Black Dog Short Stories (16 page)

     “Of course she does.” Grayson gazed down at Ezekiel for a long moment. “I thought Thos had ruined you. Now . . . now I think not. Or I think you can choose not. I think you’ve chosen that now.”

     Ezekiel turned this over in his mind. He said at last, “I don’t know about trust, or choice. I don’t know. But if you take Dimilioc, if you don’t kill me, we’ll both find out.”

       Grayson continued to stare down at him for the space of a long breath. Then he lifted his hands and stepped back. He said, “Dimilioc is mine.”

     Ezekiel got to his feet. No one tried to stop him. “It will never be the same,” he said, with just the faintest edge to his tone. He had meant to sound sarcastic. But as he made it, the statement sounded like a warning and a promise, and he knew it was true.

I hope you enjoyed this first set of short stories set in the world of
Black Dog
!  As you’ve seen, three of these stories are set between
Black Dog
and the second book of the series,
Pure Magic
.  I already plan another set of short stories set between
Pure Magic
and the as-yet-untitled third book in the series.

For news about the
Black Dog
series and about my other fantasy novels, please visit
www.rachelneumeier.com
.  If you enjoyed this or any other book of mine, I’d appreciate it if you would leave a review at
Goodreads
or
Amazon
.

Below you’ll find an essay explaining the genetic system underlying the black dogs and the Pure.

And following that, you’ll find a preview of
Pure Magic. 
Enjoy!

First, a quick (very quick) look at the basics of genetics in the real world, to introduce the relevant vocabulary.  Plus, I admit, a bit of this and that, some of which may not be entirely relevant, but I threw it in because it’s interesting.  If you’d rather just skip straight down to the bit where I lay out exactly how this all applies to black dogs, no problem – that’s clearly marked a few pages on.  And, obviously, if you’d rather skip the whole business and go straight on to the preview of
Pure Magic
, that’s fine, too! 

Humans, as you probably know, have 23 pairs of chromosomes, 46 chromosomes total.  Chromosomes consist of long strands of DNA and associated proteins.  Genes are sections of DNA that are found at specific locations (loci) on particular chromosomes.  You get half of your chromosomes (and thus half your genes) from your father and half from your mother, which is why chromosomes come in pairs.  It’s different for, say, daylilies, but for humans, every genetically normal individual has
two
and only two
copies of each gene, because chromosomes come in
pairs
.  Each member of a pair possesses the same genes.

There’s nothing special about the human chromosomal number, by the way.  Gorillas have 48 chromosomes, horses have 64, dogs have 78, cats have 38, koalas have 16, lampreys have 174, and fruit flies have 4.  Always in pairs.  Anyway, we all have about the same amount of chromosomal material, it’s just divided up differently.  Not that this is particularly relevant to black dog genetics, but isn’t it interesting?  I had no idea lampreys had so many chromosomes until I looked it up for this essay.

Even though it’s true that you have two copies of each gene, these copies are not always identical.  Many genes occur in various distinct forms, each a little bit different, which are called
alleles
.  Different alleles arise because of changes in the DNA (mutations).  A specific gene may have one, two, three, four, or more alleles, all occurring at different frequencies in the population.  Thus, the
agouti
gene in dogs has at least three different alleles, for red sable, black-and-tan, and black.  Or in humans, we see A, B, and O blood types.  Because chromosomes come in pairs, any genetically normal individual can have no more than two different alleles for one gene, no matter how many different alleles occur in the population.

Genes don’t work by magic (well, not usually, in the real world).  Instead, each allele codes for a particular protein, which goes on to play a role in some part of the overall metabolism.  Or an allele may fail to code correctly for a protein, in which case its particular metabolic pathway misses a step.  Disabling or altering a metabolic pathway creates the visible expression of a mutation.  Mutations can be harmful, neutral, or helpful.  Often a particular mutation will be harmful in some environments and helpful in others.

The X and Y chromosomes determine sex; the other 22 pairs of chromosomes are called
autosomal
chromosomes.  Genes located on the X chromosome are said to be
x-linked
.  In mammals, females have two X chromosomes, so they always have two alleles for each x-linked gene.  Because males have one X and one Y, they cannot have more than one allele for any x-linked gene.  This is one reason more boys than girls show the effects of x-linked disorders such as hemophilia A and Duchene’s muscular dystrophy.  If a boy gets the wrong X-chromosome from one parent, there is no chance of masking it with the right X-chromosome from the other parent – unless he is a genetically abnormal XXY male, and that carries other consequences.

The visible appearance of an individual is called the
phenotype
.  You cannot tell exactly what alleles are actually present by just looking at an individual.  Sometimes specific alleles are carried invisibly (have no effect on the phenotype). Thus, a tabby cat might be carrying black, or a pinto horse might be carrying solid color, or a healthy woman might be carrying hemophilia A.  The actual alleles that are present constitute the
genotype
, whether you see them or not.

Individuals who have two matching alleles for a gene are said to be
homozygous
for that gene.  Individuals who have two different alleles for any particular gene are said to be
heterozygous
for that gene.  Inbreeding increases homozygosity across all loci.  We’re used to thinking of inbreeding as bad, but actually increasing homozygosity is not in itself either good or bad:  it depends on which alleles happen to be passed along to successive generations.  Sometimes an inbred line lucks out, the right alleles happen to be collected together, and the line enjoys unusual health, vigor, and longevity.  This isn’t directly relevant to black dog genetics, except that black dog families are usually a little bit more inbred than the overall human population, in the same way as you’d see in any somewhat isolated community in the real world.

You will recall that genes, and therefore alleles, come in pairs.  Now:  if one allele by itself is sufficient to fully create a particular phenotype, without needing to be reinforced by the other gene of the pair, then that allele is said to be
dominant
.  If an allele needs to be homozygous to create a phenotypic trait, that allele is said to be
recessive
. 

Years of teaching and more years of reading have made it clear to me that there are many incorrect definitions of “dominant” out there, so let me add this:  Dominant alleles are
not
necessarily common in the overall population,
nor
are they necessarily beneficial,
nor
are they more likely to be passed on to offspring.  Recessive alleles can be beneficial or neutral or deleterious, and in any case
can be very common
or even ubiquitous (
fixed
) in a population.  For example, 100% of all Golden Retrievers are recessive at the
extension
locus (ee).  That’s why they’re all blond.

Naturally, in the real world, things are a lot more complicated than the dominant/recessive dichotomy implies.  For example, often one allele is not able to
fully
create a particular phenotype.  In that case, dominance is said to be
partial
or
incomplete
.  If a particular gene includes three or more alleles, then some of the alleles may show complete dominance and others may show partial dominance and still others may be entirely recessive.  For example, at the
spotting
locus in dogs, there is a series of four alleles that run through solid color (Labrador Retriever) through flashy white markings (Bernese Mountain Dog) and pinto spotting (Cavalier King Charles Spaniel) to extended white (Clumber Spaniel).  Solid color is completely dominant to all kinds of spotting patterns and then dominance is partial as you go down the list, which is why you get such a wide range of spotting patterns in dogs.

Though we’re always hearing about “the gene” for this and “the gene” for that, in fact, it’s relatively rare for a particular phenotypic trait to be created by a single gene. More often, traits are created by the interactions of two or three or more genes.  For example, the trait of “coat color” in dogs is controlled by more than a dozen interacting genes.  These traits are often called
polygenic
.

In one type of polygenic interaction, one gene may disable another or change how the first is expressed, in interactions that are referred to as
epistatic
or
hypostatic
.  For example, if a horse is chestnut or sorrel (ee at the
extension
locus, the same genotype that gives us Golden Retrievers), then the production of black and brown eumelanin is suppressed and the action of the
agouti
alleles that code for black and brown color are rendered invisible. Because the
extension
gene can hide the
agouti
gene, the former is said to be epistatic to the latter.

In another type of polygenic interaction, one gene may reinforce another, so that several genes act together to add up to one phenotypic trait.  Human skin color is created by many interacting genes, each of which might (or might not) add a “dose” of melanin.  This is why so many different skin tones are possible for humans. 

Traits created by a single gene are said to be
simple
.  Traits created by many interacting genes are said to be
complex
.  Complex traits are sometimes also strongly influenced by the environment as well as by the genes involved.  In that case, they may be referred to as
multifactorial
.

Whew.  With all that out of the way, now we can finally talk about black dog genetics!

The black dog / Pure / human phenotypes are controlled by a system of three interacting unlinked genes. 

First, there is an x-linked allele, the X
e
allele, which seems to have appeared as a mutation of the X
E
allele possibly tens of thousands of years ago, possibly more than once.  (Some mutations occur a lot more frequently than others.)  This allele confers natural resistance against all manner of demonic influences – whether the result of black dog influence (in Europe, the Middle East, and the Americas) or witches (Africa, Polynesia) or vampires (until very recently, everywhere except East Asia).

Individuals homozygous for the X
e
allele are more resistant to demonic influence than individuals heterozygous for it.  No doubt you immediately realize that women may be X
e
X
e
, whereas the best a genetically normal man can hope for is a X
e
Y genotype.

Though widespread, this
allele is not all that common, although naturally some lucky families or whole populations carry it at a high frequency.  You would think that the X
e
allele would tend to increase in all populations, and it probably does, but some kinds of demonic influences tend to target people carrying that allele, so it evens out. 

Next, the autosomal
black dog
gene is a simple gene with two alleles.  The completely dominant allele, B, always makes an individual into a black dog.  Though everyone with even one B allele will be a black dog, homozygous BB individuals have stronger “black dog shadows” than heterozygous Bb individuals.  This is not a good thing, since without enhanced control, a stronger shadow means that you are more likely to be “consumed” by your shadow, gradually losing your humanity and becoming a purely demonic monster.

Individuals must be homozygous for the recessive b allele in order to be normal humans.  Obviously, b is by far the more common allele in all human populations.

Finally, a mutation to the autosomal
resistance
gene created the Pure.  The Pure actually arose in about 750 AD, in Germany, through an apparently miraculous intervention by Saint Walburga, so this appears to have been a directed rather than a spontaneous mutation.  (Saint Walburga was a real person; you should look her up; her bio makes fascinating reading.  I coopted her into the secret history of the
Black Dog
world because she is really perfect for this miracle.) 

Anyway, before the saint intervened, the only allele at this locus was r, “no resistance.”  The miracle acted to create the partially dominant r
p
allele.  The r
p
allele always confers additional resistance to demonic influence.  It cannot create the Pure by itself, but anyone who is homozygous for
both
the r
p
allele
and
the X
e
allele at the same time is Pure – but only if she would otherwise be a black dog.  You see this is a complex trait!   A Pure individual must always have the genotype Bb r
p
r
p
X
e
X
e
  or BB r
p
r
p
X
e
X
e
.  That’s why all the Pure are women and why the Pure never appear in an exclusively human family.  If black dogs were ever wiped out, the Pure would disappear as well.

For black dogs, the more r
p
alleles and X
e
alleles you have, the more control you will have over your demonic shadow.  Dimilioc has been breeding for both the r
p
allele and the X
e
allele for hundreds of years, though not with perfect consistency because we’re talking about people here, not cows, and people have their own ideas about this kind of thing.  Still, Ezekiel’s genotype is almost certainly BB r
p
r
p
X
e
Y – he is a very strong black dog with a whole lot of control over his demonic shadow, and because of individual variation and unusual determination, both his strength and his control are exceptional even for this genotype.

But there’s more!  Somewhere around 1110 AD, probably in the flourishing Jewish community in Spain, a second mutation occurred at the r locus, producing the R allele, which is partially dominant to both other alleles at this locus.  This mutation almost certainly occurred as a result of another directed, miraculous intervention, but the details are not known.  It’s clear, though, that the R allele already existed before the Islamic sect Almohades took control in Spain and outlawed both Judaism and Christianity – in the world of
Black Dog
, the Almohades sect was actually established by a black dog family.  Anyway, the R mutation spread from Spain along the lines of the Sephardic Jewish migrations into Portugal, Italy, Morocco, Egypt, Tunisia, and later into Turkey during the Ottoman period.  Eventually the R allele was carried by continuing population migrations into Eastern and Western Europe and South and North America.  It is still most common in families descended from Sephardic Jews.

Dimilioc doesn’t know anything about the R allele, though at the present time it’s probably more widespread than the r
p
allele.  Here’s the most important part:  Unlike the r
p
allele, the R allele can interact with the X
e
X
e
genotype to create the Pure phenotype
even if
one or the other gene occurs in heterozygous form.

Without the R allele, there is only one possible genotype (out of thirty) that can give rise to the Pure. 
With
the R allele, ten out of thirty possible genotypes produce the Pure, and two of those give rise to Pure males.  This does not mean that any population anywhere has a third of all children turn out to be Pure.  Remember that in all populations, the B allele and both the R and the r
p
alleles are relatively rare, and the X
e
allele is also far from ubiquitous. 

It is worth noting here that demonic influences strongly influence Mendelian ratios – in other words, strict probability does not govern black dog inheritance.  When a black dog produces a child with a human, as for example in this cross:

Bb rr X
e
Y
  
  x    bb r
p
r X
E
X
E

Then there should be a 50% chance of producing a black dog child.  But the chance is actually significantly higher.  Similarly, there should be a 50% chance of the mother passing on her r
p
allele or the father passing on his X
e
allele to a child, but in fact the chance of either is significantly lower.  All this taken together makes it most likely for this cross to produce a black dog son and least likely for it to produce a human daughter.

Also, in a long-term relationship, a black dog will “corrupt” a human mate, a process which influences the expected Mendelian ratios to an even greater degree:  the risk of producing strong black dog sons that lack control and are consumed by their shadows increases with each birth.  This is not true if a black dog produces a child with a Pure mate, however.  The Pure may not be perfect, but they are incorruptible by direct demonic influence.  That’s why they’re called Pure.

Outside of Dimilioc and other civilized black dog families, most black dog / human offspring result from rape.  This is typical of “stray” black dogs, who are usually savage and violent in all their relationships.  Around the time of the full moon, they’re likely to kill; but when the moon is new, they’re more likely to rape a woman than kill her.  This is what maintains the black dog gene in the general population – otherwise it would quickly decrease in frequency and there would be few or no “stray” black dogs.  Black dogs carrying one or more of the various resistance alleles are more likely to be able to control their vicious tendencies, but only if they are taught that control is desirable, which seldom happens outside the civilized black dog families.  The Pure can conduct a permanent Calming magic on a black dog, which is very effective, but of course this, too, is not likely outside of civilized black dog families.

At different times, many areas of the world have suffered from the existence of black dog families that valued strength and control, but hated the Pure.  Where black dogs had a lot of influence and hatred of the Pure was particularly strong, this propensity led to the subjugation of women in general.  This attitude has tended to infect the surrounding human cultures, with unfortunate results.  Thus in the world of
Black Dog
, women are seriously oppressed in, say, Saudi Arabia – where Keziah and Amira are from – but not in Lebanon, Tunisia, or Morocco, all of which had black dog houses that valued the Pure. 

Now that the vampire miasma has been removed and humans have become aware of black dogs, human societies may finally begin to reject all kinds of demonically inspired attitudes and hatreds – we can hope!  In that way, at least, the world of
Black Dog
may actually face a brighter near-future than seems likely for the real world.