PURE MAGIC

Black Dog Volume 3

Rachel Neumeier

Published by Anara Publishing 2015

Cover art and design @ WillowRaven 2015

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

Copyright © 2015 Rachel Neumeier

Contents

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-18-

Endnotes

Also by Rachel Neumeier

Praise for Rachel Neumeier’s Books

Acknowledgements

-1-

Justin had not been looking for a church. Sanctuary . . . that, maybe.

Not, God knew, from enemies. He had no enemies. Was it logical to want sanctuary from your friends? I heard what happened, Justin. I’m so sorry. How are you doing? Do you want to talk about it? He did not want to talk about it. Nothing would get better just because he talked about it.

Worst of all were the ones who tried to say something unique and creative. Whatever they said, it came out stupid or offensive. At least you’re not too young, you’ll get over this, you’ll be fine.

Justin had wanted to shout, “Don’t tell me I’ll be fine!” He’d wanted to put that on a tee shirt, violent blood-red letters on a black shirt—maybe that would have gotten the idea through a few dense skulls. He wanted a tee shirt that said You can’t help, so just shut the hell up. That would shock everyone who thought he was so even-tempered, such a nice guy.

But he wanted everyone to know what had happened. He wanted the world to stop. The clear sunlit beauty of the desert spring was an offense. He wanted to tear the blossoms off all the flowers.

He couldn’t stay. Everyone had thought that after the funeral, he would go back to Roswell with his grandmother. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t bear her grief layered on top of his own. He’d left a note and his cellphone in the middle of his mother’s desk, in her study, on top of a stack of ungraded tests that he supposed now some TA would have to grade, and cleared out the account that was supposed to be for college, and walked out.

And now he was here. Not anywhere in particular, because he had no idea where he was going. Just here, wherever here was: one nondescript town in a chain of nondescript towns, linked like gritty beads on the necklace of the train tracks. The train conductor had announced the town’s name, but Justin couldn’t remember it now. He didn’t care. He hadn’t cared, when he’d walked out, where he was going. Just away, out, gone. Out of the desert, north and east into a cold country where the gray weather knew how to echo loss. To this grimy street in this nameless industrial town with a cheap bar on one side of the street and a ridiculously gothic church on the other. Was it possible to want sanctuary from yourself?

Stopping, his hands jammed in his pockets and the collar of his jacket turned up against the chill, Justin looked up the church’s wide, curving stairway. It led, in a smooth arc containing fourteen rises and thirteen runs, with a total rotation of . . . just over a hundred and four degrees, up to a pair of great carved doors standing between panels of stained glass.

Justin had meant to go into the bar, get a burger or wings or something. A beer. They probably didn’t card, in a place like that. A beer would be good.

But now there was this church. Somehow, despite its grimy surroundings, despite the smells of hot oil and stale beer emanating from the bar, the church contrived to look solid and honest and perfectly at home. A sudden sharp longing for the hot wind of the desert, for the homey scents of hot concrete and acrid mesquite, closed Justin’s throat. His mother had always insisted he attend Sunday services with her . . . he hadn’t minded.

So, yeah, maybe he was looking for sanctuary. Following a half-felt impulse, he put his foot on the first step.

Then someone opened the door from within, came out, closed the door behind him, and turned, with a jingle of keys, to lock it. Then he turned again, caught Justin’s eye, and paused.

Justin, obscurely embarrassed, took his foot quickly off the step and pretended he had not meant to go up the stairs to those doors.

“Sorry!” said the man. He was a big man, comfortably heavy without actually being fat, with a round good-natured face and an easy smile. He was wearing ordinary clothes: a tan jacket and jeans. Justin wouldn’t have realized he was actually a priest except for the white collar showing at his throat.

The priest said, “I lock up at six unless there’s a late service. I don’t like to, but I also don’t like to find drunks in the sacristy when I come in in the morning! But I can leave it till later just this once, if you’d like to come in.”

“No,” Justin said hurriedly. “No, never mind. I mean, thanks anyway, but it doesn’t matter.”

“It’s no bother,” said the priest, and, looking at him closely, added, “Or come back to the rectory, if you like. I’m not much as a cook, but I was just going to heat up some baked beans, make toast, fry some ham. And there’s a cake. I didn’t make it; don’t worry about that!”

Justin felt his face heat. “You rescue runaways? That your thing? Because I’m not—”

“I know!” the priest said quickly. “You don’t look like you’re down to your last dollar, son, but, see, you do look like you might do with an hour of friendly company over buttered toast and baked beans. You’d be doing me a favor, believe me! I hate eating alone. I was going to walk down to the art show they’ve got set up down by the river, but to tell you the truth, the blues they’ll be playing, not my favorite. Do join me. I’ll do the talking if you don’t want to. You’ve probably noticed I don’t mind the sound of my own voice. Good thing for a man in my line of work, don’t you think? There’s plenty of ham. Spiral cut,” the priest added in a coaxing tone. “Honey baked. And the cake’s coconut.”

Friendly company for an hour sounded unexpectedly good. The company of a priest who liked people but didn’t know anything. That sounded . . . like a not-terrible idea. And supper didn’t actually sound bad, either. He gave the priest a narrow look. He seemed like a decent guy. Probably the man just genuinely liked people. Justin could usually tell. “Coconut, huh?”

“Beautiful thick frosting,” the priest assured him. “The rectory is just around here . . .” he gestured to the right, where a narrow alley led back and around the church.

Justin took a step after him. “You invite everyone in for supper, do you? Isn’t that kind of risky? Father,” he added belatedly.

The priest smiled back over his shoulder. “Mark. Father Mark. Yes, well, a nice young man like you, why not? Life’s too short to worry about every little thing, don’t you think? So tell me, are you on your way to someplace, or away from someplace? Don’t answer that if you don’t want to. Right, here we are.” He shoved open an unlocked door in a small brick-fronted house, indistinguishable from all the other buildings along this street except for the small stained glass panel set in the door and, beneath a shuttered window, an ugly concrete window box, empty of flowers in this chilly country where winter lingered into what ought by rights to have been spring.

The door opened right into the rectory kitchen. The smell of baking ham rolled out to meet Justin before he even set foot on the steps, overcoming his last reluctance, and he followed Father Mark up onto the narrow porch and into the house.

The kitchen was cramped, but bright and scrupulously clean and filled with good smells. The promised cake, one thin slice already missing, was four layers tall and frosted with great swoops of coconut icing. It stood on a platter in the middle of a butcher block counter that divided the kitchen from the small . . . not really a dining room, Justin decided. The little odd-shaped nook was neither formal enough nor large enough to deserve the name. But there was room for three or four people to sit around the little table, if they were friendly. A barred window above the table looked out into the alley. Justin wondered who would put a window where it would look out into nothing but an alley, but maybe there was no better view anywhere in this city apartment. And the window did let in the light. The last rays of the setting sun turned the dingy brick of the opposite building a warmer shade of red and almost made the alley attractive, in a cramped sort of way.

“Silverware’s in that drawer, napkins over there, plates up there. You want coffee?” asked Father Mark. “Tea, milk—whole milk, two percent’s terrible stuff. Tastes like water.”

“Does it?” Justin’s mother had always bought two percent. Justin took silverware out of the drawer, mildly surprised to find it was real silver. His mother had said silver was her one totally unnecessary luxury. She’d said everyone was entitled to one totally unnecessary luxury . . . he was struck with a sudden vivid memory of sitting with his mother at their huge dining room table with a can of polish and all the silver spread out between them. He had complained about having to polish it. He’d said it wasn’t his totally unnecessary luxury. His mother had said he didn’t have a luxury yet, so he might as well enjoy part ownership in hers.

He asked quickly, to block the memory, “If two percent tastes like water, what does skim milk taste like?”

“Diluted water,” the priest said promptly. “Here, let me just grab the can opener. You like canned beans, I hope. I love ’em. They’re sweet, sure, but baked beans are supposed to be sweet. Wish I had some nice crisp bacon to add to ’em, but who can think ahead that far? Good thing they’re tasty like this.”

Justin’s mother had always cooked beans from scratch. She’d made New England baked beans sometimes, but never too sweet. He couldn’t remember whether she’d added bacon to her beans. It seemed wrong that he couldn’t remember. He said, “Sure.”

Father Mark gave him a swift, assessing look, but said only, “Want to slice the bread? It’s good. Whole wheat this week. One of my parishioners bakes it for me. Wonderful woman. Bakes bread every Sunday, brings me three loaves before mass. Bakes for the bereaved, too.” He paused.

Justin looked at him.

“Bereavement does leave its mark on a person, I find,” the priest said gently. “It’s different for everyone, of course, but somehow there’s a look to it. You learn to spot it. Your father, was it? Mother? Girlfriend? Don’t answer if you don’t want to.” He turned away, busying himself with the ham rather than looking at Justin.

Justin didn’t intend to answer, but something about Father Mark’s calm neutrality made it possible for him to say, “My mother. I never—I never knew my father. But my mother—” he stopped, and then couldn’t go on.

“Hmm. Supper first, do you good to get yourself on the outside of some of this ham. You can tell me about it—or not, up to you—after cake and coffee. Toaster’s right over there, butter in the fridge. My mother, now, she passed away nine, ten years ago. Cancer, poor woman. We all knew her time was limited, but even when you know it’s coming, it’s somehow still a shock. And then when the struggle’s over for the dying, it’s just starting for the bereaved, isn’t it? You think you’re going to get used to it, you know, but you don’t, exactly.

Justin had been listening, half hypnotized, to this easy flow of talk. He hadn’t even begun to decide whether he found Father Mark’s words offensive or comforting, or to decide whether he might actually stay in this warm, plain, cramped kitchen that was nothing at all like his mother’s kitchen, let this priest talk to him, maybe even answer. The first batch of toast popped out of the toaster and Father Mark was just saying something about butter . . . and something hit the door, shattering the little pane of stained glass and shaking the whole door in its frame. Justin turned, butter knife in one hand. Father Mark turned, too, holding the little pan of baked beans he had just been putting on the stove, his round face blank and startled.

Then another blow broke open the door and flung the shattered remnants of wood and glass into the kitchen, and a monster shouldered its way through the doorway.

In that first instant, Justin thought it was a bear. It was huge like a bear, with a massive head. It had a shaggy pelt and heavy shoulders and powerful limbs, and when it reared upright, it lifted paws armed with long black claws that might have been a bear’s. But it wasn’t a bear. The fluid way it moved made it look almost like a big cat, a lion or something, but it sure wasn’t a cat. It looked a little like a dog, a mastiff maybe, but too big and not right. Its glowing orange eyes weren’t like the eyes of any natural animal, and its fangs, showing as it snarled, were black as obsidian.

Justin threw the toast at it, and then, more sensibly, the toaster, which slammed into its face and made it flinch and roar. But the roar wasn’t any sound an animal might have made: it was almost like a laugh and almost like a curse, and it held intelligence as well as fury and hatred.

The monster came down to all fours and lunged forward, reducing the counter to splinters with the swift blow of one foot, sending the cake to smash in coconut-cream ruins against the opposite wall.

Father Mark threw the pot of baked beans at the monster. He was shouting something, cursing—no, praying. The monster turned aside in its rush at Justin to slash at the priest, and Justin took the one step necessary and stabbed at it with the butter knife, only then realizing he might have grabbed the much longer and sharper bread knife instead, but it was too late. The monster snarled and whirled back toward him and Justin flung himself back, crashed into the table, and fell. He rolled to get under the table, and a second monster forced its way through the broken doorway, and a third behind that one, which was such total overkill it almost seemed funny—someone was shouting and someone was screaming and the monsters were snarling, vicious high-pitched ripping snarls like nothing on earth—

Yet another monster flung itself through the window above the table, hurling the bars aside in twisted ruin as glass exploding across the kitchen. It landed on the table, leaped to the floor, and instantly tore savage black claws through the throat and then the belly of the one reaching for Justin. Black blood sprayed everywhere, so hot it scalded Justin’s arm and hands where it spattered his skin, and then red blood, and somehow when the dead monster hit the floor, it had the head and forearm of a man, obscenely attached to the body of a shaggy bear-like monster. Even human, the face of the dead man was contorted in a snarl appallingly like the expression of the monster. As Justin stared, the body twisted, and the rest of the arm and half the chest shifted jerkily to human form, then part of the pelvis and the other arm.

Above him, the monsters were fighting. Werewolves, he realized at last. He knew they had to be werewolves, instantly recalled flashes of every horrible werewolf killing reported in the past couple years, didn’t want to think what it would be like to be torn apart, ripped up, eaten. They didn’t really look much like wolves, though the one that had come in through the window, smaller and more graceful than the others, looked more like a wolf than a bear. It didn’t seem upset to find itself facing two more werewolves, both larger than itself. It blocked a powerful slashing blow from one of its opponents, knocked Father Mark down and fortunately out of the way, somehow sidestepped a rush from the other monster—it didn’t seem possible for it to evade that attack, not penned up in this tiny kitchen, but between one step and the next, it shifted into human form. A monster had crashed through the window, but it was a slim human youth who slid underneath a sledgehammer blow that should have taken his head off, then instantly exploded back into his massive werewolf form to return the attack.

Suddenly the two larger monsters were crowding back toward the shattered doorway. The smaller one tore claws across one enemy’s back, simultaneously crushing its neck between powerful jaws, and that one collapsed in a fountain of black blood, its body jerking and twisting back into human shape. But the other flung itself sideways, hit the table, and went out the window while the splintered table collapsed on top of Justin.

There was a sudden profound silence.

The smaller werewolf—smaller was a relative term for a creature so much bigger and heavier than a man—turned its heavy, blunt-muzzled head to stare straight at Justin. Its eyes, brilliant yellow, looked like they were literally lit from within by leaping flames. Justin dragged himself out from under the broken table, pushed himself back along the wall away from the bodies, and tried to get to his feet. It took him two tries.

He found he was still clutching his stupid butter knife, but couldn’t bring himself to throw it down, even though he knew what a pathetic excuse for a weapon it was. A butter knife, for God’s sake! He couldn’t understand why the monster had not yet attacked him. Certainly not because he had the stupid knife. He couldn’t understand why it hadn’t killed Father Mark, who was half-lying on the floor, one hand to his head, looking every bit as dazed and shocked as Justin felt. Father Mark was hardly a yard from the werewolf, but the monster did not look at the priest. Its attention seemed fixed on Justin, who swallowed hard and stood still. He was sure that if he ran, it would be on him. Although maybe he could draw it away from Father Mark—

To his shock, a young man stepped through the ruined doorway, glanced around, and came in, striding indifferently past the bodies and the spattered blood.

He was dark and heavy-set, not too tall, probably a few years older than Justin, kind of ordinary looking. He wore black jeans, a plain black tee shirt, blunt-toed black boots, and a heavy glower. He ignored the bodies and Father Mark with a complete lack of interest and showed no alarm at the werewolf that, having killed or chased off the others, still remained in the kitchen. But he raised his eyebrows when he looked at Justin. His disapproving expression deepened.

The werewolf reared up, straightening and dwindling as it—he—took on his human form. He was young, about the same age as the other young man, but other than that they looked nothing at all alike. The werewolf turned into a young man with short-cropped pale hair, icy blue eyes, and a narrow, bony face.

There were none of the agonizing contortions the movies always showed for the change of werewolf to human or back the other way, only one moment a monster stood there and the next a young man. He stood with a kind of relaxed attentiveness, as though he wouldn’t have been surprised at all if more werewolves had suddenly leaped through the window and attacked, but also as though he weren’t in the least alarmed at the prospect. He ignored Father Mark, glanced at Justin with swift interest, and said to his companion, “And where were you, Ethan?”

The dark young man shrugged. “There were two more strays. Five strays, can you believe that? In a town this size?” He looked personally offended, though at what exactly Justin couldn’t guess. He added in a disgusted tone, “About time we got around to this sweep. I took care of mine. I notice one of yours got away.”

This only got a thoughtful stare from the werewolf. Ethan, shrugging, looked away. At Justin. He looked him up and down and said, “And what are you? Besides the lure that brought all those little strays together. You’re certainly unexpected.”

Justin stared at him, too baffled to say anything. He thought he should have a thousand questions, but couldn’t frame a single one. Even if he had dared to ask it, which didn’t seem likely.

“I’ll take care of the one that ran,” said the fair young man. He, too, gave Justin a quick assessing look, though at least he didn’t look actually unfriendly. Then he said to Ethan, “You can stay here. I’m sure you’ll be fine. After all, he’s pure. Plus he has a silver knife.”

There was mockery in his tone, but his look at Justin was almost . . . wary. Which didn’t make sense. Justin looked down at the butter knife in his hand. His fingers hurt from gripping it so hard. Silver. A silver knife. Blunt as it was, maybe it had been a good choice after all, against werewolves. He tried to imagine defending himself or Father Mark against werewolves with nothing but a silver butter knife. The idea was ludicrous. But he didn’t put the knife down, either.

“A pure boy,” said Ethan, his tone contemptuous . . . but there was something else in his tone besides scorn, something harder to read, and his glance at Justin was not scornful at all, but wary, maybe even hostile.

“Oh, I can think of one or two possible advantages,” the other young man said, with a touch of malice. “Aren’t you looking forward to introducing this one to Keziah?”

Ethan laughed, though a little grudgingly. “Well,” he said, and shrugged. “Well . . . yeah, I’d pay money to see that. You can perform the introductions, how about that? I’ll just make popcorn and sell tickets.”

The fair young man grinned, a swift glint of dangerous humor. “Right. So keep him safe, then. I’ll be back soon enough, but there may be more.”

Ethan made a scornful sound. “There’s not a stray left anywhere in this city who’d be stupid enough to come here tonight. We might as well have put a sign up: Ezekiel is here. Yeah, they’ll stay clear. We ought to track the rest of ’em down, but I guess we have more important things to do, now.” He glanced at Justin again, frowning as though he might say something else. But he didn’t. He only stepped over the body nearest the door as though he hardly noticed it, picked up a chair that had been knocked over in the fight, spun it around, and dropped into it, crossing his arms over his broad chest and scowling impartially at the whole room and everyone in it.

The other one—Ezekiel—stepped up on the wreckage of the table, which didn’t look as though it should hold his weight but did, and from there, with a complete disregard for the broken glass, onto the windowsill. Then he leaped out into the dusk. Although it was a young man who had stepped up on the table, it was a huge werewolf who leaped through the window and disappeared into the evening.

So that left only the dark young man, Ethan. Who was probably also a werewolf. And two dead bodies, and a tremendous mess. Justin was afraid to move. He felt bruised and stiff, yet he couldn’t remember either of the dead werewolves actually touching him. He couldn’t remember exactly what had happened, everything had happened so fast—except throwing the toast, he remembered that. Then he remembered having the table fall on him when the fleeing werewolf leaped on it. Yeah, that explained the bruises.

He had just watched helplessly while Ezekiel hit Father Mark and knocked him aside. At least Father Mark didn’t seem to have been hurt. The priest was now moving in a bewildered sort of way, not exactly trying to get up, but more as if he were trying to figure out whether all his arms and legs were still attached properly. Justin understood that perfectly.

“What were your parents?” Ethan asked unexpectedly.

There was an arrogance to his voice, and a barely hidden violence, as though he would be perfectly happy to beat answers out of Justin. But Justin could only stare at him in bewilderment and slowly kindling anger. “What?”

“Your parents!” the young man repeated. “Pure, black dog, human, what?” He looked Justin up and down, his lip curling. “Look at you! I expect you think you’re just so, so special, don’t you?”

Justin had no idea what Ethan meant. Ignoring him for the moment, he moved stiffly to kneel beside Father Mark, helping the priest straighten. Father Mark looked past him at Ethan. At the bodies. And the blood. The black blood seemed mostly to have . . . burned away, somehow. Some of it still smoked, smelling like charred meat and something else. Burned clay. Sulfur, maybe.

But there was a lot of ordinary red blood clotting on the floor. And walls. And . . . ceiling. Dripping. Onto the smashed cake. Justin could smell coconut, behind the thick metallic smell of the blood. He looked away quickly and swallowed hard, grateful he hadn’t had anything to eat after all.

“What—” Father Mark began, but stopped. He passed a shaking hand across his round face and stared again at Ethan. “Who—”

Justin only shook his head.

Ethan shrugged impatiently. “What, are there secrets left now? Tell him, if you want. It doesn’t matter now.”

Justin stared at him.

“Or don’t,” said the young man in a disgusted tone. “You, Father, do not throw up anywhere near me, understand?”

Father Mark looked quickly away from the bodies, swallowing.

Ethan stood up, took hold of one body by the arm, and dragged it away, out the door, into the alley. The body looked heavy, but Ethan hauled it up and dragged it away as though it weighed nothing. Then he treated the other body the same way. He didn’t seem to mind walking right through the blood and . . . the other things. Justin was positive he was a werewolf, too. Not only because of his strength and indifference to the blood. There was something else. He couldn’t exactly say what it was. Something dark and angry that clung to the young man. Justin could see it, like seeing music; just like that. Only this was a lot less beautiful. It was a spiky razor-edged obsidian cloud that seemed almost solid enough to repel and refract the light in the room.

Justin licked his lips when Ethan came back. Then, gathering his nerve, he began, “Somebody could see those—” only then he stopped abruptly, because that would be fine. Somebody could see the bodies and call the police and that would be great.

The young man only shrugged. “It’s dark out. Do you want that carrion in this house? Right, then.” He went over to the ham, resting untouched on the counter by the stove, and cut himself a slice. Then a slice of bread. He added, “Too bad about the cake.”

Justin glanced involuntarily at the blood clotting in the midst of spattered frosting, gagged, and looked away.

“You pure. You’re no different from the rest, are you?” Ethan seemed pleased, for some reason. He piled the thin-sliced ham on the bread and took a bite, watching Justin. “You were staying at that hotel. We found your scent there, when we were hunting strays. You didn’t do anything at all to keep them off you, did you? Can’t you do magic at all? That because you’re a dude, or what?”

Justin stared at him.

“Were you heading for Dimilioc? That’d be smart. But who protected you, before, when you were little? Your mother?” Ethan waited a moment. When Justin didn’t answer, he added, “I’m Dimilioc. You probably figured that out, right? I’m Ethan Lanning. Grayson Lanning is still Master. You’ve probably heard of Grayson Lanning, right?”

Justin shook his head.

“Or maybe not. You don’t know damn all, do you?” Ethan paused again, staring at Justin. Now, for the first time, he looked a little sympathetic. In a way, that was more alarming than indifference or even disapproval. He asked abruptly, “What’s your name, kid?”

“Justin,” Justin muttered. “I’m not a kid.”

“Justin,” repeated the young man. “And what were your parents, Justin? Do you even know?” He took another bite of ham and bread, watching Justin steadily. His eyes were dark, but flecked with gold. There was a heat to his gaze that wasn’t anything Justin recognized. A vicious sharp-edged heat, like anger but different. Something about Ethan seemed almost familiar, but Justin couldn’t have said what, or who, that sharp anger reminded him of.

Father Mark groaned, put a hand to his head, got his feet under him, and heaved himself upward. Justin caught his arm and helped, not that he was strong enough to keep the priest upright if he collapsed again, but he could at least support him on the way down.

“What—” began the priest, as he had before, but stopped again. He leaned against the counter, touched his head gingerly with a hand that still trembled, cleared his throat, looked at Justin, and asked at last, “What were those . . . were they demons? Do you know?”

Justin could only shake his head, but Ethan, smiling with savage humor, said “That’s right, Father. Demons. Don’t worry about it, though; they’re gone now.”

Father Mark and Justin both began to speak and both stopped. Justin was sure they both wanted to ask something on the order of And are you a demon, then? But probably that wouldn’t be at all smart.

Then a sharp crunching sound from outside interrupted them and removed the temptation to ask stupid questions. Justin stood very still, listening. Someone stepping on glass or shattered wood. In just an instant, another werewolf was going to surge into this house, and there was no longer even a door in place to slow it down—

Ezekiel stepped through the doorway. He took in the missing bodies, the pooling blood, Ethan with his ham sandwich, and Father Mark and Justin huddling together in the midst of all the mess and destruction. He didn’t seem impressed by any of it. He merely said, to Justin, “You’ve had time to catch your breath, I hope, because it’s well past time to leave.”

“In a rush, are we?” said Ethan. “You weren’t in much of a hurry about your hunt.”

“I encountered complications.” Ezekiel didn’t even glance at the other young man. He was studying Father Mark and frowning.

Ethan set the rest of his snack aside. “Complications?” And, after a moment, when Ezekiel did not answer, he went on, “Yeah, there’s another complication right here, isn’t there? What do you want to do about the priest?”

It took Justin a moment to believe he’d heard the young man correctly. Then he took a fresh grip on his butter knife and stepped in front of Father Mark, who made an inarticulate sound and began to try to straighten up.

Ezekiel raised a pale eyebrow at him, but said to Ethan, “We don’t need to do anything about him at all. He’s not important.”

“You think Grayson will agree?”

“Yes,” Ezekiel said flatly. “That’s what I think.”

Ethan shrugged. “Whatever you say. If Grayson’s pissed off, it won’t be my problem.”

“Exactly,” said the other young man, and added, speaking now to Justin, “You now. You’re important. Were you heading for Dimilioc?”

“He wasn’t. He doesn’t know anything,” said Ethan. He gave Justin an unreadable look. “Not about himself, not about Dimilioc. He’s completely clueless. Don’t ask me how he’s lived this long without knowing anything about anything, but I’d lay odds he doesn’t.”

Ezekiel tilted his head to the side, regarding Justin with narrow-eyed curiosity. He said after a moment, “That right? Your mother left you so ignorant?”

Justin stared back at him. “Watch what you say about my mother.”

There was a slight pause. Then Ezekiel smiled, thinly but with real humor. “You’ve got guts, kid. Good for you. But, trust me on this, you do not actually want us to walk away and leave you here alone. You do not want that. You may not have to worry about the vampires or their damned blood kin anymore, but you might have noticed that now we’ve got a problem with strays. And you’re Pure. You’re going to draw them like terriers after a little mouse, do you realize that? It does not matter what you do or where you go or how clever you are with magic. You are going to get yourself killed, and until you do, you’re a danger to everyone around you. You understand me?”

“Wow, that sounds scary,” Justin said recklessly. “But I’ve been fine till now, so I don’t know why that should change. You walking away and leaving me alone sounds like a great idea.”

Ethan rolled his eyes. “Why are we arguing? Tell the kid how it’s going to be and let’s get on.”

“Listen, I’m not—” Justin began. At the same time, Father Mark said sharply, “You can’t just kidnap—”

Interrupting them both, Ezekiel strode across the room and closed a hand on Justin’s upper arm. Though Justin brought the butter knife up into a half-hearted guard position, the werewolf caught his wrist as well and twisted with inexorable strength, forcing him to drop it. From mere inches away, he met Justin’s eyes and said softly, “I can do anything I want. You can’t stop me. Can you?”

Justin, furious and terrified, strained, briefly, against the werewolf’s grip. It was like trying to shove against steel.

“And what I want to do,” Ezekiel said, still in that soft, dangerous voice, “is take you to Dimilioc, where, whether you believe me or not, you will be safe. Dimilioc protects the Pure. We really do. But we do not have time to stand here and argue. Therefore you will be quiet and cooperate, or I will kill the priest after all. Which I do not want to do. So don’t force me to it. Do you understand?”

“Now, look, son—” began Father Mark.

“Shut up,” the young werewolf said, without looking at him.

He did not raise his voice, but somehow his quiet tone carried enough intensity that Father Mark stopped almost mid-word. Justin had no idea how Ezekiel did it, but he thought he would have shut up, too, if it had been him. He stared into the werewolf’s eyes. Ezekiel stared back, patient and ruthless.

“You will cooperate,” Ezekiel said to Justin. “You’ll come along nicely. I won’t kill anyone. I swear to you, you won’t be harmed in any way. Nor anyone else. But you won’t try to walk away or make a scene or anything of the kind. No Pure tricks, if you do know any. No magic tangle-you-up nonsense, none of that. That’s the bargain. Understand?”

Justin absolutely did not understand, but he spared a glance for Father Mark. Then he nodded.

The werewolf barely smiled. “Good.” He let Justin go and gave Father Mark a brief look, faintly apologetic. “Justin will be fine. So will you, I expect. Once Justin’s gone, there shouldn’t be much to draw a stray back here. Rather the reverse. Still, you might fix a crucifix above every door and every window, just in case his scent lingers.”

Father Mark squinted at him. “A crucifix. Right. Are you a demon, then, son?”

Ezekiel shrugged. “Only half. Not the half that’s in control.” He beckoned to Justin and turned away, his whole attitude expressing his confidence that everything was going to go exactly according to plan from this moment forward.

Justin hesitated. Then he picked up the butter knife and put it in his pocket, trying to be unobtrusive. He was pretty sure both Ezekiel and Ethan noticed, but neither commented. Justin looked around, feeling lost and uncertain. “My things . . . the hotel . . .”

“Your things are replaceable. You do not want to go back to your hotel just now. Trust me on this.” Ezekiel took his arm in a hard grip that just missed being painful and propelled him easily toward the door and out into the night. Justin’s quick, half-desperate glance back showed him only a rectangle of homey yellow light rapidly disappearing behind him, like the last hope of an ordinary life.

-2-

“It’s a trap,” Natividad said.

She spoke a little more loudly than she’d intended. Her voice echoed within the confines of the van, taking on an unexpected hollow reverberation that made her words sound too significant. Almost like prophecy.

Natividad didn’t believe in prophecy. But even so, she wished Alejandro had not gone out into the dark to survey the territory of their enemies. She wished—though this wasn’t exactly nice of her—that it was Keziah out there instead of her brother. From her slow smile, Keziah, sitting across the van from Natividad, knew exactly how she felt. Natividad could feel her face heat and was pretty sure she was blushing, but she tried to pretend she hadn’t noticed the smile.

Keziah’s little sister, Amira, shivered as though she, too, had heard something fateful in Natividad’s warning. But Keziah only arched one narrow black eyebrow in elegant mockery and said, “Oh, indeed, a trap! Who would have thought it?”

Which was fair.

Natividad had thought everything would get better once Vonhausel was dead. Vonhausel was dead, all the vampires and their horrible blood kin were dead, what could be left to fear? She’d really thought everyone would be safe forever.

She should have known better.

She had never guessed before just how many vicious black dogs might have fled Russia and Eastern Europe and the Middle East and everywhere, driven out by the people they had preyed on for so long. She hadn’t realized, until Grayson explained it, how the very strongest of those black dogs would come here to try to destroy Dimilioc.

Dimilioc had stopped black dogs taking over towns and ruling like kings and eating people—so here, there weren’t any great hordes of ordinary people hunting black dogs with silver bullets. Of course the strongest black dogs would want to take this chance to destroy Dimilioc and establish a safe territory, a place from which they could find ways to re-establish their power even now that the vampire miasma was gone.

Now that she understood that, Natividad wasn’t sure exactly how the very small number of black dogs left to Dimilioc could possibly stop them.

From the moment Natividad realized they’d found the magic of a living Pure woman mingled with black dog shadows, from the moment she had found her trouvez prickling with moonlight as well as the too-heavy darkness of black dogs, she had known these were not ordinary strays. Stray black dogs would attack the Pure, yes. That was what strays did. But keep a Pure woman alive, take her back to the center of their territory? That meant restraint and intention and planning.

That was why Alejandro had gone alone to make a first, careful survey of this quiet-seeming house in its apparently peaceful neighborhood.

Natividad knew her brother was fine. She did know that. She always knew, these days; ever since the moment last winter when, in desperation, she had risked everything to take his shadow and braid it into her magic as a weapon and a shield against their enemies. Even after she had given it back, a little bit of her brother’s shadow continued to cling to her, an impossible thread of darkness woven into her light, which she did not know how to unweave again. She wasn’t even perfectly certain she wanted to be rid of that dark thread. Because now she always knew when her brother was well. At moments like this, it was a certainty she cherished.

She said to Keziah, “I know! But, I mean . . . if this is a trap, shouldn’t we call for help? We don’t need to spring it, you know!”

Keziah tilted her head, considering this. She had curled, graceful as a cat, on the best of the cushions that lined the floor of the van. Her long fingers were linked around one slim drawn-up knee. The heavy braid of her black, black hair and the delicate trembling of her crystal-and-moonstone earrings accented her long throat and the fine-boned beauty of her elegant, triangular features.

If Natividad had posed like that, it would have made her look . . . well, posed. As though she were deliberately and rather clumsily trying to look seductive and sexy. Keziah, on the other hand, just looked like that all the time. Keziah was not an easy girl to like. Though they were getting along pretty well, actually, these days.

Even so, Natividad wished Ezekiel were here instead of Keziah. Natividad wouldn’t have been afraid of traps if Ezekiel had been here. She missed his strength and confidence, and the ironic look that would come into his eyes when he realized Dimilioc’s enemies had laid a trap for him, and . . . she just missed him.

She wondered if he was missing her, too, tonight. And then made herself stop, because that was just ridiculous. Of course Ezekiel, off on his own assignment, would only be thinking about that. He wouldn’t be thinking about her at all. If he knew how often she thought about him, he would probably . . . well, actually, he would no doubt think that was just fine.

Not that she would let on. Ever.

And in the meantime, she had a mission, which she ought to be thinking about. Unless she could get Keziah to agree that they should just slip away without springing any traps that Dimilioc’s enemies had set for them.

Amira shivered again, and Keziah’s expression softened. She put an arm around her little sister’s shoulders, pulling her gently into a brief, careful embrace before letting her go again with a reassuring pat. “It does not matter,” she promised Amira. “Natividad will work her magic, and you and I, we will turn this trap back on our enemies. They will be sorry they challenged us.”

Keziah sounded quite unafraid. Amira nodded, happier. Amira never looked really happy, but that was the scar. It ran from the corner of the little girl’s mouth all the way across her cheek toward her ear. It pulled her mouth sideways, so that no smile could look normal on her face. Natividad had no idea how Amira had been scarred like that—well, no; she knew the cut must have been made with a silver knife, and she suspected someone had cut the child deliberately. She didn’t know for sure. It was just something everyone thought, because Amira was so timid and Keziah so fierce. She hated to think of it. She hoped at least that Keziah had killed whoever had done that to her little sister. But she would never dare ask. Keziah was the last person anybody would ask about something like that.

Keziah and Amira both suddenly turned their heads toward the back of the van, and after a moment Natividad, too, heard the light rattle and click as someone turned a key in the van’s lock. Then Alejandro quietly opened the door and stepped up into the van. Natividad let her breath out with relief.

Alejandro was much taller than Natividad, which was only fair because he was older. But he was also tall simply because he’d gotten Papá’s height, and Natividad took very much after Mamá’s family.

But Alejandro did look very Mexican. Not as much as Natividad, but enough that it was hard to see their father’s American blood in him unless you knew it was there. But their father’s blood was important, because he had been a Toland, from one of the most important Dimilioc bloodlines. That was an advantage Keziah would never be able to claim.

Alejandro soundlessly closed the van door behind him, glanced around at the rest of them, and said without preamble, “This is certainly a trap.”

Keziah rolled her beautiful dark eyes. Natividad said quickly, before her brother could take issue with Keziah’s attitude, “Yes, of course! But what did you find, ’Jandro? Can we just slip away? Or is there a Pure woman here that we need to rescue?”

Her brother, who had been staring narrowly at Keziah, allowed himself to be distracted. He crossed the narrow space and crouched down by Natividad’s side, studying her trouvez. But it showed nothing now but a faint glimmer of cool moonlight. “What did your magic show you?” he asked her. “Something different?”

“It was hard to see,” Natividad said apologetically. “A white dove, in a birdcage made of burning wire. I saw that. The wires break and fly through the dark like arrows. There is dark all around, and in the dark, red eyes burning. Black dogs, watching from the dark. So I know they are watching for us.”

Alejandro nodded. “There is also a feel to that house. A heaviness to the shadows. No stupid young callejero would have such a dense shadow.”

“So there is at least one old black dog there, and this is his pack,” Keziah murmured. Her eyes glittered with anticipation. “I wonder how many black dogs he holds under his mastery? Enough that we will have a real fight after all, perhaps.”

“A hunt,” whispered Amira unexpectedly. Her words were almost inaudible, but her tone was fierce. “A hunt and then fire, Keziah! We should burn the house down, after!”

Keziah gave her little sister an affectionate glance. “A fire, yes. We should burn the house and let the towering flames blaze through the night as a warning to all those who would dream of defying Dimilioc.” She looked at Alejandro, tossing her head in challenge. “That should please Grayson, do you think so?”

Alejandro grinned in answer, a fierce expression that was almost a snarl.

Black dogs! Natividad thought. She knew she should have expected this attitude. She couldn’t say anything that might be taken as an attempt to be mandona—bossy. It was very important to let black dogs think they were making all the decisions about everything. So she said quickly, before everyone could get too carried away, “We don’t have to spring it, you know. We could just slip away. Come back later. With Ezekiel, maybe. With everyone. Think of springing this trap with Ezekiel and Thaddeus and everyone!” There, that idea should appeal to black dog ferocity.

Both Keziah and Amira looked tempted, but Alejandro gave Natividad a long look, so that she saw at once he was trying to find a way to tell her something she wouldn’t like. He said at last, “There is your little palomita blanca. I saw her, too.” He glanced at Keziah. “The black dog there in the yard, he is outside the house to be seen. He is saying, Come attack me.” He looked back at Natividad and went on with obvious reluctance, “He has a woman there, dead. A Pure woman. Her blood is thick there on the earth beneath the beech tree. So you see he wants to draw attack. But your little dove, she is the house. A bebé, only little, maybe three years old, maybe four. I think that woman was her mother. I think the little one is Pure, like her mamá. She seems to be alone in the room, but—” he shrugged. “All the house is dark except for that one bright room. Of course she is bait.”

Natividad closed her eyes briefly in sorrow for that little girl, torn out of her safe childhood by monsters, her mother no doubt murdered in front of her eyes. It was horrible. It was the worst thing that could happen. She shuddered.

Alejandro touched her cheek, a light, careful touch with the backs of two fingers. His hand was almost but not quite a human hand. His fingers were a little too blunt, the bones of his hand a little too broad, the fingernails a little too much like claws. His shadow was very close to the surface, too close for him to touch her easily. But he saw she was upset, and he tried. Natividad wanted to take his hand, but she knew he needed his shadow to be strong right now.

She rubbed her palms across her face instead, and let her breath out. She could mourn for that little girl and her loss later, when everyone was safe. She said determinedly, “We have to get that girl out. But this trap—”

“We will break it and take the girl safely,” Alejandro assured her. He went on, speaking now to Keziah, “The room I saw is bright, all the windows open to the night, anybody can look in and see the little one.” He shrugged, a scornful gesture. “They think we’re fools.”

Keziah said coolly, “Or maybe they think we are a different kind of fool. Maybe they think we will say, This is a trap. And so we will know that there is an ambush, that there are more than a few strays. Only there is really something else also. Another layer to this trap that we will not see until it is too late.”

Natividad blinked. She hadn’t thought of that, and she knew Alejandro hadn’t. She was suddenly glad Keziah was part of this mission. Most black dogs just flung themselves straight ahead into any battle, but Keziah was twisty in her head. Even if she was angry and distrustful and a little bit scary, she was also always thinking, always clever.

Keziah stood up, smooth and elegant like a movement from a dance, and set her hands on her hips. “We must spring this trap,” she said to Alejandro. “How else will we know what teeth it has? You can spring it. Then Amira and I will break all the teeth out of the trap and kill all our enemies.”

Amira ducked her head and smiled around from behind her sister. Despite the child’s nervousness, it was not a shy smile, but a predatory one. It was the smile of a black dog who is watching her enemy make a mistake. Keziah glanced down and ruffled her sister’ short-cropped hair, a gesture that was almost human-fond. It was gestures like that that made Natividad want to like Keziah.

Alejandro grinned. “We will do that,” he said. “But I think you are not used to working with a Pure girl.” He glanced over at Natividad. “You tell us,” he said. “What can you make, that will blunt the teeth in this trap?”

Natividad nodded quickly, knowing they were committed. “Even if we don’t know exactly what the trap is, I think I can make something. I’ll use my maraña mágica as a base and make something that will fold over and around you, something to confuse the eyes of our enemies. But I don’t know if I can make it big enough to work for Keziah and Amira as well as you—”

“That does not matter,” Keziah said smoothly. “We shall slip the eyes of our enemies without your little magic tricks, Pure girl.” She gave Alejandro a mocking look. “You should go out before us, as I said. Your little sister, she can give you this magic thing. Then you can go out to puzzle our enemies. When all eyes look toward you, Amira and I will come out and kill them all.”

“That isn’t exactly what I had in mind!” Natividad protested, but Alejandro was smiling a dark, fierce black dog smile. He liked the idea, she could see.

“Make your mágica,” Alejandro told her. “We do not have so much time before dawn, not so much we can think of many different ideas. But this is clever. This will work.”

Natividad threw up her hands. “Black dogs!” she said, like a swear word. She pulled her maraña mágica out of her pocket and shook it out, stalking away toward the front of the van to get her little silver knife.

A maraña mágica was a tangled net of light, looking more than anything like a spiderweb of luminescent silk. It had neither mass nor shape, but, flung across the path of an enemy, it was very effective in confusing his steps. Natividad held her maraña mágica up and studied it.

Pure magic was defensive. She knew that. Everyone knew that. But, her mother had taught her, some kinds of defense could be aggressively defensive.

She knew what she wanted. That was important. She didn’t have her mother’s little flute, nor any aparatos, the tools used by the Pure to capture and weave light. But she had her silver knife and she had this maraña, and she knew what she wanted. Biting her lip in concentration, she began to cut one strand here and another there, freeing just a little bit of moonlight, tying the strands back into a different shape. Some of the light would be lost. She couldn’t help that. It was good that the maraña need protect only Alejandro; she didn’t think she could weave its new shape wide enough to cover two black dogs, certainly not three . . . her eyes burned. She hadn’t blinked in some time, she realized. A child’s mistake. She should know better. She blinked hard and rubbed her face, tangles of luminous spidersilk wavering in her mind’s eye.

“Well?” Keziah said behind her. “The night is passing. How much longer will your magic take, girl?”

Natividad glanced up, embarrassed, but Alejandro, scowling, was already shouldering Keziah back out of the way. Keziah was showing her white teeth in a smile that had a lot more temper in it than humor. So was her brother.

“Anyway, it’s done!” Natividad said hastily. She didn’t think they would fight, not now, not with real enemies out there, but sometimes black dog tempers were unpredictable. She held out the insubstantial web. It clung to her fingers, rippling gently in an unfelt breeze. “It’s a turn-the-eye spell,” she explained. “If I did it right, it is! It’s to confuse anybody looking at you. It won’t last long, your shadow will tear it up, but . . .” she hesitated, then went on more softly, “Maybe it might help that you have that tiny bit of my magic wrapped up in your shadow.”

Because that was the other lingering effect of what she had done, of what they had both done: she might have the thinnest possible thread of her brother’s shadow braided into her magic, but Alejandro also had a just a trace of her moonlit magic clinging to the edges of his shadow. That shouldn’t have been possible, either, but it seemed permanent. At first Natividad had been afraid her magic might hurt him, like the touch of silver. But he did not complain, and eventually he had told her he liked knowing where she was all the time, so she had stopped worrying.

He nodded now, not seeming surprised or offended, and she went on, “Even after you change, even if they look right at you, they’ll see something, but I think they won’t see you clearly. I think they will have difficulty seeing exactly what or where you are.”

“Very good,” Alejandro told her. “Very clever.” He brushed the back of his hand lightly across Natividad’s cheek, smiling at her with human warmth only a little harshened by black dog ferocity. “You will see,” he said. “I will use your magica and confound all our enemies. And then Keziah and Amira will kill them all, except for those I kill. And we will take your little paloma and go. She will be safe at Dimilioc.”

“Mostly safe,” said Keziah, smiling.

But Amira said seriously, “I’ll keep her safe.”

There was a little pause. Keziah quit smiling. “Yes,” she said at last. “Yes, of course you will, habibti.”

Natividad was not supposed to risk herself. Grayson had been very stern about that. But of course she couldn’t just hide in the van, because then what if the others needed help?

She had her trouvez, which probably wouldn’t be much protection, but she also had her cross tucked down under her shirt, a cross made of copper and zinc with a single thin silver wire wound around it. It wasn’t the silver that really mattered. What mattered was that the cross was hers. She’d made it herself, infusing it with light and a bright-burning clarity of intention, but along with the silver, she’d also wound a thin tracery of dense shadow around and through it.

Pure magic wasn’t supposed to be contaminated with black dog magic. By any reasonable understanding of Pure magic, that sliver of darkness ought to ruin any working she did. But she’d done it anyway, drawing on the fragment of Alejandro’s shadow that clung to her now, and on intuition and the half-remembered teaching from when she’d been very little. If it worked the way she’d meant it to, that cross would keep black dogs from realizing she was here, or at least from being able to tell exactly where she was. Black dogs hated the Pure and tracked them whenever they could. Well, not Dimilioc black dogs who’d had the Aplacando worked on them, but ordinary strays. But they shouldn’t be able to track her, not now, now so long as she wore this cross. She thought it would work.

If she’d made it right.

Even with her special cross, even though she knew Alejandro was a good fighter and Keziah was deadly and even little Amira was very dangerous, Natividad was scared. They knew this was a trap, they expected an ambush, they were ready for it, so it shouldn’t be very dangerous really, but she was scared anyway. It was a good thing she didn’t believe in premonitions.

But it was an ugly house. It felt wrong. Too big, too square, dull yellow brick instead of the red more common here in the northeastern part of the United States, and a steeply-sloped gray shingle roof that looked dingy above the white-painted trim. The yard, guarded by a wrought-iron fence about as tall as Natividad, was also square. Although the yard was big enough, it looked small because of the bulk of the house and the single huge beech tree that loomed in one corner. A beech was not a bad tree, though not as good for magic as oak or pine. But this one felt wrong somehow, as though it cast too heavy a shade from its leafless branches.

The black dog lounged beneath the beech, seeming sated with his night’s hunt, with blood and death. He was massive, even for a black dog. He looked very dangerous, but Natividad wasn’t worried about the enemies she could see.

Natividad could glimpse the body of the Pure woman sprawled beneath the tree near the black dog, but from her place, hidden well back away from the house, she couldn’t see the body in any detail. She was grateful for that.

Far more visible was the interior of the house, that one room on the lower floor glowing with light and a false promise of warmth and safety. Even from where she crouched, Natividad could see a high-ceilinged room of generous proportions, pale yellow paint on the walls, decorative white trim like sugar icing along the ceiling and along the top of the wide fireplace. A wide open doorway led away to the interior of the house.

The room was filled with furniture, but it all looked uncomfortable: upright, rigid couches and matching chairs, all upholstered with cream or tan or cream-and-tan stripes, with narrow arms and legs. But in the chair farthest from the window crouched a little girl, and even from way across the yard and on the other side of a brick wall, Natividad could tell she was Pure.

She looked back at the black dog, but she couldn’t tell whether he expected attack, whether he guessed it was coming right now, whether he was part of the trap or just part of the bait.

Then his head lifted suddenly, and she held her breath.

At first even Natividad wasn’t sure the movement she was seeing was Alejandro. Her brother was still in his human form when he came through the gate, but the maraña mágica she had remade draped across him and above him, half floating in the slight breeze, its indistinct edges confusing his outline so that he looked both dim and strangely outsize. As though his shadow had pulled mostly free from his body and rode above and around him. As though, Natividad realized, the threads of her maraña had tangled up with the edges of his shadow and pulled it loose. She bit her lip, leaning forward. She hadn’t intended to do anything like that, but things got strange when you used slivers of black dog magic mixed in with ordinary Pure magic. It wasn’t like following a technique you’d learned from your mamá, and she from hers, all the way back for hundreds of years. Though if her magic was hurting her brother, it apparently wasn’t enough to stop him.

At least the enemy black dog seemed confused by Alejandro’s indistinct shape, too. He was on his feet now, his head low, black fangs showing as he snarled, wisps of smoke curling upward from his jaws. But he hesitated, and then Alejandro leaped forward. The shadow that surrounded him seemed to sink down into his body as he moved, and at the same time spread outward, a very strange thing to watch. Half disguised by the strange rippling magic of her maraña, his bones contorted and his back broadened and bowed. She could see that the hand that struck the cold earth was blunter and larger than a human hand, bear-sized, clawed. Where that hand struck the ground, the earth smoked. Tiny flames whispered up from the dead grasses, dying in the damp breeze. The smoke rippled, caught up in the shreds of her maraña, pulled into a swirling veil that streamed sideways in a wind that wasn’t anything physical; a wind, Natividad thought, that blew from one world into another, or from life into death. It looked like that: unearthly and scary.

Alejandro snarled, a savage ripping sound. He looked so strange. The shifting insubstantial veil of her maraña blew around him and above him, shredding into darkness and starlight, pulling the edges of his shadow in strange directions.

The other black dog didn’t seem anxious to close with him. He reared up, threatening Alejandro with long black claws and powerful jaws. Alejandro swung wide to the left, trailing tatters of light and shadow, and a long slender arrow flashed past him, drawing a line of silver fire through the air. The arrow punched right through Alejandro’s indistinct looming shape, flew ten more feet, and buried itself in the wide trunk of the beech tree. The fine silver line it had drawn through the dark followed it down like the tail of a falling kite, rippling into graceful curves along the ground, and Natividad saw it was actually a silver chain, leading back into the dark where she, with her ordinary eyes, couldn’t see. She pressed her hand over her mouth to stifle a sound of dismay. It was far too easy to see how a weapon like that, a harpoon or something, might be used against a black dog.

Alejandro roared, but he didn’t sound hurt. He sounded furious. His shadow rushed up and out, filling a huge space around him, and Natividad realized that her maraña must have done exactly what it was supposed to, fooled the eye of his enemies, thrown off their aim so they had missed. At least, with their first harpoon. She was sure they must have others. No one would prepare a weapon like that and only have one harpoon—

Natividad’s maraña, stretched far past its limits, shredded at last into a memory of misty light and dissolved into the air. Alejandro’s shadow poured down and into him, condensing all at once as though sucked inward by a powerful vacuum, and her brother bowed under the pressure of it, collapsing involuntarily back into human form. A second harpoon flashed directly over his back as he crumpled to the ground, and Natividad couldn’t suppress a short, terrified cry because if a weapon like that hit him now, in human form, it could kill him.

She crouched frozen with indecision, knowing she needed to do something, right now, or those people would shoot Alejandro again and this time they wouldn’t miss. He was on his hands and knees now, shaking his head, she could see that he was starting the change again, but he wasn’t going to be fast enough and, Madre de Dios, that other black dog was right there now, he was going to kill him, and she couldn’t think of a single thing she could do to stop it—

Keziah seemed to materialize out of the night behind the enemy black dog. Natividad had forgotten all about her. Distracted by Alejandro, no one else seemed to have guessed she was there, either. That had actually been the plan, Natividad remembered now. She had forgotten all about that, too. But Keziah clearly hadn’t ever been distracted by anything. Even in black dog form, she wasn’t nearly as big as the one threatening Alejandro—but she was very fast. She tore claws across her enemy’s spine before he even knew she was there and whirled to meet two other black dogs who hurtled from an upstairs window.

Natividad thought of the harpoon gun and looked anxiously that way, but she couldn’t see anything. It was too dark. The night was filled with ripping snarls and savage low grunts of effort, but all these black dogs and no one had even set anything on fire, at least not enough to see by, it was ridiculous. She wished Alejandro or Keziah had a real gift for bringing fire, but they didn’t and apparently none of their enemies was especially strong that way, either.

The moon had already set, and it was just a sliver tonight anyway. But she cupped her palms together and poured starlight and the memory of moonlight into her hands like water, and then flung the gathered light out across that house and the yard. It was like trying to illuminate a whole big room with one candle; it was like trying to read by the light of the new moon. And without a pentagram or circle or anything to hold the light, it would last only a few minutes. But at least for those minutes, she could see a little.

Someone was dead over by the harpoon gun, she could tell that at once; a crumpled, discarded body. Two other bodies sprawled in the yard father away from the gun. All of them were human now, which meant they were definitely dead.

The light she’d made glimmered up brightly in one last ripple of illumination, and went out. Without it, the darkness seemed absolute.

“Wonderful,” Natividad muttered. “Perfect.” She blinked hard, waiting for her eyes to adjust, vividly aware that any black dogs nearby would be able to see her just fine. At least the wall was so broken and rough it was easy to climb, even in the dark. She was afraid a black dog she couldn’t even see coming would tear her head off, and then Alejandro would kill her. But someone had to get that harpoon gun before their enemies reclaimed it.

She wanted to jump off the wall, but if she did that she would probably break her ankle. That would add so much to this night. She climbed down carefully. Then she ran across the yard toward the abandoned gun. Her skin prickled with the certainty that a black dog was going to leap out of the dark and tear her apart, but nothing happened, except the fight going on over by the now-burning tree.

The gun was bigger than she’d expected, longer than Natividad’s whole arm from elbow to fingertips. It was heavy, so heavy that she had to hold it cradled in both arms. And loaded; the deadly silver point of another harpoon gleamed in the starlight. She could not immediately understand how to fire it. The trigger was obvious, but there were all kinds of other bits she didn’t understand, and she couldn’t tell whether just pulling the trigger would shoot the harpoon or whether there were other things you had to do first.

It wasn’t just the harpoon to worry about, either. A silver chain lay in disordered loops alongside the gun, hanging down in a heavy curve when she lifted the weapon off the ground. Not pure silver. She could tell from the feel of it. An alloy of some kind. But there was enough silver in that thin chain to give a black dog a lot of trouble.

It was a scary, scary weapon. Not for itself, though it was scary enough that way, too. No, it was a lot more frightening for what it implied. Natividad looked down at the dead man lying nearby. She couldn’t see his face. She was grateful for that. It felt wrong to be glad he was dead. But he’d tried to shoot her brother with a harpoon, pin him down with a silver chain. She was glad.

Somewhere near at hand, a black dog roared. Somewhere farther away, but not too far, the shrill tones of sirens cut through the night at last. Natividad hefted the heavy harpoon gun and hurried toward the lighted window.

The little girl seemed to be speechless with terror, or at least speechless. She stared at Natividad with huge eyes, crouching in her chair with her feet drawn up under her and her hands gripped together in her lap. She looked to be three or four years old, but she had delicate bones and fine features, so she might have been older. Natividad could see at last why the child had stayed so still through everything: there was a thin silver collar around her neck, fastened to a chain that was riveted straight into the back of the chair. That was horrible.

Behind her, Alejandro snarled a wordless comment about Natividad’s presence by the window. She settled the harpoon gun in the crook of one arm and buried the fingers of her free hand in his shaggy pelt, leaning against his reassuring bulk for a long self-indulgent moment, glad just to find them both alive and unhurt. So far, anyway. She said, “I’m sure it’s a trap, but I can’t tell how. You hear those sirens?” She couldn’t tell whether he understood her, he often lost language when he changed. Sometimes it helped if she spoke in Spanish, so she added, “No podemos esperar más tiempo. Do you understand? Entiendes?”

He only gazed at her, his black dog stare completely inhuman.

Natividad said, “We can’t wait any longer! We don’t have time to figure it all out. Think of all those bodies the policia are going to find here, ’Jandro! We better not be here when they come! But we have to get the little girl.”

Keziah, sleek and beautiful even in her black dog form, slid by Natividad and leaped through the window. She made no sound when she landed, but black dogs, huge as they were, could be amazingly light on their feet when they chose, lighter than any natural creature. She swung around at once, crouched low and ready to spring in any direction, looking for threats. Her eyes were a fiery deep gold shading to orange, hot with anger and bloodlust, but then she shook herself and straightened and cast a contemptuous look over her shoulder at Natividad, so plainly she didn’t see or smell anything that worried her.

Natividad hesitated, still half expecting another trap to snap closed. But nothing happened, except that those distant sirens got closer.

Amira hopped up on the windowsill and then down into the room, following her sister. Natividad gripped the windowsill with her free hand, put one of her feet on Alejandro’s massive foot, and stepped up and forward as he lifted her. As Keziah had, she looked around quickly, but so far as she could see the room was empty except for the little girl. The harpoon gun dragged at her shoulder. She heaved it up on one of the tables near the window, moving out of the way so Alejandro could follow the rest of them into the room. Though Natividad cast another nervous glance around, it was hard to be too frightened with three Dimilioc black dogs right here in the room with her.

The little girl still looked petrified, though. And no wonder. “It’s fine,” Natividad told her, coming forward and bending to look at the chain. Silver, yes, which wouldn’t burn a Pure girl, but would certainly keep any ordinary black dog from getting her free. Natividad pulled experimentally on the chain, but felt no give in either the chain itself or the rivets or the chair. She frowned. She said out loud, “It doesn’t matter, though, because I can always blood it, and then Alejandro can break it easily.” She looked carefully at the child, who had barely reacted to any of them. She touched her cheek, tilting the little girl’s face to make her look at her. “I can blood it,” she said. “Do you know how to do that? Did your mamá show you? Every Pure girl should know how to blood silver, in case she has a black dog brother. Like you will, bebé, lots of black dog brothers and sisters who will protect you and keep you safe even in the dark.”

Amira growled very quietly, an oddly gently growl. She crowded close to peer around Natividad, her fiery eyes fixed on the little girl.

The paloma blinked, her eyes focusing on Natividad’s face at last and then moving to Amira. She made a tiny sound and shivered all over, but it was not a sound of terror, and she reached confidently toward Amira’s face. Amira growled again, even more gently, and Natividad smiled in relief, patting both little girls at once, the little Pure child and the shaggy-pelted black dog. “Good,” she said, all her relief in her voice. “Good little bebé. You know we’re friends, don’t you? Paloma, palomita, little dove. Your mother protected you until she could not protect you any longer. But she called to us and we came.” Well, not exactly, but it would be better for the little girl to think it was true. She said firmly, “We’ll protect you now. We’ll protect you. Nothing will harm you now.”

“Overconfidence will get you killed,” said a new voice, a human voice without a trace of the black dog growl but heavy with some accent she didn’t recognize. There was a man in the doorway, old, fifty at least, big and bald, with a seamed face and a short grizzled beard and flat eyes. In his arms, he held a harpoon gun. There was a black dog with him—no, at least two black dogs—one loomed behind the man, completely blocking the large doorway that led out to the main part of the house, and another crept forward from farther back, visible mainly because of the heaviness of the dark around him.

But there was another sound, too, not a voice but a sharp metallic sound. Turning quickly, Natividad saw a third black dog in a narrower doorway that led into some other room, a female. That one was a lot older than the others, judging from her shadow, which was extremadamente dense. Her eyes burned with a smoldering crimson fire, her jaw dropped with savage amusement; fangs like obsidian glinted in the light. Next to her stood yet another human man, younger than the first, with buzz-cut dark hair and a pockmarked face and a tense, scared expression. He, too held a harpoon gun, loaded with a harpoon tipped with silver and trailing a silver-alloy chain.

With the man’s first words, Natividad had twitched, reaching for her own harpoon gun—the one she’d stupidly put down on the table near the window, the one now much too far away. She turned again, helplessly, looking for something to do, some way to protect herself and the little Pure girl. Beside her, Amira crouched and snarled. Alejandro, too, snarled a savage threat, suddenly finding a new menace in every direction, unable to get between all of these new potential threats and Natividad. She gripped the shaggy fur at the side of his neck, though it would be impossible to restrain him if he wanted to shake her off. On the other side of the room Keziah crouched low, her head swaying as she measured their new enemies. She wasn’t snarling at all: she was absolutely silent. Natividad had a flashing thought that Keziah was the single scariest black dog in the house, and was terrified the men would think so too, and shoot her immediately.

The older man looked at Alejandro and then at Keziah, then said something in an unfamiliar language filled with consonants. He was staring at Keziah. Natividad understood nothing he said except the name Ezekiel Korte. That was scary, that he knew enough to mention Ezekiel by name, that proved these black dogs were here to destroy Dimilioc. But she couldn’t decide whether the man was saying that Keziah wasn’t Ezekiel or whether he actually thought she was—in black dog form, they were a similar size, and with the clouds of menace rolling off Keziah, she could see someone who wasn’t familiar with either making that mistake.

But there was no time to think about it. The younger man nodded as though to a command and swung his harpoon gun to point at Keziah. The other black dogs were moving, too, which was very scary, and the older man, the bald one, stepped forward and sideways, angling to get a clear shot at Alejandro.

Natividad drew breath to shout or scream, she didn’t know, maybe she should jump in front of her brother, anything to distract the men with the guns, but Alejandro reared up and then thudded down again, both front paws striking the floor hard. The whole house seemed to shake, and the boards under the carpet cracked, but that wasn’t the point. Alejandro was staring with burning eyes at the largest of the enemy black dogs, and that one paused, head down, rumbling in threat and fury but unable to press any attack because, beneath his pelt, his bones were trying to shift.

Alejandro was trying to force the black dog back into his human shape. Natividad understood that at once. That wasn’t something just any black dog could do; it was special. Grayson Lanning could do it, of course, because it was something you needed to be able to do if you were going to be Master of Dimilioc. Alejandro had learned he could do it, too, but he wasn’t as good at it, he just wasn’t as strong as Grayson, not yet, and that black dog was plainly very strong, and in just a second that man was going to shoot Alejandro with a silver-tipped harpoon, which wasn’t going to make it easier.

And then the female black dog snapped her jaws in a black dog laugh, and Alejandro reared back, furious and astonished, as he, too, found himself suddenly pushed hard toward his human form.

Natividad threw her trouvez at the man aiming at Alejandro. It flew through the air, turning over and over, spilling silvery ripples of light. It was just about exactly as much of a threat as though she’d thrown the little hand-mirror she’d made it out of, but it was clearly magical and the man took a sharp step back and shot it with his harpoon. The trouvez exploded into shards of glass and light, slivers flying everywhere—more slivers than seemed reasonable from such a small thing, but it had contained quite a lot of light. Natividad ducked, tucking herself around the little girl, protecting both their faces with an upraised arm; the man with the gun ducked, too. He was cursing, probably as he realized he’d used his harpoon unnecessarily and now didn’t have a working gun, not unless he had a spare harpoon in his back pocket. But he ducked forward and grabbed Natividad’s arm, and suddenly she was clinging to the chair with every bit of her strength, and the little girl clutched her arm, screaming, and Natividad wrapped her hands in the chain, but the man was pulling her away—she couldn’t hold on.

The younger man called out something, Natividad couldn’t understand him, and just then one of the black dogs roared, an enormous sound that changed halfway through to a furious human shout. Natividad couldn’t look, but the grip of the man who held her slackened. She bit his hand as hard as she could, and he cursed and hit her on the side of the head, and the world exploded in fire-edged dark and turned upside down, and then she hit the floor with a graceless thump and someone yelled, and Amira snarled right by Natividad’s ear, and someone was shrieking, a high breathless sound like a rabbit in a snare—that was the little girl, Natividad thought fuzzily, and curled around the man’s legs, trying to trip him.

She was distantly aware of the man cursing. He bent down and hit her again, or she thought he hit her, everything seemed very confused. Then he fell on top of her, and the hot, metallic smell of blood was everywhere. Blood was on her face, in her hair, soaking into the carpet under her hands. Natividad struggled and kicked, trying to get away from the man, and a black dog rushed past her, she didn’t know who, and she tried to wipe blood out of her face so she could see but it only smeared, and the little girl shrieked again. Natividad crawled toward the sound, and a black dog seized her by the shoulder. Natividad screamed, a small, breathless sound, and beat at the black dog with her hands, but it ignored her struggles, picking her up as easily as a dog picking up a kitten, and carried her swiftly into the dark hallway.

Behind her, Alejandro roared. Natividad twisted around in the black dog’s grip as well as she could. It was the old one, the female black dog with the dense shadow. Terrified, Natividad drew a mandala, a crossed circle, with the tip of one finger in the palm of her other hand and then slapped her palm against the black dog’s face.

The black dog hissed like a cat and dropped her, and Natividad only then realized that she might have bitten off her arm instead. Probably the black dog knew she could catch Natividad before she could reach any kind of safety, and the terror of what a black dog meant to do with a Pure girl made Natividad want to scream, but she didn’t have the breath to cry out.

Then Alejandro surged out of the still-distant light, flung himself down the hallway, leaped over Natividad’s head, and, with a grating snarl, put himself between her and their enemy. The female black dog snapped at the air in savage black dog humor and abruptly shifted to her human form. She was old, but not as old as her shadow had made Natividad think, maybe sixty or so. She was tall and bony, plainly strong, with iron-gray hair pulled tightly back and steel-gray eyes. She looked from Natividad to Alejandro and smiled: a thin, profoundly satisfied smile. “What have you done to your magic, Pure girl?” she said to Natividad in a harshly accented voice. “Made yourself into an eretich, have you? But what have you done to this young dog’s shadow? Now I see why the upyr wants you so badly. So you have that use, abomination though you have made yourself. Perhaps he would also like a black dog with a shadow like this one. Perhaps I will offer both of you to him and see what he will offer in return.” She stepped forward, her shadow pressing hard against Alejandro’s, forcing him back into his human form though he fought her.

Despite her terror, Natividad was dying to know exactly what the woman meant, what kind of bargain she had struck or wanted to strike, and with whom, and why, but even if she had dared linger to question her or had thought the woman would answer, she had no chance to ask. Before he could be forced entirely out of his black dog form, Alejandro caught her abruptly up in the curve of one powerful forelimb, whirled, and rushed back toward the fight. Natividad tucked her face against her brother’s muscled neck and clung to him, trying to pretend she didn’t feel dizzy and sick. Her head pounded, and she could still smell the blood, but she actually felt safer running back into a black dog battle than she would have felt facing that woman. She hoped they could just take the little girl and get away from the woman black dog—maybe Amira had got the bebé loose from that chain by now—

Then Alejandro lunged forward and simultaneously skidded sideways, thudded to a halt against some heavy couch or maybe a wall, and deposited Natividad gently on the floor. She knelt up, swaying, one hand gripping his thick forelimb for balance, blinking to clear her blurry vision. The little girl was huddled on the floor behind the chair, the chain a glinting silver line that looped in and out of shadow. Natividad couldn’t tell whether she was hurt, whether she was even alive. On the other side of the room, black dogs snarled and fought—Keziah and little Amira against a black dog bigger than both of them put together. But at least one enemy black dog was dead; ichor spattered the walls, smoking as it burned away, and the body twisted and jerked back toward its human shape.

Then she caught a different kind of movement, the deliberate movement of someone stalking them, and realized the younger man was walking sideways, his harpoon gun half-raised, trying to get a clear shot at Alejandro, or maybe at her. Alejandro gave a crooning growl and stalked forward

“Don’t shoot! Run!” Natividad commanded the young man, urgently. The man, watching Alejandro with trepidation, gave her an appalled look and actually took a step backward. While he was focused on Alejandro, Amira came silently out of nowhere and tore into him from behind. She might be small for a black dog, but she was still heavier and larger than any real wolf. The man went down with a short cry, abruptly ended. Red blood sprayed, bright and arterial, against the pale yellow walls.

Keziah leaped over Amira, pivoted, and leaped again. She snapped at the air with black fangs, and Amira, whirling about, flung herself at a black dog that had just leaped at Alejandro, and then everything was too fast and terrible and Natividad lost any grasp of what was happening.

The female black dog flowed into the room like nothing that had ever been human, two more black dogs at her back.

Alejandro skidded out of the chaos of shadows and violence and glared at her. Flames licked up the blood-spattered walls behind the enemy black dogs. The female opened her jaw in a silent black dog laugh, and even Natividad could feel the weight of her shadow, rising, forcing Alejandro’s shadow back and down—in just a minute, she was going to force him back into human form and then she could do anything she wanted with them both—

Outside the house, the sirens shrilled to a crescendo and abruptly fell silent. The female black dog turned her head, her concentration faltering, and Alejandro’s shadow flooded back into him. But he backed away from his enemy, overmatched and furious.

“Maria, Madre de Dios!” cried Natividad, and, inspired by terror, leapt to her feet, ran forward, wrapped the slender silver chain in the cloth of her jacket, and jerked. The chair groaned, but the chain held.

Then Amira shouldered her aside, caught the cloth-wrapped chain in her jaws, and jerked her head hard to the side. The rivets popped right out of the wood. Natividad snatched up the little girl in her arms just as Alejandro caught both of them up in one massive forelimb, snarling and flinching from the touch of the silver, and carried them both with him on a lunge out the window.

Keziah was already out, and Amira followed them into the yard, empty except for the scattered bodies of their enemies, and over the wall and through the neighbor’s yard, racing back to the relative safety of their van—safe unless the policia or their real enemies had already found it. Natividad would be glad to face the policia as long as she did not have to face that woman black dog. She clung to the little girl and to her brother’s shaggy pelt, and Alejandro swept them all up and over the wall just as floodlights flared to life behind them.

Alejandro stopped and let her find her feet, and she staggered and caught her balance and then stumbled forward, blinking down at the little girl in her arms, the little girl she was going to have to take care of, the Pure little girl whose mother was dead and who had been chained up and used as bait. The girl looked back up at her, solemn and quiet and not nearly as hysterical as she had every right to be. Natividad hefted her a little higher in her arm and whispered, falling without thought into Spanish, “Te tengo. Voy a cuidarte. Tu mamá verá desde el cielo que estás conmigo y que estás segura.”

Of course the child couldn’t understand. But she ducked her head and hid her face against Natividad’s neck. But when Amira appeared beside them, she twisted and reached for her. Natividad, surprised, let Amira crook her forelimb around the little girl and watched as the bebé tucked herself against the young black dog’s neck, holding on hard like a little monkey.

Well, that was fine. Amira was making little crooning noises that made it clear she thought it was great to have a little Pure bebé of her very own, so it looked like a perfect match. Maybe the little one had had a black dog sister, that would explain a lot, but Natividad, her head splitting and the taste of blood still in her mouth, didn’t even care why the bebé liked Amira best. She was just very glad to let the black dog girl take care of her.

She stumbled again, clenched her fingers around her brother’s pelt, touched her face gingerly where that man had hit her, and swore to herself that she was never going to let anybody talk her into one of these assignments again, ever.

-3-

Demons and werewolves, private planes and kidnapping . . . maybe, Justin thought uneasily, maybe he should have screamed for help while they had still been in the terminal. Though there hadn’t been crowds in the terminal anyway: it wasn’t a large airport and the hour had been fairly late by the time they reached it. No one had looked at them twice. Certainly no one had looked over at them and shouted, “Werewolves! Run!” Probably if Justin had shouted about werewolves and kidnapping, he’d just have gotten irritated looks from the few airport staff handy: young jackass playing pranks on his friends.

Besides, Justin hadn’t had time to think things through and decide what he ought to do. They’d gone straight through the terminal and then out a door marked for authorized personnel, no doubt because they turned out to have their very own plane. A little one, but still. What did that say about this Dimilioc, that they had their own plane?

Probably Justin couldn’t have gotten away even if they’d been flying commercial, but he sure didn’t see any chance once they were on their very own private plane.

Even if people who were Pure could do magic. Justin didn’t feel as though he could do magic. He sank warily into the seat Ethan indicated. He didn’t try to do any magic. He didn’t try to get away. He shook his head, then rubbed his forehead gingerly with his fingertips. Probably Father Mark had Excedrin or something, back at the rectory. Justin wished he were back at the rectory, too, and that none of this had ever happened. It was hard to believe any of it had happened. But he thought he could still almost smell blood and coconut.

What did werewolves really want with him, anyway? All this stuff about being Pure. He couldn’t even imagine. And all that about his mother: his mother should have told him about this, his mother should have protected him. Against monsters, he guessed. With magic, presumably. He wanted to be angry at the werewolves for making everything up, or else for accusing his mother of lying about everything, or maybe both at once, though he knew that made no sense at all.

He wished he knew where the werewolves were taking him but didn’t quite have the nerve to ask. Ethan seemed permanently halfway to losing his temper, and Ezekiel was somehow scarier even though he didn’t glower all the time. And it wouldn’t make any difference anyway. But Justin still wished he knew. If the werewolves had a plane of their own, no doubt they also had a secret hideout somewhere where people wouldn’t stumble across it. An island in the middle of the sea, or buried in the ice like the Fortress of Solitude, or in the empty desert . . . the desert would be good. He hadn’t thought he would ever be able to bear the desert again, but now he wished desperately for the wide open country, the powerful blaze of sunlight. It all seemed utterly out of reach, now. As far out of reach as the past.

Ezekiel flew the plane. He taxied around for what seemed a good fraction of forever while muttering to the air traffic control tower, but when the plane finally got into the air, it was obvious they weren’t heading for any desert. Justin wouldn’t have been sure, except that once they were clear of the city lights, it became possible to see the stars. Then it was no trouble to find Ursa Major and Ursa Minor and the North Star, so Justin could be sure they were heading north and east. He calculated the angle, idly, and decided that they were heading about twenty-three degrees north of due east, but he didn’t have a good enough grasp of state geography for that to tell him where they were headed.

It was stupid to be disappointed that they weren’t heading toward the desert. These werewolves had never been going to escort Justin straight to his grandmother’s doorstep and wave goodbye. Probably he should even be glad their secret hideout was somewhere way far away from anyone he knew or cared about. Justin tried to be glad about this. It was about as ridiculous an effort as trying to trisect an arbitrary angle with just a straightedge and compass. Except he didn’t even have to lay out the algebraic proof to be sure it was impossible.

Part of the problem, he decided, was that he was hungry. Though every time he thought about food, he couldn’t help thinking of blood mashed into coconut frosting, and then he felt as though he might throw up. Which would probably be a bad idea. He remembered Ethan snapping, Don’t you dare throw up near me, at Father Mark. At least Father Mark was safe, now. That was something.

But Justin was still starving. He stole a glance at Ethan, sitting across the narrow aisle. The werewolf was glowering out at the dark, his arms crossed over his chest. The glower really did seem to be habitual. Justin looked out his own window again, watching the stars. They didn’t seem to move. Wisps of cloud whipped by, visible as blank patches against the stars. He tried to make out anything of the land over which they flew, but nothing at all was visible, so there must be a heavier layer of clouds below the plane.

Justin decided he hated flying at night. It was like flying through a void. Like flying through nothing. Like flying out of life and into . . . Justin cut that thought off, grimacing.

Ethan glanced over at him, frowning. “How’re you doing, kid?”

Taken completely aback, Justin stared at the werewolf. Then realized he was staring. He could feel heat rise up his cheeks. He looked away quickly. “Fine,” he muttered. He wanted to snap, Why wouldn’t I be fine? I’ve just been nearly killed and threatened and kidnapped! I’m just great! But he didn’t dare.

Ethan uncrossed his arms and set his hands on his knees, frowning more heavily. “You really are safe, you know,” he told Justin. “And, you know, Ezekiel was never going to kill that priest. We don’t kill priests, as a rule. I guess it doesn’t make any difference if you know that now.”

“Sure,” Justin said, not looking at him. He tried to decide whether this could be true. Why would werewolves not want to kill priests? Especially if they were some kind of demon. Half demon. Whatever that meant.

“A word of advice, free: don’t try that sullen attitude on Grayson, kid.”

A dozen hot responses crowded into Justin’s mind, starting with You ass, let me show you sullen! and ending with an even more juvenile Oh, you can take it but you can’t dish it out? He bit his tongue on all of that and said instead, “I’m not twelve. Stop calling me kid.”

Ethan actually grinned, though even that was a hard expression, not completely unlike his glower. “Justin, right,” he said. “Look, you hungry? There’s no service on this flight, but I expect I could dig up some crackers or something.”

Justin realized he was staring again. He said after a moment, “Crackers would be good.” Then, after another moment, he added, “Thanks.”

“No problem.” Ethan levered himself out of his narrow seat, made his way back to the rear of the plane—it wasn’t far, the plane had only eight passenger seats—and began to poke around. After a few minutes, he came back with several packets of peanut-butter crackers and a bottle of water, all of which he dropped onto the seat next to Justin. Then he resumed his own seat, but this time he watched Justin rather than looking out the window. He said abruptly, “You were on the road, obviously. But if you weren’t running toward Dimilioc, then what were you running toward? Or from? Your mother—she’s dead, is that right?”

Justin’s jaw tightened. He twisted the top off the bottle of water with savage force.

“Yeah,” said Ethan. “Thought so. Sorry to hear it.”

He actually sounded sincere about that. Justin studied him. He didn’t look exactly friendly, but he didn’t look like he was mocking Justin, either.

“She must have been Pure, right? How’d she die?” Ethan asked. “A black dog kill her?”

“Yes,” said Ezekiel’s cool, light voice, before Justin could decide if he wanted to answer. “Do tell us all about your mother.” The other young werewolf was leaning in the doorway of the cockpit, watching Justin dispassionately.

“Who’s flying the plane?” Justin asked, alarmed, trying to see around Ezekiel’s slender form and into the cockpit.

Ezekiel tilted his head. “Autopilot. Don’t worry about it. There’s an alarm if anything unexpected happens. And I’m keeping an eye on things from here.”

This sounded dangerous, but Justin was too angry and nervous to worry about it. He asked sharply, hearing the sharpness in his voice but unable to mute his own anger, “Where are we going? How long a flight? What’s Dimilioc, and who’s Grayson—Grayson Lanning, isn’t that right? Did he send you after me?” He couldn’t keep the incredulity from sharpening his voice on that last question.

Ezekiel looked Justin up and down, smiling. “Just one question after another, isn’t it? You already know we’re going to Dimilioc. You’ll find out all about everything when we get there. Tell me about your mother.”

“There’s nothing to tell! She’s dead, she died. She was alive and then she died.”

Ezekiel tilted his head to one side and asked, as Ethan had, “A black dog kill her?”

Justin stared at him. “A flash flood killed her! It was a stupid accident.”

“Could have been worse, then,” said Ezekiel.

The plane bucked and suddenly dropped several feet while Justin was still trying to catch his breath so he could answer this, and Ezekiel frowned and went back into the cockpit.

“Just in time,” Justin muttered, just a little louder than he’d meant to. “Or I’d have had to kill him.”

Ethan grinned and leaned back in his seat. “You wouldn’t be the first to want to, believe me. Can’t kill the pilot of the plane, though. Impractical.”

“Maybe when we land, then,” Justin said. He felt obscurely better, with Ethan almost friendly. He stared at Ethan, trying to see the werewolf inside him. That half-solid spiky darkness still clung to him. A darkness edged with red fire. Even Justin had never seen anything like it. Until tonight, Justin had thought he’d seen a lot.

“I am sorry about your mother,” Ethan said suddenly. “We’ve all lost family. We won’t lose anyone else.” He said this not so much to Justin as to himself, or to the universe. Like a promise, or a vow.

Justin nodded. He watched Ethan, feeling some of his anger and most of his nervousness ease toward curiosity. Maybe . . . maybe he could sympathize with these young werewolves after all. He wondered who Ethan had lost, and how long ago. Someone important, he was willing to bet. And recently. He shook his head. And tore open a packet of crackers, like accepting a peace offering.

It was still the middle of the night when Ezekiel landed the plane at a town called, Ethan said, Newport. Ethan didn’t seem to mind telling Justin the name of the town or that it was in Vermont, hard against the Canadian border. He tapped impatiently on the armrest of his seat while Ezekiel ran through some kind of necessary paperwork with the control tower. He told Justin where they were, and how much longer it would take them to get to Dimilioc, possibly just because he was bored with the wait, which did stretch out.

“Dimilioc’s east, in the Kingdom Forest, about a forty minute drive if the roads are good,” Ethan told him. “Which, granted, they’re not, this time of year.”

Justin nodded, not quite paying attention. He was thinking about Dimilioc. He was both longing to arrive and dreading it. He wanted this interminable night to be over, but he was not at all sure he wanted to meet the . . . boss, king, whatever, of the werewolves. He asked nervously, “Is everybody in this Dimi—Dimilioc thing a werewolf?”

Ethan’s heavy eyebrows went up. “Of course a lot of us in Dimilioc are black dogs, though naturally not all.” He paused, then went on, “And you, Pure as you are, honestly don’t know the right name for what we are, and can’t even pronounce ‘Dimilioc.’ What did your mother teach you?” Ethan sketched a sign in the air, a five-pointed star. “Did she teach you that?”

Justin had no idea what he meant. But . . . it was interesting that Ethan drew geometric figures at him, when he tried to explain about the Pure. Maybe . . . maybe they were right, and Justin really was Pure. Or could learn to be. Whatever that was.

Ezekiel came back, then, regarding them both with chilly amusement. “You’re the one who told me he didn’t know anything,” he said mildly. “I admit it seems unreasonable.” He lifted a pale eyebrow at Justin. “How did you survive to the age of . . . fifteen?”

Justin glared at him. “Seventeen! And, no, I never saw a werewolf before tonight, far less crowds of them trying to kill me for no reason! I can’t help it if you find that hard to believe.”

“Everyone’s going to find that hard to believe,” Ezekiel said drily. He and Ethan exchanged a look, and then Ezekiel tipped his head in invitation. “Time to go. And then Grayson can decide what to do with you.”

“Don’t let him scare you,” Ethan said.

“Good advice,” Ezekiel said, smiling. “Mostly.”

“I’m not scared,” Justin said, and straightened his shoulders, pretending it was true.

“Good for you,” said Ezekiel mildly. “This way.”

The road out of Newport was not bad, though one couldn’t actually call it good, either. Even in the dark, Justin could tell that the countryside here was nothing like the desert. The air was crisp and clean, filled with unfamiliar scents and with a trace of moisture. Not quite rain. Like driving through a cloud. Justin rolled his window down all the way and turned his face into the cold breeze.

Justin had meant to leave behind everything of his former life, everything familiar . . . but it was different when he knew he couldn’t change his mind, couldn’t go home again unless the boss of the werewolves let him go. He might have argued harder, struggled . . . screamed for help in the airport terminal. Maybe he’d been a fool to cooperate with his own abduction. Dimilioc protects the Pure. Right. Whatever the Pure were, and he was by no means sure the word applied to him, whatever the werewolves said. He stared out into the chilly dark, frowning. He wanted to ask again, So, who are you people and what do you want with me, and what gives? But neither Ezekiel nor Ethan would answer. They’d made that clear. They’d say something obscure about Grayson Lanning and Dimilioc and the Pure, but they wouldn’t explain anything.

He glanced sideways at Ethan, lounging beside him in the back seat. The young man had propped his chin on his hand, and gazed out the window, but not as though he had forgotten Justin was there. More as though he were just trying to give him space. Justin wasn’t sure about Ezekiel, but Ethan really didn’t seem so bad. For a werewolf.

Black dog. Whatever.

They went through a little town, white lamps glowing atop wrought-iron lampposts all along the streets. The light shone off white-painted wooden houses with white picket fences, very New England picturesque. Justin would have liked a better look at the town, a look at the people who lived here, so close to werewolves. He wondered what kind of situation he was heading for. Would the werewolves let him visit this town, or would they lock him in some kind of dungeon? He was afraid probably the latter was more likely than the former.

Ezekiel turned north onto an even rougher, narrower road and kept driving, leaving the town behind. They had said at home, when heading out to camp in the less-popular parks, A little bit of soil erosion and they call it a road. It had been a joke. But parts of this road were rougher than even the worst-maintained park roads.

“The winters tear up the roads,” Ezekiel said casually.

Maybe he also read minds. Werewolves that could read minds: wonderful.

“The county people haven’t gotten to these little roads yet,” Ezekiel added. “We like our privacy up here, so we don’t rush to get the roads in order in the spring. But this is a little rougher than we like them. I’ll mention to Grayson that we might give the road crews a little nudge one of these days.”

Justin made a noncommittal sound.

“Nearly there,” said Ezekiel, and added lightly, “Relax. You’ll be fine. Dimilioc protects the Pure.”

He’d said it before, of course. He said it now like a motto, or a mantra. Justin glanced at him sidelong, but said nothing. Anticipation was starting to wear out nervousness. He had to admit he really wanted to know about this Pure thing. And it was harder to be nervous, when everyone kept promising he was safe. Why should they lie, after all, when they had him anyway?

Though ‘safe’ was a long way from ‘free.’ A prisoner in a dungeon could be pretty safe.

Ahead of them, the forest opened up at last. A long curving driveway led away toward a great blankness that was probably a sweeping lawn, and beyond that, a mansion that looked, in the dark, huge enough to house a hundred people. Lamps glowed on either side of the door and some of the windows were lit; enough light, along with the car’s headlights, to see that the mansion was mostly red brick lower down, with lots of white stone above and a sharply sloped red-tiled roof. A wide porch wrapped around most of the near side of the mansion.

“Welcome to Dimilioc!” Ezekiel said, his tone amused. And got out of the car, and opened Justin’s door for him, and stood there looking at him, waiting.

Justin unsnapped his seat belt, but then he just sat there for a long moment, breathing. And he’d thought he wasn’t nervous. That he wanted answers too much to be scared. How stupid. But he couldn’t help it.

“Don’t freeze up now, kid,” Ethan said. He patted Justin on the shoulder. He got out of the SUV and looked at Justin expectantly.

Justin took a deep breath and got out of the car.

Grayson Lanning, a man with heavy features and a hard, humorless face, reminded Justin very strongly of his high school principal. The man had once been a gunnery sergeant in the marines and retained a snap to his voice that could bring even the most obnoxious kid to a full stop in a fraction of a second. Grayson Lanning even looked a little like that principal: only middling tall but broad, the sort of man who could clearly punch a troublemaker right through a wall. A brick wall. Without bruising a knuckle. Justin reminded himself sternly that he’d always gotten along just fine with Principal Dupuy and that there was no reason to expect Grayson Lanning to be worse. Except, of course, that he was a werewolf. Justin was certain of it. That strange kind of sharp-edged spiky darkness surrounded him, just as it did Ezekiel and Ethan.

Ethan looked a lot like Grayson Lanning, in fact. Justin surreptitiously looked back and forth between the older man and the younger. Father and son? Uncle and nephew, maybe? Ethan didn’t have the . . . the depth of the older man. That sense of barely contained power. But Justin thought he might, someday, when he was older.

At the moment, despite the hour, Grayson Lanning was sitting behind a wide desk in an office that looked a lot like a principal’s office, only larger. More like an office crossed with a conference room, because though this end of the room held a desk and file cabinets, a long table stretched off to the right. Paperwork littered the desk, and behind Grayson a file cabinet had one of its four drawers partially pulled out. A television sat on the desk, too, to one side as though it had been hurriedly carried in and wasn’t part of the room’s normal furnishings. The television was turned so that Justin couldn’t see its screen. Its volume was off, but the light from the screen shone on the polished surface of the desk.

A broad-shouldered young man who might have been about Ezekiel’s age, and who looked Hispanic or Indian or something, stood behind Grayson Lanning. He was scowling at Justin—no, at Ezekiel. One of his hands rested possessively on the shoulder of a pretty Hispanic girl who seemed awfully young to be his girlfriend. Maybe she was older than she looked. Or maybe she was his sister. They didn’t look alike, but there was something similar about their cheekbones, maybe, or their eyes. The girl, too, was looking at Ezekiel. Justin glanced sideways, curiously, and saw that Ezekiel was gazing back at her, his expression unreadable. Even as he watched, though, Ezekiel looked deliberately away from her, bowing his head a little as he shifted his attention to Grayson Lanning.

Justin glanced back at the girl, but she, too, was now gazing at Grayson. Off to one side, a stocky boy leaned against the table. This one looked to be about the same age as the girl, and a blind man could see that he had to be her brother. He stood with his hands shoved in his pockets, staring with intent curiosity at Justin.

Justin was surprised to see no one in the room who was closer to Grayson Lanning’s age. It was like seeing students in the principal’s office, but on something like equal footing with the principal. Maybe werewolves just grew up fast. Maybe they died young, so there just weren’t a lot of grown-up werewolves.

Although Justin didn’t think the Hispanic girl or her brother were werewolves. Black dogs. Whatever. Neither of them had that spiky darkness clinging to them. The girl was looking at him again now, smiling, an open, friendly smile that he found himself returning. She was wearing blue jeans and a pink blouse. Pink crystal earrings caught the light when she turned her head. She really was pretty. Cute. There was something about her, something silvery and ethereal that became more pronounced when he tried to make sense of it. Something . . . he couldn’t quite make it out . . . it was all smooth curves that tucked away in an impossible Escherian way behind and around her. Justin blinked and shook his head.

But, when he looked past the silvery curves surrounding the girl . . . was that a faint bruise on her cheek, half-hidden by her Hispanic coloring? And if so, who had hit her? The young man with her was a werewolf, Justin was positive, and wondered again if the girl was his girlfriend and whether, if so, she was with him by choice. Surely he had not hit her? But she didn’t look at all cowed or nervous. In fact, her cheerful friendliness was deeply reassuring. She looked like she should be in high school somewhere, texting her friends about homework and boys and the latest teen-girl celebrity heartthrob, Justin Bieber or Josh Hutcherson or whoever. Justin was positive she wasn’t a werewolf.

There was another girl farther down the table. She was half hidden from Justin by everyone else, so he hadn’t seen her right away. But the moment he noticed her, he found himself unable to look away. This girl, maybe his own age or a little older, was striking. Slender and small-breasted. Tall for a girl. Exotic, with huge dark eyes set obliquely in a triangular face. It wasn’t just beauty, though. It was attitude. This was the kind of girl hardly any boy would dare talk to, if she transferred in in the middle of the year. The kind of girl who would cut the top jocks dead if she liked, and step over their bleeding bodies. If she went to school, she would wind up leading either the most popular girls, or the goths. But Justin doubted she went to school. He was sure she was a werewolf.

He thought she looked Turkish or something. Arabic, maybe. He’d known a Turkish girl who had looked a lot like that, only not as beautiful. This girl’s black hair fell in a heavy braid that reached past her waist. Tiny emerald dangles in her ears rang musically as she turned her head. She wore tight black jeans, an emerald green blouse with black lace around the neck, and a scornful expression.

It might have been the scorn that made Justin realize he was staring at her. He looked away quickly.

Ezekiel, behind him, closed a hand on his shoulder and propelled him forward a step. “This is Justin,” he said, his voice smooth and amused. “We found him in Harrisburg, barely a heartbeat before half a dozen strays got him. Isn’t he interesting?”

A pure boy,” said the beautiful girl, her tone contemptuous . . . but there was something else in her tone besides scorn, something harder to read, and her glance at Justin was somehow wary.

Ezekiel smiled at her. “Nice, eh? I knew you’d like him.”

Justin jerked away from Ezekiel, caught his balance, and turned to glare at him. But Ezekiel, now perfectly sober, had already turned toward Grayson Lanning. The boss werewolf. Reminded of his priorities, Justin took a deep breath and refocused his own attention.

Grayson Lanning looked like a boss werewolf. It was hard to meet his eyes, but Justin refused to look away. The man stared at him for a long moment. He said at last, speaking to Justin rather than Ezekiel, his deep voice lending weight to his words, “This is indeed unexpected. What were your parents?”

“He has no idea,” Ezekiel said. There was an edge to the amusement that Justin didn’t understand. “No one has taught him anything at all, it seems. He is perfectly ignorant.”

“Really?” said the Hispanic girl, with obvious sympathy. She shook off the hand of the young man with her, jumped to her feet, and took a step forward. “Justin?” she said. “I’m Natividad. These are my brothers: that’s Miguel and the scary one is Alejandro—”

So, he was her brother after all. Justin wondered why he was relieved. He hardly knew enough about any of these people to feel anything about any of them. Not even a cute, friendly girl. Natividad, Justin reminded himself. That was a different kind of name. He thought he might like it. He thought he might like her.

“Someone hit you?” Ezekiel said to her, his tone unreadable. When Natividad hesitated, he looked at Grayson Lanning with narrowed eyes. “Someone hit her?”

“The situation in Boston proved complicated,” Grayson told him, his heavy voice authoritative but not annoyed. “However, as you see, she was not badly hurt. I have heard her report, and I will ask you to wait for it and make yours now. I gather you decided that bringing Justin to us was more important than completing your mission.”

Ezekiel gave the older man a small, reluctant nod. “We found ourselves facing various complications, too. It was my decision to cut our assignment short and return before visiting Philadelphia. I should probably tell you now: It was also my decision to leave an onlooker alive, though he’d heard my name and yours.”

“A priest,” Ethan put in quickly. “A Catholic priest. Besides, we figured you’d rather have Justin here willing than otherwise.” He clapped Justin on the shoulder and added approvingly, “Justin was going to defend the priest with a silver table knife, if you can believe that.”

“I see,” said Grayson. His tone was absolutely neutral.

“It will be no trouble to go back and kill the priest, if you prefer,” Ezekiel said, sounding perfectly relaxed. “I can fly back tonight, if you think that best. It’s quite likely I could get to him before he’s decided who he wants to tell about what.”

Justin stiffened.

Natividad grinned. “Oh, don’t worry!” she said to Justin. “The Master can’t say yes, do that now, in front of you, because you’d be too upset; and he can’t say no now and yes later because he’d never admit he’d change his mind like that just to keep you happy.”

Grayson Lanning gave the girl a quelling look. “I will make a carefully considered decision,” he said firmly. “As, I am sure,” he added to Ezekiel, “that all of your decisions tonight have been carefully considered.” Reaching out, Grayson turned the little television around on his desk so they could all see its screen.

The sound was still off, but they could see the little shops surrounding a cobbled square, the band stage that had been set up to one side of the fountain, the rows of metal chairs, the kiosks that had been selling beer or soft drinks or whatever. The werewolf, hunting savagely for anybody who hadn’t fled fast enough.

Huge paper lanterns hung from iron poles, casting a soft radiance over trampled artwork and growing chaos. The crowd at the art show had been big enough to create logjams at the entrances to the shops and worse jams at the entrances to the few footpaths that led away from the square, everyone struggling to get through the narrow openings. Some people had fled for safety under the stage, and a few had given up running and brandished chairs instead, or in one case a long broom, trying to defend themselves, or perhaps cover their families’ flight. Whoever was filming was brave, or maybe stupid, because the camera turned and turned again, so smoothly it was clearly still on a tripod, trying to keep the werewolf constantly in sight, with fair success.

The werewolf grabbed an old woman while Justin watched, appalled. It crushed her shoulder and arm in its powerful jaws, dropped her still alive and screaming, and lunged in pursuit of a girl carrying a baby. The girl fell, huddling over the baby, and the werewolf snapped at her without even pausing—blood was everywhere—and another werewolf shot soundlessly across the cobbles and hit the first without the slightest hesitation.

The camera juddered, but then steadied. The werewolves fought. The second was smaller than the first, but much faster. And, of course, instantly recognizable, under the circumstances. Justin turned involuntarily to stare at Ezekiel, who was standing with his arms crossed over his chest, watching the silent television with a critical eye as though prepared to make a critique of his own performance or that of his opponent.

The two werewolves closed and reared up, snapping for each other’s throats, and sprang apart again. The first one, the bad-guy werewolf, was bleeding down the side of his thick neck and holding one forelimb at an awkward angle. The blood was thick and black as molten tar, and smoked. Ezekiel stalked in a circle around him, yellow eyes lit with fury or a savage pleasure in the battle or with some other emotion Justin couldn’t recognize. He was bleeding, too; a long wound gaped on his hip. He limped, but not enough to slow him down.

Behind the werewolves, the man with the broom ran forward, snatched up the baby the girl had been carrying, and retreated. Everyone was retreating, now that Ezekiel had given them a few more seconds in which to get away. Except whoever held the camera, who really must have been suicidal. The camera stayed fixed on the combatants, who closed and broke apart once more. And a third time, and now at last Ezekiel got in a slashing throat blow that nearly decapitated his opponent, which Justin understood only after the fact, because Ezekiel sprang back and the other werewolf reared up, and then its head sort of tilted sideways and kept tilting. The shadows of the paper lanterns swung crazily around so that the very darkness seemed to writhe as the werewolf collapsed to his knees. It—he—was changing back to human as he died, changing not all at once but in a horrible jerky piece-by-piece change that looked sick and awful.

As, Justin remembered, the others had done, too. He swallowed, tasting bile in the back of his throat, determined not to throw up in front of all these people.

On the television, the werewolf that was really Ezekiel shook itself—himself—and straightened. The camera, now with a single stationary target, zoomed in on him. He knew it, too, because he turned his head and stared directly into the camera: even on a small television like that one, his flame-yellow eyes seemed to burn right though the screen and fix on the viewer. Justin just barely stopped himself from taking a step backward. The cameraman hadn’t been unaffected either; the image trembled suddenly as though someone had begun to pick it up and retreat. But then, incredibly, the image steadied again as the cameraman changed his mind.

Black blood dripped down Ezekiel’s flank and smoked on the cobbles at his feet, and his shoulder and front leg had received some raking blow that Justin had missed. The wounds were obvious enough now, gashes scored vividly through his black pelt. He took a step, limping. Then he shook himself a second time. At last he reared up, but dwindled inward upon himself at the same time so that suddenly it was Ezekiel himself who stood there. He wore black jeans and a sleeveless black tee shirt and short black boots. The blood that trickled down his arm now was red, red, red.

“A mere stray bloodied Ezekiel Korte?” said Keziah, with a raised-eyebrow look that said clearly she didn’t believe it.

“It’s a really artistic touch,” said Natividad’s brother Miguel, his tone earnest. He looked at Ezekiel. “Especially the way you keep bleeding after the change. I didn’t even know that was possible. It sure makes you look a lot less scary. Especially because you’re so young. I don’t think you got the eyes exactly right, though. You still look pretty scary—”

Grayson Lanning held up a hand, and everyone shut up.

On the television, Ezekiel limped slowly across the square straight toward the camera. The picture quivered again, but then steadied.

Grayson reached over and turned the sound up.

“I believe he—I think he’s—it looks like he wants to talk,” said a shaky voice. “I hope he wants to talk! This is, this is just an amazing development. Just a moment—let me just get the camera set—” The image trembled once more, then steadied again. The speaker came around the camera into view. He was young and earnest, red-haired, pale enough that his freckles stood out clearly. He was also holding one of the big square microphones the major media always carried. Justin wondered if he possibly thought the microphone could protect him from a homicidal werewolf. He hoped fervently that they weren’t all about to see that idiot newsman torn into little bloody pieces.

But it seemed that Ezekiel really had wanted merely to talk. He made his way straight to the newsman, but held up a hand in a sharp, forbidding gesture when the man started to ask him a question. The newsman had the sense to shut his mouth.

In the image, Ezekiel looked straight at the camera—straight at the viewer. He said in a hard, flat voice, “Dimilioc has a message for all black dogs, in America and across the world. We are still here. Our laws still hold. And this—” his hand swept out in a gesture that encompassed the square—“will not be permitted.” He paused, pale eyes cold as winter. Then he said, “You may hunt deer in the forest. You may hunt javalinas in the desert. You may hunt as you please—but never men. Take this warning. There will be no other.”

There was a deep, silent pause. Ezekiel kept his hard gaze straight on the viewer. The newsman didn’t make a sound.

Then, at last, Ezekiel turned to the young newsman and said, in a tone only marginally less dangerous, “Dimilioc appreciates your cooperation. You may ask one question.”

“Uh,” stuttered the newsman. “Um . . .” he took a breath, visibly collected himself, and asked, “Why do you—why does, uh, Dimilioc, not permit your people to hunt, uh, men?”

That was a good question, Justin thought, surprised. He didn’t think he could have done that well, put on the spot like that. That was an important question, much better than Who are you or What is Dimilioc?

Ezekiel gave the newsman a long, level stare. He was probably deciding what to say, but it looked like he was just so badass. He answered in that same flat tone that made every word sound like it had been handed down by God on a stone tablet: “The war with the vampires is over. Now there are no more vampires. But we do not now wish a second war, this one against men. Dimilioc law has always forbidden black dogs to kill human people.” He looked back at the camera in slow, deliberate threat. “Some might have thought we have spent too much of our strength. Some might have believed we are now unable to enforce our law. Some might have thought Dimilioc destroyed entirely. Any who have entertained such opinions have, however, been seriously mistaken.” He turned with the same deliberation back to the newsman, inclining his head in grave respect. “Are you answered?”

“Uh . . . thank you, mister, um—”

Ezekiel lifted an ironic eyebrow.

“So, if you could tell our viewers—”

Ezekiel turned and strode away. He didn’t run, and he didn’t look like he was in a hurry, but he was moving fast. When he was halfway across the square, he blurred back into his werewolf form, and then he really moved, fast, bounding over tumbled chairs and a wrecked kiosk, and was out of sight in moments.

“Well—” said the newsman. He looked at the camera. The hand with which he reached to adjust the camera angle shook visibly, for which Justin couldn’t blame him. He said, “Well—this is Chris Jackson, NBG News, with the first-ever interview with a werewolf. I’m sure that will give us all something to think about, but in the meantime, I hear sirens, so I think the emergency crews—”

Grayson Lanning reached out and snapped the television set off. “They will repeat that,” he said. His deep, gritty voice was absolutely expressionless. “They have been repeating it without ceasing since eight o’clock this evening. I imagine every station in the country is doing so. Possibly every station in the world. So I am inclined to be less concerned about what one priest might have heard, or overheard. I suspect this may have also factored into your decisions tonight, Ezekiel.”

Ezekiel nodded. “Once the stray got into the crowd on camera, the situation became complicated. I judged it best to . . . put on that show. If you consider I was wrong, Master, I would prefer to discuss the matter in private.”

There was a little pause as Ezekiel met Grayson’s eyes. For a moment that stretched out, neither looked away. Then Ezekiel bowed his head, a tiny movement that mostly involved his eyes, and Grayson said, “No. No, I believe you did well. Both in addressing stray black dogs and in addressing frightened humans.”

“And you got in that bit about the vampire war!” added Miguel, clearly enthusiastic. “That was the best part, because it’s important to remind people they owe us for killing all the vampires—”

Keziah said coolly, “They will never consider that they owe us for anything.”

“Well, to be fair—” began Miguel, but Grayson glanced around the room and everyone immediately fell silent. Grayson said to Ezekiel, “You let that stray mark you. That was well done.”

“Heroes face desperate odds heroically. It wouldn’t have had the same effect if I’d taken him out in the first instant and strolled jauntily across the square.”

“Indeed. It made you look weak, however.”

“Yes, but that could be a plus, though,” said Miguel. Justin was more and more certain the boy wasn’t a werewolf, but he seemed amazingly unconcerned about all this violence. He went on now, still with that frightening enthusiasm, “I mean, anyone who sees that will underestimate Ezekiel. Which means those black dogs in Boston will underestimate him, too, I bet. That could be really helpful.”

“Precisely what, or whom, did our people encounter in Boston?” Ezekiel asked Grayson.

Justin was beginning to be interested in that himself, but before Grayson could answer, Keziah broke in, “You kept your shadow from carrying away your wounds. That was clever: blood is always riveting. But I would not have considered that it could be done.”

Justin was beginning to doubt the girl was from Turkey after all. She spoke with a slight accent which he thought was not a Turkish accent. Maybe Arabic. Or Farsi? He doubted he would be able to tell the difference

Ezekiel shrugged, looking slightly bored. Justin decided he was really starting to dislike Ezekiel’s cooler-than-thou attitude.

“What would you have done if that kid with the camera had asked a question you did not wish to answer?” asked the young Hispanic man. Alejandro. Natividad had said his name was Alejandro. He said, “I can think of many questions that would not have worked so well.”

Ezekiel shrugged again. “I’d have made that statement no matter what he’d asked. He gave me a straight intro, that’s all. But this thing in Boston—”

Grayson checked him with a raised hand. “You did well,” he stated. “Perhaps it was even as well to have such a complication arise at this time. Though we shall now be compelled to fulfill the terms of your . . . one would not wish to say rash . . . promise.”

Ezekiel tilted his head, lifting an eyebrow in wordless query.

“If people are going to find out about you black dogs, it’s important to make sure they find out the right things,” Miguel said earnestly. “So it’s good, how you handled that, only if you’re going to make a threat like that to all the strays, we have to follow it up right away. I mean, once we’ve taken care of those black dogs in Boston. They aren’t ordinary strays, that’s for sure!”

Grayson Lanning gave the boy a quelling look, but said, “Miguel is correct.” He leaned back in his chair and folded broad hands across the desk in front of him. “Alejandro?”

The Hispanic young man took a step forward, glanced at Ezekiel, then turned aside and dropped into a chair. Then he looked back at Ezekiel and said, “There was a trap in Boston. You remember how it was, or how we thought it was. Bold strays, yes, but we knew that. Only that area between Boston and Cambridge, where black dogs seemed little active, where we thought perhaps there might be a Pure woman? We found this woman, and also her Pure bebé, but the woman was dead and the child bait in a trap.”

Justin listened to this with growing alarm. Traps, and murdered women, and children used as bait? He was beginning to think he should have tried much harder to get himself clear of werewolves and anything to do with them when he’d had the chance. He half wanted to declare he was so out of here and walk out, except that he was certain they wouldn’t let him go. And he had to admit, he was also curious. Listening to this was like the reluctant fascination exerted by a highway accident: you didn’t want to see it, but you couldn’t help but stare.

“It was a trap meant for us, for me, maybe for you, we think,” the Hispanic girl said earnestly, with a sidelong look at Ezekiel. “There was a black dog woman there, someone old and powerful. She said something strange to me, something like Now I see why he wanted you, something about making a bargain with someone. I’m sorry! I’ve tried, but I just don’t remember exactly what she said. It was so fast and, and kind of—kind of confused, you know? But of course we’re all fine!”

Justin didn’t understand the way she looked at Ezekiel, like she was worried about him and nervous just being in the same room as him, both at once.

Ezekiel tilted his head, regarding Natividad with a sharply focused proprietary attention. “This woman hit you?” he asked, very quietly.

Justin suddenly wondered whether he might be her boyfriend. That was an uncomfortable idea, though of course he didn’t know the girl, or Ezekiel either, really, so he had no reason to have an opinion about either of them. But he stared at Natividad anyway, unable to imagine a friendly little thing like her being interested in a werewolf. Though it was easy enough to imagine a big bad werewolf being interested in a cute girl . . .

Natividad said earnestly, “You need to be careful, Ezekiel. I know you don’t think anybody can beat you, but they knew your name. And they had human people working with them. And guns!”

This didn’t seem to impress Ezekiel, but Ethan drew a sharp breath and demanded, “Silver bullets?”

“Worse,” said the Middle-Eastern girl, sounding amused. She stood up, a slow, seductive uncurling of long, long legs. She leaned back, arching her beautifully flexible back, and from a sideboard behind her lifted a . . . gun, rifle? Suddenly Justin was looking mostly at that. It was a huge, heavy-looking thing, though the girl held it as though it weighed nothing. Bigger than a rifle. And . . . at the muzzle, was that a . . .

“It’s a harpoon gun,” Natividad told Ezekiel. “With a silver-tipped harpoon! And a silver chain. Imagine being shot with one of those! Or two, and the chains pulled opposite ways so you couldn’t get free. They knew what they were doing, those people, and they weren’t just looking for me. They wanted to take a black dog alive, and they had human allies to do it. Now do you want to laugh?”

Ezekiel put out one hand and touched the silver head of the harpoon very carefully with the tip of one finger. Then he shook his hand, as though even that light touch had burned a little. “Not really,” he murmured. “No.” He looked carefully at the Hispanic girl. “But I certainly shall not forget that bruise on your face, either.” Then he glanced swiftly at Alejandro, at the Middle-Eastern girl. He said in a harder, sharper tone, “Where is Amira?”

The girl smiled, a slow, dangerous smile. “Oh, she is well. You are so kind to inquire. No, that so-clever trap went awry. Natividad was also clever. And I think our enemies did not expect three black dogs. So we know now that Dimilioc has an enemy in Boston, and they know they should not regard us lightly. You will no doubt be pleased to know that we have claimed another Pure girl. Amira is with the little one. The child is very much afraid of black dogs, but not of Amira.”

Ezekiel listened to all this attentively. Then he nodded and looked at Grayson, lifting one pale eyebrow.

“A strong black dog,” Grayson Lanning told him grimly. “A woman. Someone able to draw and control strays, or possibly able to form and hold a true pack. A black dog able to control her black dogs well enough that they may work with ordinary human people. I can think of one woman this might be.”

“The Chernaya Volchitza,” said Ezekiel, not a question. “The Black Wolf of Russia.”

“Just so. Zinaida Alexandrovna Kologrivova,” Grayson added, glancing around at the rest of them. “Anatoliy Ivanovich Kologrivov was Master of The Dacha, before the war. Zinaida Alexandrovna was his aunt. She and Anatoliy Ivanovich were never anything but enemies, but even twenty years ago, she was strong enough to force her nephew to leave her alone.”

“Thos made certain I knew her name,” Ezekiel said. “He said she was subtle and clever, a dangerous enemy, but in some ways an even more dangerous ally. I imagine she would have had close connections to a good handful of the oldest and strongest Dacha wolves. Valentin Nikitich Kologrivov was her cousin, I believe.”

Grayson inclined his head. “Her uncle. When the situation in Russia became untenable for black dogs, she might very well have been able to persuade not only Valentin but others as well to abandon a losing battle. She would have known that we had secured our position here—and she would have guessed our victory had been rather Pyrrhic.”

“Which means it was a trap for us,” Natividad broke in, anxiously. Justin was more and more convinced she and Ezekiel were together, and more and more certain he didn’t like the idea. But he was trying to make sense of all this, remember all these names, sort out who was who. He wondered whom he should be rooting for, if it came to a fight between werewolf factions. Though, all else aside, he kind of thought he might root for the side that the Hispanic girl belonged to, and not the side that had left that bruise on her face.

Natividad was saying, “We only got out of it by luck! And maybe a little because I don’t think they really expected me to use Pure magic the way I did.”

Ezekiel gave her a small nod. “We shall keep you clear of traps in the future, I hope. And now that we know about these harpoon guns, I promise you, I shall be cautious. We shall think of a useful counter. We may well depend on you for that, in fact.” He glanced back at Grayson Lanning. “And Thaddeus? I hope he’s been having a less adventurous time?”

Another name, when he’d already had more than enough to remember. Justin half shut his eyes and repeated all these new names to himself, setting them firmly in his memory.

Grayson inclined his head. “Fortunately, we have had an ordinary report from Thaddeus. He and his team have come across nothing unusual in the Chicago region. An ambitious black dog, yes, with the nascent beginnings of a pack. But that pack has been broken back into scattered strays. We will deal with them when we find ourselves at leisure.”

Ezekiel made a wordless, satisfied sound. “Andrew and Russell?”

“Thaddeus reports no difficulties. They perform well. Their control appears adequate. Of course, DeAnn is with them.”

Ezekiel nodded.

“The master of the little pack was taken alive,” Grayson added. “I am informed that DeAnn performed the Beschwichtigand on him. We may find him a useful asset for Dimilioc, as he was able to hold the beginnings of a pack.”

“More likely he’ll eventually prove a problem for Dimilioc, Beschwichtigand or not,” said Ezekiel, his tone indifferent. “They aren’t all going to be like Thaddeus.”

Grayson shrugged. “You can always kill him, if he proves difficult. Or I will do it, if you are not here.”

This was murder they were talking about—deliberate murder. Bringing a powerful werewolf here and deciding whether or not to kill him. Justin had known they were talking about killing other werewolves, all that stuff about that pack has been broken, but he hadn’t really felt the truth of it until Grayson Lanning said in that same indifferent tone, You can always kill him if he proves difficult.

Or was it really murder when werewolves killed each other? Justin rubbed his hands along his arms, his skin prickling. He didn’t know. He didn’t know anything about werewolves or anything. He felt his own ignorance as though it were a burden he’d carried all his life, never noticing its weight until he suddenly found it pressing him down.

Ezekiel had started to nod with the same indifference, but he paused, his cool blue eyes narrowing. “Where would I be, if not here?”

Grayson gave him a heavy-lidded look. “We have also heard from Étienne. I would not say he has come across anything excessively unusual. However, he is nevertheless encountering some difficulty in re-establishing our outpost in Denver. I had hoped to reclaim our gateway to the west before the end of the year. At Étienne’s current rate of progress, that will not be possible.”

“He didn’t take enough wolves with him,” Ezekiel said, his tone matter-of-fact.

“He took whom we could spare,” Grayson said flatly. “He is strong and experienced, and perhaps one or another of his Lumondiere cousins survived, and will hear he is there and go to join him.”

“In which case, he will establish an outpost of Lumondiere, rather than Dimilioc.”

“Dimilioc, Lumondiere.” Grayson brushed aside this distinction, whatever it comprised, with a flick of one powerful hand. “I actually do not care. I would like to send him one or two more black wolves. But I have none I can spare. I intended to send you—for ten days, two weeks, a month. However long proved sufficient to let Étienne establish firm control over that entire region. But now I do not know. This problem in Boston concerns me. We shall discuss this. We shall discuss all these matters.”

Ezekiel met Grayson’s eyes, then inclined his head in a gesture that looked formal. “At your convenience, Master.”

“Indeed,” said Grayson. He looked thoughtfully around the room, frowning. His heavy, powerful gaze felt like a physical pressure when he turned his attention to Justin. “Now. Our guest.” Leaning forward, he set his elbows on the desk, clasped his hands together, and stared at Justin, who stared back, feeling somewhat like a rabbit under the stern regard of a wolf. Grayson said at length, “A Pure young man is . . . unexpected. One presumes your mother was Pure. What was your father?”

Justin decided he had preferred being ignored. Now everyone was staring at him. Ezekiel, of course, looked amused. Ethan folded his arms over his chest and glowered, as disapproving as he had been right at first. Natividad took a step closer to Justin, looking anxious, her silvery aura following her. She said quickly in a low voice, “It’s fine, you know!” Her brother Miguel grinned and shook his head. Her other brother, Alejandro, the black dog, scowled and looked, for some reason, at the Middle-Eastern girl. That girl, Keziah, tipped one shoulder up in a minimal shrug, her lip curling in a supercilious expression.

“Well?” said Grayson, ignoring them all.

Justin said tightly, not daring to defy him, “My mother was a math teacher. She died two weeks ago in a stupid accident. My father was an IT guy, but he died when I was ten. Of a heart attack, dammit, not a werewolf attack!”

Grayson Lanning began to speak. Justin, suddenly furious, raised his voice and kept going. “I’m good at math, do you get that?” He didn’t say anything about sometimes seeing geometrical impressions superimposed on the world, about razor-edged shadows or curving silvery auras. He said loudly, “I’m good at math and I play chess and I don’t know anything about werewolves except some of you attack random people and some of you kidnap random people and none of you have any right! So I think it’s wonderful that you have this great law to stop werewolves killing people, it’s great you’re ‘cleaning up’ Denver and Boston and everything, good luck with that, but count me out!”

“Natividad,” said Grayson.

The Hispanic girl said cheerfully, exactly as though Justin hadn’t just been shouting, “You want me to show him around and get him settled? I can do that. I can maybe show him some magic, right? And explain about black dogs and manners and everything! Right?”

Grayson made a little gesture concurring with all this, including, evidently, the show him some magic, which had Justin blinking. The werewolf boss only said, “If you would be so kind. Miguel may assist you. Justin will no doubt wish to rest. He may have any suitable room. He is not to leave the house or touch a phone without my explicit permission, however.”

Nodding, the Hispanic boy gave Justin an assessing look. “Yes, sir.”

Natividad gave Justin a bright smile. “You must be starving, at least long trips always leave me famished. And exhausted! I’ll show you the kitchen—I bet there are some cinnamon rolls left. And then you can pick a room, maybe the one across the hall from mine, wouldn’t it be fun to be neighbors?”

Justin stared at her. Natividad smiled back, bouncing lightly, surrounded by her silvery aura. She was plainly happy to show him around. A happy kidnapper. Though it was actually impossible to imagine this girl kidnapping people—impossible to imagine her as a bad guy, even if she lived here in the middle of nowhere with a crowd of werewolves. He ought to be furious with her. It was stupid to let her be all sweetness and charm and just forget that he was furious. That he had a right to be furious. But somehow he just wasn’t. Not at her.

Ezekiel glanced from one of them to the other and frowned. “I’ll—”

“I will—” began Alejandro at the same moment.

“Natividad doesn’t need your help,” Grayson cut them both off flatly. “Ezekiel, Ethan you will both stay; I want your full report. Alejandro, I want you to share with Ezekiel your exact perceptions of that situation in Boston. Keziah, check on your sister and the little girl. I trust they are both still asleep. Inform me if you have any concerns. Natividad, Miguel—” he gave a dismissive little flick of one broad hand and said, his tone taking on surprising undertones of both resignation and humor, “Try to give our guest a good impression of Dimilioc.”

-4-

Even though she was just a bit worried about Ezekiel, who looked tired and strained under his cool pose, and who for some reason seemed to be avoiding her gaze —though maybe she was just being too sensitive, there—but anyway, Natividad was glad Grayson had made sure she would be the one to explain things to Justin. She didn’t know how to explain about Dimilioc and black dogs and the Pure and to someone who didn’t know anything, but she was sure she had better not leave all those explanations to Ezekiel. She didn’t know whether to laugh or shudder in horror at the idea.

But it was fine. Grayson had got everyone else away from them very neatly: not a single black dog was going to be allowed to interfere. That was good. Natividad liked Justin. She didn’t want him frightened or bullied or anything.

She could see that even Miguel might be a little difficult. She knew what her twin was thinking: if a boy could be born Pure, why not him? But of course Miguel must already have thought about the other part of being Pure, the part where Grayson Lanning would set up your whole life for you. Because Grayson would never let Justin go. Probably Justin didn’t even guess about that, yet. Poor Justin. She thought she had better keep him away from Keziah for a little while. A black dog girl, a Pure boy—she didn’t know what to hope for, there. Justin might be very good for Keziah, but would she be good for him? Though, well, maybe. Hard to say.

It was almost funny, the idea of a Pure boy. Except the rest of it was sad, too, and a little bit scary. Imagine never knowing what it meant to be Pure, growing up with no idea about black dogs and cambiadors, the little shifters, or how to protect yourself or, well, anything, really. She wondered how Justin had even lived to grow up when he didn’t know anything. Maybe his mother had been Pure after all. But then why hadn’t she explained everything to Justin?

She glanced at him, the kind of slanted, sideways look that might let her see the glimmer of subtle spellwork. She didn’t stare. That wasn’t the way to see magic, and anyway, Justin must have got enough of girls staring at him in his life. It was the look in his eyes, really. He had nice eyes, sort of a light brown. There was a warmth to them, like he really noticed you. But there was something else, too, a tristeza—a kind of sadness. The sadness of memory and grief. Natividad know all about that, too. She impulsively took his hand, holding fast when he tried, startled, to pull away. Then he stopped trying to pull away and returned her grip. He stared into her face, looking sort of confused, but no longer so lost or scared.

“That’s because I’m Pure,” Natividad explained. From his puzzled, wary expression, she thought Justin didn’t understand this, not really. She said patiently, “I know you must have figured out years and years ago that people just feel better when you’re nearby. Right? You don’t have to do anything to make them feel that way. That’s just you. Because you’re Pure. I bet people just get along when you’re in the room, even people who usually don’t like each other. In your school and your neighborhood and maybe half the whole town if your mother had lived there a long time! Come on, you must have noticed it, everyone being just a little bit nicer when you or your mother were around?”

Justin looked like he didn’t know what to say. He said slowly, “But most people are nice, most of the time. At least in Los Alamos. At least where I lived. But the neighborhood was just like that, the city was just like that. It’s beyond far-fetched to think I—or my mother—” he hesitated.

Natividad shook her head. “No, but didn’t you ever think the news from other places seemed different? That the people everywhere else seemed . . . meaner?”

Justin shook his head, but not as though he disagreed. As though he were trying to fit this new idea into his picture of the world.

“You feel the same thing in me, because I’m Pure, too,” Natividad told him. “You can tell, if you pay attention. We do the same thing for black dogs, only more, and more on purpose. That’s what’s important. See?”

There was a different kind of wariness in Justin’s expression now. He said slowly, “This Pure thing. I’m guessing that’s the . . .” he lifted his hands, sketching a swooping, flowing figure like waves or wind or something.

Natividad blinked, confused. “The . . . ?”

“You don’t see it? Around yourself, or . . . around me?”

“I see you’re Pure,” Natividad said cautiously. “It’s a kind of light, but not really.”

“Huh,” said Justin, not sounding very happy.

Natividad tried to look reassuring. “Whatever you see, I bet it’s because you’re Pure. We’ll figure it out. You’ll be fine,” she promised him, maybe a little recklessly. “You’ll be perfectly fine. I’ll help.”

“You’re a sweet couple,” Miguel put in impatiently. “So let’s not just stand here all day! Ezekiel will be along eventually, you know, and you wouldn’t want him to get the wrong idea, right?” Her twin caught her other hand and pulled them all away from the closed door and down the hallway, toward the kitchen.

Natividad let him, though she glanced over her shoulder, too, just in case Ezekiel did come out of the Master’s office. But he wasn’t there. She ignored a twinge of regret.

Justin was plainly not sure if he should be worried or not. “You and Ezekiel?” he asked, his tone wary.

“Oh, well!” Natividad said. “It’s complicated.” She glared at Miguel, who had prudently ducked out of punching range.

“Hey, when it comes to black dogs and the Pure—” Miguel began.

“Shut up!” Natividad told him. “It’s not funny!”

“Maybe a little bit funny?” said Miguel. “Think of him and Keziah!”

“That Arabic girl?” said Justin, jerking to a halt. “This is amusing, for some reason?”

Natividad glared at her twin. “Pendejo!” She said to Justin, “My brother is an idiot! Nobody’s thinking anything about you and Keziah. Come on! Please?”

Justin set himself more firmly and refused to move.

“Sorry!” said Miguel, to him and Natividad both, and added kindly, “Once we get you settled in the kitchen, I’ll find you some ibuprofen, if you want. You look like you could use some. Look, Justin, everything’s fine, really. No one’s going to throw you to Keziah. I think there’s soup in the pantry, if you don’t want cinnamon rolls.”

Justin yielded enough to take a step, but he said firmly, “I think what I really want is an explanation of all this that makes sense.”

“I don’t know if there’s much chance of that!” Natividad said. “But we’ll try. And you’ll be better for breakfast and a nap. Anybody can see you’re tired and hungry. Come on. Here we are!” She pushed open the door, revealing the wide kitchen, and gave Justin a little push toward the tall stools that stood by the longest counter.

The kitchen of Dimilioc House was still too big a room, and still chilly with steel and granite, but since Natividad had taken it over, it had also acquired touches of warmth: a big terra cotta bowl on one counter held winter squashes, and another smaller one was heaped with dried chilies and heads of garlic, and overlying the scents of soap and silver polish was a faint fragrance of cinnamon.

“Cinnamon rolls!” said Natividad, producing them with a flourish. “Breakfast first, then bed, right? You’re safe,” she added earnestly. “Really, Justin. No one will ever do anything to hurt you.”

“Right,” said Justin, skeptically. “Dimilioc protects the Pure. Ezekiel said that.” He didn’t reach for the rolls.

“Well, we do!” said Natividad. “You, too. You’ll be Dimilioc, too. You already are, really. Grayson would never throw you out now.” She didn’t say that Grayson would also never let him go. She perched on a stool, put her elbows on the granite countertop, rested her chin on her folded hands, and gazed at him, considering. “You know it’s true. Because I said so, and you know I’m telling the truth. Isn’t that right?”

Justin stared back at her. After a moment, he said, “I don’t believe any of this.”

Natividad knew by his tone that he did. She gave him an encouraging nod. “You don’t know any magic, but you’re still Pure and you still know what’s true. I can teach you the magic—” for a moment she was daunted, thinking about that. She, teach somebody else magic? That seemed . . . presuntuoso. Presumptuous.

But someone needed to teach Justin things. Really fast. Just as fast as he could learn them. She looked at him, suddenly worried. Maybe boys couldn’t learn Pure magic even if they were born Pure, maybe that’s why his mother hadn’t told him anything, maybe that’s why he didn’t know anything. That would be . . . that would be very disappointing.

But that didn’t make sense, because if he was seeing weird swoopy things, that probably was him seeing magic. She hoped it was, anyway. Besides, anybody could teach circles and stars and things, and anybody could learn them. Or at least, if he could learn those, then he could probably learn the rest.

He didn’t have to learn everything at once, anyway. Complicated things like the Aplacando could be left for later, if he just learned to protect himself.

“You’re staring at me again,” Justin told her. It wasn’t a protest. More a warning: I see you’re worried.

“Was I? Sorry.” She liked him, she decided. He was angry and scared, but after all he had a right to be angry and scared, and he didn’t try to hide it from her. She liked his honesty. She said, “You know, the Pure are always girls?”

“I think I figured that out, somewhere in there.”

“Yeah,” said Miguel, making a mock he’s-so-dreamy face at Natividad.

Justin ignored Miguel, thankfully. He picked up a cinnamon roll at last and began to unroll the spiral of sticky, glazed bread. He said after a moment, “My mother made cinnamon rolls sometimes. Like these. Better than you could buy in stores.” He stopped suddenly.

Natividad nodded in sympathy, guessing at the part he wasn’t saying. At the way cinnamon rolls smelled like home. Like childhood. Like being sure of where you were, who you were. She could see he didn’t want to look at her. She thought he probably didn’t want to look around at the huge, unfamiliar kitchen, or think about where he was. About the home he’d lost. She understood that perfectly. “Our mother . . . Our mother’s gone, too.”

Justin gave her a quick look. Then he fixed his gaze back on the unraveled cinnamon roll and asked, “What is it, with werewolves and the Pure?”

Natividad paused. It was a slightly fraught pause. She couldn’t help that. “It’s complicated,” she said at last.

“Not really,” said Miguel. He slid into his pedantic voice, the one that meant he was going to explain things in more detail than anybody really wanted. “The Pure are born to black dog families, right? Did you know that much? No? Well, it’s true. St. Walburga got that started way long ago, back in the Dark Ages, you know. She did some kind of spell, at least according to Dimilioc histories.”

“It didn’t work the way she thought it would,” Natividad put in. “Mamá told me she wanted to cure this woman’s baby of being a black dog before she was even born.”

“It worked. I mean, the baby wasn’t a black dog, was she?” Miguel gave Justin a thoughtful look, probably trying to gauge how he was taking this. It was actually pretty hard to tell, but Natividad was impressed that Justin wasn’t visibly balking at the idea of saints and spells.

Miguel shrugged and went on. “The Pure might have been born black dogs, only they’re not, you see? They’re completely free of the black dog shadow. Demonic things can’t get a grip on them. They’re Pure, right? Only there aren’t very many Pure babies born, only girls, and not all the girls, either, not even if their mother is Pure. It depends on what their father was, and what the grandparents were, and everything.”

Justin’s eyebrows rose. “You’re saying it’s some kind of genetic thing?”

“Yeah, but with a magic twist to it that complicates everything. Dimilioc’s got these records—anyway, never mind. I can explain it later, if you’re interested, but the part that matters, see, is the Pure, they can help black dogs keep their shadows under control. It’s not just the big, flashy stuff like the Aplacando. Well, it’s that, too. But you Pure, you just calm everything down. Just by being there.”

“Ah,” said Justin, his tone very neutral.

“And if a Pure woman has a baby, if the baby’s a black dog, he’ll have a lot of control over his shadow, a lot more than if he had a normal human mother. Way more than if his mother were a black dog. That’s what Dimilioc wants. Sons with strong shadows and a lot of control, and Pure daughters.”

“Ah,” said Justin again. “Like breeding dogs.”

He sounded like he might be getting angry. Natividad thought he had a right to get angry, but hoped he wouldn’t. She laid her hand over his, as though he were a black dog and she wanted to calm him down. He looked at her for a long moment. And sort of past her, or at the air around her. She asked tentatively, “Are you seeing your . . . wavy things again? More than before?”

“It’s like when you graph a function,” Justin said. “A polynomial of any even degree, say, with a limited domain—” he stopped, probably realizing that he’d left both Natividad and Miguel behind. He ask Natividad, carefully, “You don’t . . . see geometry? Geometric shapes?”

“Um . . .” said Natividad, trying to imagine what this might even mean.

“Squares and circles and things?” said Miguel, sounding intrigued.

Justin shook his head. “Not like that. Not like drawing on paper. Like—” he sketched that swoopy, curvy thing again. “It’s like an even-degree polynomial, but . . . bigger, and more diffuse, and . . . kind of wrapped into itself. Silvery, for you.” he said to Natividad. “It’s different for a werewolf. Black dog. All spikes and edges.” He shuddered slightly. “Worse than an odd-degree polynomial, because it goes off in weird directions that look like they ought to cut you up.”

“Magic as math?” Miguel said, sounding fascinated. “Geometry as magic?”

“It’s just—” Justin shrugged. “It’s just something I see. People do see things when they think of numbers, sometimes. Colors or whatever. I’ve heard of people seeing shapes when they taste things. It’s called synesthesia. But it’s not magic.” He stared hard at Natividad and said in a lower tone, “I never thought it was magic.”

“Maybe it’s not,” said Natividad. “I never heard of anything like that. But if you see curvy silvery things around me, and black spiky things around black dogs, you are seeing magic.” She thought about this. “You see things when you do math? I wonder if . . . I wonder if, when you do math, you’re also doing magic? That might . . . explain kind of a lot.” Like how he could be alive even though he didn’t know anything. The spirals and circles and mandalas and things you drew when you were working magic, weren’t those a kind of geometry? She wondered what kind of protective ward a . . . an even-degree polynomial might make. Whatever that was. She said firmly, “I’ll show you some magic, and you can try it, and maybe you’ll see shapes, and maybe you won’t, but it’ll work either way, I’m sure it will! Want to try?

Justin nodded, though he looked as though he might not be quite sure. Then he laid his hand over hers and some of the tension eased out of his face.

“Watch it, Justin,” Miguel said, his tone friendly but serious at the same time. “Ezekiel got there first.”

Natividad reached across and punched her twin on the shoulder. “It’s not like that,” she said, and muttered, “Tonto,” not exactly under her breath.

“Ezekiel might think it is,” her brother said, leaning out of range, and added to Justin, “Natividad will be like a sister to you, I expect.”

“Miguel? Ibuprofen?” Natividad said, in her very firmest tone.

“Right,” said Miguel. “Ibuprofen. Sure. Be right back.” He slid off his stool and sauntered away.

“That’s better, isn’t it?” she said to Justin, “He’ll take a moment, finding it. But don’t mind him. I’ll tell him to leave us alone if he bothers you. Ezekiel’s not a problem, I promise.” She hoped this was true. It had better be true. But Ezekiel . . . “It’s complicated, me and Ezekiel,” she said finally. “Look, don’t worry about that, there’s no problem anyway, truly. Let me show you a little bit of Pure magic. Something you can use right away—something you can use any time.” And if he couldn’t learn it, or if his shapes got in the way, they could worry about that then.

Justin looked at her, wary of either the suggestion or the change in subject.

“This isn’t scary demonic black dog magic,” Natividad promised. “You’ll like this. It’s even geometry, I guess.” She drew a star on the granite countertop between them. A five-pointed star embedded in a pentagram, the way her own mother had taught her. The star glimmered with light, the tip of her finger leaving a luminescent trail as she traced the star. “Peace,” she said out loud. “Que haya paz en esta casa. Let there be peace in this house.” She took her hand away. The star continued to glimmer, faintly visible to a sideways glance.

“You see?” she said to Justin. “It’s not just the shape, though. It’s what you want to do. That’s why you say it out loud, just to make sure you’re clear in your head.”

Justin, staring at the pentagram, didn’t answer.

Miguel, coming back with a bottle of ibuprofen, set it down on the countertop with a little click and went to find a glass and fill it with water. He said over his shoulder, “You see anything weird? I don’t see anything at all. Sometimes I can feel magic, but this whole house is wrapped up in so much Pure magic, some of it hundreds of years old, it would take something a lot bigger than that for me to feel anything different. Here.” He set a glass of water down in front of Justin. “Take three,” he advised. “I know it says two, but three is safe. Unless you have ulcers or something. I looked it up once. You don’t have ulcers, do you?”

“Probably, after tonight,” muttered Justin. But he looked amused. He had relaxed a little now, as Natividad’s star spun peace into the room. After a moment, he shook three ibuprofen out onto the palm of his hand. He took them all at once, then leaned his elbow on the counter and studied Natividad’s pentagram.

“You see it?” Natividad asked, trying not to sound anxious.

“It sort of . . . extends in strange directions, doesn’t it? Like an Escher drawing.” He nudged at it with a finger.

“Escher?” said Natividad. But she didn’t really care. She was just glad he could see the magic, even if he did see it in a weird way.

Justin turned his head to the side, studying the pentagram from the corner of his eye. He said absently, “That’s . . . that’s very . . . um . . .”

“If you can see that, you can draw one of your own,” Natividad said firmly, though she wasn’t quite sure. “You draw them on stone or glass—windows are good.” She tried to sound matter-of-fact, as though she’d never doubted for a minute that he would see her pentagram. As though she didn’t doubt at all that he could draw one of his own. “Hard, cold surfaces hold the magic best.”

Justin traced over her pentagram with the tip of his finger. “I don’t . . . it doesn’t . . . it sort of folds away into the countertop. Huh. Is it going to fade?”

“Sure. Eventually. The ones on stone last better. You just draw them over. Layers of stars, generations of women laying them into the stone of this house . . . You’ll learn to feel them, even when you can’t exactly see them. Or,” she added, “maybe you’ll always be able to see them. Want to try making one of your own? It’s fine,” she added. “No one will ever mind if you put a star someplace. I mean, this is Dimilioc, right? Black dogs everywhere, right? You can hardly lay down too much peace!”

Justin traced her pentagram again. “I sort of get the shape, but the rest of it . . . what if I do it wrong?”

“Either it’s right or it’s not there at all. You can’t do it wrong,” Natividad assured him, and then blinked, hearing her own words echo in her memory, a needle of grief and confusion. Her mother had said that to her. You can’t do it wrong. Natividad had believed that all her life. You’ll do it right or it won’t work at all. You can’t do it wrong. Only . . . only that had been before she had found out there was another way to work Pure magic. She hadn’t thought of that before. That what she’d discovered might be a way to work Pure magic, but work it wrong.

This didn’t seem the moment to mention such doubts, though. She said instead, keeping her tone encouraging, “Just trace it out lightly. Don’t think about it, though. Think about being calm, about everyone being calm. No anger, no fear. Peace. Peace in your star. Peace in this house. You weave the peace into your spell, and it spills out, but only very slowly, do you see?”

Justin sat with his hands braced on the countertop, as though he might suddenly shove himself backward, away from the counter. But he looked interested. Miguel, casually uncoiling a cinnamon roll and eating it a bit at a time, utterly ordinary and unconcerned, might have had something to do with the Justin’s willingness to trust Natividad: it was impossible to believe she was asking him to do anything hard or risky or weird when Miguel looked so completely uninterested. Natividad wasn’t sure Miguel was doing that on purpose: her twin brother could be very manipulative, an important skill for an ordinary human living surrounded by black dogs, but this would be subtle even for him.

“Try it,” she encouraged Justin. “Just . . . sort of think of it sideways, and do it.”

Justin looked at her for another minute. Then he tentatively touched the countertop with the tip of one finger, squinted—it wrinkled his forehead up in a very cute way—and quickly traced a star. He did it like a baby, sketching a number “4” and then completing the star with two more lines. All the interior lines interfered with the flow of magic through his star, and he didn’t know he should bound the star with a pentagon or circle, so the magic he called into the star flowed away almost immediately. And he didn’t say anything about peace in the house, didn’t frame what he wanted to do at all. Nevertheless, the lines he traced glimmered briefly to life, and Natividad’s skin prickled with the touch of Pure magic.

“Oh, good!” she said, vastly relieved. “I mean, I didn’t explain enough, so it wasn’t the best way to do it, but it was fine, you did it fine, did you feel that? You must have felt it, right?”

Justin didn’t answer. He was rubbing the tips of his fingers together, looking uneasy but pleased. He said, “It didn’t fold up right. I think I get it, though. It’s like a circle.” He drew a quick plus-sign on the countertop, touched his fingertip to the center of the sign, and a circle flickered into place—an instant mandala. Justin lifted his hand away from the table, looking pleased. Then he glanced up, saw Natividad’s astonishment, and his smile faded. “Is that wrong?”

“Wrong?” said Natividad blankly. “It was so fast! How could you draw a circle without actually drawing a circle?”

Justin looked back at his mandala, his forehead creasing. “I—it’s just a circle. Circles are easy. They have very simple equations, you just have to know where you want the center and what you want the radius to be—” he stopped, shrugging. “I mean, circles are easy. I used to—” he stopped. Then he said, in a different tone, “My mother used to do that. Only she put the origin right in the middle of our living room and gave her circle a radius of a thousand feet. I—she said—I don’t remember what she said. I thought she did it for fun, to show me a really big circle—” he stopped again, cutting the last word off short as though he didn’t trust his voice. He was blinking hard, too, and he suddenly looked crushingly tired or as though his headache had become crippling, or both.

Natividad said gently, “I think we know how she was keeping you safe. And I think she was teaching you to keep yourself safe, even if she didn’t explain. Maybe she didn’t know. Maybe she was like you—good at math even if she didn’t know ordinary Pure magic.” She paused, then added, “You’re really tired, I know, Justin. And you have a lot to think about. You can pick any room you like along this hall and just move in, they’ve all got sheets on the beds and towels and things. I don’t think Ezekiel let you stop for your things, did he? Ezekiel, right?” She rolled her eyes, deliberately lightening the tone, trying not to let him see she was worried about him. She slid off her chair, and held her hand out to Justin.

He moved slowly, getting up. And he didn’t say a word. But he took her hand willingly enough, she thought, and let her lead him out of the kitchen and toward the stairs.

Justin picked the suite directly across from Natividad’s without really seeming to notice anything about it, not much to her surprise. It had a nice big bedroom and a separate office, plenty of space for one person, but that wasn’t why she showed it to him first. More importantly, it had the lightest stamp of character from its lost occupant: it didn’t shout of loss and grief. It might almost have been a suite in a hotel. It was all neutrals, with a taupe bedspread and brown pillows on the bed, and a taupe couch and a couple of matching chairs. The office held just bookshelves and a very simple desk of glossy dark wood.

An interior suite, neither room possessed windows. Natividad thought that might be a plus as well, though she didn’t really think Justin was likely to climb down from a window and dash madly into the countryside. He looked like he was out on his feet, and no wonder. It wasn’t just Dimilioc and everything. She knew very well how grief could rise up and swallow you, even after you thought you had it under control.

“We’ll be just across the hall here,” she assured him, for the second or third time. “Just knock on my door if you need anything. You’re perfectly safe, you know. Just sleep till you wake up, and don’t worry about anything!”

“Yes. Right. Yes,” Justin said vaguely. He had moved across the room to look in the bathroom, opened the closet door to glance in at whatever it contained, and now leaned on one arm of the heavy couch. He rubbed his hands hard across his face, though, and then gave Natividad a sharper look. “I’m a prisoner here, right?”

Natividad didn’t want him to be scared. She began, “No, not at all—” just as Miguel said, “Yes, more or less.” So Natividad glared at her brother and said to Justin, “Right at the moment I’m sure Grayson won’t want you leaving the house, but when you know more and learn enough to protect yourself and everything, that’s different, right? You’re not a prisoner, anyway. Your door doesn’t lock, you know, except from the inside! You can check it! Anyway, you’ll be fine! Don’t try too hard to think about things tonight, and just knock on my door if you wake up and want anything, or just need to talk! Bueno—good night!” She drew Miguel firmly out of Justin’s room with her and shut the door.

“Poor kid,” Miguel said after the door was closed, but very quietly.

“¡Pobre niño! Apuesto que es mayor que nosotros. Y tu de seguro fuiste una gran ayuda. And you were sure a big help,” Natividad said tartly. “All that about Keziah and everything!”

Miguel shrugged. He said, following Natividad into Spanish, “Si tratas demasiado de tranquilizale, vas a asustar a la gente. Si alguien te está vacilando contigo, que eslo peor que puede pasar? Alguie va a hacer commentarios sobre él y Keziah; más vale que lo haya oido como broma, primero.”

Natividad rolled her eyes. “Right, because I always feel better when someone teases me. Sure.”

“You do, though. You know it’s true: if someone’s teasing, how bad can it be? Somebody’s going to make comments about him and Keziah. He’d better have heard it as a joke first, and you know it, gemela.”

Natividad caught her brother’s hand and dragged him across the hall and into her own room. There she flung herself down on her bed and waved Miguel toward the window seat. She said in English, “Him and Keziah! I don’t think so!”

“Well, I hope not,” Miguel said, pressing his hand to his heart and miming being prostrated for love. “It’d break my heart.”

“Hah. Stop clowning. Everyone knows about you and Cassie.”

Her twin grinned at her. “Every man dreams of a harem—”

Natividad threw a pillow at him.

Miguel caught it and tossed it back. He said more seriously, “You can bet it’s the first thing everyone will think of—including Keziah. I think maybe you’d better suggest to Grayson he warn her to be nice, or she might, you know, go out of her way to . . . not be nice.”

Natividad could easily picture this. She grimaced.

“Justin’s very good looking, isn’t he?” said Miguel. “Plus he’s got that Pure thing going for him. Plus weird geometry magic! I wonder what kind of kid he’d have with a Pure girl?”

Her brother was always too perceptive. Especially when Natividad really didn’t want him to be. She would have thrown the other pillow at him, but she was leaning on it herself. She just made a face.

Though it would be . . . different, to think of being with someone who wasn’t always riding the edge of violence. She’d always known she’d be expected to choose one black dog or another—and then Ezekiel had made it very clear that he wouldn’t let her choose any black dog but him. Except Grayson. And Grayson, well. She admired him so much, but.

But now there was Justin, who was Pure and her own age, more or less, and whom Ezekiel couldn’t touch, no matter what.

She wasn’t going to think about this. A new source of tension wasn’t what Justin needed, it wasn’t what she needed, it definitely wasn’t what Dimilioc needed, not until Ezekiel found a different Pure girl and forgot about Natividad. That would take so much of the pressure off . . . all of them, really. She should look forward to that. She did look forward to that. Because it was just stupid to think of Ezekiel’s flowing-water way of moving and pale winter-sky eyes and so-careful courtship, and wish he really cared about her.

It was just stupid to think about how scared she’d been in Boston and how much she’d wished Ezekiel was there, or how she hadn’t really felt completely safe until he stepped through the door into Grayson’s study and met her eyes.

“I wonder …” Miguel began, his tone speculative.

“Shut up,” Natividad told him. “I’m tired! If you want to play Machiavelli, fine, but it’s four in the morning, Miguel! Go play somewhere else! You can tell me what we should all do later.”

“Right,” her twin agreed meekly, suspiciously like the tone he’d use to a black dog in a temper. But he also slid off her window seat and sauntered toward his own room, which connected with hers. He paused, though, his hand on the knob of his door, to look at her, serious. Concerned. “You’ll be sixteen pretty soon now.”

Natividad shrugged, pretending she didn’t care and never thought about it and had totally lost track of passing time. “Si, lo que sea.”

“I just don’t want you pressured into anything you don’t want,” Miguel said. “Justin gives you options, that’s all. But that won’t last, you know. When Grayson decides it’s time to talk to Justin about Keziah, he won’t be joking. If you—”

“Oh, go away,” said Natividad.

“Lo siento,” Miguel said, not very sincerely, and vanished through his door.

Natividad ran her hands through her hair, shook her head, and laughed. Not that it was funny. It really wasn’t. Options! Her twin was crazy if he thought that Justin’s arrival was going to do anything but complicate everything for everybody.

She was really too tired to think about any of this now.

Ezekiel had looked tired, too. She doubted Grayson had let him go, yet, even though he must have been up all night. Probably Grayson had dismissed everyone else by this time and he and Ezekiel would be working out what everyone was going to do next about that stuff in Boston. Miguel thought he was so clever—well, he was so clever, but for Machiavelli, he couldn’t compete with Grayson Lanning. Especially because when Grayson said jump, everyone really did leap for the clouds before asking how high. And a big part of the reason everyone jumped so fast was because Ezekiel would be standing behind Grayson, counting the seconds it took them all to get airborne.

Though Natividad undressed and put on her nightgown and got into her bed, she knew she would never be able to go to sleep with Ezekiel’s ice-blue eyes staring into hers in her dreams. She closed her eyes, and lay there for a little while, but it was hopeless. Then she stared at the ceiling for a while, but that didn’t help either. Finally she gave up and put on her favorite fluffy pink robe and went to sit by her window, gazing out at the chilly starlit night. The moon was nothing like full. That was good. It wasn’t just the cambiadors, the vicious moon-bound shifters; every black dog had worse control during the full moon. Except Ezekiel.

Although even Ezekiel could be driven beyond the limits of his control. As Natividad knew better than just about anyone. Though that hadn’t been about her, really. More about everything else and then her on top of it all.

He had looked a little bit tired tonight. Probably that meant he was exhausted. And now there was that thing in Boston. He had to be tired and worried, even if he didn’t let it show. Probably he could really use a new pentagram drawn on his window. But he would never ask.

It was really late. Or really early. But even if Grayson had let him go, he wouldn’t be asleep. She thought he wouldn’t be. Anyway, if she knocked very quietly and he didn’t answer, she could just go away again.

Ezekiel wasn’t asleep. His low voice answered her tap at his door immediately, so she knew he had been in the main room and not his bedroom. Natividad opened the door cautiously, aware she was intruding on a fiercely guarded privacy, but Ezekiel, standing by the farthest table, gave her a faint smile and a welcoming little tip of his head.

Though still up, he had clearly been meaning to go to bed soon. His mantaquilla-yellow hair was damp and he was wearing a robe belted over black pajama bottoms. The robe was beautiful, probably silk. It was mostly black and gray, but the gray was swirled with ashy pink, like sunrise through storm clouds. Natividad happened to know that this wasn’t his only beautiful robe. She really wanted to make one into a dress, but she had never had the nerve to ask if she could. She was also suddenly aware that she was wearing a robe, too, a silly fluffy robe, and that maybe she should have gotten dressed again before deciding to visit. She said, embarrassed, “I shouldn’t—”

“No, you definitely should,” Ezekiel interrupted her smoothly. “I’m glad you came. I did want to see you once more tonight, if only to reassure myself. Traps and attempted kidnapping! The world has become more dangerous than ever for the Pure, I fear. All these damned black dogs that aren’t quite strays but certainly aren’t civilized.”

There was a trace of mockery in his voice, but he didn’t look as supercilious as he sounded. He looked fine-drawn and tired. That might have been an illusion from the dim light of his one lamp falling across the hollows of his face. But Natividad didn’t think so.

She came forward a step, leaving the door open behind her. She wasn’t sure what to say. She wanted to offer to draw a pentagram, bring peace into his rooms, but now she hesitated. The offer seemed almost intimate, even though things like that were what the Pure did.

She had rarely ventured to intrude on Ezekiel’s private suite, but though at first she had been surprised by its simplicity and quiet serenity, now she thought it fit him perfectly. The main room had soft gray carpeting and black leather couches and black-painted tables, but not very much furniture at all. The tranquility of the room was deepened by the single painting that dominated one wall. At first the painting seemed abstract, all random washes of black and charcoal and pale gray, but if you kept looking, eventually you thought maybe there was a mountain, and an angular tree, and possibly water below the tree, with perhaps a boat and maybe even one or two people.

The painting drew the eye, but Ezekiel had his back turned to it at the moment. He had been studying a city map spread out across the largest table. Three of the map’s corners were weighted down with smooth, shiny black pebbles that seemed more like polished metal than like stone. The fourth corner was held in place by a thin-necked vase of clear glass that looked like it had once been partially melted and then cooled. It was the kind of vase that ought to hold a single orchid, something expensive and unusual, something with a lot of petals and a strange fragrance. But Natividad had never seen a flower in it.

She said, “Grayson’s sending you to Boston, I expect?” And, at Ezekiel’s small gesture of assent, “I know you think traps and kidnappings and things are scary for the Pure, but you—you aren’t invulnerable either, you know. I think those people wanted you especially, not just me. I think at first they thought Keziah was you.”

“We’re much the same size in our other form,” Ezekiel allowed. “And it’s true few of Dimilioc’s enemies would know that. Though any experienced black dog would be able to tell that Keziah is female.”

Natividad nodded. “I think they figured that out, and that’s when they started trying harder to capture . . . well, me.” She shivered at the memory.

“But Keziah can take care of herself,” said Ezekiel. “Any black dog can take care of himself, or herself. You can’t.”

Natividad shivered again. That was hard to argue with.

“I don’t want you leaving Dimilioc again,” Ezekiel said. His tone was brisk, matter-of-fact, decisive—exactly as though he had the right to make that kind of decision. He went on, “I don’t deny you’re useful out there—” he opened a hand, a minimal gesture meant to indicate the whole outside world. “But it wouldn’t be useful at all for you to allow yourself to be captured by our enemies, and so I told Grayson.”

It wasn’t exactly fair to be angry, because she had already decided she never wanted to go on one of those horrible missions again ever. But somehow Natividad was angry anyway. “It’s all about you, isn’t it? You want to keep me locked up safe because you don’t want to worry! You don’t want to have to go to the trouble of finding another Pure girl, I suppose!” Then she stopped. She hadn’t meant to say that part, only Ezekiel had said she was useful and she had gotten angry.

Ezekiel was standing very still, looking at her. Natividad was suddenly aware of how close he was—of his sheer physical presence, of the heat which seemed to radiate out from him and fill the room. His room. His personal home within Dimilioc. That he let her enter. She knew he didn’t allow anyone else to break his privacy. But he had said he was glad to see her. It was suddenly hard to remember to be angry. Confused, she stared at him.

Though she had been speaking loudly, he didn’t shout back. He said after a moment, quietly, “Is that what you think?” Then, when Natividad didn’t answer, didn’t find herself able to answer, he said, “I’m not very . . . I don’t always do well with . . . relationships. I know that.” He stopped, hesitating, then went on, “I know how to be Dimilioc’s terrifying executioner. That’s what Thos trained me to be, and that’s what Grayson needs me to be, so that’s what I am. Frightening people isn’t difficult. But courting a girl . . .” his mouth twisted slightly. “I don’t actually have a very good track record with that.”

Natividad blinked. It had never once crossed her mind that Ezekiel might have . . . what? Loved and lost? He seemed so . . . untouchable. So contained. So self-sufficient. She asked tentatively, “You lost someone? In the war?” That actually made sense. In a way. Except not really, because if Ezekiel was mourning some other girl, why would he be so determined to have her?

“We all lost nearly everyone, in the war.” Ezekiel moved suddenly, restlessly shifting along the edge of the table. He picked up one of the shiny metal pebbles and turned it over in his fingers. He said, not quite looking at Natividad, “There was a woman, yes. A Pure woman. But she wasn’t—we weren’t together. She married someone else. And then, yes, she died. Along with so many others. But, Natividad . . .” he did look at her then, a swift, intense look that made her take a step back. “She didn’t have your courage. She would not willingly have put herself into the kind of danger you do.”

“Oh,” said Natividad, in a small voice.

He dropped his gaze to the map and said, his tone sliding once more into that light, cool mockery, “Which you must cease to do, as it is extraordinarily distracting for us all. I’m certain Grayson will agree with me. Especially since I was quite forceful in making my opinion clear.”

“Oh, you were, were you?” Natividad could just imagine that conversation. She found she was getting angry again, but . . . something about Ezekiel’s level gaze and set expression made her hesitate.

He opened a hand. “I can’t disobey Grayson. Especially now, when he’s lost . . . everyone else. I can’t bring them back. I can’t be to him what they were. I can only be what I am. And what I am is his executioner. Which is fine. But he has to understand, I need you to be safe. And you need to understand, you are important to me. You, yourself. I find myself convinced that another Pure girl wouldn’t suit me nearly so well.”

It was still all about him. Except . . . maybe not really. Natividad, listening to what he hadn’t quite put into words, said gently, “You can never fill the place others have left. No one can do that. You have to make a place of your own. You have to decide yourself what that has to be, and you have to make it something you and Grayson can both build on, going forward.”

Ezekiel looked at her, just looked, for a long moment. At last he said softly, “And you think I would risk you?”

This time, Natividad did not know what to say.

Ezekiel added, his tone now matter-of-fact, “Neither I nor Grayson will permit you to go again into danger. However, I’ve no intention of springing a trap unless I can turn it against the enemy who set it. Which you can help me with, I’m sure, without setting foot outside Dimilioc.” He moved toward Natividad at last, and took her hand, and placed his other hand on the small of her back. She was very aware of the warm pressure of his hand, of him, so close, of his sheer smooth elegance. But he only turned her toward the door. She was too tongue-tied to say anything at all.

Alejandro met them at the door to her room. He looked irritated until he saw that Ezekiel was with her, and then his expression closed down hard, his mouth thinning. Natividad was suddenly very conscious of the fact that both she and Ezekiel were wearing night things and robes. She was sure she was blushing. She moved a step away from Ezekiel, put her nose in the air, and strolled right past her brother as though it weren’t the slightest bit unusual to wander around the house in the small hours of the morning, in a robe, with Ezekiel. She also said quickly, before Alejandro could say anything at all, “You’re not going to Boston, too, are you?”

“I am, yes. And Ezekiel and Ethan,” Alejandro said. He sounded grim, but he glanced aside when Ezekiel looked at him. Black dog posturing, black dog dominance, but more subtle than usual because between Alejandro and Ezekiel, there was nothing to settle.

“We were just agreeing that Natividad is not,” Ezekiel said smoothly.

Alejandro was instantly diverted. “No. I cannot think Grayson would permit it.” He knew Natividad might be angry and moved to touch her cheek with the back of his hand, carefully gentle. “You cannot put yourself in such danger. You know so much magic. We cannot lose you. I will not lose you, Natividad. You must stay safe. Who else would teach the little paloma or this new Pure boy?”

“Justin,” muttered Natividad. “His name is Justin. And you need me, you know you do, especially if those Russian black dogs are going to be laying traps for you!”

“No,” Ezekiel and Alejandro said simultaneously, and glanced at one another, a fleeting glance that held, Natividad thought, wary approval on both sides. So that was something, at least; if all the guys in Natividad’s life were going to be infuriating, at least it could be a bonding experience for them. She rolled her eyes, but was pretty sure neither of them noticed.

“So,” said Ezekiel. He crossed the room and touched the back of one of Natividad’s hand mirrors with the tip of one finger. “We need another trouvez,” he told her. “That would be something that would help.”

Of course they did. Because the other one had been shot by a harpoon. Natividad might be exasperated with them both, but she could hardly refuse to make a trouvez just because she was mad. She could make a trouvez, and that would be useful: a guide and a light in the dark. Even if she wasn’t there, because she could pour light into it before she gave it to them. And she could put into it an image of the female black dog who had tried to carry her away. She rubbed her shoulder, remembering the pressure of those deadly jaws, the smell of sulfur and ash, the terror. Oh, yes, she could make a trouvez that would find that black dog again.

But a trouvez wouldn’t protect anyone from anything. That wasn’t what a trouvez was for. And she wouldn’t be there, to make something at the last minute. Anything she was going to make for them, she had to make it now and it had to last hours and hours without her touch . . . she shook her head, thinking about it. “I’ll make something else for you. A trouvez, sí, but also a telaraña mágica, a net that will hide you from enemies. Better than last time, more effective, less fragile. I can make one for each of you.”

“You can make something that will survive a black dog’s touch?” Ezekiel asked, not as though he disbelieved her, but impressed.

Natividad nodded absently. She blinked at the clutter of little objects on her dressing table. Little glass bottles and ribbons, her small collection of earrings and bracelets, a long hairbrush and a narrow comb. And the other kind of clutter: Mamá’s little flute, almost all Natividad had that had ever been hers; tiny mirrors and chips of glass; a single coin and three slender chains of almost pure silver; a folding knife that Miguel had given her, and a much more serious knife that Ezekiel had given her, of silver alloy, with a soft black leather sheath. You had better not ever go hunting black dogs again, he’d told her. But if you do, carry this. I’ll show you how to use it.

And he had. She hadn’t wanted to learn, but he’d insisted. Eventually, with some irony, he had let her use a weighted wooden knife because she couldn’t bring herself to risk cutting him with even a steel knife, much less the silver one, even though she knew perfectly well he wouldn’t let her hurt him. And she’d blooded the long silver knife for him and for Alejandro, and after a little thought, for Grayson as well, just in case, to make sure it couldn’t ever be turned against any of them. But mostly she thought of the knife as a piece of silver she might someday be able to use to make some aparato mágica. She did not yet know exactly what she meant to make, but it seemed to her an idea sometimes nudged the back of her mind when she looked at its sharp length. She thought of that again now, but a knife was not the right base for the sort of protective confuse-the-eye web she meant to make now. She set the knife aside and shuffled gently through rest of the clutter on her table.

The chips of glass caught her eye. And the ribbons. Though long strands of hair would do better than ribbons . . . she reached up to undo her braided hair and then picked up a pair of delicate scissors, not quite certain what kind of aparato she saw in her mind’s eye, except it was overlain with an intricate filigree of light and shadow.

She could make it, though, whatever it was. She could make something that would protect Alejandro and Ezekiel, that would hide them behind a tracery of light . . . behind a web of light and shadow, she could weave just a thread of shadow into it, so it wouldn’t fray into nothing when a black dog touched it . . . she turned again, reaching to trail the tip of one finger through Ezekiel’s dense shadow, reaching sort of sideways, the way one reached to touch light. His shadow burned against her skin, making her hiss between her teeth. She couldn’t hold it . . . a tracery of blood, though: hers and his, Pure and black dog . . . blood would let her draw the shadow. She found the silver knife in her burned hand, and gathered a small pool of silvery moonlight in her other palm.

It was nothing Mamá had taught her. Nothing, at least, that she exactly remembered Mamá teaching her. Shadow and light and blood, a kind of magic that was Pure, but shot through with slivers of shadow. A kind of magic she sort of half knew, in a sideways kind of way. She said to Ezekiel, distractedly, “No te muevas,” and nicked the translucent skin of his wrist with the tip of the knife. It seemed to her that light welled up, from the knife or the blood or from the magic itself. And she fell into the light and then into the dark and finally into the light again, flickering, gone.

-5-

Even after Natividad and Miguel left him alone in the room where he was supposed to stay, Justin was too tired to sleep. Or too scared, way down deep, where fear could be almost be shoved out of sight and ignored. Except it was never completely out of sight. It was like . . . like a summer dust storm. The dust got into everything, coated everything, clung to your skin, choked your throat until you couldn’t breathe, blew into your eyes so you couldn’t see. It was like that.

Or maybe that was grief. He was too tired to tell. It had all tangled together, all the fear and anger and grief of the past night, and the past weeks, until he hardly knew where he was. His throat hurt. His eyes hurt, gritty as though a storm had driven dust into his face. He shut his eyes, breathing carefully, trying to shove it all back down.

Thought it was probably only a few minutes, it seemed to take a long time before he could open his eyes again. They still hurt. He was so tired. It was so hard to believe that anything in this night had actually happened. Except he was here. In this strange house, in this unfamiliar room, surrounded by magic and monsters.

The room was all serene earth tones, everything brown and tan, fawn and cream. Desert colors. There was one bowl of wavery blue glass on an otherwise empty coffee table, two point nine inches from the edge of the table, like a splash of water in the desert. It was all so peaceful. He resented it, with a ferocity that shook him. He wanted to break that bowl and grind the slivers of glass into the carpet. He wanted to stamp on the coffee table and heave over the couch and tear up the comforter on the bed.

He wanted to go home.

But home was gone. He was caught by an image of himself going back there, to his mother’s house, just walking down the street and up the stairs and opening the door and stepping into the kitchen—the empty kitchen—he flinched sharply away from the picture.

He couldn’t possibly go back. Even if he got out of this room and out of this house and out of Vermont. Even then, he couldn’t go home. His home was buried in the past. So . . . if he had no idea about forward, maybe staying here was . . . at least tolerable. For a while. Despite the werewolves.

Justin shoved his hands into his pockets and slid down to sit on the floor, bowed forward around himself.

Magic. He was supposed to be able to do magic. He was supposed to be able to bring peace into a room, into a house. Peace. That was almost funny. Except it really wasn’t funny at all.

But he drew a star on the carpet with his fingertip anyway, and hoped for some kind of peace.

The star glowed. He thought it did. Unless he was imagining it. But either the star or just thinking about the star . . . seemed to sort of fold the grief back, a little, like someone folding back a heavy curtain. It was still there. But . . . maybe not quite so all-enveloping.

Magic.

Though apparently you got monsters along with magic. That might not be such a good deal. He couldn’t really imagine just cutting himself off from his real life and staying here in this house among werewolves. Put like that, it sounded insane. Never mind that cutting himself off from his real life was exactly what he’d set out to do.

It seemed impossible that this was still the same night that had started with Justin accepting an offer of supper from a friendly priest who happened to keep an eye out for people in trouble.

He wondered whether the werewolves really would leave Father Mark alone. Natividad had said they would. Now, alone in this unfamiliar room in this unfamiliar house, in this strange, cold country that was nothing he knew, without Natividad’s cheerful presence . . . he didn’t know. Ezekiel had offered so readily to go back and kill Father Mark. And Grayson Lanning had so casually talked about bringing another werewolf here, killing him if he didn’t toe their line. They were monsters. Who know what they would do?

He should get up. Try the door, see if it was really unlocked, as Natividad had promised. If locks even mattered, with miles of chilly woods between himself and human civilization. Probably that whole town they’d driven through belonged to Dimilioc. Like one of those company towns, way back when robber barons had owned everything.

Anyway, even if he’d been able to leave, he was supposed to be too scared of bad werewolves to set foot out in the world without a good werewolf to protect him. He had that much clear, at least. Because he was Pure, and the bad werewolves hunted the Pure.

Though all Dimilioc’s Pure women had apparently been killed in that brutal half-hidden war between vampires and black dogs. He had that clear, too. Dimilioc was supposed to protect the Pure, but they sure hadn’t done a very good job. He wasn’t supposed to notice that, or at least he wasn’t supposed to think about what it meant for him.

It was ridiculous. It was stupid.

He was scared, though. They’d achieved that much: they’d meant to scare him, and they had damn well succeeded. Or the memory of those vicious monsters in the rectory kitchen scared him. He didn’t know what he should do. But he didn’t even know what he wanted to do. Because they’d wanted to get him interested in this stuff about magic, and they had succeeded at that, too.

Justin scrubbed his hands across his face, hard. He couldn’t think. He wasn’t sure he could move. This couch and a couple of chairs separated the living room area from the bedroom part. The bed seemed . . . a long way away. Maybe he would just pry himself off the floor and sit on the couch. It was a pretty big couch. He could probably lie full-length on it.

Or he could just fold over sideways and lie right here on the floor. That was tempting. He wasn’t sure he would be able to get up if he tried.

He lifted his right hand, looked at it. It looked perfectly ordinary. The same hand he used to write, to catch a ball, to wave to a friend, to thumb a ride. To draw a star that glowed and spilled a slow ripple of peace into the air. If he left, if he found a way to leave this house and walked away from the werewolves and from Natividad, would he ever have another chance to learn magic? Did he want to learn magic? Even Natividad’s peaceful, nice kind of magic? He doubted it was actually rainbows and unicorns all the way down.

If he didn’t get away, what would happen to him? He had been in this house only a few hours, but already it seemed like much, much longer; as though he’d suffered a sharp disconnect from his old life when he first stepped into this house and was now separated from it by unbreachable walls of time and distance. As though he’d somehow become a different person.

Maybe that was just because he was so tired.

He thought of his Grandmother Leushin. His only family, now. He had not been able to bear the thought of staying with her before; Roswell had not been far enough from Los Alamos. He hadn’t been able to bear the desert, where memories were burned right into the gritty earth. But maybe he could go to her now. Maybe for a visit, at least. Despite the note he’d left, she must be wondering where he’d gone, how he was. Besides, maybe she knew something about his mother, something she hadn’t ever—

The door to his room jerked abruptly open, and a cold, beautiful voice declared, “You are nothing to me.”

It was Keziah, of course; Keziah and her sharp-edged obsidian shadow. He hadn’t heard her at all. If she’d made a sound, if she’d called out or rapped on the door, he’d been too out of it to hear her.

Justin had flinched sharply when the door had opened, as much from surprise as alarm or anger. But, as adrenalin flushed through him, driving away the exhaustion, he found both anger and fear flooded up readily from the place he’d tried to bury them. Getting quickly to his feet, he gripped the back of the couch with both hands, partly to brace himself against a sudden sharp urge to back away and partly to stop himself from picking up the nearest handy object to hurl at Keziah. There was a lamp on an end table that would have done fine. It looked like it might be an antique, though. Probably it wouldn’t be a good idea to throw it at her, even if she wasn’t a werewolf. Even if she deserved it. He said with some heat, “What the hell? Don’t you people knock?”

Keziah gave him a haughty look. “It is too late in the night to pound loudly on anyone’s door. If you did not want anybody to come in, you should have locked your door.”

“Somehow it didn’t occur to me that people would just barge in in the middle of the damn night. What the hell? Doesn’t anyone in this house sleep at night? I thought it was vampires that burned up in sunlight!”

Keziah smiled. It was not a friendly expression. She leaned in his doorway, long and languid, but there was nothing languid in her slanted eyes. They were brilliant with anger. Her shimmering earrings dripped with tiny emeralds, each swinging with its own tiny sinusoidal motion as she moved her head, emphasizing her long, graceful neck.

“Did you hear me?” she demanded. “I said, you are nothing to me. I don’t want you.”

“Believe me, that’s just fine,” Justin assured her, with considerable emphasis. Although Keziah was amazing, in a terrifying way. She looked like a goddess, but the kind of goddess that struck men dead for looking at her. He couldn’t seem to look away.

Her eyes narrowed scornfully. “A Pure boy!” she said. “Who ever heard of Pure boys?”

She drifted a step closer, through the door, tilting her head in scorn—but coming in, not going away. Justin didn’t have a clue what the hell she meant with those mixed signals. Again, he had to stop himself from taking a step back. She came closer still, putting Justin irresistibly in mind of a stalking cat. It was getting harder not to back up. Maybe standing his ground was a really, really stupid kind of pride. Maybe he should forget all about pride and scream for Natividad to come rescue him from the scary girl werewolf.

But, staring into Keziah’s beautiful face, he knew he wasn’t going to yell for help. Certainly not for another girl to come rescue him.

Everyone had known how Keziah was going to react to him. He could almost hear Ezekiel’s amused drawl when he said to Ethan: Aren’t you looking forward to introducing him to Keziah? And then Miguel, saying to Natividad with friendly malice, Think of him and Keziah!

Given all that, Justin couldn’t help but think of himself with Keziah. Like breeding dogs, he had accused. He had been angry. Outraged. The outrage quotient dropped a little, now that he actually had a chance to look at her. She was terrifying, though. She sure didn’t have to tell him how outclassed he was. He got that all by himself.

Keziah didn’t look like a werewolf. Or she did, in a way. That distinctive sharp-angled, razor-edged darkness surrounded her. But he couldn’t imagine her turning into a monster. Into a lioness, maybe. He could have believed that of her. He half expected her to snarl at him and melt into a great cat. To tear out his throat and slouch away into the Arabian desert.

She didn’t change into either a lioness or a monster. She didn’t tear out his throat. She didn’t even touch him. She stared disdainfully at him from hardly an arm’s-length away and said, “Dimilioc breeds the Pure to their black dogs. Has anyone told you that yet?”

Justin didn’t let himself flinch. He met her eyes. She had beautiful eyes. Not black, as he would have expected. Dark, but neither black nor exactly brown. Sort of a tawny color. Almost translucent, like dark-bronze honey. He said, hearing the tightness in his own voice, “I’ve sort of gathered that. Since you’re not interested, though, I guess it doesn’t matter.”

Her lip curled. “Grayson Lanning will not ask me whether I am interested. But I will not permit anyone to decide for me.”

Justin met her dark-honey eyes. “Yeah, me, either. Grayson Lanning can go take a flying leap if he thinks otherwise.”

Keziah stared at him. Then she laughed. She had a beautiful laugh, but there was no trace of kindness in it. “So innocent!” she said. “Do you think you need to protect me? You are nothing to me, Pure boy, but perhaps you amuse me a little.” Reaching out, she gripped Justin deliberately by the throat, staring into his eyes from that scant distance.

This was not exactly the response Justin had expected. He flinched, feeling claws prick against his skin. It was almost impossible not to try to jerk away, but he was completely certain it would be the wrong thing to do.

Keziah’s hand tightened, forcing his head back. She said softly, “Perhaps after all it would amuse me to take you for a night or two. Perhaps I would like that.”

Justin could smell her perfume: something wild and resinous. He thought he could feel heat radiating from her, as from an open fire—not sexual heat, but the kind that burned. The kind that could explode outward and turn homes and towns and whole forests to charred ruins and blowing ash. Her eyes had gone a paler gold now, more fire than honey. A color that could burn. He said tightly, “Let go of me.”

She didn’t open her hand even a millimeter. “Innocent boy,” she said softly. “Don’t you know better than to expect kindness from a black dog?”

Would it be cowardice to scream for Natividad to rescue him from a beautiful girl werewolf? Justin was starting to think it might be just good sense. He met Keziah’s eyes and said softly, “I thought Dimilioc black dogs protected the Pure.”

Keziah did not respond to this at once. But gradually the fire in her eyes ebbed. After a little longer, one graceful, narrow eyebrow lifted. She opened her hand, letting him go, though she did not step back. “Of course,” she said, in a tone that might have been meant to be mocking but in which Justin heard mostly bitterness. “We all know the Pure deserve protection.”

That was . . . fraught. Who failed to protect you? Justin wanted to ask. She had laughed at the idea that he could protect her. He thought now that maybe that had nothing to do with him, and everything to do with someone else, someone in her past. Someone who had hurt her, someone who had failed her, maybe both. Whomever that might have been, Justin was willing to bet the man was dead, and that it hadn’t been any vampire who killed him.

He stiffened his jaw against asking any dangerous questions, and only looked into Keziah’s eyes. They were very nearly human eyes, set in a very nearly human face. He thought again of a tawny lioness pacing across the desert under the burning sun. With great pyramids rising up behind her, stark tetrahedrons against the endless sky. The vision dizzied him. He kept seeing the lioness superimposed over the girl. He was scared and angry, and yet he also wanted to touch her cheek, see if her skin was as silken-soft as it looked. He wouldn’t have thought it was possible to feel all those things all at once. He did not dare move.

“Look down,” she ordered him then. “Stop looking at me. Look down, fool.” Her tone was tight with a new kind of strain that he didn’t understand.

Justin blinked. It sounded ridiculous, like advice for dealing with a Rottweiler, not a person. But he thought she meant exactly what she said. He looked down, cooperatively, and actually felt Keziah’s anger ease a little, like banking a fire.

She stepped back at last, opening and closing her hands. “You Pure!” snarled Keziah, glaring. “I will not be sent to one bed or another on Grayson Lanning’s whim!”

“Neither will I,” Justin assured her, a weird kind of terrified regret mixing with the relief that she seemed amenable to reason after all. He tried not to look her in the face. It was difficult. She was stunning. Amazing. He could hardly believe a girl like her actually existed. But he said as firmly as he could, “I promise you, no way. So that’s fine.”

She gave him one long incredulous look, whipped around, and stalked out. Since her back was turned, Justin risked watching her walk away. She had a lithe stride, like a lioness, amazingly sexy.

The door didn’t burst into flame when she slammed it behind her, which Justin found astonishing. It was amazing how much colder and darker the room seemed, once she was gone. And how much more air suddenly seemed available. And how strongly he felt a possibly suicidal urge to go after her.

After a moment to recover, he went to find Grayson Lanning instead.

The Master of Dimilioc was still working when Justin found him, even though it had to be very late, or rather very early, by the time he located the Master’s office. Justin, caught up in the lingering rush of adrenalin from Keziah’s visit, had already retraced his way back to the kitchens and from there made his way nearly all the way back to that office before it occurred to him that it was still the middle of the night. Or actually way past the middle. By then he was close enough to see light pouring out through the open door and hear the rustle of papers and the thump of something heavy being set down.

Even with the sounds of movement and the light, Justin hesitated. Grayson Lanning. The Master of the werewolves. That’s what they called him, the Master. Not someone to interrupt lightly.

There was a second muffled thump, followed by the distinctive sound of someone big leaning back in a chair, and the Master’s voice said, “Yes, Justin?”

Werewolves apparently had very good hearing. Justin took a deep breath and walked forward. He stopped in the doorway, not quite sure whether he should go in. “Sir,” he said, because he definitely wasn’t going to say Master but didn’t have the nerve to try calling Grayson Lanning by his name. The Master, leaning back in his heavy chair, his desk covered with neat stacks of paper and one leather-bound book, with a pen still in one broad hand, still looked to Justin very much like the principal at a tough, elite high school. ‘Sir’ seemed like a good compromise.

The Master frowned. “Justin. You are upset. What has upset you? Have you—” He cut that off and sighed. Then he said, a trace of weariness coming into his voice, “Ah. You have met Keziah, I surmise. I shall speak to her.”

Justin hadn’t forgotten how deep and harsh the Master’s voice was. But that weary edge to his voice . . . somehow Justin hadn’t expected that, from the Master of Dimilioc. Though maybe he should have, since Grayson Lanning was clearly pulling an all-nighter. Was that Ezekiel’s television appearance, or that half-explained thing in Boston, or some other crisis? Justin immediately felt just a little guilty, adding to the problems of a man who plainly had enough problems already. He said, “We were going to meet eventually, right? Anyway, she didn’t scare me.” He wasn’t sure even sure whether this last was a complete bald-faced lie. Keziah had scared him. But he wasn’t sure he’d want her ordered to stay away from him, either.

The Master’s frown deepened. “Indeed? Well, sit down.”

Justin sat down immediately, in the nearest chair. It only occurred to him afterward that he might have defied this order just to see what Grayson Lanning would do, and then it was too late. He felt a visceral awareness that ran through his blood and bones that defying the Master of Dimilioc would be very, very dangerous. But everyone kept insisting that none of the werewolves were dangerous to him. But then there was Keziah.

“Well?” said the Master. “So Keziah did not frighten you? And yet you came to find me, despite the hour.”

Justin cleared his throat. It was still hard for him to believe in black dogs. But it was easy to believe that Grayson Lanning was someone to be wary of. He said carefully, “Keziah thinks she’s going to be ordered to, um.” He had meant to be totally neutral about this, but it turned out that keeping a calm tone was harder in real life than in imagination. He knew he was flushing. He tried to keep his voice steady and wasn’t sure he managed it. He went on, “To, um, get involved with me. She doesn’t want to. I won’t do that to her. To anyone. Get involved with them, I mean, just because somebody else wants it. Just to have that clear. So if that’s what you have in mind, it’s just not right.” He really was blushing. He could feel the heat rise up his face. Grayson was not exactly smiling, but there was a little crinkle around his eyes that was like a smile. Justin glared at him.

The Master tapped his fingers slowly on the edge of his desk for a moment. “It is not the Dimilioc custom to compel the Pure in such matters,” he said eventually. “Occasional attempts to do so in the past have resulted in . . . various undesirable consequences. However. You may not be aware that a black dog woman often has difficulty bearing long-lived children. The shadows of such children frequently overwhelm them while they are still . . . very young. It is a tragedy of our kind. But given a Pure partner, a black dog can always bear children that will live. Keziah can hardly be unaware of the . . . possibilities you represent.”

Justin knew he was still flushed. He said shortly, refusing to drop his gaze, “And yet she made it clear she’s not interested.”

Grayson picked up his pen and turned it over in his fingers, once and then again. Then he set it down, gently, so that it was exactly parallel with the nearest stack of papers. “No doubt she asserts she is not. I am not certain Keziah is entirely clear about she wants, just now. It’s always difficult to adjust to a dramatic change in one’s circumstances.” The Master gave Justin an acute look. “Perhaps you are aware that Natividad is expected eventually to take a black dog lover.”

Justin immediately thought of Natividad, and Ezekiel. He shifted uncomfortably, frowning at the Master. “That’s—”

“She came here to Dimilioc with that exact understanding, of course.” Grayson disregarded Justin’s interruption. “Once, Dimilioc would not have considered constraining the choices of the Pure in that way. But this is a difficult age, and it seems essential to ensure that the Pure do not waste their bloodlines on ordinary humans. However, your case is not the same. I understand quite well that you, raised among ordinary human people, have no intimate understanding of black dog necessities. I assure you, I have no intention of compelling your choice. I most particularly have no intention of compelling Keziah’s choice; her commitment to Dimilioc remains as yet too tenuous. You have no need for concern.”

“Well—” said Justin, but then did not know what to say. He said lamely, “Well, then. Fine, then. I mean . . . good.”

Grayson waited a moment, then said gravely, “There is certainly no need for hasty decisions on any such matter. Let us allow a year or so to pass and see what time brings for us all, shall we? In the meantime, it is certainly not necessary for Keziah to trouble you. I shall speak to her.”

“Well,” said Justin again, and paused. A year or so. The Dimilioc Master seemed very sure Justin was going to be staying that long. He said, “Just so long as we’re clear that if anybody does give me an order like that, I’m out of here.” He’d meant this to sound flat and determined, but wasn’t sure he pulled it off.

Grayson only said mildly, “Your concern does you credit. As it happens, I doubt anyone is going to have the leisure to contemplate such matters for some little while. We have other priorities at this moment.” Tenting his hands, he gazed at Justin over his fingertips, in what Justin was already beginning to consider a habitual gesture. He looked very autocratic when he did that, which was probably not a coincidence. “And how do you find yourself, in other respects? Perhaps it’s as well we have this chance to talk. I wish for you to feel yourself at home here, though . . . I am aware this will take time.” He gave Justin a searching look and went on, “This is in fact your home. You have lost your family, and I am sorry for it, but Dimilioc offers refuge and a home to all the Pure. Certainly to you. I hope you will soon come to feel that this is true.”

Justin found himself speechless.

Grayson inclined his head slightly. “I hope that you also find some interest in discovering your unknown blood and your potential for magic. It is part of you, that potential. As well as—”

The phone rang, cutting the Master off in the middle of his sentence. Justin flinched at the unexpected sound. Even the Master blinked. He lifted the phone off its wall-mounted charger behind his chair and said, curt but not in an obvious temper, “Yes?” Then, his tone suddenly underlain with a deep growl, “Natividad? Just now?”

Justin straightened, his attention caught.

“Yes,” said the Master. And, after enough time for Justin to really start to worry, “Yes,” again. And then, his tone grim, “Indeed. Momentarily.” He set the phone down on his desk, rising to his feet in the same motion. The chair creaked, though the Master moved fluidly for a man his size.

“Natividad?” Justin asked, scrambling up as well. “She’s—?” he stopped, not knowing what he wanted to ask, unable to guess what could possibly have happened to the girl in the brief time since she’d showed him where he was supposed to stay and gone—he’d thought—to bed.

“She has collapsed,” the Master said tersely, gesturing for Justin to come with him.

Justin missed a step.

The Master didn’t pause, but did spare him a glance. “Natividad does have a way of working with magic that is somewhat beyond the edge of what we understand. I gather Ezekiel asked her to make something that might afford his team some useful advantage upon their return to Boston. Of course Natividad immediately attempted to create something new and unusual.”

“But—” said Justin.

“I am certain she is perfectly well,” said the Master, and swept Justin around one last turn of the stairway, down a short hallway, and into Natividad’s own room, directly across from Justin’s. It was an airy pink room that stopped just short of having unicorn wallpaper and did boast a large four-poster bed with curtains of pink gauze. The curtains, drawn back now, showed Natividad lying on the bed, looking very small and young in a soft pink robe. Ezekiel, kneeling on the floor beside the bed, looked intense and worried and furious. He was holding a small mirror in one hand. Alejandro stood nearby, and Miguel had actually crawled up on the bed next to his sister. Both of Natividad’s brothers looked just as worried and almost as angry as Ezekiel.

Ezekiel glanced up as Grayson entered the room. “She’s breathing,” he said sharply. “But not so that one could be certain without a mirror. Her heartbeat is steady, but too quick.”

The Master strode forward and made his own examination, touching fingertips to Natividad’s cheek and then to her throat. Justin couldn’t tell precisely what he was checking, but he couldn’t help but notice the concern, almost tenderness, with which he touched her.

The Master straightened. “What precisely did she do?”

Alejandro took one step forward and silently proffered something that lay across both his hands. Justin blinked and looked, then looked again. It was hard to see, like a handful of shadows and glitter; it seemed to shift in and out of visibility as Justin stared at it. He had no idea what it was. But the Master said, “I see. I believe I see.” And then, “Yes, I think you had better be the one to hold onto those, Alejandro.”

“She used my blood to make them,” Ezekiel snapped.

“Did she?” The Master did not sound impressed. “Then perhaps we may hope that you as well as Alejandro will find them useful in dealing with our enemies in Boston.”

“I won’t leave—” began Ezekiel.

“I do wonder,” said the Master forcefully, “Why it is that no one seems able to simply go to bed and stop generating crises for even one night.” He glanced around at them all. Not even Ezekiel had the temerity to interrupt. The Master added, “You may all consider that an order.”

“But—” began Alejandro and Ezekiel, simultaneously.

“Bed,” growled the Master, cutting them both off. “I do not want to see either of you before noon tomorrow. You will leave for Boston tomorrow at dusk and you will be rested when you go.” He gave both young men a hard look and added, “I shall watch over Natividad until I am certain she has recovered. I assure you, I am quite equal to the task. I expect you to both attend to your own duty. You both know perfectly well, or you should, that she will indeed recover. Her magic may be unusual, but, Ezekiel, you, at least, have certainly once or twice seen a Pure woman who has overstrained her strength.”

“Yes,” muttered Ezekiel. “Well . . . yes.”

Alejandro did not look reconciled, but Miguel said tentatively, looking from one of them to the other, “I’m not going to Boston. I can stay with her. Too.”

The Master gave him a narrow glance and a curt nod. “If you wish.”

“Yes,” Alejandro said, agreeing with plain reluctance. “I . . . that would be well. Yes. She should have a brother to watch over her.”

“I’m gratified you find this solution acceptable,” said the Master, with considerable irony. “Go to bed. Now.”

Natividad’s black dog brother flushed, and bowed his head. He touched his sister’s hair, but then retreated, if reluctantly, toward the room that Justin assumed must be his own.

The Master glanced at Ezekiel, who finally lowered his head as well, and got to his feet. He started to speak, hesitated, shrugged, and said, “I know you’ll take care of her.”

“Of course,” said the Master.

“Of course,” Ezekiel repeated. He gave a very small bow and went out.

Justin, who had been watching all this with fascination, found the Master’s heavy gaze suddenly on him, and cleared his throat. “Bed. Right. I’ll just . . . “ he made a little gesture toward the door, and by implication his room. “I just go on to bed, then.”

“Excellent,” said the Master, gravely. “I am quite certain no one will disturb you.”

Justin was very certain of that, too, with the Master of Dimilioc holding his own private vigil right here across the hall.

He would probably dream of magic, though. Pyramids and lionesses, but also Natividad’s still face and shallow breaths, her slender brown hands so small against the pink of her robe and the bedcovers. This was a feature of magic he would have been happier not seeing. But maybe a feature he had needed to see. Because he sure couldn’t remember anyone warning him that overstraining your magic could make this happen. Or could even lead to—he couldn’t possibly have mistaken the depth of everyone’s worry—even worse things.

Magic and monsters. Both dangerous, maybe even deadly. That was something to give you not just dreams, but nightmares.

-6-

It was morning. Silvery light tinged with apricot brightened Natividad’s window. The pink muslin curtains around her bed had been pulled back to the bedposts, so the light lay across her face and arms. She blinked into the light, puzzled for no reason she could name, feeling dreamy and slow and sort of heavy. She was lying on her back, her shoulders propped up against her pillows, the pink coverlet drawn up to her chin. The dawn light ran across her skin like water. She blinked at it, not quite sure yet whether she was awake or asleep. The light felt warm and soft. She could cup her hand, like this, and gather the thin sunlight of the early morning in her palm . . .

“Enough,” Grayson said beside her. Natividad turned her head.

He had drawn a chair up near her bed. He had been sitting there patiently, watching over her while she slept. That seemed strange. Grayson was always so busy. Why would he take hours out of his night just to watch her sleep? Though . . . his presence made her feel safe. But she hadn’t felt in danger. Had she? She frowned, trying to remember the previous night. Justin . . . Miguel . . . something about Alejandro, and Ezekiel, but she couldn’t quite sort out what was real memory from what was confused half-remembered dreams. She felt very tired and a little stiff, as though she had worked too hard at something physical. Her left hand hurt, the skin tender as though she had scalded herself. She didn’t remember that, either, and frowned again, puzzled, lifting her hand. Her palm and fingers were reddened. The pale sunlight seemed hot where it lay across that hand, here in this country where the sunlight never held much heat.

“Enough,” Grayson repeated, and stood up, going to the window to draw the sheer curtains across the light. His deep voice held . . . not anger. But something like anger. A kind of tension. He was worried about something. Natividad wondered what might be wrong.

“Let go of the light,” he told her, his tone edged with exasperation. “Let go of the magic, Natividad. Immediately.”

Natividad turned her frown on the light she still held cupped in her hand, half surprised. She hadn’t exactly realized she was still holding it, though gathering light wasn’t something she usually did accidentally or without knowing what she meant to use it for. She opened her fingers now, letting the light pour away. “What—?” she asked, and was surprised to find her voice hesitant, thin as the light, as though she had been ill. Had she been ill?

“You don’t remember? You made something new. Three of your shadow-touched things, which I trust our people will find useful, because making them seems to have . . .” the faintest pause. “Exhausted you.”

“What?” But, yes, she realized in a dreamy way that she had felt like this before, when she had first gotten black dog shadows tangled up with Pure magic. Had she . . . ? Yes, she remembered that now. Ezekiel’s shadow, and blood to carry it, and moonlight, and silver . . . she frowned. “It was a kind of teleraña,” she said at last. “But different.”

“So I gather.” A dry amusement had come into Grayson’s voice now. That was better than the worry.

Natividad tried to sit up. It was more difficult than it should have been. Grayson set one broad hand behind her shoulder, supporting her while he rearranged the pillows. Then he sank back into his chair, set his hands on the chair’s arms, and looked at her steadily. “No more magic, Natividad. Nothing that mingles black dog magic with Pure. Not until you understand far better the consequences of such mingling.” He didn’t say Understand me, young lady? That was implicit in his tone.

“Yes, sir,” Natividad answered meekly, because that was how you handled black dogs: meek agreement. Later you could decide what you wanted to do, whether you wanted to obey that kind of command or get around it somehow or just ignore it completely.

Grayson grunted and settled deeper into his chair. Natividad guessed he knew exactly what she was thinking. She concentrated on looking meek. Then a thought rose up out of the vagueness that weighed her down, and she looked up again. “Ezekiel? Alejandro?” But as soon as she thought of Alejandro, she knew he was fine. Far away, though. Somewhere . . . she turned her head toward the southeast. Somewhere that way. Yes, because he and Ezekiel and Ethan had meant to go back to Boston. She remembered that now.

“They left some time ago,” Grayson said, his tone curt but not actually angry. “You made your webs for both of them and for Ethan as well. Very unusual . . . items. Very difficult for a black dog to anticipate. Armed with such concealment, I doubt very much they will meet anything in Boston they cannot overcome.”

Natividad leaned her head back against her pillows and tried to remember exactly what she had made.

“You, however . . .” Grayson began, but stopped, uncharacteristically irresolute. He said at last, “You collapsed, Natividad. I am told that for some moments Ezekiel could not determine whether you were breathing.”

Natividad lifted her head off the pillows again, astonished.

“A mirror confirmed you breathed. But you have been unconscious for some time, though lately your rest has appeared more natural. It is,” he added, seeing the disbelief in her eyes, “Thursday morning.”

Thursday. She had been asleep for a full day and another full night? It seemed impossible.

Grayson, plainly seeing her disbelief, gave her a stern little nod. “In the future, you will work no such magic save under careful supervision and with my explicit permission.”

Natividad nodded. She would think about that later, but resting . . . actually sounded like a very good idea. Though . . . she said, hearing the plaintiveness in her own voice, “But I’m starving.”

“Rest,” Grayson ordered, uncompromising. “Do not get out of your bed. I shall send Miguel up with your breakfast.”

That sounded like an even better idea. Natividad leaned her head back again and shut her eyes. “Bueno. Good. But will you stay with me until Miguel comes? You make me feel safe.” She fell asleep again before she heard Grayson’s answer, but even asleep she somehow knew he was there.

The smell of eggs scrambled with onions and poblano peppers and cheese woke Natividad.

And biscuits, she thought, blinking fuzzily at the strong wash of light across the ceiling. Biscuits with honey. She moved vaguely, pushing at the sheets and coverlet, and Miguel took the plate away. She made a small noise of protest.

“Sit up and you can have it back,” her twin told her. “Can you sit up?” He offered her a mug of cocoa, strong and bittersweet, fragrant with cinnamon. “The things some people will do to get breakfast in bed. Or supper.”

“Supper?” Natividad still felt fuzzy. But the light gilding her room was ruddy amber, the light of late afternoon. “What time is it?”

“Almost five. In the evening.”

“Oh.” Natividad rubbed her face with her hands and took the chocolate. “I slept all day? All another day? Wow. I’m sorry. Did you get any rest?”

“Un poco,” said Miguel. His tone was unusually neutral.

“I’m fine,” Natividad assured him. “Except I’m really hungry!” She took a scalding gulp of the cocoa, which made her wake up the rest of the way. She looked hopefully at the tray, set on a small table Miguel had placed near the bed. “I can sit in a chair.”

“No, you can’t. That’s why God made bed trays. No te muevas.” Miguel put the tray carefully across her lap, taking the mug of chocolate away from her before she could spill it.

The eggs were good. Miguel hadn’t cooked much until . . . she shied from thinking, until Mamá was gone and changed it in her mind to until we came here to Dimilioc. Somehow here it had seemed natural to show her twin some of the things Mamá had taught her, about roasting poblanos, about the right way to cook black beans, about how to grind cumin seeds with a mortar and pestle. Now Miguel made breakfast for them all as often as she did. He was a morning person, anyway. Though Natividad suspected that wasn’t the only reason he’d taken over some of the cooking: it was probably part of a clever campaign to become indispensable or something.

“Justin?” she asked, remembering suddenly. “You’ve been on babysitting duty all this time? Poor you! But he’s settled in, he’s not upset anymore?” Then she blinked, remembering that she’d woken earlier and Grayson had told her—she shook her head. “Was I really—” unconscious— “asleep for two whole days? Or did I dream that?”

“Thirty-eight hours, more or less,” her twin assured her. He searched her face, nudged the honey closer to her hand, and, seeming at last to believe she was better, dropped with a whoof of breath into the big chair Grayson had left drawn up near her bed. “Could have been worse,” he said, with slightly forced cheer. “Instead of Justin, I could have been stuck babysitting your little Pure girl for two days, but she won’t let go of Amira.”

Natividad was surprised. “Still?”

“Yep. Amira tries to put her down, she starts screaming. Don’t ask me! She doesn’t talk, but it sure isn’t because there’s anything wrong with her lungs. You’d think she’d would be scared of Conway at least, but she doesn’t seem to be. And Con seems to like her. At least, he hasn’t tried to kill her or anything.”

“That’s a low bar,” Natividad commented. Conway was the six-year-old black dog son of Thaddeus and DeAnn.

Miguel rolled his eyes. “Yeah, but black dog puppies, you know! Thank God for Amira, or I’d have been the one keeping an eye on Conway. That’d have been dire. Amira doesn’t seem to mind, though. She keeps Con right in line, but I think she really likes having a little Pure sister. Or something.”

“I think maybe the little one had a black dog sister,” Natividad said.

“Oh, yeah, that could be. Yeah, I could see that. Have another biscuit while it’s hot. No, don’t worry, the kids are fine. Considering. And Justin’s fine, too, considering. You don’t have to worry. Everyone’s being nice to him. Everyone else is okay, too. Alejandro and everyone haven’t run into any trouble, not yet. They’re looking for the black dogs, but they hadn’t found them last I heard. I mean, a couple of callejeros, but just ordinary callejeros so far.” He shrugged, meaning he knew Natividad could have found their real enemy immediately if she had been there. “They’ll find the right black dogs eventually.”

Natividad nodded, swallowed, and asked, “Thaddeus?”

“They’re on their way back, I heard.”

“Bueno. I wanted to talk to DeAnn about Justin.” Natividad swung her feet out of her bed and reached for her robe.

“You sure you should be getting up?” Miguel asked, standing up quickly as though afraid he might have to catch her.

Natividad rolled her eyes. “Sí. Deja la pataleta. I’m fine.”

“Estás siendo un estúpido. You’re not fine until Grayson says you’re fine. You want to get me in trouble?”

Natividad paused, because that was a point. “I need a shower,” she insisted after a moment.

“Sure. I’ll wait till you’re done. Yell if you need something.”

Yell if you fall and can’t get up, he meant. That seemed fair, the way Natividad felt, now that she was on her feet—not exactly dizzy, but sort of heavy, and uncertain in her body. Maybe that was just hunger. She could feel the food was helping, though. “After I get dressed, I will go down to the kitchen. Are there any more eggs?”

“No, but I made beans and rice. It’ll heat up fine. And I can make some more biscuits.” He gave her a narrow look, of, Natividad could tell, genuine concern. “I’ll bring you another tray up here, and you can sit at that nice table by the window so you don’t have to go down the stairs—”

Natividad gave her twin a warning look. “I can walk down to the kitchen. You won’t even have to hold my hand.”

“You are a bold, bold creature,” said Miguel. “But—”

“I’ll let you walk a step below me,” Natividad conceded. “But only so you don’t get in trouble with Grayson.”

Miguel made a wordless sound, which probably meant he was going to call Grayson the minute Natividad was in the shower. She almost didn’t blame him.

She’d never reacted to magic like this, and now two whole days and the night between were just gone, and besides that she only had the foggiest memory of what she’d made for Ezekiel and Alejandro. Though she knew what sort of thing she would have made, and could almost sort of remember deciding to make it. Them. Three. One for Ethan, too. She didn’t remember making that one at all. Maybe that was all it was: making too many aparatos too fast. She turned the water in the shower on hot, hot, hot, leaned against the shower wall, and thought about nets made of light and the way such a net might cast a lacework of shadows that would hide a black dog from his enemies.

And she’d thought she could teach Justin magic. She was not at all sure she would dare teach him anything. What if she taught him all wrong and messed him up somehow? DeAnn was older anyway. Justin might like an older woman better as a teacher. Natividad tried not to think, But I know more than DeAnn, though she knew this was true. Mamá had known so much about magic, about how it worked, and why . . . and then Malvern Vonhausel had tracked her down because of that, and killed her and Papá, and if Natividad thought too much about that, she would only get upset, and that was no use to anybody.

And the water was starting to get cooler, anyway.

But she did feel better. More grounded. More like she was solidly in her body.

Still starving, though.

“I checked with Grayson, and he says, if you really feel up to it, you can have your second supper in the kitchen,” Miguel told her, once she was dressed and ready and back out in her bedroom. “If you let me help you on the stairs, and if you promise to tell me immediately if you feel, you know, weird.”

Like you’re going to faint, Natividad interpreted this. She had to admit this seemed fair enough.

“But you’re to be in bed at nine, no later, he says. Don’t look at me. He’s the one who said it; I’m just telling you. Nine sharp and you better believe it. I bet he comes to tuck you in personally.”

That made Natividad laugh, which was probably the point.

“Great, then. Forward!” said Miguel, and opened the door with a flourish.

Miguel had developed a taste for American biscuits. He had learned to cut in the butter just right so they were very rich and flaky. He made pizza, too, and was trying to learn to hand-throw the dough, though then he turned right around and claimed tortillas were too much trouble, which was ridiculous, at least if you had a proper tortilla press. They alternated in the kitchen, Miguel making mostly American food and Natividad mostly Mexican. So she knew he’d made the beans and rice especially for her, because he thought she needed the comfort of Mexican cooking. Sometimes her twin was pretty clever.

Miguel plainly wanted to do something, and didn’t want to look like he was hovering. So he made biscuits.

Justin was in the kitchen, too. His eyes no longer had that stunned, bruised look, Natividad was glad to see. He looked, if not at home, at least more comfortable than he had yesterday. No. Two days ago. That was so strange, having days just vanish like that.

But the kitchen was soothing. She felt better now that she was here, watching Miguel make biscuits.

Justin was perched on a high kitchen stool, one elbow propped on the granite counter, his feet hooked around the rungs of the stool. He swept unruly bangs out of his eyes and gave Natividad a shy look. He, too, had been worried about her, which was sweet of him, since after all he didn’t even know her yet. Really, he was very nice. She could surely do a lot worse than to forget about Ezekiel and see if she could catch Justin’s eye. Justin would never pretend to like her, really like her, when really he just wanted her for her magic. He wouldn’t try to take over her life, either.

Even so, Natividad was uneasily aware that she really didn’t want Justin to think about her like that.

“Biscuits will be up in ten minutes,” Miguel announced, sliding the tray into the hot oven. “Butter’s in the fridge. Honey’s over there.” He pointed with his elbow, since his hands were full, and Justin slid off his stool to get it, quickly, before Natividad could even think of moving.

“I could get used to this,” Natividad told him, shaking off her unease. “Minions to cook for me and fetch and carry . . .”

Justin smiled, but plainly wasn’t sure he knew her well enough to tease her back. But Miguel warned her, “You are so not going to get used to this,” even as he dished beans and rice onto a plate for her and put the plate in the microwave. American kitchens really were filled with handy devices, Natividad had to admit, even if they lacked character.

The beans were good. Natividad would have put in more cumin, but they were good. Justin seemed to think so, too. At least, he ate his share and didn’t complain or say he wanted a burger. Natividad ate three biscuits dripping with melted butter and warm honey, and worried about magic, and Grayson. And about Alejandro and Ezekiel and even Ethan, off in Boston, all of them depending on aparatos she’d made when she didn’t even know herself exactly how she’d made them or what they would do.

Grayson was going to want to know all about those aparatos. Natividad’s heart sank, contemplating the deeply caustic attitude he was likely to take, now that she was properly awake to be scolded. Grayson could take caustic to stratospheric heights. She was not supposed to work dangerous magic she didn’t fully understand. She was emphatically not supposed to do that without getting his approval first. She hoped Ezekiel hadn’t gotten in trouble over letting her do that. It had all seemed to make sense at the time, and things had been moving so fast, somehow. And she hadn’t exactly known what she was going to do until she did it . . .

Miguel was eyeing her thoughtfully, but he only said, “Thaddeus and DeAnn and that team ought to be back tonight or tomorrow, which will be a relief to us all, but mostly to me, since I doubt Amira’s going to keep herself on babysitter duty forever. And then you and DeAnn can teach Justin all about magic.”

Natividad slanted a questioning look toward Justin, who had twitched slightly at that last, and she didn’t blame him. “People don’t usually collapse for days after working magic, you know! We’ll teach you simple, easy things.”

“Miguel’s been explaining Pure magic to me,” Justin said quietly.

“He always paid attention to the theory,” Natividad agreed, just a little tartly because she still wasn’t sure her twin had told her about all the things Mamá had taught him and not her. She’d never known, when she was growing up, that Mamá was explaining the theory of magic to her human brother at the same time she was teaching Natividad the practical application. She knew it was childish to resent Miguel for that, she knew it didn’t mean Mamá had loved her any less or anything ridiculous like that, she knew Mamá had thought Natividad needed to feel the magic instead of think about it. But . . . sometimes she still didn’t like to think about Mamá talking to Miguel about the magic she’d believed only they shared.

She bit fiercely into a biscuit and thought about Justin instead, because that seemed safer and more comfortable than thinking about Ezekiel.

She liked his voice, she decided. It was a very human voice: sort of warm. A little husky, but in a good way. He looked warm, too: honey-warm skin toasted by the sun and hair the color of dolce con leche and those beautiful eyes, brown with a little gold. He looked very human and very American. And he had that weird math thing, so he could make instant mandalas. That was really cool.

“Not just magic,” said Miguel, taking a stool on the other side of Natividad and filching a biscuit off the platter. “I’ve been explaining manners, because, you know, black dogs.” He rolled his eyes. “And about black dogs and moon-bound cambiadors and why they’re completely different, you know. History. The hidden kind of history, right?”

Natividad made a face, adding a squeeze of lime to her beans and rice. “Poor Justin. Like being in school.”

Justin shrugged. “It’s interesting, actually. All this stuff no one ever knew about, vampires clouding men’s minds like The Shadow, black dogs taking over towns or even whole countries in secret.” He made a face. “I guess it explains a lot, half the Middle East being ruled by families of sociopathic demon werewolves. And it explains why Lebanon and Tunisia and some of those other countries weren’t like that, since Miguel says the black dogs there were more like Dimilioc. I mean, protecting the Pure and like that. But Keziah’s from Saudi Arabia?”

“Yeah, not a nice place,” Miguel said in a judicious tone. “The Saudis were pretty upset when the miasma faded and they found out all their princes were black dogs. I’m sure Keziah’s from the royal bloodline. She doesn’t talk about it, but she’s sure not any untrained stray.”

“So she’s, like, a princess or something.”

Justin seemed taken with that idea. Natividad could see why. It was all very romantic. Or it seemed that way, if you didn’t know much about how women were treated in uncivilized black dog houses. She said warningly, “I wouldn’t say anything like that to her. A girl black dog didn’t used to be a good thing to be, in Saudi Arabia.”

“I expect she took advantage of the war to get herself and Amira out,” agreed Miguel. “Probably the very first chance they had. Through Lebanon, probably, since Keziah had to find one of the Pure to work the Aplacando for them, and I expect Israel’s too hard for a stray black dog to get in and out of. Nurullah in Lebanon used to be a powerful, civilized house. She probably found one of their Pure women.”

“But she didn’t stay there. She brought her sister here.”

“Well, black dogs are pretty territorial, usually. Grayson’s unusual, bringing in new blood. Besides, you know, we’re about as far away from Saudi Arabia as you can get, here. I doubt Keziah wants to bump into anybody from home. Or at least,” Miguel added drily, “She might really enjoy running into someone from home, if she had them outnumbered.”

Justin shrugged, a little uneasily. “I have to admit, it sounds to me like China and India got lucky in the magic-entity lottery.”

“Yeah, dragons and qirin to keep away vampires and black dogs.” Miguel sounded a little wistful. “Though I’m not a hundred percent sure I’d want to have dragons in the Río Bravo or Chapala Lake, or up at the tops of God knows how many mountains. That might cause almost as much trouble as vampires, I guess. Or more trouble, even, maybe.”

“Not the same kind of trouble,” Natividad commented.

“Storms, rain, droughts, floods. No dams. A lot fewer bridges. No roads across the Rockies? Or else I guess everyone would have to learn to be very polite when they wanted to build anything like that.” Miguel sounded like he might find a country with more dragons interesting after all. He took a biscuit off the platter and juggled it gently in from hand to hand until it was cool enough to break open and drizzle with honey.

“Dragons really do all that?” asked Justin.

“Yes, but they’re a lot less scary than vampires,” Natividad pointed out. “A dragon might cause a flood or storm or something, but it wouldn’t do things with so much, I don’t know. Malicia. Malice. I mean, at least dragons aren’t demonic.”

Miguel shrugged agreement. “The Chinese don’t really talk about it, but if you look at their history and what they do and don’t do with tech today, you get—” he sketched a vague shape in the air with his biscuit. “Kind of the shape of dragon influence. Qirin influence is harder to pin down. And don’t ask me what’s going on in Africa. Everything south of the Sahara is just spooky, different kinds of spooky depending on where you are. Dimilioc’s got these notes about witches with demonic shadows. Not black dogs, but not vampires, either. Those witches got their claws into west Africa way back, that’s what we think. They were right there when the Ashanti Empire was conquering all their neighbors. Seriously not nice. Not just the thing with turning slavery into an institution, they were into human sacrifice, you ever hear about that in school?” He bit into his biscuit at last, dripping honey on the counter.

Justin was eyeing Miguel. “Yeah, no, not that I remember. You read this stuff in your free time, do you?”

“It’s interesting,” Miguel said easily. “East Africa’s got something else, not even Dimilioc’s got a clue what, something that kept the witches out, lucky for them.”

“Huh. But mostly everybody got demons except the Far East,” said Justin. “How nice for us, getting such nice, friendly black dogs.”

He said this last in a dry tone that made Natividad look at him sharply. She asked, “So, you’ve met Keziah?”

“Not today,” Miguel said smoothly, by which Natividad gathered that Justin had indeed met Keziah and wasn’t supposed to meet her again.

“Miguel’s done a great job protecting me from all the beautiful demonic girl werewolves,” Justin agreed, his tone very dry. He slid off his stool. “Don’t bother,” he said to Miguel, when Natividad’s twin jumped to his feet. “I can find my way just fine.”

“Right,” said Miguel, a beat too slowly.

“Seriously, don’t trouble yourself,” Justin snapped, and walked out.

“Es un poco se disgustado,” Miguel said to Natividad apologetically. “I don’t think—that is, I guess he won’t actually do anything stupid . . .”

“All the car keys are in Grayson’s office, right?”

“Yeah . . .”

Natividad shrugged and ate another biscuit. “Then what can he do? You wouldn’t like being hovered over and, I don’t know, no te gustaria ser tratado como niño, tampoco. You have told him how to behave and what to do, right? Let him go.”

Miguel nodded, but he looked after Justin, too, his expression worried. “I tried not to be too scary . . .”

“You were probably too logical. People don’t always like being told what their most logical, rational choices are.” Natividad pointed her fork at him for emphasis. “People want to be reassured, they want to hear everything’s fine, they want to believe you like them—”

“I do like Justin, but he’s—” A phone rang before Miguel could finish his protest. Natividad sat up in surprise, reaching automatically for her cell phone before remembering that she’d left it in her room. But Miguel looked immediately toward the landline phone, which was on its own little shelf at the far end of the counter. “Junk phone call?” he said, because of course few people called using the landline.

Any of the Dimilioc wolves would call Grayson’s cell if they were in serious trouble. If it weren’t serious, they wouldn’t call at all, they’d just deal with it, whatever it was. Black dogs had lots of faults, but indecisiveness or hesitancy weren’t usually among them.

“Sheriff Pearson?” suggested Natividad. That would mean something was wrong and he wanted Dimilioc help. It might be Father McClanahan instead, wanting Natividad’s help with something. Catholic priests who knew anything about the Pure always thought of lots of ways Pure magic could help their parishioners. This would have been fine with Natividad last week, but she found that now she wasn’t sure anymore if she really understood her own magic. She almost hoped it was Sheriff Pearson. She said, as the phone rang again, persistently, “I don’t think anybody else is going to pick up. You better get it.”

“Right.” Miguel scooted his chair back and loped easily across the kitchen, scooped the phone out of its charger, and said briskly, “Dimilioc.” Then he paused, listening. His expression changed. “Who? Yeah, really? No me chingues?

“What?” said Natividad. She couldn’t make out a single word of the other end of the conversation; all she could tell was that the person speaking had an unfamiliar rapid, light tenor voice. The voice sounded young to her, sort of rushed and hesitant at the same time.

Miguel said, “Just a minute,” to the other person and then said to Natividad, “Says he’s Christopher Toland.”

Natividad was so startled she actually swayed backward. She caught the edge of the counter to steady herself. “Oh, de lengue me como un taco. Papá didn’t have any brothers!”

“Yeah, no, seriously. I guess he did have cousins, huh? This is somebody young. A second cousin, I bet. Says he’s calling from El Paso, that Dimilioc wolves from the Colorado sept were there during the war, working to break the back of a blood kin clique down there. I remember something about that. Only a handful of them survived, but they thought we were gone, only then they saw Ezekiel going all Dimilioc is still here on national TV—hang on.” He said to the person on the other end of the line, “I’m going to put you on hold, right? And get Grayson Lanning. Yeah. Yes. Don’t hang up, hear me? Comprende?” He looked at Natividad. “You know how to put this thing on hold?”

They just left it off the hook, in the end, and went together to find Grayson.

Grayson was in his study, flicking rapidly through internet sites, a task he generally left to Miguel. When he glanced up and saw Natividad and Miguel, his expression was grim. But then that was often true, especially when anybody was off handling risky missions, which these days was all missions all the time, or so it seemed to Natividad. Everything had gotten so complicated and dangerous, with unguessable consequences that spun away downstream.

And Thaddeus’ team wasn’t back yet, either. Natividad sort of had the impression, looking at Grayson now, that they should have been.

And besides all that, Grayson now had a little Pure girl to look after, with no idea what her mamá had taught her or why she clung so hard to Amira.

At the moment, though, Grayson seemed completely focused on Natividad. He leaned back in his chair and rested his elbows on the chair’s arms, steepled his hands, and gazed autocratically at Natividad over the tips of his fingers. “Should you be up?” he inquired, meaning, clearly, that she shouldn’t be.

“Well, yes, but we got this phone call . . . ” Natividad began, and stopped, not sure what to say.

Miguel walked across Grayson’s study, picked up the phone on his desk, hit the talk button, and held it out to the Master. “Christopher Toland,” he said, very simply.

Grayson’s eyebrows rose. He took the phone from Miguel and said flatly into it, “Grayson Lanning.” Then he listened. He grunted, a wordless sound that combined disapproval and surprise. He tapped his heavy fingers on the surface of his desk and grunted again. At last he said, “Christopher. Stop.” Reaching out, he flipped the phone to its speaker function, said, “Start again. From the beginning.” He set the phone down in the middle of his desk so they could all listen.

“Uh, right. Yes, sir. We’re just very glad to hear the Northeast Kingdom’s still intact after all,” said a rapid tenor, a little uncertainly. Natividad tried to remember if she knew anything about Papá’s cousins, how old they might have been, how old their children might be now. Christopher sounded young. She was positive he was a black dog and not a human, though she couldn’t have said exactly how she could tell. He said, so quickly that the words tumbled over one another, “None of us even hoped for that, we’ve just tried to hold on here, but thank God now we might actually manage to roll this bastard backward, push him and all his damned blood kin clear back to the coast if we can’t destroy him outright. And Ezekiel Korte has survived, thank God, we had no idea; we’ve got to have him down here; if you’ll send him, that’ll set this vampire bastard back by the heels right enough—”

“A vampire?” Miguel said sharply, and Natividad also drew in a quick breath, though she didn’t make a sound.

“From the beginning,” growled Grayson, and said to Miguel and Natividad, “This is a young wolf from Dimilioc’s western sept. Black wolves went south late in the war, to break the vampire grip on El Paso. We had not believed any of them survived.”

Natividad nodded, wanting to ask who had survived, but aware that if this cousin of hers enumerated the survivors, he would by that also be numbering the dead. It seemed hard to ask him to do that before he had to.

“Um, yes,” said Christopher. “We were—I mean, we did lose a lot of people, not just to the vampires and blood kin, but to a black wolf. A Dimilioc exile, Marshall said, but the name sounded more Gehorsam to me. Marshall knew him. He—we—there was a fight, I guess, I wasn’t there, but this exile had his own pack—”

“Malvern Vonhausel,” Grayson growled. His deep voice had dropped into an even lower register than usual, making him sound as though he were on the edge of losing his temper. Maybe he was. His eyes had taken on a fiery tint that suggested his shadow was pressing him hard.

“Yes, that was it,” agreed Christopher, nervously. “He, um, he went south first, but then just a few months ago he came back and went on up north, we thought into a power vacuum, because we thought you were gone. I’m sorry, sir, but that’s what we thought!”

Vonhausel. Natividad shared a look with Miguel. Then she moved forward to perch on the edge of his desk, laying her hand on his arm. There was dangerous tension in the muscles under her hand, but after a moment that tension eased, and Grayson blinked, and blinked again. He said at last in a voice that was still deep and angry, but no longer possessed that dangerous, inhuman edge, “You were wrong, boy. You were right not to take on Vonhausel. He would have destroyed you. But you were wrong not to contact me.”

“Yes, sir,” said Christopher. “Only we tried, we did try, and no one answered—”

“Indeed,” rumbled Grayson, his voice falling dangerously.

“Maybe . . . Marshall,” said Christopher, speaking with clear reluctance. “Marshall said—he was the one who tried to call you and said you weren’t there. He said we could build up our strength here, establish a restored Dimilioc in Texas, that the loss of the north could be an opportunity in the south—”

“Indeed,” repeated Grayson with more than a hint of thunder in the word.

“He’s dead now anyway,” the younger black dog said quickly. “The vampire got him, we think, anyway he’s gone, and we didn’t know what to do, only then we saw that thing on the news, Ezekiel Korte, and we knew Dimilioc was still there after all—”

“And you believe you have a vampire there, who has come across the border,” Grayson said. “A true vampire, a master vampire we missed in the war.”

“It must be,” said the young voice earnestly. “To get Marshall? What else could it be? But if it got hold of his mind, it could just take him and there’d be nothing he could do! And it’s still out there.”

His voice rose sharply on this last. Natividad couldn’t blame him. The idea of a true master vampire rising was horrifying. Even black dogs weren’t proof against the blindness that wrapped around master vampires. For ordinary humans it was worse. No human would be able to perceive a master vampire, not directly, though people who knew enough about vampires might be able to guess where it was and what it was doing by the things that suddenly started going wrong in the city, the things people started to do that didn’t make any sense.

And anyone, human or black dog, who got too close to a master vampire . . . if they didn’t have someone Pure to protect them, they could find themselves wrapped right up in the vampire miasma, too. They could suddenly find themselves just wanting to do whatever the vampire wanted them to do, and they wouldn’t even know it was the miasma.

It was the worst thing that could happen. The very worst. And this cousin she didn’t even know was right there, in that kind of danger. Natividad didn’t want to think about what might happen to him or to the other black dogs there.

Christopher said, his tone more subdued now, “There’re blood kin in El Paso again, we can smell them, but we can’t track them, not well enough, we don’t have any Pure women. But they must have been made by a vampire, and they must have been made recently, right?”

“Enough,” growled Grayson. Christopher’s voice cut off instantly. Grayson said, “Begin again. Begin at the beginning. Think this through, and tell me everything in proper order. Then we shall see what we may do.”

There were only four real Dimilioc black wolves left in El Paso, it turned out: Christopher Toland; and a Lanning cousin, Jonathan Lanning; and two youngsters of the Hammond line. That was especially good, because Grayson had believed the Hammond bloodline lost entirely, and now here were these two Hammonds after all, Nicholas Hammond and his sister Carissa. Natividad had mixed feelings about that last. Keziah was kind of not so bad, these days, at least mostly. But black dog girls were so often really, really touchy. Maybe a Hammond, raised securely as part of Dimilioc, would be different.

The Lanning cousin and the Hammonds were even younger than Christopher, barely more than children—about her own age. Natividad guessed that was why they had survived: the adults had fought and died to protect their children, and in the end only the young ones had been left. And this Marshall, who had been the oldest of the survivors and whose loyalty to the main Dimilioc house seemed to have been seriously questionable. But he had been killed. Now the oldest black dog was a recent recruit, a black dog named Rubio who had been a stray. That was probably causing a lot of tension: the oldest and probably strongest black dog being a stray and not born to a proper Dimilioc bloodline.

“But there are a lot of strays now and we needed his strength, and he has a lot of control, he did even as a stray, and at the time we had a Pure woman with us to do the Beschwichtigan for him—”

Grayson gave the phone a stern look, interrupting this tumble of words. “You had a Pure woman? And lost her?”

There was a short pause before the other black dog said, his tone more subdued, “She—we—that is—”

“You failed to protect your Pure woman,” concluded Grayson. He tapped the fingers of one hand on his desk.

Natividad laid her hand on his shoulder, and the rhythm of the tapping slowed.

“We tried to protect her,” Christopher protested, but not with a lot of force. He sounded nervous and guilty. “And we tried to find others of the Pure, but . . .” his voice trailed off.

Grayson made a wordless growling sound and then said, grimly, “Go on. The vampire?”

“I know we thought we got them all,” Christopher said unhappily. “I’m sure you thought the same, sir. Master. But then we picked up blood kin spoor in El Paso, right, so we thought, well, maybe one of the lesser vampires hid way down in Mexico or Central America somewhere and we missed it, none of us had many of the Pure left to search for vampires or blood kin by that time, right? And I guess that’s what happened, because Marshall—” he stopped abruptly. Then he said, “I don’t know if it was a master, but it came down right on us, on Marshall and me and Rubio, right outside our house, and you could tell right away it was powerful.” The young voice sounded haunted.

“You caught vampire scent?”

“Hot iron and old blood,” said the other black dog, still sounding subdued. “It could have been black dogs, only I thought I also caught a trace of sulfur, but . . . I don’t know. Maybe I just thought so, afterward.”

Grayson gave Natividad a considering, speculative look.

“I guess it must be a vampire,” she said, answering that look. “I mean, they’d know the difference if it was just blood kin.” You must have missed one, she didn’t say. That was abundantly clear, and Grayson would hardly care to have anybody point it out. They knew that Vonhausel had made some kind of alliance with a vampire in the south. Maybe it had been this one, this vampire, and maybe it had got some black dog magic from Vonhausel. Maybe that was why Dimilioc had missed it. She actually thought that seemed pretty likely. She gave Miguel a raised-eyebrow look, suspecting he, too, was thinking about Vonhausel and horrible blends of black dog and vampire magic.

“I cannot send you Ezekiel Korte immediately,” Grayson told the young black dog. “He is away just now, handling another urgent problem for me. It would undeniably be useful to restore Dimilioc’s reach in the south, however. And if this is indeed a vampire, we shall certainly wish to see that it is destroyed before it is able to establish itself.” He paused, considering.

“Or we could just bring all these black dogs here,” suggested Miguel. “We could tell the human authorities about El Paso’s new vampire, let them take care of it, now that they know how, more or less. Fort Bliss is right there, isn’t it? They’d know what to do with a vampire—”

“Shall we invite humans to intervene in Dimilioc matters? Admit Dimilioc weakness? Encourage humans to resume the war? We assuredly do not wish the humans to feel that they are still threatened by creatures out of the fell dark.”

Miguel paused. “Well,” he said at last, reluctantly, “That’s a point.”

Grayson said to Christopher, “You will get out of El Paso immediately. Go north, into New Mexico. To Carlsbad perhaps. That should do. I shall send someone. I will expect you to provide a full account to my black wolf and then provide any assistance required to eliminate this vampire. Until my wolf arrives, I suggest discretion. Is that clear?”

“Yes.” Christopher’s voice plainly conveyed worry. “We’re already near Carlsbad actually. But if we don’t have help soon, Master, I think your wolf won’t find us here when he finally comes to Texas, but only blood kin and—and, I beg your pardon, but I’m afraid he may also find, in the end, only the fell dark.”

“Yes,” Grayson said patiently. “I think you may take it as a given that I do understand how to hunt vampires.”

“Yes, sir,” Christopher said, subdued. He explained where he and the other Dimilioc black dogs were staying: a house a little south of Carlsbad, Natividad gathered. It was a place set in the stark desert, but not like home: this had been the sort of glamorous desert ranch that some of the very wealthy had liked to build, but it had been abandoned during the brief, bitter war between black dogs and vampires, when normal humans had finally realized there really were monsters who hunted them in the dark.

After he hung up, Grayson leaned back in his wide leather chair and studied the phone with considerable intensity. Natividad had no trouble guessing the general tenor of his thoughts, but was a good deal less certain about what specific decisions he might eventually reach. She said tentatively, “You need to send me, you know, if there really is a master vampire . . . which I guess there must be . . .” she didn’t want to imagine any kind of resumed war. The desperate struggle to wipe out the vampires and the blood kin they had made had been bad enough the first time. She said, “We can’t just chase it back across the border. That wouldn’t be right, and it wouldn’t work anyway, it would just disappear away south somewhere and then come back later. We have to destroy it. And for that you need me.”

“Out of the question,” said the Dimilioc Master, his tone absent.

“But—” Natividad began.

Miguel said, interrupting this argument before it could start, “You know, sir, I’m not sure everyone could have missed a real master vampire as close as Mexico. And, I mean, we were all paying attention. We definitely were.” He meant their family. “We wouldn’t have let a vampire hide anywhere near us, and we can’t have been the only black dogs in Mexico ready to let Dimilioc know if one tried—”

“Mm,” said Grayson. “More than one Mexican black dog did provide information to Dimilioc, toward the end. We had little choice but to pass much of that information on to the human authorities, by that time.” He fell silent again, frowning, lost in grim memory. Natividad knew the look. Sympathetic despite herself, she rested her hand on his arm.

“I mean,” said Miguel, speaking just a little bit more loudly, “I think it’s probably just blood kin and maybe one or two lesser vampires, not a real master vampire, but if it is a master vampire, don’t you think you really will need someone Pure to help you destroy it?”

Grayson turned his heavy gaze at last on Miguel, lifting one eyebrow. Miguel ducked his head and glanced down. Grayson said flatly, “I will not risk Natividad. Certainly not while neither she nor I understand precisely what she is doing with her magic. I think I must indeed send Ezekiel. I don’t wish to recall him from Boston. But if this is a master vampire . . . I may be forced to ask Thaddeus to go to El Paso. With DeAnn. But Thaddeus has no experience against vampires.”

This was true, Natividad realized. Thaddeus hadn’t been part of Dimilioc during the war. Of course he had surely defended himself and his family against blood kin, but he would hardly have gone out deliberately hunting master vampires. No one had, except Dimilioc and the other black wolves of organized houses. And later human people, of course, had learned some things about how to hunt the monsters: not only the vampires and their blood kin, unfortunately, but stray black dogs, too, and moon-bound cambiadors.

Grayson said in a more decisive tone, “I shall recall Ezekiel. He and Thaddeus and DeAnn can go south. And the Meade brothers, I think. I shall go to Boston myself.”

“But Conway!” Natividad protested. “Besides, you know DeAnn’s going to need to adopt that little Pure girl, because who else is there? I’m perfectly fine, I can work ordinary Pure magic, I promise not to try anything, um, anything creative.”

Grayson gave her a flat stare. “Think, Natividad. You know very well your magic has become . . . compromised, in ways we do not yet understand. Whether you consciously intend to work creatively or not. I fear you have made yourself vulnerable to demonic influence in ways that are not true for other Pure women. Do you truly wish to venture into the territory of a master vampire?”

Natividad flinched slightly and closed her mouth.

The phone buzzed. Not the landline, this time, as she realized after a brief instant of surprise. This was Grayson’s cellphone. He raised a speaking eyebrow, glanced at the caller ID that must be showing on the screen, hit the talk button, and said, “Thaddeus, report.”

The deep, deep rumble of the other black dog was a sound Natividad almost felt rather than heard. She couldn’t catch even a single word, and Grayson said almost nothing, only, “Yes,” and “Yes,” and “Yes,” and “No,” and then at last, sounding impatient, “Very well, if you must.” Then he put the phone down on his desk, so gently that she suspected he would have preferred to crush it.

“Trouble?” asked Miguel, alert and interested.

“No one’s hurt, are they?” asked Natividad, giving her twin a repressive look.

Grayson sighed. “The black dog they were bringing to Dimilioc seems to have slipped their control. He’s loose in Newport.”

“Oh, not good,” said Miguel. “How’d he get away?”

“He injured DeAnn,” Grayson said, his tone very flat. “Thaddeus let him go in order to care for her.”

“Oh,” said Miguel, subdued, and looked at Natividad. “Then—”

“Out of the question,” the Dimilioc Master growled.

“That Christopher Toland, he’s too young to face a master vampire. A bunch of kids and that stray? There’s no way. Whoever goes, they’re going to need a Pure woman, or it will be like fighting blindfolded. I don’t have to go all the way to El Paso, you know. I can just go part of the way! I promise, I can still make simple, ordinary aparatos: a trouvez, a maraña—there’s nothing strange about those when I make them—”

“Out of the question,” the Dimilioc Master repeated, this time with black dog thunder underlying his words.

Natividad wanted to argue, but she could see there was no point. All those young black dogs in El Paso might get killed, because she wasn’t able to help them. Her own cousin, whom she had never even met. That was so unfair.

And Ezekiel would be in danger, too, when he went south. Ezekiel, and whomever Grayson sent with him—not Thaddeus, not if DeAnn was hurt. Maybe Grayson would send Ezekiel alone after all. He might die. He really might. Not even Ezekiel ought to face a master vampire with no backup but a handful of inexperienced black dog youngsters

But Grayson wouldn’t let her help.

She hated that. She really, really hated it. But she didn’t know what she could do to make him see she was right.

-7-

Justin had had way too much time to think, over the past couple of days.

Sure, he’d crashed hard that first day. He didn’t even remember any dreams from that part. Not even any nightmares, though he thought he was pretty well entitled to a few nightmares. It might have helped that he’d been so dead tired at first, and that by the time he’d started to recover, Natividad had also woken up for a couple minutes, so everyone was pretty sure she was going to be all right. Justin had been surprised by the intensity of his own relief at that news. He barely knew the girl, but it was as though in the back of his mind he already thought of her as . . . something. Kind of a symbol of Dimilioc, or a good luck charm, or a little sister. Or maybe all three at the same time.

Not much like Keziah, that was for sure. It would have been easy to picture the two girls as different species, never mind just different kinds of people. He couldn’t quite decide whether he ought to be grateful that Keziah now seemed to be staying out of his way. Far out of his way. Or . . . not that far, actually. Visualizing the house, estimating its basic dimensions, he idly calculated the maximum distance she could be from this particular location, given a straightforward Cartesian volume . . . not very far, actually. Not even in a really big house like this one. But was that too far or not far enough?

The problem was, Keziah scared him . . . but not really. Maybe after she’d had time to get used to the idea of him even existing, maybe after just the thought of him didn’t set her on edge, maybe he could actually get to know her.

People did tone it down a notch, usually, around him. People always had. He could see, looking back, once Natividad had explained what the Pure were supposed to do. Or be. Whatever.

All that fuss about school bullying, online bullying, he’d always thought that must be exaggerated. Now he could see he might have been . . . living in a bubble, in a way. That was an uncomfortable thought. Was it really possible he’d been carrying a bubble with him, big enough that other people fell into it, too? A let’s-be-a-little-bit-nicer bubble that toned down the antagonism between jocks and geeks, that nudged the popular girls to be a little kinder to the shy girls?

Had his mother carried a bubble like that around with her?

Looking back on his life, their lives, Justin almost thought that maybe she had. If any of that were true, then the whole neighborhood must really miss her. That was . . . right, actually. They should miss her.

But if the Pure carried bubbles of niceness around with them, what would that imply about the way the world really was? Strange, uncomfortable thought, that he might not ever have lived in exactly the same world everyone else occupied.

Though . . . did anyone really live in the same world? He was already sure that black dogs didn’t live in exactly the same world as ordinary people. Their world was more violent and dangerous and . . . brutal. Dark and sharp-edged, like their shadows. No wonder they wanted to keep the Pure close.

Although Keziah didn’t seem to want that. Justin still wasn’t sure what was supposed to happen if a black dog was determined to be furious, like Keziah. But in time, maybe he—

It was disturbing to catch himself thinking things like that. It happened all the time. He’d think: Maybe Keziah and I—

Just as though he had decided to stay. Just as though that was a done deal. That made him angry, and it scared him. It damn well was not settled, no matter what everyone else might think. Only already, after just a couple of days, Justin was finding it too easy to stop thinking about getting away, stop arguing, just let himself sink into Dimilioc and disappear. That maybe he could leave everything behind, his whole life. Why not? After all, he didn’t much want it back anyway—

Then he’d catch himself up and think, What the hell is this? Stockholm syndrome or what? This wasn’t him. He wasn’t such a coward that he’d just crawl into a hole and pull it in after him and write off the whole rest of his life just because his damned kidnappers seemed to expect it.

Except if he never found out for sure whether Natividad had really recovered . . . if he never found out anything else about magic and black dogs and everything . . . if he never actually got another chance to figure Keziah out . . . it wasn’t just the impossibility of getting away, or just cowardice, or just weird psychological syndromes, that kept him here.

At least, he didn’t think it was. Usually he didn’t think it was.

He’d met several ordinary people now: Liz and Glenna and a brawny girl taller than he was who said wryly, I’m Brittney. I know, right? Call me Brit. She’d looked him up and down and then told him he should come to town for the spring football game and he could be on the Red team, which was short a couple players.

Flattering as this was, Justin had the idea anyone over a hundred pounds would probably be welcome on the team. The girls were part of the housekeeping staff that came up to Dimilioc twice a week to clean and do some of the cooking. There was something enormously reassuring about a staff that came up twice a week and then went home again, about girls who let you help vacuum and wanted you to be on their football teams. Justin had to remind himself he didn’t necessarily want to be reassured. It was hard to remember. That was part of the creeping willingness to go along with things, just let things happen. He hated it. Or he thought he ought to hate it.

Testing the limits of the figurative chain Grayson had him on, he had asked the Master whether he could to go to the game.

Perhaps next month, Grayson had answered testily, barely glancing up from some sort of list he was going over. If Ethan is here to escort you.

That made things clear. It sure did. Not in a good way.

So Justin was glad when Natividad woke up all the way and turned out to be just fine. He really was. He was glad to see Miguel so much less worried. But watching the twins together, watching how comfortable they were with Dimilioc and with each other and how settled they each were in their own lives . . . that was hard. He couldn’t bear how unsettled they made him feel.

He wasn’t a prisoner, supposedly. So Miguel claimed. Even though he wasn’t allowed to go to a damn football game in a tiny town just a few miles away. The difference between not allowed to leave the house and prisoner seemed a little subtle.

For such a huge house, it could seem amazingly claustrophobic.

He would go for a walk, he decided. He could just go for a walk. See if anyone stopped him. Though if he disobeyed Grayson’s orders and got caught, he might find himself a prisoner for real. He wondered if this house had a dungeon tucked away down some narrow, slippery flight of stairs that he hadn’t yet found. It seemed like the sort of house that might.

On the other hand, everyone said he had a lot of leeway. Because he was Pure. In that case, he could probably get away with going for a walk. Finding that out . . . that would be useful information, too. And if it made Grayson Lanning angry . . . hell, that was fair. Justin was mad enough already himself. He might has well share it around.

With no more hesitation, Justin turned and walked down the hall toward the stairs.

He found the outside door with only one wrong turn, which he figured out as soon as he got a good look out a hall window and was able to see a little more of the layout of the house. He went down the stairs slowly. The house really was enormous. But it echoed with emptiness.

Had that many people died, in the war?

He knew a lot more now about the war between vampires and werewolves; or at least, he knew what Miguel had been willing to explain. It all seemed to hang together too well to be made up. He’d already known how, somehow, in the midst of the struggle, regular people had suddenly figured out that there really were monsters. That there always had been monsters, out there in the dark, hunting people. Miguel said that vampires had produced a kind of magical veil, a shadowy miasma that stopped people from noticing magical stuff, or at least demonic stuff—that master vampires could do worse things than that, they could make people think things and do things, turn them into servants and slaves. Stockholm syndrome to the nth degree. Absolutely horrifying.

Eventually, with the war whittling down their numbers, there hadn’t been enough vampires to keep that miasma going, and it was like the veil between the real world and the dark had torn wide open. Overnight, it had seemed, hundreds of blogs and forums and discussion boards appeared, arguing about who was winning the war, and who exactly was fighting it, and whether the vampires or the werewolves were more evil, and whether normal people should take one side or the other, and what it all meant.

Justin didn’t fool himself that he knew the truth. All he knew was what Miguel had told him, and how did he know how much the kid was slanting or spinning or just leaving out?

But he knew that this house had been built to hold a lot of people, and that it was now nearly empty. He thought the part about the Pyrrhic victory had to be true.

What he needed was fresh air and space. And time to think without anyone trying to get him to believe anything or do anything or be anything. Air and space and time. He saw the main door at last, and walked more quickly.

The door swung wide on a brilliant afternoon that was astonishingly cold, on a pale-green meadow still patched here and there with snow, and on mountains that spread out forever, naked silver branches interlacing in fractals of smaller and smaller twigs. Dark green fir and pine trees were interspersed among the deciduous trees, their distribution striking him as not quite random, though he had no idea what factors might govern such patterns.

It was nothing like home. Dimilioc was nothing like home. Nothing like a family. Or nothing like his family. Justin took a deep breath, fighting back the wave of grief and homesickness that rose up suddenly, towering, threatening to crash down and suck him under. The cold air tasted of wood smoke and pine needles and sunlight. It was hard to believe the desert even existed, breathing this air. It was hard to believe in the past. It was all gone. Everything was gone.

One more breath, and then instead of fleeing to the solitude of his room, Justin ran down the steps and walked quickly along the verge of the drive, his shoes crunching on the gravel. There was a car, a nondescript dark green sedan, parked in the drive in front of the house, pulled up close to the steps that went up to the main door. He looked past it at first, then blinked and looked again: a car, here? He hadn’t realized anybody had . . . dropped by for a visit, or whatever. Maybe it belonged to housekeeping staff. Those girls sure weren’t walking to and from Dimilioc.

He gave the car a longer look. Then he looked around, trying for a casual attitude that probably wouldn’t come close to fooling anyone who happened to be watching from one of the house’s blank windows. He rubbed his face. He longed to go home. He had no home. He longed to run away. But there was no away. He wasn’t at all sure he could bear to stay here. But he didn’t know where else to go.

So the presence of that car was . . . fraught. But it was hard to decide just how fraught. He didn’t exactly intend to steal that car, even if it had a full tank and the keys in the ignition . . . but no harm just checking.

The key wasn’t in the ignition. But it was lying on the passenger seat, right there in plain sight, like the car’s owner had never heard of grand theft auto. Or like the car’s owner was a mean bastard of a werewolf, whose car no one would ever, ever think of taking for a little joyride when his back was turned. Until some almost-not-quite-kidnapped guy happened to find it sitting here in the Dimilioc driveway, like a gift. Or a lure.

Justin put his hands in his pockets and looked each way down the broad drive. Then back at the house. No one was in view. Probably Grayson himself was standing at one of the opaque windows, masked by the daylight, watching. That would be typical.

Justin hesitated, unable to decide what he should do. What he wanted to do. It was like centripetal and centrifugal forces pulling him in both directions at once, equally powerful, until he spun dizzily, unmoored from any anchor yet unable to fly free. . . . If he didn’t know, maybe it would be better not to do anything impulsive. After a moment, not sure whether it was lack of nerve or good sense, he ducked his chin against the chill and walked slowly along the driveway, in and out of shadows cast by high-moving clouds, until he looked down the narrow road that sloped down through the trees and ran at last around the curve of the hill and out of sight.

It seemed to Justin that the rough surface of the road glimmered with a faint luminescence where it ran through the deeper shadows of the dense firs. That if he looked sort of sideways and unfocused, he could see light like mist rising from the road. It wasn’t the sort of road that seemed as though it would lead to an ordinary town filled with ordinary people. It seemed as though it should lead to a gingerbread cottage or Rapunzel’s tower. Werewolves and vampires, why not witches?

Though he supposed, if there were witches, he was one himself. Magic. Pure magic. His grandmother would probably be delighted. Although the witches she’d told stories about when he was little hadn’t been very nice. At least the magic Justin had in his hands seemed like white magic. Not that anyone seemed to use those terms. But if they did, yeah, white magic. He held out his hands, studying them, opening and closing his fingers. His hands seemed perfectly ordinary. He didn’t really believe he could draw light out of the air with a fingertip. He tried it, bending to tap one fingertip directly on the driveway and thinking about Cartesian planes and circles. Radius . . . one meter even, why not?

A big circle glimmered to life, cutting through the gritty hard-packed dirt of the driveway and lying across the winter-yellow grasses of the lawn, centered right at his feet and curving around to enclose him completely. The bars of the x- and y-axes cut arrow-straight out from the center, dividing the circle into four perfectly even arcs. Justin straightened, blinking. The circle wasn’t exactly visible. When he looked out of the corner of his eye, though, he was almost sure he could see it. Actually, he could talk himself into and out of believing the circle was there. This was not going to help him figure out what was real. He sighed.

“So fast! You truly did not know you were Pure?” asked an unexpected voice behind him, whisper-light, and Justin twitched, bit down on an exclamation, and turned.

A little girl looked at him from the shadows of the trees, not too close, like a fawn poised to dash for safety. She was thin, with boney wrists and bitten nails, maybe eleven or twelve years old. She had golden skin and huge eyes and black hair cut raggedly short, but her face was dominated by a long scar that ran the length of her cheek and pulled up the corner of her mouth. Justin stared at her, and she turned her face away slightly. But she didn’t retreat into the forest. “That’s what Keziah says,” she whispered. She had a very distinctive accent, much more so than her sister.

“You did not know you were Pure,” repeated the girl. “You did not know about yourself or about us. But you drew that mandala so fast.” She gave him a little nod that might have been cautious approval. “You do not need it, here. But it is good to know you can do that.”

“You’re a werewolf,” Justin said. He was sure of that. “The one who’s been taking care of that little Pure girl. Miguel told me about you, but you know, I don’t think he told me your name.”

The girl looked at him from beneath long eyelashes. “Amira,” she whispered. “I am Amira. I like the little Pure one, little Paloma, yes. I have been taking very good care of her. But Keziah said I must run, and hunt, and not come back for one hour. Keziah is taking care of her for me.” Her small chin lifted and firmed and she declared, “But only for one hour. Then I will come back.”

Justin nodded, though that bit about hunting made him nervous. She meant rabbits or deer or something, he hoped. She certainly hadn’t said it as though it were anything sinister. More like the way she might have said Keziah’s making me drink hot milk and take a nap. Probably she really needed a break, if she’d been looking after an orphan child for several days all by herself, which was the impression he’d gotten, and hadn’t Natividad or someone said something about another little kid in the house, a black dog kid? He wanted to think less of Grayson for forcing one child to look after littler ones, but it was too plain that Amira would have had a fit if anyone tried to keep her away from the little Pure girl for more than an hour.

Besides, he knew girls hardly older than Amira babysat, and after all, she was right there in the house with people she could call for help. “You don’t want to wear yourself out,” he told her. “Everyone needs a break. Keziah’s right about that.” And he liked Keziah better, if she took care of her sister like this. Though he couldn’t exactly imagine Keziah looking after little kids, even for an hour.

The little girl—Amira—looked doubtful, but she didn’t argue. She said wistfully, “One hour is not so very long.”

Justin suppressed a smile. “Not long at all. Keziah’s your sister, isn’t that right? You look like her.” Though this child wasn’t nearly as scary as Keziah. Justin found he had a strong impulse to take care of this little girl, to protect her, to keep her safe. Which was a little bit ridiculous, since she was a werewolf, but she was so small and thin and hesitant.

The little girl paused. “I don’t,” she said softly.

“You do.” Justin made a show of looking her over. “I bet Keziah looked exactly like you, when she was your age. I bet you look just like her, when you grow up.” He wondered how she’d gotten that scar. It looked years old. Werewolves probably lived a pretty dangerous life, but surely they at least tried to protect little girls? He said, “You don’t look like you’d turn into a werewolf, you know. You look like you’d turn into a cat. Your sister looks like a lioness. You . . . you look like a tawny Abyssinian cat, all elegance and emerald eyes. I could see you turning into a cat.”

A smile trembled on the girl’s mouth. “No one turns into a cat!”

“A pity,” Justin said ruefully. He could definitely wish that the world was filled with people who turned into beautiful, elegant cats instead of huge half-demonic monsters. He held out his hand. “Hello, Amira. I’m Justin.”

“I know who you are!” exclaimed the girl, but she edged forward. But then she stopped. “Your mandala,” she said apologetically. “You didn’t limit it enough to let me through.”

Justin looked down at his mandala. You could limit them, somehow. To let specific people through, or maybe keep specific people out? That was useful to know. He had to get Natividad to show him how to do that—

—there he went again, all those damned assumptions about staying here. Justin shook his head and let his breath out and, since he didn’t have any idea how to limit or redefine a circle, cautiously stepped across its arc and held out his hand again.

Amira touched his palm lightly with hers, blushing. “I like you,” she said softly. “I never thought I would like a, a man, but you are Pure, so that is different. You will marry my sister. Unless you would rather wait and marry me. I think,” she said wistfully, “I think I might like that.”

“I don’t think Keziah wants to marry me,” Justin said, with considerable restraint.

“She thinks, no. She thinks she hates you. But you are Pure. She does not hate you. How could she hate you? Or if she does,” Amira added, “maybe you can wait for me. I’ll be sixteen in four years. Grayson might let you wait for me.”

Justin blinked, wondering what about this hopeful statement should appall him the most. There were so many aspects of it that were horrifying. But he didn’t want to say anything, do anything, that even suggested he was rejecting this child. He told her gently, “You’ll be such a heartbreaker when you’re sixteen. I can’t bear to think of all the boys you’ll trail behind you. But I don’t think that I want to marry anybody, you know. Not any time soon.”

Amira shook her head. “It does not matter what you want,” she said sadly. “It matters what Grayson Lanning wants, and he wants anything that will make Dimilioc stronger. That’s what Keziah says, and she is right.” She sighed, stepping back. And back again, with an air of relinquishment that was, given the context, rather alarming. “Grayson will not command her to marry you right away. When he does, she will know better that she does not hate you, and then she will obey.”

“You think he’ll order that, do you? He says he won’t.”

“He will, though,” Amira said, fixing her dark-amber eyes on his. “In a little while. When he thinks he can and no one will fight. Of course he will.”

“I hope he won’t.” Though Amira might be right. Grayson might do exactly what she said. Justin didn’t dare fool himself about that. All those nice speeches about Let’s see what the years bring aside, if the years didn’t turn out to bring what Grayson wanted, the Master would probably not just shrug and let it go. He’d all but said that he’d do whatever it took to increase Dimilioc’s strength. The rights of any individual people be damned, Justin suspected. And never mind what Grayson had told any newly-discovered Pure male about finding a place and a home.

Justin said firmly, “I’m not going to be told whom to marry, Amira. I’m not really part of Dimilioc. I never agreed to be. I never said I’d take orders from Grayson Lanning. And I won’t. Definitely not that one.”

“Yes, you will,” Amira said wistfully. “Everyone does what Grayson says. Even Keziah. Even Ezekiel.” She slipped carefully forward the little distance necessary and patted his arm, a light, comforting gesture. “I do not mind, Justin. I like you, but I do not mind if Keziah marries you. Don’t be afraid. She will learn to like you, too. That will be good. You will see.” She patted his arm again, so lightly he barely felt the touch of her hand.

Then she backed away, several quick steps. “I have to run,” she said, in almost that same wistful tone. “I have to hunt. Not you, though. I like you. Besides, we don’t hunt people anymore.” And she smiled at him, a shockingly fierce expression, and the dense shadow that surrounded her flowed suddenly upward and inward, around and through the little girl, until she melted and blurred into her own shadow. And then a night-dark shaggy-pelted form crouched before him, utterly inhuman, smaller than any other black dog he’d seen, but still larger and heavier than he was.

Justin stood frozen, staring into fiery orange eyes that had nothing in common with the dark-amber eyes of the little girl who’d stood there a bare moment before. He couldn’t move. He didn’t know what to say—or if it would be safe to say anything.

But the monster didn’t seem to expect him to speak. It only turned and loped easily out of the sunlight, disappearing almost at once into the shadowed forest.

Justin let his breath out and leaned shakily against the nearest tree. That little girl! And she turned into that! He shook his head, not sure if he was appalled for her sake or just horrified on his own account. He’d known she was a werewolf. He knew this house was stuffed full of werewolves. But somehow it had been easy to forget—or not exactly forget, but sort of set aside the memory of shattering glass and snarling monsters.

Keziah turned into a monster like that. He couldn’t even imagine it. Except he could. Get involved with that? He would rather try to make friends with a real lioness.

And Grayson Lanning, so autocratic and yet somehow calming—Grayson Lanning had made him feel that he almost might want to be part of Dimilioc, that he might be able to make a place here, that maybe things could even work out with Keziah. But Grayson was one of those creatures, too.

Natividad and Miguel thought everything was fine. But their brother was one of those monsters. They’d grown up with werewolves. They thought it was normal.

Justin felt almost physically ill.

The car was still right there. Right in the driveway. And if anyone was watching from the house, he couldn’t see any sign of it. He stared at it for one more moment, thinking about prisoners and Stockholm syndrome and failures of nerve. Then he walked quickly back down the driveway toward the car.

Justin half expected someone to stop him. But he didn’t think of Natividad at all, until he had the motor running and started the car rolling gently forward, and she hurtled suddenly out of the door and smacked her hands down on the hood of the car, staring at Justin through the windshield, her eyes wide and distressed.

“Justin!” she said. “What are you doing?”

Justin thought this was extremely obvious. Only now Natividad was going to stop him. He said, furious and a little bit relieved—which made him more furious—” What the hell is it to you, anyway? Go take a nap and when you wake up I’ll be gone and it won’t be your fault.”

Natividad ignored this, interrupting urgently, “Keziah’s scary, I know, but she’s not so bad, really, once you get to know her—”

“It’s not about Keziah!” snapped Justin. “You all keep telling me I’m not a prisoner here—well, if that’s true, then let me go!”

Natividad shook her head, her pink crystal earrings swaying. It was amazing a girl so cute and pink should be able to look so immovable. She said quickly, “It’s not safe, Justin, it’s really not, especially for you, you don’t know how to protect yourself at all—”

“And there are monsters out there?” Justin demanded. “You’re forgetting I have a special magic talent! I make instant mandalas. Right?”

Natividad stopped. Then she said softly, “That won’t be enough, Justin. You don’t know enough to protect yourself. Not against real monsters. The Dimilioc black wolves aren’t monsters, Justin. That’s the most important thing we do: we help them keep from turning into monsters.”

Justin thought of little Amira flowing into the massive form of her black dog. We don’t hunt people anymore. He didn’t know how to say that he really hadn’t understood, that monsters crashing suddenly into a disjointed evening was nothing like a little girl turning into a monster in broad daylight, right in front of him. He didn’t know how to really explain the difference even to himself, so how could he hope for Natividad to understand?

And he didn’t know how to explain that it wasn’t about the monsters anyway. Not really. That it was about him, about cowardice and strength and being the kind of person who would let himself be kept on a leash, or wouldn’t.

That was all too complicated. He only demanded, “Am I a prisoner? Or not? Come on, Natividad!”

The girl visibly bit back her first response. She said, “If you leave Dimilioc, knowing as little as you know now . . . I don’t know how far you’ll get, Justin, and that’s the truth.”

“I never saw a single werewolf in my whole life before I left home, and I know more now than I did then! I’ll just go back . . .” but he fell silent, running again into the familiar grief: he couldn’t go back, he couldn’t stay here. He said at last, “My grandmother. Grandmama Leushin. She lives in Roswell. It’s a hell of a long way, but . . .” he let his voice trail off. The moment he thought of going to her, he knew he wanted to. He said, knowing even as he said it that it was only an excuse, “Maybe she knows something about my mother. Or my father. I don’t know, she might know something! Wouldn’t that be worth asking about?” And that long, long drive would give him time to think. He wanted that, right now, more than he wanted anything.

Natividad hesitated.

“Anyway,” he said, hunting for justifications that would persuade her, “I need to talk to my grandmother. I just walked away. I didn’t . . . I should go see her. I could explain . . .” though he didn’t know what he could explain, actually. Nothing seemed very explicable, anymore. But he did want, suddenly and unexpectedly, to see his grandmother. When he’d told Natividad that, it had almost been an excuse. But now it was true. He wanted to see Grandmama Leushin. To hear her voice. He wanted to know she was still there, that she hadn’t changed, that one part of his world was still the same as it always had been.

“Justin . . .”

He shook his head, vehemently, refusing to listen, and said honestly, “Anyway, I can’t think about things here. It’s too . . .” he didn’t know how to express what he felt and shook his head again, frustrated.

But Natividad nodded as though she understood. “My mother died, too, you know,” she said. “My mamá and my papá, they both died. Don’t . . . don’t try to put everything on your grandmamá. Because sometimes . . . sometimes you can’t go back. Sometimes there’s no way back at all.”

Justin felt a rush of sympathy for the girl. She looked . . . too little and too young, to have endured as much loss as he had. But she had. He had almost forgotten that. “I’m sorry.”

“Me, too.” She stood for a moment, her hands resting on the hood of the car, but no longer like she meant to bodily stop him from leaving. She looked sort of crumpled, unhappiness in the line of her neck and her bowed shoulders.

“I don’t have to leave,” Justin said tentatively, but even to him this sounded a bit hollow. He knew he couldn’t stay.

“No,” said Natividad, looking up to meet his eyes. “Of course you have to leave. So you can come back. I mean, para que puedas decidir regresar. So you can choose to come back. Of course you must see your grandmamá, if you left her worrying about you. But you can’t go alone, you know. Grayson would be so angry if you got killed.” She went around the car and tapped the passenger-side door, which was locked.

Justin reached across the seat and unlocked the door, regarding her with real astonishment. “I don’t expect he’d be happy with you getting killed, either. Besides, are you, I don’t know, I mean, you were just about in a coma yesterday—”

“I’m fine.” Natividad sounded insulted. “Anyway, I can protect myself. Against ordinary black dogs, anyway; and I can teach you to protect yourself. Someone needs to, right away, before you get into trouble with strays again. And, you know, if we drive away, Grayson will have to send someone after us.”

“And . . . this is a good thing?”

“If we go the right way, I think it might be,” said Natividad. “I think Roswell sounds perfect. That’s in New Mexico, isn’t that right? I think we could go there.” Her voice had fallen almost to a whisper. “And Grayson can send someone after us. He can send Ezekiel. That would be perfect, as long we get far enough before he catches up with us.” She glanced sidelong at Justin, looking somehow guilty and pleased at once. “So maybe you should hurry up and drive?”

-8-

Natividad was unhappy.

She’d thought it might be nice to be away from Dimilioc, which usually felt safe but sometimes pretty claustrophobic. Away from the constant tension of a crowd of young black dogs who hadn’t quite sorted out all their issues; away not only from Grayson Lanning’s smothering protectiveness, but from the way he depended on her, the way they all depended on her to keep Dimilioc from shattering along those lines of tension.

Grayson wanted to protect her. She knew that. But Dimilioc didn’t need her so very much, not anymore, not with DeAnn, and now the new little girl, the paloma.

Natividad really thought the little paloma must have had had a black dog sister. And lost her. How terrible, to have both your mamá and your hermana murdered by black dogs. Natividad tried hard not to imagine it. At least she had Amira now. And at least Amira had made it plain she didn’t think the child was a burden. Amira was afraid of other black dogs and maybe even afraid of herself, Natividad had guessed that long ago, but Amira didn’t have to be afraid of the Pure—or of herself, when the Pure were close to her. She seemed truly to love having a little Pure girl who would cling to her and never let go. Though that might turn into a problem itself.

Natividad would have to talk to DeAnn about that. And Grayson. When she saw them again. After Grayson was finished yelling at her.

She didn’t let herself think, much, about how worried Grayson would be about her. Or about what Ezekiel would think, when he found out she’d left Dimilioc. At least Alejandro would be able to tell them she was fine. She knew he was: a constant little reassuring murmur in the back of her mind, or somewhere.

Still, Ezekiel would come after her. She knew that. She counted on it, this time.

“Black dogs are always all weird about status and dominance and things,” she explained to Justin. She was trying to make him understand all about Dimilioc’s current residents and dependents, partly to distract herself from worrying about things she couldn’t help and partly because he would need to know, since eventually he would have to live with them all. But it seemed complicated, when you tried to explain it all at once.

She said, “Nobody would be crazy enough to challenge Grayson or Ezekiel, but none of the new black wolves have got things sorted out, yet. James Mallory, he’s not strong enough to hold the house, and everybody knows it. Especially since . . . his brother was killed, you know. So he doesn’t have a close ally to support him anymore. I bet in a few years, even Ethan will be able to take a higher place in the house, never mind Alejandro or Keziah or Thaddeus.”

“I think you need to draw me a picture of all this,” Justin said, his tone distracted. He passed one truck, then another.

There were a lot of trucks on American highways. Natividad hadn’t noticed that so much, when they’d come north by bus. Buses were big enough you didn’t have to notice trucks. The Norteamericanos were so rich. It made all the difference, how Dimilioc had always kept down their strays, had forced even the Norteamericano vampires to stay discreto. In Mexico, for a long time, blood kin had ruled many towns, made them into hunting grounds for vampires, and black dogs had hunted almost openly in other towns and out in the countryside. It was too bad a strong black dog house had never established itself in Mexico. How different her own life might be, if Mamá had belonged to a strong house and Papá had married into that house, instead of being forced to try to protect his family all by himself.

That wasn’t something she wanted to think about, either.

“There’s a pen in the glove compartment,” Justin said. “I found it earlier when I wrote that check.”

“Sí, I will draw it so you can see,” Natividad agreed, glad of the interruption. That was a good idea, anyway. There were old papers, envelopes mostly, in the back seat. Though those were mostly buried under bags, because they had stopped earlier to shop, getting some of the things they ought to have taken with them if they’d had a chance to pack. Underwear and tee-shirts and another pair of jeans, toothbrushes and combs, bags to put things in. Justin had needed more things anyway, since he had come to Dimilioc with nothing. Justin had insisted on paying for everything, partly because most of the purchases were for him and partly because they’d both feared Grayson might be able to track any use Natividad made of her card, which drew on a Dimilioc account.

Natividad heaved various bags aside until she found paper. Justin was right; it was a lot to remember, and besides, drawing Dimilioc’s family tree would give her something to do besides look at trucks. She opened the glove compartment and began to poke around, looking for the pen.

Justin passed one more truck and slid the car back into the right lane. They had come a long way south already. Natividad thought she ought to recognize the country they drove through, but . . . all she really remembered from the journey north was cold and snow, endless flat fields all neatly outlined with wire fences. And then endless mountains. It was all blurred behind a memory of grief and fear. She was uneasy to find that mostly the deep, smothering grief had faded to something else. Memory, maybe. Something lighter, anyway. Something through which she could see the brilliant sunlight that flooded all this country today.

She wondered whether Justin, too, was finding a less heavy burden of grief than he’d expected, now that they had left Dimilioc’s safety to drive south. Maybe not. His mamá had died so recently. Probably he was still enveloped in that first smothering fog. She studied him, but he only watched the road.

Then he glanced over at her, and she saw he had been paying attention after all. “Didn’t someone say something about you and your brothers recently joining Dimilioc? I’m sure Grayson said something about that. So . . . you’re all strays, too? Is that right?” He paused just slightly and then added, “And Keziah, too, I suppose?”

“It’s different for us,” Natividad explained. She looked for more paper, wondering if she could draw a kind of family tree showing how the Dimilioc bloodlines all joined and re-joined over the generations. She said absently, trying to figure out how to fit everything on the back of a single envelope, “Our Papá was Edward Toland. Toland is a Dimilioc bloodline,” she added, realizing Justin might not realize this, and then went on, “And Keziah, even though she won’t give her right name, everybody knows she and Amira must carry one of the old Saudi bloodlines. Probably the main bloodline of the royal house, that’s what I think.”

“So she really is a princess,” said Justin, in a very casual tone.

Natividad looked at him closely. He was blushing a little. His tan was not dark enough to hide it. She tried not to smile. “Sí, yes, probably. Those Saudi black dogs, the royal house, they were terrible, but everyone knows they trained their children to have control, even if they—” she hesitated, and then finished reluctantly, “They used to kill the Pure, you know, because they thought being vicious was part of being strong. We think they’re all gone, now, though. It turned out that not having Pure women—people, I mean—to help them, they were much more vulnerable to vampires than Dimilioc or Lumondiere. And when all the human people realized what they were, of course they rose against the ones that were left.” She didn’t bother to hide her satisfaction at this example of cosmic justice.

“Um.”

“Miguel told me Keziah scared you, but she wouldn’t actually have hurt you, you know. She knows Grayson would kill her.”

Justin gave her an odd look, like he wasn’t quite sure whether she meant that literally or not and wasn’t sure he should ask. He said after a moment, “She doesn’t scare me. No more than the rest of those monsters.”

“They’re not—”

“How would you know? You’ve always lived around them. It’s like you grew up one of those fish, you know, a remora or whatever. Of course you don’t think sharks are a problem.”

Natividad laughed at this, then frowned. “At least I know I’m in the ocean.”

Justin glanced at her again. “And you’re trying to teach me to swim, is that right? Thanks so much. Look, it’s honestly not Keziah’s fault I stole this car. Is Grayson likely to blame her?”

Natividad was definitely getting the impression the black dog girl hadn’t scared him as much as they’d all thought she would. “I’m pretty sure Grayson will be a lot more mad at me than at you or Keziah,” she told him “And I think you’re right about Keziah. She’s not so bad. Sometimes she’s even nice. She cares for her sister. A black dog who knows how to love is not so bad.”

And if Keziah didn’t scare Justin, maybe he would really be willing to go back on his own, after they visited his Grandmamá.

He would visit, and see his Grandmamá, and start to think about black dogs finding her because of him, and about what that might mean. He would probably start to think about that even without Natividad pointing out the possibilities, though she would certainly point them out if she had to.

Then Ezekiel would find them, right through the Pure magic Natividad would show Justin how to layer over and around his Grandmamá’s house. Ezekiel finding them would make Natividad’s point in another way.

And then, since they would be so close to El Paso anyway, obviously it would only make since for Ezekiel to let her help him take care of that problem before they went back to Dimilioc.

She had better not discuss any of that with Justin, though. She hadn’t yet exactly explained why she’d wanted to take this exact route and not some other. It was a little difícil to think how to explain about the El Paso thing to Justin. He probably would not be happy to know about the young Dimilioc black dogs there, far less about the vampire.

Justin gave her a sidelong look. “Something else I’ve been wondering about. What about ordinary people? I kind of get the idea that at Dimilioc, ordinary people get to be servants. Must be nice for them, if they don’t mind working for werewolves. Do benefits come with that? Health insurance, maybe?”

Natividad blinked, surprised. “Well, sí, ordinary people work for Dimilioc, but you know, they are all Dimilioc connections.” But she saw he didn’t understand. “Distant cousins,” she explained. “Everyone in Lewis is related to Dimilioc somehow. No one would harm them, even if he were angry. Black dogs don’t hurt their own human kin. I mean, Dimilioc black wolves don’t. Besides,” she added, to be honest, “if they were all frightened away, who would do the dusting? We all had to, until everything calmed down and we hired them, and even now the house is really too big for them to keep up with everything. And you don’t need to say servants like that, either. Dimilioc pays them a lot. More than the allowance I get—you’d get an allowance too, if you were part of Dimilioc.”

Justin made a noncommittal sound.

“Anyway, I like Brit. She was going to go to Champlain College last year. That’s not so far from Dimilioc, just west, in a city called Burlington. It’s a really nice city, so big! Grayson let me go there once to shop and things. Brit really wanted to go to school there. But then, you know, the war. Her papá got killed, and now she needs to help her mamá—” She stopped. She should be used to thinking about the war. She should be used to the world it had left them. Somehow she never seemed to be. It was a way to get Justin interested in learning things about black dogs. That was important. But she hadn’t expected to feel this immediate knife-edged grief just from the bare mention of the war. Not just after she’d been thinking how much lighter her grief had become. It had only changed from an encompassing fog to this cutting blade.

It all felt too close. Too raw. Like a burn that had only begun to heal, so that the merest touch still hurt. She didn’t know if, after all, she was going to be able to explain things to Justin, all cheerful and casual, like it didn’t even matter.

Justin glanced at her, then turned his attention back to the road. But there was sympathy and understanding in his expression now, not the wary resentment that colored his tone when he thought about Dimilioc. He’d seen something of how she felt, she could tell. And of course that grief was something they shared. For a little while, neither of them said anything.

“So you used to fight the vampires?” Justin asked at last. “You Pure, I mean, not just the black dogs?”

Natividad was grateful for the change of subject, even though she really didn’t want to think about vampires too much right now. She said, “We were always enemies with the vampires. You don’t even know. They thought of ordinary people just as prey, right? So they hated us because they couldn’t hide what they were from us. Our magic works—worked—best of all against vampire influence, you know. Not even the strongest master vampire could ever confuse the Pure. They couldn’t make us see anything or think anything or do anything, not ever, not even right up close. Of course they hated us. Black dogs were their rivals, but the vampires especially hated any black dog houses that protected the Pure, because we weren’t rivals—we were enemies. Those were the sides in the war: the vampires on one side and the civilized black dog houses on the other. Especially Dimilioc, of course, but also a couple of houses in Europe, Lumondiere and some others, and a couple more in Israel and Lebanon. Ammar in Tunisia, Baqi in Morocco, I don’t remember. Miguel would know all of them.”

Justin passed another truck, but made a wordless muttering sound to show he was listening.

“So when the vampire miasma lifted, it was all right for us and Lumondiere and the other civilized houses. But the vicious black dogs, the ones that hated the Pure and let their shadows control what they would do, I mean, there was no way anybody could not understand what they were. So those black dog houses, once the vampire miasma was gone, of course ordinary people would rise up and kill them all. But for us here, it’s fine.”

“I remember when the miasma lifted,” Justin said unexpectedly. He was still staring out the windshield, but his eyes now were wide with memory. “It was my junior year,” he said. “And suddenly everyone realized that the DA in Los Alamos County was some kind of ghoul. Literally. He was this thin guy, but suddenly everyone realized he was skeletally thin, with these claws, and these horrible red eyes, and black teeth. He wasn’t—he didn’t—he was a monster. A real monster. And he’d been killing hitchhikers. For years. And nobody ever—” he stopped.

“He was blood kin,” Natividad said gently. “You’d have known that if you’d ever seen him in person. You would have seen right through the miasma. But just on the television, no.”

Justin made a wordless sound.

“I know, it was awful. Blood kin were awful. Vampires always tried to turn important people into blood kin. They used them to drive a city into poverty. Vampires always liked cities best after they were ruined.”

“I remember when it came out that the mayor of Detroit and half the city council turned out to be monsters. And all those politicos in DC.” Justin started to say something else, but then just shook his head.

Natividad nodded in understanding. “In Mexico, too. I mean, a lot of mayors and police chiefs and people like that turned out to be blood kin. That’s why everything was so bad everywhere. I mean . . . some places were not so very terrible. My Papá—” she hesitated, then said more softly, “My Papá, he protected our village. But so many places . . .” she didn’t want to think about it, and said instead, “Ordinary people couldn’t understand, until the miasma thinned enough.”

“Right,” said Justin. And, after a little while, added, “Werewolves aren’t as bad as those ghoul things, anyway.”

Natividad opened her mouth, but then shut it again without saying anything because she didn’t know how to make Justin believe how huge a difference there was between Dimilioc black dogs and blood kin. How to make him believe that black dogs could be good people as well as partly demonic. If you hadn’t actually grown up around the right kind of black dogs, how could you ever believe that? She looked out the window, but the highway glare was starting to make her head hurt. She looked down at the crumpled papers in her hands instead, then rubbed her eyes. She felt tired and irritated with the whole world, which was how headaches made her feel, and mad at Grayson for making her have to trick Justin into going south so she could draw Ezekiel after her so he could kill the vampire in El Paso—if it really was a vampire—and rescue all those young black wolves.

But if there really was a vampire there, that was more important than anything. Grayson should have recognized that. He had to stop trying to wrap her up in cotton, just because she’d nearly died once. Or twice. Whatever. She was fine. And a Pure woman was no good if you wouldn’t even let her help.

She rubbed her eyes again, harder.

“How’re you doing?” Justin asked, glancing at her just for an instant.

He was Pure, Natividad remind herself. He could tell things about people. She made herself shrug and say cheerfully, “Fine. Just tired, I guess. At the next rest area, I’ll make a maraña mágica. A tangle-you-up spell, a confuse-the-road spell. I’ll show you. It’s a kind of spell that stops people from following us. You’ll like that, and it’s very useful. We don’t want anybody finding us too soon, right?”

Justin gave her a raised eyebrow look. “I don’t want anybody finding me at all.”

“Right! That’s what I meant!” Natividad assured him, though she knew he wouldn’t believe her. “Watch the road, though!” She flinched as Justin swerved out to pass another truck. “So big,” she muttered. “Demasiado grande.” There just weren’t any roads so big and busy in Mexico, not in Nuevo León. Or maybe nearer Monterrey, but not near Natividad’s home. But Dimilioc’s presence had always been strongest in the north, and so for hundreds of years vampires had been pressed south, and so there had always been too many vampires in Mexico for ordinary human people to really thrive.

One more reason among so many to be glad all the vampires were gone. To make sure all the vampires really were gone. It would be so unfair, to leave one in the south . . .

“Sure,” said Justin, but not with any particular annoyance.

He was muy sereno, very even-tempered, as a rule, Natividad had already found that out. It was nice, after handling black dog tempers all the time. And a little strange. She wondered if that’s what people thought about her, that she was even-tempered. Maybe it was a Pure thing; it was hard to tell. It was still strange to think of a boy as Pure. She glanced at him sideways, this time looking in the special way that let her see magic. It clung to him, very faintly, a light that was nothing to do with the afternoon sun. Not really a light, but something like light. She couldn’t see it when she looked at herself. It was too hard to look at herself in that special sidelong way.

She’d already made Justin practice drawing pentagrams on the car, on all its windows. It already had plenty, of course: pentagrams that she’d drawn herself, or that DeAnn had drawn. Wishes for peace, for safe travel, for finding your way home. She’d put that last one high up on the windshield, on the left. She could still see it, when she looked at it out of the corner of her eye. It was comforting, somehow.

And, at the last rest stop, just before they’d taken the exit from highway forty onto highway sixty, she’d laid a maraña mágica across each rear tire of the car, binding them in place with a wish. They wouldn’t last, of course, not used that way. But for several miles, it would be really hard for anyone to follow this car. Not only enemies such as black dogs, who might catch the scent of Pure magic and follow with ill intent in their hearts, but anyone. She’d made those marañas to confuse the steps of anyone at all who sought them.

She was almost sure it would work. Even on Ezekiel. Even if she really wanted him to find them.

They drove all day and into the evening through country that made Natividad think more and more of home: dry and harsh and beautiful, all wide sky and mountains, except sometimes instead of mountains there were salt flats that ran on for miles. The taste of the air made Natividad homesick for a home that no longer existed. She half believed that if they kept going south, crossed the river and went south a little more, they might find themselves driving right into Hualahuises. They might have been approaching Natividad’s own home, small and peaceful and pretty, with Mamá waiting.

It was too bitter to think about. Natividad closed her eyes, shutting out the wide desert view. Justin might have guessed what she felt, or might have been trying to cope with memory and grief of his own; he, too, had grown up in the desert, though not this desert. He, too, had lost his mamá. Though not his whole home. Not everyone he knew. Natividad wondered what his grandmamá was like, if she was kind and strong and good at math. If she was Pure, maybe, and didn’t know.

She supposed she would find out tomorrow, when they completed that part of the trip. She was glad for Justin, that he had his grandmamá. Having a grandmamá wasn’t as good as having brothers, but surely it was much better than nothing at all.

They got rooms for the night in a small bed-and-breakfast at the south edge of a town called Rattlesnake Springs, a very small town tucked into the foothills of Guadalupe Park, about eighty miles east of El Paso. Rattlesnake Springs was a self-consciously picturesque town, with adobe buildings and tile roofs and streets laid out to frame views of the Carlsbad and Guadalupe Mountains to the west and south. A stream, at this season full and fast, ran down from the mountains and through the town, and the house that was the bed-and-breakfast sheltered in the shade of the great cottonwoods that grew along this stream.

Justin had refused to stop at any of the cheap hotels they’d passed and had insisted on this place instead, googling on Natividad’s phone to find it. He said he liked its geometric lines. Natividad had no idea what he meant by that, but the house was pretty, with a thick walls that slanted a little and a wide porch. She and Justin had a suite of rooms on the second floor: two bedrooms with a tiny bathroom between, and a common living room. The bed linens were turquoise-and-chocolate, the curtains and couches turquoise-and-cream, the nice rugs over the old wooden floor chocolate and taupe and turquoise. The bathroom had a fancy bathtub that stood up off the terra-cotta tiles on iron feet. A suncatcher hung before the big window in the living room, silver wire and colored glass and blue jay feathers. It twirled slowly on its fine cord, sending sparkles of blue and pink across the whitewashed walls. It was the sort of thing a Pure woman might make, and Natividad looked at it slantwise for several seconds before she was sure no one had woven magic into the feathers or set a pentagram in the colored glass.

It would never have occurred to Natividad to look online for a place like this. Even if she’d thought of looking for hotels, she’d never heard of bed-and-breakfasts until Justin explained what they were. But she couldn’t help but worry about the cost. Especially when Justin insisted on paying extra for a late supper, which the two older women who owned the house were happy to provide. They were sisters, Natividad thought, and clearly proud of their house and their cooking.

“If you’ll be here tomorrow, dear, there are plenty of things to do in Rattlesnake Springs,” the elder of the sisters told Natividad, moving comfortably about the big kitchen to put together the supper. Cold ham and chicken, a three-bean salad, rolls quickly warmed in the microwave, small apples, berry pie with whipped cream. Very American food, but it wasn’t bad. Maybe tomorrow they could find a place serving real Mexican food, though.

“No need to rush about and fight traffic here, you know, dear,” the woman added, arranging the plates on a broad tray. It was a struggle to get everything to fit, and she finally wrapped the rolls up in a kitchen towel and put them on top of the ham. “There! Can you carry this, do you think? Good, then, there you go. Now, tomorrow you and your friend can rent bikes if you like, only five dollars for all day, and bike into the state park, if you like. There’s a lovely waterfall, though you wouldn’t think we’d have anything of the sort out here, would you? We’d be happy to pack you up a picnic lunch. Just let us know at breakfast.”

Natividad smiled and thanked her and picked up the tray. She didn’t answer the woman’s faintly curious your friend. But she found herself wondering what it might be like to bike with Justin into the harsh mountains and find this pretty waterfall and have a picnic.

While they waited for Ezekiel to find them.

Maybe not. No. Stick to the plan. Justin safe at his grandmother’s house, she to wait for Ezekiel a prudent distance from El Paso. That would be better.

Though Ezekiel couldn’t possibly raise a hand to a Pure boy. He couldn’t. He might have made it crystal clear he thought of her as his property, which was, yes, outrageous, but she had warned him he’d better not take her for granted. Of course, he’d probably thought he didn’t have to take that warning seriously, because who else was there? Ethan Lanning? One of the Meade brothers? She snorted faintly, turning slightly sideways to go carefully up the stairs.

Grayson himself . . . that wasn’t so laughable. Ezekiel wouldn’t challenge Grayson, no matter what. But she didn’t expect she would ever truly think of Grayson that way. He was so much older. Sometimes girls did marry much older men. One of her cousins had done that, and she’d seemed very happy. But Grayson . . . Natividad couldn’t picture it.

But she trusted him completely. He was going to be so angry with her when she got back. He would probably ground her forever. But he always did what was right for Dimilioc, no matter how hard it was.

And he was so lonely now. It hurt her to think about it. Not only his wife, not only so many others during the war, but now his brother Harrison was gone, and Zachariah Korte, who had been like another brother. Grayson carried the whole weight of Dimilioc himself, now. Though she knew he would never give way under that weight. Never.

Ezekiel . . . she didn’t trust Ezekiel the same way. She knew he would protect her, yes. No matter what. Even if she didn’t want to be protected, even if it was very important for her to put herself in danger. She wasn’t even sure what she thought about that.

And now there was Justin. Though, true, Justin hadn’t shown any sign of being interested in her. And honestly, though she liked him, she really didn’t think that she was interested in him, either. That way. Though he was really good looking. She wasn’t blind.

But she wondered suddenly what it would be like to pack a picnic lunch and bike with Ezekiel to a park with waterfalls.

She couldn’t quite imagine it. Ezekiel on a bike? Ezekiel swimming, or standing under a waterfall? Never.

Ezekiel lounging on a blanket, with the spray of waterfalls making los arco iris over his head, looking up at her and smiling, or doing that thing with his eyes that was like a smile . . . that was actually fairly easy to imagine. She bit her lip and edged around the last landing, careful not to let the dishes slip.

But Ezekiel was so apretado. Uptight. And it was important to him to look scary. That was more important to him than anything. It would never even occur to him to go on a picnic.

Justin came down to meet her a step from the door. “That looks heavy!” he said, sounding pleased. “Mm, is that pie? I should have got this for you. I did bring our things up, though.”

The things Justin had paid for, before he’d paid for this nice suite. And for the supper, which was extra. “She didn’t tell me how much it was,” she said, a little anxiously. “She just said you’d said to put it on our bill. I hope it wasn’t too expensive . . .”

“Natividad, don’t worry about it. Really. I’ve got cash and you’ve got magic, so we’re all set,” he told her, plainly wanting to make her laugh and feel better.

Natividad let herself smile. “Well, we’ve both got magic! I’ll show you. I’m going to put a mandala around the whole house and yard, except really you can do that part. Then later I’ll show you how to put crosses on the foundation and a pentagram on every window. I bet you can’t do that so fast, but maybe you can, that’d be great. You should learn how, anyway. How to protect a whole house, I mean.” Natividad glanced wistfully at the tray, which Justin had taken away from her and laid out on a nice little table by the window.

He saw her glance. “You’re hungry,” he said accurately. “It can’t wait till after dinner?”

Natividad lifted an eyebrow at him, trying to mimic Ezekiel’s most sardonic expression. She must have got close, because Justin suddenly looked thoughtful, glanced around the pretty suite, and gave her an abrupt little nod. He’d paled a little, too, visible despite his warm tan, and she was sure he’d just visualized what this nice house would look like after a black dog or two broke into it.

“You see,” Natividad said gently. “Probably there’s no stray near enough to catch our scent, but you have to remember, Justin, you just never know. You’ll need to do it at your grandmamá’s for sure,” she added, deliberately. “In case a stray black dog catches your scent.” And now let Justin think about that.

He did think about it, from his frown.

Satisfied, Natividad headed for the door. If those ladies looked out, she hoped they would just think she and Justin wanted a little walk before supper. The evening was pleasant, actually: the air warm but without the punishing heat of afternoon, the moon waxing but not yet nearly full. Short iron street lamps lined the roads, filling the shadows with a light warmer and more golden than the moonlight. Moths fluttered around the lights, and somewhere a small animal rustled in the oleander. Natividad was sure it was just a small animal. She touched her little cross for reassurance, feeling the silver wire spark against her fingers. The tracery of shadow wrapped around the cross felt warm and powdery, like ash.

“I should make you a cross,” she said to Justin. “Or show you how to make one, I guess. Mine is copper and zinc wrapped with silver.” She didn’t mention the shadow, but only explained, “It’s hard on the Dimilioc wolves, if you wear a cross made of pure silver. Copper is better, with just a little silver to catch the magic.”

“You’re not going to insist on making it before dinner, I hope,” Justin said wryly.

Natividad laughed. “Just the mandala! And I’m not going to make that at all—you are! If you can do it really fast, we can get to supper quicker, right? Now, you get that mandalas are to keep bad things out, right? Circles turn away your enemy’s attention. Spirals draw your friends toward you.”

She half heard her mother’s voice overlaying hers: Espirales atraen atención, pero circulos la cíeran. Spirals draw attention in, but circles close it out. She didn’t want to think about that. She tried not to lose herself in memory, but only explain the magic that was Justin’s birthright as much as it was hers. She explained to him, as her mother had once explained it to her, “A mandala is not the same as a circle. It’s not just to turn your enemy aside. It is meant to hold fast against things of the dark, things that hunt you with ill intent. Pure magic is defensive, but it can be an aggressive defense. A mandala is more aggressive than a circle.”

She didn’t tell him about other kinds of aggressive defense, other ways to use Pure magic, ways to wind a thin thread of shadow around and through a Pure working. The first time she’d done that, it had been an accident and she’d been afraid she had irredeemably corrupted the mandala she’d been trying to make. The second time . . . the second time hadn’t been an accident. And it had worked, more or less. Even if, now, she was afraid that what she had done might have been a kind of corruption of Pure magic. She didn’t dare teach Justin that. Ordinary magic, clean magic, she knew that was safe. She was almost sure she couldn’t corrupt Justin’s magic just by teaching him ordinary things.

She said, “Usually you walk a circle, you lay it down in the earth with every step you take. You have to learn to walk a nice, smooth circle, but the way you do it, I don’t know, I bet yours will always come out smooth, even the big ones. So let’s try.”

Justin gave her a tentative nod.

“You can feel the magic,” Natividad said confidently. She gestured around the whole yard, indicating a circle far enough from the house to make an even circle around it and most of its grounds. Luckily there weren’t any huge bushes in just the wrong spot. Though maybe for Justin it wouldn’t matter anyway.

“You have to draw it on purpose,” Natividad told Justin. “You have to know what it’s for. It’s for keeping bad things out! But you don’t want to keep out friends. Don’t think about yourself. Think about who might come. Think about people with good intentions and people with bad intentions. Think about people who know you and people who just know what you are. Think about black dogs who want to protect you and black dogs who want to kill you. It can help to say it out loud. I usually say it in Spanish. That makes it more real for me. You say something like, ‘May this circle keep out all dark things and things of ill intent,’ but you need to know just what you mean. Hold all that in your mind and—” she held out her hands, palm up, and let them fill with light. “Make your circle so it will do what you want. And don’t forget the cross inside, to brace the circle. Understand?”

Justin looked at her. If he was thinking about how much easier it might be to do a circle that would keep out everything even a little bit demonic and never mind sorting out Dimilioc black dogs from strays, he was too polite to say so. Then he looked around at the night. “I can’t do this wrong, huh?”

“I don’t think so,” Natividad told him. She glanced around at the dark garden and the street beyond and thought about what might be out there. Worse things than strays. They weren’t so very far from El Paso, after all. A shiver went down her spine at the thought of a vampire, maybe even a master vampire, so close. Though they should be far enough away, here, that it would have no chance of scenting them. Or even having one of its blood kin scent them. Even so, she added prudently, “But I think I’ll draw another mandala outside yours, later, just to be sure.”

Justin nodded. “Good.” Then he looked around once more. Then he simply bent and tapped the earth at his feet.

Way out toward the street, forty feet away at least, a broad curving bar of light sprang up suddenly. It ran left and right, in an arc that enclosed the entire house and most of the yard and, where the street turned, part of that as well. It ran right through one huge bush that would have been a real problem for someone trying to draw the circle the normal way. The cross bars, also broad and heavy, speared straight through the exact spot Justin had touched.

Natividad swallowed. “Well,” she said weakly. “Yeah. That should do it.” She could feel the strength of this mandala. Exactly how that strength was laid out, exactly what intentions Justin had set into it, what it would let in and what it would block out, was a whole lot harder to tell. But it was definitely a very strong mandala. And it would definitely keep out vampires and blood kin, because anything Pure was always totally inimical to vampires and all their works.

“We’ll just anchor this,” she said after a minute. “I’ll show you. This is one of the cardinal points, where the bar flows out of the circle, right? Something physical is good, but this time I’ll just anchor this mandala by drawing a little secondary mandala at each cardinal point. You see, like this. This won’t hold as long as a cross. But it doesn’t have to, because we’re not staying long, right?”

“Right,” said Justin. He had his hands stuffed into his pockets, and he was looking uneasily along the line of the circle he’d created. “How long will this last?”

Natividad followed his glance. “It’s pretty strong,” she told him. “It’ll last a while. Months, probably. Maybe years.”

“And I made this,” Justin said quietly. “Just by knowing how to draw a circle.”

“And because you’re Pure,” Natividad reminded him. “Let me show you the rest.”

It took nearly twenty minutes. Natividad had a hard time believing that even though he could do huge powerful things really fast, Justin didn’t actually know how to do the tiniest, simplest, most basic things. She had to show him how to blood her silver knife before he could use it to set each small anchor mandala into the earth. Then they both just stood for another minute, watching light run through the middle of the mandala, from one cardinal point to the next and along the whole circle and through the middle and back out and around, a silver stream through the darkness.

“Won’t anybody see it?” Justin asked her. “Really?”

“They really won’t,” Natividad assured him. “Unless they’re Pure. Or corrupted by any kind of demonic influence—our enemies can see it, too! But only if they get close enough, and a circle will push them away. And remember, even if they find us, they won’t be able to cross the circle.” Though she still ought to do the crosses on the foundation stones. But it was getting really late, and she was starving, and with such a strong mandala already in place, all of that could surely wait.

The rolls were still good, even cool; soft, and with the good taste of wheat and butter. They spread the plates out on the low table in front of the longest couch, and sat on the floor to eat. Natividad had thought it would be too much food when the woman had loaded the tray, but she really was starving now; working magic always made her hungry. Now the heaping plates and bowls looked just right.

The rolls were good with the ham. The potato salad was sharp with mustard, more than she would have put in. The chicken was not actually bad, though it would have been better shredded, folded into tortillas with queso and a tomatillo salsa. Natividad liked the berry pies, and tried both kinds, recognizing neither.

“Blueberry and raspberry,” Justin told her. “You didn’t have them in Mexico, I guess. You never bought them, though?”

“Not in Hualahuises. Not these kinds. Maybe in the market in Monterrey there would be berries like these.” Natividad tasted one of the pies again, and then the other. “I like the raspberry best,” she decided, and then hastily handed her plate to Justin—he took it, startled—and jumped to her feet, looking around for Ezekiel’s silver knife—she had put it somewhere, where had she put it—something was coming, she could feel it, something was almost here—

Keziah flowed through the largest window in half-human form, claws raking vivid marks through the paint on the windowsill, and came to her feet.

-9-

“This is the trap,” Alejandro said. He spoke softly, with a deferential glance down, because even months after joining Dimilioc, he still felt small and weak and vulnerable when in Ezekiel Korte’s company. The only thing that made this tolerable was that he knew every other black dog except Grayson Lanning himself felt exactly the same way.

Ethan snorted. “You think?”

Him, Alejandro did not fear. They had fought several times, but even though Alejandro had won all but one of those fights, Ethan had not yet accepted a lower position. He was too conscious of his status as Grayson’s nephew. Even though Toland was just as old a Dimilioc bloodline, Ethan Lanning was not willing to back away from Alejandro, an exile’s son who had been raised as a stray.

Alejandro met Ethan’s scorn with a deliberate stare: Any time, Lanning. Ethan stared back, his lip curling.

Then Ezekiel cleared his throat, and both Alejandro and Ethan immediately broke off, glancing aside and down.

“I am aware this is a trap,” Ezekiel said mildly. “They could hardly have been more plain about it without running up a flag and hiring a marching band.”

It was certainly not sutil, Alejandro agreed, peering over the edge of the roof. Not subtle. They were perched on top of a church. Not a large church, but taller than the scattering of surrounding buildings. Its roof was not ideal for the purpose, being mostly steep, with weathered gray shingles that provided poor footing. A human could not have kept his place here among the various peaks of attic and bell-tower and steeple. A black dog who could let his shadow carry his weight, a black dog with the precise control to let him change his hands and feet just a little, had no such difficulty.

Their enemies were below, in the darkened and largely empty parish school that was the church’s nearest neighbor. A wide play yard for the children stretched out to the east, and a parking lot for cars to the south. To the north and west lay a neatly kept cemetario, with big trees to shade the rounded white stones Americanos liked for their dead, all the stones alike and orderly. Everything considered, this was a good place for a fight, except that they knew that the black dogs had taken human hostages.

Not a Pure mujer this time, or her bebé. That part was good. But, from the words on one of the vans in the parking lot, they suspected their enemies had taken at least one reporter de la televisión for one of those so-ridiculous Americano televisión shows. Perhaps more than one. That part was not so good.

“That estúpido television interview,” Alejandro said out loud. “I know it was a good thing to do, yes, but I think these perros negros, they probably just called someone and said, ‘Hey, pendejo, you want to talk to me? Meet me at this church, I will talk to you,’ how is it? ‘On the record.’ And then this person, he said he would come. Un pendejado.”

“It’s hard to see how else those idiots got themselves into that kind of situation,” Ezekiel agreed. “And I don’t see any way out now but for us to step on into this nice trap and rescue those fools on national TV, or else make it plain—on national TV—that we don’t have the guts or the strength to do it. How do you say, ‘We’re screwed’ in Spanish?”

Alejandro grinned, surprised by the humor in Ezekiel Korte’s tone and even more surprised by this invitation to participate in the joke. “Nos fregamos,” he supplied.

“Well, we definitely are fregamos,” said Ezekiel. “Thoroughly fregamos. The Chernaya Volchitza and her Dacha bastards know what they’re about.”

Alejandro nodded, and Ethan made a low sound of agreement.

“And so, here they are. With everything they do, every gesture they make, a trap and a challenge. Though we can be grateful Natividad’s safe at Dimilioc.”

Alejandro nodded again, fervently. He reached reflexively after his awareness of his sister, an awareness that always nudged at the edges of his attention. He had possessed that awareness since she had borrowed his shadow; one good thing to come out of that terrible night. Maybe it would wear itself out eventually. He hoped it would not. He liked very much to know that Natividad was well. He liked knowing that she had woken, that she felt safe. He thought she was worried, but she always worried about him when he was away from Dimilioc. And maybe she was a little worried about Ezekiel. Even that was tolerable, so long as she was safe.

Alejandro wished he had some idea what their enemies had intended to do with his sister. Natividad thought this Chernaya Volchitza, this Black Wolf, had said something about a bargain she had made; she had thought maybe the Russian woman had bargained with Malvern Vonhausel and did not know that he was dead. Alejandro himself had no idea what the woman had said. He had lost his understanding of language during that battle and had understood nothing. But he thought his sister’s guess about Vonhausel unlikely. No. Events could hardly arrange themselves so conveniently. Far more likely they had some other enemy they did not even know.

Even knowing the Chernaya Volchitza must be prepared to face him in particular, Ezekiel didn’t sound very alarmed by the prospect of entering this trap and meeting this challenge. His tone was, if anything, amused. Alejandro knew the Dimilioc verdugo had reason to be arrogant, but to be amused seemed a little closer to careless. But he said nothing. He knew very well he could not challenge Ezekiel in anything.

“Well,” Ezekiel said lightly, “After we’ve taken this opportunity to play hero, and incidentally knocked their trap to pieces, perhaps we’ll get a chance to ask one of them for details of their plan and their allies. Let’s see those little toys Natividad made for us, shall we?”

Alejandro took out the new kind of aparato mágica which Natividad had made for them. She had woven flat beads of clear crystal into little nets made of thin strips of ribbon and of her own hair. They were like the maraña mágica that kept enemies from following you—Alejandro was familiar with that—but this was different. The crystal beads were new, but the shape of the net was different also: more regular, less tangled. Pale light glimmered in the beads, but shadow seemed to run along every strand of black hair.

“Shadows to blend with our shadows, she said,” Alejandro explained. “So they will not tear and disperse at the touch of black dog magic. And magic woven in to confuse the eyes of our enemies. I do not know,” he confessed, “how Natividad weaves shadows into her Pure aparato.”

Ezekiel raised one pale eyebrow. “If you understood Pure magic, you would be Pure.” He took one of the insubstantial nets, which seemed to hiss faintly when he touched it. It shivered, like a cobweb caught in a warm updraft, but it did not melt away the way things of Pure magic tended to do when touched by a black dog. Nor did he seem to find its touch painful. When he gently stretched it out between his hands, it seemed to expand, though Alejandro knew Natividad had not cut so very much of her beautiful hair.

Ezekiel tilted the aparato, watching the light sparkle in the glass beads. Then he nodded to Alejandro and Ethan. “Confusion to our enemies, by all means,” he said lightly. “We may not want to overthink our strategy, here. I will go in the front. It will be defended, possibly trapped. I will take precautions. In fact, that news van in the parking lot? I think it might as well be put to some use, since it’s handy.”

That was clever. Alejandro gave Ezekiel a fierce, tight nod.

Ezekiel gave him a small smile in return. “You will go in through the roof, Alejandro. That way there should be no chance of your encountering a prepared trap. Wait for my entrance, so that the noise you make will be covered. But be quick: you will find the roof, and then most likely an attic with insulation, and then the ceiling. I would like you to get through all three layers as quickly as possible. Once you are in, ideally you will quickly locate the main fight and force any black dogs we face into human form. In practical terms, if you can slow even one of them in even one change, in either direction, I will count that well done.”

Alejandro nodded again, privately resolving to do far, far better than that. For the first time, he regretted that Keziah had not come. He did not like her, but she could fight. In his opinion, she was more dangerous in a fight than Ethan, even by herself. Give her Amira at her back and she was very dangerous.

If Ezekiel disagreed with the way Grayson had made the assignments, it didn’t show. He only said, “And, Ethan, I think it would be good if you simply came in through a window. I doubt every single door and window is trapped, but you’ll wish to take care. It might be best to come in very low, in human form, covered by Natividad’s little net, but that’s up to you. I would like you to ignore the black dogs and kill any armed humans. As expeditiously as possible. Preferably without getting shot.”

“Yes,” said Ethan, grinning fiercely, happy now that they were coming to the fight. “And the hostages?”

Ezekiel paused. He said eventually, “Unfortunately, we cannot entirely disregard the hostages. It is possible—I would go so far as to say likely—that a cameraman will be present, with at least one camera. I believe the hostages are both the bait and the sting in this particular trap. So try to look heroic. But don’t get killed. I would rather lose every hostage in that building than explain to Grayson how I lost either of you.”

“If we do not care about the hostages, then we could stay out here, burn the building, and take the black dogs as they come out ,” Alejandro said—not quite a suggestion, but he thought someone ought at least to mention the possibility. “Then we would not have to worry what the hostages see or think or film. That would be simple.

Ezekiel considered this. “We care very little about the hostages,” he decided. “But I think we may be certain that our enemies have prepared for that eventuality.” He tilted his head thoughtfully. “If it were I . . . I think we have one, at least one, black dog who is not in there. Someone who will watch, and adjust his plans according to our actions, and very possibly film tonight’s events himself, in case we can be made to look clumsy or villainous. Or in case he gets the chance to film, say, my getting captured. Or torn to pieces.”

Alejandro saw at once how useful such images might be, to an enemy of Dimilioc. He glanced around, searching the empty playground and silent cemeterio with careful attention. He could see nothing, hear nothing, smell nothing—or nothing not explicable by the black dogs they already knew were in the school building.

“It is a good thought,” Ezekiel repeated. He and Ethan had both looked, too, and plainly had not sensed anything amiss. Ezekiel plainly did not trust the quiet emptiness around the church and school, however. He said, “I certainly don’t want to get shot when I start that vehicle. I’m sure Natividad’s little net is a wonderful thing, but I doubt it has the wherewithal to stop a harpoon.” He paused, considering. Then he said, “All right. Let’s not allow ourselves to be rushed, shall we? If this is a trap, which I think we all agree it is, then there’s little hope of taking our enemies actually by surprise. So . . . I think we, too, may dispense with subtlety.” He glanced from Ethan to Alejandro, smiling, his winter-chill eyes slowly bleaching to the pale fiery gold of his black dog shadow.

They burned the cemeterio and the children’s play yard, and set afire the white-painted fences that surrounded the whole property. Norteamericanos loved trees; they planted big trees along their streets and among their graves. The big firs in the cemeterio burned like gigantic torches, with towering flames and a crackling roar.

“That gives us a time limit,” Ezekiel said. He was laughing, not out loud but with silent black-dog laughter, violent and cruel. “Ten minutes till the school catches, if the wind doesn’t change. Go!” He slapped Ethan on the shoulder, jerked his head toward Alejandro, and loped away toward the van through the smoke. Alejandro hoped he knew how to wire the vehicle, if the keys weren’t in it—he hadn’t thought to ask—but that van was Ezekiel’s problem. His was the roof. He shuddered as he let his shadow rise through him. Natividad’s delicate net clung even as his shadow rose, expanding and melting at the same time; he could feel the glittering beads as cool points in the fire. They didn’t hurt him, though, and they didn’t burn away at the touch of his burning shadow. Those beads felt like silver that had been blooded for him, but sharper and more glittering; the whole aparato felt like a spider’s teleraña, only spangled with chips of ice. He could taste Natividad in it.

The black dog’s confidence and bloodlust filled him, only a little constrained by the Pure magic in the teleraña. He loved the fire and longed to see the buildings blaze up in a violent conflagration, but there was something to do first. Yes. Enemies to tear apart. He shook his head, beginning to lose the clarity of human thought. But he remembered enough, understood enough. He leaped to the roof of the human building and tilted his head this way and that, trying to hear Dimilioc’s enemies below.

Away on the other side of the building, there was a sudden grinding roar and then a shattering, ripping crash. Alejandro laughed and tore into the roof, slamming through shingles and timbers alike with powerful ripping blows. He had no idea what might be waiting below, but he no longer cared. Somewhere below him, someone was screaming, a human woman, and a black dog’s keening snarl answered.

Alejandro flung jagged wood out of his way and plunged into the dark close space of an attic. He wanted to set it burning, but there was some reason not to burn this building, so he only reared up and slammed down upon the attic floor with all his weight. And plummeted down again in a half-controlled fall, amid an avalanche of broken plaster and splintered wood and pink cottony stuff. He landed on his feet, lightly, carrying his weight in his shadow while destruction rained around him.

He looked around. He was in a room filled with desks. A schoolroom, yes, the building was a school, he remembered that now. The room was deserted, but somewhere close, black dogs were fighting. The woman was no longer screaming, but a human man was shouting. If there were words in those shouts, Alejandro could not distinguish them; he had lost human language. He didn’t care. He flung himself forward, seeking the sounds of battle, longing for blood and killing.

There was certainly blood and killing. It was a large windowless room, filled with the remnants of long tables and plastic chairs, now mostly bent, broken, or half-melted. Five human people cowered behind the debris, though it could afford them little protection. Alejandro noted them, decided they were harmless, and dismissed them utterly from his mind. The large white van had buried itself in the wall opposite the main door—the doorway was also shattered—and even from across the room, Alejandro could feel the cold burning silver of the harpoons that stood in the vehicle’s side and in the ruins of the nearby wall. That caught his attention far more firmly than any random human people.

Neither of those weapons had hit Ezekiel, however. The verdugo was there: shifting with his usual smooth fluidity between human and black dog, pressing an attack against half a dozen black dogs and three humans. Whether in human or black dog form, he seemed strangely insubstantial; his shadow seemed to trail above him and a step behind him. It seemed bigger than it should, darker and yet somehow thinner. It was hard to see the shadow, hard to see Ezekiel within it, hard to track the movements of either Ezekiel or of his shadow.

This was Natividad’s teleraña, Alejandro realized at last, and wondered what their enemies saw, if the teleraña looked so strange even to him.

All three of the human men in the room were armed with harpoon guns, though two of them had clearly already fired and missed; they were trying frantically to reload. One of these Alejandro recognized: the young, nervous man from the earlier encounter. He was still nervous, and clumsy with it, slow to re-load his weapon. Plainly he had reason to be nervous, for two of Ezekiel’s enemies had already been killed. Blood pooled near the bodies, but black ichor had spattered across the floor and the ruined furniture and the walls, even the ceiling, so at least one of those bodies had belonged to a black dog. The ichor smoked, burning swiftly away to ash and nothing.

Alejandro began to hurl himself forward at the largest of the enemy black dogs, but hesitated. There was something—he was supposed to—he did not remember, but then Ezekiel slid neatly, human-small, beneath a raking blow from one of the other black dogs, instantly exploded back into his black dog form, and tore open his enemy’s belly and flank.

The black dog shrieked and jerked away, struggling to reclaim his human form, to let his shadow carry away those terrible wounds, and Alejandro remembered at last that he was supposed to stop that from happening. He snarled, furiously resentful: he wanted to fight! But Ezekiel had been clear. Even in his black dog form, Alejandro was not willing to court Ezekiel’s anger. He crouched where he was, flinging his shadow out and across the injured black dog. That one had managed the shift to human, and his shadow had taken away his wounds; he was now uninjured and trying to change back. Alejandro smothered his shadow, holding him in human form. The black dog fought Alejandro’s control; his shadow fought for solidity, for embodiment. But Alejandro held him, and held him, and Ezekiel whirled back from a different struggle and ripped the black dog’s head off a fraction before he could shake free of Alejandro’s control.

Ezekiel flung the head across the full length of the room to smash into one of the human men just before he could shoot Alejandro with a silver-tipped harpoon.

Alejandro hadn’t even seen that threat. He was furious: how dare Ezekiel save him from a threat he hadn’t even seen? And how could he fight, if he had to keep track of those humans as well as their real enemies?

Then Ethan, his shadow seeming to flutter around him, insubstantial as a dark mist, tore a massive hole through one wall, flung himself into the room, spun in a tight circle to find out where everyone was, and leaped for the nearest harpoon-wielding man. The man whirled, trying to shoot him, but the harpoon went wide—his aim confused by the teleraña mágica or simply by fear, Alejandro couldn’t tell—and Ethan bore him down and tore him apart in a ruin of red blood and white bone.

After that it was all over, though the enemy black dogs did not seem to realize that immediately. Alejandro helped Ethan stalk and kill another of the human men, and the third fled. After that, Alejandro did not fight at all. He stalked the edges of the battle, trapping one black dog after another in human form as each was injured. Two of those fled, also, taking advantage of a rare moment when Ezekiel was wounded and shifting to let his shadow carry the injury away. Ethan might have killed at least one of those, but he seemed distracted. Alejandro only realized that Ethan was watching for other men with silver-tipped harpoons, or perhaps with ordinary guns loaded with silver ammunition, when an armed man crept cautiously to the doorway through which Ezekiel had brought the van.

Alejandro did not see the man, but Ethan did. He roared, and flames rushed up from the ruined door, forcing the man back before he could shoot. Ethan went after that human, shouldering through flaming wreckage, and Alejandro was so furiously angry that he had not thought to watch for such an obvious threat that he found it almost easy to force the last of the black dogs into human form, leaving him an easy kill for Ezekiel. Who did not take that kill, however, but only pinned the black dog down with one massive, clawed forefoot and stared at Alejandro and then at the burning doorway, until Alejandro finally remembered that they had not intended to burn this building and went, glowering, to smother the fire with his physical bulk and the insubstantial weight of his heavy shadow.

“He told me nothing useful. But he cursed in Russian. These are certainly Dacha wolves,” Ezekiel told Alejandro, when at last he decided that the fire was out and that their enemies were all fled. “You marked, of course, that the Chernaya Volchitza herself was not in this building, nor did she take part in this battle at all.”

Alejandro sorted out these words with a certain amount of difficulty. Language, especially English, was just hard when he took his black dog form. But he tried to understand. Before joining Dimilioc, he had always accepted the loss of language when he shifted, but then he had seen that Grayson did not lose language that way. Neither did Ezekiel nor even Ethan. It was stupid and lazy not to do better. A Dimilioc black wolf should do better. Anybody who might someday be Master of Dimilioc must do better.

So Alejandro tried to listen and understand, though the balance between human understanding and black dog temper was very thin. Eventually he thought he caught the sense of what Ezekiel had said. Then he understood that Ezekiel was right, and that it was important. He had not realized the woman black dog was not here. But of course that was true. And surprising. The battle would have been much more difficult if she had been here. He could not have forced her shadow under—she would very likely have done that to him instead. Then he might be lying here dead instead of this Russian black dog.

Ezekiel, seeming utterly untouched by any concern, stepped over the body and strolled coolly through the devastated room. His glance lingered on every door and the huge hole Ethan had torn through the wall, alert for any sign of danger. But everything was quiet, except for the slow curling of smoke from the smothered fire and the occasional quiet clink of some fragment of wood or tile or plastic falling. And the low, stifled breathing of the humans, still cowering in their illusory safety behind the wrecked tables. Ezekiel was heading that way, though not with any urgency.

Ethan shoved his way back into the room, tossing aside several chunks of dangling wood and plaster. He showed no sign of injury, so he plainly had not been shot with silver, though there was no way of knowing whether he had caught and killed the fleeing human. He turned his massive head to examine the quiet room. He carried with him the scents of ash and burnt clay and anger, so Alejandro knew his temper was still uncertain. Alejandro looked away from him, slouching instead after Ezekiel. He did not try to reclaim his human form; he liked the ferocious confidence that surged through his corazón, his heart, the fiery heat of the ichor in his veins, the strength of his powerful shoulders and haunches.

Ezekiel came to the wreckage sheltering the humans, studied the overturned tables for a moment, and then lifted the nearest out of his way as easily as though it had been made of paper rather than wood and metal. Then he held a hand down toward the nearest human. He looked cool and self-possessed and not at all as though he had just been tearing apart Dimilioc’s enemies. The human—a woman, neither old nor young, in a torn suit of blue-gray and black—moved slowly to take his hand, and he lifted her easily to her feet.

“You’re not hurt,” he said, not quite a question. His voice, light and ironic, held no trace of black dog thunder. “I wouldn’t think Dacha wolves would publicly murder a lot of people. Except as a matter of policy, of course, if they believed it would be to their advantage.”

“Dacha?” asked the woman, shaky but alert. Behind her, the other humans, all male, were making clumsy attempts to get up. One of them had a cámera, a big one, clearly a professional’s cámera, which he was making slow, fumbling attempts to examine and use.

Ezekiel ignored the men, which meant, of course, that he thought it as well to let the man take pictures. Though he ignored all the males, he gave the reportera a slight smile. “A Russian house. Certainly they seem to have chosen deplorable tactics in their bid for power in this country. We have without question dealt them a severe blow today, however, so perhaps we may hope their misguided attempt to challenge Dimilioc is at an end.” Ignoring Alejandro’s derisive snarl, he helped the woman step over the twisted remains of a couple of chairs.

“You—you’re—” said the woman.

“Dimilioc,” Ezekiel said courteously. “Indeed.” He glanced around. “I’m afraid this building may have suffered a certain amount of structural damage. Alejandro, Ethan, if you would ensure that this area is secure, so that these people may safely depart?”

Having the roof collapse on top of them would probably not contribute to the sort of media impression Ezekiel was plainly trying to shape. And Ezekiel probably also wanted to demonstrate—not so much his authority, but specifically his authority over the monsters that stood openly behind him. Not all werewolves are dangerous to you. We’re on your side. We’re not a threat, he was telling this reportera and her companions, and through them whatever audience would eventually see those pictures the cameraman was taking. Alejandro wanted to laugh. Such a lie. But an important lie. He swung away, making a show of stalking the perimeter of the room. It was all a pantomima. They all knew very well the black dogs from The Dacha were gone.

“We missed the Chernaya Volchitza, didn’t get even a glimpse of her, damn her shadow’s eyes,” Ezekiel said, much later. They were lounging in human form on the balcony of a good hotel on the eastern edge of Boston. It was chilly, but black dogs didn’t really feel the cold, and all of them preferred to be outside when possible. They were all in human form, of course. For one thing, the balcony was not that large.

“So whatever she has in mind, that trap wasn’t the extent of it,” Ezekiel went on. “This is a woman who’s perfectly willing to lose half a dozen of her wolves in one ambush-gone-wrong, then immediately turn around and set up another trap with blunted teeth. Whatever her actual plan is, it’s more subtle than we’ve seen yet. I’m sure that she’s held back a number of her strongest wolves.”

“There can’t be that many of ’em left, though,” Ethan said uneasily. “You think?”

Ezekiel got to his feet, pacing the length of the balcony and turning sharply to come back. Alejandro was careful not to look him in the face; Ezekiel was too plainly angry, disgusted by the way this whole mission was going, even if so far a lot of enemy black dogs had been killed, and everyone who belonged to Dimilioc still lived.

Ezekiel paced the full length of the balcony again, then stopped, set his fists on his hips, ad gave Ethan a narrow-eyed glare. “A handful of refugees from some minor offshoot of The Dacha? The hell it is. The Dacha owned a good many wolves. I’m starting to think most of them abandoned their own territory and joined Zinaida Kologrivova in her bid to take ours. Or whatever it is that she actually intends. Ethan, you remember the Dacha bloodlines?”

Ethan shrugged. “Not really. Always figured Lumondiere and Gehorsam were the important houses for us to keep track of.”

“The war changed that,” Ezekiel said, his tone grim. “Alejandro, your father teach you about this stuff?”

“Only Dimilioc. Miguel would know these things.” Alejandro realized he should ask Miguel to tell him all those important things. He ought to have thought of that already. It had not occurred to him. Even after Grayson had suggested maybe he was thinking of Alejandro for a possible heir. He should have thought of that then. He glanced down, embarrassed.

But Ezekiel only gave an amused nod, not seeming irritated. “Well, Miguel. Of course he would. I had to learn all this because Thos definitely believed his executioner should have a rough familiarity with all Dimilioc’s rivals—he thought of all of ’em as enemies waiting to happen, I expect. He was right about that, whatever else you can say about him. Wish I’d paid better attention. All right, let’s see. Sergei Leushin was Anatoliy’s cousin, and The Dacha’s executioner. He could be here. I think he’d have wanted to challenge me personally, not set up all this nonsense with guns and silver. But Zinaida Kologrivova could be keeping him on a tight leash. And her uncle Valentin Kologrivov. He’s a mean bastard, by all reports. If I recall correctly, he dislikes the Pure—thinks they weaken black dogs, wanted to model The Dacha more after the nastier Middle Eastern families. God knows how he thinks a house can breed for both strength and control without the Pure. Personally, I wonder whether he doesn’t just dislike women. Though apparently he’s made an exception for his niece.”

Alejandro’s mouth tightened. “They tried to take Natividad.”

“Yes, and don’t think that doesn’t worry me.”

“We don’t understand those harpoons yet, either,” commented Ethan. “If they just wanted to kill us all, bullets would be better.”

Alejandro frowned, realizing this was true.

Ezekiel gave Ethan an approving glance. “Indeed. I have one or two guesses about that, in fact.” But he did not share these. He said instead, “I think it’s time to call Grayson. Interim reports are often tedious, but I think I’d like a second opinion on all this.”

But that conversation did not go as anyone expected, not once they finished their part and Grayson began to explain what had been happening at Dimilioc. The part about El Paso was merely alarmante, but the part about Natividad was verdaderamente alarmante.

“Missing?” Ezekiel said sharply, when Grayson, driven by Ezekiel’s insistence that he needed her in Boston, admitted that she was gone. “What do you mean, she is missing?” His voice had gone tight, sharp, dangerous—not a tone Alejandro would have dared take with Grayson Lanning. Alejandro was vindictively glad that Ezekiel obviously felt no such hesitation, but also afraid. He did not want to imagine Dimilioc with Ezekiel Korte and Grayson Lanning at odds. He said quickly, “She is well, she is fine, I would know if she was frightened or hurt—”

Ezekiel gave him a narrow look that stopped his voice. “And how long do you think that’ll last, with her out in the world, just her and that damn fool Pure boy, with no one to protect them?” He snapped into the phone, “How could you let this happen?”

There was a slight pause, which was probably Grayson taking tight hold of his temper. Then the Master said—being black dogs, they could all hear his response—” I admit I was careless. However, Keziah has gone after them—

“Keziah!” Ezekiel said. “Are you insane?”

There was a second, grimmer, pause. But Ezekiel did not apologize. Perhaps if he had been confronting Grayson in person, it might have been different. Though Alejandro was just as relieved there were many miles between the Master of Dimilioc and Dimilioc’s executioner. Ezekiel’s breathing had quickened, and his eyes had gone bright yellow, and the bones of his face subtly shifted beneath his skin—the merest suggestion of the black dog that was plainly pressing hard against his control. Ezekiel never lost control, except when he did. The last time had involved Natividad, too. If the verdugo lost control again, no one could be more dangerous.

Alejandro, himself angry and upset, nevertheless felt his own shadow flatten out, intimidated, in the face of Ezekiel’s fury. He did not dare make a sound. He wanted to move back a step, but did not dare even that. Ethan, who had by chance been on the other side of the balcony, stayed there, staring intently at the floor.

At last the Master said, in a harsh, deliberate tone, “Ezekiel, you know perfectly well that Keziah will harm neither Natividad nor Justin. I am quite confident that she intends to find them, protect them, and bring them back to Dimilioc’s safekeeping. If I do not hear from her within a reasonable time, I shall go after them myself. You, however, will stay in Boston, and finish hunting down these Dacha wolves while you have them off balance and at a disadvantage. I am certain you understand the urgency of this situation.”

“No,” Ezekiel said flatly.

“And after you have taken care of this very serious and pressing problem in Boston, you will go south, to address the even more serious situation that has arisen in El Paso—”

“No!” snapped Ezekiel. “Do you seriously believe Keziah will be able to track Natividad? Natividad, who kept herself and her brothers clear of Malvern Vonhausal for weeks? How many Pure women has Dimilioc ever known who were more skilled with magic? She can do things with magic no one can do! And you sent Keziah after her? Keziah hates her!”

“Keziah does not hate her—”

Ezekiel spoke right over the Master. “And I know damned well where she’s gone. So do you, damn your eyes, Grayson!” His voice rose toward a snarl. “It’s not Justin making the decisions for that pair! You let Natividad find out about this damned mess in El Paso, didn’t you? Where else would she go, when she knows they begged you to send them help and you refused?”

“Ezekiel.”

“No.” Ezekiel crushed the phone in his hand, then flung down the resulting handful of ruined plastic splinters and memory chips. Then he stopped, and closed his eyes, and stood very, very still. His chest rose and fell: one breath. Another. A third. At last he opened his eyes. They were still a fiery, inhuman yellow.

Instinct drove Alejandro to the balcony floor before he even thought about it. He didn’t try to fight the impulse. He definitely did not look up to meet Ezekiel’s hot stare. He wanted to say, Natividad is my sister, I will go after her, but he did not dare. He wanted to say, It is one thing if I disobey Grayson Lanning; if you disobey him, I think the world may end, but still less did he dare say that. He said instead, very meekly, “I can find my way past any maraña mágica she can make. I can find her more quickly than you can.”

Ezekiel looked down at him. Alejandro did not look up, but he felt the pressure of the verdugo’s stare on his back. There was a long pause. Alejandro wondered whether he would have any chance of forcing Ezekiel’s shadow back, if the other black dog’s control began to slip. With Ezekiel so angry, he doubted he could even slow him down.

“I don’t think so,” Ezekiel said at last. His voice, though still retaining a faint echo of his suppressed fury, was much calmer. Alejandro dared to glance up. Ezekiel’s eyes were human again: a pale, wintry blue.

“You’ll stay here,” Ezekiel told him. “Or, no. You had better withdraw to Dimilioc: I don’t want you facing Zinaida Kologrivova alone. Call Grayson back, let him decide whether to pull you out or send you adequate backup.” He glanced coolly from Alejandro to Ethan. “Either way, you two won’t fight each other. You’ll work together. Ethan, you’ll take Alejandro’s orders.”

Alejandro looked sharply at Ezekiel, who did not seem to notice the impudence, and then warily at Ethan, who would obviously be offended.

Indeed, Ethan began to protest, but cut whatever he’d begun to say off short when Ezekiel raised an eyebrow. He looked aside immediately, but said stubbornly, “Why him?”

“Because I said so, and I will be unhappy if you don’t do as I tell you,” snapped Ezekiel. Then he paused, plainly to take a harder grip on his temper, and added, less sharply, “Because Alejandro has the gift for rolling over other black dogs’ shadows, and because he isn’t as distracted by the need to look like a Lanning—”

“I am not—”

“Shut up. And because he’ll take advice a hell of a lot better from you than you would from him. That’s why. You get that I am not joking, here?”

Alejandro looked warily at Ethan. Ethan stared back at him, frowned, and looked deliberately away. He shrugged, a grudging gesture, but one that showed reluctant acceptance. “Whatever.”

“Good,” said Ezekiel. “Mind you, Alejandro, if Grayson sends Thaddeus to pick up this mission, you’ll both obey his orders, and I will not be amused to hear that any damn-fool crap about bloodlines got in the way of getting the job done.” This time, the verdugo turned his wintry gaze on Alejandro as well as Ethan. “Understand?”

“I understand,” agreed Alejandro

Ethan shrugged angrily and muttered, “Yeah, sure, whatever. Thaddeus still isn’t completely used to working as part of a team, you get that, right?”

“He will do very well,” Ezekiel said shortly. “You will not allow your own dominance issues to get in the way of dealing with Dimilioc’s actual enemies. Right?”

Alejandro glanced sidelong at Ethan. Ethan glared back, far too directly for politeness. But then he looked deliberately away again, dropping the challenge.

Ezekiel gave them both a very small nod. “Good. Lead with your heads,” he told them. “Don’t let Zinaida Kologrivova or her Dacha wolves kill you, or I’ll be seriously annoyed, understand?”

“Ezekiel—” Ethan began, and then broke off as Ezekiel looked at him, one pale eyebrow rising. But then, though Ethan lowered his head, he went on, “This is all stupid. You should call Grayson back yourself. Tell him you’re still here, you’ll take care of these damned Dacha black wolves. Look, you know if you walk away from this—”

“Enough,” said Ezekiel. His tone was almost gentle, but his eyes were shifting once more from human blue to flame-yellow.

Ethan said stubbornly, “He wouldn’t have even told you anything, except he trusted you not to fly off—”

“Then he should have known better,” Ezekiel snapped. He stalked to the edge of the balcony, put a hand on the railing, and vaulted over without seeming to look. His shadow flared around and above him, carrying his weight, so he would land on the pavement below as lightly as a cat—more lightly, because even a cat would break bones, dropped from this height.

Ethan looked at Alejandro. Alejandro stared back. Ethan shut his eyes, took a deep breath, let it out, and opened his eyes again. They were ordinary human eyes, dark and angry with ordinary human anger. He jerked a gesture at the railing where Ezekiel had vanished. “I tried. But Grayson . . .” he shrugged.

Alejandro nodded. “Either Ezekiel will change his mind and come back, or he will go south to look for Natividad. Either way . . . ” he returned Ethan’s shrug. “Nos fregamos.”

“Yeah,” said Ethan, and shook his head. “Yeah. Nos whatever. Damn.”

“Right,” said Alejandro. He turned away, stared out at the night, out and down, the way Ezekiel had gone. There was no sign of Ezekiel’s passage through the city, only ordinary night sounds of the streets and the hotel.

He was careful not to look directly at Ethan. He did not wish to begin some stupid struggle for dominance. He could see, out of the corner of his eye, how Ethan had also turned his face away, avoiding any chance of confrontation. After a little while, Ethan even sank down to sit on the floor, leaning back against the railing, legs drawn up, his fingers laced nonchalantly around his knees. He said absolutely nothing. Almost anything he said would sound like a challenge, now. Especially after that cool judgment that Alejandro took advice better than he did. That would make even good advice sound like a challenge, and both of them knew it. So Ethan kept his mouth shut, staring out into the night in silence.

Alejandro said abruptly, “You have another phone, yes?”

Ethan didn’t look at him. “Sure,” he said, his tone completely neutral.

“I think it would be best to call the Master. I think I should do that now.”

Ethan tossed his slim little phone to Alejandro without comment. Alejandro flipped it open and studied the buttons.

In the whole village of Potosi, there had been only one phone. It had been attached to the wall with a cord, and one put in the number by turning a round dial for each number. Since coming to Dimilioc, Alejandro had used these other phones. He knew very well one pressed the buttons, but every phone seemed frustratingly different. It was not obvious to him how to even turn this particular phone on.

Natividad would know exactly how to use this phone. Miguel would know how to use ten thousand functions that Alejandro would not even guess existed. Alejandro could only suppose that probably one of the two large buttons at the top of the panel would make the phone work. One had a green line on it. Maybe that was the button that meant Go.

He had no intention of asking Ethan. He thought, however, of tossing the phone back to the other black dog and saying curtly, You do it. That would even make sense. Ethan was a Lanning. Grayson was his uncle. Let him talk to Grayson and explain what Ezekiel had done and that the verdugo had truly abandoned this misión, this mission and run away to follow Natividad south.

Let Ethan sound offended and shocked. Alejandro knew he would himself have difficulty hiding from his own relief that Ezekiel had gone after Natividad. He could hardly believe she had gone away from Dimilioc again, into danger again. Grayson would be so angry. But Alejandro couldn’t help but feel—

The phone rang, a swift run of notes like birdsong. Alejandro blinked, startled, stopping himself with difficulty from either dropping the phone or crushing it. He looked at Ethan, who only shrugged. The phone rang again. And again. Ethan opened his mouth to say something, probably something sarcastic, but then stopped and said nothing after all.

Alejandro touched the button with the green line across it.

Grayson’s deep, gritty voice said, harsh and clear and with the echo of a black dog snarl behind the words, “Ethan—”

Alejandro cleared his throat.

“Alejandro,” Grayson growled. “Well?”

“Master,” Alejandro said, and looked at Ethan, who pursed his lips and raised his eyebrows, a very clear Your problem. “Master,” Alejandro said again. “Ezekiel . . . uh . . .”

“Yes, I understand that,” Grayson said grimly. “Leaving the pair of you to deal with these Dacha black wolves on your own. That’s not acceptable, particularly not if you must face Zinaida Alexandrovna Kologrivova. With, no doubt, a selection of the strongest wolves of The Dacha.”

Alejandro made a sound of acknowledgement and waited to see what Grayson would command.

Grayson said heavily, “I will come myself.”

Thoroughly relieved, Alejandro nodded quickly and said, “Yes.”

“You will wait. I shall endeavor to arrive at your door before dawn.”

“Yes,” Alejandro said again, and just then a narrow-jawed blond man of perhaps fifty, with eyes the pewter-gray of storm clouds and a shadow that swept out long and dense behind him, stepped out on the neighboring balcony. He looked directly at Alejandro, smiled, strode to the edge of his balcony, stepped up on a chair and then the railing and leaped. It was a man who flung himself into the air six stories above the pavement, but it was a black dog who hurled himself over the railing not a foot from Alejandro.

-10-

Natividad was completely taken aback by Keziah’s sudden appearance. She had felt the air quiver with black-dog presence, had known someone had crossed Justin’s mandala. But, though through her alarm, she’d been sure it must be Ezekiel.

She would never in a hundred years have expected Keziah.

Keziah was already almost completely human when she hit the floor. That was fast for the cambio de cuerpo, very fast, and Natividad hadn’t even known Keziah could hold a half-shifted form—she hadn’t ever seen anyone do that but Thaddeus. Keziah must have been working really hard to tighten and refine her control, Natividad realized, and was faintly dismayed without knowing why.

Then she knew why. It was because she was afraid Keziah would someday rival Ezekiel’s speed and strength and control. And she was afraid of what Keziah might do, what she might want to do. She didn’t want the black dog girl to be able to challenge Ezekiel.

But she didn’t want Keziah to see any of that. She slipped her hands into her pockets and softened her stance, trying to look harmless without looking scared.

Keziah tossed back her hair, still neatly braided despite her partial change to her black dog form and back again. She straightened her shoulders. She looked around the suite, one swift summing glance, and then quickly at Justin and away again, and then, finally, glared at Natividad. She said, her tone biting, “One might have expected you at least would know better. Out on your own! Any number of strays might be hunting through this town tonight!”

Natividad, still recovering from the sharp surprise of realizing Grayson had sent Keziah after them rather than Ezekiel, was not immediately able to answer her. Then, to her astonishment, Justin picked up the platter than still held half the chicken and some of the ham, held it out in invitation, and said mildly, “I expect you’re hungry. There’s plenty left.”

Keziah flicked another glance at him and immediately looked away again, and Natividad realized suddenly that the other girl was deeply uncomfortable as well as angry. She immediately tried to put her more at ease, dropping down to sit once more on the floor, leaning an elbow on the table, trying to look relaxed. She also found that she no longer felt she needed Ezekiel’s knife. Recognizing Keziah’s discomfort made Natividad feel a lot more in control and a lot less like a five-year-old called to account. She said, “It’s important not to lock people up, if you don’t want them to try to run away.”

It was plain Keziah didn’t know how to answer her. The black dog girl ran her hand over her hair—an unnecessary gesture, as she looked, as always, flawless. It was uncharacteristic, too, as usually Keziah made it very plain she knew exactly how flawless she looked. Her elegance was muted now, though, even though she was wearing a really beautiful bronze-colored blouse and these fabulous hoop earrings of twisted gold. She really looked just like she should be perched in an ornate boat with a dragon prow, modeling Cleopatra, with a hundred men to row her down the Nile. Unless it was the Norse who had carved dragons on their boats? Either way, despite her beauty, Keziah looked, to Natividad, less certain of herself than usual. Maybe even . . . a little bit lost.

“You should have supper,” Justin said. “And then, if you want, maybe you can guard us while Natividad shows me how to draw crosses along the foundation of this house. I mean,” he added, raising his voice just a little when Keziah made to answer him, “We’re all exhausted, aren’t we, so we can surely leave off arguing till tomorrow? There’s a little ham left, if you don’t like chicken. Unless you don’t eat pork.”

Keziah gave him a scornful stare. “I eat anything, Pure boy. Usually after hunting it down and tearing it to pieces.”

“I’m sure that’s one way to work up an appetite.” Justin continued to hold out the platter. Natividad had no idea what he was thinking, but he didn’t seem especially worried. He had forgotten about looking down. But Keziah did not seem angry.

“I didn't think Grayson would send you,” Natividad said, since someone had to say something. “And I didn’t think anyone would find us, not so fast. I didn’t forget about strays, you know. I thought I’d taken care of that. I didn’t think—how did you track us?”

Keziah gave a strange little shiver, jerking her attention away from Justin to glare at Natividad. “You think your Ezekiel is the only black wolf who knows how to hunt?”

Natividad wanted to say, You’re the only black dog here, so why don’t you just relax and sit down and have some chicken? But she knew saying anything like that would be a mistake. She said instead, making sure her tone was meek, “I just want to understand. If any ordinary black dog stray could track us here, that wouldn’t be good, right?”

Keziah shrugged disdainfully. “There is always danger, fool. Any stray might happen across you here and pick up your scent. But tracking? I should not think a stray would know to turn toward the confused path, or to go the way she does not wish to go.”

“. . . right,” said Natividad. She hadn’t thought of any black dog figuring out how to track her directly along a confounded trail. Turning deliberately toward a confused path . . . that must take a special kind of awareness and endurance. She looked at Keziah with respect.

Keziah did not seem to notice. She curled herself down onto the couch, taking the platter at last and inspecting the half-chicken that was left. Her lip curled. “Boring American food. Americans do not know how to cook. Not even lemon!”

“Or chilies and queso,” Natividad agreed. “But it’s not bad, for boring American chicken. Listen, though, I think probably we should do the crosses and things soon, except if we’re not staying except for just one night, maybe it is not important anyway.” She glanced up at Keizah from under her lashes. “I guess Ezekiel’s on his way and we should wait? Or maybe we are going on tomorrow and he’ll catch us up?” Or maybe he had gone on ahead? That seemed likely as soon as she’d thought of it: Grayson had probably sent Ezekiel straight on to El Paso. That explained why he’d sent Keziah after them instead of Ezekiel. She relaxed a little, glad to have sorted that out.

Keziah, halfway through devouring the bland chicken, looked up, nostrils flaring. “We are not going on,” she said, her diction precise. “What is this nonsense of going on? We are going back. I am sure you understand this. I believe I am quite capable of escorting you both back to Dimilioc even without the incomparable Ezekiel to assist.”

“Right. And now, what if I say I’m not going back to Dimilioc?” demanded Justin, looking at Keziah with open challenge. “Then what?”

Keziah gave him a white, white smile. “You think you have the nerve to defy me, Pure boy?”

“Oh, I have the nerve.” Justin looked at Natividad. “Is she allowed to touch me?”

“No,” Natividad said unhappily. “But you’re not making it easier, challenging her like that, plus I’m pretty sure she doesn’t care. And I’m pretty sure Grayson won’t care, either, as long as she brings you back safe.” She looked at Keziah. “But it’s not right to chain people up and make them do things they don’t want to do. I don’t have to tell you that, do I?”

Keziah snarled, a low blood-curdling sound.

Justin rolled his eyes. “You really think you can drag people two thousand miles against their will, by yourself, and no one will notice? No one will call the cops? You sure you don’t want to think this through?”

Natividad said hastily, “Anyway, look, Keziah, even if Grayson’s ordered you to bring us back, he can’t really want to send Ezekiel against that vampire in El Paso all by himself. He’ll need help! You know that’s true. Of course we should go on.” If it was a vampire. She hoped it was just some leftover blood kin. That would be horrible enough, and they knew a few of the blood kin had outlived their masters. It was hard to believe Grayson would really send even Ezekiel against a master vampire all by himself. She said, thinking half aloud, “Or is Ezekiel just supposed to collect those Dimilioc black wolves and bring them back? That would make sense, I guess, but don’t you think Grayson would rather have the vampire dead, too? If there is a vampire. After all, we’re already nearly there.”

And she wasn’t the least bit disappointed that Grayson hadn’t let Ezekiel come after her—after them.

Then, at last, she realized that both Keziah and Justin were staring at her.

She sighed, and pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes. “Right. I guess I didn’t exactly mention El Paso?” She dropped her hands to her lap and looked at Keziah. “And I guess maybe Grayson didn’t explain about that to you, either, right?”

“There is a vampire in El Paso?” Keziah said, her tone blank, just as Justin got suddenly to his feet and demanded, “There’s a vampire in El Paso? You said all the vampires were gone! When were you going to mention this, exactly?”

“We weren’t going to El Paso!” Natividad reminded him. “We were going to Roswell, so you could go to your grandmamá. We weren’t going anywhere near El Paso!” She leaned back against the couch, lifting her hands in a little shrug. “I thought Grayson would send Ezekiel, and then we—he and I, not you, Justin—could go to El Paso and kill that vampire. And then come back to Roswell and see if maybe you wanted to go back to Dimilioc after all.” She looked at Keziah. “But I guess Grayson sent Ezekiel on to El Paso and that means he sent you after us, right? I hope he sent someone else with Ezekiel!”

“Why would I want to go back to Dimilioc?” Justin said, not waiting for Keziah to answer. His tone was angry, but Natividad saw how he didn’t quite look at Keziah.

Natividad hesitated. She didn’t want to say, Because you would get tired of being afraid all the time. You would get tired of being afraid for your grandmamá and your friends and everyone. That was the kind of thing that Justin really needed to find out for himself. Before Natividad could think of something else to say, though, Keziah cut in sharply, “There are black dogs of Dimilioc bloodlines in El Paso? Is that what you said?”

Natividad flinched. Of course Keziah wouldn’t like the idea of more Dimilioc black wolves. She would be afraid they would scorn her and her sister because they didn’t have the right bloodline. She said quickly, “Only just a few, from the western sept, you know, the Colorado sept? I guess during the war Dimilioc sent people to hold the city and stop the vampires taking it back. But the vampires killed a lot of Dimilioc’s black dogs and Grayson thought they were all gone, only they weren’t, but they thought Dimilioc was gone, too. Only then they saw Ezekiel on television, you know. So they called to ask for help, only Grayson, he said we couldn’t help them right now. Because of this trouble in Boston, you know? But I . . . I didn’t think we could wait. I figured if I came here, he would send Ezekiel after me. He didn’t tell you about this, seriously?” Because that really didn’t seem to make sense, when Natividad thought about it.

Keziah didn’t answer, but Justin said suddenly to her, “Grayson didn’t send you at all, did he? You’re AWOL. Aren’t you?”

There was a small pause. Though Keziah didn’t look away, a slow flush crept up along her fine cheekbones. Then she tossed the chicken onto a plate and leaned back along the arm of the couch, coolly disdainful. But it was too late. Natividad and Justin had both seen the high color rise up her face. Natividad found herself exchanging a glance with Justin. He didn’t look as surprised as she felt.

Behind the surprise, Natividad discovered, she was upset. And angry, though she tried to argue against that anger. But Grayson hadn’t sent anyone after her? Really? Natividad felt . . . not betrayed, exactly, she decided firmly. Because that wasn’t fair. He must have had a good reason not to. She just didn’t know what it was.

“Well?” Keziah said defiantly. “You think I should ask Grayson for leave to come and go? You make very free with what you do—”

“I’m not a black dog—” began Natividad.

“No, of course not, you are Pure—”

“Shut up!” Justin said, with considerable force.

Natividad closed her mouth and stared at him. She was aware that Keziah was also staring at Justin, looking desconcertado. Nonplused. Natividad had to suppress an untimely urge to laugh. She was horrified and scared and mad and it was just stupid to also have to fight to keep from laughing. She was pretty sure laughing right at this moment would be a bad idea.

Justin gave Natividad a long look. “You’ve taught me a lot. I appreciate that. But, let me get this straight: you used me as an excuse to leave Vermont and come down here, so that you could leave me somewhere safe and then go get yourself killed in El Paso trying to rescue a bunch of werewolves from a vampire? Without telling me?” Then he gave Keziah an equally long look. “And you ran away from Dimilioc and came after us, because you think I left because of you. So you thought you’d find me and bring me back, no matter what I wanted.” He glared at them both. “Neither of you think it’s the least bit important to explain anything to me so I can make my own decisions! I think I have that straight, at least!”

“Well, but,” said Natividad, and looked at Keziah for help.

“You are not safe to be alone!” Keziah snapped. “And you did run away because of me! If you are killed and it is my fault, Grayson Lanning will kill me. Or cast me out, and then what would happen to Amira, if I am not there to protect her?”

“Oh, now, Grayson wouldn’t—” Natividad began.

Keziah curled her lip. “What do you know about it, Pure girl? You are not merely Pure, you have the blood of your father in your veins, proper Dimilioc blood! Everyone values you. Black dog girls are not valuable—”

“Grayson’s wife was a black dog!” Natividad said, out of patience because Keziah ought to know better. “You think she wasn’t valued?”

“She was Dimilioc!”

Natividad threw up her hands. “So are you!”

“Enough!” shouted Justin.

Natividad, startled, stopped. So did Keziah, though she gave him a narrow, dangerous look. Justin shook his head, made a noise like “Aargh,” and jammed both hands through his hair. Then he dropped onto one of the overstuffed chairs, rubbed his face, looked up, and said in a quiet, civil tone, “Natividad, what exactly is it that you want to do now?”

“Well,” said Natividad, and hesitated. Then she said in a rush, “Even if Ezekiel’s not—even if Grayson didn’t send Ezekiel to El Paso, we can’t come all this way and then not go on and at least find those black dogs. Not you, Justin, if you don’t want to, but honestly, I never meant to let you just go off to your grandmamá and leave you there to stay, you don’t know nearly enough—”

“I’ve heard all that before,” snapped Justin. “What do you think we should do?”

Natividad shrugged. “I think we should call those black dogs from here, find out what’s going on in El Paso right now. Then either we can go in and get them to help us kill this vampire, or if it sounds too dangerous, at least we can get them all out, take them back to Dimilioc with us—”

“We can call them?” said Justin

“I got their number off caller ID, of course, when they called Dimilioc,” Natividad said impatiently. “What? Like you really think I’d want to go in blind?”

“Who would wish to guess what you might do?” said Keziah.

Natividad ignored her. “We can’t just go back to Dimilioc without even talking to them! I mean, we thought all the Hammonds were gone, the bloodline lost, and now here are two Hammonds after all. And another Lanning, even! It will kill Grayson to lose them.” She turned to Keziah. “Honestly, you don’t need to worry. You’ll terrify them all -- and one of them’s even a girl, did I tell you? Her name’s Carissa, Carissa Hammond—”

Keziah tilted her head to one side, regarding Natividad with a contemptuous expression. “Can you truly imagine I would care?”

“Keziah,” Justin said, before Natividad could say anything unwise. “What do you want us all to do?”

The black dog girl paused. Then she shrugged. “It is important for me to return you to the safety of Dimilioc. I will do so. It is foolish to trespass on the territory of a vampire when we are not properly prepared. We should not approach El Paso, if there is a vampire there. I do not care about those black dogs, these Lanning and Hammond cousins. If there is a vampire and they do not have the strength to face it, then they should have the sense to run. I do not care if Natividad calls them and tells them to run.” She glanced at Natividad and lifted her shoulders in a slight, elegant shrug. “I do not even mind waiting for them. One day. Twelve hours, at least. If they do not come in that time, forget them. Or if the vampire follows them, let it have them. The Master believed they were dead before. He can accept that they are dead again. Let Dimilioc bring in new blood and forget the names it used to own.”

“Oh, now, that’s just wrong!” protested Natividad.

Keziah’s nostrils flared. “You think you are so clever, you always think you know just what to do, better than even the Dimilioc Master!”

This hit a little too close to the bone. Natividad stopped, not knowing how to answer, except by saying, But I’m right, which didn’t seem likely to make Keziah any happier.

“Enough!” said Justin, holding up both hands. “I guess we all know what the next step is, right? We call those black dogs in El Paso. Then we figure out what to do from there, right? We don’t need to argue until we know what we’re arguing about. Right? Natividad, you have a phone?

Natividad had a phone. She had turned it off because she hadn’t wanted to argue with Grayson or Ezekiel or anyone, and because she wasn’t sure whether maybe Grayson, or maybe Miguel, might be able to track her through her phone if she turned it on. She thought she sort of remembered something on a television show where someone had tracked someone else through a phone. Maybe that wasn’t really possible, but she didn’t know, so she had left hers off. She turned it on now.

Grayson had let Miguel buy phones for himself and for her. Miguel’s was a smartphone and could do everything. Hers was pink, and not very expensive, and could do nothing but make calls and take pictures. But it got an adequate signal even in Dimilioc. Here in Rattlesnake Springs, it got an excellent signal, perhaps because the land was so flat to the south and west and El Paso was not so very far away.

She dialed. The phone rang. And rang. Four times, five. Natividad looked at Justin, raising her eyebrows: maybe Christopher had put his phone down somewhere, maybe he had lost it? Maybe his phone had run out of its charge and it only sounded like it was ringing? Natividad tried to remember if you heard ringing when you called someone and their phone was dead. Maybe you got a busy signal? She began to shrug, and then there was the tone that meant someone had hit talk. “Oh,” said Natividad, half surprised because she had begun to believe no one would answer. “Christopher?”

“Yes!” said the young, half-familiar voice. Christopher Toland sounded tense. He’d sounded tense the other time, too, but there was now a tightness to his voice that she didn’t remember from the earlier call. He said again, “Yes? You’re there? I mean, here? Are you in Carlsbad? You’re not in El Paso, right? It’s bad, there, it’s really bad, it’s definitely a master vampire, you don’t want to go there, you’re Pure, right? Which is good, that’s good. Is Ezekiel there?”

“No,” Natividad said quickly. “I mean, not yet!” She wondered whether she should try to explain things. But Christopher was plainly scared enough already. She wondered if she should say Cousin and tell him her name. Had Miguel actually told him he had new cousins at Dimilioc? Had Grayson? She couldn’t remember. She said, “This is Natividad, Natividad Toland, Edward Toland’s daughter? I hope you and, and everybody are still safe! No one’s been hurt, have they? We’re here—I mean, not in Carlsbad, but in Rattlesnake Springs. So we’re close. We think maybe it would be best if you all came here, too, and then we can talk and make plans, okay?” She paused, but the quick, nervous voice on the other end didn’t answer. “Christopher?” she said.

On the other end of the connection, there was a long, slow exhalation, like air sighing out of a deep cavern. There was nothing about that sound that had ever been human.

Natividad dropped the phone. It turned end over end, seeming to fall very slowly. She watched it fall, standing frozen and blank, as unable to move as though she had suddenly turned to stone.

Keziah caught the phone. “Who are you?” she snapped into it, a savage black dog snarl underlying every word.

The thing whispered in answer, “What are you?” It paused and then asked again, “What are you?” Then it said, which was even worse, “I know what you are.” Its voice was desiccated, ancient, utterly inhuman. It sounded like wind sighing across sand. It sounded like a scorpion that had learned human speech. It sounded like a long-dead corpse, brought back to a grotesque semblance of life and given voice.

Keziah crushed the phone in her hand. Little black bits and shards of bright pink plastic cascaded to the rug. Keziah looked straight at Natividad and said, her voice hardly human, “You told him where we are.”

Natividad blinked. Her eyes felt gritty. She felt strange, like all her thoughts had slammed to a halt and also like everything in her head was running madly in circles, both at once. She had spoken to a vampire. It had spoken to her. She knew its What are you had been directed at her, not at Keziah. It had said I know what you are. It had spoken to her. That was almost like it had touched her. Madre de dios, she could still feel it looking at her as though all the distance between them was nothing—

Keziah strode forward, grabbed her by the shoulder, and slapped her. It was, for a black dog, a very gentle blow. But it rocked Natividad; she staggered and would have fallen except that Keziah did not let her go. And Justin had jumped forward and held her, too; she understood that after a moment. The shock of the blow had brought tears to her eyes, but it also seemed to shake loose her frozen thoughts. Natividad blinked and put her hands to her face. She whispered, “I did. I told it.”

“Who?” Justin asked urgently. “Who? That wasn’t your cousin, I get that, was it one of those ghoul-things, what do you call them, blood kin?”

“He will come here,” said Keziah, her eyes never leaving Natividad’s face. “He is coming now. We must run.” But she said it as though she already knew it was impossible.

“Not fast enough,” Natividad whispered. “We can’t run fast enough. It’s only twenty miles from here to Carlsbad. Less. I told it—Maria, madre de dios—we can’t run. It will have our scent. It will follow. It will catch us on the road. Dawn is too far away. Madre de dios.” She shook her head, trying to think.

“Was that the vampire?” Justin demanded. “Are you telling me that twenty miles isn’t enough of a head start?”

“It is not,” Keziah said flatly. “They can fly.”

“Don’t tell me they can turn into bats. Because I won’t believe you.”

“They don’t have to,” Natividad said numbly. “They just fly, that’s all.” She rubbed her face with her fingertips, hard, blinking. “Anyway, it will have made blood kin. Some of them will be out this far. Vampires like to spread their creatures out a long way . . .”

“Now wait,” protested Justin. “Blood kin are those monsters that look like ghouls and eat people. How exactly are they going to be lurking secretly in a little place like this? No miasma, remember?”

“The master vampire will hide its creatures,” Keziah said flatly. “So long as they stay close enough to their master, no one will see what they are. Twenty miles is close enough. Natividad is right. Some will be here already, in this town.”

Natividad nodded. “They’ll be looking for us—” she whispered.

Keziah raised her hand sharply, a threat, and Natividad flinched, but the black dog girl only said, “You are Pure. What should we do?”

Natividad stared at her. She took one breath. Another. She looked at Justin, who stared back, scared but steady. He had no idea. But that meant he could be like that, steady, a rock on which to brace herself. She looked at Keziah, slim and beautiful and deadly as a knife blade. Keziah wasn’t frozen with terror.

Natividad swallowed. Then she straightened her shoulders. “We’ll tell those women they have to run. They can warn people.” Everyone would listen. People had learned to take warnings seriously, during the war. Which had been over, until tonight. She blinked back tears of self-pity and fear and said, “Hiding won’t work. It knows we’re here. We need to finish putting crosses all along the foundation. I need to lay another mandala. We’ll find something to anchor it. The ladies here might have crucifixes or something. We should ask.” She took a deep breath, blinked, and added, “And we’ll call Grayson. He won’t be able to do anything—” not in time. “But we can warn him. If we—if—at least Dimilioc can kill this vampire. It won’t have time to build up its power or make too many more vampires or anything.”

It did help, to know that. She thought, looking at the other two, that Keziah also found comfort in the knowledge that the vampire would not long survive them, but that Justin did not. She understood them both. She began, “At least—” But then she stopped, staring blankly at nothing.

“What?” said Justin. He took a step forward and touched her arm. “Natividad, what?”

“There is something else wrong?” Keziah said, her tone disgusted as well as exasperated, hiding her fear behind anger.

Natividad shook her head, not in denial, but trying to sort out the stab of fear and fury that had suddenly flashed in jagged lightning across the back of her mind and flamed up in her heart. “Alejandro,” she said, understanding at last. “Something is wrong at home—something is wrong with Alejandro.” She took a step toward the window, peering out into the dark as though she might see her brother across all the miles that separated them.

“Of course,” said Keziah, sounding even more disgusted. But this time the fear showed, as well. “Of course, something is also wrong at home.”

“Can we do anything about that?” asked Justin, his own attitude matter-of-fact.

“No,” whispered Natividad.

Justin nodded. He said, not without sympathy, “Then probably we had better focus on what we can do for ourselves, don’t you think? Another mandala. Crosses.”

Natividad took a deep breath. The air tasted of ash and fear. In the hollows of her heart her brother’s rage and terror echoed. But he was still alive. She knew that, at least. She would know if he died. She would know.

And if he lived, he would know if she died. That thought steadied her. Because she would do anything she had to, to spare her brother that pain. “Yes,” she said to Justin. She took another breath, and straightened her shoulders. “The foundation. And another mandala. Yes. I’ll show you.”

-11-

When the other black dog leaped, Alejandro dropped the phone and reached desperately after his own shadow. But he was only half shifted when the black dog hit him. He was borne down immediately by the other black dog’s weight. He heard, distantly, Ethan’s ripping snarl, and felt the impact of another black dog thudding down on the balcony, and he heard when Ethan’s snarl cut off short. He was distantly astonished the whole balcony did not collapse, and wished it would because that would get him clear of his enemy. He bucked hard, twisting, trying to shift, but he had no time. His enemy closed powerful jaws around his shoulder and neck, but did not immediately tear him apart. Alejandro didn’t understand that, but couldn’t think about it now—his shadow was rising, his bones warping and thickening, but the other black dog pinned him. He couldn’t get away, couldn’t fight, even mostly shifted, he was outmatched, and both he and his shadow knew it. He tried to roll the other black dog’s shadow back and down, but the effort was like trying to push an old oak over with his bare hands: he did not begin to have the strength to do it.

Then a second black dog’s shadow rolled across his, heavy, irresistible, and he found himself in his human form, fighting to breathe, trapped beneath the massive weight of the one that pinned him. That black dog was very large. Immenso. Even for a black dog. His breath was hot against Alejandro’s skin, his deadly jaws ready to crush his bones, tear out his throat, and Alejandro couldn’t change, he was trapped. He struggled, fought to get away, a muscle-tearing effort that made no difference at all to the immense strength that held him down.

“Be quiet,” said a woman’s voice above him.

He recognized her immediately. She was the Black Wolf of Russia—he could not remember her name, nor how to say Black Wolf in Russian. But he knew her. She was tall and strong boned, with a proud nose and steel-gray hair pulled back taut and smooth behind her head. Her lips were pressed thin with impatience and ruthless control. Her eyes were the gray of the winter sky, cold and hard as metal, but the eyes of her shadow burned. Her shadow, gathered close and tight, lay beneath her, as dark and dense as Grayson Lanning’s.

Her accent was harsh, choppy. He only understood her words after a long moment. He was furiously angry and desperately afraid, and he had to struggle to remember the whole concept of language. And then beyond that there was the accent.

But the black dog woman repeated herself, coldly patient. “Be quiet. Be quiet. Be still. Stop all that nonsense. What a child you are. Be quiet.”

At last he understood her. And understood, too, that the first black dog had not killed him and plainly was not going to kill him. That was terrifying in a different way, but once he understood it was true, his shadow stopped pressing him so hard and he began to recover himself. He panted for breath, smothered by weight both physical and otherwise.

The big black dog stared down at Alejandro. His eyes, set far apart in his broad head, were a smoldering black-crimson, like the coals at the very heart of a fire. He was old—older than he’d seemed, in that first instant. Old and very, very strong. Alejandro knew he could not have fought this one even if he could have shifted to his other form.

But he could have made this black dog kill him. Instead, he was helpless. A captive. From the beginning, they had understood that their enemies wanted to take captives rather than just kill them all. Plainly, Alejandro was now going to find out why that was. He was furious. He was also very, very frightened. He wanted to shut his eyes, look away, but he refused to behave like the child the woman black dog had called him. He made himself lie still.

“Better,” allowed the woman. “A strange shadow you have there, boy.” She sounded curiously pleased about this, and asked with an intensity that Alejandro did not understand, “Your Pure sister with the shadow-touched magic: is she also here?”

Alejandro stared up at her, wordless. He would not have answered her even if had be able to speak, but he was too angry to find the words anyway. He tried to break free of her, but her shadow pinned his as effortlessly as the other black dog pinned his human body.

The woman shook her head when he did not speak, the narrow line of her mouth tightening. “You, young one, you understand you are not strong enough to fight us? Do not fight, or Valentin Nikitich will hurt you. You understand me? You have language? Tell me you understand. Tell me out loud.”

It took Alejandro some time to frame the words in Spanish, longer still to think of them in English. The black dog woman waited, starkly patient, and the black dog—Valentin, Valentin Nikitich—waited also, and at last Alejandro was able to say, carefully, “I understand. I understand you.”

“Good,” said the woman. “You are the young Toland, of course. The son of Edward Toland. The girl, the eretich, she is your sister. If she is not here, where is she?” She paused, waiting. When Alejandro did not answer, she made an impatient gesture and snapped, “Let him up, uncle.”

Zinaida. Zinaida something. Alejandro remembered that. And this Valentin was her uncle and her ally. And he took her orders. That said a lot about this woman, that a strong black dog like Valentin took her orders.

Valentin eased his weight slowly back and away. He was amused and pleased and satisfied, and Alejandro was afraid of him. He moved very carefully, to sit up and then, to show he understood how impossible his position was, to kneel. He kept his head down, watching them carefully through his lashes, glancing covertly sideways. There were two other black dogs here, both as old as Valentin. He felt their strength, the density of their shadows. Ethan was kneeling between them, as helpless as Alejandro himself. Anger beat through him: of course Ethan had not gotten clear. No. He was here, a prisoner, a captive, just like Alejandro himself. Useless. They were both useless.

The woman, the Black Wolf, gestured, a lifted hand. Another of her people came out onto the balcony. From their own adjoining room, the one Alejandro and Ethan had shared with Ezekiel, so they had forced the door. Alejandro suppressed a surge of territorial fury, because what did that matter now?

This newcomer was a man, a human, but all Alejandro noticed about him beside that basic fact was that his hands were full of silver chains. Alejandro could feel the bright, cold burn of the silver from all the way across the balcony. He tensed, looking warily for a chance to get away even though he knew it was impossible.

“Be quiet.” The woman sounded merely exasperated. “You know you cannot fight. Accept it and be still.” Valentin set a heavy forefoot on Alejandro’s shoulder, forcing him face down on the balcony. He had blunted his claws, which would not stop him from ripping off Alejandro’s head the instant he chose to do it. Alejandro still could not shift. The cambio de cuerpo was impossible. The woman held his shadow. The Black Wolf. Zinaida Alexandrovna Kologrivova. That was her name. He remembered that now. And her uncle was Valentin Nikitich Kologrivov. It did not help, to know that. It was good to regain language, but Alejandro had never depended on words to defend himself or fight his enemies. He bit his lip until he tasted blood, forcing himself to a furious stillness.

The woman took the chains from the human herself. Plainly they had been blooded for her, because she handled them casually. Alejandro wondered who had blooded the chains, whether Zinaida had forced the Pure woman to do it, the dead woman, before she had killed her. He wanted to tear out the black dog woman’s throat, wash the night with her blood. As this was impossible at the moment, he did not move. He let her put the chains on him. He could not believe he let her put the chains on his wrists, except if he fought, Valentin would rip his head off, but he still could not believe he let her do it. But he did not move, and then it was too late. Though silver cuffs were lined with leather, they still burned. The pain made him angry. If he became too angry, he would once more lose the ability to speak or understand human language. He took little, shallow breaths through his mouth, fighting to be calm, to be still, to wait.

“So,” said the woman, relaxing once both he and Ethan were bound. She looked around, narrow-eyed, and gave a little nod of satisfaction. She looked at Valentin, gave him another little nod, and he huffed out a breath, then reared up, dwindling and straightening, shaking away his shadow, until a broad-shouldered man stood there, white haired, his face seamed with age. He had the same bony cast of features as the woman, the same winter-gray eyes, the same arrogant way of standing. Alejandro would have known they were of the same bloodline even if he had not known their names.

The other black dogs were shifting also, three of them, Alejandro saw now. Another had come out of the hotel room, shaking his head in a clear Nothing there gesture. All the black dogs were male, all old, all straight-backed and strong, all with cold, bitter gray eyes and tight, wary expressions. He thought these must all be cousins, Kologrivov connections. They would know one another very well. They would fight as a team, they would guard one another’s backs. Even if Ezekiel had been here, Alejandro did not know if they could have fought these Dacha wolves. He was intensely aware that he and Ethan alone would have no chance at all against them. He did not understand why the Black Dog of Russia had sent younger, weaker black dogs against them in the earlier trap, in both the earlier traps, but she had clearly brought her strongest allies with her tonight.

Zinaida Alexandrovna Kologrivova studied Alejandro for a long moment. “Your sister?” she asked again.

Alejandro shook his head. This woman knew his name and bloodline, she knew about Natividad, she had deliberately sought them both. He had no idea why she should want them, or want them alive. He did not know the word she had used, eretich. But understanding that she might have attacked Dimilioc solely to capture Natividad and himself terrified him. He tried to frame words in his mind, but could not. He shook his head again.

“She’s not here,” Ethan said sharply. “She’s nowhere near here. She didn’t come. You think we’d risk her near enemies we knew sought her?”

The woman walked across the balcony and looked Ethan up and down. She gripped his chin in one long, bony hand and tipped his face up. “You are a Lanning, yes?” she said to him. “You have the look of that line. I know Ezekiel Korte was with you this time. Where is he now?”

Ethan jerked his head away from her and spat on the floor. The nearest black dog hit him, a swift backhanded blow that snapped his head to the side and would have sent him sprawling except another of the Russian black dogs caught his shoulder and held him upright.

“Ezekiel Korte?” said the woman again, patiently.

Ethan looked aside and down. Alejandro thought he would not answer. But he muttered at last, “Gone. I don’t know. Looking for you, probably.”

The woman curled her lip. “He may find us, now.” She sent one swift, comprehensive look around at the night. Then she stooped and picked up the phone Alejandro had dropped. He had forgotten it. But he could see it had not been crushed or knocked off the balcony in the fight. And he could see that the green Talk button was still lit.

Zinaida Kologrivova saw that, too. She smiled thinly, lifted the phone, and said, in her heavily accented English, “Well? Who is this? Is this Ezekiel Korte?”

“No,” said Grayson, his voice flat.

“Ah,” said the woman, looking enlightened. “Shall I presume this is the Dimilioc Master himself? Do I speak now to Grayson Lanning?”

Grayson said harshly, clearly audible to black dog hearing, “Chernaya Volchitza. You are most unwise to make yourself Dimilioc’s enemy.”

The woman’s eyebrows rose. “But you have too many other enemies to spend your strength against me, Grayson Lanning. I have been wiser: I have made alliances instead. You should yield your territory to me now. I would make a place for you and yours in my new house. I give you my word I will make a place for you. That would be best. For the remnants of Dimilioc as well as for me.”

There was a pause. Then Grayson said, his tone grim, “With whom have you made alliance, Zinaida Alexandrovna Kologrivov? Are you sure you have been wise?”

The Black Wolf asked patiently, “Where is your eretich, your Pure girl with the corrupted shadow?”

“You think I would give any of the Pure over to your hand?”

“You may give her to me now and thus gain my tolerance and patience, or you may refuse and I will burn your house and take her from you anyway. Where is your executioner, the young Korte?”

“I will not give you any of my Pure, but if you want Ezekiel so badly, perhaps I shall send him to you,” Grayson said.

“Yes,” said the woman. “Yes. Send him to me, if he is not afraid.” She rolled each word across her tongue as though she enjoyed the feel of the English language. Or perhaps she enjoyed making threats. She said, “Send him to me, and we will see how he fares against my Russian wolves.”

“He will tear them soul from body and fling them into the fell dark,” Grayson said flatly. “With whom have you made alliance? Or with what? Why do you want Natividad Toland?”

The woman’s lip curled. She glared at the phone in her hand. “You try my patience, Grayson Lanning. Bring me this girl. You can spare her now. After all, you have the little one you took from me. Keep that one; I do not mind. And bring your young Korte executioner, if you will, and we shall see whether he is as terrible as you say. But I will not promise his safety. Nor the safety of these young wolves of yours, if you do not come. With the Pure girl.”

“I shall take harm done my young wolves out of your skin, Zinaida Alexandrovna.”

“I will look forward to our meeting, Grayson Lanning. Come, and we will speak to one another, you and I. Bring me this girl. Then maybe you and I will find things to speak of. But here, and not upon Dimilioc territory.”

“You are standing upon Dimilioc territory. But I’ll come,” said Grayson, in that same flat tone, and then there was the tone that meant he had disconnected at the other end.

The Black Wolf of Russia tossed the phone to one of the other wolves, who caught it, expressionless, and slipped it away. She looked around the balcony one more time, thoughtfully. Then she jerked her head at Valentin and strode away, into the hotel.

Valentin closed a hard hand on Alejandro’s arm, hauling him up to his feet and shoving him after her. Alejandro went where the shove directed him and did not look the Russian wolf in the face.

The Russian wolves had established themselves in a long boxy warehouse by the harbor, smelling of salt and seaweed, of wet stone and mildewed wood and machine oil and some astringent chemical. The warehouse had had offices at one end, on the upper floor, and the Russian wolves had made those into a series of ugly but functional apartments. The lower floor held stacks of crates and shipping containers, and two vans, and eyebolts set directly into the cement floor. Alejandro was chained to one of those eyebolts, and Ethan to another, about six feet away. The chains were short, too short to allow either of them to stand. They must kneel or sit or lie down. The cement floor was hard and cold; it was going to get very uncomfortable if they were left here very long. Probably being left alone was the very best either of them could hope for. The silver chains were much harder to bear than the cement floor, a slow and constant drain on their strength, and dangerous to any careless touch.

Alejandro knelt on the cement floor, his head down, watching the Russian wolves through lowered lashes. They ignored their prisoners. They spoke to one another in Russian, with only the occasional English word. He understood nothing they said. He counted nine black dogs and four humans, but he did not know whether he had seen them all. All of them he saw were male, except for Zinaida Kologrivova herself, the Chernaya Volchitza, the Black Wolf of Russia. She spoke to one man and then another, then vanished up the stairs toward the smell of cooking, of beef and boiled cabbage. But soon she came back down, a human man at her side with a clipboard and pen.

Everyone seemed busy, though what they were doing was not clear. The sound of hammering came from somewhere out of sight. Someone brought a tall crate into the warehouse; someone else took a stack of smaller crates away. Several of the black dogs he could see were young. Those would not have worried him, except for the chains. But Zinaida Kologrivova or Valentin Kologrivov or one of the older black dogs was always close. Even without the chains, Alejandro knew he could not fight any of them.

The humans he did not pay attention to, at first. But then he saw Ethan watching one man, his expression closed and wary. Ethan looked at Alejandro, a sharp glance, and then back at the human with a significant little jerk of his chin. After that, Alejandro looked more closely and realized the man was armed with a gun. That all the human men were armed with guns. When he paid attention, he could tell that the weapons were loaded with silver bullets. The chains, so close and violently bright, made it hard to tell about the bullets. He would not have known, except for Ethan. His own carelessness made him angry: he should not have needed Ethan to show him that threat. But everything made him angry now.

Especially Ezekiel’s absence. The verdugo should have been here. He should have been on that balcony outside the hotel room; he should have been here. Then all these Russian wolves would not have everything as they pleased.

He knew, with the part of his mind that was capable of thought, that this was unfair. That if Ezekiel had been on that balcony, he would very likely be chained here also. Or dead. That the attack had been too swift, too unexpected, the Russian wolves too strong. But he was still angry. It was dangerous to be so angry. He knew that, too.

Ethan did not look so angry. Or afraid. There was a tacidturno—sullen—set to his mouth, a hostile look in his dark eyes, but Ethan often looked sullen and hostil. There was intelligent thought behind the surly look, though, or he would not have seen that the human men carried guns loaded with silver, or indicated that danger to Alejandro. Alejandro barely felt capable of intelligent thought himself.

He flexed his hands slowly and repeatedly, testing his strength against the silver-backed cuffs. This was useless. But he could not bring himself to stop testing those cuffs. He could only barely stop himself from flinging his whole weight against the silver chain and the bolt that held the chain to the floor, even though he knew he could not break either.

Ethan did not appear to feel that impulse. That, too, made Alejandro angry.

Two of the Russian wolves walked together into the warehouse, stood in muted conversation for a moment, then carried away a crate. The crate was not so very large, yet plainly it was nearly too heavy for both of them together. Alejandro watched at first idly and then with interest. He could hardly imagine what might be in that crate. Even in human form, black dogs were very strong.

“Gold?” said Ethan, not whispering but speaking very quietly. “The Dacha was wealthy. I expect they had a lot of assets in Cyprus or wherever, the kind of bank where all the best Russian mobsters keep their laundered money. But after that thing with the Cyprus government skimming creditors’ money, everyone knows gold can be trusted and governments can’t. I bet The Dacha started keeping a lot of assets in, I don’t know, a vault or something after that. The Chernaya Volchitza might have abandoned The Dacha, but I bet she wouldn’t have abandoned a lot of gold.”

Alejandro had no idea how Russian mob bosses handled their money, but he understood the part about not abandoning gold just fine. He nodded.

“Clever pup,” said a tenor voice behind them, level and cold. Ethan twitched, his mouth tightening. Alejandro also flinched. He had not known the black dog was there, so close. He turned his head, wary, careful to keep his eyes down.

It was Valentin. He was standing perhaps fifteen feet away, looking at Ethan. Alejandro would not have expected him to hear so quiet a comment from so far away, but clearly he had heard every word.

“They teach you young pups something in Dimilioc, do they?” said Valentin, his spare, seamed face forbidding. “But they do not teach you to know when it would be wiser to hold your tongue.” His voice was accented, but not as heavily as his aunt’s. He sounded as though he had learned his English a long time ago, but from an American.

Bowing his head, Ethan stayed very still.

Valentin Nikitich Kologrivov strode to him and touched his hair; then, lightly, the back of his neck, a gesture as much a threat as though he had hit him. He said grimly, “You Lannings: far too bold. Far too sure of your own righteousness. You know too much and not ever enough. If not for you, we would not have lost the miasmy—” he broke off, his hand tightening visibly. Ethan made a low, pained sound, but did not try to get away. A struggle, a fight, that would only excite a black dog. Even the youngest pup knew that; every black dog was born knowing it.

Alejandro knew exactly why Ethan stayed so still under that punishing grip. But he could see no answering moderation of Valentin Kologrivov’s anger. He said sharply, “You think all would have been well for The Dacha forever, just leave the vampires alone, sin considerar la creciente influencia, their tightening hold on the world? They hunted black dogs—and they hunted the Pure—”

Valentin released Ethan, straightening. He turned his head, so deliberately that even that small motion was a threat.

Alejandro looked aside, but he said stubbornly, “The war was terrible, but we had to break the strength of the vampires, or they would eventually have broken ours. You must know that is true.”

Valentin straightened and took a step toward him, and Alejandro braced himself. But Zinaida Kologrivov, looking up from a short distance away, said, “Do not rumple the hostages, uncle.”

“We have two,” said Valentin. “One more than we need.”

“No. We may need them both.” Zinaida handed the clipboard back to the man at her side and walked over. She frowned at Ethan, narrow-lipped. “Grayson Lanning is your father? Your uncle?”

“My uncle,” Ethan muttered.

“Your uncle,” Zinaida repeated. “He values you, I hope, young Lanning. Does he value you? Will he give me this Pure girl for your sake?”

Ethan shrugged, not looking up. “Not likely, no.”

“Well, we shall see,” Zinaida said, undisturbed. “He will come to me, here in my territory. If he is wise, he will bring me the girl. If not—” she glanced at Alejandro. “I have this one, at least. That will do for a start. I will take the girl as well, whether your uncle brings her or I must find her myself.”

Ethan glanced up, one swift scornful look. “You want to think Grayson Lanning’s a fool, you go right ahead. But I wouldn’t suggest you refer to Boston as your territory. That won’t go over well, just let me warn you.”

The Black Wolf opened a hand in a small but expressive gesture, a motion that by implication took in not only Boston, but also the surrounding countryside. “Dimilioc can have only what it can hold. This is mine now.”

“Oh, the way you talk, you’d think you owned the entire eastern seaboard. What do you really have? One stinking warehouse and half a mile of the harbor? Dimilioc has been here two hundred years! You think you’ll topple the Northeast Kingdom with a dozen black dogs and a couple human flunkies?”

Alejandro flinched, expecting an explosion, but Zinaida Kologrivov’s expression did not change at all. She only said, “A bold tongue indeed, little wolf. And how many black wolves and human flunkies does your uncle own?”

Ethan hesitated, perhaps also disconcerted by the Black Wolf’s restraint. Why he was trying to anger her, Alejandro could not guess, but he hadn’t given up. He said flatly, “Oh, more than that, you bet. Arrogance won’t serve you well here. You think you’ve invited the Dimilioc Master onto your territory? This is all Dimilioc’s territory, and you’re in it. It’s a big country, but there’s no room in it for Dimilioc’s enemies. So why be enemies? Let me tell you, free advice, you’d do better to take a more polite attitude and explain nicely what you want and why. Grayson won’t be pushed, but he can be generous if you approach him right. Ask Étienne Lumondiere.”

That was clever, wrapping a lot of truth up around one big lie. Alejandro could not see any sign that the Black Wolf had spotted the lie, but she did not seem impressed by the truth, either. She only said, “I had heard that Dimilioc permits a Lumondiere presence. In the west, where Dimilioc was never so strong. I think this is not generosity, young wolf. Does one look for generosity from a black dog? No. This shows his weakness.”

Ethan met her eyes. “You’re wrong. About Lumondiere and about Dimilioc. If you Dacha wolves made more of a place for the Pure, you wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss generosity. Or mistake it for weakness.”

Zinaida only shrugged impatiently and turned to Alejandro. She looked him up and down. “You,” she said. “Can it be that Grayson Lanning values you, despite what you have done to your shadow? What strange experiments you Dimilioc curs attempt. I had heard this, but truly I had no idea.”

It took Alejandro a moment to leash the fury that trembled through his nerves. Then he could speak, but he could not think of any good retort.

Valentin curled his lip and said something to the Chernaya Volchitza. The only words Alejandro caught were Ezekiel Korte. That was enough. Alejandro said furiously, “Grayson Lanning will never surrender any Pure woman to you. But Ezekiel Korte? You say you do not fear Dimilioc’s executioner? When he comes here, I think you will find you should.” He tried not to show by so much as a flicker how unlikely it was that Ezekiel Korte would be guarding Grayson’s back when the Dimilioc Master arrived. He tried to look certain of himself, certain of Dimilioc’s strength.

The woman shrugged. “We will see,” she said. “I think my strong wolves need not fear the young Korte. We have seen him fight, now. He is formidable, yes, but he will find he is not invincible. I will be very pleased if your Master brings him to me. Very pleased. He will be useful to me, once I have taught him his place. But I will be more pleased if you are wrong and Grayson Lanning brings me your sister. Then I will ensure he lives long enough to see all his work undone.” She turned to walk away.

“Undone how?” Ethan demanded. He could not stand up, of course, but he straightened his back and glared at her, an attitude Alejandro admired even though it was stupid. “Why undone? What exactly is Grayson’s fault? The war? We won. The vampires are the ones who are gone—” he hesitated, though, remembering the news from the south, the vampire that might be down there—the vampire that Natividad might have gone to find. Alejandro did not want to think of what might happen if she succeeded, especially if these Russian black dogs prevented Grayson from sending anyone after her. He was fervently glad Ezekiel had gone after her, even as he was furious with the verdugo for leaving the rest of them to face the Black Wolf of Russia without him.

The Black Wolf had stopped. She turned back to Ethan. She didn’t hit him, even yet, though Alejandro had half expected her to lose her temper at last. She even raised a hand to stop Valentin hitting him, as the other black dog plainly intended to do. She said, every accented word precise and level, “We can live with vampires. We did live with them, for thousands of years. You are a fool if you truly believe we will be able to coexist with human people, now that your uncle has ruined the miasmy that protected us all. Fortunately, young one, you are mistaken. They are not, quite, gone. In time there will again be enough to recreate the miasmy. And if we must make one or two small concessions here and there to ensure that this occurs, what is that?” She turned away again, this time decisively, adding to her uncle, over her shoulder, “Do nothing that will leave a mark, Valentin Nikitich. Remember the silver makes them fragile.”

“I will remember,” Valentin promised her.

After that it was bad enough. Valentin Kologrivov was an inventive man. Alejandro’s shadow tried very hard to rise, but the silver drove it back. Bound with silver chains, trapped in human form, there was nothing a black dog could do to protect himself from the malice of an enemy. Alejandro knew it would take only about three hours for Grayson to drive from the Dimilioc house to Boston, but he could not track even the passing minutes. It seemed a long time before Valentin grew bored. Probably it was not so long as it seemed.

Alejandro did not try to get up immediately, even when the Russian wolf tired of his sport and went away. He knew his limbs would not support him. He was shaking, which shamed him, but he could not stop. He tried to mutter, “Pedazo de basura,” but his voice, too, shook, and he could not get out even those heartfelt words. Whether he tried to move or tried to lie still, little shocks of pain radiated from every joint and every nerve cluster. Even the trembling hurt.

He tried to remember when he had first come to Dimilioc with his sister and brother, how afraid he had been. He had been afraid that the Master of Dimilioc would kill him, afraid Grayson Lanning might kill Miguel. But he had never been afraid that Grayson Lanning would entertain himself by tormenting his prisoners. His father had taught him that the Dimilioc wolves took pride in their own decent restraint, and he had told him explicitly that Grayson Lanning could be trusted.

Obviously no one had taught the Russian wolves such restraint. Alejandro had not thought before how it would be, a black dog house that despised the Pure. Now, here, he truly understood exactly what the Pure did for Dimilioc. Grayson Lanning would never act so. No black dog would, who valued the good regard of the Pure.

With some effort, he rolled onto his back and put an arm over his eyes to block out the light. He could hear Ethan’s ragged breaths. His own breathing probably sounded like that also. He was ashamed of that, too. He was almost glad of Ethan’s presence, though. He did not like Ethan, but being alone would be worse. And if someone else must be here, better it was someone he did not like.

He had never been more glad to have his sister and brother far away. Miguel must still be safe at Dimilioc, and Natividad—wherever Natividad was, she could not possibly be in as much danger as this, or faced with such terrible enemies.

Then terror shattered like ice through his heart, and he knew he was wrong. He jerked upright, forgetting the chain, which tore his wrists. He barely felt the cold burn of the silver. Natividad. She was afraid. She was so afraid. Something was wrong with Natividad.

-12-

Visibly trying to ignore her fear for herself and for Alejandro, Natividad painstakingly showed Justin how to draw protective crosses on the foundation of the house and then went farther from the house to draw a second mandala, three feet outside the first. Justin watched her, in between crosses. She didn’t have his quick way to do it, but on the other hand her mandala looked a lot more solidly set than his. She cut a huge circle deep into the earth with her silver knife and anchored it with four silver crucifixes, each as long as her hand, made of polished wood wrapped with silver wire. Plus, he could see how tightly focused her mandala was. She knew exactly what she wanted it to do. The difference was obvious when he compared her work with his own.

The ladies who owned the bed-and-breakfast had donated the crucifixes, left over from the later years of the war. Everyone had known by then what kinds of things to use against vampires. The price of silver had gone right through the roof. Justin didn’t like to think what that much silver wire must have cost.

“You might get them back,” Natividad had told the two women, who had been shocked and scared but commendably self-possessed. “But if they look all charred and the silver is blackened, it’s best to bury them in hallowed ground and start over.”

The women had nodded earnestly. Justin was almost certain that if they got them back, even if the crucifixes appeared completely pristine, they would bury them in the nearest churchyard. Probably six feet deep, like something that had died.

The ladies had fled without argument, by which Justin guessed they’d had at least one vampire come through Rattlesnake Springs before. He’d always known how lucky they were in Los Alamos, not to have any vampires come hunting. It occurred to him now, for the first time, to wonder whether his own mother might have had something to do with that kind of luck. He longed, with a sudden ferocity that all that doubled him over, for her to be here. To have her hold him like a child and tell him it was going to be fine and just take care of all this. He leaned against the wall for a moment, trying to steady his breathing. Grief and loss and homesickness rose up around him like a sandstorm, and for several minutes he was hardly conscious of anything else.

He wanted her so badly. For all he knew, for all he might ever know now, his mother had worked her magic by guesswork, maybe half-accidentally—but maybe, maybe she would have known just what to do.

She wasn’t here. No one was here who could take care of things for any of them, now. The savage ache of his grief was as bad as the fear of the approaching vampire. Which was ridiculous. Everyone lost someone; look at Natividad. That was even worse, to have your parents murdered by monsters, and she didn’t just stop and cry for her mother.

Justin clenched his teeth hard and looked hard at the nearest crucifix, at every detail of the grain of the dark wood. He counted the turns of silver wire around it—thirty-nine—and tried to guess at the mass of silver that had gone into making that crucifix, and gradually found his throat becoming less tight. Though his mother was still gone. And the vampire was still coming. When he finally looked up again, he found Keziah gazing at him, her expression unreadable. Justin looked away.

A little while after the ladies had left, church bells began ringing, first somewhere close by and then in other churches all through the town. Justin wished he thought that would help. He honestly didn’t think anything would help, but . . . wasn’t there a military fort in El Paso? Maybe there was also a unit there trained and equipped to deal with monsters. Would they come out to a little town like this? How fast? And how effective would they be, if they came? Justin could tell that both Natividad and Keziah thought the three of them were on their own. He was afraid they were probably right.

“Sanctuary,” said Keziah grimly, tilting her head to listen to the clamor of the bells. “The walls of a church would not be enough protection, except this vampire will not hunt amid the ordinary people. He will come here, seeking us.” She glared at Justin. “Seeking you. And that foolish, foolish girl.”

Justin drew another cross on the wood beneath a window, then a star on the window glass, then smaller crosses to each side of the window. Then he stepped back and looked at it all carefully, sideways, to make sure he had done it right. Only then did he nod to show Keziah he’d heard her. “You think we can hold him till dawn?”

Keziah shrugged one shoulder, which from her was an elegant, sexy gesture. Justin would have preferred a simple, non-sexy Why, of course. He turned back to the house and drew another cross. It wasn’t hard, exactly. In fact, it was easy. But he had done two sides of the house and was starting on the third, and he was starting to feel a tension headache behind his eyes and an odd kind of ache in his palms and down his arms, as though he had been lifting weights and getting a sunburn at the same time.

He said, “This isn’t Natividad’s fault.”

Keziah made a scornful sound.

Justin glanced at her over his shoulder. “I don’t remember either of us saying, Oh, let’s be careful calling El Paso in case the vampire got there first and took over your cousin’s mind. How was she supposed to know?”

“It is totally my fault,” Natividad said, behind him, before Keziah could answer. “I’m the one who thought it was so important to come down here and make Ezekiel come after me so I could help him kill the vampire. I never meant to get you involved, Justin. I’m so sorry.” She stepped past Justin and drew crosses on the wall, one with each hand, then stepped sideways to do it again. She looked exhausted. Her eyes appeared bruised, her skin ashen.

Justin, who had actually still been working on not being mad at her, felt his anger melt away in sympathy and worry. “Look, I can finish this—”

“Faster with two,” Natividad muttered, and drew two more crosses. She was actually more than twice as fast as Justin, because she not only drew two crosses faster than he could draw one, she never had to pause to check if they were lined up with the others or if the magic had come into them properly.

“Killing the vampire was very important,” Keziah said. Her expression had not exactly softened, but the line of her mouth had lost some of its bitterness. “You truly believe that your Ezekiel could kill this vampire, by himself, with only you to help?”

Natividad didn’t look around. “I thought Grayson might send you or Thaddeus or someone with him. And I hadn’t exactly intended to announce our presence and hold myself up as a target. I thought we would be, you know. Subtle. And Ezekiel would know what to do. Now . . . now I don’t know. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know anything. Have you ever gotten through to Grayson yet?” Both she and Justin glanced over their shoulders at Keziah, but the black dog girl only shook her head.

“How is your brother?” Justin asked, but then it was Natividad’s turn to shake her head and he was sorry he’d asked.

They had been trying every fifteen minutes to call Grayson, or Ezekiel, or Miguel, or just the Dimilioc landline. The landline answering machine was on, but every actual person at Dimilioc seemed to have their phones turned off. This had worried Justin, until he saw the pinched look in Natividad’s eyes after the fourth or fifth try. Then it had really scared him. He didn’t know whether it would be better to know what kind of disaster had overtaken the rest of Dimilioc, or whether that would be worse.

Justin stepped around Natividad and set the last cross into the wall of the house, stepped back and checked to make sure it was in line and properly alight, took a deep breath and let it out, stretched, and rolled his shoulders. Then he finally looked at Natividad. “All right. That’s done. What’s next?”

“Next?” said Natividad, blankly. Then she scrubbed her hands over her face and looked at her watch, a pink kitten watch that made her look about thirteen years old. “It’s almost one,” she said. She looked around. The night was quiet. Peaceful. Crickets chirped somewhere, a comfortable, familiar sound. Farther away, church bells were still tolling out their brazen warning. Even more dimly, he could hear someone shouting. The bells and the faint shouting were the only signs so far that things were wrong, that everything was wrong.

That and the ache in Justin’s palms, in the joints of his fingers, in his arms and shoulders. And the faint not-quite-real glimmer of the crosses on the house and the mandalas in the yard, one mandala inside the other. Something about Natividad’s looked strange, now that he studied the finished work. Its circular boundary line looked sort of . . . braided, as though Natividad had somehow twisted light and darkness into a cord and laid it over and into the earth. Justin knew he was a total beginner at magic, but it looked weird and disturbing. But intense, though. He could see that, too.

The mandala’s line cut sharply through the earth and the air, so clear and strong he thought surely ordinary people must be able to see it, too. The silver crosses that anchored it sparked and glittered. He thought he could hear the mandala buzz, very faintly, like the vibration of a guitar string after someone had lifted his hand from the instrument. The sound held a natural smoothness, a give and return, like a very fine sine wave. He wanted to ask Natividad what she had done to give her mandala such a strange quality, about what she meant that to do. He supposed this was probably not a good time.

Natividad took a deep breath. “I could make a maraña. A tangled web,” she explained to Justin. “You use them to confuse your enemies, to make it so they can’t find you. I could stretch marañas across all the roads that lead to this house. Only—a master vampire, I can’t confuse him enough. Or we could have run.” She raked her hands through her hair, looking around vaguely.

“If we could hide, we would be hidden,” Keziah said sharply. “It is too late to hide. You know this. No. We will go into this protected house. We will decide what is the best room to fortify, and you will fortify it. You will blood that knife for me, that silver knife Ezekiel gave you, yes?”

Justin stared at her in admiration. Keziah didn’t seem afraid, or indecisive. She burned with angry determination. He could almost believe she was actually looking forward to facing this monster. Just looking at her made him feel more confident.

“Blood my knife?” Natividad said slowly.

“I know it is your lover’s gift to you—” Keziah began.

“No. I mean, yes—I mean no!” Natividad stopped and took a breath. Then she said, with dignity. “Ezekiel is not my lover, but what I mean is, I think that’s a really, really good idea, Keziah. I mean . . . a silver knife with vampire ichor on it, vampire magic clinging to it . . .” she made a small, uninterpretable motion with one hand, like she was winding string around a stick or something. “I think maybe . . .”

Keziah gazed at her. She had forgotten to look superior and elegant and scornful. Her beautiful black-amber eyes were wide with aggressive satisfaction. “Clever little Pure girl,” she said. “You have thought of something you can do.”

“Maybe,” said Natividad. Her eyes were wide, too; wide and stunned. “Maybe. I don’t know. But I’ll blood my knife for you, Keziah, and then . . . then you can blood it for me.”

“Good,” Keziah said fiercely. “Good.”

They choose the upstairs suite Natividad and Justin had first been given. Justin had expected a cellar or basement, but both Natividad and Keziah shook their heads. “Stone and earth are strong, but closed in, and vampires like the dark,” Natividad explained. “Think of crypts, you know? We want air and light. Starlight and moonlight are good, but dawn is what we’re really waiting for. And this room has an east window.”

“So vampires really burst into flames in the sun?” Justin asked.

“Yes,” Natividad said. “So if we can hold out till dawn—”

Keziah gave a scornful sniff and interrupted her. “Do not give the boy foolish hope. Sunlight will not kill the blood kin. It will only drive them away to wait for dark. And the master vampire may risk any lesser vampires it has made, but for itself, it will be careful of the sun.”

“Well, yes, but ordinary people ought to be able to help, once the sun rises,” Natividad began.

“Help monsters against other monsters? Go,” said Keziah. “You are tired. You are not thinking clearly. Go and rest.” But then she said more kindly, “Do not think of things that frighten you. You will be safe to rest. I will watch.”

“But—” said Natividad.

“You will be far more use if you are not so tired. We have another hour, maybe. Maybe longer. Your marañas are still laced through the streets. That is why the blood kin have not yet found us. They are not as clever as I. They will not find us until their master comes.”

She sounded confident. Justin hoped she was right. He knew she was right about Natividad lying down for as long as she could. He didn’t need anyone to tell him that she was their most important weapon against their enemies.

“My knife—”

“You do not wish to scent the air with your blood. Not yet.”

Natividad blinked. “Oh. That’s true. Sí, that’s true. Better to wait. Sí. When the vampire is here, there will be time enough.”

“We’re sure about that, right?” Justin asked uneasily.

“If your mandalas do not hold even a scant moment, I will be greatly provoked,” said Keziah.

Justin stared at her. The black dog girl looked severe and contemptuous, but he was almost sure that had been a joke.

“Me, too,” muttered Natividad. She yawned, frowned blurrily, evidently at the problem presented by getting to her feet and making it to the bed in the other room. Justin offered her his hand, and she blinked at it for a moment and then accepted his help, staggering to her feet. But then she balked, peering at him. “If you . . .” she began. “I mean, if Keziah . . .”

“Keziah and I will be just fine,” Justin told her firmly. “You, go rest.” He gave her a little push toward the interior room.

Natividad stopped arguing, but she said over her shoulder before she closed her door, “You rest, too. Both of you! Be careful. Don’t leave the room, and call me the instant you hear anything, right? If you get Grayson—if you can find out about Alejandro—”

“We’ll keep trying,” Justin promised her. “Go rest.”

But Grayson still was not answering his phone. Attempts to call him were still going straight to voicemail. Keziah’s messages were getting shorter and more pithy every time she left one, Justin noticed. He said, partly just to make conversation, “I suppose it’s those enemies of yours in Boston.”

Keziah stood by the east window, gazing out, watching steadily for the arrival of their enemies. Justin could see tension in the curve of her neck and the set of her shoulders and the line of her back, but when she glanced at him, her dark-honey eyes showed no trace of fear. She said shortly, “One presumes this Black Wolf of Russia has proven more dangerous and powerful than anticipated. But time has passed, and evidently Alejandro still lives. So how dangerous can those Russian black dogs be? One very much doubts they will prove more dangerous than our enemies here.”

Justin had to agree with that, at least.

“It does not matter,” Keziah said. She turned dismissively back to the window. “They will hear our warning when they hear it. Soon, no doubt. It makes no difference if we speak to them personally. What could they do to help? Even Grayson Lanning cannot reach across two thousand miles in a mere instant. Even Ezekiel Korte cannot do that.” She glanced at Justin again, mocking. “We have no one to help us. We are alone. You see you should have stayed safe in Dimilioc.”

Justin wished he had, but he was not going to admit that to her. He asked instead, “So what exactly is different about a master vampire, as opposed to, I guess, a normal vampire? Can a normal vampire not do this . . . mind control stuff?”

Keziah gave another of her minimal shrugs. “Just so. Any vampire spreads the miasma out of the fell dark and into the world. That is the phrase they use here. The fell dark, from whence come all demonic ghūl. But only a master among vampires is able to make a man see what is not there, or make him do those things that his heart should abhor. So it is said. The abd vampires, the slaves, they are terrible, but none of those could have made that Toland boy into a lure for Dimilioc, or a weapon against his cousin.”

“You think . . . you think the vampire had him even the first time he called Dimilioc?” That was horrible. That was one of the most horrible things Justin had ever heard.

“I do not know. It seems possible to me. We are not likely,” Keziah said, with some irony, “to have a chance to inquire.”

“Yeah. I guess not.” Justin was quiet a moment. Then he asked, desperate to think about something else, “Ghūl. Abd. That’s Arabic, right?”

Keziah gave him a look, not exactly mocking, he thought, but hard to read. “Of course. Yes. What does that matter to you, Pure boy?”

“Just curious,” Justin said peaceably, and realized that he had fallen quite naturally into Natividad’s role. Peacemaker, negotiator, calmer of werewolves . . . the role felt surprisingly natural. He had thought it would be cowardice to stay at Dimilioc, that it would show strength and resolve to leave. Now . . . now he thought that deliberately taking on the job of the Pure and sticking with it might require a different kind of strength. He said, almost at random, “I knew a Turkish girl, once.” Her name had been Deniz. She had been good at math. He had helped her with her calculus. He had liked her.

But then, he had liked almost everyone in school. He wondered now whether everyone had seemed—or actually even been—a bit more likable just because he was there. What a strange concept. And no wonder he kept thinking that Keziah ought to be likable, too. Or that she ought to like him, at least a little bit.

Keziah’s lip curled. “The Turks are barbarians. Even the Persians are to be preferred.”

Justin bit down on an impulse to ask her what she thought of the Greeks. Anyway, after that swift outburst of ancient Arabic scorn, she now eyed him sidelong. After a little pause, she said, “Although it is true that my family was no more civilized than the meanest tribe of Turks. I thought to settle in Lebanon, perhaps. Make a place for us there. But they guarded their territory ferociously, those black dogs there. Anyway, I wished to go farther, into a country where the wind did not echo with the voices of my family. Now I am glad, because Dimilioc . . .” she stopped. Then she said, her tone for once quiet, lacking that sharp scorn, “Dimilioc is different. Better. There is a place in Dimilioc for those without family or bloodline. I wanted that for my little Amira. You are a fool to cast that away.”

“Is it wrong to want to choose for myself?”

This time the pause was longer. Then Keziah turned her face away. “You are a fool, yes. But . . . perhaps not wrong.”

“Do you really think it’s likely that Grayson Lanning would throw you out? Because of me? I truly, honestly, did not leave Dimilioc because of you, you know.”

Keziah raised a skeptical eyebrow.

“. . . maybe a little because of you,” Justin admitted. “More because . . .” he didn’t know how to put it into words. He said at last, “It’s not you personally who scares me. It’s all of you. It’s the whole thing. I never understood . . .”

“We are all monsters,” Keziah said flatly.

It was Justin’s turn to shrug, because he wasn’t sure that was precisely true. Monster, black dog . . . the Venn diagrams overlapped. But the Pure put another circle on that diagram, didn’t they? There was probably an equation that expressed the relationship . . . the distance between monster and black dog, say, only he didn’t know the magnitudes of the variables. Or how many dimensions there were.

He wished he could ask his mother what she thought of this sharp-edged Saudi girl, but this time the thought of his mother was almost wistful rather than overpowering. The whole night felt unreal, that was why. He was so tired, now, and everything had gotten so strange. Even Keziah herself seemed like someone out of a dream. Or—

Keziah straightened instead and leaned forward, both hands flat on the windowsill. “Wake Natividad,” she said sharply. “They are here.”

Or a nightmare.

They were blood kin, first. Blood kin never photographed well, but once people had become able to see them for what they were, all kinds of blurry photos and police sketches had made the rounds—newspapers, blogs, social media. Everyone in the world knew what blood kin looked like, now. Emaciated, that was how they looked: skin yellow as old parchment stretched over stark bones. Long yellow fingernails, like claws on the ends of their bony hands. Black teeth, in jaws that could open wider than anyone would expect. Red eyes, bright red, like fresh blood, with dilated pupils; eyes that showed no trace of the humanity they had once possessed. They crouched beyond the outer mandala, staring up at the window where Justin stood with Keziah.

“They know exactly where we are,” said Justin, not quite asking.

“They scent living blood,” Keziah said matter-of-factly. “They will eat rats or dogs, but they prefer human meat, and they eat their prey alive. And they hunt the Pure before any other prey.”

“Nice.”

Natividad came out of the other room, looking younger and smaller than ever in one of Justin’s extra tee shirts and her own jeans. She had not had quite an hour of rest, and she still looked bruised with exhaustion. Her eyes were huge and scared, but she held her long silver knife in one hand and a hand mirror in the other. Pale light glimmered in the mirror, as though she had captured the light of the full moon and held it there.

“It’s so quiet,” she said, her voice hushed.

“They have not yet tried your mandala,” said Keziah. She spoke in a normal voice, not a whisper. “They are cowards, like all blood kin. They are waiting for their master.”

“They aren’t really cowards, exactly. I mean, maybe they are, but they don’t really have a lot of, of, you know, volición,” Natividad explained to Justin. Her own voice was stronger this time, as though she had drawn courage from Keziah’s example. “Even a lesser vampire can make them. It steals their will and their heart and makes them into its creatures. I hope there’s nothing left of the people they used to be, because can you imagine? But I don’t know.” She peered cautiously out the window. “Only four?”

“So far,” said Keziah. “There will be more.” More were arriving even as she spoke: two spidery emaciated shapes slunk across the street, moving like nothing human; and another crept along the line of the mandala from the other direction, slipping up and over the neighbor’s fence with inhuman agility.

“Can they get in?” Justin asked. “Uh, maybe I should have asked this before, but do you have an extra knife or something?” He felt stupid asking now. Like he knew how to fight monsters, with a knife or without.

Natividad shook her head to both questions. “I’m sorry, Justin, I didn’t expect . . . anyway, I’m sorry, I don’t. But they can’t get in, not yet. Pure magic works really well against blood kin. They’re just waiting—” she stopped.

“For that,” finished Justin. He stared, fascinated even as he flinched in gut-wrenching aversion. Everyone had seen artists’ renditions of blood kin. But he didn’t remember ever seeing any kind of picture of a vampire. It was probably hard to capture that . . . sort of . . . unjointed puppet quality. “So that’s a vampire. God.” He turned his face away. “Those things really start off human?”

“They begin as empty corpses,” Keziah said. Her lip was curled in disgust, but this time her disgust wasn’t just a show and it definitely wasn’t directed at him. “That is one of the lesser vampires. You see how it seems small. You must remember, it is much stronger than it appears. The master vampire will be no larger, but it will seem—” she gestured, illustrating how huge the master vampire would seem.

“Yeah,” said Justin, still staring. Even this vampire looked pretty strong, actually. And fast. It looked a little like . . . he wasn’t sure how to frame its strange, skeletal movement. It was more horrible than anything natural.

He wanted more than anything to look away from it, but he couldn’t. He felt a strong, horrified conviction that if he looked away, it would instantly leap through the air, through all Natividad’s protective magic, and rip off his face. He could almost see it above him, that strange skeletal jaw gaping, its fangs slashing toward him—he flinched back hard, stumbling

Keziah caught him. “Fool!” she said sharply. “Don’t look at its eyes. Do that with a master vampire and it would have you, if you were not Pure.”

“Should have warned you,” Natividad said apologetically. “Even for us, that’s not a good thing to do.”

“It can’t get in,” Justin asked her. “Can it?” He knew he was really begging Natividad to promise him it couldn’t, he knew both she and Keziah must hear the tremble in his voice, but he didn’t even care. What he cared about was that neither of them was answering him. “Didn’t you say Pure magic works against that?” he asked, his voice rising.

“Yes,” Natividad said. “For a while. But its magic works against us, too.” She shivered, edging back from the window, and looked at Keziah.

Keziah was looking back at her steadily, her expression curious and a little amused, narrow eyebrows arched over her black-amber eyes.

Natividad nodded to her. “You think you can take it? And get back with my knife?”

Keziah smiled, a wicked, deadly smile. “Oh, yes.”

“Oh, God,” muttered Justin. “Seriously?” He knew it was the plan, but couldn’t imagine Keziah fighting that—that thing and surviving. He said under his breath, “New plan: let’s all cower in the closet.”

“That is a new vampire,” said Keziah, ignoring him, every word precise and cool, “It will not yet have learned it can be hurt. It will not know it can die. I will teach it to fear black dogs. Make me a weapon, Pure girl.”

Natividad took a deep breath, set the edge of her silver knife against her forearm, and drew it down, a sharp, short motion. Then, as blood welled, she turned the blade to catch the blood. She looked at Justin, clearly meaning he should pay attention. He had flinched, but now stared intently at her face and cut arm and the silver knife. If this was something that would help against a vampire, he definitely wanted to know about it.

Natividad looked at Keziah, who, without changing expression, ran one black claw across the back of her own wrist. Her blood was, Justin was almost surprised to see, just as red and human as Natividad’s blood. Then he wasn’t sure why he should have been surprised, because except for the sudden glint of claws at her fingertips, she was still in human form.

Natividad ran her fingers across Keziah’s bloody hand.

“Mi sangre con la suya, mi sombra con la suya, mi vida con la suya,” Natividad said, and then repeated it rapidly in English, “My blood with yours, my shadow with yours, my life with yours, Keziah! This blood is mine, but it is also yours. This silver is mine, but also yours!” She ran her hand along the knife’s blade, smearing blood down its length, and dabbed her bloody fingers along its hilt. Then she offered it, cautiously, to the black dog girl.

Keziah touched the knife warily, just with her fingertips. Then she smiled, a slow savage smile, and took the knife into her own hand, and turned toward the door. “Don’t let anyone in,” she said over her shoulder, clearly a joke. Black dog humor was, Justin decided, definitely weird. Or maybe that was Keziah’s own peculiar sense of humor.

“Remember I want it back,” Natividad said quickly. “I want it back after you kill that vampire! Don’t forget and lose it, Keziah! I need it!” But by the time she’d added that last phrase, Keziah was gone. Natividad stared after her for a second, then edged cautiously toward the window.

“She’s going to fight that thing and the blood kin, all by herself,” said Justin, and knew he deserved the look Natividad gave him. “I know, I know, there isn’t anybody else. I just mean . . . can she do that?”

“She’s really good. But, no. Not for long. Dimilioc black wolves never fought vampires one on one. Not even new vampires like that one. That’s why they used to win. And, you know, even so . . .” She stopped without saying Most of them died in the war, but Justin thought he heard that anyway.

Natividad pressed her hands against the windowpane. “That’s why she took the knife, though,” she added, in a low voice. “She doesn’t have to kill it. She just needs to blood that knife in it . . .” she imagined working with vampire blood, and shuddered. It was going to be awful. But she thought it might work.

“You’ve done this before?” Justin asked warily. “Or something like this?”

Natividad wanted to lie and say Sure, every day, it’s something every Pure girl learns from her mother right along with drawing pentagrams. She wanted to take that doubt away from his eyes and give him confidence. But it would be wrong, and worse if he tried himself to do anything like what she meant to do. She said reluctantly, “It’s awful, it’s a terrible idea, taking vampire magic and trying to get it to work with Pure magic. I’ve done something like this with black dog magic, but . . .” But she had used Alejandro’s shadow, and he was her brother and loved her and had given her his shadow willingly.

And black dogs were not vampires. Black dogs were partly human. Vampires only used bodies that had once been human. They were not really human at all. Everything they were was completely antithetical to Pure magic.

Justin came up behind her and put his hands on her shoulders. “You can do this.”

“Sí. Right. Yes.” Natividad rubbed her face, which he now knew was an attempt to make herself think. He hoped it worked. But she said, her voice faint and desperate, “Pure magic is for defense. Pure magic alone isn’t enough. Keziah has to bring me that knife. She has to draw that vampire’s blood and bring me the knife . . . I can do something with that. Maybe. Maybe. I don’t know. I think I can. Without that . . .” she shook her head. “I don’t know.” It was a long time until dawn. And even if they made it to the coming dawn and were saved by the rising sun, even if they managed to get past the blood kin and get away . . . after the day, there was always another night. And it was a long, long way back to Dimilioc. She asked, “You never got Grayson?”

“We never got anyone,” Justin admitted.

“It doesn’t matter,” said Natividad, her voice small and scared, like she was trying to convince herself of that. “It doesn’t matter. I’m sure they’re fine. They have to be. He couldn’t help anyway. And we can’t help them, either. We’re all too far away from each other.”

Justin put an arm around her shoulders. “Keziah will kill the bad vampire and bring you that knife,” he told her. “And you’ll do amazing magic and save us all. That’s how it works: the creepy evil vampires get killed and the good guys win.”

“. . . right,” whispered Natividad. “That’s how it works.”

“Absolutely. Every time.”

Justin held her and didn’t say, And then the actual master vampire arrives and slaughters us all. He didn’t want to think about how things worked in the real world, where they had all learned that sometimes the monsters just won. He didn’t want to even look out that window. If he didn’t look, maybe all those blood kin and that horrible, stomach-twisting vampire wouldn’t be there. Maybe none of this would be happening. Maybe he could just believe that none of this had ever happened, that he had never faced a werewolf or known he should call them black dogs or seen a vampire. Maybe he could just believe there were no monsters in the world at all.

Then Natividad took a deep breath and pulled away from him, going to the window. So he had to follow her, and look out after all.

-13-

The Master of Dimilioc came alone into the territory of the Chernaya Volchitza, the Black Wolf of Russia. If one could call a single stinking warehouse and half a mile of harbor a territory, and Alejandro hoped Ethan was right that this was all she truly held. He wished fervently that Zinaida Kologrivova faced not only Grayson Lanning, but also Harrison Lanning and Zachariah Korte. Alejandro would have liked to see her take her mere dozen Russian wolves against that triumvirate and Ezekiel. Then let her declare that Dimilioc was weak.

He was bitterly aware that Dimilioc was weak, now. Weaker than it had ever been. And Grayson had not only lost Harrison and Zachariah, now he did not even have Ezekiel to guard his back. He might even be as completely alone as he looked, driving ostentatiously right through the open warehouse doors in Dimilioc’s most flamboyant and expensive vehicle, a long black Cadillac.

Natividad was not with him, of course, despite the Black Wolf’s demands. Whatever Zinaida Kologrivova wanted Alejandro’s sister for, she could not touch her. That was not a comfort. Alejandro flinched from thinking of his sister. Natividad’s fear was like many razors of ice, cutting at his heart from within. But he could not help her—and he could not think of her and pay attention to his own danger. He stared at Grayson instead, behind the wheel of that massive Cadillac.

Grayson drove the car directly into the empty center of the warehouse, the smooth rumble of its engine echoing from the metal walls and the high metal roof. Then he turned off the engine and got out of the car. So far as Alejandro could tell, he was entirely alone. He did not want to believe that could be true. The slam of the car door closing sounded like a gunshot in the sudden quiet. The sound seemed to take a long time to die away completely, and in all that time no one moved or spoke, save that Grayson turned his head slowly, scanning the entire warehouse and everything and everyone in it with thorough deliberation.

Alejandro was not used to thinking of Grayson Lanning as young. He could not be so many years younger than forty. He had the heaviness of build, the breadth of shoulder, that Ethan had not yet begun to grow into. His shadow was dense with age and power; it pooled on the cement floor at his feet as though it had its own physical form and depth, and its eyes burned.

But surrounded by the Chernaya Volchitza and her Russian wolves, Grayson did look young. Both Zinaida and Valentin Kologrivov were probably half again his age. One or two of the other Russian wolves also looked older than Grayson. Alejandro could tell, now that they were all in the same room, that Grayson was not as strong as the Russian woman. He did not want to think Valentin Kologrivov might also be stronger than the Dimilioc Master, but he suspected that was so as well.

“Oh, we are so fregamos,” Ethan muttered under his breath, and Alejandro glanced at him in surprise, stifling a laugh.

“The famous Master of Dimilioc,” said Zinaida, striding forward. “So you have come. But alone, I see. Hiding the girl away in the heart of your territory will avail nothing, you understand. I will find her there. You would be wise not to defy me. But then, I see you are not inclined to be wise.”

Grayson, his back straight and his shoulders square, fixed her with his most direct, autocratic stare. “You have made alliance with the enemy, Zinaida Alexandrovna. With the vampire. Have you not? And you call me unwise?”

“Indeed, I do find you most unwise, Grayson Lanning—”

“It is the one in the south, is it not?” Grayson demanded, cutting her off. “The one in the El Paso region? Is that the one with which you have bargained, or is there another? What has it promised you, in return for feeding it the Pure? And why would you be so foolish as to believe its promises?”

Zinaida Kologrivova tilted her head to one side, plainly intrigued. “How did you learn of the upyr, I wonder? It has been quiet. You taught it to respect us, at least. But it is stronger now. Perhaps it has moved openly against Dimilioc after all? Or . . . did that Dimilioc outcast of yours tell you of it, before you killed him? That, at least, was well done, Grayson Lanning. He had made himself into an abomination, I surmise.”

“So he had. I gather your intentions are otherwise, then.”

“Indeed. Indeed. You need not fear what I will do. Nothing in that line, assuredly. Nor will I give away the strength of my house. I will give that creature only one of the Pure. One only. And not one any of us should value. An eretich, corrupted. You know too little, here in the West, of the peril an eretich carries with her. If you knew what she will become, you would have killed her already.”

Grayson’s eyes narrowed. “Perhaps I do not fear the eretich as you do because I know more of the Pure than any black dog of The Dacha. Dimilioc knows that the Pure are always an asset and a strength to any civilized house, whatever minor traces of black dog magic they may take up.”

Zinaida Kologrivova laughed harshly. “Are you truly such as fool as to believe that? You will discover—” Then she paused. Alejandro thought she had realized at last—at exactly the wrong moment—how Grayson had drawn her out. He longed to know what the woman thought had happened to Natividad, what his sister might have done to herself when she borrowed his shadow. He tried to think of something to say that would make her finish the thought she had almost put into words.

Before he could, the Black Wolf said, “No. No, it is better you do not know. Why should I take the knife from your hand if you are determined to turn its edge against your own throat? No. And you may not find out, if you are fortunate. I will take her quickly, and then I will be able to force the upyr to offer many concessions for her.” She glanced down at Alejandro. “And for this little wolf, too, perhaps, though I do not know what to call a black dog who has been eretich-touched. In the East, we know better than to permit this to happen. But you are fools in the West.”

Grayson shook his head. “Zinaida Alexandrovna, whatever else, you are a fool to look for concessions and accommodation with the vampire. What has it promised you? Territory? And you believe its promises?”

“It is not in a position to set itself against me,” the woman snapped. “Nor will it be, if I am swift to consolidate my hold on—”

“– on territory that is not and never will be yours, Zinaida Alexandrovna,” Grayson interrupted her. “You are twice a fool to lay your hand upon Dimilioc property.”

The Black Wolf glanced swiftly at Ethan and Alejandro and gave a small, satisfied nod. “Those lost pups. The other claims he is your nephew. You declare you will yield nothing for his life. I offer you one more chance to reconsider your stance.”

Grayson had not even glanced at Ethan or Alejandro. He stared directly at the Black Wolf instead, the sort of hard, straight stare that was, from a black dog, an unmistakable threat. “I was actually referring,” he said harshly, “to Boston. You have been extremely, even excessively bold, Zinaida Alexandrovna. Venturing into my country, interfering with my cities, threatening Pure women who belong to me.” He stepped toward her, aggressively confident, and his shadow rose up before him and around him. He did not go into the cambio de cuerpo. Nor did anything in the warehouse burst into flame. But Alejandro braced himself hard, without thought or conscious volition, as the implicit threat flared into an open challenge. He saw Zinaida Kologrivova take a step back before she caught herself, saw her flush with fury, felt her own shadow gather itself.

Valentin Kologrivov stepped forward to stand at the woman’s right hand, and several of her other strong black wolves come forward to support her on the other side. Alejandro tensed, aware that Grayson could not possibly face all these old Russian wolves alone. And there were the younger ones, closing in from all sides, not only half a dozen more black dogs, but also the human men, all of them armed with silver bullets in their guns, two of them with those other weapons, the harpoon guns. Alejandro wanted to close his eyes. He could not bear to see Grayson Lanning humbled by Dimilioc’s enemies, but he could not look away.

“Jesus Christ in a fucking Cadillac,” Ethan muttered.

On the last word, the car’s trunk exploded open and two men in black body armor stood up, beginning to shoot before they even aimed. Grayson had already flung himself violently down and to the side, but the Russian wolves, taken completely by surprise, were slower to react. Alejandro stared, utterly shocked, as two and then another fell and the others at last scrambled for cover behind crates and canisters.

Then a thin little voice hissed beside him, “No key! Hold still!”

It was Amira, who had appeared out of nowhere. Alejandro had had no idea she could slip around unseen as her sister could, but here she was, directly beside him, her small face tense with fear and concentration and fury. She held a powerful metal-cutter in hands that were not quite human; her fingers had shortened and thickened and she gripped the tool with jet-black claws.

Alejandro, recovering from the first shock of Amira’s appearance, held out his hands and said urgently, “Thaddeus? James? Ezekiel?” He peered past her, looking desperately for the other Dimilioc wolves, but everything was a confusion of violence and noise, everyone had scattered now to the dubious shelter of crates and canisters and loaders and the expensive bulk of the Cadillac. He could not tell who might be winning.

He really wanted Amira to say yes, Ezekiel was here, Natividad and everyone had already safely returned to Dimilioc and everyone had come here with Grayson to tear down these arrogant Russian black dogs. But he already knew that could not be true, because if it were, his sister would not be somewhere far away, terrified. And Amira would not be here, crouched low, at risk every moment from a stray shot. No. Keziah would have come to free him and Ethan, and Amira would be—here, yes, maybe she would be here, but not in such an exposed position.

If Amira got shot getting Alejandro and Ethan loose, Alejandro knew they would never be able to make it right with Keziah. If she got shot, probably either Keziah would kill him and Ethan, or they would have to kill her.

Grayson was never going to forgive either of them for getting caught, but if Amira got killed and everything went to pure mierda, he was really never going to forgive them.

Alejandro wrenched his hands apart as the silver chain gave at last. The cuffs themselves were still closed tight around each wrist, impossible to remove. He could not bring his shadow up, he was crippled and weak, but at least he was no longer chained to the floor like a dog, to be shot or torn apart by whoever got to him first. He fell to his knees by Ethan, snatched the cutters from Amira, and jerked his head at her urgently, Get out of here. He really meant Get to safety, but she gave him a snarl of gratified rage and flung herself away toward the battle. Alejandro swore violently in Spanish and English, ending with a furious, “Will you be still?” to Ethan. He only saw then that Ethan had in fact been struck by a stray bullet. His teeth were gritted with pain and he gripped his left side hard with his right hand. The blood leaking between his fingers was bright red because, bound with silver, he could not call up his black dog shadow to carry away the injury.

Then Alejandro remembered that the bullet had undoubtedly been silver, too. Even if Ethan had been able to shift, the cambio de cuerpo could not have healed all the damage.

Alejandro worked as quickly as he could to get Ethan free and then to get him away to the side, behind the heavy bulk of a loader. He would have picked him up and run, but was afraid to make so big a target of their combined bodies. He stayed low, half pushing and half carrying Ethan, with no idea who was winning the larger battle—he could not look, there was no time to look, he had no idea what had happened to Grayson or Amira, or if Thaddeus was here at all. Silver flashed and flickered, brilliant and deadly, at the edges of his awareness. Somewhere nearby, someone was screaming. Someone else was shouting. Alejandro could not understand the words, but did not know whether that was because the man was shouting in Russian or because he himself had lost the ability to understand human language.

Then something struck him across the back, hot and quick as the blow of a whip, and he sprawled, dropping Ethan. He was aware of pain at first, then a spreading cold. Ethan cursed, grabbing at him, dragging both of them sideways, for the scant cover of a stack of crates. Alejandro tried to shift, to let his shadow carry away whatever injury he’d taken, but of course the silver cuffs were still around his wrists and he could not. The pain was hot and cold at once, worsening every moment because of the silver in the wound. The cuffs around his wrists seemed to burn brighter and colder also, though he might have imagined that. He tried to turn his head, to see whether a silver-tipped harpoon stood in his back, but he could not turn his head so far, even without Ethan pulling at him.

Shouting echoed, and the racketing sound of someone running up the metal stairs. They had not yet made it to cover. Gunfire echoed—Alejandro was sure they would both be shot again—then a sudden, shocking silence fell. He blinked, and blinked again, trying to clear his vision of both fury and pain.

Bodies were sprawled across the warehouse floor, black dog and human, all appearing equally human in the ruin of death. Several lay clustered together, dead in the first moment of battle, hardy a step from where they had been when Grayson had sprung his trap. Another of the Russians lay half across a crate, a harpoon gun abandoned near his limp hand. But the body near the Cadillac, that was surely one of the men Grayson had brought in; and there was another body near the open door.

He did not see either Zinaida or Valentin. But two of the human Russians were kneeling on the concrete floor of the warehouse, their fingers laced on top of their heads, with other men pointing guns at them. Those men wore black body armor, each with the American eagle badge on his shoulder, and Alejandro recognized them at last as American special forces—the unit formed during the past few years specifically to deal with all the creatures of the fell dark.

Alejandro had known that Grayson Lanning had allied with the American special forces during the last year of the war, feeding them information so that they could destroy the vampires Dimilioc could not reach. He had known that. But he had not even begun to guess that Grayson might call on them for something like this.

Then he saw that three of the special forces men were pointing their weapons at Grayson instead of at the Russians, and realized that this was not exactly an alliance after all. Or not any simple kind of alliance.

The Master of Dimilioc was standing very still. He was not kneeling, and he did not have his hands on the top of his head. He looked perfectly calm. He was not looking at the men who were pointing guns at him. He was looking past them, at another man, a black man, an ordinary human, but with uncommon confidence for a man surrounded by furious black dogs. The man was elegant, in a suit rather than body armor, with intelligent eyes set deep beneath iron-gray brows.

The black man met Grayson’s eyes without flinching. He walked forward, stepped fastidiously over a rivulet of blood, glanced around the warehouse, and shook his head minutely. “A waste,” he said. Though he was not a big man, his voice was smooth and deep. He looked around again, his attention lingering on spatters of smoking ichor that had not yet burned entirely away, and on the cluster of dead black dogs who had not managed to move even a step before his people had gunned them down, and at last on Alejandro and Ethan, injured and vulnerable. Alejandro did not ordinarily care what ordinary humans thought, but he found himself flinching from this man’s gaze.

Then the man turned his attention back to Grayson. “A waste,” he repeated. “Don’t compound it. Your young people are injured. I give you my word I will see their injuries treated. They won’t be harmed. You know you haven’t a chance of getting them clear now. I propose a policy of cooperation.”

“Colonel,” said Grayson, and looked past him, at the door.

The man raised his eyebrows, and turned. Alejandro looked also, and grinned with fierce satisfaction despite the radiating pain in his back.

Thaddeus stood in the wide doorway of the warehouse, in the half-shifted form he alone could hold for as long as he chose. Huge even in his fully human shape, the largest black dog Alejandro had ever seen in that form, in this in-between shape he seemed to take up the entire truck-wide doorway. He took one step forward, muscles rolling beneath his dense pelt. His face, short-muzzled and narrow-eyed, looked like nothing that had ever been human. Black lips were drawn back in a grin or a snarl; jet-black fangs gleamed like obsidian in his jaw. In one clawed hand, he held a knife nearly large enough to be a sword. His other hand was wrapped entirely around the neck of a special forces man. The man stood pale and very still beneath that grip, not looking at anyone and most especially not looking at his commanding officer.

Several of the special forces men shifted their aim to Thaddeus, but the colonel put up a hand and everyone stopped. Thaddeus grinned more widely. Or maybe that really was a snarl. It definitely showed a lot of teeth. If it bothered him at all to have a lot of guns pointed at his face, Alejandro couldn’t tell.

“Colonel Herrod,” Grayson said in a level voice, “Even a head shot won’t be quick enough to save your man. Even if the bullet is silver. You know you haven’t the faintest chance of getting your man back alive. Unless I let you have him. I propose a simple trade. I will take my young men and go, and yours will be released the moment we are clear. I give you my word that he will not be harmed in any way.”

The colonel’s expression did not change. “Two of your people for one of mine hardly seems a fair trade to me.”

Grayson inclined his head. “It’s the offer on the table. In your place, I would trade. But perhaps I value my people more than you value yours.”

Colonel Herrod’s mouth crooked in reluctant appreciation. He gave a small nod.

“Also, you should know that several of my wolves are still outside. If they hear shooting now, they won’t hesitate. You don’t want this battle. Not between your people and mine. I am certain you agree that, at the moment, we both have more urgent matters to which we should attend.”

There was a pause. Then Colonel Herrod shrugged. “True. Very well. Another day, then,” he said, and signaled. All the guns lifted, not quite in unison, to point at the ceiling. The man Thaddeus was holding let out a breath. Thaddeus only grinned more widely. Unless that was a snarl. His fangs glinted.

Grayson turned his head to inspect Alejandro and Ethan. Alejandro bowed his head, flushing. He knew what they must look like: injured and bloody, still bound with silver so they could not shift. Helpless. Patético.

“Can you get up?” Grayson asked, his tone completely neutral.

“If I have to,” Ethan said, his voice gritty with pain, and Alejandro answered at the same time, “Sí, yes, I think so,” though he was not sure.

“Take your time,” said Colonel Herrod. “No need to rush.” He clasped his hands behind his back and regarded them all with an expression of reserved disapproval.

Ignoring the human, Grayson strode over, gripped Alejandro by the arm, and hauled him up. Alejandro bit down on a scream and closed his own hand hard on Grayson’s wrist. He managed to get his feet under him, with an effort that seemed to tear every muscle in his back.

“That boy needs medical attention,” said Colonel Herrod. “Silver injuries are serious for your people, I know. Let me have him. I promise you, he’ll receive the best of care. You know I’m a man of my word, Lanning.”

“I know you’re a man under authority,” Grayson said, not turning. He picked Alejandro up bodily, carried him to the Cadillac, and put him in the back seat, more carefully and gently than Alejandro thought he deserved. Then he waited while Ethan eased himself in, and while Thaddeus folded himself into the front seat with the special forces man half beside him and half on his lap. They would never have fit in a smaller vehicle, and Alejandro wondered if Grayson had had even that detail in mind when he had chosen it.

But before he got into the car himself, Grayson turned back toward the Colonel. “As it happens, I have people in the south, attempting to deal with the vampire there.”

“On the spot, as always, Lanning?”

“Perhaps too much so, this time.”

“I see.”

“If it comes to that, Colonel, I would rather have my people in your hands than those of Zinaida Alexandrovna Kologrivov. Far less the vampire. You understand that whatever Zinaida Alexandrovna believes, no bargain is possible with that vampire.”

The colonel’s mouth twisted slightly. “You’re preaching to the choir on that one, Lanning.”

“Good,” said Grayson. He fixed the man with a steady stare. “Perhaps I will hear from you, then. A word of advice, if you will permit me. I’m not your enemy. Don’t make me into one. It’s not necessary. And not wise.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” the colonel said, his tone utterly neutral.

Grayson got behind the wheel. Alejandro was sure the car would not start, that some stray bullet had damaged something important. Or a special forces sniper would shoot Thaddeus and then Grayson, and he and Ethan would be left, helpless, to find out what Colonel Herrod wanted with captive black dogs.

But the car did start, and no one opened fire. Colonel Herrod walked to the middle of the doorway and watched, expressionless, as the Cadillac backed smoothly down the drive. He was not holding a gun. No one shot after them. Grayson turned the wheel, and the car swung ponderously in a long curve and rolled out of the lot and onto the street.

The special forces man cleared his throat.

Grayson spared him a glance. “In a moment. When we are well away.”

“Right,” said the man. His voice hardly shook at all. He stared straight ahead, not turning his head to look up at Thaddeus. He cleared his throat again and said, “Might be kinder if you just tore my head off and pissed down my neck yourself.”

Thaddeus gave a growling laugh.

Grayson did not even smile. He said, “You may tell Colonel Herrod that I appreciate his assistance and look forward to working with him again, possibly quite soon, though preferably not at such close range.”

“I’ll tell him,” said the man. “Those exact words.”

“Yes.” The warehouse was well behind them, now. The night seemed perfectly empty. Grayson took his foot off the accelerator, allowing the Cadillac to coast to a halt. He gave a small jerk of his head, and Thaddeus opened the passenger side door and clambered out, then held the door for the human man.

The man slid over on the seat and caught the edge of the door to pull himself out. But then he paused.

Grayson turned his head, giving him a long, steady look.

The man nodded. He said, “You know . . . the colonel really is a man of his word. And I think he’s only under authority when he wants to be.”

“I shall remember,” Grayson said, his tone flat.

The man nodded once more. He got out of the car and walked away, not looking back.

Thaddeus shook his head and grimaced, trying to take his human shape. Alejandro could see the bones move in his face. Clearly he was having difficulty—too angry, maybe, or too caught up in black dog bloodlust. Grayson sighed and looked at him, a single powerful look, and Thaddeus shook himself all over and got back into the car, once more fully in his human shape. He fit better, but he still took up a lot of room.

“Amira?” Ethan asked, and Alejandro realized hazily that he had forgotten about her and that this was inexcusable, but he could not seem to track anything that was happening.

“She will arrive momentarily, I believe,” Grayson said, and got out of the car, standing with one hand on the frame of the open door, gazing back toward the warehouse. Alejandro looked that way as well, squinting. Though they had come only a short distance from the warehouse, it seemed infinitely far away. Russian black dogs and the battle seemed like things that had happened to someone else a long time ago. The night was quiet. Gentle waves lapped against the stone pilings at the edge of the harbor, and the sky stretched overhead, cloudless and filled with stars.

Amira came softly out of the shadows between two buildings, in her black dog form. Though she was not large in that form, she was big enough to carry Miguel, who was perched on her back, gripping her shaggy pelt with both hands.

For a moment, Miguel’s presence with Amira seemed to make perfect sense. Then Alejandro blinked and tried to lift his head, realizing that his brother’s presence here made no sense at all. He tried to speak, to ask what Miguel was doing here—had Grayson meant to offer him to the Black Wolf because Natividad was not here? No, that made less sense still, and he would not believe it of Grayson anyway . . .

“Colonel Herrod reacted exactly as you suggested,” Grayson said to Miguel. “I thought he might sacrifice his man to take my wolves. Or at least demand I trade one for one.”

Miguel nodded matter-of-factly. “Right, no, he wouldn’t’ve have done that, not even if he could’ve, which he couldn’t anyway, with all his people watching. No, Herrod’s not a bad guy, I’m pretty sure. I was afraid Zinaida would win. I did not want to try Plan B. Not even with Russell and Andrew to back me up.”

Ah. That made sense after all. A plan. Of course Miguel would have had a plan. Miguel always had a plan. With Andrew and Russell Meade to help him. Yes. That should have worked. Those two were used to listening to their human sister. They would probably listen to Miguel, if Grayson insisted. Alejandro leaned his head back against the seat and closed his eyes, wondering vaguely what Plan B might have involved. It was hard to think. Though he was not in much pain. He thought he should hurt more. His wrists burned from the silver that still ringed them; his back burned and ached, worse every time he tried to shift position. But mostly he just felt tired and numb. And afraid for Natividad. He needed to tell Miguel and Grayson about Natividad. About her fear, her terror—she was in such danger—he knew she was still alive and not hurt, but she was so afraid. Her fear hurt him more than the silver. He said, “Master—Natividad—” but then darkness rose up around him, and he never heard Grayson’s answer.

-14-

Natividad knew perfectly well that there were too many blood kin for one black dog to fight, even if there hadn’t been the vampire.

It was hard to remember how horrible blood kin actually were. You saw one and it was dreadful and then you forgot how dreadful it was until the next time you had to face one. She knew blood kin had once been human, until a vampire made them into monsters. That was part of what made them so horrible. She knew that until a few years ago, they had been able to pass for human, that even when they were far away from any vampire, ordinary human people had simply looked right past their blood-red eyes and pointed black teeth and vicious yellow claws. She knew that up until just a couple years ago a lot of them had been mayors or politicians, judges or school principals; that they had lived right in among normal people and done their best to ruin human society, and no one had noticed a thing. Except the Pure. And the Pure had not been able to interfere, because that would mean war between the vampires and the civilized black dog houses.

Then Grayson had decided the war was inevitable, and started it. And at last the vampires were gone. Except, after all, not quite.

Watching those blood kin fight Keziah, Natividad could hardly believe anybody could ever have failed to see the blood kin for what they were, no matter how powerful the vampire magic that had disguised them.

They moved like machines, with a stilted, angular motion, as though their joints were no more human than their eyes, as though every bone in their bodies articulated in some strange way with the next bone. They moved like praying mantises or spiders, perfectly still until they moved and then shockingly fast and abrupt. They moved like nothing that had ever been human.

Keziah flowed around and past the blood kin, fluid and graceful in her black dog shape. She wasn’t Ezekiel; she couldn’t shift and shift again in the space of a breath, but she was cat-graceful and fast, and when she struck one of the blood kin, she didn’t just tear it up, but crushed it, too. She had killed several already, leaving their broken bodies crumpled across the street or the yard. One hung impaled across the decorative spikes of the neighbor’s wrought iron fence.

But the blood kin were fast, too, and more of them kept coming, and when one of them raked Keziah’s side or flank with vicious claws, black ichor spattered. And unlike Ezekiel, she could not shift to human shape and back quickly enough to shed her injuries; if she tried, they would be on her, rending her fragile human body into pieces.

They were trying to drive her toward the vampire, or pin her so the vampire could come to her. Natividad could see that. Keziah needed to close with the vampire eventually, of course, to blood Natividad’s knife, but she needed to be sure she could get away again, and that was going to be hard. She was faster than the blood kin, though, and she could leap back and forth across the mandalas, which they couldn’t even touch. Natividad saw her toss one of the blood kin all the way across the street and against the line of the outer mandala, and it burst at once into bright white flames. It screamed as it burned, high, piercing inhuman shrieking that went right through Natividad’s head and made her teeth hurt.

The vampire was a little like one of the blood kin, but different. Faster, stronger, darker, more horrifying. Harder to see, because you just could not bear to look at it. Natividad stood tucked against Justin’s side, her arm around his waist, taking a very human comfort from his closeness. She was sorry he was here, but at the same time she was so glad he was with her. She would have been so scared to be alone. She was scared enough now. She was shaking: a continuous slight tremor. Justin was shaking, too. She didn’t blame him at all. She wanted to say something to make him feel better, something reassuring. But anything reassuring she said would be a lie.

In the street below, Keziah flinched as the vampire rushed toward her, leaping away from it, retreating around the circle of Natividad’s mandala. Natividad couldn’t see the silver knife anywhere. She couldn’t believe Keziah had lost the knife or forgotten the plan, but then where was the knife and when was Keziah going to close with the vampire?

It followed Keziah, stalking with that strange inhuman movement, as though it had been put together out of bones and wire, as though it were manipulated by an unseen puppeteer—no natural creature moved like that. She retreated again. And again.

Keziah was surprisingly beautiful in her black dog form, smaller and more graceful and faster than most other black dogs. Ichor ran smoking down her neck and shoulder and sides. The wounds across her side looked bad, deep, but even so, she moved like Ezekiel, fluid and powerful as a river in flood. But retreating, always retreating, never meeting the vampire. Her eyes blazed brilliant gold with rage, Natividad could see no fear in her, but she turned suddenly and fled across the mandala.

Justin flinched and ducked his head.

“I don’t know,” Natividad breathed. “I don’t know—”

And then Keziah tucked herself down, her body diminishing. She was taking her human shape—no, not quite; her limbs were still thick, her bones twisted and heavy, her shoulders heavy with muscle. But now she had hands and arms, almost like human hands and arms. She rolled and snatched up the knife from its hiding place inside the mandala, and came to her feet and lunged back through the line of the mandala, and when she threw herself at the vampire, the silver knife was in her hands like a white flame.

It was the vampire’s turn to recoil, but Keziah followed. She had lost some of her speed and a lot of her fluid grace, but she ripped the knife through the vampire’s attenuated flesh and screamed with triumph, her savage not-quite-human voice blending horribly with its insectile shriek.

Then one of the blood kin struck her from behind, a slashing blow across her side and back, flinging Keziah’s small half-human form into the air and away from the safety of the mandalas. Natividad gasped, a small breathless sound, and clenched her teeth against a sob. The knife spun away, flashing silver and black in the moonlight, metal ringing like a bell when it struck the road, far outside the line of the outermost mandala. The nearest of the blood kin leaped back from it, hissing.

Keziah rolled and sprawled, helplessly contorting into her human form, driven to shift by the severity of her injuries. The blood that coated her back and side was red, red, red even in the dim light. Natividad thought for a horrifying instant that she must be dead, but then she saw that Keziah was trying to get her arms underneath herself, lever herself up to her knees—she was never going to get up in time, she plainly couldn’t shift again, not fast enough, Natividad had lost track of the vampire, but the blood kin were closing in, a dozen of them, more, far too many—she turned her face desperately against Justin’s chest, unable to watch Keziah be torn down, torn apart.

Justin made a stifled, inarticulate sound, his arm tightening around her shoulders, and Natividad held her breath, waiting for him to tell her it was over. He would ask her what to do, and she had no idea. The knife had fallen much too far outside her wards for either of them to dream of reaching it; the blood kin wouldn’t be able to touch it, but they would kill anyone who stepped across the mandala. Keziah’s death had been for nothing—

“Look,” Justin said urgently. “Look!”

Caught by a unexpected note in his voice, Natividad opened her eyes and twisted around to see.

The black dog cutting a clean swath through the blood kin was not Keziah, though for an instant Natividad thought it was. It was hardly larger than Keziah’s black dog form and just as fast, but it had a concentrated intensity all its own, and it tore through the blood kin like a terrier killing rats.

“Ezekiel,” Natividad whispered.

“You think—” Justin began, and then the black dog leaped clear over one of the blood kin, ripping through its chest and throat in passing. The black dog hit the ground, shifted instantly to human form to let a savage blow pass way over his head, rolled out, caught himself on one hand, swung himself up with consummate grace, surged up and into his black dog form, and tore another of the blood kin entirely in half.

Keziah got to her feet, shook herself, ran her hands over her hair—for once she didn’t look immaculate, but she no longer looked near death either. She had had enough time now to recover herself, and she tossed her head and shrugged herself back into her black dog form. She stretched, insolent and disdainful of her enemies, and then crouched low to stalk one of them. It stepped backward with awkward speed, then fled, skittering insect-like. Natividad didn’t blame it. Keziah snarled, a blood-curdling sound that started low and scaled rapidly up to ear piercing.

Ezekiel cut across the emaciated belly of one of the blood kin that hadn’t been fast enough to flee, spilling its insides to the ground in glistening gray lumps. Before it even fell, he pivoted and flung himself unerringly for the vampire. Natividad hadn’t even seen it until he attacked it. Silver-poisoned by her knife, crippled, it had wrapped itself in shadows and crept beneath some kind of thorny bushes. Ezekiel tore the bushes aside and ripped into it, though Natividad couldn’t understand how he could even bear to touch it. It shrieked, dying—of course it wasn’t really alive anyway, but it shrieked, an awful sound of terror and hatred, as Ezekiel tore its stolen body apart and cast it back into the fell dark.

After that, silence closed in: a strange stretched stillness, as though the night was waiting for something else to fill it. The rest of the blood kin had retreated. At first Natividad thought they were actually gone, but then she saw the bloody gleam of their eyes in the dark and knew they were still there. But quiet, now. Waiting, like the night itself. She took a deep breath. The air smelled of dry earth and ashes, of burnt clay and rot, of blood and terror.

In human form, Ezekiel bent to collect Natividad’s knife. He was careful to touch it only by the hilt, she saw. The vampire’s blood was all over it, she knew, and took a deep breath, and let it out again, because the first step of her plan had worked after all. She had been so sure they had failed, and now Ezekiel had gained them this new chance of success. She wasn’t even exactly surprised.

And Keziah was fine. She was perfectly fine. She moved with easy grace in her black dog form, just as though she had never been injured. She turned her back contemptuously on the remaining blood kin, but Natividad saw how her ears stayed flat and wary until she crossed the first mandala and then the second, and how she did not pause to take her human shape until she was across that second warding line.

Ezekiel stepped across the mandalas only after Keziah was through. He carried the silver knife even more gingerly as he crossed the lines of the mandalas, especially as he crossed the second one. Natividad flinched, realizing that the mandalas were probably reacting to the vampire blood on the knife. She hoped Ezekiel wasn’t burning himself—and she hoped the blood wasn’t burned away, either. “Don’t want to have to do that again,” she said aloud, and shook her head at Justin’s inquiring look.

She pulled away from his support, finding herself actually stiff, as though she had been running and fighting, and she wasn’t after all exactly sure her knees would hold her up. She had meant to go down and meet Ezekiel, but thought now maybe she might just sit right here on this nice couch instead and wait for him to come to her.

Ezekiel looked exactly as always: relaxed, faintly amused, perfectly self-contained. Except for a tightness around his eyes when he looked at her, which Natividad was fairly certain no one saw but her. She sure saw it. She blushed. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” she said humbly. “I’m so glad Grayson sent you.”

“I should certainly hope you didn’t intend to get yourself surrounded by vampires and blood kin,” Ezekiel said drily. “And as it happens, Grayson didn’t exactly send me. But I think he’ll forgive me, given the circumstances.”

Ezekiel set the silver knife very carefully on the coffee table and rubbed his fingers on his jeans, distastefully, like a cat disgusted by something sticky it had gotten on its foot. The vampire’s blood had clotted on the knife’s blade: neither ordinary human blood nor black ichor, but an ugly thick brownish-black streaked with crimson, like old blood and infection. Natividad could smell it from where she sat. It made her stomach turn over. She swallowed hard and looked away from it. At Ezekiel.

He looked just like himself. Despite everything, he made her feel safe, even now. She could feel the terror of the last few hours melting out of her muscles, just looking at him. Which was ridiculous. But she couldn’t help it.

She thought maybe Ezekiel would come over to her. She thought he would. She could almost feel the firm grip of his hands on hers, maybe on her shoulders; she could almost feel the touch of his fingertips on her cheek. The imagined touch was so clear to her she felt an almost physical shock when he turned away instead and crossed to the window. He studied the view for a moment, then half turned to lean his hip on the sill, crossed his arms over his chest, and gave Justin a quick, summing glance and her a long look. He said, with no amusement at all, “Under the circumstances, I’m glad I came. You couldn’t wait to get away from me, could you? The instant you find someone I can’t touch, the moment I’m out of the picture, is that it? But what I don’t understand is why you took him and ran. Didn’t you know you’d run straight into danger? Did you really think I was a greater danger than vampires and blood kin and stray black dogs?”

The injustice of this accusation took Natividad’s breath away. And then the justice of it hit her. Because hadn’t she done just what he said? Only she was sure she hadn’t meant to. Almost sure. She wanted to protest that it wasn’t like that, that she hadn’t meant to do anything like he’d said. But confusion made her stumble into silence.

Ezekiel looked away, his expression hard and closed.

“That’s not quite fair,” Justin said. His tone was mild, but stubborn, with an edge underneath. Natividad stared at him, mute and surprised. Ezekiel turned to look at him, too, with narrow-eyed intensity. Justin met his stare and shrugged. “Don’t you know her whole idea was to make Grayson send you after us? A plan she wasn’t in much of a hurry to share with me: I thought we were just going to see my grandmother. I should have known better, but how should I know anything? You definitely should know better. You can’t possibly think all that out there—” he jerked his head toward the window—” is a coincidence.”

There was a little pause. Ezekiel stared at Justin for a long tense moment. But then some of the stiffness eased out of his shoulders. He turned his attention, frowning, to Natividad. He said nothing.

“It seemed like a good idea at first,” Natividad explained humbly. “Grayson wasn’t going to send anybody to El Paso, not right away, but I knew he would if I made it look like I was putting myself in danger. Only I didn’t mean to . . . to let anything like this happen. I thought there was only one vampire, probably not even a master, and I thought it wouldn’t know any of us were here until you were ready to kill it. I knew you could kill a normal vampire and a lot of blood kin, even all by yourself, and I thought . . . I thought I could help. Only I made a mistake, and it turned out to be a master vampire after all, and it found out, and sent its servants, and it’s coming, too, right now. I don’t . . . I don’t know, only I thought maybe I could make something, an aparato, something that would work against even a master vampire . . .” she trailed off uncertainly, unable to read Ezekiel’s expression.

He said, his tone neutral, “Even the best plan, which hardly describes yours, doesn’t generally survive contact with the enemy.” He paused. Then he went on, “The sun will rise at approximately five thirty, which gives us three hours till dawn. I doubt we can hope the master vampire will delay so long that it’s at risk of being caught by the sun, however. I hope you have a clear idea what sort of magical weapon you can make.”

Natividad took a slow breath, trying hard to put her awareness of Ezekiel aside so she could think.

But she was so happy he was here.

“Maybe,” she said. She was proud of herself: her voice was almost steady. “I mean, I think so. I hope so.” She started to say something else, but then yelped and flinched as something like a whip scored suddenly across her back.

Ezekiel was at her side instantly, his hands gripping her arms, preventing her from falling. “What?” he asked her urgently. “Natividad, what? Is it the vampire?”

She didn’t even know at first. The pain and fear were too urgent, too immediate; she didn’t understand what she felt. Then the pain faded to an echo, and she understood at last, and was more afraid than ever, because now her own fear replaced the echo of fear that had scored across her mind and heart. She said helplessly, “Alejandro—”

Ezekiel stood very still, his eyes on hers. “I left your brother safe in Boston.”

“No,” said Natividad, and then, reluctantly, “He isn’t safe. Something’s wrong. He’s afraid and in pain. He has been for hours and hours. But just now something hurt him. Something else. I wasn’t—I didn’t—I don’t know.”

Ezekiel’s eyes shifted to pale gold, fire bleeding into the human blue until there was nothing human left in them.

“He’s still alive, though,” Natividad said quickly. “And I don’t think he’s so afraid anymore. And—and—I wish you hadn’t come, I wish you were there with Alejandro, but I’m glad, I’m so glad you’re here!” She put her hands over her eyes to stop the tears that threatened. She knew there was no time for tears.

“Natividad—” Ezekiel said. “I—”

“I know,” said Natividad. “I know. There’s nothing we can do, and anyway we have too much to deal with here anyway.”

“I will do everything in my power to make this right,” Ezekiel told her, very quietly.

“I know. I know you will. I know we have to—to deal with this, first. But—”

Keziah broke the moment. She came in, stepping fastidiously wide around the contaminated knife. She had stopped in the kitchen to wash, Natividad saw: she was still carrying a damp kitchen towel in one hand. She tossed this over the arm of a chair and gave Ezekiel a challenging look, chin up and shoulders straight.

Ezekiel took a deep breath and let go of Natividad. He stepped back and turned, his eyes once more human blue. “You could have taken the lot of them all by yourself, of course,” he said to Keziah.

“Of course!” Keziah said. “They were all running like frightened little bunnies.”

Ezekiel relaxed. Natividad had not even been aware he was tense, until she saw the difference. “You did very well,” he said. “That vampire was mostly dead when I finished it, and I believe I counted seven blood kin down before I came in.”

A slow flush spread up Keziah’s throat and face. She didn’t look at Ezekiel. “I think only six.”

“The seventh would have bled out,” Ezekiel said easily. He didn’t say what they all knew: that if he had not entered the fight, Keziah would not have survived long enough to see that one die.

“You’re . . . not hurt?” Justin said to Keziah. He had taken one step toward her, and now looked her up and down, worried, his gaze lingering on the narrow red line that showed along the side of her neck, and then going to her side, where he knew she’d been torn up.

“My shadow took the injury,” Keziah said. “Did you not know?” Her words were impatient, but her tone was not actually unkind.

“A black dog has to have time to shift, though, and then shift back again,” Natividad explained, trying to focus on the moment, on their own peril. It helped that Alejandro’s pain had eased, that his fear no longer pressed on her. She knew he was alive, but thought he might be asleep or something. She was terrified for him—what if he was unconscious, what then?—but it was much better not to have his fear dragging at her attention. She tried to focus on the present moment and told Justin, “That’s why control is so important, more important even than just strength. Or if you cut their spines or tear off their heads or something, that will kill them.”

“Ah,” said Justin. He was plainly envisioning one of the blood kin tearing off Keziah’s head. Plainly he didn’t like the image at all.

“I am perfectly well,” Keziah assured him.

“And a good thing, too,” said Ezekiel. He looked out the window again and then fixed Natividad with a disapproving gaze that she thought he had deliberately copied from Grayson. “As you have followed your customary habit of getting in over your head, I trust you have a plan for getting out again. But am I going to like this plan?”

“Oh, I added you right in as soon as I saw you,” Natividad assured him. She didn’t say, Madre de Dios, I’m so glad you’re here, though she wanted to. She was trying not to be clingy and annoying, because of course he would need to think mostly about the coming battle. She shouldn’t have told him about Alejandro at all, she knew that now, only she had been so shocked by her brother’s sudden pain. He was still alive, though. Still alive. And Alejandro must know how scared she was, too. He must know that everything was wrong here, too. But even now she couldn’t be sorry for the link between them.

She tried to focus just on this moment, this danger, and put any other fears aside. She said to Ezekiel, “But you know, it’s not like the other time. I don’t—I don’t think I can get the vampire to—to—I don’t think I can get it to kind of do it to itself, like I did for Vonhausel. Even if I can make an aparato that will work.” She looked at the knife and swallowed. She had never wanted to touch anything less.

Ezekiel was frowning at her. “Natividad—”

“Oh, but I can make it,” Natividad promised. She rubbed her hands on her arms, shuddering. “I can do it. I can, and it will work, and you know you can’t fight a master vampire by yourself, not even you and Keziah together, and anyway—” she looked at him and finished more softly, “I don’t want you to try. I don’t want to stay safe in here and watch you die.”

Ezekiel’s gaze on hers become more intense.

“Anyway!” Natividad said hastily. “Think what would happen if you and Keziah get heroically killed but the vampire is still alive! Those mandalas won’t stop a real master vampire forever.”

They all knew it was true. Over the last years of the war, everyone had learned how a master vampire could break through a ward: by throwing its blood kin at it, letting them burn up, each one weakening the circle a little more until at last it broke. That wasn’t the only way to break a protective mandala, but it was one way and it would work and there would be nothing Natividad could do about it. She said softly, because it was almost her worst nightmare, “When the master vampire gets here, I don’t want to wait here and watch it make more blood kin, and more, until it finally manages to burn its way through every mandala Justin or I can make.” She stopped, swallowing, trying not to imagine the vampire making blood kin out of anyone it could catch. “I couldn’t stand to watch it do that, Ezekiel.”

Ezekiel let his breath out. He looked faintly disgusted, but he didn’t say what Natividad knew was the truth, that he would be perfectly happy to sacrifice the whole town full of ordinary human people if it meant she was safe. To a black dog, the world divided so neatly up between your own family and house, and everybody else.

It wasn’t like that for the Pure. And Ezekiel knew it.

“Thus your plan,” he said finally. He jerked his head toward the contaminated silver knife. “That?”

“It will work,” Natividad insisted. “Only once I make that knife into a proper aparato, you and Keziah will need to use it against the vampire.”

“This is a good plan,” Keziah said smoothly. “It is very much better than the old plan, which called for me alone to use the Pure weapon against the vampire.”

“It’s a sucky plan,” muttered Justin. And added out loud, “Just how much worse is a master vampire, compared to that one we—you—already killed?”

Keziah shrugged, which was probably meant to look dismissive but which actually made Natividad remember that she wasn’t actually very experienced at fighting vampires.

Ezekiel, of course, was extremely experienced with fighting everything. He said mildly, “I wouldn’t want to face one alone. Fortunately, I won’t be alone.” He gave Keziah a little nod, again reminding Natividad strongly of Grayson. Keziah gave him a sarcastic look, but Natividad thought she was pleased.

“I imagine—” Ezekiel began, and then cut that off, his attention caught by something outside in the night. He said, in a different, light, brittle tone, “I imagine we all rather hoped dawn would catch our enemy short, but alas.”

Natividad both wanted to go look out the window and retreat to cower in the closet. Instead of doing either, she took a deep breath and looked at the knife on the coffee table. “Todo está bien. Va a ver tiempo,” she said, and realized she was speaking in Spanish. She repeated it in English, “It is just fine. There is time. There will be time. And we—we knew it was coming. We can do this—”

“No,” Ezekiel said.

Natividad stopped. But Ezekiel was not speaking to her. He was speaking to himself, or to the night itself: a grim, flat denial of fate. He was still standing by the window, staring out. He had lost all his pose of amused ease. His shoulders had gone rigid, and the painted wood of the windowsill cracked where he gripped it, raw wood showing through. He took a sharp breath and shook his head, and said harshly, “Natividad, which vampire is this?”

Natividad had no idea what he meant, but his tone made her skin prickle with horror. She stepped forward, hardly aware of Justin on one side and Keziah on the other, to look out the window, following Ezekiel’s gaze.

Keziah saw them first, though. She said, “Ah,” in a flat tone that was worse than a curse. Natividad thought she herself understood too, right then, just from that flat Ah. She thought that was why she recognized them instantly when she saw them, why she did not for an instant mistake them for black dogs.

“What?” Justin was asking them all urgently. “What?”

“Those aren’t black dogs,” Ezekiel said grimly.

There were four of them. The vampire itself drew the eye first, but then when Natividad flinched from looking at it, the black dogs caught her attention immediately. But they weren’t black dogs, not really. They were so much more horrible. They looked like black dogs, they moved with the same powerful grace as real black dogs, but they were different. They lacked the essential humanity that always lay at the core of a black dog, even when he let his shadow rise. For those monsters with the vampire, the shadow was all they were.

Two of them paced on one side of the master vampire and two on the other, all much closer to the vampire than any ordinary black dog would be willing to get. They didn’t look around at the blood kin, which were creeping out into the open now that their master had come. They didn’t look at the vampire itself. They didn’t look at anything.

“What are they?” Justin asked, his voice tight.

Natividad could not have answered to save her life. But Ezekiel said, expressionless, “They are the bodies of dead black dogs, possessed by their shadows. I think we know exactly which vampire this is. This is the one Vonhausel allied with. We knew he had learned to use vampire magic. Now it’s clear he taught this vampire something about black dog magic, too. Damn his soul to Hell. I thought we were done with these.”

Justin stared at him.

Natividad said, in a too-calm voice that didn’t sound exactly like her own, “I guess we know what happened to Christopher. And the others.”

“They should have run,” Keziah said, cool and disdainful. But behind the cool disdain was fear, not quite hidden.

Natividad shook her head. “I bet they couldn’t,” she said softly. “I bet they were trapped. I bet it took hold of their minds—even before Christopher called that first time, maybe. Before they knew it was there.” She wrapped her arms around herself, shivering again. She hadn’t ever even met them. Her cousin, Christopher Toland, she’d never even had a chance to meet him. Those Hammond black dogs, Nicholas and Carissa. The young Lanning, she couldn’t even remember his name—oh, Jonathan, of course. Jonathan Lanning. A young black dog who would have found it so hard to live up to the Lanning name, who would probably have been aggressive and difficult, but she would never know, he would never have a chance to grow up into someone like Grayson Lanning. The vampire had made him into one of those monsters instead. She thought of how Grayson would feel, learning what had happened, and that was almost worse than thinking about the young wolves themselves.

“You know, I don’t remember anyone saying anything about zombie werewolves,” Justin said through his teeth. But he also put his arm around Natividad. She tucked herself gratefully against his solid human warmth, saw Ezekiel looking at her, and flinched.

But Ezekiel only said, “We might have asked ourselves where Vonhausel learned his little trick. We might have guessed that a vampire who turned up to challenge us might be his vampire.”

Natividad knew immediately he was right. She should have guessed. She shook her head, not in denial, but in self-disgust and horror. “I couldn’t—I didn’t—I wasn’t thinking,” she said helplessly. “I don’t know—” She looked at the silver knife, streaked and clotted with vampire blood, that still lay on the coffee table. “Maybe,” she said. “Maybe I can do something with that. But I was thinking of vampires, not—” she could hear her own voice rising, but couldn’t stop it.

“Oh, hysterics, is it?” said Keziah, sounding disgusted, which was her way of hiding her own fear and horror, which Natividad understood perfectly well, but Ezekiel gave Keziah a deadly look. The black dog girl turned aside, a sharp, angry motion.

Natividad shook her head because she knew Keziah was right. She couldn’t just stop, she couldn’t give up, what kind of baby was she, everyone was depending on her. But she couldn’t make the kind of aparato she had used the other time, against Vonhausel’s undead shadow-possessed black dogs, the aparato para parar las sombras, because this time all she had was this one silver knife and it was already clotted with vampire blood rather than tangled with black dog magic. Even if she cleaned it off and used it to make the right kind of aparato to use against undead black dogs, what about the vampire?

Justin turned to take Natividad’s hands in his, turning his back on the black dogs and on that horror out the window. His hands was warm and firm. His touch made her feel better, more secure in herself, and he looked into her eyes with a direct, confident look and gave her a nod that said, You can do this. He had no idea what Pure magic was supposed to do and what was impossible, and so he trusted her to do something. She nodded back, shakily. He was right. She could. She had to, and so she could. But she didn’t know what.

“Make us something that will let us take care of that vampire,” Ezekiel said, quiet and confident. “And we will find a way to deal with the shadow-possessed black dogs.”

His confidence was . . . not encantador, exactly. It probably wasn’t even real. But it made Natividad feel better, all the same.

The silver knife was the base, of course. Natividad had already put her own blood and magic into it, and Ezekiel’s blood, and Alejandro’s, and now Keziah’s. She had made the knife tolerate their shadows, because that was what one did when one blooded silver.

That wasn’t exactly the same as what she had done when she’d made the aparato para parar las sombras, but the knife’s tolerance for black dog shadows was a start, in a way. Natividad wondered, in the back of her mind, whether maybe Mamá had also known that blooding silver was a way to begin tangling a thread of black dog magic into a Pure working, and that maybe that was a good thing to do, at least a useful thing.

Vampires weren’t the same as black dogs, though. Vampire magic wasn’t the same as black dog magic. This time she did not need an aparato para parar las sombras. For a vampire, she needed something else, a different kind of aparato. She knew what she needed: she needed a tool that would drive a vampire right out of the body it possessed and back into the fell dark, a tool that would bind it away from the world and not let it back to reclaim the body it had used. Una herramienta para unir las luz, a tool for binding light and not shadow, because if she could bind light to the vampire’s mortal body, she was sure that would drive the vampire out of that body. And the binding would have to be permanent, because she sort of thought that if the light faded from the body, the vampire might be able to return. A permanent binding, then, or at least a binding that would hold until the body decayed so far not even a vampire could use it.

“That will work,” she muttered out loud. “I think it will work, only I don’t . . .” She looked at Ezekiel. “It will just work against the vampire. Not the others.

“Make something we can use against the vampire,” Ezekiel told her, his voice smooth and confident. “and we’ll take care of the . . .” he hesitated.

“Hell hounds?” suggested Justin.

“The pets of the vampire,” said Keziah. “That is what they are. The vampire’s soulless hounds.”

Ezekiel said, with considerable force, “We don’t need a name for them, because we’re going to destroy that vampire and after that we will never see creatures like this again.”

Natividad hoped he was right. She reached out, not quite touching the blood-clotted knife. She didn’t dare touch it. The vampire blood smoked against the silver, pitting the metal, wearing it away. If she touched it, the blood would burn her, too. She knew what she needed to do. She needed to make that knife tolerate the blood, though how she could do that she had no idea; the two kinds of magic were utterly opposed. But she had to do it somehow. Maybe she could make some kind of veil that would keep them apart? Maybe she could use threads of a black dog shadow for that? But even then she would need to teach the silver in that knife how to reach through any shadowy veil and corrupted blood to capture vampire magic. Not just vampire magic, but also the . . . soul of the vampire. Though soul wasn’t the right word, because vampires didn’t have souls. The esencia of the vampire, then. Yes. She needed to teach the knife to capture that essence, and she needed the knife to force it out of the world and back into the fell dark where it belonged.

She drew a circle around the coffee table with herself inside, to keep any strange magic from bleeding out and harming anyone else. Then she down cross-legged on the floor and looked steadily at the silver knife. And lifted her hands, palm up, and summoned light.

-15-

Justin tried to understand what Natividad was doing with the blood-slicked knife. He wondered if he was supposed to be able to understand, since he was Pure. He could see that Ezekiel was watching him, that Keziah was watching him as well, and supposed they both probably wanted to ask if he understood what she was doing. Unfortunately, he had no idea.

He could see that the silver in the knife hated the vampire’s blood. No wonder the blood was smoking: the knife was inimical to it, almost actively hostile, if you could impute feelings to a knife. Or the magic in the knife. Over and around the knife, clinging to it, he could see a crimson-shot clotted blackness that wasn’t the blood, exactly, but more a shadow cast by the blood—not like the shadows of the black dogs, but not completely unlike, either. He could see how that congealing blackness flinched away from the light that coalescing around Natividad’s hands and especially around the tips of her fingers.

But none of that told him anything about what Natividad was trying to do. Or whether she was succeeding. Or what that knife would do, if she successfully made it into whatever kind of weapon she was trying to create.

Edging sideways, he glanced out the window. The master vampire was right there, not skulking in the shadows or whatever, but right there in the middle of the deserted street. It was not at all like a man. He could hardly believe any part of it had ever been a man, though he knew vampires were supposed to be made when a contaminated body rose from its grave. And yes, he could sort of see the corpse behind the corrupting horror of the vampire’s presence that wrapped around it and looked out through its dead eyes, but mostly he flinched from looking that closely.

The zombie black dogs weren’t as bad. They were bad enough, but not that bad. Nothing about them looked like it had ever been human. He hadn’t realized that something of the human soul remained visible in an ordinary black dog, even after it had shifted completely into its black dog form. He realized that now, because these zombie black dogs, these hell hound pets of the vampire, showed no trace of that human soul.

The vampire turned its head and stared straight at him, then, and Justin flinched and shuddered, feeling contaminated just by its attention. He moved quickly away from the window. He couldn’t imagine what it would be like to be . . . actually to be . . . they bit people, that was how they passed on the contamination. Even the mere thought of it made him want to throw up.

“Powerful, isn’t it? I have no idea how we missed this one,” Ezekiel said. He was still watching Natividad, but plainly he had also been keeping an eye on Justin.

“Yeah, not good,” said Justin, at random, because he had no idea what to say and was actually surprised he could get even one coherent word out against the nausea that pressed at him.

Ezekiel spared him a brief glance and went on, with no trace of his normal light mockery, “Except plainly this particular vampire has learned quite a lot about black dogs. I do wonder whether Vonhausel taught it enough about us that it learned how to hide behind our magic? We weren’t looking for black dogs, after all. Not during the war. If Vonhausel . . . I wonder whether he actually understood what he might have done, allying with a vampire?”

“You think Malvern Vonhausel allied with this monstrosity?” said Keziah, her eyebrows rising. “So, yes, maybe you are right. Yes, maybe. Then in a way, it is a pity he is dead,” she added dispassionately. “I would like to kill him again, several times.”

She and Ezekiel shared a look of perfect understanding, which Justin found fairly disturbing. He asked, “Is that why it’s come after Natividad? Because . . . this Vonhausel, he was her enemy, hers in particular, wasn’t he? I sort of got that idea,” he added, as both black dogs turned their attention to him.

“I have no idea why it should care for Malvern Vonhausel’s personal enmities,” Ezekiel said. “But Natividad . . .”

Justin stared at him, then at Natividad, still sitting by the coffee table, her hands held out over the knife, her face blank and intent. Then he looked back at Ezekiel. “What?”

“She’s been shadow-touched,” Ezekiel said. His voice was very quiet, and he was not quite looking at either Natividad or at Justin. He stared out the window instead. If it bothered him to look at the vampire, his distaste did not show. He said, “She wrapped her magic up with Alejandro’s shadow. And then disentangled herself, but . . . you can see traces of the black dog shadow around the edges of her own magic, now.”

“I thought you could not see that,” Keziah said, faintly surprised. “I thought you would not see what you did not want to see.”

Ezekiel gave the black dog girl a look. “I’m not blind. Of course I saw it. I didn’t care. I even thought it might be an asset: make her stronger, more powerful.”

Justin cleared his throat. “What exactly does that mean, for one of the Pure? To be . . . shadow touched?” He looked carefully at Natividad, then looked again, sideways, out of the corner of his eye, trying to glimpse the magic that she possessed. He could see only the magic she was using: the light she gathered in her hands and spilled out in a net around the bloody knife. The net looked to him like it was trying to cling to the knife, but couldn’t get too close without curling back on itself and withering.

“I have no idea,” Ezekiel said. “Natividad seems to have invented the concept all by herself. But I wonder whether it might make her more susceptible to a vampire. Or just more visible to it. Or, hell, maybe she’s actually valuable, to a vampire that’s dabbling in black dog magic.”

“Right,” said Justin, half listening, distracted by Natividad’s net, which wove itself inward a second time, then once again twisted back and away. “You know . . . that looks . . . really wrong.”

Keziah made a wordless little sound that nevertheless conveyed a world of sarcasm and stalked across the room to stare out the window. “Why is it only waiting?” she asked aloud, though in a tone that made it plain she did not expect an answer. Then she said, “Ah.” This time her tone made Justin look up sharply and brought Ezekiel to her side. “Ah,” said Ezekiel. He glanced over his shoulder at Natividad, frowning.

“What?” said Justin.

“She’s not finished, I gather,” said Ezekiel, and lifted an inquiring eyebrow at Justin.

“I . . .” Justin looked at Natividad, but too directly. He looked again, sidelong. Then he spread his hands in a small shrug. “She’s having trouble getting it to work, I think. I’m not sure, but . . .”

Ezekiel gave Keziah an unreadable look and vaulted neatly through the window. Justin’s breath caught; he did not even realize he had leaped forward until he found himself right at the window staring out and down in shock and horror. The black dogs, the zombies, had reared up, two on either side of their master, and now pressed slowly forward against Natividad’s outer mandala. Justin could actually see the line of the mandala, a silvery curve along the earth and through the air, dripping with fiery drops of light where the claws of the black dogs raked and pressed. Ezekiel, unmistakable even in his black dog form, stalked slowly along the inner curve of that burning line of light, waiting and watching for the first breach in its protection.

Keziah said dispassionately, “Those black dogs, their master has set them to break the mandala. They will break it. Then Ezekiel will fight them. But not even he can destroy creatures that cannot be injured, cannot be hurt, cannot be frightened. I have seen this before.” She paused, then asked, “You say Natividad has encountered difficulty with her magic. Do you think she will finish this work? Soon? Before—”

Ezekiel did not wait for the mandala to break. He could cross its line, which Justin had almost forgotten, or at least Justin had not thought through what that meant, until Ezekiel lunged with silken speed across the mandala, ripped with claws and savage black fangs at the legs and belly of the nearest of the undead black dogs, and slid effortlessly back across the mandala’s line before it could even attempt to return his blow.

“Hot damn,” Justin muttered. “He really can fight all four of them all by himself . . .”

“Fool,” Keziah said, though without heat. “Watch.”

Justin stared at her, then looked again. For a long moment, he didn’t understand what she meant. Then he realized that though Ezekiel could attack and tear up the enemy black dogs almost at will, they could not really be injured. He saw terrible wounds across the belly of one close up while he watched; saw another, its head all but torn completely off its body, shudder and become smoky and indistinct, then re-form unharmed. He understood why Keziah had called him a fool: because Ezekiel might slow them down, but he was not going to be able to actually destroy them. Which made sense. Because they were already dead. That was hard to remember, hard to wrap his mind around, but it was the truth and it mattered. “He can slow them down, though—” he began, trying to convince himself, and the vampire was suddenly a dozen feet away from where it had been, tucked into an aggressive crouch.

It had struck Ezekiel. He had been flung violently into the air, black ichor spraying, then suddenly red blood as he shifted to his human form before he even hit the ground. Justin leaned far forward, holding his breath, as Ezekiel hit the pavement, instantly tucking himself down and rolling under a parked car to avoid the surging attack of two of the undead black dogs. The black dogs tore the car up and flung it over on its side—Justin hadn’t realized just how strong they were until that moment—Ezekiel exploded back into black dog form, and Justin heard the heavy thud of bone against bone as he blocked the crushing blow of one of his enemies. Another closed in from the side, and on the other side, the vampire itself straightened from its crouch, tilting its head in a horrible, inhuman gesture, like a predatory insect.

“Help him!” he shouted at Keziah. “Can’t you help him?”

“How?” the girl snapped back. She snapped her hand out in a violent gesture toward Natividad, who hadn’t moved. “You know I must wait for her! It is her weapon that we must have, or we will have nothing! You think you could use that weapon if both he and I are dead?”

She was right. Justin knew she was right. He couldn’t see Natividad’s work, not now, not anymore; he was too upset or too scared or just not Pure enough. He could see nothing but the filth-streaked knife and Natividad’s face turned down toward it, intent and blank, as though hypnotized. For all he knew, she was hypnotized; she didn’t seem to be aware of anything that was happening outside of her own magic. He made a sharp, inarticulate gesture and spun back to the window.

Ezekiel flickered from human to black dog and back to human, never closing with any of his enemies, but he was being pushed away from the house and safety, Justin saw him try to get around one of the undead black dogs only to be blocked by half a dozen blood kin. He tore into them, plainly glad to face enemies he could destroy, but just then the vampire moved again with that terrifying abrupt speed. Its claws, blunt and yellow, tore through his shaggy pelt and carved four broad lines across his chest and stomach, and Ezekiel screamed and wrenched away from it, suddenly in human shape, staggering, half falling, regaining his feet with a hard, desperate movement, flinging himself toward the house and safety. He nearly made it across the line, and then at the last moment one of the undead black dogs flung itself against him, shouldering him back, snapping its black fangs at his face. It didn’t kill him, though plainly it could have. Justin didn’t understand that.

Then he did, as the vampire turned, swift and angular as a praying mantis, and took several mincing steps toward Ezekiel. He didn’t know what the vampire wanted Ezekiel for. But he could see it wanted him for something. Wanted him alive. The horror of that spread through him, cold as the heart of a northern winter.

Ezekiel tried to get past the black dog, which cuffed him—a careful blow, clearly not meant to injure, but enough to knock a human off his feet. Ezekiel fell, caught himself, came up to his hands and knees. He still did not shift, but looked up, measuring the distance between him and the undead black dog, the vampire, the glimmering line of Natividad’s mandala. Justin could see him gather himself, but he also saw that if Ezekiel didn’t shift, couldn’t shift, he would never make it past the black dog to safety. Beside Justin, Keziah made a low sound of dismay and disbelief.

The vampire took another mincing step, delicate as a praying mantis. It hissed, a vicious sound that went right through Justin’s head. He clenched his teeth against it, which did not help. The vampire hissed again, holding up its hands. Ragged streaks of shadow trailed from its claws, dense, writhing, frayed at the edges.

Keziah shoved past Justin and flung herself out the window. Justin, his breath catching in shock, gripped the windowsill and watched her fall to the ground outside with the strange weightless grace of a black dog. She shifted as she fell and was nearly in her black dog form when she hit the ground; she hurled herself forward even before she had entirely completed the change.

Justin held his breath, feeling intensely useless and stupid, knowing that she could not possibly face that vampire or even the zombie black dog, she couldn’t possibly, but she didn’t slow or turn aside—he wanted to close his eyes, but he couldn’t bear not to see, even though he flinched from what he knew was going to happen—

Keziah caught up something from the ground in her jaws, a swift, almost delicate motion, and tore her claws across the zombie black dog’s side, and thrust the thing she had snatched up against her enemy’s wound. The undead black dog reared back, screaming, and Justin stared in disbelief, but at that moment he also realized exactly what she’d done: she’d grabbed one of the silver crosses that anchored the outer mandala and she’d slammed it not just against, but actually into, her enemy’s body. No wonder, no wonder it staggered away, but the mandala, what would something like that do to the mandala?

Keziah had swept Ezekiel up in the crook of a forelimb and whirled and leaped back toward the house in one motion. The vampire was shrieking, a horrible sound that shouldn’t have been possible with a human throat. Another of its undead zombie black dogs leaped after Keziah and Ezekiel and then flung itself away, roaring. It took half a heartbeat for Justin to remember that of course there had always been two mandalas, and even if Keziah had ruined Natividad’s, his was still there, untouched. But it was only his, the very first big mandala he’d ever made and he was horrified to think they now depended on it for safety.

Keziah had leaped cleanly over his mandala, careful not to touch its line, and now she dropped Ezekiel and backed away from him, snarling over her shoulder at the vampire and its undead black dogs and its blood kin.

Ezekiel got to his feet, stumbling, his arms crossed protectively over his chest. Justin couldn’t see if he was actually wounded, but the shreds of his shadow trailed in the air like blood in water. The vampire shrieked again and cut against the mandala’s ward with its claws, and Justin thought he could feel its blow, as though the mandala rang like a soundless bell. Ezekiel flinched.

Keziah flattened her ears, reared up, and dwindled rapidly toward her human form. She didn’t wait for Ezekiel after she’d shifted, and certainly didn’t wait to see if he needed help. She only turned her back and strode away, back toward the house.

Ezekiel straightened, slowly, not looking after her. But he took a step and then another, and he didn’t look like he was going to collapse. Behind him, the vampire hit the mandala’s ward again, shrieking with fury. This time, Ezekiel did not flinch. He straightened his shoulders instead, and followed Keziah with a firm step.

Justin took a deep breath and turned to see if any of this had affected Natividad at all.

So far as he could see, she hadn’t even noticed. She still knelt by the coffee table, frowning intently at the knife. Now only one hand hovered over the knife; the other rested, closed into a loose fist, on her thigh. She was humming under her breath, a little melody he hadn’t heard until now, that wound up and down in a strange, unfamiliar, oddly compelling rhythm.

“Unbelievable,” Keziah snapped from the doorway. “She is not finished even yet?” She took a step toward the coffee table. Justin put himself in between before he ever knew he’d decided to move.

“She must finish!” Keziah hissed. “She must make her weapon, her weapon that can destroy that cursed Ghūl! You know that single mandala will not hold long, you know it was not as strong as the other! What is she doing?”

She moved to get around Justin, who stepped sideways to stay between the two girls and said urgently, “Interrupting her won’t help!” He met Keziah’s eyes, half surprised she didn’t knock him out of the way, but she didn’t touch him. She stopped and glared at him.

“You were brilliant,” Justin told her. “But now be patient. Wait. Just wait.”

Ezekiel came in, moving stiffly, pale as death, one arm pressed against his middle, though Justin couldn’t see any actual wounds. But up close, the damage to his shadow was obvious. It trembled behind him in shreds, ragged and diffuse. “Like blood in the water,” Justin said, only realizing that he’d said it out loud at Ezekiel’s flashing look of irony and irritation.

“Don’t have to worry about drawing sharks,” Ezekiel said, his tone not as biting as Justin thought he probably deserved. His voice was tight with pain, or with something like pain. He said, “All the sharks are already here. Unfortunately.”

“What did it do?” demanded Keziah, glowering at him in furious disapproval. “Can it do it again? Could it do that to me? Can you shift?”

“What the hell does it look like?” Ezekiel snapped. “It tore off part of my shadow. And I don’t damn well know. Yes, I think so, sort of, but not like I should. Not like I need to.” He eased himself down into a chair, slowly, moving like an old man, looked away from her, and said, his tone flat, “Thank you for getting me out of there.”

Keziah hissed something in Arabic under her breath and turned her back on him, going to the window, crossing her arms over her breasts and canting one hip in an echo of her usual provocative attitude. At the moment . . . it lacked a certain something. Not that Justin would have dared tell her so.

Natividad looked up at Ezekiel, blinked, and said, “Oh,” in a surprised tone. “Like that. I see. Not very nice.” She turned her palms upward and closed her fingers around something Justin barely saw, something that seemed like a kind of darkness braided with light. Then she reached down and set her hands firmly on the blade of the silver knife. It smoked, and then the smoke condensed, and drew back into the blade. Justin blinked, watching silver light burn, shadow braiding around it, and then first light and then shadow sink down into the knife. The light was . . . inside it, but somehow still visible. Then the shadow lay in a thin layer between the light and the horrible vampire magic, which clung to the shadow and wrapped around it. Then there was another thin layer of shadow, and only then, outside everything else, the solid surface of what had once been a knife. Now it was . . . sort of a rod, narrower and longer than the knife had been. A slender stick, maybe two feet long, maybe a little longer.

Oh. It was a stake. A stake, of course. He wanted to laugh, but he also wanted to throw up. The wooden stakes they used in stupid movies were nothing like this filigreed rod of light and shadow and caged corruption. This thing was just . . . really disturbing.

“There,” said Natividad, sitting back on her heels. “That should work.” Then she looked up at Ezekiel again and her eyes widened. “Madre de dios! What happened?”

“What do you think?” snapped Ezekiel, his voice tight and exhausted. “It got a piece of my shadow.”

“Can it do that?”

“I wouldn’t have thought so. But clearly it did.”

“But,” said Natividad, and stopped. She looked at Ezekiel and then, helplessly, at her knife. At the thing which had been her knife. She said, “I guess I kind of did the same thing. Only I used . . . I think I used Alejandro’s shadow. The part of it . . . the part of it I still held.” She looked back up at Ezekiel, her eyes flinching. “What will that do to him? If I put a little bit of his shadow in that?”

Ezekiel only shook his head.

“Not very nice,” she said in a small voice. “I don’t . . . it won’t hurt him, I don’t think it will, he’s not even here, that was just a little bit of his shadow and he’s so far away . . .”

“I think we are in far more danger than your brother, no matter what is happening there,” Keziah snapped. “Did it work? Because that other mandala, I think it will not hold very much longer. I think it will break very soon.”

Natividad started to reach out toward the thing she had made, but drew her hand back without touching it. She said in the same small voice, “It’s an aparato para parar las sombra y luz de enlace a través de magica del vampiro. If I did it right. It’s meant to bind light and shadow. It’s got my magic in it, and Alejandro’s magic, and that awful vampire magic that Ezekiel brought me just now.”

“Does it?” said Ezekiel, his tone very neutral.

Natividad said apologetically, “I mean, I could see what the vampire did to you, sort of, so I kind of did that. Not really the same way.” She shivered. “I wouldn’t want to do it the same way. No wonder, no wonder they call them vampiros, only I thought it was just blood and, and the corruption, but I didn’t know it could take part of your, your—” she waved her hand helplessly, unable to put what she meant into words.

“Shadow,” muttered Ezekiel.

Natividad shook her head. “Self,” she said. “Soul. It’s awful, but I kind of see what it did, and if I did it right—” she looked at her knife again, though she still didn’t touch it. “It’s meant to, to, I don’t know, pull vampire magic out of the world? Make a hole in the vampire, in what it is, so vampire magic will pour away, into the fell dark—sort of. I think! If I did it right! But I don’t know what else it might do. To, to any black dogs whose shadow is caught up in it. Or in the vampire.” She looked helplessly at Ezekiel.

He started to lever himself to his feet. “We’ll find out.”

“Do not be so stupid! You cannot even shift!” snapped Keziah. She turned around at last, beautiful and fierce and bitter. She took Justin’s breath away. “I will have to take that weapon. Who else? I will take it. I will kill the vampire—if it works as Natividad says.” She glared at Natividad.

Justin thought it was a pity to spike all this heroism, but he half raised a hand and said, interrupting both Natividad’s protest and Ezekiel’s sharp response, “How exactly is anyone going to get close to the vampire carrying that thing? Because it seems to me any vampire, especially one that’s into stealing other peoples’ shadows or souls or magic or whatever, has got to be able to tell that that—” he pointed at it— “is serious bad news with an extra helping of bad news on the side, and in case you’ve all forgotten? There’s a lot of monsters out there and only a few of us in here. Even if we were all in tip-top shape, these would not look like good odds to your friendly neighborhood bookie.”

There was a pause. Natividad said at last, “It’s not a black dog thing at all, I was going to say so, but maybe I can make—” and then a silent, motionless boom shook the world, and she bent forward, her hands over her eyes. Justin staggered and grabbed the back of the couch to keep from falling. He felt exactly like Natividad looked: like someone had driven an intangible but gigantic icepick into his skull. It didn’t hurt—it didn’t exactly hurt—but every nerve in his body seemed to try to tighten up into a ball all at the same time.

“Second mandala’s failed,” Ezekiel said. He was on his feet, looking like death served cold. The bones of his face and shoulders and arms distorted and thickened as he reached laboriously for a change that should have been effortless.

Justin dropped to one knee and slapped his palm against the floor, thinking hard about circles that kept out everything, but though he felt magic tremble and stretch through him, it shattered before it could settle—shattered and melted, it felt just like that, as though he’d tried to throw a handful of snowflakes through a furnace—

“You have to be on the ground,” Natividad said faintly. Her hands were still pressed over her face, her voice stifled. “Mandalas have to be anchored in the earth.”

“Now you mention this?” snapped Justin, though he knew that was completely unfair.

“Sí, yes, sorry,” Natividad muttered. Lowering her hands, she added, a little more strongly, “But there are still the wards on the house. We have a few minutes. A few minutes, at least.”

“Yet it is two hours or more until sunrise,” Keziah said tightly, and reached for the weapon Natividad had made. Ezekiel knocked her hand away from it, and she snarled at him, a thin, savage sound. “Fool!”

“You’re the one fit to fight,” Ezekiel snarled, cold as ice, his words slurred in a mouth no longer quite human. “So stay free to fight.”

“No,” snapped Keziah, and reached for the weapon a second time.

Leaping up, Justin caught her arm. She didn’t hit him—he thought she might, but she didn’t. Nor did she jerk her wrist out of his grip, though he could feel the strength of her arm and knew she could effortlessly break his hold. He met her dark-amber eyes, remembered he wasn’t supposed to do that, and did it anyway. He said, knowing it was true, “I don’t think you’ve understood—I’m going to have to do it. No black dog can touch it.”

“You?” said Keziah, and at the same time Natividad said urgently, “Not you, Justin!”

Justin let Keziah go as she pulled away, but shook his head. “Natividad, you’re a lot more valuable than I am. You know things; you can do things. I—what do I know? I didn’t even know you have to anchor a mandala into the earth! But at least I know that thing you made won’t steal my soul if I touch it.” He glanced at it, sidelong, and flinched. “It is pretty awful, though.”

“Vampire magic just is,” Natividad said. “But, Justin—”

“You will not get anywhere near that vampire,” Ezekiel said flatly. “Justin is perfectly correct.” He added to Justin, “Keziah and I will ensure you succeed in reaching it. It will despise you because you are Pure, but it may see your Pure magic and miss seeing that—” he jerked his hand at the weapon— “until it is too late.” He turned again to Natividad, “I assume that thing is simple to use?”

Justin could see Natividad hesitate and knew she was tempted to claim that using her stake against that vampire would require some complex ritual of Pure magic that only she knew. He said, “Don’t try it. I won’t believe it.”

Natividad looked at him and said at last, reluctantly, “No, you just shove it in. Anywhere. Either end first.”

“It’s not very pointy.”

“It doesn’t have to be. It’s magic. But I—”

“No,” snapped Ezekiel and Justin at once, and traded a glance. “Right,” Justin said. He took a deep breath, stepped forward, and touched two fingertips to the stake. It felt . . . horrible. Cold and . . . just horrible. The tactile awareness of it crept up his whole arm. His muscles twitched with a visceral desire to jerk away. He wanted to snatch his hand back, pick the thing up with tongs, and bury it six feet deep in hallowed ground. Maybe chop it up first, into about a thousand little tiny pieces. And burn the pieces. Bury the ashes . . .

The house shook. No. Not the house. The protective wards drawn upon the house’s stone and wood and glass. Those wards were shaking, a soundless trembling that set Justin’s teeth on edge. He’d drawn half those crosses himself. He suspected he knew whose part of the wards would crumble first, under this assault.

Clenching his teeth, he picked up the magic-wrapped rod. Stake. It was a stake, for all it wasn’t pointy. You killed vampires with a stake through the heart. Or, apparently, just by shoving it in anywhere, if you had the right kind of stake. Like this one, which felt as though it were trying to crawl across his skin. He shuddered, and turned to look at Ezekiel, and the door blew in, shattering, and Keziah picked him up and hurtled with him through the window, smashing the window frame and half the wall as she crashed through it. Justin held the stake in both hands, as far from her as he could, fighting his instinct to drop it and cling to her shaggy pelt

Keziah landed heavily, cushioning his fall with her powerful body, set him on his feet, and whirled to snarl upward at the house with furious loathing. Ezekiel crashed down beside her, not quite in his black dog form, but nearly. Natividad clung to him, her arms wrapped around his neck. Her eyes, wide with terror, met Justin’s. She called out to him, but Justin couldn’t hear her: above them, the vampire shrieked, and shrieked again, the sound cutting thin and awful through the night, and he couldn’t hear anything else. He flinched back toward Keziah’s massive form, though he was still careful to keep the stake away from her. She snarled again, hot and powerful at his back, and he wondered how he could ever have thought black dogs were frightening.

The vampire dropped down from the shattered window, half falling and half climbing, moving not like a person or even a primate, but head down and scuttering, like a movie special effect. Justin hardly believed in it, though it was coming right toward them. Keziah shoved him hard and he fell, sprawling, unable to catch himself because he couldn’t, wouldn’t let go of the stake. He half saw Keziah hurl herself toward an opponent bigger and more terrible that she was, one of the zombie black dogs—he was tangentially aware of the rapid, sidelong approach of blood kin, at least a dozen, gaunt and savage, red eyes gleaming. He couldn’t see Ezekiel anywhere, but heard a guttural roar somewhere not far away and guessed Ezekiel would not be able to help, not right away. And the vampire was on the ground, now—skittering forward with abrupt little dashes punctuated by strange reasonless pauses. He thought he could see the shreds of Ezekiel’s shadow tangled in its own magic, which was not dense and heavy like a black dog’s shadow, but made of a horrible clotted emptiness, a kind of violent absence of self or soul.

Natividad dropped to her knees and swept her hands across the grass of the yard, dug her fingers into the grass and earth, cried out words in sharp, rapid Spanish, and threw a double handful of soil at the closest of the blood kin. They sheered away, hissing. Even the vampire hesitated, unless that was just one of its inexplicable pauses.

Justin thought he could make a mandala now, only if he did that, how would the vampire get close to him? He wanted more than anything for it to get farther away, not closer but he was the one with the stake. He got to his feet. His legs felt shaky; his knees wanted to fold up; he wanted to fall to the ground and sob like a baby. More than that, he wanted to throw the stake away, or at least hold it out at arm’s length, as far from his body as he could. Instead he held it down, hiding it along his leg.

Behind him, Keziah screamed. Justin didn’t look. He took a step toward the vampire.

Which darted suddenly sideways and forward and right past him, avoiding him by so much he couldn’t even lunge after it with the stake. It was so fast, horribly fast, and it snatched at Natividad with its horrible yellow claws, hissing and sidling as she threw soil at it, but unlike the blood kin, it wasn’t stopping, it wasn’t going to stop, it was going to shake off her magic and touch her. Justin couldn’t bear to think of its corruption touching her but he knew he couldn’t reach her in time to stop it.

The vampire closed its hands around her neck and arm and picked her up, its jaws gaping wide, long fangs gleaming like obsidian in its mouth. It did not bite her, though, but only dragged her away—away from the fight, away from her friends, away from allies and friends and family and everyone who loved her. Justin could see how hopelessly fast the vampire was; he could measure its strength from the way it jerked Natividad along. He looked desperately for Ezekiel, but Ezekiel, still only partly in black dog form, was battling two of the zombie black dogs, and obviously losing.

Justin shouted, wordlessly, and threw the stake—not at the vampire, exactly, but to Natividad, who put out both hands and caught it without even looking, and shut her eyes, and drove the stake into its chest.

The earth and air cracked open with a sound like the world breaking.

Behind and below the vampire, a narrow, endless abyss of empty darkness gaped. A sharp, cold wind sighed out of the emptiness—not really a wind, for it had neither force nor motion, but it was like a wind.

The vampire crouched, half turning, its crimson eyes mad with hatred and loss. But it did not let go of Natividad, even when it crumbled to dust and blew away, into the abyss. Its horrible magic, empty and bodiless, crumbled with it, but the shreds of dense black dog shadow it had stolen were caught by the wind and carried with it into the dark. Natividad cried out and reached after those tatters of shadow—they tangled around her hands. The stake fell, cracking and shattering before it hit the ground, all its light and shadow unraveling. At the last moment Justin thought Natividad tried to pull back, but the wind pressed her forward and the light poured past her and the shadows dragged at her, and she fell somehow into and through the narrow crack that slashed through the world, and disappeared.

-16-

Alejandro was always aware of the pain, of the burn of silver poisoning across his back and around his wrists, of pain that followed him when he shifted and clung to him no matter which form he took. The silver bullet had scored a thin line across his left side, directly across his left shoulder blade, then lodged itself beneath his right shoulder blade. At least one of his ribs had been broken, but worse, the silver had not been removed immediately. That was the cause of this lingering weakness and pain. Alejandro had never been seriously hurt before—at least, never by silver, which dealt wounds that resisted healing. He discovered he hated being injured, and suddenly respected the endurance of ordinary human people, who always had to bear their own injuries. He found that the pain was always in the forefront of his thoughts, distracting and infuriating. Though he tried and tried to reach after his awareness of his sister, the pain got in the way. He was almost sure she was still alive, but that was all.

At least by this time—nearing dawn at last—he could shift. He could stand, and move, and perhaps even fight, if he had no other choice. He knew the necessity might arise. They all knew that. Everyone knew that the Black Wolf of Russia would come here, if she had not been killed or captured. And no one thought she had been killed or captured. That would be too convenient.

Before Alejandro had been able to manage the cambio de cuerpo on his own, Grayson had forced him into black dog form and then back into human shape. Alejandro had not even known it was possible to do that. Roll another black dog’s shadow down and under: that, yes. But to first drag his shadow up and then force it down again: he had not known that was possible. Over and over, the Master had done that. It had not been pleasant. But it was a way of forcing healing, when the injury was too serious for the shadow to carry it away all at once. And any silver-poisoned wound was serious.

There was still this lingering pain and weakness. Alejandro knew it would pass, eventually. But too slowly, far too slowly, for him to go after Natividad and save her from the vampires and blood kin in the south. He had no choice but to leave that to Ezekiel. Nor would he soon be equal to battle with the Russian black dogs, if Zinaida Kologrivova did indeed lead her people against Dimilioc. He knew that, too, and hated his own weakness with bitter fury.

He still could hardly believe his sister had set herself against a vampire, though he had known she was afraid. Even knowing her fear, he had not expected the terrible messages that had been waiting for them at the house, once they finally reached Dimilioc. Plain and brief and terrifying. Natividad had tried so hard to call for help, and no one had heard her, and he had not been able to do anything to help her. And now it was too late.

Alejandro had been so furious with Ezekiel for leaving. He was so glad now that the verdugo had gone after her. Only he did not know whether Ezekiel had got to Natividad in time to help. Except that she was still alive.

But even Ezekiel himself might not be able to protect Natividad against a master vampire. Not well enough to get her away. No doubt it had made many blood kin. Maybe even one or two lesser vampires. Master vampires did not always make lesser vampires, which might someday become rivals or enemies, but they always made blood kin, slaves to protect them during the day and serve them during the night. How many blood kin could Ezekiel alone kill, never mind the vampire itself? Maybe Keziah was also there. But Keziah disliked Natividad. Alejandro did not trust her.

But there was nothing he could do. Whatever was happening in the south would happen. None of them could do anything to help. They could do nothing but wait to see who survived.

If anyone survived.

“She’ll be fine,” Miguel said from the doorway. “They all will.”

Miguel could not know that, and Alejandro felt a flash of anger that his brother would say something so childish and stupid. But Miguel’s eyes were dark with exhaustion, and Alejandro saw that he only hoped it was true and hoped Alejandro would agree with him. He bit back a sharp response. He said instead, his own statement of faith, “Ezekiel will protect her.”

“Right,” said Miguel.

Miguel had been helping Grayson get ready for the Chernaya Volchitza. Alejandro did not know exactly what Grayson planned. He only knew what everyone knew: that the woman would come here, seeking Natividad, and perhaps himself as well. Alejandro wondered what Zinaida Alexandrovna Kologrivova would think if she knew her vampire ally had encountered Natividad, not handed over as a gift, but come of her own will to fight it.

Probably the Russian woman would hope the vampire and Natividad would destroy each other. Probably she would think that the very best of outcomes.

The Chernaya Volchitza was strong, and ambitious, and she did not respect Dimilioc or Grayson Lanning. Alejandro would have liked to know how many black dogs she still owned, after Grayson and his human allies had sprung their trap. He would very much have liked to believe that Valentin was dead, but he doubted it. Probably Valentin still lived. And too many of the other Russian black dogs, as well. He did not want to think of such an enemy coming against Dimilioc now.

That was the other reason Grayson had not gone south himself, of course. Nor sent anyone else. He could not go, first because he would not get there in time to help and then also because he must guard Dimilioc against enemies closer to home. He could not send Thaddeus for exactly the same reason. Nor would Thaddeus have gone, leaving his wife and son here so little protected, nor would DeAnn lightly leave Natividad’s little Paloma, no more than she would her own son.

And Alejandro was not yet strong enough to defy Grayson and go himself. Nor could he have gotten there in time to help her, either.

“She’ll be fine,” Miguel said again, like a child asking for reassurance.

“Sí,” Alejandro answered. “Of course she will. Ven acá.” He held his hand out to his brother, offering comfort as though Miguel was a child. But he turned his head sharply before his younger brother had taken more than a single step.

Miguel stopped, his head coming up alertly.

“She is here,” Alejandro said. He shut his eyes and braced himself against a table, reaching after the cambio de cuerpo. His shadow was slow to rise, reluctant. Alejandro’s rage called it and made it come, but it was slow, slow. Miguel was gone long before Alejandro had managed the full change. To get to a rifle and find a high vantage point, Alejandro hoped, but he did not know; he had not even seen which direction his brother had gone.

But he knew where to find Zinaida Kologrivov. That was easy to determine. Alejandro leaped forward and loped down the hall toward the shouting. He moved stiffly, not able to fully use his right forelimb, but he would have to do. There was no more time.

The Chernaya Volchitza had come, indeed. And in force. The Russian black dogs outnumbered the Dimilioc wolves nearly two to one, and most of them were much older and more powerful than the younger wolves Grayson had recruited for Dimilioc. Thaddeus was there, and he was very strong, but still only half Valentin’s age; James Mallory was there, and Andrew and Russell Meade, and Grayson himself. And little Amira. And that was all, besides Alejandro himself. Besides Valentin, Zinaida Kologrivova had brought ten Dacha wolves.

Miguel and probably others in the house had rifles loaded with silver bullets, but then several human men with rifles or those big harpoon guns also accompanied Zinaida Kologrivov. Alejandro could see them back in the trees. But as yet, no one was shooting. Alejandro doubted that would last.

No one was shouting anymore, either. The Black Wolf and Grayson Lanning had approached one another, out there in the open between the house and the forest. The Black Wolf had Valentin at her shoulder, but Grayson was alone. That made Alejandro uneasy and rubbed at his temper. He stared at Valentin with hatred, wishing his stare alone was enough to burn the other black dog to ash. Valentin looked back at him with a curled lip and then away again, dismissively.

Alejandro was too far away to hear what they were saying. He did not understand why no one was fighting. Probably Grayson had made some clever plan, but Alejandro did not know what it was and could not guess. Watching for any sign of violence or treachery, he limped slowly forward to join the other Dimilioc wolves. Turning slightly, Zinaida Kologrivova pointed to him and said something to Grayson. Alejandro, closer now, heard her harsh voice and saw the satisfaction in her cold, flat eyes, but the pain that had followed him through the change pulled at his attention and made it even harder than usual to understand human language. But he knew he did not like her to point at him, and did not like the contemptuous, superior tone with which she spoke to Grayson.

Grayson, with a patient, unimpressed air, half turned as well and beckoned to Alejandro.

Alejandro hesitated, thinking he might have misunderstood. Then he decided he did not care, he wanted to go there anyway, so he strode forward, trying to disguise his lame forelimb. He thought maybe he should shift back to his human form; he wanted to know what Zinaida Kologrivova said and what Grayson said in reply. And his shadow pressed at him, wanting to fight—wanting especially to fight Valentin, even more than Zinaida, even though he was still a little bit injured and Valentin was strong. But Grayson was here, Grayson would help. So Alejandro did not reach after the cambio de cuerpo. He stared at Valentin, curling his own lip back from black fangs.

Grayson began to speak. Alejandro did not understand him, and half turned his head, determined to listen harder, to understand. But the words meant nothing. And then Valentin said something, and in his hatred of the other black dog, Alejandro forgot even to listen.

Grayson lifted a hand and took one step forward, and the world cracked open with a sound like the sky breaking in half, and a bodiless wind that was not an ordinary wind whipped through the air. Strands of dense shadow exploded out of the abyss. The threads were part of Alejandro’s shadow, and they tangled with the greater part, and pulled at him, violently.

For a time that seemed to stretch out endlessly and yet to pass in an eyeblink, Alejandro fought the pull. Then, when he knew he must lose that battle, he leaped forward instead. He struck Grayson hard with his shoulder, throwing him clear, but leaped with determination straight for Valentin. His right limb gave beneath him, but he carried his weight in his shadow for that stride and the next and did not falter. Valentin, shouting, was actually backing away in obvious fear. Alejandro was afraid, too, but if he could only seize Valentin, he did not even care.

Someone was shouting—someone was screaming—Alejandro heard the flat crack of rifle fire, and frozen silver fire lashed across his face —but he crashed into Valentin, and grappled with him, and when his shadow wrenched him down and out and away from the world, he took the other black dog with him.

He thought he screamed, but he did not know; he could not hear his own voice. If the Russian wolf cried out, he could not hear him. He clenched his enemy to him and plummeted into the dark, and his last glimpse of the world was of Grayson Lanning, grim and furious, dwindling with a kind of distance that had nothing to do with ordinary space.

Natividad, reaching out of nothingness, caught him.

Horrified at the thought that he might have brought her enemy directly to her, Alejandro cast Valentin forcefully away. This time the Russian black dog was the one who tried to cling, but Alejandro tore him free and threw him aside and away, wrapped himself around Natividad instead, and held fast.

Through all of this first moment, Natividad’s presence in the dark actually seemed almost reasonable, and then Alejandro remembered she was Pure. Even if she had been killed, she should not have fallen away from the world into the fell dark. Yet she was here, with him, real and almost solid. Or not precisely real or exactly solid, but it was Natividad and she was here.

She was falling, too—they were both falling, a motionless crashing fall through the endless dark. They did not fall through actual darkness; they were not actually falling. It was worse than darkness, worse than falling; it was nothing, a blank emptiness. It was the dark that waited for black dogs, that claimed their shadows when they died and which sometimes took them entire, though no one ever spoke of that—they were like children, refusing to name their fear in case it rose up about them and swallowed them alive. As it had swallowed Alejandro.

But no misstep should have brought Natividad here. That, he did not understand. Yet she was here: he knew her; she glimmered with light, or with something like light, even here, where there was no light nor hope of light. She clung to his shadow; she held strands of it wrapped around her hands; though she was no more substantial than his shadow, she would not let him go. He wrapped himself around her and held on, voiceless here in this place where there was no sound—but he was accustomed to losing language, accustomed to be patient with silence and confusion.

Something else fell past them, reached for them, for Natividad—something cold and hungry, trying to steal her light and life. It might have been Valentin, but he thought the Russian black dog would have been hot, burning, and this thing was cold. His own shadow roared with furious heat, slashing back at that grasping thing, driving it away. It fell past and away, shrieking without sound or life.

Natividad clung to him, and he wrapped her in his shadow—his shadow tried to tear away from him, but he held it, fought to hold it as he had fought to hold it all his life. He would not let it go. He knew only afterward that if he had lost it, he would have been helpless and alone in the fell dark, Natividad helpless with him. But by the time he realized this, it had acceded to his will, as it had long been accustomed to yield. He was afraid then, though, because he knew that eventually it would fight him again, and then again after that: it would never grow weary and he thought he would. He was not sure how long he would be able to hold it, and without it he would not be able to drive away the things of cold and hunger.

But for now he held it. Natividad curled against his chest, and he wrapped his shadow around them both, hot and furious and strong, and they fell together through the empty dark.

***

Justin hurled himself forward, but he was too late to catch Natividad’s hand. Her fingers brushed his, insubstantial as light, and then she was gone.

Only her silver knife was left, falling faster than anything should fall, falling like a streak of light. If Justin had tried to catch it, he would never have done it. But he simply put out his hand blindly, and it smacked into his palm, and he closed his fingers around it hard. He had caught the knife by the blade. It sliced neatly across his palm and fingers, blood welling between his fingers. The cut stung as though he had caught a handful of fire. He thought he might have cried out; he did not know. He found himself kneeling in the street, the knife held safely by the hilt in his left hand, blood curling down his right wrist and spattering to the ground. All around him was noise and terror and fury, but before him was only this: the crack through the world, trembling. It narrowed even as he stared at it. It had cut through the world like a stroke of lightning, and like lightning it was brilliant but ephemeral. After it closed, he knew he would never be able to open it again. But it had not quite closed yet.

He looked at it sideways, as he had learned to look at magic; and without thinking he flung Natividad’s silver knife through that gap in the world. It trailed a thread he could almost but not quite see, a glimmering line made of light and magic and his own blood. Getting to his feet, he flung the other end of that line down to root itself in the solid earth, because of course human magic had to be rooted in the earth. Of course it did. He couldn’t understand how he had not known that before. He stepped forward and followed the trail his blood had laid down out of the world and into the dark.

He did not, of course, know what he was doing. He couldn’t have said what led him to step through that crack and out of the world: instinct, or a whisper of unrecognized memory, or a kind of knowledge carried in the blood instead of the brain. And then he couldn’t have said whether he had done something brave or extraordinarily stupid.

It wasn’t like a place, on the other side of that crack. It wasn’t anywhere, and it contained nothing. Formless and void, but though it was empty, there were things that existed within it, though they weren’t exactly things and didn’t precisely exist. Something cold and hungry went by him, like the flick of an unseen whip. He flinched from it, finding the knife again in his hand, as though he had never thrown it away. The cold thing fled, though without motion. Justin did not watch it go, but studied the knife.

The silver knife was without heft or form in this place, but his blood glimmered like moonlight. It trailed away from him, a pale thread that ran back through the crack in nothingness. Light and air came from that crack, immediately dissolving into nothingness. But that gap cast a sort of shadow, almost an anti-shadow, an echo of something more real than anything in this non-place. The line of his blood led into that shadow of reality and back into the world, through a veil that stretched between the world and this non-place. He could sort of see that veil. It looked insubstantial as cobweb. He could hardly believe it hadn’t torn in a hundred places from what he had done, what Natividad had done before him. He could see how delicate it was—

Though that wasn’t exactly right, because he couldn’t exactly see anything, not in this place beyond light or dark; nor could he feel the knife in his hand. If he still possessed hands. But he held the knife somehow. He tried not to think about it, afraid that if he questioned his own existence too persistently, he might cease to exist.

He ran the knife through his hands, or through what he thought of as his hands, and, fascinated, watched silver beads of blood scatter like droplets of mercury into the emptiness. He felt no pain, which seemed reasonable since he had no physical hands. But the blood was real. Or real enough. He could work with it; he could make it into a net, like . . . this. Into a filigree shield of light, beaded with silver. The light wasn’t actually real. But the geometry of the figure he made . . . that was real. That was perfect, pure and infinite. He looked at the filigree sideways and thought he could actually see the mathematical function that built that shape out of numbers and nothingness. That wove it out of a memory of light and magic. It was real. He didn’t have to imagine or invent it, only see it. It was an unbounded function. It ran out forever in every direction, infinite and beautiful. He thought suddenly of his mother, a thought for once not touched by grief. She would have loved this function. Justin thought of her and smiled.

The knife dwindled, the silver running away along with his blood, some of it going into his function and some of it dissolving into the no-place. He had the idea it might be protecting him from dissolving away himself, though he didn’t know how or even whether that was true. But in the end, he held it in his hand, his mathematical filigree. Insubstantial as cobweb. He wondered what it was for, and looked vaguely for Natividad, because she was the one who explained magic.

He couldn’t see her. But when he thought of her, when he looked for her, he could see that the cold, hungry things were approaching and then flinching away from something else, a sharp glimmer of light that was fiercely itself, but all tangled up with fire and heavy darkness. He thought that this must be Natividad, but he was not sure. He wanted to call her, but he had no voice in this place. This non-place. He wanted to approach her, but there was neither movement nor location here.

Which meant she was here already. Right here. They were in exactly the same place. So that was not a problem. This whole place was like an equation that had an infinite number of solutions. There were any number of equations that had infinite solutions; there was nothing hard about that. So the closing crack that led away into the world, that could be right here as well. Justin held his cobweb of light and blood in one hand, and reached out his other hand to that gap, following the line that led through it to the world. As he stepped through the gap, he caught both the light and the fiery dark and brought them with him, and with his other hand flung out the net he had made, and saw it stretch out all along the veil between the real world and the non-place, shining, though not with light. And he stepped through the crack back into the world, and jerked free the line of blood and light he had buried in the earth, and with that line knotted the filigree that was also his mathematical function. He let his knot define just one solution so that the filigree was closed and complete, and then he threw the line into the crack behind him.

It flashed like lightning, and there was a soundless crash of thunder, and then the crack snapped shut, and the ordinary dark of an ordinary night closed down around him.

Justin staggered and sat down hard. He tried to catch himself, but there was something wrong with his hands. They hurt, suddenly and sharply. He bit his lip and looked, cautiously, and found a dozen shallow slashes across each palm, probably not dangerous, but painful. Here in the real world, his blood wasn’t silver or made of light, and he couldn’t weave it into a construction of mathematics and magic. He could only watch it drip painfully out onto the ground.

Then, as though a protective bubble had suddenly burst, the world crashed in with a roar and a scream and a long blood-curdling shriek. Justin flinched and tried to get up, but fell back—it wasn’t just his hands, he was weak as a kitten. But Natividad was here with him, he hadn’t even been sure, not even at the last moment, not even when he’d found his way back into the real world through that crack. She knelt on the ground, her eyes wide with shock and terror, her hands flat on the earth, trying to make herself small, but there was nowhere to hide, not right here, and Justin could not immediately see the vampire anywhere, but there were plenty of blood kin, he could see them just fine—

A black dog he didn’t know leaped straight over Natividad, barely touched the ground, and leaped again. It tore the nearest of the blood kin entirely in half, ribs and tendons and vertebrae popping and tearing. The torso half hit the ground not far away, and the creature screamed, an appallingly human scream, and beat at the earth with its hands for a long time before it grew still. It was one of the worst things Justin had ever seen. He was, under the circumstances, more than willing to see it again, but the black dog was gone, out of sight in the night. Other screams echoed out there, not nearly far enough away, but the combatants were invisible in the dark. The normal everyday dark, and Justin had never appreciated before how ordinary and familiar and comfortable a dark night could be, but this one had definitely gone on long enough and just where was the dawn? He tried to get up, but still couldn’t. He was horribly thirsty, and hot—something was burning—the house was burning, it had gone up like a torch, an adobe house burning like tinder, and how was that even possible? But if it was going to burn like that, he and Natividad were much too close to it, and he couldn’t even get to his feet.

***

Natividad barely understood what had pulled her and Alejandro out of the fell dark and back into the world. She knew Justin had done it—somehow. She knew she was the one who had dragged Alejandro into the dark, because she’d held just a little bit of his shadow. That was her fault. But it wasn’t too awful after all because Justin had gotten them all out again. Justin had done something else, too, something she understood even less, but she’d seen it, the great shining net he’d made—not that it had been exactly shining. Or a net, exactly, because a net was meant to catch things and this was meant to drive things away. Or she thought maybe that was what it was for.

She wanted to ask Justin about it, about what he’d done, about what he thought he might have done. But even though they were back in the world, they weren’t safe. Everything was happening so fast, and it was so hard to tell what any of it was. The house was burning violently, black dog fire that burned viciously hot, the adobe melting like glass, the flames shedding light and leaping shadows that confused the eye. It was dangerous, she knew she and Justin were much too close to the fire, but Justin didn’t seem able to stand up and she wasn’t strong enough to drag him, even if she had dared to touch him, which she thought might be a really bad idea just at this moment.

Alejandro was fine, though. He had gone entirely into the cambio de cuerpo. That didn’t surprise Natividad at all: he must be just so glad to fight ordinary, understandable enemies. Of course blood kin were dangerous, stronger than ordinary human people, and cunning, too, and they didn’t feel pain or fear death. Worse, the claws of blood kin could tear not only a black dog’s flesh but also his shadow, so that was scary. But Natividad could see that her brother’s shadow was actually a little bit strange, and she almost sort of thought maybe the blood kin were tending to flinch away from him. It wasn’t just that he still had a tiny bit of her magic tangled up with his shadow: she thought a little bit of the silver net Justin had made clung to him still, to them all, all of them who had come back from the fell dark. She could almost feel it, like a faint pressure against her skin; she could almost feel it tangling with and pressing against the traceries of black dog shadows she also held.

Because she didn’t hold only a bit of her brother’s shadow. She had owned that long enough to know how it felt. No, she also held the slivers of Ezekiel’s shadow that the vampire had stolen; she’d gotten those back and she held them now, wrapped around her fingers, trailing in the air around her hands, wavering around her.

That was why she didn’t dare touch Justin. Because she held too much of Ezekiel’s shadow. She had no idea how she held it, and understood still less what it might do to Justin’s Pure magic if she let it touch him. So she knelt helplessly a little away from him, trying to see how dangerous the fire might really be and trying to keep an eye on Alejandro and at the same time trying to find Ezekiel in the confusion of the battle.

She saw Ezekiel at last, and Keziah, and stared for some time, trying to make sense of what she saw in the confusing light of the leaping flames. He and Keziah were fighting two other black dogs, not real black dogs but those horrible shadow-possessed undead black dogs. That was bad enough, but she could see how badly Ezekiel fought, not at all with his usual ease and confidence. He hadn’t entirely shifted even yet, and he was fighting defensively, like he was afraid of being hurt. He had been hurt; savage wounds gaped across his flank and hip, but he had not shifted to let his shadow carry away those injuries. Keziah was protecting him. Natividad didn’t realize that at first, but once she saw it, it was unmistakable. Keziah was protecting Ezekiel, and he was allowing her to protect him.

She knew exactly why. She knew exactly what that vampire had done to him, tearing away so much of his shadow. That was . . . that was awful. She flinched from even looking at him like that. It was . . . it was just wrong.

Natividad wanted Grayson to come and save them all, she wanted clever Miguel with his rifle and silver bullets, she wanted Justin to make something magical that would destroy all their enemies. But Grayson was far away and Miguel was not here, and she could see Justin was still vague and confused and helpless.

Then Keziah screamed, raw, desperate fury in her voice, and Natividad moved without even thinking about it, leaping to her feet and dashing straight for Ezekiel.

Alejandro leaped to protect her—she would have expected that if she’d thought about it, and she was very glad he was there. He batted one of the blood kin out of his way, roaring in fury, and Natividad ducked another, and suddenly found herself facing one of the undead black dogs. She tried so hard to stop that she actually fell, and then it was like a nightmare, scrambling desperately backward on her hands and knees, slow as though she dragged herself through something much thicker than air and shadows and the light of the fire, the black dog coming after her so much faster than she could get away.

Then Ezekiel whipped around and lunged, blindingly fast, closing with the undead black dog. They tore at each other, both utterly silent. The wounds Ezekiel dealt his enemy quickly closed, even one blow that started by crushing half its chest and ended by slashing across its throat, a blow that should have killed a normal black dog. But it was already dead and hardly faltered. But when it ripped claws across Ezekiel’s belly and tore chunks of flesh from his thigh, those injuries did not heal. Ezekiel should have ducked into his human shape and back again, letting those terrible injuries pass to his shadow—but he did not shift, plainly he could not shift, and Natividad flung herself forward—Keziah was there, attacking the undead black dog from the other side, and Natividad scuttled desperately sideways, found Ezekiel directly in front of her at last, and flung her arms around him.

Ragged strands of shadow curled around her, over her arms, through her fingers, writhing through the air between and around them. It felt . . . it felt very strange. Like she became lighter and cleaner with every fragment of shadow that lifted away from, and yet it hurt to lose the shadow, too—or it might not exactly hurt, but it was like pain.

Ezekiel flung his head up and back and shifted, the change swift and fluid. He left behind in that instant the injuries that had all but killed him. Whirling around in human form, he caught Natividad by the arms and picked her up bodily and kissed her, quick and hard, and then set her down, spun away again, and exploded back into his black dog form to press a savage attack against the enemies that had now overpowered Keziah.

He left Natividad staring after him, one hand raised to her lips, so stunned she was almost unaware of all the chaos and blood and spattering ichor and fire that surrounded her.

Then one of the blood kin leaped at her out of the smoke, and Alejandro hurled himself between them with a roar, and all the chaos of the battle slammed back into Natividad’s awareness. She ducked low and fled, back toward the burning house and Justin, because the only help she could give her brother or Ezekiel or anyone now was to get out of the way and protect herself and Justin. If she could, because those undead black dogs were a lot worse than even the blood kin, and no one had expected to have to face anything like them, not again, not here—Natividad didn’t want to think of it, but she knew that even now, with Ezekiel restored, they might still lose this battle—she should make something, do something, last time she had stopped those terrible black dogs, but this time she had nothing to work with and could think of nothing at all to do. A quick glance back showed her that the undead black dog was coming after her, that Alejandro was trying to make it turn and fight him, but it ignored him—

Then the guns began. Slow, careful rifle fire from all directions: human work. At first Natividad did not understand. Then she remembered the military fort in El Paso and thought she did. These must be special forces, because the bullets were silver, at least some of the bullets; Natividad saw how the blood kin screamed and fell when they were hit. Natividad flinched and crouched low, and spun quickly to peer into the confusion of the battle, terrified that these new allies might shoot Alejandro, or Ezekiel, or even her. Ordinary people just didn’t know very much about black dogs or the Pure or even blood kin, and how would they know which of the combatants were really their enemies?

But she saw the undead black dog that had pursued her stagger and scream, silver-struck. That was great, that was just fine, if only the men understood they should stop with shooting the undead black dogs.

Then she flinched as the black dog, despite the injuries it had been dealt by the silver, lunged past her to attack the man that had shot it. It flung itself up the side of the house toward his perch on the roof. The man shot it again, standing up to shoot straight down, but it did not stop. Of course it did not stop, it was dead already and cared nothing about injury or pain, it would reach that man and tear him apart and even silver bullets would not stop it.

But Alejandro could hammer it down and then leave it to be shot to pieces by men with silver bullets in their weapons. He did, with violent thoroughness. Even the undead black dog could not heal itself fast enough to withstand that.

Natividad, straightening cautiously, was aware that Keziah and Ezekiel were dealing with another of the undead black dogs by simply tearing into pieces so small not even it could put its body back together. And Alejandro was stalking the last of the undead black dogs, pinning it against the stone wall of a house so the men could shoot it. No one had shot him yet. She was beginning to think maybe they would not. They had shot a lot of the blood kin. She did not know how many had gotten away, but without a vampire to hide them, blood kin could not disguise themselves among ordinary people.

The gunfire was sporadic now. The house still burned. Since no one was shooting at her and there now seemed very little threat from the blood kin, Natividad began to make her way slowly back toward Justin. She hesitated for a second when she saw that two of the men had come out into the open to stand over Justin. But though both were armed with rifles, they seemed to be protecting him, not threatening him. Nor did they point their guns at her when she cautiously approached. She looked so human. She hoped their restraint would include the Dimilioc black dogs, too. So far it seemed to. That was very, very good. She could actually feel the silver in those weapons even from all the way across the street.

“We’re friends, you know!” she said to the nearer of the two men, with some urgency. “We’re all friends here! You mustn’t shoot just everyone, right? You can tell the Dimilioc black dogs are friends, can’t you?”

“Allies, maybe,” the man allowed. “Maybe allies. We know it’s possible—maybe.”

Natividad found herself smiling in intense relief. She let herself smile. Maybe allies! That was enough. They could work with that.

***

Justin leaned his head back, blinking at the stars. No, the sky was hidden by black smoke. Those were sparks from the fire; each one rose in a smooth finite arc and burned out. Stars or sparks, his eyes didn’t seem to want to focus, but he was happy to take the special forces man’s word for it that they could all be allies. Allies sounded great. Allies sounded like no one was going to murder Keziah or Ezekiel or Natividad’s brother out of hand.

He wanted to ask Natividad what her brother was doing here, and could she possibly send them all back to Dimilioc the same way she had brought Alejandro here, only then he remembered that Alejandro had come here by going through the no-place, and shuddered. No. Anything was better than stepping back out of the world into that emptiness.

“It’s all just fine,” Natividad said in a very firm tone. Then she added, a little less firmly, “Justin, that fire is awfully hot. Can you stand up, maybe?”

He couldn’t. But he was willing to try, especially when one of the special forces men took his arm in a forceful grip and heaved.

“Careful!” said Natividad, hovering. “He’s hurt!”

“Yes, miss,” said the man, his tone serious but not angry or hostile. “He’ll be hurt worse if we don’t get him back from the fire a bit.” He gave Justin a careful once-over. “Now, son, just your hands, is it? Good, then.” And he picked Justin up bodily, carrying him like a child. Justin thought he should feel embarrassed about that, but he was honestly too glad to be carried away from the burning house by someone whose job was to protect people from monsters.

Then Ezekiel was there, and Keziah, and Natividad’s brother, good, and a whole crowd of special forces men, which wasn’t necessarily so great. Justin tried to focus, not very successfully, except then one of the men gave him a drink of water, and then a minute later a Coke. The soda was warm, but the sugar hit him like a hammer and suddenly he found he could track what was going on much better.

The man looked like a soldier and not a doctor, but he had a medical kit in his hands rather than a rifle. He was trying, gently, to get Justin to uncurl his hands. Justin finally figured this out and obliged, which hurt, but not as much as he thought it ought to.

“Nasty,” said the man, his forehead creasing. “How’d you do this?”

Justin only shook his head.

“Well, it’s all good. We’ve got you now,” the man said. Justin could tell he meant to be comforting. Compared to everything else that had happened through this whole mad night, it was comforting. But he heard that assurance two different ways simultaneously, as though looking at one of those illusions of a wine glass and two faces. He glanced quickly at Natividad, who was standing quite still, her arms wrapped around herself as though she were cold or in need of comfort. She was looking at Ezekiel. Who was also standing very still, his hands at his sides, regarding the commander of the special forces unit with a neutral expression.

The commander was an older man who had skin the warm dark color of horse chestnuts, high cheekbones in a broad face, and deep-set eyes that met Ezekiel’s with reserve and curiosity. He wore the same plain, dark uniform as the other men, but Justin could see the rank markers beneath the American eagle badge at his shoulder.

“Colonel Herrod, I think,” Ezekiel said politely.

The colonel inclined his head. “Ezekiel Korte, I believe. Your Dimilioc does seem to have quite a wide reach, if I may say so. And a quite startling ability to be in two places at once.” He raised an eyebrow at Alejandro. “I’m glad to see you on your feet, son.”

Alejandro ducked his head. “You, also,” he said. “In two places at once.”

“Military plane, priority in the air. And you?”

Alejandro shrugged and spread his hands. “I don’t know. Magic.”

“Hmm.” The colonel looked Alejandro up and down and then turned his head to study Natividad. “I surmise that this must be your sister? Did you know an eretich is a witch who sells her soul to the devil and becomes a kind of vampire? I looked it up,” he added dryly, as everyone stared at him. “I must say, young lady, you don’t appear to me to be any kind of vampire.”

“Um . . .” Natividad managed. “No, sir. I mean . . . no. Who said . . .?”

In Justin’s opinion, she couldn’t have looked less like any kind of vampire. Luckily. She looked young and scared and bewildered and completely, perfectly human.

“No one whose word I’d trust,” said the colonel.

“No one anyone should trust,” Alejandro said sharply. He moved, warily, to Natividad’s side and put an arm around her shoulders, at once protective and possessive. She shuddered once, convulsively, and put her arm around him, too.

“The Black Wolf. Zinaida Alexandrovna Kologrivov,” Alejandro went on. “She said that.” He looked at Ezekiel. “She thought she would break Dimilioc. She came there. I think she meant to challenge Grayson outright.”

This meant almost nothing to Justin, though Ezekiel drew a swift breath. “I see,” he said. He looked grim. “And I wasn’t there. Tell me Grayson won that fight.”

Alejandro hesitated. “I don’t . . . she came, but I think maybe I broke the challenge. When I fell into the dark. I took Valentin with me—I was so angry—”

“Did you!” Ezekiel looked Alejandro up and down. “And you came back, but Valentin Nikitich Kologrivov did not,” he observed at last. “Well done! That would have set the Black Wolf back a bit, I imagine. Still, I think,” he added, “that we really must return to Dimilioc. Immediately.”

“Is that what you think?” said the colonel.

Justin found himself holding his breath. He didn’t believe for a minute that Ezekiel was going to accept arrest or capture or whatever. But he thought Ezekiel would be patient and careful in whatever he did. On the other hand, Justin was absolutely sure Keziah would not go along with anything for any reason, no matter what Ezekiel Korte or anyone else said. He could see the murderous tension in her shoulders, in her face. She had had enough, and she was not going to be polite to these men, guns or no. If she attacked those men, they would probably shoot her. This was not good. It might be really, really bad. He glanced surreptitiously at Natividad, who met his eyes in wordless but unmistakable worry. She made a little gesture with her hands, as though braiding something, but if he was supposed to see something or understand something from that, he missed it.

“I think we will find—” began the colonel.

Not far away, the motor of some large vehicle revved loudly and then caught, rumbling. Everyone moved, human men and Dimilioc black dogs reorienting their attention toward the sound, wary of the noise and even more wary of one another. One of the men began, sounding both astonished and outraged, “Colonel, that’s one of our—”

A van appeared, racing toward them and then braking suddenly. Everyone stared at it, guns coming up everywhere, but then behind the colonel, directly north of the startled gathering, a three-story house and its attached garage and the three huge cottonwoods in its yard simultaneously exploded into violent flames. Even at that moment, Justin was aware that adobe shouldn’t have been able to burn like that, but the concussion sent him staggering and the sudden leap of fiery light blinded him. Keziah caught him, half in her black dog form, and leaped away. He wrapped his arms around her massive, muscled, nonhuman body and clung, dazed but trying to cooperate. Behind them, the flames thundered; before them, the growl of the van’s engine was almost inaudible in comparison. Then the van was right here, right in front of them, the bloody light of the fire turning its black paint crimson, shiny as blood. Ezekiel was already tearing open its back doors and half lifting, half throwing Natividad inside; Alejandro was presumably behind them somewhere; Keziah shoved Justin forward and leaped up into the truck herself, far too big for the space but dwindling back toward her human shape. The truck was already moving, lurching forward, turning to bump over the curb and into a crossroad, its engine roaring.

“They’ll follow us!” Justin said urgently, although surely everyone else knew this, too. “My God, this is one of their own vans! My God, they’ll have helicopters up in ten minutes, roadblocks in twenty!”

Keziah was nodding, nervous and angry; but Alejandro was shaking his head and Ezekiel gave Natividad a flashing, fiercely possessive smile and moved quickly to steady her when she swayed with the violent motion of the van. She was doing something—making something, though Justin couldn’t see what. She had jerked out a dozen strands of her own hair and her fingers flew as she wove them into something—well, he did almost seem to recognize that; it was a little like the net he had made of silver and blood in that other place, though he flinched from the memory of that place and found it hard to remember exactly what it was he had made there. Not exactly the same kind of thing Natividad was making, he was almost sure.

“A maraña, you know,” Natividad said, glancing up at Justin, her tone almost apologetic. “A tangle-you-up spell. I did mean to teach it to you, Justin.”

He stared at her. “I guess you didn’t really have time.” Then the van bounced over another curb or something, so that they were all flung to the left and then back to the right, hard enough that Justin bit his tongue and swore. “Who the hell is driving this thing?” he demanded.

“An excellent question, though I believe with a strictly limited number of possible answers,” Ezekiel said smoothly, and hit the door between the driver and the rear compartment where they all variously tried to brace themselves. The van swerved violently, juddered and skidded, and finally began to slow.

“Someone too young to really know how to drive, at a guess,” Ezekiel said, his tone now rather dry.

The van swerved left and then right and then came to a cautious stop. Justin wondered how far that careening ride had taken them, and just how effectively Natividad’s spell would tangle up the no doubt furious men who were unquestionably already pursuing them, and whether stopping was actually as insane as it seemed. Though, no question, he thought someone else should be driving—someone other than—yes, Ezekiel had been perfectly right, he saw, as one bolt and then another shot back and the door was flung open. It was a kid, even younger than Natividad, maybe fourteen or fifteen, with dark eyes and dark hair and a kind of sharp-set pared-down face that made him look like a street urchin right out of Oliver Twist. He was a black dog, unmistakably surrounded by that sharp-edged obsidian darkness.

“Ezekiel Korte, sir,” the kid said, sounding at once sharp and angry and intense and scared. “We need to drive fast, we really do, we can’t just stop—”

“Nicholas Hammond, I think,” said Ezekiel. And added, almost kindly, “Natividad will take care of that for us, but I think I had better drive.”

“Yes, please,” said Natividad. “And in a straight line, if you can, and shout when you’re about to turn, right?” She held up the tangled web she’d made and looked around at them all. “It’s fine. It really is. Nobody will follow us!” She smiled suddenly at Justin, a swift flashing grin. “I’ll show you how to make these,” she said. “Don’t look like that—after what you did to get us out of the fell dark? You’ll learn this really fast.”

Justin looked at the shimmering net she held between her hands, like the string of some complicated cat’s cradle game, and almost thought he might.

-17-

They stopped almost a full day later, at a small, dingy hotel on the outskirts of Cleveland, in the dark, with a cold drizzle dampening the air and the desert so far behind them it was almost impossible to believe in wide skies and warmth.

Natividad was not only chilled through, but also bitterly tired, even though she’d napped a lot of the way. The van was not very nice to nap in, and she’d needed to keep waking up to make both marañas and telerañas—nets and tangled webs, to confuse the eye and turn pursuit aside. She made them out of her hair and out of thread Nicholas and Alejandro had unraveled for her from a frayed shirt Nicholas donated. Once she’d showed him how, Justin had made four more telerañas, two out of strands of Keziah’s hair and two out of thread. He had a knack for those. By the time he made his third, he was actually faster at it than Natividad, which didn’t surprise her at all after that weird impossible things he’d already done. She was a little surprised he couldn’t just snap his fingers and have a perfect teleraña appear, made out of light and air. Maybe he could, but he just hadn’t figured out quite how, yet. She suspected his telerañas were stronger than hers, too.

They dropped the marañas behind the van, and stretched the telerañas right across the roof of the van and across its rear and sides. And the first time they stopped, to get food and gas and to try again to call Dimilioc, Natividad drew spirals on each tire so that anyone trying to follow them would turn aside and wander in circles.

“They won’t last,” she explained to Justin. “And nothing works against ordinary people as well as it would work against black dogs or especially vampires. But it should help, you know? If someone is following you, things like this make it easy for them to look away. Sometimes that’s all you need. There are supposed to be a lot of really big, complicated telerañas all around Dimilioc and Lewis and the whole Kingdom Forest and everything, that lots of Dimilioc Pure women worked on, oh, a long time ago. Those can’t turn anybody who knows for sure where they’re going—I wish, right? Though,” she added, struck by an idea, “Maybe you and I ought to look at all those, because I bet you might make them so much better. But even the way they are now, if you don’t know where Dimilioc is, you have a hard time thinking to look anywhere near there. Otherwise I bet we’d find those special forces people waiting for us when we got home, right?”

Justin nodded, looking a little happier. “You mean we won’t? Good to know. But I don’t know if I could really . . .” he shrugged. “You know. Do anything.”

He looked kind of lost and even more exhausted than she felt. Natividad patted him on the knee. “We’ll figure it out.”

One kind of magic or another had worked, because they never saw any sign of pursuit. And they could drive fast, because no cop noticed them running through a speed trap anywhere along the way.

Ezekiel drove fast even though they had called ahead, very briefly, just to find out if any horrible disaster had befallen Dimilioc. He’d been very tense making that call. Everyone had been, but him more than anyone. But he wouldn’t let anyone else do it. Natividad had heard his end of it, though, not being a black dog, she hadn’t been able to hear the person on the other end of the line.

“You’re secure, there?” Ezekiel had asked first, sharply. “You’re all well?” And then a pause, but some of the rigid control eased out of his face. He said more easily, “Alejandro is with me. I hear he added a unique twist to our problem with Zinaida Alexandrovna Kologrivov? Getting rid of Valentin spiked her good, did it?” Another pause. “Good. Well, that’s too bad, but I don’t supposed we could have expected better. Yes. Tell Grayson I’m bringing them home. Yes, all of them. Yes. No. Yes, I’m sure he is, but it makes no difference.” He had had explained a little bit, but then he had hung up without, apparently, waiting for a response.

“Miguel,” he had told Natividad. And to Alejandro, “It appears your little stunt took the fire right out of those Dacha wolves.” He smiled then, a wry little crook of his mouth. “Imagine Zinaida Kologrivov’s shock! She must have thought Grayson had come up with quite a trick. A ruthless trick, too, if he’d sacrifice his own people to take away her strongest allies. She’s ruthless herself, though, so I doubt she’d think anyone would hesitate.”

“She . . . fled?” Alejandro asked, warily, as though he weren’t quite sure he should believe this piece of unexpected good news.

Ezekiel lifted one shoulder in a minimal shrug. “She retreated in good order, let’s say. But she certainly did retreat. I doubt we’ll see much trouble from that direction until she decides what it is she thinks she saw.” He eyed Alejandro. “I wonder what she’ll think if we make it obvious you survived. Our wolves can take hers into the fell dark and ours come back! If she believes that, she’ll certainly think twice about challenging us again. With luck, she’ll clear right out of the Americas.” He paused, then added thoughtfully, “Maybe we can hope that word of your little stunt gets passed around. Maybe we can arrange for it to. Let all our enemies go fight for territory in Europe and get shot, like so many rabid dogs. Or they can try Africa, if they’re desperate enough to risk the Dark Continent. Anything that gets them away from us.”

So they could all be glad about that, and a whole lot less worried. Though Natividad thought everyone was even more tired once they were finally less scared about what might have happened at home.

They’d propped open the narrow door between the driver’s cab and the body of the van so that everyone could hear everyone else’s stories. Ezekiel and Keziah didn’t know what Justin had done in the fell dark—Natividad was not a hundred percent sure she actually understood that herself, but she tried to explain it. Then everyone wanted to hear Nicholas Hammond’s story. Which was truly awful. The vampire had taken this black dog named Marshall, Marshall Crippen, who was a Lanning on his mother’s side, and that had been bad enough. The others had run, but not fast enough, and the vampire had taken them too, all but Nicholas and maybe Carissa Hammond—Nicholas didn’t know for sure what had happened to his sister.

“I don’t think it made her into one of those . . . those . . .”

“Hell hounds,” Justin offered.

“Right, yeah.” Nicholas rubbed a hand over his face, looking older than his fourteen years. “I mean, I don’t think it did. It took her, but it hadn’t done that to her, yet, that I saw. I thought it was maybe kind of saving her for later or something. Or it couldn’t do too many at once. Or . . . her mother was Pure, I thought maybe that made a difference. But that’s . . . I mean, that’s why I . . .” he glanced guiltily forward, where Ezekiel, at the wheel, listened. “I know I should have tried to help,” he muttered. “But I thought maybe I’d be able to find Carissa, get her away.”

“Far better for you to stay clear and free to act,” Ezekiel told him, coolly approving, with a brief glance over his shoulder. “If you’d come in too early, either you’d have been killed or at best taken at a disadvantage like the rest of us. No, you came in exactly when you could make a real difference. Good job.”

Nicholas let his breath out and nodded.

“But you never saw your sister?” Justin said, looking at Nicholas with intense sympathy. “You don’t know if she got away, or if she’s dead, or what? That’s awful.”

Natividad agreed. “That’s really awful. I’m so sorry. But maybe she got away. Maybe it’s better not to know, if she might have gotten away, right?”

Looking down, Nicholas nodded again, though Natividad wasn’t sure he believed it.

But even Nicholas’ story was not as hair-raising as Alejandro’s account of that thing in Boston, because after all Natividad had never met any of those El Paso black dogs, but Alejandro—she couldn’t have stood it if anything had happened to her big brother. Ezekiel had gone very quiet when Alejandro had finally explained everything that had happened. Of course Ezekiel thought it was all his fault, which it sort of was, not that it was fair to look at it that way, but Natividad wished she knew how Grayson would look at it. She thought and thought about that, in between making marañas magicás to toss across the road behind them every time they took a new exit. But she couldn’t decide. Her uncertainty scared her. She couldn’t quite decide whether Ezekiel was afraid, too, but he wouldn’t let anyone else take a turn driving. He stayed at the wheel all day and way into the night. That kind of control-freak thing was normal for a black dog, but worse when the black dog was feeling inquieto. She just bet Ezekiel was feeling extremadamente inquieto right now.

At least that meant everyone else could nap, after sharing all their stories. Nicholas, now shirtless and wearing a too-big black leather jacket with the special forces patch on it, tucked himself actually under one of the benches lining the two sides of the van and lost himself in exhausted sleep, looking even younger and skinnier and more urchin-like than he had when he’d first poked his head through the door.

Natividad also went to sleep, curled against Alejandro, trusting his arm around her to keep her from slipping off the bench. She woke once, stiff and still tired, but Alejandro held her, and Ezekiel was driving. She was worried about Ezekiel, but even though she was worried, she knew he could take care of anything. She knew she was safe, they were all safe at last. So she went back to sleep despite the discomfort.

But she was so glad Ezekiel decided, late that night, that they could stop at a hotel. She was sure it was a good idea to take some time to clean up and get real food to eat instead of just chips and things, and then sleep in a real bed. That way they could arrive back in Dimilioc looking less like refugees from disaster. And Ezekiel must be totally exhausted. Though Natividad thought he really mostly wanted to stop because he needed to gather his nerve before facing Grayson.

The hotel wasn’t very nice, but it was convenient and clean enough and the person at the desk didn’t seem curious. Ezekiel got them three rooms in a row, on the second floor in the back.

“I want a black dog with each of the Pure, and I don’t want anyone alone,” Ezekiel said, coming back with a jingling handful of keys. “Natividad, you’ll share with Keziah. Justin, you can come in with me. Alejandro, I trust you have no objection to sharing with Nicholas.”

Alejandro’s eyebrows rose as he gave Keziah a highly skeptical look. Keziah’s lip curled, her shoulders going back aggressively. Before either of them could say anything, though, Natividad cleared her throat. She found herself acutely aware of Ezekiel, of his beautiful hands and his tight-set mouth. Of the way he was so carefully not looking at her.

She had been vividly aware of him through this whole long day’s drive. She had napped a lot, of course. But she thought she had been aware of him even in her sleep. The memory of his kiss rose up in her belly, along with an unfamiliar kind of heat that made her blood fizz. He might not be willing to look at her, but she couldn’t look away from him. She didn’t want to look away. She was afraid that if she looked away, he might somehow be snatched from her. Or she might be snatched away from him. She understood, she thought for the first time in her life, why people said that Latin thing about seizing the day. Because if you didn’t seize it, the day would be gone, and what if something happened? Because bad things could happen. And did. To anyone.

And she knew he cared about her. She knew he did. Because of that kiss, right there in the middle of that horrible fight when he couldn’t possibly have been thinking about seducción or manipulación or even black dog posesivo. No. That kiss had been filled with an intensity of feeling that stood outside all that. She still felt the astonishment of that awareness. It ran through her like fire, even now.

She said, still looking at Ezekiel, not at anyone else, “I’ll share with you. I’m sure everyone else will be able to sort out what they want to do.”

Alejandro twitched, and she put a calming hand on his arm, but she didn’t move her gaze from Ezekiel’s face.

Ezekiel’s head had gone back a little, as though Natividad had hit him. “Natividad—”

“I know,” she said. “But what does that matter now? It’s different, now. Anyway, my birthday is only a few weeks away. I’m not too young. I have—had—married cousins as young as me. Almost as young, anyway.” Then she hesitated. “I mean . . . I know it’s important for you and Grayson . . . I know you can’t challenge him, it would be terrible for Dimilioc. But Grayson . . . he won’t punish you for . . . being with me? I mean, he won’t, will he? After all—” she opened her hands in vague all this kind of gesture.

“I don’t imagine he could possibly be more angry with me than he already is. Being with you can hardly make it worse.” Ezekiel paused. “He will certainly punish me. But he won’t kill me. He can’t. He needs me too much.”

His tone was sardonic, but underneath that was tightly controlled tension. No, Ezekiel wasn’t looking forward to facing Grayson, and exactly when had Natividad come to know him well enough to understand that he was far more afraid of disappointing Grayson than of any punishment the Master might mete out?

She wanted to say that Grayson wouldn’t blame him for anything that had happened, but of course she couldn’t say anything of the kind. She wanted to promise him that Grayson would forgive him, but she couldn’t even promise that. She wanted to touch his face, stroke that tension and unhappiness away. She might at least be able to do that. In a minute. Not out here in front of everyone. She shoved her hands into her pockets and said, her own voice sounding strange to her, “Then come be with me tonight. Because we don’t know . . . we never know, do we, how many other chances we might get. Because anything can happen.”

He was gazing at her now, his eyes meeting hers. She couldn’t read his expression, except for its intensity. “I was a fool, Natividad. That nonsense I said. About what I would do if you chose someone else. You don’t have to take that seriously.”

“You meant it when you said it.”

“Well, yes.” He wasn’t smiling. Whatever that intensity encompassed, it wasn’t anything as light as amusement. “But when I said it, I was a fool. I made you afraid of me.”

Natividad couldn’t suppress a smile of her own. She took a step forward—it only took one—and took his hands. “I know what you are,” she told him. “You’re not a fool. You’re a possessive black dog with control issues, but I’m not afraid of you. I’ve never been afraid of you. You make me feel safe.”

Everyone else was watching with fascination. Natividad tried to ignore them. Alejandro certainly hadn’t moved back, not a single step. She couldn’t ignore him. Especially not when he gripped her shoulder hard enough to bruise and growled, “She is my sister.”

Natividad patted his hand consolingly. “Yes, but you have to admit, ’Jandro, Ezekiel can keep me safe better than anybody else. Except you, I mean,” she added, though they both knew this was a polite fiction.

Her brother shrugged, not happy but not able to refute either Ezekiel’s strength or his willingness to protect her. “He disobeyed Grayson for you,” he said reluctantly. “Pudiera ser peor, supongo. You could do worse. But if he hurts you—” he cut that off and glowered at Ezekiel. “If you hurt her—”

Black dogs seldom let a challenge pass, but this time Ezekiel only gave Alejandro a little nod. He said to Natividad, his voice tight, “Have you thought about this? Are you certain? You understand: you need to be certain.”

Natividad didn’t say, I’ve been thinking about this all day. Nor did she say, I’ve been thinking about this since I met you. She only took one of the keys out his hand without looking, and still without looking tossed the other two to Alejandro and Keziah, and then since Ezekiel’s hands were empty, she took one of them in both of hers and drew him with her up the stairs toward the rooms.

She couldn’t get the key in the lock, though. Her hands were shaking.

Ezekiel took the key away from her and opened the door. The room within was dim, curtains drawn, a yellowing light overhead and dark coverlets of brown and blue on the beds. There was a wheezing air conditioner, paintings of blue flowers above the beds, and a thin brown carpet. The overwarm air smelled a little musty, but not actually bad.

“Not what I wanted for you,” Ezekiel said in a strained voice. He picked her up in his arms as though she weighed nothing and stepped into the room, bumping the door closed behind them. He said, “I thought, somewhere pricey, a honeymoon suite, pink satin on a huge bed, pink champagne chilling on the nightstand, bubble bath in the tub . . . pink bubbles, of course . . .”

Natividad laughed.

“Definitely have to arrange that for you,” he said, not smiling. “Later.” He walked across the room to lay her down on the bed. Natividad closed her eyes, shivering. She wasn’t sure whether she was scared or not, but heat was spreading through her body from her middle.

Ezekiel stopped, and straightened, and ran a hand sharply through his short hair in an uncharacteristic gesture of frustration and indecision. “I don’t want—Natividad, do you understand, a black dog—I can’t—”

“Shh,” she said. Sitting up, she took his hand in hers again. She liked his hands. They were slender and strong, with neat, short nails. And so pale in hers. She liked that, the contrast. His hand closed into a fist and tried to draw back, but she wouldn’t let go. She liked the way he stopped instead of breaking her grip, the way he would not use his strength against her. She’d known he would not. She said gently, “I know. I do know. My mamá told me.”

“I don’t want to hurt you—”

“Shh. You won’t hurt me.”

He lifted his other hand to brush the hair back from her face. Despite the warning he had tried to give her, the gesture was extraordinarily gentle. His hands were shaking, too, she realized. She liked that. She liked knowing she had made him feel that way, the same way he made her feel. She said again, “You make me feel so safe.” And then she said what she had felt too shy to say before: “You make me feel so special.”

“Natividad.” His voice was raw. He ran his palm across her cheek, traced the line of her jaw, brushed his thumb gently across her lips. “Natividad. You are so special. Let me make you believe it.”

-18-

Keziah was there, in Justin’s room, when he woke up. Justin realized this only gradually, waking to a soft gray light that turned the dingy white of the walls to pearl and lavender. She had turned off the air conditioner and opened the window to the chilly air, which smelled of rain and wet pavement. Somewhere near at hand a bird was calling, a bubbling run of notes that Justin did not recognize. He hovered between sleep and waking, until the creak of her chair, as she shifted position, finally drew him toward the light.

He sat up amid tumbled pillows, his breath catching, not knowing in that first moment where he was, and found Keziah sitting in a chair drawn away from the cheap table and angled to let her watch both him and the doorway. At once his sharp fear eased. Keziah. Yes. So he was safe.

She looked bored and wary and irritated with the world. And beautiful. And he felt safe, because she was there.

“You are awake at last,” Keziah said.

Her tone was flat and hostile. But the hostility was mostly a façade. And when exactly had Justin become able to see through that mask? He wasn’t sure. Maybe one of the times she had saved his life. Or, no. Maybe one of the times she had saved Ezekiel’s life.

He rubbed his face hard, trying to wake himself up the rest of the way. Only slowly did the events of the previous day and night reorder themselves in his mind. Yes. The hotel. Ezekiel had said neither Justin nor Natividad should be left unguarded. Justin . . . wasn’t quite sure how Keziah in particular had wound up on guard in his room. But he didn’t think anyone would have dared order Keziah to take that duty. Not even Ezekiel. No. She had made that choice herself.

Alejandro had looked a little suspicious of that arrangement, but Justin had felt relieved, even though he had been too tired to think. He remembered that. His subconscious seemed confident he could sleep safely with Keziah watching over him. He ought to have felt her presence, any black dog presence but especially hers, to be an unpardonable intrusion on his privacy—a girl, for God’s sake, a girl who had been watching him sleep—yet somehow he couldn’t work up any kind of reasonable outrage. He wasn’t sure he should think about that too closely.

She looked tired. He wondered if she’d gotten any sleep at all. She sat with her arms crossed under her breasts, one leg drawn up so that the heel of her boot rested against the chair’s cushion. Justin thought it would probably leave a mark. He supposed it didn’t matter.

He picked up one of the pillows he’d tossed aside and put it carefully back in place. Another. At last he asked, keeping his tone neutral, “You . . . how are you doing?”

Keziah’s eyebrows lifted with faint surprise. “I?”

“Yeah, well,” Justin said vaguely. “Everything stayed quiet last night, I hope. Where’re the others? Anybody go find breakfast?” He tossed back the sheets and blanket and got to his feet. He’d slept in his jeans even though they badly needed to be washed. He felt stiff and grimy.

Keziah tilted her head, unsmiling. “Yes. I believe there are doughnuts. The kind with white sugar, I understand. And yes, I am glad to tell you, last night all was silent as the grave.”

“Your werewolf humor is not like our normal-person humor,” Justin told her. “Um . . . any sign of Ezekiel and Natividad, yet?”

The corner of Keziah’s mouth crooked upward, though Justin wasn’t sure he would have called her expression a smile. “The curtains of that room are still closed.”

“Right,” said Justin. He suppressed a brief twinge of envy for Natividad’s obvious certainty about what she wanted. And her courage in reaching out last night. Nothing secretive or underhanded, either: just a confident declaration right out in front of God and everyone. That was Natividad, though. A brave girl. He was years older than she was. He ought to be at least that brave.

He wasn’t sure he felt up to the challenge this morning, though. Besides, Natividad was a lot older than her actual years. And no wonder, considering how she had grown up. He might not have gotten her whole bio, but he was clear enough about that.

He felt old enough himself, this morning. He badly wanted the fortification of a hot shower and clean clothes before he faced this morning. He poked at yesterday’s discarded shirt, grimaced, slung it over his shoulder, and went into the bathroom. He shut the door, firmly. But he didn’t believe Keziah would intrude further. He was almost sure she wouldn’t. He was almost sure he was relieved.

She didn’t intrude. She was gone from the room when Justin came out, barefoot and rubbing his hair with a towel. The prickle of unease that went down his spine startled him: he had known Keziah’s presence didn’t bother him—which was strange right there—but he hadn’t realized until that moment that he was just more comfortable when he knew where she was. Or maybe when he knew she was nearby.

He found her out on the balcony, though, the moment he opened the door. She was standing directly outside the room, her gaze turned toward the brightening morning light. She was standing quite still, one hand resting on the balcony’s railing, her head slightly bowed. Her expression was hard to read. The early sunlight slid across the slant of her cheekbone and gilded the long line of her throat, glittered in the swaying crystal of her earrings and turned her eyes to a dark amber. She looked beautiful, and somehow not at all rumpled or grimy, even though she’d been dragged through just as much crap as any of the rest of them, yesterday. Some kind of special werewolf magic had brought her silk blouse through everything without a single stain or pulled thread. He could wish he had that kind of magic, but probably it wasn’t even something other black dogs had. He bet it was just intrinsic to Keziah. Her tight black jeans hugged her hips, pointed out other intrinsic attributes. He glanced away, took a deep breath, and looked carefully at the curtains drawn across the window of the room Ezekiel and Natividad shared. Still tightly closed, just as Keziah had said.

Fine, then.

“Doughnuts?” he said.

“We have acquired a box of our own, I am told.” Keziah turned and half opened a hand to invite him to proceed her along the balcony toward the third room along, whose door, Justin saw, was indeed cracked open. She added, “Also, Alejandro took some of your money and went to a McDonalds. Not wishing to disturb Ezekiel to ask for money, you understand.”

“Right,” said Justin. “Good idea.”

Alejandro and Nicholas had already eaten more than half the doughnuts, but Justin forgave them because of the greasy bags lined up on the bathroom counter. Biscuits with eggs, biscuits with eggs and bacon, surely somewhere in these bags were biscuits with eggs and sausage—ah, here. Justin took three. Plus a doughnut, sticky with powdered sugar. If anyone had ordered pizza or anything last night, he been unconscious before it arrived. He was pretty sure no one had. They’d all been so worn out from terror and adrenalin, it was a wonder they’d even thought to get chips at the gas stations.

Alejandro was settled on the bed nearest the door, on top of the coverlet. He’d appropriated most of the pillows, but he didn’t actually look comfortable. He had given Keziah and Justin a glare when they’d come in, plainly impatient to see his sister. Justin was just as glad that heavy disapproval wasn’t directed his way. Probably Ezekiel wouldn’t even notice it. Or care, anyway.

Nicholas was sitting on the floor with his back to the wall, in the corner farthest from the door. He looked . . . better than yesterday, Justin decided. But still haunted. No wonder. Poor kid. The kid looked up at him with a quick sideways glance, though, as Justin rummaged through the McDonald’s bags, and his shoulders relaxed a little. The aura of the Pure, Justin diagnosed wryly. The effect no longer seemed so absolutely weird, though. Or it did, but not so unfamiliar, at least. He smiled at the kid and sat down on the floor nearby, leaving the other bed for Keziah, in hopes that she would quit prowling nervously around the room and settle down.

“How long will it take us to get back to Dimilioc?” he asked, more to get conversation and noise going than because he really wondered. Assuming that Ezekiel drove faster than the speed limit, but not insanely fast, he estimated it should be another, what, eight hours or so from here to northern Vermont.

“I think we should get there some time in the afternoon,” Alejandro said. “If we go soon.” He and Keziah traded a glance that Justin couldn’t read.

“Oh, food,” Natividad said from the doorway, in heartfelt tones. “Thank you, thank you, are there any more doughnuts?” She sent one quick, brilliant, embarrassed glance around the room, gave her brother a bright smile, and started peeking into the bags. “Oh, eggs, great!”

She was . . . glowing, Justin decided, described it well. She, like all of them, was wearing yesterday’s clothes and, like all of them but Keziah, looking a bit rumpled. But she’d put her hair up in a complicated figure-eight braid that accentuated her long neck and high cheekbones, and she certainly did somehow look more grown up. And very pretty. Not in Keziah’s league, of course, but still . . . yes, very pretty.

Alejandro had stiffened when his sister entered the room. But if he wanted to ask anything like Are you all right?, he suppressed it, with what effort, Justin could only imagine. He said instead, stiffly, “Buenos días.”

“Oh, buenos días!” Natividad exclaimed. “Sí, it is going to be a glorious day, you can just tell, can’t you? Maybe we can take turns sitting in the front so we can see out and let the air blow in!”

She was very cheerful indeed, Justin thought, amused. He expected Ezekiel would probably insist on driving again, and he suspected that in that case, Natividad was going to be the only person sitting up front with him, no matter how long the remaining drive.

He was right, too. And so was Alejandro. They drove through Newport just before three in the afternoon, and then took that whole series of progressively smaller and narrower and rougher roads in only a little more than an hour. Justin was a little disturbed to find himself relaxing more and more as they got closer to Dimilioc, as they drove at last through the little town of Lewis and took those last few bumpy miles to the Dimilioc house itself and came at last out of the pale green shade of the spring woods and into the bright meadow surrounding the house.

Ezekiel turned the van up that last long curve of the circle drive, took his foot off the gas, and coasted gently to a halt about twenty feet away from the broad porch. He just sat there for a moment, though, his hands still gripping the steering wheel, staring straight ahead out the windshield. Justin saw Natividad reach across the space between their seats and touch his arm, and he glanced at her quickly, sighed, and turned off the engine. The sudden silence was shocking, for here at Dimilioc there was hardly any sound at all other than the random rustle of the wind in the new leaves.

Perhaps those in the house had heard the car approaching, because Grayson Lanning was already standing on the porch, at the top of the stairs. He was alone. His arms were crossed over his chest and he looked . . . not very happy. Extremely forbidding, in fact.

Ezekiel turned and came back into the back of the van instead of getting out the driver’s-side door. Natividad followed, clearly in the spirit of all-for-one-one-for-all.

“It’ll be fine,” Ezekiel told them all, quietly. And added to Nicholas, who was looking terrified, “Don’t worry, kid. You’re not in trouble.”

“But—” said Nicholas, and cut that off.

“You’re perfectly fine,” said Ezekiel. “One of the few good things to come out of this whole mess.” He gave Justin a nod and Keziah an unreadable look. Then he stepped past them all, swung the back door of the van open, leaped down, turned to offer his hand to Natividad, and conducted them all to the foot of the stairs, where he somehow directed them without word or overt gesture to stand in a line, almost at attention. He did not, Justin notice, let go of Natividad’s hand until the last moment.

Grayson looked them over, one by one, taking his time, starting with Nicholas and ending with Ezekiel, with a thoughtful glance at Natividad that made it clear he hadn’t missed the new intimacy between her and Ezekiel. When it was his turn, Justin met his eyes, but not easily. Grayson wasn’t glaring, exactly, but the steady pressure of his regard was intense. No one spoke. Justin remembered after a moment that this was the rule: no one spoke before the Master of Dimilioc. He was just as glad. He had no idea what to say.

“Nicholas Hammond,” Grayson said.

The boy flinched, bowed his head, took a step forward, and went to his knees.

“You are welcome here,” Grayson said, his deep voice gentling. “I am grieved to hear of your loss and Dimilioc’s loss, but you are most welcome here. I understand you have a great ability to summon fire. That is a valuable gift. I gather you alone survived the vampire’s attack on your sept?”

Nicholas flinched again, but nodded. “Rubio—Rubio ran away, at the last,” he whispered. “I think he got away. My sister—I don’t know. I thought it had her, but I didn’t see a—a monster made out of her shadow. I tried to find her, I thought maybe . . . I thought maybe I could get her away, even if it had her . . . but I didn’t see her. I don’t know.”

“Hope is cruel, but still preferable to unquestionable loss,” said the Dimilioc Master, gently. “I shall hope with you that your sister escaped and may in time make her way here to us.”

Nicholas nodded, speechless.

Grayson held out a hand toward him, and the boy got to his feet, went to him, and knelt again to kiss the Master’s hand. Grayson allowed it, then lifted him up once more. “You are welcome. You are home, and safe. Go in. My nephew Ethan will show you the rooms from which you may choose.”

Once Nicholas had gone, Grayson turned to Alejandro. “I was most alarmed when you vanished. I am very glad to see you well and returned.”

Alejandro nodded. He glanced sideways at Natividad, then said, “Master. I hope I was right, to take Valentin, when I knew I would go into the dark . . .”

Grayson lifted one eyebrow. “Indeed. That was well done. You created great consternation for Zinaida Alexandrovna and among her black wolves. I am very glad you acted so decisively in such an unprecedented crisis, or we might have had a significantly more difficult battle. As it is, though we will no doubt see Zinaida Alexandrovna again, I think we need not concern ourselves about her for the next little while.”

Alejandro stood up a little straighter, though he did not quite smile. At the lift of the Master’s hand, he went quickly up the steps, but he did not kneel or bow or kiss Grayson’s hand. He only turned his head to the side for a moment, symbolically offering the Master his throat. Then he moved aside to wait.

Grayson turned to Justin, who braced himself, he hoped not visibly. But Grayson said only, “I am glad to see you well and returned as well. Do you mean to stay, this time?” His tone was . . . quiet. But beneath that quiet, grim depths were perceptible.

Justin took a deep breath. “I don’t know, sir. But I’m sorry I left the way I did, before. I had no idea. Of what we . . . what the Pure are, what we do. Of how important it is. That’s not much of an excuse, because you did tell me. I just didn’t know how to hear you.”

The Dimilioc Master inclined his head a minute degree. “You undoubtedly learned a great deal from your experience. I trust that will prove valuable.” He paused. “Also, I understand you prevented Natividad and Alejandro from becoming permanently lost in the fell dark. That is an inestimable service. Dimilioc is in your debt.”

Justin nodded, feeling awkward, unable to think of anything to say.

“Um,” said Natividad, and went on diffidently when they all looked at her, “I’m not sure Ezekiel explained this when he called you? Because I don’t think he realized? But Justin kind of . . . he made a teleraña, a web, a kind I didn’t . . . I don’t . . . really understand. And threw it across the . . . um, the boundary between the fell dark and, um, our world. And I kind of think the way he did it? I think that web might stop vampire magic getting through. Even if there’s another master vampire still here in this world, I think now it might have a lot of trouble making lesser vampires. It might not even be able to make blood kin.”

“What?” said Justin, nonplused.

“Well, I’m not sure. But I kind of think so.”

“Indeed,” said the Master, studying Justin.

Justin shook his head, not arguing, but trying to remember exactly what he had done and figure out whether Natividad might be right. He thought of the web he had made of silver and his own blood, weaving both around and through the vampire magic. Was that what he had done? Blocked not just vampires, but even that whole kind of demonic magic, from following them through the crack? He hadn’t . . . he hadn’t exactly thought about it at the time, but now he thought . . . maybe he had meant to do that, after all.

Grayson turned back to Natividad, lifting one eyebrow. “How long do you think this effect may last? Could you guess?”

Natividad spread her hands. “I don’t know! It’s not something anybody’s ever done before, you know. I think Justin kind of wove his own magic in and out of the web, right along with vampire magic, which shouldn’t have worked, but it . . . to me it seemed like it did work. It looked—it looked kind of permanent to me.”

Grayson regarded her. “Permanent.”

“Wait,” Justin protested. “Is that even possible?”

“Well, no. But I kind of think you did it anyway. I mean, it’s not possible to step into the fell dark and out again, right? And it’s not possible to get someone else out if they’ve fallen in, right? But you did both. Because you don’t know anything about Pure magic, so you didn’t know it wasn’t possible, so you did it. I think maybe your teleraña might have been . . . another impossible thing like that.”

Grayson lifted an eyebrow at Justin.

Justin shook his head immediately. “I don’t know. I have no idea. But if I did something like what Natividad says, then that’s—” he looked at her. “That kind of makes the whole thing worthwhile. Doesn’t it?”

“Well, yes, maybe,” said Natividad, and looked cautiously at Grayson. “Though, you know, if we missed one master vampire, there could be others, or anyway lesser vampires, and if they’re already here, Justin didn’t do anything about them. And maybe . . . ” she hesitated, then said reluctantly, “Maybe a master vampire that’s still in this world might be able to do something to open a way back to the fell dark. So that might undo the thing Justin did. I think. Maybe. But maybe not. I don’t know.”

“Indeed,” said Grayson thoughtfully, his gaze on Natividad. “Still, clearly, we may yet be extremely grateful for Justin’s work. And therefore even more appalled that he was ever placed into such a dangerous position.”

“I’m sorry!” Natividad said immediately. “It wasn’t supposed to be like that at all. I just wanted to get Justin away from Dimilioc, just for a little while, just till he realized he should come back. But . . .” she shook her head, a wordless admission that it had all gotten way, way out of her control.

“Indeed,” said Grayson. “You are certainly at fault.” He turned to Keziah. “And you. I expected better from you. What were you thinking?”

Keziah dropped to one knee immediately. “I beg your pardon, Master. I think I was right to go after Justin, but I know I was wrong to frighten him away.”

“You didn’t!” snapped Justin. “I keep saying that!” But Grayson gave him a brief look, and he closed his mouth and tried, he wasn’t sure how successfully, to keep himself from glowering openly.

Grayson said to Keziah, his voice deeper and harsher than ever, “I am aware you have not yet begun to feel that you truly belong to Dimilioc. As Natividad does not truly believe she is under authority. Keziah.” He waited for her to look up. When she did, he said grimly, “You may report to my office every evening after supper. Where you will write ten thousand times, ‘I belong to Dimilioc and I accept the authority of the Dimilioc Master.’”

Keziah stared at him. She looked as though she were trying to decide whether she had understood him correctly, and as though she were trying to work out whether she should be insulted or relieved at this punishment.

“You, as well,” Grayson said to Natividad. “Ten thousand times. I estimate it will take you approximately forty days, assuming you work for two hours every evening. I will not accept sloppy handwriting, you understand.”

Natividad and Keziah exchanged astonished glances.

“Well?” said Dimilioc Master.

“Um,” said Natividad. “Yes, sir.”

Keziah said, “But—” and stopped. Then she said again, “But—” and stopped a second time.

“Yes?” said the Dimilioc Master.

“But—” said Keziah, and exchanged another look with Natividad.

Justin was dying to know what she was thinking. He had never imagined her sounding so perfectly stunned by anything. He wanted to laugh. Smothering the desire was one of the more difficult things he’d ever done.

She said at last, sounding a little smothered herself, “Yes, Master.”

“Indeed,” said the Master, without the faintest trace of a smile. But Justin was certain there was a smile hidden behind that grim impassivity. He felt much better about the man—about Dimilioc—about being here himself.

Then the Master turned to Ezekiel, and that hidden trace of humor disappeared as though blown out like a single candle in the long reaches of the dark.

Ezekiel stepped away from the rest of them and strode up the stairs. He knelt at Grayson’s feet without a word, tipping his head back to offer the Master his throat. This was clearly not just a symbolic gesture. Grayson immediately closed one powerful hand around Ezekiel’s throat, setting his other hand on the back of his neck.

Justin had seen enough violence now that he didn’t need anybody to explain how easy it would be for Grayson to tear out Ezekiel’s throat, break his neck, tear his head entirely off. How completely impossible it would be for Ezekiel to defend himself. Yet Ezekiel had gone up those steps and put himself in that position without the slightest hesitation. Justin remembered him saying, He can’t kill me. He needs me too much. He wondered just how much faith Ezekiel had in that assessment now. He could feel Natividad’s tension beside him. She was really scared—

Grayson stepped back, releasing Ezekiel.

Who did not, however, move. He stayed exactly where he was, his eyes on Grayson’s face. He said, very quietly, “Master.”

“Tell me what you did,” the Master ordered him.

Now Ezekiel bowed his head. “I defied your command, deserted my mission in the face of enemy attack, left Alejandro and Ethan in great danger and you without my support when you needed me.”

“And what else?”

Ezekiel cleared his throat and glanced back down the steps, at Natividad, who blushed slowly and comprehensively. “I asked him, you know,” she told Grayson urgently.

“I know,” the Master said impatiently, and said to Ezekiel, “Besides that. What else did you do?”

Ezekiel hesitated. Then he shrugged, a very small motion of his shoulders, and answered, “I destroyed a minor vampire and a lot of blood kin, and saved Keziah when she would have been killed, and kept Justin and Natividad alive until they could deal with the master vampire. None of which would have availed if you had not sent us the timely aid of our allies in the special forces, nor have got any of us away from our . . . allies, if Nicholas Hammond had not intervened.”

“Yes,” said the Dimilioc Master. He paused. Ezekiel stayed exactly where he was, kneeling at the Master’s feet.

Justin could see no one expected Grayson to order Ezekiel to write out anything about obeying orders ten thousand times. He found himself holding his breath.

The Master said, “Ezekiel Korte.”

“Master,” Ezekiel acknowledged.

“I am informed that Étienne Lumondiere continues to experience difficulty in establishing his authority, which is to say Dimilioc authority, in the west. He will find your services invaluable.”

Ezekiel looked up, his eyes widening. Grayson held up a hand and said grimly, “You will go directly to Étienne’s sept. You will place yourself under his authority, within reason. You will assist him in his efforts. You will not return to Dimilioc. For one year—”

Ezekiel let his breath out, some of the tension easing out of his face.

Grayson continued remorselessly, “For one year, you are forbidden to return. You will not call nor in any way communicate with anyone here, except myself. Natividad will turn sixteen in three weeks. You will not be here.”

Ezekiel gave Natividad a swift, unreadable look. She was, Justin saw, beginning to look fairly dismayed herself.

“I shall suspend the requirement that she choose a Dimilioc wolf,” said Grayson, a little more gently. “She is, after all, still quite young. Another year will be well enough. However, should she choose another before your return, you will abide entirely by her choice, as is Dimilioc law.” He paused.

Ezekiel drew a long breath, let it out, bowed his head again, and said, “Master.”

“You will leave immediately,” Grayson ordered him, though still gently. “That van looks serviceable. Also traceable. Take it away with you.”

Ezekiel gave a little nod, but Justin wasn’t sure he had actually heard that last bit. He was looking at Natividad, who had stuffed her hands in her pockets and was looking back, her eyes wide.

She said, “A year isn’t so long.”

“It’s damned near forever,” Ezekiel said.

She was starting to smile. “It’s only a year. Though I guess a year seems longer to me today than it would have yesterday.”

Ezekiel rose in one fluid motion and ran down the steps, but stopped before he touched her. He held out his hands, but cautiously, as though afraid he might turn out not to have the right to touch her after all. He didn’t look up at Grayson, though his shoulders were stiff. But Natividad took his hands, and Grayson said nothing.

Ezekiel held her hands for a moment, then drew her close and curved his fingers instead around her waist. “I won’t ask for any promises,” he told her. “I won’t make any threats.”

“That makes a nice change,” Natividad said. But then she said much more softly, “Last night was a promise. You don’t need any threats.”

Ezekiel closed his eyes for just a moment, looking shaken. Then he lifted one hand to touch her face, and said, “It was a promise from me, too. Last night.”

“Good,” said Natividad. She leaned forward and touched her lips to his, very lightly. “A year,” she said.

“To the day,” Ezekiel agreed. “Don’t forget me.” His mouth had crooked upward, but behind the smile there was something else, something tight-leashed and intense.

“As if,” said Natividad, shoving him lightly. She saw that intensity too, clearly; clearly she knew exactly what it comprised. Her eyes were alight with unmistakable happiness.

Justin looked away from them, not to intrude on such a private moment, and found himself looking straight into Keziah’s dark-amber eyes. She wasn’t smiling. He took a short step toward her. “A year sounds about right to me, too,” he murmured. He wasn’t smiling. He wasn’t sure what his expression showed, but he was sure it wasn’t a smile. He said in a low voice, wanting only her to hear him, “A year to live in the same house. A year to find out just how much you don’t scare me. Then we should know each other a little better. Then we can think about . . . things.”

Keziah said nothing, but she did not look away.

“You know, we never did make it all the way to my grandmother’s house,” Justin pointed out. “I still need to visit her, sometime. Now . . . maybe now more than ever. Especially if she might know something about my mother, about what she was, what she did. Anyway, she’s my only relative now.” He paused. He would have loved to introduce Keziah to his mother—he thought they would either have gotten along just great or else their meeting would have been a clash of the titans. He’d never know which, now. That thought hurt. He knew it would hurt for a long time. But he guessed Grandmother Leushin would love Keziah; she always said a girl couldn’t be too fierce or too determined. He said, not quite so low-voiced now, not minding if Grayson or anyone else overheard, “It’s a long way. I guess we know now just how long a journey it can be. Since I need a bodyguard to venture out in the big, bad world, maybe you can escort me.”

“Maybe,” said Keziah, her eyes steady on his. “Yes.”

A direct stare was supposed to be a challenge for a black dog. A challenge, or a threat. Justin didn’t think it was a threat. It might be a challenge, but if it was . . . he thought it might be a challenge he was willing to meet.

Endnotes

I hope you enjoyed this second full novel set in the world of Black Dog! As you can see from the “other works” section at the beginning of this book, I intend to bring out another set of short stories set between Pure Magic and the as-yet-unwritten third novel in the series. My hope is to eventually complete a series of five novels in this series, with short stories set between each novel and the next.

For news about the Black Dog series and about my other fantasy novels, please visit www.rachelneumeier.com. If you enjoyed this or any other book of mine, I’d appreciate it if you would leave a review at Goodreads or Amazon or any other site you prefer.

Also by Rachel Neumeier

Black Dog Series:

BLACK DOG, Black Dog volume 1

BLACK DOG SHORT STORIES, Black Dog volume 2

PURE MAGIC, volume 3

BLACK DOG SHORT STORIES II, forthcoming, volume 4

SHADOW TWIN, forthcoming, volume 5

THE CITY IN THE LAKE (Knopf)

The Griffin Mage Trilogy (Orbit):

LORD OF THE CHANGING WINDS

LAND OF THE BURNING SANDS

LAW OF THE BROKEN EARTH

THE FLOATING ISLANDS (Knopf)

HOUSE OF SHADOWS (Orbit)

THE KEEPER OF THE MISTS, forthcoming Spring 2016 (Knopf)

THE MOUNTAIN OF KEPT MEMORY, forthcoming Fall 2016 (Saga)*

THE WHITE ROAD OF THE MOON, forthcoming Spring 2017 (Knopf)*

THE WINTER DRAGON, forthcoming Fall 2017 (Saga)*

* Titles subject to change

Praise for Rachel Neumeier’s Books

BLACK DOG

“It’s the kind of book that made me resent the obligations of ordinary life because I just wanted to keep reading.” – Sharon Shinn, bestselling author of the Samaria series

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 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 and outstanding tale that is self-contained but full of promise for sequels.” – Kirkus Reviews, starred review

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

“For fans of Juliet Marillier, Patricia McKillip, Robin McKinley, and Sharon Shinn, looking for that next fix of luscious, romantic, flawless fantasy? Look no farther.” -- Thea James, the Book Smugglers

“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

Acknowledgements

As always, my agent, Caitlin Blasdell, greatly improved this book with her insightful advice about plotting and pacing.

Sarah Prineas, author of The Magic Thief series, the Winterlands trilogy, and the Cindarella retelling Ash and Bramble, gave me invaluable feedback about characterization both for Black Dog and for this book.

Stephanie Burgess, author of the Kat, Incorrigible series, was kind enough to read through the finished draft right before publication, thus allowing me to correct a few important details at the last minute.

Abi Warner and Melissa Stevens corrected my Spanish. Any remaining mistakes are undoubtedly mine and not theirs. My mother was my first proofreader – thanks, Mom! Mike and Linda Schiffer kindly agreed to read the final manuscript One Final Time to check for lingering typos.

And 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