Black Dog Short Stories Read online

  “Thos won’t punish you for anything,” Ezekiel said flatly. He meant that he was Dimilioc’s executioner and he wouldn’t carry out any such order. He meant more than that: he wouldn’t permit anyone else to punish her either. Not even Thos Korte himself. He touched her hand: not a black dog gesture, but the kind of gesture a human might use to reassure a friend—a gesture he’d learned from Melanie, in fact.

  And she was reassured. She understood what he had not quite said, or else the gesture was the right one. Her heartbeat, which had picked up, slowed nearly to normal. She laid a hand on his arm, drawing reassurance from that touch—the only woman in the world who would. “All right,” she said. “All right. Into the black wolf’s den, I guess . . .”

  But Thos hadn’t heard or didn’t care about the details of the Madison run. He listened without changing expression as Ezekiel reported, briefly, that the black dog problem in that city had been dealt with.

  “Good,” he said, without much apparent interest. “Four cities cleaned up this month. We shall assume the stray population properly cowed for the present. Write a report for Zachariah.” Zachariah was Ezekiel’s uncle, Thos Korte’s brother, and the man responsible for tracking blood kin and black dog strays.

  “Now,” said Thos. “Sit down. We shall discuss an unrelated matter of possibly greater immediate importance.” He paused.

  “Master?” Ezekiel asked politely, in case Thos was waiting for that acknowledgment. The disinterested tone was not reassuring. Thos sounded like that when he expected trouble. It was impossible to guess, now, what kind of trouble the Master expected, or why.

  The Master of Dimilioc was a tall, thin, colorless man who sounded exactly the same whether he was barely paying attention or about to tear out someone’s throat. He did that, sometimes, to a black wolf who defied him. Sometimes he did it himself and sometimes he ordered his executioner to do it. Thos liked to have the world fear his executioner. The Master was a great believer in Machiavelli’s dictum about love and fear. Ordinarily Ezekiel approved. But Ezekiel knew Melanie was afraid, too, now. That, he did not like at all.

  “Where’s Daniel?” Melanie asked abruptly. She was perched on the edge of her chair.

  Ezekiel glanced at her, surprised. It had not occurred to him to wonder.

  Thos did not seem surprised at all. Nor did he seem disturbed by Melanie’s sharpness, though he would never have permitted any Dimilioc wolf to speak to him in that tone. He said briefly, “Downstairs. Be quiet. Sit down and listen.”

  Melanie, who had jumped to her feet and opened her mouth, sank back again. She darted a look at Ezekiel: appeal and something else. Fear. Not for herself. For Daniel. Because if her fiancé had somehow offended Thos Korte, then whatever he had done and whatever punishment Thos had decreed, it was very likely Ezekiel who would punish him.

  “I don’t care for disturbance in the house,” Thos said, which was even true. He didn’t like disturbance and he didn’t allow it. He simply demanded total, unquestioning compliance from everyone, black wolf or human or Pure. He said to Melanie, “Daniel is not being punished. He is simply a guarantor of your cooperation. A match with a human man is, of course, an absolute waste of a Pure woman.”

  He had said this before, when Melanie had announced that she would marry Daniel. But Ezekiel had believed the Master of Dimilioc had accepted her choice, as Dimilioc law required. Now he didn’t know what to believe.

  “Your children by Ezekiel would be far more valuable,” Thos said, his tone flat. “You may marry Daniel: I don’t care. But first you will bear a black dog son and a Pure daughter to Ezekiel. So that there will be no confusion as to the parentage of your children, I will release Daniel only when we are certain you are carrying. If you want him free, I suggest a certain alacrity about your duty.”

  Melanie stared at the Master, white and still, utterly wordless.

  Thos said to Ezekiel, “You have her until she’s bearing. Then Daniel can have her until she delivers the child, do you understand? I will not have any trouble over that, is that clear? You may take her again once she bears the first child, until she gives you at least one black dog son and at least one Pure daughter. Is that clear?”

  It was very clear. Ezekiel looked at Melanie.

  She stared back. Then she jumped to her feet. “No!”

  “Be quiet,” Thos ordered her, without emphasis. He gestured to Ezekiel, a small movement of one finger, disinterested command. “Take her away before she has hysterics. Get her pregnant. Tonight, preferably. Don’t forget that report, however. Go.”

  Ezekiel closed a hand around Melanie’s wrist, hard enough to stop the flooding outrage in her eyes before she could give it voice. The outrage turned to fear when he touched her. He did not let go.

  She did not have hysterics. She didn’t shout or scream or fight him. He was grateful for that. Fear was so seductive; a struggle far more so. Melanie’s furious calm made it much easier to let her go once they were clear of the Master’s office.

  “Go see Daniel,” Ezekiel told her.

  Melanie took several steps backward, bumped into the wall, stopped, and glared at him. “I won’t do it! He has no right!”

  “He’s the Master of Dimilioc—”

  “I’ll leave—I’ll never come back, I’ll tell Carolyn and Hannah and Beth, see how he likes losing all of Dimilioc’s Pure women—”

  “And Daniel?”

  She stopped dead. A guarantor of your cooperation, Thos Korte had said. They both knew exactly what that meant. Melanie opened her mouth, and closed it again.

  Ezekiel knew exactly what she had meant to say, and exactly why she had stopped. She had started to demand—ask—beg, that he let Daniel out of the cage downstairs. She had stopped because he was the Master’s executioner. If she defied Thos, it was Ezekiel whom Thos would order to punish Daniel. And she thought he would do it, because she knew, she had to know, that Ezekiel wanted her. She thought Ezekiel would be glad to punish Daniel just for that, if once Thos gave him the excuse. She might even be right: Ezekiel wasn’t entirely certain himself. She stared at him in helpless silence.

  “Go see Daniel,” Ezekiel repeated. “I’ll write that report. I’ll expect you, later. I’ll order a late supper for two. For eight o’clock. And you’ll join me for it. Won’t you?”

  “Yes,” she whispered. She had lowered her eyes, which might be merely caution, but from her probably meant that she was trying to hide her fury and fear. She couldn’t, of course. Both were as evident to a black dog as though she had shouted aloud.

  “This is not worth risking the Master’s anger,” he told her sharply. “You know I won’t hurt you.” But he wasn’t even sure himself whether he meant that as reassurance or as a plea for her understanding.

  She backed away, one step and another; then turned and fled.

  Ezekiel wrote the Madison report quickly and casually. He was mostly thinking about Melanie, and about Thos Korte, and a little about Daniel. He had little patience for reports. But he wrote it because Thos had ordered him to write it.

  Six double-spaced pages of dry facts: arrived on such-and-such a date, used recent newspaper headlines to locate the hunting territories of the uncontrolled black dogs, narrowed the searches with Melanie’s trouvez. Confirmed there would be no need to trespass on blood kin territory to take out the black dogs—not a surprise, that last, because if a black dog was stupid enough to make a nuisance of himself in blood kin territory, there wasn’t likely to be any need to send the Dimilioc executioner after him. Dates and numbers of black dogs killed, names where Ezekiel had been able to make a reasonable guess. Trouvez confirmation that the city had been cleared out.

  Then he glanced over the report once more to make sure it looked quick and casual throughout, and also to make sure he hadn’t been so distracted as to include any hint that he’d hidden an extra black dog stray between the lines.

  Then Ezekiel printed and stapled the report, found a folder to give it official heft, an
d went to find Zachariah. He could have emailed it, of course. Ordinarily he would have emailed it. He wasn’t even sure why he had printed a hard copy, except that he discovered he longed for an excuse to leave his apartment. He wanted to move, to run, to fight; at least he could walk from one wing of the house to the other, climb two flights of stairs, and hand-deliver the damned report.

  And then, possibly he wanted to leave his rooms because he looked forward to Melanie being there when he got back.

  Zachariah Korte possessed a generous apartment on the third floor of the house. Ezekiel took the stairs two at a time and strode down the wide hallway that led to that apartment, paying very little attention to his surroundings. He was still thinking about Melanie. He was angry—any black dog was often angry, but he did not know why he was angry this time, or at whom. He had wanted her, and he would have her. No one could argue that Thos was wrong about the waste of a Pure woman bearing her children to a mere human man . . .

  “. . . problem is Ezekiel,” said Zachariah’s voice, clearly audible to black dog ears even through a closed door.

  Hearing his own name caught Ezekiel’s attention, and that problem is Ezekiel was certainly fraught. He stopped dead in the hallway, listening.

  “I can’t take him,” Zachariah said to someone unseen. His voice was light, cool, sardonic, unmoved. He might have been chatting about the weather, about the menu for supper, about whether the servants dusted thoroughly enough. But what he said was, “None of us can take Ezekiel. Not one on one; not two on one; possibly not even all of us together. But if it came to a serious fight, I think he might hesitate to kill me. I might be able to slow him down.”

  “Well, that’s fine then, as long as you can slow him down,” growled a rougher, deeper voice. Harrison Lanning, sounding thoroughly exasperated.

  In the privacy of the hallway, Ezekiel lifted an ironic eyebrow. But then a woman’s voice exclaimed, “I don’t want anybody killing anybody!” and Ezekiel, startled to realize Melanie was also there, eased forward a soundless step before he even realized he had moved.

  A third man spoke: a deep, gritty voice, but not quite so heavy as Harrison’s. “A killing battle is coming, whether or not any of us wants it. The question is, who will do the dying? If it comes now, most likely that will be us.”

  Grayson Lanning, of course. Grayson and Harrison Lanning and Zachariah Korte: a triumvirate of powerful black wolves; the only Dimilioc wolves who might possibly challenge Thos Korte. Ezekiel didn’t know whether he felt like laughing or swearing. Of course Melanie had gone to Grayson Lanning. Who else would anybody in Dimilioc go to, when they found themselves in trouble with Thos?

  That had started years ago, when Ezekiel had been just a kid and Grayson not much over twenty. Grayson had interceded for a stupid black pup who’d lost his head and accidentally killed a townsman. He’d gotten Thos to let him teach the youngster proper control rather than simply killing him. Then Grayson had taken over the broader duty of teaching the pups rather than leaving the job, as tradition dictated, to their fathers. No one had objected, especially after it became obvious that the youngsters he trained almost always did develop excellent control.

  Ezekiel, fatherless, only ten years old at the time, had been one of the youngsters who had benefited most from Grayson’s teaching—one of the few to surpass his teacher’s control. Soon he had surpassed anyone’s level of control. Very soon after that he had realized what a tremendous advantage this gave him. Then Thos Korte had realized it. Ezekiel had become Dimilioc’s executioner while still in his teens, unprecedented for such a young black wolf, but no one had objected. No one had dared object.

  Grayson Lanning held no such formal position, but eventually Ezekiel had realized that a new take-your-problems-to-Grayson tradition had appeared within Dimilioc at about the same time. It made sense. Grayson had trained so many of the younger black wolves. They knew he would be fair, and calm, and would never lose his temper unless you deserved it. Besides, no one in his right mind would take a problem to Thos. So Ezekiel dealt mostly with problems only after they became too serious for the Dimilioc Master to ignore, and Grayson Lanning mostly kept problems from becoming that serious, and Thos Korte either didn’t notice Grayson’s increasing influence or else was too confident of his own strength to care.

  Then Grayson killed a female black dog.

  She was from Germany, one of three Gehorsam cousins who had come to Dimilioc to discuss some kind of high level business with Thos Korte. But Ursula Gehorsam had, it seemed, an unfortunate inclination to indulge her shadow’s natural sadism, and she liked to use the human servants for that indulgence. Of course that was forbidden, but Thos did not want to offend Gehorsam. He refused to notice the problem. Grayson had not ignored it. Ursula Gehorsam had paid no attention to Grayson’s first warning, or his second. She had not grown up in Dimilioc and did not know Grayson, but Ezekiel thought even so she should have known better.

  Thos had punished Grayson, of course, for usurping the Master’s prerogatives when he’d killed the woman, and for creating a problem between Gehorsam and Dimilioc.

  More precisely, Thos had ordered Ezekiel to punish Grayson.

  And Ezekiel had done it, of course. But he had not realized how strong an impression that incident had left in Grayson’s mind until this moment, when he heard the other man say to Melanie, “I don’t think you understand how seriously overmatched we are.”

  “But you—” Melanie began.

  “No,” said Grayson, his deep voice flat. “Ezekiel has fought several times as many killing battles as the three of us put together, and Thos can force even my shadow down. I can’t do the same to him: he’s too strong for me. Together, they are far too strong for us.”

  Harrison added, “If we act together, we might take either Thos or Ezekiel. Not both. But if we tackle one alone, we’d lose surprise with the other. Then there’d be another fight—one

  we’d probably just lose. Ezekiel isn’t the Master’s only partisan, unfortunately.”

  “But—” said Melanie, and then, more strongly, “It’s not just what Thos is doing to me. You get that, right? It’s not about me. Thos is a terrible Master! You know that! He’s cruel and hateful and he’s made Dimilioc cruel and hateful. You know it, I know it, but everybody’s too scared of him to do anything—”

  Ezekiel blinked, almost physically staggered. It had never occurred to him to wonder whether Thos was a good Master or a bad one; it had never occurred to him to consider what Dimilioc might be like under a different Master. Clearly others had considered these questions. He had had no idea.

  “Well, fine, but if nobody does anything, nothing will get done!” said Melanie, not quite shouting. She lowered her voice, gaining in intensity what she lost in volume. “Grayson, people would follow you, you know they would—you’d be a much better Master than Thos—”

  “Someday,” said Grayson. “Not now.”

  “And not with my vicious nephew on Thos Korte’s shortest chain,” put in Zachariah.

  “He’s not vicious!” protested Melanie, just as Grayson himself said in a deceptively mild rumble, “He’s not as sadistic as he pretends.”

  There was a startled silence. In the hallway, Ezekiel, at least as surprised as anyone else, raised an eyebrow a second time. He might have expected Melanie’s defense, but Grayson’s astonished him. Ezekiel had, in fact, apologized to him for the punishment over Ursula Gerhorsam. He had meant that apology. He had known he should have stopped the woman himself. He had made certain, afterward, that no similar situation ever occurred again. But he had not expected Grayson to remember that, or to care.

  “Good to know,” Zachariah said, his tone sardonic, plainly unconvinced. “Does it make a practical difference?”

  “Not today,” said Grayson, and, to Melanie, “I’m sorry. I’ll do what I can. I’ll talk to Daniel. Then I’ll see what I can do with Thos. It will be easier if you don’t openly defy him. Understand?”

  “Yes,�
� whispered Melanie. “Yes, all right.” She sounded sick. She sounded like she had given up. She sounded afraid, and black dogs loved fear, but Ezekiel had never wanted her to fear him.

  Ezekiel did not wait for her to come out of Zachariah’s apartment and find him listening. He retreated soundlessly.

  The servants had brought up the cold supper he’d ordered. The candles, too, and the pretty tablecloth. Everything was arranged beautifully on a small side table in his living room.

  Ezekiel stood in the middle of the room, studying the effect. He had planned it out so carefully. He had meant to try to seduce Melanie away from Daniel—whatever she thought she wanted, he had hardly believed she could really prefer a human man to him.

  Now the whole scene revolted him, though he hardly understood why.

  Everything was the same. Grayson wouldn’t challenge Thos, no one would challenge Ezekiel, even Melanie would obey the Dimilioc Master.

  And yet everything had changed. Ezekiel stood perfectly still, waiting for the silent waves of fury and grief and shock to crest and ebb. He was used to fury; but he did not understand the grief or the shock, and he was distantly aware there was no time now to sort out what he felt or why.

  Melanie flung open his door without knocking, stalked in, saw the supper table, and glared at Ezekiel. “I suppose you think—”

  Ezekiel took the few necessary steps, caught her arm, and pulled her hard against his chest. He set his other hand behind her neck, stopping her attempt to wrench herself away. Her heart leaped and raced. Ezekiel met her eyes from a distance of mere inches. She seemed so small. Vulnerable.

  Ezekiel smiled, his lazy executioner’s smile, the way he smiled when he wanted to terrify someone. Then he kissed her, brutally hard, and the intoxicating scent of fear suddenly filled the room, far more vivid than the scents of food and hot candlewax.

  Her eyes were wide with disbelief as well as fear. The fear was what he needed; the disbelief was dangerous. When she tried to speak, he put a hand hard over her mouth, refusing to allow it. Leaning forward, he whispered to her what he wanted to do to her. He told her explicitly what he intended to do to her, how much he hoped she would not get pregnant right away, how much he planned to enjoy the weeks before a pregnancy could be confirmed. She believed him. She fought, twisting to get away . . . utterly hopeless; she could not possibly match his strength. She knew it, but she fought anyway. She was panting, short hard breaths like an animal run to exhaustion. Like prey. Utterly seductive.