Black Dog (23 page)

“I'm sure that'll help,” the sheriff said, with understandable sarcasm and not nearly enough caution. But still Grayson did not threaten him. His shadow shifted and twisted, distorting the fall of light around him, but the Master showed no sign of the
cambio de cuerpo
except for the change in his eyes and the dangerous snarl in his voice. Natividad was starting to
really
admire his control.

“Harrison will bring your daughter into the house,” Grayson rumbled. “Wait for that. Then go back to town, Pearson. Drive swiftly. Do not stop. When next you have any urgent need to speak with me, I hope the telephone will suffice.”

“The damned phone makes it too easy for you to hang up on me.” Sheriff Pearson was almost as angry as the Dimilioc Master.

“I can do nothing for you. It does not make me happy to refuse you, Pearson.
I can do nothing for you
. Dimilioc cannot spare the strength to protect you.
We do not have the resources
.
When that changes, I will inform you. For the present, I advise you stay as far as possible out of black dog battles–”

“And when
as far as possible
leaves us with blood in the snow–”

“Go,” Grayson ordered him, voice low and gritty.

After a fraught pause, the sheriff lowered his gaze, disengaging. He said formally, “I am grateful for Dimilioc's protection of my daughter.” Then he backed away, one step and another, toward the door and safety. So, he did know when to concede, after all. Natividad had been prepared to leap forward, catch Grayson's arm, hope he would let her help settle his hot fury. Instead, she leaned against the wall again, letting out her breath.

Grayson gave her a fierce, fiery stare. “Go to your room,” he ordered, and stalked away.

 

Natividad didn't go to her room. She couldn't. It was all her fault, that man's daughter being bitten. Nobody needed to point that out to her. Well, not
just
her fault, but if she and her brothers hadn't led Vonhausel north, it never would have happened.

The Pure were supposed to protect ordinary people. Natividad knew that. Mamá had taught her that. Mamá, and Grandmamá and Tía Louisa and Tía Maria in Hualahuises. Only sometimes they weren't strong enough, and sometimes they weren't brave enough…

Mi
hija valianta
, Mamá had called her.
My brave daughter
. Mamá had shown Natividad how to draw the kind of circles and mandalas that could protect a whole village. Natividad had been about ten when Mamá had shown her the mandala at Hualahuises. Mamá had knelt on the dry earth beneath the shade of the buckthorn and the blackbush acacia and the twisted narrow branches of Devil's claw shrubs, and laid her hands on the ground. Then she had lifted them up, drawing light into the air out of the ground. Natividad had looked, awed, to the left and the right, and seen how the light went on and on in a gentle curving arc of light that cut across the arroyos and the steep foothills of the dry mountains to enclose nearly all of Hualahuises.

“I and my sisters and your Grandmamá drew this circle long ago, before you were even born,” Mamá had told her. She had smiled at Natividad, the smile that seemed to illuminate not only her face, but the world around her. “You are not yet strong enough to draw such a large circle,
mi hija valianta
, but you have my blood in you. You will work hard and learn everything, and in not so long you will have such strength.”

Natividad had been so proud that day, because she was Pure and would be able to protect everyone. She had believed every word. She didn't want to remember that, now; only she sort of
did
want to, except remembering made her feel ashamed and small and young. So, she
didn't
want to remember. She wouldn't remember.

“There wasn't any time,” she whispered. “I didn't have
time
to do anything.”

That was true. When Vonhausel had come to Potosi, she had really, truly, not had time to find out if she had the strength of her Mamá's blood in her own veins. She had not had time to find out if she had learned enough. But now there was this other town that needed the kind of protection a Pure woman could set into the earth and the air, and Natividad knew there would be time to protect
this
town. There
would
be time. There had to be, so there would be. If she was strong enough. And brave enough.

And Grayson ought to see it was her responsibility to help the townspeople, but he wanted to keep her safe. She thought maybe she liked the Dimilioc Master. She knew she admired him – he was trying so hard to protect Dimilioc, and yet he was almost kind, when he could be. He hadn't even hesitated to take responsibility for the sheriff's daughter. There were so many other demands on his attention, and a moon-bound shifter was not easy to handle, at least not if you wanted to
help
her. But he thought protecting his own family was the only important thing there was. He was like Papá that way.
Mamá
had known there were more important things than being
safe
.

Natividad, blinked hard, rubbed her hand across her eyes, took a deep breath, and ran up the main stairway so it would look like she meant to obey Grayson. But then she ran back down the kitchen stairs and poked her head cautiously out the side door into the cold morning. It was hardly light even now: clouds had thickened overhead and fat flakes of snow were beginning to wander down from the heavy sky.

Pearson was leaning against his big vehicle, watching, his body rigid and his hands clenched hard, as Harrison led a thin girl into the house. He took a step after them, but stopped himself, his face tight, his thin mouth a hard line.

Natividad thought the girl couldn't be more than thirteen or fourteen years old. Her father's elegant features were, in her, a fragile delicacy. She didn't look like a girl who could survive disasters. She looked stunned and blank, like she had not yet figured out whether she ought to feel grief or rage or despair or terror. All those emotions would crash in on her at once, Natividad knew. Soon. Probably as soon as Harrison locked her in the cage downstairs to wait, alone, for her corrupted shadow to rise. It might not come up until nightfall, but really it could happen any time, with the moon so near full. Natividad wanted to go sit with the girl, talk to her, try to get her to believe that her life might still go on despite being moon-bound.

But the girl probably wouldn't be able to believe anybody's reassurances. Not right away. Not till after the moon began to wane and her shadow subsided again. Besides, if Natividad went to help her, she would have to leave Sheriff Pearson to drive back to Lewis alone, without anything to stop Vonhausel's black dogs biting more of his people to make more moon-bound shifters. Whatever Grayson said, somebody needed to help Pearson or all the townspeople would be terribly vulnerable.

The sheriff was not cursing, but he looked as though he might have liked to. He stared at the blank facade of the Dimilioc house as though he was considering storming it like a castle and prying the help Grayson had denied him out of the Master's hands like a prize of war.

Natividad liked him. She liked the way he hit the side of his car with the palm of his hand: she liked the clean, human anger in him. She should ask Miguel what he thought before she did anything really risky, but there was no time; in just a moment the sheriff would get in his car and drive away.

So, she walked boldly across the snowy drive, opened the passenger side door, and leaped up to the seat. It was warm in the car – a measure of how brief the sheriff's visit had been. “Quick,” she said, while Sheriff Pearson was still staring at her. “Unless you want somebody to peek out and think you're kidnapping me. Quick, let's go!”

That got the man moving: no questions, just swift, economical movements. He, too, had to jump to get into the vehicle. Then he started the car, swung it around without pausing, and drove toward the forest. He glanced once and then again into the rearview mirror. So did Natividad. She more than half expected a sudden uproar, Grayson or Harrison or somebody to race out of the house and after them.

But there was no sign anybody had seen her get in the sheriff's car. She faced forward again, but then found that the trampled, torn-up snow, spattered with the remnants of battle, looked even worse up close. Natividad was glad of the drifting snow in the air: let clean snow cover up all the ugly reminders of blood and fire and death…

“I gather you had a fight here?” said Sheriff Pearson. He glanced sidelong at Natividad. “Miss…?”

She shrugged. “Natividad. Natividad Toland.”

“Ah,” said the sheriff, obviously recognizing the name of one of Dimilioc's bloodlines.

“My mother was Mexican,” Natividad volunteered, although this was no doubt obvious.

“Ah,” the sheriff said again. He gave her a sharp look, but didn't ask any other questions. Not about her family, anyway. He gestured out at the blood-spattered snow. “What happened?”

“Oh. It could've been way worse. Nobody got killed. None of us, I mean.” Natividad wondered whether she would still be able to say the same in twenty-four hours, in a week. She didn't want to think about that. Surely in a week it would be all over? She said unhappily, “I guess maybe it'll get worse before it gets better.”

“Um.” The sheriff gave a nod of grim agreement. “We thought… In town, we thought we were
done
with these damned vampire wars.”

“Oh, yes,” Natividad agreed. “Yes.” She remembered those days. “We thought how much safer we would be after the vampires were all gone, how much better everything would be. Maybe soon everything will really be over.” She hoped that would be true. She put all that hope into words: “Dimilioc will kill Vonhausel and his black dogs, and build back its own strength, and everything will be better. Your daughter will be alright, you know; I'm sure Grayson wouldn't lie about that. What's her name? Your daughter?”

“Cassandra. Cassie.” The sheriff was silent for a while. Natividad did not press him to speak, but tried to make her silence as supportive as possible. At last he went on, “She's no one you'd think… no one who ought to be a… a…” He didn't seem able to complete this sentence.

“We don't say
werewolf
,” Natividad told him. “Maybe you know that? That's Hollywood and the TV
noticieros informativos
, what do you say in English? The talking heads?” It was a good term. She said, not hiding her scorn: “They pretend they've figured everything out, but they don't know anything. Not even now, when it's been months and months since the vampire magic stopped clouding their minds.”

“Yes,” said the sheriff. “We…” He stopped.

“They don't know about black dogs except bits and pieces. And lots of the pieces are wrong, anyway. Them, they only know about the bitten ones. They say
werewolf
when they mean moon-bound, and then they think that's all there is.” She glanced sidelong at the sheriff. “It's different for you, I guess, since you're right here, almost part of Dimilioc. Isn't that right?”

“Yes. More or less. But I don't…” the sheriff's voice shook a little. He looked at her, a quick glance, and away again. “I don't know, I don't think I ever… No one I knew was ever bitten, Dimilioc wolves don't
do
that…”

“Oh, well…” Natividad tried to think what she could say that would be both true and reassuring. “It's not like in the movies, you know?” It was both better and worse than movies made it seem. There was a lot she didn't want to say. “You can have a good life after you've been bitten, if you have a black dog to help you.” It wasn't really that simple, and hardly any moon-bound shifter could trust a black dog to actually
help
her, but what good would it be to say that? Besides, she was sure Sheriff Pearson and his daughter really could trust Grayson Lanning.

The sheriff glanced at her, then back at the snowy road. After a moment of silence, he said, his tone once again controlled, “Grayson had to search hard to find you, I suppose. I expect he'll be angry when he discovers you came with me.”

He would be. Natividad knew
she
was safe, but she looked at the sheriff in sudden concern. “Will you be alright? It's all my fault,” she added, thinking aloud. “
I'm
the one who disobeyed him…” Even to her, this argument seemed disturbingly weak. If Grayson lost his temper with the sheriff… She frowned, worried.

“It's you I'm thinking of, Miss Toland.”

“Oh, me? You don't have to worry about me.” Natividad put her hands together in a pose of angelic innocence, then pretended to remove and polish an invisible halo. “You said it yourself: I'm Pure.” Dropping the pose, she leaned an elbow on the armrest and studied the sheriff. He didn't look afraid. He ought to. She said, “But
you're
not. If Grayson is very angry with you – if he loses control of his black dog…”

“Grayson Lanning? Lose control?”

Natividad bounced around in her seat to face Sheriff Pearson more directly. “No?”

“No,” said the sheriff with finality. “He won't lose his temper and kill me, and he won't hurt my daughter to punish me. Grayson doesn't scare me: I dealt with Thos Korte for years, and Grayson's no Thos Korte. Thank God.” He negotiated a sharp curve; the vehicle lurched and swayed, thumped over an unseen obstacle, and eased onto a part of the road that was thankfully both straight and nearly level. There was more light now, but the snow whirling through the air made it hard to see. That didn't seem to bother the sheriff. He said, “He
will
help Cass–”