Pure Magic (Black Dog Book 3) (22 page)

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.

“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.