare, but a peculiarly jumbled haze of memory that seemed almost less real than either. Monsters and demons and witches and crazy senators...how impossible for any of that to have happened, to be real.

The lights of the city spread out below them as the plane banked and turned east. Denver looked so pretty and peaceful from above, surrounded everywhere by darkness. Like no one down there, dwelling among those lights, could ever have been touched by anything demonic.

Another time maybe she would have liked to see the lights fall away below them into the endless night, maybe she would have liked to look up and search for stars. Tonight...no. She slid the little panel down over the window, closing out the dark. Then she turned back toward the warmth and light inside the plane. It felt to her like only here was anything truly real.

It seemed bright inside only because outside was so dark.  Actually the lights had been dimmed all along the passenger compartment. Everyone was tired. Beyond tired. Exhausted with fear and anger and uncertainty and outrage. Beside her, Ezekiel was already asleep. Not the deep, restorative sleep he needed; she knew that. Not in a plane flown by someone else, in company with so many other black dogs he could not fully trust. But leaning back with his eyes closed. That far, he’d acceded to Grayson’s order to rest.

Ezekiel and Natividad were all the way at the back of the plane. Grayson had taken the seat in front of them, putting Ezekiel protectively behind him, which she expected ordinarily might have caused an argument. Not this time. No, Ezekiel had made no comment at all when Grayson had sent him to the rearmost place.

Étienne Lumondière was flying the plane. That was probably the Master’s way of showing he still trusted Étienne and meant to give him an important place in Dimilioc even though they were abandoning the western sept. Abandoning it for now, anyway. Too many people had known about that house by the end: the Special Forces and who knew who else. Maybe other witches, maybe even that demon at Copper Mountain. No one had any idea. Natividad hadn’t been consulted about the decision to pull everyone back to the main house for the present, but it seemed wise to her. Cold had prickled down her spine every time she thought of what Alejandro had described finding at Copper Mountain. Even worse, what if there were other witches, what if Gregor Kristoff had a friend—well, that seemed unlikely—a colleague, then, who might try again where Kristoff had failed.

Anything might be out there. But, thankfully, that was not a problem for tonight. Nor tomorrow. She was so glad to be flying east and north, out of this country haunted by witches and demons.

Frédéric had taken the copilot’s place. Absolon and Steven Knauer, and Théo and Stéphanie Callot occupied the front part of the passenger compartment, right behind the pilots. Natividad hoped Stéphanie would be all right. She seemed better now that the plane was in the air. Even if the Master sent people west again, probably he would not send the Callots. Natividad could not imagine Stéphanie would agree to go.

There was a little gap after Étienne’s black dogs; then Carter on one side and Rip on the other, with Alejandro and Carissa behind them. All of them were silent, wary of one another or too tired for the ordinary black dog dominance issues. Alejandro was very aware of Carissa, Natividad could tell, but Carissa was just staring out her window at the blank darkness.

Then behind all of those black dogs sat Miguel and the Special Forces lieutenant, Santibañez, who was a hostage or a liaison or a spy, Natividad wasn’t sure. Maybe all three. Miguel had Kristoff’s bag tucked protectively under his seat. She wasn’t sure she liked him having that, all the witch’s black magic things, but she hadn’t said anything. She didn’t know who else would be better to figure out what everything was and how it was used.

Her twin wasn’t asleep. He had his iPad out. Santibañez was looking over Miguel’s shoulder, but her brother must know that and wouldn’t type anything he didn’t want the lieutenant to see. Actually, he was probably typing up a little pamphlet or something about black dogs. How Not To Get Your Head Ripped Off: Ten Important Tips for a Human Guest of Dimilioc. With illustrations. Yes, from the way the lieutenant nodded now and then, that was probably exactly what Miguel was doing.

James was behind them, and then there was another little gap and then Grayson. And finally Natividad and Ezekiel at the rear. It was kind of crowded, but every single black dog was minding his manners. Or hers. For once, not one of them seemed to be looking for a fight, and Natividad was grateful. Not just for her own sake. She looked over at Ezekiel, pared down to bone and fire and honed fury, and wished he were already back in his Dimilioc apartment, in his own bedroom and his own bed. With her. She had never yet shared that bed with him. First she had been waiting to turn sixteen, and then waiting for his exile to end, and now at last they were going home together. It warmed her to know he would sleep more deeply and peacefully with her in that bed than he would alone.

Thinking of that warmed her in a different way too.

Natividad worried about Grayson, though. Both of them would do their best to take care of Ezekiel, but who would take care of the Master? She knew that last part with Kristoff must have been especially terrible for him. Though he was pretending not. Like Carissa, he was staring out at the darkness. He wouldn’t sleep at all until they were home, Natividad was sure. Maybe not then. From the bleak expression in his eyes, she wasn’t sure he ever planned to sleep again.

The Master had directed Étienne and James to burn and abandon the sept house. Not just the main house, but all the other buildings, the trees, everything. To burn and salt all the ground the demon-monster had touched. Colonel Herrod hadn’t said a word to object; not then. Later, as all Dimilioc’s Denver holdings burned down to ash and nothing, Natividad had seen Colonel Herrod talking to the Master, maybe arguing. But she had been too exhausted and preoccupied to wonder what they might be saying to each other; only glad when the colonel had gathered up his people and gone away without further violence or bloodshed.

She hadn’t even realized Santibañez was staying with them until all the other Special Forces people left, and left him behind. Her twin hadn’t seemed surprised or upset or worried about that, so she had put it out of her mind as something that somehow made sense.

And for all that time, Grayson had looked just the same as he did now: bleak and impenetrable.

Impulsively, Natividad unfastened her seatbelt, patted Ezekiel’s hand reassuringly when his eyes slitted open, and moved carefully through the cramped aisle to take the seat next to the Master.

He slanted an unreadable glance at her when she sat down beside him. She didn’t speak at first, just leaned against him and rested her head on his shoulder. After a while, she felt some of the hard-held tension behind that imperturbable facade ease.

“It was terrible,” she murmured, very low, just for him. It was something he couldn’t say for himself, so she said it. She knew Ezekiel would hear her, maybe James, but she hoped no one else.

The Master did not answer her. But he didn’t send her away.

“Everything happened so fast, there at the end. I thought all those people might die. I should have known you wouldn’t let that happen.”

“Their survival can hardly be laid to my account. The only one of them that died, I killed.”

Natividad leaned against him. “You trained everyone. You made everyone understand what it means to be Dimilioc. So at the end all the rest of them lived. Does Colonel Herrod blame you for anything that happened?”

“...No. Evidently not.”

“You see?” Natividad paused. Then she said softly, “After I realized our enemy had taken Ezekiel again...I thought I’d freed him, you know. Then, when it was too late, I figured out I hadn’t done it all the way, I hadn’t done it enough. There was still that horrible corpse powder in the air, on the ground, scattered on the porch. Everywhere. I hadn’t allowed for that.”

His arm curved around her shoulders, drawing her closer. “So you made something else, and came out to face our enemy so that you could free Ezekiel. And the rest of us.”

“I had to,” Natividad said simply. “I was so scared. But I had to do it. I made a way to...to share my own free will with Ezekiel, and with you. To share it and keep sharing it, so it didn’t matter about the corpse powder. Except I didn’t even know if it would work.”

“You were very clever and very brave.”

Now that Grayson had moved to protect and comfort her, some of the bleakness finally lifted out of his eyes. Natividad said softly, “Everyone was so clever and so brave. Rip, James, Étienne, Carissa...even Carter did all right at the end. I wasn’t sure. But you know whom to trust.”

Whatever Grayson had expected her to say, that hadn’t been it. A little more of that tension unknotted.

“You won’t send Ezekiel away again, will you? I know his year isn’t yet over...”

“No. It’s over.”

Natividad nodded. She had known he wouldn’t, but she was still relieved to hear him say it. “Good. Will you send Étienne west again?”

A slight pause. The Master did not generally discuss such things with Natividad. She didn’t generally ask, or even care; she always just assumed he knew what he was doing. But this time she actually wanted to know. She couldn’t help but feel maybe everyone would be safer if they stayed closer together for a while.

“Eventually,” Grayson said at last. “Not immediately. But I don’t wish to simply abandon the western part of the continent to stray black dogs and remnant blood kin.”

“Or witches.”

The Master let out a slow breath. Then he raised his voice just a little and spoke clearly. “Indeed. These black witches must be our priority for the next little while. We will tear them down and rip their hearts from their bodies and spill out their blood on the earth. All of them. From the most ambitious and powerful to the most ignorant of disciples. All.”

Every black dog in the whole compartment heard him. He’d actually meant those words for them, Natividad knew. She thought she could practically feel the slow, general easing of taut pressure through the whole plane. Carissa finally put the shade down over her window, closing out the dark, and leaned back in her seat. Up at the front, Absolon stretched and reclined his own seat. Behind her, she heard Ezekiel sigh, and when she looked, found he had closed his eyes again.

A pentagram couldn’t have done that, not with the best will in the world. But somehow, even after everything, Grayson could sound so assured, so determined, that everyone believed the destruction of their enemies was not just possible but inevitable.

Besides, black dogs just naturally found the idea of spilling their enemies’ blood comforting. Of course they did. She actually found it kind of comforting herself, this time.

So she answered just as clearly. “I’ll make something that will protect you when you go after them. Something that will protect us all. Even before the last of the witches die, they’ll learn to fear Dimilioc. No witch will ever touch a Dimilioc wolf again. Never.”

Grayson knew she had deliberately made that promise out loud and at this moment, and also that she’d tried to phrase it the way a black dog would have. He smiled down at her. “We shall look forward to the hunt.”

“Good,” Natividad said. “That’s good, then. Good.” And she tucked herself down against the Master’s broad chest and closed her eyes, and drifted to sleep surrounded by warmth and safety even in the midst of the infinite dark.

Endnotes

I hope you enjoyed this installment of the Black Dog series! As you’ll see from the “other works” section at the end of this book, this series continues with another collection of shorter work. If you’re wondering what was distracting Cassie during the events in this book, pick up that collection and find out.

The next novel in the series is COPPER MOUNTAIN, out in October 2020. For a preview, read on!

For news about the Black Dog series and about my other fantasy novels, please visit www.rachelneumeier.com. To make sure you don’t miss a new release, and to become eligible for giveaways each time a new book is released, sign up for my newsletter while you’re there.

If you enjoyed this book, I’d appreciate it if you would take a moment to leave a brief review at Amazon, which you can do here, or at Goodreads, here, or at any other review site you prefer.

COPPER MOUNTAIN

-1-

Miguel had never – okay, hardly ever – been so glad to arrive anywhere in his life as he was to arrive at Dimilioc house, very damn early on a crystal-clear December morning, after way too many bumpy roads. And, before that, way too long in the air. And before that something like the second – okay, maybe third – worst day of his life.

After everything that had happened out west and the long trip home, the main sept house of Dimilioc looked thoroughly welcoming. Despite the surrounding forest and the forbidding mountains and the bitter cold. Vermont winters were never going to seem welcoming, but the house itself, oh, definitely.

The dawn was flawless, the sky turning from pearl to apricot to pale blue as the heavily laden van came around the final curve and made its slow way across the open ground between the forest and the house. It must have snowed last night, but not much. Not enough to hide the trampled snow and torn earth. Frozen blood colored some of that snow, its color still bright in this cold. Miguel frowned out the window. He’d known Cassie was leaving a lot out of her texts. But he hadn’t realized she was leaving out this much.

“Looks like someone had a pretty good fight out there,” Lieutenant Santibañez observed from the seat beside Miguel. The lieutenant’s tone was neutral, which didn’t do much to disguise his acute interest. He added thoughtfully, “Nothing got too close to the house, though. I guess Dimilioc’s enemies aren’t the kind to set up, oh, rocket launchers, say, maybe on that ridge over there, and just blast the hell out of the house from well out of reach.”

Luis Santibañez was a pretty good guy. He was one of Colonel Herrod’s people, plus a senator’s nephew – both important qualities – and also, at the moment, kind of a liaison-hostage-spy. It was complicated. Miguel had high hopes for him. He answered without hesitation, “Ranged attacks aren’t really a black dog thing, plus the house would be pretty hard to target.”

“Ah. Magic?” Santibañez might have sounded skeptical a week ago, or even a couple days ago. Not now. They’d all seen a lot in the west, and Santibañez was not a stupid man.

“Sure,” Miguel agreed, and held up one finger, meaning Hush, because James, who was driving, had finally turned the big van around the curve of the driveway and brought it to a halt and in a second everybody would be moving. Already the Dimilioc wolves left to hold the fort here were coming out onto the porch to greet Grayson Lanning, Master of Dimilioc, who had been away and had now came back to take up his place. Black dogs made a big deal out of this kind of moment. No surprise. Black dogs made a huge big deal out of a whole lot of things.

Ethan Lanning took the center place on the porch. Ethan had been an interesting choice to leave in charge while Grayson was gone. But from the little bit Cassie had let drop, he must have done okay.

Quite a crowd, as everybody piled out of the van. Miguel steered Lieutenant Santibañez to the side. Always best to get out of the way while black dogs sorted things out. The cold was biting. Miguel stuffed his left hand in his jacket pocket, but with his right arm he hugged his brand new satchel against his side. He’d liberated it from that bastard Gregor Kristoff and still hardly knew what was in it, but he didn’t intend to let it out his grip even if all the fingers of his right hand froze and broke off.

Alejandro came up beside him, frowning. He wasn’t very happy Miguel had that satchel and all it contained. Miguel pretended not to notice his older brother’s disapproval. He wouldn’t let the satchel out of his hands unless Grayson himself demanded it – and he’d already lined up a dozen different arguments in that case, starting with It’s what you don’t know that’ll bite you and ending with Who else is more likely to figure this stuff out? With other arguments on top of those just in case the Master had answers for the entire first set.

But Alejandro didn’t say a word. After one lingering glance at the satchel, he’d put his attention on Ethan – of course. Those two were rivals in the constant black dog preoccupation with strength and dominance and authority within the house. Alejandro, though six or seven years younger, was actually the stronger of the two, which must burn Ethan’s butt.

Ethan wasn’t looking at Alejandro, though. All his attention was on the Master.

Thaddeus stood directly behind Ethan – that was a statement. If Thaddeus was going to take Ethan’s side from now on, that would probably do screwy things to the relative rankings within the house. Miguel didn’t have the acute sense for dominance and rank that came naturally to a black dog, but alliances mattered, and one-on-one Thaddeus Williams was definitely the strongest Dimilioc wolf – even stronger than Grayson, probably. The others who’d stayed home spread out along the railing, none too close to the others. At first Miguel couldn’t spot Cassie, but no, there she was, keeping sensibly out of the way at the back of that little gathering.

A knot of tension he’d hardly been aware of unclenched. She was obviously fine. Her father, Sheriff Pearson, stood beside her. He had his left arm in a sling and a really nice bruise all across one side of his face, more evidence of the stuff Cassie hadn’t mentioned.

Grayson, last out of the van, walked past everyone else – everyone moved hastily out of his way – and stopped about ten feet from the bottom of the porch stairs. Ethan looked his uncle in the face for a few seconds. Then he lowered his gaze, descended those stairs at a measured pace, and went to one knee in front of his uncle. He tipped his chin up, offering Grayson his throat – mostly symbolic. But never entirely symbolic. Not even between uncle and nephew. Miguel looked longingly past Ethan, toward the open door, the waiting warmth and comfort of the house, and suppressed a sigh.

“Master,” Ethan said to Grayson. Not Uncle.

Grayson touched his nephew’s throat lightly with the tips of his fingers. Then he gestured for Ethan to get up. “Everything here seems to be in order. Everyone is still alive? The house is intact? Our enemies are dead? The authority of Dimilioc remains unquestioned?”

Ethan got to his feet, answering with the same kind of rote formality. “Everyone is well. Your house and all your wolves and the town and all our people are in good order. Dimilioc’s enemy Zinaida Alexandrovna Kologrivovna is dead.”

Ah. Zinaida Alexandrovna Kologrivovna. The infamous Black Wolf of Russia. Yeah, no surprise she’d moved against Dimilioc – again – the second she saw a chance. No wonder there were signs of battle surrounding the house.

Ethan was going on. “I’d prefer to discuss my report with you before you read it. Nothing in it is urgent. It could easily wait until tomorrow. Or next week.”

There was a slight pause. Ethan must have seen something in his uncle’s face or felt something in Grayson’s response that Miguel missed. Because then Ethan bowed his head and added, “You’ll be angry, sir. But it truly can wait. DeAnn and some of the others have put together a special breakfast, I think.”

Breakfast sounded like a truly fabulous idea. Somehow, Miguel didn’t think Grayson was going to be distracted even by that.

Nor was he. The Master raised his eyebrows in that patented I-am-being-patient expression of his. “I’m sure it could wait, Ethan. But you had better tell me the worst now.”

There was another slight pause. Finally Ethan nodded and said, “As it turned out, Sergei Ilyich Vasiliev had also come to this country. He and his people were stalking Zinaida. They took her from the rear at a crucial moment, after I’d made several serious mistakes that put Dimilioc in a bad position. If Vasiliev hadn’t brought his people in, we – I – would probably have lost Dimilioc right there. Sergei and I had a little chat. He wanted to establish a new house here, in this country. I gave him Florida.”

Beside Miguel, Lieutenant Santibañez stirred as though he wanted to ask a question. Yeah – of course his family was from Florida. Miguel bumped his arm and gave him a stern look, although he was dying to ask all kinds of questions himself. But not until after the explosion. He was pretty sure there was going to be an explosion.

But Grayson actually turned his head, studying the mountains rather than continuing to look at his nephew. Probably counting backward from a hundred by threes. Miguel eyed Natividad, but she didn’t look concerned. Ezekiel was watching Ethan, though not with any particular intensity. James Mallory had gone still, and Miguel bet Étienne Lumondière must be seriously cabreado even though it didn’t show in his face or posture. Étienne had lost his sept – and now Ethan gave Florida away to someone else? Miguel was just as glad he wasn’t in Ethan’s shoes right this moment.

Ethan didn’t so much as glance at anyone but his uncle. He said to Grayson, “I didn’t set your word behind anything, sir. But I’ve had time to think it over, and in my opinion it would be best to let my decision stand, Master.” Then he bowed his head deeply and stood still. Also waiting for an explosion, now slightly delayed, Miguel diagnosed.

But when the Master turned back to Ethan, he didn’t seem especially angry. He said merely, “I’ll consider your report, and we can discuss it.”

Oh, yeah, Miguel was sure that would be fun. Ethan nodded without looking up, undoubtedly thinking much the same thing. But to Miguel’s surprise, Grayson added, “I gather you preserved Dimilioc, preserved our options, and negotiated Vasiliev into some posture other than unrelenting hostility. Under the circumstances, that was probably well done. I don’t expect to agree with your decision. But we’ll discuss it, Ethan. Perhaps you will persuade me.” Then he reached out, took his nephew’s arm in a gesture that looked almost approving, and walked with him back toward the house.

Well. Miguel definitely hadn’t expected that. He stared after those two for a whole ten seconds at least before the cold, striking through his totally inadequate jacket, made him realize everyone now had permission to get inside out of the bitter Vermont winter. Thank God. He nudged Santibañez again and headed briskly for the porch, careful not to crowd any of the black dogs, although with Alejandro right beside him, none of the others was likely to take serious offense.

Everyone headed off in various directions the minute they were inside. But Cassie had waited in the foyer, her hands tucked in her pockets. Her dad had gone off somewhere, maybe with Grayson or maybe James, to trade reports and generally get caught up on recent events. Miguel looked forward to doing the same thing, except with Cassie, whose point of view would probably be a little different from anybody else’s.

She was elflike and pretty, but right at the moment she was also tight-drawn and pale – paler than usual. It was getting pretty close to the full moon. Miguel didn’t say so. If she felt she’d be all right today, she would be all right today. She never took chances with her demon.

She eyed Miguel up and down and spoke before he could: “You look terrible. Tough time hunting witches, huh?”

“Parts of it were pretty bad,” Miguel admitted. “Sergei Vasiliev, was it? That’s unexpected. Bet that was exciting, him and Zinaida Kologrivovna both coming in.”

“Would’ve been worse if the Russian dude hadn’t shown up – it turned out.”

Miguel could just imagine the bit before they’d all known it was going to turn out that way. “How’s your dad?”

Cassie touched her left upper arm with one finger of her right hand. “One little bullet hole. He’ll be fine. Silver bullet. Went right through. Little bitty entrance wound, little bitty exit wound, good thing silver bullets don’t smoosh like lead. Doug got hit too – you know Doug Lanmere? – worse than Dad. In the chest. Luckily the bullet didn’t bounce around much, but it punched a nice hole through this and that. He’ll be okay, Theodora says.”

Theodora Grosman was one of several women that Ezekiel had brought in a couple months ago. They’d all been pregnant, Theodora very pregnant with a black dog baby. There was a story behind that; Miguel didn’t know the details, though he could guess. But Theodora’d turned out to be a medical doctor, a surgical resident, and willing, barely, to stay near Dimilioc for her baby’s sake. Pretty handy if Dimilioc’s human allies were going to get shot up or whatever.

“Uh huh, good,” Miguel said. “And where were you when all this was going on?”

Cassie lifted her eyebrows. “Hiding with DeAnn and the kids, like a sensible person. Unlike you, heading out to face evil witches practically all by yourself. At least you had the Special Forces to back you up.” She looked Santibañez up and down.

“Lieutenant Luis Santibañez,” Miguel introduced them. “Cassandra Pearson. She’s Sheriff Pearson’s daughter. The sheriff is one of Dimilioc’s most important local human allies.” He added, with a wary sideways glance at Cassie in case she might object, “She’s moon-bound. You’ll want to keep that in mind if things get complicated while you’re here. Keep way, way clear of her when we’re coming up on the full moon – like maybe as early as tomorrow.”

“By now I can tell pretty well when I’ll lose it,” Cassie told Santibañez in a matter-of-fact tone, ignoring his slight but visible double take at the news she was a shifter. She added, “You won’t need to worry unless – like Miguel says – things get complicated. Which they shouldn’t, but hey, you never know.”

“I’ll remember, Miss Pearson. I’m pleased to meet you” Santibañez answered, with a small bow because Miguel had told him black dogs didn’t shake hands and he obviously wasn’t sure about shifters. “I wasn’t aware that Dimilioc wolves, ah, welcomed moon-bound shifters into their ranks.”

“I’m special,” Cassie told him blandly. “You’d better not get bitten, Luis, so steer clear of the Dimilioc wolves who used to be strays. It’s totally against the rules for anybody to lay a hand on you, but even so.” She looked at Miguel. “You saw my father’s face? Andrew.”

“That cabrón, seriously? Not good.”

“Very not good, but Ethan took care of it like a boss. Pro tip: Do not piss off Ethan.”

“Yeah, really?”

“I was actually impressed. Did not see it coming.” Cassie turned back to Santibañez. “Miguel’s probably told you which wolves are mostly safe to be around – remember those names and keep away from everyone who’s not on that list. General principal: anybody with a bloodline name is safer than anybody who used to be a stray. Except Thaddeus is fine.”

Miguel winced slightly as Santibañez lifted one eyebrow. He hadn’t actually given the lieutenant that kind of list. Obviously he should have. “Everyone’ll be at breakfast. That’ll be a good time to learn everyone’s names and faces. Dimilioc bloodlines: Toland, Hammond, Mallory, Korte, Lanning. Plus these days, Lumondière and Callot.”

“Right,” the lieutenant said.

Miguel bet he remembered every name on that list.

“Right,” Cassie agreed, smiling. “We’ll point everyone out. Breakfast is gonna be pretty spectacular, it’s about ready to go on the table, and DeAnn’ll wring our necks if we’re late.” She eyed Miguel. “What’ve you got in the bag? A grimoire written in Greek, maybe?”

Miguel patted his satchel. “Spoils of war, you bet. I’ll show you later.”

Cassie nodded. “You can tuck it under your chair for now anyway. Come on. We’ve been working since like four in the freaking morning and I will wring your necks myself if you make me late. Luis, great to meet you, come on, this way.”

COPPER MOUNTAIN is OUT NOW – click to see it on Amazon

Also by Rachel Neumeier

Black Dog Series:

BLACK DOG

BLACK DOG SHORT STORIES

PURE MAGIC

BLACK DOG SHORT STORIES II

SHADOW TWIN

BLACK DOG SHORT STORIES III

COPPER MOUNTAIN

BLACK DOG SHORT STORIES IV, forthcoming

FIFTH NOVEL, untitled, forthcoming

High Fantasy Titles

THE CITY IN THE LAKE

The Griffin Mage Trilogy:

LORD OF THE CHANGING WINDS

LAND OF THE BURNING SANDS

LAW OF THE BROKEN EARTH

THE FLOATING ISLANDS

The House of Shadows duology:

HOUSE OF SHADOWS

DOOR INTO LIGHT

THE KEEPER OF THE MIST

THE MOUNTAIN OF KEPT MEMORY

THE WHITE ROAD OF THE MOON

WINTER OF ICE AND IRON

The Tuyo series:

TUYO

NIKOLES

TARASHANA, forthcoming

Collections

BEYOND THE DREAMS WE KNOW

Praise for Rachel Neumeier’s Books

THE CITY IN THE LAKE

“It’s the poetic, shimmering language and fascinating unfolding of worlds that elevates this engrossing story beyond its formula . . . Fans of Sharon Shinn’s books will find a similar celebration of the natural world – from the dense darkness of a forest to the ‘crystalline music’ of the stars – in this vividly imagined debut.” – Booklist, starred review

“Oh my God, I was so not prepared for how awesome this book is. Prose, setting, story, characters, everything is top notch and I too loved this book.” – Ana Grilo, the Book Smugglers

THE FLOATING ISLANDS

An ALA Best Fiction for Young Adults selection

A Junior Library Guild selection

A Kirkus best-of-2011 selection

“Intelligent, richly detailed fantasy featuring two young cousins battered by losses, personal passions, and larger events . . . The author delineates complex characters, geographies and societies alike with a dab hand, deftly weaves them all – along with dragons of several sorts, mouthwatering kitchen talk, flashes of humor, and a late-blooming romance – into a suspenseful plot and delivers an outstanding tale that is self-contained but full of promise for sequels.”– Kirkus Reviews, starred review

HOUSE OF SHADOWS

“I loved House of Shadows. The characters, writing, and magic captivated me, but there was a lot to love in the details as well – the dragon, the cats who were characters in their own right, female characters with different situations and types of inner strength, and just a little bit of romance.” – Kristen at Fantasy Book Café.

“House of Shadows possess certain qualities of mystery and intrigue, but the driving force came from the characters and their individual, detailed stories. Despite the multiple narratives and points of view, the author miraculously pulled it all together for a very climactic ending.” – Gina at My Precious.

THE GRIFFIN MAGE TRILOGY

“The Griffin Mage Trilogy is recommended to anyone who enjoys a fantasy story that focuses on vivid storytelling with more emphasis on interaction instead of bold fighting.” – Jasper de Joode, Fantasy Book Review.

“A theme running throughout the trilogy is the importance of trusting people with the freedom to make their own decisions, even if you may not like the result. The plot of Lord of the Changing Winds is full of difficult moral choices, so if you like your fantasy to be subtle and complex, this could be the trilogy for you.” – Geraldine at Fantasy Reads.

THE KEEPER OF THE MIST

“Reminiscent of classic YA fantasy in the vein of Howl’s Moving Castle and old-school Robin McKinley, The Keeper of the Mist is utterly, unequivocally awesome.” – Thea James, The Book Smugglers

THE WHITE ROAD OF THE MOON

“As is to be expected from this cerebral purveyor of fully realized fantasy worlds, Neumeier firmly establishes the laws and rules of this medievallike fantasy’s reality early on, but she also gives Meridy’s world a romantic tinge, from the colors of a couture gown to the gnashing tusks of a fire horse. … A richly rewarding stand-alone story evoking far more color than its titular tint might suggest.” – Kirkus, starred review.

“An imaginative, slow-building YA fantasy, appropriate for younger readers as well as older ones. … Neumeier also weaves in the loyal friendship that develops between Jaift and Meridy, choosing to focus on this relationship and other bonds of friendship and respect between the characters rather than romance. It’s a refreshing change of pace from the pervasive romance-oriented young adult fantasies. … a traditional, almost retro vibe … reminded me distinctly of Robin McKinley’s style.” – Fantasy Literature blog.

WINTER OF ICE AND IRON

“Neumeier’s writing has a spare, haunting quality . . . Best of all are her characters … they work together beautifully, and their romance has a number of interesting and unconventional complications. The character’s hook; the writing holds. It’s comfort food, but more satisfying than most.” – NK Jemisin, NYT book review.

“One of the most satisfying reads I’ve enjoyed all year. I closed the book already aching for more of the characters and setting and immediately settled in for a reread. … I often gravitate to fantasy novels that favor character over incident, but Winter of Ice and Iron offers the best of everything: it is a meaty, plot-y tome with political machinations aplenty, filled with people you’ll love or hate, all of whom you’ll come to know intimately. Recommended.” – Shana DuBois, Barnes and Nobel SciFi and Fantasy Blog.

“There’s very little I can say that can even do any sort of justice to the wonderfully intricate story, the characters that get under your skin, and the intrigue seeping through the pages. … You need to take your time with this, to become immersed, in this slow-burning fantasy that will reward you if you devote your time to it.”  – Utopia State of Mind blog.

Acknowledgements

Nicole Culbertson corrected my Spanish. Any remaining mistakes are undoubtedly mine and not hers.

Laura Florand was kind enough to read and critique an earlier draft; my brother Craig Neumeier also provided a critique and pointed out plot holes. Michael and Linda Schiffer and Hanneke Nieuwenhuijzen read through the final manuscript and caught a few more inconsistencies and questionable details, plus a truly startling number of typos. Thank you all!

Also, thank you to all the authors who encouraged me to dip my toe into the intimidating world of self-publishing, either directly or simply by their example.

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Endnotes

Also by Rachel Neumeier

Praise for Rachel Neumeier’s Books

Acknowledgements