Pure Magic (Black Dog Book 3) (6 page)

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
.

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.