Black Dog Short Stories (12 page)

     “But . . . this isn’t punishment.”

     Grayson tilted his head slightly. “As I understand it, the appropriate punishment for a job well done is another job. In one month, when the moon again approaches full, I believe I will send you to Columbus on an assignment very similar to this one. With Ethan.”

     Thaddeus stared at him, taken utterly by surprise. “A job
well
done? Me and
Ethan
?”

     “As my nephew, Ethan understands in his blood and bones that he has the right to decide his own course when operating independently. He can teach you that. But he’ll never match your strength. He needs to learn to accept that. Which he will find far easier without witnesses. So:  you and he together can clear Columbus. You can work that entire circuit:  Columbus to Indianapolis to Nashville, then back around through North Carolina and Virginia. I’ll have Ezekiel meet you in D.C. and direct operations there; D.C.’s always a mess and hardly less so even without the vampires and their blood kin. I will expect a complete report following that tour. Including the full disclosure of any unexpected impulses you experience along the way to spare random black dogs.”

     Thaddeus didn’t know what to say.

     “Also, Ethan is a good choice to help you with your control. He won’t lose his. His temper, possibly. But you will find it easier to train for better control with fewer witnesses, I imagine. Thus, an independent mission fills that requirement as well.”  Grayson looked Thaddeus up and down, thoughtfully. “You have far more control than an ordinary stray. But that’s primarily to your wife’s credit, not to yours. Your control is inadequate when your shadow is strong and you are upset. You must do better. So. We will draw your shadow up again now. This time, I expect you to put it down without my help. If you fail, I will indeed punish you. Do you understand?”

     Thaddeus understood. That threat was meant to scare him and make him angry, so that he would have to work hard to control his Beast. But it felt too familiar to be very effective. It was a lot like the way his father had trained him. Training, Thaddeus could handle. He was determined that this time, he would succeed.

     Thaddeus could handle his Beast. He could handle Ethan Lanning, too. He could handle anything the Dimilioc Master handed him and come back for more, and he was going to prove it. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I’m ready.”

     Ezekiel knelt amid overgrown forsythia and shadows, watching the girl on the bench. Her name was Melanie Manteufel. She was pretty, if not beautiful. She had a broad forehead and wide-set gray eyes, a slightly snub nose and a generous mouth. She was also the sort of girl who lit up with genuine pleasure when she met a friend or a stranger, which gave her a different and rarer kind of beauty.

     Ezekiel did not remember a time when he had not desired her. But at the turning of the year, Melanie had announced—blushing and shy and delighted with herself—that she and Daniel Hammond would marry in the coming spring. This spring. In June, now just a few short months away.

     Daniel Hammond.

     Ezekiel had always known that Melanie was more important to him than he was to her. Everyone loved Melanie. For him it was different. Everyone but Melanie was afraid of him.

     He had known he was too young for her. But a year, two years, that difference in ages became less important as people got older. He had been willing to wait. He had been willing to wait, and hope no one else won her in the meantime. He had intended to begun courting her this spring. He’d had it all planned out: flowers and little attentions and the surety that no one else could protect her as well as he could.

     And then, Daniel.

     Daniel.

     It had never crossed Ezekiel’s mind that Melanie might choose a man like Daniel Hammond—a cousin from the town, an ordinary human with neither strength of his own nor position within Dimilioc, and besides that seven years older than her. Ezekiel had known he had many rivals, but he had never guessed
Daniel
might be among them.

     When she’d made the announcement, he’d known that if he had said anything, he would say too much, and so he had said nothing at all. But he thought of that midwinter announcement and the coming wedding whenever he looked at Melanie, and could not entirely keep away from her.

     Now they were both in Madison, alone together for the first time since her proud announcement, and Ezekiel was not entirely certain he knew how to handle this. Dimilioc law was clear: it was her choice. But did the law mean he wasn’t allowed to court her a little anyway, maybe try to get her to change her mind?

     This was Melanie’s first visit to Madison. Ezekiel’s, as well, but he was accustomed to travel and she was not. They had arrived only two days before, on the same plane, at four in the afternoon, with an east wind spitting icy drizzle from the overcast sky. Ezekiel had followed her off the plane, and he had continued to follow her since: sometimes closely and sometimes at a greater distance, but always taking care to stay unobtrusive. He was good at that, but then he was good at many things.

     Yesterday the skies had been clearing, but the wind that had driven out the clouds had been bitter. Even so, Melanie had walked for some time along the city streets with evidently no consciousness of potential hazard, though most of the neighborhoods she visited were dangerous. Today was much more pleasant, so perhaps it was not surprising she should stroll around the city from dawn until dusk, until at last she alighted on that park bench where daffodils and pink tulips bloomed between the clump of forsythia. This was not in fact a very safe area, but the park was pretty and, a girl who was a recent arrival in the city might not know that.

     Ezekiel knew it very well. To him, the very air smelled of anger and dry ash, burnt clay and desperation. The earth of the little park was permeated by the metallic tang of fear and blood, scents that were growing stronger as the sun began to dip down below the jagged horizon of the city. Ezekiel breathed slowly and deeply, appreciating the exciting aromas.

     Before him, Melanie sighed, glancing at the lowering sun. For a moment she gazed at the moon, near full, which was already visible in the sky, though pale and nearly transparent in the lingering light. She tucked a foot up under her other thigh, and reached for her sketchpad.

     The first black dog burst from a narrow alleyway on the other side of the street and hurled himself toward the woman, closely followed by a second. They were huge, not actually much like dogs: far too big even for mastiffs, black claws too long and too sharp for any dog—to experienced eyes, they didn’t look like any natural animal at all. Their skulls was broad, their muzzles blunt and set with savage fangs as black as their claws; their eyes blazed with red fire. They separated as they rushed forward, coming at Melanie from two directions at once—more teamwork than one expected from stray black dogs. One lunged up and over a parked car, leaving gouges and slashes not just in the paintwork, but also in the metal itself.

     Melanie tucked herself down against the arm of the bench, her arms wrapped tight around her legs, her face pressed against her knees. She didn’t make a sound.

     Ezekiel was moving almost before the first black dog had lunged into the open. His shadow moved with him and around him, clinging to him, wanting to rise. He let it come, let the change take him, hot and furious; the new grasses charred and smoked where his feet fell. His claws tore the earth.

     Both black dogs had stopped in the middle of the street, rearing up on their hind legs, snarling, trying to frighten Melanie and make her run. They knew she was Pure; any black dog would smell her Purity. They hated her and longed to kill her, but they also wanted the helpless flight of doomed prey to sweeten the blood. Melanie still did not move, but the black dogs were not experienced enough to wonder why. They were far too focused on their prey to sense Ezekiel.

     He took the first with one blow, his claws tearing through shaggy pelt and muscle and ripping across the spine: the surest blow for an instant kill. The black dog screamed, black ichor and then red blood spraying as his body twisted into human form, one limb and then another, half his face and then the rest, grotesquely piecemeal. The great, smoky cloud of his shadow rose free, struggling to cling to the dying human body but unable to retain purchase, dispersing in the air. The human who had hosted it within his soul, of course, was simply dead.

     The second black dog swung around, slashing. He was fast and strong, but Ezekiel simply ducked, folding himself down into his much smaller human form, letting the black dog’s blow whip over his head, then letting his shadow rise again. The black dog had not expected to miss his strike and found himself seriously overextended.

     Ezekiel would have liked to play with his prey for a little while—he, too, relished the chase and the hunt and the kill—but Melanie would not like to watch such sport. So he tore out the black dog’s throat and three of his cervical vertebrae with one economical blow. Then he dismissed his own shadow and stood back as this black dog, dying, writhed and twisted into his human form.

     “You let them get too close,” Melanie said, not looking up. Her voice didn’t shake, but her body trembled with reaction.

     Ezekiel was amused. “How would you know? You didn’t watch. You never watch.”

     “I felt them.” The woman cautiously lifted her head, flinching from the bodies that lay contorted and human in the street. “Oh, God. Just kids. Poor boys.”

     Ezekiel lifted a contemptuous eyebrow. “Strays. Savages. They don’t deserve your pity.”

     “But they do. They never had training, never had the
Beschwichtigand
, never even knew their shadows
could
be controlled. Born to the wrong mothers—”

     “Whom they probably killed.”

     “Probably. Poor things.” She might have meant the mothers or the dead black dogs. She likely meant both. She got to her feet, stiffly. She rubbed her eyes hard, then dropped her hands and looked up at the red-streaked sky. To Ezekiel, the red looked like blood. He had no idea what the sky looked like to Melanie.

     She  said again, “You let them get way too close to me.”

     Ezekiel wanted to go to her, touch her shoulder. More than her shoulder—killing put him in the mood. But she wouldn’t welcome even a friend’s touch from him now, and certainly not more. She’d made her choice, and it hadn’t been him. He stood still. But he said, “I let them get exactly close enough. I would never have let them touch you. But I’m sorry if you were frightened.”

     “I wasn’t frightened,” Melanie said, though she must know Ezekiel could tell she lied. She didn’t look at him. “I want to go home.”

     “Soon. One more.”

     “We should forget the last stray,” she protested, though she followed obediently when he turned and walked away. “That one’s been quiet enough. Who cares about him, as long as he doesn’t kill a lot of people, make headlines, stir things up? We could just go straight to the airport, be home by morning . . . ” her tone was wistful.

     Ezekiel said, not quite politely, “And will
you
explain to Thos why we left a stray roaming free in this city, or would you leave that to me?” He tried to smother his annoyance. She was Pure. Her hesitancy wasn’t her fault. But she knew they couldn’t leave Madison with the job unfinished. He wanted to snap at her. He wanted to grab her, shake her, shout at her. He moved a step farther away from her instead.

     “I know,” Melanie said, not quite coherently. “I
know
, all right?”

     “Only one more. We’ll do him tonight, go to the airport right after. We can still be home tomorrow.” He couldn’t quite stop himself from adding, “Daniel will be glad to see you, I’m sure.”

     Melanie didn’t exactly flinch, but she darted a glance at his face and away.

     Ezekiel wasn’t quite sure how to read that glance. He looked away. In the near distance, sirens wailed. He put out a hand, not quite touching Melanie’s arm, gesturing her toward a parked car.

     “That belongs to someone,” she said, not very firmly.

     Ezekiel lifted an eyebrow. “Not even you care. Whoever owns it, we need it more. You’re too tired to walk any farther tonight.” Ezekiel cut through the lock with a delicately elongated claw of sharp-edged shadow, reached across to unlock the passenger-side door, and went around to lift the hood and hotwire the ignition. The sirens approached, but several streets over: not an immediate concern. He got in behind the wheel and glanced sidelong at Melanie. “You have our direction?”

     “Yes, yes . . . I will. Just a minute . . .” she had taken a small hand mirror out of her back pocket, the glass shimmering with silvery light. A
trouvez
. She’d done the finding magic the same night they’d arrived in Madison; it was still halfway in place. She passed her hand across the mirror and peered into it. “Left up there at the light.”

     “Left?” Ezekiel was surprised: left would take them toward one of the decent parts of Madison, not the dismal mostly-deserted streets in which he’d have expected to find a stray black dog. But Melanie gave him an impatient shrug, so he said nothing more, but turned left and left the sirens behind.

     Madison’s remaining stray proved to be very little like the brutes who had attacked Melanie. He was a little older: thirty at least. That was surprising. They died young, these wild black dogs who had never learned control and had no idea of Dimilioc law. Until they broke it too egregiously, of course, and found the Dimilioc executioner suddenly behind them.

     This black dog was not only older than the other strays, he actually looked more or less civilized. He was a tall man with a bony, angular face. He wore good jeans and a plain white tee-shirt. He could have passed both for nearly human and nearly respectable in almost any company. And he was in human form, despite the nearly full moon, which explained why he’d never come to Dimilioc’s attention: he plainly had a good deal more control than most strays.

     The black dog plainly knew what Melanie was as soon as he opened his front door and caught her scent, but though she backed away fast to draw him out, he didn’t let his shadow up and he didn’t attack her. Instead, he looked past her immediately, nostrils flaring, obviously looking for Ezekiel. He found him, too, amid the ordinary shadows of the night, though Ezekiel had expected to strike unseen as the black dog came out into the night after Melanie.

     Since he’d been spotted, however, Ezekiel met the black dog’s eyes and smiled.

     The black dog’s hand closed so hard on the edge of his door that the wood cracked. He’d had a black dog father to teach him, Ezekiel surmised—unusual, but sometimes a stray black dog actually raised a son rather than abandoning him. Whatever the story might have been, this man plainly knew who Ezekiel was: the Dimilioc executioner, who showed no mercy to Dimilioc’s enemies. Ezekiel Korte, who for three years now had been Thos Korte’s killer.

     This black dog had sense enough not to fight and control enough not to run. He backed up instead, wordlessly yielding his place in the doorway as Ezekiel walked forward. He backed farther, down the hallway and into a dimly lit living room with a carpet that was old but clean, a single leather recliner, a small table holding a sweating bottle of beer, and, to one side, an ancient black-and-white television, the picture flickering. The sound was on, but turned very low. A paperback book lay open, face down on the arm of the chair. Ezekiel couldn’t read the title.