Black Dog Short Stories III
Black Dog Short Stories III
Black Dog, Volume 6
Rachel Neumeier
Published by Anara Publishing, 2018
Contents
Baptism by Fire
If you've read SHADOW TWIN, you may be wondering what Cassie wasn't telling Miguel during their text exchanges. It turns out that while Miguel and the rest dealt with disaster out west, quite a lot was going on back home ...
Bigfoot
Something near Dimilioc is killing livestock and leaving strange tracks. It's probably not Bigfoot ... but it might be something even more surprising, and much scarier.
Tommy
A year ago, Thaddeus spared the life of a young black dog kid in Chicago. He even invited the boy to make his way to Dimilioc. It was a memorable incident. Certainly for the kid, who did not forget about that invitation.
Errand of Mercy
Ezekiel never makes friends with anyone. Certainly not outside Dimilioc. Yet an unexpected call for help sparks an equally unexpected urge to go far out his way to lend a hand ...
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to real people, places, or events is entirely coincidental.
Black Dog Short Stories III
First edition 2018
Copyright © 2018 Rachel Neumeier
Written by Rachel Neumeier
Cover art and design © by WillowRaven 2018
Praise for 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
Baptism by Fire
This short novella takes place concurrently with Shadow Twin.
The Master of Dimilioc had to deal with an ungodly amount of paperwork.
Not that this was a revelation, of course. Ethan had been responsible for his share of that paperwork for quite some time. Just not, as it turned out, the most boring, fiddly bits. The financial statements were particularly tedious. Finances were best left to an accountant Dimilioc paid to handle them, that was Ethan’s opinion; and if somebody had to check all the statements, then somebody human would surely be a better choice than any impatient, easily irritated black dog.
Losing so many of their human kin during the war had hurt Dimilioc almost as much as losing so many wolves. Ethan had known that perfectly well. He knew it better when he had to review and file the damned financial statements.
The reports of possible black dogs here and there around the country and around the world were a lot more interesting. Unfortunately, there wasn’t damn-all Ethan could do about any of them, other than prioritize them so Grayson could hit them in some reasonable order when he got back.
There was some strange kind of serial killer in Florida that probably wasn’t a black dog, but might be something supernatural. The killer seemed stronger than a normal human, plus parts tended to get eaten, plus whatever person discovered the bodies tended to become the next victim. Not a black dog; no black dog would stalk prey in anything like that fashion, and the kills just didn’t seem like black dog work. But people in the area were scared. Ethan started a file for Weird Crap with that on the top. Dealing with it—being seen to deal with it—might be a good idea, and better sooner than later.
Next most urgent was a single probable black dog killing in Indiana. Everything about that was ordinary, but it wasn’t something to let slide. Let it go and they’d probably get more killings that were unmistakably black dog work. That would be pretty bad for Dimilioc’s public image even if they got credit for stopping whatever was going on in Florida. The aim these days was to prevent bloody slaughter—and to be seen preventing it.
In a lot of ways, it’d been easier back before Dimilioc had a public image.
Well, no way to put that big shaggy demonic monster back in the bag now.
All the schedules for the various circuits had had to be put on hold, obviously, when Grayson took half of Dimilioc’s wolves off west. Everything piling up was going to require quite a juggling act to sort out. Especially since any schedule had to allow not just for black wolves who were definitely trustworthy, but also those who might get iffy notions in their heads when they were out on their own. Then teams had to be assembled where one, or better two, trustworthy wolves could definitely hold onto authority and make sure the rest followed orders and returned without trouble. Was this the time to try a particular so-called Dimilioc wolf, see if he could follow orders and keep a civilized attitude and stay out of trouble and come back? They all had to be put to that test eventually, but should that important test come now or later for this one or that one?
They’d lose ground for sure, especially if Grayson and his team were gone for any length of time. Probably they’d have to let the southern loop go for now and never mind whatever weird supernatural crap might have turned up in Tampa. Or maybe someone could make a real fast trip down there just for that, leave the rest of the southern loop for later. Yeah, that would probably be better. Ethan set it up in his suggested schedule. The Florida thing probably ought to include someone Pure in case something seriously unusual had to be sorted out. Ethan’s choice for dealing with weird crap would be Natividad, provided nothing happened to her out west.
He had to operate on the assumption nothing too awful would happen to anyone out west. Otherwise sheer terror at the size of the job he’d taken on would fall on top of him like a metric crap-ton of bricks. Ethan made a brief, firm notation: Natividad with Ezekiel and Alejandro and—why not—himself, to check out the Florida weirdness. High priority as soon as everyone was back.
If it actually took any time at all to sort out whatever problem had come down on Ezekiel out west, Dimilioc might possibly have to set the whole southeast aside for six months or a year in order to keep a solid enough grip on the Northeast and upper Midwest. That idea would definitely piss Grayson off. But it might be necessary.
Well, but. Maybe there were alternatives to abandoning the southeast. Maybe it would serve to hit specific cities instead of taking the whole loop. Ethan started to make up a bulleted list of the most important missions that might serve to assert Dimilioc’s continued authority in the south and southeast with an absolute minimum of time and effort.
Ethan didn’t want the vampires back—but he had to admit, losing the miasma was very damned inconvenient. So was trying to keep things together with so few Dimilioc wolves, and so few of those truly solid.
It was just luck everyone had been here at the house when Natividad had her little moment. Ethan was particularly glad Thaddeus had been here, and that Grayson had left him behind when he’d taken half of Dimilioc’s remaining wolves charging off into the sunset to rescue Ezekiel.
Rescue Ezekiel. There was a phrase one didn’t expect to use very damn often. What a thought. It would almost have been funny, except trying to imagine what kind of enemy could have captured Ezekiel Korte—not even killed him, but captured him—that wasn’t funny at all.
Ethan sighed and disciplined his thoughts sternly toward the task at hand. What would Grayson do with the resources at hand? Hard to decide. Honestly, working out scheduling issues was the sort of chore that ought to be handed off to someone patient, someone methodical, someone who actually liked messing around with this kind of detail. In other words, someone human.
Not far away, someone shouted—Russell, by the sound of it—and someone else started cussing up a storm—that sounded like Max, or both Andrew and Max—and someone else screamed, it sounded like Cassie, who was not the type and also was supposed to be in the library looking up stuff about witches.
By the time all this flicked through his mind, Ethan had already dropped his pen and wa
s on his feet and moving. He could already pretty well guess from the tone of the altercation that it wasn’t an actual attack by actual enemies, which meant it was probably some damn fool stunt. He was actually prepared to be pleased about the interruption, depending on just what the hell was going on.
As it turned out, he wasn’t pleased at all.
Oh, it wasn’t going to be too difficult to get the situation under control—probably. Violence was always a little unpredictable, but in this particular case Ethan was pretty sure he could recite the whole damn play line by line. But when he figured out what was actually going on, he was pissed as hell.
The whole scenario was obvious the moment he got outside. Max, handling kitchen duties, had come to tell the men working out here that lunch was ready—Ethan hadn’t realized it was that late in the day, but yeah, the sun was nearly overhead. Despite the cold Cass Pearson was outside too, joining her father for a few minutes to check out the work the men were doing. Mostly hard, uncomfortable work: black dogs—the Meade brothers—digging lots of little holes in the frozen ground and then human men—the sheriff’s guys—seating lots of DeAnn’s special little devices in the holes and covering them up again with broken earth and snow and sorting out where to dig more holes. DeAnn’s little things ought to give any enemy that might turn up in the next couple of days a really warm welcome.
That was all fine. But instead of saying thank you and heading in for a bite to eat before getting back to their job, the Meade brothers had obviously figured they’d get a jumpstart on their afternoon’s work by forcing Max to pick up a mattock and shovel and do some of the digging.
Of course it’d be the Meade brothers. Probably Andrew Meade had come up with that bright idea; he was the younger of the two brothers and not as strong as Russell, but he was too damn cunning without being especially smart. Just the type to get ideas without thinking too much about long-term consequences, and way too often Russell followed his brother’s lead.
So, yeah, Max had undoubtedly refused—very reasonably; he had his own work to do—and from what was going on now, the Meade brothers had obviously decided to make him obey. So far so stupid, but nothing out of the ordinary for idiot black dogs raised as strays, who just had to turn everything into a pissing contest and had no idea when to give it a rest.
But instead of a perfectly reasonable physical fight, Russell was trying to force Max to submit with the strength of his shadow and the force of his will. Russell wasn’t generally the type to get into that much trouble, so yeah, Ethan was pretty sure Andrew had got that going. Now the situation wasn’t good. Forcing obedience like that was how little shadow packs formed outside Dimilioc; it was strictly against Dimilioc law for anyone but the Master or the highest ranking black wolves to force their will on someone that way, which both of those damn-fool Meade brothers knew perfectly well.
Then it had gotten worse. Max had obviously tried to fight free of Russell’s domination, but he didn’t have the strength—the two Meade brothers had no doubt enjoyed rubbing his nose in that fact. And Sheriff Pearson, who ought to have known better, surely did know better, than to get in the middle of a black dog argument, wasn’t the kind of man to let the Meade brothers indulge their petty cruelty in front of him. That had pretty well shoved the whole situation right into the crapper, because Andrew had obviously moved to physically force Pearson to submit. No wonder Cassie had screamed. Ethan didn’t blame her a bit. Andrew had the sheriff by the back of the neck and had shoved him to the ground, grinding his face against the snow and frozen dirt, which was so totally against Dimilioc custom and law Ethan had trouble believing even Andrew was ass enough to think he could get away with it.
Andrew hadn’t realized yet that all three of the sheriff’s men had drawn their weapons—which was damn stupid and careless of him because even from this distance Ethan could tell those guns were loaded with silver bullets. But Andrew was grinning viciously down at Pearson, focused on the human man’s helplessness. In about one more second he was going to realize he had a lot of guns pointed at him and then who knew whether he’d have the sense to back down. If he didn’t, he’d probably get shot, but not before he crushed Pearson’s neck.
Ethan could just see it happen. Damn sure it’d tear up the trust that had to exist between Dimilioc and every ordinary person in Lewis and the whole county. He could just imagine what Grayson would say. Or, no, actually he did not want to imagine what his uncle would say.
What a mess.
Time to collect everyone’s attention. Especially Andrew’s.
He drew up his shadow enough to put thunder in his voice and roared, “What the hell is going on out here? Andrew, get your hands off him or I will wrap you up in silver, stake you out under the full moon, and let Cassie take you apart. What the hell is this?”
Andrew sneered, darting a glance at Russell to be sure he had his brother’s support. Which he seemed to, because this was not Russell’s day to be smart, plainly. Russell swung around, forgetting Max in a sudden, hard effort to force Ethan into submission—which he could probably do; he had the strength and neither Thaddeus nor Don was here to take backup. Max backed away and started to shift, but all Russell’s attention was on Ethan.
Ethan felt the pressure of his own shadow, and the growing pressure to submit. But he’d spent his whole life around black wolves who made Russell look like a puppy. Maybe Russell could force him down, but not nearly as easily as he’d forced Max into submission. Ethan had seconds, maybe minutes, to turn this situation around. So he strode toward the Meade brothers, fast and aggressive, taking the most powerful, dominant attitude he could and pretending he felt no pressure at all. He was even glad to draw their attention because Andrew did let Pearson go, which meant Pearson had a chance to roll away, jerk convulsively to his feet, and take several fast steps back. The sheriff had his gun in his hand now, no surprise there; his cheek was scraped raw and his nose bloody and the expression in his eyes was absolutely lethal.
Ethan could just imagine explaining to Grayson how he’d managed to let the relationship between Lewis and Dimilioc get totally FUBARed by these Meade idiots. He could just imagine explaining how Thaddeus had had to rescue him and take over as acting Master because Ethan had just not been able to manage.
He did not plan to explain anything of the kind.
He just barely managed to suppress a snarl of satisfaction as Russell rushed to meet him and Andrew swung out to one side, planning to tear him up once Russell had him down. Both of them were shifting, not very fast about it. Ethan could’ve shifted a lot faster. He didn’t, though. Instead, the moment Russell got close enough, he snatched a carefully prepared packet out of his jacket pocket and flung it into the stronger wolf’s face. Finely powdered silver exploded into the air as the packet burst, coating Russell’s face and neck and arms, dusting his shirt harmlessly but burning coldly where it clung to his skin.
Russell recoiled, forced abruptly back into fully human form. He wiped ineffectually at his face, making a noise between a snarl and a whimper, then dropped to his knees to grab up handfuls of snow and try to scrub the silver dust off that way. Max, now almost fully shifted, started forward, and that was one problem taken care of. Possibly to be replaced with a different problem, but at the moment Ethan barely cared whether Russell lived out the next minute.
Except he intended to hand Dimilioc back to his uncle intact.
So—“Don’t kill him,” Ethan told Max, snapping the order out with a confidence that assumed obedience. But he didn’t watch to see what would happen on that side. He was already turning. There was an instant, already past, in which Andrew had hesitated, decided, and crouched to attack.
Without a word, Ethan shot the fool in the gut twice, paused, and, as Andrew’s shadow took the injuries and left him in human form, shot him once more, carefully, this time in the knee. Andrew collapsed, screaming shrilly. His shadow would take that injury too, but not yet, not for some moments; he couldn’t shift back and forth f
ast enough to get rid of that wound right this instant. So.
Ethan turned unhurriedly to assess the situation with Russell. Max had that all under control, one heavy forefoot pinning Russell down, jaw dropped open with vicious black dog amusement. Russell was starting to panic, unable to get up, unable to wipe away the powdered silver, unable to shift, painful-looking blisters rising all over his face and throat and arms. Not much like the confident, strong black dog who’d thought the rules stopped applying the moment the Master was out of the way.
Ethan stuck the gun in its holster, shrugged his jacket back over it, and took out the other items he’d tucked away for just this sort of incident. He’d gotten them from Ezekiel’s suite, damn straight clearing it with his uncle first because assuming Ezekiel turned out to be all right, he did not want to have Dimilioc’s executioner pissed at his intrusion.
Heavy silver bands with a good leather backing: as long as someone had the foresight to get a Pure woman to blood them for him, wristbands like this were just the thing to lock a recalcitrant black dog into human form for a while. Just the ticket to take an arrogant black wolf down a few pegs.
Ethan didn’t say a word, just bent and clamped one heavy band around each of Russell’s wrists. Then he said to Max, “Take him in, take him to his room, throw him in the shower. He needs to rinse all that silver off before the burns get too bad; don’t delay no matter how mad you are. There’s burn ointment in the Master’s office, first drawer of the desk. Get that for him. Let him change clothes. Then I want him back out here doing his job. If he gives you any trouble, you are welcome to beat the crap out of him. Otherwise hands off. Understand?”